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A
COMMENTARY
GOSPEIS AND EPISTIES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.
BY DANIEL whitby, D.D.,
THE REVELATION OF ST. JOHN.
BY Mos Es Low MAN.
c R IT I C A L *
COMMENTARY AND PARAPHRASE
OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT,
A PO C R Y PHA.
|BY
PATRICK, LOWTH, ARNALD, WHITBY,
- AND LOWMAN,
A NEW EDITION, WITH THE TEXT PRINTED AT LARGE,
IN FOUR VOLUMEs.
VOL. IV.
L O N D O N :
WILLIAM TEGG AND Co., 85, QUEEN STREET, CHEAPSIDE.
-
M. DCCC. L.I.
I,ONIDON :
J. HADDON, PRINTER, CASTLE STREET, FINSBURY.
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BESIDES THE PARAPHRASE AND COMMENTARY
THIS work contains,
First, A Preface to the Reader, being a discourse concern-
ing the genealogy of St. Luke, and the Cainan men-
tioned in it.
Secondly, A General Preface, proving the truth and divine
authority of the scriptures of the New Testament, and
the certainty of the Christian faith.
Thirdly, A Preface to the Four Gospels, proving that they
only ought to be received, and that they have been
handed down to us uncorrupted; and inquiring whether
the Gospel of St. Matthew was originally written in
Hebrew or in Greek. .
Fourthly, A General Preface to the Epistles, proving the
truth and certainty of the Christian faith.
With Nine other Prefaces, viz.
I. To the Gospel of St. Mark,
II. To the Gospel of St. Luke,
Asserting their authority, and divine assistance in the
writing of them.
III. To the Gospel of St. John, showing that the apos-
tle was the true author of that Gospel, and when he
writ it: with a Postscript, proving,
First, That the descent of the Holy Ghost on our
Saviour, mentioned John i. 33, was the same with
the descent of the Holy Ghost on him at his
baptism.
Secondly, That he did not begin his private ministry
as to preaching, baptizing, and working miracles,
long before his own baptism.
Thirdly, That the Passovers during his ministry were
only four.
IV. To the Acts of the Apostles, showing that they contain
evident demonstration of the truth of the Christian faith.
W. To the First Epistle to the Corinthians, asserting the
resurrection of the same body that dieth, and answering
the objections against it.
WI. To the Epistle to the Galatians, concerning the na-
ture of faith, and touching justification by faith.
VII. To the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, con-
cerning the man of sin.
VIII. To the Epistle to Titus, concerning the episcopal
jurisdiction of Timothy and Titus, and the succession of
, bishops in all Christian churches.
IX. To the Epistle of St. John, inquiring whether this
proposition, That Jesus is the Christ, be all that is ne-
cessary to be believed to justification, or to make a
member of Christ's church and body.
And Seventeen Appendixes, viz.
I. An Appendix to the second chapter of St. Matthew,
concerning the import of that phrase, Ira manga,95, “that
it might be fulfilled.”
II. To the fifth chapter, inquiring, Whether Christ there
added to the moral law, or only corrected the false
glosses of the scribes and pharisees concerning it.
III. To ch. vi. 16, inquiring, Whether fasting be a duty
incumbent upon Christians, and a part of divine worship.
IV. To ch. xii, concerning the nature of the sin against
the Holy Ghost.
W. To ch. xxiv. concerning the time of which Christ
speaks in that chapter.
VI. To. ch. xxvi. Þºring an objection of Crellius
against Christ's sat sºon. .
VII. To the second eſtapter' of St. Mark, ver, 19, con-
cerning the baptism of infants.
VIII. To ch. xiv. concerning the day on which our Lord
did eat the passover with his disciples.
IX. A Sermon on John vii. 47–49, in answer to the
Guide, of Controversies.
X. To Acts ii. 26, 27, concerning Christ's descent into
hell. :
XI. To the eleventh chapter to the Romans, proving that
there will be a general conversion of the Jewish nation
to the Christian faith. -
XII. To l Cor. i. 30, concerning the imputation of Christ's
perfect righteousness to us for justification.
XIII. To the the sixth chapter of the Second Epistle to
the Corinthians, touching the necessity of divine as-
sistance for the due performance of our duty, and ex-
plaining the reason and the manner of it.
XIV. An Advertisement, relating to the Preface to the
Epistle to the Galatians. *
XV. To the first chapter of the Second Epistle to the
Thessalonians, proving that the eternal punishment of
those who die in their sins, is well consistent both with
the justice and the goodness of God.
XVI. A Discourse by way of inquiry, Whether the
apostles in their writings spake as conceiving the day
of judgment might be in their days.
XVII. A Parallel betwixt the Jewish and the Roman
antichrist.
A
PARAPHRASE AND COMMENTARY
ON
THE FOUR GOSPELS,
AND
4?
THE A CTs of T H E A Post LEs.
T()
THE QUEEN'S
MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY.
- MADAM, t
AMoNG the laws that God gave by the hand of
Moses, one was, that the king who should rule over
his people should have continually before him “a
copy of the law,” and that he should “read in it all
the days of his life,” that, having learnt “to fear the
Lord his God, and to observe the words of his law,”
he might “prolong his days in his kingdom.” And
when he made Joshua the captain of his host, and
the governor of his people, he spake thus to him,
“The book of the law shall not depart out of thy
mouth, but thou shalt meditate in it day and night,
that thou mayest observe to do according to all that
is written in it; for then thou shalt make thy way
prosperous, and thou shalt have good success” (Josh.
i. 8). King David made these testimonies “his de-
light and his counsellors;” and because public affairs
employed him in the daytime, he made them his
study in the night ; and thus he became “wiser than
his enemies,” and of “more understanding than all
his teachers.”
It therefore having pleased the divine providence,
to the great joy and satisfaction of the whole nation,
to appoint your Majesty the governor of his people,
and the “nursing-mother” of his church ; the law of
Christ contained in the New Testament must be
both the rule of your Majesty's government, and of
the obedience of your subjects.
We hope that God hath raised up your Majesty to
be, as Queen Elizabeth was formerly, a signal blessing
to this nation, and a great advancer of its happiness;
a bulwark to the protestant religion, and a scourge
and terror to its enemies: and that if anything hath
hitherto been wanting, to render us a truly religious,
and so a happy people, and a glorious church, your
Majesty is reserved to put the finishing hand to that
blessed work; which, by rendering this law of Christ,
as David did the law of Moses, your counsellor and
your delight, you will most happily perform.
Having, therefore, with as much diligence as I
could, finished this Commentary on the New Testa-
ment, I humbly lay it at your Majesty's feet, as being
the defender of the faith contained in it; in which
my only design was, to be a poor instrument to pro-
which you also must be judged, be such, that it may
prolong your days in your kingdom, make your way
prosperous, and your affairs successful: that as it was
said of the immortal Elizabeth, that “ in wisdom and
the happiness of her reign, she exceeded all that
went before her; ” so your Majesty may exceed her
in wisdom to govern, in length of days, successful
undertakings, great ministers, and obedient subjects,
to the joy of all your people, and the support of all
your allies.
May your Majesty's study of this royal law of love,
this gospel of peace, this perfect bond of unity, di-
rect you to promote the peace and union of your
subjects, and excite your zeal to allay the heats, and
silence the unhappy contests, which, to the scandal
of religion, and the great reproach of the church,
have been of late so warmly prosecuted, and so per-
niciously fomented, that as the first Christian em-
peror,” born in your Majesty's dominions, finding the
clergy accusing and condemning one another, did by
his wisdom, his powerful persuasions, and his mild
behaviour, reduce them all to a happy union, and en-
tire concord in all things; so may this be the great
felicity of your reign in the present, and your lasting
character and glory in succeeding ages.
And when you have made this church glorious, and
this nation happy, by your auspicious reign ; after a
length of days, in which you have governed to the
glory of God, and to the welfare of your people,
may you enter late upon the Christian recompense of
all your labours, that crown of glory which fadeth
not away. So prayeth,
Dread sovereign,
Your Majesty's most faithful
And most humbly devoted subject,
DANIEL WHITBY.
P. R. E. F. A C E
TO THE READER.
CourTEOUS READER,
Tirough what I offer to thy perusal is the result of fifteen
years' study, yet have I found it deficient in two things es-
pecially :- -
I. In an exact and particular account of all the places
mentioned in this commentary, and especially in the Acts
mote the glory of God, and the good of others.
May your Majesty's regard to this sacred ſaw, by
* Euseb. de Vità Constant. lib. iii, cap. 13.
2
PREFACE TO THE READER.
of the Apostles; and this defect I have endeavoured to sup-
ply by a map of them drawn by a kind friend of great abi-
lity in those matters, and by an alphabetical table of them,
with some brief remarks relating chiefly to the New Testa-
ment.
And finding a chronology of the New Testament done to
my hand by a very exact and learned prelate of our church,
from which my commentary nowhere differs. I have added
that also for the reader's use.
II. Whereas it may be deemed a defect in this commen-
tary, that I have said nothing of the two great controversies
concerning the genealogy of St. Luke ;
First, Whether Cainan did originally belong to it, or in-
deed ought to do so;
Secondly, Whether St. Luke intended there o give us the
genealogy of Joseph from Nathan, as St. Matthew had
given it from his brother Solomon ; or rather the genealogy
of the Virgin Mary from her father Heli, as is of late ima-
gined ;
iſ do ingenuously confess, with venerable Bede," that I
declined these controversies, and more especially the first,
propter ingenii tarditatem, for I had seen this controversy
handled with exact judgment, and great variety of learning,
by the reverend Dr. Mills upon the place ; and knowing
that I must not be permitted to blow upon his book, I de-
spaired of doing it so well as he hath done, and so declined
the doing it at all, till that very valuable book should be
made public ; which being not yet done, I shall present the
reader with my present thoughts upon the two foremen-
tioned questions:
First, Whether Cainan was originally in the genealogy
of St. Luke, or ought to be accounted a part of it? And be-
cause the decision of this question depends much upon an-
other, whether this Cainan (who is not to be found in the
Hebrew copies, either in the tenth or eleventh chapters of
Genesis, or in 1 Chron. i., or in any of the Jewish Targums,
or owned by any Jewish writer of that time) was to be
found in the exactest copies of the seventy interpreters
from the beginning, or rather was wanting in the first and
the best copies of the Septuagint, as well as in all Hebrew
copies ; I shall begin with the discussion of that controversy.
And that he was not originally there, or was designedly put
in there, will be made probable from these considerations:
1. That Josephus declares that Shem had only five sons
(2%pº Trévre yivoviral traßec, Antiq, lib. i. cap. 7), and not six,
as he must have had if Cainan were his son. He adds,
that Abraham t was the tenth from Noah, and that Berosus,
who lived before the saventy interpreters, spake of him as of
one born 3 ex4th yew83, f “in the tenth generation” from the
flood. Eupolemus in Eusebius $ asserts the same thing;
and Philo || adds, that as Noah was the tenth from Adam,
so Abraham was 35uaro;, “the tenth” from Noah; whereas,
if Caiman be to be reckoned betwixt Arphaxad and Salah,
Abraham must be the eleventh generation from the flood.
Whence it is easy to collect, That neither the Jews of Jeru-
Salem, nor of Alexandria, though they used the Greek ver-
sion, owned this Cainan ; but by their received computation
that Abraham was the tenth from Noah, and was born two
hundred and ninety-two years after the flood, must exclude
him: and that, seeing both Philo and Josephus usually fol-
low the Septuagint in other matters, and yet so plainly de-
part from them in this, we have cause to believe that they,
who thought this Cainan was not to be inserted betwixt
Arphaxad and Salah, found him not so inserted in the ex-
actest copies of the Septuagint, or knew that he was put in
by design.
2. The Chronicon of Eusebius gives a particular account
of the sons of Shem from Africanus, from the Septuagint
and from the Samaritan translation : and this account runs
thus, “Arphaxad," being a hundred and thirty-five years
* Praefat. Comment. in Acta Apost.
# 'A8eačkº. 3; 3:4até, Éarly 3rd Neixov, Bevrégº 8: first zai
#weynxogró ºrpès 8tazoa (ov, ºst& ray in of 6ptay #yévero. Ibid.
f Ibid. cap. 8.
§ Praepar. Evang, lib. ix. cap. 17.
| L. de Congress. p. 342, B.
T .." 'Aépaćé8 yewitzewo, ºxé (ºx zapaşg.) yiyyá rày XaX3, p. 9,
.A. UM a
l
old, say Africanus and the Septuagint, a hundred and thirty,
saith the Samaritan translation, begat Salah.” And Theo-
philus, * who understood only Greek, and so must have his
account from the Septuagint, says, “Arphaxad being a hun-
dred and thirty-five years old, Étényware XaXá, begat Salah,”
taking no notice of Caiman in the Greek; though he is in-
serted into the Latin translation : whence also we may rea-
sonably infer that Theophilus, Africanus, Eusebius, living .
among the Jews, the one at Antioch, the second at Nicopo-
lis, the third at Caesarea in Palestine, either found him not
in the exacter copies of the Septuagint, or found reason to
believe he should not have been there. Moreover, St. Je-
rome, in his book of Hebrew traditions, f saith, “The sons
of Shem were Elam, Assur, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram,
and that Arphaxad begat Selah,” making no mention of
Cainan : whence also I infer, he either did not find him in
the Septuagint, or thought he should not have been there ;
but rather, that as the Septuagint added so many hundred
years to the account, which Moses had given of the age of
the world before and after the flood, so also did they de-
signedly add this Cainan to swell up the account, and make
it to accord the better with the large computations given of
it by the Egyptians and Chaldeans. Add to this,
3. That as this Caiman is not to be found in all the Old
Testament, either in the Targums, or in any version besides
that of the Septuagint, nor in the Samaritan, the Vulgate,
the Syriac, or Arabic, so neither is he to be found in the
recapitulation of these genealogies, 1 Chron. i., in any copies
of the Septuagint, save only that of Alexandria. Now, if the
authors of these versions had believed that Moses had put in
this Cainan in Genesis, why do they always leave him out,
both there and in this recapitulation ? And why is he left
out in the translation of the Septuagint in this recapitulation ?
This, as it seems to intimate that the translation of this reca-
pitulation was made by another hand from that which gave
us the Greek version of the five books of Moses, so also to
confirm the truth of the remark made by Procopius Gazaeus, i.
that the Hebrew hath it thus ; “Arphaxad begat Salah,”
and that, quae deinde in medio ponuntur obelisco notata
visuntur, “the Cainan put between them in some copies of
the Septuagint was marked with an obelisk,” or with a note
of reprobation.
Now hence it follows, that St. Luke could have no reason
to insert this Cainan into his genealogy, because he found it
in the Septuagint, it being not found in the Samaritan ver-
sion, though it follows the Septuagint in speaking of the age
of Arphaxad, Salah, and others, before they begat children,
nor in the copies of the Septuagint owned by Philo or Jose-
phus, who follow them in other matters, and being noted
with a mark of reprobation, where it was found, to intimate
that it was designedly put in by them.
But then the Jews must have had a considerable objection
against the veracity of St. Luke, had he so plainly added to
their scriptures, and their most ancient Targums, and their
received genealogies, which surely must agree with their own
scriptures. And seeing neither the Alexandrian Jews, nor
their own priest Josephus, nor any other Jew we read of,
owned this Cainan in our Saviour's days, it must be a great
stumbling-block to them to see that owned by a writer pre-
tending to divine inspiration under the New Testament
which two of their inspired writers so plainly had disowned
and reprobated.
Moreover, the two first Christian authors, which designedly
give us an account of this matter, are Theophilus, bishop of
Antioch, and Julius Africanus, bred up at Alexandria, and
living afterward at Emmaus, or Nicopolis, in Palestine; and
they both show, by their chronology, that they owned not
this Caiman, though doubtless neither of them could be igno-
rant of what St. Luke had said concerning him, seeing the
latter hath a set discourse of the difference, which seemed to be
betwixt the genealogies of St. Matthew and St. Luke ; and,
therefore, had St. Luke canonized this Cainan, and rendered
him authentic in his genealogy, they could not (we may
reasonably suppose) have thus varied from what this evange-
list had delivered, without some mention of St. Luke, or
º reason assigned why they thus differed from him.
Il 3.
* Ad Autolycum, lib. iii. p. 134.
f In Gen. xi.
# F. 72, B,C.
PłłEFACE TO
THE READER. 3
Thirdly, Irenaeus,” who also lived in the second century,
not only saith, that “the genealogy of St. Luke containeth
seventy-two generations;” for that this is the true reading
appeareth against Isaac Vossius, not only from the note of
Mr. Grabe upon the place, but also from the reason follow-
ing: viz. That this was done, “according to the seventy-two
languages of all nations, which Christ recapitulated in him-
self:” this being, as Mr. Grabe there notes, the received
opinion, that the languages then used in the world were
seventy-two. Now, if you so compute this genealogy as to
exclude (ver. 24), Matthan and Levi, and (ver. 26) Caiman,
or to exclude Jesus and Adam, as St. Peter doth Adam and
Noah, when he saith, 2 Pet. xi. 5, that “Noah was the
eighth from Adam,” the generations mentioned in this genea-
logy will be just seventy-two, whereas if Cainan be inserted,
they must be seventy-three or seventy-five.
But then how this Cainan should so come into the text of
St. Luke as to be found, though not in all MSS., there being
several, Saith Grotius," which owned him not, yet in all ver-
sions from the Greek, is very difficult to conjecture ; though,
if we may credit able critics, it neither is without example
nor without probability that it might be so.
It is not without example; for if we may credit the great
Bochart,... some like unskilful hand, instead of Jacob, who
bought the field near Shechem (Gen. xxxiii. 18, 19), hath
put in Abraham (Acts vii. 16), which criticism being allowed,
the whole difficulty of that text is removed, and the disagree-
ment of it with the records of the Old Testament is taken
{1\\ {l V.
Nor doth it want its probability; for, seeing the Christians
generally from the second century went into that false opinion,
that the translation of the Septuagint was made by divine
inspiration, as you may read in the preface to St. Matthew,
they finding this Cainan in the vulgar editions of the Septua-
gint, might put him in the margin, and afterward insert him
into the genealogy of St. Luke. Nor will this lessen the
authority of the New Testament in other places, in which we
cannot have the like reason to suspect any alteration.
To proceed now to the second question, Whether St. Luke
gives us the genealogy of Joseph from Nathan, as Matthew
had given it from his brother Solomon, viz. the genealogy of
Joseph from Heli his legal father, or rather the genealogy of
Mary from her father Heliº To which I answer by these
considerations:
First, That an account of a genealogy, which gives the
plain and literal sense of the author's words, deserveth much
to be preferred before another, which puts a manifest force
upon them. Now if you make this of St. Luke a genealogy
not of Joseph, but only of the Virgin Mary by her supposed
father Heli, you put a manifest force upon his words; for
then “Christ was 3; vowićero vià, 'Iolaiº roi. 'HXi, as was sup-
posed the son of Joseph, who was the son of Heli,” must be
thus filled up, 8vºrw; 3; tº; Magia; rº; 6vyatkö; roi; ‘HAt, “but
Was indeed the son of Mary, the daughter of Heli.” Now
is it probable, that if St. Luke had intended to signify all
this to his reader, so exact a Grecian as he was should have
done it so obscurely, and so unintelligibly from his words,
thattotius antiquitatis opinio, “the whole stream of antiquity,”
Saith Maldonates should, with a full consent, follow the con-
tary opinion of Africanus, that this was the genealogy of
Joseph by his legal father, according to which interpretation
the sense of St. Luke's words is plain and literal? Add to
this, that the words &y 3, ivoaigiro may be well rendered
thus, “being as the law allows,” or “in the sense of the law,
the son of Joseph " (as I shall prove in the note upon these
Words, * **śro ºrporeux; sival, Acts xvi. 13). Now thus
Qhrist was assuredly the son of Joseph, all law allowing the
fruit of the wife's womb, if it be malé, to be reputed and
called the son of the husband, and then St. Luke will accord
à--—
* “Propter hoc Lucas genealogiam, quae està generatione
Domini nostri ad Adam, septuaginta duas generationes
habere ostendit, significans quoniam ipse est qui omnes
gentes-et universas linguas—in semetipso recapitulans est”
(Lib. iii. cap. 33).
ºf In locum. ; Hieroz. lib. ii. p. 436. § On Matt. i. 16.
u * s y * g a >
| T& y&é ša yuwaizá; tıyo; Xofig trogveia; Tiktéagyov, vić, Šarly
exactly with St. Matthew in declaring Christ to be the son of
Joseph, because he was the husband of Mary, # is, “ of
whom was born Jesus called Christ” (Matt. i. 16).
And, secondly, Whereas it is said that the genealogy of
Joseph is nothing to the purpose, since that will not avail
at all to prove that Christ was of the seed of David; I answer,
that this objection seems neither true nor well grounded.
1. It is not true, for both the evangelists do in effect de-
clare that they intended only to give us the legal or supposed
genealogy of Christ from Joseph, by virtue of his being the
husband of Mary, of whom Christ was born ; and, therefore.
though Matthew says, “Jacob begat Joseph,” he does not
say, and Joseph begat Jesus, who is called Christ; but only
that he was the husband of Mary, of whom Christ was born ;
and Luke Saith he was, “as was supposed,” or in construction
of law, “the son of Joseph :” if then all this be nothing to
the purpose, both these inspired writers must have been
moved by the Holy Ghost to write that which was nothing
to the purpose. Again, it was taken for granted by all the
Jews, that Joseph was as truly the father of Christ, as Mary
was his mother, as we learn from Matt. xiii. 55. Luke iv. 22.
John vi. 42, what then could be more to the purpose of the
authors of these genealogies, than to prove that, according to
their apprehensions of him, he might be, yea, he must be,
the son of David, as Joseph was 2 especially since they well
knew the Jews would never grant, or aver, to invalidate this
argument; that Christ was miraculously born of a virgin,
since that must prove he was the Son of God, and their Mies-
siah, and so by certain and avowed consequence the son of
David.
2. I add, That this objection seems not to be well grounded ;
for though it be commonly supposed these genealogies were
designed to prove, that Jesus was the son of David according
to the flesh, I see no cogent reason to believe or grant that
Supposition: for, -
1. It is certain that these genealogies could never be de-
signed to prove that which they do not prove, for then these
sacred writers must have failed in their design; if then they
do not prove this, but only that “Jesus was the son of Jo-
seph " by being the son of his wife Mary, they could not be
designed to prove more. Moreover, the genealogy of St.
Matthew could never prove this to the Jews, unless they
owned that Mary was of the family of David : and if this
was then owned by the Jews, what need was there to prove
that to them, which so infallibly followed from it, that the
fruit of her womb was of the same family P. The genealogy
of St. Luke doth not prove it, because there is not one word
of Mary, or any other woman in it; nor would the express
saying in it, that “Mary the mother of Jesus was the daugh-
ter of Heli,” prove it, unless they owned her so to be ; which,
had they dome (as the proof of this to them would have been
needless, so) why is it that the kindred of our Lord delivered
a contrary tradition to this? Why do Africanus, Eusebius,”
Epiphanius,"f St. Jerome, all born or living in Palestine,
run into that opinion which is so inconsistent with it, viz.
that Joseph himself was only in construction of law the son
of Heliſſ Why is it that none of the ancient Christians ever
owned it? To oppose against this tradition and unanimous
consent of Christians an impious and lying vision of the
Talmud of a doubtful construction, as Dr. Lightfoot con-
fesseth, is as if I should oppose to the tradition of all Chris-
tians, that our Saviour was born of a virgin, the blasphemous
tales of the same Talmud,S that Mary was a whore, and that
Christ was the bastard of one Pandeira.
2. There was no need to prove this by genealogies, because
it was more fully and demonstratively done by those mira-
cles to which our Saviour still appealed, as the great evidence
that he was the Messiah promised to the Jews; for the Jews
owned this as evident from scripture, by saying, “Hath not
the scripture said, That Christ cometh of the seed of David?”
(John vii. 42). “Hence,” say the scribes and pharisees
# &váygn: rö 3v333; wai rā; yuwaizès, 6 rpätra fločxera Qº:
Soºyal vičy rā ārśći, 313 avyapeias, x2'gī; ava peia; (Pseudo
Just. qu. et resp. qu. 133).
* Eusebius, H. Eccl. lib. i. cap. 7. Haer. 30, sect. 29.
† In Matt. i. § See Buxtorf in the Stada and Pandeire,
*
d
4.
THE GENERAL PREFACE.
dogmatically,” Christ is the son of David " (Matt. xxii. 42).
Nor was anything more motorious to the Jews; whence the
blind men cry out, “Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy
on us,” Mark x. 47, 48; so doth the woman of Canaan, Matt.
xv. 22; so did the multitude, singing at Christ's entrance into
Jerusalem, “Hosanna to the son of David,” Matt. xxi. 9.
15. Wherefore, those miracles which demonstrated Christ
was the true Messiah promised to the Jews, must as effectually
prove to them, that he was “the son of David according to
the flesh.”
3. The Jews confessed that Mary was the mother of Jesus
(Matt. xii. 46. xiii. 55. John vi. 42), and that Joseph was
his father ; if, therefore, they had then certain genealogical
tables of the family of Joseph and Mary, they must suffi-
ciently show to them of what family Christ was ; if they had
not, why do St. Matthew and St. Luke appeal to them to
prove the family of Joseph 2 Hence doth St. Peter, in his
discourse to the men of Israel, take this for granted, “That
Christ was the fruit of the loins of David,” Acts ii. 30, 31.
and St. Paul twice asserts it, Rom. i. 3. 2 Tim. ii. 8. Nor
do we find that this assertion met with the least contradic-
tion from the mouth of scribe or pharisee, or any other Jew;
for though they say, “Doth not the Scripture teach, That
Christ cometh of the seed of David, and out of the town of
Bethlehem P” (John vii. 42), they say not one word against
our Saviour's being the Christ upon the first account, and
thereby tacitly confess, that they could not deny it, but only
doubt he was not of Bethlehem, but came out of Galilee,
whence arose no prophet (ver. 41.52). Indeed, all that the
latter Jews say against this, they argue from these very
genealogies, as being either not sufficient to prove it, or in-
consistent the one with the other.
Add to this, first, That it is certain from the scripture, to
the Christian, that Mary, of whom Christ was born, was
of the family of David ; for thus the angel speaks to her,
Luke i. 31, 32, “Thou shall bear a son, and shalt call his
name Jesus, and the Lord shall give him the throne of his
father David:” now she must be a daughter of the house of
David, of whose son David was the father. The inspired
hymn of Zacharias declares, that God, by giving them this
son of Mary, had “raised up for them a horn of salvation in
the house of his servant David" (ver. 69). This son of
Mary was therefore of the house of David. Secondly, All
the fathers, saith Maldonate,” do with one mouth assert that
Joseph and Mary were of the same tribe and family; and
this the Jews never gainsaid, though they must, by their
genealogical tables, know the truth or falsehood of it. Now
this being once granted, nothing could be farther wanting,
when it was proved that Joseph was the son of David, to
prove, if that were the design of these sacred writers, that
our Lord sprang from Abraham and David according to the
flesh ; nor is it to be wondered, that they should rather give
us the genealogies of Joseph than of Mary, if either of them
proved the same thing; and genealogies among the Jews
were never made from women, but always from the men.
And lastly, Whereas it is represented (in opposition to
the account which Africanus, and from him all the ancients,
give us of the conciliation of these genealogies) as a thing
highly improbable, and even next to impossible, that at so
great a distance of time, as was from Solomon and Nathan
to Jacob and Heli, that Jacob and Heli should be brethren ;
I answer, That as none of the ancient Christians, who ge-
merally followed Africanus, perceived this impossibility, so
doth Africanus'ſ himself sufficiently clear his opinion from
it, by saying, as it were in answer to it, That the families
from Solomon and Nathan were so mixed, partly by se-
cond marriages, partly by raising up the name of the dead,
(according to the law, Lev. xxv.24, 25. Ruth iv. 5), and
partly by raising up seed to the dead (according to the law,
Deut. xxv. 5), that we may reasonably conceive the same
persons might be brethren in both.
* On Matt. i. 16.
+ Svystretrašwn yixe tº yévn—āyaa-rácerty &rézvoy, xal Sevre-
goyakºſaic, wai &yaarázsat a "repwéroy, &; 3:22:2; row; airob:
#Axots &AAoy yogi’s, Sal (Apud Euseb. Hist. Eccl.lib. i. cap. 7).
THE
GENERAL PREFACE,
CONCERN ING &
THE DIVINE AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES
of THE NEW TESTAMENT,
AND OF
THE TRUTH OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH.
CONTENTS,
. I. The general proposition, that the apostles and evan-
gelists indited these scriptures by the assistance of the
Holy Ghost. This proposition is explained by a compa-
rison of this assistance with the gift of prophecy vouch-
safed to the penmen of the Old Testament. §. II. How
far this assistance is asserted, as to an inspiration of Sug-
gestion, and as to an inspiration of direction. Š. III. No
slips of memory, no determination of matters of prac-
tice from human wisdom only, without the intendence
or direction of the Holy Spirit, no arguments that are
inconclusive, must be admitted in these sacred writings.
§ IV. This divine assistance is proved (1) From what
they do assert concerning their own writings, doctrines,
and directions. S. V. (2.) From the assistance of the
Holy,Ghost vouchsafed to them... S. VI. (3) From our
Lord's promise to lead them by this Spirit into all truth.
§. VII. (4.) From the end for which they were indited, to
be a rule of faith and manners to all ages. $. VIII. (5.)
From the testimony of the Christians of the first ages,
who still owned and received them as such. §. IX. In
confirmation of the truth of Christianity it is alleged,
(1.) That if a Messiah was to come from Judea at that
time, according to the general expectation of the East,
he must be our Messiah. (2.) That no reasonable per-
son, who was not the true Messiah, would have under-
taken to fulfil the prophecies of the Old Testament con-
cerning the Messiah. (3.) That none but the true Mes-
siah could accomplish the things declared in the New
Testament to be the characters of the Messiah. §. X.
Secondly, This is argued from what is said in the New
Testament, of what Christ, and what his apostles, and
those who believed in him, should do in his name ; where
is showed the vanity of all that is offered by way of com-
parison of what was done by others, with what was done
by Christ and his disciples; and also of the pretence,
that Christians did the things which they performed by
the art of magic. S. XI. Thirdly, From the truth and cer-
tainty of our Lord's resurrection from the dead. Š. XII.
and XIII. Fourthly, From the manifold predictions of
our Lord, exactly verified ; and especially from those
which concerned the destruction of J erusalem, and the
judgments which should come upon the Jewish nation for
their infidelity.
Š
THAT these sacred writings may have their due effect
and influence upon us, 1 shall endeavour, as well as I am
able,
First, To establish their divine authority: whence it will
follow,
Secondly, That the doctrines and instructions delivered
in them, are to be owned as the rules and doctrines of our
Lord, and so are necessary to be believed and practised by
all that bear the name of Christians. My first assertion
therefore is, {
§. I. That the apostles and the evangelists indited these
scriptures by the assistance of the Holy Ghost, and that, as
the immediate succeeding ages did, so we at present Se-
curely may, rely upon them as a rule of faith. And here I
shall consider,
1. How this assistance may fitly be explained.
2. How far it is necessary or reasonable to assert it.
3. What evidence may be offered to confirm it.
For explication of this divine assistance, let it be coil.
sidered,
THE GENERAL PREFACE. 5
1. That prophecy is sometimes represented as the word
of the Lord, and he is said to speak to the prophet; and,
suitably to this metaphor, some illustration of the assist-
ance of the Holy Spirit may be made from the analogy it
bears to human conversation, thus: That as we convey our
thoughts one to another by such words as, by the organs.
of hearing, make such a motion on their brain to whom we
speak, as gives them an idea of the words we utter, and by
them of the things which by those words are signified ; and
So it is the impression made upon their brain, which doth
communicate our thoughts to them ; so, when it pleaseth
God to reveal his will to any person, it seemeth ºnly ne-
cessary that he talk inwardly with them, that is, that he
make such a motion on their brains as giveth them a deep
and clear idea of that which he intended to make known
unto them ; only the impression must be then made in such
a manner and degree, and with such circumstances, as may
make it certain to the inspired person, that it derives from
God. Now seeing, when we hear the voice of any one or
receive a letter from him, we may be certain from the know-
ledge we have of his voice, or his hand-writing, that it is
he indeed, who speaks or writeth to us; we may very well
conceive, that God can easily give such distinctive marks
of what he inwardly speaks to us, or “writes upon the tables
of our hearts,” as shall enable us to discern what he im-
prints upon them, from any impression that shall otherwise
be made upon them.
2. Sometimes the prophet is in scripture styled a seer,
and his word a vision; and then the parallel, or the ana-
logy, runs thus: As we see, by virtue of a light reflecting
the species of things upon the retina of the eye, and thence
deriving a peculiar motion to, and making a distinct im-
pression on, the brain ; so may the prophet be supposed to
see what God reveals unto him, by a like motion of the
Holy Spirit made upon his brain concerning it. And as it
is as easy to propose a material object to the view, as to
describe it by our words, so must it be as easy for God to
dart such an impression or inward light upon the brain of
the prophet, or spiritual' man, as shall give him a more
bright and sensible idea of things, than if he did perceive
them by the ear, or even view them by the eye. And as we
more exactly discern a sensible object by the view, than
we know it by a description of it without that view ; so the
Jews say, that prophecy H.Rºnn in vision, is more excel-
lent than that which comes only ºbna by dream, or in a
dream, in which we seem to hear one talking with us.
Now though this impression may be sufficient to con-
Vince the prophet and inspired person, that his revelation
did indeed derive from God: yet, since this revelation was
intended not for himself, but for the use of others, he, with
the revelation, must be enabled by some convincing proof,
to evidence to those who were concerned to embrace it,
that he was sent indeed by God with such a message to
them. Now of this they only could be satisfied by some
outward marks or notes, of which they, by their senses,
Were enabled to Judge ; viz. the miracles wrought for con-
firmation of his testimony, or some prophetical prediction
of something future and contingent, exactly verified in the
event. And thus, saith the apostle, was their preaching
confirmed to the world; “God bearing witness to them,
both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and
gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his will” (Heb. ii. 4).
The ways of prophecy, under the Old Testament, seem to
be comprehended under these four heads ; viz. either the
prophets received their revelation in a dream or trance, or
in a vision, or by a voice from heaven, or by the secret sug-
gestions of the Holy Ghost.
Now some of the apostles had their visions either by
day, as Peter; for an ecstacy fell upon him, and he saw the
heavens opened, and he heard a voice saying to him, “Arise,
Peter, kill and eat” (Acts x. 18); and this is called papa, a
vision, wer. 17, and by this, saith he, God taught me “to call
no man common or uncléan,” ver. 28 ; or by night ; thus a
vision of the night was seen by St. Paul, and a man speak-
ing to him “in the vision of the night” (Acts. xvi. 9). They
had also the Spirit speaking to them ; for the Spirit said to
Peter, “Behold, three men seek thee, Arise therefore, and
go with them, nothing doubting: for I have sent them.”
(Acts x. 19, 20). And sometimes they had visions and re-
velations of the Lord, either by way of rapture to them (2
Cor. xii. 2), or of converse with them ; as when Christ said
to St. Paul, “My grace is sufficient for thee” (ver. 9). Here
then are three kinds of revelation granted to the apostles •
but then these things were mostly occasional and accidental
to them, in respect of their apostolical function. -
Only the case of the apostle Paul must here admit of an
exception ; for it being necessary for an apostle, that is a
witness of Christ's resurrection, to have seen the Lord
risen from the dead, according to those words, “Am I not
an apostle? have I not seen the Lord 2" (1 Cor. ix. 1) and
for an “apostle, not of man, meither by man, but by Jesus
Christ” (Gal. i. 1), to receive his message immediately from
the Lord Jesus, Christ speaks thus to him, “I have appeared
unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a
witness both of those things which thou hast seen, and of
those things in the which I will appear unto thee” (Acts
xxvi. 16): which words contain a promise of an immediate
instruction from Christ in his apostolical function. Whence
this apostle declares, confirming that his declaration with
an oath, “The gospel, which was preached by me, was not
after man ; for I neither received of man, neither was I
taught it (by man), but (only) by the revelation of Jesus
Christ” (Gal. i. 11, 12). He therefore had his message from
Christ as Moses had from God, Christ speaking to him
“mouth to mouth,” &c. (Numb. xii. 7).
But yet that which enabled them for the inditing of these
writings, as a rule of faith to all succeeding ages, was the
internal and powerful assistance of the Holy Spirit.
§. II. To proceed then to the second inquiry, How far
it is necessary or reasonable to assert the divine assistance
of the Holy Spirit, or his inspiration to these sacred writers.
To this I shall answer, by premising a distinction of the
Jews between those sacred writers who were prophets,
properly so called, and the chetubim, or holy writers, who
penned their compositions by the assistance of the Holy
Ghost.
To the prophets, properly so called, they ascribe an im-
mediate suggestion and representation in their fancy and
imaginations of the things which they delivered as from the
mouth and in the name of God, he keeping still alive upon
them the images and resemblances of the visions which
they saw, till they were penned, and imprinting on their
memories the messages which they delivered by his com-
mand to the people. Hence, when the roll of Jeremy was
burnt, he was enabled to dictate again to Baruch “the same
words” (xxxvi. 32). And this I believe to be true, concern-
ing all the visions they declare they saw, and all the mes-
sages they deliver with this preface, “Thus saith the Lord,”
or “The word of the Lord” came to N. N. “ saying ;” but I
do not think it necessary, with reference to the historical
things related in the writings of Joshua, Judges, Samuel,
Kings, which the Jews style the former prophets, or with re-
spect to the historical relations contained in the prophecies
of Isaiah, Jeremiah, &c.
To the chetubim, or holy writers, who penned their writ-
ings by the assistance of the Holy Spirit, they ascribe,
1. An impulse from God to write or compose them, but
such as left them to the use of their own words, and to the
exercise of their reasons.
2. A superintendency of the Holy Spirit over them, and
a divine assistance still cleaving to them in those composi-
tions, so that they should not be obnoxious to any error or
mistake in what they did indite; that assistance which they
ascribe to their prophets by latter writers is called “an in-
spiration of suggestion ;” the second, or the assistance of the
chetubim, “an inspiration of direction” only.
And this assistance was thought inferior to that of pro-
phecy, not as to the certainty of the revelation, or the sub-
ject matter, but only as to the degree and measure of it ;
for, because there was in these compositions no visum pro-
phetium, i. e. no vision exhibited, nor did they speak in this
high strain, “Thus saith the Lord,” therefore they thought
they were not to be styled prophets, in the proper accepta-
tion of the word. And I conjecture that it is for this latter
reason only that they put the prophet Daniel not among the
prophets, but the hagiographi, or sacred writers; because
6 THE GENERAL PREFACE.
he never useth these expressions, “Thus saith the Lord,” or
saith, “The word of the Lord came unto me;” since other-
wise in visions he was scarce inferior to any of the other pro-
phets. Nor is it easy to conjecture in what this way, whether
of revelation, or divine assistance, and inspiration by the
Holy Ghost, should be inferior to the former. For,
First, Sure it is no disparagement to this way, that per-
sons acted by it do not express themselves in" parables, si-
militudes, and riddles, but use a more familiar language, and
appear in a more simple undisguising dress, and so more
advantageously condescend to the cavacity of the reader.
Nor
Secondly, That it doth not act so much on the + imagina-
tion and the fancy, but is principally seated in the higher and
purer faculties of the soul, which is the second difference
assigned between them. Nor,
Thirdly, That it chiefly; moveth the inspired person to
dictate matters of true piety and goodness, of virtue, wis-
dom, and prudence ; these differences, if assigned truly,
seem to me to be advantageous of this assistance, above that
which usually was afforded to the ancient prophets, rather
than tokens that it was really inferior to the inspiration they
enjoyed.
And this will be more evident, if we compare this assist-
ance of the Holy Spirit with that gradus Mosaicus which
the Jews generally account the highest or supreme degree of
prophecy, and is recorded in these words, “If there be a pro-
phet among you, I the Lord will make myself known to
him in a vision, and will speak to him in a dream. My ser-
vant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all my house. With
him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not
in dark speeches ; and the similitude of the Lord shall he
behold” (Numb. xii. 6–8). Whence the Jews gather these
several excellences of the prophetic gift of Moses above
what was vouchsafed to the other prophets; viz.
First, That all others prophets prophesied by dream or by
vision, out Moses prophesied when he was waking, and stand-
ing. Now this also did the Spiritual person, moved by the
Holy Ghost.
Secondly, That otherſ prophets prophesied by the band
of an angel, and therefore saw what they saw in * parables
and dark speeches; but Moses spake immediately from the
mouth of God, and without parables or dark speeches; and
so also did the spiritual person speak under the gospel dis-
pensation, not by any angel, but by that spirit which search-
eth the deep things of God ; not in parables and dark
riddies, but with “great plainness of speech.”
Thirdly, That all the prophets were afraid, and troubled,
and fainted, but Moses was not so: nor was it so with
our apostles. Moreover, there was strength, say they, in
Moses to understand the words of the prophecy ; and so was
there also in the prophets to understand the revelations of
the Spirit. So that you see this way of assistance gavé to
the penmen of the New Testament all these prerogatives of
Moses above the other prophets; and so I know not why it
should be reckoned inferior to their way of prophecy, upon
those very accounts for which the way of prophecy vouch-
Safed to Moses is preferred above them, especially if we con-
sider that St. Peter lays this as the true foundation of their
credibility, that “they spake as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost” (2 Pet. i. 21).
But it is of no great moment to insist on this comparison,
since the sacred writers of the second order, styled hagio-
graphi, are said to be so far attended with the divine assist-
ance in their compositions, as that they could not be ob-
noxious in them to error or mistake in what they writ,
which is abundantly sufficient to render all their composi-
tions a certain and unerring rule of faith, in what they have
delivered as the object of it.
To proceed then to the consideration of the distinction
hinted before ; viz. of inspiration by suggestion, and inspi-
valion of direction only. I say, then,
First, That where there is no antecedent idea or knowledge
of the things written for the good of others, to be obtained
from reason, or a former revelation, an inspiration of sug-
* Dr. Smith of Prophecy, ch. 7, p. 231. # Ibid. f Ibid.
§ Dr. Smith of Prophecy, ch. J 1.
| Maim. Fund. Leg. cap. 7. "[Ibid.
gestion must be vouchsafed to the apostles, to enable them
to make them known unto the world. But where there is
an antecedent knowledge of the things to be indited, it can
only be necessary that God should either immediately, or by
Some special occasions, excite them to indite those things,
and should so carefully preside over and direct their minds
whilst writing, as to suggest or bring into their memories such
things as his wisdom thought fit to be written, and should
not suffer them to err in the delivery of what was thus in-
dited in his name, or as apostles of God the Father and our
Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore, -
Secondly, In all their revelations of mysteries, or things
which could not otherwise be made known to them, either
by matural reason or antecedent revelation, they must be ac-
knowledged to have had them by an immediate suggestion
of the lioly Spirit. Hence of these things the apostle says
negatively, that “the natural man” who only judges of
things by his natural reason “cannot know them, because
they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. ii. 14); i. e. they, be-
ing mysteries, can only be discerned by the revelation of the
Spirit; and positively, that “they speak the wisdom of God
in a mystery, even the wisdom hid from former ages, which
eye had not seen, nor ear heard, nor had it entered into the
heart of man to conceive” (1 Cor. ii. 7); and that because
“God had revealed these things to them by his Spirit (ver.
9), they having received the Spirit of God, that they
might know the things which are freely given us of God”
(ver. 10). Thus was the mystery of calling the gentiles into
an equality of privileges with the believing Jews made
known unto them ; for “God by revelation,” saith St.
Paul, “made known to me the mystery of Christ, which in
other ages was not made known as it is now revealed to his
holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit, that the gentiles
should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and par-
takers of his promise in Christ by the gospel” (Eph. iii. 3—
6. i. 9. vi. 19. Col. i. 26, 27. ii. 2. iv. 3, 4): so they knew
the “mystery” of the recalling of the Jews (Rom. xi. 25,
26); the “mystery of the resurrection,” i. e. the quality of
the bodies to be raised, and the order of it, with all the
other special circumstances mentioned 1 Cor. xv., 1 Thess.
iv., and the apostasy of the latter times; “for the Spirit
speaketh expressly,” saith the apostle, “that in the latter
days men shall depart from the faith” (1 Tim. iv. 1) This
inspiration of suggestion must also be allowed to St. John,
the author of the Revelation ; for he speaking only what
was represented to him in visions, or by angelical discourses
or apparitions, must have that assistance which suggested
these ideas to him. But,
Thirdly, As for those things which they did know already,
either by natural reason, education, or antecedent revela-
tion, they needed only such an assistance or direction in
them as would secure them from error in their reasonings,
or in their confirmation of their doctrines by passages con-
tained in the Old Testament ; and therefore a continual
suggestion must be here unnecessary. And indeed one
great work they had upon their hands, both in preaching
the gospel and writing these gospels and epistles, being to
convince the unbelieving Jew, or to confirm the wavering
Jew, or rectify the errors of the Judaizing Christian, the gift
of knowledge of the scriptures of the Old Testament was
very necessary to them, and therefore is deservedly reckoned
among the primary gifts of the Holy Ghost ; and being so,
we have reason to believe, that either the Holy Ghost sug-
gested to their memory those scriptures which they used in
these sacred writings to convince them, or else presided so
over them as not to suffer them to make any inferences from
them which were not agreeable to the true intent and mean-
ing of them ; though, at this distance of time, we may not
always be able to discern the strength and clearness of the
consequence. And,
Fourthly, In writing the historical parts of the New Testa-
ment, or matters of fact relating to themselves or others, it
is only necessary, that what is there delivered as matter of
fact should truly be performed, as it is said to have been done;
but it is not necessary that they should be related in that
order of time in which they were performed, unless that also
be affirmed of them ; for this must be sufficient to assure us
of the truth of what they thus delivered.
Moreover, in writing the discourses contained in these
THE GENERAL PREFACE. 7
books, it is not necessary that the very words should be sug-
gested or recorded in which they were first spoken, but only
that the true intent and meaning of them should be related,
though in diversity of words. Though the promise made to
the apostles by our Lord, that “the Holy Spirit should bring
to their remembrance, rāyra, all things which he had said
unto them,” John xiv. 26, doth fairly plead for this exact-
ness in what they have delivered of our Saviour's sermons;
it being scarce imaginable their memory, without divine as-
sistance, should exactly give us all that was spoken in such
long discourses.
And hence we may account for the objections against this
divine assistance, arising from the seventh of the Acts; for
though I have shown in the note on ver, 15, 16, that there
is no real mistake in the words of the proto-martyr, yet
were it granted, that there is an error in his account of the
sepulchres of the patriarchs, yet that affects not the autho-
rity of St. Luke at all, provided he exactly hath related what
was then said by St. Stephen, who was not chosen to be a
penman of the Holy Scriptures.
Lastly, From what is thus discoursed, it may appear, that
I contend only for such an inspiration or divine assistance of
the sacred writers of the New Testament, as will assure us
of the truth of what they write, whether by inspiration of
suggestion, or direction only ; but not for such an inspiration
as implies that even their words were dictated, or their
phrases suggested to them by the Holy Ghost. This in some
matters of great moment might be so, St. Paul declaring,
“that they spake the things which were given them of God
in the words which the Holy Ghost teacheth,” l Cor. ii. 13,
if that relate not to what the Holy Ghost had taught them
out of the Old Testament. But that it was not always so
is evident, both from the consideration that they were hagio-
graphers, who are supposed to be left to the use of their own
words, and from the variety of the style in which they write,
and from the solecisms which are sometimes visible in their
compositions; and more especially from their own words,
which manifestly show, that in some cases they had no such
suggestions from the Holy Ghost as doth imply that he had
dictated those words unto them. For instance, when St.
Paul declares his will and purpose to do what he was hin-
dered by the providence of God from doing ; as when he
Saith to the Romans, “When I go to Spain, I will come to
you,” xv. 24, “I will come by you into Spain,” ver, 28.
For though he might, after his enlargement, go into the west,
where St. Clemens” saith, he preached; and even into Spain,
as Cyril, Epiphanius; and Theodorets say he did ; yet it
is certain he did not designedly go to Rome in order to an
intended journey into Spain. And when he saith to the Co-
rinthians, “I will come to yoy, when I pass through Mace-
donia,” 1 Cor. xvi. 5, and yet confesseth in his second
epistle, 2 Cor. i. 15–17, that he did not perform that jour-
ney ; for it is not to be thought that the Holy Ghost should
incite him to promise, or even purpose, what he knew he
would not perform. This also we learn from all those
places in which they do express their ignorance or doubtful-
ness of that which they are speaking of; as when St. Paul
saith, “I know not whether I baptized any other” (1 Cor.
i. 16); and, again, ruxy Tragap.svå, “perhaps I will abide
yea, and winter with you” (1 Cor. xvi. 6); and when St.
Peter Saith, “by Sylvanus, a faithful brother, as I suppose,
have I written to you” (1 Pet. v. 12): for these words
plainly show, that in all these things they had no inspiration
or divine assistance. This, lastly, may be gathered from
all those places in which they only do express their hope, and
that conditionally, of doing this or that—as in these words;
“I hope to see you in my journey” (Rom. xv. 24): “I will
come unto thee quickly, if the Lord will” (1 Cor. iv. 19);
“I hope to stay some time with you, if the Lord permit”
(1 Cor. xvi. 7): “I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy
quickly to you” (Phil. ii. 19. 23); and “I trust that I my-
self also shall come quickly” (ver. 24): “these things I
write, hoping to come to thee quickly, but if I should
*Kågvć yºváčevo, #4 ºff &varºff waiiy ºf 3&asi. Ep. ad Cor.
Sect. 6. - &
ºf Cyril. Catechis. 17, p. 204, C.
f Epiph. Haer. 27, p. 107, C.
Ś Theodoret. in 2 Tim. iv. 17, et praefat, in Ps. cxvi.
tarry that thou mayest know how to behave thyself in the
church of God” (1 Tim. iii. 14, 15): “I hope by your
prayers to be given to you” (Philem. 22). “This will we do
if the Lord permit” (Heb. vi. 3): “I hope to come to you”
(2 John 12. 3 John 14). For, (1.) Spes est incertae rei no-
men, the word hope implieth an uncertainty, whereas the
Holy Spirit cannot be uncertain of anything ; nor can we
think he would inspire men to speak so uncertainly. And
(2.) There can be no necessity or even use of a divine as-
sistance to enable a man to express his hopes, seeing allmen
do by natural reflection know them. -
§. III. And having thus declared what I do allow, I
now proceed to show what in this matter I cannot admit
of:—
First, then, I can by no means grant any slips of me-
mory in the compilers of these sacred books of the New
Testament; for though these are allowed by * some in matters
of small consequence, as they are pleased to style them,
yet it is of great consequence that we do not own them :
for, if you grant they have thus slipped at all, by what rules
can we be assured they have not slipped above a hundred
times, or even in the most of their historical relations P For
instance, if St. Matthew could slip in citing the words of the
prophet Jeremiah, by mistake, for the words of Zechariah,
Matt. xxvii. 9, why not also in citing the words of the prophet
Isaiah, or of any other prophet? If one of those sacred
writers might be subject to these slips, why not all 2
If once, why not often ? And can we think it no prejudice
to the divine authority of these sacred writings, that they
should so oft be subject to false citations, and produce
false stories, contradicting the truth of the Old Testa-
ment? Would not this yield a great advantage against
our rule of faith, both to the unbelieving Jews, and to the
sceptics and antiscripturists, which too much abound among
us? Nor, -
Secondly, Can I grant that the apostles determined any
matters of practice merely from rules of human prudence,
without the guidance and direction of the Holy Spirit. It is
pretended, this is done by St. Paul in these words, “To
the rest speak I, not the Lord ” (1 Cor. vii. 12).; and again
in these, “Concerning virgins I have no commandment of
the Lord, but I give my judgment or advice, as one that
hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be found faithful: I
judge therefore this to be good for the present necessity "
(yer. 25, 26); and a third time, “She is happier if she so
remain, after my judgment, and I think also that I have the
spirit of God” (ver. 40). This is not, saith one,t spoken
with the authority of a teacher sent from God, or an apostle,
but in Šuch a style as implies only an ordinary assistance,
such as any pious skilful pastor may expect.
Ans. To this I answer, 1. That what the apostle speaks
of here, from ver, 12 to the 24th, seemeth to be no slight
matter, but of great importance to the good of Societies,
and to the honour of Christianity ; for sure it would have
been a signal blemish to the Christian faith, should it have
tended to dissolve the bonds of matimony, or given men or
women licence to quit that sacred tie purely because they
were termed Christians. And hence we find that the apostle
had taken special care to prevent this imputation every-
where, by ordaining the very same thing in all other churches,
which he here prescribes to the Corinthians. Though then
he who had said before, “To the married speak not I, but
the Lord,” 1 Cor. vii. 17, because that case had been par
ticularly decided by Christ, Matt. xix. 9, says afterward,
“To the rest say I, not the Lord ;” he says not this to in-
timate that this direction only was given by him as a man
using his natural reason, only to direct them to what he
thought best, but not as delivering the mind of Christ, for
he had before declared the contrary, by saying, “We have
the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. ii. 16), and after doeth it in
these words, “If any man think himself a prophet, or spi-
ritual, let him acknowledge that the things I write unto you
are the commandments of the Lord ” (xiv. 37); but only
to declare our Lord, in his discourse of divorce, had not de-
cided the case de imparibus conjugiis, of the marriage of a
believer with an infidel, but had left this to the decision of
* Mr. Lowth's Vindic, p. 45.
+ Mr. Lowth's Windic, t 51
8 THE GENERAL PREFACE.
those apostles to whom he had promised the assistance of
#, Holy Ghost “to lead them into all truth" (John xvi.
.13).
Ans. 2. In the words cited with relation to the case of
virgins, though the apostle owns he had no particular com-
mandment of the Lord, as he had in the case of married
persons, yet doth he say sufficient to convince us, that he
advised in the metter not only as a man assisted by his
natural reason, but also as one assisted by the Spirit of God:
for,
First, Though, saith he, as to this, “I have no particular
command, I give my advice in it as one who hath obtained
mercy of the Lord to be found faithful” (in the discharge
of my apostolical office). Now this, saith he, is all that is
required of a minister of Christ, and “steward of his mys-
teries, that he be found faithful” in administering the grace
of his apostleship (1 Cor. iv. 12). And this fidelity was
still attended with the power of Christ, assisting them, as
appears from these words, “I thank Jesus Christ our Lord,
who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, put-
ting me into the ministry" (1 Tim. i. 12). So that this
phrase doth not imply that the apostle had only an ordinary
assistance in this advice, such as any skilful pious pastor may
expect. And this is still more evident in those words, “She
is happier if she so abide, after my judgment ; and I think
I have the spirit of God” (enabling me to form that judg-
ment); for they who say, this is not spoken with the all-
thority of an apostle, or a teacher sent from God, seem not
to have considered that the apostle was writing to them who
are apt to question his apostleship, and required “a proof
of Christ speaking in him " (2 Cor. xiii. 3); and to them it
was proper to say, Whatsoever you may conceive of me, “I
suppose I have the spirit of God,” i. e. the spirit of wisdom,
and knowledge to enable me to make this advice. Moreover,
the words 3ozā Yely may be rendered, “I have the spirit of
God;” so in this epistle, § 80x2y gival pixéveixo; is, “he that is
contentious ” (xi. 16), and ei rig boxeſ reopârnº, “if any man
be a prophet” (see the note there). Nor,
Thirdly, Do I grant that St. Paul anywhere implies that
he doth not always use the best arguments, but sometimes
such as are best fitted to the capacities and notions of those
he writes to ; for if so, by what rules shall we be able to
distinguish betwixt his arguments on which we may safely
rely, as being absolutely true, and those which only are
accommodated to the notions of those with whom he had to
do P St. Paul doth indeed say, àv6;&Trivoy Xéyo, “I speak
after the manner of men,” or what is common to men, “be-
cause of the infirmity of your flesh" (Rom. vi. 19); but
he speaks not this by way of excuse for not using the best
argument he could in this affair, but he speaks this by way
of illustration of his argument, or exhortation. The sense
which the ancients put upon these words is this, tº pia's
pºstpā, tºy trapeziyādriv, “I frame my exhortation with a due con-
sideration of the infirmity of your flesh,” requiring only that
you should do that service now to God, which you have
formerly done to sin. I rather think the apostle discourseth
to this effect: In this discourse of their being servants for-
merly to sin, and their obligation to be servants of righte-
ousness, I speak that which all natural men must have had
experience of by reason of the infirmity of the flesh, and of
which they may thence take a just idea, requiring only that
as they have formerly yielded their members instruments to
sin, so they would now yield them instruments to righteous-
Il 68S,
As for the arguments they use ad hominem, as they are
very few, so is it only requisite that they should truly be
convincing upon the principles which such men owned and
received, there being nothing more intended by them, than
to convince them, that such an inference doth naturally fol-
low from their principle, and that they must either quit the
tenet or admit the inference. For instance, when the apos-
tle Saith, “Else what shall they do who are baptized for
the dead?” I Cor. xv. 29, he is there disputing against some
of the Corinthians, who said, “There is no resurrection of
the dead.” Now here he all along disputeth ad hominem,
and on supposition ; as, v. g. “Then is Christ not risen from
the dead” (ver. 13): “Then are we false witnesses of God”
(ver. 15): “Then is your faith vain" (ver. 17)): “Then
they that sleep in Christ are perished ” (ver. {} “Thell
are Christians of all men the most miserable" (ver. 19, &c.)
All which suppositions are really false, but then they follow
from the foresaid tenet of those Corinthians; so that all
this discourse is only an argument ab absurdo. But that the
apostles anywhere use such arguments ad hominen, as pro-
ceed only on such principles as were generally admitted in
their age, without considering whether they were true or false,
I utterly deny. *
§. IV. Having thus premised these things for the right
stating and explication of the controversy, I proceed to lay
down the arguments, which prove, that in these writings the
apostles were assisted and preserved from error by the Spirit
of God, and therefore were enabled to deliver to us an un-
erring rule of faith, w
And, First, I argue for the divine assistance of the in-
diters of these sacred records, from what they do assert con-
cerning their own writings, and what they say touching the
declarations made, the doctrines delivered, and the direc-
tions given in them. And,
As for the writers of the gospels, St. Luke declares he
writes his gospel to Theophilus, that “he might know the
certainty of those things in which he had been instructed ;”
and St. John declares his gospel was written, “that they
might believe that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God.”
Now it is plain, that neither Theophilus could be certain of
the truth of what he had been taught by any writing, which
was not absolutely certain in itself; nor could others be in-
duced by what St. John had written, to believe “that Jesus
was the Christ,” unless they could be certain that he spake
the truth throughout his gospel. Now if we do consider
how many things contained in the beginning of St. Luke's
gospel he must have by hearsay; and how many long dis-
courses, both he, St. Matthew, and St. John deliver, as
spoken by our Lord and others, of which we can have no
assurance, after so many years before the writing of them, on
the mere strength of human memory, so as to ground an
article of divine faith upon the very words in which they
are delivered—we must be forced to conclude that, upon
this account, we cannot depend upon the very letter and
minute circumstances of every discourse related by them,
unless, according to Christ's promise, they had the assistance
of the Holy Ghost “to bring these things to their remem-
brance :” wherefore this promise is made to them in Very
general and comprehensive terms: viz. “The Holy Ghost
shall bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have
said unto you" (John xiv. 26). And then there being
nothing considerable in St. Mark, which is not also in St.
Matthew or St. Luke, or both, the certainty of all that is
contained in them, must make us also certain of the truth
of what St. Mark delivers in his gospel. Moreover, the
word spoken and indited by them is styled “the word of
God.” Men, saith the apostle, could not believe the gospel
unless they heard it preached to them ; nor could they hear
it preached unless some were commissionated to preach the
gospel; for “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the
word of God “ (Rom. x. 14—17): and, “for this cause "
saith he “thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye
received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received
it not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of
God “ (1 Thess. ii. 13): “I am made a minister of Christ,”
saith he, “according to the dispensation of God which is given
to me to fulfil (i. e. fully to preach) the word of God”
(Colos. i. 25). 2. It is called the “commandment of God ; '
“for my gospel,” saith St. Paul, and the preaching of Jesus
Christ, is made manifest, and according to the “command-
ment of the everlasting God, made known unto you for the
obedience of faith” (Rom. xvi. 25, 26); which faith is
always built on a divine testimony. And again, “If any
man be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that
the things I write unto you are the commandments of the
Lord” (1 Cor. xiv. 37). 3. It is declared to be the “wis-
dom of God,” 1 Cor. i. 24, for “we preach Christ to you
that are called, both Jews and Greeks, the power of God,
and the wisdom of God ; we speak the wisdom of God in a
mystery, even that wisdom which God hath revealed to us
by his Spirit” (1 Cor. ii. 7. 10). 4. It is the testimony of
God; for “I came not to you " saith he “in excellency of
speech, declaring to you the testimony of God “ (1 Cor. ii. 1)
5. It is the gospel of God: for St. Paul styles himself the
THE GENERAL PREFACE.
9
minister of Jesus Christ to the gentiles, “ministering the
gospel of God to them." (Rom. xv. 16): “We preach "
saith he “the gospel of God freely" (2 Cor. xi. 7): “We
were bold to preach to you the gospel of God; we were
willing to have imparted to you not the gospel of God only,
but also our own lives” (1 Thess. ii. 2, 8, 9), even “the
glorious gospel of the blessed God committed to my trust"
(1Tim. i. 10). 6. It is the gospel of Christ; “for I come”
saith he, “to Troas to preach Christ's gospel” (2 Cor ii. 12):
“We sent Timotheus, our feliow-labourer in the gospel of
Christ" (l. Thess. iii. 2). 7. It is the mystery of his will
“The mystery of God the Father, and of
(Eph. i. 9):
Christ" (Col. ii. 2): “The mind of Christ, made known
to the apostles” (1 Cor. ii. 16); and “the word of Christ,
which must dwell richly in believers” (Col. iii. 16).
Now sure it cannot rationally be conceived, that the apos-
tles should be ignorant of that assistance by which they
were enabled to indite these records ; if then they were as-
sured of that assistance of the Holy Spirit, which they chal-
lenged, then must the gospel, which they both preached and
indited, be received as the “word of God and Christ, the
mind of Christ, the gospel of God and Christ, the mystery
of God the Father and of Christ, the commandment and
the testimony of God ;” which is the thing I am concerned
to make good ; and then it highly must concern all persons
to be “mindful of the commandments of the apostles of our
Lord and Saviour” (2 Pet. iii. 2). If they had no such as-
surance of the assistance of the Holy Spirit, they grossly
did impose upon the world, in thus pretending, that they
preached the gospel “by the assistance of the Holy Spirit
sent down from heaven.” If they were not assured that in
those writings they delivered only those doctrines, which
God required all men to believe, those precepts he required
them to do, they must be very confident, in daring to make
this the preface to some of their epistles, “Paul an apostle,
according to the will and the commandment of God” (1 Cor.
i. l. 2 Cor. i. 1. Eph. i. 1. Col. i. l. l Tim. i. 1. 2 Tim. i. 1);
and saying with so much assurance, “If any be a prophet,
let him acknowledge that the things I write unto you are
the commandments of God” (1 Cor. xiv. 37): and much
more, in declaring to all Christians thus; “We are of God:
he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God
heareth not us: by this we know the spirit of truth, and the
spirit of error” (1 John iv. 6). For this seems equal to
what their master himself said in the like words, “Why do
ye not believe me 2 He that is of God heareth the words
of God: you therefore hear them not, because you are not
of God” (John viii. 46, 47). Yea, they must be false wit-
messes of God, by styling human writings, the word, the
gospel, the command, the testimony, the mind, the mystery,
of God and Christ, and by requiring others to receive it,
“ not as the word of man, but as the word of God,” even
that word “by which they must be judged at the last day”
(Rom. ii. 16); which again runs as high as those words of
Christ, “The word that I have spoken, shall judge him that
believeth it not at the last day” (John xii. 48).
If here it be replied, that these things are rather said of
the gospel which they preached, than of the gospels and the
epistles which they writ: I answer,
First, That St. Peter saith of all St. Paul's epistles, that
they were written “according to the wisdom given to him "
(2 Pet. iii. 15, 16), even that wisdom which he styles “the
Wisdom of God,” and ascribes to the apostles in the gene-
ral, saying, “We speak the wisdom of God,” &c. (I Cor. ii.
6, 7); that St. Paul himself requires all spiritual persons to
acknowledge “the things he writ unto them were the com-
mandments of the Lord.”
Secondly, I ask, whether the doctrines of faith, and rules
of life, delivered in the gospels and epistles, be not as much
a part of the gospel, or the law of Christ, as an ything they
preached 2 If they be a part of it, all these assertions must
equally be true of their gospels and epistles written, and
their sermons preached; if they be not, where shall we find,
and how shall we he assured, that we have the gospel of our
Lord ; since we know nothing of it but from what is left on
record in that New Testament, which contains all we have
left of their preaching after the Spirit, promised to lead
them into all truth, was fallen upon them 2 Or, why did
all Christians, of that and the succeeding ages, depend upon
them as their rule of faith P Moreover, that the apostles
were assisted as fully by the Holy Ghost in what they writ
as in what they preached, will be apparent from the con-
sideration of their office, they having this assistance as being
Christ's apostles, his ambassadors, the ministers of Christ,
and “stewards of the mysteries of God.” Now in the pre-
face to their epistles, they take care to let the reader know,
they who sent these epistles were apostles and ministers of
Christ, “according to the will and the commandment of
God” (2 Tim. i. 1), “for (declaration of) the promise of
life which is in Christ Jesus, for the faith of God's elect, and
the acknowledging the truth which is after godliness” (Tit.
i. 1). If therefore they had this assistance, because they
were the ministers of Christ, the teachers of the Jew and
gentile, in faith and verity; men “who received grace and
apostleship from Christ to the obedience of faith,” and had
“the word of God committed to them according to the com-
mandment of our God and Saviour; ” and they were truly
discharging their office as well when they indited as when
they prêached the gospel;-they must be equally assisted
in both.
This, lastly, will be evident from the consideration of the
common end and design both of their writing and preaching:
for the reason why this assistance attended them in preach-
ing was, the benefit and edification of the church, the build-
ing her up in her most holy faith, “the perfecting the saints,
the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come in the
unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God,
unto a perfect man; ” for to this end, “ Christ gave some,
apostles; some, prophets and evangelists” (Eph. iv. 11—13).
Now, do not all these reasons equally belong to their writ-
ings? Were they not also intended and used for these very
ends in all succeeding ages of the church P Did they not
in them write the same things which they had preached,
because this was for their safety P (Phil. iii. 1), that, after
their decease, “they might have these things always in re-
membrance” (2 Pet. i. 15), and that “they might be mind-
ful of the commandments of the apostles of our Lord P’’
(iii. 1, 2). Had they not the promise of the Spirit to assist
them in their preaching, that they might guide their hearers
into all truth P and doth not the same reason hold more
strongly for their writings, partly because they were to re-
main when the apostles were dead, and could not be con-
sulted, as they might be whilst living, when any scruple did
arise touching their doctrine, and to serve for the instruc-
tion, not of one age only, as their preaching did, but of all
ages of the Christian world P And, indeed, their preaching,
without writing, could not have answered the design of pro-
pagating the Christian faith to future ages; experience hav-
ing taught us, that what is handed only by tradition to us
is subject to the greatest change and innovations: it being
the pretended traditions of the Jewish church, which cor-
rupted and “made void the commandments of God” (Matt.
xv. 6), and the pretended traditions of the Romish church,
which have turned their christianity into a system of super-
stition and idolatry: for, as it is truly observed by Origen,*
“That which only is delivered by word of mouth, quickly
vanisheth, as being of no certainty.” So that if our blessed
Lord designed the continuance of his gospel to the end of
the world, he also must design the assistance of his apostles
in the writing of it. g
Now from this argument we may return an answer to that
cavil, which some have made against the inspiration of the
writings of the New Testament, That we meet not in them,
as we do frequently in the Old, these words, “Thus saith
the Lord,” or, “The word of the Lord,” by such or such a
prophet. For,
1. We meet not with these words in all the chetubim, or
the hagiographa, which yet all the Jews acknowledge to be
written by the assistance of the Holy Ghost. Moreover,
our Lord speaks of prophets sent by him, Matt. xxiii. 34,
which implies, that they must be assisted in delivering their
message by the Holy Ghost, as the prophets were.
2. When we meet with it in the prophets of the Old Tes-
tament, it is chiefly, if not only, when these prophets have
a message from the Lord to the people ; and when Christ
* Tà yāp &yed pow; asyſpaeva ºrateral ºr'
§aiyor, obn #x2yra
ārēs ºw. Dial, contr. Marcion. p. 59. -
10
THE GENERAL PREFACE.
sends his message to the seven churches, we find words of
like import still repeated ; viz. “He that hath an ear, let
him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches” (Rev. ii.
7. iii. 22); which whole phrase occurs not elsewhere, but
3. in the Revelation, or the words of the prophecy of St.
'ohn. -
3. It is surely of like import to say, “This I write to you
by the word of the Lord” (1 Thess. iv. 15): “The word
you received from us, is not the word of man, but of God”
(ii. 13); and I who preach it am his minister “to fulfil the
word of God” (Col. i. 35): The word made known unto
you for the obedience of faith, “is the command of the
everlasting God” (Rom. xvi. 25, 26): “The things I write
unto you are the commandments of the Lord” (1 Cor. xiv.
37). For the phrase iv Aéyò, Kvetov, is the phrase used by
the prophets of the Old Testament; viz. the prophet said
unto him, #y Aéyò Kupfov, “by the word of the Lord, Smite
me,” l Kings xx. 35, see xiii. 1, 2, 5.9. 32, and equivalent
to it are these sayings. In fine, we read of John the Bap-
tist, that “the word of God came to him, and he went forth
preaching the baptism of repentance" (Luke iii. 2, 3);
which is the very phrase used of the prophets of the Old
Testament (see the note there). Seeing then our Lord
hath taught us, that though he was “the greatest of the
prophets before Christ, yet the least of the prophets in the
kingdom of heaven is greater than he ” (Matt. xi. 11); can
we reasonably conceive, that this forerunner of the Messiah
should speak the “word of God,” as did the prophets of
the Old Testament; and that the prophets and apostles of
the New Testament, on whom the Holy Ghost descended,
to enable them to teach the mind of Christ to all future
ages of the church, should not speak and write what they
delivered as the rule of faith by the like divine assistance?
§. W. Arg. 2. They who, when they indited these writ-
ings, were assisted by the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of truth,
indited these records by divine assistance ; for the things
God spake to his servants, the prophets, are styled the
things which “I commanded Év IIveſºwati pºou, by my Spirit”
(Zech. i. 6). But the apostles were thus assisted ; this they
in terms, or by just consequence, assert. For St. Peter
Saith of them all in general, that “they preached the gospel
by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven” (1 Pet. i. 12).
And, is not this as much as he said of the prophets of the
Old Testament, when he declares, they “spake as they were
moved by the Holy Ghost 2" (2 Pet, i. 1). St. Paul asserts,
in the same general expressions, that those great things be-
longing to the gospel, which “neither eye had seen, nor ear
had heard, nor heart was able to conceive, God had revealed
to them by the Spirit” (1 Cor. ii. 10): that they had “re-
ceived not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of
God, that they might know the things which were freely
given to Christians of God;” and that these things they
taught “not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but
which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things
with spiritual " (ver. 12, 13). In which place, the very
design of the apostle is to prove against the Greek philoso-
phers, how unreasonable it was to reject the gospel ; be-
cause it came not in the way of demonstration to human
reason, but by way of revelation from God, and so requireth
faith; as of necessity it must do, since it contained such
things concerning the design of Christ's salutary passion,
his resurrection, ascension, and a future judgment at the ge-
neral resurrection, which no natural man could know by the
intmost improvement of his human reason ; and such disco-
veries of the counsel of God concerning man’s justification,
as depended upon his good pleasure, which was known only
to that Holy Spirit, which searcheth all things, even the
deep things of God. It is this Spirit, saith he, that we
have received, and by this Spirit hath God revealed these
things unto us, and we accordingly do teach them to the
world, not in the words which human wisdom teacheth, but
“which the Holy Ghost teacheth,” comparing the revela-
tions made to us by the Spirit, with the revelations made to
the prophets in the Old Testament by the same Spirit, and
finding that the revelations made to us do far exceed what
was discovered to them ; for, what the eye of those prophets |
had not seen in vision, nor their ear heard in dreams, nor ||
can the heart of man conceive without a revelation, even
these things hath God revealed to us by his Spirit. Thus
did they speak the word of God “in demonstration of the
Spirit:” whence he declares, that if any man despise their
testimony or instructions, he despiseth not man only, but
God also, who had given them his Spirit (1 Thess. iv. 8),
they being not sufficient for this work of themselves, but
their sufficiency was of God ; who, by this ministration of
the Spirit, had made them able ministers of the New Testa-
ment (2 Cor. iii. 5, 6). And thus, saith he, “that God,
who commanded the light to shine out of darkness” (and
who illuminated the prophets, by shining upon their imagi-
nations and their understandings), “hath shined in our
hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of
God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. iv. 6). In his
epistle to the Ephesians, he declares, that the mystery of
Christ was made known to him by immediate revelation, and
not to him only, but to the rest of the apostles and pro-
phets of the New Testament ; “for God” saith he, “hath
made known this revelation to us the apostles and prophets
by the Spirit” (Eph. iii. 3. 5). And hence he speaks to the
Corinthians in this language, “If any man be a prophet, or
spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things I write unto
you are the commandments of God” (1 Cor. xiv. 37). Here
then the argument runs thus:
They who had a like assistance to that of the prophets
under the Old Testament, must write by the direction of the
Holy Ghost ; “for holy men of old spake as they were
moved by the Holy Ghost,” and the scripture they indited
was of divine inspiration ; and their words are cited in the
New Testament as spoken by the Holy Ghost : but the
apostles had a like assistance, for in the words now cited.
they style themselves apostles and prophets; they challenge
a like illumination, or “shining of God upon their hearts,” a
like revelation of their gospel by the Holy Spirit ; and they
pretend to teach it to others in words taught them by the
Holy Ghost. In all which sayings they must be guilty of a
false testimony concerning God, and must impose upon the
church of Christ, if no such assistance of the Holy Spirit
was imparted to them. - -
§. VI. A third argument for the infallible assistance of the
apostles in delivering the truth of the gospel to posterity is
taken from our Saviour's promise to them, he having engaged,
First, To send the Comforter to be for ever with them, in
these words: “I will ask the Father, and he shall give you
another Comforter, to be for ever with you” (John xiv. 16) :
and to be always with them when they were executing his
commission “to make disciples in all nations, teaching them
to observe whatever he had commanded them” (Matt. xxviii.
19, 20). -
4 & º saith he, “shall be my witnesses of these things;”
and that you may be qualified to be so, “Behold, I send
the promise of my Father upon you” (Luke xxiv. 48,49).
Hence I infer, that they had always the assistance of the
Holy Spirit with them in the discharge of their apostleship.
Secondly, he adds, that this Spirit that should thus abide
with them was “the Spirit of truth, which the world could
not receive” (John xiv. 16, 17). Now why doth he choose
to characterize him by this epithet, but to inform them that
they might expect from him the certain knowledge of that
whole doctrine they were, as his apostles, to declare unto the
world, and leave to future generations as the rule of faith ?
That this is indeed the reason, we learn from these follow-
ing words (ver. 26), “But the Comforter, the Holy Ghost,
whom the Father shall send in my name, he shall teach
you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things
which I have said unto you” i. e. the things I have com-
manded you to teach, he shall faithfully bring to your re-
membrance ; and as for those “many things I have to say
unto you, which now ye cannot bear,” he shall teach them
all. That this is the true import of this promise, we learn
from the ensuing words (xvi. 12, 13), “I have yet many
things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now : but
when he, the Spirit of truth is come, he shall guide you
into all truth, and he shall show you things to come.” He
shall guide you into, and therefore shall secure you from
erring from, or going out of the way of truth: he shall thus
guide you into all truth, which it concerns you, as his apostles,
to deliver to the Christian church, or any of her members to
know, in order to the performance of their duty, or the ob-
taining the and of their faith, the salvation of their souls.
THE GENERAL PREFACE.
11.
Hence, then, first, we may be sure, that all the sermons or
discourses of our Lord to his disciples, recorded in the evan-
gelists, are faithfully delivered by his apostles, as to the
sense and genuine import of them ; for, otherwise, the Holy
Spirit did not “bring to their remembrance all things which
he had said unto them,” but suffered them to record some
of his sayings otherwise than he had delivered them; nor
were they faithful in execution of the charge committed to
them, which was, “to teach all nations all things which he
had commanded them.” Secondly, Hence also we may
rest assured, that what the apostles taught in any of the
epistles directed to the Christian churches, they taught by
the direction and guidance of the Holy Spirit ; for since
they were indited by them, as the apostles of the Lord, for
the instruction of the church of that and the succeeding
ages, if the Spirit of truth did not guide them into all truth,
but suffered them to err in the composing of them, then
was not this promise of our Lord fulfilled unto them ; no,
not then, when they undertook to be “teachers of the
church in faith and verity,” and so were more especially
concerned to have this guidance of the Holy Spirit. More-
over, Christ declares, that “he who heareth them, heareth
him” (Luke x. 16); “he that receiveth them, receiveth
him” (Matt. x. 40). Now to receive the “apostles even as
Christ Jesus” (Gal. iv. 14), no man could be obliged, unless
they were entirely assisted by the Spirit promised “to lead
them into all truth,” in the discharge of their apostleship.
And this seems plainly to be the import of Christ's addresses
to his Father” (John xvii. 17), “Sanctify them in” or by
£ thy truth, thy word is truth ;” for he himself was sancti-
fied by the Holy Spirit to his prophetic office (Luke iv. 18.
John x. 36); so must they, who were apostles and prophets
sent by him (Matt. xxiii. 34. Luke xi. 49), and therefore
he saith, “As the Father hath sent me, so send I you : re-
ceive the Holy Ghost” (John xx. 21, 22); and prays that
they may have the same Spirit, “that the world might be-
lieve, and know the Father had sent him ; and had loved
them, as he had lowed him” (xvii. 21. 23, see the note there).
$. VII. Arg. 4. These sacred records, which were indited
to be a standing rule of faith throughout all ages of the
world, the gospel contained in these scriptures beiºg made
“known to all nations for the obedience of faith” (Rom. vi.
26), they must in all things propounded in them to our faith
contain a divine testimony, or a revelation of the will of
God. For as human faith depends upon the testimony of
man, so divine faith is that which depends on the testimony
of God; and as obedience to men consists in doing the will
of men, so our obedience to God consists in conformity to
the will of God. Again, if we must all “be judged by this
law of liberty” (James ii. 12); if Christ at the last day
will “judge the secrets of men's hearts” (according to the
gospel of St. Paul, Rom. ii. 16); if “he will come in flam-
ing fire, taking vengeance of all that obey not his gospel”--
then must this gospel and this law of liberty be a rule of
faith until Christ's second coming; for upon that account
alone can men be bound under this dreadful penalty to yield
obedience to it, and be judged by it. i
$. VIII. Arg. 5. Lastly, That the apostles and writers of
the books of the New Testament were assisted both in their
Preaching and writing by the Spirit of God, the Christians
of all ages from the beginning do attest. St. Clemens,” in
his epistle to the Corinthians, saith, “That the apostles de-
livered the gospel to us from our Lord Jesus Christ, and
Christ from God; and that being filled with the Spirit, and
having the word of God committed to them, they went out
preaching the kingdom of God.” He adds,” “That the
Scriptures are the true words of the Holy Spirit:” and that
“St. Paul writ to them by the Spirit, touching himself, and
Cephas, and Apollos.” Polycarp; tells his Philippians,
- t A º *w *g
* Oi &réa toxo; hºw eia)) exía 6maray &r; Kuptov Inzo'ſ Xºlºtoč.
> * e * 2 w aw *
Inzou; & Xorºré, éºrè toi, Osº. IIagayyexia; oùy Aa36vts; zai tran-
go?'ensivre; 31% tºº &vaztárso; ºrcü Kuetov hºw 'Incoſ xerºtoč,
w * * * a ad - º
xai Tzig revièvre; Tô Aśyº roi; Geoſ ºst& Trampopogíag IIvetº ato;
t f 2 * ~ S. * z * * ag yº •)
&yíov, ŠáñA$ow stayygiučáaevo rºw 8:aixelay toi, Osoj. Sect. 42.
> * º *->
ºf 'Eyněºrters gig ràg ypaqā; rā; &Anósſ; §haet; IIvetºzaro; roſ,
'E7' &Amósia; ºrvevºwa’rikā, &rsaretxey jºy
...tylov. Sect. 45.
7regi aircü rs, wai 'Atréaxo. Sect. 47.
#"O; xai &Trøy iſſy #ypasſey into toxic, ai, 3, #&y #yxºrters,
$vºn São Be $s of Kołogºsſrºat eig Tày 30S storay tºy trictiy. Sect. 3.
“That none could attain to the wisdom of St. Paul, who
had writ epistles to them ; by looking into which they might
be built up in the faith delivered to them.” In Justin’s “
time the gospels were known by the name of gia)»ixia, both
to Jew and gentile ; and they were read in their assemblies
as the holy prophets, as being writ by men (weareſ; IIveſºa-
to; #yiou, “full of the divine Spirit” (Dial. cum Tryph. p.
226, 227).
Irenaeus + informs us, “That the Lord of all things gave
to the apostles authority to preach the gospel, and that by
them we have known the truth, that is, the doctrine of the
Son of God ; to whom he said, He that heareth you hear-
eth me : that this gospel they preached, and after, by the
will of God, committed to writing, to be the foundation and
pillar of our faith ;” and adds, “That all the apostles knew
the truth by revelation as well as Paul: for as St. Paul was
an apostle not of men, neither by men, but by Jesus Christ,
and God the Father, so were they.”f -
Theophilus $ declares the consent there is betwixt the
things spoken by the prophets, and in the gospels, “because
they both spake by the same Spirit.” -
Clemens || of Alexandria, speaking of the woman who
anointed our Saviour's feet with ointment, saith, “This may
be a symbol, Tä, örðackaxia; rā; kvetazºic, of our Lord's doc-
trine ; for the feet anointed with sweet smelling ointment
signify 6ainy 3.8aa-zaaiav, the divine doctrine ; for the apostles,
partaking of the Holy Spirit, betokened by the ointment of
sweet odour, are the feet of our Lord anointed.” The
apostles are, with him, “the disciples of the Spirit.” And
“we may well call them prophets,” saith he, “the prophets
and apostles being both acted by one and the same Spirit.”
And “we who have the Scriptures are taught of God, being
instructed by that Son of God.”. He adds, that the Scrip-
tures which we have believed are # at 08wriac airozpatopiańs,
“established by God's authority” (Strom. iv. p. 475); and
that the Psalmist said, arsgi rāan; yeapā; tāº xa?" hºgs, “ of
our whole Scripture, Hear my law, O my people !” And
the apostle, “We speak the wisdom of God among them
that are perfect” (Strom v.p. 557).
Origen ++ is most express, that the sacred books are not
the writings of men, but proceed from the afflatus of the
Holy Ghost, and came to us by the will of the Father
through Jesus Christ; “To them,” saith he, “that believe
this, and adhere to the canon of the heavenly church of Jesus
Christ, by succession from the apostles, we shall show the
appearing ways, viz. of distinguishing betwixt the spirit and
the letter.” “It becomes us,” saith he, if “to believe, that
* Ap. ii. p. 98.
+ Dominus omnium dédit apostolis suis potestatem evan-
gelii, per quos et veritatem, hoc est filii doctrinam, cognovi-
mus, quibus et dixit Dominus, Qui vos audit, me audit:—lib.
iii. praefat. Quod quidem evangelium tunc praeconiaverunt ;
postea veró per Dei Voluntatem in Scripturis nobis tradide-
runt fundamentum et columnam fidei nostrae futuram.
cap. 1.
† Sicut ergo Paulus apostolus non ab hominibus, megue
per hominem, sed per Jesum, et Deum patrem ; sic illi, filio
quidem adducente eos ad patrem, patre veró revelante eis
filium. Lib. iii. cap. 13. V. lib. ii. cap. 47. bis.
§ 'AzáNovša eigſawgral zai ră răv trgopnirāy wai rāv Eirayyf-
Atoy #xsw, 31% to row, Trávra, Trygvºcatopépov; #vi IIvetºzart Oacº
AEAaxnxéyat. Lib. iii. p. 124, 125. -
| Oi Trôs; oi roſ, Kugiov, oi asſaugirºvo; 3ráztoxoi flat, trºopn-
Tsia rā; at 23a; 'rcü Xgizaaroº, äyłow pºstaxagávre; TIvetºa Toº-
Paedag. lib. ii. cap. 8, p. 175. Oi roš IIvetºzaro, waffntaſ.
Strom. i. p. 29, B. -
* [Igoºra, yāp #22 ×ai Bizaiev; row: ároatáxov; Xáyovre;
eſſ &y ºwotºsy, #98, yā; Kai roi abroń święyoëvro; 31& Trávrov &yiou
IIvetºzaroº. Strom. v. p. 565, A, B.
* @soëlèaxto, y&; hºws; i.e64 Byte; yºkºzara trap', tà ºriº rot;
Oe: Tatēsvík, Evol. Strom. i. p. 311, D. -
++ A*Teg roſ, Tre:00pxivot; 25 &v8;&Toy #val avyygápagata t};
isgå; 8.8×ov;, &AN’ #% #71tryoia; toº &yiou Hysépca toº, 3ouxāpaatt
tº Harpā, Tây 3Awy 31& ‘Incoſ Xylaroi, raúra; āyayeygá$6aº Kai
el, #23; #Anx0% was räç paivopºva; 330i, tºrožeikºréov, #axºxévot,
roi, záyovo; roſ, Incroi, Xºta Toij Kavā Śiałoxy rāy &Troaráxoy oil-
gavlov #xxxnaiac. Philocal. p. 7. *
†† ſigère: yòa rā āyta yeawºara ºria redev ºwn?sºciay *alay
#xi, zeňy coºſa; ©soi, iz yā; ro; rang&aro; atroń Aafiºre, of
12
THE GENERAL PREFACE.
in the Holy Scripture there is not one tittle void of the wis-
dom of God; for the prophets spake, receiving from his
fulness ; and there is nothing in prophecy, or the law, or
the gospel, or the apostles, which is not from the fulness.”
He adds,” “That there is nothing unequal or distorted in
the oracles of God, but a sweet harmony of the old Scrip-
tures with the new, of the legal Scriptures with the propheti-
cal, the evangelical with the apostolical.” He adds, that'h
“We must either say, as the infidels do, that because they
are not useful they are not divinely inspired ; or as the
faithful do, that because they are profitable, they also are
divinely inspired.” In particular, he places the gospels in
the number of writings, t #y Trácaiç #xxxnariat; Geoff astriatsu-
£ºvov fivat 8stov, “received as divine by the whole church of
God,” and that they are aroixºſa t}; trio rew; rā, śxxxnariac,
“the principles of the church's faith.” But it is needless to
cite more passages from the fathers of the first three centu-
ries, since by them they are constantly styled, “the di-
vine Scriptures, the oracles of God, the wisdom of God,
the voice of God, the divine oracles ;” they say, that all the
“Scriptures are the perfect and well-tuned organ of God,
giving from differing sounds one saving voice to those who
are willing to learn.”
Secondly, They add, That'ſ “both the prophets of Old
and the writers of the New Testament spake by one and
the same Spirit, the Holy Spirit, by the providence of God,
through the divine Word, enlightening these ministers of
truth, the prophets and the apostles.”
Thirdly, They not only read those writings from the be-
ginning, on the Lord's day, for the instruction of the people,
but made their * inferences and exhortations from them
to all Christian duties, and very early made their comments
on them. * º -
Fourthly, They proved all their ++ doctrines from these
Scriptures, and thence inferred, that they retained the true
rule of faith, because they delivered only what was con-
sonant to the doctrine contained in the evangelists, and
the epistles of the apostles, as is evident from all their
writings. , -
reophrai, Näyovot, ºù Trávra rveſ róvárà ranpºwaroc, wai oëy
iotiv iv trºopntsiz, véag, à stayyixie, # 3rográxº, 3 oil, a riv
dir: Trampºaroc. Philocal. p. 19. ‘O 383aº, röy vépcoy 343&ng
wai to stayyáxtov. Ibid. p. 21. -
* Obšiv iv.70ſ, Biſok Aoyiot; firl #art axoxièv oë8; arpayyaxis-
35;, xiveral 3; # avºpovia Kai siphyr roſtov, #to ºraxalºv trgö,
kalyā;, vowizāy ºrgès Trºopnrikåg, h stayyexiköy ºrgö, ätortoxi-
x&;, # 3roatoxing, ºrph, 3roaroxiwā;. Philocal, cap. 6. p. 30.
ºf Aeſ ºf Trapa?:#aaSat #wi Toâroy rāv yeaçãv, ; Śri oix eia!
Biétvivºro, Eyrei oil, eiziy & pixiaol, &c intoxap, Cáve &y 3 &mirroc,
* A. * 2 *
# &; triaro; rapałżaadal, &rt ársi siriy &péxiaol, 983rysvarot.
sia w, cap. 12, p. 41.
† Com. in Joh. p. 4, 5.
| "O Trio reuzac Toivuy raï, yeapaſ, raï, 9eiaic, tºy roſ, rà,
ypaspás ºw?nºvov povy xaſ,8áve, Geoč. Clem. Al. Strom. i.
p. 363, D. "Ew Yêe rà têstov dies wai hēºogºvoy Weyavoy Eva,
esot waaay rºy Ygaºy, Łiaw &ro8axotiv in 8tabágoy pSáyyov
gotágiov toſ, ºay64ysy #&#xoval pověv. Orig. Philocal. cap. 6.
p. 31. vide p. 23. 30. 37, 38.43. Majestas Spiritús Sancti.
Tert. de l&esur. cap. 24.
, Tot ºvov 3: gif rº, Tº ràc trapovcia; raira ré IIvetºza
gizovéºnarev, &AA’ &rs tº airé rvyxávoy was ārī toº £vác osci, r3
%22roy Kai iwi rāv elazyeaſov retroinze, xa, iari rāv Āroa réxww.
Orig. Philocal. cap. 1. p. 12. ‘O ~xéro; tº potićovri IIveſºari
"reováig @Boº, 31& rod Év 3px; zº; rāv Oey Aáyov, roi; 31axévov;
‘rā, śānSaiac trºophºrac Kai &mocráxovc #v, &c. p. 11, bis.
** Tº 3rºnºvićara tº, ăzozzówy, rà avyy;éºgara
Tây trºopntôy &vaylvºazeta,’ stra ragsary; $ 3.3 xáyov tºy vov-
Beziav, Kai tapéºnary rā; rāy waxów rotºrov wºrew; Troisirai.
Just. M. Apol. 2. p. 98. D. Irenaeus. Melito in Apocal. Ta-
tian. Catena Evang. Pantaenus. Clem. Alex. in Epistolas
Canon.
ft Cyprianus librum testimoniorum ad Quirinum compo-
nit ex divinis magisteriis, ex Scripturis sanctis Wet. et N. Tes-
amenti, ex divinae plenitudinis fontibus, ex universis libro-
rum spiritualium voluminibus, praefat. et praecepta dominica
et magisteria divina ex eisdem. Praefat, ad lib. tertium.
Fifthly, From these scriptures of the New Testament
they remonstrated against and confuted all the * heretics
which arose in those times, declaring, That they were later
than those apostles who delivered to them the rule of faith,
and that they taught things contrary to, or alien from, the
doctrine delivered by the apostles of our Lord. . .
Lastly, That the scriptures of the New Testament were
divinely inspired, was a truth so received by all Christians,
that even some of the heretics durst not deny it; and they
who did, were looked upon as infidels, says Origen, and
others. Thus, speaking of the disciples of Theodotus Co-
riarius, who corrupted the scriptures, “What wickedness,”
saith an ancient author, “is this 2 + For either they believe
not the holy scriptures to be divinely inspired, and then they
are infidels ; or they pretend to be wiser than the Holy
Ghost, and then they are mad, or possessed.”
Now if persons so near the times of the apostles, that some
of them conversed with them, some of them were themselves
inspired with spiritual gifts, some of them were acquainted
with the immediate successors of the apostles; if the
churches which received these writings from the very hands
of the apostles, and kept still the original, or the authentic
copies of them, did so unquestionably receive them as in-
spired writings, and own them as the rule, pillar, and
ground of their whole faith ; if they read them together
with those writings of the prophets, which were on all
hands owned as the word of God; proved from them all
the doctrines of the Christian faith ; received them as the
perfect rule of Christian duty; confuted all heresies and
erroneous doctrines from them ; and represented those as,
infidels who questioned or denied their inspiration by the
Holy Ghost ;-they doubtless must be well assured that they
were delivered to them as such by the apostles, or the sa-
cred penmen of them ; and then, what reason can these latter
ages have to question what was so universally acknow-
ledged by those who lived in that very age in which those
books were written and sent to the churches of Christ ; or
who received them under that character from men, who in
that very age had owned them as written by the conduct
and assistance of the Spirit of God?
Š. IX. Having thus established the divine authority of
these sacred records of the Christian faith, I should proceed
to show, -
1. The truth and certainty of the Christian faith.
2. The seasonableness and the necessity of that revela-
tion. Upon which two heads I have gathered so many ob-
servations as cannot be comprised in a preface, and my eyes
failing, I cannot promise that I shall ever perfect that
great work. I therefore shall at present only mention some
few peculiarities concerning the Lord Jesus, and the doc-
trine taught by him, and propagated through the world by
his disciples, which may conduce to the establishment of
the truth of the Christian faith. And, -
First, It may deserve to be considered, that if a Messiah
were to come when our Lord did, he could be no other
than our Jesus; for even the Jews pretend not that any
other, who assumed that title, was the Messiah promised
to them.
Now that a Messiah was, according to the prophecies of
the Old Testament, to come about that time, we learn from
the raised expectation of him, not only in the whole Jewish
nation, but also through all those eastern nations among
whom they were dispersed ; for they were then expecting
that the kingdom of God should immediately appear;
(Luke xix. 11); they were looking for “the consolation of
Aliunde Scilicet, loqui possunt de rebus fidei nisi ex literis
fidei ? Tert. Præscript, cap. 15. Iren. l. 3. per totum.
* In tertio ex Scripturis inferemus ostensiones—ita
plenissimam habebis a nobis adversis omnes hareticos con-
tradictionem. Iren. Praef. ad librum tertium. Omnibus
haresibus unum Deum ostendimus. T&; ypaqā; aſ; retic-
reſºakey Kveia; oia as #3 at 0syriac wayroxearogixii; Triśićovireº,
Clem. Alex. Strom. iv. p. 475, A. vide Strom. vii. p. 783,
C. p. 741, C. -
t’H 7.3% of wiztiáovew &ylº II, eſpear Asháx0ai rā; 9sſac
- - - * * 2 w º * * º
y;4%, Hai Biały &rigºroi, º Havrò; #yoëvrat Joparápov, tº
*Yºu IIviſºro: Wºréºxsw, kai Ti retovº 3agovºrty. Parv. labyr.
apud Euseb. Hist, Eccl. lib. v. cap. 28, p. 198.
THE GENERAL PREFACE.
13
Israel” (Luke ii. 38). Their own Josephus * doth confess
there was a prophecy found in their scriptures, &; kar’
#xsivo, wasp?y, that “about that time one of their country should
reign over the earth,” and that this animated them 7:3;
ºréas wov, to enter upon the war against the Romans; and
that'ſ tróNAdv; 8aaixstay 5 wagö, ävä"re:0s, the time persuaded
many to take upon them the title of king : and as their
Messiah is by the prophet Haggai styled, “the desire of all
nations,” ii. 7, so we find the wise men of the east, at the birth
of our Jesus, coming to inquire, “Where is he that is born
king of the Jews?” (Matt. ii. 2.) For, as Suetonius f doth
inform us, “a constant and an old opinion had obtained, that
about that time, Judaea profecti rerum potiremtur, that some
from Judea should obtain the government.” It was, saith
Tacitus, Š another Roman historian, a persuasion which had
obtained among many, that this thing was contained antiquis
Sacerdotum literis, “in the ancient writings of the priests.”
And this opinion was so rooted in the Jewish nation, viz.
that their Messiah was to come about that time, that when
they rejected our Jesus, they fell into one of these two
opinions, either that their Messiah was then come, and “lay
concealed,” according to the words of the Targum on Micah.
iv. 8, or, that the time of his coming was deferred “by
reason of their sins;” both which opinions are hinted by
Trypho, “I in his Dialogue with Justin Martyr, declaring,
that “either Messiah was not yet born, or at least it was
not known where he was.” This therefore is the first thing
peculiar to our Jesus ; -- -
That no other pretended prophet ever came at a time
when there was such a general expectation, arising from a
long succession of pretended prophecies both among Jews
and gentiles, that such a prophet was then to come into the
World.
Secondly, Consider, that whoever came into the world
as a Messiah, must come as the Messiah of the Jews, be-
:ause no other nation did expect or pretend to the promise
of a Messiah. Moreover, whoever came as the Messiah
of the Jews, must at the least pretend to answer the cha-
racters of their Messiah, plainly delivered by the prophets
of the Jews in their authentic records; because, they being
by the Jews received as divine oracles, they could admit
no person as their promised Messiah, who answered not
those characters.
Thirdly, No man of reason, besides the true Messiah,
would have pretended to have answered these characters,
or could have long supported that pretence, they being such
as required he should “open the eyes of the blind, unstop the
ears of the deaf; that he should make the lame man leap as
the hart, and the tongue of the dumb to sing” (Isa. xlii. 7.
Jy. 5, 6); and yet that he should be “despised and rejected”
(Isa, liii. 3), “should pour out his soul unto death, and be
numbered with the transgressors” (ver. 12): that after this he
should rise again ; for “his life was not to be left in the grave
hor was his body to see corruption” (Ps. xli. 10); and then
he was to erect an everlasting kingdom, so that “the heathen
should be given to him for his inheritance, and the utmost
Parts of the earth for his possession” (Ps. ii. 8. xxii. 27)
he Was to “famish” all the gods of the earth, so that “all the
isles of the heathen should worship the true God” (Zeph. ii.
!); and “from the rising of the sun to the going down of
the same, his name should be great among the gentiles”
(Mal. i. 11); and that “a kingdom, and dominion, and
glory, should be given to him, so that all people, and nations
and languages, should serve him” (Dan. vii. 14); so that
if Christ were not an idiot, he must be the Messiah promised
to the Jews.
*ºthly, Noman besides the true Messiah, were he ever
* Willing, could have answered those characters which the
Scriptures of the New Testament have represented as the
characters of the Messiah delivered in the old Testament ;
* De Bello Jud, lib. vii. cap. 31. p. 961.
t Lib. i. praefit. p. 705, D. et lib. cap. 6, G.
£ In Vespas. cap. 4. § Hist. lib, v. p. 621
| Tu autem Christe Israelis, qui absconditus es propter
Peºgata cºttis Sion, tibi ven. Irum est regnum. wide Bux.
torf cap. 50. p. 720, 721.
* *fºrd; 3: si zºyºrai, Kai irri ºrdſ, 3, wer; irri. Dial.
j
for he was, say these writers of his life, to be “born of a pure
virgin” (Matt. i. 22, 23), “ of the seed of David, and in the
town of Beth-lehem” (John vii. 42); he was to be betrayed
by one that “did eat bread with him” (John xiii. 18), and to
be delivered up to the chief priests, and elders, and scribes,
and by them to be condemned, and given up to the gentiles ;
he was to be mocked, scourged, spit upon, buffeted, and
crucified by them (Mark x. 33, 34. Luke xviii. º ;
to have his hands, feet, and heart, pierced (John xix. 37);
to “rise again the third day” (Luke xxiv. 46); to “ascend
into heaven” (ver. 26); to “draw all men after him” (John
xii. 32); to “cast the devil out of his kingdom” (ver. 31.
xvi. 11); to “baptize them,” who believed in him, “with
the Holy Ghost” (Matt. iii. 11. Acts i. 5); and to erect
his own kingdom by the preaching of the gospel through the
then known world (Matt. xxiv. 14. xxvi. 13). Here then
are these things peculiar to the holy Jesus:
First, That it was never foretold by any prophet of the
Jews, or by any pretended prophet of the gentiles, that
such a man should be born at such a time, in such a city,
who should do great miracles, and yet should be despised,
and rejected, condemned, and die as a deceiver, by the
means of those very persons to whom he came, and among
whom he did his miracles; and who should after three days
rise again, and then be owned as the Lord and Saviour of
the world through all the earth.
Secondly, Much less was it ever known that any one, pre-
tending to be a prophet, laid the foundation of the truth of
his pretensions upon his being despised and rejected, and
even crucified as a deceiver by them to whom he was sent,
and among whom he performed all his miracles, and upon
what should be done by others at his death, as to the man-
ner and the particular circumstances of it, and upon what
should not be done to him when dead, though it were
usually done to others dying as he did ; and,
Thirdly, Upon what he would do after his resurrection,
not by himself, but by the preaching of others in his name,
to draw those very people to an acknowledgment of him,
and make himself to be adored and owned as their Lord and
Saviour throughout all nations. Maimonides,” I confess,
informs us of one who appeared in Arabia in the twelfth
century, pretending to be the forerunner of the Messiah,
and upon that account to act by a divine commission, of
whom the king of Arabia demanding a sign or a miracle in
proof of his commission, he answered, “Cut off my head,
and I will rise again, and live as before ;” this the king did,
and the imposture ended with his life, no man pretending
that he ever rose again ; whereas the resurrection of our
Jesus was not attested only by the twelve apostles, by five
hundred witnesses, by St. Paul, a bitter enemy of the Chris-
tian faith, converted to it by the appearance of this Jesus
to him ; but the truth of it was presently believed by many
thousand Jews who lived upon the place, where they had
seen him crucified, and many myriads of gentiles, who gave
so firm a credit to it, that they confirmed it with the loss of
life and all the comforts of it.
Fourthly, As for the characters of the Messiah delivered
in the gospels, and the great works he promised that his
disciples should perform, it seemeth necessary to suppose
that almost all these things were done before they were in-
dited. For the tradition of the church runs thus, that St.
Matthew wrote his gospel eight, St. Mark ten, St. Luke
fifteen, St. John thirty-two years after our Lord's ascension:
and therefore, had not the things contained in these writings
being performed before, they must have ministered to all
considering persons a strong objection against the truth of
what they saw recorded in them. For instance, had not the
apostles been “filled with the Holy Ghost before,” they
could not have begun their testimony, the Lord having en-
gaged that they should be “endued with power from on high
not many days after” his own ascension, and commanded
them “to stay at Jerusalem till this was accomplished”
Had not believers, which then were very numerous, been
both enabled and accustomed to cast out devils, heal diseases,
and to speak with tongues, it would have been natural to
inquire why the Lord's promise was not made good to them.
There could have been no truth in all the Acts of the Apos-
* Epist. ad Judaeos Marsilienses.
14
THE GENERAL PREFACE.
tles, had they not been before enabled to do the greatest
wonders, even such as had not been performed by our
Lord ; viz. the conversion of thousands by one sermon, the
giving of the Holy Ghost by imposition of hands, the heal-
ing diseases by their shadow, and by clothes sent from
them. But yet let these things be as false as any infidel
can imagine ; since they are all recorded of our Jesus by his
own witnesses, and are contained in those histories, which
they delivered to the world as the true records of his words
and actions, they must stand bound to make them good, and
persuade all believers they were certain truths, or be con-
vinced from their own words that their Jesus failed of what
he promised and foretold, and therefore was not a true
prophet. t
Now peruse the records of all nations, and show me one
impostor who ever did pretend that such things should be
done by his disciples after his death : or what disciples of
the most subtle cheat ever obliged themselves by such ex-
periments to testify the truth of what their master did pre-
tend to ? And if never any impostor in his wits, or, if not
one abettor of them, ever pretended to such things, we have
great reason to believe this Jesus and his followers were
no impostors. Should any one have said, when Christ was
nailed to the cross, that many thousands of his bloody mur-
derers should in a few days become his converts, and ven-
ture all their present and eternal interests upon the truth
of his pretended resurrection ; should they have said that
throughout all the Roman empire he should be owned as
that King to whom “all power both in heaven and earth was
given,” and as that Jesus who alone could give salvation ;
should they have added that all this should be done in spite
of all the power of wit and policy, of eloquence and of the
sword, the interests and lusts, the superstitions and corrupt
opinions, and the reputed wisdom of mankind, by a few
mean unskilful men, who were the hatred and derision of the
place they lived in, because “God would bear witness to their
doctrines by mighty signs and wonders, and distributions of
the Holy Ghost ;” I say, should a thing seeming so extrava-
gant have been then vented, it would surely have passed
for an idle brain-sick dream, as little to be heeded as that
twelve cripples should besiege, storm, plunder, and destroy,
the strongest and best-peopled city. And yet the apostles
in effect not only said much more, but so confirmed their
sayings, as that the records in which they were contained
have ever since obtained as the faith of Christians, and been
the rule of their whole lives.
Š. X. Let us pass on to the consideration of the miracles
performed by the holy Jesus. Now they are represented in
these records;
First, As exceeding many, even so many that the chief
priests and pharisees, who bore the greatest disaffection to
him, are forced to confess, “this man doth many miracles,”
insomuch that “if we let him alone all men will believe on
him” (John xi. 47, 48), and the multitude cry out, “When
Christ cometh, will he do more miracles than this man hath
done º’’ (John vii. 31, see note on John xxi. 25).
Secondly, His miracles, as they were very many, so were
they also very great and powerful, and so assuredly per-
formed by the finger of God; even Herod styles them
“mighty works” (Mark vi. 14). Nicodemus, when he had
only begun to do them, acknowledges that “no man could
do such works as he did, except God were with him” (John
iii. 2). And he himself saith, “If I had not done among
the Jews those works which never man did, they had not
had sin” (John xy. 24). .
Thirdly, The apostles do with great confidence avow to
Jew and gentile, that this Jesus had done great wonders to
confirm his doctrine, and that this was a thing well known
to them, and by these sayings they converted those that
heard them : Thus in the sermon of St. Peter's, which added
to the church “three thousand souls,” Jesus of Nazareth is
said to have been “a man approved among them by miracles,
wonders, and signs, which God did by them in the midst of
them ;” for which he presently appeals to their own con-
sciences, saying, “This ye yourselves know” (Acts ii. 24).
And the same apostle appealeth in like manner to the know-
ledge of this by the centurion and his friends, saying, “Ye
know the thing done throughout all Judea ; how Jesus be-
ing anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power, went
about doing good, and healing ail that were oppressed of the
devil; for God was with him” (Acts x. 37, 38). Now here
these things may be observed ; .
First, That these records, contained in the first three gos-
pels, being writ, saith tradition, within fifteen years after
our Lord's ascension, or at the least before that destruction
of Jerusalem, of which they all speak as future, and before
which it is probable they died ; many of those nine thousand
who were miraculously “fed with a few loaves and two little
fishes,” and many who were healed in every city where Christ
and his disciples came, must be surviving witnesses of the
truth or falsehood of these writings. -
Secondly, That notwithstanding this, we find not one
thing delivered by them, as done by Christ or his apostles,
either among Jew or gentile, which they ever proved, or
even declared, to be false ; we find indeed in these records
the pharisees declaring that “he cast cut devils by Beelze-
bub” (Matt. ix. 34. xii. 24), and saying in their own wit-
ings, that.” “By virtue of the name Shem Hamephorash,
which he stole out of the temple, he raised the dead,
and walked upon the waters, and cured the lame, and
cleansed the lepers.” The wiser heathens, Celsus, Porphyry,
Hierocles, and Julian, confessed that our Lord did miracles,
that he healed the blind and the lame, and cast out devils ;
but then they add, that he did these things “ by that art of
magic, which he had learnt from the Egyptians, and by some
names of powerful angels he had learnt in Egypt,” and the
same they affirmed of his disciples. “The Christians” saith
Celsus'ſ “seem to prevail, Baºzóvoy rivoy &vépcaci, kal watax-
Xia eat, by virtue of the name and invocation of some de-
mons.” And because St. Paul was more especially enabled
“by mighty signs and wonders and gifts of the Holy Ghost.
to make the gentiles obedient in word and deed” (Rom. xv.
18, 19), Julian; says of him, that “he did tºrsp6áAAsiy
Trévra; Tray'raxos row; wºrore yán-rac, Mai &rareºvac, exceed
every way all the cheats and jugglers which ever were.”
Which by the way demonstrates, that neither the malicious
Jew nor subtle heathen was ever able to confute the facts
contained in the gospels or the Acts ; for had they been able
io have shown the falsehood of them in one point, they
would have had no cause to fly unto this artifice, it being
sufficient for their purpose to have shown the falsehood of
anything delivered in these records of the Christian faith ;
whereas they only did pretend to balance the miracles of
Christ and his apostles, and the cures performed by them
(as Pharaoh did the miracles of Moses), by opposing to them
the miracles done by Pythagoras and Apollonius; and the
cures done by their gods and the heathen exorcists. Now
here consider, . -
First, That Christ not only did these miracles himself;
but whilst he was with them he sent out first the twelve, and
after them the seventy disciples, “to heal all manner of dis-
eases, and cast out devils in his name” (Matt. x. Luke x.).
Secondly, He engaged his truth, that after his departure
from them, his apostles should do “greater works than these
because he went unto the Father” (John xiv. J2).
Thirdly, He promised that these signs should follow them
that believed, “In his name they should cast out devils, heal
diseases, and speak with new tongues” (Mark xvi. 17, 18).
In answer to what the heathens offer to invalidate the
strength of this argument,
l. It is confessed that both Jews and heathens pretended
to the power of casting out devils, as truly as the Christians
did, and both had their exorcists for that very purpose ; but
then we find not one of them who ever promised, or pre-
tended, that those who would believe in them should do
this in their name, as did our Jesus; not one who ever at-
tempted to silence them at their oracles, and expel them
from their temples, and force them to confess, before those
very men who worshipped them as gods, that they were but
devils ; and yet from Theophilus to Eusebius, i. e. from the
second to the fourth century, the Christians triumph in this
argument, and promise, upon pain of death, to extort this
confession from them, and speak of it as a thing known even
to the very heathens, haec omnia sciunt plerique, pars ves-
tläm, ipsos daemonas de Seipsis confiteri, that “the devils
* Raym. Pug. Fid. p. 290. + Apud Orig. p. 7.
# Apud Cyril. Alex. lib. iii. p. 100.
THB; GENERAL PREFACE.
I5
are forced by us thus to confess what they are, must know,
and even some of you,” saith Minutius; credite illis quum
verum de se loquuntur, qui mentientibus creditis, “you who
believe their lies, believe them speaking thus the truth
against themselves,” saith Tertullian.
2. It is confessed that many heathens did plead in an-
swer to the Christians triumphing in the gift of healing con-
ferred upon the meanest Christians by their Lord, that “their
gods also did, multorum hominum morbos, valetudinesque
sanare, heal the diseases of many,” but never any sent their
disciples, as our Jesus did his apostles, and afterward the
seventy disciples by two and two, through all the cities of
Judea, or any other country, to cure all diseases in his name,
as it is recorded in St. Luke's gospel, wrote within fifteen
years after the thing was done, and so whilst myriads of
Jews were living to testify the truth or falsehood of this
thing ; yea, many who had actually been healed by them.
Never did any promise, as our Saviour did, that they who
would believe in him should do the same, and that his own
apostles should do “greater works” than he. Never did any
enable others to bestow this gift upon believers by imposi-
tion of their hands, or by baptizing them in his all-powerful
name, as the apostles did. This then is such an eminent de-
monstration of the truth of Christian faith as hath no pa-
rallel. -
3. It is confessed that many of the heathen magi pre-
tended to work many miracles. And hence Pythagoras,
by Porphyry and Jamblichus; Apollonius Tyanaeus, by
Hierocles ; and Apuleius, and others, are compared to our
Jesus; but them,
First, All their pretended miracles were done to none or
evil purposes, as being done to establish the barbarous, ob-
scene, and foolish rites of heathen superstition, which was
the grand design of Apollonius, and also of Pythagoras, who
taught all men, saith Jamblichus, 73 wively Éy 70ſ; trarpºol;
#9ers wai vozigzoic, “to continue in the rites and customs of
their country;” and this we learn from his Golden Verses;
and consequently it is certain that a holy God could never
countenance what was so opposite both to his nature and his
honour; but it was the concernment of the devil thus to
endeavour to confirm that brutish and idolatrous worship by
which his kingdom was upheld and propagated, and to op-
pose the prevalence of the Christian ſaith: whereas the
miracles of Christ and his apostles were all Salutary and
highly beneficial, and were designed to advance the know-
ledge of the true God upon the ruins of idolatry, “to
turn men from Satan to God ;” to teach them to excel in
purity and virtue, in piety to God, in truth and justice, cha-
rity and mercy, towards others, and so was worthy of the
concernment of a pure and holy God, as being the most
lively transcript of his own perfections.
Secondly, All the great things ascribed to these persons
have suddenly been blasted, and they like comets have
blazed for awhile to the amazement of the world, and pre-
Sently have set in darkness; which is a pregnant evidence
that they derived from the prince of darkness, and only
feigned a commission from that King of heaven, who neither
wanteth power nor wisdom to accomplish his designs; whilst
Christianity was like the rising sun, which “shineth more
and more unto the perfect day.” St. Paul informs the
church of Rome and Colosse, that in the space of thirty
years the gospel had been preached throughout the world,
and brought forth fruit in every nation, on which account it
quickly did obtain the name of h aparoja’a 3.8ax}, or, “the
prevailing doctrine,” as Porphyry and Julian do confess.
Now Surely to abolish all idolatry, to reform the vices of the
World, and to enable a few illiterate persons by mighty signs
and Wonders, by admirable gifts and dispensations of the
Holy Ghost, to subdue the world to the belief of the whole
Christian faith, and to the worship of a man, condemned by
his own nation as a false prophet and a malefactor, as the
God and Saviour of the world, must be a vain attempt,
* managed by the most subtle and improved impostor.
ut, -
Thirdly, None of these persons ever pretended to trans-
mit this power, which they vaunted of, to any other person,
as our Saviour did: or to leave behind them those who, by
like actions, should attest the truth of what they did de-
liver in his name, or suffer for the cause they owned. The
; demon in the statue of Apollonius did for a little while, bu
uttering oracles, persuade men to worship Apollonius as a
god ; but the same author” adds, that God airby rôy bait, ova.
#4 it, wore, karaºyhaag aircü rā; £, ayreias, “struck dumb this
demon, making void or abolishing his oracles ;" whereas this
power was not only imparted by our Lord to his apostles,
and promised to those who believe in him, but also was, by
the imposition of the hands of these apostles, or by their
baptism in the name of Jesus, conferred upon them, and
promised to them ; as in those words of Peter, “Repent, and
be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, and ye shall
receive the Holy Ghost.” And hence Arnobius, having
summed up the miracles our Jesus did, adds, That he not
only did them by his power, but, which was more sublime,
multis aliis facere sui nominis cum adjectione permisit,
“empowered many others to do them in his name: nor
did he any of those miracles which raised astonishment
in others, which he enabled not his little ones, and even
rustics to perform.” And then he triumphs over the hea-
thens thus, “What say you, O ye stiff and incredulous
minds, alicuine mortalium Jupiter ille Capitolinus hujus-
modi potestatem; dedit P did ever that Jupiter whom the
Romans worship in the Capitol give the like power to any
mortal?” and then most rationally concludes, that “to
transfer this miraculous power to a man, and give authority
and strength to a creature, to do that which by their power
alone can be done,” super omnia sitae est potestatis, “is an
evidence of one whose power presideth over all things, and
who hath all the creatures at his beck.”
And, lastly, To the pretence that Christ and his apostles
did all their miracles by magic arts; I will not answer as
Origen doth to Celsus, that all who ever did converse with
Christians know this to be a lie, not any of them finding
that they ever used, but that they constantly abhorred, those
arts; nor yet inquire with Arnobius, potestis aliquem nobis
demonstrare, ex omnibus illis magis qui unquam fuere per
secula, consimile aliquid Christo millesima ex parte qui fece-
rit 2 Nor will I represent it as an absurdity, to think our
Lord could learn these arts in Egypt, when he was but two
gyears old: nor will I ask, whether these Christians were assist-
ed in these arts by good or evil spirits, it being as improbable
that evil spirits should promote Christianity to the destruc-
tion of their kingdom, as that good angels should promote
a lie, or countenance a wicked cheat ; I only ask, how came
these Christians to convert the Egyptians, and even those
magi from whom they are supposed to have learnt these
arts P 2. Seeing the art of magic was then at the height in
Ephesus, Samaria, Judea, and through the heathen world,
by what means came those Christians, who by the heathens
were still called idiots and mechanics, to be so dexterous in
these infernal arts, that all the skill and learning in the
world could neither equal nor detect their subtlety P Seeing
the Jews swarmed both in Ephesus and Egypt, why did none
of them ever attain to the like skill; how is it that none of
the Egyptian sorcerers did ever contend with Christ or his
apostles, as they did of old with Moses, or manifest these
sleights to the deceived world, with which they were so well
acquainted 2 How is it that those many who did desert the
Christian faith, did never once confess their skill in magic, or
discover one book, or one instruction they had learned from
Christ or his apostles, to produce such wonderful effects?
Lastly, the apostles and first Christians could not be deceivers
but others, who did embrace, and successively promote and
spread their doctrine, must know that they were so, and be
instructed in the same arts of falsehoods by them for they
could never propagate their cheats without great falsehood
and hypocrisy, nor prevail on any that were not willing to be
their confederates, and learn their artifices for the imposing
of this faith on others. Now how incredible is it that so
many myriads, throughout three ages in which these mira-
cles were done, should all conspire in an unprofitable and
known lie, from whence they did and could reap nothing but
loss and poverty, persecutions, imprisonments, and death, and
not one single person be induced to divulge the cheat, let any
reasonable person judge ; especially if we consider, that the
only motives which Christianity did offer to engage men to
perseverance in that faith, were the inward consolations or
* Qu. et Resp. qu. 24.
16
THE GENERAL PREFACE.
the Holy Spirit, and a future recompence ; neither of which
could belong to, or reasonably be expected by, men, who
knew themselves promoters of a vile pernicious lie.
Hence, therefore, we may argue thus; they who neither
had, nor could have, any motive to believe, continue in, pro-
mote, or suffer for the Christian faith, besides the inward con-
solations of the Holy Ghost, and the expectations of the
blessings promised in the life to come, cannot reasonably be
supposed to be wilful cheats: the reason is, because the
Spirit of God could not give any inward consolations to those
who were promoting a notorious falsehood by infernal arts;
nor was it possible that they who knew they used these
arts, should expect on that account to be for ever happy in
the enjoyment of that holy God, “who loveth truth in the in-
ward parts,” or to be raised by him to an inheritance unde-
filed. Seeing then even the light of nature and reason of
mankind assure us, that not one of, much less all, those my-
riads which believed Christianity, could do it without any
motive ; since the light of Scripture doth assure us they
could then have no other motives to believe, than those of
the internal consolations of the Holy Spirit at present, and
the hopes of a blessed resurrection to eternal life ; seeing,
thirdly, the attributes of God and the nature of the Holy
Ghost assure us, that they who propagated an imposture, by
magic and infernal arts, or by delusions, should never have
these inward consolations of the Holy Ghost, or expectations
of eternal happiness, as the reward of their impostures or
delusions, it is impossible they should be cheats.
In fine, the wonders which accompanied our Saviour's
death, were as remarkable and glorious as were the actions
of his life ; for when the traitor Judas came to apprehend
him, he did but say unto them, “I am Jesus,” and straight-
way both the traitor, and all that did attend him, were
“stricken down to the ground” (John xviii. 6); and when
Peter had stricken of the ear of Malchus, he healed it with
a touch (Luke xxii. 51): even when he hung upon the cross,
and when he had given up his spirit, the heavens were over-
spread with darkness at noon-day, which is a thing observed
by the very heathens, and from their records handed down to
us; the earth quaked, the rocks split, the veil of the temple
was rent, the graves were opened, and many that were dead
arose, and came into the city, and appeared to many (Matt.
xxvii. 51–53). Now we read nothing of this nature con-
cerning either Pythagoras, or Apollonius, though Philostra-
tus tells us, that Apollonius died not, but was translated into
heaven.
Š. XI. Again, as our Lord frequently foretold, that being
dead, after three days he would rise again, so have we certain
demonstration that he arose accordingly, from the considera-
tion of the persons engaged to attest it, and the absurdity of
thinking they should all conspire to attest a lie : for,
1. The dead body of our Lord could not continue in the
grave after three days; for had it visibly lain dead there
after that time, this had been sufficient to have proved our
Saviour a false prophet, because he promised so oft that
he would rise again the third day (Luke xxiv. 46. Acts x.
40. 1 Cor. xv. 3); yet if our Lord was not then risen from
the dead, his body must continue there, or be conveyed
thence by somebody.
2. It is not reasonable to believe that persons uncon-
cerned for this Jesus, or who believed not well of him,
should remove his body thence, since no man can imagine
why they should attempt it, or what motive they could
have to do it ; and therefore this never was pretended or af-
firmed by Jew or gentile. Moreover, either they did this
without acquainting Christ's disciples of their enterprise:
and then how easy was it for them, by producing the dead
body, to confute the testimony of his disciples, and how
unlikely was it that these disciples would have begun to
testify a thing which might, for anything they could know
to the contrary, be presently confuted by producing that very
body they said was risen from the dead 2 or, secondly, they
acquainted Christ's disciples with the fact, became confede-
rates with them, and engaged to conceal the body; and then
upon the strength of this confederacy and promise must de-
pend all the hopes which Christ's disciples had, that they
should be successful in this testimony, and not be proved
cheats by ocular demonstration. Now is it reasonable to
conceive that in this matter they should trust to the fidelity
of those men, who, in this very business, in which their si-
lence could alone befriend them, were the worst of cheats 2
It is, lastly, more incredible, that persons of this temper
should still go on to stifle and conceal the matter, and not be
tempted by the pleasure of the thing, the service they might
do to their religion, the hopes of a considerable reward, or by
the hatred of a cheat so gross and palpable, to manifest the
shame and infamy of those who forged it. Or,
3. His dead body within that time must be conveyed from
the sepulchre by Christ's disciples, as the Jews said it was.
Now against this vain pretension of the Jews we have the
strongest evidence imaginable, the evangelists and Sacred
writers having so contrived this testimony, that it was incre-
dible they should attempt, and, in the nature of the thing,
impossible they should effect it, had it been a lie, or a contri-
vance of those men who had their Lord's dead body in their
hands. t
For, First, The testimony they delivered was this, “That
the same Jesus whom the Jews had crucified as a false pro-
phet, was declared to be the Son of God by the resurrection
of his body from the dead.” Now it hath been shown (note
on 1 Cor. xv. 35) that the resurrection of the dead was by
the gentiles deemed a thing incredible. The resurrection of
that very person whom the Jews had so lately condemned,
and crucified as an impostor, was that which they of all men
would be most unwilling to believe, seeing it was a testimony
which not only did acquit this Jesus from all the calumnies
and false aspersions of the Jews, but also pronounced their
greatest rabbies an evil brood of hypocrites, fools, and blind
serpents, and vipers, a wicked and adulterous generation, a
devilish, damned crew, nay, their whole nation guilty of the
most horrid crime that could be charged upon man, even the
murder of the Lord of life, and which assured them there
was no Salvation to be hoped for but from that very person
whom “they had taken, and by wicked hands had crucified
and slain,” and that “all power both in heaven and earth was
given to him :” and therefore it was not to be expected it
should gain credit among Jews, or gentiles, unless it was con-
firmed by the greatest miracles. --
Secondly, As our Lord often told, not only his disciples,
but the Jews also, that he would shortly return to his Father ;
that he should “ascend up where he was before” (John vi.
62), “and go to him that sent him” (John vii. 33, 34); that
“within awhile, they should see the Son of man sitting on
the right hand of Power” (Matt. xxvi. 64), and that he would
“come in the glory of his Father, and reward every man ac-
cording to his works:” so doth this testimony declare, that he
was now “exalted to the right hand of God,” and that
“God had made him Lord of all things” (Acts. ii. 36):
that he had “exalted him to be a Prince and a Saviour”
(Acts v. 31), nor was “salvation, to be expected by any
other” (Acts iv. 12), and, lastly, that by his resurrection he
had demonstrated that he was to be the judge of the quick
and the dead (Acts xvii. 31). Now it seemed foolishness
both to Jew and gentile, that such a one, who seemed to
them to be without all form or comeliness, all outward splen-
dour or grandeur, one branded for a rebel and impostor by
his own nation, and as such condemned by so great a power,
should be declared to be the Son of God, the Lord of all
things, the author of salvation to all men, the sovereign ob-
ject of their adoration. And,
Thirdly, As an immediate consequence of this, it was a
testimony which never could be owned in any part of the
whole heathen world, but they must thereupon renounce
all the religion established among them by law and custom,
discard the gods which they and their forefathers had so long
worshipped, as devils and dumb idols, and own the God of
Israel as the only true God, submit to those doctrines of the
holy Jesus, which required them so entirely to renounce their
sinful pleasures, which were so grateful to the flesh, and those
vices which they had so long indulged, and henceforth live a
life of highest purity and separation from the pleasures and
enjoyments of this world, to be employed in acts of self-de-
nial and mortification, in taking up the cross, and suffering
patiently the worst of temporal evils, only in hopes of future
blessings from a crucified Jesus, and a reward to be conferred
upon them by him, after a more incredible resurrection of
their bodies from the grave. Now it is certain from reason
and experience, that a new doctrine, which stands obnoxious
THE GENERAL PREFACE. jayº
§
to a great many prejudices both of the judgment and affec-
tions, and which contains many things that seem to render it
incredible to the one, and many more which render it un-
pleasant to the other, is most unlikely to prevail upon the
world, in opposition to all other doctrines. (2.) That men
are not easily induced to reject those principles which they
received from their education, but still are backward to ad-
mit new faith, to confess their errors, and condemn themselves
and pass hard sentences upon the state of their beloved
friends, relations, and ancestors. (3.) That men are natu-
rally wedded to their lusts, and bear a passionate affection to
the pleasures and enjoyments of the world ; and therefore,
that which suddenly prevails upon them to renounce them
all, must be of greater power, and of more prevailing efficacy.
than the temptations of the world. (4.) That it is not easy
to prevail upon the world to quit a present and importantin-
terest, only in hopes of future good, or to expose themselves
to the worst of sufferings in confirmation and pursuance
of those hopes, without the most concluding grounds of hope,
much less in contradiction to them. (5.) That’ men of the
lowest birth and education, and such as were great sufferers
both in their reputation and their persons, were men unlikely
to prevail upon persons of all sorts and conditions whatsoever,
to quit their religion, and their habitual lusts, their worldly
interests, and their alluring pleasures, and their espoused te-
nets ; much more their lives and dearest relatives, and to
expose themselves to those evils which are most contrary to
the desires of human nature and to the designs of mere na-
tural men.
Again, They tell us, they were sent to preach this testi-
mony to all nations, and to baptize them into the faith thus
preached, to publish it to the Jews, Samaritans, and to the
uttermost parts of the earth (Acts i. 8). Now, could they
convert great numbers of all nations from darkness unto
light; persuade them to discard their own religion they had
so long embraced; quit all the worship and the rites they
had received from their forefathers; renounce all the evil
customs and manners they had so long indulged in ; only to
worship and expect salvation by one condemned by his own
nation, where his pretended miracles were wrought, as a false
prophet and a vile impostor? They were to turn them “from
the power of Satan unto God,” and therefore, were to destroy
that strong man armed, to overthrow his kingdom, to stop
the mouth of his oracles, destroy his temples and his worship,
to cast out devils where they came, and make his kingdom
“fall like lightning.” How could they convert those nations,
whose languages they understood not, without the gift of
tongues ; which, if they wanted, they must stand mute
among them, without one word to say in propagation of this
testimony ? How could they work so great a change upon
them, or prevail with them to suffer so much, as their con-
verts by their own confession were obliged to do, for the
sake of this their testimony, without the greatest evidence,
that what they told them was a certain truth 2 and how
could they afford this evidence to any, without a confluence
of miracles to confirm their sayings? Hence,
Fourthly, They so often telius, that their Lord promised
to enable them, in confirmation of this testimony, to work
greater miracles than he himself had done” (John xiv. 12),
and that they who believed this testimony should be enabled
to heal the sick, to cast out devils, and speak with new
tonguês:” that for the propagation of this testimony, “he
would give them a mouth and wisdom, which all their adver-
saries should not be able to gainsay,” that they should
have no need, when they were before princes and rulers on
the account of this testimony, to premeditate; because “the
Holy Ghost Would teach them in that hour what to say:”
(Luke xii. 12. xxi. 15), that he promised that they should
be enabled for this work “ by the power of the Holy Ghost
descending on them, and convincing the world of their sin,
who believed not in him, and of his righteousness, because he
Went unto the Father; and of a future judgment, because
the prince of the world should by them be condemned, and
ºast ºut of his kingdom " (John xvi. 8–11). They intro-
dueed him, praying to his Father that they might thus be
assisted by this Holy Spirit, “that the world might believe
that he had sent him” (see the note on John ºví 21–23),
and promising the Holy Ghost to them that would believe
in him (John vii. 37–39). Whence it must necessarily
follow from their own words, that they must have received
this miraculous assistance, and these distributions of the
Holy Ghost, for confirmation of this testimony; or else that
Jesus, whose resurrection they proclaimed, must be a false
prophet. Hence it is evident beyond all contradiction;
First, That a power of doing mighty miracles, and of
exercising and distributing the gifts of the Holy Ghost to
believers, was absolutely necessary, in places where they
came, for confirmation of this testimony, and planting any
Christian church in any nation; it being absolutely necessary,
to make this testimony effectual, that both the apostles, who
gave in this testimony, and they who did believe it, should
be assisted by the power of miracles, and be endowed with
the miraculous gifts and distributions of the Holy Ghost;
and yet,
Secondly, It is as certain, that if this Jesus was not risen,
or, being risen, had failed in all his promises of such miracu-
lous assistance, that his disciples could have no motive to
begin this testimony, or never could be able thus to confirm
what they affirmed.
1. They could have then no motive to begin this testimo-
ny; for if he were not risen, or if he had failed in all these
promises, they must conclude him an impostor; and then
what motives could they have to publish him “the Saviour
of the world,” who, after he had called them, “to leave all,
and follow him,” and made such ample promises unto theni
of “judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matt. xix. 28),
left them so Sadly in the lurch, exposed to shame and infa-
my P. How could they hope “by mighty signs and wonders,
by gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit,” great and numerous,
to give in evidence to his resurrection (as they confidently
pretended they were empowered to do), had he been still
reserved under the power of death, and only by his own or
others’ arts removed from his sepulchre 2 How is it, that
they never thought within themselves, He could not save
himself, and whence shall we expect salvation ? He could
not by his miracles of power and goodness prevail upon one
nation to believe his doctrine ; and can we, though destitute
of all that power which resided in him, think to reduce the
world into obedience, or to impart the Holy Ghost to others,
when we ourselves have the spirit of delusion only 2 Who
can imagine, were this so, they would have said so boldly at
the first entrance on this testimony, to men, who wondered
at them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the
name of the Lord Jesus, and you shall receive (these gifts of)
the Holy Ghost; for the promise (of the Holy Ghost, re-
corded by the prophet Joel) is (made) to you and to your
children, and to as many as the Lord your God shall call;”
or say so confidently before the Jewish Sanhedrin, their
mortal enemies, “We are witnesses of these things, and so is
the Holy Ghost which God hath given to those that believe"
(Acts v. 32), if there were no such thing? Nor, -
2. Could they confirm their testimony by any miracles or
divine assistance ; for if their testimony were a lie, they had
no reason to expect the least assistance for the propagation
of it, but had just reason to conceive, that all the powers, both
in earth and heaven, should be engaged to confound it ; for
sure they could expect no help from him whom they declared
to be risen, if in their consciences they knew he was still
under the power of death ; they rather had great reason to
expect that God should cross them in those designs which
they profanely vented in his name, making him witness to a
lie ; they could not hope to be assisted by the powers of
darkness, seeing their doctrine did so plainly tend to the
subversion of Satan's kingdom; they could not rationally
hope, that either Jew or gentile would befriend them in the
promotion of a cheat, which they were concerned both in
interest and honour to detect: what therefore could embolden
them to enter upon the propagation of this cheat, in oppo-
sition to all the powers both of heaven and earth 2
To strengthen this argument, let us consider the success
of this testimony; our Lord had declared, that after he had
been lifted up, “he would draw all men after him " (John
xii. 32), and that then his kingdom, from a small beginning,
should increase as a grain of mustard seed, and be like leaven
leavening the whole lump (Luke xiii. 19. 21). Accordingly
we find that this testimony, when it was first declared to the
world on the day of Pentecost, prevailed at one sermon over
three thousand and at another on five thousand of those
18
THE GENERAL PREFACE.
very persons who had seen him crucified, to believe that he
was risen from the dead. He sent them forth to preach this
doctrine to the world, with a promise that “he would be
with them " (Matt. xxviii. 20) And accordingly it is said,
“ they went forth preaching this doctrine everywhere, the
Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs
following” (Mark xvi. 20), and that “with great power gave
the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus ”
(Actsiv. 33), and that “God bare witness to the word of his
grace, both with signs and wonders, and divers miracles, and
gifts of the Holy Ghost” (Heb. ii. 4), and of the truth of
this, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles written to the
churches planted by them, the miracles done by many myriads
of Christians, and the gifts daily exercised in their assem-
blies, are a demonstration ; yea, the speedy and wonderful
success and prevalency of this testimony confirms the truth
of what they delivered ; for if men were not then infatuated,
how could it come to pass, that so great a part of the world
as was so suddenly converted by their testimony, should
without any proof or other evidence than the bare relation
of such ignorant unlearned persons, give credit to their fic-
tion ; or that persons of all ranks and conditions should not
only yield a firm assent to such a proofless fable, but readily
should sacrifice their lives and fortunes to maintain that
faith ?
For farther demonstration of the truth of this testimony,
let us reflect a little upon the persons commissioned by
Christ to preach it to the world ; and we shall find,
1. That they were persons who had no advantages of birth,
wealth, or worldly interests, which might enable them to
manage or promote this work, no wisdom to contrive, no
policy to carry on such cunningly-devised fables, as being
both according to their own report, and the objection of the
heathen world, 3ypáºzarot, Kai i813ta, “illiterate and simple
men;' and is it easy to conceive, that men, so few, so meanly
qualified as to condition, endowments, or ability of mind,
Without all supernatural assistance, should so skilfully con-
trive, so courageously maintain, and so successfully manage,
such a story, as quickly to engage the faith of many myriads
to yield a firm assent unto it?
2. They could have no motive from any worldly interests
to propagate this lie throughout the world, but they had all
imaginable reasons to decline it, if it were not true; for all
those things which the allurements of the world can signify,
they willingly abandoned for the sake of this one testimony,
incurring both the loss of honour, pleasure, and of all worldly
interests, in prosecution of it; nay, they declared, that this
Very Jesus, whose resurrection they attested, had foretold
that this should be their portion, that “in this world they
should have tribulation,” that they should “be hated of ail
nations for his name's sake,” that they should be “delivered
up to be afflicted, and even killed for this testimony:” so
that they could not possibly avoid those evils but they must
by so doing overthrow their own testimony, and prove this
Jesus a false prophet; and much less had they reason to ex-
Pect any blessings in the world to come for propagating such
*lie by false pretences of divine assistance, to the dishonour
of Almighty God, and the destruction of so many myriads
deceived by them. Since then the moralists conclude, that
it is impossible for men to act without appearance of some
good to be procured by that action; since love of life, and a
desire of self-preservation, are common to us with the very
brutes; and it is natural to them and us, to avoid misery and
torments, the apostles could not thus abandon all the enjoy-
ments and expectations of the blessings both of this and of
another world, and wilfully subject themselves to all the
miseries and torments which creatures could endure, in pro-
pagation of a testimony from which they could expect no
profit or advantage, but they must be bereft of common
Sense, renounce the natural instincts of mankind, and be in
iove with ruin and destruction. I confess, it is possible for
Imen to lay down their lives for false opinions, provided they
believe them to be true; but if the apostles were guilty of
any cheat at all, they must be guilty of a known imposture,
and so must sacrifice their lives for falsehood, i. e. for that
from which they could expect no good at all; which seems
So inconsistent with the principles of common reason and
self-love, that nothing can be more incredible. -
3. Consider that they continued constant in this testimony,
and never could be moved by any checks of conscience, any
hopes of gain, or any fears or sense of sufferings, to disavow
this testimony, or to detect the falsehood of it. Now, that
so many persons should persevere immoveably in an extra-
vagant resolution to maintain a lie, so that no threats, no
perils, no pains or troubles from without, no regret or dissa-
tisfaction from within, should drive them from it, but that
they should die with it in their mouths, is so incredible, that
nothing can be more; it must be therefore truth alone that
could uphold them steady in the profession of this thing; so
unanimous a consent, so clear a confidence, so firm a resolu-
tion, so insuperable constancy and patience, nothing but the
sense of truth could inspire them with, nothing but a perfectly
good conscience could sustain. Consider,
4. That they were persons who professed to all their
converts great sincerity in what they did, declaring, that
“they had renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not
walking in craftiness, not handling the word of God deceit-
fully, but, by manifestation of the truth, commending them-
selves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.” More-
over, in their writings, they frequently condemned all falsehood,
craft, hypocrisy; commanding us “to lay aside all guile, hy-
pocrisy ; to put away all lying, to speak every man truth with.
his neighbour,” denouncing hell and damnation against those
who “ loved and made a lie :” and yet, if they indeed pro-
moted a cunningly-devised fable, they whom they spake and
wrote to could not be ignorant of their hypocrisy and lying,
when they spake so much of their own miracles and gifts
of the Holy Ghost received by believers, and of the gifts of
healing, casting out of devils, and of tongues, promised and
vouchsafed to them ; for these things they still mention in
their epistles directed to their converts, as things frequently
done by and exercised among them. Now, if their converts
did enjoy these admirable gifts, it is not to be doubted, but
God himself, who is the only author of them, did set his
seal to the apostles' testimony ; if they did not enjoy them,
they must then know that the apostles who made these pro-
mises, and who indited these epistles, were guilty of notori-
ous untruths, and so could have no motive to believe, but
rather to detest their doctrine.
5. Consider that the doctrine they delivered in the name
of this holy Jesus, was such as highly tended to the promo-
tion of piety and virtue in the world; for none, who are ac-
quainted with this doctrine, can deny, that it doth evidently
tend to the advancement of true goodness, righteousness,
love, charity, peace, quietness, and mercy. Now, can it
reasonably be conceived, that men should in the same de-
sign be guilty of the greatest virtue and the greatest villany
in the world ; that the same men should die martyrs to the
worst imposture and the best institution in the world; that
they should sacrifice their lives to the interest of holiness and
virtue, and the credit of blasphemy and imposture ? It is
common, I confess, for men of bad designs to make very
good pretences, but still they do this to carry on designs
far different from their pretences: but we have shown that
the apostles could have no designs in propagating their doc-
trine, but that it should be believed ; and, therefore, if they
did not really design to make men believe the doctrines they
taught for the advancement of the interests of piety and
virtue, they could have no end at all in losing both their
lives and fortunes to promote those doctrines; which con-
tradicts the principles of human nature.
He then who doubts the sincerity of these assertors of
our Lord's resurrection, must be forced to admit what is
Inuch more incredible, as being more repugnant to human
nature and the course of things ; viz. he must believe that
persons, otherwise through their whole lives blameless, and
strictly virtuous in their conversations, as the apostles were;
men who appealed to their proselytes, “how holily, and
justly, and unblameably they had behaved themselves
amongst them,” should yet, against the clearest dictates of
their conscience, commit so great a villany as this imposture
doth imply ; that men, all whose discourses and demeanours
did evidently tend to the advancement of God's glory, and
the promotion of true goodness, should in their hearts defy
God, and detest all goodness, as they must do if they were
wilful cheats; that they, who otherwise did teach these
doctrines, and practise those things, which showed the great-
est kindness and goodwill to men, were only striving to
THE GENERAL PREFACE.
I9
abuse and betray them by false promises and hopes, into the
worst of miseries; that men of so great wisdom as they
showed, both in their writings and the success of their at-
tempts, should zealously drive on a vain and senseless pro-
ject, with more unwearied industry labouring to maintain
and disperse a lie, than any men besides did ever use for
confirmation of the greatest truth: he must believe, that
men in all respects so impotent, should be so strangely pre-
valent, without the least assistance, as to cause the World to
run into them; that naked weakness should overthrow the
strongest might; that pure simplicity should baffle even the
sharpest wits, the subtlest policy, and deepest learning;
that rude speech, void of all strength and ornament, should
even force men to embrace an uncouth and unpleasant
story, against the finest rhetoric backed with the force of
truth. He must believe, that a crew of vile persons should
so inseparably be linked together only by the bonds of
fraud, no truth, no virtue, no real interest, uniting them,
that nothing could untie the knot. Lastly, He must believe,
that men of sense should, for no end, no visible advantage
here, no future hopes, voluntarily embrace, and patiently
endure, all that can be distasteful unto human nature, freely
exposing themselves, they knew not why, to all the fury
upon earth, and all the flames of hell; eagerly sacrificing
their fortunes, credits, lives, and souls themselves, to the
ghost of a condemned malefactor and false prophet. And
if so, why doth philosophy inform us, that self-preservation,
the love of life and ease, is rooted in the very principles of
human nature, and that it is not possible for any man de-
liberately to choose to be miserable, or to refuse to be
happy, or not desire so to be 2 To conclude, if this relation
were untrue, either the apostles were besides their senses
when they did believe it, or besides their wits when they af.
firmed, and did endeavour to confirm, what they did not be-
lieve, with loss of life and fortunes; and if so, what shall We
say to that vast multitude of Christians, who, notwithstand-
ing all temptations to the contrary, so readily embraced, so
stedfastly believed, the doctrine of those men, who had so
little reason to believe themselves?
§. XII. Let us consider, lastly, the predictions of our
Lord, relating partly to his own disciples, and what they
were to do after his resurrection, and partly to the Jewish
nation, and what was to befal them for their infidelity, and
their rejecting and condemning their Messiah. As for his
disciples,
1. He promised and foretold, that not only the twelve
apostles should be endued “with power from on high,” and
should receive “the promise of the Holy Ghost,” but also
'that they who believed in him should be baptized with the
Holy Ghost, should receive him, and be enabled by him “to
speak with tongues" (Matt. iii. 11. Mark xvi. 17, 18. Luke
xxiv. 39. John vii. 37, 38. Acts i. 8); and that this pro-
mise was admirably fulfilled, not only by the gifts of tongues
and prophecy, conferred on the apostles at the day of Pente-
cost, and by their baptism, preaching, and laying on of
hands on others, but by the gifts of prophecy, and tongues,
with the interpretation of them, and by the gift of discern-
ing Spirits, and knowing things secret, exercised in all Chris-
tian churches, shall be fully proved in the preface to the
epistles, from Ş. I. to the sixth, and from the eleventh to
the fourteenth.
2. He foretold that the kingdom of Satan should be cast
down by them, and should “fall like lightning” before
them, and said, “Behold, I give you power over all the
power of the enemy” (Luke x. 18, 19); and how gloriously
he fulfilled this promise, and made good this prediction,
shall be fully demonstrated in the same general preface, Ş. X.
3. He foretold that the gospel of the kingdom should be
preached by them throughout the world (Matt. xxvi. 13);
yea, that it should be preached to all nations within the
Space of forty years, or before the destruction of Jerusalem
(Matt. xxiv. 14); that the increase of his kingdom should
be like that “of a grain of mustard-seed" (Mark iv. 32),
and that he being lifted up “would draw all men after him.”
(John xi. 32). Which came to pass so wonderfully, that
in the space of twenty-four years after Christ's passion, St.
Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, saith, “the sound of it
was gone out into the uttermost parts of the world” (x. 18);
and in the Epistle to the Colossians, writ twenty-nine years
after, that it was “preached to every creature under hea-
ven " (i. 6. 23), “We see,” saith Clemens Romanus,” “the
world beyond the ocean (i. e. the British islands), subject to
the commands of Jesus.”—“The contagion of this supersti-
tion,” saith Pliny, f in his epistle to Trajan, writ in the close
of the first century, “hath spread itself not only over cities
but even villages and fields.”—“There is no rank of men,”
said Justin Martyr, f “whether Grecians, or barbarians, or
called by any other name, in which praise and thanksgivings
are not offered up to the Father in the name of Christ cru-
cified ;” “so that a whole race of Christian nations seemeth,”
saith Origen, § “to be born at once ; and who,” saith he,
“will not admire the prediction of our Lord, when he sees
it thus fulfilled in every nation under heaven, Greeks and
barbarians, the wise and unwise, and all mankind being
overcome by it, so that there is no kind of men by whom
this doctrine is not received 2 " (lib. ii. p. 68, 69). -
The predictions which concerned the Jewish nation were
these following:—
1. “That the kingdom of God should be taken from
them, and given to another nation bringing forth the fruits
thereof.” (Matt. xxi. 43); and that “the things which did
belong to their peace, should be shortly hid from their eyes”
(Luke xiii. 28, 29. xix. 42): that “many should come from
the east, and from the west, and should sit down with Abra-
ham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God ; but the
children of the kingdom should be cast out " (Matt. Wiii. 11.
13): and that all these things “should come upon that ge-
neration.” Accordingly, we find the apostle Paul, in his
Epistle to the Romans, sadly bewailing that “spirit of slum-
ber,” which was come upon them (Rom. xi. 8), speaking of
their “rejection” (ver. 15), “the breaking of these branches
off through unbelief.” (ver. 19, 20), “their blindness” (ver.
25), and saying, that “God had concluded them all in un-
belief.” -
2. Our Lord foretold, that Satan, cast out from them,
should “return with seven devils more wicked than him-
self;” and that he did so, the history of Josephus will not
suffer us to doubt: for he declares, that soon after our Sa-
viour's time, they were become the worst of men (see note
on Rom. ii. 2).
$. XIII. Lastly, The things which Christ foretold con-
cerning the destruction of Jerusalem, and the calamities
which shortly were to happen to that nation, were of that
signal nature, and mentioned such various events, then
future and contingent, and yet were so exactly and so par-
ticularly fulfilled, as to afford us a most pregnant demonstra-
tion of the truth of Christ's prophetic office. And,
First, Our blessed Lord foretelleth the destruction of the
Jewish temple, after it had stood well migh five hundred
years, in these words, “Seest thou these great buildings 2
there shall not be left one stone upon another which shall
not be thrown down: ” to complete which prediction, Titus
commands his soldiers, saith Josephus, thy ré réaw 37*ay
was 43, vºw wavarzáirtív, “to dig up the foundations both of
the temple and of the city;” and both the Jewish Talmud ‘ſ
and Maimonides ** add, that Terentius Rufus, the captain of
his army, “did with a ploughshare tear up the foundation of
the temple,” and more signally fulfilled those words, of Mi-
cah, iii. 12, “Therefore shall Zion for your sakes be ploughed
as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the moun,
tain of the house as the high places of the forest.” And
here two things seem worthy of our observation ; Viž.
1. The exact time when this was done ; viz. on the same
month and day on which it formerly was burnt by Nebu%ar-
adan, the captain of the king of Babylon, which therefore
by Maimonides is styled “the fatal day of vengeance;’
and which is by Josephus # reckoned to be a matter of just
* Ep. ad Cor. p. 19 f Lib. x. Ep. 97.
# Dial. cum Tryph. 345.
Contr. Cels. lib. viii. p. 405.
i Lib. vii. cap. 1. p. 970, B. 993, A. . e
| Taanith. cap. 4. Hal. 6. ** Maim. Taanith. cap. 5.
# Qawwéa at 3’ &y ri; iſ abră răç treetēgu rºy &ze:8elay, *at
ºve yºvkai gigaw irsthènes tº avºy à Trºtsgow Utri Baºu-
Monioy', yak iyirpågsø, Lib. vii, cap, 26, p. 937, E, cap. 27
}). 958, F.
C 2
20
THE GENERAL PREFACE.
admiration, and a plain indication that this so happened by
divine appointment.
2. That this destruction and conflagration of the temple,
happened against the will, command, and the endeavours of
Titus to prevent it ; for he calls heaven and earth to wit-
ness, that he would never violate that sacred place, unless
the Jews compelled him so to do ; yea, saith he, * “I will
preserve your temple against your own wills: ” and when
his own generals declared it necessary to destroy that tem-
ple, he answered, “I will never suffer such a structure to be
destroyed by the flames:” and when the fire began to seize
upon it, he calls, he beckoneth to, yea, he commands his
soldiers to extinguish it, but they, not hearkening to his
commands, do animate one another to the burning of it:
Thus, saith Josephus, f “was the temple burnt against the
will of Caesar, God himself assisting with the Romans to
the ruin of it ;” that so the words of Christ might be veri-
fied, “He will send forth his armies and destroy those mur-
derers, and burn up their city.”
3. Observe, that they who had f accused our Saviour and
nis disciples of polluting and of designing to destroy this
temple, were the very men who did horribly pollute it with
the blood of Jews and gentiles, and even forced the Romans
to destroy it ; “they hastened the slow fire,” saith their own
Josephus, Š “and even drew it to the temple ; ” the inflam-
mation of it, saith he, “had both the cause and the begin-
ning of it from themselves,” the providence of God still
ordering matters so, that they should bring upon themselves
those evils of which they falsely did accuse our Lord and
his apostles. -
Secondly, Our Lord foretells with like exactness and par-
ticularity the ruin of their famous city, declaring (Luke
xxi. 34), that “Jerusalem should be trodden down of the
gentiles, until the times of the gentiles be fulfilled ;” and
again, “the days” saith he, “shall come upon thee, that
thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass
thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay
thee even with the ground, and shall not leave in thee one
stone upon another” (Luke xix. 43, 44). Now, that the
event completely answered to these plain predictions, is
evident from their own historian, who doth expressly sayſ
“Titus having commanded his soldiers to dig up the city and
the temple, this was so fullydone, by levelling the whole com-
pass of the city, except three towers, that they who came to
see it were persuaded it never would be built again.” The
same historian'ſ informs us, that when Vespasian besieged
Jerusalem, his army “compassed the city round about, and
kept them in on every side ’’ and though it was judged a
great and almost impracticable work, to compass the whole
city with a wall, “yet Titus animating his soldiers to attempt
it, they in three days built a wall of thirty-nine furlongs,
having thirteen castles on it ; and so cut off all hopes that
any of the Jews within the city should escape.”
Thirdly, Whereas our Saviour saith, “Jerusalem shall be
trodden down, ºratovº, #yn, possessed,” and trodden by the
feet of the gentiles, this so exactly came to pass, that Wes-
pasian,” (1.) commands the whole land of Judea to be sold
* Tºphzo row way tºy wai º Séxoval, lib. vii. cap. 10, p.
949, G. 990, A. Karaśćey Trêts anxiaº row #yov, cap. 24,
p. 957, tº Triº aftswiſely, cap. 26, p. 958, A,B,C,D.
f'o ºfty ośw yač; otro; &zovros Kairago; #pºrtreſitat, cap. 26
ſº * * * * & v 7 y * . f y 3.
p: 958, F. Os3; #4 Os3; air㺠iráys, weri, ‘Popcatov wasápotov
airſ, Trúg, cap. 8, p. 948, F.
f Mark xiv. 58. xv. 29. Acts vi. 13. xxi. 28. xxiv. 6.
§ Kai ºvoy oix Biazvray śiri rºy way £248voy trip, lib. vi.
cap. 27, p. 933, B. Aap,8áyoval 3' ai přáyec à Tây oix slay rhy
ãºv was rºw airiay, lib. vii. cap. 26, p. 957, E. -
| Töv 33 &axoy &ravra rā; tróago; repifloxov offroy, £owáxtray
of zarazzá wrovts;, &; ºzºs Trömore oianéâyat Tri-ry &y Éri
wrapazygły roſ; TrºozåSojo', lib. vii. cap. 1, p. 970, B, C.
*|| Tov; 33 ottro rà 'Pop.aiwy peovojvºra; ºpysy % cºparia travra-
3:388, Thy Tràxty trepiéxova'a, lib. v. cap. 27, p. 893, B. IIset-
*::::::::v Šany rév táxty pºéya kai 3vahvvroy tº #yoy, lib. vi. cap.
31, p. 936, F. Tà ºfty cºy rºo; two, 3Åoyroº reacapáacyra ara-
&iwy hy—rpiai 3 ºzołopºn tº Tráv #4,#eat;. Ibid. p. 937, B.
** IIāraw yńy &robárğa rāv 'lověaiwy, lib. vii. cap. 27, p.
983. º
to those gentiles that would buy it; and (2) Hadrian,"
about sixty-three years after, makes a law “that no Jew
should come into the region round about Jerusalem,” as
Aristo Pellaeus, who was himself a Jew, and flourished in
the times of Hadrian, relates: thus, saith Eusebius, it came
to pass, that the “Jews being banished thence, and there
being a conflux thither &AAopúxov yáyovº, of aliens, it became
a city and colony of the Romans, and was in honour of the
emperor named Ælia.” (3.) Jerusalem, saith Christ, shal.
be thus trodden down, or subject to the gentiles, “till the
time of the gentiles be fulfilled ;” that is, till, by conversion.
of the Jews unto the Christian faith, the fulness of the
gentiles, to be converted to it, should come in with them ;
“for blindness” saith the apostle “hath happened to the
Jews, till rahºok, a råy #9929, the fulness of the gentiles shall
come in, and then all Israel shall be saved” (Rom. xi. 25.
26), and with them also the yet heathen gentiles ; “for if "
saith he (ver. 15) “the casting away of the Jews was the
reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them
be to it, but even life for the dead?” And again, “if the
fall of them were the riches of the world” (ver. 12), “and
the diminishing of them the riches of the gentiles, how
much more shall their fulness be * the fulness of the gen-
tiles 2 Now here it is especially observable, that Julian the
Apostate, designing to defeat this prophecy of Christ, re-
solved on the rebuilding of the city and temple of Jerusa-
lem in its old station, which was till his time left in its
ruins, AElia being built without the circuit of it; for in his
epistlet to the community of the Jews, he writes thus,
“The holy city of Jerusalem, which you have so long de-
sired to see inhabited, rebuilding by my own labours, I will
dwell in.” This he began with an endeavour to build that
temple, in which alone the Jews would offer up their prayers
and sacrifices, but the immediate hand of Providence soon
forced the workmen to desist from that unhappy enterprise.
Ammianus Marcellinus, Š a heathen, who lived in those very
times, gives us the story thus, That “Julian endeavoured
to rebuild the temple at Jerusalem with vast expenses, and
gave it in charge to Alypius of Antioch to hasten the work,
and to the rector of the province to assist him in it ; in
which work, when Alypius was earnestly employed, and the
rector of the province was assisting, terrible balls of flames
bursting forth near the foundations, with frequent insults,
and burning divers times the workmen, rendered the place
inaccessible ; and thus the fire obstinately repelling them,
the work ceased.” The story is very signal and remarkable
for many circumstances; as, V. g.
1. The persons that relate it—Ammianus Marcellinus, a
heathen, Zemuch David, a Jew, who confesseth that Ju-
lian was divinitàs impeditus, “hindered by God,” in this
attempt : Nazianzen and Chrysostom among the Greeks, St.
Ambrose and Ruffinus among the Latins, who flourished at
the very time when this was done: Theodoret, and Sozomen,
orthodox historians, Philostorgius, an Arian, Socrates, a
favourer of the Novatians, who writ the story within the
space of fifty years after the thing was done, and whilst the
eye-witnesses of the fact were yet surviving.
2. The time when it was performed, not in the reign of
Christian emperors, but of the most bitter enemies of Christ-
ians, when they were forced to hide, and had not liberty of
speaking for themselves. Observe,
3. With what confidence the Christians urge the matter
of fact against the Jews, as a convincing demonstration of
the expiration of their legal worship, and of the certainty of
* IIāvāśyo; # #xeiyou zai rā; wsti rā ‘Iepozáavºwa yā; arápa way
#m-9aively eleyera. Euseb. H. Eccl. lib. xxi. cap. 6.
+ Hist. Eccl. lib. iv. cap. 6. t
f Töv in Troxxây Éröy Ériðupwovºzáyny wag' tºy, oikovſzávny
wów &yiav ‘Ispova'axºp, #40ſ; Rapzárol; āyolkočopchaac oixào.o.
'Iověaiwy tº Koivº. Ep. 25.
§ Ambitiosum quoddam templum apud Hierosolymam
Sumptibus immodicis instaurare cogitabat, negotiumque ma-
turandum Alypio dederat Antiochensi ; clim itaque rei idem
fortitër instaret Alypius, juvaretque provincia rector, metu-
endi globi flammarum prope fundamenta crebris insultibus
erumpentes, locum, exustis aliquoties operantibus, inacces-
sum fecere, hēcque modo, elemento obstinatius repellente,
| cessavit inceptum,_lib. xxiii. ab initio.
THE GENERAL PREFACE.
21
the Christian faith against the heathen philosophers, inquir-
ing,” “what the wise men of the world can say to these
things;” and against the emperor Theodosius,t to deter him
from requiring them to rebuild the synagogue, which had
been lately burnt by a Christian bishop.
4. And, lastly, the unquestionable evidence of the thing.
This, say the Christians,f “all men freely do believe and
speak of, it is in the mouths of all men, and is not denied
even by the atheists themselves; and if it seem yet incredible
to any one, he may repair for the truth of it both to wit-
nesses of it yet living, and to them who have heard it from
their mouths; yea, they may view the foundations lying
still bare and naked ; and if you ask the reason, you will
meet with no other account besides that which I have given ;
and of this all we Christians are witnesses, these things being
done not long since in our own time.” So St. Chrysostom.
Thirdly, Our blessed Lord is as express and circumstan-
tial in the prediction of the miseries which should befall that
sinful nation. For,
1. He in the general foretells that their calamities shall
be so great as to admit no parallel ; “There shall be,” saith
he, “great tribulation, such as never happened from the be-
ginning of the world to this (present) time " (Matt. xxiv.
21). Which words || Josephus seems to have transcribed,
when he saith that “never any nation was more wicked, pºre
ºróaw &MAny rotaira Tremov3ával, nor ever did a city suffer as
they did.” He was no stranger to the history of the destruc-
tion of the old world by water, or of Sodom and Gomorrah
by fire from heaven, or to the sufferings of his own nation
under Antiochus Epiphanes, and yet he scruples not to say,
that’ſ “all the miseries which all mankind had suffered from
the beginning of the world, were not to be compared with
those the Jewish nation did them suffer.”
2. Our Saviour adds, that in those days “the sun shall be
darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the
stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers of heaven shall
be shaken" (Mark xiii. 14). These, I confess, are meta-
phorical expressions, occurring often in the prophets, but
still in the same sense; viz, to signify an utter desolation,
and terrible havoc and destruction brought upon a nation :
for in this language the prophet Isaiah speaks of the destruc-
tion of Babylon, saying (xiii. 9, 10), “The day of the
Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay
the land desolate ; and he shall destroy the sinners thereof
out of it: for the stars of heaven and the constellations
thereof shall not give their light, the sun shall be darkened
in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to
shine:” of the destruction of Idumea he speaks thus (xxxiv.
3. 5), “The indignation of the Lord is upon all nations, he
hath utterly destroyed them, he hath delivered them to the
Slaughter, the mountains shall be melted with their blood,
and all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heaven
shall be rolled together as a scroll; and all their host shall
fall down as the leaf falleth from the vine;” the destruction of
* "Ert oy &ºpiagnºreſ;, & Iow8aſe, zai rºy &rd rāg roi, Xgia-
Tºweviñºsº, Kai Tây &rd rā; rāy ºrpayuáray &roësižew; ºag-
*** **, *āv karaºnºbićoºvny ; Chrys. Hom. 2 in Jud. tom.
V.P. 385, et Hom. 60, p. 639. Tipá, rajra at ºccury of
aiºvoº roº rotºrov aroqol ; Nazianz. Stelit. p. 83.
f Non audisti, imperator quia câm jussisset Julianus re-
Parari templum Hierosolymis, quéd divino, qui faciebant
repagulum, Igne conflagrárunt? Epist. lib. v. epist. 29.
2 f Tº OUV wipiérrow Trāa, Batºo, kai oièë roſ. 36:21; atroſ;
******* *śćovićxºa, Soz. p. 81. "o 3; #wavre; ;3, gai
Aiyoval, zai tria-redova'iy, p. 83. Kai rotºro trº, Trávray &3e3;
Aiyera, kai, tieriºral, kai trap' otºevé, épºqić&AAgtai Taijira
ore rigºra ow karºairfra, Triateſ a 60-ow of Trag& rày Seaca-
f***, *, *, *č 8tº Tsºtºyºs, ºria roºsogay 3; was
- lovºaia, wai "Exxovic #xtrexé; 13 #yov kataxiarovre;. Soz.
Hist. Eccl., lib. V. cap. 22, p. 632, D.633, B.
§ Kai yüv #&y #A$fic si; 'ligozāvaa, yvøvå. 5 Jet r& Septéxta'
zāv tºy airíay Čnthaeis, où'ěepatay &AX'? ºraúrny &xoča etc. xai roſtov
*érves, lºsſ, Trávre;’ #4, #235, Yāg oil ºrgö Trox\ot raira yáyoys
XP%u. Chrys, adv. Jud. Orat. 2, p. 334.
| Lib. vi. cap. 27, p. 933, B.
‘ſ Tà yody ºrávrov &w’ atºvo; &ruxſiºara Trp), rà. 'Iovězíay
**śadai fºot 302s; Karā a ſynetcy. Proleg, ad Dell. Jud. p.
706, D.
Egypt is represented by Ezekiel in these words (xxxii. 7, 8),
“I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark ;
I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not
give her light, and the bright lights of heaven will I make
dark over thee:” this therefore (saith Maimonides”) is a
proverbial expression, “importing the destruction and utter
ruin of a nation.” “The sun darkened or turned into
blood, and the stars falling, or disappearing” saith Artemi-
dorus,f “import the destruction of many people.” Now in
this sense it is almost incredible which their historian relates
of the destruction of the Jews ; for he informs us that
“eleven hundred thousand perished in that siege;”; and it
is still more incredible which their Talmud and other Jew-
ish writers mention of this slaughter, which Hadrian's; army
made of them fifty-two years after, when they rebelled
under Barchochebas, and were besieged in the city Bitter,
the most modest computation being quatuor mille myriadas,
and the most extravagant, octoginta mille myriadas. And
yet our Saviour having farther said, that “wherever the car-
case was,” i. e. the nation of the Jews, rejected now and
loathed by God as a dead carcase, “there would the eagles,”
i. e. the Roman army, “be gathered together,” to prey upon
them (Matt. xxiv. 28. Luke xvii. 37); they were accordingly
harassed and destroyed throughout the Roman empire ;
when, saith Josephus, the Romans had no enemies left in
Judea, “the sense and danger reached, aroxxoſ, was rāv čno-
ºráto Karoixoſyrov, to many of them living the remotest from
it ;” for many of them perished at Alexandria,] at Cyrene,
and in other cities of Syria; in a word, Eleazar'ſ in Jose-
phus, having reckoned many places where they were cruelly
slaughtered, concludes thus, ºxazºv &y sin vöy isſº regi #zázroy
A#ysiv, “it would be too long to speak of all these places in
particular.”
Again our Saviour adds, that “they should be led captives
into all nations” (Luke xxi. 24); accordingly Josephus”
doth inform us, that “the number of their captives was
ninety-seven thousand,” that of them “Titus sent many to
Egypt, and most of them he dispersed into the Roman pro-
vinces,” and so exactly fulfilled this prediction.
Fourthly, Our Lord foretells the “many signs" preced-
ing this destruction, declaring that there should be poën'rgé,
“fearful events, or sights, earthquakes, and signs from hea-
ven’’ (Luke xxi. 11). Now to omit the frequent earth-
quakes which happened in other places in the times of Clau-
dius and Nero, Josephus tt doth inform us, that there hap-
pened in Judea and Jerusalem, “an immense tempest and
vehement winds, with rain, and frequent lightnings, and
dreadful thundering, and extreme roarings of the quaking
earth, which manifested to all, that the world was disturbed
at the destruction of men,” and that these prodigies por-
tended no small mischiefs. Josephusff has a select chapter
of the manifest signs of their approaching desolation, which
Tacitus, Š a Roman historian of that age, doth almost thus
* Quandú vaticinatur Esaias de gentis alicujus destructione,
vel de populi alicujus magni interità, ait stellas cecidisse,
coelos interiisse, et contremiscere solem obscuratum, terram
vastatam et commotam esse. More Nevoch. p. 265, 266.
t"HAio; 3%avpd; } tºpaipºo;-zata trial roºts; Étri yiv of &ztége;
Oneirocrit. lib. i.
# & pavić, Eyot woxxây 8x86;oy £zaytºcytai.
cap. 36.
f Tây 33 &noxxvºyoy Karā Trázav rāy woxicºxiay ºv;1482; Éza-
toy kai 3&a, lib. vii, cap. 45, p. 968, D.
§ Buxt. in voce Bitter.
| Lib. vii. cap. 36, p. 99, A. et cap. 37, ibid. cap. 38, p. 996.
*|| Cap. 34. p. 992. -
** Toj Šá Xotºrº, TXà00w, robº tirée à7taxaibeza #~n 3:1-ac
#aréºle eiç rà itar" Aiyêºrtov šeya, wasia rov; 33 eic rā; #745×iz;
3,880gha-aro Tºroº, lib. vii, cap. 44, 45, p. 968, C, D.
tf Kai a vexeſ; 3rrearrai, 3rowtai re ºppºzáček, xa, Kavkhºza re.
Tā; yº; a stoºzåyn; £aizia. II: 33% Nov 3’?v #7 &v63%trov &#886, to
zaráq-rmøa rāy $xov avynszugzévoy Kai oix; fºot tº &y sizéca.
avººrzówatc; tā régara, lib. iv. cap. 17, p. 881, A, B.
#: Lib. vii. cap. 31.
§§ Evenerant prodigia, visae per coelum concurrere acies, ru-
tilantia arma, et subito nubium igne colluccre templum, ex-
passae repenté delubri fores, et audita major humaná vox
excedere Deos, et simulingcus motus excedentium. Hist. lib.
v. p 621.
22
THE GENERAL PREFACE.
epitomise ; “Armies seemed to meet in the clouds, and
glittering weapons were there seen ; the temple seemed to
be in a flame, with fire issuing from the clouds, and a divine
voice was heard, that the Deity was quitting the place, and
a great motion as of his departing:” these seem plain tokens
of God's departing from them, of the burning of the temple,
and their own desolation by the Roman army. Josephus
adds what Tacitus doth also touch upon, that the great gate
of the temple, which twenty men could scarcely shut, and
which was made fast with bolts and bars, was seen abrog&ra',
&v=&yºyn, “to open of its own accord, to let in their ene-
mies ;” for so their wise men construed the omen, saith
Josephus. He farther saith,” a sword seemed to hang over
the city, and a comet with its fiery tail pointed down upon
it for a whole year, which plainly seemed to portend their
ruin by the sword. And that: “before the sun went down,
there were seen in the clouds armies in battle array, and
chariots compassing the country, and investing the cities; a
thing so strange ’’ saith he, “that it would pass for a fable,
were there not still men living to attest it:” so expressly
have we an account of the fearful sights, and signs from hea-
ven, mentioned by our Lord, and of the “sign of the Son
of man coming in the clouds of heaven, pºst& 8vvápago; zai
Šážnç, with a glorious host, or with power and glory ;” ac-
cording to our Lord's prediction, Matt. xxiv. 30.
Secondly, Our Lord proceeds to say, that “false Christs
and false prophets should arise, and that many should come
in his name, saying, I am Christ, and should deceive many”
(Matt. xxiv. 5, 11. Mark xiii. 6. 21, 22. Luke xxi. 8).
“False Christs” are they who falsely would pretend to be
the Christ or the Messiah promised to the Jews: now such
were, l. Simon Magus, who declared that he was the per-
son who among the Jews “appeared as the son of God, and
was conceived to have suffered in Judea ; and § he prevailed
for a time to deceive some with his magical operations.”
2. Dositheus, contemporary with him, who said “he was
the Christ foretold by Moses, and the son of God, and he
also found disciples;” and is by Origen reckoned among
them who performed wonderful things: from these, saith
Hegesippus, came false Christs and false prophets: there
arose, Saith Hippolytus, ‘ſ “ some saying, I am Christ, as
Simon Magus, and the rest, whose names I have not time to
reckon up :” and these all, saith Irenaeus,” magias perfi-
ciunt, exorcismis et incantationibus utuntur, “use magical
operations, exorcisms, and incantations.” Our Lord also
foretold of another that should “come in his own name.”
(John V. 43); that is, without authority from God, and be
received by the Jews as their Messiah: accordingly Barcho-
cheba did actually thus come, as appears both from the event
and destruction of him and his followers by Hadrian's army;
and by the confession of the Jews, who when they found
themselves deceived by him, called him Bar Choziba, the
“son of a lie.” And that he was generally received by
them, we learn from their own histories, declaring that their
great R. Akiba, who had twenty-four thousand disciples,
*"Yºri: Tây Tàiv Šargoy farm Åop, paiz ragatahatoy, Kai raga-
Tsiya; ºr viavriy Kopańrnº, lib. vii. cap. 13.
t Héð yā; #Aſov 30aio; &#6m agréopa Traçã argcay rºw x&gay,
#3%ata zai pâxayye; votract 347tevaai rāy yépov, wai xuxXov.
£, #vat të; Tráxetº, ibid. p. 990, G.
# Simon Samarites—universam magiam ampliès inscrutans
ita ut in stuporem cogeret multos hominum—docuit seipsum
esse qui inter Judaeos quidem quasi Filius adparuerit—pas-
sum autem in Judaeis putatum, clim non esset passus. Iraen.
lib. i. cap. 20. y
§ Kai Társ wév #7rátna's. Orig. contr. Celsum, lib. i. p. 44.
| Sizov rá zazaggiº Máyo; zai Aocłęso:-3 &#y #4 acrºsy
airby sivat 8%wapºw @Eoiſ, rºy taxovskávny ºxey&Amy, & 33 ×ai airrö,
vºc Toi Gazú, lib. vi. p. 282. "Oti airó; sin à Trpopnirguépcevo;
trö Mózsa, Xºta rºc, zai #39;s rivoy rā āavrot, 3.8aa waxiº xe-
xpatrizéval, lib. i. cap. 14. Habentes in se etiam quasdam
virtutes mirandas. Hom. 27. in Matt. f. 52, G. 'Atri, toº-
Tov Jevđxétarot zai Jevāorpoºpiiral, Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. iv.
cap. 22.
“I’Aviarnºśy rive; Xéyovreć, Šy& £iat à Xptatic, waſ 3; 3
zipcov & Máyoc, Kai o Aoimoi. De Consum. Mundi.
* Lib. i. cap. 20.
said, at the sight of him, “Behold, this is the Messiah ;”
and that then the Jews in the city Bitter crowned him,
and chose him for their king, and shook off the Roman go-
vernment, killing an innumerable multitude of Greeks and
Romans, in Egypt, Alexandria, Cyprus, and thereabouts;
until Trajan sent Hadrian against them, who slew more of
them, say they, than Titus had done in the preceding wars
(see Buxtorf in voce Bar Choziba)
As for the false prophets” Josephus tells us of an “Egyp-
tian false prophet and magician, who gathered together about
thirty thousand of the Jews, whom he had deceived;” and
of one “Theudas a magician, who, declaring himself a pro-
phet, deceived many ;” of another prophet, f “who bid
them go into the temple, where God would show them ma-
nifest signs of a deliverance ; adding, that there were then
Troxxoi Trgopitat, “many prophets, who taught them even to
the last to expect help from God.” Our Saviour had fore-
told, that they should then say, “Behold, he is in the de-
sert” (Matt. xxiv. 26) : pointing to the very place where
these false Christs and prophets should appear; or whither
they should lead their followers. Accordingly, Josephus;
saith, “that many impostors and magicians persuaded the
people to follow them into the wilderness, where they pro-
mised to show them manifest signs and wonders done by
God ;" pretending a divine impulse, and promising deliver-
ance from evils, if they would follow them into the wilder-
IlêSS.
Thirdly, Our Lord foretells, that his gospel should be first
preached throughout the world, i. e. throughout the Roman
empire, styled oizoup, Éyn, or in all places whither the Jews
were dispersed ; for, saith he, “The gospel of this kingdom
shall be first preached in all the world for a witness to all
nations, and then shall the end come” (Matt. xxiv. 14).
Accordingly St. Paul declares of them, who preached the
gospel of peace, that “their sound had gone forth into all
the earth” (Rom. x. 18), “and their words, ei, Trégata rāg.
oizovºzávnº, to the ends of the earth.” He tells the church
of Rome, that “their faith was spoken of throughout the
whole world” (Rom. i. 8), the church of Colosse, that
“ the truth of the gospel was come, not to them only, but to
all the world, and preached to every creature” (i. 6. 23).
St. Clemens,] who was bishop of Rome in the twelfth year
of Domitian, saith, “That the nations beyond the ocean
were governed, raig #7 itayaſ; rod AEarátov, by the precepts
of the Lord.” Origen'ſ speaks of the Christians as of a na
tion “born all at once.” Eusebius” saith, “The word of God
shone suddenly upon the world as a ray of the sun, and was
on that account styled by the very heathens, # *garova'a
38.23%, tº the prevailing doctrine ;” and the Christians, by
Julian the apostate, are styled oi ngaroºvres, “the prevailing
sect” (Misopog. p. 99).
Fourthly, He mentions the especial care he would then
have of his own faithful servants, declaring, that “they whº
endured to the end should be saved” (Matt. xxiv. 13), and
that “not one hair of their heads should perish” (Luke xxi.
11); i. e. that none of them should be involved in that
ruin, which was to come upon the unbelieving Jews: ac-
* Iſsei reta'ºzuelov; ºfty &6poićst rāv hiratnºśvoy, lib. ii. cap
23, p. 797, A. Ant. lib. XX, cap. 6. - -
+Tórs rig &v%p Osw82; āvágar. Troxxotic hºrárnorsy, 780%rn; 734
#xeyev gºat. Antiq. lib xx. cap. 2, p. 689, G. 690, A. *
# wav$orpoºrn; rig zaría tº zar’ i.eivny xngiºa; thy ºper
&c & 953; #mri ră ispy &vaÉval xexei's 3:#oºivov; tā; a wºrngias. De
Bello Jud. lib. vii. cap. 30. p. 960, A, 13. -
§ of 33 yánºrs; wai &rarrávec àv%20rol roy 3xxoy #"reiðoy airdſ;
s: rºw ignºxiay £irecóat Saiéew yap pagay Évapyń répara, ka;
a masſa zará rày roi; Oscil ºrgévolay yºvopºva. Antiq. lib. xx,
cap. 6, p. 960, E. IIgoexhºwati Betacºoſ &alp.orgy tº TAñ82:
&váreiðoy wai argoňyov six rºw #pnºziav. De Bello Jud. lib. ii.
cap. 23, p. 796, G. Ei £ovånösſey Émea Gai gºexpi tā; #nat4.
aúró. Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 7, p. 697, B.
| Ep. ad Cor. Sect. 20.
"I Të zará rày 3666ay yśvariv flyov, Xgtottavºv &rrepti rex0áy-
to; eta àºrać. In Celsum, lib. viii. p. 405.
** oiá ºrt, #xiou Čoxh rºy a wrazay oizovºyny 3 20thgto:
warnóyağs Aáyog. Hist. Eccl. ſib. ii. cap. 3.
++ Praep. Evang, lib. ix. cap. 10.
THE GENERAL PREFACE.
23
cordingly, Eusebius" and Epiphanius+ have left it upon re-
cord, that “before the beginning of the war, when the city
was ready to be taken, the disciples of our Lord were ad-
monished by an angel, or by an oracle, to depart from the
city, and to fly beyond Jordan, to the city Pella, in the re-
gion of Perea, where they were preserved.” This refers to
the time when Cestius came to Jerusalem, and took the
lower city, and, saith Josephus, “might have taken the up-
per city, and have presently put an end to the war;” and
so punctually agrees with our Lord’s premonition, “When
you see Jerusalem compassed about with armies, and the
abomination of desolation standing where it ought not (viz.
in the holy city), then let them that are in Judea flee to the
mountains” (Matt. xxiv. 15. Mark xiii. 14. Luke xxi. 20,
21). But that the Christians might have time to fly and be
preserved, he suddenly quits the siege without any visible
cause, and so gives the Christians leave to depart: and even
Josephusf notes, that “then many fled out of the city as
from a sinking ship ;” and, of that number, doubtless the
Christians made a part. That they then fled into the moun-
tains, may also be observed from Josephus; for of Perea,
whither they are said to fly, he saith, that it was pnao, kai
***Xºſa tº TAšov, Š “mostly mountainous and a desert;”
and, being beyond Jordan, and under the government of
king Agrippa, was free from war.
Lastly, Our Saviour fixed the period of time within which
all these things should happen, in ‘these words, “Verily I
say unto you, this generation shall not pass away until all
these things be fulfilled” (Matt. xxiv. 34). Accordingly, they
were all fulfilled within forty-two years after they had been
spoken. In fine, he hath specified the very reason why all
these things should come upon Jerusalem; viz. because “she
knew not the time of her visitation, and the things which did
belong unto her peace” (Luke xix. 42. 44): “because she
killed the prophets, and stoned them that were sent unto
her” (xiii. 34): “because they killed the Son of God”
º: XX: 38). This hath been gathered by the primitive
thers; First, From the continuation of this desolation, by
which wrath seemeth “to be come upon them to the utter-
most :” for whereas they wandered in the wilderness but
forty years, and their captivity in Babylon continued but se-
Venty years, since the rejection of our Jesus, they have been
Visibly cast off by God for sixteen hundred years and up-
Wards. Secondly, From the nature of the punishments they
suffered; for God having so long time laid waste that tem-
ple to which their worship was confined, and was the place
in which he dwelt among them, and from which he blessed
them, and so deprived them of those sacrifices by which
they made atonement for their sins, and were purified from
their uncleanness, and banished them out of the land of pro-
mise, hath by these dispensations fully shown, that he no
longer doth allow that way of worship, which was confined
to that nation and that temple. Thirdly, From the conse-
quences of these judgments, and from their ignorance of
*ny time of respite and deliverance from them. For God
by his prophets was pleased to forctell the measure and du-
ration of their former judgments, and when they should give
place to mercy; that their Egyptian thraldom should expire
† two hundred and fifteen years after their going down to
Egypt ; that after Seventy years they should return from
Babylon, that three years and a half would work deliver-
ance from the more cruel fury of Antiochus Epiphanes; but
of their deliverance from the calamities they now lie
----—'.- -
+% 27, * . . . * *
Toº Tº .. toy sy lºgo; #xxxnciaç war& riva xºnokºv
ois avior. *ois * 3roxazºleo, 30%, ra Trp) rot Troxéºov
airavagawa ric rºtºs wai riva rā; IIEgaia ; ºróaw cizeſy zExa-
*** Tºay city vokégovºy. £useb. Hist. Eccl. lib.
lii. Cap. 5. :-
*LI.,ſ. K y t ſe ºf ~ * t *g * ,
*F Hvíza. yā; seeae, * Trºts &AiazaaSat 573 rºw Powaiov,
ºxºgatiºnaay Jºro ayyimov Trávºre; ci gaffntal Azercia'rºyal
*** * *****, ***Noton; 3p}ny àràAva.0a of rive; wai
g ** 2 * * &
tº ravaara, zºol (9&nzav čv IIÉNAn ºr; Traoysygºpºp, 8vn Tróast
*** ** Tºpčávov. - Epiph. de Mens. &t Boná. Š. 15, et de
Haer. Nazaren. § 7.
xt *. *
ū Hôn 3; woxxo: Stºßearxcy 3r; +5
aúrixa. De Bello Jºd. lib. ii. c. t * ſ
). 821. F. “Q * n, cap. 39, 40, C, D cap. 40,
P. ºl, I.'Qairsp tº 8attºog #yn; vs.
Ś Lib. iii, cap. 4, p. 833, B.
• Tréagog & &Awaropºwn;
under, by any other way than that of turning to the Lord,
there is no word of prophecy. In a word they are utterly
deprived of their Shechinah, their prophets, and all the
other tokens of God's peculiar presence with them ; after
this sin, God did entirely desert them, and transfer his Holy
Spirit, his prophets, his revelations, his miracles, to those
assemblies which embraced that Jesus as their saviour,
whom they had wickedly condemned as an impostor; which
shows their church and temple were destroyed to give place
to Christianity. Moreover, that, after their rejecting our
Messiah, they were by God appointed to destruction, they
who were the great promoters, or were eye-witnesses of
the war, which brought upon them these calamities, were
forced to confess. Eleazar” one of their great captains,
declared, that “God had established this decree against
them, that they should not live;” that he had laid a necessity
upon them, that they should die, and that they might not
only conjecture, but even know, by what they suffered, that
God had condemned his once beloved nation to destruction.
Josephus’i is frequent in this observation: when Cestius bes
sieged them, “he might have taken the city,” saith he, “ and
put an end to the war, but that 31& row; Troyngow; &Traargaºzé-
vo; 5 Os3;, God, being angry with them for the wicked, hin-
dered it.” When he was pèrsuading them to yield to the
Romans, he concludes thus :: “Why do I persuade them
against their fate, koi Toig iro Ogot, 8tášop, at Karangirov;
a 66ey, and strive to save them, who are condemned of God 2
for, who knows not the writings of the old prophets, kai rºw
#Triášároyra rā āehºovi ºrós, 3:Angºv ºn yearāra, and the
oracle impendent on the miserable city, to be instant 2
Os3; #pa Gsäç airāg #74 yet, God, even God himself, brings
upon them this purging fire, and with it burns up the city
so full of wickedness:$ God” saith he “had condemned
their city to the fire; they attended not” saith he “nor
gave creditſ roi; #vaeyāct, was ºrpornºwaivovat rºy ºzáxxova'av
#ngiaw régaaw, to the manifest signs portending their future
desolation ;” and he brings in Titus speaking to his sol-
diers thus ;” that “God favoured them in the war against
the Jews;” their famine, sedition, and the fall of their wal's
without any machine, being nothing else but Ogoû gºvts, “a
demonstration of the wrath of God against them.” Now.
our Lord having so expressly said, that God would “mi-
serably destroy those husbandmen, for casting his Son out of
the vineyard, and slaying him” (Matt. xxi. 37–42); and
that the guilt of the blood of all his prophets, from righteous
“Abel to that generation, should be charged upon them, be-
cause they would persecute and kill those apostles, pro-
phets, and wise men he would send unto them, and so fill
up the measure of their sins” (Matt. xxiii. 32–36), we
Christians cannot doubt, but that these dreadful judgments
came upon them on this account.
This also may be farther argued from the exactness of the
parallel betwixt the punishments which they inflicted on the
holy Jesus, and those they after suffered for so doing; and
betwixt the crimes, for which they did condemn our blessed
Lord, and those which they themselves were after guilty of,
and for which tremendous judgments fell upon them. For,
1. Whereas they by their clamours to Pontius Pilate
“crucified the Lord of life,” they, many of them, perished by
the same kind of death ; for many Jews of the equestrian
order, and of Roman dignity, were treated thus by Florus,”
saith their own historian ; and “Titus crucified so many of
them, that he at last could find no more crosses for their
bodies.”
2. They crucified him at the feast of the Passover; and,
being the true paschal Lamb, he expired at the very hour
when the paschal lamb was to be slain; but then their own
Josephusri hath observed, that “at that very feast the whole
—3.
* Joseph. de Bell. Jud. lib. vii. p. 992,993.
+ Lib. ii. cap. 29, p. 280. : Lib. vii. cap. 8, p. 948.
§ Ibid. cap. 26. | Cap. 30. * Ibid. cap. 4.
* @Xàto, äréxanasy &yºga; irrºrizoö täygato, &azrºyº at 7:3
toū 3%zato, zai &ravpá ºrpoon? Ga'at, lib. ii, cap. 25. Kai Stå rà
Traß00; X&pa rs iversitrero toſ; a ravč6%, zai atavpoi toº; adºpca-
cly, lib. vi. cap. 12. Sub Felice rôy âyza Taupnºëvrov &m'sigáv
art ºrx;60; $v, lib. i. cap. 23. -
++ Tórs y gāy &ree six tigativ tº riſ, sixagºns träy avy-
24
THE GENERAL PREFACE.
nation was enclosed in Jerusalem, and that the war com-
passed the city when it was thus stuffed with men, and so
the slaughter of them became incredibly great. God's pro-
vidence,” which he styles fate, “so ordering matters,” saith
Eusebius,” “that at that time, when they had crucified the
holy Jesus, they, being shut up all as in one prison, should
receive the punishment of that iniquity.”
3. They not only chose a thief, a murderer, and a seditious
person, before Christ, but also crucified him “between two
thieves; and many of them,” saith Josephus, “were misera-
bly harassed and destroyed by the Ana'rgixõy rāyaa, F band
of thieves which rose up among them.” And when Felix
had destroyed these thieves, then, saith he, “there sprang
up among them ärsgow stºo; Anaröy, another kind of thieves,
called the Sicarii, who slew many of their fellow Jews at
broad day, in the middle of the city, and especially at the
feasts;” and these thieves also were seditious as well as
murderers, “threatening death to them who obeyed the Ro-
mans;” and of them one Jesus was the leader.
4. They condemned our Lord “as worthy to die" (Mark
xiv. 64), and they themselves were forced to confess, that
“God had condemned their whole nation to death,” as hath
been proved before.
5. They say of Christ, “We have a law, and by our law
he ought to die” (John xix. 7), and they were so infatuated
as to conceive, that “by their law they ought to die rather
than yield to the Romans.” Josephus; doth himself confess
it, saying to Vespasian, “I am not ignorant of the Jewish
law, kai m㺠argarmyoſ, 3708who key trºëtrol, and how our com-
manders ought to die;” and when he refused to die with his
companions, they cry out, 'Q rátēto: várzoi S. What is now
become of our laws 2° Eleazar exhorting them to kill them-
selves rather than fall into the hands of the Romans, cries
out, Taü6’ hºcã; oi yéºot KEAEſova”, “Our laws command us to
do this.”
6. They condemned him as an enemy to Caesar, and they
themselves all perished for that crime; for Josephus, speaking
of the sect of Judas Gaulonites, who allowed £wóvoy hyłºwoya
kai 380 ºrétny Geov, and chose rather to die than acknowledge
Caesar, he saith," “they laid the foundation of all the cala-
mities which fell upon their nation ;” they indeed instigated
the people, and even forced them to that war by which they
were destroyed. -
7. They condemned him as “a false prophet, and a
deceiver of the people;” and their own”. Josephus often testi-
fies, that their “false prophets and deceivers” were the very
causes of their ruin.
8. They laid their accusations against him and his fol-
lowers, as persons who “profaned,” and who designed to
“destroy’ their temple; and they themselves, as hath been
shown already, first horribly profaned it with the blood of
Jews and gentiles, and then forced the Romans to destroy
it ; they “hastened the slow fire,” saith Josephus, “and
even drew it to the temple.” •
9. They thought it expedient he should be put to death,
“lest the Romans should come and take away their place
and nation ;” and this expedient brought upon them those
very Romans who took away their temple and their city,
sold träzay rivyºv, “their whole land,” saith Josephus, and
would not suffer them so much as to come into Judea, or
to the ruins of Jerusalem. Josephus; doth inform us, that
Exxsizón rê Đvog, kai vazrāy & TráAsºzo; rºy Tréaw invºx&raro.
Trāaay yoºy &6;otriyny Kai Šatºvávoy pºopæy integéâAAst rô ºrxā00;
råy dºroxoxárwy, lib. vii. cap. 45, 46, p. 968, G. 969, A. Wide
lib. ii. cap. 20, p. 794, D.
* Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 5.
+ Lib. ii. cap. 6, p. 760. Ibid. cap. 23, p. 796, E. p.
797, B. lib. iii. cap. 31, p. 857, B. lib. iv. cap. 11, p. 871.
lib. vii. cap. 30, p. 965.
: Lib. iii. cap. 27.
| Lib. vii. cap. 34, p. 993, F.
*| Töy 239;; xaxây Karaxstºpóroy #ića, #4 pursdaayro. Antiq.
lib. xviii. cap. 1. p. 617, B. vide lib. vii. cap. 30, p. 984.
cap. 34, p. 980. cap. 37, p. 995.
* Atriot rā; 37.2xeta;. Lib. vii.
ii. cap. 23, p. 796, G. 797, A, B, C.
++ Lib. vii. cap. 26, 27.
§ Cap. 25. p. 851, F.
cap. 30, p. 960, A. lib.
†† 'º'; Karā Kaºy insivoy &r; ºr: Xºpa; 'ri, airãw &gºes rº, 961, E
“they had a prophecy that one of their country should thert
reign over the whole earth; that this caused many to take
upon them to be kings, and animated the people to that war,
which brought this ruin on their nation.” -
Lastly, They rejected that Jesus, who came with the glad
tidings of salvation to them, and would not hear him preach-
ing the words of life unto them ; and they were forced, about
seven years together, to hear another Jesus sounding forth
continually, oxv%ară ă ºv, “Sad is the omen which I
bring from God unto you.” Josephus, speaking of the
dreadful prodigies, or, as he styles them, ‘rāv toº, Osot; anºvy-
Azárov, “God’s warning of their approaching desolation,”
concludes with this as tº Trávrov 4.0886&regoy the most terrible
of all; that four years before the war, when the city was in
peace and plenty, “one Jesus began at the feast of taberna-
cles to cry, boyā āºr: 'Iseo.ºréxup.a., xai roy vačv, povă ări rév way
Trávra, A voice against Jerusalem and the temple, and against
all the people; and thus he went about the city, crying day
and night, and being whipped, so that his flesh was torn to
the very bones, he neither wept nor begged mercy, but at
every lash cried out,” At, At, Iagozoxépcoic, Woe, woe to Jeru-
salem, the temple, and the people ; and that, crying thus
above seven years, he never waxed hoarse nor weary.”
Whence even Josephus'ſ concludes thus ; “If any man con-.
siders, he will find that God by many ways shows to men
the things which do belong to their peace, especially to our
nation, but that they perish through their own madness and
their wilful sins.” Now hence we learn,
That Christ was certainly a “prophet sent from God,”
even that prophet, who, according to the predictions of all
the Jewish records, was to come into the world: against
many other proofs brought to confirm this truth, the sceptics
of our age object, that they are founded on records made by
the followers of Christ, or the professors of Christianity ; and
so by persons who might be tempted, in honour of their Lord,
and for the credit and advantage of Christianity, to magnify
the things which they related. But here the argument is
almost wholly built upon records and testimonies of Jews
and gentiles, the two great enemies of Christian faith, and so
will not admit of this evasion. Will they then say, as Por-
phyry did of the prophecies of Daniel, Surely the book
was written after the things were done 2 It is manifest front
history, that the three Evangelists, who writ the history of
these predictions of our Lord, were dead before the desolation.
of Jerusalem; which surely is sufficient to exclude that only
refuge they can fly unto.
A
PREFATORY DISCOURSE
CONCERN ING
THE FOUR, GOSPELS IN GENERAL
AND THE
GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW IN PARTICULAR.
CONTENTS.
§. I. The tradition of the church from the beginning of the
second century shows that the gospels, then received, were
only the four gospels which we own. §. II. The other
gospels mentioned in church history do not invalidate, but
rather strengthen, this tradition, they being only mentioned
after these were received, and that as gospels not authen-
tic, not received by the church, or as composed by here-
tics. S. III. Other considerations offered to strengthen
this tradition. Š. IV. That these gospels have been
handed down to future generations uncorrupted in the
substantials of faith and manners. §. W. Concerning the
oixougéync, lib. vii. cap. 31, p. 961, F. Xuxyow; 8aaixsſay 3
xate?; &vÉms:0s, lib. i. p. 705, D. lib. ii. cap. 6, G. Tà è?
Tsia’ay abrow; ºxtata ºrgö; rôy tróaspxoy #v Xpmap.6°, lib. vii. ibid.
* Lib. vii. cap. 31, A, B, C, D. -
‘F Taürá rig woºy eigha'el rôy £2.Év Øey &ySéºtroy Knöökçevoy wai
Traytoia; trºod mºaivovira rô a parépé, yèvet rà corràpia, row; 3' tºr
&voia; Kai Kazāy at 8atgåroy &moxxvpxivov;, lib. vii. cap. 31, p.
*
&
PREFACE TO THE GOSPELS.
25
gospel of St. Matthew it is inquired, whether it was origi-
nally writ by him in Hebrew or in Greek ; reasons to
suspect the tradition, that it was first writ in Hebrew only,
and afterward translated into Greek ; First, From what is
delivered by the chief authors of it. §. VI. Secondly,
From the tradition itself: $. VII. An objection answered.
CoNCERNING the authority of the four gospels,” unques-
tionably owned as sacred scriptures indited by those apostles
and evangelists whose names they bear; and the reason why
they, and they only, have obtained to be received as the
authentic records of what our Saviour did, and spake, let it
be noted,
First, That Irenaeus+ informs us concerning Polycarp,
that he was made bishop of Smyrna by the apostles, and con-
versed with many who had seen the Lord. Now from him
Victor Capuanusf cites a passage, in which we have the
names of these four gospels, as we at present do receive
them, and the beginning of their several gospels.
Secondly, That Justin Martyr,Swho, saith Eusebius, lived
&#7 o' Troxi rāy &rogrów, “not long after the apostles,”
shows that these books were then well known by the name
of gospels, and as such were read by Christians in their as-
semblies every Lord's day; yea, we learn from him that
they were read by Jews, and might be read by heathens;
and that we may not doubt that by “the memoirs of the
apostles, which,” saith he, “we call gospels,” he meant these
four received then in the church, he cites passages out of
every one of them, declaring that they contained the words
of Christ.
. Thirdly, That Irenaeus," in the same century, not only
cites them all by name, but declares that they were “neither
more nor less” received by the church, and that they were
of such authority, that though the heretics of his time com-
plained of their obscurity, depraved them, and lessened their
authority, saying, “they were written in hypocrisy, and in
compliance, with the errors of those to whom they wrote,
and with whom they conversed,” yet durst they not wholly
... 'oeiyāyn; ivºr; Tºdºrº row sic ré Kará Marðafov stayyáxicy,
** ***Anºtaotix:y puxáacov xavčva, wäva ría'a-aga sibiya, abayys.
^* *Priºral, 335 tº y;épov &; iv tragaºag, wa33, regi rāy
Tizzéº, túayyixiº, & Rai ºva &yavričntá šarty iy ºff bră răy
ºfavºr ºnziº roß Osoſ, Eusebii Eccles. Hist. lib. vi. cap.
25, p. 226. Eadem ponit Eusebius inter Tä, wará rày inº-
"izºtikºv tragá80&ly &Amósſ; wai &rAácrovº zai &vapºoyevº, #va;
2.84%, lib. iii, cap. 25, p. 97.
T Adv. Har. lib. iii, cap. 3, ed. Ox. 203.
+ Rationabilitër evangelistie principiis diversis utuntur,
*my is una eademgue evangelizandi eorum probetur inten.
no. Matthäus, ut Hebraeis scribens, genealogiae Christi
ordinem texuit, ut ostenderet ab ea Christum descendisse
Progenie, de quâ eum nasciturum universi prophetae cecine-
ant. Johannes autem ad Ephesum constitutus, qui legem
tanquam ex Gentibus ignorabant, à causa nostrae redem p-
tionis evangelii sumpsit exordium, quae causa ex eo apparet
quod Filium Suum Deus pro nostră salute voluit incarnari.
Lucas Yºrº i Zachariae Sacerdotio incipit, ut ejus filii mira-
* *itatis et tanti praedicatoris officii diviſitatem Christi
*nºbºs declararet; unde et Marcus antiqua prophetici
º * adventum Christi declarat, ut non
i. . antiquitãs prolata ejus * prædicatio probaretur.
*...* Grabii in Irenaeum, p. 205.
§ oi, yèg ******Not #y rot; yivowiyot, ºr’ affrºy broºynºwowed-
*...* **śras stayyáxia cºro. tragé8ozay, Ap. 2, ed. Ox.
. 86, p. 130. Kal *; Tº fixiou Ahyoºn hºg º, x&tx
goalk *** *** ini tº air awáxiwai, ºstal, kai rº,
*ata rāv Āzºo, ; 12 ovyypápºata rāv trgo-
ź. *::::::::::: $ 87. 'Eºol yáp ºre, #yruxsſy attoſ;
º, ºl. P. 227, et Apol. 1, p. 53, vide a seºn iſ:
* Sect. 23, et per totam secundań. A ol. 2
| Hist. Eccles, lib. ii. cap. 13. P
• *::::: est *m circa Evangelia haec firmitas, ut et
. teretici testimonium reddant eis, et ex ipsis egrediens
3. * Conºtur Suam confirmare doctrinam.—
et º: ; º ºdiºn: nobis testimonium, perhibeant
- * firma et Vera est nostrade illis osténtio neque
º . qºm hºc sunt, neque rursts mucion
P" esse Evangelia. Lib. iii, cap. ii, p. 220, col. 2. '
disown them, or deny them to be the writings of those apos-
tles whose names they bore. Moreover, he cites passages
from every chapter of St. Matthew and St. Luke, from four-
teen chapters of St. Mark, and from twenty chapters of
St. John.
Fourthly, That Clemens of Alexandria,” having cited a
passage from the gospel according to the Egyptians, informs
his reader, that “it was not to be found in the four gospels
received by the church.”
Fifthly, that Tatianus, F who flourished in the same cen-
tury, and before Irenaeus, wrote ová pátáy 'rºya xai awayoyāy
‘rāy stayyexíoy, “a catena, or harmony of the gospels,” which
he named, to 31& record.gov, “the gospel gathered out of the
four gospels.” And that the “apostolical constitutions”
name them all, and f command “ that they be read in the
church, the people standing up at the reading of them.”
Sixthly, That these gospels, “being written” saith Irenaeus
“by the will of God, to be the pillars and foundation of the
Christian faith,” the immediate successors of the apostles,
who saith Eusebius,S did great miracles by the assistance
of the Holy Ghost, as they performed the work of evan-
gelists in preaching Christ to those who had not yet heard the
word, made it their business, when they had laid the foun-
dation of that faith among them, rºw ray Seiwy stayyexioly Trapa-
3.869at yeaºy, “to deliver to them in writing the holy gospels.”
Š. II. The mention of other gospels bearing the names of
other apostles, or of gospels used by other nations, is so
far from being derogatory from, or tending to diminish the
tradition of the church concerning these four gospels, that
it tends highly to establish and confirm it, as will be evident
from these considerations:—
First, That we find no mention of any of these gospels
till the close of the second century, and of few of them till
the third or the fourth century ; i. e. not till long after the
general reception of these four gospels by the whole church
of Christ. For Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, who cite large
passages from these four gospels, make not the least mention
of any other gospels mentioned either by the heretics or
by the orthodox.
Secondly, They who spake of them in the close of the
second, or in the following centuries, do it still with this re-
mark, that “the gospels received by the tradition of the
church were only four,” and that these belonged not to them,
nor to the evangelical canon ; v. g. Clemens of Alexandria ||
is the first ecclesiastical writer who cites “the gospel accord-
ing to the Egyptians,” and he doth it with this note, that the
words cited thence “are not to be found in the four gospels.”
In the same book he cites another passage quoted by the
heretics, as he conjectures, from the same gospel ; but
then he adds, these things they cite of Trávra (43xxoy # tº
kara &A#Selay stayyexixó arolyha-ayts; Rayóvi, “who had rather
follow anything than the true evangelical canon” (ibid. p.
453, D). Origen I is the next that makes mention of them,
and he doth it with this censure, that they were “the gospels
not of the church, but of the heretics;” among these he
reckons, “the gospel according to the Egyptians, the gospel
of the twelve apostles, the gospel according to St. Thomas and
Matthias, and others ;” but saith he, “there are only four,
from whence we are to confirm our doctrine, nor do I ap-
* 'Ev'roi, wapa?:30p, fivot; hººfy récroaga'iyatayyaxiot; otz #x2pziy
to finrēy, &AA' #y rò war' Aſſyvºrtiovº, Strom. 3, p. 465.
+ Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. iv.
f 'Ayaywo-ax#To rà stayyáAta & #y& Maršaſo; wai'iwáyync
Trage?&zagasy tºy, wai & of avyseyol IIaixov wage:Anºrs; katéast-
slav tº Aoux&; xai Máezoc, zai &raw &yaywaa zákºvoy # tº stay-
y#Atoy rāvre; oi trgerðūregoi, kai of 34xovo, kai Trä, ö Aa3; cºrnxé-
Twaav, lib. ii. cap. 57.
§ Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 37. | Strom. 3, p. 465.
‘ſſ Ecclesia quatuor habet evangelia, haereses plurima : é
quibus quoddam scribitur secundum Egyptios, aliud juxta
duodecim apostolos Quatuor tantūm Sunt evangelia
probata, é quibus sub persona Domini et Salvatoris nostri
proferenda sunt dogmata. Scio quoddam evangelium quod.
appellatur secundam Thomam et juxta Matthaim, et alia
plurima leginnus ne quid ignorare videamur, propter eos qui
se putant aliquid scire siista cognoverint ; Sed in his omnibus
nihilaliud probamus misi quod ecclesia, id est, quatuor tantúm
evangelia recipienda. Hom. 1. in Prooem. Lucac, fol. 93. D.
26
PREFACE TO THE GOSPELS.
prove of any other.” Whence we may learn that, though he
often cites “the gospel to the Hebrews,” which, saith St.
Jerome, was the same with that according to the “twelve
apostles,” and “the gospel according to St. Peter,” yet he
approved of none of them.
Eusebius" is the next ecclesiastical writer who speaks
of other gospels; viz. “The gospel according to St. Peter,
St. Thomas, and Matthias,” and also “ of the acts of Andrew,
St. John, and other apostles;” but then, as Origen had told
us, that the heretics only had them, so he saith, that “they
were published by them,” and “that they had no testimony
from those ecclesiastical persons who continued down the
other gospels in a succession to them, and that the doctrine
contained in them was much different from the catholic doc-
trine :” whence he concludes, that “they are the inventions
of heretics, and are not so much as to be ranked among spu-
rious books, but are to be rejected as wicked and absurd.”
And,
First, To begin with the gospel of St. Peter; it was,
saith Eusebius, “published by the heretics, and is by no
means to be placed among the catholic gospels:” “it is mani-
fest” saith Serapion,” “that we received it not from our an-
cestors, but those who learnt and read it were the Docetae,
and the Marcionites who sprang from them :” it was “the
gospel used by the Nazarenes,” saith Theodoret. f
Secondly, The gospel according to St. Thomas, men-
tioned by Origen and Eusebius, was, saith St. Cyril, § “the
work not of St. Thomas the apostle, but of another Thomas,
who was a Manichean heretic ;” on which account he de-
sires “all Christians not to read it.”
Thirdly, From the same heretics proceeded the gospel ac-
cording to St. Philip, saith Leontius.|| “It was the fiction
of the Gnostics, “ saith Epiphanius."[
Fourthly, The gospel of Matthias was, as Clemens of
Alexandria intimates,” “the work of the Basilidians, or Car-
pocratians.”
Fifthly, The Proto-Evangelium of St. James is first men-
tioned by Pope Innocent the First,++ among the gospels
feigned by Lucius the heretic ; this he doth in a decree, in
which he condemns all these false gospels, and declares who
were the authors of them.
Lastly, The gospel of “the twelve apostles,” according to
St. Jerome, is the same with “the gospel according to the
Hebrews,” of which we are to speak hereafter.
Seeing then these four gospels were received, without all
doubting or contradiction, by all Christians from the be-
ginning, as the writings of those apostles and evangelists,
whose names they bear, and they both owned and fit testi-
* Kai Tèg vågart &mogréxoy ºrgèg rày aiperixãv trgoa peeoºva;
%rot &; IIárgov, Kai Qºp.3, Kai Marsaiov, h zai rivoy tragi, row-
tov; GAAwy evayyáxia Trapexoſarag- § oièy oºzº; #y avy-
7:44...att (f a t) rév war& Staëox&; Éxxxnawa’rixãy rig &våg sic
&yżºny &yayeſy %tacey ovčá áyyášoic air& kara razºréoy
3xx' &c & Toºra Trávra Kai 8vora E6; Tragatna Éoy. Hist. Eccl. lib.
ii. cap. 25, p. 97, 98.
† T3 3: várzari air& (Petri et aliorum Apostolorum)
shevës wéyèapa &; ãºrspot trapatročuš0a, yºváczovre; 3rt rà rot-
atta ot tragexá80pxey #8vyñónºw yūg Trap' &AAoy rày &aan-
d'évray air rotºro ºr sidyyáxtov, tourécºr. Trapá rày 31,363 ov rāv
wata?%aºzov aircü, où; Aoxºtá, Kaxoſaty, xenzágºyo rap'
girāv 8tex8siv, apud Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. vi. cap. 12, p. 213,
214. *
: Iſaer. Fab. lib. 2, cap. 1. *
Š "Eyea-bay wai Mavºxafot rô Karā Qopºćy stayyáxtoy. Catech.
iv. p. 38, A. Mnºsis àwaywooxéro, r3 xará. Goºgy evayyáxtov:
où yée Hariv čv6, råy 838ska &mogrówy, &AA& #vö, rôy Mazāy ºrgây
Tod Mávn (waffntãy.
|| De Sectis, p. 432.
* IIpoor pâgover 3: Big vowa bºx{Trrow stayyáxtoy retrºacpzévoy,
IIaer. 26, §. 13. p. 95.
** Aéyova, yov Kai roy Marðaíayotºrw: 3.34%at, Strom. 3, p. 406.
tº Caetera autem, quae wel sub nomine Matthiae, sive Jacobi
minoris, vel sub nomine Petri, et Joannis, quae à quodam
Lucio Sunt Scripta, vel sub nomine Andreae, quae à Nexo-
charide et Leonide philosophis, vel sub nomine Thomae scrip-
ta. Sunt, et si quae Sunt alia, non solim rejicienda, verüm
etiam movitatis esse damnanda. Decret. 27.
tº Per quos evangelium pervenit ad nos, quod quidem
fied that they were delivered to them by “the apostles as the
pillars, foundations, and elements, of their faith,” and divine
writings, even by those who preached that very gospel to
them, which in these writings they delivered, or rather by
that God that enabled them to preach, and directed them
to indite these gospels for that end : (2) seeing they were
delivered by the immediate successors of the apostles to
all the churches they converted or established, as a rule
of faith: (3) seeing they were read from the beginning,
as Justin Martyr testifies, in all assemblies of Christians ;
and that, not as some other ecclesiastical writings were,
in some assemblies upon some certain days, but in all
Christian assemblies on the lord's day, and so must
early be translated into those languages, in which alone
they could be understood by some churches; viz. the Sy-
riac and Latin : (4.) seeing they were generally cited in the
second century for the confirmation of this faith, and the
conviction of heretics, and the president of the assembly
exhorted those who heard them to do and imitate what
they heard : (5.) seeing we never heard of any other gospels
till the close of the second century, and then heard only
of them with a mark of reprobation, or a declaration that
they were Jevāstrīypaqa, falsely imposed upon the apostles,
that they belonged not to the Evangelical Canon, or to the
gospel delivered to the churches by succession of ecclesi-
astical persons, or to those gospels which they approved,
or from which they confirmed their doctrines, but were to
be rejected as wicked and absurd, and the inventions of
rank heretics ; all these considerations must afford us a
sufficient demonstration, that all Christians then had an un-
questionable evidence that they were the genuine works of
those apostles and evangelists, whose names they bore, and
so were worthy to be received as the records of their faith.
And then what reason can any persons of succeeding ages
have to question what was so universally acknowledged by
those who lived so near to that very age in which these
gospels were indited, and who received them under the cha-
racter of the holy and divine scriptures 2
§. III. And yet even to this general and uncontrolled
tradition we may add farther strength from these conside-
rations ;
First, That since our Jesus was a prophet, or a teacher
sent from God, he must have left unto his church some re-
cords of his Father's will ; this king Messiah, being to reign
for ever must have some laws by which his subjects must
be for ever, governed ; this Saviour of the world must have
delivered to the world the terms on which they may obtain
the great salvation purchased by him ; or he must be in
vain a Prophet, King, and Saviour ; and so some certain
records of those Jaws and those conditions of salvation
must be extant. Now unless these gospels and other
scriptures of the New Testament contain these laws, they
must wholly be lost, and we must all be left under a ma-
mifest impossibility of knowing, and so of doing his will,
and of obtaining those blessings he hath promised to them
that do it. For to say tradition might supply the want of
writing, is to ºvntradict experience ; since the traditions of
the Jews made void that word of God they had received
in writing, and then how reasonable is it to believe they
would have much more done it, had no such writing been
delivered P Moreover, our blessed Lord spake many things
which were not written ; he taught the multitude “by the
sca,” Mark ii. 13, “beyond Jordan,” Mark x. 1, “in the
synagogues of Galilee,” Luke iv. 15, “at Nazareth,” ver. 22,
“at Capernaum,” ver. 31, “out of Simon's ship,” Luke v. 3,
and very often “in the temple,” John vii. 14. viii. 2. He
interpreted to the two disciples going to Emmaus “through-
out all the scriptures the things concerning him,” Luke xxiv.
27. He discoursed to his disciples after his resurrection,
tunc praecomiaverunt, postea veró per Dei voluntatem in
scriptis nobis tradiderunt fundamentum et columnam fidei
nostrae futurum. Iraen. adv. Haer. lib. iii. cap. 2. Quid
autem sineque apostoli scripturas nobis reliquissent, cap. 4.
x+xo; 3B ral arhélyºa fixxxnariac tº giayyáMov—# 6v paysgow
3rt of rāv &rávrov rexyirr; Aéyoç-É8wkey hºv retéépcoºpov tº
stayyśa toy, cap. 11, ed. Ox. p. 221, col. 1,1ib. v. xvoixsta rā;
Tricºrew; #xxxncia; # 6v a roixetov & Träç avyérºnze x&p,0; iv
Xgiotă karaxxayái, 'rº OF6. Orig, in Joan, edit. Huet, p. 5
PREFACE TO THE GOSPELS.
27
* touching the things of the kingdom of God,” Acts i. 3. St.
John assures us there were exceeding “many miracles that
Jesus did which were not written,” xx. 30. Now whereas
all those miracles and sermons which were written are entirely
preserved, and firmly believed, tradition hath not preserved
one miracle or sermon to us which was never written, and
therefore can be no sure record of the doctrine or the laws of
Christ. In a word, it is evident that even the church catho-
lic hath lost a tradition delivered to her by St. Paul ; for, in
his second Epistle to the Thessalonians, ii. 5, 6, he saith, “I
told you these things” concerning antichrist “when I was
with you, and now ye know what letteth,” or hindereth, his
appearance ; he also intimates in this epistle, and by his ex-
hortation to hold fast these traditions, ver. 15, that they were
of great moment to be known, and be retained ; and yet
these traditions have neither been retained by the Roman
nor by the catholic church ; and it is confessed by Anselm,”
and by Esthius on the place, that “though the Thessa-
lonians knew it, yet we know it not ;” so that the tradition
which the church received from this apostle touching this
matter is wholly lost ; how therefore can she be relied on as
a sure preserver, and a true teacher of traditions, which
hath confessedly lost one of great moment deposited with
the Thessalonians and the primitive church 2
Secondly, That it was necessary that the Christian doc-
trine or revelation should be preserved in some writing, may
fairly be concluded from the Holy Scriptures; for if St.
Paul thought it necessary to write to the church of Rome,
“to put them in remembrance of the grace given to them.”
(Rom. xv. 15), as also to send to his Corinthians in writing,
“the things they had heard, and did acknowledge” (2 Cor.
i. 13), and to write “the same things” which he had taught
to his Philippians (iii. 1): if St. Peter thought it needful to
write to the Jewish converts, to “testify to them that it was
the grace of God in which they stood” (1 Pet. v. 12), and
“to stir up their sincere minds by way of remembrance, that
they might be mindful of the commands of the apostles of
our Lord and Saviour” (2 Pet. iii. 1, 2), though they at pre-
gent “knew them, and were established in the truth” (2 Pet.
i. 12, 13); and St. Jude to write to the same persons, “to
mind them of the common salvation” (ver. 3): if the be-
loved evangelist closeth his gospel with these words, “These
things were written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the
Christ, and, believing, might have life through his name;”
Aurely these persons could not but think it necessary that
the essential doctrines of Christianity should be written; and
Yet we are sure they only have been written in those gos-
pels and other scriptures contained in the canon of the books
of the New Testament: and therefore we cannot reasonably
doubt of their authority. Add to this,
That the apostles, and that Holy Spirit who did assist
them in the inditing of these gospels for the church's use,
could not be wanting in causing them to be transmitted to
those Christians for whose use they were indited ; because
they could not be wanting to pursue the end for which they
were indited; for they being therefore written that they
night know “the certainty of those things in which they
had been instructed” (Luke i. 4), and partly to engage them
more firmly to believe that Jesús was the Christ, they must
Very early commit them to those churches for whose sake
they were written.
Thirdly, It is evident that the immediate succeeding age
$ould not be ignorant of what was thus delivered to them
by the church from the apostles, as “the pillar and the
ground of faith ;” nor is it easy to conceive that either they
would have thus received them, had the apostles given them
no sufficient indication of them, or that they would have
been esteemed so presently the charters of the Christian
faith, had not the apostles delivered them unto the churches
under that character. *
Lastly, We have good reason to suppose that the provi-
dence of God, which was so highly interested in the propa-
§atiºn of the Christian faith, and making of it known to the
World, would not permit false records of that faith to be so
early and so generally imposed upon the Christian world.
§ IV. From the same tradition we, with the strongest
+ e te e *
* Nos nescimus quod illi sciebant. Anselm. Noverunt
utique Thessalonicenses, at nos nescimus, Esthius.
evidence of reason, may conclude, that these four gospels,
and the other scriptures received then without doubt or con.
tradiction by the church, were handed down unto them un-
corrupted in the substantials of faith and manners. For,
1: These records being once so generally dispersed through
all Christian churches, though at a great distance from each
other, from the beginning of the second century. 2. They
being so universally acknowledged and consented to by men
of curious parts and different persuasions. 3. They being
preserved in their originals in the apostolical churches,
among whom, saith Tertullian,” authentica, eorum literae
recitantur, “their original letters are recited ;” it being not
to be doubted but they who received the originals from the
apostles, and who had authentic copies of them given to
them by their immediate successors, would carefully pre-
serve them to posterity. 4. They being multiplied into
divers versions almost from the beginning, as we may ratio-
nally conclude ; because the church of Rome, and other
churches, which understood not the original Greek, being
founded in the apostles' days, could not be rationally sup-
posed to be long without a version of those Scriptures which
were to be read by them in public and in private. 5. They
being esteemed by them as digesta nostra, their “law books,”
saith Tertullian,f libri deifici deificae scripturae, “books which
instructed them to lead a divine life,” say the martyrs, and
believed by all Christians to be Seſai. yeatai, “divine scrip-
tures,” saith Origen,f and therefore as the records of their
hopes and fears. 6. They being so constantly rehearsed in
their assemblies by men whose work it was to read and
preach, and to exhort to the performance of the duties they
enjoined. 7. They being so diligently read by Christians,
and so riveted in their memories, that Eusebius $ mentions
some who had them all by heart. 8. They being, lastly, so
frequent in their writings, and so often cited by Irenaeus,
Clemens of Alexandria, and Origen, as now we have them,
it must be certain from these considerations that they were
handed down to succeeding generations pure and uncorrupt.
And indeed these things render us more secure, that the
scriptures were preserved entire from designed corruption,
than any man can be that the statutes of the land, or any
other writings, histories, or records whatsoever, have been so
preserved; because the evidence of them depends upon more
persons, and they more holy, and so less subject to deceive,
and more concerned that they should not be corrupted, than
men have cause to be concerned for other records; and so we
must renounce all certainty of any record, or grant that it
is certain these are genuine records of the Christian faith.
Moreover, this supposed corruption of the word of God, or
substitution of any other doctrine than what hath been de-
livered by the apostles, could not be done by any part or
sect of Christians, but they who had embraced the faith and
used the true copies of the word of God in other churches of
the Christian world, must have found out the cheat; and
therefore this corruption, if it were at all effected, must be
the work of the whole bulk of Christians ; whereas it can-
not rationally be supposed that the immediate succeeding
ages should universally conspire to substitute their own in-
ventions for the word of God, and yet continue stedfast in,
and suffer so much for, that faith which denounced the se-
verest judgments against them who did corrupt this word;
or, that so many men should, with the hazard of their lives
and fortunes, avouch the gospel, and at the same time make
such a change even in the frame and constitution of this
doctrine, as made it ineffectual both to themselves and their
posterity; nor can it reasonably be thought, that they should
venture upon that which, were the gospel true or false, must
needs expose them to the greatest evils whilst they continued
abettors of it. Lastly, that these sacred records of the word
of God have not been so corrupted as to cease to be a rule
of faith and manners, we argue from the providence of
God; for nothing seems more inconsistent with the wisdom
and goodness of God, than to inspire his servants to write
the scriptures for a rule of faith and manners for all future
* De Praescript, cap. 36.
# Adv. Marcion. lib. iv. cap. 3. Passio S. Felicis Episc.
Fabyz. ed. Ox. p. 47, 48. g
f Adv. Cels, lib. iii. p. 138. -
§ Wales. Hist, Eccl. lib. viii. p. 336. Johannes, p. 344.
28
PREFACE TO THE GOSPELS.
ages, and to require the belief of the doctrine, and the prac-
tice of the rules of life plainly contained in it, and yet to
suffer this divinely-inspired rule to be insensibly corrupted
in things necessary to faith or practice. Who can imagine
that that God, who sent his Son out of his bosom to declare
this doctrine, and his apostles by the assistance of the Holy
Spirit to indite and preach it, and by so many miracles con-
firmed it to the world, should suffer any wicked persons to
corrupt and alter any of those terms on which the happiness
of mankind depended ? This sure can be esteemed rational
by none but such as think it not absurd to say, that God
repented of his good-will and kindness to mankind in the
vouchsafing of the gospel to them, or that he so far maligned
the good of future generations, that he suffered wicked men
to rob them of all the good intended to them by this decla-
ration of his will ; for, since those very scriptures which
have been received as the word of God, and used by the
church as such from the first ages of it, pretend to pe the
terms of our salvation, scriptures indited by men commis-
sionated from Christ, and such as did avouch themselves
“by the will of God,” and his command “for the delivery of
the faith of God's elect,” and “for the knowledge of the
truth which is after godliness, in hope of life eternal,” they
must be in reality the word of God, or Providence must
have permitted such a forgery as rendereth it impossible for
us to perform our duty in order to salvation; for if the
scripture of the New Testament should be corrupted in any
essential requisite of faith or manners, it must cease to make
us “wise unto salvation,” and so God must have lost the end
which he intended in inditing it. The objections which the
papists make on account of the various lections, I presume
are fully answered by Dr. Mill ; and can be answered by
him alone, since others must not be allowed to blow upon
his learned book upon that subject.
§. W. And this is all which I think necessary to be said
concerning the four gospels in the general. I proceed now
to the consideration of that great question, “Whether the
gospel of St. Matthew was by him writ in Hebrew, or in the
Syriac language, and only was by others afterward translated
into Greek P”
Mr. Du Pin” informs us, that all the ancients with one
consent assure us that he “wrote in Hebrew;” Papias, St.
Irenaeus, Origen, Eusebius, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Epipha-
nius, St. Jerome, St. Austin, St. Chrysostom, the author of
the Latin Commentary on St. Matthew, which is ascribed to
St. Chrysostom, and the author of the Synopsis of the Scrip-
ture, which bears the name of Athanasius, are a cloud of
witnesses, “who depose that St. Matthew wrote his gospel
in Hebrew:” but then he adds that “the original Hebrew
of the gospel according to St. Matthew was lost; and after
the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, becoming useless,
there was no care taken to preserve it,” and saith, p. 36,
“It is certain that the Greek version we have is as ancient
as the times of the apostles, that it was published from the
beginning of the church in all Christian nations, that it was
looked upon as good as an original by the Greeks and La-
tims, that it was preserved without any alteration, and always
looked upon as authentic and canonical, whereas the ori-
ginal Hebrew continued not long the same that it was left
by St. Matthew.”
Now as for this cloud of witnesses, I shall, first, consider
the chief of them apart, and then discourse of this supposed
tradition in the bulk. Now,
The first witness is Papias, “that man of fables,” saith
Eusebius,t who voucheth, that “St. Matthew writ his ora-
cles in the Hebrew tongue, hºw#yeva's 33 aird #x2 aro; &; #36-
varo, and every one interpreted them as he was able ;” from
which words it is evident, that he knew nothing of any au-
thentic version of this gospel approved by the apostles, and
looked upon as authentic and canonical by the church ; for
after that, every one could not be left to interpret the He-
brew as he could. He also plainly in this passage doth
suppose, that the Hebrew copy of St. Matthew was neither
then lost nor adulterated and corrupted by additions, defal-
cations, or interpolations, or must own that every one then
* History of the Canon, vol. ii. chap. 2, p. 28.
+ Kai rivă ă»A& Traparéðeitas ºv6ix&rega. Hist. Eccl. lib.
iii. cap. 39, p. 112.
used a copy so corrupted ; and if he could be ignorant of
mistaken in matters of so great importance, why Inight he
not be so in saying, this gospel was first written in a lan-
guage he understood mot ?
Irenaeus” is the second witness who saith, that St. Mat-
thew put forth his gospel among the Hebrews, ri ièiº, 8ta-
Xézrº añrºy, “in their own tongue ;” and that the Ebionites
used eo evangelio quod est Secundum Matthaeum, “that
very gospel according to St. Matthew, which was writ in
Hebrew ;” this he saith twice,t without any intimation that
it was interpolated or corrupted by them. Now here, saith
the learned Mr. Grabe,f “the Nazarenes and Ebionites
easily imposed upon Irenaeus and other fathers who under-
stood not the Hebrew tongue.” But after more mature
consideration of the matter, he saith, “He thinks with Ire-
naeus, that the Ebionites did use the gospel of St. Matthew,
though not entire and uncorrupted, and finds, that Eusebius
and St. Jerome, and our modern writers, were mistaken in
making the gospel to the Hebrews which the Nazarenes
used, and the gospel which the Ebionites abused, one and the
same.” And yet Epiphanius $ expressly saith of the Ebion-
ites, “they used only the gospel of St. Matthew, and called
it the gospel according to the Hebrews, as it truly is.” So
that either Eusebius, Epiphanius, and St. Jerome, must be
mistaken in this matter, which is sufficient to invalidate their
testimony, or Irenaeus must be himself mistaken ; and then
he much more might be so in speaking of a language that he
understood not.
Origen || is the third witness, who indeed saith that “the
first gospel was writ by St. Matthew, and that he gave it to
the Jewish converts composed in the Hebrew tongue ;” but
he doth not say, it was written either first, or only in that
tongue: thus therefore I am willing to compound the mat-
ter, that the gospel of St. Matthew, being written for all
nations in the Greek, as a tongue common to most of them,
was also given for the use of those Jews who only under-
stood their mother-tongue in Hebrew. * *
Eusebius T is the next witness, who saith that “Matthew
delivered his gospel to the Jews in their own tongue ;” but
then that the gospel then retained in Hebrew was indeed
the gospel according to the Hebrews, or the same gospel of
St. Matthew which the Ebionites used, and called “the gos-
pel according to St. Matthew,” is plain from ** comparing
the words of Eusebius and Theodoret with those of Irenaeus,
though I confess Theodoret seems to make a distinction
betwixt the Ebionites, who held that our Lord was born of
Joseph and Mary, who used the gospel according to the
Hebrews; i. e. that gospel of the Nazarenes from which,
saith Epiphanius, tt they had cut off the genealogy of St.
Matthew, and the Ebionites, who held that “Christ was
born of a virgin;” and saith they used the gospel according
to St. Matthew ; and yet of this distinction Irenaeus saith
nothing, and Eusebius plainly contradicts it, such a confu-
sion and conflict are there among the ancients in this mat-
ter. Eusebius ff proceeds to tell us, that “they of the Jews
who received Christ, chiefly embraced rà waſ ‘E8gaiov; sūay-
yÉAtoy, the gospel according to the Hebrews;” and that He-
gesippus, a man of the first succession from the apostles,
* Adv. Haer. lib. iii. cap. 1.
+ Lib. i. cap. 26, et lib. iii. cap. 11, p. 220, col. 2.
f Sicque Irenaeo et aliis patribus Hebraicae linguae igna-
ris facilè imposuerunt ut crediderint eos ipso Matthaei Evan-
gelio uti. Spicil. Patrum primi saeculi. p. 21, et Not. in
Irenaeum, lib. i. cap. 26.
§ Aéxoviral ºxiv Kai atrol rô Karā Maa Bafov Eijayyáxiov, rotto,
y&g airoi XéXyrat' waxoJo's 3: avrò kari, ‘E8patov, &; rà &Anóñ
#arty eitreſy. Haer. 30, sect. 3.
| Apud Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. vi. cap. 225.
‘ſ IIargiº Vadºtty yeath Tragašov, a 3 xar' airby Eilayyáxicy.
Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 24, p. 95.
** Ebionai eo evangelio quod est secundim Matthaeum
solo utentes. Iren. lib. iii. cap. 11. Solo autem eo quod
est secundum Matthaeum evangelio utuntur. 'E8tova.io. 33
stayyeafº ºvo, tº Ka8 EBPaiov; Aeyop,évºl x86%zevot. Hist. Eccl.
lib. iii. cap. 27. Móvov 33 rô Karā ‘Eógaíov; sūayyáxtoy 85% oyra.
Haer. Fab. lib. ii. cap. 1, et paulo post, stayyexiº 88 rô Kará.
Matěaſov xexeñyrai ºvo. g
tf Hair. 27, §. 20,
# Hist. Eccles, lib. iii, cap.25.
PREFACE TO THE GOSPELs.
29
º
cited passages” in roi wa?' 'Eggaſov, stayyextov, “from the
gospel according to the Hebrews.” Now these things show,
that though he knew this gospel contained many things,
which were not in the Greek copy of St. Matthew, yet was
it free from any additions which did corrupt the faith ; for
otherwise he could not have spoke so honourably of Hege-
sippus, or so mildly of those other Christians which made
use of it: and therefore though he saith that “some put the
gospel according to the Hebrews amongst the books contra-
dicted,” as they did also the Revelation of St. John; yet
by saying this he plainly insinuates that other ecclesiasti-
cal writers owned it; nor doth he rank it among f rā, śy
ăvăzati &roatáxov ºrpèc rāy aipstixãy ºrpoºspop, #yac, “the scrip-
tures introduced by the heretics under the name of the apos-
tles,” as he doth the gospels of St. Peter, St. Thomas, and
Matthias, as knowing, what St. Jerome doth assure us, that
it was called, or esteemed by most men, “the gospel accord-
ing to St. Matthew.”
Epiphanius f is another witness, who saith, “The gospel
of St. Matthew was writ in Hebrew ; ” but then he adds,
that “the Nazarenes had the fullest copy of it and kept it till
his time, as it was first written in the Hebrew tongue.” Now
be it, as Mr. Grabe and Petavius affirm, that in this he was
deceived by them, and that it was the fault of it to be so full;
yet as this shows that it passed then under the name of St.
Matthew’s gospel, so doth it also show, how easy it was for
these witnesses to be imposed on in this matter.
St. Jerome $ is another witness, that “the gospel of St.
Matthew was writ in Hebrew words and letters:” and then
he adds,
First, That “it was” in his time, “uncertain who trans-
lated it into Greek.”
* Hist. Eccles. lib. iv. cap. 22.
t Ibid. lib. iii. cap. 25. f Haer. 29, §. ult.
§ Matthaeus apostolus primus in Judaea, propter eos qui
ex circumcisione crediderant, evangelium Christi Hebraicis
literis verbisque composuit, quod quis postea in Graecum
transtulerit, non satis certum est; porró ipsum Hebraicum
habetur usque hodie in Caesariensi bibliotheca, quam Pam-
philus Martyr studiosissimé confecit. Mihi quoque à Naza-
raēis, qui in Beraea urbe Syriae hôc volumine utuntur, descri-
bendi facultas fuit; in quo animadvertendum quëd ubicumque
evangelista sive ex persona Suá, sive ex personá Domini
Salvatoris veteris Scripturae testimoniis utitur; non secutus
septuaginta translatorum auctoritatem, sed Hebraicam. Cat."
W. Matthaeus.
In Evangelio juxta Hebraeos, quod Chaldaico quidem
Syroque sermone, Sed Hebraicis literis scriptum est, quo
utuntur usque hodie Nazareni, secundám apostolos sive, ut
plerique autumant, juxta Matthaeum, quodet in Caesariensi
habetur bibliothecă, narrat historia, Ecce mater Domini et
fratres ejus dicebant ei, ecce Johannes Baptista baptizat in
remissionem peccatorum, eamus et baptizemur ab eo; dixit
Şis, Quid peccaviut vadam et baptizer ab eo. Adv. Pelagian.
lib. iii. fol. 106, K.
In evangelio quo utuntur Nazareni et Hebionitae, quod
nuper in Graecum de Hebræo sermone transtulimus, et quod
Vocatur à plerisque Matthaei authenticum, homo iste, qui
aridam habet manum, caementarius scribitur istiusmodi voci-
bus auxilium precans:–Camentarius eram manibus victum
quaeſitans, precor te Jesu ut mihi restituas sanitatem, me
turpiter mendicem cibos. In Matt. xii. 13, vide eund. in
Isa. xi. f. 22, B. in Matt. xxvii. f. 38, D.
Evangelium quoque quod appellatur secundúm Hebræos,
et à me muper in Graecum Latinumque sermonem transla.
tum est, quo et Origenes sacpe utitur, refert, Dominus clim
dedisset syndonem servo sacerdotis, iv.it ad Jacobum, et ap-
Paruit ei,juraverat enim Jacobusse non comesturum panem.
ab illá horá quà biberat calicem Domini, donec videret eum
resurgentem à mortuis. Catalog. V. Jacobus.
In evangelio eorum quod Hebraeo sermone conscripturn
legunt Nazaraei, hæc scripta reperimus; factum est autem,
cüm descendisset Dominus de aquà, descendit fons omnis
§piritàs Sancti, et requievit super eum, et dixit illi, Fili mi,
in omnibus prophetis expectabam te ut venires, et requies:
cerem super te, tu es enim requies mea, tu es Filius meus
primogenitus qui regnas in Sempiternum. In Isa. ch. xi.
£ 22, B, and f. 67, L, and f. 188, I.
Secondly, That “the very manuscript was till his time
preserved in the Caesarean library, gathered by Pamphilus
the martyr; and that the Nazarenes, who used it at Beraea,
gave him the liberty to transcribe it, and that this very book
was by most thought to be the gospel according to St. Mat-
thew.”
Thirdly, That “the scriptures cited in this gospel, both in
the person of the evangelist and of our Lord, were exactly
according to the Hebrew, and not according to the Septua-
gint,” as it might reasonably be expected it would be in a
Hebrew gospel, written for the use of them who only owned
the Hebrew Bible as authentic.
Fourthly, That “he himself not only transcribed it from
the Caesarean copy, but after turned it into Greek and
Latin.”
Fifthly, From this Hebrew gospel, he cites these passages;
First, “The mother of our Lord and his brethren said to
him, John the Baptist baptizeth for the remission of sins,
let us go and be baptized of him ; and he answered, In
what have I sinned, that I should go and be baptized of
him P” Secondly, “The man who came to Christ with the
withered hand was a mason, and said to Christ, I am a
mason, who get my living by my labour; I pray thee heal
me, that I may not be constrained to beg.” Thirdly, “That
the apostle James had sworn, after he had received the sa-
crament from the hands of Christ, that he would not eat
bread till he had seen Christ risen from the dead; and that
therefore our Lord appeared to him.” Fourthly, That in
this gospel “it was reckoned amongst the highest crimes, to
make sad the heart of our brother.” Fifthly, That in this
gospel it was said, “not only that the veil of the temple
was rent at our Lord's death ; but also that the lintel over
the temple being very great was broken.” In fine, he saith,
that “Jesus being come out of the water, the source of the
Holy Ghost descended upon him, rested on him, and said
to him, My Son, I expected you in all the prophets, to the
end, that being come I might rest upon you ; for you are
my rest, and my first-born Son, who reigns for ever.” Now
this is the only place which seems to vary from the doctrine
of the church ; and this Origen expounds (Com. in Job. p.
58, D). The other fathers which seem to avouch this tra-
dition come too late, and are not considerable enough to be
examined apart: I therefore shall only make Some remarks
on what St. Jerome hath delivered. And,
First, Whereas he says, “It was uncertain who translated
this gospel of St. Matthew, writ in Hebrew, into Greek;”
hence we observe, that there is little reason to depend on
what later writers have said on this matter ; and therefore
Mr. Du Pin freely confesses, p. 36, that whereas it is said
in the abridgment of the Scriptures ascribed to Athanasius,
that it was made by St. James, bishop of Jerusalem; by
Theophylact” is ascribed to St. John; and by Anastasius
the Sinaite is ascribed to St. Luke and St. Paul; all this is
spoken without ground.
Secondly, Whereas he says, “This was the copy which
the Nazarenes and the Ebionites used, and that most per-
sons did esteem it the gospel, and the authentic copy of St.
Matthew :” hence it must follow, that they had then a copy,
which then passed commonly under the name of “the gos-
pel according to St. Matthew.”
Thirdly, Whereas he citeth from this gospel many pas-
sages, which are not, as he cites them, to be found in the
gospel of St. Matthew approved by the church; hence it
must follow, they had added to St. Matthew’s gospel many
things from tradition which were not recorded in the authen-
tic gospel of St. Matthew ; and this seems probably to be
the thing Eusebius intended, when he said, that “Hegesip-
pus cited many things from the Hebrew gospel, and from
the unwritten traditions of the Jews;” so that “this gos-
pel according to the Hebrews,” seems not to me, as Mr.
Grabef and Du Pin do conjecture, to have been a gospel
wholly different from that of St. Matthew, writ or translated
by him into Hebrew for their use, as were, Saith Epipha-
nius, f “the gospel of St. John, and the Acts of the Apos-
tles;” but only the gospel of St. Matthew used by the Ebi-
* In verbo Matth. Praefat, in Matt. Serm. 8, in Gen.
# Spicileg. Patrum primi saec. p. 22–24.
† Haer. 30, sect. 3, vide infra.
30
PREFACE TO THE GOSPELS.
onites, who denied that Christ was born of a pure virgin,
and therefore struck out the genealogy of St. Matthew ; and
the same gospel used by the Nazarenes, with many addi-
tions they had received from tradition, and upon that ac-
count placed by many ecclesiastical writers among the wri-
tings contradicted, and, in those matters in which it differed
from the Greek and authentic copy, was of no authority in
matters which concerned the Christian faith.
Ş. VI. To proceed therefore to the consideration of this
tradition in the bulk, let it be noted,
First, That this is a tradition that an inspired apostle
wrote a large gospel by the afflatus of the Holy Ghost in
Hebrew, and yet that Providence which hath preserved all
the other canonical books both of the Old and of the New
Testament in their original languages, and that church
which hath handed down all the other books of the New
Testament, even those which are comprised in one single
chapter, in the same language, have suffered the original of
this large gospel to be lost within forty years, saith Mr. Du
Pin, after it was written ; as if it had been only written to
be buried in the tomb of Barnabas, according to the tale of
Theodorus Lector” in the sixth century; or to be carried
by St. Bartholomew F. unto the Indians, on that account
more fortunate than other Christians; and yet unfortunate
in this, that when they had it, they understood not a word
of it; whence, even Du Pin saith, there is no appearance of
truth in that story, p. 32. -
Secondly, It is a tradition of a gospel written in Hebrew
by inspiration of the Holy Ghost, for the use of the con-
verted Jews; and yet, “after the destruction of Jerusalem,
it became useless,” saith Du Pin, “and so no care was taken
to preserve it:” yea, it was a gospel written for their use,
and to supply the absence of St. Matthew ; and yet, as far
as doth appear, none of them ever had, or used it, unless it
also was the gospel according to the Hebrews ; for the con-
verted Jews used that gospel, saith Eusebius; and Hege-
sippus appears, saith he, “to have been one of the Jewish
converts; because he cites all his passages out of the gospel
according to the Hebrews:” the Ebionites, say Eusebius,
Epiphanius, and Theodoret, used only “the gospel accord-
ing to the Hebrews; ” this was the gospel, saith St. Jerome,
“which the Nazarenes read,” and which both they and the
Ebionites used: and yet this gospel is put among the books
“contradicted” by Eusebius. “It is of no authority to
prove any matter of faith,” saith Origen,f and may be re-
ceived or not. To avoid these consequences, Du Pin and
Mr. Grabe contend, that the gospel according to the He-
brews was distinct from the gospel according to St. Mat-
thew ; but this is evidently to contradict the testimonies of
Irenaeus and Theodoret, who say, “the Ebionites used the
gospel of St. Matthew ; ” and of Epiphanius, who says,
“they used the gospel according to the Hebrews, and called
it the gospel according to St. Matthew; ” and of St. Jerome,
who saith, “it was by most reputed the gospel according
to St. Matthew.” It was not indeed the true authentic
gospel of St. Matthew, received without contradiction by the
church, for that was only the Greek copy; it was not a copy
of St. Matthew's gospel, free from additions and interpola-
tions, which they had put into it from tradition, which is
all that the arguments of Du Pin and others prove; but yet,
I say, it was that very gospel, which the Nazarenes read,
and which was kept in the Caesarean library as the gospel
according to St. Matthew, and which the Ebionites used as
such ; nor can any man prove from antiquity, that either
the Christian fathers knew of, or that the Jewish converts
ever used, any other Hebrew gospel according to St. Mat-
thew.
Epiphanius indeed saith, § “That the Nazarenes had the
* Collectan. lib. ii. p. 184.
+Hieron. W. Barthol. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. v. cap. 10.
3. In evangelio quodam quod dicitur secundim Hebraeos,
si tamen placet alicui recipere illud non ad auctoritatem,
sed ad manifestationem propositae quaestionis. Hom. 8, in
Matt. f. 21, D.
$ "Exovz. 33 rà watá Maršafov stayyáxicy trangia-ra-row ‘Egga-
tari, rap' airoſ; yūg capā; retro. xağ3; # 36x7; #ygáºn 'E864-
skoſ; yºãºzac"w, ºr cºral,ook of a 3: sixal rā; yºyfaxcyia; 373
waſ 'A3pačkº. 3xti rod Xºtaroi Tspišacy. Haer. 29, sect. ult.
gospel according to St. Matthew, nºneérraroy ‘E33atavrº, most
full in Hebrew, and that they had preserved it from the be-
ginning, as it was writ in Hebrew, till his time:” but Peta-
vius * truly notes that this was his mistake, “that gospel
lot being pure, but depraved, and was indeed no other than
the gospel according to the Hebrews:” and that this was so,
is evident, partly from his own confession, that “for any-
thing he knew to the contrary, the Nazarenes had cut off
from it the genealogy from Abraham to Christ ;” and partly
from the additional passages so often cited by St Jerome
from that gospel, which the Nazarenes read and used ; and
this also confutes another salvo, which some have invented
by a distinction, which, without ground, they make betwixt
“the gospel according to the Hebrews,” and “the gospel ac-
cording to the Nazarenes.” -
Now from what I have thus discoursed, I argue thus,
Either the gospel of St. Matthew, supposed to be originally
written in Hebrew, contained in it the passages cited from
the gospel of the Nazarenes, or the gospels according to the
Hebrews, or it did not ; if it did not, then it is certain, that
the gospel retained in Hebrew by the Nazarenes and Ebion-
ites, as the gospel according to St. Matthew, was not the same
with his original gospel. Then, Secondly, Seeing St. Jerome
twice informs us, that “it was the very authentic copy of St.
Matthew, and was by mostjudged to be so ;” and Eusebius
saith that this gospel according to the Hebrews was only by
some rejected, as also was the Revelation of St. John ; it
follows, that most Christians as to the matter must be then
mistaken.
But if the original gospel of St. Matthew did contain
these passages, then it is certain, that the Greek copy ap-
proved by the apostles, and received by the universal church,
cannot be the true or authentic gospel of St. Matthew, see-
ing it must be then deficient in many things contained in the
true Hebrew gospel; and so it must be granted, that the
apostles approved, and the church received, a gospel, which
wanted many passages contained in the original, according to
St. Matthew, written by the assistance or inspiration of the
Holy Ghost.
Thirdly, It was written in Hebrew, saith this tradition,
for the use of the circumcision ; and yet it was not written
by St. James, the “bishop of the circumcision,” nor by St.
Peter or St. John, the “apostles of the circumcision,” but by
St Matthew, the publican ; yea, it was written in Hebrew for
them for whom both their own bishop and these apostles of
...the circumcision wrote in Greek.
Fourthly, It was written, saith this tradition, by the di-
rection of the Holy Ghost, and interpreted, saith the pre-
tended Athanasius, by “James the brother of our Lord ;”
saith Anastasius Sinaita, by St. Luke ; by St. John, Saith
Theophylact, upon hearsay ; and all of them without ground
saith Du Pin, p. 36. “It is unknown by whom it was trans-
lated,” saith St. Jerome ; “It was not translated” saith Pa-
pias, “but every one interpreted it as he could ;” and yet
that of Baronius + is certain, that “if the Hebrew alone
was the original of St. Matthew, we cannot say the Greek is
the true copy of St. Matthew, but by our assurance that it
agrees with the original.” Now if it were not at all trans-
lated, as Papias saith, or were translated only by an un-
known hand, as St. Jerome saith; or if we have only one single
person of a later date, who ascribes this version to an apos-
tolical person, and he both doth it without ground, and is
contradicted by two, who attribute this version to another,-
can this be any sure foundation that we have any copy which
agrees with the original 2
It is said, indeed, that the apostles approved of the Greek
version ; I answer, that they and the whole church approved
of the Greek gospel of St. Malthew, I believe ; but what
single authors say they approved of any version 2 yea,
what author before St. Jerome and the false Athanasius
speaks of any version from the Hebrew 2 All antiquity
cite this gospel according to the Greek, and speak of the
gospel according to the Hebrew as a thing not of authority,
* Neque veró purum Matthaei Evangelium, ut existimãsse
videtur Epiphanius, sedab illis depravatum, quod Evangel-
lium war& 'E8paíov; appellat Eusebius. Nazaraeorum Evange-
lium nequaquàm Matthaeigermanum fuit. Not, ad Haer. 29,
N. 9. -
# An, 35, Num. 165.
PREFACE TO THE GOSPELS.
31
or not received without contradiction ; but I know not one
who saith the gospel used by the church was a version from
the Hebrew ; and from this long silence, and from the dis-
cord and ungrounded sayings of those single witnesses, who
after the fourth century speak of a version, I conclude the
Greek we now have was no version, but the original gospel
of St. Matthew, written by him for the use of the whole
church of God ; and that the Hebrew copy, if he wrote any,
was written for the use of the circumcision only ; so that it
being in the hands of the Jews only, and understood by them
alone, and they being, saith Justin Martyr,” “the worst
sort of Christians,” i.e. retainers of Judaism with Christia-
nity, and they in whose hands the gospel chiefly was, being
Nazarenes and Ebionites, might, from the traditions which
obtained among them, add to it, or from their principles be
induced to change and to corrupt it. Or,
Lastly, To speak freely what I conceive most probable, as
the canonical books of the Old Testament were written ori-
ginally in Hebrew, but when the pure Hebrew became unin-
telligible to the vulgar, and when the dispersion of the Jews
had distinguished them into Hebrews, which used their mo-
ther-tongue, and Hellenists, who understood only the Greek
tongue, the Chaldee version was used in the synagogues of
the Hebrews, and the Greek by the Hellenists; so this dis-
tinction continuing after Christ's ascension, some of the
Scriptures, written originally in the Greek for the use of
both Jew and gentile, were translated into the mixed He-
brew ; and as they had, saith Epiphanius, ºf “the gospel of
St. John and the Acts of the Apostles in Hebrew ;’” so had
they before the gospel of St. Matthew turned into the same
language, and perhaps with the same liberty of making ad-
ditions to it from tradition which we find in the Chaldee
paraphrast and the translation of the Septuagint ; which
version the primitive Christians among the gentiles, who were
ignorant of that language, finding in their hands, they from
the likeness of the thing, and the pretensions of the Jews,
might think it an original written for their use. Thus some
of them upon the same account inform us, that “the epistle
to the Hebrews was first written in Hebrew, and was trans-
lated into Greek by Clemens, : or St. Luke ;” and yet that
in this matter they were mistaken, we learn from St. Jerome, Š
telling us for certain, “that the whole New Testament, ex-
cepting only the gospel of St. Matthew, was first writ in
Greek.” For, -
First, St. Jerome and Epiphanius are the only persons
who speak of this authentic Hebrew gospel, kept till their
time by the Nazarenes, which that it was not the original
gospel of St. Matthew hath been fully proved.
Secondly, St. Jerome saith of this Hebrew copy, which
he received from them and translated into Greek and Latin,
that “the citations contained in it, when the evangelist spake
in his own person, or in the person of our Lord, were exactly
according to the Hebrew, and not according to the Septua-
gint ;” and yet it is certain this is not true of the Greek
copy we now have, as appears from ii. 6. 18. iii. 3. iv. 15.
V. 21. 31.43. xi. 10. xii. 20, 21. xiii. 14. xv. 8, 9. xxvi. 31.
xxvii. 9.
$. VII. If it be here objected, that by calling in question
a thing so generally asserted by so many fathers, I
weaken the tradition of the church concerning the canon of
the Scriptures, and other matters handed down to us by tra-
dition ;
I answer, That I have sufficiently obviated this objection
in a particular discourse | upon this subject, in which I have
showed what traditions are to be received, and what may ra-
tionally be questioned, and that we have sufficient ground
* 'Axn&earégov; row; # Swāv ráv 3rd Iowbalov ×ai Xapºapéoy
Xplottayou; sióðts;. Apol. 2, p. 88.
f Kai rô Karā ‘Iwavyny we'raxm$63, Ei, 'Egºaßa škºgsrat #y
ºrdſ; rāv 'lovězíoy yaſoºvXaxiotç,-oi, ºy &AN& kai rāy ºrpážsovºrów
&roatáñay rāy 8í8xov &aaºro, 373 ‘Exx480; yx&rain; ei, ‘Eópaíða
£weraganòsforay Aáyo; #xst. Haer. 30, sect. 8.
# Teygá40aſ ‘E6paiotº, Eógain; povň. Clem. Alex. apud
Euseb. H. Eccl. lib. vi. cap. 14. Euseb. lib. iii. cap. 38.
Theoderet. Proem. in Ep. ad Heb. Hieronymus, W. Paulus.
§ De Novo Testamento Graecum esse non dubium est, ex-
cepto Apostolo Matthaeo. Praefat. ad quatuor Evangelia.
| Treatise of Traditions.
from reason to rely on the tradition of the canon of the Old
and the New Testament. -
Secondly,” I have shown that the fathers have been im-
posed upon by the Jews in other things received from them
by tradition, and asserted by more testimonies of ancient fa-
thers that are avouched to prove that the gospel according
to St. Matthew, was first written in Hebrew; as v. g. First,
In the story of the cells of the Seventy, in which they who
translated the Old Testament are said to have been severally
placed ; or, as Epiphanius will have it, two together, when
they translated the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek,
and yet by inspiration, or prophetical impulse, to have per-
formed this translation all in the same words ; these things,
saith Justin Martyr, t “we report to you gentiles, not as fa-
bles, or feigned stories, &NA& trap' airów #xeſ &; rà rárgia Traggi.
Ånºpárov &nxoére; ratita Tragayyáxxop, ev, but as a received tra-
dition delivered to us from the inhabitants of the place.”
The same traditions, touching the cells, is delivered as certain
by Irenaeus, f by Clemens of Alexandria (Strom. 1, p. 342),
by Cyril Š of Jerusalem, and by Epiphanius (de Ponderi-
bus et Mens. p. 160—162), and by St. Austin (De Civ. Dei.
lib. xvi. cap. 42,43), -
And as all these fathers confirm the story of the cells, and
consequently speak of this performance as done, Saig Buyáºzet
war' firinyolay Osoſ, Éx IIvetºzarog &yſov, “by the power and af-
flatus of the Holy Spirit, or by that Spirit who spake these
things by the prophets;” so doth Tertullian || speak, de sen-
tentiae communione, of “their conspiring in their sentiments;”
Eusebius'ſ saith, that it was $866evoixoyogenösſora Épºnysia, “an
interpretation ordered by God;” “it was done by them,” saith
St. Hilary,” spirituali et coelesti scientia “with spiritual and
heavenly knowledge ;” &# 3ixa rā; Beia; Štriºryoiaç, “not with-
out divine inspiration,” saith Theodoret:++ and this they say
by reason of the great sympathy which was in their interpre-
tation ; and yet Bellarmineft saith, that “in this the Jews
imposed on Justin Martyr, and the succeeding fathers might
give credit to Justin.” Du Pin, Ş that it is a “fiction of the
Jews,” and that “it is well known how frivolous and uncer-
tain these pretended popular traditions are, and especially
among the Jews:" Father Simon || saith, “we must not
here so much consider what the fathers said, as what reason
they had to say so ;” and that St. Jerome'ſ ‘ſ “gives them all
the lie.” And to the other pretence of their inspiration, he
answers (p. 115), de rebus sibi incognitis quidquam certi de-
finire non potuerunt, “they could say nothing certain of
things unknown to themselves,” and therefore could say no-
thing certain in the case before us. * -
Secondly, The appearance of Elias the Tishbite in person,
before the second coming of Christ, is delivered by the fa-
thers unanimously as a tradition of the church : but this
they did partly from the tradition of the Jews, partly from
the mistaken sense of the words of Christ, and partly from
the authority of the Septuagint, without all ground, as
hath been fully proved (Treat. of Trad. ch.5, from $. 1 to
5
Thirdly, They generally taught, for four centuries toge-
ther, that “the good angels, styled the sons of God, Gen. vi.
were transported with the love of women, and begat of them
giants and evil spirits ;” this is taught by Justin Martyr,
Irenaeus, Clemens of Alexandria, and Athenagoras, in the
second century; by Tertulliam, Minutius, St. Cyprian, and
Methodius in the third ; by Lactantius and Sulpicius in the
fourth ; and this they did from the traditional interpretation
of the Jews recorded in Josephus” and in Philo,fff and in
the first book of Enoch, De Egregeris ; and yet in the fifth
century the authors of this opinion are represented by
Chrysostomłff and Theodoret, as “stupid teachers of fables
* Ibid. cap. 1, sect. 8.
# Exhort. ad Gr. p. 13, 14.
§ Catech. 4, p. 37.
| Apol. cap. 18. * Praep. Ev. lib. viii. cap. 1.
** Prol. in Ps. p. 635. ++ Praef. in Psalm.
# De verbo Dei, lib. ii. cap. 6. SS Hist. of the Canon, p. 174.
|| Disq. Crit. cap. 15, p. 109.
Tº Nescio quis primus auctor septuaginta cellulas menda-
cio suo exstruxit. * J
*** Antiq. lib. x. cap. 4. tº De Gigant, p. 284, 285.
## Wid. Grab. Spicil. 1 Cent. p. 347, &c.
f Lib. iii. cap. 25.
32
and blasphemers,”* as hath been proved ; and if in these
things the fathers were so easily imposed on by the Jews,
why might they not be imposed on likewise in saying that the
gospel according to St. Matthew was written in a language
that they understood nothing of, and of which they could say
nothing certain from their own knowledge P
Notwithstanding, if any man like not this opinion, he
* Treat, of Trad, part 2, cap. 12, §. 7
A
P A R A P
A PARAPHRASE ON THE NEW TESTAMENT.
may compound the matter with the fathers thus, that St
Matthew might deliver that gospel which he wrote, as well
in Hebrew to the Jews, who understood that language only,
as in Greek to the Hellenistic Jews and to the gentile con-
verts. And since it is agreed on all hands that he left Judea
to preach to the gentiles, what is more reasonable than to
conceive he left that gospel he had preached to them, and
wrote by the assistance of the Spirit, as a rule of faith to all
nations, in a language which those nations understood?
H R A S E
ON
T H E N E W T
EST A M ENT.
THz kalyā; 31a6%kn; &mayra, all the books of the New Tes-
tament.] It is observed by the Rev. Dr. Hammond,” that
this title refers to the “consent of the catholic church of
God, and the tradition which giveth testimony to these
books, as those, and those only, which complete the canon
of the New Testament ; and the word Hwayºra, all, signifies,
as in the titles of other authors, ātrayta rā. Śiśāºsya, “all
the books which have been written,” and by God's provi-
dence derived to the church, so as to be received into the
canon, or into the number of writings which were confessedly
indited by the apostles and disciples of Christ.” I cannot
indeed find that this title is of any considerable antiquity ;
but the more ancient title of h Katyń 8tašákm, ‘the New Tes-
tament,” prefixed to these books, doth plainly intimate the
full and general persuasion, that in these books was com-
prised that whole new covenant of which the blessed Jesus
was the mediator, and the apostles were the ministers and
the dispensers; and then surely they must contain all that
is requisite for christians to believe or do in order to salva-
tion, or in order to their performance of the conditions on
which salvation in this new covenant is tendered ; there
being nothing which can be deemed a more necessary and
essential part of the new covenant, than the conditions upon
which salvation is to be obtained by it.
And that the ancients thus conceived of these books, is
evident from the other title of the “rule and canon of scrip-
ture,” given to them even from the time of Irenaeus,' who
styles the Scriptures rêv &xxtyń rā, śamósia; rºw wavčva, “the
invariable rule of truth.” A canon, saith Phavorinus, is a
perpetual rule, a measure that cannot be false, "rācay ºrpác-
6sory wai & paigeziv ºn&apºſ; #7135x6, Evoc, ,” and which by no
means admits of any addition to it, or subtraction from it.”
A canon and a rule, saith St. Basil, f if it want nothing to
make it truly such, oiºsaiav trgoa Sixny sic 3xeiðslav Švºxeral,
“admits of no addition to the exactness of it ; for addition
belongs to that which is somewhat deficient, or imperfect;
whereas,” saith he, “if rules and canons be imperfect, they
* Preface. + Lib. i. ed. Ox, p. 44.
£ Adv. Eunom. lib. i. tom. i. p. 701.
do not well deserve that name.” “To a canon,” saith G.
Nyssen,” “belongs # reasiórnº, such perfection as hath no-
thing wanting or abounding ;” and therefore of the canon of
the Scriptures he asserts, that it is xpirägtoy &artaxš, ric & Anóniac
in travré, 36V caroº, “an infallible rule of truth in every doc-
trine.” Upon those words, “As many as walk by this ca-
non” (Gal. vi. 16), Theodoret saith, “He calls the doctrine
propounded by him a canon, as having £4%te #xxEſzrév ri whºre
Trégºrröv, nothing wanting or superfluous:” and upon those
words, Philip. iii. 16, “Let us walk by the same canon,”
Chrysostom ºf saith, “A canon neither admits of addition or
diminution, otherwise it loseth the property of a canon.”
Elsewhere it he saith, that “it is easy to judge of the con-
troversies in religion, having the scripture for our canon.”
Theodoret,S on the place, saith, “The apostle calls the
preaching of the gospel the canon ;” adding, that “a canon
is a boundary of right, wanting nothing,” CEcumenius
saith, “The apostle speaks of faith : for as to a canon or
rule, if you add any thing to it, or diminish from it, the
whole is spoiled; so is it with respect to faith.” So that in
the judgment of the fathers, the Holy Scriptures being the
rule and canon of faith, no article of faith can be wanting in
them, or ought to be added to them. Hence also, by just
consequence, we infer the perspicuity of scripture in all the
necessary articles of Christian faith, and rules of life ; for a
perfect canon must as well be plain as full : a rule by which
I am to regulate my actions and my faith must be clear ;
for if it be not plain and intelligible, I cannot, by attending
to it, know what I am obliged to believe and do : and there-
fore Chrysostom saith, “There needs not much inquiry where
there is a rule to which all things must be adapted ; but it
is easy to perceive who takes wrong measures” (Hom. 35,
in Acta Apost. tom. iv. p. 800).
*Adv. Eunom. Or. 3. tom. ii. p. 552, et Or. 1. p. 346.
+ 'Ewel rô Kay&y Elyai &wéxxvci.
† Tom. iv. Hom. 34, in Act. Apost.
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• . THE - . .
G O S P E L OF ST. M. A TT H E W :
witH ANNoTATIONs.
CHAPTER I.
1 The book of the generation of Jesus Christ (who I
was according to the flesh, Rom. ix. 5), the , son of
* David, (Acts ii. 30, and) the son of Abraham (is on
this wise). -
2 Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac begat Jacob,
and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren,” .
3 And Judas begat Phares, and Zara" of Tha-
mar,” and Phares begat Esrom, and Esrom begat
Aram,
4 And Aram begat Aminadab, and Aminadab be-
gat Naasson, and §aasson begat Salmon,
5 And Salmon begat Booz of Rahab" (the harlot),
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I.
* Ver. 1. Biéxo; yevia’soc, the book of the generation.] i. e.
As the Syriac well expresses it, the writing, narrative, or
rehearsal of the generation or birth (ver. 18) of Jesus; for
though the word yéved tº is elsewhere of that latitude, as to
comprise also the history of our Lord’s life, and death, and
resurrection ; yet it is here to be restrained to the birth of
Christ, as appears, first, from the parallel phrase, airn # 8:8-
Wo; yºváaeo; &v823"roy, “this is the book” or the rehearsal “of
the generation of men from Adam to Noah” (Gen. v. 1).
Secondly, From the design of the apostle here, which is to
Set down the descent of Christ from Abraham, and his alli-
ance to king David by his father Joseph : and, thirdly,
from the eighteenth verse, which, after this narrative of it,
proceeds to show the manner of his birth, by saying, “Now
# yÉvêaig the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise.”
* The son of David, the son of Abraham.] i. e. The son
of both, as “Aholibamah the daughter of Anah, (and) the
daughter of Zibeon” (Gen. xxxvi. 2). This sense being
most suitable to the design of the apostle, which is to prove
Christ was the son of both, and that in him were fulfilled the
promises made to both. And David is first named ; first,
because the promise to him was fresher in memory, more
plain, and more explicit ; God had promised to Abraham
in general words, that “in his seed should all the families of
the earth be blessed” (Gen. xii. 3. xxii. 18). And that this
Seed was Christ, we learn from the apostle Peter, Acts iii.
25, 26, and from St. Paul, Gal. iii. 16. But to David God
promised, that in “his seed would he establish the throne
of his kingdom for ever” (2 Sam. vii. 16); that his seed
would he establish for ever, and “build up his throne to all
generations” (Ps. lxxxix. 4). Now this being a promise,
that “of the fruit of his body he would raise up Christ to
sit upon his throne” (Acts ii. 30), was more suitable to the
notions of the Jewish flation touching the king Messiah,
and to their inclinations. The prophets also prophesy of
him, as one to “sit upon the throne of David for ever”
(Isa, ix. 7), that he shall be a “righteous branch” raised
up to David, and a “king that shall reign and prosper, in
whose days Judah shall dwell safely” (Jer. xxiii. 5, 6), that
they “should dwell in the land for ever, and David shall
be their prince for ever” (Ezek. xxxvii. 24, 25. see Isa. lv.
ll. Amos is, 11). Accordingly, the angel speaketh of one
who should “reign on the throne of his father David, over
the house of Jacob for ever” (Luke i. 33). And the J ews
pray to him thus, “Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy
on us”. (Matt. ix. 27. xv. 22. xx. 30); and make their ac-
clamations to him thus, “Hosanna to the son of David.”
Others add, that Abraham is put after David, because the
apostle was to begin his catalogue from Abraham.
* Ver. 2. Kai Toi). 338Apoic aircü, and his brethren.] Per-
haps interpreters might save themselves the trouble of giv-
ing a reason of many things contained in this catalogue, by
saying St. Matthew here recites it as he found it in the au
thentic copies of the Jews, who doubtless had preserved
ii. 21. 23. Ezra iii. 2. 8. v. 2.
some known and approved genealogy of their descent from
Abraham, the father of their nation, in whom they so much
gloried, and from whose loins they expected the promised
Messiah. Thus, for instance, when it is said, “Salathiel
begat Zorobabel,” it may be sufficient to justify the apostle
in this, that the Jews do still represent Zorobabel not as
the son of Pedaiah, but of Salathiel. So we read of “Zoro-
babel, the son of Shealtiel,” Neh. xii. 1. Hag. i. 12. 14.
- Josephus" likewise says, the
captain of the people was 3 ×axA26.5×ou Traic Zopoflagáxos,
“Zorobabel the son of Salathiel;” and with great reason
must he follow the sentiments of three persons of so great
authority as Ezra, Nehemiah, and the prophet Haggai, the
contemporaries of Zorobabel. So also may we say, that
the kings left out in this genealogy were therefore omitted
by St. Matthew ; because he found them omitted in the
genealogy used by the Jews, and that these words, “and his
brethren,” are added, as being also added in their genealogy.
But to omit this, “his brethren” may be added to comfort
the dispersed tribes, which were not yet returned out of cap-
tivity, as Judah was, in their equal interest in the blessing
of the seed of Abraham, they being all adopted children of
God, which is not true of Ishmael or Esau, the brethren of
Isaac and Jacob: moreover, these brethren of Judas might
well be mentioned, as being patriarchs, “heirs of the pro-
mise,” and heads of that people whence the Messiah was to
proceed; and therefore Stephen also speaks thus of them,
“Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac begat Jacob, and Jacob
begat the twelve patriarchs,” Acts vii. 8.
* Ver. 3. And Zara.] Mentioned with Phares, as being
born at the same time, and striving with him for primogeni-
ture, Gen. xxxviii. 28–30.
* Of Thamar.] It is observed here by some, that only
four women are mentioned in this genealogy till he comes
to Joseph, and all of them noted for some infamy, as Tha-
mar for incest, Rahab for being a harlot, Ruth for heathen-
ism, Bathsheba for adultery ; nor were they thus mentioned,
because sinners, to teach us that Christ came to save such,
or to be born of such ; for why then were the three descents
of Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah omitted 2 but because in
them only that law was departed from, which was given ge-
nerally to the heirs of the promised blessing, that they
should take them wives of their nearest kindred ; and per-
haps to obviate the cavils of the Jews against the mean
condition of the mother of our Lord, their ancestors being
descended of women whose qualities rendered them meaner
than she was. *
* Ver. 4. Of Rahab.] That Rahab was married to some
prince of Israel, the tradition of the Jews assures us; but
whereas, in contradiction to St. Matthew, they say, that she
was married to Joshua, this is said in flat opposition to
their own tradition, that Rahab was “the mother of eight
priests and prophets;” for Joshua was neither of the tribe
of Judah nor of Levi, but of the tribe of Ephraim (Numb.
* Antiq. Jud. lib. xi. cap. 4, p. 363, F. T
}
“. .
34
and Booz begat Obed of Ruth (the Moabitess), and
Obed begat Jesse,
6 AndJessebegat David.theking," and David the king
begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Uriah,”
7 And Solomon begat Roboam, and Roboam begat ||
Abiah, and Abiah begat Asa,
xiii. 8). That Rahab was one of the idolatrous nations with
which they were forbidden to marry (Exod. xxxiv. 16. Deut.
vii. 3), hinders not this marriage of Salmon with Rahab, she
being first made a proselyte of justice ; the reason of that
law being this, lest they should tempt them to idolatry;
which reason ceased when they once owned the God of Is-
rael; whence we find that Boaz married Ruth (iv. 13), and
thought himself obliged so to do, and David married Maa-
chah, the daughter of the king of Geshur (2 Sam. iii. 3).
But here seems to be a great objection both against Salmon
and against Obed, how it can be true that only Boaz, Obed,
and Jesse, should intercede betwixt Salmon and David,
when the time betwixt them must be at least three hundred
years in the mildest computation ; and so Salmon must be
one hundred years old when he begat Boaz, Boaz as old
when he begat Obed, and Obed as old when he begat Jesse;
whereas it is looked upon as miraculous that Abraham at
one hundred years should beget Isaac, Gen. xvii. 17. xxi. 5.
To this objection it may be answered from the Targum upon
Ruth, that these three were men of an extraordinary cha-
racter for justice and piety; Salmon is styled “Salmon the
just,” of whom it is said, that “his works and the works of
his children were very excellent;” that Boaz was “a righ-
teous person, by whose righteousness the people of Israel
were delivered from the hands of their enemies;” and by
“whose prayers the famine ceased from the land of Israel;”
that Obed “served the Lord with a perfect heart,” and that
he begat Jesse, “in whom was found no iniquity or corrup-
tion for which he should be delivered to the angel of death,”
and “he lived many days, and only died at last by reason
of the sentence passed upon Adam for eating the forbidden
fruit.” God therefore might vouchsafe to men of such ex-
traordinary piety a longer life than ordinary, and strength
to beget children in their old age. Thus Caleb. at eighty-
five, and Moses at one hundred and twenty, had not their
natural strength abated (Deut. xxxiv. 7. Josh. xiv. 11);
whereas Abraham's body was then dead (Rom. iv. 19). Dr.
Alix saith there were but three hundred and sixty-six years
from the first of Joshua to the birth of David ; and this is
certain, because from the going of the children of Israel
out of Egypt to the building of the temple in the fourth.
year of Solomon, passed four hundred and eighty years.
Now if you add to three hundred and sixty-six the forty
years the children spent in the wilderness, the seventy years
of David's life, mentioned 2 Sam. v. 4, and the four years of
Solomon, they make exactly four hundred and eighty years:
he therefore supposes that Salmon begat Boaz when he was
ninety-six years old; Boaz begåt Obed when he was ninety
years old; Obed, when he was ninety, begat Jesse; and
Jesse, when he was eighty-five, begat David.
7 Ver. 6. David the king.] To whom the promise was
made to the king Messiah, to stablish his throne for ever,
Ezek. xxxvii. 25, and from him the kingdom is styled the
“house of David,” and the kingly throne, “the throne of
the house of David,” Ps. cxxii. 5.
° Of her that had been the wife of Urias.] To show that
that crime of David being repented of, was so far from hin-
dering the promise God made to him, that it pleased God
by this very woman to fulfil it.
* Ver. 8. Joram begat Ozias.] It is certain, from the his-
tory of the Kings and Chronicles, that Oziáš was the son of
Amaziah, 2 Chron. xxvi. 1, Amaziah of Joash, xxiv. 27,
Joash of Azariah, xxii. 11, Azariah of Joram, ver. 1. Dut
according to the language of the Hebrews, and their maxims
relating to this matter, “the children of children are re-
puted the children not only of their immediate parents, but
of their ancestors,” and these ancestors are said to beget
those whº are removed some generations from them : so
Isaiah saith to Hezekiah, xxxix. 7, “Of thy sons which
shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take
away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king
MATTHEw.
8. And Asa begat Josaphat, and Josaphat begat
Joram, and Joram begat Ozias."
9 And Ozias begat Joatham, and Joatham begat
Achas, and Achas begat Ezekias, v
10 And Ezekias begat Manasses, and Manāsses
begat Amon, and Amon begat Josias,
of Babylon;” which prediction was fulfilled only in the days
of Jechonias, long after the days of Hezekiah. But the
great question here is, Why Azariah, Joash, and Amaziah,
are left out of the catalogue of the kings of Judah 2 To
this it is answered, 1. Negatively, that the reason could not
be because they were great sinners, since, Manasseh and
Amon, who were greater sinners, were retained in this cata-
logue, ver. 10. It therefore may be said,
First, That the Jews had their tabulae censuales, in which
the stems of the kingly family of David were written ; and
in these catalogues these three kings might be left out.
That even to the time of Christ they had such tables even
of their families and tribes, is evident from Josephus, * who,
having given us the genealogy of his family, saith, Tây Awāv
oùy roi; yévov; hºw 8taëoxy, &c #y raft; 3naoaiai, 3Årot; āyayā-
ypapºp, #yny sigov, oùro; wagatíðsºat, “I give you this succes-
sion of our family as I found it written in the public tables ;"
and if so, the Jews, not the apostle, are to account for this
omission. Secondly, It is no new thing to find the like
omissions in the books of the Old Testament ; thus Cain
and his whole posterity are omitted in the book of Chroni-
cles; Simeon is omitted in the blessing of Moses, Deut.
xxxiii. for his cruelty at Sychem. The writer of the book
of Chronicles reckons up all the sons of Jacob ; but in the
account of their posterity, he omits the account of Zebulun
and Dan ; and when he begins with the sons of Judah, he
omits Zarah, 1 Chron. ii. 3. iv. l. The penman of the
books of Samuel, when he recounts the worthies of David,
omits Joab, because of his bloodiness to Amasa and Abner.
In the book of Ezra there are reckoned from Seraiah to
Aaron only sixteen generations (ch. vii.), whereas, in the
book of Chronicles, from Aaron to the same Seraiah are
reckoned twenty-two (1 Chron. vi.), so that six must be
omitted in Ezra : so that there is no more reason to suspect
the evangelist, than the Jews have to question their own
scriptures on this account. But still it may be inquired,
why these three in particular are omitted: and to this it is
answered (1.) That the omitting these three cannot in the
least concern the chief design of the apostle, which was to
show that Jesus was of the lineage of David : now by pass-
ing from Joram to Ozias he keeps still in the same line, and
so sufficiently shows that Jesus was of the house and family
of David. (2.) The reason why these three are passed by
rather than others seems probably to be this, that they are
the posterity of Joram, an idolater, and one who married
the daughter of Ahab (2 Kings viii. 18), and so was joined
to an idolatrous family, and by this provoked God to have
destroyed his family, had he not preserved it because of the
covenant made with David, 2 Chron. xxi, 7. God there-
fore cuts off all these three, omitted here, by an unnatural
and untimely death, to punish the idolatry of this king, and
of the house of Ahab in his posterity to the third genera-
tion, according to his threat in the second commandment;
and for this reason these three kings might be here passed
over in silence. It is by others farther said, that St. Mat-
thew finding the generations in the first period exactly four-
teen, he passed over some in his second account, to make
that to answer to the first ; but this will by no means please
Mr. Cl., who first, against all reason, talks of ten omitted
out of the number of fifty, to make the divisions into four-
teens; and then adds a bold conjecture, “that St. Matthew
met with a genealogical book of David's family that was
defective, and accidentally observing these three classes of
fourteen generations between these three great periods of
time, viz. before the setting up of the regal government,
during its continuance, and after its fall, was thereby moved
to make such a division in the account of Christ's lineage,
which he would not so much as have thought of, if he had
* De Wità Suá, p. 998. TX,
CHAPTER I.
35
11 And Josias” begat Jechonias and his brethren,
about the time they were carried away into Babylon;
12 And after they were brought to Babylon, Jecho-
nias begat Salathiel, and Salathiel begat Zorobabel,
13 And Zorobabel” begat Abihud, and Abihud
Eliakim, and Eliakim begat Azor,
made use of an entire book; nor, Saith he (in the name of
his friend), is it to be wondered that a genealogical book
should be corrupted, because a very great and considerable
error, that had perplexed the ancients, had crept into the
eleventh verse of St. Matthew's text itself.” Now as for his
imaginary error in the eleventh verse, I shall account for it
there ; but to make a divine author, assisted by the Holy
Ghost, as St. Matthew was always esteemed by all Chris-
tians, in a matter of so great import as the true descent of
the Messiah, take up with a defective and corrupt book,
and give to all Christian ages a catalogue thus liable to the
exception of the Jews, because he accidentally did light on
such a one, and knew not of a better, is plainly to accuse
the ignorance, suspect the care, and weaken the authority of
this great apostle ; it had therefore been better to have con-
cealed this wild conjecture of his friend, than to have offered
it to an age unhappily disposed to depreciate the sacred
writings.
1° Wer. 11. 'Iolaia; 33 yévyna's rêy 'Iszoviay, xa, row, 388xpow;
autoi. And Josias begat Jechonias and his brethren.]
Against this it is objected, That Josias did not beget Je-
chonias, who was the son of Jehoiakim ; and to this it is
answered, That Jechonias, in the eleventh verse, is not the
same person with Jechonias, ver. 12, but is indeed Jehoia-
kim the son cf Josias, and his first-born. For though the
people of the land made Jehoahaz, the second son of Josias,
king after his father, yet that the kingdom by birthright be-
longed to Jehoiakim is evident; because Jehoahaz was
only “twenty-three years old when he began to reign,” and
reigned but three months: whereas Jehoiakim, who imme-
diately succeeded after his deposition, was “twenty-five
years old when he began to reign” (2 Kings xxiii. 31. 36).
Hence Josephus * saith of Pharaoh-mechoh, who made
him king, and changed his name from Eliakim to Jehoia-
kim, ITºsa-6v rápa, acroi, 3.35M piº #207targio Syri răy 8aaixeſay
wrapa?:3a'at. “He gave kingdom to Eliakim, his eldest bro-
ther by the same father.” Hence doth St. Matthew take no
notice of Jehoahaz, because he reigned only three months,
and that by usurpation of the kingdom. That this first
Jechonias was indeed Jehoiakim, is proved, first, From
these words, “Josias begat Jechonias and his brethren ; now
Jehoiakim indeed had two brethren begotten by Josias,
viz. Jehoahaz, who reigned before him, and Zedekiah, who
reigned after him ; and therefore being kings, were fit to be
thus mentioned by St. Matthew ; but it appears not that
Jechonias, the father of Shealtiel, had any brethren ; and if
he had, they must be begotten not by Josias, but by Jehoi-
akim his father; nor is there any reason why they should
be thus mentioned, ver. 12, when then we read, that “Josias
begat Jechonias and his brethren,” this can belong to none
but Jehoiakim ; and when we read that “Jechonias begat Sa-
lathiel,” this must be understood of Jechonias the son of
Jehoiakim ; for this agrees with the Old Testament, 1
Chron. 15–17. Secondly, This interpretation makes up
the fourteen generations exactly in the second and third
series; whereas, they who make Jechonias, ver, 11, 12, to
be the same person, leave only thirteen in the second
series, if Jechonias be added to the third ; or in the third, if
he be reckoned to the second : when therefore the apostle
saith, by way of inference, “So all the generations from Da-
vid, until the carrying away into Babylon, are fourteen ge-
nerations” (ver. 17), he leads us to this interpretation, be:
cause this would not be true, were Jechonias, ver. 11, and
Jechonias, ver. 12, one and the same person. Thus Jerome t
saith expressly, that in evangelio secundam Matthaeum se-
cunda ríazaga. Šázaç in Joacim desinit filio Josiae, tertia incipit
à Joacim filio Joachim. And again, Sciamus Jeconiam f
priorem ipsum esse quem et Joachim, Secundum autem
filium, non patrem.
Obj. If it be here objected, that they carry both one name
and so must be one person ; -
Ans. It is answered, first, That the names in the original
+ In Dan, i.
* Antiq. lib. x. cap. 6, p. 336.
: In Matt. i.
differ very little, the one being ppºint, the other "pºm", which
difference is so little, that both are translated by the Septua-
gint, 'Ioakelp, so is Jechonias translated, Jer, lii. 31, twice.
So Josephus * saith that Nabuchodonosor, 'Ioãxºov inter-
fecit et 'Ioláxigov rôy viúvatºroi, zaréa-rna's 8aaixãa “slew Jo-
achim, and made Joachim his son king:” and Clemens of
Alexandria, that after ‘Iwakeip, who reigned eleven years, 3
ãºvvº.o. atroi. 'Ioazei, reipznyov 8aaixgåes, “Joachim of the
same name reigned three months.” To this add that of
Irenaeus, lib. iii. cap. 30, that in the account St. Matthew
gives of the generation of Jesus Christ, Joseph, Joachim et
Jechoniae filius ostenditur.
Obj. Through the whole chapter, the person who is first
said to be begotten and then to beget is the same person, it
therefore seemeth reasonable to think it so here.
Ans. So also it is here ; for it is expressly said that
Josias begat Jechonias, i.e. “Joachim and his brethren ;”
i. e. he begat also Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim, named also Je-
chonias, and these three continued to reign till the captivity,
at which time Jechonias was carried away into Babylon ;
and after they were brought to Babylon, “Jechonias begat
Salathiel.” But here comes in a fresh objection, that God
had sworn Jechonias should be childless (Hebrew, stripped
or naked), a man that shall not prosper in his days; for no
man of his seed shall prosper sitting on the throne of Da-
vid. Now hence it appears, first, That the Hebrew, ºn hy
from the root nºw or ITV, may as well signify, stripped, so-
litary, naked, rooted up, as childless; and accordingly it is
rendered by the LXX. #xxmpuwards, an abject, abdicated per-
son. Secondly, He might be thus childless, or stripped of his
offspring, by his children dying before him, as well as by
his having none. And, Thirdly, This sense is certain both
from the preceding words, “He and his seed are cast out
into a land which they know not” (v. 28), and from the rea-
son following, “for none of his seed shall prosper.” And
lastly, from 1 Chron. iii. 17, where his sons are reckoned AS-
sir and Salathiel.
Obj. It farther is objected, that whereas it is here said,
that Salathiel begat Zorobabel, he was indeed the son of
Pedaiah, the son of Salathiel, or Shealtiel, 1 Chron. iii. 19.
Ans. To this I have already answered, That St. Matthew
here follows the style of the Old Testament, and of the Jew-
ish writers, in which Zorobabel is still called the son of
Salathiel. Secondly, Were he not the immediate son of
Shealtiel, but of Pedaiah, yet is this suitable to the language
of the Jewish nation, to count the grandson the son of the
grandfather: thus Sarah is called the daughter of Terah,
Gen. xx. 12, as being the daughter of Haran, the son of
Terah ; and the same with Iscah (Gen. xi. 28, 29); thus
Laban is called the son of Nahor, Gen. xxix. 5, as being the
son of Bethuel, who was the son of Nahor(xxiv. 47), and Je-
horamis called the father of Jehoash, 2 Kings xii. 18, as being
the father of his father Ahaziah ; and Maacah, the daughter
of Abishalom, is said to be mother of Asa, 1 Kings XV. 10,
because she was his father's mother (ver. 2). Considerable here
is the observation of Mr. Whiston, first, That there is no other
instance in this genealogy, but what speaks of a truly natural
generation. Secondly, That in all other places of the Old
Testament, Salathiel is said to have begotten Zorobabel ; and
therefore we have cause to follow the Alexandrian MS.,
which, in the place of the Chronicles cited, makes not Pedaiah
put Salathiel the father of Zorobabel ; or to say, that Sala-
thiel might have one son of that name, and Pedaiah another;
or lastly, that Pedaiah begat Zorobabel of the wife of Sa-
lathiel, and so he was the natural son of Pedaiah, but the
legal son of Salathiel. So the bishop of Ely.
11 Ver. 13. Zorobabel begat Abiud.] Against this it is ob-
jected, That among the sons of Zorobabel reckoned up, 1
Chron. iii. 19, there is no mention of Abiud. -
Ans. To this it is answered, first, That it is not evident,
that Zorobabel in Matthew and in Chronicles is the same
person, and then he in St. Matthew may be the son of Sala-
thiel the brother of Pedaiah. Secondly, That Abiud is
* Antiq. lib. x. cap. 8.
D 2
36
MATTHEW.
14 And Azor” begat Sadoc, and Sadoc begat Achim,
and Achim begat Eliud, -
15. And Eliud begat Eleazar, and Eleazar begat
Matthan, and Matthan begat Jacob,
16 And Jacob begat Joseph,” the husband of Mary,
of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.
mentioned in Chronicles under the name of Meshullam, it
being certain that many persons in the Old Testament, and
especially about the time of their captivity, had other names
in Babylon than what were used in their own land : and it
is the ingenious conjecture of Dr. Lightfoot, that this son
was called Abiud, in remembrance of his father's glory ; and
Meshullam, either in memorial of Solomon, the glory of
whose house was transferred to him, or from the significancy
of the word, which importeth requited : for whereas Jecho-
nias was called Shallum, that is finished, because the race
of Solomon ended in him, when a recompence of the failing
of that is made, by the succession of Salathiel in its stead,
well might Zorobabel, in whom it first appeared, call his son
Meshullam, or requited.
* Ver. 14.] Here it is required, whence St. Matthew had
this genealogy, there being nothing of it to be found in
scripture.
Ans. I answer, from the authentic genealogical tables,
kept by the Jews, of the line of David ; for it appears from
the taxation mentioned Luke ii. that they had genealogies
of their families and tribes, since all went to. be taxed,
every one to his own city (ver. 3); and “Joseph went to
Bethlehem the city of David, because he was of the house
and lineage of David:” and this is certain, touching the
tribe of Levi ; because their whole temple service, the effect
of their sacrifices and expiations, depended on it: and there-
fore Josephus being a priest, not only confidently depends on
these genealogical tables for the proof of his descent #yw-
Şey # isºčov, “in a long series from priests;” but adds, that
“all their priests were obliged to prove, * #x rāv 3pxatov rºw
Białoxiv, their succession from an ancient line,” and if they
could not do it, they were to be excluded from officiating as
priests, and that in whatsoever part of the world they were
they used this diligence: and again, Christ being promised
as one, who was to proceed out of the loins of David, and
therefore called “the son of David,” it was absolutely neces-
sary, that the genealogy of the house and lineage of David
should be preserved that they might know that their Mes-
siah was of the seed of David, according to the promise.
Hence the apostle saith to Timothy, “Remember that Jesus
Christ of the seed of David, was raised from the dead” (2
Tim. ii. 8); and Eusebius+ from Africanus saith, according
to the version of Ruffinus, Omnes Hebraeorum generationes
descriptae in archivis templi secretioribus habebantur, “That
all the successions of the Hebrews were kept in the secret
archives of the temple, and thence they were described, ix.
rfic 8:3×ov rāv hºwy from their ephemerides, by the kinsmen
of our Saviour" It therefore doubtless was from these au-
thentic records that St. Matthew had his genealogy, for
otherwise he would have exposed himself to the cavils of the
Jews: and hence the author to the Hebrews represents it as
a thing evident to the Jews, that “our Lord sprang out of
Judah” (Heb. vii. 14).
* Ver. 16. Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was
born Jesus.] It was necessary that the genealogy of Jesus
should be deduced from Joseph ; because it was so generally
received by the Jews, that Jesus was the son of a carpenter
(Matt. xiii. 55), the son of Joseph (John vi. 42): so that if
Joseph had not been acknowledged to have been of the
tribe of Judah, and of the family of David, they would not
have failed to have objected this as a just prejudice against
all Christ's pretences to have been the Messiah ; wherefore
the divine wisdom was pleased to direct this apostle to re-
move that stumbling-block. Secondly, It was also neces-
sary, by reason of that received rule among the Jews, that
“the family of the mother is not called a family;” and it was
not fit that St. Matthew in this matter should recede from
the constant rules and customs of that nation, the families
being always preserved and continued in the males of Israel,
and all their genealogies being reckoned from them.
* Lib. i. contra Ap. p. 1036, f Eccl. Hist, lib, i. cap. 6.
17 Soº all the generations from Abraham to David
are fourteen generations, and from David till the car-
rying away into Babylon are (reckoned up by me) four-
teen generations, and from the carrying away into
Babylon to Christ (inclusively) are (also) fourteen
generations.
Obj. But still it may be said, that Joseph being not the
natural, but the reputed father of the holy Jesus, this can-
not be sufficient to prove, that Jesus came from the loins of
David (Acts ii. 30), or was the fruit of his body according to
the promise (Ps. cxxxii. 11).
Ans. To this it is answered, that Joseph and Mary were
of the same tribe and family ; and therefore by giving us the
genealogy of Joseph, the apostle did at the same time give
us the genealogy of Mary, and consequently of Jesus the son
of Mary, and show that he was of the seed of David. Hence
several of the ancients, inquiring why Jesus was conceived
of a virgin espoused, and not of one perfectly at liberty, say,
this was done, that “by the family of Joseph the family of
Mary might be shown ;” and this will be made highly pro-
bable from scripture, and from history. For though those
words (Luke i. 27), “The angel Gabriel was sent to a virgin,
espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of
David, and the virgin's name was Mary,” do not prove this
of themselves, because it may be Joseph and not the virgin,
who is said to be “ of the house of David;” yet may they
also be translated thus, “To a virgin of the house of David,
espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, and the virgin's
name was Mary ;” and this translation is confirmed from
the following words of the angel to her, “Thou shalt con-
ceive in thy womb, and bear a son, and the Lord God shall
give him the throme of his father David ;” she therefore, who
conceiveth this son, must be “ of the house of David :” and
this is farther proved from the taxation mentioned, Luke
ii. 3—5. Whence it appears, (1) That all went to be taxed,
women as well as men ; for “Joseph with his espoused wife
Mary went up to be taxed ;” which troublesome journey she,
who was so near the time of her travail, would not have
taken had it not been necessary, (2.) That every one, men
and women, went up to their own city to be taxed (ver. 3).
(3.) That Joseph went to Bethlehem, the city of David, to
be taxed, “because he was of the house and lineage of David”
(ver. 4). Since therefore Mary went up to Bethlehem with
him to be taxed, she must do it for the same reason, because
she also “was of the same house and lineage.” Add to this,
that Domitian having given out a command to destroy all
that could be found of the house or family of David, some,
descended from Judas the brother of our Lord, were
brought before him,” & #x yávov; Hytaç Aa3iè, “as being of the
family of David,” which they freely owned (see more upon
this subject in the bishop of Bath and Wells's Demonst. of
the Messias, part ii. ch. 13). &
. A new and strange opinion is advanced by Mr. Whiston,
That this genealogy was chiefly designed “to show that
Christ was born at Bethlehem,” only because it is inquired
thus by the Jews (John vii. 42), “Hath not the scripture
said, that Christ should be born in the town of Bethlehem
where David was 2'" But,
First, Hath not the same scripture as expressly said, That
“he was to be of the seed of Abraham and David P’ Can
therefore any man reasonably imagine, that a genealogy be:
ginning thus, “The generation of Jesus Christ, the son of
David, the son of Abraham,” should not be primarily de-
signed to prove he was “the son of David, and of Abra-
ham.” -
Secondly, The second chapters of St. Matthew and St.
Luke do indeed prove that Jesus was born in Bethlehem,
because they do expressly say, it ; but this genealogy saith
nothing of it: and therefore, abstracted from them, it proves
nothing of it: and can it be the chief design of this long
genealogy to prove that which it doth not prove at all, and
which is only proved from what follows in another chapter,
and in another evangelist 2 And,
Thirdly, The very last clause of this genealogy, that
“Joseph was the husband of Mary, of whom was born
Jesus, who is called Christ,” is all that can relate to Christ's
* Hegesip. apud Euseb. Hist, Eccl. ib. ii cap. 19,20.
CHAPTER I.
- 37.
18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise
(or after this eaſtraordinary manner); when as his mo-
ther Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came
together, she was found with child (by the power) of
the Holy Ghost (overshadowing her, Lukei, 45, of which
thing Joseph knew nothing).
19 Then Joseph her (espoused) husband being a
just man, and (therefore one, who durst not retain her,
whom he esteemed an adulteress, and yet being) not
willing to make her (whom he loved) a public exam-
ple, was minded to (give her a bill of divorce, and so to)
*put her away privily.
20 But while he thought on these things, behold the
(an) angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream,
saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take
unto thee Mary thy (espoused) wife (though found with
child), for that which is conceived in her is (not the
{. of whoredom or adultery, but) of the Holy
OSt.
21 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt
call his name Jesus (i. e. the Saviour), for he shall
save his people from their sins.
22 Now all this was done (by the Holy Ghost over-
shadowing this virgin), that it might be fulfilled which
was spoken of the Lord by the prophet (Isaias),
saying (vii. 14),
23 Behold a virgin” shall be with child, and shall
bring forth a son, and” they shall call his name (or his
name shall be called) Emmanuel, which being inter-
preted, is, God with us.
24 Then Joseph being raised from sleep (and per-
ceiving that the dream was from God), did as the angel
of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him
(Mary) his wife.
being born in Bethlehem ; and all that goes before is
evidently impertinent to that matter, and therefore can have
no subserviency to that design: whence we may rest assured,
that it was not intended by the Holy Ghost for such an end,
seeing he never could design to prove a thing by an account
of anything impertinent, and which hath no relation to it.
* Wer. 17. IIāora ow ai yeyeat, so all the generations.] It
is here observable, that the apostle saith of the generations
from Abraham to David, that they were “in all fourteen ;’
but when he comes to the second interval, he does not say
as before rāgai ai yeweai, the fourteen mentioned by him were
, “the generations” of that interval, as knowing that for good
reasons he had omitted three helonging to that interval; but
only that the whole number of those which he had named
was fourteen, as really they were. Secondly, That in every
one of these several intervals, they were under a several and
distinct manner of government, and the end of each inter-
val produced some alteration in the state ; in the first they
were under judges and prophets, in the second under kings,
and in the third under Asmonean priests; the first fourteen
brought their state to glory in the kingdom of David ; the
second to misery in the captivity of Babylon ; and the third
to glory again in the kingdom of Christ. The first begins
with Abraham, who received the promise, and ends in
l)avid, who received it again more clearly. The second be-
gins with the building of the temple, and ends in the de-
struction of it. The third begins with their peeping out of
misery in Babel, and ends in their accomplished delivery by
Christ.
* Ver. 19. A&6pa &roXia at airby, to put her away privily.]
That is, to give her a bill of divorce privately into her hand,
or into her bosom, before two witnesses only ; this he was
minded to do, saith the text, “because he was a just man,”
that is, a strict observer of the rites of his nation, saith Mr.
Selden,* who held it infamous to retain an adulteress ; and
this was all he could do, for though the law required that a
married woman found lying with a man should die, i.e. be
strangled, say the Jews; and an espoused virgin for the
same crime was to be stoned (Deut. xxii. 22–24), yet
neither was Joseph certain that she was guilty of this crime
after the espousals, nor had he two witnesses of the fact,
without which she could not be subject to the punishment
by the Jewish canons, though she might be divorced after
espousals, without proof, by witnesses or otherwise, of such
defilement: thus, in the judgment of Dr. Lightfoot and Mr.
Selden, 8ikaws &y, “a just man,” here retains its proper sig-
nification (see note on Rom. iii. 26).
* Ver. 23. ‘H tragóēvo; #y yacrºft £et a virgin shall be
with child, and shall bring forth a son.] That the Hebrew
alma is duly rendered ºraç0évoz, a virgin, we prove against
the Jews (1.) From the authority of their own Septuagint,
who so rendered it above three hundred years before St.
Matthew wrote his gospel. (2.) From the derivation of the
word alma from Eby, to hide, or cover; for virgins, accord-
ing to the custom of the eastern nations, were kept in secret
apartments from the company of men as recluses; whence,
by the author of the books of the Maccabees, they are styled
ai waráx\eta'rol rāy Tragóźvoy, “the virgins that were shut up”
(2 Macc. iii. 19); and by Philo, Saxap.svow#val tragévot, “the
virgins kept in chambers” (Orat. in Flacc. p. 757, A). And,
(3.) This promise is made as a sign or miracle, to confirm
the house of David in God's promise, made to him of the
perpetuity of his kingdom : now what sign or miracle could
it be, that a woman should be with child after the ordinary
manner P Where is the sign or wonder in this P Had no
more been intended, what need was there of those words,
“The Lord himself shall give you a sign P’’ What need of
that solemn notice, “Behold !” there being nothing new or
strange in all this 2
*7 Kai kaxšaroval ºr 8vowa airoi; 'Eºf, avováx' and they shall
call his mame Emmanuel.] Here is,
First, A verb personal put for an impersonal: “they
shall call his name,” for, “he shall be called:” so Gen. xvi.
14, therefore Rºp “the pit was called.” Exod. xv. 23, there-
fore Rºp, “the name of the place was called Marah.” Isa.
ix. 6, N-pºn, “and his name shall be called Wonderful.” So
also, Jer. xxiii. 6, “this is the name knpº nurs by which he
shall be called ” (see Ainsw. in Gen. xvi. 14, -and Neh. ii.
7. Isa. xliv. 7. Mic. ii. 4. Amos iv. 2.4). So in the New
Testament, Luke xii. 20, “Thy soul shall be required of
thee,” &matroſci. Ch. xvi. 9, 8:30yrat āºgg, “you may be
received ” (see Dr. Ham.. there). Note, -
Secondly, That in the scripture phrase “to be called,”
and “to be,” is the same thing ; so, “My house shall be
called a house of prayer,” Isa. lvi. 7, i. e. is, or shall be so,
Luke xix. 46. Isa. ix. 6, “His name shall be called Won-
derful,” i.e. he shall be a wonderful person. And Jer. xxiii.
6, “he shall be called the Lord our Righteousness,” i.e. he
shall be so. This being so, it is no objection against the
application of these words to Christ, that he did not bear
this name, if really he was “God with us,” which is the
import of it. And Philo" having said, 'Inaoüç 35 a.orngia rol.
Kvetov, “that the word Jesus signifies the salvation of God;’
he that is called Jesus, must in effect be called Emmanuel.
Obj. And whereas the Jews farther object, that this pro-
mise, being made to Ahaz as a sign, must have relation to
a child born in his time, and therefore not to our Jesus born
above seven hundred years after his death, L
Ans. This objection is founded on a mistake; this promise
or sign being not given to Ahaz, who refused to ask a sign,
Isa. vii. 12, but “to the house of David,” according to the
following words, “Hear ye now, O house of David, the
Lord himself will give you a sign:” now the house of David
being then in great danger of being cut off and extinguished
(ver. 2), because the kings of Israel and Syria were come
against them ; the promise of a Messiah, who was to be of
the seed of David, and to sit upon his throne, was a great
security that the house of David should not be extinguished,
and so a proper remedy against those fears. It is inquired
farther, whether this name given to Christ be any certain
argument of his divine mature, as it seems to be, for Christ
is called ºni brº, “the mighty God,” Isa. ix. 6. Now he
who is properly called El, and is also really Emmanu,
“with us,” he must infallibly be that Emmanuel, who is
* Ux. Heb, lib. iii. cap. 23.
* De Mut. Nom. p. 823, E.
38
MATTHEW.
25 And (but he knew her not” until she had brought
” God with us.” But to this the Socinians answer, That
God is said to be “a God with us,” when he gives us some
special tokens of his grace and favour to us, as Josh. i. 5.
Jer. i. 8. Acts xviii. 10. Rev. xxi. 3. Since then Christ
came to be our Jesus, “to save us from our sims,” and give
us life eternal, he may well on that account be called
“Emmanuel,” seeing God, by sending him to us for these
great ends, was, in the most signal manner, present with us:
and therefore it is first said, “His name shall be called Jesus,
for he shall save his people from their sins;” and then it is
added, that “this was done that it might be fulfilled, which
was spoken by the prophet, His name shall be called
manuel.”
They add, that divine names are given to things and
places on the account of things dome or to be done there ;
the place in which Abraham offered Isaac, is called “Jeho-
wah-jireh,” the “Lord hath seen,” Gen. xxii. 14, the place
where Jacob wrestled with God, “Penuel,” Gen. xxxii. 30, the
place in which God appeared to him, “Bethel,” Gen. xxviii.
19, the altar which Moses built, “Jehovah-nissi,” Exod. xvii.
15, the city of Jerusalem, “Jehovah-shammah, the Lord
is there,” Ezek. xlviii. 35. This divine name therefore, say
they, might in like manner be given to Christ ; because of
the great things God designed to do by him for us.
* Ver. 25. "Ew; ot, #texe rêy vičy airii; rºy ºrgarðroxoy, till
she had brought forth her firstborn son.] The person that first
opens the womb being in scripture styled the first-born,
whether any other birth did follow or not ; as in those
words, “Sanctify to me all the first-born,” i. e. whatsoever
openeth the womb, Exod. xiii. 2. xxxiv. 19, it cannot from.
this word be gathered, that the blessed Virgin had any other
offspring.
13ut then it is not so easy to answer to the argument
taken from these words, “He took unto him Mary his wife,
but he knew her not till she had brought forth her first-born ;”
for to “know his wife” in the scripture-phrase, still signi-
fies to cohabit with her as a wife (see Gen. iv. 1. 17. 25.
xxxviii. 26. Judg. xix. 25. 1 Sam. i. 19). Secondly, Joseph
was a just man, and tenacious of the Jewish rites ; where-
fore it being certain, that the marriage duty” was by the
law, and by the canons of the Jews, to be paid by the husband
to the wife, Exod. xxi. 10, and the angel having commanded
him to take her as his wife, without any intimation that he
should not perform the duty of a husband to her, it is not
easy to conceive he should live twelve years with her he
forth her firstborn son, and he called his name Jesus.
loved so well, and all that while deny that duty, which by
the law was not to be diminished when the wife was less
beloved: and whereas it is said, that the words #w; oš, “he
knew her not until,” &c. do not imply he knew her after-
ward ; because the like expression is used, when it cannot
be concluded that was done afterward, which was said not
to be done till then : it seemeth evident, that scarce any
of the places cited seem truly parallel to this. For, 1.
Most of them speak of a thing not done afterward ; because
it could not be done as when it is said, “Michal had no
child till the day of her death " (2 Sam. vi. 23). “Samuel
came not to see Saul till the day of his death " (1 Sam. xv.
35, so Job xxvii. 5. Isa. xxii. 14). Or, because the cause
ceased afterward, as when it is said, Gen. viii. 7, “The
crow returned not till the waters were dried up ;” there was
no reason for his returning afterward ; and when Christ
saith, Matt. xxviii. ult. “I will be with you (teaching all
nations) to the end of the world;" i. e. to the end of teach-
ing them. So when God said to Jacob, Gen. xxviii. 15.
“I will be with thee, I will not leave thee till I have done
that which I have spoken to thee of,” if that refers to the
blessing promised to his seed, “that it should inherit the
land of Canaan,” he could not leave him afterward, he
: being long before that with God, and so it is an instance of
the first kind ; or, if it refers to his being with him going
down to Padan-aram, till he had brought him safe from
thence; then the reason of that promise ceased after his re-
turn : or, lastly, because the reason of the thing still remains,
as when it is said of the sepulchre of Moses, “No man
knoweth of it to this day ” (Deut. xxxiv. 6). For the same
reason, no man doth, or without a revelation will, know of
it for ever; whereas certain it is, that it was not impossible
in the mature of the thing, for Joseph to know his wife after
she had brought forth her first-born. And, secondly, The
reason why he should know her at all, being, because she
was his wife, that reason ceased not after the birth of her
first-born; nor did she conceive any second son of the
Holy Ghost ; and so the reason why he knew her not till
she brought forth her first-born, remained not. I there-
fore conclude with St. Basil,” that till she had brought forth
her first-born, her virginity was necessary, that a virgin
might conceive, and bare a son, ºr 3: #4.8%; &noxvirgay-
pºratov tº Aéyò roi; pºva rmgiou kataxstºpop, Ey, “but what Ehe
was afterward let us leave undiscussed, as being of small
concern to the mystery.”
* Wide Seld. de Uxor. lib. iii, cap. 4, G.
|
* Fol. 1. p. 509.
ſº CHAPTER II.
1 Now when Jesus was born in Beth-lehem of
Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold, there
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II.
* Ver. 1. Máyot, wise mem.] Though the Greek word
signifies magicians, yet seeing in the ancient times that word
was not appropriated to that evil sense which now it bears,
but generally signified men of wisdom and learning, skilled
in the knowledge of things natural and divine; and more
especially in that sort of learning which relates to the sun,
moon, and stars, as we learn from Porphyry,” Apuleius, i.
Dio Chrysostomus, £ and others: and, seeing the evangelist
seems to have given them that name, not as ā note of infamy,
but as an honourable title; therefore doth our translation
style them “wise men,” such as the old Greeks named co-pol,
* TIag& pºèy rºt; ITéparat; of tree; ºr: 68toy co-poi—wai roſtov
Segårsyte; Máyot wiy Trºozayopetſovrat Porphyr. de Abst. lib.
iv. S. 16.
+ Maysia—ázari 33 roºro Seáv Sagareia.
Apol. p. 290.
# Máyo; cºv & Segan'svršº rāv Šešv, # 3 rºy ºzly Seioc. Dio,
Orat. 36, f. 449. Wide Brisson. de Regno Persarum. lib. ii.
ă p. 178 ad 186, Laert in Proem.
Plato apud Apul.
| came wise men" from (Arabia in)” the east h. €TU-
|
Salem.
the sages of their time. The Arabians of the east, especially
the sons of Temam, being renowned for wisdom (1 Kings iv.
30. Jer. xlix. 7). *
As for the dignity and number of these men, the tradition
of the Roman church saith, that for number they were three,
and all of royal dignity: hence in their office for Epiphany,
they apply that of the psalmist to them, “The kings of
Arabia and Saba shall bring gifts:” but had they been of so
great quality, we cannot reasonably think the evangelist
would have onlitted a circumstance of so great moment, both
for their honour and Our Lord's ; we also should, in likeli-
hood, have had some mention of their royal train and equi-
page, and all Jerusalem would have been moved as much to
see them come, as they were at the hearing their question:
Herod would likely have received them with more respect,
and not have let them go alone to Bethlehem ; much less
would he have laid upon them his commands to return back
and give him an account of the child found. This therefore
is an instance of the uncertainty and vanity of the traditions
of that church.
* 'Atrá čvaroº, from the east.] Hence the opinion of
Some, that the wise men came from Chaldea, a ccuntry re-
CHAPTER II.
39
t
2 Saying,” Where is he that is born king of the
Jews? for we have see his star (being) in the east, and
*are come (thence) to worship him.
3 When Herod the king had heard these things,
nowned for magicians and astrologers, may be confuted;
because the ancient prophets, who foretold the destruction of
Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, tell us, that they lay not east,
but north of Jewry, and came from thence upon them.
Hence they are called “the families of the north,” and “an
evil breaking out of the north,” Jer. i. 14, 15. “a people
coming out of the north country,” Jer. vi. 22 (see Joelii. 20).
It is therefore more probable they came from Arabia, which
was, saith Tacitus,” “the bound of Judea eastward:” and
hence, in the scripture, the Arabians are sometimes called
“the men of the east.” So Judg. vi. 3, “The children of
the east came up against them,” that is, the Arabians. Job
i. 3, “This man was the greatest of all the men in the
east.” Moreover, the gifts which these men offered, were
the native commodities of Arabia ; “the gold of Sheba in
Arabia,” Ps. lxxii. 15. Frankincense and myrrh of the
same place, according to that of the poet, Molles sua thura
Sabaei. Add to this, that much of Arabia was in the land
of Canaan ; whence David and Solomon, to whom the pro-
mise of having the land of Canaan was made good in its full
extent, dilated their dominions over these countries, even to
Euphrates; and they who lived there were of the seed of
Abraham. Now it is more likely, these first-fruits of the
gentiles should be brought to do homage to the king of the
Jews, from a country which did as much to David and So-
lomon, the types of Christ, than from a foreign nation, and
to conceive that they were of the seed of Abraham rather
than of another race. Nor is it to be wondered that the
magi should be said to come from the east, since Porphyry:
informs us, that Pythagoras went into Arabia to acquire
wisdom: and Grotius here cites Ptolemy, saying, That Ara-
bia was magorum sinus, “the receptacle of the magi:” and
Pliny: Saith, “this art toto terrarum orbe, plurimisque
Sæculis valuit, obtained through many ages in the whole
world ; that it prevailed in most nations, et in oriente
regnum (1. regum) regibus imperet, and in the east ruled
over kings of kings” (see Examen Millii here).
* Ver. 2. IIoń śarīy & tex0s; 8arixsw, rºw 'Iověaiov; stºogey
7&g atroë row &cºripa. Where is he that is born king of the
Jews 2 for we have seen his star.] Here the inquiry is, How
these men could know that this was “his star,” or that it sig-
nified the birth of a king? Most of the ancientsS answer,
That they learned this from these words of Balaam (Numb.
3xiv. 17), “There shall come a star out of Jacob, and a
sceptre shall arise out of Israel, and shall Smite through the
princes of Moab, and destroy all the children of Seth; and
Edom shall be a possession to him.” But evident it is, that
these words speak not of a star that should arise at any
prince's birth, but of a king, which should be glorious and
splendent in his dominions, as stars are in the firmament, and
who should vanquish and possess those three nations, as
David did. Moreover, from this text they might have as
rationally expected to have seen a sceptre as a star; it being as
expressly said, “a sceptre shall arise out of Israel,” as that “a
star shall come out of Jacob.” Add to this, that we know
of no record in which this prophecy was preserved, but the
books of Moses, which these nations neither read nor believed.
Others do therefore say, these wise men were by a revelation,
or by an angel, told the meaning of this star: and one among
the ancients cites an apocryphal history, saying,| “This star
appeared in the form of a child, holding a cross in his hand,
and telling them, that Christ was born, and that they should
go to Jerusalem to worship him.” But these conjectures
are all sufficiently confuted by this one consideration, That
the wise men gave not this as the reason of their coming,
that they had seen an angel, a vision, or had a revelation of
**
* Terrae finesque quae ad Orientem vergunt Arabia termi-
mantur. Hist. lib. v. ed. Lips. p. 617. \,
+ In vità Pythag. p. 185. Cyril. contr. Julian, lib. x.
: Lib. xxx. cap. 1.
§ Orig. Hom. 13 in Numb. Lit. M. Ambr. lib. ii, cap. 15.
Iren. lib. iii. cap. 9. Tertul. adv. Marc. cap. 28.
| Auctor operis imperfecti in Matthaeum.
he (knowing that the Jews were then eapecting Messiah,
their king to rule over them, and throw down all other
kingdoms) was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.
4 And when he had gathered all the chief priests
this matter, but that they had seen a star. For the true
resolution, therefore, of this question, let it be considered,
That Tacitus” and Suetonius+ inform us, That “through the
whole east it was expected, that about that time a king was
to arise out of Judea, who should rule over all the world.”
Nor could it well be otherwise, since from the time of the
Babylonian captivity, we find the Jews dispersed throughout
all the provinces of the Persian monarchy (Esth. iii. 8), and
that in numbers sufficient to gather themselves together, and
to defend themselves against their enemies in those provinces
(Esth. ix. 2, 16), and many of the people of the land became
Jews (Esth. viii. 17). And after their return into their land
they increased so mightily, as that they were dispersed
throughout Africa, Asia, and many cities and islands of Eu-
rope; and, as Josephus saith, wherever they dwelt, they made
many proselytes to their religion (see the note on James i. 1,
and on 1 Pet. i. 1). These wise men therefore living so near
to Judea, the seat of this prophecy, and conversing with the
Jews, i. e. among them who were everywhere expecting the
completion of it at that time; they being also skilled in ,
astrology, and seeing this star or light appearing in Judea,
might reasonably conjecture, that it signified the completion
of that celebrated prophecy touching the king of Jewry; over
the centre of which land, they, being in the east, then saw it
hang. And sure it was a better way to read this lesson to
them, by setting this light upon the very place where the
king that it betokened was born, rather than in the east part
of heaven, where it might seem to denote something among
the Indians or other eastern nations, rather than among the
Jews. The learned Dr. Alix saith, the Jews believed that
there were prophets in the kingdom of Saba and Arabia, they
being of the posterity of Abraham, by Keturah, as you may
learn from the note of the Bishop of Ely, on Gen. xxv. 2, 3,
and that they prophesied, or taught successively in the name
of God, what they had received by tradition from the mouth
of Abraham. And so when Solomon was exalted to the
kingdom, these Sabeans said, perhaps he is the Messiah, and
therefore came to him ; for this he cites Bereschith Rabba
Moses Haddarson, cap. 25, B. Now if this tradition con-
tinued with them to these times, as in all likelihood it might,
seeing, as Philostorgius relates, own &xivoy Trxāšo; 'Iovºaiov
airo; 3Waráqueraſ, “a considerable number of the Jews was
mixed with them ;” here is a more plausible account, both
of the coming of the Arabian magi, and of their faith in
the king Messiah. What this star was, see note on ver.
9, 10.
* Kał żA$owsy ºrpoczvyºzai airã, and are come to worship
him.] Here the inquiry is, when they came to Jerusalem,
whether within thirteen days after the birth of Christ, as the
received time of celebrating the Epiphany imports, and as
most Christians have from the fifth century supposed ; or,
whether they came only in the second year of Christ's age,
as some conjecture from these words, wer. 16, “Herod sent
forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and
all the coasts thereof, from two years old, and under, accord-
ing to the time he had diligently inquired of the wise men.”
For resolution of this question, observe, That it seems evi-
dent, from comparing St. Matthew and St. Luke, that the
wise men came within forty days after our Saviour's birth ;
for St. Matthew expressly saith, they found Christ at Beth-
lehem ; whereas St. Luke informs us, that “when the forty
days of his mother's purification were accomplished, they
brought the child to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord;”
and after that we never read of their return with him to
Bethlehem, and therefore have no reason to presume they
did so (Luke ii. 22), but on the contrary we are told, that
“when they had performed all things according to the law
* Pluribus persuasio inerat antiquis Sacerdotum literis
: contineri, eo ipso tempore fore ut valesceret Oriens, profecti-
que Judea rerum potirentur. Tacit. Hist. lib. v. p. 621.
+ Percrebuerat Oriente toto vetus et constans opinio, esse
in fatis, ut eo tempore Judea profecti rerum potirentur.
Suet. in. vità Vesp. cap. 4. -
'AO
MATTHEW.
and scribes of the people together, he demanded of
them where (i.e. in what place) Christ (their expected
Messiah and King) should be born. *
5 And they said unto him, (he is to be born) In
Bethlehem of Judea: for thus it is written by the
prophet (Micah ; saying, v.2),
6 "And thou Bethlehem in the land of Judah, art
not (to be reputed) the least among the princes (or
, thousands) of Judah : for out of thee shall come a
governor, that shall rule my people Israel (and this
shall render thee truly great).
7 Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise
of the Lord, they returned into Galilee to their own city
Nazareth” (ver. 39). Arabia then being so near unto Ju-
dea, that much of it belonged to the land of Canaan, the
wise men having also their swift dromedaries to ride upon,
and the same cause to say as did the shepherds, when the
light shone from heaven upon them, “Let us now go and
see this thing which is to come to pass” (Luke ii. 15), I
see no reason why these wise men might not come within
the compass of these days to Jerusalem, and so no certain
ground to think this festival hath Jeen misplaced by the
, church.
Obj. Against this it is said, that immediately after these
wise men's departure, the angel appeared to Joseph (ver.
13), and dispatched them to Egypt;” which could not be
before the time of Mary’s purification, for then they went up
to Jerusalem (Luke ii. 22), and so not to Egypt; nor after
their return from Egypt, could they go up to Jerusalem for
this end ; for the text saith expressly, that Joseph then was
“afraid to go into Judea,” and therefore receded to Naza-
reth ; nor could they go up to Jerusalem after the departure
of the magi, for that had been to cast themselves into He-
rod's hands at Jerusalem.
Ans. But (1.) the text doth not say that the angel ap-
peared to Joseph immediately after the departure of the
wise men, but only that avaxogna'évray airāy, he did so,
“ they being returned,” leaving the time indefinite ; seeing
therefore there is a necessity of saying, the angel appeared
a considerable time after their departure, I therefore conjec-
ture, that he appeared to Joseph with this message, being
not at Bethlehem, but at Jerusalem or at Nazareth, and
that thence he fled into Egypt.
(2.) I add, that going to Jerusalem after the magi were
departed, when the days for the purification of his mother
came, could not be casting themselves into the hands of
Herod; because he knew nothing of this being the child they
came to worship ; and so, they staying there so little time,
might be as safe there as elsewhere. Nay, had Herod known
which personally was the child they worshipped, why should
he slay all the young children in Bethlehem without dis-
tinction? As to the second objection from ver, 16, see what
may be answered to it in the note there.
But, after all, I confess there is one circumstance that
seems to make it probable, that the angel spake to Joseph
to depart from Bethlehem into Egypt; whence it must fol-
low, that after the purification of the Virgin-mother, they
returned to Beth-lehem ; viz. that Herod's seeking to destroy
the child, is assigned as the cause of their flight. Now we
find not, that he ever made or designed any other attempt
to destroy him, than by slaying the young children at Beth-
lehem. But to this the answer is easy ; That Simeon hav-
ing made such an honourable mention of this child at his
appearance in the temple, as of the “Lord's Christ” (ver.
26); and Anna the prophetess speaking of him as such, “to
all that looked for redemption in Jerusalem” (ver 38), where
perhaps Herod stayed for the answer of the wise men: this
must render Christ's stay at Jerusalem, or in Herod's juris-
diction, very dangerous ; and so might give occasion to the
message of the angel to Joseph, to depart thence quickly
with him into Egypt, lest Herod hearing this fame of him
should attempt to slay him. Moreover, Herod might have
inquired what children might have been born in Bethlehem
in the time of the enrolment, whose parents lived else-
where, and so might have come to the knowledge of this
supposed son of Joseph: and this might make it necessary
that he should fly with him into Egypt.
men, (he) inquired of them diligently, what (was the
eaact) time (at which) the star appeared (to them).
8 And (having done this) he sent them to Beth-
lehem, and said (to them), Go, and search diligently
for the young child, and when ye have found him,
bring me word again (Gr. tell me of it), that I may
come and worship him also (though his intention was
not to worship, but to destroy him, ver. 16). -
9 When they had heard the king (say this), they
departed, and, lo," the star, which they saw (or had
seen, being) in the east (of Judea), went before them
till it came, and stood over (the house) where the
* Ver. 6. Kai at Bm0xešº, yā 'loſºa, otºaº, ixaxiaºrn ºf
#y roi; #yeaéry 'Ioč3a. And thou Bethlehem, in the land of
Judah, art not the least among the princes of Judah.]
These words are cited-from Micah v. 2, where, according to
the original, they run thus, “Thou Bethlehem-Ephratah,
though thou art little among the thousands of Judah.” And
to make them agree perfectly with St. Matthew’s version,
observe,
First, That Bethlehem-Ephratah and Bethlehem-Judah,
are both names of the same town, as appears from these
words, “And Rachel died, and was buried in the way to
Ephratah, which is Bethlehem ;” and it is called “Bethle-
hem-Judah,” Judg. xvii. 7. xix. 2, in these words, “And
the husband of Naomi was a man of Bethlehem-Judah,”
Ruthi. l. Yet of Boaz, who married Ruth, to raise up seed
unto him, it is said, “Do thou worthily in the house of Eph-
ratah” (Ruth iv. 11), and it is so named to distinguish it
from another Bethlehem in the tribe of Zebulun, mentioned
Josh. xix. 15. Here also David's father lived, and he him-
self was born (1 Sam. xvii. 12, John vii. 42). Note,
Secondly, That “the thousands of Judah,” and the
“ princes or governors of Judah,” are in sense the same ; for
thousands are mentioned in allusion to the custom of the
Israelites, of dividing their tribes into thousands, over every
one of which thousands was a prince or chief (Exod, xviii.
25. 1 Sam. X. 19): so that to say, “among the thousands”
or “princes” is all one. Note,
Thirdly, That the Hebrew word ºvy, which is rendered
little, Micah v. 2, signifies also great, or of great note and
esteem. Hence R. Tanchum renders the place thus, “Thou
shalt be chief, prince, or ruler,” among the thousands of Ju-
dah: so nºyºn inp, “the little horn,” Dan. viii. 9, is ren-
dered by the LXX. xépaç is ºvºv, and by the Arabic cornu
forte, “a strong horn.” So Jer. xlviii. 4, Tºnnyy “ his
little ones,” is in the Chaldee, sultanum, “his rulers;” and,
Zech. xiii. 7, Dºnyxn is rendered by the LXX. Troiways; (see
MSS. Alex.), by the Syriac, “superiors.”
* Ver 9. Kai i80ū ā āa Tºp, & Eſºoy #y rā āyaroxi, mpoñyey
witowg" And, behold, the star which they saw in the east went
before them, till coming over the place where the child was,
it stood.] Hence it is evident, this star could not be one of
the heavenly orbs, but only some new and extraordinary ap-
pearance, seated only in the air: (1.) Because it actually
did, and was designed to show the place of Christ's nativity,
the very house of his abode, which no celestial star could
do: because they never hung over one country more than
another, and much less over any certain place. (2.) Because
it moved so as they do not, by intervals, moving sometimes
and sometimes standing still ; whereas they move per-
petually, their motion also is from east to west, whereas
the motion of this star was from north to south. It there-
fore seems probable this seeming star appearing to the
wise men of the east, might only be that glorious light,
which shone upon the Bethlehem shepherds when the angel
came to impart unto them the tidings of our Saviour's
birth ; for that this light was . exceeding great, is clear
from that expression which styles it “the glory of the
Lord ;” that it was a light from heaven hanging over their
heads, the Greek assures us ; emicuit ex alto, “it shone
upon them from on high,” the Latin Saith. Now we know
that such a light at a great distance appeareth like a star,
or at least after it had thus shone about the shepherds,
it might be lifted up on high, and then formed into the
likeness of a star. This body of light, or another like it,
when they journeyed to Jerusalem, was formed into the
CHAPTER II.
41
young child was (i. e. till coming over the house where
, the child was, it stood still).
10 (And) when they saw the star (again thus con-
ducting them to, and then standing over, the house where
the child was), they rejoiced with exceeding great joy
(for the divine conduct).
14 And when they were come into the house, they
saw the young child with Mary his mother, and
(they)" fell down, and worshipped him: and when
they had opened their treasures, they presented to him
gifts; (viz.) gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.
12 And being warned of God in a dream, that they
should not return to Herod, they (in obedience to the
divine command) departed into their own country, an-
other (and more private) way.
13 And when (or after) they were departed, behold
likeness of that star they had formerly seen, and went be-
fore them in the air to Bethlehem, and then sunk down so
low as to point out the very place where the babe lay. And
if this should be so, the star the wise men saw must have
appeared to them the very day of Christ's nativity ; for of
the light appearing to the shepherds, St. Luke informs us (ii.
8. 11), that it was then seen the very day and night of
Christ's nativity.
7 Ver. 11. Kai Treatyrs; ºrporexiwnaav airá, wał reorhveyway
aúrò 33 ga, Xguay, Kai Aigavoy, Kai oºzügway, and falling down
they worshipped him, and when they had opened their trea-
sures, they presented to him gifts, gold, frankincense, and
myrrh..] Of the import of the word recorkvytſy, “to worship,”
and that it doth as well signify civil as religious worship,
even when it is performed by prostration, see the notes on
Matt. viii. 2. But though this word will do us no service
against the Socinians, it is worthy our observation, that the
Christians from the beginning, either from this adoration, or
the gifts offered, did collect even then that Christ was God,
or at the least that both were fitly given to him, as being
truly God, whatever the wise men might think of him. Thus
Justin Martyr" teacheth that Christ being God, could not
receive the Holy Ghost as wanting him, or his assistance,
and saith, of this we have a testimony from the magi of
Arabia, who, “as soon as the child was born, came and
worshipped him.” Irenaeus+ saith, “the wise men, by the
gifts they offered, showed who he was that was worshipped ;
offering myrrh, because he was to die for mankind; gold be:
cause he was a king, whose kingdom should have no end ;
and frankincense, because he was God.” Tertullian; saith,
they honoured him with these gifts, quasi Deum et regem,
“as a God and king :” and when Celsus laughed at the wise
men as 760-kuvoivre; in whºrlow & Osby, “worshipping Christ
Whilst an infant, as God;” Origens answers, “that they
brought gifts to him compounded, as it were, of God and
man ; gold, as an ensign of his kingly power; myrrh, as to
one that was to die; and frankincense, as to a God.” It
also may deserve to be observed that Kimchi on those words
of Isaiah, lx. 6, “All they of Sheba shall come, they shall
bring gold and incense,” &c. saith, “They shall bring them
for an offering to the king Messiah.”
* Ver. 15. 'E: Aiyên row ináxed a tºy vić, wov, Out of Egypt
have I called my Son.] This is cited from Hos. xi. 1, and
not from Numb. xxiv. 8, for the words in Numbers are the
Words of Balaam, whom the evangelists would not cite by
the honourable name of a prophet without any distinction
from the prophets sent by God to the Jews; nor doth he
*” rôw 'Apaflias Máyow of rye; #aa ră »synóżya tº raisio,
****, *gorixiºngay airá, Dial. cum Tryph. p. 315, C.
t Per ea quae obtulerunt munera ostendisse, quis erat qui
adorabatur ; myrrha quidem quëd ipse erat qui pro mortali
humano genere moreretur ; aurum veró quoniam Rex cujus
º finis non est; thus veró, quoniam Deus, lib iii. Cap.
# Adv. Marcion, lib. iii. cap. 12.
p. 196.
. § Orig. contra Cels. p. 45. Qigoyrs; ºv 8&pa & ov,0ára riv,
is $565 kai äy83&tou &; 8arixeſ rêy Xevery, 3: $; rºynkoº rºy
º, & 3: QE3 röy Atéaywrév, p. 46. See Caten. in Matt.
P. Kö.
Adv. Jud. cap. 9,
the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream,
saying (to him), Arise, and take the young child, and
his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there
until I bring thee word (that thou with safety mayest
return): for Herod will seek (after) the young child to
destroy him.
14 And when he arose (from his bed), he took the
young child and his mother by might, and departed
into Egypt: g -
15 And was there until the death of Herod, that
(by his abode there) it might be fulfilled which was
spoken of the Lord by the prophet (Hosea xi. 1),
saying, "Out of Egypt have I called my Son.
16 Then "Herod, when he saw that he was mocked
of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth
(his officers), and (they having received commission

Say, as Hosea doth word for word, “I have called my son
out of Egypt.”
Secondly, . Note that it cannot be truly said, that these
words are by St. Matthew mentioned as belonging to Christ
only by way of application or accommodation, though the
Holy Ghost, who spake to them by the prophets, intended
not they should be again fulfilled in him : for this cannot an-
swer what is here said by St. Matthew, that Christ was
called out of Egypt, “that it might be fulfilled which was
spoken of the Lord by the prophet ;” for certainly these
words can import no less than that the calling of Christ out of
Egypt, was by God intended as a completion of these words,
and that till he was called thence, they had not their full
and ultimate completion. Note,
Thirdly, That Israel was a type of Christ, as being by God
called “his Son, his firstborn,” Exod. iv. 22, and God bear-
ing the relation of a father to Israel, Jer. xxxi. 9, hence
Israel is put for Christ, Isa. xlix. 3, in these words, “Thou
art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified;” and
what is in the Hebrew, “Behold my servant, whom I up-
hold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth,” Isa. xlii. 1,
is in the Chaldee, “My servant the Messiah ;” and in the
Greek, “Jacob my servant, and Israel mine elect :” now as
a prophetical prediction is then fulfilled when what was fore-
told is come to pass; so a type is then fulfilled when that is
done in the antitype which was done in the type before..
Note,
Fourthly, That the words run in the time past. Out of
Egypt “have I called ;” and that not only because this is
the way of prophetical predictions, to speak of those things
as already done, which shall be as certainly accomplished, as
if they were already done ; but because they had already
been fulfilled in the type. Note,
Fifthly, That St. Matthew cites only these words of Ho-
sea, “Out of Egypt have I called my Son,” as words to be
fulfilled in Christ, and not any more, making Israel a type
of Christ only in this regard, that they were called out of
Egypt, as he was to be ; so that it doth not hence follow,
that any other words in this prophecy are to be referred to
Christ, and so no argument taken from the following words,
which do not belong to him, can be of any validity to prove
that these do not, which here the Holy Ghost applieth to
him. Nor is it any objection against what hath been said,
that the Jews could not understand this intendment of these
words, for they were not concerned to understand it till the
completion of these words in Christ ; and then sure they
who abounded with mystical interpretations of the law and
the prophets, could not reasonably object against this appli-
cation of these words to God's calling his own Son out of
Egypt. The Jews have no cause to blame the evangelist
for ascribing these things to the Messiah, which, in their
literal sense, belong also to the people of Israel, it being the
manner of their nation so to do. So the author of Midrash
Tehillim, on Ps. ii. 7, saith, “The mysteries of the king
Messiah are declared in the law, the prophets, and the ha-
giographa. In the law, as it is written (Exod. i. 22), Israel
is my Son, even my first-born.” Hence R. Nathan, in
Schemoth Rabba, on those words speaks thus: “As I made
Jacob my first-born, as I said, Exod. iv. 22, so have I made
the Messiah my first-born ; as it is said, Ps. lxxxix. 28. I
will make him my first-born, higher than the kings of the
42
MATTHEW.
- #: him so to do), slew all the children that were in
ethlehem, and (in) all the coasts thereof, from two
years old and under, according (or even) to the time,
which he had diligently inquired of the wise men.
17 "Then was fulfilled (by another more eminent
completion) that which was spoken by Jeremy the pro-
phet, saying (xxxi. 15), -
18 In Ramah (near to Bethlehem) was there a voice
heard of lamentation, and weeping and great mourn-
ing, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not
be comforted, because they are not (i.e. because they
were dead).
19 But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the
Lord appearethina dream to Joseph (being then)in Egypt.
20 Saying (to him), Arise, and take the young child,
and his mother, and go (back) into the land of Israel:
for they are (he is) dead which sought the young child’s
life
21 And he (accordingly) arose, and took the young
child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel.
22 But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in
Judea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid
to go thither: notwithstanding (Gr, but), being warned
of God in a dream (so to do), he turned aside into the
parts of Galilee (where Herod Antipas was seated, from
whom there was less apprehension of danger).
23 *And he came and dwelt in a city called Naza-
reth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by
the prophet, He shall be called (by way of reproach) a
Nazarene. -
earth.” And since God delivered this people out of Egypt,
with respect to the Messiah, who should be born of them,
those places, which do immediately respect the people of
Israel, may well be thought to have a farther respect to that
Messiah who was to be born of them.
* Ver. 16. Then Herod . . . sent forth, and slew all the
children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts
thereof, 3rd 3istoù, wai xavorépo, Kaºrè row x86voy, ºy hagigola's
wrag& rāv Máyov, from two years old and under, according
(or even) to the time that he had diligently inquired of the
wise men.] Hence some infer that it must have been above
a year after our Saviour's birth, that the wise men came to
Jerusalem, or that they gave an account to Herod of the
appearance of the star ; for why else should Herod slay the
children “from two years old and under P’’ And why is he
said to have done this “according to the time that he had
learnt exactly from the wise men º’ but this seems not cer-
tain from these words; for (1.) 3ističev is only to live a
gear: thus of some wasps Aristotle” says, où 33rićove t. “they
live not a whole year,” but all die in the winter, and the like
he saith of the fish polypus; and in Hesychius and Pha-
vorinus, he is 318th; “who lives, 3’ &cu roi; Érovº, a whole
year;” and if so, these words may be rendered, “from a
year old and under;” even so much under as xata rāy Xéévoy,
“even to the time of the appearance of the star,” of which
time he had diligently inquired; and if the words will admit
of this construction, it is evident they afford no semblance
of an argument, that the wise men came above a year after
our Saviour's birth. But let 3ist㺠signify two years, yet if
kará têv Xéévoy refer not to it, but only to the word zaro-
ºrégo, “under, even so far under as to, or according to, the
time of the star's appearing,” we cannot from these words
collect, how long it was after Christ's birth before these
wise men came to Jerusalem. There is little account to
be given of the actions of a tyrant who slew three of his
own sons, and it is reasonable to conceive he would endea-
vour to make sure work, and so might be induced to slay
all born in Bethlehem, a year before and more, even to
the time of the star's appearing to declare the birth of this
King ; thus, though the Jews had told him from the oracle,
that Christ was to be born in Bethlehem, he is not content
to slay the infants there, but shed their blood “in all the
coasts thereof.”
It is much admired why Josephus, who relates his mur-
der of Some youths when he was only governor of Galilee,
and the cry of their mothers for justice against him for it,
should yet say nothing of the slaughter of these infants.
But Josephust being only born in the first year of Caius,
and the thirty-eighth of Christ, and writing his History of
the Jewish Wars in the fifty-sixthf year of his age, and this
slaughter of these infants being not likely to be preserved
in the Jewish records, it is not so much wonderful, that he
who wrote ninety-four years after the fact was done, should
make no mention of it. It is sufficient that it is preserved
in Macrobius, Š who saith, that “when Augustus had heard
* Hist. Anim. lib. ix. cap. 41, cap. 37.
+ De Vitā suá ab initio. if Antiq. lib. xx. cap. ult.
§ Cum audivisset (Augustus) inter pueros quos in Syria
Herodes rex Judaeorum infra bimatum jussit interfici, filium
quoque ejus occisum, ait, Melius est Herodis porcum esse,
quam filium. Saturn, lib, ii, cap. 4, p. 279. -
that among the children, which under two years old Herod
the king had slain in Syria, his own son was one, he passed
this joke upon him, It is better to be Herod's hog than his
son;" though it must also be confessed that Macrobius is
mistaken in the circumstances of this story.
* Ver. 17, 18. Táve in Ampºn rê šnóży in 3 IEpsºſov roi; ºreo-
$firov, *śyovros, bovi. By ‘Paºğ hºoša.6m, &c. Then was ful-
filted that which was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, saying,
A voice was heard in Rama, Rachel weeping for her chil-
dren, and would not be comforted, because they were not.]
Here note (1.) that it is not here said, as ver. 15, ſya ºran-
pow85, “this was done that it might be fulfilled,” but rātā
#Trançºn, i.e. “then that happened which gave a more full
completion to those words of Jeremy,” and so a greater oc-
casion to Rachel to weep for her children than before, which
the providence of God foreseeing, his Spirit might have a
reference to it in these words. For (1) Rachel being dead
so long before the captivity, she may as well be introduced
weeping here as there. (2.) The slaughter of the Beth-
lemites might well be styled the slaughter of “her children,”
she being buried there (Gen. xxxv. 19), and the Bethlem-
ites being descended from her husband and her own sister.
(3.) The slaughter of the innocents being not restrained to
Bethlehem, but extended “to all the coasts round about,”
and Ramah being in the tribe of Benjamin, which sprang
from Rachel, and not far from Bethlehem, the voice of her
weeping may be well said to be heard in Rama.
Secondly, Note, that this weeping for her children was,
saith the prophet, chi ainnu, “ because they were not” (Jer.
xxxi. 15). Now the import of this phrase is this, “they were
dead,” or taken away from the land of the living (Gen. v.
24. xlii. 13. Ps. xxxix. 13. civ. 35. Jer. x. 20. xlix. 10. Lam.
v. 7). Accordingly, though the Jews then undoubtedly had
embraced the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, yet
saith the son of Sirach (xvii. 28), “Praise perisheth 373
vezgoń, &c. ºwn?: Byroc, from the dead, as not being ;” and in
that very chapter in which Josephus” asserts the perpetual
duration of the soul, he saith, We have received from God
our being, kai rô ºnzár, gival Tráxty ÉxEivø 3í80,89, “and to him
we render again our not being ;” that is, as the context
shows, we return that soul which he hath given us; and
this being not literally true of her own children gone into
captivity, from which, Saith God, they shall come again to
their own borders (ver. 16, 17), why should it be thought
strange that so literal a completion of these words should
also be referred to by the Holy Ghost?
* Ver. 23. “otroc Trampo,6; rā ānsāv Ště rāy ºrgoºntºv, &rt
Nagapaio; xxnSho'etat, He dwelt in his own city Nazareth,
that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophets,
He shall be called a Nazarene.] Here note, -
First, That, because that is here said to be fulfilled, which
was spoken by the prophets, ºr finºv, not that which was
written, some here think it enough to say, there was among
the ancient prophets a belief that the Messiah should be a
Nazarene, and that this was delivered down by tradition.
But I cannot acquiesce in this ; for (1.) the foundation of
this criticism is false, the phrase rô Đôāy being used thirteen
times in this gospel, and but once elsewhere in the New Tes-
tament; and it is always used of that which is written. It
* De Bell. Jud. lib. iii. cap. 25, p. 852,
CHAPTER II.
43
is twice so used in this chapter, ver, 15, 17, once i. 22 (see
iv. 14. viii. 17. xii. 17. xiii. 35. xxi. 4. xxii. 31. xxiv. 15.
xxvii. 9, and Mark xiii. 14). (2.) How comes any one to
know that any such tradition was delivered by the ancient
prophets to the Jews, when they themselves knew nothing
of it; and therefore upon this account accuse St. Matthew
as citing what was nowhere to be found 2 nor find I any of
the ancient Christians, who mention this supposed tradition;
but either say the apostle refers to some writings of the pro-
phets, which were then extant but are now lost, or to some
writings not put into the canon, or some interpretations of
their writings. Let it be therefore noted from St. Jerome,
Secondly, That St. Matthew doth not cite any particular
prophet for these words, as he had done, i. 22, and here v.
15, 17, and in other places above cited, but only saith, this
was spoken by the prophets in general, * pluralitër autem
prophetas vocans ostendit, se non verba de scripturis sump-
sisse, sed sensum, “and thereby shows he took not the words
from the prophets, but the sense only.” Note,
Thirdly, That all the interpretations, which refer this to
Christ's being called Netzer, “the Branch” (Isa. xi. 1. Jer.
xxiii. 5), or the “Holy One,” or one “separated from the
faults of mankind,” fail in this, that they give no account
how this was fulfilled by Christ's being at Nazareth ; he being
as much the Branch, the Holy One, when he was born at
Bethlehem, and before he went to Nazareth, as after.
Fourthly, Note therefore, that à Nađogato;, “the Nazarite,”
was a name of infamy put upon Christ and Christians, both
by the unbelieving Jews and Gentiles. There was among
the Jews a celebrated thief, called Ben Nezer, and in allu-
sion to him, they gave this name to Christ. So Abarbanel
saith, the little horn, mentioned Dan. vii. 8, is Ben Nezer,
that is, “Jesus of Nazareth.” And this title of Nazaraean,
loth the Jews and the enemies of Christianity gave always
by way of contempt to our Jesus, and that because he was
supposed to come out of this very city ; yea, his very going
to dwell there, was one occasion of his being contemned,
despised, and rejected by the Jews. Thus when Philip saith
to Nathanael, “We have found Jesus of Nazareth of whom
Moses spake :” Nathanael answers, “Can any good thing
come out of Nazareth?” (John i. 47) and when Nicodemus
seemed to favour him, the Sanhedrin spake thus to him,
“Search and look, for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet”
(John vii. 52). Note, -
Fifthly, That most of the prophets speak of Christ as of
a person that was to be reputed vile and abject, despised and
rejected of men. Thus the psalmist saith of him, “For
thy sake have I suffered reproach, shame hath covered my
face, "nºn ninº, I was an alien to my brethren, and a fo-
reigner to my mother's sons ; for the zeal of thine house
hath eaten me, and the reproaches of them that reproached
thee fell on me” (Ps. lxix. 9, 10). Isaiah saith of him (liii.
3), “He was despised and rejected of men; he was despised,
and we esteemed him not.” Here then is a plain sense of
these words; the angel sent him to this contemptible place,
that he might thence have a name of infamy and contempt
put upon him, according to the frequent intimations of the
prophets. -
At the close of this chapter, I think it proper to consider
two new opinions of Mr. Whiston, who, in his Harmony of
the Gospels, asserts, -
First, That “Herod slew the infants at Bethlehem the
same day that he cut off his son Antipater ;” that is, saith
Josephus, but five days before his death.
Secondly, That “Joseph fled into Egypt, and returned
thence before the purification of the virgin Mary in the
temple at Jerusalem.”
stratively false; for the virgin-mother coming to Jerusalem
with her offering, “when the days of her purification were
accomplished” (Luke ii. 23–34), must come thither before
her flight into Egypt, or not at all, seeing at their return
from Egypt into the land of Israel, St. Matthew hath ex-
pressly told us, that “Joseph was afraid to go into Judea”
(ii. 22), and that, by a divine admonition, he was diverted
from any thoughts of doing so, and &v=X&gna's returned, or
went back into Galilee to his own city Nazareth;” and how
absurd is it to imagine, that after his own fears, and the
* Joseph. Antiq. Jib. xiv. cap. 8, p. 475.
Now the second opinion is demon-
divine admonition to the contrary, he should go on, not only
into Judea, where Archelaus then reigned (ver. 24), but even
to Jerusalem, where he continued till he took his journey
to Rome. Nor is Joseph bid to return back into “the land
of Judea,” but into the land of Israel (Matt. ii. 20); that
is, as that message is farther explained, wer. 22, 23, “into
Galilee to his own city Nazareth.”
Obj. But it is said, that he could not pass from Egypt to
Nazareth but through the land of Judah.
Ans. The way from Pelusium to Nazareth was by Gaza,
Azotus, Joppa, and so on by the sea-side till you turn up
to Nazareth. Now, though in the division of the tribes,
Gaza was added to the tribe of Judah, they did not possess
it, but it was in Samuel's time a city of the Philistines
(1 Sam. vi. 17), and was afterward by Pompey made a free
city, and annexed to Syria; and though he in his journey
might pass through either the city or the desert, he might
not hear that Archelaus reigned till he got to Azotus in the
| tribe of Dan, and so might fear to go into Judea.
Obj. St. Luke saith (ii. 39), that “when they had per-
formed all things according to the law of the Lord, they
returned into Galilee into their own city Nazareth.”
Ans. First, This place seems rather to confute than to
establish this assertion, as showing that when the days of her
purification were accomplished, they brought him not out of
Egypt, but from Bethlehem, to present him to the Lord;”
for, ver, 15, the shepherds go to Bethlehem to see him ;
and, ver. 21, he is circumcised still at Bethlehem, and then
immediately it follows, ver, 22, that “they brought him to
Jerusalem to present him to the Lord ;” i. e. they brought
him from Bethlehem to Jerusalem ; no other place of his
abode, nor any intimation of his removal thence before, being
mentioned. *
Ans. Secondly, St. Luke having brought them up from
Nazareth to Bethlehem to be enrolled, he here informs us,
that after this purification, they returned not to Bethlehem,
as some have imagined, to abide there, but that their future
abode was their own city, in which they formerly had dwelt,
but that nothing happened between this purification and
their settled abode there, or that they fled not after from
thence into Egypt, he saith not. All, therefore, that St.
Luke saith may be true, though Joseph fled after this purifi-
cation from Jerusalem, or from Nazareth into Egypt; but
what St. Matthew saith cannot be true, if Joseph came with
him from Egypt to Jerusalem before he went to Naza-
reth. In fine, as St. Luke saith nothing of their going any
whither after the purification of the Virgin, but to Galilee, SO
he says nothing of their going any whither after Christ's
circumcision, but to the temple at Jerusalem at the purifica-
tion ; so that the argument from St. Luke's silence can be no
stronger for their flight into Egypt before, than after the pu-
rification.
Obj. 3. Had this flight and slaughter been deferred till af.
ter the purification, that was a thing so public, and attended
with such public circumstances in the temple, that it was not
possible for Herod to be ignorant of it.
Ans. First, He who makes this objection should have
considered, that he earnestly contends that Herod was not
then at Jerusalem, but at Jericho, under the extremity of
his numerous distempers, and so there was no fear of his be-
ing instantly advertised thereof what was done in the temple;
but to wave this, I answer, that Herod, though he was then
at Jerusalem, neither repaired to the temple, into which he
could have no admittance, nor troubled himself with any-
thing done there, unless it were done in a riotous, Seditious
manner, and much less with the talk of one old man and Wo:
man, not regarded that we read off, by any but Joseph and
the virgin-mother. We find another story published by the
shepherds, of the appearance of angels, declaring that “one
Christ the Lord was born in that very city of David,” which
made all the people “wonder at the things which they had
spoken,” and yet Herod takes no notice of it.
Ans. Secondly, Herod knew nothing either before or after
that this was the child the magi came to worship ; for then,
why should he slay all the young children about Bethlehem
without distinction, and so they, staying there so little time,
might be safe there as elsewhere ; though, lastly, the possi-
bility that these things might come to his ear, or that his cu.
riosity might move him to inquire what children were born at
44
MATTHEW.
Bethlehem during the time of the taxation, and removed
thence to other places, was perhaps the occasion of the an-
gel's being sent to Joseph to hasten his flight from Jerusalem,
or Nazareth, into Egypt. For, whereas some imagine, that
the text of St. Matthew seemeth to imply, that the angel
appeared to Joseph immediately after the departure of the
wise men ; and, therefore, whilst he was at Bethlehem, the
text doth not enforce this inference, for it saith only that
āyaxograśyrov airröy “they being returned ;" he did so, leav-
ing the time indefinite (see Woltzogenius on Matt. ii. p. 105
—107).
Arg. 2. Moreover, Josephus” saith expressly, that Herod
had sent messengers to IRome concerning the conspiracy of
Antipater before the disciples of Judas and Matthias attempt-
ed to pull down his eagle ; for which, after examination and
imprisonment for some time at Jericho, they suffered death
upon the 3d of March, old style, and that these messengers
returned with letters from the emperor but five days before
his death. Now can any man imagine, they should spend
nine months in such a journey to Rome and back again,
which even in winter might be performed in less than two P
And yet this evidently must be done, if Herod died not till
the 25th of November following, and yet died in five days
after their return.
It therefore is highly probable, and will appear so to any
one who reads Josephus carefully, that Herod died some
time before the passover, which that year happened on the
5th of April, in which interval Archelaus might do all that
was requisite to celebrate his father's funeral, and yet come
to Jerusalem, as Josephus’t saith he did, a little before the
passover. Now if his father died the 25th of November, he
must spend four full months in celebrating his funeral ; which
sure must seem incredible to any, who considers that he was
#xov táxoc, “intent upon the quickest performance” of his
journey to Rome for confirmation of his royal dignity: for
though in hereditary kingdoms, where the successor is pro-
claimed the same day that the king dies, and hath no com-
petitor, these funeral solemnities may be deferred for some
considerable time ; yet seeing the validity of that will which
made Archelaus king, depended absolutely upon the plea-
sure of the emperor, and a competitor was ready, and ap-
peared as quick as he at Rome, to contest the matter with
him by virtue of a former will, it cannot reasonably be
thought that Archelaus would make so long a stay before he
took his journey to Rome.
Obj. Against this argument it is objected, that the funeral
could not be performed in so short a time, because the very
journey from Jericho to Herodion was, saith Josephus, two
hundred stadia, that is, twenty-five miles; and saith the
same Josephus, they went only eight stadia, i. e. one
mile per diem, and so must be twenty-five days in going to
Herodion.
Ans. First, This objection is upon this account highly im-
probable, that it must either find them a town at every mile's
end, sufficient to contain so great a concourse as then at-
tended on the corpse of Herod, or make them lodge many
days in the open field or wilderness, in the winter time, pro-
vided Herod died on the 25th of November.
Ans. 2. Secondly, It is built upon a false foundation ; for
though Josephus; doth expressly say, that Herodion was
two hundred stadia distant from Jericho, i. e. the castle of
Herodion was at that distance from it ; he doth not say they
went but one mile a day, but only that fiscay 88 #7r: 'Héðov
ará?ia §wrā, ś “they came (viz. the first day) within eight
stadia of Herodion:” i. e. they came to the town there built by
Herod, which was eight stadia from the castle, it being, saith
he, a large town like a city, from which there was an ascent
of two hundred marble steps to the Mammea, or place of his
interment. This being so, I am of the opinion of Kepler,
Dr. Alix, and Langius, that all that Josephus mentions af-
ter the eclipse till the death of Herod may be comprised
* Antiq.11b. xvii. cap. 8. # Ibid. cap. 11.
# De B. Jud. lib. i. cap. 21, p. 774, E.
§ Antiq. lib. xvii. cap. 10, p. 600, E.
| Omnia illa quae Josephus de morbo Herodis ab illà
eclipsi usque ad mortem ejus recenset, commodissimè intra
20 dies, etiam itinere ad thermas simul incluso, fieri potue-
runt. Kepl. -
within twenty or twenty-two days, which is the interval be-
twixt the 13th of March and the 5th of April, new style;
especially if we consider that Eusebius" saith, that what was
done after the 19th of March, was done tragaúrixa tragaxgåga,
by the divine vengeance very suddenly, till the time of his
death.
Arg. 3. Thirdly, We are assured from Josephus, that it
was after the disease of Herod had been some time upon
him, that Judas and Matthias moved their scholars to cut
down the eagle Herod had placed upon the great porch of
the temple, as being contrary to their laws, judging this time
of Herod's distemper wate); #mrrnösióratos, “the fittest time”
for the enterprise ; and that they moved this the more confi-
dently, upon a report that “the king was dying:” that when
he sent to the principal men of the Jews to assemble about
this matter, he was carried to them in a bed, 38vyakata rot.
crºval, “being so weak that he was not able to stand ;” that
instantly after the 13th of March, he lay under such a com-
plex of diseases that all men thought he could not live long,
a violent inward fever burning up his bowels, attended with a
bowlimia, or perpetual voracity, which must needs feed his fe-
ver, ulcers in his bowels, cholic passions, an asthma, convul-
sions in all parts, a putrefaction in his scrotum breeding
worms, so that he stank alive ; and when presently he went
to the hot baths at Callirhoes, he had there a deliquium, and
was for some time dead, and had no hopes left of life, and
was, saith Josephus, &tioy rot 3iov, even “departing” when
he shut up the Jews in the Hippodromium at Jericho. Now
can any man think he should live above eight months after
this, and keep the Jews shut up there all that time, as he
must have done if he had lived till the 25th of November
following 2 especially if we consider that the next thing Jo-
sephus mentions of him is, that he endeavoured to stab him-
self with a knife, and then kills Antipater, who hearing this
attempted to escape from prison ; and in five days after dies.
Now is it reasonable to conceive, that an angel should be sent
to command Joseph to fly into Egypt but seven days, as Mr.
Whiston's computation hath it, before the death of Herod
(when his whole body was full of torment, and his heart of
grief, and his head full of other employments), to avoid He-
rod's future attempts to slay the child, when he might have
been as secure anywhere in the land of Israel for so short a
time, and could scarce get thither hefore his death 2
Mr. Whiston indeed saith in answer to this, that there is
no time set for the duration of the disease of Herod; but in
opposition to this, Josephus: expressly affirms, that he did
ei: vároy it, trim rely, “fall into his disease” after the time that
he had sent messengers with letters to Rome concerning the
condemnation of Antipater; and that upon the receipt of
an answer to them, he killed Antipater, and five days after
died: allowing them two months for the going and return of
his messenger, he must die within two months and five days
after he fell sick, and so could not live from the 13th of
March, when his disease increased, till the 25th of No-
vember.
Arg. 4. Fourthly, According to Mr. Whiston's opinion,
Herod must be near eight months at Jericho before he died ;
for he went thither, saith Josephus, soon after the slaughter
of Judas and Matthias with their disciples, and there con-
tinued till his death ; and yet the history of St. Matthew,
especially according to his supposition, that it relates to
what happened only two weeks and a few days before the
death of Herod, plainly proves the contrary ; for he informs
us, that “the wise men came to Jerusalem,” adding that, at
their coming thither “Herod was troubled, and all Jerusalem
with him;” that he inquired “ of the chief priests and scribes,”
whose residence was there, “where Christ should be born,”
and of the wise men then at Jerusalem, “what time the star
appeared to them ;” and this, saith Mr. Whiston in his Har-
mony, p. 159, “was a consultation at Jerusalem.” From
thence therefore he sends them to Bethlehem; when there-
fore he bids them bring “him word again when they had
found the child,” must he not bid them bring him word to
Jerusalem, the place where he consulted with them P Must
he not there expect them 2 When, therefore, being frustrated
of his expectation of their return thither, šarēd retasy, “he
* Hist. Eccl. lib. i. cap. 8.
# Ibid. cap. 9.
# Antiq. lib. xvii. cap. 8.
CHAPTER II.
45
sends forth” his officers to slay the infants of Bethlehem,
must not he send them from Jerusalem ; and is not all this
sufficiently intimated in their divine warning, whº &vaxáſz-kai,
“not to return back” to the place from whence they came
to Bethlehem P How, therefore, could it be that the wise
men should come to him at Jerusalem but two or three
weeks before he died ? or, why doth he now deny that Herod
was then at Jerusalem when he sent forth to slay the infants 2
Why also doth he say, in contradiction to his former self,
“I believe the famous and unexampled summons of all the
chief of the Jews a little before Herod died, in Josephus,
was the very same summons mentioned in St. Matthew for
the inquiry of the place where the King of the Jews was to
be born upon the coming of the magi, and that by conse-
quence the summons was to Jericho, and not to Jerusa-
lem P’” Which is as great an instance of a man resolved to
say anything, though never so improbable, 3cvaeffew Utrobia'el,
to serve an hypothesis which otherwise must fall, as can be
offered : he is the first, and I believe will be the last, who
ever entertained such a vain imagination. For, (1.) That
the wise men came to Jerusalem, and that at their coming
thither “Herod was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him,”
the text saith expressly; and can it then be reasonably said,
that Herod was not then at Jerusalem 2 (2.) The men shut
up in the Hippodromium were the #tria naoi Kai čátáñoyot & p’
$xáarm; kópºnç, “the nobles of every village” (who were then
at court); nor was there was one word said unto them when
they were thus shut up. The men convened in St. Matthew
were only high-priests and scribes, whose residence was at
Jerusalem, and inquiry is made of them where “Christ should
be born.” (3.) When Herod” was dead, Salome and Alexas
sent these men home, štri robº áygowº, “into the fields, or
villages, to mind their own business,” whereas the high-priests
had no business to do there. And, (4.) Herod shut them
up, ºn texturăy, wai &riory roi; 3 ov, “when he was a dying,
and ready to depart this life,” saith Josephus: and was this
a time for him to say to the wise men, “Bring me word of
the child, that I may come and worship him 2 ” In a word,
there is not one word of St. Matthew's story in Josephus,
or of the story of Josephus in St. Matthew ; and can it then
be reasonable to think they relate to the same thing? To
conclude, this new opinion confounds the general doctrine of
the fathers, from Origen to Theophylact, that Herod fell into
that disease which so tormented him, ob cadem infantum,
“for the slaughter of infants,” seeing, according to this
opinion, he must have lain long under these torments, and
had been ready to expire with them, before he did this fact,
it being done, saith this opinion, but five days before his
death. To come now to consider what Mr. Whiston offers
to confirm his opinion ;
First, He saith, that in the ancient account of the Jew-
ish feasts and fasts, viz. in the Megillah Taanitz, we find the
seventh day of the month Chisleu, which answers to our
25th of November, recorded for an anniversary holiday, be-
cause “Herod the king,” who hated the wise men, “died on
that day.” - -
Ans. Dr. Alix in his answer to Bishop Usher concerning
the true date of the death of Herod, saith, that “ had Bi-
shop Usher seen this book, he would never have cited it ;
for it is not the Megillah Taanitz mentioned by the Mischna,
but a late fabulous, ignorant author, not known to, and
much less credited by, the Jews, who do not follow or agree
with him in this matter, and who mentions a feast in the
month Chisleu not known to the Jews, not extant in their
calendar published by Mr. Selden, nor by Buxtorf, among
their occasional feasts ; and which would never have been
permitted by Herod's family, who governed till the destruc-
tion of Jerusalem.”
Mr. Whiston saith farther, that this is wonderfully con-
firmed by the circumstances of Herod just before his death;
and “by the words of Augustus concerning his barbarity to
his children recorded by Macrobius,” it appearing by Jose-
phus, “that Herod was in a strange fury and rage but a few
days before his death.”
Ans. Here the point in dispute is so plainly and so fully
given up, that if Mr. Whiston will abide by his own words,
it must be at an end : for it is evident from the words of
* Joseph. Antiq. lib. xvii. cap. 10, p. 630, B.
Josephus, that “he fell into this rage, or #mygiolºgy &ngáriº
ºrn Seyā, was exasperated to the utmost rage, upon suspicion
of the contempt of the Jews; and that he was confirmed in
this suspicion by the following attempt of the disciples of
Judas and Matthias;” who thereupon are taken by one of
Herod's captains,” examined by Herod, then sent to Jeri-
cho, and after consultation with the chief men of the Jews,
they are slain on the 13th of March. If therefore Herod
fell into his rage but “a few days,” yea even “just” before
his death, it is certain that he must die soon after this 13th
of March, as indeed he did, and therefore could not live till
the 25th of November, that is, eight months after. He there-
fore elsewhere contradicts himself, i. e. Saith, p. 154, that
“Herod burnt these men alive some considerable time be-,
fore his death; ” though it is plain from Josephus, that he
did it “after that rage,” which, saith he, happened “just,”
or “a few days,” before it.
Secondly, To proceed to the words of Macrobius,f they
run thus, “When Augustus had heard that among the chil-
dren within two years old, which Herod king of the Jews
had commanded to be slain in Syria, his own son was killed,
he said, It is better to be Herod's hog than his son.” It is
observable here:
First, That as Strauchius saith, there are not men want-
ing men who look upon this story of Macrobius as a “mere
fiction ;” as also doth Grenobius in his notes upon these
words; (1.) Because no Roman historian whatsoever, be-,
fore Macrobius, who lived almost four hundred years after
Augustus, nor any Christian writer, though both historians,
commentators, and homilists, speak largely of the cruelty of
Herod towards the infants of Bethlehem, make any men-
tion of this jest, which gives just reason to suspect it is a fic-
tion ; like to that other in Philo's book of chronology, that
“Herod had then a son of two years old, begot by one Sa-
lome, of the line of David, whom he then slew.” Or (2.)
We may say with Grotius,f that Macrobius finding that the
Christians kept the solemnity of Innocents’ day, when, saith
Origen, Horum memoria, ut dignum est, in ecclesia cele-
bratur, “the memory of these infants is deservedly celebrated
in the church,” he out of error applied the jest of Augustus
to it.
Secondly, These words contain no testimony of Augustus
about this matter; he only says, “It is better to be Herod's
hog than his son ;” and this he might say rather upon occa-
sion of Herod's slaying his two sons, Alexander and Aristo-
bulus, against his advice, to which Dr. Alix refers this speech,
than his slaying Antipater ; which being done with his per-
mission, he had no just occasion to pass this jest upon him
for doing that which he himself allowed. Moreover, Anti-
pater being slain by Herod but five days before his death,
Augustus could not hear of it till he heard also of his death,
and then it seems too late to pass this jest upon him ;
whereas Alexander and Aristobulus being slain long before,
might give a just occasion for it. And he who contradicts
the full assertion of so many fathers of the second and third
century, saying, that our Saviour was baptized “when he
began to be thirty years old,” as St. Luke also doth ; may
permit us to question the authority of Macrobius as to the
occasion of a jest made four hundred years before, and men-
tioned by him alone.
Thirdly, It is evident, that if any son of Herod's was
slain inter pueros, “among the infants of Bethlehem,” it
could not be Antipater, he being neither slain among them,
nor near Bethlehem, but alone at a castle far distant from it.
Nor, secondly, could he be slain at the same time with
these infants; for it plainly appears from Josephus, that
Antipater was slain soon after the eclipse, which happened
on March 13, the infants, saith Mr. Whiston, were slain
Nov. 20. Antipater was slain not long before the return of
Archelaus to Jerusalem, the five days of his father's life
and his funeral solemnity only intervening; and, yet we
* Antiq. lib. xvii. cap. 8.
f Cum audivisset Augustus inter pueros quos in Syria
Herodes rex Judaeorum infra bimatum jussit interfici,
filium quoque ejus occisum, ait, Melius est Herodis porcum
esse, quâm filium. Saturnal. lib. ii. cap. 4.
f Videtur Macrobius errore quodam duas historias ejus.
dem temporis miscuisse. Grot. -
46 *e
MATTHEW.
learn from Josephus,” that Archelaus came thither, ivºréºn, richo before he slew Antipater; though therefore it might
º, rºw 3&ow foetic, “the passover being then at hand.”
Lastly, The infants were slain whilst Herod was at Jerusa-
lem; for thence he sent forth to slay the children at Beth-
lehem, whereas he had left Jerusalem, and was gone to Je-
* De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 2.
so happen that Augustus might hear of the relation, or dis-
course of both these acts of cruelty at the same time; it is
impossible that they should happen both at the same time.
[See the appendix to this chapter at the end of this gos-
pel.]
CHAPTER III.
1 In those days (viz. in the fifteenth year of Täbe-
rius, Luke iii. 1) came John the Baptist, preaching in
the wilderness of Judea,” (and about Jordan, Luke
iii. 3). *
2 º saying, Repent ye * (and amend your lives):
for the kingdom of heaven (i.e. of the Messiah) is at
hand (that so ye may be prepared to receive the bless-
ings of that kingdom). -
3 (And this he did according to what was foretold
of him :) For this (John) is he that was spoken of by
the prophet Esaias, saying (xl. 3), The voice of one
crying in the wilderness (shall be this), Prepare ye the
way of the Lord, make his paths straight; * (and of
whom God by Malachi had said, iii. 1, Behold I will
send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before
me, Mark i. 2). - -
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III.
* Ver. 1. ‘Ey +; #ehºw rā; 'Iověaiac, preaching in the wil-
derness of Judea.] "Egmºor, a “wilderness” among the
Jews, did not signify a place wholly void of inhabitants, but
a place in which they were fewer, and their habitations more
dispersed, than in villages and cities: hence we read of six
cities with their villages in the “wilderness,” Josh. xv. 61,
62, that Nabal dwelt in the “wilderness of Paran,” 1 Sam.
xxv. 1, 2, and Joab had his house in the “wilderness,” 1
Kings ii. 34.
* Wer. 2. Meravosſ re. Hyyika yść # 8aaixeia Tây oveaväy,
Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.] Of the
repentance here mentioned, see ver. 8. But to treat here
more largely of the “kingdom of heaven” mentioned here,
and elsewhere frequently in the gospels, let it be noted,
First, That the kingdom “ of heaven” and the kingdom
“of God” signify the same thing, as will be evident from the
variation of the word: “Blessed are ye poor, for yours is
the kingdom of heaven,” Matt. v. 3 ; “the kingdom of
God,” Luke vi. 20; “the kingdom of heaven is at hand,”
Matt. iv. 17; “the kingdom of God,” Mark i. 15 ; “the
least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John,” Matt.
xi. 11 : “in the kingdom of God,” Luke vii. 28 ; to you
it is given “to know the mysteries of the kingdom of hea-
ven,” Matt. xiii. 11; “ of the kingdom of God,” Mark iv.
11. So Matt. xix. 14, and Mark x. 14. The reason seems
to be, because this kingdom is erected by the “God of hea-
ven; ” and in scripture phrase it is the same to be from
God and to be “from heaven,” Matt. xxi. 25. Luke xv. 18.
And pºpuy “Heaven” is the name of God, Dan. iv. 26, and
among the rabbinical writers frequently (see Buxt. Lexi.
Talmud. in voce). Note,
Secondly, That the “kingdom of heaven” in the gospel
sometimes unquestionably signifies that heavenly kingdom
in which all pious persons shall enjoy endless felicity with
God as their reward in heaven: as when it is said, “Blessed
are they who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. v. 10); i.e. “great
is their reward in heaven” (ver. 12). “Not every one that
saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of
heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father” (Matt.
vii. 21). To the rest I will say “in that day, I know you
not,” &c. (ver. 22, 23). “It is better to entër into the
kingdom of heaven with one eye, than having two eyes to
be cast into hell, Mark ix. 46, 47. See Matt. xiii. 40. 43.
xxv. 34.46. Luke xii. 32, 33. Note,
Thirdly, That it very frequently in the gospel signifies
the coming of the Messiah to erect his spiritual kingdom,
or that evangelical state and government of the church
he was to set up, with the benefits belonging to them,
who should by faith in him become members of this king-
dom, and would be governed by his laws; this is un-
doubtedly the import of the phrase, (1.) when the kingdom
of God is said to be “at hand,” as here and Matt. iv. 17. x.
7. Luke x. 9, that the “kingdom of God is near,” Luke
xix. 11, that it was “among the Jews,” Luke xvii. 21, that
it was “come to them,” Matt. xii. 28, that devout men ex-
pected it, Mark xv. 43, that the pharisees asked “when the
kingdom of God would come,” Luke xvii. 20, and when
Christ said, “There are some standing here, who shall not
taste of death till they see the kingdom of God come with
power,” Matt. xvi. 28. Mark ix. 1. Luke ix. 27. (2.)
When it is said that “Jesus preached the gospel of the king-
dom of God,” Mark i. 14, that “from the days of John the
Baptist the kingdom of God was preached,” Luke xvi. 16,
that “Christ preached the gospel of the kingdom,” Matt. iv.
23. ix. 35, that he preached “the kingdom of God,” Luke
iv. 43, and spake to them “of the kingdom of God,” Luke
ix. 11, that he sent his “apostles to preach the kingdom of
God,” Luke v. 2, and told the Jews “the kingdom of God
should be taken from them,” Matt. xxi. 43. (3.) This sense
it also bears in almost all the parables which speak of “the
kingdom of God,” as Matt. xiii. 11. 31. 33.44, 45.47. xviii. 1.
3, 4. xx. 1. xxii. 2. xxv. 1. (4.) It seems to bear this sense,
when it is said “the least in the kingdom of heaven is
greater than John the Baptist,” Matt. xi. 11, that “the
kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it
by force,” ibid. ver. 12, that “to the disciples was given to
know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven,” Matt. xiii.
11, see ver. 19. 52; “to thee will I give the keys of the
kingdom of heaven,” Matt. xvi. 19, when the mother of
Zebedee's children asks for her two sons that “that they
might sit on the right and left hand in his kingdom,” Matt.
xx. 21. This is the kingdom which the scribes shut men
out from, Matt. xxiii. 13, which the scribe was not “far
from,” Mark xii. 34, and of which it is said, “Blessed is he
who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God,” Luke xiv. 15.
Fourthly, In other places I am yet doubtful whether it
refer to the times of the preaching of the gospel, and the
erecting of Christ's kingdom, or to the first and higher sense
of the kingdom of heaven, as it imports the kingdom into
which the righteous shall enter at the great day of recom-
pense, viz. Matt. v. 3. 19, 20. vi. 33. viii. 11. xix. 12. 24.
Mark x. 14, 15. 23–25. Luke xviii. 29. xxii. 29, 30.
* Ver. 3. ‘Ero1px4 care rºy 3839 Kvgiov, eúðeia; Trotsfºrd tâ; rei-
gov, airoij, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, and make his
paths straight.] From these words compared with Mark i. 2.
Mal. iii. 1, some prove that Christ is God, even the same in
essence with the God of Israel, because the way of which
Isaias speaks (xl. 3), is nin' T-1 or the “way of Jehovah,”
the path which he requires to be made straight is the path
roi; Geoſ; hºw&y, “ of our God.” And it is the God of Israel
who saith, Behold, “I send my messenger before my face,”
or before me (Mal. iii. 1). Now this messenger is by Christ
himself declared to be John the Baptist (Matt. xi. 10), and
he is said to be sent ºrgā Tºoard trov cov, “before the face of
Christ to prepare his way ” (ibid. and Mark i. 2. Luke vii.
27); this therefore, say some, is an evident proof that
Christ is one God with the Father, and that in Christ God
came, and was manifested in the flesh. But to this the
Socinians answer two things, which seem to lessen the force
xxi. 31 that it was “presently to be manifested,” Luke of this argument, viz.
CHAPTER III.
, 47.
4 And the same John (who thus cried) had his rai-
ment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his
loins “ (as Elias whom he represented, had) ; and his
meat was locusts and wild honey. "
5 Then (after notice of his proclaiming the ap-,
proach of the Messiah) went out to him Jerusalem,
and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan,
First, That the Baptist was sent before the face of God,
but not of Göd only, but of Christ also, for he was sent to
call the people to “repentance towards God,” and so he
went before God “ to turn many of the people to the Lord
their God” (Luke i. 16, 17). He was also sent to bear
witness to Christ, “that all men might believe in him "
(John i. 7); and so “he went before the face of Christ to
prepare his way.” -
Secondly, They add, that this messenger may well be
Said to go before the face of God, as being sent before the
face of this great prophet and ambassador of God, who
therefore sustained his person, and was his image and re-
presentative in a more excellent manner than a prophet or
any angel mentioned in the Old Testament ; yea, say they
“God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself” (2
Cor. v. 19); which shows that Christ in a more perfect man-
ner represented him, so that the messenger sent before
Christ's face, might well be said to be sent “before the face
of God.” For if he, who persecutes the members of Christ,
persecutes Christ himself (Acts ix. 4), he that “despiseth
Christ's messengers,” despiseth him, and he that despiseth
him, despiseth also him that sent him (Luke x. 16), and he
that lied to the apostles lied to God (Acts v. 4); and if he
that received them, received him (Matt. x. 40), and he that
shows an act of charity to his members, shows it to him
(Matt. xxv. 40); then in like manner, he that goes before
God's great prophet and ambassador, may be said to go be-
fore God also. These answers must be confuted before we
can depend upon the strength of this argument (see also
note on Luke iii. 4, 5).
* Ver. 4. Eixº tº #yðvøa aircă ătră retxày waſ...}\ov wai &-
vºy 35%ativny regi rāy a piv airoij, &c. And this John had
his ruiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his
!oins, &c.] It is very true as Ctesias, Apollonius,” and
AElian declare,t that some garments made of “camel's hair”
were very soft and fine, and therefore worn by priests and
noblemen ; these, saith Paulus Venetus, in Tartary are
called zambilottes, lib. i. cap, 63, and by us chamblets; but
doubtless the garment of the Baptist was made ex villis,
“of the long and coarse hair” of camels, that he might in
habit, as well as in spirit and office, resemble Elijah, who
was a “hairy man,” and girded with a girdle of leather about
his loins" (2 Kings i. 8). -
* "H 35 rºof aircü fiv 3488s, was aéxi &yetov, and his meat
was locusts and wild honey..] That some locusts were clean
meat we learn from these words, Lev. xi. 22, “ of these ye
may eat, the bald locust after his kind.” That locusts were
a common meat, not only in the eastern and the southern
parts, but even in Palestine itself, is fully proved by Bo-
chartus, Hieroz. par. ii. lib. iv. cap. 7, Eustath, in Dionys.
p. 37, and by Ludolphus in his Ethiopic History, and in his
dissertation de Locustis: so that vain are all the criticisms
to change the word 348:38;.
" Ver. 6. Kai #3artíšovro #y rð ‘Iop3ávn intº attoſ, £oºo-
7\oyoſºvo: tá; &zaºtia; airãv. And were baptized of him
in Jordan, confessing their sins.] In the river Jordan,
Mark i. 5 (see note on ver, 16). Of this confession of sins,
Maldonate owns it could not be auricular confession, be:
cause that was not yet instituted: moreover, it was a con-
fession of them not to John, but unto God, much less was
it a confession of all their offences made secretly in the ears
of John ; for how could one man have sufficed for that
work, when all “Judea and Jerusalem went out unto him P”
but only a general confession that they were sensible of their
sins, and so repaired to his baptism, professing their repent-
ance for them : and such were the professions we meet with
in the Old Testament (Ezra ix. Neh. ix. Dan. ix), and that
made by the high-priest on the day of “atonement of all the
iniquities of the children of Israel” (Lev. xvi. 21). It was
* Mirab. cap. 20. + Hist. Animal. lib. xvii, cap. 34.
6 And were baptized of him, confessing their sins
"(and promising the reformation of their lives).
7 But when he saw many of the " pharisees and
sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them,
O generation of vipers, "who hath warned you to
(make use of this means to) flee from the wrath to
come (if indeed you would escape it.)
a confession not of those who had been baptized concerning
sins committed after baptism, but of those who were to be
baptized: and, lastly, it was not a confession required of
them by the Baptist, but made freely of their own accord ;
in all which circumstances it differs from the auricular con-
jession of the church of Rome.
7 Ver. 7. 13&v 33 Troxxotic rāy battaraiov zai zaščovzatov
#éxop.évov; #tri ré 34tratoga aircü. And seeing many of the
pharisees and sadducees coming to his baptism, &c.] That
these pharisees and sadducees not only came to the place of
baptism, but also actually were baptized by John, is proved,
(1.) Because as much is said of them here, as of the multi-
tude, Luke iii. 7, “they came to be baptized,” and of the
publicans, wer. 12, #x00, 8atrºtta Shvat, “they came to be bap-
tized.” And the same admonitions and words are spoken
to the multitude there (ver. 7, 8), as to the pharisees and
sadducees here. Now the multitude and publicans were
actually baptized ; only observe, that many of them are
said to come to his baptism not comparatively, as if but
few refused, for St. Luke saith (vii. 30) that “the pharisees
and lawyers rejected the counsel of God towards them,
being not baptized of John ;” but absolutely, they being
not a few who were baptized. Now from this example of the
Baptist admitting this generation of vipers to his baptism
upon their profession of repentance, and a desire to escape
the wrath to come, we may learn that such professors may
be admitted to the sacrament, as have been very bad, upon
the like profession, provided we do warn them as the Bap-
tist did these men, that as they do make profession of repent-
ance and amendment, so they would be as careful to “bring
forth fruits worthy of repentance.”
* Ti; bºráðsićey tºxiv.; who hath warned you to flee from
the wrath to come 2] This is not, as Mr. Clerc conceives, a
negative, or declaration that none had warned them to do
this; for, doubtless, the prophets of the Old Testament, and
their own consciences, must warn them to avoid impendent
wrath : but it is a who of admiration, like that of St. Paul
to the Galatians, “Who hath bewitched you?” iii. 1, where
sure he did not intend to say that no man had done it (see
the like, Isa. xlii. 19. xlix. 21. liii. l. lx. 8. lxiii. 1. Matt.
xxi. 10. Luke v. 21. ix. 9. Rev. xiii. 4); and is as if he
should have said, “How wonderful is it that such men
should do things so alien from their temper and inclina-
tions !”
* Ver. 8. IIolºcate oty wagºroi), āśious rāg pºstavoiaç. Bring
forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance.] i. e. A change
of the mind from the approbation or good-liking of sin, as
seeing in it something we conceive desirable, to the aver-
sion and alienation of the mind from it, as being convinced
of the vileness and the destructive nature of it ; and this is
properly Azetáyota, repentance, and to be thus affected is &va-
vectorSai tº trysiºcari toº yośg hºv, “to be renewed in the
spirit of our mind” (Eph. iv. 23); and because hence
naturally follows a change of the will and the affections from
love to the hatred of sin, and so from choosing to the refu-
sal of it: hence it is well defined by Phavorinus, # red, rö
xestoratov Štriargo pº wał yynaig &rd ºrtalagačrov #wi ºr éváyrtov
aya.02, #Tiarkoph, “a conversion from our evil ways to the
contrary good, or to that which is better ;” and because,
where these ruling faculties are truly thus affected, we shall
“cease to do evil, and learn to do well " (Isa. i. 16, 17),
so that “if we have done iniquity we will do it no more ”
(Job xxxiv. 32), therefore it is styled werávota &rd vexed v šeyov,
“repentance from dead works" (Heb. vi. 1), and “repent-
ance to salvation ” is styled čºgrapcíamroç (2 Cor. vii. 10),
i.e. “ such as is not reversed” by any voluntary returning
to, or relapsing into, our former sins. And seeing God is
unchangeably holy and righteous, and must for ever hate in-
iquity with a perfect hatred, it is certain from his very nature
that he cannot be reconciled to, or have communion with,
the sinner, till he cease from sin, and a change is wrought in
48
MATTHEW.
8 Bring * forth therefore (then) fruits meet for re-
pentance:
, 9 And "think (it) not (sufficient) to say within ||
yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say
to you, That God (rejecting you) is able of these stones
* (before your eyes) to raise up (such who believing as
he did, shall be accounted by him), children unto Abra-
ham.
10 And (to engage you so to do, consider that) now
also is the axe laid to the root of the tree; therefore
every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is (to
be) hewn down, and cast into the fire.
11 I indeed baptize you (only) with watér” (calling
you by this rite) to repentance : but he that cometh
after me is mightier than I, (being one) whose shoes
* I am not worthy to bear (i. e. whose servant I am
not worthy to be); he shall baptize you (who believe in
his conversion from sin to righteousness; for a change there
must be either in God or man : now since God's nature is
immutable, it cannot be in him, and so of necessity must be
in man. Now it is evident both from reason and experience,
that confession of sins, a present sorrow for them, and dis-
pleasure against them, and a warm resolution to forsake
them, is neither necessarily nor always attended with this
change, and so that these alone cannot be “fruits meet for
repentance ;” and, oh! how necessary was this admonition
for the men of that age, who, as Dr. Lightfoot notes, placed
their repentance in a mere “oral confession of their sins,”
as the schoolmen and some Latin fathers did in a mere
groan ; saying, Si ingemueris, salvaberis. And I wish this
note were not as necessary for too many of our age.
* Ver. 9. Kai º 8&nts Aéyely iv Havroſ, rarápa Exoptey
rôy 'Aggañº And begin not to say within yourselves, We
have Abraham to our father.] There seems no necessity
of making 3oxéo here, or &exop, at Luke iii. 8, an expletive;
for the sense runs clearly thus, When you are called to
“bring forth fruits meet for repentance,” begin not to ob-
struct the efficacy of this admonition with those thoughts so
common among you, that you are secure from wrath by
being the “children of Abraham.” How prone they were
to such vain imaginations you may learn, note on Rom. ii.
13, and from these words of Justin Martyr," calling the
Jews to repentance, and desiring them not to be deluded by
their rabbins and masters, who told them, that though they
continued in their sins, yet if they knew God, où º Xoyićhra;
atroſ, 3 Kūgio; #4agriay, God “would not impute their sin to
them.” And conceiving that “being Abraham's seed, though
they continued in their disobedience to God, and in infidelity,
the kingdom of heaven should be given to them.” -
* “Or, 3...wara & Os3; in täv xíðav roſſroy iysical ríºva rö
Aggadº, for God is able out of these stones to raise up
children to Abraham.] I see no reason for the interpreta-
tion of Clemens Alexandrinus; here “out of these stones,”
that is in rāv Āšot; retric revkāray Syâv, “out of the gentiles
who worshipped stones,” or that of Jerome on the place,
Lapides ethnicos vocat propter cordis duritiem, “He calls
the heathens stones for the hardness of their hearts,” though
almost all the ancients concur with them ; unless perhaps it
might be thought he pointed to the heathen soldiers standing
there ; the sense seems rather to be this, That God, who
raised Adam from the earth, and children to Abraham from
the dead womb of Sarah, can from these stones create such
persons, whose faith shall render them more truly and ac-
ceptably “the sons of faithful Abraham ” than you are (see
the note on Luke xix. 40).
* Ver. 11. ‘Eyð wiv 8artića, tºº; #y $3art. Ei, ºstăvoay,
I indeed baptize you with water to repentance, &c.] They
seem to be much mistaken, who think the “baptism of John”
was for substance the same with that which afterward Christ
did institute to admit disciples into the Christian church ;
for (l.) John neither did nor could baptize disciples “in the
ºs-
* * * *—. z * > * -> gº * *
Tºroadwgavoyrs; ºr, Trávro; roſ. 3073 rº, a ropäç, rºc war:
záeza, rāv 'A3;aëº, cºat, kāy &#44eroxo, 3ri, Kai & wiczot, wai
&r=1957; 7p?; tāv Qièv, # 6azineia haiºvio, 80%asrai. Dial. cum
r º -7
Tryph. p. 368, cap. 370, D.
t Protrept. p. 3.
him) with the Holy Ghost and with fire (i. e. appear.
ing in the emblem of fire).
12 (And he is one) whose ** fan is in his hand, and
he will thoroughly purge his floor, and he will gather
the wheat (the sincerely penitent) into his garner; but
the chaff (the wicked and the unbelievers) he will burn
with unquenchable fire.
13 Then (while John was thus preaching and bap-
tizing) cometh Jesus from (Nazareth of) Galilee to
Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him. -
14 But John (being a prophet full of the Spirit from
his mother’s womb, Luke i. 15, and by the affiatus of
that Spirit knowing who he was) forbade * (or would
have hindered) him, saying, I have need to be bap-
tized of thee (with the Holy Ghost), and comest thou
to me (to receive my water baptism)?
15 And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it
name of the Holy Ghost,” as the apostles did; because “the
Holy Ghost was not yet given” (John vii. 39), and much
less could he baptize them “with the Holy Ghost,” as here
he saith Christ would, and yet Christ makes both these bap-
tisms necessary to our entrance into the kingdom of God,
John iii. 5. (2.) John did not baptize in the name of Christ;
for had he done so, there could have been no doubt “whether
he himself were the Christ” or not (Luke iii. 15), nor any
occasion for the question, “Why baptizest thou, if thou be
not the Christ?” (John i. 25.) He only admonished those
he baptized in general, that “they should believe in him
that was coming after him.” So that he baptized only those
who as yet believed not in Christ ; whereas the baptism in-
stituted by Christ was in his name, and belonged only to
them who believed in him. And, lastly, St. Paul baptizes
them again, who had before received the baptism of John,
to fit them for the reception of the Holy Ghost (Acts xix.
6, 7). -
£) où oix eigai ixayá; Tô in oëhºara Baataa’at, whose shoes
I am not worthy to carry.J. i. e. Whose servant I am not
worthy to be (see note on John i. 27, and Grotius here).
* Ver. 12. of r3 ºr rúoy #y ºf xeipi atroń' Whose fan is
in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and
burn the chaff with unquenchable fire.] That which we ren-
der here “a fan” from vannus, is, say Hesychius and Pha-
vorinus, “a sieve,” in which they separate the wheat from
the chaff. It is, say Didymus and Eustathius (in Iliad. v.),
Té Aikantizöv, “a winnowing instrument,” by which they
shake the grains together, &vaxogićovre; roi; 3xºgov, “separat-
ing them from the chaff.” Now the wheat or other grain
thus cleansed was put into the granary ; to the chaff they
put fire, to prevent the winds blowing it back into the
threshing-floor, and that fire burnt on, till it had consumed
it, without being quenched; and to this practice do these
words refer. -
15 Wer. 14. 'O 3ā 'Iowawn; 3.8x3xvey airów. But John for-
bade him.] To the question, how the Baptist knew him to
be the Christ, before the Spirit descended on him P it is an-
swered by almost all the commentators on the Gospel of
St. Matthew, that John the Baptist being a “prophet filled
with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb” (Luke i. 15),
knew by the afflatus of that Holy Spirit, that he, who then
came to him, was the person on whom the Holy Ghost should
descend so plentifully, and on whom he should abide, that
he might impart him to others, such matters being frequently
imparted to prophets by an immediate intimation of the
Holy Spirit. So Simeon being told that “he should not
die till he had seen the Lord's Christ” (Luke ii. 26), hat.
an afflatus declaring to him that our Lord was that Christ
(ver. 27, 32). So Anna the prophetess, being one of them
who expected his coming, by a like afflatus, was moved
“to speak of him” as the promised Messiah (ver. 38). So
Samuel being told by God, that “on the morrow a man
should come to him to be the captain over his people IS-
rael” (1 Sam. ix. 15), when Saul appears, hath another affla-
tus, resembling that of the Baptist's here, viz. “Behold the
man of whom I spake to thee” (ver. 17), and on whom thou
mayest expect to see the signal promised. Thus, though
Moses knew before from the mouth of God, and many other
antecedent evidences, that he was by him designed to bring
CHAPTER III.
49
to be so now : for thus it behoveth” us to fulfil all
righteousness (i. e. to own every righteous institution
of God). Then he suffered him.
16 And Jesus, when he was baptized, " went up
his people out of Egypt, yet God speaks thus to him, “This
shall be a sign to thee, that I have sent thee, when thou
hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve
God upon this mountain” (Exod. iii. 12). In a word, the
Baptist being to preach, when he baptized with water, that
another should baptize them with the Holy Ghost, God tells
him, that of this he should see an evidence, by the visible
descent of the Holy Ghost upon him, who from his fulness
was to impart this Spirit to all true believers; and when our
Saviour came to be baptized tells him again this was that
very person. - -
* Ver. 15. Otro y&e Trémoy Hariv hºw tranpäcal rāgay
3%alogívny, for so it becomes us to fulfil all righteousness.]
i.e. To own every divine institution, and so to show my rea-
diness to comply with all God's righteous precepts, and to
justify God and approve his counsel (Luke vii. 29), and
celebrate his wisdom in sending thee to prepare his and my
way, by calling men, to repentance, and by so doing to fit
them for the blessings of my kingdom, and the avoiding of
the wrath to come. So the Apostolical Constitutions (lib.
vii. Cap. 22), say that Christ was baptized, “not that he
needed any purgation, &MA' Wa wai Iwawn &xi;Setav trgooraap.
ºrvéâzh, Kał żºły Wºoygaºzºv ºraçáoxntal, but to testify the
truth of St. John's baptism, and be an example to us.”
” Wer. 16. Kai £articós; 5 'Incoſ; 3v38% etów: árà roº
tºator And Jesus being baptized came up straightway out
of the water.] The observation of the Greek church is this,
that he who ascended out of the water, must first descend
down into it: “baptism therefore is to be performed, not by
Sprinkling, but by washing the body;” and indeed it can
be only from ignorance of the Jewish rites in baptism that
this is questioned ; for they, to the due performance of this
rite, so superstitiously required the immersion of the whole
body in the water, that if any dirt hindered the water from
coming to any part of it, the baptism was not right, and if
one held the baptized by the arm when he was let down into
the water, another must dip after him, holding him by the
other arm that was washed before ; because his hand would
not suffer the water to come to his whole body (see Light-
foot here, on ver. 6, and Selden, de Jure Nat. et Gent. lib.
is cap. 2, p. 14). Note also, that the divines hence infer,
that baptism may rightly be received by, and administered
to, a subject incapable of many of the chief ends of it, pro-
vided he be capable of some other end for which it was also
designed. For Christ being “without sin,” could neither
repent nor promise amendment of life ; being “the wisdom
9f the Father,” he could be taught nothing; being the
Christ, he could not profess he would “believe in him that
should come after him,” that is, in himself. He therefore
Was baptized, to testify that he owned the Baptist, as one
commissioned by God to do this office; and, (2.) that by
this rite he might profess his willingness “to fulfil all right-
eousness;” and (3.) that by this rite he might be initiated
to his prophetical office, and consecrated to the service of
God ; though therefore, say they, infants can neither be
taught nor believe, nor give “the answer of a good conscience
at baptism,” yet may they be baptized. (1.) That they may
by this ceremony be obliged to observe the laws of that Jesus
into whose name they are baptized, even as the circumcised
infant, by virtue of that rite, became “a debtor to observe
the whole law of Moses,” Acts xv. 5. Gal. v. 3. (2.) That
by this rite they might enter into covenant with Göd, and
become federate children of God, of which they are declared
capable by Moses, Deut. xxix. 11. And so, when by their
parents that circumcision was neglected, they are said to
have “broken God's covenant,” Gen. xvii. 14. And seeing
parents might consecrate their children to God's service from
the womb, as in the case of Samson (Judg. xiii. 5), and of
Samuel (1 Sam. i. 11, 22, 28), why might not God appoint
that this might be done to children, by that only rite which
he instituted under the old and the new covenant, for enter-
ing any into the number of his federal servants 2 And,
º, 3 *- - w º *
* 'Avgöm & Trà roi; §§aroc, 35Aoy 33 3rt waté80' lºot, cºy wará-
Bugis Kai ol āavrºzá. Hieron. Patriarch, cap. regi ºvernetww.
straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens
were opened to him, and (both) he (and John Baptist,
John i. 32) * saw the Spirit descending like (as) a
dove (descends), and * lighting upon him:
(3.) By this rite to consign unto them a right to the king.
dom of heaven, and to a blessed resurrection; of which, if
infants of believing parents are not capable when dying in
their infancy, they are lost for ever. Now they all being
the offspring of Adam, and therefore all obnoxious to death
by reason of his sin (Rom. v. 12), they cannot be delivered
from this death but by the grace of God, which Christ hath
purchased, and promised to them only who are made some
way members of his body, and children of God: why there-
fore should we not conceive they should obtain this favour
by that baptism which is alone appointed by Christ for
making any one a “member of his body” (1 Cor. xii. 13),
and entering any one into the “kingdom of God” (John
iii. 5).
18 %. siès rê IIysºp, a roi; Otoč zaragaſvoy &zei regizregåy,
and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove..] See
the note on Luke iii. 22.
* Kai śćxáſzeyov in airey, and lighting upon him.] Here
the Socinians object thus:
Obj. If Christ had been God as well as man, he could not
have needed this descent of the Holy Spirit upon him, as
being able, by the divinity residing in him, to do all those
things for which the Holy Ghost can be supposed to descend
upon him. “What is it,” saith Crellius, “that the high God
could not do himself? or, what help could the Holy Spirit
give unto him 2 If you say, his human nature needed the
assistance of this Holy Spirit, how can that be, seeing it is
supposed to be personally united to the divinity, and to have
the whole ‘fulness of the Godhead dwelling in it 2" or, why
should Christ be rather said to cast out devils “by this Spirit
of God,” than by his divine nature ; or to be ‘endowed with
wisdom, counsel, knowledge, fortitude, and the fear of the
Lord' by the Spirit, and not by his divine nature ?” (Wolt-
zogen upon the place, and Crellius, de uno Deo Pat. b. i.
Š. 2, cap. 33.) *
Ans. In answer to this objection, it is to be observed,
first, that the most ancient, fathers have taken notice of it
as a specious objection against the received doctrine of the
divinity of Christ, and have attempted to return divers an-
swers to it ; which is a demonstration, that the doctrine, that
Christ was truly God, was then received by the church of
Christ. Trypho, in his dialogue with Justin Martyr, asks
this very question of the Socinians, “Why Jesus Christ,
whom Justin owned to be God, should have the Spirit rest-
ing on him, & Byåsåc roºrov tºráčXoy, as needing his assist-
ance P” Justin Martyr" replies, that he accurately and
prudently made this inquiry; this being a just cause of
doubting in this case ; and then he tells him, that “the
graces of the Holy Spirit, mentioned Isa. xi. 2, did not de-
scend upon him, as if he needed them ; but to testify they
were to rest upon him, and be accomplished in him : so that
these prophetical graces should no longer be in the Jewish
church.” Irenaeus,' speaking of the same thing, saith, “As
to that nature by which Christ the word of God was man,
the Spirit rested on him, and he was anointed to preach the
gospel ; secundam autem quéd Deus erat, but as he was
God he knew all men, and what was in man” (John ii. 24,
25). Now hence the answer to this argument is this, that
Christ as God could not need this unction of the Holy Spi-
rit, but as he was to execute the prophetic office, it was
needful for him ; because a prophet, being not to speak “in
his own name,” but “in the name of God,” and what he had
suggested to him by “the Spirit of God,” this prophetic
office was to be performed not by the divine nature of our
Lord, but by the afflatus of the Holy Spirit (see to this
effect the discourse in the preface to St. John). It was also
* Tajira; rā, Karng.8gnkºva; rot IIvetºzaro; 3vyākaitº, oix &
ăvăsciſ, airoi; togray Syros, phaw & Aºyo; insan?v6éval ir' airy,
3xx' &; #7, #xeſvoy &yáravaiv weaxoſcow woºftoºat, rotºrea riv,
#mr' attoº tripa, Troisſ-Bai roſ, ºnzár, Šv tº yive, tºy watū tº
Taxaty #80; ºrpoºphºrac yiyyha'aasai. Dial. cum Tryp. p. 314,
3. + Lib. iii. Cap. 10, p. 254. E
‘.
50
MATTHEW.
17 And lo a voice (was heard) from heaven, saying,” This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
needful for the execution of his priestly office, that he, by
the Spirit sanctifying him from the womb, might offer him-
self a lamb without spot to God (Heb. ix. 14). So that in
all the actions relating to his prophetic office, the divinity of
Christ must be supposed quiescent, and Christ must be said
to perform his miracles to confirm the doctrine which he de-
livered, “by the Spirit of God,” by which also he was as-
sisted to “speak the words of God” (John iii. 34): and seeing
all the orthodox allow that the divinity was quiescent in
Christ till he was thirty years old, why may they not allow
it was quiescent also after, in all the actions relating to the
execution of his prophetical office here on earth 2
Duoditius * indeed exclaims, not against this hypothesis,
but against the words of Irenaeus, that Christ suffered hav-
2:áčovro; rot Aéyov, “the divine nature being quiescent,” as if
the Aéyoc, or divine nature, must be then a deserter of the
human nature, as not assisting it in his agonies, calling this
a “portentous and impious opinion.” But this is only a vain
exclamation ; for that Christ did not suffer because he wanted
power to repel his enemies, or to deliver himself from death ;
but because he was willing to give up his life an offering for
sin, and to obey his Father's command, “to lay down his
life for the sheep” (John x. 18), and shed his blood for the
redemption of mankind, is evident from this, that he who by
a word struck back his adversaries to the earth and by a
touch healed the ear of Malchus (John xviii. 6. Luke xxii.
51); he that had power to reassume his life when he had laid
it down (John x. 18), must sure have power to preserve his
* Inter. Epist. Socin. p. 512.
life, if it had pleased him so to do. Shall we then say, Christ
was a deserter of himself, because he was not pleased to do
this 2 Does he not say, “he could call for twelve legions of
angels to deliver him ** (Matt. xxvi. 53.) Must we then
call him a deserter of himself, because he did not do it? Is
it not plainly said, “he had the Father dwelling in him”
(John xiv. 10), and had “the Spirit without measure ?”
(John iii. 34). Shall we then say, the Father and the Spirit
deserted him, because they, after all his cries, permitted him
to suffer on the cross 2 If not, why should we say, the divine
nature did desert him, because it permitted him, according
to the predictions of the prophets, and the counsel and de-
cree of the Father, to suffer for the salvation of mankind,
and would not rescue him from that death on which de-
pended our redemption, sanctification, and salvation ? (Heb.
ix. 13. x.9.)
* Ver. 17. oºré, Éativ 3 vić, wov (; āyarntoc, iv 3 sixáknoa.
This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.] Here
note, (1.) That this is introduced with an ibot, “behold !”
as being spoken in the audience of the Baptist, that he
might testify this of him, that he was the Son of God.
Note, (2.) That this voice was directed to Christ himself;
and therefore, Mark i. 11. Luke iii. 22, the words run thus:
“Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased :” i.e.
thou art the person sanctified by this descent of the Holy
Ghost upon thee to declare my will to the world, according
to the prophecy concerning him, Isa. “xlii. 1, and whose
words and doctrine it therefore concerns all men to hear
and obey (Matt. xvii. 5), as a person highly favoured by
me, and commissioned to teach what he deliversin my name.
CHAPTER IV.
1 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit" (with which
he was filled, Luke iv. 1, farther) into the wilderness,
to be tempted of the devil (that we by his example
might learn how to resist temptation).
2 And when he had (by a miraculous assistance)
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV.
* Ver. 1. Tórs à Incois &vix$n sic rºy Épnºwow tºr; roi;
IIvetºzaroº, reparºval imä roi; 3,283×ov. Then was Jesus led
wp of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the
devil..] By the Spirit, i. e. by that Holy Spirit, with which
he was filled (Luke iv. 1). Now, doubtless, there must be
some very great and good ends, why the Holy Spirit should
thus move our Lord to repair into the wilderness for that
end, amongst which, saith Theophylact, this was one, “to
teach us, that, when by baptism we have consecrated our-
selves to God's service, we must expect temptation:” and,
(2.) to teach us in our Lord's example, how we may best
and most effectually resist them, even by an unshaken faith,
(1 Pet. v. 9), and “by the sword of the Spirit, which is the
word of God” (Eph. vi. 17).
* Ver, 2. ‘Tarsgow Breivate, And when he had fasted
forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungered.]
Hence we may learn how vain a thing it is, to institute or
to pretend to keep a fast of forty days in imitation of this
example of our Lord ; for it is certain, that so great and so
long abstinence is inconsistent with the frajly of our natures,
and so can be no duty; it is also certain that our Saviour
felt no hunger all this while ; for “he was’ only “hungry
afterward,” saith St. Matthew, and so his fasting was mira-
culous. Moreover, his fast was not intended to chastise or to
subdue that body which never was irregular, or to prepare
him for those spiritual duties, which “by the unction of the
Holy Ghost,” he was abundantly fitted for ; and upon these
accounts can give no precedent to our fasts, which should
afflict the body, and are intended for the ends afore-men-
tioned. To conclude, hence our obligation to a more than
ordinary temperance for forty days, is to place “morality in
numbers,” and to introduce an endless heap of “supersti-
tious follies ;” for by like reason, we must deem ourselves
obliged to ride upon an ass, in token of our humility, or to
fasted forty days and forty nights, (and was, during
that time, invisibly tempted of the devil, Mark i. 13,
Luke iv. 2), he was afterward an hungered.”
3 And when the tempter” came unto him, he said
(Greek, and the tempter coming (then visibly) to him
- - -ºm-- - - - - - * * *-* --- - -º-º-º-º-º-º- - -
renounce our title to our temporal estates, and throw away
our money, to be like him who had not where to lay his head,
nor could procure sixpence without a miracle. Better here is
the note of Theophylact and others, that “we are then espe-
cially to expect temptations when we are alone, and when
we are in straits and exigencies, from which we see no or-
dinary way of deliverance ;” which was the case of Christ,
he being hungry in the wilderness, and fed at last only by
angels ministering to him.
* Ver. 3. Kai Trgoa ex8&y airá á reté4ćov, Eſtrew, And the
tempter coming to him, said, &c.] From this and the first
verse, where Christ is said “to be led into the wilderness to
be tempted of the devil,” the Socinians raise two objections
against the divinity of Christ.
Obj. 1. If Christ were God, why should he be thus
tempted 2 Was it to show, that God was able to sustain and
overcome the temptations of the devil? Could there be any
doubt of this 2 If it be here said, that he was only tempted
as he was man ; they still reply, That seeing his human ma-
ture was personally united to the divine, it must be still su-
perfluous to show, that even his human nature, thus strength-
ened and assisted, should be able to resist and baffle the as-
saults of Satan; nor will his doing this by a divine assistance
afford us any comfort, who can expect no like assistance when
we do grapple with the tempter.
Ans. To this I answer, that the ancient fathers were not
ignorant of this objection, made, as it seemeth, by the Ebion-
ites, the elder brethren of the Photinians and Socinians.
And therefore Irenaeus,” in answer to them, lays this for the
foundation, That never any of the sons of Adam were ever
in the scriptures called God or Lord, but he who, Prieter omi-
nes qui tunc fuerunt homines, Deus, et Dominus et Rex
aeternus, et unigenitus, et Verbum incarnatum praedicatum ch
* Lib. iii. cap. 21. p. 287.
CHAPTER IV.
51
said), If thou be(indeed) the Son of God, command that
these stones bemade bread(tosatisfy thy presenthunger).
4 But he answered and said, It is written (Deut.
viii. 3, that) Man shall not live by bread alone, but
by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of
God (i.e. by any other thing which he shall appoint
for his nourishment). -
5. Then (when this temptation succeeded not) the
devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him
upon a pinnacle of the temple,
6 And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God,
a prophetis, et apostolis, adest videre omnibus, qui vel modi-
cum veritatis attigerint, “ of all men then in being, was only
by the prophets and apostles declared to be God and Lord,
and the eternal King, and the only begotten, and the Word
made flesh, as they who have little insight into the truth may
easily perceive ; and these things” saith he “the scriptures
would not testify of him, si similitër ut omnes, homo tan-
tüm fuisset, &c., had he been only a man as others were, but
because he had an excellent generation from God the Fa-
ther, and another in the womb of the Virgin ;” the scriptures
testify of him, “both that he was one without form, and sub-
ject to sufferings, one that rid upon the foal of an ass, had
gall and vinegar given him to drink, was despised of the peo-
ple, and humbled himself to death ; and also, that he was
the holy Lord, the wonderful Counsellor, the mighty God
(Isa. ix. 6), coming upon the clouds to be judge of all men.”
And having premised these things, he answers thus to the ob-
jection of the Ebionites, That” “as he was man, that he
might be tempted, so he was the Word, that he might be
glorified; the Word being quiescent, that he might be
tempted, crucified, and die.” Which words, being preserv-
ed and cited by Theodoret, show, that the latter fathers ap-
proved of this solution of this difficulty. Among the rea-
sons assigned of our Lord’s temptation, this is one, viz. the
consolation of his members conflicting with the adversary of
their souls, and that upon these two accounts: (1.) That he
“suffered being tempted, that he might afford suitable help to
us when we are tempted” (Heb. ii. 17, 18. iv. 15, 16), and,
(2.) That we have the same Spirit in us which was in him,
and who “ is greater than he that was in the world” (1 John ii.
14. iv. 4), and so may combat him with the same weapons,
and overcome him with the same assistance, by which he in
his human nature did it. Now this ground of comfort will be
wholly taken from us, if Christ did only overcome him by vir-
tue of that nature by which he was 3rgigaaro; Kazów, “inca-
pable of being vincible by temptation.” But, if with Ire-
maeus we affirm that the divinity was then quiescent, and
that he overcame him by virtue of the Spirit given to him,
we, who have the same “unction from the Holy One,” may
also hope to do it by his aid ; and, since even the most or-
thodox do grant, that the divinity in Christ was so quiescent
for the space of thirty years, as to afford no specimen of its
residence in him, why might it not be quiescent also in these
things, which did particularly relate to his prophetic office
here on earth, and to that grand exemplar in which we stand
obliged to follow his steps. In a word, that our Lord could
not be overcome of Satan, was the result of the union of
the human nature to the divinity ; that he repelled all his
assaults, might be, because he was anointed, and “filled
with the Holy Ghost.”
Obj. But the Socinians do still inquire how a spirit, so
wise and subtle as the devil is, should venture to assault,
and should assay to tempt, the great God, especially to so
vile an action as to fall down and worship him, seeing it is
scarce imaginable he should not know it was impossible to
succeed in this temptation, or that he should attempt a thing
he beforehand discerned impossible to be effected 2
Ans. To this, after a jocular reply, that this argument
depends upon the modesty and other virtues of the devil,
Bisterfield saith thus, That the malice of the devil hath oft
prevailed upon him to attempt things very foolish and im-
possible ; for what could be more so, than for a creature to
attempt “to be like God,” or to annul the truth of the pro-
*4 f -
+ ‘Cloºrêg yāp #y &v%20rog (va reſpac-65, oùro, Kai Aéyo; iv. 30%-
g * * 3. gº & gº
&c.0m, havXášov.to; ºfty Aáyov #y tº wet?ášea ºat, Kai a Tavgoûa-Sal,
xzi & TroSyńzkew.
| cast thyself down: for it is written (Ps. xci. 1]), He
shall give his angels charge concerning thee (to keep
thee); and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest
at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone (incur
any damage).
7, Jesus said unto him, It is written again (Greek,
again it is written),Thou shalt not tempt* (i.e. distrust),
the Lord thy God (as I mnst do, if after a voice from
heaven, saying to me, Thou art my beloved Son, Mark
i. 11, I should require any farther eaſperiment of that
7matter). 8.
phecies concerning Christ 2 What could be more permicious
to him than the death of Christ for the redemption of man-
kind, which yet he by all means did attempt, though it was
“impossible he should be held under the power of death”
(Acts ii. 24, 25). And hence Petavius retorts this argument
upon the head of Crellius thus: Whatsoever Satan might
conceive of Christ, he could not but certainly know from the
scriptures he was to be “the redeemer of mankind,” and the
author of salvation to them, that he should “bruise his head,”
that he should “sit upon the throne of David, to rule there
for ever;” and knowing this, he could not hope to prevail in
his temptations of Christ, unless he could believe that he
was able to reverse both the decrees and oath of God. To
this the fathers add, (2) That the devil was ignorant of
this mystery, when he tempted Christ. Thus Ignatius
saith that the “virginity of Mary,” zai & Toxerê, airãº, and
he that was born of her, and the death of our Lord, were
three mysteries concealed from Satan ;” where by 3 toxerêc
he cannot understand our Lord's nativity of the blessed Vir-
gin, since in that very section he styles him Osoy &vögotrivac.
qayegoſºevoy, “a God appearing after the manner of a man.”
And Origen + observes, that clim ab ipso diabolo tentaretur,
nusquam confessus est Dei se esse filium, “when he was
tempted of the devil he had never confessed himself to be
the son of God.” And since this was so great a mystery,
that even “angels desired to look into it” (1 Pet. i. 12),
and learned somewhat of it from the church (Eph. iii. 10),
what wonder is it the devil either should not know or should
doubt of it P All his temptations show he looked upon our
Saviour not as a God, but only as one who might be dear
unto him; whence he assays to tempt him “with the glo-
ries of the world.” This argument doth therefore prove, not
that our Saviour was not truly God but only that the devil
did not then know him so to be.
4 Ver. 7. Oiz fixaretgáreiº Kögtoy rév Oeów cov" Thow shalt
not tempt the Lord thy God..] It is here well noted by Dr.
Hammond, that “to tempt the Lord” doth not inscripturelan-
guage signify, to presume too much on the divine goodness
but rather to distrust his power, truth, or providence, after
sufficient demonstrations and reasons given for our en-
couragement to depend upon them ; and consequently “to
tempt God” here must be, as it relates to Christ, to doubt
whether he was the son of God, after the voice from heaven
had said unto him (iii. 17), “Thou art my beloved Son :” So
the phrase signifies throughout the Old Testament. Thus,
when the Jews murmur against Moses for the want of water,
saying, “Thou hast brought us out of Egypt to kill us, and
our children, and our cattle, with thirst :” Moses replies,
“Why do you tempt the Lord P” (Exod. xvii. 2, 3) and
calls the name of the place Massah, i. e. “temptation,” be-
cause “they tempted the Lord, saying” (after he had dried
up the Red sea, and provided manna for them, and gone
before them in the cloud, the symbol of his presence), “Is
the Lord among us, or not 2" doubting of his goodness to,
protection over them, and presence with them, after so
many signal evidences of these things; and to this relate
the words here cited by our Lord from Deut. vi. 16, “Thou
shalt not tempt the Lord thy God ;” i. e. thou shalt not
question his presence with thee, or distrust his providence,
“ as ye tempted him in Massah.” So again God Saith, “Be-
cause these men, which have seen my glory” (in the cloud)
“...and the miracles which I did in Egypt, and in the
wilderness” (after all these demonstrations of my presence
with them, and of my power and readiness to rescue them
from the hands of their enemies), “have tempted me now
f Hom. 6, in Lucam.
tº 2
4 a.4
| * Ep. ad Magn. $, 19.
52
MATTHEW.
8 *Again, the devil (being baffled in this second as-
sault) taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain,
and (there) sheweth him (in a landscape) all the king-
doms of the world, and the glory of them (in a moment
of time, Luke iv. 5).
9 And he saith unto him, All these things will I
give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me (for
they are given to me, &c. Luke iv. 6, 7).
10 Then said Jesus unto him, Get thee hence,
Satan: for it is written (Deut. vi. 13), Thou shalt
worship the Lord thy God,” and him only shalt thou
Serve. -
these ten times; therefore they shall not” (personally)
“enter into the land of promise” (Numb. xiv. 22). Now
thus they tempted him by not believing God could and
would make good his promise of bringing them into that
land, but thinking they should die by the sword of those
giants which were in that land (ver. 2, 3); and therefore
God speaks thus, “How long will this people provoke me 2
How long will it be ere they believe me, after all the signs
which I have showed among them 2” (ver. 2, 3.) And to such
instances of their distrust as these, refer those passages of
the psalmist ; “They tempted God and limited the Holy
One of Israel,” not believing that his power was sufficient
to do those things which he had promised, and showed that
he was able to perform (Ps. lxxviii. 41); for they thus
limited and tempted him, because “they remembered not his
hand, nor the day when he delivered them from the enemy :
how he had wrought his signs in Egypt, and his wonders in
the field of Zoan,” ver. 42, 43 (see also ver. 18–20); and
this being spoken of them when “they turned back into
Egypt” (ver. 41), relates to the tempting of God mentioned
Numb. xiv., to the temptation mentioned Exod. xvii.; re-
lates to these words, Ps. cwi. 14, 15, “Though he had dried
up the Red sea for them, and saved them from the hand of
their enemies, they soon forgat his works, and lusting in the
wilderness, they tempted God in the desert:” and to those
in Ps. xcv. 8, 9, “Harden not your hearts, as in the provo-
cation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: when your
fathers tempted me, and provoked me, gamrahu, though they
saw my works ;” i. e. how I delivered them at the Red sea,
made bitter water sweet, and sent them bread from heaven.
Whence the apostle's inference is this (Heb. iii. 12), “Take
heed there be not in you an evil heart of unbelief.” So
Judith viii. 12, “Who are you that śirepácate roy Osby, ye
tempt God,” by limiting him to such a time as “five days,” as
if he could not help you, if he did it not within that time 2
(ver, 15.) This also is the import of these words of Ahaz (Isa,
vii. 12), “I will not aska sign, neither will I tempt the Lord;”
as may be gathered by comparing them with the like words
of Gideon, asking a sign of the fleece, “Let not thy anger be
hot against me” (for being thus slow of belief), releáo a 3% ri
37raž, “let me try or tempt thee yet once more ;" i.e. let me
have this farther sign for confirmation of my weak faith
(Judg. vi. 39). This also is the constant import of this
phrase in the New Testament. So Acts xv. 10, “Now there-
fore” (after God hath given so full a discovery of his re-
ceiving the uncircumcised gentiles, upon their faith, into
his grace and favour, as the effusion of the Holy Ghost
upon them, ver. 8) “why tempt you God” (by distrusting
this testimony of his favour to them, and desiring still) “to
put this yoke” (of circumcision) “on their necks?” (1 Cor.
x. 9.) “Neither tempt ye Christ the Lord” (by distrusting his
readiness to support you under, and to give a happy issue
from, your temptations, ver. 13), “as some of them” (i. e.
the Jews) “tempted him,” by saying, God had brought them
out of Egypt to die in the wilderness, because they wanted
bread and water (Numb. xxi. 5) “and” (therefore) “were
destroyed of serpents” (ver. 6). Thus to “tempt the Spirit
of the Lord” (Acts v. 9), is to question or distrust his wisdom
to discover what Ananias and Sapphira had concealed.
* Ver. 8. IIáxiv trapaxapºgével airy 5 3,480x03. Again
the devil taketh him up into an ecceeding high mountain,
and shows him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory
of them.] Mr. Clerc, in his note on the first verse, saith,
“What is here related may more safely be conceived to
have happened to Christ in a vision or dream, than really ;
it looks, methinks, very odd,” saith he “ that an evil spirit
should be permitted to have such a power over our most
to signify ‘the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them?”
This glory consisting rather in their splendid attire, guards
and attendants, and their costly edifices.” But this is a
vain dream, and a vision of his own brain, and that which
robs us of all the practical improvement of our Lord's tempt-
ation ; for why should Christ be led into the wilderness to
have this dream, or vision ? Did he fast only in a vision
forty days and forty nights P That sure was a long dream
or vision. Or, why is it said that he “afterwards was hungry 2”
Whyisit said, “the devil said to him,” “the devil set him upon
a pinnacle,” and “upon a high mountain "And Luke iv. 13,
that “when the devil had ended all his temptations, he de-
parted from him for a season P’’ Must not these words un-
avoidably import, that either the devil did really, thus tempt
him, or else did frame this vision in his brain P And looks it
not far more odd to give the devil power over the fancy of
our Lord to raise such imaginations in him and suggest such
dreams to him, than barely to give him that power over our
Lord's body, which neither did nor could do him any hurt?
Secondly, As God caused Moses to see the whole land of
promise from the top of Nebo, either by strengthening his
eyes to see it thence, or else by representing it to him, as
it were in a large plan or map, in all the valleys round about
him, so might the devil in the valleys round about that “high
mountain” upon which Christ stood make a large draught
of the stately edifices, the guards and attendants of kings,
appearing in their splendour, visible to the eyes of Christ,
which appearance could not be so well made unto him, or
advantageously seen, had he been in a plain.
6 Ver. 10. Köploy roy Qaāy cou ºrporavyhaetº, zai atriº
Azávº, Aargeſ a sic. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and
him only shalt thou serve.] From these words, compared
with other like scriptures, it appears that Christ is not a
creature; because the worship and service due to God
alone cannot be duly given to a creature, that being to own
him equal in dignity with God: and the sin of idolatry
chiefly consisting in giving that worship to a creature which
is due only to the God of heaven: and therefore religious
adoration and service being here said to be due to God
alone, cannot be given duly, or without idolatry, to Christ,
provided that he be only a creature. Seeing then God doth
require, “That all men should worship the Son, even as they
worship the Father” (John v. 23); and “when he brought
the first-born into the world, said, Let all the angels of God
worship him” (Heb. i. 6); and seeing that this is the cha-
racter of Christians, that “they serve the Lord Christ” (Col.
iii. 24), it is certain that he cannot be a creature only, but
must be truly God.
To this the Socinians answer, that God alone is to be
worshipped as the first and supreme cause of all things,
and the chief cause of our salvation, but yet religious wor-
ship and service may be paid to Christ, as the immediate
cause of that salvation, which God intended by him to pro-
cure, and bring to pass for us. But as there are no foot-
steps of this distinction in the holy scriptures, so there
are many things contained in it which seem to contradict
it. And it is plain the devil here doth not require to be thus
worshipped as the first and supreme cause of all things, for
he frankly owns that in all the power he had over the king-
doms of the earth “was given to him,” and yet our Lord re-
jecteth his temptation, not by saying, as the Socinians do, that
he was an “impudent liar,” no such power being given to him,
but by opposing to him this command, “Thou shalt worship
the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” Again,
all the angels are ministering spirits, “sent forth to minister
to them who shall be heirs of salvation” (Heb. i. 14); and
the papists, who worship them with religious adoration, do it,
holy Saviour, as to carry him through the air; and then this doubtless, as they conceive it is to the glory of that God
prospect “of the kingdoms of the whole world’ could no whose ministers they are ; and, notwithstanding, must we
more, be showed from a mountain than from a plain ; for
not condemn that worship in them 2 Moses and Aaron
what can be seen from a mountain besides woods, fields, were intermediate causes of the preservation and happi-
rivers, villages, and towns, which are not used in any language ness of the Jews, whom God by them brought out of Egypt;
CHAPTER IV.
53
11 Then the devil (having ended all his temptations)
leaveth him (for a season, Luke iv. 13), and, behold,
angels came and ministered to him (food).
12 Now when Jesus heard that John was cast into
prison, he departed (from Judea) into Galilee (to avoid
the envy of the pharisees, John iv. 3, and to continue
the preaching interrupted by John’s confinement);
13 And leaving Nazareth (by reason of their inft-
delity, Luke iv. 29), he came and dwelt in Capernaum,
which is upon the sea-coast, in the borders of Zabulon
and Nephthalim :
14 That it might be fulfilled" which was spoken by
Esaias the prophet, saying (ix. 1, 2).
15 The land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephtha-
lim, by the way of the sea beyond Jordan (which is
called) Galilee of the gentiles;
16 (Are) the people which sat in darkness (but after
ward) saw great light; and to them which sat in the
region and shadow of death light is sprung up.
17 From that time Jesus began to preach, and to
say (to the people), Repent (ye): for the kingdom of
heaven is at hand (i. e. from the time of John’s im-
* he began to preach upon that subject, ver.
23).
18 And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee," saw
two brethren, Simon (afterward) called Peter, and
Andrew his brother, casting a met into the sea (to wash
it, Luke v. 2): for they were fishers.
19 And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will
make you (to become) fishers of men (by gaining them
to the faith, or bringing them within the met of the
gospel).
20 And they straightway left their nets, and fol-
lowed him.
21 And going on from thence, he saw other two
brethren (viz.) James the son of Zebedee, and John
his brother (returned now to, and) in a ship with
Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and he
called them.
22 And they (also) immediately left the ship and
their father, and followed him.
23 And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in
their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the
kingdom (shortly to be erected), and healing all man-
ner of sickness (es) and all manner of disease (s, which
were) among the people.
24 And his fame went throughout all Syria; and
they brought to him all sick people that were taken
they by their supplications and intercessions preserved
them many times from present death ; and might they there-
fore pay religious worship to them, provided it was directed
to the glory of God whose ministers they were P Might
they do this to Joshua, who carried salvation in his very
name 2 The apostles are styled avyseyoi Glso: , “workers to-
gether with God” for our salvation, 1 Cor. iii. 9, their doc-
trine is called the “savour of life unto life,” 2 Cor. ii. 16,
and they are said to “save those that hear them, 1 Tim. iv.
16. Must we therefore pay religious adoration to them as
the papists do P Vain therefore is this subterfuge, by which
the Socinians endeavour to justify their religious adoration
of that Jesus, whom they maintain to be a creature only,
and whose divinity they deny -
7 Ver, 14. "Iva rango,05 tº finSãv 33 ‘Harafov toº ſpođºrov,
&c. That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias
the prophet, saying, the land of Zabulon and Nephthalin,
&c.] I see here no reason for saying with some learned men,
that this whole passage of Isaiah is by the evangelist applied
to Christ's preaching in the borders of Zabulon and Nephtha-
lim, only by way of accommodation, and not in any mystical
sense intended by the Holy Ghost ; for it is very easy to
discern, that upon occasion of our Lord's leaving Nazareth, a
town in the lower Galilee, in the tribe of Zabulon, and go-
ing to Capernaum in the higher Galilee, in the tribe of Neph-
thalim, which was called “Galilee of the gentiles,” as be-
ing partly inhabited, saith Strabo,” by Egyptians, Arabians,
and Phoenicians, he only takes the names of these places
from Isa. ix. 1, having no farther consideration of the place,
than to show they are the people of whom the prophet said,
“ the people that sat in darkness had seen a great light:” let
this now be understood in the prophetic style, representing
things surely to be accomplished in their season, as done al-
ready, of which we have an instance, ver. 6, in these words,
“for unto us a child is born, to us a son is given ;” and then
the prediction will run thus ; The people sitting in darkness
shall see great light, and to those who sit in the region and
shadow of death shall the light arise : as we know it did, it
being in Chorazin and Bethsaida, situated in lower Galilee,
that Christ did his mighty works inentioned Matt. xi. 21,
and it being Capernaum that was “exalted up to heaven,” by
his dwelling there, and preaching in their synagogues (ver. 23).
* Ver. 18–21. Eiðs ſo #353 pouc, Xiaºya, was 'Ayºtay, &c.
He saw two brethren, Simon, surnamed Peter, and Andrew
his brother, casting their nets into the sea. Kai reo63; insiSev,
eiºsy &xxov; 300 &8Expowg, 'Iázoğow, &c. Going thence he saw
two other brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his
brother, with Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and
he called them.]. So also we read, Mark i. from ver, 16, to 21.
The history of Simon and Andrew's coming, mentioned
* Lib. xvi. p. 523.
John i. 41–43, is plainly different from that of St. Matthew
and St. Mark, and so cannot be said to contradict what is
here said. For (1.) here Christ sees them, and calls, them
both together ; there they hear Christ, and follow him home,
and Andrew after finding Peter leads him to Christ, from
ver. 37–42. (2.) Here it is noted, that Sinnon was already
surnamed Peter; there it is said, Thou shalt be called
Peter (ver. 43): there they abide with Christ only one
night (ver. 40), and that uncalled ; here they are called
and follow him as his apostles, being always with him (John.
xv. 27). As for the history, Luke v. from ver, 1 to 11, I
conceive it to be the same with this in St. Matthew and St.
Mark, because it happened at the same place, at the “lake
of Gennesareth” (Luke v. 1), i. e. at “the sea of Galilee”
(Matt. iv. 11); the same persons being present, and following
him, having left all to do it (ver. 10, 11. Matt. iv. 20. 22).
But then I place the story thus: “He saw these fishermen,”
two of them, viz. Simon and Andrew, “washing their nets”
Luke v. 2), i. e. “casting them into the sea to wash them.”
| Matt. iv. i8), and the other two mending their nets, where
they were broken (ver. 21), and then he spake to them both to
follow him. And presently the multitude resorting to him, to
hear the word of God (Luke v. 1), he enters into the ship of
Simon ; and when Simon, at his request, “thrust it a little
from the land, he sat down and taught them ;” then speaks
he to Peter to “letdown his net into the sea,” for that draught
which filled both the ships of Simon and of the sons of Ze-
bedee, and struck them all with great amazement, insomuch
that Peter was afraid to follow him, or to be with him ; but Christ
bidding him not to fear, they drew their ships to land, and
leaving both ships and fishes with Zebedee, and others that
were with them (Mark i. 20), forsaking them all they follow
him (Luke v. 11). It is no objection against what is said,
that in St. Luke we find no mention of St. Andrew, it being
certain from St. Matthew and St. Mark, that Andrew was
then with Peter, though Simon only be named by St. Luke;
because Christ spake only to him. Thus it is easy to remove
those manifold disagreements which some mention betwixt the
history of this matter in St. Luke and in St. Matthew and
St. Mark. For, according to the series of the story thus
placed, St. Luke, being to supply what was not told by St.
Matthew and St. Mark, begins were they ended, and St.
Mark having only said in the general that Christ came thither
“preaching the gospel of the kingdom,” St. Luke shows how
he went on with the work ; and this puts an end to Mr.
Whiston's four first differences. His fifth is grounded on an
evident mistake: for in St. Luke he doth not assure them,
that from henceforth they should catch men, but said this
only to Simon, astonished at the miracle, and desiring Christ
“to depart from him,” repeating to him in particular, what
he had said more generally to all, that he might remove his
fears. The last is indeed no difference, it being the same
54
MATTHEW.
with divers diseases and torments, and those which
were possessed with devils, and those which were
lunatic, and those that had the palsy; and he healed
them.
&
thing to leave all that were then with them, and all they had
there, and follow him, as St. Luke says they did ; and to
leave nets, ship, father, and hired servants, to follow him, as
in St. Matthew and St. Mark they did.
Ver. 24. Kai Saizovićowiyovº, and men possessed with the
devil..] Dr. Lightfoot gives two reasons why Judea then es-
pecially abounded with such persons. (1.) Because they
were then advanced to the very height of impiety; the truth
of which assertion Josephus fully proves. See the note on
1 AND seeing the multitudes he went up into a
mountain: and when he was set (down, as the Jewish
doctors did when they taught, see Luke iv. 16. 20) his
disciples came unto him :
2 And he opened his mouth, and taught them, say-
ing,
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. W.
* Ver. 1. '13&y 3: roi; 3xxov; 3,53m six rô Spoº, ka? wasio'ay-
ro; airrow, &c. And seeing the multitudes, he went up
into a mountain ; and sitting down, his disciples came to
him.] Here note (1.) That Christ seeing the multitude,
taught them ; for though his disciples may be especially con-
cerned in some few verses of this fifth chapter, yet it is cer-
tain from these words in the close of this sermon, “the mul-
titudes were astonished at his doctrine, for he taught them
as one that had authority,” that the multitude not only
heard, but were taught the things contained in this sermon,
according to those words of Chrysostom, º, roſ, ºwaśntaſ;
£26vov airby véat's 8tax#ysaşai, 3xxx xai 3' #xsivoy &racºw.
Moreover it deserveth to be noted, that the whole multi-
tuda of them who attended on his doctrine, and thought
weil of him, are called his disciples, and not the twelve
apostles only ; so doth St. Luke inform us, by saying, “he
called to him his disciples, and out of them he chose the
twelve,” Luke vi. 13, and ver. 17, “that the whole multi-
tude of his disciples were then with him. So John vi. 66,
“From that time many of his disciples went back, and
followed no more after him ;” and ver, 67, he said “to the
twelve, Will ye also go away ?” What therefore was here
spoken to his disciples, might also be spoken to the multi-
tude. (2.) This sermon was spoken upon the mount, which
he made choice of, saith Dr. Hammond, that as the law had
been delivered from mount Sinai, so might the preaching
of the gospel begin from a mountain : say others, that he
might be the better heard by his auditors, instructing us by
his example so to form this service, as may be most conduc-
ing to the advantage of the hearers.
The question here raised by interpreters, whether this
sermon be the same with that which we find mentioned
Luke vi. or only a like sermon spoken at another time and
place, is of some concern for the right understanding of the
words ; for if the sermon be the same in both, and it were
spoken only once by Christ, though it be set down twice by
the evangelists, the words of one evangelist must be inter-
preted in a sense agreeable to the other, or else they cannot
both be true. Whereas, if our Lord spake the words re-
corded by St. Luke at any other time and place than the
discourse related by St. Matthew was delivered at, we may
give different interpretations to their words; and that this
was so seems highly probable,
First, Because St. Luke omits so many things recorded
by St. Matthew as parts of this discourse, viz. all the fifth
chapter from ver. 13 to 39, the whole sixth chapter, and ch.
vii. from ver. 6 to 16, that is, he omits the greatest part of
this sermon ; and therefore it is probable he did not intend
to set down the same sermon : since otherwise it must be
granted, that he had performed what he intended very
25 And there followed him great multitudes of
people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from
Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond Jordan.
Rom. ii. 1. (2) Because they were then strongly addicted
to magic, and so, as it were, invited evil spirits to be familiar
with them ; and it seem strange to find men, at this distance
of time, questioning the truth of that which neither pharisees
nor sadducees then doubted of, or ever did object against the
pretensions of Christ or his apostles, to cast them out; and
both Josephus and the Acts of the Apostles (xix. 13, 14)
speak so positively of Jewish exorcists (see the preface to
the Epistles, §. xiii.).
CHAPTER V.
3 Blessed are “the poor in spirit (i. e. the humble
and lowly minded) ; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven
(they are fitted to enter into it here and to enjoy it here-
after).
4 Blessed are * they that mourn (for their sins, with
that godly sorrow which works repentance not to be
imperfectly ; and also added many woes of which St.
Matthew makes no mention.
Secondly, As for the time, St. Matthew doth sufficiently
inform us that his sermon was delivered before the healing
of the leper, for “as Christ came down from the mount, the
leper came to him,” viii. 2, whereas St. Luke, though he
promiseth to discourse in order of what Christ did, gives us
the story of the leper, v. 12, and the history of Christ's
sermon, vi. 17. Again, St. Luke reckons Matthew amongst
those whom Christ had chosen to be of the twelve, and ver.
17, he adds, that Christ went down with them and preached
the following sermon, whereas the sermon mentioned by St.
Matthew was preached long before his calling to be one of
Christ's disciples; for after Christ was come down from the .
mount, had healed the leper and the centurion's servant,
and had done many other things; “he saw a man sitting at
the receipt of custom, named Matthew, and said unto him,
Follow me,” ix. 9. Whence it appears, that he was called
long after the preaching of this sermon on the mount, and
yet before the preaching of the sermon mentioned by St.
Luke. Lastly, St. Matthew's sermon was preached on the
mount by our Lord, calling his disciples up to him ; where-
as St. Luke informs us, wer. 17, that our Lord “came down
with his disciples from a mount,” and stood in the plain,
and from thence preached what he recorded: wherefore the
difference of these sermons being so great, both as to matter
and to circumstance of time and place, it seems most rea-
sonable to conceive that they were severally spoken, and
therefore may admit of divers senses. Yet seeing soon
after both these sermons we find him entering into Caper-
naum, and healing the centurion’s servant (Matt. viii. 5.
Luke vii. J), it may be probably conjectured, that he
spake the sermon in St. Matthew, whilst he was “sitting
on the mount,” to his disciples, and that in St. Luke,
when he afterward “came down into the plain with them "
(Luke vi. 17), “in the audience of all the people" (Luke
vii. 1). -
2 W. 3. Maxágioſ of Trrøxoi tº Trveſ watt Blessed are the
poor in spirit.] Here note,
First, That by the “poor in spirit” we are not to under-
stand, as many Romish commentators do, such persons
as, having riches and plentiful possessions, do voluntarily
quit them, and choose a state of poverty as most con-
ducing to the free exercise of religion, as did some ere-
mites and monks of old, and as the mendicants or begging
friars of that church pretend now to do ; for it is assuredly
the duty of all men, who would obtain this bliss, to be
poor in spirit; whereas it cannot be the duty of all Chris-
tians to turn monks and friars mendicant to this end, for
then all other Roman catholics must be excluded from the
kingdom of heaven. Nor,
Secondly, Doth our Lord here pronounce this blessing
CHAPTER W.
55
repented of 2 Cor. vii. 10), for they shall be com-
forted (with the assurance of the pardon of their sins,
and with the hope of future happiness).
5 Blessed are the * meek (i. e. the men of a sweet,
on the poor properly so called, that is, on such as have no
riches and possessions in this world, as being the most
likely persons to embrace that gospel which calls for the
forsaking all that they have, which they who have but little
will be most easily persuaded to do, and so will be most
ready to enter into the kingdom of God. (1.) Because our
Lord expressly limits this beatitude, not to the poor in purse,
or in externals, but to the poor in spirit. (2.) Because
Christ actually pronounces that the poor he speaks of are
blessed, and that theirs is the kingdom of heaven; which is
not true of all, or of the most part of those who, as to tem-
porals, are poor; for by experience we find they are often
discontented with their state, are apt to steal, lie, flatter,
and use Sordid arts to get a penny, and have but little sense
of piety, and but little knowledge of, and less concernment
for, religion. (3.) This interpretation seems to exclude the
rich, who do not actually quit their temporal enjoyments,
from any interest in the kingdom of heaven; whereas St.
Paul only requires them to be “rich in good works,” that
they may lay hold of eternal life (1 Tim. vi. 18, 19).
And therefore,
Thirdly, The most received and best interpretation of this
phrase is—-that by the “poor in spirit,” our Saviour under-
stands the man of a true, humble, lowly spirit; this being
the usual expression by which the scriptures and the Jewish
Writers still represent the humble man, that he is shephal
orwach, i. e. poor, low, or contrite in his spirit. So Prov.
xvi. 19, “Better is it to be shephal ruach, of an humble
spirit with the meek, than to divide the spoil with the
proud ;” and xxix. 23, “The pride of man shall humble
him, but, shephal ruach, he that is of an humble spirit ob-
taineth glory.” So Isa. lxvi. 2, “To whom will I look but to
the poor in spirit” which, lvii. 15, is shephal ruach, “to the
man of an humble spirit.” Accordingly, in their Pirke
Avoth,” they have these instructions, “Be thou shephal
*uach, humble in spirit towards all men ; he that is shephal
Tuach is worthy of honour, and the Holy Ghost will rest
upon him. And great are the humble in spirit in the sight
of God.” And they who are thus poor in spirit are blessed,
because their humility rendering them teachable, submissive,
contented, and obedient, prepares them to enter into Christ's
kingdom, and makes them living members of his body ;
and seeing they who are thus holy shall be also happy,
they must be also meet to enter into the kingdom of glory
hereafter.
* Ver. 4. Maxágio oi rev6oëvres, Blessed are they that
mourn.] Here note,
First, That by the “mourners” here, I do not think it
reasonable to understand men whose condition in this world
is sad and lamentable, as being destitute of all those out-
ward things which render this life comfortable, and perhaps
also under great afflictions, which some conceive to be the
import of these words, because a like beatitude in St. Luke.
runs thus, “Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall
laugh.” For (1.) if this mourning did only import a con-
dition sad and lamentable as to outward circumstances, then
must the laughter in St. Luke opposed to it, be only a pro-
mise of outward temporal felicity, which, as it is no gospel
promise, so it is far from rendering any person truly blessed.
(2.) Because either we must then pronounce all blessed who
are in such a lamentable state, which is far from being true,
there being many who fall into it by their own sin and folly,
and many who being in it are nothing better by it, as to the
inward frame and disposition of their spirit ; or else we
must restrain this to them, who do thus suffer for the name
of Christ, and for the sake of righteousness; and then it
will not be the import of the second but of the eighth beati-
tude. Nor,
Secondly, Do I think, as some of the fathers did, that the
mourners here are those who mourn for the sins of others,
for the iniquities committed by the professors of Christianity,
and especially for the sins committed in the place and na-
* Ch. iv. §. 4. 10. v. 19: + Buxt. Floril. p. 17.
quiet, affable, and courteous disposition); for they shall
inherit the earth (enjoying what is needful for them
with the greatest quiet and tranquillity, and with most
comfort, satisfaction, and contentedness of mind),
tion where they live; for though when men thus weep out of
a fixed hatred to sin, from a true zeal for God, and a sincere
affection for the souls of men, this must be highly accepta-
ble in the sight of God, and therefore matter of just comfort
to them also; yet the word “mourn” is general, and there-
fore seems not fit to be restrained unto such mourners in
particular. The mourner therefore here intended is the
person filled with that “godly sorrow which works repent-
ance to salvation not to be repented of,” or not reversed by
our return again to the like sins (2 Cor. vii. 10): this per-
son must be blessed in the pardon of his sins, for “blessed
is he whose iniquity is forgiven, and whose sin is covered”
(Rom. iv. 6–8). He also will be comforted with the as-
sured hope of future happiness; this true repentance being
styled, “repentance unto life,” Acts ix. 18, “repentance
unto salvation,” 2 Cor. vii. 10.
* Ver. 5. Maxágio oi regeſ. Blessed are the meek.] i. e.
The men of such a happy frame of spirit as renders them
averse from wrath, even, when they are provoked to it by
the injuries they have received from others, and from retalia-
tion, or recompensing evil for evil; but, on the contrary,
are inclined rather to remit something of their right, and
overcome evil with good ; and by the sweetness, friendli-
ness, and affability of their conversation, to reconcile and win
their brother to a good-liking and kind affection to them.
The blessing promised to these meek persons is this, that
“they shall inherit the earth; ” which words being taken
from Ps. xxxvii. 11, cannot admit of that strained exposi-
tion of some of the ancients, who by the “earth” under-
stand heaven, as being eminently “the land of the living ;”
for it is evident to a demonstration, that David did under-
stand this of the present earth, or of the land of Canaan ;
for the tenor of this whole thirty-seventh psalm is designed
to show, that wicked men shall by God’s judgments sud-
denly perish, whilst righteous men live easily and quietly in
the land of Canaan. So wer. 9, “Evil-doers shall be cut off,
but they that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the
earth; for yet a little while and the wicked shall not be,
but the meek shall inherit the earth. They that are blessed
of him shall inherit the earth, and they that are cursed of
him shall be rooted out.” So wer. 34, “Wait on the Lord,
and keep his way, and he shall exalt thee, row ºngoyokºza,
tºy yºv, to inherit the earth : when the wicked are destroyed,
thou shalt see it.” It is therefore well observed by Chry-
sostom upon the place, that because the Jews had been oft
taught this lesson in the Old Testament, our Saviour ad-
dresses himself to them in the language they had been ac-
customed to : this Son of David repeateth and confirmeth to
them the promise made by David. And this I judge to be
the most natural and truest exposition of these words.
But then it must be noted, (1.) that our Saviour doth not
here promise to advance the meek unto an affluence, or
great abundance of things temporal, to make him great in
power, or rich and wealthy in the world. For a “man’s
life,” i. e. the true comfort and satisfaction of it, “ consists
not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.”
(Luke xii. 15); and so we have no reason to expect those
things which are not needful to the comfort and satisfaction
of our lives. Experience shows that this is not the ordi-
nary portion of the meek, and therefore doth sufficiently
instruct us, that this is not the blessing promised by that
God, who cannot lie or fail of the performance of his pro-
mise; and therefore positively this phrase seems rather to
import, that meekness is the best way to the most sure en-
joyment of these things, as far as they are needful and con-
venient; and (2.) to enjoy them with the greatest quiet and
tranquillity, without that strife, debate, anxiety, and trouble,
which embitter the enjoyment of these things, to others;
and (3.) with the truest comfort, satisfaction, and content-
edness of mind.
* Ver. 6. Manágot of retvöyrs; wai Bºlºvts; rºy Sinaiozávny,
&c. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteous-
ness.] The righteousness here mentioned is by some thought
to be the righteousness of faith, by which we, being justified,
56
MATTHEW.
6 Blessed are they who do * hunger and thirst af-
ter righteousness (i.e. are as concerned to be righteous
before God, walking in all the commandments of the
Lord blameless, as is the hungry person to have meat,
or the thirsty to have drink) .. for they shall be filled
(i.e. be satisfied with the enjoyment of it here, and the
completion and reward of it hereafter).
7 Blessed are "the Imerciful (who out of pity to
others under all their infirmities, wants, miseries, indis-
positions of soul or body, are ready not only to forgive,
and bear with their infirmities, but to their power to re-
lieve, instruct, support, comfort, and reclaim them from
their evil ways) ; for they shall obtain mercy (at the
great day of their accounts).
8 Blessed are " the pure in heart (they whose hearts
are cleansed from evil thoughts, evil concupiscences,
and evil passions) ; for they shall see (and enjoy) God
(here and hereafter).
9 Blessed are * the peacemakers (who being them-
selves of a peaceable temper, endeavour to promote
peace among others) ; for they shall be called (?, e.
shall be, see note on i. 23, and shall be owned as) the
children of God (and as such rewarded).
or freed from the guilt of sin, have peace with God; and
this undoubtedly is a fit matter of our spiritual thirst and
hunger: but yet I think this cannot be the proper import
of the words; (1.) because the word 3xaloa ſyn, “righteous-
ness,” bears no such sense in the gospel ; but only in the
epistles of St. Paul; (2) because the Jews, to whom Christ
speaks, had no idea of this righteousness, no apprehension
that their Messiah was to die, and much less that they
should be justified by his death ; and therefore had Christ
spoken of this righteousness, none of them could have un-
derstood his meaning, as we may learn from his discourse
on this subject, John vi., for the Jews could not understand
it ; wherefore the righteousness here intended is that inhe-
rent righteousness, which consists in a sincere endeavour to
practise all those duties which God requires at our hands,
and to eschew that evil which he hath forbidden : in which
sense Zacharias and Elisabeth are said to be “both righteous
before God, walking in all the commandments of the Lord
blameless” (Luke i. 6); and it is represented as our duty,
to “serve God in righteousness and holiness before him all
the days of our life” (ver. 74, 75); and here it is said, that
“except our righteousness exceed the righteousness of the
scribes and pharisees, we can in no case enter into the king-
dom of God” (ver. 20). To hunger and thirst after this
righteousness, is to be as sensible of the want of it, as fer-
vently desirous to have it, as industrious to obtain it, as
restless and incessant till we do enjoy it, as men usually
are when they are pinched with hunger and thirst. And
they, who stand thus affected to it, shall be satisfied with it;
i. e. they shall have all the means and aids required to make
them thus righteous here, and shall have the reward of
righteousness hereafter, and so shall be blessed: for seeing
it is God himself, who by his word and Spirit raises in them
this disposition towards righteousness; since he inviteth
every hungry soul to eat of this spiritual food, and saith to
every thirsty soul, “Come drink of these waters of life:”
seeing this righteousness renders them so acceptable and
well-pleasing in his sight; and, lastly, seeing he hath pro-
mised them this satisfaction, they all on these accounts may
rest assured, that they shall obtain this food of the soul (see
note on John vi. 27).
* Ver. 7. Maxágios of #xeñºzovac, Blessed are the merciful.]
i. e. They who from an affecting sense of sympathy with
others, and a charitable affection and goodwill towards them,
are ready to relieve them, as they are able, under all their
wants; to pity thcm in their infirmities; to comfort and
support them under their calamities; and ready to forgive,
and to show mercy to them when they have offended; and
to pray to their heavenly Father to give them those sup-
ports and consolations we are not able to afford them ; and
who especially have this compassion for their souls, by en-
deavouring to instruct the ignorant, and to reclaim the
wicked from their evil ways: such merciful persons shall be
10 Blessed are they which are "persecuted for
righteousness' sake : for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven.
11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and
persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against
you falsely, for my sake.
12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is
your reward in heaven (who do thus patiently suffer
for my name’s sake upon earth ; your case being like
that of the holy prophets, who are now in Abraham’s
bosom, and sat down with him in the kingdom of heaven,
Luke xiii. 28), for so persecuted they (of this nation)
the prophets which were before you.
13 Ye are (designed by me to be as) * the salt of
the earth (to preserve men’s manners from corruption,
and give a good savour to their actions); but if the
salt hath lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted 2
(if you in ea ample and conversation should become un-
savoury, there would be no recovering of you ; and so
it would be with you, as) it is (with unsavoury salt,
which is) thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast
out and trodden under foot of men (and so you must
expect to be cast out by me into outer darkness).
blessed both in the inward comforts and satisfaction they
shall find arising from those dispositions which render them
so like to their heavenly Father, and also from that mercy
they shall' obtain from him at the great day of their ac-
counts.
7 Ver. 8. Maxáplot of Kaşapoi rii katēiz, Blessed are the
pure in heart.] They whose hearts are pure from those
evil thoughts and reasoning, those evil desires, lustings, and
affections, those evil passions and perturbations, and from
those evil intentions, devices, and machinations, which de-
file the soul, are blessed ; for they are fitted to enjoy com-
munion with God here (1 John iii. 3), and happiness with
him hereafter (Heb. xii. 14).
* Ver. 9. Maxápio, oi sipmyotroioi, Blessed are the peace-
makers.] i. e. (1.) The men of a peaceable mind; for as
he that is inclined to lying is said “to make a lie” (Rev.
xxii. 15), and he that is inclined to sin, Troisſy %wapriay, “to
do, make sin” (1 John iii. 8), so he that is disposed to ſol-
low after the things which make for peace, may be styled a
peacemaker: (2.) they who endeavour in their stations,
and as occasions do present themselves, to preserve peace,
love, and friendship, and to prevent contentions, quarrel-
lings, and discords among Christian brethren : and (3.)
they who labour to promote the peace and quiet of the pub-
lic, both in church and state, are blessed, because they shall
be called, i. e. they are and shall be owned by God, as
sons, by reason of their likeness to the God of peace (1 Cor.
xiv. 33. 2 Cor. xiii. 11. Phil. iv. 9. 2 Thess. iii. 16, see note
on i. 23), and being sons shall be “heirs of God, joint heirs
with Christ” (Rom. viii. 17), such as shall reign with him
in glory; they shall be “sons of the resurrection” (Luke.
xx. 36), and shall receive vio9saiav the blessing consequent
on this sonship, or adoption, to wit, “the redemption of
their bodies from corruption” (Rom. viii. 23).
* Ver. 10. Maxágio oi 388toykºvot vexey Sixaloa ſync, Blessed
are they which are persecuted for the sake of righteousness.]
Or for Christ's sake, &c. i. e. (1.) for persevering patiently
and stedfastly in the profession of the Christian faith : or
(2.) for the performance of that duty which they owe to
God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, and to our Chris-
tian brother for their sakes: or (3.) who are persecuted ;
because they do not own that as an article of faith, or any
part of the Christian duty, which God hath not declared to
be so: for seeing this cannot be done without making pro-
fession of a lie, or saying we believe what we can see no
reason to believe, to suffer for this cause is evidently to suf.
fer because we will not play the hypocrite, or give the lie to
our own consciences; and therefore this in St. Peter's lan-
guage is to suffer “for conscience towards God,” and to suſ.
fer wrongfully or unjustly. Yea, seeing this cannot be done,
but we must own another teacher, lawgiver, and author of
our faith, besides the Lord Christ, our sufferings for refusing
to do this are truly sufferings “for the sake of Christ;" and
CHAPTER V.
57
14 Ye" are (appointed to be) the light of the world,
(and as) a city that is set on a hill cannot be hid (so
neither in this eminent station in which you are placed,
can the light of your doctrine or manners be concealed).
15 Neither (should you endeavour to conceal them,
for) do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel?
(surely no 9 but on a candlestick, and (then) it giveth
light to all that are in the house.
16 (Accordingly) *let your light so shine before
men, that they may see your good works, and (on the
account of them may have cause to) glorify your Father
which is in heaven. -
17 (And though I preach a more spiritual doctrine,
than is contained in the letter even of the moral law,
get) * think not that I am come to destroy (i. e. to
dissolve or loose you from the obligation of) the law or
the prophets: (for) I am not come to destroy, but to
fulfil (them, to give you the full sense and the spiritual"
import of the moral law, and also to fulfil the types
and predictions of the law and the prophets).
18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth
pass (away), one jot brome tittle shall in no wise pass
from the law (or the prophets) till all be fulfilled
(which was both typified in the law, and foretold by the
prophets).
19 Whosoever therefore * shall break one of these
least (Gr. the least of these) commandments, and shall
teach men so (to do), he shall be called the least in
the kingdom of heaven (i.e. he shall not be admitted
as a true member of my kingdom) ; but whosoever
shall do and teach them, the same shall be called
great (i.e. he shall be an eminent person) in the king-
dom of heaven.
20 (And let it not be thought a sufficient eacuse that
such as make us happy sufferers, since Christ hath promised
them the blessings of this heavenly kingdom, and hath as-
sured that “great is their reward in heaven:” and therefore,
as their state on earth under these persecutions doth render
them conformed to their head, and like to the holy prophets
and apostles; so shall they hereafter be like to them in
glory (Rom. viii. 17.2 Tim. ii. 11).
19 Wer. 13. 'Yºsſ; gots to #xa; tº; yºc, P3 are the salt of
the earth.] Sal sapit omnia, “Salt is given to make things
savoury,” according to that question of Job (vi. 6), “Can
that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt 2" and also
to save them from putrefaction (see note on Mark ix.49):
so that the import of this metaphor is this ; Ye are ap-
pointed by that pure and holy doctrine, which you are to
preach, and by the savour of your good conversation, to
purge the world from that corruption in which it lies, and
represent them to God as “a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling
savour, holy and acceptable to God ;” but if you yourselves
should lose the savour of your good conversation, and be-
come putrefied members in my body, you would be wholly
useless to these good ends; and therefore can expect nothing
but to be rejected by me, and cast off, as unsavoury salt is
cast unto the dunghill.
* Ver. 14. ‘Tºweſ, flats tº pā, Toi, wézºov, Ye are the light
of the world..] The effect of light is to make things mani-
fest (Eph. v. 13), and to direct us in the way in which we
are to walk. So that the import of this metaphor seems ty
be this ;-I have appointed you to manifest to the world
my doctrine, which will discover to them what is “the good,
and acceptable, and perfect will of God,” and so direct their
feet into the way that leadeth to eternal life, and will ena-
ble them to “walk as children of the light:” and if you do
not hide this light from them, but cause it to shine forth
both in your doctrine and Christian conversation, the light of
it is so clear and radiant, that it cannot be hid from them.
* Ver. 16. Otro Agºra, to på, bºy, &c. So (therefore)
let (this) your light shine before men, that they may (from
your conversation, as well as from your doctrine) see your
good works and (then they will see cause to) glorify your
Father which is in heaven.] Hence note,
First, That though Christ's twelve apostles are chiefly
concerned in these metaphors, yet are they in some measure
applicable to all Christians; for it is the duty of all Chai:-
tians to “shine as lights in the world” (Phil. ii. 15). And
Christ having said, “He that forsaketh not all he hath, can-
not be my disciple,” presently subjoins, “Salt is good, but if
the salt hath lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted 2 ”
(Luke xiv. 33, 34.) Note,
Secondly; That the good works here mentioned must be
such as by the light of nature seem good and honourable in
the sight of men ; because they must give occasion even to
heathens to think well of Christianity: these works may
therefore be performed to be seen of men, provided we desire
this not for ostentation, but for God’s glory, and their edifi-
cation; that they, discerning the holiness, justice, and good-
ness of his precepts, and the excellent effects they have on
those who embrace them, may thereby be convinced that
they are derived from a God, just, holy, and full of kindness
and goodwill towards men.
* Ver. 17. Mi woºirmºr, 3rt 3A0ow xara Ajra, +3, Vázov, ,
row; reopâraç. Think not that I am come to destroy (Gr.
dissolve) the law or the prophets.] Our Lord hath taught
aus that all the law and the prophets are comprehended in
these two precepts, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart,” &c. and “ thou shalt love thy neighbour
as thyself” (Matt. xxii. 40); St. Paul, that “he who loves
his neighbour as himself, Vágoy retrahéoxs, hath fulfilled the
law” (Rom. xiii. 8); and that “the whole law, rampºrat,
is fulfilled” (Gal. v. 14), or is perfected (James ii. 8), in this,
“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself:” it is not there-
fore to be thought that Christ came to dissolve the moral
law, or any rules of morality delivered by the prophets, but
he came rather “that the righteousness of the law, rampo,0;
might be fulfilled by us, who walk not after the flesh, but
after the Spirit” (Rom. viii. 4). And that this is the law
chiefly intended here, may be concluded, (1.) because Christ
only undertakes the true interpretation of the precepts which
respect the moral law ; in these alone can he be rationally
conceived to require “our righteousness should exceed that
of the scribes and pharisees,” not in the literal observance
of the ritual precepts, in which they were exactly scrupu-
lous, whilst they neglected judgment, mercy, and the love of
God. And of them only could he say, that “he who brake
the least of them, and taught men so to do, should be the
least in his kingdom” (ver. 19, 20): since otherwise the
apostle Paul must have been chief in that number. (2.)
As for the rituals of the law and prophets, our Lord declares
“the law and the prophets were till John” (Luke xvi. 16),
and says the time was coming, when “neither in Samaria
nor in Jerusalem should they worship the Father,” but
should worship him everywhere in a more spiritual manner
(John iv. 22–24). Yea, he foretells the dissolution of that
temple and Jewish polity on which their ritual and judicial
precepts did depend (ch. xxiv.). St. Paul informs us, that
the law was only given “till the promised seed should come”
(Gal. iii. 19), and that he being come, we were no longer
under the pedagogy of the law ; that Christians were “dead
to the law through the body of Christ” (Rom. vii. 4); that
they were “loosed from the law, that being dead under
which they were held” (ver. 6); that it was evacuated
(2 Cor. iii. 11); that they were redeemed from it by Christ
(Gal. iv. 5), and that they ought no more to be subject to
that “yoke of bondage,” or return to those “beggarly ele-
reeats” (ver, 9 and v. 1); that Christ had broken down this
“partition-wall,” and evacuated that law of commandments
(Eph. ii. 14, 15); that he had “blotted out that hand-
writing of ordinances, and took it out of the way, hailing it
to his cross” (Col. ii. 14); that it was only to continue “to
the time of reformation” (Heb. ix. 10); that “the priest-
hood being changed, there was a necessity of a change of the
law” (vii. 12); and that there was “a disannulling of the
commandments going before, because of the weakness and
unprofitableness of it” (ver. 18). Which things seem in-
consistent with the doctrine that Christ came not to dissolve
that ceremonial law from which he freed all Christians, and
made them dead to it, by his body, evacuating this “hand-
writing of ordinances, and taking it out of the way,” by
mailing it to his cross. Nor seems it here sufficient to say,
This law was not abolished by Christ, but vanished by the
maturity of the time appointed for the continuance of it,
58
MATTHEW.
your scribes and pharisees thus teach ;) For * I say
unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed
the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees (who
by their traditions enempt themselves and others, in
many cases, from the observation of this law, Mark
vii. 8, 9), ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom
of heaven. i
21 * Ye have heard that it was said by them of old
time (Gr. to them of old), Thou shalt not kill (Exod.
xx. 13); and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger
seeing it therefore only vanished because Christ came to eva-
cuate it by his death and cross; and what he came to take
away, he came also to dissolve. But (3.) these rites may
be considered, as they were, typical of things future, and
were a “shadow of good things to come by Christ” (Col. ii.
17. Heb. x. 1). The prophets also may be looked upon as
foretelling his days, and speaking of the things he was to do
and suffer, and of his future glory, and the glad tidings of
the gospel (Acts iii. 24. 1 Pet. i. 10–12); of the conver-
sion of the Jews at the close of the world, the fall of anti-
christ, the coming in of the fulness of the gentiles, and the
final judgment ; and in this sense Christ came not to dis-
solve the law and the prophets, but “to fulfil them,” by
exhibiting the antitype and substance of which these rituals
were the types and shadows; and fulfilling these prophecies,
and taking care the truth of these things should not fail ;
nor should the law and the prophets cease to have their force
till these things were accomplished; and so the phrase £w;
Trávra yántal occurs, importing the performance of what was
typified by the law and foretold by the prophets. So Luke
xxi. 32, “This generation shall not pass away, Éog &y Trávra.
yśyntal, till all things foretold by me be done” (Matt. xxiv.
34. Mark xiii.30). And (4.) many of these ritual precepts
had a spiritual sense; as the “circumcision of the flesh”
denoted the “spiritual circumcision of the heart;” the
“rest of the sabbath,” a “rest remaining for the people of
God,” &c. on which account the apostle declares, not only
that the “law was holy, just, and good,” but that it was
also “spiritual” (Rom. vii. 12. 14). And in this sense
Christ came “not to dissolve the law, but to fulfil,” esta-
blish, and perfect it, by changing him that was a Jew out-
Wardly, to one inwardly ; and the “circumcision of the
flesh” in the letter, to the “circumcision of the heart in the
spirit” (Rom. ii. 29); and by circumcising us, “not with
the circumcision made with hands, but with the circumcision
of Christ” (Col. ii. 11), that we might be the “true cir-
cumcision, who serve God in the spirit” (Phil. iii. 3). And
(5.) by one iota, or “tittle of the law,” I understand one
precept of it, according to that saying of the Jews, “It
were better one letter of the law should be razed out,” i. e.
one precept of it should be violated, “than that the name of
God should be openly blasphemed.” And as for those
words, “till heaven and earth pass away,” they must be un-
derstood only of the moral law, or else must bear the sense
which St. Luke gives of them (xvi. 17), “Sooner may hea-
ven and earth pass away,” than God fail of accomplishing
the things typified by the law, or foretold by the prophets.
Moreover, some of these types relating not only to spiritual,
but to heavenly things; the rest of the sabbath being typi-
cal of “the rest remaining to the people of God” (Heb. iii.
iv.); the tabernacle being a “shadow of the heavenly taber-
nacle made without hands,” and the law being “the shadow
of future good things” (Heb. x. 1); and the prophets fore-
telling those things which were not to be completely fulfilled
till the end of the world, or the day of judgment, our Sa-
Viour might well say, “Heaven and earth shall pass away,
but one jot or tittle of the law shall not pass away till all
things be fulfilled ;” some of the things typified by the law
and foretold by the prophets being then only to be fulfilled
when heaven and earth were to pass away.
* Weſ. 19. "Oatic ày vºw Aſſaſſ, &c. Whosoever therefore
shall break one of these least commandments, he shall be
called the least in the kingdom of heaven.] "EAáxiaºro; xxn-
8%a stat, “he shall be called least,” i.e. he shall be unwor-
thy to be reckoned one of the members of my kingdom.
So “I am the least of the apostles,” is, “I am unworthy
to be called an apostle” (1 Cor. xv. 9). Note also, that
Christ is speaking not of the precepts of his new law, but
of the precepts of the moral law, of which he had discoursed
in the two preceding verses, as is apparent from the illative
particle ov, “therefore.” Moreover, it seems harsh, either
to refer this to the beatitudes, which ended ver. 12, or to the
following precepts, of which Christ had yet spoken nothing.
And, lastly, it is probable that Christ may here reflect on .
those scribes and pharisees, who by their traditions exempted
themselves, and taught others not to observe some of those
moral precepts, and might hint, that how highly soever they
were valued by themselves, or others, for their skill in the
law, such teachers of it should be of no account in his king-
dom.
* Wer. 20. Afyo, yā; upºy, For I say writo you, Eacept
Ayour righteousness eaceed the righteousness of the scribes
and pharisees.] i. e. Except (1.) you observe all the pre-
cepts of the moral law, not making any of them void by
your traditions, not leaving undone the “more weighty mat-
ters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith,” as they do
(Matt. xxiii. 23), not thinking to atone for the neglect of
some of them by your observance of the rest: see notes on
James ii. 10. (2.) Unless you do observe this law, not only
according to the outward man and in the letter, but also in
the spiritual sense, and so as to cleanse your hearts from
those inward dispositions which are in God's sight violations
of it, and “defile the man,” you will not be fitted to enter
into my kingdom. And that in both these things the legal
righteousness of the scribes and pharisees was deficient, is
clear, (1.) from our Saviour's care to teach them, it was not
sufficient to observe what was said to them of old, according
to the letter only, but that they were to regard the higher
and spiritual sense of it, not only not to “kill, but not to be
angry without cause,” &c. (2.) that adultery might be com-
mitted in the heart as well as in the outward action (ver. 28),
and that “what cometh out of the heart defileth the man :”
which doctrine the pharisees were so unacquainted with, that
they were offended at it (Matt. xv. 12). And Josephus,
who was well acquainted with their doctrine, declares Poly-
bius mistaken, when he saith Antiochus Epiphanes perished,
because he would have robbed Diana's temple of its trea-
sure ; for, saith he," Tó y&p ºwnxári troño'ai rā āpyov 80UNEv-
a'épcevoy, oùx #art ripawgia; &#tov, “He deserved no punish-
ment for what he only would have done, but did not.” And
Kimchi, on these words of David (Ps. lxvi. 18), “If...I re-
gard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me,”
comments thus, “He will not impute it to me for sin ; for
God does not look upon an evil thought as sin, unless it be
conceived against God or religion.” &
16 Ver. 21. 'Hºoſcars ºri #0m toſ; 36xalot;, &c. Ye have
heard it hath been said by (to) them of old, Thou shalt not
kill ; #y& 33 Aéyo tºxiv, but I say unto you, Whosoever is an-
gry with his brother, &c.] That toſ: 3pxaiotç is here to be
rendered in the dative case, may be concluded (1.) from the
words “I say unto you,” where twºv is undoubtedly the da-
tive case. (2.) Because the word ####$n elsewhere is always
joined to this case ; so Rom. ix. 12, ###$n airfi, “it was
said to her,” and ver. 26, ####$n airoſ, “it was said to them ;”
Gal. iii. 16, “the promises tº 'A8éačka šešna'av, were spo-
ken to Abraham;” so Rev. ix. 4. 11. And where mention
is made of a thing spoken by another, the phrase is still rô
finóy ºrd, or rā ph9āv 33. (3.) Because the words thus cited
by our Lord are words spoken “to them of old,” as, “Thou
shalt not commit adultery,” ver. 27, “Thou shalt not for-
swear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths,”
ver. 33, and here, “Thou shalt not kill,” Exod. xx. 13,
and, “Whosoever killeth, shall be obnoxious to the judg-
ment,” Gen. ix. 6. Numb. xxxv. 31. “You shall take no
satisfaction for the life of a man, Švéxov wro; &yatgesºyas,
worthy to be cut off by the hand of judgment, he shall die.’
Of the question, whether Christ here adds to the law of
Moses, or rather declares those things belong to the true
scope and intention of it, which the scribes and pharisees
never thought, or at least taught not their scholars so to be 2
see the appendix to this chapter. I incline to this last opi-
nion, and therefore give this sense to the words: You have
heard it said by Moses to them of old, thou shalt not kill ;
*and understand not that by this precept you are obnoxious
* Antiq, lib. xii. 13.
CHAPTER V.
59
of the judgment (Gen. ix. 6. Numb. xxxv. 31, and
are taught by your scribes, that by this precept you
are not obnoarious to guilt for any thing but mur-
der) ;
22 But I say unto you," That whosoever is angry
with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of
the judgment (or anger of God); and whosoever shall
say unto his brother, Raca (i. e. thou art an empty
worthless fellow, fit to be whipped, or punished as an
idle drone), shall be in danger of the council (i.e. of
being punished by them, for vilifying and reviling one
of the seed of Abraham) ; but whosoever (from the
like rancour of spirit against his brother) shall say
(to him), Thou fool (i.e. shall censure him as a profane
person, or a hell-hound), shall be in danger of hell
fire (the portion he assigneth to his brother).
23 * Therefore, if thou bring thy gift to the altar
(to make atonement for thy sin), and there remem-
berest that thy brother hath aught against thee (i. e.
# received from thee any injury of this or any other
ind) ;
24 Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy
way; (and) first (use thy endeavour to) be reconciled
to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift (it
being not acceptable for the atonement of thy sins com-
mitted against God, till thou hast thus endeavoured to
make satisfaction for thy faults committed against thy
brother).
to guilt for anything but murder: but I say unto you, that
by the genuine import of it, all causeless anger against our
brother, all contemptuous expressions and treatment of him,
all rash judgment of him as a profane and wicked person,
are forbidden, as being either dispositions to murder, or to
neglect the welfare of our brother's life and soul: and there-
fore say,
*7 Ver. 22. “ori Trä; 6 Seyićasyo, rā; 33exp; aſſroi, six?, That
whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause, shall
be obnoa'ious to the judgment.] St. Jerome here notes, that
in quibusdam codicibus legitur sine causá, caeterüm in veris
definita sententia est, as if sizā “without cause” had not been
in the true copies: but how little St. Jerome is to be trusted
in these matters, is evident from this and many other in-
stances of like nature ; for certain it is, that we find this
word in Justin's epistle ad Zenam, &c. p. 311, D. Nor is
it any objection against this reading, that in his second
Apology, p. 83, the word six; is omitted, the whole citation
there running thus, & 3’ &y £eyia Sn, Évoxo; a`riy sic rà rife,
for this is only a brief recapitulation of the whole: and you
may as well argue that neither “Raca” nor ºogă was in that
verse, as that sixà was not there. A like instance I find in
Irenaus, who, when he gives a brief recapitulation of our
Saviour's words, saith that instead of these words, “Thou
shalt not kill,” he commandeth, neirasci quidem, “not to
be angry:” yet whenever he cites these words (as he doth
thrice, viz. lib. ii. cap. 56, p. 189, col. 1. lib. iv. cap. 27, p.
314, cap. 1, &c. 3, p. 320, col. 2), he always adds, sine causã,
“ without cause ;” so also doth St. Cyprian, Test. lib. iii. p.
64. Constit. Apost. lib. ii. cap. 52, p. 199. So Chrysostom,
Euthymius, Theophylact, without any hint of a various
reading ; so also reads the Syriac. And this, with what I
have added, Exam, var. Lection. D. Millii, lib. ii. cap. 1.
n, l, I think sufficient to justify this reading. For explica-
tion of these words, note (1.) that they may seem not rightly
to interpret these words, who refer them to the judgment
of the three Sanhedrins of the Jews; (1) because the
Sanhedrin is only mentioned in the second gradation: for
(2) it did not belong to the lower court of three men to
judge of capital causes; and so those words, “the murderer
shall be obnoxious to the judgment” (ver. 21), cannot be-
long to them, and therefore the words here repeated can-
nºt belong to them : nor (3) can hell-fire be properly ap-
plied to the judgment of the highest Sanhedrin. Let it be
therefore noted, (2) that the Jews held that many murderers
Were not to be punished by the judgment of the Sanhe-
drin, but only the judgment of the hand of God; and that
the word “Raca,” which signifies a vain, empty fellow, was
used as a word of scorn and contempt. Now the vilifying
a Jew was a thing punishable by the Sanhedrin; the worá
Jool, both in the scripture and the Jewish phrase, signifies a
profane and wicked fellow, or, as we say, “a hell-hound ;"
for, “the wicked shall be turned into hell?” so in those words,
Ps. Xiy. 1. “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no
God.” This then may be the import of these words, “He
that is subject to unjust and causeless anger, shall be obnox-
ious to the anger and judgment of God; he that publicly
reviles his brother, shall be obnoxious to the public censure
of the council ; and he that represents and censures him
as a child of hell, shall be obnoxious to hell-fire; ac-
cording to that saying of the Jews, “He that calls another
bastard, let him be punished with forty stripes; but he that
calls him fool, let him descend with him into his life,” i. e.
into his misery. Note, (3) that these words, vain and
foolish, when they are used by men assisted by the Spirit
of God, or speaking by virtue of their office, out of a
spirit of charity, and an ardent desire to make men sensible
of their folly, do not render them obnoxious to this guilt :
not St. James, when he calls the Solifidian, “vain man”
(ii. 20): not St. Paul, when he saith, “O foolish Galatians”
(Gal. iii. 1), and much less Christ, when he styles the
pharisees, “fools and blind” (Matt. xxiii. 17), and when he
saith to his disciples, “O fools and slow of heart” (Luke
xxiv. 25); but only then when they proceed from rash
and causeless anger, rancour of spirit, and ill-will towards
men. Note, (4.) that God in forbidding murder forbiddeth
also those things which tend and dispose us to it; all rash
anger, hatred, rancour of spirit, malice, all that contempt of
others, which may make us not to value their lives, and so not
fear much the dispatching them out of the way ; all that re-
proachful language, which begets such strifes, as too often end
in blood; “Ye fight and kill” (James iv. 2): that, in forbid-
ding the outward act, he forbids all inward workings of the
heart towards that act, all desires, machinations, and con-
trivances, all purposes or resolutions so to do ; “out of the
heart come evil thoughts, murders” (Matt. xv.19); and that
by forbidding us to kill, he commands us to do what we are
able to preserve our brother's life (see note on Luke vi. 9):
and lastly, that by forbidding us to “kill the body;” he
much more doth forbid us to “kill the soul,” or suffer that to
perish, as did the scribes and pharisees; suffering the sin-
ner and the publican to perish, by their refusal to converse
with them, though it were to “save that which was lost,”
or to “call sinners to repentance.” Note, (5.) from those
words, “He that is angry with his brother without a cause,”
that some anger may be just and lawful, not as it is defined
to be šes;1; &vrixviria eos, “a desire of revenge,” or doing evil
to another purely because he hath done so to me; we be-
ing forbidden to “avenge ourselves” (Rom. xii. 19), or even
to say, “we will do to others as they have dealt with us”
(Prov. xxiv. 29); but as it is an inward commotion and dis-
pleasure of the mind, arising from the apprehension of some
evil done to me, or others for whom I am concerned, with
a desire to remove the evil ; and in this sense anger cannot
be always sinful: es
First, Because some anger hath been found even in that
Jesus “who did no sin” (1 Pet. ii. 22), as when the cause
of God and piety were much concerned ; for, “he looked
upon the pharisees with anger, being grieved for the hardness
of their hearts” (Mark iii. 5).
Secondly, Because anger is a passion implanted in us by
the God of nature ; if therefore it were wholly evil in its
exercise, that God, who is the author of it, must be the au-
thor of our sin, whereas the just avenger of it can never be
the author of sin.
Thirdly, Because we are only bid to be “slow to anger,”
(James i. 19), and not to be “hasty in our spirits” to exert
this passion {Prov. xiv. 29); whereas that which is always
evil we ought not only to be slow to do, but always careful
to avoid.
18 Ver. 23. 'Evoy ºrport#pn; tº 33.66w a ow ºri Tô Svataaruptow.
If therefore thou bringestthygift unto the altar, &c.] Herenote,
First, That it was customary with the Jews, who lived at
some distance from Jerusalem, to reserve their oblations till
the next feast, at which they were obliged to attend, and
then to offer them ; so that they might easily comply with
this precept. g
Secondly, The scribes and pharisees held, That the gifts
60
MATTHEW.
25 (And if there be any person to whom thou art in-ithee that one of thy members should perish, and not
debted and who upon that account may implead thee that thy whole body should be cast into hell (i. e. it is
before the judge ,)” agree with thine adversary *. better for thee to want these delights at present, than
whilst thou art in the way (to the judge) with him,
by enjoying them to plunge both soul and body into
lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the hell).
judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer (ap-
Pointed for that purpose), and (so) thou be cast into
prison.
26 Verily I say unto thee (if thou permit things to
should be cast into hell.
go so far), Thou shalt by no means come out thence,
till thou hast paid the utmost farthing (and so will it
also be if thou neglectest to be reconciled to God, and
so he cast thee into the infernal prison). -
27 * Ye have heard that it was said by (Gr. to)
them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery
(Exod. xx. 14). -
28 But (know this is not all which is forbidden by
that precept, for) I say unto you, Whosoever looketh
on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery
with her already in his heart.
29 And if (then) thy right eye offend thee (by thus
lusting), pluck it out and cast it from thee (i. e. sup-
press all such impure lustings) ; for it is profitable for
and sacrifices brought to the temple, were sufficient to ex-
piate for all offences, which were not to be punished by the
judge (except those which required restitution to be made
first, and that without amendment of life); and therefore
Christ here teacheth, in opposition to them, that no sacri-
fice, or other worship, could be acceptable to God, without
justice and charity, and a mind reconciled to our brother ;
and that they did in vain attempt to propitiate an offended
God, till they had made satisfaction for the injuries done
to their brother: and that, therefore, when they had in-
jured him by causeless anger, reproachful language, or un-
due and uncharitable censures of his state, or any other
way, they should endeavour to be reconciled to him before
they sought to render God propitious to themselves ; at
least, by doing all things on their part necessary to give
him satisfaction, and obtain his friendship: so that if they
prevail not, the fault shall be in him, and not in them. Note,
Thirdly, That the duties of justice and charity are more
acceptable to God than sacrifices, or any other part of
outward worship ; these being only of positive institution
(whilst the others are duties required by the law of nature),
and so to be left undone, that we may do the other.
* Ver. 25. "Iaşi Büyoãv rá ávrièixº cov taxi, Agree with
thine adversary quickly, &c.] Episcopius here saith, These
words cannot be properly understood, because rash anger,
reproachful speeches, and calling a man a fool, could not be
punished with imprisonment ; but it is evident, that our Sa-
viour is not now speaking of these things, but having told
us what we ought to do to gain our brother's favour, when
we had given him just cause of offence ; he here counsels
us what to do when we lie at his mercy for our debts due
to him, viz. to do all we can amicably to compound the
matter, lest being brought before the magistrates, we should
be put in prison. Now these magistrates were to be
in their gates (Deut. xvi. 18), that is, in all their cities;
(if the city were small, it had only the consistory of three
judges ; if large, that of twenty-three ; and both these are
styled äexoyres, Luke xii. 58); and from them the creditor
might appeal to the higher Sanhedrin, here styled “the
judge” by way of eminency ; and these consistories had their
schoterim, officials, apparitors, or executors of their sentence,
called here irápetal, and Luke xii. 58, ºrgáxtogº, who car-
ried him to prison who was sentenced thither, or inflicted
the punishment to which the consistory adjudged him.
Here then Bi' 57tovoia; is insinuated, how much more it
concerns us in time to repent of our offences against God,
and to endeavour to be reconciled to him, lest we be cast
into the infernal prison, according to that good advice of
the son of Sirach, “Before judgment examine thyself, and in
the day of visitation thou shalt find mercy ; humble thyself
before thou beest sick, and in the time of sins show repent-
ance, and defer not until death to be justified” (Ecclus. xviii.
20– 22).
precept.
30 And if thy right hand offend thee (by minister-
ing to this or ony other sin), cut it off, and cast it from
thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy
members should perish, and not that thy whole body
31 * It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away .
his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement:
(and this being permitted for the hardness of your
hearts, you think may lawfully be done for any cause,
Matt. xix. 3).
32. But I say unto you, That (according to the
primitive institution of marriage) whosoever shall put
away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication,
causeth her to commit adultery (by giving her this oc-
casion to go and be married to another) ; and whoso-
ever shall marry her that is (thus) divorced com-
mitteth adultery (with her).
33 Again, “ye have heard that it hath been said
3 3 r a
* Ver. 27. 'Hzoázars &rt ####9m roſ: 3pxaíoic, où (woºxeſagic,
Ye have heard that it hath been said to them of old, Ye shall
not commit adultery.] And this the rabbins interpret strictly,
calling it the thirty-fifth precept, “forbidding to lie with an-
other man's wife ;” on which account our Lord proceeds to
say, It is also a prohibition of all incitements to adultery,
called by St. Peter, “the adulterous eye” (2 Pet. ii. 14), and
by the poet adultera mens, the adultery of the heart, in lust-
ing after any woman ; only this seems not to be meant of
every sudden desire arising in us before we are aware, and
suppressed and contradicted as soon as it is observed ;
but of morose desires, which we consent to, and entertain
with pleasure, without retracting them ; and more espe-
cially of such desires which are followed with contrivance
how to accomplish what we thus desire, and which we are
only restrained from the accomplishment of, by want of op-
portunity; in the first case, lust hath conceived and “brought
forth sin,” a sin against this precept, as it forbids all incen-
tives to adultery ; in the second, it is finished in the will,
and hath “brought forth death ;” and doubtless will be so
esteemed by that God, who, as he estimates our good ac-
tions rather from our good minds, purposes, and inten-
tions than from the act itself, which ofttimes it is not in
our power to perform ; so will he estimate our evil actions
more from the full consent of the will, which makes them
morally evil, than from that fact which only renders them
more evil in the same kind, as adding to them Scandal, and
injury to others. And therefore the words, “adultery in his
heart,” are not here used to diminish the adultery, or sig-
nify it less truly such, but to show the true interpretation of
the precept. And though many things are produced from
the Talmudists, to show some of their rabbins condemned
this looking on a woman as a very vile thing, yet nothing is
produced from them to show they held it forbidden by this
Pertinent here is the observation of St. Jerome
on this place : Dixerunt jurisperiti, si videat quis mulierem
quam in deliciis prae uxore habeat, uxorem demittat, atque
eam ducat ; “Their expositors of the law said, If a man
sees a woman whom he loves better than his wife, let him
divorce his wife and marry her.” This adulterous eye our
Lord here styles adultery ; and ver. 31, 32, severely taxes
their divorces upon any cause (see note on Rom. ii. 22).
* Ver. 31, 32. 'Ejéºn 33 3rt 3; &V &roxſon rºw yuwałża
airoi, It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife,
&c.] Here Christ saith not, as before, “It hath been said to
them of old,” but only “it hath been said ;” to note, that
this was not a precept given by Moses to divorce their wives,
as the pharisees suggested, xix. 7, but only a permission in
some cases so to do, as our Lord there answers, ver. 8. Of
what farther relates to this and the following verse, see note
on xix. 7.9, (see Examen Millii).
* Ver. 33.’Hzoſa are gri śºn roſ, &exaſoit, oùx triogºna eic
Ye have heard it hath been said to them of old, Thou shal,
CHAPTE R. V.
61
by (Gr. to) them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear
thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths
(Exod. xx. 7. Lev. xix. 12, and this you think is all
not förswear thyself.] For explication of which words let it
noted,
First. That Christ, by this prohibition, must not be sup-
posed to forbid all swearing as a thing absolutely evil;
for, in those writings which were indited by the Holy
Ghost, St. Paul doth often seal the truth of what he deli-
vered with an oath, saying, “God is my witness, that without
ceasing I make mention of you in my prayers” (Rom. i. 9).
In the Epistle to the Galatians, he gives a large account of
his conversion and apostleship, which concludes thus, “Now
the things which I write unto you, behold, before God I lie
not” (Gal. i. 20). Having given the Corinthians a cata-
logue of his great sufferings for the gospel's sake, because
it might be thought incredible that any sober person would,
or that the stoutest person could, endure so many and so
dreadful sufferings, he concludes thus, “The God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ knoweth that I lie not” (2 Cor. xi.
31). To confirm his tender love to the same church, he
Saith, “I call God to record upon my soul, that to spare you
I come not yet to Corinth” (2 Cor. i. 23). To manifest his
passionate affection to the Philippians, “God,” saith he, “is
my record, how greatly I long after you” (Phil. i. 8). Now
these examples prove, that blessed Paul, and that good
Spirit by which he was directed thus to write, did not con-
ceive all swearing to be forbidden by our Saviour's words,
but that it was still lawful, when the matter was of great im-
portance to the welfare of the souls of men, and could not
be confirmed any other way, to seal it with a voluntary oath.
Now undoubtedly St. Paul well understood the mind of
Christ in this his prohibition ; and therefore, had he con-
ceived it so universal as some contend it is, he would not
have encouraged others, by his example, to transgress it.
It is confessed the words, both in the prohibition of our
Saviour and St. James, are universal; “Swear not at all ;
swear not by heaven, nor by earth, or any other oath :” but
it is also certain, that Christ and his apostles do often use
such general expressions, which yet must necessarily ad-
mit of limitations. Thus 1 Cor. vi. 7, we meet with an ex-
pression, which in the Greek is fully parallel to this, viz.
*Aw, httnø, “it is altogether faulty in you, that you go to
law one with another ; why do you not rather suffer your-
selves to be defrauded ?” which notwithstanding, no man,
except some few Socinians, thinks it unlawful to go to law,
for preservation of his own family, or to secure the goods of
orphans, widows, or the poor committed to his trust, when
these things cannot be secured or preserved by any other
means. Christ hath expressly said, “Give to everyman that
asketh of thee, and of him that taketh away thy goods, ask
thou not again” (Luke vi. 30); and yet as God himself gives
not to them that ask amiss, that they may make provision
for their lusts (James iv. 3), so neither must the Christian
give to such an asker ; and it is evidently repugnant to the
law of nature and self-preservation, tamely to bear the loss
of all that is necessary to our subsistence here, without en-
deavouring to preserve or to recover it when taken from us.
As therefore these, and many other passages of scripture de-
livered in universal terms, must be restrained by other scrip-
tures, that so they may not seem to enjoin absurdities, or
thwart the law of nature, or the voice of reason: so must
the words we now discourse of be restrained and limited by
others, which we meet with in the word of God. Especially
if secondly, we consider that Christ himself, after this prohi.
bition given, seems to swear ; for, Mark viii. 12, we read thus,
“Verily I say unto you, et 309;&eral rfi yeye; raûrn a nºwetov,
if a sign shall be given to this generation,” which is a Hebrew
form of swearing, and imports thus much, “Let God punish
me, or let me not live, if a sign be given to this generation.”
$9 Deut. i. 35, “The Lord was wroth, and swore, saying, e.
à l'état, ne vivam, If any of these men shall see the good
land of promise.” Ps. xcv. 11, “So I sware in my wrath, si
siaºzºraţ, mentiar, if they shall enter into my rest.” So
l, Sam. iii. 14, “I have sworn touching the house of Eli, el
#ºazëhasrat, if the iniquity of the house of Eli shall be
purged with sacrifice for ever.” So Ps. lxxxix. 35, “Once
have I sworn by my holiness, el Jºrdaat, if I fail David;” in
that is criminal in oaths, viz. to swear falsely by the
name of the great Jehovah) ; h
34 But I say unto you, Swear not at all (in you
all which passages, interpreters agree, God sweareth by his
life or truth. And ſºs. cxxxii. 2 3, “Lord, remember Da-
vid how he sware si eta exsta'oºzat, if I go into my tabernacle,
si žyaghoop.at, if I climb up into my bed, si 3%zo, if I give
sleep to mine eyes, til, I find out a temple for the Lord;”
i.e. let me not prosper if I do not this ; wherefore the words
of Christ, being exactly parallel to all these, which are ex-
pressly styled oaths, may very reasonably be deemed a form
of swearing. -
Secondly, These words must not be so interpreted as to for-
bid all promissory oaths, in which we do engage, by calling
God to witness, we will be faithful to our promises, or will do
this or that hereafter. For (1.) were it unlawful to use a
promissory oath, it must be so, because it is unlawful to en-
gage, as we expect God’s favour, for the performance of things
future ; this being the whole difference betwixt an assertion
and a promise confirmed upon oath, that an assertory oath
hath always for its object something past or present ; whereas
a promissory oath hath for its object something future, which
oath some therefore think unlawful, because we may forget
our promise, or lie under such evil circumstances as render us
unable to perform it. But notwithstanding these considera-
tions, that it is not simply unlawful to take a promissory oath
is evident (1.) from the examples of such oaths, recorded and
approved in holy scripture. For the Lord made his peo-
ple enter into an “oath to serve him, and to keep his covenant”
(Deut. xxix. 12. 14). King Asa made all Judah swear tha'
they would seek the Lord with all their hearts” (2 Chron. xv
14); and this was so acceptable to God, that he was “found
of them, and gave them rest round about” (ver. 15), Ezra en-
gaged the priests and Levites, and “all the house of Israel,
to swear that they would put away all their strange wives and
children” (Ezra x. 5). And Nehemiah called the priests,
and “took an oath of them to do according to their promise”
(Neh. v. 12). Moreover, he engaged all the nobles and peo-
ple “to enter into a curse, and into an oath, to walk in God's
law, and to observe and do all his commandments” (x. 29);
and having done these things, he saith, “Remember me
O Lord, for this, and wipe not out the good deeds that
I have done for the house of my God.” And, lastly, “I have
sworn,” saith David, “and I will perform it, that I will keep
thy righteous judgments” (Ps. cxix. 106). All these were
promissory oaths made by direction, or with the approbation
of the God of Israel, to strengthen the good resolution of a
backsliding people, and to increase their obligations to per-
form their duty; and can it rationally be conceived that the
holy Jesus should forbid what wholly was designed and
really tended to strengthen and confirm usin the performance
of our holy pnrposes? Can he be thought to do it who hath
laid upon all Christians the baptismal vow, and the #x0, ºrga-
rtwrix}; military oath, to fight under his banner, and hath
obliged us to renew this vow at every sacrament P (2.) If
Christ did by these words forbid all promissory oaths, no
prince may thus confirm a league with other states and
princes; whereas both Ahraham and Isaac made a promis-
sory oath unto Abimelech, that they would still retain a
perfect friendship with him (Gen. xxi. 24. xxvi. 31). Again,
according to this exposition of the words, no magistrate or
officer of justice may exact a promissory oath of any Chris-
tian subject, nor could a Christian soldier or trustee give any
promissory oaths of his fidelity. Now had the Christian law.”
untied and freed all its professors from these bonds of govern-
ment, this must have much reflected on the wisdom of its
constitutions, and given occasion to the infidels to say, that
it exposedall government, by this exemption of the subject
from those obligations to obedience which lay before upon
them, to the greatest hazards; it being formerly the duty both
of Jew and heathen, to keep the king's commandments by
virtue of the oath of God. (3.) That which directly tends
to the advancement of society, cannot rationally be supposed
to be forbidden by our Saviour, because the current of the
Christian precepts does most peculiarly tend to the promo-
tion of the public good; but promissory oaths, as well as as-
Sertory, directly tend to the advancement of society, and the
promotion of the public good, they being instrumental both
62
MATTHEW.
common conversation) ; * neither by heaven; for it is (and he that sweareth by it, sweareth also by him whose
God’s throne (and so by swearing by it, thou swear- footstool it is); neither by Jerusalem; for it is the
est by him who sits upon it, Matt. xxiii. 22).
35 Neither by the earth; for it is his footstool
city of the great King (and he that sweareth by it,
sweareth also by him that dwelleth in it).
to put an end to these contentions, which tend to the destruc-
tion of society, and to the confirmation of men's minds,
touching the truth of what another promises; and therefore
to encourage them in making those contracts, which are of
absolute necessity to human commerce; and all this the apos-
tle seemeth to insinuate by saying, that an oath “is for confir-
mation,” and for the ending of all strife among men (Heb.
vi. 16). For that the apostle in that passage speaks chiefly
of a promissory oath, is evident from the occasion of it ;
viz. the promise of a signal blessing God had made to Abra-
ham, and had confirmed with an oath. And (4.) if all pro-
missory oaths be utterly unlawful by virtue of Christ's pro-
hibition, then must it be unlawful to adjure a Christian to per-
form any action we require of him ; for to adjure by God, is
to engage him, under the curse of God, or under the penalty
of forfeiting God's favour, and incurring his displeasure, to
do what we require of him. Now that in matters of great
concern, the Christian may be thus adjured by his superior,
is evident from the example of St. Paul, who writes unto the
Thessalonians thus, Šehić2 b/w3; rāv Küploy, “I adjure you by
the Lord, that this epistle be read to all the holy brethren”
(1 Thess. v. 27). The words I render thus, because I find
this is the constant import of this phrase in the Old Testa-
ment. Thus, Gen. xxiv. 37, §pziałºwej xúpio; ºov. “My master
made me swear, saying, Thou shalt not take a wife to my son
of the daughters of Canaan;” and ver. 41, “When thou
comest to my kindred, if they will not give thee a wife, Éan
&630; dºré roi; pricºcoö peov, thou shalt be clear from my oath.”
Thus in the case of jealousy, irwis; iepsic, “the priest shall
charge the woman with an oath of cursing, and shall say
unto her, The Lord make thee a curse among thy people *
&c. (Numb. v. 19. 21). Thus &#xiaºy ‘Incovº, “Joshua adjured
the people, saying, Cursed be the man before the Lord, that
riseth up, and buildeth the city of Jericho” (Josh. vi. 26).
And “Saul adjured the people, saying, Cursed be the man
that eateth any food till the evening:” that is, Čexica; &p-
xia's rêy Aa3v, “he charged the people with an oath,” I Sam.
xiv. 24, and wer. 28, “the people feared the oath.” Thus
also Solomon speaks to Shimei, oùxī &gxia & as xará roi, Kv-
giov, “Did I not make thee swear by the Lord, that thou
wouldest not go out of Jerusalem ; wherefore then hast thou
not kept rev ºpkov Kugiov the oath of the Lord P” (1 Kings iii.
42, 43). If therefore Christians may be bound by others
under a curse or oath, to the performance of something fu-
ture, which they had not promised; much more may they
be thus obliged by the magistrate to promise, and confirm
that promise by an oath.
And, thirdly, hence it clearly follows, that our Lord
doth not here condemn judicial oaths, imposed by magis-
trates and by superiors in matters testimonial: for it is ob-
servable in judicial oaths, the custom which obtained among
the Jews was this; not for the person who came under the
obligation of an oath to pronounce the words of swearing
with his own mouth, but an oath was exacted of him by the
magistrate, and he became obliged to answer upon oath,
by hearing polyhy exiaºxoti, “the voice of adjuration,” or swear-
ing from his mouth ; so the law saith expressly (Lev. v. 1),
“If a man hear the voice of swearing, and is a witness,
whether he hath seen or known anything, if he do not utter it,
then he shall bear his iniquity.” To which custom that pas.
sage of the Proverbs evidently refers, “Whoso is partner with
a thief, hateth his own soul he heareth Hºn the adjuration
of the magistrate, and bewrayeth it not ” (Prov. xxix. 24),
i. e. doth not discover what he knows ; if, hearing #xov trgo-
Tišávros, the oath pronounced, he doth not declare it, say
the Septuagint and the Targum. Now hence it follows,
that Christ could not forbid in these words such judicial
oaths; (1.) because it was not in the power of the Jews, to
whom he spake, to avoid them, they being subject to them,
by hearing the voice of swearing pronounced by the judge.
(2.) Had Christ by this injunction condemned all judicial
oaths, he must have dissolved the law of Moses in this par-
ticular; and so have given just occasion to the pharisees
to complain of him, both as teaching contrary to the law of
Moses, and stirring up the people to disturb the govern-
$
ment. Then (3.) after his declaration made against such
oaths, he should not have answered when adjured by the
high-priest, to tell whether he were the Son of God ; because
he ought not so far to have countenanced this sinful action :
wherefore, by breaking of his former silence, and taking the
adjuration upon himself, he showed that he did not con-
ceive it sinful to answer upon oath before a magistrate.
(4.) This prohibition therefore only doth forbid all voluntary
oaths in common conversation and discourse ; this (first)
clearly follows from the removal of those other glosses
which have been put upon the text; and (secondly) from what
our Saviour adds, by way of explication of it, viz. #3 to 38
6 Aéyo; tºy, “let your discourse or talk be yea and nay ;” i. e.
let it suffice, that in your ordinary discourse you use a
single affirmation or denial, or, if occasion do require, a
reduplication of them, and do not on your own voluntary
motion, call God to witness the truth of what you ordinarily
say. (Thirdly,) This is apparent from the distinction which
the Jews observed betwixt such oaths as were imposed by
the magistrate in doing justice, and voluntary oaths: in the
first kind of oaths, they reckoned it unlawful to swear by
any name but that of God; it being written, that “when a
cause of parties comes before the judge, then shall the oath of
Jehovah be between them” (Exod. xxii. 11): wherefore this
prohibition of swearing, “by the heavens, the earth, or any
other oath,” could not relate to their judicial oaths ; because
in them God only was invoked: it.therefore must respect
those voluntary oaths, which were in frequent use among
the Jews, and were less scrupled by them ; because they did
not swear by God, but by the creatures, accounting that far
more excusable than swearing by the name of God. And
that this also is the meaning of the prohibition of St. James,
is evident ; because in the foregoing words he had exhorted
Christians patiently to bear afflictions, and not to be pro-
voked to anger by them ; and knowing that our impatience
under sufferings, and our unbridled passions, do often vent
themselves in oaths, he therefore adds (ver. 12), “But above
all things, brethren, swear not.”
* Ver. 34, 35. Märs Év rà oðgavój, ºftre év tº yń, &c. Nei-
ther by heaven, nor by earth, nor by Jerusalem.] That these
forms of swearing were very usual among the Jews, we learn
from the Jewish writers, saying,” By heavens so it is ; By
heaven you have brought this to my memory. It was also
customary with them, to swear by the heavens and earth
together, or by them separately. And accordingly Philot
forbids men to swear “by the Supreme cause:” but, saith he
“if there be a necessity of swearing, call to record, yºv, #xtov,
ãa tigaç, oùgavöv, the earth, the sun, the stars, the heavens.”
They also swore by Jerusalem, and by the temple. But then
observe they did not look upon these as binding oaths. So
Maimonides saith,; “If any man swear by heaven, or by
earth, yet this is not an oath.” And R. Judah,S “That he
that saith by Jerusalem, it is nothing, unless with an intent
purpose he shall vow towards Jerusalem ; and this Martial
intimates in that known distich,
Ecce negas, jurasque mihi per templa Tonantis:
Non credo: jura, verpe, per Anchialum.
And hence our Lord informs them, that this was their great
mistake, all these oaths being in effect oaths made by God,
and so as binding as those in which he personally was named.
And seeing an oath is a solemn appeal to what we swear by
as a witness of the truth, and an avenger of the falsehood
of the testimony, it follows, that all our oaths made by in-
sensate creatures must in effect be oaths made by that God
whose creatures they are, or none at all. And therefore St.
Jerome here truly notes, that Judaei per angelos et urbem
Jerusalem, et templum, et elementa jurantes, creaturas,
resque carnales venerabantur obsequio et honore Dei. “The
Jews are guilty of idolatry in swearing by angels, the tem-
ple, and by other creatures.” And therefore, by parity of
reason, the papists, who swear by Saints, images, and relics,
must be guilty of the like idolatry. -
* Buxt. Lev. in voce Dºw.
+ De special. legib. p. 594, C.
# See Light. in loc,
§ In Shevaoth, cap. 12.
CHAPTER V.
63
36 Neither shalt thou swear * by thy head, be-
cause thou canst not make one hair white or black
(for the preservation of that life, of which the head is
the fountain, is not in thy power, but depends out him
by whom we live : and therefore to swear by it, is in
effect to swear by him who hath the power of life and
death in his hands).
37 But let your communication be, * Yea, yea,
nay, nay (an ordinary, or at the most a redoubled af.
jirmation, or negation) ; for whatsoever is more than
these cometh of evil (i. e. from some evil principle, as
want of reverence of the great name of God, or from that
evil one who is the enemy to God, and to his honour).
38 °Ye have heard that it hath been said, (that he
who maimeth any body, shall restore) An eye for an
eye, and a tooth for a tooth (Exod. xxviii. 24, if the
maimed person shall require the judge to erecute this
punishment on the offender, and will not admit a pe-
cuniary compensation) ;
39 But I say unto you, That you' resist not evil
* Ver, 36. Måre iv tº zepaxi, &c. Neither by thy head,
jor thow camst not make one hair white or black.] This also
was a usual form of swearing among the Jews, who said to
their neighbour, Swear to me Twn- ºria”, “by the life of
thy head ;” now, saith Christ, the preservation of that life,
of which the head is the fountain, is not in thy power, but
depends entirely upon him by whom we live ; and so to
swear by it is, in effect to swear by him who hath the power
of life and death.
* Ver. 37. Tà è treetcay roºrov, fix tº trowneº Harw, For
what is more than this cometh of evil..] These words import
either, -
First, That swearing in our common discourse proceeds
from some inherent evil, as certainly it doth from an unhal-
lowed heart, from a soul void of reverence to God, and there-
fore prone to vilify his sacred name ; or,
Secondly, That it proceeds from Satan, and that he it is
who tempts us to mix them with our common talk. And
this interpretation well comports with the signification of the
word & Troyngöz, being most frequently used in the New Testa-
ment to signify this wicked one: thus Épxera, 3 movnº, “the
wicked one cometh and snatcheth away the seed,” Matt. xii.
19, the devil doth it, ver. 39. Cain is declared to be in roſ,
Troyngow, from the devil ; God’s children have overcome” rôy
Troyngöv ; they “keep themselves” so that 5 movnpöc “the evil
one doth not touch them.” Now, this is a full demonstra-
tion of the vileness and horrid nature of this sin, that we are
most particularly excited to it by him who is the worst of
beings, and bears the greatest hatred and opposition to God's
glory; and therefore, if he be so diligent to tempt us to the
commission of it, we may be assured it is, because he knows
it highly tends to the dishonour of God, and to deprive us of
that reverence to his most sacred name, which can alone
restrain us from the commission of the worst of evils.
**Ver. 38, 39. Hzoözars, &c. You have heard it hath been
said to them of old, An eye for an eye, &c. But I say unto
you, Resist not evil..] Of this law of talio, let it be observed ;
First, From Grotius, that it bound not the party damaged
to require the like punishment, but left him free, either to
forgive or take a compensation ; but if this penalty was re-
quired by him, it bound the judge to inflict it. For to the
judge only it is said, “thy eye shall not spare or pity him,
but eye shall go for eye,” &c. (Deut. xix. 18. 2i). And
hence it follows, secondly, that the party hurt or damaged
could not himself be the executioner of this law; but was
obliged, if he would require the punishment, to repair to the
magistrate for the execution of it; for this punishment was
to be executed by the judges (Exod. xxi. 22, 23), and there-
fore, as the words, “thou shalt not pity” (Deut. xix.), relate
only to the judge ; so also the words, “as he hath done, so
shall it be done to him” (Lev. xxiv. 19), relate to the same
person, as if it had been said, “so shall it be done to him by
the judge;” but they obligenot the injured party to require the
judge so to do. Now hence it follows, that they mistake Christ's
meaning in the following words, opposed to this law, who say,
Christ only doth forbid that resistance of evil, and return of in-
juries, which private persons do themselves attempt, without
repairing to the magistrate for redress; for private vengeance
or execution of punishment upon offenders, was never per-
mitted to the Jews themselves; whereas those words, “but
I say unto you,” seem plainly to evince that Christ forbids the
Christian something which was permitted to the Jew. Note,
thirdly, that the Jewish doctors generallymaintain that the put
nishment of “an eye for an eye, or a tooth for a tooth,” might ||
be redeemed by money, or that satisfaction might be made by
* Talmud. Sanhed, cap. 3, Hal. 2.
a pecuniary mulct ; Josephus” is express, that “the law al-
lowed him that was hurt to estimate his own damage, and
that if he would not take a pecuniary satisfaction, he was
deemed severe or cruel.” Hence the Targum of Jonathan
renders the words thus, “The price of an eye for an eye, the
price of a tooth for a tooth,” &c. both in Exod. xxi. 24,
in Lev. xxiv. 20, and in Deut. xix. 21. All these, say the
Hebrew doctors (except life for life), “may be redeemed by
money ;” and this they gather from Numb. xxxv. 31, “Ye
shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer;” so
that the other maims or hurts are not forbidden to be satis-
fied for: and in respect of satisfaction, it is said, Deut. xix.
21, “Thine eye shall not pity” (Maim. Treat. of Hurts, cap.
i. sect. 3, 4). So of the Roman law of the twelve tables,
A. Gellius+ asks what cruelty is in it, clim habeas facultatem
paciscendi, “when liberty is granted to compound the matter,
and there is no necessity of suffering the law, where men do
not choose to do so P” And this seems very reasonable in
many cases, there being some cases in which the law of talio
is impossible—as, if he that has lost his own teeth should
strike out the tooth of another ; some, in which it seems im-
practicable, as in “breach for breach, wound for wound ;” for
how difficult is it to make a wound neither deeper nor wider
than that the other hath received ; to break a bone, or make
a rupture in the scrotum, or elsewhere, just like another
made already : and sometimes it seems unmerciful to do it,
as in the case mentioned by Diodorus Siculus, t and by Aris-
totle, Rhetor. lib. i. cap. 7, of the man with one eye; for
would it not seem unmerciful to make him stark blind, be-
cause he hath casually, or in a sudden fit of anger, struck
out his brother's eye; or to cut off the right hand of a
painter or a scrivener, by which he maintains himself and
family, because he hath cut off the right hand of a songster,
or one who suffers little in his calling by the loss? Lastly, I
cannot think that God allowed this to be done by the damaged
person out of revenge, he having so expressly said (Lev. xix.
18), “Thou shalt not avenge, or bear any grudge against the
children of thy people ;” nor as a remedy of his grief, it be-
ing an unreasonable and ill-natured thing to desire to ease
my grief by causing grief to another, nor will either my pain
or loss be less, because another suffers the like pain or loss:
this therefore only seemeth to be granted as it tends to the
public good, by causing men to be more careful how they
offend in this kind. -
Secondly, That which Christ here forbids, in opposition to
what has been granted to the person injured by this law, is
&yriatival, “to resist” evil in kind, by requiring the execu-
tion of this law of retaliation upon him ; as being that
which tended not to the diminution of the Christian's pain
or loss, and therefore seemed not suitable to Christian cha-
rity. (2.) In matters easy to be borne, rather to suffer them
with Christian patience, than to contend before a judge about
them, or to require compensation of him for them. For it
is to be noted,
(1.) That the “striking” of a freeman “on the cheek”
with open palm, was only matter of disgrace; and he that
did it was, by the law of the twelve tables, $ to pay twenty-
**o trngºra; Tao Xéro, rà &ota, a regogºvo; o' tºy &AAoy
#arignore, Trafiy si ºr xphºwara Aaflāv #&#xnarev 6 retrºpolºčvoc,
aúrów Tremovšára zúptov roi, Vágov Troioſyros righa-aa-6a, tº avºz85-
8mzā; airá oré,00; kai avyxogoûvros, El Azi, Bo Jamtat yivsa Sat
Trixgårego;. Antiq. lib. iv. cap. 8, p. 128, C.
+ A. Gell. lib. xx. cap. 1. f Lib. xii. p. 298.
§ Lucius Peratius pro delectamento habebat os hominis
liberi manús suae palmä verberare et quemcumque depalma-
verat, ei numerari secundum duodecim Tabellas quinque et
Viginti asses jubebat. A. Gell. lib. XX, cap. 1.
64
MIATTHEW.
(i.e. oppose not violence to violence) ; but whosoever
shall smite thee on the right cheek turn to him the
other also (i.e. bear rather that disgrace redoubled pa-
tiently, than give him stroke for stroke).
40 And if any man will sue thee at the law, and
take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also (i. e.
suffer one small and reparable wrong after another,
rather than contend by law with him).
five asses, or halfpence ; and by the Jewish canons, to pay,
if he gave one blow upon the cheek, two hundred zuzees; if
he gave him another, four hundred ; and these mulcts were
established and inflicted by the judge (see Dr. Lightfoot).
But Christ will rather have both these injuries borne pa-
tiently, than that his servants should contend before the
judge for reparation of the disgrace put upon them.
(2.) As for the taking the outward coat, that seems but
a small loss to him that hath an inward coat remaining: for
the Baptist requires him that hath “two coats, to give to
him that hath none” (Luke iii. 11), and Christ suffers not
his disciples to provide two coats for their journey (Matt. x.
10). Though, therefore, by the Jewish canons, a mulct of
four hundred zuzees was allowed for this, Christ requires
those who, being so well provided, may reasonably be sup-
posed able to repair the loss of both, to do it rather than
contend, or wage law for the reparation of his loss before a
heathen, or a Jewish magistrate: so St. Paul also ; “Why
do you not rather suffer wrong?” (1 Cor. vi. 7.)
(3.) If the king's officer will &yyapsûew, “compel or press
thee,” who hast a privilege or immunity from these affairs,
as the Jews thought the disciples of the wise and students of
the law had ; yet, saith Christ, I require my disciples rather
to wave this privilege, than to contend for this immunity:
so that, according to this sense, Christ here requires his dis-
ciples to remit tolerable injuries, relating eithel to their repu-
tation, as in the first instance, or their possessions and
estates, as in the second, or to their privilege and freedom, as
in the third, rather than to contend at the law about them.
If this exposition be not liked, it is observable, that zeived sai
and xgiveſy is also to contend by fighting, or striving with an-
other, Ór using force to repel the injury. So Ecclus. vi. 10,
“A man cannot, ºpiššval, strive or fight with one that is
stronger than himself.” So 2 Macc. xv. 17, ºval r& Trpáy-
&ara, is to “try the matter by conflict, or to fight it out ;”
in which sense Christ may be supposed to command, rather
that his servants should patiently suffer these things, than
fight and strive with those who offer such affronts and in-
juries to them. * -- -
*7. Wer. 42. Tº aircüvri as 38ov, wai rāy &#xovira &ré cov
Baysia aabai º żºroa reap;, Give to him that asketh ; and from
him that would borrow of thee, turn thou not away, Here
it is certain,
(1.) That Christ by saying (Luke vi. 35), “Give to every
one that asketh,” doth not require us to give to every one
that asketh whether he need or not, nor whether we can
spare it or not, but only to give to him that asketh out of
need, what we are able to bestow, and do not ourselves
want : so Paul, by asking the charity of the Corinthians, for
the distressed Jews, saith, “I mean not that others be eased
and you burdened, but that your abundance be a supply for
their want,” 2 Cor. viii. 13, 14. (2.) These words may have
respect to the precedent, and be intended to teach Christians,
not to be unwilling to give to others, because they have dis-
graced or unjustly taken something from us; nor to upbraid
them in their wants, with their deportment towards us, and
call upon them first to restore what they have taken from
us, but even to show kindness to them, as if they had not thus
offended. (3.) I see no reason from changing our transla-
tion from, “Turn thou not away,” into “Turn not him
away ;” for as men, 3roatpeºpépcevoi Tây &A#Selay (Tit. i. 14),
are men “turning away from the truth :” so roy SéAwta,
pań 3rootpaqfic, may be 3rd roi SáNovros twº orga pic,
“from him that would borrow of thee, turn not thou away.”
* Ver. 43. Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou
shalt love thy neighbour, kai airhagic rºw #xSeáv arov, and
shall hate thine enemy.] Here note, (i.) that these words,
“Thou shalt hate thine enemy,” are not found in the law
of Moses; though nothing is more frequent in the Jewish
canons, nothing more certain in their practice, than that they
41 And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile,
go with him twain (rather than maintain thy liberty
by forcibly opposing his compulsion).
42 (And if men do not use force, but only ask, or de-
sire to borrow of thee), * give to him that asketh of
thee (what thou hast to spare); and from him that
would borrow of thee turn not thou away.
43 *Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou
had, as Tacitus observes, intestimum odium adversus omnes.
alios, “a deadly hatred against all that were not of their reli-
gion ;” which affords a strong argument, that Christ here is
not correcting or adding to the moral precepts of the law ;
but opposing the corrupt interpretations of the scribes and
pharisees, of which we have this farther argument, That the
law expressly doth require this love of enemies and the love
of strangers in the highest measure, saying (Lev. xix. 18),
“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself;” and (ver. 34),
“The stranger that sojourneth with you, shall be as one
home-born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself;
for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Now here it
cannot be truly answered, as the Jews and some Christians
do, that the “neighbour” (ver. 18), is only a Jew, and not
a stranger; for both our Saviour and St. Paul, speaking of
these very words, do plainly show the contrary, as is fully
proved, note on Matt. xxii. 39. Moreover, every Egyptian
man and woman is a neighbour (Exod. xi. 2), and so is every
other man (Deut. xxii. 26). And even Kimchi on Ps. xv.
3, saith truly, “A neighbour is every one with whom we have
any dealing or conversation ;” and so also the word “neigh-
bour” must signify in the tenth commandment, if it do not
leave the Israelite free to covet the wife of the gentile. Nor
(2.) can it be truly said, the “stranger” mentioned ver. 34,
is only a proselyte of justice, or one who had obliged himself
to observe the law of Moses. For (1.) the text speaks of
such strangers as they themselves were in the land of Egypt,
where they were strangers of a different religion from the
Egyptians: so again (Deut. x. 18, 19), “God loveth the
stranger in giving him food and raiment; love ye therefore
the stranger, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt:”
which words afford another argument for the love of all
strangers permitted to be among them, though they were not
of their religion ; because in this affection they were to imi-
tate God's love to strangers, which extended not only to
those of their religion, but even to all that conversed with
them, “in giving food and raiment to them” (see xxiv. 22).
Obj. It is objected, That God's commands concern the
seven nations, that they should “utterly overthrow them "
(Exod. xxiii. 24); that they should “smite them, and ut-
terly destroy them ;” that they should “make no covenant
with them, nor show mercy to them” (Deut. vii. 2). . That
of the Ammonite and Moabite it is said, “Thou shalt not
seek their peace, nor their prosperity, all thy days for ever”
(Deut. xxiii. 6); and of the Amalekites, “Thou shalt blot
out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven ; thou
shalt not forget it” (Deut. xxv. 19). Habemus ergö hostes,
habemus et odium ; “Here we find the enemies, and the
hatred,” saith Grotius.
Ans. Here is indeed an instance of God’s hatred of, and
severe displeasure against, these nations, whom he com-
manded them thus to root out and destroy, without that
mercy and pity which might preserve them from that de-
struction he had decreed against them for their abominable
impurities and idolatries; but here is no instance of a com-
mand given to the Jews to hate them. For,
First, It is observable, that the war waged against them
is called the “Lord's war,” and he promiseth to destroy
them ; and their neglect of doing it, even to a man, is styled
“disobedience against the Lord.” This is extremely evi-
dent in the case of the Amalekites, God having aid, he
would “utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek for
ever,” and sworn, “he would have war with Amalek, from
generation to generation” (Exod. xvii. 14, 16). Accord-
ingly, when the Lord sent Saul to smite Amalek, and ut-
terly destroy them, and “spare them not, but slay both man
and woman, infant and suckling” (1 Sam. xv. 3), it was no
argument of Saul's hatred to them that he went to execute
this command of the Lord, but an act of disobedience that
he spared Agag, and the best of the sheep. And in like
CHAPTER VI.
65
love thy neighbour, and (this by the scribes and pha-
risees is interpreted as a permission to) hate thine enemy:
44 *But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless
them that curse you, do good to them that hate you,
and pray for them that despitefully use you, and per-
secute you (i. e. be kindly affected towards your ene-
anies, and ready to do yood to them for evil, and the
good you cannot do yourselves, pray that God would do
for them) ;
45 That (so) you may (appear to) be the children
of your Father which is in heaven (by your likeness to
Jim :) for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and
on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the
unjust.
manner the war against the seven nations was the “Lord’s
war;” and the Israelites which fought against them were
the “Lord's hosts" (Josh. v. 14); and the destruction of
them he ascribes to himself, saying, “I will destroy all the
people to whom thou shalt come” (Exod. xxiii. 27). “I
drive out before thee the Amorite ” (Exod. xxxiv. 11, see
HDeut. vii. 12). So that the Jews were only the executioners
of God's vengeance upon these nations for their abominable
idolatries, beastly lusts, and horrid cruelties; and sure an
executioner may do according to the sentence of the judge,
without hatred of those he executes; nor is it any sign of
hatred to them that he spares not them of whom the judge
hath said, “Thou shalt not spare them.” Moreover, the
reason given why they should not “show mercy” to them
in sparing their lives, being this (Deut. vii. 4), “For they
will turn away thy son from following me, that they may
serve other gods; so will the anger of the Lord be kindled
against you, and destroy thee suddenly.” This sparing
mercy towards them would have been not only disobedience
to God’s commands, but also cruelty to themselves and
their posterity; and so it proved in the issue. And, lastly,
whereas it is said of the Ammonite and Moabite, “Thou
shalt not seek their peace, nor their prosperity, all thy days
for ever;” the import of these words is this, saith Grotius,
Thou shalt not do it by entering into leagues of friendship,
mutual assistance, and conjugal society, with them, and that
‘by reason of the danger they might suffer by their friendship
with them, who, being their near neighbours, would watch
all opportunities to ensnare and disturb them. This pre-
cept therefore was to be observed, not so much out of hatred
or ill-will to them, as out of friendship to themselves, and
regard to their own good.
* Ver. 44. 'Ey& Sã Afyo, jºy, &yatrăre row: #x0pow; ipºv,
But I say to you, Love your enemies, &c.] To this restrained
affection of the Jews, to their own brethren, and men of
their religion, Christ here opposeth his excellent precept of
Ioving enemies. And that (i.) by showing a sincere affec-
tion and good-will to them who bear enmity or ill-will to us,
and by expressing our beneficence to them who, by their
actions, show their hatred to us; and in our works, by
doing good to them for evil; and in our words, by blessing
them who with their mouths curse us ; and praying for
God’s blessing upon them who revile and persecute us as
his enemies. And this affection he recommends to us,
First, From the plain absurdity of the Jewish doctrine,
46 For if you (restrain your) love (to) them (only)
which love you, what reward have you ? (i. e. what
reason to eagect any reward from God for so doing *
for) do not even the publicans (whom you look upon
as men deserted by God, do) the same * -
47 And if ye salute (or kindly treat) your brethren
only, what do you more than others do not even
the publicans so (also) 8
48. Be ye therefore perfect (in your charity and
mercy to others), even as your Father which is in hea-
ven is perfect (and then your eminent good works will
eminently be rewarded by him).
which made them no better in this respect than those sin-
ners, publicans, and heathens, whom they allowed them-
selves to hate. For, “if you only love them who love you,
what reward have you ? Do not even the publicans the
same, even sinners?” saith St. Luke, vi. 36, “If you salute
your brethren only, what excellent thing do you ? Do not
even the publicans,” or, as some copies have it, “heathens,
so P” Which words being so directly levelled against that
hatred the Jews allowed themselves to these three sorts of
men, shows that the foregoing words, “Thou shalt hate
thine enemy,” are not to be restrained to the seven nations.
Secondly, That they who boasted of this as their proper
title and their peculiar glory, that they were “the sons of
God,” might show they really were so, by their resemblance
of his goodness, who is “kind to the unthankful and to the
wicked” (Luke vi. 35). For, “he maketh his sun to rise
on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and
on the unjust” (ver. 45). So Seneca, Si Deos imitaris, da
et ingratis beneficia, nam et sceleratis sol oritur ; “If thou
wouldest imitate the gods, be kind to the unthankful, for
the sun rises on the wicked” (De Benef lib. v. cap. 25).
“The immortal gods,” saith Antoninus, “not only patiently
bear with the wicked men, but also x}}oyºral airröy ºrayrolac,
take all manner of care of them ; and shalt thou, a mortal
man, be weary of bearing with them, kai raira, Éiº &y rāv
tavºv, when thou art one of them 2 ° Lib. vii. Ş. 70 (see
Gataker in Anton. p. 291.316. 33.1).
Thirdly, That this will render us complete in this great
duty of love and mercy to others; ver. 48, “Be ye (in this)
perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” That this
command is thus to be restrained, we learn (1.) from the
parallel words, Luke vi. 36, “Be ye therefore merciful, as
your heavenly Father is merciful ;” and (2.) from the pre-
ceding words, which call not on us to resemble God in holi-
ness, justice, fidelity, but only in beneficence and mercy, as
well to the evil as the good : so that there is no reason to
extend this perfection here beyond the subject-matter,
though it be true, that in all other perfections in which we
are required to imitate him, we are to come as near unto
him as we can, truly resembling that pattern, which we can-
not, nor by this precept are obliged to, equal; for imitatio
stat citra exemplar, “imitation falls below the pattern”
(see here Examen Millii).
[See the appendix to this chapter at the end of this gos-
pel.]
CHAPTER WI.
# "Take heed that ye do not your alms before men,
to be seen of them; otherwise (if that be your induce-
ment to perform them), ye have no reward of your
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VI.
*Ver. I. rigoréxºte Tây insmºod why tºw º Troisſy fºrenzösy
‘rāv &v6;&ray, ºrgöc rô 6saôāyat airroſ. Take heed that ye do
not your alms before men, to be seen of them, &c..] Christ
in this chapter teacheth, that those works, which are other-
wise good in themselves, are not acceptable to God when
they are done out of vain-glory; because they are done, not
for God's sake, but for our own ; not with respect to his glory,
Father which is in heaven (because then you do alms,
not out of obedience to his commands, or in resemblance
of his goodness, but rather from vain-glory).
which ought to be the chief end of every action (1 Cor.
x. 31. 1 Pet. iv. 11), but that we may obtain glory from,
and favour with, men. But here note, -
First, That Christ doth not forbid us to perform those
works of charity, which, being in their nature public, tend to
procure respect and good reputation among men, since they
fall under the general precepts of “providing rà wax&things
honourable in the sight of all men º’ (Rom. xii. 17), and
approved of men (xiv. 18), and of “thinking of those things
{
66
MATTHEW.
2 Therefore, when thou doest thy alms, do not j
sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do
(proclaiming their actions) in the synagogues, and in
the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily
I say unto you, *They have their reward (i. e. that ap-
plause of men they seek for, and no more).
3 But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand
know what thy right hand doeth: (but do them so)
4 That thine alms may be in secret, and (then) thy
*Father, which seeth in secret (the sincerity of thy love
to others for his sake), himself shall reward thee
openly (before men and angels).
5 And (likewise) when thou prayest, thou shalt not
be” as the hypocrites are (doing this out of vain osten-
tation:) for they love to pray standing in the syna-
gogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may
be seen of men (and be deemed devout persons by them).
Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet;
and, when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father
which is in secret (and invisible, both in his nature and
operations); and thy Father, which seeth in secret,
shall reward thee openly. -
7 But when ye pray,” use not vain repetitions (or
which are good, virtuous, lovely, honourable, of good report,
and are praiseworthy” (Phil. iv. 8) and which St. Paul, in the
distribution of the Corinthians' alms attended to (2 Cor. viii.
21), provided these things be done, not chiefly because they
are “commendable in the sight of men, but,” because they
are “acceptable to God” (Rom. xiv. 18); not that they may
gain glory to us, but to God, and our religion (1 Pet. ii. 12),
and remove all occasions of bringing any scandal on it (Tit.
ii. 8. 1 Pet. iii. 16). Nor, secondly, doth he absolutely for-
bid us to do these things, that men may see them, provided
we desire not they may be seen from ostentation or vain-
glory ; but that men “seeing our good works, may glorify our
Father which is in heaven” (v. 16. 1 Pet. ii. 9). Nor,
thirdly, doth Christ forbid us to do these things, so that others
Seeing us may profit by our example, and be excited to good
works, or so as to seek a good reputation among men, pro-
vided we desire it, only for the public good, that we may be
more instrumental to promote God's glory, and that others
may more freely hearken to our good admonitions; for in
these cases we do not properly intend our own advantage,
but God's glory, the welfare of souls, and the public good ;
nor have we our own praise and glory, but those higher ends,
for the scope of all such actions. Moreover, it being not
apparent from any of their writings, that it was customary
with the Jews to “sound a trumpet” when they distributed
their alms; this seems only a proverbial expression, for
making a thing known or public, as both Jews and heathens
were used to do by the sound of a trumpet, calling the mul-
titude together, saith Phavorinus, by it, using it in their
triumphs, and before they began to act their tragedies or
comedies (see Examen Millii here).
*Ver, 2. 'Aghy Aéyo tºº, 3réxovii Tây ºt-Sèv airāv, Verily,
I say unto you, They have their reward.] It is the observ-
ation of the Jews, that “God punishes all the light evil deeds
of good men in this life, that he may reward them in the
next, and that he rewards all the good actions of bad men in
this life, that he may punish them in the next.” He often
gives them the outward things they set their hearts upon;
sensual pleasures, wealth, honour, and glory, with men, and
thus “they have their good things” and their “reward ” in
this life; and this is very truly and very equitably so. For
these things, which can only be enjoyed in the body, and
during this present life, are the things they chiefly prize, have
their desires and affections set upon, and most industriously
Pursue, comparatively despising the things above, and neg-
lecting their future interests, and so they very properly are
styled “ their good things,” Luke xvi. 25. And happiness
heing the general end of all men, they who thus chiefly
prize, and above all other things pursue, these sensual plea-
Sures, honours, and enjoyments, must chiefly place their
happiness in them, and look upon them as the most com-
fortable, most satisfactory, and most desirable, reward of all
their labours, and so in the enjoyment of them “ they have
their reward.” They therefore cannot charge God with
hardships to them, they having done no good thing for which
he hath not rewarded them according to their hearts' desire.
He hath given them the good they chose for their portion,
and made them as happy as they would be ; he hath given
them the things they above all things loved and delighted in,
and in which they placed their chief happiness, and only lets
them want the things which they despised, as not worth
their labour; which, being offered upon reasonable terms,
they scornfully neglected and refused; and of which, by this
refusal and neglect, they have rendered themselves both un-
worthy and incapable.
4 - - - -----
*Ver. 4. Airã; 3708&ael alot #y tº payséâ, And thy Father,
who seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly..] Though it
be true which Grotius here observes, that God doth often
visibly reward the sincere charity of pious persons, performed
from true love to him, with temporal blessings in this life,
yet will he chiefly do it in the sight of men and angels in the
world to come (Matt. xxv. 35. Luke xiv. 14). And it is
observable, that the very thing we are forbid to seek from
men on earth, is part of that reward we shall receive at that
great day, when our faith and charity shall be found to “our
praise, honour, and glory ;” (1 Pet. i. 7), and that good men,
by patient continuance in well-doing, are said to seek for
“glory" and “honour,” as well as “immortality,” Rom ii.
7, and have the promise of it, ver. 10 (see Examen Millii
here).
*Ver. 5. Kai &ray ºrporeſyn, oùx écº & Tse of Üroxetta, ār
‘pixºtiaty. And when thow prayest, thou shalt not be as the
hypocrites: who love to pray standing in the synagogues and
in the corners of the streets.] Christ doth not here condemn
all prayer made in the synagogues, seeing both he and his disci-
ples often prayed with the Jews in the synagogues (Luke iv.
16), nor any public devotions in the house of God; but
speaking only here of private prayer, he would have that
performed agreeably to the nature of it, and so im Secret;
and condemns them only who affected to do this in public
places, that others might take notice of them, and look upon
them as devout, religious persons for so doing.
* Ver. 7. IIpogeuxáaevo, 33 ºwh 8atroxoyńants, &ams; oi #6vixot'
Boxotic yºg ºr #y rà troxvAoyig airåy sizazova 6hrowrai. But
when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathens do :
for they think they shall be heard for their much speaking.]
What we here render “vain repetitions,” is, in the Greek,
battology; which seems not well rendered by Chrysostom
and Theophylact, pāvakia, “trifling, in asking little temporal
things;” nor by Hesychius or Phavorinus, &Aoyoxoyia, ākaipo-
Acyia, “speaking vainly and unseasonably ;” but is well ren-
dered by Suidas, TroxvAoyla, “ much speaking ;” for (1.) our
Lord seems plainly thus to explain himself, “use not the
battology of the hcathens, who think to be heard for their
much speaking:” (2.) so doth the Arabic, “multiply not
words;” so the Vulgar, molite multâm loqui, “do not speak
much :” and (3.) this is agreeable to the like precept of the
preacher, Eccles. v. 2, “God is in heaven, thou on earth,
therefore let thy words be few ;” and of the son of Sirach
(vii. 14), u% 8avregºn; Aéyov #y ºrpoo’evXī cov, “ Multiply not
words in thy prayer:” and (4.) this seems to follow from the
short form of prayer prescribed, in opposition to this heathen
practice, and introduced with an otºrwg ov, “so therefore
pray ye.” But still it remaineth difficult to give a determi-
nate sense to this “much speaking,” and say precisely when
this 8Evrégoric, or “repetition of the same words,” is vain.
For
First, We cannot reasonably conceive our Saviour here
condemns all repetition of the same words in prayer; espe-
cially when it arises from a deep sense of our necessities,
and a vehement desire of divine grace. For he himself
prayed thrice, in the same words, to be delivered from the
bitter cup. It is also highly probable that, as David com-
posed it by the Spirit of God, so Christ sung the hymn called
hallel magnum, beginning at Ps. cxv. and ending at Ps.
cxviii. where in the first four verses the same words frequently
occur. It was also usual for prophets, and men of excellent
and raised devotion, to use the same words in the same
prayer; so doth Daniel, ch. ix. saying, ver. 5, “We have
sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done
CHAPTER VI.
6?
words of the same import, to lengthen out your
prayers), as the heathens do; for they think they shall
be heard for their much speaking. -
8 *Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your
Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before
ye ask him (and is still ready to grant the desires which
come from a sincere and honest heart; so that he needs
neither your words to inform, nor your persuasives to
move, him; and so your requests to him may be absolved
in few words).
wickedly, and have rebelled ;” ver. 17. “O our God, hear
the prayer of thy servant, and his supplications;” ver. 18,
“O my God, incline thine ear, and hear;” and ver, 19, “O
Lord, hear; O Lord, hearken.” How oft doth the royal
psalmist say (Ps. cxix.), “Teach me, O Lord, thy statutes,
ordinances, commandments, judgments, the way of thy sta-
tutes?” In Ps. cwii. we have four times these words, “Oh
that men would praise the Lord for his goodness” (ver. 8.
15. 21.31), and in Ps. cxxxvi, the same words are repeated
twenty-six times,
This repetition, therefore, can only be accounted vain,
when it is not requisite to heighten the devotion, or when it
is used, as the heathems did, to lengthen out devotion, or as
the comedians have it, Deorum aures contundere, “to stun
the ears of the gods,” as if we thought they could not hear
or understand, nisi idem dictum sit centies, “unless we say
the same thing over and over ;” and this seems to have been
the design of the Baalites, in crying out from morning to
noon, “O Baal, hear us” (1 Kings xviii. 26).
Secondly, It also seems not agreeable to scripture, or
reason, to assert that all long prayers are forbidden by these
words of Christ ; though many things which make them so
may be here by analogy forbidden, as coming under the
reason of the prohibition ; I say, all prayers continued to a
considerable length seem not forbidden ; for the prayer of
Solomon at the dedication of the temple was such, and so is
that in Neh. ix. where we are also told “that they con-
fessed and worshipped for three hours.” In the New Testa-
ment (to omit the example of our Lord, who, according to
our version, “continued all might in prayer,” as not conclu-
sive, because it may be rendered, he “continued all night in
a synagogue, or house devoted to the sérvice of God ;” see
the note on Luke vi. 12, and yet not wholly impertinent,
because Matt. xiv. 23. Luke vi. 12, he went up thither “to
pray,” and therefore may be reasonably supposed to have
spent much of that time in that duty) we find the church
thus praying for the deliverance of St. Peter; for as the
prayer itself is styled ºrporeuxh #wreyhe, “prayer extended "
to a considerable length; so when St. Peter came to the
house, he found them still “praying ” (Acts xii. 5. 12).
We also find St. Paul “praying night and day,” and
that ùrè; #xtregio'a oil, “more abundantly,” that he might
see his Thessalonians (1 Thess. iii. 10); and also praying
and giving thanks, and making mention of other churches in
his prayers “incessantly” (Rom. i. 9. 1 Cor. i. 4. Eph. i. 16.
Phil. i. 4. Col. i. 3. 1 Thess. i. 2, ii. 13. 2 Tim. i. 3), which
sure must render his supplications of a considerable length.
And, thirdly, he requires these churches reoakagreesty, to
“continue instant in prayer,” Rom. xii. 12, to “pray always
with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, &yev'ryotivtsº,
watching thereunto with all perseverance, and supplication
for all saints,” Eph. vi. 18, to continue “in prayer, yenyo-
goivres, watching in the same with thanksgiving,” Col. iv. 2,
to “pray without ceasing,” 1 Thess. v. 17, and makes it the
duty of the widow (after the example of St. Ann, Luke ii.
37), "reocºşvely, to “continue in prayers and supplications
night and day,” 1 Tim. v. 5; which precepts seem plainly to
suppose their prayers should sometimes be extended to a
considerable length ; and therefore that he did not think
that length was inconsistent with the injunction here de-
livered by our Lord. But then positively (first) these words
seem plainly to condemn prayers lengthened out upon this
apprehension, that we shall be the sooner “heard for our
much speaking ;” because this is the very thing in which we
are forbidden to be like the heathens; and yet this seems to
have been also the misapprehension of the Jewish doctors,
when they lay down these rules,” “That every one that
multiplies prayer shall be heard,” and that the “prayer which
is long shall not return empty.” And (secondly) all that
much speaking must be vain, by which we hope with our
fair speeches to incline, or by our arguments to move, or by
* Buxtorf, Flor. p. 281.
pathetical entreaties to persuade, God to grant us our re-
quests, whilst we continue in our sins, and so are indisposed
to receive a gracious answer from him. And indeed, what is
it to attempt to move him by arguments, but to think to
move him by something he doth not know, or hath not con-
sidered already ? What is it to assay to incline him by fair
speeches, and by importunity, but to look upon him rather
as a man, that changeth without cause, than as an unchange-
able God, who cannot vary from the just methods of his
government, to gratify the importunity of his creatures?
And yet experience shows, that when men have thus flat-
tered and importuned God with their lips, they are apt to
think that he on this account will hear them, and that what
is thus prevalent with men cannot be lost when tendered to
a gracious God. And (thirdly) the form and exemplar given
us being so short and concise in its addresses for the ad-
vancement of God's honour, and of his kingdom, and our
obedience to his will, for pardon of sin, and preservation from
it ; that we in it only request in general terms things of so
vast importance, leaving the distinct matter, and manner, and
measure, according to which they should be disposed, to the
wisdom and goodness of God; I say, this form seems to in-
struct us, that in our daily and customary addresses to God
for the same blessings which we daily want, we should use
words as comprehensive, general, and free from needless re-
petitions as we can, and then of necessity our prayers must
be concise, and our words few and well digested. -
* Ver. 8. Be not ye therefore like unto them, otºs yāg 3
trarie ü, öv čv xestay fixers, for your Father knoweth what
things ye have need of before ye ask.] If this argument
against speaking much be good, said some heretics” of old,
“why should we pray at all, seeing God knoweth all our
wants before we pray ?” To this St. Jerome answers, that
“we do not pray to declare our wants, but supplicate for the
relief of them :” and we may ask anything of him, who doth
already know we want it ; and if we know he is kind, and
ready to supply our wants, may therefore ask with greater
confidence. Origen + answers, that “he who knows all our
needs before we ask, knows also that it becomes not him to
give what they do want, who do not think it worth their
while to ask what they do want, and he alone can give ;”
because by this neglect they do not own him as the donor
of the things they want. But, though this may suffice to
answer this objection of the heretics, for the due understand-
ing of this text it may be necessary to add, (1.) that this
being offered as a reason why we should not be like the
heathens in speaking much in prayer to God, seems only to
import we should not do it on the accounts on which they
did it; viz. as questioning God's omniscience, and therefore
speaking thus to impart to him what he did not know, or to
inculcate what he might not presently attend to, or suggest
again what he had forgotten. For (1.) Cicero + himself
denies God’s omniscience, declaring that “he did not think
that God himself could know things casual and fortuitous.”
(2.) They thought it not fit to allow of a God “so curious
as to attend all things, to take care of all things, or to think
all things belonged to him.”$ And they thought it as well
impossible as insufferable in the God of the Christians, that
he should “diligently inspect the manners, actions, words,
* Si Deus, antequâm oramus, scit quibus indigeamus,
frustră scienti loquimur. Hieron. in locum. Ti, oy X;six
âvaršameróa sixãv tá was rely st:eróa iwigºrapºva & xf;.
Čop, sy. Orig. Tregi Eixãº, p. 15.
# Ibid. p. 22. -
†: Mihime in Deum cadere videatur, ut sciat quid cash
aut fortuitó futurum sit. De Divin. N. 12–14.
§ Imposuistis cervicibus nostris sempiternum Dominum,
quem dies et noctes timeanus, quis enim non timeat omnia
providentem, et cogitantem, et animadvertentem, et omnia
ad se pertinere putantem, curiosum et plenum negotii Deum.
Cicero de Nat. Deorum, lib. i. n. 39, et Acad. Qu. lib. ii.
11, 112. -
F 2
68.
MATTHEW.
9 "After this manner therefore pray ye, saying,
and secret thoughts of all men, and be everywhere present
with them.” Nor is it to be wondered that they should
have such apprehensions of many of the gods they wor-
shipped, when they had so many of them, their celestial,
aerial, and terrestrial gods; their profitable and hurtful, their
universal and topical gods; their gods eternal by nature, and
their gods born and made of mortal men; and made it the
business not of the supreme God, but of their demons, genii,
and heroes, to receive all our prayers and return answers to
them. But, w
(2.) By comparing these words with ver, 30, where we are
forbidden to be anxious about what we shall “eat, or drink,
or wherewithal we shall be clothed, for after all these things
do the gentiles seek; and your heavenly Father knoweth
you have need of all these things:” it may be conjectured,
that these words also do refer to the same matter, to wit, the
heathens' solicitude about, and their continual teasing of the
gods in long harangues for, these things. This being, in
the opinion of the Greek fathers, the “battology,” and
much speaking here reproved in the heathens by our Lord,
to wit, the being thus ardent in their desires after little and
earthly things. And then this will be suitable both to the
philosophy of Plato, t who commends the short prayer of the
Lacedemonians, who were never heard to say more than this,
Tâ wax& Étri roi; &ya30ſ; Seniº 3.8%wat, “that the gods would
give them things good and honourable;” which prayer, saith
he, the oracle preferred before the long addresses and pom-
pous sacrifices of the Athenians, who quarrelled with the gods
because they were not heard for their “much speaking ;”
and adds, that temporal things were not positively to be
asked, because no man knew whether he should use them ill
or well, and so whether they would be good or hurtful to
him ; and to the opinion and practice of Socrates, who prayed
to the gods, saith Xenophon, || &txàc rā āyašš 3.869ai, only
to give him good things in the general, leaving the particu-
lars to them who knew best what was good for him, and
disapproved of them who prayed for gold, silver, and for go-
vernment, as being things which might be as well hurtful to,
as good for, them : and more suitable to the Christian theo-
logy, which allows us to ask these things only conditionally,
with subordination to the divine will, and if his wisdom sees
they will be good for us; and according to the ancients, not
to pray for them at all, as knowing that as far as they are
good, they shall be added to them who “seek first the king-
dom of God and the righteousness thereof;” to which pur-
pose they often cite a passage from this chapter, not at present
to be found in it, viz. “Ask great things, and little things
shall be added unto you.”"
* Ver. 9. Otro"; oãy ºrporečysaşe iºceſs, So therefore pray
ye.] Here observe that the word úro); hinders not this from
being a command to utter the same words, as is apparent
from these words of St. Luke, xi. 2, “When ye pray, say,
Our Father ;” for the same word is used where a form of
words is certainly prescribed: thus in the form prescribed
for the Aaronical benedictions, oùrw; sixoyácere, “so shall ye
bless,” saying the words following (Numb. vi. 23); and when
God put a word into the mouth of Balaam, which he should
* Christiani Deum illum suum confingunt in omnium
mores, actus, omnium verba denique, et occultas cogita-
tiones diligentër inquirere, discurrentem scilicet, atque ubi-
que praesentem molestum illum volunt, inquietum, inpu-
dentër etiam curiosum, siquidem adstat factis omnibus,
locis omnibus interest, clim nec singulis inservire potest
per universa districtus, nec universis sufficere, in singulis
occupatus. Caecil. apud Minut. p. 10.
f Barrokoyota's yº; Kará ràv Aéây rot stayyexiou ºvoi of
#Svikoi, obº payraaiayasy4×oy #x2yrs; # #novgavíow airnº.4 roy,
ºrāgay Eixãy rāv oroparizāv Kai rāy Éx+3; &varégºrcytes. Orig.
ºrigi Eixãº, p. 63. Oi £arroxyntéow owy, oëbè ºupě airnºréoy,
ºë regi iwiyêio, Trgovevºršov. Ibid. p. 25. Chrysostom. et
Theophylact. in locum. -
# Alcib. 2, p. 458, B, C. .
§ Ibid. p. 453. | Memorab. lib. i. 571.
‘ſ Airão Se, pnai, rå øsyáxa, xai Tà peing& taſy trºozześń-
; Clem. Alex. Strom. i. p. 346, B. Orig. ºrsgi Etx%,
p. b%.
when ye pray, Luke xi. 2), “Our Father which art in
speak to Balak, God saith to him, oùrog XaXhasis, “so shalt
thou speak,” which is the same with ré 3: Aaxha sig, “these
words thou shalt speak” (Numb. xxiii. 5, 16). So in God's
words directed to the prophets, otro; Aéye ā Kūpioc, “Thus
saith the Lord,” Isa. viii. 1 1. xxviii. 16. xxx. 15. xxxvii.
33. xlii. 5. xliii. 1, 14, 16. lii. 4, lxv. 8. lxvi. 1, is the same
with rá8s Aéyé à Köpioc, “These things saith the Lord,” Isa.
xxx. 12. xxxvii. 21. lii. 3. lvii. 15. lxv. 13. lxvi. 12, and so
in the other prophets. And had not Christ intended this, he
would not have given his disciples a form of prayer, but the
heads only of the things they were to pray for. Secondly,
The disciples request him to teach them so to pray, “as John
had taught his disciples” (Luke xi. 1). Now it is highly pro-
bable that John taught his disciples to pray as the Jewish
masters taught their scholars, by giving them a form called
kaddish magistrorum, from which they used not to vary.
But though this be admitted, yet it is still disputed whether
this form were only given by Christ to his disciples, to be
used whilst they were infirm and weak, and before the
Holy Spirit fell down upon them, and was plentifully ef.
fused upon the church, or whether it were given as a stand-
ing form to be used by Christ's disciples, or by all Christians
throughout all ages of the church, as by the practice of
the church, at least from the third century, they seem to
have conceived. Two reasons are alleged to the contrary ;
W12. -
First, That though we read in the Acts of the Apostles,
of prayers made by the church, or by particular members
of it, yet we find not any intimation that they ever used
this form of prayer. We read that they prayed (Acts i. 24)
that God would show them whether Joseph or Matthias
was to be chosen into the place of Judas (Acts ii. 42);
that those who were converted continued in the doctrine
and fellowship of the apostles, and in breaking of bread
and in prayers (Acts iv. 24, 30). So we find the whole
church praying that God would enable them to “speak the
word with boldness, and would stretch out his hand to heal,
and to show signs and wonders through the name of his holy
child Jesus” (see vi. 6. viii. 15. xii. 5. xiii. 3. xx. 36). But
in none of these places have we the least intimation that
they ever used the Lord's prayer. In the martyrology of
Polycarp is inserted a large prayer made by him after his
condemnation ; but it concludes riot with this form, but with
the usual form of some of our collects.
Secondly, Because the second petition in this prayer being
this, “thy kingdom come,” they do not think it reasonable
to continue a petition for that which is come already ; God's
kingdom being come, and erected from the time that our
Saviour ascended into heaven, and sat down at the right hand
of glory. To this latter argument I shall give a full answer
when I come to that petition. -
To the first objection, an answer may be returned from a
known rule, that “a negative argument is of no validity ;"
indeed in matters of doctrine the argument is always good ;
we read of no such doctrine in the scriptures, therefore it
neither is nor can be any article of faith, because we have
no other rule of faith besides the holy scriptures; but
then in matters of practice this rule will not hold good, the
sacred penmen being under an obligation to deliver the
whole rule of faith, but under no obligation to give us a
full history of all that the apostles did : we never read that
the apostles prayed, or were baptized before our Lord's
resurrection; and shall we therefore say they never prayed,
or that they refused “the counsel of God,” as did the pha-
risees, “ in being not baptized of John P” After our Lord's
ascension we never read that any of the apostles, save Paul
and Peter, did baptize any ; we read not that they ever did
receive the Sacrament ; we read not that half of them ever
preached the gospel to any nations; and shall we therefore
say they did none of these things P St. John informs us,
that there were “many things which Jesus did, which were
not written” (xx. 30. xxi. 25); what wonder, therefore, is it
there should be many things which his apostles did, which
are not written ? Secondly, In most of the texts cited from
the Acts, we read not one word of the matter of their
prayer, but only in general that they prayed, and so no
semblance that they did not use the Lord's prayer. In the
CHAPTER VI.
69.
neaven (i. e. who, being in heaven, from thence beholdest
all our wants, Ps. xi. 4, and must be able to relieve
first instance the whole consists but of one verse; in the
second, but of two. Now after every collect or short eja-
culation; no man thinks it necessary or even proper to add
this prayer; but only that in some of our most solemn ad-
dresses, public or private, we should use this prayer. For
we are Christ's disciples as well as they to whom this prayer
was given, and so must very fitly use that prayer which is
the badge of a disciple of this Lord. The prayer itself is of
all others the most excellent and comprehensive, and as plain
as it is full ; it is so short that any man may learn it, so
clear that all may understand it, so full as to comprehend
all our wants, and so exact as to it instruct us what we should
be, as well as what we should ask, as being, saith Tertullian,
breviarium evangelii, “an epitome of the gospel.” It was
composed by him who had the Spirit above measure, as a
direction how and for what to pray, and so, as Cyprian says,
we hope, ut faciliūs audiamur, “to be more readily accepted
by our heavenly Father, when we come to him with the
words of his only Son.” The learned farther do observe, that
this prayer is taken out of the Jewish liturgies, in which we
wholly find it, excepting only these words, “as we forgive
them that have trespassed against us.” “Our Father which
art in heaven,” is in their Seder Tephilloth, or form of
prayers; “let thy name be sanctified, and the kingdom
reign,” in their form called Kaddish ; “let thy memory be
glorified in heaven above, and in earth beneath,” in the
Seder Tephilloth ; “forgive us our sins,” in the sixth of
their eighteen daily prayers; “deliver us not into the hand
of temptations,” and “deliver us from the evil figment,” in
that and the book Musar : “for thine is the power, and the
kingdom, for ever and ever,” is, saith Drusius, their usual
doxology. And, as hence Grotius notes, how far this Lord of
the church was from affecting novelty, or despising anything
because it was a form ; so others do hence justify the dox-
ology contained in the close of this prayer, which some
think to be an addition of the Greek fathers, because it is
wanting in the Latin, in St. Luke, and in many Greek copies
(see Examen War. Lect. Millii, lib. ii. cap. 1, n. 2).
Note, lastly, that this prayer consists of three parts, a
preface excellently fitted to prepare us for prayer, by filling
our hearts with charity to our brother, who bears the same
relation to our common Father, with reverence to him whose
“throne is in heaven,” seated over all, and with faith and
humble confidence in him, who being to us a Father, must
be ready to do his children good, and being “our heavenly
Father,” must, “ looking down from heaven upon the chil-
dren of men,” see all our wants, and must be able to sup-
ply them. “The Lord's throne is in heaven,” saith the
psalmist, “he doeth whatsoever pleaseth him.” Secondly,
It consists of six petitions, the three first of which call upon
us to pray for the sanctification of his name, the advance-
ment of his kingdom, and the performance of his will, teach-
ing us to make the glory of God, and the advancement of
his Son's kingdom, the chief end of all our actions; and
having first done his will, then expect provision and protec-
tion from him, and preservation from all evil. The three next
respect, (1.) our daily sustenance, as being that without which
we cannot be able to promote his glory, or to do his will :
(2) the remission of our past sins, that they may not obstruct
his blessings, and preservation from them for the future, that
we may not lose his favour: and, lastly, an agnizing the
supreme dominion, the power fit to be ascribed to, and the
glory due to God for ever.
* IIarèe hºw & #y ºrdſ; otpavoſ, Our Father which art in
heaven.] This being spoken to his disciples, who were Jews,
and had no distinct motion of a Trinity, must be understood
in the usual notion of the Jews, who styled the God of
Israel Yºnn “our Father ;” and so must signify the first per-
son in the blessed Trinity, they being not able to apprehend
it otherwise. Moreover our Lord still calls the God of
Israel his “heavenly Father ” (Matt. vii. 21. x. 32, 33. xi.
25. xii. 50. xv. 13. xvi. 17. xviii. 10. 19. 35. Luke x. 22),
clearly distinguishing himself in person from that “heavenly
Father ” with whom in essence he was one. This phrase
must therefore necessarily signify a distinct person from the
Son, nor is it certain that it ever bears any other sense in the
New Testament.
Now God is called “Father,” first, by right of creation,
“he having made us, and not we ourselves,” according to
that question of Malachi, ii. 10, “Have we not all one
Father, hath not one God created us * On which account
the scriptures style him “the Father of our spirits” (Heb.
xii. 9). Secondly, By right of providence and preservation,
for he “upholds our souls in life,” according to that ques-
tion of God to his own people; “Is he not thy Father which
hath bought thee, hath he not made thee and established
thee P” (Deut. xxxii. 6) he being that “one l’ather who is
above all things” by his power and essence, goes “through
all things” by his providence, and is “in all” by his pre-
sence (Eph. iv. 6). Thirdly, By right of vocation and adop-
tion, we being called to that faith in Christ, which consti-
tutes us “the sons of God” (John i. 12); we being all the
“children of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal. iii.
26), and by the renovation of the Holy Spirit, who enables
us to cry, “Abba, Father “ (Rom. viii. 15), and testifies
to our spirits, “that we are the sons of God “ (ver. 16);
“for as many as are led by the Spirit, they are the sons of
God” (ver. 14); in which sense he is styled “the Father of
onr Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven
and earth is named sons" (Eph. iii. 14, 15). The angels,
who by the Jews are styled his “family above,” being oftcalled
“the sons of God” (Job i. 6. ii. 1. xxxviii. 7), and good
men who are styled “his family on earth,” being made so by
adoption. Yet, though this be the most excellent notion of
a son, and in this sense especially God is the Father of the
Christian ; yet seeing, as the heathens have well noted; God
is communis humani generis parens, “the common Father
of mankind;” seeing he owned himself the Father of the
whole nation of the Jews, and styled them all his sons,—
the notion of a Father here must be extended to all the
senses mentioned, or at the least to all to whom God is 'a
Father, by calling them unto the faith ; since otherwise per-
sons of tender consciences, who doubted of their renovation
in the Spirit, and of their right to claim the privileges of the
adopted sons of God, could not recite this prayer in faith.
And, also, (2) then only could we pray for the regenerate
in this form of prayer, and so it would be only an imperfect
form ; we being bound in charity to pray for all men, that
they may “hallow his name,” and “do his will.”
Moreover, as this relation to God as our Father calls for
our reverence of him, our fear to offend him, our zeal for
his honour (Mal. i. 6. 1 Pet. i. 17), our obedience and kind-
ness to our “heavenly Father” in purity and holiness (l
Pet. i. 14, 15. Phil. ii. 15. 1 John iii. 2, 3), and in love to all
mankind (Eph. v. 1), even to them that are our enemies, and
“despitefully use us” (Matt. v. 44. 48); and, lastly, our
patient submission to all his fatherly chastisements (Heb. xii.
9, 10): so doth it naturally tend to cherish our faith, and
raise our hope of speeding in our sincere, fervent, and rea-
sonable addresses to the throne of grace; our Lord having
taught us to conclude, that “if earthly parents, being evil,
will give good things to their children, much more will our
heavenly Father give good things to those that ask him "
(Matt. vii. 9; 10). -
The word “our” is joined to Father, saith St. Chrysos-
tom, "Iva wowy ratéga #xely 3.82%%te; 385*$1zy ºrph &NA^ous
Seikyūowgsy rºy eiyotav, “That being taught, we have one com-
mon Father, we may love as brethren,” and pray for all the
members of the church ; though this hinders not, but in our
private devotions we may use the singular number, and de-
sire the supply of our own particular wants, provided We
also intercede for others as well as for ourselves; so David,
“O Lord, thou art my God,” &c. It is added, “which art
in heaven,” not to signify that his essence is included there,
for “he fills heaven and earth” (Jer. xxiii. 24), undoubt-
edly with the same presence, seeing “he is not far from any
of us.” (Acts xvii. 25. 27); and whether we “go up to hea-
ven or down to hades, or fly to the ends of the earth,” we
can never fly from his presence (Ps. cxxxix. 7, 8) ; and
Solomon declares, that “the heaven of heavens is not able
to contain him " (1 Kings viii. 27). Wain therefore is the
note of Woltzogenius here, that when God is said to be any-
where but in heaven, we are to understand it, “not of his
essential presence, but of his efficacy, operation, gnd oniº
º
70
them, 2 Chron. xx. 7, Ps. cxv. 3, and being our God
and Father, must be inclined so to do),” Hallowed be
thy name (i. e. may all men so speak, and so think of
MATTHEW.
thy divine majesty, and so deport themselves towards.
thee, that thou mayestbe glorified in their words, thoughts,
and actions). -
niscience ;” for, if the “heavens cannot contain him,” the
earth must ; if he “fill heaven and earth,” why not with
the same presence? And seeing his power and essence is
the same thing, and never can be separated, how can it be
conceived that he should act where he is not? He is there-
fore said to be in heaven, because there is his glorious pre-
sence, where he dwells “in light inaccessible:” and by this
phrase is signified, (1.) the high majesty and supreme excel-
lency of God, and his dominion over all creatures; as in
those words of Jehoshaphat, “Art thou not God in heaven,
and rulest not thou over all the kingdoms of the heathen P”
And Ps. ciii. 19, “The Lord hath prepared his throne in
heaven; his kingdom ruleth over all.” And so we owe to
him the highest reverence (Eccles. v. 2), and most exact
obedience. (2.) His power, whereby he is able to “do for us
above what we can ask or think” (2 Chron. xx. 6): “Art
not thou God in heaven 2 and in thy hand is there not power
and might, so that none is able to withstand thee?” (Ps. cxv.
3.) “Our God is in heaven, he hath done whatsoever he
pleased ;” and this engageth us to fear him above all, “who
is able to destroy both soul and body in hell-fire.” (3.)
His “omniscience, by which he sitteth in heaven, beholdeth
all that is done upon the earth” (Ps. xi. 4); “The Lord's
throne is in heaven, his eyes behold, his eye-lids try the
children of men’’ (Ps. xxxiii. 13–15). “The Lord looketh
down from heaven, he beholdeth all the sons of men; he
fashioneth their hearts alike ; he considereth all their works:”
and this should teach us sincerity, and a regard both to our
words and thoughts at all times, but more especially in our
address to him. Lastly, His infinite purity and holiness:
Deut. xxvi. 15, “Look down from thy holy habitation from
heaven, and bless thy people.” Hence is he styled, “the
high and lofty One, who inhabiteth eternity, whose name is
Holy ” (Isa. lvii. 15); and teacheth us “to be holy for the
Lord our God is holy.” *
* ‘AytaçShto rā āyogé cop' Hallowed be thy name.]
Note,
(1.) That by “the name of God,” we are to understand
himself, considered not precisely as to his essence; for of
that we may inquire with holy Job, “Canst thou by wisdom
find out God?”. But, as he is made known to us by his cre-
ating all things, to be “God over all,” infinite in power; by
the beauty and exact order in which he hath placed all
things, and the wise ends for which he hath adapted them, to
be a God of infinite wisdom and knowledge ; by the law of
truth, equity, and righteousness, which he hath impressed
upon our spirits, that he is a God of truth and righteous-
ness; by the purity and holiness of his precepts, that he is
a God of purity; and by the rich provisions he hath made,
both for the present and the future happiness of man, that
he is a God rich in mercy and plenteous in goodness to the
sons of men, and a true lover of souls. For as in scripture,
73 &otº, the name of any one is often put for his person
(Acts i. 15. Rev. iii. 4. xi. 13), or the glory and majesty of
him that bears that name (Eph. i. 21. Phil. ii. 9, 16. Heb.
i. 4), so here the name of God signifies the divine majesty,
wr God himself, as he is made known unto us by his attri.
butes ; in which sense, to “call upon the name of God, or
Christ” (Gen. iv. 26.1 Kings xviii. 24. 2 Kings v. 11. ‘Ps.
cxvi. 17. Joel,ii. 32. Zeph. iii. 9), to “love the name of
God” (Ps. lxix. 36. Isa. lvi. 6. Héb. vi. 10), to “blaspheme
and profane his name " (James ii. 7. Rev. xiii. 6), is to do
this to God himself J -
Note, (2) That to “sanctify” or “hallow,” when it is as-
cribed to things capable of being changed to the better, sig-
nifies either to consecrate and set them apart from a profane
to a sacred use; in which sense, the vessels of the sanctuary,
set apart to God's service, were hallowed; and the priests
and Levites, consecrated to God's service, are said to be
sanctified ; or else to be adorned with such inward habits and
dispositions, as render them inwardly pure and holy; and ||
thus, we are said to be “sanctified through the Spirit in
the inward man.” Now the divine majesty being infi-
nitely holy in himself, and exalted above all that we are
able to conceive, cannot be hallowed or sanctified in either
of these senses, but by analogy to them. He is then sanc-
tified by us, when we do separate him from, and in our con-
ceptions do exalt him above, all other things, and when we
do ascribe unto him the excellences of his divine majesty,
and treat him suitably to them. According to that of St.
Chrysostom, r3 &yiao Shro' 3rri roi; 30%aa-Shraſ, “hallowed,”
that is, “glorified be thy name.” Now, how this may most
effectually be done, we cannot better learn than from observ-
ing how God himself acts for his glory and the sanctification
of his holy name ; now this he does by the discovery of
those perfections which naturally tend to raise within us a
fear and reverence and love of him, trust and affiance in
him, and render us obedient to him, and in which it is our
duty and our perfection to be as like to him as we can.
And therefore (1.) God glorifies his name and sanctifies
himself by the discovery of his mighty power, rendering him
able to do exceedingly “above what we can ask or think.”
So Ps. cwi. 7, 8, “He saves them for his name's sake, that he
might make his power to be known:” and Isa, xliv. 23, “The
Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and in Israel Boża-Sha’srat, will
he be glorified.” (2). By rendering his judgments conspicu-
ous against presumptuous sinners, and those whose hearts .
are hardened from his fear; according to that saying of So-
lomon Jarchi on Numb. xx. 23, “The holy blessed God
sanctifies himself before his creatures by the exercise of his
judgments on them.” Thus, saith he, Exod. xiv. 4. 17, 'Ey-
30%ao-Sha'op'at, “I will get me glory upon Pharaoh, and all
his host ;’ i. e. I will show my power and justice in their
destruction. And when God had broke forth upon Nadab
and Abihu, for offering strange fire, Moses saith, “This is
that which the Lord had pronounced, I will be sanctified in
those that come nigh me; and before all the people I will
be glorified,” Lev. x. 3, see also Isa. v. 16. Ezek. xxviii.
22, xxxviii. 23. (3.) By rendering conspicuous his truth
and faithfulness to his promises; as when the psalmist saith,
Ps. cxxxviii. 2, “I will praise thy name for thy loving-
kindness and truth, for thou hast magnified thy truth above
all thy name:” i. e. thou hast been chiefly glorious in the
punctual performance of thy promises: see Jer. xiv. 22.
(4.) By showing the riches of his grace, mercy, and good-
ness to the sons of men: so when God had declared to
Moses that he was “a God merciful and gracious, long-suf-
fering, abundant in goodness, and forgiving iniquity” (Exod.
xxxiv. 6, 7), he is said to make “his goodness pass before
him,” and “to show him his glory” (Exod. xxxiii. 22. xxxiv.
5, 6). Only it ought to be observed from the fathers,” that
the great end of all God's glorious works and dispensations,
in which these excellences are displayed, cannot be this,
that he may be admired and applauded by his creatures.
It is vain to think the all-wise God can be concerned whe-
ther such blind creatures as we are approve or disapprove of
his proceedings, or that he really can suffer any diminution
of his glory by our dislike, or is advanced in honour by our
approbation of his dispensations. We detract from his ma-
jesty if we conceive that he is tickled with applause, or aims
at reputation from us, in any of his glorious actions ; that
therefore such as we should think well of him, can be no
farther his concern, than as these apprehensions may engage
us to that affection and obedience to and imitation of him,
which tends to the promotion of our happiness.
God, therefore, in discovering the divine perfections, must
be supposed to design as well the benefit and happiness of
man as the advancement of his honour. Thus, when he dis-
covers all those attributes which represent him good and
merciful, kind and obliging to the sons of men, he doth it
with design, and in a manner proper to lay the highest obli-
gations on us to returns of love and gratitude, and to engage
us to that imitation of his goodness and mercy to our fellow-
creatures, which renders us the children of our heavenly Fa-
ther (Matt. v. 45). When he gives signal demonstrations
* Où y&t 3:esiac vexey & ©ed; retroinxs rêv xoray ºva rºš:
Trgº; re 3,686troy, ka? ºrgā; 68&v rāv &AAov, xai Batºćvoy, pnariv 3
IIAátov, Kapiroºro. Clem. Alex. Strom. v. p. 585, B. Theo-
dor, adv. Graec. Serm. 4, p. 535.
CHAPTER VI.
Fºr
71
10 "Thy kingdom come (may thy gospel be gene-
rally entertained by men with due faith and obedience;
may all men receive thy son Jesus Christ as their king
and saviour, and humbly submit to his laws; may the
of his almighty power and his great wisdom, he designs by:
this to teach us that he is able to foresee and to divert the
evils which may at any time befall us, and to confer the
greatest blessings on his servants, that so he may encourage
us to trust in him at all times, to repair to him in the time
of need, and serve him faithfully, in expectation of his fa-
vour and protection. When he manifests himself to be a
God of truth and faithfulness, one who will punctually per-
form his promises, and execute his threats upon us, he doth
this chiefly to affright us from those sins which make it ne-
cessary for him to be severe upon us, and to provoke us to
the performance of those duties to which he hath annexed
the greatest blessings. When he informs us that his holiness
and justice cannot permit the wicked to escape his judg-
ments, or any upright soul to want the tokens of his love or
the reward of his sincere obedience, his great design in all
this is, that sin, which is the rise of all our miseries, may be
avoided, and holiness, which is the true advancement and
best accomplishment of human nature, may be more ear-
- nestly pursued by us: so that God's acting for his glory is
also acting for the good of his most noble creatures; it is
only recommending himself to their good-liking and affec-
tion, that so he may the more effectually advance their hap-
piness. Hence therefore we may learn,
1. That we sanctify or glorify God with our mouths, when
we declare and do acknowledge these his excellences ; when
We offer up our prayers and praises to him as the author of
“every good and perfect gift,” ascribing all the good we do
receive or hope for to him alone, and “tell of all his won-
drous works.”
2. We Sanctify him in our hearts, when we conceive
aright of him, as a God infinite in all these excellences, and
consequently have such impressions on our spirits as cause
us truly to fear and reverence him, to believe all his reve-
lations, trust in his promises, behave ourselves before him
with all sincerity of heart, and uprightly design the promo-
tion of his glory.
3. We Sanctify him in our lives and actions, when the
consideration of these divine excellences engage us to obedi-
ence to his holy will, and to act suitably in all our dealings
to our belief of them ; when we show forth his imitable
perfections in our lives (1 Pet. ii. 12), by our sincere en-
deavour to resemble him in them ; when we are “fruitful
in all those works of righteousness which are, through Jesus
Christ, to the glory and praise of God” (Phil. i. 11); and
let our “works so shine before men, that they seeing them,
may glorify our Father which is in heaven.”
When then we say, “Hallowed be thy name,” we pray
that all men may so speak, so think of the divine majesty,
and so deport themselves towards him, that he may be thus
glorified in their words, hearts, and actions; and that all
Worship of idols and devils may wholly be abolished ; and
that this honour, as it is due, so may it be ascribed to him
alone. -
* Ver, 10. Ex6ito h 8aaixila cov: Thy kingdom come.]
This cannot be understood of that general kingdom by
which God ruleth over all the world, that being always
come, and capable of no amplification, and so we cannot
wish rationally, in any sense, that it may come. And it
seems probable that it is not primarily and directly to be
understood of the kingdom of glory in the heavens; we
praying this kingdom may come to us, that we may do his
will on earth. But considering that this phrase in the
prayer, as well as in the language of the Jews, respects the
kingdom of the Messiah, which they then thought “should
immediately appear” (Luke xix. 11), and which they were
then expecting (Mark xy. 43), and were waiting for (Luke
ii. 38), and which they daily prayed for in those words,”
“Let him make his kingdom reign, let his redemption flou-
rish, and let his Messiah come and deliver his people:” (2.)
that this is chiefly the import of the kingdom of God, when
our Lord in the gospels speaks of it to the Jews, as is
* See Vitringa de Synag, Wet, lib. iii. p. 2, cap. 8, p. 962.
Christian religion obtain everywhere, as well in reality
as profession, the minds of all men being subdued to the
obedience of faith).” Thy will be done on earth, as it
is in heaven (i. e. may all men with sincerity, alacrity,
shown, note on Matt. iii. 2, *, and (3.) that this prayer was
composed for the use of Christ's disciples, when this king-
dom of God was approaching; and both the Baptist, our
Lord, and his disciples began to say unto the Jews, “Re-
pent ye, for the kingdom of God is at hand ;”—I think our
Saviour, in the direct and immediate sense of the words, in-
structs them out of zeal to God’s honour, and that his
name may be hallowed, and his will be done on earth, to
pray that his gospel might be generally entertained by men
with due faith and obedience; that all might own and wor-
ship God in truth, receive his son Jesus Christ as their king
and Saviour, and humbly submit to his laws; or, in the
words of the Jews, “Hosanna to the Son of David” (Matt.
xxi. 9), “Blessed and prosperous be the kingdom which
cometh in the name of the Lord” (Luke xix. 38): and
consequently, that it may reign in the hearts of all who
do profess to own it, disposing them to an entire subjection
to and ready compliance with its precepts, and working
in them those fruits of “righteousness, and peace, and joy
in the Holy Ghost,” in which this kingdom does especially
consist (Rom. xiv. 17). This being the kingdom of God
intended, when it is said, ver. 33, “Seek ye first the king-
dom of God, and the righteousness thereof,” we therefore,
in this petition, by parity of reason, are to pray that all
men may become subjects to the kingdom of God erected
by Christ ; that the knowledge of the Christian faith may
come to all nations; that the “kingdoms of this world
may be the kingdoms of our Lord Christ” (Rev. xi. 15),
“all kings and nations, people and languages, doing him.
service” (Ps. lxxii. 11. Dan. vii. 14.27): that his kingdom
may be advanced by the “coming in of the Jews,” and
by the “fulness of the Gentiles;” that the Christian reli-
gion may obtain everywhere, as well in reality as profes-
sion ; the minds of all men being subdued “to the obedi-
ence of faith,” and they showing forth the virtues of it in
their lives. - -
11 TeynShvo to SéAnº, cov, &c. iv. oigayº, kai #7 rā; yūg:
Thy will be done, as in heaven so on barth.] Note here,
First, That we pray not here that God may do his own
will and pleasure, for he will always do “whatsoever he
pleaseth in heaven and on earth” (Eccles. viii, 3): and,
“who hath resisted his will?” (Rom. ix. 19.) Whether
therefore we pray thus or not, he will do all his pleasure
(Isa. xlvi. 10), and so it is needless to call upon him so
to do. Nor, -
Secondly, Do I think we here desire his providence may
be done upon us, and that we may cheerfully submit to it;
though in this consists the life of Christian patience and self-
resignation ; for we here pray to do God's will on earth, as
it is done in heaven, where there is perfect happiness, end-
less and necessary bliss, and therefore no occasion or pos-
sibility of submitting in adverse providences to the will of
God. Nor, -
Thirdly, Do we here pray we may on earth be equal to
the blessed angels, in the perfection, readiness, and alacrity
of our obedience, it being not in the power of imperfect
creatures to do God perfect service ; or of them who have
in them flesh still “lusting against the Spirit,” the world
still soliciting, Satan still tempting, and the corruptible body
pressing down the soul, to pay continually that ready, cheer-
ful, and complete homage, which blessed spirits, freed from
all these imperfections, conflicts, and temptations, yield:
and therefore such obedience which it is impossible for us to
pay, must also be unreasonable for us to desire. It is almost
needless to add, -
Fourthly, That we pray not here that God would necessi-
tate or inwardly compel us to do his will ; for this is not to
pray his will may be done by us, but by him in us, nor could
we then desire “not to be led into temptation:” but not-
withstanding, by desiring his will may thus, be done by us,
we consequentially must desire all that grace and that assist-
ance of his Holy Spirit, which is on God's part requisite to
enable us thus to do his will. Now of these angels in hea.
wen, we read,
72
MATTHEW.
and readiness, yield obedience to thy holy will, and imi-
tate the blessed angels in an entire compliance with it,
without hesitation or retinency).
11 *Give us this day our daily bread (i.e. be pleased
continually to afford us what thou seest needful for us,
First, that “they stand continually before the face of
God” (Matt. xviii. 10), as being always ready to receive and
prepared to execute his holy will: hence are they repre-
sented as having wings, and “flying swiftly” with them whi-
ther he is pleased to send them, to show the readiness and
alacrity with which they do his pleasure.
Secondly, That they are styled “ministers of his to do
his pleasure, obeying his commandments, and hearkening to
the words of his mouth” (Ps. ciii. 20, 21). This therefore
seems to be the import of this prayer, that with as much
readiness, alacrity, perfection, as the imperfection of human
nature will admit of, we may yield obedience to his holy
will, and imitate the blessed angels in a sincere compliance
with it, without hesitation or renitency; and that in order
to this end he would vouchsafe us those divine assistances
which may enlighten our understandings, rightly to discern
“what is the good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God,”
and powerfully incline our wills, and strengthen all our exe-
cutive faculties, to such a cheerful, ready, constant, and sin-
cere obedience to it.
* Ver., 11. Tày 3prov hºw ray intościow 38; hºw a katºon,
Luke xi. 3, tº waſ hºgay: Give us this day (or, day by day)
our daily bread.] Here let it be observed, *
First, that under the name of bread is doubtless compre-
hended all that is necessary for sustaining human nature,
and so, meat, drink, and clothing: these things, saith Christ,
“your heavenly Father knoweth to be needful for you”
(ver. 32); and these things he hath promised to those who
“Seek first the kingdom of God, and the righteousness
thereof" (ver. 33), and therefore will undoubtedly provide
them. Having this “food and raiment,” the apostle enjoins
us “to be content” (1 Tim. vi. 8). And thereby he defineth,
saith Theophylact, what is sufficiency; with this food Jacob
terminates his wishes; for he desires only that God would
give him “food to eat, and raiment to put on” (Gen. xxviii.
20). And Agur only asks, that God would order for him
Të 3iovra, kai rā attágºn, “what he wanted, and would suf.
fice” (Prov, xxx. 8). Moreover, seeing the reason of ask-
ing thus our daily bread is the necessity of it for sustaining
human life, it follows that all other things must be comprised
in that word which are as needful to sustain it; to wit,
that money, health to labour, and that blessing on our la-
hours and our callings, which are necessary to procure this
food and raiment ; and that habitation, or house, which is
necessary to preserve us from the injuries of the weather ;
and that seasonable weather which may enable us to reap
the fruits of the earth, and so preserve us from perishing
by dearth or famine; it also, doubtless, must comprise those
things which are not only necessary for the sustaining of our-
selves, but of our family; for seeing charity requires us to ask
these things as well for others as ourselves, it more especially
requires us to desire them for them to whom we are so inti-
mately related, and for whom we are required to provide
them. All these things seem to be necessaries contained
under the name of “bread,” or “food and raiment;” and
with a sufficiency of these to sustain life commodiously, we
must rest contented. But yet I doubt not that many other
things may be comprised under this head, provided we do
only ask them with submission to the divine wisdom, and if
he sees them needful and convenient for us, submitting our
concerns about them to his providence. Thus, v. g.
First, under the name of “bread,” may be comprised all
those things which providence hath given and designed for
the nourishment of man; flesh, fish, fowl, wine, oil, milk,
homey, the fruits of the earth, corn, roots, herbs, and of the
trees that grow upon it ; for all these things, “hath God
greated, to be received with thanksgiving” (1 Tim. iv. 3).
He hath given all these things to man “to eat” (Gen. i. 29).
Šx. 2, 3}, “He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and
herbs for the use of man, that he may bring forth food out
of the earth, and wine that maketh glad the heart of man,
and oil to make his face to shine, and bread to strengthen
man's heart” (Ps. civ. 14, 15), And this is the import of the
and give thy blessing both upon our labours to procure
it, and our food to afford mourishment and strength to
!). -
12 *And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our
debtors (i. e. give us upon our repentance, the pardon
word bread, when Abraham said (Gen. xviii. 5), “I will fetch
a morsel of bread, and comfort your hearts;” for he brought
with it “butter and milk,” and “the calf " that he had
dressed, and set it before them (ver. 8). Thus Joseph-
saith, “Set on bread” (Gen. xliii. 31), when they “slew
cattle” (ver. 16), and had “messes of meat,” and “store of
good wine” (vér. 34, see 1 Sam. ix. 7. 1 Kings xxi. 7).
And, in like manner, under the name of “raiment,” may
we understand all those things which nature hath provided
for no other use we know of, but to clothe and adorn us, flax,
wool, hair, silk ; and which, by using to these ends, we only
use unto those purposes to which they were designed by the
God of nature. And,
Secondly, That we may have “food and raiment” in this
Sense, we must have all things necessary to this end ; some
having flocks of sheep, some herds of cattle, some employed
in husbandry, some in gardening, some in dressing vineyards
and oliveyards, some in clothing, some in other trades, which
provide instruments necessary for these employments ; and
if all these things are “sanctified to us by prayer and
thanksgiving,” then may we ask God's blessing on our honest
labours to procure them, and tender our thanksgivings to
him for his blessings on these labours to that end. Note,
Thirdly, That the bread we are bid to ask is styled, 8
#Trioſa ioc, that is, either “the bread of the day present,” or
“coming on :” as when the wise, man advises us not to say,
aúploy 3&o, “I will give to-morrow, when we can at present
do it” (Prov. iii. 28), and not to “boast of to-morrow”
(Prov. xxvii. 1), “because we know not, ri régeral h orioſca,
what a day will bring forth,” or what will be on the morrow.
So Chrysostom and Origen, rāv Āprov rév intoſa toy, touréart
tov špñºzegov and St. Jerome confesses, that some expound
it, de praesenti cibo, “ of food at present,” because, say
Theophylact and others, “we are forbidden to be solicitous
for the morrow :” so also is the phrase interpreted by Pha-
vorinus;* Suidas, and St. Chrysostom. Others interpret it
the bread, roi; #wièvro, Xéâyov, “ of the time to come,” or of
that future life God shall please to afford us, which seems best
to comport with St. Luke, saying, “Give us, rô Ka8 hºàgay,
day by day, or after day, our daily bread ;” and so a flasgow
may also signify, as Bibi doth, Ps. xiii. 3, de die in diem,
“from day to day ;” and so the sense will be, “Lord, give
us day by day that which shall be sufficient for the re-
mainder of our lives;” both senses are good, and may be
joined together, though I incline most to the first.
They who render this with the Vulgar, panem supersub-
stantialem, as they do not consider that it is in no sense,
&groç #mrioëzio; “ daily bread,” but integoúa toº, more than we
need for sustentation; so neither (2) that this sense of the
words, relating to sacramental bread, obliges all Christians to
receive the sacrament daily: (3.) that this sacrament was not
then instituted, nor did the apostles for whom this prayer was
made know anything of it: and, lastly, that our petitions for
spiritual bread are fully contained in the foregoing precepts.
Note, .
Fourthly, That the rich, as well as the poor, have need
to put up this petition, not only by reason of the mutability
of their affairs, and the uncertainty of those enjoyments,
which may be quickly taken from them, but also from the
insufficiency of their abundance to feed and nourish them
without God’s blessing on it, which they are therefore daily
to implore ; we are therefore from this petition taught,
First, How moderate our appetites should be towards these
outward things, both as to quality and quantity, we being
here directed to ask Fpéphy oil rpſ pmy, “bread or food, not de-
licious fare ;’ our necessary food, not superfluities; our daily
food, not full barns, or treasures to lay up for many years; a
moderate provision to be dealt to us as we need it.
Secondly, By directing us daily to apply ourselves to God
for these things, we are taught to own our continual de-
* “o #gro; trioſato; ; tā āzágth oùait, hºw &pg,632.v, was nºw:-
oty?:, rôy a hºspoy ºf &paoüyra ºvºv. Tom. v. p. 187.
CHAPTER VI.
73
of our sins committed against thee; for we, in obedience
to thy command, freely, and from our hearts, forgive the
offences of others against us).
pendence on him for our being ; that we owe all we have or
can expect, not to our industry or wisdom, to the support of
friends or our own stock, but purely to the conduct and
blessing of his good providence ; esteeming his providence
our best estate, his bounty our surest treasure, his fatherly
care our only certain and comfortable support ; and therefore
praying, that from the riches of his goodness, he would con-
tinually afford us what he sees needful for us, and give his
blessing both upon our labours to procure it, and on our food
to afford nourishment and strength unto us.
* Ver. 12. Kai & ps; hºw tº 3ºEixãºzara høgy (‘rā; &aag- |
ºria; hºw&v, Luke xi. 4) &g wai hºwet, & piskwey roſ. 34 gºaëtaic
#46v (Luke Kai yap airo; 34 isºgy ºrávri śpsiAovt hºſ). And
..ſorgive us our trespasses (sins), as (for) we forgive (every
one of) them who trespass against us...] Here note that this
petition supposeth these several things, viz.
First, That we, who put up this petition, are sinners, and
want God's mercy in the pardon of our offences against him.
For seeing Christ requires all his disciples thus to pray daily,
he must exclude himself out of that number, who says he
wants not this forgiveness. Hence Solomon informs us,
“there is no man that sinneth not ” (1 Kings viii.46); “none
who can truly say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure
from sin” (Prov. xx. 9); and that “there is not a just man
upon earth, who doeth good and sinneth not” (Eccles. vii.
20). And holy Job inquires, “What is man that he should
be clean, or that he is born of a woman that he should be
righteous P” (Job xv. 14. xxv. 4.) The prayer of the
Psalmist is, “Enter not thou into judgment with thy servant,
O Lord: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified”
(Ps. cxliii. 2). St. James saith, that “in many things we
offend all” (James iii. 2); and St. John, that “if we say
we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in
us” (1 John i. 8. 10); by all which scriptures it is evident
against the Pelagians and the Cathari, that this remission of
sins is necessary not for a few only, but for all Christ's dis-
ciples, that they are not only humbly but also truly to con-
fess they are sinners, and that if they deny it, “they lie, and
the truth is not in them.”
Secondly, This prayer supposes also that these our sins,
should God deal with us according to the merit of them,
must render us obnoxious to his just displeasure, and that
we therefore want the pardon of them. For seeing every sin
is a transgression of God's holy law, it must render us guilty,
till by an act of grace we have obtained the remission of it.
And, -
Thirdly, It supposeth that we are humbly to confess our
sins to God, for he that begs pardon must be supposed to
own his offence. And in requesting pardon for our sins, we
confess ourselves to be sinners, and to need God’s mercy.
This petition also teacheth us, -
First, to lay the foundation of our devotions in humility;
and when we are addressing to God for spiritual or temporal
blessings, to acknowledge our own unworthiness to receive
them, that so we may more magnify his goodness in afford-
ing them to those “who are less than the least of any of his
mercies.” tº
Secondly, This being the first spiritual petition we make
for ourselves, it shows how much we are concerned to obtain
it ; our happiness depending wholly on the favour of God,
and our misery on his displeasure: and that being obnoxi-
ous to his wrath by our omissions of what he hath enjoined,
and our commission of what he hath forbidden, we are first
and especially concerned to obtain the pardon of our sins,
and get him reconciled to us, especially if we consider that
any iniquity unpardoned will obstruct the efficacy of our pe-
titions for other things, and turn his face and his “ear from
us that he will not hear.” –
Thirdly, The condition annexed to our petitions, in that
clause, “as we forgive,” or the reason of it in those words,
“for we forgive,” shows us how necessary it is, that we may
speed in this petition, that we come to pray with a heart.
full of charity and good-will to all men, and free from any
grudge, ill-will, any rancour or regret against our brother, ac-
cording to that counsel of our Lord, “When ye stand pray-
13 **And lead us not into temptation (suffer us not
by the assaults of Satan, or the subtraction of thy graces,
or by putting us for our punishment into such circum-
ing, forgive, if ye have anything against another, that your
heavenly Father may forgive your trespasses” (Mark xi.
25); seeing our own forgiveness depends upon this dispo-
sition, nor shall we be forgiven without it (yer. 14, 15).
..Yea, we come to God with a lie in our mouths, when we say
to him, “forgive, for we forgive others their trespasses,” and
pray that we may not be pardoned, when we say, “forgive us,
as we forgive others their trespasses,” if we do not from the
heart forgive them. What this forgiveness on our part doth
require, see note on ver. 14, 15.
* Wer. 13. Kai º eigeyśyan, hºwäç Big Treigaarºv, And lead
was not into temptation.] Temptations being of two kinds,
first, such as are sent for trial of our faith and constancy,
or the improvement of our graces, and the example and
encouragement of others ; and that Christ speaks not pri-
marily of these, interpreters conclude, (1.) because they,
by the wisdom of Christ, are made the portion of all Chris-
tians, who are to take up their cross and follow him, and
must through many tribulations enter into the kingdom of
God (Acts xiv. 22); they are appointed to them (1 Thess.
iii. 3), and if they will live godly they must suffer perse-
cutions (2 Tim. iii. 12). (2.) Because these trials are
sometimes necessary for us, we falling into them only E.
3éoy iaiti, “if need be” (1 Pet. i. 6), and are sent for salu-
tary ends by God ; viz. “to make us partakers of his holiness,
and to work in us the comfortable fruits of righteousness”
(Heb. xii. 10, 11), and render us “conformed to our head”
(Rom. viii. 29), and so are represented as the gifts of God
(Phil. i. 28); and it seems not reasonable that Christ
should advise us to pray against those things which are so
needful for, and salutary to us. (3.) Because we are bid to
“count it all joy when we fall into these tribulations” (James
i. 2), are said to be “blessed and happy” when we “do en-
dure them for the sake of Christ” (ver. 12. 1 Pet. iv. 14),
and believers “rejoiced” in them (Rom. v. 5). We are
therefore only to pray against them, when they fall so heavy
on us, as to be strong inducements to “make shipwreck of
faith and a good conscience,” as in the case of the Thessa-
lonians, to whom the apostle sends to “know their faith, lest
the tempter should have tempted them, and made his labour
vain among them” (1 Thess. iii. 5); in which case, as they
are called kaigoi traigaokaoû, “times of temptation” to fall
away (Luke vii. 13), &pa rot repaap, off, “the hour of temp-
tion” which was to come upon the earth, from falling by
which, Christ promiseth to keep the church of Philadelphia
(Rev. iii. 10), Trúgoal; ºrgā; repacºv, the “fiery trial” (I
Pet. iv. 12), which made so many of the Jews fall off from
the faith : so in this sense our Saviour suffering himself to
be tempted, “that he might succour us when we are
tempted” (Heb. ii. 18), doubtless we may pray that God
“would not suffer us to be tempted above what we are able,
but would with the temptation make a way for us to escape,
that we may be able to bear it” (1 Cor. x. 13), that he
would so strengthen our faith, and so assist us by his Holy
Spirit, that we may be able to “repel all these fiery darts of
Satan” (Eph. vi. 16), and may “stand in the evil day” (ver.
13), and that he would either keep us from, or preserve us
from falling in, this “hour of temptation;” for the epistles
are full of such prayers made by the apostles for the
churches, or with directions thus to pray ; and this is only
praying that “we may not enter into temptation,” or may
be delivered, when under it, “from evil.” Secondly, Temp-
tations are such as lead to sin, and such are the temptations
of Satan, suggesting evil things unto, or raising evil motions
in us; or of our fleshly lusts, by which we are “drawn away,
and enticed” to covet that which is forbidden (James i. 14).
And these are the temptations which we are here especially
directed to pray against, the other sort being so only to be
prayed against as they fall in with these, as being strong
temptations to sin. For he, who had taught us in the pre-
cedent words to pray for the pardon of our past sins may
rationally be thought here to direct us to pray, that we may
be preserved from them for the future. And this may also
be concluded from the following clause, “but (when we are
thus in danger of it) deliver us from evil;” as we shall see in
74.
MATTHEW.
stances as may prove snares and stumbling-blocks to us,
the interpretation of those words. And in this sense the
word "reigaagic, “temptation,” occurs in Christ's exhortation
to his disciples to “watch and pray, lest they enter eiç neigaa-
why into temptation” (Matt. xxvi. 41); when St. Paul bids
the spiritual man “restore those that are overtaken with a
fault, in the spirit of meekness, considering himselflest he also
be tempted” (Gal. vi. 1), when he saith, “they that will be rich
fall into temptation, sic traigaokºy, and a smare” (1 Tim. vi. 9).
Now by praying we may not “enter into” these temptations,
we cannot but rationally be supposed to pray that we may
not be obnoxious to any solicitations or temptations. to sin;
for whilst we carry flesh about us, this “flesh will lust against
the spirit” (Gal. v. 17); and, the whole life of Christians is
a continual warfare and conflict against “Satan and spiritual
wickednesses” (Eph. vi. 12), against the “flesh” (1 Pet. ii.
11), and against the allurements of that world, in which we
do converse; and therefore, to pray absolutely to be freed
from these temptations, is to desire to be freed from the com-
mon lot and condition of all Christians.
Yet, because there be sometimes cases in which we are
more than ordinarily solicited to sin, as Joseph was by the
daily importunity of his mistress; either by Satan’s more
impetuous assaults, as when our Saviour being hungry was
tempted by the devil to make experiment “whether he
was the Son of God,” by “commanding stones to be made
bread ;” or by some circumstances and allurements of the
flesh : or of the world concurring with our inward lustings,
as when the young man is tempted by the harlot to lust,
or the indigent by his companions to theft or robbery; and
in these cases we, by reason of our frailty and proneness
to these vices, lie under great temptations to offend, and
to be overcome by that eiträgia taro; &#xagºriz, “sin which
doth too easily beset us:” in all these cases we are especially
to pray we may not enter into temptation, this being only
to desire we may not be obnoxious to the continual peril of
offending, and to the fierce assaults of a temptation. Note,
Thirdly, That “to be led,” or “enter into temptation,” in
the scripture sense, is to be drawn by the allurements of a
temptation to commit iniquity. In this sense Christ ad-
viseth his disciples to pray, not that they might not fall
into times of temptation, for they were then come ; not
that Satan might not vex or tempt them to evil, for this he
told them they were to expect; but that they might not
“fall into temptation,” i. e. they might not be overpowered
by the incursion of it ; in which sense the apostle saith to
the spiritual man “restore thy brother in the spirit of meek-
ness, considering thyself lest thou also be tempted” (Gal.
vi. 1), i.e. lest thou also fall by a temptation (see the note
there); and to his Thessalonians, “I sent to know your
faith lest the tempter should have tempted you, and my
labour be in vain” (see the note there). And if we do
consider that this petition, in the Jewish phrase, runs thus,
“bring us not into the hand, or power, of temptation,” we
shall be easily induced to believe, this is the primary import
of these words, though they may also secondarily request,
that the providence of God would not subject us to those
circumstances, which lay us under a great peril of offend-
ing ; or when he doth think fit to do so, that he would not
denyus strength sufficient to repel the violence of thoseassaults.
Fourthly, That we may understand in what sense it is fit
to pray, that God would not lead us into temptations of this
kind, we must know, -
1. That God cannot be supposed to lead any man
into temptation to sin, either by infusing any evil principle
into his heart, or by inclining, exciting, or enticing, any man
to sin, or by laying upon any man a necessity to commit it
(see note on 2 Thess. ii. 11), seeing in all these cases he would
be certainly the author of it, as much as Satan and our own
concupiscence can be supposed so to be ; and we in vain
should ask of him, not to “be led into temptation,” who is
disposed to do those things which will infallibly subject us
to it. And hence St. James speaks thus unto us, “Let no
man say, when he is tempted, I am tempted of God; for
God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any
man” (James i. 13). God therefore can be only said to
lead us into temptation upon such accounts as these : (1.)
That me is pleased to remove those restraints which he had
to be led into, or overcome by, the power of temptation,
laid on Satan, and to let loose his chains, so that he may
freely assault and try his strength upon us; for it is carefully
to be observed, for our comfort, that Satan cannot tempt us
at his pleasure, but only when and so far as God shall be
pleased to permit him ; as is apparent in the case of Job,
whom Satan could not touch without permission from God ;
and the example of the apostles, whom Satan first begged
leave “to winnow,” before he could assault them (Luke xxii.
31). And surely he who durst not enter into the swine till
leave was given him by Christ, can much less fall on his dis-
ciples without leave. And when God in his wisdom seeth
fit to grant it, he himself is said to do what he permitted
Satan to effect. So when he permitted Satan, by his minis-
ters, to destroy the substance and the children of Job, Job
said, “God gave, and God hath taken away” (Job. i. 21).
And God himself speaks thus to Satan, “Thou movedst me
to afflict him without cause” (ii. 3). So in the case of David
numbering the people, “Satan rose up against David, and
moved him to number the people” (1 Chron. xxi.1). Yet be-
cause God permitted him to do it, it is said, 2 Sam. xxiv. 1,
that “the fury of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he
moved David to say, Go number the people.” The coming
of antichrist is said to be, “with the operation of Satan, in
all power, and signs, and lying wonders, with all deceivable-
ness of imiquity to them that perish” (2 Thess. ii. 9, 10).
But because he doth this by God’s permission, towards them
“who received not the truth in the love of it, that they might
be saved, but had pleasure in unrighteousness ;” therefore
it is said, that “God sent them strong delusions to believe a
lie” (ver. 11, 12) : because God did not only permit this, but
did so for the punishment of their infidelity and impiety ;
so God designing the destruction of a wicked Ahab, per-
mitteth Satan to be a “lying spirit” in the mouth of all his
prophets, and saith to him, “Thou shalt deceive him and
shalt prevail, go forth and do so.” (1 Kings xxii. 20. 22),
giving him full permission so to do. (2.) That he is pleased
to withdraw that grace which hath in vain been given, and
take those talents from us which have been hidden in a
napkin : according to that rule of God’s proceedings, “To
him that hath (i. e. improveth what he hath) shall (more)
be given ; but from him that hath not (i. e. who by not
using it, as if he had not), shall be taken away that which he
hath” (Matt. xiii. 12. xxv. 29). Here therefore note, (1)
that we are not sufficient for ourselves, without divine as-
sistance, to repel and overcome the temptations of the world,
the flesh, and the devil, and to yield constant and sincere
obedience to the will of God ; for were this so, why should
we be daily asking that of God, which he already hath put
into our own hands: This hath been owned even by the
wisest of the heathens,” that there “was never a good man
without a divine aid ; and that the imperfection of the hu-
man nature requires this aid, to regulate our passions, and
conquer the difficulties of a virtuous life. And this is fully
evident from all those places in scripture, in which it is as-
cribed to God alone to be able to “keep us from falling”
(Jude 24), to be able to “stablish us” (Rom. xvi. 25), ka-
raprioral “to confirm us in every good work to do his will,
working in us what is good and acceptable in his sight” (Heb.
xiii. 21), and to work in us “both to will and to do of his
good pleasure” (Phil. ii. 13): and from those places, which
require us to pray “that we enter not into temptation”
(Matt. xxvi. 41), that we “may be able to stand against the
assaults of Satan” (Eph. vi. 11), that we may have “wisdom
to direct us how to bear them” (James i. 5), and that we may
“keep ourselves in the love of God” (Jude 20, 21). For
these things evidently show God's grace preventing us is ne-
cessary to make us truly willing, and his assisting grace to
* E5 yèg Xph Eiðival, ºr wig &y ow8; ‘rs wai yśyntal oiov 33ſ,
#y rotatºrm waraatáre troxtreiſſy, Osoſ ºoſeay airá cºa'at. Plato
de Repub. lib. vi. p. 677, C. Wide Epim. 1014.
Multos et nostra civitas et Graecia tulit singulares viros,
quorum meminem nisi juvante Deo talem fuisse credendum
est. Nemo igitur vir magnus sine aliquo afflatā divino un-
quam fuit. Cic. de Nat. Deor. lib. ii. ad finem. Vid. Arrian.
in Epict. lib. iii, cap. 21, p. 306. Max, Tyr. Diss, 22, p. 218.
CHAPTER VI.
75
but grant us such a measure of thy grace, as may pre-
serve us from falling by them): "but deliver us from
(the) evil (of sin, and from those dispositions and incli-
nations which make us prone unto it; and from the
assaults of the evil one): * for thine is the kingdom,
(we desire may come), and (thine is) the power (thus to
assist, provide for, and protect us), and (thine is and
will be), the glory (of so doing), for ever. Amen.
14. (And with great reason do I teach you to say,
Forgive us our sins, as we forgive others): "For if ye
forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father
will also forgive you:
make us able to perform our duty ; and that we are not
able to bear up against and overcome these temptations
without the divine aid. (2.) Observe that this aid is not
to be expected without diligent seeking it by fervent prayer,
and knocking for it with daily importunity (Matt. vii. 7.
Luke xviii. 1): nor will it be continued to us without our
diligent endeavours to make some due improvement of
it ; it rather is to be supposed that he, who doth not rightly
ask it, shall not have it, and that from the slothful and
unprofitable servant it should be wholly withdrawn. And
then, (3.) from the withdrawing of that which is so ne-
cessary to preserve us from falling by temptations, and to
enable us for the performance of our duty, it certainly will
follow that we shall fall by them, and shall neglect our
duty. Now because God denies or withdraws his grace,
by way of punishment of our iniquity in resisting, or neg-
lect in asking it, or sloth in not improving it when granted
to us, he may on this account be said “to lead us into temp-
tations,” although he doth not otherwise concur unto it, than
by withdrawing or not affording his abused grace to per-
sons so neglectful, and therefore so unworthy of it ; be-
cause by giving us thus up into the hand or power of the
temptation, we shall as certainly fall by it, as if he him-
self led us into it. Thus because when the “gentiles knew
God they did not glorify him as God,” but fell into all
manner of idolatry, God also gave them up to “uncleanness,”
through the lusts of their own hearts (Rom. i. 24); he
gave them up “to vile affections” (ver. 26): he gave them
up “to a reprobate mind” (ver. 28), as a physician gives up
his patient to do what he will, when he finds he will not fol-
low his prescriptions (see the note there). So, though
Ahithophel gave Absalom that wicked counsel, of going
in to his father's wives, and his own wicked heart inclined
him to commit that incest (2 Sam. xvi. 21, 22); yet, be-
cause God permitted Satan to inject this counsel into the
heart of Ahithophel, and gave up Absalom to his own
heart's lust, and did all this for the punishment of David's
murder and adultery ; he by his prophet saith, “I will raise
up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will give
thy wives to thy neighbour, and he shall lie with them: I
will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun”
(2 Sam. xii. 11, 12). And, lastly, because the Jews shut
their eyes against the gospel, and “seeing would not see, and
hearing would not understand” (Matt. xiii. 14, 15), the gospel
was spoken to them in parables (ver. 13), and afterward
taken from them, and God is said to have “given them a
spirit of slumber,” Rom. xi. 8 (see the note there).
And, thirdly, God is sometimes said to do this, by leav-
ing them under those circumstances, or by his providence
placing them in a condition, which he foresees will, through
the wicked inclinations of their own hearts, render them
subject to temptations, and prone to yield to them, or fall
by them. Thus was he pleased to send his prophet to
anoint Hazael king of Syria (1 Kings xix. 15) though
he know the evil he would do to the “children of Israel, by
slaying their young men with the sword, dashing their chil-
dren in pieces, and ripping up their women with child,”
when he was once advanced to that station (2 Kings viii. 12,
13) : because he was permitted to do this for the punishment
of the sins of Israel. And because by the flight of David
and the conspiracy of Absalom, occasion was given to
Shimei to curse David without fear of punishment, the
king speaks thus, “let him curse, because the Lord hath said
unto him, Curse David” (2 Sam. xvi. 11); i.e. he by his
providence hath given him an opportunity of venting thus
his malice without fear of punishment. Thus God is said to
have “turned the hearts of the Egyptians to hate his people”
(Ps. cy. 25): not by infusing hatred into their hearts, but
by “increasing his people continually, and making them
stronger than their enemies” (ver. 24). Thus Jeremiah saith
“Ah Lord God! Surely thou hast greatly deceived his peo-
ple” (Jer, iv. 10); i. e. as the Chaldee paraphrast well in-
terprets it, “by suffering the false prophets to say to them,
Peace, peace, when there was no peace” (vi. 14. Kxiii. 17).
And the church speaks thus to God, “Why hast thou caused
us to err from the way, and hardened our hearts from thy
fear?” (Isa lxiii. 17) though he had only concurred to this,
by withdrawing the Spirit, against whom they had rebelled
(ver. 10); by withholding those blessings and tokens of his
favour, by which they were encouraged to fear him (ver.
12. 15); and by subjecting them to the power of their ene-
mies, whose service made them alien from his fear (ver.
17, 18). So, lastly, is he said to “lay a stumbling-block in
the way of the righteous, departing from his righteousness,
and committing iniquity” (Ezek. iii. 20), when he doth not
recall him by his chastisements, but leaves him to his own
heart's lusts, and to the temptations of Satan and his evil
companions.
So then the import of this petition is to this effect ; Suffer
us not, O Lord, either by the assaults of Satan, or the sub-
traction of thy grace, or by putting us, for the punishment
of our sins, into those circumstances, which may prove
Snares and stumbling-blocks unto us, to be led into and over-
come by the power of temptation ; but be thou pleased to
afford us always such a measure of thy grace as may keep
us from falling by temptations; or if we fall into tempta-
tions, may so support us under them that we be not foiled
by them ; or if we slide, may be erected quickly by thy
power, and stand more firmly for the future.
* 'ANA& Fija at #23; 373 rod Troyngoſ, But deliver us from
evil.] The temptations we desire not to be led into, being
temptations to sin, the evil from which we here request to
be delivered, must be either that of sin, or Satan, the great
tempter to it; if by 6 troyngöc, we understand with Tertullian,
Origen, and Chrysostom, the devil, who is a malicious, subtle,
powerful, and diligent tempter, and therefore one against
whose assaults, that we may stand firm, we are to “pray
always with all prayer,” and “watch thereunto with all per-
Severance:” or our own evil concupiscence, vicious inclina-
tions, and distempers of mind, by which we are enticed and
drawn into sin ; this very properly is added to the former
clause, as the most sovereign expedient to preserve us from
being “led into temptation,” and so we may well pray, that,
in order to that end, God would graciously preserve us from
those evil frames of heart, and dispositions of spirit, which
render us so prone to yield to a temptation, and from the
violent assaults of Satan, who, being once let loose upon us,
will not fail to hurry us unto sin.
*"ort coö a rºy # 8aatasia, zal # 36Vagic, zai # 8%a, for
thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory.] It must
be owned that this clause is not in St. Luke, nor in many
copies of St. Matthew, yet are there sufficient reasons to re-
ceive it as part of the Lord's prayer, as being in the Syriac
version, and owned in the Greek liturgies, and being in most
ancient copies, and a familiar doxology of the Jews ; and,
lastly, because it is very unlikely the holy fathers of the
Greek church should presume to add their own inventions
to a form of our Lord's own composing; but it is probable
that our Lord, delivering this form twice upon different oc-
casions, might add this clause at the first time, and leave it
out at the second, and that the Latin copies, which are full
of errors, might leave it out in both, lest the evangelists
should seem to differ in a matter so considerable. But of
this, see more in Examen Millii, lib. ii. cap. 1, n. 2. Now
the import of this clause seems to be this, We pray thy
kingdom may come, and that thy name may be hallowed,
and thy will be done by all men, for thine is the kingdom,
and all men are concerned to honour thee, and to obey thy
holy laws; we pray for temporal blessings to be derived
from thee, for the pardon of our past sins, and preservation
from them for the future, for thine is the power thus to pro-
vide for and protect us, and thou alone canst pardon our of.
fences; we pray for all these, for, by thus hallowing thee,
owning thy kingdom and doing thy will; by thus pardon-
76
MATTHEw.
15 But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither
will your Father forgive your trespasses.
16 Moreover *when ye fast, be not, as the hypo-
crites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their
faces (putting on sad and mournful looks, that they
may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you,
They have their reward. -
17 But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head,
and wash thy face (as the Jews do on ordinary days);
18 That thou appear not unto men to fast, but
(only) unto thy Father which is in secret; and thy
Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee
openly.
19 °Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth,
where moth and rust doth corrupt (them), and where
thieves break through and steal.
20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven,
where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where
thieves do not break through nor steal (this being the
only means to be heavenly-minded):
21 For where your treasure is, there will your
heart be also. - -
ing, providing for us, and protecting us, “thine will be the
glory for ever and ever. Amen.”
17 Wer. 14. 'E&w yap & pºre, &c. For if you forgive men
their trespasses.] Note here, that God promiseth in these
words remission of sins, to him that forgiveth others; not
that this virtue can alone obtain favour with God, where
other Christian duties are neglected: for though negative
precepts are absolute, and he that “forgiveth not, shall
never be forgiven,” yet affirmative promises admit this limi-
tation, si catera sint paria, if no other condition of Salvation
shall be wanting. So, v. g. “He that heareth not (the gos-
pel revealed to him) shall be damned, is absolutely true ;
but he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved,” is only
true, if he perform the condition of his baptismal covenant,
when he is in capacity to do so. Or, (2) this promise is
made to him who from his heart forgives his brother, be-
cause he who doth thus forgive the offences of his brother,
in obedience to God's commands, and from a sincere desire
to obtain forgiveness of God, will by the same motives be
induced to do whatever else is necessary to obtain favour
and acceptance with him. Now to this true remission it is
requisite,
First, That our minds be fully freed from all desires of
revenge, or of returning evil to our brother, according to that
admonition of St. Paul (Rom. xii. 19), “Avenge not your-
selves, but rather give place to wrath : for God hath said,
Wengeance is mine ; and I will repay it.” “See to it, that
none render evil for evil” (1 Thess. v. 15. 1 Pet. iii. 9).
This being to do that ourselves, which it belongs to God to
do. And hence it follows, that we must not desire God to
revenge our quarrels, seeing this shows a mind desirous to
be avenged of our brother. .
Secondly, That we do not rejoice in any evil that befalls
our brother, according to that admonition of Solomon, “ Re-
joice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart
be glad when he stumbleth" (Prov. xxiv. 17).
Thirdly, That we do not so retain the evil done unto us
in our memory, as to reproach him for it, or upbraid him
with it, this being an indication that we have not from the
heart forgiven him. Thus the Jews say, that “he who being
desired by one to do that for him,” which he refused to do
to him, answers, “I will not deal with thee as thou hast
dealt with me ; he, though he lends what is desired, doth not
forgive.”
Fourthly, That we still be inclined to show kindness to,
and be still ready to help and do him good; for what the
law required the Jew to do to the beast of his enemy (Exod.
xxiii. 4, 5), the gospel doth assuredly require the Christian
to do to his enemy; and if we by consideration of the injury
done to us be restrained from helping him, we have not
from the heart forgiven him.
And so far we must go in our forgiveness of all persons
at all times, even though they do not ask forgiveness.
When this is done sincerely, then,
Fifthly, We are to admit our offending brother into
friendship and familiarity again ; for if we “from the heart
forgive him,” our heart must be towards him as formerly it
was. Moreover, this remission must be,
First, Without delay, “before the sun goes down,” saith
the apostle, before we go to our devotions; “for when you
pray,” saith Christ, “forgive” (Mark xi. 15): Seeing we
pray to God for forgiveness at present, and if we do not thus
forgive, we cannot say “forgive us as we forgive.”
Secondly, It must be an entire forgiveness of all, even the
most heinous crimes; for this the example of the “ten
thousand talents” forgiven by our Lord requires (Matt.
xviii. 24). And otherwise, when we pray “to be forgiven
as we ourselves forgive,” we pray that our greatest crimes
may not be forgiven. -
Thirdly, This forgiveness must be extended to our bro-
ther, though he doth frequently offend (Luke xvii. 3); for
We pray daily to God for the remission of our daily sins.
* Ver. 16–18. “oray 33 ynarsºn’ts, a yívea Se &cºrse of
itroxgirai, but when ye fast, be not as the hypocrites.] i. e.
Do nothing which may signify you fast to gain applause
from men (see the discourse of fasting ; appendix the third
at the end of this gospel).
* Ver. 19. Mº Sna aveiðars taſy &ndavéoù; #mri rāg yā;, &c.
Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, but lay up
treasures in the heavens.] These and the following words
to the end of this chapter, contain an excellent dissuasive
from an inordinate affection to, and from an anxious solici-
tude about, the good things of this present life ; taken,
First, From the consideration of the nature of them, they
being fading, and subject to casualty (ver. 19).
Secondly, From the mischiefs of them, when our hearts
are set upon them, and our minds are anxious about them.
For, (1.) they take off our hearts from those true, spiritual,
and lasting blessings, ver. 20, 21, which we should primarily
and chiefly prosecute, ver, 33. (2.) They corrupt all our
actions, and turn them into deeds of darkness, ver. 22, 23.
(3.) They rival God, and take off our affections from him,
wer. 24. (4.) They show great want of faith, and trust in
God, ver, 30. (5.) They add to the evils of this present
life, ver. 34, discruciating the mind with cares, which are,
(1.) fruitless, ver, 27, (2) needless, seeing our heavenly Fa-
ther knows our wants, ver. 32. And he who is so liberal in
making provision for the grass of the field, and for the fowls
of the air, will not be wanting in his provisions for the ne-
cessities of his children, ver. 26. 28–30. And, (3) they
are heathenish, “for after all these things do the gentiles
seek,” ver. 32.
Note, also, that by the word “treasure” we are not to ur-
derstand everything which we lay up for the future, pro-
vided we be ready, when the glory of God, or the duties of
charity, require us to part with it, for merchandize and hus-
bandry cannot be carried on without something laid up in
store ; but that is in the forbidden sense our treasure, which
we chiefly prize, delight in, and set our heart upon ; as we
may gather from those words, “For where your treasure is,
there will your hearts be also.” (ver. 21); and which we do
chiefly spend our time and study to pursue and prosecute,
with the neglect or to the hazard of our heavenly treasure,
as appears from the opposition here: that which “we seek
first” (ver. 33), and are concerned for, “though we be not
rich towards God” (Luke xii. 21).
* Ver. 22. 'E&y ośy 5 pôaxwá; alov &txois, If thy eye be
single, thy whole body will be full of light ; #&y 32 & 3p}ax-
£46; vov Troyngöc, &c. but if thine eye be evil, thy whole body
will be dark.] That by the “single eye,” the liberal per-
son, by the “evil eye,” the covetous man, is intended, ap-
pears, (1.) from the connexion of the words: for the pre-
ceding words are a dissuasive from “laying up treasures on
the earth;” the following from the “love of riches :” and
therefore the intermediate words most probably relate to the
same thing. (2.) From the like use of the phrase, both in
the sacred writers and among the Jews, who say proverbi-
ally, “He that gives a boon, let him do it with a good eye,”
i. e. freely and liberally ; and, “give thy first-fruits #y
âyašš 39%ax(xã, with a good eye” (Ecclus. xxxv 10): so
Juxh &rAñ, is “the liberal soul” (Prov. xi. 25), and to give
ătrââ; and iv &rAérºti, is to give “liberally ” (James i, 5.
CHAPTER VI.
77
22 *The light of the body is the eye (by which we
are directed how to guide the body in our walking, as is
the eye of the mind the light by which we discern our
duty); if therefore thine eye be single (i. e. free from
covetousness, and ready to relieve Christ’s needy mem-
bers), thy whole body shall be full of light (i. e. this
charity will lead thee in the way to life, and will direct
the actions both of thy soul and body aright). -
23 But if thine eye be evil (if it be an envious, covet-
ous eye), thy whole body will be full of darkness (i. e.
all its actions will be deeds of darkness). If therefore
(then) the light that is in thee be darkness, how great
is that darkness (i. e. if the inward light, which should
direct thy actions, be darkness, how great and fatal will
be that darkness in which thou walkest 1)
24 (And that your affection to these earthly things
nay not thus blind you, consider, that) no man can
*serve two masters: for either he will hate the one,
and love the other; or else (which is the consequent of
that affection) he will hold to the one, and (compara-
tively) despise the other: (so that) ye cannot serve
(both) God and mammon.
25 Therefore I say unto you, *Take no thought for
(the things necessary to preserve) your life, (to wit)
what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for
your body, what ye shall put on : (for) is not the life
more than meat, and the body (more) than raiment
(He then who gave this life and body, will be concerned
to make provisions for them).
26 Behold (how it is with) the fowls of the air (which
h
are less considerable than you are); for they sow not,
neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your
heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much
better than they (and so more assuredly will be pro-
wided for.
27 And) which of you, by taking thought, can add
one cubit to his stature (or make your body taller P
how much less will your solicitude preserve the whole)?
28 And why take ye thought for raiment? consider
the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not,
neither do thcy spin : º -
29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in
all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the
field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the
oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of
little faith ? (if you distrust his care in making these
provisions for you). - * *
31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall
we eat 2 or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal
shall we be clothed -
32 For after all these things do the gentiles seek
(but ye who are under a more peculiar providence need
not do it); for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye
have need of all these things (and sure his providence
will neversuffer you to want what he sees needful for you).
33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his
righteousness (viz. that righteousness which will render
you acceptable in his sight); and (then) all these things
(as far as they are needful) shall be added unto you.
Rom. xii. 8. 2 Cor. viii. 2. ix. 11. 13). And, on the con-
trary, 39.82×3: Troyngö, “the evil eye,” is the covetous eye
that envies others any share of its good things. So Prov.
xxviii. 22, “He that hasteth to be rich is a man Ty vºl of an
evil eye ;” and xxiii. 6, “Eat not the bread of him that
hath an evil eye ; for the evil eye, 349axº; Toyngö, is en-
vious for his bread, and he is a niggard at his table” (Ec-
clus. xiv. 10. Tob. iv. 16); “Give alms of thine abundance,
and let not thine eye be envious when thou givest alms ;”
and Matt. xx. 15, 349aWºë, cow Troynpäç, “is thine eye evil,
because I am good?” So that the import of these words is
this ; As the eye gives light to the body to lead it safely in
the way, so the eye or mind free from covetousness, and
ready to relieve the wants of Christ's needy members; will
be a light to the Christian to lead him in the way of life :
Whereas, covetousness being “the root of all evil,” he that
Fath this evil eye, must be led by it into evil, and walk in
4arkness, and in that way which leads to utter darkness;
for “the friendship of this world is enmity to God” (James
iv. 4), and “he that loveth this world, the love of the Fa-
ther is not in him” (1 John ii. 15). Now our affections are
inordinately set upon the things of this world, -
First, When we are not contented with those things that
We at present do enjoy, though we have what is necessary,
to wit, “food and raiment” (1 Tim. vi. 8, 9); for this man
is § 3ovñéºévos Traouireſ, “one that cannot be contented with-
out being rich'' (see note on Heb. xiii. 5). -
Secondly, When being not satisfied with things needful,
We are solicitous for superfluities, Luke xii. 15 (see the note
there). -
Thirdly, When we cannot freely give of our superfluities,
when the necessities of Christ's members do require our
charity ; but we do this grudgingly and sparingly ; and our
charity is extorted from us by shame or importunity, and
comes not liberally and freely from our hands, for then it
is imparted 3; in tràsovićia;, “as of covetousness, and not of
goodwill,” 2 Cor. ix, 5 (see the note there).
* Ver. 24. Oiśā; 30yarat 8vor ºvgiot, 3-vasſery, No man
can serve two masters.] Here is an excellent rule, by
which we may infallibly discern what we do prevalently
love in any case, even that which we cleave to, with neglect
of that which stands in competition with it. And hence it
follows, that we love mammon more than. God, (1.) when
we pursue it by unlawful or forbidden means; by a lie, as
Ziba and Gehazi, by fraud, oppression, theft, violence, or by
false testimony: for in all these cases we despise God's au-
thority to obtain mammon. (2.) When our labour and con-
cernment for these temporals do cause us to neglect or be
remiss in the performance of our duty to God, then are we
&a=X4a ayre;, despisers, and neglecters of his invitation, out
of regard to our fields, our yoke of oxen, or our married
wife (Matt. xxii. 5). And, (3.) when we cannot part with
them for God's sake, but choose rather to make “shipwreck
of a good conscience,” and quit our interest in spiritual than
in temporal blessings; for then we certainly cleave to them
more than God, and him we do comparatively despise.
** Ver. 25. M% ºwegºváts ºf Juxi Take no thought for
gyour life: Ver. 34. M3 pasgºwyńa mºre gi; Thy atgtoy" Take ye no
thought for the morrow..] We are not to imagine that
Christ doth here forbid our provident care and diligence in
providing, by our honest labours, things necessary for this
present life, or even all care of improving ourselves, or get-
ting wealth by this means; for God hath commanded us to
“labour with our hands,” both for provisions for ourselves
and others (Eph. iv. 28). This also is the reward God hath .
promised to the “diligent hand,” that it shall “make us
rich;” and these enjoyments are useful, not only for the of
fices of charity, but also for the flourishing estate of king-
doms and commonwealths; and therefore cannot absolutely
be forbidden. Nor can we reasonably think Christ here
forbids all provident concernment for the future, i.e. not
only for the morrow, but the next month or year; all laying
up provisions of corn, wine, oil, money, which economical
wisdom doth require, and prudence in all governments in-
structs men to do. The solicitude therefore about these
things forbidden here, is, (1.) a solicitude arising from a want
of faith, or a surmise that divine goodness may be wanting
to us in things his wisdom seeth needful for us, ver. 30. (2.)
A regard to these things more than spirituals, and with a
comparative neglect of them, “you cannot serve God and
mammon;” 31& rotºro, and “for this cause I say unto you,
Take no thought,” &c. (3.) Such a solicitude for these
things as makes us anxious, rends and afflicts our hearts with
fears lest we should want them ; as may be gathered not
only from the import of the word (wegºvºy, but from the rea-
son assigned of this precept, “Sufficient for the day is the
evil thereof;” i. e. the cares and troubles which necessarily
attend each day.
And, lastly, Jet it be noted, that though generally speak-
ing it be true that the gentiles, Arièa tº #x2yric, “having
78
MATTHEW.
34 Therefore take no thought for to-morrow (be not
beforehand importunately solicitous for your future
subsistence :) for the morrow shall take thought for
the things of itself: (i.e. you may have time enough to
no certain hope of future blessings,” sought thus after these
things, yet some of their philosophers have used the same
arguments against this solicitude, declaring,
First, That a philosopher and servant of God ought not to
be solicitous for these things, 358614&; ºch ot, oxoin tºo på; giftov,
“as fearing he might want food to-morrow” (Arrian. lib. iii.
cap. 9, p. 109, cap. 36, p. 348).
Secondly, That a good man ought to believe God will
provide things necessary for him ; for, saith Epictetus in
Arrian. p. 350, 000s. Tic &våp &yaśā; º Airway atrº ºrgépat;
take thought for the morrow when it comes ; add not
therefore to the cares of each day, for) sufficient to the
day is the evil thereof (i. e. the necessary trouble which
attends each day).
“Doth any good man fear he may want food P Will he,
who is not wanting to the blind and lame, be wanting to good
men 2 Doth God so neglect his servants and his witnesses of
his care and providence 2''
Thirdly, They add, that this fear renders us worse than
brutes, &y £zaa toy air? airó exoſºevow oºrs recº; 3roggſ ric
oixsiaç, “which are content with their portion, and want no-
thing necessary for the preservation of their lives” (lib. iii.
cap. 9, p. 108. See Examen Millii here).
CHAPTER VII.
1 *JUDGE not (severely, and without charity and ſ not the beam that is in thine own eye (i. e. thy own
mercy), that ye be not judged (accordingly, James ii.
13). w
2 For with what judgment ye judge (men), ye shall
be judged (of God); and with what measure ye
mete (to them), it shall be measured to you again.
3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy
brother’s eye (i. e. his lesser failings), but considerest
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VII.
* Wer. 1. M% xeivers, iva º zgºńre. Judge not, that ye be
not judged.] Here note,
First, That Christ cannot reasonably be supposed in these
words to forbid the magistrate to sit in judgment on the
criminal, or to condemn notorious offenders, since by his
own authority it is that “kings do reign, and princes decree
judgment.” They are the ministers of God, ordained for the
execution of his wrath upon the evil-doer, and the defence,
encouragement, and reward of well-deserving subjects, which
office they can never execute, unless they have authority to
judge who are the persons that do good or evil, and to pass
sentence on them according to their actions. Moreover, we
are obliged to pray for magistrates, that “under them we
may live peaceable and quiet lives;” which, in effect, is to
desire that they may judge, restrain, condemn, and punish
the factious and profane, seditious, and ungodly person (see
Prov. viii. 15. Rom. xiii. 4. 1 Tim. ii. 2). That, therefore,
cannot be forbidden here, which is the duty and design of
magistracy, and which all Christians are obliged to pray for.
Secondly, It cannot reasonably be thought, that Christ
doth here forbid church governors to judge, condemn, and
pass the censures of the church upon notorious and scanda-
lous offenders, because he hath himself enjoined the execu-
tion of her censures upon those who will not hear the church
when she requires them to repent of, and satisfy their Chris-
tian brother for, any trespass done against him (Matt. xviii.
17). He hath committed to them an authority to bind and
loose, retain or to remit offences, as upon due examination
of the fact they shall find cause to do so (Matt. xvi. 19);
which office doth suppose a power to judge not only who of.
fend, but what offenders may deserve to be condemned, and
to proceed according to their judgment in those matters.
St. Paul himself doth in the general declare, that it belong-
eth to the church to judge of them who are within the pale
of her communion, that he himself had judged the inces-
tuous person, and that it was the duty of the church to put
out or exclude from her communion that “wicked person”
(1 Cor. v. 3, 12, 15). And to deny the rulers of the church
this power, is wholly to dissolve her discipline, to lay upon
her a necessity of giving “holy things to dogs,” which their
great Pastor here forbids, and render her unable to remove
the precious from the vile, which they who are God's mouth
unto the people are obliged to do (Jer. xv. 19).
Thirdly, Christ doth not here forbid the Christian to pass
a judgment on the manifest or notorious actions of his
Christian brother, seeing he doth enjoin such duties as can-
not be performed without this judgment ; v. g. he enjoins
greater crimes) 8
4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother (without
shame and self-condemnation), Let me pull out the
mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in
thine own eye
5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of
thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast
him to “reprove his brother, and not to suffer sin upon him”
(Lev. xix. 17); to “ have no fellowship with the unfruitful
works of darkness, but reprove them” (Eph. v. 11); to
“withdraw himself from every brother that walks disorderly,
and not according to the traditions received from the apostles”
(2 Thess. iii. 6); to “mark them who caused divisions and
offences, contrary to the doctrines they had received from
them, and avoid them” (Rom. xvi. 17); to “turn away from
them who, though they had the form, denied the power of
godliness” (2 Tim. iii. 5); not to “communicate with him
who, being called a brother, is a formicator, or idolater, or a
drunkard” (1 Cor. v. 11). Now it is impossible that any
Christian should perform these duties, who does not judge
who “walks disorderly,” who commits deeds of darkness,
who “ is afornicator, or idolater,” who “make divisions,” and
the like ; and therefore, to forbid this judging is conse-
uently to forbid the practice of these Christian duties.
But positively,
First, The reason of the prohibition shows, that judging
and condemning others must be here forbidden, which will
render us obnoxious to judgment and condemnation from
God; now such is all rash and uncharitable judgment, and
all the judgment we pass upon our brother, without suffi-
cient ground; viz. (1.) that judgment which we pass upon
his person, state, or actions, when we have no right or au-
thority to do so by virtue of our office, or that relation which
we bear unto him, or the discharge of any duty which Chris-
tianity doth call for at our hands; for such a one doth
meddle with a matter which belongs not to him, and doth
usurp the office of him who is his proper judge ; and there-
fore must offend. To this effect is that inquiry, Rom. xiv.
4, “Who art thou who judgest another man's servant, ”
when thou hast no commission from his Lord to do So 2
(2.) Such is that judgment or censure which we pass upon
another without sufficient evidence ; as, when we judge that
action evil, which may, for anything we know to the con-
trary, be good; that action done upon corrupt and evil
principles, which perhaps was well intended, and free from
any ill design; or when we judge that person hypocritical
and obstinate, who perhaps only sins through weakness and
infirmity, or want of better information. This rule I gather
from those words of the apostle (1 Cor. iv. 5), “Judge no-
thing before the time, until the Lord come, who will bring to
light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the
secrets of the heart;” what therefore is not manifest, as the
hypocrisy or obstinacy of our brother in many circumstances
cannot be; what doth depend upon his inward thoughts, as
the intentions of our brother do, when they are not revealed
by his words, is by this rule to be reserved to God's judg-
CHAPTER VII.
79
out the mote out of thy brother’s eye (i. e. reform
first thy own greater sins, and then thou wilt be better
fitted to reprehend the failings of others).
6 (But then, that being thus fitted to correct the vices
of others, you may not labour in vain, or run into ha-
zards without cause,) *Give not that which is holy unto
dogs, neither cast you your pearls before swine, lest
they trample them under their feet, and turn again and
rend you (i.e. continue not to preach the gospel to those
whom you find refractory, and pertinaciously confirmed
in their infidelity, and so addicted to their evil habits,
that they will rather revile and persecute you on that
account than hearken to you.
7 And that ye may never want what is necessary to
the performance of your duty as Christians or apos-
tles,) “Ask (in faith), and it shall be given you; seek
ment, and we, by passing our verdict in such cases, must be
too forward, and guilty of rash judgment. Such (3.) is that
judgment which doth aggravate the actions of our brother
beyond their just demerit, or passeth a more heavy censure
on him than he hath deserved ; for so far is our judgment
false, and without ground, as it exceeds the nature and the
demerit of the fact.
Secondly, Our Lord here plainly seemeth to forbid that
judgment of our brother, which is void of charity and mercy,
and which is not consistent with the forgiveness of him. This
may be fairly gathered from the connexion of the words, for
the preceding words are these (Luke vi. 36), “Be ye merciful
as your heavenly Father is merciful ;” the following words
run thus, “Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven” (ver. 37);
and also from that saying of St. James (ii. 13), “He shall
have judgment without mercy, who showeth no mercy.”
Thirdly, That judging must be here condemned which be-
gets in us a contempt of others, and makes us to despise and
vilify them, as may be gathered from that question (Rom. iv.
10), “Why dost thou judge 2 why dost thou set at nought
thy brother?”
Lastly, Christ, by this prohibition, must be supposed to
condemn our forwardness to judge and censure others, whilst
We ourselves are guilty of far greater crimes, it being plain
hypocrisy to pretend a zeal against the lesser faults of others,
and yet allow much greater in ourselves. This plainly fol-
lows from the connexion of the words, “Judge not, that ye
be not judged ; and why beholdest thou the mote that is in
thy brother's eye, when, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?”
The Jews themselves used this proverb familiarly in this very
case, against those who reprehended the least offences in
others, when they themselves were guilty of very heinous
crimes (see Cartw. Mellif, and Lightfoot here).
* Ver. 6. Mā Şāre ‘rā #ytov roſ, ºvºi, &c. Give not that
which is holy to dogs, neither cast you your pearls before
, swine.] By “dogs and swine,” here we must not understand
all that are wicked and profane, either through ignorance or
vicious habits; for Christ preached the gospel to publicans
and harlots, and sent his apostles to preach it to the heathen
World, which “lay in wickedness,” and “was dead in tres-
passes and sins ;” but such wicked persons only, as by ex-
perience they found, after the gospel was preached and con-
firmed to them by miracles, were still refractory, and perti-
naciously continued in their filthy lusts, after they had
received the knowledge of the truth, and were so far from
embracing it, that they resisted and blasphemed it, and were
ready to persecute and destroy the professors of it ; among
such persons, saith Christ, spend not much time, seeing
your labour will not be only lost to them, but hazardous to
yourselves. Such were those Jews to whom St. Paul having
preached the gospel, they “contradicted and blasphemed” it,
and, therefore, he “turned from them to the gentiles” (Acts
xiii. 41.46); such were especially the scribes and pharisees,
and rulers of the Jews, who, seeing that Christ did cast out
devils, said, he did it by confederacy with Beelzebub “the
prince of devils” (Matt. ix. 34. xii. 24); who, being reduced
to silence by his miracles, were “filled with madness” (Luke
vi. 11), and “took counsel how they might destroy him”
(Matt. xii. 14), and confessing that he did many miracles,
conclude thence, he was “to be taken off” (John xi. 47. 53),
and consult of cutting off Lazarus also, because “by reason
of him many believed in Christ” (John xii. 10, 11) : and be-
ing assured of Christ's resurrection, by the testimony of
those very soldiers whom they had placed as a guard about
this sepulchre, corrupt these witnesses with money, to disguise
it with a barefaced lie (Matt. xxviii.). Note also that this
Waying was proverbial among the Jews.”
* Ver, 7. Airfire kai 308 hasrai tºiv' &c. Ask, and it shall
* Buxt. Flor. p. 306.
be given you; seek, and ye shall find, &c. for every one that
asketh receiveth.] To understand aright this promise, let it
be observed, that to enable us to pray with such an assurance
of faith, that what we ask we shall receive, some things are
requisite in the party praying, some as to the matter, and
some as to the manner of his prayer. And,
First, The person who expects his prayer should find ac-
ceptance with God must not persist in any way of sin, his
heart and his affections must be taken off from every evil
way ; for, saith the Psalmist, “If I regard iniquity in
my heart, God will not hear my prayer” (Ps. lxvi. 18).
And otherwise in our addresses to God for preservation from
sin, we do but “flatter him with our lips, and dissemble with
our double hearts,” we being not disposed or willing to for-
Sake that sin we pray against.
Secondly, He must begin at least to be a “doer of God's
will;” one, who sincerely doth desire to fear him, and who doth
uprightly purpose and resolve that he will keep his righteous
precepts; for “if any man be a worshipper of God, and do-
eth his will, him he heareth” (John ix. 31): when once
this holy fear is rooted in our hearts, his ear will be still open
to our prayers, for “he will fulfil the desires of them that
fear #. and when they call he will answer them (Ps. cxlv.
19). And whilst we do persist in the sincerity of our obe-
dience, we shall retain this humble confidence of our ac-
ceptance; for “if our hearts condemn us not (of insince-
rity), then have we confidence with God, and we know that
what we ask we receive, because we keep his command-
ments” (1 John iii. 21, 22).
To clear both these particulars, consider that true prayer is
is attended with a strong desire, that we may enjoy the
blessing we pray for, and also that we address to God for
the assistance of our weakness and inability to compass the
desired blessing by our own industry, without the divine
assistance ; so that in all our addresses to God for preserva-
tion from, or strength against, any temptations, or assaults
of sin, or the mortification of any evil habit which we have
contracted, we solemnly profess to him, we are very willing
and desirous to mortify that sin, and be preserved from that
temptation ; and in all our supplications for grace, to per-
form our duty, or to increase in any virtuous habit, we de-
clare that we are truly willing to perform that duty, we ear-
nestly desire to advance to higher measures in that Christian
virtue, and that we therefore sue to him for power to enable
us to do according to those good desires. Now these pro-
fessions made to God must be hypocritical and false, and
therefore cannot render any of our prayers successful; or
else we must be truly willing and desirous to break off our
sins by repentance, and to perform that duty which we owe
to God, before we do address to him for strength for the per-
formance of our duty and preservation from sin.
Again, seeing that God to whom we pray is in himself
immutable, and in the holiness and perfections of his nature
is unchangeable ; seeing he always acts agreeably to those
standing rules of righteousness he hath declared in his word
—it must be vain for us to hope by argument to move, by
fair speeches to incline, or by pathetical entreaties to per-
suade him to do anything which is not suitable to this purity
of his nature, and to the justice of his government ; when
therefore we ask pardon for those sins we are not willing to
forsake, when we desire his friendship or protection, whilst
we continue violaters of his holy laws and rebels to his go-
vernment, it is impossible we should prevailin our addresses;
because it is not consistent with the honour of a just and
holy God to grant what we desire: we pray against the de-
clarations of his holy will, against the laws of his government
and the perfections of his nature, and so we cannot hope
that our desires should be granted: since then God changeth
not, if we desire that our prayers should find acceptance with
him, the change must be in us; in our affections, from a love
8 \
MATTHEw.
(diligently), and ye shall find; knock (perseveringly),
and it shall be opened unto you: -
8 For every one that asketh (duly) receiveth; and
he that (thus) seeketh, findeth; and to him that
knocketh (thus), it shall be opened.
9 (And of this you may be assured from the kindness
of earthly parents, for) “What man is there of you,
whom, if his son ask bread (of him), will he give him
a stone * -
10 Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent
(?. e. will he give him what is unprofitable for or hurt-
ful to him) 8 •
ll. If ye then, (though) being evil, know how (and
are inclined) to give good gifts unto your children,
how much more shall your Father which is in heaven
give good things to them that (duly) ask him :
12 (And as I have thus taught you how to obtain
what you would have God to do for you, so do I now
teach you the best way to obtain what you would rea-
sonably desire of men) ; *Therefore all things whatso-,
to a hatred of every evil way, from a dislike to an approba-
tion of the ways of piety; in our wills, from a perverse and
disobedient to a willing mind ; and then that God, who is
immutable, will therefore be disposed to hear us; for he un-
changeably is willing to show kindness to his friends, and
give assistance to every soul that uprightly desires to fear
and serve him.
Thirdly, He must be one who doth forgive his brother's
trespasses, that he may be disposed to obtain the pardon of
his own. “A man,” saith the son of Sirach, “beareth ha-
tred against another, and doth he hope for pardon from the
Lord 2. He showeth no mercy to 'a man that is like himself,
and doth he ask forgiveness of his own sins?” (Ecclus. xxviii.
3, 4), “When ye stand praying,” saith our Lord, “forgive
if you have aught against any man, that your heavenly Fa-
ther may forgive you ; for if you forgive not men their tres-
passes, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive
your trespasses” (Mark xi. 25, 26). -
Fourthly, He must be free from all injustice, injury, and
wrong, done to his neighbour, or ready to make satisfaction
for it, according to that resolution of the Psalmist, “I will
wash mine hands in innocency, and so will I compass thine
altar” (Ps. xxvi. 6). We must not offer our oblation to God
till we have offered, or are resolved, as we have opportunity,
to offer, reasonable satisfaction to our brother ; for “if thou
bringest thy gift to the altar,” saith our Lord, “ and there
rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee; leave
there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be re-
conciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift”
(Matt. v. 23,24). To proceed to the matter of our petitions:
First, What we ask must be agreeable to the holy will of
God; “for if we ask any thing according to his will he
And this must be the limit of
heareth us” (1 John v. 14).
all our acceptable desires, it being neither possible in na-
ture that he can, nor fit in reason that he should, permit our
It must |
be also something which comporteth with and tendeth to
foolish wills to thwart the counsel of his wisdom.
his glory, that being the great end of all our rational desires
“that God in all things may be glorified.”
observe, that even spiritual blessings may be asked amiss,
and so as not to be obtained ; because we are not fitted to
receive them in that way in which alone it is for God’s
glory to confer them. As when we would enjoy the end,
but will not use the means by divine wisdom appointed
for the obtaining that end : v. g. he that desires to be
Saved, desires what is agreeable to his will, “who would have
all men to be saved;” but if he will not also, “by con-
tinuance in well doing, seek for glory and immortality,” if
he will not “work out his salvation with fear and trem-
bling,” if he will not have “his fruit unto holiness,” the end
Can never be “eternal life ;” because God hath made holi-
ness the means, and obedience the condition, of salvation:
and it is in the nature of the thing impossible, that an im-
pure soul should be prepared for the enjoyment of a holy
God; nor is it for his honour to confer this blessing on the
disobedient, or to admit unholy souls into his blissful pre-
sence. And though our gracious God be willing we should
be saved, he is not willing we should be so whether we
will or no ; he is not willing we should be saved though
we use not the means appointed by him to obtain sal-
‘vation.
God, that we should abstain from that iniquity which
is a provocation to the pure eyes of his glory, and it is
doubtless for his honour that we should do so; but though
we pray to be preserved from it, yet, if we add not our sin- |
cere endeavours, if we do not “watch as well as pray, that
we enter not into temptation,” and, as much as in us lies,
us that he denieth our requests.
glory and your good
And hence |
Again, it is certainly agreeable to the mind of
avoid the occasions of, resist the temptations and solicita-
tions to it, our prayer for preservation will not be successful ;
because we are not uprightly disposed to use the means for
preservation from it, which God hath put into our hands.
Secondly, What we thus ask must be what is truly good
for us, and were we entirely wise, we should not be capable
of tendering to God a request which doth not minister to
this end; because good is the adequate object of all our ra-
tional desires, and when we ignorantly, put up addresses
for what he in his wisdom seeth not to be good for, but ra-
ther hurtful to us, it is out of pure kindness and concern for
To proceed, .
Thirdly, To the manner requisite to render these our
prayers successful ; * ,
First, we must pray in faith, that is, with an entire per-
Suasion that God is able to supply all our wants, that divine
wisdom discerneth all our real needs, and knows how to re-
lieve them ; sees all our miseries and troubles, and knows
how to convert them to our good, or work deliverance from
them in the fittest season, that he will be exactly true to all
his promises, and so “will not withhold any good thing fron:
them that lead a godly life ;” that, lastly, he is a God of
immense goodness, and therefore willing to bestow upon his
servants all that his wisdom Seeth good and necessary for
them ; “what things soever you desire in prayer, believe.
that you shall receive them, and ye shall receive them.”
(Matt. xxi. 22); if you have faith, zai º 8taxg16%ts, “and
doubt not ” (ver. 21), if ye ask in faith, º Bangwéºwevoi,
“not doubting” of his power or will to do what is for his
(see note on James i. 6), “ask, and you
shall receive.” - -
Secondly, If our petitions be not instantly granted, we
must pray (for spiritual things especially) with perseverance,
and wait with patience till he will be grâcious; for we must
“prayalways, and not faint” (Luke xviii. 1. Eph. vi. 18). And,
Thirdly, We must pray (at least for spiritual blessings)
with fervency of spirit; we must “knock,” saith the meta-
phor here, we must 3) ovićev, be in “agonies” of devotion
for them (Col. iv. 12), to show how much we prize them,
the fervent being the availing prayer (James v. 16).
* Ver. 9. "H ris a riv # jºy &v080irog, ºy #&y airhay—twº
xiào) iwiłóa's airãº) For the construction of these words,
let it be noted from Stephanus, that # at the beginning of a
sentence, no other particle preceding, signifies, an ; so Judg.
xiv. 15, # Ex3:32 at #43; zerºx#nate ; “Have ye called Sam-
son to do us violence?” 1 Sam, x. 12, § wał Żaoix #y roi; ºrgo-
$#raig; “Is Saul also among the prophets?” So Matt. xx.
15, , oùx #Eart—% & 3p3axº~6; orov ; “ Is it not lawful for me
to do what I will with my own 2 Is thine eye evil because
I am good P” I Cor. xiv. 36, § 3 p' tºy & Aéyo, roi; Geoš ###x-
Sev, siz àº'à, ºvov; Kathyrnaev ; “Came the word of God
from you, came it to you only P” So here, ris, “is there
any man among you, 3, #3v airfloº-àptoy; of whom his
son shall ask bread P’’ Må is only the sign of an interrogation.
So Gen. xviii. 14, whá8vyathan; “Shall anything be too hard
for God?” ver. 17, whºgū-po; “Shall I hide from Abraham?”
ver. 23, whº avyaroxéans; “Wilt thou destroy the righteous
with the wicked P” Judg. ix. 9, 11, 13, 2% &toxEislao.g.: “Shall
I, leave my fatness? Shall I leave my sweetness 2 shall I
leave my wine P’ Jer. xxxii. 27, aft xev6%as rai ; “Shall any
thing be hid from me?” (see Gen. xxvii. 38. xxx. 15. xxxi.
i4. xli. 38. xliii. 7). So that the whole verse runs thus, “Is
there any man among you of whom his son shall ask bread,
will that man give him a stone P” t
* Ver. 12, Távºra oëy &a &y Séants iva rotáow tºy of #y.
Sporoi, cºro zai tºº; Troieſts aircís, Whatsoever you woula
lhat men should do to you, do you even so to them, &c.
CHAPTER WII.
81
ever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even
so to them: for (in) this (rule) is (comprised the sub-
stance of) the law and the prophets.
13 Enter "ye in at the strait gate, (that leadeth unto
Here the critical note is this—that we are not to look for a
connexion of these words to the former, though they be in-
troduced with the particle ov, “therefore ;” that being, saith
Phavorinus, often äpyöy, an expletive, or serving only by way
of transition from one thing to another. Others connect the
words thus ; viz. that in the immediate preceding words our
Jord instructs us, by a comparison taken from men, that we
may reasonably expect our heavenly Father will confer upon
us all those blessings which he sees needful for us, and we
can reasonably desire, provided that we ask them with faith
and importunity, and do with diligence seek them : and
hence, saith Grotius, our Lord infers that we, who stand en-
gaged to be “followers of God as dear children,” should be
as ready to afford to others all needful aid, which they, on
the account of equity, humanity, and Christian charity, desire
of us; this being only that which, in like cases, we expect
from others. Hence in St. Luke, vi. 30, our Lord is intro-
duced, saying, “Give to every one that asketh ;" and “as
you would that men should do to you, do ye even so to
them” (ver. 31). But for explication of this rule, note,
First, That it was a rule which obtained both among Jews
and gentiles, and was delivered by them in some variety of
words, but with great harmony of sense; first positively, as
here,
Quod tibi fieri vis, fac alteri.
TEyot. Trāaw &g co, Séxei, Trávr&g.
And also negatively,
Nilus.
Quod tibi fieri non vis, alterine feceris.
Quod damnaturus sis in aliis, in tenon admiseris.
"Orsº au paireſ; rag äräy arol yávea Sat, st; #tégovº º Troisi.
“A Tráaxovts; tºp' régov &gyićea-6s, raûra roſ; &AAoi; ºft
Troietºrs. Isocr. ad Nicocl. Or. 3.
And in those words of Hillel, “Do not thou that to thy
neighbour, which thou hatest when it is done to thee ;”
which rule in Tobit (iv. 14), is expressed thus, 3 ºtosí, pan-
Seyi Troiſſanç, “do that to no man which thou hatest.”
Secondly,"That this rule being given as the sum of the law
and the prophets, as an abridgement of the rules of justice
prescribed by them, can never duly be so construed, as to
subvert any of the laws and orders established by them, or
thwart the proper rules of charity or justice. And there-
fore this rule admits these limitations:
Thirdly, Whatsoever I desire with a well-ordered or regu-
lated will, that is, what I desire, agreeably to the dictates of
right reason, or to the principles of Christian religion, should
be done or not done to me, that I must do or not do to others.
It therefore will not follow from this rule, that if a pot com-
panion will give me drink to excess, that I must give him
drink to excess, or that, if Socrates would lend his wife to
his friend, that friend should do the like to him ; because
that which is here prescribed as a rule of charity and justice
among Christians, could never be intended to countenance
what is opposite to charity and justice, to the law and the
prophets, and more especially to the precepts of Christianity.
And so, as to the negative part of this rule, though a criminal,
or guilty person, would not have the judge condemn him, or
the witnesses give in testimony against him, but would be
pardoned after condemnation ; yet he who is a judge, were
he such a person, must not forbear to condemn, or always
pardon, the condemned criminal, since this practice would
take away vindictive justice, and let offenders go unpu-
nished.
Fourthly, This rule must be interpreted as a rule of pro-
portion do, binding us to, or not to do that to others, which in
like state, condition, or relation, we would, or we would not
have done to ourselves; V. g. it requires not the master to
obey his servants, because he would have them obedient to
him, but to be as obedient to his masters as he can reason-
ably expect they should be to him, and to treat his servants
as kindly and favourably as, if he were a servant, he could
reasonably desire to be treated by his master: the prince
must not be subject to his people, as he would have them be
to him, but he must treat them with that equity and kind-
life, ver. 14), for wide is the gate, and broad is the
way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be
which go in thereat (with ease ; but there is great need
of industry, and much striving to get into the other) ;
ness, which, if he were a subject, he reasonably might ex-
pect from a prince duly regardful of his subjects’ weal; and
so proportionably in the relations of father and children,
man and wife, master and scholar, pastor and flock, &c.
Fifthly, This rule must not be extended to everything
which another may lawfully do to me, and therefore I de-
sire he would do ; but only what I may desire of him, or
expect from him as his duty, on the account of equity and
justice, charity, friendship, or relation. Thus, if a poor
man would desire that some very wealthy person would
give him out of his estate enough to make him rich ; though
were this rich man poor, he would be glad if somebody
would show the like kindness to him, yet he is not obliged
by this rule, though lawfully he might do it, to make this
poor man rich, because he stands not bound by any law of
charity or justice so to do. And,
Sixthly, Note that this rule, as it is positive, respects not
only our outward actions, but even our words and thoughts,
requiring us to speak, think, and judge of others, as in like
circumstances we may in equity and reason expect they
should speak, think, or judge of us. As it is negative, it
must require us not to speak, think, or judge of others, as
we conceive that in like circumstances they ought not to
speak, think, or judge of us; for there is an equity to be
observed in our words and thoughts of others, as well as in
our actions, and a judgment of charity, and a righteous
judgment, as well as a labour of love, and a righteous deed;
and also an evil word and thought, and a wrong judgment,
which therefore ought to be forborne from principles of love
and cquity.
* Ver, 13, 14. Enter in at the strait gate, &c.] Of the
metaphor of a “strait gate,” see note on viii. 11, and note
that the way of virtue and felicity is represented by the hea-
then sages under the like metaphor; thus Cebes saith, that
there is at the entrance of it Söga ri; ºwing&, “a little gate,”
and āyā3acic cravi, ºrávv, “the way hath a very strait ascent,”
and is a way not trodden in, which Trávu ääiyot tro;5&owtai,
“very few walk in,” as seeming to be difficult, ºrgaxšía ka?
tre+gºng, “rough and rocky.” And yet this is no contradic-
tion to those scriptures which represent the ways of wis-
dom as “ways of pleasantness,” and “the yoke" of Christ
as “easy,” and his “commandments” as “not grievous ;”
for this way is only rough and grievous at our first entrance
into it, when we have many old acquaintance and seeming
friends to part with, and evil habits to put off, and till faith
and patience have smoothed it to us; but then we can “re-
joice in tribulations, and take pleasure in infirmities,” and
Jove will make it pleasant to us. “When temperance and
patience,” said Cebes, have lifted us to the top of the hill,
then is it £33; Max', 're kai épºaxi, wai eitrópevtos, “a way that is
pleasant, smooth, and easy to be trod, free from all evil, and
leading to the regions of felicity.” And whereas it is added,
&rt a revi, h trôan, “because strait is the gate,” &rt there should
be rendered but, for so the Hebrew ºn, which answers to it,
often signifies, and is therefore rendered by the Septuagint,
&AA& or 3XA' , but, viz. 2 Chron. xx. 15. PS. xlii. 3. Dan. ix.
11. Amos vii. 14. And sometimes 3rt in the Sense of but ;
so 1 Kings xxi. 15, “Naboth is not alive, no “d 8ts réðvnze,
but dead;” 2 Kings i, 4, “He shall not descend down from
his bed mon mp ºn 3ri Savārg &roðayń, but shall die.” . So
Numb. xxvii. 3. Deut. xi. 7. Judg. i. 19. ii. 17. 1 Sam.
xvii. 47. 2 Sam. xxiv. 24, and in many other places (see
Noldius de partic. Heb. p. 404).
7 Ver. 15. Igoréxete 3; 373 rºy Jºuëcºrpoºntºv, Ver. 16.
3rd rāy wagºrºv airów Łºryvdasa Ós abroñº. Beware of false pro-
phets, by their fruits ye shall know them.] They Who ex-
tend the word “false prophets” to all teachers of false doc-
trimes, will scarce be able to show, how they, who teach the
doctrine of the millennium, or that the promises of the law
were only temporal, or that the baptism of infants may be
deferred till they come to years of discretion, or that the
sabbath-day is still to be kept holy, can be proved to be
“false prophets” by the evil tendence or consequents of
their doctrine : moreover, it must be noted that Christ here
-4
$2
MATTHEW.
14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the
§ which leadeth unto life, and few there be that
find it.
15 (And that you may not be led out of it,) "Beware
of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s cloth-
mg (as the old prophets did), but inwardly they are
ravening wolves.
16 Ye shall know them by their fruits, (for) do
men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles :
(Surely no).
17 Even so (it is not to be expected that ye should
receive good from such persons ; for) every good tree
bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth
forth evil fruit.
18 °A good tree (whilst it continues so) cannot
bring forth evil fruit; neither can a corrupt tree
bring forth good fruit.
19 (And yet it is of great importance that your
fruit should be good; for) every tree that bringeth
not forth good fruit, is hewn down, and cast into the
fire (the punishment reserved for such false prophets
and evil workers).
20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them
(whom I thus bid you beware of, for)
21 °Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord
(or calls himself one of my prophets or disciples), shall
enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he (only) who
does the will of my Father which is in heaven, (and
thus will it appear to be in the great day : for)
22 * Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord,
have we not prophesied in thy name 2 and in thy
name have cast out devils 2 and in thy name done
many wonderful works :
23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew
speaks to the multitude (ver. 28, 29), and to the ears of the
people (Luke vii. 1): they therefore must beware of them,
and so be able to know them by their works, as “the tree
is known by its fruits” (ver. 20), from the works of ini-
quity they do (ver. 23), not from their doctrines ; for that
would render our Lord's words ridiculous, viz. “Beware of
teachers of false doctrines; by their false doctrines ye shall
know them.” -
Obj. But you may say, Christ owns they shall appear “ in
sheep's clothing,” that is, in a fair appearance of piety and
innocence, and so it must be difficult to pass a judgment on
them by their works.
Ans. It is not necessary that their coming “in sheep's
clothing” should signify their seeming innocency, but only
their appearance in the habit of prophets. For so Elias
wrapped himself Év tº ºnxor; aircü, “in his sheep's skin
mantle” (1 Kings xix. 13), and when he ascended, h ºn Morris,
“his mantle fell from him” (2 Kings ii. 13).
fore may be the true import of this phrase, They shall ap-
pear in the habit of prophets. But (2.) admit it signifies
their hypocrisy and dissimulation ; things feigned and dis-
sembled only, will in a little time be easily discerned from
that which is sincere and real ; when such hypocritical pre-
tenders håve got once a liberty to do it, when their advan-
tage requires it, when persecutions for the faith arise, they
will soon put off the mask, and discover themselves to be
counterfeits. -
Moreover, “false prophets,” both in the Old and the
New Testament, do always signify such persons as falsely
pretend a commission from God for what they teach, or who
promise or foretell things falsely in his name ; as will ap-
pear from all the places of the New Testament where this
word occurs, Matt. xxiv. 18. Mark xiii. 22. Luke vi. 26.
Acts xiii. 6. 2 Pet. ii. 1. Rev. xvi. 13. xix. 20. xx. 10.
That such “false prophets” were suddenly to come into
the world, our Lord foretells, Matt. xxiv. 11. That many
of them were come, we learn from St. Peter and St. John,
1 John iv. 1. And,
Lastly, The apostles teach, agreeably to Christ, that such
“false apostles” and “false prophets” are to be discovered,
not only by their doctrines, but by their works, as being
“ravenous wolves, not sparing the flock” (Acts xx. 29);
“teachers of what they ought not for filthy lucre's saké”
(Tit. i. 11); such “as count gain, godliness” (1 Tim. vi.
5); “lovers of money” (2 Tim. iii. 2); “through covetous-
mess by feigned words making merchandise of others” (2
Pet. ii. 3); “admiring persons for gain” (Jude 16); such
as may be known by the evil works they did, and taught
others to do, as being “lovers of pleasure” (2 Tim. iii. 4);
“abominable”. (Tit. i. 16); “defiling the flesh, and turn-
ing the grace of God into lasciviousness” (2 Pet. ii. 10. Jude
4. 8); and, lastly, such as insisted upon questions which
had no tendence to advance godliness, but rather to “nou-
rish strife, and to subvert the hearers” (1 Tim. i. 4. iv. 7.
2 Tim. ii. 16. 23. Tit. iii. 9). -
* Ver. 18. Oi 8&vara, 38,300w &yaSöy Troyngoi, zaporoic roisſy,
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an
evil tree bring forth good fruit..] i. e. While they continue
such. Hence some make two inferences, which are false
and alien from the mind of Christ:
This there-
First, That he who once is regenerate can never cease to
be so ; which no more follows, than that he who is once
wicked cannot cease to be so ; and therefore that it is vain
to call sinners to repentance, or bid them “make the tree
good,” as Christ doth, Matt. xii. 33.
Secondly, That an irregenerate person can do nothing
that is good, because he is an evil tree, and so he must be
purely passive in his whole conversion ; which is as if I
should argue, that a good man cannot sin, because, being a
good tree, he cannot bring forth evil fruit. Good here is the
note of St. Jerome, that “Judas, being once a good tree,
brought forth bad fruit, when he betrayed his Master. And
Saul, being once a bad tree, brought forth bad fruit, when he
became a vessel of election :” Tamditi ergö arbor bona
fructus non facit malos, quamditi in bonitatis studio perse-
verat ; et mala arbor tamditi manet in fructibus peccatorum,
quamditi ad poenitentiam non convertitur. “So long then
as the good tree persevereth in its goodness, it bringeth not
forth evil fruit; and the evil tree continues to bring forth the
fruits of sin, till by repentance it is turned into a good tree.”
* Ver. 21. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord,
shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, &c.] Of the im-
port of this phrase, “the kingdom of heaven,” see note on
iii. 2. And note hence, that faith and purposes of obedi-
ence, without actual obedience to the commands of God, as
long as we live and have opportunity to do so, will avail no
man to Salvation. -
1° Wer. 22. Many shall say in that day, Lord, oi rā; a`ā
ãvépart ºrgoeºnºrečarapaev, &c. have we not prophesied, cast out
devils, and done many mighty works in thy name 2] I grant
that it cannot be certainly inferred from these words, that
any persons will thus plead at the day of judgment ; but
only that such pleas, if made, will be of no account with
God from workers of iniquity: but yet it will hence follow,
that such persons might be workers of iniquity, and also
that they might have some expectations of favour from
Christ, on the account of these things performed in his
name. And that such miracles were actually performed by
such men in the name of Christ, we learn from Origen,”
who saith that “so prevalent is the name of Christ to cast
out devils, &; a 3’ &re zai útrö pačXoy &vokzaçãºzavov dyūsty, that
sometimes (as Christ said) it avails when named by wicked
Christians.” And Pseudo-Justin't confesseth of the here-
tics, #v=pygīv rivā; #y attoſ; 8vyápºeic, “that some miracles
were wrought by them.” For though true miracles can-
not be wrought in confirmation of a “false doctrine,” yet,
seeing miracles wrought by “the name of Jesus,” are
wrought not to confirm either the doctrine or piety of him
that doth them, but only to confirm his doctrine in whoso
name they are wrought, I think it no absurdity to grant,
that evil Christians may do them in his name. Thus God
put many true prophecies concerning his people into the
mouth of that Balaam, “who loved the wages of unright-
eousness ;” and Judas was one of those twelve to whom
Christ gave “power to cast out unclean spirits, and to heal
all diseases” (Matt. x. 1). -
* Ver. 24. II3; otiv Šarriç &xoſe, rotic Aéyou; roſtovº, was roºf?
airovº, &c. Every one that heareth these words, and doeth
* Contr. Cels. lib. i. p. 7. # Qu. 6
CHAPTER VIII.
83
you; (i. e. never approved of you as my disciples,
therefore) depart from me ye that work iniquity. .
24 * Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of
mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise
man who built his house upon a rock:
25 And the rain descended, and the floods came,
and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and
it fell not : for it was founded upon a rock (so also
will the obedient person stand firm in the day of trial).
26 And every one that heareth these sayings of
mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened to a
foolish man, who built his house upon the sand:
27 And the rain descended, and the floods came,
and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and
it fell: and great was the fall of it (i.e. so will it be
with him who lives not suitably to my doctrine).
28 And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended
these sayings, the people were astonished at his doc-
trine: .
29 For he taught them **as one that had authority
(from God to teach them), and not as the scribes (who
only taught them what were the traditions and eaſposi-
tions of their fathers).
them, will I liken to a wise man.] Hence it appears, (1.)
that this sermon on the mount contains those rules of faith
which are sufficient for salvation; since otherwise Christ
could not promise it to them who observed and practised
these his sayings.
(2.) That a man may be disposed to yield this obedience,
it is necessary, (1.) that he believe Christ was “a teacher
sent from God” into the world, to propound these rules of
life and death in his name, and by his authority; faith being
the principle and root of all obedience. (2.) That he hath
a sufficient knowledge of these rules, and doth retain them
in his memory; for what he doth not know he cannot, and
what he retains not in his memory he will not do. We
must add to “our faith, knowledge” (2 Pet. i. 5); and
“keep in memory the things we have heard,” l Cor. xv. 2.
(3.) That he firmly believe and frequently reflect upon the
motives to perform these rules; viz. the blessings promised
to the observers of them, and the great evils threatened to
the neglecters of these rules: for the serious and frequent
consideration of these things will not only animate us to the
performance of our duty, but will strengthen us against all
the temptations and allurements of the world, to divert us
from it ; whilst we perceive that the advantages we shall re-
ceive by living according to these rules, are infinitely greater
than any which the world can tender ; and the evils which
will certainly ensue on our neglect to do so, are far more
formidable than any we can suffer from a persecuting
world.
* Wer. 29. *Hy y&p 3.84wrov abrois &; #overſaw #xºv, The
multitude were astonished at his doctrine; for he taught
them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes.]
They certainly mistake, who interpret these words thus,
“He taught them as the author of the doctrine he preached,
and one who had authority in his own name, to propound
the terms of life and death,” and therefore saith not, as the
prophets, “Thus saith the Lord,” but “I say unto you.”
This being not only contrary to the nature of his prophetic
office, but to his frequent declarations, that “the doctrine
which he taught was not his own, but his that sent him ; ”
that “he spake not of himself, or in his own name, but as
he had heard from his Father, and as he had commanded
him to speak” (John vii. 16. viii. 28. xii. 49. xiv. 10. xvii.
18). This interpretation therefore of St. Jerome, Theophy-
lact, and others, is to be rejected. Others think this re-
lates to the confirmation of his doctrine by miracles ; for
when he had cured all manner of diseases, demoniacs, luna-
tics, and paralytics, the people flock to him from all quar-
ters (Matt. iv. 24, 25), and then he begins this sermon. So
Mark i. 27, “They all marvelled, saying, What is this new
doctrine 2 for war' #ova'iav with authority he commanded
the unclean spirits, and they obey him :” and Luke iv. 32,
“They were amazed at his doctrine ; for his word was #y
#ovaig, attended with the power of miracles” (ver. 36).
And, thirdly, because it is here said, “they were astonished,”
not at his miracles, but “at his doctrine ;” others interpret
the words thus, “He spake as a prophet, having authority
from God to deliver his message to them ;” not as the
scribes, who pretended only to deliver the traditions of
their forefathers, and to teach only what they had learnt
from Hillel, Shemaia, Abtalion, &c. So Lightfoot.
CHAPTER VIII.
1 WHEN he was come down from the mountain
(on which he delivered this divine discourse), great mul-
titudes followed him.
2 And, behold (when he was in or near one of the
cities, Luke v. 12), there came a leper and *worship-
ped him, (kneeling, Marki. 40, and falling down before
him, Luke v. 12, and) saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VIII.
*Wer. 2. IIgorexive airá, worshipped him.] The Jews
paid civil adoration both to kings and prophets, either by
bending of the knee, or by prostration, or falling down before
them: so Abigail fell down before David, and bowed herself
to the ground, 1 Sam. xxv. 23.41; so also the Amalekite fell
to the earth before him, and did obeisance, 2 Sam. i. 2; so
Mephibosheth fell on his face, and did him reverence, 2 Sam.
ix. 6; so the woman of Tekoah, 2 Sam. xiv. 4; Nathan, 1
Kings i. 23; so the whole congregation “worshipped the Lord
and the king,” 1 Chron. xxix. 20. Thus also they reverenced
the holy prophets: So Saul stooped with his face to the
ground to Samuel, l Sam. xxviii. 14. Obadiah fell on his
face before Elijah, 1 Kings xviii. 7, see 2 Kings i. 13, and
Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face before Daniel, ii. 46. Whence
I conclude, that the adorations given to our blessed Saviour,
by those Jews and gentiles who knew nothing of his divinity,
could be no argument of his divine nature, but rather were
paid to him as the Messiah, or as a prophet sent from God,
or as the “King of Israel.” * *.
*Wer. 3. Kai #xteivac tºy Xeſ;&#xparo airoi; ; 'Incojº. And
Jesus, stretching forth his hand, touched him.] The Jews
cannot reasonably object that our Lord violated the law,
|
canst make me clean.
3 And Jesus (having compassion on him, Mark i.’
41),” put forth his hand, and touched him, saying (to
him), I will; be thou clean. And immediately his
leprosy was cleansed. -
4 And Jesus (straitly charged him, and forthwith sent
him away, Mark i. 43, and) saith unto him, “See thou
either by touching the leper here, or by touching the bier of
the dead (Luke vii. 14); for, as the effect wrought upon both
demonstrated, that the God who gave these laws approved
both these actions, they being done by “the finger of God,”
so was it a received rule among them, “That a prophet might
vary from, or even change, a ritual law:” so did Elijah, who
took the woman’s dead son out of her bosom, and carried
him up to his bed, and stretched himself upon him three
times (1 Kings xvii. 19. 21); so did Elisha, when he lay
upon the Shunammite's child, and put his mouth upon his
mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his
hands (2 Kings iv. 34). Whence Theophylactº observes,
“That our Lord touched the leper, to show it was not neces-
sary that he should observe those lesser matters of the law,
and that a pure person is not defiled by touching one un-
clean;” but that it is the leprosy of the soul which doth
indeed defile (see note on ver. 8).
*Ver. 4. "Oga ºnºsyl simpº, See thow tell no man.] viz. 'That
thou wast healed by me, till thou hast offered thy gift to the
priest; and he, by receiving it, hath owned thee to be clean
from thy leprosy, lest they, hearing that thou wast cleansed
* Neve Shallom, lib. ix. cap. 19. i. In Luke vii. 14.
s G 2
84
MATTHEW.
tell no man (who hath done this); but go thy way (first,
and) “show thyself to the priest, and offer (for thy
purification, Mark i. 44, Luke v. 15) the gift that
Moses commanded, for a "testimony to them: (but he
going from him, published it so much, that the multitude
hearing of it came from every place to be healed of
their infirmities, Mark i. 45. Luke v. 15).
5 And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum,”
there came unto him (by the elders of the Jews, Luke
vii. 3), a centurion, beseeching him,
6 And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick
of the palsy, grievously tormented (and nigh to death;
I desire thou wouldst come and heal him, Luke vii. 3).
[Luke vii. 4. And when they came to him, they be-
sought him instantly, saying, That he was worthy for
whom he should do this : Ver. 5. for he loveth our na-
tion, and hath built us a synagogue.]
7 And Jesus saith unto him (i. e. to the messengers
sent by him), I will come and heal him : (and having
said this, Jesus went with them, and when he was now
not far from the house, Luke vii. 6,) -
8 The centurion (hearing that Christ was coming to
him, sent other friends to him, by whom he) answered
and said, Lord, (trouble not thyself to come to me : for)
I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my
roof; (wherefore neither thought I myself worthy to
come unto thee, Luke vii. 6, 7); but "speak the word
only, and my servant shall be healed.
9 For I am a man under authority, having (also)
soldiers under me: and I say unto this mam, Go, and
he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and
to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. (How much
more canst thou, who hast all power in heaven and
earth, command one of the ministering spirits to come
and heal my servant U
10 When Jesus heard (this saying), he marvelled, and
said to them that followed him, Verily, I say unto you, I
have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel (the
people to whom I was promised, and to whom I am sent).
11 And I say unto you, That “many shall come
from the east and from the west, (from the north and
from the south, Luke xiii. 29) and shall sit down with
Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, (and with all the
prophets, Duke xiii. 28) in the kingdom of heaven
(i.e. shall be partakers of the blessings promised to
these patriarchs).
12 But the children of the kingdom shall be cast
out into outer darkness: (so that) there shall be weep-
ing and gnashing of teeth (among them thus eacluded
from the blessings of this kingdom).
by me, should, out of envy to me, refuse to own that thou
wast cleansed. This sense, the words “Offer the gift for a
testimony to them,” seem to require; for that which was
always to be concealed from them, could be no testimony to
them of the divine mission (see note on ix. 30).
*zeavry 3sićov rà isºsí, Show thyself to the priest, &c.]
Here it is well observed by Dr. Lightfoot, that though the
priesthood was much degenerated from its primitive institu-
tion and office, and many human institutions were added to
God’s law, touching the priest’s examination of the leper who
pretended to be clean ; yet doth Christ send this leper to
submit to all these human inventions, as knowing that they
did indeed corrupt but not extinguish the divine institu-
tion.
* Ei, Kwaprietov attoº, For a testimony to them.] This some
interpret thus, “Offer thy gift for a testimony unto them,
that thou art cleansed from thy leprosy,” which must be the
import of these words, if Christ had absolutely forbid him to
declare who it was that cured him of his leprosy ; but in all
other places where this phrase is used, it imports a testimony
to the truth of Christ's missionſ or his doctrine, and, there-
fore, most probably, here signifies, that by pronouncing the
man clean, they may have a testimony that I am the Christ,
or am a prophet sent from God; they themselves owning
that the leprosy can only be cured by the finger of God (2
Knigs v. 7), and, therefore, not suffering a physician to
attempt to cure it: so v. g. Matt. x. 18, “Yeshall be brought
before governors and kings, sic pagrüglow airroſ., for a testi-
mony to them and to the nations:” Matt. xxiv. 14, “This
gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world, sic
*agrügtoy, for a testimony to all nations:” Luke ix. 5, “If
they receive you not, shake off the dust of your foet, si; aap-
‘rūploy in abrows, for a testimony against them.” Hence the
lepers cleansed, Matt. xi. 5, are made the sign of the advent
of the Messiah.
*Ver. 5. TIpoaia Sev airé à éxarávra exo, araganaxåy abrèy,
There came to him a centurion, beseeching him.] Luke vii.
3, he sent to him the rulers of the Jews; and, ver. 8, the
centurion answered and said; Luke vii. 6, “the centurion
sent friends to him, saying,” (see these things reconciled, in
note on Luke vii. 1). It is conjectured by St. Chrysostom,
ºat abºy wità tê ºréºlai roi; Piaow; wageyevågsvoy, that he
himself, as Jesus came nearer to his house, came out of civi-
lity to meet him; because Christ says unto him, “Go thy
way, as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee,” ver, 13;
but of that also, see note on Luke vii. 1. -
* Ver, 3. 8. Qiao, kağapia &nt, I will, be thout clean.] Here
the note of Woltzogenius is this, Hîc verè divina Christi vis
elucet : “Here shines forth the divine power of Christ, that
he could do so great things only by his command:” so also
Moses, says, the world was “created by God, saying, Let
there be light, and there was light” (Gen. i. 3). And on
t
those words, ver. 8, “Only say the word, and my servant
shall be healed,” &c. he saith, he represents the faith of the
centurion, concerning our Lord’s divine power, thus: If I,
who am subject to the power of another, have so much
power over my servants, that they instantly do whatever I
would have them, how much more shall all things which
thou requestest be done at thy word and command, qui
nullius potestati subjectus es, who art subject to the power
of none P And how can he deny him to be God, in whom
shines forth that divine power which God exerted in the
creation of the world, and at whose word all things that he
commandeth must be done, and who “is subject to the power
of none P Surely this faith of the centurion may induce us
to conclude with St. Jerome on the place, Quéd intra cor-
poris tegmen divinitatem latentem videret.
*Wer. 11, 12. Aéyo, 3Å tºy, Śri troXXol & ré àvaro'Xày Kal
8vaºy #ova'i, xai &vaxxtShaoyºtal pºst& 'A362&º-Éy ºf £art-
xei, Tây oigayāy, And I say winto you, That many shall come
from the east, and from the west, and shall sit down with
Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven,
&c.] For the right understanding of these words, note,
First, that to “lie down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
in the kingdom of heaven,” doth not here signify to enjoy
everlasting happiness in heaven with them, but only to be-
come the “sons of Abraham through faith” (Gal. iii. 7), and
so to be blessed with faithful Abraham” (ver. 9); “to have
the blessing of Abraham coming on them, that they may re-
ceive the promise of the Spirit” (ver. 14); “through faith
in Christ to be the seed of Abraham, and heirs according to
the promise” (ver. 29); viz. the promise made to Abraham
(Gen. xii. 3), renewed to Isaac (Gen. xxvi. 4), and confirm-
ed to Jacob (Gen. xxviii. 14), and to be, according to Isaac,
“the children of the promise” (Gal. iv. 28). This, saith
Christ, shall be the blessing of the believing Gentiles, they
shall be “sons of Abraham, and heirs of the promises”
made to the patriarchs, and mentioned by all the prophets
of the Old Testament; whereas the unbelieving Jews, want-
ing the faith of Abraham, shall be deprived of the blessings
promised to his seed; for “they who seek to enter, and
shall not be able, because the Master hath shut to his door”
(Luke xiii. 24, 25), are those Jews who “sought for righte-
ousness by the works of the law, and not by faith,” and
therefore found it not (Rom. ix. 31, 32. xi. 7); who “en-
tered not into the rest prepared for them, by reason of their
unbelief.” (Heb. iii. 18, 19. iv. 2. 5), and “from whom the
kingdom of God was taken away” (Matt. xxi. 43): they
are they who shall say to Christ, “We have eaten and
drunk before thee, and thou hast taught in our streets”
(Luke xiii. 26), which could be said only by the Jews.
Secondly, Observe that this kingdom of God is repre-
Sented here, and elsewhere, as a nuptial solemnity, or a
banquet, at which the guests sit down with the master of the
CHAPTER VIII.
85
13 And Jesus said unto the centurion, Gothy way;
and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And
his servant was healed in the selfsame hour (and they
that were sent, returning to the house, found the servant
whole that had been sick, Luke vii. 10).
14 And when Jesus was come into Peter’s house,
he saw "his wife’s mother laid (upon a bed), and sick
of a fever (for they had told him of her, Mark i. 30).
15 And (he stood over her, and rebuked the fever,
Luke iv. 39, and) he touched her hand, and the fever
left her: and she arose, and ministered unto them
(what was necessary for their entertainment). -
16 And *when the even was come (so that the sun
was set, Mark i. 32. Luke iv. 40, and the sabbath
ended), they brought unto him many that were (sick,
and many) possessed with devils: and he cast out the
spirits with his word, and (laying his hands upon them,
Luke iv. 40) healed all that were sick:
17 That (in this sense also) it might be fulfilled
which was spoken by the prophet Esaias, saying (liii.
feast. Now these banquets were usually made at night, and
continued long in the night ; hence were they called coenae
convivales, suppers,” sº yáp 8stºrvety &ré ºrgážewy, “because
they were wont to sup late, after they had done their busi-
ness,” saith Plutarch ; thus have we mention of a “great
supper,” Luke xiv. 16, of “the Supper of the Lamb,” Rev.
xix. 7, and of “the bridegroom coming at midnight to his
supper,” Matt. xxv. 6. Hence at those suppers the house
of reception was filled with lights, called 33.88;, xagºrč88c,
AvXyoi, páyot, in Athenaeus + and Plutarch, if i. e. “torches,
lamps, candles, and lanterns;” and so they who were ad-
mitted to the banquet had the benefit of the light: but they
who were shut out, or could not enter, were in darkness ;
whence the unhappy state of those who were excluded from
the kingdom of God, or from a state of future happiness, is
frequently expressed by their being “cast out into outer
darkness,” ver. 12 (see Matt. xxii. 13. xxv. 30), and because
they who were thus shut out from the marriage-feast were
not only exposed to shame, but also to cold and hunger,
therefore is it added, “there shall be weeping, and wailing,
and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. xiii. 42. Luke xiii. 28). And
oh how contrary is this prediction of our Lord to the vain
opinions of the Jews, who were wont to say that “all Israel
should have a portion in the world to come ; but the hea-
thens,” say they, “are to be fuel for hell-fire” (Pirk. Eliezer,
cap. 9, sect. 4); whereas our Saviour here declareth, that
these “heathens should sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven ; and they, the children of
the kingdom, should be cast into outer darkness.”
Thirdly, Observe, for explication of other places relating to
these banquets and nuptial feasts, that they who were invited
to them entered by a gate designed to receive them ; whence
Christ, by whom we enter into this marriage-feast, compares
himself to a gate, John x. 1, 2.7. 9. Now this gate, at the
time when the guests invited were to come, was made nar-
row, the wicket only being left open, and the porter stand-
ing there, that they who were not bidden to the marriage
might not rush into it. Hence Christ exhorts the Jews to
“enter in at the strait gate (Matt. vii. 13, 14. Luke xiii.
24); i.e. to “strive to enter” into the kingdom of heaven,
and be made partakers of the blessings of it, before it was
taken from them. Lastly, when all that were invited were
once come, the door was presently shut, and was not to be
opened any more to them who stood knocking without : so
after the “wise virgins” had entered with the bridegroom,
the “gate was shut,” and was not opened to the “foolish
virgins” who stood knocking without (Matt. xxv. 11). And
in this sense are we to understand those words of Christ
(Luke xiii. 24, 25), “Many shall seek to enter, and shall
not be able ;” viz. not for want of any grace sufficient on
God's part, but because of their coming too late, after the
gate is shut and the bridegroom is entered ; as is apparent
from the reason of that admonition, “Strive to enter in at
the strait gate, for many will seek to enter in and shall not
+ Lib. xv. p. 699.
* Symp. lib. viii. q. 6.
† Symp. Jib. iv. p. 93.
4), *He himself took our infirmities, and bare our
sicknesses. - -
18 Now when Jesus saw great multitudes about
him, he gave commandment (to his disciples) to de-
part unto the other side (of the lake Gennesareth, Luke
viii. 22).
19 And (as they were preparing for their departure)
a certain scribe came, and said unto him, Master, I
will follow thee whithersoever thou goest.
20 And Jesus saith unto him (If thou resolvest thus,
upon prospect of any temporal advantages in my king-
dom, thou wilt be frustrated in thy eaſpectation, for) the
foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests,
but the Son of man hath not where to lay his (own)
head (and, therefore, much less any accommodations for
his followers). -
21 And another of his disciples (or attendants, being
bid to follow him, Luke ix. 59), said unto him, Lord,
suffer me first to go and (abide at home till D bury my
father.
be able, when once the master of the house is risen up, and
hath shut the door.” -
9 Wer. 14. Elès rêv rewSepāy airoij, &c. And when Jesus
came unto Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother laid, and
sick of a fever.] Learn hence, saith Theophylact, that mar-
riage is no hindrance to virtue, since “the chief of the
apostles” had his wife. Brugensis here notes, that it is
written “of Peter only” that he had a wife ; but that this is
not exactly true, see note on 1 Cor. vii. 8, and on ix. 5.
Moreover we read in the interpolated Ignatius,” regi Tlárpov
kai IIaſſacu Ka? ºråy &AAwy &Trocaréxwy Toſº yáſzoic Trgoatopºna &y-
roy, “ of Peter and Paul, and other apostles that were mar-
risd.” St. Basil + reckons among those that were married,
IIárgoy zai rol); Noirotic rāy &rogrówy, “Peter and the rest of
the apostles.” And St. Ambrosef Saith, that omnes apos-
toli, exceptis Johanne et Paulo, uxores habuisse dicuntur,
“all the apostles, except John and Paul, are said to have
wives.” See many other testimonies in Cotelerius's notes §
on the epistle of Ignatius to the Philadelphians.
19 Wer. 16. ’o-pia; 33 yeyop,évnç, and when the even was
come.] The Jews kept their sabbath from evening to even-
ing, according to those words (Lev. xxiii. 32), “from even
to even shall ye celebrate your sabbath ;” and therefore,
when it began to be dark, before the sabbath, Nehemiah
commands the gates of Jerusalem to be shut (Neh. xiii. 19);
and the author of Cosri || Saith, non ingrediturnisi occumbente
sole, “the sabbath doth not enter but when the sun is set,”
as St. Mark and St. Luke speak (see Lightfoot on the place).
il Wer. 17. Air㺠rā, śa:Seveia; hºw Éxafle, that it might
be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, He
himself took our infirmities, and bore our sicknesses.] This
is one of those places from which interpreters conclude, a
prophecy is said to be fulfilled only by way of accommoda-
tion, though not according to the intention of the prophet.
But I conceive without just ground: for, first, the Jews
themselves did think this passage of the prophet related to
the curing their diseases, as well as the procuring remission
of their sins ; for thus they speak, “The name of the Mes-
siah is the leper of the house of Rabbi, as it is said, Surely
he bore our infirmities;” and, We esteemed him, Viji Isa.
liii. 4, quasi leprosum, as a leper, saith St. Jerome and the
Vulgar, & pnºvoy #y &$# vra, Symmachus and Aquila; now
34%, say Hesychius, Suidas, and Phavorinus, is #330ſº ºc
Airpac, “the colour of the leprosy” (see Lev. xiv. 32.35).
And again, “If the Messias be among the living, Rabbona
Hakkedosh is he, as being one who bears our infirmities;”
and seeing Christ, by healing our diseases, took away the
temporal punishment of our sins (see the note on ix: 2),
and said to some of them, be healed, “Thy sins are forgiven
thee,” why might not this prophecy be twice fulfilled, when,
by taking away their diseases, he took away the temporal
punishment of their sins, and when, by suffering on the
* Ad Philad. sect. 4. ‘f II.g. ārorayā; 6lov, tom, ii. p. 234,
† In 2 Cor. xi. § P. 473, 474.
| Part ii. p. 88. -
86
MATTHEW,
22. But Jesus said unto him, Follow me (now);
*and let the dead bury their dead (i.e. let those who
are unconcerned for the things of God, and unfit to en-
gage in the promoting them, do such offices, which they
may do as well as others; but do thou, who hast begun
to follow me, and to attend upon the doctrine of the
kingdom of God, go on without diversion in that work;
jor no man having put his hand to the plough, and look-
ing back, is fit for the kingdom of God, Luke ix. 62).
23 And when he was entered into a ship, his dis-
ciples followed him.
24 And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the
sea, insomuch that the ship was (sometimes) covered
with the waves : but he was asleep (in the hinder part
of the ship, Mark iv. 38).
25 And his disciples came unto him, and awoke
him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish.
26 And he saith unto them, "Why are ye so fear-
ful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked
the wind and the sea, (saying to them, Peace, be still,
Mark iv. 39), and there was a great calm.
27 But the men marvelled, saying, What manner
of man is this (and how great is his power), that even
*the winds and the sea obey him
cross, he procured a full remission of the guilt of their ini-
quities P , --
* Ver. 22. Kał & pe; rotºyexpoiſ; Sáslat robº Havròy vexpoèc,
And let the dead bury ñº. That oi yergoi, “the dead,”
in scripture doth often signify, not those who in a natural
sense are dead by dissolution of the soul and body, but those
who in a spiritual sense are so, by being alienated from the
life of God, and “dead in trespasses and sins,” see note on
1 Pet. iv. 6. Thus Clemens of Alexandria” saith, that, ty
ºr 3ap3ápoly pixozoqiz vengow; xaxotic row: #xtréaoytaç rày Boy-
Acárov, xai kaSvºrorážavra, röy voiv roſ, Tráðsat roſ, Juxxoſ,
“the philosophy of the barbarians called them dead who
deserted their doctrines, and subjected their minds to sen-
sual passions;” and Origen, that the Pythagoreans placed
coffins in their room, symbolically to represent that death ;
and Philo styles this the “the death of the soul, #yrvºgevo-
fºync tra6;at Kai xaxia; &mázarº, entombed in passions and
all wickedness” (Legis Alleg. lib. i. p. 45). Here then Christ
teacheth, that when we are called by him to the promotion
of the gospel, and the salvation of men's souls, we should
not suffer earthly business, which may be done as well by
others, who are unfit to be employed in spirituals, to give
us the least hindrance from setting instantly upon that work.
* Ver. 26. Ti 3sixoi are; 3xtyária-rot ; Why are ye fear-
Jul, O ye of little faith ?] Here I conceive it may be use-
ful to lay down the indications of a weak and little faith,
that we may guard ourselves against them. And,
First, The fears and jealousies of pious persons betray
the weakness of their faith, as is apparent from this ques-
tion, “Why areye fearful, O ye of little faith 2° Now such
are not only those evil fears which terrify us from the per-
formance of our duty, but our irrational and superstitious
fears of being left alone, or in the dark, the fear of evil
spirits, and the like ; and also all anxious and tormenting
fears of what hereafter may befall ourselves, our Christian
brethren, or the sincere and living members of Christ's
body: a fear of caution, which renders us industrious to
prevent the evil, may be useful in this case; but a fear of
diffidence becomes not the good Christian ; “He,” saith the
psalmist, “whose heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord, will
not be thus afraid of evil tidings” (Ps. cxii. 7).
Secondly, Our doubtings and despondings in the time of
peril demonstrate the weakness of our faith, according to
that saying of our Lord to Peter when he began to sink,
“O thou of little faith, wherefore dost thou doubt 2" (Matt.
xiv. 31.) They then who doubt of God’s assistance in the
time of danger, or do suspect he may desert them in the
needful hour, are weak in faith. -
Thirdly Our anxious solicitude for any temporal concern,
and our perplexing cares for these enjoyments, show we are
* Wide Grotium. + Cont. Cels, lib. iii. p. 142.
28 And when he was come unto the other side,
into the country of the Gergesenes, (see note on Mark
v. 1), there met him *two possessed with devils,
coming out of their tombs, (one which was) exceeding
fierce, so that no man might (safely) pass by that
way; (for no man could tame him, or bind him so ef.
fectually with chains or fetters, that he could not break
them : and night and day he was in the mountains, or
among the tombs, crying and cutting himself with stones;
and seeing Jesus afar off, they ran unto him, and wor-
shipped him, Mark v. 3–6).
29 And, behold, they (i. e. the unclean spirits in
them) cried out, saying, “What have we to do with
thee, Jesus, thou son of God?” art thou come hither
to torment us before the time (appointed for our pun-
ishment 8 i. e. the fierce one said this, the other, being
present with him ; and this he said after that Christ
had said to the unclean spirit in him, Come out of the
nam : and Jesus asking, what was his name P he had
answered, saying, My name is Legion : for we are
ºnany; and (farther) had besought him much that he
* send them away out of the country, Mark v.
8. 10. *
30 And there was a good way off from them (in the
men of little faith, “for our heavenly Father knoweth (how
far) we have need of these things;” and hence our Saviour
argues thus, “If God so clothed the lilies of the field, (if he
feed) the fowls of the air, will he not much more clothe
and feed you, O ye of little faith?” (Matt. vi. 30.) He
therefore who suspects the kindness of his heavenly Father
in these inferior concerns, either mistrusts his power, as did
the unbelieving Jews, saying, “Can God prepare a table in
the wilderness P” or else conceives his goodness to his faith-
ful servants may be less than to the meanest of his creatures.
And,
Fourthly, Our impatience under trouble argues our want
of faith; “for he that believeth will not make haste” (Isa.
xxviii. 16). Our due persuasions of God’s paternal love
towards us will engage us to possess our souls in patience,
and tarry the Lord's leisure, and wait contentedly for any
blessing he hath promised, as knowing it will surely come
in its most proper season, and when the wisdom of our hea-
venly Father sees we are best fitted to enjoy it.
* Ver. 27. Oi &vepºol wai i Sáxaaaa Wraxoſovorty airó, The
winds and the sea obey him.] It being so often made the
property of God “to still the raging of the sea” (Ps. lxv. 7.
cvii. 25. 29), it is not to be wondered that Christ's disciples
should conceive there must be a divine power in him who
could perform such things. --
* Ver. 28. ‘Yºrhytncav airá 3&o 3aigović weyol, There met
him two possessed with the devil, Mark ii. 5. A man pos-
sessed with an unclean spirit, so Luke viii. 27.] See this
reconciled in note on Mark v. 2.
* Wer. 29. Ti hºſy wai aroi ; What have we to do with
thee ?] Schmidius here shows, that this is not a form of
speaking proper to the Jews and Hellenists only, it being
used by good Greek authors who had no converse with them.
So Arrian upon Epictetus, ri hºly wal airó; “What have
we to do with him P” (Lib. i. cap. 1, p. 85.)
*7”HAŠe; 368 ºrpä watpot, 8aa’avia at #23; ; Art thow come hi-
ther to torment us before the time !] That 3ao'avia at should
here signify only to imprison these demons, or send them to
the place of their restraint, a reverend person argues, be-
cause the word Bao avićo sometimes signifies to imprison, and
8aa’avioral gaolers (Matt. xviii. 34). And, secondly, because
they entreat, Luke viii. 31, that he would not command .
them to go out, eig &6vaa.ow, that is, “into hell.” But (1.)
8aaayićo never signifies to restrain but in order to punish-
ment or torment, to extort the truth ; and 3aa’avia tº only
signifies a gaoler, because it is his office to torture and to
punish men. And (2) they who do afterward entreat not
to be sent into the abyss, had formerly entreated not to be
tormented, ver. 28, which shows that to be tormented, ver.
28, and to be sent to the abyss, ver, 31, were two different
things. That it rather signifies to torment and punish them,
may be gathered from the words of another unclean spirit,
parallel to these, “What have we to do with thee 2 art thou
CHAPTER IX.
87
mountains, Luke viii. 32), a herd of many swine (even
two thousand, Mark v. 13), feeding.
31 So the "devils besought him, saying, If thou
cast us out, "suffer us to go away into the herd of
swine. -
32 And he said unto them (I suffer you to) go.
And when they were come out (of, the men), they en-
tered into the herd of swine: and, behold, the whole
herd of Swine ran violently down a steep place into
the sea, and perished in the waters.
come, &roxia at #43, to destroy us?” Mark i. 24. Luke iv.
34. (2.) From these words, ºrgö wagoû, “Art thou come to
do this to us before the time of torments 2” For though the
devils do at present “believe and tremble” (James ii. 19),
yet are they not at present tormented in the flames prepared
for the devil and his angels, but only are “reserved in chains
of darkness to the day of judgment to be punished” (2 Pet.
ii. 4. Jude 6); then Satan is to be “cast into the lake of
fire and brimstone” (Rev. xx. 21); at present “he walks to
and fro through the face of the whole earth” (Job i. 7), and
“goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may de-
vour” (1 Pet. v. 8). -
* Ver. 31. Oi Bè Baikova; trageR&Aovy airröv, The devils en-
treated him.] Some are of opinion, that the persons repre-
sented in the New Testament as demoniacs, were only per-
sons afflicted with some strange diseases, fits of the mother,
convulsions, falling sickness, and the like ; but this cavil
may be evidently confuted, -
First, From the scriptures and ecclesiastical writers, which
make a constant and a plain distinction betwixt these two
things, the curing diseases, and the casting out of devils.
So Matt. iv. 24, “They brought to him all sick people, that
were taken with divers diseases, and those which were pos-
sessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and had
the palsy, and he healed them ;” and Matt. x. 1, “He gave
to the apostles power against unclean spirits, to cast them
out, and to heal all manner of sickness and diseases;”
Mark i. 34, “He healed many that were sick of divers dis-
eases, and cast out many devils.” So also Luke iv. 40,-41.
“The Christians,” saith Irenaeus,” “truly cast out devils,
and heal the sick by imposition of hands.” “They cast out
devils, and heal many diseases,” saith Origen.: “How
many honest men have by us been healed, or freed from
devils?” saith Tertullian. : -
Secondly, This will be farther evident from many circum-
stances relating to the devils to be cast out, or actually re-
jected, as, V. g. that “Christ suffered not the devils to
speak, because they knew him (Mark i. 34) to be the Christ”
(Luke iv. 41); that they said, “Thou art the Christ, the
Son of God” (Luke iv. 41); that they expostulate with
Christ, saying, “What have we to do with thee, art thou
come to destroy us? art thou come to torment us before the
time 2" and pray that “he would not torment them ;" that
they ask his leave to enter into the swine, and being enter-
ed, hurry them down into the sea, and beg they may not be
sent out of the country; that they acknowledge that their
* Lib. ii. cap. 56, 57.
+ Contra Celsum, lib. i. p. 34.
# Ad Scap. cap. 4.
33. And they that kept them fled, and went their
way into the city (and villages), and told (them) every
thing (that Christ had done), and what was befallen
to the (men) possessed of the devils.
34 And, behold, the whole city came out to meet
Jesus; and when they saw him, they (being terrified
at what he had done, and grieved for their loss) besought
him that he would depart out of their coasts. -
name was Legion, there being many of them which pos-
sessed one man (Mark v. 1. 14. Luke viii. 27. 33). Now
to make all these sayings the effects of a disease, or to con-
ceive that Christ spake thus to a disease, is too great an evi-
dence of one that is himself diseased. For,
Thirdly, Christ sometimes puts questions to these demons,
asking their names, sometimes commands them to be silent,
and sometimes to “come out of a man,” and “enter no
more into him” (Mark i. 25. ix. 25. Luke iv. 41).
Fourthly, This we may argue from the symptoms of these
demoniacs, their being of such strength that no chain or fet-
ters could bind them (Mark v. 3). Nor could the diseased
persons fear to be destroyed, tormented, sent out of the
country, or into the abyss, by Christ.
Obj. If it be said that we find no mention of persons thus
possessed with the devil among Jews or gentiles before our
Saviour's advent, nor have we any experience of any such
thing, either among the Christians or in the heathen world,
and therefore cannot easily believe it was so then:
Ans. I answer, that the falsehood of this suggestion, that
men possessed with evil spirits were not known among the
Jews in former ages, hath been proved from the plain testi-
monies of Josephus, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus, in the
general preface to the epistles.
And that among the heathens there were persons thus
possessed, is there proved also from the testimonies of Plu-
tarch, Lucian, Justin Martyr, and Origen; so that it is cer-
tain that the history of Christ and his apostles casting out
devils in Judea, and of Christians casting them out through-
out the world, was therefore never questioned by Jew or
gentile ; because they had among themselves in every place
pretenders to it.
Obj. 2. Whereas it is objected, That “to have a devil, and
be mad,” are joined together as the same thing, John x. 20,
and to be “lunatic, and have a devil,” Matt. xvii. 15. 18, and
is hence inferred that these diseases were the same as “de-
vils;” and, according to the Jewish phrase, gave occasion to
the being said, “such persons were possessed with a devil:”
Ans. To this I answer, That I have sufficiently confuted
this cavil in this note, by showing both from the Sacred re-
cords and the writings of the fathers, that there is a constant
and plain distinction betwixt these two things, the curing of
diseases, and the casting out of devils. .
19 'Emírge low hºw, Suffer ws.] He only therefore sent them
into the “herd of swine” (Mark v. 12), by permitting them
to enter into them ; and this he did, saith Grotius, to con-
vince the Greeks, who lived in this place, and kept these
swine, of the sacredness of the Jewish laws, which they
ridiculed, especially on the account of the prohibition to eat
swine's flesh.
CHAPTER IX.
1 AND he entered into a ship, and passed over (a
part of the sea of Galilee), and *came into his own
city (Capernaum).
2 And (a rumour being spread, that he was in the
house, Markii. 1, as indeed he was, sitting and teaching
a multitude so great, that the house and porch could not
ºreceive them; and healing them by his divine power, in
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IX.
* Ver. 1. Eig röy isíay ºrów, Into his own city.] That is, into
Capernaum (Markii. 2); “Christ having left Nazareth, to go
to dwell at Capernaum” (Matt. iv. 13).
V.
presence of the pharisees and doctors of the law, who
came from Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem, Luke v. 17),
behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy,
lying on a bed (carried by four persons, who being not
able to come to him for the press, they uncovered the
roof of the upper chamber where he was, and let down
the bed to him: see the note on Markii. 3), and Jesus
2 Ver. 2. Kai :32, 5 'incoiſ, rºw Triztly abröy, And Jesus see-
ing their faith..] i. e. The faith of those who let down the
sick of the palsy ; whence it is evident, that the faith of
others may prevail for the obtaining temporal and corporal
88
MATTHEW.
seeing their faith *said unto the sick of the palsy, Son,
be of good cheer; thy sins are forgiven thee.
3 And, behold, certain of the scribes (and pharisees
sitting there) said within themselves, (i. e. in their
hearts, Mark ii. 6, and in their private discourses,
Luke v. 21), This man blasphemeth (making himself
a god, for who can forgive sins, but God only 8 Luke
W. 21).
4 * Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, Where-
fore think you evil in your hearts (concerning me for
these words)?
5 For *whether is easier to say, Thy sins be for-
given thee; or to say, Arise (take up thy bed), and
walk? (which is a certain indication that the sins, which
brought upon him that disease, are pardoned, or that
this punishment of them is remitted). -
6 But (I choose to say the first),” that ye may know
that the Son of măn hath power (even whilst he is) on
earth to forgive sins; then (turning from them) saltm
he to the sick of the palsy, Arise, take up thy bed,
and go unto thy house.
7 And he arose (took up his bed),
his house.
8 But (and) when the multitude saw it, they mar-
velled, and glorified God, which had given such power
unto men, (acknowledging they never saw it so before,
Mark ii. 12).
9 And as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw
“a man, named Matthew, (or Levi, the son of Alpheus,
Mark ii. 14. Luke v. 27), sitting at the receipt of cus-
tom (or toll-booth); and he saith unto him, Follow me.
And he (leaving all things) arose, and followed him,
(and made him a great supper in his house, Luke v. 29).
10 And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the
house (of Matthew), behold, many publicans and sin-
ners came and sat down with him and his disciples.
and departed to
blessings. Thus, in the preceding chapter, ver. 13, the faith
of the centurion prevails to heal his servant ; and here, ver,
33, the devil is cast out of a dumb and deaf man, who had
no tongue to ask it, through the faith of them that brought
him. Thus the daughter of Jairus is raised, Luke viii. 50,
and the unclean spirit is cast out of the son, by the father's
faith, Mark ix. 22, 23. Note also, that Theophylact here
adds, ka? aircü roi; trapaxvrikoú, “and the faith of the pa-
ralytic ;” for, saith he, had he not believed he should be
healed, he would not have consented to their action.
* Eſtre ºró traga)\vrixà, 3% ov'rai cºol ai épºagrial orov, He
said to the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins are forgiven
thee..] “Showing,” saith Theophylact, “ that diseases, and
chiefly palsies, proceed from sin, he first speaks of forgiving
them :” but then it must be noted, that our Lord here speaks
of remission, not of the eternal punishments, but of the
temporal punishments, inflicted for sin. (1.) Because this
remission is obtained by the faith of others; whereas, the
enjoyment of spiritual and eternal blessings in persons ca-
pable of faith, depends on their own faith alone. (2.) Be-
cause our Saviour saith, it “is as easy to say, Thy sins be
forgiven thee; as to say, Rise up and walk P’ which conse-
quence seems not to be good, if we take remission of sins
in the highest sense; since, by the example of the apostles
and seventy disciples, it appears they might have power of
healing such diseases, who had no power of forgiving the
eternal punishments of sin. Moreover, it is usual in scrip-
ture, and was so among the Jews, to represent bodily afflic-
tions, miseries, and diseases, as the effects of sin, according
to the common proverb, Nisi essent peccata, non essent fla-
gella ; “Were there no sins, there would be no chastise-
ments:” hence is the inquiry of the disciples, touching the
man born blind, “Who hath sinned, he or his parents, that
he should be born blind P” (John ix. 2) and to the paralytic,
Christ, having heard him, speaks thus, “Behold, thou art
made whole : sin no more lest a worse thing come upon
thee” (John v. 14). For the law of Moses threatened va-
rious kinds of diseases to the transgressors of it, Deut. xxviii.
21, 22, and when they were remitted, these diseases were re-
moved ; according to those words of Isaiah (xxxiii. 24),
“The inhabitants shall not say that they are sick ; the peo-
ple that are there shall be forgiven their iniquity:” and it is
also usual in the Old and New Testament, to intimate de-
liverance from corporal diseases by remission of sins ; as
when the prophet saith to David, 2 Sam. xii. 13, “The
Lord hath taken away thy sin ; thou shalt not die” for it:
and, 2 Chron. vii. 14, “I will be merciful to their iniquities
and will heal their land:” so what is worded thus, Matt.
ix. 22, “Thy faith hath saved thee,” is Mark. v. 34, “Thou
art made whole.” -
* Ver. 5. Ti yáp Écriy Eizorétegoy simsiy; Whether is it
easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Rise wp,
and walk 2] They who here tell us, it is therefore easier to
say the first ; because he cannot so easily be disproved,
who promiseth a thing invisible, as he who engageth to do
that which is the object of our senses; do not compare to-
gether the things to be done, but only the ways of knowing
when they are not done thcy therefore interpret these
words better, who say, that it must be as easy to say, Do
the one, as to say with effect the other; it being indeed the
same thing to say, Thy sins, that is, the temporal punish-
ments of them, are forgiven; and to say, Be thou healed, or
Iłise up and walk, effectually ; seeing by being freed from
the disease, which was the temporal punishment of sin, it
was manifest that sin was thus far forgiven.
* Ver. 6. "Ira 3: Eiðirs &rt #ovoiav #xe ô vić; roi; 3,683rot
ãºri rāg yā; &#1éval r&; &#xagºriac, but that ye may know the
Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins.] i. e. Of
absolving or releasing men from the temporal punishments
of sin, whilst he is in his state of humiliation ; for that Christ
speaks here only of the temporal punishments of sin, is
evident, not only from what hath been already said, but
also from the effect ; Christ only giving him power to “rise
up, and walk.” Moreover, that Christ here speaks of a
power inherent in him, and not only of the power of God
assisting him, as it did the apostles, when they healed dis-
eases, is evident ; because, had Christ only pronounced,
that the sins of this paralytic were remitted by God, and
the cure performed by his power, the pharisees could have
had no cause to be offended with him, and much less to
have accused him of blasphemy.
Lastly, Observe, that by this power the distemper of
this paralytic was healed instantly ; which shows the power
that did effect it was divine : that power only being able
instantly to cure diseases by a word. Hence do the fathers
conclude, our Lord was God as well as man: So Irenaeus,”
“By remitting the sin, he cured the man, and manifestly
showed who he was ; for, if none can remit sins but God, and
yet our Lord did remit them, and cure the man, it is mani-
fest that he was both the Word of God, and the Son of
man, receiving power of remission of sins from his Father,
as God and man:” and Novatian, i “If only God can remit
sins, and yet Christ remitted them, merità Christus est Deus,
he is truly God.” The Jews here says, that it was proper
to God to forgive sins; and this Christ denies not, but only
proves, that the Son of man had this power also, leaving
them to make the inference. The multitude, indeed, “glo-
rified God who had given this power to men;” in which words,
though there were a mistake in thinking that Christ wrought
his miracles as the prophets did ; not by an internal power
residing in them, but only by the assistance of the power
of God; yet seeing even this acknowledgment tended to
the confirmation of Christ's prophetic office, and so to in-
duce them to embrace all Christ's doctrines and instruc-
tions, as the word of God, they by this glorified God,
through our Lord Jesus Christ. Theophylact here adds,
That our Lord bid the paralytic carry his bed, partly ſa º
‘pay racia 3%h, “to show the cure was real,” and not imagi-
mary only ; and partly to convince the multitude of the
miracle thus done by ocular demonstration.
6 Ver. 9. A man named Matthew.] That this Matthew
here was the same with Levi, in St. Mark and Luke, See
note on Luke v. 27. -
* Lib. v. cap. 17. + Cap. 13.
CHAPTER IX.
89
11 And when the pharisees saw it, they (murmuring)
said unto his disciples, "Why eateth your Master with
publicans and sinners? (why doth he, who professeth
himself a prophet, and a holy man, defile higself by
touching, and vilify himself by conversing with, such
men 8) * -
12 But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them,
(such more especially need my help, for) they that be
whole need not a physician, but they that be sick,
13 But (for your farther satisfaction in this matter)
goye and learn what that (of the prophet Hosea, vi. 6)
meaneth, *I will have mercy, and not sacrifice (and
how it suits with this action of mine): "for I came not
to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance (and
must not be diverted from such acts of mercy by
your rules).
14 Then (it being a day on which the disciples of
John and the pharisees fasted, Mark ii. 18) came to
him the disciples of John, saying (to Jesus), "Why do
we and the pharisees fast oft, (even twice a week, Luke
xviii. 12), but thy disciples fast not (but eat and
drink on our fasting days 8 Luke v. 33).
15 And Jesus said unto them, *Can the children
of the bridechamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom
7 Ver 11. Atari pºetrž rāv Texayáv Kai &#xaproxãy a 6ies &
8,842 waxo; tºy; Why ealeth your master with publicans
and sinners?] The pharisees looked upon publicans and
great sinners as if they had been heathens, thiriking it a sin
even to converse with them, though it were to convert them
from the evil of their ways; objecting this to the reproach
of Christ, that he was a “friend to publicans and sinners”
(Matt. xi. 19); hence saith our Saviour of him that would
not “hear the church, Let him be to thee as a heathen and
publican ;” i. e. abstain from any farther converse and fami-
liarity with him (Matt. xviii. 17). “And if you love them
that love you only, or lend to them only that lend to you
again, what do you more than others? do not publicans and
heathens (Matt. v. 46), and sinners (Luke vi. 32, 33), the
samé P” And they bore the same character among the hea-
thens: so the scholiast” upon those words of Aristopha-
mes, wai rexévny, Kai págayya, zai Xáguß3iv &gtrayhº, “a pub-
lican, and a whirlpit, and a gulf of rapine :” and Suidas
notes that 8tagé8Nm to tº rºydov Švouc, trap. Tofº Traxaioſº,
“the very name of publican was infamous to the ancients.”
Theocritus says, that bears and lions were the most savage
beasts in the mountains; but in the cities, rex®vat, “publi-
cans and sycophants” (Apud Stob. Serm. 2. p. 31). And
in Apollodorus they are joined with thieves and dissolute
men, xxérrel, rexolye? aboupyeſ (Stob. Serm. 44. p. 307).
Cicero + declares, The name and office was very grievous
to the Greeks, and insinuates, that it was not much less ab-
horred among the Romans ; and well it might be, since Sui-
das out of an old author agrees so exactly with Aristopha-
nes, declaring that.the life of a publican was, raśāna-tac-
£závn £ia, #v="ritiºnto, &etrayh, “an open and free violence, and
unpunished rapine, &vaiºvviro; Tragovešía, āyaíºn; Épºrogia,
wréayºcarcia Aéyov whº fixova'a, a shapmeless covetousness, an
impudent merchandise, an unreasonable negotiation:”
whence Tacitus f not only speaks, de novis acerbitatibus, et
illicitis exactionibus publicanorum, “ of the new grievances
and unlawful exactions of the publicans;” but adds, that
Nero therefore was consulting, whether, he should take away
all tributes, idgue pulcherrimum donum generi mortalium
daret ; and St. John the Baptist requires them “to exact
no more than that which was appointed” (see Dr. Hammond
on the place).
* Wer. 13. "Exeow Séxo wai oš Svatay, I will have mercy and
not sacrifice.] i. e. “I rather will have mercy than sacrifice:”
so Gen. xlv. 8, oux àpºsſ;, “you have not sent me but God;”
où y&p Ka8’ hºców, “your murmuring is not against us, but
against God,” Exod. xvi. 18. ; Prov. viii. 10, “Receive in-
struction, xai º &gyūgtov, and not silver ; and knowledge inăg
before gold ;” Joel ii. 13, “Rend your heart, and not your
garments” (see John vi. 27. 1. Cor. i. 17). For that these
words are not to be understood absolutely, is evident, be-
cause God had commanded sacrifices, and therefore could
not absolutely say, “he would not have them.”
* Odyā; #NBoy waxéral Bizaiovº, 3xx' & captoxoi, si, gerä-
volay'. For I came not to call the righteous but sinners to re-
pentance.] Where by the “righteous,” we are not to under-
stand those who are only righteous in their own conceits,
such as the pharisees were, “who justified themselves before
men” (Luke xvi. 15), and “ trusted to themselves that they
were righteous, and despised others in comparison of them-
selves” (Luke xviii. 9): for such are not “whole” but have
great need of the spiritual “physician” (ver. 12); and such
especially, the gospel calleth to repentance (Matt. iii.
* P. 300, 30l. i. Ep. ad Quintum Fratrem, lib. i. p. 216.
ºf Annal. lib. xiii, ed. Lips. p. 300, 301.
6–10. Rev. iii. 17). Moreover, the word “sinners”. here
imports such persons as live in a customary practice of sin ;
So that the tenor of their lives is wicked, and who are there-
fore to be called to that repentance, which consists in the
change of their lives, from the service of sin to holiness, from
slavery to Satan to the fear of God; and therefore, by the
righteous who need no repentance, we are not to under-
stand those who are entirely free from sin ; for, so “there is
not a just man upon earth” (Job. ix. 2. Eccles. vii. 20),
“nor any man who is not a sinner” (1 Kings viii.46. James
iii. 2. 1 John i. 8); but those who are 'truly and sincerely
righteous, have truly reformed their lives, who carefully en-
deavour to abstain from all known sins, and set themselves
sincerely to the performance of their whole duty both to
God and man, and so are righteous and accepted in the
sight of God; in which sense Job “was righteous, and es-
chewed evil;” Zacharias and Elisabeth “were righteous,
walking in all the commandments of God” (Luke i. 6); and
Simeon (Luke ii. 25); and so they needed not that repent-
ance which consists in the change of the life, from a course of
sinning to living unto God. So that the argument here is
double ; (1.) That though familiar converse with sinners
was in the general to be avoided, yet was that only on this
account, that we may not encourage them in sin, or be de-
filed by them ; and so it could not hinder that great act of
charity and mercy to their souls, which was directed to the
conversion of them from their evil ways; the avoiding of
familiarity with them, being only as the precept of sacrifice,
and therefore not to be regarded so as to obstruct that
more important duty of showing mercy to their souls. (2.)
That Christ was the great spiritual physician sent to
heal these sin-sick Souls, and call them to repentance ; and
therefore, in conversing with them, in pursuance of this
end he was so far from transgressing his Father's precepts,
that he was doing the great work for which he was sent by
him into the world. Note, also, that this of the physician
was a proverbial saying ; for, when Antisthenes * was
asked, “Why he conversed with wicked men P” his answer
was Kai oi iarpol wer; rāy woe očvroy eign, “Physicians are with
the diseased:” and “when Diogenes,” saith Stobaeus, +
“when Pausanias,” saith Plutarch, “was asked, Why he
praised the Lacedemonians, but staid not with them P' he
answered, "O-ri ow83 targoi tragºrdſ; by aivovarty, 3rov 33 ci roarºv-
Ts; ºiarpiðely sid:Saa'iy, “That physicians conversed not among
the healthy, but among the sick” (see Examen Millii here).
* Ver, 14. Atari hºſ, wai oi papia aſo vnarečowey aroxxâ;
Why do we and the pharisees fast much, but thy disciples fast
not ?] It is here said, by Mr. Clerc, that it was not the de-
sign of St. John's disciples to inquire simply, Why the dis-
ciples of Christ did not fast, but why they did not follow the
example of all devout men among the Jews, who did fast
often ? But (1.) this seems to be a mistake ; for they ask,
why they did not fast at all ? and our Saviour's plea for them
is for an entire exemption from that duty whilst he was pre-
sent with them. (2.) Were it as Mr. Clerc would have it,
yet is the observation of the reverend Dr. Hammond true
and pertinent, That the disciples of John intended not to
ask the reason, why they themselves fasted often ? they
being so well satisfied with the reason of that, that they
wondered why Christ's disciples did not as they did : this
being, saith he, truly the meaning of their question; Since we
fast so devoutly, why do not thy disciples do this as well as
We P
* Ver. 15. Mò 30yavtat of viol row yupaśyo; Treyðsſy, &c.
* Apud Laert. p. 139. t Serm. 11. Arošeyº. Aax. p. 230.
90
MATTHEW.,
is with them (is this fit or usual in such cases)? but (as
for my disciples) the days will come, when the bride-
groom shall (by death) be taken from them, and then
shall they fast.
16 (And he said also by way of parable, Luke v. 36),
*No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old
garment; for (if so) that which is put in to fill it up
taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse.
17 Neither do men put new wine into old (leather)
bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth
out, and (so) the bottles perish: but they put new
wine into new bottles, and both are preserved (so in
like manner my young disciples, taken not from the
schools or academies, as perhaps those of John and the
pharisees might be, but from their fishing-trades, must
not presently be put to such severe tasks, for which they
are not yet strong enough, lest they should be discow-
raged, and fall from me).
18 While he spake these things to them, behold,
there came a certain *ruler (of the synagogue, Jairus
by name, Mark xv. 22. Luke viii. 41), and worshipped
him, saying, My daughter “is even now dead: (Gr.
is dead by this time, for when I came from my house
she was at her last gasp, Mark v. 23), but come and
lay thy hand upon her, and she shall live.
19 And Jesus arose, and followed him, and so did
his disciples, (and a great multitude who pressed upon
him, Mark v. 24. Luke viii. 42).
20 And, behold, a woman, which was diseased with
an issue of blood twelve years, (and had spent all that
she had upon the physicians, and was nothing better,
but rather grew worse, Mark v. 26. Luke viii. 43),
came behind him,” and touched the hem of his gar-
ment: (and presently the issue of her blood was stanched,
Mark v. 29).
21 For she (had) said within herself, If I may but
touch his garment, I shall be whole. t
22 But Jesus (knowing that virtue was gone out of
him) turned him about (to the multitude, and said,
Who touched me 2) and when he saw her (that had
done so, and heard her tell the reason why she had done
it, Luke viii. 45.47), he said (unto her), Daughter, be
of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole.
And the woman was made whole from that hour.
[Luke viii. 49. While he was thus speaking, there
cometh one from the ruler of the synagogue’s house,
saying to him, Thy daughter is dead, trouble not the
Master. Wer. 50. But when Jesus heard it, he answered
him, saying, Fear not, believe only, and she shall be
made whole.]
23 And when Jesus came into the ruler’s house,
and saw the minstrels, and (heard) the people making
a noise (as at a funeral solemnity), -
24 He said unto them, Give place : for *the maid
is not dead, but sleepeth (i.e. she shall be raised from
it, as it were out of sleep). And they laughed him to
SCOTIl. -
25 But when the people were put forth, (Peter,
Can the children of the bridechamber mourn as long as the
bridegroom is with them żJ The sons of the bridechamber
are those who are admitted into it, styled by the Grecians
fragávvºpol and ºrgéxogot' by the Latins, pronubi ; by the
Jews, shoshebinim ; and their business was, to enter into
the bridechamber, and to rejoice and exhilarate themselves
with the bridegroom, during the time of the marriage-festi-
val; which was, saith Dr. Lightfoot on the place, “seven
days;” and these were usually pixel roß yup, piov, the “friends
or kindred of bridegroom :” whence St. John the Bap-
tist represents himself, as rejoicing to hear the voice of the
bridegroom, as being one of his friends (John iii. 29). So
then the argument runs thus: I am the bridegroom, and the
church is my bride; as long as I am here, lasts the mar-
Tiage-feast, and my disciples are the children and friends
of the bridegroom, and so are not to mourn, but to rejoice
with me whilst this time lasts; at my death and departure
from them, this bridegroom will be taken from them, and
then will be the time for them to fast and mourn.
* Ver. 16, 17. Oiśsic 3: in 164xxs, wiéxmag #nous āyvá pov
#Tri iwariº Taxatiº, No man putteth a piece of new cloth to
an old garment.] It is the opinion of many fathers and in-
terpreters, that Christ by these two similitudes intended to
show he thought it not fit at their first entrance, and before
the Holy Spirit was come down upon his disciples, to im-
pose the burden of fasting on them, because they were not
fitted to bear it, by reason of their infirmity, and that they
might be tempted by such austerities, as were frequent fast-
ings, imposed on them, to fall off from him. And hence
they add, that Christ by his example, recommends this con-
descension to weak and infirm consciences to his disciples,
and to the ministers of the gospel ; viz. not to impose upon
them that 8ágo; #7riºrayſzáray, “weight of ordinances,” which
they cannot bear : but against this exposition Episcopius
objects, That no reason can be assigned, why Christ's dis-
ciples should be less able thus to fast than the disciples of
the Baptist, or the pharisees. To which objection I am-
swer, That there were among the Jews, not only sects of
the essenes and pharisees, who led an austere life, but also
schools of the prophets; * and those frequently lived in
mountains and deserts, and were also many of them Naza-
rites, and consecrated to the service of God ; they had also
their academical and private schools, to train up men in
* Campeg. Vitring, lib. ii. cap. 7.
discipline; and from these might come disciples to John
in the wilderness, and disciples to the pharisees, who might
be trained up in those duties; whereas it is certain, that the
disciples of our Lord were chosen from their fishing trade,
and so came to him wholly unacquainted with and so unfitted
for those austerities. His interpretation is therefore this,
That it is unfit or unseemly for his disciples to fast, whilst he
is present with them, as it is to sew a new piece of cloth to
an old garment, or to put new wine into old bottles; in which
interpretation I cannot acquiesce, because it is manifest from
both these similitudes, that our Lord represents not the un-
fitness but the hurt or damage of doing either of these
things, viz. that the doing of the first would make the rent
worse ; the doing of the second would endanger the breaking
the bottles, and the spilling the wine; to which danger the
sense given by Episcopius hath no respect.
* Ver. 18. "Apxov, a ruler.] This ruler being in St Mark
and Luke, 3pxia vyāyoyoc, “a ruler of the synagogue,” it is
not reasonable to conceive, as some do, that he was one of
the twenty-three judges that were constituted in every city,
but rather that he was the head or ruler of the synagogue
which was at Nazareth ; of which rulers we have mention,
Acts xiii. 15. xviii. 8. 17. Luke xiii. 14 (see note on Mark
W. 22).
** "Aºti irexeſºrno-ey, is now dead..] This being in St. Mark
v. 23, #axáro, #xel, “she is at the last extremity ;” the
words must be rendered as in the paraphrase, “she is by this
time dead,” and this is evident from the story; because, as
Christ was going to the ruler's house, a messenger comes
from it to tell him that his daughter was now dead (Luke
viii.49); which shows, that at his coming to Christ she was
not so, but only at the last extremity.
* Ver. 20. IIgoas),000-a $ºria Şey, coming behind him.] The
woman having “an issue of blood,” which rendered her
touch defiling, according to the law, seems therefore to have
come behind him, as fearing she might not have been
permitted to touch him, had her distemper been made
known. -
* Ver. 24. Oi yá6 &réSays ºrd togáciow &Ax& wageſ.3s. For
the maid is not dead, but sleepeth.] From this place the Je-
suits contend for their equivocations and mental reservations;
by which they certainly deceive the hearer, who knows not
what in their minds they do conceal, alleging, that when our
Lord here saith, “She is not dead,” he reserved in his mind,
“in respect of my power,” or so as to remain under the power
of it. But the words of Christ were plainlv spoken to those
CHAPTER IX.
91.
James, and John, and the father and mother of the
damsel being only left, Mark v. 40), he went in, and
took her by the hand (and said unto her, Daughter,
arise ; and her spirit returned unto her), and the maid
arose, (and walked, being twelve years old; and he com-
manded that something should be given her to eat, to
strengthen her, and confirm them that she was alive,
Luke viii. 54, 55).
26 And the fame thereof went abroad into all the
land (though he straitly charged them to tell no man of
it, Luke viii. 56).
27 And when Jesus departed thence, two blind
men followed him, crying, and saying, Thou son of
David, (of whom the prophet Isaiah hath foretold, that
he should open the eyes of the blind, xxix. 11. xxxv. 5.
xlii. 7), have mercy on us.
28 And when he was come into the house, the blind
men came to him : and Jesus saith unto them, Believe
ye that I am able to do this They said unto him, Yea,
ord. -
29 Then touched he their eyes, saying, According
to your faith be it unto you. t
30 And their eyes were opened; and Jesus strictly
charged them, saying," See that no man know it.
31 But they, when they were departed, spread
abroad his fame in all that country. -
32 And as they went out (of the city), behold, they
brought to him a dumb man possessed with a devil.
33 And when the devil was cast out, the dumb
spake, and the multitudes marvelled, saying, It was
never so seen in Israel. -
34 But the pharisees said, He casteth out devils
through (Beelzebub, Luke xi. 15, who is) the prince of
the devils. -
35 And Jesus went about all the cities and villages,
teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gos-
who were preparing for her interment, and performing the
funeral rites belonging to it, and, therefore only intimate,
she was not so dead as that they needed to make these
preparations, he being come to awake her as out of a sleep.
*7 Ver. 30. ‘oºrs ºn?sic yivoaxéro, See that no man know
it..] That Christ should take this care, that his miracles in
healing persons, and casting out of devils, should not be
known, only to avoid vain-glory, seems not very reasonable;
this being done sufficiently by the declaration, that he did
this “by the finger of God” (Matt. xii. 28); and that
by these works, “he sought not his own glory, but the
glory of his Father ” (John. v. 41. vii. 18). Let it then be
noted ;
First, That when he doth his miracles among the heathens,
or upon them that dwelt among them, such as were the Sy-
rophoenician woman, and the woman of Paneas, or Caesa-
rea Philippi, he never imposeth silence on the person healed,
but sometimes, on the contrary, bids them declare what God
had done for them; so when he had cured the demoniac at
Gadara, he bids him go to his house and his acquaintance,
and tell them what things the Lord had done for him, and
how he had showed mercy even to a heathen (Mark v. 19).
And though he charged his disciples to tell no man among
the Jews that he was the Christ, till his resurrection (Matt.
xvi. 20), he doth himself declare to the Samaritan woman
that he was the Messiah (John. iv. 25, 26), because these
things would prepare these heathens and Samaritans, when
Christ was preached to them by his apostles, to receive their
testimony.
Secondly, Observe that the things which he forbids his dis-
ciples to declare, were not his miracles, but either his trans-
figuration on the mount (Matt. xvii. 9), or that he was the
Christ (Mark viii. 29, 30). And this he only bade them to
Conceal, till he was risen from the dead; and this he did, not
only that their testimony of him might not be looked upon
as a thing compacted between him and them, but chiefly be-
cause they were not fitted to be his witnesses of these things
till they had received power from on high, by the coming down
of the Holy Ghost to do it (Acts i. 8). For he received be-
fore the testimony of John, and appealed to it (John v. 33),
because he was sent by God to bear witness of him (John i.
6, 7), and because the blazing these things abroad by his dis-
ciples—that he was the Messiah, sent by God to be their Sa-
viour, and that God, by a voice from heaven, commanded
all men to obey him—would have so far comported with that
imagination of a temporal kingdom to be erected by him,
and looked so like the sending his disciples as his heralds, to
proclaim him king, as that it would have given too much
occasion to the government to suspect that he designed some
such thing, and too much colour to the accusation of the
Jews, that he forbade men “to give tribute to Caesar, saying
that he himself was Christ a king” (Luke xxiii. 2). Now,
from the first observation we learn, that the reason why he
was thus concerned to have his miracles concealed, must be
somewhat peculiar to the Jewish nation ; and, from the se-
cond, that he did this chiefly to avoid all suspicion that he
intended to set up any temporal kingdom, or to give occasion
to any innovation, sedition, or disturbance, upon this account.
We therefore say,
First, With the reverend Dr. Hammond, that he did this
to avoid the malice of the scribes and pharisees and Herodi-
ans against him, who were so far from being convinced by his
miracles, that they not only did blaspheme them, but oft con-
Sulted how they might entrap him in his words, and get some-
thing out of his mouth, by which they might accuse him as
an enemy to God and Caesar. So when he had pronounced
his woes against them, the scribes and pharisees began to urge
him vehemently, laying snares for him, and “seeking to get
something out of his mouth, that they might accuse him” to
the government (Luke xi. 53, 54). When, in the parable of
the kingdom of heaven, he had told them what was like to
be their fate, “they send out their disciples with the pharisees
to entrap him in his words,” and to put the question to him,
“Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not?” (Matt. xxii.
15. 17.) And when he doth but covertly declare himself to
be “the son of God,” they are ready to stone him for it
(John viii. 59. x. 31). And at his miracles they were so in-
censed, as to think of nothing less than cutting him off; and
thus, when he cured the man that had the withered hand,
the pharisees and Herodians “take counsel together how
they might destroy him” (Mark iii. 6). Thus when the peo-
ple, hearing his words, and seeing his miracles, began to be
convinced by them, and to say that “he was the Christ:” the
pharisees and high-priests hearing that they murmured such
things concerning him, send forth their servants to apprehend
him (John vii. 30–32). When he had raised Lazarus,
the chief priests and pharisees conclude that “it was expedi-
ent that he should die,” and send forth their commands,
“that if any one knew where he was, he should declare it,
that they might take him” (John xi. 47. 49, 50. 57). That,
therefore, they might not take him off before his time, and
that they might have less occasion to do it for his popularity,
or the resort of multitudes unto him, he commands his mira-
cles should be concealed ; and when they could not be so, he
departs from the multitudes into desert places; and when his
fame was spread forth in any one country round about, he de-
parts thence into some other place. But,
Secondly, His chief design in thus concealing that he was
the Christ, and giving charge not to divulge his miracles, was
this, that he might not indulge that pernicious conceit,
which had obtained among them, that their Messiah was to
be a temporal king ; for the very name of their Messiah be-
ing still in their Targums, “Messiah the king ;” and they
speaking so much of his kingdom and dominion over the na-
tions, his delivering Israel, and subduing their enemies; had
our Lord openly declared himself the Messiah before his re-
surrection, and exaltation to the right hand of God, they
would easily have made this inference, that therefore he must
be their king, their deliverer, and the subduer of their ene-
mies, and would have attempted by tumults and seditions to
set up his kingdom ; thus, when he had fed five thousand
with five little loaves and two småll fishes, they gathering
hence that he was able to make provisions for an army, pre-
sently conclude “that they would take him by force, and
make him a king” (John vi. 15). And this causeth him to
depart from them into a mountain alone. . And his miracles
being so great a conviction, that he was that “prophet that
should come into the world,” this was thought warrant enough
92
MATTHEW.
pel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and
every disease among the people.
36 But (and) when he saw the multitudes (that fol-
lowed him), he was moved with compassion on them,
because *they fainted (or strayed), and were scattered
abroad, as sheep having no shepherd, (and he taught
them many things, Mark vi. 34).
for this attempt (ver. 14). Christ's kingdom, therefore, not
being of this world, and therefore not to come with that pomp
or observation, or to the ends which they expected, and it be-
ing his great concern, that no sedition or disturbance of the ci-
vil government should be laid either to his person or doctrine,
this seemeth to have been his chief reason, why he gave charge
to those healed not to make his miracles.known, and to his
disciples not to declare that he was the Christ.
18 Ver. 36. "ori jaay Éxxixugévol, they fainted, It is cer-
tain that Chrysostom and Theophylact read here iakwººivot,
they were “tossed and wearied,” either with the burdens of
the scribes and pharisees, or with going from one of these
false guides to another; from those that bound, to those that
loosed the same thing. But our reading they were “scattered
from one another,” comports best with the similitude of
being as sheep without a shepherd. -
19 Wer. 37. “o ºfty Sega'a?, roºk, The harvest indeed is
great, but the labourers few, &c.] From this discourse of
37 Then saith he to his disciples, *The harvest is
plenteous, but the labourers are few (i. e. there be
many who are willing to receive instruction, but few
who are fit to give it to them): *
38 Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that
he will send forth labourers into his harvest (to instruct
those aright who are ready to receive instruction).
Christ we learn these things, worthy to be regarded by all
the pastors of Christ's flock, viz.
First, That he who doth not instruct his flock in the “sin-
cere milk of the word,” and acquaint them with the things
belonging to their etermal peace, from a heart full of love to
God, and to the souls committed to his charge, deserves
not the name of a true shepherd; for the want of these
things in the scribes and pharisees, made Christ complain
that the Jews were “as sheep without a shepherd.”
Secondly, That where the harvest is great, and there be
many who are “white for the harvest” (John iv. 35), or ready
to receive instruction, we should be the more diligent and la-
borious to afford it to them.
Thirdly, That in such cases, when either we are not called
to that work, or are placed in another station, we should
| pray fervently that God would raise up men fitted for their
instruction, and zealous for his glory and the good of
Souls.
CHAPTER X.
1 AND when he had called unto him his twelve |
disciples, he gave them” power against unclean spirits,
to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness
and all manner of disease (as they went preaching in
his name).
2 Now the names of the twelve apostles are these;
the *first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his
• brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his bro-
ther;
3 Philip, and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew
the publican; James the son of Alpheus, and Lebbeus,
whose surname was Thaddeus;
4 Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, who
also betrayed him. - -
5 These twelve Jesus sent forth (by two and two,
Mark vi. 7), and commanded them, saying, Go not
(at present) into the way of the gentiles, and into any
city of the Samaritans enter ye not:
6 *But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of
Israel, (to whom this doctrine of salvation is first sent,
and is to be first preached, Acts ii. 26).
7 And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of
heaven, is at hand, (i. e. the kingdom of the Messiah is
now to be set up. -
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. x.
* Ver. 1. "E8wksy aircí; #ovalay ºryevº.4 roy 34a64prow, He
gave them power against (or over) wºnclean spirits, to cast
them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner
of disease.] 'Ełovaía tºwevpx4 toy here is genitivus objecti, say
grammarians; “power of unclean spirits,” being put for
“power over, or against” them. So 8xacºphºziz roº IIwaſaa-
roc, Matt. xii. 31, is expounded, ver, 32, “blasphemy against
the Holy Ghost” (see Isa. iii. 14. Joel iii. 19. 1 Cor. ix. 12).
But that which chiefly is to be observed here is this, that
Christ here delegates power to the apostles, and afterward to
the seventy disciples (Luke x. 9. 17), and after his resurrec-
tion to believers in the general, to do this in his name (Mark
xvi. 17, 18). And though the apostles were not at present
empowered to impart these gifts to others, yet after our
Lord's resurrection they were enabled to do it, by baptizing
and laying their hands upon them ; which is so eminent a
demonstration of the truth of Christian faith, as hath no
parallel in any history, excepting that of Moses, who “laid his
hands upon Joshua, and he was filled with the spirit of wis-
dom” (Deut. xxxiv. 9); and of Elisha, on whom the “spirit
of Elijah” rested (2 Kings ii. 15). Though this was done,
not by any power they had to communicate to others the vir-
tue which resided in them, but in the case of Joshua by the
particular command of God (Numb. xxvii. 19, 20), and in
the case of Elisha by the will of God ; and was a signal con-
firmation that they were both prophets sent by God ; and
much less was it done, as here, by invocation of their names.
For among all the accounts the heathens have given us of
their famous magicians, and workers of wonders, there is not
one to be found who ever pretended to a power to delegate
their virtue to others, or to impart their power to them, upon
he invocation or using of their names, or belief of their
doctrine. And hence Arnobius,” having summed up the
miracles our Saviour did, adds, that he not only did them by
his power, verüm, quod erat sublimius, multos alios experiri
et facere sui nominis cum adjectione permisit, “but permitted
many others to do them, by invocation of his name ; nor did
he any of these miracles which raised astonishment in others,
which he enabled not his little ones and even Tustics to per-
form.” And then he triumphs over the heathens thus,
“What say you, O ye stiff and incredulous minds P Ali-
cuine moritalium Jupiter ille capitolinus hujusmodi potesta-
tem dedit P Did ever that Jupiter, whom ye Romans wor-
ship in the capitol, give the like power to any mortal?” And
then he concludes this to be the evidence of a true divine
power; “for to transfer your miraculous power to a man,
and to give authority and strength to a creature, to do that
which you alone can do, supra omnia sitae est potestatis,
continentisque sub sese est rerum omnium causas, is an evi-
dence of one who hath power over all, and hath the causes
of all things at his beck.”
* Wer. 2. IIºro, zipcov, first Simon.] It is the observation
of many of the fathers and interpreters here, F that Simon is
here reckoned “the first” of the apostles, not as being so in
dignity, but as being first called: for which see Matt. iv. 18.
Mark i. 16, and therefore this word is omitted both by St.
Mark, iii. 16, and St. Luke, vi. 14, which sure they would not
have done, had they imagined it to be so remarkable, for es-
tablishing St. Peter's monarchy, as the papists do.
* Wer. 6. IIopečezss 3; wºxxoy ºrgö; rā ºrgá8ata rā ātroxo-
Xóra oſsov’Iagañx, But go rather to the lost sheep of the house
of Israel.] He calls all Israel sheep, though they were not
obedient to the voice of the Shepherd, as being all God's
* Adv. Gentes, lib. i. p. 30, 31 •
+ Quem primum Dominus elegit. Cypr. Ep. 17 'o, ºráv-
t CHAPTER X.
93
8 And in confirmation of this) heal the sick, cleanse
the lepers, “raise the dead, cast out devils: "freely ye
have received (this power from me), freely give (the
benefit of it to others.
9. Then he commanded them to take nothing by the
way, Mark vi. 8, saying), Provide neither gold, nor
silver, nor brass, in your purses;
10 Nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats,
neither shocs," nor yet staves: for the workman is
worthy of his meat (and therefore you may reasonably
eapect to find it among them, for the benefit of whom
Ayou labour).
11 And into whatever city or town ye shall enter,
inquire who in it is’ worthy (or prepared to receive
instruction); and there abide till ye go thence (or from
that town). - º -
12 And when ye come into a house, salute it (say-
ing, Peace be to this house).
chosen people ; he calls them lost sheep, because they were
in so great peril of being lost and ruined by the ignorance
and wickedness of their guides (so Ps. cxix. 176. Isa. liii.
6. Jer. l. 6). To them the apostles are sent, because they
were “children of the kingdom” (Matt. viii. 12), to whom
the promise of the Messiah was made (Gen. xvii. 1), and the
“adoption and promises” especially belonged (Rom. ix. 4).
Whence the apostle saith, the gospel ought first to be
preached to them (Acts xiii. 46). They who by sheep here
understand the elect by a secret decree of God, must, con-
trary to the tenor of the New Testament, make Christ and
his apostles to be sent to none who rejected the gospel ; yea,
they make Christ send his apostles to them, whom they
could never find ; it being not possible for them, without a
revelation, to know who were thus the elect of God. .
* Ver. 8. Nºwgow; #yeigers, raise the dead..] Dr. Mill here
notes that these words are wanting in many manuscripts ;
and, because the apostles raised none from the dead before
Christ's resurrection, he conjectures, that they have been
added to the text: but, against this imagination, let it be
noted, that these words are to be found in the Vulgar, Sy-
riac, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions, and left out only in the
later version of the Persic; and the argument which he and
Grotius use for the excluding these words from the text,
would exclude also the cleansing of the lepers, for we read.
of none cleansed by them in that interval: but it is to be
observed, that the words in this chapter reach to their mis-
sion after Christ's resurrection, and many of them were not
fulfilled before: for then only was it, that they were “brought
before councils, and scourged in the synagogues, and brought
before kings and governors, for Christ's sake” (ver. 17, 18);
then only was “the Spirit given them to teach them how to
speak” (ver. 19, 20); then were they “hated of all men for
his name.” Note, therefore, that there was a double mission
of the apostles. The
First, Was to the Jews only, exclusively to the gentiles
and Samaritans (ver. 5), and thus they were sent, “two and
two” (Mark vi. 7), to go through the cities and villages of
Israel to preach, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is at
hand” (here, ver, 7. 23. Luke ix. 5, 6), which mission they
completed before our Saviour's death” (Luke ix. 10. 22.
35); and in this they were only empowered to “heal dis-
eases, and to cast out devils” (Matt. x. 1. Mark vi. 7. 13.
Luke ix. 1, 2). But, º
Secondly, They had a second mission after our Lord's re-
Surrection, conceived in these words, “as my Father sent
me, so send I you” (John xx. 21). And this was to be
executed after the descent of the Holy Ghost upon them,
by being “his witnesses in Jerusalem, and all Judea and
Samaria, and to the utmost ends of the earth” (Acts i. 8),
and to this mission relates this commission, “to cleanse the
lepers, and to raise the dead;” for besides the many things
already mentioned, which cannot possibly relate to their
first mission, most of, the things mentioned in this chapter
are the very things spoken in our Lord's prediction of the
destruction of Jerusalem, and are there mentioned as things
to be done then (Matt. xxiv. 9). And these words (ver. 22),
“He that endures to the end shall be saved,” are the very
words which Christ useth when he speaks of the destruction
of the Jewish polity (Matt. xxiv. 13. Mark xiii. 13); and
therefore it is observable that St. Mark and Luke, who re-
late only what appertained to their first mission, speak no-
row rāv p.a.Shröy Trºok;t&etc. Basil. de Jud. Dei. p. 268.
Aragx}, röy &rogróNov. Method. ap. Photium, Cod. 275.
Primus credidit, et apostolatās est princeps. Hilar. in
Matt. Can. 7. Tigoríðng, 33 IIárgow Rai Ayºgéay, Biért Hai Trgw-
ºréxxntot. Theoph. in loc. * -
thing, in the chapters mentioned, of their commission to
“cleanse the lepers and to raise the dead;” or from ver. 15
to 31, as knowing that these things belonged to their second
mission (see Examen Millii, lib. ii. cap. 1, n. 4).
* Aage&v #A438te, 3ops&y 33rs, freely you have received,
freely give.] Though these words are by latter fathers ex-
tended to both the sacraments, according to those words of
Tertullian, Nulla res Dei pretio constat, “We receive no-
thing for the things of God ;” yet, from the connexion of
them with the commission given to “cure diseases, cast out
devils, and raise the dead;” and from the words of Irenaeus,”
saying, “The church did all these miracles, neither seduc-
ing any man, nor taking money for them, & yść 3og=&y st-
Anºps trapa Oscú, 3age&y zai Staxoveſ, for as she hath received
them freely of God, so she freely ministers them ;” I say,
from these things it is evident, that these words only relate
to the dispensing of miraculous gifts, and they do assuredly
wrest, and very much abuse them, who plead from them
against the maintenance of the ministry : for (1.) Christ
sending the seventy on the same errand, and investing them
with the same power, bids them, “into whatsoever house
they entered, to eat and drink what was set before them,
because the labourer was worthy of his hire” (Luke x. 7)
And many of the apostles, when executing this commission,
even the brethren of our Lord, and Cephas, did so (1 Cor.
ix. 4, 5). St. Paul also, who did not use this liberty, not
only justifies his right to do so, but requires them who are
“taught the word to communicate to him that teacheth in
all good things” (Gal. vi. 6, see the note there); and pro-
nounceth him that “labours in the word and doctrine wor-
thy of double honour,” that is, maintenance ; and saith,
“The Lord hath ordained, that they who preach the gospel,
should live of the gospel” (1 Cor. ix. 14).
* Ver. 10. Mu??"}4380V, nor yet staves.j. That the reading
of Theophylact and many MSS., ºn?: #48%us, “nor stayes,”
is ºne true reading, is evident from Mark vi. 1, Luke ix. 3,
where they are permitted to carry one staff. And by this pre-
cept our Lord taught them, when they were employed in his
service, to depend upon his providence for the provision of
what they wanted ; and therefore he speaks thus to them,
“When I thus sent you forth, lacked ye anything?” Luke
.xxii. 35. It follows, “for the labourer is worthy of his
meat;” and therefore, even when they were dispensing these
miracles, our Lord allows them to receive it; only Theophy-
lact here notes, that Christ here says, he is worthy Troºpſis,
où rejºng, “ of his food, not of dainties; for it becomes not
a teacher to fare deliciously.”
7 Ver. 11. ‘E:erácars ºri; #y air; 3%iç att, inquire who in
it is worthy..] So wer. 13, “And if the house be not wor-
thy.” Here Cameron pronounces them innovators who
conclude hence, “that the reason why one is rather called
than another is in men themselves,” i.e. in any disposition
in them to receive the word ; that is, he pronounceth all the
ancients innovators; for that they were of this opinion is
evident from Dally's Testimon. Veterum,” and from Vos-
sius in his Pelagian history, lib. vii, cap. 2, and is demon-
strable from these words of Christ ; for he sends his apostles
to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel,” i. e. to those
who had strayed from the salutary pastures of “the law and
the prophets” to them whom he calls “to repentance”
(Mark vi. 12), to whom the gospel was to be preached
(Luke x. 9). "He speaks therefore not of them who are
called already, but who were to be called to Christ's sheep-
fold, to the kingdom of heaven, and to faith, and repent-
ancé, as the preparations for entering into it. (2) In those
•-º-º-º-º-º-º-º-º-º-º- = **
* Lib. ii. cap. 57.
&n
+ Apol, à p. 753 ad p. 946.
94' -
MATTHEW. *
13 And if the house be worthy, let your peace come
upon it (your blessing shall rest on it); "but if it be
not worthy, let your peace return to you (i. e. they
shall receive no advantage by it).
14 And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear
your words, when ye depart out of that house or city,
“shake off the dust of your feet (for a testimony against
them, Mark vi. 11. Luke ix. 5, that you count them as
unclean and unfit to be conversed with any more, because
they have rejected the word of life propounded, and by
your miracles confirmed to them).
15 *Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tole-
rable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the
(great) day of judgment, than for (the people of) that
city; (because the means of knowledge rejected by them
have been greater, xi. 23, 24).
16 Behold, I send you forth as (if) sheep (were
sent) in the midst of wolves (i.e. on an employment
jull of peril from the men of the world), be ye there-
fore wise as serpents (i. e. as prudent and wary as they
are to preserve themselves from danger), and harmless
as doves; (that, giving no offence to,any man, you may
give them no occasion to do evil to you : see Rom. xvi.
19.)
17 *But (and especially) beware of (the) men (of
who are thus to be called, Christ manifestly supposeth some
would be found by the apostles &#iot “worthy,” some un-
worthy ; bidding them to inquire who were such, and who
not, and accordingly to deport themselves towards them :
now, whence should they know this, but from such disposi-
tions found in some which render them fit for the kingdom,
or from whom they might hope they should not labour in
vain in calling them to repentance, and preaching the king-
dom of God to them 2 so also when he sends his seventy
disciples on the same errand, bidding them say “Peace” to
the house they came to ; and promising that “if a son of
peace were there, their peace should rest upon it” (Luke x.
6); what can this “son of peace” be, but one disposed to
receive such persons peaceably and kindly, and to hearken
to their admonitions? and is not this the very thing which
fitted them for the divine benediction P This will be still
more evident from the consideration of the persons opposed
to the “worthy,” and the “sons of peace ;” for they were
not such as were disposed to hearken to the word, or to re-
ceive the preachers of it (Matt. x. 14. Mark vi. 11. Luke
x. 10), for which they were to look upon them as impure;
yea, for which Christ pronounces their punishment would be
“greater in the day of judgment than that of Sodom and
Gomorrah :” and must not such dreadful judgments befall
them, for want of such dispositions as might and ought to
have been in them towards the “gospel of the kingdom,”
and those who came to them with the kind offer of the bless-
ings of it? They therefore, by refusing to receive the word,
“judged themselves unworthy of eternal life” (Acts xiii. 46),
when they might and should have done the contrary ; and
for want of those good dispositions which others had, and
i. might have had, fell short of the salvation tendered to
them.
* Ver. 13. "E&y 88 paſſ : &#ia, but if it be not worthy, let
3/our peace return unto you..] That is, they shall not obtain
the peace you wish them, or receive any benefit from your
wishes; so this phrase signifies in those words of the psalmist,
“My prayer returned into my bosom,” Ps. xxxv. 14 (see
Isa. lv. 11), .
* Ver. 14. 'Exºriyážare rôy xoViogrèy rāy Troöv jºy, Shake
off the dust from your feet.] The Jews thought the dust of
the heathen lands polluted ; so that the import of this phrase
is this, Look upon such as those heathens whom I have for-
bid you to preach to ; when therefore ye depart from them,
shake off the dust of your feet as a testimony that you so
esteem them.
* Ver. 15. 'Avantátegºy fatal yī zołówov wał Top.éjoy #y
rºcérº. Kgia sac, Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tole-
Table for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than
..for that city.] The gloss which some have put upon these
words, viz. that the punishment of that city shall be greater,
this age and nation): for they will deliver, you up
to the councils (of the Sanhedrin), and they will
scourge you in their synagogues (for preaching in
ºny name). +
18 And ye shall be brought before governors and
kings for my sake, for a testimony against (Gr. to)
them and (to) the gentiles, (who believe not the gospel
preached to them, that the kingdom of God was come to
them, Luke x. 9).
19 But when they deliver you up (to these men),
*take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it
shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall
speak. - *
20 For it is not ye that speak (from your own abili-
ties), but (it is) the Spirit of your Father that speak-
eth in you.
21 And (know this, that when the gospel is thus
preached by you, the effect of it will be this, that) the
brother (who believeth not) shall deliver up the (Chris-
tian) brother to death, and the father the child: and
the children shall rise up against their parents, and
cause them to be put to death (as being Christians).
22 And ye (also) shall be hated of all (the) men (of
the world) for my name’s sake; but he that endureth
to the end (of these days of persecution from the unbe-
when Christ comes to execute his judgment on the Jewish
nation, than that which Sodom and Gomorrah suffered for
refusing the preaching of Lot, doth certainly pervert the
import of these words. For (1.) Christ saith not, It hath
been more tolerable for Sodom, but Barat, “it shall be’” so ;
which shows he had respect, not to the past, but future suf.
ferings of Sodom and Gomorrah. (2.) Christ adds, It shall
be more tolerable for Sodom, &c. “in the day of judgment:”
now, though the times of the destruction of the Jewish na-
tion are sometimes styled “the days of vengeance,” yet
never are they called the “day of judgment:” but that
phrase still relates unto the final judgment and perdition of
ungodly men (2 Pet. iii. 7), that day to which the wicked
are reserved to be punished, 2 Pet. ii. 9 (see Matt. xii. 36.
1 John iv. 17). So also doth the phrase #y tº xgires, used by
St. Luke (x.14), concerning the same persons, always sig-
nify (Matt. xii. 41,42); so that the Sodomites shall cer-
tainly receive a future judgment: according to these words
of Theophylact, #xeſ wereº regov woxaa-3% covrai, “and they
shall be punished more moderately.” And who can ration-
ally conceive that men, polluted with such unnatural lusts,
should be fit to come into that place, into “which nothing
enters that is polluted or defiled P” (Rev. xxi. 27.) Here
also it is well noted by Grotius, that the sin of those who
reject the gºspel, rendering them obnoxious to greater pu-
nishment than Sodom and Gomorrah were to suffer at the
day of judgment, because committed against greater light,
and greater confirmation of the truth, must be a wilful sin,
which it was in their power to avoid.
* Ver. 17. IIgoo’ixers 3: árà rāy 3,98&mov, But beware of
men.] i. e. Avoid, as much as in you lies, the persecutions
you may suffer from them. For, as Theophylact here notes,
this is to be wise as serpents, viz. to be circumspect in de-
clining their snares, and giving them no just occasion to
afflict us; and to be harmless as doves, is to offend no man
by word or example, and so give them no occasion to do
evil to us. *
* Ver. 19, 20. Mº Awspiºvhant's ºrå; # ºri Aaxhorº.78, &c.
Take no thought how or what you shall speak : for it is not
you that speak, but the Spirit of my Father which speaketh
in you..] Christ promising here to his apostles immediate
assistance from the Holy Spirit, forbids them, Trºop, EXErāy,
“to meditate beforehand what they should say” (Luke xxi.
14). Wain therefore are the papists, who ascribe the same
assistance to their fathers met in councils, saying, “It is not
they that speak, but the Holy Ghost that speaketh in them;”
and yet make prayers and disputations, and many other
things requisite to an infallible decision. Vain also are the
anabaptists, quakers, and whosoever do now expect the like
assistance in prayer and preaching, after these extraordinary
gifts are ceased, as the apostles had by virtue of them ; they
CHAPTER X.
95
lieving Jews) shall be saved (from the dreadful destruc-
tion coming on them).
23 *But when they persecute you in this city (i. e.
in any one city), flee ye into another; for verily I say
unto you,” Ye shall not have gone over the cities of
Israel, till the Son of man be come; (with his Roman
army to destroy that nation, and to burn up their cities.
24 And to arm you against these persecutions, con-
sider that) the disciple is not (to eaſpect to be) above
his master, nor the servant (to be) above his lord.
25 It is enough for the disciple that he be as his
master, and (for) the servant (to be) as his lord. If
(then) they have called the master of the house Beel-
zebub, how much more (shall they call or proportion-
ably revile) them of his household 2
26 °Fear them not therefore; for there is nothing
may as well pretend to speak with tongues and cast out de-
vils, as the apostles did, by virtue of the same assistance.
* Ver. 23. "Oraw 3: 31&worly iggs, &c. But when they
shall persecute you in this city, flee to another.] It follows
not from these words, that a pastor who is fixed to a parti-
cular congregation may fly from it in times of persecution,
their case being not the same with that of the apostles, whose
commission was to go “through all the cities of Judea, be-
ginning at Jerusalem” (Acts i. 8): so that they only fled
from one part of their jurisdiction to another, and were still
executing the office and trust committed to them.
* Oi Awi rexéants rຠºráxet; roi, 'IzpañA, #2: &y #A0n 3 vič,
toº &v$26trov, I say writo you, Ye shall not have gone over
the cities of Israel till the Son of man be come.] This Dr.
Lightfoot understands as spoken of their first mission, and
says the meaning of the words is this, You shall not have
finished it till the Son of man rise from the dead. But,
First, In that first mission they met with no persecution in
any city ; but, where they were not received, left it of their
own accord (ver. 11). Secondly, They presently returned
from their first commission to their Lord, and told him all
that they had done and taught in prosecution of it, as we
read, Luke ix. 10, Mark vi. 30. Thirdly this phrase, “the
coming of the Son of man,” doth never, that I know of
signify our Lord's coming at his resurrection, but either his
coming with the Roman army to destroy the Jews, as Matt.
xxiv. 27. 30. 37. 44. xxv. 13. Mark xiii. 26. Luke xviii. 8.
xxi. 27, or else his coming to the final judgment, Matt. xvi.
27. And seeing the apostles were none of them to live till
the day of judgment, it seems necessary to understand this
of his coming to avenge his quarrel on the Jewish nation.
And to this sense lead the following words; And if you
meet with great obloquies and persecutions from the Jewish
nation, whilst you are thus spreading the gospel through
Judea (as they did even to the beginning of the war :*
James, the brother of our Lord, and other Christians, being
slain by Ananus the high-priest but three years before the
War broke out), it is only what was done to our Lord ; and
therefore what you have equal reason to expect, “for the
disciple is not above his master” (ver. 24–26).
15 Ver. 26. Må oS, $23,65ts aircis' otºy yāpiari kexaxwº-
*śvoy, 3 ºx &ronaºut 6%rstat. Fear ye not them therefore :
Jor there is nothing hidden that shall not be 'revealed.]
These words are capable of two good senses: First, Let not
the dread of these persecutors affright you from preaching
of the gospel, as despairing of the success of it ; for though
at present it seems to be hidden from the world, and it is
like to be obscured awhile by the calumnies of the Jews
and others, I will cause it to shine through all the world,
and dissipate all the clouds they cast over it, and break
through all the obstacles, and will render it “ mighty, to
cast down every high thought that exalts itself against the
knowledge of God, and bring into captivity every thought
to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. x. 5); or thus, Secondly,
Fear not the calumnies with which they shall load you (as
they did your Master, calling him Beelzebub, ver. 25),. for
I will make the innocency and excellency of your doćrine
as clear as the light.; and your integrity in the dispensing
of it, and your patience in suffering for it, to redound to
* Joseph. Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 8, p. 698, B.
| Töy ÉvroAğy roi, Geoû, cap. 13.
covered that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shal,
not be known (i. e. for my doctrine, which now seems
obscure and hidden from he world, shall in time be
Tevealed to all nations, and overcome all the calumnies
with which it is loaded, and all the opposition it shall
meet with. -
27. “What (therefore) I tell you in darkness, (or
parabolical expressions), that speak ye in the light;
and what ye hear (from me) in the ear (i. e. more pri-
vately), that preach ye (publicly, and as it were) upon
the housetops.
28 “And fear not them which (can only) kill the
body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather
fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body
in hell. - - -
29 (Moreover, you who are so highly valued by God,
your praise, honour, and glory, throughout all ages, and
especially at the revelation of our Lord from heaven (1 Pet.
i. 7).
º Ver. 27. “O Aéyo tºy iv ºff a koria, strars #y rā port,
&c. What I say to you in darkness, speak ye in the light :
and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the
housetops.] i. e. What I have said to you in private, and in
obscure parables, and almost as the Jewish doctors, whose
custom it is to whisper into the ear of one who is to speak
what he thus whispers aloud to others (see Dr. Lightfoot and
Dr. Hammond on this place), that speak ye openly and
clearly in the audience of all, and, as it were, after the man-
ner of the Jews, who, having battlements on the tops of their
houses over which they could look (Deut. xxii. 8. 2 Sam. xi.
1. Acts x.9), did often from them preach to the people.
And so, saith Hegesippus,” they carried “James the Just
to the top of the temple, to preach to the people at the
passover.”
*7 Ver. 28. Kał &# 406m8ºrs &nd rāv &moxrsivávray tº
cºpa, rºw 33 ºvXºy ºzº èvyata #voy &rozºrgival, And fear not
them who can kill the body, but cannot kill the soul, &c.]
These words seem to contain a certain evidence, that the
soul dies not with the body, but continues afterward in a
state of sensibility: for, First, That which it is allowed
that men can do to the body, it is denied that they can do to
the soul; therefore Christ speaks not in these words of death
eternal (for that men cannot inflict upon the body, or hinder
its resurrection): therefore it is spoken of a temporal death.
Note, Secondly, That they who, by killing the body, make the
soul also to perish, till the reunion and reviviscence both of
Soul and body, do also kill the soul, and so do more than
they who can kill the body only: and they, who by killing
of the body, render the soul or spirit of a man insensate, and
deprived of all possibility of thinking, or perceiving any-
thing, do also kill the soul; for it is not easy to perceive,
how an intelligible, thinking, and perceiving being, can be
more killed, than by depriving it of all sensation, thought,
and perception; the body itself being killed by a total pri-
vation of its capacity of sense and motion: since therefore
in St. Luke xii. 4, Christ saith, the adversaries of the Chris-
tians can “only kill their bodies,” and here, that they can-
not kill their souls ; it remains, that the soul doth not perish
with the body, nor is it reduced into an insensible state by
by the death of it. And, Thirdly, Our Lord may well be
Supposed to speak here, as the Jews would certainly under-
stand his words; now they would certainly thus understand
him, this being their received opinion, That the soul after
the death of the body, was capable of bliss or misery, and
therefore did continue in a state of sensation ; “Man,” say
they, “fears an earthly king, who may die to-morrow, should
punish him ; and doth he not fear him, in whose hands his
soul is, both in this life and the future?” And the author
attoxgårogo; Aoylapºoij saith,; “Let us not fear them who
seem to kill the body; for them who die for the law, Abra-
* Apud. Euseb. II. Eccl. lib. ii. cap. 53.
+ Buxt. Floril. p. 364, Eben. Ezr. in Ex. xx. 3.
†: Mi, poénôāºgy tºy 3ozoivºra &roxtetvely rà côºa, cºro, yā;
6ávovira; hºà; 'Agea3, 'Ioladz, wai'i and 3 &močážovrat ºcéya; 33
vii; Luxh; xivöuyog #y aioviº 3azavicº ×siºves ragašańovaty
96
MATTHEW.
•
and live under such a peculiar conduct of his providence,
have no cause to fear what they can do to the body, for:)
are not two sparrows sold for a farthing (as being birds
of little value) 8 and * one of them shall not fall on
the ground (or die) without (the providence of) your
Father.
30 But (yet this providence is more particularly con-
cerned for you, for) the very hairs of your head are all
numbered (i.e. your minutest concerns are under the
especial conduct of his providence).
31 Fear ye not therefore, (for) ye are of more value
(in the sight of God) than many sparrows.
32 Whosoever therefore shall (by these considera-
tions be encouraged still to) confess (or own) me (and
my doctrine) before men, him will I confess also (or
own at the great day as my faithful servant) before my
Father which is in heaven.
33 But whosoever (notwithstanding these encourage-
ments) shall (to avoid their persecutions) deny me
before men, him will I also deny (and disown at the
great day) before my Father which is in heaven.
34 (And) "think not that I am come to send (or
cause) peace on earth (and so to free you from these
persecutions; for) I came not to send peace, but a
sword.
35 For I am come to (preach that doctrine which
will rather) set a man at variance against his father,
and the daughter against her mother, and the daugh-
ter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
36 And (thus it shall happen, that) a man's foes
shall be they of his own household.
37 (And this dispensation of providence will discover
*** *-ºs . * -
ham, Isaac, and Jacob, receive ; but they who transgress the
law of God, subject the soul to a great danger of endless
torments.”
* Ver. 29. A sparrow falls not to the ground without
your father.] This, as Buxtorf” hath observed, is like that
saying of the Jews, Avicula sine coelo non perit, quantö
minūs homo: “A bird perisheth not without the providence
of God, much less a man.”
1° Wer. 34. M% vogtºn re 3rt #x00w 8axeſ, eighway it rºw yºv—
&Ax& Laxatgay, Think not that I came to send peace upon
the earth ; I came not to send peace, but a sword, ver. 35,
36.] The usual import assigned to these words is this :
Though all my exhortations and institutions tend to con-
ciliate the most endearing love, and to establish the firmest
and most lasting peace in the world; yet the event of it,
through men's ignorance and wickedness, will be great va-
riance and discord, even between nearest relatives and per-
sons of most intimate acquaintance and familiarity : yet is
the exposition of Dr. Lightfoot very ingenious and true, That
he came to send upon the land of Judea, not that peace and
those halcyon days which they expected at the coming of
their Messiah, but a sword, and continual war, and discords, to
destroy them, not only by their enemies, but by their own
hands: of which Josephus gives us a full comment in his
history of the continual wars the Jews had with the Greeks,
the Syrians, and the Samaritans, which were, saith Euse-
bius, from him, arázst; xa; ºréasºol wai xazºv BiráAAnAoi
pany avai, “continual wars, and seditions, and machinations
of evil,” with the prognostications of them by a kind of
“flaming sword hanging over Jerusalem for a year” (see note
on ch. xxiv.). He adds,f that ēkiveiro #y #xagº; réxei Taçax}
xal aráAsp40; #4 pºxtoc, “there arose in every city tumults and
civil wars; and no sooner had they any respite from the Tºo-
mans, but they turned their hands against one another ;"
giving us tragical accounts of the fearful outrages, spoils,
murders, devastations of robbers, cut-throats, zealots, and of
their amazing cruelties, beyond example, especially of the
three adverse parties in the temple and city of Jerusalem.
* Ver. 40–42. ‘O Sexãº, Eyo; tº 3¢, #2; 3áxeral, He that
* Lex. Talmud. p. 553.
5 + Hist. Eccl. lib. ii. cap. 6.
f De Bel.
Jud. lib. iv. cap. 10.
who is worthy to be owned as my disciple, for when this
happeneth), he that loveth father or mother more than
me (i. e. is moved by his regard to them to disown me,
or disobey my precepts) is not worthy of me; and he
that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not wor-
thy of me.
38 And he that taketh not (up) his cross, and fol-
loweth after me, is not worthy of me. (See note on
Luke ix. 23.)
39 (And know that by refusing thus to follow me,
men will be the greatest losers, for) he that (by desert-
ing me in time of persecution) findeth his life (preserved
for a little while), shall lose it (probably here, and cer-
tainly hereafter); and he that loseth his life for my
sake shall find it; (happily improved into life eternal,
and so shall be the greatest gainer.
40 Nor shall my kindness be confined only to those
who show this affection to my person, but ) *he that
receiveth you (preaching in my name, shall be esteemed
as he that) receiveth me, and he that receiveth me (as
he that) receiveth him that sent me.
41 (And) he that receiveth a prophet in the name
of a prophet (i. e. as one sent from God, and doth ac-
cordingly attend to him), shall receive a prophet’s
reward; and he that receiveth a righteous man in the
name of a righteous man (i.e. out of true love to his
righteousness), shall receive a righteous man’s reward.
42 And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of
these little ones (i. e. the meanest of my disciples), “a
cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple,
verily, I say unto you, He shall in no wise lose his
reward.
receiveth you, receiveth me, Here Christ comforts his dis-
ciples by promising a blessing and reward to every one that
shows the least kindness to them, or any of those who were
employed in the same work with them; viz. the prophets,
mentioned among spiritual persons in the first epistle to the
Corinthians, and of whom Christ speaketh thus (xxiii. 34),
“Behold, I send you prophets, and wise men ;” or even to
any of his righteous servants; which, as it is a great incite-
ment to others to express their kindness to Christ's ministers
and faithful servants, so is it also to his ministers, to apply
themselves to his service with a ready mind, and with the
utmost diligence, in execution of their pastoral charge. To
receive them “in the name of a prophet,” is to receive them
on that account, that they are such. As to learn the law
lisemah,” “in the name of the law,” is to learn it upon that
account; and to do a thing al shem, or leshem, in or for the
name is, saith he, to do it upon that account; as when they
say, “Let all thy works be dome, leshem shammaim, in the
name of heaven,” that is, with respect to God, and to his
glory. Moreover, when he saith (ver. 39), “He that loseth
his life for my sake shall find it, and he that findeth (or pre:
serveth it by deserting me, and my doctrine), shall lose it :"
this is exactly true, according to the Christian doctrine, which
promiseth a resurrection of the body to eternal life to those
who are faithful to Christ to the death, and threateneth eter-
mal death to those who desert him to preserve this momentary
life; now sure he with a witness “loseth life,” who is de-
prived of that cternal life he in the body might enjoy, and
he as surely finds it whose body is raised to a life incorrup-
tible. -
21 Ver, 42. IIothploy Juxpº, a cup of cold.]. Sub. water.
So xi. 8, 13 ºaXaxa are soft raiments; and Luke xii. 47,
Bagh-era wroxxâx, “he shall be beaten with many,” supply
ºrxāya;, stripes. This ellipsis of the substantive, as the gram-
marians note, is very frequent in the Old Testament. So 2
Sam. xxi. 16, “He was girded with a new” add sword; Ps.
x. 10, “That the poor may fall by his strong,” add paws ;
Ps. lxxiii. 10, “The waters of a full,” add cup, “were Wrung
out to him” (see Gloss. de Nomine, Can. 12).
* Lex. Talm. p. 903, +P. 2431
97
CHAPTER XI.
1 AND it came to pass, when Jesus had made an
end of commanding his twelve disciples, (whom he had
sent to preach, before his coming to the cities of Israel,
Matt. x. 23. Luke x. 1), he departed thence (from Ca-
pernaum, Matt. ix. 1), to teach and to preach in their
cities. -
2 Now when John had heard in the prison (of Ma-
chaerus) the works of Christ, (being told of them by his
disciples, Luke vii. 18,) he sent two of his disciples
(whom he had called to him frt that purpose, Luke vii.
19),
3 And (they, in the name of their master, Luke vii.
20) said unto him, "Art thou he that should come, or
do we look for another?
4 (And in that same hour, that the disciples of John
came with this question, Christ cured many of their in-
jirmities, and plagues, and of evil spirits, and unto
many that were blind he gave sight, Luke vii. 21, and
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XI.
* Ver. 3. Art illow & #6xápasycº, he that cometh, or look we
for another ?]
Note here (1.) that 3 ipxágewoc, “he that is coming,” was
in those days the common style for the Messias: so is he
styled by St. John himself, 5 #pxáſzewo: świato, peov, “he that
cometh after me” (Matt. iii. 11. John i. 15. 27): so by the
multitude, saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed
is § #xãºwevoº, he that cometh in the name of the Lord,”
Matt. xxi. 9. xxiii. 39, or as it is, Luke xix. 38, 3 #pxápasyug
8aaixeirº, “the king coming:” and this name of the Messiah
they received from Habakkuk, where he is styled 3 #exãºwevoº,
“he that shall come” (Hab. ii. 3); and from Daniel, where
he is styled á špxáſzewoc, “he that cometh with the clouds of
heaven,” vii. 13 (see Matt. xxiv. 30. xxvi. 64. Heb. x. 37).
Note, (2) that the Baptist could not make this inquiry
on his own behalf, or doubt whether Christ were the Mes-
siah or not, for he was sent to that very end to bear witness
of Christ (John i. 6–8); he was taught from heaven a sign
by which he certainly might know him (ver. 33); he pro-
claims him “the Son of God” (ver. 24); ‘the Lamb of
God” (ver. 36); he “bare witness” to him (iii. 26. 33); he
declared of him, that he was “come from above,” from hea-
ven, that “he spake the words of God,” that “God had not
given him the Spirit by measure,” and that “he who re-
ceived his testimony had set to his seal that God is true”
(John iii. from ver. 29 to the end). It cannot therefore be
imagined, that, after all this, he should doubt whether he
were the Messiah or not. Much less can we imagine, with
many of the fathers,” that the sense of this inquiry should
be this, Tu es qui venturus es in infernum ? “Art thou he
that art to come to hades, whither I am going, and should I
preach thee there 2° Chrysostom indeed produces, but ap-
proves not this opinion ; but Origen + bids us “not to fear
to assert it,” and proves it from this place. Dr. Lightfoot
and others conceive that John might imagine, as the Jewish
nation did, that Christ's kingdom should be temporal and
splendid, and so expected that Christ should deliver him out
of prison ; and that therefore Christ saith to him, “Blessed
is he that shall not be offended in me.” But seeing arxav-
* Non ait, Tu es qui venisti, sed Tu es qui venturus es,
et est sensus, Manda mihi, quia ad infernum descensurus
sum, utrām te et inferis renunciare debeam, qui enunciavi
superis. Hieron. in locum. Joannes ait, Tu es qui venturus
es in infernum sine dubio. Ruff in Symb. At& roi to eſtra,
2v ºf 6 exãº, evo; ; routéariv, & Ei, #2ny ºxxov Katagaively.
+ M, poéoù Aéyely 3rt 'Ioláwn; six #8ov xaragéºnze mºozngúa cov
Töv Küpicy ºva Trºositry airy, xate? Eva'éºwevoy 31& roi to ru,0ávaro,
oux} av ºf 3 exãºzsvo; ; Com. in Lib. Reg. edit. [Huet. tom.
i. p. 34, A, et p. 35, A. In hanc sententiam maxima pars
Veterum concessit. Maldonat, in locum,
\
| therefore) Jests answered, and said unto them, Go,
and show John again those things which ye do hear
(Luke vii. 22) and see:
5 *The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk,
the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead
are raised up, and the “poor have the gospel preached
to them.
6 And “blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended
IIl II.16.
7 And as they departed (or, when they were gone),
Jesus began to say unto the multitudes concerning
John (that they might not doubt of the testimony John
had given to him, by reason of his inquiry, which seemed
to render him now doubting, of what he before had tes-
tified; When you went forth into the wilderness to be
baptized of John), What went you forth into the wil-
derness to see 2 (was it to see) a reed shaken with the
wind? (i. e. a man wavering in his testimony, and turn-
3axićsa'9at, “to be offended,” still signifies to be so scandal-
ized as to “fall off from the faith,” and it is by no means
credible, after the testimonies that John had given of Christ,
he should be guilty of such apostasy, or infidelity, espe-
cially since his disciples after his death resort to Christ, and
cleave to him (xiv. 12), it is most probable that John sent
these disciples not for his own, but for their satisfaction in
this matter, and that Christ said to them, “13lessed is he
that shall not be offended in me.” -
* Wer. 5. The blind receive their sight, &c..] That he
should make “the blind to see, the lame to walk, the deaf
to hear, and preach the gospel to the poor,” was prophesied
of the Messiah, Isa. xxix. 18, 19. xxxv. 5, 6. lxi. 18, but of
the “lepers being cleansed, and the dead raised,” by the
Messiah, we read nothing in the prophets; these therefore
were the things they heard done at Nain, where the widow's
son was raised (Luke vii. 18), and saw done before their
eyes, when Jesus cured many rāy warriyay of their “plagues:”
for leprosy is often styled nynx vi) “the plague of leprosy,”
and the word yi) is by the Septuagint rendered Trañyn and
24arić it is styled the “plague of leprosy,” Lev. xiii. 2, 3.
9. 20, 25. 31. 47. 49.51. 59. xiv. 3. 32. 34, and it was
looked upon by the Jews as an immediate chastisement
sent from God (see note on viii. 4. See Examen Millii).
* The poor have the gospel preached unto them.] Though
“the poor” here may signify the poor and humble in spirit,
to whom the gospel was preached with the best success,
they being best fitted for, and so most ready to receive it ;
yet I see no reason to recede from the obvious sense of the
words, That whereas the men of mean condition were by
the proud scribes and pharisees and learned rabbies neg-
lected, and contemned as “people of the earth” (John vii.
49), Christ chose chiefly to converse with and instruct them;
and the divine wisdom saw it fit, that when the things of the
gospel were hid from these men, who were indeed blind
guides, though wise and prudent in their own conceits, they
should be revealed to these babes (ver. 25, 26). And, in-
deed, as the subject of the doctrines of the scribes and
pharisees was chiefly vain traditions, everting the law of
God (Matt. xv.), and the things they imposed upon them
“heavy burdens,” and the disputes in their Bethi Midrashoth
vain janglings; so did they teach in such a manner by ca-
balistical deductions and allegorical interpretations, as tran-
scended the capacity of the vulgar, so that they could profit
very little by repairing to their schools, or hearing their ex-
positions upon the law or prophets; as any one may learn
from almost all their expositions cited from their Talmuds,
and their learned rabbies; and therefore our Saviour, in the
close of this chapter, calls them from them to “learn of
him” (see note on ver, 28). -
* Ver. 6. Blessed is he who shall not be offended in me.]
i. e. Disbelieve, or fall off from me, by reason of my mead
98
MATTHEW.
ing this way and that way, as a reed shaken with the
wind doth). ... -
8 But what went you out to see 2 (was it) a man
clothed in soft raiment? (a courtier, or a parasite, apt to
flatter, and speak rather what will pleaseothers than what
truth requires?) behold, they that wear soft clothing
are in kings’ houses (i.e. such persons may be eaſpected
rather in kings' palaces, than in deserts).
9 But what went you out for to see (was it to see)
a prophet ! yea, I say unto you, and (one that is) more
than a prophet (his doctrine being more excellent, and
his office being not only to foretell, but to prepare the
way of the Messias).
10 For this is he of whom it is written (Mal. iii. 1),
Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which
shall prepare thy way before thee. (See note on Matt.
iii. 3.) .
11 Verily I say unto you, Among them (i. e. those
prophets) that are born of women, there hath not
risen" a greater than John the Baptist (on the accounts
circumstances in this present world, or because of those af.
flictions he may suffer for my Sake, or for adhering to my
doctrine. - -
* Ver. 11. A greater than John.] His office being more
excellent than that of other prophets, to prepare the way of
Christ, and fit the people to receive him, by calling them to
“bring forth fruits worthy of repentance,” that they might
receive remission of sins, and baptizing them in the name of
him that was to come after him, that was, of Christ, Acts
xix. 4. (2.) His doctrine being more excellent than theirs,
the gospel of God beginning then to be preached (Luke xvi.
16), the highest precepts of Christian charity propounded
(Luke iii. 11); Christ the true light being then attested to
by John, “that all men might believe in him” (John i. 7),
and he being by him declared to be “the Lamb of God that
taketh away the sins of the world” (ver. 29), and who
should “baptize them with the Holy Ghost” (ver. 33), was
the greatest of prophets. He was so (3.) by reason of the
success and efficacy of his doctrine, almost the whole nation
flowing in to his baptism, and confessing their sins (Matt.
iii. 5, 6); whence it is added, that from “the days of John
; Baptist the kingdom of heaven suffers violence" (ver.
* “o 83 (wingárspoº, But he that is least in the kingdom of hea-
ven is greater than he..] Not the meanest Christian, but the
meanest evangelical prophet, or preacher of the Christian doc-
trine, is greater than he. (1.) In respect of his office, which
was to preach “Christ crucified,” his resurrection from the
dead, his exaltation to the right hand of God, the blessings
tendered to those that should believe in his name; and there-
fore, also, (2.)in respect of his doctrine, which was more spi-
ritual and heavenly than that of John, and more express in
the revelation of the new covenant established in the blood of
Jesus, and “founded upon better promises,” Heb. viii.6. (3.)
In respect of that divine assistance by which their doctrine was
confirmed, for John “did no miracle” (John x. 41), whereas
“they went forth preaching everywhere, the Lord working
with them and confirming the words with signs following”
(Mark xyi. 20). “The Holy Ghost was not yet given”
(John vii. 39), and so he fell not upon John ; whence he,
comparing himself with Jesus, who was from above (John
iii. 31), and had the “Spirit above measure” (ver, 34),
saith of himself, “He that is of the earth speaketh of (or
from) the earth” (ver. 31), whereas the evangelical prophets
spake by the gifts and afflatus of the Holy Ghost, which
Christ sent down from heaven on them.
7 Ver. 12. And the violent take it by force..] i. e. And
they who by their continual attendance on the doctrine of it
preached to them, their care to understand it, and readiness
to receive it, show their ardent desires to be made partakers
of it, and do &yoyičea flat contend for an entrance into it, do
by these means prevail. There is another exposition of
these words to this effect; i. e. the publicans and sinners,
and the meaner crowd of the Jews, who are looked upon by
the scribes and pharisees as persons who have no right to
the blessings of the Messiah, and so as violent persons, and
forementioned); notwithstanding, he that is least in
the kingdom of heaven (the least prophet belonging to
the gospel dispensation) is "greater than he.
12 And from the days of John the Baptist until
now the kingdom of heaven (as it were) suffereth vio-
lence (by reason of the great concourse of people that
fly into it with a fervour like that which is used by a
nultitude assaulting a city or castle), and the "violent
take it by force. -
13 (I say, from the days of John the Baptist;) for
all the prophets and the law prophesied (of the Mes-
siah, and were the teachers which the people were to
hear, Luke xvi. 31), until John: (and, &trö Tórs, from
that time the kingdom of God was preached cai träg 6
3ovXópsvog sigs\9siv, and every one that is willing to
enter presseth or rusheth violently into it, Luke xvi. 16,
which seems to justify the earposition of ver. 12).
14 “And if ye will receive it, (or him as such, I tell
gow truly) this (person) is (that) Elias, which was for
to come (according to the prophecy of Malachi).
invaders, and intruders, embrace the gospel, and as it were
take it by force from the scribes and learned doctors, who
challenge the chiefest place in this kingdom, according to
those words of Christ to them, “The publicans and harlots
go before you into the kingdom of God; for ye believed not
John coming to you in the way of righteousness, but the
publicans and harlots believed him " (Matt. xxi. 31, 32);
and that which renders this interpretation the more consider-
able is this observation, that in the parallel place, Luke vii.
28–30, instead of these words, “the kingdom of heaven
suffers violence,” we have these, “and all the people and the
publicans justified God, being baptized with the baptism of
John, but the pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of
God, being not baptized of him.”
* Ver. 14. Kai ei Šáxers 38%ac-Sai, airó; #arly 'HAtaç 3 ºzáà-
Awy flexsasai' And if you will receive it, this is that Elias,
which was for to come.] Here note,
First, That it was the general tradition of the Jewish na-
tion, that Elias the Tishbite was to come in person, as the
forerunner of the Messiah of the Jews; that he in person
was to anoint him, and make him known unto the people ;
and that, before the advent of the Son of David, Elias was
to come to preach concerning him. This is the import of
the question put to John (John i. 21), “Art thou Elias P”
and of the saying of the scribes, “Elias must first come and
restore all things” (Matt. xvii. 10); of the interpretation of
the LXX. “Behold, I send unto you, 'HXiay rév OEagºrny,
Elias the Tishbite” (Mal. iv. 5), and of that saying of the
son of Sirach (Ecclus. xlviii. 10), “Elias was ordained for
reproofs in their times, to pacify the wrath of the Lord's
judgment before it brake into fury, and to turn the heart of
the father to the son, and to restore the tribes of Jacob.”
And suitably to these assertions, Trypho" the Jew declares,
That hasí; ºrávre; Trºozłoxãasy roy HXiay Xpirat airów #x06vra,
“all we Jews expect Elias to anoint Christ at his coming.”
It also was the general tradition of the writers of the Chris-
tian church, even from the second century, that Elias the
Tishbite, by virtue of those words of Malachi, is to come
in person before our Lord's second advent, to prepare men
for it. This opinion of the coming of Elias, tradit tota pa-
trum antiquitas, “all the ancient fathers have delivered,” said
De la Cerda. Constans est patrum, omniumque consenst
receptissima ecclesiae opinio, “It is the constant and most
received opinion of the church, and all the fathers,” saith
Huetius.f Constantissima semper fuit Christianorum opinio;
“It was always the most constant opinion of Christians that
Elias was to come before the day of judgment,” saith Mal-
donate. § “It is,” saith Mr. Mede, “well known that all
the fathers were of this opinion.” “He is to come,” saith
Petrus Alexandrinus, "[xata rºw rā; #xxxnaria; tragáàoa'iy, “ac-
cording to the tradition of the church ;” saith Arethas Ca2-
* Dial. p. 268, + In Tertul. de Resur. Carn. cap. 23.
f Not in Orig. § In locum.
|| Disc. 25, p. 48 * In Apoc. xi.
CHAPTER XI.
99
15 He that hath ears to hear (i.e. hath judgment to
discern, and is disposed to receive the truth), let him
hear (and embrace it).
sariensis, “according to the unanimously received opinion of
the church.” Note,
Secondly, That in opposition to this received tradition of
the Jews, Christ here asserts two things. (1.) That John
the Baptist was the very person of whom it was written,
“Behold, I send my messenger before thy face” (ver. 10).
St. Mark assures us of the same thing, by saying, that the
beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ was by the preach-
ing and baptizing of this John, “as it was written of him,
Behold, I send my messenger before thy face who shall pre-
pare thy way before thee,” Mark i. 1. 4. (2.) That this
messenger described by the prophet Malachi, iii. 1, as one
to be sent before the face of the Lord, was the very same
person promised by the same prophet, in these words, iv. 5,
“Behold, I send you Elijah the prophet before the great and
terrible day of the Lord come ;" and, therefore, that Elijah
could be no other than John the Baptist: for, when de-
scending from the mount, Christ said to his disciples, “Tell
no man of the vision till the Son of man is risen from the
dead” (Matt. xvii. 9). They thinking, suitably to this tra-
dition, that this Elias, who appeared in the mount, was
visibly to appear among them, to anoint the Messiah in the
sight of all the people, and order all things belonging to his
advent, ask this question ; Seeing, according to the doctrine
of the scribes, “Elias must first come” (ver. 10), and do
these things, why is it thou forbiddest to speak of his ap-
pearance P To this inquiry our Saviour answers, that it is
very true there is a promise of an Elias to come, and “re-
store all things” (ver. 11); “But I say unto you,” the Elias
promised, #3m #x$e, “hath come already,” and the scribes
knew him not, “but did unto him whatsoever they would”
(ver. 12). And then it follows, that his disciples “under-
stood that he spake to them of John the Baptist” (ver. 13).
They therefore understood what the fathers did not, and
others would not, learn from Christ's plain words, that John
the Baptist was the Elias promised, as the forerunner of the
great and terrible day of the Lord ; whence it doth plainly
follow, that they who do not think John the Baptist, and he
only, was the Elias mentioned by the prophet, must mistake.
For our Lord plainly saying that that Elias, of whom the
scribes made mention as the forerunner of his advent, was
“already come,” and giving them no intimation that any
other was to be expected after the coming of this one, there
can be no pretence from the tradition of the scribes, or from
the saying of the prophet, to expect any other. Moreover
our Lord, as if he had foreseen and designed to confute this
Jewish fable, speaks here more plainly thus, “All the pro-
phets and the law prophesied until John, and if you will
receive,” i. e. attend to and believe it “this is that Elias
which was for to come.” By which words he most plainly
teacheth, that that Elias of whom the prophets spake, as of
one for to come, was come already ; and makes it manifest,
that all that was in Malachi, or any other prophet, spoken
of Elias, was made good in the Baptist, who came “in the
power and spirit of Elias” (Luke i. 16), and was to be un-
derstood of him alone, as much as if he had in express
words asserted, that he only was the Elias that was to come,
and they were not, by virtue of any prophecy, to look for or
expect another. For thus our Saviour speaks: The prophet
Malachi saith, “Behold, I send my messenger before thy
face:” now, I assure you, the Baptist is the very person of
whom this is written ; the same prophet saith, “Behold, I
will send you Elias the prophet,” &c. whence your scribes
teach you to expect the personal appearance of Elias the
Tishbite, as the forerunner of your Messiah ; but if you
will receive the true interpretation of those words from me,
St. John the Baptist is that Elias, which, according to that
prophecy, was to be his forerunner.
Obj. 1. But against this plain assertion of our Lord it is
objected, that in the translation of the LXX. the words run
thus, “Dehold, I will send you 'HXiav roy QE28irny, Elias the
Tishbite,” which denotes Elias in person, and cannot be ap-
plied to St. John the Baptist.
* Wido Pocock in locum.
16 But whereunto shall I liken this generation It
is like to children sitting in the markets, and calling
unto their fellows, -
Ans. To this I answer, That this argument is of no force,
because it is founded not on the original, but only on a trans-
lation, which is not authentic. (2.) From this translation
it may be probably collected, that this imagination of the ap-
pearance of the Tishbite obtained then among the Jews; but
hence it will not follow that it was true, any more than that
the doctrine of the millennium, and of Christ's temporal
kingdom must be true, because they were received by that
nation as such. (3.) By the same reason and figurative
way of speaking, the Baptist may as well be called “Elijah
the Tishbite,” as “Elijah the prophet,” that only showing
the country of that prophet, as the other doth his office ; so
that if the Baptist deserved to be called “Elijah the pro-
phet,” because he came “in the spirit and power of Elijah,”
he mustdeserve to becalled “Elijah the Tishbite,” on the same
account, seeing Elijah the prophet was Elijah the Tishbite. But,
Obj. 2. It is objected, that the day mentioned, Mal. iv. 5,
as the time of the coming of Elijah, is styled “the great azid
dreadful day of the Lord,” which seemeth proper to the day of
judgment; whereas the day of Christ's first coming is not so call-
ed, but rather “an acceptable day,” and “a day of salvation.”
Ans. To this I answer, That the day of our Lord's first
coming, considered as reaching to the destruction of Jeru-
salem, was indeed a very dreadful and terrible day. Thus
in the prophet Joel, we read of “a day of the Lord” de-
scribed in the same expressions: “The sun shall be
turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the
great and terrible day of the Lord come;” and yet St. Peter,
speaking of what was done after our Lord’s ascension, and
citing these very words, saith, “This was that which was
spoken by the prophet Joel” (Acts ii. 16). Moreover, our
blessed Lord, speaking of the destruction of Jerusalem, and
of the miseries that should befall that very generation, saith,
“These shall be the days of vengeance,” such days of tribu-
lation “as never were from the beginning of the world, and
never shall-be afterward” (Matt. xxiv. 21. Luke xxi. 22).
Yea, the tradition of the Jews doth in their Talmud make
mention of such great afflictions which should happen in the
days of their Messiah unto Israel, that happy should he be
who did not see them.* Which notwithstanding, this day
might be styled “an acceptable day, a day of Salvation,” to
them, who received our Jesus as their Saviour, believed in
him, and obeyed his sayings; according to the words of the
prophet Malachi, “Behold, the day cometh which shall burn
as an oven, &c. but to you that fear my name shall the Sun
of righteousness arise with healing in his wings” (Mal. iv. 1,
2). Whence after this most terrible description, our Lord
speaks thus to his disciples, Luke xxi. 18, 19, “Be not ye
terrified, when these things shall happen: in patience possess
your spirits, for there shall liot one hair of your heads perish ;
when these things come to pass, then look up, and lift up
your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh” (ver. 28).
Obj. 2. It is farther objected, that John expressly denies
that he was Elias; for when the Jews from Jerusalem and
the priests and Levites were sent to him, saying, “Art thou
Elias P” he said, “I am not” (John i. 21).
Ans. If this objection be of any force, it will also prove
that John the Baptist was no prophet; for to the following
inquiry; “Art thou a prophet;” he still answers “No ;”
whereas our Saviour attested, that he was “a prophet, yea,
and more than a prophet” (Matt. xi. 9), and all the people so
accounted of him. His meaning therefore is only this, I
am not that Elias in person whom you expect, nor am I such
a prophet, as in the days of the Messiah you expect to rise
from the dead. And expositors tell us, he chose to answer
thus out of modesty, that he might not commend or bear
witness of himself, thinking it more convenient that Christ
should thus bear witness of him, than that he should ascribe
so great a dignity to himself. *
Öbj. 4. It is objected, that after St. John was beheaded,
our Saviour saith, “Elias truly shall first come and restore
all things;” now, how, say they, can this be spoken as a
thing future of John the Baptist then 2 This therefore must
† Dr. Pocock, ibid.
* Wide Dr. Pocock in Mal. iii. 2.
H 2
100
MATTHEW.
17 And saying (by way of complaint to them), We
have "piped to you (as they use to do at festivals), and
ye have not danced: we have mourned to you (as it
is usual in funerals and times of sadness), and ye have
not lamented (i.e. you will neither follow us when we
excite you to mirth or sadness). e
18 For John came neither eating nor drinking (in the
wsual manner; his meat being only locusts and wild
honey, Matt. iii. 4, and his drink only such as the wil-
derness afforded), and (because of this austerity) they
(who refuse and reject his baptism, Luke vii. 30), say,
He hath a devil (i.e. he is possessed by some melan-
choly Spirit).
19 The Son of man (on the other hand) came eating
be understood of some other Elias to come thereafter. This
is the ground on which this doctrine is established by Justin
Martyr, that our Lord, taught it saying,” 'HXiac Šafáretat,
“ that Elias shall come.” And in this he is followed by
Theodoret, and many of the ancients.
Ans. After that our Lord had uttered these words, not in
the future, as the Vulgar reads them, but in the present
tense, “Elias cometh,” or “Elias coming first restoreth all
things” (Matt. xvii. 11. Mark ix. 11), he adds, immediately
of the same Elias, of whom he had said, “he cometh,” or
“he shall come first,” that 33m #x0s, “he is now come,” 3rt
.#xhav0s, that indeed “he was come” (Matt. xvii. 12). And
again, If...you will receive it, this Baptist is that Elias, 3 &#x-
Xoy #2.Écºat, “who is for to come ;" and when he said these
words, then his disciples understood that he spake of John
"the Baptist; i. e. that he meant him and no other, when he
spake of an Elias who was for to come.
So that the meaning of our Lord's words is plainly this,
, True it is, as the scribes say, Elias is to come before the
Messiah, and it is also true, that John is that Elias which
was, when Malachi spake those words, to come afterward ;
but then he was not yet to come when our Saviour spake
of him ; but, as he saith expressly, “was already come ;”
though they who said Elias “must first come,” knew him
not when he was come. And truly had our Lord spoken of
one Elias, viz. John the Baptist, and the prophet Malachi
of another ; had Christ spoken of an Elias to come at his
first advent, and the prophets and the scribes of one to
come at his second advent, he had not answered his dis-
ciples’ question, but deluded them. And that the Elias
here spoken of was to appear at our Lord's first coming, is
apparent from thc inquiry of the disciples ; Why say the
scribes, Elias must first come before the Son of man P for
the tradition of the scribes was, that Elias was “to anoint
the Messiah, and make him known unto the people.” And
.it is as evident from our Lord's answer, “Elias cometh first";”
- i.e. before my resurrection, of which I now speak: from
this place, therefore, it never can be proved, that any cther
under that character is to appear before his second coming.
, Obj. 5. It farther is objected, That the Elias men-
tioned by Malachi was to turn the hearts of the fathers to
the children, and was, according to our Saviour's acknow-
Jedgment, to restore or set all things in order ; which seem-
eth not to have been, done by the ministry of the Baptist,
who continued but a short time, and did no such things as
these words seem to imply ; it remains, therefore, that these
words should be fulfilled by an Elias, who should be the fore-
runner of Christ's second advent. . #
Ans. To this I answer, That all who will not give the lie
unto the angel sent to Zachary, must be obliged to confess
the Baptist did fulfil the prophecy of Malachi. For of the
Baptist he thus speaks, “IHe shall be great before the Lord,
and many of the sons of Israel shall he turn unto the Lord ;
for he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to
turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the diso-
bedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people
prepared for the Lord.” If then John the Baptist did not
fulfil the words spoken by the angel, we must confess the angel
was deceived, and Zachary deserved not the punishment
he suffered for disbelieving his testimony ; but if he did
fulfil these sayings of the angel, he also must fulfil the words
contained in the prophet Malachi, because the angel speak-
eth in the very words of Malachi.
Again, our Saviour, acknowledging that an Elias was to
come before him, “and restore all things,” adds that he who
was to come, “to restore all things, was already come,” and
was the Baptist: he, therefore, must have “restored all
- things,” or it must be confessed, that he did not execute his
office, or fulfil what was written of him. Moreover, the
, Holy Ghost, by the mouth of Zachary, speaks thus con-
cerning John, “And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet
of the Highest ; for thou shalt go before the Lord to pre-
pare his way” (Luke i. 76); which is the very thing the
prophet Malachi declares to be the office of his messenger.
And whosoever shall consider what in the gospel is said of
John the Baptist, and shall compare those things with what
the prophet Malachi, and even the scribes averred, that the
Elias promised should do, will easily perceive all that was said
or prophesied concerning Elias was so punctually fulfilled by
the Baptist, as to cut off all farther expectation of the com-
pletion of this prophecy, by any personal appearance of
Elias, before our Saviour's second advent. For the pro-
phet saith,” “Behold, I will send Elias;” and the gospel
saith, “There was a man sent from God, whose name was
John ;” and that this John was that Elias “which was for
to come.” The prophet saith of his Elias, that he was to .
come “before the great and terrible day of the Lord:” and,
in the gospel, John is said to come “when the day of wrath
was coming,” when the “axe was laid to the root of the
trees, and every tree that brought not forth good fruit was to
be hewn down, and cast into the fire” (Matt. iii. 13); when
he was now appearing, “whose fan was in his hand, to
purge his floor, and gather the wheat into his barn, and to
burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Matt. iii. 12):
he came at the time, when, Saith our Saviour, “their house
was to be left unto them desolate” (Matt. xxiii. 38); when
the “desolation. of their city, nation, and temple,” was
irreversibly at hand; when the enemies of Jerusalem were,
“to cast a trench about her, and lay her even with the
ground, and her children within her” (Luke xix. 43). Here
it is said, That this Elijah should “turn the hearts of the
fathers to the children,” &c. i. e. that he should preach to
young and old conversion and repentance: and, in the gos-
pel, it is said of John, That he should “turn many of the
children of Israel to the Lord their God ;” that he should
“turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and of the
disobedient to the wisdom of the just ;" that he preached
to all the baptism of repentance (Luke iii. 3), and that with
such success and good effect, that Jerusalem, and all Judea,
and “all the regions round about Jordan, went out to him,
and were baptized of him, confessing their sins” (Matt. iii.
5, 6): that “all the people and the publicans justified God,
being baptized of John” (Luke vii. 29). So effectual was
his ministry, that many of the scribes and pharisees came to
his baptism (Matt. iii. 7), and even the soldiers and the
publicans to be instructed by him (Luke iii. 13, 14). He
prevailed generally with the Jews to unite in one common
baptism, that of repentance; and whereas the tradition of
the scribes taught, that Elias was to anoint the Messiah, and
make him known to the people ; John did baptize, and de-
clare unto the people that he was “the Lamb of God”
(John i. 29), and at his baptism by St. John, he was anointed
by the Holy Ghost (Matt. iii. 16).
What, therefore, better can agree than the prophecy in
Malachi, and the matter of fact in the gospel?
What can be farther requisite to show, that the person
who is characterized thus by the prophet, and who so punc-
tually answered to that character in the gospel, is one and
the same person, and that no other ought to be expected by
virtue of this prophecy P
* Ver. 17. Höxhaagey tºw, &c. #9enyhorapaev jºiv' We have
piped to you, --we have mourned to you..] The Jews had
their tibiae, or pipes, saith Buxtorf, for two uses; for joy
and for great lamentations. Hence, Saith the prophet Je-
remy, “My heart shall sound for Moab like pipes,” xlviii.
35); saith Isaiah, “like a harp” (xvi, 11): so R. Salomon
saith, Tibiae adhibentur in nuptiis et in funeribus, “Pipes are
used at marriages and funerals:” thus we read of the adan rai,
or tibicines, present at the death of the ruler's daugh-
fer (Matt. ix. 23), xai &Aaxášovraº roAA3, and la-
--------- ---------- --- - - -
• Dial cum. Tryph. p. 268.
* Vid. Pocock, p. 105. # In Ezek, ºxvii.
CHAPTER XI.
ſo !
and drinking (in the usual manner), and they (who
reject him and his doctrine) say (of him), Behold a man
gluttonous, and a winebibber, and (by his converse with
them) a friend of publicans and sinners; but (Gr. and)
Wisdom is "justified of her children.
20. Then began he to upbraid the cities, in
which most of his mighty works were done, be-
cause they repented not (at his saying, Repent
Sye, for the kingdom of God is at hand, though he con-
Jirmed his doctrine with the greatest miracles, saying
thus to them), .
21 Woe unto thee, Chorazin ' woe unto thee, Beth-
saida! for if the mighty works, which were done in
you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would
have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
22 But (or therefore) I say unto you, It shall be
more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judg-
ment, than for you. -
23 And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto
heaven (i. e. advanced highly above others by my pre-
sence with thee, and my miracles wrought in thee), shall
be brought down to hell (i. e. into a state of eatremest,
nisery); for if the mighty works which have been done
in thee had been done in Sodom, it would have re.
mained to this day.
24 But (therefore) I say unto you, It shall be more
tolerable" for the land of Sodom in the day of judg-
ment, than for thee.
menting much ;” which Greek word seems plainly to be de-
rived from 9%r a pipe ; and the Jews say, “That a poor
Israelite is bound to procure two minstrels and one woman
to lament at his wife's funeral.” To this double use of pipes,
which children imitated, our Lord, saith Buxtorf, referreth
in these words (In voce bºn p. 766). -
* Ver. 19. Kai #3ixatºn h coºpia &má rày rázvoy adrãº,
But Wisdom is justified of her children.] The common inter-
pretation of these words is this, that wai, and, is here put for
but ; as it is frequently in the Old Testament, viz. Gen.
xxxi. 7. Exod. i. 17. Numb. iv. 20. Deut. i. 43. Josh. i. 8.
1 Sam. i. 13. Ps. iv. 3. ix. 8 ; and in the New Testament,
Matt. xii. 43. xiii. 22. xvi. 4. xvii. 12. John v. 40. Acts x.
28. l. Thess. ii. 18, that wisdom is the doctrine of St. John,
and of Christ, the “wisdom of the Father ;” that the
“children of wisdom” are those who study and seek after,
true wisdom, as those who study physic are medicorum filii,
the “Sons of physicians;” and those who followed and learn-
ed of the prophets, are styled filii prophetarum, “the sons of
the próphets” (2 Kings ii. 3. 15); and these do justify her,
i. e. do approve of and receive her doctrines: according to
which interpretation the sense runs thus, That though the
scribes and pharisees reject my doctrine, and that of my
forerunner, and revile those that preach it, yet the wisdom
of it is discerned and approved by those who bear a true af.
fection to wisdom, and are disposed to obey her precepts:
or else this may be looked upon as a continuance of the scoff
of the pharisees, thus, And they say also that wisdom is jus-
tified of her children ; i. e. This Jesus who pretends to be a
teacher of the highest wisdom, and represents our wise
men as fools, behold the fruits of his wisdom, gluttony and
drunkenness, whilst we fast twice a week; behold, what as-
sociates he draws to him, and converses with publicans and
sinners, those whom our wise men will not touch, and much
less eat and drink with : from these fruits and these asso-
ciates, who attend upon his doctrine, and may be called
his sons and his disciples, you may judge of his wisdom,
for true wisdom may be discerned by its works: and to
strengthen this interpretation, it may be observed, from St.
Jerome on the place, that in quibusdam evangeliis legitur,
Justificata est sapientia ab operibus suis ; and that they who
were taught by any doctor were called his children (see the
note on I Cor. iv. 15). . . . .
* Ver. 24. “Or, y; 203&oy &vewri recoy farat #y hºgg Kei-
crews, hool, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom
in the day of judgment than for thee..] Here note, from these
words, “because they repented not,” the power of miracles
to confirm the truth of Christ's doctrine, and to prevail with
those that heard him to repent sincerely, according to his ex-
hortation, “Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand;”
for had not the miracles he wrought among them been a
sufficient means to induce them to this repentance, Christ
must not only have upbraided, but pronounced the hea-
viest judgments against these cities, för not doing that
which they had no sufficient means afforded them to perform.
Secondly, Those words, “If the works that have been done
in thee, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have
repented,” seem to bear this sense ; If the exhortations
to repentance, and the threats made against Tyre and Sidon
for their sins, by the prophet Isaiah, xxiii. 1. 4. Jeremiah,
xxv. 22. xlvii. 4. Ezekiel, xxvi. xxviii. Zechariah, ix. 2–4,
had been confirmed to them by such miracles as I have done
in these two cities, they would have wrought in them sin-
cere repentance ; for that our Lord here speaks of such
repentance is evident, (1.) because he says, “they would
have repented in sackcloth and ashes ;” which is the usual
description of the most full repentance, as in the case of
Nineveh, Jonah iii. 5. See Isa. lviii. 5. Jer. vi. 26. Lam. ii.
10. Dan. ix. 3. Judith iv. 15. (2.) Because the Lord here
speaks of that repentance which his doctrine and miracles
were designed to produce in those cities, and for the want of
which he there upbraids them ; which sure must be the want
not of external, hypocritical, but inward and sincere repent-
ance ; nor doth our Saviour say, It may be, or, It is likely
they would have repented, but, categorically, They would
have done it. Note,
Thirdly, That “to be exalted up to heaven,” and “be
brought down to hell,” are allegorical expressions taken from
the Old Testament, and signifying the highest exaltation,
and the lowest depression. So Isa. xiv. 13. 15, “Thou hast
said in thy heart, I will ascend into heaven, &c. but thou
shalt be brought down to hell:” and lvii. 9, “Thou didst
debase thyself to hell:” and, lastly, from these words, “It
shall be more tolerable for Sodom, and for Tyre and Sidon,
in the day of judgment:” to that which had been noted on
x. 15, add, that this seems to be spoken to suppress the
pride of the Jewish nation, and the severity of their judgment
upon others; they being wont to say, that the whole Jewish
nation, saving some few heretics and apostates, should be
saved, but that the people of Sodom should have no portion
in the world to come ; whereas our Lord declares, that even
the Sodomites should have a milder doom in that great day
than the unbelieving Jews. -
Ver. 20. 24. If the works had been dome in Tyre and
Sidon, they would have repented, &c.] Excellent here are
the words of Mr. Thorndike:—“Though Grotius and Jan-
senius make these words signify no more than that in pro-
bability they would have repented at the sight of such
miracles; yet so I find no good reason to infer, as our
Lord doth, that positively Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Caper-
naum shall be tormented more than Tyre and Sidon, So-
dom and Gomorrah, because they probably would have
repented at the sight of such miracles. The same I say to
others, who would have our Lord only say thus; That had
these miracles been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would
have repented, but not from the heart ; for, in conscience,
is there reason that Chorazin and Bethsaida should fare
worse than Sodom and Gomorrah, because Tyre and Sidon
would have repented as hypocrites ; continuing no less
sinners than they that repented not 2 And to say as
others do, that had God ordained these miracles to be done
at Tyre and Sidon, Sodom and Gomorrah, he would have
determined their wills by his immediate act to be converted,
is to say, that our Lord, by a mental reservation, says that
whereof he expresses not the reason, and so cozens them
who satisfy themselves with the reason which he ex-
presseth.” Moreover, were this immediate act necessary
to render even miracles effectual to induce men to repent,
why doth our Saviour say, that Tyre and Sidon would have
repented, had the like miracles been done among them *
Or why doth he pronounce these woes upon Chorazin and
Bethsaida, and declare their punishment more intolerable
in the day of judgment, than that of the most unnatural
sinners, and most vile idolaters, for want of that repent-
ance which, notwithstanding all the mighty works that he
had done among them, he knew it was impossible for them
103
MAT'ſ HEW.
25 At that time Jesus” answered, and said, I thank
thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because
thou hast “hid these things from the wise and pru-
dent (in their own esteem, and the conceit of others),
and hast revealed them to (those whom they account).
babes (Rom. ii. 20).
26 Even so, Father (hath the event been in my preach-
ing); for so it seemed good in thy sight.
27 “All things (appertaining to my office) are deli-
vered to me of (i. e. by) my Father: and no man
knoweth the Son, but the †. ; neither knoweth
any man the Father (’s will aright), save the Son, and
he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.
28 "Come (therefore) unto me, all ye that labour
(under the bondage and condemnation of the law) and
are heavy laden (with the burdens of pharisaical im-
positions), and I will give you rest (ease and deliverance
from these burdens).
29 Take my yoke upon you (become my disciples),
and learn (not of those blind guides, but) of me; for I
am (not like those severe and supercilious doctors, which
despise you as people of the earth, and will not vouch-
safe even to converse with publicans and sinners, for
their reformation, but I am) meek and lowly in heart
(and full of pity to every burdened soul); and (so by
coming to me) ye shall find rest (peace, quiet, satisfac-
tion, and refreshment) to your souls.
30 For my yoke is (not as theirs is, burdensome and
galling, but it is) easy, and my burden is light.
to perform, for want of that immediate act he was not
willing to afford them P Why, lastly, doth he do this for a
reason which did not in the least remove this disability ?
(see also Examen var. Lect. Millii, lib. ii. cap. l. n. 1.)
** Ver. 25. 'Aroxg16sic strew' answering said.] This phrase
is often used in the New Testament, when nothing had
gone before to which an answer could be accommodated;
and therefore then it only signifies, that such a one spake
with relation to such a matter, saying ; so it occurs, Matt.
xxii. 1. Mark ix. 38. xi. 14. Luke xiii. 14 (see the note
there).
* Because thou hast hid, &c.] Here our Saviour doth
not thank God that he had hid these things from the wise,
but that, having done so, “he had revealed them to babes.”
So the apostle saith (Rom. vi. 17), “God be thanked that ye
were the servants of sin, but now ye have obeyed from the
heart the form of doctrine delivered to you ;” that whereas
formerly ye were the servants of sin, ye have now been obe-
dient to the laws of Christ.
The “wise and prudent” here are not men truly and spi-
ritually wise, but men possessed with carnal worldly wisdom,
and with a swelling conceit of their proficiency in wisdom,
both which things indispose men to embrace true spiritual
wisdom, and from these God is therefore said to have hid
the wisdom of the gospel, because he permitted them to
continue in that self-conceit and worldly-mindedness, which
caused them to reject it, as being not agreeable to their in-
climations and mistaken sentiments.
The “babes” are those humble, modest persons, who
having a low esteem of their own wisdom, gave themselves
up to the divine wisdom, and being free from carnal and
worldly affections, and having nothing in them to oppose
this spiritual wisdom, are fitted to embrace it when it is re-
vealed ; it being therefore suitable to the wisdom and the
good pleasure of that God who “resists the proud but giveth.
grace to the humble,” to make known his will to persons so
prepared to receive it, our Lord adds, “so it seemeth good
in thy sight.”
* Ver. 27. IIávra pºol trage&n trà roš IIarpá, twov, All
things are delivered to me of my Father.] Here the note of
the reverend Dr. Hammond is this, “That all things here
seem to belong to persons, rather than to things; for of those
he peculiarly speaks under the title of babes: nor is the
neuter gender any objection against this, it being ordinarily
used for persons:” so rā ātroxoxic, “that which is lost,”
xviii. 11, is the “little one,” ver. 14, “the lost sheep of the
house of Israel,” x. 6, so Heb. xii. 13. 1 Jolin. v. 4, and so
his paraphrase runs thus; “All that come to me and believe
on me are, by my Father enlightened and stirring up their
hearts, and using all powerful and proper means for that end,
brought to me (John vi. 37.44, 45): and none acknow-
ledgeth me but the Father, and they who, by the miracles
which the Father enableth me to do, are attracted by me;
as on the other side none acknowledgeth the Father in that
manner as he now requires to be acknowledged, but the Son,
and he who believes his doctrine concerning him” (see John
i. 18. 1 John ii. 23. v. 20).
* Ver. 28. Asúre ºrgā; as Trávre; ot worløvre; kai repog-
Tiakºvo Mºyà évaraúco àº'àº, Come writo me all ye that la-
bour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.] For
explication of these words let it be noted,
First, That “to come to Christ,” in the phrase of the New
Testament, is to believe in him, and become one of his dis-
ciples; thus, “He that cometh to me shall not hunger,”
John vi. 35, is in the following words expounded thus, “He
that believeth in me shall not thirst.” Again, “If any man
thirsteth, let him come unto me to drink,” saith Christ, John
vii. 37; “for he that believeth in me, out of his belly shall
flow rivers of living water,” ver. 38. Thus, when our Saviour
had complained of the Jews, “that on him whom God had
sent, they would not believe,” John v. 38, he, ver. 30,
changeth the phrase thus, “you will not come unto me that
you may have life.” Note,
Secondly, That the taking the “yoke" is a juridical phrase,
their doctors speaking frequently of the yoke of the law,
the yoke of the commandments, and the yoke of the king-
dom of heaven, which is Christ's yoke. Note.
Thirdly, That the law of ceremonies, imposed on the
Jews by Moses, is styled by St. Paul, Çüyo; bovksiaç, “a yoke
of bondage’’ (Gal. v. 1), and by St. Peter, “a yoke which
neither they nor their fathers were able to bear” (Acts xv.
10), by reason of the long and frequent journeys to Jerusa-
lem, and the great payments of tithes and offerings it im-
posed upon them ; and the burdens which, besides this, the
pharisees laid upon them by their traditions, are styled by
our Lord poetia 8apía wai Sucéáztax ra, “heavy burdens and
grievous to be borne.” Note,
Fourthly, That all these ceremonial performances, when
observed most exactly, could not perfect the observer as to
his conscience, or take away the guilt of sin, and so could
give no peace or rest unto the soul, whereas “being justified
by faith (in Christ), we have peace with God “ (Rom. v. 1).
This is the thing the apostle designs to establish in the
Epistle to the Hebrews, and this is that to which the words,
âyatraúzo, and &váravariº, “rest to the soul,” seems plainly to
refer ; thus Noah had his name from m) to rest, because,
say they, airā, śamatºrs; hºwº, “He shall give us rest from
our labours” (Gen. v. 29); that is, saith Aben Ezra, on
the place, “from the troubles of our minds.” And when
after the deluge Noah had sacrificed, “God smelled an odour
of rest,” saith the Hebrews; datañy eiositº, “an odour of
sweet savour,” saith the LXX. that is, saith the Targum,
“he rested from his anger, and was appeased.” Here then
our Saviour, who gave up himself for a “sacrifice and obla-
tion of sweet savour” (Eph. v. 2), with which the Father
was well pleased, represents himself as a second Noah, to
give rest to men, from the labours and troubles of their
minds, and procure them peace and favour with God, as
Noah by his sacrifice had done.
CHAPTER XII.
103
1 AT that time (viz.) on the sabbath-day (following |
the second day of the passover, Luke vi. I, see the
note there), Jesus went through the corn; and his
disciples were an hungered, and began to pluck the
ears of corn, and (rubbing them with their hands, Luke
vi. 1), to eat (of the corn). -
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XII.
* Ver. 2. Oi gaºntai arov wrotočariv 3 own fifted ri troisſy #y cag-
£árº, Thy disciples do that which it is not lawful to do on
#he sabbath-day.] I shall here in one view give all the ex-
ceptions of the Jews against our Saviour and his disciples
for violating the rest required on the sabbath-day, and our
Lord's defence against them. And,
First, They here declare that Christ's disciples by “rub-
bing of the ears of corn,” and eating that which they had
rubbed out, did that which was not lawful to be done upon.
the Sabbath-day. And this, saith Maimonides, was forbid,
because “plucking the ears of corn was a kind of reaping;”
where, by the way, observe, that they seem to be mistaken,
who think the fault objected to the disciples was this, that
“they did break their fasts before they had celebrated the
public offices,” against the common custom of the Jews
(Acts ii. 15): for as it is not intimated at what time of the
day they did this, so was it against the Jewish canons, at
what time soever of the day it was done: moreover, the ac-
cusation is not, that this was not “lawful to be done before
the morning-service was ended,” but that it was not lawful
to be done on the Sabbath-day ; and our Lord’s whole de-
fence respects that only, and not the other supposed accusa-
tion; nor is our Saviour's argument from what the priests
did on the sabbath-day applicable to that purpose, for
though they were employed about the sacrifices, they might
abstain from eating till the morning-sacrifice was offered.
This action of his disciples our Lord defends, (1) by the ex-
ample of David and his followers, who did eat of the shew-
bread, which the law had appropriated to the priests, and
made unlawful, for the laity to eat of ; for if the hunger of
David and his followers made the violation of that ritual law
justifiable, the hunger of his disciples must equally justify
their violation of that ritual command touching the sabbath.
And even according to the Jews,” this example of David
contains two things, tending to excuse the violation of the
sabbath. (1.) That they suppose that David with his men
thus fled upon the sabbath-day, and yet were not guilty of
violating the rest of the sabbath. For thus they teach,
“Our masters think it lawful for him whom the gentiles or
thieves pursue, to profane the sabbath for preservation of his
life ; for so we read of David, that when Saul sought to kill
him, he fled, and escaped;” and that he did this on the
sabbath-day, they collect from those words, 1 Sam. xxi. 7,
that “Doeg was detained that day before the Lord ;” i. e.
by the religion of the sabbath. (2.) That their own canons
allowed the laity to eat of the shew-bread for preservation
of life ; for thus speaks Kimchit on the place, “Our rab-
bills of blessed memory say, that he gave him of the shew-
bread,” &c. their interpretation also of the clause, “yea,
though it were sanctified this day in the vessel,” is this, “It
is a small thing to say, It is lawful for us to eat the bread
removed from the table, it would be lawful for us in this ex-
treme hunger even to eat the bread now sanctified upon the
table, if there were no other ;” and indeed this opinion, that
it was lawful to violate the sabbath for the preservation of
life, seems plainly to have obtained before the translation of
the Septuagint, who render the words thus, Exod. xii. 16,
“Ye shall do no servile work on it, tray &ra troinóña era.
Tráon Juxi, rotºro w8voy Troinóña'eral tºy, but that which shall
be done for the sake of life, that only shall be done by you.”
(2.) Christ's second argument is taken from the work per-
formed morning and evening by the priests, in preparing
and offering the sacrifices; this, saith Christ, by virtue of
* Midbar Rabba Seder nºx won Parasch. 23.
Sam, xxi, 10.
2. But when the pharisees saw it, they said unto
him, Behold,” thy disciples do that which is not law-
ful to do on the sabbath-day. *
But he said unto them, Have ye not read (a like
case in) what David (and his followers) did, when he
was an hungered, and they that were with him;
the same law, and the authority of the same lawgiver who
cofmmanded the rest of the Sabbath, was done by the priests
upon each sabbath-day ; whence it is evident, that far more
laborious work was to be done by God's command, upon the
sabbath, to obey the ritual precepts which concerned the Sa-
crifices; and much more might my disciples do that lesser
work of rubbing out some ears of corn to satisfy their hun-
ger, which is a work of charity, and to fit them for that
higher work of attending me in preaching of the gospel.
And to this agree those sayings of the Jews, cited by Dr.
Lightfoot on the place, “There is no sabbath at all in the
temple, and the servile works which are done about holy
things are not servile. In confirmation of this argument,
our Saviour adds, that all that work by which the Jewish
priests profaned the sabbath, was done only for the service
of the temple, whereas the service done by his disciples to
their Lord, was service done to one much “greater than the
temple,” both in respect of dignity, as being a divine per-
son, and of sanctity, as being not only relatively holy, but
sanctified even in his human nature, by inhabitation of the
Spirit, and of the “fulness of the Godhead” in him; what
therefore might be done for the service of the temple, might
much more be done for the service of one much “greater
than the temple.” (3.) Our Saviour argues still å compar-
atis, by way of comparison, thus ; The observation of the
rest prescribed by the law, was only the observance of a ri-
tual command, like that of sacrifice ; the feeding of the
hungry was a moral precept, God therefore by declaring
“he would have mercy” rather than “sacrifice,” sufficiently
declared he would dispense with these ritual precepts, when
the observation of them did obstruct the rules of charity and
mercy ; and this was also suitable to that declaration of the
Jews, that “to love our neighbour as ourselves, is more than
all burnt-offerings and sacrifices,” Mark xii. 33. (4.)
Christ argues thus, That which is instituted for the sake of
another thing, must yield to the good of that for whose sake
it was instituted ; but the rest of the Sabbath was instituted
for the sake of man, tired with the labours of the week :
therefore it is to yield to the good of man. (5.) The words
following, “For the Son of manis Lord also of the sabbath;"
or as they are Mark ii. 18, &cts Kūgū, iarty & við; roº &v6pd-
ºrov, wai roſ, caggárov, are differently interpreted by learned
men; Grotius conceives, that the phrase, “the Son of man.”
hath no relation to Christ, but only signifies man in gene-
ral ; his reasons are these; the first is taken from the con-
nexion of these with the foregoing words in St. Mark, thus,
“The sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath;
therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.”
Now this consequence will not follow from the preceding
words, if by them we understand Christ; but it directly fol:
lows from them, if by that phrase we understand mankind
in general. (2.) Did this relate to Christ's authority over
the sabbath, it seems to be an intimation of his power to
abrogate or dissolve the sabbath, which power he was so far
from asserting, that he declares “he came not to dissolve
the law, but to fulfil it.” And they who were so highly of
fended with him for the works of charity he did upon the
sabbath-day, had he openly asserted his power to abrogate
it, would have been much more offended with him, and
would have needed no lesser matter of accusation against
him ; this being by their law a capital crime. And, (3) be-
cause this would have been a plain asserting, that he was
the Christ; whereas he never spake thus to the people, or
the pharisees, nor would he suffer his disciples to declare it.
But the reverend Dr. Hammond and Dr. Lightfoot con-
ceive this phrase must signify him who is the “Son of
man,” war” iéoxy, by way of eminence (1.) Because this
phrase is used eighty-eight times in the New Testament;
104.
M ATTHEw.
4 How he entered into the house of God (or the
court of the tabernacle), and did eat the shew-bread,
which (it) was not lawful (otherwise) for him to eat,
neither for them which were with him, but only for
the priests? - .
5. Or have ye not read (what is contained) in the
law, how (it requires) that on the sabbath-days the
priests in the temple (should do those works, which being
done by others would) profane the sabbath, and are
blameless 2 *
6 But (and moreover) I say unto you, That in this
place is one greater than the temple (so that if the
temple service would eacuse their labour from being a
profanation of the sabbath who attend on it, much more
will the service which my apostles owe to me eveuse them
from profanation of the sabbath, by eating of the ears'
of corn, as they pass along, that they may be the better
able to attend upon my service).
7 But if (therefore) ye had known what this mean-
eth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice (or that God
refers charity towards them that are in need, even
#. his own ritual instructions), ye would not have
condemned the guiltless.
(And he also said unto them, The sabbath was made
for the sake of man, and not man for the sake of the
and in all other places doth unquestionably signify our
blessed Lord. (2.) Because, where this phrase occurs,
Dan. vii. 13, all the ancient Christians, and even the Jews,
expound it, not as Mr. Clerc here doth, of man in general,
but say expressly, this is the king Messiah ; and that the
rabbins did rightly expound the words of Daniel concerning
him : Christ, therefore, speaking of himself still in this lan-
guage to the Jews, must be supposed to use it in the sense
they understood it in Daniel; and so he plainly seemeth to
interpret himself, by saying, “Hereafter shall ye see the
Son of man coming in the clouds” (Matt. xxvi. 64): he
saying this in answer to the question of the high-priest, Art
thou the Christ P ver. 63. And, (3.) he who before had
argued that his disciples might lawfully do this in his ser-
vice, because “one greater than the temple was here” (ver.
6), might also argue from his power, as the prophet sent
from God to the Jews, for the exemption of his disciples in
cases of necessity, and greater good from the rest of the sab-
bath, especially since Christ was only “greater than the
temple,” as being emphatically the “Son of man.” Nor is
it difficult to answer the arguments of Grotius. For, (1.)
if we render the word &are, denique, as Brugensis and Mal-
donate ; or adhaec, “moreover,” as it is sometimes used in
Homer, there will be in these words of Mark no consequence
from the former, but a new argument, like to that of St.
Matthew, ver. 6, “Here is one greater than the temple.”
But, (2.) according to the ordinary import of that word, the
consequence runs plainly thus, The sabbath was made for
the good of man ; so that “the Son of man, who came not
to destroy men's lives, but to save them,” must have power
in such cases as concern the good and welfare of mankind,
to dispense with the strict rest required by the law of the
sabbath.
And this affords a sufficient answer to the second argu-
ment of Grotius; it being not asserted, that Christ here
challengeth a power to abrogate or dissolve the sabbath, but
only such a power as the Jews allowed to their own pro-
phets in cases of necessity, and of higher importance, to
dispense with the rest from labour required by the letter of
it, as he sufficiently does by justifying the works of mercy
he did on that day, by this aphorism, that “it is lawful to do
good on the sabbath-day.”
To his third argument, I answer, that our Saviour not
only permits others to assert he was the Christ, or the Mes-
siah, as in the case of Andrew, John i. 42, of Philip, ver.
26, of Nathanael, ver. 50, and especially of John the Bap-
tist, who was sent on purpose to bear witness to him, that
he was the Son of God; but he himself sufficiently and
often doth it, declaring not only to the blind man (John ix.
35. 37), that he was “the Son of God,” but also to the
pharisees and Jews, insomuch that they attempt to stone
sabbath; and so the rest required by it must yield to the
necessities of man).
8 For the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath;
(i.e. he who is emphatically so styled is so : see note
on ver. 2). t •.
9 And when he was departed thence, he (on another
sabbath-day, Luke vi. 6), went into their synagogue
(and taught): +
10 And, behold, there was a man which had his
hand withered, (and they watched him, Mark iii. 2).
And *they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on
the sabbath-days? that (if he did, by words or actions,
justify the doing this) they might accuse him; (as not
of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath-day, John.
x. 16, and might have a plausible cause to kill him, for
violating the rest required on that day, John v. 16.
Then he, knowing their thoughts, said unto the man
who had the withered hand, Stand forth in the midst;
and he arose and stood forth. Then said Jesus unto
them, I will (also) ask you one thing (in answer to your
question), Is it lawful on the sabbath-day to do good,
or to do evil, to save life, or to destroy it 8 Luke vi. 8,
9, and they held their peace, Mark iii. 4).
11 And he said unto them, What man shall there
be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall
him for it (John x. 31); and saying to them, “If ye be-
lieve not that I am he, Hyd sipai (John viii. 24. 28), ye shall
die in your sins,” which is as much as, “I am the Christ ;”
for what is absolutely, #ycé slºt, Mark xiii. 6. Luke xxi. 1,
is, “I am the Christ,” Matt. xxiv. 5. So that our Saviour
only did forbid his disciples to divulge this before his resur-
rection, for the reasons assigned note on ix. 30.
To these arguments, used by our Saviour here, we may
add two others in St. Luke, where, xiii. 15, 16, Christ argues
thus: That if they loosed their ox or ass from the stall on
the sabbath-day, “and led him to water,” much more might
he loose a daughter of Abraham, who had been “bound by
Satan eighteen years” on that day. And again, xiv. 5,
Seeing when your ox or ass falls into a pit on the sābbath-
day, you draw him out of it on the same day, much more
may I cure an hydropic man on that day ; where the argu-
ment is plainly fi minori ad majus ; it being a greater
charity to work for the benefit of man on that day, than for
the good of beasts; where Christ again, as Capellus and
Lightfoot have observed, argues from the Jewish canons,
which permitted them not only to draw water for their
beasts, but also to lead them out to water on the sabbath-
day ; and though the latter Jews, from hatred to Christ,
will not allow the drawing of a beast out of a pit on the
sabbath, yet is it certain, both from those words of Luke,
“they could not answer him a word” (xiv. 6), and from
their canons, cited from Dr. Lightfoot on the place, that they
anciently allowed this. And this is still more evident from
the words cited from the Septuagint, allowing them to do
what was requisite, rāz; †uxń, “to preserve all life ;” from
whence Tertullian * and St. Jerome have observed, “that
the law allowed them to do on the Sabbath, quod fiet omni
animae, et quae ad animi Salutem pertiment, those things
which belonged to the preservation of life.”
Our Lord’s last argument is taken from the law of cir-
cumcision, which required that their children should be
circumcised on the eighth day, though that were the sab-
bath ; and circumcision was a work of considerable labour:
If then, saith Christ, the rest of the sabbath might be broken
for the circumcision of an infant, though that were a ritual
precept, Surely it may be so, to restore health to a man whq
Thath been diseased thirty-eight years: and this was also
suitable to the canons of the Jews; their wise men speak
ing thus, “They do all things necessary to circumcision on
the Sabbath-day, though this may seem profane on that day.”
(Pirk. Eliez. cap. 29, p. 65).
* Ver. 10. 'Em ngārna av airröy Aëyovreć, &c. They asked
him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath-day ?]
* Adv. Marcion, lib. iv. cap. 12, et l. adv. Jud. cap. 4, 5
in Isa. lviii, f. 07, M.
CHAPTER XII.
105
into a pit on the sabbath-day, will he not lay hold on
it, and lift it out (on that day) 8
12 How much then is a man better than a sheep?
Wherefore it is lawful to do well (to men) on the sab-
bath-days. - -"
13 Then (looking upon them with indignation, Mark
iii. 5) saith he unto the man, Stretch forth thy hand.
And he stretched it forth; and it was restored whole,
like as the other.
14 Then the pharisees (were filled with madness,
Luke vi. 11, and) went out, and held a council against
him, how they might destroy him.
15 But when Jesus knew it, he withdrew himself
from thence (with his disciples to the sea, Mark iii. 7),
and great multitudes followed him, and he healed
them all (see Mark iii. 7–11).
16 And he charged them that they should not
make him known (to the pharisees, who had consulted
how they might destroy him).
17 *That (by this deportment) it might be fulfilled
which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying
(xlii. 1),
18 Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my
beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put
my spirit upon him, and he shall show judgment to
the gentiles.
19 He shall not strive, nor cry; neither shall any
man hear his voice in the streets (i. e. he shall not be
This is not contrary to what St. Mark, iii. 4, and St. Luke,
vi. 9, say, that “Christ asketh them;” for both are true,
that they asked him, “Whether it were lawful to heal Pº
and he replies by saying, “I will ask you, also, whether it
be not lawful to do good on the sabbath-day ?”
* Ver. 17–19. That it might be fulfilled, which
was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Behold my
servant, whom I have chosen—He shall not strive, nor
cry..] Here many phrases are to be explained for the due
understanding of these words: as,
First, “I will put my Spirit upon him, and he shall show
judgment to the gentiles;” where the showing x&ia'iy, “judg-
ment,” being the effect of his having the Spirit upon him,
must respect all the righteous laws he was to deliver by vir-
tue of this unction, in his Father's name, according to the
usual acceptation of the word xpia Eic, “judgments,” for the
laws of God in the Old Testament; as when God is said to |
have given to his people, 3.xatdºzara kai agiraic, “statutes
and judgments,” Exod. i. 25. Deut. iv. 5, to teach, ver. 14,
and command them to keep his “statutes and judgments’
(Deut. xxx. 16). Now it is observable from Mark iii. 6, 7,
that when the pharisees held a council to destroy him, he
recedes from them to the sea of Galilee, whither came to |
him a great multitude from Galilee, from Idumaea, and
beyond Jordan, and from the parts about Tyre and Sidon ;”
and by teaching them, and doing his miracles before them,
“he showed judgment to the gentiles.”
“He shall not strive, nor cry ; neither shall any man
hear his voice in the street;” i.e. he shall not be contentious,
nor set forth himself with noise or tumult, or ostentation of
his doings: and this was here fulfilled by his ceasing to dis-
pute any longer with those pharisees, who, when they
“could not answer him a word,” consult “how they may
destroy him ;” and, by his strict charge to the multitudes he
had healed, “that they should not make him known.”
“A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax
shall he not quench.” Here, saith St. Jerome, Qui pecca-
tori non porrigit manum, et quinon portat onus fratris Sui,
“he that stretcheth not forth his hand to the sinner, and he
that beareth not the burden of his brother, he breaks the
bruised reed; et qui modicam scintillam fidei contemnit in
parvulis, and he that condemneth the Small spark of faith
in little ones, quenches the smoking flax.” Now, though
Christ went from that place to avoid the rage of the phari-
sees, the text informs us, that he ceased not to heal the
multitudes, and to instruct them, ver, 15, Mark iii. 10.
And by continuing still such acts of charity to the souls of
all that were disposed to hear, though they were yet weak
contentious, or set forth himself with noise, tumult, or
ostentation, of what he doth). - . ‘.
20 Abruised reed shall he not break, and smoking
flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment
unto victory (i.e. he shall not cease to eatercise all acts
of charity to the souls of them who are any way dis-
posed to receive it, though they be weak in faith, till he
hath planted the evangelical dispensation completely in
the world, or till the time come that he shall eaecute his
judgments on the unbelieving, stubborn Jews).
21 And in his name shall the gentiles trust.
22 Then was brought unto him one possessed with.
a devil, (who had cast him into a disease, that made
him) blind and dumb : and he healed him, insomuch
that the blind and dumb both spake and saw. º
23 And all the people were amazed, and said, Is not
this the son of David
24 But when “the pharisees (and scribes which came
from Jerusalem, Mark iii.22), heard it, they said, This
fellow (hath a devil, Mark iii. 22, and) doth not cast
out devils, but by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils
(he being a violater of the sabbath, and an enemy to our
traditions, which are more weighty than the law).
25 And Jesus knew their thoughts (and called them),
and said unto them (in parables, How can Satan cast
out Satan 8 Mark iii. 23, for) every kingdom divided.
against itself is brought to desolation; and every city
or house divided against itself shall not stand:
in faith, and by healing all that came unto him for relief, he
fully answered this character. - -
"Ew; &y #x34×n si, vizo, rºy ºpia'iy, “till he bring forth judg-
ment unto victory;” i. e. according to most interpreters, till
he had made his gospel and his righteous law victorious
over all its enemies: and to this sense, the words of the pro-
phet (Isa. xlii. 4), “till he hath established judgment in the
earth,” agree. But the phrase, ei, vizoc, doth often signify
“to the end, to the utmost, or for ever” (see the note on 1
Cor. xv. 54): whence others probably interpret the words
thus, Till the time come, that he shall execute his judgment
on the stubborn unbelieving Jews, so that wrath shall come
upon them to the utmost ; and they being thus rejected, the
gospel being taken from them, and their house left desolate,
“in him shall the gentiles trust.” º
4 Ver. 34. of 35 pagia-aīot simov, oùro; oix #48áxAst 3alpºvia, E:
a; #y rà BeEx&#82tº, &c. But the pharisees said, He only
casteth out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils.]
That which made the pharisees thus to calumniate our.
Saviour's miracles, was this, that they found the people in-
duced by them to believe he was “the Son of David" (ver.
23), or “the Christ;” thus, when they heard the people
murmuring (John vii. 31), “the chief priests and pharisees
sent men to take him " (ver. 32); and this they did, not
only from an apprehension that, if this belief obtained, it
might bring the power of the Romans upon them (John Xi,
48), but chiefly, because it would put an end to their credit
with, and authority over the people, they being still repre-
sented by our Lord as “blind guides,” and the worst of
“hypocrites.” -
The word “Beelzebul,” or, as St. Jerome hath it better,
“Beelzebub,” signifies “the lord of a fly :” which was a
name the heathens gave not only to Hercules, but even to
Jupiter, the prince of their gods; as both Pausanias in
| Eliacis,” and Clemens Alexandrinus + in his Prophetics, and
the epithets given to him, testify. Though it is more pro-
bable that the Jews took this name from the Philistines,
where Beelzebub was worshipped (2 Kings i. 6), as “the
god of Ekron;” and what the heathens fabulously write of
the temples of Hercules and Jupiter; divinitis illö neque
canibus, neque muscis ingressus est, “that the deity kept the
flies from them ;” that the Jews say of their temple, that in
* Aiyovrai sã warā Taira wai HAsſo, Şüsly rā āroºftº Aff
#xačvoyri ric'HAsia, 'oxvºria; rā; aſtas. Eliac. prior.
+ 'Arvº Air Sãovaty 'HAsſoi, "Papaio. 3; 37-paštº Hpakºff.
Protrep. p. 24, C. - -
† Solin, cap. 1. Plin. lib. x. cap. 39.
106
MATTHEW.
26 And if Satan cast out Satan (if he assist me in
this work, whose doctrine is plainly opposite to the con-
cernments of his kingdom, and who by these miracles
cast him out of it), he is divided against himself, how
then shall his kingdom stand?
27 And (moreover) if I by Beelzebub" cast out
devils, (let me ask you) by whom do your children
(who eacorcise them in the name of the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob) cast them out 2 therefore they shall
be your judges (i.e. your judgment, that they do this
by the power of God, shall condemn you, who ascribe
the same thing, done by me in my Father's name, to the
assistance of the devil).
28 But if I (who profess myself to be the Messias)
cast out devils by the "Spirit of God, then the king-
dom of God is come unto (among) you.
29 Or else, how can one enter into a strong man’s
house, and spoil his goods (as I spoil these principali-
ties and powers by these miracles), except he first bind
the strong man (Satan)? and then he will (be able to)
spoil his house. (I therefore, who thus oppose his in-
terests and designs, and defeat his power, can be no con-
federate with him.)
30 "He that is not with me (contending against
Satan’s kingdom) is against me; and he that gathereth
not with me (subjects to God’s kingdom) scattereth
(men) abroad (from it).
31 Wherefore (this being so) I say unto you, All
manner of (other) sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven
unto men:*but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost
(which is to come after me) shall not be forgiven unto
Iſleri.
32 And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son
of man (the Messias, appearing in these humble circum-
stances), it shall be forgiven him : but whosoever
speaketh against (the following dispensation of) the
Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, "neither in
this world, neither in the world to come, (but he shall
be obnowious to eternal judgment, Mark iii. 29).
33 Therefore I say unto you,) Either (take care to)
make the tree good, and (them) his fruit (will be)
good; or else (you will) make the tree corrupt, and
domo mactationis non conspecta est musca, “a fly was not
seen in the slaughter-house” (Pirk. Avoth. cap. 5–8).
Note also, that as the Jews" held there was one who was
caput omnium diabolorum, “the chief of all the devils:” so
also did the heathens, for Porphyry tsaith, that “they who
did evil by enchantments, roſtov, pºtata kai rāy ºrgoEarāra,
aúrðy #wripºğalı, chiefly worshipped them and their president,”
and that h ºrgasatàora abråy 30, agic, “the power that presided
over them would be deemed the greatest god.”
* Ver. 27. Kai et #y& #y réſ BeEx{sgoûA #x3áAAo ‘rā Satºvia:
&c. And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do
gour children cast them out !] That it was the custom of
the Jews to cast out devils by the invocation of the name of
the Most High, or of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, we learn from Justin Martyr, who speaks to Tryphof.
the Jew thus, “If any of you do exorcise devils by the
name of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, perhaps
he will obey you.” And from Irenaeus,S who saith, “All
things are subject to the Most High, and by invocation of
his name even before the advent of our Lord, men were
saved from evil spirits, and all kinds of demons.” Josephus||
informs us, that God gave this art to Solomon against devils,
that he should teach it, sic & pºstav ×al Segatrstav roſ; &y936-
Troic, “for the profit and healing of men,” and that he left
behind him, reátrov; Éogndaswº, “those ways of exorcising
by which those devils were so effectually cast out, as never
to return again.” Thus when our Saviour seems to argue ;
You doubt not but your exorcists, who use the name of God,
“the God of Abraham,”&c. do cast out devils by virtue of
that name, it will then be matter of your condemnation, who
pass so favourable a judgment upon them, to pass such an
unjust censure upon me, in whom you see so far greater evi-
dences of “the finger of God,” in casting out all manner of
evil spirits, and healing all kinds of diseases. And whereas
Episcopius objects against this interpretation, that it is not
certain that these “exorcisms were used by the Jews in
Christ's time ;” this is an evidence he had not read these
authors: for Josephus doth expressly say, Kai airi, pºxet yºv
Trap' hºciv h Segareia Tràgia roy taxſet, “that this way of curing
demoniacs did even then prevail among them ;” and gives
an instance of one Eleazar, who, before Vespasian, his sons,
and soldiers, row; bºró rāv 8atºwowizy Aap.8avovávov; &roxiſorra
ºroúray, “delivered them from demons who were possessed
with them.” And Irenaeus saith in the forementioned place,
Judaei usque nunc hac ipsa advocatione daemonas fugant,
“the Jews to this day expel devils by this invocation.” The-
* Buxt. in voce Sammael.
+ De Abstin. ab Animat. lib. ii. sect. 41, 42. -
2 f Ei âta # pºol *. baſſ, war& r: Osow 'Aggabº, xai Qeoiſ
traaz, was Geoû 'Iax86 forw; wrotayha'arat. Dial. cum Tryph.
p. 311, C.
§ Et hujus invocatione etiam ante adventum Domini nos-
tri salvabantur homines ă spiritibus nequissimis, aut à daimo-
niis universis; lib. ii. cap. 5. Wide Grotium in locum,
| Arch. lib. viii, cap. 2, p. 257.
ophilus,” that oi Saipaovićyrs; Éviors zai &#x2 vot 3sipo #opxičoy-
rai ward roß &véaaroº roi, 8vroç Geoû, “till that very time
those that were possessed were exorcised by the name of the
true God.” And Origen,t that “the name of the God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, being used by the Jews, #y tº
xatsmážely 8aigoyas, in the incantation of devils, did great
miracles;” and therefore was used to this effect not by them
only, but by all others who used magic and enchantments.
We read, Luke ix.49, of one among the Jews, who did
cast out devils by the name of Jesus, though he neither
followed him, nor his disciples; and some conceive this ques-
tion of our Lord relates to such, it being a strong presump-
tion of the divine power, and the mission of Christ, that his
name was so powerful even in their mouths who did not own
him ; but because we read of one only that did this, and
find not that the pharisees thought better of him than of
Christ himself, I prefer the former exposition of these
words. - .
• Wer. 28. Ei 33 ye āv IIveſºzart Osoſ; #43áx\w rà. 8aſºvia,
&c. But if I by the Spirit of God do cast out devils,
no doubt the kingdom of God is come unto you..] How
Christ did miracles, and cast out devils, by “the Spirit of
God,” see note on ch. iii. The inference of Christ from this
is clear, that he was the Messias promised to set up the king-
dom spoken of by Daniel; for seeing in their own opinion
their Messias was to erect this kingdom, that divine assist-
ance which proved that he was now come, who was the Mes-
siah, must also prove the kingdom of God was come : and
seeing that the kingdom of Satan was by this power over-
thrown, they reasonably might think the kingdom of God
was ready to be set up, and that one stronger than he was
come among them (ver. 29).
7 Ver. 30. ‘o twº by ºxer' goû, xat’ #woč Šari. He that is
not with me, is against me..] He that sides not with me,
contending against Satan and his kingdom, is against me, as
being unwilling that his kingdom should be destroyed. And
he that in doing this work is not against me, but “casts out
devils in my name,” though he doth not yet follow me, is for
me (Luke ix.49, 50).
8 Ver. 31. ‘H 35 roi; IIveſºzaro, rod &yſov 8xacºpmpºia ovk
34.80%a-era &v03&motº' But the blasphemy against the Holy
Ghost shall never be forgiven unto mem.] Against the
Holy Ghost, i. e. against the miracles done by him, Theoph.
(Of this blasphemy, see the Appendix at the end of this
Gospel).
9 Wer. 32. Oğrs #y roºro, rà aidy, otre év rá pºšaxcy'rt,
Neither in this age, nor in the age to come.] Hence the
papists argue for the remission of some sins in purgatory,
after this life is ended, which are not by God remitted here.
But the scripture knows only two times for the remission of
sins, one here upon earth (Matt. ix. 6), to the believer and
penitent person; and the other at the day of judgment,
* Lib. ii. p. 87, C.
+ Lib. iv. contr. Cels. p. 183, 184
CHAPTER XII.
107
(so) his fruit (will be) corrupt : for the tree is known
by its fruit (and so you will be known by the corrupt
judgment which you pass on me, and on these operations
of the Holy Ghost, which shall testify of me).
34 O (you that are a) generation of vipers, how can
ye, being (thus) evil, speak good things for out of
the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh : (so
that)
35 A good man, out of the good treasure of the
heart, bringeth forth good things; and an evil man,
out of the evil treasure (of his heart), bringeth forth
evil things. -
36 But (whatever you may think of those malicious
and blasphemous words you speak against me)* I say
unto you, That every idle word that men shall (thus)
speak, they shall give account thereof in the day
of judgment. -
when the great Judge shall pronounce the sentence of abso-
lution to all his faithful servants, when “the times of refresh-
ing shall come from the presence of the Lord ” (Acts iii. 19,
20): and “they shall find mercy in that day” (2 Tim. i.
18). Christ therefore saith, this blasphemy of the Holy
Ghost shall neither obtain remission now, nor at the great
day of our accounts ; that is, it shall not at all be remitted;
for that this is the true import of this phrase, is evident
from St. Mark, saying, “he that doth thus blaspheme, oux
#xei & peaty eiç atóva, shall never find remission ” (iii. 29),
but is obnoxious to eternal judgment: and from St. Luke,
declaring absolutely, oùx 34.89%a Etat, “he shall not be for-
given" (xii. 10): this being a common mode of speaking
among the Jews; thus R. Eliezer * proves, that “the Sama-
ritans have no portion in the world to come,” because it is
said, “it belongs not to you to build with us in this world,
nor in the world to come ;” and a sick man is introduced,
requiring his son to give him the water and meat which the
physician had forbidden, threatening if he refused “not to
forgive him in this world, nor in the world to come,” i. e.
never to forgive him. And indeed the Jews thought that the
pangs of death might expiate sins, but they held, nullam esse
peccati expiationem post mortem, “that there was no expia-
tion for sin after death ;” and therefore could not use this
phrase in the popish sense.
* Ver. 36. Afyo, 3Å tºy, 3ri rāy Fºua &gyöy, &c. But I
say unto you, That of every idle word that men shall
speak, they shall give an account at the day of judg-
ment.] Agreeable to this is that of Plato, F xoſpoly Kai Trrnväy
×áyoy Bapu'rárn ºngºia, “grievous is the damage of light and
volatile words, for a divine nemesis is appointed to oversee
these things:” now the light idle words in Plato are plainly
words spoken of their parents, or to the defamation of per-
Sons they ought to have in veneration ; here then is one
Sense of the phrase, that scandalous, slanderous reviling of
those we ought to venerate, and who have well deserved
well of us, will render us obnoxious to condemnation at the
day of judgment ; and to this sense the very context leads:
the scandalous, defamatory words the pharisees had here
spoken of our Saviour's person and miracles, giving occasion
to these words. Cicero + farther saith, that appellatur à phi-
losophis 3673, Xóyog, cui si pareamus, nihil omninº est quod
agamus in vità, “the philosophers call that an idle word,
which if we hold to, there is nothing left for us to do, no ser-
vice to the gods, no acts of virtue or charity ;” so that what
is obstructive to piety and goodness, as was this saying of the
pharisees to the admission of our Saviour's doctrine, on
which the true love of God and of our brother did especially
depend, is emphatically &pyā; Aéyog. Others think that flºwata
&67& here signifies “false words,” because in the Hebrew
Bºun Bºnni “vain words,” hath this signification ; as when
they say, that “prophecy contains the pure truth, but in
dreams are Dºun Bºnni false things contained:” to be sure
the words here intended must not simply be words tunedify-
ing, or which do not directly tend to the glory of God; from
* Pirk. Eliez. sect. 38. -
+ De Legib. lib. iv. p. 832, E.
† De Fato, p. 310, n. 22.
37 For by thy words (if they be good) thou shalt he
justified, and by thy words (if they be evil) thou shalt
be condemned. -
38 Then certain of the scribes and of the pharisees
answered (spake) saying, Master,” we would see a
sign (from heaven) from thee.
39 But he answered and said unto them, An evil
and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and
there shall no sign be given to it, but “the sign of
the prophet Jonas (lying three days in the whale's belly,
and then rising out of it):
40 For as Jonas was three days and three nights in
the whale’s belly,” so shall the Son of man be three
days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
41 The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with
this generation, and shall condemn it, because they
repented at the preaching of Jonas (though he did no
which men of great business and conversation cannot be
wholly free ; but wicked words proceeding from an evil
heart: for our Lord, having heard these words of the phari-
sees, speaks thus to them, “O generation of vipers, how can
ye, being evil, speak good things? since out of the abun-
dance of the heart the mouth speaketh,” ver, 34, and 35,
“an evil man, out of the evil treasure cf his heart, bringeth
forth evil things;” and then connects them thus, “I say
unto you therefore ;” whence it is evident, that the words
here styled “idle words,” were such as demonstrated the
speaker to be an evil man, out of an evil heart speaking
evil words (see Kettlewell of Groundless Scruples, lib. v.
cap. 5).
* Ver. 38. Qāogey &r goû anºsſow ièsſy, We would see
from thee a sign.] They had seen a withered hand made
whole (ver. 13), a devil cast forth, and a blind and dumb
man see and speak (ver. 22): the sign which they require
farther must therefore be a “sign from heaven,” as we read,
xvi. 1. Luke xi. 16. viz. “the sign of the Son of man coming
in the clouds of heaven” (Dan. vii. 13). In this our Saviour
doth at present refuse to gratify them, the time of his com-
ing thus being after his resurrection, even when he was to
come to the destruction of their nation (Matt. xxiv. 30); and
therefore at his death he speaks thus unto them, “Verily I
say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sit-
ting at the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of
heaven” (Matt. xxvi. 64).
* Ver. 39. The sign of the prophet Jonas.] Of Jonah
and his preaching these things seem here considerable. First,
That as Jonah was sent to preach to the gentiles, so Christ
here insinuates, that through the infidelity of the Jews, it
should be so with his disciples. Secondly, That as Jonah
prevailed upon the Ninevites, by surviving after he had been
so long in the whale's belly, this miraculous escape, with
which they doubtless were acquainted, confirming to them
the truth of his prophetic office; so Christ, whilst living, with
all his miracles, prevailed but little ; but as he had foretold,
John xii. 32, after his death he “drew all men after him.”
Thirdly, As Nineveh repenting then at the preaching of Jo-
nah, relapsed afterward to their old sins, and therefore, ac-
cording to the computation of Bishop Usher, verified the
words of Jonah in the prophetic style, a day for a year: so
the nation of the Jews, after they had received the baptism
of John, calling them to believe in him that should come
after him, perished by their infidelity, about forty years after
the preaching of the Baptist to them.
* Ver. 40. off-ros are 3 vić, roß &ySpätrov #y ºf wagºſz ric
yń; rpet; hºw#2; xai regiº Vézta;. So shall the Son of man be
in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.]
Obj. Against the truth of these words it is objected, That
Christ was in the sepulchre only two nights, one whole day,
and two parts of a day, and so could not be there “three
days and three nights.”
Ans. In answer to this objection, note,
First, That the Hebrews began their computation of a
natural day from the evening or night preceding. So we
read, Gen. i. 5, “and the evening and the morning were the
first day:” so Dan. viii. 14, “unto two thousand three hun-
dred evenings and mornings shall the Sanctuary be cleansed:”
so Lev. xxiii. 32, “from evening to evening shall ye cele.
108 O
MATTHEW. *
miracle to convince them that he was a prophet); and,
behold, a greater than Jonas is here.
42 The queen of the south (i.e. of Arabia and Saba,
lying south of Jerusalem) shall rise up in judgment
with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she
came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the
wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a “greater than
Solomon is here.
43 When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man,
he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and
findeth none.
44 Then he saith, I will return into my house from
whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth
It empty, swept, and garnished.
45 Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven
other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter
in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is
worse than the first. Even "so shall it be also to this
wicked generation. (Satan, cast out by me and my
disciples, finding nowhere else such pleasant desirable
habitations, or persons so fitted to receive him again, as
Ayou of this nation are, shall come back to you; and
finding that Christ, whose doctrine shall be entertained
by the heathens, hath found no admission among you,
shall take a more durable possession of you, and render
gyou seven times more the children of Satan than you.
were before). r - - z
46 While he yet talked to the people, behold, his
mother and his brethren stood without, desiring to
speak with him; (and they could not come at him, be-
cause the multitude sat round about him, Mark iii. 32.
Luke viii. 19).
47 Then one said unto him, Behold, thy mother
and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak
with thee.
48 But he answered and said to him that told him,
(and by him to the rest, Mark iii. 33. Luke viii. 21),
Who is my mother and who are my brethren :
49 And (looking round about on them that sat round
him, Mark iii. 34), he stretched forth his hand towards
his disciples, and said, Behold (those whom I esteem
as) my mother and my brethren
50 For whosoever shall do the will of my Father
which is in heaven, the same is (as dear to me as) my
brother, and sister, and mother.
brate your sabbath:” hence both St. Mark and Luke ob-
serve, that Christ taught in the synagogue on the Sabbath-
day (Mark i. 21. 32. Luke iv. 40), and “when the sun was
set,” and so the sabbath ended, “they brought their sick
unto him :” so that in their phrase to say, “ so many even-
ings and mornings, days and nights,” is the same as to say so
name Jesus;” and yet the day of his birth and of his cir-
cumcision were two of these eight days, and the complete
days were only six. So St. Luke saith, that “about eight
days after these words, he took Peter, John, and James, and
went up into the mount” (Luke ix. 28): but St. Matthew,
xvii. 1, and St. Mark, ix. 2, tell us it was “six days after ;"
many “natural days;” for in the measuring of any time i.e. including the day he spake the words, and the day he
which contains in it both days and nights, a day is always went up into the mount, it might be reckoned eight, exclud-
taken in that sense in which it includes both day and night. ing them it was only six. Since then our Saviour was in the
Moreover, the Greek language hath its compounds, and so grave part of Friday, and the evening or night before must,
is able to express a natural day by the word wuxShpºpov, but
the Jews have no such compound words, and therefore can-
not otherwise express a natural day but by these two words,
“day and night.” So Gen. vii. 4, “I will cause it to rain
upon the earth forty days and forty mights:” 1 Sam. xxx.
12, that Egyptian “did eat no bread, nor drink water, three
days and three nights :” Exod. xxiv. 18, “Moses was in the
mount forty days and forty nights.”
Secondly, Note that it is a received rule among the Jews,”
“that a part of the day is put for the whole ;” so that what-
soever is done in any part of the day, is properly said to be
done that day ; since then our Lord was in the grave one
whole natural day, and part of two other natural days, he
might truly be said, according to their computation, to be in
it three days and three nights. Note,
Thirdly, That it is very usual to reckon that to be done in
So many days, or so many days and nights, which is done so
as that the action begins in any part of the first, and ends in
any part of the last day: so l Kings xx. 29, “They en-
camped against one another seven days, and in the seventh
day the battle joined.” And Esther saith, iv. 16, “Fast ye
for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day;
I and my maidens will fast also, and then will I go in unto
the king ;” and yet (v. 1) she goes in to the king “on the
third day.” So Luke ii. 21, “When eight days were ac-
complished for the circumcision of the child, they called his
- - -- - - -
* See Dr. Lightfoot and Grotius.
y the Hebrew computation, be accounted to that day ;
seeing he was in the grave all Friday night and Saturday ;
seeing he was in the grave all Saturday night, and part of
the morning of the day following, and that morning, with the
precedent evening, make a third natural day, he may, ac-
cording to the Hebrew computation, be truly said to have
been “three nights and three days in the heart of the earth”
(see note on Mark viii. 31). -
14 Wer. 42. IIAstov 20x323;wro; 3.88, A greater than Solomon
is here.] God therefore having promised to Solomon such
wisdom that, as there was none like him before (among mere
men), so should there after arise mone like unto him (1 Kings
iii. 12), he that was greater in wisdom than Solomon must
be more than a man.
15 Wer. 45. off-roc garrat wai ºf yeweg raûrn tº ºrovnéâ' So
shall it also be to this wicked generation.] These words
seem plainly to apply the preceding parable to the unbe-
lieving Jews of that age, and therefore to import, that the
devil, who by the labours of Christ and of his disciples had
been cast out of so many of them, finding no rest among
the heathens, from whose persons and temples the Christians
would everywhere expel him, and finding the Jewish nation,
by their prodigious wickedness and obstinate incredulity,
still more prepared than ever to receive him, would return
unto them, and render them more incredulous, contumacious,
and obdurate, more impure and wicked, hypocritical and
blasphemous, than they were before, till he had brought
them to destruction.
CHAPTER XIII.
1 THE same day (that his mother came to him, Matt.
xii. 46) went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the
sea-side.
2 And great multitudes were gathered together
3 And he spake many things unto them in para-
bles, saying (Hearken, Mark iv. 3), Behold, a Sower
went forth to sow ; *
4 And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way-
unto him, so that (to avoid the pressure of the multi- side (and were trod upon, Luke viii. 5), and the fowls
tude) he went into a ship, and sat (near the land); (of the air, Mark iv. 4) came and devoured them up ;
and the whole multitude stood on the shore. | 5 Some fell upon stony places, where they had not
CHAPTER XIII.
109
much earth (to feed and cover the root) ; and forth-
with they sprang up (and withered, Luke viii. 6)," be-
cause they had no deepness of earth (to take root in):
6 And (so) when the sun was up, they were
scorched; and because they had not (deepness of)
root, they withered away :
7 An
8 But other (seed) fell into good ground, and
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIII. .
* Ver. 5. Eiðio; ##aváreixe 8:3 rà & #xsiv 3400; yńc' It
forthwith sprang up because it had no deepness of earth.]
Thus Quintilian saith of the “rath-ripe wit,” that it rarely
comes to maturity, comparing it to those seeds, which, being
sown on the surface of the earth, spring up quickly; because
the root goes not deep into it: Illud ingeniorum praecox ge-
nus non temerè unquam pervenit ad frugem—non multúm
praestat, sed citó—nec penitàs immissis radicibus nititur, ut
quae summo solo sparsa sunt semina celerius se effundunt
(Instit. lib. i. cap. 3, p. 16, 17).
* Ver. 8."o ačv izarév. Some an hundred-fold, &c.] See
note on Mark iv. 8.
* Wer. 9. O Éxoºv &n a 3xojev, &Kovároſ IIe that hath ears
to hear, let him hear.] This is a proverbial expression used
by Christ, when he spake of matters of great importance,
which deserved a serious consideration (Matt. xi. 15. xiii.
43. Rev. ii. 7. 11, 17. 29. iii. 6. 13. 22. xiii. 9); by which
he excites them who had good inclination to, and a good
judgment and perception as to things divine, thoroughly to
weigh and consider of the thing spoken.
* Wer. 10. Atari #y TaçagoNaī; XaAeſ, ºrcſ, ; Why speakest
thou to them in parables 7) It is certain, not only that the
Jewish doctors and all the wise men of the east taught by
parables, Bºwy ºwn, tragašáNAoyrs; trap480xaç, “expressing
their minds by parables,” as St. Mark speaks in their own
phrase (iv. 30), but also that some of our Lord's parables, as
that of the rich glutton, Luke xvi., that of the foolish virgins,
Matt. xxv., and others, were taken from the Jews (see
|Sheringham, Praef. ad Joma) Yet, because this way of
teaching had in it somewhat of obscurity, and the doctrine
contained under the covert of these parables was not so easy
to be apprehended by the vulgar sort, the disciples here in-
quire, “Why speakest thou to them in parables?” and to
this question, for the satisfaction of others, I shall give a
larger answer: let it be noted, then,
First, That albeit this way of teaching was somewhat
cloudy and obscure, yet it was intelligible to the attent and
searching auditor, as will appear from that expression with
which our Saviour doth so oft conclude his parables, viz.
“He that hath ears to hear, let him hear:” accordingly, our
Lord being to instruct the multitude by parables (Matt. xv.
10), he Saith unto them, “Hear, and understand:” and
when his disciples asked the meaning of that parable, he re-
brehends them, saying, "Anºv kai tºeſ, &cºveto Hars ; “Are
ye also without understanding 2" intimating it was not so
much the obscurity of his words, as their own dulness and
want of understanding, which made them not perceive the
import of his doctrine; and again, Mark iv. 13, he speaks
by way of admiration to them, saying, “I(now ye not this
parable?”
Secondly, This method of instruction was not without its
uses and advantages, seeing hereby it was visible who were
the viol th; coºpiaº, “the sons of wisdom,” who had a cordial
love to divine things, and an inflamed desire after them, and
thought it worthy of their care and pains to search them out,
and so were persons fitly qualified for the reception of the
gospel light. It was the custom of the disciples of the Jew-
ish doctors, when they understood not the meaning of their
parables, to go unto their rabbies to inquire the meaning of
*hem ; as did our Lord's disciples ask of him the meaning
of those parables they understood not. And this Christ's
hearers might have done, had they not been indisposed to
receive the doctrines which he taught, and chosen rather to
be held in error by the scribes and pharisees, than to receive
instruction from the mouth of Christ. (2) Such lessons, as
some fell among thorns; and the thorns
sprang up (with them), and (overgrowing them) choked,
them (and so these seeds yielded no fruit, Markiv. 7);
brought forth fruit (according to the goodness of the
ground), "some an hundred-fold, some sixty-fold, some
thirty-fold.
9 (And having said this, he added, Mark iv. 9. Luke
viii. ; He) "who hath ears to hear, let him hear (see
.xi. 15). -
10 And (when he was alone, Mark iv. 10) the disci-
ples came and said unto him, “Why speakest thou
unto them in parables? (and also asked him the mean-
ing of the parable, Luke viii. 9.)
----------- - - - - -º- * *
they are best remembered, so having once attained to their
sense, they will stick closer to us; for the time spent in the
unfolding of them, makes the idea the more fixed and last-
ing in the brain.
Thirdly, That Christ thus spake to them in parables, did
not proceed from his unwillingness to instruct them, but
from their indisposition to receive his doctrine, delivered
more plainly to them: of this St. Mark informs us, by say-
ing (iv. 33), “He spake the word to them in many parables,
as they were able to hear it.” For those parables the scrip-
ture mentions, were either such as were obvious in them-
selves, as that of Dives and Lazarus, of the rich man pulling
down his barns (Luke xii. 16), their choosing the uppermost
seats at feasts (xiv. 7), or such as would, had they with
greater plainness been delivered, have soured and enraged
the leading Jews, and stirred them up to a more violent op-
position to his doctrine, and a more quick endeavour to de-
stroy his person ; they being either such as did proclaim
him the Messiah, and the Son of God, which they still looked
upon as blasphemy; as that which styles him “the good
Shepherd,” and concludes them wolves and robbers; or,
such as contradicted their traditions, and told them it was
not the uncleanness of the hands, or outward man, but the
defilement of the heart, which made them loathsome in the
eye of God; which doctrine did much offend the pharisees
(Matt. xv. 12); or, such as did upbraid their stubbornness
and disobedience, as did the parable of the vineyard, planted
by the husbandman; the parable of the two sons, of which
the eldest promised fair, but did not what he promised; or
such as taxed their pride and self-conceit, as did the parable
touching the arrogant thanksgiving of the pharisee (Luke
xviii. 9); or else such as told the great propagation and
increase of the gospel among the heathens, as did the Pa-
rable of the leaven, and of the grain of mustard-seed; or,
such as did foretell the ruin and unchurching of the Jewish
nation, as did the parable of cutting down the unfruitful
fig-tree, and the decree, that they who refused upon invi-
tation, to come to the wedding-supper, should not taste
thereof; or such as prophesied, that “the kingdom of God
should be taken from them ;” or, that their sloth in not im-
proving the talents that they had received already, should
be punished with the utter deprivation of them. Now, all
these things were so offensive to the pharisees, as had they
plainly been delivered to them, they would have provoked
them to that rage, which might have quite discouraged his
young disciples, and hindered the performance of those works
which were preparatory to his resurrection, and to the glori-
ous appearance of his kingdom. Besides the parables, al-
ready mentioned, we have only those recorded here, and in
the parallel chapter of St. Mark ; of which two only re-
corded were spoken to the multitude, viz. the parable of the
seed, and of the tares; the rest, when he had sent the mul-
titude away, to his disciples (ver. 36); and both might pro-
bably reflect upon the Jews, as being the bad ground and
the tares mentioned in them.
Lastly, Consider that what Christ thus delivered here, did
not contain the fundamental precepts and doctrines of the
gospel, they being delivered in the audience of the people
with sufficient clearness, Matt. v.-vii., but only the myste-
ries relating to the progress of the gospel, and the event of it
among Jews and gentiles: now even the Jews acknowledge
that the predictions of this mature were usually taught, in
allegorical, improper, and parabolical expressions, they be-
ing not so needful to beknown as were the fundamental rules
of faith and manners. Moreover, the reason here assigned,
why 'our Saviour spake so obscurely to them, was their own
wickedness and perverseness, which indisposed them to re-
1 10
MATTHEW.
11 He answered and said unto them (I speak not to
you, who prize and improve the doctrine I impart in
parables), because unto (such as) you it is given to
know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven (or
what is obscurely delivered concerning it), but to them
(who slight and neglect what is plainly taught them) it
is not given (to know them).
12 °For whosoever hath (i. e. duly improve the
knowledge which he hath), to him shall be given
(more), and he shall have more abundance: but who-
soever hath not (i. e. who, by making no use of it, is
as if he had it not), from him shall be taken away
even that he (unprofitably) hath.
13 (Whence you may learn, that) therefore speak I
unto them in parables: because (they are like to those
inconsiderate and slothful men, of whom it is pro-
verbially said, because of their neglect to act according
to their knowledge that) they seeing see not ; and hear-
ing they hear not, neither do they understand.
14 ° And (so, by their shutting thus their eyes
against the light, and stopping their ears against in-
ceive profit by his more plain discourses; “for therefore,”
saith Christ, “speak I to them in parables, because they
seeing, see not ; and hearing, do not hear or urnderstand.”
Now this, both in the scripture and in other authors, is a
proverbial expression, concerning men so wicked and so sloth-
ful, that either they attend not to, or will not follow, the
clearest intimations and convictions of their duty; thus, to
“a revolting and rebellious people, which had cast off the
fear of God,” the prophet Jeremiah speaks thus (v. 21),
“Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understand-
ing ; which have eyes and see not ; which have ears and
hear not ;” and God speaks to Ezekiel thus, “Son of man,
thou dwellest in the midst of a rebellious house, which have
eyes to see, and see not: they have ears to hear, and hear
not ; for they are a rebellious house” (xii. 2). This is a fre-
quent form of speech in Philo,” who, speaking of those that
were addicted to wine and sensual pleasures, saith, ‘ogºv’re:
oùx 363ri, Kai äxoſſovre; own dzoſova”, “they seeing, see not ; and
hearing do not hear.” And again,; ‘Opāºrs; Érriv 3rd oëzë3-
&#y, “it sometimes happens, that seeing we see not, and
hearing we hear not, viz. when the mind is more intent upon
other things.” Demosthenes f mentioned this as a "ragotaia,
or a proverb, 'O?&vraº Kah Seáv Kai äxočovta's ºwn &xciſely yea,
sometimes this phrase is used in a good sense, to signify men
who will not hearken to any solicitations to wickedness, but
stop their ears and shut their eyes against them. Thus, ‘o
8agúvoy rā 3ra, “he that stoppeth his ears from hearing of
blood; Kapººijay rot; 39Saxºovº, he that shutteth his eyes that
he may see no evil, he shall dwell on high” (Isa. xxxiii. 15,
16). Now, hence it evidently follows, that the phrase, “to
them it is not given to know the mysteries of the kingdom,”
only imports, That to them I allow or vouchsafe not a clearer
knowledge of these things, whom I find too much disposed
to slight and to neglect, but indisposed to receive and profit
by them ; and therefore, by the rule of contraries, “to you
it is given to know them,” can only signify, to you I think
fit to allow and vouchsafe the knowledge of them, as find-
ing you disposed to attend to and to improve them ; nor
is there any sense more frequent in scripture of the phrase,
“I give, or give not,” than this, I allow, vouchsafe, permit,
or think fit, that such a thing be done or not done ; this be-
ing the sense of the phrase, when mention is made of “the
days of life which God hath given us,” Eccles. v. 18. viii. 15.
ix. 9, of “the sore travail which God hath given (i. e. al-
lotted) to the sons of men,” Eccles. iii. 10, “Give not thy
Holy One to see corruption,” Ps. xvi. 10. “Give not
my feet to slide,” Ps. lxvi. 1. “Give not thy mouth to cause
thy flesh to sin,” Eccles. v. 6. “Give not thy strength to
women,” Prov. xxxi. 3. “Give not sleep to thine eyes,”
Ps. cxxxii. 4. Prov. vi. 4. And when we say such a one is
“given to wine and to women ;” i.e. he allows himself those
liberties or licentious practices.
* Alleg. lib. ii. p. 72, D. + Lib. iii. p. 850, E.
† Orat. in Aristog, Ś. 127. -
struction) in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias,
which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not
understand; and seeing ye shall (or will) see, and
shall (or will) not perceive (it being with them now, as
it was with the same people then):
15 For this people’s heart is waxed gross (hath
been made thick or condensated, so that the word can-
not pierce into it), and their ears are dull of hearing
(Gr, they have heard heavily with their ears), and their
eyes they have closed (against the light); lest at any
time they should see with their eyes, and hear with
their ears, and should understand with their heart,
and should be converted, and I should heal them
(and their sins should be forgiven them, Mark iv. 12).
16 But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and
your ears, for they hear (the things belonging to this
kingdom, well worthy of your regard). **
17 For "verily I say unto you, That many prophets
and righteous men have desired to see those things
which ye see (the advent of the promised Messias), and
have not seen them; and to hear those things which
* Ver. 12. "Oatic yag #xes. For whosoever hath, to him
shall be given.] From the words, “whosoever hath not, shall
be taken away that which he hath,” it is manifest, that “not
to have,” is not to have profitably, and to improvement;
for what a man absolutely hath not, cannot be taken from
him. Whence it must follow, that ré #xely here, must be so
to have, as to improve it duly. So Phavorinus saith, That
#xety “to have,” is trºpºsača-Sat wał puxárasºv, “to take care
of and preserve.” Casaubon observes, that fixsw, in the
Greek, doth sometimes signify, to have a thing with increase;
to Sophocles, in Ajace, ºrgö, yāp rôy Exovira 3 p66,0; ;parsi, “He
that abounds is envied;” where the scholiast notes, that
#xety is put for sí, #xety' and in Democritus Bavačay roi; #xov-
Taç, is “to admire the rich.” So “not to have,” is not to use
what we have, as in that of the Proverbs, xiii. 7. There are
who are rich, andăy #xovtsº, “and having nothing,” as not hav-
ing power to eat of their labours: thus Aristotle Saith,”
that “a man who hath knowledge and useth it not, as being
drunk or mad, may be said Éxely rºc, zal ºwn fixeiv, to have it
in a manner, and not to have it” (see Matt. xxv. 29)
Kai 3 #x2, &gShaeraſ, From him that hath not shall be taken
away what he hath..] Some think the reading should be here,
and Mark iv. 25, as it is in Luke viii. 18, kai 3 80x57 xety
“what he seems to have :” because, say they, a man may
seem to have what he hath not, but cannot truly have what
he hath not ; but how then can that be “taken from him *
Besides our exposition, which renders the sense thus, What he
unprofitably, or without improvement, hath, is fully confirm-
ed from Christ's application of these words to the “unprofit-
able servant,” who improved not his talent, Matt. xxv. 29,
and from the reason he assigns, why he spake to the Jews in
parables; to wit, because they would not improve the light
which they had received already. Whence Jerome's note
upon this place is this, “That we might not suspect this
grossness of heart and heaviness of ears was the effect of
nature, and not of choice, subjungit culpam arbitrii et dicit,
Et oculos Suos clauserunt, he subjoins the fault of the will,
saying, Their eyes have they shut.”
* Ver. 14. Kai &vaºranggūrat #wr' airroſ.' And in them is ful-
filled the prophecy of Isaiah, &c.] The apostle Paul informs
us, that “what the law saith, it speaks to them of all times
and ages that are under the law” (Rom. iii. 19). So what
the prophets of the Jews said must in like cases belong to
the Jews of all times, though an airoi; may be here ren-
dered “concerning them ;” and so the meaning may be only
this, That what was said by Isaiah of the men of his times,
was as truly fulfilled concerning the Jews of our Saviour's
time ; they being as indisposed to hearken to the words of
this great prophet, as were the former Jews to attend to the
words of Isaiah.
7 Ver. 17. II&Aoi reopºral wał Stzato, #7e9%anzavičy & 8x4-
ºrers, Kai own sºv, Verily I say unto you, That many prophets
* * Nichom. lib. vii, cap. 5.
CHAPTER XIII.
11 I
ye hear (the mysteries of the kingdom of God revealed),
and have not heard them.
[Mark iv. 13. And he said unto them, Know ye not
this parable 8 and how then will ye know all parables,
as it becometh them to do, who are to reveal the mys-
teries of this kingdom to others ?]
18 Hear ye therefore the (meaning of the) parable
of the sower; (He that soweth as the Son of man, the
'seed sown is the word of God, Luke viii. 11)
19 °When any one heareth the word of the king-
dom (of God), and understandeth it not (i.e. consider-
eth not of it), then cometh the wicked one (the prince
of the air, Eph. ii. 2), and catcheth away that which
was sown in his heart. This is he (i. e. the person
signified by him) which received seed by the way-side.
20 But he that received the seed into stony places
and wise men have desired to see the things that ye See, and
have not seen them.] i.e. Many prophets, who prophesied
of the coming of the Messiah, and many righteous men, to
whom God familiarly showed himself, as he did to Abraham
and the patriarchs; many kings (Luke x. 24), from whose
seed he was to spring, and whose kingdoms and persons were
types of the Messiah, desired to see before their eyes the
things which ye thus see, and have not so seen them, they
only seeing them afar off in the promises made to them con-
cerning these days (Heb. xi. 13), and “to them it was re-
vealed, that not to themselves, but to our times, they minis-
tered the things which are now revealed” (1 Pet. i. 11,
12). -
! Wer. 19. IIayrö; &xoãorro; rev Abyov rā; 8aaixãfaç, zai wº
-vvièvroc" When any one heareth the word, and understand-
eth it not..] Christ cannot here intend to signify that his word
ever becomes unprofitable to any, either through the natural
weakness of their understanding, which renders them unable
to discern his mind, or through the darkness or obscurity of
the word preached; since this would lay the reason of the
unprofitableness of it, not in the hearers, who cannot be
supposed blameworthy, because the understanding God hath
given them is weak; but in the preacher, who taught it so
obscurely that they were not able to discern it. The Greek
word avyieval, which we render “understand,” here signifies
to ponder, to consider of, to lay to heart, and to observe in
order to action ; so Prov. xxi. 12, avvieſ 3inalog, “The righ-
teous man wisely considers the house of the wicked;” Ps.
xli. 1, “Blessed is he that considereth the poor” (Gr. 3 avy- |
tãy iti irrazy), Ps. cwi. 7, “Our fathers in Egypt, où avyā-
xay, considered not thy wonders.” And that thus it here
signifies, appears, (l.) because the following degree of hear-
ers are such as are affected something with the word preach-
ed, for they “receive it with joy” (ver. 20): the first degree
must, therefore, comprehend such men as are not thus af.
ſected with it, it making no impression on their hearts. (2.)
Because the devil is said to “snatch away this word, lest
they should believe it.” Now faith being an act of the un-
derstanding, he could not fear they should believe what he
knew they did not understand ; and this industry of Satan
to snatch the word out of our hearts, as it discovers his en-
mity against the progress of the gospel, so doth it highly
commend the excellence and efficacy of it: for were it not
of great importance to preserve it there, he would not be so
industrious to Snatch it thence; and were it not, when
there, a powerful instrument to work within us, “that faith
which purifies the heart,” why doth he do this “lest we should
believe P” Why is it then that men do call this quick and
powerful word, this word of life, a dead letter 2 And when
they daily by experience see that the persuasions, both
of themselves and others, are often prevalent, why do they
think that God’s can be of no effect without a miracle 2
* Ver. 20. Óðrác Šarly & rév Aáyov &zočov, xa, etów, wer& xa-
£3; X&ºw8ávoy airy. This is he who hears the word, and anon
with joy receives it..] Here he who is represented by the
stony ground, (1.) hears the word, and doth ºrpèc wagöy ºria-.
*sūsly, “for a time believe it’’ (Luke viii. 13); but then he
only doth so for a time : and hence we learn, that it is not
sufficient that we at present do believe, profess, and practise
suitably to the truth delivered, unless we do continue so to
do unto the end, and bring forth fruit with patience (Luke
(Gr. but he that is sown upon stony places), the same
is he (i. e. he is the emblem of him) that "heareth the
word, and anon with joy receiveth it:
21 Yet he hath not root in himself, but (having not
received his seed fully into his heart, nor duly con-
sidered what he must do and suffer to retain it there,
he) dureth (only) for a while : for when tribulation or
persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by
(i. e. presently) he is offended.
22. He also that received seed among the thorns, is
he that heareth the word; "and the care of this
world, and the deceitfulness of riches, (and the plea-
sures of life, Luke viii. 14, and the lusts of other
things entering in, Markiv. 19) choke the word, and
he becometh (so far) unfruitful (as to bring no fruit
unto perfection).
viii. 15); for by comparing the evangelists, we learn that it
is in effect all one to be āzágºroi, “unfruitful” (Matt. xiii.
22. Mark iv. 19), and to “bring no fruit to perfection,”
Luke viii. 15. (2.) He receives the word with joy, and is at
present much affected with it, though afterward he is offend-
ed at it, whence also it appears, that it is not sufficient, to
render us good Christians, that we at present are somewhat
affected with the word, receive it with some joy, delight, and
pleasure, unless it doth produce sincerity and constancy in
our obedience to all its precepts, even those which are most
grievous to flesh and blood.
* Ver. 22. Kai h (wègipava rot algyo; rotºrov, wał # &márn
rot Traoûrov, and the care of this life, and the deceitfulness
of riches, wai hēovåy roi; 8iov, and the pleasures of life, Luke
viii. 14, wai ai regi re Actºr& Émişuºiaſ, and our lustings after
other things, Mark iv. 19, entering in, choke the word.]
Here are enumerated all those things which choke the word
of God, and render our profession of religion unprofitable to
the welfare of our souls.
First, ‘H ºptºva rot aix vo; roſtov, Such a concernment for
this present life, as renders us distracted and tormented with
the fears of losing it; so that we cannot think of parting
with it without horror, which makes us falter in the practice,
and even fall off from the profession of it; or ai Kaspiavas,
those distracting worldly cares which fill our heads so full of
contrivances, and so employ our time, that we are not at lei-
sure seriously to think upon, and carefully pursue, the con-
cernment of our Souls.
Secondly, The love of the “deceitful riches” of the world;
for when they so far enter into our hearts, as that we are
govača syst tracuteſy, “very desirous to be rich ;” this eagerness
to have them tempts us to sin that we may gain them, and
sin again that we may keep them, and will not suffer us to
part with them as we ought, either for the relief of others
or for the welfare of our own souls; whence saith our Lord,
“Ye cannot serve God and mammon;” “ and he that loveth
the world,” saith St. John, “the love of the Father is not in
him ; for the friendship of this world is enmity to God”
(James iv. 4).
Thirdly, “The pleasures of life,” i. e. either those which
are the works of the flesh, and so exclude us from the king-
dom of heaven, as “fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
drunkenness, gluttony ;” or those which, though they be not
sinful in their nature, or such as Christianity restrains us
wholly from, as v. g. the pleasures of the stage and theatre,
of gaming, and of recreations of like kind; yet, when our
desires are strongly carried out after them, when we spend
that time in the pursuit of them, which makes us neglect our
duty to our God, our neighbours, or our own calling and con-
cerns; when they minister temptations to fraud, to covet-
ousness, to contention, passion, Swearing, fretfulness, or
idleness ; or often cast us into the company of loose, pro-
fane, debauched persons, by whose example and conversation
we may be endangered ; and notwithstanding we are so en-
slaved to, or so much under the power of them, that we can-
not deny ourselves these liberties, then we are pixhöoyot,
“lovers of pleasures more than God.”
Fourthly, Ai Treet ré, Aoir& #71Suwiat, “our lustings after
other things;” as (1.) the lusts of the eyes, or our desires
of gay apparel, rich furniture, stately buildings, great at-
tendance and equipage, or such as by St. John are styled the
1 12
MATTHEW.
23 But "he that (is represented as one that) re-
ceived seed into the good ground is he that heareth
the word, and understandeth it (and receives it into a
good and honest heart, Luke viii. 15); which also
beareth fruit (with patience, ibid.), and bringeth forth
some a hundred-fold, some sixty, some thirty. (What
Žs here added, Mark iv. 21—24, is here accommodated
to this parable.) -
24 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying,
The kingdom of heaven (the success of the gospel) is
(may be) likened to (that of) a man who sowed good
seed in his field:
25 But whilst men (to whom the management of this
field was committed) slept, *his enemy came and
sowed tares (or cockle) among the wheat, and went.
his way (and this was not presently perceived).
26 But when the blade was sprung up, and brought
forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.
27 So (Gr. then) the servants of the householder
(to whose conduct this field was committed), came and
said unto him (whose servants they were), Sir, didst
‘thou not sow (only) good seed in thy field? from
whence then hath it tares 2
28 He (answering) said unto them, An enemy (to
me and the good seed) hath done this. The servants
(then) said unto him, “Wilt thou then that we go and
gather them up 2
29 But he said, Nay (do not this now) ; lest, while
ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat
(growing) with them. . -
30 Let both grow together until the (time of) har-
vest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the
reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind
them in bundles to burn them: but (then) gather the
wheat into my barn. (The parable inserted Mark iv.
26–28, is there eaſplained.) * *
31 Another parable put he forth unto them, say-
ing (Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God, and
with what comparison shall we compare it 2 Mark iv.
30), The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mus-
tard-seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field
(or garden, Luke xiii. 19): -
32 Which indeed (when it is sown, Mark iv. 31)
*is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown (up),
it is the greatest amongst herbs, and becometh a tree,
so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the
branches of it (Luke xiii. 19, and like to this will be
the progress of the gospel). - ---
33 Another parable spake he unto them (saying),
The kingdom of heaven (the doctrine of the gospel) is
like (for its powerful influence)” to leaven, which awo-
man took and hid in three measures of meal, till the
whole was leavened (by it).
34 All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude
in parables (as they were able to hear, Mark iv. 33);
and without a parable spake he not unto them (though
pride of life, desire of popular applause, or of high estima-
tion in the world, of advancement to high posts and great
places above others ; or, lastly, our excessive love unto our
relatives, our parents, wives, our children, or our friends; for
when these affections prove temptations to sin, as the excess
of them still doth, they will be then obstructive of that in-
fluence the word of life should have upon us: St. John in-
forms us, that “all these are not of the Father, but of the
world ;” that if we love or set our hearts upon them, “the love
of the Father is not in us” (1 John ii. 15, 16); and, therefore,
Christ requires us to deny ourselves in all these things, to hate,
i. e. to love them less than him, that we may be his disciples.
* Ver. 23. ‘O 3è ini rāy yńy rºw waxy arrageſ, but that
which is sown woon good ground, is he who heareth the word,
and considers of it..] And brings forth fruit, Luke viii. 15,
of rive; #y xagèſ, XaX; wał żyaôň waréxouzi, xzi zapiropogoña w śy
itrop, oyſ, “Who retain it in a good and honest heart, and
bring forth fruit with patience.” What this good and honest
heart or man that hath it, is, we may learn from heathen
authors. Thus Aristotle” tells us, that this name, waxé,
wai &ya.06s, was by them given äri roi; ºrexeloſ, a nověatov, “to
one that is entirely good,” & ré &ya.03. Trávºra övra &ya03 Hari,
“who approved of all things that were truly good, and who
was not corrupted by riches and dominion ;” and from the
requisites in him, which were wanting in all the other grounds:
for whereas he, who was represented by the seed sown by
the way-side, did not avviéval, consider of it, he that receives the
word into a good heart is a wièv, “one that considers” duly
of it; he lays before his eyes the benefits he may receive, and
the afflictions he may suffer, by adhering to it; what he
must do to enjoy these blessings, and what he must be
ready to part with that he may secure them. (2) Whereas
in the stony ground the seed was only retained for a while, and
then cast out, it soon rose up, and as soon withered, the seed
sown in the good and honest heart, watéxeral, “is there re-
tained, and brings forth fruit with patience:” and (3.)
whereas in the thorny ground it is so choked as to become
unfruitful where it is, or où reaso poetſ, “it brings forth no
mature fruit ;” no fruit that can prevail, or get up above
these thorns; in the good heart it brings forth “fruit unto
perfection,” prevails and triumphs over all sensual and
worldly appetites, over our love to life, and our most near
relations, and becomes fruitful, “abounding in all the works of
righteousness, which are through Jesus Christ unto the glory
and praise of God” (Phil. i. 11).
* Mag. Mor. lib. ii. cap, 9.
three boughs, of which one was broke off, and covered the
* Ver. 25. "O #x323; Éameps &ávia &vá (, ścoy rod circu,
The enemy sowed tares in the midst of the wheat.] Henee
some collect, that even the tares must be members of the
church of Christ, as well as the good seed, which, if it only
signify they by profession may be so, is in itself true ; but
if it be designed to prove that they are true members of
that body, of which Jesus Christ is the head, that cannot
follow from these words; for (1.) our Saviour saith ex-
pressly, “the field is” not the church, but “the world” (2.)
the seed sown in the field by Christ is good seed, “the chil-
dren of the kingdom” (ver. 38), “the just” (ver. 43); they
therefore only can belong to him because they only are sown
by him ; the tares were sown in it by the envious man, that
is, the devil (ver. 28), the enemy of Christ and of his church
(ver. 25); they are sown while the overseers of the church
were asleep, and are expressly called “the children of the
devil” (ver 38). And is it reasonable to conceive that the
devil, the great enemy of the church and of its head, should
beget members to his church, since “there is no communion
betwixt Christ and Belial” (2 Cor. vi. 15), or that the de-
vil's children shbuld be the members of Christ's body P
13 Ver. 28, 29. Oéxar, oùy &r=x$ávre; a vºčopºv airá ; 3
33 gºn" cº, Wilt thow then that we go and gather them up 3
And he said, Nay.] Wain hence is the collection of the Eras-
tians, that the wicked, and those that cause offences, are not
by excommunication to be excluded from the communion of
the church, seeing the field in which these tares spring up is
not the church, but the world ; and Christ, in the reddition
of the parable, takes no notice of this question, or of the
answer to it. Nor doth this place prove, that the magistrate
may not cut off evil-doers, seeing this was not spoken to
them, but to the ministers of Christ's church.
14 Ver. 32. “o utºgérégow &#y Érri ºrávrov táv a tree&rov,
Which is the least of all seeds, but when it grown it is the
greatest among herbs.] The Jews give a wonderful account
of the growth and increase of this seed; viz., “There was
a stalk of mustard-seed in Sichin, from which sprang out
tent of a potter, and produced three cabs of mustard. R.
Simeon Ben Caliphat said, A stalk of mustard-seed was in
my field, into which I was wont to climb as men do into it
fig-tree” (Buxtorf. in voce chardal).
* Ver. 33. The kingdom of heaven is like to leaven.] St.
Jerome here by this kingdom understands the doctrine of
the gospel, and saith it leavens the whole man, consisting of
a rational faculty of irascible and concupiscible passions,
by directing his reason to embrace and approve true wisdom,
turning his anger into a hatred against sin, and his desires into a
CHAPTER XIII.
113
he after interpreted all these parables to his disciples,
Mark iv. 34):
35 "That it might be fulfilled which was spoken
by the prophet (David), saying (Ps. lxxviii. 2), I will
open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which
have been kept secret from the foundation of the
world.
36 Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went
into the (a) house; and his disciples came unto him,
saying, Declare (eaplain) unto us the parable of the
tares of the field.
37 He answered and said unto them, He that sow-
eth the good seed is the Son of man;
38 The field is the world; the good seed are the
children of the kingdom (who obey the precepts of it);
but the tares are the children of (Satan) the wicked
One (whose works they do, John viii. 44);
39 The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the
harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are
the angels.
40 "As therefore (at the time of harvest) the tares
are gathered and burnt in the fire; so shall it be in
the end of this world.
41 (For then) the Sqn of man shall send forth his
angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all
things that offend, and them that do iniquity;
42 And shall cast them into a furnace of fire;
(and) there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
43 Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun
in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to
hear, let him hear.
44 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like "unto
treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath
found, he hideth (or conceals his finding) it, and for
joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and
buyeth that field.
45 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a
merchant-man, seeking goodly pearls:
46 Who, when he had found one pearl of great
love of, and longing after, virtue; and these three faculties are,
saith Theophylact, the three measures mentioned in the
parable. -
* Ver. 35."orw: ºrangw85 ré nºw 813 tº ºrpoºrov, That
it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, say-
£ng, I will open my mouth in parables, Ps. lxxviii. 2.] Here
Mr. Clerc notes from St. Jerome on this place, that he had
read in some copies, quod dictum est per prophetam Esaiam,
“which was spoken by the prophet Isaiah ;” and because
no such thing was found in that prophet, “I believe,” saith
he, “it was taken away by some prudent man ; but I am
apt to think that it was first written, per Asapham pro-
phetam, the seventy-seventh psalm being entitled, A Psalm
of the prophet Asaph ; and that the first transcriber not un-
derstanding what was meant by Asaph, thinking it a mistake
in the writer, corrected it by putting in the word Isaiah ;”
and in his notes on the seventy-eighth psalm, he saith, “This
was objected by Porphyry against the evangelist St. Mat-
thew, that he was so ignorant as to say, quod scriptum est
per Isaiam, which was written by Isaiah ;” but yet he is
forced to confess, that in all the ancient copies there are no
footsteps to be found of the reading which St. Jerome speaks
of ; neither Chrysostom, Theophylact, nor any of the ancient
fathers, except Jerome, makes any mention of it ; it is not
extant in any of the ancient versions, nor saith Jerome any-
thing of Porphyry in his genuine work upon St. Matthew.
And this I think sufficient to justify our reading against
some single corrupt Latin copy, in which St. Jerome, if we
may believe him, found it otherwise. The sense therefore
may be this, “Our Saviour spake is parables, that what Da-
vid, filled with a prophetic spirit, said of himself, might be
fulfilled also in that Son of David of which he was a type.”
For he being our great lawgiver, might more truly say,
“Hear my law, O my people.” *
” Wer. 40. "Qa"ree ºv avanśygrai rā āśāvia, xa, rugi zara-
waisrat, oùrw; Écrai v ºff avy reasia toû aião, roºrov. As there-
phylact.
price, he went and sold all that he had, and bought
it (so must those who desire the blessings of the king-
dom of heaven be ready to part with all their earthly
blessings, to possess and secure it to themselves).
47 "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a
net, which was cast into the sea, and gathered of
every kind (good and bad fish):
48 Which, when it was full, they drew to shore,
and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but
cast the bad away.
49 So (likewise) shall it be at the end of the world:
(for) the angels shall come forth, and sever the
wicked from among the just,
50 And shall cast them into the furnace of fire;
(and) there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth
(or, the eatremity of misery).
51 (Then) Jesus saith unto them, Have ye under-
stood all these things : They say unto him, Yea, Lord.
52 Then said he to them, Therefore every scribe,
which is instructed to the kingdom of heaven is like
unto a man that is a householder, who bringeth forth
out of his treasure things new and old (to feed his fa-
mily: for, so must you produce from Moses and the
prophets, and from the doctrines belonging to this hea-
venly kingdom, what you see needful to feed God’s
family and household).
53 And it came to pass, that when Jesus had
finished these parables, he departed thence.
54 And when he was come (thence with his disci-
ples, Mark vi. 1) into his own country, he taught
them in their synagogue (on the sabbath-day, Mark
vi. 2), insomuch that they (who heard him) were as-
tonished, and said, Whence hath this man this wisdom,
and these mighty works (which are done by him) 8
55 Is not this the earpenter’s son 2 (Mark vi. 3, the
carpenter ; see the note there;) is not his mother
called Mary 2 and (are not) his *brethren (called)
James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas
56 And his sisters, are they not all with us (bear-
fore tares are gathered together, and burnt in the fire ; so
shall it be in the end of the world..] From this, as well as
other places, it seems probable, that the wicked shall not be
cast into everlasting fire till the end of the world, that being
the time when “Christ will place the goats on his left hand,
and say unto them, Depart from me, ye wicked, into ever-
lasting fire” (Matt. xxv. 41); and when those “whose names
are not in the book of life, are to be cast into the lake of
fire” (Rev. xx. 15. See the note on 2 Tim. iv. 8).
18 Wer. 44. To a treasure hid.] This treasure, Saith St.
Jerome, is either Jesus Christ, “in whom are hid all the trea-
sures of wisdom and knowledge ;” or the holy Scriptures,
which are “able so make us wise to Salvation,” and which
contain the hidden wisdom of God (1 Cor. ii. 7, see Examen
Millii). .
19 Wer. 47. The kingdom of heaven is like to a met, &c.]
Because this net contains both good and bad fish; hence
some conclude, that bad men are members of that church
which is Christ's body as well as good. But (1.) it is nei-
ther the church visible nor invisible, 88aakakia rāy &Aisøy
&rocráAoy, “the doctrine of the apostles, made by Christ
fishers of men,” which is here compared to a net. So Theo-
(2.) These bad fish are no sooner pulled unto the
shore, but the fishermen sit down, and cast them away, and
thereby show they belonged not to this kingdom. Moreover,
the scope of this parable is not to show who do at present
belong to Christ's kingdom, but who hereafter shall be ex-
cluded from the kingdom of heaven.
29 Wer. 55. Kai of 238Xpoi aircü, &c. And are not his bre-
thren. James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas?] It is now
passed into a matter of faith among some that call themselves
Christians, that the Virgin Mary was 38; ragóávo, “ever
a virgin,” and hath by them been styled a heresy to hold the
contrary ; whereas I know not how it consists with good di-
vinity, to make that an article of divine faith which is
founded on no divine revelation ? Or with our sixth article of
l [4
MATTHEW.
ing no marks either of like power or wisdom) 8 whence
(then) hath this man all these things
57 And they were offended in him (or scandalized
at him, by reason of his mean original and humble cir-
cumstances). But Jesus said unto them, A prophet
is not without honour, save in his own country, and
religion, to make that necessary to be believed, which con-
fessedly is not contained in holy scripture. St. Basil”
plainly distinguishes it from things necessary to be believed,
and leaves it among the things not curiously to be inquired
into, as his words plainly intimate. And though Origen-F
saith, “That they who say she after married, do not prove it,
and that the Virgin had no other son but Jesus, war& rol,
ūyīā; rapi airfi, Šošárowta;, according to those who thought
soundly of her,” yet he lays no brand upon the contrary
opinion. However, it is certain that these words do not
prove that “Mary the mother of our Lord” had any off-
spring; but, say all the ancients before St. Jerome, they
were the children of Joseph, by a former wife, which died
before his espousal to the blessed Virgin. St. Jerome at-
tempts to prove, that James and Joses here mentioned were
not the children of the Virgin-mother, but of her sister,
“Mary the wife of Cſeophas;” for John xix. 25, we read
thus, “There stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and
his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary
Magdalene.” There were there, saith Matthew, xxvii. 56,
and Mark, xv. 40, “Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother
of James the less, and of Joses;” whence he concludes, that
James and Joses, styled here “the brethren of the Lord,”
were not the sons of Mary his mother, but of her sister, Mary
the wife of Cleophas; and hence infers, that they are only
called his “brethren,” according to the language of the Jews,
as Lot is called “Abraham's brother,” Gen. xiii. 8, as being
the son of his brother, Gen. xii. 5, and as the word “brother”
is used, Gen xxix. 12. Lev. x. 4, i.e. because they were his
cousin-germans. But this will not necessarily follow ; for
they might be the sons of Joseph by the wife of Cleophas,
who, saith Theophylact, dying without issue, “Joseph, acº
cording to the law, took her to himself, and of her begat
* Mix: x&p ris kata tºy oizovoaiay ingeriac, #yaykaia h trag-
Biºſa, tº 3; itsä, äroxvirgaywównroy tº affo roi; favoºrnpiov xava-
Asſlogasw. Tom. i. Hom. de Nativ. p. 509.
+Quod asserunt eam nupsisse post partum, unde approbent
non habent. In Joh, p. 6. Oñ yā; stºpnºoy #AAh Taº tºwny
thy &raºxy rā, ºraeffsvías regygá-la-Šal. In Matt. p. 223, C.
in his own house (lhere usually he is most despised,
58 And he did not many mighty things there
(save only that he laid his hands upon a few sick per-
i. and healed them, Mark vi. 5) because of their un-
elief.
James and Joses, Simon and Judas.” But Antonius de
Dominis, in a very accurate discourse upon this question,
gives us a better answer to this argument of St. Jerome, by
saying the “mother of Jesus,” in St. John, is the same
person with the “mother of James and Joses,” in St.
Matthew and St. Mark ; and that Mary the wife of Cleophas,
called by St. Mark, “Salome,” and by St. John, “the sister
of the mother of our Lord,” was the “mother of the sons
of Zebedee ;” for, saith he, it seems evident, that the three.
women named by the three evangelists, were in all of them
the same persons; as therefore Mary Magdalene is the
same, so “Mary the mother of the sons of Zebedee,” and
Salome, so called by St. Mark from her family, and “the
sister of the mother of our Lord” must be the same, and
then “Mary the mother of our Lord,” and the mother, i. e.
stepmother, of James and Joses, must be the same also.
And this answer I like best, (1.) because it retains the pro-
per signification of the word “brethren,” which is always
retained both in the Old and the New Testament, when
there is professedly an enumeration of brethren. (2.) Be-
cause it seems plain, that the Jews speak still of his “bre-
thren and sisters,” even in the ordinary sense of the word,
even as they esteemed him the “carpenter's son,” and Mary
his mother (so here, and xii. 46. Mark vi. 3. John vi. 42).
And James here mentioned, is by Josephus” expressly
styled 388xpāg 'Inacº, “the brother of Jesus called Christ.”
(3.) They seem also to have lived with his mother; whence
we find them so oft together, as when it is said “Thy mother
and brethren seek thee,” Matt. xii. 46, “His mother and
brethren, are they not here with us?” i. e. do not they dwell
at Capernaum ? “He went down to Capernaum, and his
mother and his brethren,” John ii. 12. (4.) This agrees
best with antiquity; for Dr. Pearson confesseth this was
always the concurring judgment of antiquity till St. Jerome's
time ; that these were indeed “the brethren of our Lord:”
and Spalatensis shows that many of the fathers embraced
the opinion, that the “mother of our Lord” in St. John,
was the same person whom St. Matthew styles the “mother
of James” (De Repub. Eccles. lib. ii: cap. 2, p. 114–117).
* Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 8.
CHAPTER XIV.
1. At that time (that Christ had sent out his disci-
ples, to preach the gospel, to cast out devils, and to heal
diseases, and they, by virtue of his name, had been suc-
cessful in that work, and thereby spread his name
abroad, Mark vi. 12–14. Luke ix. 6, 7), Herod the
tetrarch (of Galilee, Luke iii. 1) heard of the fame of
Jesus,
2, And (after some hesitation and inquiry, Luke ix.
7, 8) he said to his servants (I incline to their opinion,
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIV.
* Ver. 1. Heard of the fame of Jesus.] Interpreters
here inquire, why he heard not of the fame of Jesus Sooner,
and say, the reason might be this ; Because he was at
Rome at the beginning of our Saviour's preaching, and
when he wrought his former miracles: but the true reason
why Herod then began to take notice of the ſame of Jesus,
seems rather to be this, that now these miracles were wrought
not only by himself in person, but by others in his
Ilam e. -
* Ver. 2. Otré; irriy 12&nnº, This is John the Baptist.]
So St. Matthew and St. Mark; but St. Luke saith, he was
Peºplexed, Bºrépet, “he doubted, he inquired, because it was
said of some, that John was risen from the dead,” and spake
of that to his servants as the most probable opinion, de-
who say),” This is John the Baptist; "he is risen from
the dead; and therefore (though before he did no mira–
cle, John x. 41, now) mighty works do show forth
themselves in him (to clear his innocence, and confirm
his mission.
3 And he had cause to be thus anarious, and perplexed
at this matter); For Herod had laid hold on John,
and bound him (with a chain), and put him in prison
“for Herodias's sake, his brother Philip's wife, (who
siring notwithstanding to see him (Luke ix. 9), that so he
might more perfectly discern whether he was John or not.
* 'Hyègón, He is risen from the dead.] Hence it appears,
that this was said by Herod, and some others, not from
any belief of the Pythagorean metempsychosis, or trans-
ition of Souls from one body to another, after the death
of the first body ; for this cannot be called, in any propriety
of speech, a resurrection of the body; nor could the soul
of John now dead enter into the body of Christ, which had
for thirty years been informed with another soul: neither
the Jews nor the philosophers ever maintained any such
transition of souls: this therefore must be understood of
the #y 3:wri;, or reviviscence of the Baptist, whom all the
Jews accounted as a prophet (ver. 5); it being the opinion
of the Jews, that some of their prophets should arise at the
coming of the Messiah ; and it seemed less wonderful to
CHAPTER XIV.
| 15
having agreed with Herod to divorce herself from her
own husband, at Herod’s return from Rome was married
to him, and cohabited with him as his wife, Mark vi. 17.
Joseph. Antiq. lib. xviii, cap. 7, p. 626, C.)
4 For (she was thus incensed against him because)
John (had) said to him, It is not lawful for thee to
have her (as thy wife).
5 *And when (at the instigation of Herodias) he
would have put him to death, (he could not think fit to
do so, for) he feared the multitude, because they
counted him “as a prophet.
6 But when Herod’s birthday was kept, the daugh-
ter of Herodias danced before them (that were present),
and (her dancing) pleased Herod.
7 Whereupon he promised with an oath to give
her whatsoever she would ask, (even to the half of his
kingdom, Mark vi. 23).
8 And she, being "before (she asked any thing) in-
structed of her mother, said, Give me here John Bap-
tist’s head in a charger. -
9 And the king was sorry (that she asked a thing so
ungrateful to the people, so ungrateful to his birthday,
and so dangerous to himself); nevertheless, for the
oath’s sake (which he had made), and (for the sake of
them which sat with him at meat, he commanded it to
be given her (i. e. that it should be given to her).
them that they who raised others whilst they lived, as did
Elias and Elisha, and whose dead bones revived a dead
corpse (2 Kings xiii. 21), should do so.
* Ver. 3. For Herodias's sake, his brother Philip's wife.]
That Josephus here differs from the evangelists, making
Herodias the wife not of his brother Philip, but of another
brother named Herod, ought not to make us doubt the
truth of what St. Matthew here, St. Mark, vi. 17, and St.
Luke, iii. 19, unanimously assert, touching a matter so well
known when they writ, that they could not be ignorant of
it ; especially if we consider, that the Jewish Chronicles *
and Gorionides agree with the evangelist ; for Gorionides
saith, Herodias was first marrried to Philip, and then taken
away from him by Herod Antipas. The old Hebrew Chro-
nicle + saith, Uxorem fratris sui Philippi ipso wivente junxit
sibi matrimonio, quae liberos ex fratre ejus susceperat, et
tamen is eam duxit uxorem ; and an old Chronicle f of the
Second temple saith, Antipas Philippi fratris sui uxorem
accepit, ex quâ ille liberos ante genuerat;” i. e. “Antipas
married the wife of his brother Philip, he being yet living,
and having had children by her.” This Philip mentioned
by Josephus $ died, saith he, in the twentieth year of Tibe-
rius, and therefore must be living, at the least four years after
this time (see Orig. in Matt. p. 230. Euseb. H. Eccl. lib. i.
cap 11. Jerome in locum). Which agrees with what Jose-
phus saith of his other Herod, ‘Hºobia; 33 tri avyx ja-st
$govňa aa'a rāy ºratºtov Hººn yaºwei'ral, rot &vègö, Öprotraºrgiº
&38???, ?iaa’rica Kövºros, “Herodias, in contempt of the laws
of her country, married again to Herod, the natural brother
of her husband, separating herself from him whilst living,
and having had a child by him ;”| she therefore was guilty
both of incest and adultery by the law of Moses, in thus
agreeing pastoixia-aa-Sat Treb; airby, “to divorce herself from
her former husband,” yet living, and to marry to Herod An-
tipas ; and therefore the Baptist might well say to him, “It
is not lawful for thee to have her for thy wife.”
* Ver. 5. Kai Sáxov aury &rowrºyal. And when he would
have put him to death.] To reconcile this with Mark vi. 19,
where it is said, that Herodias “would have put him to death,”
but could not prevail with Herod so to do, it may be said,
Herod was willing enough to do it, but was withheld from
the action, partly out of fear of the people, and partly by
the checks of his conscience, as knowing John to be a just
and holy man, whose death might therefore be avenged on
him by a righteous God, as the Jews, saith Josephus, ‘I
thought it was by the destruction of his army.
* Chap. 62. + Chap. 36.
§ Antip. lib. xviii. cap. 6, p. 625, F.
| Ibid. cap. 7. p. 628, D.
# F. 54, cap. 4.
| Antiq. lib. xviii.
10 And (accordingly) he sent (&n evecutioner, Mark
vi. 27, and he went) and beheaded John in the prison.
11 And “his head was brought in a charger, and
given to the damsel; and she brought it to her mother.
12 And his disciples came, and took up the body
(of the Baptist), and buried it, and went and told Jesus
(what had happened to him). -
13 When Jesus heard (of this, and the account which
his apostles sent forth by him, x. 5, gave of all that they
had done and taught, Mark vi. 30. Luke ix. 10), “he
departed (with them) thence by ship into a desert place
apart (from the multitude, which came so continually to
them, that they had not time to eat, Mark vi. 31); and
when the people had heard (thereaf, or whither he was
gone, viz. to the desert of Bethsaida, Luke ix. 10), they
(took a compass by land, and) followed him on foot
out of the cities; (seeing the signs that he had dome, John
vi. 2; and they got before him to the place where he was
to land, Mark vi. 33). - -
14 And Jesus went forth (out of the ship unto a
mountain, and there sat with his disciples, Johnvi. 3), and
saw a great multitude (come to the place), and he was
moved with compassion towards them, (and spake unto
them of the kingdom of God, Luke ix. 11), and he
healed their sick.
15 And when it was evening, (after that Christ had
" 'Q', ºrpoºfirºv, i. e. Jor a prophet.] This being, as the
ancients note, &c. ović jºcotoča soc, &NA& 888aića solº, “not of simi-
litude, but of confirmation:” so Neh. vii. 2, a Jrö, ä, äyhe 3x10%:
“he was a true man,” and one that feared the Lord (see the
note on Rom. ix. 32).
7 Ver. 8. IIpoſ:813aaSefo'a, before admonished.] i. e. Before
she asked anything, but not before the offer made by Herod:
for St. Mark, who relates this whole story more fully, in
many other circumstances, says, that upon it she went out,
and Said to her mother, “What shall I ask?” and came in
again by her instruction, to ask the head of the Baptist.
* Ver. 11. And his head was brought, &c.] Note here,
that very remarkable seems the providence of God, in aveng-
ing the death of this holy man upon Herod, Herodias, and her
daughter, For,
First, As the war betwixt Pierod and Aretas, king of
Petrea, was caused by Herod's wicked contract with He-
rodias, to reject the daughter of Aretas his lawful wife, and
to marry with Herodias his brother Philip's wife ; so Jose-
phus declares, that the Jews looked upon the putting John
to death as the cause of the miscarriage of Herod's army,
“God being angry with him for the death of John the
Baptist.” -
Secondly, Herodias envying the glory of king Agrippa,
who had that honour given him by Caius, prevailed with
her husband to go to Rome, and accuse Agrippa; where-
upon Caius deprived Herod of his government, and her of
her money, and gave both to Agrippa, banishing Herod and
Herodias to Lyons, in France ; which, saith Josephus, i.
was “done in punishment of her envy, and of his readiness
to hearken to her solicitations.” And,
Thirdly, Of her daughter it is related, that she going
over the ice in winter, the ice brake, and she slipped in up
to the head, which at last was severed from her body by the
sharpness of the ice ; Idque non sine Dei numine, God re-
quiring her head for that of the Baptist's she desired;
which, if true, was a wonderful providence.
* Ver. 13. 'Avexºenzey #2570sy, &c. He departed thence
into a desert place.] To avoid the fury of Herod, say in-
terpreters ; teaching us, by this example, to avoid dangers
by all lawful means (see xii. 15). But there seems no
* Toj, Să'Iovëaioc, 3%ay wi rºofia ºff insivov rôy 3A56,oy #Tri tº
createſ war yeyão Sat, roi, Geoff waxå; ‘Hoºn Sãovros.--—oxo-
Aéval rôy ‘Héðov arpároy Umrå roi, Osoč zai Azáxa Sikaios rivyupaśvov
zard. Trowāv 'Iwówou roi trixaxovºzárov Bawra row. Antiq. lib.
xviii. cap. 7, p. 626, F. 627, A.
+’Hºw8:48, ºfty 3, 496vov ºrp3; row 385*$3v Kai Hºn yuwaize ov
&zzoacapºva, wouqoxoyāy Stºny raúrny tritiºnarev 6 @Eóg. Ibid
cap. 9, p. 639, A.
I 2
1 16
MATTHEW.
inquired of Philip making trial of his faith, for that
was done when Jesus saw the multitude, John vi. 5), his
disciples came (together, Luke ix. 12), to him, saying,
This is a desert place (where no victuals are to be had),
*and the time is now past (or, the day is spent); send
the multitude away, that they may go into the villages,
and buy themselves victuals. -
16 But Jesus said unto them, They need not depart
(to buy victuals); give ye them to eat, (having learnt
of Andrew what meat was there, John vi. 9). *
17 And they say unto him (Shall we go then and
buy two hundred pennyworth (i.e. sia, pounds five shil.
ling’s worth) of bread for them to eat ' He saith unto
them, How many loaves have you here P And they upon
inquiry say) We have here but five (barley) loaves,
and two (small) fishes : (And what are they among so
many P John vi. 9) .
18 And he said, Bring them hither to me.
19 And he commanded (his disciples, Mark vi. 39,
to make) the multitude to sit down upon the grass
(by hundreds, and fifties in a company, Luke ix. 14.
Mark vi. 39, 40), and (when they were thus sat down,
he) took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and, look-
ing up to heaven, "he blessed (or, gave thanks to
God for them), and brake (the loaves, Mark vi. 41)
and gave the loaves (thus broken) to his disciples, and
the disciples (gave them) to the multitude (and the two
fishes divided he among them all).
20 And they did all eat, and were filled; and (when
our Lord had said to his disciples, Gather up the re-
maining fragments, that nothing be lost, John vi. 12)
they took up of the fragments that remained twelve
baskets full. -
21 And they that had eaten (of the five loaves and
two small fishes), were about five thousand men, be-
sides women and children.
22 And straightway Jesus (knowing that the multi-
tude designed to make him a king, John vi. 15, and
that this might be pleasing to his disciples) constrained
his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him
unto (Capernaum, on) the other side (Bethsaida),
while he sent the multitudes away : .
23 And when he had sent the multitudes away, he
went up into a mountain apart to pray: and * when
the evening was come, he was there alone. -
24 But the ship was now in the midst of the sea,
tossed with waves: for the wind was contrary.
25 **And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus
(seeing them toiling in rowing, Mark vi. 48) went
unto them, walking on the sea (and seemed willing to
have passed by them).
26 And when the disciples saw him walking on the
G-
reason in the context why he should be afraid of Herod,
who had done nothing to incense him ; it therefore seems
more probable, from the collation of these words with those
in St. Mark, that he went to this desert to give some respite
and refreshment to his wearied disciples.
* Ver. 15. ‘H &ga #3m rapixsey, The day is now spent.]
*Qga, both in Greek and Latin, signifies “a day;” so the
Greek word often signifies, especially among the physicians:
so Galen, lib. vii. cap. 2, Jºxyra &gavatay, “they are chill
an hour,” is presently interpreted #7 i hºzáčaw &iay, “for one
day ;” so in Virgil, * Nunquam te crastina fallet hora, i. e.
dies postera. So hora ultima, hora mortis, is “the day of
death.” -
* Ver. 19. Eijñāynce, he blessed.] Here it is disputed,
whether Jesus by this benediction multiplied the loaves and
fishes by a miraculous power ; or whether he gave thanks
to God for them: that Christ multiplied the bread and fishes
by a miraculous power, all allow ; but the question is,
whether this be intended by the word BüAáymas, “he blessed;”
or, whether, the import of this word be this, “he gave thanks
to God for them :” that it is the latter will be evident from
these considerations; (1.) That what is here Edwóynys, “he
blessed,” is in St. John, ºxaeta thra; Biščoxe, “giving thanks
he gave the bread:” and what is in this chapter, svačyno's,
“he blessed,” is in the following chapter in the like case,
taking the seven loaves and two fishes, sixaptathaac, “giving
thanks, he brake and gave to his disciples” (ver. 36); and
so in like manner in St. Mark, viii. 6. (2.) That Christ
blessed, looking up to heaven, which is an indication, that
this action was directed not to the bread, but to his heavenly
Father. (3.) In the institution of the Lord’s supper, that
which in St. Matthew and St.Mark is exoyńzac, “he blessing,
brake the bread,” is in St. Luke and St. Paul, eúzapta-rho ac,
“giving thanks he brake it” (see Matt. xxvi. 26. Mark xiv.
22. Luke xxii. 19. 1 Cor. xi. 24). Yea, both St. Matthew
(xxii. 27) and St. Mark (xiv. 23), speaking of the cup, say
Edzagarhaag, that Christ “giving thanks, gave it to them ;”
which shows that Evaoyeſ, and sixaga reſv, “to bless,” and to
“give thanks,” are in sense the same thing. And whereas
it is objected, that St. Luke plainly refers this benediction
to the bread, by saying Büxáynasy atroig, “he blessed them.”
(Luke ix. 16), it may be answered, that in some ancient
MSS, the words run thus sixáynasy #m' advows, “he blessed
over the loaves;” which agrees well with the sense given of
the words. (4.) That this is an elliptical form of speech to
be supplied thus, Edwóymorey Os3y im' atyrév, “he blessed God
* *s-s-s-s
* Georg. i. 425.
over them ;” it being familiar both with the Greeks and He-
brews to put sixoyeſy ºriya for sdaoyety Seáv #mri rivãº, “to bless a
thing,” for “blessing God over it.” So l Sam. ix. 13,
sixoyāv Švaíay, “to bless the sacrifice,” is to give thanks to
God for the peace-offering before they dined upon it. So l
Cor. x. 16, “the cup of blessing,” 3 sixoyotºsy, “which we
bless,” is the cup for which we give thanks, according to the
custom of the Jews, with whom the beracoth, or the benedic-
tion of the bread, is conceived in these words, “Blessed art
thou, O Lord our God the king of the world, who producest
bread out of the earth :” the benediction of the wine runs
thus, “Blessed art thou, O Lord, the king of the world, who
createst the fruit of the vine ;” and so in the benediction of
their table and of their fruits (see Buxtorf. de Coena Domini,
$. 46.74. de Synag. Jud. 12, p. 254, 255). Lastly, This is
confirmed by these words of St. John (vi. 23), “Other ships
came by the place where they had eaten bread, six apia rāgay-
ro; roi Kugiou, the Lord having given thanks.”
* Ver. 23. ‘Osſia; 33 yewoºvnº, the evening being come.]
We learn from this and other places, that the word evening
sometimes imports the time from the declining of the sun,
sometimes the time in the beginning at Sunsetting, or when it
began to be dark ; the one was called Seſan argºia, or “the
first evening,” say Eustathius * and Phavorinus, the other
sera vespera, or the “latter evening,” when the sun is setting.
So “thou shalt kill the passover between the two evenings,”
Exod. xii. 6. “About the going down of the sun,” Deut.
xvi. 6. So Josh. x. 26. “They hanged upon the trees until
the evening;” and ver, 27, “at the time of the going down
of the sun, they took them down.” At the first of these even-
ings, the disciples desire Jesus to dismiss the multitude,
for the day was declining, #6%aro 2xively, “to begin to decline,”
Luke ix. 12, or dinner-time was past ; in the second of them
Jesus is left alone, and his disciples were got to sea. How
Christ's praying is consistent with his Deity, see John xi.
41, 42.
* Ver. 25. In the fourth watch of the night.] Which are
thus numbered, “at even, at midnight, at cock-crowing, and
in the morning” (Mark xiii. 35). So that it began to be
morning before he came to them ; hence he both saw them
toiling from the land, and they him also walking on the sea.
Note, that to walk upon the sea, is made the property of
God, who alone spreadeth the heavens, “and treadeth upon
the waves of the sea” (Job. ix. 8).
3.
* Attºrn xará robº araxaioſ, h \sian: 3-bia &#y y&; 3sixn ré re-
Nevrafov pagi rāc Beſançºgoc, rö Tregi #xiou 8vº; #Téga}; Seian
Trpºſa rē eiðū; #4 ºzgangw8stag, in Odyss. xvii. Asian Trgºo,
# Asº'àgtzroy &ga' beian pia, h wagi 360 w łAiov. Phav. Hesych.
CHAPTER XV.
1 I?
sea (not perfectly discerning in the twilight who he
was), they were troubled, saying, It is "a spirit (or
an apparition); and they cried out for fear.
27 But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying,
Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid. -
28 And Peter answered him, and said, Lord, if it
be thou, bid me come to thee upon the water (for
having thy commission, I believe I may safely do it).
29 And he said (unto him), Come. And when
Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on
the water, to go to Jesus.
30 But when (his mind diverting him from the con-
sideration of Christ’s power) he saw the winds boister-
ous, (attending to them) he was afraid; and, beginning
to sink, he cried out (to Jesus), saying, Lord, save
IIlê. -
31 And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand,
and caught him, and said unto him, *O thou of lit-
tle faith, wherefore didst thou doubt
32 And when they (Christ and Peter) were come
into the ship, the wind ceased (and the ship was pre-
sently at the land whither they went, John vi. 21).
33. Then they that were in the ship came and wor-
ºped him, saying, "Of a truth thou art the Son of
od. -
34 And when they were gone over (the sea of Ga-
lilee, from Bethsaida back to Capernaum, John vi. 17)
they came into the land of Gennesaret (see the note
on ver. 22).
35 And when the men of that place had knowledge
of him (he having been with them before, Luke v. 1),
they sent out into all that country round about, and
brought unto him all that were diseased;
36 "And besought him that they might only touch
the hem of his garment; and as many as touched
(it) were made perfectly whole.
* Ver. 26. A spirit]. That the Jews had then an opinion
of hurtful spirits walking in the night, is evident from the
LXX. who render “from the pestilence walking in darkness,
3trö Taçáygaro; trysipato; 3ratropévopºvov čv axéret, from the
fear of the devils that walk in the night, Kai ärö 3alp.oylov
Azeanºgewoi, and from the noon-day devil,” that which is in
the Hebrew, “from the destruction at noon-day,” Ps. xci. 6.
* Ver. 31. 'oxiyán icºre, O thou of little faith..] Of the
indications of this little faith, see the note on Matt. vi. 30.
Christ suffered Peter thus to doubt, say interpreters, that
finding by experience the weakness of his faith, he might
by prayer and industry endeavour to increase it, and as-
cribe the whole strength of it to God.
* Wer. 33. 'AM83; Geoû vić; el Truly thou art the Son
of God..] Episcopius here expounds this phrase, Truly thou
art the Messias, or that king to whom God hath given
divine power to help us : for, saith he, it is probable the
apostles then knew nothing of the eternal generation of the
Son of God; and truly it may be, they had no accurate
idea of such an eternal, necessary generation of the Son of
God, as the schools mention; nor do I believe that any of
the unbelieving Jews had such a notion of this phrase ; and
yet we find them accusing our Lord of blasphemy, and
making himself equal with God, by saying that he was the
Son of God. Seeing then our Saviour had given so many
instances of his omnipotence and divine power by multi-
plying loaves and fishes so wonderfully, as none could do
but he who had power to create ; (2) by walking on the
water, and causing the wind instantly to cease ; why might
not the apostles from all these evidences conclude that the
Divinity resided in him 2 Even the Gergesenes seem to have
had some such extraordinary opinion of him, when they be-
lieved their sick should be healed only by touching the hem
of his garment. This, saith Woltzogenius, was an evidence
of their belief of a divine power residing in Christ. Now
where the divine power is, there must be the Divinity, and
where the power of God is, there is God.
17 Wer. 36. And besought him that they might only touch
the hem, &c.] If these were the Gergesenes, who lay on the
other side of the sea of Tiberias, and who formerly desired.
him “to depart out of their coasts” (Matt. viii. 34), their
faith was thus increased with the fame of Christ's miracles.
CHAPTER XV.
1 When Christ had miraculously fed five thou-
sand, and was gone thence to Capernaum, John vi. 17)
Then came to Jesus scribes and pharisees, which were
of Jerusalem, (who, seeing some of Christ’s disciples
eat bread with unwashen hands, found fault, Mark vii.
2), saying, : -
2 * Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of
the elders ? for they wash not their hands when they
eat bread: (whereas the pharisees and all the Jews,
eacept they wash their hands oft, eat not, holding the
tradition of the elders; and when they come from the
market, eacept they wash they eat not; and many other
things there be which they have received to hold, as the
washing of cups, brazen vessels, and of tables, Mark
vii. 3, 4).
3 But he answered, and said unto them, (I have
greater reason to ask) Why do you also (Gr. even ye,
who pretend to so much strictness in observing the com-
mandments of men) transgress the commandments of
God by your tradition ? (as certainly ye do).
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XV.
* Ver. 2. Atari oi (waffntal arou Trapagaivovari Tây trap480&w ºrów
"rged 8vrégov; Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of
the elders ? for they wash not their hands when they eat
bread..] Of this tradition of the elders, let it be noted,
First, That they held it a thing plainly unlawful, and
highly criminal, to eat meat or common bread till they had
washed their hands; hence do the pharisees find fault with
Christ's disciples, and style their hands “unclean,” because
they were not washed (Mark vii. 2). Hence doth the pha-
risee, who invited Christ to dinner, wonder that he washed
not his hands before dinner (Luke xi. 38). For their canon
saith, “Whosoever despiseth the washing of hands is wor-
thy to be excommunicated, he comes to poverty, and will
be extirpated out of the world.” And Buxtorf” citeth from
their Talmud this expression, that “he that eats bread with
unwashen hands, does as bad as if he lay with a whore.”
* In Yoce Twº 1335.
And they say, Rabbi Eliezar Ben Hazar was excommuni-
cated by the Sanhedrin, because he contemned the washing
of hands; and that R. Aquiba being in prison, and not hav-
ing water enough to drink and to wash his hands, chose to do
the latter, saying, “It was better to die with thirst, than
transgress the tradition of the elders.” Note,
Secondly, That this washing of hands before meat was
not required by any written law of God, and so the neglect
of it could not be unlawful by virtue of any divine law, but
only as being a transgression of the tradition of the elders;
hence Christ ranks it among “the traditions of men,” ver, 9.
And Maimonides” saith, that it depended on the words of
the scribes; and it is by Christ, speaking to the pharisees,
called “your tradition,” ver, 3.6, And yet they held it as
a thing necessary, because, say they, + “the words of the
scribes are lovely above the words of the law, and mole
weighty than the words of the law or the prophets.”
Thirdly, They placed a great piece of religion and sanctity
* In Mikvaoth, cap. 11. + Lightfoot in loe.
118
MATTHEW.
4 For "God commanded, saying, Honour thy father |
and thy mother: and (also said, Exod. xxi. 17), He
that curseth father or mother, let him die the death
(showing that the violation of this law deserved death).
5 But “ye (following your own vain traditions) say,
Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is
a gift (let it be no less forbidden to give it to thee, than
to give of a thing devoted to God), by whatsoever thou
mightest be profited by me,
6 And (having said this) honoureth not his father
in washing thus their hands, and looked upon them who
neglected this as men of a defiled soul. Thus Maimonides
saith, “The religious of old did eat their common food in
cleanness, and took care to avoid all uncleanness all their
days, and they were called pharisees ; and this is a matter of
the highest sanctity, and the way of the highest religion,
namely, that a man separate himself and go aside from the
vulgar, and that he neither touch them, nor eat or drink
with them ; for such separation conduceth to the purity of
the body from evil works; the purity of the body conduceth
to the cleansing of the soul from evil affections, and the sanc-
tity of the soul conduceth to the likeness of God.” Hence
they reckon this among the means to obtain eternal life, say-
ing, “Whosoever hath his seat in the land of Israel, and
eateth his common food in cleanness, and speaks the holy
language, and recites his phylacteries morning and evening,
let him be confident that he shall obtain the life of the world
to coine :” and against this our Saviour teacheth, that “to
eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man,” because it de-
fileth not the heart. Thus have you seen how the pharisees
taught these “commandments of men for doctrines,” i. e.
things necessary to be believed and done, and parts of God's
worship ; and so how free the ceremonies of the church of
England must be from this guilt, they being reckoned not as
necessary, but in themselves “things indifferent :” not used
for sanctification, but only for order and decency; not reck-
oned as any parts, but only circumstances of worship (see
Bishop Sanderson's Serm. on Matt. xv. 9).
* Ver. 4. 'O yaº QE3; Érereixaro, Aéyov, Tiga rºy raríga arov was
thy ºntéga arou, Kaić Kaxoxoyāvararégs, &c. For God commanded,
saying, Honour thy father and thy mother ; and he that
curseth father or mother let him die the death.] Here observe,
First, That the commands of Moses are to be received as
the commandments of God ; for what is here “God com-
manded,” is, Mark vii. 10, “Moses commanded.”
Secondly, That to honour parents is not only to reverence
them, but to afford them all the necessaries of this present
life, according to that of the Jerusalem Targum on Deut.
xv. 4, Honorare est viaticum providere, “To honour is to
make provisions for him.” And, according to the Jewish
canons, a son is bound to afford his father meat, drink, and
clothes, “to cover him, to lead him in and out, and to wash
his hands, face, and feet.” And, according to Hierocles,”
he is to “honour them cºcaro; 57rngeaig Kai xenºzárov xoenyia,
with the service of his body and his goods;” and this, saith
he, “justice required him to do readily and bountifully.”
Philo ºf declares that Traičov ièroy oièy 3 p.” yovšov šarty,
“children have nothing which is not their parents’,” as hav-
ing either received it from them, or having received from
them the faculties by which they procure it ; that therefore
they can never recompense them, and are both inhuman and
ungodly if they neglect to succour them ; and that the very
heathens taught the same: and that this is the frequent im-
port of the word tipºn, see note on 1 Tim. v. 3.8.
Thirdly, That which we render “curseth,” is in the Greek
xazoxygiv, to slight, contemn, or set light by, father or mo-
ther. So Ezek. xxii. 7, IIzrégº, Kai pºntéga #xazoNáyovy, “they
set light by father and mother;” and that death should be
the punishment of those who abused their parents is suitable
to the laws of heathens, röy tºpićcyta rāv aircü ratépa º ºs-
ráxely rāy wheta;. “that he who reviled his father should not
live” (Sopater ad Hermogenerm).
* Ver. 5. “rpasſ; 38 Náyers: “O, &y eſtrº rā traºrgi rā (antzi,
Ažgow, 3 #ay #3 #405 &#8Anóñº' But ye say, Whosoever shall
say to his father or mother, It is a gift, by which thou
mayest be profited by me, &c.] This phrase, 33 goy, or corban,
—
* In Carm. Pyth, p. 54,
+ De Decal. p. 586, 587.
and mother, (he doth only that which he ought to do,
pronouncing him not only free from, but obliging him
inot to observe this precept, Mark vii. 12). Thus have
ye made the commandment of God of none effect by
your tradition.
7 Ye “hypocrites, "well did Esaias prophesy of you
(by) saying, (that which, being spoken of the Jews, and
agreeing as much to you of this, as to them of that age,
respecteth as well you as them, viz.)
8 This people draweth nigh to me with their mouth,
doth not import that he who said this had consecrated his
goods to sacred uses, or obliged himself to do so; but only
that he had, according to the doctrine of the scribes, by
vow, obliged himself not to give anything to him to whom
he thus spake ; for 33 gay #zzo, is the same with Twn among
the Jews, which signifies a thing forbidden, and so imports,
it is no less forbidden to give thee anything of this, thall if
it were a corban, or anything consecrated to God. . So Mai-
monides” saith, Sit mihi corban ista massa panis, i. e. “Let
it be as much forbidden as what is consecrated ; let that
mass of bread be to thee a sacred thing.” So that whoso-
ever said, Let it be corban, whereby I may be profitable to
thee; they, by their theology, declared him bound by a vow
not to relieve him to whom he had said thus, though he was
his father, unless they would absolve him from his vow: and
by thus not suffering him to do anything to his needy parents,
by reason of this rash and wicked vow, they “made the com-
mandment of God void,” and suffered them to slight and
despise their parents, by their tradition. Note also, that the
following words running thus, Kai oi kº rºwhan h tºy ratéfa.
aircü, rºy ºn rāga airrot. Kał żºvgºrate rºy #yroxy roi, Ogot,'
the whole perhaps may be thus rendered: “But ye say,
Whosoever shall say to his father or mother, Let it be a gift
by which thou mayest be profited by me, he shall not then
honour his father and his mother ; therefore you make void
the commandment of God by your tradition :” xaï signify-
ing both then and therefore. St. Mark adds, ver, 13, Kai
tragégola troXX& Tolaita roisſºrs, “And many such-like things
do ye.” Thus Philo'ſ speaks of some, so wară pâa w świkrot
kai &xotvöynrot, “unsociable and uncommunicable by nature,
or so transported by anger, that gº tºy dyeiórnºra tria toûvrat
Töv #93, they confirm their inhuman manners by an oath,
saying, that they will not receive such a one to their table,
or under their roof, Tráxty tº Seſvi º Tragééety & pixelay riva,
or that they will afford no help to such a one.” And Dr.
Pocock: saith, they have a canon to this effect, Vota cadere
in res mandati, “That vows reach even to things command-
ed, or take place as well in things required by the law, as
things indifferent: and that a man may be so bound by
them, as that he cannot without great sin do what God had
by his law required to be done. So that if he made a vow,
which laid upon him a necessity to violate God’s law that
he might observe it, his vow must stand, and the law be
abrogated.”
4 Ver. 7. 'ºrrowpital, Ye hypocrites.] Our Lord, here and
elsewhere, calls the pharisees “hypocrites,” not only be-
cause they placed the worship of God, and great sanctity,
and religion, in ceremonies of human invention, and, pre-
tending to a regard to purity and religion, did nothing out
of pure respect to God's glory, but did “all their works to
be seen of men” (Matt. xxiii. 5), and to procure glory from
them (Matt. vi. 2); but also because, being so superstitiously
careful to avoid the outward pollution of the body, by ab-
staining from touching anything that was unclean, and wash-
ing their hands when they thought they might have done it,
and even their “pots, and cups, and beds;” they left that
which was within, viz. their hearts, “full of hypocrisy and
iniquity, uncleanness, extortion, and excess” (Matt. xxiii.
25–27. Luke xi. 39). Only here note, that we must not
be forward, from Christ's example, to pronounce men hypo-
crites, because we have neither that authority nor knowledge
of the heart which he had, to authorize us so to do.
* Kaxó, trpoépátēvae, &c. Well prophesied Esaias of you.}
See note on Mark vii. 6.
* De Cult. Piv. tr. 9, cap. 4, §. 9.
+ De Special. Legib. p. 595, D, E.
: Niiscel. p. 415.
* *******
CHAPT
F. R. XV. l 19
and honoureth me with their lips; but (yet) their
heart is far from me.
9 But in vain they do (think to) worship me, (by)
teaching for doctrines the “commandments of men
(as doctrines necessary to be observed for acceptance
with me). s
10 And (hereupon) he "called the multitude, and
said unto them, Hear (all ye), and understand:
11 Not that which "goeth into the mouth defileth
*...*
* Ver, 9. Mármy 8: a #30, rat as, 38&axovire; 318dakaxia; #y-
ºráAºzara &v68&moy. But in vain do they worship me, teach-
ing for (or as) doctrines the commandments of men.] The
“commandments of men” here are things enjoined by mere
human authority, as is plain from these words of St. Paul,
Col. ii. 21, 22, “Touch not, taste not, handle not, which are
all ÉvráAgata čvšpºnroy, the commandments of men,” though
they come from their chocmim, or “wise men,” though they
be the traditions of the elders or governors of the church
(ver. 2), though they come from those scribes and pharisees
which “sat in the chair of Moses” (Matt. xxiii. 2); yet,
without a divine institution, they are only “the command-
ments of men.” To teach these commandments of men as
“doctrines,” is to enjoin them, or impose them on the con-
sciences of others, as things necessary, or things to be ob-
served for their goodness, as the pharisees did this washing
of hands, counting those sinful and defiled who neglected so
to do ; and as parts of God's worship, for otherwise they
could not strictly and properly be said to “worship God in
vain,” by teaching and observing these things. Seeing then
it is certain that the Romanists have many ecclesiastical
constitutions, in which they place great sanctity, and which
they judge necessary to be observed, and that as parts of
religious worship, which yet are only the traditions of their
elders, or of those who sit in St. Peter's chair, as did the
scribes and pharisees in that of Moses, and which do also
make void the commandments of God, as doth the doctrine
of the worship of images, communion in one kind, and
prayer in an unknown tongue; in vain must they also wor-
ship God, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
7 Ver, 10. Kai ºrpookaxerêgewoc row 3.xxoy And calling the
wnwltitude, he said unto them all, Hear, and understand.]
From these words, spoken to all the multitude, and the
words, Mark vii. 16, spoken to the same persons, “He that
hath ears to hear, let him hear ;” it is evident that in our
Lord's judgment the whole multitude was capable of under-
standing those things which the pharisees did not, and by
which the traditions of the scribes, pharisees, and elders were
overthrown, and that for this nothing more was requisite
than “ears to hear,” or good attention to Christ's sayings.
Moreover, if these things, parabolically spoken, could and
ought to be understood by the multitude, as from this ex-
hortation to the multitude, and the reproof of Christ's dis-
ciples for not apprehending this, is manifest ; much more
must those things which éoncern their duty, and are deli-
vered plainiy, be easy to be understood by them. And from
those words, “they are blind guides,” and “if the blind
lead the blind, they will both fall into the ditch,” it follows,
that sometimes the multitude neither ought, nor can, with-
out their utmost peril, follow the guidance of their ecclesias-
tical Superiors.
* Wer. 11, Où ré Biospyägeoys' rú atága &oivof raw &ySgwroy'
That which goeth into the mouth polluteth not the man, i. e.
by touching him.] i. e. The man is not unclean in God’s
sight because such meat or drink hath touched him, and so
he needed not to be washed from that defilement. If it de-
file at all, it doth it either from the quality, as being by God
forbidden, and so the disobedience ; or from the quantity, and
so the excess defiles. Whence, by the rule of contraries, it
follows, that nothing can sanctify by being touched, which
confounds all worship of relics; and that nothing by enter-
ing into the mouth can make us holy, that is, more pure or
acceptable in the sight of God ; and so the sacramental ele-
nents do not sanctify the body by the touch, but the soul
only, by the due disposition of mind with which we receive
them, because they go not into the heart, they operate not
upon the spirit of man.
Christ himself, whilst he was upon
earth, made many whole, as to their bodies, by touching
a man; (for there is nothing from without a man, that
(by) entering into him can defile him, Mark vii. 15),
but that which (being in the heart) cometh out of the
mouth,'this (I say) defileth a man. (He that hath ears
to hear, let him hear, Mark vii. 16.)
12 Then (he being entered into the house from the
people, Mark vii. 17) came his disciples, and said unto
him, Knowest thou that the pharisees were *offended,
after they heard this saying :
them ; and many, by virtue of their faith, were healed by
touching him ; but we read of none whose minds or hearts
were sanctified only by touching of his sacred body. Cere-
monial and Judaical sanctity sometimes required freedom
from touching a polluted body ; botórn; rā; &Anógiac, Chris-
tian holisess is the work only of the Spirit, and consists
wholly in the renewal of the mind, and of the bent and in-
clinations of the heart, and so ariseth not from the corpo-
real, but the spiritual manducation of the sacred elements;
and were it otherwise, why would not the sacrament sanctify
as well by being received into the hand, or laid upon the
breast, as by being put into the mouth 2 or why should it
more sanctify the heart it comes not to, than the draught
! through which, even by the confession of the Romanists,”
it sometimes goes, as in case of a lientery 3 This doctrine is
expressly taught by Origen + in these words, Tó &ytačºvoy
313 Aéyov Osó kai Évrećew, oi rô ièio, Aéyº &yáićs, röy Xp2%avoy,
“That which is sanctified by the word of God and prayer,
sanctifies not him that useth it on its own account, for then
it would sanctify him that receives it unworthily ;” nor
would any upon that account be “sick, weak, or fall asleep,”
as St. Paul saith some did (1 Cor. xi. 30). Kai Éiri ºrcí Šprov
Toivuy roi, Kvetov h &q=Asia rú Xéopºvº ariv, Štråy &ºtavré tº
yó wai zašapá rà avyčiša's ºxera Aap.8ável toº &ptov and so
“in the receiving the Lord's body, the profit ariseth by re-
ceiving the bread with a mind undefiled and a pure consci-
ence; zai ºrd áytaçáºwevow 68%a 31& Aáyov Ogot, Hai Évrećews,
×at' air ºw#v tº ÜNikāy ei, tºy koixiay Xopeſ, zai się & psºgºva #4-
84xxerat, and so the meat sanctified by the word of God
and prayer, according to its material part, goes into the belly,
and is cast out into the draught.” And here it is to be won-
dered that the learned Huetius f should say, this is to be
understood de Solis speciebus sive accidentibus, “only of the
accidents inhering in the substance of the bread,” for if the
substance of the bread remains after consecration, then tran-
substantiation is by him denied ; if it be annihilated, how
can the accidents inhere in that which is not P Moreover,
can the mere accidents be truly 386.pca, meat 2 Are they the
“bread consecrated by the word and prayer,” or that which
may be eaten “unworthily?” Are they WAn Toi, Herov, “the
substance of the bread,” or a gºa rv7rizöy wai avtzéoxikov,
“Christ's typical body ?” Let Huetius show one instance
from primitive antiquity where mere accidents are so called,
or confess he wrests these words to a sense of which Origen
never thought.
* Wer. 12. of pagia affo ákoča'avts; roy Aéyov ša way8axia Sna'ay:
The pharisees hearing this word were scandalized.] i. e.
They were induced by it, not to reject their own, but Christ's
doctrine, and to deny him to be the true Messiah ; and this
scandal seems to have had its rise from a false opinion which
obtained among them, that the meats forbidden them by the
law of Moses were therefore forbidden, because, as Maimo-
nides $.saith, alimentum habent vitiosum, “ they yield a vi-
cious or corrupt mourishment ;” or, as Josephus || Saith,
“because the things they were permitted to eat, were rà ºfty
oixBioSnačkaya hºwāy raſ, Juxaſ, accommodated to, or conve-
nient for, their souls; but the things forbidden were rà évay-
tioSmoºtya, contrary to them ;” and they by eating them
* Siob aliquem morpum species descenderet in ventrem,
consequentër et ipsum corpus descenderet, et emitteretur;
pudor enim non debet esse in causa negandi veritatem. Soto
in 4 Sent. Dis. 12, qu. 1, art. 3. Paludan... in 4 Sent. Dis.
9, qu. 1, art. 2.
# In Mat. tom. xi. apud Huet. p. 253, E. 254, A, B, C
:: Origeniana, lib. ii. qu. 14, p. 178.
§ More Nevoc. lib. iii. cap. 48.
| Lib. de Maccab. cap. 5.
&
120
MATTHEW.
13 But he answered and said, "Every plant (Gr.
nursery of plants) which my heavenly Father hath
not planted, shall be rooted up (these blind guides,
and usurpers of that authority over men’s conscience,
which they have not received from God, shall by him be
rooted out). - •
14 *Let them (therefore) alone (to the divine judg-
ment, for) they be blind leaders of the blind. . And if
the blind lead the blind, both shall (at last) fall into
the ditch. e
15 Then answered Peter (and by him the disciples,
Mark vii. 17), and said unto him, Declare to us (the
meaning of) this parable.
16 And Jesus said, *Are ye also yet without un-
derstanding *
17 Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever en-
tereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast
out into the draught 2 (and so cannot defile the man, be-
cause it entereth not into the heart, to raise up evil mo-
; there, or it affects not the mind, Mark vii. 18,
19.
18 But those things which “proceed out of the
did ºctapo payeſ, “eat that which defiled the soul:” they
therefore were scandalized at our Saviour's doctrine, because
they judged it contrary to the law (see the note on Matt.
xviii. 6).
* Wer. 13. But he answered and said, IIāºra purifa,
Every (nursery of) plant (s) which my Father hath not
planted, shall be rooted out..] That is, saith Theophylact,
T&; rāy ºrped'Évrépov tragašárgic, zai rā 'Iow8áſza #vráxpeara
Aśyet #xétéo,3āvas, “He speaks of the extirpation of the tra-
ditions of the elders, and of the judicial precepts;” and
this is certainly true of those commandments of men : but
the context inclines us to interpret this of the hypocritical
sect of the pharisees, for they are the persons “scandalized,”
yer. 12, and the “blind guides,” ver. 14, and therefore are
in likelihood the pursia, or plantation, mentioned in this
verse. For though I find them in the chair of Moses (Matt.
xxiii. 2), I find not that they had any divine commission to
be teachers of the people ; though what they or any man
truly taught from Moses was to be observed. Our Saviour
seems rather to compare them to “thieves or robbers,”
John x. 1 (see the note there). And whatever might be
their first institution, they were so degenerated from it into
blind and pernicious guides, as not to be of God's planting,
and therefore to be rooted out.
JEvery plant which my Father hath not planted shall be
Tooted out..] Hence some infer, saith Jerome, that the plant
which God hath planted cannot be rooted up : but let them
hear, saith he, the words of the prophet, speaking thus in
the name of God (Jer. ii. 21); “I had planted thee a true
vine: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of
a strange wine? Plantavit quidem Deus, et memo potest
eradicare plantationem ejus, sed quoniam ista plantatio in
voluntate proprii arbitrii est, nullus alius eam eradicare pote-
rit, nisi ipsa praebuerit assensum : God plants, and no other
man can root up his plantation ; but this plantation being
in the free will of man, he himself can do it.”
Dr. Mills, in this chapter, rejects the text in four places,
without just ground, and against plain evidence for the
reading of the text ; v. g. in those words, ver.4, rig, a row
Tarápa arov, he saith, arov is wanting in many MSS., in Ire-
naeus, and Chrysostom ; but it is in Origen, on Matt. p. 244,
and in Theophylact, in the Syriac, and Arabic: and though
it be wanting in the Latin Irenaeus, as being not in the Wul-
gar, yet Chrysostom saith expressly there, riºt, yāp, phºt,
rôy traréga arov, and the words following, Ka? º Tipchan rêv
Traºrépa aircü, show that aroš is to be retained ; nor can the
words bind us to honour any other father save our own. 2.
Whereas, ver. 8, the text saith, iyyiće pºol 3 Aa3; diro; rà
aríaar airāv, Kai roſ; xsiasa'i as tº the genuine reading,
saith the Doctor, both here and in Isaiah, Cod. Alex. and
March. is this, 3 Aa3; otto: Xsiasa'i as ripºğ. But Origen,”
after all his labours about the Septuagint, knew of no such
-T-
* P. 24.
mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the
man (in the sight of that God, who loveth purity in
the inward parts). *
19 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts (or
reasonings), murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts,
false witness, blasphemies (covetousness, wickedness,
deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, pride, foolishness,
Mark vii. 22). *
20 These are the things which defile a man; but to
eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man.
21 Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the
coasts of Tyre and Sidon; (and he entered into a house,
and would have no man know it, but he could not be
hid from them, Mark vii. 24).
22 **And, behold, a woman of Canaan (whose young.
daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him, and)
came out of the same coasts, (and fell at his feet,
Mark vii. 25), and cried unto him, saying, Haye
mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daugh-
ter is grievously vexed with a devil (I beseech thee cast
him forth).
23 But he answered her not a word. And his dis-
reading, either here or in Isaiah ; for in his commentary on
these words of St. Matthew, he teacheth, that our Lord
being willing to destroy all the traditions of the pharisees
by a testimony from the prophets, Aérov tragéºerº ºró, &md.
Toj 'Iaraiov Šomsø airrat; Aééeaty cirw; #xei, Kai sire & Köpios,
iyyić's woi & Aa3; CŞro, #y tº a rāgariatröv, xai Tà éé?," “he
produces a passage spoken by Isaiah which occurs there in
these very words, yyi's ºot,” &c. And indeed these words
are found there, both in the Hebrew and the Septuagint ;
and so our Saviour here producing them from thence thus,
“Well said Isaiah, prophesying of you, Xiyoy, saying.”
doubtless produced his words as he found them there.
on these words, ver, 26, oix ari waxår kaº, saith he, is
added to the text; and yet it is found in Chrysostom, St.
Jerome, Theophylact, the Vulgar, Syriac, and Arabic. 4.
Ver, 30, he rejects xopoiº, and ver, 31, xvXXoic ixičić, as ad-
ditions to the text, against the evidence of the words: for if
zotov, were not in the thirtieth verse, how comes zoºpov; Aa-
xºra, into ver. 312 and if avaMotº be the true reading, wer.
30, waxoi, tyieſ, must answer to it, ver, 31.
in Ver. 14. "Aqsta aºroic, Let them alone..] Regard not
what they say or do against me or my doctrine, seeing they
say and do it out of the blindness of their minds. Hence
observe, *
First, That the scandal of wicked and perverse men is
only to be avoided, as that we do not cease to do our duty,
or as to refuse their pernicious doctrines and destructive
COll!'S08.
Secondly, That sometimes the vulgar are obliged not to
believe or comply with the rules of their ecclesiastical supe-
riors; because it is their duty never to follow them “into
the ditch.”
12 Ver. 16. ’Azºv kai tº &riveroí šare ; Are ye also
still without understanding 3) That therefore this parable
was not understood by them, must be ascribed not to the
obscurity of it, but to the prejudices and slowness of under;
standing that were in his disciples.
13 Ver. 18. Tà è #xtrogºvákºva–#4 rºc wagèia, wolvoſ ºv dy-
Georo, But the things that come—out of the heart, they de-
file the man.] See note on Mark vii. 20, 21.
14 Wer. 22. Kai i80i), yuyń Kayavaia' And, behold, a woman
of Canaan; Mark vii. 26, yuvi, “Exxovic zał Żurºpolytaea, a
gentile Syrophænician.] The same person, who is called
* one of Canaan” in the Hebrew, is in the Septuagint “a
Phoenician.” So Exod. vi. 15, we read of “Shaul the son
of a Canaanitish woman ;” LXX. Xaoix & #4 rā; botviaan'
Gen. xlvi. 10, rº, Kayavirişo; Exod. xvi. 35, “they came
unto the borders of the land of Canaan;” LXX. Ei, ºgo;
r; cowtºn, Josh. v. 12, they did eat of the fruit “of the
land of Canaan,” #xaprioravro è tºy x&gay rāg ©owizng. Now
seeing Pliny” doth inform us, Syria circumfundi Phoenicºm,
that “Phoenicia is comprehended in Syria,” the Phoenician
* Lib. v. cap. 12.
CHAPTER XVI
121
ciples came and besought him, saying, (Grant her re-
quest, and so) send her away; for she (still) crieth
after us. *
24 But he answered and said (to them), "I am not
sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (to
preach to, and work miracles first among them.)
25 Then came she (the second time) and worshipped
him, saying, Lord, help me.
26 But he answered and said, (to her, Let the
children first be filled, Mark vii. 27, for) *it is
not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it
to dogs.
27 And she said, "Truth (Gr. I beseech thee), Lord:
yet (kai yap for even) the dogs eat of the crumbs which
fall from their master’s table (or of the children’s
crumbs, Mark vii. 28).
28 Then Jesus answered and said unto her, Owo-
man, “great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou
wilt, (the devil is gone out of thy daughter; and when
she was come to her house, she found it so, Mark vii. 29,
30). And her daughter was made whole from that
very hour.
29 And Jesus departed from thence, and came nigh
to the sea of Galilee; and went up into a mountain,
and sat down there.
30 And great multitudes came unto him, having
with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed,
and many others, and cast them down at the feet of
Jesus; and he healed them :
31 Insomuch that the multitude wondered, when
woman must be a Syrophoenician woman ; and Phoenicia
being also Canaan (Bochart. Phaleg. lib. iv. cap. 34. 36),
she must be a Canaanitish woman (see the note of Dr. Ham-
mond here).
* Ver. 24. Otx &nearáXmy’ I was not sent but to the lost
sheep of the house of Israel.] By the “lost sheep of Is-
rael,” we are to understand the whole nation of the Jews,
who being as sheep dispersed, having no shepherd, are there-
fore called “lost sheep,” Matt. ix. 36. x. 6. To them the
Messias was first promised, to them he first came (John i.
11). He is styled “a minister of the circumcision,” Rom.
xv. 8, and was first to be preached to the Jews (Acts xiii.
46).
* Wer. 26. It is not meet to take the children’s bread,
zai 3axeſy ºrdſ, Kuyopiois, and to cast it to dogs.] He calls them
dogs, saith Theophylact, 31& row, Svikov; 34.49 agrow £ioy #xely,
“because the gentiles led an impure life, and were conver-
sant about the blood of things offered to idols;” or perhaps
he doth so far comply with the language of the Jews, as to
call this woman “dog,” because he is here representing of a
Jew, or a pharisee: (1.) not vouchsafing her one word of
answer; because they thought such persons wholly neglected
by God, and unworthy to be regarded by them : and (2.)
calling her “dog,” according to the common saying of the
Jews, that “the nations of the world were likened to dogs,”
whereas they were “God’s sons and daughters” (see the
note on Luke xv. 1, 2, and on Phil. iii. 2).
*7 Ver. 27. ‘H 3: elms, Naï Kögte. But she said, I beseech
thee, Lord.] The word wai as the Hebrew R2, imports be-
they saw the dumb to speak, the maimed to be whole,
the lame to walk, and the blind to sec: and they
glorified the God of Israel.
32 Then (the multitude being very great, and having
nothing to eat, Mark viii. 1) Jesus called his disciples
to him, and said, I have compassion on the multitude,
because they continue with me now three days, and
have nothing to eat; and I will not send them away
fasting, lest they faint in the way, (for some of then
came from far, Mark viii. 3).
33 And his disciples say unto him, Whence should
we have so much bread in the wilderness, as to fill so
great a multitude : g
34 And Jesus said unto them, How many loaves
have you? and they said, Seven, and a few little fishes.
35 And he commanded the multitude to sit down
on the ground.
36 And he took the seven loaves and the fishes, and
gave thanks (to God for them), and brake them, and
#. to his disciples, and the disciples to the multi-
tude.
37 And they did all eat, and were filled; and they
took up of the broken meat that was left seven baskets
38 And they that did eat were four thousand men,
beside women and children.
39 And he sent away the multitude, and took ship,
and came into the "coasts of Magdala (or Dalmanu-
tha, Mark viii. 10, which was within the bounds of
Magdala).
seeching ; as they say, “may is not put, but in the way of
petition : ” so Gen. xviii. 30. 32, “I pray thee, let not my
Lord be angry ;” Gen. xix. 7, R) ºr “I pray you, brethren,
do not so wickedly ; ” Numb. xii. 13, nº xx RB- N2, “I pray
thee, heal her ; Philem. 20, vai &AEAq's, “I pray thee, bro-
ther:” so also is it used in profane authors: so Aristo-
phanes,” vai Trgo; rāv 9.83W “I pray thee, by the gods; ” so
Euripides, vai ºrg?: căç rº; 38%ia, stoxévov, “I pray thee, by
that fair right hand.”
* Ver. 28. MeyáAn arov h triºtic Great is thy faith.]
That having no promise to rely upon, and suffering so
many repulses with such seeming contempt, thou still re-
tainest a good hope of my kindness and mercy, great is thy
faith. The faith of those who firmly rely upon God's pro-
mise, and are not by great temptations and afflictions moved
from their confidence, is praiseworthy ; but highly excellent
is their faith, who, depending only on his goodness, do place
an humble confidence in God: whence we may learn, that
the faith of gentiles is not only pleasing to God, but some-
times more excellent than that of those to whom the pro-
mises belong ; viz. When upon a lesser motive it brings forth
equal fruits.
* Ver. 39. Kai #x3ey eiç rā. Śela Mayèax3. He came into
the coasts of Magdala.] Mark viii. 10, “into the parts of
Dalmanutha,” which was, saith Dr. Lightfoot, a particular
place within the bounds of Magdala (Chorograph. Decad.
on Mark v.).
* Num. act. 2, § 1, p. 167.
# Hip. W. 605.
CHAPTER XVI.
1 THE pharisees also with the sadducees came
(Gr. and the pharisees and sadducees coming), and
itempting (him) desired him that (Gr. they tempting
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVI.
* Wer. 1. IIsigá&yrs; airy, Tempting him.] i. e. Making
trial whether he was able to do this, or not ; or doubting
whether he could show such a sign as the Son of man, ac-
cording to Daniel, was to do (see the note on Matt. iv. 7.
xii. 38). And because they came to him with an appear-
him, desired that) he would shew them a sign from
heaven. - * e sº
2 He answered and (Gr. but he answering) said
ance of their willingness to be convinced that he was the
Messiah, could they see proofs sufficient of it ; whereas
they had already resisted the clearest evidence that he was
the Christ, and so indeed came not to be convinced that he
was so, but hoping he would fail in the attempt, and so ap-
pear not to be so, therefore Christ calls them both “hypo-
crites.” - #
122
MATTHEW.
unto them, When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair
weather; for the sky is red (and bright without
clouds) . -
3 And in the morning (ye say), It will be foul
weather to-day : for the sky is red and lowering (the
clouds obstructing the brightness of the sun). O ye
hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky (have
skill enough to discern what kind of weather it is like
to be, by what at present ye observe in the colour of the
sky); but canye not discern (can ye not then discern)
*the signs of the times? (Can you not discern from
the heavenly doctrine which I preach, and the mighty
miracles by which I confirm it, the sign of the Son of
man coming among you ? It is a sure sign of your hy-
pocrisy, that after all this, you are still doubting of it,
and requiring farther signs to confirm this. I therefore
say to you, not without grief of spirit for your unbe-
lief, Mark viii. 12, that)
4. A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after
a sign; and there shall no (farther) sign be given to
it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas (for as his being
preserved three days in the whale’s belly, and then cast
out safe on the dry land, was a sign of his being a true
prophet, sent to preach to Nineveh, and call them to re-
pentance ; so my being buried three days in the earth,
and then rising up thence, shall be to you a sign that I
am also a prophet, sent from God to call you to repent-
ance). And (having said this) he left them, and (going
in a ship to the other side of the sea, Mark viii. 13, he)
departed (from them).
5 And when his disciples were come (to him) to
the other side, they had forgotten to take bread (hav-
ing but one loaf with them in the ship, Mark viii. 14).
6 Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed, and *be-
* Ver. 3. 2nºſa rāv ×aigöy. The signs of the times.]
That is, say Grotius and the Syriac, the signs of these times;
but this seems needless, ci zapoi, the times or seasons, both
in the Old and New Testament, signifying set times and sea-
sons, appointed by God ; and those were either ordinary
and stated times, as when the luminaries of heaven are
said to be appointed eig anºsſa zai kaizoic, “for signs and for
seasons” (Gen. i. 14. Ps. civ. 19), and God is said to have
given to the heathens, trgoverayºivov; wagovº, “the seasons
appointed” from the beginning of the world (Acts xvii.
26); or extraordinary seasons, in which God had determined
to visit his people, either in mercy or in judgment ; so zai-
pêc and wago; Trézac, “time” and “the period of time,” are
often used in Daniel, vii. 22. viii. 19. xi. 27. 29. In the
New Testament, Christ is thus said to come “in the fulness
of time,” and “in the dispensation roi, ranpäuaro; rºw zai-
påy, of the fulness of times" (Eph. i. 10); and at his ad-
vent the phrase runs thus, retrahedral 3 wate&c, “the time is
fulfilled ” (Mark i. 15): so when Christ's apostles ask,
“Wilt thou now restore the kingdom to Israeſ?” Christ
answers, “It is not for you to know X;évov; ; Katpot's, the
times or seasons” (Acts i. 17). In this sense the apostle
saith to the Thessalonians, It is not needful to write to you
ºf rāy xzévoy Kai kalºv, “of the times and seasons” (1
Thess. v. 1); in this sense it is said of Christ's signal coming
to destroy Jerusalem, & Katº, “the time is near " (Luke
xxi. 8. 24). Now all such seasons had their prognostics,
which are here styled “the signs of the times.” ^
Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but
can ye not discern the signs of the times?] Here Jerome
again Saith, Hoc in plerisque codicibus non habetur; whereas
though the word “hypocrites” be wanting in Chrysostom
and the Vulgar, and some versions, yet the sentence is in all
the Greek scholiasts, and in all the versions; so little rea-
son have we to depend upon his testimony here. More-
over, the word “hypocrites" is in Theophylact, the Syriac,
and Arabic, and in the parallel place, Luke xii. 56, and so
was certainly the word used by Christ, since otherwise St.
Luke must have added to his words.
* Ver. 6. IIporáxers &ré rā; &n; rāv paptoratov was caë-
$ovzafoy Beware of the leaven of the pharisees and of
ware of the leaven of the pharisees and of the saddu-
cees (i.e. of their doctrines and manners, which swell
and sour its disciples, as leaven doth the bread with
which it is mia!ed).
7 And they reasoned among themselves, saying,
(He speaks thus to us) because we have taken no
bread with us.
8 Which when Jesus perceived, he said unto them,
O ye of little faith, why reason ye (thus) among your-
selves (as if ye were like to famish), because ye have
brought no bread (and are bid to beware of the leaven
of the pharisees) 8
9 Do ye not understand (nor consider), neither re-
member the five loaves (which fed the number) of five
thousand, and how many baskets ye took up (even
twelve) 8
10 Neither the seven loaves (which fed the number)
of four thousand, and how many baskets ye took up?
(even seven ; have you your hearts yet hardened 8 hav-
ing eyes, see ye not P and having ears, hear ye not *
Mark viii. 17, 18, If it be otherwise)
11 How is it that ye do not understand that I
spake not (this) to you concerning bread, that ye
should beware of the leaven of the pharisees and of
the sadducees 2 (as knowing by these instances, I can-
not be unable to provide bread for myself and you, and
therefore could not upon that account speak of bread.)
12 Then understood they how that he bade them
not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doc-
trine of the pharisees and of the sadducees.
13 When Jesus came (with his disciples, Mark viii.
27) into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his
disciples (being alone with them, Luke ix. 18), say-
ing, “Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?
the sadducees.] Mark viii. 15, “And of Herod” (see the
note there). This leaven is, ver, 12, interpreted to be the
doctrine of those sects, as 3.3axi imports both doctrines to
be believed, and traditions or ordinances to be received from
them ; and so it is a caution to avoid the precepts of those
men who place the sum of their religion and worship in
outward performances, which avail nothing to the sanctifica-
tion of the soul: and such were the traditions of the scribes
and pharisees ; and also such doctrines as tended to subvert
religion, by cutting off all hopes of future blessings after this
life, and turning the kingdom of God into an earthly and
a worldly kingdom, as did the doctrines of the Sadducees.
Dr. Lightfoot saith, that leaven in the notion of the Jews
did seldom signify doctrines, but generally affections, and
pravity of heart, which signification also it generally bears
in scripture; sometimes relating to hypocrisy, as in a like
place, Luke xii. 1, “Beware of the leaven of the pharisees,
which is hypocrisy ; ” and sometimes to “the leaven of ma-
lice and wickedness,” opposed to sincerity and truth (1 Cor.
v. 8). This being fitly compared to leaven, because it puff.
eth up our spirits, and sours our tempers (see note on 1
Cor. v. 8).
* Ver. 13. Tiva as Aéyovaty of 3,0307 or ºval rôy vićy roſ,
3yśgórow ; Whom do men say that I the Son of man am 3)
Some look upon these words, rºy vičy roi; &ySpºrov, “the Son
of man,” as a gloss crept into the text, but it is read by Ire-
naeus, lib. iii. 20, by Epiphanius, by Chrysostom, St. Jerome,
Theophylact, and all the versions, and therefore it is unrea-
sonably questioned ; others look upon these words as of no
special signification, because not mentioned by St. Mark or
Luke, the first saying only, “Whom do men say?” (viii. 27)
the other, “Whom do the people say that I am? (ix. 18.)
As if I should say, the words “given,” Luke xiv. 19, or
“broken,” 1 Cor. xi. 23, 24, were of no special significa-
tion, because they are not mentioned by the evangelists St.
Matthew and St. Mark (Matt. xxvi. 26. Mark xiv. 22).
Dr. Lightfoot's conjecture is, that Christ here inquires not
barely whether the people thought him the Christ, but
what kind of person they thought him to be, the Jews then
doubting of his original, who was to be the Messiah, and
whether he was to come from the living or the dead. And
CHAPTER XVI.
123
14, And they said, Some say that thou art "John
the Baptist (risen from the dead) ; some, (that thou
art) Elias (the forerunner of the Messiah); and
others, (that thou art) Jeremias, or one of the pro-
phets (they thinking none alive holy enough to be a pro-
phet sent from God).
15 He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I
am
16 And Simon Peter answered and said, "Thou art
the Christ, the Son of the living God.
17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed
evident it is, that the word riya often relates to the quality.
So John viii. 53, riva, “whom makest thou thyself?” 1
Sam. xvii. 55, ºn in the son of what kind of person is this
youth P and thus it may retain its usual import.
* Ver. 14. Oi wiy 'Ioãwny rôy Barriºtny, &xxoi 33 'HAtay,
*repot 3: 'Isp;&lay, &c. Some John the Baptist; others, Elias;
others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.] Perhaps they
who held Christ to be Elias, did not think him the promised
Messiah, but only his forerunner ; this being the received
opinion of the whole nation, that Elias was to come before
the Messiah, and to anoint him when he came. They who
thought he was “John the Baptist risen from the dead,”
speak suitably to the opinion of the pharisees, who, saith
Josephus,” held there was for good men, Éadrºn roſ. &vagiojº,
“an easy return to life again : ” that he was “Jeremias, or
one of the prophets,” was the consequent of an opinion that
prevailed in that nation, that the Messias was to come, “not
from the living, but from the dead,” they thinking none of
that age of piety sufficient to bear him, and thinking that the
resurrection was to begin with his kingdom, might easily be
induced to think he should be one that should rise from the
dead. And then God having said peculiarly of Jeremiah,
“Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, and before
thou camest out of the womb I sanctified and ordained
thee a prophet to the nations,” i. 5, and ver. 10, “See, I
have set thee over the nations, and over the kingdoms, to
root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw
down, to plant, and to build ;” and this being, in their opi-
nion, the great business of the king Messiah, to pull down
all the nations that ruled over them, and make them tribu-
taries and servants to the Jews; for this cause might they
pitch on him as the fittest person to be their Messiah. And
then in these words, I see no footsteps of a metempsychosis,
but only of a resurrection, according to those words of St.
Luke (ix. 19), “Others say, that one of the old prophets
was risen again.”
"Ver. 16. 2% ºf 3 Xriatic, 3 viñº roi; Geoû &vros, Thou art
the Christ, the Son of the living God.] Here let it be
noted,
First, That what Peter here professeth, was before the
faith, and the acknowledgment of all Christ's disciples; for
they coming out of the ship, said, 3x003, Geoš vič, si, “Truly
thou art the Son of God” (Matt. xiv. 33). And therefore
Peter himself saith of them, as well as of himself, “We
know and have believed that thou art that Christ, the Son
of the living God” (John vi. 69).
Secondly, But whereas some conclude, that these words,
“the Son of the living God,” signify nothing more than the
Messiah ; because St. Mark relates the answer of Peter
thus, “Thou art the Christ of God; " and what in St. Mat-
thew (xxvi. 63) runs thus, “Art thou the Christ, the Son
of the living God P” is in St. Luke (xxii. 67), “Art thou
the Christ P” I own that hence it may be gathered, that he
that was the Christ, was also the Son of God ; but yet I
think there is this difference betwixt the two phrases, that
the one respects his office, the other his original; though
perhaps neither Nathanael (John i. 50), nor the other Jews,
nor the apostles, used it in that sublime sense in which the
Christians did afterward take it.
, * Ver. 17. 23% zai aiwa oix &rekáxus! # got. Flesh and
blood hath not revealed this to thee, but my Father which is
in heaven.] That flesh and blood, both in the scripture and
the Jewish writers, constantly signifies man, as being com-
pounded of flesh and blood, see the note on Gal. i. 16. So
that the import of the words is this, What others say of me,
* Antiq, lib, xviii, cap, 2
art thou, Simon Bar (Heb. the son of) Joma: for
"flesh and blood hath not revealed it (this) unto thee,
but my Father which is in heaven (this faith thou
couldest not learn from the testimony of man, but only
jrom divine testimony, that of my doctrine, and my mi-
Tacles, which the Father that is in me enables me to
teach and do).
18 And (as a suitable return to this confession), I
say also unto thee, That thou art (by name) *Peter
(that is, a rock), and upon (thee who art) this rock I
will build my church (laying the first foundation of it
* -- *---
thou hast learnt from men, but this faith thou hast professed
concerning me, though it required in thee an attention, or a
due consideration of, and an assent to the proofs given of it,
yet these proofs being the doctrine taught from God, and the
miracles wrought in confirmation of it being wrought by the
finger of God, the faith itself must be acknowledged to be
the result, not of human industry or wisdom, but of divine
revelation ; and in learning of it thou must be said to be
6803ièawroc, “taught of God ;” the doctrine believed being
the words of God, and the miracles which confirm it being
wrought by the power of God. They who carry this higher,
and say that Peter had a peculiar revelation of this matter,
not vouchsafed to any others, and that without this he could
not have owned and embraced Christ as the Son of God,
must not only suppose the like special revelation given to
Nathanael, contrary to our Lord’s own words (John i. 50),
“Because I said, I saw thee under the fig-tree, believest
thou ?” and to the centurion, who, “seeing the earthquake,
and the things which were done?” when Jesus gave up the
ghost, said, “Truly this was the Son of God” (Matt. xxvii.
54), and to all others who had the same faith; but must ex-
cuse all those Jews who did not believe this, it being not in
their power to do so, for want of this peculiar revelation ;
whereas our Saviour still appeals to the works that he had
done among them, as to sufficient testimonies that he was
“the Christ, the Son of God” (John v. 36, 37. viii. 18. x.
25.38. xiv. 11); and also saith, “Except ye believe that I
am he, ye shall die in your sins” (John viii. 24).
* Ver. 18. Kºyo, 33 aroi Aiyo, Sr. at si IIárgo; And I say
wnto thee, Thow art Peter.] Here note,
That in these words, our Lord doth speak not in the ge-
neral to his apostles, but in particular to Peter ; and that
that promise was made particularly to him, seems evident
from these considerations;
First, That the text informs, that Simon Peter, “Simon
the son of Jona,” made that confession, which gave occasion
to these words, and that our Lord slºgy airó, “did answer
him " as followeth : as if he should have said, “As thou
Peter hast said of me, that I am Christ, so Say I now of
thee, that thou art Peter ;” if therefore of the rest of the
apostles it cannot properly be said, “thou art Peter,” much
less that they were “sons of Jona,” our Lord must speak
only to him who properly was so : and if the text saith ex-
pressly, that our Lord spake to him, and doth not mention
any others that were spoken to, it is a plain addition to the
text to say, that our Lord equally did speak to others. More-
over, when our Lord put the question to them all, “Whom
do men say that I am?” and they in general replied, “Some
thought that he was John the Baptist, some said he was
Elias, some Jeremias, or one of the prophets;” our Lord
inquires farther, tºeſ, 33, “Whom do you apostles Say I
am P” Now to this question, had they continued all to an-
swer, as some imagine they in the person of St. Peter did ;
why is it not said as before, of 33 ſtroy, “they said,” but only
St. Peter answered? Why doth not Christ continue, as be-
fore, to speak to them in the plural number, but so pecul-
Jiarly direct his speech to the “son of Jona 2" -
Secondly, Moreover, that Christ here promised to build
his church upon St. Peter, seems farther evident ; because
these words contain a manifest allusion to the name of Peter,
and to that Syriac name of Cephas, which our Lord had
given him, both which do signify a rock or stone ; as if our
Lord had said, Thou art by name a rock, and suitable to
that name shall be thy work and office; for upon thee, i. e.
upon thy preaching, as upon a rock, shall the foundation of
my church be laid : now the whole grace of this allusion is
entirely lost, unless we do expound this passage of St.
Peter's person, and not of his confession, or the object of it.
124
MAT THEW.
¥
upon thy preaching to the Jews, Acts ii. 41.47, and to
the gentiles, Acts x. 5. 44. 48. xv. 7); and the "gates
of hell (i. e. death itself) shall not prevail against it
As therefore when God said to Abraham, “Thy name shall
be called Abraham ; for a father of many nations have I
made thee” (Gen. xvii. 5): and to Jacob, “Thy name
shall be called Israel: for as a prince thou hast prevailed
with God and men” (Gen. xxxii. 28); the following words
are still the reason of the name: so may it rationally be con-
ceived, that when Christ said to the son of Jona, “Thou art
Peter,” the following words which are joined to them with
a conjunction copulative, “and on this rock will I build my
church” contain the reason of that appellation.
Thirdly, The demonstrative article this, contained in the
words “this rock,” doth plainly intimate, that our Lord pro-
mised to build his church upon that rock he had now men-
tioned ; now of what rock did he make mention in any other
words than the foregoing? “Thou art Peter;” i. e. thy name
doth signify a rock.
Fourthly, It cannot rationally be doubted but that our
Lord intended to say something singular to Peter, as the re-
ward of his so singular confession, if we consider either the
words proceeding, “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona ; for
flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee:” or the
immediate preface of them, kºiyê šá cot Aéyw, “And I do
also say to thee, That thou art Peter;” but had Christ
spoken not of St. Peter, whom he had formerly called
Cephas, when he made mention of the rock on which he did
intend to build his church, but either of himself or the con-
fession of St. Peter, he had said nothing singular concern-
ing this apostle; Christ's building of his church upon him-
self, or on this truth, that he was the Messiah, or the Son of
God, being no singular reward of Peter.
Lastly, When our Lord adds in the ensuing words, “And
I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven;” i. e.
I will cause thee first to open the kingdom of heaven by
preaching to the Jews and gentiles, and laying the founda-
tion of a church among them ; it is evident by the connex-
ion of the words he speaks to Peter. When therefore he
had said in the foregoing words, “Upon this rock I will
build my church,” why should we not conceive he speaks of
the same person 2 But then also let it be noted, that by this
explication of the words which I contend for, all the pre-
tences of the pope of Rome, to be successor of St. Peter, are
not established, but most effectually overthrown ; as will be
evident, if we consider the promise, that our Lord would
build his church upon him, and how that promise was fulfilled.
First, then, Observe that our Lord speaks here of his
church, not as a thing in present being, or as a building
now erected, but as hereafter to be raised, and therefore
doth not say, oixobowº, “I build” at present, but oixoSoºhoo,
upon this rock “I will” hereafter “build my church,” the
Christian church commencing after our Saviour's resurrec-
tion and ascension ; of such a church to be hereafter founded
by St. Peter's preaching to the Jew and gentile, and the
baptizing of men converted by his preaching, our Lord
here plainly speaketh in this text. If then the pope would
be St. Peter's successor in this affair, he must not sit at
Rome lording it over God's heritage, but must in person go
to the unbelieving Jews and heathen world, as Peter did,
and labour by his preaching to convert the Turk, the J ew,
the infidel ; and when he had so done, and settled Christian
churches there among them, he may then have a better
title to be St. Peter's successor than now he hath.
Secondly, Observe this promise punctually was fulfilled,
by our Lord's using St. Peter's ministry, in laying the foun.
dation of a Christian church among the Jews and gentiles,
and in his being the first preacher to them of that faith
which he doth here confess, and making the first proselytes
to it: we therefore, suitably to this promise, find that Peter
laid the first foundations of a church among the Jews, by
the conversion of three thousand souls (Acts. ii. 41), who,
when they gladly had embraced St. Peter's doctrine, were
all baptized, and then we first find mention of a Christian
church in these words, “And the Lord added daily to the
church such as should be saved” (ver. 47). And the same
apostle laid the first foundation of a church among the gen-
tiles, by the conversion of Cornelius and his friends (Acts
* s ** e
x.). For though we read before of persons in Samaria §
(so as to hinder that resurrection to eternal life, which
I have promised to those that believe in my name, John
vi. 39, 40.44. 54).
converted and baptized by Philip the evangelist, he being
one of them who were dispersed through the regions of Judea
and Samaria, upon the persecution that arose concerning
Stephen, yet doth the Holy Ghost inform us, that they who
were thus scattered “preached the word to none, but only to
the Jews” (Acts. xi. 19); nor could they, suitably to their
avowed principles, do otherwise, seeing they deemed it a
thing unlawful to go in to, or to converse with, the uncir-
cumcised (Acts xi. 3), and had no apprehensions that God
would grant repentance unto life to the gentiles (ver. 18).
Wherefore, to qualify St. Peter for this work, the Lord doth
by a vision convince him of the lawfulness of preaching the
glad tidings of salvation to the heathen world, and of con-
versing with them for that end ; and in pursuance of this
promise made to Peter, he commands Cornelius to send,
not to Jerusalem to James and John, not to Damascus for
St. Paul, but to Joppa for St. Peter, whom Christ had by
this promise appointed for that work, that from him “he
might hear those words by which he and his whole house-
hold should be saved.” Amd in relation to this promise of
our Lord, as well as the completion of it by the conversion
of Cornelius, it seems to be that this apostle doth, in the
Synod met at Jerusalem, speak thus, “Men and brethren you
know how that a good while ago, 34” hºwspäv čexafoy, God
chose me out among you, that by my mouth the gentiles
should hear the word” (Acts xv. 7). He therefore was as-
suredly the person who first preached the gospel to the
gentiles, and by doing so opened the kingdom of heaven to
them ; he was the person chosen by Christ to perform this
work ; he was chosen by him &ºp’ ºwegåy &éxgiov, “from the
beginning of Christ's preaching,” when he was called Cephas
with relation to it. Nor is this exposition any new fancy
of my own ; it is as ancient as Tertullian,” who saith that
Christ did personally confer this honour on St. Peter, say-
ing, “Upon thee will I build my church ; sic enim exitus
docuit, in ipso ecclesia exstructa est, i. e. per ipsum, ipse
clavem imbuit, so the event doth teach, the church was
built on him, that is, by him, he hanselled first the key:” he
preached that sermon by which three thousand Jews were
brought into the faith, he laid the first foundation of a
church among the gentiles, he first by baptism gave them
entrance into “the kingdom of heaven.” He was, saith Am-
brose, “styled the rock, because he laid the first foundations
of faith among the nations.” I conclude, therefore, that the
plain imports of these words is this, That the apostle Peter,
by preaching first to the Jew and gentile, and by baptizing
those to whom he preached, should lay the first foundations
of the Christian church, and that against the church thus
planted by him, “the gates of hell should not prevail.” This
being so, it is evident that in this matter St. Peter neither
hath nor can have a successor, and that it is absurd to claim
a title of succession to this prerogative of St. Peter ; this
being in effect to say, that the foundations of the church of
Christ are not yet laid, and to preténd to a commission to
perform at present what was fully done above a thousand
six hundred years ago.
* Kai Trôxa #8ou ov xariºxia ovaty adrãº, And the gates of
hell shall not prevail against it..] Here by the “gates of
hades,” some understand the prevalence of schism and heresy,
of wickedness and vice; so Jerome, Ego portas inferi reor
esse vitia et peccata, vel certé hereticorum doctrinas: others
do understand the subtlety of Satan, the power of his temp-
tations and assaults: but if we do examine the import of
this phrase, “the gates of hades,” as it is used by all the an-
cient Greeks, the Jewish writers, the Old Testament, and
the translation of the seventy interpreters, we shall be sa-
tisfied that it is never used by them to signify the power of
heresy or schism, sin or Satan, and therefore cannot be ra-
tionally supposed here to bear that sense ; but it constantly
is used by them to signify the state of death, the place or
receptacle of the dead, into which souls departed enter, or else
the entrance into that place. To make this evident, consider,
First, That the Hebrew sheol, and the Greek #3%, which
answers to it in the translation of the LXX. doth signify,
- * De Pudiciti.
CHAPTER XVI.
125
19.” And I will give unto thee the keys of the
kingdom of heaven (the power of making laws to go-
vern my church); and whatsoever thou (assisted by
my Spirit) shalt bind on earth shall be bound in hea-
ven ; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall
be loosed in heaven (i. e. thy doctrine taught by that
both in the scriptures, the Jewish writers, and the ancient
fathers, and more ancient heathens, the place and recep-
tacle of the dead ; &#8w vexedy Xangiov exponunt Graeci,
saith the learned Windate; “the Greeks call the place of
the dead hades:” &#3ng & répoc, “hades is the sepulchre,”
saith Hesychius: by sheol is not meant the place of the
damned spirits, saith Mr. Ainsworth, but of all that go out
of the world: whence in the Chaldee paraphrase it is styled
“the house of the grave,” or “the place of burial.” Accord-
ingly the ancient Greeks assigned one hades to all that died,
whence they so often say Trávra, ju% 69*zū; &#3n; 38%gral,
“all that die are in hades, all men shall go to hades;” #v
#8ow avyśxoviral Juxai Sizaiov rázai 33,207 “both just and un-
just go to hades,” saith Caius, a Roman presbyter.
Thirdly, This place of hades is generally represented as
a great house, or receptacle, which hath doors, and bars,
and keys, and gates, by which the dead are said to enter;
hence in the poets we find frequent mention of the “house
of hades,” and the “gates of hades:” hence Job cries out,
sheol belhi, “hades is my house ;” and they who die are
Said, xatéx88w sic #8ov 8éaouc, in Euripides, eiç 3&’ &#3ao, in
Homer, i.e. “to go to the house of hades.”
Thirdly, The place or receptacle of the dead being thus
represented by the ancients, as a house that hath its doors
and gates ; death in their language is represented as the
gate or entrance into hades; to-die or to descend into the
grave, is, in their language, “to go down, to be brought down
to, and to pass through, the gates of hades,” as in those
words of Homer, #x000; yág ºot zeiv); %wo; &#3ao Trvāńaw, “I
hate him to the gates of hades, which does not speak as he
thinks ;” where the scholiast informs us, that this is trºpi-
%20is Savátov, “a periphrasis of death ;” rºw 37340 réxay &#4-
**t, “he shall knock at the gates of hades,” that is, he shall
die, saith Theocritus; and thus Theognis, bewailing the mi-
series of human life, concludes, “it is best of all not to be
born or being born, &ziata ºróxa; &#3ao Tsp?cat, to die as
Soon as may be.” Accordingly “to live again” is in their
language to leave, or “open the gates of death, or hades:”
thus in Euripides the chorus sings that if AEsculapius were
there, Alcestis might then leave #309 rôxas, “the gates of
hades,” and return to life, “for he can raise the dead :” and
When Menippus came from the grave he speaks thus, “That
he came from the gates of hades.” And suitably to this old
notion of the gates of hades, is the constant usage of the
phrase in the Old Testament and Jewish writers. The
Writing of Hezekiah after his recovery begins thus, “I said
in the cutting off of my days, togeºcoa at #y rðai; #309,
I shall go to the gates of hades ; I am deprived of the resi-
due of my years, I shall no longer be in the land of the
living” (Isa. xxxviii. 10, 11.) And what is in the Hebrew
nº ºv, “the gates of death,” is by the LXX. translated
ºrvåwpoi ºv' for so God puts the question to Job, “Will
the gates of death open to thee P’ i. e. Canst thou command
the dead to live? or “Hast thou seen the gates of hades P”
(Job xxxviii. 17).
are in the language of the psalmist said, #yyičev šo, rāy
"rvååy flavárov, “to draw nigh to the gates of death” (Ps.
cvii. 18), And when Ptolemaeus Philopator threatened za-
Tatríº, Jew ºrgö; ºnv Iow8aiovº, “to kill all the Jews,” and the
elephants were ready to fall in upon them ; they cried to the
Lord to have mercy upon them, 53m ºrgö, iriſaac Čšov 220aa-
Târgº, “being just at the point of death” (Mac. iii. ult.).
And when God shows his power in restoring men from such
a state, he is then said to “lift them from the gates of
hades ;” as in those words, “Thou hast the power of life
and death, xaráyst; ei; ariſaac ºov wał &váysic, thou bringest
down to the gates of hades, and raisest up again” (Wisd.
xvi. 13). Accordingly, when Theodosius had pardoned
Some, whom justice had condemned to die, Themistius tells
him he raised them to life, in rāy rvXów 3xfºovros, “from the
the gates of hell.” Nor did Eusebius” doubt the truth of
* Praep. Evang, lib. i. cap. 3, p. 8, C.
Thus they who are even at death's door
Spirit concerning things required, forbidden, or allowed
to Christians, shall be confirmed there).
20 *Then charged he his disciples that they should
tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ (till after
his resurrection, ch. xvii.).
21 *From that time forth (that they might not be
this exposition of the words; for he declares, “That God had
hereby promised that the church should not be overcome by
death,” and that by virtue of this one voice, “Upon this
rock . . . and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it ;
the church continues not subdued by her enemies, nor yield-
ing to the gates of death.” St. Cyril,” of Jerusalem, gives
the same import of the words, saying that Christ called
Lazarus # 38ov tuxāv, “from the gates of hades,” or death’s
door: and Photius that when the dead are drawn Tây TrvXày
#3ov, “from the gates of death to life again,” this is a de-
monstration of divine virtue, Theodoret ºf saith he was
cast into so great peril by the heretics, as to be brought si:
air&; roſ. ºov ráxas, “even to the gates of hades.” So that
in all languages with which I am acquainted, this seems to
be the plain and constant import of the phrase; and there-
fore in these words it seemeth reasonable to conceive it is a
promise that even death itself should not prevail against
the genuine members of Christ's church, or that they should
enjoy a happy resurrection. Now from this exposition we
may learn how vainly these words are produced, to prove
that any church or council is infallible, or that the church
of Rome hath a just title to that privilege ; for if the gates
of hades do never signify, in any ancient writer or any
eastern language, heresy or error ; to interpret these words
of a security from error promised to the church, must be to
wrest them from their plain and constant sense, to such an
import as they never had in any language then in use.
* Wer. 19. Kai 3&o coi TຠMºsig r?; 8aaixsiac rôy oiga-
vºy, And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of hea-
ven.] Here note, -
First, That our Lord, by giving these keys to St. Peter,
cannot be reasonably supposed to give him a supremacy
over the rest of the apostles, or over the whole church of
Christ, because the text informs us that these keys were
given to St. Peter, that with them he might bind and loose ;
now, whatsoever binding and loosing may import, it is sure
doth equally belong to all the rest of the apostles; Christ
having said to them in general as fully as he did to Peter,
“Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth
shall be bound in heaven ; and whatsoever ye shall loose on
earth shall be loosed in heaven,” Matt. xviii. 18 (see the
words expounded there). Note,
Secondly, That the use of a key being to open a door or
gate, Christ here promises to Peter, that he should be the
person who should first open the gate of the kingdom of
heaven both to Jew and gentile, by making the first con-
verts among both, and letting some of both into the church ;
but then it is evident that both James and John exercised
this office independently of Peter, in converting those of
the circumcision as well as he ; and that St. Paul was by
way of excellency, and by virtue of his mission, the apostle
of the gentiles (Rom. xi. 13. xv. 16. Gal. i. 16. ii. 8. 1
Tim. ii. 7. 2 Tim. i. 11), and opened the kingdom of heaven
to far more gentiles than ever Peter did (Rom. xv. 18–22),
and therefore had this key of the kingdom of heaven given
to him as much as to St. Peter.
And what thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in
heaven.] Here St. Jerome notes that “hence some bishops
and presbyters did assume to themselves somewhat of the
haughtiness of the pharisees; ut vel damment innocentes,
vel solvere se noxios arbitrentur, clim apud Deum non sen-
tentia Sacerdotis, sed reorum vita quaeratur.” And he ob-
serves from Lev. xiv. 7, 11, that “as the priest is said to
make him clean or unclean, whom he pronounceth, upon
ocular inspection, so to be ; so the bishop or priest is here
said to bind or loose.”
* Ver. 20. Then charged he his disciples, iva (wn?evi stroſaw
§rt airrº; a`riy 'Inaroš, 3 xgiards, that they should tell no man
that he was Jesus the Christ.] i. e. Till after his resurrec-
tion, when they were by office to be his witnesses, and to
declare to others that he was the Christ, because then they
* Catec. 5, p. 43. +Tom. iii. ep. 81, p. 954.
126
MATTHEVV.
shaken in this faith by what should afterward befall
him), *began Jesus to show to his disciples, how that
he (the Son of man) must go to Jerusalem, and suffer
many things (and be rejected) of the elders, and chief
priests, and scribes, and be killed, and (notwithstand-
ing that, he should by God) be raised again the third
day (and this he said to then openly, Mark viii. 32);
22 Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke
him, saying, "Be it far from thee, Lord : this shall
not be unto thee.
23 But he turned, and (looking on his disciples,
Mark viii. 33) said to Peter, *Get thee behind me,
Satan (thou who art to me a tempter, and to the good
of men an adversary): thou art an offence to me (as
being a solicitor to me to disobey the will of my Father):
for thou (in this) savourest not the things that be of
God, but those that be of men (regarding more what
is pleasing to men than God).
24 Then said Jesus to his disciples (and to the mul-
titude, Mark viii. 34), *If any man will come after
me, let him (resolve upon it that it will be necessary
jor him to) deny himself, and take up his cross (daily,
Luke ix. 23) and (so only will be prepared to) follow
IIle. -
25 *For whosoever will (choose rather to) save his
life shall lose it: and whosoever will (be ready to)
lose his life for my sake (and the gospel’s, Mark viii.
35) shall find it, (either graciously preserved here, or
âmproved into life eternal.
26 And this it behoveth all to do), For what is a
man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and
lose his own soul (or life) P or what shall a man give
in exchange for his soul?
27 "For the Son of man shall come in the glory
of his Father, with his (holy) angels; and then he
shall reward every man according to his works (being
could do it, not only without suspicion of confederacy, but
with greater advantage and better success, after that Christ
had taken possession of his kingdom, and had testified this,
by his sitting down at the right hand of power, and by
sending down upon them the Holy Ghost, to enable them
to confirm this testimony; and when he was no longer to
be subject to those humble circumstances, and to that death,
which might divert them from receiving him under the
character of “the Son of God ; ” whereas, had his own
disciples publicly declared him to be “the king of the
Jews,” and “the Son of God,” whilst he was on earth, as
this would have looked like a confederacy between them
and their master, so might it have encouraged the attempt
of the Jews to come and “make him a king ” (John vi.
15), especially when he was shortly to go up to Jerusalem
in royal triumph (xxi. 8, 9).
* Ver. 21. 'Atré rére #:a to 5 'incois Setzyńsly roi; peaSntaſ;
airoij, Sri 387 airey &TeX8Eiy Big ’IEgozóavaa, &c. From that
time began Jesus to show to his disciples, that he was to go
tip to Jerusalem, and to suffer many things of the elders.]
To what hath been hinted in the paraphrase, that he was
to go up to Jerusalem, because a prophet could not suffer
out of that city (Luke xiii. 33), he being to be tried by the
Sanhedrin which sat there ; add also, that he was to be con-
demned by the rulers, and those who had the authority of
life and death, that so, being condemned and put to death
by them, who bore the title of God's vicegerents, he might
more properly be said to be “smitten of God, and afflicted ”
(Isa. liii. 4), though also, in a higher sense, “it pleased the
Lord to bruise him, and to put him to grief, by laying on
him the iniquity of us all ” (ver. 6).
* Ver. 22. “1A53; a ot, Kºpis, Far be it from thee, Lord.]
This is a phrase very frequent in the Old Testament,
and always used by way of admonition and abhorrence,
answering to 15 nº-bri in the Hebrew ; and it is always
rendered either panoap.3, aol, as Gen. xviii. 25.1 Sam. iii. 30.
xii. 23. xx. 9. xxii. 15. xxiv. 6, or ºth yávoiro, Gen. xliv.
7. 17. Josh. xxii. 29. xxiv. 16. 1 Kings xxi. 3, i. e.
absit, or nequaquàm, and so is well rendered by us, “far be
it from thee.” A like phrase, “2 nººn is thrice rendered by
the Septuagint, "IAEag pºol, 2 Sam. xx. 20. xxiii. 17, where it
is rendered, “Far be it from me.” (see 1 Macc. ii. 21);
and when Jehovah is added to it, and it is "IAE6; pºst & ©ed;
or ºch yiyottá tºol trag& red Osov, 1 Kings xxi. 3, it is rendered,
“My God, forbid it,” 1 Chron. xi. 19, and this, some think,
is the full import of the words here, 3 Qe7; being understood,
and therefore render them, “God be merciful to thee, Sir.”
* Wer. 23. “rtrays &miral fºot; zaravà, Get thee behind
me, Satan.] It is somewhat strange, that Origen, Hilary,
Jerome, and St. Austin, should conceive that Christ should
only mean, Sequere mean sententiam, “ Follow my opinion
rather than thine own.” These words being doubtless a re-
prehension of St. Peter, with some vehemence and indigna-
tion, as, under a pretence of charity, showing himself an
adversary to Christ, as the word “Satan’” signifies, Numb.
xxii. 32. 2 Sam. xix. 23. 1 Kings v. 4. xi. 14. Psalm cir. 6,
and doing the work of Satan by tempting him to disobey
his Father's will and command (John x. 18), and to decline
a work so necessary for the salvation of souls; and being
more concerned for the advancement of that temporal king-
dom the Jews expected from their Messiah, than for the
glory of God and the good of Souls.
* Ver. 24. Ef rig Séxel 37-ico pºoj #x0=tv, If any man will
come after me, let him deny himself, &c.] See note on Mark
viii. 34, and on Luke xiv. 27.
* Wer. 25, 26. “o: yag &y Sáxh thy Juxºy abro; a`āgal,
&Troxéast airby, For whosoever will save his life shall lose it.]
That the word Lux” should be here rendered life, rather
than soul, in the sublimer acceptation of the word, seems
highly probable from these considerations: (1.) because
Christ, who came to save men's souls, could not require of
any persons, that they should lose their souls in the worst
sense, but only that they should lay down their lives for his
sake. (2.) Because in the Old Testament this phrase con-
tinually occurreth in this sense, where ºrnéſy tºy lux},y,
Prov. xiii. 3. xvi. 17. xix. 16. xxiii. 14, a 3a'ai rāv kvyºv,
Amos i. 14, 15, is “to preserve life; ” Ağa at rāv kvXàv,
Ps. vi. 4. vii. 1, 2, is “to deſiver us from death ; ” &toxic at
tºy Juxºv, Ps. xxvi. 9, “to lose life, or die.” (3.) Because
it frequently occurs in profane authors in this sense, as when
we read in Agathias,” “What if we gain all Persia, Tá; 33
Jux&; #&nºtogávo, ; but lose our lives P” And Achilles in
Homer + says, où y&p #10; Juxi, livrážtoy &AA0, “Nothing
is comparable to my life.” Lastly, The benefit which will
accrue to us by losing of this life, follows in the reward such
persons shall receive at Christ's coming : and I humbly con-
ceive our Saviour's argument may be to this effect ; It is
natural for all men to have the greatest regard for the pre-
servation of their lives, whence they so frequently declare
rººtsgow oë3āv, où pixtegºw &xxo, f that nothing is more
precious or desirable, nothing is fit to be given in exchange
for it ; he therefore will act most suitably to this natural
principle, who continues stedfast in the Christian faith and
doctrine, for his life will be prolonged happily for ever ;
whereas, he that forsakes it will lose his interest in this pro-
mise of eternal life. For “the Son of man will come to
render to every man according to his works,” to them, who
have been faithful to him to the death, eternal life ; where-
as the unbelievers and apostates shall not see this life, but
shall be certainly obnoxious to the second death.
17 Wer. 27. Méxxel yáp 3 vićg roß &vépétrov čexed 8at #9 tº 80%,
roß ratp% airoij, wers rày 3, #xov aircü, For the Son of
man shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels,
&c.] I do not think that there is any necessity of interpret-
ing these words of the destruction of Jerusalem, to make
them comport with the verse following: they seem more
plainly to relate to the day of judgment. For (1.) the ex-
pressions are parallel to those which are elsewhere unques-
tionably meant of that great day, as Matt. xxv. 31, “The
Son of man shall come in his glory, and all his holy angels
with him, and shall place the goats on his left hand,” &c.;
2 Thess. i. 7, “In the revelation of the Lord Jesus from hea-
ven, with his host of angels, the wicked shall be punished
with everlasting destruction from the glory of his power.”
See Matt. xiii. 41. 49. Jude 14. (2.) The words, “then
shall he render to every man according to his works,” can-
* Lib. iii p. 80. Il. i. 401. See Grotius here.
CHAPTER XVII.
127
ashamed of, or not owning them who are ashamed of
him, or of his words, in this wicked and adulterous ge-
neration, Mark viii. 38, but rewarding them who pro-
fess him, and adhere to his doctrine).
28 °Verily I say unto you, There be some stand-
ing here who shall not taste of death, till they see
not relate to the Jews only ; those words, in all other places,
plainly relating to the day of judgment: as Rom. ii. 6, 16.
Rev. xxii. 12, whereas, at the destruction of the Jewish
nation, he only rendered to them according to their works.
The words may therefore be thus paraphrased; There is no
cause why any man should fear to lose his life for my sake,
or think himself wise in preserving it, by denying me: for
the Son of man will come in the glory of his Father, who
hath made him judge both of the quick and the dead ; and
then he will render a reward of eternal life to them who
have suffered for his sake, and subject them to eternal death
who have been ashamed of him and of his words; nor have
you cause to doubt of his power, thus to judge and inflict
punishments on men, since he will shortly give a signal ex-
periment of it, in inflicting the severest punishments on the
unbelieving Jews. For,
* Ver. 28. 'Agºy Máyo, jºy, eiai rive, röv 388 Barnzárov,
3&c. Verily I say writo you, There are some of them who are
standing here, who shall not taste of death till they see the
Son of man coming in his kingdom.] It seems wonderful,
that some, both ancient and modern interpreters, should
conceive this passage relates to our Lord's transfiguration
on the mount, mentioned in the following chapter ; since
(1.) the seeing that, could not be the seeing Christ's coming
in his kingdom ; his kingdom being not begun till after his
resurrection, when “all power in heaven and earth was given
to him,” Matt. xxviii. 18. (2.) It was as true of all the
apostles, as of Peter, James, and John, that they should not
taste of death till after that vision, which happened but six
days after these words were spoken (xvii. 1) : nor did Christ,
at his transfiguration, render to any one according to his
works. Nor (3.) can these words be understood of the
great day of judgment; there being none standing there who
did not die long before that time; and “to taste of death,” in
the Jewish phrase signifies no more: thus, when Christ said,
“He that believeth in me, shall never die ; ” the Jews re-
peat his words thus, “He shall never taste of death”
the Son of man coming in his kingdom (or the king-
dom of God coming with power, Mark viii. 39, and the
Son of man giving a plain eaperiment of his intended
future judgment, by the severe punishment he will eve-
cute upon the unbelieving and disobedient Jews of this
age).
(John viii. 52); and to be sure, it can import no more,
when it said of Christ, “He tasted death for every man "
(Heb. ii. 9). Accordingly the Jews say, The first Adam
was worthy not to taste of death. Nor (4.) can we under-
stand this of Christ's resurrection and exaltation to the right
hand of God, and the mission of the Holy Ghost ; for this
being said not long before his passion, it is not reasonable
to conceive Christ should with an asseveration say, Some
standing here shall not taste of death till they see that
which was to happen in less than half a year. It is there-
fore fore probable, that this is spoken of Christ's coming
after forty years, to the destruction of Jewish church and
nation, and to render to them according to their works ; for
this was to happen in that generation (Matt. xxiv. 34), and
St. John, and many standing there, might see it ; that also
is represented as the ºratovcia, or “coming of the Son of
man,” Matt. xxiv. 3. 27. 39.44; then was the Son of man
“to come,” John xxi. 22. Heb. x. 37, “with power,” Matt.
xxiv. 30, “and great glory,” Mark xiii. 26, and “with his
angels,” Matt. xvi. 27, and to come “in the clouds,” Rev.
i. 7, and then was “the kingdom of God near,” Luke xxi.
3]. Well therefore might this glorious advent of the Son
of God, in so great majesty, and such resemblance of his
Second coming at the day of judgment, be introduced as a
just ground to believe, and to expect that day ; viz. a time
when Christ should punish with destruction from his pre-
sence all that did not believe and obey his gospel, as he had
then punished the unbelieving Jews ; and that he should
afterward say to all his enemies, as he then signally did to
the Jews, “Bring these mine enemies that would not I
should reign over them, and slay them before me" (Luke
xix. 27). And this interpretation fully agrees with those
words of Chiist, Matt. xxiv. 30, “Then shall they (the
Jews) see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven
with great power and glory ; ” and, Matt. xxvi. 64, “After
a while ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand
of the power of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven.”
CHAPTER XVII.
1 *AND after six days (from the discourse had with
his disciples, till the day of his ascent ; see note on
Mark is. 2), "Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John
his brother, and bringeth them up into a high moun-
* apart, (which he ascended, to pray there, Luke ix.
28).
2 And (whilst he was praying, Luke ix. 29, he) was
transfigured before them, and his face did shine as
the Sun, and his raiment was white (and Shining, Luke
lx. 29) as the light.
- - - - - - - -----
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP, XVII.
* Ver. 1, Kai asā’ hºga; #. And after sia days.] See
note on Mark ix. 2.
* Tapa Naț.8áve & Imaovº tºw TIárgov, &c. Jesus taketh with
him Peter, James, and John.] These being afterward to
be great “pillars” of the church, especially of the circum-
cision (Gal. ii. 9), Christ changes their names, admits them
here to this vision in the mount, he takes them with him
when he raises the ruler of the synagogue's daughter to life
(Mark v. 37), and in his agony (Matt. xxvi. 37).
* Ver. 3. Kai i80i, ºpóngay airoſ; Moorſ, wai''Hxia, ºst’
airot auxxzxoºv re; And, behold, there appeared to them
Moses and Elias talking with him.] Because Christ com-
mands his disciples to tell no man, ºr gapºa, “the vision”
(ver. 9), hence some conjecture, that Moses and Elias were
not truly there, or seen by them, but only that they had in
3 °And, behold, there appeared to them Moses and
Elias talking with him, (of his decease, which he should
accomplish at Jerusalem, Luke ix. 31).
4 Then answered (i.e. spake) Peter, and said unto
Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt,
let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and
one for Moses, and one for Elias.
5 While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud over-
shadowed them : and behold a voice (came) out of the
their fancy or imagination an appearance of them : but this
is very improbable : for St. Luke saith expressly that “these
two talked with him, and spake of his exit, which he was to
accomplish at Jerusalem ;” and that all this was done whilst
these disciples were asleep, and had seen nothing, adding,
that after they were awake, “they saw two men standing
with him, Luke ix. 30–32 (see also Mark ix. 4). And
therefore this by St. Luke is styled, not gap.a., “a vision ;”
which, when it is represented to the fancy, happeneth rather
to men in a sleep, than after they awake, but áºrracía, “a
representation ” of the thing to their eyes: it is therefore
probable, that God might preserve both their bodies to this
end; for the body of Elias was carried up into heaven (2
Kings ii. 11), the body of Moses “was not found: it disap-
peared,” saith Josephus:* “he ascended,” say the Jews,
---
* Antiq. lib. iv. cap. 8, p. 132.
128
MATTHEW.
I am well pleased, hear ye him (according to the pre-
diction of Moses, Deut. xviii. 15, him shall ye hear).
6 And when his disciples heard it, they fell on
their faces, and were sore afraid.
7 And Jesus came and touched them, and said,
Arise, and be not afraid.
8 And when they had lifted up their eyes, (which
were heavy with sleep, Luke ix. 32), they saw no man,
save Jesus only.
9 And as they came down from the mountain,
Jesus charged them, saying, “Tell the vision to no
man (no, not to your fellow-disciples), until the Son of
man be risen again from the dead.
10 And (upon this charge) his disciples asked him,
saying, (If the appearance of Elias must be so great a
secret, even till thy departure), "Why then say the
scribes that Elias must first come (to anoint the Mes-
sias, and make him manifest to Israel)?
11 And Jesus answered, and said unto them, Elias
truly shall come first, and restore all things; (i. e. he
indeed is to come first for this end, according to the
words of the prophet Malachi, iv. 6).
12 But (then) I (also) say unto you, That (the)
Elias (of whom he spake) is come already, and they
knew (i. e. acknowledged) him not, but have done unto
him whatsoever they listed; (the pharisees rejecting
his baptism, and blaspheming him as one that had a
devil, Luke vii. 30.33). Likewise shall also the Son
of man suffer of them.
13 Then the disciples understood that he spake to
them of John the Baptist (as of that Elias which was
for to come).
14 And (the day following, Luke ix. 37), when they
were come to the multitude, (he saw them about his dis-
ciples, and the scribes questioning with them, and asked
them, What they inquired about P Markix. 14. 16, and)
there came unto him a certain man, kneeling down
to him, and saying,
15 Lord, have mercy on my son, (my only son,
“ and ministered to God in the heavens:” but the text say-
ing expressly that “he was buried in a valley in the land of
Moab, over against Beth-peor ;” or, as the Hebrew, “He,”
i. e. God, “buried him, 373 rāv Āyāoy &yyáxwy, by his holy
angels;” saith Epiphanius,” his body must be raised, or
miraculously appear ; and to this burial by angels, perhaps,
refers that altercation mentioned by St. Jude, betwixt
Michael and the devil “touching the body of Moses.” The
coming of these two great prophets, one the deliverer the
other the restorer, of the law of Moses, when God said of
Christ, “This is my beloved Son, hear him ;” showed that
the law was henceforth to give place to the gospel preached by
him. Moreover, that these were two men, as St. Luke speaks,
their eyes informed them : that they were Moses and Elias,
their talk together might declare ; for how else Peter should
learn who they were, but either from their discourse with
Christ, or Christ's discourse with him and his associates, as
he went up into the mount, that he was going to meet with
them, I am not able to imagine.
* Ver, 10. Mnéevi simmºrs tº paga, Tell no man the vision.]
The thing that ye have seen ; not the residue of the disci.
ples, that they be not troubled that they were not admitted
to see it; not those believers that now follow me, that they
be not scandalized at my sufferings after so glorious a trans-
figuration.
* Ver, 10–12. Why say the scribes, &c.] See note on
Mark ix. 11—13.
* Ver 17. 'Q yeysā āºriavo; za; 3isargaºzáy;’ &c. O faith-
less and perverse generation, how long shall I be with
$/ou ? &c.] That Christ said not this to his apostles, appears
(1.) from those words, “Bring ye him to me,” they being
spoken not to them but to the multitude (Mark ix. 19),
among whom were the scribes, ver. 16. (2.) Because if
* Haer. 9, p. 28. Haer. G4, p. 600, B.
Luke ix. 38) for he is lunatic, and sore vexed (with
a dumb spirit, Mark ix. 16), for (this spirit taketh him,
and suddenly he cries out, and he shakes him ; so that .
he foameth_again, and bruising him, hardly departeth
from him, Luke ix. 39, yea) ofttimes he falleth into
the fire, and oft into the water.
16 And (in thy absence) I brought him to thy dis-
ciples, and they could not cure him (and this raised
the question betwixt the pharisees and lawyers and thy
disciples).
17 Then Jesus answered and said (unto these phari-
sees and scribes), "O faithless and perverse generation,
how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer
you? bring him hither to me (Luke ix. 42. And as
he was yet coming, the devil threw him down—and he
jell on the ground and wallowed foaming, Mark ix. 20.
And Jesus asked his father, How long is it ago since
this came to him 8 And he said, Of a child, ver. 21.
But if thou canst do anything, have compassion on us,
and help us, ver. 22. And Jesus said unto him, If thou
canst believe, all things are possible to him that believ-
eth, ver. 23. And straightway the father of the child
cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe, help thou
my unbelief, ver. 24).
18 And (when) Jesus (saw that the people came run-
ning together, Mark ix. 25, he) rebuked the devil; and
(saying to him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge
thee come out of him, and enter no more into him; the
spirit cried, and rent him sore, and) he departed out of
him (but so as to leave him as one dead, insomuch that
many said, He is dead; but Jesus took him by the hand,
and lifted him up, and he arose, Markix. 24–26), and
the child was cured from that very hour.
19 Then came the disciples to Jesus apart (when
he was come into the house, Mark iv. 28), and said,
Why could not we cast him out? -
20 And Jesus said unto them, Because of your
unbelief: for verily I say unto you, "If ye have faith
as a grain of mustard-seed (a small degree of active
Christ had spoken thus to them, they could not have been
ignorant of the reason why they could not cast out this devil,
and so they could not have put the question to Christ,
“Why could not we cast him out 2" (ver. 28), the reason
of it, if these words were spoken to them, being clearly given
here, viz. their want of faith. Nor (3.) doth Christ speak
this to the father of the lunatic ; for (1.) he was not faith
less, but only fixtyário toº, “one of little faith.” (2.) It seems
not proper to say to one man, “O faithless generation ſ”
(3.) There seemeth to be nothing in the father which de-
served this sharp rebuke, he coming very humbly on his
knees to Christ, to beg his mercy for his son (ver. 15), and
saying to him with such ardour, “Lord I believe ; help thou
my unbelief.” (Mark ix. 24); upon which saying his son
was straightway cured.
It is therefore to be noted from St. Mark, ix. 14. 16, that
the scribes were then disputing with Christ's disciples, and
perhaps insulting over them, as having found out a distem-
per which could not be cured by his name and power;
whence Christ asks them, “What it was about that they
disputed 2" (ver. 15). It therefore seems most probable
that Christ spake this to them, to whom at other times he
used the same language, styling them “a wicked and adul-
terous generation ” (Matt. xii. 39. xvi. 4. Luke xi. 29).
7 Ver. 20. "Exy Éxnºrs Triztw &; kázzoy aiváTsog, #5'rs tº
been roſtº' If ye have faith as a grain of mustard-seed, ye
may say to this mountain—and nothing shall be impossible
to you...] By “faith as a grain of mustard-seed,” some under-
stand a faith that groweth and increaseth as a grain of mus-
tard-seed (Matt. xiii. 31, 32), or faith as strong and active
in the heart as mustard-seed is on the palate ; and that be-
cause Christ elsewhere, for “the removing of a mountain,”
i. e. to perform things most difficult (see mote on Matt. xxi.
21), requires tri-ry Oscú, “faith in God,” which seems to
signify an excelling faith (Mark xi. 22, 23), “faith with-
out doubting,” Matt. xxi. 21. (2.) Because St. Paul leckons
CHAPTER XVIII.
129.
rowing faith), you shall say to this mountain, Remove
ence to yonder place, and it shall remove; and no-
thing (relating to your office) shall be impossible to
you, (i.e. you shall through faith be enabled to do very
extraordinary things for the promotion of the gospel,
and to remove the greatest obstructions to the progress
of it, 2 Cor. x. 4, 5). -
21, *Howbeit this kind (of devils) goeth not out but
by (faith, acquired by) prayer and fasting.
22 And while they abode in Galilee, (as they were
privately going through it, Mark ix. 29), Jesus said
unto them, The Son of man shall be betrayed into the
hands of men:
23 And they shall kill him, and the third day he
shall be raised again. And they (not understanding
what he meant by the death and resurrection of the
Messiah, Mark ix. 32. Lukeix. 45, or how to reconcile
it with their received notion, that the Messiah should
not die, John xii. 34) were exceeding sorry.
24 And when they were come to Capernaum (where
Christ and Peter dwelt, Matt. viii. 14), they that re-
ceived the tribute-money (that every Jew yearly paid
to the temple) came to Peter, and said (to him), Doth
not your master pay tribute 2 -
25 He saith, Yes. And when he was come into the
house (of Peter), Jesus prevented him, saying, What
thinkest thou, Simon 2 °of whom do the kings of the
earth take custom or tribute 2 of their own children.
or of strangers (i.e. of others only, who are not of their
sons, or of their own family)? -
26 Peter saith unto him, Of strangers. Jesus saith
unto him, Then are the children free (i. e. then this
tribute, which is paid to God for his temple, belongs not
to me to pay, who am his Som).
27 "Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them
(i.e. seem to them who know nothing of this reason of
my eaemption, to contemn the temple, and the service of
it, for which this tribute is designed), go thou to the
sea, and cast a hook, and take up the fish that first
cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth,
thou shalt find a piece of money (worth two shillings
and sixpence, or two half shekels): that take, and give
unto them (as the two half shekels due) from me and
thee (who dwell at Capernaum).
faith “able to remove mountains,” as an indication of the
strongest faith (1 Cor. xiii. 2).
Now according to this exposition the sense runs thus,
Did your faith increase according to the examples of God's
power you have had before your eyes; as a grain of mus-
tard-seed grows up to be the greatest of all herbs, so would
your faith transmount and grow superior to all difficulties.
But Buxtorf, in the word chardal, doth inform us, that
a “grain of mustard-seed” was proverbially used among the
Jews, pro re minimà, “for the least thing,” as he there
shows by many examples; and therefore it is probable that
Christ, speaking to them who were accustomed to this
phrase, used it in their sense for the least sincere faith in
God, which they who fear (Mark iv. 40) or doubt (James i.
6) seem not to have. So that the import of these words
seems to be this, If you, who are commissionated by me,
and by the Father which sent me, to work all kinds of mira-
cles needful to confirm my doctrine in my name, had the
least measure of that faith which casts out fear and doubting
of success in the discharge of your office, you might perform
things most difficult, and even this faith in its effect would
be most mighty. - -
'E::fré ré špel rodrº, Ye shall say to this mountain, Be
thou removed, &c.] That is, saith Origen, to this lunatic
devil, regioi Kothaare, “of whom you have propounded this
question.” For confirmation of this exposition, let it be ob-
served from Buxtorf, and the note on I Cor. xiii. 2, that in
the Hebrew idiom, to be a “remover of mountains,” seems
only to import to be a doer of those things which are exceed-
ing difficult, and beyond the power of mature to perform ;
when therefore Christ saith here, and Mark xi. 13, “Who-
soever shall say to this mountain, Be thou removed,” &c.
there being no particular mountain mentioned or pointed to
in these words, it seemeth reasonable to interpret them as I
have done in the paraphrase, viz. Whosoever shall, with a
strong faith in God, attempt the most difficult things for the
promotion of the gospel, shall, whilst the gift of miracles re-
mains, be successful in so doing.
Ver. 21.] That this verse belongs to St. Matthew, and that
*; ºutrāśna'ay ºpéºga belong to the text, ver. 23, see proved
against Dr. Mills, Exam. Millii. ibid. -
* Toijro 33 to vivo: oix i º * * > ~ ..., \
To 35 to yeyo; ova. £47.oggveral, Ei &n Ey Trpoo’evXn X,dſ y?!CT-
t
reig. But this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fast-
ing.] i. e. But by faith which is to be acquired by prayer
and fasting. And this is not said to express the pertinacy
of this kind of devils, or the power which the great sins
of the possessed had given them over him ; this person
being thus possessed ºratētoffey, “from his youth,” or child-
hood : but to inform his disciples that this miraculous
faith, being the special gift of God, was to be sought for
by flagrant devotion, that it might never be wanting to
them.
* Ver. 25. Oi 8aaixeſ; rºº yºg árà rivoy X&p_3&vovari ră»n ;
&c. Of whom do the kings of the earth receive tribute or
custom, of their own children, or of strangers ?] That our
Lord speaks here of the half shekels paid every year by all
Jews above twenty years old, to the temple, for the buying
the daily sacrifice, and other things necessary to the worship
of God, appears (1.) from the word 3.8paxºa, used ver. 24;
for the Jews, saith Josephus,” 8v8 88axº; āy& Tráv što; eiç row
#y ‘Ispocoxſpºol; veðy averfixovy, “paid yearly two Attic drachms
for the use of the temple at Jerusalem ;” and this they did
according to the precept requiring of them the half shekel,
called by the Septuagint rô Siègaxºov & Noy, Exod. xxx. 13.
Neh. x. 32. (2.) Because our Saviour's argument why he
should not pay this tribute, as being the Son of that King to
whom it was paid, holds not with reference to the other
| tribute paid to Caesar, he being not the son of Caesar, but of
God.
19 Wer. 27. “Iva è tº away?axićopway abroug' Lest we
should offend them.] i. e. Give them occasion to say that I
despise the temple and its service, and teach my disciples so
to do, pay a cºrarºg, or a piece of money of the value of two
drachms, saith Phavorinus, for me, being here at Capernaum,
and for thee, having thy house there (Matt. viii. 14); by
which example Christ teaches us to avoid the scandal and
sinister suspicions of men, though they be groundless, with
some detriment to ourselves ; especially when they have not
means sufficient clearly to convince them, that as the Son of
God, he had his freedom ; the scandal of the pharisees pro-
ceeding not from ignorance, but pure malice, he is not thus
concerned to avoid (xv. 12).
* De Bello Jud. lib. vii, cap. 7. Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 12.
CHAPTER XVIII.
1 *At the same time (that Jesus spake of his death
and resurrection, xvii. 22, 23) came the disciples to
Jesus, saying (among themselves), Who is (to be) the
greatest in the kingdom of neaven? (i. e. who shall
have the chief place of dignity and advantage in the
kingdom of the Messiah 8)
Who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven 2) St. Mark saith,
Christ puts this question to them, and “they held their peace”
(ix. 33); St. Luke, that they had been a disputing this point
among themselves, and Christ knowing the reasoning of their
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVIII.
* Ver, 1... 'E' inely; tā & ºrpoºx0,y of gaśntal tº 'inacº,
&c. At that time came the disciples of Jesus to him, saying,
I3U
MATTHEW.
2 And Jesus (being willing by this emblem to satisfy
this dispute, as far as it was useful to them), called a
little child unto him, and (taking him up in his arms,
Mark ix. 35, he) set him in the midst of them,
3 And said, Verily I say unto you, *Except ye be
converted (from these ambitious and covetous desires),
and become as (free from them, as are) little children,
ye shall not (befit to) enter into the kingdom of hea-.
ven (which chiefly requires of its members humility, and
a contempt of the world).
4 Whosoever therefore shall humble himself (and
be) as (free from all-thirst after worldly dignities and
honours as is) this little child, the same is greatest
(and most useful) in the kingdom of heaven (for this
frame will render him willing to minister even to the
meanest of my members). -
5 And (that you may not be unwilling thus to minis-
ter to those my little ones, know that) whosoever shall
receive one such little child in my name (though in
this respect also he be a little child, as being lately
born anew, and yet tender in the faith, shall be re-
spected as one that) receiveth me.
6 *But whoso shall offend (and drive from the
faith) one of these little ones that believe in me, “it
were better for him that a millstone were hanged
about his neck, and that he were drowned in the
depth of the sea (i. e. that he suffered the surest tem-
poral destruction).
hearts, “took a child” (ix. 46,47). Now these seeming dif.
..ferences are to be reconciled thus ; that Jesus, going to
Capernaum, the disciples followed him, Aéyovre; red; Havroig,
“discoursing among themselves (Mark ix. 33), who of them
was to be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven;” and when
they came to him into the house, Jesus, knowing what was
still upon their hearts, and they were still pondering among
themselves (Luke ix. 47), asks them, “What was it you
discoursed of in the way?” which they being ashamed to tell
him, kept silence (Mark ix. 33, 34): then Christ, who un-
derstood well what it was, endeavours by his example of a
little child, to cure this distemper.
Xiyovre; relates not here to Christ, as if they put the ques-
tion, but to themselves, as I have here expounded it, is evi-
dent, (1.) from their silence, when asked touching this
matter ; and St. Luke's note, that Jesus, “perceiving the
thoughts of their hearts,” did this: for had they put that
question to Christ, how could they, or why should they, hold
their peace ; or what need was there of saying, “Jesus,
knowing their hearts,” did this, in a matter which they
uttered to him with their mouths? (2.) To a question it is
usually said, Jesus answered, or answering did so or so,
which is not here said; thus, when he rebuked the winds,
the apostles wonder, Aéycvre;, “saying among themselves,
What manner of person is this?” (Matt. viii. 27), the mul-
titude wondered, Ašyovre: “ saying among themselves, We
never saw it thus before ” (ix. 33). So xiv. 26. xvi. 7. 19.25.
xxi. 9, 10, and ver, 25, oi Bé Bieńoyićovro trap' #avroſ, Aéyovreć,
“ and they reasoned, saying among themselves:” xxii. 23,
then came to him the sadducees, oi Aiyovits, “those who say
there is no resurrection” (so xxiii. 16. xxvi. 8. xxvii. 54).
* Ver. 3. "Exy whº area pārs xa: yávno.38 &; +& Oraibia, &c.
Eacept ye be converted, and become as little children, 3/07/
cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.] In that temporal
kingdom of the Messiah, which the Jews expected, they
thought they should have rule over all nations, having them
for their servants, and all their wealth flowing in to them ;
and then the twelve must naturally think, that they should
have the preference above other Jews, and be advanced to
higher posts of honour and grandeur, and have a greater
affluence of outward blessings, than other Jews; and see-
ing, the king Messiah must have some officers of highest
rank, they conclude it must be some of them, though they
could not agree who of them were the fittest for, or best de-
served, these high posts of honour: now our Saviour's king-
dom being not of this world, and therefore nothing of this
nature being to be expected from him ; but rather that his
followers, and the apostles more especially, should suffer
the loss of all things, and lie under the utmost infamy,
Christ plainly tells them, that these inclinations, desires,
and expectations were inconsistent with their being mem.
bers of that spiritual kingdom which he was to erect ; since
they who followed him chiefly on these accounts, when they
saw no such thing could be expected from him, but rather
the quite contrary, must desert him ; and therefore he re-
quires them to fit them for this kingdom, to become as to
these things like little children, who are absolutely free
from all contrivances and designs of this nature, never con-
cerned in the least for empire and dominion over others, or
for increase in wealth or great possessions, and know not
what a post of honour, or what wealth, means ; this, saith
our Lord, being that which will remove all that obstructs
your entrance into my kingdom, and make you the most
a
That the participle
eminent subjects of it (ver. 4), and so shall be regarded
by me; for to encourage all men to show the greatest
kindness to them, I let them know I will accept, and will
reward, all kindness done to them, as if it were done to my
ğ. self, * will severely punish all that shall offend them
wer. 5, 6). -
* Ver, 6. "Oc 3: &w orkay?axian Éva rāv ºtzgāv rodroy rāv
tria revévray eiçãºzá' But whoso shall offend one of these little
ones that believe in me..] It seemeth needless to note that
Christ here speaketh not of little ones by age (they being both
incapable of faith and free from scandal), but by quality and
temper of spirit. To scandalize one of these little ones is to
occasion his ruin, and falling off from the faith, by our sinful
actions, as is apparent (1.) from these words, ver. 14, “It is
not the will of their heavenly Father, that one of those
little ones shall perish.” (2.) From the severity of the woe
and punishment here threatened to him that scandalizeth ;
“it were better that a millstone were hanged about his neck,”
&c. even so much better, saith St. Jerome, as it is to suffer
a short than an eternal punishment, the offending eye and
hand causing us to be castinto hell-fire (ver. 8, 9); and this
sense the word usually beareth in the gospel, as when Christ
saith, Matt. xi. 6, “Blessed is he that shall not be offended
in me ;” and xiii. 21, that the stony ground when persecution
comes “is presently offended,” i. e. falls off from the faith ;
that when “tribulation ariseth, many shall be offended”
(Matt. xxiv. 10); i. e. their charity shall wax cold, nor will
they persevere to the end (ver. 12, 13); that the hand and
eye do scandalize, when they cause the whole body “to be
cast into hell-fire” (Matt. v. 29, 30). So the Jews were
scandalized at Christ's mean rise and parentage (Matt. xiii.
57. Mark vi. 3. Luke vii. 23), and at his words (ver. 12) the
pharisees, (Matt. xv. 12) the multitude, and many of his dis-
ciples (John vi. 61, 62.66). So Christ's disciples were scan-
dalized for a season at his passion, their faith then failing
(Matt. xxvi. 31. 33. Luke xxiv. 21), and Christ forewarns
them of what they were to suffer, that they should not be
scandalized (John xvi. 1). And that this is the constant
import of this phrase in the New Testament, see note on
Rom. xiv. 21. False therefore is it, that they who truly do
believe in Christ, and are of the number of those whom God
would not to perish (ver. 14), cannot be so offended, as to
fall from the faith and perish. And were this so, wherein
lies the force of this pathetical discourse, and why are such
dreadful woes and punishments denounced to deter men from
doing what not only is itself impossible, but which they also
who are thus threatened must believe to be so?
* It were better ºva ×gs;zaaSf ºxo; $vix}; Étri rôy reaxnxõy
airoſ, &c. that a millstone were hanged about his neck,
and he cast into the depth of the sea.] Grotius here thinks,
that this refers to a custom of drowning among the Sy-
rians; but for this, he cites only from Eusebius instances of
men drowned in the sea, and of a stone hung at the feet of
the martyr Agypius, but not of any persons who had a mill-
stone hung about their necks. Jerome, upon the place,
saith, that he speaks “according to the custom of the pro-
vince ;” the punishment of greater criminals among the an-
cients being this, that they should be drowned in the deep,
with a stone bound about them. Now of this custom, saith
Dr. Lightfoot, there is no mention either in the law or in the
rabbins; but Dr. Alix saith, it was customary for them,
&ya%peara in mare Sodomae dejicere, lapide annexo, “to cast
execrable men into the Dead sea, with a stone tied to them;"
CHAPTER XVIII.
13
7 Woe (therefore) to the world because of offences !
(i.e. of scandals which obstruct the receiving of, or
cause weak persons to desert the faith 9 °for it must
needs be dº the unrestrained iniquity of men)
that offences (of this kind should) come; but woe to
that man by whom the offence (which procures this
tuin either to himself or others) comes |
8 Wherefore, if thy hand or thy foot offend (or be
means of scandal to) thee (or others, so as to bring
this woe upon thee), cut them off, and cast them from
thee: (i.e. quit whatsoever causeth this scandal, how
dear and useful soever it may seem to be, for) it is bet-
ter for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather
than having two hands or two feet to be cast into
everlasting fire.
9 And (likewise) if thine eye offend thee, pluck it
out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to en-
ter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes
to be cast into hell-fire. .
10 Take heed (therefore) that ye despise not one of
these little ones (as not regarding whether ye offend
them or not) ; *for I say to you, That in heaven their
angels do always behold the face of my Father which
is in heaven; (i. e. the angels of heaven, which are mi-
nistering spirits to them, stand always in the presence
of God ready to receive his commands concerning them,
so highly are they valued by them; I say, despise them
70t,)
11 For the Son of man is come to save that which
was lost, (and so by scandalizing them to their ruin,
you will act in contradiction to the designs of his ad-
vent, and of him that sent him ; for)
12 How think ye If a man have a hundred sheep,
and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave
and that there be divers places in the Mischna which prove
this. And certain it is from Diodorus Siculus,” and others,
that this was the ancient punishment of Sacrilegious persons,
to be cast into the sea. That this custom obtained in Greece,
we learn from the scholiast in Aristophanes, who saith, that
when they drowned any one, “they hanged a weight about
his neck.” To which custom the poet alludes, f by saying,
he would hang a litigious man about his neck. And Sueto-
nius Saith of the tutor and servants of Caius, that Augus-
tus superbè et avaré in provincià grassantes oneratis gravi
pondere cervicibus praecipitavit in flumen (in Oct. Aug. cap.
67), “for the pride and covetousness by which they infested
the province, cast them into the river with a great weight
about their necks.” -
* Ver. 7: 'Ayāyxn yág irriy #x0sly rā azāy?axa, &c. It is
necessary that offences should come, but woe to the man
by whom the offence cometh.] The necessity here mentioned
is not a necessity arising from any act of God's ordaining or
procuring that scandals should come, or withdrawing or not
affording that grace which is absolutely necessary to prevent
their coming, since otherwise it could be no offence to scan-
dalize, i. e. to do what it was not in my power to help ; nor
could it' deserve such severe woes and dreadful punishments,
since no man deserves punishment for doing what he could
not help, and God himself made necessary for him to do;
nor could there be any force in, or ground for, the following
exhortation, “See that ye despise not one of these little
ones;” for to admonish any one not to do what is necessary
that he should do, and what I who admonish him de-
clare to be so, seems palpably absurd. The necessity
here mentioned is therefore only conditional, on supposition
of the wickedness of men not hindered, the subtlety and
malignity of Satan, and the self-denial required of all who
would embrace the gospel; whence nothing could be expected
but that many should be scandalized at, and be unwilling to
embrace, the gospel upon these terms, and many who had
once embraced it should flee off from it. And this seems to
be hinted in those words, “Woe to him by whom the scan-
dal comes;” which represents him as the proper cause of
it ; and from the words thus varied by St. Luke, xvii. 1,
ăvévêixtáv Hart, “it is not to be expected” that offences
should not come ; which word makes this sense preferable
to that of Grotius, that this is necessary ratione finis, to the
ends of divine providence ; for though it be necessary that
God should permit men to do that which he hath foretold
shall happen, as in the crucifixion of our Lord ; yet other-
wise, as saith the son of Sirach, “God hath no need of the
sinful man” (Ecclus. xv. 12), to accomplish the designs of
his providence, but rather, foreseeing that he will be so, he
makes him his instrument to fulfil them. Note also, that
from the descants of the fathers and commentators on these
words, we learn how far they were from thinking that the li-
berty of a viator, or of persons in a state of trial, was well
* Onomarchum Philippus suspendit, roi; 33 &AAouc &;
isgoo'ſ Nov; xaretrávttas, lib. xvi. p. 529. - -
+"ors wars"rávrov, Tvåg, 8ápo; &nd tây rºaxºv #xgégay.
In Equit. -
f "Aea; ºréagoy sic ré 8ápagºy #28ax& #4 roi, Aépuyyo,
āknºwázac briefloxov. Suidas in verbo in #80xo.
consistent with a necessity of doing good or evil; for Chry-
sostom and Theophylact here observe, that Christ Saith this,
où ré at Saigstow ric #ovoia; &yatgåy, oběš Tây #AEv0séſay ‘rā; Trgo-
algéreoſc, où8ā āyāyan rive reayuárov Úro84xxov rév 8ſov, “not
to take away the freedom of our faculties, or the liberty of
our election, or to subject the actions of our life to any ne-
cessity.” St. Jerome here saith, that “if it were necessary
for a man to scandalize, sine culpå esset, he would be with-
out blame in so doing.” He also well observes the necessity
of this caution to the apostles, contending then for dignity ;
for saith he, Si in hóc vitio permansissent, poterant eos quos
ad fidem vocabant per suum scandalum perdere, dum apos-
tolos viderent inter se de honore pugnare: “Had they con-
tinued in this vice, they might have given Scandal to those
whom they called to the faith, by contending among them-
selves for honour.”
6 Ver. 10. For I say unto you, 3rt of #yyºol airów Ły obta-
voſ, &c. That their angels in heaven do always behold the face
of my Father which is in heaven.] Here St. Jerome's note
is this, “Great is the dignity of these little ones, seeing every
one of them from his birth hath an angel delegated to pre-
serve him.” This many of the fathers did assert, as Je-
rome,” of all souls; but others said, this was the privilege
only of the just, as you may see in Petavius; and yet I
think that neither of these opinions concerning one particu-
lar angel having the custody of one soul, as his continual
charge, hath any good foundation in the holy Scriptures;
certain it is, that in this place Christ Saith not their “angel,’
but “their angels behold the face of God ;” nor says he,
that these angels belong to all, but only to “these little
ones;” nor that they always do attend upon their persons;
but that they stand “before the face of God,” ready to re-
ceive his commands, either to help them in their exigencies,
or punish them who injure them: hence then it follows, not
that they have always an angel present with them, but only
that the angels in general, are “ministering spirits to them.”
(Ps. xxxiv. 8. Heb. i. 14, see the note on Acts xii. 15). And
whereas these angels are said “to behold the face of God
continually,” that only seems to signify their intimacy in the
court of heaven, expressed by Raphael by “going in and
out before the glory of the Holy One” (Tob. xii. 15), and
their attendance on him as his retinue, servants, or as “mes-
sengers of his, that do his pleasure” (Ps. ciii. 21). Thus
speaks the angel Gabriel of himself, “I am Gabriel;, &
Trageornwä, äyártov roi, Osoſ, “who stand before God” (Luke
i. Ig); and so the queen of Sheba, of Solomon's servants,
“Bléssed are thy servants, oi raggarnºśrs; ivºrov got 3' &ov,
“who stand always before thee” (1 Kings x. 8). -
Ver, 11. The Son of man is come to save, &c.] Hence it
seems plainly to follow, that they may be lost, through their
own neglect to cut off their offending members, or through
the offence which others minister, whom Christ came to Save:
as also from ver, 14, that they may perish through the of:
fence of others, whom God would not have to perish : and
therefore hath not, by his own decree of preterition, designed
for destruction, or left inevitably to perish. -
* Magna dignitas animarum, ut unaquëque habeat ab Ortú
nativitatis in custodiam sui angelum delegatum, Wide Petay.
de Angelis, lib. ii. cap. 6. k -
2.
132
MATTHEW.
the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains,
and seeketh that which is gone astray :
13 And if so be that he find it, verily I say to you,
He rejoiceth more (at the finding) of that sheep, than
(at the seeing) of the ninety and nine which went not
astray. -
14. Even so (is the joy of God for the recovery of a
lost sinner) it is not (therefore) the will of your Father
which is in heaven, that one of these little ones
should perish (by any scandal put before them).
15 (And in this concern to save others, it becomes you
to imitate him); "Moreover if (then) thy brother shall
trespass against thee, go (first) and tell him his fault
(friendly) between thee and him alone: if he shall
(so) hear thee (as to confess and amend it), thou hast
gained thy brother.
16 But if he will not (thus) hear thee, (do not pre-
sently give him over, but) then take with thee one or
7 Ver. 15. 'Ev 33 &p, agrhan sic aº ; 388x33; cov’ &c. If then
thy brother shull trespass against thee, go, and tell him his
fault betwixt thee and him alone. Wer. 17. Let him be to
thee as a heathem man, or a publican.] i. e. The Son of
man being come “to save that which was lost” (ver. 11);
and God being unwilling “that one of these little ones should
perish :” when thou Seest any one in danger to be lost, or
perish by his sins committed against thee, use this method to
reclaim him ; and if it fail, let him be to thee as a heathen
or publican is to the Jews. So I interpret these words, be-
cause Christ neither neglected publicans nor heathens, but
freely conversed with both, in order to their conversion, ne-
ver ceasing to attempt the cure of any till they became in-
corrigible, as, in this case, the brother admonished so oft in
vain is supposed to be, and therefore to be one of whose sal-
vation we have as little hope as the Jews had of heathens
and publicans.
“The papists hence argue for the infallibility and final
decisions of all doctrines by the church catholic; concluding
thus, If he who will not hear the church is in the judgment
of God himself to be held as a publican or heathen, merely
because he doth not hear her; and if God will ratify in hea-
ven her judgment here on earth, as is asserted in the follow-
ing verse ; then cannot the church err in any matter belong-
ing unto faith, because it is impossible that God should
approve her error in any matter of faith, or require us under
this penalty to hear her.”
But, the command to tell the offence of our private bro-
ther, is not a command to tell it to the church catholic met
in council ; for then this precept could not have been obeyed
for the first three centuries, no such council ever meeting till
the time of Constantine. Then (2.) the church must al-
ways be assembled in such a council, because doubtless there
are, and will be always persons thus offending against their
Christian brethren. And (3) then every private person
must be obliged at what distance soever he be from it, and
how unable soever he may be to do so, to travel to this
council, and lay his private grievance before them : all which
are palpable absurdities. Christ therefore only commands
the offended person to tell this to the church, or particular
community of which he is a member, as will be evident from
the like rule prescribed among the Jews, and practised by
the primitive Christians. Thus in the book Mischar Hap-
penenim" the wise man saith, “If thy brother offend against
thee, reprove him between him and thee alone, and if he hear
thee, thou hast gained him ; if he hear thee not, take with
thee one or two brethren, who may hear it ; if then he hear
thee not, count him a vile person.” And in the book
Musar, “He that reproves his brother, must do it first with-
out witnesses, betwixt his brother and himself alone ; if he
amend, it is well ; if not, take some companions, that thou
mayest shame him before them ; if neither this way suc-
ceed, he ought to shame him, and lay open his fault before
many ;” nor is anything more common among Jewish wri-
ters, than to excommunicate the obstinate person, publico
praeconio, “with proclamation made in the synagogue.”
And therefore this telling it to the church, is, in Justint Mar-
* Buxt. Florileg. p. 297. + Ep. ad Zenam. p. 508.
two more, (it being said, Deut. xix. 15, One witness
shall not rise up against any man for iniquity, but)
that in (at) the mouth of two or three witnesses,
every word (or matter relating to his condemnation)
may be established.
17 And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it the
church (i. e. make it a matter of public cognizance):
but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be to
thee as a heathen man and a publican (among the
Jews, one wholly neglected by thee, and not thought fit
to be conversed with).
18 °Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever (things) ye
shall (thus) bind on earth (declaring them actions rem-
dering men obnorious to God’s displeasure) shall be
bound in heaven (i.e. shall make them guilty before
God) ; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth (or by
this means shall exempt from guilt) shall be loosed in
heaven.
tyr, admonishing him, when his obstimacy needs it, xará.
Rowdy, publicly ; and the consequent excluding him from the
society, being done according to St. Paul's direction to his
Corinthians, a waxšávrov tººv, “when they were gathered to-
gether” (1 Cor. v. 4), is therefore styled by him, initia la
itrè rāy Trailoway, “the punishment inflicted by many” (2 Cor.
ii. 6).
* Wer. 18. Verily I say writo you, Whatsoever things ye
shall bind on earth, Éarai Beºsºva #y tº otpayº, shall be bound
in heaven; and whatsoever things ye shall loose on ecrlh
shall be loosed in heaven.] For explication of these words,
let it be noted,
First, That Christ saith not, “what persons ye shall bind
on earth,” but “what things;” which seems to intimate that
our Lord speaks primarily of things, and only consequer:-
tially of persons to be bound and loosed, as having contracted
guilt by, or as being absolved from the guilt of, those things.
Note,
Secondly, That Aſſelv, to loose, in scripture and the Jewish
writers, hath relation to sin and the pardon of it. So Job
xlii. 9, “Job prayed for his three friends, and God accepted
the face of Job, xa: #Avasy &papriay airoic, and forgave their
sin.” So Ecclus. xxviii. 2, “Forgive the injury of thy bro-
ther; and so when thou prayest, &#xaftial act, Avôňooyrat, thy
sins shall be forgiven.” And then, by the rule of contraries,
+3 35ca4, “to bind,” must be to retain their sins, or leave
them under the guilt and obnoxious to the punishment of
them. Thus, because a vow or oath renders us obnoxious to
punishment upon a transgression of it, the person thus vow-
ing or swearing is said “to bind his soul by a bond,” Numb.
xxx. 4, 11. And in the Jewish phrase, “to bind,” is to for-
bid, under the penalty of God's displeasure ; so Numb. xi.
28, “Moses, master forbid them ;” esarnum, “bind them,”
saith the Chaldee ; and “to loose,” is to permit the doing
this or that, and to pronounce them free from sin and punish-
ment, or God’s displeasure, though they do it. So in this
very chapter: “the lord of that servant had compassion on
him ; and &máxvorey, he loosed him, and forgave him the
debt:” and the woman that had a spirit of infirmity is said
to be loosed from it (Luke xiii. 12) by the remission of the
temporal punishment inflicted on her for her sin. This being
premised, these words may have a threefold interpretation.
First, The first is that of the fathers, that whosoever doth
thus admonish his brother as our Lord commands, if he re-
fuse to hearken to his admonition, and therefore be esteemed
by him as a heathen, “he is bound by him, and shall be
bound in heaven ; and being moved by his admonition to
that repentance which obliges his brother to remit his sin,
shall be loosed in heaven.” So Origen.” “He speaks not
thus,” say Chrysostom and Theophylact tº “to the ruler of
* Alzaiwc yżg #900 by 3 rº; yověetha as wai pº. 3xova Seiç row
xpt0ávra gºal w; #Svizèy—wai ; # Taft yov65th9sic Avôsis 33 ràc
yov6saia; Keºharavro; airy wai ºnzá'rt ceipaſ, röy âpçapriov 3885-
ºftyo; AExua£yo; x81%asta, Ümi rôy #y ovgayoſ; Orig. in Mat.
tom. xiii. ed. Huet. p. 336, B, C,
+ oux tºre rà reoš880, ric #xxxnaiac, 3%row roy rototitov, &A),
ày 3%anç, airá rà Atxurnºvº rô rāy witérwy. Chrysost
'E&w orv, parly 5 38wnósic, &c. Theoph.
CHAPTER XVIII.
133.
19 (And if he, being thus convinced of his sins, de-
sires you to join in prayers with him, your prayers
shull be accepted; for) *again I say unto you, That if
two of you shall agree on earth as touching any
thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of
my Father which is in heaven.
30 For where two or three are gathered together
in my name (requesting a blessing for my sake), there
an I in the midst of them (i. e. with them, to speed
their petitions).
21 *Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how
of shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive
him 2 (shall it be) till seven times * (as some of our
the church, but to the injured person ;" for not he whom
the priest alone, but those whom the offended persons bind
or loose, are bound and loosed. “And when thou,” saith
St. Austin,” “holdest thy brother a heathen, or a publican,
thou hast bound him upon earth ; when thou hast procured
his amendment, solvisti eum in terrà, thou hast loosed him
upon earth.” Now this solution and ligation, which, saith
Origen, agree best with the context, being the work of any
Christian who doth thus thrice admonish and reprove his
brother, and who, being the person injured, is the most pro-
per to loose or pardon the offence, can be no evidence of
any infallible authority annexed to it, unless we do suppose
all private Christians to be infallible; and so, according to
this import of them, these words cannot be fitly used to
plead for an infallible authority in the governors of the
church. -
Secondly, Others say with St. Jerome here, These words
are spoken to the apostles, to whom our Lord directeth his
discourse in this whole chapter; and this may be confirmed
from St. Luke, who tells us, that when our Lord had warned
them against giving scandal to his little ones, and bid them,
when their brother sinned against them, to rebuke him (xvii.
5), that the apostles said unto him, “Lord, increase our
faith :” when therefore he saith here, Aéyo, bºy, “I say unto
you,” he must speak to the apostles.
Moreover, our Lord had spoken these very words to St.
Peter, xvi. 19, where they can have no relation to this mat-
ter of reproof, and therefore may be well supposed here to
give the like authority to his apostles in the general. Let
it be then remembered, that “to bind,” is to declare a thing
forbidden ; i.e. not to be done, under pain of the divine
displeasure ; “to loose,” is to absolve from obligation to do,
or to abstain from such an action, or to say, God will not
hold us guilty for the doing or omitting of it. In which
sense Isis in Diodorus Siculus + seems to say, "Oca #y& 8ha aſ
ovesic bºyarat Ada'at, “I am the queen of this country, and
whatsoever things I bind (require or forbid, under pain of
my displeasure) no man can loose (or exempt you from
punishment upon disobedience);” and then the sense of these
words will run thus: Nor shall you only in these cases have
power as Christians to loose your repenting and bind your
obstinately offending brother; but, as you are my apostles,
to whom I have promised my Spirit, “to teach you all
things, and lead you into all truth” (John xvi. 13. xiv. 26),
whatsoever things ye shall bind on earth, or shall declare to
be forbidden under pain of my displeasure, shall render
them indeed obnoxious to my wrath ; and whatsoever things
ye shall loose on earth (though once required by divine au-
thority of those who owned the law of Moses) shall be loosed
in heaven, and men shall be allowed to do them without in-
curring my displeasure. And in this sense, this promise is
the foundation of our obligation to believe and obey all the
commands and doctrines of the apostles, and of the cessation
of the ritual precepts of the law of Moses.
Thirdly, Others conceive these words were spoken to the
apostles and their successors, and that they give them power
to excommunicate the stubborn criminal, and to absolve the
penitent: but then (1.) It is confessed on all hands that
this power of excommunication and absolution belongs seve-
lally to every priest ; according to those words of Lombard,t
Omnes et soli sacerdotes recipiunt potestatem clavium, “All
+ Lib. i. p. 16.
* In locum.
• † Sent. 4, Dis. 19.
doctors gather from these words, For three transgres-
sions, and for four, Amos i. 3.)
22 Jesus saith unto him, I say not to thee (as they
do), Until seven times; but, Until seventy times
SeVēI).
23 *Therefore (in this) is the kingdom of heaven
likened to a certain king, who would take account of
his servants.
24 And when he had begun to reckon (with them),
one was brought to him, who owed him ten thousand
talents (i. e. 875,000l.)
25 But (and) forasmuch as he had not (where-
withal) to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold,
f
priests, and they alone, have the power of the keys;” and
then surely it makes nothing for infallibility. (2.) The text
plainly speaks of matters criminal, which are the only ob-
jects of the church's censure, and not of articles of faith.
Noweven Romanists themselves acknowledge that the church
may err in passing judgment of these things, because, in
cases of this nature, she depends on human testimony ; and
therefore it is certain that nothing can be hence concluded
concerning the infallibility of councils, or any articles of
faith defined by them.
* Ver. 19, 20. II&Aw Aéya bºy, 3rt ày 300 bºy cup, polyh-
a waiv, &c. Again. I say unto you, That if two of you shall
agree upon earth, as touching any thing that they shall ask,
&c. For where two or three are gathered together in my
name, &c.] Here again,
First, One ancient exposition of these words refers them
to the offended person, and the injurious person repenting of
his sin, of whom it may be reasonably supposed that he will
not only ask God pardon for his sin, but will entreat his
offended brother to assist him in so doing ; and then these
words assure him that the prayer of faith put up in the
name of Christ shall obtain his pardon ; the prayer of faith
being effectual, not only for the recovery of the sick, but
also for the remission of his sins (James v. 14, 15). This
exposition of the words we find twice in St. Basil” and in
other fathers ; but it is liable to this objection, that it re-
strains these words to one particular, viz. the pardon of the
penitent ; whereas it is, Tregi Travros ºrgá%aroc, “ concerning
anything that they shall ask.” And therefore,
Secondly, Others restrain these words to the apostles,
looking on them as a promise peculiarly made to them ;
as those words, “I say to you,” seem to insinuate ; So
Chrysostom, ºf Euthymius, and Theophylact: and then the
coherence will run thus ; viz. And you may be assured of
this assistance of the Spirit in any matter respecting the dis-
charge of your apostolical function, if you unanimously
consent to ask it in my name; i.e. by interceding to the
Father in my name; according to those words of Christ,
“Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye
shall receive,” John xvi. 24; and ver. 26, “In that day
shall ye ask the Father in my name:” thus do they pray
for “signs and miracles to be done in the name of Jesus;”
and doing this, “they were all filled with the Holy Ghost”
(Acts iv. 29–31). Now, according to either of these inter-
pretations, it is evident that these words can afford no argu-
ment for the infallibility of councils in their decisions.
* Wer. 21. Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord,
IIoa &xi; &#xaprhcet Big $º $ 3.88) pā; wov, xał & phow airó; £w,
#Trráxic ; how oft shall my brother offend against me, and I
forgive him 2 till seven times 3} The determination of the
rabbins in this case runs thus, “That three offences are to be
remitted, but not the fourth ;" and this they gathered from
those words, “For three transgressions, and for four, I will
not turn away my wrath” (Amos i. 3). St. Peter puts the
three and four together, as perhaps others of their doctors
did, and asks, whether he must forgive “till seven times?”
Of this forgiveness, see note on Matt. vi. 14, 15.
* Wer. 23. At& voiro &p.oid.6% h 8aaixeia röy otpavāv, The
* [Isp avºwºwytaç werewooivºro; ºrgès rêy intº Exoſºvoy abroº
rā; Juxi, yāypartal ini rāy rototºrov. Reg. Brey. q. 15,
tom. ii. p. 629, et q. 621, p. 715.
+ Aix roğto phary, # bºy row ivagárow, &c.
et Theophylact.
Chrysostom
134
MATTHEW.
and his wife, and children, and all that he had, (as
the eastern manner was, Lev. xxv. 39. 41. Isa. l. l.
Neh. v. 5. 8) and payment to be made (by the sale of
them). -
26 The servant therefore fell down (at his feet),
and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience
with me, and I will pay thee all. -
27 Then the lord of that servant was moved with
compassion (towards him), and loosed him, and
(frankly) forgave him the debt. -
28 But the same servant (who had thus kindly been
dealt with by his-master) went out, and found one of
his fellow-servants, who owed him a hundred pence
(i. e. 31.2s. 6d. a Roman penny being sevenpence half-
penny); and he laid hands on him, and took him by
the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest (me).
29 And his fellow-servant fell down at his feet
(likewise), and besought him, saying (as he had done
É his master), Have patience with me, and I will pay
thee all.
| livered him to the tormentors (gao
30 And (but) he would not (bear with him); but
. and cast him into prison, till he should pay the
ebt.
31 So when his fellow-servants saw what was
done, they were very sorry (for both him that thus
suffered, and the unkindness of this servant to him),
and (they) came and told their lord all that was done.
32 Then his lord, after that he had called him,
said to him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee
| all that (great) debt (which thou owedst me, merely)
because thou desiredst me (so to do).
33 Shouldest not (then) thou also have had com-
Hºn on thy fellow-servant, even as I had pity on
thee * -
34 And his lord was wroth (with him), and de-
lers), till he should
pay all that was due to him. - .
35 So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also to
you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his
| brother their trespasses.
Kingdom of heaven may be likened to a certain king, &c.]
i.e. So will God deal with Christian professors under the
gospel, as this king did with his servants. From this parable
Some inferences may be practically, some doctrinally made.
The practical inferences are these : (1) from ver, 33, oùx
#3ei Kai ore, since “I forgave thee ten thousand talants, ought-
est not thou to have forgiven thy fellow-servant his hundred
pence P” We learn the equity of this unlimited forgiveness
of our brother here required, because our God and Saviour
have forgiven us more numerous and heinous sins than our
brother is capable of committing against us. (2.) The lord
forgiving here his servant, because he “had not wherewith
to pay” (ver. 25, 27), and being angry with him because he
would “not have compassion on his fellow-servant,” but
went and cast him into prison, not having patience with him
till he should pay the debt; this seemeth to bear hard on
those unmerciful and unchristian creditors, who cast poor
men, who they know have nothing to pay, into prison for
their debt, augmenting thus their debt by the gaoler's fees,
and rendering them less able to pay than they were before ;
and so rendering their brother's state more miserable, and
their debt from him as desperate as ever. For sure, he that
bids us “lend, hoping for nothing again,” will not allow us
to imprison, where nothing can be hoped for ; and it is to be
feared, that men so unmerciful may find but little mercy at
that day: for if it be a crime that will be then objected to
our condemnation, that we “did not visit Christians when in
prison,” what will it be to cast them into prison 2
The doctrinal observation, which truly seems to be infer-
rible from this text, is this, that sins once forgiven may, by
our forfeiture of that pardon by our misdemeanours, be again
charged upon us; for after this lord had forgiven his servant
the whole debt. (ver. 27), he being angry with him for his
unmerciful deportment towards his fellow-servant, “delivers
him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due to
him (ver. 34); and then it follows, “so likewise will my
heavenly Father do to you” (ver. 35). The conclusion from
this place, saith Dr. Hammond, is this, that God's pardons
in this life are not absolute, but, according to the petition of
the Lord's prayer, answerable to our dealings with others,
and so conditional, and are no longer likely to be continued
to us than we perform the condition.
Obj. It remains only that I answer the objection of Crel-
lius from this place, against the satisfaction of our Lord, viz.
that in this parable God is compared to a king remitting a
great debt to his servant, without satisfaction or payment
made, only because he desired him, and requiring others to
imitate his compassion towards their fellow-servants; whereas,
if God remits no sin without requiring satisfaction, he is not
duly represented by a king that remits a debt merely because
his servant begged him so to do ; nor can we by this example
be induced to a free forgiveness of our brother's sins without
a satisfaction made to us: for how can we be moved to such
forgiveness by his example, who will not forgive our sins
without satisfaction made to his justice?
Ans. To this a plain and satisfactory answer will arise
from these considerations: -
First, That all a governor can inflict, on the account of
sin, is punishment ; all that the sinner can undergo by rea-
son of it is some penal evil ; and therefore, all that for-
giveness of the sinner can imply, is the exempting him from
punishment, or from the evil to which he was obnoxious by
SIIl.
Secondly, That by admitting another to suffer in my
stead, I am as much forgiven as I could be, did he not
suffer in my stead, because I am as much freed from suffer-
ing any punishment on the account of my offence ; and,
how can I be more forgiven, than I am by such an act, as
removes from me the whole punishment, as much as if I
never had offended ? That God requires such conditions
as faith and repentance, in order to our freedom from the
guilt of sin, is by the Socinians themselves allowed to be no
bar to the freedom of God’s grace and mercy in the pardon
of it: the reason is, because there is nothing of suffering
contained in these conditions, and so nothing by way of
satisfaction or punishment for sin required. Hence then
it is evident, that the example of this forgiveness may rea-
sonably induce us to require no satisfaction of him who
hath offended us, because God required none of us when
we had offended. And the parable here may well press us
to a free forgiveness of our brother, by the example of that
God, who hath required no suffering at all from us in order
|
to the pardon of our sins.
CHAPTER XIX.
1 AND it came to pass, that when Jesus had finish-
ed these sayings, he departed from Galilee, and came
into the coasts of Judea, beyond Jordan; (to the
ſº where John was baptizing at the first, John X.
40). -
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIX.
* Ver. 3. And the pharisees came unto him, tempting
him, and saying, El #tary 3,8péry &roſſrai rāy weiva
2 And great multitudes followed him; and (he
taught them as he was wont, Markx. 1, and) he healed
them there.
3 *The pharisees also came unto him, tempting
him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to
airoi, zará ràgaw airlaw; Is it lawful for a man to put away
his wife for every cause 2] The school of Hillel taught
that a man might put away his wife for any cause ; because
this divorce was permitted, “if she found not grace in his
CHAPTER XIX.
135
put away his wife (as some of our doctors say) for
every-cause :
4 *And (but) he answered and said unto them,
Have ye not read, that he who made them at the be-
ginning (of the creation, Mark x. 6.) made them male
and female;
5 And said (also), For this cause shall a man leave
father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and
they twain shall be one flesh
6 Wherefore (by virtue of this institution) they are
no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God
eyes.” (Deut. xxiv. 1); and this was suitable to the current
practice and exposition of these words. For that which
we render, “The Lord saith he hateth putting away,” Mal.
ii. 16, is by the Chaldee and the Septuagint rendered thus,
“The Lord saith, śāv kºta haraç, Éamoatsiàng, if thou hatest
thou shouldest put her away.” And the son of Sirach saith,
xxv. 26, “If she go not as thou wouldest have her, cut her
off from thy flesh, give her a bill of divorce, and let her
go.” And Josephus saith,” the law runs thus, “He that
would be disjoined from his wife, Kaº’ &c &ntrovoúv airiac,
Trox\al 3' &y roſ; 3,986troic rotavrai yivoviral, for any cause
whatsoever, as many such causes there are, let him give her
a bill of divorce.” And he confesseth,' that he himself
“put away his wife after she had borne him three children, ºft
&peakówevo; airii; ºrdſ; Sears, because he was not pleased with
her behaviour.” The school of Shammah determined on the
contrary, that the wife was only to be put away for adultery;
because it is said, “Because he hath found some unclean-
ness in her.” The pharisees seek the resolution of this
question from Christ, tempting him, i. e. to induce him to
decide this question, either against the law of Moses, or else,
as he must do, against the determination of one of these
two famous schools, and so to render him offensive to them.
* Wer. 4. But he answering, said unto them, Have ye not
read, that he who made them at the beginning made them
&gasy ×ai Sixv, male and female;—xai Écovrai oi 300 eig a 4pxa
paiav, and they two shall be one flesh?] i. e. God, by mak-
ing them at first male and female, made them so, that they
might cleave together so as to become one flesh; and when
they have, after a mutual consent to enter into that relation,
done so, they are “no more two, but one flesh ; ” and there-
fore are not to be separated, unless, by cleaving so unto an-
other, they have made themselves one flesh with that other.
That this is the effect of this conjunction with one another,
seems evident (1.) from those words of the apostle, 1 Cor.
vi. 16, “Know ye not, that he that is joined to a harlot, is
one body with her 2 for two, saith he (i. e. God), shall be
one flesh: ” and (2.) from the inference &ars, “so that
they,” after this conjunction, “are no more two, but one
flesh ; ” and those whom God from the beginning hath thus
framed, and of whom he hath thus spoken, let no man put
asunder. God himself, who binds, may see cause to permit
in some cases the solution of this obligation, to prevent
cruelty and other mischiefs, as he did to the Jews, by rea-
son “of the hardness of their hearts,” allowing a divorce ;
but, without such permission, no man ought to do it. There
seems to be something like this in that of Hierocles, t that
#Tri Yéºoy #orgóvovara à picts, “nature prompts us to mar-
riage, in that she hath made us avyövaa’rixotic, so that two
should live together, and have one common work to beget
children.” And that tale of Plato,S in his Convivium, that
“man at first was made male and female, and that Jupiter
cleft them asunder, and so there was a natural love one to
the other, štrixelgøy Trotſia at £y #x 8voiy Kai iázaağat rāv púaw
röy &v6potriyny, endeavouring to make one again of two, and
to heal human nature,” seems to be only a corruption of the
story in Genesis, that Eve was made out Adam's rib.
Wer. 5. Kai strey, And he said, For this cause shall a
man leave father and mother, &c.] Here also, say the Greek
scholiasts, it was not God, but Adam, who said this ; other
interpreters conceit that Moses said this by divine inspira-
* Antiq. lib. iv. cap. 8, p. 125, G.
+ In Vitā suá, p. 1031, F.
† Apud Stob. Serm, 65, p. 414.
§ Serm. 64, p. 412, 413.
hath joined (thus) together, let no man (by divorcing)
put asunder. -
7 * They say unto him, (If this be so) why did
Moses then command to give (to the woman) a writing
of divorcement, and (so) to put her away 2 (He an-
swering (to this) saith unto them, What did Moses
command you ? Mark x. 3. Then they said, Moses
permitted (us) to write a bill of divorcement, and so
send her away, ver, 4. - r
Them) - -
8 He saith unto them, Moses, because of the hard-
ness of your hearts (writ that commandment unto you,
tion, and so God said it by him ; hence the Jews, saith Mr.
Selden,* represent this as a law againt incestuous marriages.
Or else these may be the words of Christ, who, ver, 4, Eitrey
airoic, said to them, “He that made them in the beginning
made them male and female, xai Biaſey" and he said also,
For this cause,” &c. citing the words recorded, Gen ii. 24,
and this seems probable from Mark x. 6, 7, where the
whole words are plainly ascribed to Christ. -
* Ver. 7. They say writo him, Ti oëy Moor; Évereixaro
360/ai 6.8xtoy &mocraciou, wał &rox$oral airāv; Why then did
Moses command to give her a bill of divorcement, and put her
away?] Here it is to be noted, that Moses commanded no
man to divorce his wife, but only Érárpesley, “he permitted
in some cases the doing of it;" but then he acting in this as
God’s minister, it must be a divine permission. Note, (2.)
That it was a limited permission, viz. only to do it after
such a manner, viz. by “writing a bill of divorcement, and
putting it into her hand:” for, if this might have been done
by word of mouth, or otherwise, it might have occasioned
a great evil on both sides; for the woman might have pre-
tended, when she liked another better than her husband,
that she had been divorced, and so might marry him ; and
the man might rashly have divorced his wife upon any little
quarrel, and never be in a condition of having her any
longer as his wife: to prevent which divorces upon such
a sudden pet, it was the custom to ask the person who
came for a bill of divorce, before they delivered it to him,
“Whether his yea was yea P” i. e. whether he continued in
a settled resolution to put away his wife (see note on
2 Cor. i. 17). But the great question is, Whether this per-
mission excused this divorce from sin, or only from pu-
nishment 2 That it could not excuse him that divorced his
wife from sin, is argued, (1.) because our Saviour decides
this question negatively, and that by reason of God's own
institution founded upon nature, (ver. 4, 5), and represents
the permission mentioned by Moses, as contrary to it
(ver. 8). Now all transgression of divine law is sin ; (2)
because Christ saith, this permission was only granted to
them “for the hardness of their hearts:” now whatsoever is
done upon that principle, is sinful: (3.) and, especially,
since otherwise it follows, that divorces are only evil be-
cause forbidden, and so are only sins against a positive
command ; and not forbidden, because evil, or because
contrary to the law of nature ; and then, either adultery
can be no sin against the law of nature, or else Christ
could not truly say, that “he that putteth away his wife, and
marries another, committeth adultery against her.”
But on the other hand, That this permission excused
those Jews, who made these divorces according to the law,
not only from punishment by man, but also from fault
before God, and more especially from being guilty of adul-
tery, is evident, (1.) from the permission given to the woman
thus divorced to marry with another, Deut. xxiv. 2, which
plainly shows, the bond of matrimony must by it be dis-
solved, since otherwise this must be a permission to be an
adulteress. (2.) From the prohibition of the person thus
divorcing her to receive her again as his wife ; which yet he
was bound to do, if the bond of matrimony still continued,
and she was still in truth his wife. And (3) because
otherwise, the whole commonwealth of Judea, by a divine
permission, must be filled with adulteries, and with a spu-
rious offspring. To answer therefore the former arguments:
First, It is granted, that, as our Saviour says, these di-
vorces were indeed contrary to the equity and genuine in-
* De Jur. Nat. et Gent, lib. v. cap. 2, p. 562.
136
MATTHEW.
Mark x. 5, by which he) suffered you to put away
your wives; but from the beginning it was not so (no
divorce being allowed or practised before). -
9 “And (therefore) I (who came to reduce things to
their primitive perfection) say unto you, (That under
the gospel dispensation) whosoever shall put away his
wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry an-
tention of God's primitive institution of matrimony; but
then it must be added, that God by Moses dispensed with
his own institution ; and that Christ only says, that under
his new law, this dispensation should not obtain, but that
he would have his disciples to act according to the primitive
institution. -
Secondly, In answer to the second argument, it may be
said, that what was permitted to the Jews, by reason of
the hardness of their hearts, was no less permitted than what
they were allowed to do, by reason of the indifference
of the thing: whatsoever therefore was the cause of this per-
mission, it is certain that which was permitted could not at
the same time be forbidden, and therefore could not be a
fault, or that which God would punish in them.
Thirdly, To the third argument, it may be answered, that
a thing may be said to be according to the law of nature
two ways: (1.) because nature doth direct us to it by the
provisions it hath made for such an end ; in which sense, it
is natural for women to give suck to their children ; or, by
the relation in which it hath placed us ; in which sense the
apostle saith, that even nature teacheth the woman to be
covered in the church assemblies, and to wear long hair
(see the note on 1 Cor. xi. 13), or, by the frame and con-
stitution of things; in which sense man and wife are one
flesh, and therefore ought not to separate from one another:
and Christians ought, where greater reason doth not inter-
vene, to act according to that which is thus suitable to the
law of nature. Or, (2) because the law of nature doth re-
quire it as necessary in reason to be done, or doth forbid it
by reason of some moral turpitude, which always of neces-
sity adhereth to the action ; in which sense it may be said,
that divorces and polygamy are not against a law of na-
ture, but only against a positive command. And whereas
it is objected, that then adultery will be no sin against the
law of nature ; I answer, that as adultery imports the
lying of a husband with another who is confessedly not
his wife, or of a wife with another whom she knows to be
not her husband, it is unquestionably a sin, against the law
of nature, as being contrary to the faith plighted by them ;
contrary to justice, as being giving that to others which is
not your own ; and contrary to the good of families and
commonwealths, as filling them with a spurious offspring,
and loosing the bonds of consanguinity and affinity.
then, if the polygamist then used only those to whom by
matrimony he was contracted, there was not the like in-
jury or injustice done: nor can I think that Abraham, Ja-
cob, JJavid, and other pious men, would have had more
wives, or wives and concubines, had this been a plain vio-
lation of the law of nature ; nor would God have so highly
approved of them, had they lived in adultery. And, if di-
vorce untied the bond of matrimony, it gives that liberty to
each party which cannot be allowed of whilst that bond con-
tinues ; and so there could not be the same cause of blame
or guilt in their cohabiting with another: it therefore may
he granted, that these were rather sins against a positive
or natural directive, than a moral precept or law of nature.
* Ver, 9. And I say writo you, "o; &y &roxda'; thy yuyaſwa
eitos, ei ºwn #wi Troºveſ, wał yawāorn &AAmy, ºozărat, Whoso-
ever shall put away his wife, eacept it be for formication, and
shall marry another, committeth adultery.] Here it seems
evident that Christ prescribes a new law, which had not
before obtained among the Jews; divorce being permitted
to them for other causes: for though it be said, Deut. xxiv.
l, he must find “some matter of uncleanness in her;” yet
that cannot signify fornication or adultery, seeing for these
things she was by the law to die by stoning, if she committed
fornication before her marriage was completed, Deut. xxii.
24, by strangling, say the Jews, in case of adultery, ver. 22.
(2.) Because this divorce was permitted to all, except the
person who falsely pretended he found her not a maid ;
for that law so peculiar to him, “he may not put her away
But ||
other, committeth adultery (with that other); and
whoso marrieth her that is put away committeth adul-
tery (with her).
io His disciples say unto him, "If the case of the
man be so with his wife (that he must be still bound to
her), it is not good to marry.
11 But he said unto them, * All men cannot re-
-
all his days.” Deut. xxii. 19, shows that others were per-
mitted so to do : now adultery being a sin against the law
of nature, could be permitted upon no account. And (3.)
any other, excepting only the high-priest (Lev. xxi. 7),
might marry her who was thus put away (Deut. xxiv. 2);
whereas it could be lawful for no man to commit adultery
with her (see also the note on Mark x. 10, 11).
Moreover, whereas all commentators I have met with,
by fornication here do understand adultery, or the defiling
of the marriage-bed ; I incline rather to take the word in
its proper sense for fornication committed before matri-
mony, and found after cohabitation. (1.) Because Christ,
speaking of this divorce here and elsewhere, doth never
use the words 201xsia, which signifies adultery, but always
Togysia (Matt. v. 32), which word, both among Jews and
gentiles, doth properly import the sin of unmarried per-
sons lying one with another, and so being made one body
(1 Cor. vi. 16): it is not therefore likely that Christ re-
ceded from the known and common acceptation of the
word. (2.) The punishment of adultery after marriage was
strangling; after sponsalia, stoning; divorce not being
mentioned in either case; but simple fornication was not
thus punished by the Jews. And (3.) by this interpreta-
tion, the law of marriage is by Christ reduced to its pri-
mitive institution; that conjunction with another makes
them both one flesh ; and so the woman who had thus
transgressed was to be dismissed, because she before was
one flesh with another, and therefore could lot be so with
the man to whom she afterward did marry. Note also hence,
that, according to either interpretation, where it is lawful to
put away the wife, it is so to marry again : for (1.) such
were the divorces of the Jews, of which Christ speaks ; and
(2.) Christ by pronouncing such divorces as were not, for
this cause, adulterous in him that married another, doth
plainly insinuate, there was no such crime committed in this
case ; and then the marriage must be dissolved by that act.
Ei ºl ātri Trogveig, eacept for fornication.] St. Jerome
here saith, that if the woman hath committed adultery, non
debet teneri, “she ought not to be kept by her husband,”
lest he fall under condemnation, he being pronounced a fool
and a wicked person, qui adulteram tenet, “who retains an
adulteress,” as the Septuagint reads, Prov. xviii. 27. The
Greek fathers say, almost generally, it is waxy #x3áxxsw, an
honourable thing to cast her out: and St. Austin * having
said it was permitted, but not commanded so to do, retracts
that saying, as being contrary to the words of Solomon. He
that retains her, say the Apostolical Constitutions, is pào'ào;
6Ea'aoû tragavágoc, “a transgressor of the law of nature” (lib.
vi. cap. 14).. • -
* Wer. 10. If the case of a man be so with his wife, it is
not good to marry.] If under the prohibition of divorce
that of polygamy had not been contained, there would have
been no cause for this inference of Christ's disciples ; seeing
they might have had a remedy, by taking one or more other
wives, whom they loved better ; nor would there have been
any ground for Christ's discourse, of making themselves
eunuchs for the kingdom of God.
Ei otºro, #ariv h airia..] Grotius, Casaubon, and Bois, ren-
der airia here “the condition,” in which sense it is frequently
among the Latins: but seeing airia is in Hesychius, rå kar’
&px?iv ºrgáypwara ; and in Phavorinus, &ex} }. Trāyn, the be-
ginning or original of the thing ; and Christ is here speaking
of the original of matrimony, or of what it was, 3r' 36x7c,
and reducing things to that state ; why may not the apostles
be conceived to speak thus?—If this be indeed the original
of matrimony, and thou intendest to take from us the liberty
of divorces, which Moses granted, and to reduce marriage
to its first original, it will not be good to marry.
* Ver, 11. Oü ºrávºrs; xogotai rāy Xéyov rotºrcy, All men
-
* Retract. lib. i. cap. 19,
CHAPTER XIX.
137
purpose.
celve this (that) saying, save (but) they (only) to whom
it is given (i. e. they only can lead a pure single life,
who by a special gift of God are enabled so to do :
some indeed must do it).
12 For there are some eunuchs, which were so
born from their mother’s womb ; and there are some
eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men; and
(some resolve upon it, that they may be fitter to serve
God without distraction ; for) there be eunuchs that
have made themselves (as) eunuchs for the kingdom
of heaven’s sake. (And here the rule is this,) He that
is able to receive it, let him receive it. (He that by
this special gift of God is enabled to retain his virgin,
may do well to do so.)
13 "Then were there brought to him little children,
that he should (touch them, and) put his hands on
them, and pray (over them); and (but) his disciples
rebuked them (that brought them.)
14 But Jesus (being much displeased at this action
of his disciples, Mark x. 14.) said (unto them), Suffer
little children, and forbid them not, to come to me:
for of such is the kingdom of heaven; (nor shall any
man enter into it, who becomes not like unto them,
Mark x. 15.)
cannot receive this saying.] i. e. All men cannot live single
and abstain from matrimony. Whence it follows, that men
and women are not by monastical vows to be obliged so to
do ; because none ought to be by vow obliged to do that
which they cannot perform without sin. (2.) By adding,
that they only can do this, “to whom it is given ;” he shows,
this is a special gift ; according to these words of St. Paul,
“I would have all men to be as I am : but every man hath
his proper gift” (1 Cor. vii. 7). Now that which all men
may obtain by prayer, temperance, and fasting, and such-like
ordinary means, cannot be called a special gift, or a gift
proper to some. And (3.) some, saith Christ, “have made
themselves eunuchs ;” i. e. abstained from matrimony for the
kingdom of heaven ; i. e. to be more expedite in preaching
the gospel, or more fit to regard only the things of the Lord
(1 Cor. vii. 34): “He that can receive it, let him receive
it ;” which last words sufficiently intimate, all men cannot
do so.
7 Wer. 13, 14. They brought unto him little children, that
he should put his hands upon them,' and pray.] This being
the gospel used by our church at the celebration of infants'
baptism, it will be necessary to show the fitness of it for that
Note therefore, -
First, That these little children being styled rà. 88% ºn
“infants” (Luke xviii. 15), and taken up in Christ's arms,
(Mark x. 16), it is plain, that they were children not yet
come to the age of discretion ; for 8p£40;, according to Eu-
stathius and Phavorinus, is rā āºri yeyov', ratēiow kai ºrps pá-
*Evoy 373 rhön, “a new-born child nourished from the teat,
from his birth, till he be four years old” (so 1 Pet. ii. 2):
whence they do not come to Christ but are brought to him.
Secondly, They seem to be brought to Christ by those who
believed he was a prophet sent from God, not by those who
had other thoughts of him ; for why should they desire for
their children his prayers, or the imposition of his hands?
Thirdly, These children were not brought to be healed
of any bodily distemper, for then the disciples would not
have hindered them, but “that he should bless them, and
pray over them ;” which shows that they were capable of
Spiritual blessings, and may receive advantage by prayers;
and “that he might lay his hands upon them.” Now this
imposition of hands could not be to prepare them for any
office, nor seems it designed to procure to them any remis-
sion of sin, of which the Jews conceived infants not guilty
(though this would prove them capable of some means by
which their sins might be pardoned); but to obtain for them
Some spiritual blessings appertaining to the kingdom of God;
or as Dr. Lightfoot saith, by this rite to admit them into the
number of his disciples, or to own them as belonging to his
kingdom. And, º
Fourthly, From the reason why Christ would have them
suffered to come to him, viz. “for of such is the kingdom of
God,” it appears there is something in little children, why
they should not be hindered from coming to him, besides
their being emblems of humility ; for this they are as much
when they come not, as when they come: now what can
that be, but the fitness of them to be early dedicated to the
service of God, and to enter into covenant with him by rites
appointed by him for that end ? And hence the ancients
looked upon this as a sufficient ground for infants' baptism,”
* Barrićers tºy waſ rā yńria' & pers yag, pnai, rà raičia
#pxsasat ºrgö; ºzè, Const. Apost. lib. vi., cap. 15, p. 380, C.
Ait Dominus, Nolite illos prohibere venire ad me.
as appears even from Tertullian,” whilst he shows his dislike
of the custom.
Obj. But, say the antipaedobaptists, Christ neither did
baptize them, nor command the apostles to do it.
Ans. That is not to be wondered at, if we consider that
they had entered into covenant with God by circumcision
already, and Christian baptism was not yet instituted ; and
(2.) that the baptism thus used by John and Christ's disci-
ples was only the baptism of repentance, and faith in the
Messiah which was for to come (Acts xix. 4), of both which
infants were incapable, but not of being consecrated to God
from their infancy, as Samson, Judg. xi. 7, and Samuel, 1
Sam. i. 11, or of entering into covenant with God, Deut.
xxix. 11. 15, as all the male infants of the Jews did by cir-
cumcision. (3.) Christ here speaks not of those children.
only, but of children in general, “Suffer little children to
come to me;” he adds a reason common to them all, “for
of such is the kingdom of heaven ;” which if it import they
are fit to be admitted into Christ's church and kingdom as
they were into the Jewish church, they must be fit to receive
Christian baptism, that being the only means of entering into
Christ's kingdom. If he means only that they are fit em-
blems of humility, what reason can be hence given why they
should on this account be brought to Christ that he might
lay his hands upon them P Or, why should he be so displeas-
ed that they should be forbidden to come to him P
Then they brought unto him little children.] To the argu-
ment here used for the baptizing of young children, it may
be answered, that they were brought to him, that he might
put his hands upon them and heal them ; for Mark x. 13.
Luke x. 15, they were brought, iva & Jºral airów, “that he
might touch them;” now as the prophets under the Old Tes-
tament healed by laying their hands on the diseased, and
praying over them (2 Kings v. 10), so more certainly were
persons healed by the touch of this great prophet ; for “as
many as touched him were made whole” (Mark vi. 56), and
upon that account, as many as had diseases sought “to touch
him” (Mark. iii. 10, see Mark v. 23. 39.42).
But to this I reply, that when any came thus to Christ to
touch him, or to desire him to lay his hands upon them, in
order to a cure, we find either express declaration, or suffici-
ent intimation, that they accordingly were healed; whereas
there is not the least intimation of any bodily cure wrought
upon these infants, but rather an intimation of some spiritual
benediction; it being not here said, #6spárevorey, “he healed”
but sixáynaev, “he blessed them.” (2.) Christ doth not say,
Suffer little children that are diseased, or sick, to come unto
me, but, without limitation or distinction. Suffer them to
come. Nor (3.) doth he say, Suffer them to come, for they
need to be healed as much as those of riper years, but, for a
reason which equally belongs to all children born of parents
who are in covenant with God, viz. “for of such is the king-
dom of God.”
It may be farther said, that they brought them to Christ,
as the Jews do now their children to their famous doctors;
or as we do ours to the bishop, to receive his blessing. But
to this I answer, that had that custom then obtained among
the Jews, neither could the disciples reasonably have for-
bidden them, neither would our Lord have assigned this as
a reason why they should not be forbidden, “for of such is
the kingdom of God.”
* Tertul. de Baptismo, cap. 18. Author Quaest ad An-
tioch. q. 114. Ambr. De Virg, lib. iii, tom, i. p. 125.
138
MATTHEW.
15 And he laid his hands on them, and (blessing
them) departed thence.
16 And, behold, one came, and said to him, Good
Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have
eternal life? *
17 And he said to him, “Why callest thou me
good ; i. e. Why givest thou me a title not ascribed to
gour renowned rabbins, nor due to any mere man F
Thinkest thou, there is in me anything more than hu-
man, or that the Father dwelleth in me? This thow
oughtest to believe, if thou conceivest that this title
truly doth belong to me, seeing) there is none good but
one, that is, God: but (to thy question, I say) * if thou
wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.
* Ver. 17. Ti as Aéyet; 3/a86v ; oběsic &ya63;, ei (wi sã, 5
Qºşç, Why callest thow me good? there is none good but one,
that is, God.] Here it is acknowledged, that many of the
most ancient fathers" read, “God my father.” That other
reading of some fathers,” “Why askest thou me concerning
good P” is neither in the Syriac, nor in any of the evangelists,
and so it seemeth to be only of a later date. Now from
this place the Socinians argue thus against the deity of Christ.
He to whom the title of good doth not belong, cannot be
God most high ; by our Lord's own words this title belongs
not to him, but only “to God the Father;” and therefore
God the Father must be God alone. And whereas some of
the Post-Nicene fathers answer, that this young man said,
“Good Master,” out of flattery or ignorance, looking upon
Christ as a mere man, and so Christ answers, “Why callest
thou me good, whom thou dost not acknowledge to be God 9”
this, say they, is an addition to the text, without any ground
from Christ's words, yea, in opposition to them, he saying
that “one thing only waslacking to him;” viz. that he should
sell all, &c.; whereas the knowledge that Christ was God must
also be lacking to him, and so two things, according to the
Trinitarian hypothesis. To this it might be answered, that
when our Lord saith, “One thing is lacking to thee,” he re-
spects not his knowledge, but his practice, intending not to
say what was lacking in him, as to the knowledge of him-
self; for it appears not this young man owned him as the
promised Messiah ; but to instruct him what was yet lacking
to perfect his obedience to the commandments of God. Or
(2) that the deity of Christ, being not revealed so fully
as afterward it was, might then not be necessary to be be-
lieved to salvation. But not to insist farther on this answer,
I reply,
Secondly, That Christ may be supposed to speak to this
young man thus ; Thou givest me a title which is never
given to your most renowned rabbins, and which agrees to
God alone; dost thou therefore think there is anything in
me more than human, or that the Father dwelleth in me?
This thou oughtest to believe, if thou conceivest this title
truly doth belong to me, seeing there is but “one that is good
that is, God.” To confirm this interpretation let it be con-
sidered, that Christ in preaching to the Jews asserted two
things of himself; (1.) that he was a prophet sent from
God, even that prophet that should come into the world.
(2.) That he had given them clear evidence of his commission
from his Father, by the works done by the power of God,
which manifestly showed that God dwelt in him, and that
“he was in the Father, and the Father in him,” so that he
and the Father were one ; for so he speaks, “I and the Fa-
ther are one ; and if I do not the works of my Father, be-
lieve me not ; but if I do, though you believe not me, be-
lieve the works, that ye may know and, believe that the Fa-
ther is in me, and I in the Father” (John x. 30. 37, 38. xiv.
8–10); which words the Jews so apprehended, that they
pronounced him guilty of blasphemy ; “for that being a man
hemade himself God” (John x. 31. 33). He therefore might
well say to this young man, “Why callest thou me good
Master P’’ unless thou believest I am a teacher sent from
God, seeing he who falsely pretends this cannot be a good
master or teacher of truth ; nor canst thou own me as a pro-
phet sent from God, but from my works; from which I have
proved, that “I am in the Father, and the Father in me ;”
yea, that “I am one with the Father,” and so partake with
him of the title of “good.”
Thirdly, Maresius well answers, that the Father being the
* Ita Just. M. “o QE3; 3 oraráp (wov, Dial. p. 338. A. Iren.
lib. i. cap, 17, p. 105. Clem. Alexandr. p. 118, D. et 733, D.
Orig. Com. in Joh. ed. Huet. p. 39, B, C, et lib. v. contra
Celsum, p. 238. Exhort, ad Martyr. p. 169.
+ Ti as #wrā; wsp: roi; 3,265; August. De Concil. Evan.
ºb ii. cap. 63, Vulgatus interpres et Hieron, in locum.
fountain of the whole Deity, must in some sense be the
fountain of the goodness and wisdom of the Son. The Son,
saith Dr. Bull, is rightly styled, “the perfect and adequate
image of his Father's goodness, as he derives that goodness,
as he doth all his other attributes, with the divine nature
from the Father ?” and thus to be the fountain of good may
belong only to the Father. Hence even the heathens have
declared, that of all the perfections of the Deity, that of
âyabâc, “good,” was the most proper, he being only styled
by them good, who was " & wavºra Biêow; wai ºnbåy Aapagávay,
“he who gave all to others, but derived nothing from them;”
and thence they placed goodness, #y ºve, dysvāra, “in him
only who was unbegotten.” And in this sense many of the
Ante-Nicene fathers owned that the word did signally, and
most excellently, agree to the Father, and to Christ only by
reason of the goodness derived with the divine nature to him
as being God of God ; or ëa ºri; arpèg &AAñNovº axéa’soc, “from
the essential relation they had to each other ;” as Clemens
Alexandrinus’; well explains the matter, thrice saying, that
the “Father alone is good and just,” and yet “that the
Son,” x26% & 3 xàyo; &y airoč Šy tº traºrpi śart, “as being the
Logos, as he is in the Father is just, rö 8; 3ixaloy &yaôv,
and what is just is good ;” and concluding, Osów #va ºcévoy
sīvai &ya.03W, 3inatov, Smaloveyov, viðy #y warpi, “that there is
one only God, good, just, the maker of all things, the Son in
the Father.” Novatian f answers to them who objected to
the orthodox that they owned two Gods, that if Christ being
Lord hinders not that of the apostle, “there is one Lord ;”
so neither did Christ's being good, and God, hinder “there
being one God, and one that is good.”
E: 3: Séxsic starex9sty eig rºy Koſºv, rāgnorov rā; #yrox&c, But if
thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.] This be-
ing Christ's answer to the young man's question, “What
good thing shall I do, that I may inherit eternal life?” I can-
not think, as many seem to do, that Christ here directs him
to that way to obtain that life, which neither was nor could
be sufficient for that end ; it being certain Christ elsewhere
saith the same thing. For to the lawyer inquiring, “What
shall I do to inherit eternal life P” Christ answers, “Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy
neighbour as thyself; this do and thou shalt live” (Luke x.
25.28). Now when men came seriously to inquire of him
the way to life eternal, who can imagine he would deceive
them by directing them to a way which he well knew was
not sufficient to obtain that end ? Moreover, it is very evident
that God in the Old Testament promiseth life to them who
observe his commandments, and pronounces them such as
“he that did them should live by them” (Lev. xviii. 5.
Ezek. xx. 11), promising to those who observe them, that
“they shall surely live, and not die” (Ezek. xviii. 21. xxxiii.
15); i. e. not die eternally, seeing he cannot be supposed to
promise that they should not die a natural death ; it is also
as certain that they who walked before God, as Zacharias and
Elisabeth, “in all the commandments of God blameless,”
were righteous in his sight (Luke i. 6), and were said to
walk before him with an upright and perfect heart (Ps. xviii.
21. 24), and to love him with all their heart and all their
soul (see note on xxii. 37). It is therefore certain that all
pious persons under the Old Testament obtained a right to
life eternal, by this observance of the moral precepts of the
law.
Obj. l. But against this it is objected, that when the
young man had said, “All these have I kept from my youth,”
Christ yet requires him to “sell all that he had, that he might
be perfect, and have treasure in heaven.”
Åns. True; but then this one thing was contained in the
precept of loving, honouring, and obeying God with all his
* Merc. Trismeg. in Paemandro, cap. 2, n. 86, n. 2.
+ Paedag, lib. i. p. 118, 119. † Cap. 30.
CHAPTER XIX.
139
18 He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, (Thou
knowest the commandments to be these, Mark X. 19.)
Thou shalt do no murder; Thou shalt not commit
adultery; Thou shalt not steal; Thou shalt not bear
false witness; - -
19 Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
20 The young man saith to him, (Master) All these
things have I kept from my youth up; what lack I
et P -
y 21 Jesus (then beholding him, loved him, Mark x.
21, and) said to him, (One thing is yet lacking to thee,)
heart; for sure he loves not God above all things, who will
not, when he doth require him, part with all things to enjoy
God in heaven ; nor doth he obey him sincerely, and with a
perfect heart, who, when he is required by his ambassador to
forsake them and follow him, refuseth so to do.
Obj. 2. It is farther objected, that the law required
“perfect obedience,” and could not absolve the sinner from
the guilt of sin. *
Ans. To this I answer, That to require perfect obedience
to his laws is a thing absolutely necessary on the part of
God, both under the old and the new covenant ; for sin being
the transgression of the law, and perfect and unsimning obedi-
ence being the same, if God require under the new covenant
that I should not transgress any of his laws, as he most cer-
tainly must do, he must requireme not to sin against them,
and so he must require perfect, that is unsinning obedience ;
and as sincere obedience, which is the condition of our accep-
tance with God under the new covenant, doth not procure
the pardon of our sins committed under that covenant, but
“the blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin” upon our re-
pentance, so though the obedience to the moral law, required
under the old covenant, could not absolve the sinner from the
guilt contracted by the violations of that law: yet doth God
there also promise expressly the like pardon to the penitent,
that “when the wicked man turneth away from his iniquity,
he shall not die, but live” (Ezek. xviii.); that when he “ceas-
eth to do evil, and learneth to do well, though his sins were
as crimson, he shall be white as wool” (Isa. i. 17, 18); and
that their offerings, which before were vain oblations, should
become sacrifices of sweet savour, and procure an atonement
for their sins, if not by virtue of his institution, yet certainly
by virtue of the “Lamb slain from the beginning of the
world.” And that God required no obedience to his law as
necessary to Salvation, but that which pious Jews, by virtue
of that grace which he was ready to afford them, might be
able to perform, is hence apparent, that he not only promises
life to them who did obey this law, but by the sacred penmen
doth pronounce them blessed, saying, “Blessed is the man
who meditates in this law day and might” (Ps. i. 6). “Bless-
ed are they who always keep judgment, and do righteous-
ness” (Ps. cxix. l. 2); that he that keepeth the law is bless-
ed (Prov. xxix. 18); and that “in keeping of it there is
great reward” (Ps. xix. 12, see Ps. cxix. 1, 2. Prov.
viii. 32. 34). This blessing, therefore, and reward, all
pious persons did, and had just reason to expect ; and yet
it is certain they could not expect it on the performance
of what it was not possible for them to do : though
therefore God said to them “cursed (i.e. obnoxious to a
curse) is every one that continueth not in all things writ-
ten in this law to do them :” they might be certain from the
expiation and atonement he had appointed to be made
for sin, and from the gracious promises made by him
to the penitent, that they should be exempted from the
guilt, and consequently from the curse, due to those trans-
gressions, though they might not expressly know that this
redemption was to be procured by the death of their
Messiah.
Obj. 3. But doth not the apostle intimate that “the law
could not give life,” by saying, “If there had been a law
which could have given life, verily justification should have
been by the law (Gal. iii. 21); that “the law worketh
wrath” (Rom. iv. 15); and that “as many as are under the
law are under a curse?” (Gal. iii. 10.)
Ans. All these things prove, that the transgressions of this
law did render them obnoxious to punishment for the guilt
^.
* If thou wilt be perfect (fully instructed in the high-
est duties of my doctrine, they are these), go and (now
I require it) sell that thou hast, and give to the poor,
and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come
| and follow me, (taking up thy cross, Mark x. 21.)
22 But when the young man heard that saying, he
went away (from Christ) sorrowful: for he had great
possessions (on earth, which he could not part with for
treasures in heaven).
23 Then said Jesus to his disciples, Verily I say
unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the
kingdom of heaven.
of it, and that the law itself, only requiring obedience, could
not absolve the sinner from the guilt of his disobedience to it,
and therefore could not procure justification to life for the
sinner without an act of grace temperating the rigour of the
law: but yet this proves not there was no pardon to be ob-
tained for the sinner, upon his repentance and faith in God,
allowing an atonement for his sin: for then there could have
been no place for repentance, or a propitiatory Sacrifice un-
der the law, and so no justification not only by the law,
which is all St. Paul asserts, but no justification, that is, no
freedom from the penalty denounced by it. As therefore
under the gospel our justification, or absolution from the
guilt of sin, ariseth not from works, but grace through faith ;
and yet good works and sincere obedience are the conditions
requisite to salvation, and the means necessary to obtain it;
and therefore of our love to God and to our neighbour as
ourselves, it may still be said, “Do this and live:” So under
the law, obedience to the moral precepts of it was the con-
dition of, and the means requisite to obtain, the same life;
and therefore of sincere obedience to it it might well be
said, “Do this and live,” especially seeing under the law
faith and repentance were required for the remission of the
violations of it. > *
And as it is necessary, from the perfection of the divine
mature, and his relation to us as a governor, to require that
we should not sin, i.e. transgress any of his laws; so it is
also necessary, through the imperfection of human nature,
that if he will enter into covenant with lapsed sinful man,
that that covenant should be a covenant of grace, or should
admit of favour upon his repentance ; seeing all other cove-
nants would depend, on man’s part, on an impossible condi-
tion, which is apparently equivalent to none at all ; it being
in effect the same to promise or engage for nothing, as only
to promise something upon a condition I cannot perform.
19 Wer. 21. Ei 852,51; réxeto, siyat, &c. If thou wilt be per-
ject, sell that thou hast, and give unto the poor.] That to be
perfect is to be fully instructed in our duty, is proved in the
note on 1 Cor. ii. 6, “We speak wisdom among those that
are perfect,” i.e. saith Theodoret, ºraçã row; sixxglyń xai rā-
Aslav Šećapwévov; ºria riv, “among those whose faith is sincere
and entire:” hence “to know in part” is opposed to ré ré-
Astov “perfect knowledge” (1 Cor. xiii. 9, 10). In this sense
the word ºp) is used by the rabbins, as when they say, “they
constitute a judge who was not gomar,” i. e. fully instructed
in the knowledge of the traditions of the fathers; and tell
us that one came to Hillel to be made a proselyte, and he
said, “Do not that to another which is odious to thyself;
that is the whole law, go thy perfect way ;” i. e. fully in-
structed in thy duty (Cod. Talm. Shabbath. f. 31). Now (1.)
hence then we may discern the vamity of the popish gloss
upon this text, viz. If thou wilt be perfect, that is, If
thou wilt obtain a higher degree of eternal life, I give thee
this counsel, not simply necessary to salvation, but to at-
tain a higher measure of it. For sure the young man need-
eth not have gone away so sorrowful, if, without obeying this
counsel, as they are pleased to call it, he might have ob-
tained that eternal life he inquired after, and which con-
tained the whole of his desire. Note,
Secondly, That seeing Christ here requires him not only
to withdraw his heart from an inordinate love of his posses-
sions, but actually to sell all, and give the money to the
poor, we may be sure that this was only a particular com-
mand to this young man, to convince him of the insincerity
of his pretended love to life eternal, and not a precept com:
mon to all Christians. For that there were rich men in the
140
MATTHEW.
24 And again I say unto you, * It is easier for a
camel (or a cable-rope) to go through the eye of a
needle, than for a rich man (who trusteth in his riches,
Mark X. 24) to enter into the kingdom of God.
25 When his disciples heard it (this), they were
exceedingly amazed, saying, Who then can be saved
26 But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them,
With men this is impossible; but with God all things
are possible (i.e. human persuasion can hardly thus
take off men's hearts from the world, but the power of
God can do it).
27 Then answered Peter, and said unto him, Be-
hold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee; what
shall we have therefore ?
28 And Jesus said to them, Verily I say unto you,
That ye who have (thus) followed me (now) * in the
regeneration (or this new state of things), when the
Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye
also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve
tribes of Israel: (i.e. you shall be the chief ministers
in my kingdom, to preach that doctrine to the Jews, by
which they shall be judged, Luke xxii. 29; see the
note.
*A* every one that hath forsaken houses, or
brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or
children, or lands, for my name's sake, * shall re-
ceive a hundred-fold (now in this life with persecution,
Mark x. 30, i.e. they shall have more and greater bless-
ings than they part with here), and shall inherit ever-
lasting life (hereafter).
church, we learn from 1 Tim. vi. 17. James i. 10. ii. 2; the
apostle John had his own house; Peter permits the Chris-
tian to retain his own (Acts v. 4); nor doth the apostle bid
the Corinthians sell all and give alms, but only requests
them to give “of their abundance” (2 Cor. viii. 13); so that
if riches fall into the hands of one who knoweth how to use
them to God's glory, and the relief of indigent Christians,
as well as to the supply of his own needs, it seems a contra-
diction to conceive that God doth require him to part with
them, and thereby divest himself of any farther opportunity
of promoting his glory, or doing good to his needy members.
We are therefore only to do this upon the like occasions, viz.
an express command from God ; or when we find them an
impediment to the securing our eternal interests: for then
we must part with our right eye or hand.
* Ver, 24. Eikoré régé, écºr. Håønxoy 33 rpurhuaro; a pièo:
Biéx6sſy. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a
needle, &c.] There is no necessity of reading x&ºxo; for
Máºor, for that both signify a “cable,” or thick rope used
by the mariners in casting anchors, Euthymius, Theophylact,
and Phavorinus” testify ; and that a camel is not here to be
understood, Bochartus argues, (1.) because the Hebrew pro-
verb speaks only of an elephant, not of a camel. (2.) Be-
cause the Syriac and Arabic versions here mention not a
camel, but a cable. (3.) Because the Jews, as Buxtorff
notes, use the same proverb of a cable rope; and (4.) be-
cause there is some analogy betwixt drawing a thread and a
rope through the eye of a needle, but none at all between a
camel and a thread (Bochart. Hieroz. par. i. lib. ii. cap. 5,
p. 91, 92).
* Ver. 28. Ey tº Traxtyyevscia, &c. In the regeneration,
when the Son of man shall sit upon the throne of his glory,
we shall sit won twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of
Israel,] I know that Justin Martyr and Irenaeus speak of a
Taxyyeviota, regeneration, or renovation, which relates to
their supposed millennium, and others would refer this to
the stoical renovation of the world after its conflagration;
but it is evident that neither of these opinions can here take
place ; not the supposed renovation of the world after the
conflagration of it, since that must burn up all that remain
of the “twelve tribes of Israel,” and so leave none of them
remaining to be judged by Christ's apostles. Dr. Lightfoot,
finding that this judgment of the twelve tribes is promised
to begin “when the Son of man sits upon the throne of his
glory,” which he began to do soon after his ascension, exer-
cising his authority in heaven by sending down the Holy
Ghost on his disciples, thinks they then “sat on these twelve
thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel,” when they
preached that gospel to them in Jerusalem, Judea, and
throughout their dispersions, by which they were to be judged,
and for contempt and disbelief of which they were rejected,
condemned, and exposed to the severest punishment. Christ
being mentioned throughout the book of the Revelation, as
sitting on his throne from the time of his conquest over
death and his ascension into heaven, the doctrine of the
apostles preached to the twelve tribes by the aposties, and
sent to them in their epistles, may be said to judge and to
* Kákºnko; xai rā ºrax axolyſov #y $ 3satzgûova's rā; 3)xſea;
of vatra, &c rà iſ stayyixiº xàºnxoy 8:3 revrºzats; a plºo,
387,0sfy. Phav.
+ Lex. Talm. p. 1719,
condemn them, as the law of Moses is said to do so, John v.
45, and the word of Christ, John xii. 47, 48. 1 John iii. 17,
18. And this seems to be confirmed by Christ's words to
them, “I appoint to you a kingdom, and ye shall sit upon
twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” But,
Secondly, I grant the ºraxtyyevscia here mentiomed may
be referred to the consummation of the world, and to the
“new heavens and earth” of which the prophets speak ; but
then I add, this maxiyyevsaria, or “new birth,” is only that
of the church of Christ, that £ootroinoriç, or “new life,” that
Koń śx Vexºv, “life from the dead,” she shall receive when
all Israel shall be saved, and “the fulness of the gentiles
shall flow in to them.” For,
First, The persons here to be judged are only the “twelve
tribes of Israel,” which makes it more than probable that
the whole promise made to the apostles respects their govern-
ment over these tribes, coming in at the close of the world,
after the fall of antichrist ; and that not by a resurrection
of their persons, but by a reviviscence of that spirit which
resided in them, and of that purity and knowledge which
they delivered to the world, and chiefly by admission of their
gospel to be the standard of their faith, and the direction of
their lives. -
Secondly, It is observable, that the delivery of the Jews
from their former captivities and miseries is always repre-
sented as a Koſovoimatº, “a giving of life,” and “a resurrec-
tion” to the Jews. Seeing then their return from their cap-
tivity is in the style of the prophets usually represented as a
Traxtyyevsoria, “a reviving, or new life,” why may not the
time of their most glorious conversion, and collection from
all the corners of the earth, be by our Saviour here repre-
sented under that known metaphor? moreover, the Greek
interpreters here generally say, Traxtyyevsaria rºy &yáataa'iy
vosī, “regeneration here signifies the resurrection.” But (1.)
we read of no assessors with Christ then, but rather that all
shall “stand before the judgment-seat.” (2.) The apostles
here are only said to judge “the twelve tribes of Israel;"
whereas, as they preached the gospel both to Jew and gen-
tile, so by their doctrine shall they then judge both Jew and
gentile (Rom. ii. 16). Some of the Latin fathers put a
stigma after regeneration, and interpret the words thus:
“You that have followed me in the regeneration,” that is,
“in faith and holiness;” but this interpretation is confuted
by the parallel place, Luke xxii. 20, which makes this the
reward of their abiding with him in his temptation, not of
their new birth, in which they could not follow Christ at all.
* Ver, 29, 30. Shall receive a hundred-fold, &c.] i. e.
They shall have more and greater blessings than they part
with, viz. a full content of mind; the comforts of an up-
right conscience; the joys of the Holy Ghost; increase of
grace, and hopes of glory; and shall have God for their
Father, and be rich towards God ; and have Christ for their
spouse, and all good Christians bearing that warm affection
to them which will render them more closely united to, and
more affectionately concerned for them, than those who were
allied to them by the strictest bonds of nature. And that
these words cannot reasonably be interpreted of blessings to
be conferred upon them after their resurrection, will be evi-
dent from this, that they that are “thought worthy to be the
Sons of the resurrection,” saith our Lord, “neither marry,
nor are given in marriage” (Luke xx. 35). Whence there-
fore should they have these mothers and these childron, not
CIHAPTER XX.
141
30 “But many that are (now) first shall be last;
and (they that are nowy the last shall be first (i. e. the
Jews, to whom the blessings of this kingdom are first to
to add wives, a hundred-fold? they are made like to the an-
gels at their resurrection ; and what should such angelical
persons do with, what advantage will they reap from, a hun-
dred houses, or a like increase of land on earth P
If you reply, that these words of our Saviour relate not to
the first resurrection, of which this text, which speaks of
wives and children, is to be interpreted, but only to the se-
cond and general resurrection ; I answer, that the words are
general, and therefore must include all that are sons of the
resurrection. Moreover, by admitting this double resurrec-
tion, the first, in which they that are raised might marry, or
have wives and children, and the second, in which they could
not ; the objection or inquiry of the sadducees is partly left
unanswered : for this distinction doth suppose a resurrection,
in which the ground of their inquiry might take place.
Secondly, This wonderful increase is promised vöv, “at
present,” By rā Kalgä, “in this time of life,” Mark x. 30.
Luke xviii. 30, in opposition to what they shall receive in
the age to come. Now the millennium is still placed by
Dr. Burnet in the age to come, after the conflagration of the
world; this promise therefore cannot refer to his millennium,
nor yet to any other which begins after the resurrection of
these persons ; for that time can with no propriety of speech
be said to be now, nor can the blessings then received be said
to be received in this life. Moreover, these blessings are to
be received aera 8:00) way, with persecutions, it being the
known observation of critics and grammarians, that were
with a genitive case signifies with, and denotes rôy abrów Kai-
CHAPTER XX.
1 Foa (this, that the first shall be last, may be con-
firmed to you by this parable,) 'the kingdom of heaven
be offered, shall be the last that shall partake of them :
and the gentile, to whom they are to be offered after
them, shall first enjoy them). *
--ms- - ------
gºv, “the same time,” and only with an accusative case sig-
nifies after, and denotes Üa recoxgoviav, “a following time;”
so that these persecutions must be contemporary with the
enjoyment of these blessings; whereas a general peace, and
freedom from all persecutions, is made a necessary character
of the millennial state.
Lastly, These words afford an argument against the doc-
trine of the millennium; because, according to them, the
only blessing to be received iv rá aiāv rá #pxouávº, “in the
age to come,” is life everlasting; which blessing is confined
to heaven, and not to be enjoyed on earth, our house “eter-
mal (being) in the heavens” (2 Cor. v. 1), and our “inhe-
ritance eternal reserved in the heavens for us:” and therefore
they to whom the promise is here made, are not in the world
to come to live a thousand years on earth, or to enjoy the
temporal blessings promised here ; because they are not to
be enjoyed in the world to come, but now, in this present
life ; and because the only blessing promised in the world to
come, is not to be enjoyed on earth, but is reserved in the
heavens for us (1 Pet. i. 4).
* Ver. 30. But many that are first shall be last.] Christ
speaking here of the blessings which belong to his kingdom,
and saying, that as to the participation of them, the Jews
shall be the last, seems to confirm the doctrine of St. Paul,
that the Jewish nation should be converted at the close
of the world, or the last age, when the millennium shall
is like to a man that is a householder, who went out
º in the morning to hire labourers into his vine-
yard (as Christ went first to call the Jews to come into
it). t
2 And when he had agreed with the labourers for
a penny a day (i.e. had told them what should be their
wages), he sent them into his vineyard.
3 And he went out about the third hour (by his
apostles, sent first to preach in their cities and villages,
Matt. x.) and saw others standing idle in the mar-
ket-place,
4 And said unto them, Go ye also into the vine-
yard; and whatsoever is right, I will give you. And
they went their way.
5 Again he went out about the sixth and ninth
hour, and did likewise (preaching by his apostles,
assisted by the Holy Ghost, first to the Jews in Judea,
and then in the dispersions).
6 And about the eleventh hour he went out, and
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XX.
* Wer. 1. The kingdom of heaven is like to a man that is
a householder.] Something like this parable being to be
found in the Jerusalem Talmud, as are many other of these
parables in some of their ancient books, Mr. Clerc thinks it
fitter to say, “they afterward used them in imitation of
Christ,” than that Christ, who was an inspired teacher,
should take them from the Jews. But (1.) whoever consi-
ders the hatred they bore to Christ, will scarce believe they
would be concerned to imitate his sayings; and seeing this
inspired teacher made frequent use of their proverbs, and,
as some learned men aver, took almost the whole Lord's
prayer from the prayers used by the Jews; why might not
he, who used their parabolical way of teaching, by his di-
vine wisdom apply such of their parables as he saw proper
for that purpose, to resemble the spiritual matter of his
kingdom, they being such as would be less offensive, and
begin.
y
found others (i. e. the gentiles) standing idle, and
saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day
idle *
7 They say unto him, Because no man hath hired
us (i. e. the gospel hath not yet been preached to us).
He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard; and
whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive.
8 So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard
saith to his steward, Call the labourers, and give them
their hire, beginning from the last unto the first.
9 And when they came that were hired about the
eleventh hour, they received every man a penny (i. e.
the gentiles had equal privileges and advantages with
the Jews). -
10 But when the first (the Jews) came, they sup-
posed that they should have received more; and (but)
they likewise received every man a penny.
11 And when they had received it, they murmured
against the good man of the house, (that he had no
more regard to them than to other believers).
12 Saying, These last have wrought but one
better be remembered because used by them, and familiar to
them 2 To proceed then to the critical remarks upon this
parable, and so on to the import of it: note,
First, That these words, these last, Azizw &pay śiroſnaav, are
well rendered, “have wrought one hour,” for so troisſy signi-
fies, as Dr. Hammond notes in these words of the book of
Ruth, arojimolmaac, “where hast thou wrought 2'' (Ruth ii.
19), and “she showed her mother ºrdſ incings where she
wrought,” and the name of the man ass’ of iroinos, “with
whom she wrought ;” and in the book Ecclesiastes Troinºwa is
still a work, and Troisſy to work ; so tº Troined to "retroinºvov
in rēy #xtoy is, “the work wrought under the sun,” Eccles.
ii. 17. iv. 3. viii. 9, and iii. 9, so profit is toū Trototyros, “to
him that worketh in that which he laboureth.” Note,
Secondly, That 349axº; 3) aSöc, ver, 15, is a liberal or
bounteous eye. So Ecclus. xxxv. 6, “Glorify God iv 34.0ax-
gº; 3,206, by thy bounty.” So allo Ty is benignus oculus,
(see Buxt. in voce Ty, see Dr. Hammond, note b.), and
142
_MATTHEw.
hour (i. e. these gentiles were only called at the last),
and thou hast made them equal to us (Jews), who
have borne the burden and heat of the day (i.e. have
been so long the sons of God, and the children of Abra-
ham). -
13 But he answered one of them, and said, Friend,
I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for
a penny?
14 Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give
to this last, even as to thee (who dost not less partake
of the blessings promised by the Messiah, because the
gentiles also do it). -
15 Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with
my own f (to confer the blessings I have purchased, as
well upon the gentiles as on thee 8 or) is thine eye evil,
because I am good (towards them)?
16 So the last shall be first, and the first last (i. e.
so the gentiles believing in, and thankfully receiving
Christ, shall become his church and people, whilst the
Jews, murmuring and falling off from Christ, because
$$$axpay; troympic is “the envious eye” (see note on Matt. vi.
22.
Thirdly. That the xxnto here, are those who were called by
Christ and his apostles to the marriage-feast or supper of
the gospel, offered to them with all its benefits, and yet
slighted and refused by them, Luke xiv. 18. The Éxxexºrci
those among the Jews who embraced this call, and so are
called by St. Paul Éx\oyi, “the election,” and a remnant, xar'
#xNoyºv, “according to the election of grace” (Rom. xi. 6,
7); and by St. Peter, “the elect” (1 Pet. i. 1. ii. 9). For
the import of this parable seems to be this, that the Jews,
who were first called to be God’s people, and to whom the
gospel was first preached, and the blessings of the Messiah
first offered, shall be, for their unbelief, rejected from being
God's people, and so shall be the last in God's esteem, and
shall be only made partakers of these blessings at the
last ; but the gentiles, who therefore came not in before, be-
cause they were not called before, shall accept the gracious
offer, and so become God's church and people, and be pre-
ferred before the Jews, and first partake of the blessings of
the gospel: so that they who gloried in the title of being the
first-born of God, and those who had served him so long, and
therefore murmured that the gentiles should be admitted to
the same privileges and favour with them, and that without
circumcision or obedience to the law of Moses, and did on
that account reject the gospel, shall themselves be rejected,
and put last; for, though many of them are called both in
Judea, and throughout their dispersions, yet few of them do
or will accept that call, or embrace the Christian faith.
That this is the true import of this parable, we learn (1).
from the connective particle yā; for, which begins this chap-
ter, and thereby shows this parable is designed to prove what
was said in the last verse of the former chapter, and is
repeated in the close of this parable, ver. 16, viz. that
“many which were first shall be last, and the last shall be
first.” And that this relates to the calling in of the gentiles,
and the rejection of the Jews, is evident from these words,
Luke xiii. 28–30, “So there shall be weeping and gnash-
ing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you your-
Selves cast out. And they shall come from the east and the
west, from the north and south, and shall sit down in the
kingdom of God. And, behold, there are last which shall be
first, and first which shall be last.” For in these words
Christ plainly shows that the gospel should be received by
the gentiles dispersed through all parts of the earth, and they
should become the seed of Abraham by faith, whilst the
Jews should be excluded from that kingdom, and by this
“the last shall be made first, and the first last;” and the rea-
son of this, added ver. 16, “for many are called, but few
chosen,” must respect the same Jews. Moreover, that this
parable cannot relate to the rewards of another world, is evi-
dent from this, that amongst them who receive those rewards
there can be no murmuring as here against God, ver. 11, no
“evil eye,” or envy at the felicity of, or kindness shown to
others, as here, ver, 15. But the very preaching of the gos-
of this his kindness to the gentiles, shall be eacluded,
and cast out from this kingdom till, the last): for
(though) many (of them) be called (by the preaching
of the gospel), but few (of them will be) chosen, (or
prevailed upon by believing to become the elect of God,
Rom. xi. 5. 7.)
17 And Jesus going up to Jerusalem took the
twelve disciples (who followed him, fearing what might
befall him and them there, Mark x. 32) apart in their
way, and said to them,
18 Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son
of man shall be betrayed to the chief priests and to
the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death;
19 And shall deliver him to the gentiles to mock,
and to scourge, and to crucify him: and the third
day he shall rise again; (for all these things being
written of him must be fulfilled, Luke xviii. 31.)
20 *Then came to him the mother of Zebedee's
children, with her sons, worshipping him, and de-
Siring a certain thing of him.
pel to the gentiles was a great mystery (Rom. xvi. 25, .26.
Eph. iii. 4–6. 1 Tim. iii. 16); for even the first believers
preached only to the Jews (Acts xi. 19). St. Peter durst
not do it till God by a vision told him that he should (Acts
x.), and when he had done it, those of the circumcision con-
demn him for it (Acts xi. 2, 3). The unbelieving Jews could
not hear it from St. Paul, without crying out, “Away with
such a fellow, it is not fit that he should live” (Acts xxii. 21,
22); and therefore they forbade the apostles “to preach to
the gentiles that they might be saved” (1 Thess. ii. 16). Yea,
even the believing Jews murmured at their admission to the
like privileges with them, without circumcision, and the ob-
servance of the law of Moses, and made great schisms in all
the churches of the gentiles upon that account ; and the un-
believing Jews were enemies to the gospel for their sakes
(Rom. xi. 28). This therefore seems to be the cause of the
murmuring, and “evil eye,” mentioned in this parable,
which, saith Christ, was wholly without cause, since they
had not the less share of the blessings of Abraham, and
of the Messiah, because the gentiles also, through God's
free grace and favour to them, were made partakers of
them. Note also, that the words, “I will give to these
last as unto thee,” do not signify that God would give the
blessings of the gospel to these murmuring Jews, “the king-
dom of God being to be taken from them,” and they being to be
“cast out into outer darkness;” but only that they should be
offered to both equally, and conferred upon them, on the
same terms of faith, there being no “distinction betwixt Jew
and gentile” in the gospel dispensation, as under the law
there was.
The kingdom of heaven is like, &c.] The two expositions
of the fathers, viz. (1.) that they who were called at the first
hour, were Adam and Eve, or Enoch and Noah; they at the
second, were Abraham and the patriarchs; they at the sixth,
were Moses and the Jews; they at the ninth, the prophets:
or (2.) that this relates to the several ages of man; to those
who are called in their infancy, as Samuel and the Baptist ;
or in their youth, manhood, middle age, old age, cannot
be true. Not the first, though it be as ancient as Origen, if
not as Irenaeus " because this is a parable of “the kingdom
of heaven,” and therefore can only respect those times when
the kingdom of heaven was come among them: (2.) be-
cause of those many that were called, “few were chosen ;”
which is not true of those said by this exposition to be
called at the first, third, and the ninth hour: not the second ;
because this plainly is a parable relating to the Jewish
nation (ver. 16), and therefore not to all persons called in all
ages and places of the world.
Wer. 15. Ew rot; hºwofc.] This, saith Dr. Mills from his
Vulgate, is commentarius nontextus, “a commentary added
to the text;” but these words are found in Origen on Matt. p.
407, in Chrysostom, Theophylact, and in all the other versions.
* Ver. 20, 21. Then came to him the mother of Zebedee's
children, desiring that her two sons might sit one on his
* Lib. iv. cap. 70.
CHAPTER XX.
143
21 And he said to her (speaking for them as they
desired), What wilt thou? she saith unto him, Grant
that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right
hand, and the other on the left, in thy kingdom.
22 But Jesus answered, and said (to them), Ye
know not what ye ask (as being ignorant of the state
of my kingdom, which will rather call you to suffer-
ings, after the ea ample of your Lord, than to temporal
advantages). “Are ye (then) able to drink of the cup
that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the bap-
tism that I am baptized with They say unto him,
We are able.
23 And he saith unto them, Ye shall drink indeed
of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I
am baptized with (i.e. shall suffer as I must do) :
“but to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not
mine to give, but it shall be given to them (Gr. save
to them) for whom it is prepared of my Father (i. e.
the highest gifts, and greatest ministries in my king-
dom must be dispensed by me, according to the good
pleasure of my Father).
24 And when the ten heard it (i. e. what these had
asked), they were moved with indignation against the
two brethren (for thus attempting to get that which
they thought themselves as worthy of as they).
25 But Jesus (perceiving this) called them unto
him, and said, "Ye know that the princes of the gem-
tiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are
great exercise authority upon them (at their pleasure,
and so you eaſpect it will be in my kingdom, especially
right hand, the other on his left in his kingdom.] How this
is to be reconciled with Mark x. 35, see there. To “sit
on his right hand and on his left,” is to have the most
eminent places of dignity and honour after him ; thus Solo-
mon placed his mother “on his right hand” when he sat upon
the throne, 1 Kings ii. 19, to which alludes that of Ps. xlv. 9,
“upon his right handstands the queen in gold of Ophir;” and
that among the Persians was £4.50' airów Łęew ºrgoals3gſay, “to
have the first seat after the king” (Joseph. Antiq. lib. xi.
cap. 4), Seárepoy wasíčeaša, Aggiov, “to sit next Darius,” or
#xáſzewo, attoº, “to sit by him” (Esd. iii. 7. iv. 42). This
the mother might be encouraged to ask, because of their al-
liance to Christ, and because she was a continual follower of
him, and served him so diligently ; and she might expect
they should be eminent in his kingdom, because Christ had
called them “sons of thunder” (Mark iii. 17), and had ad-
mitted them and Peter at his transfiguration (Matt. xvii. 1),
and at other times (Mark v. 37), when the rest of the dis-
ciples were excluded: however, the rest hearing of this am-
bitious request of the two brethren, and being as desirous,
and, in their own opinion, as worthy of the same honour, as
their frequent contentions about it testified, they had “indig-
nation against them” (ver. 24). Now from this whole
matter it appears, that none of Christ's disciples imagined he
had promised the supremacy to Peter, by those words,
“Thou art Peter ;” for then neither would these two per-
sons have desired it, nor would the rest have contended for
it afterward (Luke xxii. 24).
* Ver. 22. Aſvaa'6; Trisſy ºrd "rorhetov, 3 #y& Fºxxw trively, ka?
rô 6árriaga, &c. Can you drink of the cup that I am
about to drink of, and be baptized with the baptism with
which I shall be baptized 21 The word cup, among sacred
and profane authors, signifies the portion whether of good
or evil which befalls men in this world ; expressed by Ho-
mer and others by two cups in the hands of Jupiter, of
which *
Aotol yáč re ºrigoi waraxeiata #y A13; otºsí
A&;&v, ola Siłoci waxåy #rego; 3: Háay.
* Il. Q', 525.
(See Plutarch ºrigi ovyā;, p. 600, C). Accordingly the
psalmist Saith, “In the hand of the Lord there is a cup,
and the wine is red, and he poureth out the same;” #xxivey in
toūrov sic rotºro, “he poureth out from one into the other,”
saith the Septuagint ; “but the dregs thereof shall the
wicked drink” (Ps. lxxv. 8), “fire and brimstone, storm and
tempest, being the portion of their cup.” “To drink of this
cup,” is to have a measure of afflictions; and to drink of
the same cup, is to have the same measure of afflictions ; as
in these words of Plautus,” Ut senex hôc eodem poculo, quo
ego bibo, biberet, “That the old man might drink of the
same cup with me” (see the use of this phrase, Isa. li. 17.
22. Jer. xxv. 15. 17. 28. Lam. iv. 21. Ezek. xxiii. 31–33.
Matt. xxvi. 39.42. John xviii. 11. Rev. xiv. 10. xvi. 19.
xviii. 6, and Taubman on Plautus, Rudent. iii. 5).
This phrase among the Jews, from whom we have reason
to conceive our Lord received it, signifies, lethale poculum
bibere, or “to taste of death:” as when Christ saith, “Fa-
ther, if it be thy pleasure, let this cup pass from me.”
Thus R. Caiia comforts R. Lakis, concerning the death of
his child, by saying, “ of this cup, multi biberunt, multi
* Cas, act. 5, sect. 2.
bibent, many have drank, and many shall drink.” It fol-
lows, xai tº 8ámºrtaga 3 #yā, Barričopºat, 8amºria 6ival; which
words, saith Dr. Mills, belong not to St. Matthew, but St.
Mark ; they being wanting in the Vulgar, St. Jerome, and,
saith he, in Origen, who, after he had cited these words,
3övaa-Se ºrieſ, r3 ºrothploy 3 #y& Kºčaxo, ºriety, adds, # &c & Mápxo:
äväyea-le, § {y& Trivo, Kai rā 6árriaga xai rā āśāc" though
there it be uncertain, whether Origen cites Mark for the
omission of the latter clause, or only for the change of
ºxxo irisſy into wival. However, these words are found both
in the twenty-second and twenty-third verses in Chrysostom
and Theophylact, and in Basilius Seleucensis, hom. 24, p.
134. And again in Chrysostom, ed. Mor. tom. i. p. 381,
382, and in the Syriac and Arabic versions. And seeing
they are introduced by St. Mark thus, “But Jesus said unto
them, Can ye drink, &c. and can ye be baptized,” &c. they
were certainly spoken to them by our Lord ; and why then
should not St. Matthew relate them as our Saviour spake
them P *
The metaphor of baptism, or immersion in waters, or be-
ing put under floods, is also familiar in scripture, to signify a
person overwhelmed with calamities; as when the psalmist
complains “that the waves had gone over him,” Ps. xlii. 7,
that he was “come into deep waters,” Ps. lxix. 2, see Ps.
lxxxviii. 7. Cant. viii. 7. Jer. xlvii. 2. Ezek. xxvi. 19. Dan.
ix. 26. Jonah ii. 3. And in this sense Christ Saith of his
death, “I have a baptism to be baptized with.” (Luke xii.
50). Of this cup the apostle James drank when he was
killed by the sword of Herod (Acts xii. 2); and St. John,
when he was put into a furnace of hot oil, exiled to Patmos,
and suffered many other things for the name of Jesus.
4 Ver. 23. But to sit on my right hand and on my left, is
not mine to give; otz Hariy Hºy Soival, &AA’ of iroitwaarai Örö
toū rareó, wov, but to them for whom it is prepared of
my Father.] The Arians of old, and the Socinians at pre-
sent, hence note, that Christ here signifies that there is
some power which the Father hath reserved to himself, and
hath not committed to him ; whence, say they, it follows,
that he cannot be the same God which the Father is ; be-
cause he hath not the same power which the Father hath.
But to this it is answered, that Christ cannot be here Sup-
posed to deny this power to himself, for then he must con-
tradict himself when he says (Luke xxii. 29, 30), “I dispose
to you a kingdom, that you may sit on twelve thrones,
judging the twelve tribes of Israel;” and (Rev. iii. 2)),
“To him that overcometh will I give to sit upon my throne,
as I have overcome, and sit with my Father on his throne ;"
and surely he to whom “all power in heaven and earth is
given,” must have power to appoint the ministers of his
kingdom ; whence the apostle saith, “there be divers ad-
ministrations, but the same Lord” of them (1 Cor. xii. 5).
Christ therefore only saith, he could give this to them only
for whom it was appointed of his Father ; and this he says
not to signify a defect of power, but a perfect conformity to
his Father's will; and that he could not do this without the
motion and energy of the divine nature, which he calls the
Father, abiding in him, saying, “The Son can do nothing of
| himself, but what he sees the Father do” (John Y. 19, 20),
and can speak only what he hath heard from the Father
(John viii. 38); which rather shows that the divine essence
abideth in him, than that there is any want of power in him.
5 Wer. 25. Ye know that ol āºxovre; rºy #6vāv Karaku-
144
MATTHEW.
as to the gentiles, that you Jews shall be lords over
them, and they shall be your servants).
26. But (let me tell you) it shall not be so among
you (in the administration of my kingdom); but who-
soever will be great among you (in my kingdom),
let him be your minister; -
27 And whosoever will be chief among you, let
him be your servant (for the chiefest officers in my
kingdom are only the doing the greatest services to, and
ministers for the good of others): -
28 (It therefore must be with them) even as (it is
with) the Son of man (who) came not to be minis-
tered unto, but to minister, "and to give his life a
ransom for many. -
29 And as they departed from Jericho, a great
multitude followed him.
etsüovaty airāv, zal of pºeyāºol wars?ovatáCovary airāv, the rulers
of the gentiles have dominion over them, and they that
are great eaſercise authority over them: but it shall not he
so among you..] Here, saith Woltzogenius, we may clearly
perceive that Christ, in the person of his apostles, under-
stands all his faithful people, and forbids them, who will be
his subjects, the exercise of all civil dominion ; which is cer-
tainly false, since then he had forbid the dominion of parents
over their children, and of masters over their servants ; the
contrary to which is evident from Eph. vi. 1. 5. Col. iii. 22.
1 Tim. vi. 1, where the power of parents over their children,
and of masters over their servants, is confirmed.
Secondly, If by these words the civil magistracy should
be forbidden in a Christian commonwealth, all order, all
defence of good men, and punishment of evil-doers would
be taken away. For what must be done in this case ; must
the civil government of Christians be put into the hands of
heathens P “I see no cause,” saith Schlictingius, “why a
Christian should not rather exercise it than any other man ;
for who is better than a Christian 2 Who, in the use of this
authority, will be more just and moderate 2 Who more di-
ligent in defending the good, and especially those Christians
who are God's peculiar people? Who is fitter to promote
Christian truth and piety P When the whole realm is Chris-
tian, can it be better to commit the government to an adver-
sary, than to an abettor of Christianity P Since God would
have kings themselves ‘to come to the knowledge of the
truth,’ would he require them at the same time to lay aside
their government? What could render them more alien
from the Christian faith, or be a greater reproach to Chris-
tianity, than to say it forbade them that government which
is instituted by the law of nature, and is so necessary for all
people? And how contrary is this to that prediction, that
“kings should be their nursing fathers l' Moreover, it is
certain that the exercise of this civil power can be no evil
thing ; since he who doth it is God's vicegerent, ‘the ordi-
nance of God, the minister of God for good ; who then
would have all Christians discharged from what is lawful in
itself, and highly beneficial to them, and not rather wish that
all kings were Christians, or that only Christians might be
kings?” And whereas Woltzogenius adds, that this empire
consists not with Christian humility, which calls us to minis-
ter to others; now to command and minister is inconsistent ;
I answer, that government is so far from being inconsistent
with ministry, that all government, whose end is not our pri-
vate, but the good of others, is, in respect of them, a mi-
nistry ; hence is the highest power styled the “minister of
God for good to them,” and said Astrovgypſy “to serve,” or
officiate, for that very end (Rom. xiii. 6).
But why then, saith he, did not Christ, the head and king
of the church, exercise this office? I answer, who knows
not that he is “King of kings, and Lord of lords,” and is
now in the actual exercise of his kingly office P He did not
indeed exercise this dominion upon earth, because “his king-
dom was not of this world,” and he would give no umbrage
to Caesar or the Jews, that he affected such a thing; and partly
because he was to exercise his prophetic office upon earth,
and go from his sufferings to the glory of his kingdom, and
leave us an example of patience and humility, and of con-
tempt of worldly grandeur. -
Secondly, It is certain that this text cannot condemn al
ecclesiastical government, that being as necessary to an ec-
clesiastical society or community as civil government to a
civil society; hence among gifts distributed for the use of
the church, we read of governments, 1 Cor. xii. 28, we find
the apostles had their rod, 1 Cor, iv. 21, and power given of
the Lord, 2 Cor. x. 8. xiii. 10, to deliver to Satan, 1 Cor. v.
5. 2 Tim. i. 20, and “to revenge all unrighteousness,” 2 Cor.
x. 6, And we have mention of those who “are over us in
the Lord,” 1 Thess. v. 12, and who are #yočºvot, “govern-
ors,” to whom we must yield obedience, and “submit our-
selves,” Heb. xiii. 7, 17, and without this, that Christiaº
discipline, on which the welfare of the church depends, could
not be exercised. Nor,
Thirdly, Do I think Christ only here forbiddeth such do-
minion as is attended with tyranny, oppression, and con-
tempt of their subjects, as some collect from the words kata-
xveletely and wate:ovatáðsly, which, say they, bear that sense,
Neh. v. 14, 15. ix. 37. Ezra vii. 24. Ps. x. 5. 10. Ecclus.
xx. 8. (1.) Because St. Luke, xxii. 25, uses only the words
zvete'ſsiy and #ovatáðssy, which bear no such ill sense. ‘.
Because kings and governors among the gentiles, and much
less among the Jews, were not always guilty of this mal-
administration. And (3.) because Christ does not oppose
unto their government a just dominion, but a ministry only.
(4.) Observe, that śćovićew, Neh. ix. 37, doth plainly sig-
nify, to “govern” them according to their will ; and this
was plainly the government which obtained in the eastern
mations, the will of those kings was their law; and for this
reason were they styled at-roxgåroges. Whereas your office
being only to make known my will, you, Saith Christ, shall
have no such government, no dominion over the faith of
others (2 Cor. i. 24), shall command nothing for mere will
and pleasure, but your whole office shall consist in being
ministers for the good of others. Whence, saith the apostle,
“What is Paul, what is Apollos, but 8&novot, ministers by
whom ye believed P’’ (1 Cor. iii. 5) “And we ourselves are
your servants,” saith he, “for Jesus' sake” (2 Cor. iv. 5).
Hence are they so often styled “ministers,” and their work
a “ministry to the saints,” to the gentiles, to the church.
And therefore, saith Christ, all the office any man can have
in my kingdom can only be a larger ministry to others ; and
in this he truly will resemble me, who “ came not to be minis-
tered to, but to minister.”
* Wer. 28. Even as the Son of man came not to be minis-
tered unto, but to minister; kai 300was rāv kvºy attoº Núrpov
3yri aroxxâx, and to give his life a ransom for many.] Here
note,
First, That whereas it is said here, that “Christ gave his
life a ransom for many ; ” and, xxvi. 28, that his blood was
shed “for many:” and, Heb. ix. 28, that Christ “was once
offered to take away the sins of many : ” it doth not hence
follow, that Christ died not for all ; the word "roxxoi,
“many,” being in other cases used where all are certainly
included. Thus when it said, Dan. xii. 2, that “many who
sleep in the dust shall arise, some to everlasting life, and
some to everlasting shame,” this is certainly equivalent to
that of Christ, John v. 28, 29, “The hour cometh, that all
that sleep in the grave shall hear the voice of the Son of
man, and shall come forth ; they that have done good, to
the resurrection of life ; and they that have done evil, to
the resurrection of condemnation ; ” when it is said, Rom.
v. 15, that “through the offence of one, many died ; ” this
is equivalent to that of the same apostle, that “in Adam all
men died,” 1 Cor. xv. 22 ; and when it is said, ver. 19, that
“by the disobedience of one, many were made sinners,”
this is certainly equivalent to what is said, ver, 12, “Death
passed upon all men, through that one man in whom all
have sinned.” Note,
Secondly, That from these words, “he gave his life,
Aórpoy &vri roaX&v, a ransom for many,” it is evident, that
Christ suffered in our stead, and gave his life instead of our
lives, obnoxious to death, the wages of sin, as is largely
proved, note on those words, 1 Tim. ii. 6, “he gave himself,
3yriavtpoy trig träyrov, a ransom for all; ” and will be far-
ther evident from the like expressions in scripture, in Jew-
ish, and in heathen authors. Thus, Josh. ii. 14, the agree-
ment betwixt Rahab and the spies runs thus, h Jux; hºw
t
CHAPTER XXI.
145
30. And, behold, two blind men sitting by the way-
side, when they heard that Jesus passed by, cried
out, saying, Have mercy on us, O Lord, thou son of
David. -
31 And the multitude rebuked them, because
(that) they should hold their peace; but they cried
the more, saying, Have mercy on us, O Lord, thou
son of David.
32 And (then) Jesus stood still, and called them,
and said, What will ye that I should do unto you ?
33 They said unto him, Lord (our request is),
that our eyes may be opened.
34 So Jesus had compassion on them, and touched
their eyes: and immediately their eyes received their
sight, and they followed him.
eiç Sáyarov, “Let our lives die instead of yours, if ye utter
not our business.” So when Eleazar died, he is intro-
duced by Josephus * speaking thus, Ka8ápotov airów Trotſia at
tº hºw aiwa, Kai &yri Juxºv adrāv x48siv rºw ºw buxºr
that “God would accept his blood as a propitiatory sacrifice
for the Jews, and take his life instead of their lives.” So
Alcestis + saith to Admetus, “In honour of thee I die,
that thou, äyri rā, śpañc juxic, mightest live instead of me.”
And Porphyry, f from Asclepiades, says, that “the first
sacrifices were offered, üró rivaç Kalgow; buxºv &vri buxii;
airovºzévovº, on some occasions requiring life for life " (see
more of this, Outram de Sacr. lib. i. cap. 22, and Pears.
Windiciae Ignat. par. ii. cap. 15, p. 206—208). This being
then the constant opinion both of Jews and gentiles, that
their piacular victims were Ağrpa and &vriavrea, “ransoms”
* L. de Maccab. p. 1090, C.
+ Eurip. Alcest. v. 282.
: De Abst. lib. iv. § 15.
for the life of a sinner; and that he who gave his life for
another, suffered in his stead, and to preserve him from
death ; they could not otherwise judge, but that our Lord
intended by this expression to signify that he gave his life
instead of the lives of those for whom he suffered. Vain
here are the Socinians, when they say this price was to be
paid to Satan, who detained us captive ; for the price is only
to be paid to him that retains the captive when he doth
this for gain, to make money of him, as the Turks now do
at Tripoli and Algiers, not when a man is detained in cus-
tody or prison, for violation of a law ; for then it is not the
gaoler, but the legislator, to whom the price of his redemp-
tion must be paid, or satisfaction made. And Crellius in
vain denies that this price was paid to God, for Christ be-
came our ransom, as he offered up his life and blood for us;
now “he gave himself a sacrifice and oblation to God’”.
Eph. v. 2); “he offered himself without spot to God”
§ ix. 14); he therefore paid the price of our redemption
to God.
CHAPTER XXI.
1 AND when they drew nigh to Jerusalem, and were
come (through Bethany) to Bethphage, to the mount of
Olives, then sent Jesus two (of his) disciples, (Mark
x. 1. Luke xix. 29.)
2 Saying to them, Go into the village over against
you, and straightway entering (into it) ye shall find * an
ass tied, and a colt (tied) with her (on which never man
sat, Mark xi. 2), loose them, and bring them unto me.
3 And if any man say aught to you (asking, why you
do this, Markxi. 3), ye shall say, The Lord hath need of
them; and straightway (hearing that) he will send them.
4 All this was done (by Christ), that it might be
*fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet (Zachary,
ix. 9), saying, -
- * ***-
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXI.
* Wer. 2. IIopsû8nts eiç rºy wººzny, Tây &révayrı İpºy Go to
the village over against you..] This could not be Jerusalem
that was against Christ and his apostles, as some gloss the
words; that being not a village, but a city ; but as the
Arabian geographer * informs us, it was “a little village
two miles distant from the mount of Olives towards the
south” (see Bochart. Hieroz. lib. ii. cap. 17. col. 210).
* Eighaste §voy 3888&éºny, xal Trôxoy get adrāq, Ye shall
find an ass bound..] Seeing all the other evangelists testify
that the colt was bound, the words of St. Matthew must be
filled up thus, “And a colt bound with her.”
Note also, that the other evangelists make mention only
of the colt, because our Saviour sat upon him only (see
note on ver. 7). Note also, here, a wonderful instance of
Christ's prescience in the minutest matters, viz. l. You
shall find a colt ; 2. On which no man ever sat ; 3. bound
with his mother; 4. in bivio ; 5. as you enter into the vil-
lage; 6. the owners of which shall at first seem unwilling
that you shall unbind him ; 7. but when they hear the Lord
hath need of him, they will let him go. -
* Ver. 4. All this was done, Wa ºrango,6; Tô Đnóiv 8:3 roi,
wrºophºrov, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the
prophet,_meek, and silting, iri čvoy, Kai Tržňov, wbon an ass,
and upon a colt, the foal of an ass.] John xii. 15, “Sitting
itri Trôxov Švov, upon the foal of an ass,” which makes it rea-
* Clim. 3, ar. 5.
5 Tell ye the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy King
cometh to thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and
(that is) a colt the foal of an ass.
6 And the disciples went, and did as Jesus com-
manded them; (and they found the colt tied by the
door without, in a place where two ways met, and they
loosed him, Mark xi. 4. And the owners of the colt
standing by, said, Why do ye loose the colt 8 ver, 5.
And the disciples answered, We do as Jesus, who hath
need of them, commanded us ; and then they suffered
them, ver. 6. Luke xix. 31. 34.)
7 And (so they) brought the ass, and the colt, and
put on (one of) * them (to wit, the colt) their clothes,
and they set him thereon.
sonable to conceive that wai here signifies, id est, as wait
oft does (see note on Col. i. 2). Moreover, here note, (1.)
that the ancient Jews refer this place of Zachary ix. 9, to
the Messias. So Midras Coheleth, in Eccles. i. 9, “Such as
our first redeemer was (i. e. Moses), such shall be the last
(the Messiah); the first set his wife and children upon an
ass (Exod. iv. 20), and so shall it be with the last ; of
whom it is said (Zech. ix. 9), He is poor, and sitting upon
an ass.” Nachmonides in Midras, upon Gen. xlix. Saith,
“The Messias is he of whom it is said, He is poor, and
sitting upon an ass.” This was a thing so well known, that
they in the Talmud # introduce Sapores, king of the Persi-
ans, speaking thus to the Jews, “You say that your Messias
shall come upon an ass, I will send him a horse.” See more
to this purpose in Bochart. Hieroz. lib. ii. cap. 17. col. 213,
214. Note also hence from St. Chrysostom, f an argument
that our Jesus was their true Messiah; they being not able
to show any other that came thus to them (see Examen
Millii here).
* Ver. 6, 7. They brought the ass and the colt, Kai ºréºn-
Ray itávo agrów, and set him won them.] 'Em' ºré, “upon
him,” Mark xi. 7, #mr: röy Trôxov, “upon the colt,” Luke xxix.
35, it seeming not probable to most interpreters, that in
so short a journey Christ should ride upon them both ; and
* Sanhed. cap. 11, f. 98.
> a y * > aw - * * z 2 v
+ "Egérnaroy Toivoy roy Iovéaſov, Troſo; Baathev; 6xotºvo; #tri
> * * pf º an > * *
#you #x3ey ei, ‘IEgougaº, dAA’ ow #y Éxoisy eiträy &AA’ rôroy
&évoy. w
I46
MATTHEW.
8 And a very great multitude “spread their gar-
ments in the way; others cut down branches from
the trees, and strewed them in the way: (as before a
king. And as he was going down to the mount of Olives,
the whole multitude of his disciples began to praise God
with a loud voice, for all the wonderful things that they
had seen, Luke xix. 37.) *
9 And the multitudes that went before, and that
followed (after), cried, saying, (as they did usually at
the feast of tabernacles,) Hosanna to the Son of Da-
vid : Blessed is (be) he that cometh in the name of
the Lord; Hosanná in the highest (wishing prosperity
to him, and his kingdom, from him that dwells in the
highest heaven).
10 And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the
city was moved, saying, Who is this
11 And the multitude said, This is Jesus the pro-
phet of Nazareth, (a city) of Galilee.
i2 And Jesus went (the meat day, Markxi. 12.) into
the temple of God, and * cast out all them that sold
and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of
the money-changers, and the seats of them that sold
doves, . - *
13 And said to them, It is written, "My house
shall be called the house of prayer (for all nations
three evangelists mentioning only one, it seems necessary
here, to admit of the figure called emallage numeri, frequent
in other places: so the ark rested upon the mountains of
Ararat, Gen. viii. 3, i.e. upon one of them ; the cities in
which Lot dwelt, Gen. xix. 29, i.e. in one of which (see
Gen. xxiii. 6. Josh. vii. 1. Matt. xxvii. 44. Luke xxiii. 39.
John xii. 14). St. Matthew seems to add both, either in
compliance, with the words of the prophet, or because he
sat upon the colt, the ass going along with him, though
Theophylact saith they set him émévo rôy igario, “upon
the garments.”
* Ver. 8. And a very great multitude, a rewaav Havrów rà.
#44tta iv tº 333, strewed their garments in the way; others
cut down branches.] Here observe, that this strewing of
clothes, flowers, and branches in the way, were ceremonies
used towards great men, and especially to kings and em-
perors: thus, saith Herodotus,” they went before Xerxes,
passing over the Hellespont, ºvgorivnat aropoivºrs; rºy 38%r,
“strewing the way with myrtle-branches: ” thus when Cato
left his soldiers to return to Rome, tworíðover rà ip.4tta roſ;
wréaly; Babićol, “they laid their garments in the way,” which,
saith Plutarch, + “ was an honour then done only rāy acro-
*patopºv čxtyotº, to few emperors.” And when the captains
proclaimed Jehu king, “they put their garments under him "
(2 Kings ix. 13). This therefore the people do now to
Jesus, as being to proclaim him the king Messiah. (2.)
Observe, that at the feast of tabernacles, it was the cus.
tom of the Jews, not only to sing hosannas with the great-
est joy, but also to carry branches in their hands, desiring,
as the Jews still wish to do at this feast, that they may
thus rejoice at the coming of their Messiah; whence, own-
ing Jesus for the person, they use the hosannas and the rites
observed at that feast, wishing prosperity to him and his
kingdom, from him that dwelleth #y roſ. 5 ſtaroſ, “in the
highest heavens” (Luke xix. 38).
* Ver, 12. And Jesus went into the temple of God, was
#6aºs Trávra; roſ, roadīvra, kai 3,064&yra; iv ºró ispá, and
cast out all those that bought and sold in the temple, and
overthrew the tables of the money-changers, &c.j Christ
seems not here absolutely to forbid this permutation; it
being almost necessary for them, who lived far from Jeru-
Salem, to bring up money to purchase sacrifices and obla-
tions there, rather than to bring them so long a journey;
and suitable in equity to the law concerning tithes (Deut.
xiv. 24–26). . But he condemns the avarice of the priests,
who, when these things were bought before in the shambles
and markets of Jerusalem, had, for their sordid gain, now
brought this merchandise into the house of God ; and that
this was done in honour of that sacred place, is evident from
* Lib, vii. cap. 56. + In Cat. Min. p. 764,
Isa. lvi. 7), but ye (by these practices) have made it a
den of thieves (i.e. by turning it into a place of un-
jást gain, you have verified the complaint of the pro-
phet Jeremy, vii. 11, that it was become a den of rob-
bers). e -
14 And the blind and the lame came to him in the
temple; and he healed them.
15. And when the chief priests and scribes saw the
wonderful things that he did, and the children crying
in the temple, and saying, Hosanna to the Son of
David; they were sore displeased;
16 And said to him, Hearest thou what these say?
(Rebuke them for it, Luke xix. 39.) And Jesus saith
unto them, Yea, (I hear them fulfilling the prophecy
of the Psalmist ; for) "have ye never read (the words,
Ps. viii. 2), Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings
thou hast perfected praise (They therefore are ex-
cited by him to do that which your malice will not suf-
fer you to do for the glory of God.) *
17 And (having said this) he left them, and went
out of the city into Bethany; and he lodged there
(with his disciples, Mark xi. 11). - º
18 Now in the morning as he returned into the
city, he hungered. -
19 And when he saw a fig-tree in the way, he came
the words following, Mark xi. 16 (see the note there).
The money-changers sat there not only about the payment
of the half-shekel to the sanctuary, but chiefly for the re-
turn of money from remote places (this payment being
made even by the Jews in their several dispersions); that
so they, who came to Jerusalem to worship, paying it to
merchants at home, might have it safe from thieves, and
from the trouble of carriage, at Jerusalem.
7 Wer. 13. And saith unto them, It is written, My house
shall be called oixos ºrpozeux;c, a house of prayer (to all
nations, Mark xi. 17), and ye have made it a den of thieves.]
God said by the prophet, “My house shall be called a house
of prayer for all people,” Isa. lvi. 7, so Isa. lx. 7, i. e. a
house dedicated to my worship ; of which prayer was es-
teemed an eminent part, as is evident from Solomon's
prayer at the dedication of the temple ; which supposes
God’s people should continually pray in or towards
that house; and that they did so at the time of offering
incense, we read Luke i. 10. Thither also went the pha-
risee and the publican to pray, Luke xviii. 10. Thither al-
So went the heathen proselytes of the gate, and therefore
had a court styled, “the court of the gentiles; ” and this
made it a house of prayer for all nations.” But you, saith
Christ, by turning it into a place of unjust gain, i.e. of gain
got by exactions tending to the loss and damage of the peo-
ple, have given just occasion to apply to you those words of
Jeremy, vii. 11, “My house is become a den of robbers in
my eyes; ” you making a gain of that service which you
ought freely to attend upon, having your tithes from them,
and a share of their offerings for that very end.
Ye have made it a den of thieves.] To the note here
add, Origen here saith, that besides the reward they expect-
ed for the change of money, they gave àeyögtov 386xpov,
“base money,” instead of good, in Matt. p. 442, and in
Joh. tom. ii. p. 178. f -
:* Ver. 15, 16. Have you never read, that out of the mouths
of babes and sucklings I have ordained praise ?] I do not
see reason to say Christ cites these words as a prediction
of the things here done to him ; but only to say, what was
there said might well be accommodated to this action: For
if, when that young stripling David, whose son, according to
the flesh, I am, and who was an eminent type of me, con-
quered Goliath, that great enemy of God's people, all the
women, probably attended with their children, came out of
their cities, dancing and singing praise to God (1 Sam. xviii.
6): is it not reasonable, that the multitudes should sing
“Hosanna to the Son of David,” coming to vanquish the
devil, that great enemy of his church P and now that God
“hath raised up a horn of salvation for them in the house
of his servant David, to deliver them from their enemies,
and from the hands of all that hate them” (Luke i. 68. 74),
CHAPTER XXI.
º 147
to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and
(he) said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee hencefor-
ward for ever. And presently the fig-tree withered
away; (by this eaſample showing, that the Jewish na-
tion, which, being watered with the gospel, brought forth
no answerable fruit, was nigh unto cursing, and would
suddenly be rejected by God, Heb. vi. 8.)
20 And when (Peter, Mark xi. 21, and) the dis-
ciples saw it, they marvelled, saying, How soon is the
fig-tree withered away !
21 Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I
say unto you, * If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye
shall not only (be able to) do this which is done to
the fig-tree, but also if ye shall say to this mountain,
Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it
shall be (so) done.
22 And all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer,
believing, ye shall receive.
23 And when he was come into the temple, the
chief priests and the elders of the people came to him
as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority
doest thou these things? and who gave thee this au-
thority (thus to control us, and reprove our practices,
that they should sing “Glory to God in the highest,” and
wish prosperity to the kingdom he is now erecting 2
* Ver. 21. ‘E3, #xnts triarty, wai &# 3-axe,0ñrs, If ye have
jaith, and doubt not, -xév tá Šest roëtº strnºrs, if ye shall
say to this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thow cast
into the sea, it shall be dome.] That tº 8taxçığäval, signi-
fies “not to discriminate,” or put a difference, see note on
Rom. xiv. 23. And so here it may import, If you have
such a faith, as puts no difference between things you can,
and things you cannot do, but makes you fully persuaded
you can do anything which tends to the glory of God, and
is requisite for the promotion of the Christian faith, you
shall be able to perform the most difficult things; for that
is the meaning of that phrase, “to root up mountains: ”
it being said by the Jews of their doctors, which were able
to solve the most difficult questions, Such a one is “a
rooter up of mountains” (see note on 1 Cor. xiii. 2).
Though, therefore, Nyssen saith, that Gregory, of Neocae-
Sarea, and Jerome, that Hilarion removed mountains ;
yet I prefer the allegorical exposition, especially considering,
that what is here “a mountain” is, Luke xvii. 6, “a syca-
more-tree.” -
Note also, That these words must be restrained to the
age of miracles, and to the persons to whom they were
spoken, the apostles, and first propagators of the gospel;
it being certain from experience that this is no ordinary and
perpetual gift of Christians. And that the thing here pro-
mised was extraordinary, appears from the faith required to
it, called by St. Mark, “the faith of God ; ” i. e. either the
greatest and most excellent faith, as ºréxic weyáAn rā Qaāj,
is “a very great city,” John iii. 3, and &ztºfo, rå øeg, “a
very comely person,” Acts vii. 20. So “wrestlings of
God,” Gen. xxx. 8; “mountains of God,” Ps. xxxix. 7 ;
“ cedars of God,” Ps. lxxx. 11. Or else faith, that doth
certainly persuade us of God's extraordinary assistance :
and that this respects the apostles is evident; because Christ
elsewhere speaks this to them, on the account of that de-
fect of faith, which made them fail in casting out a devil
(Matt. xvii. 19, 20).
* Ver. 23. 'Ev troit, #ovaig raúra roteſ; ; By what autho-
*ity doest thow these things, and who gave thee that autho-
rity?] This the chief priests and rulers ask; because the
ordinary authority of teaching in the temple was to be de-
rived from them, of teaching elsewhere from their doctors.
But yet it was a vain question, after they had seen his mi-
racles, and knew he claimed a commission from God, and
had told them that “the works he had done in his Father’s
name bore witness of him” (John v. 36).
* Ver. 25. Tà 8árricua iwáyyoº Tráðey ºv; # obgayoi, º, #
ãw88&now ; The baptism of John, whence was it 2 from heaven,
or of men 2) From heaven, i. e. from God ; for heaven here
is not opposed to earth, but to men. So “to sin against
heaven,” Luke xv. 18–21, is to “sin against Göd” (see the
to whom the government of the temple and of the people
is committed)?
24 And Jesus answered and said to them, I also
will ask you one thing, which if ye tell me, I in like
wise will tell you by what authority I do these things;
(or, you may discern this without my telling you, for
John bore witness to me, John v. 33.) 4.
25 The "baptism of John, whence was it from
(the God of) heaven, or of men (only) 8 And they
reasoned with themselves, saying, If we shall say,
From heaven; he will say to us, Why did ye not
then believe him : - *
26 But if we shall say, Of men : we fear (lest we
should be stoned by) the people; for all hold John as
a prophet. . -
27 And they answered Jesus, and said, We cannot
tell. And he said to them, Neither tell I you by
| what authority I do these things.
28 But what think you (of the parable, which fitly
ºrepresents your stubbornness in rejecting the doctrine
of John) P “A certain man had two sons; and he
came to the first, and said (to him), Son, go work to-
day in my vineyard. *
note there). John was a voice crying in the wilderness,
“Prepare ye the way of the Lord” (Matt. iii. 3): he bap-
tized with the baptism of repentance, saying to the people,
that they should believe in him that was to come after him,
“that is, in Christ Jesus” (Acts xix. 4): he came to give
testimony to Christ (John i. 7, 15), declaring that he was
“the Lamb of God, that took away the sins of the world”
(ver. 29): whence it is evident that the chief priests and
pharisees could not own the baptism of John to be from
heaven, but they must also own Christ to be the Son of God,
and him concerning whom God had testified by a voice from
heaven, and by the descent of the Holy Ghost upon him,
that he was “the beloved Son in whom he was well pleased;”
whence these great doctors chose rather to pretend ignorance
than to confess that truth which would condemn them. And
whereas it is added, ver. 26, that all held John &; Trºoq àrmy,
“as a prophet,” this as doth not import similitude, but that
he was truly so ; as when it is said, “We have seen his
glory, &c &ovoyevoic, as of the only-begotten of the Father,”
John i. 14 ; &; #ovariay #xoly, “as having authority,” Matt.
vii. 29 (see note on Rom. ix. 32); hence he is said to be
“a prophet,” Luke xx. 6, and wrog ºrgo?firms, “truly a pro-
phet,” Mark xi. 32.
12 Ver, 28–31. A man had two sons.] By the first of
these two sons, all the interpreters I have read understand
the publicans; by the second, the scribes and pharisees :
because Christ, in the close of this parable (ver. 32), seems
so to interpret it. But yet it seems to me a probable con-
jecture, that by the first son we may understand the gentiles,
represented by the prodigal son, Luke xv. For it hath beell
noted on ver. 1, 2 of that chapter, that publicans by the
Jews were ranked with the heathens, and that the heathens
were represented by the Jews as Trépyat, “harlots,” and “born
of harlots” (see the note on John viii. 41). And when
Christ came among them, or they came to him, he found
them still more ready to believe in him than the Jews, and
more especially than the scribes and pharisees ; he not find-
ing such faith in Israel as in the centurion, Matt. viii. 10, 11,
and in the Syrophoenician woman, Mark vii. 29 (see xiv. 34
–36. John xii. 20. 23, 24). So the import of it may be
this: You Jews, who style yourselves the sons of God, and
you scribes and pharisees, who pretend to so much religion
and so great zeal for God, and to be guides to others in the
way of life, are not only more alien from it, when taught
you by me and my forerunner, than the publicans and har-
lots, but than those gentiles are whom you represent as
such. .*
And in this interpretation I have the suffrage of Origen
upon the place, who saith, “In my judgment the parable
contains tº regi roß &reiðhoray'ro; 'Iagañx tº Osó Nóyo", Kai
rôy treet roi; ºria reča ayroº Aaoû 3rd røy #69&y, a discourse of the
* Apud Huet, tom. i. p. 456. *
1, 2
148
MATTHEw.
29 He answered and said (to his father), I will not:
but afterward he repented (of his undutiful denial),
and went.
30 And he came to the second, and said likewise.
And he answered and said, I go, sir; and (but he)
Went DOt.
31 Whether of them twain did the will of his fa-
ther? They said unto him, The first (only). Jesus
saith to them, (You fitly resemble the second son ; and
the publicans, whom ye so much despise, are liker to
the first : for) verily I say unto you, That the publi-
cans and harlots (hearing John, saying, Repent, for
the kingdom of heaven is at hand ; and repenting) go
into the kingdom of God before you (who are so far
from going before them in obedience to this command of
God by John, that you despise it).
32 For * John came to you (to instruct you) in the
way of righteousness, and ye believed him not ; but
the publicans and the harlots believed him ; and ye,
when ye had seen (them do) it, repented not afterward
that ye (also) might believe him.
33 Hear another parable (resembling God’s kind
dealings with you, and your evil returns to him) :
* There was a certain householder, which planted a
vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a
wine-press in it, and built a tower (in it), and let it
out to husbandmen, and went into a far country.
34 And when the time of the fruit drew near, he
sent (successively) his servants to the husbandmen,
that they might receive the fruits of it.
35 And the husbandmen took his servants, and
beat one, and killed another, and stoned another, (as
you have dealt by the prophets, Matt. v. 12).
36 Again, he sent other servants more than the
infidelity of Israel, and of the belief of the gentiles.” Of the
same opinion are Theophilus Antiochenus, Hilary, Can. 22
in Matt. St. Jerome, Opus Imperfectum, Chrysostom, and
Theophylact.
* Wer. 32. For John came to you in the way of right-
eousness, and ye believed him not, &c.] So Saith Josephus,”
that the Baptist came to teach them virtue, and to come to
his baptism, exercising rºy argès &Axâxov; 31%atoo’iyny Kai Trºus
röy Oedy starsgeiay, “righteousness towards one another, and
piety towards God.” It follows, But the publicans and har-
lots “believed on him, and you afterward repented not that
ye might believe,” &c. Christ here saith that the publicans
and harlots treočyovaty, “go before you into the kingdom of
God” (ver. 31); not that the scribes and elders of the people
of the Jews followed after them, for those scribes and pha-
risees “received not the baptism of John,” Luke vii. 39, but
that by their example they showed them the way they ought
to follow. Now from this parable note,
First, That the scribes and pharisees and other Jews
might and ought to have been moved by the admonitions of
the Baptist, and the example of the publicans, to repent-
ance and faith ; for why else doth Christ here blame them,
that they were not prevailed on by these means to believe
and repent? §
Secondly, That therefore an internal, irresistible force or
power cannot be necessary to produce this repentance and
this faith. For if the publicans and harlots were thus moved
to repent, what wonder is it that they went before the scribes
and pharisees, who, having no such powerful impulse, were
left under an impossibility of repenting P Why is it that
it is represented as their crime, that they did not repent at
the preaching of John, or follow the example of the publi-
cans, since the event shows that no such irresistible motive
to repentance was contained either in the Baptist's preaching
or in their example? -
* Ver. 33. There was a certain householder, &c.] For
explication of this parable observe, that in it is represented,
First, The favour and providence of God towards the
Jewish church and nation, as being the vineyard he himself
• Antiq. ib. xviii, cap. 7, p. 626, G.
first : and they did to them likewise; (in this also re-
sembling you ; for which of the prophets did not your
fathers persecute 8 Acts vii. 52.)
37 But last of all he sent to them his (only) son,
saying, (Perhaps) they will reverence my son.
38 But when the husbandmen saw the son, they
said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us
kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance.
39 And (accordingly) they caught him, and cast
him out of the vineyard, and slew him, (as you will
do, xx. 18.) º
40 When the lord therefore of the vineyard com-
eth, what (think you) will he do to those husbandmen 2
41 * They say to him, He will miserably destroy
those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard to
other husbandmen, who shall render him the fruits
(of it) in their seasons.
42 Jesus saith to them, Did you never read in the
scriptures (those words recorded, Ps. cxviii. 22), The
stone which the builders rejected, the same is become
the head of the corner: this is the Lord’s doing, and
it is marvellous in our eyes 2 (Now you are those
builders, and I, whom you reject, am that chief corner-
Stone.)
43 * Therefore say I to you, The kingdom of God
shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bring-
ing forth the fruits thereof.
44 And whoever shall ” fall on (or stumble at) this
stone (or through ignorance, or the prejudices he hath
received from you, shall continue in his unbelief) shall
be broken (by it); but on whomsoever it shall fall
(in vengeance, as it will heavily upon you), it will grind
him to powder.
45 And when the chief priests and pharisees had
had planted, and had watered with his heavenly dew, the
waters of life, i.e. the doctrine of the law and the prophets;
he also had enclosed it and hedged about it, not only by his
care and providence, but by his covenant of circumcision,
and his presence with them, and his owning them for his
own people above all the nations of the earth. Note,
Secondly, That the husbandmen to whom this vineyard
was let out were the priests and Levites, doctors and rulers
of that church and people ; who are here represented, not
only as wanting in their duty, which was to make this vine-
yard fruitful, and to prepare it to receive his prophets and mes-
sengers with due reverence, and especially to receive his Son
and their Messiah with faith, reverence, and obedience, but
even consulted with and spurred on the people to offer the
most vile affronts unto them, and even to destroy his Son
and their Saviour; for though Christ spake this parable to
the people (Luke xxix. 2), the priests and pharisees per-
ceived that “he spake of them” (ver. 45). When therefore
it is here said, “They will reverence my son” (ver. 37), these
words, as Theophylact notes, Christ spake, not being igno-
rant what really they would do, &AA& ré à peixoy trpax6ival
wai rā sixãº, Aéyoy, “but showing what was fitting to be done,”
and they ought to have done; and therefore, Luke xx. 13,
the phrase is varied thus, frog, “Perhaps they will reverence
my son when they see him.”
Thirdly, That this deportment of the husbandmen, and of
the people led and excited by them to this murder of his
Son and treatment of his prophets, would render them ob-
noxious to the heaviest of divine judgments.
15 Wer. 41. They say unto him, He will miserably destroy
those wicked men.] How this is to be reconciled with St.
Luke, see Luke xx. 16.
1° Wer. 43. Atà roſtro 380%astal ép' tºy # 8aatasia roi;
Geoč. For this thing, i. e. the builders refusing this stone,
the kingdom of God shall be taken from you, &c.] Hence
it is evident that God deserted the Jewish church, and let
this stone so fall upon them as to grind them to powder,
because of their rejecting the Messiah. The evidence that
this affords to the truth of the Christian faith, see in the
Preface to the Gospels. .
17 Ver, 44. And he that faileth on this stone shall be
CHAPTER XXII.
J49
heard his parables, they perceived (at the last) that they feared the multitude, because they took him for
he spake of (what should befall) them.
46 But when they sought to lay hands on him,
a prophet (and this at present restrained them from so
doing).
broken, &c.] i. e. He that stumbles on this stone, whilst he
is here on earth, being offended at his doctrine, life, or death,
shall be broken by his fall upon it, as is the person stoned,
by the sharp stone he falls upon ; but he on whom this
stone shall fall, when he is elevated to his throne of glory,
shall be more violently shattered by it, as is the person
stoned by the great stone, as big as two men can lift, thrown
down violently upon his breast. *
CHAPTER XXII.
1 AND Jesus answered (with relation to them), and
spake again to them by parables, and said,
2 The (doctrine of the) * kingdom of heaven
(preached to this nation) is like (to find a success an-
swerable) unto (that of) a certain king, who made a
marriage for his son,
3 And sent forth his servants to call them who
were (to be) bidden to the wedding : (viz. the apostles,
and the seventy sent to the lost sheep of the house of
Israel, Matt. x. 6. Luke x. 1) and (being thus lovingly
invited) they would not come.
4 (Wherefore) again he sent forth other servants
(viz. the apostles, and the hundred and eight on whom
the Holy Ghost fell), saying, Tell, them which are
bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner: my
oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are
ready : come (I pray you) to the marriage (feast).
5 But they made light of it (i. e. the invitation),
and went their way, one to his farm, and another to
his merchandise:
6 And the remnant (of them) took his servants,
and entreated them spitefully, and slew (some of)
them. -
7 But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth :
and he *sent forth his armies, and destroyed those
murderers, and burnt up their city (and so will this
spiritual King deal with those of this nation, who not
only refuse his invitation to partake of the blessings of
the gospel, but also kill his messengers ; he by the Ro-
man army will destroy them and their capital city).
8 Then saith he to his servants, The wedding
(feast) is ready, “but they who were bidden were not
worthy (and therefore shall not taste of this feast).
9 Goye therefore into the “highways (to the disper-
sion of the Jews and to the gentiles), and as many as
ye shall find, bid to the marriage.
10 So these servants went out into the highways,
and gathered together all, as many as they found,
both bad and good: and the wedding was furnished
with guests.
11 And when the king came in to see the guests,
he saw there a *man which had not on a wedding-
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXII.
* Wer. 2. The kingdom of heaven is likened &v66&ng, 6a-
aixeſ, Šarić Štroina's yáºzovº, to a king who made a marriage
for his son.] That yáºzo; signifies a marriage-feast we learn
from Phavorinus” and others, on those words of Homer, Od.
A'. 225, sixatriyn; yápºo; (see Dr. Hammond on Matt. ix.). And
because these feasts continued sometimes a week or more, as
we learn from those words of Laban to Jacob, Gen. xxxi.
27, “Fulfil her week,” i.e. keep a seven days’ feast for her
marriage ; and from Samson, who at his marriage. Étroina's
arároy hºàgaç #7rrà, “made a feast seven days, for so used the
young men to do” (Judg. xiv. 10); therefore the word is
yápov; in the plural, there being not many marriages, but
many wedding feasts at a marriage. This sense of the word
is evident from ver. 4, “My oxen and fatlings are killed,
come, Big yáſzovº, to the marriage-feast.” The king here re-
presents God the Father, the son the Lord Jesus Christ,
described often as the spouse of his church, Matt. ix. 15. xxv.
1. John iii. 29. 2 Cor. xi. 2. Rev. xix. 7, the servants sent
to call them that were bidden, i. e. the Jews invited by the
Raptist, and our Lord, calling them to repentance, because
“the kingdom of God was at hand,” might be the apostles
and the seventy disciples, sent at first only “to the lost
sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. x. 5, 6. Luke ix. 2.
x. 1); the servants sent again, after the fatlings were killed,
were the same apostles and other spiritual persons, sent after
Our Lord's resurrection with a new commission to be Christ's
witnesses in Jerusalem “and throughout all Judea” (Acts
i. 8); for the words “son” and “the kingdom of heaven,”
represented by this parable, will not permit us to say these
servants were the prophets sent before to the Jews.
Wer. 3. The kingdom of heaven is like to a man who sent
his servants.] Here note, that though all the ancients from
Origen, except St. Hilary, say that the servants first sent
out were the prophets of the Old Testament, yet this seems
plainly contrary to the text ; first, Because this also is a
parable concerning “the kingdom of heaven,” and therefore
respecting only those times when that kingdom was come.
Secondly, It is a parable “ of a king making a marriage for
* OKahço; o' rú #pyoy &ávoy &XX& kai rºy ariac-w yáſzoy waxeſ
his son,” which is generally interpreted of Christ the bride-
groom of his church, and therefore only can respect the
times of his advent. Thirdly, The servants sent out the
Second time were sent to the same persons to whom the first
were sent (ver. 4); and yet it is granted that the servants
sent out the second time were the apostles of our Lord.
* Ver. 7. The king was wroth, Trégº-bag tº arpartówara
airoij, 37%xec's rob; poveſ; $46ſvovº, Kai tºy réxy abrów #yárenas,
and sending his armies destroyed those murderers and burnt
wp their city.] i. e. Upon their refusal, he decreed to send
the Romans to destroy the Jews and burn their temple and
their city ; which they so fully performed as to destroy du-
ring those wars, saith Josephus, eleven hundred thousand
Jews; to burn their temple ; consume, and so lay waste
their city, as that all men conceived, saith Josephus, “it
never could be built again.”
* Ver. 8. Oi Bè waxxmpºvot own ha-ay 3%tol, But they that
were called were not worthy..] They were not well disposed
to receive the gospel, not willing to repent and believe, and
entertain the preachers of it kindly, which is the indication
Christ gives his apostles, who were &#to, “worthy” (Matt.
x. 11. 13, 14); they were &ºexha'avºrs;, “despisers” of this
spiritual banquet, out of love to their secular interests; here,
ver. 5, they loved other things more than Christ, and the
blessings of his kingdom ; which he that doth, saith Christ,
oùx Hari ºccu &#0;, “is not worthy of me,” because he will
not take up his cross and follow me (Matt. x. 37, 38).
* Ver. 9. IIogeſs-SE cºy tri ră, Ştefášov, tºy 38&v, &c. Go
therefore into the highways, &c.] i. e. To those of the dis-
persion ; for after they had begun at Jerusalem, and preached
through Judea, they also were to preach the gospel to the
other Jews, the seed of Abraham ; this salvation being to be
tendered to the “Jews first, and also to the gentile” (Rom.
i. 16. ii. 10). Hence Paul saith thus to the Jews of Antioch,
“It was necessary the gospel should be first preached to
you” (Acts xiii. 45, 46. xviii. 6. xxviii. 28); and afterward
roſ; #2), “to those who were without the covenant made to
Abraham.”
* Ver. 11. Eiðsy ixeſ &y680m oy oix #w888vº, #voy #ybup, a yápov,
He saw there a man not clothed with a wedding-garment.]
Faith alone cannot be here the wedding-garment, since to
receive the invitation and to come to the wedding-supper,
150
|MATTHEW.
garment (i. e. a faith and conversation answerable to
the design of the gospel) :
12 And he saith to him, Friend, how camest thou
in hither not having a wedding-garment? and he
was (as one) speechless.
13 Then said the king to the servants, Bind him
hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into
outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing
of teeth: (so shall it be with the Jews, the children of
the kingdom, Matt. viii. 12. Luke xiii. 28). -
14 For "many (of the Jews) are called, but few (of
them) are chosen (i.e. believers of the gospel, see mote
on 1 Pet. ii. 9).
15 Then went the pharisees (perceiving that this
arable was designed against them), and took counsel
{. they might entangle him in his talk.
16 And (accordingly) they sent unto him their dis-
ciples with the "Herodians, saying (with insidious flat-
tery), Master, we know that thou art true, and teach-
est the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for
must import believing. By the man therefore who had not
on this garment, I conjecture we are to understand the false
brethren of the Jewish nation, who preached Christ “not
sincerely but out of contention” (Phil. i. 15); contending
for the necessity of circumcision, and of the observation of
the law of Moses to justification, and who by this “sub-
verted the souls” of others (Acts xv. 1. 24), made Christ to
die in vain (Gal. ii. 21), Christians to fall from grace (Gal.
v. 14), and the apostles to labour in vain among the gen-
tiles (Gal. iv. 11), and of whom the apostle saith, “Their
end shall be according to their works” (2 Cor. xi. 15). That
this man must represent the Jews is evident, (1.) because he
is “cast out into outer darkness, where is weeping and
gmashing of teeth,” which Christ applies to the Jews, the
sons of the kingdom, Matt. viii. 12. Luke xiii. 28, whilst
the gentiles are said to come to this supper. (2.) Because
the reason assigned of this punishment is this, that “many
are called, but few are chosen” (ver. 14); for that this be-
longs peculiarly to the Jews, see note on xx. 16. (3.) Christ
had said in the former chapter, that the “kingdom of God
should be taken from them ;” and here proceeding to dis-
course of the same thing, as appears from the connective
particle, ver. 1 of this chapter, he shows how worthy the
Jews would be of this punishment, as being either wholly
refractory to God, calling them by his Son to the participa-
tion of these blessings, or coming to them without due pre-
parations, as the false apostles and deceitful workers did; or
else by casting off that wedding-garment they had once put
on, as did those Jews whose “charity waxed cold” (Matt.
xxiv. 10–12, and who being scandalized fell off from the
Christian faith. It remains then that these backsliders, or
these false apostles, must be the persons represented by the
man “not having on his wedding-garment.”
Ver. 13. Bind him hand and foot..] Theophylact here
notes, that this present time is the only time of working ;
in the future all the practical powers of the soul are bound,
wal oix #aari wrotºzai ºri &yaščy eig &yria Atrosaw row &ºagriðy,
“and then we can do nothing good to make a compensation
for our sins.”
* Ver. 14. Many are called, but few are chosen.] This
parable, saith Theophylact, respects the Jews who were
called, but not elected, &c &# 3x00aayres, “as not hearkening
to God's call;” whence he infers, that ºcer& roi, Geod waxeſy"
ºrd 3: #xxexºrotic yávea Sat, h ºft, hºwärepoy #aat, “our calling is of
God, but that we are elect or not is from ourselves.”
7 Ver, 16. Meri, ‘Hgoëtayów, with the Herodians.] Here
Jerome notes, that some of the Latins ridiculously thought
they were called Herodians who thought Herod was the
Christ,” though he himself, in his Dialogue against the Luci-
ferians, hath these words, Herodiani Herodem regem susci-
pere pro Christo, “received Herod the king for Christ;” this
also was the opinion of Tertullian, in his book de Praescript.
cap. 47, of Epiphanius, Haer. 7, and of Philastrius, cap. 48.
And Origen conjectures that they were called Herodians
who taught rexºſy roy págoy Kairagi, “that tribute-money was
*
* F. 12, B,
any man ('s person); for thou regardest not the per-
son of men.
17 Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou (in this
case)? Is it “lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not
(that if he had said no, they might represent him as an
enemy to Casar ; if yea, as no friend to the nation.)
18 But Jesus perceived their wickedness (i. e. their
evil design), and said (to them), Why tempt ye me, ye
hypocrites (endeavouring to ensnare me under pretence
of reverence to me) P
19 Shew me the tribute-money. And they brought
to him a (Roman) penny.
20 And he saith to them, Whose is this image and
Superscription (that this money bears) 2
2] They say to him, (It is) Caesar’s. Then saith
he to them (this being an evidence that Casar’s go-
vernment hath obtained among you), Render therefore
to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s ; and to God
the things that are God’s (i. e. the tribute due to his
temple).
to be paid to Caesar ; the soldiers were so called by the
pharisees, saith St. Jerome here, quia Romanis tributa sol-
vebant, “because they paid tribute to the Romans.” And
sure this opinion must seem ridiculous to them who con-
sider that Herod was an alien, not a Jew of the seed of
Abraham, or of the root of David, and was dead before
Christ's return out of Egypt; whereas all thought that
Christ was to be found not among the dead but the living,
and many that he should never die (John xii. 34. see the
note on Matt. xvi. 6).
* Ver. 17. "Eáscºrt 300was ºvarov Kai-agi, º, où; Is it lawful
to give tribute to Caesar, or not ? &c.] Here note,
First, That though the question be only proposed thus,
#sor ; “Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not?” yet
the decision in the affirmative, that it was lawful to pay it
to Caesar, was plainly a decision of the right of Caesar to
receive, and therefore to demand it, as being to them the
minister of God. (1.) Because St. Paul hath plainly told
us, that “therefore pay we tribute” to him to whom we law-
fully do pay it, “ because he is the higher power and the
minister of God” (Rom. xiii. 6). And also “because it is
his due ;” for so it follows, “Render therefore to all rā;
ãºpsiA&c, their dues, tribute to whom tribute is due ;” and this
is still more evident from those words of Christ, “Render to
Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and to God the things
which are God’s ;” where Christ seems to me even to strike
at the root of that corrupt opinion of the Gaulonites and
zealots, that they, being God's people, were not to own any
other as their Lord, by this distinction betwixt things be-
longing to Caesar, viz. tribute, and things belonging to God,
viz. the shekel of the sanctuary. But, to omit this, either
Christ, when he said, “Render to Caesar the things which are
Caesar's,” spake to the purpose, and by way of answer to the
question proposed, or he did not ; to say he did not, is in
effect to say he spake impertinently, which I hope no Chris-
tian will affirm ; if he spake to the purpose of the question,
seeing he said, upon their owning the tribute-money to bear
Caesar's image, by way of inference, 3.7630 re očy, “Render
therefore to Caesar the things which are Caesar's,” he as
plainly intimates the tribute-money did of right belong to
Caesar, as by saying, “Itender to God the things that are
God’s,” that what he styled the things of God did of right
belong to God. For those Jews who held that tribute was
not to be paid to Caesar, did so because they apprehended it
unlawful to own any other as their lord and governor but
God, or one of their own nation whom he had appointed to
rule over them (see the note on 1 Pet. ii. 16).
I therefore cannot think with Grotius, that Christ here
leaves the matter of right undecided ; or with Mr. Clerc,
that he doth not by his answer own that tribute was rightly
demanded by Caesar, seeing Christ could not then have said.
by way of inference, “Render therefore to Caesar the things
which are Caesar's ;” and this right of Caesar had its rise
from their own act of submission to the Roman government,
as formerly they had done to the Assyrian ; which national
submission with promise of fidelity, having obtained now
about a hundred years, was a just ground for Casar's
CHAPTER XXII.
151
22 When they had heard these words, they mar-
velled (at his wisdom), and left him, and went their
WaW. -
% The same day came to him the "sadducees, who
say that there is no resurrection (of the body), and
asked him, • s &
24 Saying, Master, Moses said, If a man die, hav-
ing no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and
raise up seed unto his brother.
25 Now there were with us seven brethren: and
the first when he had married a wife, deceased, and,
having no issue, left his wife to his brother :
26 Likewise the second also, and the third (and so
on), to the seventh.
27 And last of all the woman died also.
28 Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall
she be of the seven for they all had her.
29 Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err,
not knowing the scriptures (declaring that there shall
be a resurrection), nor the power of God (enabling him
to effect it).
30 (And as for your argument against it, it is
grounded on a false supposition) ; for in the "resur-
rection they neither marry, nor are given in mar-
riage, but are as the angels of God in heaven (in that
they cannot die, Luke xx. 36, and so can need no re-
paration by new births).
31 But as touching the *resurrection of the dead,
(this, I say, is denied by you, because ye know not the
scriptures ; for) have ye not read that which was
spoken to you by God, saying,
32 I am the God of Abraham, and the God of
Isaac, and the God of Jacob, (and so I own them still
as my sons and children 8 mow) God is not the God of
right. And therefore king Agrippa “tells them, that of rà
wiy in axovsſy ix. 81a80x7; sixnºtes, “they who had received
this subjection by succession from their ancestors, could not
rebel without contumacy.” And Josephus + tells them, that
“to seek now to shake off the yoke, kai ºaxpoſe siłaytaç
2:46,0tc, when for a long time they had yielded to it,” would
subject them to an evil death. Note,
Secondly, That our Lord answers from the received
maxim of the Jews, that wherever the money of any person
was owned as the current coin of the kingdom, there the in-
habitants owned that person as their lord and governor ;
that is, they acknowledged him to be the higher power, and
the “minister of God” in respect to them : whence he that
doth adulterate, diminish, or counterfeit this coin, becomes
guilty of the crime, laesae majestatis: and David, though
anointed by Samuel, is declared not to be their king whilst
Saul lived ; because numisma Saulis adhuc obtinet, “ the
coin which had the image of Saul upon it was still the cur-
rent coin.” So that these captious men could take no ad-
vantage against him from this answer; because it was
founded upon their received principles. Note,
Thirdly, That Christ justly calls these persons “hypo-
crites ;” because they pretended to own him as a just per-
son, and one who bore no respect to persons, and yet came
with design to accuse him for an unjust decision: and (2.)
because they, Saith St. Luke, xx. 20, “feigned themselves to
be "such as they were not, and to have that opinion of him
which was far from their hearts ; both which are manifest
indications of gross hypocrisy.
.* Ver. 23. TIgoa ſix$ow airó ca??ouzafot, oi Aéyovre; twº eſyat
&Váa'rawiv, The sadducees came to him, saying, There is no
ºresurrection.] It is true, that the sadducees held that there
was “neither angel” of any permanent, “nor spirit” of any
separate existence from the body (Acts xxiii. 8): for their
opinion, Saith Josephus,t was, that death, rå; Juxā; awa-
‘pavićet teſ, a dºzat, “extinguishes souls together with the
bodies;” and that they rejected luxñ; 33.tv Sapcoväy, “both
the duration of the soul, and future punishments and re-
wards:” but then it is true also, that the sadducees say, pº
ºral àvárragw, “that there is no resurrection" (Acts xxiii.
8). And hence the Jews introduce them, saying $ “The
cloud fails and goes away ; so he that descends into the
grave returns not from it.” Nay, they denied, or at least
knew not, that the power of God was sufficient to raise the
dead; for, “Ye err,” saith Christ, “not knowing the scrip-
tures, neither the power of God” (ver. 29). And therefore,
St. Paul, speaking of the resurrection of the dead, asks,
“Why it should be thought a thing incredible for God to
raise the dead? (Acts xxvi. 7, 8.)
* Ver. 30. Ew rā āyaarácsi, In the resurrection they
neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but &; áyyeXo rot.
Osoſ; #y oveavä sizi, are as the angels of God in heaven.]
They are as the angels, not in all respects, but as to immor-
tality and incorruptibility; and so they need no marriage to
perpetuate their generations in the world: so saith St. Luke,
* Apud Joseph. de Bello Jud. lib ii. cap, 28, p. 805.
+ Ibid. lib. vi. cap. 26.
# Antiq. lib. xviii, cap. 2, p. 617, cap. 2.
§ De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 12, p. 788, G.
“They can die no more, but are icóyyeXot, equal to the an-
gels” (Luke xx. 36). And that in this, especially, consists
their likeness to the angels, we learn from the like words of
Philo, concerning Abraham,_that leaving the world,” Tréodºri-
Serai tº Ogot, Nađ, zapiročºvo; 34.Sapºtay, iro; 37%xot; yeyovº,
“he was gathered to the people of God, having obtained in-
corruptibility, being made like to the angels.” Vain there-
fore is theinference of the papists hence, that the souls of the
just see God as the angels do, and know of the conversion
of sinners: this likeness to the angels relating not to the
qualities of their souls, but to the freedom of their bodies
from corruption. Hence also it is evident against Heinsius,
and others on this place, that àyázraatz, even when it is not
joined with flesh, or body, signifies the resurrection of the
flesh, or body ; and when the resurrection of the dead is
mentioned, as here, it never bears any other sense.
* Ver. 31, 32. IIs; 3B rā; &vadºráreo; rôy vexgåy, but con-
cerning the resurrection of the dead, I am the God of
Abraham, &c.] Those learned men are very much mistaken,
who say, that Christ designed not here to prove the resurrec-
tion of the body, but only the āya:3iozic, or life of the soul
after death. For (1.) the argument of the sadducees being
taken from the supposition, that if there was a resurrection,
there must be a marriage, and the persons raised must be
man and wife as they were before, shows plainly, that they
put the question concerning the resurrection of the body ;
for marriage belongs not to separate souls, but only to
persons in the body : and therefore, if Christ said anything
pertinent to, their objection, and opposed his argument to
that which they designed to disprove, he must speak of,
and prove the resurrection of the body, and therefore
Methodius + well notes, that “if Christ had not done
this, but only had asserted the permanency of the soul,
he had not answered, but confirmed the reasoning of the sad
ducees” against the doctrine of the pharisees. (2.) Christ
here declares the sadducees thus erred, “not knowing the
power of God” (ver. 29): now, that consists not in sustain-
ing an immortal soul in life, but in raising the body from the
dust to life (Acts xxvi. 8. Eph. i. 19, 20. Phil. iii. 21. Heb.
xi. 19). And (3.) this is extremely evident from the very
words of Christ, both here and in St. Mark and Luke ; for
(1.) the question put to Christ is not put thus, “If their
souls live, whose wife is she P” but, #y r? &vao Tácsi, Śray
âyaarāja-i, &c. “in the resurrection, when they shall arise,
whose wife shall she then be P” (Mark xii. 23). To which
Christ answers thus, “Oray iz vexedy àyaarºa'iy, “When they
arise from the dead (ver. 25), when they partake rig &yaa-
+44's wº rā, św vexpåy, of the resurrection from the dead (Luke
xx. 35), they neither marry, nor are given in marriage.”
Now a time so determined, and respecting what should be
hereafter, cannot refer to the present state of their souls,
which in no sense are raised from the dead, but only to the
future condition of their bodies. (2) Christ manifestly de-
clares the question was regi rāy weapāv, ºr #ysifov”, “con-
cerning the dead, that they rise again” (Mark xii. 26), touch-
ing the resurrection of the dead here; and that this was the
* Tanchum, fol. 3.
t * * * • *r 3 * * 3. * * > 62
+ ‘o ośy xeta rās, stº, #y àváo radiº cagº, äAA& Kºyoy #aagaro
# Jux}, avyšero &y airroſ, waxâj, xa, Šºšā; pºoyotai, Apud
Epiph. Haer. 64. § 35.
152
MATTHEW.
(them who are to continue in the state of) the dead,
but of the living (his children being sons of the resur-
rection, Luke xx. 36); - -
33 And when the multitude heard this, they were
astonished at his doctrine.
34 But when the pharisees had heard that he had put
the sadducees to silence, they were gathered together.
35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer (i. e. an
interpreter of the law), *asked him a question, tempt—
ing him (i. e. making a trial of his skill), and saying,
36 Master, which is the great commandment in
the law
37 Jesus said to him, Thou shalt 4°love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and
thing he was to prove, from what they had read concerning
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Luke xx. 37). And the argu-
ment from them will appear strong and convincing, upon
consideration of these following particulars.
First, That God is the God and Father of them only who
are his sons: thus, when God had chosen Israel to be his
people in covenant, and promised to be their God, 8taxgirl-
x&c, or, in distinction from others, he styled them his sons,
saying, viol aré, “Ye are the sons of the Lord your God”
(Deut. xiv. 1.xxxii. 18. Isa. xlv. 11): or else his son, “Israel
is my son, my first-born ; say then to Pharaoh, Let my son
go” (Exod. iv. 22, 23. Jer. xxxi. 20. Hos. xi. 1); and in
the New Testament, Édouai airó Qsic, wai'airo; £a'ral wo: viðc,
“I will be to him a God, and he shall be to me a son '' (Rev.
xxi. 7); “I will be to you a Father, and ye shall be to me
sons and daughters ” (2 Cor. vi. 18). Note,
Secondly, That this viośsaia, or sonship, imports the re-
demption of the body from corruption ; for we wait, saith the
apostle, “for the adoption, that is, for the redemption of the
body” (Rom. viii. 23); “the revelation of the sons of God”
expected (ver. 19), is their deliverance from “the bondage
of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God”
(ver. 21). And the apostle proves that our mortal bodies,
dead because of sin, shall be raised by the Spirit of God
dwelling in them ; because “they who have the Spirit of God,
are the sons of God” (from ver. 11 to 17). And in this very
argument, St. Luke expressly saith that “they that are
thought worthy of the life to come, and of the resurrection
from the dead,” are viol rod Osoſ, ºr; &vaa-rázew; viol by rec, “the
sons of God, as being children of the resurrection ” (xx. 36).
Hence, because God, who is not the God of the dead, but of
the living; is called the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,”
Irenaeus infers, that “without doubt they live to God, clim
sint filii resurrectionis, being the sons of the resurrection ;”
and it is the same with him to be “a son of God,” and
hºreditatem consequi incorruptelae, “to enjoy an incorrup-
tible inheritance.” Hence the apostle saith, “The sons of
God (must be the) heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ”
(Rom. viii. 17): St. John, that they “shall inherit all
things” (Rev. xxi. 7): the author to the Hebrews, that
“God was not ashamed to be called the God of Abraham, and
Isaac, and Jacob, because he had prepared for them a king-
dom” (Heb. xi. 6). Nor were the Jews unacquainted with
this notion of “a son of God,” as one who was to be re-
warded by him after death, or of a son of Abraham, who
was to be partaker of a happy resurrection. For thus the
book of Wisdom introduceth the wicked, speaking of the
good man, waxapićet tº Boxara Binaiov wai &xaćovečera Tarāga.
Geov, “He pronounced the latter end of the just blessed, and
boasts that he hath God for his Father ; let us cut him off
with a shameful death : si yá; a rºy & Sinaio, vič, Gect, for if
the just man be the son of God, he will receive him ; and
by his word there will be a visitation of him " (Wisd. ii. 16.
20). Thus, Saith he, “they spake because they knew not
the mysteries of God, nor hoped for the reward of holiness,
nor discerned the recompence of blameless souls; for God
made man fºr 340-poig, for incorruption, and to be an image
of his own immortality” (ver. 22, 23). And again, “The
Souls of the righteous are in the hands of God, was # #xtric
aúrów 46ayagia; trºpnº, and their hope is full of immortality;
in the day of their visitation they shall shine” (iii. 1. 4.7),
And a third time, “Then shall the righteous stand with
great boldness before the face of them who afflicted them ;
and they shall say, We fools counted his life madness, and
his end to be without honour; how is he numbered, By vioſ,
Osov, among the sons of God, and his portion is with the
Saints l’’ (v. 1. 4, 5). The seven sons mentioned in the
Maccabees, are by Josephus still called 'ABéaëp, traße,
* Lib. iv. xi, cap. 80,
“children of the stock of Abraham ;” and as the book of
Maccabees still introduces them, declaring, that God &vaar-
Thost #43, ei, aiºvio, &va£ioav Kośc, “would raise them up to
life eternal” (2 Macc. vii. 9, 23). And Josephus * intro-
duces their mother, comforting them with those words of
Solomon, “Wisdom is a tree of life to them that do her
will ;” and those of Ezekiel, si &#ceral r& 3-rá rà £mp3 ;
“Shall these dry bones live P” and those words of God in
the song of Moses, “I kill, Kai Öy Trothaw, and I will make
alive :” so he also declares of these martyrs,’ that, dying for
God, they also @iai Osº, Štree 'A8eaëº, kai 'Idajºz, wai'iaºg,
“lived with God, as do Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all
the patriarchs, and f ran it’ &Savaria; 380y, in the way of im-
mortality,” and that § “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob received
them dying.” He mentions a traxty yeyeo'ía, “reviviscence
of all that observe the law of Moses, though they die for it,”
saying, that “to them | #3oxey & ©sic yávea 3al rā ºráxiw zai
flow &ºtivo Aa3éiy Éx regitgomic, God hath granted to them to
live again, and to receive a better life in reversion,” or at the
revolution of all things. So then Christ's argument runs thus,
Those of whom God after their death is the God and Father,
they shall rise again (for they must be the “sons of God,”
and therefore sons of the resurrection, to whom belongs the
adoption or sonship, i. e. the redemption of their bodies from
corruption); but God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, therefore they shall rise again.
Here Theophylact observes, that as the sadducees made
their objection against the resurrection from the law of Moses,
so Christ confirms that doctrine from the law and from the
words of Moses.
* Wer. 35. 'Emgárnorsy six #% airów & yogizès, A lawyer
asked him (see note on Mark xii. 28), Troia ivroxi, asy&An
#y rā vēº ; Which is the great commandment in the law j
This was a famous question among the Jews; some contend-
ing that the precept of sacrifices was the greatest, as is in-
sinuated, Mark xii. 33 (see Pirke Eliezer, cap. 16, p. 33);
others were for the precept of the phylacteries, to whom
Christ answers from what was written in the phylacteries.
* Ver. 27. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all
thy heart.] Note here,
First, That this is a precept given to the Jewish nation,
and so it follows that it ought to bear that sense, which is
the certain import of it in all those other places of the Old
Testament, where it only doth occur; it being only found in
the New Testament as a citation thence. It is therefore
certain, that it doth not require us to love God in perfection
of degrees, or in the elevated sense contended for by some,
but only to love him with a sincere and a prevailing love.
For,
First, God's servants entered into a covenant to serve the
Lord after this manner; thus Asa gathered all Benjamin
and Judah, and “they entered into covenant to seek the Lord
with all their heart, and with all their soul” (2 Chron. xv. 12):
and good Josiah, with all his people, “made a covenant be-
fore the Lord, to walk after the Lord, and to keep his com-
mandments with all their heart, and with all their soul”
(2 Kings xxiii. 3). Now if in this covenant they promised
to love God with every degree of every power ; i. e. with the
whole possibility of the soul, to make him not only the prin-
cipal, but the only object of their love, they promised what
they knew they never could, what to be sure they never did
perform. And why then is it said, that “the people stood
to the covenant,” and that “God was found of them P” But
if they only promised love of sincerity, and love to God
above all other things, and that they would adhere to him .
and his service, then may this phrase import no more.
* De Maccab. p. 1101, E, F. + P. 1100, D.
† P. 1098, A. § P. 1097, D,
| Cont. Apion, lib. ii. p. 1076, A, B.
CHAPTER XXII.
153
with all thy mind (i. e. above and before all other
things, affecting them only with relation and subordina-
tion to God).
Secondly, This God required them to do, to render them
the objects of his grace and favour, promising to have mercy
on them in their captivity on this condition : “If from
thence,” saith Moses, “thou shalt seek the Lord thy God,
thou shalt find him ; if thou seek him with all thy heart
and with all thy soul” (Deut. iv. 29). And again, “If thou
shalt return to the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and
with all thy soul, then the Lord thy God will turn thy cap-
tivity, and have compassion on thee, and will bring thee into
the land which thy fathers possessed; and thou shalt possess
it, and he will do thee good” (Deut. xxx. 2, 3). And upon
this condition only doth Solomon desire this mercy, saying,
“If they turn to thee with all their heart, and all their soul,
in the land of their enemies, then hear thou their prayer and
supplication” (1 Kings viii. 48). Now is it reasonable to
conceive that God required such an absolute perfection of:
degrees in their affection and obedience, to qualify them for
his favour under their captivity ? If so, they must for ever
have continued captives, Or would he promise to restore
them to their good land, and to do them good, upon a con-
dition that would not permit them either to desire that plea-
Sant land, or any other temporal enjoyments as their good?
Sure the suspension of his favour upon this condition, is a
clear evidence, that this phrase bears a milder sense.
Thirdly, God doth acknowledge that some of them did
actually love him thus, that king David had kept his com-
mandments, and “followed him with all his heart, saving in
the matter of Uriah,” 1 Kings xiv. 8. And yet we find him
guilty of mistrust of God's own promise, by saying, “I shall
one day perish by the hand of Saul,” 1 Sam. xxvii. l ; of
lying to Abimelech, xxi. 2; of a rash oath, in swearing to
cut off the house of Nabal, xxv.22; of injustice, in giving a
deceitful Ziba half the goods of Mephibosheth, 2 Sam. xix.
29; and of pride in numbering the people, xxiv. 1. God
also testifies of good Josiah, that “he turned to the Lord
with all his soul, and all his heart, and all his might,” 2
Kings xxiii. 24, 25. Since therefore God himself declares
of men thus subject to imperfection, that they did thus love
him, that love cannot require a perfection of degrees, but
only a sincere and prevalent affection to him. This precept
therefore must imply three things.
First, That we are to love God above all things appre-
tiative ; i. e. So as to prize him in our judgments above all
things, to esteem him more valuable in himself, more bene-
ficial to us, than all things else we can enjoy ; according to
that saying of the psalmist, “Thy loving-kindness is much
better than is life itself” (Ps. lxiii. 3); to esteem him as the
only felicity of our immortal souls; the chief and most de-
sirable good ; the only being in whom is perfect rest, entire
complacency, and full satisfaction to be found; and con-
sequently to look on all things else as “loss and dung,” com-
pared to him. And whilst we retain this value for him, we
can never prize or be concerned for anything so much as his
favour, nor refuse to part with anything which tendeth to
deprive us of it ; we can never value anything so much as to
permit it to rival him, who is exceedingly more precious in
our eyes, and more desirable to our souls, and so we cannot
overvalue any worldly thing. This therefore may be truly
styled, “the loving him with all our mind.”
Secondly, That we are to love God above all things com-
parative ; i. e. with a superlative affection, so as to be ready
always to prefer his favour before all other things. And
this affection, this cleaving of our hearts unto him, must
follow from the forementioned estimation of him : for if
we fully are convinced that there is infinitely more excel-
lency in God, more happiness to be expected from him,
than all the honours, pleasures, profits, interests, relations,
and satisfactions the world can tender, and so the highest
reason that he should always be preferred before them,
and that we should still cleave unto him in opposition to
any other thing ; it is certain he can have no rival in our
hearts, nothing that stands in competition for our love, no-
thing we do not truly hate and despise comparatively to his
favour ; nothing that can tempt us to depart from him, or to
do the thing which will hazard his favour, or provoke his
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like to it, (viz.) *Thou shalt
love thy neighbour as thyself.
displeasure ; and may we not then be said to love him with
an entire and undivided heart 2 - -
Thirdly, That we are to love God above all things inten-
sive; that is, our desires must be more ardently inclined
towards his favour, and the enjoyment of him ; we must
long, thirst, and pant more after him ; rejoice more in his
favour than any other thing, be more concerned to retain it
than to secure any worldly blessings, and be more satisfied
in it than in “marrow and fatness:” and what more can the
love of God with all our souls import P For seeing such a
prevalence of our desires towards him, and delight in him,
will not permit us to desire anything in opposition to him,
or against his will and pleasure ; but will constrain us to
quit all other interests, that we may happily retain our in-
terest in him we thus desire and delight in above all other
things; it follows, that by thus loving God with all our
souls, our love unto or desire of the creature can never be
inordinate or irregular, and so can never be"offensive to
God ; and then it cannot be forbidden by the command to
love the Lord our God with all our souls. In these things
seems to be implied, or from them certainly will follow, that
endeavour above all things to please him, that industrious
care to serve and obey him, that vigorous employment of
all other faculties in his service, which will demonstrate
that we comparatively do not labour “for the meat that
perisheth,” do not permit our secular employments, or our
pursuit of any temporal enjoyments, to impair our diligence
in the securing our eternal interests; and therefore that, in
the true import of the phrase, we love God “with all our
might:” all other senses of it being inconsistent with that
diligence in our calling, and that industry in our civil affairs,
which God himself requires of us. And,
Fourthly, Hence it follows, that we are to love all other
things only in way of relation and subordination to God;
for if we do co-ordinately love any other thing, we love it .
equally with God. And certainly if God requires us to love
him “with all our hearts and all our souls,” our love to other
things must virtually be comprised in our love to God, or
be dependent on it, or subservient to it, or else we must
deprive him of some portion of the heart he calls for. More-
over, God being our ultimate and chiefest good, all other
things can only be good as they conduce to the enjoyment.
or service of him, and so are to be loved for him ; that is,
we must love them as they relate to him, as they enable us
to serve him, as they are or may be instrumental to his glory
or to our enjoyment of him.
And of this exposition of these words we cannot reason-
ably doubt, if we consider that our Lord himself doth
plainly seem to favour and approve of it, making that Ser-
vice, and so that love which he requires from us, to consist
in that prevalence of affection which enables us, in any
competition betwixt the love of the world and the love of
him, to cleave to God, and despise the world. This evidently
is the import of these words, “No man can serve two masters
(when their service and commands do interfere), for he will
either hate the one and love the other, or he will cleave to
the one and despise the other ; ye cannot (therefore) serve
God and mammon” (Matt, vi. 24).
Again, Christ places the due love of himself in the pre-
valence of our affections to him above other things, saying,
“He that loveth father or mother, son or daughter, Özrég #zè
above me, is not worthy of me” (Matt. x. 37). Whence it
must follow, by the rule of contraries, that he who loveth
Christ more than father or mother, son or daughter, or any
worldly interest whatever, must be worthy of him. From
these two places it is therefore evident, that to love God so
as to despise and to forsake all other things, to cleave unto
him ; to love God superlatively, so as to have our affections
more powerfully carried out after him than any other thing
that is most dear unto us, is, in the scripture sense, to love
God with a whole and entire heart. And Surely, if I love
God so as to love nothing which is contrary to him, or which
he forbiddeth me to love, I can do nothing contrary to the
love I owe to him. If I love him, so as to prize neither
friendship, relations, fame, honour, pleasures, riches, life,
I54.
MATTHEW.
40 On these two commandments *hang all the
aw and the prophets (these being an abridgment of
what is contained in them both).
41 While the pharisees were (thus) gathered toge-
ther, Jesus asked them, |
42 Saying, What think you of Christ whose son
is he They say to him, (He is) the son of David.
43 He saith unto them, How then doth David in
(the prophetical afflatus of the) spirit call him Lord,
saying,
or any temporal concernments, so as to offend him by pre-
serving them, I do not inordinately love them ; for obedience
being the true test of love, where there is no neglect of obe-
dience, there can be no want of love. Moreover, if I prize
nothing in comparison with God in my mind, if I cleave to
nothing in competition with him in my will, if I desire no-
thing in comparison with him in my affections, if I pursue
nothing but with relation to his glory and in subordination
to his sacred will, how can I be wanting in my duty to him P
And if I be not wanting in my duty to him, how can I sin
against him P
* Wer. 39. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.]
Here note (1.) that by our “neighbour” here, we are to un-
derstand every other person who is capable of kindness
from us, and stands in need of help. So St. Paul expounds
it, Rom. xiii. 8, “Owe, no man anything, but to love one
another, for 5 3/arów rév šregow, &c. he that loveth another
hath fulfilled the law,” which saith, “Thou shalt love rêy ºran-
orſoy, thy neighbour as thyself.” This will be evident,
First, From our Lord's answer to this inquiry, “Who is
my neighbour P’ for such a case did he propound in demon-
stration of this point as did extort from a great rabbi this
frank confession, that even a Samaritan discharging a great
office of humanity towards a Jew, acted the part of a true
neighbour to him, and consequently that such, humanity
and mercy was also due from any Jew to a Samaritan.
Now scripture and the Jewish records do inform us, that
there was the greatest strangeness and averseness betwixt
the Jew and the Samaritan, they would have no converse
together, they would receive no kindness one from another ;
witness the question which the woman of Samaria puts to
Christ, “How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of
me, who am a woman of Samaria P for the Jews have no
dealings with the Samaritans” (John iv, 9). Hence saith
the son of Sirach, “Two nations doth my soul hate, the
Samaritans and the Philistines” (Ecclus. 1.26). And hence
that proverb of the Jews, that “to eat flesh with a Samari-
tan is as bad as to eat swine's flesh.” Now hence it clearly
follows that Christ, by showing that the Jews and the Sa-
maritans were neighbours, must teach us that no difference
of nation or religion, no alienation of affections, can exempt
us from owning any person as our neighbour; and that by
saying, “Go thou and do likewise,” our Lord obligeth us to
love them as we love ourselves, and to be helpful to them
in their need, according to our power.
Secondly, This is apparent from all those evangelical
commands which do extend this duty to all men, and
thereby show that all men are to be beloved as neighbours;
such are these exhortations, “As you have opportunity, do
good to all men” (Gal. vi. 10); “See that none render evil
for evil unto any man, but ever follow that which is good,
both among yourselves and to all men” (1 Thess. v. 15).
To this intent are those directions, to “follow peace with
all men,” to “be patient and gentle towards all men:”
such, lastly, is that fervent supplication of St. Paul to
his Thessalonians, “The Lord make you to increase in love
towards one another, and towards all men:” all which ex-
pressions make it evident that the affection of the Christian
must extend to all men, and that his neighbourhood is uni-
versal and unlimited.
Thirdly, This also will be evident from the example we
are called to imitate in this affection, viz. the love and
mercy of our God and Saviour ; for we are to be “followers
of God as dear children, and walk in love, and to be perfect
as our heavenly Father is perfect.” Now “God is good to
all, and his mercies are over all, his works ;” he is “the Sa-
viour of all men;” this kindness he is willing to vouchsafe,
this saving health he freely tenders, and joyfully imparts to
the greatest of repenting prodigals ; he is “kind to the un-
thankful and the wicked, and maketh his sun to rise upon
the just and the unjust ;” and in this he expecteth to be
imitated by us, if ever we desire to be deemed his children,
or to enjoy the blessings he hath prepared for them alone:
thus our great Teacher doth instruct us, “I say unto you
Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to
them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use
you, that you may be children of your Father which is in
heaven.” Moreover, the kindness of our Lord to all his
brethren, partakers of the same nature with him, disposed
him to “taste death for every man,” and purchase their re-
demption with his precious blood ; for he “gave himself a
ransom for all.” Since therefore we are called to imitate
the love and kindness of our God and Saviour, our duty
must be answerable to the divine grace, our charity must
follow the example of our blessed Lord ; and therefore every
man must be our brother, not only as he is derived from the
same common stock by nature, but as by grace we are par-
takers of the same universal and redeeming love. And,
Fourthly, If Christianity obligeth us to bear a brotherly
affection towards the worst of enemies, to treat them with
the greatest love and kindness, if without this affection to
them we vainly do pretend to act as Christians, then must
all men become the objects of the Christian's love. For as
for friends, even nature and gratitude oblige us to bear af.
fection to them, and if we do no more, our Lord informs us
that we do nothing which can entitle us to a reward from
him, or show we are advanced above the rank of publicans
and sinners; “For if you only love them which love you,
what reward have you? do not even the publicans the same P
And if you only do good to them who do good to you, what
thanks have you, for sinners also do the same P” (Matt. v.
46. Luke vi. 33.) If then the worst, the most despiteful,
and disobliging of our enemies must, by the Christian, be
thus loved, and therefore owned as his neighbour, what man
can be excluded from that appellation ?
To love this neighbour as ourselves, (1.) it is not neces-
sary that we should love him from the same inward prin-
ciples and dispositions which excite our affection to ourselves;
for we by nature are so framed, that we are forcibly engaged
to avoid that which is evil and afflicting to us, from that
quick sense of pain and trouble it createth to us, and to pur-
sue that which doth gratefully affect us, from the experience
of that inward pleasure, joy, and satisfaction which we reap
from the enjoyment of it; but we find no proportionable
inward sense of pain from that which is afflictive to our
brother, nor yet of pleasure from what is advantageous and
grateful to him ; and therefore cannot from the same inward
principles be moved so strongly to prevent the pain, want,
infamy, he may labour under, or to procure his pleasure and
advantage: and therefore the divine wisdom saw it meet to
supply this defect, by deterring us from the neglect of our
regard towards our brother in his misery, by threatening the
severest punishments to this want of mercy ; and therefore,
by the consideration of the greatest evils which might befall
ourselves for that neglect, and to engage us to all the acts
of kindness, charity, and mercy to our brother in his misery
by the promise of the most excellent rewards, or of the
choicest blessings, and so to move us to these duties front
the like principles of self-love.
Secondly, This rule doth not engage us upon pain of God”
displeasure to an absolute equality in our affection to our
brother and ourselves, but only to make that affection which
we bear to ourselves the rule and the direction for the ex-
pression of our love unto our brother; it saith, sicut teip-
sum, non quantúm teipsum ; it enjoins us to love our bro-
ther in all the instances in which we do express our love unto
ourselves, but not in equal measure: for certainly my love
unto myself must have priority unto the love I bear unto
my brother in all equal circumstances. For instance, if I
see my brother in danger of his life, I am not bound to put
my own in equal danger to preserve him, but only to do all
I can, without incurring the like danger, to prevent his
death. If I perceive he is in want, the law of charity will
not oblige me to put myself in equal want, but only to im-
part to him what I do not want : it doth not bind me to
quench his thirst, or to allay his hunger, with the meat or
CHAPTER XXIII.
155
.44 The Lord said to my Lord, Sit thou on my
right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool :
45 If David then call him Lord, how is he his
son :
A.
drink I want as much as he, but only with those viands I
can minister without like sense of want. If he be in the
pest-house, or labours under an infectious disease, I am not
bound to venture the procuring the same fatal malady, to
comfort or relieve him under it, but only to afford him what
comfort and relief I can, without endangering myself. The
reason is apparent from this very rule, because we cannot
thus affect ourselves, and therefore cannot be obliged thus to
love our brother ; that is, no man can put his life in danger
to prevent the danger of his life; no man can supply his
own wants by parting with that he equally wants; and there-
fore no man can be obliged by this rule to this deportment
towards others, nor can we rationally desire that others
should do so for us, and therefore we cannot be obliged to
do so for them. But then we absolutely are obliged by it,
First, To the greatest freedom from all hatred, ill-will, or
malice to our brother, all alienation of mind, or averseness
from doing offices of kindness to him ; for “no man hateth
his own self;” or is averse from doing kindness to himself
, (Eph. v. 29).
Secondly, To be careful that we never do him any injury,
où8sic yag #avrò wax& 80UNha Etat, for no man wisheth evil to
himself, and “love worketh not evil to our neighbour” (Rom.
xiii. 10).
º, That we still retain a kind affection to him, and
a readiness to do him good, for we have always this goodwill
to our own selves; and this is necessary, both that our cha-
rity may be acceptable to God, and that we may both seri-
ously desire, and, as we have opportunity, promote, his good.
And therefore,
Fourthly, We are to be as helpful to him as our circum-
stances will permit, both in our words, our prayers, instruc-
tions, advice, admonishments, and consolations, and in our
works, the labours of our hands, our bodies, and the expenses
of our purse, that by thus serving and “bearing one ano-
ther's burdens, we may fulfil the law of love” (Gal. v. 14).
Fifthly, We are to sympathize with, and commiserate him
in his afflictions (1 Cor. xii. 26), and do what in us lies to
alleviate his burdens (Gal. vi. 2); and to rejoice with him
in his prosperity: for we in our prosperity rejoice, in our ad-
versity are sorry. This therefore is a rule we are not only
“taught of God” (1 Thess. iv. 9), but we are taught it from
our own selves; this being the great advantage of this rule,
that it sends us not to learn our duty from the great doctors
of the world, but only to the law written on all our hearts,
or to that celebrated rule of the philosophers, Nosce teipsum,
46 And no "man was able to answer him a word,
(to that inquiry), neither durst any man from that
day forth ask him any more questions.
“Know thyself,” reflect upon the inward motions of thy
heart, and observe thy demeanour to thyself; and this will
faithfully admonish thee, and make thee skilful to discern
what is the love and kindness which thou owest to others,
and will enable thee to judge aright in all the instances of
justice and humanity. -
* Ver. 40. On these two commandments hang all the la
and the prophets.] This is a metaphor taken from the cus-
tom, mentioned by Tertullian, of hanging up their laws in a
public place, to be seen of all men ; and it imports, that in
them is compendiously contained all that the law and pro-
phets do require in reference to our duty to God and man :
for though there be some precepts of temperance which we
owe to ourselves, yet are they such as we may be moved to
perform from the true love of God and of our neighbour;
for if we truly love God, we cannot be wanting in them, for
the love of God will make us humble, contented with our
portion ; it will preserve us from all intemperance, impa-
tience, and evil lustings ; it will make us watchful over our-
selves to keep a good conscience, and solicitous for our eter-
nal weal; and the love of our neighbour will free us from all
angry passions, envy, malice, and other perturbations which
arise against him (see Examen Millii here).
* Ver. #6. Kai otºsłg #8&varo airá átrongtöval Aflyov' And
no man could answer him a word.] Hence it is plain, that
the artifices which the Jews now use to evade this place, by
saying these words belong to Abraham or David, or, as Jus-
tin Martyr" testifies, to Ezekiel, had not then obtained: for
if it had not then been the received opinion that this psalm
belonged to the Messiah, Christ would not have alleged it to
this end, much less would he have put the scribes and pha-
risees to silence by so doing. And whereas Woltzogenius
here notes, that this place proves Christ is not God, because
he is here distinguished from God, by sitting at his right
hand: this we grant, according to that human nature from
which alone he is said to “sit at the right hand of God ;”
and though, as he replies, the human nature is no person,
whereas it is the person of Christ which sits at the right
hand of God; this is nothing to the purpose: for though it
be Christ personally taken who sits at the right hand of God,
yet he is not said to sit there according to his divine, but
human nature ; thus is it “the Lord of glory,” who was
“crucified,” 1 Cor. ii. 8, yet he was not crucified as the Lord
of glory.
*
* Dial. p. 256.
CHAPTER XXIII.
1 THEN spake Jesus to the multitude and to his
Jisciples,
3 All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe
(according to that law), that observe and do; but do
2 Saying, “The scribes and the pharisees sit in not ye after their works: for they say, and do not
Moses’ seat (i. e. are the received interpreters of the
law of Moses).
(themselves that which they teach to be the duty of
others).
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXIII.
* Ver. 2, 3. Eri rā; Mooréo, wa&#3eaç #xáStoray of pagiaraſot,
Trávra oëv Šala &y eitrogly tºy ºnesſy, ºrnésºrs wai motºrs. The
scribes and pharisees sit in the seat of Moses; and there-
fore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do.]
i. e. Saith Theophylact, “All that they require, Éx rāy Mo-
a'éa, 38Woly %&trö roº &got väg, ov, from the books of Moses, or
the law of God:” which interpretation must be allowed of,
(l.) because Christ elsewhere requires his disciples to “be-
ware of the leaven,” that is, the doctrine, “ of the scribes
and pharisees” (Matt. xvi. 6. 12); and that because “they
taught for doctrines the commandments of men, and by their
traditions made void the law of God” (Matt. xv. 6. 9), and
were “blind leaders of the blind into the pit” (ver. 14);
bidding them to understand, that “nothing from without a
man defiled a man ;” than which nothing could be more
contrary to their doctrines and traditions: and elsewhere,
refuting their doctrine touching divorce, ch. xix., and touch-
ing oaths, ver. 16, &c.; he therefore could not here say, with-
out this restriction, that they should do and observe all their
commands, without a contradiction to his own frequent
doctrine. (2) He speaks of those things which these doc-
tors ought to have done, but did not (ver. 3), whereas they
would have deserved no reprehension for not doing that
which was not required of them by the law. Thus the word
Trávra, “all things,” must be restrained, when the apostle
commands servants to obey their masters, and children
their parents, xati, Trávra, “in all things” (Col. iii. 20. 22);
and wives to be subject to their husbands #y Travri, “in every-
thing” (Eph. v. 24). Thus Isidore Pelusiota" teacheth us
* Jubet iis auscultari, º, roſ; Kar’ ièlay reorrarrotzèvotº,
ti pah rvī; Xénzºoſ, avyá88: #y roi; otpayiotç, &AA& t; 8.8aakaxi.
156
MATTHEW.
4 * For they bind heavy burdens, and grievous to be
borne, and laythem on men’s shoulders; but (are so for-
getful of the mercy required of the law, that) they them-
selves will not move them with one of their fingers
(i. e. they will do nothing to remove those burdens from
them that are oppressed with them).
5 But (and) all their works they do to be seen of
men, (i.e. for ostentation of piety; to which end) "they
make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders
of their garments, (as men highly concerned to remem-
ber the commandments of the Lord, writ upon these
phylacteries, Numb. xv. 38, 39).
6 And (they) love the uppermost rooms at feasts,
and the chief seats in the synagogues, -
7 And greetings in the markets, and to be called of
men, Rabbi, Rabbi.
8 *But be not ye called Rabbi (guides, but only
teachers and ministers of the word, which ye have learned
to interpret those words. Note also, that Christ speaks not
here of the great Sanhedrin, or the chief priests; for when
mention is made of them in the New Testament, this is still
under the name of priests, elders, rulers, or princes of the
people; of whom here is no mention, but only of the scribes
and pharisees, who are said to sit in the seat of Moses, be-
cause they undertook to interpret the law of their great pro-
phet Moses, either publicly to the people, or privately in the
schools; and whilst they determined things doubtful and
undetermined in the law, not contrary to the precepts of it,
their decisions were to be observed for order's sake. Hence,
of the tithing mint and cummin not mentioned in the law of
Moses, but prescribed by them, Christ saith, raïta #85 ºrotical,
“These things ought to be done” (ver. 23).
* Ver. 4. Asa'ºzeſova's yap pogria Bazèa kai 3va'8áa razºra, &c.
For they bind heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne,
&c.] These heavy burdens, saith Theophylact, were raga-
3áasic iréxeiya roß véſzov, “their traditions added to the law,”
and called by their own writers, Ewins nor), “the strokes
of the pharisees,” as being such as made the service of God
burdensome. But then, when I consider how punctual they
pretended to be in the observance of them, what a reverence
they had for them, even above the law of Moses, and how
highly they were offended with Christ and his apostles, for
not walking according to them, I am apt, with Menochius
and Maldonate, to interpret those words, “they will not
move them with one of their fingers,” not of their neglect
to observe them themselves, but of their tenacious exacting
of them without mercy, even from those whom they saw
grieved and oppressed with these burdens; and to refer those
words, “they say, and do not,” to the things taught by them,
according to the law, mercy, judgment, and the love of God
(see Examen Millii here). tº
* Ver. 5. IIAarivovari 33 rā puxax rheta aúrāy. They also
do make broad their phylacteries] What great holiness they
placed in putting on the phylacteries, we learn from the
Targum on Cant. viii. 3, which introduceth the Jews speak-
ing thus, “I am chosen above all people, because I bind my
frontals to my head, and my left hand, and my parchment
is fixed to the right side of my gate, or door, so that a third
part of it comes up to my bed, that the evil spirits may not
hurt me:” and yet very learned men think these phylacte-
ries are not commanded, Exod. xiii. 9. 16, but that those
words are only metaphorically to be understood, as a com-
mand to have God’s laws perpetually before their eyes,
and his deliverances always in remembrance ; according to
the like metaphor of Solomon, when he saith of the precepts
of wisdom, “Bind them about thy neck, and write them on
the tables of thy heart” (Prov. iii. 3); and that the like
words (Deut. vi. 8, 9), are to be expounded by the foregoing
words (ver. 6), “The word which I command thee this day
shall be in thy heart ;” and xi. 18, “Ye shall put my words
in your heart, and in your soul.” For since these words,
Deut. vi., refer to the whole law of Moses, it seems not rea-
sonable to think that God required them to write all the pre-
. of it upon their phylacteries, or the posts of their
OOTS.
Ver. 6. They love the uppermost rooms in the synagogues.]
There showing their pride, saith. Theophylact, where they
ought to have taught others humility.
* Ver. 8. “rºceſ; 3: º wanóñre fiaggi, $30,0}, xagnynrai, Be
not ye called rabbi, fathers, guides.] Here note,
First, That Christ cannot reasonably be supposed to for-
bid either fathers to be so called by their children, this ap-
£467, rſ, āri rāy #xxxnarićy yiyopºyn' 313 wai waôāpa: Mwaráo;
#zynºwevo's rig rot, yoºcoöárov ráre yāp oi rā Āavröy &AW& rà rôy
ypa psy ppáčoval. Cat. p. 691.
pellation being frequent in the sacred writers; or aged and
spiritual persons to admit that title in the vulgar acceptation
of it; for thus St. John styles the aged, “fathers,” 1 John
ii. 13, and St. Paul styles himself a “father” to the Corin-
thians, 1 Cor. iv. 15, and to the Galatians, iv. 19. These
titles therefore, which men inspired by the Holy Ghost did
use, after these words were spoken by our Lord, cannot be
reasonably thought to be the thing forbidden by Christ.
Secondly, Nor doth Christ here forbid these titles, only
because they savoured of pride and affectation, but because
they were a great intrenchment on God the Father and the
Son, ascribing to those men, who had usurped these names,
what properly belonged to their heavenly Father (so the rea-
son here assigned shows, viz. “Call no man your father upon
earth, for one is your Father which is in heaven ;” i. e. to
whom alone belongs that title); and attributing to earthly
guides and masters, what was only due to Christ our teacher
and spiritual guide ; “Be not ye called rabbi, for one is
your Master, even Christ” (ver. 8): “Neither be ye called
masters (guides, or leaders), for one is tºy & kaðnynºrås, your
leader, even Christ” (ver. 10). Note,
Thirdly, That the words, rabbi, father, guide, master, or
teacher, were the titles which were then usually by the Jews
conferred on their wise men, the fathers of tradition, or the
men of the greatest understanding in the law of Moses;
such persons they thought fit to Salute not in a common
form of words, but by these pompous titles. Thus of Jo-
hoshaphat they tell us, “that when he saw a disciple of the
wise, he would rise from his throne, embrace him, kiss him,
and say to him, Abba, abba, rabbi, rabbi, mori, mori," that
is, “My father, my rabbi, my guide, or teacher.” These
titles were so esteemed due to them, that they say the
Sanhedrin did twenty-four times excommunicate those who
gave not the honour of a master to their rabbins. Now by
the word rabbi, they understood such a teacher whom they
stood bound to hearken to, depending on his words, and not
disbelieving, swerving from, or doubting of the truth of what
he taught. Hence doth Gamaliel advise the ignorant among
the Jews to “get themselves rabbies, that they may no
longer doubt of anything :” and R. Eliezer saith that “he
who separates from the school of his rabbi, or teacheth any-
thing which he hath not heard from his master, provokes
the divine majesty to depart from Israel.” Maimonides
saith that “men of the degree of rabbi, were also called
abba, i. e. father ;” and they took to themselves this title as
well as that of rabbi ; now to these fathers they ascribed the
same high and incontestable authority. Hence Maimonides
saith that “he that will be holy, must perform the words of
the fathers;” and they declare that the words of Cabala, or
the traditions of their fathers, were “equal to the words of
the law, and more to be regarded than the words of the pro-
phets; that a prophet was not to be believed, except he
could show a sign, or a miracle ; but as for these elders, or
fathers, they were to be believed without them: it being said
of them, Deut. xvii. 11, According to the sentence of the
law which they shall teach thee, and according to the judg-
ment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do.” The word mar,
xaffnymrºç, which they used in Babylon to signify one who in Ju-
dea was called rab, with them signifies a guide and leader in
the way of happiness: and of this, saith St. Paul, they are confi-
dent, that “they are guides to the blind, a light to them that
sit in darkness, instructors of the simple, and masters of babes”
(Rom. ii. 17–19); and that so certainly, that their decisions
were not to be doubted of, but were to be reputed of equal
authority with the determinations of the prophets; “for,”
saith Maimonides,” “if a thousand prophets, who were equal
* Praefat. in Seder Zeraim, Po. p. 32.
CHAPTER XXIII.
157
jrom Christ); for one is your Master, even Christ; and
all ye are brethren (or equally his servants in this
7ministry). .
9 And call no man your father upon the earth
(i.e. be swayed by no man in matters of faith, as chil-
dren are by the will of their fathers) ; for one is your
Father, which is in heaven (to whose will and precepts
alone you owe an absolute subjection).
10 Neither be ye called masters; for one is your
Master, even Christ (from whom ye receive what you
communicate to others, and so ye have no power over
the faith of men, as masters have over their servants,
but are only stewards and dispensers of the mysteries
of Christ).
ll But he that is greatest among you shall be
your servant, (for the sake of Christ, 1 Cor. iii. 5. 2
Cor. iv. 5).
12 And whosoever shall exalt himself (by acting
not, as a servant, but a lord and master) shall be
abased; and he that shall humble himself (to the
meanest office in this ministry) shall be exalted.
13 But woe to you, scribes and pharisees, (who
are) hypocrites 1 for "ye shut up the kingdom of hea-
ven against men (by your example, doctrine, and au-
thority) ; for ye neither go in (to it) yourselves, nei-
ther suffer ye them that are entering (into it) to go in.
14 °Woe to you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites
for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence
(that ye may be more trusted by them, ye) make long
prayers (as devout' persons); therefore ye shall (for
this hypocrisy) receive the greater damnation. .
15 Woe to you, scribes and pharisees, (who are)
hypocrites for ye compass sea and land (go to all
the regions of your dispersions) to make one proselyte
to Elias and Elisha, bring one interpretation, and a thousand
and one wise men produce one contrary to it, we must in-
cline to the most, and be obliged rather to act according
to the sentence of these wise men than that of the thousand
prophets.” In his explication of the thirteenth treatise of
the Sanhedrin, he distributes men, who interpret the sayings
of the wise men, into three ranks; (1.) those who say their
words are to be interpreted according to the letter, as thinking”
Sapientes in omnibus indubitatae veritatis in dictis suis, &c.
“the wise men in all their sayings of undoubted truth, meant
only what they perceive by their words.” (2.) Those who
elude the words of the wise, judging themselves more wise
and perspicacious, and saying; that “they were deceived:”
these he pronounces fools, and accursed, for saying these
things against those great men, of whose wisdom they were
well assured: the words of the scribes, according to their
blasphemous sayings, being: “more amiable than the words
of the prophets, and more weighty;” and, “the words of
the Cabala equal to the words of the law.” And even Jo-
sephuss saith, that “they who were of the sect of the phari-
sees followed their guide, and thought it necessary to ob-
Serve and contend for whatsoever he would command ;” the
Sadducees held it a virtue to doubt of, or contend against,
the teachers of the wisdom which their traditions contained ;
“but they yielded such honour to their ancestors, that they
durst not be so bold as to gainsay anything that they had
introduced as fit to be observed ;” where we have the 3134a:-
waxoi in express words, xašmyntal in the word hyeºwówek,
“guides,” and “fathers” in the riſ #Aixia ºrgoňxovireº, or “the
ancients;” and all of them represented as persons, of whose
doctrines none ought to doubt, and whose sayings no man
should gainsay. And again, the pharisees delivered vá-
{&#4a "roxx&, “many things to be received as laws,” which
were not in the law of Moses; from which though the sad-
ducees dissented, yet when they came to the magistrates,
they were forced to subscribe to them, 31& ré º &Axwº vex-
ºrous yávea Sal roſ; trañSeaw, “since otherwise they would not
be endured by the multitude ; among whom, so great was
their authority, that though they spake against the king, or
the high-priest," stºic triarsūsa Sat, they were presently be-
lieved.” And even the scripture informs us, that they
“taught for doctrines,” or for things necessary to be ob-
served, “the commandments of men” (Matt. xv. 9), and
pronounced them accursed who held contrary to their senti-
ments (John vii. 47–49). The import therefore of these
words seems to be this: -
First, That no man was to be called “father upon earth,”
so as that we should yield an absolute subjection to his will
and pleasure, or be absolutely swayed and governed by it.
* p. 144. + P. 146, 147.
ſt Lightf. in Matt. xv. 2.
§"E"roy rat aft #ysºoyi, "regiºãxnroy hyoſagyo rºw ºvXax}v Šv
orpoaroºstſely h9âna's ripºff, ye rºcłatkia; ºrgoňkovci ragaxºpoſaly,
oßy ir’âwrixážst rôy gianynóávrov raira Seácsi èraigăuevot.
Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 1. Xabºovkaſo. 83 ºrgö, row, 8.8aakāxou,
cºpias, ºy ºriac-w, 3% pixoyeſy &gery &gtégotiaty. Antiq. lib.
xiii. cap. 8, p. 453.
- | Lib. xviii, cap. 2, p. 617.
T P. 453, B. lib. xiii. cap. 23, p. 263, B, C.
Secondly That we should call no man “guide,” or “master
upon earth,” no fathers, no church, no councils, so as abso-
lutely to submit ourselves, in the concernment of our eter-
mal interests, to the conduct of their judgments, or give them
dominion over our faith and conscience ; Christ being the
sole guide and teacher of his church, commissionated by his
Father to reveal his will, and teach us what is needful to be
known, believed, or done, in order to salvation ; and even
his apostles being only to be looked upon as the ministers
and ambassadors of Christ, and only to be credited as, by their
gifts, and by the miraculous powers derived from him, they
taught men those things he had commanded, and by his
Spirit had revealed to them.
* Ver. 13. Kxeters rºw 8aaixeiav rāy oëpavāy, Ye shut up
the kingdom of heaven against men.] The business of a
key being to open and give entrance into a place, they who
obstructed this entrance are here said to “shut the kingdom
of heaven against men :” and this the scribes and pharisees
did, (1.) by their example ; for, pretending to be guides to
others, they themselves refused to go into it, and so obstructed
the entrance of others, by saying, “Have any of the scribes
or pharisees believed on him P” (John vii. 48) they made
good that of Christ, “You enter not in yourselves.” (2.)
By their doctrine ; they cavilling at all that he said, and
endeavouring to render the truth of it suspected, rejecting
him as not of God, because he kept not the sabbath (John
ix. 16), and accusing him of blasphemy, and casting out of
devils by Beelzebub (Matt. xii. 24), and by their vain tradi.
tions, which he deservedly rejected, putting a bar to the
spiritual doctrine of his kingdom ; thus did they “shut up
the kingdom of heaven against men.” (3.) By their autho-
rity ; excommunicating and maliciously persecuting them
who owned his doctrine, and decreeing that “they should
be cast out of the synagogue” (John ix. 22), and professing
to have an authority to pass judgment on true and false pro-
hets. -
p * Ver. 14. Oial pºly yeapºpºateſ; kai pagiaraſot, itroxpirai.]
These words, saith Dr. Mills, Origen and Eusebius do not
own ; “they seem to be put in here from St. Mark and Luke”
(Prol. p. 42. col. 2). If we may judge of Eusebius, from
whom no place is cited, by what is said of Origen, the
doctor must mistake in both ; for Origen expressly cites
these words, Hom. 15 in. Jer. p. 145, and citing ver. 15,
in Matt. p. 326, he styles the words, “the second woe de-
nounced in the gospel of St. Matthew against the scribes and
pharisees.” They are also owned by Chrysostom, Theophy-
lact, and by all the versions. -
Karea.Siers olxia; rāy Xnºv, Kai Trgoqāoret ºaxg3 ºrpoa euxá-
ºwevot, Ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make
long prayers.] “This sect,” saith Josephus,” “pretended to
a more exact knowledge of the law, où xáply &; rô Sºfov trgod-
Trotovºzávoy trixto # yvyatkoyfrig on which account the wo-
men were subject to them, as pretending to be dear to God.”
And when Alexandra + obtained the government, they in-
sinuated themselves into her favour, as being the exactest
sect of the Jews, and the exactest interpreters of the law,
and abusing her simplicity, did, as they listed, “remove and
* Antiq. lib. xvii. cap. 3, p. 585, F.
+ De Bello Jud. lib. i. cap. 4, p. 716.
158
MATTHEW.
(to your religion) ; and when he is made (so), ye"
make him twofold more the child of hell (more oppo-
site to the gospel and the professors of it) than your-
selves.
16 Woe to you, ye blind guides, which say, “Who-
soever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing (obliga-
tory); but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the
temple, he is a debtor (i.e. he is obliged to perform his
oath) 1
17 Ye fools, and blind 1 for (since ye swear by some-
thing sacred, let me ask), Whether is greater, the gold,
or the temple that sanctifieth the gold? (i. e. makes it
more sacred than any common gold).
18 And, Whosoever shall swear by the altar (you
say), it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth by the
gift that is upon it, he is guilty (if he do not perform
his oath).
19 Ye fools, and blind! for whether is greater, the
gift, or the altar that sanctifies the gift 2 (which is
therefore sacred, because offered on it).
20 Whoso therefore shall swear by the altar, swear-
eth by it, and by all things (all gifts laid) thereon, (and
by him to whom they are offered).
21 And whoso shall swear by the temple, sweareth
by it, and by him that dwelleth therein.
22 And he that shall swear by heaven, sweareth by
the throne of God, and by him that sitteth thereon.
dispose, bind, and loose, and even cut off men.” They were
in such vogue for their “long prayers,” which they continued
sometimes three hours, that perhaps they sold them, as do
the Roman priests their masses, or pretended others should
be more acceptable to God for them ; and so might spoil
devout widows by the gifts or salaries they expected from
them. Now this being only a hypocritical pretence of piety,
must be hateful to God, and so deserve a greater condemna-
tion (see Examen Millii here).
7 Ver. 15. IIotsſºrs airby viðy yºvyn; Biračregoy ipºv, You
compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and ye make
him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.] It was
the complaint of the Jewish nation, that the proselytes were
“scabs of the church,” and hindered the coming of the
Messiah, as being ignorant of the law, and bringing in re-
venge. Justin Martyr * informs us of them, that these
“proselytes did not only disbelieve Christ's doctrine, &AA&
8ttraórsgow tºwāy 8Aao-ºpnºoúaty eiç rà èvoga airoij, but were
twice more blasphemous against him than the Jews them-
selves, endeavouring to torment, and cut them (i. e. the
Christians) off wheresoever they could, they being in this
the instruments of the scribes and pharisees.”
* Ver. 16. “Oc &v Špačan év tá yaä, où8áy is riv, Woe to
gow, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple it is no-
thing, &c.] Of this see the notes on v. 36, and observe, (1)
that rô Đsiasty signifies to “be obliged to perform his oath,”
so that they thought that other oaths might be violated
without sin. (2.) That they so valued swearing by the gifts
of the altar, ver. 18, because they brought in gain to them.
(3.) Observe that those words, “He that sweareth by the
altar, sweareth by it, and by all things upon it,” are to be
thus understood, that he sweareth by him whose altar it is,
for the accessory follows the principal ; and an oath must
be supposed to be by something which can testify to the
truth, and punish the falsehood of it; and so he that thus
swears, must in all reason be supposed to swear by that God
also to whom the altar doth belong.
* Wer. 23, Kal & phzare rà. 8apûrega rot; vépzov, &c. And
omit the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and
faith..] This is indeed the bane of all religion and true
piety to refer rituals and positive institutions before the
precepts of natural religion, which are always good and
necessary upon their own account, and not only because
commanded ; and human institutions before divine ; and
this is a certain sign of gross hypocrisy. Faith in, or the
love of God (as it is, Luke xi. 42), is the foundation of all
* Dial. p. 350, D.
23 Woe to you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites
for ye pay tithe of mint, and anise, and cummin, and
have "omitted the more weighty matters of the law,
judgment, mercy, and faith; these ought ye to have
done (because your own constitutions require them), and
not to leave the other undone (which God especially
requires).
24 Ye blind guides which "strain at a gnat (i. e.
who, scruple things of the least moment), and swallow
a camel (i.e. but venture freely on the grossest sins).
25 Woe to you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites
for ye (act as men intent to) make clean the outside of
the cup and of the platter (to appear clean in the eye
of men), but within they are full of extortion and
€XCéSS.
26 Thou blind pharisee, cleanse first that which is
within the cup and platter (the inward motions of thy
heart), that the outside of them (i. e. thy actions) may
be clean also.
27 Woe to you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites 1
for *ye are like to whited sepulchres, which indeed
appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead
men’s bones and of all uncleanness (and therefore
have a white mark set upon them, that they may be
avoided). -
28 Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous to
men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
piety ; mercy, of all that charity we show to our brother;
and judgment, of all righteous dealing. Now, that the
pharisees wanted this faith and love to God, was visible
from their hypocrisy; that they were full of rapine and
injustice we learn from ver. 25 ; that they were a crafty sort
of men, prone to envy and hatred, from Josephus, Antiq.
lib. xvii. cap. 3.
* Wer. 24. Oi 3.5xićovre; Tôy wºvotra, rºw 3: 24&nxoy Karaºri-
Voytec, Who strain at a guat, but swallow a camel.] Wain is
here the suspicion of Cajetan, that “camel” cannot be the
true reading, because no man can swallow it ; he might as
well have suspected the “beam” mentioned ch. vii, because
no man's eye can contain it. This the rulers and the
pharisees did, in not admitting the thirty pieces into the
treasury, because it was the price of blood ; and yet with
those very pieces hiring Judas to procure the shedding that
blood ; and by scrupling to “enter the judgment-hall lest
they should be defiled,” but not scrupling to shed the blood
of the innocent (John xviii. 28).
* Ver. 27. IIapoº.otáćere rāqois Rexoviațăvoic, Ye are like
to whiled sepulchres.] Luke xi. 44, 2; rā ºvnºsta rā &önxa,
“as graves that appear not.” For explication and recon-
ciliation of the words of the evangelists, note, (1.) that
they who touched any part of a sepulchre were by the law
of Moses polluted by it, Numb. xix. 16. (2.) That there-
fore to avoid this pollution, the Jews were wont to put
some sign or mark upon it, by which it might be discerned
to be a sepulchre, and so might be avoided; for so their
canon runs, that “if any man finds a sepulchre, he is bound
to put a mark upon it, that it be not an offence to others,”
since otherwise they might be in perpetual danger of con-
tracting uncleanness: this mark they made with lime ma-
cerated with water, which made them appear “white ;” and
when these marks were worn out, and so the sepulchres
become 38waa, “indiscernible,” the grass being grown over
them, and the herbs that grew upon them making them
&gata, “beautiful,” as to outward appearance, and like to
other earth, so that men were in danger of being polluted
by them, they were again marked and made white with
lime: they are therefore said to “appear beautiful to men,”
by St. Matthew, for the same reason that they are styled
&nxa, “indiscernible,” by St. Luke, because the white mark
was worn out, or so covered over with grass and herbs, that
it could not be discerned. Such, saith Christ, are ye pha-
risees, appearing outwardly specious and fair to men, whilst
yet “your inward parts are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.”
Vain then is the imaginary pretence of any contradiction in
what Dr. Hammond here offers from Dr. Pocock, the
“whited sepulchres” being sepulchres which at first had
CHAPTER XXIII. A
1.59
29 Woe to you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites :
*because you build the tombs of the prophets, and
garnish the sepulchres of the righteous,
30 And say, If we had been in the days of our
fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in
(shedding) the blood of the prophets.
31 Wherefore ye be witnesses to (against) your-
selves, that ye are the children of them who killed
the prophets.
32 Fill ye up then (Gr. and ye will fill up) the
measure of your fathers (sins, and show greater malice
against the prophets now sent by God to you).
33 (For) ye (are) serpents, ye (are a) generation of
vipers (i. e. more venomous against me and my dis-
ciples than even your forefathers were against the old
tºº, how (then) can ye escape the damnation of
hell?
received this white mark, or cippus : but yet the sight of it
was lost by the herbs growing up high enough to cover it,
or by the rain washing it away. -
** Ver. 29, 30. “ori oixoSopweirs rob; répov; rāy orgoºnrów,
wai koop.fire tº ºxynºsta rāy 8waiov, Woe unto you—for ye
build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres
of the righteous.] “Wherefore ye be witnesses to yourselves
(i. e. you yourselves witness), that ye are the children of
them which killed the prophets (ver. 31, 32); fill ye up then
xai TrAng&rare, and ye fill up the measure of your fathers'
cruelties in this kind:” being now fitly compared to serpents
and vipers for the venomous hatred you bear to me, the
prophet promised by Moses, and those sent among you in
my name, and will thereby show you are their children, as
well by disposition as by natural descent. The words in
St. Luke, xi. 47, 48, run thus: “Woe to you, for ye build
up the sepulchres of the prophets, whom (you acknowledge
that) your fathers killed; &ga wagrugsſºrs, you therefore by this
testify that you are by nature the children of those fathers,
for they (i. e. their fathers) killed them, and you (the chil-
dren of them) build their sepulchres” (wai avyevèoxeſ're roi;
#yot; rôv ºratépoy tºy), and by your hatred against me
and mine, you farther show your likeness to them in dis-
positions also : so that I foresee, that of those wise men
which I send to you, “ some of them you will persecute, and
some of them you will kill and crucify,” and so will so far
fill up the measure of their sins, that upon you may justly
fall the punishment of “all the blood of the prophets and
righteous men” shed by your fathers, and by you their chil-
dren in iniquity. All that can be objected against this
paraphrase, which makes the words of Luke so plain, and
so exactly to agree with the words here, is, that it puts
these words xal avysvěokéïre r", pyot; rāy Tarágwy Śwºv, “and
ye allow of the works of your fathers,” in a parenthesis ; of
which we have examples in the New Testament sufficient
to justify the doing this; so Mark xii. 12, “They sought
to lay hold upon him (#yvooray y&p 3rt ºrgā; airob; tºy traga-
£oxºv Eire, for they knew he spake this parable against them),
but they feared the people:’ xvi. 3, 4, “They said, Who
shall roll away the stone from the door of the sepulchre
(wai &va6Aškazai Sewpoſio w śrī āroxExáxia rat ā Xi80s, and look-
ing up, they saw it was rolled away ; for it was very great”
!. Mark xiv. 22. 24, Luke v. 15 16. 27, Rom. iii. 5.8.
ev. xx. 12, 13. See the like in the Old Testament, Gen.
xiii. 10. Exod. xii. 15. Cant. i. 5).
* Ver. 34. Wherefore I send among you prophets and wise
‘men ; and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some
of them ye shall courge, &c.] This they did, stoning Ste-
phen, Acts vii. 59, cutting off James with the sword, Acts
xii. 2, Scourging Peter and the apostles, Acts v., and perse-
cuting Saul and Barnabas “from city to city” (see note on
Luke xi. 49).
* Ver. 35. "Orw: #A0p #4' igg, Träy alwa Sikatov, #xxvéat-
voy ºr rāc yūc, That upon you may come (the national punish-
ment of) all the blood shed in the land.] i. e. That it may
come upon you, taking pleasure in the works of your fathers,
and by the said bloody actions filling up the measure of their
sins by killing your Messiah, the chiefest of all prophets,
and the wise men he sent last of all to offer terms of pardon
34 * Wherefore, behold, I send to you prophets;
and wise men, and scribes (i. e. true interpreters of the
law and the prophets); and some of them ye shall kill
and crucify ; and some of them ye shall scourge in
your synagogues, and persecute them from city to
city:
35 “That upon you (thus outdoing the malice of
3your forefathers against the prophets sent to you by
God) may come (the punishment of) all the righteous
blood (of God’s prophets) shed upon the earth, "from
the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zacharias
son of Barachias, whom ye slew (i.e. stoned, 2 Chron.
xxiv. 22) between the temple and the altar.
36 Verily I say unto you, All these things shall
come upon this generation.
37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the
prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee,
and salvation to you: and this rendered their punishment.
not only equitable, but almost necessary; for it being the
observation of their own wise men, from Gen. xv. 16, that
“God taketh not vengeance of a nation till they have filled
up the measure of their sins;” the Jews of that generation
doing this to the utmost, and by their stºozia, i. e. the plea-
sure which they took in doing not only the like, but even
more bloody actions, they becoming ex post facto partakers
with their forefathers in their sins; and being not deterred
from the like actions by all the punishments which they had
suffered by them in the captivity of their whole nation, they
made it both equitable and necessary this punishment should
fall upon that generation.
**And toč aſparo; roi; 31%aiov "A8ex Éwº roi, aſ caro; Zaxa-
glov vici; Bapaxiov. From the blood of righteous Abel (the
first prophet and preacher of righteousness, Heb. xi. 4. 2 Pet.
ii. 5) to the blood of Zacharias the son of Barachias.] Here
two things need to be explained ; viz. who was the son of
Barachias, and why he is mentioned rather than any of those.
righteous persons who were afterward destroyed by the Jews.
To the first question I answer, (1.) that he could not be
Zacharias, vić; Bºlgáxov, “the son of Baruch,” mentioned hy
Josephus,” as ºwicowóvngos, “a hater of wicked things and
persons,” and therefore slain by the zealots #y ºwäcº Tó ispá,
“in the middle of the temple.” For (1.) the name seems
not the same ; for as Baruch in Jeremiah and the Apocrypha
is always called by the Septuagint, Bagotºx, so nºn-i is still
rendered by them Bafaxiac, Isa. viii.2. Zech, i. 1.7; and Neh.iii.
we find Bapaxiac, ver.4, and Bapovy, ver, 20, which shows they
were not the same names. (2.) The blood of the son of Baga-
Xiaç was the blood of a prophet (Luke xi. 50, 51), whereas
the son of Baruch mentioned by Josephus was no prophet,
nor doth it appear that he was a righteous person, he being
an unbeliever, and one of those who rebelled against Caesar;
and (3.) Christ speaks here of the prophets whom épéveuray,
“they had slain,” not of one who was only to be slain a
little before the destruction of Jerusalem, for then none of
the people could have understood his meaning. Nor (2.)
could he be Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist ; for
as he was not owned by the Jews to be a prophet, nor was
he sent by God unto the Jews under that character, so
Origen + confesseth that it cannot be proved from scripture.
either that he was the son of Barachias, or that he was slain
between the temple and the altar. And indeed that he was
the son of Barachias is only said by Nicephorus out of Hip-
polytus; that he was slain in the temple is a tradition more
current among the ancients, # but yet St. Jerome saith, it is
only taken ex quibusdam apocryphorum somnis, “from Some
dreams of apocryphal writers.” And indeed the tradition is
false in the foundation, that he was slain for placing the vir-
gin Mary in that apartment of the temple which was proper
* De Bello Jud. lib. iv. cap. 19, p. 883, 884.
+ Ostendere non possumus per scripturas canonicas, nec
quëd pater Johannis fuit filius Barachiae, nec quëd scribae
et pharisai interfecerunt eum inter templum et altare. In
Matt. hom. 20, f. 49. Niceph. Hist. Eccl. lib. ii. cap. 3.
f Origen, ibid. Basil. de Chris. Hum. Gen. tom. i. p. 509
et 510. Wide Hammond in locum.
160 M
TTHEW.
*how often would I have gathered thy children to-
gether, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under
her wings (i.e. have treated you with the most tender
affection), but ye would not (embrace my kind offers) /
38 Behold (therefore now), your house is left unto
you desolate. -
39 "For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me hence-
to the virgins; whereas, though there was the court of women,
yet there was no peculiar apartment for the virgins. Nor
(3) could it be Zacharias, one of the minor prophets, he
living when the temple was in its ruins, and neither temple
nor altar was set up-again ; nor do any of the Jewish histo-
rians say that he was slain at all, much less that he was slain
“between the temple and the altar.” It remains therefore,
(4.) that we here understand that Zecharias of whom we read
2 Chron. xxiv. 20, that “he said to the people, Why trans-
gress ye the commandments of God, that ye cannot prosper?
because ye have forsaken the Lord, he hath forsaken you ;”
and that “the people stoned him in the court of the house
of the Lord ;” and ver. 22, that dying he said, “The Lord
look upon it, and require it.” But against this it is objected,
Obj. 1. That he was Zechariah, son of Jehoiada, ver. 20;
this here was the son of Barachiah.
Ans. St. Jerome testifies that the gospel of the Nazarenes
read the son of Jehoiada; and the word Barachiah signify-
ing “praise God,” as Jehoiada doth, why might not that be
translated into Greek. vić; Bapaxiov, which was spoken in
Syriac, “the son of Jehoiada?” Moreover, it is common
among the Jews to change proper names, especially when
they have anything of the Shem Hamporash, or Jehovah,
in them, into words of like signification ; so for Judas some
use Thaddeus, of the same import and from the same root
FIT, and Jehoiakim is the name given by the king of Egypt
to Eliakim, 2 Kings xxiii. 34. 2 Chron. xxxvi. 4, that is, he
turned El into Jah ; and why then may not here Jehoiada
be turned into Barachiah P
Obj. 2. But since Christ begins with Abel, the first pro-
phet and righteous person which was slain, why should he
end with one slain before the destruction of the temple, and
not with one near the time when he spake?
Ans. That Christ, speaking here of prophets slain by the
Jews, doth come to the lowest instance, no other prophet
being slain after by them; for if the tradition touching Esaias
be true, he was slain, not by consent of the Jews, as was
the son of Jehoiada, but only by the cruelty of Manasses.
2. There could be. no fitter instance than this was for our
Saviour's purpose, whether we consider the occasion of this
prophet's death, the manner of it, or the judgments which
ensued upon them for it. For,
First, He died, as Christ and his apostles were to do, for
reproving the Jews for their transgression and revolt from
God, and was the son of one who had showed great kindness
to them.
Secondly, He dying said, “The Lord look upon it and
require it;” foretelling that God would, or desiring that he
would, require his blood at their hands; which prayer God
answered so fully, that in a year all the princes of Judah
and Jerusalem were destroyed by the Syrians, and the spoil
carried to Damascus (2 Chron. xxiv. 23), and Joash, who
commanded this murder, was slain by a conspiracy of his
own servants (ver. 25). And from this very time the state
of Judah and Jerusalem grew worse and worse, till at last
the city was broken up, the temple burned, and the people
captivated by Nebuzar-adan, “who,” say the Jews, “finding.
the blood of this prophet bubbling up in the temple, inquired
whose blood it was ; and when the Jews answered it was the
blood of a prophet slain by them, who had foretold all they
had suffered by Nebuzar-adan, he slew ninety-four thousand
of the rabbins, priests, and members of the Sanhedrin to
appease it.” Hence the Jews speak of it as of blood pro-
voking God to anger ; “He will call to remembrance their
iniquity, that they may be taken.” This, saith Midrash Co-
heleth, is the blood of Zachariah. And when Jeremiah
forth (Gr. after a while), till (the time cometh that?
ye shall (would gladly) say, Blessed is he that corneth
in the name of the Lord (i. e. it would be joyful news
to you indeed, to hear of a Messiah coming to deliver
gow from the impendent vengeance, and then you shall
see him coming, not as a saviour, but a severe avenger).
introduceth the Jews speaking thus (Lam. ii. 20), “Behold,
O Lord, and consider, shall the priest and the prophet be slain
in the sanctuary of the Lord?” the Targum introduces the
house of judgment answering, “Was it fit for you, even in
the day of propitiation, to kill a priest and a prophet, as you
did Zachariah the son of Iddo, in the house of the sanctuary.
of the Lord, because he would have withdrawn you from
your evil ways?”
* Ver. 37, 38. IIocáxic h9éanza, How of would I have
gathered your children, xal oix #SEAña are, and ye would
not..] Here note, that by Jerusalem we are to understand
not only the inhabitants of the city, but of all Judea, as ap-
pears, (1.) because this is the import of the word elsewhere,
when neither the city is mentioned, nor is it taken metapho-
rically for the heavenly Jerusalem; as 2 Kings xix. 21. 2
Chron. xxviii. 10. Isa. xxxvii. 22. Lam. ii. 14, 15. Ezek. ix.
9. Joel iii. 6. Luke ii. 28. xxiii. 28. (2.) From the punish-
ment denounced upon her, since that belongs to all whom
Christ would have gathered (ver. 37), and to whom he wished
that “they had known in their day the things belonging to
their peace.” Whence it follows,
First, That Christ did very seriously desire the conversion
of those Jews who continued in their impenitence and un-
belief, as here he shows by the similitude of the affection of
a hen to her chickens; and Luke xix. 41–43, by his weep-
ing over them.
Secondly, That they whom he so seriously desired to con-
vert would not be converted when they might have been so;
for therefore were they not converted, because they would
not be gathered.
17 Wer. 39. I say writo you, that of ºzá ºf tents 37' ºri, For
ây stirnºrs, ºxoynºwo; 3 ipxáſzewo, #y véºat, Kvetov, ye shall not
see me from henceforth (Gr. after a while), till ye shall say,
Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.] These
words by the connexion of them with the former thus, “Bé-
hold, your house is left unto you desolate, Aéyo, Y&E, for I
say,” &c., seem manifestly to relate to the time of the de-
struction of the Jews, and to bear this sense ; You, who have
now with so much indignation heard the children and people
saluting me thus, “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of
the Lord,” after a while shall lie under so great calamities
for the punishment of your infidelity, that you would be glad
of a deliverer to whom you might say these words. This may
be also gathered from the words &n' &gri, “after a while ;”
for after Christ's ascension they saw him not till he came to
the destruction of Jerusalem, which in the following chapter
is so often styled “the time of the coming of the Son of
Man,” the time when är’âgri, “after a while they should see
the Son of Man coming in the clouds” (Matt. xxvi. 64). And
Josephus informs us, that when the Jews were nigh to de-
struction, they earnestly expected their Messiah, or one
coming in the name of the Lord to deliver them, and readily
followed those false prophets and deceivers," who promised
them deliverance, and bid them rºoººsly rāy 37% tº Qiot
goñésay, “expect help from God.”. If this exposition be not
allowed, I would willingly refer this to the time mentioned
by St. Paul, Rom. xi. 26, “When the Deliverer shall come
out of Sion, and turn away iniquity from Jacob, and so all
Israel shall be saved,” by their conversion to the Lord, and
saying, “Blessed is he that comethin the name of the Lord;”
till which time “their house shall be left to them desolate”
(Luke xxi. 24). And thus it is a commination, that after a
while the kingdom of God should be taken from the Jews
of that age, and this calamity should continue iong on their
posterity.
* De Bello Jud. lib. vii, cap. 39, p. 960.
161
CHAPTER XXIV. -
1 AND Jesus went out, and departed from the
temple: and his disciples came to him for to show
him the buildings of the temple.
2 And Jesus said to them, See ye not all these
things : * verily I say unto you, There shall not be left
. One stone upon another, that shall not be thrown
OWIl.
3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the dis-
ciples came to him privately, saying, *Tell us, when
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXIV.
* Ver. 2. Verily I say unto you, où paſſ 3488; &#8s xíSo; ini
>{00v, 3, où whaaraavöha stal, There shall not be left here one
stome upon another, which shall not be thrown down.] The ’
exact completion of the things foretold in this chapter, touch-
ing the destruction of the temple, city, and people of Jeru-
Salem, being an eminent confirmation of the truth of Christ's
prophetic office, and of the Christian faith, I shall, as they
occur, take notice of them. And (1.) To complete this pre-
diction, Josephus" doth inform us, that “Titus commanded
the soldiers, rhy re Tróxty &maa’ay wal rôy yeav wara-kāºrrsty, “to
dig up the foundations both of the temple and city.” Elea-
Zar, in Josephus,t speaking of this house of God, saith,
agášićo; #x 64%ov čvápºraarat, “it has been rooted up from
the very foundations.” The Jewish Talmud; and Mai-
monides add, that “Turnus (i. e. Terentius) Rufus, cap-
tain of the army of Titus, did with a ploughshare tear up
the foundations of the temple, and thereby signally ful-
fil those words, Micah iii. 12, Therefore shall Zion for
your sakes be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall
become heaps, and the mountains of the Lord as the high
places of the forest.” And, saith Josephus, we may well
admire the exactness of the time, for the burning of the tem-
ple, Kai Azºva ×ai hºw#ay Étrethgno's rºy airy, happened on the
same month and day on which it formerly was burned by the
Babylonians.”
* Ver, 3. Eiri hºziv, räte raúra a rai, zal ri ré anasior tº:
aii, tragovoriac, Kai rās avy reasia; rod aiºvog, Tell us when
these things shall be, and what shall be the sign of thy
coming, and of the end of the world..] Gr. ałºwoc, “of the
age.” This in St. Mark runs thus, “Tell us when these
things shall be, Kai Ti to a nºſov ºray &#xxy Trávra raïta avy-
'reasio Sai, and what is the sign when these things shall be
accomplished 2" (Mark xiii. 4.) In St. Luke thus, “When
shall these things be, and what is the sign, 3ray &#xxh rajra
yºtadat, when these things are to be done?” (Luke xxi. 7.)
From which places, compared with this, it appears, that the
three things here mentioned relate to the same time, and are
only an inquiry to this effect; When wilt thou come to de-
stroy the temple, and to put an end to the Jewish church
and age P for what is “the sign of thy coming” in St. Mat-
thew, is “the sign when these things shall be done,” in St.
Luke ; what is in St. Matthew avy'rexsta “the end of the
age,” is in St. Mark, “the time when these things are about
ovrexéiada, to be accomplished. (2.) Christ so answers to
the question touching the sign of his coming, as manifestly
to show it contemporary with the desolation of the temple
and polity of Jerusalem, saying, ver, 27, “As the lightning
cometh from the east and shineth to the west, so shall be #
wapovaſa, the coming of the Son of man;” for, ver. 28, “where
the carcase is, there shall the eagles be gathered together;”
i. e. the Roman army, whose ensign was the eagle; so that
the coming of this army to destroy them, and “ the coming
of the Son of man,” must be contemporary. And again, ver.
37, 39, “As it was in the days of Noe, so shall be h tra-
goveria, the coming of the Son of man : for two shall be in
“the field,” ver. 40, “two grinding at the mill,” ver. 41, “the
one shall be taken, and the other left ;” which words are fol-
* De Bello Jud, lib. vii, cap. 1, p. 170, B.
+ Cap. 16, p. 693, A.
f Taunith. cap. 4, Hal. 6. Maim. Taunith. cap. 5.
§ Lib. vii. cap. 26, p. 957, E. cap. 27, p. 958, F.
shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of
thy coming (to do these things), and of the end of the
world? (or, roi aidivog, of this age.)
4 And Jesus answered and said to them, Take
heed that no man deceive you. • ‘
5 °For (before this happeneth) many shall come in
my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive
many.
6 And (when) ye shall hear of wars and rumours
lowed in St. Luke with these, “where the carcase (or body)
is, there shall the eagles be gathered together,” Luke xvii.
34, 37. (3.) This will be farther evident by comparing other
words of Christ with those contained in these three chapters
of St. Matthew, Mark, and Luke ; for Christ saith, Mark
ix. 1, “There are some standing here who shall not taste of
death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom,”
or, according to some copies, “in his glory.” And xxvi.
62, “Within a while ye shall see the Son of man sitting at
the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of hea-
ven.” When therefore it is said, Matt. xxiv. 30. Mark xiii.
26. Luke xxi. 27, “Ye shall see the Son of man coming in
the clouds with great power and glory ;” this advent must
be while some were living that stood by Christ, and “within
a while,” and so not at the end of the world. And in like
manner, that the avy'rexeia roi; alſºvoc, or “the end of the
age,” is the same with the end of the Jewish state, ap-
pears from these words, “You shall hear of wars and
rumours of wars, &AA’ otro, #art ré réxo;, “but the end
(you inquire after) is not yet,” ver. 6, Mark xiii. 7, Luke
xxi. 9, and ver. 13, “he that endureth sic réxo; to the end
shall be saved,” and ver, 14, “the gospel of the kingdom
shall be preached through the world, for a testimony to the
gentiles, and then #38 to réxoc, the end shall come ;” for
what is in St. Matthew and St. Mark “the end,” is Luke xxi.
20, # #phºwa tº airãº, “the desolation of Jerusalem” by the
Roman army, compassing her about. Nor is it to be won-
dered that the apostles, who had learned that the coming
of the Messiah, and the end of the then present world,
should be together, should thus inquire of them together ;
or that this should be styled the end of the Jewish age,
Christ being styled “the Father of the age to come,” Isa. xi.
6, the age of Christianity “the age to come,” Heb. vi. 5,
and “the end of the ages,” 1 Cor. x. 11.
* Ver. 5. IIoxxoi y&g #xeſarovrat #y rà évéſzari ºov, Aéyovre;
#yd sipei & Xºto-tés, Many shall come in my name, saying, I
am Christ; and, ver. 11, Many false prophets shall arise,
and deceive many.] So Mark xiii. 6. Luke xxi. 8. A dis-
tinction is to be made betwixt false Christs and false pro-
phets: they properly are termed “false Christs,” who took
upon them to be the Christ, and came under that name, as
the words here show. Such as Dositheus,” who said, airó;
sin à trºopntsváaevo; ità Mooréw; Xplºrë, “he was the Christ
foretold by Moses.” And Simon Magus, who said, “he
appeared among the Jews &; viðc, as the son of God.” And
such perhaps were those many, whom, Saith Josephus, £
8aaixstay 3 xaspöc &várstSs, “the time of the advent of their
king Messias prevailed with to set up for kings.” From
these, saith Hegesippus,S “came false Christs and false pro-
phets.” “There arose,” saith Hippolytus, “ some, saying,
I am Christ, as Simon Magus, kai oi Aotºroi, and the rest whose
names I have mot time to reckon up.” The false prophets
were such as promised or foretold false things; and such were,
saith Josephus," (l.) an “Egyptian false prophet and ma-
gician, who gathered together about thirty thousand Jews,
whom he had deceived.” (2.) One Theudas,” “a magi-
* Orig. adv. Cels. lib. i. p. 44, in Joh. tom. xiv. ed. Huet
. 219. g
p + Id. adv. Cels. lib. vi. p. 282.
† De Bello Jud. lib. i. p. 705.
§ Apud Euseb. H. Eccl. lib. iv. cap. 22.
|| De Consum. Mundi.
* Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 6. ** Cap. 2, p. 689, G. **
162
MATTHEW.
of wars, see that ye be not troubled: for all these
things (or this) must come to pass, but the end (of
the Jewish age and polity) is not yet.
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and king-
dom against kingdom: “and there shall be famines,
and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
cian, rºbºrn; yº: Batyey fival, for he said he was a prophet,
and deceived many.” (3.) Yevdorpoºfitn; ric, “a certain
false prophet, who bid them go into the temple, where God
would show them manifest signs of a deliverance.” He
adds, that “there were then” roxxoi recºrat, many pro-
phets, who taught them even to the last to expect help from
God'' (see the note on ver, 24, 26).
* Ver. 7, 8. There shall be xiàol, ka? Aotºcol, xat asigaci
*rē réirovº, famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes in
divers places ; Mºoi kai ragaxai, famines and tumulis, Mark
xiii. 8, 9, poºnté ré Kai anºëſa &n' oigayoi pasy4xa Barai, |
(here shall be fearful sights, and great signs from heaven, |
Luke xxi. 11.] To speak particularly of the wars, rumours
of wars, and tumults, which then happened, would be to
transcribe a great part of the history of Josephus. But,
First, There was a famine in the fourth of Claudius, ac-
cording to Eusebius ; which, saith he, “oppressed rºy oikov.
fºrm, the Roman empire, but more especially Palestine,”
Acts xi. 28, “by which,” saith Josephus: “many perished
for lack of food:” and this we learn even from profane his-
torians, referred to by Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. lib. ii, cap. 8,
from Suetonius, in Claudio, cap. 18, where Scaliger saith,
i.were two famines in the reign of Claudius; from Dio,
Secondly, I find Josephus saying that when one Niger
was slain by the Jews, “he imprecated Atºy re zai Aotºv ini
**śoy, famine and pestilence upon their cities, & 35 rāyra
*** **, 3riflöv isºgo.gºv. 3 &tic, all which God brought upon
them” (De Bell. Jud. lib. iv. cap. 23, p. 885, D, E).
Thirdly, Grotius reckons up many earthquakes, which
happened in the reigns of Claudius and Nero, at Crete,
Smyrna, Miletus, Chios, Samos, Laodicea, Hierapolis, and
Colosse ; in all which places the Jews lived. There hap-
Pened in Judea, saith Josephus, “vehement winds, dreadful
hunderings and lightnings, wai avºwara asiºn, ti, yā;
**ia, and vast movings of the shaken earth, which, in the
judgment of all, portended no small evil” (De Bell. Jud. lib.
iv, cap. 17). t
Fourthly, Josephus, in his preface to his history of the
Wars of the Jews, undertakes to record the miseries, cala-
mities, and desolations, which then befell them, zai tº rag-
* * *ai ripara, “and the signs and prodigies preceding
them.” In his seventh book,: cap. 31, he reckons up waſ
); Kai. 7?ogmºałyovra rºy ºzºxxoşaay iºnºiay répara, “the
Prodigies which manifestly imported their future desola-
tion " as, V. g. that brie rºy trów is rew icºrn foºpaia raga-
7Ahatov, Kai ragareivac, Bºr’iviavröy xo~#rnº, “a sword seemed
to hang over the city, or a comet pointing down upon it for
a year, which plainly seemed to portend their ruin by the
sword:” and that “before the sun went down, 3.4% Azeréopa
"tº 7&ay tºw x&pay #324ta kal ºxayys; ivorno, 34+roºa,
*** **, *ał &vkaoutzāyat rā; rôtic, there were seen in the
clouds, armies in battle-array, and chariots encompassing the
country and investing their cities, which there are,” saith he,
“men still living to attest:” that “the great gate of the
temple, which twenty men could scarcely shut, and which
was made fast with bolts and bars, airoagºra; #v=ºyagºn, was
Been to open of its own accord, to let in their enemies; for
so,” saith he, “our wise men construed that omen:” that
“at the ninth hour of the night at the feast of unleavened
bread rozotºrov pås ºrigitaaº!s rôy 92.3, was rºy way, as great
a light shone upon the temple and the altar as if it had been
noon-day:" that “at the feast of Pentecost, when the priests
went at midnight into the temple to attend their service, first
they heard a kind of a noise, as of a movement from the
Place, and then a voice saying, as ragalvagey ivril:0sy, Let us
* De Bello Jud. lib. vii cap. 30, p. 960, A, B.
t Apact rày 'lověalov ºréaly risſoivro; wai woxxây in Hyèsia:
8:04.4 ray *Seigokévoy. Antiq. lib. x. cap. 2, p. 686.
•+
•+- º 3.
8 All these are the beginning of (their pangs of
SOrrCWS,
9 *Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted,
and shai kii (some of) you: and ye shall be hated
of all nations for my name’s sake.
10 And then shall many be offended (i. e. fall off
go hence.” And these things Tacitus,” a Roman historian
of that age, doth thus epitomize: “Armies seemed to meet
in the clouds; weapons were seen glittering ; the temple
seemed to be on a flame with fire issuing from the clouds,
and a divine voice was heard, That the deity was quitting
the place, and a great motion as of his departing.” Jose-
phus adds, as tº rođrov pogee&rsgow, “a thing more terrible,
that four years before the wars, one Jesus began at the feast
of tabernacle to cry, povi, Štri 'Isporéxupca wai rāy way, povă #7rt
töy Aady Trávra, “A voice against Jerusalem and the temple ;
a voice against all the people, Woe, woe to them ;” and that
“he continued crying thus about seven years.” So express is
the account of the rà poćntpā, “frightful things, and signs from
heaven, mentioned by our Lord ;” and of the sign of the
Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, weri, 8vvápago;
: Kai 86%ric, “with a glorious host, or with power and glory,”
according to our Lord's prediction, ver. 30.
* Ver, 9–12. Társ traga 3&coverly ip.3, ei, Saiskiy zai ätro-
xtivouaiyipzig' Then shall they deliver you up to affliction,
and shall kill you, &c. Wer. 10. Then shall many be of
jended, and betray others. Wer. 12. And because iniquity
shall abound, the love of many shall waa, cold.] “Before
all these things (are accomplished) they shall lay their hands
upon you, and shall persecute you, delivering you up to the
synagogues, and to prisons” (Luke xxi. 12), “They shall
deliver you up to the Sanhedrins, and you shall be beaten in
the synagogues, and shall be brought before kings and gover-
nors for my name's sake” (Mark xiii. 9. 14). Christ begins
here to foretell what should happen to his apostles and dis-
ciples, and to others before the destruction of Jerusalem :
the troubles and persecutions which should come upon them,
both from their enemies and seeming friends, and what event
these persecutions should have on some unsound and tempo-
rizing Christians, and what deliverance would be vouchsafed
to those who persevered to the end: and that all these things
exactly came to pass, we learn from scripture and church
history. For,
First, They suffered “a great fight of afflictions,” Heb.
x. 32, 33, being persecuted by those of their own nation, 1
Thess. ii. 14, 15, and suffering “fiery trials” from them, 1
Pet. iv. 12, “I persecuted them,” saith St. Paul, “to
strange cities,” Acts xxvi. 11.
Secondly, They were imprisoned ; Peter, Acts iv. 3, Paul
and Silas, Acts xvi. 23.2 Cor. vi. 23; “I delivered up to pri-
son men and women,” Acts xxii. 4, “I shut up many of the
Saints in prison,” saith St. Paul, Acts xxvi. 10.
Thirdly, They were “beaten in the synagogue;” St. Paul
and Silas, Acts xvi. 23. 2 Cor. xi. 23–25, Peter and John,
Acts v. 18 (see note on Mark xiii. 9).
Fourthly, They were “brought before councils and Sanhe-
drins;” Peter and John, Acts iv. 3. 6, the disciples, Acts
viii. 3: “before kings;” James and Peter before Herod,
- Acts xii. 1, 2, Paul and Peter before Nero:” “before
rulers ;” Paul before Gallio, Felix, and Festus, Acts xviii.
12. xxiii. 33. xxv. 6. -
Fifthly, They were killed; Stephen by the judgment of
the council, Acts vii. 59 ; James the Greater by Herod ;
Acts xii. 1; the Less, by Ananus the high-priest; yea, mul-
titudes of Christians were persecuted to the death by Saul,
Acts xxii. 4, by Nero, Tacit. Annal. 15, p. 363, by the Jews,
Justin, Maſſ, pial. cum Tryph. p. 234, 235.
. Sixthly, As we learn from the Jewish Talmud,” That in
the days of the Messiah, “the son should afflict the father,
and a man's enemies should be those of his own house ;”
so do we learn from Tacitus, in the place forecited, that
* Evenerunt prodigia, visae per coelum concurrere acies,
rutilantia arma, et subitó nubium igne collucere templum,
expassae repenté delubri fores, et audita major humaná Vox
“excedere Deos,” simul ingens motus excedentium. Hist.
bib. v. ed. Lips. 521.
+ Chart. in Matt, x. 34.
CHAPTER XXIV.
163
jrom the gospel), and shall betray one another, and
shall hate one another. -
11 And many false prophets shall arise, and shall
deceive many.
12 And because iniquity (and persecution) shall
abound, the love of many (to me and my doctrine)
shall wax cold. *
13 But he that shall endure to the end, the same
shall be saved (i.e. preserved from this destruction).
14 "And this gospel of the kingdom (of God) shall
be preached in all the world for a witness to all na-
tions (that I am the Christ); and then shall the end
come (of that church and polity).
15 7 When ye therefore shall see the abomination
of desolation (i. e. the Roman army, Luke xxi. 20),
spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy
place (whoso readeth let him understand) (what the
prophet there intends).
16 °Then let them which be in Judea flee to the
mountains (take this opportunity to flee thence with the
greatest eaſpedition):
17 Let him which sitteth on the housetop not come
down to take anything out of his house :
18 Neither let him who is in the field return back
to take (up) his clothes.
19 And woe to them who are with child, and to
them that give suck in those days (and so are not in
condition to fly swiftly and speedily out of this
danger)!
20 " But (and) pray ye that your flight be not in
the winter, nor on the sabbath-day (not in winter,
when long and hasty journeys are most difficult ; not on
“Christians were delivered up by their parents, brethren, kins-
folk, friends:” from Josephus,” that “contention sprang up
#y oixiac, in their very houses ;” and that the “Idumeans
slew troXAoû; rāy avyyevöv, many of their own kindred;” and
from the scripture, that the “Jews persecuted those of their
own country” (1 Thess. ii. 14).
Seventhly, That upon occasion of these persecutions, “the
love of many waxed cold,” and many Jews revolted from
the Christian faith, see the preface to the second epistle to
the Thessalonians, sect. 7, and on ii. 3.
And, Lastly, Of the care of God in preserving his faithful
servants in this time of imminent danger, Eusebius+ informs
us, saying that “before the war all the faithful of the church
of Jerusalem were astonished, war& riva xenopºv roſ. aštáš.
Boxigoi, S' &moxazºlew; 30%, ra, we'ravaatiya rā, ºréNewc, by an
oracle delivered by revelation to men approved there, to de-
part from the city, and to get over Jordan, and go to Pella;”
and Epiphanius, f declaring that "rgoexºnºatia&na'ay tºr’ &yyā-
Aov, “they were forewarned by an angel to depart from the
city, as being now ready to perish.” The occasion of this
departure was, Saith Dr. Hammond, wonderful: for Cestius
Gallus then besieged the city ; and if he would, saith Jose-
phus,S “he might easily have taken it, and put an end tò the
war; but he without cause raising the siege, and going from
it, roaxoi rāv štrºpavāv 'Iověaiov, &careg Barričováyn, ye&c,
ãºrsväxovro rā; Tróñews, many eminent Jews fled from the city,
as from a sinking ship ;” among whom doubtless, were those
Christians who remained, saith Epiphanius, after the de-
struction of Jerusalem. - -
* Ver. 14. Kai xmpuxShorera, rotºro r, eiayyáxtoy rºi; 8aart-
Asia; iv ºn tº oixovačyn–Kai rére #e rà rào; And this gospel ||
of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world,—and
then shall the end come.] That it was thus, before the de-
struction of Jerusalem, spread through the Roman empire,
styled, h oizoup,ávn, “the world ;” St. Paul informs us, saying
of the preachers of it, “their sound had gone forth into all
the earth, and their words Big Trépara rā; oikovºzávnº, to the
ends of the world” (Rom. x. 18). He also tells the church
of Rome, i. 8, that their “faith was spoken of throughout
the world ;” and that of Colosse, i. 6. 23, that “the truth of
the gospel was come, not to them only, but to all the world,
and preached to every creature.” And Clemens,’ſ bishop
of Rome, his contemporary, saith, “The nations beyond the
ocean, rai, #witayaſ; roſ. 33aºrérov Alevşūyovrai, were governed
by the precepts of the Lord.” Now this he only truly could
foretell, who, having “all power in heaven and earth,” was
able to effect it.
7 Wer. 15. "Oray ow ºnts 83%uyaa riſ, ignºrewº, When
then ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of
by the prophet Daniel, stand in the holy place (he that
readeth, let him understand): that is, saith St. Luke, xxi.
20, When ye see Jerusalem compassed about with the
Roman armies, then know and understand that her de-
solation draweth nigh.] This army might be called an abo-
mination, as being so to the Jews,” by reason of the images
* De Bello Jud. lib. iv. cap. 10. 18.
+ Hist. Eccl. lib. iii, cap. 5. It De Mens. et Pond. § 15.
§ De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 39. | Cap. 4, p. 821, F.
| Ep. ad Cor. §. 20. -
*"Away tº eſłońow xai rāv rámoga &ySgárov rapá roſ;
of Caesar and an eagle in the ensigns of it, “the abomina-
tion of desolation,” because it was to lay the country, city,
and the temple desolate ; and to stand in the holy place, as
standing within the circuit of the holy city Jerusalem, as it
is styled Matt. iv. 5. 1 Macc. x. 31, and was esteemed by
the Jews (see Ainsw. in Numb. v. 3). How exactly this
army fulfilled our Lord's prediction, by encompassing this
city, see note on Luke xix. 43. Dan. ix. 27.
B8éAvywa rāg #pnºda'sog, the abomination of desolation.]
To the note there add ; it is said by some that the argument
used against the Jews, from the completion of the weeks of
Daniel, that their Messiah must be come, was not taken no-
ice of by any of the ancients before Tertullian ; nor did
the apostles ever use it to that end: but though it be not
mentioned by the apostles, yet was it urged by Clemens
Alexandrinus in the close of the second century, Strom. i.
p. 330, 331 ; and it seems here plainly to be referred to by
our Lord in these words, “When you see the abomination
of desolation, spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in
the holy place ; he that readeth, let him understand ;” viz.
the completion of that prophecy; and that this was the sense
of the ancient Jews we learn from Josephus, who saith,
that, at the same time, Kai Trºpi rāy ‘Popcatov #ysºzoria; &vá-
yeasle, wai &rt üm' airów Łpnºodha star sup. rā āśvo; hºw&v’ “he
writ concerning the government of the Romans, and that the
Jewish nation should be brought to desolation by them;’
and that these things were left on record that the readers,
r& avºw8ávra axonoivºrsº, “seeing them accomplished, might
admire the honour conferred upon him by God” (Antiq. lib.
x. cap. 12, p. 355).
* Ver. I6. Tārs of #y ºf 'lovºaia psvyárogay ini rā ºr
Then let them who are in Judea flee to the mountains.]
This respects the time when Cestius Gallus came with his
army even to the upper city: for when he withdrew it
thence, aroxxoi 388tºgaakov &nd ris Trčasovº &awa cºvnº airixa,
“many fled from the city, as if it would be taken presently,”
saith Josephus.* And then the Christians fled to Pella in
Peraea, a mountainous country, and other places under the
government of king Agrippa, where they found safety.
* Ver. 20. IIpoºrečxia Se 33 ſya ºh yiyntal # ºpvyń bºy xel-
wāyog, ºwn?: #y a aggårö, And pray that your flight may not
be in winter, nor on the sabbath-day.] Not in the winter,
the ways then being scarce passable ; nor on the sabbath-day,
lest you be exposed to the indignation of the Jews for tra-
velling on that day, or hindered from doing it by your own
superstition: for Josephus, in his Life, informs us their laws
would not suffer them either to travel or to fight on that
day; “having sent,” saith he, “armed soldiers from Tarichee,
‘I would recall them, though I needed them much, because
they could not on the sabbath Švaa A&8eiv, xoxvávrov hºc
tày yévoy, take up arms, the laws forbidding us.” . And, he
informs us, t that the Romans chose that day to fight against
Jerusalem: because “they found them more slow to fight
upon that day, 8:3 rºy Séna'asſay, because of their religion.”
The Nazarene Christians also observed the law ; and most of
those who remained in Judea till the time of Hadrian, as we
'Ioviaioi, 28áxvy, a waxfiro. Chrys. Orat. 2 adv. Jud. tom.
vi. p. 333.
* Lib. ii. cap. 40. + P. 1011, B.
f De Bello Jud, lib. i. cap. 5, p. 719, G.
M 2
J64,
MATTHEW.
the sabbath-day, when your flight will render you ob-
noarious to the displeasure of the Jews):
21 * For then shall be great tribulation, such as
was not since the beginning of the world to this time,
no, nor ever shall be (afterward, and so your flight
will be more hazardows). '
22 * And except those days should be shortened,
there should no flesh be saved (or escape); but for
the elect’s (i. e. the Christians’) sake those days shall
be shortened. (That this is the true import of the elect,
see note on Mark xiii. 10.)
23 Then if any man shall say to you, Lo, here is
Christ, or there (he is) ; believe him not.
24 For there shall (then) arise "false Christs and
false prophets, and (they) shall show great signs and
wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they
shall deceive the very elect (i. e. do all that possibly
they can to deceive even Christians by them).
learn from Sulpitius Severus, lib. ii. § 45, and Eusebius's
Chronicon and Hist. Eccl. lib. iv. cap. 6. Christ therefore
doth not by this precept establish the Jewish sabbath, but
speaks this to prevent any mischiefs believers might suffer
from the hatred of the Jews, or their own superstition.
* Ver. 21. There shall be then great tribulation, of, où
yśyovsy &m' 3px;, xào'ºov šac rod vôv, oë' oi º yávnºras, such as
never was from the beginning of the world, no, nor ever
shall be..] These words seem to be a familiar form of ex-
pressing a thing that is exceeding great, or perhaps the
greatest in its kind, rather than a prediction that no future
calamity should be like it. So Exod. x. 14, “Before them
there were no such locusts, neither after them shall there be
such : ” and Joel ii. 2, “A day of darkness and of gloomi-
ness ; there hath not been ever the like, nor shall there be
after it.” Now Josephus,” speaking of the same destruc-
tion, saith, ºftts ºróxty &Aany rotaira retrov6āyat, “No other
city ever suffered such things;” and again, rà yoãv rávrov
&r' aid voc &tuxāºwara ºrgā; rà Iovězíov hºrrão Sai wo 3oxeſ
xarā a ſyngiaw, it “All the calamities which have ever hap-
pened to any from the beginning, seem not comparable to
those which befell the Jews.” w
* Ver. 22. And if those days had not been shortened,
no flesh could be saved; but 31& rotic ixxExtotic, for the elect's
sake those days shall be shortened.] That by “the elect"
here we are to understand, not the Jews, but the Christians,
see note on Mark xiii. 20. And so perilous were those
times by reason of the sicarii and the zealots, as well as of
the Romans, and so hard was it with the Christians flying
to the mountains, and being there without houses and with-
out necessaries, that they could not have long subsisted ;
and therefore God in his providence shortened those days
by their mutual slaughters, the burning their granaries, and
the famine, and by enfeebling the Jews ; so that Titus him-
self confessed that § 953; #y 3 rāvče iguºzárov 'lovčaſov,
*abºv, f “it was God who deprived the Jews of those
fortresses.”
* Ver. 24. False Christs and false prophets shall arise,
*; 3&govo anºfia ºeyáxa, kai régara &gt; ºrwayńaat, s: Suva-
töy, Kai row: #xxextoğg, and shall show great signs and won-
ders ; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive
the very elect.] That the false Christs and prophets, men-
tioned note on ver. 5, did great wonders, is certain ; for the
Scripture testifies of Simon Magus that he “bewitched the
Samaritans so with his sorceries that they all gave heed to
him,” Acts viii. 9, 10: and church history is very large in
the accounts they give how he prevailed by them to be wor-
shipped in many places: and Dositheus, saith Origen, § did
Tºareſto Sat, “do prodigious things.” This is true also of
the false prophets mentioned by Josephus, they being still
represented by him as wéyoi Kai yársº, “magicians and
sorcerers” (see the note on 2 Thess. ii. 9).
As for that phrase, “they shall deceive, s: 8wary, if it
were possible, the very elect,” that it doth not argue the
perseverance of believers to the end, and that it is impos-
i. they should fall away, will be apparent from these
things: -
First, Because Christ so solemnly exhorts them to use the
greatest caution that they be not seduced by these men,
saying, ver, 4, 5, “Let no man deceive you: for many shali
come in my name, saying, I am Christ ; and shall deceive
many,” ver, 11 : and again, “If they say, Here is Christ,
or there, believe it not, ver, 23, for many false Christs and
false prophets shall arise, to deceive the elect; look ye
* De Bello Jud. lib, vi, cap. 27.
† Lib. vii. cap. 43, p. 967.
§ Cont. Celsum. p. 289
+ Praef. p. 706.
therefore to it, behold, I have foretold you all things,” Mark
xiii. 22, 23. Now is it suitable to the wisdom of our Lord
to exhort Christians to use so great diligence and caution,
lest they should be deceived by these men, and at the same
time to assure them it was utterly impossible they should
be deceived P Moreover, I ask to whom doth he direct this
exhortation—to the elect P Then must he do it to them
who could not possibly be deceived, and so his words must
bear this uncouth sense, Be very careful, lest ye be deceived
by these men; for I assure you, it is absolutely impossible
they should deceive you. Or was he thus concerned only
for reprobates? And why then did he from all eternity decree
that they should finally miscarry, and never should have
grace effectual or sufficient to preserve them from thosé
deceits 2 - - -
Secondly, In the same chapter our Lord exhorts them to
see to it, to watch and pray, lest that day of affliction, that
hour of temptation, coming suddenly, should find them
sleeping, and “lest their hearts should be overcharged with
surfeiting and drunkenness, and that day should come upon.
them unawares; to watch and pray, that they may be ac-
counted worthy to escape all these things, and stand be-
fore the Son of man” (Mark xiii. 33. 35, 36. Luke xxi.
34. 36). Now are these suppositions which can agree
to men who cannot possibly be found “sleeping ” in this
spiritual sense, on whom the day of Christ cannot come
thus unprepared, who never can be “unworthy to stand be-
fore the Son of man P” Can there be any need of such
vehement exhortations to constant prayer and vigilance,
heed and circumspection, to prevent what could not possibly
befall them 2 Or was our Saviour thus concerned only to
exhort them, who he well knew could never possibly avoid
these things 2 - *
Thirdly, Christ here declares, that by reason of the ex-
treme affliction of those times, many should be offended,
i.e. should fall off from the faith (see note on Matt. xviii.
6); and adds, that “because iniquity shall abound, the
love of many shall wax cold, but he that endures to the end
shall saved,” ver. 12, 13: where, that Christ speaks not of
a hypocritical outward profession of affection to him, may
be gathered from his styling of it, not pretence, but love ;
his supposition that it was fervent love, for what was never
hot cannot wax cold ; yea, such love, in which had they
endured, they would have certainly been saved; and yet he
doth not only intimate that some would not continue in this
love to the end, but plainly doth foretell that it in many would
wax cold. To answer, therefore, directly to the argument
urged from this text, I say,
First, That the phrase si èvvarov, “if it be possible,” or, “if
it may be,” doth not denote an absolute impossibility, but
only a great difficulty in the performance of an act possible.
So Acts xx. 16, “Paul hastened ei Suvary airá, if it were
possible for him, to be at Jerusalem before Pentecost,” and
yet sure he made not all this haste to do what was im-
possible. The apostle commands, si èvvarāv, “if it be pos-
sible, as much as in you lieth, have peace with all men’’
(Rom. xii. 18); and yet doth not exhort us to use our ut-
most endeavours to do what was impossible ; si èvyaty, “If
it be possible, let this cup pass from me,” saith Christ, Matt.
xxvi. 49, and yet he adds, “all things are possible to thee,
O Father,” Mark xiv. 35, 36, and hence the phrase is
changed by St. Luke into si 800xet, “if thou wilt.” Now,
that the deceiving of Christians in those times of miraculous
endowments was very difficult, is evident from that speech
concerning a thing hardly feasible, 94trów rig roi; 373 Xptºr-
toū &etašičážek, “Sooner may a Christian be turned from
Christ.” -
Secondly, This phrase imports, not what the event would
CHAPTER xxiv.
165
25 Behold, I have told you before (ver. 5. 12, of
these things).
26 Wherefore, * if they shall say to you, Behold,
he (i. e. Christ) is in the desert, go not forth (to seek
him there : or if they shall say), Behold, he is in the
secret chambers (of the temple), believe it not.
27 For (the coming of the Son of man will not be
secret or obscure, but) * as the lightning (which) com-
eth out of the east, and shineth even to the west; so
shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
28 For wheresoever the carcase is (i. e. the Jews
are), there will the eagles (the Roman armies, whose
ensign is the eagle) be gathered together.
be upon the elect, but the vehemence of the endeavours
of the seducers, that they would do the utmost they
could possible to shock the Christian, and seduce him from
his stedfastness, as is evident from the words of St. Mark,
xiii. 22, “They will show signs and wonders, ºrpäç rā āºro-
Trxayáv, si èvyarov, to deceive, if they are able, the elect.”
Now, to say such a one will do you mischief if he can, or
if he be able, is surely no security that he can do you none.
And, . -
Thirdly, Should this phrase respect the event, it may
do it not absolutely, but only with "relation to the means
here mentioned ; i. e. “they shall show great signs and
wonders,” which shall prevail to seduce Jews, heathens, and
Samaritans, and even Christians, were it possible for im-
postors by lying signs and wonders to deceive them, who
are invested with the power of working true and greater
signs and wonders by the assistance of the Holy Ghost,
and will attend to the things wrought among them or by them,
* Ver. 26. If then they shall say to you, ièoi), āv tº ##29
#aai º ###x0nts, Behold, he is in the wilderness; go not
forth.] Here Christ points to the very place where those
false prophets should appear, or whither they should lead
their followers. Accordingly Josephus saith, “Many im-
postors and magicians persuaded the people, gig rºw enºwow
#Trea Sai, to follow them into the desert, where they promised
to show them manifest signs and wonders done of God”
(Antiq, lib. xx. cap. 6, p. 695. De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap.
23, p. 796, G).
* Ver. 27, 28. "Qa"rip yag # &argarh, &c. For as the
lightning goeth from the east to the west, so shall the com-
ing of the Son of man be..] i. e. You will then need none
to instruct you where Christ is, or to say to you, He is here,
or there; for by the Roman army, which shall pass through
the territories of the Jews like lightning, his coming to take
Vengeance on that nation shall be manifest ; and wherever
the Jews, who like dead carcases shall be devoured by the
Roman eagles, are, thither shall he fly with them, to tear
and to devour them,
* Ver. 29. Et3éoc, Immediately after the tribulation
of those days, 5 #xio; cºxoria Sha'arat, wał # orexhyn ol, 33a's ro
$#yyo, airãº, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall
not give her light, &c.] It being here foretold that this
should happen immediately after the wasting of the Jews
by Vespasian's army flying quickly through Galilee, Idu-
mea, and Judea ; this cannot be taken literally, because no
such thing then happened either to the sun, moon, or stars.
It must be therefore a metaphorical expression, to signify,
as it doth frequently in the Old Testament, and other
writers, an utter desolation, and terrible destruction brought
upon a nation, and upon their capital cities, compared to
the Sun and moon : for in this language the prophet Isaiah
speaks of the destruction of Babylon, saying, xiii. 9, 10,
“The day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and
fierce anger, to lay the land desolate ; and he shall destroy
the sinners thereof. out of it: for the stars of heaven and
the constellations thereof shall not give their light; the sun
shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall
not cause her light to shine.” The indignation of God
against the Idumeans is represented in like dreadful words,
Isa. xxxiv. 3, 4'; so is the destruction of Sennacherib and
his people, Isa. li. 6; so is the destruction of Egypt,
Ezek. xxxii. 7. And in these words this very destruction is
foretold by Joel, “The sun and the moon shall be darken-
ed, and the stars shall not yield their light" (Joel iii. 15. ii.
29 (And) * immediately after the tribulation of those
days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall
not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven,
and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken (i. e.
all the government both in church and state shall be
overthrown, as it was by the zealots): -
30 And then shall appear the * sign of the Son of .
man (who is) in heaven (i. e. the Roman army coming
to the destruction of the city, the temple, and people of
Jerusalem); and then shall all the tribes of the earth
(or land) mourn, and (then) shall they see the Son of
man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and
great glory.
31). This, therefore, saith Maimonides,” “is a proverbial
expression, importing the destruction and utter ruin of a
nation.” Artemidorus + also saith, that “the sun darkened
or turned into blood, and the stars falling, or disappearing,
import the destruction of many people.” And in this sense.
it is almost incredible, which Josephus saith, viz. that eleven
hundred thousand perished in that siege (De Bello Jud. lib.
vii. cap. 45, p. 968, D).
Another exposition of these words is this, That then
there shall be a destruction of their ecclesiastical and civil
state, and of the rulers of them both ; according to those
words of Maimonides, + “This metaphor imports, that men
who for their state and dignity might be compared to the Sun,
moon, and stars, shall suddenly fall down as a leaf from the
vine and from the fig-tree.” And this happened a considerable
time before the destruction of Jerusalem, when the thieves and
zealots, saith Josephus,S “kept all the nobles, and row; Katë
x&gay reoûxely 3ozoïvraç, rulers of the country, in close cus-
tody;” when the zealots || “slew and consumed rà yewatov,
the nobility, and made it their business rö ºn?iva Töv Švarðy
waraxim'sſy, to leave none of the men of power alive,” and
when “twelve thousand of the nobility perished after this
manner;” “I when the high-priests, and among them Ananus,
were destroyed by the Idumeans, which Josephus reckons”
as 36x; tā; 3x&geoc, “the beginning of their captivity;” it
when they “abolished the families of the high-priest by
succession, wai zaštaracay &#xov, Kai äyeweſs, and placed
in their room men ignoble and unknown, who neither be-
longed to the priesthood nor knew what the office of high-
priest meant.” That this was to happen before “the great
and terrible day of the Lord,” or at that time, we learn
from the prophet Joel, saying, that “then shall the Sun be
darkened,” &c. This therefore cannot be referred to any
time after the destruction of Jerusalem. - -
16 Ver. 30. Kai Táre payhasrat Tö a nºsſow roi; viot toº &y-
Spištrov #y tº obgavò, &c. And then shall appear the sign of
the Son of man in heaven, and they shall see the Son of man,
coming in the clouds with power and great glory.] Some
think that “the sign of the Son of man in heaven,” and “in
the clouds,” must note some visible sign of his appearance
in the heavens; and they refer this to the fearful sights,
“the sword and comet hanging over Jerusalem,” and “the
armies and chariots seen in the clouds;” but these things
happened, according to Josephus, fif Trgo rāq Ātroºtáaeo;, xa,
toū ºrgo; rôv ráxep.oy wivágaroº, “before their revolt from the
Romans, and the beginning of the war,” and therefore cannot
be the thing intended here. Our Saviour's coming here seems
therefore to import his coming by the Roman army to be-
siege and to destroy Jerusalem and the unbelieving Jews :
for so Christ seemeth plainly to interpret this “coming of
* More Nev. lib. ii. p. 265, R.
+"Hato, ätzavº; # tºpaipºos, wararitºrov.rs; ini yº, oi čaršic
# 34 avićweyol, troXX&y #x39;oy gay rejoy rai. Oneirocrit, lib. ii.
cap. 36.
# Idem est ac si diceret, viri qui, statüs et dignitatis suæ
ratione, similes fuerunt stellis, et extra omnem fortunae
mutationisque aleam positi videbantur, Subitó deciderunt
instar folii à vite vel fictis cadentis. More Nev. p. 267.
§ De Bell. Jud. lib. iv. cap. 11, M.
| Lib. v. cap. 20, p. 885.
"I Lib. iv. cap. 19, p. 883, G.
* Cap. 18, p. 882, G. # Lib. iv. cap. 11, 12, p. 872.
ºf De Bell. Jud. lib. vii. cap. 31.
166
MATTHEw.
31 And * he shall send his angels with a great
sound of a trumpet (i.e. his messengers with the trum-
pet of the gospel), and they shall gather together his
elect (among the gentiles) from the four winds, from
one end of heaven to the other (Luke xiii. 28, 29).
32 Now learn a parable of (fromy the fig-tree:
(For) when her branch is yet tender and putteth
forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh.
33 So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these
things (come to pass), know * that it (i. e. the ruin
joretold) is nigh, even at the doors.
34 “Verily I say unto you, This generation shall
the Son of man,” ver. 27, “The coming of the Son of man
shall be as the lightning shining from the east to the west ;
ârcu yūg, for wheresoever the Jews are, thither shall the
Roman army be gathered ” (see ver, 27, above): his coming
therefore must be with the Roman army. And this interpre-
tation will not seem strange, if we consider, (1.) that God's
coming to destroy, or execute his vengeance on a wicked
generation, is represented as his coming “in the clouds of
heaven.” So 2 Sam. xxii. 8, “The earth trembled, and the
foundations of heaven shook, because he was wroth :” and,
ver. 10, “He bowed the heavens, and came down ; and
thick darkness (or a dark cloud) was under his feet ;" Ps.
xcvii. 2, 3, “Clouds and darkness are round about him : a
fire goes before him, and devours his adversaries round
about ;" and, Nahum i. 3—5, “The Lord hath his way in
the whirlwind and the storm, and the clouds are the dust
under his feet. Bashan languisheth, and Carmel, and the
flower of Lebanon languisheth. The mountains quake, and
the hills melt, and the earth is burnt at his presence, yea,
the world, and all that dwell therein.” And this great day of
the Lord is thus described by Joel, ch. ii., as “a day of dark-
ness and gloominess, of clouds and thick darkness, a great
people and a strong;" i. e. the Chaldeans coming against Je-
rusalem to destroy the city and the temple, and after them the
Romans to do the same thing. And of this destruction by
the Chaldeans, the author of the Lamentations saith, i. 13,
“He sent a fire into my bones Ennon from on high ;” “from
heaven,” saith the Targum. And St. John, in the Revela-
tion, speaking of things that were to be done #y ráxet,
“quickly,” i. 1, and of Kaipā, śyyús, “a time that was near,”
ver. 3, which is the expression used of this destruction, ver.
7, Saith in these very words, “Behold, he cometh with
clouds ; and every eye shall see him, and they also which
pierced him ; and then shall the tribes of that land mourn.”
Which words seem plainly to relate to this very time, and
might be a vision seen by John before the destruction of
Jerusalem, though the following prophecies were imparted to
him afterward. I confess many of the fathers, from the fifth
century downwards, interpret this of the sign of the cross;
but that fancy is sufficiently confuted from the event, there
being no such appearance in the heavens before the destruc-
tion of Jerusalem : it also is rendered improbable from the
silence of Josephus and Eusebius, which two historians have
given us the fullest narrative of all the circumstances relating
to that terrible destruction. In fine, a late author * hath
eased us of all our disputes about this sign, by showing, that
as “the sign of Jonas the prophet,” Matt. xii. 39, is the
sign which is Jonas the prophet; so “the sign of the Son of
man’’ inquired after, Matt. xxiv. 3, is “the Son of man
coming in the clouds of heaven.” And this interpretation is
confirmed from the parallel places, Mark xiii. 26. Luke xxi.
27, where, instead of the sign of the Son of man mentioned
here, we read thus ; “Hereafter shall they see the Son of
man coming in the clouds:” and from Matt. xxvi. 64, “From
henceforth ye shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds
of heaven.”
” Wer. 31. Kai (rive Mark xiii. 27), 3roa reas; rod; 3) Ye-
Aovº attoº were a #xtriyyoº payā; asyān;, &c. And (then)
will he send forth his angels with the trumpet of a great
sound, or voice, and they shall gather his elect from the
jour winds, from one end of the heaven to the other.]
Here the Táre them, in St. Mark, so plainly shows that this
relates to the same time mentioned in the foregoing verse,
that no explication of these words, referring them to a long
time after the destruction of Jerusalem, ought to be admitted
as the true sense of them. Dr. Lightfoot gives the sense of
these words thus; When Jerusalem shall be reduced to
ashes, and that wicked nation cut off, then shall the Son of
man send his ministers (Christians) of several nations from
the four corners of the heavens; so that God shall not want
* John Buxtorf.
a church, although that ancient nation be rejected and cast
off, the churches of the gentiles succeeding to her. To
strengthen this interpretation, let it be considered,
First, That God’s prophets, messengers, and ministers,
both in the Old and the New Testament, are styled of #yyexot
airoij, “his angels.” So 2 Chron. xxxvi. 15, “God sent his
prophets;” but, ver. 16, “they mocked rotic 3) yáNovº airoij,
his messengers.” So Haggai is #yyexog Kugiov, “the messen-
ger of the Lord,” i. 13. So is the priest, Mal. ii. 7, the
Baptist, Mal. iii. 1. Matt. xi. 10. Mark i. 2. Luke vii. 27.
Secondly, That their preaching is represented as a voice,
yea, as the voice of a trumpet. As in these words, “Lift up
thy voice like a trumpet,” Isa. li. 1 (see Jer. vi. 17. Ezek.
xxxiii. 3–-6). And the preaching of the apostles is polyh, “a
voice going through the earth,” Rom. x. 18.
Thirdly, That the calling and coming in of the gentiles at
the casting off the Jews is represented as their coming in
“from the four winds;” or “the four corners of the earth.”
“Many shall come from the east and from the west” (Matt.
viii. 11): “but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out
into outer darkness” (ver. 12). “You shall be cast out:
And they shall come from the east, and from the west, from
the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in my king-
dom” (Luke xiii. 28, 29).
Fourthly, That the destruction of Jerusalem and the
unbelieving Jews, in this extraordinary manner, was so
exact a completion of our Lord's prediction, so great a de-
monstration of his indignation against unbelievers, of his
protection of his faithful servants, and such a justification of
this prophet against their accusations, and such an evidence
of their sin who crucified and rejected him, that it might
well prepare the gentiles more freely to embrace the Christian
faith.
* Ver. 33. “ort #yyū, iariv, #mri Ságatº, That it is migh,
even at the door.] This I have interpreted, in compliance
with our translation, of the ruin of the Jewish nation. I
now think it more agreeable to this phrase in scripture to
understand otrog, ille. “He,” the Son of man mentioned
ver. 30, “stands at the door ;” for so St. James plainly in-
terprets this phrase, by saying, h tragovoria rot Květov #yyixs,
“The coming of the Lord draweth nigh, 3 kgir㺠ºrgă răy
Svěčy Éarnkey, the Judge standeth before the door” (v. 8, 9).
And St. Luke, by varying the phrase thus; “Know that the
kingdom of God is nigh” (Luke xxi. 31); i.e. the coming
of Christ to execute his kingly office on the Jews, and give
his kingdom, thus taken from them, to the believing gentiles
(Matt. xxi. 43).
* Ver. 34. Verily I say writo you, oi, ºw; tragéx0m # yeye.”
airn, Éog āy Trávra raûra yévnrat This generation shall not
pass away, till all these things be fulfilled.] These words, h
yevsø airn, “this age, (or generation,) shall not pass away,”
afford a full demonstration that all which Christ had men-
tioned hitherto was to be accomplished, not at the time of
the conversion of the Jews, or at the final day of judgment,
but in that very age, or whilst some of that generation of
men lived ; for yeyed airn, “this generation,” never bears
any other sense in the New Testament than the men of this
age. So Matt. xi. 16, “To whom shall I liken yºvečy raû-
ºrny, the men of this age 2" xii. 42, “The queen of the south
shall rise up in judgment, we're yeweg, raûrnç, with the men
of this age ;” and, ver, 45, “So shall it be rà yeysā raûrn r?
zrowneſſ, with the wicked of this age :” Matt. xxiii. 36, “All
these things shall come itri rºy yºvsåy raúrny, upon the men
of this age :” Mark viii. 12, ri hysvgå raúrm ; “Why do the
men of this age seek a sign 2 No sign shall be, given ri yews?
raúrn, to the men of this age :” Luke vii. 31, “To whom
shall I liken the men räç yeysā; raútn; of this age P” Luke
xi. 29, “The Son of man shall be a sign ºf yews& raûrn to
the men of this age :” so again, ver. 30–32. 50, 51. xvi. 8.
and Acts ii. 40, “Save yourselves &nd yeyeſic rā; axoxiā; raû-
tnç, from this froward generation.” (2.) This is farther evi-
dent, because the kingdom of God was then instant, and at
the door (Luke xxi. 29. 31). And having showed, from
CHAPTER XXIV.
167
not pass till all these things be (assuredly) fulfilled:
(for) *
- 35 Heaven and earth shall pass away (at the end
of the world you inquire after), but my word shall
not pass away (unperformed).
36 But " of that day and hour (when they are thus
to pass away, you are not to inquire : for of that)
knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven (nor
the Son, Mark xiii. 32), but my Father only.
37 But (know in general), as (in) the days of Noe
(the flood of which he prophesied was uneaſpected), so
shall also the coming of the Son of man be (at both
these times).
38 For as in the days that were before the flood
they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving
in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the
ark,
39 And knew not till the flood came, and took
them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son
of man (then) be.
40 *Then (shall the providence of God be so re-
markable in preservation of his faithful people, that)
two (shall) be in the field; the one shall be taken (by
the Roman army), and the other left.
41 Two (women shall be) grinding at the mill; the
one shall be taken, and the other left (and the like
distinction will the angels make at the great day of
judgment, xxv. 32).
42 * Watch therefore: for ye know not (at) what
hour your Lord doth come.
43 But know this (this ye know), that if the good
Josephus, how punctually these predictions were fulfilled, I
may conclude with Eusebius,” avyxpiva; 33 ric rāg rod Xoršpo;
hºw&v Aésic raſ; Aotºraï, avyypáq’sociatopiat; Tragi Travré, rod
Troxéºot. “He that shall compare the words of our Saviour
with those of Josephus concerning the war of the Jews, can-
not but admire the wisdom of Christ, and own his predictions
to have been divine.” -
* Ver. 36. But of that day and hour knoweth no man,
&c.] See the note on Mark xiii. 22.
Wer. 39. Kai oix #yvooray, And knew not till the flood came.]
It is certain that they of the old world had sufficient intima-
tion &f the judgment threatened to them from Noah, “a
preacher of righteousness” to them (2 Pet. ii. 5), and from
the ark he prepared for the preservation of himself and of
his family before their eyes (Heb. xi. 7); from the striving
of his Spirit, by his prophets, with them, and from the term
of a hundred and twenty years assigned for their repentance
(Gen. vi. 3). They are therefore here said not to have known
this, because they did not savingly improve their knowledge
of it to the preventing of that judgment. So after all our
Saviour's instructions of them in the way of life, the Jews
are said not to have known the time of their visitation, or the
things which belong to their peace (Luke xix. 42).
* Ver. 40. Táre 360 covrat #y rà &yeº, &c. Then two
shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the
other left, &c.] This, by Dr. Hammond, seems to be well
referred to the especial providence of God, discernible in
those times, in rescuing some, who seemed equally exposed
to danger, from the destruction which shall fall on others;
for that it relates not to the final judgment, but to the time
of the destruction of the Jews by the Roman army, is evi-
dent from the same words recorded by St. Luke, xvii. 35,
36. For there the disciples ask their Lord where this shall
be 2 and Christ answers (ver. 37), that “where the carcase "
(i. e. the Jews) are, “there will the eagles” (i. e. the Roman
army, whose ensign was the eagle) “be gathered together.”
And hence it is also evident, that the following words being
connected to these by the copulative očy, thus, “Watch
therefore,” must refer to the same subject.
** Ver. 42. At& rotºro wai tºsſ; yívea SE Éropol, Watch
therefore : Ver. 44. Therefore be ye also ready.] It is pro-
bably conjectured by Dr. Lightfoot, that the discourse of
Christ upon this subject, ended at ver, 42 or 44, as in St.
* H. Eccl. lib. iii, cap. 7.
man of the house had known in what watch (of the
nºght) the thief would come, he would have watched,
and would not have suffered his house to be broken
up. .
44 Therefore be ye also “ready : for in such an
hour as ye think not (of) the Son of man cometh.
45 Who then is “a faithful and wise servant, whom
his lord hath made (a) ruler over his household, to
give them meat in due season (instruction suitable to
their exigencies) P
46 Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he
cometh shall find so doing (i. e. employed in preserv-
ing them from apostasy in this hour of temptation).
47 Verily I say to you, That he shall make him
ruler over all his goods (i.e. shall amply reward his
fidelity).
48 But if that evil servant shall say in his heart,
My lord delayeth his coming (and so begin to doubt
the truth of it) ;
49 And (by reason of this backsliding heart) shall
begin to Smite his fellow-servants, (i. e. Christians),
and to eat and drink with the drunken (i. e. indulge
himself in sensual pleasures on this account, 1 Cor.
xv. 32);
50 The lord of that servant shall come in a day
when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he
is not aware of, -
51 And (for his perfidiousness) shall ” cut him
asunder, and appoint (him) his portion with the
º there shall be weeping and gnashing of
teeth.
Mark and St. Luke it seems to do: and that the words fol-
lowing were, as St. Luke places them, xii. 39, spoken at
another time, and upon another occasion ; but because they
well accord also with this place and this occasion, and
do there, as well as here, follow the exhortation given
ver. 43, St. Matthew hath added them to this chapter.
Note,
Secondly, That the metaphor of Christ's coming “as a
thief,” i.e. unexpectedly, doth not prove that these words
must respect Christ's coming to the final judgment only,
they being used touching his coming unexpectedly, to exe-
cute any judgment on a church or nation ; as when Christ
saith to the church of Sardis (Rev. iii. 3), “Watch, or I
will come to thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know the
hour when I will come upon thee.” And some probably
conjecture they are used by St. Paul, 1 Thess. v. 2, with a
particular relation to this judgment inflicted on the Jews,
which being the most signal preludium to and proof of that
final judgment which shall be exercised on all the enemies
of Christ's kingdom, may well be represented in a similitude
used by St. Peter, 2 Pet. iii. 10, and by our Lord, Luke xii.
32, 40, with relation to it. -
* Wer. 45. Ti; #pa šarly 5 triarā; 305Moç Kai ppévigo; ; Who
therefore is that faithful and wise servant, &c.] i. e. The
servant who continues constant in the service of his Lord,
under all the persecutions and abounding iniquities of those
times, “he shall make him ruler over all his goods;” i. e.
shall greatly reward his faithfulness, as this phrase signifies,
xxv. 21. 23, for that this phrase cannot import his advance-
ment to the highest dignities in the church, is evident from
this, that then all that continued faithful to Christ in those
times of trial must have been made bishops. The evil ser-
want here mentioned seems to be the apostatizing Jew, who,
having deserted the faith himself, was instrumental “to smite
his fellow-servants,” and to betray them to the enemies of
Christianity, as our Lord foretold it would be, Matt. x. 21.
xxiv. 10. And that which induced them thus to apostatize,
was this very imagination, that “our Lord delayed his com-
ing” to deliver them, and execute the judgments here fore-
told, 2 Pet. iii. 4, whence the apostles encourage them to
perseverance by saying, “It is but yet a little while, and he
that cometh will come, and will not tarry,” Heb. x. 27,
and that “the Judge stands at the door,” James v. 9, and
“the coming of the Lord draweth nigh,” ver. 8.
* Ver, 51. Kai Bixorowice. And shall cut him asunder.]
i68
MATTHEW.
This was the punishment inflicted by Samuel on Agag, the
enemy of God's people, l Sam. xv. 33, and by David on
the Ammonites, 2 Sam. xii. 31, and by Trajan * the Roman
emperor on the rebellious Jews; it was by Nebuchadnezzar
threatened to the blasphemers of the true God, Dan. iii. 29,
and by young Daniel to the false accusers of Susanna, ver.
55.59. It was used of old, to those who were false to their
creditors, saith Tertullian, to rebels and betrayers of their
country, and that not only in the east, but among the Ro-
Traj. 14. p.
* IIoMAoû; 3; wai &éorov, &aid kopu pric *firgtor.
255. , ºf Apol. cap. 3.
mans, as we learn from Suetonius” in the life of Caius'
from Horace,t and from Dio ; and by the Greeks, as we
learn from Homer, f from Sophocles, and from Aristophanes;
and in Egypt, as we learn from Herodotus, lib. ii. cap. 39.
And therefore this punishment, saith Christ, will I inflict on
those who are perfidious in their covenant of baptism, and
enemies to my government.
[See the appendix to this chapter at the end of this,
gospel.] -
* Cap. 27.
+ Serm. 1, Sat. 1. f Odyss. v. 338
CHAPTER XXV.
1 THEN 'shall the (persons admitted into the) king-
dom of heaven be likened to ten virgins, which took
their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.
2 And five of them were wise, and five were foolish.
3 They that were foolish took their lamps, and (but)
took no oil with them (to replenish them when the oil
in them was spent):
4 But the wise took oil in their vessels with their
lamps. ->
5 (And) while the bridegroom tarried, they all
slumbered and slept.
6 And at midnight there was a cry (or proclama-
tion) made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; goye out
to meet him.
7 Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed (or, to
trim) their lamps.
8 And the foolish said to the wise, Give us of your
oil: for our lamps are gone out.
9. But the wise answered, saying, Not so;” lest there
be not enough for us and you; but go ye rather to
them that sell, and buy for yourselves.
10 And wnilst they went to buy, the bridegroom
came ; and they that were ready went in with him to
the marriage (feast); and the door was shut.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXV.
* Wer. 1. Tóte duoto.6%astas # 8aaixela rây oëpavāy 3éza
map&#vok, Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened to ten
virgins.]. Here note,
First, That the kingdom of heaven sometimes signifies the
kingdom of the Messiah, or the gospel dispensation; as when
this kingdom is said to be come to the Jews, or they are bid
to pray that it may come ; and when it is said to be at hand,
and they are advised to enter into it, and pronounced fit or
unfit to do so. Sometimes it signifies the doctrine, or the
preaching of the doctrine of that kingdom, or, as it is Matt.
xiii. 19, 3 xàyo; rā; 8aatasiac, “the word of the kingdom ;”
Matt. xxiv. 14, r. stayyáatov rác flazixeſac, “the gospel of the
kingdom ;” as when Christ or his apostles are said to speak,
ºrá ºrigi rā; 8aaixeia; rod Osotſ, “the things which concerned
the kingdom of God,” Acts i. 3. viii. 12. xix. 8, to “preach
and testify the kingdom of God,” Acts xx. 25. xxviii. 23.
31. Rom. xiv. 17. 1 Cor. iv. 20, Ebayyºičea Sai, to “evan-
gelize the kingdom of God,” Luke iv. 43; and when Christ
threateneth to the Jews, that “the kingdom of God should
be taken from them,” Matt. xxi. 43. But when it is said,
“the kingdom of heaven is like,” or may be likened to this
or that, the meaning seems to be chiefly, So will it be in
reference to the preaching, the propagation, or reception of
the gospel or doctrine of the kingdom; as in the parable, or
the similitude and resemblance of the good seed propounded;
v.g. when this good seed is sown, it will by some be trod
under feet, in others choked with worldly cares, in others
withered by the cold blasts of persecution, but in some it
will bring forth fruit to perfection; when it is sown, the
enemy will come and sow tares among it ; when men are
invited to it, some will make excuses why they do not accept
the invitation, some will persecute the messengers of it,
some will come to it without a wedding-garment, some with-
out oil in their lamps, some improving the talents given,
and some hiding them in a napkin, and the like. Note,
Secondly, That this parable, or something very like it, is
to be found in the Jewish records; so in IReschith Cochma
we read thus, “Our wise men of blessed memory say, Re-
pent whilst thou hast strength to do it, whilst thy lamp
burns, and the oil is not extinguished; for, if thy lamp be
gone out, thy oil will profit thee nothing:” our doctors add
in Midrash,” that the holy blessed God said to Israel, “My
sons, repent, whilst Tanwn “yw, the gates of repentance
* See Campeg. Vitring. lib. iii. cap. 5, p. 679.
stand open ; for I receive a gift at present, but when I shall
sit in judgment in the age to come, I receive none.” An-
other parable of theirs runs thus,” “This thing is like to a
king who invited his servants, but appointed no set time;
those that were wise adorned themselves, and sat in the
porch of the palace ; those that were foolish went about
their own business.- The king on a sudden called his ser-
wants ; the first went in adorned, the second undressed : the
king was pleased with the wise, and angry with the foolish,
and said, They who are prepared, shall eat of my banquet;
they that are unprepared, shall not eat of it.” Note,
Thirdly, That Origen,f St. Chrysostom,S and St. Jerome,
and others of the ancients, say, that this parable is designed
against late repentance, and declares, it will be invalid to
them who live under the gospel ; as will be evident, “if we
consider, that from this parable our Lord concludes for the
necessity of constant vigilance (ver. 13), and for the neces-
sity of assiduous prayer and vigilance against all the cares of
this life (Luke xxi, 34. 36), and of fidelity in doing the
work of the Lord (Matt. xxiv. 45, 46). For what great me-
cessity can there be of So great vigilance, such assiduous
prayer, such fidelity in doing the Lord's work, if the neglect
of all those duties, till God calls us hence, will not prejudice
our eternal interests? This also is evident from the design
of the like Jewish parables; and note, that “the door was
shut” (ver. 10) seems to be an allusion to the Jewish
phrase of shutting the “gates of repentance ;" as when the
priests offered their oblations, and they found no acceptance
because the governor of the world had “shut the gate of re-
pentance ;” and the same we learn also from the parable of
the talents. Good therefore is the advice of the son of Si-
rach, “ Humble thyself before thou beest sick, and in the
time of sins show repentance, and defer not till death to be
justified” (Ecclus. xviii. 21, 22).
* Ver.,9. Mârors oin &exéon, Perhaps it will not suffice for
ws and you..] Here whorote is used for fortasse, “perhaps,”
as I have shown, note on 2 Tim. ii. 26.
Ver, 13.] See the defence of the reading here, Examen
* Kimchi in Isa. lxv. 13, 14, f Midrash Cohel. ad cap. 2.9
£ In ipso autem exità vitae suæ, dum disponunt discere,
comprehenduntur à morte, et propterea non ingrediuntur
cum Verbo ad sponsam Ecclesiam. In Matt. hom. 32.
§IIoß voy siaty of 8.3 mayrö; ºwiv roi, Bioi, fºup.o. Chrys. in
v. 10. Mapai zašč rörs #&#vovy ré Matoy, Śri own fºrt kattic
réaygareiac. Theoph.
CHAPTER XXV.
169
11 Afterward came also the other virgins, saying,
Lord, Lord, open to us (also).
12 But he answered and said, Verily I say to you,
I know you not (i. e. I own not such slothful and im-
provident persons as fit to be received to my feast).
13 Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day
nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.
14 For the kingdom of heaven (or the coming of the
Son of man) is as a man travelling into a far country,
(as Christ might be said to do, going to heaven to receive
a kingdom, Luke xix. 12, and to return at the time of
the restitution of all things, Acts iii. 21), who (at his
departure) called his own servants, and delivered to
them his goods. g .
15 “And to one he gave five talents, to another two,
and to another one; to every man according to his
several ability; and straightway took his journey.
16 Then he that had received the five talents went
and traded with the same, and made (the increase of
them) other five talents.
17 And likewise he that had received two, he also
gained other two.
18 But he that had received one (only) went and
digged in the earth, and hid his lord’s money.
19 After a long time the lord of those servants
cometh and reckoneth with them (i. e. Christ comes
jrom heaven to take an account of men’s actions).
20 And so he that had received five talents, came
and brought other five talents, saying (to his lord),
Lord, thou deliveredst to me five talents: behold, I
have gained besides them five talents more.
21. His lord said to him, Well done, thou good and
faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over (in) a
few things, I will (therefore) make thee ruler over
manythings (i.e. will greatly reward and dignify thee):
enter thou into the joy of thy lord (i. e. thou shalt re-
joice with me in heaven).
22 He also that had received two talents came and
said, Lord, thou deliveredst to me two talents: behold,
I have gained twó other talents beside them.
23 His lord said to him (also), Well done, (thou)
good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over
a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things:
enter thou (also) into the joy of thy lord.
24 Then he who had received the one talent came
and said, Lord, I knew that thou art a hard man,
reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering
where thou hast not strewed (i.e. requiring an increase
jar exceeding what thou gavest): &
25 And I was afraid (that I should not be able to
improve my talent to such advantage as thou mightest
eapect), and (therefore) I went and hid my talent in
the earth (whence now I bring it to thee): lo, there thou
hast what is thine.
26 His lord answered and said to him, Thou wicked
and slothful servant, (thou professest that) thou knew-
est that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where
I have not strewed (i. e. that I eaſpected some profit
from the talents I committed to thee):
27 Thou oughtest therefore (that thou mightest not
be condemned by thine own mouth) to have put my mo-
ney to the exchangers, and then at my coming I
should have received my own with usury (or improve-
ment: then saith he to his other servants),
28 Take therefore the talent from him, and give it
to him that hath ten talents: (they say to him, Lord,
he hath ten pounds already, Luke xix. 25, the lord an-
swers, Therefore I give him more.)
* Ver, 15. Kał & Pºv #3xxe révºrs ráAavra, § 3; 300, § 3; #y:
And to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to an-
other one..] Of this parable, as it respects the master travel-
ling into a far country, and the servants to whom the talents
were delivered, see note on Luke xix. 12, where it is also
proved that it relates to the Jewish nation, and therefore is
here mentioned after Christ's prediction of the dreadful
judgments which should befall that nation for murdering their
Messiah, and not improving the day of their visitation.
Here, therefore, I shall only add these few short notes:
First, That the master here distributes his talents, xará.
tºy tºtay ºvakiv, “according to the several abilities” of his
servants, which in some were greater, and so they were fitted
to manage a greater sum ; in some less, and so they were in-
trusted with a lesser, and accordingly he is satisfied with a
less increase in them : so, v. g. Christ gave to his disciples a
clearer and fuller knowledge of the mysteries of the gospel,
Markiv. 1], but spake to other Jews in parables, zaš2;
¥avro &Kośw, “as they were able to hear” (ver. 33). So
Origen" here, karū yā; thy #xártov 30yaay, 3 ºy 3:30yra révre
TéAavra, & ºvvaaiyº Boikºv rá rocaira 3xxº 8: 860 &c tº Xo-
£ºr tº 7pè aircº àxxº 8; £y, & was roi; ºrégou broësia rºw,
“According to each man's ability he gave his talent ; to one
DOlän five, as being able to traffic with them; to another two,
as being not sufficient to manage more; and to a third one,
as being still more infirm.”
Secondly, That these talents were spiritual, and given for
a spiritual end ; that they who used them well, might have
more, and “might enter into the joy of their Lord,” or re-
joice with him in his banquet, or the marriage-feast prepared
for them; and that they who did not improve them might
have their talents taken from them, and they be cast into
utter darkness. And, because banqueting and nuptial-feasts
were still attended with great joy, insomuch that the Hebrew
word Tinvº, which signifies a banquet, and a nuptial-feast,
is by the LXX. rendered sometimes oxi, “a banquet” (Gen.
xxvi. 30. Esth. i. 3. v. 4, 8, 12. 14), sometimes yázo, “a
marriage-feast” (Gen. xxix. 22. Esth. ii. 18. ix. 22), and once
xaſ?, “joy” (Esth. ix. 17); therefore the entering into this
*Ed. Huet, tom. i. p. 344,
marriage-feast, or supper, prepared for this lord, is here
styled, “entering into the joy of his Lord.” Note,
Thirdly, That none to whom these talents were imparted,
wanted power to improve them for the advantage of their
master, and so to receive the reward of their industry; for
Christ saith to them all, “Negotiate till I come,” Luke xix.
13. All therefore could have done so.
Hence, he who did not improve his talent is styled not
only a slothful, but a wicked servant, and is accordingly
punished: now there can be no iniquity in not doing what
he could not do, nor any punishment due upon that account;
this being to punish because he did not an impossibility.
Fourthly, That fixely, “to have,” here is iſ fixely, “to im-
prove ;” and not to have, not to improve, see note on Matt.
xiii. 12.
Fifthly, When it is said here, #8sic, “Thou knewest,”
or “knewest thou, that I was an austere man, reaping what
I did not sow,” this is not a concession that the master was
truly so, but an argument out of his own mouth to condemn
him, for not acting suitably to his own hard conceptions of
his Lord (Luke xix. 22). Nor do these words, “Thou
oughtest to have put my money to the exchangers,” show
that Christ approved of usury ; but only that he who
thought so Sordidly of his master should have used his
talent agreeably, that so he might have had his own with
usury. -
Wer. 27. Thou oughtest to have put my money to the
wsurers.] That is, Saith Jerome, caeteris doctoribus, quod fe-
cerunt apostoli, per singulas provincias presbyteros et episco-
pos ordinantes; i. e. “to other teachers, as the apostles
did, ordaining bishops and presbyters in every province :”
which words, though they contribute nothing to the meaning
of the text, yet they afford a plain testimony, that, even in.
St. Jerome's judgment here, bishops were placed in every
province by the apostles themselves. He also adds, that
hinc intelligimus gentilium et philosophorum bonam vitam
recipere Dominum ; “hence we understand, that our Lord
approves of the good life of heathens and philosophers.”
I suppose, because this is the best improvement of their ta-
lents, and all that could be reasonably expected from them ;
God having given them no other rule to walk by ; and so
170
MATTHEW.
29 For to every one that hath (so as to improve it)
shall be given (more), and he shall have abundance:
but from him that hath not (or doth not improve what
he hath) shall be taken away even that which he hath.
30Andcastyetheunprofitableservantinto outerdark-
ness:(where)thereshallbeweeping andgnashing ofteeth.
31 (So likewise will it be at my coming, for) “when
the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the
holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the
throne of his glory (as a righteous Judge):
32, And before him shall be gathered all nations:
and he shall separate them one from another, as a
shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:
33 "And he shall set the sheep (who are to receive
the sentence of absolution) on his right hand, but the
goats (who are to receive the sentence of condemnation)
on the left (hand).
34 Then shall the King say to them on his right
hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, "inherit the
kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the
world (or from the creation of man):
35 For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat;
I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger,
and ye took me in;
36 (I was) naked, and ye clothed me; I was sick,
and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came to me
(ye emercised all offices of charity towards my members).
37. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying,
Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee?
or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in?
or naked, and clothed thee
requiring no more of them than their sincere conformitv
that law of nature he had given them. .
* Ver. 31. "Oraw 3: A$n 3 vic rº, 3,384trov #y r; 8% aircü,
&c. When therefore the Son of man shall come in his glory,
and all the holy angels with him.] It is to me a wonder,
that men should imagine this refers not to the general day
of judgment, but either to the time of exercising judgments
on the Jewish nation, or to the setting up a triumphant
kingdom here on earth ; seeing (1.) here is a more clear
description of Christ's coming to judgment in words and
circumstances elsewhere acknowledged to relate to the great
and final judgment: for here he comes in majesty and glory
attended “with all the holy angels, and sits down upon the
throne of his glory;” and thus will he be attended, when
he comes to “render to every one according to his works,”
viz. “in the glory of his Father, with his holy angels”
(Matt. xvi. 27); “when he shall come in flaming fire to
take vengeance on all that obey not his gospel, and to be
glorified in his saints,” 2. Thess. i. 7–9. Jude 14, 15. (2.)
He speaks here of the time when he shall “gather before
him all nations” (ver. 23), all “sheep” and “goats” (ver.
33), all that shall receive a sentence of bliss or condemna-
tion (ver. 34. 41), and of the time when they that are the
blessed of the Father shall “receive the kingdom prepared
for them,” and when the wicked shall “go into everlasting
punishment” (ver. 46); which are manifest indications of
the final judgment.
* Ver. 33. Kał arrhagi rā ºv ºrpé8ara #x 3s;1&y airov, rà. 8:
#pta # stovºay, And he shall set the sheep on his right
hand, but the goats on his left.] Here seems to be an allu-
sion to the received custom of the Jews in capital causes, to
place them who were to receive the sentence of absolution
on the right hand in the Sanhedrin, but those who were to
receive the sentence of condemnation on the left, as Maim-
onides” saith, They that stand on the right hand are the
just : they on the left, the guilty: Kimchi on 1 Kings xxii.
19, “On his right hand is life, on his left death.” So R.
Eliezer, cap. 4, §. 4.
" Ver. 34. KAngoyoº, harate rºy hºropaaapwéyny tºy 8aaixelay
&rd MaragoNā; xãapaou, Inherit the kingdom prepared for you
jrom the beginning of the world..] The Jews say, that God
* Tract. Synedr. cap. 1.
39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and
came unto thee?
40 And the King shall answer and say to them,
Verily I say to you, *Inasmuch as ye have done it (or
this) to one of the least of these (whose faith in me
has rendered them as dear as, Matt. xii. 50, and whom,
by taking their nature upon me, and dying in it to purge
them from their sins, I have made and treated as, Heb.
ii. 11,) my brethren, ye have done it to me (these
members of my body being one with their head).
41 Then shall he say also to them on the left hand,
Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, pre-
pared (not originally for you, but) for the devil and his
angels:
42 (This being the just reward of your impiety and
wn mercifulness, which have made you like them :) "For I
was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat; I was
thirsty, and ye gave me no drink;
43 I was a stranger, and ye took me not in; naked,
and ye clothed me not; sick, and in prison, and ye
visited me not.
44 Then shall they (also) answer him, saying, Lord,
when saw we thee an hungered, or thirsty, or a stran-
ger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not
minister unto thee :
45 Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say.
to you, Inasmuch as you did it not to one of the
least of these (my members), ye did it not to me (for
had you borne a kind affection to me, you would have
thus ministered to my members for my sake).
46 And these shall go away into everlasting punish-
ment; but the righteous (shall go) into life eternal.
- **-- -----------------
prepared paradise from the beginning, even before the earth
was made ; and this they gather from Gen. ii. 8, “and the
Lord God planted a garden,” Dipp, &r' 36xãº, Aquila, ix
orgºrnº, Symmachus, “from the beginning” (see Pirk. Elie-
zer, cap. 3, §. 3.
7. Wer. 41. IIopečease eig rà rip aidºvicy, rô hºrotºzao ºvov rá.
8tagáຠzai toſ; 3)) {\ot; aircü, Depart from me into everlast-
ing fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.] The rabbins
often say that “hell was created the second day” (see Pirk.
Eliezer, cap. 4. §. 1): the fathers, on the contrary, viz. Ori-
gen, Chrysostom, Euthymius, and Theophylact, observe (1.)
that Christ saith not of the punishment, as he doth of the
blessing here pronounced, that it was prepared from the be-
ginning of the world, lest it should be thought that God de-
signed men's punishment before they sinned. (2.) That
though Christ saith, “Come, ye blessed of my Father,” he
said not, “Go, ye cursed of my Father ;” because God is
the author and procurer of men's happiness, but man only is
the author of his own misery. And (3.) that he speaks of
this eternal fire as designed originally not for man, but “for
the devil and his angels;” but man, by giving himself up to
the thraldom of that evil one, and working himself up to
his likeness, sinks himself down to the infernal regions, and
becomes like to him in torments, whom in manners he hath
so much resembled.
* Ver. 40.45. Eq’Écow in otho are #yi roſtoy rôv 388x42 yaou
töv šaaxiaºrov, p.o. trolāgate, Inasmuch as ye have done it
to one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it
wnto me..] For so close is the union betwixt Christ and his
members, that he looks upon the favours conferred on them
as done to himself, and promises accordingly a reward for
them (Matt. x. 42); and also threatens punishment to them
who do neglect, and are injurious to them, as if they had
been so to him (ver. 45). And therefore he speaks to a
persecuting Saul thus, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou
me?” (Acts ix.4). And, oh! how highly ought we to esteem
of him, who so esteemed us!
* Ver. 42. I was hungry, and you gave me no meat..] Here
Theophylact well observes, that it is not sufficient to pre-
serve us from that dreadful sentence, “Depart from me,’ &c.
that we have done no evil, if we have been deficient in
those acts of charity and mercy we owe to the members of
| Christ's body.
| 171
CHAPTER xxvi.
1 AND it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all
these sayings, he said to his disciples,
2 Ye know that "after two days is the (time of the
Jews') passover, and the Son of man is (then to be)
betrayed (Gr. delivered up) to be crucified.
3. Then (i. e. two days before the passover) assem-
bled together the chief priests, and the scribes, and
the elders of the people, to the palace of the high-
priest, who was called Caiaphas,
4 And (they) consulted that they might take Jesus
by subtlety, and kill him.
5 But they said, (Let us) not (do this) on the *feast-
day, lest there be an uproar among the people (for
they feared the people, Luke xxii. 2). . a"
6 Now when Jesus was in Bethany in the house of
Simon the leper (whom Christ had healed of his lep-
ºrosy),
7 There came to him a woman having an alabaster
box of very precious ointment, and (she taking it)
poured it on his head, as he sat at meat.
8 But when (some of, Mark xiv. 4) *his disciples
saw it, they had indignation, (and murmured against
the woman, Mark xiv. 5) saying, To what purpose is
this waste (of the ointment made):
9 For this ointment might have been sold for much,
and (the money might have been) given to the poor.
10 When Jesus understood it (i.e. knew that they
* **-
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXVI.
* Wer. 2. After two days is the passover, and the Son of
man shall be delivered up to be crucified.] Here Grotius
notes, that it is a tradition of the Jews, which appears yet
in the books of their cabalists, that in the days of the Mes-
siah they should be redeemed on the very day that they came
out of Egypt; which is true if it respect the day of their
coming out of Egypt, that being the fifteenth day of Nisan,
but is not true of the fourteenth day, on which the paschal
lamb was offered, Christ being not crucified on Thursday,
but on Friday.
* Ver, 5. "Exeyov 33, Ø, #y rā āoerff, Wa º Sápw80; yíyntal iv
rö Aaj, And they said, Not on the feast-day, lest there be
an uproar among the people.] Maimonides” saith, it was
the custom among the Jews to punish those who rebelled
against the sentence of the judge, or the high-priest, or were
notoriously criminal, at one of the three feasts ; because then
only, by reason of the public congress of people, all might
hear and fear, according to the law, Deut. xvii. 12, 13. From
this received custom, the fathers of the Sanhedrin seem will-
ing to recede for fear of the multitude ; but having so fair
an offer made by Judas, they embrace that season.
* Ver. 8, 186vre; 33 of twa8wrai atrol, hyaváx'rnoray, &c. But
when his disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, To
what purpose is this waste 2) This was only said by Judas,
and that out of covetousness (John xii. 3. 6). Some of the
disciples seemed to like the motion by reason of the specious
pretext of charity under which it was covered (Mark xiv. 5),
and the rest did not contradict it, but seemed rather by their
silence to approve it, and therefore are here mentioned,
without exception, as copartners with him ; but Christ calls
this a good work, ver. 10, as being in itself lawful, and done
out of a good end and intention ; and justifies this from an
argument à pari, that she had laid out this expense on his
dead body; they who did customarily use such ointments
and sweet odours at their funerals could not have reason-
ably found fault with it, and therefore had no ground to do
it now, his body being shortly to be buried ; to the pretence
of Judas he answers, that by reason of his approaching
death this must be shortly done to him, or not at all; where-
as they, having the poor always with them, could never want
* De Rebell. cap. 3, §. 8.
thus murmured), he said to them, Why trouble ye the
woman (without cause) P for she hath wrought a good
(and charitable) work upon me.
Il For ye have the poor (for whom you pretend
such kindness) always with you (and when you will you
may do them good, Mark xiv. 7); but (as for) me, *ye
have not always (a like opportunity of showing kind-
ness to me, I being shortly to be taken from you.
12 She therefore hath piously chosen the present op-
portunity), for in that she hath poured this ointment
on my body, she did it (though unwittingly, as a pre-
paration) for my burial, (nor shall her charity be lost;
for) .
13 Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel
shall be preached (as it will be) in the whole world,
there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be
told for a memorial of her (to all future ages).
14 Then * one of the twelve, who was called Judas
Iscariot (Satan being entered into him, Luke xxii. 3),
went to the chief priests,
15 And said to them, What will ye give me, and I
will deliver him to you? (and they were glad, and pro-
mised to give him money, Mark xiv. 11), and they
covenanted with him for "thirty pieces of silver.
16 And from that time he sought (an) opportunity
to betray him.
17 Now the "first day of the feast of unleavened
objects of their charity; and that good work which was to
be done now or never, was then preferable to that for which
they had perpetual occasions.
* Wer. 11. ‘Epº 33 of Trávrove, But me ye have not always.]
These words destroy the doctrine of transubstantiation ; for if
Christ were, as to soul, body, and divinity, truly in the host,
that being always with them of Rome, they would have
Christ always with them, and might at any time spend their
money in adorning their host, or upon the oblation of it,
and so Christ's reason for doing that then would be invalid.
Note also from these words following, ver, 13, that this good
deed should be mentioned, “wherever the gospel was
preached, for a memorial of her,” that we may laudably pro-
secute that which will procure us a good name, and spread
our reputation to future ages.
* Ver. 14. Tóts ºrogevösi, sī; rà, 333exa, Then one of the
twelve went to the chief priests.] He is noted to be one of
Christ's disciples, to aggravate the foulness of his crime,
and to denote the completion of the prophecy, “He that
eateth bread with me, hath lifted up his heel against me”
(Ps. xli. 9). The time when Judas thus betrayed him is
hinted in the particle rārs, then ; viz. according to the tra-
dition of the church, the consultation of the Sanhedrin with
him, and his agreement to betray Christ to them, was on
Wednesday, this being assigned as one reason why they
fasted on Wednesday and Friday,” “because Christ was be-
trayed on Wednesday, and he suffered on Friday. •
5 Wer. 15. For thirty pieces of silver.] i. e. For thirty
shekels, that is, 31. 15s, of our money, saith Dr. Hammond.
This, as Mr. Ainsworth and Maimonides observe on Exod.
xxxi. 32, was the price paid for a man or a maid-servant
when, being smitten by an ox, they died ; so vilely was he
esteemed by them who shed his precious blood for them 1
Of Satan's entering into Judas, see note on Luke xxii. 3, 4.
7 Wer. 17. Tº 8: Trećrn rāy 33%.oy, &c. Now the first
day of unleavened bread came his disciples to him, saying,
Where wilt thow that we prepare the passover, &c.] Of the
time when our Saviour kept the passover, see the appendix
to the fourteenth chapter of St. Mark. Here note, first,
* Thy reºrgáša kai ragaoksvily morečoºey" rāy wiv, 31& rāy ºrpo-
Boa'lay' rºy 33, 8:3 ré ré006. Const. Apost. lib. V. cap. 15, lib.
vii. cap. 23. Epiph. Expos. Fidei, p. i 104. Augustin. ad
Casulanum, Ep. 86, p. 392.
172
MATTHEw.
bread (being come, two of) the disciples came to Jesus,
saying to him, Where wilt thou that we prepare for
thee to eat the passover ?
18 And he said, Go into the city to such a man
(who will meet you carrying a pitcher of water, Mark
xiv. 23, follow him, Luke xxii. 10), and say to him,
The Master saith, My time is at hand; I will keep
the passover at thy house with my disciples (where
therefore is the room where I may eat it with them 8
Luke xxii. 11, and when he hath showed you the room,
there make ready, ver. 12).
19 And the disciples did as Jesus had appointed
them; and (finding that it was as he had said, Mark
xiv. 16, they) made ready the passover.
20 Now when the evening was come, he sat down
with the twelve.
21 And as they did eat, he said, Verily I say to you,
That one of you shall betray me (for the hand of him
that betrayeth me is with me in the dish, Mark xiv. 18.
Luke xxii. 21). g
from the word ávéxeiro, “he lay down,” ver. 20, that Christ
observed not the paschal supper in that manner or gesture in
which it was instituted at first, viz. that they should eat it
standing, &c., Exod. xii. 11, but did eat it lying down, or
inclining on the left side, as it was the manner of the Jews
then to do ; and though the Jewish doctors required and
imposed this rite as a significative ceremony of their rest in
Canaan, to which they were but going, or travelling, when
they celebrated the passover in Egypt, and of their redemp-
tion, and upon that account would” permit none to eat it
otherwise than in this posture, yet Christ used it: whence
we may learn that our blessed Lord was not so scrupulous
as some men are, who dare not use a significant ceremony,
or to receive the eucharist kneeling, because that was not
the posture used at the first institution of it, though they do
receive it sitting, and therefore not in the posture used by
Christ and his apostles when it was first instituted. (2.)
Upon these words, “Where wilt thou that we keep the
passover ?” Dr. Lightfoot observes, that the houses of Jeru-
salem were not then to be let, but were of common right for
any that would eat the passover in them.
* Ver. 23. ‘O #484-pa; pºst' #xoſ. iv rá rev3xicº rºw xstea,
&c. He that dips his hand with me in the dish, the same
shall betray me..] Hence it appears that Judas was present
with them at the celebration of the paschal supper; and
that he continued with them at the celebration of the other
Sacrament, is evident from the words following the institu-
tion and distribution of it, “But, behold, the hand of him
that betrayeth me is with me on the table” (Luke xxii. 21).
* Ver. 24. The Son of man goeth as it is written of him :
but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed 1 it were good
for that man that he had not been born.] Hence two things
clearly follow : (1.) That the prediction of this event, that
Jesus should thus suffer, and that by the treachery of Judas,
did lay on Judas no antecedent necessity of doing this ac-
tion ; because it did not lessen the woe due to him for it,
but only doth suppose in God a knowledge how the will of
man, left to his own freedom, will determine or incline it-
self. Of this, see note on Luke xxii. 22. (2.) That Christ,
by saying, “it were good for that man that he had not been
born,” sufficiently shows this cannot be the portion of all
men, except some few elect, as some men think, and as it
follows, from the Supposal of an immutable decree, that
such persons only should be saved, and all others left under
such a preterition as will infallibly render it better for them
never to have been born ; and would have made this the con-
dition of Judas though he had not done this, provided he
was none of God’s élect.
* Ver. 26. Jesus took bread, xa, sixcyholac, Éxxage, and
blessed it, and brake it..] That aixoysīy, “to bless,” here and
in St. Mark, is the same as eixaga reſy, “to give thanks,” in
St. Luke and St. Paul, and that the bread was only blessed
* Azyma comedimus recumbentes, quia recordatio est re-
demptionis; et rursus tenemur ad accubitum dum comedi-
mus, ut comedamus more regum et magnatum.
22 And they were exceeding sorrowful, and began
every one of them to say to him, Lord, is it I (that
shall do this thing) 8
23 And he answered and said, “He that (now) dip-
peth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall
betray me.
24. The "Son of man goeth (to suffer death), as it
is written of him : but (seeing God’s foreknowledge how
wicked any man will be, if left to act according to those
evil dispositions which he hath wilfully contracted,
lessens no man’s guilt ; notwithstanding) woe to that
man by whom the Son of man is betrayed it had
been good for that man if he had not been born (it
being better not to be, than to be miserable).
25 Then Judas, which betrayed him, answered and
said, Master, is it I (that shall betray thee) P He said
unto him, (It is as ) thou hast said.
26 And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and
**blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples,
and said, Take, eat; *this (broken bread) is (the me-
by giving thanks over it, see proved on Matt. xiv. 19. And
that the breaking of the bread to be distributed is a neces-
sary part of this rite, is evident. For (1.) the continual
mention of it by St. Paul and all the evangelists when they
speak of the institution of this sacrament, shows it to be a
necessary part of it; according to that observation of the
council of Toledo, * That Christ, by breaking the bread,
and distributing it broken to his disciples, id sine dubio egit,
quðd nos in posterum facturos edocuit, did doubtless teach
us hereafter to do as he did. (2.) Christ said, “Take, this
is my body broken for you” (1 Cor. xi. 24); whereas, where
the elements are not broken, it can be no more said, “This
is my body broken for you,” than where the elements are
not given, “This is my body given for you.” (3.) Our Lord
saith, “Do this in remembrance of me;” i.e. Eat this bread
broken, in remembrance of my body broken on the cross:
now, where no body broken is distributed, there nothing can
be eaten in memorial of his broken body. Lastly, the
apostle, by saying, “The bread which we break, is it not the
communion of the body of Christ 2" sufficiently informs us,
that the eating of his broken body is necessary to that end
(1 Cor. x. 16). Hence was it that this rite of distributing
bread broken continued for a thousand years, and was, as
Humbertus+ testifies, observed in the Roman church in the
eleventh century.
in Toğrá čar, r3 rāgā adv, This is my body..] Here let it
be observed, (1) that these words contain not all that our
Lord said, for our Lord spake these words but once ; and
therefore they who say, as do St. Luke and the apostle Paul,
his words were these, “This is my body given, or my body
broken, for you,” can say no more than our Lord Said at the
first institution of this sacrament; for otherwise they must
aver that Christ then said what really he never said. When
then St. Matthew and St. Mark inform us that he said,
“This is my body,” they must say the truth, but not the
whole truth; that being, as St. Luke and St. Paul inform us,
“This is my body given, or broken, for you.” Moreover, it
is to be observed, that neither the evangelist nor the apostle
uses the future, but both the present tense, saying, “This is
my body, r3 3:33, ºvov, given, tº Kadaswo, broken ; this is my
blood, to #xxvi.eyov, shed.” Now, from these observations
it is manifest, that these words cannot signify, This is sub-
stantially and really my body broken and my blood shed for
you ; for this being spoken before Christ's body was broken
on the cross, and before his blood was shed, Christ could not
say, in the literal and proper sense, This is my body broken,
or my blood shed, for you ; but he might say, This bread is
broken to represent to you my body, which shall be broken,
and my blood, which shall be shed, for you. For so the
scripture usually speaks in sacramental matters; saying of
circumcision, even before Abraham was circumcised, “This
is my covenant betwixt me and thee” (Gen. xvii. 4. 19. 23.
* A.D. 693. Can. 6. '
+ Baron. tom. xi. p. 1008. Humb. contra Graec, ibid. p.
971 |
CHAPTER XXVI.
173
morial of my body (Luke xxii. 19, and broken for
36), and of the paschal lamb, “This is the Lord’s pass-
over,” before God, passing over the Israelites, had smitten
the Egyptians (Exod. xii. 11). And this was therefore thus
affirmed of these two sacraments, before the celebration of
them, because they were then instituted as rites to be ob-
served by his people when they did celebrate these sacra-
ments. And in like manner the bread, in the first institution
of this sacrament, is called Christ's “body broken,” as being
instituted then to represent to all future ages his body which
was to be broken for them ; and the wine is styled his “blood
shed,” as being instituted then as the perpetual representa-
tion and memorial of his blood shed and separated from his
body on the cross; so that there is no need of the criticism
of Grotius and others here, that the present tense is put for
the future, “broken” for that which “shall be broken,” and
“shed” for “shall be shed.” Nor could this way of speak-
ing either seem harsh to, or otherwise be understood by,
Christ's disciples, who had even then been eating of the pas-
chal lamb, which they who laid before them were said, ap-
ponere corpus paschatis, “to place before them the body of
the passover,” or paschal lamb, called also by them, corpus
paschatis, “the body of the passover;” and they who ate
of it were said, comedere de corpore paschatis, “to eat of
the body of the passover,” or of the lamb eaten in memorial
of it: and when they ate of the unleavened bread, they said,
Hic est panis afflictionis, quem comederunt patresnostri in ter-
rå AEgypti, “This is the bread of affliction” (i. e. the represen-
tation and memorial of that bread) “which our fathers did
eat in the land of Egypt.” What therefore could men ac-
customed to such sacramental phrases think of the like
words of Christ, “This (bread) is my body;” but that it
was to be the representation or memorial of it? Moreover,
how could the apostles think that they had eaten Christ's
broken body, or drank his blood shed for them, when they
yet saw his body whole before them, and knew his blood was
in his veins 2 How could they have been persuaded to drink
blood, against the express letter of the law, or to have eaten
human flesh, or swallow their Lord and Master down their
throats? This being so absurd in the opinion of all mankind,
not excepting Lanfranc, Algerus, Guitmund, and others, who
first stickled for an absurdity beyond all example, that they
ingenuously confess, “That did their senses perceive what
their faith doth oblige them to believe, the horror of it would
be so great, that” rarus esset qui ab hôc sacramento non ab-
horreret, almost all persons would abhor the receiving this
Sacrament.” Hence they give these two notable reasons
Why, though they do substantially eat the flesh, and drink
that very blood which our Lord shed upon the cross, yet they
do this “under the covert of the accidents of bread and
wine ;” viz.
First, “That human piety might not abhor the sacra-
ment,f as they then would do; for,” say they, “should they
See the colour of human flesh, and the colour of human
blood, and taste the savour of them, the horror of it would
hinder the receiving of the sacrament, or the profit of so
doing.” -
Secondly, That this was digna causa, “a just reason”
why our Lord's body and blood should lie thus concealed
under the species of bread and wine,f “lest it should be
known to the infidels, and lie open to their blasphemies;
lest the action should be ridiculous to them, Scandalous, in-
* Hugo Ling.
+ Impediretur perceptionis hujus commoditas prae huma-
ni corporis comedendi horrore. Alg. lib. i. cap. 7, p. 10. Si
carnis et sanguinis humani colorem videret, et saporem sen-
tiret fidelis, humana pietas abhorreret. Lib. ii. cap. 3, p. 73,
75. Ne percipientes cruda et cruenta, horrerent. Lanfr. f.
133, B., Si Cruor in calice fieret manifestus, et si, ut in ma-
cello, Christi ruberet caro, rarus in terris esset qui hac non
abhorreret. Hugo Ling. ed Erasm.
f Ne Scilicet infidelibus pateat, eteorum blasphemiis vi.
lescat, neve nos judicent inhumanos et crudeles, utpote hu-
mani corporis comestores, et sanguinis bibitores. Alger, lib.
ii, cap. 3, p. 75. Ut veritas non desit in sacramento, et ri-
diculum nullum fiat paganis, quéd cruorem occisi hominis
bibamus. Pasch, cap. 36. Neper hoc fieret execrabile, quðd
you, 1 Cor. xi. 24).
human, and execrable.” And indeed this being not only
âySgoropayſa, “the eating of man's flesh,” and drinking
human blood, but also 6809ayia, “the eating of their God,”
who knows not that on both these accounts the Christian
faith was and is still execrable, both to Jew and gentile, to
pagan and Mahometan 2 For, - g
First, The Apologies of the primitive Christians tell us,
this was one of the great accusations which the heathens
made against the Christians, that they did eat human flesh.
This Trypho owns. to be a common imputation upon Christ
tians, though he judged it incredible. Justin Martyr,” Ire-
naeus, Tertullian, Minutius, and others, take notice of it, and
refute it, and constantly reject it, as the vilest calumny, and
an abominable thing, saying, “We Christians, 3,0soriyov
a.a.pków 308&; oil yiyºorkopºv, do not own eating of human flesh ;
it is an infamous thing, and falsely is reported of us.” “This
is,” saith Theophilus, “the most wicked and inhuman of all
crimes objected to us, a apx?iv čv6porivoy hºà; āqāºrtez 9at, that
we partake of human flesh : it is not possible that we should
be guilty of so vile a thing.” “Amongst us there is no eat-
ing of human flesh,” saith Tatian ; Ś “you are false witnesses
who thus accuse us.” “No man,” saith Athenagoras, ll
“who is not mad, can charge us with this thing; ot, yap art
Tráca.a.0a ºpeãy &ySgorivoy, for we may not eat human flesh.”
“It is the calumny of the devil,” saith Minutius. “You
may be ashamed to object it to us,” saith Tertullian. T
Whereas, had they received this as an article of faith, that
they did daily eat the flesh of the man Christ, and thought
his word obliged them to do this ; with what sincerity could
they, without all limitation or distinction, not only have de-
nied, but even detested the doing so? But that which makes
it certain and beyond all doubt that they conceived that
Christ had never taught them properly and substantially to
eat his flesh and drink his blood in the sacrament, is the
memorable history of Sanctus and Blandina, two Christian
martyrs, written by Irenaeus,” and preserved to us by CEcu-
menius ; viz. that “the heathens having apprehended the
servants of Christians, catechised, and used force with them,
that from them they might learn something secret ; the ser-
vants, having nothing else to say that might be pleasing to
their tormentors, having heard from their masters that the
sacrament was the body and blood of Christ, told this to the
inquisitors; who apprehending that the Christians had done
this very thing, gave notice of it to other heathens, who en-
deavoured to force the martyrs, Sanctus and Blandina, to
confess it ; to whom Blandina readily and boldly answered,
How should they endure those things, who so fast as not to
enjoy lawful flesh? Now had the ancient Christians believed
this doctrine, that they did truly eat Christ's flesh and blood
in the sacrament, how could Irenaeus have represented it as
a plain mistake, both in those servants and the heathens, to
think the Sacrament was really Christ's flesh and blood, or
have introduced Blandina refuting this imagination, had it
been the sentiment of the church of Christ then, since by so
doing she must have rejected one article of Christian faith 2
Or how could OEcumenius have put these words into his
commentary, without endeavouring to explain or reconcile
them to the doctrine of oral manducation, had it then ob-
per fidem debemus credere esse desiderabile. Ibid. Wel
fidem laederet, vel ad scandalum quorumlibet corda possit
movere. Petr. Clun. ed. Erasm. p. 215, B.
* Objecerunt Christianis &y%27ſivoy a apx?iv 8opáv. Just. M.
Apol. 1, p. 50. Creditis vos, inquit, 3rt 3: #d Stowey &y%4-
arov; ; Respondet Trypho, IIEpi Bè &y of Troxxoi Aéyovaty ot tria-
retical &#toy' wošša, yāe hexºpnxE rā, św880mlyn; pſasac. Dial.
p. 227. Nihil objiciunt, 6vêa reta 38tºrva, Athenag. p. 4.
Theophilus, lib. i. p. 119, 126. Tatian, p. 162. Tertul. Apol.
cap. 9, ad Nationes, lib. i. cap. 15. Minutius, p. 32. Euseb.
Eccl. Hist. lib. v. cap. 1.
+ Just. M. Apol. p. 50, ii. p. 70.
†: Ad Autol. lib. iii. p. 119, 126.
§ Contr. Gent. p. 162. || Legat. p. 32.
*| Ap. cap. 9.
* Atto: vokičovre, rö Syro, aſ wa kai régxa Elva rotiro &; at-
téxpnº, a taxeſo-Sai roſ, Xgia rayoſ. Iren. apud CEcum. In
1 Pet. ii. 12.
174.
MATTHEW.
27 And he took the cup (after supper, Luke xxii.
20), and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying,
tained 2 Let us then again consider, whether that ought to
be received as an article of faith, owned by all Christians.
from the beginning, which from the beginning was so ex-
pressly denied to be āvro; wai airéxenºa, “indeed, reality,
or, in the thing itself, the flesh and blood of Christ;” which
made all the apologists for, and first defenders of the Chris-
tians, deniers of the truth; and to represent that as a false
report, an infamous thing, a calumny of the devil, which
was the plain and evident result of their own faith, and of
the words of their great Master, as they are now interpreted
by the church of Rome.
But then, when we advance to the consideration of this
doctrine, not only as it makes the Christian to eat human
flesh, and drink of human blood, but as it is the eating of
that “very God we worship,” as the Trent council" hath de-
i. this renders it absurd, ridiculous, and blasphemous,
Or, -
First, The very heathens owned this as the absurdest and
most abominable thing, to be abhorred more than death.”
“When we call wine Bacchus,” saith Cicero,” “and our
fruits Ceres, we use the common mode of speaking, sed ec-
quem tam amentem esse putas qui illud quo vescatur deum
credat esse? but can you think any person so mad as to
imagine that which he eats to be a god?”—“The Egyp-
tians,” saith Origen,f “think a brute creature to be God;
and therefore they do ºcéxei Savárov puxážaasai &rö roö täy
&ov xgsøy ysia'ao Sai, abstain from eating of his flesh more
than from death.” We read, Gen. xliii. 32, that it was
“an abomination to the Egyptians to eat bread with the
Hebrews ; because,” say Onkelos and Jonathan, “the He-
brews did eat those cattle which the Egyptians worshipped:”
and Moses would depart from Egypt before he sacrificed to
the God of Israel ; lest he should sacrifice to him “the
abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes” (Exod.
viii. 26), i. e. the beasts which the Egyptians worshipped,
and therefore did abhor to kill, or to see killed before their
eyes (see Bochart. Hieroz. par. i. lib. ii. cap. 34, 35, par. ii.
lib. iv. cap. 16). Averroes $ was a learned heathen, who
flourished in the eleventh century, when this portentous
doctrine first obtained, and it forced him thus to blaspheme
the Christian faith: “I have inquired into all religions, and
have found none more foolish than the Christians, because
that very God they worship they with their teeth devour :”
and thus he concludes, Quandoquidem Christiani id come-
dunt quod adorant, &c. “Because the Christians eat what
they do worship, let my soul go to the philosophers.” And
Bellarmine || himself confesseth, that this, among the hea-
thens, was always judged Stultissimum paradoxum, “the
most foolish paradox, as,” saith he, “from the words of
Averroes doth appear.” Hence as the highest infamy which
the Mahometans can cast upon us, we are by them re-
proached as “the devourers of our God,” as M. la Boulay T
informs us ; and they affirm, that by thus eating of Christ's
flesh, the Christians use him worse than did the Jews; be-
cause, say they,” it is more savage to eat his flesh and
drink his blood than only to procure his death.
Secondly, That the Jewish sentiments as to this matter
were the same, we learn from the epistle of the prophet Je-
remy to the captive Jews; for he informs them, that what
the Babylonians worshipped should afterward be eaten ;
and, “by this,” saith he, “ye may know they are no gods,”
Baruch vi. 72. Nor can we doubt of this, if we believe
what is so often declared by the Christian fathers, that this
* Nullus itaque dubitandi locus relinquitur, quin omnes
Christi fideles, pro more in catholică ecclesia semper recepto,
latriae cultum, qui vero debetur Deo, huic sanctissimo sacra-
mento in veneratione exhibeant, neque enim ided minus
adorandum est, quðd fuerit ā Christo ut sumatur institutum.
Concil. Trid. Sess. 13, cap. 5.
+ De Nat. Deor. lib. iii. n. 28.
f Cont. Cels. lib. i. p. 40.
§ Apud. Pezroon de Euch, lib. iii, cap. 29, p. 973.
| Lib. ii. de Euch. cap. 12, §. 2.
* Voyage, par. i. cap. 10, p. 21.
** Achmed B. Edris apud Hottinger, H. Ecc. §. 16, par.
ii. p. 160. -
was God's design in making the distinction betwixt clean and
unclean beasts, to secure his people from idolatry; “because,
in Egypt, all beasts were deified,” saith Pseudo Justin, “ex-
cept swine ; God therefore calls some of them unclean, some
clean, and did permit them to sacrifice the clean beasts, and
forbid them to eat of the unclean ; * Seizvēow air& &vážta.
ãvra râc rod Osoſ; "rgoamyopia; re zai riº; Kai Stå rot; São Sai
xai śa Sier8a, by both these things showing they were un-
worthy the name and honour of a deity; because they were
Sacrificed and eaten; and because they were called unclean.”
—“God,” saith Theodoret,” “pronouncing some beasts
clean and others unclean, persuades us not to thiſk that
any of them could be gods; for how,” saith he, “can any
man of sense think that to be a god which he abominates
as unclean, or which is offered to the true God, and eaten
by himself;” and this he frequently repeats. St. Jerome f
informs us that Moses did beat the golden calf to powder,
and then made the Jews drink of it: ut discant contemnere,
quod in secessum projici viderant, “that the people might
learn to contemn what they saw went down into the
draught.” Now, could the same God who had taken such
care under the Old Testament to teach the people that that
could not be their God which they did eat and sacrifice, ap-
point under the New Testament, that the Christians' God
should be continually sacrificed and eaten ? But,
Thirdly, Nothing is more certain, than that the Christian
apologists, or fathers, continually ridiculed the heathen for
worshipping such deities as might be eaten and sacrificed,
and pronounced it the highest absurdity to do so. And,
(1.) They declaim against the thing itself, as infinitely
absurd and foolish, declaring that it was $ 36savegia; #axátnç
ºrd io Stågsvoy ºrpoaxuvºv, “the extremity of madness to wor-
ship what we eat ;” that “no man of sense can think that
a God which is trag #auroj čaršiousyoy, eaten by himself;”||
that “the great lawgiver of the Jews commanded them to
eat what other nations worshipped as gods, tya Bükata?páynta
‘paivnºrai &; rag' airãy Éd Stépceva, that they might appear de-
spicable in their eyes, as being eaten by themselves ;” “I that
“these things must be unworthy the name and honour of a
god, 31& rê ša Šísa-Sal, because they were eaten.”
(2.) They upon this account,"deride the ignorance and
folly of the heathens, and look upon this as a sure indica-
tion of it, that they did worship what was eaten. “The
Greeks through ignorance,” saith Clemens “ of Alexandria,
a #8ovrai kai & 3é8wkey aircí, eiç 88&ow & QE3;, “worship even
those things which God hath given them to eat, and so be-
come ungrateful to him.”—Nonne et Apim bovem cum
Egyptiis adoratis et pascitis 2 “Do not you,” saith Minu-
tius, H “with the Egyptians, worship and also feed upon
an ox, which you call Apis P And is not this as great a
folly as the worship of an ass's head, which without reason
you object to us?” This Athanasius #f looks upon as “an
instance of the abominable worship of the Egyptians, that
the same flesh, which some of them did consecrate as a god,
was made the food of others. The Egyptians adore a calf,
the Lybians worship sheep, both which, in our nations, are
sacrificed and fed upon ; this,” saith he, “is a certain indi-
cation of the folly of the heathen worship.”—“The hea-
thens,” saith Theodoret, $$ “should have considered, &c roß-
roy rā ºfty #6 Siova'iy, that some of these things they eat &AA
# 388xtegia; wai ragaranžia: #axárnº wai &v Haštov rá; sixáva;
#8807, oinaray, but through extremity of folly and stupidity,
they consecrate the images of those things themselves did
* Qu. 35, p. 414, 413.
+ II&; y&p &yric orw$govöv rā āzášaeroy yokºo; Oºv 3 ºv-
carréºsyo; &roatsáqeral, rô tº &Anówº Osº argoa pigéº evoy
xal mag havroſſ to 9tégºvoy. Qu. 11 in Levit. p. 124, D.
Qu. 55 in Gen. p. 44. Serm. 7 contr. Graec. ed. Sylb. p. 150.
f #. ad Fab. Ol. Ep. tom. iii. f. 20, A.
§ Theodoret in Gen. ix. 55. - || Qu. 11 in Levitic.
* Serm. 7 de Sacr. tom. iv. p. 585.
* Strom. vi. p. 635, C. D. ++ P. 32.
fit Tây rap' 3xxoi, Aeyop,évoy 95% yivoviral Buziat wal ornow?ai,
wał &AAwy at 6poiat àxxoy #wraxiv Fiat 680ſ. Orat. contra
Gent. §. 24.
§§ Rom. i. 23.
CHAPTER XXVI.
175
*Drink ye all of this (cup);
28 For this (wine, given separate from the bread) is
(the memorial of) my blood of the new testament,
which is shed for many for the remission of (their)
SlſlS.
29 But I say to you, *I will not drink henceforth
of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink
it new with you in my Father’s kingdom (i. e. till the
kingdom of God come, Luke xxii. 18, and you eat and
drink with me in my kingdom, ver. 30).
30 And when they had sung a hymn, they went
out to the mount of Olives.
31 Then saith Jesus to them, All ye shall be “of-
eat” (see Tatian, p. 149, Orig. contr. Celsum, lib. v. p. 249).
Now can it possibly be conceived, that all these fathers
should ridicule and expose the religion of the krathens, for
that very thing which made so great a part of their own re-
ligion? That they should look on it as an abominable and
repugnant thing in heathens, only to worship that which
others did eat, if it had been a constant custom of all Chris-
tians to worship as God what they themselves did eat?
Could they brand that, as the extremity of madness, stu-
pidity, and folly, when done by heathens, which their faith
taught them was the highest act of religious worship, when
performed by themselves? Surely these things give us suf-
ficient reason with Scotus" to admire, “why such an inter-
pretation should be put upon this one article as makes our
faith contemptible to all who are guided by reason.” Nor
can we abstain from thinking, with Petrus Cluniacensis’s ‘F
carnal man, that “it is against humanity, against piety, to
break with our hands, to tear with our teeth, and to devour,
as we do common meat, the flesh and blood of Christ, or
that God and man should be devoured by men, the Master
by his disciples, the Lord by his servants, and Christ by
Christians.”
* Ver. 27. Titers # abroſ, ºrávºrs; Drink ye all of this.]
From these words it is evident, that all who come to the
holy communion are by Christ's precept obliged as well to
drink of the cup as to eat of the bread : for, whereas most
Romanists pretend, that Christ said only, “Drink ye all of
this,” to them to whom he said, when speaking of the bread,
“Do this ;” and that those words were only spoken to his
apostles, whom he then made priests: to this I answer,
that we have clear and convincing evidence that these
words, “Drink ye all of this,” are to be applied to others
besides the apostles; as, v. g. (1.) From Christ's institution;
whence I argue thus, Christ instituted no other supper than
that which he administered to his disciples: if then he did
not institute that for all believers capable, they have no
right to any part of it by virtue of Christ's institution ; it
can be to them no sacrament for whom it was not instituted
by Christ, since, by the definition of the Trent council, the
Sacraments of the New Testament were all instituted by
him ; they expect no blessing from it, since that depends
upon Christ's ordinance ; nay, they must be esteemed sacri-
legious usurpers, as laying claim to that sacrament which
never by Christ's institution did belong to them. If Christ
did institute that sacrament for all believers capable, that
is, to be a standing ordinance, by which, as his disciples then
did, so all believers capable should afterward eat of what he
called his body, and drink of what he called his blood; then
did he institute it to be received of all that were fitted for,
and capable to receive it, and in it said unto them, “Drink
ye all of this.”
This appears farther, from the reason annexed to the re-
ceiving of the sacrament by Christ's apostles; for, since
* Quare in hóc articulo, qui non est principalis articulus
fidei, debeat talis intellectus asseri, propter quem fides
pateat contemptui omnium sequentium rationem? In 4
Sent. distinct. 11, q. 3, lit. -
iſ Est contra humanum morem, contra pietatem, carnem
Christi vel sanguinem, imó Deum et hominem ab hominibus,
magistrum a discipulis, dominum a servis, Christum a Chris-
tianis, manibus frangi, dentibus atteri, et, escarum more
communium, devorari. Ed. Erasm. f. 215.
# Sess. 7, cap. 1.
fended because of me this night: for it is written, I
will Smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock
shall be scattered abroad (Zech. xiii. 7, and this will
be fulfilled in you).
32. But after I am risen again, I will go before you
into Galilee.
33 Peter answered and said to him, Though all
men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never
be offended (on that account).
34 Jesus said to him, Verily I say to thee, That
this night, before the * cock crow (in the morning),
thou shalt deny me thrice.
35 Peter said to him (again), Though I should die
that reason equally concerns all believers capable and
fitted to receive it, the institution must concern them all.
Now the reason why Christ said to his apostles, “Take and
eat” what I have broken, is by himself declared to be this ;
because it was his body broken, or his body given for them :
“Take it,” saith Christ, “this is my body given for you.”
This therefore being the reason why they were to take and
eat; and this reason concerning all believers capable and
fitted to receive it, as much as the apostles and succeeding
priests, the institution or command to take and eat must
equally concern them. This argument transferred upon
the cup runs thus: The reason of the participating of the
cup, viz. because “it is the blood of the New Testament,
which is shed for the remission of sins,” doth concern laics
as well as priests, his blood being equally shed for both ;
therefore the command, “Drink ye all of this,” to which
the reason is annexed, concerns them also. Again, another
reason why Christ said to his apostles, “Eat this bread and
drink this cup,” was that by so doing they might remember
his death, his body broken, and his blood shed for them, saith
St. Luke ; and “show it forth till his second coming,” saith
St. Paul. Now this, as St. Paul clearly shows in his dis-
course to the Corinthians, and all the world believes, as
well concerneth all believers as it doth priests; and there-
fore the drinking of the cup, by which, as well as eating of
the bread, this commemoration is by our Lord's institution
to be made, must equally concern them.
* Wer. 29. I will not henceforth drink of the fruit of the
vine, &c.] Of this and the following verse, see note on Mark
xiv. 25, 26.
* Ver. 31. IIáyrs; tºsſ; a navòaxia Shorea.Se. All ye shall be
offended, for it is written, I will Smite the shepherd, &c.]
It is certain that these words, “All ye shall be offended be-
cause of me,” must signify a great sin in his disciples ; viz.
that of deserting their Lord, and ceasing to own themselves
his disciples, which was a virtual renouncing their Master;
for a kavčaxićsa-Sat #y goi, “to be scandalized because of me,”
never bears any other sense in the New Testament (see
the note on Matt. xi. 6. xviii. 6). The words of Zachary,
xiii. 7, seem primarily to be understood of an evil shepherd,
or of such evil teachers to whom God threateneth the sword.
Christ therefore seemeth here to mention them, not as a
prediction concerning him and his apostles, but only as a
proverbial expression, or rather an argument à majori, that
if this would happen on-the account of Smiting an evil shep-
herd, much more at the smiting the good and great shepherd
of the sheep.
* Ver. 34. Tigły &Aéx'roga povăcăt, Before the cock crow,
Trpiv h \ic polyſa'ai, before he crow twice, Mark xiv. 30.]
Here note, that there is a double crowing of the cock men-
tioned by heathen authors, Ammianus,” Aristophanes,'i'
and Juvenal;f the first was about midnight, the second at
the fourth watch of the night, or the breaking in of the day :
and this latter, as being the louder and more observable, in
the enumeration of the times of the night, is that which is
properly called &AEwrogopovia or cock-crowing: so Mark
xiii. 35. “Ye know not when the Son of man comes, in the
evening, or at midnight, &AExtegopowiak, or at cock-crow-
* Lib. xxii. * g
+"ots r *sūrºpov &Aewrévêy ####yyºro ºn". P. 735. tº
it Quid tamen ad cantum galli facit ille secundi. Sat. ix.
ver. 106. -
176
MATTHEW.
with thee, yet will I not deny thee. (And) likewise
also said all the disciples. *
36 Then cometh Jesus with them to a place called
Gethsemane (situate between the river Cedron, men-
tioned John xviii. 1, and the mount of Olives, ver. 20),
and saith to the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and
pray yonder.
ing, or in the morning.” So Censorinus * and Macrobius +
reckon “from midnight to cock-crowing, and from thence to
the morning;” and Julius Polluxt says the same. Of this
crowing of the cock is St. Matthew and the other evange-
lists to be understood, when they relate Christ's words thus,
“before the cock crow” (i.e. before that time of the night
which bears that name, and that crowing of the cock which
is emphatically so called), “thou shalt deny me thrice,” as
appears from St. Mark, saying, that “the cock crew” after
his first denial of Christ, xiv. 68, and crew the second time
after his third denial, ver, 72.
* Ver. 38. Hepiavité, Éariv h \vyń wou #2; Savárov, My
soul is eaceeding sorrowful, even to death.] There be many
circumstances in our Saviour's passion which seem to show
his sorrow was exceeding great, and much surpassing the
common Sorrow of many who have been condemned to die.
AS, v. g.
First, The emphatical expressions by which the scrip-
ture represents these sorrows ; for, to express the greatness
of them, they are here styled deadly sorrows: it was sor-
row which reached to and surrounded his whole soul, it
filled him with grief of heart, for #8%aro Avºreſa Sat, “he be-
gan to be grieved,” saith St. Matthew, ver. 37, #2Sap,8sſ, Sai,
“to be filled with fear and anguish,” saith St. Mark, xiv. 33,
33mºoveſ, “to be faint and restless in his spirit,” say they both.
Secondly, The greatness of the sorrows he endured, may
be concluded from his importunate petitions to be delivered
from what he feared ; for he pathetically cries out, “O my
Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me:” this
prayer he thrice repeats upon his knees, and falling flat upon
his face, to show the strength and vehemence of this desire ;
and yet St. Luke adds, that being in an agony, he prayed
inteviatigov, “with greater vehemency” than before (Luke
xxii. 24); he put up prayers and supplications with strong
clies and tears (Heb. v. 7); and sure that cup must be ex-
ceeding bitter, which he so highly dreaded, and, with such
cries and tears and humble importunities, desired to be de-
livered from.
Thirdly, This will appear if we consider the agonies he
suffered in the garden upon the apprehension of this bitter
cup ; for such was then his sorrow, that it forced open all
his pores, and made even clots of blood to issue from them ;
now if a sudden watery sweat shows an extremity of fear
and consternation of the mind, who can sufficiently conceive
the greatness ofthat horror which produced these clots of blood?
Fourthly, This will be farther evident from the considé-
ration of that angel, which, by God’s commission, came from
heaven to strengthen and support him under the apprehen-
sion of his sufferings ; for sure that burden must be very
weighty, which our Lord seemed thus unable to sustain, and
* which his Father seemed so concerned to support him.
In 2
Fifthly, This may be probably concluded from that pa-
thetical expression with which his soul expired, viz. “My
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (see the note
on xxvii. 46.)
I add, that this excess of sorrow could not arise merely
from the apprehension that he was to die, that his soul was
for a season to be separated from his body, or that he
was to suffer a death full of pain and ignominy. For (1.) the
apostle doth inform us that “he was heard,” i. e. delivered
from his fear (Heb. v. 7, see the note there): and yet we
* Apud Macrobium occurrit mediae noctis inclinatio,deinde
gallicinium, deinde diluculum. Saturnalium, lib. i. cap. 3.
t Incipio à media nocte, quod tempus postremum est diei
Romani: tempus quod huic proximum est vocatur de me-
dia nocte, sequitur gallicinium, clim galli canere incipiunt.
Censor, cap. 19. Inter partes noctis enumerat.
f Pollux ºvoy vixto, &AExtpuévay 333; kai ră şeşpsy. Lib,
i, cap. 7, §. 8.
37 And he took with.him Peter and the two sons
of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy
(and afraid, Mark xiv. 33).
38 Then saith he to them, “My soul is exceeding
sorrowful, even to death: tarry ye here, and watch
with me (against temptation).
39 And he went a little farther (about a stone’s-
know he was not delivered from the pain and ignominy of
the cross, but suffered death upon it. (2.) If this excess of
sorrow and consternation of his soul proceeded only from
the fear of such a death as any mortal man might suffer,
for which he knew he should be gloriously rewarded, and
from which he knew he should in three days be delivered ;
we must confess he was more troubled at the apprehension
of it than Socrates and many other philosophers of old,
who had learned wi iv raï, a vºzºogaſ, Treptățn ov, Ütrápxsw,
“not to be much afflicted with calamities ;” who suffered
death with an undaunted courage, and waxed not pale at the
divulsion or breaking of their limbs, though they had no such
encouragements to suffer as he had ; and that he was far
more timorous than were those martyrs who, with un-
daunted courage, suffered for his sake the greatest cruel-
ties: and yet it is very difficult to assign any other cause
of this excess of sorrow which then seized him ; it being
certain,
First, That he could not lie under the sense of any anger
or indigmation God had conceived against him ; for sure he
could not think God was then angry with him, when he
was doing an act of most profound obedience to him, for
which he had declared his Father loved him, and for which
he knew he would reward him ; nor is this well consistent
with his eommending his soul into the hands of his affec-
tionate Father, his assurance he should go to paradise, or
his constant faith that he was still “the Son of God, in
whom his soul delighted.” And hence it follows,
Secondly, That he could not lie under any doubtings of
his Father's love, or any despondings upon that account;
for he still addresses to him as his God and Father, and
commends his spirit into his Father's hands ; he declares
his “Father therefore loved him, because he laid down his
life for his sheep” (John x. 17). And he thus suffered in
prospect of “the joy” or the reward of these his sufferings
from God “set before him " And this demonstratively fol-
lows from this consideration, that had he then doubted of
God’s love and favour to him, he could not at the same time
have believed that he was “the Son of God in whom he
delighted ;” and so, though Satan did not prevail upon him
at the first, he must have in this last temptation induced him
to doubt of this particular. Nor,
Thirdly, Can I believe that God laid any grief or punish-
ment upon the soul of Christ by his immediate hand. I
have declared my opinion that it is not necessary to say
the future evils which the souls of wicked men shall suffer
come from God’s immediate hand ; and endeavoured to
show that they may be accounted for, by considering their
perpetual exclusion from a state of happiness, their eter-
mal duration, and from the natural workings of their con-
Sciences in such a state ; and what God doth not do to the
wicked, doubtless he did not to his own beloved Son, when
he became obedient to the death at his command. And,
secondly, I am not able to conceive what he could suffer
from the immediate hand of God; could God withdraw
from him the sense of his favour, and yet not only highly
love him at the same time for this very action, but set before
him the joy and the reward he would confer upon him for
thus suffering 2 If there were any seeming diminution of the
sense of the divine lové, and of that sense of joy and con-
solation which deriveth from it, that may be better attri-
buted to his excess of sorrow, which so possessed him, as
that his human nature could not as formerly attend to the
consideration of it: and this being innocent in itself, and
sometimes incident to the most pious men, might then
befall our Saviour, when he was “in all things, sin only ex-
cepted” to be “made like to us, that he might succour us
when tempted” (Heb. ii. 17, 18. iv. 15, 16). Or did he raise
within him any sense of what might justly be inflicted on
him for the sin of man, when he thus undertook to suffer
in his stead? This surely must be needless, in respect to
CHAPTER XXVI.
- 177
cast from them), and "fell upon his face, and prayed,
saying, O my Father, if it be possible (that thy glory
and the salvation of men may equally be promoted
otherways), let this cup pass from me: nevertheless
(be it) not as I will, but as thou wilt; (then an angel
appeared to him from heaven, to strengthen him, Luke
xxii. 43, 44.) -
40 And (then) he cometh to the (three) disciples,
and findeth them asleep, and saith to Peter, (Why
i. you?) What, could ye not watch with me one
Our -
41 Watch and pray, that ye enter not into tempta-
tion (so as to be foiled by it); the "spirit indeed is
willing (to make good resolutions, ver. 35), but the
flesh is weak (and so unable to perform them without
divine assistance, to be obtained by prayer, and im-
proved by vigilance).
42 He went away again the second time, and (being
heard, in that he feared, Heb. v. 7, he) prayed, saying,
O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me,
except I drink it, thy will be done. -
43 And he came (back to the disciples), and found
them asleep again: for their eyes were heavy (and
they knew not what to answer him, Mark xiv. 40).
44 And he left them, and went away again, and
prayed the third time, saying the same words.
45 Then cometh he to his disciples, and saith to
them,” Sleep on now, and take your rest (for by your
watching ye can show no farther kindness to, or concern
for me); behold, the hour (of my apprehension) is at
hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands
of sinners.
46 Rise, let us be going: behold, he is at hand
that doth betray me.
47 And while he yet spake, lo, Judas, one of the
twelve, came, and with him a great multitude with
swords and staves, from the chief priests and elders
of the people.
him who had the clearest view of the desert and heinous-
ness of sin, and the most perfect knowledge of what God's
law had threatened to it. This apprehension I conceive
most likely to have been the ground of this our Saviour's
bitter agony ; but then this was the product not of God’s
immediate hand, but of his perfect knowledge, purity, and
hatred of sin. Thirdly, Add to this, that the scripture
seems to be wholly silent in this matter ; it saith, indeed,
“The Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all,” or “made our
sins to meet upon him” (Isa. liii. 6): but surely they then
only were thus laid on him when he bare them. Now St.
Peter doth assure us, that “he bare our sins in his own body
on the tree;” and that by the stripes with which he was there
smitten, “we are healed” (1 Pet. ii. 24, 25). Again, it is
said, “He gave his soul an offering for sin” (Isa. liii. 10):
but then it is evident to a demonstration, that “his soul”
there only signifies his life; for so it follows, ver. 12, “He
poured forth his soul unto death ;” in which sense Christ
himself declares that he did 800Val rºy Juxºv aircü, “give his
life a ransom for many” (Matt. xx. 28). It is farther said,
that “he was made a curse for us” (Gal. iii. 13): but then
it is declared expressly, that he was only so by being “hanged
on a tree,” or by suffering that death which all that suffered
were by the law pronounced accursed (see the note there).
Lastly, It is often said, “He suffered for our sins, the just
for the unjust :” but then it well deserves to be observed,
that the scripture represents him as doing the great work
of redemption, rather by what he suffered for us in the
body than by what he suffered in his soul; for it informs us
that “he bare our sins in his own body on the tree,” that
“we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Christ
once,” that “he died, and suffered for our sins” (Heb. x. 10.
1 Pet. ii. 24); and yet it was not his soul, but his body only
which was subject to death ; that “he shed, he poured out
his blood for the remission of our sins,” that “he washed us
from our sins in his blood,” that “he made our peace
through the blood of the cross,” that “he obtained eternal
redemption for us by his own blood,” that “he sanctified us
by his own blood,” and by it “cleanseth us from all sin,”
that “we have redemption through his blood, even the re-
mission of sins,” and that “he is our propitiation through
faith in his blood.” The sacrament we are to celebrate in
thankful remembrance of what he suffered for us, doth only
call us to remember that “his body was given or broken for
us, and his blood shed for the remission of our sins;” so
that if we would speak according to the constant language
of the Holy Ghost in scripture, we must ascribe the work
of our redemption to our Lord's sufferings in the body for
us; in which it is certain that he could suffer nothing an-
swerable unto the punishment of damned spirits, but only
“gave his life a ransom for many.”
” Wer. 39. "Eweasy ini rešo wºrow. He fell upon his face,
&c.] At first he fell upon his knees, and afterward upon
his face, saying, “Father, si èvvaty, if it be possible” (i. e.
if it be so, not in the nature of the thing, for thus he de-
clared, “all things were possible” to his Father, Mark xiv.
35, 36, but according to his decree, and the divine wisdom,
if that saw any other way, by which his glory, and the sal-
vation of men, might equally be consulted), “let this cup
pass from me ;” and when he saith (ver. 42), “if this cup
cannot pass from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.”
As this prayer is in effect the same with the former, it being
said, that he prayed thrice, “ saying the same words,” so the
import of it seems to be to this effect; Though the condi-
tion of human nature prompts me to desire freedom from
this bitter cup, yet seeing “for this end came I to this
hour” (John xii. 27), and had a body prepared for me, that
being obedient in it to the death, I might “do thy will, O
God!” (Heb. x. 5. 7) I submit my natural to thy divine
will. -
My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.]
Woltzogenius here notes, that it is evident that Christ could
not be truly God ; because he could not deliver himself
from death, but was forced to pray to his Father for that
deliverance. I answer, that hence indeed it follows, that he
would not do this ; but that he could not do it, is evidently
false: for he who, with a word, struck all those who came
to apprehend him to the ground, could certainly have
escaped out of their hands, had he so pleased.
18 Ver. 41. To trysipa ºrgášup.oy, # 33 a 36% &c. Seyā; Watch
and pray, &c, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.]
What it is to enter into temptation, see note on Matt. vi.
13. Christ therefore here bids them to pray, not that they
might not be tempted; for that this should befall them, our
Lord assured them when he said, “Satan had desired to
sift them as wheat” (Luke xxii. 31); but that they might
not give place to it, or fall by it into sin. The following
words, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,” are not
intended as an excuse, or mitigation of their sin, but as a
motive to this prayer and vigilance ; as if he should have
said, You have all made large promises that if you should
die with me you would not forsake me, and this you said
readily, and with a purpose so to do ; yet let me tell you
that when the temptation actually assaults—when fear,
shame, pain, the danger of punishment, and death, are
within view, and present to your sense, the weakness of the
flesh will certainly prevail over these resolutions, if you use
not the greatest vigilance, and do not pray with fervency
for the divine assistance.
19 Wer. 45. Sleep on now, &c.] For by your watching
you can show no farther kindness and concern for me, who
am now to be delivered into the hands of them who are
emphatically styled sinners of the gentiles, Gal. ii. 15. Or,
xaôºers ºr xolºry, “sleep hereafter, and take your rest: ”
behold, now is no time of sleeping, for the hour of your and
my temptation is at hand. So Phavorinus saith, tº Aotºv
3yri roi; &noxoč8wç, the word Mottröy signifies hereafter: it sig-
nifies, saith Stephanus, deinceps, postea. So may rô Aotºry
well be rendered, Acts xxvii. 20. 1 Cor. i. 16. 2 Cor. xiii. 11.
2 Tim. iv. 8. Heb. x. 13. And this interpretation seems to
be confirmed by the word &méxel, added by St. Mark, ch.
xiv. It is enough that you have slept already : or if, with
the Vulgar, the Glossaries, and our Bois, we here interpret
rô Aoimºy, jam, now, as our translation doth, these words,
178
MATTHEW.
48 Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign,
saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, the same is he
*hold him fast (and lead him away securely, Mark xiv.
44. See John xviii. 8. 12). -
49 And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail,
Master; and kissed him.
50 And Jesus said to him, Friend, wherefore art
thou come 2 (Is it to betray the Son of man with a
kiss 8 Luke xxii. 48.) Then came they, and laid hands
on Jesus, and took him.
51 And, behold, one of them which were with
Jesus (to wit, Simon Peter, seeing what was done, said,
Master, shall I smite with the sword 8 Luke xxii. 49,
and straightway he) stretched out his hand, and drew
his sword, and struck a servant of the high-priest's,
and smote off his (right) ear (and the name of that
servant was Malchus, John xviii. 10).
52 Then said Jesus to him, Put up again thy Sword
into its place: *for all they that take the sword shall
perish with the sword (see the note here).
53 Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my
Father, and he shall presently give me more than
twelve legions of angels (for my defence) 8
54 But (should I do this) how then shall the scrip-
ture be fulfilled, that thus it must be 2 (or, how can I
refuse the cup which my Father hath given me to drink 8
John xviii. 11.)
55 In that same hour Jesus said to the multitudes
(sent to apprehend him), Are ye come (now) out as
against a thief with swords and staves for to take me
(whereas) I sat daily with you teaching in the temple,
and ye laid no hold on me (but this is your hour, and
the power of darkness, Luke xxii. 53).
being rendered interrogatively, give the sense thus: Do you
sleep now, and take your rest, when the hour of temptation
and the traitor is at hand P 'Amréxst, it is enough that you
have slept so long ; “arise now, and let us go hence.”
* Ver. 48. Hold him fast.] See note on Mark xiv. 44.
* Ver, 52. Put wip thy sword into its place, rávre, yāg of
Aa3ávºriç (wáxatgay, #y ºaxaipº 3roxotivtat, for all that take
the sword shall perish by the sword..] St. Austin here tells
us, Gladium accipit quisquis, magistrată legitimo non conce-
dente, eo utitur ad sanguinem proximi fundendum ; “He
takes the sword, who uses it to shed his neighbour's blood,
without license from the magistrate: ” which certainly is
true of private persons in all cases, seeing self-defence
against the assault of another private person is permitted
by the magistrate : for if it be once granted that private
persons, when they conceive that they are injured by him,
may take up the sword against the magistrate, and repel
force by force, tumults will be endless, and the authority of
laws and the decision of judges will be precarious, it being
ordinary for private persons, and for all sects and parties
who are restrained by the laws, to think that they are in-
jured; but yet it is not certain that this is the true import
of these words, which Grotius and others thus interpret,
“Put up thy sword,” thou needest not to use it in my cause
against the injuries of the Jews, for, by God's sentence and
decree, they that take the sword to shed the blood of the
innocent, shall perish by the sword ; and this the Jews will
find by that tremendous vengeance the sword of the Ro-
mans shall execute upon them for this fact. And this in-
terpretation is confirmed from the like words used, Rev.
xiii. 10, viz. “He that killeth (you) with the sword, shall
be killed with the sword (of Christ); here is (the ground of)
the faith and patience of the saints ;” viz. that that God,
“to whom vengeance belongeth,” will plead their cause,
and recompense vengeance to their enemies (Rom. xii. 19).
** Ver. 57. To Caiaphas.] See note on Mark xiv. 53.
* Ver. 59, 60. They sought false witnesses, and found
none..] See note on Mark xiv. 55, 56.
* Wer. 62. Ti otºroi arov xaragagrupowaiy; What is it that
these witness against thee ?] Note here, that ri is frequently
put for 31& ri; why? so Matt. viii. 26, ri Seixotia'rs ; “Why
are ye fearful ?” Luke ii. 48, ri insing ac; “Why hast thou
56 But all this was done, that the scriptures of the
prophets might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples
forsook him, and fled. -
57 And they that had laid hold on Jesus led him
away to (Annas first, John xviii. 13, 14, and thence to)
|*Caiaphas the high-priest, where the scribes and the
elders were assembled.
58 But Peter followed him afar off to the high-
priest’s palace, and (being introduced by another dis-
ciple, John xviii. 15, 16) went in, and sat with the ser-
vants, to see the end (of this matter).
59 Now the chief priests, and elders, and all the
council, * sought false witness against Jesus to put
him to death;
60 But found none: yea, though many false wit-
nesses came, yet found they none (that could testify
anything against him which deserved death). At the
last came two false witnesses, -
61 And said, This fellow said, I am able to destroy
the temple of God, and to build it in three days.
62 And (then) the high-priest arose, and said to
him, Answerest thou nothing? “What is it which
these witness against thee R (Gr. Why do these witness
(thus) against thee, if it were not true?) -
63 But Jesus held his peace. And the high-priest
answered and said to him, *I adjure thee by the
living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the
Christ, the Son of God (or not).
64 Jesus saith to him, (It is as) thou hast said:
* nevertheless, I say to you, Hereafter shall ye see
the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power,
and coming in the clouds of heaven (i.e. you ask me
whether I am the Christ, and will not believe that I am
dealt thus with us?” John i. 25, ri oiſy 8am rićsic ; “Why
then baptizest thou?” Mark ii. 16, ri Śri ; “Why is it that
he eats with publicans?” (see more examples in the note
there.) So that these words seem to be better rendered,
either as in the paraphrase, or, “to what end do men wit-
mess against thee, if thou wilt answer nothing P”
* Ver. 63. 'E:opkića, as wară roi; Geoff. I adjure thee by
the living God, that thou tell me, whether thou art
the Christ, the Son of God?] That this adjuration was
equivalent to an oath, is proved, note on Matt. v. 34, 1
Thess. v. 27. This question in St. Luke runs thus, “Art
thou the Christ?” (xxii. 67.) Whence it is highly proba-
ble, that, in the Jewish sense, to be “the Christ,” or “the
Messiah,” and to be “the Son of God,” was the same
thing,
#ver. 64. 'Ar' àpri 3.Jerºe rāy vičy roi; 3,963rov Rabhaeyov
in ºtöv rā; 8vápago'º, Kai Éexáſzavoy Émi răy vetºv rod cipayot,
From henceforth ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the
right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.]
Here note, (1.) that “the right hand of power,” or great-
ness, as it is in Heb. i. 13. viii. 1, is the right hand of God,
who by the Jews is called Power. So Buxtorf in the word
nºmini saith, the word is used by the rabbins and the cabal-
ists as an epithet of God, it being usual with them to say,
This comes Timinin Bn, i. e. from the mouth of God. So
Kimchi on Josh. vii. what was said to Moses, lepani hage-
bara, before God: and Ainsworth on Numb. vii. informs
us, that Solomon Jarchi saith, Moses received not the offer-
ings of the princes at the dedication of the tabernacle, “till
he was commanded by the mouth of the Power,” that is, of
God (xxii. 69). Note, (2) that to come in or with the
clouds of heaven, was by the Jews looked on as a certain
indication of their Messiah: so the Targum on 1 Chron. iii.
24, “And the sons of Elioenai are Hodaiah ºwn and Anani,
He is the king Messiah, who is to be revealed.” So Tan-
chum, He is the king Messiah : for it is said, Dan. vii. 13,
“I saw in a vision of the night, and behold, ºy By he comes
with the clouds,” or, “as the Son of man;” and in the Tal-
mud, in the treatise of the Sanhedrin, the Messias is called
Bar Nepheli, “the Son of the clouds,” which, saith R.
David Cohen de Lara, is the Greek word ve?Exai, clouds, an-
swering to hananim, and that the Messiah is so called, be-
CHAPTER XXVII.
179
so ; but ye shall shortly be convinced of it by the mis-
sion of the Holy Ghost from heaven, and by my coming
in the clouds of heaven to take vengeance on you for ||
your unbelief).
65 Then the high-priest * rent his clothes, saying,
He hath spoken blasphemy; what farther need have
we of witnesses behold, now ye have heard his
blasphemy.
66 What think ye (of it) * They answered and
said, He is guilty of death. -
67 Then did they (who were officers of the court)
spit in his face, and (they) buffeted him; and others
(of them) smote him with the palms of their hands
(speaking many blasphemous words against him, Luke
xxii. 65, and)
68 Saying, Prophesy to us, thou Christ, Who is he
that smote thee -
69 Now Peter sat without in the palace; and * a
damsel came to him, saying, Thou also wast with
Jesus of Galilee.
70 But he denied (it) before them all, saying, I
know not (anything of) what thou sayest.
71 And when he was gone out into the porch, ano-
ther maid saw him, and said to them that were there,
This fellow was also with Jesus of Nazareth.
72 And again he denied (it) with an oath (saying),
I do not *know the man.
73 And after a while came to him they that stood
by, and said to Peter, Surely, thou also art one of
them; for thy speech bewrayeth thee.
74 Then began he to curse and to swear, saying,
I know not the man. And immediately (after he had
said this) the cock crew. - :
75 And Peter remembered the words of Jesus,
who said to him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt
deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly.
cause it is written in Daniel, “Behold, one like the Son of
man came with the clouds of heaven.” Now hence we
learn how apposite Christ's answer is to the question of the
high-priest ; viz. You ask me whether I am the Christ, and
will not believe that I am so, but you shall shortly be con-
vinced of it to your great sorrow, when you see me coming
with the “clouds of heaven,” to take vengeance on you for
your unbelief. Note also, that these words cannot relate to
the final day of judgment, because it is said 3r’āpri, “within
a little while,” and by St. Luke, &md rot voy, “from this
time,” shall ye see the Son of man coming, &c. Moreover,
as his sitting at the right hand of Power was visible to them
by the effusion of the Holy Ghost, so was his coming to the
destruction of Jerusalem (see note on xxiv. 30).
” Wer. 65. Then the high-priest rent his clothes.] This
is expressly forbidden the high-priest, not only as to his Sa-
cerdotal vestments, but also as to his other garments (Lev.
xxi.), because he was not to appear before God in the habit
of a mourner'; but they by their traditions had so qualified
that precept, as to allow the high-priest to rend his clothes
at the bottom, but allowed him not to do it from the top to
the breast ; so Cunaeus de Rep. lib. ii. cap. 3, though others
say, he only was forbidden so to do in the time of his mi-
mistry: for Jonathan the high-priest rends his clothes, 1
Macc. xi. 71, and in Josephus” we read twice in one chap-
ter, that “the high-priests rā, śa.6%rac Šień%avro, rent their
clothes.”
* Ver. 69. Peter sat without in the hall, kal mporâA0sy
air; Exia trai?iawn, and a damsel came to him, &c.] To re-
concile the seeming contrarieties in the evangelists, observe,
First, That whereas St. Matthew says, “Peter sat,” St.
John, that he “stood,” he might do both, being sometimes
sitting, and sometimes standing.
Secondly, Whereas it is said here he “sat without,” and
yet, ver. 58, that he followed Christ “into the high-priest's
palace,” both are true ; he being without that place where
Christ was examined by the council, but not without the
door of the house of Caiaphas; for afterward he went out
of it (ver. 75).
Thirdly, Whereas the damsel here saith to Peter, “Thou
wast with Jesus;” but the person in St. John, xviii. 25,
“Art thou not one of his disciples P” it may be answered,
that the question in St. John, according to the Hebrew way
33
* De Bell. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 26, 27.
of speaking, is equivalent to an affirmation ; and his disci-
ples being all with him when he was apprehended, to be
then with him, and to be one of his disciples, must be the
SaM16.
Fourthly, Whereas here in Matthew, and St. Mark, the
second person who said, “This man was with Jesus,” was
#Axm, “another woman,” ver. 71, raičiazn, “a damsel,”
Mark xiv. 69, in Luke, Éregoº, another person said, “Thou
art one of them,” Luke xxii. 58, I think not fit, in an-
swer to this, to say Érego; may signify another, whether man
or woman, as some do ; for Peter's answer is, “Man, I am
not.” The text affords us a better answer, viz. that the
damsel said the second time, “This man was with Jesus;”
but then she said this, not to Peter, but roi; inst, ver. 71,
roi; ºraged ºrnwáaly, “to the standers by,” Mark xiv. 69, and
said only oºroº, “this man” was one of them ; upon this, a
man of the company accosts him personally, saying, ai,
“Thou art one of them.”
* Ver. 72. Oüx of a röy 3,080mov, I know not the man.]
Very frivolous is the excuse of Hilary * here, and St. Am-
brose + on Luke xxii. which they make for Peter, saying,
“He lied not in saying, I know not the man; because he
knew him to be God: ” for this is, saith St. Jerome, iſ “so
to defend the servant as to accuse his Master of a lie: ” for
if St. Peter did not deny him, Christ must have falsely said,
“Thou shalt deny me thrice.” Cornelius à Lapide ingenu-
ously confesseth, that he sinned mortally, by denying Christ
with his mouth, and by that denial “fell from grace ; ” and
it is certain, that by confirming this denial “with an oath,”
and adding horrid execrations to it, his sin was highly aggra-
wated. I therefore would not willingly say, as our best di-
vines do, that his sin was a sin of infirmity ; it being hard
to conceive he could do all this without great checks of his
conscience ; but rather, that his bitter weeping, and his
quick repentance, after Christ looked upon him, made atone-
ment for it.
[See the appendix to this chapter at the end of this gos-
pel.]
* Nec enim mentiebatur qui eum hominem se nósse ne-
gabat, quem Deum cognoscebat. In Matt. con. 31.
+ In Lucam, p. 155.
# Hoc autem est ita defendere apostolum, ut Deum men-
dacii reum faciant; si enim iste non negavit, mentitus est
Dominus, qui dixerat ei, Ter me negabis.
CHAPTER XXVII.
1 WHEN the morning (of the second day of the
paschal feast) was come, all the chief priests and elders
of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to
death: w
2 And (accordingly) when they had bound him,
they led him away, (from the house of Caiaphas to the
judgment-hall, John xviii. 28), and delivered him to
Pontius Pilate the governor, (as one who by their law
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXVII.
* Wer. 1. IIpaña; 33 yeyop,ávnº, When the morning was
come.] This was the morning of the 15th of Nisan, and so
the first day of the feast, as to the holy convocation ; but
the second day as to the putting away leaven out of their
families, which was to be done on the fourteenth day on
the evening (see the appendix to ch. xiv. of St. Mark).
N 2
180 MATTHEW.
-
was to die as a blasphemer, John xii. 7. and by the
Roman laws, as one who forbade the people to pay tri-
bute to Caesar, and made himself a king in prejudice to
Caesar, Luke xxiii. 2. John xii. 12).
3 Then Judas, which had betrayed him (to them),
when he saw that he was condemned (by them, and
rescued not himself out of their hands), repented him-
self, and (Gr. repenting) *brought again the thir
pieces of silver to the chief . and elders (whic
he had received from them, that he might betray him to
them), . y - -
4 Saying (to them), I have sinned, in that I have
betrayed the innocent blood. And they said (to him),
What is that to us? see thou to that.
5 And he cast down the pieces of silver in the tem-
* Wer. 3. ‘Atréorge J.E rā ºrbiáxovira &ºgic." Judas, when
he saw that he was condemned, repenting, returned the thirty
pieces of silver to the chief priests.] It seems to me not im-
probable, that Judas when he betrayed Christ might have
imagined, as the disciples did, and as the Jews thought of
their Messias, that he would not have died, but either would
have conveyed himself out of the soldiers’ hands, as he did
from the multitude, when they sought to stone him, or cast ||
him down a precipice; or, by some other miraculous way,
would have preserved himself; and of this opinion, saith
Theophylact, on ver. 5, were some of the fathers. And
when he saw it was otherwise, he is not only sorry for what
he had done, but confesses his sin, throws back the money
as unlawfully got, and therefore not to be retained, but re-
nounced together with the sin ; quod enim scelere partum
est, non debet retineri, sed cum ipso scelere abjici; and pro-
claims the innocency of his Lord ; yet, that his sorrow was
not that “godly sorrow that works (true) repentance,” is
evident from our Lord's declaration, xxvi. 24, that “it had
been better for him he had not been born ;” and from his
“going to his own place” (Acts i. 25). Moreover, it also
seems to me a wonderful sign of the stupidity of the chief
priests and elders, that they could answer, “What is that to
us?” for could they think it no sin to hire a man to betray
innocent blood 2 do they not confess, this very money was
the price of blood? ver, 6, and, was it not the very money
they gave to purchase that blood? and, was not the field
they bought with it styled, upon this account, “the field of
blood?” and, was not this a lasting testimony of their guilt,
whose money purchased this blood P and therefore, Stephen
roundly tells them, that they had been of reočárai, “the be-
trayers and murderers of that just one” (Acts vii. 52), and
they themselves, when the miracles done in Christ's name
had awakened them, begin to be troubled, that the apos-
§ should bring “this man's blood upon them” (Acts v.
* Ver, 5. Kał &rex8&y, 3ry:ato' And going away, he
hanged himself.] That this is the proper import of these
words, we learn from a parallel place in Arrian, upon Epic-
tetus, viz. that “It is no intolerable thing to be hanged ;
for when any man judges it reasonable so to do, he goes
and hangs himself.” It bears no other sense in Tobit, when
Sara, the daughter of Raguel, is said to be so sorry &ars 374)-
£azèat, as to think of hanging herself, iii. 10, or in the words
of Job, vii. 15, “My soul chooseth strangling,” that violent
kind of death, “rather than life.” This is evident (1.) from
the provocation which caused this grief, viz. that her maids
reproached her as ārom viyova'a, “having strangled her seven
husbands;” and seeing they were thus dead, “bade her go
after them,” ver. 8, 9, by these words putting this very
thought into her head ; whence it follows, that hearing
these things, she was so troubled, &cre &máy£a-Sal, as to
think of strangling herself. (2.) This is still farther evident
from the consideration that restrained her, not from her
grief, but from doing as they bade her, ver. 9, “If I shall do
this, I shall be a reproach to my father;” not surely by
being grieved and melancholy, but by cutting off myself by
such a kind of death as is the punishment of great male-
* Tô 3’ &máyżaoréat, oùx forty & págnºrov' &ray
- * * * * yotſy *Sn ric
&l fºoyoy, 3rºx0&y &rhy;aro, lib. i. cap. 2. -
ple, and departed, and went and *hanged himself (ew-
ecuting upon himself that judgment which he had deserved
for that fact).
6 And the chief priests took (up) the silver pieces,
and said, It is not lawful to put them (again) into the
treasury (among the oblations consecrated to the service
of God), because it is (the sum given as) the price of
blood.
7 And they took counsel (together), and bought
with them the (field, called the) potter’s field, to bury
strangers in (i. e. which they allotted for strangers to
bury their dead in).
8 Wherefore that field (being bought with that money
which was the price of blood) was called, The field of
blood, until this day.
factors, ver, 10. And,(3.) that her grief and melancholy, and
her desire of death, continued still as long as ever, appeareth
from her following prayer to God, simov, 3roxidai (ws, which
is not to be rendered as Mr. Clerc doth, “I said, Take me
away;" for the words preceding, kai yüy Kügle, will not admit
of that translation, “and now, O Lord, I said,” &c. but they
are to be rendered in the imperative thus, “And now, O.
Lord, command, or speak, that I may be taken away, and
may not hear any more these reproaches” (ver. 13); and,
“if it pleases thee not to kill me, mirašov &roAvôāyat, com-
mand that I may be delivered” (ver. 6). So again is the
phrase used of Ahithophel, 2 Sam. xvii. 23, 3rix0sy wai &rºy-
Žato, “He went away, and hanged himself;” not dying with
excess of grief and melancholy, as some think ; since that,
in all likelihood, would have hindered him from setting his
house in order, or giving such a solemn charge concerning it:
as for the Hebrew, pon, that it very properly signified such a
violent suffocation, is apparent, in that this chanak, or chin-
nuk, is one of their four kinds of death inflicted upon male-
factor, and that they used proverbially to say, * “If thou would
be strangled, hang yourself upon a great tree.” Nor is it ne-
cessary that the word should bear any other sense in AElian,t
when he says, ax&ppeara oi ºvoy fixiºrno's &AA& Kai äTréxtstye,
“scoffs have not only made men sad, but killed them ;” for
though Socrates being scoffed at, laughed ; yet, Poliager,
ătrăyżaro, “hanged himself:” for these scoffs might be said
to kill him, which caused him thus to slay himself. But
then it will be asked, how this hanging himself can be recon-
ciled with St. Peter's account of the death of Judas, that
ºrphyn; yeyépcevoc, “falling down headlong,” or, as some copies
have it, 3rongswägeyos, “thus hanging, he burst asunder, and
all his bowels gushed out:” suspensus crepuit medius, Saith
the Vulgar; that is, “leaping down, or precipitating himself
from the tree on which he hanged himself,” he had a rupture,
by reason of the great jerk of that fall, which broke his pe-
ritonaeum, and made his bowels fall into his scrotum : which
frequently happens upon leaping or other violent motions of
the lower parts. And, if this reading of the Latin and some
Greek copies be allowed, St. Peter's account will be only an
improvement of what St. Matthew said, and a declaration of
what followed upon hanging himself: or, if we retain ºrghync
yev㺠evoc, that is, saith Stephanus, in caput se deficiens ex
alto seu trenvix Seiç, and may be rendered praecipitatus, or Se-
met praecipitans crepuit medius, “and precipitating himself,
he burst in the middle ;” and then the halter which made
him ºrghync, or in caput propendens, will be still hinted at by
St. Peter. Or, if the falling of his bowels into the scrotum
be not thought sufficient to answer to those words, “his
bowels gushed out,” the rim of his belly being burst, I know
not why, in this extraordinary instance, we may not admit of
a more than ordinary providence, to render the death of this
traitor the more remarkable. Thus of Herod Agrippa, St.
Chrysostomſ: saith, that because he gave not glory to God,
Bisājāyn xai #52.5Sn rā cºrxāyxya airoij, “he burst asunder,
and his bowels gushed out.” Pleasant here is the imagina-
tion of some of the fathers, that Judas knowing that Christ
was to descend to hell to bring thence the souls that were
there, went and hanged himself, that his soul might get thi-
ther before him, and so might be thence delivered with
* Buxt. in voce chanak. + Lib. v. cap. 8.
† In Heb. hom. 26, p. 564, lib. xxxviii.
CHAPTER XXVII.
181
9 (Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by
* Jeremy the prophet, saying (in the words recorded,
Zech. xi. 12), And they took the thirty pieces of silver,
(which was) the price of him that was (so) valued,
whom they of the children of Israel did value (as a
slave, or servant: see note on xxvi. 15).
10 And gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord
appointed me.)
11 And Jesus stood before the governor; and the
governor asked him, saying, Art thou the king of the
Jews? And Jesus said to him, (It is as) thou sayest.
12 And when he was accused of the chief priests
and elders, he answered nothing (as knowing it was
to no purpose to speak to them, Luke xxii. 68).
13 Then said Pilate to him, Hearest thou not how
many things they witness against thee P (ſet thou an-
swerest nothing.) . . . .
14 And he answered him to never a word; insomuch
that the governor marvelled greatly. -
15 Now at that *feast (of the passover, John xviii.
39, kept in memory of their redemption from Egyptian
thraldom) the governor was wont to release to the
people a prisoner, whom they would (desire).
16 And they had then a notable prisoner, called
Barabbas, (guilty of robbery, John, xviii. 40, sedition,
and murder, Luke xxiii. 19). -
17 Therefore, when they were gathered together,
Pilate (hoping they would be ashamed to release such a
villain) said to them, Whom will you that I (should)
release to you? Barabbas, or Jesus who is called
Christ (the King of the Jews? Mark xv. 9).
the rest (so Theophanes, hom. 27, p. 202. Theophylact, in
locum). Better is their note upon his returning the thirty
pieces of silver, viz. that quod scelere partum est, non debet
retineri, sed cum ipso scelere rejici : “that which is got by
wickedness, ought not to be retained, but returned, and re-
jected with the sin.”
* Ver. 9. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken, 31&
'Isºziou roi; ºrpoºphºrov, by Jeremiah the prophet.] Against the
truth of this the Jews object, that the words cited here are
not to be found in Jeremy, but only in the prophet Zachary.
To which the learned answer:
First, That it is not certain that the word Jeremy was
in the original copies ; for the Syriac and Persic versions
have it not: So when this objection was made in St. Augus-
tine's" time, he answers, “Let this objector know that all
copies read not, By Jeremy the prophet, but some only, By
the prophet; we may say therefore, those copies are most to
be relied on which have not the name of Jeremy ;” but then
he ingenuously confesses that he durst not depend upon this
answer, because most of the Latin and most Greek copies
had the word Jeremy; and it is not to be thought, they
would have put in a word to make the scripture faulty.
Secondly, Dr. Lightfoot says, the prophecy of Jeremiah
was placed first in the volume of the prophets, and so be-
came the running title of that whole volume: so that what
was writ in any of them, might be said to be written by Je-
remy the prophet ; but, though Jeremy might be placed
first, I can hardly think that Jeremy the prophet should
signify the prophet Isaiah ; and finding no other words of
other prophets cited thus in the whole New Testament, I can
hardly believe these words cited after this manner. And
therefore, - -
Thirdly, Observe, that St. Jerome+ expressly affirms,
that these very words, “were writ,” and read by him “in
an apocryphal book of the prophet Jeremy.” And seeing
* Primö noverint non omnes codices evangeliorum habere
quod per ‘Jeremiam' dictum sit, sed tantummodó per ‘pro-
phetam ;’ possumus ergö dicere, his potitis codicibus esse cre-
dendum, qui Jeremiae nomen non habent. De Consens.
Evang. lib. iii. cap. 7, tom. iv. p. 485.
+ Leginuper in quodam Hebraico volumine, quod Naza-
renae sectae Hebraeus mihi obtulit, Hieremiae apocryphum, in
quo hac adverbum scripta reperi. Hieron, in locum.
18 (And this notorious malefactor he proposed to
them, to preserve Jesus); for he knew that for envy
they had delivered him (i. e. Jesus, into his hands).
19 When he was set down on the judgment-seat,
his wife sent to him (a messenger), saying, Have thou
nothing to do with (the condemnation of) that just
man: for I have suffered many things this day in a
dream because of him (which convince me it will be
dangerous for thee to condemn him).
20. But the chief priests and elders persuaded the
multitude that they should ask Barabbas, and (desire
the governor to) destroy Jesus. -
21 (Then) the governor (being willing to release
Jesus, Luke xxiii. 20) answered, and (átrokptSeiç,
speaking again) said to them, Whether of the twain
(mentioned) will ye that I release to you? They said,
(Let it be) Barabbas.
22 Pilate said to them, What shall I do them with
Jesus who is called Christ They all (in compliance
with the chief priests and elders, ver. 20) said to him,
Let him be crucified.
23 And the governor said, Why, (I find no cause of
death in him, Luke xxiii. 22), what evil hath he done
(to deserve it)? But they cried out the more, saying,
Let him be crucified.
24 When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing
(in behalf of Christ), but that rather a tumult was
Ale, "he took water, and washed his hands, before
the multitude, saying, (I by this ceremony declare, that)
I am innocent of (from) the blood of this just person:
see ye to it (that it lie not heavy upon you).
we find, 2 Macc. ii. from ver. 1–9, many words spoken
by the prophet Jeremy, which are not in the book of his
prophecy, why might not these words also have been spo-
ken by him, and kept in memory, or in some writing, till
the time of Zachary 2 Of whom it is observable, that he
loved to use the words of Jeremy, as will appear by com-
paring Zech. i. 4 with Jer. xviii. 11, and Zech. iii. 8 with
Jer. xxiii. 5. Hence the Jews used to say, “the spirit of
Jeremy was in Zachary,” and so both made but one pro-
phet; and the Bishop of Bath and Wells and Mr. Mede
think it highly probable, that Jeremiah wrote the ninth,
tenth, and the eleventh chapters of Zechariah, in which last
chapter these words are. -
Wer, 14. "Oare Savºčew row #ysøya Aiav. See the de-
fence of these words, Exam. Millii hic.
* Ver. 15. Karā Śē rºy #opry sid6s, hysºy &roxésiv, At the
feast he was won; to release.] There being no such release
made by the governor at the other festivals of the Jews, but
at this only ; and because a release was then wará šoprāy,
“according to the nature of the paschal feast,” kept in me-
mory of their release from Egyptian bondage (see note on
Mark xv. 6); it is not here so proper to observe, that it
was the custom among other nations to release their pri-
soners on festival days, especially if we consider, that, at
least at other festivals, it was the custom of the Jews to pu-
nish criminals (see note on xxvi. 5).
• * Wer. 24. Aaſººy $30p, 3reyislato rā; XEigaç, He took wa-
ter, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I
am clean from the blood of this just man.] He did this,
saith Origen,” according to the custom of the Jews, or ex
consuetudine Judaica, volens eds de Christi innocentia non
solim verbis, sed facto instruere ; “being willing to assert
Christ's innocency to them not in words only, but by deed.”
Thus, in the instance of unknown murder, the elders of
the city were “to wash their hands, and say, Our hands
have not shed this blood” (Deut. xxi, 6, 7); and the
psalmist having renounced all confederacy with wicked
and mischievous men, saith, “I will wash my hands in
(testimony of my) innocency” (Ps. xxvi. 6). And Wagen-
seil; upon Sota, thinks that Pilate had respect to this
rite ; but others think he rather did it according to the cus-
tom of the gentiles, who thought to purge themselves
* Hom. 35, in Matt. f. 861. + P. 910.
182
MATTHEW.
25 Then answered all the people, and said, (What-
soever guilt there is in shedding) his blood (may it) be
on us, and on our children.
26 "Then (to gratify the multitude, Mark xv. 15),
released he Barabbas to them: and when he had
scourged (Gr. scourging) Jesus, he delivered him (up
to them) to be crucified.
27 Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus
into the common-hall, and gathered to him the whole
band of soldiers.
28, And they stripped him (of his own garments),
and "put on him a scarlet robe (such as was worn by
kings). s
29 And when they had platted a crown of thorns,
they put it upon his head, and (instead of a sceptre,
they put) a reed in his right hand; and they bowed
the knee before him, and mocked him, saying, Hail,
King of the Jews |
30 And they spit upon him, and took the reed (out
of his hand), and smote him on the head (with it).
31 And after that they had (thus vilified and) mocked
him, they took the robe off from him (dethroning him
from his pretended kingdom), and put his own raiment
on him, and led him away to crucify him.
32 And as they came out, they found a man of
Cyrene, Simon by name, (coming from the field, Mark
xv. 21), "him they compelled to bear his cross (with
him, who through weakness was not sufficient to bear it
to the place of eaecution).
33 And when they were come to a place called
"Golgotha, that is to say, A place of a (the) skull
from bloodshed by washing. So the scholiast “ upon So-
phocles in Ajace, iii. 1, saith, “It was the custom among
the ancients when they had killed a man, or shed blood,
to wash their hands in water, to purify them from their
defilement.” And AEneast in Virgil speaketh to the same
purpose (see Examen Millii here).
7 Wer. 26. Táre &méxvarey airoi; Bagagéây, Then he re-
leased to them Barabbas.] This Barabbas was imprisoned
for sedition and murder (Iuke xxiii. 35); so that if this
were customary at this feast to release such criminals,
then the law concerning the shedding of the blood of the
wilful murderer, Numb. xxxv. 31, 32, must admit of som
dispensation. -
* Ver. 28. IIset{0mxay air; XXawúða x0xxivny, They put on
him a purple robe..] Some think the soldiers did this by
advice of the Jews, intending by this purple to deride
Christ's pretence of being their Messiah; it being a tradi-
tion with them, that when their Messiah comes, “he shall
be clothed with fine purple” (Moses Haddarf in Bereschith
Rabbi, cap. 49, 11). But this consultation of the Jews with
them being mentioned by none of the evangelists, I think
the soldiers rather did it in derision of his title to be “King
of the Jews.” The xávěoc &ximágºveog, and xyrév troºpſgeo;
&éoºvkoº, “the sea-purple coat, and purple mixed with
white, being proper to the kings of Persia” (see Brisson de
Reg. Pers. lib. i. 37, 38).
* Ver. 32. Toğroy #yyápsvaray ºva #en rôy a ravºv aircü, They
found a man of Cyrene,—him they compelled to bear his
cross.] It was the custom, that he that was to be crucified
should bear his own cross, as Lipsius # proves from Artemi-
dorus and Plutarch ; and so our Saviour for some time did
for “he went forth, 8aaráčov roy a ravpy atroº, bearing his
cross” (John xix. 17. Heb. xii. 2); but then #spxáaevol, going
out with him, and finding it too burdenous for him, they
compel this Simon to bear it either with or for him.
* "E60, ºv roſ, raxaioſº, 3ray pévoy 3,683rov ##AAa; a payā;
Hºrolovy, that &movin'rely rā; Xºſéac się zá0apaw roi; pºiággaroº,
p. 20. . .
+ Sacra manū, patriosque penates,
Me bello è tanto digressum et caede recenti
Attrectare nefas, donec me flumine vivo
Abluero. AEn. ii. ver. 715.
+ Lib. ii. de Cruce, cap. 5, p. 39, 40.
(where, saith tradition, the first Adam was buried),
34 “They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with
gall (to intoaxicate him, and take off the sense of his
pain) ; and when he had tasted (thereof, or what it
was), he would not drink of it.
35 And (when) they (had) crucified him, they parted
his garments (eacept his woven coat, into four parts,
John xix. 23, 24), casting lots (for his coat); that it
might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet
(Ps. xxii. 19), They parted my garments among them,
and upon my vesture did they cast lots.
it. And then sitting down, they watched him
there;
37 And (Pilate) set up over his head his accusa-
tion, written (in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, Luke
xxiii. 38), THIs Is JESUS THE KING OF THE JEws.
38 °Then were there two thieves crucified with
him, one on the right hand, and another on the left;
(and so that scripture was fulfilled which said, He was
numbered with the transgressors, Mark xv. 28).
39 And they that passed by reviled him, wagging
their heads,
40 And saying, Thou that destroyest the temple,
and buildest it in three days, save thyself, if thou be
the Son of God, (and) come down from the cross.
41 Likewise also the chief priests, mocking him,
with the scribes and elders, said,
42 He saved others; (but) himself he cannot save.
If he be (indeed) the King of Israel, let him now
come down from the cross, and we will believe (in)
him. &
-*.
* Wer. 33. And when they were come to a place called
Golgotha, & Bari Aeyāºvo; xgaviov rámoc, that is to say, The
place of a skull.] “It is,” saith Theophylact,” “a tradition
come down to us from the fathers, that Adam was buried here,
and therefore,” saith he, “Christ, who was to heal the fall
and death of Adam, was here crucified, that where the be-
ginning of death was, there might be the dissolution of it:”
his witnesses of this tradition are Origen, Tertullian, Epi-
phanius, Athanasius, and St. Augustine ; St. Jerome only
on this place saying, “This is a favourable interpretation,
and pleasing to the ears of the people, nec tamen vera, but
not true.”
11 Wer. 34. "E3ozav airó risſy %0; aeri, Xoxic aspºlypºvoy,
They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall.] “They
gave him (Mark xv. 23), divoy #oºveſºta'ºzávoy, wine mixed
with wormwood,” which differs not from this account, for
Hyb, which signifies wormwood, is by the LXX. rendered
XoAh, Prov. v. 4. Lam. iii. 14, and so merora, which hath
its name from bitterness, is rendered, Job. xvi. 13. xx. 14.
This kind of wine was given to intoxicate the condemned,
and so to take away the sense of pain, whence it is called
•lvo, karavčevº, “the stupifying wine" (Ps. lx. 3): on
which account our Saviour, who needed none of these arts
to diminish his sense of pain, that he might show his pa-
tience and readiness to suffer, refused to drink it (see note
on Luke xxiii. 36).
** Ver. 38. Then were crucified with him 360 Anarai,
two thieves : and, Ver. 44, oi Anarai, the thieves upbraided
him.] And yet one of them only did upbraid him (see note
on Luke xxiii. 40). So “the soldiers” brought him vinegar,
Luke xxiii. 36. John xix. 29, one of them did it, Matt.
xxvii. 48. Mark xv. 36, “the disciples had indignation,”
Matt. xxvi. 8, some of them, Mark xiv. 4, one of them,
John xii. 4. So Mark xvi. 5. Matt. xxviii. 2, there is men-
tion of one angel only, but Luke xxiv. 4. John xx. 12,
there is mention of two.
* IIapáðajori; Harty sic hºwā; pŠávovora è? &yiwy rarégov 3rt
& "A?ap, ixit #ráºn. Wenit ad me traditio talis, Orig. Hom.
35 in Matt. f. 87, F. Epiphanius, Haer. 46, §. 5, p. 394.
Athanasius de Cruce et Pass. Domini, tom. i. p. 1003. Ba-
silius Seleuc. Orat. 38, p. 199. Basil. M. Hom. 5 in Isa.
Ambros, lib. v. ep. 19. Augustin. tom. x. Hom. 71 de
Tempore, p. 738.
CHAPTER XXVII.
183
43 He trusted in God; let him deliver him now,
if he will have him (or delighteth in him, Ps. xxii. 9),
for he said, I am the Son of God.
44 (One of) the thieves also, which were crucified
with him, cast the same in his teeth (saying, If thou
be the Christ, save thyself and us ; but the other re-
buked him, &c., Luke xxiii. 39–43).
45 Now from the sixth hour there was darkness
over all the land (of Judea) until the ninth hour (the
sun being darkened, Luke xxiii. 45).
46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a
loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that
is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou (so) for-
saken me (as to give me into the hands of my enemies)?
47. Some of them that stood there, when they
heard that, said, This man calleth for Elias.
48 And straightway “one of them ran, and took a
sponge, and filled it with vinegar (which the soldiers
drank), and put it on a reed, and gave (it) him to
drink (to recreate his spirits). #
49 The rest said, Let be (Gr. let him alone), let us
see whether Elias will come to save him.
50 Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud
voice, (said, Father, into thy hands 1 commend my #.
rit; and having said this, John xix. 28–30, he) yielded
up the ghost.
51 And, behold, *the veil of the temple (which
parted the holy place from the most holy) was rent in
twain from the top to the bottom (Christ having, by
his death, procured for us an entrance into the holy of
holies, Heb. x. 20); and the earth did quake, and the
rocks rent;
52 And the graves were opened, and *many bodies
of the saints which slept arose,
53 And came out of the (their) graves after his re-
surrection (who was the first-born from the dead), Col.
i. 28), and went into the holy city, and appeared to
many.
54 Now when the centurion, and they that were
with him, watching Jesus (viz. the soldiers, ver. 36),
saw the earthquake, and those things that were done,
they feared greatly, saying (some of them), "Truly,
this was the son of God; (and others, This was a just
nan, Luke xxiii. 47, and all that were present, Smiting
their breasts departed, ver. 48).
55 And many women were there beholding afar
* Wer. 46. Oñé pov, Geš gov, ivati as #ywaréxime; ; My
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me 2] Wonderful
are the tragedies some make, and the scruples they have
raised upon these plain words ; when yet,
First, It is certain that in the Hebrew way of speaking,
God is said to leave, or forsake any person, when he suffers
him to fall into great calamities, and lie under great miseries,
and doth not help him out of them. And therefore Zion
being long afflicted is brought in by the prophet Isaiah
thus complaining, #yxaráAsiré pas Kūgioc, “The Lord hath
forsaken me, Kāpio; #TrixáSirá wov, the Lord hath forgot-
ten me.” (xlix. 14). And the psalmist, as he is frequent in
the same complaint (viz. Ps, x. 11. xlii. 10. xliii. 2), so doth he
manifestly thus explain himselfin the following words, “Why
art thou far from my prayer,” so that though “I cry in the
day-time thou hearest not P” (Ps, xxii. 2–4.) Nor could Da-
vid have any other meaning, when he calls God so fiducially
his God, as Christ also here doth, and even breathes his last in
these words, “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit;”
and saith of his suffering condition, “Itis finished,” and doubt-
ed not but his Soul should that day be in paradise: so impos-
sible is it that in these words he should intimate any failure
of his trust in God, or any perturbation of spirit arising from
the sense of divine wrath. This being certain and allowed,
let men say, if they please, that now Satan was let loose
upon him, because, after his first temptation, he receded
only from him “for a season’’ (Luke iv. 13), and this was
the hour of the “prince of darkness;” provided they still
own, that the “prince of darkness coming, found nothing in
him” for his temptations to work upon (John xiv. 30). Let
them add, if they please, that the divine glory parted from
him, provided that they understand this xvgorgerò, “in a
sense becoming our Lord ;” either, as Dr. Hammond hath
it on Ps. xxii. 2, that “the divinity suspended its influence
so far as to deliver up his body to death ;” or that the sense
of what he suffered was so great, as that he could not then
attend, as formerly, to that sense of divine favour, or re-
ceive the joy and consolation from it, which he did before;
the experience of the highest sorrows and the sublimest
joys, at the same time, being not well compatible even with
the innocent infirmities of human nature: these things are,
Fº gratis dicta, but not dishonourable to our blessed
OTOl. e
* Ver.,48. One—taking a sponge, filled it with vinegar,
Kai regiðsk xaháº), štráriºsy adváy, and putting it upon a
Teed, gave him to drink.] So Mark xv. 36, whereas St.
John Saith, ùraºrº regièvres, “putting it upon hyssop,
they put it to his mouth " (xix. 29), which words the critics
would without reason change into taay, “a javelin º'
whereas St. John's hyssop may not only signify the leaves
which by the smell do recreate, but also the stalk or stem
which might support the sponge, that being, as their mus-
tard-seed, much greater in those countries than it is with us.
* Ver, 51. Tó kararáragºza row vacü ioxirón ti; 3%, The
veil of the temple was rent in twain.] They built no parti-
tion-wall, saith Maimonides, in the second temple between
the holy place and the most holy, though in the first temple
there was a wall built betwixt them of the thickness of a
cubit ; but they were divided by two veils, one from the ex-
tremity of the most holy place, another from the extremity
of the holy, with a void space of a cubit. And so likewise
was it, saith Josephus,” in the temple restored by Herod,
in which there were two veils, one for the holy place, an-
other for the adytum : this veil, saith the apostle, signify-
ing, “that the way into the holy of holies was not yet
opened ;” Christ's death procuring “a new and living way
into it” (Heb. ix. 8), and therefore, he having suffered, this
veil is rent.
* Wer. 52. Kai Troxx& adºpwara rāy kenotºnºvoy &ylov
hyépên, And many bodies of the saints which slept arose,
&c.] Here note,
First, That according to the opinion of the Jews, when
their Messiah came, there should be a resurrection of some
pious men (Albo in libro Ikarim, par. iv. cap. 35). Note,
Secondly, That it is here expressly said, these saints
arose out of their sepulchres, ºver& rºy #yegoriy airrot, “after .
Christ's resurrection,” he being the first-born from the dead:
by this example Christ would confirm them in his great
promise, that he would raise all that believed in him to
eternal life. And ºf some say they were raised to live in
paradise with Enoch and Elias.
Thirdly, Who were the persons raised after this manner,
it is not easy to conjecture. Ignatius f saith, “they were
the holy prophets, who were his disciples, and expected
him,” and who are said to “enter into the kingdom of God,
with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’’ (Luke xiii. 28). My
conjecture is, they might be some of those who believed in
Jesus, as old Simeon did, and died before his resurrection; for
it is observable from St. John, that Christ not only promised
a resurrection to all that believed on him, at the last day,
but also said, “The hour is coming, and now is, that the
dead shall hear the voice of the Son of man * (John v. 25).
And that this resurrection was both a proper resurrection,
and was to precede the general resurrection, is proved in
the note on that place, and so could be no other than the
resurrection mentioned here. Moreover, of these persons
it is said, that “they went into the holy city, and appeared to
many :” whence it is probable they were persons known to
them to whom it did appear; and if so, they must be men
who lived in the time of their knowledge.
17 Wer. 54. 'AAmSãc Ogot, við; #y otrog, Truly this man was
* T3 & #y8óra roy ºftpo, Seisyero pºoloº wararerácºars ºrgö;
rö ºw0sy. De Bello Jud. lib. vi. cap. 14, p. 918.
+ Author Q, et Resp. ad qu. 85.
f oš zai of ºrpoqºral gaśntai vre; tā IIyedwart, & 3840-
waxoy, airy reorečnovy, xai 83 touro, ö, äikaiw; āvāºwevoy, ragöz
#ystgey adroi; in vskgöy, Epist. ad Magnes. $, 9.
184
MATTHEW.
off, which followed Jesus from Galilee (to Jerusalem),
ministering to him (of their substance).
56 Among which was Mary Magdalene, and Mary
the mother of James (the less) and Joses, and the
mother of Zebedee's children.
57 When the even was come, there came *a rich
man of Arimathea (an honourable counsellor, Mark
xv. 43, a good and just man, who eaſpected the kingdom
of God, and consented not to the counsel or deeds of
them that condemned him, Luke xxiii. 50, 51), named
Joseph, who also himself was Jesus' disciple:
58. He went to Pilate, and begged the body of
Jesus (that it might not be buried with the maléfac-
tors). Then Pilate (inquiring of the centurion, and
being certified by him that Jesus was dead indeed, Mark
xv. 44, 45), commanded the body to be delivered (to
him). -
59 And when Joseph had taken the body, he
wrapped it in a clean (fine) linen cloth (and Nicode-
mus, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, of about
a hundred pound weight, they wrapped up the body in
the linen cloths, with the spices, as the Jews use to
bury, John xix. 39, 40),
60 *And laid it in his own new tomb, which he
*=s*
the Son of God..] It seems apparent from these words, that
“the Son of God,” did not always signify one that was so
by virtue of an internal and eternal generation, but one that
was his beloved and adopted son ; for what is here “the
Son of God,” is in St. Luke xxiii. 47, this was “a just
man,” and ver. 43, they spake thus, “He trusted in God ;
let him deliver him, if he delighteth in him : for he said, I
am the Son of God.” The Jews knew very well from Ps.
ii. that their Messiah was to be the Son of God ; but that
they did not know him to be so in this higher sense, seems
evident, because they did not know how David could call
him Lord (xxii. 46).
| had hewn out of the (a) rock (and wherein was never
get man laid, John xix. 41), and he rolled a great
stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed. . .
61 And there was Mary Magdalene, and the other
Mary, sitting over against the sepulchre (who beheld
where he was laid, Mark xv. 47, and prepared spices
and ointments for his body, Luke xxiii. 56);
62. Now the next day, that followed the day of pre-
paration (viz. the sabbath-day in the morning), the
chief priests and pharisees came together to Pilate,
63 Saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver
said, whilst he was yet alive, After three days I will
rise again.
64 Command therefore that the sepulchre be made
sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by
night, and steal him away, and say to the people, He
is risen from the dead: so the last error shall be
worse than the first. t
65 Pilate said to them, Ye have a watch: go your
way, and make it as sure as you can. -
66 So they went, and made the sepulchre sure,
sealing the stone (as Dan. vi. 17), and setting a
watch (i. e. a guard of sixty Roman soldiers),
* Ver. 60. Kai #Snºw aird #y rô Kalvø airrod avnasiº, And
put it in his new tomb.] What follows here tends highly
to the confirmation of the truth of our Lord's resurrection;
for his body being put into a tomb, in which no man had
lain before, if any one rose from it, it must be our Lord.
(2.) The tomb being hewed out of a rock, there could be
no digging through it to convey Christ's body thence. (3.)
There being a band of sixty soldiers placed there as a watch
to preserve the body from being stolen, it is not to be sup-
posed that the disciples should beat this band, and so there
could be no ground of suspicion that our Lord was not
truly risen.
* Wer. 57. Joseph of Arimathea..] See the note on
Mark xv. 43.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
1 IN the “end of the sabbath, as it began *to dawn
towards the first day of the week, came Mary Mag-
dalene, and the other Mary (mentioned xxvii. 56), to
see the sepulchre (having with them spices to embalm
his body, Luke xxiv. 1, and about the sun-rising they
got thither, Mark xvi. 2).
2 And, behold (while they were consulting by the
way who should roll away the great stone from the se-
pulchre, that they might get to him), there was (before
they came thither) a great earthquake: for the (an)
angel of the Lord (had) descended from heaven, and
came and rolled (Gr. and coming rolled) back the
stone from the door (of the sepulchre), and sat upon
It.
3 (And) his countenance (or appearance) was like
lightning, and his raiment (was) white as snow:
4 And for fear of him (and by reason of the earth-
quake) the keepers (of the sepulchre) did shake, and
became as dead men.
5 And the angel answered (i.e. spake) and said to
the (affrighted) women, Fear not ye: for I know that
ye seek Jesus which º
6 He is not here (where you eaſpected to find his
body); for he is risen, as he said (he would ; and for
your satisfaction that it is even so) come (nearer to the
sepulchre, and) see the place where the Lord lay.
7 And go quickly, and tell his disciples (and Peter
in particular), that he is risen from the dead; and,
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXVIII.
* Ver. 1. 'o-pâ 33 ca&Bárow, In the end of the sabbath.]
Or rather, “after the sabbath ;” so 3-lè roöray, “after these
things,” Jä vuxtºc, “after night;" see many examples of
this in Stephanus: and so this perfectly agrees with the other
evangelists, who say, this was done, “the sabbath being
ended,” Mark xvi. 1, or “the first day of the week,” Luke
xxiv. 1. John xx. 1. And perhaps St. Matthew mentions
sabbaths in the plural, because there were two sabbaths in
that week, the paschal Sabbath on Friday, and the ordinary
sabbath on Saturday.
* 'Em pockoğan eiç (wizy cagáároy, when it began to dawn
into the first day of the week.] i. e. To Sunday, or the
Lord's day, for ata rāy waggárov always signifies “the first
day of the week,” or the Lord's day, or the day of his re-
surrection from the dead; and thus the word ºwia usually
signifies in the Septuagint, when it is joined with days,
weeks, or months; as “the evening and the morning were
hºga wid “the first day,” Gen. i. 5. So hºga aiz roi; ºnvêc, is
“the first day of the month,” Exod. xl. 2. Ezra iii. 6. x. 17.
And so is ºxia rot ºnvic, Lev. xxv. 24. Numb. i. 1. 18. xxix. 1.
xxxiii. 38. Deut. i. 3. Ezek. xxvi. 1. xxxii. 1. xlv. 18. Hag.
i. l. ii. 1 (see note on 1 Cor. xvi. 2). Upon this day in the
evening Christ appeared to the twelve, John xx. 19, and.
again, ver, 26, and to the two disciples, Luke xxiv. 13. It
is also reported of the Christians by Pliny,” that they used,
stato die ante lucem convenire, “to meet upon a set day
before it was light;” and this day from the beginning was
called h ºvelaxi, “the Lord's day,” and was by Christians
from the beginning employed in acts of religious worship
(see the former note). So Ignatius+ exhorts Christians “not
to Sabbatize with the Jews, but to live warà wuglaxy, accord-
ing to the Lord's day,” in which our life arose with him.
* Ep. 97. ºf Epist. ad. Mag. §. 9.
CHAPTER XXVIII. .
185
behold, he goeth before you into Galilee (as he said
to you, Matt. xxvi. 32. Mark xiv. 28), there shall you
see him: lo, I have told you (the truth).
8 And they departed (Gr. departing) quickly from
the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run
(Gr. ran) to bring his disciples word (of what they
had seen and heard). -
9 And as they went to tell his disciples, behold,
Jesus met them, saying, All hail (i.e. be joyful). And
they (when they were satisfied it was Jesus) came and
held him by the feet, and worshipped him.
10 Then said Jesus to them, Be not afraid : (but)
go, tell my brethren (i. e. my disciples) that they go
into Galilee, and there shall they see me.
11 Now when they were going (gone), behold, some
of the watch came into the city, and shewed to the
chief priests all the things that were done.
12 And when they were assembled with the elders,
and had taken counsel (what was to be done to disguise
*** *
So the true Gnostic, saith Clemens of Alexandria,” xuetazhy
#xeiyny rºw hºw#gay roteſ, “observes the Lord's day, glorifying
in himself the resurrection of our Lord, when he casts away
every evil thought, and receives the true knowledge.” Ire-
maeus+ saith, that ré Év tº květaxii whº waively yávv, “not to
bend the knee on the Lord's day was a symbol of the re-
surrection.” Melito Sardensis wrote a book repi xuetaxii;,
“of the Lord's day.” See more largely the divine original
of the Lord's day vindicated, preface to the second part of
Traditions. Of the following words to ver, 13, see the notes
on Mark xvi.
* Wer. 13. Efrare, 3rt of pºntai atroſ. www.ré, Éx86vre; #xxe-
Jay airy, hºwāv kotºoººyoy, Say, That his disciples came by
might and stole him away while we slept.] If this history of
the soldiers be true, it is the greatest confirmation of our
Lord's resurrection ; for then they must not only have been
convinced of it by the earthquake, and the vision of the
angel which struck them with the greatest terror, but must
have told all these things that were done in the city (ver.
11), and so have raised all men's curiosity to go and see
whether Christ's body was yet in the grave; besides, here
the whole body of the Sanhedrin or elders of the Jews are
charged with a most execrable fact, viz. the hiring the whole
band of soldiers to tell a lie against their certain knowledge,
and their former declaration made in the city; yea, to tell
a senseless lie, viz. that the disciples étole away Christ's
body while they slept: for if they were indeed asleep, they
could not tell that his disciples came at all ; if they were
not asleep, they lied in saying that they were. Now is it
easy to believe that the Sanhedrin, who had these men so
oft before them, and under examination, for this very tes-
timony, that Christ was then risen from the dead, should
never say one word to windicate themselves from this vile
imputation, so expressly charged upon them, within eight
years after the thing was done; or that money should so
corrupt a band of soldiers, that not one of them should
ever after this divulge the truth? Besides, how unlikely it
was that the apostles either would attempt to steal away
their Master's dead body, or having done this, to continue
testifying that he was risen from the dead, or that they
should succeed in this attempt, hath been already shown in
the general preface to this work. -
* Ver. 16. Oi Bà évêexa paşniral mogeſ Snoray sic rºy Taxi-
Aaiay, &c. Then the eleven disciples went into Galilee, unto
a mountain, where Jesus had appointed them.] That Christ
promised after his resurrection “to go before them into Ga-
lilee,” we read, xxxvi. 32; thither the angel here, ver. 7,
and Christ himself directs them to go and see him, ver. 10,
but there is not the least mention of any mountain in
Galilee to which he bade them go to see him; and there-
$ore these words, “where Christ had appointed them,” refer
not to the mountain, but to Galilee ; but there being a
mountain which Christ frequented, and on which he had been
pefore transfigured, this moved the disciples to go to that
mountain. Moreover it is observable, that they went not
into Galilee till above eight days after Christ's resurrection;
* Strom. vii. p. 744. + Fragm.
the matter), they gave large (sums of) money to the
soldiers (that watched), -
13 Saying, (Having received this) say ye, *His dis-
ciples came by night and stole him away while we slept.
14 And if this come to the governor’s ears, we
will persuade(orpacify) him, and secureyou(from harm).
15 So they took the money, and did as they were:
taught: and this saying is commonly reported among
the Jews until this day.
16 “Then (and) the eleven disciples went away
(from Jerusalem) into Galilee, to a mountain where.
Jesus had appointed them (to meet him).
17 And when they saw him, they worshipped him;
but some (of the company) doubted (whether it was
he indeed, or not). $
18 And Jesus came (nigh) and spake unto them,
saying, "All power is given to me in heaven and in
earth (and so you need not doubt of my protection and
assistance).
for Christ appeared to them at Jerusalem eight days after
(John xx. 19). And when they went, doubtless they went
not alone, but the curiosity of those that were with them
(Luke xxiv. 9. 33) would likely move them to go to the place
where he had appointed to be seen ; and they and the other
disciples which were then in Galilee make up the five hun-
dred brethren of which he was seen at once (1 Cor. xv. 6).
*Wer, 18. 'E36&n &ot arâca #ovcia Évobgayº wai iwi rā; yńc, All
power is given me in heaven' and in earth.] That this
power was given to Christ is, saith Woltzogenius, a certain
argument that he is not God, for the most high God judgeth
and commandeth by his own power, which he always had,
received from none; whereas Christ received this power from
his Father, and that in time, viz. after his resurrection.
Ans. To this I answer, That it is true that this power was
given to Christ, “because he was the Son of man” (John
v. 27), i.e. because he in his human nature had exercised
the office of a prophet, and after of a priest ; but then it
was exercised by the fulness of the Godhead dwelling in
him. So all the blessings of the Jews are said to come out
of Zion, or from the sanctuary, but they came thence because
the divine majesty dwelt there ; now the human nature of
Christ is the temple of the Deity, or the tabernacle in which
the Aáyo; dwells, and from it all the blessings are derived on
the church by virtue of the Deity united to him. And this
will be apparent from the concessions of Woltzogenius”
here, that Christ hath obtained an unlimited empire overal,
things, a divine power over the bodies and souls of men,
and wisdom to discern their hearts and reins; for he to whom
any office duly is committed, must have sufficient power and
wisdom to discharge that office. Now to govern all things
in heaven and earth, belongs only to him who is the Lord
and Maker of them, and therefore is known by this title,
both in scripture and among the heathens (see note on Rom.
ix. 5, and Ps. xxxiii. 18. xcvii. 5. 9). To have power over
death, and to be able to raise the dead, is to have that power
which is proper to God alone (see note on Phil. iii. 20); and
to have power over the souls of men, and to have the
knowledge of all hearts, belongs to God alone (1 Kings viii.
39. Jer. xvii. 10).
Obj. There was no need this power should be given to hu-
man nature, seeing he had received it by virtue of the hy-
postatic union.
Ans. He had before received the power by which he doth
still exercise this dominion, but he could not exercise it
whilst he was in the state of his humiliation, and in the form
of a servant, as now he doth, being exalted in this nature to
* Christum illimitatum regnum atque imperium Super
omnes creaturas in coelo et terrá existentes adeptum esse,
etiam super mortem et diabolum, immö consecutum esse di-
vinam sapientiam ut possit scrutari corda et renes. Apoc.
ii. 13. Equibus omnibus liquidô constat, potestatem istam
Christo communicatam esse prorsús divinam, quab Be Super
omnia quae in coelo et terra et sub terrà sunt (solo tantüm
Deo excepto) extendit ; non tantūm Super corpora, Sed Su-
pra animos homimum.
186
MATTHEW.
19 "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, bap-
tizing them in the name (or into the belief) of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
the right hand of majesty, and placed on the throne of
glory.
Obj. But Christ's human nature is no person, whereas to
govern and judge are actions proper to a person.
Ans. So to eat, drink, and sleep, are in us personal ac-
tions, and yet they agreed only to Christ's human nature.
“To speak in the language of the schools, the principium quod
of these actions is God and man, or Christus Seávögowoc, but
the principium quo is sometimes the divine, and sometimes
the human nature of Christ ; v. g. Christ walked upon the
sea, i.e. he walked by virtue of his human nature, he sus-
tained himself from sinking by the divine, and he who thus
walked was God and man.
* Ver. 19. Maðntiázars ºrávra rà Hówn, Teach all nations.]
Maşna‘şūsly here is “to preach the gospel to all nations,” and
to engage them to believe it in order to their profession of
that faith by baptism ; as seems apparent (i.) from the
parallel commission, Mark xvi. 15, “Go preach the gospel
to every creature; he that believeth and is baptized shall
be saved. (2) From the scripture notion of a disciple, that
being still the same as a believer: as in that question of the
blind man, “Will you also be his disciples P” i. e. will you
believe he is a prophet sent from God? and in the answer
of the pharisees, “We are the disciples of Moses, for we
know that God spake by him,” and therefore believe what he
spake in the name of God (John ix. 27–29). Hence we
find many, besides the twelve, who were called Christ's dis-
ciples, even as many as assented to his doctrine, and judged
him a prophet sent from God. And we find many of his
disciples murmuring and crying out, “This is a hard saying,
who can bear it?” John vi. 60, 61, and many of his dis-
ciples “departing from him,” ver. 66, and many of his dis-
ciples going with him to the city of Nain, Luke vii. 11,
though it is probable that these disciples did not yet believe
that he was the Christ, the Son of the living God, as the
twelve did (John ix. 27). And even the disciples of the
Baptist are called disciples; i. e. professors to believe in that
Christ who came after John, though they had no knowledge
of the Holy Ghost, nor had received Christian baptism (Acts
xix. 2. 6). And in this sense the holy Jesus made many
disciples, and by his apostles baptized them into the faith of
the Messiah coming after John (see the note on John iii. 22,
and iv. 1, 2), though he would not suffer his disciples to
publish that he was the Christ, “the Son of the living God,”
till after his resurrection (Matt. xvi. 20): after which time,
all that believed on him had no other name for a season, but
that of his disciples (Acts ir. 1. 10. 19. 26. 38); as when it
is said, “the disciples were multiplied" (Acts vi. 1, 2. 7),
though afterward at Antioch the disciples began to be called
Christians (Acts xi. 26).
If here it should be said that I yield too much to the
antipaedobaptists, by saying, that to be made disciples here
is to be taught to believe in Christ, that so they might be
his disciples; I desire any one to tell me how the apostles
could ºasnrečeiv, “make a disciple,” of a heathem or unbe-
lieving Jew, without being wasntal, or “teachers” of them;
whether they were not sent to preach to those that could
hear, and to teach them to whom they preached that “Jesus
was the Christ,” and only to baptize them when they did
believe this 2 This is so absolutely necessary in the nature
of the thing, till a Christian church among the heathens or
the Jews was founded, and so expressly said by Justin
Martyr" to have been the practice in the first ages of the
church, that to deny what is confirmed by such evidence
of reason and church history, would be to prejudice a cause,
which, in my poor judgment, needs not this interpretation of
the word pºaSnreiſely ; nor needs it be asserted that infants
are made disciples, any more than that they are made be-
lievers by baptism, but only that they are and ought to be
admitted into the Christian church and kingdom of God, and
*"orot &y relatºri, wal ºrigºrºdova w śAnóñ rajra, rà ép’ huāv
3.3aoxépceva, sīvat, xai 8tody ošraç ºvao Sai Ümiaºyāyrau, äyoyºral
ép' #4&y Évša Čºog #ari, xai ºrgémoy &veyewho so, y wai pasſ;
airol ºvaytyvä6mºy, 3rayevyāvrai, par. ii. p. 93.
20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever
I have commanded you: and, "lo, I am with you
alway, even to the end of the world. Amen.
into the new covenant, by baptism, if they be children of be-
lieving parents. Now against this I presume it is no objec-
tion, that the unbelieving Jews and gentiles were first to be
taught and believe the Christian faith, before they were bap-
tized, and could not be baptized without it, or that infants
cannot be taught or believe whilst they continue such.
A D IS S E R T A TI O N
ADDED TO THE FOREGOING NOTE.
-º-
Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost.] In the note here I have asserted, and I think
proved, that wasn’reſsw here signifies “to make disciples,”
by teaching the nations to believe in Christ, that so they
might be his disciples. But then I took care to add the
cause of infant-baptism needed not this interpretation of
the word gaśnºrsåsly nor was it needful that infants be
made disciples, any more than that they be made believers by
baptism, but only that they be admitted, if they be children
of believing parents, into the Christian church by baptism ;
and that it was no objection against this admission, that in-
fants, whilst they continue in their childhood, cannot be
taught or believe the Christian faith. And to confirm these
assertions, I shall endeavour to prove, *
First, That there is nothing in this, or any other passages
of scripture, which proves that infants are incapable of
Christian baptism.
Secondly, That this commission, delivered to the apostles,
is virtually a commission to baptize the children of believing
parents, or of parents making a visible profession of the
Christian faith.
My first assertion is, that there is nothing in this, or any
other passages of scripture, which proves that infants are
incapable of Christian baptism. And,
To remove the arguments offered against the baptism of
infants, from their supposed incapacity to be fit subjects of
that ordinance, I assert, -
Prop. I. That no argument taken from the baptism used
by the Baptist or our Lord's disciples, can be sufficient to
prove that infants of believing parents are to be excluded
from Christian baptism. First, Because neither of them by
baptism admitted any persons into covenant with God, or
into church-membership, but only called them of the Jewish
nation by baptism to repentance who were in covenant with
God, and members of his church already. Secondly, Nei-
ther of them baptized in the name of Christ; not the Bap-
tist, for had he done so, there would have been no question
whether he himself were the Christ or not, as we find there
was (Luke iii. 15); nor any occasion for that question,
“Why baptizest thou, if thou be not the Christ?” (John i.
25.) He only called them to repentance for the remission
of sins, and admonished them in general, that “they should
believe in him who was coming after him” (Acts xix. 4).
And the baptism of his disciples was not into this belief, that
their Master was the Christ, for that he forbids them to di-
vulge till he was risen from the dead (Matt. xvi. 20. xvii.
9); and therefore hath not before allowed or authorized
them to do it in that solemn manner: they therefore only
did baptize as John had done, into the faith of the Messiah
which was to come, and with that baptism of repentance
which prepared the Jews for the reception of his kingdom ;
so that both of them baptized those who as yet believed not
in Christ: whereas the baptism instituted by Christ was in
his name, and belonged only to them who believed in him,
and to their children. It is not therefore to be wondered
that they baptized not those infants who could not by an ac-
tual repentance prepare themselves for the coming of that
Messiah, who was then at hand. Thirdly, John's baptism
was begun and ended before the covenant of grace was by
CHAPTER XXVIII.
187
the death of our Mediator confirmed and ratified, and there-
fore cannot be reasonably thought so fully to seal that cove-
nant, or to assure us of the blessings of it, as doth that of
Christ ; as many as are “baptized into Christ being baptized
into his death” (Rom. vi. 3).
Prop. II. I add, That as the incapacity of an infant for
doing that which is required of an adult person to Salvation,
cannot render an infant, dying so, incapable of salvation; so
neither can it render him incapable of baptism, that he can-
not do all that is required of an adult person, not yet own-
ing Christ, in order to his baptism ; for if that faith, repent-
ance, and obedience, which is required of an adult person to
his Salvation, cannot be required of an infant in order to his
Salvation, so as that the necessary absence of it shall ex-
clude him from a capacity of salvation, provided that he
dieth in his infancy or his minority; then, by parity of rea-
son, that faith and repentance which is required of an adult
person in order to that baptism by which he is made a
member of Christ, and is admitted as a subject of his king-
dom, cannot be required of an infant in order to his being
made a member of Christ, or his being admitted as a subject
of his kingdom.
Vain therefore are all those arguments which are taken
from the examples in the holy scripture of adult persons
baptized only upon their faith and repentance ; v.g. St.
Peter says to the Jews and proselytes who heard the apostles
speak with tongues and prophesy, “Repent ye, and be bap-
tized in the name of Christ Jesus for the remission of sins;”
and Ananias to Saul, “Arise, and be baptized, and wash
away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord” (Acts ii.
38. xxii. 16). But to argue hence that infants cannot be
baptized, because they cannot repent or call upon the name
of the Lord, is as if I should argue thus, The same apostle
Saith, “Repent, and be converted, that your sins may be
blotted out” (Acts iii. 19); therefore the sins of infants who
cannot repent cannot be blotted out: and St. Paul says,
“Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be
saved” (Rom. x. 13); therefore infants, who cannot do this,
cannot be saved: Christ also saith to the same Jews to whom
St. Peter said, “Repent, and be baptized,” “Except ye re-
pent, ye shall all perish” (Luke xiii. 3. 5); and this re-
pentance is styled repentance to life and to salvation, Acts
xi. 18. 2 Cor. vii. 10. Must therefore infants perish or be
incapable of salvation for want of that repentance, which to
adult persons is the condition of life and salvation ? if not,
why are they thought incapable of baptism, because, whilst
infants, they cannot repent P
When it is said by Mr. Tombs, That from these words of
Philip to the eunuch, Acts viii. 37, “If thou believest with
all thy heart, thou mayest be baptized ;" it appears neces-
sary that the baptized person should declare his own faith;-
it doth as much appear from those words of St. Paul, “If
thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus Christ,
and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from
the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Rom. x.9), that it is ne-
cessary for him that is saved to confess with his mouth, and
believe with his heart, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus
Christ ; and therefore to infer that no infant can be saved.
Hence, therefore, it doth only follow that the baptized per-
son, provided he be such as the eunuch was, a gentile, to
whom the gospel was first preached to beget faith in him,
must declare his faith, but not that infants of believing pa-
rents are to be excluded from baptism, for want of such a
declaration of their faith.
When he argues thus, He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved ; that is, he only, no other, not otherwise:—
this gloss must damn all infants dying such ; yea, it must
damn them for not being baptized, that is, for not receiving
the ordinance of which Christ himself, according to the doc-
trine of these men, hath declared them incapable. More-
over, to argue thus, An infant must believe before he be bap-
tized, because believing in these words is set before baptizing,
is no better than to argue thus: The infant that is saved
must be baptized, because baptism is set before salvation.
When others argue thus, “We are all made the children
of God by faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal. iii. 26), and there-
fore infants cannot be made the sons of God by baptism,
because they have no faith ; they might as well argue thus:
“By grace we are saved through faith” (Eph. ii. 7), but in- be a blessing to him to enter into this covenant.
fants have no faith, therefore they cannot be saved: or thus,
“He that believeth not shall be damned” (Mark xvi. 16);
infants do not believe ; ergo, all infants shall be damned.
The apostle plainly speaks there of persons converted from
heathenism to Christianity, who therefore were baptized,
being adult persons: and so also he speaks to them in the
epistle to the Ephesians, and in the gospel of St. Mark. This
place therefore can with no more reason be applied to the
case of infants, than the places cited from that epistle, and
from the gospel of St. Mark. . -
Prop. III. A present incapacity as to some ends of bap-
tism cannot render the children of believing parents unfit
for or incapable of baptism, provided they be capable of
some other ends of that ordinance: this will be evident,
First, From the example of our Saviour repairing to the
Baptist to receive his baptism, though he was incapable of
the chief ends for which it was designed, with respect to
others. For Christ, being without sin, could neither repent
nor promise amendment of life : being the “wisdom of the
Father,” he could be taught nothing ; being the Christ, he
could not profess to believe in him that was to come after the
Baptist ; that is, in himself; and yet he comes to baptism;
to profess his willingness to “fulfil all righteousness;” and
also that by this rite he might be initiated into his pro-
phetic office, and consecrate himself to the service of his
Father. e gº tº
Secondly, From the example of circumcision among the
Jews, which laid an obligation on all adult proselytes, as
well as the Jews, to obey the whole law of Moses (Gal. Y.
2), and to advance to the spiritual circumcision of their
hearts, but could lay no such present obligation on their in-
fants so to do. So likewise the same proselytes were first to
be taught the precepts of the law ; and them, upºn the pro-
fession of their faith and their promise of conformity to them,
were to be baptized; but this could not be required of their
children, who notwithstanding were baptized with them.
And therefore to represent it as a thing repugnant to reasºn,
that a divine institution should belong to persons incapable
of understanding the nature and ends of it...must highly re-
flect upon the wisdom of God, in appointing ºneumººloº
for children eight days old, they being then as incapable of
understanding the ends of it, as our children are of under-
standing the ends of baptism. e
Prop. IV. Infants are capable, whilst such, of some. ends
of baptism ; as, first, of a solemn and obliging dedication to
the service of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; fºr if pa-
rents, in circumcising of the male child, obliged him after-
ward to own the God of Israel as his God in covenant, and
yield obedience to his law (Gal. v. 2); if the WoW of Sam-
son's parents obliged him to be a Nazarité for ever (Judg.
xvi. 17); if the vow of Hannah, to which her husband gave
consent, that Samuel should be lent to the Lord for ever,
devoted Samuel for ever to his service;—why should We
think the dedication of the Christian parent insufficient to
pass an obligation on his child to serve that God who made
him, that Jesus who redeemed him, and that good Spirit by
whom alone he can be sanctified ? Why therefore might not
God appoint this to be done for children, by that only rite
which he had instituted under the new covenant for entering
any into the number of his federal servants? That they are
capable by this rite of entering into covenant with God, so
as to be enrolled in the number of his chosen generation,
and peculiar people, and his holy nation, is evident; be:
cause the Jewish infants obtained this privilege by Virtue of
their circumcision on the eighth day; which therefore St.
Paul reckoneth among their privileges (Phil. iii. 5). And
hence, when by their parents this circumcision was neglected,
they are said to have broken his covenant (Gen. xvii. 14):
yea, that children are capable of entering into covenant with
God, we learn from these words of Moses to all the people,
Deut. xxix. 11, “You stand this day before the Lord your
God, you and your little ones, that thou shouldest enter into
the covenant of the Lord thy God, that thou måyest be a
people to him, and he may be thy God ... and if exclusion
from the covenant was a loss to the child, as, is apparent
from those words, “The infant not circumcised shall be cut
off from my people,” which in the mildest sense must signify
that he shall not be owned as one of them : surely it must
2. As they
188
MATTHEW.
are capable of obligation, by entering into covenant, so are
they, by it, capable of those blessings which they want whilst
children. Christian baptism is appointed for an entrance
into the kingdom of God ; “for without that,” saith Christ,
“we cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John iii. 5).
By this we become members of his body, we being “all
baptized into one body” (1 Cor. xii. 13); this is the “laver
of regeneration,” by which we are born anew (Tit. iii. 5);
this is the water instituted for the washing away of sin, and
for procuring the remission of it (Acts ii. 38. xxii. 18): by
this, lastly, we are put into a state of salvation (Tit. iii. 5),
in the way to escape death, by the virtue of our interest in
the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ: for,
saith St. Peter, baptism answers to the ark of Noah, which
saved him and his children, for it now “saveth us” from
death, “by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” Now either
infants are made capable of those ends of baptism, or they
are not ; if they are not, they cannot, by the ordinary means
appointed by God, be born again, and therefore cannot
cnter into the kingdom of God ; they cannot be members of
Christ's body, and so cannot be saved by him, who only is
the “Saviour of his body,” or obtain remission of sins;
they cannot be interested in Christ's death, and so can have
no share in a happy resurrection from the dead. If they
are capable of these blessings, it must be either by or with-
out that baptism which is by Christ appointed for the ob-
taining of these blessings; if only by baptism, the cause is
gained ; if without baptism, they who assert this must as-
sign some other cause which procures them a right to these
blessings, which I believe they cannot do. Moreover, in-
fants of believing parents, being all the offspring of Adam,
and therefore all obnoxious to death by reason of his sin
(Rom. v. 12), they being “born of the flesh,” and there-
fore flesh (John iii. 6), and wanting a new birth on that ac-
count, they being without Christ, and strangers to the cove-
nant of promise (Eph. ii. 12), till they enter into covenant
with God and Christ they cannot be delivered from this
death, be born anew, or be in Christ, but by the grace of
God, which Christ hath purchased for and promised to them
only who are made some way members of his body and
children of God. Why therefore should we not conceive
they should obtain this favour by that means which is alone
appointed by Christ for making any one a member of his
body, and be born again by that water and Spirit, without
which, saith our Lord, none can enter into the kingdom of
God? In a word, seeing the infants of the Jewish parents
were to be cut off from his people, and from a covenant re-
lation to God, for want of circumcision, why should we think
the children of Christian parents should en oy all, or any of
the blessings of the new covenant, without baptism 2
Prop. V. I add, that no objections can be valid against
the right of infants born of Christian parents to Christian
baptism, which do not equally destroy the right of Jewish
infants to circumcision ; because they, by divine institution,
had a right to circumcision. It is therefore no good argu:
ment against their right to baptism,
First, That the end of baptism, viz. to be a visible sign
of invisible grace, is wanting in the baptism of infants ;
baptism ceasing before the thing represented by water is
signified to the infant: for, according to this argument, cir-
Gumcision could be no sacrament to a Jewish infant dying
before he could perceive the signification of it, or know it
was a seal of the covenant. Secondly, Though I own that
baptism by water is baptism by a sign of some invisible
grace, viz. the purifying of the soul from the guilt and pol-
lution of sin; yet I deny that this is, by divine appointment,
any end of baptism, . Thirdly, It is not necessary, by virtue
of this school definition of a sacrament, which is not founded
upon scripture, that a sacrament should, de praesenti, be a
sign to the recipient ; for so it would not be to the person
circumcised on the eighth day: but only that it be a sign, or
an assurance to the parents and congregation, of God's grace
to, and favourable acceptance of the child, and his admis-
sion into the flock of Christ, who, by appointing for them the
outward sign, shows he is willing to confer upon them the
grace of baptism. & -
When, Secondly, it is said, That “except the person to
be baptized must be a believer and a penitent, there can be
no way to show who is to be baptized or not, nor any reason |
to be given for the exclusion of any person whatsoevel :”
this also will be answered from the consideration of the prac-
tice and institution concerning circumcision ; for that belong-
ing to all children that were capable of that rite, baptism, by
analogy, belongs to all children born of Christian parents,
admitted into that covenant, where there is no difference of
male and female (Gal. iii. 28), and are as capable of bap-
tism as the male children of the Jews were of circumcision;
all born in holiness, i.e. seminally holy, as being the off.
spring of them who were equally “a holy nation, a chosen
generation, a peculiar people’” (1 Pet. ii. 9), and therefore.
as fit to be admitted into that covenant which made their
parents so. Moreover, the practice of admitting proselytes.
to circumcision, from the first institution of it, seems to plead
fairly for the admission of Christian infants to baptism. Fol
as in the first institution of that rite, God commanded that
he that was born in Abraham's house, or bought with his
money, should be circumcised ; not that he was to be com-
pelled to it (seeing that would have been a profanation of
that sacrament), but that Abraham was to persuade them to
it ; or if he could not do it he was to dismiss them ; so that:
no adult person was to be circumcised without his free con-
sent, and his instruction in the nature of the covenant into
which he entered ; and yet upon his entrance into covenant
by circumcision, his children also were to be circumcised;
so may we reasonably conceive it is with reference to Chris-
tian baptism. Now hence it follows, that infants are not to
be excluded from baptism,
First, By reason of their incapacity, whilst they continue
infants, to understand the nature or the ends of baptism ;
the Jewish infants’ being as incapable, whilst they con-
tinued so, to understand the nature or the ends of circum-
cision. Or, --
Secondly, Because they cannot enter into covenant by
their own personal consent, nor promise sincere obedience
to the laws of Christ ; for the Jewish infants entered into
covenant with God without their personal consent, and
were obliged to obey the law of Moses without this pro-
IIllSe.
Thirdly, When therefore the antipaedobaptists argue
thus, That which makes baptism saving is the stipulation
of a good conscience towards God (1 Pet. iii. 23); there-
fore baptism cannot be salutary to infants, who cannot make
this stipulation:—this is as if I should say, The true cir-
cumcision before God is not “the outward circumcision of
the flesh, but the inward circumcision of the heart and spirit”
(Rom. ii. 29); therefore the Jewish infants, for want of
this, were not to be admitted into covenant with God by
circumcision ; for the argument is plainly parallel ; the an-
swer of a good conscience is required that the baptism may
be salutary, therefore they only are to be baptized who can
make this answer ; and the inward circumcision is required
as the only acceptable circumcision in the sight of God, there-
fore they only are to be circumcised who have this inward
circumcision of the heart.
Prop. VI. The institution of baptism delivered in these
words, “Go, teach all nations, baptizing them,” &c. (Matt.
xxvii. 19), or those, “He that believeth, and is baptized,
shall be saved” (Mark xvi. 16), doth not infer an indirect
or consequential prohibition of infant-baptism; because
these words were not intended to exclude them from their
former right of being admitted into covenant with their
parents, but only to declare what was required of their
parents to obtain a right of baptism, both for themselves
and for their children. For (1.) had the commission given
to Christ's apostles run in these words, “Go, teach all na-
tions, circumcising them,” would they have thought that
infants of those nations had been excluded from circumcision
by it, because they were incapable of being taught 2 could
they especially have understood him thus, who knew their
infants were circumcised at an age incapable of knowledge 2
Whytherefore should we judge they thought infants excluded
by these words, “Go, teach (or proselyte) all nations, bap-
tizing them,” since it was equally the custom, in making
proselytes to their religion, to teach them the fundamentals
of the Jewish law ; and upon their profession of the belief
of it, not only to baptize them, but their infants also 2 The
9er berith, or proselyte of the covenant of justice, was first
to be instructed in the fundamentals of the law, the weight
CHAPTER XXVIII.
189
or burden of it, the penalties and the rewards or blessings
contained in it ; and then to promise his submission to it;
and yet none of these prerequisites excluded the infants of
those proselytes, then born, from baptism or circumcision;
why therefore should the like conditions required of the
adult Christian proselyte exclude his children P Or, why
should we imagine that those apostles should so apprehend
these words, who knew full well that these conditions were
required of the Jewish proselyte adult ; and yet that by the
sentence of the Sanhedrin, they stood obliged to baptize
his children, as having right to baptism, by his parents'
faith? “Is it reasonable,” saith Dr. Stillingfleet, “to think
that when our Saviour bade the apostles gather the Jews and
gentiles into a church-state, they should imagine infants
were to be excluded from it ; when the only nation that
was in such a state, and all that were at any time admitted
to it, had their infants so solemnly admitted?” To this
Mr. Tombs answers, (1.) That they who were born of that
nation, were by birth, not by circumcision, visible members
of that church. Now, (1.) were this true, it would evi-
dently prove, that the infants of Christians are also visible
members of Christ's church, as having the same title to it
as the Jewish infants had to be members of their church, to
wit, that they are born of Christian parents; and why then
are they admitted into that state of baptism, when they are
adult 2 (2.) This is impertinent, it being certain that they
could not continue members of that church without circum-
cision, since the want of it renders them violators of God’s
covenant, and upon that account to be cut off by death, or
by exclusion from that church. And (3) this assertion
contradicts both the words of the institution and the con-
stant opinion which the whole Jewish nation had of it ; for
the words of the institution ran thus, Gen. xvii. 11, “This
is my covenant;” i. e. the rite by which you shall enter into
covenant with me: “Ye shall circumcise the flesh of your
foreskin; and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me
and you:” and ver. 13, “The child of the house shall be
circumcised, and my covenant shall be in your flesh.” The
syndic or sponsor who held the child in his arms till it was
circumcised, was called baal berith, the “master of the cove-
nant :" and when the child was circumcised, the father said,
“Blessed be the Lord who hath commanded us to cause this
child to enter into the covenant of Abraham:” so certain it
is that the whole Jewish nation thought they entered into
£ovenant by this rite.
Mr. Tombs saith that our Saviour's words, Matt. xxviii.
19, are to be expounded not according to the apprehensions
of the apostles at first, for they mistook him, Acts x. 14,
but as the words did express his meaning.
Now I grant that the apostles mistook the meaning of
those words, “Go, teach all nations, baptizing them,” think-
ing the former words related only to the teaching of the Jews
dispersed through the world, and to the proselytes of all na-
tions they had made (Acts xi. 19). But this is much to
our advantage : for seeing they did this in compliance with
the received tradition of their own nation, that it was un-
lawful to converse with the gentiles, as being uncircumcised
and unclean, we may be more assured that they acted in
baptizing them according to the received tradition of their
nation, that rite being used by them to make the gentiles
clean. 2. Our Lord was pleased to correct their error
about the persons to be taught, by a miraculous vision
wouchsafed to Peter: seeing then we read of nothing done
to correct their other supposed error, we have no reason to
believe it was an error, but rather to judge it a true inter-
pretation of the extent of their commission. It being there-
fore unquestionable among those disciples to whom our
Lord directed this commission, that the children of the Jews
and proselytes were admitted to enter into covenant by the
same rite and ceremony by which their parents did so :
though they were as incapable of understanding the ends
of the institution, or doing what was required of the parents
to fit them for the institution, as our children are ; that
being thought sufficient for their admission, quod a parenti-
bus eorum factum fuit, “which the parents did by their own
free choice and faith:” it being also evident that our Lord
chose that baptism for the admission of persons into his new
covenant and church by which their proselytes were cleansed
and fitted to enter into the Jewish church; what cause have
we to think either that Christ's disciples would not so under-
stand his commission, as to extend it to the same persons
who formerly were admitted by the same rite, or that Christ
did not intend it so, as to include the infants of believing
parents? And then the admission of them must not be
thought an alteration of Christ's institution, or an addition
to it; but only a right understanding of it, and as an insti-
tution of baptism, instead of that circumcision, which was
to cease under the new covenant, it being only a rite ap-
pointed for the entrance into the old. In fine, suppose
some persons sent to the Indians from churches which retain
infant-baptism, with this commission, Go, teach the Indians,
baptizing them ; could they who were thus sent conceive
the intent of this commission was to exclude the infants of
believing Indians? If not, then must it not be thought our
Saviour's purpose to exclude them by the like words spoken
to them, who baptize the infants of believing parents, and
which were necessary for such a commission as sent them to
the unbelieving world. For though this commission, as Mr.
Tombs says, went from our Saviour, and not from the Jewish
church ; yet since it was a commission given to persons, who,
even after they had owned the true Messiah, and had re-
ceived the Holy Ghost, were very tenacious of their Jewish
rites: and since it concerned a rite of common use in their
church, and by which they cleansed the infants of all those
who came into covenant with God as proselytes, applying to
them the same rite by which their parents were fitted to
enter into covenant ; our Lord in this his institution ex-
pressing no dislike to that way, and saying nothing of the
unsuitableness of it to a gospel-state, must, in all reason be
supposed to approve the doing of it after the manner of
that church. And, lastly, this will farther be confirmed by
returning a clear answer to the arguments produced to prove
that infants are excluded by the words of this commis-
Sion. As,
Arg. 1. It is not lawful (saith Mr. Tombs), where
Christ hath assigned the thing to be done, expressing the
qualification of the person, to do it to others, or otherwise:
I answer, Hence it only follows, that no heathens are to
be baptized till they be first taught to believe in Christ:
extend it farther, and, (1.) it cuts off all the members of a
Christian church from baptism : for the argument runs as
strongly thus, Where Christ hath appointed the thing to be
done, and expressed the qualification of the person, it is
not lawful to do it to others; but the only persons assigned
in this commission to be taught and baptized, are rà #8wn,
the heathens or unbelieving gentiles ; therefore it is not law-
ful to teach or baptize a Jew, or any persons who were
never heathems: and so the quakers and Socinians, who
deny water-baptism to be a standing ordinance, must be
in the right. (2.) It was not lawful for the Jews either to
baptize or circumcise a heathen till he was taught the
fundamentals of the Jewish law ; but will it hence follow,
that it was unlawful either to baptize or circumcise their
children before? And yet the case is parallel: for teach-
ing was undoubtedly the qualification assigned for the
adult heathen to be admitted a proselyte of justice, and
therefore by this rule it was not lawful to admit his children.
Arg. 2. They who are to be baptized must be taught
to observe all things which Christ commanded his apostles.
Ans. 1. The text doth not say they must be first taught
all these things, but rather they must be first taught to
believe in Christ, then baptized, and after taught to ob-
serve all Christ's commands; and this interpretation is certain
from the practice of the apostles, who instantly baptized
whole houses on the belief of some, or all of them, that
“Jesus was the Christ,” without any farther teaching. 2.
The heathen who was to be admitted as a proselyte of justice,
was to be first taught the fundamentals of the law of Moses,
before he either was baptized or circumcised: but was it
therefore requisite that his children should first be taught?
Again, all that were born in Abraham's house, or bought
with his money, being his own, are to circumcised; as for
those taken in war, Abraham was to persuade them to it;
and if they would not be persuaded, to dismiss or sell them ;
if, being of age, they consented to be circumcised (for to
compel them to receive circumcision had been a profanation
of that ordinance), must therefore their children be circum-
cised only when they could consent 2
190
MATTHEW.
Arg. 3. “Go, teach all nations, baptizing them,” cannot | Christ had intended to continue infant baptism, had there
be meant of them whilst infidels, but when taught to believe, not been great reason he should have positively told us so P”
and so when made disciples.
Ans. It was as absolutely necessary that heathens should
be first taught to renounce their idolatry, and to believe in
Christ, before they were baptized in his name, as it was ne-
cessary for idolatrous heathens to own the true God, and to
believe the law of Moses, before they were admitted pro-
selytes of justice, and so baptized and circumcised: but as
it was not therefore necessary that their children should so
believe, that they might enter by the same rites into the same
covenant ; so neither is it necessary for children born of be-
lieving parents under the gospel-state.
Arg. 4. To be baptized in the name of Christ, is to own
Christ, as it appears from the words of the apostle, “Were
you baptized in the name of Paul ?” (1 Cor. i. 13.)
Ans. 1. This argument is built upon a false, or, at the
least, an unnecessary interpretation of the apostle's words,
which may well bear this sense, Stand you obliged by bap-
tism to have Paul for your master, to yield obedience to
him, or Christ? And then, as the infant was obliged by
circumcision to yield obedience to the law of Moses, so may
the Christian infant be obliged by baptism to yield obedience
to the laws of Christ.
Secondly, The apostle here plainly speaks of those he
had converted from heathenism to the faith of Christ, and
therefore must be obliged by their baptism to own Christ as
their Saviour; but hence it will not follow, that their chil-
dren may not be baptized till they could do so. The adult
persons who were admitted as proselytes to the Jewish re-
ligion, were first obliged to own the God of Israel as the
true God, and the law of Moses as derived from him : but
yet when they had done this, their infants were admitted
both to baptism and circumcision, though they could do
neither of these things.
Prop. VII. Had Christ intended to exclude the infants
of believing parents from this sacrament, there was great
reason for his especial prohibition, but little indeed of his
command upon his intention to admit them, or of express
naming them in a commission to baptize, directed to the
members to the Jewish church, to whom paedobaptism, saith
Dr. Lightfoot, was so well known, usual and frequent in the
admission of proselytes, that nothing almost was more known
or frequent.
First, “There was no need,” saith he, “to strengthen it
with any other precept than that which converted baptism
into an evangelical sacrament; for Christ took baptism into
his hands, and converted it into an evangelical precept, as
he found it; this only added, that he might promote it to
a more worthy end" and nobler use. The whole nation
knew well enough that little children used to be baptized,
there was no need of an (express) precept for that which
had ever by common use prevailed. If a royal proclama-
tion should now issue out in these words, “Let every one
on the Lord’s day resort to the public assemblies in the
church,” would it be reasonable thence to argue, that prayer,
hearing of sermons, singing of psalms, were not to be per-
formed in the public on the Lord's day, because there was
no mention of them in the proclamation ? there being no
need to make mention of the particular kinds of divine
worship to be celebrated there, when they were always and
everywhere well known, and always in use before the pro-
clamation. The case is the very same in baptism ; Christ
instituted it for an evangelical sacrament, whereby all should
be admitted into the gospel covenant, as heretofore it was
used for admission of proselytes to the Jewish religion ; the
particulars belonging to it—as, the manner of baptizing, the
age, the sex to be baptized, &c. had no need of a special
rule, because they were by common use of them sufficiently
known to the most ignorant men.”
On the other hand, there was need of a plain and open
prohibition that infants and little children should not be
baptized, if Christ would not have them baptized; for
since it was common before for the whole nation of the
Jews to baptize them, had Christ designed to have that
custom abolished, “it is reasonable to presume he would
have openly forbid it: therefore his silence, and the si-
lence of the scripture in this matter, is a confirmation of
the received practice.” This Mr. Tombs retorts thus, “If
But had he considered that Christ spake not to us, but to
them who were Jews, and that he did this when he was giving
this commission to them whom he found still very tena-
cious of their former rites, he would have seen it more rea-
sonable to conceive, that had Christ intended a prohibition
of that rite for the future, and by it so great an alteration of
the state of infants in reference to their church-membership,
he had far greater reason positively to say he intended that
alteration of the state of infants, than by his silence tacitly
to permit them to go on still in the observation of that rite:
since they who were so unwilling to understand his plain
commission of preaching to the gentiles, contrary to their
received traditions, would be more unlikely to understand
his silence as a prohibition of the like tradition.
Prop. VIII. We have great reason to conceive that
Christ and his apostles did admit of infants' baptism, and
thought the practice of it lawful and suitable to the gospel-
state: for, (1.) it is certain that our Lord's disciples thought
Christ's command “to teach all nations” concerned only the
Jews and proselytes of justice of all nations, for they still
looked on all the gentiles as unclean, though they were
proselytes of the gate, and deemed it unlawful to go in to
or converse with the gentiles (Acts x. 28. xi. 3). And this
opinion they held after they had baptized thousands; and
could they then imagine that his commission excluded
those who by the law of Moses were admitted to circum-
cision, and by their constant custom were baptized toge-
ther with their proselyted and believing parents P Since,
notwithstanding the teaching prerequisite to the admission
of adult proselytes of justice, and their especial caveat de
is non nisi sponte circumcidendis, “ of not circumcising them
without their consent,” they both baptized and circumcised
their infants, must they not also be supposed to have dealt
thus with the infants of their proselyted parents to Chris-
tianity P especially considering that they thought of nothing
less than of the changing the customs and traditions then
received among them (Acts xx. 21): among which this was
one, That he is no proselyte who is not baptized as well as
circumcised,” and that without this he is still a gentile, and
unholy. (2). That baptism is a rite of initiation to Christians,
as circumcision was to the Jews, appears from the apostle's
declaration, Col. ii. 12, that “in Christ we are circumcised
with the circumcision made without hands, and consisting in
the putting off the body of sin,” we being “buried with
him in baptism,” and thence concluding we do not need the
circumcision of the flesh ; whence it may justly be inferred,
that baptism is Christ's ordinance for the admission of in-
fants of believing parents into the church of Christ, as cir-
cumcision was of old for the admission of the infants of the
Jews into his church and covenant: for if it had been other-
wise, and the infants under Christianity had not been received
by any federal rite into covenant with God, the objection
of the necessity of circumcision as to them would have been
still in force, they entering into covenant by no other rite,
and so remaining strangers from the church, and as much
aliens from the adoption, the covenant, and promises, as
the gentiles were ; which sure the Jews would have objected
to the reproach of Christianity, if truly they could have
done it ; for the more averse to Christianity they were the
more ready would they be by such arguments as these to
show the imperfection of that institution, and the advantage
of the Jew on this account above the Christian. For in-
stance, it was hotly disputed, Acts xv., whether the believing
gentiles were to be received into the church by circumcision
or not ; and this question, as far as it concerned the be-
lieving gentiles, was carried by the council in the negative :
they then who were concerned for the affirmative, being
Christians, must either think the children of such persons
about whom they disputed were to be admitted by some
other way, or not ; if so, what other way, besides that of
baptism, can be imagined? if not, they must conclude them
unclean, excluded from God’s church and favour, and from
all the blessings they ascribed to circumcision. The Chris-
tian institution therefore must, for the satisfaction of their
believing parents, afford some way of sanctifying these in-
* Seld. p. 23, 25.
APPENDIX.
191.
fants, or of admitting them into the number of God's peo-
ple ; which being confessedly no other than that of baptism
it must be supposed to allow that to them ; that by it, in
the phrase of Irenaeus, infantes et parvuli renascantur in
Deum ;” infants and little children may be regenerated.
In a word, infants are thought capable of the remission
of sin, and therefore of that baptism which is instituted for
the remission of sin; they being “born of the flesh, are flesh,”
and therefore need some way or other to be born anew ;
and since they cannot be thus begotten by the word, what
more likely way can be imagined than that this new birth
should pass tupon them by the “laver of regeneration” (Tit.
iii. 5), or that they should be born again “of water and of
the Holy Ghost,” that they may be members of Christ's
body, he being only “the Saviour of his body,” and therefore
must be capable of that ordinance by which we are all
“baptized into one body ?” They are capable of entering
into the kingdom of God, into which they cannot enter,
saith our Lord except they be “born of water and the Holy,
Ghost ;” they may obtain a blessed resurrection, and there-
fore must be buried with Christ in baptism. Deny all, or
any of these things to infants, and they are lost for ever.
Christ must have died as to them in vain, they being yet in
their sin, and without Christ, in their unregenerate estate,
incapable of entering into the kingdom of God, and of a
blessed resurrection ; and so it must have been better for
them, dying in their infancy, that they had never been.
Christ must have no real kindness for them, and their con-
dition must be far worse under the gospel than it was under
the law, when they had both the seal and promise given to
them that “God would be their God.” That they are capa-
ble of all these blessings, by virtue of their baptism, pro-
vided they be capable subjects of it, is evident from those
scriptures, which ascribe all these blessings to persons duly
receiving baptism, and do not, by any unworthy act, render
themselves unworthy of them.
7 Wer. 20 'Ey& Exe6' àpºv sigºt ºrácac rā; hºgaº, w; ric
awtextiac rot giºvog, And, lo, I am with you always to the
end of the world..] That these words contain a promise of
Christ's presence with and assistance of the ministers of the
gospel throughout all ages of the world, is evident from the
words rāga, tà, hºisac, “at all times” (or always): for had
our Lord made this promise with relation to the apostles
only, he would have said ºrára; rā; hºwāga, jºy, “all your
days:” and it is still more evident from the following words,
#ovc rāg avy reasia; roi; afāvoc, for that they are duly rendered
“to the end of the world,” is evident from the continual use
of them elsewhere, especially in this evangelist, who in one
chapter uses this phrase three times concerning the general
judgment, which is to be at the end of the world, viz. xiii.
39, 40. 49, and xxiv. 3, of that time which the Jews
thought contemporary with the general resurrection, and so
with the end of the world. For, as Dr. Lightfoot notes on
the place, the Jews held, that at the coming of the Messiah
the whole world should be destroyed, and there should be a
renovation of it. And (3.) this may be farther argued from
the apparent falsehood of the new exposition of these words,
Behold, I will be with you till the end of the Jewish age,
or till the destruction of Jerusalem ; seeing, according to
this interpretation, Christ, sending servants to preach his
gospel to all the heathen nations, doth only promise his pre-
sence with them till the Jewish church was subverted ; but
not when, after the subversion of it, the churches of the
gentiles were chiefly to be erected: yea, then no person, no,
not the evangelist St. John, had any commission from
Christ to preach the gospel to the heathen nations any
longer, nor any promise of Christ's assistance with them ;
which yet is plainly false, seeing the promise of Christ's mi-
raculous assistance made in the parallel place, Mark xvi.
16. 18, continued sensibly till the beginning of the fourth
century.
APPEN DIX
TO CHAP. II.
Concerning the import of that phrase, Wa ºrxºpo'67,
“That it might be fulfilled,” &c.
HERE being many things said to be done, Wa or örw; ºran-
* Lib. ii. cap. 39.
eaff, “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the
prophet, saying,” thus or thus ; I think it needful to say
something of the true import of that phrase, by way of in-
quiry, Whether it sometimes only notes that such an action
may by accommodation be said to be the fulfilling of the
words of the prophet cited ; because they were more sig-
nally accomplished by that action than by the actions to
which they in the prophet do relate, though no such thing
was by the prophet, or by the Spirit of God, intended, when
the words were spoken 2 Or, Whether it be necessary, by
virtue of those words, to say the Holy Ghost intended that
those words should be more signally accomplished by some
actions or passages which were afterward to happen? In
answer to which question I say ;
First, That when the phrase runs thus, “This was done
Iva or 3row; trango.87, i. e. to this end, that such or such a
prophecy might be fulfilled ; ” I think it necessary to say,
that the very completion of it by that action should be in-
tended by the Holy Ghost, since otherwise that action can,
in no propriety of speech, be said to be performed for that
d
62720.
Obj. The only considerable instance to the contrary is
taken from those words of St. John, xii. 38, 39, “But
though he had done so many miracles among them, they be-
lieved not, iva Trampo'67, that the saying of Isaiah might be
fulfilled, viz. Who hath believed our report?” &c. For seeing
the prediction of the prophet could be no cause of their in-
fidelity, it seems improper to affirm that they believed not
that this prediction might be verified.
Ans. To this I answer, That in all predictions of evil ac-
tions to be performed by free agents, or agents capable of
being diverted from them by providential actions, or strong
impressions made upon their spirits, there is not only a fore-
knowledge that the action, if providence interpose not, will
be done, but a decree or declaration that providence will not
interpose to hinder them, but will permit such persons to
act according to their evil inclinations. So that the import
of these words may be only this: That God, foreseeing the
infidelity of the Jews, left them to the blindness and hard-
mess of their own hearts, permitting them to continue in it,
that the saying of Isaiah might be fulfilled. So that though
the prediction was not the proper and internal cause of their
infidelity, yet was the completion of it the final cause of the
divine permission ; and therefore the action, though he be
no way productive of it, or obliged to hinder it, yet being a
permission by way of punishment of men's evil dispositions,
in such cases is ascribed to God; as when God is said to
“send among men strong delusions to believe a lie, because
they receive not the truth in the love of it, but had plea-
sure in unrighteousness” (2 Thess. ii. 10–12).
Secondly, Of the places where this phrase ºva or 8mo:
trangw8;, “That it might be fulfilled,” occurs, I thus distin-
guish ; that in some of them the Jews might know, before
the doing of the action, that such a thing was by the pro-
phet intended or designed to be fulfilled by the coming of
their Messiah ; as, v. g. that “a virgin should conceive and
bear a son,” Isa. vii. 14. Matt. i. 23, that “their Messiah
was to die for the sins of the people,” Isa. liii. 7, 8. Matt.
xxvi. 54, that he should “come riding on a colt, the foal of
an ass,” Zech. ix. 9. Matt. xxi. 4, 5, that his side should be
pierced, Zech. xii. 10. John xix. 37, it being natural for the
Jews to inquire touching such words as these, “Of whom
speaketh the prophet this P’’ And hence we find their doc-
tors by tradition did expound these words of the Messiah.
Moreover, it being so expressly foretold, and generally
received among the Jews, that their Messiah was to be the
“Son of David,” and therefore to resemble him, that no-
thing is more common in their writings than to apply to
him the words of David, and even to call him David, after
the example of the holy prophets, Ezek. xxxiv. 23, 24.
xxxvii. 24, 25. Hos. iii. 5, saying of their king Messiah,
David shemiah, “David is his name" (see Dr. Pocock on
Hos. iii. 5, and Pugio Fidei, par. ii. cap. 5, $. 8):...I say,
this being so, it could not be difficult for them to believe or
conceive the words spoken by or relating to David might,
by the intention of God, have a higher or more eminent
completion in this second David their king ; thus that, by
his speaking in parables (Matt. xiii. 35), that of the psalm-
ist might be more eminently fulfilled, “I will open my
192
MATTHEW.
mouth in parables” (Ps. lxxviii. 2); that by the providen-
tial preservation of his bones from being broken, that which
the same psalmist saith of the righteous man should be more
eminently fulfilled in him, “He keepeth all his bones, so
that not one of them is broken " (Ps. xxxiv. 20); that by
the treachery of Judas in betraying his master (John xiii.
18), that which was spoken of Ahithophel's counsel against
David might have a more eminent completion in our Lord,
viz. “He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel
against me.” In all these things, I say, there could be no-
thing strange to the Jews, who, as their Targum on the
Psalms demonstrates, do expound places more obscurely, if
at all relating to him, of their king Messiah. And this they
had greater reason to believe, when, by their own confession,
the psalm from which the words are cited, doth relate to
‘Christ, and the words cited were not verified of David ; as
when, by the soldiers' parting of Christ's garments, and cast-
ing lots for his coat that was without seam, John xix. 24,
that of Ps. xxii. 19 is said to be fulfilled, “They parted my
garments among them, and for my vesture did they cast
lots.”
But then in other instances it was not necessary that the
Jews should understand, nor is it easy to conceive how,
without teaching, they could understand, they were to be
accomplished in their Messiah ; or by these actions done by
him, to which they are applied by the evangelist; as, v. g.
that the words of Hosea, xi. 1, “Out of Egypt have I called
my son,” should be accomplished by God's calling his Son
Christ out of Egypt (Matt. ii. 15); or how that which was
said by the prophets, of Christ's being despised and re-
jected, should be made good by Christ's dwelling at Naza-
reth (ver. 23); or that by the coming of the Messiah to
them, the land of Zabulon and Nephthalim should be en-
lightened (Matt. iv. 15); that by the doing of his miracles
in such secrecy, and without contention, that of the prophet
should be fulfilled, “He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor
cause his voice to be heard in the streets” (Isa. xlii. 2): all
these, I say, are things the Jews could never know, unless
they did receive it by tradition that they were things re-
lating to the Messiah promised to them.
But then I add, that there was no necessity they should
beforehand know that any of these things were thus in-
tended by the prophets, they being not produced by the
evangelists to prove our Jesus must be the Messiah pro-
mised to the Jews, or to convince the infidel ; but only as
instances which they, by the same Spirit which spake by
the prophets, were assured did belong unto him ; and of
this all the believing Jews and gentiles might be assured by
the authority of the evangelists, whom they saw assisted by
the same Spirit which moved the prophets, and thereby
equally enabled to give us the true interpretation and in-
ºnent of them. From what is here laid down it fol-
ows,
First, That it is no sufficient objection against this asser-
tion, that if these mystical senses were intended by the pro-
phets, or by the Holy Ghost speaking by them, the Jews
could never understand these prophecies before the event.
For it was sufficient that they might be understood by them
in the primary and literal sense of them before, and that
after the event they might be understood by them in the
mystical sense also, by virtue of that explication which
men, assisted by the same Spirit which did at first indite
them, gave of them, or in which they averred they were
again fulfilled. And I hope it is no objection against the
predictions contained in the Revelation of St. John, that
we do not at present understand them, it being sufficient
that Christians shall understand them in those times in
which they are to be fulfilled. Nor,
Secondly, Is it advisedly said, that the authority of the
apostles is not in these passages produced as that which
added strength to their reasonings: for in these passages they
never do pretend to reason, but barely to assert ; and surely
the authority of men delivering these things by virtue of the
Spirit “sent down from heaven to teach them all things,”
and “lead them into all truth,” must be sufficient to prove
the truth of what they say concerning all these places:
now this authority the apostles and evangelists must ascribe
to themselves in all these writings, or the whole church of
Christ must be continually mistaken in receiving the gospels
written by them as the word of God, and the unquestion-
able rules of faith; for if you only have recourse to their
honesty in relating things, you never will persuade men to
believe, that by the strength of memory they could record,
not only all they could have delivered of Christ's actions,
but all his sermon on the mount, and his long discourses in
St. John, especially ch. vi. and ch. xiii. to xvii. so exactly,
as that we can be certain they did in nothing vary from the
true meaning of the words of Christ ; especially if the gos-
pel of St. John was written, as is supposed, almost seventy
years after the words recorded in it had been spoken by our
Lord. It therefore either must be said, that the Holy
| Spirit promised to them for that end did “bring these things
to their remembrance,” and did enable them, by “compar.
ing spiritual things with spiritual,” thus to apply these
places to their particular events ; or it must be owned that
these gospels, in which these passages are so applied, and all
these long discourses are recited, are of no certainty, and so
can be to us no rule of faith.
Moreover, let it be noted, that they neither did nor could
they take it for granted, that any of these places should be
So explained, by reason of any received tradition of the
Jews ; there being no such explication of them to be found
in any of their Targums, or cited by those who have con-
versed most in the rabbinical and cabalistical expositions of
the Jews. In a word, either these supposed traditionary ex-
positions were intended by the Holy Ghost, or they were
not ; if they were, the apostles delivered a certain truth,
when they said these things were done “that it might be
fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets;” if they were
not, they must be guilty of a manifest untruth, in declaring
they were done that the scriptures, or the sayings of the pro-
phets, might be fulfilled ; when, by the doing of them, only
the false and extravagant traditions of the Jews were accom-
plished, but nothing at all was done which the Holy Ghost
intended in the inditing of those scriptures.
Thirdly, I add, that when the words run only thus, rörs
#Trang&6m, “Then was fulfilled” such a thing spoken by the
prophets, though I see no necessity of so doing, we may
admit of a completion by way of accommodation. That
there is no necessity of granting this, I hope I have made
appear in my notes on Matt. ii. 17. xxvii. 9, the only places.
where this phrase is used ; yet, since the end of doing such
an action is not here expressed, and therefore the same rea-
son of any farther intention of the Holy Ghost doth not
here obtain, I say, we may in these cases admit of an ac-
commodation. And having thus said what doth sufficiently
answer all that Mr. Clerc and Woltzogenius say on this sub-
ject, I proceed, with all due respect both to the piety and
learning of Mr. Dodwell, to consider what Mr. Clerc here
citeth from him. And,
First, Whereas he supposes God did intend the prophe-
cies which were committed to writing, and enrolled in the
public canon of the church, should be understood by the
persons concerned in them :—I grant, this, when they are
concerned in them, i. e. when they are fulfilled by the
event: but will any man hence infer that the Jews must
rightly understand in every age the prophecies of Jacob,
Gen. xlix.; or the song of Moses, Deut. xxxiii.; or Ezekiel's
description of the temple, from ch. xl. to the end; or Dan-
iel's prophecies, ch. ix. and xi.; or that the Christians must
in all ages understand the contents of the Revelations of St.
John, which were to be sent to the churches, and which un-
doubtedly concern what should befall them 2 Old Jacob
saith to his sons, “Come, I will tell you what shall befall
you in the last days,” Gen. xlix. 1, then he prophesies of
Simeon and Levi thus ; “I will divide them in Jacob, and
scatter them in Israel:” of Judah, that “he is a lion's
whelp ; from the prey, my son, thou art gone up,” ver, 9;
that “Issachar is a strong ass, couching down between two
burdens,” ver. 14 ; that “Dan should judge his people,”
viz. by Samson, of the tribe of Dan, ver. 16, and he should
be “a serpent in the way, and an adder in the path,” &c.
ver. 17; of Gad, that “a troop should invade him,” i. e.
the Ammonites and Moabites, and that he should “over-
come at the last,” viz. by Jephthah, the Gileadite, ver, 19;
that “Naphtali is a hind let loose, he giveth goodly words,”
ver. 21. Now what necessity is there, or what probability,
that his sons, or the Jews, should presently understand the
APPENDIX.
193
import of these mystical expressions, which were to be ful-
filled by such persons as Samson and Jephthah, of whom
they could have no knowledge; and by such providences as
the choosing the tribe of Levi to be God's inheritance, and
settling the sceptre in the line of David, of which they then
knew nothing? These prophecies must therefore, many of
them, be expounded only by the event.
Secondly, When he adds, That prophecies committed to
Writing, and designedly propagated to future ages, must
meeds have been of a general and permanent concernment:
I beg leave to say, it is sufficient that they be of concern-
ment to those ages in which they are to be fulfilled ; for
otherwise experience shows the Jews had no just notions
of Ezekiel's visions, or of Daniel's prophecies, or the pro-
phecies of Zechariah ; nor have the Christians any certain
interpretation of many prophecies contained in the Reve-
lation. If indeed they be prophecies designed for the sup-
port and comfort of his people under their circumstances, as
the prophecy of the return of the Jews from their captivity
in Babylon, after seventy years; or prophecies containing
any promise respecting the coming of the Messiah, and
pointing out the time when they were to expect him, as that
of their Messiah suddenly coming to his temple, Mal. iii. 1,
and the Desire of all nations filling that house with glory,
Hag. ii. 7, these being prophecies by which their faith was
to be strengthened, and all their hopes erected, it may rea-
sonably be expected that in such cases they should have
Some present knowledge of the import of them, though
much inferior to that which the event and actual completion
of them would afford. And therefore as many “prophets
and righteous men desired to see these things,” and there-
fore understood the import of them, Matt. xiii. 17, so saith
St. Peter, was it “revealed, that not unto themselves, but
unto us, they did minister these things” (1 Pet. i. 11, 12).
But then, when the predictions were of things merely typical,
and related not to the literal and primary import of the
Words, but only to a mystical sense of them, to be accom-
plished.by an event which afterward should happen, it is suf.
ficient that they might know this mystical import of them by
the event. So, v. g. when Jacob saith of Simeon and Levi,
“I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel”
(Gen. xlix. 7), it was sufficient that they then understood
the meaning of these words, when it so fell out, that the pos-
terity of Simeon had no separate inheritance by themselves,
but only a portion in the midst of the tribe of Judah (Josh.
xix., 1.9), and when the tribe of Levi was dispersed among
all the tribes; nor have we any reason to believe they un-
stood this before.
Thirdly, When he adds, That “the church concerned in
these prophecies cannot be only those ages which were to
Survive the accomplishment, but also those before, because
the only momentous reason that must be conceived concern-
ing these as well as other revelations, must be some duty
which could not otherwise be known ;” I desire him to show
upon what duty, which could not otherwise be known,
depended the true interpretation of Ezekiel's visions, or
Daniel's prophecies, or the words of Jacob now cited, or
many passages in the Revelation which are yet mysterious:
and why this postnate knowledge might not serve as to il-
lustrate the divine prescience, so as to confirm the Christians
in what they did believe already, and for the conviction both
of Jews and infidels, when the event was, by men so mira-
culously assisted by the Holy Ghost, declared to be a com-
pletion of these prophecies ; the author of the Revelation
having said, that “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of
prophecy” (Rev. xix. 10), I do not understand.
And whereas he insists much on the word “revelations,”
which name he thinks these prophecies could not deserve,
unless they could be understood by ordinary means without
Gew revelations: I answer, that as the writings of Ezekiel
£nd Daniel are never called revelations, but only visions, and
those of the Revelation are so styled, not as made known,
as to their import, to the churches, but as revealed to St.
John ; so it is evident from the New Testament, that there
was need of a new spirit of prophecy to understand the
mysteries of the Old Testament ; and of a revelation or ex-
traordinary assistance of the Holy Spirit, to know that such
passages of the prophets belonged to such actions of our
Lord, and such, transactions relating to the propagation of
the gospel ; nor will any man be able to establish the appli-
cation made of them to such passages on any other foot;
and in like manner, when the fulness of the gentiles shall
come in, and the body of the Jews shall be gathered to the
Christian faith, I know not why a new effusion of the Spirit
may not be expected.
In a word when, I shall see this learned person, by his
skill in oneirocritics, expounding either Ezekiel's visions, or
the Revelation of St. John, from ch. vi. to xx. then only
shall I begin to think it not incredible, that skill in the art
of oneirocritics was the means by God designed for the ex-
pounding those visions, prophecies, and revelations (see
Grotius on Matt. i. 22).
A P P E N D L X
TO CHAP. W.
Relating to the question, viz. –Whether the duties there
enjoined by Christ did really belong to the scope and in-
tention of the moral law, and rather were corrections of
the misapprehensions of the scribes and pharisees about
it, than additions to it; or were indecd precepts not con-
tained in, but by himself superadded to the moral law P
IN answer to this question, I Say,
First, Whatsoever Christ doth here, it must be confessed,
that elsewhere he hath added to the law of mature, or the
moral law, viz. when he commands Christians to “love one
another, as he hath loved them ;” i. e. So as “to lay down
their lives for the brethren” (1 John iii. 16). For I know
no law of nature or of Moses that required this before, nor
did the reason of it, viz. Christ's laying down his life for us,
obtain before; and therefore this is styled his commandment
by way of excellency, John xv. 12, 13, yea, his “new com-
mandment,” John xiii. 34, 1 John ii. 8 (see the note there).
Secondly, I grant that Christ hath added to the permis-
sive laws of Moses, or rather hath restraincá Christians from
acting suitably to those permissions; v. g. whereas the law
of Moses permitted a man to divorce his wife, if she “found
not favour in his eyes,” by reason of “some matter of un-
cleanness in her” (Deut. xxiv. 1); that is, as the Jews in-
terpret that clause, something that rendered her disgusted
by and offensive to him : Christ plainly hath forbidden all
divorces upon any other cause than that of fornication ; but
then he doth this, not by introducing a new law, but by re-
viving an old one, and showing, that “no man ought to put
asunder those whom God,” by his first institution of matri-
mony, had joined together and “made one.”
He hath also added to the law of retaliation; but then,
according to the constant doctrine of the Jews, that law,
though it bound the judge to execute it, when by the suf-
ferer he was required so to do, yet it bound not the sufferer
to require that execution ; and therefore in respect of him
it only was permissive, and this permission Christ seems to
have restrained, not by imposing any new law, but by pre-
ferring to it the laws of charity and mercy, and of a peace-
able disposition, under lesser-and therefore tolerable injuries;
which thing is suitable to the law of nature: and by restrain-
ing us from gratifying our revenge, or our displeasure against
any person, or desiring his hurt, when we receive no benefit
or advantage by it, and from resisting force by force to our
greater damage; or going to law for lesser matters, to the
scandal of our profession, or the impairing of brotherly cha-
rity and friendship. .
Moreover, there seems to be, even in the words of Christ,
this signal difference betwixt his manner of speaking of the
permissive laws of Moses and of the precepts of the de-
calogue; for treating of the latter, he still saith, “Ye have
heard it hath been said to them of old;” but of the former
he only saith, “Ye have heard that it hath been said” (ver.
31. 38.43): which by the way shows that those words,
“Thou shalt hate thine enemy,” are not preceptive, but per-
missive only ; and that they contain a permission not given
by God, but by the pharisees to do so (see the note on ver.
43).
ko. this concession gives a sufficient answer to that, ob-
jection, that Christ here doth not oppose the doctrine of the
scribes and pharisees, but the permission of divorce and of
I94
MATTHEW.
retaliation, allowed by the law of Moses; it being granted
that Christ hath given precepts transcending these permis-
sive laws of Moses, occasioned by the stubbornness, of the
Jewish nation, and by “the hardness of their hearts,” and
denied only that he hath added anything to the true scope
and intention of the moral law. -
So also when it is added that Christ gives such precepts
of which we find no footsteps in the law of Moses, as those
of not resisting evil, but rather turning the other cheek;
and therefore in them seems not to explain the old, but to
have given a new law :
It is granted, that in these words he gives a new law op-
posed to the positive permissive law of talio ; but then it is
denied that he, discoursing of the preceptive moral laws, hath
added anything to them which was not virtually contained
in them. And therefore,
Thirdly, I add, that according to all the rules given by di-
vines for the interpretation of the decalogue, what our Lord
adds unto the letter of the third, the sixth, and the seventh
commandments, must be contained under the genuine import
of those precepts: for these are two known rules relating to
that subject, viz.
First, That where any vice is forbidden, that must be con-
sequentially forbidden which is a natural means, an ordi-
nary occasion of a provocation, inducement, or temptation
to that sin; it being, say civilians, the property of a good
law, non solim tollere vitia, sed etiam occasiones vitiorum :
and this may be confirmed from the very nature of means ;
for they receive their name and their morality from the end
we aim at ; and so, if they be such as have a proper ten-
dency to what is good, then are they styled good; but if they
do thus tend to what is evil, they must be evil also.
Secondly, That when any evil is forbidden in the deca-
logue, the least degree of that evil action is forbidden ; for
gradus non mutat speciem : so that the least degree, of sin
is sin, and sin is the transgression of the law, and therefore
of that law which doth forbid that kind of sin. Now hence
it follows,
First, That vain swearing, or swearing in our ordinary dis-
course, must be forbidden in the command requiring us not
to swear falsely, or take the name of God in vain. For (1).
the reason of the prohibition of false swearing is this, be-
cause it is a horrid profanation of the sacred name of God,
as is apparent from those words, Lev. xix. 12, “Thou shalt
not swear by my name falsely, neither shalt thou profane the
name of thy God.” Now by swearing in our common dis-
course, we make the Sacred name common, and therefore do
profane it. (2.) Because this custom of swearing in our
common discourse doth naturally lead us to the sin of per-
jury: it being the observation both of Hierocles* a heathen,
of Philot a Jew, and St. Austin a Christian, that św. Troxv-
oexia; Jevđogxia, “from the custom of swearing men quickly
slide into perjury:” and what can be expected from a com-
mon swearer, but that he sometimes should swear falsely,
and as well violate as profane the oath of God, since by his
frequent swearing he shows that he esteemeth not an oath as
sacred, nor looks upon it with due reverence? And he
that doth not reverence an oath, it is his chance and not
his care is to be thanked, if he be not perjured. More-
over, not only Christians, but even Jews, have always
thought that swearing lightly, or upon frivolous occasions,
and without necessity, was here forbidden. Hence, “Thou
shalt not take the mame of the Lord thy God in vain,” is,
saith the Septuagint, Thou shalt not use it Émi Tô parato'
saith Aquila, si, Eixã, “vainly or rashly ;” Thou shalt not
swear $28ioc, “easily,” saith Philo; “not without cause,”
saith the Targum : nor is it reasonable to conceive God
should permit the Jews to swear thus lightly by his name,
seeing the heathens, t by the light of nature, did condemn this
practice; and yet we find no precept in the law of Moses
in which this practice is so likely to be forbidden as in this.
Secondly, Hence it doth also follow, that all causeless
anger and rancour of spirit against others, and all the ex-
* In Carm. Pythag. p. 34. + De Decal. p. 584.
: IIávrov, Kºšy 38 xaxy Ériºráčevº, a QEów Śvágara º Xgaively
$28ioc. Plato, de Legib, lib. xi. p. 966. Nam et in totum
jurare, nisi ubi necessè est, gravi viro parim convenit.
Quintil Instit. Orat. lib. ix. cap. 2, p. 419. Hierocles in
Carm. Pythag. p. 33, 34.
pressions of it, by provoking language and reviling censures,
must be consequentially forbidden by those words, “Thou
shalt not kill,” because they tend and do dispose us to those
contentions which often end in blood, and to that contempt
of others which makes us not to value their lives, and there-
fore not much fear the taking them away, and, lastly, to
beget in us that hatred which in divine construction is ac-
counted murder ; for, “he that hateth his brother is a mur-
derer” (1 John iii. 15). And,
Thirdly, Hence it also follows, that all lustings of the heart
after the forbidden enjoyment of a woman, and all such usage
of the eye, the hand, or other senses, which naturally are in-
centives to any filthiness of the flesh, must be forbidden by
those words, “Thou shalt not commit adultery;” the last, as
being plain incentives to that uncleanness which is forbidden
under that name ; the first, as being a kind of adultery ; for
seeing “out of the heart,” saith Christ, “ come fornications
and adulteries” (Matt. xv. 19), they must be in it first ; and
in it they cannot be, but by the lusting of the heart towards
these actions.
Here then is a plain demonstration that Christ, in his dis-
course on these three precepts, hath made no addition to
them; for what is certainly contained in these command-
ments and forbidden by them, can be no addition to them.
Secondly, Against these supposed additions to the moral
law contained in the decalogue, I argue thus: Christ hath
not added to the duties formerly belonging to the first or to
the second table, therefore he hath not added to this law :
to suppose that Christ hath added to the moral precept of
the first table, is to suppose that he hath added to perfec-
tion ; for that required the Jew “to love his God with all
his soul, mind, heart, and strength” (Deut. vi. 5): and even
the voice of nature will instruct us that he is worthy thus to
be beloved. And is not this as much as Christ requireth of
the Christians? Could the Jew comply with this precept
in its greatest latitude, without exerting his utmost vigour
in his service P and doth Christ require more ? Will he not
accept the engagement of our whole heart, mind, and spirit
in his service; Doth he require that our obedience should
exceed our strength 2
Nor can it reasonably be supposed that Christ hath added
to the duties of the second table, since that requires us to
“love our neighbour as we do ourselves” (Matt. xix. 18, 19).
Now the apostle Paul assures us, that all the command-
ments of the second table, and every other precept relating
to our duty to our neighbour, is comprised in that one word
or precept, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Rom.
xiii. 9), and that “love worketh no evil to our neighbour ;
therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” (ver. 10, see the
note there). But against this it is objected,
First, That if Christ had intended in this discourse to have
corrected the imperfect or false interpretations which the
scribes and pharisees had made of these commandments, he
would have named them, as you do in the interpretation of
his words.
Ans. This he sufficiently hath done by saying (ver. 10),
“Except your righteousness (i.e. your obedience to the moral
law) exceed the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees,
you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of God;’ and
then proceeding forthwith to show how and in what particu-
lars we must exceed their righteousness. And, indeed, had
our Lord designed to teach us, that in order to our entrance
into his kingdom wenust exceed the righteousness prescribed
in the moral law, why doth he only say, “Except your right-
eousness exceed that of the scribes and pharisees,” who did
in many cases evacuate the law, and who are branded by him
with hypocrisy for omitting “the weightier matters of the law P”
Obj. 2. It is objected, that had our Lord designed not to
add anything to the moral law, but only to expound it better
than the scribes had done, he would not, after the recital of
the law, have added, “But I say unto you ;” but rather
would have said, “The law of Moses farther saith unto you.”
Ans. To this I answer that, let our Saviour's preface to
these expositions of the words cited by him be considered,
and then we may discern sufficient reason for these words ;
for having said, wer. 17, “I came not to destroy the law, º&
rangărat, but to establish and confirm it,” he, in the follow-
ing instances, may rationally be supposed to show how he
did this, viz. by producing first the law, and then by adding,
for the establishment and confirmation of the true import of
APPENDIX.
195
{
it, “But I say to you :” and when he saith, ver. 19, that
“he that looseth one of the least of these commandments,
and teacheth others so to do, shall be accounted least in the
kingdom of heaven;” he, by “the least of these command-
inents,” seems not to understand any command expressly
written in the decalogue, since none of them can be called
little, but the lesser degrees of offence against them ; and
then, by adding of these words, “But I say unto you,” he
shows how we should teach men to observe them.
A P P E N DIX
TO CHAP. VI. VER. 16.
In this appendix I shall endeavour briefly, and I hope
clearly, to state these two questions:—
First, Whether fasting be a duty now incumbent on
Christians, or a thing left indifferent under the Christian in-
stitution ? t
Secondly, Whether it be any part of divine worship or not P
In answer to the firstinquiry, Whetherfasting be a duty, or a
thing indifferent under the Christian institution, I answer,
First, That as fasting signifies, in the grammatical import
of the word, abstaining only for a time from the meat we
ordinarily take at other times, it is undoubtedly a thing in-
different ; for in this sense, “if we eat not, we are not the
better,” for God accounts no man the better purely because
his stomach is more empty: and if we eat somewhat even
on our days of fasting, when the impotency or indisposition
of our bodies doth require it, “we are not the worse.” But
as it in the scripture signifies a day or time set apart for “the
affliction of the soul,” and calling it to an account for our
past sins, in order to our godly sorrow for and reformation
of them ; or a day set apart for prayer, and humbling of
ourselves, in order to the averting divine judgments, or the
obtaining any public or private blessings from God's hands;
I think it continues a duty still, and a thing highly accept-
able to God, when it sincerely is performed in prosecution
of these ends.
Secondly, It is certain that under the old covenant public
fasts were commanded by God, and one of them with that
severity, that the punishment of him who did not “then
afflict his soul” was excision (Lev. xvi. 16); and when any
adversity befell them, which made this duty proper, not only
pious kings (2 Chron. xx. 3), but God also, by his holy pro-
phets, called upon them to “sanctify a fast” (Joel. i. 14.
ii. 12. 15). This also pious persons voluntarily did upon
extraordinary occasions: “I wept,” saith David, “and hum-
bled myself with fasting” (Ps. lxix. 10. see Ps. xxxv. 13.
cix. 24). Nehemiah fasted when he heard of the affliction
of the people at Jerusalem (Neh. i. 4): so did Daniel (ix.
3). These fasts they sanctified,
(1.) To avert the impendent wrath of God (Joel. i. 14,
15. ii. 17), and to render him propitious to them in their
distress, that he might be “jealous for his land, and pity his
people” (Joel ii. 18). Thus did the people of Israel fast,
when they were twice smitten by the Benjamites (Judges
xx. 26); Jehoshaphat and his people, when distressed by the
Ammonites (2 Chron. xx. 3); the Jews, when in danger of
death from the contrivances of Haman (Esther iv. 16).
(2.) To beg pardon for and reform their offences; as when
they fasted for their idolatry at Mizpeh, and did put away
Baalim and Ashtaroth, and “serve the Lord only” (1 Sam.
vii. 5, 6), and when they “separated themselves from their
strange wives” (Neh. ix. 1).
(3.) To beg especial mercies of God; as when Ezra and
his company fasted “to seek of God a right way” (Ezra
viii. 21); and all this they did with good success, and so as
to obtain God's blessing. These fasts, when duly celebrated,
are styled such fasts as God hath chosen (Isa. lviii. 5, 6),
“an acceptable day to the Lord” (ver. 5), “a sabbath, a day
holy to the Lord, and honourable” (ver. 13), and fasting
thus was indeed “fasting to the Lord” (Zech. vii. 5).
And as for voluntary and private fasts, I have observed
that pious persons still used them as occasion did require.
Anna the prophetess “fasted and prayed night and day,”
and “served God” as well by fasting as by praying (Luke
ii. 37). And in our Saviour's time the disciples of John and
of the pharisees fasted often ; and this was thought so ne-
cessary a piece of devotion, that they admire and look upon
it as a great defect in Christ's disciples, that they did not the
like (Matt, ix. 14).
Thirdly, Observe that Christ is so far from disapproving
these times of fasting as unsuitable or unnecessary under the
Christian dispensation, that he declares “the time was coming
when his disciples should fast” as well as others (Matt. ix.
15). He teacheth all Christians after what manner they
ought to fast, that their fastings might be acceptable to God,
promising a reward from God on them who do so, and being .
no less solicitous that they might fast than that they might
pray, and do their alms, so as to be rewarded by God for
them (Matt. vi. 16), and lets his disciples know, that their
want of faith in casting out a devil proceeded from their
want of seeking it by “prayer and fasting” (Matt. xvii. 21).
Now surely he who declares that his “ disciples should fast”
after he was taken from them, he who is solicitous they might
perform this duty without hypocrisy, and who excites them
to it by the promise of a reward from God, and who informs
them that their want of faith proceeded from their want of
fasting, sufficiently demonstrates he looked upon this as a
duty to be performed by his disciples under the gospel dis-
pensation. And, therefore,
Fourthly, That Christ's apostles and disciples did so es-
teem it, we learn sufficiently from their practice; they being
“in fastings often” (2 Cor. xi. 27), and approving themselves
as the ministers of God, by “fastings,” as well as other
Christian duties (2 Cor. vi. 4, 5); this being also the usual
preface to “the imposition of hands,” they doing this “with
prayer and fasting” (Acts xiv. 23), and in commending the
ministers of the gospel to the Lord for his assistance (Acts
xiii. 3); and married Christians being permitted to separate
from one another for a season, “that they might give them-
selves to prayer and fasting” (1 Cor. vii. 5). Note, &
Lastly, That fasting is not a ceremonial precept, there
being no command under the law for voluntary fasting, or
public fastings on extraordinary occasions, but only for one
stated fast on the day of expiation ; it therefore must be
ranked among those moral duties or precepts of the law of
nature, which Christ came “not to dissolve, but to fulfil.”
...And this appears, because it was the practice not only of the
Jews and devout proselytes (Acts x. 30), but even of the
heathens also. These days of fasting to avert judgments,
obtaining not only among the eastern nations (Jonah iii. 5),
but among the Egyptians, the Greeks, and Romans, and
being part of their sacred rites, at which times they were
airov & colpot, or &yeva rol, that is, “fasting.” In a word, it
is owned by them who contend fasting is a thing indifferent,
that it is a help to the worship of God, and an instrument
of piety. It is by Phavorinus defined to be “the mother of
health to the body, and the preservative of the soul;” and
surely that which is a help to devotion, and a means of pro-
moting piety, must be as much required to those good ends
as are the helps and means of Sober living required by the
command of temperance.
That I may answer to the second question, I must pre-
mise the distinction so frequent in the schools, betwixt an
imperate and an elicit act of worship. An elicit act of wor-
ship is an act which hath God for its immediate object, and
solely is designed to do him honour, or to agnize some divine
excellency or perfections. Thus an act of faith is an elicit
act of religious worship; because it doth, and is designed
purely to acknowledge the divine power and veracity ; and
prayer is an elicit act of divine worship, because by it we do
acknowledge the power, wisdom, and goodness of God.
Whereas, an imperate act of worship is that which hath
another object besides God, and only hath relation to him
because it is performed in obedience to his command: thus
charity hath for its object our indigent or our afflicted bro-
ther, and only hath relation to God, as it is done to others in
obedience to his command ; and justice is an imperate act
of worship only, because it immediately relateth to what
belongeth to our brother, though we deal justly with him
from the consideration of that God “who is the avenger of
those who do defraud or overreach their brother.” Now to
apply this distinction to our present purpose ; they who
deny that fasting is an elicit act of worship, do freely grant
it to be an imperate act of worship, as being serviceable to
prayer and that repentance towards God, which are imme-
diate acts of worship. Here therefore note, O
- 2
196
MATTHEW.
First, That even Mr. Dally grants, that fasting was a part
of divine worship under the Old Testament; whence we
may gather that it must be so also under the New Testa-
ment, since under both it hath the same object, end, and
reasons, and so must be as much an act of religious worship
under the New Testament as it was under the Old ; where
to observe it was “to sanctify a fast,” to keep “a day holy
and acceptable to the Lord,” and as much Aarpeiſely, “to
serve God by fasting” as by prayer (Luke ii. 37).
Secondly, It is confessed that fasting, considered as a
help to prayer, repentance, or pious meditations, is only an
imperate act of religion ; but as it is an act of revenge upon
ourselves for our offences done against the divine majesty,
and an acknowledgment that we are by them become un-
worthy to receive from him our daily bread ; and as it is a
part of our time consecrated to the service of God, I see
not why it should be less esteemed an act of religious wor-
ship than the observation of a sabbath, or a day of thanks-
giving.
A P P E N D I X
TO CHAP. XII.
Concerning the nature of the sin against the Holy Ghost,
and the reason why it is said to be such as will never be
forgiven.
FIRST, for explication of this subject, I do not think it
proper, with the learned Grotius, to mollify the severity of
this sentence, by saying that what is absolutely spoken by
the Lord must be comparatively understood, and only inti-
mates, that it is very difficult to obtain the pardon of this
sin, not that it will admit of no forgiveness: for our Saviour
says expressly of this sin, both negatively, that “it shall
never be forgiven,” and affirmatively, that the person guilty
of it “shall be obnoxious to eternal judgment,” and con-
firms all this with an asseveration, “Verily I say unto you,
He that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost hath never
forgiveness, but voxác Šariv, is liable to eternal judgment”
(Mark iii. 29). Much less are we to admit of Dr. Ham-
mond's descant on the words, that this sin shall not be par-
doned but upon a particular repentance, for that is as true
of every known and wilful sin, as of the blasphemy against
the Holy Ghost ; and therefore this interpretation makes no
discrimination of this from any other wilful sin, which yet
our Saviour plainly designed by those words to do. More-
over, against both these expositions it is observable, that our
Lord saith expressly of all manner of other sins against the
Son of man, or the Messiah, that “they shall be forgiven;”
and yet, doubtless, men's blasphemies against the Saviour
of the world, and other heinous crimes, will not be pardoned
without particular repentance, and it is very difficult to bring
such grievous sinners to repentance. Let it be noted,
Secondly, That from our Saviour's words it plainly seems
to follow, that this sin consists, or is completed, moi, iii Gui
thoughts or in our works, but in our words, for it is, “he
that speaketh,” ver. 32, “he that blasphemeth against the
Holy Ghost,” that shall not be forgiven. Simon, the ma-
gician, conceived as vilely of the Holy Ghost as we can well
imagine, when he thought “he might be purchased by mo-
ney” (Acts viii. 18, 19); for this was to conceive the Holy
Ghost was given only by some higher art of magic than he
had attained to ; and yet St. Peter exhorts him to “pray,
that the thoughts of his heart might be forgiven” (ver. 22);
and they who, by uncleanness, fornication, and adultery,
despised the commandments which God had given them by
his apostles, “to possess their vessels in sanctification and
honour,” are said to have “despised not only man, but God,
who also had given them the Holy Ghost” (1 Thess. iv. 8);
and yet St. Paul supposes such persons might “repent of
the uncleanness, fornication, and lasciviousness they had
committed” (2 Cor. xii. 21). This sin must therefore be
committed, not only by our evil thoughts and works, but
also by our blasphemous words against the Holy Ghost.
Thirdly, Observe, that it is not any blasphemy against the
Spirit in his miraculous operations, such as were casting out
of devils and healing of diseases, which is here styled the
“blasphemy against the Holy Ghost,” this being here done
by the pharisees against the Son of man ; for he declareth,
ver, 28, that “he did cast out devils by the Spirit of God ;”
they therefore must blaspheme that Spirit by which our
Saviour did this, by saying, “he cast out devils by Beelze-
bub, the prince of the devils;” and yet our Saviour saith,
that even “this blasphemy against the Son of man should
be forgiven,” but it was properly the “blasphemy against
the Holy Ghost.” And therefore,
Fourthly, Let it be noted, that there is a plain difference
in scripture betwixt the operations of the Spirit and the gifts
or distributions of the Holy Ghost; all the miraculous Ópe-
rations which were done upon others, viz. the casting out of
devils, the healing of diseases, the curing of the lame, the
blind, the dumb, the maimed, the raising of the dead, were
the extraordinary operations of the Spirit; but all the in-
ward gifts, by which the understanding was enlightened, and
was enabled to perform things which by nature it could not
do without the immediate working of the Holy Spirit, are
styled the gifts or distributions of the Holy Ghost ; as, V. g.
the gifts of wisdom, knowledge, faith, prophecy, discerning
of spirits, the gift of tongues, and the interpretation of them.
That there is ground for this distinction will appear from
these considerations:
(1.) Because our Saviour, whilst he was upon earth, gave
to his apostles and the seventy disciples power to “heal the
sick, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils, and to raise the
dead” (Matt. x. 8. Luke x. 9); and yet St. John informs
us, that “the Holy Ghost was not yet come, because that
Jesus was not glorified” (vii. 39); and Christ informed his
disciples, that “if he did not go away, the Comforter” that
is, the Holy Ghost, “would not come” to them ; but “when
I go,” saith he, “I will send him to you” (John xvi. 17.
xiv. 16); and St. Peter tells the Jews that our Lord, being
exalted to the right hand of God, received the promise of
the Holy Ghost, and sent him down upon his apostles (Acts
ii. 33). The Holy Ghost must therefore signify something
distinct from the power of working miracles.
(2.) The apostle John, producing his witnesses to prove
that Jesus is the Son of God, saith thus: “There are three
that bear witness upon earth, the Spirit, the water, and the
blood ;” and there be “three that bear witness from heaven,
the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost” (1 John v. 7.
8), clearly distinguishing the witness of the Holy Ghost
from the testimony of the Spirit.
(3.) Throughout the history of the Acts of the Apostles,
where St. Luke hath occasion to mention the miracles which
the apostles and other Christians did, he always useth the
words répara, a nºſa, Suyáºzºic, “wonders, signs, and powers;”
but where he speaks of persons prophesying, or speaking
with tongues, he doth as constantly ascribe this to the Holy
Ghost descending on them. -
And (lastly) where the scripture mentions these things
together, it puts a manifest distinction betwixt signs and
wonders and the gifts and distributions of the Holy Ghost.
Thus the apostle speaks of the things God had wrought by
him, “in the power of signs and wonders,” and “in the
power of the Spirit of God,” or “of the Holy Ghost,” as
other copies read (Rom. xv.19); and God, saith St. Paul,
“bare witness to the doctrine which the apostles preached,
by signs and wonders, and divers miracles, and gifts of the
Holy Ghost” (Heb. ii. 4). Hence observe,
Fifthly, That this blasphemy of the Holy Ghost neither
was nor could be then committed when our Saviour spake.
these words, or whilst he was upon earth, because the “Holy
Ghost was not yet come,” saith the evangelist (John vii. 39);
nor was he to be sent till “Jesus was glorified ;” i. e. till he
was risen from the dead, and was exalted to the right hand
of the Father. And therefore, after our Lord's resurrec-
tion, he breathes on the apostles, and saith unto them,
“Receive ye the Holy Ghost” (John xx. 22); and farther
promises, at his ascension, that “within a few days” they
should receive the power of the Holy Ghost descending
down from heaven, to render them able witnesses of our
Lord’s resurrection ; and that after his departure from them,
“the Comforter,” that is, the Holy Ghost, “should come,”
and should “convince the world of sin, because they be-
lieved not in him, and of his righteousness, because he went
unto the Father” (John xvi. 9, 10.) Though therefore our
Saviour entered upon this discourse upon occasion of that
saying of the pharisees, “He casts out devils through Beel-
zebub,” yet his design seems chiefly to be this, to terrify
them from going on from the blaspheming the Son of man,
APPENDIX.
197
and of that Spirit by which he wrought his miracles, to the
Slaspheming of the ensuing dispensation of the Holy Ghost,
which was the last he ever would vouchsafe, to call them to
that repentance which would procure the remission of their
sins. These words may therefore be thus paraphrased :—
You have represented me as a winebibber, and as a friend
of publicans and sinners, and as one who casts out devils by
Beelzebub ; and you will still go on, after all the miracles
which I have done among you, to represent me as a false
prophet and a deceiver of the people ; but, notwithstanding,
all these grievous sins shall be forgiven you, if that last dis-
pensation of the Holy Ghost, which I shall after my ascen-
sion send among you, shall prevail with you to believe in
me: but if, when I have sent the Holy Ghost to testify the
truth of my mission, and of my resurrection, you shall con-
tinue in your unbelief, and shall blaspheme the Holy Ghost,
and represent him also as an evil spirit, your sin shall never
be forgiven, nor shall there anything be farther done to call
you to repentance. That this is the true import of our Sa-
viour's words is evident,
First, Because they still run in the future tense, respect-
ing not what had been done already by the pharisees or
others, but only what hereafter should be done ; “whoso-
ever shall' blaspheme against the Holy Ghost” (Mark iii.
28. Juke xii. 10).
Secondly, Because the blasphemy here mentioned in these
words, “He casteth out devils by Beelzebub,” or by confe-
deracy with Satan, was certainly a blasphemy against the
Son of man ; and therefore such to which the promise of
forgiveness is here made, and could not be the blasphemy
of the Holy Ghost, because he was not yet come. And,
Thirdly, Had the pharisees been guilty of this blasphemy
against the Holy Ghost, by this saying of our Lord, “He
casts out devils by Beelzebub,” our Saviour could not after-
ward have prayed for their forgiveness, or offered to them
any farther terms of merly or salvation; whereas he on the
cross prays thus, after the pharisees and rulers had moved
Pilate to crucify him, “Father, forgive them ; they know
not what they do” (Luke xxiii. 34): and in this very chap-
ter he promiseth one farther sign for their conviction, even
that of his death and resurrection the third day; and farther
saith, that he would send the Holy Spirit to convince them
of their sin, in that they believed not on him, and of his
righteousness. St. Peter also saith, both of the people and
the rulers, who so simportunately sued to Pilate that he
might be crucified, “I know ye did it ignorantly, as did also
your rulers” (Acts iii. 17, 19). And then he calls upon them
to “repent, and be converted, that their sins may be blotted
out ;’ thereby clearly insinuating they had not yet commit-
ted that offence which could not be forgiven. And St. Paul
in the thirteenth chapter of the Acts tells them, “he preach-
ed the gospel, and offered remission of sins to all among
them that would believe” (ver. 32, 39, 46).
And having thus considered the nature of this sin, I pro-
ceed to show the difference betwixt it and all the blasphe-
mies which the Jews vented against our blessed Lord whilst
he was here on earth, and why they were all pardonable, or
such as might be forgiven unto men; whereas the blasphemy
against the Holy Ghost is here pronounced such as should
never be forgiven.
It is therefore to be observed, that though the Jews still
represented the blessed Jesus as “a winebibber and a glut-
ton,” because he used not that abstinence, and severe diet,
and those frequent fasts, which John and his disciples did ;
though they styled him a “friend of publicans and sinners,”
because he freely did converse with them for their good ;
though they styled him a ,blasphemer, because he called
himself “the Son of God ;" though, lastly, they crucified
him, and pronounced him worthy of death, as a false pro-
phet, and deceiver of the people: our Saviour not only
promises pardon of these things to them who should be-
lieve after his resurrection, but even prays for them upon
the cross, saying, “Father, forgive them ; for they know
not what they do.” Now this he did upon these two con-
siderations:
First, Because the meaniness of his birth and education,
state and condition upon earth, caused many to be offended
at him, and indisposed them to believe such high things of
him as that he was “the Son of God,” and was to be “the
Ring of 1srael.” Thus, when they were amazed at the
divine doctrine which he taught, and the mighty miracles by
which he had confirmed it, and thereupon inquire, “Whence
is this wisdom given to him, and these mighty works done
by him P” the thought that he was “the son of a carpen-
ter,” and of a poor woman called Mary, caused them to be
“offended at him :” and when he represents himself as a
person coming down from heaven, they do not believe him
on the same account, but say, “Is not this Jesus, the son of
Joseph P. Know we not his father and his mother ? how
therefore saith he, that I came down from heaven?” (John
vi. 42.) This, therefore, being so specious a pretence for
their rejecting of and not believing on him, our Saviour
promiseth the pardon of their infidelity, till, by his resur-
rection, and the mission of the Holy Ghost, he had quite
taken off the force of the objection, and showed by his re-
turn unto the Father, and his sitting down at the right hand
of God, and sending of the Holy Ghost from heaven, that
he was indeed “the Son of God.” Hence is he said to be
declared “the Son of God with power by the resurrec-
tion from the dead” (Rom. i. 4), of which, saith the
apostle Peter, “we are witnesses; and so is also the Holy
Ghost, which he hath given to them that believe" (Acts v.
32): and Christ himself declares, that when this Holy
Ghost was by him sent from heaven, he should “ convince
the world of their sin, who believed not in him, and of
his righteousness, because he went unto the Father” (John
xvi. 8, 9).
- sº, Christ thought their case more pitiable, till
after his resurrection and ascension, and till this mission
of the Holy Ghost, by reason of those prejudices which
their whole nation had entertained against his person and
Jhis doctrine, and which were not entirely removed till he
had thus ascended: now they were such as these, (1.) That
they were very well acquainted with his birth and parent-
age; but “when Christ cometh, no man can know,” saith
their tradition, “whence he is,” John vii. 27. (2.) That
Elias did not come in person to usher in his advent, ac-
cording as it was foretold by Malachi, iv. 5. Thus when a
voice from heaven had declared him to be the Son of God,
in the audience of St. Peter, James, and John, they still
object against it, the tradition of the scribes, “that Elias
must first come " (Matt. xvii. 10). And, (3) that they had
got a general tradition that their Messiah was “to abide for
ever * (John xii. 34), whereas Christ still declared, he was
to be “lifted up, and die an ignominious death; a doctrine
so distasteful to his own disciples, that Peter, after his
confession that he was the Christ, rebukes our Saviour for
it, saying, “Far be it from thee; this shall not happen unto
thee” (Matt. xvi. 22). And though he very frequently and
plainly told them that he was to suffer, yet do St. Mark
and St. Luke inform us, that “they understood not this say-
ing, and it was hid from them ’’ (Luke ix. 45); yea, that
they understood not these things, nor knew they what was
said” (xviii. 34); and yet Christ's words were plain enough,
only they could not reconcile them with their tradition,
that the Messiah was to abide for ever, and set up a
temporal kingdom among them. For, (4.) this was the
great prejudice their whole nation laboured under, that
their Messiah was to come in a triumphant manner, to
subdue nations under them, and make the Jews to lord
it over all their enemies and to continue this his king-
dom over them for ever; their prophets having still re-
presented him as a “great King over all nations: ” his
own disciples were so fully possessed with this opinion,
that after our Lord's resurrection they presently inquire,
“Wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel ?”
(Acts i. 6.) It is not therefore to be wondered, that this
so strong and pleasing apprehension should prejudice their
minds against a person seemingly so mean and despicable,
who spake so often of his sufferings, declared that his
“ kingdom was not of this world,” and that he came
“not to be ministered unto, but to minister.” Now by
our Saviour's resurrection, ascension, and sending of the
Holy Ghost, all these objections were fully solved, and all
these prejudices were removed. For when our Lord was
thus “declared to be the Son of God with power, by his
resurrection from the dead,” then must they be convinced,
that besides that human naturo, which he received from hiº
198
MATTHEW.
parents, he had another, according to which they “knew not
whence he was,” and “neither knew him nor his Father ”
(John viii. 14. 19). When at his ascension “all power in
heaven and in earth was given to him,” and he was there to
“reign till all his enemies were made his footstool;" then
might they easily perceive, how this Messiah was to “abide
for ever, and to reign over the house of Jacob for ever”
(Luke i. 33). Hence, from this exaltation to the right
hand of power, St. Peter makes this inference, “Therefore,
let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath
made this Jesus, whom ye crucified, both Lord and Christ”
(Acts ii. 36) They from his resurrection were assured his
former sufferings were well consistent with his kingdom ;
and from his ascension into heaven, that his kingdom was
not to be a temporal kingdom upon earth, but a spiritual
and heavenly kingdom, and that he was to rule not over
men's bodies, but their souls and consciences; and when
they saw this kingdom so powerfully erected by the Holy
Ghost assisting the apostles in the preaching of the gospel,
and making numerous converts throughout the heathen
world, they could not but discern how it was foretold by the
holy prophets, that he should “reign over all nations:” or
how John the Baptist, who had pointed him out, and Said,
“Behold, the Lamb of God, and Saviour of the world,” and
had foretold he should “baptize them with the Holy Ghost,”
was that Elias, which was to come as his forerunner. And
thus you see why our Saviour puts this distinction betwixt
the blasphemies committed against him in this state of hu-
miliation, and the blasphemies committed against the Holy
Ghost he promised to send down from heaven after his exal-
tation to the right hand of Majesty in the heavens.
It remains to show how the blasphemy against the Holy
Ghost becomes unpardonable, and why it was so rather than
any sin committed against Christ whilst in the state of his
humiliation ; now this it was upon several accounts;
First, Because this was the last and chiefest evidence
which God designed to make use of, to cure the infidelity
of that perverse and stubborn generation, or to prevail upon
them, and upon other nations, to believe in Christ: in all
the other evidences, which came before to win men to that
faith in Christ, on which the pardon of their sins depended,
God had still a reserve, and resolved upon some farther
means when they had proved ineffectual. If the testimony
of John the Baptist that he was the Christ, if the innocen-
cy of our Saviour's life, if the wisdom of his words, the
heavenly nature of his doctrine, and all the miracles by
which it was confirmed, proved ineffectual to persuade that
perverse generation to receive and own him as their pro-
mised Messiah; God still resolveth, yea, he had promised
to send this Holy Ghost, as a more powerful evidence to
“convince the world of sin, because they believed not in
him,” and of the righteousness of him whom they had
hitherto rejected. Hence, when the Holy Ghost in this
miraculous manner had fallen down on the apostles, and
enabled them “to speak with tongues, and prophesy;” “this
is that,” saith St. Peter, “which was spoken by God in
those words of Joel; In the latter days I will pour my
Spirit upon all flesh : and your sons and your daughters
shall prophesy” (Acts ii. 16, 17). And again (ver. 38,
39), “Repent, and be baptized in the name of the Lord
Jesus for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the
Holy Ghost: for the promise is to you and to your chil-
dren.” When therefore the apostles, being endued with this
power from on high, had been Christ's witnesses “through-
out Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth,” God
had done all that he designed to bring men to the faith of
Christ; so that when many would not be persuaded by it,
but, instead of being convinced and reclaimed, proceeded
to slight and despise, yea, to revile and blaspheme it,
God was unalterably resolved to strive no more with them,
but to let them “die in their sins:” and therefore it is ob-
servable, that when the Jews had thus resisted the “Holy
Ghost, contradicting and blaspheming” that Holy Spirit by
which they preached unto them (Acts xiii. 45), they give
them over as desperate, and persons in whom that of the
prophet was fulfilled, “Behold, ye despisers, and perish"
(ver,41), and therefore “turn unto the gentiles” (ver. 46.
xxviii. 28); and St. Paul represents them as persons “given
up to a spirit of slumber,” and judicial blindness (Rom. xi.
8, 9); and so rejected from being any more God's church
and people. **
And as this was the last, so was it the most powerful
evidence: as for the working of miracles and casting out of
devils, the heathen priests and exorcists, and many of the
Jews, pretended to them ; our Sayiour also foretold of the
“false Christs and false prophets,” that they should work
“signs and miracles” sufficient to “seduce, if it were possible,
the very elect ’’ (Matt. xxiv. 24); and the apostle, that Sa-
tan should come among those who “received not the truth
in the love of it, with strong delusions, and with all deceiv-
ableness of unrighteousness, with all power, signs, and lying
wonders” (2 Thess. ii. 8–10). But yet none ever did or
could pretend unto these inward gifts and operations of
the Holy Ghost, such as enabled the illiterate to speak
with all kinds of unknown tongues, and to interpret the
tongues of others, and to discern the secrets of men's
hearts, and “understand all mysteries,” by an internal in-
spiration and illumination ; and much less to confer gifts
on others by imposition of their hands, as the apostles did :
when, therefore, Christians saw those gifts exercised con-
tinually in their assemblies, and daily conferred on persons
at their baptism, they could scarce have a stronger evidence
of the truth of the Christian faith, and therefore could not
blaspheme those gifts by which it was so wonderfully
confirmed, without the utmost degree of infidelity. And
therefore,
Secondly, This sin is represented as unpardonable ; be-
cause the faith of such perverse and stubborn persons is
impossible, they having rejected all the evidence that can
be offered for their conviction, and all the motives that can
be rendered to provoke them to repent of their infidelity.
So St. Paul speaks in case of those, who, living under this
dispensation of the Holy Ghost, did yet apostatize from
Christianity to Judaism, or heathenism ; “Let us not go
about to lay again the foundation of repentance and faith
towards God,” which were the doctrines they first preached
to Jew and gentile : “ of baptism,” by which believing they
made profession of the Christian faith, and covenanted to
perform the duties it required of them ; “of imposition of
hands” of the apostles, by which they after baptism received
the Holy Ghost ; “of the resurrection of the dead,” which was
the glorious promise by which all Christians were encou-
raged to be “stedfast, immoveable, and always abounding
in the work of the Lord;” and “ of a future judgment,” by
which they were terrified and affrighted from falling off
from that obedience: “for it is impossible,” saith the apostle,
“for them who have been once enlightened,” as Christians
were in baptism (which, therefore, from the beginning of
Christianity, was called “illumination,” as appears from the
testimonies of Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Clemens of
Alexandria), “and who have tasted of the heavenly gift,
and have been made partakers of the Holy Ghost,” which
they received by the imposition of hands, “and who have
tasted of the good word of God,” i.e. have been acquainted
with that gospel, which affords the promise of remission of
sins and of justification here, and of a resurrection to eternal
life hereafter, “and have felt the powers of the world to
come,” i. e. the powerful persuasions which the doctrine of a
future judgment administers to repentance, a new life, and
stedfast perseverance in the Christian faith ; and after all
these engagements to persevere in the profession of it, fall
away from it by apostasy to Judaism, or to heathenism—
“to renew them to repentance” (Heb. vi. 2–7): because
you cannot lay again any other motive or foundation to it
than hath been already laid; you cannot call upon them to
repentance and to faith in God by any other arguments
than by those miracles by which they were at first induced
to believe ; you cannot incite them to be true to their pro-
fession by any other engagements than those which they
had made in baptism ; you cannot give them any higher
evidence of the truth of Christianity, than that of their par-
ticipation of the Holy Ghost ; no greater motive to continue
stedfast in the Christian faith, than is the promise of a
happy resurrection to eternal life ; nor propose anything
more dreadful to affright them from apostasy, than are the
terrors of a future judgment; and so you can do nothing to
renew them to repentance which hath not been already in-
effectually performed in order to that end.
APPENDIX.
199
F I R S T A P P E N DIX
TO CHAP. XXIV.
GROTIUS, in his notes on the third verse of this chapter,
makes these three questions to refer to three several epochas;
WIZ. -
1. The question, “When shall these things be 2” to the
time of the destruction of the temple: and this, saith, he,
our Saviour answers to, ver. 23.
2. The question concerning his tragovcia, or advent, to
set up his kingdom, he refers to the time of Constantine ;
but others, to the time of the general conversion of the
Jews and the millennium ; and of this time, say they, Christ
speaks from the twenty-third to the thirtieth verse.
3. The question concerning “the end of the world ;” and
of this, saith he, Christ speaks from the thirtieth verse to the
end of the chapter.
I on the contrary do assert, that at least to the thirty-
fourth verse, Christ speaks only of the destruction of the
temple, the city, and people of Jerusalem, and of the Jewish
nation. -
Now, that the trapova'iz, or “advent of the Son of man,”
belongs, not to his coming to destroy Jerusalem, but to an-
other coming of this Son of man to set up his kingdom, he
proves ; because the words here, from ver. 22 to 27, are
like those in which our Lord speaks of his kingdom, Luke
xvii. 22 to the end : but that Christ there, from ver. 22 to
the end, is speaking of the time when the Jews should be
in “great distress” by the Roman army, and should perish
by it, and when Christ should como to execute his vengeance
on them, is exceeding evident from the words, and is there
also confessed by Grotius. For, say St. Matthew, Mark,
and Luke, “When you shall see Jerusalem compassed about
with armies, let him that is on the housetop not come down
to take anything out of his house ; nor let him that is in the
field, &c. for these are the days of vengeance.” And the
words of the same St. Luke, xvii. 31, run thus; “On that
day, he that is on the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let
him not come down to take it away; and likewise he that is
in the field.” Who sees not now that “that day,” Iuke
xvii., is the same with “the days of vengeance,” ch. xxi. ?
Now this one observation confounds all these several epochas
into which some have divided this chapter. For,
First, Hence it appears, that the time when they should
say, “See here, and see there is the Son of man,” Luke xvii.
22, 23, viz. he that is “to deliver Israel,” Luke xxiv. 21, “to
save them from their enemies,” Luke i. 71, 74, is the very
time preceding the destruction of the Jewish nation. For,
when those days of tribulation come upon them, saith St.
Mark, xiii. 19. 21, St. Matthew, xxiv. 21, 23. 26, then shall
they say to you, “Lo here is Christ, and there is Christ.”
And this is still more evident from Matt. xxiv. 26,
“When they shall say, Behold, he is in the desert; go not
forth :” for this they often said before their destruction (see
the note there). -
Secondly, Hence.it must follow that the “false Christs and
false prophets” mentioned Matt. xxiv. must also be con-
temporary with the times of tribulation preceding that de-
struction, and that they must rise up as false Christs, by
pretending to deliver Israel ; and as false prophets, by de-
claring to them salvation as from God ; for the appearance
of these very persons to deceive, is given as the reason why
they should not follow or believe them who said, “Lo,
Christ is here ; or, Lo, he is there” (Matt. xxiv. 23, 24.
Mark xiii. 21, 22).
Thirdly, Hence it appears, that the ragovoria, “ coming of
the Son of man” like lightning, must be at the same time;
not only because it is given in St. Matthew as a reason why
Christ was not then to be looked for in deserts, or in secret
chambers ; and, Luke xvii. 24, as a reason why they should
not follow them, who would then say, “See, he is here ; or
See, he is there ;” but also, because St. Matthew assigns this
as the reason of that conspicuous appearance, that “where-
ever the body (of the Jews, the carcase) is, there would the
eagles (i.e. the Roman army) be gathered together,” to prey
upon and to destroy them.
Fourthly, Hence it appears, that when it is said, Matt.
xxiv. 37––39, “As it was in the days of Noe, so also shall
the coming of the Son of man be :” this also must refer to
the same time, though these words may also refer to the
day of judgment, and be then accomplished; for the same
words, Luke xvii. 26, 27, are mentioned by Christ; and
then it follows, “In that day (viz. of his coming) he that is.
on the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come
down to take it away ;” which, as we have proved, respects
the time preceding the destruction of Jerusalem. -
Fifthly, Hence it appears, that the words following in
St. Matthew, ver. 40, 41, “Then shall two be in the field,
two grinding in the mill, the one shall be taken, and the
other left,” refer to the same time also, as well as to the day
of judgment: for when Christ had said these words to his
disciples, Luke xvii. 35, 36, they inquire, “Where, Lord,
shall this be?” And he answers that “wherever the body is,
thither shall the eagles be gathered together,” which, as is
proved already, refers to the same time.
Hence then it is manifest there can be no such interval
in this prophecy as some imagine, viz. an interval of above
seventeen hundred years betwixt what is spoken of the de-
struction of Jerusalem to ver, 23, and what is spoken of
the millennium from thence to ver. 30.
Arg. 2. Moreover, that what is assigned as a second epo-
cha to follow the first, according to Grotius, three or four
hundred years after ; and, according to others, almost seven-
teen hundred years after, was indeed to happen in, or about
the first period, is evident from most passages recorded from
ver, 23 to 34. Of the twenty-third, twenty-sixth, twenty-
seventh, and twenty-eighth verses, this hath been proved
already.
That these words, ver. 24, “For there shall arise false
Christs and false prophets,” helong to the same period, as
it hath been proved already from the connective particle,
jor ; which shows this verse is introduced as a reason of
what was said in the foregoing verse: so also is it proved
from the words following, ver. 25, “Behold, I have told
you before,” viz. ver. 5, by saying, “Many shallcome in my
name (i. e. as false pretenders to be the Christ, and that
Prophet which should come into the world), and shall deceive
many ;” which words undoubtedly belong to the first inter-
val. So when St. Mark had introduced Christ speaking the
same words, ver. 22, he adds, ver. 23, “See to it ; behold, I
have foretold you all things,” viz. all that related to these
persons, ver, 6, and therefore St. Luke having given us
Christ's words thus, xxi. 8, “Many shall come in my name
saying, I am Christ, and the time draweth near ;” he adds
those words, “Go not after them :” which are the same in
sense with those that go before, and follow in St. Matthew,
“Believe them not ;” and upon that account he doth not at
all repeat those words, as do St. Matthew and St. Mark.
Secondly, St. Mark saith, ver 24, in those days, after
this tribulation (mentioned ver. 19), “the sun shall be dark-
ened ;” it shall be thus immediately after this tribulation,
saith St. Matthew, ver. 29. Now, can that which was not
to happen till seventeen hundred years “after this tribula-
tion,” be said to happen either “immediately after” that
tribulation, or “in those days 2"
Thirdly, They both go on, and say, “And then shall ap-
pear the sign of the Son of man coming in the clouds,” viz.
“in those days,” and “immediately after that tribulation;”
Matt. xxiv. 30, “Then shall they see the Son of man coming
in clouds with power and great glory,” surely not seventeen
hundred years after the destruction of Jerusalem: for why
then did our Saviour say to them that crucified him &n'
&pri, “Within a little while shall ye see the Son of man
coming in the clouds” (Matt. xxvi. 64)?
Fourthly, The thirty-first verse following thus in St. Mat-
thew, “And he shall send ;” and in Mark thus, xai rāte,
“And then he shall send his angels, and shall gather his
elect ;” show evidently, that the gathering of the elect there
mentioned must happen then.
Fifthly, The thirty-third verse follows thus, “When all
these things shall come to pass, then know ye ār āyyū, iart,
that it is near.” Now these words, if they be rightly ren-
dered by our translation, it “is near,” do necessarily refer to
the destruction of Jerusalem, mentioned Luke xxi. If they
refer to the coming of the Son of man, as is more probable
from the words of St. Paul, Phil. iv. 5, & Kügloc Yytic, “The
Lord is at hand " and of St. James, v. 7–9, “The com-
ing of the Lord #yyiks, is at hand, and the Judge standeth
200
MATTHEW.
at the door;” they also must refer to the coming of the
Son of man to the destruction of Jerusalem, as they do in
St. James, v. 7 (see the note there ); and as we have proved
“the coming of the Son of man” doth in the foregoing places
of this chapter, and in St. Luke, ch. xvii. And this is
still more evident from the variation of the phrase in St.
Luke, “Lift up your heads, for the kingdom of God draweth
migh;” for as this, being given as an encouragement to
Christ's disciples then to persevere under these tribulations,
and to “possess their souls in patience,” must respect those
of that generation, and not those Christians which were to
live above seventeen hundred years after ; so “the kingdom
of God,” mentioned by St. Luke, enforceth the same sense,
since Christ, in all these three evangelists, had told them,
“There were some then alive that should not taste of death
till they saw the Son of man coming in his kingdom” (Matt.
xvi. 28); or “till they saw the kingdom of God coming in
power” (Mark ix. 1. Luke ix. 27).
Lastly, Our Saviour adds, ver. 34, “This generation shall
not pass away till all these things be fulfilled ;” which shows
that this relates to that which was to be done in that age :
for “this generation,” saith Grotius, is, ejus aetatis homines,
“ the men of his age,” as hath been fully proved there ; and
this, saith he, Christ spake, templum ostendens, “showing
them the temple ;” and surely then he spake this of the
destruction of the temple.
Obj. 1. But against this opinion it is objected, first, That
these words of St. Matthew, “Then shall all the tribes of
the earth (or land) mourn, and then shall they see the Son
of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great
glory,” cannot relate to the destruction of Jerusalem, be-
cause St. John, who writ his prophecy long after the de-
struction of Jerusalem, saith thus, Rev. i. 7, “Behold he
comes with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they
who pierced him: and all the tribes of the earth shall weep
because of him.”
Ans. But to this objection Grotius himself gives a suffi-
cient answer, by saying, Novum non est eaden verba, prae-
sertim ex prophetis petita, diversis rebus aptari ; “It is no
unusual thing to adapt the same words taken from the pro-
phets,” as these are from Zech. xii. 12, to divers events,
especially when they respect the same subject, and relate to
the same people. Now, after the destruction of Jerusa-
lem, in the eighteenth of Trajan, the Jews became sedi-
tious again in Libya, Cyrene, Egypt, Alexandria, Mesopo-
tamia, and that war extinguished Trox\3; ºvgååa, 'Iquëaiay,
“many myriads of Jews” (Euseb. H. Eccl. lib. iv. cap. 12):
and after that, from the sixteenth to the eightcenth of Ha-
drian, they rebel again ; and then an innumerable multitude
of men, women, and children perished with Barchochebas
their leader ; and they are utterly suppressed, and from
thenceforth not permitted to see Jerusalem (cap. 6). And
had not St. John, seeing those things by the spirit of pro-
phecy, sufficient occasion, upon these accounts, to adapt
these words of Zachary to the like calamities befalling the
same persons? - -
Obj. 2. St. Matthew and St. Mark say, “Of that day and
hour knoweth no man ; no, not the angels of heaven, nor
the Son, but the Father, only” (Matt. xxiv. 36. Mark xiii.
32): which seems not to be true of the destruction of Jeru-
Salem, foretold so punctually by Daniel, but only of the
day of judgment, of which the ancients did generally inter-
pret these words. -
Ans. About the time to which these words refer, I shall
not much contend ; for the preceding words being these,
“Heaven and earth shall pass away,” these words may bear
this sense, But of the time when heaven and earth shall
pass away knoweth no man : and therefore in the para-
phrase I have so interpreted the following words, as to
relate to both these times; the destruction of the Jewish
nation being an argument and a symbol of the general
judgment.
A P P E N D I X
IN ANSWER TO MR. WHISTON'S DISSERTATION
ON MIATTHEW XXIV.
My notes upon the twenty-fourth chapter of St. Matthew,
and my appendix to that chapter, seem to me to depend upon
such solid and strong reasons, that Mr. Whiston durst not
formally attack, and so they need no defence against his
dissertation on that subject; yet, because he seems to
have made a shift to evade some few things there said, I
shall first propound the difference in this matter betwixt
his sentiments and mine, and then consider his several ob-
servations, and show there is no strength in them, either to
confirm his own opinion, or to invalidate the arguments
which I and Dr. Hammond have produced against it. And,
First, He delivers his opinion thus: “That the question
which gave occasion to this discourse is double, or really
two distinct questions; viz. the one, When these brave
buildings of the temple were to be destroyed 2 the second,
What should be the sign of his coming to judgment, and of
the end of the world?” I, on the contrary, have asserted,
and proved by three arguments, that the question is indeed
but one, and concerns only the destruction of the people,
and the temple, and the polity of the Jews, and the signs
when this was to happen. -
That two distinct questions are offered to our Saviour,
he proves from the account given of them by St. Matthew,
whose first question, “Tell us when these things shall be 2 ”
relates to the destruction of the buildings of the temple ;
his second, “What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of
the end of the age º’’ relates, as Mr. Whiston thinks, to the
signs and tokens of Christ's coming to judgment, and of the
end of the world. To which I answer, That there be indeed
two questions in St. Matthew, but then they both relate to
the same thing ; viz. when these things should happen to
the people and temple of the Jews (Luke xiii. 34, 35. xix.
43, 44), and what signs should precede or accompany that
desolation: for,
Arg, 1. First, though the words of St. Matthew are
larger than the words of the other evangelists, yet, being
all inspired persons, they cannot contradict or thwart each
other. Now St. Luke saith expressly, xxi. 7, that the
question of the disciples were these two ; “When shall these
things be, and what is the sign when thcy shall come to
pass 2" St. Mark, xiii. 4, saith as expressly they were these ;
“Tell us when these things shall be, was ºri rā anºwstoy &raw
&#xxh rávra raira avyrexeſ-Sat, and what is the sign when
all these things shall come to pass?” Seeing then that Mr.
Whiston * grants, that raira, rajra Trávra, “these things,”
and “all these things,” refer particularly to the buildings of
the temple, which are to be destroyed in that age, without
any relation to the day of judgment, and the signs thereof:
and seeing both St. Mark and St. Luke expressly say, that
the second inquiry was when Trávra, raûra, “all these things"
were to come to pass, or avy reasio Sat, “to be consummated,”
it is evident they must either contradict St. Matthew, in Say-
ing this was the second inquiry of the disciples, or else their
second inquiry in St. Matthew must relate to the same thing,
to wit, to the destruction of the people and the temple of
the Jews.
Arg, 2. My second argument, for confirmation of my
opinion, is this: Christ so answers to the questions, touch-
ing the signs of his coming, as manifestly to show they were
contemporary with the desolation of the people, polity, and
temple of Jerusalem, saying, ver, 27, “As the lightning
cometh from the east and shineth to the west, so shall h
Tragovoia the coming of the Son of man be,” Matt. xxiv. 27,
for, ver, 28, “where the carcase (i. e. the Jewish people) is,
there shall the eagles be gathered together ;” i. e. the Ro-
man army, whose ensign is the eagle: so that the coming of
that army to destroy them, and “the coming of the Son of
man,” must be contemporary. And again, ver, 37–39,
“As it was in the days of Noe, so shall h trapova'ia the com-
ing of the Son of man be : for two shall be in the field, two
grinding in the mill, the one shall be taken, and the other
left,” ver. 40, 41, which words are followed in St. Luke
with these, “Where the carcase is, there shall the eagles he
gathered together,” xvii. 34.
Now to this Mr. Whiston replies only by this sorry shiſt,
that the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth verses in St.
Matthew are misplaced, and belong to their fellows, ver.
37 of the same chapter; which if men say at pleasure, all
• * P. 292.
APPENDIX.
201
certainty from the connexion of the
destroyed.
Secondly, Why doth he say that they are placed here
without any visible connexion ? when the connexion runs
so clearly thus, Hearken not to them who say that Christ
is in the secret chambers, for the coming of the Son of
man will not be secret and obscure, but bright as the light-
ning, &c.
Thirdly, The same words in St. Matthew follow the same
words, Luke xvii. 27, as will be evident by comparing
Matt. xxiv. 23 with Luke xvii. 23, and º, ###x0nºrs, Matt.
xxiv. 26, with º żºréxônºrs, Luke xvii. 23, so that if the
words of Christ be not misplaced there, they cannot be mis-
placed here.
And, Fourthly, Place them where you will, the argument
hath still the same force to prove that the coming of the
Son of man must be contemporary with the coming of the
Roman army to destroy the people of Jerusalem; this being
given as the reason why the coming of the Son of man
should be so conspicuous, that where the Jews were, there
should the Roman army be gathered together to destroy
them.
Arg. 3. My third argument is this: By comparing the
words of Christ elsewhere with those contained in these
three evangelists, this will be farther evident ; for Christ
saith, Mark ix. 7, “There be some standing here, who shall
not taste death, till they see the Son of man coming in his
kingdom ;” and, Matt. xxvi. 62, “Within a while ye shall
see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of Power, and
coming in the clouds of heaven.” When therefore it is said,
Matt. xxiv. 30. Mark xiii. 26. Luke xxi. 27, “Ye shall see
the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with great
power and glory ;” this advent must be whilst some were
living that then stood by Christ, and “within a while,” and
so not at the end of the world.
Now in reply to this, behold a notable criticism, viz. the
word in all these places is not trapy, but Éexàºzēvoc, not “pre-
sent,” but “coming;” and what then P Will he not be
Trapöv present, when he is come in his kingdom P Will not
his tragéNevatº be trapova-la, his advent be his coming P But,
Saith Mr. Whiston, no example can be given out of this dis-
course, of the using the word "ragovoia in any other sense,
but of the presence and appearance of Christ at the last
day, I answer,
First, Let him produce examples of Christ’s “coming in
the clouds of heaven in power and great glory;” and I
will undertake to prove his tragova.io. used in another sense
elsewhere.
Secondly, I have proved already, that it is used of Christ's
coming to destroy the people of the Jews, Matt. xxiv. 27.
Luke xvii. 24. I have proved also, that it must bear this
sense, when St. James speaks twice of the Tagovoria rº
Kučíov, coming of the Lord, v. 7, 8.” And when I come to
vindicate my interpretation of 2 Thess. ii., I shall prove
that it bears the same sense there, ver. 8. And,
Thirdly, St. Mark, ix. 1, brings in Christ speaking thus:
“‘Verily, I say unto you, There be some standing here, who
shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God
come in power;” and St. Luke, ix. 27, “I say to you of a
truth, There be some standing here, who shall not taste of
death, till they see the kingdom of God come.” Whence it
is evident, that kingdom must come while some of that
age were living: when the same St. Luke saith, xxi. 34,
“When you see these things come to pass, know that the
kingdom of God is near ;” if he speaks of the same kingdom
of God, then must that also come in the same age : if of the
day of judgment, why doth he immediately add, “Verily I
say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all
these things be fulfilled P” which words, saith Mr. Whiston,
have no relation to the day of judgment, p. 292.
That avy'réAgia rot aiāyo; signifies “the end of the world,”
he attempts to prove from the signification of the word
But,
First, It appears from St. Mark, that what in St. Matthew
is a masſow avy'rexeia; rot aiāyog, “the sign of the end of the
age,” is the same with what is the sign, 3ray &#xxh orávra.
raira avºrexeſ-Sa., “when all these things shall be accom-
words in scripture is
plished:” and that it is the same with the end of the Jewish
state appears from the whole thread of our Lord's answer. .
For to this inquiry he answers, Matt. xxiv. 6. Mark xiii. 7.
Luke xxi. 9, “You shall hear of wars and rumours of wars,
ãxx' otºro art ré réaoc, but the end (you inquire after) is not
yet ;” and, ver. 13, “he that endureth, eiç réAog, to the end
shall be saved;” and, ver. 14, “the gospel shall be preached,
#y ºn tº oikovºvn, through the whole Roman empire, xat
ºráre #st rô räxos, and then shall the end come ;” that is, fi
#&#x2ca; airrãº, “the desolation of Jerusalem " (Luke xxi.
20). Now the gospel was preached thus throughout the
world, saith St. Paul, Col. i. 6. 23, about eight years before
the destruction of Jerusalem. Till, then, Mr. Whiston can
find any other end mentioned by the apostles, to which our
Lord returns this answer, he must be forced to grant that
this is an answer to their question, regi rā; avy'reasiac roi;
aiãvoc, i. e. “concerning the end of the age" they inquired
after. Moreover, when the apostle says that Christ appeared,
ëri rh avy reasia rāy alºvoy, “at the consummation of ages,
to take away sin by the sacrifice of himself,” Heb. ix. 26,
and then adds, that he shall come, Éx 3Evrégov, “a second
time without a sacrifice for sin, for the salvation of them that
expect him:” must not the avy'rexeig rāy aidºvoy, “at the end
of ages,” signify a time as distinct from the day of judgment,
as was our Lord's passion from that day which is yet to
come 2 and, lastly, why is he thus confident, when he hath
not returned one word of answer, either to Dr. Hammond,
on this chapter, note,” or to Dr. Lightfoot, on the place P
Secondly, Moreover, Mr. Whiston owns that “the apos-
tles looked upon these two questions as belonging to the
Same time; and imagined that our Saviour would not de-
stroy Jerusalem, and its temple, till he came to put an end
to the present state of the world, at the day of judgment:
and this,” saith he, “appears by the words of the question,
set down in St. Mark and St. Luke, which evidently show
that they did not distinguish them in their own thoughts,
but looked upon them as coincident.” Now though it doth
not follow hence, that these things really were coincident ;
yet it doth follow that, to inform them of the time and signs
of the destruction of Jerusalem, was all our Saviour had
to say, in satisfaction to their question; for surely he an:
swers fully, who answers to all that they intended to inquire
after. Add to this, that it neither is nor can be proved,
that Christ in these three chapters gives any one sign of
the coming of the day of judgment; for the signs he men-
tions evidently relate to the Saixpig, or affliction of the Jews,
and are immediately connected with them, as will instantly
be proved : it is therefore certain, that in these chapters
Christ doth not answer to this question, “What is the
sign of thy coming, and of the end of the age,” in Mr.
Whiston’s sense
Thirdly, Though he is very confident that the Jews had
no notion of any age to succeed after that of the destruc-
tion of Jerusalem ; yet, seeing their evangelical prophet
speaketh of Christ as of the father, rot FºxNovro; aiãvoc, “of
the age to come,” Isa. ix. 7: seeing St. Paul, in his epistle
to them, speaketh to them of an oixoup,ávn wäxxouca, “a
world to come,” ii. 5: seeing the prediction of their renowned
Elias runneth thus, That as there were two thousand years,
tohu, or before the law, so should there be two thousand
years of continuance of the law, and two thousand years of
the Messiah ; and St. Paul Saith, in allusion to these three
ages, That upon the Christians of his time were come, rà.
téxn rôy aid yov, “the end of the ages" (1 Cor. x. 11); and
that Christ had appeared #7ti ouvreasig raw aid vov, “at the end
of the ages, to take away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Heb.
ix. 26); and seeing the Jewish writers spake so frequently
of a holam habba, and vetter, or “an age future and to
come * in the days of the Messiah ; –why might not the
apostles speak in their own phrase of the consummation of
the Jewish age 2 -
The second thing in which we differ is this, That he as-
serts that only what occurs in this chapter, from the fourth
to the twenty-eighth verse, is to be expounded of the de-
struction of Jerusalem ; whereas I assert, that from thence
to the thirty-fifth, and probably to the forty-third verse, all
is to be expounded of the destruction of the temple, polity,
* See the note there.
* See above, Xxiv. 40.
202
MATTHEW.
and people of the Jews, and of the signs and occurrences
relating to that destruction.
Now here let it be noted, that if the discourse in St.
Matthew concerning the destruction of Jerusalem ends at
the twenty-eighth verse, it must end in St. Mark at the
twenty-third, and in St. Luke at the twenty-fourth verse ;
because the twenty-fifth verse in St. Luke, and the twenty-
fourth in St. Mark, answer directly to the twenty-ninth in
St. Matthew. Now against this I have made a particular
dissertation in my appendix to Matt. xxiv. to which Mr.
Whiston hath not returned one word of answer: to which
I add, that the arguments produced against his opinion
in the notes on that chapter, seem to be demonstrative,
especially these two.
First, The argument taken from the plain connexion of
the words following, ver. 29, with the words preceding, which,
saith Mr. Whiston, every body will allow are to be ex-
pounded of the destruction of Jerusalem: for St. Matthew
having said, ver. 21, that “then there shall be ºxisºtº ºweyáxn,
great tribulation ;” adds, ver. 39, that si6áo; ºrã rày 6xisbºy
rāv hasgåv #xeiyoy, “immediately after the tribulation of
those days, the sun shall be darkened,” &c. And St. Mark
having spoken of this 8Aisſac, “tribulation,” that should
happen in those days, ver. 19, saith, ver. 24, that #y Éxeival;
taſ; hºw#gaic, “in those days, after this tribulation, the sun
shall be darkened,” &c. St. Luke saith, ver. 23, “Woe to
them that are with child, and give suck in those days ; for
(in those days) there shall be great affliction and wrath upon
that people; and they shall fall by the edge of the sword.”
And, ver. 25 (In those days) “there shall be signs in the
sun, and in the moon,” &c. St. Matthew goes on, and
says, ver. 30, kai rére, “and then (i. e. immediately after
that affliction) the Son of man shall appear in the hea-
vens.” St. Mark says, ver. 26, wai rére, and then (in those
days of tribulation) shall they see the Son of man coming in
the clouds with power and great glory.” St. Luke, ver. 27,
saith, that rôre “then shall they see the Son of man com-
ing,” &c. Is it not therefore evident to a demonstration,
that all these things, which Mr. Whiston refers to the day
of judgment, were to happen immediately after that tri-
bulation, and not almost two thousand years after it? St.
Mark adds, ver. 27, röre &mogrexaſ, “then shall he send his
angels to gather his elect,” &c. plainly connecting the send-
ing of them with that time, and so demonstrating that the
same words, Matt. xxiv. 31, must belong also to that time.
Moreover, our blessed Saviour saith to the Jewish Sanhedrin,
Matt. xxvi. 64, &m’ &gri, “within a while :” and in St. Luke,
xxii. 69, &md roi, viv, “from this time shall ye see the Son of
man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming in the
clouds of heaven ;’ which assures us that the like words
mentioned in all these chapters of the three evangelists, can-
not relate to his coming at the day of judgment, but only
to his coming at or about the time of the destruction of Je-
rusalem. Now from these things we may easily discern the
inconsistency of Mr. Whiston's sense of the words of St.
Luke, xxi. 24, “Jerusalem shall be trodden down till the
times of the gentiles be fulfilled, wai Écrai ongºsia, and there
shall be signs in the Sun ;” viz. that the fulness of the gen-
tiles was to come in before these things should happen: for
he doth not say, that ºweta rºw Trafigoaiy rāv ššvāv, “after
the fulness of the gentiles is come in,” there shall be signs ;
but, that there shall be in those days signs; and that “then
shall they see the coming of the Son of man in the clouds;”
which, as it is proved, cannot relate unto Christ's second
coming.
Secondly, My second argument is this, That after our
Lord had spoken of all these things, which, Mr. Whiston
saith, relate unto the day of judgment, he adds these words,
ver. 34, “Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not
pass away, till all these things (before-mentioned) be ful-
filled.” Where it is observable, that these words, in all the
three evangelists, follow the words which, Mr. Whiston saith,
are spoken of the day of judgment: whence it is evident,
that they cannot relate only to the destruction of Jerusalem,
unless all the things mentioned before relate to that period,
or to some season which was to follow in that very age ; for
otherwise, to make our Saviour, after he had said so many
things relating to the day of judgment, add with an asseve-
ration, “Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not
pass away, till all these things are fulfilled,” is to make him
aver, with an asseveration, a manifest untruth ; and surely
that interpretation must be false, which gives the lie unto
our Saviour. And, indeed, his paraphrase on these words,”
“I have given you the signs of the desolation of Jerusalem;
but as for your other question about the time and signs of
the great and general judgment, do not think to confound
them with the other:” that I confidently say is not a para-
phrase upon any words of the evangelists, but a plain addi-
tion to the text, and the pure invention of the brain. I
proceed now to answer what Mr. Whiston offers to the con-
trary. And,
Eirst, Whereas he observes,” “That in that part of the dis-
course which belongs to the destruction of Jerusalem, our
Lord still speaks in the plural ; but in that part of it which
directly belongs to the day of judgment, the second person
plural is not once used:”
The falsehood of this observation appears from Matt. xxiv.
32, &md 33 rā; avkā; wáflets, “Learn a parable from the fig-
tree:” and, ver. 33, oùro zai tºwetº, “even so ye:” Šo Mark
xiii. 28, 29, and Luke xxi. after the evangelist had said, ver.
27, “Then shall they see the Son of man coming in the
clouds;” he adds, and “when these things come to pass,
ãvaxáspars, kai énégara rā; as paxa: Špačv, look up, and lift
up your heads, because your redemption draweth migh:”
and then follows the parable of the fig-tree in the plural
number. But, saith Mr. Whiston here, our Saviour returns
to caution them about the observation of the signs before
the destruction of Jerusalem ; so apparently doth he beg
the question, that between him and us being only this, Whe-
ther our Lord, in the intermediate words, from ver. 28 to
33, speaks of the day of judgment, or of the destruction of
Jerusalem; and so indecently doth he make our Saviour,
without any intimation, leap from one thing to another.
In fine, if the preceding words relate to the day of judg-
ment, the parable of the fig-tree must relate to the same
time, as the connexion shows; for both in St. Matthew and
St. Mark, after these words, “Then shall he send his angels,
and gather his elect from the four winds,” which are the words
most likely to refer to the day of judgment; immediately fol-
low these words, &md 3: avajº, “therefore from the fig-tree
learn a parable.” Indeed, the whole of this doughty obser-
vation comes at last only to this ; That there be three verses.
in which Christ speaks not in the plural number, from ver.
28 to 32, exclusively. And for this rare invention I return
him this ; That there be five verses, viz. from 9 to 15, in
which he doth the like: Mr. Whiston, therefore, hath only
the glory of being an inventor of an observation manifestly
false, and not worth a rush were it as true as the gospel.
His second observation is like unto the first ; viz. “That
in all this discourse our Saviour useth different numbers of
the nouns, when he speaks of the desolation of Jerusalem,
and of the miseries of the Jews, either antecedent or conse-
quent, and when he speaketh of the day of judgment. In
the former case, he always styles them the days of vengeance,
in the plural ; but in the lătter, he speaks only of one great
day, and one great hour, which in the phrase of the Jews,
and ours ever since, have been confined to the end of the
world and the day of judgment.”
Ans. I am not willing to spoil the good man’s observa-
tions; yet first, I must tell him, that I doubt the truth of
his first observation, that the great day and hour, both in the
phrase of the Jews, and of us Christians, have been still con-
fined to the end of the world and the day of judgment.
For Joel ii. 31, hºga rot, Kvpiov h prey&An zai święavis, “the
great and terrible day of the Lord” is mentioned ; and this
St. Peter plainly interprets of the day of Christ's first com-
ing, Acts ii. 20. The prophet Malachi, iii. 1, speaks of a
messenger to be sent to prepare the way of the Lord, and of
the Lord's coming after him to his temple ; and then in-
quires, ver, 2, “Who shall abide the day of his coming 2
And who shall stand when he appeareth? Which verse,
Saith Dr. Pocock, relates to the destruction of the country,
city, and temple of Jerusalem by the Romans, about the
seventieth year of Christ: and iv. 5, he adds, “Behold, I
will send you Elijah the prophet, rely #A0sly rºw hºw{gay Ku-
giov rāy wayáàny xał Święayń, before the great and terrible day
* Page 300.
+ Page 296
APPENDIX. 203
of the Lord cometh :” which, again, the doctor understands of
that coming of Christ against themation of the Jews, which ended
in the destruction of the unbelievers among them : and, ver. 1,
“Behold,” saith he, “the day cometh, that shall burn as an
ovem; and all the proud, and all that do wickedly, shall be
as the stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them
up :” which, saith Dr. Pocock, is a description of the final
judgment of the Jews, and can be applied to the day of
judgment only by way of accommodation. For, to the na-
tion of the Jews did Malachi then speak, as a messenger pe-
culiarly sent to them, to reprove them for their sins, and to
declare to them such things as concerned them, and not im-
mediately such things as were common to the whole world.
And this, I hope, may be sufficient to show him that, in
the phrase of the Jews, one day, even of the Lord's coming,
is not confined to the end of the world and the day of judg-
ment. Nor *
Secondly, Is it so in the New Testament: for thus our
Saviour speaks; “Verily I say unto you, That the hour is
coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of
the Son of God, and they that hear shall live:” for that
those words cannot be meant of the day of judgment, is
proved in the note there. So Rom. xiii. 1]. This do,
sièárs; 3rt &pa, “knowing that now is the hour to awake out
of our sleep ;” which I suppose Mr. Whiston does not in-
terpret thus, “knowing now is the day of judgment.”
Again, It is not true, that when Christ speaks of the de-
struction of Jerusalem, he always speaks of it in the plural
number ; for he speaks twice of it in the singular number,
Luke xvii. 24, “So also shall be the coming of the Son of
man in his day;” ver. 30, So shall it be, Év i hºzága, “ in
that day, when the Son of man is revealed ;” and, ver. 31,
#y insivp ri; hºcépg, in that day, he that is upon the house, and
hath his stuff in his house, let him not descend to take it
away:” which words answer to Matt. xxiv. 17, 18, and
therefore by Mr. Whiston's confession must relate to the
destruction of Jerusalem. - -
Lastly, It is not true, according to Mr. Whiston's opinion,
that our Lord always speaks of the day of judgment in the
singular number. For St. Luke saith, xvii. 26, “As it was
in the days of Noe so shall it be, #y taſ; hºpaic, in the
days of the Son of man ;” which words exactly answer to
those in Matt. xxiv. 37, “As it was in the days of Noe,
cüraçãarat ā tragovoria, so shall be the coming of the Son of
man ;” which, saith Mr. Whiston, “must be spoken of the
day of judgment:” and, Mark xiii. 24, #y fixeival; rai, #4,#-
paic, “In those days shall the sun be darkened,” &c.,
which words, saith he,” “I do interpret the day of judg-
ment ;” though indeed he doth it without the least sha-
dow of reason: for the same or more tragical expressions
being used of the destruction of the land of Babylon, Isa.
xiii. 9, 10, of the Idumeans, Isa. xxxiv. 3, 4, of Senna-
cherib and his people, Isa. li. 6, of the destruction of
Egypt, Ezek. xxxvii. 7, and that in words as plain, and free
from mystical expressions, as the words of Christ; and this
very destruction being foretold by Joel, in the very words of
Christ, ii. 31. iii. 15, why should not that tribulation, which,
saith our Lord, was such as “was not from the beginning of
the world to that time, nor ever should be after” (Matt.
xxiv. 21), be represented in the like tragical expressions?
In fine, his observation is also on this account impertinent :
that where that day and hour occur, we allow that the words
may be interpreted of the day of judgment; though who-
soever seriously considers Matt. xxiv. from ver. 37 to 42,
and Luke xxi. 34–36, will see cause to think that they pri-
marily refer to the desolation of the Jewish nation.
We also grant that the latter part of the twenty-fourth
chapter of St. Matthew, and the whole twenty-fifth, belong to
the day of judgment. But then note,
First, That Dr. Lightfoot very probably conjectures, that
the discourse of Christ upon this subject ended at ver. 42,
or 44, as in St. Mark and St. Luke it doth ; and that the
words following were, as St. Luke places them, xii. 29,
spoken at another time, and upon another occasion, though,
because they also well accord with this place and this occa-
sion, and do there, as well as here, follow the exhorta-
* Page 295T
tion given ver. 43, St. Matthew hath added them to this
chapter.
Secondly, This dreadful judgment of God upon the
wicked, unbelieving, and impenitent Jews, being the most
signal preludium to, and lively emblem and example of,
God's dealing with the like sinners at the great day, and a
full proof of that final judgment which shall be upon all the
enemies of Christ's kingdom; it is no wonder, that our
Lord immediately passes from it to a discourse on that day;
it being his usual manner, upon occasion offered, to advance
to a discourse on matters of the highest moment.
A P P E N D 1 x
TO CHAP. XXVI.
In answer to an objection of Crellius against Christ's Batis-
faction.
THE great objection which Crellius makes against Christ's
satisfaction, is to this effect, That the death Christ suffered
for our sins was only temporal; the punishment we deserved,
and therefore should have suffered in our persons for them,
was eternal death: Christ therefore did not suffer the pu-
nishment of our iniquities, because he did not suffer an eter-
nal punishment. To this I answer,
Ans. 1. By confession, that our Lord did not suffer the
torments which the damned shall hereafter suffer ; for that
in the midst of all his agonies, he lay not under any despera-
tion, or under any sense of the anger or indignation of God
against him, is evident from what hath been discoursed on
ver. 38 of this chapter.
2 It is also confessed, that he could not suffer death eter-
nal or eternal punishments; for his sufferings and death
lasted not three days; to say, he suffered these punishments
intensively, is (1.) to speak improperly, seeing eternity ap-
plied to punishments plainly respecteth the duration, not
the intention of them. (2.) It is certain our Lord suffered
only in his human nature; now that was not capable of
such intensive punishments as could be equal to the eternal
punishment of the whole world, for which he died ; nor can
the dignity of the person be considered here ; for though
that makes the sufferings more valuable, it doth not make
them either more durable, or more intense ; seeing a peasant
suffers as much, and as long, by hanging on a gross, as doth a
prince, And (3.) wherein did he suffer such intensive pu-
nishments as could be any way equivalent to the eternal tor-
ments of the damned 2 Not in his soul; for, could that Boul,
which knew no sin, lie under remorse of conscience for any
thing that he had done? Could the worm that never dies
lodge in his sacred breast P. Could he who, “for the joy that
was set before him, endured the cross,” lie under any sense
of God's unchangeable displeasure ? under an absolute de-
spair of any better state 2 Could he, who knew “ his soul
should not be left in hades, nor should his body see corrup-
tion,” lie under any apprehension of an unavoidable pain, or
of ſo release from what he was to suffer? Now in these
things consist the miseries and torments of the damned spi-
rits; and, since it was impossible the holy Jesus should thus
suffer in his innocent and spotless soul, it was impossible
that he should suffer in his soul those punishments which
are equivalent to the punishments of damned spirits; nor
could he suffer these eternal punishments in his body, for
that could only die, by what he suffered on the cross.
Again, as it was impossible that Christ should suffer death
eternal, so was it unnecessary that he should do it. It was
unnecessary that he should doit for the sake of the impenitent
and unbelievers; for they in their own persons are, by the
order and decree of God, to suffer an eternal death ; and
why should our Lord suffer that for them, which, notwith-
standing all that he had suffered, they must in their own
persons actually suffer? No sacrifice for sin, not even that
of our blessed Lord, can avail anything for the impenitent
and the ungodly; because it cannot, merely as being offered,
render them pure from habitual sin, it cannot “create in
them the clean heart,” it cannot give them a divine nature,
or a likeness to God, and so it cannot fit them for a state of
204
MATTHEW.
*
happiness, or exempt them from being everlastingly excluded
from the face of God, and so for ever miserable. Why there-
fore should our Saviour suffer such direful punishments for
them who could receive no benefit from what he suffered P
As for true penitent believers, Christ came to save them
from the wrath to come, by suffering, to obtain grace and
mercy for them in the pardon of their sins, and to establish
that new covenant in his blood, in which God promised “to
be merciful to their iniquities, and to remember their sins no
more, and to justify them freely by his grace, through the
redemption that is in Jesus.” Now, had Christ suffered for
them death eternal, or all that justice could demand by way
of punishment, for them in whose stead he suffered, what
need had he to suffer to procure this rich grace and mercy, in
the pardon of those sins for which he had already paid the
utmost farthing? Or, how then did he establish a new and
better covenant of his blood, seeing no covenant did or could
requiremore than the full punishment which oursins deserved.
{}r, how was this a covenant, to be merciful to our iniquities?
Where, lastly, is the grace and freeness of that justification
which, after a full payment, imputeth only to me nothing of
that debt, which is entirely discharged P
Ans. 2. I shall not insist upon it, though it be very true,
that the words “death eternal” are never mentioned in the
Old or the New Testament ; but only shall observe from
Covarruvias, and others, that to a surrogation in the case of
punishment, it is not requisite the substitute should suffer
what is accidental, but only that which is essential to the
punishment. Now to apply this to our purpose, let it be
noted,
First, That death is accidentally to us eternal, because
we have no power, being dead, to raise our bodies unto life;
nor have we any promise that our dying bodies “shall not
see corruption;” or, because sin had given Satan a power to
detain us in that state till Christ had made satisfaction for it,
death neither was nor could be so to Christ, who knew no
sin, because he had this power to reassume his life, and had
a promise that “his body should not see corruption ;” but
still his death was both as truly, and as much death, as that
which sinners sufferin the body; because it was as much the
dissolution of the soul and body, and the cessation of the
functions of human life in Christ, as it is in them: that
therefore our Lord Jesus should redeem us from eternal
death, it was not necessary that he should suffer the same
death, but only that he should atone for that sin which made
us subject to death, and procure for us a blessed resurrection
by his death, which he hath done ; “For as by man came
death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead ; and
as in Adam all men die, so in Christ shall all be made alive”
(1 Cor. xv. 21, 22).
Secondly, Most of the evils which the soul suffers after
death are also accidental, and may more properly be styled
the necessary consequents, than the formal and positive pu-
nishments of sin. For instance, that souls departed are de-
prived of the love of God, are objects of his wrath, and are
excluded from his presence, is not merely because they are
souls separated from the body ; for pious souls, when separat-
ed from the body, are entirely exempted from these evils ;
but this ariseth from the natural purity and holiness of God,
and the defilement and impurity which these unhappy souls
lie under ; it is, because God “ is of purer eyes than to be-
hold iniquity, neither shall evil dwell with him ;” there be-
ing no “communion betwixt light and darkness;” and be-
cause “nothing which is defiled or unclean can enter into
the New Jerusalem,” or be capable of enjoying happiness
from God. The worm of conscience, the despair, and dire-
ful expectations, which follow this sense of loss, and the
exclusion from God’s presence, are also natural results of
the soul's separation in an impenitent state and an unsanc-
tified condition, and of its being conscious of its own doom,
and of those wilful follies, which did subject it to that doom :
Christ being then the Lamb of God, not having “spot or
blemish,” he being such “a high-priest who was holy, harm-
less, separate from sinners,” he could not be exposed to the
evils consequent to the separation of unholy Souls. And
that his members might also be exempted from them, he
was not only to suffer for them, since, as I have observed,
the sufferings of another for us can never of themselves
render us holy, renew our natures, and make us like to God
but he was also to make them holy by his word and Spirit,
“by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy
Ghost;” whence we are said to be “justified by the name
of the Lord Jesus,” but to be sanctified by the Holy Spirit
of God” (1 Cor. vi. 11). And upon this sanctification de-
pends our interest in the blood of Christ ; for “if we walk
in the light, as God is in the light, we have communion with
him, and the blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin” (l
John i. 7). And though Christ doubtless suffered “to re-
deem us from all iniquity, and purify to himself a peculiar
people zealous of good works ;” yet it is said, that he gave
himself to the death for us, that he “might cleanse us by
the washing of water and the word” (Eph. v. 26). His
death is indeed a most powerful motive to holiness of life,
but yet it is the immediate fruit of his Holy Spirit, and his
word. It was also necessary for this end, that he should
purchase for us an entrance into the holy of holies, that he
should there appear before God with it ; for by this, saith
the apostle, we obtain a liberty of entrance into the holy
place (Heb. x. 19).
Thirdly, The resurrection of the bodies, and union of the
Souls of wicked men to them, is the natural result of that
impartial justice, which will “render to every man according
to what he hath done in the flesh ;" that being raised, and
sentenced to comdemnation, and punished with everlasting
separation from the presence of the Lord, they are torment-
ed in the flames, which will then seize upon that world which
is “reserved unto fire against the day of judgment, and per-
dition of ungodly men” (2 Pet. iii. 5), happeneth, because
they are not able to convey themselves out of those flames,
and are not worthy to be snatched up to heaven, and live
“for ever with the Lord.” That then Christ might exempt
the members of his body from these punishments, it was not
necessary that he should descend to hell, or be cast into those
flames; but only that he should free them from condemna-
tion at that day, as he most certainly hath done, “there be-
ing no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus;”
and that they should be “caught up by him into the clouds,
to meet the Lord in the air, and so to be for ever with him,”
as the apostle saith they will (1 Thess. iv. 17).
Ans. 3. I add, that though Christ did not undergo eternal
punishments, yet he did suffer such evils as contained some
analogy, and bore some resemblance to those which sinners
do, or are to suffer ; and which he would not otherwise have
suffered, had he not been punished for our sins. For,
First, As the sinner lieth under the sentence of condem-
nation, and is sure to find a public exemplary judgment ;
so was our Saviour solemnly condemned, and sentenced
as a malefactor, not without semblance of justice, and of
law, to warrant their proceedings ; for we, say the Jewish
doctors, would not deliver up this Jesus, were he not a noto-
rious malefactor. They lay upon him the imputations of an
impostor, a seditious person, a perverter of the nation, a
rebel unto Caesar, and a blasphemer against God, pretending
to desire his execution out of pure zeal unto their law ;
“for by our law,” say they, “he ought to die, because he
maketh himself the Son of God:” thus was he “numbered
with the transgressors.”
Secondly, As sinners will be exposed to shame and igno-
miny at the great day of judgment, before men and angels,
so did Christ suffer a very ignominious and shameful death ;
the punishment he endured, was servile supplicium, that pu-
nishment which only slaves did suffer by the Roman law ;"
it was attended with all the mockeries and flouts, affronts
and obloquies, his enemies could cast upon him ; as for the
rulers, #swww.rheiðoy, “they reviled, and snuffed up their
noses at him,” and they that went by, #8xacºphºzov, “Wagged
their heads,” and with their tongues “vented their blasphe-
mies” against him (Luke xxiii. 35, 36). He himself de-
clares to his disciples, that he ought to suffer these indignities,
that he ought 37080xiºacSäval, to be “reprobated by the
chief priests and cláers of the Jews” (Luke ix. 22), #ov-
Sevoja šal, “to be vilified and set at nought by them” (Mark
ix. 12). This condemnation, and this shame, was therefore
part of what he was designed to suffer for us. And, . .
Thirdly, Whereas sinners are obnoxious to sufferings in
their bodies, he suffered in his body a death 50 painful, that
* Dr. Pearson on the Crced, p. 206.
PREFACE TO MARK.
205
the most exquisite afflicting torments are styled cruciatus,
from the cross. And surely, he must suffer sharp and pun-
gent grief, when his hands were pierced and nailed to the
cross, sustaining thus the weight of his whole body; and, by
that burden, suffering a continual rack and torture, when all
his bones were out of joint, by being stretched upon the
cross ; when he, being stretched out thus, was nailed to it,
and left to die no other death, but what the sharpness of his
pains and the excess of torments would produce.
Fourthly, He suffered in his soul most dreadful agonies;
for he himself declares that he was “troubled in spirit”
(John xii. 27. 'Xiii. 21), at what he was to suffer; and that
his soul was full of deadly sorrow (Matt. xxvi. 38, see the
note there). This we may learn from those strong, earnest,
and repeated cries he uttered, to be delivered from this
bitter cup ; for “being heard in what he feared” (Heb. v.
7), and yet not freed from suffering death, we may imagine,
that his fears were greater than the impressions of mere
death could make upon him.
Lastly, Are sinners then to suffer from the hand of God P
So do the scriptures teach us, that our Saviour suffered from
his hand, that “he delivered him up for us all” (Rom. viii.
32), and that “he made him sin for us, who knew no sin”
(2 Cor. v. 21); that is, he in his providence ordered, that
he should be dealt with as a criminal, or sinful person, for
our sakes, who in himself was wholly innocent: it was by
men who acted in his name, and claimed his authority, that
he was sentenced to death; it was by them who sat in
Moses's chair, that he was judged worthy of death, and by his
vicegerents that he was delivered up to be crucified; and there-
fore he tells Pilate, he “could have no power over him, had
it not been given him from above” (John xix. 11). “It pleased
the Lord to bruise him” saith the prophet, “and to put him to
grief, and to make our sins to meet upon him ;” and what
men did against him, was only that which “God’s hand and
counsel determined before to be done” (Acts iv. 28). So
that, although I dare not say that he was smitten by the
immediate hand of God, yet do these scriptures seem to
teach, that what he suffered from the hand of man, befell
him by the overruling providence of him “who orders all
things according to the counsel of his will.” Now from
this fair resemblance betwixt what our Lord actually suffered,
and what sinners had deserved to suffer, there seems suffi-
cient ground to say, he bore the punishment of our iniquities,
and suffered in our stead, although he did not undergo what
accidentally the sinner was to suffer, and what it was im-
possible for him to suffer, being innocent and perfectly holy :
had not our Lord been holy in perfection, and separate
from sinners, he must have suffered for his own sins; and so
he could have been no Saviour to us, by his sufferings ; and
being thus holy, he could not be obnoxious to the punish-
ments I say he did not suffer. Now, is it not unreasonable
to say, Christ could not suffer in our stead, or for our sins,
unless he suffered that eternal death we had deserved P
since this is plainly to affirm, he could not suffer in our
stead, had he not been a sinner as we were ; i. e. had he
not been incapable of suffering for us, and liable to suffer
for his own offences.
THE
G O S P E L OF
ST. M. A. R. K,
WITH AN NOTATION S.
P. R. E. F. A. C. E.
In confirmation of the authority of these two ensuing
Gospels, let it be considered, First, That two things have
been already proved in the general preface to the Gospels;
viz. (1.) That all the four Gospels were received from the
beginning, by the whole church of Christ, as genuine, and
never questioned by any besides heretics. (2.) That they
were owned as their rule of faith, and writings of divine in-
spiration: and that therefore * copies of these Gospels were
carried by the disciples of the apostles, or apostolic men,
into all countries whither they went to build up the churches
planted by their hands.
Secondly, Eusebius + farther adds, that it was related,
that the three other Gospels being come to the knowledge
of all men, and so to St. John's knowledge, he approved of
them, and gave in his testimony to the truth of them.
Thirdly, Concerning this Gospel of St. Mark in particular.
Eusebius f informs us, from Clemens of Alexandria and
Papias, that when it was indited by him, St. Peter, being
informed of the writing it by the revelation of the Holy
Ghost, confirmed it as a writing to be read in the churches;
which sure he would not have done, had he not found it
an exactly true and authentic record of the things related in
it. And as for the Gospel of St. Luke, Origen $ declares
that it was rô wºrö IIașxov #maiyoſagyov stayyáxtoy, “the Gospel
praised by St. Paul,” plainly referring to those words of the
apostle (2 Cor. viii. 18), “The brother, où 3 invalvo; #y tº
* Euseb. H. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 37.
ºf Lib. iii. cap. 24, p. 95.
f Kupérat vºw yeaphy six #yrsváry raï, ºxxnarigic. Hist. Eccl.
lib. ii. cap. 5.
§ Apud Euseb. H. Eccl. lib. vi. cap. 25.
stayyeaia 31& Traorév táv #xxxnartºv, whose praise is in the gos-
pel throughout all the churches.”
Now if these things be true, we must allow the truth of
what Tertullian * saith, That these apostolical men wrote
these Gospels, sed non soli, sed cum apostolis; but this they
did not alone, but with the apostles, and that the Gospel
of St. Mark, Petri adfirmetur, might be styled the Gospel of
St. Peter; and that of St. Luke, quod Paulo adscribere so-
lent, which the ancients ascribed to St. Paul, might truly
bear those titles; not as being dictated by, or being any ex-
tract or compendium of, the doctrine which they preached
to the churches, but as being approved by them ; and then
the authority of St. Mark's Gospel depends on the authority
of St. Peter, and the authenticness of St. Luke's on the au-
thority of St. Paul, and both upon the approbation of the
apostle John. As then this axiom obtained among the
Jews as an unquestionable rule, that he is to be admitted
as a prophet whese prophecy is confirmed by the testimony
of an undoubted prophet; so, by parity of reason, he must
be admitted as a true evangelist, whose gospel is approved
by an apostle of whose authority to indite a gospel there is
no doubt ; which is, according to these testimonies, the case
as to the Gospels of St. Mark and Luke. But I confess I
cannot fully acquiesce in this last ground of the canonical
authority of these two evangelists, for reasons which will
do nobody any good, therefore shall do nobody any hurt ;
and upon this account I shall endeavour, in the preface to
St. Luke's Gospel, to found the authority of these two
evangelists on principles which to me seem more certain.
As for the time and place when and where this Gospel
was indited, we are wholly in the dark: for all that Theo-
phylact saith of this Gospel, that it was written św "Pépºn
pºet, 3áza firm rà, toi, Xgia toû &vaxás!eois, “in Rome ten years
after our Lord's ascension,” is certainly a mistake, and in-
* Contr. Marcion. lib. iv. cap. 2 et 5.
206
MARK. *
consistent with all the accounts of the church historians give
us, that it was written at the desire of the Roman converts,
as an extract of what St. Peter had preached there ; it
being certain, that St. Peter never came to Rome till some
years after (see the preface to the Epistle to the Romans,
and note on i. 15). If he died in the eighth of Nero, as
St. Jerome, Dositheus, and Theophylact affirm, Irenaeus *
must mistake in saying, that he writ his Gospel after the
death of Peter, who suffered only in the thirteenth or four-
teenth year of that emperor; or ºxera rºy #030y, “after the
departure” of St. Peter and St. Paul from Rome, seeing St.
Paul went not thence till the minth of Nero ; I therefore
leave this matter uncertain, as I find it, inclining to the
opinion of Walesius,” that we have nothing certain touch-
ing the Gospels from the ancients, but that they were four,
and were written by those authors whose names they bear,
quo autem tempore, et quam ob causam Scripta Sunt, partim
constat; but at what time, and upon what occasion they
were written, it doth not appear.
* Lib. iii. cap. 1.
* Annot. in Euseb.lib. v. cap. 6.
CHAPTER. I.

1 THE * beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the
Son of God, (was from the preaching of John the Bap-
tist, Luke xvi. 16).
2. As it is written in the * prophets, (Malachi, say-
ing, iii. 1) Behold, I send my messenger before thy
face, who shall prepare thy way before thee, (and
Isaiah, saying, xi. 2, 3, that when the Messiah was
about to come to save his people from their sins, there
should be)
3 The voice of one crying in the wilderness, *Pre-
pare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight:
(and accordingly)
4 John (who was the very person spoken of by those
prophets, being sent of God for that end) did baptize
in the wilderness, and preach the “baptism of repent-
ance for the remission of sins (and so endeavoured to
prepare men for the coming of that Messiah, who was
to save his people from their sins).
5 And (so disposed were the people to receive his
baptism, that) there went out to him all the land of
Judea, and they of Jerusalem (and all the region round
about Jordan, Matt. iii. 5), and were all baptized of
him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I.
Wer. 1. Aéxi stayyexiou roi; ‘Incoiſ Xetaroſ, viot. Tod Geod,
The beginning of the gospel, &c.] So saith St. Mark, be-
ginning his history from John the Baptist, by the fathers
styled “the beginning of the gospel;” because he began
his office by preaching repentance as the preparation to re-
ceive it, and faith in the Messiah the subject of it ; so Christ
himself plainly testifies, by saying, “The law and the pro-
phets were until John, from thence the kingdom of God
stayyeaičeral is preached” (Luke xvi. 16). This gospel he
styles “the gospel of the Son of God,” who was or “is in
the bosom of the Father” (John i. 18), and came down
from heaven (John iii. 13), to reveal his Father's will unto
us, that so we might have worthy thoughts, both of the gos-
pel, as being the revelation of it, and of the author, as
being so intimate with and so nearly related to the Father.
* Ver. 2. 'Q, yśyparrat iv roi; ºreophraic, As it is written
in the prophets.] Other copies read #y 'Haraig tº ºrpoq hºrn,
“in Isaiah the prophet;” so do Iren. lib. iii. cap. 11, p.
259. Orig. in Cels. p. 60, and in John, p. 14. But then it
is to be noted, that the former reading is in Irenaeus twice
before in the same chapter thus ; Marcus imitium evangelicae
oonscriptionis fecit sic, Initium evangelii Jesu Christi Filii
Dei quemadmodum dictum est in prophetis, p. 256, and
after, Marcus ait, Initium, quemadmodim scriptum est in
prophetis, &c. 18. So reads the Arabic, so the Alexandrian
copy, so most MSS., so Theophylact; and this reading is to
be preferred, (1.) because it is not so proper to say, “As it
is written in Isaiah the prophet,” when the citation immedi-
ately following is not in Isaiah, but in Malachi ; nor is there
one instance of anything so cited in the New Testament.
(2.) It is the common phrase among the Jews, when they
cite many passages of the prophets, to say, “As it is writ-
ten in the prophets:” but it is without all example, when
6 And (this) John (being a preacher of repentance,
and coming in the power and spirit of Elias, Luke i. 17,
resembled him in habit, 2 Kings i. 8, for he) was
clothed with (a garment of) camel's hair, and with a
girdle of a (leathern) skin about his loins; and he did
eat locusts and wild honey:
7 And (he) preached, saying, There cometh one
mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes
I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose (i. e.
whose servant I am not worthy to be).
8 I indeed have baptized you with water: but he
shall baptize you with the “Holy Ghost, (sent down
from heaven, the promise of him being made to you and
to your children, Acts ii. 39).
9 And it came to pass in those days (of John’s bap-
tism at the river of Jordan), that Jesus came from
Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan.
10 And straightway coming up out of the water,
he saw the heavens opened, and the (Holy) Spirit de-
scending upon him like a dove (i. e. in that hovering
nanner which a dove useth when she descends or rests
wpon anything):
11 And (then) there came a voice from heaven,
two testimonies are taken from two prophets, to cite only
the last. And hence St. Jerome saith, Nomen Esaiae puta-
mus additum scriptorum vitio (Com. in Matt. iii.).
Obj. But Grotius objects, 'That if this had been the true
reading, there can be imagined no reason for the alteration
of it ; whereas if the other were so, the reason of the change
is manifest, viz. because St. Mark cites testimonies out of
the prophets.
Ans. The reason of the change seems very manifest, it
being done in compliance with Matt. iii. 3. Luke iii. 4. John
i. 23, for all these evangelists citing expressly what is writ-
ten in Isaiah the prophet, they would have had St. Mark
do so also.
* Ver. 3. Prepare ye the way of the Lord.] See note on
Matt. iii. 3.
* Ver. 4. Bárticºa ºcerayolac, The baptism of repentance.}
This baptism, saith Dr. Lightfoot, may belong to children,
though it be the baptism of repentance, and they know not
what repentance means; for it requireth not their repent-
ance at the receiving of this sacrament, but it engageth them
to it for the time to come, viz. when they shall come to the
use of reason, and the knowledge of the engagement. And
so was it with the children that were circumcised, for they
by that sacrament became debtors to observe the whole law
(Gal. v. 3), when they knew not what obedience or the law
meant, but that bound them to it when they came to years
of knowledge and discretion.
* Ver. 8. Barrive tºwā; iv IIvetºzari &ylº, He shall baptize
gow with the Holy Ghost.] Kal trugi, “and with fire,” Matt.
iii. 11. Luke iii. 16, i. e. whose symbol is fire or flame: so
he descended on the apostles, Acts ii. 3, so Justin Martyr
saith, that when Christ was baptized, wig @wh90, v vſ. 'Iop&#yn,
“a fire was kindled in Jordan;” and the gospel of the Na-
zarenes, and the liturgy of the Syrians, that regišxapºle riv
ºrátroy på; twäya, “a great light shone round the place.”
CHAPTER I.
2O7
saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well
pleased. -
12 And immediately the Spirit "driveth (leadeth,
Luke iv. 1) him into the wilderness.
13 And he was there in the wilderness " forty days,
(which being ended, he was visibly) tempted of Satan;
and was with the wild beasts; and (when Satan had
ended his temptation, Matt. iv. 3. 11) the angels
ministered to him.
14 Now after that John was put in prison (by
Herod), Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel
of the kingdom of God.
15 And saying, The time (foretold for the coming
of the Messiah) is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is
at hand: repent ye (therefore), and believe the gospel.
16 Now as he walked by the sea of Galilee, he saw
Simon and Andrew his brother, (going out of their
ship, and) casting a net into the Sea (to wash it, Luke
v. 2), for they were fishers.
17 And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me,
and I will make you to become fishers of men (i. e. I
will enable you to draw them into the net of the gospel).
18 And straightway (upon his call) they forsook
their nets, and followed him.
19 And when he had gone a little farther thence,
he saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his bro-
ther, who also were (now) in the ship mending their
nets, (which they had washed; see Luke v. 2).
20 And straightway he called them; and they (upon
his call) left their father Zebedee in the ship with the
hired servants, and went after him.
21 And they went into Capernaum; and straight-
way on the sabbath-day he entered into the synagogue,
and taught (them).
22 And they were astonished at his doctrine: for he
taught them as one who had authority (from God to
do so), and not as the scribes (who only told them what
were the traditions of their fathers).
23 And there, was in their synagogue a man (pos-
sessed) with an unclean spirit; and he (the evil spirit)
cried out,
24 Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with
thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth art thou come to destroy
us (before the time appointed for our punishment)?
I know thee who thou art, (to wit) the Holy One of God.
25 And Jesus (being not willing to receive testimony
jrom Satan, ver. 34), rebuked him, saying, Hold thy
peace, and come out of him.
26 And when the unclean spirit had torn (Gr. and
the unclean spirit shaking or moving) him (see note on
ix. 18, so that he fell down, Luke iv. 35), and cried
with a loud voice, he came out of him.
27 And they were all amazed, insomuch that they
questioned among themselves, saying, What (strangé)
thing is this what new doctrine is this 2 for with au-
thority commandeth he even the unclean spirits, and
they obey him (which is an indication that his doctrine
is attended with more than ordinary power).
28 Andimmediately his famespread abroad through-
out all the region round about Galilee.
29 And forthwith, when they were come out of the
synagogue, they entered into the house of Simon and
Andrew, with James and John. º
30 But (Gr. and) Simon’s wife’s mother lay sick of
a fever, and anon (i. e. presently) they tell him of her
(condition).
31 And (or then) he came and took her by the
hand, and lifted her up; and immediately the fever
left her, and she (being recovered) ministered to them.
32 And at even, when the sun did set (and the sab-
bath was ended), they brought unto him all that were
diseased, and them that were possessed with devils.
33 And all the city was gathered together at the
door (of Simon’s house).
34 And he healed many that were sick of divers
diseases, and * cast out many devils; and suffered not
the devils to speak, because they knew him.
35 And in the morning, rising up a great while be-
fore day, he went out, and departed into a solitary
place, and there prayed. *
36 And Simon and they that were with (i.e. be-
longed to) him "followed after him.
37 And when they had found him, they said to
him, All men seek for thee.
38 And he said unto them, Let us go into "the
next towns, that I may preach there also : * for there-
* Wer. 12. To IIyeñºza airröv #x3áAxel, The Spirit driveth
him out..] "Hysto, “he was moved” by the Spirit inwardly
to go into the wilderness; so Luke iv. 1, §váxón, “he was
led up ’’ from the plains of Jordan by the Spirit into the
mountains of the wilderness; so Matt. iv. 1, the Spirit
#x3&Axel, “sends him away” into the wilderness ; so the
word signifies, ver, 43, Jesus ###8axey airy, “sent him away”
(see Matt. ix. 38. xii. 35. xiii. 52).
7 Ver. 13. "Hºzápac reaa agáxovira, Trepačáſzewoc, Being forty
days tempted of Satan,—and the angels ministered to him.]
These forty days, saith Dr. Lightfoot, the holy angels minis-
tered to Christ visibly, and Satan tempted him invisibly; at
the end of them Satan puts on the appearance of an angel
of light, and pretends to wait on him, as they did.
Ver. 14. Now after that John was put into prison, Jesus
came to Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of
God; Wer. 15. and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the
kingdom of God is at hand.] So Matt. iv. 12, “When
Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed
into Galilee ;” and, ver, 17, “From that time he began to
preach, and to say, Repent, for the kingdom of God is at
hand:” till that time, say the fathers and the scholiasts,
&y#weive airby ºxagrupical repi attoiſ, “he waited for John’s
testimony concerning him.” Accordingly St. Peter repre-
sents Christ as beginning thus to preach from Galilee, as rà.
rö 84"rriageo. 3 #2hpváey & ‘Iwawns, “after the baptism which
John preached” was ended (Acts x. 37). Now hence is it
evident, that his coming into Galilee, mentioned Luke iv.
14, must refer to the same time, that so all the evangelists
may accord together, as appears farther from the following
words, ver. 15, “He taught in the synagogues, and was
glorified of all ;” and, ver. 31, “He went into Capernaum,
and was teaching in their synagogues on the sabbath-day.”
For we learn from Mark i. 21, 22, that this was done after
that John was put in prison, ver. 14, and also from the
words of St. Luke, which say, ver, 14, that “a fame went
out through the whole region concerning him ; ” for we are
assured, from Matt. iv. 12. 14, that this also followed St.
John's being cast into prison.
8 Wer. 34. He healed many that were sick, and cast out
many devils.] Hence it is evident that the devils cast out
were not diseases; as also appears from iii. 11. 15. V. 12.
vi. 12 (see note on Matt. viii. 28).
9 Wer. 36. Kai wate&iwáay airey, And Simon and they that
were with him followed him.] Here the critics note, that
tº 31%zew, when it respects persons, is usually to pursue in
a hostile manner (except here and Luke xvii. 23), but when
it respects things, it is to prosecute with a desire to obtain
them ; as when we are bid to “follow after charity and hos-
pitality,” Rom. xii. 13. xiv. 19. 1 Cor. xiv. 1. Phil. iii. 12.
i4. 1 Thess. v. 15. 1 Tim. vi. 11. Heb. xii. 14. 1 Pet. iii.
ll.
10 Ver. 38. Eic ixow#vac zogotáAsk, To the adjoining
towns.] Kopaoréxeig, towns, saith Dr. Lightfoot, are Yillages
which had a synagogue in them ; káºzai, villages which had
none ; Tréxsic, towns girt about with walls. -
il Éi, roºro yag #Ex}Avşa, for therefore came I forth.]
Eic roºro inría taxaai, Luke iv. 43, “For therefore was I
sent.” Whence it may be granted, that “going forth,” and
being “sent to preach the gospel,” are the same thing ; but
not when it is said of Christ, #8A#Avşa, “I came forth from
God, and return to God” (see the paraphrase).
208
MARK.
fore came I forth (from this house, being sent by my
Father to preach to them also, Luke iv. 43).
39 And he preached in their synagogues, through-
out all Galilee, and cast out devils.
40 And there came a leper to him, beseeching him,
and kneeling down to him, and saying to him, If thou
wilt, thou canst make me clean.
41 And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth
his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will;
be thou clean.
42 And as soon as he had spoken (this), immedi-
ately the leprosy departed from him, and he was
cleansed.
43 And he straitly charged him, (Gr. and being ear-
nest with him to repair instantly to the priest, he] forth-
with sent him away; -
44 And said unto him, See thou say nothing to
any man: but go thy way, show thyself to the priest,
and offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses
commanded, for a testimony to them (that thou art .
cleansed).
45 But he went out, and began to publish it much,
and to blaze abroad the matter, insomuch that Jesus
could no more openly enter into the city, but was
(forced to be) without in desert places: and they came
to him from every quarter.
CHAPTER II.
1 AND again he entered into Capernaum after ||
some days; and it was noised (reported) that he was
in the house (of Simon, i. 29).
2 And straightway many were gathered together
(about it), insomuch that there was no room to re-
ceive them, no, not so much as about the door, and
he preached the word unto them.
3 And they come unto him, bringing one sick of
the palsy (in a bed), which was borne of four (men).
4 And when they could not come nigh to him for
the press, they “uncovered the roof (of the upper cham-
ber, see the note,) where he was: and when they had
broken it up, they let down (to him) the bed wherein
the sick of the palsy lay.
5. When Jesus (by this instance) saw their faith, he
said to the (man) sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins
(which brought this disease upon thee) be forgiven thee
(as to the temporal punishment of them; see mote on
Matt. ix. 9).
6 But (and) there were certain of the scribes sitting
there, and (upon occasion of these words, thus) reason-
ing in their hearts,
7.Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies, (as-
cribing that to himself which is proper to God alone?
for) who can forgive sins but God only
8. And immediately when Jesus perceived in his
spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said
unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts?
9 (For) whether is it easier to say to the sick of the
palsy, Thy sins (as to their temporal punishment) be
forgiven thee; or to say (effectually, that which is a
certain indication of it), Arise, and take up thy bed,
and walk?
10 But (I choose to say the first), that ye may know
that the Son of man hath power (even whilst he is) on
earth (thus) to forgive sins; (and then) he saith to the
sick of the palsy,
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP II.
* Ver. 1. At hºsgöy, After some days.] So Theophylact,
3i' hºtgāv, &yr; rot, 3.8xBoözov hºsgåy rivăy, “After days, that is,
when some days were passed.” So Gen. iv. 3, in process
of time, ºwes' #4ápac, “after days it came to pass.”
* Ver. 4. 'Area réyaray rāy a révny &row %y, They uncovered
the roof where he was...] Dr. Lightfoot upon the place shows,
that there was a door in every roof by which they went from
the wºrspºov, or “upper chamber” upon the roof; now these
men knowing that it was this upper chamber to which the
Jews customarily went up when they discoursed of the law,
or religious things, ascend by stairs or ladders to this roof;
and not finding the door wide enough for the man's bed to
go down at, they widen it, by looselm.ng some stones about,
and so let down the paralytic.
Ver. 7..] The reading eig & Oric, and, ver, 15. &#xagroxol,
are defended, Examen Millii ibid.
11 I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and
go thy way into thine house.
12 And immediately he arose, took up the bed (on
which he lay), and went forth before them all; inso-
much that they were all amazed, and glorified God,
saying, We never saw it on this fashion (before).
13 And he went forth again by the sea-side; and
all the multitude resorted to him, and he taught them.
14 And as he passed by (from thence, Matt. ix. 9),
he saw Levi the son of Alpheus sitting at the receipt
of custom, and (he) said to him, Follow me. And he
arose and followed him.
15 And it came to pass, that, as Jesus sat at meat
in his house, many publicans and sinners sat also to-
gether with Jesus and his disciples: for there were
many (of them), and they followed him.
16 And when the scribes and pharisees saw him
eat with publicans and sinners, they (judging them un-
worthy to be conversed with, and a deftlement to those
who did so) said to his disciples, *How is it that he
(your Master, who professeth himself a prophet and q.
holy man) eateth and drinketh with publicans an
sinners ? -
17 When Jesus heard (the pharisees speak thus), he
saith unto them, (These it is most necessary to converse
with, for) they that are whole have no need of the
(spiritual) physician, but they that are sick; (and this
is more especially the business of my prophetic office, for)
I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to re-
pentance.
18 And (then) the disciples of John and of the pha-
risees used to fast (Gr. were fasting); and they (the
disciples of John, Matt. ix. 14), come and say unto
him, Why do the disciples of John and of the phari-
sees fast, but thy disciples fast not?
19 And Jesus said unto them, “Can (it be fit for)
the children of the bridechamber (to) fast, while the

3 Wer. 16. Ti 3+, ; How is it that he ealeth 3 &c.] Tí for
or 3.4 +1; “why is it?” or “wherefore is it?” is very frequent
both in the Old and New Testament ; examples from the
Old are numerous: see Gen. xxi. 29. xxxviii. 29. Exod. xiv.
15. xvii. 2. Josh. vii. 25. Judg. viii. 1. 2 Kings vi. 33. vii.
3. Isa. i. 11. iii. 15. Lam. iii. 39. In the New, see Matt.
viii. 26. xix. 17. xxii. 18. Mark ii. 24. viii. 17. x. 18. xii.
15. Luke ii. 48, 49. vi. 41.46. xxii. 46. John i. 25. vii. 19.
ix. 27. x. 20. xiv. 22. xviii. 21. 23. xx. 13.
* Wer. 19. M. 36Vayrat ; Can the children of the bride-
chamber fast 2] Because there is little to be observed in
this chapter which hath not been explained already, till we
come to the twenty-sixth verse, I shall here observe the
various acceptations of the phrase, whºvayrat.
And (1) it signifies that which is unfit, incongruous, or
inconvenient to be done, as not suiting with the rules of
decency ; as when Moses says, Exod. viii. 26, où 8warðy,
“It is not meet” to do so; so Luke xi. 7, où 36Vakat, “I cannot
CHAPTER II.
209.
bridegroom is with them? as long as they have
the bridegroom with them, they cannot (decently)
fast.
20 But the days will come, when (I) the bridegroom
shall be taken away from them, and then shall they |
(have occasion to) fast in those days.
21 (And he said also by way of parable, Luke v. 36,)
No man also seweth a piece of new cloth on an old
garment: else the new piece that filled it up taketh
away from the old (this being tender and that strong),
and (so) the rent is made worse (i. e. greater).
22 And no (skilful) man putteth new wine into old
(i. e. weak) bottles; else the new wine (fermenting)
doth burst the bottles, and (so) the wine is spilled,
and the bottles will be marred (broken or rent); but
new wine must be put into new bottles (see Matt. ix.
16, 17).
23 And it came to pass, that he went throughout
the cornfields on the (first) sabbath-day (after the
passover, Luke vi. 1), and his disciples * began, as
they went, to pluck the ears of corn, (and, rubbing them
in their hands, to eat of the corn, ibid.):
24 And the pharisees (seeing this) said unto him,
Behold, why do they (by thy permission) on the sab-
bath-day that which (according to our traditions) is
not lawful (to be done upon that day)?
25 And he said unto them, Have ye never read what
(is sufficient to justify that action of theirs, viz. that
which) David, when he had need, and was an hun-
gered, he, and they that were with him t
26 How he went into the house of God in the * days
of Abiathar the high-priest (see the note), and did eat
the shew-bread, which is not lawful to eat but for the
priests (i.e. of which it is not lawful for any but the
priests to eat), and gave also (of it) to them that were
with him *
rise, and give thee ;” and, vi. 42, "rā, śāvaa’at Aéyety; “How
canst thou say to thy brother, Let me cast out the mote out
of thine eye P’’
(2.) That which cannot justly, or without violation of
some law or rule of equity and justice, be performed.
So Deut. xii. 17, où 8whº payeſv, “Thou mayest not eat
within thy gates the tithe of thy corn :” so Acts x. 47, ºwnti
ºrd tºwe woxia at 8%warai ri; ; “Can any hinder water that these
should not be baptized P” 1 Cor. x. 21, où 35Waa-SE, “Ye can-
not drink the cup of the Iord and the cup of devils ;” 2
Cor. xiii. 8, où yèg ºuyápºsóa, “For we can do nothing against
the truth.”
(3.) That which is not agreeable to the divine economy,
counsel, or will. So Gen. xix. 22, où y&g 8vvña-opºat, “For
I can do nothing till thou be come thither :” Matt. xxvi.
42, ei oil 8%warai, “If this cup cannot pass from me, unless
I drink it ;” and in this sense Christ often saith, où 30yarat 3
wièc, “The Son cannot of himself do anything, but what he
sees the Father do” (John v. 19. 30).
(4.) That which we cannot do by reason of the trouble
of it, or because of some other employment which interferes
with it ; so the children of Jacob say to Joseph, où Suvha ºral
ºrd ºraëiov, “The lad cannot leave his father,” Gen. xliv, 22.
and to Jacob, où 8wnzág, E3a Katağaively, “We cannot go down
without our brother :” So we read of Christ, ºwnwëri Sivac Sai
airröv, that “he could not openly enter into the city,” Mark
i. 45, and of his disciples, ºch 30yaa-Sat abrovº, that “ they
could not eat bread” (iii. 20), i. e. they had no opportunity
to do it : of Herod, that he would have killed John, zai
oùx #3%aro, “and he could not do it for fear of the people,”
Mark vi. 19, 20, so, “I have married a wife, and therefore,
où bàvakai #A6sſy, I cannot come,” Luke xiv. 20.
(5.) That which cannot be done, not for want of power in
the agent, but upon account of some defect or fault in the
patient ; so Christ oix ºvaro, “could do no mighty works,
because of their unbelief.” Mark vi. 5, 6 : so Luke xvi. 2,
c5 &nan, “Thou canst be no longer steward :” so Christ
spake to the Jews, zaš3; #36Vavro &xočew, “as they were able
to hear him,” Mark iv. 33. And in this sense Christ in-
quires ró; 8&vaase ; “How can you believe, who receive
honour one of another ?” John v. 44.
(6.) That which cannot be done by reason of some dis-
position in us which renders us averse to, and unwilling to
do anything till it be removed So Joseph's brethren oix
hööyawro, “could not speak peaceably to him,” Gen. xxxvii.
4; “Behold their ears are uncircumcised, and oi Suvha oviral
ãxočew, they cannot hear,” Jer. vi. 16. So traj; 30yaa-SE ;
“How can you, being evil, speak good things 2° Matt. xii.
34, oil 8tyarat, “The world cannot hate you,” John vii. 7 ;
of 359aağs, “You cannot hear my word,” John viii. 43 ; oëx
#Sãway to, “Therefore they could not believe,” John xii. 39 ;
“The world oi, 8%wavas, cannot receive the Spirit,” John xiv.
17 ; “They that are in the flesh, où 36Vavrat, cannot please
God,” Rom. viii. 8. And so concerning a good disposition
we read, that “a good tree od 36Vatai, cannot bring forth evil
fruit,” Matt. vii. 16 ; of the disciples, ou 3Uváºześa, “We can-
not but speak the things which we have heard,” Acts iv. 20;
of him that is born of God, that of 359aras & wagºtávely, “he
cannot sin,” 1 John iii. 9; and Christ saith of the church
of Ephesus, où 8üyn, “Thou canst not bear them that are
evil,” Rev. ii. 2
* Ver. 23. "He;avro, Began.] That in the Hebrew phrase
to begin to do a thing, and to do it, is the same, see the
note on Acts i. 1, though I do not think that àexogai is
wholly an expletive in this and other places, but it signi-
fies to desire, to be willing, to covet, or be pleased with a
thing; and answers to the Hebrew brº. So Josh xvii. 12,
#efºro & Xayavaſoº karoºst #y rfi yº, “The Canaanite would
dwell in the land:” so when Micah had promised the Le-
vite a salary, ##aro raeoixºſy, “he was willing to dwell with
, him,” Judg. xvii. 11; so 2 Sam. vii. 29, and now égéov wał
sixáynarov, “let it please thee to bless the house of thy ser-
vant:” so also 1 Chron. xvii. 27 and Hos. v. 11, ip6.are ºro-
£eſsa Sat, “he willingly walked after vain things;” and, Judg.
i. 35, #p£aro à Xayavaſos, “The Canaanite would dwell in the
mountain,” i. e. the mountain of the Amorites, near the tribe
of Dan, of which tribe was Samson, Judg. xiii. 2. Note,
also, that the reading of the Septuagint here gives us an
answer to the inquiry where Samson had his foxes; even
from this mountain, iv 3 &A&rszec, “in which,” say they,
“were foxes,” they reading perhaps Dºyly not tº abyv as
we now read.
* Ver. 26 'Em. 'A8:40ap roi; 3pxisgéag, In the days of Abi-
athar the high-priest.] That Ahimelech was then high-priest
seems evident, (1.) because Abiathar, who succeeded him,
was, and is here styled high-priest ; for he being the father,
and Abiathar his son (1 Sam. xxi. 20. 22. xxii. 6), if Ahime-
lech had been only an ordinary priest, his son Abiathar could
liot have been high-priest, that office then succeeding orderly
from father to son. It is indeed by Mr. Whiston said, that
that Abiathar that escaped from Doeg never was high-priest:
but he is so called, first, by the Septuagint, saying that
“Solomon made Zadok isgia ºrgåroy &vri 'A340ag, high-priest
in the room of Abiathar,” even of that Abiathar who “bare
the ark of the Ilord before David,” and who was “afflicted
with him in all things,” 1 Kings ii. 26.35. Secondly, He
is so called thrice by Josephus,” who says, they had “the
catalogue of their high-priests preserved from two thousand
years” (2.) Because Ahimelech his father is accused by Doeg
of inquiring of the Lord for David, l Sam. xxii. 10, and he
himself seems to confess, ver. 15, that he had often done the
same thing before without blame ; whereas the high-priest
alone having on the ephod of judgment, had not Ahimelech
been the high-priest he could neither have done this, nor
reasonably been accused of doing it. To this it is said, that
Ahimelech might assist David in inquiring of the Lord, but
not by wrim. I answer, that I find no way of inquiring of
the Lord but by a prophet, or by a high-priest wearing
the ephod in which was the urim, or by a dream, of which
we read nothing here. Moreover, that the ephod was then
with him is certain, because when Ahimelech was slain,
Abiathar went down to David “with the ephod in his hand,”
1 Sam. xxiii. 6. And that he speaks of the high-priest's
ephod is manifest, because he doth not call it a linen
ephod, such as the priests wore, but “the ephod ;” and be-
* Antiq. lib. vii. cap. 11, p. 247, B, D. p. 248, B, G. lib.
i. contr. Apion. p. 1056.
P
210
MARK.
27 And he said (moreover) to them, The sahbath
was made for (the sake of) man, and not man for the
sabbath (now that which was instituted for the sake of
another thing, must yield to the good of that for whose
sake it was instituted) :
28 Therefore (&ors,
SO that) the Son of man (who
cause David inquires by it, ver. 9. xxx. 7, which shows it
was the high-priest's ephod in which was the wrim and the
thummim, which by express precept was never to be sepa-
rated from the ephod; since otherwise no inquiry could
have been made by it. Thirdly, Because he is styled
“Ahimelech the priest ;” for it is a certain truth, though
not observed by many, that from the end of the book of Deu-
teronomy to the end of the book of Chronicles, not one
person is by name styled N. N. “the priest” who was not a
high-priest ; and though Jehoiada is called the high-priest
where he is not named, viz. 2 Kings xii. 10. 2 Chron. xxiv.
11, yet is Hilkiah alone styled “Hilkiah the high-priest,”
during that long interval. Now what reason is there to
deny that Ahimelech hachoen signifies here, as in like case
it always did before from the days of Eleazar hachoen, “the
high-priest ?” Lastly, Because Josephus, who, being a Jew
and a priest, must be supposed a competent witness in this
case, calls him six times high-priest, viz. lib. vi. cap. 14, p.
196, B, C, F. 197, A, G.
The ancient solutions of the fathers are summed up
by Theophylact thus: We must say therefore either that
Abiathar had two names, being called also Ahimelech; or
that Abiathar was then with Ahimelech ; or that roi; vio; is
to be understood, and the words to be read thus, ini
A846ag rod vioſ roi, &#xºpéog, “in the days of Abiathar the
Son of the high-priest;” or that Abiathar is mentioned &;
#71anºrsgo., “as most celebrated in the days of David.”
The second of these opinious, viz. That Abiathar being
there with him, and made high-priest by the death of his
father but a few days after this action, it might well be
said to be done in the days of Abiathar the high-priest,
though he was not then actually so, is embraced by the
learned Bishop of Ely on 1 Sam. xxi. 6, this being said to
be done in his days, as things may be said to have been
done in the days of Henry the Eighth, or any other king
of England, which came to pass but a little before he
began to reign ; to which may be added the criticism of
Dr. Hammond, that iwi is to be rendered before, so iri
fºreixegia; must be rendered “before the captivity,” Matt.
i. 11, Jechonias and his brethren being begotten not un-
der, but before the captivity. Dr. Lightfoot falls in with
the two last solutions, rendering the words “in the days of
Abiathar the son of the high-priest,” as roi; ‘Hxi is “the son
of Eli,” Luke iii. 23, and so on to the end of the chapter;
and saying, that he therefore is named, rather than Ahime-
lech, because he brought the ephod to David, 1 Sam. xxii.
6, and by him inquiry was made by atrim and thummim,
1 Sam. xxi. 2. 4. 9. 11, 12. xxx. 7, 8. 2 Sam. ii. 1. 5. xix
21, whence it was usual, saith he, for the Jews by Abiathar
to understand the wrim and the thummim ; this therefore
seems to give some advantage to this instance, to say it was
done under that Abiathar who had the ordering of that
divine oracle, and so might be supposed to do this by divine
direction. But because this also is very rare, I offer, Thirdly,
that interpretation which saith, that by the high-priest here
we are to understand, not him who was strictly so called,
but one who was an eminent man of that order, this being
the import of the word,
1. When mention is made of power given 3T3 or ºrigi Tºy
*. from or by the high-priests, Acts ix. 14. xxvi.
2. Of high-priests gathered together, Matt. ii. 4. xxvi. 3.
xxvii. 62. John xi. 47. xii. 10.
3. Of the chief priests coming to Jesus, Matt. xxi. 15.
23.45, and that Christ ought to suffer by the chief priests,
Matt. xvi. 21.
4. Of Judas coming to the chief priests, Matt. xxvi. 14.
47. Mark xiv. 10. 43. Matt. xxvii. 3. 6. 12. 20.41. John
xviii. 3.
5. Of the chief priests and scribes, Mark viii. 21. x. 33.
xi. 18. xiv. 1. xv. 1.
came to save men’s lives, and promote their good) is
(doubtless so far) Lord also of the sabbath (as to dis-
pense with the strict rest of it, when he sees it necessary
jor their good). -
(For the ea position of these sia, last verses, see the
note on Matt. xii. 1.).
6. Of the chief priests and elders, John vii. 32. Acts iv.
23. xxv. 15.
7. Of all the high-priests, Matt. xxvii. 1. Mark xiv. 53.
See the like expressions, Mark xiv. 1. xv. 3. 10, 11. 31. Luke
xxiii. 4, 13.23. xxiv. 20. John xviii. 35. xix. 6. 15. 21. Acts
v. 24. ix. 21. xxii. 30. xxiii. 14.
'Evê 'A32636 roſ. 36xºspéog, In the days of Abiathar the
high-priest.] Good Mr. Whiston has given us an ingenious
treatise upon this place, in which he attempts to show that
neither the Ahimelech nor the Abiathar, mentioned in the
history of David's eating the shew-bread, was high-priest at
all, but another Abiathar, not mentioned at all there, but
2 Sam. xiv. 3, was then high-priest : and I, who never am
backward to yield to evidence, will give him the honour of
having found out the best solution of this difficulty that I
have yet seen, when he hath answered these ensuing argu-
ments.
Arg. l. That Josephus, who, being a Jew and a priest,
and who mentions the genealogy of their high-priests care-
fully preserved to his days, and so must be supposed a com-
petent witness in this case, styles that very Ahimelech who
gave David the shew-bread, and who was slain by Doeg, six
times “Ahimelech the high-priest.” Abiathar his son is also
several times styled the high-priest by the same Josephus.
It is no sufficient answer to this, to say, as Mr. Whiston
doth, that “neither Ahimelech nor Abiathar is styled high-
priest ; but the one is Ahimelech the priest, the other Abia-
thar the priest.” For it is a certain truth, that from Eleazar
the son of Aaron, in the book of Deuteronomy, to Hilkiah, in
the close of the book of Chronicles, not one person is by
name styled N. N. “the high-priest,” though there was all
that while a high-priest in being. Now what reason is there
to deny that Ahimelech hachoem signifies “Ahimelech the
high-priest,” when no other name is given to any high-priest
in scripture, for above four hundred years P Of less im-
portance is it to say, that “we read not that either of them
officiated as high-priest in the great day of expiation,” when
we read not of any one that did so in the books of Samuel,
Kings, or Chronicles.
Arg. 2. That Ahimelech was high-priest is proved from
the accusation which Doeg lays against him, that “he in-
quired of the Lord for David,” 1 Sam. xxii. 10, and from
Ahimelech's own confession, that he “had done the same
thing before,” ver, 15, and by the testimony of Josephus,”
saying, that he did Troxxâxic trºopmºrsical, oft consult the oracle
for him : whereas the high-priest alone having on the ephod
of judgment, had not Ahimelech been high-priest, he neither
could have done so, nor could he reasonably have been ac-
cused of doing it.
To this it is answered, that Ahimelech prayed, or inquired
of God for David ; but no circumstances being mentioned,
it does not appear whether it was anything more than afford-
ing David a place in the public prayers of the tabernacle, or
the lending him the sacred garments, and giving him proper
opportunities for his own inquiries (as a prophet) of the
Almighty.
But sure it is better to say nothing, than to use such sorry
shifts as these ; “He inquired of the Lord for him ;” that is,
he prayed for him, or gave him a place in the public prayers
of the tabernacle, or he lent him a linen ephod to inquire
in. Let him show one instance of any priest that is ever
Said to inquire of the Lord besides the high-priest, and he
will say something to lessen the force of this argument, which
is yet left in its full strength ; let him show one of the con-
Secrated ephods that was lent to a layman, or where lending
one an ephod, or giving him a place in the public prayers of
the tabernacle (if then there were any such prayers, or any
such usage), signifieth shaal lo bejehovah, i.e. “to inquire
for him from Jehovah,” and he will say something pertinent
* Antiq, lib, vi, cap. 14, p. 106.
CHAPTER II.
24 I
to this objection. As for Rebecca, she inquired not of a
priest, but, say the Jews, of a prophet ; and this she did
long before there was any high-priest wearing an ephod by
God appointed for this very end. And, saith the bishop of
*Ely, it is most reasonable to think that she went herself, and
inquired at the shechinah, or a place of the divine presence,
and the Lord answered her by an angel (Gen. xxv. 23).
Arg. 3. That Ahimelech had then the ephod to inquire
by is evident, because when Abiathar his son fled thence to
David, he carried “the ephod in his hand;” he went down,
saith the Septuagint, ixov #4003 #y rñ Xsigi aircü, “having
the ephod in his hand ;" and that this was the very ephod
to which the breast-plate was annexed, the bishop of Ely
proves, (1.) because it is not styled “a linen ephod,” such
as the priests used, but emphatically “the ephod.” (2.) Be-
cause when David was about to inquire of the Lord, he
speaks twice to Abiathar thus, “Bring hither the ephod”
(1 Sam. xxiii. 9. xxx. 7); whereas, had it been only a linen
ephod, it could have done him no service in his inquiries.
This being so, if David himself inquired of the Lord by this
ephod, he invaded on the priest's office, and so was guilty
of the highest sacrilege ; but if he made this inquiry by the
mouth of Abiathar, the son of Ahimelech, who was slain at
Nob, then was Abiathar high-priest, and so Mr. Whiston's
scheme is overthrown. Some think, saith the bishop of Ely,
that David put on the ephod, and then asked the Lord's ad-
vice ; but that is a great mistake: for the high-priest was the
person appointed by God to ask counsel of him for the su-
preme governor (Numb. xxvii. 21); therefore David spake
these words by the mouth of Abiathar. When therefore it
is said that David inquired of the Lord, it is reasonable to
conceive that he did this, both in the places mentioned and
2 Sam. ii. 1. 5. 19, by the person appointed by God to ask
counsel for him, i.e. by Abiathar the high-priest; these being
cases all concerning war, in which the ordinance of God ap-
pointed the chief governor to ask counsel of him (Josh. xxvii.
20, 21); and hence this very phrase is used, when other men
asked counsel of the Ilord in the like case: so Judg. i. 1,
“The children of Israel asked counsel of the Lord, Who
shall go up for us against the Canaanites?” and, xx. 18,
“They arose, and went up to the house of God, and asked
counsel of God, saying, Who shall go up first to the battle
against Benjamin P” and again, ver 23. But that they did
this by Phinehas the high-priest, is evident from these words,
wer. 27, 28, “And the children of Israel inquired of the Uord,
for the ark of the covenant was there in those days; and
Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, stood before
it in those days.” So Saul asked counsel of the Lord,
1 Sam. xiv. 37, but this he did by Ahijah the high-priest,
ver, 36 (see ver. 18).
Obj. But, saith Mr. Whiston, “The high-priest in the
latter end of Saul's reign, was with Saul and not with David :
for Saul, a little before his death, “inquired of the Lord, and
the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by wrim,
nor by prophets' (1 Sam. xxviii. 6), which words surely
imply, that Saul had caused inquiry to be made by wrim,
which, being peculiar to the high-priest, doth show that the
Jewish high-priest was then with Saul, which we know Abi-
athar the son of Ahimelech was not.”
Ans. This is a considerable objection ; to which I shall
not answer as some do, that Saul had caused another ephod
to be made, or that he sent to David to inquire of Abiathar
in his behalf; for there is no evidence for the second, and
the first could do him no service, he having no high-priest to
inquire by. But I answer, that though it be said that God
“answered not Saul by wrim,” that only is put in because
it was one usual way of answering, not because Saul had
tried that way ; for he himself speaketh to Samuel thus,
“God is departed from me, and answereth me no more,
neither by prophets, nor by dreams,” ver. 15, making no
mention at all of his not answering by wrim. And David
observes, 1 Chron. xiii. 3, that Saul, after the evil spirit came
upon him, “inquired not” at the ark, as formerly he had
done (1 Sam. xiv. 18): so that this passage, as it is trans-
lated, seems only to say, that God gave him no answer at all
by any of the usual ways: not by dreams, because the
Spirit of the Lord was long since departed from him (1 Sam.
xvi. 14); not by any direction of his prophets, because he
had slain the Lord's prophets; not by wrim, because he
neither had the breast-plate of wrim, nor a high-priest to
consult; and lastly, translate the words thus, “Saul feared
vejescheal, for he had inquired of the Lord,” viz. since the
time of his being rejected of God, “and the Lord had not
answered him” by any of these ways, and then this text
is impertinent: and of such translations of the Hebrew the
instances are very many (see Glassius de Verbo, lib. iii. tr. 3,
canon 46).
Arg. 4. That Abiathar, the son of Ahimelech, who was
slain at Nob, was high-priest, is proved, first, because Jose-
phus three times calls him so, viz. lib. vi. cap. ult. p. 207,
lib. vii. cap. 11, p. 247, 248. Secondly, Because he who was
removed by Solomon from the high-priesthood was the same
Abiathar who was with David in his exile; for he was that
Abiathar “who bore the ark before David,” and “who was
afflicted in all the things in which David was afflicted”
(1 Kings ii. 26), which agrees only to that Abiathar who
was the son of Ahimelech slain at Nob.
To this Mr. Whiston answers, “that there was an Abiathar
who was the son of Ahijah, who was high-priest in the days
of Saul, when David and his men did eat the shew-bread:
that he had a son named Ahimelech, who was high-priest in
the days of David, and this is the Ahimelech mentioned
2 Sam. viii. 17, in these words, “And Zadok the son of Ahi-
tub, and Ahimelech the son of Abiathar were priests ;’ and
this Ahimelech had a son named Abiathar, who was high-
priest after him, and this was the Abiathar removed by
Solomon, and not Abiathar the son of Ahimelech of Nob.”
Now to this I reply, that he offers no proof that his first
Abiathar was the son of Ahijah, or that his Ahimelech had
a son named Abiathar, or that either of the three was high-
priest. The text now cited saith, that “Zadok and Ahi-
melech the son of Abiathar were priests;” but that cannot
signify that they were high-priests, because there could not
be two high-priests together; and therefore the bishop of Ely
and the generality of commentators say, these two were the
chief of the family of the priests, next to the high-priest,
which was Abiathar, and who were called “secondary priests”
(2 Kings xxv. 18). And whereas Mr. Whiston saith of his
supposed Abiathar, that he was afflicted with David, by un-
dergoing the peril df a spy in the time that Absalom was in
Jerusalem, and David was fled from him; let any reason-
able person judge whether, on the account of the peril of so
few days, if indeed he lay under any peril, he could have
been said to have been afflicted, becol, “in all the things in
which David had been afflicted.” Sure the words of the
bishop of Ely here are much more agreeable to the history,
viz. that this Abiathar “underwent all the hardships which
David endured in his exile.”
But, saith Mr. Whiston, “If that Abiathar who was de-
prived by Solomon was the Abiathar of the family of Itha-
mar, and son of Ahimelech of Nob, supposing that he began
his office at thirty, as the priests did, and continued with
David forty years, he must be a very old man, almost eighty
years old before he died ; whereas this contradicts God’s
threat against the family of Eli, that “all the increase of his
house should die in the flower of their age,” and “that there
should not be an old man in his house for ever” (1 Sam. ii.
33).
Now to this I answer, First, in the words of the bishop of
Ely on 1 Sam. ii. 33, that this threat did not belong to all
the family of Ithamar, but only to the family of Eli. Se-
condly, Seeing king David died when he was seventy years
old (2 Sam. v. 4), and seeing there could be no age set for
the high-priest's entrance on his office, that depending on the
death of his father, Ahimelech coming to an untimely end,
Abiathar might be very young when he first entered upon
his office, and begin it as priests after did at twenty, and so
be not much above sixty when David died : and, lastly, when
that threat had been executed in such a dreadful manner by
the slaughter of the priests at Nob, we may reasonably con-
ceive that one single person, made an exile, and afflicted in
all that David was, might, for the service he had done to
that good king, and the affliction he had already suffered,
have his life prolonged above sixty or seventy years.
P 2
212
CHAPTER III.
1 AND he entered again into the synagogue (of Ca-
pernaum, i. 21), and there was a man there which had
a withered hand. -
2 And they (asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal
on the sabbath-day ? Matt. xii. 19, and) watched him,
whether he would heal him on the sabbath-day, that
(if he did so) they might accuse him (as one that pro-
faneth the sabbath).
3 And he said to the man who had the withered
hand, Stand forth (in the sight of the synagogue).
4 And (then) he saith unto them, "Is it lawful to do
good on the sabbath-days, or to do evil? to save life,
or to kill (by refusing to preserve it on that day ? And
this question he put to them by way of answer to their
question), but they held their peace.
5 And when he had looked round about on them
with anger, *being grieved for the hardness of their
hearts (which would not yield to all the conviction he
had given them, that it was lawful to do good on the
sabbath-day), he saith to the man (who had the wither-
ed hand), Stretch forth thy hand. And he stretched
it out; and his hand was restored whole as the other
(was).
6 And (this being done) the pharisees went forth,
and straightway took counsel with the Herodians
against him, how they might destroy him.
7 But “Jesus (his time of suffering being not yet
come) withdrew himself with his disciples to the sea;
and a great multitude from Galilee followed him, and
from Judea,
8 And from Jerusalem, and from Idumea, and from
beyond Jordan; and they about Tyre and Sidon, (F
say) a great multitude, when they had heard what
great things he did, came unto him. . .
9 And he spake to his disciples, that a small ship
should wait on him because of the multitude, lest they
should throng him.
10 For he had healed many; “insomuch that they
pressed upon him for to touch him, as many as had
plagues.
11 And unclean spirits, when they saw him, fell
down before him, and cried, saying, Thou art the
Son of God.
12 And he straitly charged them that they should
not make him known.
13 And he goeth up into a mountain, and calleth
to him whom he would: and they came unto him.
14 And he ordained twelve, that they should be
with him (as his attendants), and that he might send
them forth to preach.
15 And (preaching in his name) to have power to
heal sicknesses, and to cast out devils :
16 And (they were)Simon, (whom) he surnamed Peter;
17 And James the son of Zebedee, and John the
brother of James; and he surnamed them *Boaner-
ges, which is, The sons of thunder.
18 And Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew,
and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of
Alpheus, and Thaddeus, and Simon the Canaanite,
19 And "Judas Iscariot, which also betrayed him:
and they went into a house (in Capernaum, ii. 1).
20 And the multitude cometh together again, so
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III.
* Ver. 4. "Eáeart roſ; a 388acy &yaSoroúrai, ; kazorotºral;
&c. Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath-days, or to do
evil? to save life, or to kill ?] Hence it seems to follow,
that he who doth not do good to his neighbour when he can,
doth evil to him ; it being a want of charity, and therefore
evil, to neglect any opportunity of doing good, or showing
kindness to any man in misery ; and that not to preserve his
life when it is in danger, is to transgress that precept which
saith, “Thou shalt not kill ;” because, by this delay, so
much is taken from the pleasure of his life ; and, saith the
aphorism, Non est vivere sed valere, vita. Hence the tradi-
tion of the Jews informs us, “The hands of Moses were
heavy, because when Amalek came against them he deferred
their deliverance till the morrow (Exod. xvii. 9), and was not
ready on that very day to give redemption to Israel” (B.
Uzziel. in Exod. xvii. 12).
* Ver. 5. Kai regiºxiºhápasys; attoic wer' eyār, And looking
on then with anger.] Hence we learn that anger is not al-
ways sinful; this passion being found in him in whom was
no sin. But then it must be noted, that anger is not pro-
perly defined by philosophers, āps;1; &vrixwºrheewº, “a desire
of revenge,” or causing grief to him who hath provoked or
hath grieved us; for this desire of revenge is always evil;
and though our Saviour was angry with the pharisees for the
hardness of their hearts, yet had he no desire to revenge this
sin upon them, but had a great compassion for them, and a
desire to remove this evil. Anger is rather an inward mo-
tion and serious displeasure of the mind, arising from the ap-
prehension of some injury done or intended to ourselves, or
others for whom we are concerned, with a desire to remove
the injury (see note on Matt. v. 22).
* Ver. 7. Kai č 'Inaoûg &vexºpnale, And Jesus withdrew him-
self with his disciples to the sea.] When Christ by his doc-
trine and miracles could do no good upon men, by reason of
the hardness of their hearts, ver, 5, but they consult how
they may destroy him, ver. 6, he usually departs and con-
ceals himself, that he may give place to their wrath, and se-
rial office, should obey even such persons.
cure himself from their malice (see Matt. xii. 15. John viii.
59). Whence we learn, not only that in such cases it is law-
ful thus to consult our safety, but that when men are so
perverse, we, by concealing of the truth, do not betray it,
but rather do comply with our Lord's precept, “not to cast
pearls before swine” (Matt. vii. 6).
* Ver, 10. "Qars imitrimºrew airó, Insomuch that they
pressed upon him.] Dr. Hammond says, They fell down be-
fore his feet, requesting that they might touch him, or in or-
der to the touching of him, as they did, vi. 56. But the
pressing on him seems more agreeable to the reason why he
desired a ship, viz. that they might not throng him.
* Ver. 17. Kat #mré0mxay airoi; yápara Boayséyès, And he
named them Boanerges, which is, Sons of thunder.] Con-
cerning the derivation of this word see Dr. Lightfoot and
Grotius. Christ seems to have given them this name from
a foresight of the heat and zeal of their temper, of which
they quickly gave an instance in their desire to call down
fire from heaven, or thunder and lightning to consume the
Samaritans (Luke ix. 54): and John also showed his zeal
in forbidding him that cast out devils in Christ's name, be-
cause he followed not them. Hence we find, in the Acts of
the Apostles, Peter and John are the chief speakers and ac-
tors in the defence and propagation of the gospel; and the
zeal of James and Peter seems to be the reason why the
one was slain by Herod, and the other imprisoned in order
to the like execution.
* Ver. 19. Io98ay 'Iaxagºrny, And Judas Iscariot, who also
betrayed him.] The wisdom of Christ saw fit to admit Judas
amongst his disciples, that by him the counsel of God, in
giving up his Son to the death, and the scriptures might be
fulfilled (Acts i. 16). And he is by him sent to preach, to
cure diseases, and to cast out devils, who had himself a
devil (John vi. 70), to teach us, that the mission of a per-
son may be valid, though he be not sanctified ; and that we
should hearken to, and, in things belonging to their ministe-
Origen,* indeed,
declares his belief that Judas ynario; Tréte #78triareſwet,
“was once a sincere believer:” for, saith he, had Christ
º-
º
* Tom. ii. in Joh. ed. Huet, p. 393.
CHAPTER III
213
that they could not so much as (have leisure to) eat
bread.
21 And when his friends heard of it, they went out
to lay hold on him : for they said, He is "beside him-
self (Gr. he is faint by spending his spirits).
22 And the scribes which came down from Jeru-
salem said, He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of
the devils casteth he out devils.
23 And he called them unto him, and said unto
them in (two) parables (first), How can Satan cast
out Satan?
24 And (for) if a kingdom be divided against itself,
that kingdom cannot stand.
25 And if a house be divided against itself, that
house cannot stand.
26 And if (then) Satan rise up against himself, and
be divided, he cannot stand, but (his kingdom) hath
an end.
27 (And again in another parable he said,) No man
can enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his
goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and
then he will (be able to) spoil his house.
28 (Then he added these words), Verily I say unto
found him at the first to have been a thief, he would not
have committed the bag to him, when he had found him so
to be, and his apostleship, even after he had pronounced
him a devil (John vi. 70), for he fell from it only by his
trangression in betraying his Master (Acts i. 25). I see no
necessary reason why he might not appoint him the bag, even
though he knew he was addicted to theft. Secondly, He
also argues thus—Christ sent him as he did the rest of his
apostles, attended with the power of miracles, and with com-
mission to say to any city where he came, “Peace be to this
city ;” and with a promise, that if “a son of peace was there,
that peace should rest upon him ;” if not, “it should return
into their bosom ;” which, saith he, Christ would not have
done, had not Judas then been a son of peace. But, (1.)
Christ hath informed us that miracles might be done even by
the “workers of iniquity,” Matt. vii. 22, 23. (2.) The
twelve disciples were sent by “two and two,” Mark vi. 7,
and so one of them being sincere, and a keeper of the word
of God (John xvii. 6), this prayer for peace might come
upon them that were worthy for his sake, rather than for the
sake of Judas. This opinion therefore of Origen, as it is
not certainly true, so neither can it certainly be disproved.
7 Wer. 21. "EAEyvy yap, 3rt ###arn, And when his friends
heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him ; for they said,
Płe is beside himself.] This is spoken upon the occasion of
the multitude's coming so fast upon him, as that he had not
time to take any food to recreate his weary spirits ; and so
that interpretation which renders the words thus, “They
said, He is fainty,” or, may fall into a deliquium by spend-
ing thus his spirits, hath nothing I can see to render it im-
| you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men
and the blasphemies wherewith soever they shal,
blaspheme (me wpon earth):
29 But he that shall blaspheme against (the follow-
ing dispensation of) the Holy Ghost hath never for-
giveness, but is in danger of (Gr. obnoxious to) eter-
nal damnation :
30 (And thus he spake) because they said, He hath
an unclean spirit.
31 There came then his brethren and "his mother
(to the place where he was), and (they), standing with-
out, sent.unto him, calling him (to them).
32 And the multitude sat about him, and they said
unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren with-
out seek for thee.
33 And he answered them, saying, Who is my mo-
ther, or my brethren? *
34 And he looked round about on them which sat
about him, and (pointing to his disciples, he) said,
Behold my mother and my brethren
35 For whosoever shall do the will of God, the
same is (by me valued as dearly as) my brother, and
my sister, and mother.
probable : this being frequently the import of the word in
the Old Testament. So when the brethren of Joseph told
Jacob that his son was living, ##arn tº 8tavoid, “Jacob's
heart fainted,” (Gen. xlv. 26), and afterward his spirit re-
vived (ver. 27): so Rahab saith, When we heard that God
had dried up the Red Sea for you, ižárrmºsy tº tapčić, hºwāy,
“our hearts fainted, nor did there remain any breath in us.”
(Josh. ii. 11): so when the kings of Syria and Israel con-
spired against Ahaz king of Judah, śćcºrm h lux} airoij,
“his heart fainted, and the heart of his people” (Isa. vii. see
xxxiii. 3), and of Emath and Arphad, Jeremiah saith, xlix.
23, §rt #xova'aw &xoºv movng&v, ###~rmaav, “When they heard
evil tidings, their heart fainted” (see also Gen. xlii. 28).
This interpretation I like best ; because it is absurd to say,
that Christ did, either in his gesture or his actions, show any
symptoms of transportation, or excess of mind: nor could
his kindred have any reason to conceive thus of him, who
had never given the least symptoms of any such excess,
though they of them who believed not in him (John vii. 4),
might have such unworthy thoughts of him.
* Ver. 31. ‘H &#~ng airoij, And his mother.] Hence
Theophylact taxes her, x:yobošíaç, “of vain-glory and of
guilt, in endeavouring to draw him, 373 rā; 3,827xaxiac, from
teaching the word :” Tertullian * pronounceth her guilty of
“incredulity:” Chrysostom, “ of vain-glory, infirmity, and
madness,” for this very thing (Hom. 27 in Matt. tom. ii. p.
191).
* De Carne Christ. cap. 7.
CHAPTER IV.
1 AND he began again to teach by the sea-side :
and there was gathered to him a great multitude, so
that he entered into a ship, and 'sat in (it on) the sea;
and the whole multitude was by the sea (side) on the
land.
2 And he taught them many things by parables,
and said to them in his doctrine,
3 Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to
SOW :
4 And it came to pass, as he sowed, some (seed)
fell by the way-side, and the fowls of the air came and
devoured it up.
5 And some fell on stony ground, where it had not
much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because
it had no depth of earth (and so could not be long co-
vered by it):
6 But (and) when the sun was up, it was scorched;
and because it had no (deep) root, it withered away.
7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns
grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.
8 And other (seed) fell on good ground, and did
yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought
forth "some thirty, and some sixty, and some a hun-
dred (fold increase).
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV.
• Wer. 1. Ka85a-6a iy rā Saxáran, Sat in the sea.] That
is, in a boat upon the sea, at a little distance from the
shore.
2 Ver. 8. “Ev retáxovira, wai Éy ###novra, wał ży inary, Some
thirty, some sixty, and some a hundred.] The fathers of
the fourth and fifth centuries were superstitious admirers of
virginity, and so allotted here the hundred-fold increase to
214,
MARK.
9 And he said unto them, He that hath ears to
hear, let him hear. -
10 And when he was alone (i.e. retired from the
multitude), they that were about him with the twelve
asked him (the meaning of) the parable.
11 And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to
know the mystery of the kingdom of God (the effect
and progress it will have among mem); but "unto them
that are without (and not prepared to receive the doc-
trime of this kingdom) all (these) things are done in
parables (they having shut their eyes, and hardened
their hearts, Matt. xiii. 15): •
12 That seeing they may see, and not perceive ;
and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest
at any time they should be converted, and their sins
should be forgiven them. -
13 And he said unto them, Know ye not this pa-
rable : *and how then will ye know all parables? (as
might be reasonably eaſpected from you, who should
have ears to hear, i. e. discerning spirits in such things.
14 Take then the sense of this parable thus :) The
Sower (is he who) soweth the word. - -
15 And these are they (who are represented by the
seed sown) by the way-side, where (among whom) the
word is sown; but when they have heard (it), “Sa-
tan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word
that was sown in their hearts.
16 And these are they likewise which are (repre-
sented by the seed) sown on stony ground; who, when
they have heard the word, immediately receive it with
gladness;
17 And (yet) have no root in themselves, and so
endure but for a time; (and) afterward, when afflic-
tion or persecution ariseth for the word’s sake, imme-
diately they are offended. -
18 And these are they which are (represented by
seed) sown among thorns; (to wit, ) such as hear the
word,
19 And the cares of this world, and the deceitful-
ness of riches, and the lusts (or desires) of other things
entering in (to the heart), choke the word, and (so) it
becometh unfruitful.
20 And these are they which are (represented by
the seed) sown on "good ground; (to wit), such as
hear the word and receive it, and bring forth fruit,
Some thirty-fold, some sixty, and some a hundred.
21 "And he said unto them, Is a candle brought
to be put under a bushel, or under a bed 2 and not
(rather) to be set on a candlestick (i. e. Do I give
gow this light into my doctrine, that you may conceal
it * Surely, no.)
22 For there is nothing hid (as being spoken by me
in obscure parables), which shall (should) not be ma-
nifested; neither was anything kept (Gr. made) secret
(by me), but that it should come abroad.
23 If any man have ears to hear, let him hear (i. e.
let these things be duly understood, and accordingly
performed by you). -
24 And he said unto them, *Take heed what (i. e.
how you attend to what) you hear; (for) with what
measure you mete, it shall be measured to you : and
to you that hear shall more be given (i. e. according
to your proficiency in hearing, will the word be dis-
pensed to you).
virgins ; the sixty-fold, to widows that married not again ;
the thirty-fold, to those who lived in wedlock: so Athana-
sius, Ep. ad Ammun. St. Jerome, in locum, et lib, i. adv.
Jovin. lit. K. et Apol. ad Pammachium, f, 37, lit. G. This
did St. Jerome, saith Erasmus, durior in nuptias; and
others, iniquiores nuptiis.
* Ver. Il. Toí; #2: To them that are without..] It was
customary for the Jews to give this title to the heathens;
our Saviour therefore, by applying it to them, seems to hint
to them, That in a short time the kingdom of God would be
taken from them, and they themselves would be of Éa, them
that were without (Matt. viii. 12. Luke xiii. 25. 28, see note
on Luke viii. 10). -
* Ver. 13. Kai rā; ; How then 21 For zai here is not
only copulative, but illative; and so the words are to be
rendered, “How then P” or, “How therefore ?” So Ps. ii.
10, zai yüv, “Now therefore ye kings, be wise ;” Ps. vii. 7,
zai Ütrée raútnº, “For their sakes therefore return on high;”
Ps. xviii. 42, xzi aertvé, “Then did I beat them as small
as the dust.” This sense it bears in the Septuagint, Geº.
xiii. 16. xxiv. 41. xxviii. 21. xxxi. 8. xlii. 34.38. Exod. vi.
l. vii. 9. 11. Lev. iv. 3. 14. 23. 28. v. 5. vi. 4. Numb. v. 15.
21. Deut. vi. 21. viii. 10. Josh. i. 15. xxiv. 20. l Sam. i. 11.
vi. 9. Joel ii. 18. Micah vii. 9. Mal. ii. 2, and in the New
Testament, Mark x. 26, xa, ri; ; “Who then can be saved P’’
Luke ii. 15, “When the angels were gone up to heaven,
wał, then the shepherds said;” Luke xii. 29, “Seek ye not
therefore what ye shall eat ;” I Cor. v. 13, xa, #apeſts,
“Therefore put away the evil person.”
* Ver, 15. "Etxsta é zarayås, Satan cometh..] The “birds
of the air,” ver, 4. Tà Trºtsiya toû oëpavoú, of 3aip, ove; of rºy
&spa waréxovreć, “The birds of the air represent Satan, be-
cause his habitation is in the air” (Theoph.).
* Ver. 20. Oi świ rāy yńy rºy waxy, Upon good ground.]
"Ogå yºv Träç a trávia rē Kaxa, xał Śxiyot of aroğasyo, “See,”
saith Theophylact, “how rare are good men, and how few
are saved ;” for only the fourth part of the seed fell upon
good ground, and was preserved. Observe here also the
gradation : the seed sown in the highway comes not up at
all ; the seed sown upon Stony ground comes up, but in-
creaseth not ; the seed sown among thorns increaseth, but
hears no fruit; the seed sown on good ground brings forth
fruit to perfection.
7 Ver. 21, 22. Kai #xeyev aircís (witt & Aſſºvo; #exeral, &c.
And he said unto them, Is a candle brought to be put under
a bushel, &c.] These words being only spoken to Christ's
disciples, when he was alone with them, and both here and
in Luke viii. 16, 17, subjoined to the explication of this pa-
rable, I think it best to explain them accordingly ; as if
Christ had said, I give you a clear light, by which you may
discern the import of this and other parables; but this I do,
not that you may keep it to yourselves, and hide it from
others, but that it may be beneficial to you, and by you be
made beneficial to others; and that having thus learned,
you may instruct them how they ought to hear, and to re-
ceive the word heard in good and honest hearts (ver. 20).
And though I give you the knowledge of these mysteries of
the kingdom of God, zarapºyas, “privately,” I do it not
that you may keep them so ; for there is nothing (thus)
hid which should not be made manifest, neither was any-
thing made secret (by me) but that it should (afterward)
come abroad.
Hence also observe, that had Christ's apostles so ob-
scurely delivered or writ the gospels, and those other scrip-
tures which contain the rule of faith even in things necessary
to be believed or done unto salvation, as the Romanists
pretend they did, they must have hid the “candle under
a bushel,” and not have manifested it to the world, as
Christ here requires them to do.
* Ver. 24. BXérare ºri. Luke viii. 18. Bxfºrers obv arºc
&zoöste, Take heed what (Luke, how) you hear : for with
what measure you mete, &c.] I think these words are well
paraphrased by Theophylact thus, Let not anything you
have heard slip from you, but lay it up in your heart ; for
according to that measure of attention and readiness of
mind you use in hearing of the word, and your diligence in
pondering it, and care to practise suitably to what you
know already, will be your farther proficiency in knowledge:
and he that hath ºrgošvºiay zai crow8%w, 826heerai airò wal
&@Exeia, “this readiness and care, shall profit by it: ” that
ri signifies Tröc, we learn from these words, ri yixe dièaç,
“How knowest thou, O husband, or, O wife P” l Cor. vii.
16.
Ver. 24, 25.] Moreover, what can be more evident than
this inference from these verses, that the word of God read
and preached being the ordinary instrument of our conver-
CHAPTER W.
215
25 For he that (improveth what he hath, to him
shall be given (more); and he that hath not (improved
his present knowledge), from him shall be taken even
that (knowledge which) he hath. -
26 And he said, "So is (it with the doctrine of)
the kingdom of God (received into a good heart), as if
a man should cast (good) seed into the ground;
27 And (having done so) should sleep, and rise
night and day, and the seed should spring and grow
up, he knoweth not how (as indeed it is with respect to
the seed sown in the earth).
28 For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself;
first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in
the ear. -
29 But when the fruit is brought forth (to matu-
rity), immediately he putteth in the sickle, because
the harvest is come : (so when, by the preaching of
the word, men are made ripe for the harvest, i. e. pre-
pared to receive the gospel, the apostles will come and
gather them into my kingdom.)
30 And he said (also), Whereunto shall we liken
the (doctrine of the) kingdom of God? or with what
comparison shall we compare it?
31 * It is like a grain of mustard-seed, which, when
it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that
be in the earth :
32 But when it is sown, it groweth up, and be-
cometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great
branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under
the shadow of it: (even so the kingdom of the Messiah,
before his death and burial in the earth, will have only
a small and insensible increase, but after his resurrection
it will spring up, and become the greatest of all kingdoms).
33 And with many such parables spake he the word
unto them, as they were able to hearit (without offence).
34 But without a parable spake he not unto them:
and when they were alone, he expounded all things
(which he thus spake) to his disciples. 4
35 And the same day, when the even was come, he
saith unto them, Let us pass over to the other side
(of the lake).
36 And when they had sent away the multitude,
they took him (along with them) even as he was (sleep-
ing) in the ship; (for he went first into the ship, and
his disciples after him, Matt. viii. 22) and there were
also with him other little ships. -
37 And there arose a great storm of wind, and the
waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full. .
38 And he was in the hinder part of the ship,
asleep on a pillow ; and they awake him, and say
unto him, Master, carest thou, not that we perish
39 And (then) he arose, and rebuked the wind, and
said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And (instantly)
the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.
40 And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful?
how is it that ye have no faith ? (and this he had cause
to say,) *for they feared exceedingly (though he was
present with them, and they had such eaſperience
power).
41 And (seeing that the wind ceased at his word,
they) said one to another, What manner of man is
this, that even the wind and the sea obey him
of his
sion, and “a savour either of life unto life, or death unto
death,” conversion must depend partly on our attention to
it, our care to meditate upon it, and fix it in our hearts, and,
to act suitably to it in our lives; and that Christ, by adding
these words as a motive to take heed to what we hear, that
to them that thus hear shall more be given, doth plainly
teach us that the salutary efficacy of the word of life de-
pends partly on our affection to and our improvement of
what we have heard, and partly on the disposition of the
hearer; to wit, his freedom from a prevailing love to those
enjoyments and pleasures of the world, which avert our
thoughts from this attention, and so choke the influence of
the word, and hinder our reception of it into “good and
honest hearts:” and also that our neglect so to improve it,
is our own wilful fault, or our neglect to do that which God
hath enabled us, or would upon this care enable us to do ;
and therefore is thus threatened with the removal of those
means of grace we so unprofitably do enjoy (see the note on
Matt. xiii. 19).
* Ver. 26. Kai Éxeyev, oùroc Barty h 8aaixeia roi; OEcij, And
he said, So is the kingdom of God..] This parable is men-
tioned only by St. Mark, and it seems to me to relate to the
good ground ; for that only brought forth ripe fruit, or fruit
unto perfection: I therefore paraphrase it thus, What I
said of the seed sown upon good ground, may be illustrated
by this parable, That the doctrine of the kingdom of God,
received into a good and honest heart, is like seed sown by
a man in his ground, manured and tilled, and so prepared
to receive it; for when he hath sown it, he sleeps and
wakes day after day ; and looking on it, he sees it spring
and grow up through the virtue of the earth in which it is
sown, though he knows not how it doth so ; and when he
finds it ripe, he reaps it, and so receives the benefit of the
seed sown : so is it here ; the seed sown in the good and
honest heart brings forth fruit with patience, and this fruit
|
daily increaseth, though we know not how the word and
Spirit work that increase ; and then Christ, the husband-
man, who sows this seed, at the time of the harvest sends
forth the angels, his reapers, and gathers this good seed, i. e.
the sons of the kingdom represented by it, into his celestial
mansions (see Matt. xiii. 38.43). I see no necessity of in-
quiring here how Christ may be said to sleep and rise day
and night; Christ being like to this husbandman only in
sowing and reaping of his seed; nor can it be said of him,
his seed “grows up he knows not how ;” nor yet would I
depend much on that remark of the fathers, that here is a
proof of man's free-will and power to do good of himself,
the seed being only sown, and no farther care taken of it:
for as seed sown in the earth is only fruitful by being wa-
tered from heaven and ripened by the sun, so a like influ-
ence of the word and Spirit upon the heart of man seems
requisite to bring the seed sown in it to perfection.
* Wer. 31. ‘o; 26xxº, civáºrsoº, The kingdom of God is
like to a grain of mustard-seed.] i. e. The kingdom of the
Messiah may fitly be compared to a grain of mustard-seed,
which, before it is cast into the earth, is the least of all
seeds, but being sown in it, it groweth up, and becomes the
greatest of herbs (see note on Matt. xiii. 31): so this king-
dom of the Messiah before his death and burial in the earth,
which is called the sowing the body in the earth (1 Cor. xv.
42, 43), will have only a small and insensible increase, but
will afterward spring up and become the greatest of all king.
doms, for being “lifted up, he will draw all men after him.”
* Ver. 40. Kai poéhºnoray pé8w ºyay..] These words
I would join to the former, thus, “He said to them, Why
are you so fearful? &c., for they feared exceedingly ;” and
begin the last verse thus, “And they said one to another,
What manner of man is this?” &c. for this accords best
with Matt. viii. 27. Luke viii. 25.
CHAPTER V.
1 AND they came over unto the other side of the
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. V.
* Ver. Ei, thy Xàgay rāy Tabaºnvºy, Into the country of the
Gadarenes, Theophylact here saith, ti, &#64337tspa rāy
sea, to the country of the "Gadarenes.
&vriygá$ov eiç rºy x&gay rāv Tseygamyāy; the exactest copies
read “Gergesenes,” as St. Matthew, doth, viii. 28, . But
both St. Mark here, and St. Luke, viii. 26, read the “Gada-
renes;” and therefore it is better answered by Dr. Light.
216
MARK.
2 And when he was come out of the ship, imme-
diately there met him (coming) out of the tombs a
*man with an unclean spirit,
3 Who had his dwelling among the tombs: and no
man could (effectually) bind him, no, not with chains:
4 Because that he had often been bound with fet-
ters and chains, and the chains had been plucked
asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces:
..neither could any man tame him. -
5 And always, night and day, he was in the moun-
tains, and in the tombs, crying (out), and cutting
himself with stones.
6 But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran (to him)
and worshipped him,
7 And (the unclean spirit in him) cried with a loud
voice, and said, “What have I to do with thee, Jesus,
thou Son of the most high God I adjure thee by
God, that thou torment me not. -
8 For he (Jesus had) said unto him, Come out of
the man, thou unclean spirit (and this made him fear
that Christ might torment him).
9 And he (Christ) asked him, What is thy name?
And he answered, saying, My name is Legion (a
name of multitude); for we are many.
10 And he besought him much “that he would not
send them away out of the country.
11 Now there was there nigh to the mountains a
great herd of swine feeding.
12 And all the devils besought him, saying, Send
.
us into the herd of swine, that (by thy permission) we
may enter into them. -
13 And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And
(then) the unclean spirits (of the man) went out (of
him), and entered into the swine: and the herd ran
violently down a steep place into the sea (they were
about two thousand), and were choked in the sea.
14 And they that fed the swine fled, and told it
(i. e. what was done) in the city, and in the "country.
And they went out to see what it was that was done.
15 And they come to Jesus, and see him that was
possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting,
and clothed, and in his right mind: and they were
afraid (what one of so great power might farther do).
16 And they that saw it told them how it befell to
him that was possessed with the devil, and also con-
cerning the swine.
17 And they (being troubled for the loss of them)
began to pray him to depart out of their coasts.
18 And when he was come into the ship, he that
had been possessed with the devil prayed him that he
might be with him.
19 Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith to
him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great
things the Lord hath done for thee, and (how he hath
had compassion on thee.
20 And he departed, and began to publish in De-
capolis how great things Jesus had done for him: and
all men did marvel.
foot, that both say true, for the region of the Gergesenes was
of broader extent than that of the Gadarenes, and the region
of the Gadarenes was included in it.
* Wer. 2. "Ayºporo; #y mységart &nabágrº, Luke viii. 27,
ăvăp rig, A man with an unclean spirit.] St. Matthew saith
there were 800 3alp.ovišćuevo, “two possessed with the devil,”
viii. 28, which difference, saith the reverend Dr. Hammond,
hath nothing of weight in it; for Matthew, which names
two, saying the truth, the other evangelists, who name but
one, not denying there were more, must necessarily say the
truth also. Yet curiosity will not rest here, but will inquire,
why, there being two and both xíay Xaxaroi, very fierce, St.
Mark and St. Luke name only one 2 Dr. Lightfoot ingeni-
ously conjectures, that one of these two was a Gergesene,
and a Jew; and so, in casting the devil out of him, our
Lord did only what he frequently had done in Judea;
but the other was a Gadarene, i.e. one of a heathen city,
as Josephus testifies, and as may be collected from the
swine they kept, it being by the Jewish constitution an
unlawful thing for any Jew to keep swine (see Dr. Light-
foot, Harm. p. 32). Now of this one, St. Mark and
Luke chiefly take notice, as being a more remarkable
and rare instance; this and that of the Syrophoenician wo-
man being the only instances of cures wrought upon the
heathens: that he was a heathen he probably conjectures,
(1) from the city he inhabited, (2.) because the devils re-
quest, both that he would not torment them, and that he
would not send them out of the country (which elsewhere
they do not); for being among heathens, they thought they
were among their own, and not in Christ's jurisdiction, as
being not among his people. But (3.) the text yields a
more certain answer, viz. that of these two, one only was
ãw8;aro; iv 34a6ágrº ºryeſſp.art, “a man possessed with an
unclean spirit.” (4.) He was the man whom the inhabit-
ants oft attempted to bind, but could not effectually do it,
he breaking all the bands and chains that they could lay
upon him (ver. 3, 4. Luke viii. 29). Of these two remark-
able circumstances, and of his being unclothed, and cutting
himself with stones, St. Matthew makes no mention ; and
therefore Mark and Luke givens the history offiim more largely,
omitting the other, in whom there was nothing so remarkable.
* Ver. 7. Ti Haoi Kai got ; What have I to do with thee ?]
This is not a Hebraism, as some think, from 2 Kings iii.
13, &c. but a form of speaking used in the Greek tongue.
So Arrian in Epictetus,” ºri hºziv xai airó, “What have we
* * *
* Lib. i. cap. 1, p. 85.
to do with him 2" (see more instances in Schmid. on Matt.
viii. 29.)
* Wer. 10. "Iya Awi atrob; &n'sa-relan #0 rā; X&eac, That he
would not send them away out of the country.] It is ob-
served by Grotius here, that in this country there were
many apostates from the Jewish faith, over whom the
devils exercised their power; as under the Christian eco-
nomy they became subject to the power and chastisement
of Satan, who either denied the fundamentals of, or by their
wicked deeds became a scandal to, the Christian faith
(1 Cor. v. 5. 1 Tim. i. 20. Wide Tertul, de Spectaculis, cap.
26. Cyprian, de Lapsis ed. Ox. p. 132, 133).
* Ver. 14. Kai sig roos &yfośc, Told it in the city, and in
the country.] Or rather, in the little villages, where the
houses were few and apart. See vi. 36, “Send them away
that they may go into the country and villages, and market-
towns, and buy bread.” So again, ver, 56.
Many here are the practical observations of Theophylact
upon this history, which I will briefly represent. As, (1.)
From the devils' asking leave to go into the swine, he ob-
serves, that they could not hurt them, much less can they
hurt man, without the divine permission, (2.) That as hav-
ing leave they instantly hurry these swine to destruction,
so much more would they deal with men, did not the hand
of Providence restrain them. (3.) That he who had been
possessed with the devil, desired to be with Christ, as
fearing lest at his departure the devil might seize on him
again ; and that Christ permitted him not, partly to avoid
the suspicion of vain-glory, of which he might have given
some umbrage, had he carried about with him those upon
whom his greatest miracles were wrought; and partly to
show that in his absence he was able to protect those that
believe and trust in him, from the malice of all evil spirits.
(4.) From those words of our Saviour, “Go, tell what great
things the Lord hath done to thee,” we learn, saith he, from
Christ's example, when we do any good not to ascribe it
to ourselves, but give God the glory of it. Note, lastly,
that Dr. Hammond in his paraphrase gives three rea-
sons why our Saviour permitted the devils to enter into
the swine; (1.) That the people might see the virulency
of these devils, if not restrained by him, and so the mercy
done to those that were possessed. (2.) The mercy
now approaching to their country by the coming of Christ,
if they would accept of it. And (3.) to try whether
their love to their swine was greater than that to their own
Souls.
CHAPTER V.
217
21 And when Jesus was passed over again by ship
to the other side, much people gathered to him: and
he was nigh to the sea.
22 And, behold, there cometh "one of the rulers of
the synagogue, Jairus by name; and when he saw
him (Christ), he fell at his feet,
23 And besought him greatly, saying, My little
daughter lieth at the point of death: (I pray thee)
" come and lay thy hands on her, that she may be
healed; and (I am confident if thou doest this) she
shall live.
24 And Jesus went with him; and much people
followed him (Jesus), and thronged him.
25 And a certain woman, which had an issue (a
flua) of blood twelve years,
26 And had suffered many things of many phy-
sicians, and *had spent all that she had, and was
nothing bettered, but rather grew worse,
27 When she had heard of Jesus, came in the press
behind, and touched his garment.
28 For she said (in her heart), If I may touch but
his clothes, I shall be whole.
29 And straightway (upon this touch) the fountain
|
of her blood was dried up: and she felt in her body
that she was healed of that plague (i. e. disease).
30 And Jesus, immediately "knowing in himself
that virtue had gone out of him, turned (himself) about
in the press, and said, Who touched my clothes :
31 And his disciples said unto him, Thou seest the
multitude thronging thee, and sayest thou, Who
touched me 2
32 And he looked round about to see her that had
done this thing.
33 But (then) the woman fearing and trembling,
knowing what was done in her, came and fell down
before him, and told him all the truth.
34 And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath
made thee whole; go in peace, and be (still) whole
of thy plague.
35 While he yet spake, there came from the ruler
of the synagogue's house (certain persons) which said,
Thy daughter is dead, why troublest thou the Master
any farther? -
36 As soon as Jesus heard the word that was spo-
ken, he saith to the ruler of the synagogue, Be not
afraid, only believe. -
* Ver. 22. Ei rāv 3pxtauvayoºyov, One of the rulers of the
synagogue.] The word áextavvayoºyoc, or “ruler of the syna-
gogue,” is mentioned both in the scriptures, the Jewish
writers, and the Imperial Constitutions ; in which sense it
appears from scripture, that the “rulers of the synagogue *
were more than one, as may be gathered (1.) from these
words, “One of the rulers of the synagogue,” to wit, at Ca-
pernaum ; for that in Capernaum there was but one syna-
gogue is probably collected from the words of St. John, vi.
56, “These things spake Jesus in the synagogue, teaching
in Capernaum.” (2.) From the express words of St.
Luke, who saith that when Paul and Barnabas were entered
into the Synagogue at Antioch, oi &gxia'vyāyoyot, “the rulers
of the synagogue said to them, If ye have any word of ex-
hortation to the people, speak ’’ (Acts xiii. 15): and also
from the mention of Crispus and Sosthenes, as 3pxtruváyoyot,
“rulers of the synagogue’ at Corinth (Acts xviii. 1.17):
or else more strictly to import the person who was the
in this sense he was but one, as when St. Luke saith, xiii.
14, § 36xiouváyoyoc, “the ruler of the synagogue * answered
with indignation (see this more fully in Capeg. Vitringa de
Regim. Synag. lib. ii. cap. 11). But, whereas some learned
men conceive that the word “synagogue” here signifies, not
the house of prayer, or of reading and expounding the law,
but the consistory of twenty-three, appointed in every city,
who were able to punish offences not capital, to scourge,
&c. because our Saviour says, “they shall deliver you up,
sic avvéºpia, to the councils, and they shall scourge you in
the synagogues” (Matt. x. 17. xxiii. 34): “Behold, I send
to you prophets and wise men, and some of them ye shall
kill, and some ye shall chastise in your synagogues ;” this I
think is a mistake : for, (1.) in the tenth chapter our Sa-
viour mentions the synagogues, in which the Christians were
to be scourged, as distinct places from the synedria, or
councils to which they were to be delivered. And (2.) St.
Paul declares once and again, that he did beat the Christians
in their synagogues (Acts xxii. 19), that “he punished them
throughout all the synagogues’’ (xxvi. 11), and that this
flagellation, and “the rebels' beating,” were used in the
synagogues, is fully proved by Campeg. Witringa de Regim.
Syn. Wet. lib. iii. par. i. cap. 11, p. 774.
7 Wer. 23. A#yoy—ya #x03, #716;c, Saying, Come and lay
thy hands on her, J It is observable that there is frequently
an ellipsis of some verb or sentence before the particle ºva,
as here 880, at, “I pray thee,” is wanting: so ch. xiv. 49,
&AW' tya trampo,0&ory, “But rotiro #yivero, this was done that
the scriptures might be fulfilled:” so 1 John ii. 19, &xx ſya
‘payspośāoriv, “But this was done that they might appear not
to be of us:” Eph. v. 33, #33 yuvi, ºva, uxor autem videat
sive det operam, “Let the wife see that she reverence her
husband.”
* Wer. 26. Kai Samayhoraara rā trag' #avrii; Trávra, And had
spent all that she had.] Here comes to be considered a
tº
story introduced by Eusebius” with an Éxeyov, “It is report-
ed, that by the gate of this woman's house was erected a
brass statue, bearing the effigies of this woman upon her
knees in the posture of a suppliant; and, opposite to her,
the effigies of a man in brass, resembling Jesus stretching
out his hand to the woman ; and that at the feet of it an
unknown plant sprung up, which reaching to the borders of
his brass doublet, or coat, became a present remedy against
all manner of diseases.” And therefore Asterius, in his
homily upon this woman, declares that Maximinus, dyflińero
ti, toxiayn; tº x4xxov, “took away this brazen statue from
that city” (Cod. 271, p. 1508). Now that there might be
two brass statues in that city, built according to the hea-
thenish custom, I deny not ; but that they were either
erected by this woman, or contained the resemblance of
Christ, or that any such herbs growing thus up, became a
present remedy to all diseases, I find cause, with Charlemain,
to say, Si tamen facta est, that is to doubt the truth of the
president, the head, or the master of the synagogue; and .
relation: for, not to insist on the silence of all the three evan-
gelists, who mention this woman, and could not be ignorant
of a thing so famous, or silent in a matter which so much
tended to the confirmation of the Christian faith ; not to
insist upon it, that neither Justin Martyr, who was born in
Palestine, where Paneas or Caesarea Philippi was ; nor
Origen, who conversed many years at Tyre near this place ;
nor Irenaeus or Tertullian, who speak of this very woman,
makes the least mention of this brazen statue, or this mira-
culous herb ; nor, thirdly, that this herb having then only
its miraculous effects when it touched the border of our
Saviour's garment, smells rank of the superstition of the
latter times: to omit, I say, all these things, how should a
woman, who as all these evangelists inform us, “had spent
all that she had,” be able to erect two such costly statues as
were sufficient to exhaust the fortunes even of wealthy per-
sons 2 or how can we imagine that the Jews, in all their
wars, and the gentiles, both bitter enemies to Christianity,
should suffer such a confirmation of it to remain even to
the days of Eusebius 2 2
9 Ver. 30. Kai ‘invoj, iriyyob, #y Havrá rày 36Vatzly iéº-
000-ay, And Jesus knowing in himself that virtue had
gone out of him.] From these and the like words, that
&aai, raft atroſ, virtue with him, went out, “and healed
them all” (Luke vi. 19), it is evident that the virtue
which did these miraculous cures resided in Jesus, which
is never said of any of the prophets or apostles: the divine
virtue by which these prophets and apostles did their mira-
culous cures is ascribed to God ; as in these Words, 3váušić
ºrs of ràc ruxoča'a, Éroiet à QEöc, “ And God did special
miracles by the hands of Paul’’ (Acts xix. 11, 12); but
the miracles done by Christ, to the divine virtue dwelling in
him ; whence he so often declares, that “the Father abiding
in him did the works” (John xiv. 10).
* Hist. Eccl. lib. vii. cap. 18,
218
MARK.
37 And he suffered no man to follow him (into the
place where the daughter was), save Peter, and James,
and John the brother of James, (and her father and
mother, Luke viii. 51.)
38 And he cometh to the house of the ruler of the
synagogue, and seeth the tumult, and them that wept
and *wailed greatly. .
39 And when he was come in, he saith to them,
Why make ye this ado, and weep? the damsel is not
(so) dead, but (that she shall presently arise from her
bed, as one that) sleepeth.
40 And they laughed him to scorn. But when he
had put them all out, he "taketh the father and the
mother of the damsel, and them that were with him
(see ver. 37), and entered in where the damsel was
lying. w
yº And he took the damsel by the hand, and said
unto her, Talitha cumi; which is, being interpreted,
Damsel, I say unto thee, arise.
42 And straightway the damsel arose, and walked;
for she was of the age of twelve years. ' And they
were astonished with a great astonishment.
43 And he charged them straitly that no man
should know it; and commanded that something
should be given her to eat (to show, saith Theophy-
lact, that she was really alive).
* Ver. 38. KXaiovira; wał &Aax4&ovira; troxxá, He sees the
multitude weeping and wailing greatly..] 'AXaXášely, ordina-
rily signifies to make a joyful sound; but it is often used
by the Septuagint to signify the voice of lamentation ; as
when the prophet Jeremy says, xxv. 34, 3XaXáčere of rotºvec,
“Howl, ye shepherds, and cry; and wallow yourselves in
ashes, ye principal of the flock;” and, ver, 36, “A voice of
the cry of the shepherds, xał &A&Aayºr, and a howling of
the rams of the flock shall be heard ;” and the prophet
Ezekiel, xxvii. 30, 3XaXášova w świ ore, “They shall cause
their voice to be heard against thee, and shall cry bitterly :”
so also, Jer. iv. 8. xlvii. 2, and these two senses hath the
Hebrew halal, from which it seems to be derived.
* Ver. 40. IIapaxa agável rôy rarápa Kai ºwnriga. He taketh
with him the father and the mother, &c.] i. e. As many wit-
messes as were sufficient to confirm the fact, and no more
lest he should seem desirous of vain-glory.
CHAPTER VI.
1 AND he went out from thence (i. e. from Caper-
naum), and came into his own country (Nazareth,
Luke iv. 16), and his disciples follow him.
2 And when the sabbath-day was come, he began
to teach in the synagogue: and many hearing were
astonished (at his words), saying, From whence hath
this man these things? and what (kind of) wisdom is
this which is given to him, (and how is it) that even
(Gr. also) such mighty works are wrought by his
hands -
3 Is not 'this the carpenter, the son of (Joseph and)
Mary 2 (Is he not) the brother of James and Joses,
and of Juda and Simon and are not his sisters here
with us? (in all whom we find no such marks of power or
wisdom.) And (by reason of his mean alliance) they
were offended at him.
4 But (then) Jesus said unto them, A prophet is
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VI.
* Ver. 3. Oux o'róg Écriy 5 réz'roy ; Is not this the car-
penter Žl So Justin Martyr" not only speaks of him as the
son of a carpenter, Kai réztoyo; woºzi'oºzévov, “ and reckoned as
a carpenter,” but saith, rajra y&g rà rewrovinë. Heya sipyä&sro
#y &vßpötroic, &v #gorea kai Övyá, “that being among men, he
made rakes and yokes, which were the works of carpenters.”f
Origen therefore seems to have forgot himself when he so
positively says, 3rt ow8apºoſ, råy #v rai, #xxxamiat, pigopºćvacy
stayyexioly réx'roy abrö; 3 'Inaroj čvayśyparral, “that it was not
written in any of the gospels which the church received,
that Jesus was a carpenter.” It seems not only true, but
even requisite, that he should be of some trade, since by the
Jewish canons all fathers were bound to teach their children
some trade ; and their most celebrated rabbins thought it
a great reproach not to be of some trade; and also, that he
might give no example of idleness, and take off all suspi-
cion of being bred up in curious arts.
* Ver. 5. Kai oix #8övato, &c. And he could do there no
mighly works, because of their wmbelief.] For Christ still
requiring faith in the patient, in order to his cures, where
this was wanting, he could do no mighty works; not that
he wanted power to do them, but that they wanted that
condition which only made it fit that he should do them.
So God saith, Jer. xv. 1, “My mind cannot be towards this
people,” not for want of kindness or good-will in him, but
* Dial cum Tryph. p. 316.
+ Cont. Celsum, lib. vi. p. 269.
not without honour, but (Gr. is not despised, save) in
(and for) his own country (Galilee, John vii. 52), and
among his own kin, and in his own house (or for
them). -
5 And he * could do there no mighty work (because
of their unbelief), save that he laid his hands on a few
sick folk, and healed them.
6 *And he marvelled because of their unbelief.
And (leaving them) he went round about the villages
teaching.
7 And he calleth to him the twelve (apostles), and
began to send them forth by two and two; and gave
them power over unclean spirits;
8 And (he) commanded them that they should take
nothing for their journey, save “a staff only; (viz.) no
scrip, no bread (for victuals), no money in their purse
(to buy it): -
for want of those dispositions in them which might render
them fit objects of his favour.
* Ver. 6. 'EŠaúzaare 31& Thy &micríay airów, And he wom-
dered because of their wmbelief.] So when the centurion by
his answer had showed the strength of his faith, Christ mar-
velled and said to them that followed him, “I have not
found so great faith, no not in Israel” (Matt. viii. 10):
whereas, had not God vouchsafed sufficient power to those
of Israel to believe, as well as to the centurion, what ground
can we imagine for this marvelling 2 for Sure Christ could
have no sufficient cause to marvel either that faith should be
found where it was, or not found where it was not, if be-
lieving depended on an omnipotent act of God, producing
faith in all that did at any time believe (unless that could
be a just ground of marvelling, that God by his omnipotence
could work faith in whom he pleased), or that man should
not do more than he had power, or than God would enable
him to do.
* Wer. 8. And he commanded them, that they should take
nothing for their journey, si ºw) ā88ow ºvov, save a staff only.]
St. Matthew, x. 10, saith anèë #4330y, “not a staff: ” but
Theophylact there reads, ºwnèë #4380V, “nor staves;” and
this reading is confirmed not only from many MS. copies,
but from St. Luke, who, ix. 3, hath it ºwn?: #4330Uç, “nor
staves:” it being common for those who were to travel a
considerable journey, to take with them two staves, as well
as two coats. The prohibition of troëhwara, “shoes,” there,
ver. 13, contradicts not the permission of Sandals here ;
the sandals being made of harder leather, the shoes of softer ;
the sandals so open, that you might put your foot into them
CHAPTER VI.
219
9 But (that they should) be shod with sandals; and ||
not put on two coats.
10 And he said to them, In what place soever ye
enter into a house, there abide till ye depart from that
place.
11 And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear
you when ye depart (Gr. departing) thence, shake off
the dust undel your feet for a testimony against them,'
(that you count them as unclean; and) verily I say to
you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Go-
morrha in the day of judgment than for that city.
12, And they went out, and preached that men
should repent.
13 And they cast out many devils, and "anointed
with oil many that were sick, and healed them.
14 And king Herod heard of him, for his name was
spread abroad; and he said, That John the Baptist
was risen from the dead, and therefore mighty works
do show forth themselves in him.
15 Others said, That it is Elias. And others said,
That it is "a prophet (raised from the dead), or as one
of the (old) prophets.
16 But when Herod heard thereof (i.e. of his fame),
he said, It is (that) John whom I beheaded: he is
risen from the dead.
17 For Herod himself had sent forth and laid hold
upon John, and bound him in prison for Herodias’
sake, his brother Philip's wife: for he had married
her (his brother being yet living).
18 For John had said to Herod, It is not lawful for
thee to have thy brother’s wife. '
19 Therefore Herodias "had a quarrel against him,
and would have killed him; but she could not (prevail
with Herod so to do).
20. For Herod feared (to take away) John, knowing
that he was a just man and a holy (person), and he
* observed (ovverſipet he kept) him (from the malice of
Herodias: or, he was formerly observant of him:) and
When he heard of him, he did many things (which
John taught) and heard him gladly.
21 And (but) when a convenient day was come
(for her malicious purpose, viz. the day) that Herod
(celebrating) his birthday, made a supper to (for) his
lords, high captains, and chief estates of Galilee;
22 And when the daugnter of the said Herodias
came in, and danced, and pleased Herod (Gr. coming
fin, dancing and pleasing Herod), and them that sat with
him, the king said to the damsel, Ask of me whatso-
ever thou wilt, and I will give it thee.
23 And he sware unto her, Whatsoever thou shalt
ask of me, I will give it thee, unto the half of my
kingdom.
24 And (then) she went forth, and said (Gr. going
forth said) to her mother, What shall I ask And
she said, (Ask) the head of John the Baptist.
25 And she came in straightway with haste unto
the king, and asked, saying, I will that thou give
me by and by in a charger the head of John the
Baptist.
26 And (then) the king was exceeding sorry; yet
for his oath’s sake, and for the sake of them that sat
with him, he would not reject her.
27 And (so) immediately the king sent an execu-
tioner, and commanded his head to be brought : and
he (the eaecutioner) went and beheaded him (John) in
the prison. -
28 And brought his head in a charger, and gave it
to the damsel; and the damsel gave it to her mother.
29 And when his disciples heard of it (i.e. of his
death), they came and took up his corpse, and laid it
in a tomb.
30 And (about that time) the apostles gathered
themselves together unto Jesus, and told him all
things, both what they had done, and what they had
taught (in pursuance of the commission he had given
them).
31 And he said to them, (After such a long and la-
borious journey) come ye yourselves apart into a desert
place, and rest awhile : for there were many coming
and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat.
32 And they departed into a desert place by ship
privately.
33 And the people saw them departing, and many
(of them) knew him (and whither he was going), and
(so they) ran afoot thither out of all cities, and out-
went them (viz. Christ and his disciples), and came to-
gether to him.
34 And Jesus, when he came out (of the ship), saw
before or behind, whereas you could put it into the shoe
only one way (see Lightfoot on Matt. x. 10). And this
command Christ laid upon them, to give them a manifest
document in this their first mission (which was only “to the
lost sheep of the house of Israel,” to prepare them to re-
ceive the Messias, when he should manifest himself unto
them) of the divine providence providing for them all things
necessary ; and this they thankfully acknowledge, Luke xxii.
35, by saying, that when he thus sent them forth, they
wanted nothing. But then, that this was a temporary pre-
cept, respecting only this very mission, and not reaching
to their whole apostolical function afterward, is evident,
(1) from the mature of their mission, which was only to
the cities of Judea, and was performed in a short time;
for, ver. 30, we find them returned, and telling their Master
what they had done; and this also sufficiently appears from
our Lord's words, “When I sent ye forth without scrip or
shoes, lacked you anything?” (Luke xvii. 35.) Hence Christ
himself had one that bore his bag (John xiii. 29); and St.
Fºl sends for his cloak that he had left at Troas (2 Tim. iv.
tº J.
Ver, 11. 38. 36.5l.] The reading of the text is defended
Examen Millii hic,
* Ver. 13. Kai hāsito, #xaſe, &c. And anointed with oil
*many that were sick] That it was usual with the Jews to
prescribe oil as a fit thing to anoint the sick in order to their
recovery, Dr. Lightfoot here and elsewhere fully proves;
nor do I think the apostles, having no command of Christ
to do so, would have used this ceremony, had it not been
customary for them so to do; but whether they did this
symbolically, in hope of obtaining to the patient “the oil of
gladness,” or only medicinally, it is certain that the virtue
which attended it, when used by the apostles, could not be
natural or inherent in the oil, but must be supernatural,
and derived from him who sent them ; since by this unction
was produced a certain and constant cure of all whom they
anointed. -
* Ver. 15. IIpoºrnç, &c & Tây ºrgopnºr&V, Others said,
That he is a prophet, or as one of the prophets.] I see no
necessity of questioning or changing the reading here into
Trºophºrns, “the prophet,” by way of excelleney : for when
we find the disciples declaring what the Jews said of
him Matt. xvi. 14, and Luke ix. 19, there is no intimation
of any of them who owned him as the Christ ; nor is there
any need of leaving out the &c, the Jews being of both these
opinions; some saying that he was a prophet, John iv. 19.
ix. 17, “a great prophet risen up in Israel,” Luke vii. 16,
others, that he was “one of the old prophets risen from the
dead,” Luke ix. 8, and in particular, that he was the pro-
phet Jeremy, Matt. xvi. 14,
7 Ver. 19. Herodias, ivºv, had a quarrel against him.]
The word primarily imports adverso erat animo, “she was
in mind averse to him,” viz. after his apprehension of Herod ;
and because the natural consequence of that averseness is
anger and hatred, arising from the conceived injuries which
make us thus averse to any man, therefore it is well ren-
dered by Hesychius and Phavorinus, 38% stat ºvnzikaxeſ,
“she is angry, and bears a grudge against him.”
8 Ver. 20. xvverhøe airów. He observed him.] i. e. Saith
Dr. Hammond, he kept him guarded from the malice of
920
MARK.
much people, and was moved with compassion towards
them, because they were as sheep not having a shep-
herd (to lead them into wholesome pastures); and he
began to teach them many things.
35 And when the day was now far spent, his disci-
ples came to him, and said, This is a desert place, and
now the time (of the day) is far passed:
36 Send them away, that they may go into the
country round about, and into the villages, and buy
themselves bread: for they have (here) nothing to eat.
37 (But) he answered and said to them, Give ye
them to eat. And they said to him, (How shall we do
this?) Shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworth
of bread, and give them to eat?
38 He saith to them, How many loaves have ye?
go and see. And when they knew, they say, Five,
and two fishes.
39 And he commanded them to make all (the peo-
ple) sit down by companies upon the green grass.
40 And they sat down in ranks, by hundreds, and
by fifties.
41 And when he had taken the five loaves and the
two fishes, he looked up to heaven, and blessed (God,
see note on Matt. xiv. 19), and (them) brake the loaves,
and gave them to his disciples to set before them;
and the two fishes divided he among them all.
42 And they did all eat, and were filled.
43 And they took up twelve baskets full of the
fragments (of the bread), and of the fishes.
44 And they that did eat of the loaves were about
five thousand men.
45 And straightway he constrained his disciples to
get into the ship, and to go (from the desert on the
east side of the sea of Galilee) to the other side (of that
sea) before (him) to Bethsaida, while he sent away the
people; (though the contrary winds made them land at
Capernaum, ver. 53.)
46 And when he had sent them away, he departed
to a mountain to pray.
47 And when even was come, the ship was in the
milst of the sea, and he (was) alone on the land.
48 And he saw them toiling in rowing; for the wind
was contrary to them : and about the fourth watch of
the night he cometh to them, walking on the sea, and
"(continued walking so as if he would have passed by
them.
49 But when they saw him walking on the sea, they
supposed it had been a spirit, and cried out (for fear):
50 For they all saw him, and were troubled. And
immediately he talked with them, and saith to them,
Be of good cheer: it is I; be not afraid.
51 And he went up to them into the ship; and the
wind ceased: and they were sore amazed in them-
selves beyond measure, and wondered.
52 For they considered not the miracle of the
loaves (which was done now before their eyes, and was
sufficient to convince them, the same power might enable
him to walk on the sea, and to calm the wind); for their
heart was hardened (i. e. through incogitance was not
convinced by sufficient evidence ; see viii. 17).
53 And when they had passed over, they came into
the land of Gennesaret, and drew (the ship) to the
shore (of Capernaum, John vi. 13).
54 And when they were come out of the ship,
straightway they (of that country) knew him.
55 And ran through that whole region round
about, and began to carry about in beds those that
were sick, where they heard he was.
56 And whithersoever he entered, into villages, or
cities, or country (towns), they laid the sick in the
streets, and besought him, that they might touch” if
it were but the border of his garment: and as many
as touched (it) were made whole.
Herodias, who would have killed him ; but this seems not
to agree with his desire to kill him, Matt. xiv. 5. I there-
fore think it may relate to his regard to him and his sayings,
before he was incensed against him, by reason of his repre-
hension, as the words following do insinuate.
* Ver. 56. Kåv rot agaa-ráčov, At least they might touch the
hem of his garment.] So nºw signifies, Acts v. 15, nºw h orxtà
that “at least the shadow of Peter might overshadow some
of them ;” and 2 Cor. xi. 16, x:y &c & peova &#aa-Bé we “Yet
as a fool receive me.”
CHAPTER VII.
1 THEN came together to him the pharisees, and
certain of the scribes, which came from Jerusalem.
2 And when they saw some of his disciples eat
bread with defiled, that is to say, with unwashen
hands, they found fault (with them for so doing).
3. For the pharisees, and all the Jews, except they
wash their hands ‘oft (Gr. up to the wrist), eat not,
holding the tradition of the elders.
4 And when they come from the market, except
they wash, they eat not. , And many other things (of
this kind) there be, which they have received to hold,
as the washing of cups, and pots, brazen vessels, and
of tables (Gr. KAwāv, of beds, on which they did eat,
as now upon tables).
5 *Then (therefore) the pharisees and scribes asked
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VII.
* Ver. 3. 'E3y ºwh rvyºff viºlovrat, Unless they wash
their hands oft.] i. e. If they wash not the hand up to
the wrist ; for Mr. Le Clerc is certainly out, when he inter-
prets a word plainly relating to thes Jewish customs, and
therefore only to be interpreted by those customs, out of
Hesychius and Phavorinus, who knew nothing of them (see
Dr. Lightfoot, in locum).
* Ver, 5. "Emeira, Then..] Or rather, idcircó, therefore :
him, Why walk not thy disciples according to the
tradition of the elders, but (transgress them, for they)
eat bread with unwashen hands :
6 He answered and said unto them, *Well did
Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written
(for what he testified of the people of that age, from
the mouth of God, must equally respect all people of
all ages, that do as they did), This people (of the Jew-
ish nation) honoureth me with their lips, but their
heart is far from me.
7 Howbeit in vain do they (think to) worship me,
(by) teaching for doctrines (necessary to be observed)
the commandments of men.
8 For laying aside the commandment of God (by
obedience to which he is truly honoured), ye hold (to)
so Xenophon, Émsir' own oſsi ; “Do you not therefore think
that the gods take care of men P”
* Ver. 6. Kaxâj, Trposphºreversy regi tºy, &c. Well hath
Elias prophesied of you, as it is written..] He doth not say,
Isaias prophesied of the Jews of that age in which Christ
lived, or that he then said what by accommodation might
be applied to them, but only that he well said of the hypo-
crites of his age, that which was true of the like hypocrites
in any age ; and therefore Dr. Hammond well paraphraseth
the words thus, You are that very sort of Jewish hypocrites
of which Isaias prophesied, i.e. you do resemble them.
CHAPTER VII. 221
the traditions of men, as washing of pots and cups:
and many other such-like things ye do; (which, who
hath required at your hands º
9 And he said to them, “Full well ye (or, do ye well
to) reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep
your own tradition.
10 (As it is plain ye do) for Moses said, Honour
thy father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth (or
revileth) father or mother, let him die the death :
ll. But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or
mother, It is (be it as a) corhan, that is to say, (as) a
gift (consecrated to God), by whatsoever thou might-
est be profited by me (he is free, i.e. he is bound by
that vow not to succour his parents).
12 And (therefore) ye suffer him no more to do
aught for his father or mother;
J3 Making (thus) the word (i. e. the fifth command-
ment) of God of none effect through your tradition,
which ye have delivered (in this manner to the people):
*and many such-like things do ye.
14 And when he had called all the people (present)
to him, he said to them, Hearken to me every one of
you, and understand:
15 There is nothing from without a man, that (by)
entering into him can defile him ; but the things
which come out of him, those are they which defile
the man.
16 If any man hath ears to hear, let him hear (i. e.
he that hath understanding to perceive this, let him take
notice of it).
17 And when he was entered into the house from
the people, his disciples asked him concerning the
(meaning of the) parable. -
18 And he saith to them, Are ye so without un-
derstanding also (as to need farther instruction in this
thing) * Do ye not perceive, that whatsoever thing (it
7s) from without (that) entereth into a man, it cannot
defile him (as to his heart and soul) P
19 Because it entereth not into his heart (to raise
up evil thoughts there), but (only) into the belly, and
goeth out into the draught, purging all meats (by
carrying off the dregs of them).
20 And he said, That which cometh out of a man,
, that defileth a man (in the sight of God).
21 For "from within, out of the heart of man, pro-
ceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, Imurders,
22 Thefts, covetousſess, wickedness, deceit, lasci-
viousness, an evil eye, blasphemy (or evil speaking),
pride, foolishness: *
23 All these evil things come from within, and (so)
defile the man. -
24 And from thence he arose, and went into the
borders of Tyre and Sidon, and (he) entered into a
house, 7 and would have no man know it: but it could
not be hid.
25 For a certain woman, whose young daughter
had an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and
fell at his feet:
26 The woman was a Greek (as to religion), a Sy-
rophoenician by nation; and she besought him that
he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter.
27 But Jesus said to her, Let the children (of the
kingdom, Matt. viii. 12,) #rst be filled; for it is not
meet to take the children’s bread and to cast it to the
dogs (i. e. to them who are without the kingdom, Rev.
xxii. 15).
28 And she answered and said unto him, Yes,
Lord: yet (Gr. vai Küpts, kai yág, I pray thee, Lord :
for even) the dogs under the table eat of the children’s
crumbs (and in like manner thou mayest show a little
favour to the gentiles).
29 And he said to her, For this saying (showing a
more than ordinary faith) go thy way (satisfied; for)
the devil is gone out of thy daughter.
30 And when she was come to her house, she found
the devil gone out (of her), and her daughter laid
upon the bed.
31 And again, departing from the coasts of Tyre
and Sidon, he came to the sea of Galilee, through the
midst of the coast of Decapolis.
32 And they bring to him one that was deaf, * and
had an impediment in his speech (or was tongue-tied) :
and they beseech him to put his hand upon him.
33 And he took him aside from the multitude, and
*put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched
his tongue;
34 And looking up to heaven, he sighed (at the
consideration of the miseries of human life), and saith
* Ver. 9. Kax&; &Serefºre, Full well ye reject the com-
mandment of God.] Here it is proper to observe from Sui-
das, that the word kaxåg is used $ºri tragatthaei, kai &gwha et,
“by way of refusal and denial:” so the scholiast, upon the
word xaxãº, used by Euripides, in Ranis, saith, to kaxã;
in tragatha's 3roatpeºpéºwevo, 3i, kai trapatroſºsyo. 3 Eupitričn;
Aéye wax&c, “The word is here used by Euripides by way of
averseness and refusal ’’(see also the text vindicated, ver 16.
31. Examen Millii ibid).
* Ver. 13. Kai ragágota rotávra "roxx& roisſºrs, And many
such-like things do ye.] i. e. Such things as make the word
of God of none effect by your traditions: accordingly Dr.
Pocock * cites from them this ancient canon, “That vows
take place even in things commanded by the law, as well as
in things indifferent ; and that any one is so bound by them,
that he cannot without great sin do that which is com-
manded :” so that if he makes a vow which cannot be rati-
fied without breaking a command, his vow must be ratified,
and the commandment violated.
* Ver. 21. "Eao,0sy yūp #x rāº xagèiac, &c. For from
within, out of the heart of man, proceed evil thoughts.]
The things here mentioned, as coming from the heart and
defiling the man, are either the sins committed against the
second table of the law, as they are reckoned up by St. Paul,
Rom. xiii. 9, or the incentives and dispositions which incline
us to them :
Against the sixth commandment, as murders and the
evil eye ;
**º-sº
* Miscell. p. 415.
Against the seventh, as fornication, adultery, lasciviousness;
Against Liv -ghth, as theft, deceit ; +
Against the ninth, as false testimony, blasphemies, or
evil-speaking ;
Against the tenth, as covetousness.
The evil frames and dispositions of spirit, which in-
cline us to these vices, are (1.) 'A$goodvn, as that imports
in the Old Testament not only an incogitancy and careless-
mess as to good things, but also a want of reverence to or
awe of the divine majesty: and (2.) IIowngia, a wicked dis-
position, inclining us to hurt or to do evil to another. (3.
‘Yºrs;nºavia, that pride which makes us to contemn an
overlook our brother as unworthy our regard, and highly to
resent the least affront or seeming injury : and, (4.) Ata-
Moylapºoi kakoi, evil thoughts or reasonings.
7 Wer. 24. Oiśāva #Sexº yyāyal. And would have no man
know it..] Lest he should secn industriously to resort to
and converse with heathens, neglecting the Jews. So Grotius.
* Wer. 32. Koºpay £coyºA&Aoy, One deaf and tongue-tied.]
That he was dumb as well as deaf, is argued, not only from
the words of the Jews, who saw this miracle, “He maketh
both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak,” ver, 27, but
also from Matt. ix. 33: Luke xi. 14, if they speak of the
same person : for, say they, when the devil was gone out,
#xáxnergy & kotºc, “the deaf man spake ;” which shows that
before he could not move his tongue to make an articulate
sound; and in this sense is the word wovixáño; used, Exod.
iv. 10. Isa. xxxv. 6.
9 Wer. 33. “E8axe ºrciº 3ax'róxev; atroi, si, rå øra airrot,
He put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched
222
MARK.
to him, Ephphatha, that is, (Let thine ears) be
opened.
35 And straightway his ears were opened, and the
string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain.
36 And he charged them that they should tell no
*--- *-** --- - ------------ - **** *- :------- - - - - - -, -º-º-º-º-º-º------
his tongue.] Christ often uses visible signs, to represent that
divine invisible virtue which he had in him, and would
exert : thus, because deaf persons seem to have their ears
closed, he puts his fingers into this man's ears, to intimate,
that by his power he would open them ; and, because the
tongue of the deaf seems to be tied, or through drought to
man: but the more he charged them, so much the
more a great deal they published it; -
37. And were beyond measure astonished, saying,
He hath dome all things well; he maketh both the
deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak.
cleave to the palate, Christ touches his tongue, and mois-
tens it with spittle, to intimate that he would loose and
give free motion to his tongue. The Jews here also desire
Christ “to lay his hands upon him,” because the ancient
prophets laid their hands on those they healed (2 Kings
v. 11).
CHAPTER VIII.
1 IN those days (of his abode by the sea of Galilee,
vii. 31) the multitude (that heard him) being very
great, and having nothing to eat, Jesus called his dis-
ciples to him, and saith to them,
2 I have compassion on the multitude, because they
have now been with me three days, and have (had)
nothing to eat: -
3 *And if I (should) send them away fasting to their
own houses, they will faint by the way: for divers of
them came from far.
4 And his disciples answered him, From whence
can a man satisfy these men with bread, (whilst we
are) here in the wilderness 2 -
5 And he asked them, How many loaves have ye?
And they said, Seven.
6 And he commanded the people to sit down on
the ground; and he took the seven loaves, and gave ||
thanks (to God), and brake (them), and gave to his
disciples to set before them (i. e. the people); and they
did set them before the people.
7 And they had a few small fishes: and he blessed
(God over them), and commanded (his disciples) to set
them also before them.
8 So they did eat, and were filled; and they (of
Christ's retinue) took up of the broken meat that was
left seven baskets.
9 And they that had eaten were about four thou-
sand; and (having thus filled them) he sent them
away.
10 And straightway he entered into a ship with his
disciples, and came into the parts of Dalmanutha
gº were within the coasts of Magdala, Matt. xv.
39).
II And the pharisees came forth, and began to
question (or dispute) with him (about his office), seeking
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VIII.
* Ver. 3. Kai éây &roxéco, abrov, who ret;, &c. And if I
send them away fasting to their own houses, they will faint
by the way.], Had there not been such danger, saith Theo-
phylact, Christ had not wrought this miracle, that they might
not follow him for loaves; and having done this, he straight-
way leaves them (ver. 10), that he might avoid their at-
tempts to make him a king (John vi. 15).
* Ver., 12. 'Aay Aiyo tºy, si, 86%asrat Tă yews& raiſºn
amºśīov, Verily I say winto you, If there shall be a sign given
to this generation.] i. e. Let me not live, or let me not be
deemed a true prophet. That this is a form of swearing fre-
quent in the Old Testament shall be shown, note on Heb.
iii. 11. And we find it more fully, Ezek. xiv. 16, in these
words, & #y& ei viot h Svyatégé; a w8ńcowral, “As I live, they
shall neither deliver sons nor daughters;” whence it must
follow that our Lord cannot be reasonably supposed to for-
bid all swearing, Matt. v. 34 (see the note there).
* Ver. 13. Kai & pei; abroog, And he left them, and went
into the ship again..] He left them as incorrigible, saith
Theophylact: for where there is hope of doing good, there
we are to remain ; but when &3;áčğorov tá kaxów, “the evil is
incorrigible” to depart.
of him (for confirmation of his pretensions to be the
Messiah) a sign from heaven, tempting him, (as doubt-
ing whether he could give them that sign of the Mes-
siah promised, Dan. vii. 14.)
12 And he sighed deeply in his spirit (by reason of
their infidelity), and saith, Why doth this generation
seek after a sign : Verily I say unto you, *(si 600ijgetat,
May I not be true, if a sign be given, or) there shall
no sign be given to this generation (save that of the
prophet Jonas, Matt. xvi. 4).
13 *And he left them, and entering into the ship
again, departed to the other side (of the sea of Gali-
lee).
14 Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread
(with them), neither had they in the ship with them
more than one loaf.
15 And he charged them, saying, Take heed (to
Jourselves, and) *beware of the leaven of the phari-
sees, and of the leaven of Herod: (i.e. of the doc-
trimes of the pharisees, making the commandments of
God of none effect by their traditions, and of the doc-
trine of Herod, concurring in sentiments with the sad.
ducees, Matt. xvi. 6.)
16 And they reasoned among themselves, saying,
It is (i. e. this caution is, a reprehension of our negli-
gence,) because we have (taken) no bread (with ws).
17 And when Jesus knew it (Gr. and Jesus know-
ing that they reasoned thus), he saith to them, Why
reason ye (thus, as if ye were like to famish) because
ye have no bread (and are bid to beware of the leaven
of the pharisees) 8 perceive ye not yet, neither (do ye)
understand (by the two late instances before your eyes,
that I am able to provide bread for you) P have "you
your hearts yet hardened (or unconvinced by these
miracles)?
* Ver. 15. BXéreºrs &md ºrā; &n; Tôy pagicatoy Kai rºc
&n; ‘Hºov, Beware of the leaven of the pharisees, and of
the leaven of Herod..] It is certain that Josephus never re-
presents the Herodians as a sect of the Jews; whence it is
certain that “the leaven of the Herodians” here, is only the
leaven of the Sadducees, as may be gathered from St. Mat-
thew, who gives us this caution in these words (xvi. 16),
“Beware of the leaven of the pharisees and of the saddu-
cees.” It may also be noted, that as the pharisees were in-
clined to the sect of the Galileans, and thought they ought
not to be tributary to the Romans (Matt. xxii. 16); so the
chief of the sadducees concurred with Herod in consenting
to and approving that tribute as just and equal, and assisting
him in the collecting of it, whence they might be styled also
Herodians, or men of that sect.
* Ver. 17. Eri Tsoratoºny #xete Tºv Kagºſay, Perceive ye
not yet, neither understand ye, have ye your hearts yet
hardened ?] So Mark vi. 52, “They considered not the mi-
racle of the loaves, iv yºg zap2ia aútáv retropolºgyn, for their
heart was hardened ;” and xvi. 14, he upbraids in them
their unbelief, xai cºmpoxap3íay, “and hardness of heart.”
Now, hence it follows, (1.) that the heart may be hardened
without any divine influx concurring to that effect, unless it
CHAPTER VIII.
223
18 Having eyes, see ye not and having ears, hear
ye not and do ye not remember (what I have done?
I ask you, then),
19 When I brake the five loaves among five thou-
sand (persons), how many baskets full of fragments
took ye up They say to him, Twelve.
20 And when the seven (loaves were broken) among
four thousand, how many baskets full of fragments
took ye up 2 And they said, Seven.
21 And he said to them, How is it (then) that ye
do not understand (that I could not, upon that account,
speak of bread) *
22 And he cometh to Bethsaida; and they bring a
blind man to him, and besought him to touch him.
23 And he took the blind man by the hand, and
*led him out of the town; and when he had spit on
(Gr. into) his eyes, and put his hands upon him (i. e.
his eyes), he asked him if he saw aught.
24 And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees,
walking (i. e. I see men walking, but I see them so im-
perfectly, that they seem to me rather like trees than
7nen).
25 After that he put his hands again upon his eyes,
and made him look up ; and (then) he was restored
(to perfect sight), and saw every man clearly.
26 And he sent him away to his house, saying,
"Neither go into the town, nor tell it to any (who dwell)
in the town.
27 And Jesus went out, and his disciples, (for
Bethsdida, ver. 22) into the towns of Caesarea Phi-
lippi; and by the way he asked his disciples, saying
to them, Whom do men say that I am
28 And they answered, (Some say that thou art)
John the Baptist; but some say, (Thou art) Elias;
and others, (Thou art) one of the prophets. *
29 And he saith to them, But whom say ye that I
am ZAnd Peter answereth and saith unto him, Thou
art the Christ.
30 And he charged them that they should tell no
man (this) of him.
31 And he began to teach them, that the Son of
man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the
elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be
killed, and after three days *rise again.
32 And he spake that saying openly (i. e. in the
hearing of the people). And Peter took him, and be-
gan to rebuke him (for it, saying, Far be it from thee :
this shall not be to thee, Matt. xvi. 22).
33 But when he had turned about and looked upon
his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, "Get thee be-
hind me, Satan (as in this being to me to a tempter, and
to men an adversary) ; for (in this) thou savourest
not the things that be of God, but the things that be
of men (respecting not the will of God, that I should
die for the salvation of men ; but the vain traditions
of men, that the Messiah, the Son of David, shall not
die).
34 And when he had called the people to him with
his disciples also, he said to them, Whosoever will
come after me, let him (not eaſpect to receive temporal
advantages from me, as King of the Jews ; but let him
be ready to) deny himself, and take up his cross, and
follow me.
35 °For whosoever will (to) save his life (refuse
thus to follow me, he) shall lose it; but whosoever (by
thus taking up his cross) shall lose his life for my sake
can be thought that God himself, by a peculiar influx, har-
dened the hearts of Christ's apostles.
(2.) That the heart is then said to be hardened, when af.
ter full and sufficient evidence of what we ought to do, or to
believe, we neglect to do, or to believe it. Now this may
happen either through incogitance, or want of the considera-
tion of that evidence, as in the case of the apostles here, and
vi. 52, in both which places the hardness of their heart is
ascribed to this, that “they considered not the miracle of
the loaves;” or through the weakness of their faith, as when
they are upbraided with it, xvi. 14, “because they believed
not them who had seen him risen ;” in both which cases it
only seems to have been a sin of infirmity: or this proceeds
from that perverseness of the will, or from those evil dispo-
sitions and affections of the soul, which renders us averse
from the performance of what is required, or the belief of
what is revealed; as when it is said of the Jews, that “their
hearts were hardened” (John xii. 39, 40), and then it is a
wilful sin.
* Ver. 23. "Eéhyayev airy #2 r?; néant, He led him out
of the town..] Declaring those of Bethsaida, who had seen so
many miracles in vain, unworthy to behold this miracle (see
Matt. xi. 21): whence he permits him not to tell it in the
town (ver. 26).
* Ver. 26. Mn3; eis ºwny sicäxönc, He sent him away to
his house, saying, Neither go into the town, neither tell it
to any one in the town..] The reading of the Vulgar, Si in
Vicum introieris, and of some Greek MSS. seems only to
have had its rise from a conceit, that this man's house was
in the city, which the words of Christ seem to contradict ;
viz. “And many that wanted cures came to him from other
places,” whilst he abode there : the Syriac, Arabic, the
Alexandrian copy, and Theophylact, read as we do.
* Ver. 31. Kai pºetà rpśī; hºwāga, àvaarºval, And after
three days to rise again..] Here note, First, That it is ten
times expressly said, that our Lord rose, or was to rise again
“the third day ;” viz. Matt. xvi. 21. xvii. 23, xx. 19. Mark
ix. 31. x, 34. Luke ix. 22. xviii. 23, 24. vii. 48. Acts x. 40.
And so the expression which is most used, both in our Lord's
predictions before his death, and in his and his apostles'
language after his resurrection, being this, either that he did
or should rise again the third day, and the history of our
Lord's resurrection agreeing fully with it, these other forms
of speech, which are but once or twice found in scripture,
must be interpreted so as to accord with the expression so
frequent in the holy scripture. -
Secondly, Observe, that according to the language both of
the Hebrew and the Greek, that is said to be done after so
many days, months, or years, which is done in the last of
those days, months, or years. So Deut. xiv. 18, “At the
end of three years (LXX. aerû reia Árn, after three years),
thou shalt bring in all the tithing of thy increase:” and yet,
Deut. xxvi. 12, “the third year is the year of tithing.”
So Deut. xxxi. 10, wer3. Érra Ärn, “After seven years, in
the solemnity of the year of release, thou shalt read the
law;” and Deut. xv. 1, and yet it is plain, that the year of
release began with the seventh year, for so we read, xv. 12,
“Thy brother shall serve thee six years, and in the seventh
year thou shalt let him go free.” Thus Rehoboam said
unto the people, “Come again after three days,” 2 Chron.
x. 5, and yet, ver. 12, “The people came again the third day,
as the king bade them, saying, Come again the third day.”
So, Luke ii. 46, “After three days they found Christ in the
temple,” that is, on the third day ; for they spent one day
in their journey, on the second they returned to Jerusalem,
and the next day they found Jesus in the temple.
Note, Thirdly, that it is evident, that both the Jews and
the evangelists understood this expression, “After three
days,” to signify no more than on the third day. The
Jews did so; for having told Pilate that Christ had said,
“After three days I will rise again,” they desire only that a
watch might be kept #3; rāg retºn; hºea: “till the third
day.” And this is as plain of the evangelists; for what St.
Mark here rendereth thus, “He taught, that after three days
he should rise again:” St. Matthew and St. Luke record
thus, “He taught, that he should rise again the third day.”
And even Mark ix. 31. x. 34, brings in our Lord teaching,
that “he should be raised the third day.”
9 Wer. 33. "Yaraye āºrico fºov, x2'ravă, Get thee behind me,
Satan.] He calls Peter, Satan, saith Theophylact, as savour.
ing of the things of Satan, it being only Satan who would
not that our Lord should suffer for the salvation of man.
kind.
10 Ver. 35. “o; y&t ºv šáxh, Whosoever will come after
224
MARK.
and the gospel’s, the same shall save it (most likely
here, most certainly hereafter ; and this surely will be
his wisdom).
36 For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain
the whole world, and lose his own soul (or life) P
37 Or what shall a man give in exchange for his
soul? (i. e. what shall it profit a man to have saved his
temporal life by being thus ashamed to own me, since
this will cause me to be ashamed of him when all men
shall be doomed to eternal life or death £)
38 ''Whosoever therefore (for whosoever) shall be
ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous
and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of
man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his
Father with the holy angels.
me..] Here the note of Athanasius” and Theophylacti is
this, Seorsøsiaçºiv förow ºwn &vaykáðew &Ax& Treiðew, “It is the
#. of religion not to compel, but to persuade ; for our
ord himself not offering violence to any, but giving place to
* Ep. ad Solit. Wit. Agentes, p. 856. s
+ Theoph. in locum.
human choice, said to all, If any man will come after me,
où'ěšva y&g 34.30pxas, for I compel mone.”
* Wer. 38°o, yā6 #matoxv6%, For whosoever shall be
ashamed of me..] i. e. To own and to confess me and my
doctrine (Matt. x. 32, 33); for, saith Theophylact, we be-
ing compounded of an outward and an inward man, both
must be sanctified, the inward man by faith, the outward by
confession of it (Rom. x. 18). -
CHAPTER IX.
1 AND he said unto them, Verily I say to you, That
there be some of them that stand here, which shall
not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of
God come with power, (to take away their lives, who
would destroy mine to preserve their own, John xi. 50).
2 And after "six days Jesus taketh with him Peter,
and James, and John, and leadeth them up *into a
high mountain apart by themselves ; and he was trans-
figured before them.
3 And his raiment became shining, exceeding white
as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them :
(i.e. like the inhabitants of heaven, clothed with white
raiment, Rev. iv. 4.)
4 And there appeared to them Elias with Moses:
and they were talking with Jesus (and by their talk
they knew them to be Moses and Elias).
5 And Peter answered (i.e. spake with relation to
what he had seen, see note on Luke xiv. 3), and said
to Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here: and
(kai, therefore) let us make three tabernacles; one for
thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias,
6 For he wist not what to say; for they were sore
afraid (i. e. and this he said, being the most forward of
them to speak, though, being struck with the same dread
that seized on the other two, he knew not whether he
said well or ill, or what was indeed advisable or not).
7 And there was a cloud that overshadowed them :
and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my
beloved Son : hear him.
8 And suddenly, when they had looked round
about, they saw no man any more, save only Jesus
with themselves.
9 And as they came down from the mountain, he
charged them that they should tell no man what
things they had seen, till the Son of man was risen
from the dead.
10 And they kept that saying with themselves,
questioning one with another, "what the rising (of
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IX.
| Ver. 2. Me6’ paíga; 3%, After sia days.] So also Matt.
xvii. 1, &ei hºzé%at wºrdſ, “About eight days after,” Luke ix.
28, for Matthew and Mark computing only the days betwixt
this discourse of Christ, and the day he went up into the
mount, style them six only ; but St. Luke, including both
the days of his discourse and his ascent, saith they were
eight. And this is evident from the word &asi, which, when
a sum is mentioned, is always added to signify it is not ex-
act, but wanteth something to make it complete ; thus Christ
was ºrgi #tāv retáxovira, i.e. beginning to be thirty, Luke iii.
23. It was &ast &ga #wrm, inclining to the sixth hour, Luke
xxiii. 44 (so Matt. xiv. 21. Luke i. 56. xxii. 59. John iv. 6.
xix. 14. Acts ii. 41. iv. 4. v. 36. x, 3).
* Into a high mountain..] That this was mount Tabor, an-
tiquity hath constantly taught and believed; yet Dr. Light-
foot questions the truth of this tradition upon two accounts ;
(1.) That Christ, in the story going before, was on the
coasts of Caesarea Philippi (Matt. xvi. 12. Mark viii. 27.
Luke xix. 18), and can we think, says he, that he travelled
thence to Tabor through almost the whole length of Galilee P
Ans. This he might do with ease in the space of six days;
and that he did so, is made very probable from the very
words of the same chapter, which represent him and his
disciples as āyaa’rpépovireº, “returning thence,” Matt. xvii.
22, and “going through Galilee,” Mark ix. 29. As for what
he adds, that the evangelists mention no change of place,
will be answered by his note on x. 1, for, saith he, however
it seems to be intimated by our evangelist, and by St. Mat-
thew, that when he had finished these words, forthwith he
entered upon his journey, yet in truth he went before to Je-
rusalem, through the midst of Samaria, to the feast of taber-
nacles (Luke ix. 51), and again from Galilee, after he had
returned thither through the cities and towns to Jerusalem
(Luke xiii. 22), to the feast of dedication (John x. 22), and
again beyond Jordan indeed (John x. 40), but first taking
his way into Galilee, and thence beyond Jordan ; so that
hence we see, the silence of the text is no sure evidence that
Christ made no such journey. The other things he offers
seem too little to deserve consideration.
* Wer. 10. xvónroëvres, ri art ré in vengåy &rarrival. And
they kept that saying to themselves, questioning among them-
selves what the rising from the dead should mean.] They
questioned not the general resurrection ; for that all the
pharisees believed, Acts xxiv. 15, that Martha owned, John
xi. 24; nor could they be ignorant of the meaning of the
rising of a particular person from the dead, for they had in-
stances of it in the Old Testament, had seen an example of
it at the gates of the city of Nain with their eyes; but being
taught out of the law, that “Christ was to abide for ever”
(John xii. 24), and that “the Son of David should reign,
over the house of Jacob for ever,” and “ of his kingdom
there should be no end” (Luke i. 33), they knew not how
to reconcile this with the death of Christ, supposed in that
saying, “The Son of Man shall rise from the dead.” Thus
again, when Christ had told them, “The Son of Man shali
be killed, and after that shall rise from the dead,” ver. 31,
they understood not that saying, ver. 32, and yet doubtless
they knew what it was to be killed, and that our Saviour
spake of his own death ; whence these words made them
very sorry, Matt. xvii. 23, and yet St. Luke saith, ix. 45,
that “they understood not this saying, and it was hid from
them, that they perceived it not ;” and, xviii. 34, “they
understood none of these things,” and “knew not what was
said;” and here “they understood not the saying,” i. e. they
knew not how to reconcile this death of the Son of David
and their king Messiah, with the predictions of their pro-
phets, and their own conceptions touching his temporal king-
dom. Hence, when Christ was dead, their hopes died with
CHAPTER IX. 225
the Messiah) from the dead should mean : (i. e. how
it could be reconciled with their tradition, that the
Messiah the son of David should not die, John xii. 34).
11 And they asked him, saying (If thou hast done
already what was required of the Messiah, and so art
Yabout to die), “why say the scribes that Elias must
first come (to anoint the Messiah, and make him known
io the people)?
12 And he answered and told them, "Elias verily
cometh first, and restoreth all things (i. e. doth all
things requisite to prepare the Jews for the reception of
the Messiah, calling them to repentance, that they might
be fitted to believe in him, pointing him out to the peo-
ple, and baptizing him with that baptism in which he
was anointed with the Holy Ghost) ; and (in answer to
their first doubt he told them) *how it is written of the
Son of man, that he must suffer many things, and be
Set at nought.
13 But (as to your inquiry about the coming of
Elias) I say to you, "That (the) Elias (who was to do
these things) is indeed come, and they have dome to
him whatsoever they listed (rejecting his baptism,
Luke vii. 30, and his testimony, Mark xi. 31), as it is
written of him (that he should come).
14 And when he came to his disciples, he saw a
great multitude about them, and the scribes question-
ing with them (whether the power of their master did
eatend to the casting out of devils).
15 And straightway all the people, when they be-
held him, were greatly amazed (seevng some remainders
of the splendour at his transfiguration in his visage),
and running to him, (they) saluted him.
16 And he asked the scribes, (About) what question
ye with them :
17 And one of the multitude answered, and said,
Master, I have (now) brought to thee my son, which
hath a dumb spirit (i.e. a spirit which takes away his
speech) ; .
18 And wheresoever he taketh him, *he teareth
him (or throws him down); and he foameth, and
gnasheth with his teeth, and pineth (or fainteth)
away; and I spake to thy disciples, that they should
cast him out; and they could not; (this raised the
dispute betwiat them and the scribes.
19 And) he answered him, and saith (to the scribes),
O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you?
how long shall I suffer you (, incredulity)? bring him
(that is possessed) to me.
him, i. e. their “trust that he had been the redeemer of
Israel” (Luke xxiv. 21), and revived again at his resurrec-
tion, they presently inquiring, “Wilt thou at this time restore
the kingdom to Israel?”
* Ver. 11. And they asked him, saying, 3rt Aéyovativ oi
yeapºpºatãº, ºr 'HXiav Šeſ #x0sfy ºrgåroy; Why say the scribes
that Elias must first come 2] That §rt must signify why is
evident; because the same question in St. Matthew, xvii. 10,
runs thus, ti oëy; “Why therefore say the scribes P” 3rt here
therefore must be put for 8tári ; so ver. 28, §ri hasíc oix #3v-
whèmasv; Why could not we cast him out?”
Odyss. xix., they asked him oixày, 3, Tri Trášot; “why he had
that scar?” and Aristophanes, Plut. i. 19, §rt rô8' 3×oxovéoù-
&#y rors; “Why do we follow him " This may suffice for
the grammatical import of the words; but it is more difficult
to assign the reason of this question. My conjecture is, that
it relates to that title of the Messiah, Dan. vii. 13, “the Son
of man,” here used, and to the voice from heaven, saying,
“This is my beloved Son;” as if they should have said, If
thou art indeed the king Messiah, and the Son of God, and
hast so far accomplished thy office as to talk of a death which
thou must suffer at Jerusalem, why is not Elias come to
anoint thee, and to preach of thee? For the tradition of the
scribes was, (1.) That before the coming of the Son of David
Elias was to come to preach of him: Lightfoot in Matt.
xvii. 10. (2.) That “Elias was to anoint the Messiah to his
office,” and that “before that unction the Messiah could do
nothing, he being to manifest him to the world,” saith Try-
pho. To this inquiry our Saviour first answers, in the fol-
iowing verse, and then to their scruple about his passion.
* Ver. 12. And he answered and told them, 'HXia; ºv
#AS&y wºröv, &roxašta rā ºrévra, Elias verily cometh first,
and restoreth all things.] How Elias did this, see note on
Matt. xi. 14. And note, that the Jews themselves did not
conceive that Elias should do this work so effectually as to
turn all the Jews to God, but only so as to deliver them from
the terrible day of the Lord, who would turn to him. So
David Kimchi,” “When God shall bring Elias to life in the
body, he shall send him to Israel before the day of judg-
ment, which is the great and terrible day of the Lord ; and
he shall admonish both the fathers and the children together
to turn to God, and they that turn shall be delivered from
the day of judgment.”
* Kai rāg yśyearras, And how it is written..] i. e. And in
answer to their other scruple, how the Son of man could die;
he told them also from the scriptures, how it was foretold
that he should suffer many things.
* Oü83 #xei Büvapºw riva £2.Éxet; aw #A9 &y 'HXia; %gian airröy
xai pavegöv Träori arolhan, Trypho apud Just. Dial. p. 226.
IIáytec ñºſ, Trgov30xàº.sy roy HXiav Žeta at airów #x08wra, p.
268, A. + On Mal. iv.
So Homer,
7 Wer. 13. But I say writo you, zaï 'HAfag #x3xvšs, xat
#Troincay abrój Šva #Sºncay, zaš&ç y#ygarrat #7t' abrów, Elias
ãs indeed come (and they have done to him whatsoever they
listed) as it is written of him.] Since we find nothing in the
Old Testament which foretells of anything the Jews should
do, either to Elias in person revived, or to John the Baptist,
it seems requisite to place these words, “and they have done
to him as they would,” in a parenthesis, and to admit here
the figure a dyxvariº, or such a transposition of the words as
is usual in other places both of the Old and New Testa-
ment: so Gen. xiii. 10, “And Lot lifted up his eyes, and
beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered
everywhere (before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomor-
rah), even as the garden of the Lord :” Exod. xii. 15. 20.
22. 2 Sam. iii. 27. Josh. xxiv. 26, “Whosoever eateth leav-
ened bread (that soul shall be cut off from Israel) from the
first day until the seventh day:” Mark xii. 12, “And they
sought to lay hold on him (for they knew that he had spoken
the parable against them), but they feared the people, and
they left him :” Rom. i. 13, “I purposed to come to you
(but was let hitherto), that I might have some fruit among
you” (see Cant. i. 5. Mark xvi. 3, 4. Acts viii. 7): so that
the sense of these words seems to be this, Elias is come, as
it is written of him in Malachi, and they, the scribes and
pharisees, “have done to him whatsoever they listed,” re-
jecting his baptism (Luke vii. 30), and refusing to believe
his doctrine (Matt. xxi. 25), or to own him as a prophet sent
from God, saying that “he had a devil” (ver. 26); and it is
probable that both they and the sadducees did this because
he had styled them a “generation of vipers” (Matt. iii. 7).
And though we do not read that they gave occasion either
to his imprisonment, or to his death, yet may we reasonably
conceive, that they who thus thought and spake of him were
well pleased at it; whence Christ might say, “they did unto
him what they listed;” it being not for fear of them, but
only of the multitude, who accounted him as a prophet, that
Herod for a season was restrained from killing him (Matt.
xiv. 3).
8 %. 18. It teareth him, and he foameth, and gnasheth
with his teeth, Kai £ngaïveral, and pineth away: Luke ix. 39,
kai atrap4a.orgi airy, pºet’ & ‘ppoã, It teareth him that he foameſh
again.] Here note, (1.) that the word #2 as awry, and ān-
£ew airröy, Luke ix. 42, being spoken of an epileptic person,
are not well rendered “he teareth him,” but rather significs,
as Hesychius and Phavorinus say, ‘rūzrret abrºv, “he beateth
him, or makes him fall to the ground, beating himself against
the earth;” or, as Eustathius and Phavorinus say, the word
in Homer signifies a poèsgårepoy rºy yºv tác". Traiety, i. e. the evil
spirit working with, or taking advantage of his disease, makes
him beat himself against the earth; i3a pišst kai tºpozºpo'ei
r; yń, “He throws him upon the ground,” saith Theophy-
lact. So Wisd. iv. 19, the author, speaking of the º,
Q26
MARK.
20 And they brought him to him; and when he
saw him, straightway the spirit tare (or shook) him;
and he fell to the ground, and wallowed, foaming.
21 And he asked his father, How long is it ago
since this came unto him : And he said, Of a child.
22 And ofttimes he hath cast him into the fire, and
into the waters, to destroy him : but if thou canst do
anything (to deliver him from this evil spirit), have
compassion on us and help us, (me and him.
23 And) Jesus said to him, * If thou canst believe
(that I am tible to do this), all things are possible to
him that (thus) believeth.
24 And straightway the father of the child cried
out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou
my unbelief (or what is wanting to my faith).
25. When Jesus saw that the people came running
together, he rebuked the foul spirit, saying to him,
Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out
of him, and enter no more into him.
26 And the spirit cried, and rent him sore (or shook
him much), and (then) came out of him ; and he was
as one dead; insomuch that many said, He is dead.
27 But Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted
him up; and he arose. -
28 And when he was come into the house, his dis-
ciples asked him privately, Why could not we cast
him out?
29 And he said to them, This kind can come forth
by nothing, but by (that faith which is to be procured
by) prayer and fasting.
30 And they departed thence, and passed through
Galilee ; and he would not that any should know it
(that the concourse of the multitude might not retard
his journey to Jerusalem, where he was to suffer).
31 For he taught his disciples, and said to them,
The Son of man is (to be) delivered into the hands of
men, and they shall kill him; and after that he is killed,
he shall rise (again) the third day.
32 But they understood not that saying, and were
afraid to ask him (what the import of it was).
33 And he came to Capernaum: and being in the
saith, ºr 5% et aircü, ºrphysic, “God will cast them down head-
long, and shake them out of their foundations.” (2.) The
word ángaïveral signifies, not only to be dried up, and so pine
away, but also to be under a consternation, and to faint ;
Isa. xxxvii. 27, “They were of small power, they were dis-
mayed,” xał #ngáv$ncay. Zech. x. 2, #ngáv$ngay 3, ºrpá8ara,
“as the flock they were troubled;” whence it is rendered by
Theophylact, AetroSuggſ, “he is in a deliquium.” The word
cºraçárrely also signifies, not only to tear and discerp, but
also to move and shake : so Phavorinus, cºraparaóaeśa, ta-
garráześa: so Ps. xviii. 8, “The foundations of the moun-
tains, #ragáx$nzay zai Écºaxeſ Snoray, were troubled, and
shook:” that is, 2 Sam. xxii. 8, Kai śamagáxSmaray. Jer. iv.
19, “My heart maketh a noise, or moveth in me;” LXX.
a "ragázzerai º zagãia fºov" so here, ver. 20, Éamágašey, “The
spirit shook him.” i
* Ver. 23. To si 36Vaa’at ºria reſa'ai, If thou canst believe
this...] viz. That I can help thee; or, if thou canst believe
this thing. So Rom. xiii. 9, rö y&g, “For this, Thou shalt
not commit adultery;” Eph. iv. 9, rà Sà &y£3m, “But that he
ascended;” Luke xxii. 24, there was a contention, ré, viz.
“this, who should be greatest P” So Justin Martyr, r3 rà,
"regi Ogot Aéyéiv, “It is an argument of incredulity to say of
God, how P’’ and r3 ºwn?āy &yay, “This saying, ne quid nimis,
much delights me.” * -
This the grammarians call rê šetköy, or 38tºrtºv, i. e. arti-
culus definitivus, as defining or particularizing the thing,
which before was spoken of more generally ; and then it
signifies nimirüm, videlicet, “to wit, that is to say;” and
thus we find it four times used in one chapter, Luke xxii. 4,
“Judas consulted with the high-priest, ºr rā; alry trapałó,
to wit, how he might betray him;”ver. 23, “And they began
to question among themselves, ºrd, ric &pa efn #4 at-rºw, to wit,
who of them it should be that would betray him;” and, ver.
house he asked them (About) what was it that ye
disputed among yourselves by the way :
34 But they held their peace: for by the way they
had disputed among themselves, who should be the
greatest. - -
35 And he sat down, and called the twelve, and
Saith to them, If any man desire to be first (in my
kingdom), the same shall be last of all, and servant of
all (the highest office in my kingdom tending not so
much to dignify and advantage any man in this world,
as to render him the more a servant and minister to all).
36 And (having said this) he took a child, and set
him in the midst of them (as a fit emblem of that hu-
mility and freedom from that worldly-mindedness he re-
quired in them); and when he had taken him in his
arms, he said to them,
37 Whosoever shall receive one of such children
(i. e. any of my servants so free from pride and love
of the world as they are) in my name receiveth me :
and whosoever shall receive me, receiveth not me
(only), but (also) him that sent me.
38 And John answered him (to those words spoken
of receiving him), saying, Master, *we saw one cast-
ing out devils in thy name, and (but) he followed not
us; and we forbade him, because he followeth not us.
39 But Jesus said, Forbid him not, for there is no
man who shall do a miracle in my name, that can
lightly (i. e. easily be induced to) speak evil of me. '
40 For he that is not against us (in beating down
the kingdom of Satan) is on our part (and so is to be
owned as one that doth me service, and so as one whom
God will reward).
41 * For whosoever shall give you a cup of water
to drink (or do you the least service) in my name, be-
cause you belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, He
shall not lose his reward.
42 And (on the other side) whosoever shall offend
one of these little ones that believe in me (and so dis-
courage them from continuing in my doctrine), it is
better for him that a millstone were hanged about his
neck, and he were cast into the sea.
24, “And there was also a contention among them, ro, ric
atºrów 3oxs; sival asićay, to wit, which of them should be the
greatest;" which, ix. 46, is varied thus, rô, ri; &y sin &eišov
aúròy: and ver. 37, “That which is written of me must be
fulfilled; rô, wai pºet' àyépcoy #Aoyia &n, to wit, that scripture
which saith, And he was numbered with the transgressors.”
And accordingly the words may be here rendered, “And
Jesus said unto him, to wit, If thou canst believe,” &c.
* Wer. 38. Efouáy riya #y rā āyāºwari arov #x8áxxovira 3&tºwā-
via, &c. We saw a man casting out devils in thy name, and
we forbade him because he follows not us...] That this man
did truly cast out devils, Christ's answer supposes, and his
disciples saw with their eyes: it is also certain that he did
this in the name of Christ ; but that he did it by invocation
of the name of Jesus of Nazareth, is not so certain ; for he
might be a disciple of John, and so do this in the name of
Christ shortly to come; for if he stedfastly believed that
Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ, it is hard to give a reason
why he did not follow him, or join himself to Christ's dis-
ciples. However, it was no small confirmation of the truth
of Christianity, that his name was thus powerful even among
those that did not follow him, and therefore could do nothing
by compact with him. This man, saith Christ, do not forbid;
for he that pursues the same end with us, the beating down
of Satan's kingdom, cannot be against us, but rather for us;
and he that finds so sensibly the power of my name, cannot
speak evil of me (see Examen Millii).
* Ver. 41. “o; yag &y rottºn tº 3; trothetov tºaroc, &c. For
whosoever shall give you a cup of cold water in my name,
because you belong to Christ, verily I say to you, He shall
not lose his reward.] The particle yāg shows the connexion
of these words with the preceding, which seemeth to be thus:
Even the least service done to me, by owning any one for
my name's sake, shall be rewarded, and much more the
CHAPTER IX. . 227
43 And ºtherefore) if thy hand offend thee, cut it
off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed,
than having two hands to go into ** hell, into the fire
that never shall be quenched : .
44 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not
quenched (i. e. where the body is consumed and the
soul tormented for ever).
45 And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is
better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two
feet to be cast into hell, (i. e.) into the fire that never
shall be quenched:
46 Where their worm dieth not, and (where) the
fire is not quenched. p
47 And if thine eye (i.e. or anything that seems
most dear and useful to thee) offend thee (i.e. hinder
thy entrance into life), pluck it out: it is better for
thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye,
than having two eyes to be cast into hell-fire :
48 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not
quenched.
49 °For every one (that thus offends) shall be
salted with fire (so as to endure for ever in a state of
labour which this man shows in divulging the honour of
my name, and assisting me in beating down the kingdom
sef Satan. -
* Ver. 43,44. 'Atrex9sſy sic rºw yásway, ei, to trig to &r-
8sarov' & mov & cºdºn; airröy of reasurg, Mai rā ºrås of a £iyyural,
Than having two hands to be cast into hell, where the worm
dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.] These words seem
plainly taken from Isa. lxvi. 24, where they exactly may be
found ; and it seems reasonable to interpret them according
to the received opinion of the Jews; since otherwise our
Lord, by using this expression frequently in speaking to
them, who would be sure to understand it in the usual sense,
without saying anything to show he did not understand it as
they did, must have strengthened them in their error. Now
it is certain,
First, That gehenna was by them still looked on and re-
presented as the place in which the wicked were to be tor-
mented by fire: so the Jerusalem Targum” represents
gehenna, which is prepared for the wicked in the world to
come, as a “furnace sparkling and flaming with fire, into
which the wicked fall.” And the Targum upon Ecclesiastes
speaks of the “fire of hell,” Eccles. ix. 15; of the “sparks
of the fire of hell,” x. 11; and of the “wicked who shall go
to be burned in the fire of hell,” viii. 10. Accordingly our
Lord speaks here, ver. 47, and Matt. v. 22, of the wicked
being “cast into the fire of hell,” and of their being “cast
into a furnace of fire,” Matt. xiii. 42.
Secondly, The ancient Jews held that the punishment of
the wicked in hell should be perpetual, or without end ; so
Judith saith, that xxaña ovza iy airShast £w, aiºvo, “they
shall weep under the sense of their pains for ever,” xvi. 17.
Josephus + informs us, that the pharisees held “ the souls of
the wicked were to be punished, 318iº rigopia, with perpetual
punishment,” and that there was appointed for them ºpywo;
&ièio, “a perpetual prison.” Philof saith, the punishment
of the wicked person is Čv 3rosawávra &si, “to live for ever
dying;” and aioviºsty v 3xyněža i zai dyizic, waſ a vºz počaſ; dºtag-
Távoic, “to be for ever in pains and griefs, and calamities
that never cease:” accordingly our Lord continually saith of
them, that “they shall go away into everlasting punish-
ment,” and that “their worm dieth not, and their fire is not
quenched,” and that God will “destroy their soul and body
in hell-fire,” Matt. xviii. 8. xxv. 41. Luke iii. 17. Whence
I collect, -
First, That though it is not to be doubted that “the
worm not dying ” is to be taken tropically for the worm of
conscience, yet shall the bodies of the wicked suffer in fire
properly so called ; this being suitable not only to the tra-
dition of the Jewish and the Christian church, but to the con-
stant phraseology of the scriptures, declaring that the “tree
that brings not forth good fruit, the fruitless branch, the
chaff, shall be cast into the fire, and burnt with unquench-
able fire,” Matt. iii. 10. 12. xiii. 50. John xv. 6, that the
wicked “shall go into everlasting fire ;” their souls and
bodies shall be “cast into hell-fire,” Matt. x. 28. xxv. 45,
that they shall be “punished with flaming fire,” 2 Thess. i.
8; “suffer the vengeance of eternal fire,” Jude 7 ; “the
heavens and earth being reserved to fire for the punishment
of ungodly men,” 2 Pet. iii. 10.
Secondly. That the punishment of wicked men shall be
eternal. That this was the constant opinion of the Chris-
* In Gen. xv. 17. - w
+ De Bell. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 12, p. 788. Antiq. lib. xviii.
cap. 2.
# De Prem. et Poon. p. 713, D, E.
tian church, see note on Heb. vi. 2, and that this punish-
ment is consistent with divine justice and goodness, see
appendix to 2 Thess. ch. i. e
* Wer. 49. IIā; y&p trugī āxta Sárstat' wai rāga. Švaria &At
&Ataşäretat, For every one shall be salted with fire, and every
sacrifice shall be salted with salt.] These words may be re-
ferred to the preceding, respecting the punishment of those
wicked men who will not cut off those offending eyes, feet,
or hands, which render them obnoxious to future punish-
ments; and then the import of them will be to this effect:
Every wicked man shall be seasoned with fire itself, so as to
become inconsumable, and shall endure for ever to be tor-
mented ; and therefore may be said to be salted with fire,
in allusion to that property of salt, which is to preserve
things from corruption. To strengthen this interpretation,
consider,
First, The connexion of the words, “where the worm
dieth not, and where the fire is not quenched, "rāg y&;
aúrðy, for every one of (them) shall be salted with fire ;”
where the illative particle yūg, for, shows, that these words
are designed as a proof of the words preceding. Consider,
Secondly, From whence those words, “their worm dieth
not, and their fire is not quenched,” are taken, viz. from
Isa. lxvi. ult, where they run thus: “They shall go forth,
and look upon the carcases of those men who have
transgressed against me ; for their worm shall not die,
nor shall their fire be quenched ; ” which words plainly
belong to the wicked, and to them alone ; and so the
proof of them in this verse must belong to them only.
Note
Thirdly, That the word rāc must refer therefore to the
same persons; as if it had been said expressly, "rā; y&g
&örðy, “For every one of (them) whose fire is not quenched,
shall be salted with, or in the fire,” i. e. preserved from cor-
ruption in or by it; so xii. 44, Trávts; y&#, “for all,” i. e.
arávre; oi raoûrioi oºrot, “all those rich men’’ cast in out of
their superfluities; so Luke xvi. 16, The kingdom of hea-
ven is preached, zai ºrãº, “and every one (viz. who believes)
presseth into it:” and Luke xxi, 32, This generation shall
not pass away, #w: áy Trávra yśynwal, “till all things be done,”
i. e. Trávra rajra, “all these things” now mentioned, Matt.
xxiv. 35, Mark xiii. 30 (see many other instances in Gro-
tius). Note,
Fourthly, That these words kai rāora Svala, &c. may be
rendered thus: “For every sacrifice shall be seasoned with
salt,” even the whole burnt-offerings (which answer here to
the whole body), as well as others; and then they will be
a proof of the former, from the precept concerning sacri-
fices, Lev. ii. 13. That the particle ×ai frequently signifies
for, appears from many examples: so Exod. v. 23, Kai ép'
ot, “for from the time that I spake to Pharaoh ;” Josh. i. 5,
kal &ameg #pany, “for as I was with Moses;” see alsoxxii. 25.
1 Sam. ii. 15, xal ob º Aá8w, “for I will not take Sodden
flesh ;” Psalm cviii. 12, “Send us help from trouble, Ka?
garaia, for vain is the help of man ;” Isa. lxiv. 5, “Thou
wast angry, wai hºzºic, for we have sinned ;” Micah vii. 8, ka;
āvaarhaouai, “for I shall rise up again.” Note, ſº
Fifthly, That it is the property of salt to preserve things
from corruption ; hence a “covenant of salt” is put for an
everlasting or inviolable covenant: so Numb. xviii. 19,
Staffhan 3x3, aiwyſov #2+w #yawri Kvetov, “it is a covenant of
salt for ever before the Lord ;" and 2 Chron. xiii. 5, God
gave David and his sons kings over Israel for ever, “by a
covenant of salt.” Whence the Jews say, salt was to season
all their sacrifices, to signify that “they preserved their
souls from corruption, as the salt did the sacrifice.” Philo,
228
MARK.
torment), and every sacrifice (saith the scripture, even
the whole burnt-offering) shall be salted with salt
(the symbol of incorruption).
50 Salt is good (to make things savoury, and to pre-
serve them from corruption); but if the salt have lost its
saltness, wherewith will ye season it? (If by keeping
these offending members, or corrupt affections, you cor-
Tupt yourselves, and become unsavoury, and like a sa-
crºft.ce without salt, you can never be acceptable to
God.) Have (therefore; salt in yourselves, and have
peace (the bond of unity) one with another.
that “salt is a symbol, Siapacy; rº; rāy avºiá, roy, of the
perpetuity of all things, preserving that on which it was
sprinkled ” (de Victimis, p. 647, F): and on those words,
“With every oblation you offer salt, 3 o' tºy sizá"ray 312-
fºovy aivirterat, puxax rhetov yūg of #xe; coºpečroy rerºmºévot
Juxi, 3Eurºpeioſ; “By this,” saith Philo,” “he signifies the
perpetual duration of them ; salt being the preservation of
bodies next to the soul itself; for as the soul is the cause
that our bodies are not corrupted, so is salt, preserving them
for a long time, wai ºrgātroy riva. 30ayaríčorres, and rendering
them in a manner incorruptible:” if then, by keeping these
offensive members, or corrupt affections, you render your
Christianity such as hath lost its savour, and like a sacrifice
without salt, you can never be acceptable to God ; retain
therefore your Christian wisdom or piety, and preserve peace,
the bond of unity, among yourselves.
Others interpret the words thus: Let it not seem a hard
Saying, that I require your abscission of those offensive
* IIs; Ováyrov, p. 659.
members; for every sacrifice, that it may be grateful and
acceptable to God, must be salted with fire ; for “the fire
must prove every man's action,” and it will not receive its
reward till it hath passed through the fire of tribulation
(1 Cor. iii. 13, 14), and he be purged from his dross by it as
gold is, 31& Trvº, 33zºwaćpwevoy, 1 Pet. i. 7, see iv. 12. It
is then more desirable here to endure this trial by fire,
and communion with Christ in his sufferings, that ye may
rejoice at his appearance, than to fall into that fire, which
will never be extinguished ; it is therefore good to have
this salt in yourselves, this Christian wisdom, which will
preserve you from corruption, and that peace, which will
preserve the Christian body from it. Like this is that ex-
pression of Josephus, concerning oné of the seven chil-
dren roasted in the fire ; &amep #y Trvgi ſweradºxºcarićaerog
si; 349apa iay, “He is transformed into incorruption as it
were by fire”(Lib. de Macc. p. 1093, D). And in this
sense Irenaeus saith, “Tribulation is necessary for the chil-
dren of God, ut igniti sint ad convivium regis, that being
salted with fire, they may be fit for the banquet of the king”
(lib. v. cap. 28).
CHAPTER X.
1 AND he arose from thence (from Capernaum, Ix.
33), and cometh into the coasts of Judea by the far-
ther side of Jordan: and the people resort to him
again; and, as he was wont, he taught them again.
2 And the pharisees came to him, and asked him,
Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife 2 tempting
him (i.e. by that question, thinking he might be induced
to speak something against the law of Moses).
3 And he answered and said to them, “What did
Moses command you?
4 And they said, Moses suffered (us) to write a bill
of divorcement, and (so) to put her away.
5 And Jesus answered and said to them, For the
hardness of your heart (which would not suffer you to
perceive and yield to the first institution of matrimony)
he wrote you this precept (that if you would put away
gour wife, you should do it by giving her a bill of di-
vOrce). -
6 But from the beginning *of the creation God
(showed he would have it otherwise ; for he) made
them male and female, (saying, Gen. xxii. 24),
7 For this cause shall a man leave his father and
mother, and cleave to his wife;
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. X.
* Ver. 3. Ti tºy #vereiaaro Mazā; ; What did Moses
command you ?] There seems to be a difference here betwixt
St. Matthew and St. Mark not much taken notice of by in-
terpreters; St. Mark introducing Christ as asking them what
Moses commanded in this case; St. Matthew introducing
them as asking Christ, “Why then did Moses command us
to write a bill of divorce?” &c. But this seeming difference
may be removed, by saying, They first asked him why did
Moses command P And then our Saviour asked them,
What were the words of Moses in this case ? And whess
they had repeated them, he tells them the reason why
Moses gave them this permission.
* Ver. 6. ’Azrö 8; &#x2, xrizewº, From the beginning of
the creation.] The word xºria’sw; is found in the Alexandrian
copy and in Theophylact, and is interpreted by the Vulgar
and the Arabic, and extant in most copies, and therefore is
not be suspected, because not found in Beza's copy, or in
8 And they twain shall be one flesh (so as they are
not one flesh with father or mother); so then they
(after the matrimonial duty) are no more twain, but
one flesh.
9 What therefore God hath (thus) joined together,
let no man (under the gospel dispensation presume to)
put asunder.
10 And (when he was) in the house, his disciples
asked him again of the same matter.
11 And he saith to them (according to the primitive
institution of matrimony), “Whosoever shall put away
his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery
against her, (she being by that institution still his wife,
and she having the sole right over his body, 1 Cor.
Vll. 4.
12 'And if a woman shall put away her husband,
and be married to another (as hath of late been done
among you), she committeth adultery (against him, as
being still his wife, and not having power over her own
body, but the husband, ibid.) e
13 And they brought young children to him, that
he should touch them : and his disciples rebuked
those that brought them.
the Syriac, or in the parallel place, Matt. xix. 4, for &m.
3px?c, being in sense the same, St. Matthew might say no
more, but St. Mark could not well add more if Christ had
said no more.
* Ver, 11. "O; #3v &moxian rºy yovaſta aúroi, kai yawāorn
&AAmy, £2013&rat ār adrāv, Whosoever shall put away his
wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her.]
Though this discourse of Christ be originally about divorce,
yet it seems plainly to evince that polygamy must be un-
lawful, especially under the Christian economy, for, (1.)
from Christ's saying, “He that putteth away his wife,
and marries another, committeth adultery against her,” it
clearly follows, that he who, having not put her away,
marries another, must be guilty of the same crime, seeing
he must have at least the same power to marry another,
when the first is put away, as when she is not. (2.) He
who commits adultery against his wife, by marrying another,
could have no power to do so while she lived, since no man
can be supposed to have power to commit adultery And
CHAPTER X.
229
14 But when Jesus saw (i. e. perceived) it, he was
much displeased, and said to them, Suffer little chil-
dren to come to me, and forbid them not: for of such
is the kingdom “of God. (And if of such as resemble
them in disposition, why should they whom they are to
resemble be unfit for that kingdom £)
15 Verily I say to you, Whosoever shall not re-
ceive the kingdom of God as a little child (i. e. with
the same freedom from vain-glory, and the love of the
world, which is in them), he shall not enter therein.
16 And he took them up in his arms, and put his
hands upon them, and blessed them.
17 And when he was gone forth into the way, there
came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked
him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inhe-
rit eternal life 2
18 And Jesus said to him, Why callest thou me
good? (seeing) there is none good but one, that is,
God. (Dost thou own me as one commissionated by
him to teach the way of life? I shall then do it accord-
ing to his will, by saying,)
19 Thou knowest the commandments, (viz.) Do
not commit adultery; Do not kill; Do not steal; Do
not bear false witness; * Defraud not; Honour thy
father and (thy) mother; (do this and thou shalt live.)
20 And he answered and said to him, Master, all
these things have I observed from my youth.
21 Then Jesus beholding him "loved him, and said
to him, One thing thou (yet) lackest (to render thee
my disciple) : go thy way, (and at my command) sell
whatsoever thou hast, and give (it) to the poor, and
thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and (then) come,
and take up the cross, and follow me.
22 And he was sad at that saying, and went away
grieved: for he had great possessions. -
23 And Jesus looked round about, and saith to his
disciples, "How hardly shall they that have riches en-
ter into the kingdom of God! -
24 And the disciples were astonished at his words.
But Jesus answereth again, and saith to them, Chil-
dren, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to
enter into the kingdom of God!
25 It is easier for a camel (or cable) to go through
the eye of a needle, than for a rich man (thus trusting
in riches, as in things which make him happy) to 2nter
into the kingdom of God. \
26 And they (who heard this) were astonished above
measure (at it), saying among themselves, Who then
can be saved
27 And Jesus looking upon them, saith, With man
it is impossible (i.e. human persuasion cannot work
men off from this love of the world), but (this is) not
(impossible) with (to) God: for with God all things
are possible.
28. Then Peter began to say to him, Lo, we have
left all, and followed thee.
29 And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say to
you, There is no man who hath left house, or bre-
thren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or
children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel’s,
30 But he shall receive a hundred-fold now in this
time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers,
and children, and lands (i.e. shall find men more af-
fectionate to him than these relations, and receive greater
blessings than he parts with here), with persecutions; .
and in the world to come eternal life.
(3.) he who by marrying another commits adultery with
her, must marry her whom he had no power to marry. (4.)
Since to commit adultery is to violate the bed of another
person, he that commits adultery against his wife must
violate her bed, which no husband can do, only by doing
that which a husband lawfully might do. Since then a
right to polygamy is a right to marry more wives than one,
he that hath this right cannot violate the bed of his first
wife, by assuming another to it. It therefore must be ac-
knowledged, either that the husband under Christ's institu-
tion, and by the original law of matrimony, had no such
right, or that he that marrieth another cannot by that com-
mit adultery against his first wife.
* Ver. 14. Totočrov, Of such is the kingdom of God.]
That is, Saith Theophylact, of those who have by exercise
röy 3xaxiaw ºy rathia Exova'iv &73 pºreog, “that innocence
which children have by nature.” In his note on Matt. xviii.
5, he saith, we are to be like children, war& ré &xazov,
oùxī karð ‘rā āyāntoy, “not as to their ignorance, but as to
their innocence.” And xix. 14, “Of such is the kingdom
of God; that is,” saith he, rāv Ānākov wai & royngöv, “ of
those who resemble them in innocence and freedom from
sin.”
* Ver. 19. Må &roo reghornç, Thou shalt not defraud..] Dr.
Hammond here saith, that the tenth commandment is ren-
dered by the LXX. and by St. Paul, Rom. vii. 7, otz àr,00-
£whaetº, “Thou shalt not covet ;” by Christ here, “Thou
shalt not defraud,” and Matt. xix. 19, “Thou shalt love thy
neighbour as thyself:” whence he concludes, that the com-
mandment contains the importance of all these phrases;
obliging us so to rest satisfied with that lot God hath
afforded us, and so to desire the good of others as well as
of ourselves, as not to desire or endeavour to gain anything
to ourselves by the loss or diminution of another, but to
think others as worthy to enjoy what belongs to them, as we
are to enjoy what belongs to us: all which is very true.
Mr. Clerc also here well notes, that there be two ways of in-
juring our neighbour, (1.) by theft, whether privately, or by
force against the will of the owner, and by taking away
what belongs to another, without any pretence of right or
justice, which is forbidden in the eighth commandment ; or
(2) by secret and cunning devices, where the law, and a
pretence of right is made use of to cover the injury, which
is forbidden in the tenth commandment, and here expressed
by ºxi, 3roa regiºn:, “Thou shalt not defraud:” and surely
all such endeavours to defraud must show a very covetous
mind, inclining us, against the dictates of our consciences.
and to the damage of our precious souls, to defraud another
of his right: only let it be noted, that the word āºrnategsiv
in scripture is of a greater latitude, and signifies also to de-
tain, and keep back a thing when it is due. So Exod. xxi.
10, “Her food and raiment, and the duty of marriage, oix
ãºroa reghoreig, thou shalt not keep back.” So the word signi-
fies, Numb. ix. 7. Deut. xxiv. 14, oëz à"roarsphaet; ºcta-Sèv
oréynºrog, “Thou shalt not keep back the hire of the poor, at
his day thou shalt give him his hire,” ver. 15, and so we ex-
pound the word &m'sa-reenºcévoz, used James v. 4, by “kept
back ;” Ecclus. iv. 1, rºy &#y roi; ºr roxoi º żºroa reghanc,
“Detain not the life of the poor, and make not his eyes to
wait long;” and xxxiv. 21, 22, “The bread of the poor is
his life, 5 &moatepāy airy, he that detains it is a man of
blood ; ; &moatsgåv uta:08w ºxic Giov, he that detains the wages
of the hireling sheddeth blood:” and surely they who de-
sire thus to detain that which belongs to others, and they
know they much want, must covet to have for that time
what is another's. And here especially the rule of the ci-
vilians obtains, Minus solvit, qui tempore minus solvit, “He
pays less than he ought, who pays not in due time, or when
he ought to do it.”
6 Ver. 21. 'Hyärnorsy airröy, And Jesus looking upon him,
loved him.] He loved not only virtues, but even the seeds
of them ; the one so as to reward them, the other so as to
encourage, and minister to their growth.
7 Ver. 23. ITā; 3vczóAw; oi ră Xehºvara fixoy rec, How hardly
can they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!]
The example of this young man shows that fixely here im-
ports not only to possess riches, but also to retain such an
affection to them as that we cannot well bear the thoughts
of losing them, or parting with them. The interpretation of
Christ; that they who trust in riches, ver. 24, cannot do it,
is the consequence of that affection ; for this affection must
be built upon the apprehension of the goodness of them, the
conveniences and advantages we trust we shall receive by
having and retaining them.
230
MARK,
31 *But many that are first shall be last; and the 41 And when the ten heard it, they began to be
last (shall be) first (see the note here).
32 And they were in the way going up to Jerusa-
lem; and Jesus went before them : and "they were
amazed (that Christ would thus go into the mouth of
the Sanhedrin, who had resolved to kill him) ; and as
they followed, they were afraid (of what might befall
them, being his disciples). And he took again the
twelve, and began to tell them what things should
happen to him,
33 Saying, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and
the Son of man shall be delivered up to the chief
F. and to the scribes; and they shall condemn
im to death, and shall deliver him to the gentiles:
34 And they shall mock him, and shall scourge
him, and shall spit upon him, and shall kill him ; and
the third day he shall rise again.
35 "And James and John, the sons of Zebedee,
come to him (by their mother), saying, Master, we would
that thou shouldest do for us whatsoeverweshall desire.
36 And he said to them, What would ye that I
should do for you ?
37 They said to him, Grant to us that we may sit,
one on thy right hand, and the other on thy left, in
thy glory.
38 But Jesus said to them, Ye know not what (it
is) you ask (the highest place in my glory being the
reward of the highest sufferings :) can ye (then) drink
of the cup that I (am to) drink of 2 and be baptized
with the baptism that I am (to be) baptized with :
(i.e. can ye suffer as I am to do £)
. 39 And they said to him, We can. And Jesus
said to them, Ye shall indeed drink of the cup that I
am to drink of ; and with the baptism that I am bap-
tized withal shall ye be baptized (i.e. shall suffer for
"my sake) ;
40 But to sit on my right hand and on my left
hand *is not mine to give (to any others) ; but it
shall be given to them for whom it is prepared.
* Ver. 31. Hoxxo; 3: booyºral ºrgårol, Éexaroi, &c., But
7many that are first shall be last, and they that are last shall
be first.] i. e. But as it is with this Jew, so will it be with
the generality of that nation ; though they shall have the
first offer of this kingdom, they shall generally refuse to en-
ter into it; whereas many of the gentiles shall gladly em-
brace it upon these terms, and shall be admitted into it, and
so preferred before the Jews to whom these blessings prima-
rily belonged. That this is the true import of these words,
See the note on Matt. xx. 1. *
* Ver. 32. Kai flap.gºv.ro, wał &zoNov%irre; #0860yro, They
were amazed ; and, following, they were afraid.] They
were amazed that, the Sanhedrin resolving to kill him, John
xi. 53, and sending out their pursuivants and injunctions to
apprehend him, ver, 57, he would run himself into the
mouth of that danger he seemed formerly to decline; and
they were afraid what might befall them, who bore the cha-
racter of his disciples for his sake,
* Ver, 35. Kai ºrgorºrogeſcyta aúrð ‘Iaxw8% zaï 'Ioláwn,
And James and John came unto him.] viz. By their mo-
ther, as their mouth, Matt. xx. 20. Ánd so Christ insinu-
ates by answering not to the mother, but to them coming
with her on this errand, “Ye know not what ye ask,” ver, 22.
* Ver. 40. Oix #arty wby Boüyal, &xx' ot, hºroivcac rai'. It is
not for me, &c., who never vary from my Father's will, to
give it to others than to them for whom it is prepared by
iny Father.] Oiz Barty #205, toº bizaiou keiroë, It is not for
me, a righteous judge, and distributor of recompenses, to
much displeased with James and John (for desiring
precedency above them in Christ's kingdom).
42 But Jesus called them to him, and saith to them,
Ye know that they which are *accounted to rule over
the gentiles, exercise lordship over them (commanding
them as their servants); and their great ones exercise
authority upon them (at their pleasure).
43 But so shall it not be among you; but whoso-
ever will be great among you, shall be your minister:
44 And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall
(by that office) be (-come the) servant of all.
45 For even the Son of man came not to be minis-
tered to, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom
for many (and so must it be with his disciples).
46 And they came to Jericho; and as *he went out
of Jericho with his disciples, and a great number of
people, blind Bartimeus, the son of Timeus, sat by
the way-side begging (and another with him).
47 And when he heard that it was Jesus of Naza-
reth (that came that way), he began to cry out, and
Say, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me;
(and so said the other also, Matt. xx. 30.)
48 And many charged him that he should hold his
peace: but he cried the more a great deal, Thou Son
of David, have mercy on-me.
49 And Jesus stood still, and commanded him to
be called. And they called the blind man, saying to
him, Be of good comfort, rise; he calleth thee.
50 And he, casting away his garment, rose, and
came to Jesus.
51 And Jesus answered and said to him, What
wilt thou that I should do to thee The blind man
said to him, Lord, (I ask) that I may receive my
sight.
*2 And Jesus said to him, Go thy way; thy faith
hath made thee whole. And immediately he received
his sight, and followed Jesus in the way.
give to any by favour or affection to their relations or them-
selves, but to those who are prepared for it according to the
will of my Father (Theophylact).
12 Ver. 42. oi Sokoğyrs; 3.8x8w rāy #6;&v, They who are ac-
counted to rule over the gentiles.] This is, Matt. xx. 25,
of £excvre; rºy #8wów, “the rulers of the gentiles;” Luke
xxii. 25, of Garixeſ; rāv Švºv, “the kings of the gentiles.”
So that this shows that 8ozáo is sometimes an expletive, as
has been noted on 1 Cor. viii. 40.
13 Ver. 46. Kai introgevow#vov airot, 3rd IEgiziº, Bagriºcaio; 3
rv$xö;, &c. And as he was going from Jericho, a blind
man named Bartimeus sat by the way-side.] Luke xviii.
35, #y +3 tyvićev «trév ei: ‘Iegix2, “When he was near to Je-
richo, a certain blind man sat,” Matt. xx. 30, 300 rvºok,
“ two blind men.” There is no reason from these seeming
differences to think the story different of which the evange-
lists speak. For as to the first, St. Luke saith, indeed, that
Christ was yet “near to Jericho ;” but then, so is he who
is gone a little from it, as well as he who is come near to it,
which St. Luke doth not say. To the second it may be an-
swered, that he who saith there was a certain blind man
celebrated by the name of Bartimeus, saith not there was
no more, but only that there was no other so noted and dis-
tinguished by that name; and he that mentioned his desire,
and Christ's answer, doth not exclude the other from making
the like request, nor from an interest in Christ's answer, but
only shows he thought it sufficient to take notice of him as
the most celebrated of the two.
231
CHAPTER XI.
1 AND when they came nigh to Jerusalem (even)
to "Bethphage and 5. at the mount of Olives,
he sendeth forth two of his disciples.
2 And he saith to them, Go your way into the vil-
lage over against you : and as soon as ye have entered
into it, ye shall find a colt tied "whereon never man
sat ; loose him, and bring him (to me).
3 And if any man say to you, Why do ye this?
say ye that the Lord hath need of him; and straight-
way he will send (i. e. will quietly permit you to
bring) him hither. +.
4 And they went their way (to the village) and
found (there) the colt tied by the door without in a
place where two ways met; and they loose him.
5 And certain of them that stood there said to
them, What do ye, loosing the colt
6 And they said to them, (We do) even as Jesus
had commanded; and (upon this) they let him go.
7 And they brought the colt to Jesus, and cast
their garments on him; and he sat upon him.
8 And many spread their garments in the way: and
others cut down branches off the trees, and strewed
them in the way.
9 And they that went before, and they that fol-
lowed, cried, saying, Hosanna : Blessed is he that
cometh in the name of the Lord (let prosperity attend
on the Messiah).
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XI.
* Wer. 1. Et; BnStayi, Kał Bn(aviay, To Bethphage and
Bethany, J So most copies read ; though, as St. Matthew
leaves out Bethany, so the Vulgar and, as Origen” informs
us, St. Mark here left out Bethphage. These two places
were conterminous, the bound of Bethany, through which
they went to go from Jericho to Jerusalem, reaching to
Bethphage, whither our Lord was come. Now this Beth-
phage, Saith St. Jerome, was Sacerdotum viculus situs in
monte Oliveti, “a little village of the priests situated in
mount Olivet.” It was according to the Jews, “a place out
of Jerusalem” near the mountain of the temple, in quo co-
quebant oblationes, “in which,” saith the Talmud, “they
boiled their offerings” (Tract. Berachoth, cap. 11, f. 95).
* Wer. 2. ‘E4' 67 otºsi; &y.98%may zékéðius, Upon which no
*man ever sat.] Here Grotius truly notes, that such ani-
mals as had not been employed in the use of man, were
wont to be chosen for sacred uses ; for even the heathens
thought those things and sacrifices most proper for the ser-
vice of the gods which had not been put to profane uses.
Thus the Philistines return the ark in a new cart, drawn by
heifers never before put into the yoke (1 Sam vi. 7). To
Minerva the heathens sacrificed injuges boves, “oxen not
put sº the yoke ;” and in Virgil we read thus (AEn.
Vl. 30),
Af
Nunc grege de intacto Septem mactare juvencos
Praestiterit
“It is best to offer seven heifers not yet brought from the
flock:” which Macrobius+ calls hostias injuges, “sacrifices
not accustomed to the yoke ;” they thinking them polluted,
Saith Turnebus, t by being put to profane work ; and it
seems to have been a miracle that such a colt should so
patiently suffer Christ to ride upon him ; to be sure there
was a completion of the prophecy of Zachary, ix. 9, the
Jews themselves applying those words to the Messiah; for
R. Joseph Said, “May the Messiah come, and may I be
* O Máčko; 8é wará rày rðrov cºro, äväygasps, kai ºr #yyićov-
orw-six Brézvíay. In Matt. tom. xvi.
+ Saturp. lib. iii. cap. 5.
3. Lib. xviii. cap. 2.
10 *Blessed be the kingdom of our father David,
that comethin the name of the Lord (may the kingdom
flourish which God is to erect according to his promise
nade to David) : Hosanna in the highest (let prospe-
rity be from heaven on this King and kingdom). -
Il And Jesus entered into Jerusalem, and into the
temple: and when he had looked round about upon
all things (and cured the blind and lame, Matt. xxi.
14), and now the eventide was come, he went out to
Bethany with the twelve.
12 And on the morrow, when they were come from
Bethany, he was hungry:
13 “And seeing a fig-tree afar off, having leaves,
(which the common fig-trees then had not, Matt. xxiv.
32), he came (to it), if haply he might find anything
thereon ; and when he was come to it he found no-
thing but leaves; for the time of (other) figs was not
et.
y 14 And Jesus answered (i. e. upon this disappoint-
ment spake) and said unto it, (Let) no man eat fruit
of (i. e. from) thee hereafter for ever. And his dis-
ciples heard it.
15 And they come to Jerusalem: and Jesus went
into the temple, and began to cast out them that
sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the ta-
bles of the money-changers, and the seats of them
that sold doves:
worthy to sit under the shadow of the tail of his ass” (San-
hedrin, cap. 10, in Gemara).
* Ver. 10. Eixoynºwn h Bacºsia #3xop, #yn #y várzar Kveiov,
roi. Traºrgö; hºwāy Aa3:8, Blessed be the kingdom of our
father David, that cometh in the name of the Lord.] i. e.
Let the kingdom be happily begun and flourish, which God
is to erect according to his promise made to our father
David ; let the prosperity be from heaven to the king Mes-
siah, and to his kingdom (see Examen Millii).
* Ver. 13. And seeing a fig-tree afar off having leaves,
he came, if haply he might find anything thereon ; and
when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, où Yêe hy
xate?, cºway, for the time of figs was not yet.] Here it is
inquired, why Christ should curse this fig-tree, because it had
not figs upon it before the time of figs P. The criticism & Yêe
#y, “for where he was it was the time of fruit,” and that of
Dr. Hammond, that “it was not katºº cºzov, a good or sea-
sonable year for figs,” are both confuted by this one observa-
tion, that Christ did this on the eleventh of Nisan, that is,
five months before figs were ripe; for “about summer,”
saith our Lord, “the branch of the fig-tree is yet tender,
and putteth forth leaves” (Matt. xxiv. 32. Mark xiii. 28).
“From the time of production of leaves to the green figs,”
say the Jews, “is fifty days; from thence to the falling off of
the buds, fifty ; and from thence to ripe figs, fifty.” And in
Canticles, the entrance of the summer is described by the
“fig-trees bringing forth green figs,” nºb i. e. grossos, Éawłov;
airãº, “her unripe figs:” not as Mr. Clerc here renders the
words, “she hath brought her figs to perfection ;” nor do
either Theophrastus or Pliny make mention of any figs in
Syria, which were gathered till after the dog-days, that is,
about the latter end of August; and had there been a sort of
figs, which, as Mr. Clerc fancies, might have been ripe at the
passover, before which Christ spake these words, St. Mark
could not truly have said, “the time of figs was not yet.”
There is another ingenious exposition of a reverend and
learned bishop, that 5xaſgö, advoy is “the time of gathering
in of figs,” of which signification of the word xzºº he gives
two or three instances; and then it seems reasonable for our
Saviour to expect some figs upon this tree, they being not yet
gathered in, and to curse it for having none upon it, when
mone had been taken from it ; and could I find it proved
that any, even the biccaroth, or first ripe figs, mentioned
Jer. xxxiv. 2, and Hosea ix. 10, were fit to be gathered in
232
MARK.
16 And would not "suffer that any man should
carry any vessel through the temple.
17 Añd he taught (them who did these things, how
contrary they were to scripture), saying to them, Is it
not written, "My house shall be called of all nations
the house of prayer? (Gr. a house of prayer to all na-
tions, and so that very court of the gentiles you thus
profane is dedicated to his service :) but ye (by employ-
ing it to these uses) have made it a den of thieves.
18 And the scribes and chief priests heard it, and
(instead of being moved by what he said from the
scripture, to reform this abuse, they) sought how they
might destroy him (privily); for they feared (to do
this openly to) him, because all the people were asto-
mished at his doctrine.
19 And when even was come, he went out of the
city.
% And in the morning, as they passed by, they
saw the fig-tree dried up from the roots.
21 And Peter calling to remembrance (the words of
Christ) saith to him, Master, behold, the fig-tree
which thou cursedst is withered away.
22 And Jesus answering saith to them, Have (a
strong) faith in God.
23 For verily I say to you, That whosoever shall
say to this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou
cast into the sea (i. e. whosoever of you shall attempt
the greatest difficulties respecting your office, in confirm-
ing the truth of my doctrine to Jew and gentile, and
bringing them to the faith); and shall not doubt in his
heart (of God’s power and readiness to assist him)
but shall believe that those things which he saith
shall come to pass (Gr. shall be done); he shall have
whatsoever he saith (it shall be to him according to
what he saith).
24 Wherefore I say to you (for the confirmation of
Jour faith), What things soever ye desire, when ys
pray (or ask in prayer), believe that ye receive them,
and ye shall have them.
25 And when ye "stand praying, forgive, if ye
have aught (any just matter of complaint) against any
(for what they have done to you); that your Father
also which is in heaven may forgive you your tres-
passes.
26 But (for) if you do not forgive (them), neither
will your Father wº is in heaven forgive your tres-
passes.
|
|
27 And they come again to Jerusalem: and as he
was walking in the temple, there come to him the
chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders,
28 And they say to him, By what authority doest
thou these things 2 and who gave thee this authority
to do these things -
29 And Jesus answered and said to them, I will
at the passover, I should acquiesce in this interpretation ;
but the words cited from Cant. ii. 13, and Matt. xxiv. 32,
seem to prove, that the fig-tree only began to put forth her
leaves and her green figs at the entrance of the summer.
Wherefore let it be noted, that St. Mark doth not by these
words, “for the time of figs was not yet,” design to give a
reason why our Lord found no figs upon this tree, but why
he only went to this one tree, which had leaves on it, and
so was of that kind of figs which, saith Theophrastus,” was
&si pāNAoy, semper comantibus foliis,” “a fig-tree that had
always leaves,” and why he expected to find fruit on that,
which upon the other ordinary fig-trees abounding there he
could not expect, the time of ordinary figs being not yet : for
this kind of fig-tree being ever green with leaves, had, saith
Theophrastus, #2a kai tºy #voy Kai rºy yéow kāpirov, “old and
new fruit hanging on it together ;” the fruit of the year past
and present, say the Jewish doctors. Accordingly Julian f
the Apostate, speaking of the fruits of Damascus, Saith, some
of them were but of a short duration, wävo, 3Å rô a jag kai
itregºviavričevićeart, Kai tº roi; ºxxoviro; Kágºrov yávez et avyºvex-
6āvas, “only the fig-tree carries its fruit above a year, and it
hangs on with the fruit of the following year.” And thus
was this fig-tree a fit resemblance of the Jewish nation, to
whom alone Christ came in person, and from whom alone
he could then expect fruit; whence are they in another
parable represented by a fig-tree, from which the husband-
man three years expected fruit, but found none, Luke xiii.
7, and therefore is there ordered to be cut down ; and here
they are emblematically cursed for their barrenness, “the
kingdom of God being shortly to be taken from them, and
given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.” (Matt.
xxi. 43). Origen $ saith, this fig-tree was 35,800V roi, Azot, “a
tree representing the people of the Jews,” saying, #4 Juxo;
#y air; auxh, “This was a living fig-tree, and therefore heard
a curse suitable to its condition:” for 34 roºro &xagºré, Éarty
6'Iovēafoy a vyayoyā, wai robºro yiyeral airrº #w; tº; avyrexeia;
arci aſāyo; to; tº traigop, a rāv Švay Białxén, “therefore the
synagogue of the Jews is unfruitful, and shall continue so
till the fulness of the gentiles doth come in.”
* Ver. 16. Kai oix hºptey Wa vic 3-syāyan crºsſo: 31& roi, i=goû,
And he suffered not any one to carry a vessel through the
temple..] In this our Lord approved of the received doctrine
of the Jews, who, saith Josephus, held, quéd ne was qui-
dem aliquod portari in templum liceat, “that it was not law-
* Hist. Plant. lib. iv. cap. 2.
+ Pliny, lib. xiii. cap. 8.
§ Ed. Huet. tom. i. p. 446.
| Cont. Ap. p. 1066.
: Ep. 24.
ful to carry any vessel into the temple ;” and this was part
of that reverence they thought due to it by virtue of that
precept, “Thou shalt reverence my sanctuary" (Lev. xix.
30). But whereas the rabbins extended this to their syna-
gogues, yea, even to a synagogue laid waste, that none should
make them a thoroughfare, in this they seems to have ex-
ceeded; there seeming not to be the same reason for things
instituted by them, for their convenience of meeting for
religious worship, as for that house which the Lord “hath
chosen to put his name there’ (Deut. xii. 5), and in which
the divine Majesty dwelt; though they being houses of
prayer, a reverence was to be observed in them, whilst they
cngaged in that worship.
* Ver. 17. Kai #8:3&orks, Aéyoy aircí; ot, yśypartal, &ri à
oixá; ºov oixos mpozeux;, x^n.9%aeta rāzi roſ, Syearly ; And
he taught them, saying, Is it not written, My house shall be
called a house of prayer to all nations 2) In the temple
there were three courts—the court of the priests, where the
altar of incense stood ; the second was that into which the
clean Jews, and the proselytes of justice who had embraced
circumcision and the whole law of Moses, entered ; and
this was parted from the third court (which was called “the
court of the gentiles,” because the unclean Jew, and the
gentile who owned the true God, were permitted to come
and worship there), by a step or low wall, having this in-
scription on it, ºzº èsſy &AAépuxov šarēc rod &ytov tragºyal, “that
no alien was to enter into the holy place;” where Josephus,”
by adding rö y&g 3sérepov, isgöy &yoy #xaxeſ ro, “for the second
court, was called holy,” seems to intimate, that the court of
the gentiles was by them not deemed holy, but profane ; and
therefore thither they brought sheep and doves to sell ; and
hence it appears how appositely our Saviour argues, that the
house for all nations was God’s house, and therefore must be
Sacred and not to be polluted. Mr. Whiston must therefore
be mistaken, when he conjectures that our Lord did this
twice in the week before his passion ; once driving these
hucksters and their merchandise out of the inner temple,
and the next day out of the outer temple ; for Christ drove
out the oxen and the sheep, as well as the men (John ii.
15). Now can we think that they who had so great a reve-
rence for the inner temple, as to make it death for any gen-
tile, though a proselyte of the gate, to come into it, would
themselves bring sheep and oxen to dung in it? It is true
that St. Mark speaks of this as done the day after he came
into the city, and discoursed with the pharisees ; but that lie
did this only by recapitulation, St. Austini proves; but let
* Joseph. de Bell. Jud. lib. vi. cap. 13, p, 916.
+ De Consens. Evangelist, lib. ii. cap. 68.
CHAPTER XII
233
also ask of you one question, and answer (you) me,
and (then) I will tell you by what authority I do these
things. $
30 The baptism of John, was it from (the God of)
heaven, or of men (only) * answer me.
31 And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If
we shall say, (It was) from heaven; he will say, Why
then did ye not believe him (and from his testimony,
John iii. 21. 34, learn that I also came from God?)
this be done twice, provided he brings not his merchants
and merchandise into the inner temple (see Maldon, in
Matt. xxi. 12).
7 Wer. 25. Kai &ray crºwnre reo-Evžowevo, 39ters, And
when you stand praying, forgive if ye have aught against
any, That it was ordinary with the Jews to pray stand-
ing, see note on Matt. vi. 5, yet in their solemn days of fast-
ing they did kneel, and even prostrate themselves before the
Lord ; but the first Christians usually kneeled down and
prayed (Acts ix. 40. xx. 36. xxi. 5). The command here to
forgive those that offend us before we pray, not only shows
that no resentments of what our brother doth should stick |
32 But if we shall say, Of men, (this may be ha-
zardous : for) they feared (this might incense) the
people : for all men counted John, that he was (to be)
a prophet indeed.
33 And they (therefore) answered and said to Je-
sus, We cannot tell. Jesus answering saith to them,
Neither do I (think fit to) tell you by what authority
I do these things.
long upon our spirits, because they indispose us for that duty
we are continually to be prepared for ; but also, that there is
some kind of forgiveness to be exercised towards him, though
he do not ask it, or show any tokens of repentance ; of
which, see note on Matt. vi. 14, 15. And seeing I am to
pray not only for myself, but for him also (Matt. v. 44),
and that out of love to him, I must be free from all displea-
sure against him, that I may lift up pure hands without
wrath. I must be inclined and ready to do him any good:
for how else can I heartily desire it of God, and wish well to
him, which in effect I do by praying for him 2
CHAPTER XII.
1 AND he began to speak to them Jy parables;
{saying), A certain man planted a vineyard, and set a
hedge about it, and digged a place for the wine-fat,
and built a tower (in it), and let it out to husbandmen,
(the Jews, Isa. v.) and (then) went into a far country
, i.e. left them to manage it for him, so as that he might
in their season receive the fruits of it).
2 And (accordingly) at the season he sent to the
husbandmen a servant, that he might receive from
the husbandmen (the guides and rulers of the Jewish
church) of the fruit of the vineyard.
3 And (but) they caught him, and beat him, and
sent him away empty.
4 And again he sent to them another servant; and
at him they "cast stones, and wounded him in the
head, and sent him away shamefully handled.
5 And again, he sent another; and him they killed,
and (so they dealt with) many others (2 Chron. xxxv.
15, 16), beating some, and killing some (of them).
6 Having yet therefore one son, his well-beloved,
he sent him also last to them, saying, (It may be) they
will reverence my son.
7 But those husbandmen said among themselves,
This is the heir ; come, let us kill him, and (then) the
inheritance shall be ours.
8 And (accordingly) they took him, and killed him,
and cast him out of the vineyard.
9 What shall therefore the Lord of the vineyard
do (to those men 2 Surely) he will come and destroy
the (se) husbandmen, and will give the vineyard to
(be cultivated by) others.
10 And (if ye doubt this, ye understand not what
these husbandmen deserve,) have ye not read (or, nor
have ye read with attention) this scripture; (which saith
Psal. cxviii. 22, 23), The stone which the builders
rejected is become the head of the corner:
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XII.
* Ver. 4. Alsoſ?oxha ayre; $45 paxaiova'ay, kai &mía reixay
httpop, #voy. Again he sent to them another servant, and at
him they cast stones, and wounded him in the head, and
sent him away shamefully treated.] That #xsqaxatogay here
cannot signify capite, i.e. vità eum mulctarunt, “they be-
headed him, or took away his life ;” but, as St. Luke inter-
prets it, tº avºwarićovireº, “they wounding him” (x. 12), to wit
in the head, “cast him out of the vineyard ;” rôy x=q&Ağy £rv-
Jay, “they beat him on the head:” so Theophylact ; and
“his is evident from the words following, “They sent him
11 This was the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous
in our eyes }
12 And (when he had said this) they sought (occa-
sion) to lay hold on him, but (they) feared the people:
for they knew that he had spoken the parable” against
them: and (through this fear) they left him, and went
their way.
13 And they send to him certain (persons) of the
(sect of the) pharisees and of the Herodians, to catch
him in (and get advantage against him from) his words.
14 And when they were come, they say to him,
Master, we know that thou art true, and carest for no
man (’s person); for thou regardest not the person (s)
of men, but teachest the way of God in truth: (tell us
therefore) Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not :
15 Shall we give, or shall we not give? (that if he
said no, the Herodians might represent him as an enemy
to Capsar; if yea, the pharisees might represent him to
the people as no friend to the nation). But he, knowing
their hypocrisy, said to them, Why tempt ye me (ye
hypocrites?) bring me a (Roman) penny, that I may
see it.
16 And they brought it. And (then) he saith to
them, Whose is this image and superscription (that is
upon this money)? and they said to him, (It is) Caesar’s.
17 And Jesus answering said to them, Render (then)
to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the
things that are God’s. And they marvelled at him
(that he had answered from their own received princi-
ples, and yet so wisely, that they could take no advan-
tage from his words). -
18. Then come to him the sadducees, who say there
is no resurrection (of the body); and they asked him,
saying,
19 Master, Moses wrote to us, If a man’s brother
die, and leave his wife behind him, and leave no chil-
away dishonoured, or shamefully treated: so in Aristophanes,”
0ávey ºry agóragov xe4axai, #2 art, is to “smite the skull with
a blow upon the head,” or “to strike one upon the head
with a radish root” (see Examen Millii). -
2 Ver, 12. They knew that he spake this parable, ºrphs
ačºroi); so Luke xx. 19, against them.] So Ašyāy 7:3; abrów,
is to say what they could against him, Acts xxiii. 30 ; “to
kick ºrgā; ºv'rpa, against the pricks,” Acts xxvi. 14 ; “to
fight ap}; tā; asſočac, against the machinations of Satan,”
*
* In Ranis, act. iii. Sc. 2.
234
MARK.
dren, that his brother should take his wife, and raise
up seed to his brother.
20 Now there were (with us) seven brethren: and
the first (of them) took a wife, and, dying, left no seed.
21 And the second took her, and died, neither left
he any seed: and the third likewise.
22 And (so) the seven had her, and left no seed :
last of all the woman died also. .
23 In the resurrection therefore, when they shall
rise (from the dead), whose wife shall she be of them?
for the seven had her to wife.
24 And Jesus answering said to them, Do ye not
therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures,
neither the power of God? (nor yet the state in which
they that are raised from the dead shall be).
25 For when they shall rise from the dead, they
neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as
the angels which are in heaven.
26 And as touching the dead, (to prove from the
scriptures, which you own,) that they rise: have ye
not read (what is written) in the book of Moses, how
in the bush God spake to him, saying, I am the God
of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of
Jacob (and yet),
27 He is not the God of the dead (i.e. of them that
are so dead as not to be the sons of the resurrection),
but the God of the living (i.e. of those whom he will
zaise to life again): ye therefore do greatly err.
28 And one of the *scribes came, and having heard
them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had
answered them well, asked him, Which is the first
commandment of all?
29 And Jesus answered him, The “first of all the
commandments is, Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God
is one Lord: ~
30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all
thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind,
and with all thystrength: this is the first commandment.
31 And the second is like (to it) namely, this, Thou
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none
other commandment greater than these.
32 And the scribe said to him, Well, Master, thou
hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there
is none other but he .
33 And to love him with all the heart, and with all
the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all
the strength, and (for a man) to love his neighbour as
himself, is more than all whole burnt-offerings and
sacrifices.
34 And when Jesus saw that he answered dis-
creetly, he said to him, Thou art not far from (being
prepared to enter into) the kingdom of God. And no
man after that durst ask him any question.
35 And Jesus answered (their questions) and said
(to them by way of question), while he taught in the
temple, How say the scribes that Christ is the son of
David P -
36 For "David himself said (of him) by (the afflatus
of) the Holy Ghost, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit
thou on my right hand till I make thine enemies thy
footstool.
37 David therefore himself calleth him Lord; and
whence (how) is he then his son 2 And the common
people heard him gladly.
38 And he said to them in his doctrine, Beware of
the scribes, which love to go in long clothing, and
love (to have) salutations in the market-places,
39 And the chief seats in the synagogues, and the
uppermost rooms at feasts:
40 Which devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence
make long prayers: these shall receive greater damma-
tion.
41 And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and
beheld how the people cast money into the treasury:
and (saw that) many that were rich cast in much.
42 And there came a certain poor widow, and she
threw in two mites, which make a farthing.
43 And he called to his disciples, and saith to them,
Verily I say to you, That this poor widow hath cast
more in, than all they which have cast into the trea-
Sury: -
44 For all they did (only) cast in of their abund-
ance; but she * of her want did cast in all she had,
even all her living (i. e. her livelihood for that day).
Eph. vi. 11 ; “to strive ºrgā; rºy &ºagriav, against sin,” Heb.
xii. 4; “to fight irº, vious, against the children of Ammon,”
Judg. x. 3.; “to speak ºrgèg Küglow, against the Lord,” Isa.
xxxii. 6. Ezek. xiii. 9.
* Ver. 28. Kai & rôw yeapºpºatãoy, And one of the scribes
came : So Luke xx. 39, but Matt, xxii. 25, eiç # abråy woºixàº,
one of them being a lawyer.] Now, in this diversity of
words, there is no difference in sense ; for the scribes were of
two sorts, or had at the least two offices; the one was to “sit
in the chair of Moses,” i. e. to read and to interpret the
law of Moses to the people, Matt. xxiii. 2, the other was to
expound and to deliver to the people the traditions which
they pretended to have received from their forefathers ; the
first name of “scribe” they seem to have had from Ezra,
who is so often styled yeapºpºatsüç, “a scribe of the law of
the Lord” (Ezra vii. 12. Neh. xii. 36), who “read in the book
of the law, and expounded” (Neh. viii. 2–4), they being
also teachers of the traditions, which were called vôpºga, or
“laws,” and binding these heavy burdens upon the people,
were thence called yopºixoſ, see the note on Matt. xxii. 23.
And this scribe is said to speak to Christ reigáðay, “tempt-
ing him,” or making an experiment of his wisdom, whether
it was such as fame reported ; as the queen of Sheba came
(1 Kings x. 1) reigázai, “to tempt king Solomon,” i.e. to
try whether his wisdom was equal to the fame she had heard
of it.
* Ver. 29. And Jesus answered, 3rt ºrgaśrn traorów rºy tyro-
Xày, &c. The first of all the commandments is this, The Lord
thy God is one God..] For this is necessary to be known, that
we may worship him alone in opposition to all heathen gods,
and own that he alone is God, who is the maker of heaven
and earth, Here Woltzogenius objects, that this lawyer hav-
ing said that there is one God, and that there is no other
God beside him, our Lord acknowledges that he had answered
wisely; whereas he could not have given him this commen-
dation, if he had been obliged to own him also as God, or
to have owned a trinity of persons; as if he had not heard
that Thomas, how held the unity of the Godhead as much as
any other Jew, yet styles our Saviour, “my Lord and my
God;” and is commended for his faith, John xx. 28, 29. And
since all that assert a trinity of persons, do as unanimously
assert a unity of essence, and of the Godhead, I know not
why this answer might not be commended by him ; though
perhaps our Saviour's commendation might especially respect
his prelation of the love of God and our neighbour to all
burnt-offerings and oblations; of which see the note on Matt.
xxii. 35, and of which one of the Jews saith thus, “The do-
ing acts of beneficence is more acceptable to God than all
the victims and oblations which the Israelites offer on the
altar; he having said, I will have mercy and not sacrifice”
(Pirk. Eliezer, cap. 16, p. 33. See here and ver, 27, Examen
Millii).
5 W. 36. Aërë, yā; Aa3:3 strºy #y rô IIyaſpxari rā āyīo,
For David himself said by the Holy Ghost, &c.] i. e. By a
divine afflatus, or the spirit of prophecy; for elsewhere we
read, that “God spake by the mouth of David,” Acts i. 16.
iv. 25. Nor is any one cited in the New Testament, as
speaking by the Spirit, or by the Holy Ghost, ho was not
thus assisted by a divine afflatus ; and this deserves to be
noted by them who deny that the Psalms of David were
written by the spirit of prophecy.
• Wer. 44. Ağrn 3: #x rā; a rºgharew; atric Trávea Sara sixty
#8axey, 3×oy row £low airãº, But she of her want did cast in all
she had, even all her living.] Or, all that she had to live
CHAPTER XIII.
235
Hence it appears, that a person may be ºv, “above what he can well spare” (2 Cor. viii. 2, 3. See
upon that day.
sometimes liberal, even in giving what he wanteth for him- here Grotius).
Seif, or being ready to expend in works of charity, trip 3&a-
CHAPTER XIII.
1 AND as he went out of the temple, (his disciples
came to him, to show him the buildings of the temple,
Matt. xxiv. 1, and) one of his disciples saith unto him
(in the name of the rest), Master, see what manner of
stones and what buildings are here !
2 And Jesus answering, said to him, Seest thou
these great buildings : There shall not be left (to
them) one stone upon another, that shall not be
thrown down (or dissolved).
3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives over
against the temple, Peter, and James, and John, and
Andrew, asked him privately (i. e. apart, not from the
rest of his disciples, but from the multitude,
4 Saying), Tell us, (Master, Luke xxi. 7), when
shall these things he and what shall be the sign
when all these things shall be fulfilled :
5 And Jesus answering them, began to say, Take
heed lest any man deceive you:
6 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am
Christ; and (by that pretence) shall deceive many.
7 And when ye shall hear of wars and rumours of
wars, be ye not troubled: for such things must needs
be ; but the end (of the polity and temple of the Jews)
shall not be yet.
8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom
against kingdom; and there shall be earthquakes in
divers places, and there shall be famines and trou-
bles: (all) these (things) are (only) the beginnings of
Sorrows (to them).
9 But take heed to yourselves: for (then) they shall
deliver you up to councils; and in the 'synagogues
ye shall be beaten : and ye shall be brought before
rulers and kings for my sake, for a testimony against
(Gr. to) them (that the kingdom of God is come).
10 And the gospel must first be published among
all nations (before the end of these things).
11 But when they shall (thus) lead you, and deli-
ver you up (to these rulers), * take no thought before-
hand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate;
but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that
speak ye: for it is not ye that speak (from your own
wisdom) but the Holy Ghost (who teacheth you what
to speak).
12 Now (at this time) the brother shall betray the
(his) brother to death, and the father the son; and
the children shall rise up against their (believing) pa-
rents, and shall cause them to be put to death.
13 And ye shall be hated of all (sorts of) men for
my name’s sake : but (yet possess your souls in pa-
tience, Luke xxi. 19, for) they that shall endure to the
end, the same shall be saved (out of this calamity).
14 But when ye shall see the abomination of deso-
lation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet (ix. 27),
standing where it ought not, (i. e. the Roman army
compassing Jerusalem, Luke xxi. 20), let him that
readeth understand (that her desolation draweth near,
ibid., and) then let them that be in Judea flee to the
mountains (of Peraea):
15 And (then) let him that is on the housetop not
go down into the house, neither enter therein to take
anything out of his house:
16 And let him that is in the field (and hath laid
aside his garment) not turn back again to put up his
garment (i. e. let not your regard for your clothes, or
goods, cause you to delay your flight, but do it with
Ayour utmost ea pedition).
17 But woe to them that are with child, and to
them that give suck in those days (of vengeance, Luke
xxi. 22, and so are not in a condition to fly from it).
18 And *pray ye that your flight be not in the
winter (when the ways be scarce passable).
19 For in those days shall be affliction, (even) such
as was not from the beginning of the creation which
God created to this time, neither shall be (afterward,
so that ye cannot hope to escape without hazard).
20 And except that the Lord had shortened those
days, no flesh should be saved: but “for the elect’s
(i. e. the Christians’) sake, whom he hath chosen (out
of the world), he hath shortened the (se) days (of ven-
geance).

ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIII.
* Wer. 9. Kai sic awayoyā; 3aghasa Se, And ye shall be
beaten in the synagogues, It is certain, both from the Scrip-
tures and the Jewish writers, that whipping and the rebels,
beating were punishments used in the synagogues of the Jews.
Thus Paul saith, he punished the Christians xará. Tráva; Tā;
avyaya-yā;, “throughout all the synagogues,” Acts xxvi. 11,
and that he did “beat in the synagogues those that believed,”
xxii. 19. And that it was usual to whip both their wise men
and their disciples, when they had done perversely in their
synagogues, is fully proved by Campegius Vitringa de Synag.
Wet. lib. iii. cap. 11.
* Ver. I 1. Mi Trgogepipzvāre ‘ri Aaxham're, &n?? &Exerärs' oi
yág jars tºsſ; oi Naxoivre;, &NA& rô IIvetºza ré àylov, But when
they shall lead you (before) and deliver you wip (to these ru-
lers, ver, 9), take no thought beforehand what you shall speak,
meither do ye premeditate; but whatsoever shall be given you
in that hour, that speak ye; for I will give you a mouth
and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to
gainsay, Luke xxi. 14, 15.] From these two places collated
together, it is evident (1.) that this promise is peculiar to the
apostles, to whom alone Christ here discourseth : and (2.)
that it belongs to them alone, when they were brought be-
fore kings and rulers, to plead the cause of Christ, and leave
before them a testimony of the truth of it (Matt. x. 18);
and therefore there can be nothing more ridiculous than the
quakers applying this to their extemporary effusions, their
senseless prayers and harangues; of which it cannot, without
blasphemy, be said, “It is not you that speak, but the Holy
Ghost speaketh in you ;” seeing, if so, all their foolish and
ignorant harangues must be as sacred, and as worthy to be
preserved, as the inspired scriptures (see Examen Millii).
Ver. 14. To finSãy bºré Aayth?, reophrow.] This reading is
vindicated, Examen Millii, in locum.
* Ver. 18. IIgorečxso fle 3: Wa º yśyntal # ºpvy; tºy Xst-
Azóvoº, Pray therefore that your flight may not be in the
winter.] Hence it seems plain, that even when tribulations
come by the decree of God, the circumstances of them may
be mitigated by our prayers (see the note on Matt. xxiv. 20.
See Examen Millii).
* Ver. 20. 'AXX& 31& roi; in Newrot, où; #3x{{aro, #x0x68was
‘rāg #zápac, But for his elect’s sake, whom he hath chosen (out
of the world), he hath shortened those days.] That in the
New Testament all Christians called to the knowledge and
belief of the faith are styled the elect, as being yévo; #xxextov,
“a chosen generation,” see the note on 1 Pet. ii. 9. These
are the elect our Saviour speaks of, when he saith, “Many
are calléd, but few are chosen,” Matt. xx. 16, and “Shall he
not hear his elect, which cry unto him day and night P” Luke
236
MARK.
21 And then if any man shall say to you, Lo, here
is Christ; or, lo, he is there ; believe him not :
22 For false Christs and false prophets shall arise,
and shall show signs and wonders, to seduce, if (it
were) possible (or if they can), the very elect.
23 But (therefore) take ye heed: behold, I have
foretold you all (these) things.
24 But in those days, after that tribulation (of
which I have spoken), the sun shall be darkened, and
the moon shall not give her light,
25 And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the
powers that are in (or the hosts of) heaven shall be
shaken (i. e. the dissolution of their government in
church and state by the zealots, shall be a sign of their
approaching ruin, Luke xxi. 25).
26 And then shall they see the Son of man coming
in the clouds with great power and glory (pierå Övvá-
pistoc troAAïc kai Öášnc, with a great and glorious host,
viz. the Roman army).
27 And then shall he send his angels (the messen-
gers of the gospel) and (they) shall gather together his
elect (among the gentiles) from the four winds, from
the utmost parts of the earth to the utmost part of
heaven (i. e. from one end of the earth to the other).
28 Now learn a parable of (from) the fig-tree;
(For) when her branch is yet tender, and putteth forth
leaves, ye know that summer is near:
29 So ye in like manner, when ye shall see these
things come to pass, know that it (viz. the desolation
I speak of) is nigh, even at the doors.
30 Verily I say unto you, That this generation
shall not pass (away) till all these things be done. .
31 Heaven and earth shall pass away; but my
words shall not pass away (unperformed).
32 *But of that day and that hour knoweth no
man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither
the Son (who hath the Spirit without measure), but the
Father (only). -
33 Take ye heed, watch and pray; for ye know not
when the time is (to be). -
34 For the Son of man is [these words are not in
the original, and so this verse may begin thus :] (And in
this eahortation to watch, I am) as a man taking a far
journey, who left his house (Gr. as a travelling man
leaving his house), and gave (Gr. giving) authority to
his servants, and to every man his work, and (who)
commanded the porter (as I do you) to watch.
35 Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the
master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight,
or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning:
36 Lest coming suddenly, he find you sleeping
(and therefore unprepared for his advent).
37 And what I say to you I say to all (my disciples,
i. e.) Watch.
xviii. 7. And this was also the phraseology of the primitive
Christians: thus Clemens” tells the Corinthians, that their
sedition was d'AAorgia wai ##yn To: #xxexºroſ; rot, Osow, “alien
from, and strange to the elect of God;” and exhorts them to
come to God with holy souls, lifting up pure hands to him,
and loving our kind and merciful Father, 3, #&#; #xxoyā; ºfteor
ëtroinosy #avré, “who hath made us a part of his election.”
Ignatius+ writes to the church of Ephesus, ÉxxEAEyſzévn,
“elected;” and the author of the Martyrdom of Polycarp
saith, the common people admired the difference there was “
&sraži răy &Tria-row zai Tây #xxszrāv, “betwixt the heathens
and the Christians:” and among the aphorisms of the apostle
this is one, #&v #xxâxtoiſ 3 yei-roy & zaprhan ºagrey & #xxext3,
“If the neighbour of a Christian hath sinned, he hath sinne
also.” -
* Ver. 32. Tiegi 33 rº; hººpa; #xeſyn; Rai rā; &pac oiègic
oïèsy, où'ěč of āyyºot, oùJā ā viðc, et gº à marãp. But of that
day and hour and knoweth no man, neither the angels which
are in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father. Matt. xxiv. 36,
but my Father only.] I dare not here say with St. Ambrose,
lib. v. de Fide, cap. 8, that these words were added by the
Arians, seeing I find them owned by Irenaeus, lib. ii. cap.
48, and by Origen, in Matt. hom. 30, f. 64, A. But for ex-
plication of them, note,
First, That these words meet 33 rºº &ga; insivnº, “ of that
day and hour,” may refer, not to the destruction of Jerusa-
lem, but, as the fathers generally thought to the immediate
precedent words, “heaven and earth shall pass away,” but
of that day and hour when they shall pass away, none know-
eth but the Father. Note,
Secondly, That à vić; here is Christ, considered as a
prophet sent into the world to reveal his Father's will;
and therefore as delivering to the world not what the Aéyo;
knew or taught, but what the Spirit of God revealed to
him, according to his frequent declarations concerning him-
self, that “he spake nothing of himself, but the Father
which sent him gave him commandment what he should say
and what he should speak,” John xii. 49 ; “My doctrine is
not mine, but his that sent me,” vii. 16 ; “The word which
I speak, I speak not of myself, but the Father which abideth
in me,” xiv. 10 ; “The Father loveth the Son, and showeth
him all that he doth,” John v. 20, which by the Baptist
seems to be expounded thus, “He that is of God speaketh
the words of God: for the Father giveth not him the Spirit
by measure: for the Father loveth the Son, and hath put all
* Sect. 16. + Sect. 1. : Sect, 29.
things (relating to the revelation of his will) into his hands,”
(John iii. 34, 35). Though therefore he revealed this doc-
trine as “the Son of man,” as the nature of the prophetic
office absolutely required, yet he is placed here, as to his
knowledge of the mind of God, deservedly above the angels,
as being by this Spirit residing in him without measure, more
fully acquainted with the mind of God than they ; and yet,
saith he, “the knowledge of this day and hour” being no
part of my prophetic office, even I, “the Son of man,”
know it not ; it being one of “those times and seasons which
the Father hath put in his own power” (Acts i. 7). Excellent
to this purpose are the words of Dr. Lightfoot on this place:
“(1.) It is one thing to understand the Son of God barely
and abstractly for the second person in the Holy Trinity;
another to understand him for the Messias, or the second
person incarnate. To say that the second person in the
Trinity knows not something is blasphemous ; to say so
of the Messias is not so, who nevertheless was the same
3 with the second person in the Trinity. For although the
second person abstractly considered, according to his mere
Deity, was coequal with the Father, co-omnipotent, co-
omniscient, co-eternal with him, &c. yet Messias, who was
God-man, considered as Messias, was a servant, and a mes-
senger of the Father, and received commands and authority
from the Father : and those expressions, “The Son can do
nothing of himself,” &c. will not in the least serve the
Arians’ turn, if you take them in this sense, which you must
necessarily do ; Messias can do nothing of himself, because
he is a servant and a deputy. (2.) We must distinguish be-
tween the excellences and perfections of Christ, which flowed
from the hypostatical union of the two natures, and those
which flowed from the donation and anointing of the Holy
Spirit. From the hypostatical union of the natures flowed
the infinite dignity of his person, his impeccability, his in-
finite self-sufficiency to perform the law and satisfy the
divine justice. From the anointing of the Spirit, flowed his
power of miracles, his foreknowledge of things to come, and
all kind of knowledge of evangelic mysteries: those rendered
him a fit and perfect redeemer, these a fit and perfect minis-
ter of the gospel.”
Now, therefore, the foreknowledge of things to come of
which the discourse here is, is to be numbered among
those things which flowed from the anointing of the Holy
Ghost, and from his immediate revelation ; not from the
hypostatic union of the natures; so that those things which
were revealed by Christ to his church he had them from the
revelation of the Spirit, not from that union. Nor is it
CHAPT]]R XIV.
237
any derogation or detraction from the dignity of his person,
that he saith, “He knew not that day and hour of the de-
struction of Jerusalem:” yea, it excellently agrees with his
office and deputation, who being the Father's servant, mes-
senger, and minister, followed the orders v. the Father and
obeyed him in all things.
See another answer to this objection, Tract. de verá Christi
Deitate, p. 124, 125.
CHAPTER XIV.
1 AFTER two days was the feast of the passover,
and of unleavened bread: and (then) the chief priests
and the scribes sought how they might take him by
craft, and put him to death.
2 But they said, (Let) not (this be done) on the
feast-day, lest there be an uproar of the people.
3 And (he) being in Bethany in the house of Simon
(formerly) the leper, as he sat at meat, "there came a
woman having an alabaster-box of ointment of spike-
nard, very precious; and she brake (or shook) the
box (of ointment), and (then) poured it on his head.
4 And there were some that had indignation within
themselves (at this which the woman had done), and
said, Why was this waste of the ointment made 2
5 For it might have been sold for more than three
hundred pence, and (the money might) have been given
to the poor. And they murmured against her.
6 And (but) Jesus said, Let her alone; why trouble
ye her (without cause) * she hath (in doing this)
wrought a good work on me.
7 For ye have the poor (for whom ye pretend so
mitch kindness) with you always, and whensoever you
will you may do them good; but me ye have not al-
ways (my departure from you being at hand, which will
cut off all farther opportunity of showing kindness to
my body).
3 She hath done what she could (to testify her af.
fection to me: for) she is come aforehand to anoint
my body (in order) to the burying (of it : nor shall
her charity be lost ; for)
9 Verily I say to you, Wheresoever this gospel
shall be preached (as I assure you it will be) through-
out the whole world, this also that she hath done shall
be spoken of for a memorial of her.
10 And (then) Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve,
went to the chief priests, to betray him to them.
11 And when they heard it, they were glad, and
promised to give him money (for so doing, covenant-
ing with him for thirty shekels). And (upon this pro-
mise) he sought how he might conveniently betray
him.
12 And (on) the first day of unleavened bread, when
they killed the passover, his disciples said to him,
Where wilt thou that we go and prepare (for thee),
that thou mayest eat the passover ?
13 And he sendeth forth two of his disciples, and
saith to them, Go ye into the city, and (when you are
come into it) there shall meet you a man bearing a
pitcher of water: follow him.
14 And wheresoever he shall go in (go ye in after
him, and) say ye to the good man (the master) of the
house, The Master saith, Where is the guest-cham-
ber, where I shall (may) eat the passover with my
disciples: -
15 And he will show you a large upper room fur-
nished and prepared (Gr. a great upper room strewed,
º to receive guests) : there (shall ye) make ready
OT U1S.
16 And his disciples went forth (from Bethany,
ver. 3), and came into the city, and found as he had
said to them : and they made ready the passover.
17 And in the evening he cometh with the twelve
(to eat of it).
18 And as they sat and did eat, Jesus said, Verily
I say to you, One of you who eateth with me (at the
table) shall betray me.
19 And they began to be sorrowful, and to say to
him one by one (severally), Is it I? and another, Is
it I?
20 And he answered and said to them, It is one of
the twelve, (he) that (now) dippeth with me in the
dish (Matt. xxvi. 23).
21 (Now) the Son of man indeed goeth (to suffer),
as it is written of him : but (yet) woe to that man by
whom the Son of man is betrayed 1 good were it for
that man if he had never been born (it being better
not to be, than to be miserable for ever).
22 And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and
blessed (it), and brake (it), and gave (it) to them, and
said, Take, eat; this is my body (given for you).
23 And he took the cup, and when he had given
thanks (over it), he gave it to them; and they all
drank of it.
24 And he said to them, This is (the memorial of)
my blood, (that blood) of the new testament (or cove-
nant), which is shed for many.
25 Verily I say to you, *I will drink no more of
the fruit of the vine, until that day that I drink it
new in the kingdom of God (i. e. till qfter my resur-
rection).
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIV.
* Ver, 3. "HA68 yuyń śxova'a &Aá8aarºoy pºſſeou, váčov tria-
rix; noxv+Exotic' wai avy'rpi-para ră ă»á8aa’rgov, Karéxsey airoi;
xará rà; Kepaxis, There came a woman having an alabaster
boa of ointment of spikemard, very precious ; and she brake
the boa, and poured it wbon his head..] Either the triarix}
answers to the Syriac pistica, and then it may be rendered
nardus spicata, or “ointment made of the spikes of nard; ”
or, if it be a Greek original, I think Theophylact well ren-
ders it, ºria’rix} % & 30Åo; Kai pºet& Triatew; wataansvaaSefara,
that is,” “nard unadulterated, and faithfully prepared; ”
the great price it carried, tempting many to adulterate it, as
T}ioscorides and Pliny tell us, according to these words of
Wadianus, Dignum autem cognitu quod, lib. xiii., Plinius
tradit, viz. novem herbarum species esse quae nardum imi-
tentur, et adulterent. Unde intelligimus in tantã fraudis
materia usum loducindi obtinuisse, ut ‘pistica” nardus dice-
* St. Jerome on Matt. xxvi.-Verum et sine dolo, “unso-
phisticated mard.”
+ Epist, de Insulis Maris Mediter. p. 476, 477.
retur, quae sincera et absºlue vitio esset, 373.7% triartwº, a
fide, et planè #80xos, hoc est germana et nullā arte vitiata.
Moreover, it is the conjecture of Dr. Hammond, that ovy-
ºrgi Jaara here signifies, not to break the alabaster, that being
not easily done, but to shake it, to liquefy the ointment, and
make it fitter to run out ; the old glossary rendering avy-
rpigo, conquatio. Now Mr. Clerc owns that the word doth
not always signify to break ; but when the discourse is
âbout a vessel that may be broken, he saith it must so sig-
nify ; as if a vessel might not be shaken as well as broken ;
or the vessel might not be put for the ointment in it, it
being that which was poured out on Christ's head ; or else
the vessel might be only broken as we break a flask, by
striking off the head of it, and then we may easily perceive
how, after it was thus broken, the ointment might be poured
on his head. f
2 Ver. 25. obzért of gº trio #2 roi; yeyväkaroº ris &ºov,
#w; tº; #2.Égag #xeivnº, 3ray airrö ºrivo xaſy.`y #y rā 8aa insig Geoû-
Henceforth I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, till the
day that I drink it new with you in the kingdom of God.]
Hence we may argue thus against the doctrine of transub-
238
MARK,
26 And when they had sung a "hymn, they went
to the mount of Olives.
27 And Jesus saith to them, All ye shall be of.
fended because of (or scandalized in) me this night:
for (it will be as) it is written (Zech. xiii. 7), I will
Smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.
28 But after that I am risen, I will go before you
into Galilee. . º
29 But Peter said to him, Although all shall be
offended (at thy passion), yet will not I (be offended).
30 And Jesus saith to him, Verily I say to thee,
This day, even in this night, before the cock crow
twice, thou shalt deny me thrice.
31 But he spake the more vehemently, If I should
die with thee, I will not deny thee in any wise. Like-
wise also said they all.
32 And they came to a place which was named
Gethsemane: and he said to his disciples, Sit ye here,
while I shall pray.
33 And he taketh with him Peter, and James, and
John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very
heavy;
stantiation: that which after consecration remains “the fruit
of the vine,” is not substantially changed into the blood of
Christ ; therefore that which Christ gave the apostles to
drink was not substantially changed into his blood : the
consequence is evident, because Christ calls that which he
gave them to drink, “the fruit of the vine ;” for that Christ
spake this after the consecration of the elements, St. Mat-
thew and Mark unanimously testify ; nor doth St. Luke
contradict them, but only saith, our Ilord spake this also
after the giving of the paschal cup. Nor can St. Matthew
or St. Mark be understood of any cup, but of that which
they only mention ; now they make mention only of the
cup given at the eucharist, and therefore can be only under-
stood of that. Hence doth the Romish catechism inform us,
that from these words, “I will not drink of the fruit of the
vine,” the catholic church hath always taught that our Lord
used wine in the institution of this sacrament ; which yet
she could not teach from these words, unless they were
spoken of the Sacramental cup, seeing the accidents of wine,
without the subject, cannot be called “the fruit of the vine.”
And seeing wine is styled aiwa oraq.vxic, “the blood of the
grape,” Deut. xxxii. 14, and by the heathens aſºca 80-pêov,
Achill. Tatius, lib. ii., why may it not by a like metaphor
be styled Christ's blood P Moreover, the ancient fathers
from these words confuted the heresy of the Encratitae, or
Aquarians, who consecrated only water at the celebration of
the Sacrament ; declaring that by these words our Saviour
showed the thing, which had been blessed, was wine, and
therefore was carnis potus, “the drink of the flesh,” saith
Irenaeus. Now had not the sacramental cup after the con-
secration remained wine, this argument could have no force,
since then the orthodox could no more have drank it in the
eucharist than the Aquarii (see Iren. lib. v. cap. 33. Clem.
Alex. Paedag. lib. ii. cap. 2, p. 158. Chrysost. Hom. in Matt.
xxvi. p. 511. Theodoret. dial. 1, p. 17, 18, and many others
cited by Albert. 1. de Euch, cap. 17, p. 112)
The following words, “Till I drink it new with you in the
kingdom of God,” are by St. Luke thus varied, “Till the
kingdom of God come” (xxii. 18), or “until it be fulfilled
in the kingdom of God ; ” and therefore only seem to sig-
nify “till I rise again from the dead;” for the kingdom of
God here, and the kingdom of the Father in St. Matthew,
being certainly the same, viz. the kingdom and the power
given to Christ, the exercise of his kingly office being given
to him of the Father, when one of these is come, the other
must be come also. Now (1.) Christ calling the Jews to re-
pentance, because “the kingdom of God is near” (Mark i.
15), upbraiding the scribes and pharisees because they suf.
fered publicans and harlots to enter into the kingdom of
God before them (Matt. xxi. 31), and threatening that the
kingdom of God should be taken from them and given to
other nations: Matt. xxi. 43. (2.) The Jews expecting
then the kingdom of God (Mark xv. 43), and thinking it
should suddenly appear (Luke xix. 11), and inquiring of
34 And (he) saith to them, My soul is exceeding
sorrowful unto death : tarry ye here, and watch.
35 And he went forward a little, and fell on the
ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour
(of his present temptation) might pass from him.
36 And he said, Abba, (that is) Father, all things
are possible to thee; take away this cup from me:
nevertheless, not what I will, but what thou wilt (be
done).
º And he cometh, and findeth them sleeping, and
saith to Peter, Simon, sleepest thou? (after all thy
confidence) couldest not thou watch one hour *
38 Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into tempta-
tion. (For) the spirit truly is (may be) ready (to make
good resolutions), but the flesh is weak (and so unable
to perform them, without that divine assistance which
is to be obtained by prayer, and improved by vigilance).
39 And again he went away, and prayed, and spake
the same words.
40 And when he returned, he found them asleep
again: for their eyes were heavy: neither wist they
what to answer him.
him when it should come (Luke xvii. 20), and speaking of
eating bread with him in it (Luke xiv. 15), and wishing
prosperity to it as then coming: Mark xi. 10. (3.) Christ
having told them that the kingdom of God was near (Luke
xi. 2. 20), that it was to come to them (Matt. xii. 28), that
it was among them (Luke xvii. 21), that some of them
should not die till they saw the Son of man coming in his
kingdom (Matt. xvi. 28), that is, till they saw the king-
dom of God (Luke ix. 27), till they saw the kingdom
of God come with power (Mark ix. 1); and having spoken
so many parables relating to this kingdom of God, or state
of the gospel (Mark iv. 30. Luke xiii. 18, 20): and, lastly,
the doctrine which he preached being the gospel of the king-
dom of God (Mark i. 14), the word of the kingdom (Matt.
xiii. 19), the mystery of the kingdom of God (Markiv. 11),
the preaching of it being the preaching of the kingdom of
God (Luke iv. 43. viii. i. ix. 2. 11. 60., xvi. 16): Christ
also after his resurrection speaking to his apostles of the
things relating to the kingdom of God (Acts i. 3), and they
preaching to others the things belonging to the kingdom of
God (Acts viii. 12. xix. 8. xx. 25. xxviii. 23.31), exhorting
their hearers to enter into the kingdom of God (Acts xiv.
22), and telling believers they were translated into the king-
dom of God (Col. i. 13): on these accounts, I say, I cannot
think this kingdom of God should signify heaven, or the
happiness then and there to be enjoyed, but rather the gos
pel-state, and the kingdom of Christ erected at his resurrec-
tion, and more completely begun when “he sat down at the
right hand of power,” and was made “heir of all things.”
To “drink this wine new,” is, by the interpretation of St.
Luke, to do it “when it was fulfilled in the kingdom of
God,” v. g. when “Christ our passover was sacrificed for us”
(1 Cor. v. 7), and when that “blood of the new covenant,”
which was represented by the wine, was actually shed, and a
new feast was instituted in commemoration of it. . And if
you yet inquire, when did Christ thus drink this wine with
them P I answer, he did it, not so much by “eating and
drinking with his disciples after he arose from the dead”
(Acts x. 41), for that drinking could have no relation either
to the paschal or the sacramental cup ; as by fulfilling the
promise made to them, Luke xxii. 29, 30, “I dispose to you
a kingdom as my Father hath done to me; and ye shall eat
and drink with me at my table in my kingdom:”, for in
what sense soever they are here said “to drink with him at
his table,” he also must be said to drink with them.
* Ver. 26. 'Yayāorayts;, And when they had sung a hymn
they went forth.] The evangelist may well be supposed to
intend such a hymn as was customarily sung at the passover:
for if Christ had begun a new and unusual hymn, his disci-
ples could not have told how to sing with him : now the
usual hymn sung on the night of the passover began at Ps.
cxiii., and ended at Ps. cxviii., in which hymns, as the Jews
observe, are mentioned, “the sorrows of the Messiah, and
the resurrection of the dead” (so Dr. Lightfoot).
CHAPTER XIV.
239
41 And he cometh the third time, and saith to them,
Sleep on now, and take your rest: it is enough (diré-
xst, the time of watching is now past), the hour is
come (in which I shall be apprehended); behold, the
Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.
42 Rise up, let us go; lo, he that betrayeth me is
at hand.
43 And immediately, while he yet spake, cometh
Judas, one of the twelve, and with him a great multi-
tude with swords and staves, from the chief priests,
and the scribes, and the elders.
44 And he that betrayed him had given them a
token, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is
he ; “take him, and lead him away safely.
45 And as soon as he was come, he goeth straight-
; to him, and saith, Master, Master; and kissed
II].
46. And (then) they laid their hands on him, and
took him.
47 And "one of them that stood by (namely, Peter)
drew a sword, and smote a servant of the high-priest,
and cut off his ear.
48 And Jesus answered (i.e. spake with relation to
their manner of coming thus to apprehend him), and
said to them, Are ye come out as against a thief,
with swords and with staves to take me
49 I was daily with you in the temple teaching, and
(then) ye took me not : but (now ye are permitted to
do it, because) the scriptures (which foretold my suffer-
ings) may be fulfilled.
50 And (having said this) they (who were with him)
all forsook him, and fled.
51 And there followed him a certain "young man,
having a linen cloth cast about his naked body; and
the young men laid hold on him:
52 And he left the linen cloth (in their hands), and
fled from them naked.
Wer. 41. 'Arrézet, Sat est, It is enough..] Though this
sense of the word be something rare, and Stephanus himself
could only produce one instance of it, viz. these words of
Anacreon, &Tréx's 8x8 tra, airāv, Sufficit jam video eam ; yet
all will not seem so strange, if we consider, that in effect it
bears the ordinary sense of abstaining in both places; for
here it is the same with, “You may abstain from watching
any longer:” and in Anacreon it signifies, “The painter,
now I see her, may abstain from making any picture of her.”
He that would see more instances of the use of the word in
this sense, may consult the notes of Gataker on Antoninus,
lib. iv. §. 49, p. 178.
See the text vindicated, wer. 19, 70. See Examen Millii,
ibid.
* Ver. 44. Kparha'at’s abrºy, Hold him fast, and lead him
away securely.]. It is probable that Judas thought they
could not do this, but that as Jesus had at other times con-
veyed himself from the multitude, when they attempted to
cast him down a precipice (Luke iv. 30), or to stone him
(John viii. 59. x. 39), so he would have done now. And
when he found that he did not rescue himself, “he repented,
and went and hanged himself” (Matt. xxvii. 5).
* Ver. 47. Ei, 3Å ric rāv trapscºrnkórow a tracáºwevo, rºy ºxal-
pay, And one that stood by drew a sword.] viz. Simon Peter,
John xviii. 10. Hence, saith Beza, the ancients may be
confuted, who with so great consent say that Mark writ
this gospel from the mouth of Peter, for why should Peter
deny his name, who speaks so fully of his denial of his
Lord 2 I answer, so doth St. Matthew and St. Luke speak
as plainly of his denial, and yet both conceal his name who
drew the sword. (2.) The ancients only say that Mark wrote
his gospel at the desire of others, “Peter neither forbidding
Tor commanding it to be done ;” and that it being done, he
did xvgåa at rāv yeaghy si; tyrevčw Tai, #xxxnariaç, “confirm
the reading it in the church” (Euseb. Hist, Eccles. lib. ii.
cap. 15. lib. vi. cap. 14).
* Wer. 51. Ka: Eğ rig weaviºrko; #x0x000s, adrój, And there
..followed him a certain young man, &c.] Epiphanius and St.
53 And they led Jesus away to the "high-priest :
and with him were assembled all the chief priests, and
the elders, and the scribes.
54 And Peter followed him afar off, even to the
palace of the high-priest; and he sat with the ser-
vants, and warmed himself at the fire.
55 And the chief priests and all the council
"sought for witness against Jesus to put him to death;
and (but) found none (that could testify anything
capital against him). -
56 For many bare false witness against him, but
their witness agreed not together (Gr. their testimony
was not sufficient to render him guilty of death.
57 And there arose certain (men) and bare false
witness against him, saying,
58 We have heard him say, I will destroy this tem-
ple made with hands, and within three days I will
build another made without hands.
59 But neither so did their witness agree together
(i. e. their testimony did not amount to a capital
crime).
60 And the high-priest stood up in the midst, and
asked Jesus, saying, Answerest thou nothing; what,
is it (of no concern) that these (men) witness against
thee :
61 But he held his peace, and answered nothing.
Again the high-priest asked him, and said to him,
Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed (God) >
62 And Jesus said, "I am : and (within a while,
Mark xxvi. 64) ye shall see the Son of man sitting on
the right hand of Power, and coming in the clouds
of heaven.
63 Then the high-priest rent his clothes, and saith,
What need we any farther witnesses :
64 Ye have heard the blasphemy (he now speaks) :
what think ye And they all condemned him to be
guilty of death (for it).
Jerome thinks this young man was James the brother of our
Lord ; but he had “forsook him, and fled” (ver. 50), and
we read nothing of his return St. Chrysostom, Ambrose,
and Gregory say he was John ; but John was with Christ
in the garden clothed (ver. 33), and afterward fled from him
(ver. 50). How then can it be like he should fly naked
away 2 Note also that those words, “he fled away naked,”
need not be so understood as if he had no garment, but
only so, as that he had a linen garment left. And so Dio-
nysius Alexandrinus saith of himself #pany yopºyo; #y tº xivá
#4.9% wart, “I was naked, having only a linen garment.”
(apud Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. vi. cap. 40, see the note on
John xxi. 7).
7 Wer. 53. Kai ätrāyayor adrāy ºrgö; rºy 36% isééa, And they
brought him to the high priest, That is, to Caiaphas (Matt.
xxvi. 57); for though it be evident from John xviii. 13, 14,
that he was first brought to Annas, yet, because there was
nothing done to him there, and he seems only to be detained
there till the council met at the house of Caiaphas was ready
for him, the other evangelists pass that over in silence.
* Wer. 55, 56. ’E&#rovy warā Toč 'Inaoſ, ºagtveșay, Eis rô
Savarza’a airröy, Kai cºx tºgraxov. IIoxAoi Y&F islavčoka;74-
govy xar' cºroú zai irai ai (ca.? rvpiat oix hazy, They sortght
for witness against him to put him to death ; and found none.
For many bare false witness against him, but their witness
agreed not together.] If they had many false witnesses, it
cannot be true that they found no witness against him.
This latter clause therefore, and the like, ver. 59, should be
rendered, “Their testimonies were not equal,” viz. to the
charge laid against him, that he was worthy to die; or they
were not sufficient, ei, r3 Savarāgal airy, to cause him to
be put to death, either not testifying two of the same thing,
or else not charging him with a crime that deserved death
by the law. For a vain-glorious boast of destroying the tem-
ple could not be capital, especially being attended with a
promise of rebuilding it in three days.
9 Wer. 62. 'Eyð sía I am he..] The answer, Matt. xxvi.
| 62, ci, sīraç, i. e. “I am what thou hast said,” is the same ;
t
240
MARK.
65 And (then) some began to spit on him, and to
cover his face, and to buffet him, and to say to him,
Prophesy (who it is that smites thee); and the (very)
servants did strike him with the palms of their hands.
66 And as Peter was beneath in the palace, there
cometh one of the maids of the high-priest:
d7 And when she saw Peter warming himself, she
looked upon him, and said, And thou also wast with
Jesus of Nazareth.
68 But he denied (it), saying, I know not (the
man), neither understand I what thou sayest. And
he went out into the porch; and the cock crew.
69 And a maid saw him again, and began to say to
them that stood by (what one of them said to him),
This is one of them (that were with Jesus). -
Yº-- - - -
for these two phrases are of equal import in the Hebrew
idiom. So that we need not here St. Austin’s subtlety, viz.
Non ego dico, sed tu ais.
* Ver, 72. Kai Ériéax&y, faxats, And when he thought
thereon, he wept.] I think this reading may be maintained ;
for though Casaubon gave no instance of this signification
of the word, Constantine proves out of Philoponus, Diony-
sius, and St. Basil, that it signifies warrayotiv, mente agitare,
to consider of, and ponder, or fix the mind upon a thing. So
Eustathius says ÉriðáNAE, yovy rig vohºzari, º żpyg, hyovy
#xpt£2.Évā; #yxsteeſ, wai Étrituxācyos, “The word āričáxxo
respects either the action, and then it signifies exactly to take
it in hand ; or the mind, and then it signifies to consider of
it as we are able ;” or, as Phavorinus interprets it, #7135Aw;
vosſy, “aptly and wisely to consider of it.” So again, itrićáx-
Ast ric, Saith Phavorinus, #7tri0s::, ; yoãv, #więżAxel owy ric
voñºzers, &c. in 184xxec-Sai, Émièvºsīy, Étréaxxâxeyoc, in Svºv,
i. e. “the word signifies to think upon, or consider of a
thing ;” and Theophylact here renders it iwánca; ; and this
is sufficient to justify our own translation, that Peter, remem-
bering what our Saviour had foretold concerning his de-
70 And he denied it again. And a little after, they
that stood by said again to Peter, Surely thou art one
of them : for thou art a Galilean, and thy speech
agreeth thereunto (or, is like those of Galilee).
71 But he (upon this) began to (imprecate a) curse
(upon himself) and to swear (saying with an oath), I
know not this man of whom ye speak.
72 And (then) the second time the cock crew.
And Peter (upon that) called to mind the words that
Jesus said to him, (viz.) Before the cock crow twice,
thou shalt deny me thrice. And when he ” thought
thereon (rushing forth from the company) he wept
(bitterly).
nial, and considering how exactly, but shamefully (after all
his confident engagements to the contrary), he had fulfilled
the same, was filled with the compunction, and wept bitterly.
(2.) Whereas the other evangelists say, ižex$3, $o, “he
went forth, and wept there ;” there is another exposition of
the word #718&A&y, which makes it agree with them, and
that is, projiciensse foras, “rushing out from the company,”
or “casting himself out,” he wept ; and plain it is, that in
the book of Maccabees it often signifies irruens, or se proji-
ciens; as when Gorgias attempted #76axeſy sic rāy ºraçãº-
80A;iv, projicere se, “to rush in upon the camp of the Jews,”
(1 Macc. iv. 2), and Judas, vvarā; #ºrišaxöy, “rushing upon
the Jamnites by night, set fire on the haven” (2 Macc. xii.
9, see also xiii. 15. xv. 1): but the most pertinent instance
to this purpose is in Ps. cwiii. 10, where ºwn Tºwn projiciam
vel emittam calceamentum meum, “I will cast forth my
shoe,” is in the Greek, Étréaxó rô Vºráčnº24 pov. Here there-
fore understand only Havrév, and the sense will run agreeably
to St. Matthew and St. Luke ; “and casting himself forth
he wept.”
CHAPTER XV.
1 AND straightway in the morning the chief priests
held a consultation with the elders and scribes and
the whole council, and (upon that consultation they)
bound Jesus, and carried him away * and delivered
him to Pilate. -
2 And Pilate asked him, Art thou the King of the
Jews? And he answering said to him, Thou sayest it
(i. e. it is as thou sayest).
3 And the chief priests accused him of many
things: but he answered nothing.
4 And Pilate asked him again, saying, Answerest
thou nothing? behold, how manythings they witness
against thee.
5 But Jesus yet answered nothing; so that Pilate
marvelled.
6 Now * at (or after the manner of) the feast he re-
leased to them one prisoner, whomsoever they desired.
7 And there was one named Barabbas, who lay
bound with them that had made insurrection with
him, who had committed murder in the insurrection.
8 And the multitude “crying aloud, began to de-
sire him to do as he had ever done to them (at that
feast).
9 But Pilate answered them, saying, Will ye that I
release to you the King of the Jews?
10 (For he knew that the chief priests had delivered
him for envy.)
11 But the chief priests moved the people, that
(they would desire) * he should rather release Barab-
bas to them (and they accordingly did so).
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XV.
* Ver. 1. IIagéºozav rá IIIxáro, They delivered him to
Pilate.] Here the observation of Theophylact is this, “The
Jews delivered up our Lord to the Romans, and they for
that sin were themselves given up into the hands of the
Romans.” *
* Ver. 6. Karā, ś Éogry &réâvey, And at the feast he de-
livered up to them a prisoner whomsoever they desired.] I
conceive that &méavey here is not put for sidósi &roxiety
(Matt. xxvii. 15), “he was wont to deliver up,” as Mr. Le
Clerc thinks, rather karū Şā āopºrºv should be rendered, ad
morem festi, or secundim morem festi, “after the manner of
the feast;” as Karā āv6;aroy Xéyo, “I speak after the man-
ner of a man,” Rom. iii. 5. Gal. iii. 15; war dy%27ſay treet-
wra rév, is “to walk after the manner of men,” 1 Cor. iii. 3;
“to ſight with beasts at Ephesus xară ăy002"row after the
manner of men,” 1 Cor. xv. 32. So ºatã Osoy, Dei in mo-
rem, “after the example of God ;” and among the Attics,
war& rā adrā, that is, war& rôy adröy ºrgémoy, “after the same
manner.” Now the feast of the passover being celebrated
in memory of their release from Egypt, it was agreeable to
the nature of that feast to make this release at that time,
and therefore customary &
* Ver. 8. 'Avagońcac, Urying out..] The Vuigate and
Some MS. copies read here čvačáç, or &ya£horac' but the
Alexandrian copy, Theophylact, and all the eastern versions
reading as we do, and the thirteenth verse saying that Tráxty
#x32%av, “they cried out again,” this must pass only for
a mistake of the copier, or of the abbreviation used by
him. *
* Ver. 11. But the chief priests moved the people, tva
ſwäxxoy Bagagéây &roxſºn attoſ;, that he should rather re-
lease Barabbas to them.] i. e. That he should release Ba-
rabbas, and not Jesus; for their cry was this, “Not this
man, but Barabbas,” John xviii. 40. And that the compa-
rative ºxxoy is often in sense negative, see the note on 1
Tim. i. 4, so Matt. x, 5, “Go no’, into the way of the gen-
CHAPTER xv.
24l
12 And (then) Pilate answered and said again to
them, What will ye then that I shall do to him whom
ye call the King of the Jews
13 And they cried out again, Crucify him.
14 Then Pilate said to them, Why (desire you
this) 8 what evil hath he done (to deserve this punish-
ment) * And (but) they cried out the more exceed-
ingly, Crucify him.
15 And so Pilate, (being) willing to content the
people, released Barabbas to them, ànd delivered Je-
sus, when he had scourged him, to be crucified.
16 And the soldiers led him (immediately) away
into the hall called Praetorium; and they call together
the whole band.
17 And they clothed him with purple (the robe of
kings), and platted a crown of thorns, and put it about
his head,
18 And began to salute him (saying in raillery),
Hail, King of the Jews |
19 And they smote him on the head with a reed,
and did spit upon him, and bowing their knees, wor-
shipped him.
20 And when they had (thus) mocked him, they
took off the purple from him, and put his own clothes
on him, and led him out to crucify him.
21 And they compel one Simon, a Cyrenian, who
passed by, coming out of the country, (and who was)
tiles, ºrogeţease ºxxoy, but go to the lost sheep of the house
of Israel,” ver. 6. Mark ix.43, “It is good to go into life
lame, p.3.xxoy, and not having two hands to go to hell ;"
Eph. iv. 28,” Let him that stole steal no more, Awaxxov 33
worriároſ, but contrariwise let him labour;” v. 4, “Let not
there be among you filthiness, or scurrilous speaking, wºxxoy
33, but giving thanks" (see John xii. 43. Rom. xiv. 13.
Eph. v. 11).
Wer. 14. and Matt. xxvii. 13. Tt yág waxby Étroinae, ;]
Stephanus, and other critics note, that here, and Acts xix.
35, ri; yáp #arty &v860Tro; ; the particle yāg seems redundant,
which also our translation seems to own by not translating
it in either of these places; yet doth it rather seem to be
here, as elsewhere it is, a rational particle, and to have an
elegant relation, by way of answer, to what went before. So
when the high-priest had said of Jesus, Crucify him ;
Pilate's answer is, “Why should I crucify him ; for what
evil hath he done?” And in the latter place the town-clerk,
to appease the cry of the rabble, “Great is Diana of the
Ephesians” (ver. 28), answers, “What needs this cry; for
who knoweth not that the city of Ephesus is a worshipper
of the great goddess Diana P”
* Ver. 25. "Hv 33 &ga reirn, xa, iarašporay airby, And it
was the third hour, and they crucified him.] But St.
John saith, “it was $ga &a's Ekºrn, about the sixth hour,”
xix. 14, when even he was condemned to crucifixion. But
then it must be observed, that the Greek MSS. produced by
Camerarius, Beza, and R. Stephanus, read in St. John,
&ast ºrpiºn, “about the third hour ;” that Nonnus seems to
have read so, his paraphrase running after this manner, ºv
8è tºralvo, #yn retrárn Savarnºpágoc &pa, “The third hour was
not yet past :" that Theophylact contends it ought to be so
read, and that because the three other evangelists unani-
mously say, that the darkness began “at the sixth hour,”
which yet began not till after our Lord had hung upon the
cross some considerable time ; till after the soldiers had di-
vided his garments, the Jews had mocked him, and bid him
come down from the cross, and the discourse had passed
between the two thieves among themselves, and betwixt the
repenting thief and our Lord: and, lastly, the author of
the Constantinopolitan Chronicle Saith expressly, that rà.
&xg18; 8(3xta aúró re rô tºtáxEigoy toº stayyexiaºrov 'Iowawod,
“the exacter copies, and the manuscript of St. John kept
till his time at Ephesus, read &ga &zet rpirm, about the third
hour" (see St. Jerome, in Ps. lxxvii.). And the change
from T the third to ; the sixth, is so easy, that this may
very reasonably be owned in the latter copies of St. John's
Gospel ; especially if we consider how punctual St. Mark
the father of Alexander and Rufus, (two celebrated
Christians afterward, Acts xix, 33. Rom. xvi. 13) to
bear his cross.
22 And they bring him to the place Golgotha,
which is, being interpreted, The place of a skull.
23 And (there) they gave him to drink wine min-
gled with myrrh ; but he received it not (being not
willing, by any stupifying draughts, to allay his
pains).
24 And when they had crucified him, they parted
his garments, casting lots upon them, what every man
should take.
25 °And it was the third hour, and (when) they
crucified him.
26 And "the superscription of his accusation was
written over (his head thus), THE KING of THE JEws.
27 And with him they crucified two thieves; the
one on his right hand, and the other on his left.
28 "And (thus) the scripture was fulfilled, which
saith, And he was numbered with the transgressors.
29 And they that passed by railed on him, wag-
ging their heads, and saying, Ah, thou that destroy-
est the temple, and buildest it in three days,
30 Save thyself, and come down from the cross.
31 Likewise also the chief priests mocking said
among themselves with the scribes, He saved others,
(but) himself he cannot save.
is in the enumeration of the hours, saying, “It was the
third hour, and they crucified him,” or began to lead him
away to be crucified ; and, ver, 33, “When the sixth hour
was come,” from that time “there was darkness over the
whole earth till the ninth hour;” and, wer. 34, at the ninth
hour Jesus expired.
This I prefer before the exposition of some others, that
St. John speaks of the hours according to the Roman, and
St. Mark according to the computation of the Jews; first,
because this alters not the difficulty, there being the same
distance of time betwixt the Romans' sixth, and the Jews'
third hour, as between the Jews' third and their sixth, i. e.
three hours’ difference. And, secondly, because the vulgar
hours, by which the Romans reckoned, and the hours of the
Jews, were the same, viz. twelve, as our Lord shows in
these words, “Are there not twelve hours of the day ?”
John xi. 9; and Dempster in these words, Dies civilis duo-
decim horarum (Auctu. p. 175); “The civil day of the
Romans contained twelve hours.” And, thirdly, if St. Mark,
writing his gospel at Rome for the Romans there, retains
the Jewish hours, we have more reason to conceive that St.
John should do so.
* Ver. 26. Kai hv h Étriygaspi rāg airiac aſſroi, ºrtysygapº-
ºw#vn, And the superscription of his accusation was writ-
ten..] This is spoken according to the manner of the Ro-
mans, by whom the title of the crimes, for which the crimi-
mals were condemned, were either carried before them, or
affixed to the instrument of their punishment: thus Dio “
speaks of a Roman servant crucified by his master, pºstó.
3/papºpº.4 roy rºy airlay rig Sayarºo Bog Snºoúvrov, “with a writ-
ing declaring the cause of his death.” See of this matter
other instances in Lipsius de Cruce, lib. ii. cap. 11, p.
52, 53. -
7 Ver. 28. Kai ärang&n ypaqº, And the scripture was
fulfilled, which saith, Isa. liii. 12, And he was numbered
with the transgressors.] Seeing Abarbanel, and R. Moses
Alshe, testify that their rabbins did with one mouth con-
fess that the words of this chapter were spoken “of Messiah
the king,” and they bring in God inquiring of the Messiah
thus, f “Wilt thou heal and redeem my sons after six thou-
sand years? Wilt thou bear chastisement to expiate their
iniquities according to what is written, Isa. liii. 4, Surely he
bore our griefs P’’ they cannot reasonably deny that these
* Lib. liv. p. 598. + In Isa. lii. 13.
† See Cartw. Mell. Cr. Sec. p. 2975. R
242
MARK.
32 Let Christ, (who styles himself) the King of Is-
rael, descend now from the cross, that we may see
and believe. And they (one of them) that were cruci-
fied with him reviled him.
33 And when the sixth hour was come, there "was
iº over the whole land (of Judea) till the ninth
OUIT.
34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud
voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani which is,
being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me?
35 And some of them that stood by, when they
heard it, said, Behold, he calleth Elias.
36 And one ran and filled a sponge full of vinegar,
and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink, saying,
Let alone; let us see whether Elias will come to take
him down.
37 And Jesus cried (again) with a loud voice (say-
ing, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit), and
(so) gave up the ghost.
38 And (then) the veil of the temple (which parted
the holy place from the most holy) was rent in twain
from the top to the bottom (see paraphrase on Matt.
xxvii. 51).
39 And when the centurion, which stood over
against him, saw that he so cried out, and (Gr. that,
he so crying) gave up the ghost, he said, Truly this
man was the Son of God.
40 There were also women looking on afar off:
among whom was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the
mother of James the less and of Joses, and Salome;
41 Who also, when he was in Galilee, followed him
(as he was teaching), and ministered to him; and many
other women which came up with him to Jerusalem.
42 And now when the even was come (because it
was (the even of) the preparation, that is, (of) the day
before the sabbath),
43 Joseph of Arimathea, an *honourable counsel-
lor, who also waited for the kingdom of God, came,
and went in boldly to Pilate, and craved the body of
Jesus (might be given him). •,
44 And Pilate marvelled if he were (that he was)
already dead: and calling to him the centurion,
he asked him whether he had been any while dead.
45 And when he knew it of (i. e. the certainty from)
the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph. .
46 And he brought fine linen, and took him down,
and wrapped him in the linen, and laid him in a se-
pulchre which was hewn out of a rock, and rolled a
stone to the door of the sepulchre. -
47 And Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of
Joses, beheld where he was laid.
words were fulfilled by Christ's crucifixion between two
thieves.
* Wer. 33. xxáro; #yévero #4 &ny rºy yºv, There was dark-
mess over the whole earth.] Of this darkness Africanus *
speaks thus, rotºro rô a záro; #xxel-bºy #xiou Q&Axoc imiwaxeſ rairn
Tây to rogºży, Ög pºol 80xtſ &Xáyog, “This darkness Thallus calls
an eclipse of the sun in the third book of his history, but
without reason, as I conceive.” Origeni saith, “Phlegon
in the fourteenth book of his Chronicles writ of the defec-
tion of the sun under Tiberius Caesar, in whose reign it is
manifest that our Lord suffered.” Tertullian f saith, that
this prodigious darkening of the sun was recorded in the
Roman archives; “ For,” saith he, “at the same moment
about noontide the day was withdrawn, they, who knew not
that this was foretold concerning Christ, thought it was an
eclipse.” And Eusebius in his Chronicle, at the eighteenth
year of Tiberius, saith, “ Christ suffered this year. In which
time we find in other commentaries of the heathens these
words, There was a defection of the sun, Bithynia was
shaken with an earthquake, and many houses fell down in
the city of Nice :” and then he proceeds to the testimony
of Phlegon. 4.
* Chronogr.
+ Contra Celsum, lib. ii. p. 80.
† Apol, cap. 21.
* Ver. 43. Etax#woy 3ovXEurºc, An honourable counsel-
lor.] That is, saith Dr. Hammond, a decurio, one of those
who were appointed for a standing council to a Roman
colony. But against this Mr. Le Clerc objects that he was
Joseph of Arimathea ; now, saith he, “that was never re-
puted a Roman colony,” and therefore he conjectures he is
here named a “counsellor,” as being one of the greater San-
hedrin, or of the council of the high-priest, who had a cham-
ber in the temple, in which he consulted with the priests,
called “the chamber of the counsellors,” saith Dr. Light-
foot here; they who were of the council of the high-priest
being called, saith he, 8ouxgutai, “counsellors.” And this
is the most likely, because Arimathea was a city of Judea ;
this Joseph had a sepulchre in Jerusalem, and “waited for
the consolation of Israel,” which are indications rather of a
Jew than of a Roman ; and especially because it is pecu-
liarly noted of him by St. Luke, that “he consented not to
the counsel or actions of them who “ destroyed our Lord
(xxiii. 51). He therefore might have consented to them,
being one of the Sanhedrin : hence he is introduced, John
xix. 38, 39, with Nicodemus, who certainly was one of the
great Sanhedrin, John iii. 1. vii. 50, doing kind offices to
Christ ; the first begging his body, that it might not be
buried in the common burial-place of malefactors; the
other bringing spices to embalm him, as being both disciples
of the holy Jesus (Matt. xxvii. 57).
CHAPTER XVI.
1 AND when the sabbath was past, Mary Magda-
lene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome,
(who) * had bought sweet spices, that they might come
and anoint (i. e. embalm) him (set out).
2 And *very early in the morning, the first day of
the week, they came to the sepulchre at the rising of
the Sun. -
3 And they said among themselves, Who shall roll
us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre :
4 And when they looked, they saw that the stone
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVI.
* Wer. 1. 'Hyāpaaay 3p3ºzara, Had bought spices.] This
translation is justified from Luke xxiii. 56, where it is said,
They prepared these spices (before), and rested on the
sabbath-day ; so that the aorist is here put for the perfect
tense (see examples of like nature, note on 1 Cor. Y. 9).
* Wer. 2, Kai Aizy Trgot rā; aſſic rāy a aggário, if x ºral
was rolled away; for (that which made them solicitous
about it was, that) it was very great.
5 And entering into the sepulchre, they saw (one
in the shape of) a young man sitting on the right side
(of the sepulchre), clothed with a long white garment;
and they were affrighted (at the sight of him).
6 And he saith to them, Be not (ye) affrighted:
(for) ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified:
he is risen; he is not here ; (come near, and) behold
the place where they laid him.
#mri ré paympºstoy, Very early in the morning.] 'Oslº rāy wag-
84 roy, ºff #irt pozzoğan si; ºwizy orać9átov, “In the end of the
week, as it began to dawn towards the first day of the
week,” Matt. xxviii. 1, “On the first day of the week, 360°ou
Ba%2c, very early in the morning,” Luke xxiv. 1, a xoria; it.
oğanç “when it was yet dark,” John xx. 1, i. e. they began
their journey to see the sepulchre, whilst it was only twilight,
or whilst there was a mixture of light and darkness, saith St.
CHAPTER XVI.
243
7 But go your way, tell his disciples, and (espe-
cially) *Peter, that he goeth before you into Galilee:
there shall ye see him, (according) as he said to you.
8 And they went out quickly, and fled from the
sepulchre; for they trembled, and were amazed (at
the sight); neither said they anything to any man
(whom they met by the way); for they were afraid.
9 Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of
the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of
whom he had cast seven devils. ->
10 And she went and told them that had been with
him (his disciples), as they mourned and wept.
11 And (but) they, when they had heard that he
was alive, and had been seen of her, believed not.
12 After that he appeared in another form to two
of them as they walked (to Emmaus, Luke xxiv. 13)
and (so) went into the country. -
13 And they went and told it to the residue : *nei-
ther believed they them (see the note).
14 Afterward he appeared to the eleven as they sat
at meat, and "upbraided them with their unbelief and
hardness of heart, because they believed not them
who had seen him after he was risen.
15 And he said to them, Go ye into all the world,
and preach the gospel to every “creature, (to all na-
tions, Matt. xxviii. 19).
16 He that believeth and is baptized "shall be saved
(by his continuance in that faith, 1 Cor. xv. 2. Col. i.
23), but he that believeth not (the gospel preached,
and by miracles confirmed to him), shall be damned.
17 And these “signs shall follow them that believe:
(By virtue of that faith) in my name shall they cast
out devils ; (and) they shall speak with new tongues
(which they had not learned).
18 They shall take up serpents (without being hurt
by them) ; and if they drink any deadly thing, (the
poison of) it shall not hurt them; they shall lay their
hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
Matthew, 3-lè rāy orać8ároy, “after the end of the former
week " (see the note there); they passed through the city,
and came to the sepulchre, &yaret'Aávro; rod haiov, “as the sun
began to arise.” This may be illustrated from a passage
of Agellius,” that “when two times immediately succeed
one another, it matters not whether we reckon from the end
of the one, or the beginning of the other.”
* Ver. 7. Kai rā, IIÉrgº, Say to his disciples, and to Peter.]
Peter is here named, not as prince of the apostles, but, as
the fathers say, for his consolation, to take off the scruple
which might lie upon his spirit, whether, after his threefold
denial of his Master, he had not forfeited his right to be one
of Christ's disciples. So St. Gregory, Jerome, St. Chry-
sostom, and others. -
* Ver. 13. Oiśā Āzāiyot; #Trio revoray, Nor believed they them.]
“And (ver. 11) they believed not;”“When he showed them
his hands and feet, they believed not for joy,” Luke xxiv.
41 ; “When they saw him,” according to his promise, in
Galilee, “some doubted,” Matt. xxviii. 17. Hence one of
the ancients says well, Nos de illorum dubitatione solidari,
“Their doubting is the confirmation of our faith;” and the
more difficulty they showed in believing Christ's resurrection,
the greater reason have we to believe it; for the testimony
of them who believed not themselves, till after unquestionable
conviction, is the more credible on that account.
* Ver. 14. 'QWeißig's Tây driaríay attày, agi a 4N190xagölaw, &c.
He wybraided them for their unbelief and hardness of heart,
that they believed not them that had seen him.] That after
so many assurances from his own mouth, that he would “rise
again the third day;” and after so many eye-witnesses that
he had performed his promise, they believed not. And, if
this be attributed to them as culpable unbelief and “hard-
ness of heart,” surely they must much more be guilty of
these sins, who—after the testimony of these apostles, and
five hundred more eye-witnesses of his resurrection ; after
the ocular testimony of a whole world of Christians, touch-
ing the mighty miracles performed in his name by the
apostles, the chosen “witnesses of his resurrection,” and by
many others who believed it, and were baptized into this
faith; after so many internal and external experiments all
Christian churches had of the miraculous gifts of the Spirit,
exercised before their eyes and their assemblies, and by them-
selves, for a whole age together, do yet continue to disbe-
lieve that resurrection and the faith confirmed by it.
* Ver. 15. Preach the gospel, Tráan rà writes, to every
creature.] i. e. To all men; not in opposition to, but in con-
* Tempora duo clim inter se opposita Sunt, atque ita
cohaerentia, ut alteriut finis cum alterius initio misceatur,
non refert utrüm per extremitatem prioris, an per initium
sequentis, locus ipse confinis demonstretur, lib. vii, cap.
21.
+ Si angelus Petrum mon nominasset, venire inter discipu-
los non auderes: vocatur ergö ex nomine ne desperet ex ne-
gatione. Hom. 21 in Evang. 'Ereğn #pyńa'ato & IIereo;, Theoph.
in locum. Hieron. et Beda in Gloss. Ord.
junction with the Jews, to whom they were first to preach
it; for so their commission runs, viz. “To preach Big Trávra.
ºrê ššwn, to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem,” Luke xxiv.
47 (see this more fully, note on Rom. viii. 23).
7 Ver. 16. ‘O mia-reſca; wai 8artia 68k, co,0ha Etat” & 33
dria-ráza;, xataxg10hastal, He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved ; but he that believeth not shall be dammed.]
He shall be saved, i.e. he shall by virtue of that faith and
baptism be put into a state of Salvation; so that, if he con-
tinue in that faith, and do not wilfully recede from his bap-
tismal covenant, he shall actually be saved : of which import
of the phrases, “ salvation” and being “saved,” see note on
Eph. ii. 8. Note also, that they who hence conclude that.
infants are not capable of baptism, because they cannot be-
lieve, must also hence conclude they cannot be saved ; faith
being here more expressly required to Salvation than to bap-
tism. Note, thirdly, Thut in the second clause baptism is
omitted, because it is not simply the want of baptism, but
the contemptuous neglect of it, which makes men guilty of
damnation ; otherwise infants might be damned for the mis-
takes or the profaneness of their parents.
* Ver. 17. Xmpºsta 33 roſ, ºria reſºraqi rajra Tragazoxov6%ast,
And these signs shall follow them that believe, &c.] Of the
casting out devils, the healing diseases, the speaking with
new tongues, see the general preface to the Epistles, §. 17—
19. Of the drinking of deadly poisons, I find but four in-
stances recorded in history ; that of Barsabas,” who, saith
Papias, drank of it without hurt; that of the Cecilian sol-
dier, mentioned by Ado in his Martyrology; that of Sabinus,
bishop of Canoso, mentioned by Gregory of Tours: and that
of Joshua Ben Levi, who, having drunk a deadly poison,
was, saith the Jewish Talmud, “cured by pronouncing the
name of Jesus.” Of taking up serpents without hurt,
though venomous, we find in scripture only the instance of
St. Paul, Acts xxviii. 5, and in church history we find but
few of any credit, though the words of Tertulliani seem to
intimate, that “the faith of Christians not only preserved
themselves, but helped even heathens.” And miracles of
this nature being more liable to exceptions than those which
were performed upon unbelievers, it being easy to imagine
they might have some antidotes against the venom of those
beasts, or the pernicious operations of those draughts, it
seemed good to Providence to be more sparing in affording
them.
By way of appendix to this chapter, it may be noted,
that St. Jerome hath long since told us, that “this chapter
was rarely to be found in this gospel, and that scarce any of
the Greek copies had it:” but notwithstanding these words
of Jerome, it is evident, that this chapter was owned in the
* Euseb. Eccl. Hist. lib. iii. cap. 39, p. 112.
+ Nobis fides praesidium, si nonet insá percutitur diffiden- .
tià signandi statim et adjurandi et urgendi bestiae calcem,
hóc denique modo etiam ethnicis Saepè subvenimus, donati à
Deo ea potestate quam apostolus dedicavit quum morsum
vipera sprevit. Scorp. cap. 1. *
R 2
244.
MARK.
19 So then after the Lord had spoken (thus) to
them, he was received up into heaven, and sat at the
right hand of God.
20 And they went forth (after the Holy Ghost had
come upon them), and preached everywhere; the Lord
working with them, and confirming the word with
signs following. Amen (i. e. So it was). -
times of Irenaeus,” who cites the nineteenth verse of it, and
says, that St. Mark, “in the end of his gospel, tells us that
Christ ascended into heaven,” &c. The Apostolical Con-
stitutions: cite these words, ver. 16, “He that believeth and
is baptized, shall be saved ; but he that believeth not shall
be damned.” They also fully cite the seventeenth and eigh-
teenth verses.j. This chapter is also to be found in all the
versions, and, as Beza testifies, in all the old MSS. Nor doth
Theophylact, in his notes upon it, take notice of any Greek
copies where it had been wanting.
And as for the seeming opposition betwixt what is record-
ed in this chapter, and in the other evangelists, which St.
Jerome Ś tells us, “was the occasion why this chapter was
by some rejected,” I shall first enumerate them, and then
endeavour to return a sufficient answer to them.
Obj. 1. St. Matthew and St. Mark make mention only of
one angel appearing to and speaking with the women which
came to the sepulchre; whereas St. Luke and St. John
mention two angels. &
Ans. I cannot here approve the solution of Vossius, that
one angel only is mentioned by St. Matthew and St. Mark, be-
cause one only spake to the women ; seeing St. Luke saith
in the plural, starov ºrgh; air&;, “The angels said unto them,”
xxiv. 15, St. John, Aéyoval air; #zgivol, “They said to Mary
Magdalene,” xx. 13, besides, the place of their appearance
and the words they speak differ from the place and words of
the first angel.
I answer, therefore, that one only is mentioned by St.
Matthew and St. Mark, because the women standing without
theinward sepulchre, or being only on the floor or pavement
of it, saw but one angel, who said unto them, “He is not
here, he is risen ; come, see the place where the Lord lay ;”
and then “go tell his disciples and Peter ofit” (Matt. xxviii.
6. Mark xvi. 6); but when, in obedience to the words of
this angel, they proceed to look into the cave, or inward se-
pulchre, where the Lord lay, they see two other angels, one
sitting at Christ's head, another at his feet, where his body
was laid (John xx. 12. Luke xxiv. 5), and saying words the
other did not, but giving them nointimation that they should
tell these things to Christ's disciples; and this seems to be a
plain account of this matter, from the very words of the
evangelists.
Obj. 2. St. John and St. Matthew say, the women stood
“without the sepulchre,” when they saw the angel or angels;
St. Mark and St. Luke, that they had this vision when they
were come “within the sepulchre.”
Ans. That the truth of the matter of this objection may
be justly questioned. For, first, as St. John saith of Mary
Magdalene, she stood ºrgă, r3 ºxynºſov, “at the sepulchre,”
which may signify either within or without, ver, 11, so ver. 1,
he saith, she came six rô ºvnºsſov, “into the sepulchre ;” and
that she was upon the pavement, or in the outward sepul-
chre, when she is said to stand at the sepulchre, is evident
from this, that only by stooping down she looked down into
the cave, or inward sepulchre, where the angels stood at the
place where his body had been laid (ver. 11, 12). St. Mat-
thew saith nothing directly of the place where the women
were when they saw the angel ; but because he saith, that the
angel sat upon the stone which he had rolled from the se-
pulchre, hence they conclude that the angel sat without the
Sepulchre ; but the stone being rolled to the mouth of the
cave, or inward sepulchre, where Christ's body lay (Matt.
* In fine autem evangelii ait Marcus, Et quidem Domi-
mus Jesus postguam loquutus est eis, receptus est in coelos,
et Sedet ad dexteram Dei. Lib. iii. cap. 11, p. 257.
+ Lib. vi. cap. 15. + Lib. viii. cap. 1.
§ Hujus quaestionis duplex solutio est, aut enim non re-
cipimus Marci testimonium, quod in raris fertur evangeliis,
omnibus Graecia libris penè hoc capitulum in fine non haben.
tibus, præsertim cum diversa atque contraria evangelistis cap-
teris narrare videatur. Ep. ad Hedib. Qu. 3. Greg. Nyssen.
Orat. 2 in Resur. Euthymius. * &
xxvii. 60), the angel might sit upon it thus rolled away, and
yet sit in a part of the outward Sepulchre, or pavement, as
St. Mark saith he did, ver. 5, when he bid the women come,
and see where the Lord lay. In a word, they were without
the cave, or sepulchre. according to St. Matthew; but within
the pavement, outward fence, sept, or wall of the outward
sepulchre, when they saw the single angel, as St. Mark saith;
being invited, Mary Magdalene stoops down into the cave,
or inward sepulchre, of which St. Luke and St. John speak,
and sees two angels present there, in a quiescent posture
represented in scripture sometimes by sitting, sometimes by
standing.
Obj. 3. St. Mark saith, ver. 8, the women “said nothing
to any man ;" the other three evangelists that they told
these things to the apostles, or disciples.
Ans. And so saith St. Mark expressly, that “they went
and told these things, roſ; ºwer' airoij, to those who belonged
to Christ,” and were usually with him (ver. 10, 11). And
he saith only (ver. 8), that during their flight from the se-
pulchre, and amazement, before Christ's appearance to Mary
(ver. 9), they said nothing to any whom they met about the
Sepulchre.
Obj. 4. St. Matthew, Mark, and Luke say, that the wo-
men came first to the sepulchre ; saw the angel or angels ;
yea, and Christ too, say Matthew and Mark, before they
came to the apostles; St. John saith, Christ was seen of
Mary, after St. John and Peter had been at the se-
pulchre.
Ans. I answer here again, the matter of fact seems not
exactly related in this objection; for John Saith expressly,
as the other evangelists did, that Mary Magdalene came
first to the sepulchre, and saw the stone rolled away (ver.
1), and that she ran and told Peter and John of it (ver. 2);
he therefore doth not, or could not say, that Peter and John
came before Mary to the sepulchre. Moreover, it is plain
from all the other evangelists, and especially from St. Luke,
that Peter and John went to the sepulchre after she had told
these things to the apostles ; for having said this, ver, 10, he
adds, ver, 12, that “Peter rising up, ran to the sepulchre :”
and ver. 22, 23, he introduces two disciples speaking thus to
Christ, “Some women of our own being early at the sepul-
chre, made us astonished; for they came, saying they had
seen a vision of angels, who told them that he was alive.”
Wain here seems the imagination of some, who say, St. John
speaks here of Peter and John first, because their testimony
was to be preferred before the testimony of women ; for
they neither saw Christ, nor had a vision, telling them that
he was risen, as the women had and did, but only saw his
body was not there, which the Jews denied not. The words
therefore of St. John, ver. 11, Mapia 3: Biarázsi, may be ren-
dered thus, “Mary had stood at the sepulchre, and, stooping
down, had seen ;” and then there is no word of any difference
in the order of this narration among the evangelists, though
nothing is more slight than that ; or else it may be said, that
St. John thus postpones the story of Mary Magdalene, be-
cause he having a particular thing to Say of her (ver. 15),
which all the other evangelists had omitted, he would put
her whole story together.
Obj. 5. St. Matthew saith, the women “held Christ's feet,”
(ver. 9), but St. John, that Christ said to Mary Magdalene,
“Touch me not” (ver. 17).
Ans. True it is that St. John saith, Christ spake thus to
her: but he saith not that Christ said this before she had
touched him ; and therefore he saith nothing in opposition
to St. Matthew. Besides, the meaning of those words,
“Touch me not,” is only this, Be not so solicitous to hold
me, as if I was immediately to go hence, and thou should-
est see me no more; thou mayest have time sufficient
for that, for “I do not yet ascend” (see the note on John
xx. 17). - .
dº 6. Here it is said, ver. 12, 13, that the two disci-
ples returning from Emmaus “told these things (con-
cerning our Lord's resurrection) to the residue, neither be-
lieved they them:” but Luke xxiv. 34, it is said, that at
CHAPTER XVII.
2:5
their return they heard them, saying, “The Lord is risen
again, and hath appeared to Simon.” 3.
Ans. They said this indeed, but none with a firm faith,
excluding doubting ; for after this Jesus himself appearing
to them, “doubtful thoughts arose within them." (Lukexxiv.
38), and when our Lord hath shown them his hands and his
feet, “they believed not yet for joy, and wondered,” ver. 41
(see Dr. Lightfoot on Luke xxiv. 34).
A P P E N D IX
TO CHAP. XIV.
Concerning the day on which our Lord did eat the passover
with his disciples.
FoR resolution of this question, let it be noted:
First, That the paschal lamb was to be killed in the
evening of the fourteenth day of the month Nisan ; for so
we read, Exod. xii. 6, “And the whole congregation shall kill
it in the evening,” or “between the two evenings,” saith the
Hebrew: so also Lev. xxiii. 5, “In the fourteenth day of
the first month at even (Hebr. between the two evenings)
shall be the Lord’s passover.” Now hence we learn, that
though the day of the Jews began and ended at the even-
ing, yet was it the latter even, on the fourteenth day, in which
the passover was to be killed ; because the Jews had not
two evenings in the morning, but only in the close of the
day, the latter evening beginning at the setting of the sun;
and (2.) because the fifteenth day, or “first day of un-
leavened bread,” began immediately after the eating of the
paschal lamb ; and therefore, ver. 7, is called the day “when
they did sacrifice the passover, " and the seven days of it
were accounted from that day to the twenty-first day of the
same month (Exod. xii. 17, 18); whereas had they been
reckoned from the beginning of the fourteenth day, there
would have been not seven only, but eight days of unleavened
bread. Accordingly Josephus * doth inform us, that they
did kill the paschal lambs & ré šwātn; #pa; ºxçi väexárnº,
“from the ninth hour to the eleventh.” Note,
Secondly, That the paschal lamb was to be killed and
offered at a set time, and the whole congregation was
never to transfer it to another season: for it is expressly
said, Exod. xii. 14, “This day (of the passover) shall be to
you for a memorial, and ye shall keep it (i. e. this same day)
as a feast by an ordinance for ever ;" and, xiii. 10, “Thou
shalt keep this ordinance (of the passover, and of the feast
of unleavened bread) Tynºb in its set time from year to
year:” and Lev. xxiii. 5, “On the fourteenth day at even
shall be the Lord's passover:” whence it is evident, there
could be no translation of either of these feasts to another
day, time, or season, without plain violation of the law of
Moses.
Moreover, The reason of the translation assigned by
those who hold the Jews did thus translate it when our Sa-
viour suffered, is this, viz. That this was done, that the first
day of unleavened bread, being as a sabbath, might fall
upon a Sabbath day, lest two sabbaths should succeed
each other: whereas it is evident, that, upon this transla-
tion, two sabbaths must succeed each other ; for the se-
venth day of unleavened bread, being a sabbath as much
as the first, Exod. xii. 16, must then fall upon the Friday
following, and so two Sabbaths must succeed each the
other.
Thirdly, That Christ did eat the last passover with his
disciples at the day and time accustomed, and did not an-
ticipate the day, seems evident from the concurrent testimony
of three evangelists, and from the reason of the thing.
For,
First, St. Matthew saith, xxvi. 17, that the first day of
unleavened bread Christ's disciples did prepare, and at
the even of that day Christ with them did eat the pass-
over ; St. Mark, xiv. 12, that the first day of unleavened
bread the Jews killed the passover; St. Luke, that then
came, or was coming, the day of unleavened bread, “in which
the passover ought to be killed,” Luke xxii. 7. He there-
*- *
* De Bello Jud. lib, vii. cap 45.
fore did eat the passover, 3rs #8wov, “when the Jews killed
it ;” and in the day, #y # #38, Siſsa Sai, “in which it ought to
be eaten ;” and on the first day of unleavened bread, which
was contemporary with the passover, according to those
words of St. Mark, “After two days was the passover, and
the feast of unleavened bread” (Mark xiv. 1). Whereas
both could not have been on the same day, had not the feast
of unleavened bread begun on the fourteenth of Nisan: and
therefore Maimonides and others, on Exod. xii. 15. Deut. xvi.
4, say, that the fourteenth of Nisan is called “the first day
of unleavened bread;” it being said, Exod. xii. 15, at even,
“the first day,” ye shall put leaven out of your houses, and
yet they did this on the fourteenth after mid-day: and,
Deut. xvi. 4, “There shall no leavened bread be seen with
thee seven days; neither shall any of the flesh (of the pas-
chal lamb), which thou sacrificedst the first day at even,
remain till the morning.” Whence it appears, that though
the fifteenth of Nisan was “the first day of unleavened bread,”
as to the holy convocation, yet was the fourteenth the first
day as to the separation of leaven from their houses: and
therefore, in relation to this computation, Josephus saith,”
#cerºy &yoºsy #4' hºga; bºro, röy rôy 33%zov AEyotzèvny, “We
celebrate the feast of unleavened bread eight days.” And
again that + iyoºráanç rºc rāv čğway Bogºrſ; 30aayre; rhy
Asyogaśvny ºráoxa, “when the feast of unleavened bread was
come, they, sacrificing the passover in the days of king Josias,
offered other sacrifices, #4' hººpa; Érrà, for seven days fol-
lowing.” He therefore who did eat it “on the first day of
unleavened bread,” did eat it on the fourteenth day of Nisan,
and on the day when the Jews did so. Vain therefore is
the observation, that Christ is said not Śāsty, “to kill or Sa-
crifice,” but only traigſy and pāysty, to celebrate and eat the
passover, seeing he did it at the time &re #8wov, “when the
Jêws killed the passover,” and sent his disciples to prepare,
i. e. to kill and dress it for him, as usually (saith Dr. Light-
foot) servants did for their masters, that he might eat of it.
And vainer still is the argument from the word "roſó “with
thee do I eat ;” not "rotºcol, “I will eat” the passover, Matt.
xxvi. 18, for seeing the disciples went to prepare it, that he
might eat of it, Mark xiv. 12, 14, seeing they prepared it at
the time when the Jews did and “ought to kill the passover,”
and seeing he comes “in the evening” of that day to eat it,
according to the commandment, with the twelve, Mark xiv.
17, it is evident these words are well rendered, “I will keep”
the passover at thy house when my disciples have pre-
pared it.
Arg. 2. Secondly, Christ saith to his disciples, “Ye know
that after two days is the passover,” Matt. xxvi. 2; and Mark
xiv. 1, “The passover and the feast of unleavened bread was
after two days;” or, as St. Luke hath it, “The feast of un-
leavened bread, called the passover,” xxii. 1, and that Christ
did not eat it till the first day of unleavened bread, hath
been proved already, therefore he did not eat it till after
those two days, when the disciples and the Jews knew the
passover was by them to be eaten.
Arg. 3. Thirdly, The day following, i.e. the day on which
Christ suffered, was a feast day, for Barabbas was released
“at the feast,” Matt. xxvii. 15. Mark xv. 6. Luke xxiii. 17.
Now the feast of unleavened bread, in which a holy con-
vocation was held, was the day after the passover, as we
read, Lev. xxiii. 4–6, “In the fifteenth day of the first
month is the Lord's passover ; and on the fifteenth day of
the same month is the feast of unleavened bread ; in the first
day ye shall have a holy convocation.”
Fourthly, If Christ had celebrated the passover by an
anticipation on the thirteenth of Nisan, he had violated the
law which expressly requires the celebration of it on the
fourteenth day, and upon that account might have been
justly liable to the censure of the Jews ; nor would his
disciples have come to him before the time appointed by
the law, and by the rulers of the Jews, with that question,
“Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the pass-
over?” (Matt. xxvi. 17. Mark xiv. 12) nor would they, with-
out scruple, have eaten with him against the letter of the
law, or the custom of their nation: and that they did not
—r-,
* Antiq. lib. ii. cap. 5, p. 65, D.
+ Ibid. lib. iii. cap. 14, p. 324, B.
MARK.
so is plain, because they put this question to him only “on
the first day of unleavened bread,” in which the passover
ought to be eaten, saith St. Luke. *
Fifthly, It is confessed on all hands, that our Lord suf.
fered on Friday ; and also, that at the same time that he did
eat the passover, he instituted the holy sacrament of the
Lord's supper ; and yet, that he did this the same night that
he was betrayed, St. Paul informs us, 1 Cor. xi. 23. Now
all the evangelists inform us, that in the morning following
he was led bound to Pilate, at the “sixth hour” was cruci-
fied, at the “ninth hour” expired ; therefore he must be cruci-
fied the day after he instituted the sacrament, and so the day
after he celebrated the passover : the day of his crucifixion
being therefore Friday, he must have celebrated the pass-
over on Thursday, or on the fourteenth of Nisan, according
to the law. -
Lastly, The paschal lamb could not be slain but in the
place which God had chosen to put his name there (Deut.
xvi. 6), that is the temple. Now this the priests would
never have done for any contrary to the law, which ap-
pointed the slaying of it on the “fourteenth day betwixt the
two evenings” (ibid.). Now this, if it were not done by the
priests, as Josephus intimates, but, as Philo saith,” “on a
set day of every year, every one was then a priest for him-
self;” yet would not the apostles have either done it or have
asked to do it on any other day than that which by the law
and by the practice of the nation was appointed for that
work. And whereas, to take off the force of this argu-
ment some learned persons have invented a distinction be-
twixt ºráoza. Švrtköy, i.e. “a passover in which a lamb was
sacrificed” according to the law, and www.oyevrtköy, or “a com-
memoration of it without a sacrifice,” and say our Saviour
only did the latter, this is a novel and absurd imagination :
it is new ; for though some of the Greek church from the
fifth century have held that Christ anticipated the day, I
find not one of them who says he did not eat the paschal
lamb. It is also without precedent among the ancient
Jews, who in the times of their captivity and dispersion
never celebrated any such commemorative passover, nor
could do it without a sin like that of Jeroboam, by de-
Vising a celebration of it on their own heads against the
tenor of the law ; but, as Mr. Ainsworth notes, were then
contented to keep the feast of unleavened bread, which be-
ing not confined to one place might be observed in their cap-
tivity and their dispersions. Moreover, admit that such an
uncommanded memorial of the passover had been kept by
them, when, their temple being burnt, they could not offer
sacrifice, and in their dispersions at such distance from it
they could not repair to it; yet is there no one instance nor.
any semblance of a reason, that this was ever done by any
present at Jerusalem, where Christ was at that very time,
in which, saith St. Luke, “they ought to sacrifice the pass.
OWGºr.
, Obj. 1. But on the contrary it is objected, (1.) that it is
plainly said that our Lord ate that supper in which he said,
“One of you shall betray me,” and in which he gave the sop
to Judas Trp) rºc #26tic roi, Trácza, John xiii. 1, “before the
päschal feast ;” and yet that supper seems to be the same
with that mentioned in the other evangelists. To this I
anSWer
Ans. First, That it neither was the same, nor indeed
could be the same, and for the very reason assigned in the
objection, because it was held “before the feast of the pass-
over ;” whereas it is already proved, our Saviour kept the
paschal feast on the first day of unleavened bread, when the
Jews did and ought to kill the passover, and when the feast
of unleavened bread, called the passover, was come, Luke
xxii. 1.7. (2.) Because, when Christ said at this supper to
Judas going out, from it, “What thou doest, do quickly,”
some of the disciples thought that our Lord had bid him
“ prepare those things which they had need of against the
feast;’ viz. the paschal feast: whereas Christ keeping the
feast but one night, they could not have so conceived of
his words, had they then celebrated the paschal supper; nor
* IIázza #y # 660Vol. Travenue, adrāy warroc, robº ispeſ; airów
oëx évalºvoytes, ispo.cºrny rod vôºou Xapičop,évov rá #8wei Tavri
&lay #4 #ay. De Decim. p. 591.
was Judas ever employed by Christ in making preparation
for the paschal supper, but Peter and John, Luke xxii. 8.
(3.) The devil entered into Judas after our Lord had given
the sop to him at this supper (John xiii. 2. 7), and yet this
is evident from St. Luke, xxii. I. 3, that Satan entered
into Judas when the passover was only near, but not yet
come (ver. 8). And (4.) had the supper mentioned here by
St. John been the paschal supper, Judas must have made
his agreement to betray Christ after that supper ; whereas
it is plain from all the other evangelists, that he did that
before the paschal supper (see Matt xxvi. 14. Mark xiv. 10.
Luke xxii. 4).
Ans. 2. And (2) there is a great difference betwixt the
circumstance relating to him that should betray him here
and at the paschal supper ; for here Christ privately tells
John who it was that should betray him (John xiii. 25, 26),
but at the paschal supper he makes him known to them all
(Matt. xxvi. 25. Luke xxii. 21). Here he makes him known
to St. John, by giving him a sop which he himself had dip-
ped in the dish (John xiii. 26), but in the paschal supper
he makes him known by this, that he had his hand with him
in the dish (Matt. xxvi. 24. Mark xiv. 20). -
Obj. 2. Secondly, It is objected, that the Jews the day
our Saviour suffered would not enter into the judgment-hall
lest they should be defiled, and so unfit to eat the pass-
ever, John xviii. 28, whereas Christ ate of it the night be-
fore he suffered. -
Ans. To this I answer, that by the passover mentioned
John xviii. 28, we are to understand, not the paschal lamb,
but the chagigah, or peace-offering, the sheep and oxen of
fered all the seven days of the feast, and which are expressly
called the passover, as the whole feast of unleavened bread
was, Luke xxi. 1. So Deut. xvi. 2, “Thou shalt sacrifice
the passover to the Lord, of the flock and of the herd ;”
where the note of the Jewish doctors is, “The flocks signify
the lambs and kids of the passover: the herd, the offerings
for the chagigah.” Now the lamb, say they, was eaten on
the fourteenth day, but the chagigah on the fifteenth. So
2 Chron. xxxvii. 7–9, where it is twice said, that “the
king and the princes gave to the people and the priests,
oxen as well as sheep, lepesachim, eig rö 'taziº, for the pass-
over.” And the apocryphal Esdras saith, i. 8, “Helkias,
Zacharias, and Suelus, governors of the temple, gave to the
priests st; ºráoza, for the passover, two thousand and four
hundred sheep, and three hundred calves.” So here the
rulers of the Jews would not go into the judgment-ball, that
they might not be defiled, but be fit to eat the passoyer;
i. e. those paschal-offerings of the herd, which were holy
things, of which none might eat in their defilement. Mr.
Whiston takes the passover here in the strict sense, but
then he thinks that it was on the same night that the rulers
would not go into the judgment-hall lest they should be de-
filed, and that they afterward did eat the paschal lamb be-
twixt two and four in the morning; which they might do :
for though the paschal lamb was to be killed “betwixt the
two evenings” (Exod. xii. 8), and to be killed “at night,”
so that “none of it was to be left till the morning ;” yet 1
find not any precise time of night limited, beyond which
they might not delay the eating of it; but yet it is certain
that in this instance it could not be so, for Pilate, in com-
pliance with their scrupulosity, goes out of the judgment-
hall to them three times successively, John xviii. 29. 31.
xix. 4, then he brings out Christ to them, and saith, “Be-
hold your king ;” and then it was Friday at the sixth hour,
or at noon ; so that they who stayed without the hall that
they might eat the passover, stayed there till Friday at noon,
Pilate still going out to them, because they durst not go in
to him. -
Obj. 3. Thirdly, It is objected, that the day on which
Christ was crucified is styled tragazzavi rot. Trāaxa, “the pre-
paration of the passover,” therefore the passover could not
be eaten (John xix. 14); for as the tragarzsvá of the sab-
bath is said to be treogá83arov, “the day before the Sab-
bath” (Mark xv. 42. Luke xxiii. 54), so the parasceve of
the passover must be the day before the passover.
Ans. 1. But (1.) according to this exposition of the words,
the Jews must have eaten their passover on the Sabbath-
day, our Lord being crucified on the Friday ; so that if that
day was the day before the passover, Saturday must be the
PREFACE TO LUKE.
.247
paschal day, and so they must have eaten it at least two
days after our Saviour did.
Secondly, To answer therefore positively to this objec-
Sabbath, is always Friday, so here mapaakevi rod ráoza is
only the paschal Friday, or the Friday in the paschal festi-
val, as Dominica paschae, or Pentecostes, is the day of those
tion ; as "rºarksvä, absolutely put, or with relation to the festivals.
THE
Gos PEL of st. LUKE,
WITH ANNoTATIONs.
PRE FA C E.
§ 1. ALL that I have to offer touching this gospel, from
church history, hath been delivered in the preface to the
gospel of St. Mark ; where it hath been observed,
First, That this gospel was received by the whole church
of Christ as genuine,” and an authentic record, fit to be
owned as a rule of faith, and that the Spirit of God assisted
and stirred up St. Luke to indite it.
Secondly, That this gospel was praised by St. Paul, and
was approved by the apostle St. John ; the first considera-
tion is a ground sufficient to believe this gospel to be a true
and authentic record of all things contained in it ; but I
confess I am not so well satisfied of the truth and certainty
of this second proposition, as to lay the foundation of the
divine authority of this evangelist upon it: I therefore shall
endeavour to establish the authority of St. Mark and of this
evangelist upon a better, and, in my apprehension, a more
sure foundation. g
§ 2. First, therefore, it is certain, that our Lord had not
only twelve apostles, but seventy or seventy-two of his dis-
ciples to attend upon him: for, after he had sent forth the
twelve to preach the kingdom of God (Luke ix. 1, 2), he
sends out Seventy others to go in pairs before him, and to
preach in every city to which he was about to come, saying,
The kingdom of God is come near to you (Luke x. l. 9).
Secondly, note, That they were both sent forth to preach
the kingdom of God, and therefore sent on the same
errand ; both sent to preach immediately from the same
Lord, to preach in his name, with the same power to
heal diseases, and to cast out devils (Luke ix. l. l7. x. l.
10): that as he said to the apostles, “I send you forth as
sheep among wolves,” Matt. x. 16, so also saith he to the
seventy, Luke x. 3; as he said to the apostles, “He that re-
ceiveth you, receiveth me,” Matt. x. 40, so saith he to the
seventy, “He that heareth you, heareth me,” Luke x. 16.
As therefore I have proved, that these things were said to
the apostles, not so much with relation to their first mission
whilst Christ was with them upon earth, as with relation to
their second mission, which was to begin after our Lord's
ascension, and the falling of the Holy Ghost upon them
(see note, on Matt. x. 8); so may we rationally conceive,
that the like words spoken to the seventy relate to the far.
ther commission to be given to them ; and therefore, when
they were returned to Christ after their first mission, as he
Speaks to them thus, I beheld Satan falling as lightning from
heaven before you, as he was to do after our Saviour's death,
John xii. 31, so doth he add, Luke x. 18, 19, “Behold, I
give you power to tread upon scorpions and serpents, and
over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any
means hurt you :” which words seem plainly to give a new
commission to the seventy, relating not, as their former, to
their preaching before him to the cities of Israel only, but
* Dico itaque apud illas, nec solas jam apostolicas, sed
apud universas quae illis de societate sacramenti confoederan-
tur, id evangelium Lucae ab initio editionis suae stare. Ter-
tull, contr. Marc. lib. iv. cap. 5.
fº y * ef *g 3. z * ed &
Avaykáðst tº #ylov IIvetºza, Rai #trivárri rºy #ytoy Aoi way.
Epiph. Haer. 51, p. 428.
to their preaching among other nations; as we may gather,
by comparing these words with the commission given by
Christ to his apostles, sent into the world to preach the gos.
pel to all nations (Mark xvi. 15–18). As then the apostles
were to execute this second mission by the Holy Ghost sent
down from heaven, and upon that account are bid to stay at
Jerusalem till they received this power from on high, by the
descent of the Holy Ghost upon them, Luke xxiv. 49, 50.
Acts i. 4.8, so may we reasonably believe, the seventy were
to be endued with the same power for the execution of
their mission. Note, &
Thirdly, That both St. Mark and St. Luke were of the
number of the seventy disciples, as we learn from the testi-
monies of Origen” and Epiphanius: for when Origen + had
Said, that the disciples of Christ, John and Matthew, Mark
and Luke, yeyga pázacıy rà, eúayyáxia, “writ the gospels,” he
proves this, because Christ first sent his apostles, and after
them the seventy-two, süayyexićea Sat, “to evangelize;” and
that therefore Mark and Luke preached the gospel with
Paul the apostle, St. Luke being mentioned as an attend-
ant on St. Paul (see note on Acts xvi. 10), and St. Mark as
one of the circumcision, who was avvæpyā; aircü sic rºw 8aat-
Neiay ºrcü Geoff, “his fellow-worker unto the kingdom of God”
(Col. iv. 10, 11). Epiphanius+ having told us, that Mark
si, Éröyxavey in Tây #880.hkoyra 360, was one of the seventy-
two, adds, that the work of writing was committed to
Luke, Syri zai airá in rāv #380 whzowra 300, $ “he also being
one of the seventy-two.” But against this it is objected,
Obj. 1. That St. Luke confesses that he was not from
the beginning an eye-witness and minister of the word
(Luke i. 1, 2), and therefore is thought to have his gospel
from the information of St. Paul, and other of the apostles;
so Jerome and others, ancient and modern, have conjec-
tured from these words.
Ans. The words of the evangelist are so far from giving
any ground to this assertion, that they plead fairly for St.
Luke's personal knowledge of all the things written in his
gospel, even from first to last : for, saith he,
Wer. 1. “Forasmuch as others have undertaken to set
forth in order a narrative of those things which are most
surely believed among us (Christians),
Wer. 2. “Even as they who, from the beginning, were
eye-witnesses and ministers of the word, have delivered
them to us (Christians);
Ver. 3. “It seemed good to me, who have had a perfect
knowledge of all things (performed among us in Judea),
from the very first (rise of them, in the vision made to Za-
charias concerning the birth of his son, John the Baptist),
to write to thee in order (of them).” Now here I say,
First, That these words do not affirm, that any of those
men who set forth these narratives did it from the instruc-
tion they received from these eye-witnesses, or ministers of
the word, but only that they pretended to do it agreeably
to what these eye-witnesses said ; much less do they give
us the least hint that St. Luke received his instructions from
them.
Secondly, They, saith he, declare their narrative agreeably
* Mágwo; oty kal Aouzăç #x rôy o6' 3yres, IIa ſaw rô ãºroa'róg,
stayyexićoy'ro. Dial. de Recta Fide, p. 8.
+ Ibid. p. 7 : H →r. 51, §. 6, p. 428. § P. 433.
248
LUKE.
to what is delivered by those who were eye-witnesses from
the beginning, and the ministers of the word. It therefore
seemeth good to me, who have had a certain knowledge of
the same things, &yo0sy, from the first rise of them (as these
eye-witnesses had), to write to thee in order of them ; and
then he begins his narrative from a higher rise than either
St. Matthew or St. Mark hath done ; not giving the least
hint that he received his knowledge of these things from
any other. It is true, that Irenaeus" saith, that Luke,
iv 3.8xiº xaráðero, writ in a book the gospel which St. Paul
preached ; but he saith not, he did this in his gospel, and
not in the Acts of the Apostles: his gospel also contains in
substance the same great things which St. Paul preached
for the conversion of the Jews and gentiles; as also doth
the gospel of St. Matthew : but hence it doth not follow,
that the one rather than the other is to be ascribed to St.
Paul. Yea, it is certain, that St. Luke could not receive
his gospel from St. Paul, as an eye-witness of it; because
we know St. Paul was no eye-witness of it, but a convert to
Christianity, after all that Luke had written was accom-
plished. * .
Obj. 2. We are told, that Luke was converted by St. Paul
at Thebes.
Ans. But this we have only from Nicephorus; and it is
the less credible, not only because it comes to us so late,
but because it appears not from any credible author that St.
Paul was ever there. It is more probable, from the silence
of St. Luke and St. Paul, who never calleth him his son,
that he was a Christian, or a believer, long before ; and hav-
ing, as Theophylact observes, ‘E8gain;v traßeſay, “His in:
struction in the Jewish religion” at Jerusalem, he might be
So from the beginning of Christ's preaching. Note,
Fourthly, That the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost
came down upon all that were then assembled with the
apostles; for being &ravreć, all together with one accord,
ver. 1, they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, ver. 4,
even all the one hundred and twenty, mentioned Acts i. 15,
as it is proved in the note on Acts ii. 1. And again, the
apostles being dismissed by the high-priest and his council,
they go to their own company, that is, to the one hundred
and twenty, Acts iv. 24 (see the note there): and when
they had prayed for ability to preach the word with boldness,
and that God would confirm it by signs and wonders done
in the name of Jesus, they were all filled with the Holy
Ghost, and spake the word with boldness, ver. 29–31. Note,
Fifthly, That it is highly reasonable to conceive, the
seventy were part of the one hundred and twenty that were
then present, and assembled with the apostles: not only
from the tradition of the church,+ that Matthias, and Jo-
seph called Barsabas, were chosen out of the seventy, but
also from the nature of the thing itself. For St. Peter saith,
an apostle must be chosen out of those that had been with
them all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out
among º to succeed in the place of Judas, and be a
witness of our Lord's resurrection (Acts i. 21, 22). Now,
whence should they choose such men but from the seventy
And St. Paul speaks of men coming up with Jesus, after
his resurrection, from Galilee, who were his witnesses to the
people, Acts xiii. 31, and sure the seventy must be of this
number. Moreover, What was become of the seventy, if
they came not up with their raised Saviour to Jerusalem 2
Can we think that men so full of hopes that he would now
restore the kingdom to Israel (Acts i. 6), would stay behind
in Galilee P and if they came up to Jerusalem, would they
not consort as formerly with the apostles? Can we think,
that one hundred and twenty other persons should adhere
thus closely to them, and yet the seventy should absent
themselves, especially at the feast of Pentecost, when they
had so much reason to expect the promise of the Father 2
Moreover, it is certain from St. Luke, that Christ had
made them labourers in his harvest (Luke x. 2), and so far
ministers of his gospel, as to declare, that he who heard
them, heard him ; and he that despised them, despised
him (ver. 16), and also given them commission to work mi-
racles, and cast out devils in his name (ver. 9. 17).
have shown that after their return to Christ they received
* Apud Euseb. H. Eccl. v. cap. 8.
+ Euseb. H. Eccl. lib. i. cap. 12.
And I
a new commission like to that given to the apostles, when
they were sent to preach to all nations, and which, as far
as we can learn from the evangelists, they never executed
till after our Lord's resurrection, when we are sure that ali
who by Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. lib. i. cap. 12, and by Epi-
phanius * in the heresy of the Herodians, are mentioned as
belonging to the seventy, did it. Now, if the seventy dis-
ciples had a commission from our Lord to preach to other
nations; if, after he was seated at the right hand of his Fa-
ther, he sent not only the twelve, but, as Epiphanius there
expressly saith, the seventy-two, to be whºvka; eig any rāv
oixouſ, Éyny, “preachers throughout all the world,” and, among
them, as he there saith, St. Mark and Luke ; they also must .
be enabled by the Holy Ghost to speak with tongues and
prophesy, that so they might be able to preach to those na-
tions whose languages they understood not : and hence Eu-
sebius + reckons among those who were enabled, as St. Pau.
was to write aſſeta wai &máñnta, “a thousand mysteries,” the
twelve apostles, and the seventy disciples: and therefore
Origen f says well, that Christ having such disciples, it is
more reasonable to think he should commit the writing of
his gospel to them, rather than to those who were not his
disciples. *
If then St. Mark and St. Luke were of the number of
those men who had a commission from Christ to preach the
gospel after his ascension, not only to the Jews, but to other
nations also ; if the Holy Ghost, which fell on the apostles,
fell on them in like manner also for that end ; if the univer-
salchurch of Christ had held, that they as well as the apostles
did indite their gospels by the assistance of the Holy Ghost,
and upon that account received them as a rule of faith, as
much as the gospels written by St. Matthew and St. John,
who were undoubtedly apostles of our Lord, and were by
his Spirit assisted to indite their gospels ; then we have
equal reason to receive the gospels of St. Mark and St.
Luke as the oracles of God, and so as a most certain rule
of faith, as we have to receive the gospels of St. Matthew
and St. John under that character.
As to the time of writing this gospel, I find it most un-
certain ; Irenaeus $ is positive that it was written after the
death of the apostle Paul; for, speaking of St. Peter and
St. Paul, he saith, that “after their decease, St. Mark and
St. Luke writ their gospels:” whereas Theophylact || saith
expressly, twºrk Trey'rexaſ?aza Áth rºc roi; Kpia toû &vaxás!go, avy-
EypáJaro, “it was written within fifteen years after our Lord's
ascension,” that is, about ten years before the death of the
apostle Paul; and so also saith the Synopsis, attributed
to Athanasius. And, could we depend on the opinion of
Origen, and others of the ancients, that those words of
St. Paul, “whose praise is in the gospel throughout all the
churches,” did belong to the Gospel of St. Luke, we might
conclude from the writing the second epistle to the Corin-
thians, that St. Luke's gospel, writ before it, must be writ-
ten at or before the time assigned by Athanasius and Theo-
phylact: but Theodoret ** being positive, that St. Paul in
these words meant not St. Luke, but Barnabas, who tra-
velled with St. Paul, and preached the gospel throughout
all the churches, Acts xiii. 2. xvi. 36, and who was chosen
by the churches about Antioch to travel with St. Paul, to
bring their charity to the brethren in Judea, Acts xi. 30,
we must be content to leave the time when St. Luke writ
this gospel still uncertain : only, because it is certain, from
the beginning of the Acts, that it was writ before that trea-
* Haer. 50, §. 4.
+ O: Aoimoi rod Xoršpoº hºw porturai, 3388xa pay 3 wic-roxoi,
#830pxhaoyra 8: Maffntai. Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 24.
# Exºv &affnrès & Xplorës, où ºxxov roſtol; #veyxeipićevº, roſ;
gº oval ºzaffntaic. L. de Recta Fide, p. 7.
§ Mer& 83 rày rotºrov #030y, Magº; rā ātri IIárgou anguagázsva
#yygáçoig trapa?:8wks' x&i Aovzā; 5 &zóAov60; Haſaov rā ār’
insivov ºnévozágºyoy stayyixio, v 3:3xiº xaríSero. Lib. iii. cap.
1. Euseb. H. Eccl. v. cap. 8. Pseud. Ambrosius in procem.
| Praef, in Luc. ed. Coteler. p. 300.
‘I Tuyê; ºfty rāv Aovkäy, rivā; 3: röy BapVágay Chrys. Pro Luca
faciunt, Interp, Ep. Ignat. ad Ephes. §. 15. Sophron. et
Hieron. verbo Lucas. -
l ** Tºy rºoftwaxáploy Bagvá8ay tº sipnºva ×apakºrngiće.
OClin).
In
CHAPTER I.
249
tise ; and highly probable, from the conclusion of the Acts of gospel must be indited before that time; and consequently,
the Apostles, that these Acts were written and finished in
that Irenaeus must mistake, in saying it was written after
the ninth of Nero ; we may hence probably conclude this the death of the apostle Paul.
CHAPTER I.
1 FoRASMUCH as many have taken in hand to set
forth in order a declaration of those things which are
most surely believed, (or have assuredly been perform-
ed) among us (by the Lord Jesus), -
2 Even as they delivered them to us, who from the
beginning were eye-witnesses, and (who are now) mi-
nisters of the word; (or have the ministration and dis-
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I.
* Ver. 1. Forasmuch as twoxxoi in 12.5ipno av, many have
taken in hand to set forth a narration, regi rāv remºnºoqopn-
Kºśvoy #y hºv.ºrgayº toy, concerning the things which have
most surely been believed and done, among us, Wer. 2.
Even as they delivered them almto us, which from the be-
gimming were eye-witnesses (of what Christ did), and
ministers of the word (of the gospel).] Here note,
First, That Trpáygara retrampoºpoemſzáva refers not only to
things believed, but also to things performed by Christ and
his apostles. This first treatise being designed to mention
the things which Jesus himself said or did (Acts i. 1), as
they were delivered by the apostles who had been with
Christ from the beginning (John xv. 27. Acts i. 21), which
the seventy disciples were not ; his second to declare the
acts of the apostles, who being sent to “preach the gospel
to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem,” were in that ùrnéral
roi. Aáyov, “ministers of the word.” “Let a man so account
of us apostles,” saith St. Paul, irmgáros Xela toû, “as the
ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God”
(1 Cor. iv. 1). He also was himself ordained to be innpérn;
“a minister,” and witness of what he had seen, and of what
Christ should reveal to him (Acts xxvi. 16); i. e. a witness
of what he had seem, and a minister of Christ's revelations
made to him. So when Barnabas and Paul were preaching
the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews, they had
with them John irmgármy, “a minister” of this word (Acts
xiii. 5). And when St. Luke Saith, they were Trem Aegopogº-
Kºšva #y #xiv, he doth not only mean that they were done,
but that they were performed with such circumstances as
gave them trangoqopiay rā, ºria rewº, “a full assurance of faith"
(Heb. x. 22), as to the truth of these doctrines taught, and
the works done by Christ and his apostles, as the word signi-
fies continually in the Epistles ; as when it is said that Abra-
ham was rampoºpogºffsic, “fully assured that what God had
promised he was able to perform,” Rom. iv. 21, and xiv. 5,
“Let every one be fully assured, ºrangopogeia So, in his own
mind;” when St. Paul wishes to his Colossians “the riches
tº Tangopogía; rā; avvézsos, of the full assurance of his know-
ledge" (Col. ii. 2); when he saith his Thessalonians “re-
ceived the word āy ºrangopogiº Trox^i, in much assurance” (l
Thess. i. 5), and desires the believing Jews to be careful to
attain gig trangoºopſay, “to a full assurance of hope to the end.”
(Heb. vi. 11).
Secondly, Hence note, that there is no necessity that the
“many who had taken in hand to make a narrative of what
was believed or done by Christians,” should have done this
at all by writing, rather than by word of mouth, and much
less they should all be writers of gospels, rather than of the
acts of the apostles; it is certain also that St. Luke is so
far from blaming them for these performances, that he
places himself in the rank of them, and saith, they made
their narrative of these matters even as the apostles had de-
livered them.
Thirdly, Hence I conclude, that though St, Luke was
no apostle, he might be one of the seventy mentioned
Luke x.; for neither were they with Christ &r' 3px;, “from
the beginning,” nor “chosen to be the witnesses of what he
did,” nor, in the primary sense, tºrnpérat rot Aéyov, “the
ministers of the gospel.” And yet, besides these words,
which prove nothing to the contrary, I see not why St. Luke,
who was before a proselyte to the Jewish religion, and who
pensation of the word committed to them, see Acts xiii.
5. 1 Cor. iv. 1.) -
3 *It seemed good to me also, having had perfect
understanding of all things from the very first, to write
to thee in order (of them), most excellent Theophilus,
4 That thou mightest know the certainty of those
things, wherein thou hast been “instructed.
had, saith Theophylact, ‘E8gaixãv ºratēsiay, his instruction in
the Jewish religion at Jerusalem, should not see and con-
verse with Christ, and be one of the seventy, as Origen and
Epiphanius say he was (see the preface to this gospel,
Ş. 2. n. 3).
* Ver. 3. It seemed good to me also, having had perfect
wnderstanding of all things &yo,0sy, from the very first, to
write unto thee kaffeffic, in order, most eacellent Theophilus.]
Here note,
First, That it is not certain that àyoSey here signifies
“from above,” i.e. oileavéSev, “from heaven,” as it is done,
John iii. 3. 7. 31. xix. 11. James i. 17. iii. 15. 17, seeing it
as often signifies from the top, rise, or beginning of a thing;
as when “the veil of the temple” is said to be “rent árà
âvašey, from the top to the bottom,” Matt. xxvii. 51. Mark
xv. 38, Christ's coat to be “woven #x rāy &vo&sy, from the
top,” John xix. 24, St. Paul to be known of the Jews &yo-
Sev, “from the beginning,” Acts xxvi. 5, and the evangelist
here beginning his narrative higher than St. Matthew or
Mark had done, even from the promise made to Zacharias
of the Baptist, or forerunner of the Lord, I think it more
reasonable to adhere to our translation, and not to lay the
authority of St. Luke's gospel upon uncertainties. -
Secondly, It being certain that St. Luke in his gospel
doth not give us Christ's miracles, sermons, and journeys, in
that order of time in which they were done and spoken, it
remains, that when he promised to write waffe;%, in order, we
understand this of Christ's conception, birth, circumcision,
baptism, preaching, death, resurrection, and ascension, of
which he truly writes in order; or that he would write to him
first of what these eye-witnesses had delivered to him of
Christ, and then of what these ministers had done in propa-
gation of the gospel, as in the Acts he doth. Note,
Thirdly, That the Theophilus to whom he writes seems not
to be a feigned name, importing only any Christian, who
was “a lover of God,” as Salvian conceived ; for we have
no such instance in the sacred history of feigned names thus
used. 2. The word agária'rog is used in the New Testament
as a title of excellency, and-never otherwise (see Acts
xxiii. 26. xxiv. 3. xxvi. 25). And, (3.) had he intended
this only as a dedication of his work to the true lovers
of God, why writes he still in the singular number, and
never in the plural 2 -
* Ver. 4. “Iva #mriyyā; tragi &v warnxiºn; Ağywy rºy &rpá-
Metav, That thout mayest know the certainly of those things
in which thou hast been instructed.] Karáknot; is an instruc-
tion, not only by questions and answers, but also by a con-
tinual discourse (Acts xviii. 25. Rom. ii. 18. 1 Cor. xiv. 19).
But that which is hence chiefly to be observed against the
Romanists, is (1.) against oral tradition, that St. Luke
thought not what was delivered by word of mouth only,
even by the “eye-witnesses and ministers of the word,” suffi-
cient to give Theophilus a knowledge of the certainty of
these things without writing the gospel ; and this the wis-
dom of God showed in causing them to be written, Saith
Irenaeus,” “to be the pillar and foundation of the Christian
faith.” (2.) That St. Luke held it not unlawful, or unfit
for a layman, or any Christian, to read the Scriptures, nor
such a one insufficient by thus reading to understand the
things in which he had been instructed : and seeing it is cer-
tain that he and other Christians were instructed in all
*------
* Lib, iii, cap. J.
250
LUKE.
5 THERE was in the days of Herod, the king of
Judea, a “certain priest named Zacharias, "of the
course of Abia (i. e. the eighth of the twenty-four
courses of the priests, which ministered in the temple
by their weeks); and his wife was of the daughters of
Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth.
6 And they were both righteous before God, (as)
walking in all the commandments and ordinances of
the Lord blameless.
7 And they had no child, because that Elisabeth
was barren, and they "were both now well stricken in
years (Gr. were aged in their days).
8 And it came to pass, that while he executed the
priest's office before God in the order of his course,
9 According to the custom of the priest’s office.
"his lot was (i.e. he was chosen by lot) to burn in-
cense, when he went into the temple of the Lord.
10 And the whole multitude of the people were
praying without at the time *of (his burning) incense.
11 And (whilst he was doing this) there "appeared
to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right
side of the altar of incense.
12 And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled,
and fear fell upon him.
things necessary to believed and done by them to salvation,
it follows that these writings must contain fully and with
sufficient clearness, all that was necessary to be believed or
done by him in order to his salvation, they being written
for this very end, that Theophilus “might know the cer-
tainty of all those things in which he had been instructed ;”
and then surely the writings of the whole New Testament
must be much more sufficient for that end.
* Ver. ‘Isesús ric, A priest named Zacharias.] That he
was not, as some have imagined, a high-priest, appears,
(1.) because St. Luke calls him simply isésis a priest, not
&extsgeus, a high-priest, as he who bore that office was still
called, iii. 2. ix. 22. xxii. 2.4. 52. 54.66. xxiii. 4. 10. 13.
23. Acts iv. 6. v. 17. 21. 24. vii. 1 ix. 1. 14. (2.) Zacharias
was chosen by lot to burn incense ; the high-priest did it
by right of succession, and burnt it in the holy of holies,
into which Zacharias entered not. (3.) Josephus” saith,
that Simon son of Boethus was high-priest that year: and,
lastly, Zacharias was “priest of the course of Abia,” where-
as the high-priest was of no course at all. Of the twenty-
four courses appointed by David for the service of the tem-
ple, when it should be built, this of Abia was the eighth
(1 Chron. xxiv. 10). These several courses began on the
Sabbath-day, and continued to serve till the next sabbath, 2
Kings xi, 7. 2 Chron. xxiii. 8, 3rd gaggárov in a 366&row,
& & * to Sabbath,” Joseph. Antiq. lib, xii. cap. 11,
p. 248.
.*. Of the course of Abia.] Most chronologers that I have
read agree in this, that no certain computation can be made
from these courses touching the conception or birth of the
Baptist. Mr. Whiston's attempt in this matter seems un-
successful on several accounts. For,
First, Whereas he # begins that computation with the
rabbinical tale, that after the return of the priests from the
captivity, they were divided again into twenty-four courses,
he ought to have observed, from the same tale, that the
course of Jedajahj was then put before that of Jojarib ;
because he was of the high-priest’s family, and so should
have begun those courses not from Jojarib, but from
Jedajah.
Secondly, Whereas he saith, that “it is highly probable
that when Judas Maccabaeus restored the daily sacrifice, and
afresh appointed the courses of the priests, he would begin
those courses with the first family;” it remains to be proved,
that he did then appoint any of these courses at all to serve,
and that all the priests did not then serve together, as at the
other three great festivals. Secondly, There is no reason
Why he should alter the courses appointed by Solomon in
the month Tisri, and that he did not do it is supposed by
Dr. Lightfoot.S who therefore in his account of these courses
makes the first of them to begin in that month. In a word,
if there were made any alteration at all, St. Luke cannot
refer to the course of Abia as it is placed, I Chron. xxiv.,
and then, seeing the family of Abia was not then extant
among the courses (there being no mention of their return
out of captivity), who can tell where to place it 2 If he
does refer to it, that course must continue in the same
order in which it was before, and so was not changed by
Judas Maccabaeus.
Thirdly, As for this historical evidence from a Jewish
*
* Antiq. lib. xv. cap. 12, p. 537.
+ P. 156, §. 3.
# Lightf. Temple Serv. cap. 6.
§ Harm. par. i. p. 22.
rabbinical chronicle, it can be of no validity to them who
know they were the worst of chronologers, as the learned
have observed, and as it is evident from the chronology of
David Ganz, and Worstius's notes upon it, and his famous
chronicle, Seder Olam Rabbi; with which he is not much
acquainted, though it pretends to some antiquity, yet, saith
Buxtorf, Widetur seipsum in fine libri prodere, dum inquit,
Hamar Rabbi Jose, “He betrays himself by adding, Thus
saith R. Jose.”
Fourthly, His corollary from all these uncertainties, that
the blessed Virgin conceived in the beginning of the sixth
month from the conception of Elisabeth, is built upon a
mistake, it being plain from Luke i. 36, that her sixth month
was completed when the Virgin came to her (which she did
presently after the angel appeared to her), for she stayed
with her but almost three months, and then Elisabeth's full
time was come (ver. 56, 57).
* Ver. 7. They were both ºrpoésénxérec, well stricken
with age.] Here, saith Theophylact, because a Virgin was
to bring forth a son Trgogitovápanorey # 3.48% ºva ypatic réºn, oi katē
vágoy pºorews, si za pºst’ &yögåc, “God provided that an
old woman should bring forth a son, not according to
the course of nature, though with a man, they being both
aged.”
g; Wer. 9. "Exaxe roi; Svºiázai, His lot was to burn in-
cense.] The law required that the priest should burn incense
morning and evening upon the altar of incense, placed be-
fore the veil of the most holy (Exod. xxx. 6–8); but be:
cause they who thus served in every course were many, it
was necessary they should by lot choose the man who was
to perform that service for that week, and so the Jews say
they did (see Dr. Lightfoot here).
* Ver. 10. And all the multitude of the people were
praying without tº #4 roš Svºiáſzaroc, at the time of in-
cense.] When the priest went into the sanctuary, or within .
the first veil, to offer incense, notice was given by the sound
of a little bell, that it was then the time of prayer ; and
every one present then offered up his prayers to God
silently: and though this silent prayer was not commanded,
yet there seems a manifest allusion to it in those words of
John, where at “the first offering of incense with the prayers
of the saints,” it is said, “there was silence in heaven for
half an hour" (Rev. viii. 1–3). , Whether that of the
high-priest Simon, mentioned Ecclus. 1, belongs to this
matter, or rather to the great day of expiation, I will not
determine.
9 Wer. 11. "Q40n 3% airá áyyexo; Kupíov, An angel of the
Lord appeared to him.] That they had former examples
of their priests who had seen visions in the temple seems rea-
sonable to conceive from the words, ver, 22, where from
his silence it is said, “the people knew that he had seen a
vision ;” and yet, if you reject the story of Simon the Just
seeing an angel going into the holy of holies yearly, on the
day of expiation, you will hardly find another instance: for
Hyrcanus the high-priest saw no vision, only as he was offer-
ing incense, pári,” “some say he heard a voice, declaring
that his sons had got the victory.” * , ºf g
Ver, 12. Kai Bragáx0m, was $680; tıréreasy ºr airów.]. This
verse is wanting only in the Ethiopic version, being in all
the other versions, in Theophylact, in Hilary the deacon,
in Jerome, and Chrysostom, ed. Mor. tom. v. p. 475, and
yet Dr. Mills suspects hunc versum fictum esse ab aliquo ob
similia quae ad Mariam dicuntur, ver. 24, Append. p. 20,
* =s*
* Antiq, lib. xiii, cap. 8.
CHAPTER I.
:251
13 But the angel said to him, Fear not, Zacharias:
for thy "prayer (for the people) is heard (God mean-
ing now suddenly to send the Messiah); and thy wife
Elisabeth shall bear thee a son (who shall be his fore-
Tunner), and thou shalt call his name John.
14 And thou shalt have joy and gladness (for the
fruit of her womb) ; and (not only thou, but others
also, for) many shall rejoice at his birth. -
15 For he shall be "great in the sight of the Lord
(as being highly favoured by him), and shall drink nei-
ther wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled
with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb
(i.e. very early).
16 And many of the children of Israel shall he
turn to the Lord their God.
17 And he shall go before him in *the spirit and
power of Elias, (who turned the people from Baal to
God, 1 Kings xviii. 37) to turn the hearts of the fa-
thers to (or with) the children, and the disobedient to
the wisdom of (him who is emphatically styled) the
Just (One, Acts ili. 14, and so) to make ready a people
prepared for (the receptión of) the Lord.
18 And Zacharias said to the angel, Whereby shall
I know (the truth of) this (of which I have cause to
doubt) 8 for I am an old man, and my wife (also is)
well stricken in years.
19 And the angel answering said to him, I am Ga-
briel, that stand in the presence of God; and am sent
though this suspicion be confuted by the words following, ºch
‘poéoù Zaxapla. -
19 Wer. 13. Eianwcôa $n # 3&nd is orov, Thy prayer is heard.]
Not that this good man was now praying for himself, that
he might have a child ; he is so far from any expectation of
that, that when an angel appearing to him in God's temple,
and so unquestionably as a messenger from God speaks to
him of this matter, he believeth not his words; the mean-
ing is, Thy prayer for the delivery of thy people, for the
coming of the Messiah, and the consolation of Israel, and
the remission of their sins, is so graciously heard, that from
thy very loins shall now come the forerunner “to prepare
his way :” and thou wilt now quickly have occasion to ac-
knowledge, that “God hath visited and redeemed his
people, and raised up a horn of Salvation for them” (Yer. 68,
69). º
* Ver. 15. "Earal yèg ºáya; Švººrtoy rot Kvelov, He shall be
great in the sight of (or before) the Lord.} Either before
the Lord Christ, as being “the prophet of the Highest, to go
before the Lord to prepare his way,” as the angel saith, ver.
17, and Zacharias, ver. 76, or in the sight of God, as David
“found favour #yőricy Ogoj, in the sight of God,” Acts vi.
46. It follows, “And he shall neither drink wine nor strong
drink.” This being the description of a Nazarite, Numb. vi.
3. Judg. xiii. 4, the words “from the womb,” may refer to
the same thing, as it is said of Samson, “The child shall be a
Nazarite to God from the womb,” Judg. xiii. 5. xvi. 17 (see
note on ver. 28), or if they refer to his being filled with the
Holy Ghost, they must be interpreted as Dr. Hammond pa-
raphrases them, The power of the Holy Ghost shall be dis-
cerned to be upon him very early. So Job xxxi. 18, “I
have guided the widow from my mother's womb :” Ps. lviii.
3, “The wicked are estranged from the womb, as soon as
they are born they go about and tell lies:” Isa. xlviii. 8,
“Thou wast called a transgressor from the womb.” This
exposition I prefer to that of Grotius, that he is said to be
filled with the Holy Ghost from the womb, because he being
in the womb, was part of his mother who was filled with the
Holy Ghost.
* Ver, 17. Ew aveſgart wai Suyápast HAſov, In the spirit and
power of Elias.] Not in his power of working miracles, for
“John did no miracles” (John x. 41), but in his power of
turning the people to the Lord (1 Kings xviii. 37). So the
angel expounds it in the following words, cited from Mal. iv.
6, “To turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and
the disobedient to the wisdom of the Just, and so to make
ready a people prepared for the Lord;” that is, he shall turn
(by him) to speak (this) to thee, and to show thee
these glad tidings.
20 And, behold, thou shalt be dumb, and not able
to speak, until the day that these things shall be per-
formed, because thou believest not my words, which
shall be fulfilled in their season.
21 And the people waited for Zacharias, and mar-
velled that he tarried so long in the (inner) temple.
22 And when he came out, he could not speak to
them : and they perceived that he had seen a vision
in the temple: for he (only) beckoned to them, and
remained “speechless.
23 And it came to pass, that, as soon as the days
of his ministration were accomplished, he departed to
his own house.
24 And after those days his wife Elisabeth con-
ceived, and (through devotion, or to avoid discourses)
“hid herself five months, saying,
25 Thus (graciously) hath the Lord dealt with me
in the days wherein he looked on me, to take away
(that barrenness, which was) my reproach among
II leI] .
26 And in the sixth month the (same) angel Ga-
briel was sent from God to a city of Galilee, named
Nazareth,
27 To a "virgin espoused to a man whose name
was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s
name was Mary.
the hearts of the fathers by to the children, as that pre-
position signifies, Josh. ii. 8. 1 Sam. xxii. 11, by causing
them to lay aside their discords, and unite, of what sect
soever they were, in a general profession of repentance,
and a free confession of their sins ; and so the son of Si-
rach saith, “He is appointed, #7"loºrešºla zagãiay ratgå; treč,
vičy, to turn the heart of the father to the son” (xlviii. 10);
or else, He shall turn the hearts of the fathers, al., “with
the children,” as al signifies, Exod. xii. 8, 9. xxxv. 22, call-
ing them all to a general confession of, and repentance for
their sins: and so “turning the disobedient to the wisdom”
revealed to them by Christ, “the Just One,” as he empha-
tically is styled, Acts iii. 14. And this the Baptist did by
preaching to all sorts, young and old, conversion and repent,
ance, and uniting them all in one baptism of repentance,
for the remission of sins (Matt. iii. 5, 6. Mark i. 5). He
was sent to bear witness of Christ “that all men might be-
lieve on him” (John i. 7); and this he also did so effectually,
that many, finding that all that John said of him was true,
believed on him (John xiii. 41, 42). Josephus informs us
that he was “a good man, who instructed the Jews by the
exercise of virtue, Kai rā ºrgö; 3xxâxovº 3izatoatſyn was ºrgèg
Os3y Bias3sig, and by piety towards God, and righteousness
or justice towards one another, to come to his baptism ; and
that hereupon there was great concourse made to him, the
people being much delighted with his doctrine” (Antiq. lib.
xviii. cap. 7, p. 626, F, G).
* Ver. 22. Kai Stépceve zoºs, And remained speechless.]
It seemeth that, he was both dumb and deaf, for we read
that he was a twºrāv kai º 8vyápasyo, Aaxšarat, “not able to
speak,” and dumb, ver. 20, and that he was not able to hear
is evident, because they nodded and made signs to him and
he to them, wer. 22. 62, and therefore it was only by a sign
that he asked for a writing table, ver. 63. And this was
the result of his infidelity, in that he believed not an angel
appearing to him, in a place where evil angels durst not
come, in the name of our Lord, and telling him “his prayer
was heard,” which evil angels could not do, and of things
which tended to the glory of God, the completion of his
promises, and the welfare of mankind, which they would
not do.
* Ver. 24. Kai regišxºv8sy £avrºv, And she hid herself five
months.] Partly from devotion to bless God for a mercy so
singular and unexpected, and partly from respect to the child,
lest she should be any way defiled, and so derive uncleanness
upon the Nazarite in her womb.
* Ver. 27. IIpê; tra;0ávoy (£28/wwngrevºkévny &zºg. & drºp, a
252
LUKE.
28 And the angel (of the Lord) came in to her, and
said, Hail, thou that art”highly favoured (of God),
the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.
29 And when she saw him, she was troubled at his
saying, and cast in her mind what manner of saluta-
º this should be (or what might be the import of
it).
30 And the angel said to her, Fear not, Mary:
(for) thou hast found favour with God.
31 And, behold, thou (being a virgin) shalt (yet)
conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and
shalt call his name Jesus.
32 And he shall be great, and shall be called the
Son of the Highest, and the Lord God shall give to
him the throne of his father David (or that spiritual
kingdom promised to the Messiah the son of David) :
33 And he shall” reign over the house of Jacob
for ever (whilst he hath any seed in being); and of his
kingdom there shall be no end (as there hath and
shall be of the four great monarchies).
34 Then saith Mary to the angel, *How shall this
be, seeing I know not a man : .
35 And the angel answered and said to her, The
Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of
Toºp) # oftcov Aa£i?, wai rā āyoga rā; wagSávov Mapiáſz.]
Which words I would rendér thus, “To a virgin of the house
of David, espoused to a man whose name was Joseph ; and
the virgin's name was Mary.” For, first, of this cupwrack),
or placing of words not in due order of construction, I have
given many instances, note on Mark ix. 13 ; and I think
there is an instance of it here, ver, 15, “He shall neither
drink wine nor strong drink from his mother's womb, and he
shall be filled with the Holy Ghost.” And this construc-
tion I prefer, as being most suitable to those words of the
angel, “The Lord God shall give him the throne of his fa-
ther David.” The virgin therefore must be of the house of
David, for seeing the angel had plainly told her she should
not have this son by the knowledge of a man, it was not
Joseph's but. Mary's being of the house of David, which
made David his father: see also ver. 69, where this “horn
of Salvation” is said to be raised up in the house of his ser-
want David; now thus he was raised up in the house of
David, not by Joseph's espousal, but by his birth of the
Virgin ; for from her also was it, that Christ was in xágºrov
ºãº dºpio, at roi ré warà a 4&na, “of the fruit of the loins of
David according to the flesh,” Acts ii. 30; 373 roö créegator,
“of the seed of David,” xiii. 23. Rom. i. 3. 2 Tim. ii. 8.
Such reason had the evangelist here to say, rather that Mary
than Joseph was of the “house of David.”
* Ver. 28. Kexagºrapºvn, Thou who art highly favoured.]
Or, who hast found mercy, or favour with God, as it is ex:
pounded, ver, 30. It answers to the Hebrew TDn, which sig-
nifies Xápic and #Asog, mercy and favour. So Ps. xviii. 26,
TDr. Dyºwerå kexapitop.évov xagºra,6%an, “With the merciful
thou wilt show thyself merciful;” or, to him that shows fa-
vour to others, thou wilt show favour; and Eph. i. 6, “To
the praise of his glorious grace, iv.; #xagºroo’ey hag, through
which he hath dealt graciously with us,” or made us favour-
ites “by the beloved,” or, in Christ Jesus. Thus xagtegyi,
he that doth kind and grateful offices, is in Suidas Tā Keyaet.
Twaiva #yaśaivos, “he that doth kind things,” and xagiºta,
in Phavorinus is xexapiroptèya. And the son of Sirach
saith, A word, i.e. a kind word, is better than a gift, but
both come Trapæ àvègi xexagºrapºyº “from a kind man,” to
one that shows favour, Ecclus. xviii. 17. It follows, sixoyn-
£, Éwn at #y yuyatéiy; “Blessed art thou among women.” So
it is said of Jael, sixoyněein #y yuyatév, “Blessed be Jael
among women,” Judg. v. 24; of Ruth iii. 10, Bixoynºyn art,
“Blessed art thou of the Lord, O daughter I’’ and so David
speaks to Abigail, 1 Sam. xxv. 33 ; so also, “The Lord is
with thee,” is said to Gideon, Judg. vi. 12. And the words,
ver. 30, stps: xàgiv trag& rā Qaş, “Thou hast found favour
with God,” are also said of Noah, Gen. vi. 8, of Joseph,
Gen. xxxix. 4, of David, Acts vii. 46. So that here is no-
thing said of the blessed virgin in this salutation, which was
not before said of others.
the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also
that holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be
called the Son of God.
36 And, behold, thy "cousin Elisabeth, she hath
also conceived a son in her old age : and this is the
sixth month (from her conception) with her that was
called barren: (nor is this to be doubted of...)
37 For with God nothing shall be impossible (Gen.
xviii. 14),
38 And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the
Lord; be it to me according to thy word. And (then)
the angel departed from her.
39 And Mary arose in those days, and went into
the *hill country with haste, to a city of Juda (named
Hebron, to visit her cousin of whom the angel spake) ;
40 And (she) entered into the house of Zacharias,
and saluted Elisabeth.
41 And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard
the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb;
and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost (i. e.
the Spirit of prophecy): -
42 And she spake out with a loud voice, and said,
Blessed art thou among women, and *blessed is the
fruit of thy womb. -
17 Wer. 33. And he shall reign over the house of Jacob,
si; roug aidiva;, wai rā; 8aaixeia; auroj oiº Batai réxo;, for
ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end..] i. e. Whilst
the house and the seed of Jacob, or the world lasts ; his
kingdom being nevel to give place to any other kingdom, as
the four monarchies did, Dan, vii. 14, but, yet when death,
the last enemy of his church, shall be dissolved, he shalk
give up this mediatory kingdom “to the Father” (see note
on 1 Cor. xv. 28).
18 Ver. 34. TIác Šarrat roºro ; How shall this be, seeing F
know not a man. 2) She so inquires after the manner, as not
to doubt of the fact, but she says not she was under a vow
not to know a man: for, (1.) virginity amongst the Jews was
not matter of praise, but reproach (Ps. lxxviii. 63) ; inso-
much that Grotius with all his learning could bring no in-
stance of any women who were tragóšva. 3,' &yveſay, or kept
their virginity, but from a testimony of Philo” concerning
some old women among the essenes, who were known ene-
mies to matrimony (see the note on Col. ii. 21); and, (2.)
marriage is numbered by them among the precepts of the
law, Targum on Gen. i. 28, which they only were exempted
from, who devoted themselves wholly to the study of the
law: and, (3.) if she made this vow before her espousals,
why should she marry P if after, it was void, as being not
made with the consent of her husband.
Wer. 35. Ató wai rā yeyvdºzevoy #ytoy, Therefore that holy
thing which shall be born of thee] Here it is evident that
our interpreters followed the other reading, viz. rô yew&Evoy
#z coiſ &yoy, for which they had good reason, for so read all
the ancient versions; so Irenaeus, lib. iii. cap. 26, Tertullian,
contra Prax. cap. 20. Novat. de Trin. cap. 19. Author
Quaest. et Respons. ad Orthodox. q. 46, p. 430. Epiphan.
Anchor. p. 69. Chrysost. ed. Mor. tom. v. p. 476. Autor
Dial. contra Marcion. p. 121, where he notes that the evan-
gelist saith not 33 cot, but #x cot (see Examen Millii).
19 Wer. 36. Elisabeth thy cousin, avyyev㺠aov.] Though
Elisabeth was of the tribe of Aaron, wer. 5, it follows not
that Mary was so ; for a woman might marry into another
tribe, provided she was not an heiress that carried the pater-
nal inheritance along with her, care being taken only against
that by the law, Numb. xxxvi. 8, 9. .
* Ver. 39. Mary went eig rºy psyāy—si, Tráxiv, into a city
of Juda..] i. e. To Hebron, which was situated in the hill
country (Josh. xi. 21), and was given to the posterity of
Aaron for an inheritance (Josh. xxi. 10, 11); it was also
the * where David was anointed king over Judah (2 Sam.
ii. 4). -
* Ver. 42. Kai sixoympºvo; 6 xagºràc rh; worxia; cov, And
blessed be the fruit of thy womb.] These words show that
* De Wità Contemp. p. 695.
CHAPTER II.
253.
43 And whence is this (honour done) to me, that (she
who is) the mother of *my Lord should come to me?
44 For, lo, (this so affected me that) as soon as the
voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe
*leaped in my womb for (the) joy (that transported
7me)
the angel) : *for there shall be a performance of those
things which were told her from the Lord.
46 And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the
Lord, -
47 And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
48 For he hath (highly) regarded the *low estate
of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth, all
generations shall call me blessed. -
49 For he that is mighty hath done *to me great
things; and holy (and reverend) is his name (Ps.
cxi. 9). -
50 And (as) his mercy is (to me, so will it be) on
them that fear him, from generation to generation.
51 (To show that he is mighty) he (in all ages) hath
showed strength with his "arm ; he hath scattered
the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
52 He hath put down the mighty from their seats,
and hath exalted them of low degree.
28).
45 And blessed is she that believed (the words of |
53 (And through his mercy to them that fear him),
he hath filled the hungry with good things; and (but,
the rich he hath sent empty away.
54 He hath *holpen his servant Israel, in remem-
brance of his mercy; -
55 As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to
his seed, (promising them one who should be a blessing
to them) for ever.
56 And Mary abode with her (cousin) about three
months, and (then) returned to her own house.
57 Now Elisabeth’s full time came, that she should
be delivered; and she brought forth a son.
58. And her neighbours and her cousins heard how
the Lord had showed great mercy upon her; and
they rejoiced with her.
59 And it came to pass, that on the *eighth day
they came to circumcise the child; and they called
him Zacharias, after the name of his father. -
60 And his mother answered and said (to them so
naming him), (It shall) not (be) so; but he shall be
* called John.
61 And they said to her, There is none of thy kin-
dred that is called by this name.
62 And they made signs to his father, (to know)
how he would have him called.
Christ had not his body from heaven, but from the womb of
the virgin, and so was truly the seed of David, according to
the flesh, Rom. ix. 5 (see Matt. i. 20. Gal. iv. 6, and the
note on 1 Cor. xv. 47).
** Ver. 43. The mother of my Lord.] She calls him, saith
Woltzogenius, her Lord, as David had done, Ps. cx, l, and
in his note on Matt. xxii. 45, he saith, he was so styled by
him, “because by virtue of his exaltation to the right hand
of Power, or of God, he was made Lord of angels, and of
all men.” Now he who is Lord over all men, and angels,
must have divine power and wisdom to rule and govern them,
and so partake of the divine nature. Hence of him, whose
name is “Kings of kings, and Lord of lords,” Rev. xix. 16, St.
John doth also say, his name is 3 Aéyo; rod Osotſ, “the Word
of God,” ver. 13, and in the beginning of his gospel, that
“ this Word was God.” z
* Ver. 44. 'Eaxternaev iv. 3)axxtárst rô 8pépoc. The child
leaped in my womº) “By reason of the joy which trans-
ported me,” saith Dr. Hammond ; for it was when Elisabeth
heard the salutation of Mary, that the babe leaped in her
womb, ver. 41, nor is any infant in the womb capable of any
joy, as having no apprehensions of good to be enjoyed, or
evil to be avoided ; and so he cannot be capable of that joy
which results only from these apprehensions: if you object,
that the angel had foretold that this child should be “filled
with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb,” ver. 15, and
upon that account he might rejoice whilst he was in it, see
the answer, note on ver. 15.
* Ver. 45. And blessed is she that believed, for (ěrt, that)
there shall be a performance of these things.] As the He-
brew so signifies not only for but that ; as Job iii. 12,
pyr ºn “that I might suck ;” and Ps. xi. 3, the wicked bend
their bow, &c. “that the foundations may be destroyed” (see
note, p. 406): so doth the Greek &rt.
25 Wer. 48. "Ori Étré8xe-Ley imi raºrstvoorty tº 3oſançairoij,
For he hath regarded (or compassionately looked upon) the
low estate of his handmaid.] The word here is not ratrst-
vo??ca Jyr, the humble-mindedness, but ratrsivoriç, the mean,
low, or afflicted state of the virgin, which appeared in her
offering for her purification, Luke ii. 24. So the word con-
stantly signifies both in the Old and the New Testament: so
speaks Leah, Gen. xxix. 32, “The Lord saw rày rarelyoaty,
my affliction, and hath given me a child:” so Jacob, Gen.
xxxi. 22, “The Lord saw my affliction:” so Deut. xxvi. 7.
1 Sam. ix. 16. 2 ICings xiv. 26. Neh. ix. 9. PS. ix. 13. xxiv.
18. xxx. 7. cxix. 153. Lam. i. 9. Acts viii. 33.
26 Wer. 49. For he that is mighty hath done to me ºs-
yaxeſa, great things;] i. e. He hath wrought a great mira-
cle upon me; so asya Meſa, and r& Kasyāxa, often signify the
miracles God wrought in Egypt and in the wilderness, Deut.
x. 21. xi. 7. xxxiv. 12. Ps. lxxi. 19. Ecclus xvii. 8. xxxvi. 8.
xliii. 15.
*7 Wer. 51. 'Etroina's zºáro; #y 8paxloy, airoij, He hath
showed strength with his arm.] Here Grotius notes, that
God’s great power is represented by his finger, his greater by
his hand, his greatest by his arm ; the production of lice was
“by the finger of God,” Exod. viii. 19, his other miracles in
Egypt were wrought “by his hand,” Exod. iii. 20, the de-
struction of Pharaoh and his host, in the Red sea “by his
arm,” Exod. xv. 6. The following words seem to be taken
from the song of Hannah, 1 Sam. ii. 4–6, and need no farther
explication than that which they have received in the para-
phrase.
* Ver. 54. 'Avraxá8ero, &c. He hath holpen his servant
Israel, &c.] The word &vrixaft.8áysaşal signifies, to hold by
the hand, to sustain from falling, or to lift up when fallen,
and so to afford aid or help, Jer. xxxi. 32. Zech. xiii. 13.
This he hath done, saith the virgin, in remembrance of his
mercy ; for then God is said signally to remember his people,
when, after a long oppression, in which he seemed to have
forgotten them, he works a mighty salvation for them : so
Ps. cxxxvi., §y rà rairewºrst #23 v škºwharºn, “The Lord remem-
bered us in our affliction (ver. 23), and delivered us out of
the hand of the enemy ;” and he did this also in pursuance
of his promise made to our forefathers, to send the Messiah
to be an everlasting blessing to all that believed in him, and
so became the seed of Abraham by faith.
* Ver, 59. 'Ey +jēy?án hºwägg #A$ow repºrtusſy to rai?toy.
On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child.] Not
before that day, because the mother was unclean seven days
(Lev. xii. 1, 2), and so was the child by touching her, and
therefore he was not then fit to be admitted into covenant:
moreover, till that time he was weak, and could not well en-
dure the pain of circumcision (see the note on Phil. iii. 5).
Note also, that the law appointed no certain place in which
circumcision was to be done, nor any certain person to per-
form it, and therefore it was done sometimes by women
(Exod. iv. 25), and here in the house of Elisabeth, as ap-
pears by her presence at it (ver. 60). The Jews did it
sometimes in their schools, not out of necessity, but to have
more witnesses of the fact. Then also they gave the name
to the infant, because, when God instituted circumcision, he
changed the names of Abraham and Sarah.
* Ver. 60. He shall be called John.] This she might learn
from her husband, giving her in writing a relation of what
the angel said to him (ver. 13). Now, “God is gracious,”
which is the import of that name, is a name very fit for him,
who was to be the first preacher of the kingdom of grace,
and who was to point out him, “from whose fulness we re-
ceive grace for grace” (John i. 16).
254
LUKE.
63 And he (by signs) asked for a writing-table, and
wrote, saying, His name is John. And they mar-
velled all.
64 And his mouth was opened immediately, and
his tongue loosed, and he spake, and praised God.
65 And fear came on all that dwelt round about
them : and all these sayings were noised abroad
throughout all the hill country of Judea.
66 And all they that heard them laid them up in
their hearts, saying, What manner of child shall this
be : *And the hand of the Lord (i.e. his favour) was
with him (in a special mannerto assist and prosper him).
67 And his father Zacharias was filled with the
Holy Ghost, and *prophesied, saying,
68 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for * he
hath visited and redeemed his people,
69 And he hath raised up “a horn of salvation (a .
mighty, royal Saviour) for us in the house of his ser-
vant David; ..'
70 As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets,
which have been (successively) * since the world be-
gan : (promising by them)
71 That we should be saved from our enemies, and
from the hands of all that hate us :
72 (And this he hath done) to perform the mercy
promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy
covenant (ver. 54, 55).
73 (And) the "oath which he sware to our father
Abraham, (That in his seed should all the families of
the earth be blessed, Gen. xxii. 18, and)
74 That he would grant (Gr. to grant) to us, that
we, being delivered out of the hands of our enemies
* Ver. 66. Kał Xsip Kvetov ºv, wer' airoij, And the hand of
the Lord was with him.] Here by the “hand of the Lord”
we are not to understand the spirit of prophecy, for this is
still described by “the hand of the Lord being #Tr' airby,
upon the prophet,” Ezek. i. 3. iii. 22. xxxvii. 1. xl. 1; but
the care, providence, and assistance of God, as Ps. lxxx. 17.
* Ver. 67. Kał Zaxagia, Éraha &n IIveſ, aro; &yiov ×ai trpos-
‘pâtevors, And his father Zachary was filled with the Holy
Ghost, and prophesied.] Notwithstanding all that the critics
here say, I know but two significations of the word prophe-
sying, especially when it is said to be done by one “filled
with the Holy Ghost;” as here; and two senses, in which
any one in scripture is called a prophet. And,
First, According to the grammatical import of the word,
a prophet is 6 trºopázkov’ rô ĐºàAoy, “one who foretells, that
something future, and contingent in respect of us, shall cer-
tainly fall out:” so Phavorinus, trgoºrn; a riv 3 & #v=gysia;,
arvevºcatixii; Tā ºft\\ovta &nxãy, “A prophet is one who de-
clares things future, by the assistance of the Spirit:” thus,
when Ezekiel had prophesied of the desolation of Jerusalem
by the sword, and by wild beasts, “When this,” saith he,
“cometh to pass, ye shall know that a prophet hath been
among you” Ezek. xxxiii. 27, 33): and in the time of their
captivity, they thus complain, “We see not our signs; there
is no prophet more, not one that can tell us how long” these
calamities shall last, or when they will have an end (Ps. lxxiv.
9). And in this sense Zacharias here prophesies, foretelling
what should be done by his son, and by the Messiah here-
after.
Secondly, A prophet, in the scripture language, is a re-
vealer of the will of God. So Phavorinus, ºrpoºrn; a riv
&vščwro; Baio, ºrvevº, aroqāeos, “A prophet is a divine man,
endued with an afflatus of the Holy Spirit.” In this sense
is Abraham styled a prophet, by reason of the many divine
revelations made to him, Gen. xx. 7, and by him left unto
posterity, xviii. 19, and John the Baptist is here styled a
prophet, ver, 76, because he received his commission and
doctrine from heaven, Matt. xxi. 25. John i. 6, though we
read of no predictions made by either of them. And to
such a prophet it was absolutely necessary that he should re-
ceive his doctrine by revelation from God ; for as the things
of man knoweth no man, but the spirit of man that is in
him; so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit
of God” (1 Cor. ii. 11): so that he who reveals his will must
be &Sporog 3 ºryevº, atopégo;, “a man inspired by the Spirit;”
for, Saith St. Peter, “no prophecy is of private motion or
incitation, but holy men of old spake as they were moved by
the Holy Ghost” (2 Pet. i. 20, 21). Hence are they styled
so often “the messengers of the Lord, the prophets who had
spoken in the name of the Lord,” 2 Chron. xxxvi. 16. Hag.
i. 13. Mal. ii. 7. 1 Pet. i. 10.2 Pet. iii. 2. Their prophecies
are called the “word” and “burden” of the Lord ; and
their style runs, “Thus saith the Lord.” Hence, lastly,
this is still the character of the false prophets, that “they
run when God had not sent them, and prophesied when God
had not spoken to them ;”, nor have these words any other
sense in scripture, nor were they used any otherwise by the
ancient Jews: this sense the word plainly bears, when it is
said, Exod. vii. 1, “I have made thee a god to Pharaoh, and
Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet;” i. e. the revealer of
what thou, the god of Pharaoh, shall say to him ; nor does
it ever signify to expound or interpret scripture, otherwise
than by a divine afflatus, or gift of prophecy (see the note on
1 Cor. xiv. 6). It also signifies a divine afflatus enabling a
man to compose hymns, or psalms of praise, but still “as
they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (see the same note).
In the example of Saul, it signifies to rave in prophesying,
i. e. to be, as the Septuagint hath it, Hos. ix. 7, #aatna &c, a
prophet in ecstasy and madness; but still by the afflatus of
an evil spirit, according to that distinction of prophecy Pha-
vorinus gives us, that it is either rveupdatiº º kai 3.480xtº,
“by the afflatus of the good or evil spirit;” as in this in-
stance, the evil spirit came upon Saul, “and he prophesied
in his house” (see the opinion of the Jews, note on 2 Pet. i.
21).” And, lastly, when the body of Elisha is said by the
son of Sirach to prophesy by raising the dead man, Ecclus.
xlviii. 14, he intended not to say, it wrought a miracle, but
only that it foretold a thing to come, viz. the fall of the Sy-
rians, who, saith Elisha there, “shall be smitten three times.”
and the rising up of God's oppressed people, or the reviving
of them ; and so is to be reduced to the first acceptation of
the word.
* Wer. 68. 'EtraczéJaro, Kai Troina's Aërewaiy rô A26 airrot,
He hath visited in mercy, &c.] So Ruth i. 6. Ps. lxxix.
15. cy. 4, so as to do them good ; as he visited Sarah, Gen.
xxi. 1, and Hannah, 1 Sam. ii. 21, and his people oppressed
by the Egyptians, Gen. l. 24, 25. Exod. iii. 16, when the
people rejoiced, ºr #Teczékaro, “that God hath visited the
children of Israel,” iv. 31. xiii. 19, as he did then by grant-
ing them the deliverance they desired, and here by granting
the Messiah they so earnestly expected, who was to save his
people from their sins, and so to work redemption for them.
* Ver, 60. Kápac corneia;..] Either a strong or mighty
salvation ; the metaphor being taken from beasts, whose
strength is in their horns, as Jer. xlviii. 25. Lam. ii. 3. 17.
Or a royal salvation ; the horn signifying royal power, Ps.
cxxxii. 17. Dan. vii. 7, 8. Zech. i. 18, this relating to the
setting up the kingdom of David by the Messiah, who was
to reign over the house of Jacob, ver. 33. 73, so that it is
eminently képa; Toij Kºta toû aircü, “the horn of his Christ,”
1 Sam. ii. 10.
* Ver. 70. Tày &Tr' aiºvo, Trºopnºr&y, Which have been
since the world began.] From the beginning of ages, the
promise being made to Adam, Gen. iii. 15, “that the seed
of the woman should bruise the serpent's head.” So Jeru-
Salem hath been a rebellious city, min jomath holma, 34'
hºspów aiºvoc, i. e. “from time of old,” Ezra iv. 15. 19, and
hºpas &#xaſai, the days of old, and Érn aidºvia, are the same,
Ps. lxxvii. 5 (see the note on Tit. i. 2).
* Wer. 73. To perform the oath, &c.] This oath was
made to Abraham, Gen. xxii. 16, 17. Now that being “an
immutable thing” (Heb. vi. 17), it could neither be hin-
dered nor retarded by the sins of the Jews, as they say the
coming of their Messiah was ; and the words following,
3otival høy, “that he would give us this horn of salvation,”
or this seed, in which all the families of the earth should be
blessed, are the subject of that oath, Gen. xxii. 18, and
therefore these words are rather to be joined to this verse, as
in the Greek, than to be added to the beginning of the next,
as it is in our translation. *
*
CHAPTER II.
255
(sin, death, and Satan), might "serve him without
fear (of them),
75 In holiness and righteousness before him, all
the days of our life.
76 And thou, (my) child, shalt be called ”the pro-
‘phet of the Highest (God) ; for thou shalt go before
the face of the Lord (Christ) to prepare his way;
77 To give knowledge of salvation (i.e. of the Mes-
siah, styled by the prophets the salvation of God : see
note on ii. 30) to his people, for the remission of their
Slns,
*7 Wer. 74. 'A468w, Aargeſſew airój, To serve him without
fear.] That &#68w; here is to be joined to Aargeſsly, “to
serve * is evident, as Mr. Le Clerc notes, from the harshness
of tre other expression, “to be delivered without fear;” and
from the nature of the Christian constitution, which delivers
us “from the spirit of bondage unto fear,” under which the
Jews were held (Rom. viii. 15), from the fear of death, the
last enemy, and of Satan, who had the power of death
(Heb. ii. 14, 15); God having “not now given us the spirit
of fear” (2 Tim. i. 17), but that love which casts out fear
(1 John iv. 18). But then, when Mr. Le Clerc adds, that
at this time the Syrians, Egyptians, and other heathen na-
tions bordering on Judea, were troublesome to the Jews;
nor were they without fear of the Romans themselves, so
that they could not exercise their religion & pá8wç, without
fear; and that Zacharias speaks of the Messiah as of one
that was about to rescue the Jews from those dangers, in
agreement with the common opinion ; nor did the Spirit of
prophecy undeceive him as to this matter: this is one of
those bold strokes, which if that learned man could abstain
from, he would give less offence to the Christians, and less
advantage to the antiscripturists; for if one “filled by the
Holy Ghost,” and prophesying by an afflatus from him, may
prophesy deceit, and promise to his fellow Jews that a tem-
poral kingdom should be erected by the Messiah, which
their common opinion made them to expect ; though this
opinion was not only false, but wholly opposite to the na-
ture of Christ's kingdom, and that which chiefly hindered
the Jews from receiving Christ as their Messiah : why might
not others, though filled with the Holy Ghost, speak other
things according to the common though false opinion of the
Jews, and the Spirit of prophecy not undeceive them P And
if so, where is our certainty of the rule of faith ? But
surely, if Christ's kingdom be spiritual; his subjects must be
so, and their enemies spiritual, sin, death, and Satan ; from
all which we shall obtain a full deliverance by “serving God
in righteousness and holiness before him all the days of our
life.”
* Ver. 76. ‘o reophºrn; 5 Jirrow, The prophet of the
Highest.] The God of Israel seems to have been still
owned by those heathens who had any knowledge of him,
as a God above all gods; by Cyrus he is styled, by way of
emphasis, 5 Os3c, “the God,” Ezra i. 3, by Rahab the har-
lot, the God of heaven above, and in the earth beneath,
Josh. ii. 11, by Cyrus, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 23. Ezra i. 2, by
T]arius, Ezra vi. 9, 10, by Artaxerxes, Ezra vii. 21. 23, by
Nebuchadnezzar, Dan. iv. 37, by Hiram, the God that made
heaven and earth, 1 Chron. ii. 12. And as in scripture he
78 Through the tender mercy of our God; where-
by the *day-spring from on high (or rising sun, as
Christ is styled, Zech. iii. 8) hath visited us,
79 To give light (not to us only, but also) to them
that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to
guide our feet into the way of peace.
80 And the child grew, and waxed strong in (the)
Spirit (or had the Spirit of God daily showing himself
more conspicuously in him), and was in the desert till
the day of his showing (himself) to Israel (by the ea-
ecution of his office among them).
is exalted above all others, by the name of Trºy ºn the most
high God, Gen. xiv. 18, so also he is styled by Cyrus, Esd.
ii. 3, by Nebuchadnezzar, Dam. iv. 34, by Darius, Esd. vi.
31, by Artaxerxes, Esd. viii. 19. 21, by the emperor Au-
gustus, Josephus, Antiq. lib. xvi. cap. 10, p. 561, by Tibe-
rius, Philo, Legat. ad Caium, p. 785, E, by Tatnai and She-
thar-boznai, Os3; 3 &#yaç, the great God, Ezra v. 8, by
Artaxerxes, the highest, the greatest, and the living God,
Esth. xvi. 16.
* Ver. 78. 'Avatox. £ tºpovº, The day-spring from on
high hath visited us...] He who is here styled “the day-
spring from on high,” or rising sun, is by Zachary called,
iii. 8, 'Ayatoxi, “the rising Sun, my servant ;” and vi. 12,
“the man whose name is 'Ayatoxh, the rising Sun:” and by
Malachi, iv. 2, “the sun of righteousness,” as being to arise.
upon the Jew and gentile, and spread his bright beams on
those “who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death,”
Isa, ix. 2. Whence by old Simeon he is said “to be a light
to lighten the gentiles,” Luke ii. 32, and by the Baptist,
“to be a light shining in darkness,” John i. 5.—
[An addition.] It is evident to any one who inspects the
Greek, that this hymn is deficient as to the full sense of it,
from ver. 71 to 75, and that Troiña at #880; ºstă răy rarépov
#ºv, ver. 72, which we translate “to perform the mercy
promised to,” should rather be translated, “to perform the
mercy (covenanted) with our fathers, and to remember his
holy covenant ;” according to the words of the blessed Vir-
gin, “He hath holpen his servant Israel, in remembrance of
his mercy (covenanted) to Abraham, and to his seed for
ever:” it being therefore very usual, both in the Old and
the New Testament, to supply what is defective from the
preceding words, I look upon the whole following hymn to
ver. 76, as a descant upon those words in the beginning, to
wit, #rea ºf Jaro, wai troina's A&rpoziv, “He hath visited and
redeemed his people ; ” and therefore fill up the sense of it
thus, ºrotna's Xirgway, “He hath performed redemption to
them : ” viz. ver. 71, cornpiaw, “Salvation from our ene-
mies, and from the hands of all that hate us:” #treakšskaro,
ver. 72, Troja at #x20;, “He hath visited us, to perform the
mercy covenanted with our fathers, and to remember his
holy covenant ; kai ayna Śāyat (ver. 73), röy $380V, and to re-
member the oath which he sware to our father Abraham,
to 300was hºv, to give us, the heirs of the promise (Heb. vi.
17), this horn of salvation (ver. 69), this Redeemer, this de-
liverer out of Zion (styled á včºsyoc, to enable us), šva Sívºrac,
thus delivered from the hands of our enemies, to serve him
without fear,” &c. -
CHAPTER II.
1 AND it came to pass in those days, that there
went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the
world should be taxed (that is, should have their names
and conditions in life set down in court-rolls, according
to their families).
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II.
1 Ver. 1. 'Atroypéqsa.0a rāgay rºy oikovºzávny, That all the
world should be tawed.] Not only the Roman empire, but
all the precedent empires were styled oizouwéyn, “the world;”
and the governors of them were said Tráenc évrixgatival ric
oizouwéync, “to rule over the whole world” (see the note on
2 (And this taxing was *first made (before
that made) when Cyrenius was governor of
Syria.) & º
3 And all went to be taxed, every one into his own
city.
Heb. ii. 5). Hence the counsel of God against the empire
of Babylon is styled his counsel, iºri Tây &ny ºvºvny,
“against all the earth;” her desolation is represented as the
desolation 3An; tº; oinovºvnº, “ of the whole world ;” and
the evil brought upon her, as evils which extended tâ ºxov-
ºn 3xh, “to the whole world” (Isa. xiv. 17.26).
* Ver. 2. Ağrn # 37voygaph ºrpºrn #yéveto hyewoyedovros añ,
256
LUKE.
4 And Joseph also *went up from Galilee, out of
the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to “the city of David,
which is called Beth-lehem, because he was of the
house and lineage of David;
5 To be taxed with "Mary his espoused wife, being
great with child.
6 And so it was, that, while they were there, the
days were accomplished that she should be delivered.
7 And she brought forth her first-born son, “and
wrapped him in Swaddling-clothes, and laid him in a
manger; because there was no room for them in the
1I]Il.
8 And there were in the same country "shepherds
ºng in the field, keeping watch over their flock by
night.
9 And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them
(Gr. stood by them), and the “glory of the Lord shone
round about them : and they were sore afraid.
10 And the angel said to them, Fear not; for, be-
hold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which
shall be (so) to all people.
II For to you is born this day in (Beth-lehem) the
city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
12 And this shall be a sign to you (of the truth of
my words, That going thither) ye shall find the babe
wrapped in Swaddling-clothes, lying in a manger.
13 And suddenly there was with the angel a mul-
titude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
14 °Cºlory (be) to God (who dwelleth) in the highest
(heavens), and (or, for by this Saviour is procured) on
earth peace, (and God’s) good-will towards men.
15 And it came to pass, as the angels were gone
away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one
to another, Let us now go even to Beth-lehem, and
see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord
hath made known to us.
Xupia; Kvænviou, Now this taaring was first made when (or,
was before that, when) Cyrenius was governor of Syria.] I
dare not allow of the boldness of those critics, who for Ku-
pnviou read Kuwtnxiou, or zarvºvivov, there being no footsteps
of any such reading either in ancient writers, versions, or
MSS.; and were there place for conjecture here, I would
rather read ºrgö täç than ºrpºrn ; as if the evangelist should
say, This taxing or enrolling was before that, which was
made by Cyrenius, that being so unhappy and pernicious to
the Jews,” by reason of the sedition then raised, upon occa-
sion of the tax, by Judas Gaulomites, and which, Saith Jose-
phus,’t gave the rise to all their future troubles.
Now this, saith Josephus, was after Judea was made
orgoa Sºńkn rā; zupiaç, “an addition to the province of Syria ;”
and when Archelaus was banished, and so above ten years
after that mentioned here, as done at our Saviour's birth,
and fit to be thus separated from that, which was attended
with those ill effects; this being in design highly salutary,
that being very fatal to the Jewish nation. But neither do
we need this criticism, since the words rºto; and ºrpérepo;
are by the LXX. oft used according to this sense: of the
word ºrgårepov, that is beyond doubt, God saying twice &moa-
trex3, a pnxia; TºyBº ºrpätsga, arov, “I will send hornets before
thee” (Exod. xxiii. 28. Josh. xxiv. 12); in which sense you
will find this word above twenty times in Kircher's Con-
cordance in the word His : that ºrgâro; also is used in the
sense of priority, we learn from these instances, Trgotároxo;
By& hav, Heb. Tryp ºr “I am before thee, I am elder than
thou ;” xał Wa ºri oix #Aoyia Sn 3 Aáyo; Fou Trpätoº. Chald.
* Rxhºſp kaddemotza li, “why then was not the word first
spoken to me?” cur mihi non annuntiatum est priori ? 2
Sam. xix. 43 ; Isa. lxv. 16, “The former troubles are for-
gotten,” Gr. Érixhaoyºral rºw SAtºlly airãy rºy ºrpärny, and wer.
17, oi, º, øvna Śāori rāy ºrporégov, “They shall not remember
the former :” so John i. 15. 30, 3rt ºrgārā; aou ºv, “For he
was before me ;” and, xv. 18, “Know that they hated #&#
orgâroy, me before you ;” I Cor. xiv. 30, 3 ºrgâroc, “Let the
former hold his peace;” and 1 John iv. 19, “We love
him, 3rt ºrpāroc, because he loved us before ;” and in Aris-
tophanes, 38A air &y argºrov is interpreted &AA’ oix &w irgáre-
pov, Neph. p. 122, and so Theophylact interprets the words
here, rov'réaºri trčovága hyspaoyedovros, hyovy trpársgow hyeºvevs
‘rā; Xugia, Kughvio;. As for this 3roygaph, that it was not a
money tax, but an enrolling of persons according to their fa-
milies and estates, see Dr. Hammond, note b.
* Wer. 4. 'Avečn 33 kai Iwakp, &c. And Joseph went up
from Galilee—to the city of David called Bethlehem.] Here,
first, interpreters observe, That &yagaively, “to ascend, or go
up,” does not always signify to go from a lower to a higher
place, but to go from one place to another, as Judg. xvi. 18.
Secondly, That admirable was the providence of God in or-
dering this enrolment, intended by Augustus to be done be-
* Kup#vio; it zveta; trapºy tra Kafrago; 3:42 to?%rnç roſ. 30,00;
&rezraxgåvoc, zai rigonºra, Tây oilclºy yeyna Śwayog. Joseph.
Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 1.
+ Kai rāy at 6: Kaköv karsºn%roy #32; # pâtevcay, Ibid.
fore, to be deferred to this very time, that so Christ might
be born in Bethlehem, according to the prediction of the
prophet, Micah v. 2. And, Thirdly, That the stock and fa-
mily of Christ might at that time be known and preserved
in the public tables, as Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Chry-
sostom (Hom. 8, in Matt.), testify.
* Ei, trów Aagið, To the city of David.] That muster-
ings and enrollings, as in other nations, so especially in Ju-
dea, were made according to their tribes, cities, and families,
we learn from the sortition which Joshua made by tribes, fa-
milies, and households, Josh. vii. 14. Now this could not
be done, especially after their manifold dispersions, unless
every one went to that city to which his family belonged.
* Ver. 5. xiv Magiãº, tº wººvna revºwn abrá yvyaiki, With
Mary his espoused wife.] She was not only espoused now,
but married also to him, but is still called espoused, because
Joseph used her as such, not knowing her “till she had
brought forth viðv airſ; roy ºrgarðrozov, her first-born son,”
Matt, i. 25 (see the note there). Moreover, hence it is pro-
bably collected, that the blessed Virgin Mary was also of
the house and family of David, as hath been shown, note
on Luke i. 27, for, if he went to Bethlehem to be enrolled
because he was of the house and family of David, she must
go thither for the same reason also ; nam alioqui ipsa in fa-
miliae suae urbe profiteri debuerat ; “for otherwise,” saith
Grotius, “she ought to have been enrolled in the city of her
own family,” and not at Bethlehem : for it is said, ver. 3,
“that all (men and women) went to be taxed, every one in
his own city.”
• Wer. 7. Kai écºragyóvoa ev, &c. And she wrapped him in
swaddling-clothes.] By doing this herself it is thought her
labour was without the usual pangs of childbed.
7 Ver. 8. Kai rotºzéve; hoay—‘puxáa covts; puxaxå; rig wux-
röc, &c. And there were shepherds—keeping watch over
their flock, or the watches of the night over their flock.]
Here note (1.) That as Abraham and David, to whom the
promise of the Messiah was first made, were shepherds, so
was the completion of this promise first revealed to shep-
herds. (2.) The watches of the night were four ; the first of
them is mentioned Lam. ii. 19, the second and third, Luke
xii. 38, and the fourth, Matt. xiv. 25, being the morning .
watch, Exod. xiv. 24. These flocks being kept in the field,
they watched severally in their courses, to preserve them
from thieves and wild beasts, and had their little cottages
erected for that purpose.
8 Wer. 9. Kai # 36%a Kupiov reptă»ap, Jew aircüç, And the
glory of the Lord shone round about them.] i. e. Not only
a great light, but such a glorious splendour as useth to re-
present the presence of God; of which, see note on Phil. ii.
6. Heb. i. 3, and was oft attended with a host of angels, as
here, ver. 13, styled the heavenly host, 1 Kings xxii. 19.
Neh. ix. 6. Ps. ciii. 20, who, as they sang together at the
first creation, Job xxxviii. 7, so do they now at the redemp-
tion of the world, praising God, and Saying,
* Ver, 14. A6%a by islia rot; Gleð, Kai Hºri yi; Elphyn, #y &v$26-
trot, eiºoxia, Glory to God on high, and on earth peace, good-
will towards men.] Here note, first, that this is not a hymn
of prayer, that glory may be given to God, peace may be
CHAPTER II.
.C.) ºr ºf
25 f
16 And they came with haste (thither), and found
Mary and Joseph (there), and the babe lying in a
manger.
17 And when they had seen it, they made known
abroad the saying which was told them (by the angel)
concerning this child.
18 And all they that heard it wondered at those
things which were told them by the shepherds.
19 But Mary kept all these things, and pondered
them in her heart.
20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and
praising God for all the things they had heard (from
the angel) and seen, as it was told them (by him).
21 And when eight days were *accomplished (i. e.
when the eighth day was come) for the circumcising of
the child, his name was called JESUs, which was so
named of (or, the name imposed on him by) the angel
before he was conceived in the womb.
22 And when the days of her "purification, ac-
cording to the law of Moses, were accomplished, they
brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord;
23 As it is written in the law of the Lord, *Every
male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to
upon earth, &c., but rather a declaratory hymn of glory due
to God for what he hath done already ; for the angels are
said to praise God, saying, “ Glory,” &c. Now praise is for
what is done already. Secondly, Some, observing that wai
is sometimes casual, and signifies for, give the sense of this
hymn thus, Glory be to God ; because, by the birth of this
Saviour, who is onr peace (Eph. ii. 14), there will be peace
on earth, and the goodwill of God to man is manifest.
Others thus: The goodwill of God to man, shown in the
incarnation of our Saviour, is matter to him of the highest
glory, and the foundation of our peace on earth: and be-
cause some copies read Év &ySpºrot; eiºoxiaç, “to men of
goodwill;” Some, following that reading, give the sense
thus: Peace will be on earth to men whom God accepts.
But this is less to be regarded, because all the Greek fathers
(Orig. in Joh. xi. 14. Euseb. Demonst. Evang. lib. iv. cap.
10, p. 163. Epiph. Haer. 30, §. 29. Constit. Apost. lib.
vii, cap. 47) read otherwise (see Examen Millii in locum).
* Ver. 21. Kai &re in Añasna’ay #2.Épal wré, roi; ºrigitsasſy
7. Traºlov, And when eight days were accomplished for the
circumcising of the child.] That is, not when the eighth day
was ended, but when it was come: so ver, 22, so Acts ii. I,
#y tº avºrangoûcºat, “When the day of pentecost was
come.” Now Christ was circumcised, that he might wear
the badge of a child of Abraham, and that he might be
“made under the law, to redeem them that were under the
law” (Gal. iv. 4), xa, xxhôn, and then was his name called
Jesus. So Kai signifies, Gen. xxiv. 41. xxviii. 21. xxxi. 8.
xlii. 34, 38. Exod. vii. 9. Lev. iv. 3. 14. 23. 28. Numb. v.
15. 21. Deut. vi. 21. viii. 10. Josh. i. 15. xxiv. 20. 1 Sam.
i. 11. Matt. ix. 7. Luke ii. 28.
* Ver, 22. Kał Śte Éraha Sha'aw at #2.Épal roš zagatiº
air㺗aúrów, And when the days of her purification, ac-
cording to the law of Moses, were accomplished.] I for-
merly thought that the reading “her purification,” and not
the purification of them both, was to be retained, that only
being agreeable to the law, and to the version of the LXX.,
because the law of purification belonged only to the mother,
who till that time remained #y aſ wart &ka946 tº attā;, “ in
the blood of her impurity,” till the days wagágarew; air;,
“of her purifying were fulfilled” (Lev. xii. 4, 5); then,
saith the text, shall she bring her offering, “and the priest
#éºézerai regi airfic zai 2a9agist airºv, shall make an atone-
ment for her, and she shall be cleansed from the issue of
her blood: this is the law for her that hath borne a male or
female” (ver. 7, 8). But I have since found cause to judge
otherwise: for that the ancient reading was airów is evident
from these words of Origen,* Si scriptum esset propter pur-
gationem ejus ; i. e. Mariae, nihil quaestionis oriretur, et au-
dacter diceremus Mariam quae homo crat, purgatione in-
diguisse post partum ; nunc veró in eo quod ait, dies
* Hom. 14 in Lucam, f. 100, D.
the Lord (i.e. shall be consecrated to God, and so
nade holy) ;
24 And to offer a sacrifice (for the woman at her
purification), according to that which is said in the
law of the Lord, (That he who is not able to bring a
lamb, should bring) a “pair of turtle-doves, or two
young pigeons.
25 And, behold, there was a man in Jerusalem,
whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just
(towards men) and devout (towards God, and he was)
*waiting for the consolation of Israel; and the *Holy
Ghost was upon him.
26 And it was revealed to him by the Holy Ghost,
that he should not see death, before he had seen the
Lord’s Christ. s
27 And he came by (motion of) the Spirit into the
temple: and when the parents (at the same time)
brought in the child Jesus, to do for him (i. e. to pay
the price of his redemption as being their first-born)
after the custom of the law (concerning the first-born),
28 Then took he him up in his arms, and blessed
God, and said,
29 Lord, now lettest thou thy servant * depart in
purgationis eorum, non videtur unum significare, Sed alterum,
sive plures. So also read St. Jerome, Con. Helvid. tom. ii.
f. 7, lit. A, Euthymius, Theophylact, and the Syriac ver-
sion ; nor is there any fear of ascribing any moral impurity
to the holy Jesus by allowing this reading, since this purga-
tion imports only a compliance with a ceremonial law, in
order to their admittance into the congregation of God's peo-
ple, to which Christ, being “made of a woman, made under
the law,” was to submit, that he might “fulfil all righteous-
ness: ” on which account also he was made relatively holy,
by being consecrated to the Lord, according to the law con-
cerning every male that openeth the womb, wer. 23.
** Ver. 23. IIáy &ga by 8tavoiyoyºchreay, Every male that openeth
the womb.] The words of the law concerning every male that
openeth the womb, being here applied to the blessed virgin,
bringing forth her first-born, sufficiently confirm the assertion
of Irenaeus,” Tertullian, F Origen, ; and others of the fathers,
cited by Petavius, that she brought forth Christ after the
usual manner ; and yet the contrary opinion, though built
upon fables, and superstitious imaginations, and spurious
authorities, prevailed almost generally in the fourth and
fifth centuries (see the treatise of Traditions, par. i, cap. 1,
13 Ver. 24. Kai 8859at Burſay—Keiyo; Tºvyčvoy, And to offer
a pair of turtles.] This being the oblation appointed
only for the poor (Lev. xii. 6, 8), discovers the poverty of
Joseph and Mary, that they could not reach to a lamb of
the first year; the offering which they who had ability were
to make.
14 Wer. 25. Iſºod Sexipºvo; Tºy Traçáºnºty roi; Izpañx, Wait-
ing for the consolation of Israel.] This was the familiar
phrase they used when they spake of the coming of the Mies-
siah ; to see those days being, in their way of speaking,
“to see the consolation of Israel,” or “the years of the
consolation to come.” See the Targum on Isa. iv. 3, on
Jer. xxxi. 6, and 2 Sam. xxiii. 1, and they were wont,
saith Dr. Lightfoot, to swear “by their desire to see this con-
solation.”
15 Kai IIysijºa #yicy Ży im' airów, And the Holy Ghost was
wpon him.] i. e. He had received the gift of prophecy; for
that having ceased four hundred years, began to dawn
again at the birth of the Messiah in some pious persons,
as Zachary, Simeon, and Anna the daughter of Phanuel.
16 Ver. 29. Nīy &roxásic, Lord, now lettest thou thy Ser-
want depart.] Here Grotius well notes, that &roxöstv and
* Fuit filius hominis purus, puram aperiens vulvam, Iren.
lib. iv. cap. 66. *
+ Virgo quantùm a viro, non virgo quantum a partil-
peperit enim ipsa patefacti corporis lege. Tertul. de Carne
Christi, cap. 23. g
f Matris Domini eo tempore vulva reserata est, qué partus
editus. Orig. Hom. 13, in Levit. tom. ii. f. 101.
S
258
LUKE.
peace, (seeing it hath been with me) according to thy
word:
30 For mine eyes have seen (the Messiah, called)
thy "salvation,
31 Which thou hast prepared before the face of all
people (as well gentiles as Jews, he being sent as)
32 *A light to lighten the gentiles, and (to be) the
glory of thy people frael.
33 And Joseph and his mother marvelled at these
things which were spoken of him.
34 And Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary
his mother, Behold, this child is set for *the fall (of
many thröugh infidelity), and (for the) rising again (or
wp) of many in Israel (through faith in him) ; and
for a sign that shall be spoken against (by the scribes
and pharisees, and rulers of the people, who shall
blaspheme his person, contradict his doctrine, and set
him up as their mark to shoot at) ;
35 Yea, a sword (that of martyrdom) shall pierce
through thy own soul also (and this contradiction of
him, God in his wisdom shall permit), that the thoughts
of many hearts (i.e. the inward tempers and disposi-
tions of many) may be revealed.
&róavoriç, both in sacred and profane authors, signify to de-
part out of this life, or to die; as when Abraham says, #y&
aroxiouai &rewog, “I die childless,” Gen. xv.2; 37888Sn
Aagöy, “Aaron died,” Numb. xx. 29. Thus Tobit prays,
“Command my spirit to be taken from me, Širo; 3roxv63,
that I may be dissolved;” #wiražov #mixvsåvaí (as, Tobit iii.
5; and Sarah saith, eſtroy &roxêcai as 3rd rā; yńs, ver. 13,
“I desired God to take me from the earth ;” and one of the
seven children saith to the tyrant, at #x rod trapávro; #43; &#y
&roxiſsic, “Thou takest away our present life.” Thus, saith
Lycon,” this is my testament, ºxera rºy #xiv &méAvoriv, “af-
ter my dissolution.” Themistius'ſ notes that it was cus-
tomary to some to call death &móvaric, and to say of them
that they did &moxisºv. So Theophrastus: calls death
&Téavai; ; and Heraclitus's saith, “Perhaps the soul pre-
Sageth &méavaiy airiç, her dissolution ; ” all which expres-
sions confirm the old traditions of the distinction of the soul
from the body, and her continuance in a state of separation.
” Wer. 30. “Or, slēow 349a Awoi (cov ºr a wrhetáv cov, For
omine eyes have seen thy salvation.] So the deliverance God
sent to his people is called gotáploy roi; Osoſ, “the salvation
of God,” Ps. xcviii. 3; how much more may the salvation
sent by Christ be styled, as it is emphatically, h ororneia,
“the Salvation,” Isa. xlix. 6. lii.7, yea, corngia Trag& roi; Osotſ,
“ salvation from God,” ver, 102
* Ver. 32. Q3; eiç &moxáAvliy Syāy. A light to enlighten the
gentiles.] It is wonderful that after so many clear prophe-
cies in the Old Testament of the calling of the gentiles, the
Jews should have been all so blind as to imagine God had
no kindness for them (Acts x. 45. xi. 18).
* Wer. 34. Ośro; x=ſrai sic Trrója'iy wai &várraarw, This child
is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel.] Doubtless
God’s first design in sending his Son into the world was that
“through him the world might be saved” (John ii. 16), and
he was designed especially “to save his people from their
sins” and be “a horn of salvation” to them (Luke i. 69).
But to persons who were worldly-minded and had no relish
for spiritual things, which was the case of the generality of
the Jews, who were much given to the flesh, as Tacitus ob-
serves of them, who were puffed up with a vain conceit of
their own wisdom and singular piety, full of vain-glory,
greedy of empire and applause, and affected with worldly
pomp and grandeur, as were the scribes and pharisees, and
rulers of the people, he was to be “a stone of stumbling, and
a rock of offence,” because these things obstructed their re-
ception of his doctrine and spiritual kingdom, so different
from that which they expected ; and to discover who had
hearts well disposed to embrace his doctrine upon conviction,
and who by those prejudices and corrupt aſſections would
shut their eyes against the light, is here “to manifest the
* Apud Laert. lib. v. p. 348. f Apud Stob. Serm. 119.
† Hist. Plant. 8. 17. § Ad Amph, ep, 1.
36 And there was (also) one *Anna, a prophetess,
the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser; (and)
she was of a great age, and had lived with a husband
seven years from her virginity;
37 And she was a widow of about fourscore and
four years (old), which departed not from the temple,
but served God with fastings and prayer night and
day (at evening and morning service).
38 And she coming at that instant (that the child
was there) gave thanks likewise to the Lord, and
* spake of him to all them that looked for redemption
in Jerusalem (as the person from whom it was to be
eapected).
39 And when they had performed all things accord-
ing to the law of the Lord (and had fled into Egypt
for the safety of the child, after the death of Herod),
. returned into Galilee, to their own city Naza-
reth.
40 And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit,
(being) filled with wisdom ; and the grace of God was
upon him (i. e. the favour of God was with him).
41 Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year
at the feast of the passover.
thoughts of men's hearts” by their actions. When Simeon
adds, kai arov 33 air㺠Juxºv 8.5x552 stat flop, pala, “And a sword
shall pass through thine own soul ;” though grief is said to
pierce as with a sword, both in profane authors and in the
psalmist, xlii. 10, yet, seeing this comes not up to the height
of this expression, this seemeth rather to respect her martyr-
dom, or being taken away by death, saith Epiphanius, &c
yāygatrºtat, “As it is written, A sword shall pass through her
soul, or herself” (Haeres. 78, Ş. 32).
* Ver. 36, 37. Anna, a prophetess, of the tribe of Aser,
a widow of about eighty-four years, xal oix & piazaro &ºrd rot;
isgow, and she departed not from the temple, but served
God with fastings and prayers night and day.] Note, (1.)
that this fourscore and four years must be reckoned, not from
the beginning of her widowhood, but of her life, otherwise
she must be a very decrepit woman, not able to fast after
this manner; and (2) she is said to be always in the temple,
because she was so constantly there at the hours of prayer:
so Aaron and his sons are bid “not to go out of the door of
the tabernacle” (Lev. x. 7), i. e. not to do it during the time
of their ministry.
* Ver. 38. 'ExáAst repl airoi; ºrâat roſ; "rºodºxoprivoic
Aörgoaty #y'Ispovo axiº, She spake of him all that looked for
‘redemption in Jerusalem.] This being the time when the
whole Jewish nation was looking for the “consólation of Is-
rael,” ver, 25, for “redemption” here, and even the scribes
and pharisees “expected that the kingdom of God should
immediately appear;” and this being, say Tacitus” and Sue-
tonius," “the old and constant opinion which had obtained
through the east; uteo tempore Judaea profecti rerum po-
tirentur, that some, or rather one, out of Judea should obtain
the government of the world,” as Josephus hath it, we may
be certain that the Jews of that age did so interpret the pro-
phecies concerning their Messiah, as agreeing only to the
time when our Christ did come, and when Simeon was as-
sured by the Holy Ghost that this Messiah was to come.
This, saith Josephus, Troxxoi rāy co-pây, “many of our wise
men gathered from the sacred oracles.” And indeed this
seemed so certain, that though they rejected our Jesus, yet
the fable soon obtained among them, that their Messiah was
or might be come, though for a season he lay hid, by reason
of their sins; as we learn from Trypho,S and the Targum||
of Jonathan.
Ver. 40. Kai ixgaratoiro trysipcar..] Here, saith Dr. Mills,
wrvsögart adjectum est ex hujus evangelio (cap. i. 80. Pro-
leg. p. 44), not only against the reading of Theophylact, and
* Tacit. Hist. lib. v. p. 621. ‘i Suet. in Vespas, cap. 4.
† De Bell. Jud. lib. vii. p. 961.
§ Xpic rā, śā si ka? yeyāynrai zai žari Tov, &yywaróg Éart, &c.
Tryph. Dial. p. 226.
|Tu autem, Christe Israelis, qui absconditus es propter
peccata coetús, Sion ibi venturum est regnum. In Mich.
CHAPTER III.
259
42 And when he was twelve years old, they went
; (with him) to Jerusalem after the custom of the
eaSt. -
43. And when they had fulfilled the (seven) days (of
the feast), as they returned, the child Jesus tarried
behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and his mother
knew not of it.
44 But they, supposing him to have been in the
company, (they) went a day's journey; and (then)
they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaint-
3. IRC6,
45 And when they found him not, they turned
back again to Jerusalem, seeking him.
46 And it came to pass, that *after three days (the
third day) they found him in the temple, sitting in
the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and ask-
ing them questions.
all the versions, but against the fierce dispute betwixt the
Arians and the orthodox about these words; the Arians ob-
jecting that he, who “increased in spirit,” could not be God;
some of the orthodox answering, that this related only to
Christ's human nature, viz. Athanasius, Epiphanius, Am-
brose, Cyril Alex., and Fulgentius; and others, that he
thus waxed strong in spirit, not in his own person, but in the
person of the church, or in the demonstration of the Spirit ;
as Origen, and many others cited by Maldonate on the place,
but none of them questioning this reading; for Titus Bos-
trensis, the only father produced by the doctor, is by Dr.
Cave proved to be spurious.
** Me6’ hºpac regiº, After three days they found him.]
i. e. The third day, for they journeyed one day, returned to
Jerusalem the second, and found him the third.
Wer. 47. 'Emi rii avia's zai &moxçiago w abroń, At his un-
derstanding and answers.] As the word āroxçiyoga, often
signifies only “to speak,” both in the Old and New Testa-
ment, and so is often used by the Septuagint, to answer to
dabar in the Hebrew ; so also doth the noun &Trézétat; in
these words, Deut. i. 22, “They shall bring us word;” Sept.
37rákgwriw. Here then being no mention of any questions
put to Christ, or of any answers he gave to the doctors, the
words may be rendered thus, “They were amazed at his un-
derstanding and speeches.”
*Wer. 49. 'Ew roſ; rod IIarzác &ou 88ſ givai &e, Iought to be
&n my Father's house..] So Origen, Dionysius, Alexandrinus,
47 And all that heard him were astonished at his
understanding and answers.
48 And when they saw him, they were amazed:
and his mother said to him, Son, why hast thou dealt
thus with us behold, thy father and I have sought
thee sorrowing.
49 And he said to them, How is it that ye sought
me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s
*business (Gr. in my Father's house)?
50 And they understood not the saying which he
spake to them.
51 And he went down with them, and came to
Nazareth, and was subject to them : but his mother
kept all these sayings in her heart.
52 And Jesus *increased in wisdom, and stature,
and in favour with God and man. w
Titus Bostrensis, Chrysostom, Euthymius, and Theophylact.
See Dr. Hammond here: for as #y roſe roi; Alès, in Josephus,
is, “to be in the temple of Jupiter,” so to be #y roſ; rod
IIargé; pºov, must signify to be “in the temple of his Father,”
where they found him. *
* Ver. 52. Kai Inaroic ºrpoÉxonºre copiº, &c. And Jes:ts in-
creased in wisdom, and stature, &c.] Vain hence is the con-
clusion of Woltzogenius, that Christ could not be God, be-
cause he cannot wax strong in spirit, either by advancing in
the perfections of his mind, or by the teachings of the Spi-
rit, as Christ did, or increase in wisdom ; this being spoken
of Christ according to his human nature ; these being, say
the fathers,” ric &v0gomºrnrog 8inyàºzara, “the indications of
humanity,” and are to be understood kar’ &yºgotriyny ºvXàv,
“according to his human soul:” and though the A670; was
united to the human soul from his conception, yet might the
divinity, or the Holy Ghost manifestitself to the human na-
ture as it thought fit, and by degrees insinuate into it its
gifts and illuminations, as St. Luke here teacheth ; so that
we need not say with others, Christ did not really increase
in wisdom, but only seemed to others so to do: for Seeing the
evangelist here joins three things together, his increase in age
and stature, in favour with men, and wisdom; as he increased
truly and literally in the two first, so seems he to have done
also as to his wisdom, and the endowments of his mind.
* Epiph. Anchor. §. 38. Orig. tom. i. in Matt, p. 330.
CHAPTER III.
1 Now in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar,
Pontius Pilate being governor (or procurator) of Ju-
dea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his
brother Philip (being) tetrarch of Iturea and of the
region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias (being) tetrarch
(i. e. governor of a fourth division of the kingdom,
named) of (the city Abyla) Abylene,
2 Annas and Caiaphas being the high-priests (to
whom was committed the civil and ecclesiastical govern-
ment of the Jews according to their laws; Annas being
the ruler of the people, Acts xxiii. 5, and Caiaphas the
father of the Sanhedrin), “the word of God came to
John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness.
3 And he (having received this commission from
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III.
1 Wer. 2. 'ET' &éxtepéow "Awa. Kai Kaićpa, Annas and Cai-
aphas being high-priests.] It is a rule of the Jews, that
they do not constitute two high-priests together ; and yet we
have not only mention in Josephus * of Jonathan and Ana-
nias, Ananus and Jesus, as high-priests at the same time,
but also of a cráoric rāy 36xtegéoy, “a contention of the high-
priests against the priests and chief Jews " and mention of
one Jesus, as yetairato; rāy &#xisgéow,” “the eldest of the
high-priests,” after Ananus. There were then doubtless
many that bore that name, even all that ever had been so ;
as we still call them colonels and captains, who once bore
those offices; and especially those of them who were rulers
in the great Sanhedrin, their supreme civil judicature.
* De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 21, lib. iv. cap. 18.
+ Antiq. lib. xx, cap. 6 p. 696. De Bello Jud, lib. iv.
cap. 16, p. 878.
But then they being many, why are these two only men-
tioned as high-priests? to this Mr. Selden answers, That
as in the first verse St. Luke had given an account of their
external government by tetrarchs and procurators, so in
this he gives an account of that civil and Sacred govern-
ment, which was left to be managed by themselves, by the
Sanhedrin and high-priest ; and because Annas was then
their nasi, or prince of the Sanhedrin, whence he is called
the “ruler of the people,” Acts xxiii. 5, and Caiaphas was
high-priest that year, and, as he conjectures, the “father
of the Sanhedrin ;” therefore they only are here named,
as having the chief authority, civil and sacred, in their
hands.
2 'eyśvero 5%a Otoč in 'Ioãwny, I he word of God came
to John..] These are the very words used of the prophets of
the Old Testament: ré šiad. Osoſ. 3 #yévero it: 'ispºſay, “The
word of the Lord came, brvhich came, to Jeremiah,” i. 2.
iv. 11; wai #yévero Aéyo; Kuplov ºrgè: 'Isºexº, “And the word
of the Lord came to Ezekiel,” i. 3. vi. 1. vii. 1. ‘g 1. xiii.
- 2
260
LUKE,
God) came into all the country about Jordan, preach-
ing the baptism of repentance for (procuring to them)
the remission of (their) sins:
4 (And he came) as it is written in the book of the
words of Esaias the prophet, saying (of him, xl. 3,
This is) the voice of one crying in the wilderness,
Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths
straight (for the coming of the king Messiah).
5 *Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain
and hill shall be brought low; and (the ways that are)
crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways
shall be made smooth (as it wseth to be when great
kings take a journey into any part of their dominions):
6 “And all flesh shall see (the Messiah, who is em-
phatically styled, Isa. xlix. 6. lii. 7, 10) the salvation
of God (see note on ii. 30).
7 Then said he to the multitude that came forth to
be baptized of him, (but more especially to the phari-
sees and sadducees, Matt. iii. 7) *O generation of
vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath
(which is) to come (upon this nation) *
8 Bring forth therefore (if you indeed desire to es-
cape this wrath) fruits worthy of repentance, and begin
not (or be not willing, in lieu of it) to say within your-
selves, We have Abraham to our father (and so by
that have a sufficient right to the blessings of the Mes-
siah, promised to him and his seed); for I say to you,
That (if ye repent not, you are to be cut off; and think
not that you being so, no children of Abraham will be
found to whom this promise can be made good; for)
God is able of these stones to raise up children to
Abraham (see note on Matt. iii. 9).
9 And (to eacite you to this rependance, know that
even) now also the axe is laid to the root of the trees :
every tree therefore that bringeth not forth good fruit
is (to be) hewn down, and cast into the fire.
10 And the people asked him, saying, What shall
we do then (to prevent or avert this ruin) 8
11 He answereth and saith to them, He “that hath
two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and
he that hath meat, let him do likewise (?. e. he pre-
scribed to them an eatensive charity to all that wanted
what they had to spare). -
12 Then came also publicans to be baptized, and
said to him, Master, what shall we do (to escape this
wrath) 8
13 And he saith to them, "Exact no more than that
which is appointed you (to receive).
14 And the soldiers likewise demanded of him,
saying, And what shall we do 2 and he said to them,
Do "violence to no man, neither "accuse any (mam)
falsely (or, oppress no man); but (and) be content
with your wages.
15 And as the people were in expectation (of the
1. xiv. 2. 12 ; and so it is said of the rest. Shall we then
think, that this forerunner of the Messiah spake “the word
of the Lord,” as did the prophets of the Old Testament ;
and that the prophets and apostles of the New Testament,
on whom the Holy Ghost descended, to enable them to
teach the mind of Christ to all future ages of the church,
should not speak and write what they delivered as the rule
of faith, by like divine assistance 2 .
* Ver. 5. TI3-a pápay; tranpoºrs rat, zai rāy Spo; wai
8ovve, raºrétwoffizerai, Every valley shall be filled up, and
cvery mountain and hill shall be made low.] These words
refer to a known custom of great kings, who, when they
travelled any whither, 380troioi, waymen were sent before
them to make plain their way, by filling up deep places,
and levelling those that were high, and smoothing the places
that were rough, and making straight the crooked. So Jo-
sephus saith, That when Titus came to the wars,” ºrpoßyoy
pºv Baaixikoi, zai ºråy rà avºwaxxây, #y of $807, otoi, “there
went before him all the royal aids, and all the military men,
and those who planed the ways.” Thus the Targum upon
Canticles saith, “The cloud went before the Israelites in
the Wilderness three days’ journey, to take down the hilis,
and fill up the valleys before them,” according to that of
the psalmist, lxxviii. 4, rendered by the Greek 380moſhaa’rs
Tº #71888wkár, ini rāy 8vºy and by Ainsworth, from the
Hebrew sollu, “make a highway for him that rideth in the
deserts,” as the word 3v-23; signifies, Numb. xxxiii. 48. 50.
xxxvi. 13. Deut. i. 1. Josh v. 10, 2 Sam. iv. 7: and this
also do they still expect, when they return from their cap-
tivity. Thus Baruch saith, “God hath commanded, or
appointed, 747s wouzsai rāv Škoc tºnxãy, kai pagáyya; trampoſer-
Šal six #waxicay yń; y%, that every high mountain and
bank of long continuance should be cast down, and every
Yalley filled up, that Israel may go safely in the glory of
God,”.V. 7.. So that as, when God led his people out of
captivity, through the great desert to the land of promise,
a highway was made for him, riding in the cloud beforé
them ; so, when Christ comes to proclaim liberty to the cap-
tives to sin and Satan, and lead them through the wilderness
of this world to the heavenly Canaan, a voice is again heard
in the wilderness, saying, “Prepare ye the way of the
Lord,” &c.
* Ver, 6. Kai 8-bital rāga cagº tº a wrhetor ºf Gesù, And
ałł flesh shall see the salvation of God..] These words are
cited from Isa. lii. 10, in which chapter the ancient Jews
allow, that the prophet is speaking of the Messiah ; the
* De Bello Jud. lib. vi. cap. 6, p. 907, B.
Targum on the thirteenth verse saying, “Behold, my servant
the Messiah shall be exalted;” and the apostle applying the
seventh verse to the preaching of the gospel, Rom. x. 15.
* Ver. 7. Tswägara èxiēyºv, O generation of vipers..] What
in St. Matthew, iii. 7, is said to be spoken to the pharisees
and Sadducees, is here said to be spoken roſ, 8x Aotº, “to the
multitude,” coming forth to be baptized ; partly, because
it was spoken to the pharisees mixed with the multitude,
and in their audience, and agreed to them, not only as bc-
ing generally of one of these two sects, but being also an
adulterous generation, degenerated from the seed of Abra-
ham to be the seed of the serpent.
• Wer. 11. ‘O Éxov 360 xºraiya; ºxerałóto tº pº Exoviri, Xa;
3 #xay 38%ara ögoiw; ºrogºro, He that hath two coats, ſet
him give to him that hath none ; and he that hath meat, ſet
him do likewise.] The Baptist doth not here make it unlaw-
ful to have two coats; for Peter had two, Acts xii. 8, and
Paul likewise, 2 Tim. iv. 13, but only saith that he that
hath one coat, which his brother wants, and he at present
doth not, should rather give it to him, than suffer him to be
in want ; and he that hath 3p3ºzara Tregia’a‘edoy’ra, “ meats
above what he himself needs,” should, in like cases, feed his
hungry brother with it ; teaching us, that it is not lawful for
us to abound in those things which our brother wants, when
we have sufficient both to relieve his and our own necessities.
Nor could this precept seem hard to those philosophers, who
taught that £vi Xéâa 6aº Xiaºyi ro; 3sſa flat 8vo; Trgottºntéov,
“that it was better to use one coat, than to want two” (Stob.
Ser. 1. p. 18).
7 Wer. 13. Mn3āy Trxéoy rapi, ºr 8tatsray(xãvoy, bpº ºrgâa agre,
Evact no more than that which is appointed you..] The
office of the publicans was to collect the tribute money,
which in Greek is ºrgártsºy pápov; as in Thucydides and
Athenaeus: and their name was infamous, Saith Strabo, 81&
rºy tragowséay, for their exacting more than they ought:
saith Tacitus, ob illicitas exactiones, for their unjust ex-
actions (see the note on Matt. ix. 11). And hence we
see the reason and the pertinency of his exhortation ; it being
not to be expected, that any one should begin to be good till
he ceaseth to be unjust.
8 Wer. 14. Mºva Staasizers, JDo violence to mo man.] This
word primarily signifies to shake, and terrify by shaking,
and so to force money from any, by fear of what they may
suffer if they do not give it ; and secondarily, calumniis in-
sectari, to calumniale a person, as in Aristophanes, in Equit.
ver. 203, which is to shake his reputation, and so to render
him obnoxious to a mulct.
° Mn3ā a-v20.payrhornte, Nor accuse any man falsely.] This
word answers to the Hebrew Fºy, and signifies not only
CHAPTER III. 261
fº Messiah), and (so) all men mused in their
earts of John, "whether he were the Christ, or not;
16 John answered (their surmises by) saying to
them all, I indeed baptize you with water (and by
that baptism call you to repentance, to fit you to believe
on the Messiah, who will suddenly reveal himself); but
one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose
shoes I am not worthy to unloose (i. e. whose servant
I am not worthy to be); he shall baptize you with the
Holy Ghost and with fire (i. e. in the symbol of fire) :
17 (And he will come as one) whose fan is in his
hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and
gather his wheat into his garner; but the chaff he
will burn with fire unquenchable. -
18 And many other (such) things in his exhorta-
tion preached he to the people.
19 But Herod the tetrarch, being reproved by him
for Herodias his brother Philip's wife, and for all the
evils which Herod had done,
20 Added yet this above (them) all, that he shut up
John in prison. º
21 Now when all the people were baptized, it came
to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and praying,
the heaven was opened,
22 And the Holy Ghost descended (hovering) in
*a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice
came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved
Son; in thee I am well pleased.
23 And Jesus himself (when he was baptized) *be-
gan to be about thirty years of age, being, as (it) was
* the son of Joseph, which was the son of
eli, -
24 Which was the son of Matthat, which was the
son of Levi, which was the son of Melchi, which was
the son of Janna, which was the son of Joseph,
25 Which was the son of Mattathias, which was the
son of Amos, which was the son of Naum, which was
the son of Esli, which was the son of Nagge, -
26 Which was the son of Maath, which was the
son of Mattathias, which was the son of Semei, which
was the son of Joseph, which was the son of Juda,
27 Which was the son of Joanna, which was the
son of Rhesa, which was the son of Zorobabel, which
was the son of Salathiel, which was the son of Neri,
28 Which was the son of Melchi, which was the
son of Addi, which was the son of Cosam, which
was the son of Elmodam, which was the son of Er,
29 Which was the son of Jose, which was the son
of Eliezer, which was the son of Jorim, which was
the son of Matthat, which was the son of Levi,
30 Which was the son of Simeon, which was the
son of Juda, which was the son of Joseph, which was
| the son of Jonan, which was the son of Eliakim,
31 Which was the son of Melea, which was the
son of Menan, which was the son of Mattatha, which
was the son of Natham, which was the son of David,
32 Which was the son of Jesse, which was the son
of Obed, which was the son of Booz, which was the
son of Salmon, which was the son of Naasson,
33 Which was the son of Aminadab, which was the
to accuse falsely, but to circumvent and oppress. So Gen.
xliii. 18, “We are brought in tº avao payria at #23; that he
may oppress us ;” Job xxxv. 9, 373 Trahşov, cºvzo payrovºzá-
voy néâéoyrat, “They shall cry for the multitude of oppres-
sors:” so Ps. lxxii. 4, “He shall break in picces, a vKopåy-
rºy, the oppressor ;” Ps. cxix. 122, £2% avko Šavrma & road v AE
“Let not the proud oppress me ;” and, ver. 134, “Deliver
mc &tró aruko payriaç, from the oppression of men ;” Prov.
xiv. 31, 5 ovzo payrāy Trávnºra, “He that oppresseth the poor,
despiseth his Maker:” so xxviii. 3. 16, and Eccles. iv. 1,
“I saw ºrdaac rāg avkopayria;, all the oppressions that are
under the Sun, and beheld the tears rāy avko payroup.évoy, of
those that were oppressed, and they had no comforter ; and
in the hands róv avko payroëvrov, of those who did oppress
them, there was strength.” sº
19 Ver. 15. Māºrors abrèc sin à Xºta rā;, Whether or if so
be, he were the Christ.] Of this sense of £citrora, see note on
2 Tim, ii. 25.
* Wer. 22. Kai karaśāvat ºrd #ytov IIvetº.ca cop, an ixó Böel,
&zsi regia-regåv šar' airröv, &c. And the Holy Ghost descended
wpon him in a bodily shape as a dove..] viz. As a dove uses
to descend upon anything, hovering, and overshadowing it :
for that this relates not to the bodily shape, as if that had
resembled a dove, but to the descent of that bodily shape,
is evident from this, that had it related to the first, it should
have been & Ei regategā;, “as of a dove,” not &zei Tregategāv,
“as a dove :” so Acts ii. 3, there appeared to them “cloven
tongues, &ast trugès, as of fire.” This bodily shape seems
rather to have been that of light, or a bright cloud, in which
God usually appeared under the Old Testament, and from
which he spake, and which is usually called # 36%a toû Kugiov,
“the glory of the Lord.” So when the voice here men-
tioned was uttered a second time, it is expressly said, that
# vsºn portivº Triaxiacey abrovº, “a bright cloud over-
shadowed or hovered over them, and a voice came from the
cloud,” Matt. xvii. 5, or, as St. Peter Saith, “from the magni-
ficent glory,” 2 Pet. i. 17, and this Holy Spirit might here be
said to descend after the manner of a dove, because that
bird was anciently by the Jews looked upon as the symbol
of the Holy Spirit: so Cant. ii. 12, “The voice of the turtle
is heard ;” that is, saith the Chaldee paraphrast, ºp Nnnºn
Rºy Typt, “the voice of the Holy Ghost.”
12 Wer. 23. Kai airrö; #y 3 'Inaoüç &oet äräy retáxovira 36x6-
asyoc, And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of
age.] i. e. He was entering into his thirtieth year, when he
was thus baptized, and consecrated to his office. It is
therefore certain from the first verse, that in the fifteenth
year of Tiberius, our Lord was but beginning or entering
upon the thirtieth year of his age : and then he suffering, as
all agree, in the nineteenth year of Tiberius, could be but
thirty-three years and a half when he was crucified.' I
know the critics say, that ºv 36xãº, Evoq &y, is a tautology ;
but &y belongs not to this, but the following sentence ; &y
&; āyogićevo, “being as was supposed, the son of Joseph.”
They add, that it is not rightly said &#x0%at Tây retáxovira'
but if &#xáſzewo: ºréxynç, i.e. &ré Téxynç, in Plato,” be good
Greek, why may not &exãºzewo, #t39 rptáxovira, i. e. 3r'ârów
retákovta, be good Greek in St. Luke 2 Moreover, let àºxãº-
voc here be put absolutely for Christ's beginning his office,
and the sense will run thus, That Jesus was then about
thirty years of age when he began his office. And if we
consider that this was the age appointed for the Levites
to begin the service of the sanctuary ; that John the Bap-
tist began his office at that age ; and that all the ancients ºf
do agree in this, That our Lord entered on his office in
the thirtieth year of his age ; yea, that Irenaeus and Euse-
bius justify this Greek against our critics; and some of
them take this for granted upon the authority of St. Luke:
all this will justify our version. And then impossible is
it to be true, that our Lord suffered in the thirty-eighth ;
or, as Irenaeus saith, lived either till fifty, or between forty
and fifty, as he proves from the testimony of the dis-
ciples of St. John in Asia, declaring, id ipsum eis tradidisse
Johannem ; “they did this, not by conjecture from the
countenance of Christ, but by tradition from the mouth of
the apostle John ;” yea that some of them heard, haec
eadem, “the very same things from the mouth of other
apostles, et testantur de hujusmodi relatione, and give
* De Legib.
+ "Hy 33’Incois exâgewog āni ºr 34trºrizºza & Łrów A'. Clem.
Al. Strom. p. 341. Ad baptismum venit nondum quitriginta
annos impleverat, sed qui inceperat esse tanquam triginta
annorum. Iren. Jib. ii. cap. 39. 'Apxáſzewo: &gt; irºv reté-
Rovta #wri rā'iwáyyov 8árraga wagayyāral. Euseb, lib.i, cap.
10. Etipse erat Jesus incipiens. Orig. Hom. 28, in Lu-
cam. Egarria:0m #y rā’iogäävºirotágº ró rºtaxéotov Brow; rāsāv
aragwi yeyńago;, xará. Acăzay, #y 8: 'incoiſ, &#xãºyoº &zeł irāv A.
Epiph. Haer. 51, n. 24. Wide Ignat. Ep. Interp. ad Trull.
§. 10. Hieron, in Ezek, cap. 1. Theoph. iii locum.
262
LUKE.
sor of Aram, which was the son of Esrom, which son of Arphaxad, which was the son of Sem, which
was the son of Phares, which was the son of Juda,
34 Which was the son of Jacob, which was the
son of Isaac, which was the son of Abraham, which
was the son of Thara, which was the son of Nachor,
35 Which was the son of Saruch, which was the
son of Ragau, which was the son of Phaleg, which
was the son of Heber, which was the son of Sala,
36 Which was the son of Caiman, which was the
in testimony to this relation.” Now Irenaeus had laid
down this as certain that Christ per omnem venit actatem
“passed through all ages, that he might sanctify them all,
i. e. infants, little ones, boys, young men, et seniores, and
old men : he therefore,” saith he, “was made, infantibus in-
fans, Sanctificans infantes, an infant to sanctify them of
that age ; juvenibus juvenis, to young men, whose age,”
saith he, “begins at thirty, and extends to forty, he was
made a young man, being baptized in his thirtieth year;”
and this he proves from scripture, and the confessions of
the Valentinians and Gnostics, against whom he disputes.
He goes on, and says, sic et senior senioribus, “so was he
made an old man for the sake of them ; for,” saith he, “from
the fortieth or fiftieth year, man’s life declines in aetatem
was the son of Noe, which was the son of Lamech,
37 Which was the son of Mathusala, which was
the son of Enoch, which was the son of Jared, which
was the son of Maleleel, which was the son of Cai-
Iman,
38 Which was the son of Enos, which was the son
of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the
son of God.
Seniorem, in old age ; quam habens Dominus noster docebat,
sicut evangelium et omnes seniores testantur, to which age.
our Lord having obtained, taught, as the gospel and all the
seniors testify”—the gospel in those words of the Jews,
“Thou art not yet fifty years old” (John viii. 57), and the
seniors, as having received it by tradition from the mouth
of John and of other apostles. Who sees not now, that
Irenaeus both doth, and by his gradation from infants to
young men, and from young men to old, was obliged to as-
Sert, that our Lord taught after the age of forty, if not till
he was fifty years old; and that this was the tradition he
speaks of, as received by the elders from the mouth of St.
John and other apostles?
CHAPTER IV.
1 AND Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, return-
ed from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the
wilderness,
2 Being "forty days (invisibly) tempted of the devil.
And in those days he did eat nothing (nor was he
hungry); and (but) when they were ended, he after-
ward hungered.
3 And (then) the devil (visibly appearing) said to
him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone
(this heap of stones) that it may be made bread.
4 And Jesus answered him, saying, (There is no
necessity of that, for) *it is written, That man shall
not live by bread alone, but by every (thing appointed
to feed him by the) word of God.
5 And (then) the devil, taking him up into a high
mountain, showed him (as in a map) all the kingdoms
of the world in a moment of time. -
6 And the devil said unto him, All this power (i.e.
the power of these kingdoms) will I give thee, and the
glory of them: for that is delivered to me, and to
whomsoever I will I give it.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV.
* Ver. 2.'H&#32; rea'a-apázov'ra regaçãºwevo; in 3 rot, 31&$6-
Mov—zal avyrexerSecºy airāv, Üategoy Émeſvaa's, Being forty
days tempted of the devil,—and when they were ended, he
afterward hungered.] He was tempted of the devil only
inwardly, and invisibly, during those forty days: afterward
by Satan appearing in a visible shape: for the devil came
unto him, Matt. iv. 3, and departed from him, ver. 11, and
tempted him to worship before him. Moreover, seeing Christ
did eat nothing during those forty days and nights, they
who, during the like number of days, abstain only from
flesh, eating fish, and drinking wine plentifully on those
days, do nothing less than imitate the example of Christ
here: and seeing they cannot, for forty days, où8āy páygly,
“eat nothing,” they can be no more obliged in this to imi-
tate our Lord than Elias (see the note on Matt. iv. 2).
* Ver. 4. Têyearrat, ºr oix #Tr' &grg, ºvº, #&#&srat ārśgo-
Toº, 3xx' firi rayºr fiſſuari Osdū, It is written, Man shall not
live by bread alone, but by every word of God..] The words
in Deut. viii. 3, run thus: “He suffered thee to hunger, and
then fed thee with manna” (a light aerial sort of food), giv-
ing thee as great strength and vigour from that, as from the
bread and flesh thou didst eat in Egypt, and this he did,
providing it miraculously every day, “that he might teach
thee (by this example) that man doth not live by bread only,
7 If thouthereforewilt"worshipme, all shall bethine.
8 And Jesus answered and said to him, Get thee
behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt wor-
ship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou
Serye. -
9 And (then) he brought him to Jerusalem, and
set him on a pinnacle (or battlement) of the temple,
and said to him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thy-
self down from hence :
10 For it is written (Ps. xci. 11), He shall give his
angels charge over thee, to keep thee:
11 And in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest
at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
12 And Jesus answering said to him, It is said,
Thou shalt not tempt (i. e. distrust) the Lord thy God
(as I should do, if, after a voice from heaven, saying
to me, Thou art my beloved Son, I should require any
farther experiment of that truth).
13 And when the devil had ended all the (se) temp-
tations, he departed from him for a “season.
14 And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit
please to command to give him nourishment ; so that though
I am now hungry, as they were, I have no need to work a
miracle myself to satisfy my hunger, seeing I know, by this
example, that God, though he suffer his children to want
bread, yet will command some other thing to preserve them
alive, and will himself rather work a miracle, than they shall
want nourishment.
* Ver. 7. xi, iëy wºozzvyńan; #y&niów wov, If thou wilt wor-
ship before me : #&y tricë7 Treorºvyńong pºol, If thou wilt fall
down, and worship me, Matt. iv. 9..] Hence Dr. Lightfoot
collects, that it is the same thing to worship the devil, and
before the devil: and so, in like manner, to worship before
an image, and to worship an image: and this indeed is
true, when that before which we worship is the object, and
the reason of the worship, as in this case it would have been;
but it is otherwise, when that before which we worship is
only a circumstance ; as when the Jews worshipped before
the ark, or Sanctuary, as Ps. xcix. 5. 9. cxxxii. 7, the object
of that worship being God, the ark only the circumstance,
to wit, the place of his peculiar residence ; and much less,
when it is a mere accidental circumstance ; as when old Ja-
cob worshipped God upon his bed, and so bowed down to
some part of it.
Wer. 8. "Yiraya'ātrical pºov ×arayå. See the defence of this
reading, Examen Millii.
but by every word of God;" i. e. everything that he shall * Ver. 13. Atréarn &ir abrā āzgº wagoš, He departed from
CHAPTER IV.
263
mto Galilee ; and there went out a fame of him
throughout the region round about. -
15 And (for) he taught in their synagogues, being
glorified of all.
16 And he came to Nazareth, "where he had been
brought up; and, as "his custom was, he went into
the synagogue on the Sabbath, and "stood up for to
read.
* 17 And there was delivered to him the book of the
prophet Esaias. And when he had opened (i.e. un-
folded) the book (the roll), he found the place where
it was written (Isa. lxi. 1),
18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he
(the Father) hath anointed me (with the Holy Ghost at
my baptism, iii. 22) to *preach the gospel to the poor
(in spirit); he hath sent me to heal the broken-
hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, (who
are in bondage to the law of sin and death, Rom. vii.
23,) and recovering of sight to the blind (Jews and
pharisees, who have eyes and see not, John ix.40, 41,
and the blind gentiles, Rom, ii. 19.) and to set at
liberty those that are bruised (with the weight of their
sins),
19 To preach the "acceptable year of the Lord (the
year of jubilee and rest, which was on that account
very acceptable to servants and debtors).
20 And he closed (or, folded up) the book, and
gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And
the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were
fastened upon him. -
21 And he began to say to them, This day is this
scripture fulfilled (which hath been read) in your ears.
22 And (when he had eaſpounded to them how it was
julfilled) all bare him witness (that so it was), and
wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out
of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph’s
Son º .
23 And he said to them, You will surely say to me
this proverb, Physician, healthyself: whatsoever we
i have heard done at Capernaum, do also here in thy
(own) country (i. e. do that at home, which it is famed
thou hast done at Capernaum).
24 And he said, Verily I say to you, No prophet is
(so well) accepted in his own country, (as elsewhere,
they finding eaceptions against him either for his pa-
Tentage, ver. 22, or his kindred, Mark vi. 3, 4, or his
habitation, John i. 47, or his country, John vii. 52.)
25 But I tell you of a truth, (you deserve for your
infidelity to be dealt with as Elias dealt with the Israel-
ites ; for) many widows were in Israel in the days of
Elias, when the heavens were shut up "three years
and six months, when great famine was throughout
all the land:
26 But to none of them was Elias sent, save to
Sarepta, a city of Sidon, to a woman that was a widow.
27 And (as in the case of Elisha : for) many lepers
were in Israel, in the time of Eliseus the prophet, and
(but) none of them was cleansed, save Naaman the
Syrian (even so now the gentiles are more worthy, to
whom I should be sent, than you Jews).
28 And all they in the synagogue, when they heard
these words, *were filled with wrath,
29 And rose up, and thrust him out of the city,
and led him to the brow of the hill, whereon their
him for a season.] Till the time of his passion ; for then
only he returned, John xiv. 30, and that was his hour, Luke
xxii. 53. And if this enemy of mankind omitted no season
of tempting Christ, we have reason to believe he will omit
no opportunity of tempting us.
* Ver. 16. Kał #MSay six rºy Naſagès at ºv reºpagašyoc,
4nd he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up.]
That he, by his example, might teach us, saith Theophylact,
. teach and to do good to those of our own family and
abode. -
* Kat iaix0s war& ré slošč; air; iv ºff hºp, röv cagáàroy
tº rāy avyayayāv And, as his custom was, he went into the
synagogue on the sabbath-day.] That the synagogue-worship
was then loaded with rites and ceremonies of human inven-
tion, and that the manners of those who met there were
much corrupted, no man, who is acquainted with the scrip-
tures and the Jewish history, can doubt ; and yet Christ,
with his disciples, go customarily to these synagogues, as
members of the church of Nazareth, every sabbath-day ;
and he joins with them in their worship, condemning, by his
example, the niceness of our sectaries.
7 Kai äväorn ávayväval, Ver. 20, kai Trºvºaç ré 8.8×icy izā-
Size, And stood up to read.—And, closing the book, he
sat down.] Here Christ conforms to the ceremonies of the
Jewish doctors, who, in honour of the law and the prophets,
stood up when they read them because, as the law was
given with reverence, so it is, say they, to be handled with
reverence : and he sits down to teach; because it was the
custom in their schools and synagogues to do so. So the
Targum on Judg. ii. 6, “The wise men returned to sit in
the houses of the synagogues with their heads covered, and
to teach the people the words of the law:” so again, ver, 9.
That this was our Lord's constant custom, when he taught
the people, we learn from his own words, “I sat daily teach-
ing in the temple,” Matt. xxvi. 55, and from his practice
throughout the evangelists (see Luke ii. 46. John viii. 2).
Moreover, the book which he read in, being made of skins
of parchment sewed to each other, and joined to a stick,
upon which it was rolled ; he that was to read unrolled it,
till he came to the place where he was to read, and this was,
āya"rrúžat, “to unfold it;” and when he had done reading he
did, trººat, “roll it up again,” and gave it to the chasan,
styled here, twºgárnº, “the minister” of the synagogue.
* Wer. 18. EijayygxićerSat arroyoſ, To preach the gospel
to the poor.] To the humble, or poor in spirit, Matt. v. 3
(see note on Matt. xi. 5), iáo ao Sai Tojº avy'rergipºvous rhy
xapôlay, “to heal the broken hearted;” i. e. those who are so
pierced in heart, and contrite in spirit for their sins, as to re-
pent, and turn from them, Isa. lvii. 15. Ps. xxxiv. 18. li. 17,
xnečat aixºaX&roic & peaty, “to preach deliverance to the
captives,” to the Jews in bondage to the law, Gal. iv. 9, to
both Jew and gentile, under captivity to the law of sin, Rom.
vii. 23, “and recovering of sight to the blind” Jews and
pharisees, who had eyes, and saw not, John ix. 40, 41, and
the blind gentiles, Rom. ii. 19 (see the note there); &mo-
a reſºat rešeavagávov; iv 34%ael, “to set at liberty those that
are bruised” with the chain of their sins (see Examen Millii
here). --- *
9 & 19. Knpšćat Éviavriy Kvetov Sextov, To preach the
acceptable year of the Lord.] The year of jubilee and
rest, when liberty was to be proclaimed*throughout the land
to all the inhabitants of it (Lev. xxv. 8); when debts were
to be remitted, and possessions restored to the poor, the He-
brew servant of the Jew set free, and he that was sold to a
sojourner was to be redeemed (ibid.). Hence this jubilee
is by Josephus rendered #xev0sgia, liberty, and by Aquila,
| 3peats, remission; and that the Jews themselves thought
this jubilee did signify a spiritual redemption, is proved by
Voisin de Jubilaeo, lib. i. cap. 2: and the forty-second and
sixty-first of Isaiah being, by the Jews themselves, inter-
preted of the Messiah (see Targum on Isa. xlii. 1, and Sy-
nopsis on lxi. 1), well might our Lord say, ver. 21, “This
day is the scripture fulfilled in your ears.”
Ver. 23. That do, äy rā trarº, cov, in thy own country.}
For though Nazareth and Capermaum were both in Galilee,
yet Nazareth was in the lower Galilee; whereas Capernaum,
being a Decapolitan city, was in Galilee of the gentiles, that
is, in upper Galilee. -
* Ver. 25. Emi frn reta xa, ºva; ;, When heaven was
shut up three years and six months.] For Elias tarried a
year at the brook Kerith (1 Kings xvii. 7), and then in the
middle of the third year came to Ahab (1 Kings XYiii. 1).
* Ver. 28. Kai in Ahasna’ay ºrávre, Svecº, And they were
all filled with wrath..] When they heard Christ declaring
them unworthy of the benefit of those miracles, which he
had done at Capernaum ; and, by the instances of the Sido-
264
LUKE.
city was built, that they might cast him down head-
long (thence). #
30 But he passing (miraculously) through the midst,
of them went his way,
31 And came down to Capermaum, a city of Gali-
lee, and taught them on the sabbath-days.
32 And they were astonished at his doctrine; his
word was (attended) with (the) *power (of miracles to
confirm it).
33 And (for) in the synagogues there was a man
who had a spirit of an unclean devil; and (he) cried
out with a loud voice,
34 Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with
thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth Art thou come to de-
stroy us (before the time)? I know thee who thou art;
(viz.) the Holy One of God.
35 And (but) Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy
peace, and come out of him. And when the devil
had thrown him in the midst, he came out of him, and
hurt him not.
36 And they were all amazed, and spake among
themselves, saying, What a (wonderful) word is this
for with authority and power he commandeth the un-
clean spirits, and they come out.
37 And the ſame of him went out into every place
of the country round about.
38 And he arose out of the synagogue, and entered.
into Simon’s house. And Simon’s wife’s mother was,
taken with a great fever; and they besought him for
her.
39 And he stood over her, and rebuked the fever;
and it left her: and immediately she arose and minis-
tered to them. - r
40 Now when the sun was setting (and so the sab-
bath was ending), all they that had any sick with di-
vers diseases brought them to him, and he laid his.
hands on every one of them, and healed them.
41 And devils also came out of many, crying out,
and saying, Thou art Christ the Son of God. And
he, rebuking them, suffered them not to speak (refus-
ing to receive testimony from, though they spake the
truth): for they knew that he was Christ.
42 And when it was day, he departed and went
into a desert place: and the people sought him, and
came to him, and (would have) stayed him, that he
should not depart from them.
43 And (but) he said to them, I must preach the
hºm of God to other cities also: for therefore am
Sent. 4
m: And he preached in the synagogues of Ga-
€6.
nian widow, and Naaman the Syrian, plainly intimating, that
this gospel should chiefly be received among the gentiles,
they, in a furious zeal, seek to destroy him ; but he, by pass-
ing unseen through the midst of them, or restraining their
violence, gave an instance of his divine power.
* Wer. 32. Ev šovcia ºw 3 Aéyo; aircü, For his word was
with power.] That is, either as being confirmed by his mi-
racles; so “with great power gave the apostles testimony to
the resurrection of the Lord,” Actsiv. 33. Mark xvi. 20 (see
note on Matt. vii. 29), or he taught them as a prophet sent
from God, and delivering his message to them, which, from
the time of the prophets, had not been done; whence it was
usually said by the Jews of the times of Ezra, “Hitherto
the prophets, the wise men follow” (see 1 Macc. ii. 27. xiv.
41), and of a difficult question, “We leave it undecided till
a prophet shall arise” (1 Macc. iv. 46), and when Christ
came, they say, “A great prophet is risen up among us”
(Luke vii. 16), and inquire of him, troit: śćovaig, “by what
(extraordinary) authority he did these things, and who gave
him that authority” (Matt. xxi. 23).
CHAPTER V.
*
1 AND it came to pass, that, as the people pressed
upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the
lake of Gennesaret,
2 And saw two ships standing by (the shore of) the
lake; but the fishermen were gone out of them, and
were washing (Gr. having washed) their nets.
3 And he entered into one of the ships, (viz. that)
which was Simon's, and prayed him that he would
thrust out (the ship) a little from the land. And (this
Öeing done) he sat town, and taught the people out of
the ship.
4 Now when he had left speaking (to the people),
he said to Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let
down your nets for a draught (of fishes).
5 And Simon answering said to him, Master, we
have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing:
nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net.
6 And when they had done this, they enclosed a
great multitude of fishes: and the net brake.
7 And they (finding this) beckoned to their part-
ners, whichswere (now) in the other ship, that they
should come and help them. And they came, and
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP v.
* Ver. 8. "Eſſex&s én ºff, ºr āyā; &gaproxá; slai, Kºgis,
Depart from me : for I am a sinful man, O Lord..] Not in
that famous gense in which the sinner is joined with publi-
cans and heathens, and denotes one who hath cast off the
fear of God, and giver, up himself to wickedness; for this
hig fºr w82 an indication of a religious mind. Moreover,
hence it is probable, that St. Peter had higher apprehensions
of Christ than of a mere man, seeing, of old, men were only
filled both ships so (full) that they began to sink
(with the weight of the fishes).
8 When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’
knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a "sinful
man, O Lord, (and so unworthy of the presence of so
divine a person as I perceive thou art.
9 This he spake from a great sense of the majesty of
Christ :) for he was astonished, and all that were with
him, at the draught of fishes which they had taken :
10 And so were also James and John, the sons of
Zebedee, which were partners with Simon (and were
in the other ship). And (but) Jesus said to Simon,
Fear not ; from henceforth thou shalt catch men;
(i.e. shalt be instrumental to draw men into the net of
the gospel, see Acts ii. 41.)
11 And when they had brought their ship to land,
i. forsook all (their other business) and followed
1Iſl.
12 And it came to pass, when he was in (the con-
fines of) a “certain city, (to wit, Capernaum, Markii.
1,) behold a man (was there) full of leprosy : who
seeing Jesus fell on his face, and besought him, say-
struck with such a fear from the presence of the divine ma-
jesty, or of some angels delivering their message in his name
(Gen. xxxii. 30. Judg. vi. 22. xiii. 22. Isa. vi. 5).
* Ver, 12. ‘Ey +f aig rºy tréxeov, When he was in one of
the cities.] i. e. When he came down from the mount (Matt.
viii. 2), being about to enter into Capernaum (into which he
entered after he had healed the leper, Mark ii. 1), a leper
meets him in the field of that city, the law not admitting
such to come into a city; he is therefore here said to be in
the city, as being in the field near to it: so, to be in Jericho,
CHAPTER V.
265
ing, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.
13 And he put forth his hand, and "touched him,
saying, I will: be thou clean. And immediately the
leprosy departed from him.
14 And he charged him to tell no man : but (or,
and said to him) go, and show thyself to the priest
(first), and “offer for thy cleansing, according as
Moses commanded, for a testimony to them (that
thou art cleansed from thy leprosy).
15 But so much the more (did he divulge it, so that
thence) went there a fame abroad of him: and great
multitudes came together to hear (him), and to be
healed by him of their infirmities.
16 And he withdrew himself into the wilderness,
and prayed (Gr. he was withdrawn into the wilderness,
and praying).
17 And it came to pass on a certain day, as (that)
he was teaching, that (Gr. and) there were pharisees
and doctors of the law sitting by, which were come
out of every town of Galilee, and Judea, and Jeru-
salem; and the ‘power of the Lord was present (with
him) to heal them (who came to be healed of their in-
firmities, ver. 15). -
18 And, behold, men brought in a bed a man that
was taken with a palsy ; and they sought means to
bring him in (to the house), and lay him before him.
19 And when they could not find by what way they
might bring him in because of the multitude, they
went up on the housetop, and let him down through
the tiling, with his couch, into the midst (of the peo-
ple) before Jesus.
20 And when he saw their faith, he said to him,
Man, thy sins are forgiven thee.
Josh. v. 13, is to be in the field of Jericho, or by Jericho;
and to smite them begibajon, “in Gibeion,” Josh. x. 10, is
to do it in the fields of Gibeon. This leper came to him,
"recºy Émi Trgão aºrov, “bowing down with his face to the earth,”
saith Luke here; ºrpockvåy, “worshipping,” Matt. viii. 2,
joyvºrerøy, “bending his knees,” Mark i. 40: So Luke viii. 41,
Jairus came to him, werey trag& Tráðaç, “falling down at his
feet ;” ºrgoaxvyāv, Matt. ix. 18.
* Ver. 13. “Hypato attoº, He touched him.] To show that
he, being a prophet, was not obliged to observe the punctilios
of the ceremonial law. -
* Ver. 14. Offer for thy cleansing.] Pious here is the note
of Theophylact, that pºss’ & ‘ric zašagia Sn, &#6, #ari Trgoa pé-
psy ºr 32 pov, “then only is a man fit to offer to God his gift,
when he is cleansed from his sin.” Hence the unclean per-
son, who came into the sanctuary, was, by the law of Moses,
to be cut off from his people, Numb. xix. 20.
* Ver. 17. Kai 36Vapºt, Kvetov #y sic tö tä-Sat airroic, And
the power of the Lord was present to heal them.] Who came
to be healed of their infirmities, ver. 15, not the pharisees
and lawyers, who had no faith to be healed, and perhaps no
need of it”; it being a known rule, that pronouns often do
refer not to the immediate precedent, but the remoter noun.
So Matt. xi. 1, he taught, #y Taï; Tráxed w airów, not in the
cities of his disciples, for they had none, but of the Jews:
so Ps. xcix. 8, “Thou answeredst them,” Moses and Aaron,
ver. 6, and “tookest vengeance on their inventions,” i. e. the
inventions of the people (see Matt. xii. 9. Acts xv. 11. See
Glass. de Pronom. lib. iii. Tr. 2, Can. 10).
* Ver. 27. TsA&vny àvéſzari Aeviv, A publican named Levi.]
That this Levi was not the same with Matthew, mentioned
Matt. ix. 9, Grotius, and those who follow him, conceive,
(1.) because Matthew never calls himself Levi, nor doth
Mark (ii. 14) or Luke ever call Levi Matthew: to which ar-
gument St. Jerome+ answers, that Matthew, out of modesty,
and in remembrance of his former life, styles himself
“Matthew the publican” (x. 3); but Mark and Luke never
call him the publican, but mention his more honourable
name, ne antiquae conversationis recordantes, “lest they
should seem to reproach him by remembering his former
conversation;” it is enough that St. Mark calls his Levi “ the
* In Matt. ix. 9.
21 And the scribes and pharisees began to reason,
saying, Who is this who speaketh (these) blasphemies,
(making himself God? for) who can forgive sins, but
God alone
22 But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, he
answered and said to them, (For) what (cause) reason
ye (thus) in your hearts? *
23 (For) whether is easier to say, Thy sins be for-
given thee; or to say (effectually, that which is a cer-
tain indication that the punishment of them is remitted,
viz.) Rise up and walk?
24 But (I choose to say the first) that ye may know
that the Son of man hath power upon earth to forgive
sins: (then) he said unto the sick of the palsy, I say
unto thee, Arise, and take up thy couch, and go to
thine house. -
25 And immediately he arose up before them, and
took up that whereon he lay, and departed to his own
house, glorifying God. -
26 And they (who saw this) were all amazed, and
they glorified God, and were filled with fear, saying,
We have seen strange things to-day.
27 And after these things he went forth, and saw a
publican, named "Levi (or Matthew), sitting at the
receipt of custom: and he said to him, Follow me.
28 And he left all (his toll-business, and) rose up
(instantly), and followed him.
29 And Levi made him a great feast in his own
house: and there was a great company of publicans
and others that sat down with him (and his disciples,
Matt. ix. 10). -
30 But "their scribes and pharisees (i. e. the scribes
and pharisees of that place) murmured against his
son of Alpheus,” as Matthew is in church.history said to be
the son of Alpheus. As therefore Saul, after his conversion,
is almost always called Paul, so might Matthew the publican
by these two evangelists be called Levi. (2.) He adds, that
. Heracleon, who was near to the apostles' time, reckons
Matthew, and Philip, and Thomas, and Levi, among them
who had no occasion to own Christ before princes, or suffer
martyrdom on that account, as Clemens of Alexandria tes-
tifies.* I answer there is no regard to be had to this Valen-
tinian heretic, especially when he contradicts the opinion of
all the ancients, in saying that Matthew, and Philip, and
Thomas did not suffer martyrdom (see Dr. Cave in the Life
of Matthew, p. 134, of Philip, p. 125, of St. Thomas, p. 139).
Against him we oppose the Apostolical Constitutions, intro-
ducing him speaking thus, 'Eyð Marðaſo, 3, Kai Aevi, “I
Matthew, named also Levi;” the testimonies of St. Jerome
and Sophonius, in voce Matthaeus, and others of the ancients.
See Cotelerius in Constit. Apost. p. 315. (3.) He adds, that
when Celsus objected that our Lord gathered publicans,
Origent confesses that Matthew was a publican, but he de-
nies that Levi was so. To this it is answered, that the same
Origen, in his preface to the Epistle to the Romans, and in
the place cited in the catenae on St. Matthew, says expressly,
that he whom St. Matthew styles by the name of “Matthew
the publican, is by St. Luke called Levi’” (see another answer
in Cotelerius, ibid.). In a word, sure it must be in vain to
object against a history in Mark and Luke, where he is called
Levi, so exactly agreeing with that in St. Matthew, where he
is called Matthew, that not a circumstantial difference can
be discerned : insomuch that even Mr. Clerc, who, in his
annotations, quarrels with Dr. Hammond for following an
opinion confuted by Grotius, in his Harmony, is himself
forced to do what he corrects Dr. Hammond for doing. His
words are these, Widit publicanum cui nomen erat Levi, Seu
Matthaeus. Moreover, that this Levi, being called, instantly
left all, and followed Christ, both Mark and Luke attest.
Now this is the note of an apostle, Matt. xix. 27 (see also
Examen var. Lect. Mill. in Matt. x. 3).
7 Ver. 30. Eyáyyućoy of yeappears; airãy, Their scribes
* Strom. iv. p. 501, D. 502.
+ Lib. i. contr. Celsum, p. 48.
266
LUKE.
disciples, saying, Why do ye eat and drink with pub-
licans and sinners 2
31 And Jesus answering said to them, (This is
done, because they most need my help, for) they that
are whole need not the physician; but they that are
sick. -
32 (And this suits best with the reason of my ad-
vent, for) I came not to call the righteous, but sinners
to repentance.
33 And they (who followed John, Matt. ix. 14) said
to him, Why 3. (we) the disciples of John fast often,
and make prayers, and likewise the disciples of the
pharisees; but thine eat and drink (on our fasting-
days) & -
34, And he said to them, Can ye (reasonably) make
the children of the bridechamber (or guests of a mar-
riage-feast) fast, while the bridegroom is with them :
35 But the days will (shortly) come, when the
bridegroom shall (by death) be taken from them, and
then they shall fast in those days.
36 And he spake also a parable to them (relating to
the same purpose, saying), No man putteth a piece of
mew garment upon an old (garment); if otherwise,
and pharisees murmured, saying, 3rati ; Why eateth 2) i. e.
The scribes and pharisees, not the guests that sat down wer'
airāv, “with them,” ver. 29 (for then they must themselves
have been guilty of the same crime for which they murmured
against Christ), but the scribes of the Jews ; for what is here
“their scribes,” is absolutely, Mark ii. 16, “the scribes.” So
“in their cities,” Matt. xi. 1, is “in the cities,” not of Christ's
disciples, but of the Jews; and he entered si; avyayayāy
airów, “into a synagogue of theirs,” xii. 9, i.e. not into a
synagogue of the pharisees to whom he spake, ver. 2, but of
then both the new maketh a (fresh) rent, and the
piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with
the old. r
37 And (in like manner) no man putteth new wine
into old bottles; else (or, if so) the new wine will
burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles will
perish.
38 But new wine must be put into new bottles;
and (so) both are preserved: (even so my young dis-
ciples, taken not from the schools, but from their fish-, .
ing-trades, must not presently be put to severe tasks,
for which they are not yet strong enough, lest they should
be discouraged, and fall off from me.)
39 No man also having drunk old wine (which is
smooth, grateful to the palate, and agreeable to the sto-
mach,) straightway desires (to eachange it for) new
(which is harsh to the palate, and, by reason of the lee
in it, offensive to the stomach): for he saith, The “old
is better; (even so my raw disciples must not be pre-
sently engaged in those austerities of life, which may
be offensive to them at the first, but, by degrees, be
brought to observe them.)
the Jews, Schmidius also here observes, that 3iari here is
as much as, “by what privilege P” for sig ri and ſya ºri denote
the final cause, but 31aºri the antecedent reason.
* Ver. 39. ‘O oraxatic Xºma rétegé, Éarty, For he saith, The
old is better.] So Cicero, de Amicitiis, Veterrimae quaequae,
ut ea vina quae vetustatem ferunt, esse debent suavissimae,
“Old friendships, as old wines, are to be deemed the
sweetest.”
Wer. 36. Ob avºw pověſ rê šTriflampwa.
See this reading de-
fended, Examen Millii. *
CHAPTER VI.
1 AND it came to pass on the 'second sabbath after
the first (Gr. on the first sabbath after the second day
of the feast of unleavened bread), that he (Christ)
went through the corn-fields, and his disciples plucked
the ears of corn, and did eat (of them), rubbing them
in their hands.
2 And certain of the pharisees said to them, Why
do ye that which (it) is not lawful to do on the sab-
bath-days?
3, And Jesus answering them said, Have ye not
read so much as this, (which is a case parallel to that
of my disciples, viz.) what David did, when himself was
a hungered, and they that were with him?
4 How he went into the house of God, and did take
and eat the shew-bread, and gave also to them that
were with him; which (bread by the letter of the law)
it is not lawful to eat, but for the priests alone?
5 And (moreover) he said to them, That the Son of
man is Lord also of the sabbath (i.e. he who came to
save men's lives must have power, in such cases as con-
cert the good and welfare of men, to dispense with the
strict rest required by the law of the sabbath).
6 And it came to pass also on another sabbath, that
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VI.
* Ver. I. Eyévero 3i iw caféára Sevretore&rº, It came to
#. in the second sabbath after the first.] This should
ave been rendered, “in the first sabbath after the second
day of the passover ;” for after the first day of the pass-
over, which was a sabbath, Exod. xii. 16, 3rd rā, śmaśgtoy
tº gaśāray, “from the morrow after the sabbath” (that is,
saith Josephus, ºr; sprigg &ay hafta, from the second day
of unleavened bread, that is, the sixteenth of the month,
Antiq, lib. iii. cap. 10), ye shall count unto you seven sab.
baths complete (Lev. xxiii. 15), reckoning that day for the
he entered into a synagogue and taught; and there
was a man whose right hand was withered.
7 And the scribes and pharisees (having asked him,
whether it was lawful to heal on the sabbath-day, Matt.
xii. 10), watched him, whether he would heal on the
sabbath-day; that (if he did so) they might find an
accusation against him, (as one that kept not the sab-
bath-day, John ix. 6).
8 But he knew their thoughts (or reasonings), and
said to the man who had the withered hand, Rise up,
and stand forth in the midst (of the synagogue). And
he arose and stood forth.
9 Then said Jesus to them, I will (also) ask you
one thing; (viz.) Is it lawful on the sabbath-days to .
do good, or to do evil? to save life or to destroy it?
10 And looking round about upon them all (and
receiving no answer from any of them), he said to the
man, Stretch forth thy hand. And he did so; and his
hand was restored whole as the other.
11 And they were filled with madness; and com-
muned one with another what they might do to Jesus,
(i.e. how they might destroy or punish him with death,
jor violating the sabbath, Matt. ix. 14).
first of the first week, which was therefore called 3svregórða-
Tov, the first Sabbath from this second day of unleavened
bread ; the second was called 38wrepołetºrspov, the second sab-
bath from that day; and the third 3svregorgirov, the third
Sabbath' from that second day; and so on till they came to
the seventh sabbath from that day, i. e. to the forty-ninth
day, which was the day of pentecost. The mention of the
Seven Sabbaths to be numbered, with relation to this second
day, answers all that Grotius objects against this exposition;
See Petavius on Epiphan. Haer. 30, n. 32, where Epipha-
nius expressly says, our Lord's disciples did this, ra, araB-
8árº, º fastá rày #2.Épay tºy &ov, “on the sabbath ſol-
CHAPTER VI.
267
12 And it came to pass in those days, that he went
out to a mountain to pray, and continued all night in
* prayer to God (Gr. Év rā trpoosvy; roi esoij, in God’s
house of prayer, or in a synagogue dedicated to his ser-
vice).
13 And when it was day, he called to him his dis-
ciples: and (out) of them he chose twelve (to be his
constant attendants, and witnesses of his actions, John
xv. 27), whom also he named apostles; (i. e. persons
whom he-would send to preach in his name to the Jews
first, and after to the gentiles:
14 Viz.) Simon, whom he also named Peter, and
Andrew his brother, James and John, Philip and Bar-
tholomew,
15 Matthew and Thomas, James the son of Alpheus,
and Simon called Zelotes,
16 And Judas the brother of James, and Judas
Iscariot, which also was the traitor.
17 And he came down with them and stood in the
plain, and (with him were) the company of his disci-
ples, and a great multitude of people out of all Judea
and Jerusalem, and from the sea-coast of Tyre and
Sidon, which came to hear him, and to be healed of
their diseases; -
18 And they that were vexed with unclean spirits:
and they were healed.
19 And the whole multitude (of them who came to
be healed) sought to touch him: for there went virtue
out of him, and healed them all (who thus touched him).
20 And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and
said, "Blessed be ye (who are) poor (in spirit); for
yours is the kingdom of God.
21 Blessed are ye that hunger now (after righteous-
ness): for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep
now (with that godly sorrow which works repentance):
for }. shall (find that comfort which will make you)
laug
22 Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and
when they shall separate you from their company,
and shall reproach you, id shall cast out your name
as evil (doers), for the Son of man’s sake; (i. e. for the
sake of the Messiah, styled by Daniel the Son of man,
Dan. vii. 14.)
23. Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for,
behold, your reward is greatin heaven (your case being
like, in this, to those holy prophets, who are now in
heaven): for in the like manner did their fathers to the
prophets. -
24 But woe to you that are rich (and by those riches
are indisposed to follow me)1 for you have received
your consolation (in this life).
25 Woe to you that are full (and therefore do not
hunger after righteousness) 1 for ye shall hunger.
Woe to you that laugh now (when you are called to
ºrepentance, to fit you to receive the gospel) / for ye shall
mourn and weep, (when ye find yourselves encluded from
the kingdom of God, Matt. viii. 12.)
26 Woe to you, when *all (the) men (of the world)
speak well of you (this being a sign that you imitate
those false prophets, who spake things pleasing to the
people) / for so did their fathers to the false prophets.
27 But I say to you that hear (me), Love your ene-
mies, do good to them that hate you,
28 Bless them that curse you, and pray for them
that despitefully use you.
29 And to him that smiteth thee (with his palm) on
the one cheek, offer (i. e. permit) also the other (to be
smitten); and him that taketh away thy cloak, forbid
not to take thy coat also (rather than contend by force,
or before the magistrate, about supportable injuries).
lowing the day of unleavened bread;” which, if understood
of the second day, is the truth. And if pentecost was
called “the feast of harvest,” Exod. xxiii. 16 (as Bochart,
Hieroz. par. i. lib. iii. cap. 13. Nicholas Fuller, Miscell.
lib. iii, cap. 11. Mr. Mede, Disc. 46, p. 355. Dr. Light-
foot, and the Jews say, see Temple Serv. cap. 14. sect. 4),
because then their barley and wheat-harvest were gathered
in, this feast could not be pentecost, as Grotius conjectures;
because then the corn must be gathered in : and therefore
could not be plucked by Christ's disciples in the field.
* Ver. 12. "Hy Stavvatsgeſoy #y rà reoreux; roi, Geoff, And
he continued all night in prayer to God..] Or, in a house
of prayer of God, or in a synagogue dedicated to the service
of God: though synagogues were not, as far as we can find,
of divine institution ; yet, being necessary for the perform-
ance of God's service, they, by the psalmist, are styled the
houses of God, Ps. lxxiv. 9, and here a house of prayer of
God: and in like manner may our churches, for the same
reason, be styled the houses of God: for, as “the mountain
of God,” Exod. iii. 1. iv. 27, “the bread of God,” Lev. xxi.
17, “the lamp of God,” 1 Sam. iii. 3, “the vessels of God,”
1 Chron. xxii. 19, “The altar of God,” Ps. xliii. 4, “the sa-
crifices of God,” Ps. li. 17, “the gifts of God,” Luke xxi.
4, “the ministers of God,” 2 Cor. vi. 4, “the tabernacle of
God,” 2 Chron. i. 3, “the temple of God,” Matt. xxi. 12,
and “the synagogue of God,” Ps. lxxiv. 8, are all things
consecrated or appropriated to God's service ; so ºrpooreux;
roi. Osoſ; must, in all reason, be a house of prayer of God ;
whence it is called rátro; Trpoo’evXic, “a place of prayer,” 1
Macc. iii. 46. And so the word ºrgoatsvº is certainly used,
Acts xvi. 13, and by Philo” in his oration against Flaccus,
where he complains that, ai Trgoveveal, “their houses for
prayer were pulled down ;” and there was no place left, in
which they might worship God, or pray for Caesar: and by
Josephus, who says, the multitude was gathered, sic rhy
Trporeuxāv, “into the house of prayer:” and so Juvenalf
speaks of the mendicant Jew, Ede ubi consistas, in quâ, te
* P. 752, F. 760, E.
j. Sat. 3, v. 215.
+ De Vitā suá, p. 1020, C, E,
quaero proseuchâ P “In what house of prayer may I find
thee begging,” or asking alms ?
* Wer. 20–26. Maxágio oi Trºtoxoi, &c. Blessed are the
poor, the hungry, the mourners, for the Son of man's sake.].
Here being but four of the eight beatitudes mentioned
Matt. v., and not one of these being delivered in the same
words which are there used ; as it is certain this must be an-
other sermon than that on the mount, and spoken to other
auditors; so it is only probable, not necessary, that they
should bear the same sense. However, it seems necessary
that what is here added to the last clause should agree to
them all, Blessed are they who patiently suffer poverty and
hunger, grief and persecution, for the sake of Christ, that
they may obtain that kingdom and that reward in heaven
he hath promised to his faithful servants; or, that the poor
should be the poor in spirit ; the hungry, those that hunger
after righteousness; and the mourners, those that sorrow to
repentance after a godly manner (2 Cor. vii. 9), for to those
that are otherwise poor and hungry, and upon other ac-
counts, these blessings cannot always belong ; and the op-
posite woes, which seem to favour the first interpretation of
these four beatitudes, must be restrained to them, who, by
the love of riches, pleasures, and plentiful provisions, are
kept from preparing themselves by repentance for, and so
from, entering into Christ's kingdom, or choosing that nar-
row and afflictive way which leadeth unto life eternal: for
even here the very Christian sufferer is to rejoice, and leap
for joy; and the rich man, who is ready, when Christ calleth,
to leave all, and follow him, who is rich in good works,
ready to give, and willing to distribute, layeth up for himself
a good foundation against the time to come (1 Tim. vi. 19).
* Ver. 26. Oval iº.ſy &ray xaxö, üç㺠stralai Trávre; oi &v6/2-
Troi, Woe unto you when all men speak well of you ! for so
did their fathers to the false prophets,) For he that will be
pleasing to all, must speak things grateful to all, and do
what they like ; now that cannot be good, which is grateful
to bad men : thus the false prophets, whom the Jews com-
mended, spake to them “smooth things” (Isa. xxx. 10);
they “prophesied lies,” because “the people loved to have
it so ; ” they “prophesied of peace, when war was at hand,”
268
LUKE.
30 Give to every (indigent) man that asketh of
thee (what he wants, and thou canst spare) ; and of
him "that taketh away thy goods ask them not again,
(in a judiciary manner; see note on Matt. v. 42 : or
wrge not the restoring them to the detriment of charity,
or so as to quarrel, or show a contentious spirit about
them).
31 And as you would that men should do to you
(in equal circumstances), do ye also to them likewise.
32 For if "ye love them (only) that love you, what
thank have ye 2 (i. e. what reward can ye eaſpect for
that which even the worst of men will do? ver. 35,) for
sinners also love those that love them. -
33 And if ye do good to them (only) which do good
to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even
the same.
34 And if ye lend to them (only) of whom ye hope
to receive (what ye lend), what thank have ye? for
sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again.
35 But love ye your enemies, and do good, and
"lend, (though) hoping for nothing again; and your
reward (in heaven) shall be great, and ye shall (show
Jer. vi. 14. viii. 11. xiv. 13. Ezek. xiii. 10. 16. Zech. x. 2,
they “strengthened the hand of evil-doers,” Jer. xxiii. 14,
and “daubed with untempered mortar,” Ezek. xiii. 10, ll
(see Examen Millii).
* Wer. 30. From him that taketh away what is thine,
tº &maire, ask it not again.] i. e. If any man will not ask,
but without asking will take away, or detain from thee what
is thine ; ask it not again, either in a judiciary manner (see
note on Matt. v. 40. 42), or urge not the restoring of it, to
the detriment of charity or mercy ; they who would inter-
pret these words thus, From him that received any loan
from thee, exact no usury, put a double force upon the
words: for (1.) our Saviour doth not here say, as he doth
Matt. v. 42, rôy Séxoyra &73 cov 8aysicaa'éat, “From him that
would borrow of thee, turn not away ;” but &md roi; afgoyto:
‘rā ºré, “from him that will take up, or take away that which
is thine, ask it not again.” Now he that is willing to borrow
of me, owns that which he would borrow to be mine, and so
cannot be willing at the same time to take away what is
mine. (2.) Whereas they render the word & marreſy, “to ex-
act usury,” and for this sense appeal to the use of it in Ne-
hemiah ; it is evident, that there it hath no such sense, but
plainly relates to their unjust exactions of debts and services
of their brethren against the law, requiring them to remit
those debts and services every seventh year, saying, “Every
seventh year thou shalt make a release ; and this is the
manner of the release: Every creditor that lendeth anything
to his neighbour, räy Xéo: fºtov # 34 sixes col 3 axnariov, every
debt of thine thy neighbour oweth thee, thou shalt release;
and of thy brother, oùx &maithaeic, thou shalt not exact it ;
of a foreigner, &rarrhagiº, thou mayest exact it ; but to thy
brother thou shalt remit thy debt,” Deut. xv. 1–3, and so
for Services, Exod. xxi. 2. Jer. xxxiv. 14. Accordingly,
saith Nehemiah, let us remit the seventh year, tº ºn Rwn.
wai &raftmoor xeigãº, and the exaction of every debt: so Deut.
xv. 2. YT Twn by: 95 rāy Xéo, ºtoy, “All thy own debt thou
shalt remit.” When therefore he saith, v. 10, “Let us re-
mit, I pray you rºy &raithariv raúrny, this exaction,” he
must refer to the same debt; and when he says, wer. 7,
&rarrhagi, “Should a man exact of his brother, & Vºsſ;
&rarreire, the things which ye exact P’’ he plainly refers to
the sin taxed in the Jews by Jeremy, ch. xxxiv., of demand-
ing Service of them again after these years of release were
expired : so also Ecclus. xx. 14, 15, “The gift of a fool will
do thee no good, a #4 spoy Baytā, wai atgtoy &rarrhagi, he will
lend to-day, and ask it again to-morrow.” And, lastly, if
the first words referred to Matt. v. 42, whátraitéſy, here must
be the same with ºth &roargépgy there, which sure hath no
relation to usury.
* Ver. 32. Ef 3)arāºre row: áyarāyrac tºxic, ºrdia tºy
Xáči; ; &c. If you love then that love you, what thank
have you ? for sinners also love those that love them.]
Here saith Theophylact, If you only love them that love
you, you are only like to sinners and heathens ; but if you
'yourselves to) be the children of the highest (God) :
for he is kind to the unthankful and to the evil.
36 Beye therefore merciful, as your Father also is
merciful.
37 Judge not (unnecessarily), and ye shall not be
judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemn-
ed: forgive (others their trespasses) and ye shall be
forgiven (yours).
38 Give, and it shall be given to you; good mea-
sure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running .
over, shall *men give (by God’s disposal, or öögovgu,
shall be given ; see the note,) into your bosom. For
with the same (liberal) measure that ye mete withal,
it shall be measured to you (by God) again (2 Cor.
ix. 6, 8, 10).
[To this sermon of Christ the evangelist here adds
other things spoken by Christ at other times ; but tend-
ing to engage men to observe these precepts, or to take
off their exceptions against them.]
39 And (first, against the pharisees, who, being co-
vetous, derided these charitable doctrines, Luke xvi.
14) he spake a parable to them (that heard him, say-
love those that do evil to you, you are like to God ; IIoſoy
oùy Sáxers &otot Elyat, roi; 3pwagroxoi º roi, Ogot, ; “Which
therefore should you choose, to be like sinners, or like
God P’’
7 Wer. 35. Kał Śaysićers, ºwn&#y &rextrićovreć, And lend,
hoping for nothing again.] They who render these words,
“making no man to despair,” put a double force upon the
words; first, reading ºn?āya, “no man,” for ºwn?āv, “nothing;”
and, secondly, interpreting 3raxrićew, “to make to despair;”
of which sense they afford no instance. They who render
them “distrusting nothing,” i. e. not fearing lest thou
shouldest be reduced to poverty by this charity, give a sense
alien from the text ; for when they say, “The heathens give
and lend, knowing that they may want themselves ;” this
they add of their own to the words of Christ, who says, “They
lend, iva &moxagãal r& Tra, that they may receive as much
again ;” and they reject that sense the text doth manifestly
require : for so run the preceding words, “If ye lend to
those, rap' & #xºrićsºre &moxagãº, from whom you hope to
receive again (what you lend), what thank have you ? for,
do not sinners lend to sinners to receive, or that they may
receive, what they lend again P” But lend not you on so
mean account, but even when you hope to receive nothing
back from them you lend to. And whereas we are told,
that the word ārśxwriča, bears no such sense; I hope the
credit of Stephanus, who says the word is rightly rendered
by the Vulgar, nihil inde sperantes ; and of Casaubon, who
saith, &mixtričew is 373 roi ºrgáygaro; ºri #xtričew, “to hope
for something from a person, or matter ;” may be sufficient
to support the credit of our translation ; especially when we
read in the life of Solon, that he made no law against par-
ricides, 31& ré &rsaqriaat, “because he did not expect ’’ that
such a crime would be committed (Diog. Laert, lib. i. p. 17),
and find this like composition in the word ārśxety, when it
signifies, &má two; #xely, to receive, 3royedokai, 376 rºyos yeſo-
ºat, “I taste of something;” and in the word &rsa&iew,
which, saith Athenaeus, is used, 3yri rod &má rivo; a Siew, for
“to eat of anything.” But (2.) where it is rendered by
them, to despair, or to be desperate, the sense is still the
same, viz. to be ºwn&#y &rextrišovres, “hoping for nothing from
men,” and therefore repairing to God. This is the plain
sense of it, Isa. xxix. Jud. ix. 12. Esth, xiv. 19: So Ecclus.
xxii. 21. xxvii. 21, twº &rexºrićnç, is, “Be not without hope
of reconciliation with thy friend ;” and why then may not
the word here signify, “Being without hope of receiving
anything again from him you lend to ?” So that it is not to
be doubted, that these words are well rendered by Chrysos-
tom,” ºrgö, Öy of reorbox2.p.gy &TroAap,8ávely, “I’rom whom you
expect not to receive.”
* Ver. 38. Ağroviri..] Impersonaliter interpretandum, “Is
to * impersonally,” saith Grotius (see note on
xvi. 9).
* In Mat. v. 42.
CHAPTER VII.
269
ing), Can the blind (pharisees) lead the blind (in the
right way 8 if they commit themselves to their conduct,)
shall they not both fall into the ditch
40 (And to remove that fear of poverty, reproach,
and injuries, to which this practice might subject his
followers, he said,) The disciple is not (to eaſpect to be)
above his master; but every one that "is perfect (i. e.
fully instructed in these rules) shall (will) be as his
master (i.e. conformed to him in these things : see
Matt. x. 25).
41 And (as for his command not to judge others,
when we ourselves are greater criminals, his question
apon that occasion was,) why beholdest thou the mote
that is in thy brother’s eye, but perceivest not the
beam that is in thine own eye -
42 Either (or) how canst thou say to thy brother,
Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye,
when thou thyself beholdest not the beam which is in
thine own eye Thou hypocrite, cast out first the
beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see
clearly (how) to pull out the mote that is in thy bro-
ther’s eye.
43 For (then only wilt thou be fit to direct others
well, both by eaſample and by words, when thou art good
thyself, seeing) a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt
fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
44 For every tree is known by his own fruit. For
of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of (or, from)
a bramble-bush gather they grapes. r
45 (And, in like manner), a good man out of the
good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which
is good ; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of
his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of
(from) the abundance of his heart his mouth speaketh.
46 And (he said, moreover) why (to what purpose).
call ye me Lord, Lord (i. e. profess yourselves my
disciples), and (yet) do not the things which I say (ye
ought to do) 2
47 (For) whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my
º and doeth them, I will show you to whom he
1S Ilke :
48 He is like a man who built a house, and digged
deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when
the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that
house, and (yet) could not shake it : for it was founded
upon a rock.
49 But he which heareth (my words), and doeth
(them) not, is like a man that without a foundation
built a house upon the earth; against which the stream
did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the
ruin of that house was great.
• Wer. 40. Karnéticºvávo, 3Å mºi, Barai &; 818&a waxo; airoij,
But every one that is perfect, shall (will) be as his master,
Karaprićea-Sat is to be perfect in anything, Matt. xxi. 16. 2
Cor. xiii. 9, 11. Heb. xiii. 21. 1 Pet. v. 10. The sense there-
fore of these words may be this, The disciple that perfectly
understands the rules, and sees the example, of his master,
will think it is his business to tread exactly in his steps, to do
and suffer, upon like occasions, as his master did, and so he
will be like his master,
CHAPTER VII.
1 Now when he had ended all his sayings in the
audience of the people, he entered into Capernaum.
2 And a certain centurion’s servant, who was dear
to him, was sick, or ready to die (or near death).
3 And when he (the centurion) heard (the fame) of
Jesus, he "sent to him (some of) the elders of the
Jews, beseeching him (by them) that he would come
and heal his servant.
4 And when they came to Jesus, they besought
him instantly (or earnestly), saying, That he was wor-
thy for whom he should do this (i.e. he well deserved
this kindness):
5 For he loveth our nation (and religion), and (as
an indication of this) he hath built us a synagogue.
6 Then Jesus went with them. And when he was
now not far from the house, the centurion sent (other)
friends to him, saying to him, Lord, trouble not thy-
self (to come to me) ; for I am not worthy that thou
shouldest enter under my roof:
7 Wherefore neither thought I myself worthy to
come to thee: but say in a word (thy pleasure), and
(I believe) my servant shall be healed.
8 For I also am a man set under authority, having
under me soldiers; and I say to one, Go, and he
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VII.
* Ver. 3. Aria'reixe ºrpèc airów Trpaağvrégovc rºy 'Iovězíoy,
JHe sent to him the elders of the Jews.] And ver. 6, “The
centurion sent to him friends:” by Matthew, viii. 5, “The
centurion came to him ;” and ver. 8, “The centurion said to
him.” To reconcile this difference, note,
First, That St. Luke relating this story more largely than
St. Matthew doth, and with this signal circumstance said by
his messengers, “I thought not myself worthy to come unto
thee" (ver. 7), these circumstances must be as they are re-
ated by St. Luke. Note,
Sccondly, That it being a rule among the Jews, that
goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and
to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. (How much
more then canst thou, who hast all power in heaven and
earth, command one of the ministering spirits to come
and heal my servant.) -
9 When Jesus heard these things, he marvelled at
him, and turned him (self) about, and said to the
people that followed him, I say to you, I have not
found so great faith, no, not in Israel; (and upon this
faith, he told them that were.sent, it should be as he be-
lieved, Matt. viii. 13.)
10 And they who were sent, returning to the house,
found the servant whole that had been sick.
11 And it came to pass the day after, that he went
into a city called Nain; and many of his disciples
went with him, and much people.
12 Now when he came nigh to the gate of the city,
behold, there was a dead man carried out, (who was)
the only son of his mother, and she was a widow
(and so by the loss of this son left destitute); and much
people of the city was with her (to attend the funeral).
13 And when the Lord saw her, he had compas-
sion on her, and said to her, Weep not.
14 And (then) he came and touched the bier: and
apostolus cujusque est quisque, the disciple, messenger, or
proxy of any man is as himself; and, among the civilians,
quod facimus per alium, id ipsum facere judicamur, “We
ourselves are reputed to do that which by another we do:”
St. Matthew well might say, the centurion who sent these
elders and friends came to him by them. So Jethro comes
to Moses by a messenger, Exod. xviii. 6, and Solomon speaks
to Hiram by his servants, 1 Kings v. 7. James and John
came to Christ with a petition presented by their mother,
Mark x. 35 compared with Matt. xx. 20. John the Baptist
speaks to Christ by his disciples, Matt. xi. 3. Note,
Thirdly, That though it seems probable from those words
of Christ to the centurion, “Go thy way, and as thou hast
270
LUKE.
they that bare him stood still. And he said, Young
man, "I say to thee, Arise.
15 And (at that word) he that was dead sat up,
and began to speak. And he delivered him to his
mother.
16 And there came a fear on (them) all: and they
glorified God, saying, That a great prophet is risen
up among us; and, That God hath visited his people
(by sending to them the promised Messiah).
17 And this rumour of him went forth throughout
all Judea, and throughout all the region round about.
18 And the disciples of John showed him of all
these things. .
19 And John calling to him two of his disciples
*sent them to Jesus, saying (in the name of their mas-
ter, who sent them for their own satisfaction), Art thou
he that should come (the Messiah) 9 or look we for
another ?
20 When (therefore) the men were come to him,
they said, John (the) Baptist hath sent us to thee,
saying (or, to say), Art thou he that should come 2 or
Hook we for (are we to eaſpect) another 2
21 And in that same hour he cured many of their
infirmities, and plagues, and of evil spirits; and to
many that were blind he gave sight, (according to the
prophecy of Isaiah concerning him : see the note on
Matt. xi. 5.) *
22 Then Jesus answering said to them, Go your
way, and tell John what things ye have seen and
heard ; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the
lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised,
to the poor the gospel is preached.
23 And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be of.
fended in me (i.e. who shall not fall off from me by
reason of the afflictions he may suffer, as John doth, or
by reason of my mean circumstances in this present
world).
24 And when the messengers of John were de-
parted, he began to speak to the people concerning
John (saying), What went ye out into the wilderness
to see 2 (Was it) a reed shaken with the wind (a man
wavering in his doctrine or testimony) 8
25 But what went ye out for to see : A man clothed .
in soft raiment (a courtier and parasite) 8 Behold,
they which are gorgeously appareled, and live deli-
cately, are in kings’ courts.
26 But what went ye out for to see 2 (Was it) a
prophet Yea, I say to you, and (one that is) much
more than a (an ordinary) prophet.
27 (For) this is he, of whom it is written, Behold,
I send my messenger before thy face, which shall
prepare thy way before thee.
28 (More, I say, than an ordinary prophet,) For I
say to you, Among those that are born of women
there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist;
but (yet) he that is (the) *least (prophet) in the king-
dom of God is greater than he.
29 And all the people that heard him, and the pub-
licans, justified God (i. e. approved the wisdom and
justice of his counsel, in calling them, by the Baptist,
º ºrmance, being baptized with the baptism of
On Il. -
30 But the "pharisees and lawyers rejected the
counsel of God against (towards) themselves, being
not baptized of him, (as being confident they were righ-
teous, Luke xviii. 9, and so needed no repentance).
believed, be it done unto thee" (Matt. viii. 13), that when
Christ was nigh to the house, the centurion might come in
person to him, yet neither is this necessary ; for when
David sent messengers to commune with Abigail to take her
to wife, she answers as if he had been present, “Behold thy
handmaid to be a servant to wash the feet of the servants of
my lord ” (1 Sam. xxv. 41). -
* Ver. 14. Eire, weavizze, coi Aéyo, #yéeSmri, Jesus said,
Young man, I say writo thee, Arise.] Here Woltzogenius
owns that Christ spake this by that divine power which he
had over inanimate things, as the wind and the sea; Est qui-
dem hoc Deo proprium, “This indeed,” saith he, “is proper
to God, who calleth things that are not, as if they were”
(Rom. iv. 17), but God had communicated this power to
his Son, by whom he would most perfectly manifest himself
to the world. So Peter speaks to Tabitha, “Tabitha, arise"
Acts ix.40); as Christ to Lazarus, “Lazarus, come forth "
John xi. 43). Now to this I reply,
First, That the instance of St. Peter saying to Tabitha,
* Arise,” doth not lessen the strength of the argument from
these words for the divinity of Christ, seeing he doth this
only by prayer to and faith in the Lord Christ; to which he
ascribes all his miracles, doing them in his name, or power,
and “through faith in his name” (Acts iii. 16), and so in
effect saith to her as he did to Æneas (ver. 34), “Jesus
Christ healeth thee, arise,” &c. Christ here doth this by
his own power, without any prayers, as appears from those
words, “I say to thee, Arise ;” and he will raise all his
servants from the dead, and “change their vile bodies into
the likeness of his glorious body, according to the mighty
power by which he is able to subdue all things to himself.”
(Phil. iii. 21). He prayed, indeed, when he raised Lazarus;
but then even Woltzogenius observes, he could not do this
to receive power to raise him, because he had this power in
himself already, John v. 26, and doth there challenge to
himself to be “the resurrection and the life,” vi. 25, but for
other reasons accounted for John xi. 41, 42.
Secondly, When Woltzogenius can prove, that divine
virtue which is proper to God alone, ever was, or ever can
be communicated to a creature, or to another without
communication of the divine nature, then, and not till
then, will he have given a satisfactory answer to this argu-
ment. - -
* Wer. 19. John sent, saying, Art thou he that should
come 2] See the note on Matt. xi. 3. -
* Ver, 28. The least in the kingdom of heaven is greater
than he..] See the note on Matt. xi. 11. 4,
* Wer. 30. Oi papta'aſoi Kai yogizoi rºy Govāśy roi, Ogot, #Sé-
tncay Big Havroic, ºw; Barrio Sévre; in airoij, But the phari-
sees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against
(Gr. towards) themselves, being not baptized of him.]
That some of them came to be baptized, we read Matt. iii.
7, it therefore must be said, either that this is here said of
them in general, because it was true of many of them ; or
that those who came to him, hearing the character he gave
of them, refused his baptism (see note on Matt. iii. 7). But
the chief thing here observable is this, that, in rejecting
John's baptism, they are said to reject the counsel of God
towards them, that is, his gracious design of calling them by
him to that repentance which could alone exempt them
from the wrath to come ; and by that refusal declared they
approved not of God’s counsel, as just and righteous in call-
ing such unblamable persons as they were, and such zealots
for the law, to repentance, that so they might escape the
ruin threatened by St. John ; for thus Eleazar, one of them,
speaks, after the destruction of the Jews, that though all the
rest of the Jews perished,” hºst; 3’ &ga &évot #xºrizagasy
Treptéaea Sat &amsp &vapºrnto ºrgö, röy Oew yeyákasyo, “we alone
expected to be preserved, as having not sinned against God,
nor been guilty of any fault, and who were teachers to
others.” Christ tells us they were, retrotóóra, #4, #avroſ,
“confident in themselves, that they were righteous” (Luke
xviii. 9), and represents them by the elder son, saying, “I
never transgressed at any time thy commandments” (Luke
xv. 29). They therefore judged it an incongruous thing to
call such righteous persons to repentance and threaten them
with ruin, who were so dear to God; but the publicans and
common people were conscious to themselves of sin sufficient
to expose them to divine judgments, and therefore they
approved of this counsel God sent them by his messenger,
* Apud Joseph. de Bello Jud. lib. vii. p. 990.
CHAPTER VII.
271
31 And the Lord said, Whereunto shall I liken
the men of this generation 2 and to what are they
like *
32 They are like to children sitting in the market-
place, and calling one to another, and saying, We
have piped to you (as at a festival), and ye have not
danced; we have mourned to you (as they do at fune-
ºral solemnities), and ye have not wept (i.e. you have
neither complied with us when we called you with
mirth nor sadness). -
33 For John the Baptist came neither eating bread
nor drinking wine (his meat being only locusts, and
his drink water) ; and ye say (of him), He hath a
devil (or, is a melancholy, frantic person).
34 The Son of man is come eating and drinking
(in the usual manner); and ye say (of him), Behold,
(he is) a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend
of publicans and sinners
35 But Wisdom is "justified (i. e. approved) of all
her children (i.e. of all true lovers of wisdom).
36 And (or, then) one of the pharisees desired him
that he would eat with him. And (thereupon) he went
into the pharisee's house, and sat down to meat.
37 "And, behold, a woman in the city, which was
(formerly) a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at
meat in the pharisee's house, brought an alabaster
box of ointment, -
38 And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and
began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them
with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and
anointed them with the ointment.
39 Now when the pharisee which had bidden him
saw it, he spake within himself, saying, This man, if
he were a prophet, would have known who and what
and declared him righteous, both in calling them to repent-
ance and threatening his judgments if they did neglect it ;
and therefore they submitted to this baptism of repentance
for the remission of sins, to which God, by the Baptist,
called them : that 3inatošy is to declare, or approve a thing
or person righteous, see ver, 35. They whose principles
will not allow them to believe that God had any such be-
nign designs towards such a generation of vipers, say, First,
That 8ova; toi, Geoi is not the counsel, or the purpose, but’
only the command of God ; but (1.) this phrase in scripture
never signifies a bare command, but always the decree, the
purpose, or the counsel of God (see Acts ii. 23. iv. 28. xiii.
36. xx. 27. Eph. i. 11. Heb. vi. 17). Nor (2.) can it be
rationally supposed, that God should give men any virtuous
or moral precepts, which he doth not design and purpose
that they should obey. Secondly, They add, that eiç Éav-
voic, “towards them,” is here put for #y Havtotº, “in them-
selves " and therefore render the text thus, “They despised
in themselves the counsel of God.” But (1.) was it his
counsel towards them, or was it not? If not, how could
they by neglecting that which concerned not them, despise
it 2 If so, then it is certain, that the purpose and counsel
of God toward them was this, That they should repent, and
bring forth fruits meet for repentance. (2.) The phrase,
“in themselves,” is always expressed by #y Šavroſ., iii. 8. vii.
49. viii. 9; Big Havroſſ, occurs but twice elsewhere, viz. 1 Pet.
iv. 8, 10, and then it plainly signifies, “towards themselves.”
* Ver, 35. Kai #3izaiºn, But Wisdom is justified of her
children.] See note on Matt. xi. 19.
7 Wer. 37. 180i), yuyń św ºf Tráxei. And, behold, a woman
in the city.] Here are two arguments against the opinion of
Huetius+ and others, that this woman was Mary, the sister
of Lazarus, and that Simon the Leper, mentioned Matt.
xxvi. 6. Mark xiv. 3, was the same with the Simon men-
tioned here ; (1.) because this Mary was a woman of that
city, that is, either of Nain or Capernaum, the only cities
* Not in Matt. p. 43, 44.
manner of woman this is that toucheth him; for she
is a sinner (and so by touching must defile him).
40 And Jesus answering (to his thoughts) said to
him, Simon, I have somewhat to say to thee. And
he saith, Master, say on.
41 (Jesus then began his discourse thus,) There was
a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one
owed (him) five hundred pence, and the other fifty.
42 And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly
forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them
will love him most 2
43 Simon answered and said, I suppose he to whom
he forgave most. And he said to him, Thou hast
rightly judged.
44 And he turned to the woman, and said to Si-
mon, Seest thou this woman 2 (When) I entered into
thy house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but
she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them
with the hairs of her head.
45 Thou gavest me no kiss : but this woman, since
the time I came in, hath not ceased to kiss my feet.
46 My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but
this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment.
47 °Wherefore, I say to thee, (This is a testimony
that) her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she
(hath) loved much : but to whom little is forgiven,
the same loveth little.
48 And (then) he said to her, Thy sins are forgiven.
49 And they that sat at meat with him began to
say within themselves, Who is this (man) that (he)
forgiveth sins also : -- -
50 And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath
saved thee (from the punishment of thy past sins):
go in peace.
mentioned here ; whereas Mary, the sister of Lazarus, was
of no city, but of the town or village of Bethany, John xi.
1. (2.) After the collation here, which is not styled a
supper, our Lord went “through every city and village,
preaching the kingdom of God” (viii. 1), whereas, after
he raised Lazarus, “Jesus walked no more openly.” And,
lastly, Mary's unction was made for Christ's interment,
and but six days before Christ's last passover (John xii.
7), when he continued in Bethany and in Jerusalem (Mark
xi. 11).
8 W. 47. OS Xáply, Aéya, coi, & péovrai ai épcaºtiat abrås
ai roMXai Sri hyáºrna's Toxº. For which cause I say unto
thee, Her sins, which were many, are forgiven ; for she
loved much..] Christsaith not hersins wereforgiven becauseshe
loved much ; but this ought to be a token to thee, that her
sins, which rendered her unworthy to touch me, have been
forgiven ; this great love to me being an indication of her
deep sense of God's mercy to her in pardoning her many
sins: and this do I the Prophet and the Son of God declare
unto her: to this sense lead both the parable of the great
debtor, to whom the Lord frankly had forgiven all, for he
loved much, because much had been forgiven; and the
conclusion of it in these words, “He that hath less forgiven
loveth less;” whence it appears, that ºr here cannot be
causal or intimate, she was forgiven much, because she
loved much ; the cause assigned of her forgivness being not
her love but faith (ver. 50); but only consequential, de-
noting the effect or indication of the forgivness of her many
sins. So Hosea ix. 15, All their iniquity was in Gilgal,
“therefore there I hated them ;” for they did not sin in
Gilgal, because he hated them there ; but he hated them
there, because there they offended (Eccles. v. 7); ºr gi
röy Gey pogoſ, “Wherefore fear thou God.” So John Xiv.
17, The world cannot receive the spirit of truth, ºr od śā;
airo, “therefore it sees him not, neither knows him,” but
ye know him, “therefore he abideth with you, and shall be
with you.” In one at least of these two paragraphs ºr must
bear this sense.
27
wº/
O
CHAPTER VIII.
Y AND it came to pass afterward, that he went
through every city and village, preaching and show-
ing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God; and th
twelve were with him. -
2 And certain women, which had been healed of
evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene,
out of whom went seven devils,
3 And Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward,
and Susanna, and many others, which "ministered to
him (necessaries out) of their substance. -
4 And when much people were gathered together,
and were come to him out of every city, he spake to
them by a parable: -
5 (Saying,) a sower went out to sow his seed: and
as he sowed, some fell by the way-side; and *it was
trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it. .
6 And some fell upon a rock; and as soon as it
was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked
(root and) moisture.
7 And some fell among thorns; and the thorns
"sprang up with it, and (overgrowing it) choked it.
8 And other (seed) fell upon good ground, and
sprang up, and bare fruit a hundred-fold. And when
he had said these things, he cried, He that hath ears
to hear (i. e. wisdom to discern and willingness to re-
ceive the truth), let him hear (i. e. embrace it).
9 And his disciples asked him, saying, What might
(the meaning of) this parable be
10 And he said (to them), To you it is given to
know the mysteries of the kingdom, of God : but to
others (I Speak) in parables; (they having shut their
eyes, and closed their ears, Matt. xiii. 14) “that seeing
theyº not see, and hearing they might not under-
Stand.
11 Now the (meaning of the) parable is this: The
seed is the word of God. • .
12 Those (seeds sown) by the way-side are (emble-
matically) they that hear (but consider not what they
hear, Matt. xiii. 19); then cometh the devil (Gr. tira,
so that the devil cometh), and taketh away the word
out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be
saved. -
13 They (who are represented by the seed sown) on
the rock, are they which, when they hear, receive the
word with joy; and these have no root, (being per-
sons) which for awhile believe, and (but) in time of
temptation fall away.
14 And (by) that (seed) which fell among thorns
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VIII.
* Wer. 2, 3. Kai yuvaſzé; rives, aſ hoay reflepatrºupwéyat àmà
wryFupwérov Troympäy Kai čaršEvetøy, And certain women, which
had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, minis-
tered to him of their substance.] This was customary, saith
St. Jerome,” among the Jews, for women, and especially for
widows, to minister necessaries to their teachers; and his
disciples being with him, and they being not represented as
of his family or domestics, but only as followers of his doc-
trine, could give no ground for any ill suspicion in this case.
* Ver. 5. Kai waterarăşn, And it was trodden down.] This
is not mentioned by St. Matthew or Mark, and seems to
signify a great contempt of the divine seed, the things which
we tread under our feet being accounted vile, and not worthy
to be taken up from the ground.
*Ver, 7. Kai ovº, pvaſa at al ākay}a &mérvićay airó And the
thorns springing up with it, choked it..] There be two prin-
ciples of action in man, the flesh and the spirit, or the in-
ward man ; from which arise different appetites and inclina-
tions: the flesh produceth an affection to riches, pleasures,
and other allurements of the world, which are here called
thorns; the inward man, or mind, approving of the laws of
God (Rom. vii. 22), and persuading to those things which
conduce to the peace, and tranquillity, and welfare of the
soul, is a principle inclining us to virtuous actions ; but if we
suffer these thorns to take root in our hearts, and gain our af.
fections, these inclinations to virtue will be quickly choked,
or bring no fruit to ripeness or perfection, which is all one as
to be ākaºros, without fruit, as appears from ver, 14, com-
pared with Matt. xiii. 22. Mark. iv. 19.
Ver. 8. Tatra Ääyov #4&ver “O yaw &ra 3xoſew, &zovéro.]
These words are owned by all the versions, Theophylact, and
Jerome, and yet are rejected by Dr. Mills on the sole autho-
rity of three MSS. -
* Ver. 10. "Iva Baštrovts; tº 8xfºrwari, wał &xoãoyre; aft
ovviàow, That seeing they may not see, and hearing they may
*lot understand: Mark iv. 12. That seeing they may see
and not perceive, and hearing they may hear, and not un-
derstand, lest they should be converted, and their sins
should be forgiven them.] Here, say some, this is plainly
given as a reason why our Saviour spake to them without in
parables, viz. that they may not perceive, or understand, or
be converted. But, to take off this pretension, it is suffi-
cient to observe, that the words in St. Mark and St. Luke
are only an abbreviation, or short hint of what St. Matthew
* In Maft. xxvii. 55.
saith was spoken by our Lord more fully ; for Christ might
say what St. Mark and Luke relate, and yet say more than
they relate, as St. Matthew doth assure us he did ; but then
St. Matthew could not have given us his discourse more fully,
unless our Lord had spoken it more fully than it is related
by St. Mark and Luke ; whence it must follow, that the re-
lations of Mark and Luke must be allowed to be deficient,
i. e. not to contain all that our Saviour said on this occasion,
and therefore must be filled up, or rendered entire, by the ad-
dition of the words recorded in St. Matthew. Since then St.
Matthew doth expressly tell us from the mouth of Christ,
“He therefore spake to them in parables, because they see-
ing would not see, or did not see, and hearing did not un-
derstand;” and that they therefore did not see, hear, and
understand, “because their heart was waxed gross, and their
ears heavy, and they had closed their eyes, lest they should
see, and hear, and be converted ;” it seemeth evident, that
the words of St. Mark and Luke must be filled up, or made
entire thus—To others (of the Jews) speak I in parables
(because they seeing, see not ; and hearing, do not under-
stand ; for their hearts are waxed gross, and their ears.
heavy, and their eyes have they closed), that seeing they
may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and
not understand, lest they should be converted: and though
doubtless this sad effect of their not hearing, and seeing,
viz. lest they should be converted, was not intended by them
yet, since it was the natural issue of their shutting their’
eyes against the light, it fitly is ascribed to them ; as when
the prophet Hosea saith, viii. 4, “Of their silver and gold
have they made them idols, that they might be cut off;” and
the prophet Micah, vi. 16, “For the statutes of Omri are
kept, and all the works of the house of Ahab, and ye walk
in their counsels, that I should make thee a desolation.” A
like expression to this we find, Isa. lxiii. 17, “Why hast thou
caused us to err from thy ways P ºri Écºlevya; ºrå; Kazèia;
hºw toº ºwn poſsia Sai as ; why hast thou hardened our hearts,
that we should not fear thee P” And yet this is the church's
prayer, imploring God's mercy, and the removal of his judg-
ments, viz. the long oppression of the heathens, which was a
temptation to them to depart from him, and to cast off his
fear; and therefore shows they were no otherwise hardened by
God than as these providences were a strong temptation to
them to cast off his service. Hence also we may learn the
power and efficacy of the word, when it is heartily believed
and seriously attended to, to work in those that hear it con-
version, to the Salvation of the soul; it being only through
the want of seeing and of understanding, that is, of believing
CHAPTER VIII.
273
are they (represented), who, when they have heard
(the word), go forth (into the world), and are choked
with cares, and riches, and pleasures of this life, and
bring no fruit to perfection. -
15 But (by) that (seed which fell) on "good ground,
are they (represented), who in an honest and good
heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth
fruit with patience. -
16 (Ant., having thus eaſplained this parable, he said,
I do not impart this knowledge to you that ye may con-
ceal it, but that ye may teach it to others ; for) "no man
when he hath lighted a candle, covereth it with a ves-
sel, or putteth it under a bed; but setteth it on a
candlestick, that they which enter in (to the house)
may see the light.
17 For nothing is (said in) secret (by me), that
shall not be made manifest; neither (is) anything hid,
that shall not be known and come abroad.
18 Take heed therefore how ye hear: for whoso-
ever hath (so as to improve it), to him shall be given
(more); and whosoever (thus) hath not, from him shall
be taken (away) even that which he seemeth to have.
19 Then came to (see) him his mother and his
brethren, and (they) could not come at him for the
TeSS.
p 20 And it was told him by certain, which said,
Thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring
to see thee. .
21 And he answered and said to them, (As) my
mother and my brethren are these who hear the word
of God, and do it.
22 Now it came to pass on a certain day, that he
went into a ship with his disciples: and he said to
them, Let us go over to the other side of the lake.
And they launched forth.
23 But as they sailed he fell asleep : and there
came down a storm of wind on the lake; and they
were filled with water, and were in jeopardy.
24 And they came to him, and awoke him, saying,
Master, Master, we (are ready to) perish Then he
arose, and rebuked the wind and the raging of the
water (saying to them, Peace, be still) ; and (then)
they ceased, and there was a calm, -
25 And he said to them, Where is your faith ? And
they, being afraid wondered, saying one to another,
What manner of man is this 1 for he commandeth
even the winds and water, and they obey him.
26 And they arrived at the country of the Gada-
renes, which is over against Galilee.
27 And when he went forth to land, there met him
out of the city a certain man, which had (been pos-
sessed with) devils (a) long time, and (he) wore no
clothes, neither abode in any house, but in the tombs,
28 When he (the evil spirit) saw Jesus, he cried
out, and fell down before him, and with a loud voice
said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou son of
God most high I beseech thee, torment me not :
(this he said, fearing he might be punished for what he
had done to the man.)
29 For he (i. e. Jesus) had commanded the unclean
spirit to come out of the man. For oftentimes it
had caught him: and (though) he was kept bound
with chains and in fetters; and (yet) he brake the
bands, and he was driven of the devil into the wilder-
- IlêSS.
30 And Jesus asked (the unclean spirit in) him,
saying, What is thy name And he said, (It is) Le-
gion; because many devils were entered into him.
31 And they besought him that he would not com-
mand them to go out into the deep.
32 And there was there a herd of many swine feed-
ing on the mountain: and they besought him that
he would suffer them to enter into them. And he
suffered them.
33 Then went the devils out of the man, and en-
tered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down
a steep place into the lake and were choked.
34 And when they that fed them saw what was
done, they fled (from the place), and went and told it
in the city and in the country (what was done). .
35 Then they went out to see what was done; and
came to Jesus, and found the man, out of whom the
devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus,
clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid.
36 They also that saw it told them by what means
he that was possessed of the devils was healed.
37 Then the whole multitude of the country of the
Gadarenes round about besought him to depart from
them; for they were taken with great fear (of what
they might farther suffer by him); and he (accordingly)
went up into the ship and returned back again.
38 Now the man out of whom the devils were de-
parted besought him that he might be with him:
but Jesus sent him away, saying,
39 Return to thine own house, and show how great
things "God hath done to (for) thee. And he went
his way, and published throughout the whole city how
great things Jesus had done to him.
40 And it came to pass, that when Jesus was re-
turned, the people gladly received him : for they were
all waiting for him.
41 And, behold, there came a man named Jairus,
and he was a ruler of the synagogue; and he fell
down at Jesus’ feet, and besought him that he would
come into his house : -
42 For he had one only daughter, about twelve
years of age, and she lay a dying. (But as he went,
the people thronged (about) him.
43 And a woman having an issue (or flua) of blood .
twelve years, which had spent all her living upon
physicians, neither could be healed of (i.e. by) any
(of them), -
44 Came behind him, and touched the border of
his garment: and immediately her issue of blood
stanched. -
45 And Jesus said, Who touched me * When all (the
rest) denied, Peter and they that were with him said,
Master, the multitude throng and press thee, and say-
est thou, Who touched me 2
46 And Jesus said, Somebody hath touched me
(in order to some cure) : for I perceive that virtue is
gone out of me (to heal somebody).
47 And when the woman saw that she was not hid
(from him), she came trembling, and falling down be-
and considering the importance of it, that it hath not this ef.
fect upon men (see the note on Jam. i. 18).
* Ver. 15. Tà è iv tº waxfi yº otºroi slow of rive; iv xagºtº
Kaº; Kai &yaśń &xoča ayre; roy Aéyov, xaréxova'i, But that on
the good ground, are they, who, in (with) an honest and
good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth
fruit with patience..] From these words it is manifest, that
some good disposition of heart is requisite to render the word
truly and durably fruitful. Now what this is, see in note on
Matt. xiii. 23
* Ver. 16."oiºsi, yā; Aáxycy & Jac, xahitrºtsi airy, No man
when he hath lighted a candle, covereth it with a vessel.] Of
this, and the seventeenth verse, see Mark iv. 22.
7 Wer. 39. "Oart, #Troimarë arol 6 @83c, Show how great things
God hath done to thee..] Here, saith Woltzogenius, Christ
ascribes this miracle to God, the author of that power by
which he did it (John v. 19), whereas had he been the high
God, he should have ascribed it to himself. I answer, he
doth this as “not seeking his own glory, but the glory of him
that sent him ;” that is, as one executing his prophetic office
in his Father's name, and casting out devils by that Spirit he
received from his Father.
T
274,
LUKE.
fore him, she declared to him before all the people
for what cause she had touched him, and how she
was healed immediately.
48 And he said to her, Daughter, be of good com-
fort : thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.)
49 While he yet spake, there cometh one from the
ruler of the synagogue’s house, saying to him, Thy
daughter is dead; trouble not the Master (any far-
ther).
ing, Fear not : believe only, and she shall be made
whole. -
51 And when he came into the house, he suffered
no man to go in (to her apartment), save Peter, and
* Ver. 55. 'Etréat pºpe rô Tysºga airãº, Her spirit re-
turned.] By adding this, saith Grotius, St. Luke shows, that
the soul of man is not corporeal, or anything that perisheth
with it; but aiÉvréatarów ri, something subsisting of itself;
which, when the body dies, exists elsewhere, as the word
#mréarps-le shows. But this is not a certain inference from
the word; for of Samson, refreshed with the water that came
from the jaw of the ass, it is said, #7áorpe-pe ºrd ºrvåga airoij,
50 But when Jesus heard it, he answered him say-l
straightwa
James, and John, and the father and mother of the
maiden. -
52 And all (present) wept, and bewailed her: but
he said, Weep not ; (you shall soon find) she is not
(as one) dead, but (as one that) sleepeth.
53 And they laughed him to scorn, knowing that
she was dead.
54 And he put them all out (who were thus weeping),
and took her by the hand, and called, saying, Maid, arise.
55 And her “spirit came again, and she arose
: and he commanded to give her meat.
56 And her parents were astonished: but he
charged them that they should tell no man what was
done.
“his spirit returned,” Judg. xv. 19, and the like phrase we
find, Ps. iii. 23. Lam. i. 11. 16. 19, plainly importing the
restoring a person to his vigour. This therefore is more
surely to be gathered from the death of the damsel, ver. 53,
for so Elijah speaketh in a like case, l Rings xvii. 21,
#Triarga pāra, 3) # Juxi, rot, traßagíov roërov, “Let, I pray thee,
the soul of this child return into it.”
CHAPTER IX.
1 THEN he called his twelve disciples together, and
gave them power and authority (through his name)
over all devils, and to cure diseases.
2 And he sent them to preach the (coming of the)
kingdom of God, and to heal the sick.
3 And he said to them, Take nothing (with you)
for your journey, neither staves, nor scrip, neither
bread, neither money; neither have two coats apiece;
(for you shall want neither provision nor protection,
xxii. 35.) -
4.And whatsoever house ye enter into, there abide
(while ye continue in that city), and (from) thence de-
part (to another).
5 And whosoever will not receive you, (your words,
Matt. x. 14), when ye go out of that city, shake off
the very dust from your feet for a testimony against
them (that ye account them as unclean, and not fit to be
conversed with any more).
6 And they departed, and went through the towns
(of Judea), preaching the gospel, and healing (the sick)
everywhere.
7 Now Herod the tetrarch heard of all that was
done by him: and he was perplexed, because it was
said of some, that John was risen from the dead (and
so his great wickedness appeared in killing a man so
highly favoured by God);
8 And of some (it was said), that Elias had ap-
peared; (and so that kingdom of the Messiah was to be
set up, which should destroy all other kingdoms, Dan,
ii. 44), and of others, that one of the old prophets was
risen again.
9. And Herod said, John have I beheaded: but (if
he be not risen again) who is this, of whom I hear
such (wondrous) things? And he desired to see him
(that so he might discern whether he were the Baptist or
70t).
10 And the apostles, when they were returned, told
him all that they had done (in his name). And he took
them, and went aside privately into a desert place, be.
longing to the city called Bethsaida (that they might
Test a little, Mark vi. 31).
11 And the people, when they knew it, followed
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IX.
him; and he received them, and spake to them of the
kingdom of God, and healed them that had need of
healing.
12 And when the day began to wear away, then
came the twelve, and said to him, Send the multitude
away, that they may go into the country and towns
round about, and (may) lodge, and get victuals (which
here they cannot do); for we are here in a desert place.
13 But he said to them, Give ye them to eat. And
they (upon inquiry, Mark vi. 38), said, We have no
more but five loaves and two (little) fishes, (and what
are they among so many F we cannot therefore satisfy
them), except we should go and buy meat for all this
people. -
14 For they were about five thousand men (who
were to be fed). And he said to his disciples, Make
them sit down by fifties in a company.
15 And they did so (as he commanded), and made
them all sit down.
16 Then he took the five loaves and the two fishes,
and looking up to heaven, blessed (God over) them,
and brake (them), and gave (of them) to the disciples
to set before the multitude. -
17 And they did eat, and were all filled: and there
were taken up of fragments that remained to them
(that gathered them) twelve baskets.
18 And it came to pass, *as he was alone (from the
multitude) praying, his disciples were with him; and
(having ended his prayer) he asked them, saying, Whom
say the people that I am?
19. They answering said, (Some say thou art) John
the Baptist; but some say (thou art) Elias; and others
say, that one of the old prophets is risen again.
20 He said to them, But whom say ye that I am 2
Peter answering said, (Thou art) the Christ of God.
21 And he straitly charged them, and commanded
them to tell no man that thing;
22 Saying, The Son of man must suffer manythings,
and be rejected of the elders, and chief priests, and
scribes, and be slain, and be raised (again) the third
day. -
% And he said to them all, If any man will come
ciples were with him.] The word warakwáva; alone, excludes
not his disciples, but the multitude now sent away, when
"Ver. 18. Kai Hyèviro iv rá čva airy karaºzáva; recasuziaiyoy, they were filled, ver. 17, as appears from Mark iv. 10: or
&c. 4nd it came to pass, as he was alone praying, his dis-i zarapºva; traorsºgºvo, may be rendered, “As he was pray-
t
CHAPTER IX.
275
after me, let him” deny himself, and take up his cross
daily (as occasion serves), and follow me.
24 For whosoever will (reject me to) save his life
shall lose it; but whosoever will (be ready to) lose his
life for my sake, the same shall save it (and this surely
will be his wisest course).
25 For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the
whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away (as
ing alone,” or “by himself,” his prayer being ended, his dis-
ciples came to him.
* Ver. 23. ‘Azragyna & So Havrév, xa, &péra, rby a raupy abroº
*aš’ #2.Égay, &c. If any man will come after me, let him
deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.]
Daily, i. e. as oft as an occasion offers itself. Here I shall
recollect all that is said in several places of the gospel con-
cerning this self-denial, and taking up the cross; and thence
give rules of comprising this whole duty. And,
First, We must deny father and mother ; for, “If a man
come to me,” saith Christ, “and hate not,” Luke xiv. 26,
i. e. “forsake not father and mother,” Matt. xix. 29, “he
cannot be my disciple. For he that loveth father and mo-
ther more than me, is unworthy of me,” Matt. x. 37. Our
Lord had told them, ver. 35, 36, that his gospel would acci-
dentally cause great variance and division “betwixt the fa-
ther and the son, the mother and the daughter,” and render
those of their own household the most fierce and cruel ene-
mies; he therefore lets them know, that if when this shall
come to pass, father and mother did prevail upon them,
either by that affection which men naturally bear to their pa-
rents, or by that reverence they give to their authority and
commands, when these commands do thwart his precepts;
or else by those advantages, or outward comforts, which
they expect to receive from their parents, and by adhering to
the doctrine of our Lord, might lose or hazard; i.e. if they,
by any of these motives, were induced to prefer the com-
mands or will of their parents, before Christ's, and value
*
their countenance and affections before his favour, they
could not sincerely be his disciples. Now this, by parity of
reason, holds concerning civil magistrates, who are the fathers
of their country, and spiritual superiors, who are fathers of
the church ; and of all others, who have like power to com-
mand, reward, or punish us; and so this instance affords this
rule of self-denial. -
Rule I. That they to whom we bear the greatest natural
affection, and the highest reverence, to whose commands
we owe the most entire obedience in lawful matters, from
whom we have received already, and may expect, the great-
est temporal advantages, provided we comply with their de-
sires, or the worst temporal evils upon refusal, must be
denied, forsaken, and comparatively hated, for the sake of
Christ, so that although the yearning bowels of a tender
mother which at first conceived me, and the grey hairs of
an indulgent father, should be pleaded as motives to induce
me to break the least commandments of the holy Jesus;
though the authority of civil, natural, and ecclesiastical su-
periors should combine to tempt me to do what Christ for-
bids ; though this authority should allure me with proffers
of the highest honours or rewards, or should endeavour to
affright me with the severest menaces; yet, if all these con-
siderations should prevail with me, to gratify myself and
them, by doing that which my own conscience and God’s
word assure me will be displeasing to my Saviour, or op-
posite to his commands, it is evident that I regard myself, or
them, more than I do my Saviour; and therefore am un-
worthy of him, and cannot be sincerely his disciple.
Secondly, We must deny our wife and children, even that
wife of our bosom, who is made “one flesh” with us, whom
we must love as dearly as we love ourselves (Eph. v. 33),
and for whose sake father and mother must be left (Gen.
ii. 24). We also must deny those children, which are the
offspring of our bowels, the joy and comfort of our lives;
for, “if any man come to me,” saith Christ, “and hate not
his wife and children,” Luke xiv. 26, “if he forsake not wife
and children for my name's sake, and the gospel’s (Mark x.
28), he cannot be my disciple.” Accordingly it is recorded,
for the everlasting honour of the Levites, that they observed
God's word, and kept his covenant, “ saying unto their father
and mother, I have not seen them, not knowing their own
children, not acknowledging their brethren ;” that is, being
commanded by God's servant Moses, to kill every man his
brother, friend, and son, that had been guilty of idolatry, in
worshipping the golden calf, they executed the command of
God without regard to father, mother, son, or brother, Exod.
xxxii. 27, 28. Now the children of our loins, and the wife
of our bosom, being the objects of our strongest love and
greatest pity, and those in whom we chiefly take delight and
pleasure ; this second instance will afford this rule, viz.
Rule II. That whatever we most passionately love, are
most especially concerned for, do cleave most closely to in
our affections, and above all enjoyments do take the most
pleasure in, must be loved less than Christ; and conse-
quently must be denied, forsaken, and comparatively hated,
for his sake, and the gospel's. Now to this rule, by parity
of reason, may be reduced all our immoderate affections to
the pleasures of this world, whether they be the pleasures of
the appetite, such as the glutton and the drunkard do pur-
sue ; the pleasures of the senses, which the voluptuous and
lustful persons chiefly prosecute ; the pleasures of vain sports
and pastimes, gamings, and other recreations; so that if our
affection to a bosom friend prevail upon us to defer that re-
ligion we profess without conviction, or to act in contradic-
tion to any precept of it, of which our conscience is con-
vinced ; if our love to our own offspring will not permit us
to reprove, correct, or to restrain them, when they dishonour
God, and render themselves vile, but with old Eli, we de-
spise our God by thus preferring our sons before him; if our
affections are inordinately set upon the pleasures of this
world, now mentioned, so that we do more passionately covet
and delight more in them than the things of God, we do
more eagerly pursue, more constantly employ our care and
time about them than about spiritual things, and so become
“lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God ;” if our af-
fection to them doth prevail upon us to neglect our duty to-
wards God, our neighbour, or ourselves, or to enjoy them in
that degree or manner which is forbidden by the laws of
Christ,-then do we love them more than Christ ; and there-
fore cannot be sincerely his disciples.
Thirdly, We must deny brother and sister, which may be
fitly styled denying of ourselves, seeing a brother is a second
self, of the same flesh and blood with us, and therefore styled,
frater quasi ferð alter: for, “he that cometh unto me,” saith
Christ, “and hateth not his brother and his sister,” Luke xiv.
26, i. e. “who will not leave them for my sake (Mark x. 28),
cannot be my disciple.” Now, a brother, naturally, and in
the scripture import of the word, denotes a person with
whom we do familiarly converse, and have an intimate ac-
quaintance; hence, when the spouse desireth to have more
near acquaintance, and more close communion with Christ,
she thus expresseth her desire: “Oh that he were as my
brother, that sucked the breast of my mother!” Cant. viii.
1. And the wise man, exhorting others to associate them-
selves with Wisdom, and be more intimately acquainted with
her ways, doth bid them “say to Wisdom, Thou art my sis-
ter,” Prov. vii. 4. Moreover, this relation intimates the
closest union of affection, and the greatest friendship; whence
friends in scripture are so oft styled brethren ; and Christian
love, in the superlative degree, is often represented by tº
love of brethren. So that our third rule will be this, viz.
Rule III. That Christians must deny, forsake, and must,
comparatively, hate their nearest relative and dearest friend,
who are as their own soul (Deut. xiii.6), and cleave closer
to them than a brother (Prov. xviii. 24), and him with whom
they have enjoyed the sweetest and most delightful con-
verse, and most familiar acquaintance, when it is necessary
for the sake of Christ, and in obedience to his precepts, 80
to do; and then, à fortiori, this rule must bind us to deny
our pot-companions, our lustful Delilahs, our brethren in
iniquity, our vain and sinful company, and to have no com-
munion with them in their works of darkness, but to reprove
them. If then the importunity of friend or brother pre-
vail upon thee to trangress wilfully any commandment of
thy God and Saviour; if they draw thee, by their example
and persuasions, to excess or riot, to chambering or wanton-
'ness, or any other sin, which is, in effect, to persuade thee
to be damned for company; if, in dispensing punishments,
rewards, preferments, favours, thou dost transgress this rule
T 2
276
LUKE.
§ who reject me, to save this temporal life, will
e)?
26 For whosoever will be ashamed of me and of my
words (now), of him shall the Son of man be ashamed,
of equity on their accounts; if thy regard to them restrain
thee from reproving their drunkenness and swearing, their
lewd or atheistical discourse ; nay, if the plain command of
God, to hold no friendship or familiarity with them doth
not prevail upon thee to abandon and forsake their com-
pany, as much as may be, then evident it is, thou lovest
the company of such vile creatures more than communion
with thy Saviour; thou dost more prize their friendship
than his favour, thou wilt not leave thy friend for him, and
therefore art not worthy of him.
Fourthly, We must deny ourselves in houses, lands, and
goods, or in those things by which we, with God’s blessing
on them, do subsist ; and though these things be not so pro-
perly ourselves, as wife and children; yet, since men are so
hot in the pursuit of them, that they will hazard their repu-
tation, health, life, soul, or their whole selves in prosecution
of them ; since, when these things are lost, we are so apt to
think and say, we are undone; since by the scriptures these
things are called our substance, and are indeed the things by
which our nature does subsist ;-our denial of them, upon
these accounts, may very fitly be called self-denial, and thus
we are obliged to deny ourselves: for, “whosoever he be of
"us, that forsaketh not all that he hath, ºrávra tº iTrápxovira,
all his possessions,” or his worldly goods, “he cannot be my
disciple,” saith our Lord, Luke xiv. 33. Hence doth our
Saviour lay this command on the young man, to sell his great
possessions, and give them to the poor, and follow him, in
expectation of a heavenly treasure ; and did pronounce, on
his refusal to obey so irksome a command, that he could not
enter into the kingdom of God. Here then the rule runs
thus, viz.
Rule IV. That Christ's disciples must, when his provi-
dence doth call them to it, renounce, cast fiom them, aban-
don, even their whole subsistence, and all their temporal
good things, in prospect of those spiritual blessings, which
he hath promised to all who, for his and his gospel’s sake,
do thus deny themselves: and then much more must we re-
nounce our superfluities, and those accommodations whereby
we only gratify our fancies, and our carnal minds, viz. our
stately palaces, our numerous attendants, our delicious fare,
our rich attire, our large and flourishing estates. If then we
cannot freely spend these temporal enjoyments in the cause
of Christ, or part with superfluities for the relief and com-
fort of his members; if we cannot cast away, abandon, or
reject these things, though dear unto us as a right hand, or
eye, when they prove Snares, temptations, and offences to
us; if the rich man cannot be content to be “brought low,”
and to “take joyfully the spoiling of his goods,” in prospect
of those never-failing riches' Christ hath promised ; if, to
enjoy or to preserve these things, we venture to “make ship-
wreck of faith,” or “a good conscience,” or out of love
unto this present world are moved, with Demas, to forsake
or to neglect our duty to Christ,-then we love mammon
more than Christ, and therefore cannot be his true disciples.
Fifthly, We must deny even life itself, which is still a
&. high degree of self-denial: there is scarce anything
we do so highly value and dearly love, and so much labour
to preserve, and so unwillingly let go, as life; for, “skin
for,” or after, “skin, and all that a man hath, will a man
give for his life,” and yet this also must be denied for Christ's
sake : for, “if any man come unto me, and hateth not his
own life,” saith Christ, “he cannot be my disciple;” i. e. if
he doth love God better, and prize his favour more, than he
doth value the continuance of this present life ; if he cannot
prevail upon himself to die for Christ, that he may live for
ever with him ; and lose this miserable life, to find it hap-
pily improved into a life of endless bliss and happiness; if
he cannot follow the example of his Lord, who suffered first,
then entered into his glory, he vainly doth pretend to be a
follower or a disciple of the holy Jesus. This instance then
of self-denial doth inform us, that even matural life must be
forsaken, and renounced, when we cannot preserve it with-
out the loss of our more valuable interest in Christ, and
those eternal blessings he hath promised to all those that
suffer “for the sake of righteousness.” And if this natural
life must be denied for Christ, much more my personal or
civil liberty, my habitation, or my country.
Rule W. If then I cannot live a pilgrim and stranger upon
earth, in expectation of a heavenly country, or live in ba-
nishment and exile for the cause of Christ ; if I cannot suf-
fer bonds and imprisonments, that I may still continue the
Lord's freeman ; if I cannot be induced to lose my life, that
I may find it ; but will endeavour to preserve my life or
liberty by the violation of any laws of Christ,--it is evident
I love this present life more than I love my Saviour, more
than that crown of life, which he hath only promised to
those who shall continue “faithful to the death ;” and
therefore am unworthy of him, and falsely do pretend to be
a true disciple of the holy Jesus. R
Sixthly, We must deny our honour, and our reputation,
our ease, and our deliverance from those afflictions, which
render life a burden, which is the last and highest pitch of
self-denial; even when our afflictions and our persecution
do render death itself a mercy and deliverance ; when, with
good Job, “our soul chooseth strangling, and death, rather
than life, and longeth for it more than for hid treasure”
(Job iii. 21); when for his sake we are “reproached all the
day long,” and are exposed as spectacles of shame and in-
famy to the beholder: all this we must with patience suffer
for the name of Jesus; for even after that our Lord had
said, “If any man come to me, and hate not his own life,
he cannot be my disciple,” he adds, Luke xiv. 27, “And
whosoever doth not bear his cross cannot be my disciple;”
wherefore this bearing of the cross imports some farther act
of self-denial; which, that we may the better understand,
consider, (1.) That the cross among the Romans was ac-
counted the most ignominious and shameful death, inflicted
only upon slaves; for, as Lactantius saith, Homine libero
quemvis nocente indignum videbatur, “Now to a generous
spirit it is not so much to die, as it is to suffer in an ignomi-
nious manner, and as the worst of malefactors, being inno-
cent :" whence, as the heathem Seneca well notes, no per-
son can so much express his love to virtue, or more entirely
be devoted to her, than he, qui boni viri famam perdit, ne
conscientiam perderet, “that loses his reputation to preserve
his conscience.” (2) Consider that this was a most bitter,
painful, and afflictive death; whence, as Austin notes, acer-
tissimi dolores cruciatus à cruce vocabantur, . From this
expression therefore thus explained, I collect this rule, viz.
Rule VI. That the disciple of the holy Jesus must endure
fºr most fiery trials, the most sharp afflictions, and choose
to die in the most shameful, ignominious manner, for the
cause of Christ ; i. e. when he cannot escape those things
without denial, or acting contrary to the commandments of
his Saviour: and then much more, when equal circum-
stances do concur, must he deny himself his ease, and
worldly quiet, his places of grandeur, his honour and his re-
putation, and those punctilios of honour, which the hectors
of our age so much insist on; and must with patience bear,
and readiness forgive, all the affronts he suffers from the
hands of men, which he can never less deserve than by ad-
hering firmly to his Lord. If then we cannot quit our ease
and worldly quietness for Christ, but rather will neglect
known duty, than give ourselves the trouble which Christ's
service calls for, rather comply with what is uppermost, than
put ourselves to any trouble or disquiet to preserve an up-
right conscience; if the example and authority of Christ be
not sufficient to curb our angry passions, quell our malicious
and revengeful tempers; if the punctilios of honour tempt
us to duel, and to spill our brother's blood ; if we cannot
lay down our honour and our reputation at the feet of
Christ, not seeking honours from frail creatures, but “that
which comes from God alone,” and being willing to be dis-
honoured for his sake; if fiery trials do cool our love to
Christ, or the most sharp afflictions do cause us to forget our
duty to him ; if we do not rather choose “to endure afflic-
tion with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of
sin for a season,”—we either love or fear those things more
than we love the favour, or fear the frowns, of our blessed
Lord: and therefore cannot be his true disciples.
CHAPTER IX.
277
when he shall come in his own "glory, and in his Fa-
ther’s, (that of light and flame ; see note on Heb. i. 3),
and (with the glorious attendance) of the holy an-
€1S. g
§ 27 But (besides this coming at the dreadful day), I
tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which
shall not taste of death, till they see the (Son of man
coming in the) kingdom of God (with power, Matt. xvi.
28, Mark ix. I, to eaſecute his judgment on them that
reject him).
28 And it came to pass about an eight days after
these sayings, (see the note on Mark ix. 2), he took
Peter, and John, and James, and went up into a
mountain to pray.
29 And as he prayed, the fashion (or appearance)
of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was
(or became) white and glistering.
30 And, behold, there talked with him two men,
which (by their discourse) were (known to be) Moses
and Elias:
31 Who appeared in glory, and spake of his “de-
cease, (the death) which he should accomplish at
Jerusalem. g
32 But Peter and they that were with him (whilst
he was praying) were heavy with sleep: and when they
were awake, they saw his glory, and the two men that
stood with him.
33 And it came to pass, as they departed from him,
Peter said to Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be
here: "and (therefore) let us make (here) three taber-
nacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for
Elias: not knowing (whether) what he said (were well
or ill said).
34 While he thus spake, there came a cloud (of
glory), and overshadowed them; and they feared as
they entered into the cloud, (because of the magnificent
glory of it, 2 Pet. i. 17).
35 And there came avoice out of the cloud, saying,
This is my beloved Son: hear him.
36 And when the voice was past, Jesus was found
alone. And they (three) kept it (the vision) close, and
told no man in those days any of those things which
they had seen.
37 And it came to pass, that on the next day, when
they were come down from the hill, much people met
* Wer. 26. “oray 37.9% #y rā 3%m abroſ, kai roi; ºrateåg, wai
ºw &ylov 3 y) fixay, When he shall come in his own, and in
his Father's glory, and in the glory of his holy angels.]
The divine apparitions in the Old Testament are repre-
sented by a great light, or splendour, by the Jews styled
Shechinah, and the presence and attendance of holy angels;
and these are styled “the glory of God,” or the appearance
of the glory of God, and, representing to them God the Fa-
ther, are here styled “the glory of the Father ;” and it
being the Aéyoc, or Son of God, which usually thus ap-
peared, and who, after his ascension, was again invested with
this glory, it is here also styled “his glory” (see the notes
on John xvii. 5. Phil. ii. 6. Heb. i. 3).
* Ver. 31. "Exeyov rºw Écôoy abroń, &c. And they spake of
his decease which he should accomplish #y Ispovo axiº, at
Jerusalem.] Not of that destruction which he was to ac-
complish on Jerusalem ; for, that Moses and Elias spake
one word of that, we read not in the holy Scripture ; nor
doth the word #0860, absolutely put, ever signify any such
thing, but only when it is joined with army, king, captains,
soldiers, and the like ; but it is the proper word used by
scripture, and other writers, for a departure out of this life ;
so 2 Pet. i. 15, “I will endeavour that, ºxera tºy #zºv #030y,
after my departure, ye may have these things in remem-
brance;” Wisd. iii. 2, “In the sight of the unwise they
seemed to die, Rai #080; airów, and their departure is taken.
for misery;” and, vii. 6, “All men have one entrance into
38 And, behold, a man of the company cried out,
saying, Master, I beseech thee, look upon my son;
for he is my only child:
39 And, lo, a "spirit taketh him, and he suddenly
crieth out; and it teareth him that he foameth again
(Gr. it causeth him to beat himself; and foam), and,
bruising him, hardly departeth from him:
40 And I besought thy disciples to cast him out;
and they could not; (and this hath raised a dispute
betwixt the scribes and thy disciples concerning thy
power, Mark ix. 15.)
41 And Jesus answering said, O faithless and per-
verse generation, how long shall I be with you, and
suffer you? Bring thy son hither.
42 And as he was yet coming, the devil threw him
down, and tare him (or, and he beat himself with his
fists). And Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, and
healed the child (of his epilepsy), and delivered him
again to his father. :
43 And they were all amazed at the mighty power
of God (visible in Christ). But while they wondered
every one at all (these) things which Jesus did, he said
to his disciples,
44 Let these sayings sink down into your ears: for
(notwithstanding this seeming admiration) the Son of
man shall (by these very Jews) be delivered into the
hands of men.
45 But they "understood not this saying, and it
was hil from them, that they perceived it not; and
they feared to ask him (of) that saying.
46 Then there arose areasoning among them, which
of them should be greatest. *
47 And Jesus, perceiving the thought of their heart,
took a child, and set him by him,
48 And saith to them, Whosoever shall receive
(such a one as) this child in my name, receiveth me;
and whosoever shall receive me, receiveth him that
sent me: for he that is least among you all (in his own),
the same shall be great (in my esteem and king-
dom).
49 And John answered (i.e. spake) and said, Mas-
ter, we saw one casting out devils in thy name; and
we forbade him, because he followeth not with us.
50 And Jesus said to him, Forbid him not: for he
that is not against us (but pursues the same design in
beating down the kingdom of Satan) is for us.
life, #:083; te tan, and their departure is alike ; Ecclus.
xxxviii. 23, “Be comforted for him, #y #689 "ryeº aro; airoij,
when his spirit departeth.” Hence Grotius notes this as
one of those phrases by which the old tradition of the im-
mortality of the soul is preserved, though ###xswai; ºrcă mysſ-
& aroc is only the expiration, or going forth of the breath of
man (Ps. civ. 29. cxlvi. 4).
* Ver. 33. Kai Trotho-op, Ey, &c. And let ws make three ta-
bernacles.] Kai here signifies therefore, as Gen. xii. 19.
xxix. 33. xlii. 22. Deut. iv. 6. 15. 37. 40. v. 32. vi. 3. vii.
9. viii. 6. xxviii. 48. Josh. xxiii. 11. xxiv. 10, 18. 1 Sam. ii.
I7. Luke xii. 29. 1 Cor. v. 13.
* Wer. 39. Kai i}ob Trygººd. Aap,8áyst airów, And, behold, a
spirit taketh him.] That this person was truly possessed
with an evil spirit, is evident, (1.) because Matthew saith ex-
pressly, that Christ “rebuked him, and the devil departed
from him,” Matt. xvii. 18, (2) because Christ commands
him “to depart, and return no more,” Mark ix. 24.
7 Wer. 45. Oi Śā āyváovy tº figa, wał ży raganexaxvºzávov
&ºr' airāy, But they understood not this saying, and it was
hid from them.] They understood the words, but knew not
how to reconcile them with their own traditions, that their
Messiah should live for ever ; or with the great things they
expected from him ; and therefore in after ages they in-
vented the distinction of Messiah Ben Joseph, who was to
die ; and of Messiah Ben David, who was to triumph, and
live for ever.
278
LUKE.
51 And it came to pass, when the time was (near)
come that he should “be received up (into heaven), he
"stedfastly set his face (or fully purposed) to go to
Jerusalem (where he was to suffer).
52 And (therefore) sent messengers before his face:
and they went, and entered into a village of the Sa-
maritans, to make ready (a lodging) for him.
53 And they did not receive him, because his *face
was as though he would go (i.e. he appeared to them
to be going) to Jerusalem (to worship).
54 And when his disciples James and John saw
this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire
to come down from heaven to consume them, even as
Elias did (to the captains and their fifties)?
55 But he turned, and * rebuked them, and said,
Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of (i.e. how
opposite this enterminating spirit is to the design of my
Coming).
56 For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's
(temporal) lives, but to save them. And they went to
another village.
57 And it came to pass, as they went in the way, a
* Wer. 51. ‘Eyářero è #y tº avºiranpää-Sai rā; hºw#pa; tº;
àvax#Jew; airrot, When the time was come, that he should be
areceived up.] Though this may be said with some analogy
of his death, which he was, manpouo Sai #y Isgovo axiº, “to ac-
complish at Jerusalem,” whither he was now bound; be-
cause that was by being lifted up upon the cross ; yet that
being only styled $4.ogic, but never &váàn-bic, I incline rather
to think, that as his #030; signifies his departure, so his évé-
Anºic may import his glorious ascension into heaven, the
fruit and consequence of his death, who, “having purged
away our sins by his death, is sat down at the right hand of
majesty in the highest” (Heb. i. 3): “he, for the suffering
of death, being crowned with glory and honour” (ii. 9), and
3.3, for this cause exalted (Phil. ii. 9). So Elias is said, &va-
xn+Sărat sic rôy otpavy, “to be taken up into heaven,” 2
Kings ii. 1.9. Ecclus. xlviii. 9.
° kal airā, śarágºs ºrpárotroy airrot, rod troºstſea Sai si... 'Iseov-
a'axº, Hestedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem.] That is,
he firmly purposed to go to Jerusalem, and began to execute
it by passing from Galilee, the road-way through Samaria to
Jerusalem. This is the frequent import of this phrase in the
Septuagint, when there is mention of the counsel, purpose,
or decree of God declared to his people. So Jer. iii. 12, où
º, cºrngº orgão wrév wou #$! #43;, “I will not set my face
against you ;” xxi. 10, #oºrheiða rā ºrpéawrāy wov, “I have
set my face against this city for evil;” and Ezek. xxi. 2,
a régicovº rporarráz orov #wi 'Iseouzaxła, “Set thy face against
Jerusalem :” so vi. 2. xiii. 17. xv. 7. xx. 46. xxv. 2. xxviii.
21. xxix. 2. xxxviii. 1. Dan. xi. 16, 17.
19 Wer. 53. And the Samaritans received him not, ºri ºrd ºrgé-
orwarov airoi; ºv Tropsvépcevoy Big Is;ova axiº, because his face was
as though he was going to Jerusalem.] It appeared by the
road he took, and the places he went through, that he was
going thither, So of Sennacherib, Hezekiah saw, §ri rā Tºà-
coroy airoij, “that his face was to fight against Jerusalem,”
2 Chron. xxxii. 2, i.e. that he directed his army thither; and
they that firmly purposed to go to Egypt are Sèvre: ré ºrgáco-
Troy giråy eiç yñy Aiyūrrow, “men that set their face to go into
Egypt,” Jer. xlii. 15. 17 (see also 2 Kings xii. 17). The
reason why the Samaritans, knowing thus his purpose, re-
ceived him not, as they did other Galileans going thither,
was, that, by going thither on a religious account, viz. to
celebrate the passover, he decided the controversy betwixt
them and the Jews, touching the place by God appointed
for worship, and for sacrifice, against them ; which, though
they regarded not when done by the Galileans, yet was it
grievous to them, that such a celebrated doctor, as Christ
was, should do it. -
Wer. 54, '0, Kai 'HAia, incolnors.] Haec irrepserunt ex mar-
gine, saith Dr. Mills; but they are owned by all the eastern
versions, by Theophylact here, by Chrysost. de Precat. hom.
1, ed. Mor, p. 747 (see also the defence of Kaş’ hºggy, ver.
33, Examen Millii).
* Wer. 55, 56. But he turned and rebuked them, saying,
cow of ars of v ºrveipzaré, Édºrf upwéïs, You know not what spirit
ge are of..] Here interpreters truly note, that Trygiipa, spirit,
is put for the affection, or disposition of the mind ; as when
the scripture speaks of the “spirit of bondage and adoption,”
Rom. viii. 15, and of the “spirit of fear, power, love, and of
a sound mind,” 2 Tim. i. 7. But that which is here chiefly
to be observed is, the contradiction of this saying to the
popish practice of persecuting, destroying, and exterminating
those whom they call heretics, purely on account of their re-
ligion ; for observe,
First, That whereas they who are thus persecuted by the
church of Rome, are falsely supposed to be schismatics and
heretics; the Samaritans undoubtedly were both. For, (1.)
In opposition to the temple of Jerusalem, which God him-
self appointed for the place where he would be worshipped,
commanding all men to repair to it, they erected a temple.
upon mount Gerizim, and there they worshipped, deserting
, the temple of Jerusalem ; this was their schism. (2.) They
also were heretics and idolaters: for they erred in matters.
which concerned salvation ; and this our Saviour testified in
these words, “Ye worship ye know not what, we know what
we worship; for salvation is of the Jews” (John iv. 22).
Secondly, Observe, That whereas the Romanists do ex-
ercise this cruelty on them whom they call schismatics and
heretics, chiefly for their refusing to receive and own him as
Christ's vicar, who manifestly doth usurp that title; these
Samaritans refused to receive our Saviour himself in his own
person, and that because he seemed to be going to Jerusa-
lem to worship ; so that the honour of God, and of religion,
and of Jerusalem, the place of his peculiar worship, were all
concerned in this case. §
Thirdly, Observe, That the permission of what was here
desired by John and Peter, would have been more effectual
for the conviction of the heretical, schismatical Samaritans,
than any of the punishments inflicted by the inquisition, or
any arts of papal tyranny can be for the conviction of those
whom they call heretics and schismatics; for these disciples.
did not desire, that they themselves might execute on the
Samaritans this sentence, by committing them to the flames,
or imploring the magistrates' assistance to consume or burn
them ; they only did request, that they might call upon the
God of heaven to rain down fire upon them, and consume
them ; which, had it pleased him to do on this occasion,
the rest of the Samaritans, by what this village suffered,
must have been evidently convinced, by demonstration from
heaven, of God's displeasure against their way of worship,
and of the truth of that Messiah, and his doctrine, who pro-
cured this vengeance to be executed upon them: whereas
the persecutions of that church, because they minister no
conviction to the conscience, serve only to harden men's
hearts, and embitter their spirits against those who use them,
and to induce them more firmly to believe that such a bar-
barous religion cannot be of God.
From these observations it is evident, that whatsoever may
be pleaded by the church of Rome to justify her practice in
burning, massacring, extirpating of heretics and Schismatics,
might, with advantage, have been pleaded here. “Doth
she practise her severities out of a zeal for truth, and for the
honour of God and Christ, and of the true religion, and for
the reclaiming heretics and schismatics, and the preventing
or terrifying others from adhering to them, or deluded by
them P " Upon all these accounts you see, that the disciples
had far greater cause to call for “fire from heaven” upon this
village of Samaria: and yet our Saviour, under the circum-
stances, thinks fit to rebuke even the desires of doing this to
one small village. How then will he rebuke the actual per-
formance of it to many hundred thousand Souls, after his
solemn declaration of i. repugnancy of these proceedings
to the design of his most blessed advent, and to the spirit of
the gospel: For the true reasons why Christ rebuked his
disciples for their desire of dealing thus severely with these
schismatical and heretical Samaritans were these:
First, Because this spirit of severity towards erroneous
persons, in whomsoever it is found, is highly opposite to the
calm temper of Christianity, as is insinuated in that reply of
Christ to his disciples, “Ye know not what spirit ye are of ;”
* Dr. Tillotson's Serm. Nov. 5 678 p 15.
CHAPTER IX.
279 |
certain man said to him, Lord, *I will follow thee
whithersoever thou goest.
58 And Jesus said to him, (Thou cansteapect no
advantage at present by following me; for) the foxes
have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but
the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.
59 And he said to another, Follow me. But he
said, Lord, suffer me first to go (home), and (stay till
# bury my (aged) father (and then I will attend upon
thee).
60 Jesus said to him, Let the dead bury their dead
(or those who are dead to spiritual things be employed
in those affairs); but go thou (forthwith) and preach
the kingdom of God.
61 And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee;
but let me first go bid them farewell, that are at home
at my house.
62 And Jesus said to him, No “man, having put
his hand to the plough, and looking back (i.e. having
wndertaken my service, and diverting from it to worldly
business), is fit for the kingdom of God.
that is, ye do not well consider under what way of dispensa-
tion ye are placed by me. *The way I come to teach men,
the temper, disposition, and affection I would fix within
them, is not a furious, persecuting, and destructive spirit;
but mild, and gentle, and tender of the lives and interests of
men, even of those who are our greatest enemies. Under
the + Old Testament, indeed, they who rejected and scoffed
at a prophet suffered severely for it, the prophet had com-
mission to call for “fire from heaven to destroy them present-
ly, and curse them in the name of the Lord” (2 Kings ii.
24). But they who reject and crucify Christ, are by him
prayed for, and are, by his command, to be still preached to,
and, if possible, brought to repentance; and, according to
his example are all Christians to conform themselves, acting
towards contemners of their person or rejecters of their doc-
trine, not according to the legal, but the evangelical dispen-
sation; not according to the severity of Elias, but the meck-
mess and gentleness of Christ: and therefore your desire of
proceeding according to the extraordinary spirit of Elias,
under the gospel-dispensation, is intolerable; for that designs
universal love, peace, and good-will even to enemies; it
doth engage us to show all meekness to all men ; and so no
difference of religion, no pretence of zeal for God, can jus-
tify this fierce, vindictive, and exterminating spirit.
Secondly, Our Saviour's second reason against this pro-
ceeding is, that it was repugnant to the end for which he
came into the world, which was, “not to destroy men's lives,
but to save them.” + “He came to discountenance all
fierceness, and rage, and cruelty in men one towards an-
other ; to restrain and subdue that furious and unpeaceable
spirit, which is so troublesome to the world, and the cause
of so many mischiefs and disorders in it; to beget a peace-
able disposition in men of the most distant tempers; ”
making the lamb and the wolf lie down together (Isa. xi. 6,
9); and no more to destroy and hurt each other; “but turn,
their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into prun-
ing-hooks" (Micah iv. 3); engaging them to lay aside “all
bitterness, and wrath, anger, and clamour, and evil-speaking,
with all malice.” He came to introduce that excellent
spirit which consults not only the eternal salvation of men's
souls, but their temporal peace and security, their comfort
and happiness in this world, whose fruits are “righteousness
and peace” (Rom. xiv. 17); “love, peace, long-suffering,
gentleness, goodness, and meekness” (Gal. v. 22, 23);
whose wisdom is “pure and peaceable, gentle, and easy to
be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, [or works]”
(James iii. 17), and which commands the wise and knowing
man “to show forth, out of a good conversation, his works
with meekness of wisdom” (ver. 13), condemning all his
“bitter zeal” as “earthly, sensual, and devilish * (ver. 14,
15), which suffers not the servant of Christ to be engaged in
“foolish questions, which beget strife;” because that the
disciple of this mild and gentle Saviour “must not fight,
* Ibid. p. 7.
+ Vide Dr. Hammond in locum.
† Dr. Tillots. ibid. p. 8.
but must be gentle towards all men, patient, in meekness
instructing those that oppose themselves” against the truth,
though their doctrine spread “as a gangrene, and overthrow
the faith of some” (2 Tim. ii. 24, 25. 17, 18): not dispatch-
ing them out of the way, as is the manner of the Romanists,
but “with long-suffering expecting, if God, peradventure,
will give them repentance to the acknowledgment of the
truth,” which teaches us to bear the infirmities of persons
weak” in faith (Rom. xv. 1), “to restore them in the spirit
of meekness” (Gal. vi. 1), “to become as weak to the
weak, that we may gain the weak” (1 Cor. ix. 22), to bear
with the weak, and “be ſong-suffering to all men’’ (1 Thess.
v. 14), “to speak evil of no man, to be no fighters, but
meek, showing all gentleness towards all men ;” and that
upon this sole account, that “we ourselves were sometimes
foolish and deceived ’’ (Tit. iii. 2, 3).
Now both these reasons are such as equally concern all
persons, magistrates as well as ministers, them who thus
persecute out of misguided zeal towards God, as well as those
who do it out of envy, hatred, and such carnal principles;
and they seem plainly to infer, that no man should be per-
secuted, as in the church of Rome men are, purely for his
mistake concerning, or his denial of, any article of faith
revealed by the gospel, but only for seditious and treason-
able doctrines, or for such crimes as, had the gospel never
been revealed, might justly have been punished by the civil
magistrate.
12 Wer. 57. Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thow
goest.] This being said, as Christ perceived, from the com-
mon opinion of the nation, that the disciples of the Messiah
should get wealth and honour, Christ soon discourages him
from executing this resolution, laying before him the mean
and low condition in which he was to be followed by his
disciples.
1° Wer. 62. Oñºs?, Brigaºy rºw xeſpa airrod Éir'âgorgov, xat
8Xárov s!; Tā ātrica, &c. No man, having put his hand to
the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.]
Christ often compares his word to seed, and the time of
gaining others to the faith to the harvest. Now of the
plougher and sower of the seed, it was used to be said pro-
verbially, “He is no good ploughman or seedsman, who,
being at that work, looketh back ;” because his furrows will
not be straight, nor his seed cast even from him : whence
they require of such a one, (1.) That he should stoop, for then
he cannot look back ; according to Pliny,” Arator, nisi in-
curvus, praevaricatur: (2.) That he should look straight
before him, not back on his associates, as Hesiod in these
words,
"O, w pyou pºexerêy 108tay at Nax' #xačvot,
Máxert Traºrraiyov ºrgö, Öpañaixaç. "Egy. Ver. 441.
This Christ applies to the spiritual husbandry; to which he
that applies himself must forget the things which are be-
hind Éampoo'0sy ixºraivéasyo, “bending and stretching out
himself to those which are before ” (Phil. iii. 14).
* Hist. Nat, lib. xviii. cap. 19.
CHAPTER X.
1 AFTER these things the Lord appointed other face into every city and place, whither he himself
'seventy also, and sent them two and two before his would come (after them,
* ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. X.
1 Wer. 1. ‘Erépov; i38oºkoyva, The Lord appointed seventy
others.] Grotius saith they were chosen according to the
number of the Sanhedrin, and so were seventy-two; six of
them being chosen out of every tribe ; for which he cites
, the authority of Josephus. Now Josephus doth indeed gay
280
LUKE.
2 And because he sent them to so many cities), there.
fore said he to them, The harvest truly is great, but
the labourers are few : pray ye therefore the Lord of
the harvest, that he would send forth (more) labourers
into his harvest.
3 Go your ways: behold, I send you forth as lambs
among wolves (ready to devour them : -
4 Yet) carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes;
and *salute no man by the way (i.e. spend no time in
fruitless civilities, which may divert you from your bu-
siness).
5 And into whatsoever house ye enter, say, Peace
be to this house.
6 And if the son of peace be there (one fit, by rea-
son of his peaceable temper, to receive that blessing),
your peace shall rest upon it (i. e. it shall be accord-
ing to your prayer): if not, it shall turn to you again;
(i. e. they shall receive no benefit by it, Ps. xxxv. 13.
Isa. lv. 11.)
7 And in the same house (in which you find a son
of peace) remain, eating and drinking such things as
they give (you as the reward of your labour) : for the
labourer is worthy of his hire. Go not from house
to house (for better entertainment). -
8 And into whatsoever city ye enter, and they re-
ceive you, eat such things as are set before you:
9 And heal the sick that are therein, and say to
them, The kingdom of God is come nigh to you.
10 But into whatsoever city ye enter, and they re-
ceive you not, go your ways out into the streets of the
same, and Šay,
11 Even the very dust of your city, which cleaveth
on (to) us, we do wipe off, (as a testimony) against
you (that we refuse all farther commerce with you):
notwithstanding be ye sure of this, that the kingdom
of God is come nigh to you (and you would not re-
ceive it).
12 But (and) I say to you, That it shall be more
tolerable in that day (when God shall judge the disobe-
dient and unbelievers) for Sodom, than for that city.
13 Woe to thee, Chorazin' Woe to thee, Bethsai-
dal for if the mighty works had been done in º:
and Sidon, which have been done in you, they had a
great while ago repented, sitting in sackcloth and
ashes (with the deepest sorrow and humility).
14 But (and accordingly) it shall be more tolerable
for Tyre and Sidon at the (day of) judgment, than for
OUI.
y 15 And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to
heaven (i. e. advanced highly above others by my doc-
trine, taught in thy synagogues, and miracles wrought
in thee), shalt be thrust down to hell (i. e. into a state
of the eatremest misery.
16 And for your encouragement in the work on which
I send you), he that heareth you, (preaching in my
name the kingdom of God, shall be owned as one that)
heareth me; and he that despiseth you, (shall be
treated as one that) despiseth me: and he that despis-
eth me, (as one that) despiseth him that sent me.
17 And the seventy returned again with joy, say-
ing, Lord, even the "devils are subject to us through
thy name.
of the seniors sent to Ptolemaeus Philadelphus, that they
were # 34’ #xáarn; puxic,” “six out of every tribe,” but he
says not so of the Sanhedrin: and that they were only se-
venty without, and seventy-one with Moses their governor,
see Seld. de Synedr. lib. ii. cap. 4, §. 5, and Dr. Lightfoot
here. And, (2.) he proves this from the authority of Origen,
who, in his book, De Recta in Deum Fide,'t saith, Christ
chose seventy-two disciples; and from Epiphanius,t who saith,
that St. Malk was one Éx rôy £330pañzovta 360, “of the seventy-
two.” But this they both speak by the bye: and to Origen, if
that be indeed his work, we may oppose Tertullian, who styles
them “seventy,” saying, § Adlegit et alios septuaginta apos-
tolos super duodecim: to Epiphanius, Jerome, who saith," the
seventy palm-trees in the sixth mansion of the Jews signi-
fied, secundi ordinis prædicatores, the preachers of the second
order, as the fountains signified the twelve apostles:” and to
both, we may oppose the more ancient testimonies of Ire-
naeus," who saith, that “after the twelve apostles, septuaginta
alios Dominus noster ante se misisse invenitur, our Lord
sent seventy others before him :” and of Clemens,” who, in
his Hypotyposes, makes frequent mention of Christ's “se-
venty disciples:” of Eusebius there, and Ambrose here:
and the council of Neocaesarea, it saying, the chorepiscopi
were constituted sic rātrov rāv #88opańxovira, after the example
of the seventy.” But it is more material to observe, that
as the first mission of the apostles was only for a season, and
ceased at their return, Matt. x. 1 (see the note there); so
was the first mission of the seventy, they returning quickly
from it, ver. 17, and they received a new commission ; of
which, see note on ver. 19. Note, (2.) that whereas some
compare the bishops to the apostles, the seventy to the pres-
byters of the church, and thence conclude, that divers orders
in the ministry were instituted by Christ himself: it must be
granted, that some of the ancients fit did believe these two
to be divers orders, and that those of the seventy were in-
* Antiq. lib. xiii. cap. 2, p. 392. + P. 8.
†: Haer. 51, Š. 6, p. 428.
§ Adv. Marcion. lib. iv. cap. 24.
| Lib. iii. ep. ad Fab. f. 15. 1.
T Lib. ii. cap. 37, lib. iii. cap. 13.
** Apud Euseb. Hist. Eccles, lib, i., cap. 12.
... Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. i. cap. 12.
++ Can. 13.
ferior to the order of the apostles ; and sometimes they
make the comparison here mentioned ; but then it must be
also granted, that this comparison will not strictly hold: for
the seventy received not their mission as presbyters do, from
bishops, but immediately from the Lord Christ, as well as
the apostles; and in their first mission were plainly sent on
the same errand, and with the same power. Nevertheless,
I think here is a fair foundation for that, in which Chry-
sostom, and others, place the Superiority of bishops over
presbyters, to wit, in this, that the power of ordination be-
longs to them alone (see note on 1 Tim. iii. 1, 2). For
though the commission to preach the gospel belonged to the
seventy, as well as to the twelve apostles, yet the power of
conferring the Holy Ghost, by laying on of hands, belonged
peculiarly to the twelve (see note on Acts viii. 15). This
then seems to be the reason, why the conferring of the Holy
Ghost for the use of the ministry hath been perpetually es-"
teemed peculiar to those bishops, who, in the ecclesiastical
style, are always called the successors of the apostles, and
they have always done it by imposition of hands.
* Ver. 4. Kał &n&#ya war& ray $88w &amárna'ss, And salute
no man by the way.] i. e. Do nothing which may hinder
you in the execution of your office. So when Elisha sent
Gehazi on a message to be dispatched presently, he saith to
him, “Salute no man by the way,” 2 Kings iv. 29, the Sa-
lutations of the eastern nations being prolix: so Grotius.
Wer. 15. Kai ai, Karsºvaoipº, ; #w; toº obeavoi tºpo6eſca.]
Dr. Mills approves ań św; roi; oigavoij tºpo6%ah, taken from
some few MSS. and the Latin Irenaeus, lib. iv. cap. 70, p.
371. But Chrysostom, Theophylact, the Syriac, and Arabic,
read according to the text; and Dr. Grabe, on the place,
saith, Lectio illa non ipsius Irenaei, sed solius Latini inter-
pretis est, nam in nullo Graecorum patrum hunc locum ita
allegatum reperio.
* Wer. 17. Kai ră şalgávia tºrotáoro's rat #wiv Šv tº Vázari
arov, Even the devils are subject to ws in thy name.] Here
Woltzogenius notes, that Christ did cast out devils by a
virtue residing in himself; his disciples only in the name
and by the power of the Lord ; seeing then this power ac-
companied them in all parts of the world, it is necessary
that Christ's presence should be with them everywhere;
now such a presence is a certain indication of the Deity
(1 Kings viii. 27. Ps. cxxxix. 7. Jer. xxiii. 24. Amos
ix. 3).
CHAPTER X.
281
18 And he said to them (when I sent you forth), I
beheld Satan as lightning fall from *heaven (i. e. I
foresaw the sudden downfall of his kingdom).
19 "Behold, I give to you power to tread on ser-
pents, and over all the power of the enemy: and no-
thing shall by any means hurt you; (i. e. I promise
3you protection against Satan and his instruments, and
whatever else may hurt you, and power to prevail over
all their opposition.)"
20 "Notwithstanding, in this rejoice not that the
spirits are subject to you; but rather rejoice, because
your names are written in heaven (i.e. you have a
present right to a heavenly kingdom).
21. In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I
thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that
thou hast "hid these things from the (men, in their
own conceits) wise and prudent, and hast revealed
them to babes (in their account, Rom. ii. 20), even
so, Father (hath the event been in my preaching) ; for
So it seemed good in thy sight. ;
22 All things are delivered to me of (i.e. by) my
Father ; and no man (Gr. none) knoweth "who the
Son is (as to his nature and dignity), but the Father;
and (no man knoweth truly) who the Father is, but
the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal (the
saving knowledge of) him.
23 And he turned him (self) to his disciples, and
said privately, Blessed are the eyes which see the
things that ye see:
24 For I tell you, that many prophets and kings
have desired to see those things that ye see (viz. the
days of the Messiah), and have not seen them; and
to hear the things that ye hear (the mysteries of the
kingdom of God), and have not heard them.
25 And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and
tempted him (i. e. made trial of his wisdom), saying,
Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life
26 And he said to him, What is written in the law?
How readest thou?
27 And he (the lawyer) answering, said, Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength,
and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thy-
self.
28 And he (Christ) said to him, Thou hast answered
right: this do, and thou shalt live.
29 But he, willing to justify himself (as one that
had already done this), said to Jesus, And *who is
my neighbour (I am thus to love P If those of our na-
tion only, as we teach, I have done that).
30 And Jesus answering (by an apologue) said, A
certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho,
and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his
raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving
him half dead.
21 And by chance there came down a certain priest
that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the
other side ((taking no pity on him).
32 And likewise a Levite, when he was come at
the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on
the other side (showing no compassion on him).
33 But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came
where he was ; and when he saw him, he had com-
passion on him.
* Ver. 18. 'E0s&govy row zarayåy Éx roi; oigayº ºrgaśyra, I
beheld Sutan as lightning falling from heaven.] Though
Satan may be reckoned among spiritual wickednesses Év rºſ,
#Tougayiotº, “in heavenly places,” Eph. vi. 12, yet Christ
seems not here so much to respect that, as the dissolution
of that kingdom he had erected in the world ; he is styled,
“ the God of this world,” 2 Cor. iv. 4, “the ruler of the
darkness of this world,” Eph. vi. 12, and to him is ascribed
“the kingdom of darkness,” Col. i. 13, and a principality
over the children of disobedience: Christ therefore here
foretells that this dominion should be in great part lost by
the translation of the heathens “from darkness to light, and
from the power of Satan to God;” and Satan being thus
spoiled of his dominions, may be said to fall from heaven,
by a phrase familiar both to sacred and profane writers: so
of the fall of the king of Babylon the prophet saith, “How
art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer l’Isa. xiv. 12. Of
the fall of the colleague of Antonius, Cicero * saith, Col-
Megam tuum de coelo detraxisti, “Thou hast pulled him
down from heaven;” and when Pompey was overthrown, he
is said by him, ex astris decidisse, “to have fallen from the
stars” (Ep. lib. i. ad Atticum, ep. 20).
* Ver. 19. I?ob, 33aº, tºy #ovciay tº traveſ, itévo, 34 saw,
Behold, I give you power to tread upon serpents.] Note
here, that these words plainly seem to give a new institution
to the seventy, relating not, as the former, to the cities of
Israel, as the forerunners of their Lord, but to their preach-
ing among other nations; as we may gather, by comparing
these words with the commission given by Christ to his
apostles, sent into the world “to preach the gospel to every
creature,” Mark xvi. 15. 18, according to these words of
Grotius, Non pro hac tantâm legatione dedi, sed do nunc
etiam in posterum. (2). This power seems to be given in
words, containing a manifest allusion to Ps. xci. 13, where
a like protection from danger is promised to the pious
man, under the metaphor of “treading on the scorpion
and the basilisk;” and according to the LXX. and the
Chaldee, of “protection from the moon-day devil,” or “from
troops of evil spirits,” ver. 5, 6. And “after this manner,”h
* Philip. 2.
+ Höc denique modo, etiam ethnicis sapé subvenimus,
donati à Deo ea potestate, quam apostolus dedicavit, quun,
morsum vipera sprevit. Scorp.
saith Tertullian, “we often help the heathens, being invest-
ed with that power which the apostle dedicated when he
despised the biting of the serpent.”
* Ver. 20. IIAöv #y roºrº º Xaige're, &c. Notwithstanding,
ºrejoice not in this, that the spirits are subject to you ; but
father rejoice, that your names are written in heaven.] They
returned (ver. 17) “rejoicing, that even the devils were sub-
ject to them in Christ's name;” which, as it tended to the
glory of God, and the promotion of the gospel, was a just
matter of their joy ; but because to be thought worthy of
salvation by God, and through faith in Christ to have a pre-
sent right to an inheritance in heaven, was a blessing proper
to the saints, and tended to the eternal welfare of their
Souls, which the casting out of devils was not, that being
done by men to whom Christ will say at the last day, “I
know ye not,” &c. (Matt. vii. 22, 23); therefore Christ bids
them, p.3.xxoy Xaigely, “to rejoice more,” that their names
were written in heaven, or in the book of life; which is a
Jewish phrase, of the import of which see the note on Phil.
iv. 3, not signifying an absolute election, but a present right
to life eternal, through the obedience of faith (see also Tar-
gu'm on Deut. xxxii. 33, and Ps. lxix. 29. Isa. iv. 3, and
Constitut. Apost. lib. viii. cap. 1). - -
7 Ver. 21. “ori &rénévºla;, That thout hast hid these things
from the wise and prudent.] See note on Matt. xi. 25.
* Ver. 22. Kai oièel, yºvácket ri; iotiv 3 vićc, All things are
delivered to me of the Father ; and no man knoweth who
the Son is, but the Father.] All things, i. e. “all power
both in heaven and earth,” Matt. xxviii. 18; “all judg-
ment,” John v. 27 ; “power over all flesh to give eternal
life,” John xvii. 2. Now this includes power to raise the
dead, and to pass judgment on them according to their works
and secret thoughts; and so a power and wisdom which is
plainly divine, and consequently the divine nature, from
which those attributes are inseparable ; which is one argu-
ment for the divinity of Christ. Secondly, He saith here,
no man knoweth rig irriv 3 vic, “who is the Son,” which
seems not to respect what he was to do or suffer, but his
nature, excellence, and dignity, as the words following, rſs
#ativ 3 rathe, “who the Father is,” respect his nature, his
divine excellency, and dignity, exhibited to us Év trgoo &rº,
“in the person of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. iv. 6).
* Ver. 29. Kai Ti; art pºov tranatoy; But, he willing to jus-
tify himself (as one who had performed the command of
282
LUKE,
34 And went to him, and bound up his wounds,
pouring in (to them) oil and wine : and (he) set him
on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and
took care of him.
35 And on the morrow, when he departed, he took
out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said to
him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest
more, when I come again, I will repay thee.
36 Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was
neighbour to him that fell among the thieves 2
37 And he said, He that showed mercy on him.
Then said Jesus to him, Go, and do thou likewise
(treat the Samaritan with like kindness, and thou wilt
do according to this precept).
38 Now it came to pass, as they went (to Bethany,
John xi. 1) that he entered into a certain village; and
a certain woman named Martha received him into
her house.
39 And she had a sister called Mary, which also
sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard his word.
40 But Martha was cumbered about much serving,
and came to him and said, Lord, dost not thou care
that my sister hath left me to serve alone bid her
therefore that she help me.
41 And Jesus answered and said to her, Martha,
Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many
things; • . .
42 But one "thing is (absolutely) needful : and
Mary (by hearing my word, that she may do it, ) hath
chosen that good part, (the fruits of) which shall not
be taken from her.
loving his neighbour as himself), said, Who is my neighbour?]
Now the corrupt tradition of the Jews having restrained this
neighbour to men of their own nation and religion, to whom
he might retain a very kind affection, he thought this suffi-
cient to show, that he had satisfied that precept ; Christ
therefore here demonstrates to him that every person who
stands in need of help, and who is capable of kindness from
us, though he bé of a different nation and religion, must be
deemed our neighbour (see the note on Matt. xxii. 39).
* Ver. 42. ‘Evê; 38 at xesia. But one thing is needful.]
Not one dish only to eat of, as Theophylact and many of the
fathers descant here, but the “better part,” or that spiritual
wisdom which Mary made it her chief care to labour after.
So Arrian” saith of the government of the mind, and the
fixing it upon that only which is in our power, and which
we cannot be deprived of, vöv 3} {v}; Suyáſzewo: trip, EAEſa-6aº wai
#vi Tºgoangºrnxéval, Šavrov, p.3.xxoy Séxogey Trox\ºv štrºsaeforóat
xai troAAoi, Trgodºsła'8at, “When we might contract our cares
to one thing, and cleave to that alone, we choose rather to
be bound to and troubled about many things.”
* In Epict. lib. i. cap. 1, p. 84.
CHAPTER XI.
1 AND it came to pass, that, as he was praying in
a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples
said to him, Lord, teach us (a form by which) to pray,
as John also taught (one to) his disciples.
2 And he said to them, When ye pray, say (these
words), Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed
be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done,
as (it is) in heaven, so on earth.
3 Give us day by (or, after) day our daily bread.
4 And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive
every one that is "indebted (or, hath been injurious) to
us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us
* evil (see the paraphrase and notes on Matt.
W1.
5 And (to encourage them to eaſpect a return of
their prayer) he saith to them, Which of you shall
have a friend, and shall go to him, at midnight, and
say to him, Friend, lend me three loaves;
6 For a friend of mine in his journey is come to
me, and I have nothing to set before him?
7 And he from within shall answer and say, Trou-
ble me not : the door is now shut, and my children
are with me in bed; I cannot rise, and give (them to)
thee.
8 I say to you, Though he will not (be moved to) rise
and give him (them), because he is his friend, yet be-
cause of his “importunity he will rise and give him
as many (loaves) as he needeth.
9 And (accordingly) I say to you, Ask (in faith),
and it shall be given you; seek (diligently), and ye
shall find; knock (earnestly), and it shall be opened
to you.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XI.
* Wer. 4. Kai yag abrol & pisgºw rayri śpsiAoyri haſy, For
we forgive every one that is indebted to us...] That is, every
one that offends against us, according to the usual import
of that word in the Syriac, or Chaldee, where a sinner is
nºn, “a debtor,” and sin is Rinºn, “a debt ;” , thus Exod.
xxxii. 30. nºta HRun Enxton, “ye have sinned a great sin,
is, in the Targum, Ran Rinn Tann, “You have contracted
a great debt:” So Gen. xx. 9. xxvi. 10. xxxi. 36. Lev. iv. 3,
see Buxtorf in the word nºn: and in this sense 34 sixárnº, “a
debtor,” and 34 gºńſkara, “ debts,” are used, Matt. vi. 12,
and Luke xiii. 4, “Think ye that they on whom the tower
of Siloam fell were 34 fixirai, debtors,” that is, “sinners
above all men º’’
But then it is carefully to be observed, for the due
stating the controversy of Christ's satisfaction, that sins are
not properly and strictly compared to debts, seeing by sin-
ning we do not so properly contract a debt, as a guilt, or
obnoxiousness to punishment; which two things will admit
these differences; (1.) That if another will pay my debt,
the creditor cannot justly refuse his paying it for me, or
complain he is not satisfied when the whole debt is paid ;
but let another be never so willing to suffer for my offence,
he can make no satisfaction for it, unless the judge be will-
ing to admit him to sufferin my stead. Hence (2.) the cre-
ditor does no act of grace by admitting the solution of an-
other; and if that other pay the whole, he can require no
conditions for my discharge ; but the ruler, against whose
laws I have personally offended, does me an act of grace
in admitting another to suffer in my stead, and so may do
this only upon some reasonable conditions. And (3.) we
do not properly pay our whole debts, unless we pay what
was owing in specie, or something admitted as an equivalent
to it; but we may make satisfaction for our sins against our
governor by anything of less value, provided that it pre-
serves the honour of the lawgiver, and terrifies us and others
for the future from lapsing into the same offence.
Of the third and last petition of the Lord's prayer, whe-
ther they were wanting in St. Luke's original, or not, and
whether (ver. 13) we are to read IIvetº a #yicy, or āyaôy
3ópea, see Examen Millii, lib. ii. cap. 1. n. 12, 13.
* Ver. 8. Atá ya rāv čval?siay, For his importunity.] i. e.
His request so importunate as to admit of no refusal, his
continual coming and crying night and day (xviii. 1. 5. 7):
Gr. “ for his impudence,” according to that saying of the
Jews, ** The impudent man overcomes the modest and the
bashful, how much more God who is goodness itself!”
* Buxtorf, in voce chatoph.
CHAPTER XI.'
283
10 For every one that (thus) "asketh, receiveth;
, and he that seeketh, findeth ; and to him that knock-
eth, it shall be opened (by his heavenly Father).
11 (For) if a son shall ask bread of any of you
that is a father, will he give him a stone or if he ask
a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?
12 Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a
scorpion ? (?. e. things unprofitable and hurtful to,
rather than what is good and needful for him.)
13 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good
ifts to your children: how much more shall your
heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit (the fountain
of all spiritual blessings) to them that ask him :
14 And he was casting out a devil, and it was
(such a one as made the man) dumb. And it came to
pass that when the devil was gone out (of him), the
dumb (man) spake; and the people wondered (at it).
15 But some of (the pharisees among) them said,
He casteth out devils through (confederacy with)
*Beelzebub the chief of the devils.
16 And others, tempting him (i. e. distrusting his
power, and doubting of his commission), sought of him
a “sign from heaven (as the chief token of the Messiah
mentioned by Daniel, vii. 14).
17 But he knowing their thoughts, said to them
(who accused him of confederacy with Satan), Every
kingdom divided against itself is brought to desola-
tion; and a house divided against a house falleth
(into ruin).
18. If Satan (then) also be divided against himself
(and he casts his own subjects out of his dominions),
how shall his kingdom stand (And thus I argue) be-
cause ye say that I cast out devils through Beel-
zebub.
19 And (moreover) if I by Beelzebub cast out
devils, (let me ask you) by whom do your "sons (who
ea.orcise them in the name of the same God by whose
power I profess to do it) cast them out? therefore
they shall be your judges (i.e. your judgment, that
they do this by the power of God, shall condemn you,
who ascribe the same thing done by me to the power and
assistance of Satan).
20 But if I with the finger of God cast out devils,
no doubt (can be made of it that) the kingdom of God
is come upon you (i. e. that the Messiah promised to
erect this kingdom is among you.
21 For) when a strong man armed keepeth his
palace, his goods are (preserved) in peace (and
safety):
22 But when a stronger than he shall come upon
him, and overcome him, he taketh from him all his
armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils;
(I therefore being thus able to overcome Satan, and
cast him out of his dominions, must be stronger than
he. -
23 And in this work, of beating down Satan’s king-
dom) he that is not with me is against me: and he
that gathereth not with me scattereth ; (i. e. he that
assists me not in bringing men to the kingdom of God,
scattereth them as sheep without a shepherd.
24 And to you from whom Satan hath been thus eject-
ed, and to you who continue yet to side with him against
me by whom he is ejected, I direct this parable; viz.)
When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he
walketh through dry places (not yet watered by the
word preached to them), seeking rest; and finding
none (there, the gospel following him to the gentiles,
and dispossessing him there), he saith, I will return to
my house whence I came out.
25. And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and
garnished (and so ready to receive him).
26 Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other
spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in,
and dwell there: and (so) the last state of that man
is worse than the first. (Thus also will it be with you;
Satan ejected by me, finding nowhere else persons so
fitted to receive him, will return, and take more durable
possession of you, and render you seven times more the
children of Satan than ye were before.)
27 And it came to pass, as he spake these things,
* Wer. 10. II3; y&é à air&y, Aapº 83 wei, For every one that
asketh receiveth.] i. e. Who asks in faith, seeks with dili-
gence, and knocks with importunity and perseverance, re-
ceives all that is needful for him ; so the connexion shows
“He will rise and give him &c., xºet, as much as he wants;
(ver, 8.) and I say to you, Ask, and ye shall receive” all
knowledge necessary to your salvation, all that assistance
which is necessary to preserve you from those sinful courses
which will exclude you from salvation, or to the performance
of that obedience which God hath made the condition of
your salvation under the new covenant, and to your perse-
verance in that obedience to the end ; he shall receive all
things spiritually good for him : “for if you, being evil,
will give good things to your children, much more will your
heavenly Father give rà 3,283, good things,” Matt. vii. 11,
“his Holy Spirit,” ver, 13, “to those that ask him.”
* Ver. 13. ‘o Tarºp & # oiºavoſ, 337s, Uveijaa #ytov, Much
more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them
that ask him.] ‘o #: vipayoi is the same with 3 #y roi; oigayoſ,
Matt. vii. 11 ; so “our house from heaven,” 2 Cor. v. 2., is
our house “in heaven,” ver. 1, and “the Lord in heaven,”
1 Cor. xv. 47, is 3 troveávios, “the heavenly Lord,” ver. 48,
49. IIveſ!, a 4xpy, “the Holy Ghost,” if it here signify, as
throughout the Old Testament, “the spirit of prophecy,” or
as generally in the New, “the miraculous inward gifts and
operations of the Holy Spirit” (see note on 1 John v. 6);
it must be granted, that Christ speaks here, not of what
they were to ask at present ; for “the Holy Ghost was not
yet, because Jesus was not glorified,” (John vii. 39): and
so must we understand our Lord's words, xii. il, 12.
“When they shall bring you before princes and governors,
meditate not beforehand what you shall speak, for the Holy
Ghost shall teach you in that hour;” for neither were they
brought before princes till after our Lord's resurrection and
ascension, nor did the Holy Ghost instruct them how to
speak till then. So our Lord's commission as to these words.
Matt. x. 8, and all that follows in that chapter, from ver.
16, to the end, plainly respects what they were to do and
suffer after Christ's ascension. If it relates to the present
time, and to Christians in general, not only to the apostles,
as the words, “every one that asketh,” and the “good gifts,”
in Matthew, seem to argue ; we, by this phrase, can only
understand the ordinary assistances and operations of the
Holy Spirit. -
* Ver, 15. 'Ew BEEA&#39;N, By Beelzebub, the prince of the
devils.] Of the right reading of this word Beelzebub, “the
lord of flies,” or Beelzebul, “the lord of dung,” as St. Je-
rome reads, Matt. xii. 24, see Dr. Lightfoot there. But
then when both he and the great Bochartus wonder how
this god of flies should come to be styled “the prince of
devils,” that seems to be no great wonder, he being no less
than the heathen Jupiter, the prince and father of the gods,
as appears from the titles of 37%, vior, ºwiaptor, ºvážnº, all
given him a muscis abigendis, “from his office of chasing
the flies from the Sacrifices, the temples,” and cities of the
heathens (see Bochart. Hieroz. par. ii. lib. iv. cap. 9, p. 499
-501).
* Wer. 16. Xmasſoy # otºayoğ, A sign from heaven.] BC-
cause the Son of man was to “come in the clouds of heaven,”
Dan, vii. 13 (see the note on Matt. xii. 38).
7 Wer. 19. Oi viol tºwāy by riva #x33xxwort ; By whom do
gowr sons cast them out?] To what hath been said on Matt.
xii. 27, add, that some think that this relates to the seventy
disciples sent by Christ to preach the kingdom in every city
and place whither he was afterward to come, Luke x. 2:
for they return to him with these words, “Even the devils
are subject to us in thy name,” ver. 17. Now doubtless
they were the sons of the Jews, and though they cast out
284,
LUKE.
a certain woman of the company lift (ed) up her voice,
and said to him, “Blessed is the womb which bare
thee, and (blessed are) the paps that thou hast sucked. '
28 But he said, Yea, rather blessed are they that
hear the word of God, and keep it.
29 And when the people were gathered thick to-
gether, he began to say, (in answer to those who sought
of him a sign from heaven, ver. 16,) This is an evil
generation: they seek a sign; and there shall no (far-
ther) sign be given it, but the sign of Jonas the
prophet.
30 For as Jonas was a sign to the Ninevites (being
three days and nights in the whale's belly, and yet
raised out of it to preach to them), so shall also the
Son of man be (raised from the dead after three days,
jor a sign) to this generation.
31 The queen of the south shall rise up in the
judgment with the men of this generation, and (shall)
condemn them: for she came from the uttermost
parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon;
and, behold, a (person of) greater (wisdom) than So-
lomon is here (and yet his wisdom is despised by
them).
32 The men of Nineveh shall rise up in the judg-
ment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for
they repented at the preaching of Jonas: and behold,
(these men repent not, though) a greater (prophet)
than Jonas is here.
33 (But though the men of this generation despise
this heavenly wisdom, it becomes not me, nor my disci-
ples, to conceal it : for) “no man, when he hath
lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither
under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that they which
come in (to the house) may see the light. 4
34 (As) the light of the body is the eye (directing
devils in Christ's name, yet is not this sufficient to take off
the force of Christ's argument ; for it was not easy to sus-
pect so great a number of homest men, of their own nation
and acquaintance, sent by two and two into their villages
and cities, should be all confederates with Satan; they
therefore going through their cities to assure them, “the
kingdom of God is at hand” and confirming their testimony,
by healing diseases, and casting out devil's in Christ's name,
gave in full testimony against them, who said, that Christ
himself did this by a confederacy with Satan.
* Wer. 27, 28. Blessed is the womb that bare thee. Mey-
ovyye, Yea, rather blessed are they that hear the word of God,
and keep it..] i. e. The blessedness of my mother ariseth not
from this, that she conceived, and brought me forth into the
World ; but in order to that, it is necessary for her, as well
as others, to believe and obey my word (so Theophylact).
* Ver. 33. Odºsi; 38 xúxvoy & Ja;, &c. No man, when he
hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, &c.]
Some give here the connexion thus: Though you generally
receive very little benefit from my preaching, it becomes nei-
ther me nor my disciples to conceal our wisdom, but still
to let it shine forth to the world (Matt. v. 15). But seeing
it is evident, that the same expressions are oft applied to
different things in divers senses (see note on Matt. xii. 30),
why may not this have relation to the following verse, thus?
God never gives the light of nature, or of revelation, as he
hath done to you Jews, but that it may be improved, and
shine forth in them to others: now, as the light of the
body is the eye, so the light of the soul is that reason, and
that revelation of his mind, which God affords ; and there-
fore it becomes you to take as great care that your light be
not turned into darkness by prejudices, which blind the eyes,
or by shutting your eyes against the light, or by your infi-
delity, or those vicious habits which will not suffer you to
come at the light, or believe in it ; as that the eye of the
body be not darkened, or put out.
* Ver, 34. "oray oãy 5 34 Saxºs cov &txº. 3, Therefore
when thy eye is single, thy whole body is full of light ; but
when, Troyngö, ä, it is evil, thy body also is full of darkness.]
There is no tautology in these and the following words, but
the body how to walk, so the light of the soul is the
mind, directing it how to discern its duty); therefore,
"when thine eye is single (free from worldly-minded-
ness and liberal), thy whole body also is full of light
(directed by the love of God and of our neighbour for
his sake, into the way that leads to life) ; but when
thine eye is evil (envious and covetous), thy body also
is full of darkness (all thy actions done in the body will
be deeds of darkness). -
35 Take heed therefore that the light which is in
thee (thy mind which should direct thy actions) be not
(by covetousness, and an immoderate love of the world,
turned into) darkness.
36 If (by this éare) thy whole body therefore be full
of light, having no part dark, the whole (of thy life)
shall be full of light, as (a room is) when the bright
shining of a candle doth give thee light.
37 And as he spake (these words), a certain phari-
see besought him to dine with him: and he went in
(to his house), and sat down to (eat of his) meat.
38 And when the pharisee saw it, he marvelled
that he had not first washed before dinner.
39 And the Lord said to him, Now do ye phari-
sees make clean the outside of the cup and platter
(i. e. take care to have a fair outside, and bodies cleant
jrom ceremonial deftlement); but your inward part is
full of ravening and wickedness.
40 Ye fools, did not he that made that which is
without make that which is within also 2 (and should
not ye then be as careful to keep that clean, as ye do
the outward man, by frequent washings?)
41 But rather give alms of such "things as ye have ;
and (when God and the poor have had their dues), be-
hold, all things (ye eat of or enjoy) are clean to you.
42 But woe to you pharisees 1 for ye tithe mint and
only a progression from the mind clearly enlightened and
directed, and the faculties of the soul rightly disposed, to a
life led according to them, or, in the scripture phrase, “a
walking in the light.” For Christ here compares the in-
ward light of the soul, or the eye of it, to that of the body,
showing, that as that being pure from spots, adventitious
humours, cataracts, and other blemishes, gives a clear light
for the direction of the body ; but when it is ill affected, by
reason of these or other maladies, the body is in the dark:
so if the eye of the soul be not single, i. e. if it be not pure
from covetousness, which is #71Supaia ºrcü 349axpcot, “the
lust of the eye” after worldly things (1 John ii. 16), from
carnal concupiscence, which renders it the “adulterous eye”
(Matt. v. 28, 29. 2 Pet. ii. 14), from envy which is 349axas:
8aa-kaviac, the “evil or bewitching eye,” (Prov. xxiii. 6.
Ecclus. xiv. 3. 10), from pride which is 349axpač; bºrečnºpávoy,
“the high look” (Ps. ci. 5), #4 Saxº; i38toroi, “the proud
look” (Prov. vi. 17), 359axº, & geria eos, “the lofty eye”
(Isa. v. 15): if, I say, it be not purified from these distempers,
it will not direct our way aright, or preserve us from walking
in the dark : for these are the lusts of the world, which are
contrary to the friendship of God, making all the actions
of the life perverse; and therefore they who do such things
are said to walk on still in darkness (Ps. lxxxii. 5. Eccles.
ii. 14. John viii. 12. xii. 46. 1 John ii.9), “to be in dark-
ness” (1 Thess. v. 4), and “to love darkness more than
light” (John iii. 19); whereas when the mind is free from
these vices, and adorned with the contrary virtues, it directs
all our actions to piety, virtue, and the love of God ; as a
lantern shining in darkness directs our feet; or as a candle
enlightens the whole room where it is ; and hence such per-
sons are said “to walk in the light” (1 John i. 7), and to be
“children of the light, and of the day” (Luke xiv. 8. John
xii. 36. Eph. v. 8. 1 Thess. v. 5). This therefore is the im-
port of these words, That a mind thus enlightened, and free
from all these distempers, which darken and make blind the
soul, will direct all our faculties and inclinations, and all
the actions of the life aright ; as a light doth the body when
it walks in a dark night.
* Ver, 41, TIAñy rà èváyra ööre #AEmpsoa ºvºv, But give alms.
CHAPTER XII.
285
rue and all manner of herbs, and pass over judg-
ment and the love of God: these ought ye to have
done (as being your own constitutions), and not to
leave the other undone (as being the more weighty
natters of the law).
43 Woe to you, pharisees; for ye love the upper-
most seats in the synagogues and greeting in the mar-
kets, (minding these respects from men more than the
javour of God, John v. 44. xii. 43.)
44 Woe unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypo-
crites for ye are as graves that appear not (so to
be, as being overgrown with grass and herbs), and (so)
the men that walk over them are not aware of them
(having specious outsides, but hearts defiled, and defil-
ing others).
45 Then answered one of the lawyers, and said to
him, Master, thus saying thou reproachest us also
(for we are scribes).
46 And he said, Woe to you also, ye lawyers 1 for
ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and
ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your
fingers; (i.e. ye will not show the least mercy to them
who are thus oppressed with them : see note on Matt.
xxiii. 4.)
47 Woe unto you! for ye build the sepulchres of
the prophets, and your fathers killed them (as you
gourselves acknowledge).
48 Truly ye bear witness that (ye are by nature the
children of those fathers, and) ye allow (or, are well
pleased with) the deeds of your fathers: (showing the
like malice against me, and mine, as they did against
the old prophets ; I say, you testify this, viz. that yo
are the children of such fathers) for they (your fathers)
indeed killed them, and ye (their children) build their
sepulchres.
49 Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will
send them prophets and apostles, and some of them
they shall slay and persecute (to the death).
50 That (so) the blood of the prophets, which was
shed from the foundation of the world, may be re-
quired of this generation (who by their hatred to the
last and chiefest of them have filled up the measure of
their sins) ;
51 From the blood of (righteous) Abel (the first
prophet and preacher of righteousness, Heb. xi. 4. 2
Pet. ii. 5.) to the blood of Zacharias, (the last prophet
slain by you, 2 Chron. xxiv. 22, and) which perished
betwixt the altar and the temple: verily I say to you,
It shall be required of this generation.
52 Woe to you, lawyers 1 for ye have taken away
the *key of knowledge (by which the kingdom of God
should be opened to men) : ye enter not in yourselves,
and them that were entering in ye hindered (obstruct-
ing their faith by your tradition and false interpreta-
tions of the scripture). ~.
53 And as he spake these things to them, the
scribes and pharisees began to urge him vehemently,
and *to provoke him to speak of many things (Gr.
and to inquire of many things from his mouth).
54 Laying wait for him, and seeking to catch
something out of his mouth, that (by it) they might
accuse him. *
of all that you have, and all things shall be clean unto you.]
Tà èvávra, are rà Traçávra, rà intáexovira, “our substance,”
or the things which we have ; or, as Stephanus, “which are in
our power;” according to those words of Tobit, #x rāy itrag-
Xávrov co, Troisi èxenºwoc ſyny “Give alms of thy substance,”
iv. 7, and ver. 8, &c arch in 46%at, “as thou hast ability,” ac-
cording to thy abundance. Christ therefore here instructs
us, that our temporal enjoyments are unclean, i.e. unlawful
to be used by us till we have sanctified them by some act of
charity ; and this is the frequent import of the word kaša-
gög, clean, when it relates to meats, as Acts x. 14, 15. xi.
8, 9. Rom. xiv. 20. Tit. i. 15. And suitable to this, is God’s
command concerning the tithe of the third year, that it
should be given “to the stranger, the orphan, the widow,
that God might bless the land” (Deut. xxiv. 13, 14): so
that till this were done, they were not to expect from him a
blessing on their substance. This also is frequently, pre-
scribed as a means to procure the pardon of our sins. So
Daniel saith to Nebuchadnezzar, Ağrgola at #y #AEmpoa ºyat,
“Redeem thy sins,” or expiate them, “by acts of mercy
to the poor,” iv. 27, for, “by mercy and truth iniquity is
purged,” Prov, xvi. 6. 'Exenºorſyn, “Mercy (or charity)
delivereth from death, and shall purge away all sins,” Tobit
xii. 9. “Water will quench a flaming fire, wai #xenºordyn
#&Aáctral &aagtiac, and alms maketh an atonement for
sins:” our mercy to his servants inclining God to be merciful
to us.
* Ver. 52. "Hears rºw xxeſſa rº, yºreak, Ye have taken
away the key of knowledge.] By which the kingdom of
God should be opened to men, and they be enabled to enter
into it (see note on Matt. xxiii. 13); obscuring and hiding,
by your traditions and false interpretations, those scriptures
which relate to the Messiah, and the light which those pro-
phecies of the Old Testament afford to conduct men to it,
and pretending, that for want of knowledge of the law, they
are not sufficient to judge of these matters, but must be
guided by your judgment of them (John vii. 48, 49) : and
thus you, not believing in the Messiah, nor entering your-
selves into the kingdom of God, now come among you, and ,
preached to you, have obstructed the faith of them who
otherwise would have believed and entered into it.
At the ordination of a Jewish rabbi to be a teacher of
the law, a key was given him, to show that he was appointed
to open the scriptures to the people. Hence Christ pro-
nounces a woe upon those doctors of the law, who being thus
designed to open those scriptures to the people, which con-
cerned the kingdom of heaven, or of the Messiah ; they,
by their false interpretations, and corrupt traditions, touch-
ing the scriptures relating to that kingdom, did “shut the
kingdom of heaven up against them.”
* Wer. 53. Kai &modºroºzarićsiy abrov regi wastóvoy. And
to provoke him to speak of many things.] Or to inquire of
many things from his mouth: for they did this ºntoivre;
Sngsjaai ºr fix roi; or régaro; aircü, “seeking to catch something
out of his mouth.” So Julius Pollux * saith, that &moato-
parićey is &nd a régaro; simily “to speak something from the
mouth,”or words not written : Suidas, that it is 3rd créaa-
to; Aéyely, “to speak from the mouth” or memory. So Aris-
totle + saith the grammarians learn rā, śaroa towaričákºva,
“ those things which are delivered from their master's mouth.”
(see Stephanus on this word): Theophylact saith, it is
xn}=0sly airów Kai &w8 arépcaro; xpatsiy.
* Lib. ii. cap. 9, §. 23, p. 94, lib. xxiii.
ºf Elench. lib i. cap. 3.
CHAPTER XII.
1 IN the meantime, when there were gathered to-
gether an innumerable multitude of people (Gr. Švoic,
whilst Christ was saying these things, an innumerable
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XII.
Wer. l. IIºcaixºte Éavroſ: ätrö rā, śwn; rāy papizaiwy,
multitude of people being gathered together), insomuch
that they trod one upon another, he began to say to
his disciples first of all, 'Beware of the leaven of the
#ric crly iméxplois, Beware of the leaven of the pharisees,
which is hypocrisy..] i. e. Take heed ye be not guilty of
286
LUKE,
pharisees, which is hypocrisy (i. e. an outward appear-
ance of sanctity, which puffs up and deceives others :
but yet is only a pretence).
2 For there is nothing covered (under hypocritical
pretences) which shall not be revealed: neither hid,
that shall not be (made) known.
3 Therefore (Gr. &v6' div, because, or forasmuch as)
whatsoever you have spoken in darkness shall be
heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken
in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed on the house-
tops (so that though you should be able to conceal the
evil of your hearts and actions from men, they will be
laid open at the great day of your accounts).
4 And (though I send you with a message, which
will so offend men, and more especially the Jews, that
they will think by killing you they do God good service,
John xvi. 2, yet) I say to you, my friends, Be not
afraid of them who (can only) kill the body, and after
that have no more that they can do (nothing to hurt
the soul).
5 But I will forewarn you whom you shall (rather)
fear: (viz.) Fear him, who, after he hath killed, hath
power to cast (both soul and body) into hell; yea, I
say to you, Fear him,
6 (For) are not five sparrows sold for two farthings,
and (yet) not one of them is forgotten before (that)
God (whose providence watches over the smallest
things in the world 8 You may then be assured your
least concerns are not neglected by him).
7 But even the very hairs of your head are all
pharisaical hypocrisy ; for though you should be able to con-
ceal the evil of your hearts and actions from the eyes of
men, the time will come when they shall be revealed and
made known (ver. 3), āyā’ &v eo quðd, propterea quðd,
idcircö quðd, for that, or forasmuch as, or because, in the
great day of your accounts, that which you have spoken or
done with the greatest secrecy, shall come to light, and be
revealed openly. So Luke i. 20, “Thou shalt be dumb,
&v6' &v, because thou hast not believed my words;” Luke
xix. 44, “They shall lay thce even with the ground, 3,6’ &v,
because thou knowest not the time of thy visitation ;”
Acts xii. 23, “The angel of the Lord smote him, ày8’ &v,
because he gave not glory to God.” And thus it answers to
the Hebrew hºr ºy which is mostly rendered by the LXX.
3ri, Siâri, and sometimes, 3,0' & ºrt, as 2 Sam. xii. 16, 3,0'
&w ºri, “Because he hath done this thing ;” 1 Kings ix. 9,
& 6' 6v, “Because they have forsaken the Lord their God ;”
2 Kings xviii. 12, &v$’ &y &rt, “Because they have not
hearkened to the voice of the Lord ;” Jer. xvi. 11, dys' ºv,
“Because your fathers have forsaken me:” so xxii. 9, Ezek.
xxix. 39, &v6' &v, “For I have poured out my Spirit upon the
house of Israel.”
* Ver. 8, 9. IIā; 3; &v jø0x0%aº y £ºol, &c. Every
ome that shall confess ºne before men, him also shall the Son.
of man confess before the angels of God: But he that denieth
'me before men shall be denied before the angels of God.]
The critical note here is, that as the Hebrew in is very fre-
quently only the sign of the dative case (see Nold. de
Partic. p. 165, 166), so is #y, both in the Old and the New
Testament: so Gen. xl. 14, ºrotha'el; #y Épavi Neo, “Thou
shalt show me kindness,” Ps. lxxxii. 8 : so Rom. xi. 2, #y
'Haig, “to Elijah ;” 1. Cor. ix. 15, I have not written this
that it should be so done, by Épºni, “to me;” xiv. 11, 3 Aaxây
#y #xoi 84684poc, “He that speaketh shall be a barbarian to
me :” so in Euripides, Év 8éxei irºnysic, “smitten with a wea-
pon,” #y yaxáxt Xaigºv (see Stephanus). And it is also used
where the sense requires an accusative case, as at #v=xážo Đy
'A8pañºz, “thou hast chosen Abraham” Neh. ix. 7 ; Esd. ii.
51, #zvktºpičoy #y &yyáNoi; attoiſ, “They mocked his messen-
gers;” 2 Chron. xxxvi. 16, “The leprosy of Naaman shall
cleave #y col wai'iv rá, a répºar: a ov, to thee and to thy seed;”
2 Kings v. 27, “I will hear what the Lord will say #y tºol,
to me;” so iv Träxel Hy ‘Ispovo axiº, “a city—Jerusalem,”
LXX. Moreover, these words (ver. 9) afford us a full con-
futation of the pernicious doctrine of Mr. Hobbes, against
numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value
than many sparrows (and so the more peculiar objects
of God’s care and providence).
8 Also (and farther to engage you to constancy in
gour profession, and patient suffering for my sake) I
say to you, Whosoever shall (thus) * confess me be-
fore men, him shall the Son of man also confess be.
fore the angels of God (he will own them before God,
in whose presence the angels stand):
9. But he that (to avoid the rage of men) denieth
me before men, shall be denied (i.e. renounced, as none
of my disciples) before the angels (standing in the pre-
sence) of God.
10 And (as for the enemies of me and my doctrine)
whosoever (of them being offended at my present humble
circumstances) shall (notwithstanding all the conviction I
have given them) speak a word against the Son of man
(in derogation from his mission), it shall be forgiven
him; but to him that blasphemeth against the Holy
Ghost (when he cometh upon you in his gifts and mira-
culous operations, to assert my resurrection and con-
jirm my doctrine), it (that blasphemy) shall not be for-
given.
11 And when they bring you to the synagogues,
and to magistrates, and (heathem) powers, take ye no
thought how or what thing ye shall answer, or what
ye shall say, (seeing it shall be given you in that same
hour what ye shall speak, Matt. x. 19).
12 For the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same
hour what ye ought to say.
that self-denial, and taking up the cross, our Lord so ex-
pressly and frequently requires from all Christians, and Mr.
Hobbes, out of his more abundant wisdom, fully doth excuse
us from : for, “Faith,” saith he, “being internal and invisi-
ble, we need not put ourselves into danger for it ;” and
therefore he alloweth subjects, being commanded by their
sovereigns, to deny Christ. His words are these, “Profession
with the tongue is only an external thing, wherein a Chris-
tian, believing firmly in his heart the faith of Christ, hath
the same liberty which the prophet Elisha allowed to Naaman
the Syrian, who believed in his heart, but by bowing before
the idol Rimmon, he denied the true God in effect, as much
as if he had done it with his lips.” Moreover, he giveth
license to a Christian to commit idolatry, or do an idolatrous
act, for fear of death or corporal danger ; “To pray,” saith
hé, “to a king voluntarily for fair weather, or for anything
which God alone can do for us, is divine worship and
idolatry; but if the king compel a man to this by the terror
of death, or other great corporal punishments, it is not
idolatry ;” his reason is, “because it is not a sign that he
doth not honour him as God inwardly, but that he is de-
sirous to save himself from death, or from a miserable life:”
thus doth he, with those Gnostics of whom St. Peter speaks,
“bring in dammable heresies, even denying the Lord that
bought him.” But (1.) this doctrine renders self-denial, or
taking up the cross, a thing impossible : for where the magis-
trate is not against the free profession of our faith, where he
enjoineth nothing opposite to the command of Christ, we
cannot suffer for the sake of Christ and of his gospel ; and
where the magistrate compels us by punishments or threats
to deny Christ, or do what he hath otherwise forbid, Mr.
Hobbes tells us, we may lawfully obey, and therefore need
not suffer. (2.) No man, according to this doctrine, can
suffer “according to the will of God,” as the apostle Peter
doth suppose (1 Pet. iii. 17). No man can suffer “for con-
science towards God, or for well-doing,” as the same apostle
speaks ; because it is not the will of God we should thus
suffer, since he permits us to deny our faith, saith Mr.
Hobbes, and practise contrary to what he hath forbid, when
faith or practice will expose us to corporal punishments, or
to the fear of death. (3.) No man, according to this doc-
trine, can promise to himself any reward for what he suffers
in the cause of Christ, because he never did require him to
suffer ; whereas a crown of glory is everywhere in scripture
promised to the patient sufferer, his light afflictions are said
CHAPTER XII.
. 287
13 And (then) one of the company said to him,
*Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the in-
heritance with me (for I would gladly have thee to be
arbitrator betwixt us concerning it.)
14 And he said to him, Man, who made me a judge
or a divider over you? (This properly belongs not to
ºny prophetic office, but to your civil consistories.)
15 And (upon occasion of this man’s concern for his
“to work for him a more exceeding and eternal weight of
glory ;” and it is said to be “a righteous thing with God, to
recompense to them that suffer for him rest with him.”
Moreover, this doctrine gives the lie to our Saviour, who
plainly tells us, that “whosoever shall deny him before men,
he will deny him before his heavenly Father” (Matt. x. 33):
that “whosoever shall be ashamed of his words and doctrine
in a perverse and adulterous generation, of him his Saviour
will be ashamed, when he comes before his Father and his
glorious angels” (Mark viii. 3, 8). But to this it is replied
by Mr. Hobbes, that “what a subject is compelled to do in
obedience to his sovereign, and doth it not in order to his
own mind, but in order to the law of his sovereign, that
action is not his, but his sovereign's ; nor is it he that in this
case denieth Christ, but his sovereign.” Ans. 1. Seeing the
persecuting world is that “adulterous generation” of which
our Saviour speaks, and the world persecuteth by the civil
power; to be ashamed of Christ and of his word “in this
adulterous generation,” is certainly to be ashamed to con-
fess him, and to own his doctrine, by reason of the igno-
miny or troubles we may suffer for so doing from the civil
power. 2. That to refuse to bear our cross, and even lose
our lives “for Christ's sake and the gospel's,” is to be
ashamed of Christ, is evident from the connexion of the
words: for Christ informeth his disciples (ver. 31), “that he
must suffer many things of the chief priests and rulers of the
Jews ;” and, ver. 34, he tells them, All that would be his
disciples, must also be content to bear the cross, and lose
their lives for his sake and the gospel's, when men saw fit to
treat the disciples as they had done their Master, which,
Saith he, whosoever doth refuse to do, will be the greatest
Joser; 25 yap &y, “for whosoever will be ashamed of me,” &c.
Is it not therefore evident, that to refuse even to lose our
life for Christ's sake and the gospel's, when rulers shall
think fit on that account to take it from us, is to be ashamed
of Christ and of his doctrine P And therefore Mr. Hobbes
wisely said nothing to this text. But (2.) in his pretended
answer to those words of Matthew, he manifestly wrests our
Saviour's words, who plainly speaks of denying him by
words in presence of, or in compliance with, the magistrate:
for (ver. 18) he declares to his disciples, that “they should
be brought before kings and rulers for his sake,” and by them
should be scourged (ver. 17), imprisoned (ver. 19), and killed
(ver. 21). But notwithstanding all their menaces and per-
secutions, publish, saith he, my doctrine openly to all the
world ; “what I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in the
light; and, what you hear in the ear, that speak on the
housetop" (ver. 27): and be not discouraged from so doing
by fear of them who “may kill the body,” which magistrates,
who have the power of the sword, have only a right to do:
and which they cannot do for our internal faith, of which
they cannot judge, but only for outward profession, or con-
fession of it, which, saith Christ, I command you to make
before them without fear (ver. 31), “for whosoever shall
confess me before men, him will I confess—deny me before
men—deny” (ver. 32, 33); so saith our Lord. It is no
such matter, saith the great Malmsburian philosopher; you
are fools if you offer yourselves to be thus treated by the
ymagistrate for the name of Christ ; you need not run this
hazard; you may deny, as well as preach Christ's doctrine
on the housetop, if so commanded by the magistrate: and
therefore you need not fear him, because you need do no-
thing to provoke him; you may be sound believers, though
ye deny, blaspheme, or disobey Christ, when by their
menaces or precepts the magistrates compel you so to do.;
and therefore you, notwithstanding all your blasphemies, will
be acceptable to Christ; but he will punish those persecut-
ing rulers as those who only do indeed deny him. Now
whether this be to interpret or contradict our Saviour's
temporals) he said to them, Take heed, and “beware
of covetousness: for (the comfort of) a man’s life con-
sisteth not in the abundance of the things that he
possesseth. -
16 And (to this end) he spake a parable to them,
saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought
forth plentifully:
17 And he thought within himself, saying (to him-
*
words, let any rational man judge. (3.) This doctrine is a
flat contradiction to St. Paul, who doth expressly teach as
well confession of the Lord Jesus with our mouths, as
belief of him with our hearts, to be required “to salvation ;”
for “with the mouth confession is made unto salvation”
(Rom. x. 10); adding, that “if we do deny Christ, he also
will deny us; but if we suffer for him, we shall reign toge-
ther with him” (2 Tim. ii. 12). It also thwarts the doctrine of
St. John, who having told us of some Jewish rulers, who,
when convinced that “Jesus was the Christ,” would not
confess him for fear of punishment, and of disgrace, by
being turned out of the synagogue, saith, “they loved the
praise of men more than the praise of God” (John xii. 43),
which whosoever doth can be no sound believer, and no
true lover of his Lord (John v. 42. 44). Moreover, by this
doctrine we must condemn the three children who refused to
worship the golden image which Nebuchadnezzar did erect,
whereas God by their wonderful deliverance approved their
disobedience to the command of the king; and all those
martyrs and confessors, who rather chose to suffer than deny
their Lord, or worship idols, when by the heathen magistrate
they were commanded so to do, must be condemned as fools
and criminals; whereas the miracles they wrought, and the
divine assistance which they found under their sufferings,
sufficiently convince us that God approved of their actions.
Lastly, the instance of Naaman the Syrian, as it may be
rendered from the Hebrew, is wholly impertinent to this
purpose ; for there he doth not ask this prophet's leave to
sin again, but only asks his pardon that he had done it;
“In this thing the Lord pardon thy servant, that when my
lord went into the house of Rimmon to bow down himself
there, and leaned on my hand, I bowed down myself there;
that I bowed down myself—the Lord pardon thy servant in
this thing :” and so the margins of some bibles read ; and
that which may be fairly offered to confirm this reading is,
that these very Hebrew words here used are clsewhere
found, not in the future, but in the preterperfect tense, “the
Lord pardon me, beboa, in going to the house of Rimmon,”
saith the text. here ; a psalm of David, beboa Nathan
“when Nathan went unto him,” li. 1 : ‘nºrinvith “and I
bow down myself,” saith our translation here, Trinwnn “and
they bowed down themselves,” Exod. xxxiii. 10.
* Ver. 13. Elºrë rà éðexpå øov pºséſaac Bat rºw xxngoyopºſay
fºr Hºoij, Master, speak to my brother to divide the inherit-
ance with me..] Here Dr. Lightfoot shows that this was
usually done either by the consistory of three, or by some
chosen by them betwixt whom the cause depended, as ar-
bitrators in the case, as Grotius and Dr. Hammond have
suggested ; therefore there is no ground for Mr. Le Clerc to
say this man did not desire him to perform the office of a
judge or arbitrator between him and his brother, but to use.
his prophetical authority to oblige his brother, who detained
the whole inheritance, to divide it with him ; for if so, why
doth not Christ answer, that this was no part of his prophetic
office, but only, “Who made me a ruler or a judge P” Now
it is probable that Christ refused to take this office upon
him, not only to avoid the envy and calumny of the Jewish
rulers, who might be apt to say, he took upon him an office
to which he was not called, in prejudice to them who were
appointed for that work; but chiefly because he had but
little time remaining, which he could better spend in divid-
ing to them the word of life, and in promoting their eternal
interest.
* Ver. 15. OvX&ora-sa-38 &trö tä; "rxeoysłia;, &c. Beware
of covetousness : for a man's life consists not in the abund-
ance of the things that he possesseth.] Hence we learn, that
the desire of having more than we do really need, not to
supply the necessities of others, or to promote God's glory,
but that we may keep, and treasure them up, and enjoy
288
LUKE.
self) What shall I do, because I have no room where
to bestow (i.e. lay up) my fruits? -
18 And he said, This will I do; I will pull down
my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow
all my fruits and my goods.
19 And (then) I will say to my soul, Soul, thou
hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine
ease, eat, drink, and be merry.
20 But God said to him, Thou fool, this night thy
soul shall be “required of thee, (i. e. thou shalt die
this night; and) then whose shall those things be,
which thou hast provided ?
21. So (such a fool) is he that layeth up treasure
for himself (on earth), and is not rich towards God
(i. e. in heavenly treasures, which will alone commend
him to God, and procure his favour).
22 And he said to his disciples, Therefore I say to
you, Take no thought (be not anariously concerned) for
(the things necessary to preserve) your life (viz.) what
ye shall (have to) eat; neither for the body, what ye
shall (have to) put on.
23 (For) the life is more than meat, and the body
is more than rarment. (He then who gave this life and
body without your care and assistance, will not be
wanting in making the provisions necessary to preserve
them.)
24 Consider the (young) ravens (eacluded from
their nests by the old ones, and crying to the Lord for
meat, Ps. cxlvii. 9) for (Gr. that) they neither sow
nor reap ; which neither have storehouse nor barn;
and (yet) God feedeth them (giving them food when
they cry); how much more are ye better than the
fowls (and so more sure to be provided for) 8
25 And which of you with taking thought can add
to his stature one cubit (one moment to his life, or one
inch to the growth of his body : and how much less
will your solicitude preserve the whole)?
26 If ye then be not able to do that thing which is
least, why take ye thought for the rest (which you are
dess able to compass) 8
27 (Again) consider the lilies how they grow: they
toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, (They
appear so beautifully clothed by nature,) that Solomon ,
in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
28 If then God so clothe the grass, which is to-day
in the field, and to-morrow is cast into the oven (and
so is of a very short duration); how much more will
he clothe you, O ye of little faith (if you distrust not
his care in making these provisions for you) / -
29 And seek not ye (or seek not then) what ye shall
eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of "a doubt-
ful (wavering) mind.
30 For all these things do the nations of the world
seek after (who have no hopes of better things) ; and
(you need not be concerned for them, seeing) your
(heavenly) Father knoweth you have need of these
things. -
31. But rather seek ye (first) the kingdom of God;
and all these things shall be added to you.
32 Fear not (any want of these things), little flock;
for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the
kingdom (of glory).
33 "Sell that ye have, and give alms, (even out of
the main stock, when the necessities of your brethren
Tequire it, and so) provide yourselves bags that wax not
old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where
no thief approacheth, nor moth corrupteth (this being
the only way to be heavenly-minded).
34 For where your treasure is, there will your
heart be also.
35 Let your “loins be girded about, and your lights
burning (i. e. as servants attending still their master’s
coming, and ready to erecute his commands) ;
36 And ye yourselves like to men (servants) that
wait for their lord (or bridegroom), "when he will re-
turn from the wedding; that when he cometh and
knocketh, they may open to him immediately.
37 Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when
he cometh shall find watching : verily I say to you,
That he shall gird himself (as a servant), and make
them sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve
them (i. e., he will administer to them in an unusual
7manner).
38 And if he shall come in the second watch, or
them, is one species of covetousness: for these words are cer-
tainly produced as a dissuasive from the sin of covetousness,
which sure they could not be, were not the desire of having
more, one species or symptom of that sin. 2. From the
words following we learn, that to be more solicitous concern-
ing temporals than we are for spirituals, and to be anxious
about them, when we are not yet rich towards God, is ano-
ther sign of covetousness. This may probably be con-
cluded from the concern of this person for the dividing of
his inheritance, rather than that our Lord should instruct
him in the way of life, it being this which gave occasion to
this admonition, “to beware of covetousness;” and it more
clearly follows from the example of the fool, who was so
much concerned to hoard up his goods, but not at all con-
cerned to be “rich towards God;" i. e. to have his treasure
with God in the heavens, and to esteem it his chiefest
riches to be an heir of the kingdom of God (ver. 32), and to
employ his riches so as to procure God’s favour, and his
own future happiness: for this is a plain indication of a
heart that values these temporal concernments more than
God’s favour, or celestial riches; which in St. Paul's judg-
ment renders the covetous person guilty of idolatry.
* Ver. 20. Taşrn rā. vuxti rāy Juxºv cou &rarrojaw & ré
coſ.] i. e. Either thy soul shall be required of thee by God
that gave it, and whose depositum it was, as the Jews
speak (see note on 2 Tim. i. 12); or else it shall be required
by evil angels, according to that other opinion of the Jews,
that the souls of the just when they die are carried into the
garden of Eden, per manum angelorum, “by the ministry of
holy angels,” and the souls of the wicked to the place
appointed for them, by evil spirits (see the note on xvi. 22),
* Ver, 29. Kai º ºxersozićease, Neither be ye of doubtful
minds.] Meriwpoº, saith the Glossary of Stephanus, is 5 pº
a ratiº; roy yody, raxay revéºwevoº, tº yyápºn, Budaeus, “one fluc-
tuating and unstable in his mind, judgment, or counsel :”
hence agréogo; 3ixn is, “a suspended judgment,” ºréogo; 3pxh,
“a doubtful or controverted empire;” astēogol, saith Suidas,
are oi ºrgö; ºr, pºéxxoy #rt oraxEVoytec, “those that are anxious
and fluctuating as to future events;” or whatever may befall
them ; in which sense, say Thucydides and Plutarch, ºré-
apo: #y # ‘Exx&c, “Greece was in suspense touching the event
of the war ;” and Josephus, that the Jews were usréogoi iwi
tö affaxoyºtt Troxéºw, “anxious about the war with the Ro-
mans.” Accordingly ºxersapiapa?:, the thing forbidden here
is, saith Theophylact, & Tregia Tragºzèc zai rod Xàyov &araro;
orspºoga, “a distracting and unstable fluctuation of the mind
or reason, about provision for the body,” which Christ would
here remove from the children of God, as being well assured
that his wisdom knoweth what is needful for them (ver. 30),
and his fatherly care would certainly provide for them what
W81S SO. -
7 Ver. 33. IIwaharare rà in 46Xoy'ra tºwāv, xa, 33rs #xempo-
a ſyny, Sell that you have, and give alms.] i. e. Be ready
when God calls, and the exigencies of Christ's members do
require it, so to do, and be so far from the sordidness of the
rich man, who would not give of his superfluities to the
needy, as in these cases to do it out of the main stock, as
knowing this heavenly kingdom is to be obtained, not by
hoarding up treasures here on earth, but by distributing them
to Christ's needy members. If it be asked how moths can
corrupt treasures, seeing they eat not through gold or silver,
I answer, that precious clothes are also reckoned among
treasures, Ezra ii. 69. Neh. vii. 70. Job xxvii. 16 (see the
note on Jam. v. 2, 3). -
* Ver. 35. "Earacay tºy ai a pús; regisława ºval, zai oi
Müxyoi Katápasyol, Let your loins be girded about, und your
CHAPTER XII. ºr 2S9
eone in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are
those servants (whom he will so regard).
39 And this know, that (men use the like vigilance
in temporals : for) if the good man of the house had
known what hour the thief would come, (it is to be
Fupposed) he would have watched, and not have suf-
"ered his house to be broken through.
40 Be ye therefore ready also (and show like care
in spirituals) : for the Son of man cometh in an hour
that ye think not (of).
41 Then Peter said to him, Lord, speakest thou
* to us (disciples and apostles only), or even
to all P
42 And the Lord said, (This duty is incumbent on,
and will be done by, as many as expect a reward from
me for their prudence and fidelity, ric dipa)* who then
is that faithful and wise steward, whom his Lord shall
make ruler over his household, to give them their
portion of meat in due season (as their wants require) P
43 Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he
cometh shall find so doing.
44 Of a truth I say to you, That he will make him
ruler over all that he hath (i. e. advance him to great
honour and glory at his coming).
45. But if that servant say in his heart, My lord de-
layeth his coming (as many of the Jews did, revolting
from his service), and (therefore) shall begin to beat
the men servants and maidens (the persevering Chris-
fians, as the apostatizing Jews did), and to eat and
drink, and to be drunken; (i.e. return to a dissolute
course of life, 2 Pet. ii. 2. 22.)
46 The lord of that servant will come in a day when
he looketh not for him, and at an hour when he is not
aware, and (for his perfidiousness) shall cut him asun-
der, and appoint him his portion with the unbelievers.
47 And that servant who "knew his lord’s will,
and prepared not himself (for his coming), neither did
according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.
48 But he who knew (it) not, and did commit
Čights burning.] The servant, when was he to minister to his
master, that his clothes might not hinder him, girded them
about him. So Luke xvii. 8, “Gird thyself, and serve me:”
and when Christ ministereth to his apostles, he “takes a
towel,” and girdeth himself, John xiii. 14, and then washeth
their feet. Hence, Saith Philo,” “we are commanded to eat
the passover, rä, örºğaç Trºpisówo ºvoi £rotºxo; aſpö, ürnpeciay
#x2yric, with our loins girt as being ready for service.” More-
over, they, waiting to expect their master's coming home
at night, were to have their lamps burning, and ready to re-
ceive him (Matt. xxv. 7). To servants so provided, and
ready for service, our Lord here promiseth a new and
unusual honour, like that of the Romans in their Satur-
nália ; the Cretanst in their Hermaea; and of the Babylo-
nians in their feast called Saccas, where the servants sat at
table, and their masters waited on them; “Their lord,” saith
he, “shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat,
and he will come forth to serve them,” ver. 37, he coming
into the world, “not to be ministered unto, but to minister.”
Matt. xx. 28.
"Ver. 36. IIórs àvaxáre in rāy yáawy, When he will return
from the marriage.] 'Ayahūrst évri toº imavtex-rat, Phavo-
rinus; ávaxály, iroo’rgépêiv, 3vaxáºrrey, Gloss. i. e. the
Word, signifies to return. And though in profane authors
this is more rare, yet in the apocryphal books this is per-
petually the sense of the word : as when Tobit saith, & In
the night, Ayíavaa, I returned from the burial,” ii. 9; “No
man was known, āya Sūrat # #8ov, returning from the grave,”
Wisd. ii. 1; “The air being parted presently si; Havry 3, exſºn,
returns to itself.” v. 12, and xvi. 14, “The spirit when it is
gone forth, obº ávaxást, returneth not again” (see 2 Macc. viii.
25. ix. 2. xii. 7. xv. 28).
* De Sacr. Ab. et Cain. p. 108.
* Athenæus Deipnos, lib. xiv. p. 639, Ctasias, p. 674,
apud Herod. - -
things worthy of stripes (as sinning against the law of
nature), shall be beaten with few stripes. For to whom-
soever much is given, of him shall be much required ;
and to whom men have committed much, of them thcy
will ask the more.
49 (I farther tell you that) I am come to send fire
on the earth (to publish that doctrine which will cause
great heats and contentions) ; and (yet so profitable
is it to the world, that) what will I "if it be already
kindled 2 (Gr. what do I desire, even that it were al-
teady kindled £) - - -
50 But (and) I have a baptism to be baptized with
(i. e. a death to suffer) ; and how am I straitened (as
one in pain) till it be accomplished -
51 Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on
earth (i. e. to free you from the troubles of the world) P
I tell you, Nay; but rather (to preach that doctrine
which will cause) division:
52 For from henceforth there shall be five in one
house divided (on the account of this doctrine, viz.)
three against two, and two against three.
53 The father shall (by reason of it) be divided
against the son; and the son against the father; and
the mother against the daughter, and the daughter
against the mother; and the mother-in-law against
her daughter-in law, and the daughter-in-law against
her mother-in-law.
54 And he said also to the people, When ye see a
cloud rise out of the west, straightway ye say, There
cometh a shower; and (usually) so it is.
55 And when ye see (hear) the south wind blow,
ye say, There will be heat; and (so) it cometh to
pass. -
56 Ye hypocrites, ye can discern (by) the face of
the sky (what weather,) and (by the face) of the earth
(what season it is like to be); but how is it that ye do
(Gr. how them do ye) not discern (from what I do and
teach that) this (is the) time (of the Messiah’s ad-
vent) 3 i - º
* Ver. 42. Ti; &ga Bariv 3 ºriará; oizové zoº; Who then is
that wise servant 2] Our Lord here does not answer directly
to the question of St. Peter, yet he sufficiently doth it by .
declaring that this is to be done of every servant who ex.
pects to be rewarded or treated as one faithful to him, and
especially of the guides of the church, Mark xiii. 37.
* Ver. 47, 48. Exsivo, 3Å & Sočao;, &c. And that servan:
who knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither
did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes :
but he that knew mot, &c.] This being one great difference
betwixt the pastors of the church and other Christians, they
must expect a severer punishment, as sinning against greater
evidence, and knowledge of their duty; for “to whom much
is given, of them much will be required:” whereas they who,
through slowness of understanding, or neglect of pastors, and
multitude of worldly business, are ignorant of their duty,
and so neglect it, will find a milder punishment ; for
ignorance may be pitied, but contempt deserves no mercy.
12 Ver. 49. II's #x00w gaxeſy eiç Tüy yºv, xai ºri Séxo ei ºn
&yhºpón, I came to send fire on the earth, and what will I if
it be already kindled ?] Here it is to be noted, that the
particle si hath two significations, both agreeable to this
place.' (1.) That, see note on 1 Tim. v. 10. (2.) It is a
particle of wishing: so Numb. xxii. 29, El Bixoy (24xaſ;ay, “"
wish I had a sword ;” si xareasivapºv, “We wish we had
continued beyond Jordan,” Josh. vii. 7, El H2Ovo-ac, Ps. lxxxi.
13, and Isa. xlviii. 18, “O that thou hadst hearkened to my
precepts;” Luke xviii. 42, si èywoc, “O that thou hadst
known.” So then the sense of these words is this, -I come
to deliver to the world a doctrine, which will incense the
world against me and my followers, and subject us to great
sufferings, signified in scripture by fire, Ps. lxvi. 12. Isa. xliii.
2. Ecclus. li. 4, and therefore called “fiery trials,” l Pet.
iv. 12, and will baptize me in my own blood ; but yet I am
so far from being moved from prosecuting my Father's plea-
| sure, by the prospect of them, that I wish the time of ºy
290
LUKE.
57 Yea, and why even of "yourselves judge ye not
(from the agreement of my doctrine with the principles
of reason) what is right?
58 When thou goest with thine adversary to the
magistrate, (it is good counsel,) as thou art in the
way, (to) give diligence that thou mayest be delivered
from him; lest he hale thee to the judge, and the
judge deliver thee to the officer, and the officer
thee into prison:
59 (For) I tell thee, Thou shalt not depart thence,
till thou hast paid the very last mite : (why then ne-
glect you that repentance towards God, and faith in
the Messiah, which can alone preserve you from that
infernal prison from which there is no escaping £).
Cast
suffering were at hand, and my gospel preached to the world.
* Wer. 57. Ti 33 xai ép Šavrāy ot, ºpivers to 3ikatov, And why
even of yourselves judge ye not what is right?] i. e. Take
an example from yourselves; you are not wont to neglect
the means by which you may be preserved from that prison
here, from which you cannot escape till your whole debt be
paid ; why then neglect you that repentance towards God,
and faith in the Messiah, which can alone preserve you from
that infernal prison, from which you cannot escape P You
can observe the signs of heaven for your temporal advan-
tage ; why therefore do you not observe the clearer signs of
the Messiah’s coming, and calling you to faith and repent-
ance by his doctrine 2
CHAPTER XIII.
1 THERE were present at that season (when Christ
§ the foregoing words) some that told him "of the
Balileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their
sacrifices (slaying them when they came to offer sacri-
fice, for rejecting the authority of the Roman emperor).
2 And Jesus answering said to them, Suppose ye
that these Galileans were sinners above all the (other)
Galileans, because they suffered such things
* 3. I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall
all likewise perish (for the same cause, and many of
Jou after the same manner ; see note).
4 Or those eighteen, on whom the tower in Siloam
fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners
above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem :
5. I tell you, Nay; but, except ye repent, ye shall
all “likewise perish.
6 He spake also this parable (to the same purpose,
saying), A certain man had a fig-tree planted in his
vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and
found none.
7. Then he said to the dresser of the vineyard, Be-
hold, “these three years I come seeking fruit, and find
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIII.
* Ver. l. IIEpi rāy Taxixaloy, &y aiwa IIIAáros, wiás were
röy 8voiâv airāv, Whose blood Pilate mingled with their sa-
crifices.] It is not to be doubted, saith Grotius, but that the
sedition of Judas Gaulonites, as it had its rise in Galilee, so
found it many followers and abettors there, who, coming up
to Jerusalem, insinuated into the people that they were the
Lord's people, and therefore were to own him only as their
king, and to pay tribute, not to Caesar, but to his temple; it
therefore seemeth credible, saith he, as some of the Greek
fathers think, that such as these were the Galileans, “whose
blood Pilate mingled with their (paschal) sacrifice,” as find-
ing they were then sowing these seeds of sedition against
Caesar; and if this were at the passover, then the words fol-
lowing, “Ye shall all likewise perish,” agree wonderfully
with that account of their destruction which Josephus and
Eusebius give us, that when they were come up from all
places to observe the passover, they were enclosed in the city
by the Romans; and upon the very day appointed for kill-
ing the passover, many of them were slaughtered like sheep
in the very temple, for this very cause, that they shook off
the Roman yoke, and refused to pay tribute to Caesar.
* Ver. 5, 92.0io's 3roñéſass, `Ye shall likewise perish.]
That is, Saith Grotius, among the ruins of the city, of which
that tower was a part, they perishing in Jerusalem (ver. 4),
or rather among the ruins of the towers of the city and the
temple. To illustrate these conjectures of the learned Gro-
tius, let us a little consider what Josephus hath delivered of
this matter: he therefore saith, that this Judas, with one
Zadoc a pharisee, incited the Jews to rebellion, saying,” rhy
#7triangly obºv &axo # 3vrtkºv; 3ovXiay in pigsly, “that the
paying tribute was a sign of slavery;” and under this pre-
tence they exhorted the-whole nation to maintain their Ji-
berty, Kai hēoft &xgåaa'iy $$$yovro &ySporot, “and this the Jews
received with pleasure, and this became the seed of their fu-
ture calamities.” Hence they continually demanded 3rage;
7& rān,” “that the tributes may be taken away.” When
Coponius was procurator of Judea, one Simon a Galilean
reproved them, ; el pápov re ‘Pok.aioic intrexely brokevoiſai, Kai
Faeta tºy Os3y of roval Syntou, 3Earáraç, “that they would en-
dure to pay tribute, and suffer mortal lords to rule over
them :” when Felix was procurator, some magicians and
s
—y
*Antiq, lib. xviii, cap. 1... + De Bello Jud. lib. ii, cap. 1.
# Cap. 12.
thieves met together calling the people to liberty, and”
6&vatoy #writtºrs; roi; ºreiðaðxotal tº Popwatoy. hyspaović,
“threatening death to those who obeyed the Roman govern-
ment:” when Campanus was procurator, one Dortus soli-
cited the people+ in rā ‘Papaiov 3roa raciº, “to shake off
the Roman yoke;” so ready were they to embrace the doc-
trine of this Galilean. That many of the Jews perished, as
did these Galileans, the same Josephus testifies, saying, that
under the president Cumanus twenty-five thousandt war& rô
isgöv &rdºxovro, “ perished in the temple at the feast of pass-
over.” That under Florus $ auxy}; pºvog, “there was a mul-
tifarious slaughter of them fighting in the temple,” and that
one Manahem “was slain as he worshipped there.” That
“many of the zealots perished in the temple, Ka8atºwād-
a wre; Tô Beſoy #3a poc, and washed the holy ground with their
blood.” That the Idumeans “coming in to their help, eight
thousand and five hundred of the party of Ananus high-
priest were slain ;” so that'ſ Étreuxārón wai rô #20sy isgöv ráv
aſaari, “the whole outward temple was washed over with
blood.” In that threefold sedition which arose in Jerusa-
lem between Eleazar keeping the inward temple, John with
his associates seizing the outward temple, and Simon the up-
per city,” “pivoicipataiyero Travraxoſ, ºrd isgöv, “the temple was
everywhere polluted with slaughters, the weapons flew every-
where, and fell upon the priests, and those who officiated
at the altar; many who came from far to worship, ºrp., Tây
Supe&tày Brecoy airoi, fell before their sacrifices, and sprin-
kled the altar with their blood; insomuch that the blood of
the dead carcases made a pool in the holy court. At the
feast of unleavened bread, Eleazar, with his companions,
opening a gate for the people that came to worship and to
'offer sacrifice, John, taking that opportunity, sends in with
them many of his party, having short swords under their
garments, who invaded Eleazar's party, and filled that tem-
ple with the blood of the zealots and of the people.” And
when Titus “fought against the temple,ti Tsºi gaiv row gopºv
TrañSoc ào'ogeſſero rāy vexgåy, a multitude of dead bodies lay
Tound the altar, and the blood ran down the steps of the
temple, and many perished by the ruins of the towers or
porches.”
* Ver. 7. "Erm réia iºxopra. Öhröy zaprèy #y ră ovz; raûrh,
* Cap. 23.
# Lib. cap. xx. 4.
| Lib. iv. cap. 14.
** Lib. vi. cap. 50.
+ Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 5. p. 602.
§ De Bello Jud. lib. iii. cap. 31, p. 81ſ.
"I Lib. xvi. cap. 17.
ti. Lib. vi., cap. 4.
CHAPTER XIII.
‘29)
none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground
(And the like sentence may you of this nation expect
jrom God for your unfruitfulness.)
8 And he answering said to him, Lord, (be pleased
to) let it alone this year also, till I dig about it, and
dung it: w
9 And if it bear fruit, well (thou wilt see cause to
spare it); and if (it do) not, then after that thou
shalt cut it down: (and such is now God’s sparing
mercy to you, he is making further trial of you, whe-
ther what I or my apostles, preaching after my ascent
to heaven, can do, will make you fruitful : and if after
all our labours you continue still unfruitful, you must
expect to be cut off.) - -
10 And he was teaching in one of the synagogues
on the sabbath.
11 And, behold, there was (there) a woman which
had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was
bowed together (with it), and could in no wise lift up
herself.
12 And when Jesus saw her, he called her to him,
and said to her, Woman, thou art (now to be) loosed
from thine infirmity.
13 And he laid his hands on her; and immedi-
ately she was made straight, and glorified God.
14 And the ruler of the synagogue answered (i. e.
said, with relation to this cure) with indignation, be-
cause that Jesus had healed on the sabbath-day, and
said to the people, There are six days in which men
ought (i.e. by the commandments are allowed) to work:
in them therefore come and be healed, and not on the
Sabbath-day.
15 The Lord them answered him and said, Thou
“hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the sabbath
(day) loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead
him away to watering 2
*
16 (This you do on that day for a beast to free it
from a little thirst,) and ought not (then) this woman
being a daughter of Abraham, whom *Satan hath
bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this
bond on the sabbath-day 2
17 And when he had said these things, all his ad-
versaries were ashamed ; and all the people rejoiced
for all the glorious things that were done by him.
18 Then said he, To what is the kingdom of God
like 2 and whereunto shall I resemble it 2
19 It is like a grain of mustard-seed, which a man
took, and cast into his garden, and it grew, and wax-
ed a great tree; and the fowls of the air lodged in
the branches of it; (for thus, from a very small be-
ginning, will it grow up into the greatest of all king-
doms, as that becomes the greatest of all herbs, Matt.
xiii. 32.)
20 And again he said, Whereunto shall I liken the
kingdom of God
21 It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in
three measures of meal till the whole was leavened
(for so shall the doctrine of the kingdom spread till
it hath seasoned all the regions of the earth).
22 And he went through the cities and villages,
teaching, and journeying towards Jerusalem.
23 Then said one to him, Lord, are there "few that
(shall) be saved And he said to them (that heard
him, Be not so much concerned to know how it will be
with others, as to)
24 "Strive to enter (in) at the strait gate (which
leadeth to life, while ye have opportunity to do it):
for *many, I say to you, will seek to enter in, and
shall not be able (because they do it too late ; for)
25 When once the Master of the house is risen up,
and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand
without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord,
These three years have I come seeking fruit of this fig-tree,
and found mome.] These three years seem not to signify
only the time of our Lord's preaching among the Jews; for
they were not destroyed the next year, but about thirty-six
years after our Lord's ascension ; they rather seem to be
mentioned, because the fruit of some fig-trees came not to
maturity till the third year; the time he expected afterward
includes the whole time of the apostles' preaching to them
at Jerusalem, and to their dispersions, and to the gentiles, to
gather and set up his church among them; and then was
the end of the Jewish church and temple, and the great de-
struction of that nation to come (Matt. xxiv. 14). Nor
were the Jews then given over, but were, after our Lord's
ascension, to be under the dispensation of the Holy Ghost;
and, upon the rejection of that call, was Christ's prediction,
that their house should be left to them desolate, to take
place : whence, after the Holy Ghost was fallen down upon
them, the apostles were to begin their preaching at Jerusa-
lem, and to go thence throughout all Judea (Acts i. 8), and
to preach to them remission of sins (Acts xiii. 38); and
this they did with such success, as to convert many myriads
of them (Acts xxi. 20): and the apostle Paul declares it
necessary for them to preach the word of God first to them
(Acts xiii. 46).
* Ver. 15. Twoxgira, Thou hypocrite.] This Christ pro-
nounceth upon the ruler of the synagogue, partly because:
he placed his holiness chiefly in the observation of ritual
precepts, or the rest of the body on the sabbath-day, pre-
ferring that before the great things of the law, which Christ
still representeth as a sign of hypocrisy (Matt. xxiii. 23);
partly because he pretended a great zeal for the law of God,
when he was rather acted in this matter by black envy at
the glory of Christ, which he, that saw his heart, well
knew.
* Ver. 16. “Hy £8ma'ev 3 ×arayåg, Whom Satan hath bound
these eighteen years.] That sometimes by concurring with,
and sometimes without natural causes, many diseases were,
by divine permission, brought on men by evil spirits, the
gospel and histories of Job and Saul inform us; for that Saul,
after the departure of a good spirit, fell eiç träSn 3.swä xat
8atºvia, “into demoniacal passions,” and had, 373 rôw
3alp.ávow raçax}v, “perturbations from demons,” or, as the
scripture speaks, “by an evil spirit from the Lord” (1 Sam.
xvi. 14. 23), we learn from Josephus.* And, by confession
of Maimonides,"f Satan was the cause of all that Job suf-
fered, not only in his substance, but in his body (Job ii. 7):
and the Targum on Ps. xci. 6, numbers “troops of demons,”
among those who inflict plagues and death upon men.
* Ver. 23. Ei àxiyot of aroğpcevoi; Are there few that be
saved 21 This question seems to be propounded agreeably to
that sentiment of the Jews, that all Israelites should have
their portion in the world to come : to which Christ was not
pleased to give an answer that might satisfy the curiosity of
the man, but rather an instruction that might benefit him; it
being not our concern to know how many will be saved, but
how we may be saved.
7 Ver. 24. 'Ayovićsass starex9sſy %& rā; a revº, Tràng, Strive
to enter in at the strait gate.] Here Christ shows, that the
number of them who may be saved, is not defined by any
decree of God excluding all others from it, or rendering them
unable to attain it : for then Christ must in vain exhort
them to use their diligence to enter in at the strait gate,
which leadeth to eternal life; and yet by saying, 3) ovićaše,
“Strive, as men in agony,” to do it, he shows, that this re-
quires great constancy, diligence, and courage, and a strong
conflict with the world, the flesh, and the devil; and so such
only will obtain it.
* IIoxxoi &ntárovaly ela Ex9sſy, wal oix ioxſcoverly, For many
shall seek to enter, and shall not be able.] Not for want of
power, or sufficient grace on God’s part, but for seeking too
late to enter; viz. when the door is shut, ver. 25. The sense
therefore runs thus, Be careful, O ye Jews, now to believe,
and obey my word, before the kingdom be taken from you,
and the gate of the gospel-banquet be shut, so that you after
knock in vain for entrance (Matt. xxv. 10. 13, see the note
on Matt. viii. 11, 12).
* Antiq. lib. vi. cap. 9. ºf Mor. Nev. lib. iii. cap. 22.
Q
292
LUKE.
Lord, open to us; and (or, then) he shall answer and
say to you, I know you not whence ye are; (be care-
ful therefore now, O ye Jews, to believe and obey the
word, before the kingdom of God be taken from you,
and the gate of the gospel-banquet be shut, so that you
“after knock in vain for entrance, Matt. xxv. 10, 13, for)
26 Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and
drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our
streets. (He will answer, )
27 But he shall say (ca. Špsi, and will say), I tell
you, I know not whence you are; depart from me,
all ye workers of iniquity.
28 (And them) there shall be weeping and gnashing
of teeth, when ye (the sced of Abraham) shall see
Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets,
in the kingdom of God (enjoying the blessings pro-
mised to the members of that kingdom), and you your-
selves thrust out (of it). -
29 And (then) they (of the gentiles) shall come
from the east, and from the west, and from the north,
and from the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom
of God (shall partake of the blessings of the gospel,
and be owned as children of his kingdom).
30 And, behold, (thus shall it happen, that) there
are last (i. e. the gentiles called at the last hour, Matt.
xx. 7) which shall be first (in this kingdom), and there
are first (i. e. the Jews to whom the gospel was first
reached, and who are styled God’s first-born, Exod.
iv. 22) which shall be last (i.e. cast out of this king-
dom, and not recalled till the last, or at the close of
the world).
31 The same day there came certain of the phari-
sees, saying to him, Get thee out (of Galilee, Herod’s
jurisdiction), and depart hence : for (else) Herod will
kill thee. n
32 And he said to them, Go and tell that *fox.
(from me, a prophet sent from God, and therefore
authorized thus to style him), Behold, I east out devils,
and I do cures (in prosecution and confirmation of my .
prophetic office) to-day and to-morrow (i. e. for a
short time more), *and the third day I shall be per-
fected (i.e. by death be consecrated to my priestly
office, and so he needs not be concerned to put me to
death, who shortly am to die as a sacrifice for the sins
of the world.)
33 Nevertheless I must walk (on my journey, ver.
22) to-day, and to-morrow, and the day following
(till I reach to Jerusalem, and I may do it without fear
of being killed by Herod); for it cannot be that "a
prophet perish out of Jerusalem (where the Sanhedrin,
who think themselves the only judges of him, sit).
34 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the pro-
phets, and stonest them that are sent to thee; how
often would I have gathered thy children together
(under my protection), as a hen doth gather her brood
under her wings, and ye would not (be gathered)?
35 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate ;
and (33, for) verily I say unto you, (After awhile) ye
shall not see me (Matt. xxiii. 38) until the time come
when ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the
name of the Lord; (till sittmrs, you would say, i. e.
you would be glad to see your Messiah coming to deliver
You, and to say to him what your pharisees cannot
now hear with patience, xix. 39, but shall only see him
coming to avenge himself upon you, Matt. xxvi. 64.)
* Ver. 32. Eirats r? &A&ºrex, raûry, Go tell. that fow.]
To impose this ignominious but agreeable name on Herod,
is not contrary to the command “not to speak evil of the
ruler of thy people;” it being the office of a prophet, not to
spare kings when they reprove their offences (Jer. i. 10).
Christ therefore here uses his prophetical power, in giving this
tyrant a name so suitable to his actions.
* Kai rj reira rexétotºat, And the third day I am per-
office, by dying as a sacrifice for the sins of the world : so
the old scholia, rexelodºcai, a Trévôoºza, Svariášoºzat, “I am
perfected, i. e. I am offered, I am sacrificed.” For the con-
firmation of this sense, see the note on Heb. ii. 10. ix. 10.
* Ver. 33. Oiz àvèáxsrat row reophºny &roxéa $at #6, A
prophet cannot perish out of Jerusalem.] Because he was
only to be judged by the great Sanhedrin, and they were
only to pass judgment on him in that place: So Dr. Light-
fected.] The word signifies, I am consecrated to my priestly 'foot here.
CHAPTER XIV.
1 And it came to pass, as he went into the house
of one of the "chief pharisees (or of the rulers, who
was of the pharisees) to eat bread on the sabbath-day,
that they watched him, (whether he would heal on the
sabbath-day, that they might accuse him, Mark iii. 2.)
2 And, behold, there was a certain man (then) be-
fore him which had the dropsy.
3, And Jesus *answering (to their thoughts), spake
to the lawyers and pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to
heal on the sabbath-day (or not)?
4 And (but) they held their peace. And (then) he
took him, and healed him, and let him go;
5 And (he) answered them (who held this unlawful),
saying, Which of you shall have an ass or ox fallen
into a pit, and he will not straightway pull him out on
the sabbath-day ? (And shall that kindness be denied
to a son of Abraham in his distress on that day, which
you afford on it to your distressed beast 8)
6 And they could not answer him again to these
things. -
ANNQTATIONS ON CHAP, XIV.
* Ver: 1. Ei, oſºv 'rivo: röy 36x3vroy rºy pagicatov, Into the
house of one of the pharisees.]. Gr. “Into the house of one
of the pharisees,” who was a ruler in the Sanhedrin ; for
they are called &exov rec, “rulers,” Luke xxiv. 20. John iii.
1. Acts iii. 17. 1 Cor. ii. 8 (see the note there).
- * Ver. 3. Kai diroxg105, 3 'Inaº, sîrs ºrgā; roëc vowinoſ,”
And Jesus answering spake to the lawyers and pharisees ;
and, wer. 5, xa, droxg135is ºrpèg abrovº ſtra, and he answering
them said.] Here groxçişek, “answering,” is twice used,
where neither any question was put, nor anything said to
him ; but then it is still an answer to some xàyo; #3;ášeros,
“inward conception,” or reasoning, or to some action ex-
pressive of their sentiments concerning him : sometimes it
is used, when he perceived their inward thoughts and reason-
ings about his actions, words, or person: thus, when the
/
|
pharisees were consulting how they might apprehend him for
the parable he spake against them; &rox?18sic, “he answer-
ing,” spake another parable, showing what destruction would
come upon them for crucifying him (Matt. xxii. 1): so Jesus
“ perceiving their thoughts, 3rong Seiç, answering, said to them,”
Luke v. 22: So he answers to what Simon said within him-
self, Luke vii. 39,40: sometimes he answers to their actions,
as discovering their apprehensions of him: thus, when they
came to take him, Jesus, &roxçişeiç, “answering, said to them,
Are you come as against a thief?” Mark xiv. 48 ; so to the
barren fig-tree, 3roxg:Sais, “he answering, said, Let never
fruit grow on thee more,” Mark xi. 14 ; so reflecting on the
infidelity and impenitence of those cities among whom he
had done his mighty works, and of those pharisees who be-
lieved neither him nor the Baptist, & trowgºeic, storey, “he an-
swering, said, Father, I thank thee,” Matt. xi. 25 ; So when
Peter had smitten off the ear of Malchus, &mokpiškis, “Jesus
CHAPTER XIV.
293
7. And he put forth a “parable to those that were
bidden (to sit down with him), when he marked how
they (the pharisees) chose out the chief rooms (at
feasts, on the account of their pretended wisdom), say-
ing to them, -
8 When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding
(or a marriage feast), sit not down in the highest room,
lest a more honourable man than thou be (also) bid-
den of him;
9 And (so) he that bade thee and him come and
say to thee, Give this man place; and thou begin
with shame to take the lowest room.
10 But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in
the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh,
he may say to thee, Friend, go up higher: then “shalt
thou have worship (i.e. honour) in the presence of
them that sit at meat with thee.
11 For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased;
and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted (both
by God and man). -
12 Then said he also to him that bade him, When
thou makest a "dinner or supper (do it not from a
prospect of an invitation by way of recompence; and
therefore ordinarily) call not thy friends, northy bre-
thren, neither thy kinsmen, northy rich neighbours;
lest they also bid thee again, and (so) a recompence
be made thee. -
13 But when thou makest a feast (do it out of
charity to the needy : and therefore) call the poor, the
maimed, the lame, the blind:
14 And thou shalt be blessed; for (ěrt that) they
(are called by thee, who) cannot recompense thee: for
thou shalt be recompensed at the "resurrection of the
just.
15 And when one of them that sat at meat with
him heard these things, he said to him, "Blessed is he
that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God (i. e. that
shall partake of the pleasures and enjoyments of the
kingdom of the Messiah).
16 Then (to convince him that the generality of the
Jews were, for their unbelief, to be eacluded from that
kingdom) said he to him (by way of parable), A *cer-
tain man made a great Supper, and bade many :
17 And sent his servant at supper-time to say to
them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now
ready (as God sent first the Baptist to invite the Jews,
and then the apostles, and seventy disciples, to tel/
them the kingdom of God was at hand, and to persuade
them to enter into it).
18 And they all with one consent began to make
excuse. (For) the first said to him, I have bought a
piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it: I
pray thee have me excused. -
19 And another said, I have bought five yoke of
answering,” with relation to that action, Saith, “Suffer ye so
far,” Luke xxii. 52; so Peter answers, not to what he had
heard, but to what he had seen, Matt. xvii. 4 ; so Elisabeth
answers, without being spoken to, the discourse of the women
about the name of her son, Luke i. 60 ; and the angel an-
swers to the fear of the women, Matt. xxviii. 5; and the
high-priest to Christ's silence, “I adjure thee to tell us,”
Matt. xxvi. 63; and St. John the evangelist to Christ's
words, “He that receiveth you receiveth me;—Master, we
saw one cast out devils in thy name,” &c. Mark ix. 38.
* Wer. 7. "EAeys 83 ºrpèg rctic zskxmºśvov; Tragašºv, &c.
And he put forth a parable to them that were bidden, when
he marked how they chose out the chief rooms.] i. e. Christ
being in the house of a prince of the pharisees (ver. 1), and
observing how solicitous they were to choose the upper rooms
on the account of their reputed wisdom, because Solomon
had said (Prov. iv. 8), “Exalt wisdom,” as Dr. Lightfoot
here shows ; that he might cure this swelling pride in them,
and teach them humility (ver. 11), he propounds this para-
ble, as it is fitly called, according to the definition of a pa-
rable by the Greeks: that it is ºrp30.ect: Špºoloºwartz; #mri crapn-
veſ, röy iroketºvoy, “a comparative resemblance of things,
for the illustration of what is spoken of;” or, as Phavorinus,
7ragaranaiov weayº.4 row TragáSea ic, “a collation of things re-
sembling each other.” This parable being taken from a like
example of a nuptial banquet.
* Ver. 10. Tóts #arat cot 3%a, Then shalt thou have ho-
nowr in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee.]
i. e. This will ordinarily be the result of thy humility ; and
though it ought not to be eur chief design in any virtuous
action, yet hence it follows, that this may be one motive to
the performance of such actions (Phil. iv. 8).
* Ver. 12. "Oray Troiſ; #gic row, § 38; rvoy, &c. When thow
makest a dinner, or a supper, call not thy friends and thy
brethren, &c., but call the poor, the maimed.] Some think
Christ speaks here of the sacred banquet made by the Jews
on their peace-offerings and other feasts, to which they are
bid to “call the poor, the widow, and the Levite,” Dout.
xiv. 29 ; but this seems a mistake ; for Christ speaks not
of any special stated feast, but of such banquets as he was
then at: nor hath he one word of the widow and the Levite,
who were to be guests there, but of the blind, the lame, the
maimed, of which the law saith nothing; nor doth he say,
“For this the JLord shall bless thee upon earth,” as Deut.
xiv. 29, but “Thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection
of the just.”
Note, Secondly, that Christ doth not absolutely forbid us
to invite our friends, our brethren, or kinsfolk, to testify our
mutual charity and friendship, and how dear our relations
are to us; only he would not have us invite them, out of a
prospect of a compensation from them again ; but to prefer
the exercising our charity to them who cannot recompense
us. As comparative particles are sometimes in Sense nega-
tive (see the notes on Mark xv. 11. John iii. 19), so negative
particles are oft in sense only comparative ; Prov. viii. 10,
“Receive my instructions, 98T, and not (that is, rather than)
silver:”. Joel ii. 13, “Rend your hearts, 58), and not (i. e.
rather than) your garments:” John vi. 27, “Labour not for
the meat that perisheth, but for that which endureth’ &c.
(see Exod. xvi. 19. Prov. xvii. 12. Jer. vii. 22, 23). So here,
&# pºvet, Be not so much concerned to call thy friends, as
to call the poor. Nor,
Thirdly, Doth he lay upon us a necessity by this precept
to call the lame, the blind, or maimed, to our tables, but
either to do this, or what is equivalent to us in respect of
charge, and more advantageous to them and their families,
viz. to send them meat or money to refresh them at home.
Note also, that Dion Chrysostomus,” who flourished in the
time of Trajan, seems to have taken this observation hence,
That “they did &vexev%;w; ºrgårtesy tº regi roi; £évov; roi;
Trávnºraç, act sordidly as to poor strangers, who did ºvovº rowc
Traovaiov, Ütroëixed-9at £evisiº, was 3&gois, Trag & 3%aoy ºr xat
airoi trgocrešázow rºy ia-wy Hyruxsiv, entertain the rich only
friendly, with their hospitalities and gifts, from whom they
expected to receive as much again.”
6 Ver. 14. 'Avraºroë00%a-erai cot #y rā āvaa-ráael, Thou shalt
be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.] See here
the time of recompensing even those works of charity which
are most acceptable to God, and for which we are chiefly to
be rewarded at the great day (Matt. xxv. 34).
7 Wer. 15. Maxágio", &c. Blessed is he who shall eat bread
in the kingdom of God..] It appears from the ensuing pà-
rable, that “the kingdom of God” here doth not signify “the
kingdom of heaven” in the highest sense, but only the king-
dom of the Messiah, of which the carnal Jew here speaks
according to the received sense of his nation, as of a glorious
temporal kingdom, in which the Jews should lord it over the
gentile world, enjoy their wealth, and be provided with all
temporal blessings and delights, in which they placed their
happiness. O
* Ver. 16. A certain man made a great supper, &c.] We
are called of God, saith Philo, + to partake of a banquet -
* Orat. 7.
+ Ei, we'rovalay Şoivnº, oiz is ai Yazºº; hèoval tripwºrxapašvr:
~3 cºp, a triałyovery, 3xx' 34’ fic 84,0ia i-respoºftºn Kał #yxºsſ-
caza &geraſ; 3,382, re zai sãºgai, etc. De Sacr. Abel.. et Cain.
p. 104, B.
294,
LUKE.
oxen, and I go to prove them; I pray thee have me
excused.
20 And another said, I have married a wife, and
therefore I cannot come (i. e. they either out of great
love to the pleasures or the advantages of this world re-
jected the kind invitation).
21 So that servant came, and showed his lord
these things. Then the master of the house being
angry (that they, who were so lovingly invited, would
not come), said to his servants (the apostles sent with a
jresh commission after Christ’s resurrection to go to
Judea, and the dispersions of the Jews, Acts i. 8, say-
ing), Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the
city, and bring in hither the poor and maimed, the
º and the blind (i. e. the gentiles and the dispersed
€wS).
22 And the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou
hast commanded, and yet there is room (for more
guests).
23 And the lord said to the servant, Go out into
the highways and hedges (i. e. to the heathen nations),
ºpe them to come in, that my house Inay be
lled.
24 For I say unto you, That none of those men
that are bidden (and refuse to come) shall taste of my
supper (i. e. enjoy the blessings of my kingdom).
25 And there went great multitudes with him ; and
he turned, and said to them, *
26 If any man come to me, and "hate not his fa-
ther, and mother, and wife, and children, and bre-
thren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also (i. e. if
he prefers not my service before all these), he cannot
be my disciple.
27 And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and
come after me (i. e. that will not obey me, and suffer
any hardship for my sake), cannot be my disciple.
“not which shall satiate us with the pleasures of the belly,
and fatten the body; but with which the mind being nou-
rished, and leaping for pleasure, rejoiceth, and is glad.” See
the exposition of this parable, Matt. xxii. 1, 2.
* Ver. 23. Kai &váyxacoy starex$ãº, And compel them to
come in..] How vainly these words are brought to prove that
men may be compelled, by the secular arm, to embrace the
true faith, appears (1.) from the nature of a banquet, to
which no man is compelled by force, but only by the impor-
tunity of persuasion, and from which no man's business doth
by force restrain him, but only by the inconvenience of attend-
ing on it; and yet one of the guests saith, ver. 18, Äyāykºy #xw,
“I am compelled to be absent.” (2.) From the scope of the
parable, which respects the calling of the gentiles, which
only Mahometans think fit, by force of arms, to compel to
the faith. We do, &vaykášew, compel not only by example,
but by exhortation, Mark vi. 25. Luke xxiv. 29, as here : and
Christ, saith Theophylact, here not only commands them to
call, but to compel them, “though it be free to every one to
believe, that we may learn, ºri weyāAnç rot, Otoč buyáp.ed; art
~3 triartºral tă #8wn, that it is the work of God's great power
to make the gentiles believe” (see the note on Gal. ii. 14,
and Grotius here, and xxiv. 29).
* Ver, 26. If any come to me, kal od giveſ, and hate
vot his father and mother, &c..] It being impious to hate fa-
*her or mother, wife or children, and impossible to hate
ourselves (Eph. v. 29), to hate here can only signify com-
paratively, viz. to love them less than God; and therefore
what is here, “and hateth not father and mother,” is Matt.
x. 37, “and loveth father and mother more than me :” for
what we love less, we are comparatively said to hate, as in
the case of God and mammon, Matt. vi. 24. So iºtasſro
Asia, “ Leah was hated,” Gen. xxix. 31. 33. Now Leah
Surely was not hated by good Jacob, but loved less than
Rachel (see note on Rom. ix. 13).
* Ver. 28. Tí, yā; # tºy, Séamy répyov oizoSoºſzal, &c.
For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not
down first, and counteth the cost 2 Wer. 31. What king
going to war, consulteth no! first whether he be able 2) Two
28 (Consider therefore well of these things before
you enter on a Christian life : ) for which of you, in-
tending to *build a tower sitteth not down first, and
counteth the cost whether he have sufficient to finish
it 2
29 Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation,
and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to
mock him,
30 Saying, This man began to build and was not
able to finish (his building ; so before we enter on a
Christian life, we should sit down and consider seriously
what it will cost us to be indeed Christians, and whether
we be stedfastly resolved to do and suffer all that
Christianity requires).
31 Or what king, going to make war against an-
other king, sitteth not down first and consulteth
whether he be able with ten thousand, to meet him
that cometh against him with twenty thousand?
32 Or else, while the other is yet a great way off,
he sendeth an embassage, and desireth conditions of
peace.
33 So likewise, whosoever he be of you that (en-
gageth not so manfully in his Christian warfare against
sin, Satan, and the world, that when I call him to
it, he) *forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be
my disciple.
34 *Salt is good (i. e. a Christian life is very advan-
tageous); but if the salt have lost his savour (if the
Christian apostle and professor hath lost his Christian
conversation), wherewith shall it be seasoned (i. e.
what can be used farther to recover him)?
35 It is neither fit for the land, nor yet for the
dunghill; but men cast it out (i.e. such an unsavoury
Christian can neither do good to himself nor others).
He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
things do usually hinder men from embracing that narrow
way which leadeth to eternal life ; (1.) The difficulties of
the duties positively required of all Christians; viz. the
love of enemies, requiring us not only to forgive their in-
juries “from the heart,” but also “to overcome their evil
with our good:” the reparation of any injury done to an-
other in his good name or fortunes, not only by begging his
pardon, but by restoring what we got injuriously, and en-
deavouring to repair his credit ; the restraining of the tongue
from all evil speaking, and uncharitable censures, and of
our appetites from all carnal desires, the exact government
of our passions, and the moderation of our affections to
all worldly things; a heart restrained by the fear of God
from doing evil, and constrained by the love of him to
yield sincere obedience to his holy laws. (2.) The great-
ness of the temptations we must resist, and of the injuries
and losses we may suffer, by persevering in this way, from
the violent assaults of Satan, and the continual solicitations
of the flesh, the examples and allurements of the world,
the persecutions of it, the loss of all things, and even
life itself. Christ therefore by these resemblances adviseth
us, before we enter on this Christian life, aeriously to con-
sider of and weigh these things, to form within us the
most stedfast resolutions to perform the one, and arm
ourselves with fortitude and patience against the other,
that so we may not afterward be moved by them to depart
from it. -
* Ver. 33. So likewise, whosoever he be of you, 36 otz àmo-
Táccera. Trāat roſ; Havrot imépxovaty, who forsaketh not all that
he hath, &c.] Christ doth not here require that we should
actually renounce these things, for then we must renounce
even life itself (ver. 26), but that our heart and our affec-
tions should be so taken off from them, that we do always
love them less than him, and that we, in preparation of
mind, be always ready to part with them when we cannot
keep them, without making “shipwreck of faith, and a good
conscience.”
* Ver. 34. Kaºy to 3xas, &c. Salt is good; but if the
salt hath lost its savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned J
CHAPTER XV.
295.
This excellently connects with the discourse preceding, thus: |ing to the prescripts of the gospel, can do no good to him-
The gospel I require you to adhere to, is that salt with
which every oblation that is acceptable to God must be sea-
soned (Mark ix. 48, 49); the preachers of it are the salt of
the earth (Matt. v. 13). As then salt, when it hath lost its
savour, becomes good for nothing, but to be cast out into the
dunghill: so the Christian professor, who lives not accord-
self or others; and if he fall off from it, can hardly be recovered
(Heb. vi. 6. x. 27). When Mr. Le Clerc and others object
against this comparison or similitude, that salt cannot lose
its savour, they consider not, that in the boiling up of the
saline particles, of which salt is made, there is left a caput
mortuum, which is insipid.
CHAPTER XV.
1 THEN drew near to him *all the publicans and
sinners to hear him.
2 And the pharisees and scribes murmured, saying,
This man (now) receiveth sinners, and (at other times)
eateth with them.
3 And (upon this murmuring) he spake this parable
to them, saying, -
4 What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he
lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine
in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until
he find it 2 %
5 And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his
shoulders (and returns home with it), rejoicing.
6 And when he cometh home, he calleth together
his friends and neighbours, saying to them, Rejoice
with me; for I have found my sheep that was lost:
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XV.
* Wer. 1, 2. "Ha'ay 3; #yyićoyrs; air; Trávre; oi rexãval, was
oi śpiapraſadi, &Koſsly airoi. Kai Sisyáyyvºoy of pagidaioi, &c.
Then drew near wºnto him all the publicans and sinners to
hear him. And the pharisees and scribes murmured, saying,
This man receiveth sinners, &c.] For the better under-
standing of these three parables, note,
First, That publicans, gross sinners, and heathens, were
by the scribes and pharisees judged unfit to be conversed
with, even though it were with a design to reduce them from
their evil courses, they thinking God had cast off the care of
them, and had no design to grant them repentance unto life;
whence they abhorred their company, as thinking it a defile-
ment to be touched by them, and never would concern them-
selves to make them better, and were offended that our
Lord was thus employed, Matt. ix. 11. Luke v. 30. Acts x.
28. xi. 18, 19. Note,
Secondly, That publicans and heathens, sinners and hea-
thens, are joined usually together, as being accounted per-
sons of the same desperate wickedness, and equally unwor-
thy to be conversed with, as in those words of Christ, Matt.
v. 46, 47, “Do not even publicans the same P’ or, as other
copies read, of £6vikoi, “Do not heathens do the same P”
which in Luke vi. 33, 34, is, “Do not oi & wagºraſaol, sinners
do the same P” and Matt. xviii. 17, “If he refuse to hear
the church, let him be to thee as a heathen and a publican;”
and in those words of St. Paul, Gal. ii. 15, “We that are
Jews by nature, and not sinners of the gentiles.” That they
thought God took no care of the gentiles, is evident from the
words of Esdras, saying to God, “Thou hast said they are
nothing, but are like unto spittle, and hast counted the abun-
dance of them as a drop falling from a vessel,” 2 Esd. v. 56,
57; and the prayer of Mordecai, “Lord, give not thy scep-
tre to them that are not,” Esther xiv. 11 (see note on 1
Cor. i. 28). Hence the converted Jews at first preached not
to them, as judging it unlawful to “go in unto,” or con-
verse with the uncircumcised (Acts x. 28), and wondered
that God should give the gentiles “repentance unto life"
(Acts xi. 18, 19), and only would converse with them when
they showed a willingness to be made proselytes to their re-
ligion. Some, therefore, here do think, that the word sinners
here may signify the gentiles, which will be more probable,
if Christ were then beyond Jordan, as they collect from John
x. 40, or in Galilee of the gentiles, from whence we find him
going to Jerusalem, Luke xyii. 11, otherwise, it will not
be so easy to discern how all the gentiles should draw nigh
to hear him, or he should be eating with them, ver, 12.
Note,
(now this is a just resemblance of the joy of God for
the conversion of a sinner; for)
7 I say to you, That likewise”joy shall be in heaven
over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety
and nine just persons, which need no repentance (i.e.
no conversion from a life of sin to that of holiness).
8. Either what woman, (is there), having ten pieces
of silver, (who), if she lose one piece, doth not light a
candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till
she find it :
9 And when she hath found it, she calleth her
friends and her neighbours together, saying, Rejoice
with me; for I have found the piece that I had lost :
(now this is a just resemblance of the joy of God at the
recovery of a lost soul; for)
10 Likewise, I say to you, There is joy in the pre-
Thirdly, That these parables, and especially the last, are
designed against the scribes and pharisees, who thought so
abjectly of publicans and sinners, and so perversely of the
whole gentile world ; and to convince them of their inhu-
manity, and show them that their deportment was very alien
from God's merciful inclination to them, and that they ought
not to be unmerciful to them to whom God was so well in-
clined to show mercy, or deny their charity to them to whom
he was ready to afford it: for he spake this parable to them,
saying, “Which of you ?” ver. 3, 4.
* Ver. 7. Ośro, Xapi. #arat #y tº oigavà, &c. So joy shall
be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, see note on
ver. 10, h iri śweynzoytasyyāa śikaiotç, of rive; vi. xºeiav #xovat
Kºstavoias, more than over ninety and nine just persons,
who need no repentance.] Here note, that his here put for
patiaxoy h, as usually it is both in the Old and New Testa-
ment, and in profane writers: So Gen. xxxviii. 26, 388tzaiorat
Oakwäe # #y&, “Thamar hath been more righteous than I;”
Ps. cxviii. 8, &yaôy #Ariſely Étri Kugiº, º, “It is better to trust
in the Lord than in princes;” 1 Cor. xiv. 19, “In the church
I would speak five words, so as to teach others, ºvgiovº,
rather than ten thousand in an unknown tongue:” So Luke
xviii. 14. See Stephanus giving examples of this from Homer,
Aristotle, Diogenes Laertius, and St. Chrysostom. Note,
Secondly, That there being no person in the world so
just, as absolutely to need no repentance ; because there
never was a person in the world, besides our Saviour, who
“did righteousness, and sinned not ;” the best of men being
subject to some faults and infirmities, of which they stand
obliged to repent: that our Lord may not here be thought
to have supposed a case that never was, let it be observed,
that the repentance of a sinner usually imports an entire
change in the whole course or tenor of his life, from the ser-
vice of sin to the service of God, from yielding obedience
to it in the lustings of it, to “yielding our members instru-
ments of righteousness unto holiness;” and this is the re-
pentance of the sinner mentioned in the text ; and in this
sense it is manifest the righteous person, or new creature;
needeth no repentance. (2.) There is a repentance, which
consists in a godly sorrow, for the particular failings and in-
firmities we may have committed through surprise, a sudden
fear, a violent temptation, or a single deviation from the
general course and tenor of our lives; such was that of
David and St. Peter, and the humiliation of good Hezekiah
“for the pride of his heart:” and in this sense it is not to be
thought that in this state of imperfection and continual con-
flict we have with the flesh, there should be any righteous
person who needs no repentance. And this interpretation
T prefer before that of St. Ambrose, Hilary, and Chrysos-
296
LUKE.
sence of the * angels of God over one sinner that
repenteth.
11 And he said (also by way of parable to the same
purpose), A “certain man had two sons:
tom, who, by the ninety and nine sheep not lost, and the
ninety-nine persons who need no repentance, understand
the holy angels that fell not ; by the lost sheep all mankind
lost in Adam, whom to recover the Son of God became
incarnate, and in the gracious work of our redemption,
brought him home upon his shoulders; the joy in heaven
for his returning is, say they, the joy of God, and of his
holy angels for the recovery of lost mankind ; in which
sense the words are strictly true, the holy angels need no
repentance, because they never fell from their obedience.
And this interpretation was so generally approved in the
church, that in Tertullian’s “ time it was appealed to as
a proof of it, that “in the bottom of their sacramental
cups, Christ was engraven carrying the lost sheep upon
his shoulders.” -
Thirdly, It is inquired with what reason it can be said,
“There is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repent-
eth, than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no re-
pentance:” for is it not better motto offend, than to sin and re-
pent 2 Is not innocence better than amendment P And if
repentance be not better than righteousness, why is there
more joy in heaven over the penitent than over the righte-
ous? Yea, why over one penitent sinner, than over ninety-
nine just persons?
Now to this some answer, according to the forementioned
opinion of the ancients, that the lost sheep, returning prodi-
gal, and the “one sinner that repenteth,” comprehend all
mankind redeemed from a state of misery by Christ ; now
this may fitly be represented as matter of the greatest joy
to God, and the whole court of blessed angels, they being
represented as stooping down to look into this mystery, 1
Pet. i. 12, and learning from the church “the wisdom of
God in it,” Eph. iii. 10, and therefore, in this sense, do
doubtless know and rejoice in our redemption. (2.) Others
answer, that the sheep not lost, the ninety-nine righteous
persons, and the elder son, who said he never had offended.
represent the Jewish nation, and especially those scribes and
pharisees, who trusted in their own righteousness, and de-
spised others (see Matt. ix. 12): the lost sheep and return-
ing prodigal represent the gentile world, which, by the
preaching of the gospel, were to be converted to the
Christian faith. Now, the church of the gentiles being more
numerous than was that of the Jews, “the desolate having
more children than she that had a husband,” her conversion
may fitly be represented as a matter of the greatest joy.
Against these expositions this visible objection may be
made, that whereas the righteous are here represented as
ninety-nine, the penitent as one single person, these expo-
sitions make them equal to, if not more numerous than, the
righteous. But to this it is answered, that in the parables
of the gospel, it is usual to represent all of the same kind,
though they be sometimes the greater number, by one man.
Thus, in the parable of the wedding-supper, the man that
had not on his wedding-garment, represents, according to
most interpreters, all wicked men, and in our Lord's intention
it importeth the whole race of unbelieving Jews, Matt. xxii.
11; the slothful person, who hid his talent in a napkin, is
represented as one man, Matt, xxv.24, they who improved
their talents as three persons; and yet who knows not but
there are fewer that improve, than they who do receive
the grace of God in vain 2 and all that came in at the
last hour, and received their penny, that is, all the con-
verted gentiles, are reckoned as one man in those words of
Christ, “I will give #axáro rotºro, to this last man even as
to thee" (Matt. xx. 14).
But that which is principally to be considered for the full
clearing of this difficulty is this, viz., that this passage of
our Lord being spoken of God after the manner of men, is
to be understood after the manner of men, or suitably to
the nature of human passions, and the usual occasions of
moving them. Now we are much affected with the obtain-
ing what we have long and passionately desired, with the
* Procedant ipsie picturae calicum vestrorum, si vel in illis
perluccbit interpretatio. Dic mihi nonne omne hominum
genus unius Dei grex cst 2 De Pudic, cap, 7.
regaining that which we have looked upon as almost lost and
desperate, with the security of that which we looked upon
as in imminent danger; at the first obtaining what we pas-
sionately desired, regaining what we looked upon as lost,
Securing what was in great danger, our joy is strong, and
our delight transporting; and afterward it sensibly abates.
So it is with us, that we are not so sensibly moved with the
continuance of a good which we have long enjoyed, as at the
first recovery of it, after it was lost ; we may have still a
real value for what we do possess, a settled pleasure and
contentment in it, but the sudden joy and transport is at the
recovery of it. So a continued course of goodness may in
itself he most valuable, and yet the recovery of a lost sin-
ner, the reviving of one dead in trespasses and sins, the see-
ing him snatched as a firebrand out of the fire, when he was
ready to fall into it, may be the more affecting, and give us
a more fresh and lively joy. Thus, v. g. it cannot but be
comfortable to a loving father, to see his children in a state
of perfect health; but if one of them fall sick, and beyond
expectation of recovery, to see him out of danger minis-
ters more present joy, than doth the constant health of alk
the rest. And this is the reason given in the parable of the
prodigal son, why the kind father rejoiceth more at his re-
turn, than at the continuance of his elder brother always
with him ; that it was the recovery of one given over for
dead; the finding one looked upon as lost : “It is meet,’
Saith the father, “upon this occasion that we should make
merry: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again ;
was lost, and is found.” Our Saviour, therefore, to encour-
age the repentance of the sinner, represents God after the
manner of men, as if he did conceive such a joy at it, as
earthly parents are wont to do at the return of a wild extra-
vagant child to himself and his duty.
* Ver. 10. Otro Aéyò iº.ſy, xagg yíveral yártov rôw 3,78-
Xay, &c. J.ikewise, I say unto you, There is joy in the pre-
sence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.]
Hence most interpreters conclude, that the angels and
blessed spirits are acquainted with the conversion of a sin-
ner; and seeing true conversion is wrought in the heart,
hence the Romanists infer, that they must have knowledge
of that also. But,
First, Here is not one word of blessed spirits, but of
angels only; and whereas papists argue for an equality of
knowledge in them to that of angels, because it is said “they
are as the angels of heaven,” Matt. xxii. 50, I answer,
Christ doth not say they are equal to angels now, but at the
resurrection they shall be so. Nor doth he say this abso-
lutely, or as to the faculties of their souls, but as to their free-
dom from secular actions and passions, and as to the state
and condition of their bodies ; for so the text runs, “They
that are counted worthy of the resurrection neither marry
nor are given in marriage, neither can they die any more ;”
i. e. they are equal to the angels as to immortality, “and
are the children of God, being the children of the resurrec-
tion” (Luke xx. 35, 36).
Secondly, This text affirms not, that the joy here men-
tioned, is the joy of angels, but only that it is the joy of
God, #yżarow rôy &yyáAoy, before, or in the presence of the
angels, which stand continually, before his face. Now as an
earthly king may rejoice before his court, and they know not
the special motive of his joy, so may the King of heaven
rejoice before the angels of his presence, and they know not
the reason of that joy, and much less the particular con-
vert that gave occasion to it. In a word, it is confessedly
God, who is compared to the shepherd, seeking his lost
sheep, and to the father rejoicing for the return of his prodi-
gal son ; and therefore the similitude requires, that the joy
conceived when a lost sheep is found, or a prodigal son
comes home, should be ascribed to him.
Note also, That this consideration should inflame the zeal,
and quicken the industry, of the spirituál shepherd for the
conversion of sinners, as knowing this is a work so highly
acceptable to the God of heaven, and that for which he sent
the “great Shepherd of the sheep” into the world.
* Ver. I 1. "Ayşpwºré, ric fixe 360 violic, A certain man.
Had two sons.] Here observe, (1.) that the elder son in this
CHAPTER XV.
: 29:
12 And the younger of them said to his father,
Father, "give me the portion of goods that falleth to
me. And he divided to them his living (i. e. gave him |
the portion allotted for the livelihood of his younger son).
13 And not many days after, the younger son ga-
thered all (his estate) together, and took his journey
into a far country, and there wasted his substance
with riotous living.
14 And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty
famine in that land; and he began to be in want.
15 And he went and joined himself to a citizen of
that country (to become his servant) ; and he sent him
into his fields to feed swine.
16 And he would fain have filled his belly with the
husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave to
him (enough to satisfy his hungry appetite). -
[Now here the younger son represents the gentiles
gone far off from God their Father, Eph. ii. 13, living
in riot and drunkenness, 1 Pet. iv. 3, and committing
whoredom with idols, against the light of their reason,
Rom. i. 20, 21, labouring under a famine of the
word, and employed in the vilest drudgery by sin and
Satan, in which no satisfaction can be found.]
17 And when he came to himself (i. e. to consider
his own miserable state), he said, How many hired
servants of my father's have bread enough and to
spare, and I (am ready to) perish with hunger
18 I will arise and go to my father, and will say te
him, Father, I have sinned against (the God of) hea-
ven, and before thee (by departing from thee), -
19 And am no more worthy to be called thy son.
make me as one of thy hired servants: (and this repre-
sents the case of a penitent sinner; considering his pre-
sent misery, his vileness and unworthiness, humbly ac-
knowledging his sin to God, resolving on amendment of
life, and actually returning to God, as many of the
gentiles did, when the gospel was preached to them.)
20 And he arose, and came to his father. But
when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him,
and had compassion (on him), and ran, and fell on his
neck, and kissed him. -
21 And the son said to him, Father, I have sinned
against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more
worthy to be called thy son.
22 But the father said to his servants, Bring forth
the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on
his hand, and shoes on his feet (in token that I own
him as my beloved son):
23 And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it;
and let us eat, and be merry:
parable representeth not the just or righteous; for they are
not angry, either that sinners do return to God, or that he
graciously entertains them when they do so, but rather are
industrious to bring them home to him, and rejoice at their
return: he rather represents the Jews murmuring, and being
angry, that the gentiles, who before were, waxgåy &nd roſ,
©eoû, “far off from God” (Eph. ii. 13), were by faith, with-
out circumcision, or obedience to their law, brought “nigh to
him,” and made partakers of the same privileges God offered,
or afforded to them. The gentiles are represented as the
younger son going into a far country, as being “far from
God,” and squandering away their goods by riotous living,
as depraving that knowledge they had of the true God,
from tradition and his marvellous works, by gross idolatry,
on which account the Jews represented them as born of
harlots (see note on John viii. 41, as here, ver. 30), and
serving them, “which, by nature, were no gods, by holding
the truth in unrighteousness,” and giving up themselves to
all uncleanness (Eph. iv. 19); yea, labouring under a famine
of the word of God, and of his saving truth, and giving up
themselves to the meanest services, such as that of keeping
of hogs was deemed by the Jews and the Egyptians, who
suffered not such to come into their temples, or sacred
houses; they having now, through Christ, “access unto the
Father,” being adorned with the wedding-garmont of faith,
and the robe of righteousness, fed with the banquet of
the true paschal lamb, and admitted to wear their Fa-
ther's ring, as a testimony that they were now his genuine
SO}}S.
Nor is it a sufficient objection against this, that the gen-
tiles were never sons before, or, if ever they were so, they
ymust be so before the Jews, and so the elder sons: for God
is not the God of the Jews only, but also of the gentiles, he
being the common Father of the world, and we being “all
his offspring ;” yea, they are called “the sons of God” be-
fore the flood, Gen. vi. 2, and were so afterward before the
name of Jew was known. And the Jews here represent the
elder son, because they being afterward abdicated for their
idolatry, God gave to the Jews the primogeniture, and styled
them his sons, and his “first-born” (Exod. iv. 22, 23), and
accordingly bestowed upon them the privileges of the first-
born, choosing them “above all nations” of the world.
If it be again objected, that this elder son saith, ver. 20,
“These many years have I served thee, and never trans-
gressed I at any time thy commandments,” which could not
be true of the Jews ; I answer, neither could they say, God
“never gave them a kid,” or treated them with the like
kindness, the gospel being first preached to them ; this
therefore only signifies their high conceit of themselves, that
they were righteous. And so much for the chief import of
the parable. To touch a little on some other circumstances
of it,
First, From those words, “He went into a far country,
and spent all his substance,” Theophylact notes, that he
who estrangeth himself from God, loseth all those seeds of
virtue and goodness, which either nature or revelation hath
implanted in him.
Secondly, From his being put to “feed swine ;” observe,
to what vile and sordid employments they are put, who
serve sin and Satan, -
Thirdly, From these words, “He would have filled his
belly with husks, but could not ;” observe, that there can
be no satisfaction to any man who wants the favour of God.
Fourthly, From those words, “When he came to him-
self;'' observe, that he who lives a sinful life is beside him-
self: for, being a rational creature, and having a judgment
and conscience to direct his actions, he acts against his rea-
son, his judgment, and his conscience.
Fifthly, From those words, “He arose, and went,” ver.
20, Theophylact notes, that it is not sufficient to make good
resolutions, saying, “I will go” (ver. 18), but we must prac-
tise suitably.
Sixthly, From those words, ver. 21, “His father seeing
him, ran to him ;” observe, that when God sees men truly
willing to return unto him, he is still ready to receive them,
and even prevent them with his grace. -
Seventhly, From those words, ver. 24, “This my son was
dead ;” observe, that wicked men are dead in the worst
sense: for, as Philo saith, “he that lives a sensual life,
T#Synxs rêv sièaipºova, is dead as to a happy life.”
Eighthly, From those words, “I’ather, I have sinned,”
ver. 21, spoken after the kindness of his father; note, that
after sin is pardoned, it becomes the sinner ingenuously to
acknowledge and confess it. -
Ninthly, As for the phrase, “I have sinned against hea-
ven and against thee,” it is a Jewish phrase, shamaim, as
Buxtorf says,” being frequently used to signify God. Ac-
cordingly they say, there is one who sins against earth (i. e.
man), but not against heaven (i. e. God); and there is one
that sins against heaven, but not against earth ; but he who
speaketh with an evil tongue, sins against heaven and earth.
Though Theophylact here saith, he had sinned against hea-
ven by preferring earthly things before heavenly.
5 Ver, 12. A3; two ro irrigéxxoy (afteo; rā; otolac, Give me
the portion of goods that falleth to me..]. So Demosthenes”
uses +3 irićáxxoy hºw ºftoº, for the portion allowed to us:
and Aristides, r3 rigáxxoy #' tºº ºftgoº, for the portion
that belongs to you (De Concord, ad Rhodios).
* Lex. Talm. p. 2440. ‘i Iſegi Ereğ.
298
LUKE.
24 For this my son was dead (in sin), and is alive
again : he was lost, and is found. And they began
to be merry: (and this is a lively representation of
God’s great love and mercy to sinners returning to him ;
forgetting all their former provocations, and treating
them, as soon as they began to break off their sins by
repentance, and to turn to him, with a most fatherly
affection, and with ea pressions of the greatest joy.)
25 Now his elder son was in the field (following
his father’s business); and as he came and drew nigh
to the house (of his father), he heard music and
dancing.
26 And he called one of the servants, and asked
(him) what these things meant (i. e. what was the
cause of all this mirth).
27 And he said to him, Thy brother is come; and
thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath
received him safe and sound. i
28 And he was angry (at the kindness showed by his
father to his younger brother), and would not go in (to
the house); therefore came his father out, and entreat-
ed him.
29 And he answering said to his father, Lo, these
many years I (have) serve (d) thee, neither transgress-
ed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou
never, gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with
my friends:
30 But as soon as this thy son was come (back to
thee), which hath devoured thy living with harlots
(committing spiritual whoredom), thou hast killed for
him the fatted calf.
31 And he said to him, Son, thou art ever with me,
and all that I have is thine; (in the first place the
blessing of the Messiah being first promised to the
Jews, and from them derived to others ; see treatise of
the Millennium, chap. 2. sect. 2.)
32 It was meet that we should make merry, and be
glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again;
and (he) was (as the) lost (sheep and piece of money),
and is found (by the great Shepherd of souls).
[Now this elder brother is a true emblem of the
Jews, and especially of the scribes and pharisees,
murmuring at God’s kindness to the sinners of the
gentiles, in admitting them after so long idolatry to
the blessings of the gospel, and to equal privileges with
them, without circumcision, and obedience to that law
of Moses, under which they had still lived; and re-
fusing to enter into the kingdom of God, and come
into the faith, by reason of the kindness God thus
showed to the gentiles. See note on Rom. xi. 28.]
CHAPTER XVI.
1 AND he said also to his * disciples, There was a
certain *rich man who had a steward; and the same
was accused to him, (it being said) that he had wasted
his goods.
2 And he called him, and said to him, How is it
(thou hast dealt with me) that I hear this of thee? give
(up) an account of thy stewardship; for thou mayest
be no longer (permitted to be) steward.
3 Then the steward said within himself, What shall
I do (to live?) for my lord taketh away from me the
stewardship: I cannot dig (for a livelihood); to beg
(for it) I am ashamed.
4 I am resolved what to do, that, when I am out of
the stewardship, they (whom I befriend) may receive
me into their houses.
5 So he called every one of his lord’s debtors unto
him, and said to the first, How much owest thou to
my lord?
6 And he said, A hundred measures of oil (i. e.
about a thousand gallons). And he said to him, Take
thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty.
7 Then said he to another, And how much owest
thou? And he said, A hundred measures of wheat.
And he said to him, Take thy bill, and write fourscore
(and likewise he said to the rest).
8 And the lord * commended the unjust steward,
because he had done wisely (i.e. he represented him as
one that acted according to the wisdom of this world;
and was so far worthy to be imitated by the children of
light, as to make this their chief care, when, by death,
they are removed from their stewardship, that they may
be received into everlasting habitations); for the chil-
dren of this world are in their generation wiser than
the children of light (more provident and deaterous to
provide for this life, than they are to provide for eter-
mity).
9 And I (likewise) say to you, * Make yourself
friends of the mammon of unrighteousness (i. e. make
such provisions for yourselves of those riches, which the
men of this world get by falsehood and injustice); that,
when ye fail, they may receive you (i.e. that, when you
die, ye may be received) into everlasting habitations.
10 He that is faithful in that which is least (i. e. in
the enjoyments of this world, so as to employ them in
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVI.
* Ver. 1. "Exeys 3: kai Trgö; row; (220m+3; atroij, And he
said also to his disciples.] i. e. Not only to the twelve, but
to those who followed him, attending on his doctrine, as did
the publicans and sinners (xv. 1).
* 'Av6;otré; rig #v traoûrio;, & sixey oixoyázov, &c. There
was a rich man who had a steward, and he was accused to
him as wasting his goods.] Kimchi on Isaiah xl. Saith,
“The fruits of the earth are like a table spread in a house ;
the owner of this house is God ; man in this world is, as it
were, the steward of the house, into whose hands his Lord
had delivered all his riches ; if he behave himself well, he
will find favour in the eyes of his Lord ; if ill, he will re-
move him from his stewardship.” And so the scope of this
parable seems to be this, That we are to look upon our-
selves, not as lords of the good things of this life, so as to
get and use them at our pleasure, but only as stewards, who
must be faithful in the administration of them.
* Wer. 8. Kai in #v=asy & Köpio; roy oizoviaoy rā, śixiac, ºrt
£portpax: {troinaey, And the lord commended the unjust stew-
ard, that he had done wisely..] i. e. Discreetly, according to
*
the wisdom of the men of this world, whose concern is only
for the good things of this life; he commended him as we
do such persons, when we say, Such a one is a shrewd man
for the world, he understands well the way of dealing in it:
he commends him not absolutely, as a fit example to be fol-
lowed in this injustice, fraud, and wasting of his master's
goods, but comparatively, as being worthy to be so far imi-
tated by the children of light, as to make this their chief
concern, that when by death they are removed from their
stewardship, “they may be received into everlasting habita-
tions,” or into “a house not made with hands, eternal in the
heavens” (2 Cor. v. 1): this being an instruction needful for
them, because “the children of this world are wiser” in their
care to make provisions for themselves, “than are the chil-
dren of light ;” i. e. they who enjoy the light of the gospel,
to make provisions st; yeyev Šavröy, “for their age,” to secure
the true riches and the celestial habitations prepared for
them.
* Wer. 9. Kgyö, üºft Xàyo, "rothorate Éavroſ, pixovc in row
ºwagoyá rà; 3318iac, I say therefore unto you, Make to your-
selves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness.] That
“the mammon of unrighteousness” is the false mammon,
CHAPTER XVI.
299
works of charity, and to the ends for which he is in-
trusted with them) is faithful also in much (i.e. he will
be so in the great concernments of another life); and
(likewise) he that is unjust in the least is unjust also
in much. f
11 If therefore ye have not been faithful (stewards)
in (dispensing) the unrighteous mammon (or, the false
and deceitful riches of this world, to the uses for which
they were given you), who will (it is not to be eaſpected
God should) commit to your trust the true riches :
12 And if ye have not been faithful in that which
is (to be) * another man’s, who shall give you that
which is your own (i. e. that inheritance which shall
never pass from you to others.
13 And there is great reason to caution you against
that affection to the world which obstructs your love to
God; for) “no servant can serve two masters: for
either he will hate the one and love the other, or else
he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye
cannot (then) serve God and mammon (also).
14 And the pharisees also, who were covetous,
according to the common import of the word āśnia, for false-
hood, (of which see Jer. xxvii. 15. 29. 31, and the note on 1
Cor. xiii. 6] may be gathered from the “true riches” op-
posed to it, ver, 11. But then it remains to be inquired,
whether it be called here the mammon &Sixiaç, or “false
mammon,” because it deceives them who trust to, and seek
for, satisfaction from it, and comparatively to the “true
riches;” or else as the unjust steward is styled oixoyápºo,
d'êtriaç, wrijrast, because he betrayed his trust, and dealt
falsely with his master ; to which sense the preceding verse
and the parable seem plainly to direct, and the use of the
phrase mammon dishekar, in the Targumists, doth constrain
us to interpret it, as being usually put for gain gotten by un-
faithfulness to our trust, or falseness in the discharge of our
office. So of the sons of Eli it is said, that they had respect
to mammon dishekar, “the mammon of falsehood,” l Sam.
viii. 3, and xii. 3. Samuel inquires, From whose hand have
I received mammon dishekar 3 and, 2 Sam. xiv. 14, A just
judge will not receive mammon dishekar : so Prov. xv. 27,
He destroys his house who heaps up to himself “the mam-
mon of falsehood :” see to the same sense, Isa. v. 23. xxxv.
15. Ezek. xxii. 27. Hos. v. 11. Amos v. 12. But then,
whereas it is hence inferred, that our Lord here speaks of
making restitution of such goods, and spending some of the
remainder in acts of charity; which, when Zaccheus had re-
solved to perform, Christ saith, “This day is salvation come
to this house” (xix. 9); though this be a good sense, and fit
to be preached to those publicans and sinners who came to
attend upon his doctrine, yet it is not necessary; for Christ's
intendment may be only this, to advise his followers to be
, so far from getting wealth by such unfaithfulness and false-
hood as the men of the world do, as rather to expend what
providence hath entrusted them with, in acts of charity and
mercy, that so they may lay up for themselves treasures in
the heavens, or be received into heaven when they die: for
#xxeirely bears this sense in scripture. So Gen. xxv. 8, #x
»eirov &méSavºy A8eaëº, “Abraham gave up the ghost and
died;” Jer. xlii. 17, Éxasi-poval #y rfi foºpaiº, “They shall
die by the sword:” and ver. 22, #y Ataş #xxei Jers, “Ye
shall die by the pestilence ;" Wisd. v. 13, oftw; wai hºgſ,
yeyn&ivre; #5Aizopºv, “So we are born to die” (see Gen.
xxxv. 29. xlix. 33. Job xiii. 19. PS. ciii. 10. Isa. xxxviii. 12.
Jer. ix. 10. xliv. 12. 18. 27. Lam. i. 20. Zeph. i. 2, 3. Ps.
lxxiii. 19. lxxxix. 7. 9. ci. 4). Ašovrai tº 3c, “they may re-
ceive you,” is impersonally put for “you may be received:”
so Luke vi. 38, “Give, and 8&ovatv, it shall be given into
your bosoms;” xii. 20, rºw ºvzhy gou äraircía'iy, “Thy
soul shall be required.”
* Ver. 12. Kai ei iv tº 3xxorgiº tria roi own yávea 9e, r3 bºx{-
ºrseów rig taſy 8&oet, And if you have not been faithful in
that which is another's, who will give you that which is your
own 2) The eleventh verse seems to bear this sense: If
you have not been faithful in those temporal concerns,
which minister temptations to unrighteousness, but have
either sought to obtain them by fraud and unfaithful deal-
|
heard all these things: and they derided him (looking
on this as a ridiculous doctrine).
15 And (but) he said to them, Ye are they which
justify yourselves before men (i. e. seek to approve
yourselves to, and eaſpect to be owned by, them as righte-
ous persons) ; but God knoweth (the falsehood of) your
hearts: for that (fair outside) which is highly esteem-
ed among men (who see no farther) is (an) abomina-
tion in the sight of God, (who seeth the filth and hy-
pocrisy of your hearts.
16 Nor is it to be wondered that you hear these
higher precepts of charity from me and John ; for) the
"law and the prophets (which engaged you to do your
duty, chiefly by temporal promises) were until John :
since that time the kingdom of God (which promises
treasures in heaven) is preached, and every man (that
enters into that kingdom) presseth into it (i. e. forces
his way into it, by breaking through the love of tempo-
Tal concerns).
17 And (this I say not to depreciate the law, which
as to its moral precepts shall obtain for ever ; for) it
ings, when they have been committed to your trust, or by
“withholding more than is right,” or that which the great
Lord of them required you to expend upon his needy ser-
wants, how can you reasonably expect the true riches, which
are only promised to the upright and charitable person 2
And again: If you have been thus unfaithful in those things
which you cannot properly call your own ; because they
may, by various accidents, be devolved on, and must at last
be left to others, what reason have you to expect that which
is your own, as being the inheritance of the children of light,
and that which they arc to enjoy for ever? where the con-
cerns of this world are styled 3xxârpia, “things which belong
not to us;” because we have no assurance of the enjoyment
of them, and know that we must leave them to others; and
this is said agreeably to the philosophy of the heathens:
thus in Arrian the dying man is said tâ &AAórgia &mośval,
“to render up that which belongs to others,” lib. i. cap. 1,
and every one is bid, rà têia rmgeiy, rôy &XXorgioſy kº, &yºri-
Trotsia Sai, “to keep that which is in his power, and not de-
sire external things,” lib. ii. cap. 16, p. 215; and lib. iii. cap.
24, we are taught that “the things we may be hindered of,
or which may be taken from us, are rà axxârgia ; and so,”
Saith he, “are all those things which we must leave to others,
or restore them to God that gave them,” lib. iv. cap. 5: so
Hermas, lib. iii. sim, l, risi; rºy 3XNotpiay Étotºogey &ypobº,
oix080 wº;; “Why do we, who know the city in which we are
to dwell, prepare for ourselves fields, houses, &c., in another
city ? this being a sign that we expect not to return to our
own city, to the Jerusalem above ;” which is here styled by
St. Luke “our own,” by Hermas à Tréal; hºwäy, because pre-
pared for and promised to us Christians; here we are only
travellers, there is our city (Phil. iii. 20); here we are only
dispensers, there heirs; here we enjoy things for a season,
there for ever.
* Ver. 13. 'oïèsk oixárnº Sävatat 30ai Kupiot; Sovječew, &c.
No man can serve two masters, ye cannot serve God
and mammon.] The coherence of these words seems to
lie thus: I have just reason to caution you thus against
that affection to the world, which obstructs your charity,
and tempts you by fraud and falsehood to acquire it;
because it will not permit you to love God truly, or to be
faithful servants to him ; and whereas you covetous pha-
risees deride me for this doctrine (ver. 14), as thinking
yourselves highly favoured of God for other things, viz. your
long prayers, your washings, your exactness in paying tithes,
your niceness in observing your vain traditions, and your se-
paration from the men of the world, know, that however
you may think well of yourselves upon these accounts and
highly be esteemed of others, whilst ye continue covetous
and “full of rapine and uncleanness” (Matt. xxiii. 25), hy-
pocrisy and injustice (ver. 27), ye are abominable in the
sight of God. N
7 Wer. 16–18. ‘o yśwo; Kai oi reopirat #w; ‘Iwavyov, &c.
The law and the prophets were until John ; since that time
the kingdom of God is preached, and every one presseth
300
LUKE
is easier for heaven and earth to pass (away), than
(for) one tittle of the law to fail. (See Matt. v. 18.)
18 (And, to give you another instance of the sub-
limer precepts of the gospel, the law permits divorces,
but winder the gospel dispensation) whosoever putteth
away his wife, and mārrieth another, committeth
adultery (against her); and whosoever marrieth her
that is put away from her husband committeth adul-
tery, (as cohabiting with another man’s wife.
19 And, to show them the mischief of riches not
charitably employed, he told them, by way of parable,)
*There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in
ºple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every
ay;
20 And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus
(i.e. one without help), which was laid at his gate, full
of sores,
21 And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which
fell from the rich man’s table (but was denied them):
moreover the dogs (being more compassionate than the
rich man’s servants) came and licked his sores.
22 And it came to pass, that the "beggar died, and
was carried by the angels (who are ministering spirits
to good men) into Abraham’s bosom ; the rich man
also died, and was buried:
23 And in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in tor-
ments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in
his bosom.
24 And he "cried and said, Father Abraham, have
mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the
tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I
am tormented in this flame.
25 But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou
in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise
Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and
thou art tormented.
into il.] Here the coherence scems to run thus: It is not
to be wondered that you now hear, from John and me,
higher precepts of charity, and contempt of the world, than
you find in the law or prophets, who moved you to your
duty by the promises of temporal blessings in the land of
Canaan ; since now the kingdom of heaven is preached, and
every one that enters into it, forces his way by breaking
through the love of temporal concerns and sensual pleasures:
for, to give you another instance of like nature, whereas the
law admitted of divorces at the pleasure of the husband, by
reason of “the hardness of your hearts,” the gospel forbids
this now on any other score than that of fornication, which
from the nature of the sin dissolves the marriage; yet, that
you may not cavil at me as a dissolver of the law, I declare
that all the moral precepts of it shall obtain, and be of per-
petual obligation under the gospel dispensation.
* Ver. 19. "Av6;&vo, TXojato, ºv, There was a rich man,
&c.] That this is only a parable, and not a real history of
what was actually done, is evident, (1.) because we find this
Very parable in the Gemara Babylonicum, whence it is cited
by Mr. Sheringham, in the preface to his Joma. (2.) From
the circumstances of it, viz. the rich man's lifting up his eyes
in hell, and seeing Lazarus in Abraham's bosom, his dis-
course with Abraham, his complaint of being tormented with
flames, and his desire that Lazarus might be sent to cool his
tongue ; and if all this be confessedly parable, why should
the rest, which is the very parable in the Gemara, be ac-
counted history P As for the judgment of antiquity in this
case, they who owned this as a history, owned the whole so
to be, thinking the soul to be corporeal, as Tertullian did,
and that there was 8taqoba. Kará tê; ºp$3;, “some discre-
tion, or resemblance of men as to their shapes after death,”
which was the sentiment of Irenaeus,” proving from this very
instance, that souls, when they have put off the body, ” do
yet characterem corporum custodire, preserve the shape or
character of the body” to which they were united, as Tertul-
liant before from the same instance had inferred, effigiem
animaº, et corporales lineas, “the shape and corporeal linea-
ments,” and also corporalitatem animae. Much as Thespe-
sius+ returning to life represents rà rāy Juxāy x8%uara,
“the colours of souls,” and saith that there be ovaal zai
£43×atre; Étri rāy traffāv Škártov, “ulcers and scars of their
passions left upon them by which they are discerned ;”
whereas they who renounced these opinions, as false and ri-
diculous, declared that this was not a history, but only a re-
presentation, Ś “That after the separation of the soul from
the body, she could receive no advantage from any man,
and that it was foolish to think it a history;” and this they
also gather, because there was to be no future retribution
before the general resurrection. And whereas against this it
is objected, that the proper name Lazarus shows it to be a
* Ilib. iii. cap. 62.
: Plutarch. de his qui serö, p. 565.
§ IIagººoº, Kai Toivo, 3xx' olz & rig &yohiro, #y off, sity
wr:áygá ic ºrw ºn yeyová. Theoph. "Eart 33 to re; roº Aa34gov
Kai Toi Taouziou 31%) nºwa tºrorówoot; Aéyou 88ackaxiay #xpyro:
act wi. 359ac Bat (wari, rhy in roi; adºgato; #030y rºc Jºž; zará
ºf L. de An, cap. 7, 9.
history ; it is answered, that the name Lazer, being only the
contraction of Eliezer, is the same with Ani Achad, “a poor
man” in the Gemara, as being in sense #8&nSoc, “one that
hath no help,” or one who hath God only for his help.
Note,
Secondly, That though this parable contains something
suitable to the opinion of the Jews touching the state of
souls after death, yet doth it not respect their state immedi-
ately after death, but the punishments that wicked men are
to suffer after the resurrection of the dead, or év šaxárn
#2.Éeg, “at the last day,” saith Theophylact. For, as Cicero
says of the fables, by which the poets represent the punish-
ments of evil souls, that, corpora cremata cüm scirent, tamen
ea fieri apud inferos fingebant, quae sine corporibus mec fieri
possint, nec intelligi, “though they know their bodies have
been burnt, yet they do represent then suffering such things
in the infernal regions which neither can be done or suffered,
or even understood to be so without bodies:” so it is plainly
here in the forementioned instances produced to prove this
a parable.
* Ver. 22. ‘Eyáveto 3; 37:6ayāy Tºy Irvoxey, &c. And it
came to pass that the beggar died, and was carried by the
angels into Abraham’s bosom.] Here are two things said
agreeably to the tradition of the Jews touching good men,
which was, (1.) That their souls were in the garden of Eden,
in Paradise, or in Abraham’s bosom ; thus of R. Judah,
when he died, they say, “This day he sits in Abraham's bo-
som” (see Lightfoot on the place); and Josephus” saith of
good men, that they are gathered eiç traºrépoy X&pay, “to the
region of the patriarchs,” and that Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, do Trafaëxº~6at, “receive their souls.” (2.) That
they are carried thither by good angels; so the Targum on
Cant. iv. 12, saith, “No man hath power to enter into the
garden of Eden, but the just, whose souls are carried thither
by the hand of angels” (see Cartw. on Luke ii. 29, p. 2994).
They add, that, when evil men die, “the evil angels come
and say, There is no peace to the wicked : ” so Dr. Light-
foot here ; and in like manner Socrates’ſ in Phaed. Saith,
Aéyeral, “It is reported that as soon as any man dies, every
one's demon, whom he chose to himself whilst he lived,
brings him to a certain place where all are to be judged,
and then he goes to hades, ºxerê, hyepatro; #xsiyov (; Treorétax rat
row: #95,82 Łºsice Tropečeasat, with the governor to whom it
was appointed to bring them that depart hence to those
places.”
* Ver. 24. Kai atrö; polyharac ºre, Trávep ’Aggašp, #xéncév
£ce, And he cried and said, Pather Abraham, have mercy
on me..] As the Baptist taxeth their vain imaginations in
hoping to be preserved from divine judgments whilst they
lived, because they were “the children of Abraham ;” so
our Lord here may perhaps strike at a like imagination got
among them, that hell-fire had no power over the sinners of
Trºoyotáy 'rºyo. # a revöv & hexala; ºrw8; ruxsſy roi; 3,93%rovº.
Pseudo-Just. q. 63. Oire yūg Trpá rà; āyaa rāgāo), rày Éxactº
8:3top, #yov čvraºréSoot; yºveral. ibid. Theoph. ibid. Wide
Suicerum in vocc Aáćagog.
* De Maccab. p. 1097, 1102. + P. 30, B.
CHAPTE
R XVII. * 301
26 And besides all this, *between us and you there
is a great gulf fixed: so that they who would pass
from hence to you cannot ; neither can they pass to
us that would come from thence (i. e. good men have
all their evils, and bad men all their good things in
this life : and hereafter the happiness of the one, and
the misery of the other, will be unchangeable).
27 Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that
thou wouldest send him to my father’s house :
28 For I have five brethren; (and am desirous)
that he may testify to them (the happiness of the bless-
ed and the misery of the wicked), lest they also come
into this place of torment. -
29 And Abraham saith to him, They have Moses
and the prophets (to testify to them these things) ; let
them hear (and obey) them.
30 And he said, Nay, father Abraham (they pre-
vailed not with me, and therefore may not do so with
them) : but if one went to them from the dead, (I
suppose) they will repent.
31 And he said (again) to him, If they "hear (i. e.
obey) not Moses and the prophets, neither will they
be persuaded, though one rose from the dead (to
preach repentance to them : for he could come with no
greater authority, deliver no better motives to repent-
ance, and he could give them no greater assurance of
the truth of what he said than they did).
Israel, because Abraham and Isaac come down thither to
fetch them hence (see the note on Rom. ii. 13); declaring,
even from the mouth of Abraham, that no help was by
them to be expected from him, when they were in that
place.
* Wer. 26. Mgraft #439 zai tºwāv xào'º a pºéya #2 ràgiztat,
Betwixt us and you there is a great gulf fived, so that mone
can pass to us from thence.] The words seem plainly to re-
fute the opinion of Origen, that there would come a time
when the punishments of the wicked would have an end,
and they should at last live with God and his saints.
* Ver. 31. Ei Mooréo, kai rāy ºrpophtāy oëx &xočovrºv, &c.
If they hear not Moses nor the prophets, they would not be
persuaded though one rose from the dead..] “If they hear
not,” i.e. obey not, “Moses and the prophets,” whom they
own to be persons sent from God, and delivering his mes-
Sage, one rising from the dead would not persuade them to
break off their iniquities; for he could coine with no greater
authority than they did, he could deliver no other message
to the sinner than they had done, that if they turned not
from their evil ways they should die, and be obnoxious to
eternal shame and misery (Dan. xii. 2); he could give them
no more assurance of the truth of what he said, than did the
word of that God who cannot lie ; no reason therefore could
be conceived why they should hearken to one risen from
the dead, and calling them to repentance, rather than to
those prophets whom they acknowledged to be sent from
God. And of this we have a clear instance in the resurrec-
tion of our Lord from the dead; for of this they had the
testimony of our Lord’s predictions, of their own prophets,
of the guards that kept the sepulchre, of their own senses,
of the apostles, and five hundred witnesses, and all this con-
firmed by the miraculous effusions of the Holy Chost on
those that believed on him, and a continual throng of mira-
cles wrought in his name ; and yet all this was insufficient
to reclaim that wicked generation from their infidelity, and
to provoke them to repentance. The practical observations
made from this parable are,
First, That this rich man is not accused of getting riches
by injustice, but only of faring deliciously and luxuriously,
with the neglect of others oppressed with misery and want
before his, eyes. How then will many Christians escape the
same place of torments, who indulge in the same luxury and
carnal pleasures, and are as little touched with an affectionate
sense of the wants and miseries of others?
Secondly, That they who have their good things in this
life, i. e. that which they chiefly valued, pursued, and de-
lighted in whilst they lived here, are to expect no comfort,
nothing but evil, after death.
CHAPTER XVII.
1 THEN said he to his disciples, It is impossible
(through the unrestrained wickedness of men) but that
offences will come (i. e. things will be said and done
which will hinder some from embracing, and cause
others to fall off from the faith); but woe to him
through whom they come !
2 It were better for him that a millstone were hanged
about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he
should (thus) offend one of these little ones (that be-
lieve in me).
3 Take heed (therefore) to yourselves (that ye be
not guilty of any degree of this offence ; and therefore)
if thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and
if (upon this reproof) he repent, forgive him.
4 And if he trespass against thee seven times in a
day and seven times in a day turn again to thee, say-
ing, I repent (of what I have done against thee); thou
shalt (as oft} forgive him.
5 And the apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our
faith (that so we may be enabled to perform those duties
contrary to flesh and blood, or that we may more suc-
cessfully minister to the welfare of souls without of
fence).
6 And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of
mustard-seed, ye might say to this sycamine-tree, Be
thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in
the sea; and it should obey you (i. e. the least sincere
and active faith would enable you to do the most diffi."
cult thingsin order to the promotion of the Christian faith).
7 But (then) which of you, having a servant plough-
ing or feeding cattle, will say to him by and by, when
he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat 3
8 And will not rather say to him, Make ready
wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me,
till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou
shalt eat and drink
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVII.
* Ver. 5. II:6a-Sec ñºziv Tricºtty, Increase our faith..] In the
beginning of this chapter, our Lord requires his apostles to
be careful, that they do not offend one of his little ones;
secondly, to be so charitable to their offending brother, as to
rebuke him for his sins; and, thirdly, to pardon their
offending brother, though he should daily multiply his pro-
vocations, provided that he only say unto them, “I repent”
(ver. 4). Now these three duties of an inoffensive conversa-
tion, fraternal correction, and full forgiveness of a brother
daily multiplying fresh indignities and provocations, being
so difficult, and contrary to their natural inclinations, and
faith being the foundation of all Christian virtues, the apos-
tles, in order to the performance of these duties, beg the in-
crease of faith. Moreover, seeing faith is wrought in the
heart, which God alone can search, and can immediately
work upon, by thus repairing to Christ to increase their
faith, they must ascribe to him, as Woltzogenius here con-
fosseth, a divine virtue, which being proper to the Deity,
and incommunicable to a finite nature, must conscquently
show that Christ had in him a divine nature.
30%
LUKE.
9 Doth he thank that servant, because he did the
things that were commanded him? I trow not.
10 So likewise you, when ye shall have done *all
those things which are commanded you, say, We are
unprofitable servants: we have (only) done that which
was our duty to do: (i. e. whereas the performance of
the greatest things, which I your Master do require, may
seem to you a very eminent piece of service, know that
in obeying all my precepts, you only do the office of
good and faithful servants, obeying the commands of
your great Master as ye ought to do, and so must look
on the reward promised, not of debt but of grace.)
11 And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem,
that he passed through the "midst (or confines) of
Samaria and Galilee. -
12 And as he entered into a certain village, there
º him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar
Off :
13 And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus,
Master, have mercy on us (and heal us).
14 And when he saw them, he said to them, ‘Go
show yourselves to the priests, (as when a cure is
wrought the lepers are to do by the law, Lev. xiv. 2).
And it came to pass, that as they went, they were
cleansed. -
15 And one of them, when he saw that he was
* Ver. 10. Otºro, kai tºsſ, &ray ºrothrnre ºrávra rā Starax-
Bávra twiv, Aéysts, 3rt 805xo 4xegioi idºw, &c. So likewise
3you, when you have done all things that are commanded you,
say, that we are unprofitable servants, for we have done that
(only) which it was our duty to do..] Here Christ destroys
two doctrines of the schools, the merit of good works, and
works of supererogation. For (1.) we being in respect of
God unprofitable servants, (“for can a man be profitable to
God, as he that is wise may be profitable to himself? is it
any advantage to him that we are righteous, or is it gain to
him that we make our ways perfect?” Job xxii. 2, 3. “If thou
be righteous, what givest thou him, or what receiveth he at
thy hands P’ xxxv. 7, seeing thy goodness reacheth not him,
Ps. xvi. 2) sure we cannot merit from him by doing that
which is unprofitable to him : (2.) because we only can do
that, which it is our duty to perform ; for (1.) we are all
God's servants: now it being the duty of a servant to do all
his master's pleasure, and what he had declared to be grate-
ful to him, and this being only ministerium servi, “the pro-
per business of a servant,” which he lies under a necessity
of doing, that he may please the lord, even reason shows he
cannot put it to account to his superior, or be supposed to
merit by it, as Seneca" grants ; and that it may not be said
that this is the condition only of slaves, and not of servants
in the general, which we all are to God and Christ (1 Cor.
vii. 22. Rom. xiv. 4. Col. iii. 24. Eph. vi. 9), it is to be
observed from these words, oùro wai tºsſ, “so also ye,” that
Christ speaks this to his disciples, who are not to be reckoned
as his slaves, but servants, whose duty it was to have “their
loins girt, and their lamps burning,” upon that account
(Luke xii. 35, 36); who therefore doing all that he required,
were still “unprofitable servants,” in the sense forementioned,
and did only what they ought. Christ therefore here seems
to speak to them thus, It is the duty of servants after they
have done their work in the field, to minister to their lord as
he shall require, and when they have done what he requires,
they for that service merit not so much as thanks, because
they only do their duty; if then I treat you more liberally,
rather as friends than servants ; if I condescend to minister
to you (Luke xii. 37), and place you over all that I have
(ver. 44), you are not to imagine that I am indebted to you,
or owe you such favours, but rather are to acknowledge, when
you have done all, that you are still unprofitable servants,
and only have performed your duty (see here Examen
Millii, in locum).
* Ministerium esse servi, quem conditiosua eo loco posuit,
ut nihil eorum, quae praestat, imputet superiori, Si servo,
quominis in nomen meriti perveniat necessitas obest. Sen.
de Ben, lib. iii. cap. 18.
| healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified
(or praised) God,
16 And fell down on his face at his (i. e. Christ’s)
feet, giving him thanks: and he (who did this) was
a Sainaritan. *
17 And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten
cleansed? (doubtless there were :) but where are the
(remaining) nine (of them) 8
18 There are not found (any of them) that returned
to give glory to God, save this stranger. t
19 Ånd he said to him, Arise, go thy way: thy
faith hath made thee whole.
20 And when he was demanded of the pharisees,
when the kingdom of God should come, he answered
them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with
"observation (i. e. with outward pomp and splendour,
visible in earthly kingdoms). -
21 Neither shall they (have need to) say (of it), Lo
here 1 or, lo there (it is) 1 for behold, the kingdom of
God is "within (already among) you.
22 And he said to his disciples (or followers), The
day will come, when ye (of this nation) shall desire to
see "one of the days of the Son of man, (the Messiah
coming to deliver Israel, iv. 21) and ye shall not see
(one of them) it. *
23 And (when) they shall say to you, See here ! or
* Wer. 11. At& ºwázov Žapwageia; xai Taaixafaç, As he went
to Jerusalem, he passed through the midst of Samaria and
Galilee.] It is well known that Samaria lay betwixt Galilee
and Judea, and so our Lord, taking his journey to Jerusa-
lem, must go first through Galilee, then through Samaria ;
why therefore is it here said, that he passed “through Sama-
ria and Galilee P” To this it may be answered, that Tinº, in
medio, is often the same as ºceraći, between, and so is 8:3, as
Six whº ov, inter insulas: so here the Arabic and Syriac,
“ between Samaria and Galilee ;” i.e. between the confines
of both countries; Christ, in this journey, going to the
Scythopolitan bridge, saith Lightfoot, by which he passed
into Peraea, and so on by Samaria into Judea.
4 Ver, 14. Hogsvšávre; in thei?are #avrovº toſs isésiai, Go
show yourselves to the priest.] By sending them thus to the
priests, who were to make their offerings in the temple,
Christ decides the cause betwixt the Jews and the Sama-
ritans, sending the Samaritan, not to mount Gerizim, but
to Jerusalem.
5 Wer. 20. oºk exera, # £ariasia toff Osoſ; agrè trapa-
rmgha-exc, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation.]
i. e. Not with that royal splendour, or worldly pomp and
grandeur, which render it conspicuous in the eyes of the
world as you expect it should ; so that a man may be able
to say from the lustre of its first appearance, Lo, it is here !
or, it is there !
G Wer. 21. 180 yaf, # £azixeia rot, Osoſ; ivºre; tºwāv ša riv,
Behold, the kingdom of God is within you..] i. e. Amongst
gow : for it is certain that our Lord speaks not of the
power it had gained over the hearts of the Jews, and much
less of the pharisees, to whom he speaks; but that the
kingdom of the Messiah began now to appear, and the gos-
pel of the kingdom was now preached among them ; so that
Christ says thus, This kingdom, which you inquire after,
as if it had not yet appeared, because you see not that out-
ward splendour you expect when the Messiah comes, is
even now among you, and is come unto you ; so #vròs tºy
and #y bºy are used frequently in the Old Testament. So
Gen. xxiii. 9, “Give me it for a place of burial Év tºº, among
you:” see ver. 6. xxxiv. 10, #y hºv Kazoºrs, “Ye shall
dwell among us;” Exod. xvii. 7, “Is the Lord by hºv, among
us, or not p’’ so Josh. iii. 5. ix. 22. Micah iii. 11. Hence
also it is evident that “the kingdom” here cannot signify
Christ's coming to destroy Jerusalem : for of that certainly
the Jews did not think that it “should suddenly appear;”
of that our Lord could not say, it was now among you, or that
it came not with observation, it being attended with so many
glorious signs of their approaching ruin, and the presence of
the Roman army.
7 Wer. 22. 'Exedroyra, #4,#pal, &re #triðvøftaste, &c. And
CHAPTER XVIII.
303
see there (for him) go not after them, nor follow
them. - -
24 °For as the lightning that lighteneth out of the
one part under heaven, shineth to the other part under
heaven; so (visible) shall also the (coming of the) Son
of man be in his day.
25 But first he must suffer many things, and be
rejected of this generation.
26 And as it was in the days of Noe (a preacher of
'righteousness to the old world), so shall it be also in
the days of (the coming of) the Son of man. -
27 They (then) did eat, they drank, they married
wives, they were given in marriage (not eaſpecting the
threatened judgments), until the day that Noe entered.
into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them
all. º:
28 Likewise also, as it was in the days of Lot; they
did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they
planted, they builded.
29 But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom
it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and de-
stroyed them all. . . -
30 Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son
of man is revealed (a sudden and unexpected destruc-
tion shall then fall upon the men of this nation).
31 In that day, he that shall be upon the housetop,
and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to
take it away : and he that is in the field, let him like-
wise not return back (i.e. let him endeavour to escape
without delay, or staying to carry his goods with him).
32 °Remember (therefore) Lot's wife (what her de-
lay and looking back wrought upon her).
33 Whosoever shall seek to save his life (by apos-
tasy from the faith) shall lose it; and whosoever shall
lose his life (for my sake) shall preserve it. -
34 I tell you, in that night there shall be two men
in one bed, (so remarkable shall be the providence of
God in preserving his faithful servants, that) the one
(of them) shall be taken (away by death), and the other
shall be left (safe). -
35 Two women shall be grinding together; the one
shall be taken and the other left.
36 Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be
taken, and the other left.
37 And they answered and said to him, Where,
Lord (shall this be) P And he said to them, ”Where-
soever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered
together (i. e. wheresoever the Jews are, there will the
Roman army, whose ensign is the eagle, come to destroy
them). - -
the days shall come, when you shall desire to see one of the
days of the Son of man, and shall not see it..] “One of the
days of the Son of man” seems here to signify the time of
their visitation by him (ch. xix.), when he came to offer
them all the blessings of the kingdom of God, upon their
faith and repentance ; this offer, saith Christ, in your ex-
tremity you will be glad to hear, but shall not hear it.
* Ver. 24. “Ozrep yag # 3a rearh, &c. For as the lightning
(or splendour) shineth from one part of the heaven to the
other part wnder the heaven ; so shall aſso the (coming
of the) Son of man be in his days.] Christ had told them,
that the kingdom of God was already come upon them, and
he appeared in the purity of his doctrine, and the miracles
by which it was confirmed, though not with such an out-
ward splendour as might enable them to point it, and say,
Lo, it is here, or there, ver. 20, 21. He tells them in the
twenty-fifth verse, that this Son of man should suffer, and be
rejected by them, and so the glory of it would be for awhile
eclipsed: and here, that after his resurrection it would shine
with such a fresh and glorious brightness, by the effusion of
the Holy Ghost on his disciples, as would render it equal to
the splendour of the sun shining from one part of neaven to
the other, and cause it to be propagated almost as quick as
lightning through the world, so that there shall be no need
to attend any man, saying, It is here, or there, seeing it
would be quickly and conspicuously set up among all na-
tions (Matt. xxiv. 15), and that then the Son of man, so
fastidiously rejected by them, would also appear suddenly
and gloriously, to revenge upon them their infidelity, and
the affronts which they had offered to him.
* Wer. 32. Mynºwoysters rā; yuvaix㺠A&r, Remember Lot's
wife.] What befell her for looking back to Sodom, lest you
likewise perish in this slaughter of the unbelieving Jews, by
looking back to what you have in your houses, or in the
fields (ver. 31).
* Ver. 37 °orov ºrd orāga, &c. Where the carcase is, there
will the eagles be gathered together.] That is, wherever the
Jews are, there will the sword of the Romans, whose ensign
is the eagle, be ready to devour them, and their army will
assemble to destroy them.
CHAPTER XVIII.
1 AND he spake a parable to them to this end,
that men ought 'always to pray, and not to faint, (or
cease from the performance of that duty, because they
are not presently heard ; see 2 Cor. iv. 1).
2 Saying, There was in a city ajudge that feared not
God, neither regarded man (to do justice, or to show
mercy to him):
3 And there was a widow in that city; and she
came to him, saying, Avenge me of (or do me justice
against) my adversary.
4 And he would not for a while : but afterward he
said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor re-
gard man (so as to be moved by either of those motives
to do this) ;
5 Yet because this widow troubleth me (with her
importunity), I will avenge her (or do her right), lest
by her continual coming she weary me.
6 And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge
saith (on account of the widow’s importunity).
7 And shall not God avenge his own elect (i. e.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVIII.
* Ver. 1. II:3; r. 8sſy Trávrote ºrporadysa Sai, kai º #x-
xaxeſy, That men ought always to pray, and not to faint.]
Of the notion of praying always, see note on Thess. v. 15.
Here it signifies, not to pray oft every day, but to pray per-
severingly day after day, without giving off our suit; and
then ºwn iwxaxév will be, not to faint under the pressures and
persecutions they suffered, either from the persecuting Jews,
or others by their instigation ; from which they are here
supposed to pray for deliverance (ver. 7), or not to despond
under them : for $4xaksi, is not so properly to be slothful, as
malis succumbere, animo concidere, malis cedere, to faint and
despond, say the lexicons ; and this especially when it re-
lates, as here, to tribulations: so, Eph. iii. 13, &h fixxakºy iv
9xileri is well rendered, “not to faint under tribulation;”
and, 2 Cor. iv. 16, oùx #4xazodºsy, “We faint not under those
afflictions,” which make the outward man perish, but con-
tinue stedfast in the faith: ver, l, “We faint not;” though.
we are troubled on every side, and perplexed, we despair.
not of help from God, ver. 8, so Gal. vi. 9, ºch äxxaxsſy, “not
to grow weary of well-doing,” is ºil in Aſsiy, “not to faint;”
which two things are put together in St. Paul's injunction to
the Christian sufferer, “not to grow weary or faint in his
mind,” Heb. xii. 3, and so 2 Thess. iii. 13, 2% inx2x5%, “not
to be weary of well-doing,” being an exhortation to them,
who received the word “with much affliction,” 1 Thess. i. 6,
and were in danger by it to fall from their stedfastness.
iii. 2, 3.5, may reasonably be supposed to have the same
import. -
304
LUKE.
Christian sufferers), which cry day and night to him,
though he bear long with them (who afflict them, and
so for a season seemeth not to hear them)? -
8 I tell you, that he will avenge them speedily (after
a little time, Heb. x. 37. Rev. i. 1). “Nevertheless when
the Son of man cometh (to do this), shall he find faith
on the earth (that he will come to eaecute his vengeance
on the Jews) *
9. And he spake this parable to certain who trusted
in themselves that they were righteous (as the phari-
sees generally did), and despised others (as they did the
publicans, counting them sinners unfit to be conversed
with).
10 Two men went up into the temple to pray; the
one a pharisee, and the other a publican :
11 The “pharisee stood and prayed thus with
(by) himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as
other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or
even as this publican (perhaps guilty of all these
crimes).
12 I am so far from these things, and so exact in
my duty, that I do more than is commanded ; for) “I
* Ver. 7. ‘o 33 Osé, oi º Trophagi rāvākšixnaw rāy #xxexºray
airoij, xal ºaxposuºy it'airoi; ; And shall not God avenge
his own elect, that cry unto him day and might, though he bear
long with them ż) Here note, -
First, That the elect in general signify all Christians
chosen out of the world through faith in Christ, to be the
church and people of God (see note on 2 Pet. ii. 9): when
it relates particularly to the Jews, it signifies those of them
who believed in Christ, and upon that account are styled
“ the election of grace,” and absolutely “the election,” Rom.
xi. 5. 7, under which character St. Peter writes unto them,
1 Pet. i. 1 (see note on Matt. xxiv. 22), and this seems to be
the import of the word here: for Azakgošvºway some copies
read waxpoºvºsī, and so interpreters read the whole by way
of interrogation, “And will he be slack towards them P’’
i. e. towards his elect ; and this well agrees with the follow-
Ang words, “I tell you, he will avenge them speedily;” and
with the words #7' airoi;, which have no other substantive to
refer to but the clect ; and with the like passage, Ecclus.
xxxv. 17–19, “The prayer of the humble (or afflicted)
pierceth the clouds; and till it come nigh he will not be
comforted, and will not depart till the Most High shall be-
hold to judge righteously, and execute judgment. For the
Tord will not be slack, ow8; £45 p.axgošvaho F. ɺr' aircíº, nei-
ther will the Almighty be patient towards them, till he hath
Smitten asunder the loins of the unmerciful, and repaid
#x3íznow, vengeance to the heathen ; till he hath judged the
cause of his people, and made them rejoice in his mercy.”
Yet, because the common reading is ºax606vg.ów, and be-
cause sinners, and especially the unbelieving Jews, are
reckoned as the objects of God's long-suffering, and not the
elect, as when Paul saith to them, “Despisest thou the riches
of his goodness, patience, and long suffering P’’ (Rom. ii. 4),
and as persons God endureth with much long-suffering (ix.
22); and Peter saith, “God was long-suffering towards them,
not being willing they should perish, but should all come to
repentance” (2 Pet. iii. 9), others make the sense run thus,
“Shall he, who is thus long-suffering towards the worst of
men, and the persecutors of his people, be slack to avenge
the cause of his people whom he loves, and to whose prayers |
his ears are always open 2
* Ver. 8. IIAhv 3 við; roi; 3,9837ov #A02 v 3;a siphore rhy
wizarºv tºrt rā; yńc, Nevertheless, when the Son of man comes,
shall he find faith upon earth £) i. e. When the Son of man
comes to exercise this vengeance on the Jewish nation, how
few shall he find in the Jewish nation that will believe it?
As for the unbelieving Jews, though Christ and his forerun-
ner had told them so frequently and plainly of their approach-
ing ruin; and though they had so many signs of it, recorded
in Josephus, he tells us they were still expecting deliverance |
from God: and they, among them, who believed and pro-
fessed the Christian faith, being pressed with continual suf.
ferings, began to “grow weary and faint in their minds,” and
to ask, “Where is the promise of his coming?” Yea, some
of them began to forsake the assemblies of the Saints (Heb.
fast twice in the week, (and) I give tithes of all I pos-
sess (even of mint and cummin, Matt. xxiii. 23.)
13 And (but) the publican, "standing afar off,
would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven (as
judging himself unworthy so to do), but Smiote upon
his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.
14 I tell you, (that) this man went down to his
house justified (i. e. approved of God, and pardoned),
"rather than the other: for every one that exalteth
himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself.
shall be exalted. -
15 And they (who believed he was a true prophet)
brought to him also infants, that he would touch (or
lay his hands upon) them (and pray, Matt. xix. 13):
but when his disciples saw it, they rebuked them
(that brought them). -
16 But Jesus (being much displeased at this action
of his disciples, Mark x. 14) called them to him, and
said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and for-
bid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. .
17 Verily I say to you, Whosoever shall not re-
ceive the kingdom of God (with affection as free from
x. 25), and many of them became apostates, and fell back to
their own Judaism ; so that all the epistles directed to them
are manifestly designed to keep them stedfast in the faith
(see the preface to those Epistles, and note on 2 Thess.
ii. 3).
4. ve. 11. ‘o paetorato; a Taşeig ºrp3s avºry, The pharisee
standing by himself.] As fearing to be polluted by the touch
of the impure publican (Luke vii. 39), on which account
they had their frequent washings when they came from the
markets (Mark vii. 4). He standing thus prays, “God, I
thank thee” (thanksgiving being reckoned as one part of
prayer, 1 Cor. xiv. 15, 16. 1 Tim. ii. 1), “that I am not as
other men are, nor as this publican.” Here he offends, (1.)
that he concludes himself good, because he is not so bad as
other men: whereas he should have done this only from the
evidence of his own sincerity in heart and actions ; it being
only from this approving our own works, that we can have
“rejoicing in ourselves, and not in another,” Gal. vi. 4. (2)
In judging so ill of others, many of whom he could have no
certain knowledge of, and particularly in his judgment on
this publican; from whose submissive gesture and penitential
actions he might have charitably concluded, that he came to
the temple with a true penitent heart. &
5 Wer. 12. Nºna rečo 3.6 roi ca 88&rou, I fast twice in lhe
week.] The public and private fasts of the Jews were upon
the second and fifth days of the week, i. e. Monday and
Thursday: and therefore the ancient Christians, that they
might not be outdone by them in any part of devotion, in
lieu of those days, chose the fourth and sixth days of the
week for their fasting-days: Stationibus quartum et Sextum
sabbati dicamus (Tert. de Jejun. cap. 14. Can. Apost. 61.
Comst. Apost. lib. v. cap. 15. 20, p. 263. lib. vii, cap. 23.
Epiph. Haer. 51, n. 26. Expos. Fidei, n. 22. Philostorg.
lib. x. $. 12. Pseudo-Ignat. Ep. ad Philip. §. 13). -
Theophylact here notes of this pharisee, that, in opposi-
tion to the rapine and injustice of others, he declares his ex-
actness in paying tithes: and, in opposition to the luxury
and adultery of others, his care to keep under his body, by
fasting twice a week. - *
• Wer. 13. ‘o 33 rex®wn; waxpéðey arãº, But the publican
standing afar off.] He stood afar off, perhaps in the court of
the gentiles, looking upon himself unworthy to draw nigh
to God, or to stand in the holy place: he could not lift up
his eyes to heaven, from the sense of the same unworthiness;
he smites upon his breast, punishing himself out of a deep
sense of his guilt; this being the sign of a mind vehemently
afflicted (xxiii. 48); and, lastly, he humbly confesses, that
he was a sinner, and earnestly begs mercy; and therefore it
is said,
7 Wer. 14. Karégn &ro; 328inatowāyo; ei; rºw olzov aircº, *
intſ, oc, He went down to his house justified rather than the
other.] Here h is again put for aſſaxov （, So Hos. ii. 7.
waxâj, wo: #y réve yºv, “It was better with me than now ;”
Jonah iv. 3. 8, waxy ºr 37:c0avčív h ºv, “It is better for me
to die, than live” (see mote on xv. 7).
CHAPTER XIX.
305
covetous and vain-glorious desires) as (those of) a
little child, shall in no wise enter therein (his love of
honour, John v. 44, and of the world, ver. 24, being
great obstructions to it).
18 And a certain ruler (who had a good opinion of
him, and some religious concern for future happiness)
asked him, saying, Good Master, what shall F. to
inherit eternal life 2
19 And Jesus said to him, Why callest thou me
good? (Seeing) none is good, save one, that is God
(dost thou own me as one commissionated by God to
teach the way of life? I will then do it from his word).
20 Thou knowest the commandments; (viz.) Do not
commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not
bear false witness, Honourthy father and thy mother:
(do this and thou shalt live.) -
21. And he said, All these have I kept from my
youth up. - -
22 Now when Jesus heard these things, he said to
him, Yet lackest thou one thing (viz. a heart so free
from the love of riches, as to be ready to part with
them at my command for heavenly blessings ; I there-
fore say to thee), sell all that thou hast, and distribute
(it) to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven:
and (then) come (and) follow me.
23 And when he heard this, he (went away, and)
was very sorrowful: for he was very rich (and unwill-
ing to part from his estate).
24, And when Jesus saw that he was very sorrowful,
he said, How hardly shall they that have riches (and
{j in them, Mark x. 24) enter into the kingdom of
od l
25 For it is easier for a camel (or, a cable) to go
through a needle's eye, than for a rich man (thus af.
fected to his riches, that he cannot part with them for
* in heaven) to enter into the kingdom of
OCl.
26 And they that heard (this saying) said, Who
then can be saved? .
27 And he said, The things which are impossible
with men are possible with God (he can take off men’s
hearts from this love of the world, though the persua-
Sions of men cannot do it).
28 Then Peter said, Lo, we (thy apostles) have
left all, and followed thee; (what shall we have there-
fore P Matt. xix. 27.)
29 And he said unto them, Verily I say to you,
There is no man that hath left house, or parents, or
brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of
God’s sake,
30 Who shall not receive manifold more in this pre-
sent time (from the joys of a good conscience and the
Holy Ghost, the sense of God’s favour, and the hopes
of treasures in heaven, and the affection of good
Christians to him), and in the world to come life
everlasting.
31 Then he took to him the twelve, and said to
them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and (then) all
things that are written by the prophets concerning the
Son of man shall be jºi
32 For he shall be delivered to the gentiles, and
shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spit
OI) : .
33 And they shall scourge him, and put him to
death ; and the third day he shall rise again.
34 And they understood none of these things
(i. e. they knew not how to reconcile them with their
apprehensions of his temporal kingdom, and their tra-
ditions, that the Messiah should not die, John xii. 34);
and (so) this saying was hid from them, neither knew
they the things which were spoken.
35 And it came to pass, that as he was come nigh
(Gr. was nigh) to Jericho, a certain blind man (named
Bartimeus, Mark x. 46) sat by the way-side begging,
(and another with him, Matt. xx. 30.)
36 And hearing the multitude pass by, he asked
what it meant (i. e. what was the reason of that con-
Course). -
37 And they told him, that Jesus of Nazareth pass-
eth bv.
38 'And (upon this) he cried, saying, Jesus, thou
son of David, (whose office it is to give sight to the
blind, Isa. xxxv. 5,) have mercy on me.
39 And they that went before rebuked him (saying),
that he should hold his peace: but he cried so much
the more, Thou son of David, have mercy on me.
40 And Jesus stood (still), and commanded him to
be brought to him: and when he was come near, he
asked him,
41 Saying, What wilt thou that I shall do to thee?
And he said, Lord, (I desire) that I may receive my
sight.
º And Jesus said to him, (Thou shalt) receive thy
sight: thy faith hath saved thee, (i. e. hath made thee
whole, Mark x. 52.) &
43 And immediately he received his sight, and fol-
lowed him, glorifying God (for his mercy to him); and
º the people, when they saw it, gave praise (also) to
}od.
CHAPTER XIX.
1 AND Jesus entered (into) and passed through
Jericho.
2 And, behold, there was a man named Zaccheus,
. was the chief among the publicans, and he was
T1CI]. . in
3 And he sought to see Jesus who (i. e. what kind
of man) he was ; and could not for the press, because
he was little of stature.
4 And he (therefore) ran before, and climbed up
into a sycamore-tree to see him : for he was to pass
that way. .
5 And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up,
and saw him, and said to him, Zaccheus, make haste,
and come down; for to-day I must abide at thy
house. -
6 And he "made haste, and came down, and re-
ceived him joyfully.
7 And when they (the pharisees) saw it, they all
murmured, saying, That he was gone to be guest with
a man that is a sinner (thinking that a matter of de-
filement and reproach to him, not considering the de-
sign on which Christ came into the world).
8 And Zaccheus stood (up), and said to the Lord,
Behold, Lord, (not the fifth part only, but) the “half
of my goods I (now resolve to) give to the poor;
and if I have taken anything from any man by false
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIX.
* Ver. 6. Kai aireſa'a, warígn, wai Üme&#aro airby Xaipov,
And he made haste, and came down, and received him joy-
jully..] By this joy, and by his diligence to see him, he showed
what a high esteem he had for that holy Jesus whom the
scribes and pharisees despised.
2 Ver, 8.’180i, rå hairm rôy imagxávrov gov, Kügle, 3:30pxt
ºrdſ, wrox0ſ;, &c. Behold, Lord, the half of my *g give
306
LUKE.
accusation (or oppression, see note on Luke iii. 14) I
(will) restore him four-fold (i.e. beyond the rigour of
the law). -
9 And Jesus said to him, This day is salvation |
come to this house (Zaccheus having done like a true
convert) forsomuch as he also is a "son of Abraham,
(i. e. a Jew. -
10 And this is suitable to the design of my coming,
and justifies my eating and conversing with him :) for
the Son of man is come to seek (after) and to save
that which was lost.
11 And as they heard these things, he added and
spake a parable, because he was nigh to Jerusalem,
(which shortly was to be the scene of misery, ver. 41,
42) and because they thought that the kingdom of
God (or, of the Messiah) should immediately appear.
12 He said, therefore, (The kingdom of God is like to)
a “certain nobleman (who) went into a far country to
receive for himself a kingdom, and to return (and thus
shall I go to heaven and be installed in my mediatory
kingdom, and then return to eaſecute the severest judg-
ments on this nation for their non-proficiency).
13 And he called his ten servants, and delivered to
to the poor; and if I have wronged any man, I restore him
four-fold] By two things Zaccheus shows the sincerity of
his reformation and conversion; (1.) that he is ready to re-
pair any injury that he had done to any man by oppression or
false accusation, which is the proper import of the word avko-
‘payréo, not only by adding a fifth part, as the law required
in case of theft, when what was purloined was voluntarily
restored (Numb. v. 7), nor by restoring double, as the tres-
passer was to do by law, when that which was taken away
was found in his hands (Exod. xxii. 4), but by restoring for
money and goods what the rigour of the law required only
in the case of an ox or sheep killed after it was stolen (Exod.
xxii. 1), i. e. four-fold; doing not only what justice required
for compensation of the injury (for no man can be righteous
till he, if he be able, hath satisfied for the injury done to his
brother), but inflicting on himself this surplusage by way of
penalty for his sin; and as a testimony of his great displea-
sure against himself for committing it. And (2.) whereas
the law and tradition of the Jews required only that a fifth
part of their income should be spent in charity, he bequeaths
half his estate to charitable uses,
* Ver. 9. This day is salvation come to this house, forso-
much as he also is vić; A8eaëp, a son of Abraham.] Not
only by faith, of which sonship the Jews, to whom Christ
Spake, had then no notion, but by birth; for the pharisees do
not murmur against Christ that he did eat with one uncir-
cumcised, but that he did it with a sinner: it would also
have been no indication to the Jews that he was the son of
Abraham, that he believed in Christ: and, lastly, his respect
to the law of Moses, in making restitution, shows he was no
stranger to that law. Moreover, though the phrase, “Sal-
vation is come unto this house,” doth not necessarily argue
that his whole family believed, and the pronoun ipse, and
the reason here assigned, seem personally to respect Zac-
cheus, the master of the house ; yet it is piously observed
that Christ here promiseth salvation to the house, because it
was the duty, and usually the practice, of the master of the
family, to reduce his whole house to the faith he had em-
braced; as in the case of the centurion, Acts x. 2, of Lydia,
Acts xvi. 14, 15, of the gaoler, wer. 33, 34, of Crispus the
ruler of a synagogue, Acts xviii. 8, and of the nobleman,
John iv. 46.53.
* Ver. 12. "AySpotré; tıç sūysvå; #Tropsûn si; X&gay pºaxpay,
Aageſy Havrá 8aaixeiay, Kai Ütrogrgéjai, A certain nobleman
went into a far country to receive a kingdom, and to re-
turn..] Here observe,
First, That it is ingeniously conjectured by Mr. Le Clerc,
that Christ took the rise of this parable from the custom of
the kings of Judea, Herod the Great and Archelaus his son,
who usually went to Rome to receive the kingdom of Judea
from Caesar, without whose permission and appointment
they durst not take the government into their hands; and in
the case of Archelaus there is indeed some resemblance of
them ten pounds, and said to them, Occupy till I come
(i. e. improve them till I come and take an account of
3your proficiency). \
14 But his citizens (the Jews) hated him, and sent
a messenger after him, (disclaiming and rejecting his
authority, and) saying, We will not have this man to
reign over us.
15 And it came to pass, that when he was returned,
having received the kingdom, then he eommanded
these servants to be called to him, to whom he had .
given the money, that he might know how much every
man had gained by trading.
16 Then came the first, saying, Lord, thy pound
hath gained ten pounds.
17 And he said to him, Well (done), thou good
servant: because thou hast been faithful in a very
little, have thou authority over ten cities (i. e. be thy
reward proportionable to the increase of thy talent).
18 And the second came, saying, Lord, thy pound
hath gained five pounds.
19 And he said likewise to him, Be thou also over,
five cities (i. e. be thy reward answerable to the im-
provement of thy talent). s
this ; for the Jews sent their complaints after him, showing
their unwillingness that this nobleman, or eiyevåg, the son of
Herod the Great, to whom the kingdom of Judea was as-
signed by his father's will and testament, should reign over
them; and at his return, #6vapxiav traga Na3&y, “he receiving
the kingdom,” tyrannized over them for ten years; but with
this signal difference, that upon their second complaint to
Caesar, they prevailed against him, and procured his banish-
ment to Vienna.
Secondly, That the parable here, as it respects our Lord
Christ, “going into a far country to receive a kingdom, and
return,” either respects his going to heaven to sit down at the
right hand of God in majesty and glory, and to take posses-
sion of his mediatory kingdom, and the return to punish the
unbelieving and obdurate Jews; or going by his apostles and
disciples to erect a kingdom among the gentiles, and then
coming, as it were, back to punish the Jews, according to
these words of his, “The gospel of the kingdom shall be
preached throughout all the world for a testimony to all na-
tions, and then shall the end (of the Jewish polity) come”
(Matt. xxiv. 14). Note,
Thirdly, That this parable doth certainly respect the Jew-
ish nation; as appears (1.) because they are said here to re-
ject Christ's kingdom, saying, “We will not have this man
to reign over us;” and upon this account are styled his ene-
mies, and devoted to destruction by him, which agrees still
only to the Jews, ver. 27. (2.) To them is threatened the
punishment of the unprofitable servants, to wit, “to be
cast out into outer darkness,” &c. (Matt. viii. 12. xxii. 13.
xxv. 30. Luke xiii. 28). In fine, it is expressly said, he
“therefore spake this parable to them, because they thought
the kingdom of God should immediately appear” (ver. 11).
Fourthly, The only difficulty remaining is, how to apply
the pounds here, and the talents mentioned Matt. xxv., to
any of the Jews; but this seeming difficulty is removed by
a careful observation of the words, which show they were
distributed, not to his citizens, but roſ; i3totº &oixotº, to his
“own proper servants,” Matt. xxv. 14, to his servants, ver.
13, i. e. to his apostles, five; and to the Seventy disciples,
or those who had received lesser spiritual gifts, two talents ;
to the Jews, who are also styled “his own,” John i. 14, only
one talent (viz. the law and the prophets, promising to them
the Messiah, and pointing out his advent and his characters
to them); which they might and ought to have employed,
so as to have believed, and fitted themselves to receive and
to improve the gifts of the Holy Ghost, as others did.
Fifthly, Observe, that as the dreadful destruction of the
unbelieving Jews was an emblem of the last judgment, so
Christ's reckoning with them is a representation of that
reckoning he will make with all men at the great day, for all
the talents they have respectively received; and, with respect
to that, this Lord is said, Matt. xxv. 12, to come, were 2.pávor
Troxiv, “after a long time.” - º
CHAPTER XIX.
307
20 And another came, saying, Lord, behold, here thus ye shall say to him, (We do it) because the Lord
is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin
(making no use of it) : . w
21 For I feared thee, because (I judged) thou art
an austere man; thou takest up what thou layedst not
down, and reapest that thou didst not sow (requiring
an increase far eaceeding what thou gavest).
22 And he saith to him, Out of thine own mouth
will I judge (and condemn) thee, thou wicked servant;
(for) thou (ownest that thou) knewest that I was an
austere man, taking up that I laid not down, and
reaping that I did not sow:
23 Wherefore then gavest not thou my money to
the bank (i. e. didst not thou improve my talent), that
at my coming (back) I might have required (and re-
ceived) my own with usury (or improvement) *
24 And he said to them that stood by, Take from
him the pound, and give it to him that hath ten
pounds.
25 "And they said to him, Lord, he hath ten
pounds (but he answered, Therefore I give him more).
26 For I say to you, That to every one that (im-
ſº. what he) hath shall be given (more); and from
Im that hath not (so as to improve it), even that he
hath shall be taken away from him.
27 But those mine enemies (of the Jewish nation),
that would not I should reign over them, bring hither
and slay them before me.
28 And when he had thus spoken, he went before
(his disciples,) ascending up to Jerusalem.
29 And it came to pass, when he was come nigh to
Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount called the
mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples,
30 Saying, Go ye into the village over against you;
in which at your entering you shall find a colt tied,
whereon yet never man sat ; loose him, and bring him
hither.
31 And if any man ask you, Why do ye loose him
* Ver. 25.] Though this verse is in St. Jerome, Theophy-
lact, and in all the versions, and confirmed by the words fol-
lowing, Ašyoy airroſ, yet saith Dr. Mills, Lubens, nisi re-
pugmarint omnes codices, pro irreptitio habuerim (Proleg.
p. 155 *
d %. 40. Oi Nišot x=xe4#oyrat, If these hold their peace,
the stones will cry out] This is a proverbial expression, sig-
nifying that if these followers of Christ should hold their
peace, some more unlikely way should be found out for the
proclaiming the Messiah, even by those who are reckoned
the most stupid and insensate people, as by you the gentiles
are. So, Lapidi loqueris, “Thou speakest to one who hath
little sense to hear or understand;” lapis being metaphori-
cally put for a stupid and brutish person : so when Aristip-
pus" was asked by one, what his son would be better for
instruction, he answered, that then #y rā; 0:47pº oi ka0%astal
*(60; $7i Nišov, “one stone,” that is, “one stupid person,
would not "sit above another in the theatre.” So #xióiáčew
zai hāśtoy $98,75-8a, in Aristophanes, is to be stupid, and
speak without sense, &vaia Snto yag oi Nišot, “for stones have
no sense:” so the scholiast, p. 352, G.
7 Ver, 41. Kai–#xxavasy #w' airfi, And he wept over it.]
I hope Epiphanius+ may be mistaken, when he tells us, these
words, and the like in John xi. 35, were blotted out, as be-
ing denied to be in the most correct copies; for it is certain,
and confessed by him, that “they were to be found in Ire-
naeus, f and in Origens twice,” who saith, our Lord wept,
sixáyoc, “with good reason,” over Jerusalem : for he did it
* Apud Laert. p. 135, 136.
+ 'Ax^3 wai waavae asſrai iv rá war& Aovkāv stayyexia, #y
#y toſ, 38.066&rot; 3vriypá poig, wai xexögotai rā &aptugſ, rot;
&yiov Eipnvaiov. 360630% of 33 332;Movºro, r3 inty poſºnSávºrs. An-
chorat. §. 31, pl. 36. -
: Iren. lib. i. cap. 17.
§ Orig. in Matt, ed. Huet, tom. i. p. 441, tom. ii. p. 168.
Agnoscant Theophylactus et versiones omnes.
hath need of him.
32 And they that were sent went their way, and
found (all things) even as he said to them.
33 And as they were loosing the colt, the owners
thereof said to them, Why loose ye the colt
34 And they said, The Lord hath need of him (and
then they let them go with him).
35 And they brought him to Jesus: and they cast
their garments on the colt, and they set Jesus thereon.
36 And as he went, they (the multitude) spread
their clothes in the way (as at the triumphant entrance
of a prince).
37 And when he was come nigh (to Jerusalem, be-
ing) even at the descent of the mount of Olives, the
whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and
to praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty
works which they had seen (done by Christ) ;
38 Saying, Blessed be he that cometh in the name
of the Lord; (may) peace (be procured by him to us)
in heaven, and glory (to God who lives) in the highest
(place).
39 And some of the pharisees from among the
multitude said to him, Master, rebuke thy disciples
(for these acclamations).
40 And he answered and said to them, I tell you,
that if these (my disciples) should hold their peace,
the "stones would immediately cry out (i. e. my king-
dom would be proclaimed by far more unlikely means).
41 And when he was come near, he beheld the city,
and "wept over it,
42 Saying, (Happy had it been for thee) *if thou
hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day (of
visitation, Luke i. 68) the things which belong to thy
peace (and welfare) l but now (through thy infidelity)
they are hid from thine eyes.
43 For the days shall (shortly) come upon thee,
that thine enemies shall “cast a trench about thee,
out of a profound charity, and deep commiseration of the
evils coming upon Jerusalem; in both which virtues he came
to be an example to us ; and therefore can do nothing in it
unworthy of himself.
* Ver. 42. Aśyoy, Śri si Hyvac zai ab, Saying, (Happy
hadst thou been) if thou hadst known, in this thy day, the
things which belong to thy peace, &c.] Here the critics note,
that si often signifies utinam, and so the words will contain
an ardent wish, that the people of Jerusalem had been thus
wise, conceived after this manner, “O that thou hadst
known l’” but though this be true (see note on Luke xii. 40),
yet the particle &r, that, makes it not applicable to this
place; and therefore I think it better to supply the deficient
sense by the words contained in the parenthesis. Here
then observe, (1.) that Christ here plainly shows, and takes
it for granted, that the people of Jerusalem, in this day of
their visitation by the Messias, might have savingly known
the things belonging to their peace, since otherwise our Sa-
viour's tears may rather have been looked upon as the tears
of crocodiles, than of charity and true commiseration; and
either his assertion, that they might have been happy, would
have been contrary to truth; or his wish, that they had thus
known the things belonging to their peace, contrary to his
Father's will and decree; both which are palpably absurd :
and seeing the will of Christ was always the same with that
of his Father, it follows also, that God the Father had the
same charitable affection to them, and so had laid no bar
against their nappiness by his decrees, nor been wanting in
anything on his part necessary towards their everlasting wel-
fare (see the note on Matt. xxiii. 37).
* Ver. 43. The days shall come upon thee, that thine
enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee
around, and keep thee in on every side.] How exactly this
was done we learn from Josephus, saying,” that “when Wes-
* Totº 33 cºnto ta. “Pop, aloy peovoivºra; Eieyev # a regria ararºa-
xášev rºy Trixiv ºragišxova'a. De Bello Jud. lib. v. cap. 27, p.
X 2
308
LUKE.
º compass thee round, and keep thee in on every
Slde,
44 And shall lay thee "even with the ground, and
thy children with thee; and they shall not leave in
thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest
not (i. e. didst not improve aright to faith and repent-
ance) the time of thy visitation. -
45 And he went into the temple, and began to cast
out them that sold therein, and them that bought;
46 Saying to them, It is written, (Isa. lvi. 7) My
house (shall be called, or) is the house of prayer: but
ye have made it (by your fraudulent, covetous dealings,
and ea tortions) a den of thieves.
47 And he taught daily in the temple. But the
chief priests, and scribes, and chief of the people,
sought to destroy him ;
45 And could not find what they might (safely)
do (because of the multitude); for all the people were
very attentive to hear him. .”
pasian besieged Jerusalem, his army compassed the city
round about, and kept them in on every side, and though it
was judged a great and almost impracticable work to compass
the whole city with a wall: yet Titus animating his soldiers to
attempt it, they in three days built a wall of thirty-nine fur-
longs, having thirteen castles in it, and so cut off all hopes
that any of the Jews within the city should escape.”
893, B. To why civ retxo; #yā; 3iovro; recoraçáxovira arablow ºv,
ºrgia's 3’ exo-op, #Sn Tâ way hºgaiº. Ibid. p. 936, 937, B.
10 Wer. 44. And shall lay thee even with the ground,-and
they shall not leave in thee one stone wpon another.] How
this also was exactly done, Josephus teacheth, by saying,
that” “Titus having commanded his soldiers to dig up the
city, this was so fully done, by levelling the whole compass
of it except three towers, that they who came to see it were
persuaded it would never be built again.”
*Töy 33 &AAoy #mavra rā; TréxEw; Tregiðoxov ošro; #29.4×4&ow
of xaraokámºrov.rs; &; &m3: Trºmote oikia 8%was triarty &y tº trapº-
l cºxsſy roſ; "rgoa Bašoiſai.
Lib. vii. cap. 1, p. 970, B. C.
CHAPTER XX.
1 AND it came to pass, that on one of those days,
as he taught the people in the temple, and preached
the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes came upon
him, (and rose up against him) with the elders,
2 And spake to him, saying, Tell us, by what au-
thority doest thou these things (which only prophets,
and persons allowed and approved by authority, shall
do) 2 and who is he that gave thee this authority ?
3 And he answered and said unto them, I will also
ask you one thing; and (if you) answer me (you may
thence know by what authority I do these things):
4 The baptism of John, was it from (the God of)
heaven, or of men (only) 8
5 And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If
we shall say, (It was) from heaven; he will say, Why
then believed ye him not (when he testified that I was
the Christ) P
6 But if we say, Of men; all the people will (be
ready to) stone us: for they be persuaded that John
was a prophet. *
7 And they answered, That they could not tell
whence it was.
8 And Jesus said to them, Neither tell I you by
what authority I do these things.
9 Then began he to speak to the people this para-
ble : A certain man planted a vineyard, and let it
forth to husbandmen (the Jewish doctors), and went
into a far country for a long time (i. e. left them a
long time, to manage and to make it fruitful).
10 And at the season he sent a servant to the hus-
bandmen, (requesting) that they should give him of
the fruit of the vineyard: but the husbandmen (the
guides and rulers of the Jewish church) beat him, and
sent him away empty.
11 And again he sent another servant: and they
beat him also, and entreated him shamefully, and sent
him away empty.
12 And again he sent the (a) third : and they
wounded him also, and cast him out; (killing God’s
prophets, and stoning them that were sent to them, xiii.
34. 2 Chron. xxxvi. 15, 16.)
13 Then said the Lord of the vineyard, What shall
I do? I will send my beloved son: it may be they
will reverence him when they see him.
14 But when the husbandmen saw him, they rea-
soned among themselves, saying, This is the heir :
come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may be
OUITS.
15 So they (the Jews) cast him out of the vineyard,
and killed him (Christ, the Son of God). What there-
fore shall the Lord of the vineyard do unto them :
16 He shall come and destroy these husbandmen,
and shall give the vineyard to others. And when
they (the pharisees) heard it, they said, God forbid
(that this should happen to us).
17 And he beheld them, and said, (If this will not
be so) what is then (the import of) this that is written
(Ps. cxviii. 22), The stone which the builders reject-
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XX.
* Ver. 16. ’Akoúcavre; 38 eſtroy, º yévoiro, And when they
heard it, they said, God forbid.] In Matt. xxi. 41, Mark xii.
9, Christ inquires of them what “the lord of the vineyard
will do to these husbandmen P” And they answer, “He
will destroy them, and let out his vineyard to other husband-
men :” here Christ himself declares what the lord of the
vineyard will do to those husbandmen, and they seem to say,
God forbid that he should do so. Now this seeming con-
trariety is by some solved thus, That the pharisees do not,
by these words, deny that the lord of the vineyard would
destroy those husbandmen ; but knowing that the parable
was spoken against them, they say, ºh yévoiro, Far be it
from us husbandmen to do a work so worthy of this punish-
ment ; and this sense Christ's reply seems to require, viz. ti
cºy Hari ré »eypapºpºvoy, i. e. If the priests and pharisees will
not do this, “what means that which is written?” what
means that saying of the psalmist, which even you Jews in-
terpret of the Messiah, “The stone which the builders re-
fused is become the head stone of (in) the corner P’ Ps.
cxviii. 22. To strengthen this interpretation, let it be con-
sidered that our Lord “spake this parable against thein,”
Matt. xxi. 45. Mark xii. 12. They therefore deny what
they understood, that they should destroy the son of the
lord of the vineyard, i. e. the Messiah, as not believing
Christ to be the Messiah, but an impostor ; but they deny
not that they who should do this were worthy of this punish-
ment: or, (2) because St. Luke peculiarly notes, ver, 9,
that this parable was spoken “to the people,” this may be
their answer, Far be it from our rulers to do so vile a thing
as may bring down this judgment on us ; whilst the rulers
and pharisees, who thought themselves far from being such
husbandmen as they knew Christ suggested they would be,
stick not to say such husbandmen deserve indeed to be de-
stroyed, as thinking they should never be concerned in their
TUIII]. -
Either of these solutions I like better than that of Mr.
CHAPTER XX. 309
ed, the same is become the head of the corner (Now
gyou are these builders, and I, whom you reject, am that
corner-Stone.
18 And) whosoever shall fall upon (or stumble at)
that stone shall be broken (i. e. shall do it to his
Tuin) ; but on whomsoever it shall fall (as it will most
severely on you of this nation), it will grind him to
powder: (i.e. subject him to the heaviest judgments,
both here and hereafter ; for they who through weak-
ness, or the prejudices of their education, or reverence
to their guides, shall stumble at this stone, and not be-
lieve, shall be hereafter punished, yet with much fewer
stripes than those Jewish doctors, who obstinately and
against full conviction hated and rejected the Messiah,
and would not he should reign over them, ch. xiv.)
19 And the chief priests and the scribes the same
hour sought to lay hands on him; and (but) they
feared the people: for they perceived that he spake
this parable against them (representing them as the
persons who would thus treat the Son of God, and
should thus suffer by him for so doing).
20 And they watched him, and sent forth spies,
which should feign themselves just men, that they
might take hold of (i. e. advantage against him from)
his words, that so they “might deliver him (up) to the
power and authority of the governor.
21 And they asked him, saying, Master, we know
that thou sayest and teachest rightly, neither accept-
est thou the person of any, but teachest the way of
God truly, (without favour to or fear of any, though
the greatest in power and dignity: we therefore inquire
of thee,)
22 Is it lawful forus (Jews) to give tribute to Caesar,
Or no
23 But he perceived their craftiness (in designing
jrom his answer to represent him to the governor as an
enemy to Caesar, xxiii. 2, or to the people, as an enemy
to their liberty), and (therefore) said to them, Why
tempt ye me *
24 Show me a (Roman) penny; (and tell me) whose
image and superscription hath it They answered
and said, (It is) Caesar’s (image that is stamped upon
it).
25 And he said to them, (This, by your own rules,
ãs an evidence that Casar’s government hath obtained
among you,) render therefore to Caesar the things which
are Caesar's (the tribute due to him as your governor
Le Clerc, who will have these words in the beginning of this
verse, “He will come, and will destroy these husbandmen,
and let out his vineyard to others,” to be the words not of
Christ, but of the Sanhedrin ; and yet will have the words
immediately following in the same verse, &koča ayre; 33 stroy,
£º yévoſto, “and understanding, they said within themselves,
God forbid,” to be also the words of the same Sanhedrin:
for could they, understanding that these words were spoken
against them, first give this severe sentence against them-
selves, and then in the same breath contradict themselves 2
And, secondly, why must simoy be rendered, “they said
within themselves,” and not in the hearing of Christ, who
when they had said this, looks upon them, and inquires of
them, “What then is it which is written ?” ver. 17.
*Ver. 20. Eic ré rapałońval airy tº 36x; wal ºf #ovata roſ,
#yfºxévoz, To deliver him wb to the power and authority of
the governor.] And therefore they put to him the question
about paying tribute to Caesar, hoping that, by denying it to
be due to him from the Jews, they might accuse him as an
enemy to Caesar; for they knew that his decision of ques-
tions, relating only to their law and controversies, would not
offend those Gallios.
* Ver. 36. Kai viot stori rod Osoſ, rºi; āyaarāorew; viol gyrs,
And being sons of the resurrection, are sons of God..] For
this vicósaia, sonship, imports “the redemption of the body
from corruption,” Rom. viii. 23, and they that are sons, are
“heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, and to be glo-
wnder God), and to God the things that are God’s
(i.e. the tribute due to his temple).
26 And (when he had thus said) they could not take
hold of his words before the people; and they mar-
velled at (the wisdom of) his answer, and held their
peace. -
27 Then came to him certain of the sadducees, who
deny that there is (to be) any resurrection (of the
body); and they, asked him,
28 Saying, Master, Moses wrote to us, If any

man’s brother die, having a wife, and he die without
children, that his brother should take his wife, and
raise up seed to his brother. -
29. There were therefore (with us) seven brethren;
and the first (of them) took a wife, and died without
children.
30 And the second took her to wife, he (also) died
childless.
31 And the third took her : and in like manner
(the residue of) the seven also: and they left no chil-
dren, and died.
32 Last of all the woman died also. :
33. Therefore in the resurrection (of the body from
the dead, Mark xii. 23,) whose wife of them is she (to
be) 8 for seven had her to wife.
34 And Jesus answering, said to them, (This ques-
tion proceeds from a gross ignorance of the future
state ; for) the children of this world (only) marry,
and are given in marriage:
35 But they that shall be counted worthy to obtain
that world (which is to come), and (attain to) the resur-
rection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in
marriage:
36 Neither can they die any more ; for they are (as
to duration) equal to the angels; and are “children of
God, (who are to live with him for ever, John viii. 35)
being the children of the resurrection.
37 Now that the dead are (to be) raised, even Moses
showed at the bush, when he (i. e. God) calleth (to
him, saying I am) the Lord the God of Abraham, and
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob (long after
they were dead).
38 For he is not a God of the dead (i.e. of them
who are so dead, as not to be the sons of the resurrec-
tion), but of the living (i.e. of them whose bodies shall
live again) : *for all live unto him.
39 Then certain of the scribes answering said,
rified with him,” ver. 17, see the note there ; and the
strength of Christ's argument depending on this notion
(note on Matt. xxii. 31, 32), Jamblichus very likely from
hence makes it the reward of good souls going out of the
body, to be converted eig 3,7%aovº wai &yyexixà, Juxãº, “into
angels and angelic souls,” apud Stob. Ecl. Phys. p. 144.
* Ver. 38. IIávre; yāp airá čaw, For all live to him.]
Woltzogenius interprets these words thus, They live in re-
spect of God's power and decree, that they shall live again ;
and hence he argues, that the souls of good men live not
after death till the resurrection: for, saith he, Christ argues
thus, If Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were not to live again,
God, who styles himself their God, would be the God of the
dead; whereas if their souls lived, and enjoyed a state of
happiness, God would not be the God of the dead, though
they never rose again. To this I answer,
Ans. 1. First, That when it is said, “God is not the God
of the dead,” the meaning is, he is not the God of them
who are to abide in a state of death, and never to enjoy the
resurrection of the just ; i.e. he owns not them for his who
are not to be “the sons of the resurrection” (ver. 36), and
will not be called their God, as having not prepared for
them a heavenly eity (Heb. xi. 16). Hence the scriptures
say of them, that they are “passed from death unto life,”
(John v. 24), and that they shall not die ; because Christ
will raise them up at the last day (John vi. 50). And, in
the opinion of the Jews, they only seem to die in the eyes
‘.
310
LUKE.
Master, thou hast well said (in relation to the Saddu-
cees).
40 And after that they durst not ask him any ques-
tions at all.
41 And he said to them, How say they (of the
scribes) that Christ is David’s son :
42 And (when) David himself saith in the book of
Psalms, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit thou on my
right hand, - -
43 Till I make thine enemies thy footstool, (by sub-
duing them, and putting them under thy feet, I Cor. xv.
25.) **
44 David therefore (in these words) calleth him
Lord, how is he then his son 2
45 Then in the audience of all the people he said to
his disciples, -
46 Beware of the scribes, which "desire (affect) to
walk in long robes, and love greetings in the markets,
and the highest seats in the synagogues, and the chief
rooms at feasts;
47 Which devour widows’ houses, and for a show
(of devotion) make long prayers: the same shall receive
greater damnation (for their hypocrisy). ‘.
of fools, because their hope is full of immortality (Wisd. iii.
2–4), and they proverbially say, “The just live when they
are dead :'' and in this sense, Abraham, and Isaac, and Ja-
cob would not live to God, though their souls lived with
him, unless their bodies also rose again.
Ans. 2. Secondly, God here styles himself the God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, i.e. not of their souls only, but
of their persons; in which sense the Jews always under-
stood these words: now thus he would be the God of the
dead, though their souls lived, unless their bodies also rose
again.
5 Wer. 46. Oexévray regitateſy #y a toxaſ, Affecting to walk
in long garments.] Down to their ancles, or to their feet,
that no part of their bodies might be seen ; for this, says
Dr. Lightfoot upon the place, was the talith that the dis-
ciples of the wise men wore. Good here is the observation
of Mr. Le Clerc from Pope Celestine, touching the clergy,
that “they are to be discerned a plebe vel casteris, doctrină,
non veste ; conversatione, non habità ; mentis puritate, non
cultà ; not so much by their apparel, as by their learning;
not only by their habit, but their conversation ; not by the
adornment of their body, but by purity of mind.”
CHAPTER XXI.
1 *AND he looked up, and saw the rich men casting
their gifts into the treasury.
2 And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in
thither two mites.
3 And he said, Of a truth I say to you, That this
poor widow hath cast in more than they all:
4 For all these have, of their abundance, cast in
unto “the offerings of God (i. e. the treasure designed
for the use of his temple) ; but she of her penury hath
cast in all the living that she had (i. e. all she had to
live upon that day).
5 And as some spake of the temple, (showing) how
it * adorned with goodly stones and gifts, he
S2ICl iſ
6 *As for these things which ye behold, the days
will come, in which there will not be left one stone
upon another, which shall not be thrown down (from
its place).
7 And they asked him, saying, Master (thou
speakest dreadful things of this place), but (tell us)
when shall these things be 2 and what sign will there
be (to inform men) when these things shall come to
pass 2 (We hope thou only speakest of the desola-
tion which shall overturn all things at the end of this
world.)
8 And he said, Take heed that ye (of this age) be
not deceived : for (after my departure) many shall
come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and the
time (of your redemption) draweth near (but must be
all false Christs) : go ye not therefore after them.
9 But (and) when ye shall hear of wars and com-
motions, be not terrified: for these things must first
come to pass; but the end (of the polity and temple
of the Jews) is not by and by.
10 Then said he to them, Nation shall rise against
nation, and kingdom against kingdom :
11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places,
and famines, and pestilences: and fearful sights and
great signs (of approaching judgments) shall there be
from heaven.
12 But before all these (things), they shall lay their
hands on you, and persecute you, delivering you up
to the synagogues, and (casting you) into prisons,
(you) being brought before kings and rulers for my
name’s sake.
13 And it shall turn to you for a testimony (of my
presence with you ; they being not able to resist the
wisdom of your doctrine, ver, 15, or gainsay the mi-
racles by which you do confirm it).
14 Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to medi-
tate before what ye shall answer (to their inquiries and
accusations):
15 For I will give you (in that hour, Mark xiii. 11)
a mouth (full of such power) and wisdom, which all
your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay or resist.
(Acts vi. 10.)
16 And (through the persecutions, which shall then
be great ; and the apostates, which shall then be many,
Matt. xxiv. 10. 13) ye shall be betrayed both by paz
rents, and brethren, and kinsfolks, and friends; and
some of you they shall cause to be put to death.
17 And ye shall be hated of all (sorts of) men for
my name’s sake.
18 But (notwithstanding, ºf ye continue faithful to
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXI.
* Ver. 1. He looked, and saw men casting their gifts into
the treasury.] That which was thus cast into the treasury
was designed, saith Theophylact, not only for relief of the
poor, but for sacred uses, and gig zooſpºy rod vaoû, “for the
ornament of the temple ;” and this might give ground to
Josephus to say, the temple was built, not only with the
bounty of Herod, that not being sufficient for the work,
but with all that was contained in the holy treasury, and
with the tributes sent from all parts of the world ; and so
that which men thought could never be finished, was,
through patience and length of time, accomplished (De
Bello Jud, lib. vi. cap. 14, p. 916). x- -
* Ver. 4. "E6axoy Big Tà 3&ga rol, Osoč, Cast in writo, i. e.
among, the offerings of God..] For it seems a mistake to say
that 3%a, “gifts,” signifies the treasury itself, which in He-
brew is called korban ; for that is 33 pov, not 33 ga in the plu-
ral ; and according to this sense, 8áAAew rā, śāga gig rô ya-
Žoğuxáxtov, must be, “to cast the treasury into the treasury”
(ver. 1).
* Ver. 6. Taürtt & BE.2geſts, As for these things which you
behold, Quod ad ha-c attinet. So Plautus, Naucratem,
quem convenire volui in navi non erat, Amphitr. act. 4, Sc.
1. Hos, quos videtis hic stare captivos duos, Capt. Prol, et
act. 1, sc. 2, Istos captivos duos—his indito catenas ;
and Terence, Eunuchum, quem dedisti nobis quas turbas
CHAPTER XXI. -
311
times of the gentiles be fulfilled (i. e. till the glorious
the end, Matt. xxiv. 13) there shall not “one hair of
your head perish (i. e. you shall not perish in that
destruction, which shall then come upon the unbelieving
Jews). -
19 In your patience possess ye your souls (Év rá
itropová úpºv krijgao.6s Tāg puxác ipêv, you shall have
$your lives preserved as the reward of your Christian
patience).
20 And when ye shall see Jerusalem encompassed
with (the Roman) armies, then know that the desola-
tion thereof is migh. . •
21 (And) then let them that are in Judea flee to
the mountains (of Peraa); and let them that are in
the midst of it depart out (of Judea); and let not
them that are in the countries enter thereinto.
22 For these be the days of vengeance (upon
Judaea), that all things which are written may be ful-
filled (upon them).
23 But woe to them that are with child, and to
them that give suck, in those days (and so are not in
a condition thus to flee) 1 for there shall (then) be
great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people.
24 And they shall (many of them) fall by the edge
of the sword, and (many of them) shall be led away
"captive into all nations: and "Jerusalem shall be
trodden down of (or trodden by) the gentiles, till the
*
conversion of the gentiles, at the coming in of the
Jews, who shall then also be gathered to their own city
and country).
25 And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the
moon, and in the stars (i. e. in the heavens where they
move) ; and upon the earth distress of nations, with
perplexity; " the sea and the waves roaring (see the
note);
26 Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for look-
ing after these things that are coming on the (habit-
able) earth: for the powers of heaven (the ecclesias-
tical and civil government) shall be shaken.
27 And then shall they see the Son of man coming
in a cloud (or, as upon a cloud) with power and great
lory. - -
g º And when these things begin to come to pass,
then look up, and lift up your heads, for your re-
demption (from your troubles) draweth nigh. -
29 And he spake to them a parable (to this effect);
Behold the fig-tree, and all the (other) trees;
30 When they now shoot forth (their leaves and
branches), ye see and know of your own selves that
Summer is now nigh at hand.
31 So likewise ye, when ye see these things come
to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God (or, the
dedit ! See like examples from the Old Testament, Ps.
xviii. 30. civ. 17. Eccl. ii. 14. Hos. iii. 11. xii. 7. Neh. i. 3;
in the New, Acts vii. 40. x. 36. 1 John ii. 27. Rev. ii. 26.
vi. 8. where as for, or quod attinet ad, is understood.
* Wer. 18. Kai 68: #x rā, Kepax; tºy oi, ºw? &máxºrai,
And there shall not one hair of your head perish.] This,
Saith Grotius, is a proverbial expression, used 1 Sam. xiv. 45.
2 Sam. xiv. 11. 1 Kings i. 52. Acts xxvii. 34, signifying that
they should sustain no loss, i.e. all circumstances considered;
for to suffer some loss for the present, to gain eternal life, is
the greatest advantage; whilst that which seems at present
to be lost is laid up with God, to be restored to us with
usury; and this limitation seems necessary, not only from
the former words, “Some of you they shall cause to be put
to death” (ver. 16), but also from the event; for as most of
the apostles were cut off before the destruction of Jerusa-
lem, so the protomartyr Stephen was taken away by the
Jews, James the less, and other Christians, by Ananus” the
high-priest. But yet I cannot acquiesce in this interpreta-
tion ; (1.) because this proverb, in all the places cited, con-
tains a promise, that the persons spoken to should not die, or
perish in the danger they lay under, or as they apprehended
whey might do ; so “No hair of any man's head shall pe-
rish,” Acts xxvii. 34, is the same as, “There shall be no
loss of any man’s life,” ver. 22 ; “One hair of Jonathan’s
head shall not perish,” l Sam. xiv. 45, is, in the same verse,
où Savaro.Shastat, “He shall not be put to death:” “A
hair of thy son's head shall not fall to the earth,” 2 Sam.
xiv. 11, is, in the same verse, “They shall not destroy thy
son:” “One hair of Adonijah shall not fall to the earth,”
1 Kings i. 52, is, in the same verse, “He shall not be put
to death.” Christ, therefore, seems to promise, that what-
ever might befall them at other times, yet in these days of
vengeance upon the Jews, or at the time of the destruction
of the city and the temple, none of those Christians which
endured to the end should perish in that siege. And this
the following words seem to insinuate, “In patience possess
your souls ;” that is, saith Tertullian, Per tolerantiam sal-
vos facietis vosmet insos, “By patience you will preserve
yourselves,” ver. 19; so Matt. xxiv. 13, “He that endureth
to the end shall be saved” (see here ver. 8). Accordingly
the Pseudo-Clemens, in his Recognitions, saith, that this
was an evident token of this great mystery, that “every
one that believed in this prophet, and was baptized in his
name, ab excidio belli, quod incredulae genti imminet ac
loco ipsi, servaretur illaesus, should be kept safe from the
* Joseph. Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 8, p. 698.
+ Recogn, lib. i. Ş. 39, p. 409.
destruction which should happen to that unbelieving nation,
and to their temple, by the war.” And Theodoret” saith
there was a fame, that “when Vespasian and Titus came to
fight against them, ºrcüç ruvizatira afteroi: # 37.0xaxás!eo, rºw
Tréâty waraxtºreſy, the faithful that were there, by revelation,
left the city, according to our Lord's admonition, Luke xxi.
20, and that of them Zachary foretold, the rest shall not
perish.” Add to this what is noted on Matt. xxiv. 13.
* Ver. 24. Kai aixòaxotic Shorov'ral Big Trávra rā #6vn, And
shall be carried captive into all nations.] Accordingly Jo-
sephus informs us, that the number of those who were
taken captives by the Romans during the war, was ºf ivyča:
ºvgå3a; ka? #Traxtºxixiot, “ninety and seven thousand ;” of
which some of the fairest and tallest Titus reserved for his
triumph ; of the rest, that were about seventeen years old,
he sent some to Egypt to work in the mines, ºrxeia.ºrov; 3'
Big T&; #Traºxia; 3:23aghazaro, “most of them he dispersed
through the Roman provinces, to be destroyed in their
theatres by the sword and wild beasts ; but they that were
under seventeen years of age, #704%mzay, were sold.”
* Kai ‘iegovo axip. Barai Tatovºzávn tºr: #Syöv, &xes ºran-
pa,0āori kaigoi £6väy, And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of
the gentiles, till the time of the gentiles be fulfilled.] That
is, say some interpreters, till the full number of the gentiles,
which God shall call, be completed. This, I confess, is a
very ancient interpretation of these words; but it is contrary
to the express word of the apostle Paul, who declares, that,
at the conversion of the Jews, there shall be a greater and
more glorious conversion of the gentiles, than that which
happened at the fall of them ; that “their fulness should
be much more the riches of the gentiles” than their fall
was (Rom. xi. 12, 13), and that “their coming in should be
to the gentiles as life from the dead,” and should so much
more enrich them, than their casting off (ver. 15). I there-
fore do interpret these words thus: Jerusalem shall
be inhabited, not by the Jews, but by the gentiles ruling
there, till the season for the full conversion of the still hea-
then gentiles shall come in ; i. e. till the time of the conver-
sion of the Jews, and the flowing in of all nations to them.
See this exposition confirmed in the appendix to the eleventh
chapter to the Romans, and Dr. Hammond's sense of the
words confuted there (see here, Examen Millii). -
"Axpt ºrango.8%rt waſpol Syâv.] These two words are in St.
Jerome, Theophylact, and in all the versions, and yet re-
jected by Dr. Mills, Proleg. p. 133.
7 Ver, 25. 'HXojan, 0axáranç kai a 4xov, The sea and the
* In Zech. xiv. 2.
+ De Bello Jud, lib, vii. cap. 49, p. 968.
312
LUKE.
coming of Christ, as a king, to emecute his vengeance
on his disobedient subjects of the Jewish nation) is
(also) migh at hand.
32 Verily I say to you, (The men of) this genera-
tion shall not pass away, till all (that I have spoken)
be fulfilled.
33 Heaven and earth shall pass away; but my
words shall not pass away (unperformed).
34 And *take heed to yourselves, lest at any time
your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunk-
enness, and (with the) cares of this life (which will
wnfit and indispose you for your flight, or your care to
avoid these things), and so that day (will) come upon
you unawares. . -
35 For as a snare shall it come on all them that
dwell on the face of the whole earth (or, land of
Judaea).
36 Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye
may be counted worthy to escape all these things
which shall come to pass, and to stand before the
Son of man (thus coming to avenge himself on that
nation).
37 And in the daytime he was teaching in the tem-
ple; and at night he went out, and abode in the
mount that is called the mount of Olives.
38 And all the people came early in the morning
to him (being) in the temple, to hear him.
waves roaring.] To this I would refer those words of Jose-
phus ; at that time, šuñxayo; #xpäyyural Xerºy, “an im-
mense storm of the sea brake out, and violent winds, with
most vehement showers, and terrible lightnings and thun-
ders, xai ºvkhºzara astop, #yn; rā; yā; #airia, and vast roar-
ings of the shaken earth” (De Bello Jud. lib. iv. cap. 17,
p. 881): or rather to that violent storm, called malemboreas,
which happened to the Jews at Joppa, got in boats to the sea,
in which their boats perished, with a violent noise, the peo-
ple howling, and the waves roaring at the same time ; of
which Josephus gives a very tragical description, De Bello
Jud. lib. iii. cap. 29, p. 855.
* Wer. 34–36. IIgooºste 8: Havroſ., &c. But take heed
to yourselves, &c.] Here our Saviour calls upon the believ-
ing Christians, to take care and use the greatest vigilance
that they do not miscarry in this dreadful scason, by reason
of that excess and luxury, which may render them unmind-
ful of it ; or those cares, which may render them un-
willing to part with their temporal concerns, lest they should
be involved in that ruin, which would come on others as a
snare, suddenly and unexpectedly ; and that they should add
to this vigilance constant prayer to God, that they might be
found worthy to escape these tremendous judgments, and
might stand safely and boldly before the Son of man, when
he comes to execute them on the unbelieving Jews. Whence
note, -
First, That God's promise of a deliverance to the Chris-
tians then, was only conditional, provided that they took
care to avoid those sins which might render them obnox-
ious to these judgments, and to do those things which might
render them worthy to escape them.
Secondly, That there is to be a connexion of our endea-
vours with the divine aid and providence for our preserva-
tion ; and that we are not to expect preservation imme-
diately from him, without the use of those means which he
hath put into our power to effect it.
CHAPTER XXII.
1 Now the feast of unleavened bread drew nigh,
which (from the beginning of it) is called the passover.
2 And the chief priests and scribes sought "how
they might (safely) kill him; for they feared the people.
3 Then “entered Satan into Judas, surnamed Is-
cariot, being of the number of the twelve (which at-
tended him).
4 And he went away (from the twelve), and com-
muned with the chief priests and captains, how he
might betray him to them. -
5 And they were glad (of the motion), and cove-
manted to give him money, (even thirty pieces of silver,
Matt. xxvi. 15.)
6 And he * promised (to make good his word), and
he sought opportunity to betray him to them in the
absence of the multitude (as ārºp &x\ov, without
tumult).
7 Then came the day of unleavened bread, when
the passover must (according to the law) be killed.
8 And he sent Peter and John, saying, Go and
prepare us the passover, that we may eat (of it).
9 And they said to him, (or, for they had said to
him, Matt. xxvi. 17. Mark xiv. 12,) Where wilt thou
that we prepare (it) *
10 And he said to them, Behold, when ye are en-
tered into the city, there shall a man Ineet you, bear-
ing a pitcher of water; follow him into the house
where he entereth in.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXII.
1. Ver. 2. TI3; āvāńooty abrov, How they might take him
away, i. e. Without a tumult of the people (Mark. xiv.
2).
* Ver. 3. Eiaºğe 3: 3 xarayå, sic 'loščay, Then entered
Salam into Judas.] That is, two days before the passover:
for, first, as for that supper in which our Saviour gave him
the sop, at which Satan entered, the scripture doth expressly
tell us, that it was held trºë rºſ, £ogräç roi; ºráoza, “ before
the feast of the passover,” John xiii. 1. And when our Sa-
viour, having given him the sop, said, “What thou doest, do
quickly "some of our Lord's disciples thought that Christ
had bid him “buy those things which were needful for the
paschal feast” (ver. 29), whence it is evident that feast was
not yet celebrated by them ; and here, St. Luke saith, Satan
... entered into Judas, and he consulted with the high-priest,
and with the soldiers, “how he might deliver him up unto
them :” and then it follows, ver. 7, 8, “Then came the days
of unleavened bread, and Christ said to his disciples, Prepare
the passover for us, that we may eat;” so that Satan must
have entered into Judas before the passover was prepared.
The apostle declares, that Satan #yegyeſ rat, “ inwardly work-
eth in the children of disobedience” (Eph. ii. 2), and “leads
them captive at his will” (2 Tim. ii. 26). When therefore
Judas had, through the temptation of his covetousness,
robbed even the poor of the charity designed for them (John
xii. 6), Satan suggests unto him another way to satisfy his.
avarice, even the betraying of his Master for a sum of mo-
ney; and when this suggestion prevailed with him to go to
the high-priests with that question, “What will you give me
to betray him P” (Matt. xxvi 15) then Satan fully entered
into him, and carried him on, without remorse, to the per-
formance of that horrid enterprise.
* Ver. 6. 'Eºop.oxáynas, And he promised.] i. e. Consented
to do the thing: for that this doth not only signify to con-
fess, and to give thanks, but also to consent and engage, is
evident, not only from the institution of Theophilus, where
we read thus, trºop, irrels, ºrpowitto, Tour’āati, Čp.oxoyeſs, &#x0-
Aoyā, that is, pºoytſy to promise; but from Phavorinus, who
renders pºoxoyā, avy'rièsºat, a tºpmºat, “I promise, I consent,”
of which import of the word we find many instances from
Plato, Xenophon, Demosthenes in Constantine ; so that
#op.oxéynaſe is here well rendered, “he promised,” or con-
sented to the price; nor is it to be wondered that St. Luke,
born at Antioch, where there was an academy, and studying
in the universities of Greece, should use this word, not as
the Septuagint, but as those Grecians did.
CHAPTER XXII.
313.
11 Amd ye shall say to the good man of the house
The Master saith unto thee, Where is the guest-
chamber, where I shall eat the passover with my dis-
ciples
12 And he shall show you a large upper room fur-
mished : there make ready.
13 And they went, and found (it) as he had said
to them, and they made ready the passover.
14 And when the hour (of eating it) was come, he
sat down, and the twelve apostles with him,
15 And he said to them, With “desire I have de-
sired (i. e. I have earnestly desired) to eat this pass-
over with you before I suffer :
16 For I say to you, I will not any more eat there-
of, until it (that which was typified by it) be fulfilled
in the kingdom of God (procuring your spiritual re-
demption by the oblation of the true paschal Lamb).
17 And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and
said, Take this, and divide it among yourselves:
* Ver. 15. 'Em,0ugig iriðſſºnza, &c. With desire I have
desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer.] I
cannot here see, what Grotius and others affirm, that Christ
gives here a reason why he would anticipate the paschal sup-
per, our Lord himself giving a reason of these words in the
following supper, viz. that he would eat no more of it, till
that which was typified by this paschal lamb was fulfilled in
the kingdom of heaven; that is, till he, who is styled our
paschal lamb, was offered, and, by his death, had procured to
men a liberty from that death, by the fear of which they were
formerly kept in bondage (Heb. ii. 15), and in perpetual me-
mory of his oblation, and the benefits purchased by it, had
instituted a new paschal supper, in which his disciples should
eat at his table with him. That our Lord did not ante-
date the paschal Supper, see in the discourse on that sub-
ject.
* Ver. 19. Totto Troisſºrs, Do this in remembrance of me.]
That is, say the papists, Sacrifice this, very absurdly ; for
who ever read in any Greek author, that a 3&a Troisſy signified
to “sacrifice a body ?” nor do the Latins say, facere victi-
mam, but facere. victima, understanding sacra. Moreover,
it is said also of the cup roßvo Troisſºrs, “Do this (; Cor. xi.
25), and yet it is not the cup by which the new covenant is
sacrificed, but by which it is established ; nor do the papists
say this cup is sacrificed, but only that it is consecrated by
those words.
* Ver. 20. 'Qa’aéro: Kai ré Trothploy, pºet, rà 8stºryńarat, &c.
Likewise also the cup, after supper, saying, This cup is the
new testament of my blood.] Here is a double metonymy;
(1.) that of the cup for the wine contained in it ; (2.) that
of the sign for the thing signified by it, the wine being the
symbol of that blood in which that new covenant was esta-
blished. And this, saith the evangelist, was said after the
paschal Supper, to signify that this cup pertained not to the
soleinnity of the passover.
7 Ver. 22. Kaić uiv vićc roß &ySgárov trogeºgrai kata rā āpia-
aftvov, And the Son of man goeth, as it was determined (of
him); but (yet) woe to that man by whom the Son of man
is betrayed ?] Kará rà &eta;&#vov, i.e. according to the pro-
phecies concerning the death of Christ, made by counsel and
appointment of God. From the woe, denounced upon him
that should betray the Messias, we learn, that he was highly
criminal in so doing, and therefore could not be under an ab-
solute necessity of doing so : therefore, who, from these
words, gather that Judas was, from the beginning of this ac-
tion to the end, under an absolute necessity of doing as he
did, by virtue of the decree of God impelling him to this
action, render Judas free from guilt ; and to them, saith
Grotius, we may say as Irenaeus” did to Florinus, maintain-
ing that some souls were not by choice, but, by nature, good;
and others were, by nature, evil: these doctrines are not
* Taira rā. Śāyaara, Íva reptagºvo's stro, oùr £ariv tyroic
Yvºns' Tatra rē. 33) wara &zúzqová ša ri ră ă»xxnariº, sic rhy
Awfyiot My Gaë88tay treet?&AAovra row; are:00pxévov; airoi; ºraj-
ra, rà. 88/ºara oi Trgå høv trgeo-Cútsgot, oi kai roi; &ndaréxot;
ove, poirázavºres, où Tragéºwzáy a ot, p. 510.
18 For I say to you, I will not (any more) drink
of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God
shall come. -
s 19 And he took bread, and gave thanks (over it),
and brake it, and gave (it) to them, saying, This
(bread given) is (the memorial of) my body which is
given for you : * this do (break bread henceforth thus;
in remembrance of me, (giving my body to be broken
for you, 1 Cor. xi. 24.)
20 * Likewise also (he took) the cup after (the end
of the paschal) supper, saying, (The wine contained
in) this cup is (the memorial of) the new testament
(or covenant ratified) in my blood, which is shed for
you, (for the remission of your sins, Matt. xxvi. 28.)
21 But, behold, the hand of him that betrayeth
(or delivers) me (up to the chief priests) is with me on
the table.
22 And truly the Son of man goeth, as it was " de-
termined (by that God, who, by his prophets hath fore-
sound, nor consonant to the sentiments of the church ; may,
they induce the greatest impiety; these things, neither the
ancients which were before us, and which were the disciples
of the apostles, delivered, nor durst our heretics assert. Since
God is good, saith Plato,” “we must by no means allow
anybody to say, he is the cause of the evil done by any ;
but must by all means repel and reject such opinions;” and
indeed all the ancients unanimously held that neither pro-
phecies, nor the prescience, nor the decrees of God, laid any
necessity upon the will of man; for they who assert this,
saith Origen, “absolve sinners from all guilt, and lay the
charge of all the evils which they do upon God, as, by his
decree, prescience, or prediction, laying upon them that ne-
cessity, which will not suffer them to do otherwise. They
also,” saith he “take away ºrd #4' hºly, the freedom of our
will, and with that all praise and dispraise, or all difference
betwixt things worthy of praise or reprehension. † This
doctrine also cuts off all that is said of the equity of the
divine judgment, and of the threats made against, or the
punishments inflicted on, the wicked, and of the promises
of a better life, and the reward of them that do well.”—
“For,” saith Clemens of Alexandria,S “there is no differ-
ence betwixt faith and infidelity, nor is either of them wor-
thy of praise or dispraise, if they have Trgonyovſzávny rhy fix
toū ‘rā arávra 3vyatoſ, pvaixãy &váyzny, an antecedent physical
necessity from God ; nor are praises or reprehensions, re-
wards or punishments, just, ºw; ràc luxā; #x00a.m.; thy #ov-
cíay rā, śćaš; xzi & pogºń; if the soul hath not a freedom of
desiring or abstaining from things, but is carried on to them
by an unwilling necessity.” God, saith Irenaeus," “hath al-
ways preserved to man his freedom and power over his own
actions, ut justè damnentur, quinon obediunt ei, that they
may justly be condemned who do not obey him :”—“for
man,” saith Justin Martyr,” “would neither be worthy of
praise or reward, oix & p’ autoſ agº.svos ré àyaščy, did he not
of himself choose what is good, but was so by mature; nor,
being evil, could he be justly punished, if he were not so of
himself; tº 3xx' otºev buyákºvo, Bival Étºpov trag & #yeyévet, but
could be no other than what he was made; for we are
crowned or punished 31& ré #4' hºſy, for that which it is in
our power to do.” And this they especially apply to this
fact of Judas. “I'or,” saith Chrysostom, “neither is presci-
ence the cause of wickedness, nor does it induce a necessity
of doing it: for Judas was not a traitor because God fore-
saw it; but he foresaw it, because Judas would be so” (see
the note on Acts ii. 23. iv. 28).
* Kaxåy 3è airloy pával Oey &ya8:v Švara &iațaxmréow wavri
ºrgárºſ, &c. Lib. ii. de Repub. p. 606, A.
+ Totic àºzagroxöö; &woxºovts.: mavré, Éxxxia aroc, tº Q&
tºpozygáçoia’s Trávrov rāv x axów rºy airtay. Tom. iii. in
Gen. ed. Huet. tom. i. p. 38, C, E.
: T3 rā; zeznguyºyn; roi, Osoſ, ºpio-soº, 3izai wai &reixal ºrgöc
row; hºwapraxára, &c woxación"optivov;, tºwai ré at tr;3; toi's ric
xpsittooriy Havrov, Štriès'8wkóraç. Ibid.
§ Strom. lib. ii. p. 363. || Strom. i p. 311, A, B, C.
* Lib. iv. cap. 9 et 29. * Apol. ii. p. 81, B.
++ Q. et Resp. 9, p. 397.
314,
LUKE.
told my sufferings); but (yet) woe to that man by
whom he is betrayed -
23. And they began to inquire among themselves,
which of them it was that should do this thing.
24 And there was also a “strife among them, which
of them should be accounted the greatest (in Christ's
kingdom).
25 And (to remove the causes of that strife) he
said to them, The kings of the gentiles exercise lord-
ship over them (at pleasure) ; and they that exercise
authority over them are called benefactors, (or, they
who are called benefactors, or princes, exercise authority
wpon * as their subjects : see Matt. xx. 25. Mark.
X. 42.
26 But ye shall not be (or do) so (i.e. ye shall
not exercise such dominion over others in my kingdom):
but he that is greatest among you, let him be (sub-
ject) as the younger (are to the elder, 1 Pet. v. 5),
and he that is chief, (let him be) as he that doth serve.
27 For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat,
or he that serveth is not he that sitteth at meat
but I (the head of this kingdom) am among you as he
that serveth (and so shall you be among others).
28 Ye are they that have continued with me in my
temptation (i. e. my low and afflicted state on earth).
29 And (though I permit you no dominion over
others at pleasure, but a ministry only for their good,
Syet) I appoint you to a *kingdom, as my Father hath
appointed to me (giving you power in my name to
preside over my church, making laws, as I have done in
his name, by which they shall be governed) ;
30 That ye may eat and drink at my table (and so
have the honour of grandees) in my kingdom, and
(may) sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of
Israel (and so may have the highest power in it).
31 And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold,
Satan hath ** desired to have you, that he may sift
(i. e. toss and shake) you (by temptations), as wheat
(is tossed and shaken in a sieve).
* Ver. 24. 'Eyávero 8: Kai pixoystºia, There was also con-
tention which of them should be accounted the greatest.] i. e.
Which of them should be so: for that Šokéo is oftentimes an
expletive, see 1 Cor. vii. 40. I see not any reason why in-
terpreters should here say, this account of their contention
is misplaced, since in the other evangelists it is mentioned
after Christ's admonition concerning his passion, viz. Matt.
㺠25. Mark x. 42. Here Christ saith more than he did
there.
* Ver. 29. Köyö 8taríðsp.a. ipºv, &c. And. I appoint you
to a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed to me..] Christ
speaks not here of the heavenly kingdom common to all the
faithful, but of a kingdom proper to his apostles, viz. that
as his Father had given him power to make laws. by which
all his subjects should be governed, and to which they should
be subject, so did he give to his apostles power to deliver to
Christians those evangelical laws, which they should all be
obliged to obey. Now hence it follows, that the gospels
and epistles of the apostles must be owned as the laws of
Christ ; and whereas the mobility in a kingdom use to be
known by two things, the honour and the power imparted
to them—their honour in eating at the king's table; their
power in having a share in the government under the king—
therefore our Saviour represents the honour of his apostles
by eating and drinking with him at his table, and their power
by judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
* Ver. 31, 32. "O Zarayå; #ntha aro tºx3;, &c. Simon,
Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may
sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith
fail not..] Here note,
First, For the consolation of good men, that Satan cannot
afflict or tempt them without divine permission (Job i. 12).
Secondly, That Satan is said airiacal, to sift those whom
he tempts and and afflicts; because afflictions toss and shake
them, as wheat is tossed and shaken in a sieve
32 But I have prayed for thee (who wilt suffer
most by his temptations), that thy faith fail not (utter-
ly); and when thou art converted (i.e. returned from
thy fall), strengthen thy brethren (subject to the like
temptations).
33 And he said to him, Lord, I am ready to go
with thee, both into prison, and to death.
34 And he said, I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall
not crow this day (in the morning), before that thou
shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me. !.
35 And he said to them, When I sent you without
purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye anything :
And they said, (We lacked) nothing.
36 Then said he to them, But now, he that hath a
purse, let him take it (with him), and likewise his
scrip; and he that hath no sword, *let him sell his
garment, and buy one (i. e. now the times will be so
perilous, that I have need to warn you to arm your-
selves, as much as may be, by faith and patience,
against the danger of them).
37 For I say to you, This that is written (of me)
must yet be accomplished in (upon) me, (viz.)
And he was reckoned among the transgressors, (Isa.
liii. 12,) for the things (written) concerning me (will)
have an end (or, accomplishment).
38 And they said, Lord, behold, here are two
Swords. And he said unto them, It is enough (to
answer my design, for I intended only, by this moni-
tion, to warm you of the distresses that were now ap-
proaching, that you may be prepared for them).
39 And he came out, and went, as he was wont, to
; mount of Olives; and his disciples also followed
1IIl.
40 And when he was at the place, he said to them,
Pray that ye enter not into temptation (i. e. that you
be not overcome by it).
41 And he was withdrawn from them about a
stone’s cast, and kneeled down, and prayed,
42 Saying, Father, if thou be willing, let this "cup
Thirdly, That Christ prayed, that the faith of Peter might
not fail, not because he was constituted by him the head of
the church, but because he was so infirm in faith as to deny
his Master thrice; whence he deserved to make shipwreck of
his faith by the subtraction of divine grace, and had actually
done so, had not his sudden conversion obtained the pardon
of his sin.
Note, Lastly, That it is the duty of those, who truly have
repented of their faults, to commiserate the fall of others,
and be solicitous for their confirmation in the faith.
* Ver. 36. Kai é º #x2y, &c. And he that hath no sword,
let him sell his garment, and buy one..] This is not a com-
mand to buy a Sword, or to use one to repel force with force,
as is apparent, partly because Christ saith here, “Two swords
are enough,” ver. 38, which sure they could not be for the
repelling those that were to come against them ; and partly
because he reprehends Peter for using one in this manner,
Matt. xxvi. 52. It is therefore only a monition that the
times were now to be so perilous, that, if things were to be
acted by human power, there would be more need of swords
and purses than ever : and by saying that two swords were
enough, some good interpreters think, he designed they
should understand, he spake not this to bid them provide
swords, but rather to acquaint them by symbols after the
oriental manner, with the approaching danger, that they
by faith and patience might be the better armed against it.
According to the descant of Theophylact, oùra, 7rgoyogía-SE
#avºrów &; ziyêºvoi, kal Troxépiot; ºrpoangcºroyºres, “So provide for
yourselves as persons that may expect to meet with perils
and wars.”
* Ver. 42. Ei Boºst tragaveykºv ré Trothetoy rotºro &n’ #200,
Father, if thow be willing to remove this cup from me..] He,
by the Jewish phrase of a cup, expresseth his death : so R.
Caijah comforts R. Lakis upon the death of his son, by say-
ing, “This is the path which hath been trod since the
CHAPTER XXII.
315
º, from me : nevertheless not my will but thine be
Olć. *
43 And (upon this prayer) there *appeared to
him an angel from heaven, strengthening him, (by
letting him know he should be heard in that he feared,
Heb. v. 7.)
44 And being in an agony he prayed more earnest-
y: and his sweat was as it were *great drops of
blood falling down to the ground.
45 And when he rose up from prayer, and was
come to his disciples, he found them sleeping; for
(their great) sorrow (had dispirited them, and so ren-
dered them sleepy). .
46 And (he) said to them, Why sleep ye rise and
pray, lest ye enter into temptation.
47 And while he yet spake, behold (there came to
apprehend him) a multitude, and (with them) he that
was called Judas, one of the twelve, (who) went before
them, and he drew near to Jesus to kiss him (this
being the sign given, by which they that were with him
should know Jesus).
48 But Jesus said to him, Judas, betrayest thou
the Son of man with a kiss? (Art thou guilty of such
vile hypocrisy as to make this the signalof thy treachery?)
beginning of the creation; many have drunk, and many
shall drink, of this cup.”
* Ver. 43. "Q$$n 3è airá áyyexog áºr' oigayoff #ytaxšov
airy, And there appeared to him an angel from heaven
strengthening him.] In St. Jerome's" time these words seem
to be wanting both in some Latin and Greek copies, as is
insinuated in these words cited in the note: nor hath
Ambrose anything of this angel in his commentary on this
chapter. But Epiphanius,' answering an objection of the
Arians, contending Christ could not be God, ćrt #mrečásto wal
taxãoc &yyáñow, “because he wanted the help of angels,” ac-
knowledged, that this was written in the gospel of St. Luke,
making no mention of any variation of the copies; whence
it may be conjectured, this variation happened after the
conflict with the Arians. But whereas Woltzogenius saith
after them, that this anxiety and consternation of our Lord,
which required that he should be strengthened by an angel,
proves he was not God ; he might as well have hence con-
cluded, that he was not “filled with the Spirit above mea-
sure ;” and before he made this conclusion, he should have
confuted Grotius, saying here, “that the divinity dwelling in
him had subtracted his influence ; whence Christ, being left
to his human nature, needed the comfort of an angel:” for
otherwise, he who with a word made the whole band of
soldiers fall to the earth (John xviii. 6), and healed the ear
of Malchus with a touch (ver. 51 of this chapter), sure gave
sufficient indications of the divinity residing in him.
* Ver. 44. ‘Eyśvero &# 3 i863; cºrroſ, &ce: Seáp.82, afºa roc,
And his sweat was as it were great drops of blood.] I own
that these words do not certainly signify that the matter of
this sweat was blood, but only that it was thick and viscous,
like to blood falling from the nose in a small clot, at the
end of bleeding ; but I see nothing why this might not be
so great an agony, as to force blood out of his capillary veins
to mix with it, this being no unusual thing: for Aristotlef
says, hēn riyêg tºpwa'aw aipatón ièpāra, “Some have sweat a
bloody sweat;” and again,S #3m riory ièpºcal avy#3n airwaqºs,
aſspºrt&ºcate 33 kažešiai, “Some, through an ill habit of
body, have sweat a bloody excrement.” And Diodorus
Siculus || Saith of the Indian serpents, that “if any one be
bitten by them, he is tormented with excessive pains, xat
fºot; iºto, aikatoBºots Katsiºs, and seized with a bloody
Sweat.”
* In quibusdam exemplaribus, tam Græcis quâm Latinis,
invenitur, scribente Lucă, Apparuit illi angelus de coelo con-
fortans eum. Adv. Pelag. lib. ii. f. 103, F.
+ Haer. 69, Š. 66.
i. Hist. Animal. lib. iii. cap. 19.
Š De Part. An. lib. iii. cap. 15.
| Lib. xvii. p. 560.
49. When they which were about him saw what
would follow, they (not rightly apprehending the
neaning of his words, ver. 46) said to him, Lord,
shall we smite with the sword?
50 And one of them (not staying for an answer)
Smote the (a) servant of the high-priest, and cut off
his right ear. -
51 And Jesus answered (i.e. spake with relation to
that action) and said, * Suffer ye (ºne) thus far (to be
at liberty as to restore the man to his ear). And he
touched his ear, and healed him. • *
52 Then Jesus said to the chief priests, and * cap-
tains of the temple, and the elders, which were come
to him, Beye come out, as against a thief, with swords
and staves? *
53 When I was daily with you in the temple, ye
stretched forth no hands against me: but "this is
your hour, and the (hour of the ) power of darkness
(i. e. the devil and you, his instruments, are now per-
nitted to compass my death).
54. Then they took him, and led him, and brought
him into the high-priest’s house. And Peter followed
afar off.
55 And when they (the servants) had kindled a fire
* Ver. 51. ‘Eäre w; roºrov, Suffer ye thus far..] I do not
think that Christ spake this to his disciples, bidding them to
permit his enemies to deal thus with him, and not to do any-
thing for his rescue, but rather that he spake thus to the
soldiers, Permit this injury, or assault, offered by one of my
apostles, which I will presently repair : for it follows, “and
he healed him ;” and this he said and did, partly to show,
that he who had such a power to heal and throw down his
enemies was taken willingly, and not for want of power to
preserve himself, and partly to preserve his apostles from
their assaults.
* Ver. 52. Kai arearnyol; rot isg05, And captains of the
temple..] It is past doubt with me, saith Dr. Lightfoot, that
these captains of the temple were not the Roman soldiers
placed in the tower of Amtonia, of whose conspiring against
the life of Christ we read not ; but the captains of the seve-
ral watches of the temple: for, say the Jews, the priests
keep watch in three places in the temple, and the Levites in
twenty-one ; and to every one of these watches there was a
chief, they consisting of many, and to them all one, who was
eminently 36xnyès, “the captain,” or chief ruler of the tem-
ple. But these, say Some, could not be Jews, because they
kept watch at the passover, and on the sabbath. To this I
answer, that the Jews did not think their feasts or sabbaths
were profaned by service done in and for the temple on that
day (see the note on Matt: xii. 5). That the Jews had then
such watches, we learn from those words of Pilate Matt.
xxvii. 65, #xete zova-robiav, “Ye have a watch :” that the
office of the priests and the Levites was called a warfare, see
note on 1 Cor. ix. 7. That these captains were not Romans
may probably be argued even from their name, “captains of
the temple ;" which name is never given by Josephus to the
governors of the soldiers in the tower of Antonia; they being
by him called peoûgaºxot,” “the governors of the castle ;”
whereas the officer is still called 5 arpatnyk, “the ruler of
the temple,” both by the scripture (Acts iv. 1. v. 24. 26), and
by Josephus:- and by Dr. Lightfoot he is supposed to be
the same with the man of the mount, so ofter mentioned in
the Jewish writers, or the ruler of the mountain of the house.
And by what we read of him, both in Josephus and the
scripture, he seems to be au officer of the high-priests, ap-
pointed to bring them who offended in the temple (as the
apostles were thought to have done, by preaching in it
Jesus) to the high-priest and Sanhedrin, to be punished.
17 Wer. 53. Airm tºy #2 riv h &pa, xa: # #ouaiz roſ, a zárovº,
This is your hour, and the power of darkness.] i. e. This is
the time in which it is permitted to you to exercise your
malice, and execute your bloody designs against me, and in
*
* Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 6. p. 624, F.
+ Totic 3: Tregi 'Avaytay ºry &gxisééa xal row orparnyy "Ayavoy
3%za; ei: ‘Pºny & wrétréºlf. Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 5. *
316
LUKE.
in the midst of the hall, and were set down together,
Peter sat down amongst them.
56 But a certain maid beheld him as he sat by the
fire, and earnestly looked upon him, and said, This
man was also with him.
57 And he denied him, saying, Woman, I know
him not.
58 And after a little while another saw him, and
said (as he had heard from another maid), Thou art
also of them. And Peter said, Man, I am not.
59 And about the space of an hour after, another
confidently affirmed, saying, Of a truth this fellow
also was with him : for he is a Galilean.
60 And Peter said, Man, I know not (anything of)
what thou sayést. And immediately, while he yet
spake, the cock crew.
61 And (then) the Lord turned, and looked upon
Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord,
how he had said to him, Before the cock crow, thou
shalt deny me thrice.
62 And (upon this) Peter went out, and wept bit-
terly.
63 And the men that held Jesus mocked him, and
smote him.
64 And when they had blindfolded him, they struck
which Satan is permitted to rush upon me with njs most
furious temptations.
* Wer. 70. Xi, oy E. § viº; rot, Osotſ; Art thow then the Son
of God?—I am. Wer, 71. What need we any further wit-
messes? Matt. xxvi. 63. 65. Behold, ye have heard his
blasphemy..] They conclude Christ guilty of blasphemy,
and, consequently, of death, because he styled himself the
Son of God, not in their sense, in which they allowed that
of the psalmist to belong to him, “Thou art my Son,” Ps.
xxvii. 12, but in his own ; i.e. because being a man he made
himself God (John x. 33). Whence it is manifest, (1.) that
him on the face, and asked him, saying, (Thou, who
callest thyself a prophet) prophesy, (or, tell us) who is
it that smote thee *
65 And many other things blasphemously spake
they against him.
66 And as soon as it was day, the elders of the
people, and the chief priests, and the scribes, came
together, and led him into their council, saying,
67 Art thou the Christ tell us (whether it be so or
not). And he said to them, If I tell you, ye will not
believe (me):
68 And if I also ask you (questions to convince you
that I am so, as formerly I have done, xx. 3), ye will
not answer me, nor let me go;
69 (Yet this I do assure you, that) hereafter (&lrö
roß vöv, from this time of my death) shall the Son of
man (soon) sit on the right hand of the power of God.
70 Then said they all, Art thou then the *Son of
God? and he said to them, Ye say that (which) I am.
71 And they said, What need we any farther wit-
ness for we ourselves have heard, (out) of his own
mouth, (that he styles himself the Son of God, and so
blasphemes, by making himself equal with God, John v.
18. X. 33.)
in the sense of the Jews, to own himself the Son of God,
and to make himself God, was the same thing. (2.) Hence
also it is certain, that the Jews of that age did not think the
Messias was to be God, but only a man, who could not
challenge to himself divinity, seeing they never conclude
him a blasphemer, because he said he was the Christ, but
only “because he said he was the Son of God;” by that
making himself “equal with God” (John v. 18), and because
he declared he shortly was to “sit at the right hand of
power” (Matt. xxvi. 64).
CHAPTER XXIII.
1 AND the whole multitude of them (of the Sanhe-
drin) arose, and led him to Pilate. *
2 And they began to accuse him, saying, We found
this fellow perverting the nation, and "forbidding to
give tribute to Caesar, (see xx. 35, by) saying that he
himself is Christ a King.
3. And Pilate asked him, saying, Art thou the king
of the Jews? He answered and said, Thou sayest it
(i. e. it is as thou hast said).
4 Then said Pilate to the chief-priests and to the
people, I find no fault in this man.
5 And they were the more fierce (upon these words
of Pilate), saying, He stirreth up (all) the people,
teaching throughout all Jewry, beginning from *Gali-
lee to this place.
6 When Pilate heard of Galilee, he asked them,
whether the man was a Galilean.
7. And as soon as he knew that he belonged to He-
rod's jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who him-
self was also of Jerusalem at that time.
8 And when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceeding
glad : for he was desirous to see him of a long season,
because he had heard many things of him; and he
hoped to have seen some miracle done by him.
9 Then he questioned with him in many words ;
but he answered him (to) nothing.
10 And the chief priests and scribes stood (before
Herod) and vehemently accused him.
11 And Herod with his men of war set him at
nought and mocked him, and arrayed him in a gor-
geous robe (as a mock king), and sent him again to
Pilate.
12 And the same day Pilate and Herod were made
friends together: for before they were at enmity be-
tween themselves.
13 And Pilate, when he had called together the chief
priests, and the rulers, and the people,
14 Said to them, Ye have brought this man to me,
as one that perverteth the people: and, behold, I,
having examined him before you, have found no fault
in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse
him :
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXIII.
Ver. 2. Kai woxãoyºta Kaicagº pápov; 31869at, And for-
bidding to give tribute to Caesar.] That here they lie against
their own conscience, is evident from Matt. xxii. 21. But
yet this lie was covered under two specious pretences ; first,
that he professed himself king of the Jews, which these
hypocrites here abuse, to render him odious to the Romans,
though they themselves still gave this title to the Messiah :
secondly, that he was a Galilean, and so likely to embrace
the opinion of Judas Gaulonites, who held it was not lawful
to pay tribute to Caesar (see ver. 6).
2 Ver. 5. 'Amr, raxixaflac, From Galilee.] They seem here
to mention Galilee, to incite Pilate against him, as a sedi-
tious person (see the note on xiii. 1), and to confirm their
suggestion that Christ was so ; and also to insinuate, that he
was an enemy to Caesar, forbidding to pay tribute to him :
they of Galilee being prone to sedition, and rebellious upon
that account, whence some of them were slain by Pilate,
CHAPTER XXIII.
317
15 No, nor yet Herod : for I sent you to him (to
whose jurisdiction he belongs) ; and, lo, nothing (as to
one) worthy of death is done to him (by Herod).
16 I will therefore "chastise him (as if he were to
die), and (then I will) release him (as the fittest person
to be released at this feast).
17 (This he said) for (because) of necessity he must
release one to them at the feast (of the passover).
18 And (but) they cried out all at once, saying,
Away with this man, and release to us Barabbas:
19 Who for a certain sedition made in the city, and
for murder, was cast into prison.
20 Pilate therefore (being) willing to release Jesus,
spake again to them (of releasing him).
21 But they cried, saying, Crucify him, crucify him.
22 And he said to them the third time, Why (are
ye so desirous of his death) 8 what evil hath he done *
(For my part) I have found no cause of death in him:
I will therefore chastise him, and (then) let him go (as
the fittest person to be released at this feast).
23 And they were instant with loud voices, requir-
ing that he might be crucified. And the voices of
them and of the chief priests prevailed (at last with
Pilate to consent to his crucifixion).
24 And (so) Pilate gave sentence that it should be
as they required.
25 And he released to them him that for sedition
andmurder was cast into prison (viz. Barabbas), whom
they had desired; but he delivered (up) Jesus to (be
dealt with according to) their will.
26 And as they led him away (bearing his cross,
John xix. 17, finding him weak, and not well able to
sustain it), they laid hold on one Simon a Cyrenian,
coming out of the country, and on him they laid the
cross, that he might bear it after Jesus.
27 And there followed him a great company of peo-
ple, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented
him.
28 But Jesus turning to them said, Ye daughters
of Jerusalem, (ye have cause to) weep not for me, but
for yourselves, and for your children.
29 For, behold, the days are “coming, in which
they shall (find cause to) say, Blessed are the barren,
and the wombs that never bare, and the paps that
never gave suck.
30 Then shall they begin (to feel such calamities as
will cause them) to *say to the mountains, Fall on us;
and to the hills, Cover us (from the wrath of God,
Rev. vi. 16).
31 For if they do these things in a "green tree (i. e.
to me a righteous person, Ezek. xx. 47. xxi. 2, 3), what
shall be done in the dry (i. e. to those wicked persons
who, like the dry tree, are fit to be burned in the fire.)
32 And there were also two other malefactors led
with him to be put to death.
33 And when they were come to the place, which
is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the
malefactors; one on the right hand, and the other
on the left (hand of Jesus).
34 Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they
know not what they do, (i. e. who it is they crucify,
Acts xiii. 27.) And they (viz. the soldiers) parted his
raiment, and cast lots (for his upper garment, John
xix. 23, 24).
35 And the people stood beholding (him). And
the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He
saved others; let him (now) save himself, if he be the
Christ, the chosen of God.
36 And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to
him, and offering him "vinegar,
37 And saying, If thou be (indeed) the King of the
Jews, save thyself. * l
38 And a superscription also was written over him
in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew (viz.),
THIS (man) IS THE KING OF THE JEws.
39. And one of the malefactors which were hanged
railed on him, saying, If thou be (the) Christ, save
thyself and us (also).
40 But the other "answering rebuked him, saying,
Dost thou not fear God, seeing thou art in the same
condemnation ? (i. e. Dost thou not fear him now that
thou art under the sentence of death £)
* Ver. 16. ITatēeſſorac ody airów &moxico, I will therefore
chastise him, and let him go..] Note, that this chastisement
was not in order to his crucifixion, and therefore not that
punishment the Romans used to inflict upon malefactors, as
a preparative to their crucifixion (of which, see Lipsius de
Cruce, lib. ii. cap. 2), for Pilate intended it in order to his
release; he therefore seems willing to inflict upon him the
punishment so common among the Jews towards those who
did perversely against their law and their traditions, that he
might exempt him from that death they did so studiously
endeavour to expose him to.
* Ver. 29. The days will come in which ye shall say,
*axáétat at a reigai, Blessed are the barrem.] This they un-
doubtedly had occasion to say at the siege of Jerusalem, and
during the war against the Romans, not only on the account
of the loss of their children, and the sale of them, who were
under seventeen years, for bond-slaves; but chiefly on the
account of that famine in Jerusalem, which forced Mary, the
daughter of Eleazar, to eat her own sucking child: upon
which, Saith Josephus,” “there was a vehement desire of the
farmished persons to die, Kai (waxaptopºg rāy pôaa &vrov rply
&xotia at zai SE&a'ao Sai wax& Tºxixativa, and he counted himself
blessed that he could die before he saw or heard such evil
things.”
* Ver. 30. Társ #8&ovrat Aéysty roi; peat, ºréas're tº #23,
Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on ws.]
That this is a proverbial expression, used Hos. x. 8, not to
be fulfilled by what the Jews should then say, but by what
they should afterward suffer, is evident in itself, and con-
fessed by the Jews ; for the Targum upon Hosea speaks
thus, “He will bring such judgments upon them, which will
* De Bello Jud, lib. vii. cap. 21, p. 955, D.
render their condition as miserable as if the mountains
should cover them, and the hills fall upon them :” see the
like words, Rev. vi. 15, 16.
* Ver. 31. "ort et év tá úyeč, ćA@ rajra rotočarty, i, ºrg
£npº ri yávnºrat; For if these things be done in the green tree,
what shall be dome in the dry 2] The gqod and just man is,
by the prophets and Jews, represented under the metaphor
of “a green tree,” or a tree whose leaves do not wither, Ps.
i. 3.; of “a green olive-tree,” Ps. lii. 10; of “a green fir-
tree,” Hos. xiv. 8; of “a tree whose leaves are ever green,”
Jer. xvii. 8. Whereas of the wicked it is said, “His branch
shall not be green,” Job xv. 32. Thus God by Ezekiel
threatens, that he will “cut off every green tree, and every
tree in Jerusalem,” Ezek. xx. 47, that is, as it is inter-
preted, xxi. 3, that he will “cut off the righteous and the
wicked ;” and it is proverbial among the Jews, that “two
dry sticks will burn a green one ;” i. e. that the company of
two wicked men will corrupt, and bring judgments upon a
good man.
7 Ver. 36. "Ożo; Trgoa pégovre; airó, The soldiers offered
him vinegar..] Dr. Lightfoot shows from AElius Spartianus,
Capitolinus, and Trebellius Pollux, that vinegar was the
usual drink of the soldiers: two cups were therefore offered
to Christ, one of “wine mixed with myrrh,” before he was
nailed to the cross (Mark xv. 23), and this was offered by
the Jews, as the custom was to do towards men condemned
to capital punishments; the other of vinegar by the soldiers,
in a scoffing manner, after he was nailed to the cross.
* Ver. 40. 'Aroxg16sis 38 #Tegog, âtre tip.ca airó, &c. But the
other answering rebuked him, &c.] Almost all interpreters
that I have read, here say that this thief began his repent-
ance upon the cross ; and hence others are apt to conceive,
that though they repent only at the last gasp, they may
3.18
LUKE. z
41 And we indeed (are sentenced to die) justly; for
we receive (only) the due reward of our deeds: but
this man hath done nothing amiss (whereby to deserve
this sentence). -
42 And he said to Jesus, Lord, remember me
when thou comest into thy kingdom (to be the judge
of all men, and to eacercise all power in heaven and
earth).
43 And Jesus said to him, "Verily I say to thee,
To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise (and there
enjoy the greatest blessing which belongeth to the
members of my kingdom).
44 And it was about the sixth hour (when he was
crucified), and there was darkness over all the earth
(or land of Palestine) until the ninth hour. -
t
45 And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the
temple (which parted the inward temple from the sanc-
tuary) was rent in the midst.
46 And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice,
he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit:
and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.
47 Now when the centurion saw what was done,
he "glorified God (by) saying, Certainly this was a
righteous man.
48 And all the people that came together to that
sight, beholding the things that were done, Smote
their breasts, and returned (to their houses full of
trouble for it).
enter into paradise, as he did ; but this is but a precarious
supposition at the best, and like to prove a broken reed to
the Christian that depends upon it. For,
First, It is not certain that this thief only then began to
act the penitent; for anything we know to the contrary, he
might have begun that work in prison long before, and so
the whole foundation of their hopes, who depend upon this
instance, is built upon a great uncertainty. . - -
Obj. And whereas in favour of this opinion it is said, that
both the thieves upbraided him, and therefore this thief
must do so at the first, and after that repent :
Ans. I answer, That St. Luke here expressly says, that
one of them only did it, and that the other did rebuke him
for it; and therefore, to reconcile him with St. Matthew, let
it be observed, that it is usual in the evangelists to ascribe
that to many which agrees only to one of them (see the note
on Matt. xxvii. 38): so that is said to be written in the pro-
phets, which is only written in one of them, as will be evi-
dent from comparing Mark i. 2. Mal. iii. 1. John vi. 45.
Isa. liv. 13. Acts xiii. 40. Hab. i. 5 (see Glassius, lib. iii.
tr. 1, de Nomine Can. 27).
Secondly, This probably was the first time that this thief
had the knowledge of Christ, or was acquainted with him ;
he therefore haply had no call, no day of grace, before this
hour, and so he brake no vows or covenants, abused no grace
vouchsafed, sinned against no such light and strong convic-
tions, resisted no such strivings of the Spirit, as they who
live under the gospel dispensation must have often done.
What comfort therefore can this example give to them, who,
having once been washed in the laver of regeneration, still
wallow in the mire; who, having often heard the joyful
sound, have slighted all the promises, despised all the threats,
been deaf to all the callings of the word, abused all the
means of grace, and resisted all the motions of the Spirit ;
and to whom Christ may say as to the Jews, “How oft
would I havegathered you under my wings, and ye would not?”
Thirdly, Observe, that this thief improved his time at last
in that extraordinary manner, as perhaps no man ever did
before, or will hereafter ; he then believed Christ to be the
Saviour of the world, when one of his disciples had betrayed,
another had denied him, and all of them had forsook him ;
to be the Son of God, the Lord of life, when he was hanging
on the cross, suffering the pangs of death, and seemingly
deserted by his Father; he proclaims him the Lord of para-
dise, when all the Jews condemned him, the gentiles cruci-
fied him, as an impostor and a malefactor; he feared God,
acknowledged the justice of his punishment, and did with
patience submit unto it; he condemned himself, and justi-
49 And all his acquaintance, and the women that
followed him from Galilee, stood afar off, beholding
these things (and were sad).
50 And, behold, there was a man named Joseph, a
counsellor ; and he was a good man, and a just :
51. The same had not consented to the counsel and
deed of them (who condemned Jesus); he was of Ari-
mathea, a city of the Jews : (and he was one) who also
himself waited for the kingdom of God (i. e. eaſpect-
ing it should suddenly appear). :
52 This man went to Pilate, and begged the body
of Jesus.
53 And (by his permission) he took it down, and
wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre which
was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was
laid (taking this care, that our Lord’s body might not
be cast into the common place assigned for male-
factors). -
54 And that day was the preparation (i. e. Friday),
and the sabbath drew on.
55 And the women also, which came with them
from Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulchre,
and how his body was laid. -
56 And they returned, and prepared spices and
ointments (to embalm him); and rested (from doing
this) on the sabbath-day, according to the command-
Iment. -
fied the holy Jesus, declaring that he had “done nothing
amiss;” he was solicitous, not for the preservation of his
body, but the salvation of his soul ; not only for his own,
but the salvation of his brother thief, whom he so charitably
reprehends, so earnestly requesteth not to proceed in his
blasphemous language, so lovingly inviteth to the fear of
God: so that the glory which he did to Christ by his faith
and piety upon the cross, seems such as the whole Series of
a piqus life in other men can hardly parallel.
* Ver. 43. 'Aºy Aéyo orot, chasgow Azer’āºot ºn #y rô Trapa-
8stºry, Verily I say wrºto thee, To-day thou shalt be with me
in paradise.] That the word a hºsgow, “to-day,” is not to be
connected with “I say,” as if the sense were this, “I say to
thee to-day ;” but with the words following, so as to contain
a promise, that the thief should even that day be in para-
dise, as to his better part, appears from the familiar phrase
of the Jews, who say of the just man dying, aw" Enn “To-
day he shall sit in the bosom of Abraham.” Secondly, To
be sure Christ spake in that sense in which the thief could,
and in which he knew he would, understand him ; now he
being a Jew, would surely understand him according to the
received opinion of his nation concerning paradise; now
they plainly held it to be the place into which pious souls,
separated from the body, were immediately received. Hence
sprung that oracle of the Chaldees,” “Seek paradise, the
glorious country of the soul :” hence their kind wish for the
dying or dead person, “Let his soul be in paradise.” Now
hence it follows, (1) that the souls of men die not with their
bodies, but remain in a state of sensibility. Christ here
commends his into the hands of God, ver. 46, where the
souls of the just are, Wisd. iii. 1, in peace, ver. 3, and in
hope, ver, 4. (2.) That the souls of good men after death
are in a happy state, a state of joy and felicity ; for para-
dise saith Philo, is a tw8oNow Juxic wºrö 'trafiðovº zai ºf yé6ous
Xagā; āyaak:gróa'ng, “The representation of a soul leaping for
fulness and greatness of joy;” and it is, according to Ter-
tullian,t “a place of divine delights.” So that, as the thief
could only be there that day by the presence of his soul, so
could not his soul be there without the greatest joy and feli-
city (see Examen Millii bis in locum).
* Ver. 47. 'E36%ace rév Osov, &c. He glorified God, saying,
Certainly this was a righteous man.] For whosoever doth
confess that Jesus is the Christ, doth it “to the glory of the
Father ” (Phil. ii. 11), by giving him the glory of his truth
in giving testimony to him.
* Aruch, f. 11, 3.
+ De Plant. Noas, p. 171.
: Apol. cap. 47.
319
CHAPTER XXIV.
1 Now upon the first day of the week, very early
in the morning, they (i. e. the women, mentioned xxiii.
35) came to the sepulchre, bringing the spices which
they had prepared, 'and certain other (women came)
with them.
2 And (being come) they found the stone rolled
away from (the mouth of) the sepulchre.
3 And they entered in (to the outward sepulchre),
and (stooping down to look into the inward, they) found
not the body of the Lord Jesus (there).
4 And it came to pass, as they were much perplex-
cd thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in Shin-
ing garments:
5 And as they were afraid, and bowed down their
faces to the earth, they said to them, Why seek ye
the living among (i. e. the place of) the dead?
6 He (whom. We seek) is not here, but is risen : re-
member how he spake to you when he was yet in
Galilee, (that he would rise the third day, Matt. xvii.
23.)
7 Saying, The Son of man must be delivered into
the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the
third day rise again.
8 And they remembered his words,
9 And returned from the sepulchre, and told all
these things to the eleven, and to all the rest.
10 (And) it was Mary Magdalen, and Joanna, and
Mary the mother of James, and other women that
were with them, which told these things to the apos-
tles.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXIV.
1 Ver. 1. Kai rive; a`āv airraſs. And some other women of
Jerusalem with them.] Wiz. “Joanna and Mapia rot; 'Iakºğov,
Mary the mother of James,” as we read Mark xv. 40. So
in Herodotus "A8eacto; 5 Tog&éo roi Mi3éo, “Adrastus the
nephew of Gordias and father of Midas:” in AElian,” 'oxwº-
Triac à Axe:4vègov, “Olympias the mother of Alexander;” and
in Stephanus, F # 35 ºróxis & ré A&th&Nov rot; 'Izágov h Év Aukiz,
“A city in Lycia, built by Daedalus, the father of Icarus:”
so Acts vii. 16, Trapá ràv vićy’Epº roi; 26%gº, “Of the sons
of Emmor, the father of Sychem,” for so he was.
* Ver. 12. IIgs; aurëy Savačov, Wondering in himself.]
So Luke xviii. 11, Treć, Šavröy ºrpoonéxero, “He prayed by
himself.”
* Ver. 13. Aſo #: air&y, Two of them.] Not of the apostles,
for these two returning told what had passed betwixt Christ
and them to the eleven apostles, ver. 33, 35, but two of the
rest that were with them, ver. 9, 33. The village Emmaus,
to which they were going, was not that Emmaus near Ti-
berias, so called from the hot baths there, for that was in
Galilee ; but a village in the tribe of Judah, sixty furlongs
from Jerusalem, say St. Luke and Josephus;: thirty, Saith
his translator.
4 Ver. 16. Oi Bà épôaxpºol airãy #xgaroivºro, But their eyes
were held.] That they knew him not might be, not because
their eyes were held by a miracle, but because he appeared
to them, śv Štípg |zogºń, in another form or shape, than
that which formerly he had when he conversed with them,
Mark xvi. 12, and which when they knew him might be
changed ; for that their eyes did not perceive him, through
grief, as Mr. Le Clerc conjectures, is not very likely, for
though they were sad (ver. 17), we read not that they wept;
and seeing it elsewhere said, that the Lord opened the eyes
of Balaam to see the angel, Numb. xxii. 31, and the Lord
opened the eyes of the young man to see chariots of fire, 2
Kings vi. 17, and the Lord opened the eyes of the host of
* War. Hist. lib, xiii, cap. 30. + Voce Aaišaxa.
f'Agºaoiſ; 3réxey rāv ‘Iseova-oxvøy ava?ious effºrcyra. De
Bello Jud. lib. vii. cap. 27, p. 983.
11 And their words seemed to them as idle tales,
and they believed them not.
12 Then arose Peter, and ran to the sepulchre; and
stooping down, he beheld the linen clothes laid by
themselves, and departed, wondering *in himself at
that which was come to pass.
13 And, behold, two "of them (who belonged to
Jesus) went the same day to a village called Emmaus,
which was from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs.
14 And they talked together of all these things
which had happened.
15 And it came to pass, that, while they communed
together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and
went with them. -
16 But their eyes were *held, (either miraculously,
or by his appearance in another form, Mark xvi. 12,)
that they should not know him.
17 And he said to them, "What manner of commu-
nications are these that ye have one to another, as ye
walk, and are sad 2 -
18 And one of them, whose name was Cleopas, an-
swering said to him, Art thou only "a stranger in
Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are
come to pass there in these days 2
19 And he said to them, What things And they
said to him, (The things) concerning Jesus of Naza-
reth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word
(in miracles and doctrine) before 8. and all the peo-
ple:
20 And how the chief priests and our rulers de-
the king of Syria, ver. 20, which was withheld from seeing,
or struck blind, ver. 18,--I say, seeing in all these cases
doubtless an extraordinary power was exerted, I believe ra-
ther according to the plain import of the words, that God
withheld the eyes of Hagar from seeing the well, and then
opened her eyes, Gen. xxi. 19, by taking away that impe-
diment, and that here Christ some way withheld their eyes
from perceiving him, and then removing that impediment,
opened their eyes that they knew him.
* Ver. 17. Tive; of Aépoi otºrot; What manner of communi-
cations are these ?] Christ asks, saith Woltzogenius, not be-
cause he knew not what they said, for what could he be ig-
norant of, who knew men's hearts and reins 2 but to give
them an occasion to begin the discourse.
* Ver. 18. Xi, p.6voc tragozeſ; #y ‘IEgovo axłg, ; Art thou only
a stranger in Jerusalem, 7] IIagolksfy here may signify to be
extra patriam, one of another country, and, as so, a stranger
to the affairs of Judea and Jerusalem. So the seed of Abra-
ham were régoixoi iv yń &Axorgia, “strangers in another coun-
try,” Acts vii. 6, Moses was Tāzotzog, “a stranger in the
land of Midian,” ver. 29, the gentiles, not yet called to be
fellow-citizens with the Saints, are ##vol xai Trépoizoſ, “stran-
gers and aliens,” Eph. ii. 19, and according to this metaphor,
the patriarchs are said trapotasſy “to sojourn in the land of
promise, as in a strange country,” Heb. xi. 9, the Christians
to live in this world, &; Tragoinovº, “as strangers and pilgrims,”
as 1 Pet. ii. 11, the time they spend here is the time trapoikia;
aăvăy, “ of their sojourning,” I Pet. i. 17. So also the phi-
losophers” held that heaven was their own country, that
they were rā, ºráxedeg rig &vorárnº troxtºral, “citizens of the
city above, and strangers” in this world: hence any one
who is ignorant of what is done in any place, is styled a
stranger in it: so Antoninus ºf Saith, they are #vot kāakaou,
“strangers in the world, who knew not what is done in it: ”
and Cicerot speaks thus to Atticus, “I desire thee, ne illuc
hospes veniam, that I may not come thither as a stranger;”
that is, as ignorant of things done there : and again, “It is
* Annot. lib. iii. §. 11. + Anton. lib. iv. §. 29.
f Ad. Atticum, lib. iv. n. 13. lib. vi. m. 33. See Orat. 38.
m. 24.
320
LUKE.
livered him (up) "to be condemned to death (by Pon-
tius Pilate), and (thereupon) have crucified him :
21 But we trusted that it had been he which should
have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, to-day is
the third day since these things were done (i. e. the
very day in which he promised to rise again),
22 Yea, and certain women also of our company
made us astonished, which were early at the sepulchre
(of Jesus) ;
23 And when they found not his body, they came
(to us), saying that they had also seen a vision of an-
gels, which said that he was alive.
24 And certain of them that were with us (viz.
Peter and John), went to the sepulchre, and found it
even so as the women had said: but him they saw
In Ot.
25 Then he said to them, “O fools, and slow of
heart to believe all that (which) the prophets have
spoken
26 Ought not Christ (according the scriptures) to
have suffered these things, and (then) to enter into his
glory?
27 And beginning at "Moses and (going through)
all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the
scriptures the things concerning himself.
28 And they drew nigh to the village whither they
something for him that comes to Rome, non esse hospitem
et peregrinum, not to be ignorant of what is done there ; ”
and, in his familiar epistles, he writes for instructions in what
is done in the commonwealth, ne hospes planè veniam,”
“that he might not come thither as a stranger.” So here,
“Art thou a stranger ?" i. e. Art thou ignorant of things
well known to all that dwell at Jerusalem P
7 Ver. 20. Ei, wbiza Savárov, To the sentence of death.]
Sol Kings iii. 28. All Israel heard ſº xgip, a rotºro, “this
judicial sentence of king Solomon : ” rô xeipzz roi; Moºg, is
God’s “sentence against Moab,” Jer. xlviii. 46, and rôxpiº, a
Ba£vXàvoc, his “sentence against Babylon,” li. 9, “Let my
sentence, rö ºpiº, a pºov, come forth from thy presence,” saith
the psalmist, xvii. 3 (see the note on Rom. iii. 4).
* Ver, 25. O fools t| Hence note, that the command,
Mat. v. 22, is not always transgressed by this expression ;
but only then, when it is used without cause, from an undue
commotion of spirit, or a mind evilly affected towards our
brother.
* Ver. 27. Kai ägåågsvo, 3rd Moja šo';, &c. And beginning
from Moses, he earpounded the things concerning himself.]
If the things concerning him relate to his sufferings and fu-
ture glory, mentioned in the preceding verse, we may hence
learn, that the Mosaical sacrifices, and especially the solemn
anniversary expiation, typified the sufferings of Christ ; as
also did the oblation of Isaac, and the lifting up of the bra-
zen Serpent.
* Ver. 28. IIgoo'erotºro Trofiñorípo tropºſeo Sat, He made as if
he would have gone farther.] Yea, perhaps he would have
done so, had they not been urgent with him to abide with
them, ver. 29, or he seemed to them by continuing on his
course to be willing so to do: so Mark vi. 48, Sexs trapexSE:y
airoic, “He would have passed by them: ” not that Christ
intended this, but that he seemed to them by continuing his
course on the sea to be willing so to do: here therefore was
no dissimulation in Christ; but only in the disciples and
apostles a mistaken conjecture from his walking. Now,
though words ought to be the certain interpreters of our
minds, and therefore ought not to be used so as that we
may be deceived by them, yet walking hath no certain sig-
nification, nor was instituted to be a certain indication of the
mind, and so there seems here to be no just occasion for the
long discourses, which some hence make of lying, simulation,
or dissimulation; here being no instance of that kind.
* Ver. 29. Ka: Trage6tášovro airröy, And they constrained
him, saying.] They laid this constraint upon him only by
their earnest desire : so Lot, war:8táćero, “constrained” the
went: and he (kept on walking, and so) "made as
though he would have gone farther.
29 But they (by their entreaties) "constrained him,
saying, Abide with us: for it is towards evening, and
the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with
them. **.
30 And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them,
*he took bread, and blessed it, and brake (it), and
gave (of it) to them.
31 And their eyes were opened (that which obstruct-
ed the discerning of him being removed), and they
*knew him; and he vanished (or conveyed himself
secretly) out of their sight.
32 And they said one to another, Did not our hearts
burn within us (i. e. was there not in us a great warmth
of affection), while he talked with us by the way, and
while he opened to us the scriptures?
33 And they rose up the same hour, and returned
to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together,
and them that were with them,
34 (And heard them) *saying, The Lord is risen in-
deed, and hath appeared to Simon.
35 And they told (them) what things were done in
the way (to Emmaus), and how he (the Lord) was
known of them in breaking of bread.
36 And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in
angels to lodge with him, Gen. xix. 3, so Jacob constrained
Esau to accept his presents, Gen. xxxiii. 11, so Judg. xix.
7. 2 Kings ii. 17. v. 16. Mat. xi. 12. Luke xvi. 16. Acts xvi.
5; see note on Gal. ii. 14.
** Ver, 30. Aagöy toy &gtoy sixáynae, xa, xxâa ag äre&#8ov
airoir, He took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave
it to them.] This he did, say the papists, when he celebrated
the sacrament, Luke xxii. 19, therefore here also he cele-
brated the sacrament, though in bread only. This he did,
say I, when he fed the four and five thousand ; for then
&prov; sixáyna's wai xX&ora; Bºoze, “he blessed the bread, and,
breaking it, gave it to his disciples” to give to the multi-
tude (Mat. xiv. 19. Mark vi. 41. viii. 6); and will they
say, that then also he celebrated the sacrament before the
institution of it P 2. To make of bread a sacrament, it is
absolutely necessary, according to them, that Christ should
say, “This is my body,” which here he said not ; if they
| * * & © º
rejoin, that this is to be understood, I say, with as much rea-
son, that wine, the usual concomitant of a supper, is to be
understood ; and so here will be no example of communi-
cating in one kind. 3. If Christ here celebrated a sacra-
ment without wine, he also consecrated without wine; which
yet the papists say is never to be done.
* Wer. 31. Kał żºréyvolcay airy, And they knew him.]
Christ having now removed the obstruction from their eyes;
for he would conceal himself from them for a season, that
he might more freely discourse with them ; when he had
done that sufficiently, he would be known to them, for the
confirmation of their faith. And, when they had obtained
the certain knowledge of him, à payro; #yévero, “he withdrew
himself again out of their sight,” either by a sudden change
of place, or by a cloud cast over his body: whence we can
no more argue, that he had only an airy body, than that he
had the like when #xg38m, “he hid himself, passing through”
the Jews, when they were about to stone him, John viii. 59.
Where this word is used of Pelops in Pindar,” it signifies
one that was lost, and nowhere to be found, though much
sought after by the men his mother sent to look after him;
and I grant to Mr. Clerc, that a man may be lost, and not
found by them that seek after him, without a miracle, but,
&qayro; 3r' attày #yśvero, “he became invisible to them,” or
disappeared from them, seems to carry the matter higher,
though it may be otherwise.
* Ver. 34. Aéyovraç, Saying.] They found the eleven,
saying at their very entrance, “The Lord is risen,” or those
that were with them, ver. 33, thus greeting them before they
could speak,
* Lib. ii. n. 21.
* Olymp. 1, 72.
CHAPTER XXIV.
321
the midst of them, and said to them, Peace be to
'Ull.
37. But they were terrified and affrighted, and sup-
Fº that they had "seen a spirit (rather than a réal
ody, because they knew not how he came in to them).
38 And he said to them, Why are ye troubled :
and why do (such) thoughts arise in your hearts :
39 Behold my (pierced) hands and feet, (and see)
that it is I myself (that speak to you); "handle ºne,
and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye
see me have.
40 And when he had thus spoken, he showed them
his hands and feet.
41 And while they yet (firmly) believed not for joy,
and wondered (how this could be, thinking it was too
good to be true, and rather might be a pleasant dream,
Ps. cxxvi. 1), he said to them, Have ye here any
meat 3 - w
42 And they gave him a piece of broiled fish, and
of a honeycomb.
43 And he took it, and did "eat it before them (for
farther confirmation to them that he had a real body).
44 And he said to them, These (things) are (done
according to) the words which I spake to you, while I
was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled
which were written "in the law of Moses, and in the
prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning me.
45 Then (by the special operation of the Holy Ghost,
"opened he their understandings, that they might un-
derstand the scriptures (concerning his death and
resurrection, which as yet they know not, John xx. 9.)
46 And said to them, Thus it is written, and thus
it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead
the third day:
47 And that repentance and remission of sins
should be preached in his name among all nations,
beginning at Jerusalem (i. e. that all men should be
called to repent, Acts xvii. 30, and to believe in him,
for the remission of their sins).
48 And ye are (to be) *witnesses of these things.
49 And, behold, (in pursuance of that end) I (shal;
shortly) send the promise of my Father (i. e. the Holy
Ghost promised by him, Joel ii. 28) upon you: but
tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued
with (this) power from on high. (Isa. xxxii. 15.)
50 And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and
he lifted up his hands, and blessed them.
51 And it came to pass, while he blessed them,
(that) he was parted from them, and (was) carried up
into heaven.
52 And they worshipped him, and returned to
Jerusalem with great joy:
53 And (they) were *continually in the temple
(at the hours of prayer), praising and blessing God.
Amen.
* Ver. 37. 'E8ákovy trysip, a SEoggiv, They supposed they
saw a spirit..] i. e. A phantasm, or a spirit assuming the
shape of Christ, and appearing to them in it ; viz. because
they heard no noise of any doors opening, or of feet moving
towards them : and so, though they doubted not of Christ's
resurrection (ver. 34), yet might they, for these reasons,
doubt of this appearance of him in the midst of them with-
out knocking at the door for entrance, or giving any indica-
tions of his coming to them.
* Ver. 39. See my hands and feet, JºnAaºho aré as, han-
dle me..] Christ proves that he had a true body from the
evidence of their sight and touch : and the apostles testify
to the truth of the resurrection of his body, as being that
which “their eyes had seen, and their hands had handled,”
1 John i. 2. Therefore those senses must be sufficient to
testify the truth of any body, and much more the truth of
the substance of bread remaining after the sacrament, con-
firmed also by the taste and smell; and the denial of this
must render the argument of Christ here, and the testimo-
nies of the apostles, infirm : our Saviour goes on in confir-
mation of the same thing, by saying, “A spirit hath not flesh
and bones, as ye see me have.” Now certain it is, that our
Lord's argument must be firm ; it therefore must be certain,
that evil spirits cannot assume such a body as will not yield
unto the touch, but only a mere phantom, or an aerial up-
pearance of a body, which cannot cheat the touch and eyes
of men. And, (2.) that good spirits, if they can assume a
more solid body, yet cannot put illusions upon men in things
belonging to their faith, or be sent by God for such ends.
17 Wer. 43. He did eat before them.] Not to satisfy any
hunger his body could have after his resurrection, but to
prove to them that his body was truly raised ; and seeing it
cannot be supposed, that Christ in this action designed any
illusion, it follows from his truly eating, that his body had
those parts by which meat is chewed, and a stomach to re-
ceive it. - * t
* Wer. 44. All things must be fulfilled which are written
By riº véſzº Mooréoº, kai Trgophºratº, kai laxpºofs, regi #zot, in
the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the Psalms concern-
ing me.] This division of the books of the Old Testament ob-
tained in our Saviour's time, as Josephus * witnesseth, who
saith, “We have only twenty-two divine books; of which
five are the books of Moses, thirteen the writings of the pro-
phets, four contain hymns to God and documents of life;” of
which hymns the Psalms obtained the first place.
* Aáo 33 ºva rečc rot; Exor 3.8xia, xal roºroy ºrévºrs
faivia'ri Maa'fac. II:04:Tai rā kat' autotº ováygaxpay £y rpia,
19 Wer. 45. Tête 3 ºvoićev airów rºy voiv, &c. Then he opened
their minds, that they might understand the scriptures.] It
is one thing to open rāg yeaçãº, the scriptures themselves,
or to explain them ; and another, to open their understand-
ings to perceive them ; Christ did the latter, probably by
giving them now some first-fruits of that Spirit of prophecy,
which fell more plentifully on them at the day of Pentecost.
* Ver. 48. 'Yºgi, 3% irts tºgrupe; rotºrov, And ye are wil-
nesses of these things.] Christ's resurrection being a matter
of fact, must be proved by the testimony of eye-witnesses,
who, if they be honest men, and such as suffer the greatest
prejudices in fortune, reputation, and life, for this testimony,
we have the greater reason to believe it ; for their honesty
must render them unwilling to testify a falsehood ; their in-
terest and prudence would not suffer them, without any ne-
cessity laid upon them, to testify a lie ; much more to tes-
tify the grossest falsehood to their utmost damage, and with-
out any prospect of advantage: but farther, if they confirm
this testimony by all kinds of signs, miracles, and wondrous
powers, exercised by themselves and others who embraced
their testimony; if this was done in all ages on all kinds of
persons, for a whole age or ages, this renders it impossible
they should thus attest a lie; and therefore Christ bids them
stay at Jerusalem till they were thus empowered by virtue
from on high to confirm this testimony, Acts i. 8.
Wer. 52. IIpoczuyácavre; airãv.] These words are rejected
by Dr. Mills, though they are owned by Jerome, Theophy-
lact, and all the versions, and wanting only in his imaginary
old Vulgar.
* Ver. 53. Kai #aay Slamayrö; #y tº isº, And they were con-
tinually in the temple..] Some, from these words, conceive
they dwelt in some tºrs;&ov, “upper room,” or apartment of
the temple, belonging to some priest or Levite, such as are
mentioned 2 Kings xi. 2, 3. 2 Chron. xxii. 11, 12. But it
is not easy to conceive, the Sanhedrim and rulers of the
people would have permitted this; and yet, notwithstanding
all their hatred of and oppositions to them, we never read
they thus dislodged them : they therefore may be said to
have continued “always in the temple,” as constantly resort-
ing thither at the hours of prayer, as the sacrifices offered
morning and evening are styled Aozavr&gara Statraºrds, “con-
tinual sacrifices,” I Chron. xvi. 40. 2 Chron. ii. 4 (see
note on 1 Thess. v. 17; and Acts ii. 46).
& f * *
wał Śēka 3.8xtoic ai 3á Xolºral rérarage; twov; eis rôy 983, was
* * g * ** Af g &
roſ; &y03%rot; into&#xaç rot, 8iou weſtáxºvaty. Lib. i. contra
Apion. p. 1036, F, G.
Y
THE
GOs PEL OF ST. JOHN,
WITH AN NO TATIONS.
PRIEFA C E.
-
By way of preface to this gospel, I shall endeavour to show,
First, Against some ancient heretics and modern Socini-
ans, that not Cerinthus, but St. John the evangelist, was the
true writer of this gospel.
Secondly, At what time he wrote it, and upon what occa-
sion. And, º:
Thirdly, Why Christ still speaketh in this gospel, as one
that did and could know nothing of himself, but acted all
things by commission from, and by the authority and power
of, God the Father. And,
§ 1. That not Cerinthus, but St. John the evangelist, was
the true writer of this gospel may be concluded,
First, From these words, xxi. 23, “Then went this saying
abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not
die;” ver, 24, “This is that disciple which testifies of these
things, and wrote these things.” For (1.) hence it is evi-
dent, that he who wrote that gospel was a disciple of our
Lord, which Cerinthus never was. (2.) That he was that
disciple whom Jesus loved, and who leaned on his breast at
supper, and who said, Lord, who is it that betrayeth thee P
ver 20. Now this is the constant periphrasis of St. John
the evangelist throughout this gospel, viz. John xiii. 23. xix.
26. xxi. 7, the whole Christian world having still applied
these sayings to St. John ; who, being in this gospel still
mentioned by this periphrasis, and never by his proper name,
as he is in the other evangelists, no better reason can be
given of this, than that he was the writer of this gospel, and
therefore named not himself. And (3.) it was that disciple
of whom the fame went abroad among the brethren that he
“should not die;” now this was so constantly applied to St.
John the evangelist, that some of the ancients declare he
died not at all, but was translated; and others, that he only
lay sleeping in his grave (see Dr. Cave in the life of St.
John, sect. 8, 9). And it was he alone, of the twelve apos-
tles, who tarried till our Lord came to the destruction of
Jerusalem, which he outlived many years (see note on
xxi. 22).
Secondly, For this we have the testimony of all the an-
cient fathers in the church, they all concurring in this as an
unquestionable truth, that this gospel was written by St.
John, the apostle of our Lord. This follows from what hath
been already proved in the general preface; viz. that the
four gospels were generally received by the universal church
of God, as gospels written by those authors whose names
they bear. Add to this, that the gospel of St. John was,
saith Eusebius,” always reckoned among ràc àyavriášárov;
weapãº, “the books not controverted among Christians.” And
again, that the gospel of John must be received as being
“known to all the churches of the world;” and a third
time, that this gospel, with his first epistle, was, without con-
troversy, admitted both by the ancients and by those of his
time. Irenaeus+ informs us, that "Iwavyn; 5 p.a6mº); rot.
Kvetov, “John, the disciple of our Lord,” who leaned upon
his breast, writ his gospel at Ephesus. Clemenst of Alex-
andria saith, 'Iolawny rvetºzari Seopognèvra, that “St. John,
being moved by an afflatus of the Spirit, writ this spiritual
gospel.” Origen; reckons the gospel of St. John among the
* T3 war' airèy elayyáatov raï, itrè rôy otpayèy 31E), wap.ávoy
#xxxnariat; ºrgåroy &yop, oxoysia Sat—röy 83 Iowawow avyygapºrov
Trešº rò stayyexity, Kai º Trºotépa rāv šaria toxãy Trapá rà roſ; vºy
kai ºrdſ; $7' àexaiot; &vak, pixexto; &#x0xáyntax. H. Eccl. lib.
iii. cap. 24, p. 94, 96.
+ Lib. iii. cap. 1. j. Apud Euseb. H. Eccl. lib. vi. cap. 14.
§ Ibid. lib. vi. cap. 25, p. 226.
rā āyavriñnta, “the gospels received without dispute by every
church under heaven.” And Tertullian, among the apostles
which instruct us in the faith, reckons St. Matthew and St.
John ; among the apostolical men that do it, Mark and
Luke (Contr. Marcion. lib. iv. cap. 2).
Thirdly, They who ascribed this gospel to Cerinthus were
guilty of a great absurdity, as Epiphanius” observes; for how
could those things be wrote by Cerinthus, which do, in direct
terms, contradict his doctrine: he asserted, as Tertulliant
and others of the ancients testify, the doctrine of the Ebion-
ites, that Christ “was born as other men, and was a mere
man without the divinity;” whereas the author of this gos-
pel declares him to be the Word, which, “in the beginning,
was with God, and was God ;” and that “all things were
made by him,” and not by a “virtue far separate and dis-
tant from God,” as, saith Irenaeus, t Cerinthus held. Cerin-
thus therefore could not be the author of this gospel, unless
we will suppose that he forged a gospel under the name of
an apostle, on purpose to condemn his own opinions. And
this consideration is strengthened by the tradition of many
of the primitive fathers and others, who say expressly, this
gospel was written by St. John the disciple of our Lord, to §
“remove that error which Cerinthus had dispersed among
men;” or that he writ it “against the doctrine of the
Ebionites.”
And, Lastly, Whereas some Unitarians have the con-
fidence to conclude this gospel was written by Cerinthus,
because he and his followers did use this gospel, it appears
from Irenaeus] and Epiphanius, that they did constantly re-
ject it, and use only the gospel of St. Matthew, and not that
entirely.
§ 2. The other objections of the same persons against this
gospel are the fruits of ignorance. For whereas,
First, They say, that “the other evangelists agree, that
immediately after his baptism our Lord was led into the wil-
derness to be tempted forty days; this forger of St. John's
gospel saith, the next day after (his baptism) our Saviour
spake with Andrew and Peter, and the day after went to
Galilee.
Ans. This is a miserable mistake, of the next day after the
Baptist returned his answer to the pharisees inquiring who
he was, and why he baptized (John i. 29), for the next day
after Christ's baptism. The series of the story lieth thus;
Christ, being newly baptized, goes into the wilderness, and
leaveth John at Jordan on Judea side. In the time of our
Lord's temptation, John, having finished his work at Jordan,
goes over into the country beyond Jordan, out of the precincts
of Judea, and into the Scythopolitan region, and baptized at
Bethabara, at a water distinct from Jordan, and somewhat
above it; thither some pharisees are sent to him by commis-
sion from the Sanhedrin, to inquire of the authority by which
he baptized; the next day after they had made this inquiry
Christ cometh in sight, and John bears record to him ; and
* Haer. 51, §. 4.
+ Cerinthus Christum hominem tantummodó sine divini-
tate contendit. Lib. de Praescript. C. Hieron. in Catal.
Script. verbo Johannes. •'- -
& f Lib. i. cap. 25.
§ Wolens, per evangelii annuntiationem, auferre eum, qui
à Cerintho inseminatus erat hominibus, errorem. Iren. lib.
iii. cap. 11, p. 257. Adversus Cerinthum aliosque haereticos,
et maximè tunc Ebionitarum dogma, consurgens. Hieron.
Catal. Script. Catal. Prooem. in Matt.
| x8&vºrs, yā; rô Kará Maršafov stayyexity &r; &#60wz, Kai
oùxī āAw. Epiph. Haer. 30, §. 5. Idem de Ebionais dicit
Irenaeus; de Cerinthianis quðd Marcum praeferunt, lib. iii.
cap. 11, p. 258. -
PREFACE
TO JOHN. 323
the next day after that he renews his record, saying, in the
presence of Andrew, “Behold the Lamb of God;” ver. 29.
37, and he, following Christ, finds out Simon, and bringeth
him to Christ. .*
Obj. 2. “The other three evangelists suppose all along
that our Saviour preached but one year, and therefore they
reckon but one passover, but (the pretended) St. John counts
three years, and three passovers before his death, which seems
to be an unaccountable contradiction.”
Ans. But here again we find nothing but mistakes; for
none of the three evangelists suppose that our Saviour
preached but one year. This, at the first, was the opinion
of the Valentinians,” and other gnostics, not of the apostles
or evangelists, and it is confuted by Irenaeus from the pass-
overs of St. John; though some of the fathers fell into the
same error, not on account of these evangelists, but of the
prophet Isaiah saying he was sent “to preach the accepta-
ble year of the Lord,” Isa. lxi. 2, that is, the year of jubilee
(see note on Luke iv. 19). -
Secondly, Though the other evangelists mention expressly
but one passover at the close of Christ's life, of which they
speak to show he was the true paschal lamb; yet are they so
far from contradicting, that they confirm St. John's account
of more passovers during the time of our Lord’s preaching;
for (1.) St. Matthew, xii. 1, St. Mark, ii. 23, St. Luke, vi. 1,
speak of our Lord's disciples plucking ears of corn on the
sabbath-day, and rubbing them in their hands, and eating the
corn; whereas till after the passover was over, and the first-
fruits' sheaf offered, which was always done the second day
after the passover, it was not lawful to eat either “parched
corn or green ears” (Lev. xxiii. 14): this therefore is a suf.
ficient indication of one passover then past. And this is still
clearer from the words of St. Luke, who says they did this
#y argé84 tº 38wregorgörð, “on the first sabbath after the se-
cond day of the passover,” or after the oblation of the first-
fruits’ sheaf (see the note there): so that Epiphanius+ saith
truly, ºva. Seán ivºretićev, “hence it is proved,” that not St.
John only, but St. Luke, and the other evangelists, mention
more than one passover. St. John mentions another pass-
over, vi. 4, in these words, “And the feast of the passover
was near ;” and then immediately follows the mention of
the feeding five thousand people with five loaves and two
little fishes ; now this miracle is recorded Matt. xiv. 15.
Mark vi. 35. Luke ix. 12, and so they all suppose our Lord
was also preaching at this other passover.
§ 3. As for the second inquiry, at what time, and upon
what occasion, this gospel was written by St. John, Irenaeus
saith only in the general, that “he writ his gospel during his
stay at Ephesus in Asia ;” but whether he wrote it there be-
fore his banishment from thence by Domitian, or after his
return from it, or in the isle of Patmos, to which he was ex-
iled, he saith not. The fathers; of the fourth and fifth cen-
turies do all agree, that he writ it either in that isle, or after
his return from it, when he was ninety years old, saith Epi-
phanius;|| when he was an hundred, saith Chrysostom :" so
that according to the account of all these ecclesiastical wri-
ters, St. John must have written this gospel a considerable
time after the destruction of Jerusalem.
And yet the latter writers and commentators upon this
gospel have almost generally gone off from this opinion, as-
serting that St. John writ this gospel “in the “ thirty-
second or thirty-third year after our Lord's ascension.” And,
§. 4. Touching the occasion of the writing of it, St. Je-
* Kał Śrt tº 828skáto ºnvi imašev ivtavrò fivi, Bočxoviral airröy
(wera to 3árticºa airoi; KExmºvzévet. Lib. i. cap. 1, p. 16. Uno
enim anno volunt eum post baptismum praedicasse. Lib. ii.
cap. 36 ; vide cap. 39.
+ Haer. 51, §. 31.
f Merå rºw airoi; &nd ris IIárezou ärávočov, Epiph. Haer. 51,
§. 12, p. 434. Martyrium Timothei apud Photium, p. 1403.
Athanas. Synops. Scrip. Suidas in voce Johannes. Prae-
fatio ad Joannem apud Augustinum.
§ In Patmos, Dorotheus in Wità Apostol. -
| Haer. 51, ubi supra. See note on Heb. iv. 3.
* Serm. de Sancto Johanne Ap. tom. iv. p. 505.
** Isidore lib. de Sanctis N. Testamenti. Beda, Euthy-
mius, Theophylact, Nicephorus.
rome" having told us that St. John writ this gospel, rogatus
ab Asiae episcopis adversiis Cerinthum, aliosque haereticos,
“at the desire of the bishops of Asia against Cerinthus, and
the heresy of the Ebionites, who held that our Lord was a
mere man ;” unde et compulsus est divinam ejus nativita-
tem edicere; “and so he was compelled to speak of his di-
vine original;” in which opinion most of the latter writers
agree with him ; he adds another cause of writing this gos-
pel, current before and in his time, viz. that “having pe-
rused and approved the other three gospels, he supplied what
was wanting in them, especially as to what our Saviour did
before John was cast into prison.” Accordingly Clemens of
Alexandria and Eusebius say, that St. John, observing that
the other evangelists had written rā orwpearix&, that is, the
series of our Lord’s generation, according to the flesh, he
writ a spiritual gospel, beginning from the divinity of Christ,
this being reserved for him as the most excellent person, by
the Holy Ghost (see and compare Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. iii.
cap. 24, with lib. vi. cap. 14). And that he did this to sup-
ply those excellent discourses, and those signal miracles,
which the other evangelists had omitted, seems manifest from
the whole tenor of this gospel.
§. 5. I proceed to the third inquiry, why Christ still speak-
eth in this gospel, as one who did and could do nothing of
himself, but acted all things by commission from, and by the
power and authority of God the Father.
This is a matter of very great importance; for it is observ-
able, that whereas Crellius, in his book de uno Deo Patre,
sect. 2, reckons up thirty-six arguments against the divinity
of Christ; and Woltzogenius, in his Praeparatio ad utilem
Lectionem librorum Novi Testamenti, reckoneth up sixty
against it; one half of them are taken from some passages
of this gospel. And the same author, in his prolegomena to
this gospel, saith, that “in no writing of the evangelists
or apostles, are there more arguments against the divinity of
Christ, than in this gospel.” Nor have I yet been so happy
as to see one author, who hath given sufficient, clear, and sa-
tisfactory answer to the arguments produced from this gos-
pel against that necessary article. I could heartily wish that
men so skilled in the controversies betwixt us and the So-
cinians, as Dr. Edwards, of Jesus College, is, would rather
give us a clear answer to the arguments of Crellius de uno
Deo Patre, against the divinity of Christ, which is too much
wanted, than furnish us with “antidotes against Socinianism,”
by producing arguments against it, whilst that and such-like
books, unanswered, seem to be antidotes against antidotes.
I have endeavoured in my annotations on this gospel to
do this, by asserting that our blessed Lord did execute his
prophetic office by virtue of that unction of the Holy Ghost,
which he received at his baptism; and that all the things,
which the Socinians urge from this gospel as arguments
against his divine nature, were spoken by him as acting in
that office here on earth; not by an immediate efflux, or ex-
ertion of his divinity, but by virtue of the Holy Ghost, con-
ferred upon him without measure. And that I may not
seem singular in this assertion, I shall strengthen it with
the suffrage of some of our most able and judicious divines,
and then confirm it from the plain testimonies of scripture,
and our Lord's own words. Now of those able and judi-
cious divines, who concur with me in this notion, the first is
Dr. Barrow, who, in his sermon on these words, Acts ii. 38,
“Ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost,” saith thus, f
“The Holy Spirit not only conducted God our Saviour into
his fleshly tabernacle, and with unmeasurable communica-
tions of himself did continually reside within him, but also
did attend him in the conspicuous performance of innume-
rable miraculous works of power and goodness, exceeding
not only any natural, but all created power: such as were,
by mere word and will, healing the sick, and restoring the
maimed, ejecting evil spirits, discerning the secret thoughts
* Verbo Johan.
+ Sed et aliam causam hujus scripturæ ferunt quëd cūm
legisset Matthaei, Marci, et Luca volumina, probaverit qui-
dem textum historiae, et vera eos dixisse firmaverit, Sed unius
tantùm anni in quo et passus est, post carcerem Johannis,
historiam texuisse——Superioris temporis, antequim Jo-
hannes clauderetur in carcerem, gesta narravit.
Vol. iii. Serm. 45, p. 524.
Y 2
324
PREFACE
of men, foretelling contingent events, reviving the dead, rais-
ing himself from the grave; which works, some expressly,
others by parity of reason, are ascribed to the Holy Spirit:
“for if,” saith our Lord, ‘I by the Spirit of God cast out
devils,’ Matt. xii. 28, and God, saith St. Peter, “anointed
him with the Holy Ghost, and with power,’ Acts x. 38.”
The second is the judicious Dr. Scott,” who speaks thus,
“When Christ came down into the world, to transact per-
sonally with men, he generally acted by the Holy Spirit: for
at his baptism we are told, that ‘the Holy Ghost descended
on him in a bodily shape,” Luke iii. 22, upon which it is
said, that he went away ‘full of the Holy Ghost,” Lukeiv. l.
After which it is plain that it was by the Holy Ghost in him
that he prophesied, and wrought his miracles; for so Isa. lxi.
1, the prophet attributes the whole prophecy of Christ to the
Spirit of the Lord, which was upon him ; and in Matt. xii.
28, our Saviour himself affirms, that he ‘cast out devils by
the Spirit of God;’ and therefore he saith that the Jews by
attributing his miraculous works to the devil, ‘blasphemed
against the Holy Ghost,” Matt. xii. 31, because it was by the
power of the Holy Ghost that he wrought them.”
The last is Dr. Lightfoot, who, in his note on Mark xiii.
32, saith, “We must distinguish between the excellences
and perfections of Christ, which flowed from the hypostatical
union of the two natures, and those which flowed from the
donation and anointing of the Holy Spirit. From the hypo-
statical union of the natures flowed the infinite dignity of his
person, his impeccability, his self-sufficiency to observe the
law, and to satisfy the divine justice; from the anointing of
the Spirit flowed his power of miracles, his foreknowledge
of things to come, and all kind of knowledge of evangelic
mysteries: those rendered him a fit and perfect redeemer;
these a fit and perfect minister of the gospel.”
To illustrate and confirm this assertion, let it be considered,
First, That Jesus Christ, while he was on earth, deli-
vered all his doctrines and precepts in his Father's name, or
as one sent from him, and authorized to speak what he de-
livered in his name, according to those words of his forerun-
ner, “He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God,”
John iii. 34.
He himself often declares in express words, that he was
come in his Father's name, John v. 43, that the Father
had sent him, viii. 29, that he came not of himself, but he
sent him, ver. 42, that he came not to do his own will,
but the will of him that sent him, vi. 38–40. 57, that the
works which he did bare witness of him, that the Father had
sent him, v. 36, 37, that he spake those things which he had
heard of, and seen with, his Father, viii. 26. 38, and that
the Jews were guilty of a great sin, in that they believed not
in him whom the Father had sent, v. 38. Of this doctrine
he saith, “My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me ;
and if any man will do his will, he shall know of the doc-
trine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.”
vii. 16, 17 (see the note there): that he spake not from bim-
self, but from him that sent him, ver. 18, that as his Father
had taught him, so he spake these things, viii. 28, that he
had told the Jews that truth which he had heard of God,
ver, 40, that the word which they heard was not his, but the
Father that sent him, xiv. 24, that he had not spoken of him-
self; but the Father which sent him gave him command-
ment what he should say, and what he should speak: what-
Boever he spake therefore, even as the Father said to him,
so he spake, xii. 49, 50; and of his disciples he speaks thus
to his Father, “I have given to them the words which thou
gavest me; and they have received them, and have known
surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed
that thou hast sent me,” xvii. 8: from all which sayings he
concludes, that “he that heareth me, heareth him that sent
me : and he that believeth in me, believeth in him that sent
me,” xii. 44. xiii. 20. Consider,
Secondly, That he preached his doctrines, and delivered
his sayings to the world, by virtue of that Spirit with which
he was anointed; so we learn plainly from those words of
John the Baptist, iii. 24, “He whom God hath sent, speak-
eth the words of God; for God giveth not the Spirit by mea-
sure to him” (see the note there). So also he himself de-
clares, in his first sermon preached at Nazareth after his
temptations; for having read those words of Isaiah, lxi. 1,
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath
anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent
me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the
captives—to preach the acceptable year of the Lord; he be-,
gan to say to them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in
your ears,” Luke iv. 18, 19. 21.
Moreover, it seems essential to a prophet to act as he is
moved, assisted, and incited by the Holy Ghost ; for a pro-
phet, saith Philo,” tºoy ºfty odºy &moºyyeras, “speaks no-
thing from himself, but all things from another:” no prophecy
being, saith St. Peter, ièia; #mrixózsa's, “ of the proper motion,
or incitation of the prophets,” they speaking still as “they
were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Pet. i. 20, 21). And it
is essential to a prophet sent from God, and speaking in his
Father's name, to speak that only which he had received
from him, even as other prophets did, that is, by inspiration
of the Holy Ghost; whence by this Spirit our great prophet
is said to be sanctified, or consecrated to his office, and sent
into the world (x. 36).
Thirdly, The miracles he did on earth in confirmation of
this mission and his doctrine, were also done by the assist-
tance of the Holy Ghost. So we learn plainly from these
words of the apostle Peter, Acts x, 37, 38, “Ye know how
God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost, and
with power (or with the power of the Holy Ghost), who
(thereupon) went about doing good, and healing all that were
oppressed with the devil: for God was with him.” And
Christ himself affirms in one place, that he did “cast out de-
vils by the finger (i. e. the power) of God,” Luke xi. 20,
and in another that he did cast them out “by the Holy
Ghost,” Matt. xii. 28, from the collation of which two places
We may rationally conclude, that what he elsewhere Saith he
did by the power of God was done by the Spirit of God
abiding in him ; thus, when our Lord came from the wilder-
ness, where he was tempted of the devil, he goes through all
Galilee, healing every disease and malady in the people:
and the fame of him goes out through all Syria : “and they
brought to him all sick people, and all that were taken with
divers diseases and torments, and those that were possessed
with devils, and those that were lunatic, and those that had
the palsy ; and he healed them,” Matt. iv. 23, 24. Now by
what power he healed all these diseases and maladies, which
raised this fame of him in Galilee, St. Luke insinuates, by
saying, “He returned in the power of the Holy Ghost into
Galilee, and the fame of him was spread throughout all that
region,” Luke iv. 14.
Moreover, our Lord declares he did his miracles by the
Father abiding in him, bidding the Jews believe his works,
that they might know and believe that the Father was in him,
and he was in the Father, John x. 37, 38, and ch. xiv. he
proves, that he is in the Father, and the Father in him; “be-
cause,” saith he, “the Father that dwelleth in me, he doth
the works,” ver. 10, and, ver. 11, he adds, “Believe me that
I am in the Father,and the Father in me; or else believeme for
the works' sake.” Now these works being done, as hath been
proved, by the Holy Ghost, it follows that he must beheresaid to
be in the Father, and the Father in him, because the Spirit of
the Father, styled “the power of the Most High,” Luke i.
35, resided in him without measure. And having promised
to send the Holy Ghost upon them, and said they should do
greater works than he had done, because he went to the Fa-
ther, to send this promise of the Father, ver. 12. 17, he adds,
ver. 20, “In that day ye shall know, that I am the Father,
and you in me, and I in you.” Now it is certain, that Christ
was in his apostles by his Spirit abiding with them (ver. 16),
and that they were in him by the same Spirit uniting them to
their head Christ (Eph. ii.22, iii. 16, 17. iv. 16); and there-
fore Christ must be here said to be “in the Father” by the
Spirit of his Father (see the note there, and see more proofs
of this, note on John xvii. 19, 20. 22): so that from these
things I conclude, that Jesus Christ being then in the state of
humiliation, and emptied of the form of God, acted, in
things relating immediately to his prophetic office, not as
God, but only as a prophet sent from God; not by the power
of his divine nature, but of that Spirit by which he was
anointed and sanctified to that office: though being also God,
* Vol. ii. par. ii. cap. 7, p. 60, 61. --
* Quis Rer. div. Haeres. p. 404.
TO JOHN.
325
ºf the same essence derived from the Father, he might do
many other things by virtue of his divinity; by that discern-
ing what was in the hearts of all men; by that walking on the
sea, and stilling the stormy winds with a word, which he did
only in the presence of his disciples; and by that doing many
other,things of a like nature.
Moreover, his divinity being part of that doctrine which
he was to publish, he might upon occasion assert it, by Say-
ing, God was properly his Father, and he was properly his
Son; and that he and his Father were one, and that all men
were to worship the Son even as they worshipped the Fa-
ther; with other things of a like nature, relating to his di-
vinity.
#. objection of the Socinians against this hypothesis, is
fully answered, note on Matt. iii. 16.
P O S T S C R. I. P. T.
I conſe now to the chief controversy betwixt me and Mr.
Whiston, which is concerning the time of Christ's preaching
and his baptism.
He saith, prop. 8, that “the beginning of our Saviour's
ministry, both as to preaching and miracles, commenced soon
after that of John the Baptist, towards the beginning of the
famous fifteenth year of Tiberius, long before his own bap-
tism ;” i.e. according to his computation, near two years be-
fore it.
Now to this proposition I oppose the contradictory asser-
tion of Cyril of Jerusalem,” viz. That “Jesus Christ
preached not before his baptism, but then only began to
preach when the Holy Ghost bodily descended on him in the
shape of a dove :” and this probably he might know from
the tradition of the Jewish converts, who might be baptized
with him. Agreeable to this assertion is that of Eusebius of
Palestine,' that “our Lord beginning to be thirty, came to
John's baptism, waraºxhy re Troteſ ºrnyikaijira roi, Katë to
stayyáxtoy whºykaroº, and from thence he began to preach
the gospel.” Epiphanius, who was born in Palestine, of
Jewish parents, saith, that “our Lord came to the baptism
of St. John the Baptist in the thirtieth year of his incarna-
tion, x&i &mevrei.Sev, and from that time preached the accep-
table year of the Lord.” And lastly, Irenaeus saith $ that
“he neither could have disciples nor could teach before he
began to be thirty, magistri actatem non habens; but then
he came to his baptism, triginta quidem annorum existens,
clim veniret ad baptismum, deinde magistri astatem perfec-
tam habens, being then of perfect age to be a teacher.” And
hence arose that canon| of the church to ordain a presbyter
ºritáxovira. Švra £röy, “when he was thirty years old.” This
being by all the fathers (one alone excepted) gathered, and
thought certain, from St. Luke, that Christ came to his bap-
tism when he was in his thirtieth year; see the note on Luke
iii. 33, where this is proved, and the sense of the words of
St. Luke is fully considered: and, saith Langius," “that
which hath this full consent of antiquity, and is agreeable to
scripture, is certainly the truth.”
Secondly, It is the express assertion of St. Luke, that the
Baptist began his ministry in the fifteenth year of Tiberius;
for then, saith he, “the word of the Lord came to him, and
he came forth preaching the baptism of repentance,” Luke
iii. 2, 3, and it is the general assertion of all antiquity, that
Christ was baptized in the same year; it is therefore impos-
sible that either John should so long begin to preach, or that
Christ should preach so long as he saith he did, before his
baptism. And, -
Thirdly, That which Mr. Whiston offers from Eusebius”
->
* Oi Trº roi; 3atria paro; Binyyexicato——&AA& réºrg #6%aro
'Inaoüç knºa’a‘ew, 8te Karfix6ew ré IIvetºza to #ytoy awaarikā ºst
àasi regio-regåc. Catech. 3, p. 21, B.
+ Hist. Eccl. lib. i. cap. 10. † Hasr. 51, n. 24.
§ Lib. ii. cap. 39. | Phot. Nomoc. p. 758.
* Quod tanto omnium consensil approbatum, tantà anti-
quitate nititur, id, sine omni dubio longè verissimum est,
praesertim si non modo à Scripturarum veritate nihil planè
dissentiat, sed etiam apprimè cum illä conveniat.
** Hist. Eccl. lib. iii, cap. 24.
in favour of his opinion is a perfect demonstration against
it; for he saith, St. John writ his gospel to supply the de-
fects of the other evangelists, who had omitted tây Trºgi rāy
#y rétoic wał zar’ &exy roi; ºngºygaro; it roi; Kpºrdà tê-
orgayºyoy 31%) norty, “the narrative of the things done by
Christ at the beginning of his preaching:” now, saith the same
Eusebius, in the same book, Christ beginning to be thirty
years old, came to John's baptism, xaragxfty ré Troteſ twikatºº:
&c., “and from thence he began to preach the gospel:”
moreover, he makes the defect of the other cvangelists to
consist in this; that “they said nothing of the time of the
beginning of Christ's preaching” (which, saith he, was from
his baptism by John in Jordan) till after John's imprison-
ment ; whereas the evangelist St. John begins there (i. e.
at the beginning of Christ's preaching after his baptism), say-
ing, “This beginning of miracles did Jesus;” and goes on
through all the time of John's baptizing afterward, till his
imprisonment, as he shows by saying, “John was baptizing
in Enon, near Salim, for John was not yet cast into prison,”
John iii. 23. Who sees not now that Eusebius places all the
time of Christ's preaching, mentioned by St. John from the
second to the fifth chapter, betwixt Christ's baptism and St.
John Baptist's being cast into prison 2 Now this being the
way that Jerome, Eusebius, and all the ancients, who under-
took to answer the cavils of Porphyry and others who ques-
tioned the truth of the gospels, took to reconcile the evan:
gelists in this matter, demonstrates that they knew and
believed nothing of this new revelation that our Saviour
preached above two years before his baptism.
To proceed now to the arguments from scripture, concur-
ring with the suffrage of antiquity, I assert, tº º
first, That John the Baptist did see the Holy Spirit, de-
scending from heaven, and abiding upon Christ at his bap:
tism. This is evident (1.) from the nature of the thing, it
being almost inconceivable that there should be such a glo-
rious opening of the heavens, and such a visible descent of
the Holy Ghost in a bodily shape, and that he who stood by
all the while, and saw Christ come out of the Water, should
not discern what was more visible, as being a more glorious
appearance.
Secondly, This seems farther evident from the words fol-
lowing, wai i86), “And behold a voice from heaven, saying,
oÖroc, This is my beloved Son ;" for as, in the like case, was
isol), “And behold a voice out of the cloud, saying, ºr”,
This is my beloved Son, hear him,” Matt. xvii. 5, was an
advertisement to the disciples present there, that God from
heaven gave them this testimony concerning him who was
transfigured before them : so the kai i80i otºrº, “ And behold
this,” &c., Matt. iii. 17, must be an advertisement to the
Baptist, that he on whom the Holy Ghost thus descended
was the Son of God. And hence John's testimony is thus
related, i. 32–34, “He that sent me to baptize said, On
whomsoever thou (baptizing) seest the Spirit descending and
abiding on him, he it is that baptizeth with the Holy Ghost;
and I saw (this) and (hearing also at the same time the voice
from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son) I testified, that
this is the Son of God.”
Nor is it any objection to the contrary, that St. Mark,
i. 11, and St. Luke, iii.22, give the words of the voice from
heaven thus, “Thou art my beloved Son "for as neither of
them hath the advertisement to behold, which St. Matthew
hath, so he that saith to another of Christ in his audience,
“This is my beloved Son,” saith in effect to him, “ Thou
art so.” *
Hence I infer, that the Baptist saw not the Holy Ghost
descending upon Christ as a dove before Christ's baptism, º
consequently, that his testimony of this matter, J ohn i. 32,
must relate to what he had seen at his baptism, Singe other-
wise the Baptist must have seen him twice descending thus
upon Christ, in the very same shape, and after the same
manner; whereas if, by the first vision, the sign of the Mes-
siah promised to him was so fully given him, that he declares
that he had seen it, and by it was enabled to testify Christ
was the son of God, what need was there of a second vision,
or to what end was it designed 2
Secondly, There is no reason to say that the Holy Ghost
descended twice in the same shape, and With the same cir-
cumstances, from heaven upon Christ, lº this opinion doth
suppose, since by the first descent upon him he must be suf-
326
PREFACE
ficiently sanctified and consecrated to his office. Moreover,
he speaks of himself, John iii. 17, as of one sent into the
world by the Father, and therefore sanctified already, John
X. 36. And the Baptist speaks of him not only as one who
testified “what he had seen and heard” (at his baptism), but
also as one “sent from God,” and filled with his Spirit ābove
measure, and who had all things put into his hands, com-
plaining that “no man received his testimony,” though God
the Father had “set his seal” upon it, ver, 31. 34. Now is
it reasonable to conceive, as Mr. Whiston's opinion forces
us to do, that all this should be said by Christ, and by the
Baptist, before that baptism in which alone the Father had
declared him to be his beloved Son? 2
Obj. It is objected, that when Christ came to be baptized
of John, he not only knew him, but speaks thus to him, “I
have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?”
Which words imply, not only his knowledge who he was,
but also that he baptized as well as himself; yet, after his
baptism was over, and not before, “Jesus went up out of the
Water, and the heavens were opened,” &c. Since then the
Baptist said, “I knew him not,” but had this signal given
me whereby to know him, viz. the descent and abode of the
Holy Ghost, how comes àe to be so well acquainted with
him before his baptism, as the words above mentioned do
imply P
... Ans: 1. To this I answer, first, That as these words, “He
it is that baptizeth with the Holy Ghost and with fire,” do
not intimate that Christ did then, or whilst he was on earth,
do this, but only that he was to do it after his resurrection
and ascension (John vii. 39. Acts i. 5. 11. 16): so the words
of the Baptist, “I have need to be baptizéd of thee,” do
not intimate the Baptist's knowledge that Jesus then bap-
tized (partly because it is not true, since Jesus baptized not
Whilst John was at Jordan, but only when he was baptizing
at Enon, John iii. 23, partly because Jesus himself baptized
not, but his disciples only, John iv. 2, and surely John, who
had commission from God to use this baptism, and probably
had baptized these disciples, could not need their water-
baptism); they therefore only signify, that Christ was the
person who should afterward baptize with the Holy Ghost
and fire, agd that John needed that baptism which would
enable him to work miracles, and to speak with unknown
tongues.
Ans. 2. Secondly, I answer, that John the Baptist, being
filled with the Holy Ghost “from his mother's womb” (Luke
i. 15) knew by the afflatus of that Spirit, that he who then
came to him was the very person on whom the Holy Ghost
should descend so gloriously, and on whom he should abide,
that he might impart him to others, such matters being fre:
Quently imparted to holy prophets by an immediate intima-
tion of the Holy Ghost. So Simeon being told “he should
not die till he had seen the Lord's Christ,” Luke ii. 26, had
also an afflatus declaring to him that our Lord was the
Christ, ver, 27. 32. So Samuel being told by God that on
the morrow a man should come to be captain over his people
Israel, 1 Sam. ix. 15, when Saul appears, had another affia-
tus, resembling that of the Baptist’s here, viz. “Behold the
man of whom I spake to thee,” ver. 17. In a word, the
Baptist being moved to say, when he baptized with water,
that “another was coming after him, who should baptizé
them with the Holy Ghost,” God tells him, that of this he
should see an evidence by the visible descent of the Holy
Ghost upon that person, who, from his fulness, was to im-
part of this Spirit to all believers; and, when our Lord came
to be baptized, tells him again this was that very person.
Ans. 3. Thirdly, It is not said, “I knew him not,” but
oil, #8w abrów, “I had not known him,” John i. 31. 33, and
this is so said as to give us just reason to believe that this
was said after our Saviour's baptism; for the words of the
Baptist bear properly this sense, And I had not known
him, but that I came for this cause to baptize with water,
that he might be made manifest to Israel (by me): then fol.
low the words of the evangelist, ver. 32, And John bare
record, saying, I saw (Gr. have seen) the Spirit descending
from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him” (which, as
I have proved, the Baptist saw at his baptism), and no man
can prove that he saw this before. Then follow again the
words of the Baptist, ver. 33, “And I had not known him
he who sent me to baptize with water, the same (had) said
to me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and
r?maining on him, the same is he who baptizeth with the
Holy Ghost.” Now why is the Baptist so particular in say-
ing twice, that he had not known him, except he who sent
him to baptize had given him this sign ; if this sign had not
been given him at his baptizing of Christ, but long before ?
Why doth he say, he came to baptize, that he might be made
manifest to Israel (viz. by him baptizing); if he were not to
be made manifest to him by his baptizing him, but long be-
fore ? Why, lastly, should a thing of so great moment to
the confirmation of Christ's mission, and the Baptist's testi-
mony of him, as this descent of the Holy Ghost upon Christ
in this manner, so long before his baptism, be never hinted
in the least in any place of the New Testament, the scrip-
ture being as silent in it as in the ascent of Christ into
heaven after his baptism, which the Socinians have imagined 2
To make this farther evident, consider that the Baptist only
saith in the other evangelists, pxerat, “One cometh,” or is
coming “after me, who shall baptize you with the Holy
Ghost;” but the evangelist St. John begins his testimony
thus, “John bare record, and cried, saying, This is he of
whom I said, He that cometh after me is preferred before
me,” i. 15. Plainly, according to the observation of the
ancients, beginning his testimony after Christ's baptism,
whither the other evangelists had only brought him : for
when St. Matthew had introduced John saying, “One cometh
after me, &c., whose fan is in his hand,” &c., he immediately
adds, röre, “Then cometh Jesus to be baptized of John in
Jordan ;” the words then, “This is he of whom I said this,”
must intimate, that this was spoken after Christ's baptism,
and not almost two years before it. Moreover, when the
priests and Levites, sent from Jerusalem to Bethabara beyond
Jordan, where John was baptizing, asked him, Why he bap-
tized 2 the Baptist answers, “I baptize with water ; but
there standeth (Gr. Érrnzey, hath stood) one amongyou, whom
ye know not ; he it is, who, coming after me, is preferred
before me.” Now, First, When had Christ stood in the midst
of them, but when he came from Galilee to Jordan, “to be
baptized of John,” seeing we find not in all the evangelists,
that Jesus ever went any whither but to a feast at Jerusalem,
when he was twelve years old, till he went “from Nazareth
to Galilee, to be baptized of John in Jordan 2° Mark i. 9.
Matt. iii. 13. Whereas the evangelist St. John represents
him first at Cana, then going thence to Capernaum, as to his
abode, then to the passover, then to Samaria, which shows
that this was done after his baptism. Secondly, These words,
“whom ye know not,” fairly intimate that the Baptist then
knew him, as also doth the demonstrative pronoun otroc,
“That is he who, coming after me,” &c., and the words spo-
ken the next day, “This is he of whom I said, He that
cometh after me is preferred before me;” which, as I have
shown, were then said when Christ came to be baptized of
John ; whereas the Baptist saith, “I had not known him,
had not God given me this sign of the descent of the Holy
Ghost upon him,” to know he was that very person. And
therefore, when Christ came to his baptism, God saith first
to John by an afflatus, This is the very person on whom thou
shalt see the sign, and then instantly upon his baptism af.
fords it to him : moreover, the evangelist adds, “These things
were done at Bethabara, where John was baptizing ; they
therefore must be spoken before the Baptist left that place
to go to Enon, and therefore after Christ's baptism ; for that
the Baptist ever returned afterward to Jordan, where Christ
was baptized, we read not.
Obj. 1. Christ was then only baptized when all the people
had been so, Luke iii. 21.
Ans. To this I answer, that Christ “was baptized of John
in Jordan, Mark i. 7, whereas John continued afterward at
Enon, “and the people came and were baptized of him
there,” John iii. 23, so that when St. Luke saith, “When
all the people were baptized, Jesus was baptized also,” it is
evident he meaneth only all the people then present, or bap-
tized at Jordan by him, Matt. iii. 5, 6. And hence the
scripture makes an exact distinction betwixt John's bap-
tizing at Jordan and afterward at Enon, and perhaps at
other places, by saying, John x. 40, that Christ “went again
beyond Jordan, to the place, 3rov 'Ioãvyn; %y ºrgåroy Barrićay,
(viz. by this sign of the Spirit's descending on him), but (that) || where John was first baptizing,” making it evident that John
To JoHN.
327
still followed his office after he had baptized Christ, bap-
tizing still in other places: false therefore is the inference
from St. Luke's mentioning the imprisonment of John before
he speaks of Christ's baptism, that our Saviour was baptized
at Jordan at the conclusion of John's ministry, that being
only the place of John's first baptism ; after which he comes
to Enon, in the half tribe of Manasseh, within the precincts
of Samaria, and baptizeth ; and the people come to him
there and were baptized; “for John was not yet cast into
prison,” John iii. 24. St. Luke therefore speaks of John's
imprisonment by a long anticipation, that he might put all
he had to say of the Baptist together; which perhaps St.
John intended to intimate, by saying the Baptist “was not
yet cast into prison.”
Obj. 2. All the other evangelists, after Christ's baptism,
say nothing of him more, but that he was tempted in the
wilderness; and then when John was cast into prison,
itrégorrespey, he returned into Galilee, came to Nazareth, and
so to Capernaum (Matt. iv. 12, 13. Mark i. 14. Luke iv.
14). Whence it seems to follow, that Christ was baptized
but a little before John was cast into prison.
Ans. 1. But how much more natural is the observation of
the ancients, that the evangelist St. John observing this, be-
gins where they had ended, viz. at the first appearance of
our blessed Lord after his baptism, John i. 29, and gave the
testimony of him recorded ver. 15, and ver, 26, 27, a little
before that.
Ans. 2. All the other evangelists speak only of the Bap-
tist as the forerunner of Christ, or as one sent before him to
prepare his way, and to preach the baptism of repentance
to the people, orp3 rā; eio &ov abroń, “before the entrance of
Christ upon his office,” Acts xiii. 24, which, all these three
evangelists having told us what he did, and by what argu-
ments he enforced his repentance on them, they all immedi-
ately subjoin our Lord's coming to Jordan to be baptized of
him, and the history of his ensuing baptism : the Baptist
being therefore only his forerunner till Christ by his baptism
was anointed with the Holy Ghost, and consecrated by this
'unction to his office, they had no more to say of the Baptist
afterward ; and so they only speak of what Christ began to
say after that John was cast into prison, viz. “The time is
fulfilled,” &c. Mark i. 14, 15. But the evangelist St. John
speaks of the Baptist, not as the forerunner of, but as one
sent to be a witness to Christ, i. 6, which he was enabled
to be only by what he saw and heard at Christ's baptism,
ver. 31. 33, before which time he only spake indefinitely of
“one coming after him ;” but when he had baptized him,
he saith demonstratively, “This is he of whom I spake ;”
and therefore he had reason to speak of him as long as he
bore witness of him, as he afterward amply did at Enon, and
of our Lord's performances before John was cast into prison;
they being also testimonies of Christ's mission, and that he
was the Son of God, and yet entirely omitted by the former
evangelists. And whereas,
Thirdly, It is said by the other evangelists, that “Christ
returned again into Galilee ;” this well agrees with St. John
saying, after he had ended his whole history of the Baptist,
that Christ, &mix9s TráAly, “went again,” or receded into
Galilee, to avoid the fury of the pharisees, iv. 3. And it
seems worthy of observation, that after Christ was baptized
he came to Capernaum, saith St. Matthew, that what was
spoken by the prophet of the land of Zabulon and Neph-
thalim, in the borders of which Capernaum lay, might be
fulfilled; whereas, if Christ did what St. John mentions,
ch. ii, before his baptism, he must have been there before,
and probably have taken up his abode there, John ii. 12,
and must have done many miracles there before; since,
when he came to Nazareth, they spake thus to him, “What
things we have heard done in Capernaum, do also in thy
own country,” Luke iv. 23, and so he needed not to come
thither again after his baptism to fulfil that prophecy.
Obj. 3. From the connexion of the words of St. Luke con-
cerning Christ's temptation in the wilderness, iv. 1, with
those following, ver. 13, 14, “And Jesus returned in the
power of the Spirit into Galilee : and there went out 2 fame
of him throughout all the region round about ;" it is argued
that these two things must be immediately connected.
Ans. 1. This is said, not considering that both St. Mat-
thew and St. Mark assure us that this was only done after
that John was cast into prison; which, as I have shown
already, was long after our Lord's baptism at Jordan.
Ans. 2. There is nothing more common in St. Luke than
such connexion of things done a considerable time after one
another: thus, when he had spoken of Christ's circumcision,
he immediately speaks of his appearance at the temple when
he was forty days old ; and yet Mr. Whiston will have his
flight into Egypt, and his return thence, to intervene. He
introduceth John saying, “I baptize with water, but one
mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am
not worthy to unloose, i. 16, and then follows Christ's bap-
tism, ver. 21, and yet the Baptist tells us, “this was he’”
of whom he had said this, John i. 17, and so, according to
the opinion of Mr. Whiston, he must have said this almost
two years before our Saviour's baptism. Again, he speaks
of the Baptist's imprisonment by Herod, iii. 20, before
Christ's baptism, and yet it is certain that he could not bap.
tize Christ in Jordan after he was in prison. In fine, hav-
ing spoken of Christ's presentment in the temple after he
was forty days old, ii. 39, he adds, ver. 40, “that the child,
being filled with wisdom, increased and waxed strong in
spirit,” which supposes him then of some years capable of
wisdom.
Obj. 4. But, saith Mr. Whiston, this opinion that Christ
was baptized before he did the things mentioned in the first
four chapters of John, puts a chasm of almost two years be-
twixt Christ's baptism and his return to Galilee after the
imprisonment of the Baptist.
Ans. 1. It is somewhat surprising to find that which
hath been the observation of all the fathers who have writ
upon this subject, from Clemens Alexandrinus” to Theo-
phylact, that is, for a thousand years, turned now into an
objection ; their observation is this—that the other evange-
lists have passed over all that our Saviour did after his bap-
tism till John was cast into prison ; but the evangelist St.
John, passing by all that they had said of Christ to his bap-
tism and temptation, begins where they left off, and having
told us of many things done after by Christ, he adds, that
“John was not yet cast into prison ;” clearly showing that,
according to the tradition they had received, the evangelist
speaks in these four chapters of what happened between the
interval of Christ's baptism and St. John's imprisonment.
Ans. 2. Moreover, seeing there must be a like chasm of
time in these evangelists, who speak not one word of Christ's
leaving Nazareth till he came thence to be baptized of John;
or of his preaching, miracles, or baptizing others before he
was himself baptized, what absurdity is it to place this chasm
after Christ's baptism, as the ancients do,”f who also posi-
tively say, that “Christ preached not before he was bap-
tized,” rather than, against the suffrage of all antiquity, to
place it before his baptism P. This will be farther evident
from the words of St. Peter rightly interpreted, viz. “Of
those who have accompanied with us all the time that our
Lord Jesus went in and out among us, (äpääkcevo; 373 8arrio-
garo; 'Icáwov, he beginning so to do from the baptism of
John till the day that he was taken up from us,) must one
be chosen to be a witness of his resurrection,” Acts i. 20, 21.
For (1.) I have proved, note on ver, 20, that “to go in and
out” is to perform his prophetic office. (2.) Those words,
“beginning from the baptism of John,” cannot be expound-
ed truly of Christ's entrance on his office at the beginning of
John’s baptism ; for then the Baptist could not be Christ's
forerunner, nor could he represent Christ as one that was to
come after him ; nor could he say, he came to baptize that
“he might be made manifest to Israel,” seeing his preaching
and his miracles, by which he manifested his glory (John ii.
* Katrolys gerð ‘rā 34mºria.p.g. oběšy airy &vaygá$ourly signxá-
ºra oi &AAoi stayyexiaºrai &AA& rà werdà a totria ayres, tº Peró.
rºy a 5xxnspiy '104wov yeyéſzewa roi, Xgia roi; Saúzara Náyouaw.
Hom. xvii. in Joh. tom. ii. p. 624. ‘o 8: 'Ioãwn; todroiº (wé-
xiata #yêtargigel, &c. Ibid. p. 621. Wide Clem. Alex. apud
Euseb. Hist, Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 24. Sophron. Praefat, in Joh.
Hieron. voce Johannes. August. Praefat. in Johan. et de
Consensä Evangelist. lib. ii. cap. 18.
+ Merå rô 347ttaga, phai ; 'Ioãwns, reščatwal rô IIvčac.
xaragaſvoy, &c. Chrysost. hom. xvii. p. 601. If y& roº
gamºria waro; cyte a masſa iroinosy, oùrs #ywoºpićero. Theoph. in
Joh, cap. 1, 31.
328
PREFACE
11. iii. 2), according to the opinion of Mr. Whiston, must
be done long before his baptism ; and much less could St.
Paul say so emphatically, that John was sent Trgownpöttetv
ºrgā Tºordºrov rā; sigðov abroń, “to preach first the baptism of
repentance to all the people of 1srael before the entrance”
of Christ upon his ministry (Acts xiii. 24): but, as Grotius
truly saith, they are to be understood of the time, ex quo
Jesus fuit ā Johanne baptizatus “from Christ's being bap-
tized by John ;” for it is reasonable to conceive St. Peter
speaks of his baptism, of whose ascension he speaks in the
same place, since otherwise the terminus à quo, the baptism,
and the terminus ad quem, his ascension, will not respect
the same person, it being, doubtless, Christ's ascension that
is spoken of. In a word, if Christ preached two years before
his baptism, he preached a year and a half before his fore-
runner, for it was only in the fifteenth of Tiberius, that
“the word of the Lord coming to the Baptist, he went out
and preached the baptism of repentance” (Luke iii. 2, 3).
Now in this very fifteenth of Tiberius the baptism of Christ
is placed by all the ancients, saying, that he was baptized,
duobus Geminis consulibus, which fixeth his baptism to that
very year. And hence Mr. Whiston’s inference, that St.
John's preaching and Christ's must begin in the same year,
is confirmed by all antiquity declaring that Christ was bap-
tized, and afterward began to preach, in the same fifteenth
year of Tiberius; and the epocha of the Baptist's preaching
ought to be made the beginning of the gospel; because, as
St. Luke truly saith, John did stayyexićsaffai roy Aay, “preach
the gospel to the people, he preaching that men should be-
lieve on him that should come after him, that is, on Jesus
Christ” (Acts xix. 4). He not only baptized with the bap-
tism of repentance for the remission of sins, but pointed to
“the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world”
(John i. 29). Now this faith, and this remission of sins
through the blood of Christ, are the two great doctrines of
the gospel.
And whereas, to avoid the testimony of St. Luke, who,
when he had spoken of Christ's baptism after the people
were baptized, and the descent of the Holy Ghost upon him
in the shape of a dove, and of the voice from heaven, say-
ing, “Thou art my beloved Son,” which in St. Matthew and
St. Mark are expressly said to follow Christ's baptism, im-
mediately adds, “And Jesus himself began to be about
thirty years of age;” Mr. Whiston saith, “This relates,
not to the time of his baptism, but of his ministry long be-
fore his baptism :” in this, as he contradicts all the ancients,
so he makes St. Luke to relate first what happened at
Christ's baptism, and, in his own opinion, at the end of the
Baptist's ministry; and then, in the immediate ensuing
words, to speak of what was done almost two years before;
than which nothing can be more improbable. (2.) They who
refer the word āpāºyo; to the beginning of Christ's minis-
try or preaching, as some chronologers and others do, still
refer it to his ministry after his baptism; so that Mr. Whis-
ton is still left alone with his new notion of Christ's ministry
long before his baptism, and his groundless distinction be-
twixt Christ's private and his public ministry, for which
there is neither foundation nor colour in scripture or anti-
quity. And, (3.) whereas Mr. Whiston will not allow the
word &Pxéºwevo; to refer to Christ's years, but will rather have
it to refer to xmºat, or some such word, i. e. to a word not
used, i. e. to a matter not so much as hinted by him, as I
have in my note justified the Greek from the censure of the
critics, and strengthened our version with the concurrence of
all the Greek fathers who accord with it, and thence infer
that Christ was beginning his thirtieth year at his baptism;
so it may be confirmed by the concurrence of Jerome,” and
of all the ancient versions, with the sense of our translation.
Lastly, Whereas he cites, for confirmation of his opinion,
the words of the Jews, saying, Luke xxiii. 5, “He stirreth
up the people, teaching through all Judea, beginning from
Galilee to this place;” and those of St. Peter, Acts x, 37,
“The word which ye know was published through all Judea,
* Et inse Jesus erat incipiens quasi annorum triginta.
Hieron. Vulg. Ipse veró Jesus erat quasi filius annorum
triginta, Syr. Et Jesus coeperat ingredi in trigesimum an-
#. Arab. Et erat Jesus circitér triginta annos natus.
tºrS,
beginning from Galilee, after the baptism which John
preached:” -
Ans. 1. I answer, that these words agree exactly with our
hypothesis, who say, that after Christ's temptation he returns
to John, and receives his testimony that he was the very
person of whom he had before indefinitely spoken, yea, that
he was “the Son of God,” John i. 34, which he had heard.
only at his baptism, and that he was “the Lamb of Goſ'
that taketh away the sins of the world,” of all which thing,
the other evangelists had given no account ; then he goe
into Galilee, manifesting his glory there ; from thence tº
Jerusalem, then to Judea, where he baptizeth by his dis.
ciples, as John did, into the faith of the Messiah, whoy
kingdom was shortly to be set up, and for which they wer
to prepare themselves by the baptism of repentance, and
then again goes back to Galilee (see the note on John iii.
22. 26).
Ans. 2. St. Peter plainly saith, that this word was spoken
by Jesus of Nazareth, (T.) when he had been “anointed
by the Holy Ghost and power,” which after his baptism he
was: for then “he returned from Jordan full of the Holy
Ghost” (Luke iv. 1), “and into Galilee, iv 8vvápºst roſ, IIveş-
Paroº, in the power of the Spirit” (ver. 14), whereas before
his baptism nothing of this nature is said of him. (2.) That
he is said to begin “from Galilee after the baptism which
John preached,” i.e. after that baptism was concluded by
the imprisonment of the Baptist. Now, though our Lord
was baptized above a year before, and by his disciples did
baptize after the manner of John ; and to the same ends,
whilst John himself continued so to do, and no longer; yet
it was after the ceasing of the baptism of John that he be-
gins in Galilee to preach the kingdom of God, and declare
that it was now coming. Thus St. Mark tells us, that “after
John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee preaching
the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, The time (of
the coming of the Messiah to erect it) is fulfilled, and the
kingdom of God is at hand ; repent ye, therefore, and be-
lieve the gospel” (Mark i. 14, 15); and in like manner St.
Matthew, that “from that time (it the Baptist was cast
into prison) Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent ;
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. iv. 17). The
time before, recorded by the evangelist St. John, was spent
in doing such miracles, and teaching such doctrines, as might
prepare them to receive and believe in him, when he began
to preach the doctrine of his kingdom, and to set it up.
And hence we find, that though Christ had disciples-or fol-
lowers before, yet he had called none before to follow him,
or be continually with him, as afterward he did, Matt. iv.
19. 21. Mark i. 17. 20. Here, therefore, seems to be a
clear account of this whole matter ; Christ cometh from
Nazareth to Jordan to be baptized of John, that he might
see the sign God had promised, and hear him styled from
heaven “the Son of God;” and so by testifying these things
might make him “manifest to Israel;" he hereupon de-
clares what he had seen and heard, and so pronounces Christ
“the Son of God:” then Christ goes on during the bap-
tism of John at Bethabara, at Enon, and perhaps else-
where, to work miracles, and to declare that “ God had
sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world” (but not
yet saying that he was that Son), and by his disciples to
baptize men as John did, to fit them for, and to prepare
them to embrace, the doctrine of his kingdom when it
was to be set up. When therefore John was cast into
prison, and so his ministry was finished, and gave place
to that of Christ's, Christ goes into Galilee, and there be-
gins to preach that doctrine which was to commence at
the cessation of John's baptism, and succeed to it: and
therefore the first three evangelists, passing by what Christ
did after his baptism to fit men for this kingdom, begin
what they had farther to say of him when “Christ him-
self began” to preach the doctrine of that kingdom. And
Christ himself saith, with relation to that epocha, “From
the days of John the Baptist till now, the kingdom of
heaven suffers violence,” Matt. xi. 12, and Luke xvi. 16,
&rd ráts, “From the time of John the kingdom of hea-
ven is preached, and all men press into it.”
Note also, that whereas in the preface to the gospel of
St. John I have said, the passovers during the time of
our Saviour's ministry were but four, I find now reason
TO JOHN.
329
to conceive, with the right reverend bishop of Worcester,
Dr. Allix, and Mr. Whiston, that they were five.
First, From our Saviour's baptism, which by the suf.
frage of all antiquity was in the fifteenth of Tiberius,
which began on the nineteenth of August, and so Christ's
first passover must begin in the same fifteenth of Tiberius,
and so his last passover, which according to the Greek
chronicle of Eusebius was in the nineteenth of Tiberius,
and according to Phlegon in the fourth year of the twenty-
second Olympiad, must be his fifth passover.
Secondly, Christ was baptized in the fifteenth of Tiberius,
*duobus Geminis consulibus, i.e. C. Rubellio Gemino et C.
Fusco Gemino Coss. He dying therefore in the nineteenth
of Tiberius, must die, Servio Sulpitio Galba et L. Corhelio
Sullā Coss; that is, in the fifth year following. And this I
also gather from Dion, who faith that Tiberius died after
twenty-two years, seven months, 7 Kal. April, or the twen-
ty-sixth of March ; Cn. Proculo et Pontio Negrino Coss.
Now reckon the consuls backward to the nineteenth of Ti-
berius, and you come to Galba and Sulla.
* Lib. lviii. p. 732. Euseb. Chron. Tertul. adv. Jud. cap. 8.
CHAPTER I.
1 * IN the beginning (of the creation) was the Word,
and the Word was “with God, and the Word was
* God.
2 The same was in the beginning with God: (i. e.
that divine person of whom I am to speak, neither be-
gan to be when he was born into the world, nor when
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I.
* Ver. 1. 'Ev 3px; %V & Aéyo;. In the beginning was the
Word.] Here note,
First, That y áexī, “in the beginning,” cannot here signify
in the beginning of the gospel, but, as Grotius saith, it being
taken from the word berischeth, Gen. i. 1, translated by the
Septuagint, Év 36xf, must signify clim primăm rerum univer-
sitas coepit creari, “from the beginning of the creation,” as
appears, U.
First, From the following words, declaring positively, that
all things were made by the Word here mentioned, ver. 3,
even “the world” itself, ver. 10, and negatively, that “with-
out him there was not anything made that was made ;”
which plainly shows, that the evangelist is here speaking of
the creation, rise, or beginning, of all things created. And
this interpretation is strengthened by all those other scrip-
tures which speak of a glory this Word had with the Father
“before the foundation of the world,” and represent him as
one “begotten before the whole creation,” as being ºrgö ºráy-
row “before all things: ” so that they all were both at first
created, and still subsisted by him (Col. i. 15–17), and that.
he “in the beginning framed the heavens and earth,” even
those heavens and that earth that shall “decay and perish *
(Heb. i. 10, 11).
Secondly, The Socinian gloss makes a very plain and flat
tautology in the words of the evangelist: for the sense of
them, according to it, must be this—-that Christ was, when
John Baptist preached that he was, or, which is all one, that
be was when he was, or when he was preaching his own gos-
pel. Now, how can it be worthy of an inspired apostle to as-
sert, that the Word had a being when he began to preach,
or when he was twenty-nine years old, that is, when the
Baptist came to make him “manifest to Israel,” this being
as true of any other man living, as of the Word, even of
Judas who betrayed him, and of Pilate who condemned him,
and being told as plainly by all the foregoing evangelists?
Thirdly, Can we imagine that the apostle, speaking of
Christ as the Word, before he had begun his prophetic office,
from which they do ascribe this name to him, and at the
least as soon as he was made flesh, should constantly use
this phrase, which belonged only to him as executing that
office, and when, that office being ended, he assumed his
kingly office, should again ascribe this title to him, by say-
ing, “His name is the Word of God” (Rev. xix. 13); and
yet in his large account of his prophetic office throughout
this whole gospel, he never should be once mentioned by
him under that name or title, which then so properly be-
longed to him 2 And,
Fourthly, All the philosophers, who spake reel rol, Aéyov,
“of the Word,” spake of it as that “principle x20' 6" &si
#yta, rà yºvágºya #yÉvero, by whom ever existing all things
were made :” this was the doctrine of the Platonists, saith
Amelius, as it was also of Zeno, who styles the Aáyo; “eter-
nal,” and all the other heathens, who speak of this Logos;
and of all those Jews, who spake of him in the language of
Philo, as "pro-Håvarot, “the most ancient of all beings;” and
of all those Targumists who tell us, the Word was made by
the Memra Jehovah, “Word of God ;” and as the Jerusa-
lem Targum, that it was he who said to the world, “Let it
be, and it was:”—I say, all these Jews and heathens could
not understand the apostle otherwise than Amelius did,
when he said, This barbarian hath placed the Logos iv tº ric
ãºxic ráže zai ääiº, “in the order and dignity of a princi-
ple by whom all things were made.”
Secondly, Note also from the same Grotius, that to be
“in the beginning,” is, in the Hebrew language, put for
being from eternity, for sic mos est Hebraeis aetermitatem po-
pularitēr exprimere, the being in the beginning, and before
the world was, importing a being before time, and therefore
from eternity: so Prov. viii. 23, “I was set up from ever-
lasting, or ever the earth was,” ºnx n-ſpº wrºn iv čex; ºrgö
roë rºw yńy rotºcrat. Micah, v. 2, “Whose goings forth are,
mekedem, from the beginning, from everlasting.” And “God
that abideth mekedem,” Ps. lv. 19. Hab. i. 12, is 3 Örápxoy
red råy aid yov, “he that is from everlasting:” and so it may
here signify, and, being spoken of him who was from eter-
nity, must import.
Was the Word..] The plainest reason why this essential
Son of God is styled “the Word,” seems to be this ; that as
our words are the interpretation of our minds to others, so
was this Son of God sent to reveal his Father's mind to the
world.
* And the Word was, ºrgö, röy Qey, with God. And ver.
2, he was in the beginning with God..] IIgo; Oºv, i. e. wºrk
©eoiſ, Theophyl. that is, “Reason was in God,” saith Mr. Le
Clerc, but he gives no instance where the preposition ºrpèc in
the New Testament signifies in ; whereas there be many in-
stances where it hath the signification of tragā and pºetà,
with, as when it is said, Matt. xiii. 56, “His sisters are re?:
haćy, with us;” Matt. xxvi. 18, “I keep the passover Trºöc.
as with thee;” Mark ix. 19, “How long shall I be, rºc
ūgā; ; with you?” and, xiv. 49, “I was always trº, upwar,
with you:” see 1 Cor. ii. 3. xvi. 6, so in this evangelist:
Eph. i. 2, irº, tºy rarága, “With the Father:” so iii. 21.
v. 14. And thus in Ignatius” Christ is mentioned as tº
aidywy ºraçã ºrated; ºv, xai & p" byā; trargö; TrgoExºv, “being
with the Father before the world, and proceeding from him
alone.”
Nor will this phrase admit of either of the senses imposed
on it by the Socinians; v. g. not of that, which saith, he
was with God, that is, he was known to God alone: for (1.)
this is not absolutely true, he being known, before his pro-
phetic office was begun, to the angels, saying to the shep-
herds, Luke ii. 11, “To you is born this day a Saviour,
which is Christ the Lord ;" to the virgin Mary, to whom the
angel had revealed, that he was “the Son of the Highest,”
one that should “sit on the throne of David,” and was to be
called “Jesus,” Luke i. 30.33, to Zachary, J oseph, Simeon,
Anna, and the wise men. (2). It is a gloss without exam-
ple of any such import of the phrase, and without any pro-
bability ; for who would think that, by saying only, “Titius
* Ep. ad Mag. $. 6, 7.
330
JOHN.
the world and all things in it were made ; for he then
was, and so was not a creature, but was God, of the
was with Sempronius,” I should mean that he was known
to him alone P And (3.) this is as true of antichrist, of hy-
pocrites latent among believers, of a secret thief, or mur-
derer; but can it therefore properly be said, that they are
with God? Wherefore this gloss being so plainly absurd,
they fly to a second ; viz. that Christ, before he entered into
his prophetic office, was taken up into heaven, to be in-
structed in the mind and will of God, as Moses was into the
mount, and upon that account it is here said that he was
with God. But here lies the great difference betwixt Christ's
supposed ascent to heaven, and that of Moses into the
mount; that when Moses was called up into the mount,
the people had public notice of it ; and he took Aaron and
his sons, and seventy elders of Israel with him, who saw the
glory of God (Exod. xxiv. 10); and all Israel beheld “the
glory of God,” as a devouring fire on the top of the mount
(ver. 17); and after the forty days were over, it is said that
Moses came down from the mount, and the children of
Israel saw him with his face shining (Exod. xxxiv. 30).
Now, if Christ was taken up into heaven as Moses was into
the mount, why was it not made public at that time P Why
no witnesses? Why no appearance of the glory, to satisfy
mankind of the truth of it? And yet we find, that when
he was transfigured on the holy mount, he took Peter, and
James, and John, with him, which circumstance is carefully
mentioned by three evangelists ; and Peter, who was one of
the witnesses then present, lays great weight upon this being
done in the presence of witnesses. “For,” saith he, “we
have not followed cunningly-devised fables, when we made
known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ, but were eye-witnesses of his majesty. For he re-
ceived from God the Father honour and glory, when there
came such a voice to him from the excellent glory-And
this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were
with him in the holy mount” (2 Pet. i. 16–18). Now let
any one compare this with the account which they give of
Christ's ascension into heaven; the transfiguration was in-
tended only for a particular testimony of God’s favour be-
fore his sufferings; but even in that he took care there
should be very credible witnesses of it. And is it then pos-
sible to believe there should be such an ascension of Christ
into heaven, for no less a purpose than to be instructed in
his embassage, and to understand the mind and will of God
as to his office ; and yet not one of the evangelists give any
account of the circumstances of it? They are very particu-
lar as to his birth, fasting, baptism, preaching, miracles, suf-
ferings, resurrection, and ascension ; but not one word
among them all as to the circumstances of this his being
taken up into heaven for so great a purpose. Now if it
were necessary to be believed, why is it not more plainly re-
vealed P Why not the time and place mentioned in scrip-
ture, as well as of his fasting and temptation 2 Who can
imagine it consistent with the sincerity and faithfulness of
the writers of the New Testament, to conceal so material a
part of Christ's instructions and qualifications, and to wrap
it up in such doubtful expressions, that none ever found out
this meaning till the days of Socinus P In a word, had either
of these senses been intended by the apostle, why speaks he
so obscurely, and says not, as the Socinians, that he was
taken up into heaven, or was known to God alone, but so as
to have given so great occasion to that dangerous error, as
they supposed it, of all Christians before Socinus, that
Christ had a being before the world, or before anything that
was made, and therefore could not be a creature? Foz the
words following, “All things were made by him, and with-
out him was not anything madé that was made,” must ex-
clude him from being of the number of things made; and
therefore evidence that he was so in the beginning with God,
as to be before all created beings.
*And the Word was God.] He was so, say the Socinians,
by office, not by nature, as being the legate and ambassador
of God ; but,
First, They have not yet, nor can they show, that any-
thing is in the scripture absolutely, and in the singular num-
ber, called God, for any other reason than that the divine
nature was imparted to it. It is said indeed of Moses,
same nature with him, though as to personality distin-
guished from the Father). ... "
“Thou shalt be to Aaron beheloim, in the place of God,” rô.
r;3; r. v Qey, Saith the Septuagint, “in things pertaining to
God,” Exod. iv. 16; and vii. 1, God saith, “See I have
made thee elohim, a God to Pharaoh,” viz. by giving thee
authority to speak unto him in my name; but then in nei-
ther of these places is he called Jehovah, nor absolutely
elohim, but only with respect to Aaron and Pharaoh, to
whom he was to speak God's message. Grotius saith, tha:
the same person is styled “Jehovah” in the Old Testa-
ment, who, in the New, is styled an “angel;” and that
the same person is sometimes called in the Old Testa-
ment an “angel,” and sometimes “Jehovah ; so also doth
Mr. Le Clerc on Gen. xvi. 13. xviii. 1. xx. 1, but with-
out just ground: for the angels being God's retinue, and
always present with him when he made his glorious appear-
ances, there is no reason to say the angel was God, because
he appeared with him, or sometimes speaks or acts by his
appointment, or in his presence ; but only that God and his
glorious angels appeared at the same time, and that they
sometimes spake as from the Shechinah ; V. g. Exod. iii. 2,
we read that “an angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in
the bush,” and St. Stephen saith, that “the angel of the
Lord appeared to Moses in the bush,” Acts vii. 30, but nei-
ther of them say, that angel was Jehovah, or that the Lord
was not present there himself; but, on the contrary, say ex-
pressly, that Moses “heard the voice of the Lord saying to
him, I am the God of Abraham ;” St. Stephen, Acts vii. 53,
and St. Paul, Gal. iii. 19, say, the law was “delivered by
the angels;” but hence it doth not follow, that any angel
was so employed in the delivery of the law as to take upon
him the person of God, or that any creature said, “I am the
Lord thy God,” &c. And when it is said, that “some have
entertained angels unawares,” Heb. xiii. 2, Iown that Abra-
ham and Lot did so ; but hence it doth not follow, that any
angel spake as if he were Jehovah, or that Abraham spake
to them as such, or owned one of them to be “the Judge of
the whole earth.” I rather think, with the bishop of Ely,
that it may be granted, that the three that appeared to
Abraham were created angels; but then they appeared only
as the retinue of the Shechinah, or divine majesty, styled
“ the Lord,” ver, 1. 13: for after the same men, who came
in, and did eat with Abraham, and rose from the table, were
departed (ver. 16. 22). Abraham stands still before the
Lord, that is, before the divine majesty (ver. 1), and styles
him “the Judge of the whole earth.” And this agrees well
with the opinion of the Jews, who, as they acknowledge that
the three men whom Abraham entertained were created
angels, so also do they own, that there was then a separate
appearance, or divine majesty, which talked with Abraham.
And this takes off the observation of Crellius, and others in
this place, that the name Jehovah is given to angels: for,
according to this interpretation, the name Jehovah is not
given to any of the three angels, which were entertained by
Abraham, but only to the Shechinah, or divine majesty,
which appeared with them, and spake to Abraham, from
ver. 10 to 17, and to whom, after the departure of these
three, one into heaven, and two to Sodom, Abraham still
speaks to the end of that chapter. It was an angel of, or
messenger from, the Lord, that spake to Hagar, Gen. xvi. as
appears from his saying (not I, but) “Jehovah heard thy
affliction; ” when therefore we read, ver. 10, that “the an-
gel of the Lord said to her, Multiplying, I will multiply thy
seed,” it is to be understood thus—he said this to her in the
name and words of the Lord, speaking not his own, but the
Lord's words; and therefore R. Uziel here saith, “She gave
thanks before the Lord, whose Word had spoken to her.”
Thus Solomon sent to Hiram, saying, either by letters, as
Hiram returned his answer “in writing,” 2 Chron. ii. 11, or
commanding his servants to say in his name, “David my fa-
ther ;” for David was not the father of the messengers, and
so they could not say, “My father.” So the centurion sent
first “by the rulers of the Jews,” desiring Christ to heal his
servant, and after, by other friends, saith to Christ, “I am
not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof; ” i. e.
he desires them to say these words as from him, Luke vii. 2.
10, these two are, by Le Clerc, produced as instances of
CHAPTER I.
331
messengers and legates, speaking as if they were the very
persons from whom they were sent ; whence he and others
infer, that an angel sent from God may say, “I am Jehovah,
I am the God of Abraham,” as Exod. iii., and “I am the
Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt;
thou shalt have no other gods but me :” whereas in truth
they are but instances of messengers and friends, speaking
in the name of them that sent them, the words which they
had bid them say, as from them, and had put into their
mouths; and so in like manner the words of the angel
speaking to Hagar, and others, what belonged to God alone,
must only be the words which God had commanded them to
say in his name, and as from him : and this is a sufficient
answer to all that is produced by Grotius, Le Clerc, and the
Socinians, to prove that angels, representing God, are some-
times styled-Jehovah, and speak as if they were the Lord of
º and earth, or the God of Abraham, Isaac, and
acob.
Secondly, That “the Word” is here properly styled God,
is evident from the context: for (1.) When it is said in the
precedent words, “The Word was with God,” and when
this is repeated in the following verse, the Socinians them-
selves own that the word God signifies him who truly and
properly is so. The apostle then must either understand the
same God, as to essence, when he saith, “The Word was
God,” or leave all Christians liable to a great and dangerous
mistake, by reason of the ambiguity of his words. More-
over, the word God, in this chapter, is used eleven times
in its proper sense ; nor can one instance be produced from
the whole New Testament, where, in the singular number,
it is used in any other sense: is it then reasonable to con-
ceive it is here used in that improper sense, in which it
never is again once used throughout this gospel, or the whole
New Testament, rather than in that sense in which it is con-
tinually used in all other places 2
Obj. Yes, say the Socinians, because it is here said, the
same “was in the beginning with God?” whereas God, pro-
perly taken, cannot be said to be “with God,” that is, with
himself.
Ans. But to this I answer, (1.) That nothing formally,
and in the same conception, can be said to be with that
which is one with itself; but yet that which is essentially
the same, but hath this title from an internal relation to an-
other, as being “God of God,” or as having the divine es-
sence communicated to it, may be said to be with him : for
(1.) The wisdom of God is identically God, according to the
old axiom, Quicquid est in Deo, est ipse Deus, “Whatso-
ever is in God is God,” and yet trap' airó, “With him are
wisdom and power,” saith Job, xii. 13 ; “I was, trap' airò,
with him,” says Wisdom, Prov. viii. 27. 30, “All wisdom
is from the Lord, and past’ attoº, with him,” Ecclus. i. 1.
Thus Philo” observes, that when God saith he made man
after the image of God, Gen. i. 27, speaking &; Trept åtågov
Osoſ, “as of another God, he speaketh of,” and Trpät 73v 350-
Tepoy Qey, 8; £atty #kelyov Aáyos, “to that second God, who is
his Word.”
Secondly, The primitive fathers do very plainly and fre-
quently say, that the Word was strictly, and from all eter-
nity, in God the Father; and yet that, before the creation
of the world, there was a Treo60x3, agi & réââota, “a projec-
tion, or efflux of this Word from the Father,” which made
him Aóyo; Treoqopikā, Kai Trposīščy, “a Word emitted, or
coming forth from the Father;” but yet, because he came
not so forth from him as to be separated from him, but was
semper apud Deum et nunquam separatus à Patre, “not se-
parated from the Father,”- they thought it was here said,
against the Valentinians, that he was “with the Father.”
So Justin Martyr saith, he away, “was with the Father,” as
being &rd roi, ºrate); ºrpoćansây yÉvynka, “a progenies, pro-
jected from the Father,” Apol. i. p. 44, D. Ap. ii. p. 66, E.
Dial. cum Tryph. p. 285, D. 359, A. 284, B. 357, A. So
speaks Athenagoras, p. 10, C, D, and Theophilus, p. 100,
B, making him from eternity Aáyo; #v3.49eros, “an internal
Word,” and then saying that he was Ašvo; #e3ev£épcevo; ºrpo
r&v Šxoy, “a Word emitted before all things:” and Tatian
that the Word which was #y airá ºrgown??, p. 145: and Ter-
* Apud Euseb. Praep. Evang. lib. vii. cap. 13, p. 303.
+ Tertul, adv. Prax. cap. 8.
tullian speaks as of a time, clim nondum Deus sermonem
suum emiserat, adv. Praxeam, cap. 5, 6.8, adv. Hermog.
cap. 18. 20.45, and Lact. lib. ii. cap. 8. p. 177, 178, and
lib. iv. cap. 6, p. 364–366, see Dr. Bull, sect. 1, 2.
Thirdly, This also is extremely evident from the third
verse; whence ariseth this argument, He that made all
things is God, in the proper acceptation of the word, Heb.
iii. 4, but by the Word here spoken of were “all things
made, and without him was not anything made that was
made : he in the beginning laid the foundations of the earth,
and the heavens are the works of his hands,” Heb. i. 10, 11,
“He created all things visible and invisible,” Col. i. 16, he
therefore must be God in the proper acceptation of the
word.
Fourthly, It is very manifest, that the apostle here de-
signs to tell us what the Word was, and where, before he
came into the world, and what and where he was when he
came into the world, as may appear from comparing his
words together, thus,
In the beginning was the Word, He came to his own, ver.
ver. 1. - º
The Word was with God, ver. He dwelt with us, ver.
14 -
1, 2. *
The Word was God, ver. 1. The Word was made flesh,
He was in the world, ver. 10. ver. 14.
And, Lastly, Whereas these words, expounded according to
the Socinian sense, were utterly unintelligible to the Jews,
and all the philosophers, who ever made mention of the
Logos; according to our sense, which maketh the Word
truly God, and a first principle of the creation, they agree
perfectly with what they have asserted of the Logos. I
Say,
#. That they agree fully with the opinion of the Jews,
nothing being more evident than that. Philo” frequently
styles the Adyog God, and by the Targumist he is very often
“God ;” as when Jacob saith, in the Chaldee of Onkelos,
Gen. xxviii. 21, “The Word of Jehovah shall be my God;”
and Lev. xxvi. 12, “My Word shall be to you for God the
redeemer.” And nothing is more frequent with Onkelos,
and all the Targumists, than, for “Jehovah,” to put “the
Word of Jehovah ;” and of this Dr. Allix: gives above a
hundred testimonies: from all which observations it is evi-
dent, that the evangelist used the language of his nation
when he here said, “the Word was God.”
Secondly, They agcord as fully with the doctrine of the
ancient philosophers, who lived before the times of this evan-
gelist. Thus Porphyryf Saith, that Plato “extended the
divine essence into three hypostases,” the supreme God
called Optimus, wer' airèv 33 ×ai sãrepoy Snºwlougyöv, “ and
after him a second God, the maker of all things;” and
Platoš himself bids us swear by roy rāy ºrávrov Oscy #ysºčva
roſ Ts hysºčvo; Kai atriov traºréga, “God, who is the go-
vernor of all things, and by the Father of him, who is the
ruler and the cause.” Zeno || the stoic, saith, “There be
two principles of all things, matter, which is the patient, rô
33 rotoſy roy #y airò Aáyov Osby, and the efficient, God...the
Word, which, being eternal, goes through all matter, forming
every thing.” And hence Amelius,"I having read these
words of our evangelist, cried out, that the barbarian, by
saying that this Logos was ºrgö; roy Oscy gai Gºw gival, “was
with God, and was God, and that all things were made by
him,” was of the same opinion with Heraclitus and Plato,
who made him an eternal principle.
In a word, not only the orthodox but all the heretics did
perfectly agree in this import, if Sandius * may be credited,
* Euseb. Praep. Evang. lib. iii., cap. 13. Leg. Alleg. lib.
ii. p. 76. Idemgue dicit de Dei duabus potentiis, passim,
nempe, earum unam esy, alteram Kūgtoy dici, De Somn. P.
357, F. De Vita Mosis, p. 517, F. De Victimis Offerent.
661.
+ So Onkelos, Exod. vi. Lev. viii. 12, vii. 20.46. Numb.
xi.20. xxiii. 11. Deut. i. 30. ii. 7. iv. 24. Sixxii. 6.8. Judg-
ment of the Jewish Church, cap. 12, from p. 181 to 182.
f Apud Cyril. cont. Jul. lib. i. p. 34. tº sº; ſº º
§ Eph. vi. p. 1276. | Apud Laert. lib.vii. p. 519
‘ſ Apud Euseb. Praep. Evang, lib. xi, cap. 19.
** Enucl. Hist, lib. i. p. 117.
332
JOHN.
3 *All things were made by him; and without him
who saith expressly, that “all heretics agreed with the ortho-
dox and catholics in this, that the Word was God, and was
before all ages, and that the world was made by it.” And
as for the orthodox, scarce is there any Christian writer of
bulk, from Justin Martyr to the Nicene council, except Ar-
nobius, who doth not insist upon this text as a plain proof
of the divinity of Christ.
* Ver. 3. All things were made by him.] The Socinian
comment, which restrains “all things” here to all things be-
longing to the gospel state; and Saith, that all things were
said to be made by him, because all things were renewed,
i. e. all believers were made new creatures by him, is suffi-
ciently refuted by what hath been already proved ; viz. that
this Word is here said to have been in the beginning, not
of the new, but of the old creation, and that he was properly
and truly God, and so the maker of all things in heaven and
earth ; and from the parallel places produced already, that
God “made all things by Jesus Christ,” Eph. iii. 9, that he
“created all things in heaven and in earth, visible and in-
visible,” Col. i. 16, that “by him God made the world,”
Heb. xiii., that he, “in the beginning, laid the foundations
of the earth, and the heavens were the work of his hands,”
ver. 10, 11, and here, ver. 10, that “he was in , the world,
and the world was made by him,” even the world into which
he came, which doubtless was the material world, that world
which “knew him not:” and therefore could not be renewed
by him.
In a word, all the ancient Jews and paraphrasts agree in
the common interpretation of the words, viz. that the Word
was the maker of the material world, and all things in it :
this doctrine is taught very frequently by Philo,” that it was
the Logos by which the whole world was made.
The Targumists + say it was this Logos, or Memra, which
first said to the world, “Be, and it was, and which shall
again cause it to cease to be ;" it was the Word which cre-
ated the world and man in it. And where it is said, “God
created the world,” it is usual for them to say, he did it be-
memrah, “by his Word.”
This was taught by Aristobulus, Š a Jew, who lived in the
time of Ptolomaeus Philometor, as a doctrine received from
Solomon, and delivered by him, Prov. viii., for he is repre-
sented by him there, att; 20 pig kai airá Osoſ, Aéyò rºy 3px;w
āyavrièsic rāg roi; travrö; ovo-rácsoc, “ascribing the beginning
of the frame of the universe to the Wisdom and the Word
of God:” so that Eusebius || had just cause to say, that the
Hebrews, xará rày &vaexov was 3, #wnroy roi; Geoi rāy 3Aov
ovalay, “after the essence of the God of all things, which
was without beginning, and unbegotten, introduced a second
essence and divine power, &exãv rôy yewsrāv &rávrov, which
was the principle of all things that were made, Aéyov was
20%lay, xai Seiav Aévalºw airby Troeza yogeiſov’rec, calling him the
Word, and Wisdom, and a divine Power. And that on
this account the evangelical doctrine of St. John, renewing
that of the prophets and his country, raûrn 31aaaq'sſ, illus-
trates it by saying, In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God; all things
were made by it,” &c.
As for the heathen philosophers, they did so plainly agree
in that of Plato, that the Logos was the airia, “cause,”
and that of Zeno, that he was rô rotody, “the efficient’’ of
the world, that the primitive fathers pleaded this in favour
of the Christian doctrine, that even the Logos was in their
common language 3mºtovºyö;, “the maker of the world.”
“Many philosophers affirm,” saith Origen, "[“that there is
one God who created the world ; in this they agree with the
Jaw of Moses, aliquanti etiam hoc addiderunt, quéd cuncta,
* At' of a ſpºra; 3 kāakao; #3mºtovºyéfro. Alleg. lib. i. p. 44,
B. De Plant. Noas, p. 221, D. De Confus. Ling, p. 329,
C. De Prof. p. 464, B. De Monarch. p. 823, B.
+ Targum Jon. in Exod. vi. 3, iii. 14, 15. Targum
Onkelos in Deut. xxxii. 27. Targum Hieros. in Gen. i. 1.27.
| Targum Jonath. in Isa. xliv. 24, xlv. 12, xlviii. 13.
Targum Hieros. et creavit “T Rºry") hominem, in Gen. i.1 27.
Ś Apud Euseb. Praep. Evang. lib. vii, cap. 12, p. 320.
| Ibid. lib. vii. cap. 12, p. 320, 321.
* Hom. 14, in Gen. f. 23, A.
was not anything made that was made, (whether at be
----, * ~ * ** * *
per Verbum facta, et fecerit, et regerit; and many add, that,
God both made and governed all things that were made by
his Word; in hòc non solim legised et evangelio consona
sentiunt, in this they speak things consonant not only to the
law but to the gospel.”—“We teach that the Word was the
artificer of all things,” saith Tertullian ; * hunc etiam Zeno
determinat factitatorem, “and Zeno saith the same.” Cyril,
in his book against Julian, gathers up from the heathens
many things of a like nature, to show Śri rºy # airroi war&
‘piſow yeynóávra viðv ráv &npatovºyèy airrot Aéyov #yyºkaali kai airoi,
lib. i. p. 33, C, “that they owned the Son essentially be-
gotten of the Good, that is the Father, to be the Word that
made all things.” And Eusebius + introduceth Plotinus
and Numenius speaking of a second god, whom they called
Noüç, as the artificer of all things ; and Plato himself speak-
ing of that world, by Éraće 3 Aéyoç 6 ºrávrov Seiéraroc, “which
the most divine Word framed.”
As for the Christian fathers, they from the beginning
have asserted this as the rule of truth delivered to them
from the apostles, and confounding the heretics, j. Quia
unus est Deus, qui fecit omnia per verbum suum, Werbum
nempe quod extra eum non sit, sed in sinſ. Patris existit,
“That there is one God, who made the world by that Word
who is not separated from him, but is in the bosom of the
Father” (see this largely proved note on Heb. i. 2). Though
therefore it will still admit of a dispute whether the latter
Jews did by their Memra mean the promised Messiah, yet
two things cannot reasonably be doubted ; viz. (1.) that
the Jews did by their Memra understand a divine person,
who was from the beginning, and who gave beginning to
all things, and that the heathens had the same notion of
their Logos. (2.) That the Christians did understand these
words of the evangelist in the sense now received by the
orthodox, viz. as asserting the pre-existence and -divinity of
the Word made flesh, and the production of all things by
him. Whence, s
Thirdly, It must follow, that the evangelist, who was a
“Hebrew of the Hebrews,” must here have spoken of the
Logos in the received sense of Jews and heathens: for this
being apparently the notion, which then obtained both
among the Jews and gentiles, if they had been mistaken in
it, it is incredible that the inspired evangelist, coming after
them, should so conspire with them as to express the very
same thing in the same style, and almost in the same words;
much more that he should do it without giving the least cau-
tion to this purpose, that he meant quite another thing by
it than what the Platonists and some Jews meant by such
words as these. For instance, that by “the Word” he
meant, not, as they did, “one that was for ever,” but a per-
son that never was in being till some few years since ; and
that by “all things that were made,” he meant not, with
them, “all the whole universe,” but only all persons that
were reformed by the faith of Christ ; and that by “the be-
ginning,” he meant not “the beginning of the world,” as
they did, but only the beginning of the gospel, as the So-
cinians interpret these expressions. If, I say, the Word,
of which St. John speaks, did not pre-exist from all eternity,
and was not properly the creator of the world, certainly he
would have prevented their concluding the contrary from
his words by some very plain caution; because he used
that style, and those words, under which the contrary had
been taught by men of great reputation ; and so he would
not have affirmed the same things with them concerning
the Word, without any farther interpretation or addition,
saying this only, that Jesus was that Word. Again, all
Christians, whether orthodox or heretical, being either Jews
or gentiles, it is still more incredible that both should have
conspired in this import of these words, had it not been re-
ceived from the tradition both of the converts among Jews
and gentiles, that this was really the import of them, or
with such confidence have appealed to the prophetic and
country theology of the Jews, and the concurring sentiments
* Apol. cap. 21.
+ Praep. Evang. lib. xi. cap. 16–19.
† Iren. lib. i. cap. 3, lib. iii, cap. 11, p. 237, 258, 259.
CHAPTER I.
333
in heaven or in earth, visible or invisible, Col. i. 16.)
4 In him was "life (eternal, he having first brought
it to light, 2 Tim. i. 10, promised it to those that be-
lieve in him, John vi. 40, purchased it by his death,
Rom. v. 21, and being the giver of it) ; and the (doc-
trine of that) life (which he taught) was the light of
men (directing them to it).
5 And the light (now) shineth in darkness (the ig-
Torant and vicious world); and the darkness compre-
hendeth it not; (i. e. the lovers of darkness will not
receive it, John iii. 19.)
6 There was a man sent forth from God, whose
name was John (the Baptist).
7 The same came for a witness, to bear witness of
the Light (this Word was to ephibit), that "all men
through (that testimony of) him might believe (in him).
8 He (himself) was not that Light (which came into the
world), but (he) was sent to bear witness of that Light.
9 That (person to whom he bare witness) was the
true Light, which "enlighteneth every man that com-
eth into the world.
10 He was in the world (from the beginning, pre-
serving the men of it by his providence, and not leaving
them without a witness of his care of them, Acts xiv.
17), and the world was made by him, (so that all men
might by his works discern his etermal power and God-
head, Rom. i. 20), and (yet) the world (through that
wisdom he had given them) *knew him not (1 Cor. i. 21.)
11 He came unto his "own (people the Jews, to whom
he was sent), and (but) his own received him not.
12 But as many as received him, to them gave he
(the) *power (or privilege) to become the sons of God,
(by adoption to life eternal: see note on Röm. viii. 23,)
even to them that believe on his name:
13 Who were born (to that inheritance), *not of
of the heathens, with the words of this evangelist, if they had
understood them in a sense so much different from that, both
of the Jews and heathens, as that is which the Socinians
now put upon them : if then the universal church from the
beginning did not err in their interpretation of these words,
it is certain we, who continue to receive that sense and im-
port of them, which they have from the beginning handed
down unto us, must still retain the true and genuine signifi-
cation of them.
Oü8é £y 3 yéyovey. Wide Examen Millii in locum.
* Wer. 4. In him was life.] That this is to be understood
not of life natural, but of that life eternal which he revealed
to the world, 2 Tim. i. 19, to which he taught the way, xiv.
6, which he promised to believers, x. 28, which he purchased
for them, vi. 51, 53, 54, which he is appointed to give them,
xvii. 2, and to which he will raise them up, x. 29, as having
Čow v šavré, “life in himself.” ver, 26, may be argued, (1.)
from the like expression, 1 John v. 11, “This is the promise
that God hath given us, eternal life, and that life is in his
Son ;” whence he is styled “the true God and eternal life,”
ver. 20, “the resurrection and the life.” xi. 25, “the way,
the truth, and the life,” xiv. G. (2.) From these words, ver.
7, “John came to bear witness of this Light, that all men
might believe on him,” viz. “to eternal life,” 1 Tim. i. 16,
for so John witnesseth, iii. 15. 36. And this answers the
only objection against this interpretation, that the evangelist
speaks not of the Word incarnate till ver. 14, and that in
that respect alone was he the teacher of eternal life, for John
bare witness of him when he was the Word incarnate : it
was thus also he came “into the world,” and “came to his
own, and made believers “the sons of God,” ver. 11–13,
and yet all these things are spoken of him before it is said,
ver. 14, “the Word was made flesh.”
And hence it follows that this life must be the light of
men, by giving them the knowledge of this life, and of the
way leading to it, and in which they that walk are said to
walk in the light, 1 John i. 7, to abide in the light, ii. 10,
and to be the children of the light, according to those words
of Christ, “Whilst ye have the light, walk in the light, and
believe in the light, that ye may be the children of the light,”
xii. 35, 36 ; “I am the light of the world, he that follows
me shall have the light of life,” viii. 12. ix. 5. xii. 46, and
then the words following, “The light shineth in darkness,”
must respect the heathen world, styled darkness, Eph. v. 8
(see the note on Rom. xiii. 12), and the blind Jews; and
the darkness must be said not to comprehend it, because
the vicious part of the world would not own, but hated the
light, and “loved darkness rather than light, because their
º were evil,” and so they were reproved by it, iii. 19–
21.
* Ver. 7. He came to testify of this Light, that all men
might believe on him.] See here the design of the Baptist's
testimony, not only that some few elect, but that all men
might believe in Christ.
” Wer. 9. Which enlightens révra &ySgorrow pyºgaevoy, every
man that comes into the world..] The words in the Greek
are ambiguous, and may be rendered, “which coming into
the world enlightens every man,” or as our translation doth;
*ut that which countenanceth our translation is the Hebrew
blood (by circumcision rendering them the seed of
way of speaking, that a man born, is “a man coming into
the world ; ” see Dr. Lightfoot here, and the words of Christ,
saying, “For this cause was I born, and came into the
world (xviii. 37): and though Justin Martyr, Apol. p. 84,
and Origen, Hom. 14, in Jer. p. 138, interpret this of the
light of nature, saying, with some of the Greek scholiasts,
Troteſ yogāv rô 3&oy Trávra &vščotrov, “He makes every man to
know what he ought to do,” since all men are by nature
Noyukoi, all have the knowledge of good and evil, all may,
from the consideration of the creatures, advance to the
knowledge of a Creator; yet it is certain, that Christ coming
into the world could not thus enlighten any man, they being
all thus enlightened from the beginning of the world: in
this sense none of them could be called darkness, or said not
to know, receive, or apprehend this light (ver. 4, 10), or
when light is come into the world, to “love darkness more
than light” (iii. 19); now hence it follows, that Christ must
be said, ver.4, to be “the light of men,” by giving them the
knowledge of eternal life, and of the way that leadeth to it,
and in which they that walk are said to “walk in the light,”
1 John i. 7, and to “abide in the light,” ii. 10; and to be
“the children of the light,” John xii. 35, 36. To this
Light the Baptist beareth witness, “that all men might
believe in him,” ver. 7, “to eternal life,” iii. 36 ; and there-
fore with this light he, coming into the world, enlighteneth
every man, viz. who doth receive him (ver. 12).
* Ver. 10. And the world was made by him, and (yet the
men of) the world knew him not..] i. e. Owned him not either
as their Maker or their Redeemer. Of this see note on ver.
3, and on Heb, i. 2.
* Wer. 11. He came to his own.] i. e. To the Jewish na-
tion to whom he was promised, and to whom only he was
personally sent; he being therefore styled “a minister of the
circumcision for the truth of God to confirm the promises
made to the fathers ” (Rom. xv. 8), from whom according
to the flesh he came (Rom. ix. 5), “and they received him
not ;” i. e. they generally would not own him as their Mes-
siah and their Saviour.
* Wer. 12. But to as many as received him he gave £ov-
oriay, power to become the sons of God..] 'Ełovcia here signifies
the right, privilege, dignity, and prerogative : as when the
apostle warns the strong Christians to see to it, lest their
#ovario, privilege or freedom from the Jewish rites, be used
as a stumbling block to the weak (1 Cor. viii. 9), and saith,
(ix. 5, 6), “Have we not #overia, a right or privilege (by
virtue of our office) to eat and drink P” This privilege to
be the sons of God is, as Grotius well notes, a right to the
inheritance of the saints: for “if children,” saith the apos-
tle, “then are we heirs, heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ”
(Rom. viii. 17); a right to a blessed resurrection, the sons
of God being “the sons of the resurrection ” (Luke xx. 36);
a right to abide always in our Father's house (John viii.
35), a right to a state of immortality and incorruption, the
vio9eria, “sonship,” including “ the redemption of the body”
from corruption (Rom. viii. 23).
* Ver. 13. Being born, not of blood, nor of the will of the
flesh, nor of the will of man.] i. e. We are born sons, not
by virtue of the blood of circumcision, by which the Jews
entered into covenant with God, and became his sons; not
334
JOHN.
Abraham), nor of the will of the flesh (by carnal de-
scent from their parents), nor of the will of man (by
his adoption), but of (the will of) God (receiving us
for his children through faith in Christ Jesus ; for we
are all the sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus, Gal.
iii 26, and by his Spirit sanctifying us : for as many
as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of
God, Rom. viii. 14.) . .
14 And (that mortal men might attain this life) the
Word was made *flesh, and *dwelt among us, (and
we beheld his “glory, the glory "as of the only-be-
gotten Son of the Father) (i.e. his power in doing such
by reason of that carnal generation, which makes us sons
by nature of such parents, who by their fleshly justings are
incited to beget us; not by the will of man, adopting an-
other for his son and heir for want of natural issue; but this
sonship ariseth from the good pleasure of God receiving us
for his sons, through faith in Christ Jesus. Some, observ-
ing that the apostle saith, “God made all men #3 Évê, afºwa-
roc, of one blood” (Acts xvii. 26), refer this birth of blood
to our natural production, and our being born of the will
of the flesh, to the birth of the Jews by that circumcision
which was made in the flesh ; I prefer the former exposi-
tion, because, though circumcision be made in the flesh, it
proceeds not #x Sexhºaro; capitãº, from the will, desire, or
lusting of the flesh, but was done by them in obedience to
the command of God.
** Ver. 14. And the Word was made fleth &c.] i. e. Man,
according to the usual import of that phrase; as when it is
said, Gen. vi. 12, “All flesh had corrupted their ways;” Ps.
lvi. 4, “I will not fear what flesh,” that is, what man, “can
do to me,” ver. 12; Isa. xl. 5, “All flesh shall see the salva-
tion of God;” and, ver. 6, “All flesh is grass, and all the
glory of man is as the flower of the field;" Jer. xvii. 5,
“Cursed is he that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his
arm” (see Matt. iv. 22. Rom. iii. 20). And this phrase is
used, say the fathers,” not only to express the great affection
of the Word to man, declared in taking on him even his
vilest part, but also to show he came to heal, and to recover
from corruption that flesh which, by the sin of Adam, was
made obnoxious to death and corruption ; and that this flesh,
which so inseparably was united to the divine nature, must
be capable of salvation, which the Gnostics and Valenti-
nians denied, and the Ebionites, who denied the union of the
two natures.
The Socinian gloss upon these words is this, that Christ
was born mortal, subject to infirmities, sufferings, and death,
and so frail and infirm as flesh. But,
First, It is to be noted from Novatian, that this is the
gloss of those heretics, who denied the distinction betwixt the
Son of God and man, lest they should be obliged from these
words to own his divine nature ; that is, this is a Socinian
gloss. Note,
Secondly, That this gloss is contrary to the true import
of the words: for it makes the words frail, infirm, and mor-
tal, and all these epithets, to predicate of, and belong to, the
Word. Now who can reasonably imagine that he, who had
before told us, “the Word was God,” and so immortal, the
maker of the world, and all things in it, and so infinite in
power, ver. 3. 10, should instantly add, “the Word was
flesh,” i. e. frail, infirm, obnoxious to death, and yet should
* Nam quemadmodiim initio plasmationis nostrae in Adam,
ea quae fuit in Deo inspiratio vitae, unita plasmati, animavit
hominem et animal rationale ostendit ; sic in fine, Werbum
Patris et Spiritus Dei, adumitus antiquae substantiae plasma-
tionis Adam, viventem et perfectum effecit hominem capientem
perfectum Patrem ; ut quemadmodum in animali omnes
mortui sumus, sic in spirituali omnes vivificemur. Iren.
lib. v. cap. 1. Vani igitur, qui, a Valentino, Sunt hoc dog-
matizantes, uti excludunt Salutem carnis, et reprobent plas-
mationem Dei: vani autem et Ebiomasi, unitionem Dei et
hominis per fidem non recipientes in animam suam. Ibid.
+ Sed erroris istius hareticorum inde, ut opinor, orta est
materia, quia inter filium hominis nihil arbitrantur interesse,
ne, factà distinctione, et homo et Deus Jesus Christus facilè
comprobetur. Eundem enim atque ipsum i. e. hominem
filium hominis, etiam filium Dei volunt videri, ut homo et
caro et fragilis illa substantia eadem atque ipse filius Dei esse
dicatur, ex quo dum distinctio filii hominis et filii Dei
nulla secernitur, sed ipse filius hominis filius Dei vindicatur,
homo tantummodó Christus, idem atque filius Dei asseratur,
per quod nituntur excludere “Verbum caro factum est.”
Cap. 19.
immediately say again to this infirm, frail being, “We have
seen his glory, as the glory of the only-begotten Son of God,
and of his fulness have we all received grace for grace;” that
he was one “in the bosom of the Father, and who alone had
seen the Father” (ver. 14. 16. 18). Mr. Clerc interprets the
words thus, “And that reason was made conspicuous by the
man in whom it was,” telling us that flesh signifies a con-
spicuous nature, in opposition to that which is spiritual, as
1 Tim. iii. 16, but there it is not said as here, “The Word
was made flesh,” but Os3; #4 avegºn #v cagº, “God was mani-
fested in,” or made conspicuous in, “the flesh,” that is, in
the human nature, which is the import of the word flesh in
all the other places where it is attributed to Christ, by way of
distinction from his higher original ; as when the apostle
saith, the Son of God was of the seed of Abraham, xará.
orágxa “according to the flesh,” Rom. ix. 5, and that the Son,
whom he had proved to be God, Heb. i., was partaker also
of flesh and blood, Heb. ii. 14, for it is manifest that in all
these places, flesh signifies not the frailty or infirmity of flesh
according to the Socinian gloss, nor flesh as conspicuous and
visible, according to Mr. Clerc's gloss; but the human na-
ture absolutely taken, according to the exposition of all the
ancient fathers; of Ignatius,” who saith, “he was a physi-
cian, capkixö, Kai Trvevºwarix};, fleshly and spiritual, #y cagº;
yevéaeyo; Os3;, being God in flesh ;” of Justin Martyr, f who
saith, he was the Son and the Aéyoç, 3; cagxotroinSeiç &v6:070;
y£yovey, “who, by his incarnation, was made man ;” of
Irenaeus, saying, Deus igitur homo factus est, “God there-
fore was made man;” of Tertullian,S saying, that Christus
vere hominem indutus, Deus perseveravit, “Christ, putting
on the manhood, remained God ;” and of Origen, || who saith
that Christ, being in the form of God, and a Son of the Je-
rusalem which is above, “ left his father and mother for his
church, 31& airly yaº yéyove xzi attö; a 36%, being made flesh
for her ; it being said, The Word was made flesh.”
Moreover, the wisdom of God was made conspicuous in
the gospel, that being the wisdom of God (1 Cor. ii. 7), and
by the church, by which “the manifold wisdom of God” was
made known, even to the angels (Eph. iii. 10). If then that
were the reason why the Word is said to be made flesh, the
gospel and the church might also be said to be made flesh.
It follows,
13 Kai #axáveasy #y hºv, And dwelt, or pitched his taber-
nacle, among ws.] This word Éakāvoo'ey hath such an appa-
rent affinity, both in sound and sense, with the Hebrew sha-
can, used in the Old Testament, when mention is made of
God's dwelling by the Shechinah, or his glorious presence,
in the tabernacle, and often shining forth there, and thence #y
3%h, “in glory” (see the notes on Rom, i. 23. Phil. ii. 6);
that we have reason to believe this phrase relates to the
divine nature, or to the fulness of the Deity dwelling in
Christ's human nature. This Shechinah, say the Jews, was
wanting in the second temple, and this defect was now re-
paired by the habitation of the divine nature in the temple
of Christ's body, so as never to be separated from it, accord-
ing to the prediction of the prophet Haggai (ii. 7), “The
Desire of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house
with glory.” As then God said, with respect to the times of
the Messiah, “I come to thee, "nyavn, xai za tacknvñao, and
will dwell in the midst of thee;” that is, saith the Chaldee
paraphrast, ºnly ºnwnn, “and will put my Shechinah,” or
divine Majesty, “among you,” Zech. ii. 10, 11 ; so did he
fulfil his promise, by sending this Emmanuel, or Word made
flesh, among them.
14 And we have seen rºy 36%ay &ütoiſ, his glory..] viz. Ap-
pearing in, and shining from, the tabernacle of Christ's body,
as the glory of the Lord did from the tabernacle of old : for
the glory of God, in the Old Testament, doth not barely
* Ep. ad Eph. §. 7. ºf Apol. ii. p. 74. -
f Lib. v. cap. 23. § De Carne Christi, cap. 3
| In Matt. tom. i. ed. Huet. p. 357.
CHAPTER I.
335
works as none but he could do), "full of grace (to pro-
cure that pardon of sin and justification which the law
could not give) and truth, (in opposition to those types
and shadows of spiritual blessings, and good things to
come, of which Christ eaſhibited the substance and the
truth, Heb. x. 1, giving us an inheritance in the celestial
Canaan, and an entrance into the true tabernacle, ver.
19).
15 John bare witness of him, and cried, saying,
This was he of whom I spake, (when I said) He that
cometh after me is (to be) preferred "before me; for
he was before me (both as to being and as to dignity).
16 And of his fulness have all we received, and
(even) *grace for (according to the measure of they
grace (of Christ, Eph. iv. 7).
17 For the law was given by Moses, but grace and
'truth (the grace of that gospel which is styled truth,
See note on Rom. ii. 1) came by Jesus Christ.
18 (Nor is there any other means of coming to the
knowledge of the truth, and the enjoyment of that grace :
for) "no man hath seen God at any time (i. e. as to
his essence, or that glorious light in which he dwells,
and to which no mortal eye can approach, 1 Tim. vi.
16, or as to any full discovery or perfect idea of his
signify the miracles wrought by God, but either the glory
appearing in the cloud of glory, as Exod. xvi. 7. 10, by
which God testified his presence with them, and Numb. xiv.
22, and ver, 21, or it signifies the miracles done by the
glory of God then appearing ; and in 2 Pet. i. 16, it signi-
fies the bright cloud, or glory of God, appearing at our
Lord's transfiguration ; not any miracle then wrought, of
which we have no mention in the history of Christ's trans-
figuration : here therefore the apostle saith, “We have seen
the glory,” or the divinity of the Word, conspicuous in the
miracles wrought by him.
* A6%ay &; ºzovoyevoč, rag& Tarpoc, The glory as of the only-
begotten Son of the Father.] Where note,
First, That the practicle &c, as, is not here a note of simi-
litude, &AN& 888atºrso;, “but of confirmation :” that this Son
truly was the only-begotten of the Father, as Chrysostom
here notes: so Neh. vii. 2, attº, &c &våp &Anşik, “He was a
faithful man;” Matt. xiv. 5, “All men held John &; ºrpoq àrºy,
to be a prophet indeed” (see the notes on Rom. ix. 32).
This particle &; sometimes answers to the Hebrew IR, and
signifies certé, or truly ; as Ps. lxxiii. 1, nilo TR, &; āyaºs,
“Truly God is loving to Israel:” sometimes to 5, when it is
used, say the Jewish writers, hintº nox', to confirm a thing
(see Noldius de Particulis, p. 376. 2 Cor. ii. 17. 1 Pet. i.
19. iv. 11). This glory is said to be the glory wovoyevoic, “ of
the only-begotten of the Father,” i. e. of him who was be-
gotten of him after that singular and extraordinary manner
that this title can agree to him alone, as being, saith Lucian,
“the unchangeable image, obaia;, xai 8ovXic, wai évyáſzewº, kai
36%m; rot Qeoiſ, of the essence, counsel, power, and glory of
God.” Hence is the Logos styled by Philo, 3 ºrgarréyoyo;
vièc, De Agricult. p. 152, B, 3 ºrporáyovo, kai yewnSeiç, De
Confus. Ling.’ p. 228, A., “the begotten and first-born Son of
God, & Hyèlášero; vià, Toi, Geoû, the internal Son of God” (Lib.
de Nom. Mut. p. 824). By Plato” he is styled 3 #yyovo, roſ.
âyadoù Kai Gºoldºraro; Havré, “one begotten of the Good, and
most like to him.” And Porphyry says, that, according to
the doctrine of Plato, “ of the Good,” i.e. of the Father,
“was begotten, in a manner unknown to men, an Under-
standing, in which are all things” (Apud Cyril. contr. Jul.
lib. viii.).
* FIAñpnç Xápiro; Kal &AnSeizº, Full of grace and truth.]
Here trafipnº, the nominative case, is put for the genitive : so
Eph. iii. 17, that “Christ may dwell” #y kap3iat; tºy, ver, 18,
#tºokévot, for Étºokwávoy, and Rev. i. 5, 373 'Incoſ xzia roi; ;
Kwápruſ, for toº w86tugot. See examples of the like construc-
tion in profane authors produced by Grotius on Mark vi. 40,
and by Schmidius. Note also, that it appeareth from the
following words, ver. 17, “For the law came by Moses; but
grace and truth by Jesus Christ,” that this Son of God is
said to be full of grace and truth, in opposition to the law of
Moses. Now grace, in the New Testament, implies two
things; both which are declared to be wanting in the law of
Moses: (1) the mercy of God in the free pardon of our
sins, or our justification or freedom from the guilt of sin, from
which “we could not be justified by the law of Moses,”
Acts xiii. 38, 39, “For by the law,” saith the apostle, “can
no man be justified,” Gal. iii. 11. Rom. iii. 20, “We being
justified freely by his grace through the redemption which is
in Jesus,” ver. 24, whence it is said to them who seek to
be justified by the law of Moses, that they are “fallen from
grace,” Gal. v. 4. (2.) Grace doth in scripture signify the
gifts of the Holy Spirit freely conferred upon believers, who
* De Repub, lib. vi. p. 686, C.
is therefore styled # 82';s& #y xágirl, “the gift by grace,”
Rom. v. 15, and his gifts are represented by the word grace,
as when St. Peter saith, “As every man hath received the
gift, so let him minister, as good stewards, Troikian: Yápiroc
Geoû, of the manifold grace of God,” l Pet. iv. 10, 11, and
St. Paul, Rom xii. 6, “Having therefore gifts differing
war& rºy Xàpiv, according to the grace given us, whether pro-
phecy,” &c. (see Gal. ii. 8, 9. Eph. iii. 7). Now this pro-
mise of the Spirit was the consequence of faith in Christ
(Gal. iii. 14): hence are these two assigned as the great
differences betwixt the law and the gospel; that the first was
the “administration of the letter” only, the other “ of the
Spirit:” the first the “administration of condemnation,” the
second “ of justification,” 2 Cor. iii. 7, 8. Again, the law is
said to have been only “a shadow of things to come,” and
“an image” of those things of which Christ exhibited the
body, truth, and substance, Col. ii. 17. Heb. viii. 5. x. 1
(see the note there): and hence truth is here said to come
by Christ; and he is here represented as full of truth.
17 Wer. 15. He that cometh after me, is (to be) preferred
before me ; for he was before me, ºrgâté, ºwow hy.] Here the
critical note is this, that ºrpäroº, first, here signifies, before,
so 1 John iv. 19, “He loved us, ºrgåro;, before ;” Matt. xvii.
20, “Elias shall come ºrgåroy, before” Christ; John xix. 39,
“Nicodemus, who came Trgårov, before to Christ by night ;”
2 Thess. ii. 3, “There shall come an apostasy, Tréâtov, be-
fore Christ's coming;” and, John xv. 18, “They hated me,
orpāroy tºy, before they hated you.”
Secondly, As for the words #4780a Sév wou yéyoyev, I find
no instance where they signify, “He was preferred before
me:” and therefore rather choose to retain the proper im-
port of the words, and give the sense of the whole thus,
“This is he of whom I said, He that cometh after me is be-
fore me; and this I said, because he indeed was before me, as
being in the beginning with God,” ver. 2. -
18 Wer. 16. And of his fulness we have all received, xa:
x &gw &vºr: Xágiros, even grace for grace.] i. e. Of the fulness
of grace in him to procure pardon for us, and of that fulness
of the Spirit, which was in him without measure, John iii.
34. Luke iv. 1, according to the measure of the gift of
Christ: so Jer. xi. 17, the Lord hath pronounced against
thee, wax& &vri waxiac, “evil for the evil of the house of Israel
and Judah:” so waxby &yri wakotī, “evil for evil” done to us,
or according to it, Rom. xii. 17. 1. Thess v. 15. 1 Pet. iii. 9,
so #yri roſtov, obhanc rem, 3,9' &y, “for the sake of which”
(see many examples of this kind in Stephanus): so Theocly-
menus” saith to Helena, Let us forget what is past, and be
reconciled, that so x&gt; 3vri Xàpiro; #x0árw, “we may re-
ceive kindness upon kindness;” and one in Theognist de-
sires rather to die than to suffer, &yr' &ytów &yia;, “Sorrow
upon sorrow :” so that this phrase, “grace for grace,” may
either signify the abundance and continual influence of
divine blessings conferred upon us; or, with relation to the
spring and fountain of them, we have received grace, or
tokens of the divine favour, agreeably to the grace of God
vouchsafed to us in sending his Son, and suitably to the
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, mentioned 2 Cor. viii. 9, and
frequently in the beginning and the close of St. Paul's
epistles, as that from which we derive all spiritual blessings
in heavenly things (Eph. i. 2, 3).
19 Wer. 18. No man hath seen God at any time, obºek #6-
* Euripid. Helen. v. 1254. Priestley's ed. of Euripid.
vol. vi. p. 556.
+ W. 342.
336
JOHN.
attributes); the only-begotten Son, who is "in the
bosom of the Father, (i. e. most intimately acquainted
with his secrets, and is the image of the invisible God,
Col. i. 15,) he hath declared him (i.e. his will and at-
tributes to us in the most perfect manner).
19 And this is the record of John (concerning Jesus,
which he gave to him) when the (Sanhedrin of) the
Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask
him, Who art thou ? (i. e. art thou the Christ 8)
20 And (then also) he "confessed and denied not
(the truth); but confessed (saying of himself), I am not
the Christ.
21 And (when he had so said) they asked him, What
then (art thou) 8 Art thou “Elias (the Tishbite, whom
we eaſpect to anoint him) P And he said, I am not.
(When they inquired farther,) Art thou that prophet
(raised from the dead whom we expect 8 Matt. xvi. 14.)
And he answered, No. -
22 Then they said to him, Who (then) art thou?
(tell us) that we may give an answer to them that
sent us. What sayest thou of thyself?
23 He said, I am the voice of one crying in the
eaxe, Here Grotius thinks, that śćpaze, “hath seen,” is put
for “hath known,” as iii. 32, and Eph. iii. 11, giving the
sense thus, No man hath known the secret counsels of God
at any time, concerning the redemption of mankind, which
Christ now declareth to the world; but though this sense of
the words be good, yet the phrase in the Old and the New
Testament representing God as one, “whom no man can see,
and live,” as Exod. xxxiii. 20. 23, and “he who dwells in
light inaccessible, to which no mortal eye can approach, and
whom no man hath seen, or can see,” 1 Tim. vi. 19, and the
seeing of him in the cloud, the symbol of his glorious pre-
sence, being called “the seeing of him face to face,” Gen.
xxxii. 30. Numb. xiv. 14, and being deemed such a vision
as would cause God to take away their lives, Judg. vi. 22,
23. xiii. 22. Isa. vi. 5). I would rather refer this here to
the presence of the Word with the Father, mentioned, i. 1,
and his being with him in heaven in that glory in which he
there dwells, and his coming down from thence as from the
bosom of the Father, to declare heavenly things to us, which
saith he, none can do but the Son of man who is in heaven,
iii. 12, 13 (see the note there). For if this being in the bo-
som of the Father did only signify his friendship and inti-
mate acquaintance with God, it may be ascribed to Abra-
ham, who was “the friend of God,” James ii. 23, to Moses
“who talked with him face to face, as a man speaking to his
friend,” Exod. xxxiii. 11, and to the apostles, who had the
mind of God revealed to them (1 Cor. ii. 16). Whereas,
in the other sense, it will be proper and peculiar to Christ,
to be “in the bosom of the Father,” as St. John seemeth
here to represent it: -
* Et; tāv Káxtrov, In the bosom.] Note, that st; roy w8xtroy
is here put for #y rā kāxtrº. So sic Trôly, “in the city,” Matt.
ii. 23, si; roy waipay air&y, “in their times,” Luke i. 20, si;
#y, “in which,” Acts vii. 4, st; XoAñy, “in the gall,” Acts viii.
23 (see Mark i. 39. ii. 1. v. 34. Luke viii. 48. ix. 61.
xi. 7. xvi. 8. Acts vii. 53. xiii. 42. Eph. i. 10. Heb.
xi. 9).
21 & 20. He confessed, and denied not; but confessed.]
Such pleonasms are frequent in the scripture. So 2 Kings
xvii. 36, The people held their peace, and answered nothing,”
Isa. xxxviii. 1, “Thou shalt die, and not live;” Ezek. vii. 6,
“An end is come, the end is come, it is come :” and es-
pecially in the writings of this evangelist; so 1 John i. 1.
3, “That which we have heard, that which we have seen,
that which we have beheld with our eyes;” and, xii. 27, “is
true, and is no lie” (see here, ver. 3).
23 Ver, 21. Art thow Elias 2 And he said, I am not (see
the note on Matt. xi. 14). Art thow that prophet?] Jeremy,
saith Grotius, there being a rumour among them, that he
was to return to them (see the note on Matt. xi. 9, 10).
- When the people were musing among themselves, whether
the Baptist were the Christ, he takes off that suspicion of
1. is own accord, Luke iii. 15. Here he returns an answer to
the inquiries of the pharisees.
wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as
said the prophet Esaias, (xl. 3, 4.)
24 And they which were sent were of (the sect of)
*the pharisees (and so exact, as they supposed, in all
the rites and traditions which ought to be observed).
25 And they asked him (therefore), and said to him,
*Why baptizest thou them, if thou be not the Christ,
nor Elias, neither that prophet 2 (or by what authority
doest thou this £)
26 John answered them, saying, *I baptize (you)
with water, (to call you to repentance, as I was sent by
God to do, ver. 33), but there standeth one among you,
whom ye know not;
27 He it is who, coming after me, is preferred be-
fore me, whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to un-
loose (i. e. to whom I am unworthy to be a servant).
28 These things were done in “Bethabara beyond
Jordan, were John was baptizing.
29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming to him,
and Saith, Behold, (here is) the (true) *"Lamb of God,
that taketh away the sins of the world (by making a
jull eaſpiation for the guilt of them) /
* Ver. 24. And they that were sent, were of the phari-
sees.] i. e. Of the patrons of tradition, who thought them-
selves so exact in all the ordinary rules, which were to be ob-
served, that this new rite of baptizing, by way of prepara-
tion for the Messiah, of which their traditions were
wholly silent, must be extraordinary ; and therefore they
Inquire—
* Ver 25, Ti div 8arriºsis; Why then baptizest thou?]
Why usest thou towards us, Jews, who are already holy and
in covenant with God, a rite only used by us towards hea-
then proselytes, to cleanse them from their impurity and to
prepare them to enter into covenant with God? Note also,
that ri here is put for 3:4 rº, why, or for what cause, as Matt.
xvii. 10, ri obv “Why say the scribes P” vi. 28, ri kºshtºvãºre,
“Why take ye thought P’’ so vii. 3. xvi. 8. xix. 7. xxii.
18. John iv. 17. vii. 19. ix. 27. x. 20. xviii. 21. 23. xx.
13. 15. -.
* Ver. 26. I baptize with water to repentance.] i. e. I
am the messenger of which Malachi speaks, who am sent
before the Lord to prepare his way, by bringing you to re-
pentance and amendment of life, and therefore baptize you
with water, to mind you of that purity of heart which is re-
quisite to the reception of him ; so that by my baptizing you
with water, to produce in you that purity, will be fulfilled
the promise of God by Ezekiel, xxxvi. 25, “I will sprinkle
clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean ;” and, by his.
baptism, will be fulfilled the words following, ver. 37, “I
will put my Spirit within you.” *
Wer. 27. “O; Éatreocóšy &ov yśyovey, See this reading vindi-
cated, Examen Millii in locum.
* Ver. 28. In Bethabara,] That is, according to the
import of the word nºnynºn, about the place where the
Jews passed over Jordan to go into the land of Canaan: it
is situated, saith Dr. Lightfoot,” beyond Jordan, in the Scy-
thopolitan country, where the Jews dwelt among the Syro-
phoenicians.
*7 Wer. 29. Behold the Lamb of God, Š aſgow tºy &gapºriay,
who taketh away the sins of the world.] This Grotius refers
to the reformation of men's lives ; whereas it plainly re-
spects the Lamb slain as a piacular victim (1 Pet. i. 19), to
redeem us to God by his blood (Rev. v. 9), or to procure for
us “redemption,” that is, “the remission of sins” (Eph. i. 7.
Col. i. 14), and to exempt all that believed in him from that
sentence of death which came upon the world for the sin of
Adam. To illustrate this, let it be noted, (1.) that when a
sacrifice was offered for sin, he that brought it laid his hand
upon the head of the victim, according to the command of
God, Lev. i. 4. iii. 2. iv. 4, and by that rite transferred his
sins upon the victim, who is said to take them upon him,
and to carry them away: accordingly, in the daily sacrifice
of the lamb, the stationary men, saith Dr. Lightfoot, who
were the representatives of the people, laid their hands upon
* Page 494.
CHAPTER I.
337
30 This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a
man that is preferred before me; for he was before me.
31 **And I knew him not (till God revealed it to
wne, or when I said this): but (knowing) that he should
(suddenly) be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I
come (came I first) baptizing with water.
32 And John bare record, saying, I saw (Gr. have
seen) the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove,
and it abode upon him, (and by this sign, given me of
God, I knew him to be the Christ, from whom that Spirit
should be derived on others, ver. 26.)
33 And (before) I (thus) knew him not : but he
that sent me to baptize with water, the same (had)
said to me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit de-
scending, and remaining on him, the same is he who
baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.
34 And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son
of God. -
35 Again the next day after, John stood, and two
of his disciples;
36 And looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith
(to them), Behold the Lamb of God!
37 And the *two disciples heard him speak (this),
and they followed Jesus.
|
38 Then Jesus turned, and saw them following,
and saith to them, What seek ye 2 They said to him,
Rabbi, which is to say, being interpreted, Master,
where dwellest thou (that we may be there with thee) *
39 He saith to them, Come and see. (And) they
came and saw where he dwelt, and abode with him
that day (and the night following): for it was about the
tenth hour (or four in the afternoon).
40 One of the two, which heard John speak, and
followed him, was "Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.
41 He first findeth his own brother Simon, and
saith to him, We have found the (promised) Messiah,
which is, being interpreted, the Christ.
42 And he brought him to Jesus. And when
Jesus beheld him, he said, *Thou art Simon the son
of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is, by
interpretation, A stone, (or rock upon whose preaching
the foundation of my church shall be laid; see note on
Matt. xvi. 18.)
43 The day following Jesus would go forth into
Galilee, and (as he was going, he) findeth Philip, and
saith to him, Follow me.
44 Now Philip was “of Bethsaida, the city of
Andrew and Peter (and so came meat to be found
by him).
45 Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith to him, We
have found him of whom Moses in the law (Deut.
xviii. 18), and (of whom) the prophets, did write (as
of the Messiah, which was to come), Jesus of Nazareth,
the son of Joseph.
46 And Nathanael said to him, Can there any good
thing come out of (such a wicked, Luke iv. 28, and
despicable place, see mote on Matt. ii. 23, as) Naza-
reth? Philip saith to him, Come and (thou wilt) see
(sufficient reason to believe there may).
47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and (in-
stantly) saith to him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in
whom is no guile (but plain honesty towards men, and
sincerity of affection towards God!)
48 Nathamael said to him, Whence knowest thou
me (so entirely as to pronounce thus of my inward
man, seeing thou hast not before seen or conversed with
me); Jesus answered and said to him, Before that
Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig-tree,
I saw thee (and this thou mayest believe, seeing I tell
thee where thou wast, and how Philip called thee,
though I never heard him call thee, nor saw thee there
with my bodily eyes). g
49 Nathanael answered and said to him, Rabbi,
(this knowledge, so proper to a divine person, convinc-
eth me vrat) thou art the *Son of God; thou art the
King of Israel.
50 Jesus answered and said to him, Because I
said to thee, I saw thee under the fig-tree, believest
thou? thou shalt see greater things than these
(stronger and more convincing arguments than these to
confirm thy faith in this particular).
51 And (then) he saith to them, Verily, verily, I
say to you (my disciples, That) *hereafter ye shall see
heaven open, (as Jacob did, Gen. xxviii. 12,) and the
angels of God ascending and descending upon the
Son of man (i.e. such eaſtraordinary signs of the di-
the lambs thus offered for them ; and these two lambs offered
for the daily sacrifice were bought with that half shekel, which
all the Jews yearly paid, Biç Aşrpov rā; Juxic airów, Éixázaa-
Bat repi rāv Juxºv airów, “as the price of redemption of their
lives, to make an atonement for them,” Exod. xxx. 12, 14.
16. This lamb was therefore offered to take away the guilt
of their sin, as this phrase signifies when it relates to sacri-
fices (see the note, 1 Pet. ii. 25). When therefore the Bap-
tist had said, he baptized them for the remission of sins, he
here shows them by what means that remission was to be ob-
tained. -
* Ver. 31.33. And I knew him not..] By face, or any
converse with him till he came to my baptism, God so order-
ing it, that there should be no suspicion that I thus testified
of him by compact. Observe, also, that the Baptist said
this at the same time that he saw the Spirit of God de-
scending on him, ver, 30, and seeing this sign made good,
he testifies this was that Son of God who should baptize
them with the Spirit, ver. 33, 34 (see note on Matt. iii. 14).
* Ver. 37. Two disciples] Of the Baptist hearing this
testimony of their Master, they come to him, either to abide
with him, or to gain farther knowledge of him; and therefore
they inquire where he dwelt, ver. 39, that they might repair
to him thither, not thinking it proper to ask him in the streets
concerning the Messiah and his kingdom.
* Ver, 40. One of the two was Andrew.] The other is
thought to have been St. John himself, who usually conceals
his name. Note hence, that these two were called before
Peter.
* Wer. 42. Thou art Simon, &c.] Woltzogenius notes,
showing that he was able, by the Holy Spirit, to search into
the most internal recesses of the heart.
** Ver. 44. Of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.]
i. e. Where they dwelt. This seems to be added, to show
the reason why Philip followed Jesus before he knew any-
thing of his doctrine, because what he had heard from them
who dwelt near him had prepared his mind so to do; and
from the following words of Philip and Nathanael, “We
have found him,” &c. we learn, that not only Peter and An-
drew, but Christ himself had discoursed to Philip of the
predictions of the law and the prophets concerning him.
Note also v, ver. 45, is put for nepi cº, “of whom,” as ver, 15.
* Ver. 49. Thow art the Son of God; thou art the King
of Israel..] These seem to be the two titles of the Messiah in
the Jewish phrase, signifying the same thing : for though
the Jews acknowledged the Messiah should be the Son of
God, yet not in that high sense in which Christ was 810; viàº,
“the proper and peculiar Son of God;” for this they look
upon as blasphemy, John v. 18, but in that sense in which
they style themselves his sons, John viii. 41.
* Ver. 51. Hereafter shall ye see the heavens opened
and the angel of God ascending and descending on the Son
of man.] Christ here seems to allude to Jacob's ladder
of which we read Gen. xxviii. 12, 13, on the top of which
was the divine majesty, and the angels ascending, saith
Maimonides, to receive his commands, and descending to ex-
ecute them; Christ therefore, by these words, seems to inform
them, that the miracles which they should see performed by
him should declare the divine majesty present with him, and
giving him those commands he was to execute by his pro:
that Christ here gives Peter a specimen of his divine virtue; phetic office, as clearly as if they had seen the angels of God
and, ver, 47, he discovers the secrets of the heart of Philip, ascending and descending on him. They who refer this to
338
JOHN.
all my works and words, as Jacob had of God’s pre-
sence with him, when he saw the angels ascending to re-
the day of judgment, did not consider this was to happen
&arágri, “within a little while ;” and they who refer it to
Christ's passion and resurrection, must show how the angels
vine presence with, and his direction and assistance in, ceive God’s commands, and descending to
be with him,
and direct him in his way). * *
then ascended and descended on Christ in the sight of the
apostles.
CHAPTER II.
1 AND the third day(from Simon’s coming to Christ,
i. 41), there was a marriage (feast) in "Cana of Gali-
lee : and the mother of Jesus was there (uncalled :)
2 And both Jesus was called and his disciples (Gr.
but both Jesus and his disciples were called) to the
marriage. w
3 And when they wanted wine, the “mother of Je-
sus (being concerned for this want of her relations)
saith to him, They have no wine (hoping, by this in-
timation, he, by a miracle, would supply this want).
4 Jesus saith unto her, *Woman, what have I to
do with thee : *mine hour (i. e. that time for mani-
festing my glory by my miracles, ver, 11) is not yet
come (and so I am not bound to have regard to thy soli-
citations in this thing).
5 His mother (eapecting, notwithstanding this answer,
that he might gratify her) saith to the servants, What-
soever he saith to you, do it.
6 And there were set there six water-pots (or cis-
terms) of stone, after the manner of the purifying of
the Jews (who constantly washed before meals), con-
taining two or three firkins apiece. .*
7 Jesus saith to them, Fill the water-pots with
water. And they filled them up to the brim.
8 And he saith to them, Draw out now (of this
liquor), and bear (it) to the governor of the feast.
And they bare it.
9 When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water
which was made wine, and knew not whence it was,
but the servants that drew the water knew (i. e. not
knowing it to be water miraculously turned into wine
by Christ as the servants did), the "governor of the
feast called the bridegroom, -
10 And saith to him, Every man at the beginning
(of a feast) doth (use to) set forth good wine; and
when men "have well drunk, them that which is worse
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II.
* Wer. 1. In Cama of Galilee.] To distinguish it from
another Cana, which was in the tribe of Ephraim, Josh. xvi.
8. xvii. 9; whereas this was in the tribe of Asher in Galilee,
Josh. xix. 28, and probably where Alpheus or Cleopas, whose
wife was Mary, the sister of the mother of our Lord, lived:
for that this marriage was in his house, is conjectured, first,
because the mother of our Lord is there uncalled, by reason
of her near relation to them ; whereas Christ and his disci-
ples are bid to the wedding: secondly, because his mother
is so solicitous for the supply of the wine.
* Ver. 3. The mother of Jesus saith to him, They have
no wine.] Some conceive, by reason of this expectation of
his mother, that Christ miraculously might provide wine for
them, that, whilst he lived privately with his parents, he
might, upon some occasion, in an extraordinary maiuner, sup-
ply their want of necessaries. St. Chrysostom says she was
moved to ask this from the consideration of his miraculous
conception and birth, the testimony of the Baptist, and his
gathering disciples. Grotius thinks that Joseph was then
dead, because he is not mentioned here.
* Wer. 4. Ti śpºol kai arol, yūyai ; Woman, what haëe I to
do with thee ?] The papists here contend, that these words
are not to be deemed a reprehension of his mother, but only
an instruction to his disciples, that in the things of God they
ought not to have respect to the solicitations of earthly
parents. But,
First, The word yūyal, woman, plainly shows these words
were directed, not to his disciples, but to his mother. And,
Secondly, We never find this phrase used in scripture
otherwise than by way of objurgation or reprehension ; as
when Jephthah says to the king of Ammon, Judg. xi. 12,
ºri śpºol kai aroi ; “What have I to do with thee, that thou
comest to fight against my land?” And David to the sons
of Zeruiah, 2 Sam. xvi. 20, ri #xoi kal tºxiv, “What have I
to do with you?” and again, xix. 22; and Pharaoh-Nechoh
to Josias, 2 Chron. xxxv. 21. 1 Esd. i. 26. 1 Kings xvii. 18;
and Elisha to Joram, 2 Kings iii. 13.
Thirdly, Maldonate” confesseth, that most of the ancient
fathers do openly or obscurelyintimate what Irenaeus+ plainly
* Inter veteres auctores, paucos admodüm invenio, qui
non aut apertè dicant aut obscuré significent, aliquam culpam
aut errorem fuisse, quéd filium ad faciendum miraculum in-
citaverit, si non ob aliud, certé intempestivé et ante tempus,
id fecit. Mald. in locum.
+ Dominus repellens ejus intempestivam festinationem
saith, “that she was guilty of some fault or error in inciting
her Son to this miracle unseasonably.” So Chrysostom,”
Euthymius, and Theophylact, upon the place.
* Odºro, #2st &ga &ov, My hour is not yet come.] Dr.
Lightfoot thinks, this is spoken, because Cnrist was to begin
his public ministry, and to confirm it with miracles at Jeru-
salem ; and therefore saith, vii. 8, § Haigăc #x3; “My time of
going up to Jerusalem is not yet.” Others, with Dr. Ham-
mond, say, this hour signifies the time of doing his miracles,
#y traffingia, “openly,” was not yet; and therefore, though
he did this miracle, he did it so privately that neither the
governor of the feast, nor the bridegroom, nor the guests,
knew that he had done it, but the servants only. Lastly, it
is observable that G. Nyssen reads these words by way of in-
terrogation; viz. Woman, what have I to do with thee ? I
have begun to gather disciples, and to act as one sent from
God; and is not the hour of my exemption from thy autho-
rity yet come 2
* Wer. 9. Qove; roy yup, plow d ãºxºrgiaxiwoc, The governor of
the feast called the bridegroom.] To this governor of the
feast it belonged to bless what was prepared, and having
drunk of the cup thus blessed, to send it about to the whole
company, whence Christ saith to the servants, “Draw out
and bear it to the governor of the feast,” ver. 8. Moreover,
the word povery doth not necessarily signify to call the absent
bridegroom, but may only intimate, that the ruler of the feast
spake thus to him being present: for, as Phavorinus saith,
this word, with an accusative case, signifies rê XaXá Kai to
waxâj, “both to call and to speak to.” Thus in Sophocles,
ri pove?; ; is, “What sayest thou?” and here, xiii. 13, tºwºc
$oysła'É as Kūgow, is, “You say I am your Master;” so #x
rā; workia; powgiv, is, “to speak out of the belly,” Isa. Viii.
19, #x rā; yā; povety, “to speak out of the earth,” Isa. xix.
3, and oil pověſy, “not to speak,” Ps. cxiii. 15.
* Ver. 10. Kai &ray &ESva Şāori, And when men have well
drunk, then that which is worse.] The word ºf Stakea Sat.
does not here signify to be drunk, but to drink to Satiety :
or, as Phavorinus saith, ºrançoieşat, “to be filled with wine.”
So Gen. xliii. 34, “The brethren of Joseph drank, #28907-
Snaray aer' airoij, and were merry with him ;” saturati Sunt
cum eo, “they were satisfied,” saith the Vulgate: so Ps. xxiii.
dixit, Quid mihi et tibi est, mulier P lib. ii. cap. 18, p. 277.
* “s, 3×aigo'; 'ri Kºrāy wał #ywärtely ri răy mysupwarizāy.
Chrysost. -
+ Emiraža, ºwikpáy. Theophylact.
CHAPTER II.
339
ii. e. smaller) : but thou hast kept the good wine until
Y1OW.
11 This beginning of (his) miracles did Jesus in Cana
of Galilee, and (thereby) "manifested forth his glory;
and his disciples (who saw the miracle) believed on him.
12 After this he went down to Capernaum, he, and
his mother, and his brethren, and his disciples, and
they continued there not many days.
13 And (for) the Jews' passover was at hand; and
J.sus went up (with them) to Jerusalem,
14 And (there he) found in the temple those that
sold oxen, and sheep, and doves (for sacrifices), and
the changers of money (or those who returned it by
way of eachange) sitting.
15 And when he had made a “scourge of small
cords (or of rushes,) he drove them all out of the
temple, and (that is) the sheep, and the oxen; and
poured out (upon the ground) the changers’ money,
5, “My cup runneth over,” ºrothpiév wou &eStokow, saith the
Septuagint: so arist's kai webiſa Snre, Cant. v. 1, is, “Drink
abundantly :” Hag. i. 6, #7tte‘re wai oix eig &#Sny, “Ye drank,
but not to satiety:” so Ecclus. i. 16, “The fear of the Lord
&ESöcket, replenisheth men with her fruits;” and xxxii. 13,
“Bless the Lord ºcesſaxov rá ae, who filleth thee with good
things:” so Jerome on Jer. xxxi. 14, Kal &#902 w ‘rāv kvºy
röy isgéoy, “I will satiate the soul of my priests with fat-
ness;” and ver, 35, #zéðva'a rāzav luxāy 31-biša'ay, “I have
satisfied every thirsty soul ;” and on those words, Hosea xiv.
7, p.e3va Sharovrai atrº, tom. v. F. 151, H. 152, H. 1. See
1 Macc. xvi. 16. Moreover, these are not the words of
Christ, but of the ruler of the feast, declaring, not how it
was with the guests there present, but only that it was the
usual custom to bring the best wine first, and when men had
well drunk, then the meaner sort, and that this custom was
not then observed. And, thirdly, admit some persons might
exceed in drinking of this very wine miraculously made,
which yet is more than can be gathered from the text, our
Lord cannot be charged with ministering to that excess, by
making this provision of it, unless we also charge the provi-
dence of God as being instrumental to all that gluttony and
drunkenness which is committed in the world, because it
doth afford that meat and drink which by the glutton, and
drunkard are abused to excess.
7 Ver, ll. Kai épavégore riv 86%ay aircü, And he manifested
his glory..] i. e. His power of working miracles, which is
styled his glory, John xvii. 22. 2 Cor. iii. 18, and for which
“he was glorified of all,” Luke iv. 15. And this was oppor-
tunely done to confirm the faith of the apostles, who were
newly come to him ; and therefore it is added, that “they
believed on him.”
* Wer. 15, 16. He made a scourge of small cords, &c.]
To what hath been said, note on Matt. xxi. 14. Mark xi.
17, add, (1.) that Christ, by making such a whip of bul-
rushes, which could hurt nobody, seemed to insinuate that
he would not use external force to take away the abuses of
men relating to his worship. And (2.) by calling the temple
his Father's house, he distinguishes himself from other pro-
phets, who sometimes style God their God (Isa. lvii. 21), but
never their Father. And (3.) by purging the court of the
gentiles from merchandise, not unlawful in itself, but neces-
sary for the sacrifices which were to be offered in the temple,
though not necessary to be brought there, he sufficiently in-
sinuates that a distinction is to be made betwixt places sacred
and profane, and that what may as well be done elsewhere,
ought not to be done in the house of God, the place ap-
pointed immediately for his worship.
* Ver. 18. Ti a mºtov Seikyūet; ; What sign showest thou?
&c.] This they ask, because it belonged only to the magis-
trate, as being God's minister and vicegerent, or to a prophet,
to take away abuses in God's service. Now a prophet must
show himself to be so by some miracles, or some prediction
of a thing future: this last Christ doth, by Saying,
1° Ver. 19. Aſa'are roy way rotºrov, &c. Destroy this temple,
and I will build it up in three days.] When elsewhere they
require a sign, he remits them to the sign of Jonas the pro-
phet, Matt. xii. 39, 40. And here he also seems in effect to
do the same thing, by saying that, by raising the temple of
and overthrew the (counting) tables (no man making
any resistance) ;
16 And (he) Saith to them that sold doves, Take
these things hence; (and) make not my Father's
house a house of merchandise.
17 And his disciples (afterward) remembered that
it was written (of him), The zeal of thine house hath
eaten me up (Ps. lxix. 9, i. e. hath fed upon my spirits
and consumed them).
18 Then answered the Jews and said to him,
*What sign showest thou to us (that thou art a
prophet), seeing that thou doest these things
º only magistrates or prophets have authority to
O) :
19 Jesus answered and said to them, (This shall be
a sign to you), * destroy this temple (of my body,
and (when you have done this) in three days I wif.
raise it up (again).
his body after they had destroyed it, or by his resurrection
from the dead, he would afford them a convincing demon-
stration that he had good authority for what he said and did,
and that he was that prophet which was to come.
Note also, that these words are not imperative, i. e. Christ
did not bid them destroy his body, but only permissive and
predictive of what he saw.they would do ; and therefore he
saith, Aëcare, “Ye will destroy this temple.” Examples of
like mature we have in the Old Testament, as Gen. xx. 7,
“He shall pray for thee, and live thou ;” and xlii. 18, “Do
this, and live,” i. e. “thou shalt live;” Deut. xxxii. 50, “Die
in this mountain,” i.e. “thou shalt die there” (see Isa. viii.
9, 10. liv. 1); and in the New, as in those words of Christ
to Judas, “What thou doest, do quickly,” John xiii. 27; and
that of St. Paul, “Be angry, and sin not,” Eph. iv. 26 (see
the note there). Moreover, he seemeth here to call his body
a temple, and elsewhere to declare he was one “greater than
the temple” (Matt. xii. 6), because the Divinity dwelt always
and inseparably in it, as the Jews thought the Divinity did
in the temple built by Solomon. Josephus not only tells us,
that Solomon prayed thus at the dedication of it, ixstºo wai
Awolºéy riya Toij arou IIveſ, aro; Big Töy way &Touxia-as, “that some
portion of the Divine Spirit might come down upon the
temple,” Antiq. lib. viii. cap. 2, p. 264, F ; but that, “in all
men's opinion, there was Étrºnºxia. Osoſ kai karoiktorºzès, an
advent to, and habitation of God in it,” ibid. p. 263, and that
God came down into the temple, and did karao Knygīy Éy abré,
“pitch his tabernacle in it,” ibid. D, G (see the note on
1 Cor. vi. 19). In the second temple, say the Jews, were
wanting the wrim and thummim, the divine glory, the Holy
Spirit, and the oil of gladness. Now Christ was that oracle
from whom we might receive answers full of truth and light;
in him dwelt the true Shechinah, he had the Spirit without
measure, and he was anointed “with the oil of gladness
above his fellows ;” and so, in these respects, was greater
than the temple. The temple, which you have polluted,
saith he, I have cleansed ; that temple of my body, which
you will destroy, I will raise up. And that he did so, is
evident from this, that “after his resurrection his disciples
believed the words which Jesus had said,” ver, 22, which,
had not Christ raised his own body from the dead, they could
not have done (see the note on x. 18). I confess, it is more
frequently said in scripture, that the Father raised him from
the dead; and this was necessary to be said, that it might
appear that he had fully satisfied the divine justice for our
sins, in that he was by him delivered from that death he suf-
fered for them. But then, as the resurrection in general is
often ascribed to God the Father, and yet it cannot be denied
that God the Son shall raise the dead by his own power, as
the Scripture testifies, John v. 28, 29. vi. 39, 40.44. 54.
1 Cor. xv. 21. 22. 25, 26. Rom. xiv. 19. Phil. iii. 21. Rev.
i. 18, so is it to be owned that the Father raised Christ from
the dead: nor yet is it to be denied that our Lord raised up
himself, seeing he was “quickened by the Spirit,” Rom. viii.
22. 1 Pet. iii. 18, and God raised him up 31& IIystºwaro; airrot,
“by his Spirit,” Rom. i. 4, and this Spirit, as he was the
Spirit of the Father, so was he also the Spirit of Christ,
1 Pet. i. 11, and dwelt essentially in him. And thus it is
easy to conceive how he raised up himself; and yet his re-
Z 2
340
JOHN.
20 Then said the Jews, "Forty and six years was
this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in
three days * (and this they said, thinking that Christ
had spoken of the temple of Jerusalem.)
21 But he spake of the temple of his body.
22 When therefore he was risen from the dead, his
disciples remembered that he had said this to them;
and they believed the scripture (speaking of his resur-
rection), and the word which Jesus had said.
23 Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover,
on the feast-day (Gr. Év rá šoprſ, in the time of the
jeast), many believed in his name when they saw the
miracles that he did.
24 But Jesus did not commit himself unto them
(or confide in them as his sincere disciples), because he
knew (the hearts of) all men,
25 And needed not that any should testify of man:
| for he knew what was in man.
surrection might be ascribed to God the Father, viz. because
he did it by virtue of the Spirit of the Father dwelling in him.
* Ver. 20. Teacapákovra kai ÉÉ Ārsaw gºo?opañón 5 wai; oë ros,
Forty and sia years hath this temple been building.] Mr.
Whiston here saith, the words should be rendered, “Forty-
six years hath this temple been built;” but our version is
justified from the use of the same words in the Septuagint
in the same case, Ezra v. 16, 3rd rôrs Éwº rot, viv ºxoSoºn,
xai oën Brexéa-0m, “This temple hath been building from that
time to this, and hath not yet been finished.” (2.) The argu-
ment of the Jews requires this sense, which our translation
giveth of these words ; for it is plain folly to state thus the
years from which it had been built, to prove it could not be
built again in three days; since this could have no more
force to prove it could not be built in three days, than its
being built at any other time ; but the argument is plain and
strong according to our version, viz. that it could not reason-
ably be thought that Christ himself, or with his small retinue,
should do that in three days, which had already cost many
thousand labourers forty-six years to build.
Mr. Whiston's computation, I confess, is very plausible at
the first view: it begins thus, “Josephus” assures us, that
the vačc, or temple, was begun in the eighteenth year of Herod,
from the death of Antigonus, and that it was finished in a
gyear and six months : now from these circumstances we may
certainly find the year we inquire for ; Antigonus was slain
about July, A. P. J. 4677; and so Herod's eighteenth year
must begin about July 4694, and continue till July 4695.”
Let us suppose the temple begun about the feast of taber-
nacles in this eighteenth year 4694; add a year and six
months, the space in which it was building, and it will appear
to have been finished at the passover Nisan 4696 ; from the
passover let us count forty-six years, and this will bring us to
the passover we inquire for, Nisan 4742, which is A. D. 29.
But yet from an exact view of this computation, I find it
fails in almost every particular. For,
First, It is certain from Josephus,' that Antigonus neither
was nor could be slain in the month of July ; because the
temple was not taken by Herod and Sosius till the tenth day
of September, it being taken, saith Josephus, ºr; Éogrfi ră,
ymateias, “on the feast of the fast ;” by which words, saith
Langius, he intends no other than the fast prescribed by the
law of Moses, and mentioned in his pvn history as a fast ;
for he names the day, that every one might know certainly
when the city was taken: which, had there been more fasts,
they could not have done by this character, sed omnem
dubitationem eximit apposita vox āoprā; but the word “feast”
added to it, puts the matter beyond doubt; for there was
but one fast so called in a year. This, say I, is demonstrable
from the word Éogrº, “the feast of the fast,” the tenth of
Tisri, being the only fast mentioned among the feasts of the
Lord, and called a sabbath of sabbaths, Lev. xvi. xxi., and
being by all writers called “the feast of expiation.” And
this is also evident from the word ynoºtsia, for this being the
only fast of God's appointment, is, by the scripture, Philo,
and Josephus, emphatically styled “the fast-day:” thus,
“Sailing was dangerous,” saith St. Paul, “because the fast
was past,” Acts xxvii. 9, for “On the tenth day of the se-
venth month we fast till eventide,” saith Josephus; $ and on
the fifteenth day of the said month ºrgémera, 3 xaspöc eiç rºy
XEpwégioy &gay, “begins the winter.” “H Afyopwéyn yna-rsia, “The
day by us called a fast is reverenced everywhere,” saith
Philo. This, saith Josephus," is the day ºv 'lověaſol wha-
* Page 144. + Antiq. lib. xiv. cap. 27, p. 506, A.
† Cap.2, p. 337. § Antiq. lib. ii. cap. 10, p. 92, l, 2.
|| De Wità Mos. p. 508.
| Antiq, lib. xvii. cap. 8, p. 597, D, bis.
3.
relay &yovaty, “on which the Jews fast;” which, had they then
observed any other annual and stated fasts, could have been
no character of time, as in Josephus and St. Paul it is. This
is yet farther evident from what Josephus saith in the same
place, viz. that the city was taken ºre' 'oxvºriá80; Tô y ºwnyi,
“in the third month of the hundred and eighty-fifth Olym-
piad.” Now the year of the Olympiads beginning in July,
the third month of any year of an Olympiad must answer to
the Julian September. Mr. Whiston, indeed, will not allow
that ancient writers use to cite the months of an Olympiad ;
but he may be convinced of his mistake in this matter from
the testimony of Diogenes Laertius,” who saith that Socrates
was born in the fourth year of the seventy-seventh Olympiad
Oagynxiávo, #wrh, “on the sixth of Thargelion,” that Plato'ſ
was born in the eighty-eighth Olympiad, Oapynxióvo; #336,4},
“on the seventh of Thargelion,” and that Epicurus+ was
born in the third year of the hundred and ninth Olympiad,
on the seventh of Gamelion.
Mr. Whiston, to avoid this, saith the city was taken on the
day of a solemn fast, in the twenty-third of the third month
Sivan, kept for the defection and idolatry of Jeroboam. But
(l.) Josephus doth not say it was taken in a fast, on the third
Jewish month, but 'oxup, triá80; tº y' ºwnvi, “on the thir
month of the eighteenth Olympiad,” which answers to Sep
tember ; and then by way of apposition, rā āogrfi tāº vna raia,
“at the feast of the fast,” which plainly fixes the taking on
it to the tenth of September. (2.) As Jeroboam celebrated
a feast in the eighth month, which “he devised of his own
head,” so Mr. Whiston hath devised a fast of his own head
in the month Sivan, not mentioned by Josephus, nor any
Jewish writer of or near those times, nor extant in Buxtorf's $
history of their feasts and fasts; but a pure product of that
famous chronicle Megillah Taanith, of which I have already
given an account. (3.) When Herod began to batter the
wall, it was then summer, saith Josephus, and so he had
no hindrance from the weather: now there being three sum-
mer months, let us take the middle of them, July the fif-
teenth ; the first wall, saith Josephus," was taken “after
forty days,” i. e. August the twenty-fifth ; the second, “fifteen
days after that,” i.e. on the tenth of September; ergö, not
on the month Sivan, when summer was but just begun.
(4.) Josephus adds,” that Herod began the siege Awºhgay-
roc toi, Xerºvoc, “when winter was over,” suppose about the
midst of March ; that he went soon back to Samaria, and
married the daughter of Aristobulus; that then he gathers a
greater army, and Sosius comes to him with auxiliaries; and
then he places his camp near the north wall: let all this be
done by the tenth of April; and then he adds, that after
this, the party of Antigonus endured the siege Trévºrs anal,
“five months,” i. e. till the tenth of September ; how, there-
fore, is it possible, that the city should be taken in the month
Sivan, or the third month P Nor was Antigonus slain till
about a month or more after the city was taken : for Jose-
phus ++ informs us, that he was afterward carried by Sosius
to Antioch, where Antony then was, and that he kept him
there, intending to reserve him to his triumph at Rome ; but
when he heard that the Jews had so great favour for him,
and so great hatred to Herod, that they would not be pre-
vailed upon by torments to own him as their king, he be-
headed him at Antioch ; Antigonus therefore, in all probabi-
lity, could not be slain till about the tenth or fifteenth of
October, and so Herod's eighteenth year could not begin till
* Lib. ii. p. 107. + Lib. iii. p. 164.
† Lib. x. p. 610. § Synag. Jud. cap. 30.
| eigo: #y, Antiq.lib. xiv. cap. 28, p. 506, G. Ibid. p. 507.
** De B. Jud. lib. i. cap. 13, p. 740, 741. -
# Antiq. lib. xiv. cap. 28, p. 508. lib. xv. cap. 1.
CHAPTER III.
341
that time. And so, if Herod began his project of building
the temple on the very first day of his eighteenth year, which
yet is both uncertain and improbable, he could not begin it
at the feast of tabernacles, that being fixed to the fifteenth
day of September.
Secondly, Josephus” doth not say that Herod began to
build the temple in his eighteenth year; but only that Émi-
84xeto, “he cast in his mind” to do so : and when he had
proposed this to the rulers of the Jews, he engages not to
attempt the work till he had prepared all the materials for
it, nor doth he say how long he was preparing these mate-
rials, though, saith Casaubon, all men will think it reasonable
to allow him at least a year for that; and Bishop Usher saith
they were only provided in two years' space : so that Herod
could not begin the work till the middle of his nineteenth
year + Now admit the fancy, that the yad, was first built
in eighteen months, he could not finish the building of it till
his twenty-first year from Antigonus; from thence he reigned
only thirteen years: now thirteen and twenty-nine will never
make forty-six years.
But, Thirdly, That which entirely confoundeth this account
is this consideration, that when Herod began to build, he
first built the isgèy, i. e. the court of the gentiles and lay
Jews; and the building of this, saith Josephus, took up eight
years: absolutoque octo annis reliquo aedificio, tandem etiam
templum ipsum sacerdotum opera sesquianno perfecit; and
having finished that in eight years, he afterward, by the as-
sistance of the pricsts, built the vač;, or the inward temple,
in a year and half more ; so that, according to Josephus, the
vač, was not built till the twenty-eighth of Herod, i.e. but
six years before his death: now six and twenty-nine make
only thirty-five years.
Mr. Whiston, indeed, saith that I perplex the matter, when
I place the building of the legåv before the vač;, i.e. the out-
ward before the inner temple. But this I do with good
authority, and with better reason; for Josephus saith, the ispy
was finished in eight years, and then follow these words, f
rot, 83 yaoi, 8th rāy legéow oixoboxn&#yro: #viavrò wał panaiy -',
3tra; 3 Aa3; #7rançºn x26&c, wai rod ráxov, Trparov rá, Qsº rā;
Eixagloria; Štrototyro, “Then the temple being built by the
priests in a year and six months, all the people returned
thanks to God, and celebrate the encaenia.” Who sees not
now, that the work done about the vač; was done last of all,
and that instantly thereupon follow the encapnia for the dedi-
cation of the whole 2 And this is also suitable to reason: for
the Jews, fearing that Herod would not be able to perform
his promise, would surely keep that part of the temple on
which their daily sacrifices and the service of the great day
of expiation depended, standing ; till they saw, by what he
had done about the other temple, that he was likely to ac-
complish his undertaking, and would not have suffered them-
selves to be deprived of the benefit of those sacrifices for
nine years and a half, as they must have done if either the
temple of the priests had not been standing, or not dedicated
till that time. Wherefore, for the right stating this matter,
let it be noted,
First, That, whether this computation of the Jews be true
or false, neither Christ nor the evangelist is concerned in the
matter, seeing St. John only relates what the Jews said to
Christ ; and if they said anything that was not true, he, who
relateth truly what they said, can lose no credit by it. Note,
Secondly, That the opinion of them who say the second
* Antiq, lib. xv. cap. 14. + A. M. 3987.
+ Antiq. lib. xv. cap. 14, p. 535, G.
temple was (including the times of the interruption to its
complete finishing) forty-six years in building, though it may
not be true, as Drusius thinks it was ; yet it was so, as here
he saith, ex opinione vulgi et sapientum, “according both to
the opinion of their wise men and the common people ;” and
it is certain from Josephus,” that they had not completely
finished it till long after: for he having told us that the foun-
dation of it being laid in the close of the reign of Cyrus, it
was interrupted nine years, till the time of Darius; that
Ezrat finished the temple for service, in the ninth year of
Darius, in whose second year they began again to build;
adds, + that in the twenty-fifth year of Xerxes (i. e. Arta-
xerxes) Nehemias was sent with his commission to repair the
walls of Jerusalem, and r3 Aei-Lavoy roi; isgoû rºstějorai, “to
finish the remainder of the temple,” the court of the sanc-,
tuary being not yet built (Neh. ii. 8). And seeing they
constantly called the temple built by Zorobabel, and restored
by Herod, “the second temple,” till the destruction of it by
Titus ; and of necessity it must be so, in some true sense,
that the prophecy of Haggai, concerning Christ's coming to
that very temple, might be fulfilled ; they, who always called
this “the second temple” built by Zorobabel, why might they
not say of that, according to their received computation,
“Forty-six years was this temple in building P”
But, Thirdly, The opinion of Ludovicus Capellus, Dr.
Allix, and others, who understand this of the temple of
Herod, is exact, plain, and evident: for if you begin the
time of the building in the eighteenth of Herod, when he
began to set about it, and employed a thousand carts to
bring the materials, and provided the most skilful artificers
for that work, from that time to his death is exactly sixteen
years: this was said of Christ in the thirtieth year of his age,
at the first passover after his baptism : now thirty and sixteen
make forty-six years.
Obj. If it be here objected, that Josephus informs us that
Herod's temple was finished in nine years and a half:
Ans. The answer is, that it was then finished as to use ;
but, saith Capellus, Planum est ex eodem, semper aliquid
additum, et exstructum ab eo tempore fuisse in illo templo,
“It is plain from the same Josephus, that from that time
there was always something added to, or new built in the
temple, even till the time of Agrippa junior;” i. e. about the
space of sixty years. Bishop Usher adds, that “all Herod's
wealth was not sufficient for the building,” but that “it was
continued still by the gifts consecrated to God:” and this is
confirmed by the saying of Josephus, Š “That all the holy
treasures, and the tributes sent from all parts of the world,
were spent in building and adorning the temple.” And that
“the abundance of money and the largesses of the people
were beyond expression, and so ré ºwnbiy Atrio 6év šćely Trépac,
#Trºovň wai x86vois ºv dyūzigzov, that which men thought would
never be finished (the attempt of Herod || being tº ºxera tic
#xtriè0; &mirroy, beyond all men's hopes) was, through patience
and length of time, expedited.” Yea, he farther saith," “In
the time of Florus,” or the tenth of Nero, röre rà isgöy Breté-
Asaro, “then was the temple finished.”
* Antiq. lib. viii. cap. 3.
+ Ibid. cap. 4, p. 366. f Cap. 5, p. 371.
§ of istol 3: Snaaupo. Trávres, où; #yerian Aaray of Trag& tic
oixovačyn; Baapºoi repºrówevot rô Qes, rob; 38 ré úva. treet&Nov;
wal rô wºrwispy 3px;ple?sipwayro. De Bello Jud. lib. vi. cap.
14, p. 916, A, B.
| Antiq. lib. xv. cap. 14, p. 543.
*I Ibid. lib. xx, cap. 8, p. 699.
CHAPTER III.
1 'THERE was (at Jerusalem) a man of the pharisees
named Nicodemus (who was) a ruler of the Jews;
(i.e. one of the Jewish Sanhedrin, John vii. 50.)
2 The same (oirog, he came to Jesus by night (that
he might not offend his colleagues), and said to him,
Rabbi, "we know (i. e. I know, see note on xxi. 24,
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III.
1 Wer. 2. Oiśapasy, We know that thou art a teacher come
from God..] This could not be said of his brethren, the pha-
risees and rulers of the Sanhedrin ; for “none of the pha-
risees or of the rulers believed on him,” vii. 48 ; otºaº.ew
therefore here may relate chiefly to Nicodemus, and only
signify “I know,” as it often doth (see note on.xxi. 24):
or else may signify “it is, or may be known ;’ as when
the blind man saith, “We know God heareth not sinners,”
342
: JOHN.
or, it may be certainly known) that thou art a teacher
come from God : for no man can do these miracles
that thou doest, except God be with him (the power
that enables thee to perform them eaceeding all that
men or devils can do).
3 Jesus (observing that he said nothing of the earcel-
lency and power of his doctrine, to change the hearts
and reform the lives of men, but only of his miracles
by which it was confirmed) answered and said to him,
Verily, verily, I say to thee, (This acknowledgment will
not be sufficient to render thee a member of that king-
dom. I am to set up, for) except a man *be born again,
(i.e. renewed in his mind, will, and affections, by the
operation of the Holy Spirit, and so become a new
creature, 2 Cor. v. 17), he cannot see (i. e. enjoy the
blessings of) the kingdom of God.
4 Nicodemus (being a pharisee, evact in the ob-
servance of their traditions and ritual observances, but
having no knowledge of this spiritual regeneration) saith
to him, How can a man be born (again) when he is
old 2 can he enter the second time into his mother’s
womb, and be born ?
5 Jesus answered, (Though you so little understand
it, yet I have told you a great truth, which farther to
eaplain) Verily, verily, I say to thee, *Except a man
be born (again) of water (and so become one of my
disciples by that baptismal regeneration, by which your
proselytes are said to become as infants new born) and
of the Spirit (purifying his heart from all worldly and
carnal lusts, and enabling him to live a spiritual life
according to my doctrine) he cannot enter into the king-
dom of God (or enjoy the blessings of my kingdom.
6 And the reason and necessity of this regeneration
by the Spirit is evident, as also that it cannot be ºf:
cient to this end to be of the seed of Abraham, he be-
ing only the father of our flesh : for) “that which is
born of the flesh (only) is flesh (still mindeth chiefly
carnal things, and lives after the motions of the flesh) ;
ix. 31. (See Matt. xxvi. 2. Luke xx. 21. Rom. ii. 2, iii. 19.
vii. 14. 1 Cor. viii. 4. 1 Tim. i. 8.)
* Ver. 3. ‘Exy &# rig yewnóñ &v20sy, of 359arai i88ty, If a
ºman be not born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.]
It is here needless to inquire whether the word āya,0sv should
be rendered “from above,” or “again,” as our translation
doth, and as Nicodemus understood Christ's words, since
every one who is born again is also born from above (James
iii. 17), as being born of that Spirit which cometh from
- | baptism by water is by our Lord declared to be the ordinary
Note also, That to “see the kingdom of God” here, and
above.
to enter into it, ver, 5, is the same thing, and both these
phrases signify to be a real member of that kingdom, and to
enjoy the blessings belonging to them who are so ; thus to
“see good,” Eccles. vi. 6, to “see good days,” Ps. xxxiv,
12, and to “see life,” ver. 36, is to enjoy them ; and to
“see God,” Job xix. 26. Matt. v. 8, and to “see the Lord,”
| ally fallen upon Cornelius and his friends, St. Peter com-
Heb. xii. 14, is to enjoy him.
Note, Thirdly, That Christ seems to speak this not pri-
marily of that heavenly kingdom into which the blessed
shall enter at the day of judgment, but of that spiritual
kingdom which was to be erected by the Messiah, and into
which men entered by baptism: whence it must follow, that
no man is indeed a member of Christ's kingdom who is not
truly regenerate. “If you continue in my word,” saith
Christ, “then are ye my disciples indeed,” John viii. 31,
and, “if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none
of his,” Rom. viii. 9.
Note, Lastly, That this seems to be directed against the
false and permicious conceptions of the Jewish doctors, the
scribes and pharisees, who thought they had a title to the
kingdom of heaven, and the blessings of it, as being the
“seed of Abraham according to the flesh ;” and promised
to all Israelites, on that account, a portion in the world to
come ; declaring, saith Justin Martyr,” that “to all that
were of the seed of Abraham, though they were sinners,
and disobedient to God’s laws, should be given an eternal
kingdom.”
* Ver. 5. Eav Pº yewº, # 08aroc, If a man be not born
of water.] That our Lord speaks here of baptismal regene-
ration, the whole Christian church from the beginning hath
always taught, and that with very good reason ; for,
First, Though water is sometimes put to signify or repre-
sent the purifying operations of the Holy Spirit, yet to be.
“born of water” is a phrase never used in scripture for
being born of the Spirit; but very properly is it used of
that baptism which is the laver of regeneration (Tit. iii. 5),
and was by all the ancients styled Traxiwyewearia, or “regene-
ration” (see note on 1 Cor. vii. 14).
with fire” (Matt. iii. 11. Luke iii. 16), is to be baptized with
the Holy Ghost descending on the apostles in the symbol of
* “Yaroxapagávoy're; 3rt ºrávrov, roi; &ará rà, a mogāc rā; war&
* gº * p
or&gxa rot; 'ABPašº ova'i, Kay & wagroxoi Biaº, wał &ria rot, wai
&miSeſ; Treć; rºy Geov, # 8aartasia # cidºv,0; 80%a-erat. Dial, cum
Tryph, p. 369, C.
fire, as the event declared, the Holy Ghost falling upon
them “in the shape of cloven tongues like as of fire” (Acts
ii. 2, 3), and therefore, in like manner, to be baptized “with
water and the Holy Ghost,” most likely signifies to be bap-
tized with the Holy Ghost and with the symbol of water.
Thirdly, The question betwixt Christ and Nicodemus was
about that which was requisite to fit a man to enter into the
kingdom, that is, the church of God, and to make him par-
taker of the blessings of the gospel. Now it is certain that
means of entering into his kingdom ; for he saith, Mark
xvi. 16, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved,”
or of becoming one of Christ's disciples; for he not only
made disciples by baptism (John iv. 1), but gave commis-
sion to his apostles “to make disciples in all nations by bap-
tizing them” (Matt. xxviii. 19), and therefore must here
speak of that: hence, even when the Holy Ghost was actu-
mands them “to be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus,”
i.e. to be admitted to be Christ's disciples by that rite, and
looks upon it as a necessary consequent of that higher bap-
tism (Acts x. 47, 48). Christ therefore here declares it to
be a rite necessary for the entrance of adult persons into his
kingdom ; and it seems highly reasonable to esteem so df it:
for what salvation can be expected by them, who, after he
hath told them they must be baptized with water, that they
may enter into his kingdom, do, by refusing that Sacrament,
too plainly show that they refuse that way of entering into
his kingdom, and becoming his disciples, which he had ap-
pointed for that end ? But then here,
First, Infants must be excepted from this necessity, as
being incapable of knowing, and therefore of transgressing,
this command ; they therefore shall not suffer in their eter-
nal interests for the mistake or neglect of any of their pa-
rents.
Secondly, They also are to be excepted, who want that
baptism they desire, not out of contempt, but of necessity,
as dying before they can procure it : thus, though the in-
fants who died before the eighth day died without the sign
of the covenant, the Jews never thought fit to circumcise
them before that day; and since it is not the washing of
the body, but the “stipulation of a good conscience,” that
renders baptism saving (1 Pet. iii. 21), it cannot be purely
the want, but the contempt of that, which must condemn
us. And, -
Thirdly, Whatever ignorance of the precept, or mistake
about the nature of it, renders not men incapable of bap-
tism by the Holy Ghost, can never render them incapable
| of the salvation promised to the baptized.
Secondly, To be “haptized with the Holy Ghost and
* Wer. 6. Tà yeyewnºw#voy #x rā, capkö; a`āp? §ari, That which
is born of the flesh is flesh (only).] Our parents being only the
fathers of the flesh, Heb. xii.9. Whence it is that it cannot be
sufficient to entitle infants to the blessings of this kingdom
without baptism, that they are born of Christian parents
according to the flesh, but that some operation of the Spirit
is necessary to fit them for the kingdom of heaven. Hence
Some infer, that man in his natural estate can do nothing but
CHAPTER III.
343
and (but) that which is born of the Spirit is spirit; i master (Ötöägkałog a teacher) of Israel (one of those
(i. e. is acted by, and lives after, the motions and di-
rections of the Holy Spirit, Rom. viii. 5.
7 And) marvel not that I (have) said to thee, Ye
must be born again (because this birth is not discerni-
ble by the eye of sense, nor do men fully know the man-
ner how this new birth is wrought within them by the
Spirit; for thus it is in other matters; as, for example,)
8 The "wind bloweth where it listeth (as the vapours
move it), and thou hearest the sound thereof (and by
that discernest the thing itself), but get thou) canst
not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth
(though it came certainly from one place, and goeth cer-
tainly to another); so is (it with ) every one that is
born of the Spirit: (the effects produced in him by the
Holy Spirit plainly show a great change in him, and
he himself perceives it; but the operations of the Spirit,
producing this change, are not perceptible to others, nor
ãs the renewed person always able to perceive and dis-
tinguish them from the inward workings of his own
7mind.)
9 Nicodemus answered and said to him, (I appre-
hend not :) how can these things be
10 Jesus answered and said to him, Art thou "a
what is carnal, and therefore sinful, and only can begin to
do what is truly good when he is born again of the Spirit:
whereas,
First, This exposition renders it impossible for a man to
do anything towards his own conversion ; and so renders all
God's commands and exhortations to the wicked, to turn
themselves from their iniquity, all his promises of pardon
to them that do so, and all his threats of death if they neg-
lect to do so, and all his complaints against them that they
would not do so, vain and absurd ; and, as Cyril of Alexan-
dria saith, fia-lºnºa kevy, “a vain rhapsody,” they being
then only commands and exhortations to others, to perform
that which, if it ever be done, he must do himself.
Secondly, This exposition makes the word “flesh” and
“fleshly birth” to signify one corrupted by his fleshly appe-
tite, and so led and governed by the motions of the flesh ;
whereas Tolet” well observes, that to be “born of the flesh”
here only signifies that natural generation by which a man
is born into the world of the will of the flesh, this being the
only birth Nicodemus spake of as of a thing incredible; be-
cause then a man must enter twice into his mother's womb.
This therefore is the plain meaning of our Lord, that be-
sides that natural birth, by which we receive only our flesh
and body from our parents, there is need of a spiritual birth
to fit us for the kingdom of God; but he saith nothing of
any necessity lying upon us, till we are thus born again, to
do only evil, or of our incapacity to do ànything which may
contribute to this new birth.
* Ver, 8. To Tysiąa, The wind bloweth where it listeth.]
They who would say that the word ºrvejºwa signifies here, not
the wind, but the Holy Spirit, first destroy the comparison
intimated in the word otroc, so ; and secondly, they make
Christ say that Nicodemus heard the voice of the Spirit,
which is not very probable
* Ver, 10. Art, thou 3 81840 waxoc, a master (or teacher) in
Israel ?] These being received maxims among the Jews
that “wisdom is given from above” (Targ, in Eccles. vii. 7),
and that “when a man is a proselyte he is reputed as an
infant new born” (Seld. de Jure Nat. lib. ii. cap. 4), our
Saviour might well admire, that a teacher of Israel should
have no notion of a new birth by water, or a birth from
above.
7 Ver. 13. And no man hath ascended into heaven, but
he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man, 5 &y
#y tº ovgayº, who is in heaven.] The Jews say, for the ho-
nour of their prophet Moses, that he ascended Noyºn Rºwb,
“into the high heavens,” Targ. in Cant. i. 5.11, 12. That
* Multim a vero sensſ loci hujus aberrant, qui carnem
hôc loco exponunt de peccato, clim nihil hic de peccato
agatur: et quamvis nullum esset peccatum, verum esset,
“quod natum est ex carne, caro est.”
who say of their baptized proselytes, they are as new
born babes, and of wisdom, that it comes from above),
and (yet) knowest not these things:
11 Verily, verily, I say to thee, We speak that we
do know, and testify that we have seen, (that is, I de-
liver to you what I know certainly to be true); and ye
receive not our witness (i.e. you do not believe and own
that truth which, by my miracles, is confirmed.)
12 If I have told you (of) earthly things (or that
which may be represented to you by similitudes taken
from earthly things, or things done by you here on
earth), and ye believe (them) not, how shallye believe,
if (when) I tell you of heavenly things (i.e. of things
which cannot be thus represented, viz. of my descent
from heaven, and abode still there) 8
13 And (yet no other person can acquaint you with
these heavenly things, for) "no man hath ascended up
to heaven (to learn them there, see note on Rom. x. 6),
but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of
man, who (according to his divine nature) is in heaven
(while ye see him here on earth).
14 And (yet, as great as this Son of man is, he must
die for the sins of men ; for) as Moses lifted up the
this was not true of Moses these words of Christ show, and
the history of Moses, which saith he only ascended to mount
Sinai; but of Christ, who in the beginning was with the
Father (i. 1), and “who came down from heaven” to do
and to declare his Father's will (iii. 35), this is most true:
but then he is said, as to his divine nature, to descend from
heaven, not by a local descent, or by quitting heaven, but
only by a manifestation of himself on earth ; in which sense
God himself is said, in the Old Testament, to descend to see
the tower of Babel, Gen. xi. 5, and to confound the lips of
them that built it, ver. 7, and to see the iniquity of Sodom,
Gen. xviii. 21, and to deliver his people from the hand of
the Egyptians, Exod. iii. 8, and to give them the law, Exod.
xix. 18. And thus, saith St. Austin, he is said to descend,
not when he from heaven observes what is done on earth,
for that is metaphorically to “look down from heaven ;”
but when he doth something upon earth beyond the usual
course of nature, which therefore seemeth to require his more
than ordinary presence there ; and then he is usually said to
appear, either attended by his holy angels, or in a flame or
cloud of glory, the symbol of his majestic presence. Note,
Secondly, That those things are frequently ascribed by
this evangelist to Christ, which neither do nor can agree, and
which elsewhere are not ascribed, to any creature, viz. that
he is he who “in the beginning was with God,” i. 1, 3 &y,
“that is in the bosom of the Father,” ver, 18, 5 &y trapá roi;
Osci, “that is with God,” vi. 46, and here, “who is in hea-
ven.” Now this never was nor could be said of a mere
creature: for, as Woltzogenius confesseth, no creature can
be in heaven and on the earth at the same time. The gloss
of Grotius here is this, Singulari Dei dono nobis concessus
est, “He is given to us by the special gift of God;” but this
answers not the fulness of the phrase, “He came from hea-
ven ;” for all the prophets were sent to the Jews, and the
apostles both to Jews and gentiles, by the especial gift and
kindness of God, and yet none of them are said to “come
down from heaven ;” Christ is styled “the Lord from hea-
ven,” 1 Cor. xv. 47, as coming down from thence to judge
the world, 1 Thess. iv. 16 ; the new Jerusalem is said to
come down from heaven, Rev. iii. 12. xxi. 2. 10, because it
was represented so in a vision to St. John : the baptism of
John is said to be from heaven ; but neither he nor his doc-
trine to descend from heaven (see the note on John vi. 32).
In vain do some Socinians produce, as parallel expressions,
those words of St. Paul, “He hath seated us in the hea-
venly places in Christ Jesus,” Eph. ii. 6, and “Our city is
in heaven,” Phil. iii. 20, for the last only signifies that hea-
ven is the place where we are to dwell for ever ; the first,
that Christ hath exalted the human nature thither. Their
strength consists in their second answer, viz. that 6 &y is to
be rendered “who was with God,” and “who was in hea-
ven ;” and this, say they, is here apparent, because Christ
344
JOHN.
serpent in the wilderness, (that they, who were bitten
by poisonous serpents, and so would otherwise have died,
looking up to it, might live, Numb. xxi. 8, 9,) even so
must the Son of man be “lifted up (upon the cross) ;
15 That whosoever believeth in him should not
perish (by that death, which the temptation of the old
serpent brought upon all the sons of Adam), but (being
delivered from it by the death of this Son of man, who
is the antitype of that brazen serpent, might) have eter-
nal life. -
16 (Nor is it to be wondered, that God should thus
speaks of himself as “the Son of man,” both here and vi.
62. To which it might be answered, that Christ in these
places saith, “The Son of man is in heaven,” as St. Peter
saith, “The Prince of life was crucified,” Acts iii. 15 ; St.
Paul, that “the Lord of glory suffered,” 1 Cor. ii. 8, and
that “God” purchased a church “with his own blood,”
Acts xx. 28, viz. the Son of man is in heaven, not as the
Son of man, but as the Son of God. But that which fun-
damentally destroys this answer, is this consideration, that it
is not true that Christ, as to his human mature, “in the be-
ginning was with God, or was in heaven:” yes, say they,
after his baptism he was taken up into heaven, there to be
made acquainted with the will of God. But,
First, This sophism is sufficiently confuted by the pro-
found silence of all the evangelists concerning it; for they
tell us very particularly of very many things concerning
Christ which are comparatively of little moment, of his cir-
cumcision, of the flight with him into Egypt, of his stay in
the temple, of his being carried by the tempter into a very
high mountain, and his being placed by him on a pinnacle
of the temple ; can we then reasonably think the wisdom of
the Holy Spirit would neglect to record that ascent of Christ
into heaven on which his divine wisdom, and the truth of
his whole prophetic office did so much depend? It is true
the argument is negative ; but then in matters of great mo-
ment to the establishment of our faith in what this our great
Prophet taught, and to advance him above all other pro-
phets, as this ascent must be, even Schlictingius allows such
arguments ; it being not reasonable, saith he, to suppose the
wisdom of the Holy Ghost, in matters of this nature and
importance, should be wholly silent.
Secondly, To what end should our Saviour be thus
snatched up into heaven, or what necessity was there of it.”
Could not the Father declare his will to him, as to other
prophets, while he was on earth P Surely an almighty and
all-present God could as well do this out of heaven as in it;
or was it because he would not do this to him upon earth P
This cannot truly be affirmed, seeing Christ was anointed,
and filled with that Spirit by which he performed his pro-
phetic office, not in heaven, but on earth: there was it that
“the Spirit descended on him as a dove,” Matt. iii. 16, and
by virtue of this Spirit he received at Jordan, “he taught
in the Synagogues, and was glorified of all,” Luke iv. 14,
15; by this Spirit he was “sanctified” for his office, and
“sent into the world,” John x. 36 ; by this unction the Fa-
ther sent him to “preach remission of sins, and the accept-
able year of the Lord,” Luke iv. 18, 19; on this account he
spake the words of God, “because the Father had given
him the Spirit not by measure,” here, ver. 34: whence it
appears that Christ was fitted for this prophetic office by that
Spirit he received on earth. Well, then, either our Lord
was taken up into heaven to be thus instructed, before this
unction he received on earth, or afterward ; if before, this
unction of the Spirit must be needless, unless God did his
work imperfectly in heaven, and gave him there no full and
perfect knowledge of his will; if after this unction, this as-
cent was needless, he being by it filled with the Spirit of
wisdom, counsel, and power, above measure. What there-
fore could be wanting to him, who, from this Spirit, had re-
ceived all the treasures of wisdom and power to perform the
greatest miracles for the discharge of his prophetic function ?
(see Placaeus, Disp. prima et secunda, and note on John vi. 61.)
* Wer. 14. Otºro, Úslo,0āvat 3: vićy roi; 3,934mov, &c. So
must the Son of man be lified up, that all that believe in him
may have etermal life.] He saith not here, as the Socinians,
that the death of Christ was necessary for the confirmation
suffer his only begotten Son to die, this being only the
effect of his great love to mankind ;) for "God so loved
the world, that he gave (up) his only begotten Son
(to death for us all, Rom. viii. 32), that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish (by lying still
under the power of death) but (by rising from it, John
v. 28, 29, should) have everlasting life.
17 For (surely) God (acting thus in pursuance of his
great love to the world) sent not his Son into the world
to condemn the world, but that the * world through .
him might be saved (by faith in him.
of the gospel ; but with the fathers, that it was necessary to
procure to us life eternal, by removing that death which sin
had brought upon us. Note also, that as bºlota Sat here and
viii. 28. xii. 32, is to be lifted up upon the cross, so Rabbi
Solomon interprets the pole on which the serpent was lifted
up, “a fork;” and Justin Martyr," Tertullian, F and Bar-
nabas f say this was a figure of the cross, and that it was a
symbol of salvation ; he that turned to it being preserved
from death, not by what he saw, but by the Saviour of all
In eIl.
* Ver. 16. God so loved the world, &c.] Two things in
scripture are noted as indications of God’s especial love to
man: (1.) that he sent his Son into the world to die for him :
(2.) that he who was thus sent, was vić, tºo; xai Pºovoyevic,
“his proper and only Son,” Rom. viii. 32. 1 John iv. 9, 10.
Obj. Woltzogenius here saith, (1.) that this Son of God
could not be God, since then he must be his own Son.
Ans. It only follows hence, that he could not be God the
Father ; but yet he might be God of God by the union of
the Aáyo;, or the divine nature, to his human nature.
Obj. But then, saith he, God must have suffered.
Ans. It follows only hence, that he who suffered was
God, but not that he suffered as God; and this those an-
cient fathers well understood, who read Heb. ii. 9, that Christ
suffered, xwgi, Osoſ, “his divinity suffering nothing.”
Obj. Hence he objects against Christ's satisfaction thus ;
seeing God showed the highest love to men in sending thus
his Son to die for them, he could not then be angry with
them, and therefore could require no atonement to be made
to him for them ; Christ therefore could not die to reconcile
this kind and loving God to the world.
Ans. To this I answer, that we are taught by plain ex-
amples of holy scripture, that love or benevolence in God
towards the sinner is well consistent with his displeasure
against him for his sin, as in the case of Job's three friends;
“For the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My anger is
kindled against thee and thy two friends, because ye have
not spoken of me the things which are right” (Job xlii. 7);
in which words there is a declaration of God’s anger against
them for their sin, exactly parallel to that of God supposed
by us in this case; and yet we find a like expression of his
love in the ensuing words, “Therefore take to you now
seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job,
and offer up for yourselves a burnt-offering, for him will I
accept, lest I deal with you after your folly.” God's love is
visible in directing them to that sacrifice which would obtain
his favour, but it was only after the oblation offered, and
the prayer of Job, that #Ava's rºw &aapriav airrot, “he forgave
their sins.” Again, did not God show his kindness to his
people Israel, in admitting a beast to suffer in their stead,
and appointing his blood to make atonement for them; and
yet did not he himself require this atonement to be made,
that so their sins might be forgiven P Did not he appoint
this blood to be offered to him as a propitiation for their
sins 2 And did not then the victim die P And was not his
blood offered to reconcile this loving God to sinners ? And
is it not hence evident, that God’s love to sinners is well
consistent with his displeasure against them for sins?
* Wer. 17. For God sent not his Son to condemn the
* Túro; at avgoû. Apol. ii. p. 91.
+ Figuram designässe Dominicae Crucis. Tertul. De Idol.
cap. 5. -
f Barn. i. 12. Xiºgoxoy #xovirs, cornpla; 3 yag #ntarºa-
q)sic of 31& roy Seopoćkºvoy Hodºro, &NAa 31& Trávrov coºrſipa.
Just. Dial. p. 321, 322.
CHAPTER III.
345
18 And therefore) he that (having heard his doctrine,
and seen the miracles by which it is confirmed) believeth
on him is not condemned, (there being no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus, Rom. viii. 1), but he
that (after the knowledge of this salutary doctrine) be-
lieveth not is condemned already, because he (after
such conviction) hath not believed in the name of the
only-begotten Son of God.
19 And this is (the ground of) the condemnation
(of such a man), that (he continues in his infidelity, not
jor want of light, but from a love to his sins; for) light
is come into the world, and (these) men (have) loved
(to continue in) darkness" rather than (to embrace the)
light, because their deeds were evil.
20 (And this is the proper effect of a prevailing love
to sin), for every one that doeth evil (naturally) hateth
the light, neither cometh to the light, lest (the evil of)
his deeds should be (discovered and) reproved (by it).
21 But he that doth (sincerely love) the truth cometh
to the light, that (by it) his deeds may be manifested
(both to himself and others), that they are wrought in
(the fear, and according to the will of) God.
22 After these things came Jesus and his disciples
into the land of Judea; and there he tarried with
them, and (by them) *baptized (iv. 2, to prepare the
Jews by the baptism of repentance, as John did, for the
reception of the Messiah; see the note on this verse).
23 And John also was baptizing in Enon, near to
Salim (the place being convenient for that purpose),
”because there was much water there: and they (the
people) came (to him) and were baptized (of him there).
24 For John was not yet cast into prison (by Herod).
25 Then there arose a question (or dispute) betwixt
some of John’s disciples and the Jews about purifying,
(it being without ea ample to baptize a Jew; and they
being styled 305Aot esoi, ka9apoº, the pure servants of
God, Neh. ii. 20, and thought to be born in holiness,
the pharisees might ask what need there was of any bap-
tism to purify them; and if John’s baptism was sufficient
for this end, why did Christ set up another after it,
which seemed to argue him greater than John, and that
his baptism must confer some higher degree of purity?)
26 And (upon this) they came unto John (for satis-
jaction in this matter), and (by way of complaint) said
to him, Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jordan
(to be baptized of thee), to whom thou barest witness,
behold, the same baptizeth (i.e. he takes upon him thy
office, as if thy baptism were imperfect), and all men
come to him (i.e. the concourse to him is so great, that
we fear thy baptism will be neglected).
27 John answered and said, * A man can receive
nothing (of power or authority) except it be given him
from heaven.
28 Ye yourselves (can) bear me witness, that I said,
I am not the Christ, but (only) that I am sent before
him (to prepare his way: seeing then God hath only
made me his forerunner, I must not pretend to an equality
with him, whose forerunner and servant I am).
29 He that hath the bride is the bridegroom; but
the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and
heareth him (Gr. standing and hearing him caress and
eapress his affection to his spouse), rejoiceth greatly be-
cause of the bridegroom’s voice (Christ is this brider
groom, and the church is his bride, I only am the bride-
groom’s friend); this my joy therefore is fulfilled (by
hearing that he is thus graciously speaking to his church,
and calling her, by this and other methods, to fit herself
for his embraces). -
30 He must increase (in his glory, and the eatent of
his government, Luke i. 32, 33), but I (his forerunner,
whose office ceaseth, when he comes and manifests him-
self to the world) must decrease.
world, but that § 267,40; the world by him might be saved J
The Jews imagined that God first made the world only for
their sakes (2 Esd. vi. 55, 56. 59), and also, that the re-
demption of it was only designed for their good, and that
their Messiah would come to subdue and condemn the na-
tions whom he hated. Christ, on the contrary, here declares,
that God was so far from hating or condemning them, that
he sent the Messiah into the world to save them, and conse-
quently to die for them.
Vain here is their imagination, who by the world under-
stand only the elect out of the world: for then Christ here
must only say, that he was sent, that the elect who believed
in him should not perish ; as if any who were absolutely
elected to salvation by faith in him could either perish or
not believe. No, it is apparent from these words, that of
this world, thus beloved by God, some would not believe,
and so would perish. And this is more apparent from the
words immediately following, in which the world, which
he was sent to save, is divided into believers and unbe-
lievers, and into those that will be saved and condemned:
for thus they run, “He (of this world) who believeth
in him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is now
condemned ;” which must be false, if you restrain this
“world " to such elect as cannot perish, and cannot but be-
lieve to life eternal. And, lastly, he that believeth not,
saith Christ, shall therefore be condemned, “because he be-
lieveth not in the name of the only Son of God.” Now, is
it not absurd to say, men shall eternally be condemned for
not believing in him, who died not for them, and was not
sent for their salvation ? Since then Christ frequently de-
clares, that all to whom the gospel is propounded, shall be
condemned, if, and because, they believe not in him (John
iii. 18), it is certain that he died for the salvation of them also.
* Ver. 19. And men have loved darkness more than
light, ºwäxAoy rô a néro; # ºr påc.] Here the critics note, that
Azāaxoy # is not comparative, as if the workers of iniquity did,
in some measure, love the light; for ver. 20, they are said
to hate it ; but, as in other places, is a negative: So xii. 43.
“They loved the praise of men, FażAXoy hºrsº, more than the
praise of God,” i.e. and not the praise of God: so l Tim. i.
4. 2 Tim. iii. 4. Heb. xi. 25, in which places ºxxov h may
be rendered, as here, “and not light ;” and this they did
not only in those times of ignorance at which God winked
(Acts xvii. 30), but after the clear light had shined upon
them ; by which it appeared, that the deeds of darkness
were so pleasing to them, that, when they were discovered
to them so to be, they still bore that affection to them which
, rendered the light displeasing to them, because it did reprove
them : whereas they who had hearts disposed to obey that
light which would direct them in the way to happiness, came
to it, that they might be the more assured they were doing
the works of God, i. e. those works which were performed
according to his will, which tended to his glory, and chiefly
did respect him as the end and object of them.
* Wer. 22. Kai i84mrićey, And he baptized.] By his
disciples (iv. 2), not, as most interpreters conceive, into his
own name, or so as to exact from them a belief, that he was
the Christ: for this he forbids his disciples to divulge till he
was risen from the dead, Matt. xvi. 20. xvii. 9. He there-
fore only did baptize as John had done, into the faith of the
Messiah, which was to come, and with that baptism of re-
pentance which prepared the Jews for the reception of his
kingdom.
* Ver. 23. "ori 58ara woxxâ #v inst, Because there was
much water there.] In which their whole bodies might be
dipped ; for in this manner only was the Jewish baptism
performed, by a descent into the water (Acts viii. 38), and
an ascent out of it (ver. 39), and a burial in it (Rom. vi. 3,
4. Col. ii. 12). Some hºnce inquire, why Christ should thus
baptize when John had not desisted so to do? But since
both, by their baptism, intended the same thing, I see no
reason why our Saviour might not as well baptize as preach
repentance (Matt. iv. 17), whilst the Baptist was doing the
same thing.
* Ver. 27. A man can receive nothing of himself.]
i. e. One who, by divine authority, is intrusted with any
commission, cannot exceed that commission ; since therefore
God hath only made me the forerunner of the Messiah, as
34.6
JOHN:
31 (And it is reasonable to own him superior to me,
and all the other prophets, which ever came into the
world, even than Moses himself; for) he that cometh
from above (not only by his mission from God, as I and
they did ; but by his original, ver. 13), is above all
(that are descended of earthly parents only ; and) he
that is (thus) * of the earth is earthly (as to his rise),
and speaketh of the earth (i. e. things which, compa-
Tatively, are earthly, Moses of carnal ordinances, I of
water-baptism, the prophets of obedience to the law of
Moses ; but) he that cometh from heaven (to reveal
the will of God to man) is above all (not only in the
eacellency of his person, but in the spiritual and heavenly
nature of his doctrines and promises).
32 *And what he hath seen (by the irradiation)
and heard (by the immediate dictate of the Holy Ghost
dwelling in him), that he testifies (to the world); and
(yet) no man receiveth his testimony (i. e. they who
Teceive it, compared with them that do not, are as none).
33 He that hath received his testimony hath set to
his seal (i. e. declared his assurance) that God is true
(both in his promises concerning the Messiah, and in his
testimonies that he hath given to him, that this is his
beloved Son ; it being as impossible, that he who is sent
with such heavenly doctrine, confirmed by so great testi-
monies from heaven, should be a deceiver, as that God
himself should lie).
34 For he whom God hath sent (so as no other pro-
phet was sent) * speaketh the words of God (so as no
other prophet did); for God giveth not the Spirit by
measure (or, in a limited manner) to him, (as he did to
them, so as to come to them only at such times, and to
impart such a particular revelation; for in him were
all the hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge,
Col. ii. 3.
35 And) the Father loveth the Son, and hath given
all things into his hand; (the entire knowledge and
revelation of his will, and the power to give eternal life
to those that believe and obey it, John xvii. 2, and to
condemn everlastingly those that obey not his gospel,
2 Thess. i. 7, 8.
36 And therefore) he that believeth on the Son (may
be sure he) hath (a present right to, and shall hereafter
receive) everlasting life : and (but) he that believeth
not the Son (but rejecteth his authority and doctrine;
shall not see (i. e. enjoy this) life; but the wrath of
God abideth on him (for ever).
I have told you, wer. 28, I cannot pretend to be equal with
him.
* Ver. 31. ‘O &y #x rā; yńs, &c. He that is of the earth is
earthly..] See the paraphrase ; and note, that § #mri orávray is
an epithet proper to God alone, and yet ascribed to Christ,
Rom. ix. 5.
* Ver. 32. Kai º żógaxe wał #xovae, rotºro Magrugeſ, And
what he hath seen and heard, that he testifies.] i. e. What
he fully knows; for by seeing and hearing we come to the
most perfect knowledge of things ; or what he hath in-
wardly heard and seen by the dictate and irradiation of the
Holy Spirit.
* Ver. 34. He whom God hath sent speaketh the words
of God: for God giveth not to him the Spirit by measure.]
i. e. He that hath the Spirit in a limited manner, at such
times only, and with respect to such particular revelations
only, may sometimes speak from his own self; but he who
hath the Spirit always residing in him, without stint or mea-
sure, must always speak the word of God. To give a thing
“in measure,” in the scripture phrase, is to do it sparingly ;
as when it is said, “They shall drink water by measure,”
Ezek. iv. 16, and to correct “in measure,” Jer. xlvi. 28.
xxx. 11, is to do it sparingly, or in such a proportion : in
which sense we read of the “measure of faith,” Rom. xii.
3, and the “measure and gift of Christ,” Eph. iv. 7 ; so that
to give the Spirit “without measure,” is to give him in the
greatest affluence, and without restraint.
CHAPTER IV.
1 WHEN therefore the Lord knew how the phari-
sees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more
disciples than John (the Baptist),
2 Though (in truth) Jesus himself baptized not,
but (only) his disciples (see the note on iii.22).
3 He (in prospect of the danger this might bring upon
him from the envy and malice of these pharisees) left
Judea (where the power of the Sanhedrin, of which
many of them were members, prevailed), and departed
again into Galilee (where they had less interest with
Herod, and could less observe or be offended with his
actions).
4 And he must needs go ‘through Samaria (that
lying betwiat Judea and Galilee).
5 Then cometh he (Gr. he cometh therefore) to a
city of Samaria, which is called (by them Sichem, but
by the Jews, see the note,) *Sichar, near to the parcel
of ground that Jacob "gave to his son Joseph (at his
last benediction, Gen. xlviii. 22.)
6 Now Jacob’s well (i. e. a well bearing his name)
was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his
journey, sat “thus (weary and thirsty as he was) on
(or by) the well: and it was about the sixth hour,
(i. e. it was then about noon.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV.
* Ver, 4. He must go through Samaria. For, saith Jo-
sephus,” “the Galileans going up to Jerusalem at the feast,
went through the country of Samaria.”
* Ver. 5. He cometh to a city of Samaria called zixae,
Sichar..] It is certain from the son of Sirach (1.26), and
from Josephus (Antiq. lib. xi. cap. 8), that the name of the
city was Sichem. . This therefore is either a corrupt pronun-
ciation, as Beatág for Beatax, or a name of reproach put upon
it by the Jews, now, as if it were a city of drunkards, as
Achan, Josh. vii. 25, is called hov, 1 Chron. ii. 7, as being
a “troubler of Israel.”
* The parcel of ground which Jacob gave to his son Jo-
seph.] i. e. That piece of ground which he bought of Hamor,
*"ESo; #y roi; Taxixafot, #y raï, #opta;; gig rºy isgåy Trów Tra-
£aysvogašvoi; Śēeſsiy ºtă răç zakzagãow x&gaç, Antiq, lib. xx.
cap. 5. -
the father of Sichem, Gen. xxxiii. 19, for that was near Si-
chem, saith the text here: and hence this place became not
only the inheritance of Joseph, but his own burial-place ; he
being buried, not in the cave of Machpelah, as his father Ja-
cob was (Gen. 1. 13), nor saying, “I will lie with my fa-
thers,” as Jacob did (Gen. xlvii. 30), but being buried in
this place: for the bones of Joseph, “which the children of
Israel brought out of Egypt, buried they in (i. e. near to )
Sichem, in a parcel of ground, which Jacob bought of Ha:
mor, the father of Sichem, for a hundred pieces of silver ;
and it became the inheritance of the children of Joseph,”
Josh. xxiv. 32 (see Bochart. Hierozoic, par. i. lib. ii. cap. 43,
p. 435, 436). - & e
* Ver. 6. 'Exaôićero of roc, He sat thus on the well.] i. e.
Either weary or thirsty as he was ; so Acts vii. 8, otra's, “So
Abraham begat Isaac,” i.e. being circumcised; 1 Kings ii.
7, “Show kindness to the sons of Barzillai, for off-roc, so they
came to me,” i. e. with kindness; or, as Chrysostom and
Theophylact have it, he sat &rA&; º; #ruxs, “as he found a
CHAPTER IV.
347
7 Then) there cometh a woman of Samaria (to that
well) to draw water; (and) Jesus saith to her, Give me
(some water) to drink.
8 For his disciples were gone away to the city to
buy meat (and so could not draw it for him).
9 Then saith the woman of Samaria to him, How
is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, who
am a woman of Samaria? (this she had cause to won-
der at,) "for the Jews have no dealings with the Sa-
maritans (they would buy of them anything ; but they
would receive no gratuity or kindness from them : see
the note). -
10 Jesus answered and said to her, If thou knew-
est “the gift of God (i. e. what an excellent gift the
Holy Spirit is), and who it is who saith to thee, Give
me to drink (i. e. how able he is to impart this gift to
thee) ; thou wouldest have asked of him, and (then)
he would have given thee (this) living water, (which
will spring up so continually in him that hath it, that
he shall thirst no more, ver. 15; see John vii. 38, 39.)
11 The woman (thinking Christ only meant spring-
water, that being, in the Hebrew idiom, living water,
Gen. xxvi. 19) saith to him, Sir, thou hast nothing to
draw with, and the well is deep; from whence then
hast thou that living water (of which thou speakest) *
12 Art thou greater than our father Jacob, who
gave us the well (for we claim our descent from him),
and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his
cattle 2 *
13 Jesus answered and said to her, Whosoever
drinketh of this water shall (soon after) thirst again;
14 But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall
give him "shall never (have cause to) thirst (more);
but the water which I shall give him (i. e. the Holy
Spirit abiding in him) shall be in him (as) a well of
water springing up to everlasting life.
15 The woman (still understanding him as grossly
as she did before) saith to hirn, Sir, give me of this
water, that I thirst not (any more), neither (may have
farther need to) come hither to draw (water).
16 Jesus (being willing to prepare her to receive his
doctrine, by convincing her that he was a prophet) saith
to her, Go, call thy husband, and come (ye both)
hither.
17 The woman answered and said, I have no hus-
band. Jesus said to her, Thou hast well (i. e. truly)
said, I have no husband: *
18 For thou hast had five husbands (from whom
thou hast been divorced for thy adulteries) ; and he
whom thou now hast (i.e. cohabitest with) “is not thy
husband (thou living with him in fornication) : in that
(therefore) saidst thou truly.
19. The woman (then) saith to him, Sir, I perceive
that thou (who so ea actly knowest the secrets of my
life, and that which I thought was known to God alone)
art a prophet.
20 °C)ur fathers worshipped in this mountain (as
we do) ; and ye (Jews) say, that in Jerusalem is the
place where men ought to worship (God; I ask there-
fore thy opinion in this case).
21 Jesus saith to her, Woman, believe me, the
hour (shortly) cometh, when ye shall "neither in this
mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.
22 But to your question I answer, That) *ye wor-
ship ye know not what (i. e. that God which you
do not truly and savingly know ; because ye know him
. 32
place :” it follows, it was $ga £wºrn, that is, saith one, six
o'clock in the evening ; St. John counting by the Roman
hours in the gospel. But this mistake is plainly evident
from i. 39, “They abode with him that day; for it was about
the tenth hour;” viz. four in the afternoon, not ten of the
night, according to the Romish computation.
* Ver. 9. Ot, yāp avyxpäviral 'Iow8aiot Xaptapeiraic, For the Jews
have no dealings with the Samaritans.] So in the Jerusalem
Talmud the Samaritans say, “Your fathers dealt with our fa-
thers, why therefore do not you so likewise with us?” (Buxt.
Lex. Tal. p. 1370.) By the traditions of the pharisees they
might buy of them; and therefore Christ's disciples do not scru-
ple at this (ver. 8); but they were not to borrow anything of
them, or receive any kindness from them, or drink of their
water, or eat of their morsels; for they bound them under an
anathema, not to eat of the fruit or morsel of a Cuthean, and
held the eating of their flesh to be as bad as eating swine's
flesh (R. Eliezer, cap. 38). But Christ, despising such tra-
ditions as had no foundation, either in the law of God or
equity, and tended to the impairing the laws of common
friendship or humanity, asks drink of this Samaritan woman,
and eateth with them.
* Ver. 10. If thou hadst known rºy Sogsåy roi; Otoč, the
gift of God..] By “the gift of God” and “living water.”
Christ seems here to understand the Holy Spirit, represented
in the Old Testament by “clean water,” Ezek. xxxvi. 25.
27, and in the New, by “living water,” John vii. 38. Rev.
xxi. 6. xxii. 1. For (1.) Spring-water is in the Hebrew idiom
called living water, in opposition to that which stagnates:
for life consisting in continual motion, by reason of the
continual ebullition of this water, it is said to live (see Lev.
xiv. 5. 50. xv. 13. Numb. xix. 17); hence it is here said to
be water springing up (ver, 14). And (2.) this Holy Spi-
rit, to be communicated to believers, is styled 3al683 roß Ogoj,
“the gift of God,” Acts viii. 20, h 3ogs& irovgåvior, “the
heavenly gift,” Heb. vi. 4, # 32653, “the gift,” Acts xi. 17
(see the note on Rom. v. 17).
7 Ver, 14. He that drinketh of the water that I shall give
him shall never thirst.] i. e. He never shall have need to
thirst for the enjoyment of this Spirit, he being to abide with
them for ever who have once received him (John xiv. 16),
if they do not expel, quench, or grieve him ; or, he shal
thirst no more, because this Spirit will be in him the carnes
of, and bring him to, that happy life, where there is no more
thirst (Rev. vii. 16).
* Ver. 18. Is not thy husband.] See one reason in the
paraphrase; others say, this is spoken, because she had di-
vorced herself from her husbands, contrary to the law, which
permitted not women to begin the divorce, and so was really
the wife of some former husband then living (so Grotius).
* Ver. 20. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain.]
We learn from Josephus” and from this woman, that the
Samaritans, when they saw it for their advantage, pretended
to be avyysvēſ; rāy 'Iověatov, “allied to the Jews, to have Ja-
cob for their father (ver. 12), Kai ix row 'Iowa hºpov yeysaxoyoivre;
airoi; #xyóvov 'Eqpaigov wai Mayaca'svoj, and deduced their
genealogy from Ephraim and Manasses, the sons of Joseph;”
they also contended, that mount Gerizim was the most an-
cient place of worship, because Abraham built there an altar
to God (Gen. xii. 6, 7), and so did Jacob (Gen. xxxiii. 18),
and therefore that was the place where sacrifices were to
be offered before the temple at Jerusalem was built. But
the Jews answered that the temple was built on the
mountain of Moriah; in the place where Abraham offered
up Isaac (Joseph. Antiq. lib. vii. cap. 10, p. 254, F), and
that that was the place of worship throughout all generations
(Targum in Chron. iii. 1; see Maimonides de AEdificio
Templi, Tract. 1, cap. 2, §. 2).
19 Wer. 21. “ori oºrs #y rā, śgst roërº, otre #y 'Isporoxtºwoc,
Neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem.] Josephus
saith the contention betwixt the Jews and Samaritans was
about the place to which they ought to bring those sacrifices
and oblations by which God was then chiefly worshipped, the
Jews declaring that it was their temple, wai rā, śvaia: #45;
Trégºrity &#ioëvrov, “and requiring that the sacrifices should
be brought thither;” the Samaritans, that they should be
brought to mount Gerizim. This controversy, saith Christ,
will shortly be decided by removing the occasion of it,
viz. this way of worshipping God by sacrifices; and by giving
liberty to worship God with spiritual sacrifices in every
place, as the prophet Malachi foretold, i. 11.
il Wer. 22. “rasſ, ºrpoozveſte § oix oièars, Ye worship ye
know not what, &c.] This, many think, is spoken with rela-
* Antiq. Jud. lib. Xi, cap. 8, p. 386, B.
+ Antiq, lib. xii, cap. 1.
348
JOHN.
not according as he is revealed in his word) : we know
what (i. e. to $siov 6, the divinity which) we worship
(serving him according to those laws to which he had
promised salvation): for salvation is of the Jews (and
the terms of it are to be derived from them to others).
23 But the hour cometh, and now is (instant),
when the true worshippers shall worship the Father (not
with carnal sacrifices as both now do, but) in *spirit
(ual sacrifices: acceptable to God through Jesus Christ,
1 Pet. ii. 5), and (not in the types and shadows of the
tion to some false objects of the worship, or to some idola-
trous way of worship, which obtained among them. The
Jews gave it out, that they worshipped God” “in the image
of a dove ;” but this seems plainly fabulous, and invented
by the Jewish rabbins out of hatred to them: for, (1.)
among the idols which they worshipped, when they came
from Assyria to Samaria, there is not the least hint of any
image of a dove worshipped by them. (2.) Josephus, F
though he, in several places, inveighs against them sharply
upon other accounts, doth never charge them with this crime,
which shows it to be a later invention of their rabbins: and,
(3.) it is a thing wholly inconsistent with the laws of Moses,
which they then owned; for, as all images are forbidden by
it, so it did require them to sacrifice the dove to God, and it
was always judged an absurd thing to worship that which
they did sacrifice (see Bochart. Hieroz. par. ii, lib. i. p. 6, 8).
Others say they worshipped God only as the topical god of
that country; but though this might be true of them when
they first came into Samaria, and retained their heathen sen-
timents ; yet it could not be true of them after that, reject-
ing all their heathenish superstitions, they had embraced that
law in which Jehovah is continually styled “the Maker of
heaven and earth,” and “the God of all the earth;” and
when, as Epiphanius: saith, “They endeavoured to renounce
all idolatry, and to own but one God.”
But whereas Epiphanius and many of the Jews pronounce
them guilty of latent idolatry, for worshipping God in that
mountain where Jacob hid the idols of the nations, accord-
ing to those words, Gen. xxxv. 4, “And they gave to Jacob
all the strange gods that were in their hands, and Jacob
buried them under the oak which was by Sichem :”, it is not
probable, that Christ should accuse them of false worship on
the account of idols under ground, which they knew nothing
of, and which they never did intend to worship. Observe
then,
First, That the inquiry of the woman, and the dispute
was, saith Josephus, only about the place of worship; and
therefore it is very probable Christ's answer chiefly doth re-
spect the place.
Secondly, That Christ, by saying to the Samaritan wo-
man, that shortly they should not “worship the Father in
that mountain,” does tacitly own, that the Samaritans did
worship the Father; nor doth he instruct her who was the
true object of her worship, but only how she was to worship
the true God.
Thirdly, When they came first to Samaria, it is observed
that they knew not mishpat, the manner of worshipping the
God of Israel (2 Kings xvii. 16). In this, saith Christ, you
are still deficient, as not worshipping the God of Israel ac-
cording to his prescription in the law, but according to your
own inventions. You therefore may be truly said not to
know him, whose will you observe not, neither worshipping
him according to his nature in the spirit, nor according to
that law, which is the rule of his worship, and according to
which alone you can do him acceptable service: if then you
would obtain salvation by the worship of him, you must do
it according to the revelations made to the Jews, to whom, as
the promise of a Saviour was given, so from them is salvation
to come to the world, according to the promise made to their
father Abraham, “In thee shall all the families of the earth
be blessed.”
* Talmud, Tr. Cholmi, cap 1, f. 6.
+ Lib. ii. et xi. fime; lib. x. cap. 1, 7. lib. xiii. cap. 6. lib.
xviii. 35. lib. xx. 5.
; Fi; ºr aeratºva rā; sièaxoxarciaç, wai row £va Oföy
itriyyavat, Lib. i. Ilar. 9, §. 2.
law, as the Jews now do, nor in that erroneous manner
as ye do, but) in (the) truth (of the gospel, John i. 17),
for the Father seeketh such to worship him (Gr. Such
worshippers of him : for) .
24 "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him
(aright) must worship him in spirit and in truth (i.e.
agreeably to his spiritual nature, by giving up their
hearts and spirit to him ; and according to his will, by
serving him according to the precepts of the gospel).
25 The woman saith unto him, I know that Mes-
12 Wer. 23. Shall worship the Father £y mysłºwari wai
&AnSeia, in spirit and in truth.] That is, saith Origen, où
aragwizaï; Svatatº, “not with carnal sacrifices, but with spi-
ritual worship,” or with those spiritual sacrifices, which are
acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (1 Pet. ii. 5); oix
ây Tàorot;, “not in types, but according to the truth contained
in them; for the law was given by Moses, but grace and
truth came by Jesus Christ,” John i. 17. Thus Philo saith,
he brings to God, yyhorio, Separeiav, “the true worship, who
brings, rºy &A#9elay, 3rahy, zai ºvny Svatay, truth, the simple,
and the only sacrifice;” not he who uses washings and
purgations of body, but defiles his soul; or who builds
and adorns templés, and offers hecatombs upon the altar,
msgºrxáveral yèp ouroc rā, ºrgö; eta 8stay 3805, Sphaksiay &vri
Šarićrnºra; #yoſºvo;, “for he errs from the way of piety, as
thinking outward worship is to be preferred to holiness” (L.
quod deter. pot. p. 123, C, D).
Now, that we may thus worship God in spirit, we must
lay, as the foundation, not only purity of body from all un-
cleanness, but of the soul also from all spiritual defilements,
all pride and haughtiness of mind, all malice, envy, bitter-
ness of spirit, all impure thoughts, and evil concupiscence ;
for these are styled “works of the flesh,” Gal. v. 19. 21.
Now, “they that are in the flesh,” saith the apostle, “can-
not please God” (Rom. viii. 8), nor can they “mind the
things of the Lord,” who are not pure in body and in spirit
(1 Cor. vii. 34.2 Cor. vii. 1), and with this the very heathens
were so well acquainted, that they often taught that God
was purá mente colendus, “to be worshipped with a pure
mind;” this was the best offering we could give,” and the
best habitation we could build him.
Secondly, We must have just and awful thoughts of the
divine Majesty, oft representing him to our thoughts as a
God of infinite purity and justice, as well as power and wis-
dom, one who is always present with, and beholds all our Se-
cret thoughts and actions, in order to a future recompence ;
for by these apprehensions fixed in our hearts we shall be
naturally induced to glorify him in our spirits (1 Cor. vi. 20):
having laid this foundation, we must endeavour to walk
humbly with God, subjecting ourselves wholly to his provi-
dence, being contented in all conditions in which he doth
think fit to place us, and submitting our own wills to his
good pleasure, which is in scripture styled poverty of spirit,
Matt. v. 4, and the wisdom of the Spirit, Rom. viii. 26.
Thirdly, We must endeavour to resemble him as much as
may be in holiness and righteousness, in truth, in goodness,
and in mercy; for even the heathens say,+ ripaña'el; rev-Osoy
&gto-ra, hāv rá, Otº 31&volay pºol&oeic, “We then worship God
best, when we are most like to him.”
Fourthly, We must worship God from spiritual principles,
a sincere love and filial reverence of him; and to spiritual
ends, that we may promote his glory, and do what is well-
pleasing to him; and after a spiritual manner, serving him
with the whole heart, soul, and mind, and with a fervency
of spirit.
* Ver. 24. IIvºga & ©tic, God is a Spirit..] The article &
here shows, that God is the subject, and the Spirit is the pre-
--
* Cultus autem Deorum est optimus, idemque castissimus,
atque sanctissimus, plenissimusque pietatis, ut eos semper
purá, integrá, incorrupta et mente et voce veneremur. Cic.
de Nat. Deorum, lib. ii. p. 53. Oc y&p of airroi ävěps; patri Juxic
xaflapā; oixstórsgow rémoy #mri răç »fic Os3; oix #xsi. Hier. in
Carm. Pyth p. 15, et Seneca apud Lact de Vero Cultú, lib.
vi, cap. 25.
+ Hier, in Carm. Pyth. p. 22, 25.
CHAPTER IV.
349
sias cometh, who is called Christ ; and when he is
come, he will tell us all things (that we are to believe.
and do).
26 Jesus said unto her, I that speak unto thee am
he (viz. the Messiah).
27 And upon this came his disciples, and *mar-
velled that he talked with the woman: yet no man
said (to him), What seekest thou (of) P or, Why talk-
est thou with her 2
28 The woman then left her water-pot (at the well),
and went her way into the city, and saith to the men
(of the city),
29 Come, see a man, who told me all things that
ever I did: is not this (an evidence that he is) the
Christ -
hi 30 Then they went out of the city, and came unto
IIIl.
31 In the meanwhile his disciples prayed him, say-
ing, Master, eat.
32 But he said unto them, *I have meat to eat
which ye know not of (i.e. somewhat more valuable
and pleasant to me than meat or drink).
33 Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath
any man brought him (meat) to eat.
34 Jesus saith to them, My meat (i. e. my delight)
is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his
work.
35 "Say not ye (proverbially, as an encouragement
to the sower), There are yet four months, and then
cometh (on the) harvest ? behold, I say unto you, Lift
up your eyes, and look on the fields, for they are
white already to harvest (i.e. look upon the Samaritans
flocking to me to hear my doctrine, and you will see that
the time of my spiritual harvest is already come).
36 And he that reapeth (this spiritual harvest, by
bringing men to the faith) receiveth wages (for his la-
bour), and gathereth fruit (not to sustain this mortal
life, but) unto life eternal: that both he that soweth
and he that reapeth (he that laboureth to prepare men
jor, and he that brings them to, the faith) may rejoice
together (in the fruit of their labours).
37 And herein is that (proverbial) "saying true,
One soweth, and another reapeth.
38 I (have) sent (or, do send) you to reap that
whereon you bestowed no labour ; other men laboured
(the prophets, by foretelling the Messiah ; the Baptist,
by calling men to repentance, that they might be pre-
pared to receive him), and ye are entered into their
labours (and only are to perfect what they have
begun).
39 And many of the Samaritans of that city be-
lieved on him for the saying of the woman, which tes-
tified, (saying) He told me all that ever I did.
40 So when the Samaritans were come unto him,
they besought him that he would tarry with them:
and *he abode there two days.
41 And (in that time) many more believed because
of his own word;
42 And said unto the woman, Now we believe, not
because of thy saying: for we have heard him our-
selves, and know (by the eacellency of his doctrine, and
the holiness and goodness of his precepts) that this is
indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the *world.
43 Now after two days he departed thence, and
went into Galilee (passing not by Nazareth, the place
of his education, but another way).
44 For Jesus himself testified, that a prophet hath
(comparatively) no honour in his own country.
45 Then when he was come to Galilee, the Galile-
ans received him (gladly), having seen all the things
which he did at Jerusalem at the feast (of the pass-
over) : for they also went to the feast.
46 So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where
he had made the water wine. And there was a cer-
tain nobleman (a great man of Herod’s court), whose
son was sick at Capernaum.
47 (And) when he heard that Jesus was come out
of Judea into Galilee, he went unto him, and besought
him that he would come down, and heal his son: for
he was at the point of death.
48 Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see *signs
and wonders (done before your eyes), ye (Jews and
Herodians) will not believe (on the account of the ea:-
cellence and goodness of my doctrine, as the Samaritans
did).
49 The nobleman saith to him, Sir, come down ere
my child die.
50 Jesus saith unto him, (There is no need of my
dicate ; and this opinion obtained among the Platonists, who
style him Noşç, “a mind;” and among the Pythagoreans,”
who said, &cop.4touc ºrpā travré, hyoi 650i); tºrápxeiv, “Before
all things you must hold the gods to be incorporeal.” Aris-
totle also thought it necessary to assert, that the first mover
was āºwsgåc, or “without parts;” yea, even the stoics, saith
Plutarch,+ determined, that God was an “intelligent Spirit,
without form.”
* Ver. 27. They marvelled that he talked with the wo-
man.] This being one of the six things, say the rabbins, which
render a disciple impure, viz. that he talks with women
(Buxtorf. Lexic. p. 1145).
15 Wer. 32. I have meat to eat, &c.] This phrase is used
by the ancients concerning things which were done by them
with pleasure,f Istic mihi cibus est quod fabulare, “Thou
sayest that which is meat to me.” So the servant in Plau-
tus, and another in Aristophanes,S w8×a y árorteáely 3oxó,
&raw warragácap, at A4032 rô Beatrátn, “It is meat, to me to
curse my master secretly.” *
16 Ver. 35. Say you not, There be yet four months of the
harvest, &c.] The sense of these words seemeth to run thus
—In your common harvest you usually say, after your seed
is sown, four months hence will come the harvest, or the time
when you shall reap the fruit of the seed sown; but in this
spiritual harvest it is otherwise: for the seed of the word
* Jamb. Protrept. p. 151.
+ Phys. lib. viii, cap. 10. De Placit. Philo. lib. i. cap. 6.
† Cistel, act. iv. sc. 2, ver, 49. § Ib. Ranis.
sown in the heart of the woman of Samaria, in your ab-
sence, hath made the Samaritans already ripe for the har-
vest.
17 Wer. 37. ‘o Aéyoc, This saying.] So the scholiast in
Aristophanes, xará rày Traxa tow Aáyov, &NAoi Kºśw a reſpova's,
.#AAoi 3' at 3px?coviral, “According to the old proverb, One
soweth, but another shall reap.”
* Ver. 40. He abode there two days.] He abode there so
long, that he might not contemn persons so desirous to learn
of him ; he stayed no longer, that he might not neglect the
Jews, or seem to prefer the Samaritans before them; and he
commanded, his apostles not to go to any city of Samaria
(Matt. xiii. 5), because the gospel was first to be preached to
the Jews, and then to the Samaritans (Acts i. 8).
* Wer. 42. The Saviour of the world..] That is, saith Mr.
Clerc, of the Jews; “for it is not likely the Samaritans
thought of the salvation of the gentiles;” but why might
they not think so, who knew, that “in the seed of Abraham
were the families of the earth to be blessed ?” and seeing the
Samaritans were not Jews, had they used these words in that
restrained sense, they had excluded themselves from this sal-
vation. The word doth sometimes signify the multitude, or
the public ; as when Christ's brethren say to him, “Show
thyself to the world,” i. e. publicly, John vii. 4, and the
pharisees, “The world is gone after him,” John xii. 19, but
never the Jews in opposition to the gentiles.
* Ver. 48. If ye see not signs and wonders ye will not
believe..] Hence some interpreters conclude this nobleman
was a Jew ; it being no wonder, that a heathen should not
believe without a miracle.
350
JOHN.
going down,) go thy way; (and thou shalt find) thy
son liveth. And the man believed the word which
Jesus had spoken to him, and he went his way.
51 And as he was now going down (to his house),
his * met him, and told him, saying, Thy son
liveth.
52 Then inquired he of them the hour when he
began to amend. And they said unto him, Yesterday
at the seventh hour the fever left him.
53 So the father knew that it was at the same hour
in which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth; and
(he) himself believed, and *his whole house.
54 This is again the second miracle that Jesus did,
when he was come out of Judea into Galilee.
* Ver. 53. Himself believed and his whole house.] i. e.
All that by age were capable of doing so.
CHAPTER. W.
1 AFTER this there was a (nother) feast of the Jews;
(viz. that of the passover, requiring the appearance of
all the adult males at the temple, Deut. xvi. 16,) and
(therefore) Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
2 Now “there is at Jerusalem, by the sheep-mar-
ket (or gate), a pool, which is called in the Hebrew
tongue Bethesda (the house of mercy), having five
porches, (in which the sick lay to be cured ; for)
3 In these lay a great number of impotent folk,
(viz.) of blind, halt, withered (persons), waiting for
the moving of the water.
4 For an “angel (visibly) went down at a certain
season into the pool, and troubled (i.e. shook) the
water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the
water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever dis-
ease he had. -
5 And a certain man was there, who had (lain un-
der) an infirmity thirty and eight years.
6 When Jesus saw him lie, and knew (by his di-
vine spirit) that he had been now a long time in that
case, he (looking on him as an object worthy of com-
passion) saith to him, Wilt thou be made whole 2
7. The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no
man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the
pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down
before me. -
8 Jesus saith to him, “Rise, take up thy bed, and
walk.
9 And immediately (at his word) the man was
made whole, and (to show that he was so) took up his
bed, and walked: and on the same day (that he did
this) was the sabbath.
10 The Jews therefore said to him that was cured,
It is the sabbath-day: it is not lawful for thee to
carry thy bed (on that day of rest).
ll. He answered them, He that (with a word) made
me whole, the same said to me, Take up thy bed, and
walk (and surely he that could heal me with a word,
must be a prophet ; and, therefore, must have authority
to bid me do this). -
12 Then asked they him, What man is he, that
said to thee, Take up thy bed, and walk 2 (that,
knowing him, we may be the more able to judge of him.)
13 And he that was healed wist not who he was :
for Jesus (having done this) had conveyed himself
away (without being observed by him, as he might easily
do), a multitude being in that place.
14 Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple (giv-
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. W.
* Wer. 1. Jesus went up to Jerusalem.] To hold com-
munion with the Jewish church at the feast of the passover,
by observing with them the rites to be observed at the feast;
he therefore refused not communion with a church that had
clogged these festivals with human traditions, though, per-
haps, he performed only the rites required by the law at
these festivals (see Dr. Lightfoot).
* Ver, 2. ‘Eart 3i, There is at Jerusalem by the sheep-gate
a pool, called in the Hebrew Bethesda.] That is, “the house
of mercy:” because of the mercy of God shown there in
curing their diseases. Moreover, if £ari 33, “there is,” be
the true reading, as the consent of almost all the Greek
copies argues, it seems to intimate, that Jerusalem and this
pool were then standing when St. John wrote this gospel, and
therefore that it was written, as Theophylact and others say,
before the destruction of Jerusalem, and not, as the more
ancient fathers thought, long after.
* Ver. 4. An angel went down, xarā Kalpêv, at a certain
season, and then he that first went down was made whole of
whatsoever disease he had..] All the circumstances of this
history show, that Dr. Hammond’s conjecture, that “this
angel was only an officer sent at a certain time to stir this
pool,” and that “the warm entrails cast into it communi-
cated this healing virtue to these waters,” though it seems to
be supported by the authority of St. Chrysostom and Theo-
phylact, is highly improbable. For (1.) how unlikely is it
that this should be a natural means of curing all sorts of dis-
eases without exception, “the blind, the halt, and the with-
ered,” wer. 3. (2.) That it should only cure the person
that first stepped in, though he might be followed by others
the same instant ; for how should the natural virtue of this
pool, impregnated with the warm entrails of so many sacri-
fices, extend itself only to one man 2 And (3.) how un-
likely is it that it should do this only at one time of the
year, viz. at the feast of passover ? For this was done, not
water from the wells of Salvation,”
at several times, but only kari, katºv, “at a certain time”
(ver. 4). And, lastly, the very foundation of this surmise is
taken away by that observation of Dr. Lightfoot, that there
was a laver in the temple for the washing of those entrails,
and so they were not likely to be washed in this pool.
It is farther to be noted, that these waters of Siloam were
a '---a of the kingdom of David and of Christ ; of the king-
of David, according to these words, Isa. viii. 6, “For-
asmuch as this people refuseth the waters of Siloah, that go
softly,” that is, saith the Targum, “the kingdom of David
that rules them quietly ;” and of Christ, according to those
words of the same prophet, xii. 2, “With joy shall they draw
’ whence Siloah is inter-
preted “sent” (see note on ix. 7). To this type of the
Messiah God might therefore give this virtue about that
time, to prepare the Jews to receive his advent who was
sent to them ; and when a fountain was to be “opened for
sin and for uncleanness,” Zech. xiii. 1, viz. that of the blood
of Christ, might communicate this virtue to this pool, as a
prefiguration of it; whence, as Tertullian” notes, “the vir-
tue of this pool then ceased, when they, persevering in their
infidelity, rejected our Saviour.” And this might be one
reason why the Jewish writers are so silent as to the virtue
of this pool; because, by its signification, it related to Christ;
and, by this miracle, confirmed his doctrine (see here Exa-
men Millii in locum).
* Wer. 8. Arise, take up thy bed and walk..] Christ here
requires not faith of him, because he had seen, and, perhaps,
heard of none of his miracles; but he requires him to do
that on the sabbath which was contrary to the letter of the
law, to show he was a prophet, who, by their own rules, had
power to require what was contrary to the ceremonial rest
* Piscina Bethsaidae, usque àd adventum Christi curando
valetudines Israel, desiit à beneficiis deinde, clim ex perseve-
rantia furoris sui nomen Domini per ipsos blasphemaretur,
Adv. Jud. cap. 13.
CHAPTER V.
351
ing thanks to God for his cure) and said to him, Be-
hold, thou art made whole (of a distemper laid upon
thee for the punishment of thy sins): sin no more, lest
a worse thing come unto thee (for thy insensibility
and contempt of this mercy).
15 The man (knowing now who had done this, and
perhaps thinking himself obliged in gratitude to own
the author of his cure, and hoping hereby to convince
them that he was a prophet) departed (from the tem-
ple), *and told the Jews (who inquired after him that
had done this) that it was Jesus who had made him
whole.
16 And (but though this cure demonstrated that he
was sent from God, because no man could do these things
emcept God were with him, John iii. 2. 9. 30–33, yet)
therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought
to slay him, because he had done these things on the
sabbath-day; (the doing any work on the sabbath-day
being, by the law, as they thought, a capital crime,
Exod. xxxi. 14, 15.) e
17 But Jesus answered them, “My Father worketh
hitherto (he, from the beginning of the creation, till
this present time, continues to give and preserve life,
and do good on the sabbath-day), and I (after his ea:-
ample) work (that which is good and salutary to man-
kind on that day).
of the Sabbath (see note on ix. 18); and to instruct them
that to do this, not in contempt of the law, or for bodily
advantage, but as a public testimony of the great goodness
of God to us, tended rather to the sanctification than to the pro-
fanation of the sabbath, that day being sanctified to this very
end, that men might employ it in glorifying and praising
God for his benefits.
* Ver. 15. Told the Jews that Jesus had done this.] Not
to accuse him to them, but partly out of gratitude, to own
the author of this cure ; and partly to excuse himself, as
only doing this at the command of so great a prophet.
* Ver. 17. My Father workelh hitherto, &c.] Even from
the time he rested from the works of the creation, continuing
to preserve and govern all things he created, and do those
things which tend to his glory and to the good of his crea-
tures, even on the Sabbath-day; and, in imitation of him, I
do my wondrous works of mercy, to the glory of his name,
upon that day; which, being divine, and done by his power
and assistance, show that I do nothing in them contrary to
his will. Thus Philo,” speaking of God's resting on the
Seventh day, Saith, “We have declared, that God ceaseth not
to work, but proceeds to the production of other things, as
being not the artificer only, but the father, of them.”
* Ver. 18. Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him,
§rt Traºrépa štov #xeye Qey, iroy Éav'ry Troiây Tà 983, because
he said, God was his own Father, making himself equal to
God.] Here note,
First, That he is here said to style God his Father, after
a manner proper and peculiar to himself, as being 3 floc
950ſ viès, “the proper Son of God”(Rom. viii. 32), and so as
being his son, not as Adam and the angels were, by crea-
tion, nor as good men are, by adoption only ; in which sense
the Jews pretended to have God for their Father (viii. 41),
and in which sense both Philot and the Jewish writers:
speak of him as the Father of Israel, and of those who had
a true knowledge of him ; for, in this sense, to call himself
“the Son of God,” could neither be worthy of death, nor
worse than the violation of the sabbath. It is therefore
evident the Jews thought Christ, by saying “God was his
Father,” made himself his Son in such a manner as ren-
* 'Eºnx&zatºsy %, 3rt irolây 3083; of raiſerai, 3xx' firsgow yºvá-
areas &#xeral, &re oi rexyirm; ºvov, &AN& xat wärnp. L. pri-
mo Legis Alleg. p. 32, A. 33, D. *
f of 8: Triatiºn xexenºcévot five, viol ©eoû Seávrov, ºrgoorayoget-
ovrat, waſ 3 ×ai Moañº woxoyeſ páczov, Yioſ Hars Kvelou roi; Geof,
wai otºx air㺠aou trarfig. De Confus. Ling, p. 267.
# Est quidem cuinec filius, nec pater, hic est sanctus be-
nedictus, nisiquéd Deusdilexit Israelem, et vocavit eos filios.
Midrash Coheleth, fol. 93, 4.
18 Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him,
because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said
also that God was "his Father, (in a peculiar manner
proper to him alone, trarápa iólov #Asys rôv 9sóv, there-
by) making himself equal with God (in nature, as a
son to his father).
19 Then answered Jesus, and said to them, Verily,
verily, I say to you, The "Son can do nothing of him-
self, but what he seeth the Father do (ing, Gr. i. e. with-
out commission from him to do it, and certain knowledge
that he doth what the Father would have done) : for
whatsoever thing he doeth (trotſ, or trothay, he would
have done), these also (kai even) doeth the Son like- -
wise (i. e. after his evample as to the kind of them, ac-
cording to his will as to the manner of doing them :
whence you may be assured this action was done after
his ea ample, and according to his will, as to the time,
as well as to the manner of it ; and therefore cannot
be worthy of blame).
20 For the Father loveth the Son, and showeth him
(by the Spirit with which he hath anointed him) all
things that himself (his Son) doeth; and he will show
(i.e. incite and enable) him (by the same power, to do)
greater works than these, (so) that you may (i. e. will)
marvel (at them, though you will not be convinced by
them).
dered him equal to God in nature, as a son is to his father ;
and yet they thought he did this, not as the Socinians say,
by saying he did the works of his Father, but, as their words
testify, by calling God his Father, in a sense peculiar to him-
self: and hence they accuse him of blasphemy, for saying
that he was the Son of God, Matt. xxvi. 63–65. John x.
33. 36, which they never do, for saying he was the Messiah,
or that he did the works of God. Note,
Secondly, Hence, that the Jews did not then think that
their Messiah was to be God, or, in the sublimer sense, “the
Son of God.” Hence Origen” declares, that having dis-
coursed with many wise men of the Jews, he “could find
none of them who allowed Osºy Gyra, º Geoû við;, that he was
God, or the Son of God.” And Jerome, on those words.
Jer. xvii. 5, “Cursed is he who putteth his trust in man,”
Saith, “The Jews are accursed, qui spem habent in homine
Christo, videlicet Suo, quem non Filium Dei, sed purum ho-
minem putant esse venturum, who trust in a man, viz. in
their Messiah, whom they expect to come as a mere man,
and not as the Son of God.”
* Ver, 19. The Son of Man can do nothing 3 p’ #avrot, of
himself, Év Kºh ºr 3Xéwei, but what he sees the Father doing.]
The Jews concluding Christ to be a false prophet, because
he, in this peculiar manner, styled “God his Father,” Christ
here undertakes to show, (1.) that he exercised his prophe-
tic office according to the will of the Father: (2.) that he
confirmed it by miracles done by the power of God residing
in him. Christ therefore here seems not to speak of his es-
sential power, but of his prophetic office, and of the doctrine
which he taught and confirmed by miracles. (1.) Because
as to his essential power, the action of the Father and the
Son being one and the same, both as to power and time, he
cannot properly be said to do nothing of himself, or to do
nothing but what he sees the Father do. (2.) Because, as
to speak nothing of himself is to speak nothing of his own
instinct and will, without commission from God (see note
on vii. 17): so to do nothing of himself, is to do nothing
without commission from, and knowledge of the will of
God, that he should do it, and so respecteth his prophetic
office, and the things done in confirmation of it ; and
then the words following, “Unless he sees the Father doing
them,” must bear this sense ; Unless he, by the Spirit of the
Father residing in him, sees that the Father would have
them done by him: for what the Father wrotfi, “would have
done,” he doth according to his will, or as he would have
them to be done. And this import of the words seems to be
confirmed,
First, From the following words; “For the Father loveth
* Lib. ii. p. 70. lib. iv. p. 162.
352
JOHN.
21 For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and
quickeneth them; even so (shall ye see that) the "Son
quickeneth whom he will.
22 (And this power of quickening and raising whom
he will the Father hath given him, because he hath made
him the judge of all men) ; for the Father judgeth no
man, "but hath committed all judgment to the Son,
(who yet cannot judge them till he hath raised them
from the dead.
23 And this he hath done) that all men should "ho-
nour the Son (for his power and authority over them),
even as they honour the Father, (the great Judge of all
the earth, Gen. xviii. 25.) He that honoureth not the
Son (invested with this power) honoureth not the Fa-
ther which hath sent (and authorized) him (to ea'er-
cise it.
24 And having all judgment committed to me,) ve.
rily, verily, I say to you, He that (obediently) heareth
my word and believeth on him that sent me, hath (an
assurance of) everlasting life, and shall not come into
condemnation (for his past sins); but is passed from
(the) death (threatened to him) unto life.
*** *** *-*.* * * *-*.
the Son wai Trávra 3sixyva w abré à moist, and showeth him all
things, which he (the Son) doeth;” and he will show him
greater works than these (which are to be done by him, even
that of raising the dead, ver. 21). For because we receive
all our knowledge from our eyes or ears, therefore Christ,
speaking of the execution of his prophetic office, useth these
metaphors, declaring that he spake and estified what he had
seen (iii. 11), “what he had seen with the Father” (viii. 38),
and so the Baptist saith, “What he hath seen he testifies;”
and again, that he spake “what he had heard from the Fa-
ther” (viii. 26. x. 15, 16). And because they who teach or
declare things, do by that show them to us; therefore Christ
uses this metaphor here, and saith, viii. 28, “I do nothing
of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, so I speak ;”
and again, xii. 49, 50, “I have spoken nothing of myself;
but as the Father, who sent me, gave me commandment
what I should say and speak; the things therefore which I
speak, as the Father said to me, so I speak.” Now, that he
spake this with respect to the Spirit of prophecy, with which
he was anointed, and by the Father sent to preach the gos-
pel to the poor, &c. Luke iv. 11, the Baptist teacheth in
these words, “What he hath seen and heard, that he testifies;
for he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God; for
the Father giveth not him the Spirit by measure” (iii. 32–
34), and he himself intimates, by saying, xiv. 10, “The
words that I speak to you, I speak not of myself; the Fa-
ther abiding in me, he doeth the works” (see the note there),
Secondly, That he said truly, “My Father worketh hither-
to, and I work,” he proves from the divine works God the
Father had given him power to do; though he was to do
them after his resurrection and advancement to his kingdom,
viz. the resurrection of the dead and the future judgment:
and therefore adds,
* Ver. 21. As the Father raiseth the dead, and quicken-
eth them, so the Son quickeneth whom he will.] This is more
than ever was said of any prophet or apostle, that he did
such works at his will ; and here chiefly respects Christ, not
acting as a prophet, but as a king, sitting at the right hand
of power: and this being an action represented as proper to
God, who saith, “I am, and there is none besides me; I kill
and make alive,” Deut. xxxii. 39. 1 Sam. ii. 6, a work to be
performed by his sole power, Matt. xxii. 29. Acts xxvi. 8,
and by the “strength of his power,” Eph. i. 19, who is a
God “quickening the dead,” Rom. iv. 17 ; hence it is evi-
dent that Christ, who will not only “raise our mortal bo-
dies,” but also make them “like to his own glorious body,
by that power by which he is able to subdue all things to
himself,” Phil. iii. 21, must be God; and that the Father,
by giving him, “power to have life in himself, as he hath it
in himself,” ver, 26, must have given him the fulness of the
Deity, from which this power is inseparable.
* Ver. 22. For the Father judgeth no man ; but hath
committed all judgment to his Son.] Seeing this judgment is
committed to him, it is evident, saith Woltzogenius, that he
cannot be God the highest, because he reigns and judges by
his own power, derived from none; and yet he owns, that in
this judgment is comprehended totum regimen, et divinum
totius mundi imperium, “an entire government and divine
empire over the whole world, and especially over the whole
church of God;” from whence it is demonstrable, that he
must be God: for this government must be attended with a
power of raising all them from the dead, whom he shall
place before his judgment-seat, and with the perfect know-
ledge, not only of the actions of all men from the beginning
of the world, but also of their secret thoughts; since other-
wise he cannot “bring every secret thought and work into
*
judgment,” nor “bring to light the hidden things of dark-
ness,” or “manifest the secrets of the heart,” 1 Cor. iv. 5,
or “judge every man according to his works,” 2 Cor. v. 10.
He also must be omnipresent and omniscient, even the
searcher of all hearts, that he may know and answer the
prayers of all his servants in all corners of the earth, as the
Socinians grant he doth; and almighty, that he may be able
to supply all their wants, assist and enable them to do every-
where the greatest miracles in his name, defend and preserve
them against all the powers on earth, and even the “gates
of hell,” raise and condemn their enemies, with the devil
and his angels, to eternal destruction from his presence, and
also crown his servants with everlasting glory. Now how all
these things can be done by a mere creature, is as difficult to
conceive as any mystery of the blessed Trinity. I answer,
therefore, in that distinction of the schools, that the princi-
pium quod, or the person thus judging, is the Son of man,
ver. 27, this judgment being to be exercised by the man
Christ Jesus, Acts xvii. 31, but the principium quo, i. e. the
power or the principle by which he does it, is the whole ful-
ness of the Deity, individually united to his human nature,
or the Word made flesh, John i. 14. This therefore hinders
not, but he to whom this judgment is thus given, may be
God of God.
* Ver. 23. That all men may honour the Son as they
honour the Father.] That is, saith Woltzogenius, “that
they owning this dignity and power, per quam Deo aequalis
est, by which he is equal to God, may give him that obe-
dience, honour, and worship, which are due to a divine and
heavenly King: for that the honour and worship due to
Christ, is divine honour, is evident from this, that it is such,
qualis Patri debetur, as is due to the Father; to whom, by
the consent of all men, belongs divine worship:” and hence
he proves that Christ is to be worshipped with invocation;
“because he who refuses to pray to him, doth not honour
him as he honours the Father: in this (saith he) consists
the highest honour we give to the Father, that we own him
for the chief monarch, and Lord of all things, in whose
power is our salvation and destruction; and therefore, by
prayer, endeavour to obtain from him the enjoyment of good
things, and the deliverance from evil: Qui ha-c eadem in
Christo agnoscit, et eum sic colit, is honorat, et colit eum si-
cut Patrem; He that owns these things to belong to Christ,
and doth thus worship him, he honoureth the Son as he doth
the Father ;” so he: now can he be equal to God, who is
only a creature, or be worthy of divine worship, who is no
God 2 The precept being plain, and owned by Christ him-
self, “The Lord thy God is one Lord, and (therefore) thou
shalt worship the Lord thy Göd, and him only shalt thou
serve” (Deut. vi. 13. Matt. iv. 10). Can he, who said
“Thou shalt worship no other gods but me, and I will not
give my glory to another” (Isa. xlii. 8), himself appoint,
that any creature should be worshipped as God, or have that
honour, worship, and obedience, in which his glory doth con-
sist P It is therefore no unjust imputation to call them
idolaters, who give this worship to one who, say they, is by
nature only man ; seeing they do the very thing charged on
the heathen idolaters; “they worship them which by nature
are no gods” (Gal. iv. 8); and do that to a creature, which
God requires to be done to himself alone, viz. that they
should “glorify him as God” (Rom. i. 21); and do that
with which God upbraided his own people, viz. “the wor-
shipping a new God, which their own fathers had not
known” (Deut. xxxii. 17). If you say here, they give him
the same worship, not as the first, but only as the inter-
mediate cause of our salvation: it may be easily replied,
CHAPTER W.
353
25 (And that you may have reason to believe I can
thus raise the dead, ye shall see an instance of it shortly,
not only in my resurrection, but in the rising of many
others with me by my power; for) verily, verily, I say
unto you, *The hour is coming, and now is, when
the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and
they that hear (it) shall live.
26 For as the Father hath (the fountain of) life in
himself (and so can impart life to others); so hath he
given to the Son “to have life in himself;
27 And he hath given him authority to execute
judgment also (on the dead thus raised), because he is
*the Son of man (whom he hath appointed the judge
of the world, Acts xvii. 31).
28 Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in
the which (not these few only, but) all that are in the
grave shall hear his voice,
29 And shall come forth; they that have done
good, to the resurrection of life; and "they that have
done evil, to the resurrection of damnation.
30 (And in passing this judgment of absolution and
condemnation upon men,) I (the man Christ Jesus, Acts
vii. 31, the Son of man, ver. 27,) can of my own self
(my own impulse and pleasure) do nothing; (but) as I
hear, (i.e. receive the terms of absolution and condem-
nation from my Father, so) "I judge: and my judg-
ment is (therefore) just ; because I seek (i. e. pursue)
not (in it) mine own will, but the will of the Father
which hath sent me. -
31 (And) if (in ascribing this honour and power to
myself) I (did) "bear witness of myself (and had no
credentials from my Father, or those whom he hath
sent), my witness is not true : (for he that pretends to
be sent, or delegated from God, and hath not his testi-
nomy to confirm his mission, cannot be true : but this
ās not my case ; for)
that then they cannot honour him as they honour the Fa-
ther; and much less as the chief monarch, and Lord of all
things. Moreover, I inquire, Whether this middle cause
be created, or uncreated 2 If uncreated, he is, by nature,
God, and, since there is but one God, of the same essence
with the Father; but if created, they must be guilty of
idolatry who give him the same worship with the Father;
and therefore give the creature the worship due to the
Creator.
* Ver. 25. The hour—now is, when the dead shall hear
the voice of the Son of God, and live.] That Christ here
speaks not only of a spiritual resurrection from the death of
sin, is evident ; (1.) because he speaks of it as a thing
shortly future ; whereas the spiritual resurrection was in
some already past : (2.) because he promises this resurrec-
tion not to them that should hear his word, but powāv, “his
voice:” and that he speaks of a proper resurrection, ap-
pears, (1.) from the gradation he here makes from the re-
surrection of some to the resurrection of all, ver. 28; (2)
because he adds that “they who hear, shall live ;” and that
because the Son, whose voice they hear, “hath life in him-
self” (ver, 26); I therefore think that our Lord speaks of
that hour, when, he rising from the dead, many bodies of the
saints arose with him (Matt. xxvii. 52, 53).
* Ver. 26. He hath given the Son to have life in himself.]
i. e. The power of raising whom he will (ver. 21). Hence,
though the apostles and others raised men from the dead,
it is said of none of them that they had life in themselves;
because they did this, not by their own, but by the power of
Christ. Note also, that the same thing is, in both places,
said both of the Father and the Son: for it is not said,
“The Father hath life from himself, the Son in himself.”
but both hath life, Év Havrá, in himself; and that as the Fa-
ther, so the Son, “quickeneth whom he will ;” Now the
operations follow the essence; so that where the same ope-
ration is, there must be the same essence,
* Ver. 27. Because he is the Son of man.] i. e. The
Messias to whom all power and dominion is given (Dan. vii.
13, 14), and of whom the Jews” said, that he “should raise
the dead;” or, because he took the human nature on him,
he suffered in it, and, by that passion, became “the author
of salvation to all that obey him” (Heb. v. 8, 9), and,
lastly, in that nature only could be a visible judge (see Ex.
amen Millii in locum).
* Ver. 29. And they that have done evil, unto the resur-
rection of condemnation.] . This seems to be spoken in op-
position to the doctrine of the pharisees, who, saith Jose-
phus, thought “the resurrection pertained only to the just;”
and that the wicked and antediluvian sinners were to be ex-
cluded from it. -
“The hour is coming in which all they that are in the
grave shall arise, and shall come forth, oi rā āya33 trotheravºrsk,
they (of them thus arising) who have done good, to the re-
surrection of life ; of 3i tā paixa. Trećavreć, they (of them)
who have dome evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.”
* R. Eliezer, cap. 34, p. 38.
+ De Bello Jud. lib. iii. cap. 12.
A late author * hath endeavoured to avoid the clear evi-
dence of this text for a general sentence of all men to a life
of future happiness or misery. I shall not here consider all
his evasions, but observe only, that he is obliged, from the
force of these words, “All that are in the graves shall come
forth,” to own, that all mankind shall arise; but yet he will
not own, that the distribution of them, who thus come forth,
into them “that have done good,” and into them “that have
done evil,” contains all, but some of them only, viz. such as
have had the gospel made known to them ; which is as great
an instance of a man, who shall say anything 80UAEffew into-
Séaft, to serve his hypothesis, as can be offered: for what in-
stance can be given through the scripture of a universal pro-
position distributed into two parts, in which the opposite
members do not contain the whole general P What is this,
in effect, but to allow the truth of this general proposition,
Omne animal est sensibile, “Every living creature is sensi-
ble,” and yet to deny the truth of this distribution, rôy 3è
aia Snröy rà ºfty Aoylwā, rà è? &Aoya, that “ of sensible crea-
tures, Some are rational, Šome irrational P” Let us see the
absurdity of it in some scripture instances: Matt. xxv. 32,
“The Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory and,
7ávra rā āśyn, all nations shall be gathered before him, and
he shall place rà way ºrgá8ara, the sheep on his right hand,
t& 3; gipta, but the goats on his left,” ver. 33: now, must
not here the sheep and the goats be equal to all nations 2
So again, Rom. ii. 6, God, saith the apostle, “will render
#xáarº, to every man according to his works, roſ; ºv, to
them who, by patience in well-doing, seek for glory, honour,
and incorruption, eternal life; roi; 38 # #618siac, but to those
that are contentious, and obey not the truth, tribulation:”
now, doth not this distribution, into the obedient and disobe-
dient, contain all that are comprehended in the general word,
“every man P” And doth not the apostle interpret the
words so, ver. 9, 10, by saying, Émi Trāa'ay juxāy, “Upon
every soul of man that worketh evil shall be tribulation ;”
and Trávri ră ăçyaćopaty” rô &yaşov, “to every one that work-
eth good, glory, honour, and peace?”
* Ver. 30. As I hear, kºivo, I judge.] i. e. I pronounce
sentence according to the will of my Father ; for xgiºca and
xgiri, is a sentence; so 8xãa pnºwo; ºpſaic is “a blasphemous
accusation,” or sentence, 2 Pet. ii. 11, keipza Savátov, “the
sentence of death,” Luke xxiv. 20, xeipºa rāg Trögync, “the
sentence upon the whore,” Rev. xvii. 1; and agiya, “I give
sentence;” so pS㺠#xgºvac, Luke vii. 43, “Thou hast
judged,” or given sentence aright: “Out of thy mouth,
xplyā; als, will I pronounce sentence upon thee,” Luke xix.
22 (see Matt. vii. 1, 2. John vii. 24. viii. 15. Acts xv. 19.
Rom. ii. l. 3. iii. 4, 6, 7. Ps. li. 4).
* Ver. 31. If I bear witness of myself (only), my witness
is not true :] i. e. Say most interpreters, it is not valid, the
law requiring two witnesses. But to bear witness of him-
self here, is to declare himself a prophet without attestation
from God, as the false prophets did ; and had Christ done
this, he must have been like them, and so his testimony
would have been false; God never sending any prophet to
* * Mr. Dodwell.
2 A
354
JOHN.
32 There is "another that beareth witness of me
(to wit, John the Baptist) ; and I know that the witness
which he (being a prophet) witnesseth of me is true;
(ye also have heard his testimony, for)
33 Ye sent unto John (i. 22, 23), and he bare wit-
mess to the truth (iii. 29, 30).
34 But (I appeal not to his testimony for my own
sake, but for yours : for) I receive not testimony from
man: but these things I say, that *ye (believing his
testimony) might be saved.
35 He was a burning and a shining light (as Elias
is by you represented, Ecclus. xlviii. 1, his word being
clear and powerful); and ye were willing for a *sea-
son to rejoice in his light, (owning him as a prophet,
and a just man ; and therefore I insist upon his testi-
ºnomy, as hoping it may have some influence upon you,
to work that faith in you, by which you shall be saved,
John x. 41.)
36 But I have a greater witness than that of John :
for the works which * the Father hath given me to
finish, the same works that I do (by his power resid-
ing in me), bear witness of me, that the Father hath
Sent me.
37 **And the Father himself, which hath sent me,
hath borne witness of me, (by a voice from heaven,
saying, This is my beloved Son ; and by the descent of
the Holy Ghost upon me, in the Shechinah, or bright
light, which is the symbol of his presence ; but on this
I insist not, for) ye have neither heard his voice at
any time, nor seen his shape (Ezeki. 28, the likeness
of the glory of God).
38 And (as ye have not known his will this way, so
neither will ye do it by his revealed will ; for) ye have
not his word abiding in you : for whom he hath sent,
...; ye believe not (as his word would induce you
to do).
39 °Search the scriptures; for in them ye think
ye have (the words of) eternal life: and they are they
which testify of me.
40 And (yet) ye will not (by them be persuaded to)
*come to me (i.e. believe in me), that ye might have
(the) life (I promise to them that believe in me.
41 And yet ye have no reason to disbelieve me : for)
I receive not honour from men (I do nothing from
desire of their applause, but purely for the honour of
God, and out of love to him, and so act not like a false,
but a true prophet).
42 But (this I cannot say of you ; for) I know you,
that you have not the love of God in you.
43 I am come in my Father’s name (i. e. with his
authority and testimony), and ye receive me not (i. e.
ye do not own me as the promised Messiah); another
shall ” come in his own name, (without any evidence
of divine authority, even Barchochebas, and) him ye
will receive (as such.
44 And indeed) how *can ye believe, who (strive to)
receive honour (and glory) one of another, and seek
not (rather) the honour that cometh from (the appro-
bation of) God only
45 Do not think that I will accuse you to the Fa-
ther; (I shall not need to do it ; for) there is one that
accuseth you (to him), even Moses, in whom you trust,
(that, by obedience to his law, you shall have life, ver.
39). e
46 For had ye believed (the words of) Moses, ye
would have believed me: for "he wrote of me, (say-
ing, I will raise up a prophet like unto thee, and I will
put my words in his mouth, Deut. xviii. 18.)
47 But if ye believe *not his writings (whom you
own as a great prophet sent from God), how shall you
believe my words (when you have no such opinion of
me, or respect for me) {
#. without sufficient testimonies, that he was sent from
MIIIl.
* Ver, 32. There is another that beareth witness of me.]
viz. Whom ye counted as a prophet (Matt. xiv. 5. xxi. 26),
and, upon that account, received his baptism : now, accord-
ing to your own rules, “he is to be owned as a prophet, to
whom a prophet gives his testimony.”
* Ver. 34. But I spake these things, that ye might be
saved.] Hence it is evident, that Christ seriously willed
and intended the salvation of them, who “would not come
to him that they might have life” (ver. 40), and therefore
were not actually saved.
* Ver. 35. For a season ye rejoiced in his light.] He
was a burning light, saith Christ here ; “His word burned
as a lamp,” saith the son of Sirach, Ecclus. xlviii. 1, and yet
in this light they rejoiced but for a season; for when he had
freely given testimony to Christ, and reproved their vices,
they * him, and said, “he had a devil” (Luke vii.
30. 33).
* Ver., 36. The work which my Father hath given me to
do, &c.] He saith not, “Which I do,” but “Which the Fa-
ther hath given me to do ;” so Woltzogenius: and yet the
following words are & #y& Trotă, “which I do.” He therefore
here declares, that he had sufficient testimony of his mission
from the works done by him through the Father dwelling in
him (Matt. xii. 28), and that the Father had given him to
do them, by giving him his Spirit and his power, together
with his essence (John iii. 34, 35. xiv. 10).
* Ver. 37. And the Father that sent me, beareth witness
of me. You have neither heard his voice, nor seen his
shape.] As in the paraphrase; or thus, Nor are you to ex-
pect the Father should testify of me otherwise than by his
works: for that which was granted to your fathers belongs
not to you, viz. to see his glory, and hear his voice out of
the middle of the fire, Deut. v. 24, so that he cannot now
be otherwise seen than by his works.
* Wer. 39. 'Egevy&re rà: ypa påg, Search..] Or, “Ye search
the scriptures.” Which of these two senses the Greek bears,
I will not contend : only note, (1.) that Origen, Philoc. cap.
1 et cap. 5, Chrysostom, hom. 24 et 37, in Genesin, and
St. Austin, in Ps. cwiii. col. 1269, and Epist. 80, col. 365,
confirm our version: note, (2.) that if the Jews did truly
think the doctrine of life eternal was contained there, and
that they, by searching, might find it there, it must be to
them a sufficient rule of faith: if in this they erred, it be-
hoved Christ to correct in them an error so pernicious.
24 Ver. 40. Ye will not come to me..] i. e. After the clear
testimonies which the prophecies and characters of the Mes:
siah in the Old Testament afford, that “I am he,” ye will
not believe in me, which shows your infidelity is the result,
not of simple ignorance, but of wilful obstinacy. º
25 Wer. 43. Another shall come in his own name.] With-
out commission or testimony from God: so did Barchoche-
bas, working no miracles. Many of the fathers thought
antichrist was here meant. { -
26 Wer. 44. How can ye believe, who seek honour one of
another ?] And so cannot bear the reproach of the phari-
sees, and the chief of the Jews, or endure the infamy or
being cast out of the synagogue, which is the sentence they
have passed upon all that shall believe in me (xii. 42, 43),
till you prefer the approbation of God before that of man, it
is not to be expected ye should do it. & © tº
27 Ver, 46. For he wrote of me..] viz. Deut. xviii. 17–19.
Hence it follows, that those words of Moses are not pri-
marily to be understood of a succession of prophets, but
of a single person, even Christ; for “a prophet,” saith he,
“shall the Lord raise up to you like to me:” whereas no
other prophet rose up to them like to Moses (Deut. xxxiv.
10), besides Christ (see the bishop of Ely on that place).
38 Ver, 47. If ye believe not Moses.] For whom you pre-
tend so great respect. Their pretences for not believing in
Christ, were these two—their love to God, and reverence for
the law of Moses: Christ proves they could have no true
love to God, ver. 42, nor faith in Moses, ver, 46, for this very
reason, that they believe not on him.
CHAPTER VI.
1 * AFTER these things Jesus went over the sea of
Calilee, which is (also named), the sea of Tiberias.
2 And a great multitude followed him, because they
saw his miracles, which he did upon them that were
diseased (and because some of them also needed healing,
Luke ix. 11).
3 And Jesus *went up into a mountain, and there
he sat with his disciples.
4 And the passover, (which was) a feast of the Jews
(which all their males were bound to celebrate at Jeru-
salem), was nigh (to which the people were therefore
hastening). t
5. When Jesus then lifted up his eyes, and saw a
great company come to him, he saith to Philip, Whence
shall we buy bread, that (all) these may eat? .
6 And this he said to prove him (who was slow of
faith, xiv. 9), for he himself knew what he would do.
7 Philip answered him, Two hundred pennyworth
of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of
them may take a little.
8 (Then the disciples desiring him to send the multi-
tude away, that they might go into the villages, and buy
themselves bread; and Christ answering, that they
should give them to eat; and they inquiring, how they
should do this P. He asks them also, How many loaves
have you ? Mark vi. 36, 37.) One of his disciples,
(to wit) Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, saith to him,
9 There is a lad here, who hath five barley-loaves,
and two small fishes; but what are they among so
Imany -
10 And Jesus said, Make the men sit down. Now
there was much grass in the place. So the men sat
down, in number about five thousand.
11 And Jesus took the loaves; and when he had
given thanks, he distributed (of them) to the disciples,
and the disciples to them that were sat down; and
likewise of the fishes (both which were so miraculously
increased as they went through his hands, that every
one of that great company did eat) as much as they
would. -
12 (And) when they were filled, he said to his dis-
ciples,” Gather up the fragments that remain, that no-
thing (of God’s good creatures) be lost. -
13 Therefore they gathered them together, and (to
evidence the truth and greatness of the miracle) filled
twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley-
loaves, which remained over and above to them that
had eaten.
14 Then these men, when they had seen the mira-
cle, which Jesus did (resembling that of Moses, who fed
them with manna in the wilderness; and knowing he had
told them, that God would raise them up a Prophet of
their brethren like to him), said, This is of a truth.that
Prophet which should come into the world: (and
having got a false notion that their Messiah was to be
a temporal king; they, finding him so able to supply
; with provisions, were minded to set him up for their
ing.)
15 When Jesus therefore ‘perceived that they would
come and take him by force, to make him a king, he
(first sent away his own disciples, to whom he knew that
motion would not be unacceptable, and then dispersed
the multitude, Markvi. 46, and so) departed again into
a mountain himself alone.
16 And when even was now come, his disciples
went down unto the sea,
17 And entered into a ship, and "went over the sea
towards Capernaum. And it was now dark, and Jesus
was not come to them.
18 And the sea arose (and was t
son of a great wind that blew.
19 So when they had rowed about “five-and-twenty
or thirty furlongs (about the fourth watch of the night,
Mark vi. 48,) they see Jesus walking on the sea, and
drawing nigh to the ship: and (taking him for an ap-
parition, ver. 49) they were afraid,
20 But he said to them, It is I; be not afraid.
21 Then they 7 willingly received him into the ship
(believing that then all things would go well with them) :
and immediately the ship was at the land whither they
Went : -
22 The day following, when “the people, which
stood on the other side of the sea, saw that (last night)
there was no other boat there, save that one where-
into his disciples were entered, and that Jesus went
not with his disciples into the boat, but that his disci-
ples were gone away alone; -
23 (Howbeit there came other boats (afterward) from
Tiberias (which in the morning were found) migh to the
place where they did eat bread, after that the Lord
had given thanks;)
24. When the people therefore saw that Jesus was
not there, neither his disciples, they also took shipping
(in those boats), and came to Capernaum (his usual
habitation), seeking for Jesus (there).
25 And when they had found him on the other
empestuous) by rea-
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VI.
* Wer. 1. After these things.] Related in the former
chapter ; i. e. the year following (for he healed the man at
the pool of Bethesda at the passover, saith Dr. Lightfoot,
and fed the Jews with the five loaves the following passover,
ver. 4), “he went over the sea to Galilee” (see the note on
Matt. xiv. 13).
* Wer. 3. He went up into a mountain..] When Jesus
went out of the ship, he saw the multitude come to the
place (Matt. xiv. 14): but it was only when he sat down
upon the mountain that he saw them come to him.
* Ver. 12. Gather the fragments, that nothing be lost.]
That, by the nature of the bread remaining, it might appear,
that there was no illusion in the miracle ; and, by the com-
mand to save this bread, it appears, it is not simply unlawful
to save anything till the morrow ; but only to be anxious
for the morrow, Matt. vi. 14 (see Examen Millii).
* Wr. 15. Christ therefore knowing that they would come
and make him a king.] He knew this, Saith Stegmannus,
by that Spirit and divine virtue, by which he was able to
discern the secrets of men's hearts, and, knowing this, he
would not be made a king, because his kingdom was not of
this world (xviii. 38).
5 Ver. 17. They went over the sea to Capernaum.] Into
the land of Gennesaret, Matt. xiv. 34, they went over Trºs
Bega-aſsºv, “towards Bethsaida,” Mark vi. 45.....The desert
of Bethsaida lying on the side of the Sea of Galilee opposite
to the city, they first crossed over that sea towards the city,
and then sailed on along that sea to Capernaum, which
was in the region Gennesaret (see Dr. Lightfoot's map,
p. 308). * - -
& ver, 19. About five and twenty or thirty furlongs.] In
matters of so small importance, the Spirit of God did not
think it necessary to suggest the exact measure tº them.
7 ver, 21. "Hºxey, They were willing to take him into the
ship.] Though Peter first walked to him on the sea, and
then they came both into the ship (Matt. xi. 30).
Šver, 22. The multitude which stood on the other side ºf
the sea..] For though Christ then sent them away (Matt.
xiv. 43), they might return again the next * 2
356
JOHN.
side of the sea, they said to him,” Rabbi, (thou wentest
not last night with thy disciples, nor saw we thee this
morning where last night we left thee), when (therefore)
camest thou hither?
26 (But) Jesus (without satisfying their curiosity in
this matter) answered them and said, Verily, verily, I
say to you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the mira-
cles (as being so convinced by them as to hear and to
obey my doctrine, from a desire to obtain by it eternal
life, as ye should do), but because ye did eat of the
loaves, and were filled (and eaſpect the like benefit again:
and therefore I say to you), -
27 * Labour. not for the meat that perisheth, but
for that meat which endureth to eternal life, which
(if you believe in him) the Son of man shall give to
you; for him hath God the Father sealed (i.e. hath
shown that he hath authorized him to do this; and by
giving him this miraculous power to feed your bodies,
hath fully testified he is the person by him appointed to
convey these blessings to the souls of men).
28 Then said they to him, What shall we do, that
9 Wer. 25. Rabbi, when camest thou hither ?] It was
usual with Christ to answer nothing to curious questions,
not tending to edification, but to divert them from them to
more profitable subjects (so Luke xiii. 23, 24. John xii. 34,
35).
* Wer. 27. Labour not for the meat which perisheth.j
The Massalian heretics, say Chrysostom and Theophylact,
abused these words, to prove it was not lawful for them to
work to sustain this present life : by which doctrine, saith
Chrysostom, they do ŠNow 8tagáNAEiy roy Xgiariavtapºv, “wholly
subvert Christianity,” commanding Christians to “work with
their hands that which is good” (Eph. iv. 28), “to do their
own business, and to work with their hands” (1 Thess. iv.
11); and he confutes them with the example of St. Paul,
“labouring with his own hands night and day” (Acts xviii.
3. xx. 34. 1 Thess. ii. 2. 2 Thess. iii. 8), and of the other
apostles (1 Cor. iv. 12). These words are therefore to be
taken not absolutely, but comparatively; i. e. Do not chiefly
and primarily labour for the meat that perisheth ; but let
your regard for that meat which nourisheth to eternal life,
be so great, as that your concern for perishing enjoyments
shall be comparatively as nothing: in which sense only we
are bid not to take thought for food and raiment (Matt. vi.
28. 31), not to fear them who can kill the body (Matt. x.
28), not to seek earthly things (Col. iii. 2).
But chiefly here observe, that whereas Christ, in this
whole chapter, speaks of believing in him, and in his salu-
tary passion, and of receiving his doctrine, under the meta-
phor of meat and drink, he doth this by a metaphor very
familiar to the eastern nations, and frequent in the Jewish
writers ; thus Wisdom “crieth in the streets, Come, eat of
my bread, and drink of the wine that I have mingled,”
Prov. ix. 5, that is, “Go in the way of understanding,” ver.
6, “Eat you that which is good, and let your soul delight
itself in fatness,” Isa. lv. 2, that is, “Hear, and your soul
shall live,” ver. 3. Thus doth the son of Sirach introduce
Wisdom, saying, “They that eat me shall yet be hungry,
and they that drink me shall yet be thirsty,” Ecclus. xxiv.
21, i. e. they that obey me (ver. 22). Hence Philo” often
speaks of prudence, wisdom, virtue, as the food of the soul,
or that spiritual meat and drink which nourisheth to life
eternal. So to eat of “every tree in paradise” is, saith he,
“an exhortation, råy puzăy ºv &nrô wagºy rºy &pgrów & psatia-
Sai, that the soul should receive advantage by all virtues.
The soul,” saith he, “is nourished with knowledge, not with
meat and drink; for the scripture testifies,’ 3rt of yºyo. 3xx’
oiséviot ai lux; tºo pai, that the food of the soul is not earthly
but heavenly, by saying, I rain down bread from heaven;”
and this principle, “that God is the beginning and the end
of all things, brings forth piety,” xáxxia row zai ºrpopigºrarcy
xagºrčy, which is the best and most nourishing food.” And
* Lib. de Leg. Alleg p. 44, E, F, G.
+ Lib. ii. de Alleg. p. 64, B. 69, B, C.
we might work the works of God (We have already
the law of Moses, and know what God requires by that
law: what farther duties, or what more pleasing to him,
canst thou instruct us to perform 8')
29 Jesus answered and said to them, This is the
work (most acceptable in the sight) of God, that ye be-
lieve on him whom he hath sent.
30 They said therefore to him, What sign showest
thou then (greater than Moses hath done), that we
may see (it), and believe thee P What dost thou work
(above what Moses did 8
31 Thou hast indeed fed us one day in a desert, but)
our fathers did eat manna in the desert (through which
Moses led them) forty years (and that was heavenly
food); as it is written (Ps. lxxviii. 25), He gave them
*bread from heaven to eat, (and so they had by Moses
a sign from heaven of his commission : such a one
would we see from thee, Mark viii. 11.)
32 Then Jesus said to them, Verily, verily, I say
to you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven
(which I erhort you to labour for, and of which the
the Talmudists’t say, that “all eating and drinking, men-
tioned in the book of Ecclesiastes, relates to the law and
good works;” and that their wise men are that “staff of
bread,” of which Solomon saith, “Come, eat of my bread”
(see ver, 32). So that the sense of these words is this, La-
bour by faith in me, and embracing my doctrine, to obtain
that eternal life, which the Son of God will give to you ; for
he is to be lifted up upon the cross, “that every one that be-
lieveth in him might not perish, but have everlasting life”
(iii. 16, 17), and “him hath God the Father sealed,” i.e. he
hath by his authority commissioned, and by his testimony
owned him to be that Prophet and Messiah, from whom all,
blessings are to be expected ; and, by anointing him with
his Spirit above measure, hath, as it were, set his seal in con-
firmation of his message ; so that you may be sure the life
he promises, in his Father's name, shall be given you: so
Christ expounds himself, ver. 29, saying, “This is the work
of God, that ye believe in him whom he hath sent,” i. e.
this is that which he commands, and which is highly accept-
able to him; so “the sacrifices of God are a broken and a con-
trite heart,” Ps. li. 17, i. e. these are the most acceptable sa-
crifices to him ; and “the righteousness of God” (Rom. i.
17. 2 Cor. v. 21), is that righteousness, which he alone ac-
cepts.
* Wer. 31, 32. He gave them bread from heaven: Moses
gave them not that bread from heaven, &c.] That we may
the better understand what Christ here saith of himself, as
the “true bread coming down from heaven, that they might
eat of it, and live ;” note,
First, From what hath been observed on ver. 27, that;
among the orientals and Jewish writers, t to eat Éart rô
qaysīy a ſºfloxov tºo pā; Juxxãº, “is used as a symbol of the
food of the soul ;” because the soul, saith Philo,S “is nou-
rished by receiving and practising good things ;” and “wis-
dom, temperance, and piety, are lux; reopai rā; Sn Ná'ely
inavāz, the food of a soul that can suck them in.”
Secondly, They say, that divine wisdom was this meat and
drink of the soul, according to that exhortation of wisdom,
Prov. ix. 5, “Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine
that I have mingled.” Thus Philoſ saith of the ascetic em-
ployed in divine contemplations, into Osoſ; "rorićetat ºxxtarov
Trároy, copiay, “God gives him to drink of the best drink,
wisdom, even from the fountain of his own wisdom.” Ac-
cordingly Christ, the wisdom of the Father, saith, “He that
drinketh of the water which I shall give him, shall never
thirst,” John iv. 14. vii. 38, 39 (see ver. 35).
Thirdly, They add, that this meat and drink comes down
* De Plant. Noa, p. 175, E. Wide de Cherub. p. 94, E.
Et resipuit Noa, p. 216.
+ Midrash Coheleth, f. 88, 4. Hagigah, f. 14, 1. Maim.
More Nev. lib. i. cap. 30.
j. De Legis Alleg. p. 44, E.
§ L. Quod deter. p. 137, A.
| Lib. iii. de Leg. Alleg. p. 153.
CHAPTER VI.
357.
manna only was a type); but my Father (now) giveth
you the true bread from heaven.
33 For * the bread of God (of which you spiritually
are to eat) is he that cometh down from heaven, and
giveth (not a fading life, as manna did to the Jews,
but everlasting) life to the (whole) world.
34 Then said they to him, Lord, evermore give us
this bread (which will preserve our lives ; still think-
ing that he only spake of this present life).
35 And (then) Jesus said to them, I am the bread
of life: he that * cometh to me shall never hunger;
and he that believethin me shall never thirst (he being,
by that faith, united to me, who am the life, xiv. 6, and
partaking of that Spirit, which will be in him as a well
of water springing up to eternal life, iv. 14. vii. 38, and
so shall need no more to hunger or thirst after it).
36 But I said to you, That ye also have seen me
(doing works sufficient to convince you of the truth of
what I say), and (yet) believe (me) not ; (and I shall
jind still cause to say so to men so worldly-minded, and
prejudiced against the truth.
37 But though it be thus with you), *all that the
from heaven, and prove this from the words here cited by
our Lord. So Philo” proves, that God only gives heavenly
blessings, from those words of Moses, “I rain down bread
from heaven ; for what food,” saith he, “can be rained
down from thence, §rt ºf rºw oigáviov cropiav, but heavenly
wisdom, which he sends down upon the soul desirous of it,
who hath the fulness and abundance of it in himself?”
Fourthly, They declare, that this meat and drink is there-
fore to be preferred to corporeal food, because it nourisheth
to eternal life, or renders them immortal, who partake of it.
So Philo saith, that the “wisdom of God is the nurse and
nourisher, räy & p3&gtov Blairn; #4 tºpºvoy, of those that de-
sire incorruptible diet.” He adds, that “seeking what was
the food of the soul, they found it was the Word of God,
if kai São, Aéyoc, and the divine Word, ép' of Trácal traišiai,
xa: a opiat #ova w śvyaoi, from whom all eternal wisdom and
instruction flow, and that this was the heavenly food of
which Moses said, I rain down bread from heaven ;” and
that this “wisdom of God gives to the soul that drinketh of
it, 3p, Erá8×nvoy tyielay, an unchangeable health.” And
even Pythagoras instructed parents to provide for their chil-
dren, not what would preserve the body to old age, but rà.
‘rāy buxºv SpéJavra &#8to reopſ, “what would nourish their
souls with eternal food” (Stob. Serm. 1, p. 3).
Lastly, They say, this meat and drink is the wisdom of
God, and the Word of God, signified to them by that manna
which fed the Jews, and by that rock which gave them
drink; thus Philoſ having said the wisdom of God was a
solid rock, which could not be broken, he adds, rºy ºrárpay
raúrny régoš, avyovuuiz Xºdgewog waxeſ ºvva röy ºrped 65tarov
ºrów Gyrov Aéyoy 98toy, “that Moses called this rock, which was
the most ancient of beings, the divine Word, by the synony-
mous name of manna; the good man,” saith he, “lifts up
his eyes to heaven, à poeāv rô Đºàwa, röy Seſov Aéyov rôy oëpá-
viov, the pixoSeapºyn, Juxic & pSagrov reophy, looking to the
manna, the divine and heavenly Word, the incorruptible
food of the soul, which loves God.” Ainsworth "I also notes
from R. Isaac and R. Menahem, that manna signified “the
food of the just in the world to come,” and others, that it
was “a type of life eternal” (see Buxtorf's History of
Manna, p. 336, 339, 352). From which observations it is
easy to discern, why Christ here styles himself, “the bread
which came down from heaven, and gave life to the world,”
viz. because he was that spiritual bread prefigured by the
manna coming down from heaven; and why he saith, that
not Moses, but his Father, “gave them the true bread from
heaven,” viz. because he only, by sending his Son from hea-
ven, gave them that bread, which nourished to life eternal
(ver. 49–51); and, lastly, why he insists so much upon this
metaphor, viz. because it was familiar to the Jews, and used
by their most celebrated writers. ** *
Hence also we may see a probable reason why they de-
sire a sign, i. e. “a sign from heaven” (Matt. xii. 38. Mark
viii. 11), and do it for this reason, that their fathers “did
eat bread from heaven” (ver. 30, 31); viz. they do it seek-
ing an experiment, whether he was the Messiah, or not,
they being used to say, * that “as their first Redeemer
made manna descend from heaven for them, so should their
second Redeemer do;” and how appositely our Lord an-
swers, that what they desired was already done, by his
* De Nom. Mut. p. 839, F.
+ L. quod deter. p. 137, A.
§ Lib. iii. Alleg. p. 853, A.
* On Exod, xvi. 14.
† De Profug. p. 367, A, B.
| L. quod deter. p. 137, C.
** Midr. Coheleth, f. 86, 4,
Father sending his Son, the true heavenly manna, to them.
** Ver. 33. For the bread o God is he that cometh down
from heaven, &c.] The oblations made to God are styled
in the Old Testament, “the bread of God,” though they
were sacrifices of living creatures, and by the Septuagint 8&pa.
Geoff, “the gifts of God,” Lev. xxi. 6.8, accordingly Christ
styles his piacular victim by the same name ; and whereas.
the Socinians say, Christ is here only said to “come down
from heaven,” not as being in heaven first, and then conde-
scending to dwell on earth, but only as every “good and
perfect gift” is said to “descend from above,” James i. 17,
I know not why the gifts of the Spirit, imparted then to be-
lievers by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, and being
gifts of illumination, may not be properly said to descend
from above, even from the “Father of lights.” That the
Jews understood him in a sense intimating hſs coming down
from heaven in a real sense, as from a place of his abode, ap-
pears from their murmuring at his words, on account of his
earthly parentage (ver. 41, 42), which yet they could have
had no cause to have done, had he meant this in such a
sense only, in which all their own prophets must be allowed
to come from heaven: moreover, thus even the Baptist
came down from heaven, his authority, commission, and doc-
trine, being from heaven (Matt. xxi. 25); and yet he maketh
this distinction betwixt himself and Christ, that he “was
from earth ;” but Christ was emphatically & #x roi; otpayou.
Hexºsyoc, “one coming from heaven.” Secondly, The anti-
thesis put here betwixt Christ and manna, and the declara-
tion, that Christ was that bread, which the psalmist says was
given them from heaven, shows the phrase must be used as
a true descent from heaven, that manna and bread, of which
the psalmist and Moses speak, coming down truly from the
clouds of heaven. And, Thirdly, This is farther evident from
Christ's question (ver. 62), “What if you shall see the Son
of man ascending where he was before,” i. e. to his Father 2
(xiv. 2) unless they will say, that, as his descent signified
his having his commission, wisdom, and power from heaven,
so his ascent signifies his deprivation of that commission,
wisdom, and power.
* Ver. 35. He that cometh to me shall not hunger.] See
note on iv. 14. * -
* Ver. 37. All that my Father giveth me shall come to
'me.] For explication of these words, let it be noted,
First, That to “believe in Christ,” and to “come to him,”
is the same thing; so John v. 38, “In him whom the Fa-
ther hath sent, ye believe not,” is, veſ. 40, “Ye will not
come to me that ye may have life:” so John vii. 37, “If
any man thirst, let him come to me and drink ;” and, to en-
courage them to embrace this invitation, he adds, “He that
cometh to me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living wa-
ter,” ver. 38; so ver. 35 of this chapter, “He that cometh
to me shall not hunger,” is the same with the following
words, “He that believeth in me shall not thirst:” So wher.
Christ had said, “Ye have seen me and have not believed,”
he adds this reason of their incredulity, “You come not to .
me, because you are not given of the Father;” and wer. 40,
saith, “He that cometh to me I will not cast forth : for this
is the will of my Father, that he, who hath seen the Son, and
believed in him, should have eternal life.” Note,
Secondly, That to be given of the Father cannot here
signify to be absolutely chosen by him to eternal life: for
then the Jews could not reasonably be accused for not
coming to Christ, or not believing in him, much less that
they would not believe or come to him ; seeing, upon this
supposition, that only they, whom God had absolutely,
g”
358
JOHN.
Father giveth me (i. e. all that he prevails on by the
miracles he works by me, and the doctrine he teacheth
me to deliver to the world, to judge of me as one sent
from him to propound the terms of life eternal) shall
come to me (i. e. embrace my doctrine, and believe in
me) ; and him that cometh (thus) to me I will in no
wise cast out (i.e. reject from that life).
38 For I came down from heaven, not to do my
own will, but the will of him that sent me.
39 And this is the Father’s will that hath sent me,
chosen to eternal life, could come to him, it was impossible
they should believe who were not thus elected, and so it
could not be imputed as their crime that they did not that
thing which it was impossible for them to do ; whereas it
is certain that our Saviour répresents it as their great sin,
that “in him whom the Father had sent, they believed not ”
(John v. 38), and that they “would not come unto him that
they might have life” (ver. 40), telling them, that the Spirit
would convince them of sin, because they believed not in
him " (John xvi. 9), and that they had “no excuse for that
sin" (John. xv. 22. 24): whereas what better excuse could
be made for them than this, that they could not come unto
him, as not being elected by God to that life he'offered, to
induce them so to do P
Christ could not rationally have invited them to come to
him, or called them to believe in him, who were not given
him by the Father : for this was to invite them to come to
him, that they might live, who, he well knew, could never
come, as being never chosen to obtain that life; much less
could he have told them, that this was the work which God
required them to do, or that the Father had “given them
this bread from heaven;” this being to require them, accord-
ing to this supppsition, to believe a lie, viz. that Christ was
sent to be “the bread of life,” and a Saviour to them for
whom the Father never did intend salvation by him ; and
yet Christ manifestly says to them, who, seeing him, did not
believe, and therefore were not given to him by the Father,
“Labour for that meat which nourisheth to life eternal,
which the Son of man shall give to you’’ (ver. 27), and
that “this is the work of God, that ye believe in him that
he hath sent” (ver. 29), and, “My Father giveth you the
true bread from heaven, even him that cometh down from
heaven, and giveth life (not to the elect only, but) to the
world” (ver. 32, 33). I therefore here inquire thus, Was
our Lord truly willing that those he speaks to should have
life 2 . If not, why doth he say, “These things I speak unto
you, that ye might be saved (John v. 34); but ye will not
come unto me, that ye might have life?” If so, why did
he say, that “he did always those things which pleased
him " (John viii. 29), and “could do nothing but what he
saw his Father doing?” seeing it was not the Father's will
that they should be saved, or come unto him, that they
might have life, whom he had not given to him, that is, had
not elected to salvation. Note,
Thirdly, That Christ here gives a reason why they be-
lieved not, viz, “You have seen, and yet believe not ; be-
cause ye are not given to me of my Father:” now it is
reasonable to conceive this reason should agree with all his
other reasons assigned of their infidelity, which yet are
manifestly founded, not on anything wanting on the part of
God, but on something wanting in themselves, that they
might do so, viz. - -
1. That they came not to the light, “because their works
were evil ;" and, being so, they “hated the light, and would
not come to it” (John iii. 19, 20); that they believed not in
him, “becaust, he spake the truth,” which was distasteful to
them (viii. 45).
2. Because “they had not the word of God abiding in
them,” nor believed God bearing witness to him, nor Moses
Speaking of him (John V. 38.46), and so, not being taught
of God, they would not learn.
3. Because they were not of God; “Ye therefore do
not hear his word, because ye are not of God” (John viii.
47), and because they “had not the love of God in them.”
(John v. 40.42). -
4. Because “they preferred the praise of men before the
praise of God,” not seeking that glory which cometh of
God only (John v. 44). -
5. Because they were “not of his sheep,” i. e. not docile
nor disposed to hear his voice; “Ye therefore believe not,
because ye are not of my sheep" (John x. 26).
6. Because, through the perverseness of their hearts, they
could not hear his word ; “Why do you not know my |
(2.) Hence it must follow, that
speech? even because ye cannot hear my word” (John viii.
43): and this they could not do, because “they were of
their father the devil,” and his works they would do. And
therefore, r
Fourthly, To be given of the Father, is, (1) to be con-
Vinced by the miracles which God had wrought by him, to
testify the truth of his mission, and thereby to set his seal
unto him, that he was the Messiah and the Son of God, and
to be willing, upon these testimonies, to own him as such ;
laying aside all those unreasonable prejudices and carnal
affections which obstructed their coming to him. This ap-
pears (1.) from the description which Christ gives of those
whom God had given him, viz. “They were thine, and thou
gavest them to me; and they know that I came from thee,
and they have believed that thou hast sent me” (John xvii.
6. 8): for this is spoken of Christ's disciples, of whom it is
so often said, “They saw his miracles, and believed on him”
(John ii. 11); by them they therefore knew that he came
forth from God, and so are said to be given him of God,
who, by these miracles, convinced them of this truth, and
so they believed that he had sent him. (2.) This appears
farther from these words, “There are some of you that be-
lieve not ; for Jesus knew from the beginning who they
were that believed not ” (sincerely), and saith, “Therefore
I said to you, No man can come unto me except it were
given him of my Father ” (ver. 64, 65): for these men had
not laid aside their prejudices against his words; they could
not believe that he came down from heaven who was the son
of Joseph (ver. 42); they murmured at his words, and were
scandalized (ver. 61); “they went away from him, and
walked no more after him ;” and therefore, through their
prejudices against his person and his doctrine, they could
not prevail with themselves to think that he came forth
from God ; and, upon that account, Christ here informs us
that he said, “No man can come unto me, unless it were
given him of the Father.” And (3.) this we may learn
from a like expression in the book of Deuteronomy, xxix.
2–4, “Ye have seen all the Lord did before your eyes in
the land of Egypt, the great temptations, signs, and mira-
cles which there he wrought ; yet the Lord hath not given
you a heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear,
unto this day, Rºl, and the Lord hath not given,” or rather,
“hath not the Lord given you?” Rºn being put for Rºn. So
Tº sºn “Shall not Ammon go with us?” 2 Sam. xiii. 26 :
Tºn ab R', “Went not my heart with thee P”2 Kings v. 26;
so also Job ii. 10. Mal. ii. 15. For here it is manifest, that
the way of God’s giving them a heart to perceive, was by
working those signs and miracles before their eyes which
might induce them so to do ; and yet, for want of this
improvement of them to this end, it is admired that “the
Lord hath not given them this heart,” or is imputed as
their great fault, that he had not given it ; i. e. that
after all he had done to produce it in them, they had
it not.
(2:) Christ being sent by God the Father, that the world
through him might be saved; and he having sent his Son to
propound to them that eternal life which “was with the
Father, and was manifested to us by his Son,” and to pro-
pose to us the terms on which this life might be obtained
(as Christ doth throughout this chapter); he is said to have
“given us eternal life, and that this life is in his Song”
1 John v. 11, and that this is his record concerning him,
and here, that “the Father had given him, the true bread
from heaven, that giveth life unto the world’’ (ver. 32, 33).
And they, who were so convinced of the truth of this pro-
mise by our Saviour's miracles, as to expect to receive it by
faith in him, and obedience to his doctrine, and so affected
with this promise of eternal life, as to esteem it above all
other things, and so were willing to apply themselves to
the performance of those duties which he required to obtain
it, and to reject and quit those things which might obstruct
them in the prosecution of it, are said to be “given to him
of the Father " because he wrought those Iniracles which
CHAPTER WI.
359
that of all that he hath given me I should lose no-
thing (i.e. should suffer none to perish, xvii. 12), but
should "raise it up again at the last day.
40 And this (also) is the * will of him that sent me,
that every one that seeth the Son (i. e. discerneth him
to be the prophet sent from God), and (therefore) be-
lieveth on him, may have everlasting life: and I (for
that end) will raise him up at the last day.
41 The Jews then murmured at him, because he
said, I am the bread which came down from heaven.
42 And they said (one to another), Is not this
Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother
we know? how is it then that he (being born of earthly
parents) saith, I came down from heaven?
gave them this conviction ; on which account, when Peter
had confessed that he was the Christ, Christ answered,
“Flesh and blood hath not revealed this to thee, but my
Father which is in heaven,” Matt. xvi. 17 (see thenote there);
and because he gave this promise of eternal life, and sent
his Son to reveal it to the world ; and therefore when he
saith to his apostles, whom the Father hath given him,
“Will ye also go away P” Simon Peter answers, ver. 68,
69, “Lord, to whom should we go, seeing thou hast the
words of eternal life P and we have believed, and know,
that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Now
it is evident, that all who have this strong conviction, that
our Saviour came from God, and this concernment for that
eternal life he promised, as the encouragement to come
to him, will believe on him ; because such persons can
neither want assurance that they ought to do so, nor
the most prevalent engagements so to do, as having that
eternal life before their eyes, which they more value than
all worldly things, and for which they are willing and pre-
pared to quit all their lower interests.
* Ver. 39. But I will raise it wg at the last day.] This
being said of all who are given to Christ by the Father, it
follows, that none of them shall rise till that day ; and it
being here said, they are to be raised to receive eternal life,
which life is only to be enjoyed in the heavens, it follows,
that none of them are to be raised to “reign with Christ a
thousand years.”
* Ver.,40. It is the will of him that sent me, that every
one that believeth in me should not perish, but have ever-
Aasting life.] Some hence infer, that every true believer must
persevere unto the end, since otherwise he cannot have this
life eternal.
But to this, and to all other promises and declarations of
a like nature, which engage, that God will give eternal life
to the believer, I answer, that nothing is more evident, than
that they can only be understood of such a faith as doth
“endure to the end * (Matt. xxiv. 13), and so includeth
perseverance in it : for either these promises are made to
temporary believers, and so to those who after fall away,
which is contrary to the tenor of the scripture, and makes
the promises of eternal life, and the threats of perdition,
belong to the same persons, viz. to them who, having lived
by faith, draw back (Heb. x. 38, 39); or else they depend
on this condition, that such men do continue in the faith,
according to those express words, “He hath reconciled us to
God, if we continue in the faith rooted and grounded, and
be not drawn away from the hope of the gospel,” Col. i.
21, 22; “We are Christ's household, if we hold our con-
fidence and rejoicing of hope firm to the end,” Heb. iii. 6,
and ver, 14, “We are made partakers of Christ, if we hold
the beginning of our confidence firm to the end ;” and then
it is demonstratively certain, that perseverance is included
in them, and made the condition on which the blessing
promised doth depend, and therefore cannot be proved from
them.
” Wer. 44. No man can come unto me, eacept the Father
which hath sent me draw him.] For explication of these
words, consider,
First, That to be drawn of God, cannot import our being
moved by any inward and irresistible impressions from God,
to believe in him: for then no man could come to Christ
without these irresistible impressions; and therefore none
could be blameworthy for not believing in him, because they
43 Jesus therefore answered and said to them,
Murmur not among yourselves (on the account of
these words ; for it is not want of truth in my words,
but want of affection to my doctrine, and due consider-
ation of the testimonies God hath given to it, that makes
Ayou thus murmur at and reject them.
44 And indeed) no man can come to me, except the
Father which hath sent me (by thus confirming my
testimony, and disposing you to prize and value that
eternal life I promise) * draw him (to believe and em-
brace my doctrine, and live according to it); and I
will raise him up at the last day (who is thus drawn
to believe and embrace it).
45 It is written in the prophets (That the kingdom
could not do it without powerful impression, which God was
not pleased to afford them ; nor could it be praiseworthy to
believe in him, because they only did so, when they could
not choose but do it, as being acted in so doing by a force
which they could not resist. And therefore,
Secondly, To be drawn of God, can only signify to be
persuaded and prevailed on so to do, by the consideration
of those mighty works, which God had done, to testify, that
Christ was the true Messiah, and that prophet which he had
Sent into the world ; to these Christ still appeals, as divine
testimonies concerning him, by saying, “The works which
my Father hath given me to do, bear witness of me,” x. 25,
by the consideration of them he persuades others to believe
in him, saying, “Believe in me for my works' sake,” John
xiv. 11, and upon this account he represents the unbelieving
Jews as inexcusable, that “he had done those works among
them which never man did,” xv. 22. 24, and all those works
are said to be recorded, that “men might believe that Jesus
is the Son of God; and, believing, might have life through
his name,” xx. 31, all which must convince us, that these
things were sufficient to draw men to Christ ; whence he
himself speaks thus, “When I am lifted up, I will draw all
men after me,” xii. 32, viz. by the power of myresurrection,by
which I shall so fully be demonstrated to be the Son of God,
by the mission of the Holy Ghost, to confirm my resurrec-
tion and the truth of my doctrine, by signs and wonders,
and powerful distributions of the Holy Ghost, as to be suffi-
clent to prevail with all men to believe in me; thought he
event showed, that all men were not actually drawn to him
by these means. Or, .
Thirdly, To be moved by the great promise of eternal
life to do it ; for wheresoever there is any lively sense of
that inestimable blessing, it strongly must engage us to use
the means by which we may obtain it, and so to come to
Christ, if from him only this blessing is to be expected ;
and this is a familiar sense of the word draw, both in the
scripture and in other writings: thus God is said to “draw
them by the cords of love,” Hos. xi. 4, who yet were “bent
to backsliding from him,” ver. 7, and men are said to be
“drawn away by their own lusts,” Jam. i. 14. For, saith
the poet, Trahit sua quemque voluptas, “Every man's plea-
sure draws him?” to a compliance with it. Thus say the
Jews,” “The master draws the scholar by his parables,” i. e.
incites him to learn ; and a man is driven by wine, and by
his pleasures ; and it is a celebrated saying among them,
that “a precept draws a precept, and a transgression draws
on a transgression,” i.e. one sin disposeth us to commit
another, and obedience to one precept to obey another:
and that we are only said to be “drawn" by the Father to
Christ, viz. by his miracles and divine instructions, is evi-
dent from the words following: as the proof of this, “It is
written, They shall be all taught of God; he therefore, who
hath heard of the Father,” i. e. perceived him speaking and
doing his mighty works by me, “ cometh to me.” Without
this drawing none can come to Christ; for none but God
can give this promise of eternal life to encourage us to do
so, and no power but that of God can work those miracles,
which proved his commission from God; and hence Christ
owns, that if he “had not done those miracles among
them,” they had had no sin of infidelity, John xv. 22. 24.
* Buxtorf, voce nº p. 484.
360
JOHN.
of the Messiah shall be set up), and (then) they shall
be all ” taught of God. Every one therefore that
hath heard (the Father speaking in and by me), and
hath learned of the Father (the truth of my doctrine),
cometh to me.
46 (This I say) not that any man hath seen the Fa-
ther (and so immediately is taught by him, this privi-
lege none can claim), save (but) he who is (the only-
begotten Son) of God, he (only) hath (thus) seen the
Father. -
47 (Being therefore thus alone acquainted with his
will,) Verily, verily, I say to you, He that believeth
in me hath (an assurance of) everlasting life.
48 (For) I am that bread of life, (of which, if a
man spiritually eat, he shall not die, ver, 50.)
49 Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness,
and (notwithstanding this they) are dead, (most of
them in their sins, and for their unbelief; and all of
them, because it could neither preserve life nor restore
it.)
to you, Except ye (by faith in my death) *eat the fles
50 This (bread of which I speak) is the bread
which cometh down from heaven, that a man may
eat thereof, and not die (for the punishment, but for
the abolition of sin, and then be raised to a state in
which he can die no more).
51 I am the living (or life-giving) bread which
came down from heaven: if any man eat of this
bread (though he die), he shall live (again) for ever
(by virtue of his eating of it); and the *bread that I
will give is my flesh, which I will give (up to the
death) for the life of the world, (that whosoever be-
lieveth in me thus dying for him may not perish, but
have everlasting life, iii. 16.)
52 The Jews therefore strove among themselves,
saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
53 Then Jesus said to them, Verily, verily, I .
of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you have no
life in you, (no spiritual life at present, nor any right
to life eternal).
* Wer. 45. It is written, iv ºrdſ; ºrpoq àraig, in the prophets.]
viz. Expressly, Isa. liv. 13, and in effect, Jer. xxxi. 33, 34,
in these words, “I will put my law in their hearts, and
write it in their inward parts, and they shall not teach every
man his neighbour, saying, Know the Lord ; for they shall
know me from the greatest unto the least.”
They shall be taught of God..] Isa. liv. 13. Thus we are
taught by his example; thus we are 38o3ièawrot, taught of
God to love one another: (2.) by his Spirit, that unction,
which taught the primitive Christians all things needful to be
known, 1 John ii. 27: (3.) by his word; so, saith Clemens
of Alexandria,” “are we taught of God:” and, lastly, by his
Son delivering the mind of God to us as his prophet, and so
giving us the knowledge of what he requires us to believe
and do, in order to salvation: and, secondly, confirming the
truth of what he thus delivered in his name, by miracles done
by the finger of God, and so setting his seal to the doctrine
taught. And of his teaching by God are these words to be
understood ; (1.) because the prophet Isaiah is there speak-
ing of the setting up the kingdom of Christ, and of the teach-
ing then promised. (2.) Thus is it that the Father draws
men to Christ, of which these words are made the proof: see
note on ver. 37. (3.) From the argument following, ver. 46,
That they were not to expect to be taught immediately by
the Father, as a scholar is taught by his master, seeing him
present, and hearing him speak, but only by him that had
seen the Father, and so spake, and did those things, which
he had seen of the Father (John iii, 12. viii. 28. xii. 50): so
that he who had seen him, had seen the Father (xiii. 9. 30),
It is also evident from these words, “It is written, They
shall all be taught of God,” that this teaching must be com-
mon to all the Jews ; but that is not true of God’s internal
and effectual teaching, but only of Christ's outward teaching.
(4.) From Christ's inference, Trá, ow, every man therefore, it
follows, 1. that to be taught of God, is not inwardly to be
by him, but only by hearing the doctrine of his Son: 2. that
not all that are thus taught will come to Christ, but they
only who have learnt of him.
* Wer. 51. And the bread which I will give is my
flesh, which I will give, &c.] Up to the death, to obtain
that eternal life, which was lost by the sin of Adam. Hence
it is evident, that Christ here speaks of faith in him, as suffer-
ing and shedding his blood for mankind, he being our propi-
tiation only “through faith in his blood,” Rom. iii. 25, and
we being “reconciled to God by his death,” Rom. v. 9, 10
(see here Examen Millii). .
2° Vér. 53, 54. Eaccept ye eat the flesh, and drink the
blood of the Son of man, you have no life in you..] To
prove that Christ, in this chapter, speaks not of oral and
sacramental eating, but only of doing this spiritually by faith
in his blood, I premise,
First, That nothing was more common among the eastern
nations than to use the metaphor of eating and drinking,
* @eoštěaxrot yap hast, isgå øyro, ye&ºwara ºraçã tº riº
ro; ©soú trai?svågsvor. Strom, i. p. 318, ii. 396, 397.
sºmsºmºsº
when they speak not of corporeal meat or drink, which was
to go into the month, but only of spiritual, to be fed on by
the soul, as hath been fully proved already, note on ver, 27.
31, 32. Thus Clemens of Alexandria, discoursing upon that
passage of St. Paul to the Corinthians, “I have fed you with
milk, and not with strong meat,” saith, that “milk is the
rudiments of faith,” or “the doctrine of the catechism, the
first nourishment of the soul ; strong meat a contemplation,
which makes us to discern the divine power and essence ;
oráčxs; at rat zai aiza toû Aéyov, these contemplations are
the flesh and blood of the Word: 38&aig yāg wai rāori; rot.
Seiou Aéyov h yyāori; Hari ră, Şsiac oiciaç, the meat and drink
of the divine Word is the knowledge of the divine essence ;”
and Irenaeus saith that Christ “taught the weak ºrgaśysiv xa:
Trively roy Aéyoy roi, Ogot, to eat and drink the divine Logos,”
lib. iv. cap. 74.
Secondly, That it is the same thing in this chapter, to
“eat of the bread which came down from heaven,” and to
believe in Christ, breaking the bread of life to us by his doc-
trine, and offering himself a sacrifice and oblation for us to
obtain that life; for when he had exhorted them to labour
for the meat that did not perish, he tells them, wer.
29, that this was to believe on him whom God had sent.
When he had told them, ver. 35, that he was the bread from
heaven, he immediately adds, “He that cometh to me shall
never hunger, and he that believeth in me shall never thirst.”
Having said that he was the “bread which cometh down
from heaven, and giveth life unto the world,” ver, 33, he con-
firms this expression, ver. 40, by these words, “This is the
will of my Father, that every one that seeth the Son, and
believeth on him, should have eternal life.” And again, ver.
47, 48, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth
on me hath everlasting life: I am that bread of life.”
Thirdly, Observe that, from these metaphors, our Lord
proceeds to that contained in these words objected by the
Roman doctors, ver. 51, “The bread which I will give is my
flesh, which I will give for the life of the world ;” that is, it
is my body, which I will give up unto death, that by it the
world may have life. The Jews, taking these words in a
gross sense, as if our Lord had promised to give his real flesh
to be swallowed down their throats, and eaten by them, as
they had eaten bread the day before, and as their forefathers
had eaten manna in the wilderness, exclaiming against him,
as promising a thing absurd, inhuman, and impossible, Say-
ing, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” to this
our Saviour answers, ver. 53, in words still more expressive
of his violent and bloody death for the salvation of mankind,
viz. “Except you eat my flesh, and drink my blood,” &c.
Now these words are by some conceived to import thus
much ; Unless you, with the mouth of your bodies, do eat
my real and corporeal flesh, and drink my proper blood, you
cannot have eternal life. Against this sense I argue,
First, from ver. 51, thus, “The flesh,” which Christ here
promised to “give for the life of the world,” is the same with
the “bread that cometh down from heaven ;” if any man
“eat of this bread, he shall live for ever,” saith Christ; and
CHAPTER VI.
361.
* 54 But) whoso eateth (thus) my flesh, and drinkoth life; and I will raise him up at the last day (to enjoy
my blood, hath (by that faith, an interest in) eternal
“the bread which I will give is my flesh, that I will give for
the life of the world.” And again, having said, “He that
eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life’’
(ver. 54), and “he that eateth me shall live by me?’
(ver. 57), he adds immediately, “This is the bread which
came down from heaven ;” and “he that eateth of this bread
shall live for ever.” Now our Lord hath expressly taught
us, that eating of this bread of life imported only our believ-
ing in him (ver. 35), as hath already been made evident from
our second observation; therefore, the eating of his flesh
doth certainly import the same spiritual action. Moreover,
we are only to eat of Christ's flesh, in that import of the
phrase in which we are to eat of Christ as bread: for, as
Christ saith, he “will give flesh to eat ;" So doth he say, he’
“will give bread to eat;” as he saith, “He that eateth my
flesh shall live for ever;” so he saith, “He that eateth of
this bread shall live for ever;” but none could say, that
Christ was, or could properly be, bread, or eaten by the
mouth as such ; wherefore he, being only figuratively and
spiritually bread, could only figuratively and spiritually be
to be eaten as such. If therefore in the same importance
only we are to eat his flesh, that also is to be eaten in a
spiritual sense. *:
Secondly, From these words, ver. 52, “How can this
:aan give us flesh to eat P” it is evident the Jews conceived
that our Lord promised to give them his proper flesh to eat,
and swallow down their throats, as they had done the bread
with which he fed them; and it on all hands is agreed, that
they mistook the sense of Christ's words, and fancied such a
meaning of them as he did not intend ; but had our Lord
intended the corporeal eating of his flesh, and drinking of
his blood, it is certain that it must be swallowed down their
throats as properly as the bread which they had eaten ; and
therefore no man, who maintaineth this corporeal eating of
Christ's flesh to be intended here, can, suitably to his opin-
ion, say, that they imposed a false sense upon our Saviour's
words, since, from this sense it doth inevitably follow, that
Christ intended that his human flesh should properly be
eaten ; and their words signify no more. Add to this one
consideration, which shows what apprehensions the fathers of
the first three centuries had of this eating of the flesh of
Christ, viz. when it was objected to them by the heathens,
that they did eat man's flesh, they constantly, in their apo-
logies, reject the accusation as the vilest calumny, and as a
most abominable thing, sufficient to discover the author of
such an accusation must be some wicked demon. See this
fully proved, note on Matt. xxvi. 26. tº-
Thirdly, The fifty-third verse affords two farther arguments
in refutation of the corporeal sense of these expressions :
(1.) That it follows plainly from it, that the thief upon the
cross, and all the pious and believing Jews who heard these
words, and died before our Saviour's passion, must, of ne-
cessity, be damned: for our Lord saith, with an asseveration,
to them, “Except you eat the flesh,” &c. Now this was
said at the passover then instant, ver. 4, and so at least above
a year before our Saviour's passion, and so before the institu-
tion of that Sacrament, in which alone his flesh could be
corporeally eaten; and therefore, had it been intended of
corporeal and Sacramental eating, it was impossible that any
person of those hearers could be saved, who died in the en-
suing year. (2.) These words, interpreted in the corporeal
sense, do plainly and inevitably infer, that they who do de-
prive the laity, all their whole lives, of drinking of this
blood, expose them to inevitable damnation; Christ having
said, “Except you drink the blood of the Son of man, you
have no life in you.” For though eating and drinking, being
taken figuratively, do signify the same thing, viz. believing
in a crucified Saviour, yet, being taken properly, they cannot
be reputed the same thing. For albeit they who receive
the body only, may be well said to eat the flesh of Christ,
because they take something by way of meat into their
mouths; yet cannot they be said to drink his blood, if they
take nothing into their mouths by way of drink. Since
therefore eating and drinking are two distinct actions, so that
he cannot be properly said to drink who only eats; since the
privation of life is here connected with not drinking of
it).
Christ's blood, as much as with not eating of his flesh, ac-
cording to the corporeal interpretation of these words; he
must certainly be deprived of the life here promised, who
doth not receive the cup, because he is deprived of drinking
of the blood of Christ.
Fourthly, From ver. 54, 56, the argument runs thus;
Whosoever eateth the flesh and drinketh the blood of Christ
in the sense here spoken of, abideth in Christ, and Christ in
him; and therefore is a true and living member of Christ's
body, and he shall have eternal life, and be partaker of a hap-
py resurrection; and so no person can either be wicked here,
or deprived of everlasting life hereafter, who in this sense
here mentioned eats of the flesh and drinketh of the blood
of Christ. Now this is very true of eating spiritually and
by faith, as it imports believing in Christ. For “this,” saith
Christ, “is the will of him that sent me, that every one who
believeth on the Son may have everlasting life, and I will
raise him up at the last day ;” but then of sacramental eat-
ing of Christ's flesh, it is as false; for this was eaten by a Ju-
das, and continually is eaten by millions, who are both wicked
here, and will be damned hereafter : this therefore cannot be
the import of our Saviour’s words. And here observe, (1.)
that our Lord speaks in the general, “Whosoever eats.” §3
That he speaks thus, not by way of promise, which might be
conditional, but by way of plain assertion, and declaration
of a thing most certain. And, (3.) that the text shows the
eating mentioned here can never be performed unprofitably,
no, not without the greatest benefit; for it is opposed to eat-
ing manna in the wilderness on this account, that whereas
that only gave a temporal life, this would assuredly confer
eternal; whereas that was not able to preserve from temporal
this would preserve from death eternal.
Fifthly, Moreover, wer. 61 and 62, our Lord speaks thus,
“Doth this offend you ? What if you should see the Son
of man ascend up where he was before ?” i. e. Are you of
fended that I thus speak of giving you my flesh to eat? Do
you look on this expression now as so absurd and unintelli-
gible? What then will you think of it, when this body
shall be removed hence to heaven P i. e. How will you then
be scandalized, and think it still more difficult, and more im-
possible to apprehend how you shall eat my flesh and drink
my blood, provided you go on to understand my words in the
gross carnal sense P For Athanasius” saith well, that Christ
here mentioneth his ascent into heaven, Wa rā; awkwarix?ic
#woia; atrob; 3 peakijan, “that he might divert them from the
corporeal sense;” and therefore argued thus: Seeing it will
be then impossible, that you should corporeally eat my flesh,
when it is so far removed from you, by this you may discern
I speak of a spiritual eating of it. Whence by the way we
learn, that Christ thought his ascension into heaven a suffi-
cient demonstration to the Jews, that his flesh could not be
eaten upon earth; and why it should not be so to the Chris-
tians, I am yet to learn. .
Sixthly, The sixty-third verse affords us a more plain and
certain exposition of our Saviour's meaning in the precedent
words; for thus it runs. “It is the Spirit that quickeneth ;
the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you,
they are spirit, and they are life:” for the import of these
words is to this effect: To that eating and drinking, of which,
in this discourse, I have still spoken, I have annexed the pro-
mise of life, saying expressly, “He that eateth me shall live
by me;” he shall by me be quickened, i.e. be raised up to
life eternal: and that he abideth in me by that Spirit, which
quickeneth our mortal bodies (Rom. viii. 11), so that my
words are spirit and life, as being the means of obtaining the
Spirit, and by him this life; to which effects my flesh, if
you could eat it, would profit you nothing. Had our Lord
said, It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth, no;
thing; therefore the flesh, which I will give, shall be joined
to my divinity, and, by the virtue of it, give you life, he had
said somewhat like the sense which others put upon this
text; but saying only, “The words which I speak unto you,
they are spirit;”, we cannot doubt but he speaks of eating
and of drinking his flesh and blood spiritually.
* In illud evan. Quicunque dixerit, p. 979.
362
JOHN.
55 For *my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is
drink indeed, (i. e. faith in me, giving up my body to
the death, and shedding my blood for the remission of
3your sins, is the true meat and drink, which nourisheth
to eternal life.
56 For) he that (thus) eateth my flesh, and drink-
eth my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him, (by that
Spirit which will quicken your mortal bodies, and raise
them from the dead, Rom. viii. 11).
57 As the living Father hath sent me, and I
(though I die shall) * live (again) by the Father: so
he that (thus) eateth me, even he shall live by me.
58 This is that bread which came down from hea-
ven (to be eaten of you); not as your fathers did eat
manna, and are dead (see ver. 49, for) : he that eat-
eth of this bread shall live for ever (and have that life
which manna never could, nor was designed to afford).
59. These things said he in the synagogue, as he
taught in Capernaum.
60 Many therefore of his disciples, when they had
Seventhly, Our Saviour having said to the twelve, “Will
ye also go away ?” Peter answers, “To whom shall we go 2
Thou hast the words of eternal life; and we believe that
thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.” Where
(1.) observe, that Peter here doth, as it were, repeat the
words of Christ: “My words are life,” saith Christ; “Thou
hast the words of life etermal,” saith Peter; whereas, if he
had understood our Saviour to have spoken here of oral
manducation, his answer would, in all probability, have
been to this effect: Whatsoever appearance there may be of
inhumanity, absurdness, and impossibility, of eating thy na-
tural flesh, and drinking of thy blood; yet we believe it, because
thou hast said it, who art truth itself, and who art able to
make good thy words. We therefore, hearing nothing of this
tendency from him, may conclude, that he knew nothing of
this import of them. And (2) observe, that he thought it
sufficient to say, “We believe thou art the Christ ;” which,
if our Lord spake here of oral manducation, was nothing to
the purpose ; but if he only spake of spiritually eating of
him, was the verything which was designed by our Lord in
this discourse, and which he spake of in those words which
so much offended others. We therefore conclude, with
Clemens of Alexandria,” that “when our Lord said, Eat my
flesh, and drink my blood, he allegorically meant the drink-
ing of faith and of the promises; and that our Lord is, by
way of allegory, to those that believe in him, meat, and
flesh, and nourishment, and bread, and blood:” with Ter-
tullian,t that “our Lord all along urged his intent by alle-
gory, calling his word flesh, as being to be hungered after,
that we might have life; auditä devorandus, ruminandus in-
tellectſ, et fide digerendus; to be devoured by the ear, ru-
minated upon by the mind, and by faith digested:” with
Origen, £ that “we are said to drink his blood, when we re-
ceive his words, in which life consists; that his flesh is meat
indeed, and his blood drink indeed, because he feedeth all
mankind with the flesh and blood of his word, as with pure
meat and drink:” with Eusebius,S that “his words and doc-
trines are flesh and blood:” with Athamasius, that “the
words which Christ spake were not carnal, but spiritual; for
how could his body have sufficed for meat, that it should be
made the food of the whole world?” with Austin," Atquid
paras dentes et ventrem 2 crede, et manducásti ; credere
enim in eum, hoc est manducare panem vivum : “Why
providest thou teeth and a belly P believe, and thou hast
eaten ; for to believe in him, this is to eat the living bread:”
add, lastly, with Jerome,” “in the truest sense, the body
* @áyeašá (cov rā; a 4pka; Eirēy, zai ºriea Sá (cov to aiza,
iyapyā; Tic Trio reo; Kai rā, stayyexiac to ºráriº.oy 3xxnyogāy,
&c. Paedag. lib. i. cap. 6, p. 100. Tº 8ā ai,xa, oivoc &axm-
2,0psi ral, &c. Ibid. p. 104, 105.
+ De Resur. Carn. cap. 36, 37.
f Bibere autem dicinur Sanguinem Christi—cum ser-
mones ejus recipimus. Hom. 16, in Num, fol. 123. Caro
ejus verus est cibus, et sanguis ejus verus est potus, carnibus
enim et sanguine verbi Sui, tanquam mundo cibo ac potă, po-
tat et reficit omne hominum genus.
fol. 73.
Hom. 7, in Levit.
§ De Eccl. Theolog. lib. iii, cap. 12.
| “Iva &#Swaiv 3ri Kai & Aéye oik #art cagxix& 3AA& rvevº-
2s z * ºf * ad w ºw e/ * * z -
arika' Trogol; Yap ºpks to cºp, a wed; £gåorty; iva kai rod x0aºzov
"rarr; rotºro ºrpoºl yávnºrai. Tom. i. p. 979.
* Tract. xxv. in Johan, tom. ix. p. 218, et Tract. xxvi. p.
223.
* Licet in mysterio possit intelligi, tamen verius corpus
and blood of Christ is the word and doctrine of the scrip-
ture; caro Christi et sanguis ejus in auribus nostris infundi-
tur, the flesh and blood of Christ is poured into our ears.”
We say, in the language of Origen," Si filii estis ecclesiae,
—agnoscite, quia figurae sunt;-se enim Secundum literam
sequaris, &c. “If ye are the sons of the church, own these
things to be figures; for if you follow the letter, this very
saying, Except you eat the flesh, is a killing letter:” in the
words of Eusebius, pronounced in the name of Christ,
“Do not think that I speak of that flesh with which I am
compassed, as if you must eat of that ; neither imagine,
that I command you to drink of my sensible and bodily
blood ; but understand well, that the words that I have
spoken to you, they are spirit and life.” For, as Austin:
saith, touching the exposition of scripture phrases, “If the
saying be preceptive, either forbidding a wicked action, or
commanding that which is good, it is no figurative speech ;
but if it seems to command any wickedness, or to forbid
what is profitable and good, it is figurative. This saying, Ex-
cept ye eat, &c. seems to command a wicked thing; it is
therefore a figure, enjoining to communicate in the passion .
of our Lord, and sweetly and profitably remember, that his
flesh was wounded and crucified for us.”
* Ver. 55. For my flesh &An63; #art 3p3oric, is meat in-
deed, and my blood is drink indeed.] From what hath been
said (note on ver. 53), it appears this cannot be meant of eat-
ing and drinking corporeally the flesh and blood of our Lord
Jesus in the holy sacrament; it remains, therefore, that they
must here be styled, “truly meat and drink,” in the spiritual
sense; because the eating of this flesh by faith in his salutary
passion doth nourish the soul to life eternal; and the drink-
ing of this blood by faith in the blood of Christ, shed for the
remission of our sins, doth so refresh the person thirsting af.
ter righteousness, that, being justified by faith in his blood,
and having the Spirit promised to all believers, conveyed to
him as a fountain of living waters, he shall thirst no more
(John iv. 14. vii. 38, 39). Thus, in the scripture language,
a thing is said to be that àxh936, truly, which it is only spi-
ritual, or by way of allegory, or in reference to some effects
which it performeth, answerable to some natural effects per-
formed by that which it is said truly and indeed to be : so
our heavenly treasure is called ºr 32nSwey, “the true riches,”
as making us rich towards God, and being a treasure of spi-
ritual wealth, never to be taken from us (Luke xvi. 11).
Thus Christ is styled r3 på vä &An6:vöv, “the true light,”
John i. 9, because his doctrine was that to the understanding
which light is to the eye, directing us in the way of life; he
also is styled &ºmexo; &xnówº, “the true vine,” John xv. 1,
as being one who did more certainly refresh the thirsty soul,
and fill it with spiritual joy, than will the fruit of the vine
refresh the thirsty body, and rejoice the heart: thus heaven
is called ñ a kny; # &Anów), “the true tabernacle,” Heb. viii. 2,
and Christ here saith of himself, ver. 32, “I am & 3pro; 3 &An-
8wäc, the true bread which came down from heaven;” i. e.
more nourishing and strengthening to the soul of the believer,
than bread can be to the body (see Examen Millii).
* Ver. 57. And I live by the Father.] How, saith Steg-
mannus, can he be God, who lives by the benefit of another ?
I answer, even as he can have life in himself (v. 26), by the
life of the Father communicated to him with his essence.
Wer. 58 and 59.] See Examen Millii.
Christi, et sanguis ejus, sermo scripturarum est. In Ps,
cxlvii. fol. 94.
* Hom. vii. in Levit. ibid.
t Ubi supra, + De Doctrină Christianá, lib, iii, cap. 16.
CHAPTER VII.
363
heard this, said, This is a hard saying; who can hear
(i.e. receive) it
61 When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples
murmured at it, he saith to them, Doth this (discourse
of eating my flesh) offend you (now)?
62 What and if (Édiv oëv, if, or when therefore) ye
shall see the Son of man *ascend up where he was
before ? (How much more will you be offended, seeing
ny body will be then less capable of being eaten by you,
ân that gross sense in which you understand my words.
63 But know that) it is “the Spirit (imparted to be-
lievers) that quickeneth (their mortal bodies, Rom. viii.
11), the flesh (even of my body, could you eat it) pro-
fiteth nothing (to that end: now) the words that I
speak to you, they are spirit, and they are life (i. e. they
are the means of obtaining this Spirit, and life by him).
64 But there are some of you (my disciples) who
believe not (and so cannot obtain this Spirit and this
life. This he said), for Jesus knew from the beginning
(of his ministry, John ii. 24, 25) who they were that
believed not (sincerely), and who should betray him.
65 And he said, Therefore said I to you, That no
man can * come to me (i.e. believe in me), except it
were given to him of my Father (i.e. unless he were
thoroughly convinced by the miracles wrought by me,
that I was sent from God, and had by God wrought in
him a prevailing affection to eternal life; both which
were wanting in these disciples). -
66 From that time many of his disciples went back,
and walked no more with him.
67 Then said Jesus to the twelve, Will ye also go
away
68 Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom
shall we go? (since) thou (only) hast the words of
eternal life (and for that, above all things, we are and
ought to be concerned).
69 And we believe and are sure that thou art that
(the) Christ, the Son of the living God (sent by him to
reveal this life, and to impart it to those who do sin-
cerely believe in thee). - *-
70 Jesus answered them, *Have not I chosen you
twelve, and one of you is a devil? (i. e. an adversary
to me and my doctrine.
71 This) he spake of Judas Iscariot, the son of
Simon: for he it was that should betray him, being
one of the twelve.
* Ver. 62. What if you see the Son of man ascending
where he was before ?] It is certain, Saith Stegmannus, this
is spoken of the Son of man, and so not of a person who is
God. But I deny the consequence : it being indeed spoken
of him, who was the Son of man; but not as he was so only,
but as being also the Son of God, “his only-begotten Son
who is in the bosom of the Father,” John i. 18.
Obj. But then, why is it said, “Where he was before,” as
of a thing past, not where he always was 2
Ams. 1. As God the Father is often said in scripture to de-
scend upon the earth (see mote on ver, 33), and afterward to
go up and ascend again to his place (Gen. xviii. 33. Hos. v.
15), that is, “to the place where he was before;” so what
reason can be given, why the same may not be said of the
divine Word P
Ans. 2. I add, that, according to our hypothesis, he may
be properly said to ascend where he was before, who, in his
divine glory used to appear from heaven to the patriarchs;
and, when he became man, divested himself of that glory,
and took upon him the form of a servant, because he after
reassumed and appeared in that “glory, which he had with
the Father before the world was,” John xvii. 5.
* Ver. 63. It is the Spirit that quickeneth : Ver. 64.
Thou hast the words of elernal life.] See note on ver. 53.
* Ver. 65. Therefore said I to you, No man can come to
me, except it be given him of my Father.] See the note on
ver. 37.
* Ver. 70. Oix ##swežáºnv, &c. Have I not chosen you
twelve, and one of you is a devil?] Hence it appears, saith
Theophylact, that h #xxoy; toi, Ogot, où 8tášeral rāy ºrgoatpsoiv
hºcãy, “God’s election lays no force upon the will of man,”
but leaves him #3ExoSpérroy Kºoy, one that may turn to good
or evil, as he will. -
CHAPTER VII.
1 AFTER these things Jesus walked in Galilee : for
he "would not walk in Jewry, because (the rage of the
chief priests and principal men of the Jews (was such,
that they) sought to kill him. -
2 Now the Jews’ feast of tabernacles (kept in re-
membrance of their living in tents forty years in the
wilderness) was at hand.
3 His brethren therefore said to him, Depart hence,
and go into Judea, that “thy disciples (there) also may
see the works that thou doest.
4 For there is no man who doeth anything in se-
cret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly : if
thou (canst) do these things (in truth at any time and
in any place) show thyself to the (great men of the)
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VII.
* Ver. 1. He would not walk in Judea, because the Jews
sought to kill him.] His time being not yet come, he parted
thence, instructing us by his example not to irritate men,
or run into danger without necessity, upon presumption of
divine protection, but that we are to use all lawful means
which God hath put into our hands, to avoid them. Only
note, that by departing from Judea into Galilee, he declined
not the end of his coming into the world; because in Galilee
his doctrine and miracles found more faith than in Judea, so
that he chose to be most there, where his doctrine was like to
do most good. Note also, that to walk, when it relates to
places or persons, signifies to tarry there or with them for a
time; as “His disciples walked no more with him,” John vi.
world (the Sanhedrin, and the pharisees and rulers there,
that they may be convinced of the truth. And this they
said, being desirous that his miracles might be tried by
them, hoping they would find out the cheat of them).
5 For neither did “his brethren believe in him, (that
he did these things in truth, and for a good end, but for
vain-glory, ver. 4.) -
6 Then Jesus said to them, My time is not yet come
(to go up thither, ver. 8), but your time is always
ready (to go thither without molestation from any body
there.
7 For) the world cannot hate you (who live in con-
formity to the manners of it); but me it hateth, be-
cause I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil.
* .
66 (see xi. 54), when it relates to things or actions, it sig-
nifies to be often doing them, or conversant about them:
as to “walk after their covetousness,” to “walk in malice.”
&c. -
2 Ver. 3. That thy disciples also may see the works that
thou doest.] Either that thy disciples in Judea may see. the
works thou doest in Galilee, or that thy disciples in Galilee,
going up to the feast, and seeing thee doing the like works
before the Sanhedrin, who can best judge of them, may be
the more confirmed in the faith : for the Galileans received
him, “having seen the works that he did at Jerusalem at the
feast” (iv. 45). • * * *
3 ver, 5. for neither did his brethren believe in him.]
i. e. They believed not that he was the Messiah; because
they saw not that pomp and outward splendour, which they
364
JOHN.
8 *Go ye up to this feast : I go not up yet to this
feast; for my (fit) time (of going up) is not yet full
COIſle.
9 (And) when he had said these words to them, he
abode still in Galilee.
10 But when his brethren were gone up, then went
he also up to the feast, (in obedience to the divine com-
mand; but this he did) not openly (and with company),
but as it were in secret, (as privately as he could, to
º the design of them that sought to kill him, ver.
19).
11 Then the Jews sought him at the feast, and said,
Where is he º
12 And there was much murmuring (i. e. private
discourse) among the people concerning him: for
some said, He is a good man: others said, Nay; but
he deceiveth the people (applying himself still to them,
and not to the wise and great ones).
13 Howbeit no man (i. e. none of his favourers)
spake openly of him (as of the Christ) for fear of the
Jews, (who had decreed, that if any man should confess
that he was the Christ, he should be put out of the sy-
nagogue, ix. 22). -
14 Now about the "midst of the feast (when, the
number of the sacrifices lessening, the people were
more at leisure to hear), Jesus went up into the tem-
ple, and taught. $
15 And the Jews marvelled, saying, How knoweth
this man letters (how comes he to be so skilful in the
knowledge of the scriptures), having never learned (in
the academies, or from the scribes) *
16 Jesus answered them, and said, (Ye need not
admire at this, if ye consider that) "my doctrine is not
mine, but his that sent me: (i. e. I did not frame it of
myself, but received it immediately from God.
17 And) if any man will (honestly resolve to) do
expected from the Messiah; or imagining that he sought to
be #v trašānaiº, a public person, they conceived that he pre-
tended to do more than indeed he could ; as appears from
those words, ver. 4, “If thou doest these things,” show that
thou doest them where the best judges of thy actions are.
Yet that afterward they believed, we learn from Acts i.
14, where they are numbered among those who cleaved to
the apostles. .
* Ver. 8. Go ye up to the feast.] You may do this se-
curely at any time; for the pharisees bear no hatred to you,
whereas my doctrine, being opposite to their manners and
affections, may expose me to their rage; I therefore shall not
yet go up. He would go up in obedience to the divine com-
mand, but he would go as privately as he could, to avoid
danger, by human prudence, when there was no necessity of
doing it by a miraculous power. 'Ey& otºro àva£aiyo', “I go
not up yet to this feast.” Here Grotius notes, that this par-
ticle otro, “yet,” was not originally in the text; because
Porphyry accuses Christ of inconstancy and mutability, saith
Jerome,” as saying, “I go not up to this feast,” when after-
ward he went ; and therefore concludes this particle was af.
ter added by the Christians, to avoid the force of this objec-
tion : but this is to accuse the Christians of adding to and
altering the scriptures, to save the credit of a heathen and
professed enemy to Christianity, as if he could not read neg-
ligently, or meet with a deficient or corrupt Latin copy. It
is certain that Chrysostom reads, viv or oštro so did also the
Syriac and Arabic versions, the Alexandrian, and most other
manuscripts, and both the words preceding, and the words
following, require this reading; Christ saying, ver. 6, “My
time (of going up) oiro Trápeari, is not yet come;” and here,
“I go not up (yet) unto the feast, for my time cºma, remix}-
pºtat, is not yet come;” where he respects not the time of
his death, as some imagine, for then he should not have gone
up to Jerusalem till the time came that he was to suffer
there; whereas we find him at this feast of tabernacles, ver.
10, and at the feast of dedication of the altar, x. 12; he,
therefore must there speak of his going up to this feast (see
here Examen Millii). -
* Ver. 14. Tº $ográc (asa'oùanç, About the midst of the
jeast Jesus went ºp.] Dr. Pocock informs us, that the days
betwixt those which were ordinary and festival were styled
dies medii, intermediate days; because some works might be
done in them, which were not lawful on their feast-days.
* Ver. 16. My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.]
“If Christ,” saith Stegmannus, “ had any other nature be:
sides the human, according to which he was the prime au-
thor of his doctrine, could he have truly said, My doctrine
is not mine? Could one, who was the true God, deny that
he sought his own glory P Since the true God cannot do
otherwise, sure he that thus denies these things, which are
so proper to God, cannot be God most high.”
Ans. To this some answer, That this indeed cannot pro-
perly be said of him, super quem alius non est, which is the
distinction put by Justin Martyr and Irenaeus betwixt God
* Porphyrius inconstantiae et mutationis accusat, lib. ii.
contr. Pelag. f. 103, G.
the Father and the Son, whom they believed to be truly
God, viz. that this cannot be said of him, who is the original
and fountain of the Deity, and derived his essence from
none; but it may be said of him, who is “God of God,” as
deriving his divine essence from the Father, especially when
being “in the form of God he did not covet to appear as
God, but took upon him the form of a servant” (see the
note on Phil. ii. 6, and upon l Cor. viii. 5): he acting even
when Lord of all things, “to the glory of God the Father.”
(Phil. ii. 11). For thus he speaks of himself, as having an
original, according to which the Jews knew who he was, and
whence he was (ver. 28 of this chapter), i.e. saith Stegman-
nus, of what parents he was according to the flesh; and yet,
viii. 14, he saith, “Ye know not whence I am,” and ver. 19,
“Ye neither know me nor my Father ;” that is, saith the
same Stegmannus, Ye know not my divine excellency; and
so both, saith he, are true, but in a diverse manner, they
knowing him as to his earthly parents, but not as to his di-
vine excellency and descent from heaven. Why therefore
may we not use the like distinction here, viz. that his doc-
trine was not his (only), and yet was his ; that he came not
to do his own will, and yet he did it ; i.e. he did not do it,
as he was man ; but yet he did do it, as he was God as well
as man P since from this instance it appears, that truly may
be ascribed to him in a higher sense, which he removes from
himself, when he speaks of himself as acting here on earth.
Thus he tells his apostles, he was to be no more in the world,
but to leave the world, and go to the Father, and even to go
away from them, xvi. 7, 28. xvii. 11, and yet he promiseth
to be always with them, Matt. xxviii. 28, and to abide with
them for ever, John xiv. 16. 23 (see the note on ver. 28).
But,
Secondly, I answer, that Christ, by saying these and the
like words, respects himself as a prophet, sent by his Father
into the world. Now the very office of a prophet requires
that he should speak nothing of himself, nor deliver his
own mind and doctrine, nor seek his own glory ; but should
speak all things in his name, and do all things for the glory
of him that sent him ; and to this may be referred most of
those passages of this gospel, which the Socinians urge
against the Deity of Christ, they being spoken by him, not
to declare by what power and wisdom he acted, as he was
the only-begotten Son of God, but to demonstrate he was
no false prophet; that he delivered not a doctrine invented
by himself, to get a name and reputation to himself, but only
taught that doctrine he had received from his Father, and
which tended to advance his glory: for,
First, To speak “ of himself,” in the scripture phrase, is
to speak from his own heart, and private motion and inven-
tion, what he had not received from God, as the false pro-
phets did : so Moses saith, Numb. xvi. 28. Hereby shall
ye know that the Lord hath sent me to do all these things,
and that I do them not ºn ºn “of my own heart,” or “at my
own will,” say all the Targums. And Balaam speaks thus,
Numb. xxiv. 13, “If Balak would give me his house full of
silver and gold, I cannot transgress the word of the Lord, to
do good or evil, "inºn, 34. Hºwavrot, of myself;” or as it is
xxii. 18, #y tº 8tavoid ºv, “of my own mind;” “ of my own
CHAPTER VII.
365
"his will (made known to him), he shall know of the
doctrine (which I teach), whether it be of God, or
whether I speak (only) of myself. -
18 (And by this test you may discern it, for) he that
speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory (and there-
fore speaketh not those things which he knows will dis-
gust, and procure hatred to him from men); but he
that seeketh (only) his glory that sent him, the same
is (a) true (prophet), and no “unrighteousness (i. e.
falsehood) is in him.
19 (But it is otherwise with you, as being full of
hypocrisy and guile, for) did not Moses give you the
law (for which you seem so zealous as be angry with
me for a supposed violation of it), and yet (after all
this pretended zeal) "none of you keepeth the law;
Why (else) go ye about to kill me (against the siath
commandment)?
20 (Some of) the people answered and said, Thou
hast a devil (i. e. thou art possessed with a lying spi-
rit): who goeth about to kill thee :
21 Jesus answered and said to them, I have done
one work, and ye all "marvel, (that I, who profess
myself a prophet, should violate the rest of the sabbath
by doing such a work on that day.
22 Now) Moses therefore *gave to you (the precept
of) circumcision, not because it (originally) is of
Moses, but of the fathers (from the days of Abraham);
will,” saith the Targum; “but what the Lord saith, that will
I speak.” Hence God complains of the false prophets, that
they speak &rö kap?ia; airów, “from their own hearts,” and
not from the mouth of the Lord, Jer. xxiii. 16, and r& 9exá-.
pºata rā; kaºla; airāv, “the deceits of their own hearts,”
ver. 26. Thus, to speak from himself, here, ver. 17, 18, is
opposed to speaking from God; and, viii. 28, it stands op-
posed to speaking what he was taught by God, in these
words, “I speak not of myself, but as the Father hath taught
me, so I speak; ” and, xii. 49, “I speak not of myself, but
as the Father hath given me commandment : ” see also xiv. .
10. When therefore Christ saith, “My doctrine is not
mine,” he speaks not this in respect of his own knowledge,
he having in him “all the treasures of wisdom,” Col. ii. 3,
nor in respect of authority, for he styles it his “word,” his
“commandment; ” nor in respect of his will, which was al-
ways one with that of his Father's ; but he only denies
that he spake as a false prophet, saying things of himself
without commission from his Father, or running when he
had not sent him, as they did, but, as the Baptist saith of
him, spake “the words of God.” Now what reason can be
given, why Christ, though having in him “all the fulness of
the Godhead,” might not say, when upon earth, he spake
and acted as a prophet sent from God; that he was no false
prophet ; that he uttered no doctrine of his own invention,
nor anything which he had no commission to speak to them;
and that in the delivery of it he sought not his own glory, as
the false prophets did P
7 Ver. 17. If any man will do his will, &c.] That is, if
he hath an honest heart, prepared to obey the truth when
he is convinced of it, he shall know of the doctrine, i. e.
shall have means sufficient to convince him, that it is of
God.
* Ver, 18. He is true, kai 38tºia iy airó; oth farty, and there
is no unrighteousness, i. e. no falsehood, in him.] So 38tnia
signifies ; so oixováezo; Túc 38tziaç is “the false steward,” Luke
xvi. 8, &rárn rā; 38tºia;, “deceit by falsehood,” is opposed
to the “love of the truth,” 2. Thess, ii. 10 (see the note on
1 Cor. xiii. 6): so that this seems to be the import of these
words, He is a true prophet, and no false impostor.
* Ver, 19. None of you keep the law.] i. e. None of you,
who go about to kill me as a violator of the sabbath, that
requiring you not to condemn the innocent, (Exod. xxiii. 7).
* Ver. 21. Kai Trávre; Savºzáčers, And ye all wonder.] i. e.
Ye do it with anger and offence; ver, 23, ragaºréſa'9s, Sogo-
€sſorós, Theophylact. So Saupwéðely signifies, Eccles. v. 8,
“When thou seest the oppression of the poor, tº Savaganç,
be not troubled or offended at the matter:” and Ecclus. xi.
21, twº Saúpaſs #y Égyotº &apraxoiſ, “Be not offended at the
and ye (in obedience to the command to circumcise on
the eighth day) on the sabbath-day circumcise a man
(child, when the eighth day is also the sabbath-day).
23 If (then) a man on the sabbath-day receive cir-
cumcision, that the (ritual) law of Moses (requiring it
to be still done on the eighth day) should not be bro-
ken; are ye (justly) angry at me, because (that the
law of charity and mercy, which is superior to and
more ancient than that of circumcision, might not be
broken by me) I have made a man every whit whole on
the sabbath-day 2
24 *Judge not according to the appearance (of vio-
lating the sabbath by that action ; because it was a
work done then), but (consider the goodness of the ac.
tion, that ye may) judge righteous judgment.
25 Then said some of them of Jerusalem (who
knew the designs of the pharisees against him), Is not
this he whom they seek to kill?
26 But, lo, he speaketh boldly, and they say no-
thing to him. Do the rulers know indeed that this is
the very Christ (and for this reason have they laid
aside that design 8 -
27 Howbeit there lies this plain objection against his
being the Messiah, that) we know this man whence he
is : but (our tradition saith, that) when *Christ com-
eth, no man knoweth whence he is.
28 Then (in answer to this cavil) cried Jesus in the
works of sinners.” Note also, that the words, 31& rotºro, “for
this cause,” are added to this verse thus, “That you may, or
so that you will, marvel at this,” by Chrysostom and Theo-
phylact (see Examen Millii in locum).
* Ver. 22, 23. Moses gave you circumcision.] i. e. He
continued to you that rite which began from Abraham, to
whom it was commanded that it should be performed, tº
#4,#& rā āy?án, “on the eighth day,” (Gen. xvii. 14) though
it fell upon the sabbath, and you accordingly perform it on
that day, and teach that “circumcision drives out the Sab-
bath,” “ or makes it lawful to perform work on that day,
even all things which are necessary to be done for the cir-
cumcision of the child; and if this be lawful, by the com-
mand of Moses, to be done on that day for the benefit of a
child, why may it not be lawful, according to Moses, to do
a like work for the benefit of one of riper years?
* Wer. 24. Judge not xar’āslav, according to appearance.]
i. e. Absolving them who do these works of circumcision,
&c. on the sabbath-day, in observance of a ritual precept,
and condemning me, who, by healing with a word on that
day, do what is less laborious in observance of the higher
precepts of charity and mercy; and then considering, that
God “will have mercy, and not sacrifice,” you will judge
righteous judgment. For to exempt Moses from blame for
commanding that work to be done on that day, which is
more laborious, and less beneficial, out of respect to him ;
and to condemn me, a greater prophet, for doing with a
word what is more beneficial on that day, out of disrespect
to me, is manifestly to judge with respect to persons: so
Theophylact.
1° Wer. 27. But when Christ cometh, no man knoweth
whence he is...] This is doubtless spoken from the vain tra-
ditions of their rabbins; who owned, indeed, that their Mes-
siah was to be born at Bethlehem, but imagined that he was
presently to be conveyed thence, and concealed till Elias
came to anoint him. That this was an ancient conceit among
them, appears not only from the Targum of Jonathan, who,
on Micah iv. 8, saith thus, “Thou, O Christ, who liest hid
for the sins of the children of Sion, to thee shall the king-
dom come ; ” but also from the words of Trypho, “If
Christ be born, and is anywhere 3) vola'rác Šart, he is unknown,
nor hath he any power, till Elias comes to manifest him to
the world:” and hence Justin Martyr Saith, “I know your
masters say, that Christ is not yet come ; and if he be come,
où yivárzerai & #arty it is not known who he is " (p. 336, C).
* Maim. Hilcoth Nicklah, c. 1, Pirk. Eliezer. cap. 29,
pag. 65.
+ Apud Just. Dial. ix. 226.
366
JOHN.
temple as he taught, saying, Ye both “know me, and
ye know whence I am (i.e. my person, parentage, and
country : but yet this should not prejudice you against
my being a prophet sent from God) : for (and) I am
not come of myself, but he that sent me (and hath
given sufficient testimony that he did send me) is true,
whom ye know (i.e. you own) not (denying to receive
his testimony concerning me).
29 But I know him: for I am from him, and he
hath sent me (and thus I have an original ye know not
Of ).
30 Then they sought to take him (for assuming to
be a teacher sent from God); but no man laid hands
on him (God so ordering it), because his hour was not
yet come. -
31 And many of the people (who had seen his mi-
racles) believed on him, and said (in justification of
their faith), When Christ cometh, will he do more
miracles (to convince us that he is the Christ) than
; that this man hath done (to prove himself so to
e) 2 -
32 The pharisees heard that the people murmured
(i.e. said privately) such things concerning him; and
(therefore) the pharisees and the chief priests sent
officers to take him. -
33 Then said Jesus (to them that were sent, Ye need
not trouble yourselves to take me, for) yet (but) a little
* Ver. 28. Ye both know me, and ye know whence I am.]
Here Stegmannus the Socinian notes, that what Christ grants
here, he denies, viii. 14. 19, saying, “Ye neither know me,
nor whence I am,” because in different respects, mentioned
note on ver. 16, both are true ; when then he argues from
those words, “I came not from myself,” Christ is not God;
because God cannot but come from himself: why did he not
from these words infer, in like manner, that Christ had no
divine excellence unknown to the Jews? But he considered
not that to “come of himself,” did only signify to come as a
false prophet without commission from God, and delivering
in his name a doctrine he had not received from him ; in
which sense, though Christ could not come of himself, yet
might he say these things of himself as a prophet here on
earth, though he had also in him the fulness of the God-
head.
* Ver. 34. Ye shall seek me (in your distress), and shall
not find me..] So have I interpreted this passage in the pa-
raphrase, as most commentators do ; yet the precedent
words, and the words following, seem to require this sense,
I go to my Father, and though you should seek me, ye can-
not then find me; for you are not fitted to go to heaven
where my Father is.
* Ver. 35. Will he go sig rºy Starropæy ‘Exxâvoy, to the dis-
persed among the gentiles? &c.] It is a matter of dispute
what is here meant by “the dispersion of the gentiles,” some
understanding by this phrase the dispersion of the Jews
among the Greeks in Asia and Europe, as the 3iao ºrog& IIów-
ºrov, “the dispersion of Pontus and Galatia,” 1 Pet. i. 1, is
the dispersion of the Jews in those places; because the
word dispersion is not thought to agree well with the gen-
tiles, being in their native soil; but yet there seems a neces-
sity of understanding by this phrase the gentiles dispersed,
from the time of building the tower of Babel into divers na-
tions (Gen. x.): for (1.) it is not said, will he go to the dis-
persion, and teach the Jews? but, will he go, and teach row,
*EXXnvas, “the gentiles?” which fixes the sense to them.
Moreover this seems here to be said by way of imputation and
reproach to Christ ; whereas it could be no imputation on
him to preach to the Jews to whom he was sent, nor could
this seem strange to them ; but they thought it unlawful for
a Jew to converse with the uncircumcised (Acts x. 28), nor
could they patiently hear of one sent to preach to the gen-
tiles (Acts xxii. 22): nor is the phrase in Peter parallel, it
being not simply 8two ºrog&, “the dispersion,” but rageríðngol
‘rā; 3iao mopäç, “the strangers of the dispersions of Pontus,”
&c. (see Examen Millii in locum).
” Wer. 37–39. 'Ey +; 3; #axárn hºpe ºf pºeyāAn rā, śop-
ºric, In the tast, i. e. the great day of the feast, Jesus cried,
à
while am I with you, and then I go (again) to hirn
that sent me. -
34 And (then) *ye shall seek me (in your distress,
Luke xvii. 22, see viii. 21,) and shall not find me:
and where I (then) am, thither ye cannot come.
35 Then said the Jews among themselves, Whither
will he go, that we shall not (be able to) find him
will he go to “the dispersed among the gentiles, and
teach the gentiles -
36 What manner of saying is this (what other
meaning can he have in) that he said, Ye shall seek
me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither
ye cannot come * t *
37 "In the last day, that great day of the feast (on
which they went with great solemnity and joy to draw
water from the fountain of Siloam, to bring it to the
temple, singing these words of Isaiah, With joy shall
they draw water from the wells of salvation, and ea:-
pecting an afflatus of the Holy Ghost), Jesus stood
and cried, saying, If any man thirst (for spiritual
waters), let him (not go to Siloam, but) come to me,
and drink. -
38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath
said, (Isa. xxxii. 1, 2. xliv. 3. Ezek. xxxvi. 27, so
shall it be with him, for) out of his belly shall flow
rivers of living waters, (springing up to eternal life,
John iv. 14.)
If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink-This said
he of the Spirit..] For explication of these verses observe,
First, That Christ here speaks of the internal gifts of the
Spirit, viz. those of prophecy, tongues, of wisdom, and the
knowledge of all mysteries; for he speaks of those gifts of
the Holy Spirit, which were “not yet given, because Jesus
was not yet glorified;” he therefore speaks of the gifts to be
received after his ascension ; now they were these internal
gifts (see note on Heb. ii, 4. 1 John v. 6).
Secondly, Observe, that these gifts of the Spirit are pro-
mised under the metaphor of waters flowing out of the body
of believers, agreeable to the nature of internal gifts. So
Christ saith to the Samaritan woman, “The water which I
will give, will be a fountain of water springing up to life
eternal,” iv. 14 ; so Isa. xxxii. 1, 2, “Behold, a king shall
| reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment;
and a man shall be as rivers of water in a dry place:” and
xliv. 3, “I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and
floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my Spirit upon thy
seed, and my Spirit upon thy offspring ; ” that is, saith the
Targum, “As waters are given to the thirsty earth, so will I
give my Spirit upon thy sons: ” and Ezek. xxxvi. 25—27,
“I will pour clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean ;
I will put my Spirit Donºpn in the midst of you,”—“in
your bowels,” saith the Targum ; whence it is manifest, that
they must be mistaken who say the words of Christ are not
to be found in the Old Testament, and so interpret his words
thus, He that believeth in me (as the scriptures require him
to believe), out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water;
whereas that phrase, xaS3); glºrey h yea‘ph, “as the Scripture
hath said,” is never used to express the manner after which
a thing is to be done, but always to confirm the truth and
authority of the thing mentioned (see ver. 42. Rom. iv. 3.
ix. 17. x. 11, xi. 2. Gal. iv. 30. James ii. 8).
Thirdly, Observe that Christ spake thus on the last day
of the feast of the tabernacles ; now on that day, say the
Jews, they used to compass the altar seven times with
branches in their hands, saying some prayers, in which
they often repeat the words hosannah and hatzilcka, “Save
now, and prosper us;” whence that day was styled Hosanna
Rabba, or “the great day of the feast,” as here; and as they
add, by the institution of their prophets Haggai and Ze-
chariah, they then fetched water with great joy and pomp
from the fountain of Siloam, and brought it to their priests,
who poured it upon the altar with the wine of their sacri-
fice, singing these words of Isaiah, xii. 3, “With joy shall
ye draw water from the fountain of salvation ;’ that is, Saith
the Targum, “With joy shall ye receive a new doctrine from
the elect of the Just ;” and whilst they were thus singing,
CHAPTER VIII.
367
39 (But this (roãro 38, and this), he spake of the
Spirit, which they that believe in him should (after
his ascension) receive : for the (effusion of the) *Holy
Ghost was not yet (given) ; because that Jesus (who
was to send him from the Father) was not yet glori-
fied.)
40 Many of the people therefore, when they heard
this saying, said, Of a truth this is “the Prophet (of
whom Moses foretold, Deut. xviii. 18).
41 Others said, This is the Christ (the king Mes-
sias, of whom Esaias said, xlii. 1, I will put my Spirit
upon him). But some said, Shall Christ come out of
Galilee *
42 Hath not the scripture said, That Christ com-
eth of the seed of David, and out of the town of
Beth-lehem, where David was
43 So there was a division among the people be-
cause of him.
44 And some of them (that were sent for that pur-
pose) would have taken him ; but (others of them,
who were much affected with his doctrine, not consent-
ing) no man laid hands on him.
45 Then came the officers to the chief priests and
harisees; and they said to them, Why have ye not
i. him :
46 The officers answered, *Never man spake like
this man: (for he told us what we came about as soon
as we came to him, and discoursed so heavenly, and
with such authority, that we durst not lay violent hands
wpon him.)
47 Then answered them the pharisees, Are ye also
deceived (by him) P
48 °Have any of the rulers or of the pharisees
(who understand the law, and are to judge for you in
matters of religion) believed on him :
49 But this people, that know not the law, are ac-
cursed.
50 Nicodemus saith to them, he that came to Jesus
by night being one of them, (i. e. of the great council,
ill. 1. -
51 Doth our law (permit us to) judge (and condemn)
any man before it hear him (making his defence), and
know what he doeth (worthy of condemnation) 8
52 They answered and said to them, Art thou also
(an abettor) of (those of) Galilee (as by thy actions
thou seemest to be) 8 Search, and look: for (by so
doing thou wilt find that) *out of Galilee ariseth no
prophet.
53 And (when they had said this they dissolved the
assembly, and) every man went to his own house.
they expected the Holy Spirit should fall upon them, as
they said he did on the prophet Jonas, whilst he was em-
ployed in this very action: they farther say, that there was
a place in the court of the women, whither they carried
these waters, called Beth-Hassoovah, “the place of drawing:”
because thence they drew the Holy Spirit: and lastly, Za-
chary foretells that “all the nations should come to Jeru-
salem at the feast of tabernacles,” xiv. 16, and “in that
day,” saith he, “living waters shall go forth from Jerusalem,”
ver. 8. And hence we learn why that day was called “the
great day of the feast :" and how appositely our Lord Spake
to them of receiving the Holy Ghost, under the metaphor
of “living,” i. e. fountain-water (see Tremellius here, and
Buxtorf. Lex. p. 2298).
18 Wer. 39. Ośro y&t ºv IIvetºza.] Many copies read #ytoy
and some Stääggvoy ; but I suspect that neither 3136&Evoy nor
#ytow was in the original ; (1.) because Origen reads outro
23.6 %y IIvetipºd, and no more, continually (see apud Huet.
tom. i. p. 299, B. tom. ii. p. 359, D. 398, C. 422, H): nor
is rô #ylov interpreted by the Syriac or Vulgar. And (2.)
the words foregoing are only these, “He spake treet roi IIveş-
garo; of the Spirit,” and so those answer these, “The
Spirit is not yet.”
1° Wer. 40. Of a truth this is the Prophet.] In whose
time the great effusion of the Spirit, mentioned by Isaias
and Joel, is to be expected.
* Ver. 46. Never man spake like this man.] Here two
things are observable ; (1.) the power of Christ's words to
change the frame and temper of men's spirits ; for these
men came with hearts alienated from Christ, and with in-
tention to carry him to the chief priests, but return with a
great admiration of his excellency and worth. (2.) Here
is observable, the honesty of these men ; for they do not
return with a pretence that they feared the multitude, and
therefore thought it dangerous to apprehend him; but they
ingenuously confess, they could not prevail with themselves
to apprehend a person whose discourses were so holy and
divine.
* Wer. 48. Have any of the rulers or of the pharisees
believed on him 2) This is plainly the popish argument, by
which they attempt to prove, that private men, laics, and
inferior priests, are not to be governed by their own senti-
ments of Christ's doctrine, but must submit to their general
councils, and the major part of their church guides. And
that it is as strong in the mouth of the pharisees against
Christ being the true Messiah, as it is in the mouth of pa-
pists against protestants, see the Sermon, at the end of
this gospel, by me upon this text.
** Ver. 52. Search, and look : for out of Galilee ariseth
mo prophet.] It is wonderful, that not the multitude only, who
had heard the shepherds declaring from an angel, that
Christ was “born at Bethlehem” (Luke ii. 15, 16), and had
wondered at the words which had been told them by the
shepherds (ver. 18), should make this objection (ver. 41);
but that the chief priests and pharisees, who knew that the
wise men went to Bethlehem to worship him who was born
“King of the Jews,” should insist upon it. This is an in-
stance of the power of prejudice to shut the eyes against
the clearest truth.
CHAPTER VIII.
1 JESUS went unto the mount of Olives.
2 And early in the morning he came again into the
temple, and all the people came to him ; and he sat
down, and taught them.
3 And (as he was teaching) the scribes and phari-
sees brought to him a woman taken in adultery; and
when they had set her in the midst of (the company),
4 They said to him, Master, this woman (being es-
poused to a husband) was taken in adultery, in the
very act. .*
5 * Now Moses in the law commanded us (Deut.
xxii. 23) that such should be stoned: but what say-
est thou ?
6 This they said, tempting him (to say something
in derogation from that law of Moses), that they might
have to accuse him (of contempt of, or opposition to,
the law of Moses). But Jesus (knowing that he was
no judge to pass sentence on her, and looking upon
them as unworthy of an answer, as coming not to learn
of, but to ensnare him) stooped down, and with his
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VIII.
* Wer. 5. Now Moses in the law commanded that such
should be stoned.] If she who was taken in the adultery was
a married woman, the law required she should be put to
death (Lev. xx. 10. Deut. xxii. 22), that is, say all the
Jews, that she should be strangled ; but if she were only a
damsel espoused, the law saith, she shall be stoned (Deut.
368
JOHN.
finger wrote on the ground, (making as) though he
heard them not.
7 So when (&g 68, but as) they continued asking
him, he lifted up himself, and said to them, “He that
is without sin (in this kind) among you (her accusers),
let him first cast a stone at her. •
8 And again he stooped down, and wrote on the
ground (that they might slip away without thinking he
took notice of them). -
9 And they which heard (this), being convicted by
their own conscience (and not knowing but that Jesus
might discover their guilt if they should eaecute this
sentence on her), went out one by one, beginning at
the eldest, even to the last : and Jesus was left "alone,
and the woman standing in the midst (of the people).
10 When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw
none (of the pharisees) but the woman (only), he said
to her, Woman, where are those thine accusers ? hath
no man condemned thee
11 She said, No man, Lord. Jesus said to her,
Neither do I (who have no commission to pass sentence
on thee, take upon me to) condemn thee (to die); go
(and in the fear of divine judgment, repent), and sin
Il O Iſl()]^e.
12 Then spake Jesus again (this interruption of his
teaching being ended) to them, saying, “I am (sent to
be) the light of the world: he that followeth me shall
not walk in (the ways of) darkness, but (obeying my
doctrine) shall have the light of life.
13 The pharisees therefore (then present) said to
him, Thou bearest record of thyself; thy record
(therefore) is not true (for had God sent thee, he
would have given testimony to thee).
14 Jesus answered and said to them, "Though I
bear record of myself, yet my record is true (and cer-
tain in itself, though it appear not so to you); for I.
know whence I came (viz. from the Father), and whi-
ther I go (viz. to him again); but ye cannot tell
whence I come, and whither ‘I go (and for want of
this knowledge cannot believe my record).
xxii. 23), whence interpreters conclude, this adulteress was
only espoused (Seld. de Ux. Heb. lib. iii, cap. 11).
* Wer. 7. He that is without sin among you, let him cast
the first stone at her.] Christ speaks here, not to the magis-
trate, who must do his office, though he himself should not
be innocent, but to the accusers of this woman before him,
to whom it belonged not to pass sentence on her. More-
over, the Jews say, the woman was not to be accused of
her husband, nor to be tried by the waters of jealousy, if
the husband was guilty of the same crime : Christ therefore
might speak thus to him in the first place, Let him who is
to accuse her, and to begin the execution, if he be free
from the like sin, “first cast the stone at her.” Nor is it to
be wondered, that all her accusers having heard this, should
depart from her, being “convinced by their own consciences”
of like guilt, seeing that was an “adulterous generation”
(Matt. xii. 39); and the Jews own, that “the adulterous
did multiply under the second temple ;” and St. Paul speaks
thus even to the doctors of the Jews, “Thou that sayest,
a man shall not commit adultery ; dost thou commit adul-
tery P’’ Rom. ii. 22 (see the note there): and, lastly, Justin
Martyr saith that Trypho, and other Jews, complied with
the sentiments of their rabbins, who permitted them réa arapaz;
xai mávre fixely yuyaſka; Éxazºrov, “to have every one four or
five wives; and said, they sinned not, if, after the example
of the patriarchs, seeing a beautiful woman, they desired
her,” and so taught them to commit adultery (Dial. p.
363, 364). - s
* Ver. 9. The woman was left alone..] i. e. Without any
of her accusers; for she stood still in the midst of the peo-
ple, saith the text, and the apostles were then with their
Lord. &
I come now to vindicate the truth and sincerity of this
history from the censures of the critics who suspect it.
And,
First, It appears.from the testimony of Jerome,” that
this history was found in multis et Graecis et Latinis condi-
cibus, “in many Greek and Latin copies” of the gospel of
John, and therefore was wanting but in few of them. The
Apostolical Constitutions + acknowledged it, saying that
Christ “ said to the woman brought before him by the elders,
Gothy way oběš Āyd as xataxçiyo, neither do I condemn
thee.” The Greek code, cited by Cotelerius, saith, “These
words are not to be found in Some manuscripts, nor in
Apollinaris; iv 33 roſ: 3pxaioſ; Ag weivrai, but they are entire
in the ancient manuscripts;” and that all the apostles
“made mention of them in the constitutions they set forth |
for the edification of the church.” Athanasius speaks plainly
of it, saying Évraº Sa rē "repi riis warmyopmósian; Éri ºozei,
“Hither must we refer what is spoken of the woman ac-
cused of adultery.” St. Ambrose f saith, “The question
* Lib. ii. adv. Pelag. f. 103, H.
+ Lib. ii. cap. 24, p. 173, 174.
f Semper decantatam questionem et celebrem absolu-
tionem fuisse mulieris ejus, quae, in libro evangelii Johannis,
and absolution of the woman, which in the gospel of St
John was brought to Christ, was always famous in the
church ;” and Austin speaks often of it, and saith, “They
are enemies to the faith who take these words out of
the books, perhaps fearing lest it give impunity to the wo—
men ;” and Prosper owns it. Moreover, all the versions in
the Polyglot own this history; it was found in the sixteen
MSS. of Stephanus, in the seventeen MSS. of Beza, save
one. Nor is it to be doubted, saith Selden, that it was re-
ceived from “primitive antiquity in the copies of the east,”
as appears from the Harmonies of Tatian and Ammonius of
Alexandria, and the canons thence made. Now this Ta-
tian flourished A. D. 160, that is, sixty years after the death
of St. John, and made his harmonies of the gospels out of
the copies then in use ; Ammonius flourished about the
year 230, and did the same: and Eusebius of Caesarea, who
flourished about the year 320, made his ten canons out of
those harmonies: whence it may easily be discerned, what
is contained in all the gospels, what in three, what in two,
and what in one only : now the number eighty-six, in the
canon belonging to St. John, contains this history ; whence
we may certainly conclude, that it was in his codex.
That it was wanting in some few Greek copies, is not
to be wondered, if we consider that the sentence of many
of the ancients was so severe, that they would not admit
adulterers or adulteresses into the church after the longest
penance and thought roy #tri Fºotzsi, Anq6ávra ö, ätroxtsiyat
6éAh, kazy oix #yáćeral, “that it was no hurt to kill them:”
for men of these severe opinions might be unwilling to ad-
mit this history, as Austin saith, quasi permissionem pec-
candi tribuerit, “as thinking it gave a permission to this
sin by saying, Neither do I condemn thee.” The history
which Papias * mentions of a woman #ºri aroxxaſ; &#xapriate
3:28), nésian; #mri roſ, Kupíov, “accused of many sins before our
Lord,” or rather by him, seems not to be this, but rather that
of the woman of Samaria, this being accused but of one, she
of many such sins, and so no inference can be thence made
for or against the truth of this history (see F. Simon Crit.
Hist. lib. i. cap. 13, and Dr. Mills in locum).
* Ver. 12. I am the light of the world..] The Jews said
this of the first Adam (see Buxt. Lex. Talm. p. 1321):
this Christ applies to himself, the second Adam.
* Wer. 14. Though I bear record of myself, yet my re-
cord is true : because I know whence I came and whither I
go.] i. e. This makes it to me certain, that my testimony of
my mission from him is true, though it carry no such force
adulterii rea oblata est Christo. Ep. lib. ix. ep. 76. Wide
lib. vii. cap. 58. Et ne nonnulli modicae, vel potius inimici,
verae fidei, credo mutuentes, peccandi impunitatem dari
mulieribus suis, illud quod de adulterae indulgentiá Domi-
nus fecit, auferrent de codicibus suis. Lib. ii. de Adult.
Conjug. cap. 7. Wid. Tract. 33 in evang. de Cons. Evang.
cap. 10, ep. 54, p. 242. De promissis et praedict. Dei.
par. ii. cap. 22, p. 90. -
* Apud Euseb, lib. cap. iii. 39, p. 113.
CHAP TER VIII.
369
13 * Ye judge (of me) after the flesh (i.e. according
to the meanness of my extraction and appearance,
which is all that you know of me) ; I judge no man
(at present ; my business being now that of a prophet,
not of a judge).
16 And yet if I (at any time do) judge (of you), my
judgment is true: for I am not alone (in that judg-
ment), but I and my Father that sent me (so judge ;
i. e. I do it by that Spirit of the Father in me, which
enables me to discern the inward temper of your spirits).
17 And (whereas you object that I bear record of
myself, note that) it is also written in your law (Deut.
xvii. 6), that the testimony of two men is true, (i. e.
is valid in causes of the greatest consequence ; and this
evidence of the truth of my mission ye have ; for)
18 "I (whom the Father hath sent) am one that bear
witness of myself (that he hath sent me), and that Fa-
ther that sent me (he also) beareth witness of me (by
the miracles by which he enables me to confirm my mis-
sion).
19 Then said they to him, Where is (he whom thou
stylest) thy Father? ... Jesus answered, Ye neither
know me, nor my Father: if ye had known me (or
had a due sense of my spiritual and heavenly doctrine,
and the miracles by which it is confirmed), ye should
(would) have known my Father also (i. e. would have
discerned the divine power and wisdom shining in them,
and would have had the most perfect knowledge of his
will).
20 These words spake Jesus in the treasury, as he
taught in the temple : and (though they incensed the
pharisees, yet) no man laid hands on him (the provi-
dence of {:od restraining them) ; for (because) his hour
was not yet come. -
21 Then said Jesus again * to them, I (shortly) go
my way, and ye shall seek me (in your distress, de-
string the Messiah would come to deliver you, Luke
xvii. 22), and (ye) shall die in your sins. (For)
whither I go, you cannot come (being not fitted for
the celestial mansions ; or, you cannot come to fetch me
thence).
22 Then said the Jews, Will he kill himself? be-
cause he saith, Whither I go, you cannot come.
(Sure, if he be alive, and in Judea, we can reach him.)
23 And he said to them, Ye are from beneath (and
so can think and speak only of earthly things) ; I am
from above (and so speak of the things above, whither
J am going) : ye are of this world (and so your
thoughts, affections, words, and actions, wholly respect
this world); I am not of this world (and so my life
and doctrine suit not with your temper, nor have you
any right apprehensions of my saying).
24 I said therefore to you (so indisposed to believe
and receive my doctrine), That ye shall die in your
sins : for * if ye believe not that I am he (whom God
hath sent into the world as your Messiah, or that Pro-
phet which was to come), ye shall die in your sins.
25 Then said they to him, Who (then) art thou ?
And Jesus said to them, Even the same that I said to
you "from the beginning (viz. one sent of God to re-
veal his will to you).
26 “I have many things to say and judge of you
(which ye will not believe); but he that sent me (to
speak them) is true; and I speak to the world (only)
those things which I have heard of him (and which
therefore must be true. -
27 But) they understood not that he ” spake to
them of (his being sent from) the Father.
28 Then said Jesus to them, When yº have lifted
up the Son of man (upon the cross ), * then shall ye
know (some to conviction, and some to condemnation)
that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but
as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.
29 And (even now ) * he that sent me is with me:
(and) the Father hath not left me alone (or, deserted
ne); for I do always those things that please him.
30 As he spake these words, many (who had seen
the miracles by which he confirmed his sayings, vii. 31)
believed on him.
31 Then said Jesus to those Jews that believed on
him *If ye continue in (obedience to) my word, then
ye are my disciples indeed;
with you, who have no knowledge of this matter, till it shall
appear by my mission of the Holy Ghost that I am indeed
gone to the Father (xvi. 10).
* Ver, 15. "Yºgi', tày a 4xa weivers, &c. You judge ac-
cording to the flesh ; I judge no man.] Kgivo is here put for
waraxtivº, as John iii. 17. xii. 47. Rom. ii. l. iii. 4. xiv. 3,
4. 10. 13. I Cor. xi. 29. 34 ; so that the sense runs thus,
You pass sentence on and condemn me, according to your
carnal tempers ; I, whilst I am on earth, pass not the sen-
tence of condemnation on men, for I came not to condemn
the world.
* Ver. 18. I am one that bear witness of myself] i. e.
I, in whose life you can find no fault ; for “which of you
convinceth me of sin?” (ver. 46) I, whose doctrine tends
to promote piety and holiness, and to advance the honour of
God; for “I do always the things that please him” (ver.
29); I, who cannot but know the truth, “for I know whence
I came” (ver. 14); I testify that I came from God, and
am sent by him.
* Ver. 21. Then said Jesus to them again.] i. e. To the
same persons, though not in the same place, he being gone
out of the treasury (ver. 20). . -
* Ver. 24. If ye believe not, ye shall die in your sins.] A
wanting that faith in me, which can alone procure the par-
don of them. -
* Ver. 25. As I said rºy &#xiv, from the beginning (or
before).] So Gen. xiii. 4, Abraham came to the place of the
altar which he had made rºw 3px?y “before ; ” xiv. 20, the
lean kine were xará rày 3px?y “as before;” and xliii. 18.
20, “We came to buy corn, rºw 3.8xãy, before:” so that I
would render the whole thus ; Sum id quod locutus sum
vobis priſis, “I am what I told you before I was;” it being
very common, in answer to the question, to omit Sum id,
or somewhat of like import ; so ori eſraç, Matt. xxvi. 25.
64, at Aéysis, xxii. 11, i. e. Sum id quod ducis, or, Dicis quod
res est, “It is as you say,” or, “I am as you say.”
* Ver. 26. I have many things to say and to judge of
you..] i. e. You say and judge many things of me, which
from my words and deeds will appear to be false ; but I
have many things to say of you, what you are as to your
manners, and what you will be through the just judgment
of God ; which, though you will not believe, will be found
true; for “he that sent me,” to say them, “is true.”
** Ver. 27. They understood not Śri rºy traºrégºt airoi;
#Aeyev, that he spake to them of the Father.] So vi. 71, #xeye
rôy 'lověžy, “He spake of Judas :” so here, ver. 54, by tºsſ;
Aéyste §rt Oed; upway Éarty, “Of whom ye say that he is your
God :'' and, ix. 19, by upwei, Näyste §rt rv$xö; #ygwāśn, “Who
ye say was born blind.” So Plato,” ia'rgö, äv špºrt #xeyes,
“The physician of whom you spake;” and again, ºri 33 oist
ºws rob; tā £axáyria &moréºvoytaç Aéyev, “You think I speak
of those that cut purses.”
* Ver. 28. Then shall ye know I am he..] i. e. Then
shall ye have such testimonies, by the effusion of the Holy
Ghost upon my disciples, as shall be sufficient to convince
you, and shall prevail upon many to believe that 1 am the
Christ. -
14 Ver. 29. And he that sent me is with me..] Yea, saith
Stegmannus, “that one God, who is the Father, is in me.”
And why then doth he deny Christ to be God? . It follows,
“For I do always those things which please him.” See
here the true way to have God always graciously present
with us. - -
* Ver. 31. If you continue in my word, then are you my
* L. de Rep. p. 581, 586. &
2 B
370
JOHN.
32 And ye shall (farther) know the truth, and
the truth shall make you free” (from the yoke of bond-
age to sin, ver. 34, and corruption).
33 They answered him, We be Abraham’s seed,
and " were never in bondage to any man: how
(then) sayest thou, Ye shall be made free ?
34 Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say to
you, Whosoever * committeth sin is the servant of
sin (and shall receive the wages of it, which is death ;
and from this servitude, faith in me and obedience to
my word will set you free).
35 And (as ) the servant abideth not in the house
for ever (so shall it be with the servants of sin, who
are to be cast out into utter darkness); but the Son
(i.e. he that is the Son of God) abideth ever.
36 If the Son therefore shall make you free, (by
giving you power to become the sons of God, through
faith in him, so coheirs with Christ, Rom. viii. 17,) ye
shall be free indeed (so as never to lose your freedom).
37 I know that ye are Abraham’s seed (according
to the flesh); but (now) ye seek to kill me, because
* my word hath no place in you (finds no reception
disciples indeed.] i. e. Such disciples to whom I shall still
more make known my doctrine, and on whom I shall con-
fer the life eternal promised to them (Matt. xxiv. 13. Heb. x.
35, 36.2 John 8. Rev. ii. 10).
* Wer. 32. And ye shall know the truth.] Christ thought
no general council, no infallible judge, necessary to the
knowledge of the truth: but promiseth this to him, who
was stedfast in the faith, and honestly disposed to do what
he knew to be his duty.
17 Wer. 33. We never were in bondage, obºevi 888ovXEdwa-
pºv, we never were servants to any man.] What Were
they not brought out of the land of bondage 2 Does not
Nehemiah confess, Behold, a hºspoy Écºley Boixot, “We are
servants this day ?” and must they not have been then in
bondage to the Egyptians and Babylonians ? or, if they
spake of their own age, were they not tributaries to the Ro-
mans? and did they not still clamour against this tri-
bute, as a sign of servitude 2 (see note on 1 Tim. vi. 2. and
James iv. 3.) Though therefore they were under the Ro-
mans, not as servants, but as tributaries, yet, since they
thought, saith Josephus,” the payment of this tribute did,
Bouxsiay Étripéessy, “bring them into servitude,” they seem
not well consistent with themselves, in saying, they never
were servants to any.
* Ver. 34. II: 3 Trotów rºy & capriay, &c. Every one that
committeth sin is the servant of sin.} That "roteſy &gagºríay
is to live and go on in any course of sin, though our reason
may condemn and conscience boggle at it, see mote on 1
John iii. 9; he that doth this, saith Christ, “is a servant of
sin,” and in bondage to it; for when we thus obey sin in
the lustings of it, then doth it kupieſely, “lord it over us,”
and we become 805xot si; intakoły, “servants to obey it”
(Rom. vi. 14. 16), and “ of what a man is overcome, of that
he is brought in bondage; ” and this the very heathens saw, F
that the man that was forced to cry out through the law of his
members warring against the law of his mind, that “he did
not the good that he would, but the evil that he would not,”
had lost his freedom, and was under servitude, “because he
could not do as he would, but sinned, though he was not
willing so to do” (see Examen Millii here).
Wer. 35. The Son abideth ever.] i. e. I, who am the Son
of God, abide for ever, and so am able for ever to confer
this freedom from sin of which I speak ; for this sense the
following words (“if the Son therefore make you free,” &c.)
fairly plead: it being reasonable to conceive that the Son,
in this verse, should bear the same sense with the Son in
* Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. l.
+ Si servitus sit obedientia fracti animi, et arbitrio carentis
suo, quis neget omnes improbos esse servos ? Cicero, Parad. 5.
Quid est enim libertas nisi potestas wivendi ut velis 2 dicite
ergö, 0 homines, 80%aszós Kāv &gaprávoyrs; ; ot, 8ovXáſzsőa' otº-
sic rolvvy &gaprávoy #Asſºséé, Éari. Arrian. lib. ii. cap. 1.
with you ; which shows you are not the children of
Abraham by faith, but of another father).
38 I speak that which I have *seen with (i.e. been
taught by) my Father: and ye do that which you have
seen with (i.e. been taught by) your father.
39 They answered and said to him, Abraham is
our father. Jesus saith to them, If “ye were Abra-
ham’s children (in the disposition of your spirit), ye
would do the works of Abraham. -
40 But now ye seek to kill me, (because I am) a
man that have told you the truth, which I have heard
from God: this did not Abraham (who was so cele-
brated for his faith in God’s revelation, and humanity
to his servants).
41 Ye do the deeds of (him who is indeed) your fa-
ther. Then said they to him, We be not born of
*fornication (i. e. we are no worshippers of idols); we
have one Father, even (the true) God.
42 Jesus saith to them, If God were your Father,
you would love me: *for I proceeded forth and
came from God (into the world); neither came I of
myself, but he sent me.
the following words, which give the reason of what is here
said.
* Ver. 37. "o Aáyo; #29; of Xope; iv ipºv, My word hath
no place in you..] i. e. Your corrupt affections will not
permit you to embrace it: so Matt. xix. 11. All men ow
Xopoſal, “cannot receive this saying” (see note on xxi. 25).
* Ver. 38. I speak what I have seen : Ver. 40. what I
have heard of my Father.] i. e. What I have learnt of my
Father abiding in me; for we learn by hearing and seeing.
* Ver. 39. If ye were Abraham's seed, ye would do the
works of Abraham.] Christ owns they were Abraham's seed
according to the flesh (ver. 37), and therefore only denies
them to be so as to their members, or that resemblance with
the works of Abraham, which would make God own them.
as his children, viz. his steady faith (Rom. iv. 16), and
ready obedience (Heb. xi. 8. 17), by which alone they could
obtain the blessing of Abraham (Gal. iii. 9. 14). *
**Ver. 41. We are not born #x ºrogygiaç, of fornication ;
we have one Father, even God..] The prophets representing
the idolaters among the Jews as fornicators, and their wor-
shipping other gods as their “going a whoring” from their
own God (Lev. xvii. 7. Ezek. xxiii. 30. Hos. iv. 12. ix.1),
when they had brought themselves off from that sin, they
represented the idolatry of others under that name: so that
their very treatises of idolatry bore the name of not * “trea-
tises of whores, or whoredom ;” and the book of Wisdom
saith, “The invention of images was 36xh rā; Trogveias, the
beginning of whoredom,” or idolatry, xiv. 12. Hence
Philo # saith, “They who introduce many gods differ no-
thing, röy fix tº Trépync &moxv6ávrov, from those that are born
of whoredom,” and so are to be driven from the congrega-
tion, the law saying, à éz Tápynç, “A bastard shall not enter
into the congregation of the Lord,” but they who have the
knowledge of God, viol roń goû Trpoorayogetowrat Beévros, “are
fitly styled the son of God.” And again “The law'” saith
hef: “expels both the atheist and polytheist from the con-
gregation ; the first as barren, the second as born of whore-
dom,” 49eo; ºfty y&é à évovo;' troAá980; 83 & #x ºrāpynç. And
hence the Jews here, being free from idolatry, say they
“were not born of whoredom, but were the children of God,”
as worshipping one God only, and thinking that on this ac-
count God would not impute to them their former sins (see
note on James ii. 19). But against this, Christ here declares,
they only are to be owned as the children of God who do
the works of God.
* Ver. 42. I proceeded forth, śćašov, and came from
God..] Into the world, being sent by him, and not coming of
myself; others are said to be in rod Osoſ, “ of God,” even
* Buxt. Abbrev. p. 191.
+ De Confus. Ling. p. 266, 267.
+ L. de Migrat. Abra. p. 312, C. Seld. de Victim. Offer
p. 664, B.
CHAPTER VIII.
371
43 Why do ye not understand (this from) my
speech even because *ye cannot (endure to) hearmy
word (as being that which is contrary to your lusts).
44 Ye are of your *father the devil (as being like
him in temper and mind), and (therefore) the lusts of
(this) your father ye will do.
from the beginning (of the creation), and abode not
in the truth, because there is no (affection to) truth in
him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own
(i. e. that which is agreeable to him); for he is a 2°liar,
and the father (the author and first ea emplar) of it
(and semblably, the like murderous disposition in you
makes you seek to kill me , and the like hatred to truth
Tenders you so averse from receiving my word).
45 And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me
not.
46 Which of you “ convinceth me of sin (in say-
ing I speak that doctrine which I have received from
him who is true? ver. 14) and if I say the truth, why
do ye not believe me?
47 * He that is of God heareth God’s words: ye
therefore hear (i.e. receive) them not, because ye are
not of God.
48 Then answered the Jews, and said to him, Say
we not well (and with good reason) that thou art a Sa-
maritan (an enemy to our religion), and hast a devil
(i. e. a lying spirit in thee, when thou sayest, the chil-
dren of Abraham are not the children of God, but of
the devil) 2
He was a murderer.
49 Jesus answered, I have not a devil; but I ho-
nour my Father (by ascribing all I say and do, not to
myself, but to him), and ye dishonour me (in speaking
thus reproachfully of me).
50 And I seek not mine own glory (in what I say
or do); there is one that seeketh (my honour) and
judgeth (of these reproaches which you cast upon
me).
51 Verily, verily, I say to you, If a man keep my
saying, he shall "never see death (eternal).
52 Then said the Jews to him, Now we know that
thou hast a devil (i. e. a lying Spirit in thee. For)
Abraham is dead, and the prophets (are dead); and
thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never
taste of death.
53 * Art thou greater than our father Abraham,
who is dead and the prophets, (who) are (also)
dead? whom makest thou thyself?
54 Jesus answered, If I honour myself (by pre-
tending to be greater than indeed I am, or a prophet
sent from God when I am not so), my honour is no-
thing (worth ; but) it is my Father that honoureth me
(by giving testimony to the truth of what I say : even
he) of whom ye say, that he is your God:
55 Yet (though you call him so) ye have not (truly)
known him; but I know him : and if I should say, I
know him not, I should be a liar like to you: but I
know him, and keep his sayings.
56 Your father * Abraham rejoiced (vehemently
all that hear his word (ver. 47), and the prophets are styled
“men of God” in the Old Testament, and his “ministers”
in the New, 1 Tim. vi. 11. 2 Tim. iii. 17. But though
Moses, the prophets, and apostles, were sent of God into
the world, it is said of none of them, that they did #x roſ
Otoč Šćexösſy, “come forth from God:” this therefore must
import something peculiar to Christ: it therefore either must
respect the Socinian gloss of Christ's ascent into heaven, to
be instructed in his prophetic office, and his descent again
from thence ; which gloss I have confuted, note on iii. 13,
or the Jews’ opinion that the soul of the Messiah was
created at the beginning of the world, and so came down
from heaven to animate his body, which the Socinians, who
deny that Christ had any existence before he was born of the
virgin, cannot approve of ; or it must import his divine
#EAEſſaic, or original from the Father, by the communication
of his essence, or the union of the divine Aáyo; to the
human nature, which we assert (see the note on xiii. 3).
**Ver, 43. Because of 36Vaa-Se &koústy, ye cannot hear my
word.] That is, men of your tempers cannot yield obe-
dience to it: see the fifth import of the phrase ºn 36Vaasai,
note on Mark ii. 16. This, doubtless, was the great sin of
the Jews, and so they wanted not either natural power, or
assistance necessary on God’s part, to do this ; but only a
moral power, or a mind well disposed to obey his words.
*Ver, 44. You are of your father the devil.] i. e. By
resembling him in your actions ; for as he is a son of Abra-
ham wh9 does the works of Abraham (ver. 39), so is he a
child of the devil who does his works (1 John iii. 8. 10),
not only out of ignorance and human frailty, but from choice
and affection to, or good liking of them. “He was a mur-
derer from the beginning,” i.e. as soon as man was created;
“for through the envy of the devil death entered into the
world” (Wisd. ii. 24), and so “came upon all men” (Rom.
v. 12): you, by seeking my death, in this resemble him :
he “abode not in the truth,” but seduced Eve by a lie ; you
in like manner therefore believe me not, “ because I tell
you the truth” (ver. 45), which shows you have hearts alien
from the truth, but well affected to falsehood, as it is with
him. Oh, how tremendous a thing it is to have the devil for
our father How careful therefore should we be to avoid
those things which will subject us to this vile relation viz.
murder, lying, hatred of the truth here, envy, and enmity
to others (Matt. xiii. 29), bitter zeal and strife in the heart
(James iii. 14, 15), pride (1 Tim. iii. 16), every customary
sin (1 John iii. 8).
* For he is a liar, kai marãe airoij, and the father of it.]
Some of the fathers construing these words, “and the father
of him,” hence gathered, that the devil had a father, and
was the son of some superior evil spirit ; this being the sen-
timent, not only of the Casami and Archontici, who held
that the god of the Jews was the father of the devil, as St.
Austin * saith, but also of many of the orthodox, as St. Je-
rome+ testifies; and Origenf leaves it as a thing doutful :
whereas abroſ here plainly refers to rot ſºove, latent in the
words Jeſſarnº idºri, of which see examples in Casaub. Exer-
cit. 15. ad Annal, cap. 12. p. 394.
* Ver, 46. Which of you convinceth me of sing] In a
false prophet some marks to discern him may easily be
found; viz. his thirst after honour and applause, covetous-
ness, or falsehood: what of this nature do you see in me that
you do not believe me? e
28 Ver, 47. He that is of God..] i. e. Who resembles him
in holiness and goodness, and is disposed to do his will, is
ready to receive the doctrine that comes from him ; and it
is an evidence that you do not thus resemble him, nor bear
a filial affection to him, that you receive not his words.
29 Wer. 51. Shall not see death eig aiºva, for ever.] But
shall after death obtain that life by which “death shall be
swallowed up in victory” (1 Cor. xv. 44. 2 Cor. v. 4); so
Christ expounds himself, vi. 58.
30 Wer. 53. Art how greater than our father Abraham,
who is dead?] As by this promise thou pretendest to be:
for who can promise others shall never die, but he who is
himself to live for ever ? (see here Examen Millii.)
31 Ver. 56. Your father Abraham rejoiced (or vehement-
ly wished) to see my day.], i. e. To know the time when, by
my coming into the world, the promise made to him, that
“in his seed should all the nations of the earth be blessed,”
was to be fulfilled. Thus the days of Noah and Lot are the
times in which they lived, Luke xvii. 26, and the days of
the Baptist is the time when he appeared, Matt. xi. 12;
Christ therefore here affirms of Abraham, what he had said
of others, Luke x. 24, “That many prophets and kings.de-
sired to see the things which ye see,” viz. Christ come into
the world.
* Haer. 38, §. 4. Ibid. 40, Ś. 5. g º ºn 8 -
+ Hoc multimon intelligentes, patrem diaboli volunt esse
draconem, qui regnat in mari, quem Hebræi appellant le-
viathan. In Isa. xiv. f. 36, E. gº
£ In John, Tr. 23, ed. Huet, p. 308. Huet. Not. in
Matt, p. 34, 35.
p 2 B 2
372
JOHN.
wished) to see my day (the coming of the Messiah);
and *he saw it (afar off, by the eye of faith), and
was glad.
57 Then said the Jews to him, Thou art not yet
*fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham :
58 Jesus said to them, Verily, verily, I say to you,
**And he saw it..] viz. By the eye of faith, as a thing
then afar off, to be accomplished in future ages: for “of this
salvation the prophets inquired diligently, searching of what
time the Spirit which was in them spake, when it testified of
the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow
them ; to whom it was revealed, that not to themselves, but
to * they did minister these things,” &c. (1 Pet. i. 10–
12). -
*Wer. 57. Thou art not yet fifty years old.] There is no
cause to wonder why the Jews, who were not solicitous
about the age of Christ, should speak thus of one whose
gravity, wisdom, and countenance, might perhaps cause them
to think him older than truly he was. It was more to be
admired that Irenaeus should plead apostolical tradition for
the Jewish error, especially when we consider, that many of
the fathers, viz. Clemens of Alexandria, Strom. lib. i p.
340, A, Tertullian, adv. Judaeos, cap. 8, Julius Africanus,
apud Hieron. Comm. in Daniel ix. Lactantius, lib. iv. cap.
10, Orosius, lib. vii. cap. 10, and divers others held, that
our Lord preached but one year, and suffered in the fifteenth
of Tiberius, and the thirtieth year of his age. Moreover, all
Christians agree that our Lord suffered under Pontius Pi-
late ; now he was deposed by Tiberius in the last year of his
reign, saith Josephus, which demonstrates that our Lord's
suffering must be past in the thirty-seventh year of his age
(see the note on Luke iii. 23). !
* Wer. 58. Before Abraham was, I am..] This the Soci-
nians interpret thus, Before Abraham is made the father of
many nations, I am the Messiah : for, say they, ºrgiv yávea flat
doth not signify, “before he was,” but, “before he was
made,” as it doth xiii. 19. xiv. 29.
#y& slºw, is Matt. xxiv. 5, “I am the Christ,” or the Messiah,
as Mark xiv. 62. Luke xxi. 8, #y& eipzi is Matt. xxiv. 5, “I
am the Christ:” so the phrase signifies, say they, here, ver.
24, 28. xiii. 19. But against this strained exposition let it
be considered,
First, That the whole series of the discourse shows, that
the opposition is here put, not betwixt Abraham's being the
father of all nations, and Christ's being the Messiah : but
between ré yevéa-6al, the birth of Abraham, and ºr eiyat, the
being of Christ. Moreover, the word “Abraham,” so fre-
quent in the holy scripture, doth also signify his person, and
is never elsewhere used in this mystical sense, in which it
imports not his person, but his privilege, or rather the com-
pletion of a promise made to him ; it being therefore evident
that the discourse from ver. 55, is of Abraham's person, it is
incongruous here to introduce a mystical sense of the word,
which the Jews never thought of, and which, had Christ in-
tended, he, in all likelihood, would have said Trºy 'A39&º.
yevéorèat 'A83a*, i.e. before the reason of his new name be
accomplished. In confirmation of this argument, let it be
noted, that the word yeyédéal signifies as well to be, as to be.
made. It signifies to be, Matt. v. 45. John i. 6, #yłysto,
“There was a man named John ;” and ver. 30, Éatrpoo Séy pºov
yÉyove, “He was before me,” xx. 27. Acts vii. 38. xiii. 5. And
when it is used of persons in the sense of fieri, to be made,
it signifies to be born, produced, or generated ; and so here,
“Before Abraham was made,” must be the same as, “Be-
fore he was born.” The places cited by the Socinians are
doubly impertinent, viz. John iii. 19. xiv. 29, (1.) because
ºrgö tot; yevão Bat, before they are ; and (2.) because they speak
not of persons, but only of things which were to happen
afterward,
Secondly, Christ in these words answers the objection of
the Jews, that he, being not yet fifty years old, could not
have seen Abraham. Now, according to our interpretation,
he answers it fully, by saying, he was the eternal Logos
(i. 1), or the person that said to Moses, “I am” (Exod. iii.
14), whereas, according to the Socinian comment, his an-
swer is nothing to the purpose, and was no more true of him
than it was of all that heard him, that they were before
(De Trin. cap. 23).
And (2) those words
* Before Abraham was, I am. (As being the Word
which was in the beginning, i. 1.)
59 Then took they up stones to cast at him : but
Jesus hid himself (in the crowd), and (so) went out of
the temple, going through the midst of them (unseen),
and so passed by (untouched by his enemies).
Abraham, they being all before he was made the father of
all nations; who therefore can believe our Saviour would,
upon this occasion, put them off with such a piece of so-
phistry P for, as Novatian argues, either Christ lied, and put
a cheat upon them, “if being from Abraham, he was not be-
fore him; or he was before him, being the God of Abraham”
To this Stegmannus answers, That
this is no absurdity, it being usual with Christ to answer no-
thing directly to the objection of the Jews, to which effect
he cites, John vii. 20, 21. xii. 23. 25. xiv. 23. Luke xiii. 23,
24, but very fallaciously; for John xii. 23. 25, there is nei-
ther question nor objection; Luke xiii. 23, 24, there is a cu-
rious question, but no objection; John xiv. 23, Christ speaks
not to the Jews, but to his own disciples; and John vii. 20,
Christ answers to the question sufficiently, by saying, ver. 23,
#x0, x0xãºrs; “Are you full of choler or rage against me *
and the people more directly, ver, 25, which made it the less
necessary for him so to do. Let Stegmannus show, if he can,
when Christ answers in this impertinent and illusive manner
to the Jews carping at his words, as being false and impos-
sible to be true, with such an asseveration, “Verily, verily, .
I say to you.”
Thirdly, Had this only been Christ's meaning, why do the
Jews take up stones to punish him as a blasphemer, there
being not the least semblance of blasphemy in the words,
taken in this sense 2 They may do it, saith Stegmannus,
because he professed himself the Messiah : for as blasphe-
mers, so also false prophets, were to be slain. But as they
never did attempt to slay or to accuse him upon this account,
though he still owned himself a prophet sent from God to
them ; so they themselves testify, they stoned or attempted
to stone him for this “blasphemy, that being a man he made
himself God” (x. 33). tº * * *
Fourthly, I ask, whether our Saviour was willing to be un-
derstood by the Jews or not 2 If not, why did he use this
solemn preface, “Verily, verily, I say to you ?” . If he
would be understood, why did he speak unto them in that
language, in which they neither did nor could they under-
stand him 2 For how could they imagine the word “Abra-
ham” was to be understood in such a sense in which they
never knew it used 2 In a word, this interpretation is con-
trary to all antiquity, as their expositions in these cases use
to be; for even the Ante-Nicene fathers proved that Christ
was God, perfect from the beginning, and no new God, from
these words: so Iren. lib. iv. cap. 27, Orig. contra Celsum,
lib. viii. p. 386, Tertul. adv. Prax. cap. 22, p. 513, Novatian,
cap. 23.
%. for the phrase ty& slºt, “I am,” let it be noted, that
in the other evangelists it is only used to signify what the
“false Christs” would say, and so can have no other import
than “I am the Christ;” but in this gospel it seems to Sig.
nify, “I am the Son of God:” for he that saith, “I am,”
ver. 24. 28, is he who had “God for his Father,” ver, 23,
and was in tº #yo, “from above,” ver. 19, and xiii. 19, he
that calls them to believe, “I am,” is he who came “from
the Father,” ver, l, and was their Lord, ver, 13, and was go:
ing to the Father, ver, 3. Now the rulers of the Jews still
accused Christ of blasphemy, and condemned him upon this
account, Matt. xxvi. 65. Luke xxii. 70, 71. Thus therefore
Christ might say, “I am,” and yet be God of God. .
Secondly, Others answer with Grotius, That Christ here
only signifies that he was before Abraham, in the decree of
God. But (1.) Christ answers to the objection of the Jews,
which had no respect to the priority of these two persons in
the decree of God, but as to actual existence, (2) In
this sense even Judas, and all the murderers of our Lord,
might be before Abraham had a being: and, lastly, the ar-
guments produced against the former answer, conclude as
strongly against this (see Placaeus, argument. 11, a sect Wi-
cesim. prim. ad finem).
373
CHAPTER IX.
A AND as Jesus passed by (them, viii. 59,) he saw for) the night (my passion) cometh (shortly), when
a man which was blind from his birth.
2 And his disciples asked him, saying, Master
no man can work.
5 * As long as I am in the world, I am (to be) the
(diseases and imperfections in the body being the fruit light of the world, (by giving light to the blind, and
of sin), who did sin this man (in the womb, or in the light of the gospel to them that sit in darkness.
some other body), or his parents (at the time of his
conception, so as to be the occasion) that he was born
blind
3 Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned,
nor his parents (so as to cause this blindness in the
child); but (the divine wisdom hath permitted this to
made manifest in (the cure of) him.
4 (And having received power from him to do these
mighty works) *I must work the works of him that
sent me, while it is day, (i. e. while my time lasts:
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IX.
* Ver. 2. Ti; #pagºrey, &c. Who hath sinned, he or his pa-
'rents 2 &c.] Here,
First, It is certain that Christ's disciples do not inquire
whether this person was born blind for his original sin; since
in that all others, who were born seeing, equalled him in
guilf . and yet they here suppose he might, and the phari-
sees say positively, ver, 34, #y &#xagºrial; at #yewhông $80s,
“Thou wast wholly born in sin;” when as yet they them-
selves were equally guilty of original guilt. Both therefore
must understand this of some personal and special sin.
Secondly, It is not hard to conceive what they might in-
tend by the sin of the parents, viz. the begetting him in
their uncleanness against the law, Lev. xx. 18, and” this was
whought to have so ill an influence upon the child, as to ren-
der it obnoxious to leprosy, or mutilation, and so might be
the cause of this person’s blindness. Whence Philot saith
that it was forbidden, that they might not produce &rsasi's
yovåg, “imperfect children.” Note,
Thirdly, That the opinion of the Platonists and Pythago-
reans, concerning the transmigration of souls from one body
to another, and being put, according to their merit, into
better or worse bodies, had obtained among the Jews, being
perhaps derived from those of Alexandria to their brethren
in Judea. To this effect is that saying of the author of the
Wisdom of Solomon, that “being good he came into a body
undefiled,” or free from any notable infirmity (viii. 20).
Josephusf Saith, that this opinion firmly obtained among the
essenes, “that souls were immortal, and that they descended
from the pure air, avºraéxsa-Sat &amse sipwraſs roſ; a dºzaart,
“to be chained to bodies.” And Philoš saith, “the air was
full of them, and that those which were nearest to the earth,
warriao w św889mo'oºzával aºgaori Synºroſ, descending to be tied
to mortal bodies,ll Traxw830pxotiat at Stº, return back to bodies,
being desirous to live in them.” And so the apostles may
be supposed to inquire here whether our Lord allowed of any
of those sentiments, that the soul of this man might be put
into this imperfect body for the punishment of what it had
done before, whether in or out of the body.
* Ver. 3. But that the works of God might be manifested
in him.] i. e. Though God did not actively concur to render
this man blind ; yet in his wisdom he thought fit to leave
this imperfection in the plastic matter unrectified, that he
might show his miraculous power in giving sight to such a
one, his wisdom using this as a confirmation of Christ's doc-
trine, and his goodness in illuminating the soul and body
of this man at once, and ministering this motive to others
to believe. -
* @áort yág rive; #4 rā; rotaúrn; a wateia; kai Aſºny wał Aéreav
&moyevyāoréal roi; ºregitégaro; Éxeiyou rà 8tarxarrównya ºrmºzai-
voviro; adºpcara. Theodoret in Levit. qu. 21.
+ Lib. de Spec. Leg. p. 603.
j De Bello Jud. lib. ii, cap. 12, p. 781, F, G.
& De Gigant. p. 222, C. || De Somn. p. 455, D.
6 And) when he had thus spoken, he "spat on the
ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed
the eyes of the blind man with the clay,
7 And said to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Si-
loam ; which is, by interpretation, Sent, (and so may
put you in mind of him who is sent to give light unto
be so) that the (miraculous) *works of God should be
the blind, see note v. 3.) He went his way therefore
(thither), and washed, and came (back) seeing.
8 The neighbours therefore, and they that before
had seen him that he was blind, said, Is not this he
that (before) sat "and begged 2
* Wer. 4. I must work the works of him that sent me.]
Here, saith Stegmannus, Christ speaking of these works, not
as his works, nor simply of the works of God, but of “him
that sent him,” shows that he did them by the command of
another ; whereas the true God can be subject to the com-
mand of none; and hence he concludes Christ is not truly
God. To this I answer, that Christ doth plainly call these
works the works of God, ver. 3, and so declares that they
were done by a divine power, which is inseparable from a
divine essence. Secondly, Christ, here speaks in the person
of a prophet sent from God, which Christ was only by virtue
of his human nature, and therefore could not here speak of
himself as God (see the note on vii. 16).
* Wer. 5. Whilst I am in the world, I am the light of the
world..] It is usual with Christ, when he hath done his cures
upon the body, to convert his speech to those spiritual things
which were adumbrated by them, and for which cause they
were done: so having given sight to this blind man, he
styles himself “the light of the world,” which he was by
that evangelical doctrine, which did illuminate the minds of
men; and though at his departure from the world, he was no
longer so by his bodily presence and oral instructions, he still
continued so to be by the irradiations of his Holy Spirit, and
by the doctrine of his apostles, spread throughout the world
(see i. 9. viii. 2. xii. 35, 36).
* Ver, 6. He spat upon the ground, and made clay.]
The fathers here say, that Christ, to illustrate his miracu-
lous power, used that to anoint the blind man’s eyes, which
was the greatest impediment to seeing, and most pernicious
to the eyes, though the Jews thought spittle good for the
eyes, as we now do. Christ bids him thus anointed, “Go
to the pool of Siloam, and wash ;” by this making trial of
his faith, which, had it not produced in him obedience to this
command, he had not been healed. And Christ does this
on the sabbath-day (ver. 14), when by the canons of the
Jews, saith Dr. Lightfoot, “it was not lawful to anoint the
eyes with spittle,” to arm his disciples against that permicious
doctrine of the pharisees, that it was not lawful to do good,
or perform works of mercy, on that day; and this he might
the rather do, because he foresaw what danger this supersti-
tion might bring upon the believing Jews, when the days of
vengeance came upon that nation; whence he exhorts them
to pray that their flight might not be on the sabbath-day,
Matt. xxiv. 20.
* Ver. 7. Wash in the pool of Siloam, &c.] The spring of
Siloam discharged itself into a double pool ; the lower,
which was called the pool of fleeces, Neh. iii. 15, and the
upper, which is called rºbv, the pool of Siloah, which pro-
perly signifies &m'sa-raxtºwoc, sent, the waters being by the
providence of God sent from the bowels of the earth into it,
and so might by the very name mind them of the Messiah,
sent as the more special gift of God for the purification of
the unclean, and to enlighten the blind (Isa. xxxv. 5, see the
note on v. 3).
7 Wer. 8. Who sat and begged.] Here the form of begging
374
JOHN.
9 Some said, This is he others said, He is like
him; but he (himself) said, I am he.
10 Therefore said they to him, How were thine
eyes then opened
11 He answered and said, A *man that is called
Jesus made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said to
me, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash: and (ac-
cordingly) I went and washed, and Ireceived (my) sight.
12 Then said they to him, Where is he He said,
I know not.
13 They brought to the “pharisees him that afore-
time was blind. -
14 And it was the sabbath-day when Jesus made
the clay (mired with spittle), and (by) it opened his
eyes.
15 Then again the pharisees also asked him how
he had received his sight. He said to them, He put
clay upon my eyes, and I washed, and do see. ...
16 Therefore said some of the pharisees, "This
man is not of God, because he keepeth not the sab-
bath-day. Others said, How can a man that is a
sinner (not only by violating the rest of the sabbath,
but also by pretending to be of God when he is not) do
such miracles And there was a division among them
(about him).
* 17 They say to the blind man again, What sayest
thou of him that he hath opened thine eyes He
said, He is a prophet.
18 But the (pharisees among the) Jews did not be-
lieve concerning him, that he had been blind, and
received his sight, until they called the parents of him
that had received his sight.
19 And they asked them, saying, Is this your son,
who ye say was born blind (if so), how then doth
he see 2
20 His parents answered them, and said, We know
that this is our son, and that he was born blind :
2l But by *what means he now seeth, we know
not; or who hath opened his eyes, we know not : he
is of age, ask him; he shall (will) speak for (Gr, con-
cerning) himself.
22 These words spake his parents, because they
feared the (rulers of the) Jews : for the Jews had
agreed already, that if any man did confess that he
was (the) Christ, he should be” putout of thesynagogue.
23 Therefore said his parents, He is of age, ask
him: (this cure being such that to affirm that Jesus
had done it, was in effect to own him as that Prophet,
of whom Esaias had foretold that he should open the
eyes of the blind. See the note on Matt. xi. 5.)
24 Then again called they the man that was blind,
and said to him, Give God the praise (of this cure :
for) we know that this man is a sinner; (i. e. a false
prophet, ver. 16.)
25 He answered and said, *Whether he be a sinner
or no, I know not (Gr. that he is a sinner, I know
not) : one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind,
now I see.
26 Then said they to him again, What did he to
thee how opened he thine eyes
27 He answered them, I have told you already, and
ye did not hear (i.e. believe me) : wherefore would
you hear (it) again * will ye also be his disciples
28 Then reviled they him, saying, Thou art his dis-
ciple; but we are Moses’ disciples.
29 We know that God spake to Moses: (but) as
for this fellow, we know not from whence he is.
30 The man answered and said to them, Why,
herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from
whence he is, and yet he hath opened my eyes (which
is a demonstration that he acteth by a power derived
from God).
31 Now we know *that God heareth not sinners.
(usurping his authority, or pretending falsely to come
from him); but if any man be a worshipper of God,
and doeth his will, him he heareth.
32 Since the world began was it not heard that
*any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind.
among the Jews is observable, viz. Dī, “Deserve,” or “Do
thyself good by me ;” intimating that by works of charity,
we do good as well to ourselves as others.
* Ver. 11. A man that was called Jesus.] Had he not had
some notice who he was, he would not have so readily obeyed
his commands; now this knowledge of him he might have
either from his leader, or from Christ's disciples.
* Ver. 13. They bring him to the pharisees.} i. e. To the
council, chiefly consisting of that sect; whence, in this evan-
gelist, the whole council passeth under the name of phari-
sees, i. 24. iv. 1. viii. 3. xi, 46. This they might do, either
from ill-will to Christ, or out of curiosity to know whether
they would own the person, who had done this signal miracle,
to be the very man, of whom Esaias had prophesied, that he
should “open the eyes of the blind.” And sure the provi-
dence of God so ordered this, that they might hear from the
mouth of the blind man a testimony, which would either con-
vince them, or render their unbelief without excuse.
* Ver. 16. This man is not of God, because he keepeth
not the sabbath.] i. e. He is not sent of God as a prophet;
and yet they themselves own, that a prophet might do and
command things contrary to the rest required by the sabbath;
and prove this from the example of Joshua, who command-
eth, that the ark should be carried round Jericho, the armed
men going before and after it seven days; one of which
must be a sabbath (Josh. vi.). How then could that, which
prophets were by their own principles allowed to do, prove
that Christ was no prophet; especially, if we consider, that
by these actions he did not indeed violate the rest of the sab-
bath, but only their corrupt traditions concerning it?
* Ver. 21. But how he now sees, we know not..] Here his
parents seems to be faulty, (1.) in denying that which they
Mad learned from their son, for fear of the Jews (ver, 22),
(2.) By their ingratitude to Christ, whose kindness to their
son ought to have been thankfully owned and acknowledged
by them,
**Ver. 22. 'Amroavyáyoyo; yávnºrai, Should be eacluded from
the synagogue.] i. e. Should lie under the sentence of ex-
communication; either that called niddai, which only sepa-
rated him four cubits from the society of others, saith Bux-
torf,” but left him free, saith Lightfoot, F at that distance,
either to expound traditions, or to hear them expounded in
the synagogue; but perhaps not free to join with them in
prayers, or giving of thanks; such a one not being admitted
to join with them in their thanksgivings at their table: or else,
it was that of cherem, which excluded the excommunicated
person from all entrance into the synagogue; this being, saith
Leo de Modena, forbidden to the excommunicated; and to
this rather do those words incline, ver, 34, 35, ###8axcy airy,
“They cast him forth,” i.e. out of the place of the syna-
gogue, and so &roovyayºvov; yívea Bat, “They shall cast you
out of the synagogues,” seems to import, xvi. 2. And hence
the primitive excommunications of the Christians excluded
the criminal from the assembly, and from all communion in sa-
cred offices for a time, and only gradually admitted him to them.
* Wer. 25. Ei &gapºrwać, Šarly, oix dièa.] These words have
I thus rendered, “That he is a sinner, I know not;” and this
the words following require, in which the blind man proves,
by an unanswerable argument (ver. 31), that Christ was not
a sinner: so si doth often signify; so “Do I not know si
a hºspov, that to-day I am king over Israel ?” 2 Sam. xix.
22; 1 Kings i. 51, “Let Solomon swear, ei oi Savarðast,
that he will not kill his servant” (see the notes on Acts xxvi.
8. 1 Tim. v. 10).
14 Wer. 31. God heareth not sinners..] i. e. False prophets,
who speak from themselves, and yet pretend to come from
God; see ver. 16 and 24, for by so doing he would confirm
their lies, and set his seal to their false doctrine. ..
* Ver. 32. That any man opened the eyes of one that
* In voce middai, p. 1306. + In 1 Cor. v. 5.
: De Consuet. Judaeorum, lib. ii. cap. 3.
CHAPTER x.
375
33 If that man *were not of God, he could do no
thing (of this nature). -
34 They answered and said to him, Thou wast al-
together born in sins (being conceived by thy parents
in their uncleanness), and dost thou teach us? And
they cast him out (of the court).
35 Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and
when he had found him, he said to him, Dost thou
believe on the Son of God (the Messiah sent by him
into the world to be the Saviour of it) 8 - -
36 He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that
(knowing him) I might believe on him
37 And Jesus said to him, "Thou hast both seen
him (or, thou both seest him), and it is he that talketh
with thee (i. e. and hearest him talking with thee).
38 And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worship-
ped him. - &
39 And Jesus said, For (manifesting the just) judg-
ment (of God on men) I am come into this world,
(viz.) that they "which see not (i. e. that are rude and
simple, and sit in darkness, but are ready to own their
| own blindness, and come to the light) might see, and
that they who (think they) see (already, and therefore
shut their eyes against any farther light shining to
them) might be made blind (might have this light
taken from them, and so be left in darkness).
40 And some of the pharisees which were with him
heard these words, and said to him, Are we blind
also (in thy opinion) P
41 Jesus saith to them, *If ye were blind (i.e. un-
able to discern who I am : if ye had neither the law nor
prophets to direct you, nor the light shining in your
eyes, which is the case of the gentiles), ye should have
no sin (of infidelity); but now you say, We see (and:
arrogate to yourselves the knowledge of the law and!
prophets, and are confident you are guides to the blind,
Rom. ii. 19, and yet will not receive the light, which
shineth in your eyes); therefore your sin remaineth
(inea cusable). - -
was born blind.] They who lose their sight by a disease, may
be cured ; but no man, no, not Moses, nor any of the pro-
phets, ever did, or could, without the assistance of a divine
power, give sight to one born blind: whence even the Jews
reckon this among the signs of the Messiah, that he should
“open the eyes of the blind,” Midrash, in Ps. cxlvi. 8.
** Ver. 33. If this man were not of God, he could do no-
thing.] See here a blind man, and unlearned, judging more
rightly of divine things than the whole learned council of
the pharisees : whence we learn, that we are not always to
be led by the authority of councils, popes, or bishops; and
that it is not absurd for laymen sometimes to vary from
their opinions; these overseers being sometimes guilty of great
oversights. -
” Wer. 37. Kai śćpaxa: abröy, Kai.] Grammarians know,
that when two wais do thus come together, the first is to be
rendered, both ; so xi. 48, wai &gotiary hºw&v kai rév rámcov kai ré
#6voc, “And take away both our place and nation :” so xii.
28, Kai #8ážacra, wai Tráxty 80%aw, “I have both glorified it,
and will glorify it again :” and that the aorist is usually put
for the present tense, see the note on xx. 17. And so these
words are well rendered thus, “Thou hast seen him, and he
talketh with thee:” so i. 36, Édºrnxsy, “One stands in the
midst of you;" v. 45, “Moses in whom hºrizars, ye trust;”
xi. 27, #3 retriatevka, “I believe thou art the Christ” (see
Luke viii. 20. Acts i. 11. xii. 14. Rom. v. 2. 1 Tim. iv. 10,
et Gloss. de Verbo, lib. iii. tr. 3. can. 46).
* Ver. 39. Eic ºpiº, a, iva 8xárov re; rv$xoi yśvoviral, For
judgment, that they who see may be made blind.] Here the
critics and some of the fathers note, that the conjunction ºva.
is not causal, but only consequential; as, when Christ saith,
“I came not to send peace upon the earth, but a sword,”
i. e. this will be the event and consequence of my coming :
so Wa is used here, ver. 2. Rom. i. 20. 1 Cor. xi. 19 (see note
on xii. 40). And when Christ here saith, “I came, that
they who see not, might see ;” he seems especially to re-
spect the gentiles sitting in darkness, &c.—iva rā ā8wn oi kº
8xéroyte; 8x{-}oat, zai of 8x8"royºrs; 'IagañA rupxot yeyºvrai,
“that the gentiles,” saith Origen,” “who are now blind may
see, and Israel who now sees may be made blind,” through
their infidelity: so also Cyril and St. Chrysostom, in re-
ferring us to the words of St. Paul, who saith, that “blind-
ness, in part, had happened to the Jews, till the fulness of
the gentiles should come in,” Rom. xi. 25 (and this accord-
ing to the prediction of the psalmist, ver, 9, 10), and who
saith of the converted gentiles, “Ye were sometimes dark-.
ness, but now are ye light in the Lord,” Eph. v. 8 (see note
on Rom. xiii. 12). -
* Wer. 41. If ye were blind, ye should not have sin.] i. e. If
out of the mere blindness and darkness of your minds, ye
did not own me as the Messiah (which is the case of the
gentiles, to whom no prophets were sent foretelling, no law
promising him; no gospel preached revealing him to the
world), you would have no sin of infidelity; for, “If I had
not come, and spoken to you,” xv. 22, yea, “if I had not
done among you the works which no other person did,” ver.
24, ye had not had (this) sin, ver. 24: but now, you boast-
ing of your knowledge in the law and the prophets, which
have given such plain characters of me, and yet neither be-
lieving Moses nor the prophets speaking of me (John v. 39,
40.45, 46), and claiming to yourselves the judgment of dis-
cerning betwixt true and false prophets, and yet giving no
credit to me, proving my mission from God by a crowd of
miracles done before your eyes, your unbelief remaineth
inexcusable and unpardoned (John xv. 22): “for if ye be-
lieve not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins” (John viii.
21. 24).
* Orig, in Matt. p. 395,411.
CHAPTER X.
1 WERILY, verily, I say to you, * He that entereth.
not by the door into the sheepfold (i.e. he who pre-
tends to be a guide and ruler of God’s church and peo-
ple, and owns not the Messiah, nor hath commission
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. X.
* Ver. 1. He that entereth not by the door into the
sheepfold, &c.] For the right understanding of this parable
let it be noted, -
First, That Christ directs this parable against the scribes
and pharisees, to whom he spake, ix.40, as appears, (1.)
from the pronoun tºw, which begins this chapter thus, “I
say to you:” and (2.) from these words, ver. 6, “This para-
ble spake Jesus to them.” They therefore must be the per-
sons concerned in the contents of it. Note therefore,
from him so to do), but climbeth up some other way
(to get into it), the same is a thief and a robber.
2 But he that entereth in by the door is the (a true)
shepherd of the sheep.
Secondly, That these pharisees took upon them to be
guides and teachers of the people, whence by our Saviour
they are represented as “blind guides;” they also held, that
others were to receive authority to teach from their commis-
sion or ordination to that office; though we find not that
they received any such authority from God, who rather had
appointed the “priests’ lips to preserve knowledge, and the
people to seek the law at their mouths” (Mal. ii. 4. 7); and
of the tribe of Levi, “to teach his judgments to Jacob,
and his law to Israel” (Deut. xxxiii. 10), “even all the
commandments which God had delivered by the hand of
376
JOHN.
3 *To him (God) the porter (or, great keeper of this
sheepfold) openeth (giving him his testimony and com-
mission to feed his sheep); and the sheep hear (and
obey) his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by
name (hath an eſcact knowledge and care of them), and
leadeth them out (to their pastures).
4 And when he putteth forth his own sheep (to
pasture), he goeth before them (after the manner of
the eastern shepherds), and the sheep follow him: for
they know his voice.
5 And a “stranger (who hath no commission from
God, nor teacheth his word) will they not follow, but
will flee from him: for they know (and approve) not
the voice of strangers. -
6 This parable spake Jesus to them (and in reproof
of them, as blind guides, and not true shepherds, because
they rejected him); but they understood not what
things they were which he spake to them (i. e. they
understood not the true import of his words).
7 Then said Jesus to them again, Verily, verily, I
say to you, “I am the door (as of the shepherds, ver.
1, so also ) of the sheep. -
8 * All that ever came before me (pretending to be
the Prophet, or the Messiah promised to the Jews, or to
instruct his people when God never sent them so to do)
are (to be accounted as) thieves and robbers: but the
sheep (who only knew and are obedient to the voice of
God) did not hear them.
9 I am the door (of the sheep); if any man enter in
(to the sheepfold) by (faith in) me, he shall be saved
(from the thief and wolf), and shall go in and out, and
find pasture.
10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to
kill, and to destroy: I am come that they (who are my
sheep) might have "life, and that they might have it
more abundantly, (Gr. and that they might have abun-
dance of pasture, ver. 3).
11 * I am the good shepherd; (and act as) the
good shepherd, (who) giveth (or, layeth down) his life
for the sheep. -
12 But he that is a “hireling and not the shepherd,
(but one) whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf
coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth (to secure
himself); and (so) the wolf catcheth (some of) them,
and scattereth (the rest of) the sheep.
13 The hireling (who regards his own safety and
advantage, and not that of the sheep,) fleeth, because he
is a hireling, and careth not for the sheep.
14 I am the good shepherd, and *know (i.e. love)
my sheep, and am known (i.e. beloved) of (those that
are) mine.
15 As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the
Moses” (Lev. x. 11): and hence Christ represents them as
“a plantation which his Father had not planted” (Matt. xv.
13), bids his disciples beware of their doctrine (Matt. xvi.
12), they “teaching for doctrines (of God) the command-
ments of men,” and “making void the commandments of
God by their traditions” (Matt. xv. 6.. 9); their voice there-
fore was such as the true sheep neither would nor ought to
hear. Note,
Thirdly, That these scribes and pharisees believed not in
Christ (John vii. 48), they “neither would enter into the
kingdom of God themselves, nor suffer others to enter into
it’ (Luke xi. 52), and therefore are said to have “taken
away the key of knowledge.” Christ therefore here pro-
nouncing himself the door both of the shepherds (ver. 1), and
of the sheep (ver. 6), by which they were to enter into the
sheepfold, informs them, that now that he the great Shep-
herd of the sheep was come, they who refused to own him,
and to teach the sheep in his name, according to his doctrine,
and by his authority, as his apostles and the seventy did,
had no true commission to instruct them ; and that they
who set up in opposition to him to be the guides and teachers
of the people, were not only blind but false guides, and even
thieves and robbers: the first, as taking away what belongs
not to them ; the second, as destroying the sheep.
* Ver. 3. To him (thus entering by the door) the porter
(God, the great keeper of the sheepfold) openeth.] As to one
allowed by him to feed his sheep, and him the sheep hear
and obey, teaching the doctrine of the gospel and the king-
dom of God to them, in the name and by the authority of the
great Shepherd of the sheep : and when this Shepherd, by
himself or others acting in his name, and by his mission,
leadeth forth his own sheep, he goes before them, after the
manner of the eastern shepherds, to preserve them from
danger,and to conduct them into wholesome pastures (ver. 4).
So did Christ and his shepherds, being rörot, “examples”
for the flock to follow (1 Pet. v. 3).
* Wer. 5. A stranger they will not follow.] And such are
all they who do not teach them the doctrine of the gospel in
Christ's name, and by his authority. -
* Wer. 7. I am the door of the sheep.] Wer. 1, 2, he
had represented himself as the door of the true shepherds ;
here he declares himself the door of the sheep also: show-
ing that since his advent there is no entrance into the church
or kingdom of God, but by faith in him and embracing his
doctrine. - -
* Wer. 8. All that ever came before me are thieves and
robbers..] i. e. All that came under pretence of being their
king, or their Messiah ; as Theudas, not he who, saith Jose-
phus,” was destroyed by Cuspius Fadus ; for he appeared
* Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 2, p. 689.
before Judas Gaulomites (Acts v. 36, 37), who, according to
Josephus, was suppressed towards the latter end of the reign
of Augustus (Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 1, 2). The same Jose-
phus saith, that of those multitudes that began seditions un-
der Sabinus and Varus, every one was made 8aaixebº, “king”
(lib. xvii. cap. 12, p. 608, G): and speaking of the very
same time, he saith, Truxyou; 8aat?, stay 3 kalpê; &várEise, “The
time (when they expected Messiah their King) made many
to usurp the kingdom " (De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 6, p.
779, G), which they must do under pretence of being their
Messiah also, or the king that cometh in the name of the
Lord to redeem Israel (Luke xix. 38. xxiv. 21, see Examen
Millii).
6 W. 10. "Iya Koºy HXool, wai regio'ay fixo~ir, That they
might have life, and have it more abundantly..] Having,
saith Grotius, cum ea vità omne genus felicitatis, “with life all
kind of felicity ;” but 3ioc and ºwn signity, not only life, but
sustenance by which it is preserved; as when the widow's
mite is styled, Śāo; # 8toc, “her whole life” (Mark xii. 44):
so he that takes the nether millstone to pledge, “taketh a
man's life” (Deut. xxiv. 6), i. e. Saith the Chaldee, that
which makes his meat ready to preserve life; “the necessaries
of life, Targum Hieros. In Homer it is # ºrgèc rºy & why
orapaaksºn, provision for life " (see Budaeus).
7 Ver. 1]. I am the good shepherd..] Referred to by the
prophets, Isa. xl. 11. Ezek. xxxiv. 23. xxxvii. 24. I am so war'
Éoxy, so as to “lay down my life for the sheep,” and “take it
up again,” ver. 15. 17, which words can agree to no other
shepherd. I grant to Grotius, that the apostles and their suc-
cessors were true shepherds, and not mercenaries ; but none
of them could be the good Shepherd here, or the one Shep-
herd, ver, 16, viz. “the chief Shepherd of the sheep” (1
Pet. v. 4); though by their ministry he brought both Jews
and gentiles into his fold after his resurrection ; and they
doing this in his name, and by his authority and assistance,
he himself is said to do it (ver. 16).
* Ver. 12. The hireling fleeth.] The hireling here
is not he who receives maintenance from his particular flock;
for this he may do by virtue of Christ's ordinance (1 Cor. ix.
13, 14): of this, saith Christ, he is “worthy’’ (Luke x. 7):
and much less he who labours among them, with respect to
that recompence or crown of glory he is to receive “when
the chief Shepherd shall appear ;' but he who is an intruder,
“whose the sheep are not,” who intends not their good so
much as his own profit, and who, in time of danger, flies for
his own safety, not caring though the wolf tear and devour
them. Hence also we may learn, that a true pastor must
not desert his flock in time of peril, when by his absence they
may be brought into great peril, and by his presence may be
happily preserved from it.
* Ver. 14. I know mine, and am known of them.] i.e
CHAPTER X.
377
Father: and (out of love and obedience to him) I lay
down my life for the sheep,
16 And * other sheep I have, which are not of this
fold (i. e. the gentiles): them also I must bring (into
the fold), and they shall hear my voice; and (so of
Jew and gentile) there shall be one fold and one shep-
herd.
17 "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I
lay down my life (for the sheep: and this I do, not that
I might continue under the power of death, but) that I
may take it again (by a glorious resurrection).
18 No man (by force) taketh it (away) from me
(before the time), but (then) * I lay it down of myself.
I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take
it again (and rise from the dead). This commandment
(i.e. commission, of laying down my life for the sheep)
have I received of my Father.
19 There was a division therefore again among the
Jews because of these sayings (which seemed to ascribe
to him such power and relation to God as his Father,
and spake of his death and the conversion of the gentiles,
which things the Jews could not well bear).
20 And many of them said (with the pharisees), He
hath a devil, and is mad (i.e. he is possessed with a
melancholy spirit and a frenzy); why hear ye him (or
attend to anything he says)?
I have an intimate affection for them, and they sincerely love
me ; for this phrase signifies,
First, To approve : thus “the Lord knoweth the righte-
ous,” Ps i. 6, and whom he approveth not, he is said not to
know, Matt. vii. 23.
Secondly, To love, and to be kindly affected to; as when
God saith to his own people, “You have I known of all the
families of the earth,” Amos ii. 2; “If any man love God,
he is known of him,” 1 Cor. viii. 3, see Deut. ii. 7. -
Thirdly, To preserve and protect ; as Ps. xxxi. 8, “Thou
hast known my soul in adversity;” Nah. i. 7, God is good
to them that wait for him, yivda'xwy, “knowing them that
fear him.” -
Wer. 15.] Because it is said here, that Christ laid down his
life for his sheep, elsewhere that he doth it for “his friends,”
John xv. 13, 14, and for “his church,” Eph. ii. 26, and all
are not his sheep, his friends, or his church: hence some con-
clude, that Christ did not die for all.
Ans. Though it be certain, from the places cited in the note
here, that Christ died intentionally for all, i. e. designing the
benefits of his salutary passion for them, upon their perform-
ance of the conditions of the new covenant established in his
blood, according to these plain words of the apostle, 2 Cor.
v. 15, “He died for all, that they who live might not live
unto themselves, but unto him who died for them ;’ and so
none perish, because he died not for them, but because they
do not live to him who died for them : yet it is also true, that
he eventually is only the “Saviour of his body,” and died
only for his sheep and friends ; because they only do per-
form the conditions of the new covenant, and therefore to
them only can this righteous Judge assign, at last, the bless-
ings promised in that covenant.
Secondly, In none of these places is it said, that Christ
died only for his sheep, for his church, or for his friends; and
therefore none of them say anything which contradicts the
more general extent of Christ's redemption. This argument
may therefore be retorted thus ; He that died for his friends
and for his enemies died for all; but Christ died for his
friends and for his enemies, “for when we were enemies,
Christ died for us” (Rom. v. 8). Again, he that died for
the church of God, and for the unrighteous, that he might
bring them to the church of God, died for all ; but Christ
died for both, for “he suffered for us, the just for the un-
just, that he might bring us to God” (1 Pet. iii. 18). Lastly,
He that died for his sheep that heard his voice, and for the
lost sheep, that did not hearken to his voice, died for all ;
but Christ died for his sheep that heard his voice, as the text
Saith here, and for his lost sheep, for he “came to seek and
to save that which was lost, even the lost sheep of the house
of Israel” (Matt. xviii. 11, 12.x. 6), therefore he died for all.
* Ver. 16. And other sheep I have, which are not of
this fold.] He calls the gentiles sheep by way of anticipa-
tion ; because as many of them as were docile, and fit to re-
ceive instruction, would in time be so ; and because the par-
tition-wall betwixt Jew and gentile was to be broken, and
the gentiles to be admitted to the same privileges with
; believing Jews, he says, “There shall be one sheep-
fold.”
* Ver. 17. Therefore the Father loveth me..] Because,
out of obedience to him, and love to the sheep, I lay down
my life for them ; which I have good reason to do, seeing I
am sure so soon to take it up again. This seems to be the
Sense of the words. Note also, that if we respect the coun-
sel of God and the design of Christ, nothing is more certain
than that Christ gave himself “a ransom for all,” l Tim.
ii. 6, and “tasted death for every man,” Heb. ii. 9, and
was “a propitiation for the sins of the whole world,” I John
ii. 2, and that the Father “so loved the world as that he sent
his Son into it, that the world might be saved by him,” iii.
16, 17. But because the world can no otherwise obtain this
salvation than by believing in him, and obeying the voice of
this Shepherd; therefore he is said to do this more emi-
nently for his sheep.
* Ver. 18. 'Ey& ríðnºt airy, I lay it down.] Grotius
having hinted, note on ver, 11, that riðsa 62, Juxºv, “to lay
down the life,” signifies only to expose it to danger, or put
our lives in our hands, as the phrase is, Judg. xii. 3. 1 Sam.
xxviii. 21, and having said also, that aráxiv Aa3siv airāv, “to
take it again,” is to rescue it from danger; I shall show this
to be a very forced exposition. For, -
First, This phrase rišsa-Sai rºy Juxāy, “to lay down the
life,” being absolutely put, is only used in the New Testa-
ment, and there only by this apostle; and it always signifies
to die, or to give the life to death—as when St. Peter saith,
Tây Juxhy gov Show, “I will lay down my life for thee,” xiii.
37, 38, when Christ saith, xv. 13, “Greater love than this
hath no man, than ºva rig rºy Juxºv aircü Şā, that one should
lay down his life for his friend :” and the beloved disciple
(1 John iii. 16), argues thus, “If he ry, Juxºv iónks, laid
down his life for us, we ought rºy Juxāy riflávat, to lay down
our lives for the brethren:” and surely, when Christ Saith here,
tºy Juxºv gov 'rièrºl, “I lay down my life for my sheep,”
he meant, not only that he would expose himself to danger,
but that he would suffer death for them; when therefore he
saith in the same place, “I have power to takeit up again,”
he doubtless meant, he had power to raise it from death.
Stegmannus the Socinian saith here, that Christ here ascribes
this power to himself improperly, because God had promised
to use his power in raising him from the dead; but (1.) is it
proper to introduce Christ positively saying, “I have,” what
he had not, only because another had that power? since he
says not, I have a promise, but, I have £ovatay, “the power”
to restore this life I lay down. (2.) If we consider how
plainly he had challenged this power to himself, the power
of raising up and quickening whom he would, and that be:
cause he had “life in himself” (ver. 21. 26), and engaged
his word of truth, both to raise up his own body (ii. 19), and
the bodies of all the saints (vi. 39, 40. 44. 54), yea, the
bodies of all that were in their graves (v. 28, 29), as being
“the resurrection and the life” (xi. 25), we cannot doubt
his power to raise his own body. ' And (3.) when he saith
\
in the preceding words, “No man taketh my life from me,
but I lay it down of myself ; #ovciav #x2, I have power to
lay it down ;” he plainly ascribes to himself a right or power
to give up himself to the death : why therefore should not
the same words immediately following, viz. “I have power
to take it up again,” bear the same sense? The little
sophisms of Stegmannus here are of no force to the contrºy;
for, why might not Christ's body die, though it was united
to immortal nature, as well as when it was united to
an immortal soul? Nor do we say, that he was dead ac-
cording to his human nature, but only according to his body 3
or that the union of his body with the divine nature was dis-
solved by death, but only the union of his body with his soul.
Note also, that the words following, “This commandment
have I received from the Father,” respect not the raising of
his body, but only the laying down of his life, or his dying
for his sheep, as Grotius here notes.
378
JOHN.
21 Others said, These are not (like) the words of
him that hath a devil; (nor are his works such: for)
can a devil open the eyes of the blind
22 And it was at Jerusalem, (and at) the * feast of
the dedication (of the altar, profaned by Antiochus, 1
Macc. iv. 59. 2 Macc. x. 8, that Christ spake this),
and it was winter (that feast beginning to be celebrated
the twenty-fifth of Chisleu, which answers to part of
our December).
23 And Jesus (then) walked in the temple *in So-
lomon’s porch. - -
24 Then came the Jews round about him, and said
to him, How long dost thou make us to doubt (Gr.
hold us in suspense) 8 If thou be (indeed) the Christ,
tell us plainly (that so it is).
25 Jesus answered them, I (have already) told you,
and ye believed not : "the works that I do in my Fa-
ther’s name, they bear witness of me (that so I am).
26 But (notwithstanding) ye believe not, (not through
want of evidence of the truth, but) * because ye are
* Ver. 22. ‘Eyśvero 33 rà #yxaívia, It was the feast of
the dedication, and it was winter.] The feast of dedica-
tion, here mentioned, respects not the dedication of the tem-
ple made by Solomon, or repaired by Zerubbabel; for we
read of no annual feast of dedication appointed at either of
them ; but it respects the dedication of the altar and tem-
ple, celebrated by Judas Maccabaeus ; of which we read thus,
1 Macc. iv. 56, “So they kept rôv. čywaivia ºwy, the dedica-
tion of the altar eight days;” and, ver. 59, “Moreover,
Judas and his brethren, and the whole congregation of Israel,
ordained, that the days, #yxatvia pºoj, of the dedication of the
altar should be kept in their season fron year to year, for the
space of eight days, from the twenty-fifth day of the month
Chisleu,” which falls in with our December (see also 2
Macc. x. 5.8, and Josephus Antiq. lib. xii. cap. 11). This
is apparent, because it is said, “it was winter;” whereas the
dedication of Solomon’s temple was in the seventh month,
or in autumn (1 Kings viii. 2), of Zerubbabel's in the month
Adar (Ezra vi. 15), at the entrance of the spring, this in
December. Moreover, from our Saviour’s presence at this
feast, Grotius well notes, that festival-days, in memorial of
public blessings, may piously be instituted by persons in au-
thority, without a divine command.
* Ver. 23. And Jesus walked in the porch of Solo-
mon.] In the porch new built in the same place where So-
lomon erected his : in summer they walked in the open air,
in winter under covert. -
* Wer. 25. The works that I do in my Father's name
bear witness of me..] i. e. There is no cause why you should
thus be in suspense concerning me, or not hear me plainly
saying, “I am the Messiah,” seeing this appears sufficiently
from my works. He ascribes not the works to himself, saith
Stegmannus, but to his Father ; and yet the text saith, & #y&
Trotă, “The works which I do,” viz. by the power of the
Father dwelling in me (ver 38). So, out of modesty he
speaks, saith Grotius: so, as a prophet, say others.
* Ver. 26. You believe not, où y&g, because you are not
of my sheep.] It is evident that Christ here gives the reason
why they believed not, as elsewhere he doth : so John viii.
43, “Ye own not my word, 3rt, because ye cannot hear it”
(see the note there); and ver, 45, “Ye believe not, 3rt, be-
cause I speak the truth ;” i. e. that truth which is offensive
to you ; and, ver. 47, 31& roºro, “For this cause you do not
hear (i.e. obey) my word; because ye are not of God.” And
this observation excludes the evasion of those who say, be-
cause here is not rational, or renders not the reason of their
unbelief, but only intimates that it was consequential to their
being not his sheep ; for the word here rendered “because,”
is not &rt, but of y&p, “For ye are not my sheep:” now yap
is a rational particle, pointing out the cause. (2.) The reason
which Christ here assigns of this defect of faith, is doubtless
such as renders it a great crime in them : for sure that must
be such for which they were to “die in their sins” (John viii.
24). It is therefore certain, this unbelief cannot be resolved
into any natural defect of knowledge on their part, or any
decree or act of reprobation on God's part, but into the
not of my sheep (i.e. of them who are disposed to at-
tend to and obey my doctrine), as I said to you.
27 (For) my sheep hear my voice, and I know
them (by this that they obey) and they follow me.
28 And (therefore) I give to them eternal life; and
they “shall never perish, neither shall any man (be
able to) pluck them out of my hand. -
29 My Father, who gave them me, is greater than
all (their adversaries); and no man is able to pluck
them out of my Father’s hand. .
30 (Now) “I and the Father are one, (the Father
dwelling in me, and I in him, ver. 38).
31 Then the Jews took up stones again to stone
him (as a blasphemer, who made himself equal with
God, as they had done before, John viii. 59).
32 Jesus answered them, Many good works have I
showed (i.e. before) you from my Father; for which
of these works do you (go about to) stone me
33 The Jews answered him, saying, For a good
work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy; and
want of a docile and well disposed mind; for were it the
same to be one of Christ's sheep, and to be predestinated to
faith and salvation, the import of Christ's words must be
this, Ye therefore believe not, because ye are not of the
number of the elect, but of those whom God, hath from eter-
nity rejected. Now, by this account of their infidelity,
Christ would not have accused, but excused, the infidelity
of the Jews; for what fault could it be in them that they
did not that, which by reason of this act of God before they
had a being, they were incapable of doing? Then might
they have replied to Christ, We therefore believe not, be-
cause God by his act of reprobation hath shut the door of
faith against us, and so our infidelity is not to be imputed to
us, but to God. -
* Ver. 28. And they shall never perish.] i. e. Through
any defect on my part, or by the force of any plucking them
out of my hands: so the particle wai, which is here illative,
shows, viz. they therefore shall not perish, for none shall
pull them out of my hand : and this is still Inure evident
from the reason following, “My Father is greater than all ”
their adversaries, and none can pull them out of his hands:
now his power and mine is one and the same. This appears,
thirdly, from the frequent exhortations directed to Christ's
sheep, not to fall away from the grace received, Heb. xii.
15, not to lose what had been wrought in them, 2 John 8,
to those that stand, to take heed they fall not, so as that God
will not spare them, Rom. xi. 20, 21, because not continu-
ing in his goodness, ver. 22. Whereas if the sheep of Christ
can no more cease to be so, than a man whilst living can
cease to be a man, these exhortations, to take care they fall
not off from being so, must be as vain, as a caution to a man
not to outlive his manhood. Well, therefore, said Origen”
and Isidore Pelusiota, no man can snatch them away by
force or tyranny ; for then they must perish without and
against their own wills; but this may be done by deceit and
allurements, rapiº tºy rāy aireéovaiov &yôpºray fia.0ugiar,
“through the negligence of men, who have the freedom of
their wills;” for such men who, by the allurements of the
world, the flesh, and the devil, thus cease to obey Christ's
laws, are not snatched out of Christ's hands, but choose to go
from him. Or, Secondly, Christ may speak here of sheep con-
tinuing so to the death, promising to them, that neither death,
nor “he that hath the power of death,” shall make them
perish for ever, for he would “raise them up at the last day.”
* Ver. 30. 'Ey?, wai ; traºrºp #y Édºey, I and the Father
are one.] That Christ here speaks not of a unity of will
and concord only, appears,
(1.) From the reason assigned of the security of the
sheep—the want of power in any one to snatch them out
of the hands of Christ ; because the Father being greater
in power than all, his power could secure them from all,
and so could also Christ, he being one in power with the
* Orig. in Ter. hom. 18, ed. Huet. p. 166. Isidor. Epist.
lib. iii. ep. 122.
CHAPTER X.
379
(that is) because that thou being (only) a man makest
thyself (a) God. . -
34 Jesus answered them, *Is it not written in your
law (Ps. lxxxii. 6), I said, Ye are gods : -
35 If he called them gods, to whom the word of
God came, (Gr. was, i. e. who were God’s prophets, as
Moses and Samuel, and his judges, as Joshua and
others, and had the assistance of his Spirit given them
for the performance of those offices, ) and the scripture
cannot be broken (Gr. dissolved, but what it saith
must be true). -
36 Sayye of him, whom the Father hath sancti-
fied, (by the Holy Ghost essentially dwelſing in, or
without measure imparted to, him, John iii. 34) and
sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I
(after this unction and commission to make known his
will to you) said, I am the Son of God?
37 If I do not the works of my Father, believe me
not (when I say, I and my Father are one, ver. 30).
38 But if I do, though you believe not me (on ac-
count of my own words), believe (the testimony of) the
works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Fa-
Father : for the foundation of this argument is, not that the
Father's will, but that his power was above all.
(2.) From the inference of the Jews, that by these
words “he made himself God” and so was guilty of blas-
phemy. Now this invidious charge Christ doth not evade,
by saying, he only conspired with the will of God, as all
true prophets did, but by appealing to the works, which,
saith he, I do by the power of the Father residing in me,
which plainly carries this to a unity of power, not of will
only ; and then the inference of St. Chrysostom is undeniable,
El 3; # 36Vapcic airi, ejön?ow Śri kal obvia, “And if the power
be the same, the essence must be so.”
* Ver. 34–36. Is it not written in your law, I have said,
Ye are gods 2 If he called them gods to whom the word of
God came—say you of him whom the Father hath sanctified
—Thou blasphemest : because I said, I am the Son of God?]
From these words, and from Exod. xxi. 6. xxii. 9. 28,
where judges and supreme magistrates are called elohim,
Stegmannus gathers, that the name of God in scripture doth
not always signify the Supreme God, but sometimes only
them who have a high power by God committed to them ;
amongst whom he places Christ as having a divine authority
committed to him by the favour of God ; as if I should
argue thus, Parents are styled gods by Philo,” or by the
heathens, therefore the name of God in Philo, and among
the heathens, is common to the supreme God and to our
parents. But, notwithstanding this, no parent ever was by
Philo, or by the heathens, distributively, or in the singular
number, called God ; nor is that name thus given in scrip-
ture to any judge, or Supreme governor, as it is often in the
New Testament attributed to our Saviour Christ. And (2.)
when magistrates and judges are in scripture called gods,
the Holy Ghost still addeth something, which excludes them
from a true divinity, as that they should, “die like men,”
Ps. lxxxii. 6, or that they are “rulers of the people,” Exod.
xxii. 28. Whereas when Christ is called God, it is either
with the addition of some epithet belonging to the supreme
God, as when he is styled 3 #mri Trávrov Os3g, “God over all”
Rom. ix. 5, “the great God,” Tit. ii. 13, 3 Ögö, ä &Anówác,
“the true God,” 1 John v. 20, or with addition of some
operation proper to God, as when it is said, “The Word was
God,” and “All things were made by him,” i. 1, 2. Steg-
mannus adds, that if these persons were not truly gods, the
scripture falsely called them gods; to which I answer, that
they were truly so in title, as being God's vicegerents upon
earth, but not in nature, as being only the “ministers of
God,” Rom. xiii. 6. He adds, they must be properly and
truly gods, as being invested with divine power. But here
he trifles, for a divine power may either signify the power
essential to God, by which he is enabled to do all things;
and to ascribe this power to mere men is blasphemy: or
it may only signify a power of government, and judging of
the offences done by men, derived from God, and in this
sense only is the divine power ascribed to magistrates, and
such also is the power of parents over their children, and
of masters over their servants; and yet can it be reasonably
said, that the formal reason of the Deity truly and properly
agrees to them P He goes on, and argues against the Deity
of Christ from this text, thus, (1.) That the argument of
Christ hence for a proper Deity, that because magistrates are
metaphorically and by virtue of their office called gods, he
must be truly so, must be infirm, seeing no argument will
hold from the metaphorical to the proper reason of the thing.
* @Eoi #44 aveſ;. Philo in Decal. 587, Wide note in 1 Tim.
W. 6.
(2.) The reason which Christ here assigns of this, viz.
“ because the Father had sanctified him,” concerneth not
his eternal generation, nor can it hence be gathered that
Christ is the supreme God, but rather the contrary ; for
“greater is he who sanctifies,” and 'sends, than he who is
sanctified and sent. And (3.) hence, saith he, we may
may learn there was no higher reason of Christ's filiation
than this sanctification and mission into the world ; for then
Christ would have produced that reason, when thus assaulted
by his adversaries, and not, concealing it, have rested in that
reason of his sanctification, which proves not his true di-
vinity
Now to these arguments two answers may be given,
First, If by this sanctification we understand the unction
of Christ by the Holy Ghost, then note, (1.) That the Jewish
doctors understand not the psalmist's words, “I have said,
Ye are gods,” to be meant of civil magistrates, but of their
doctors sitting in the chair of Moses, or rather of their pro-
phets sent to reveal God’s will to them, to whom alone that
phrase here used properly agrees, they only being the men,
orgö; oil; 5 Aéyo; Ogot, #yÉvero, “to whom the word of the Lord
came” (see note on Luke iii. 2). Note,
Secondly, That if we understand it of their judges and
supreme civil magistrates ; yet of them it is certain, that
they in difficult cases judged by consulting God's oracle,
the wrim and thummim, and in making war had still resort
to this oracle ; whence all the Jews were upon pain of death
obliged to hearken to the sentence of those judges and of
those priests, by whom they did inquire from this oracle the
mind of God (Deut. xvii. 9. 12), and as doing presump-
tously, when they refused so to do (ver. 12), which they
are only said to do when they opposed the mind of God
made known to them, or wilfully rebelled against it, by
doing anything in contempt of the divine Majesty and
his authority (Numb. xv. 30). Note, secondly, that it is a
received opinion among the Jews, that even their civil
governors had a particular assistance and afflatus of the
Holy Spirit, to fit them for that employment. So when God
chose seventy elders to manage the government of the peo-
ple under Moses, “he put his Spirit on them, and they pro-
phesied” (Numb. xi. 17.25). And when Joshua was ap-
pointed to rule them after Moses, he is said to be a man “in
whom the Spirit was’ (Numb. xxvii. 18), and to be “full
of the Spirit of wisdom ; because Moses had laid his hands
upon him” (Deut. xxxiv. 9). When Saul was anointed
king over Israel, “the Spirit came upon him, and he pro-
phesied” (1 Sam. x. 6. 10). And when David by his sin
had caused the Holy Spirit to depart from him, he prays
not only for the Spirit of holiness, but that trysiºca #yepaoyl-
wdy, “the spirit of government,” which God had given him,
might be restored (Ps. li. 12); and of Solomon, the Targum
on 2 Chron. vii. 6, saith, “God made the Spirit rest upon
him ;’ and when God had rejected Saul, “the Spirit of
the Lord departed from him” (1 Sam. xvi. 14). So that,
according to this exposition, the argument of Christ is to
this effect: If they are called gods, and the sons of the
Most High, in the scriptures of unquestionable truth, who
had the spirit of prophecy, wisdom, and government, more
sparingly, and only at some certain times imparted to them,
and that rather to assist than abide in them ; say you of
him to whom the Father hath given the Spirit without
measure (John iii. 34), and in whom he so abideth essen-
tially, that by virtue of him, I am in the Father and the
Father in me, Évárnºr xai Suyápºst rot IIvávºwaroº, by the unity
and power of the Spirit, by which I am enabled to perform
the works which are properly divine, and reveal to you all
380
JOHN.
}. is in me, and I in him (and so am one with
im).
39 Therefore (upon this repeated declaration that he
was one with the Father) they sought again to take
(or, lay hold on) him : but he (miraculously) escaped
out of their hands,
40 And went away again towards Jordan, to the
; where John at first baptized; and there he
a DOC18.
the hidden treasures of wisdom, Thou blasphemest, because
I said, I am the Son of God? So that the argument of Christ
here proceeds from the less to the greater ; from the Spirit
assisting them by his gifts, to the Spirit essentially dwell-
ing in him ; in which respect, “greater is he who sanctifies”
and sends, than he who is sanctified and sent, by virtue of
his original, though not by virtue of the divine nature, and
the fulness of the Godhead communicated to Christ: for even
Filbinger,” a very acute Socinian, owns, that since the Spirit
of God is the power of God (Luke i. 35), he must be God;
quia in Deo nihil est quod non sit Deus, “there being
nothing in God which is not God.”
Ans. 2. The second answer is, That he here saith the
Father had sanctified him, not by reason of the unction of
the Holy Ghost coming down upon him at his baptism, but
because of the union of the divine Logos to the human na-
ture: for explication of which answer, note (1.) that ac-
cording to the tradition of the ancients received from the
beginning of Christianity, it was this Aáyo; who appeared
to the patriarchs, and conversed with the judges and magis-
trates of the Jews, and so was literally 3 Aéyoç roi; Osoſ,
“the essential word of God,” who came to them. Note
(2.) that Christ speaks of a sanctification precedent to his
mission into the world, and so not of the unction of the Holy
Ghost, received when he had been in it thirty years, but at
the union of the divine Logos with the human nature; and
then the argument of Christ will be to this effect, If they
were styled gods, and the sons of the Most High, to whom
this Word only came, and with whom he conversed, can I,
who am this very Aéyoc, be said to blaspheme, in saying,
that I am the Son of God P And according to this sense it
is evident that Christ does here argue from the sublimest
notion of his filiation, according to these words of the re-
verend Dr. Bull ºf “ It appears from a due inspection of
the text, that Christ did not intend to say or prove he was
the Son of God, as being his ambassador extraordinarily
instructed, and so sent into the world, but on a far more ex-
cellent account, viz. that before he came into the world, he
was with God the Father, and so was his true and essential
Son, as being God of God, partaking of the same nature as
a son doth with his father. For it is apparent, that from
the twenty-fifth to the thirtieth verse inclusively, Christ so
discoursed to the Jews, that they still thought he asserted
that he was God, and therefore, say they, “we stone thee, be-
* In Matt. iii. 16, 17.
+ De Judicio Eccl. Cath. 5, §. 6.
41 And many resorted to him, and said, John did
no miracle (to confirm his sayings, as Jesus doth); but
all things that John spake of this man were true;
(and so, if we believe John’s testimony, we must own
this person as the Son of God, and a much greater pro-
phet than he was, John i. 15. iii. 35.)
42 And many believed on him there (by reason of
the testimony which John had given to him).
cause thou, being a man, makest thyself God’ (ver. 33);
viz. by calling God so emphatically, and with such property,
‘ his Father,’ as that he was so to him alone, and so
that he and his Father were one (ver, 30). Now Christ,”
Gaith he, “does not answer by denying either that he was
God, or that he ever challenged to himself that dignity,
which yet seems necessary, had he been only man, to have
been said, to take off this objection of his blasphemy, but
rather seems to argue that he was so the Son of God, that
he had the divine nature in him.”
First, After this manner—If judges and magistrates are
called gods for an imperfect resemblance and participa-
tion of the divine authority, how much more may I be
called God, who am the natural Son of God, and am more-
over, in the most excellent manner, authorized by him P
For though Christ speaks not thus in express words, he not
obscurely signifies it by saying, his Father had sanctified
him, and sent him into the world ; for (1.) he saith not, me
whom God, but whom the Father hath sanctified, declaring
he had God for his Father, by virtue of that sanctification.
(2.) He adds, that he was first sanctified, and then sent into
the world, signifying thereby that he was the Son of God
in heaven, before he was sent into the world; and so he
speaks more plainly to his disciples, saying, John Xvi. 28,
“I came forth from the Father, and came into the world,
again I leave the world, and go to the Father.”
The second argument by which our Lord defends him-
self, and proves his divine original, is taken from the di-
vine operations he performed ; for, saith he, ver. 37, 38,
“If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not (when
I thus say he is my Father); but if I do (them), though
ye believe not me, believe the works, that ye may know and
believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me :”
as if he should have said, You might have some reason to
Say I blaspheme, in saying I am so the Son of God, and he
is so my Father, as that “I and the Father are one,” and
so as no other person can style God Father, or say, he is his
Son ; if I did not those divine works which no other person
ever did, and which demonstrate the Father is so in me, as
in no other person; but seeing I do those works of omnipo-
tency, which show I am invested with the same power
with the Father, you have no reason to imagine I blas-
pheme in saying, “I am the Son of God,” and therefore call
him Father, because the “Father is in me,” and “I and
the Father are one.”
CHAPTER XI.
1 Now a certain man was sick, (to wit) *Lazarus,
of Bethany, (which was) the town of Mary and her
sister Martha. -
2 (And) it was "that Mary which anointed the Lord
with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair (as
we shall show presently), whose brother Lazarus was
sick.
3 Therefore his sisters sent to him, saying, Lord,
behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.
4 When Jesus heard that, he said (to his disciples),
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XI.
* Ver, 1. Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and
Martha.] i. e. In which they dwelt; as Bethsaida is styled
the city of Andrew and Peter, i. 44. Grotius here conjec-
tures, that this remarkable history of Lazarus was therefore
omitted by St. Matthew, Mark, and Luke, because Lazarus
was then living when they wrote their gospels; the last of
them writing, saith Theophylact, within fifteen years after
our Lord's ascension ; whereas tradition saith,” that Lazarus
* 'Ew rapaśāorea'iv Bºgousy %r. 3 Aéðago; Azeri, r3 &varrázai
airy rplákovta irm ºnce. Epiph. Haer. 65, §. 34.
lived thirty years after that he was raised from the dead: he
therefore thinks they would not publish this history of him
in his lifetime, lest they should provoke the Jews to cut him
off; whereas, according to the earliest computation, St. John
wrote his gospel thirty-two years after our Lord's ascension,
and so after the death of Lazarus. (2.) The last of these
three evangelists writing but fifteen years after our Lord's
ascension, might think it needless to mention a miracle con-
cerning a person living so near Jerusalem, where there was
So great a fame thereof, and so many living witnesses to
attest it. St. John writing this gospel, say the ancients,
above sixty years after our Lord's ascension, when, by the
CHAPTER XI.
381
This sickness is not to (a lasting) *death, but for the
(manifestation of the) glory of God, that the Son of
God might be glorified thereby.
5 Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and
Hazarus (which made him the more willing to gratify
his sisters). -
6 When he had heard therefore that he was sick,
(that God’s glory might be more conspicuous in his re-
covery) he “abode two days still in the same place
where he was. -
7 Then after that saith he to his disciples, Let us
go into Judea again.
8 His disciples say to him, Master, the Jews of
late (Gr. but now) sought to stone thee; and goest
thou thither again --
9 Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in
the day If any man walketh in the day, he stumbleth
not, because he seeth (the sun, which is) the light of
this world.
10 But if any man walk in the night, he stumbleth,
because there is no light in him : (now my day and
hour still last, ix.4, so that by my wonted prudence I
shall still escape their malice, till the night of my pas-
sion cometh.)
11 These things said he and after that he said to
them, Our friend, Lazarus "sleepeth (i. e. is dead) ;
but I go, that I may awake him out of (the) sleep
(of death).
12 Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he
shall do well.
13 Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they
thought that he had spoken of his taking restin sleep.
d I i Then said Jesus to them plainly, Lazarus is
623.01.
15 And "I am glad for your sakes that I was not
there (before), to the intent (that, through the miracle
of his resurrection,) ye may believe (more firmly) ;
nevertheless, (though he be dead) let us go to him.
16 Then said Thomas, who was called Didymus, to
his fellow-disciples, Let us also go, that we may die
with him, (for that we may eaſpect by going thither
again, ver, 8.)
17 Then when Jesus came, he found that he had
lain in the grave four days already.
18 Now Bethany was nigh to Jerusalem, (being
only) about fifteen furlongs off (from it):
19 And many of the Jews came (thence) to "Mar-
tha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their bro-
ther.
20 Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus
was coming, went and met him; but Mary sat stillin
the house.
21 Then said Martha to Jesus, Lord, If thou hadst
been here, my brother had not died.
22 But (and) *I know that even now, whatsoever
thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee (though it
be the raising him from the dead).
23 Jesus saith unto her, Thy "brother shall rise
again.
24 Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall
rise again at the resurrection at the last day.
25 Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection, and
death of the person, and most of the witnesses who were
present at his resurrection, the memory and fame of it might
be much impaired, had great reason to perpetuate the
memory of it by this large rehearsal of it.
* Ver. 2. It was that Mary which anointed our Lord
with ointment.] This is by most interpreters thought to be
spoken of Mary Magdalene: but (1.) I find no mention in
scripture of her anointing the head or feet of Jesus, as this
Mary did (xii. 3). Yea, when St. Luke had spoken of a
woman, who anointed not our Lord's head, as this Mary did,
but his feet only (vii. 46), he proceeds (ch. viii.) to the men-
tion of Mary Magdalene, giving a character of her, not from
what she had done to Christ, but from what he had dome to
her, saying, “It was that Mary out of whom he had cast
seven devils” (ver. 2), which also is the character of her in
St. Mark, xvi. 9. Nor seems it for our Saviour's honour to
have been so conversant with one who had been a noted
harlot, though she had now repented of that lewdness ; or
such an ardent lover of her as he was of this Mary (ver. 5).
It also is to be noted, that the apostle mentions this as a
thing done, before he speaks of the raising of Lazarus; not
that it was done before his resurrection from the dead, as
appears, xii. 3, but because it was done before he writ his
gospel, telling us when it was done in the chapter following.
* Ver. 4. This sickness is not reºc Sávarov, to death..] i.e.
Lazarus is permitted to be sick by the special providence of
God; not that he designs to take him out of the world by
death, as he does other men, but that the Son of God might
be glorified, by showing his almighty power in raising lim
from the dead; by this declaring, that he hath “given to the
Son to have life in himself, and to quicken whom he will”
(John v. 22.26), and therefore that he could fulfil his pro-
mise made to them that believed in him, that he would
“raise them up at the last day” (vi. 39, 40.44. 54), and so
Christ expounds himself, ver, 25, 26. g
* Ver, 6. He abode still two days in the same place.] Not
coming to Bethany till Lazarus had been dead four days
(ver. 17), not only that the miracle of his resurrection might
be the greater, but also that all pretence of his being only
in a deliquium might be taken away.
* Ver, 11. Our friend Lazarus xexoiana'at, sleepeth.] It
is not only the death of good men which is compared to or
styled a sleep, as, v. g. the death of Moses, Deut. xxxi. 16,
also of bad men, who are said, tºrvägal invey airāv, to have
“slept their sleep,” Ps. lxxvi. 5; to “sleep in the dust,”
Dan. xii. 2; and generally of the kings of Israel and Judah,
that they slept with their fathers. So the word DT, he slept,
is used, saith Buxtorf, by the Talmudists and rabbins; though,
saith he, “it is used by them with a particular respect to the
bodies of pious men, whose death is but a sleep ;” and per-
haps the ancient Jews might use this metaphor as St. Paul
doth, 1 Thess. iv. 13, in opposition to the heathens, who,
having no expectation of the resurrection of the body, styled
death “a perpetual sleep ;” declaring, they expected to be
raised out of it as certainly as they rose from sleep ; and in
allusion to this metaphor, Christ here saith, “I go, #virvićty
airy, to awake him out of sleep,” i.e. to raise him from the
dead.
• Wer. 15. I am glad that I was not there.] Who, had I
been present, could not have seen my friend languishing, or
resisted the importunity of his sisters to prevent his death ;
but now by raising him, after he hath been four days dead,
shall so confirm your faith that I am the Messiah, as that
you need not doubt of it when I suffer death, as knowing
my power to raise others, and therefore my own body from
the dead, as I have told you I both can and will do (ii. 19.
x. 18).
7 %. 19. IIº; tā; alsº Mápôay wai Magiay, To Martha and
Mary..] Not to those that were about them, as some render
the words; for they could not come to them “to comfort
them concerning their brother:” and this use of the word
"regi, with an article prefixed, is very common among the
Greeks, in whom oi régi IIAárova is “Plato,” of arsei IIgſakov,
“Priamus,” of rapi dixirmoy wał 'Axišavčov, “Philip and
Alexander” (see Stephanus's Lexicon and Budaeus).
* Ver. 22. And now I know, whatsoever thou askest q;
God he will give it thee..] Here Woltzogenius saith, her faith
was weak, in that she believed not that Christ had in himself
the power of doing this miracle; and yet it is evident that
the raising one from the dead is a demonstration of a divine
power, and therefore can reside in him only who hath the
divine essence residing in him (see the note on v.21). Grotius
here also saith, her faith was weak, because she only believed
that Christ was prevalent with God, but not that the fulness
of divine power resided in him.
* Ver. 23. Thy brother shall arise.] For (ver. 25), I am
of David, 2 Sam. vii. 12, Ps. iii. 13, but the phrase is used the author of life, and of the resurrection, and therefore
382
JOHN.
the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead,
yet shall he live (and therefore I, who shall hereafter
raise all persons to life, can raise him now) :
26 And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall
never die (Gr. shall not die for ever). Believest thou
this?
27 She saith to him, Yea, Lord : I believe that
thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should
come into the world (of whom we have received by tra-
dition that he shall raise the dead).
28 And when she had so said (being sent by Christ
to do so), she went her way, and called Mary her sis-
ter secretly, saying, The Master is come, and calleth
for thee.
29 As soon as she heard that, she arose quickly,
and came to him.
30 Now Jesus was not yet come into the town, but
was in that place where Martha met him.
31 The Jews then which were with her in the
house, and comforted her, when they saw Mary, that
she rose up hastily and went out, followed her, say-
ing, She goeth to the grave to weep there.
32 Then when Mary was come where Jesus was,
and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto
him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had
not died.
33 When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the
Jews also weeping which came with her, he "groaned
in the (his) spirit, and was troubled,
34 And said (to them), * Where have ye laid him :
They say to him, Lórd, come and see.
35 (And from the abundance of his affection to him)
Jesus wept.
36 Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him
37 And some of them said, Could not this man,
who opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that
even this man should not have died ?
38 Jesus therefore again groaning in himself com-
eth to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon
(the mouth of) it.
39 Jesus (then) said, Take ye away the stone.
Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith to him,
Lord, by this time he stinketh : for he hath been dead
*four days (and so, in all likelihood, his body is now
corrupted). - -
40 Jesus saith to her, Said I not unto thee, that, if
thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of
God (manifested in raising him from the dead)?
41 Then they took away the stone from the place
where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his
eyes, and said, "Father, I thank thee that thou hast
heard me (requesting as thy prophet that this man’s
spirit might return unto him).
42 And I knew that thou hearest me always: but
because of the people which stand by I said it (this),
that (owning thee as the author of this miracle) they
might believe that thou hast sent me.
43 And when he had thus spoken, “he cried with
a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.
44 And (then) he that was dead came forth, bound
hand and feet with grave-clothes : and his face was
bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith to them,
*Loose him, and let him go.
45 Then many of the Jews which came to Mary
(to comfort her), and had seen the things which Jesus
did, believed on him.
46 But some of them (who believed not) went their
ways to the pharisees, and told them what things
Jesus had done. th
47 Then gathered the chief priests and pharisees a
council, saying, What do we ? (Why do we suffer this
person to go on without interruption ?) for *this man
doeth many miracles.
48 If (then) we let him thus alone, all men will
believe in him, and (then) the Romans shall come
and take away both our place and nation.
49 And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the
high-priest "that (same) year, said to them, Ye know
nothing at all (of policy),
50 Nor consider that it is expedient for us that one
man should die for (the safety of) the people, and
that the whole nation perish not.
51 And this spake he not (intending any such thing)
of himself: * but being high-priest that year (in
always can raise whom I will, when I will, from the dead;
thou therefore mayest expect from my promise, that thy
brother shall shortly be restored to life, and not only at the
general resurrection. -
19 Wer. 33. 'Evegetañararo tº trysipzarı, He groaned (or was
moved) in his spirit...] Whence we learn, that human affec-
tions and commotions are not to be condemned as sinful, if:
they do not incline us to do anything repugnant to piety or
reason, but only to express our affection to our friend, or our
compassion to mankind (see the note on Luke xxii. 43).
* Wer. 34. Where have ye laid him 21 This he must know,
who knew all things, even the secret thoughts and affections
of men (xxi. 17); and yet he thus asks, that he might be
conducted by them to his sepulchre, that there might be no
semblance of fraud or confederacy.
** Ver. 39. Taragrafog yá; Barri, He hath been dead four
days.] In which time the visage of the dead began to change
in those countries, and all hopes of any return to life ceased.
So Dr. Lightfoot from Maimonides and the Talmudists,
“They go to the sepulchres, and visit the dead for three
days, for so long the spirit wanders about the sepulchre; but
then they certify of the dead; for after three days his coun-
tenance is changed.”
* Wer. 41,42. Father, I thank thee that thow hast heard
me..] Woltzogenius saith, it follows not from these words
that Christ requested anything of the Father ; God being,
by an Hebraism, said to hear them to whom he vouchsafeth
any benefit, though they did not ask it (Ps. x. 17. Isa. lxv.
24); there being no need that Christ, should request that
power which, from his unction, he always had residing in
him, but only that he should thank the Father for it. But
the words following, “I know that thou dost hear me always,”
a -ammºs
seem plainly to imply a request ; not indeed that he might
receive power to raise Lazarus from the dead, for that he
testifies he had already (v. 22. 26), but that this miracle
might be efficacious to confirm the faith of his apostles, and
to convince the multitude that he was a prophet sent from
God, and did all things to promote his glory.
* Wer. 43. He cried with a loud voice.] That it might
appear to all, that even the dead were subject to his voice.
* Ver. 44. Loose him, and let him go..] He followed not
Christ, that he might not seem to carry him about in triumph
with him.
1° Wer. 47,48. This man doeth many signs, all men will
believe on him.] For this very cause, that he did so many
miracles, all salutary and tending to the good of men, and
with such evidence of a divine power, as was sufficient to
draw all men to the faith, they should have owned him as
the true Messiah; but the fear of the Romans induced them
rather to cut him off, and by that very action they pulled
that dreadful vengeance, executed by the Romans, down
upon them. This is the just and usual effect of carnal
policy exalting itself against the wisdom and the counsel of
God,
17 Wer. 49. High-priest that same year.] The high-priest-
hood, by God’s institution, was to continue for the term of
life; but when the power was come into the hands of the
Romans, they changed them at their pleasure, and so they
came to be accounted such by years; yet, because this was
done by a power which they could not resist, and the high-
priesthood still continued in the line of Aaron, Christ him-
self owns his power.
* Ver. 51. Being high-priest that year, he prophesied, &c.]
i. e. In that year in which Christ was to suffer for the sins of
CHAPTER XII.
383
which Christ was to suffer), he (spake as one that)
prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation;
52 And (indeed he died) not for that mation only,
but that also he should "gather together in one the
children of God that were scattered abroad (all the
world over). *
53 Then from that day forth they took counsel to-
gether for to put him to death.
54 Jesus therefore (after this resolution) *walked
no more openly among the Jews (till his time was
tome); but went thence into a country near to the
wilderness, into a city called Ephraim, and there con-
tinued with his disciples.
55 And the Jews' passover was nigh at hand: and
many went out of the country up to Jerusalem before
the passover, to *purify themselves, (either from some
deftlement, which was to be eaſpiated by sacrifice, or by
reason of some vow of Nazaritism, which was upon
them, Acts xxi. 23.) *
56 Then sought they for Jesus, and spake among
themselves as they stood in the temple, What think
ye 2 (Is it) that he will not come to the feast :
57 Now both the chief priests and the pharisees
had given a commandment, that, if any man knew
where he was, he should show it (to them), that they
might take him.
fhe world: and he is said to prophesy, not that he designed
to foretell that Christ was to suffer upon that account, but
because God so overruled his tongue, as that he should speak
of the expedience of procuring our Saviour's death, in such
words as might be accommodated to the design of God in
giving up our Saviour to the death.
* Wer. 52. "Iva réaya–avyayāyn Big £y, That he might gather
together in one the children of God..] i. e. Believers: for
‘to as many as believed in him, he gave power to become
the sons of God” (i. 12). But note, that the gentiles are
here called the sons of God, not that they were so at present,
but that they were by faith to be made such, as our Lord
calls them sheep, who were to hear his voice, x. 16.
* Ver. 54. Jesus walked not openly.] Instructing us by
his example, that it is lawful to avoid danger, by giving place
to the fury of the enemy ; and that it is wisdom to withdraw
ourselves from it, rather than expose ourselves to unnecessary
perils, by abiding within the reach of them who are resolved
upon our ruin.
* Ver. 55. “Iva &yviewry Havroic, To purify themselves.]
They who committed sins which were to be expiated by sa-
crifices, were not obliged to travel instantly to Jerusalem to
offer them, but might defer the oblation to the next feast, at
which they were obliged to be present ; and they who entered
on the vow of Nazarites did usually contrive it so as that it
might conclude at one of those feasts; and therefore they
are said to come to Jerusalem before the feast, “to purify
themselves.” -
CHAPTER XII.
1 THEN Jesus, * six days before the passover, came
to Bethany, where Lazarus was who had been dead,
whom he raised from the dead.
2 There they made a * supper (for him); and
Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that
sat at table with him.
3 Then * took Mary (sister to Lazarus) a pound of
ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the
feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair : and
the house was filled with the odour of the oint-
nent.
4 Then saith one of his disciples (viz.), Judas “Is-
cariot, Simon’s son, which should (who was about to.
betray him,
5 Why was not this ointment sold for three hun.
dred pence, and given to the poor
6 (And) this he said, not that he cared for the poor;
but because he was a thief, and had the bag (or com-
mon purse of Christ and his apostles), and bare what
was put therein (and so out of so great a sum could
have purloined much to his own use).
7 Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day
of my burial hath she kept this (she hath performed
this as a fit ceremony formy burial, which is nighathand).
tºº-º-º-º:
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XII.
*Ver. 1. II:3 & hºtov rot Tráoza, Sia days before the pass-
over.] So 2 Cor. xii. 2, ºrpo itày Bexarea cºpov, “Fourteen
years since ;" Amos i. 1, ºrgö 860 hröy roi; oretoºcoö, “Two
years before the earthquake:”
ãºrøy, “Three years before:” in Numa, p. 61, in Popl. p.
101, in Rom. p. 23.
* Wer. 2. They made him a supper there.] This supper
Was different from that mentioned Matt. xxvi. 6. Mark xiv.
13. (1.) Because this was in the house of Lazarus, ver. 2,
that in the house of Simon the leper, Matt. xxvi. 6. (2.)
Here Mary anoints the feet of Christ, ver. 3, there a woman,
not named, pours ointment on his head, Matt. xxvi. 7. (3.)
This supper was sia days before the passover, ver. 1, that
only two, Matt. xxvi. 2. Mark xiv. 1, and if the suppers
were not the same, the Mary that anointed Christ's feet
here, and the woman that anointed his head there, were not
the same.
* Ver, 3. Mary took a pound of ointment.] Mary, the
sister of Lazarus (see the note on xi. 2); who is never called
Mary Magdalene, nor is it ever said that Christ cast seven
devils out of her. That they were divers women, we learn
from the Apostolical Constitutions, which say, avyāv ya; hºwſy
Magia May&ax#yn, xai Māºa, kai Magia, at 385*4 at Aačágov,”
“There were with us, Mary Magdalene, and Martha
and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus:” and from Origen in
* Lib. iii. cap. 6.
so in Plutarch, ºrgö retäy.
these words.” “The gospel saith, there came a woman hav-
ing an alabaster-box of ointment, &c.; not the sinner, but
Mary a holy woman; Luke indeed speaks of the sinner, but
Matthew, Mark, and John, speak of that Mary who was not
a sinner:” elsewhere he saith, “There were three Maries,
one of whom Matthew and Mark, another of whom Luke,
and a third of whom St. John here speaks.” And Basil of
Seleucia in his homily on Lazarus saith, oùx airi hv h Trépyn #
#y rà MarSatº otº # #y rà Aouză, “This was not the Mary
mentioned by St. Matthew or St. Luke, for they were harlots
or sinners, air: 3; a spyi, wai arovčata, but she was a holy and
honest woman :” so also say Chrysostom, Euthymius, and
Theophylact, here. See Cotelerius, note in Constit. Apost.
p. 204, and Casaub. Exercit. 14, a p. 242 ad p. 300, where
he answers the arguments of Baronius to the contrary.
* Wer. 4. Judas.] He was permitted to be among the
apostles, perhaps to teach us, (1.) that there should never be
wanting bad men even in the highest places of the church :
(2) that we are to judge of the members of the church, not
from the evil lurking in their hearts, which we cannot dis-
cern, but from their outward profession, this qualifying Judas
for the passover, if not for the participation of the Sacra-
ment; and, (3.) that inward holiness is not necessary to ren:
der the offices belonging to the ministerial function valid and
effectual: for Judas preaches Christ, and is sent out to do it
with the power of healing diseases, and casting out of devils,
* Hom. 1. in Cant. f. 63, E. hom. ii. f. 65, B. hom. 35 in
Matt. f. 23, D.
384.
JOHN.
8 (Nor need ye be thus solicitous) for "the poor,
(since them) ye have always with you (and whenever
you will you may do them good, Mark xiv. 7), but me
ye have not always (and therefore she did well in
taking the present opportunity of showing her affection
to me).
9 Much people of the Jews therefore knew that he
(to wit, Lazarus) was there; and they came not for
Jesus' sake only, but that they might see Lazarus
also, whom he had raised from the dead.
10. But “the chief priests consulted that they might
put Lazarus also to death;
11 Because that by reason of him many of the
Jews went away, and believed on Jesus.
12 " On the next day much people that were come
to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming
to Jerusalem,
13 Took branches of palm-trees, and went forth to
meet him, and cried, Hosanna : blessed is (he) the
King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord.
14 And Jesus, when (sending his disciples for him)
he had found a young ass, sat thereon; as it is writ-
ten (of the Messiah, Zech. ix. 9)
15 Fear not, daughter of Sion: behold, thy King
cometh, sitting upon an ass’s colt.
16 These things "understood not his disciples (to
be spoken of him) at the first : but when Jesus was
glorified, then remembered they that these things
were written of him, and that they had done these
things to him.
17 The people therefore that were with him when
he called Lazarus out of his grave, and raised him
from the dead, bare record (by their hosannas, that he
was the Christ). t
18 For this cause the people also met him, for that
they heard that he had done this miracle.
19 The pharisees therefore said among themselves,
Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing (by all the opposi-
Matt. x. 1–10 (see the note there), though he had himself
a devil (John vi. 70); not is he excepted when Christ saith,
“He that receiveth you, receiveth me.”
* Ver. 8. You have the poor always with you, &c.]
Hence it appears that the obligation of giving alms, and be-
ing charitable to the poor, hinders not our free expenses in
doing honour to good men, as this woman doth here, and Jo-
seph of Arimathea and Nicodemus afterward in buying
spices for the interment of our Lord (xix. 39).
* Ver. 10. The chief priests consulted to kill Lazarus also.]
To destroy an innocent man without any crime laid against
him, only to preserve their own honour and reputation. See
here the infallible sentence of the rulers of the church.
7 Ver, 12. Tº impaigloy, On the newt day.] i. e. On the tenth
day of Nisan, when the paschal lamb was taken up and re-
served till the passover, Christ, the true paschal lamb, com-
eth up to Jerusalem: from this to the sixteenth verse, see
the note on Matt. xxi. 8–10.
* Ver. 16. These things understood not his disciples at
the first.] To be done in completion of any prophecy con-
cerning him ; but when Jesus was advanced to the throne of
his glory, and had shed upon them the Spirit of truth and
illumination promised, they not only understood that these
things were done according to the words of Zachary (ix. 9),
but also that his kingdom was not to be of this world, but
spiritual, or a dominion over the hearts and consciences of
men, subdued to the obedience of the truth. Hence also
we may learn the manner of the operation of the Holy Spi-
rit, viz. by bringing those things to remembrance, which are
requisite that we may know the truth, and be excited to
perform our duty, and by enlightening thus our understand-
angs.
* Ver. 20. Certain Greeks that came wip to worship at the
feast.] Dr. Hammond thinks these Greeks were proselytes
of the gate, at least, who worshipped the God of the Jews as
the creator of heaven and earth, such as were Cornelius and
the treasurer of queen Candace; for these persons used to
tion you have made against him # for) behold, the
world is gone after him.
20 And there were certain (devout) "Greeks among
them that came up to worship at the feast :
21 The same came therefore to Philip, who was of
Bethsaida in Galilee (perhaps as to a person known to
them, living in Syrophaenicia), and desired him, say-
ing, Sir, we would see Jesus. -
22 Philip cometh, and "telleth Andrew ; and again
Andrew and Philip told Jesus.
23 And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is
come, that the Son of man should be "glorified (by
the faith of the gentiles ; but this will chiefly be after
his resurrection : for),
24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of
wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone
(without increase); but if it die, it bringeth forth
much fruit: (even so, after my death, shall I have
much fruit among the gentiles, by my apostles sent to
preach to, and to baptize, all nations.)
25 (And in this my disciples must be ready to follow
my example : for) he that loveth his life (so as to re-
ject me to preserve it) shall lose it; and he that (seem-
ingly) hateth his life in this world (by cleaving to me,
with the loss of it) shall keep it to life eternal.
26 If (therefore) any man (will) serve me, let him
(take up his cross and) follow me; and (then) where
I am, there shall also my servant be : (for) if any
man serve me, him will my Father honour (with a
crown of glory, Rev. iii. 21).
27 Now is my “soul troubled (at the apprehension
of what I am to suffer) ; and what shall I say : Fa-
ther, save me from this hour (this nature would
prompt me to) : but (this I cannot say, since) for this
cause came I to this hour (that I might die for the
sins of the world. º
28 I therefore choose to say,) Father, glorify thy
name (by this testimony of thy love to mankind). Then
worship God in the court of the gentiles, and also to offer
sacrifice to him : that such did come in Solomon's time, and
would come afterward, we learn from his petition, that their
prayers might be heard which they made in his temple, 1
Kings viii. 41, 42, that they offered burnt-offerings from Jo-
sephus : for when Eleazar the zealot persuaded the priests,
anºsyā; 3xxo‘péxov 3&goy # 6vcia, rgodºxsasat,” “not to receive
the gift or offering of any gentile, this,” saith he, “was done
contrary to the ancient custom of the Jews; for the priests
produced witnesses most tenacious of their rites, deposing
#r, räyrs; of ºrpáyovoi Tâ; 3rd røy &AAoysväv Švata, āºre&#x2yroºt
‘that all their ancestors received the Sacrifices of other na-
tions, and thought it absurd that the Jews only should ex-
clude such from worshipping and sacrificing to their God.”
These Greeks, says Grotius, seem to have been Syrophoni-
cians, perhaps dwelling about Tyre and Sidon, and so might
easily be acquainted with the Galileans, with whom they
had commerce, and with Philip of Bethsaida, to whom they
came, wer. 21.
10 Ver, 22. Philip telleth Andrew.] Because Christ, when
he sent them forth to preach, forbade them to go into the
coasts of the gentiles (Matt. x. 5), and it was then a contro-
versy among the Jews, whether the gentiles should be ad-
mitted to their sacra; and so they might doubt whether such
uncircumcised persons were to be admitted to converse with
Jesus, and consult him first before they brought them to him.
11 Wer. 23. The hour is come that the Son of man shall
be glorified.] i. e. That he, who is contemned by the Jews,
his own people, to whom he was first sent, should be glorified
by the gentiles.
12 Ver. 27. Now is my soul troubled, &c.] That they
might not say that he had no dread of death, or sense of
pain to render sufferings distasteful to him, and so it was not
to be expected that they who were deeply affected with these
things should follow his example, he here shows he had the
* De Bello Jud. lib, ii. cap. 30, p. 809, F. F. P. 810, D.
CHAPTER XII.
385
came there a voice from heaven, saying, “I have
both glorified it (by the miracles done by thee in my
name), and will glorify it again (by greater miracles).
29 The people therefore that stood by, and heard
it, said that it thundered (the voice being attended
with thunder) : others said, (That) an angel spake to
him. -
30 Jesus answered and said (to them), This voice
came not because of me (to satisfy me of the divine
favour, or comfort me against the agonies of death),
but for your sake (that you might believe in me).
31 Now is “the judgment of this world, (i. e. the
time when they shall be convinced of sin, because they
believe not in me, John xvi. 9, and of a future judg-
ment ; for) now shall the prince of this world be cast
out (of his dominions).
32 And if (Gr. when) I be (am) *lifted up from
the earth (upon the cross), I will draw all men (i. e.
men of all nations) to (believe in) me.
33 This he said, signifying what death he should
die.
34 The people answered him, “We have heard out
of the law that Christ (and his kingdom) abideth for
ever: and how sayest thou, (then, That) the Son of
man must be lifted up (so as to die upon the cross) 8
who is this Son of man (that must die, seeing it thus
appeareth by the law he cannot be the Christ) P
35 Then Jesus said to them, Yet a little while (he
who) is the light (of the world, is) with you. Walk
(by the directions of it) while ye have the light, lest
*" darkness come upon you (and you be led by your
blind guides into the ditch) : for he that walketh in
darkness knows not whither he goes.
36 (And, that you may thus walk) while ye have
light, believe in the light, that ye may be (treated, not
as children of darkness cast out from, but as) the chil-
dren of light (admitted to, his presence, who dwells in
the light, and have the comforts and the blessings
which belong to them). These things spake Jesus, and
departed, and did hide himself from them.
37 But though he had done so many miracles be-
fore them, (yet) they believed not in him :
38 (So) * that (by this infidelity) the saying (Gr.
the word) of Esaias the prophet might be (was) ful-
same matural concern for these things others had, only he
overruled it by a desire to promote his Father's glory.
13 Ver. 28. I have both glorified it..] By the resurrection
of Lazarus (xi. 4), and by all the other miracles which I
have given in testimony to thy mission (ii. 11); “and I will
glorify it again” by thy resurrection and exaltation to the
right hand of glory (Acts iii. 13), by the mission of the
Holy Ghost upon the apostles, the witnesses of thy resurrec-
tion (John xvi. 14), and by giving thee a name above every
name (Eph. i. 20, 21. Phil. ii. 9, 10).
* Ver. 31. Now is the judgment of this world..] i. e. Now
shall they of the world be condemned, who believe not in
me (ver. 47): so the word xeived:0at imports, iii. 18, 19. xvi.
9, “Now is the prince of this world cast out;” so is Satan
called, because he had rendered the whole world, except the
Jewish nation, subject to, his idolatrous worship (see the
notes on 2 Cor. iv. 4. Eph. ii. 2. vi. 12); and he was emi-
nently cast out by the Christians, when, through the name of
Christ, they for three centuries expelled him from the tem-
ples and altars where he was worshipped, and from the bo-
dies which he had possessed (see the preface to the Epistles,
§. 18.
** Ver. 32. 'E&w tºw83, If I be lified wy, I will draw all
men after me..] 'E&w here signifies when : so Deut. vii. 1,
#3v 33 sizayáyn, “When the Lord hath brought you into the
land;" Judg. vi. 3, #&y #3 ºreigay, “When the Israelites sowed;”
#&v trango Sãzi, When the number of thy days shall be ful-
filled,” 2 Sam. vii. 12. Jer. iii. 16 (see the note on Heb. iii.
7). “I will draw all men after me;” by the power of my
resurrection, the mission of my Spirit, the excellency of my
doctrine, and the miracles which shall attend the preaching
of it, I will do what is sufficient to prevail with all men to
believe in me, will actually engage many throughout all the
parts of the world so to do, and render them who do not
inexcusable. The event shows that Christ and the Father
draw many who come not to him (see vi. 44).
* Ver. 34. We have heard out of the law that Christ
abideth for ever.] That which they had learned from the
prophets, they say they heard out of the “law,” that word
comprehending the whole scriptures (see xv.25): this they
gathered partly from the prophets representing Christ's
kingdom as an everlasting kingdom, Dan. vii. 14, from Eze-
kiel, saying, xxxvii. 25, “My servant David shall be their
King for ever, and of his government there shall be no end,”
Isa. ix. 7, and from his promise, that he would not fail
David, but cause his seed to endure for ever, Ps. lxxxix. 35,
36. But then these words hinder not the truth of those
things, which the same prophets had foretold of a body pre-
pared, in which he was to suffer, having his hands and his
feet pierced, Ps, xxii. 18. xl. 6, of his giving up his life a
sacrifice for sin, Isa, liii. 2, 12, or the Messiah’s being cut off,
Dan. ix. 26, and these prophets having spoken not only of
nis sufferings, but also of his resurrection (Ps. xli. 10. Acts
iii. 24), and of his future glory (1 Pet. i. 11), they might easily,
by comparing these things together, have removed this scru-
ple, especially when he so oft had told them, and they so
well remembered (Matt. xxvii. 63), he had said, that “after
three days he would rise again.”
17 Wer. 35. Lest darkness come upon you, &c.] As it did
in a wonderful manner after the light of the gospel was taken
from them, they sinning then, not only against all laws civil
and sacred, but even against the laws of nature in the vilest
manner, as Josephus fully testifies (see the note on Rom.
ii. 1); and from our Lord's exhortation to them here, “to
walk in the light, that they may be the children of the light,”
it is manifest Christ thought not God had then so blinded
their eyes that they could not see, or so deserted them that
they could not walk in the light; for if so, he could not seri-
ously have exhorted them to “walk in the light,” much less to
do it so that they might become “the children of light;" for
all exhortations to do that which it is impossible for them to
do, by reason of a judicial act of God upon them, must not
only be vain and delusory, but also contrary to the will of
God. If you here say, Christ's exhortations must be as
much in vain, supposing they had by their vicious habits
contracted such a blindness, “that seeing they would not
see,” as scripture seems to testify they had: I answer, that
this follows not; that blindness being not natural, but only
moral, arising from their prejudices and ill affections to the
light, and so might be deposed with them. And hence we
find the scripture frequently exhorting them who in this
moral sense had their eyes blinded, and their ears made deaf,
to hearken, to believe, and be obedient to the truth. So
Jer. vi. 10, “To whom shall I speak and give warning, that
they may hear 2 behold, their ear is uncircumcised, that they
cannot hearken :” and yet it is said, wer. 8, “Be thou in-
structed, O Jerusalem, lest my soul depart from thee;” and
ver. 16, “Stand ye in the way, and see, and ask ye for the
old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye
shall find rest to your souls:” yea, Christ himself saith, John
viii, 43, “Ye cannot hear my words;” and yet he adds, that
“he came into the world,” and spake unto them, “that they
might be saved,” Luke ix. 56. John xiii. 17, 18. v. 34, and
reprehends them, because they “would not come to him, that
they might have life John v. 40, and that they would not
be gathered by him, Luke xiii. 34, yea, the evangelist here,
ver. 37, imputes it to them as their great siu, that though
Christ had “done so many miracles among them, they be-
lieved not in him :” yea, God himself still looks upon them
as persons who might believe, “for this was his command-
ment that they should believe in him,” this was the work
which he expected from them, ver. 24.
is Wer. 38. That the saying of Esaias the prophet might
be fulfilled.j Because these and the following words seem
to contain a very strange and uncomfortable doctrine, viz.
that the infidelity, even of God’s own people, is to be resolved
not into the perverseness of their wills, or the evil dispositions
of their hearts, but into the divine predictions, or intº a Jºl-
386
JOHN.
filled (in them : or, this departure was to punish their
blindness and hardness of heart, that the word of
Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled in them :) which
he spake, (saying,) Lord, who hath believed our re-
port? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?
39 (For) therefore they could not believe, because
that (which) Esaias said again (was verified in them,
Viz.)
40 * He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened
their hearts, (or, their eyes are blinded, and their
hearts are hardened, see Matt. xiii. 14. Acts xxviii.
27) that they should not see with their eyes, nor un-
derstand with their hearts, and be converted, and I
should heal them.
41 These things said Esaias (in the spirit), when
he saw "his glory (viz. the glory of Christ), and
spake of him.
42 Nevertheless (this infidelity was not general, for
dicial blindness and obduration wrought by God upon them,
which renders it impossible for them to believe; therefore,
for explication of them, let it be noted,
First, That our blessed Lord in the immediate precedent
verses, viz. 35, 36, doth passionately exhort these very per-
sons to believe and walk according to the light; which is a
certain evidence our Lord well knew his Father had not, by
any of his actions or predictions, made it impossible for them
to believe on him, or walk according to his doctrine; for if
God had so blinded their eyes that they could not see the
light, or so hardened their hearts that they could not em-
brace it, Christ would not seriously have exhorted them to
believe, or walk according to it, and that so effectually, that
they might become the children of light; for every exhorta-
tion to do a thing we know to be impossible must be vain :
and he who, by it, seems to be desirous we should do that,
which he knows we cannot, must delude us; and if he knows
that God hath by some antecedent action rendered the thing
impossible to be done, it must be also an exhortation repug-
nant to the will of God: now it is blasphemy to say the ex-
hortations of the Son of God were vain, delusory, or contrary
to his Father's will. Moreover our Saviour knew the Jews
were capable of mercy and salvation by him, for he ex-
pressly says, God sent him into the world, “that the world
by him might be saved,” John iii. 17; he makes this decla-
ration, “These things say I unto you that ye might be saved,”
John v. 34, and this inquiry, “How oft would I have ga-
thered you, and you would not * Luke xiii. 34, and says,
“Ye will not come to me, that ye may have life,” John v.
40, God himself would not have his words so understood, as
if he were unwilling that the Jews should believe, or had by
any of his actions rendered it impossible for them so to do,
for “this was his commandment, that they should believe on
him whom he had sent,” John vi. 29, and why sent he his
Son “to seek, and to save that which was lost,” even “the
lost sheep of the house of Israel,” had he not truly been de-
sirous that they should believe P The evangelist, also and
that good Spirit by which he did indite these words, did not
thus understand them; for he objects this to the Jews as their
great crime, ver. 37, that “though Christ had done so many
miracles among them, yet they believed not on him ;”
whereas it can be no man's sin not to do what he cannot do
purely by reason of the act of God. These words must therefore
have some other sense than at first view they seem to bear.
Secondly, Observe, that God's forcknowledge, sayings, and
predictions, have no such influence on the will of man, as
to lay on him a necessity to do what he foreknows or hath
foretold he will do: for were it otherwise, (1.) all human ac-
tions must be necessary; for to that God who is omniscient,
all things, both past, and present, and to come, are known :
if then this knowledge of men's actions, which the scripture
so plainly doth ascribe to God, did make them necessary, all
human actions must be necessary, and the freedom of them
must be overthrown. (2.) Then vice and virtue must be
only empty names, we being capable of doing nothing which
is blameworthy, or deserveth praise; for who can blame a
person for doing only what he could not help ; or judge him
worthy of applause, who doth that only which he cannot
avoid? And (3.) then must all future recompences be dis-
carded, it being visibly unjust to punish any man for that
which it was never in his power to avoid ; and as unreason-
able to reward him for that action which cannot be praise-
worthy. We know that an almighty God is able so power-
fully to work upon the hearts of men, as to convert them to
himself; and it is natural to conceive, that a good God is
ready to do al) which he sees proper for that end: since then
in some regard it must be true that “God would have all
men to be saved,” what answer can be given to that inquiry,
“Why are not all men actually saved P’” but this—that the
divine wisdom does not see it fit to lay restraints upon their
actions, and to necessitate their wills to a compliance with his
calls and invitations to turn to him. This answer I believe
is true ; but then it is an evidence that God hath never by
his prescience, or his predictions, laid such restraints upon
men’s actions.
When then it is said here, “Therefore they could not be-
lieve, because Esaias said;” these words must bear this sense,
Therefore they could not believe, because that was fulfilled
upon them which Esaias said, or, it had happened to them
as he had foretold: so xv. 24, 25 (see the note there), “They
have hated me and my Father, 3xx' ºva Trampoºn 6 Aéyo;, but
that the word might be fulfilled:” i.e. but this hath hap-
pened to, or been done by them, that what was written in
their law might be fulfilled, viz. “They hated me without a
cause;” and this is the exposition of the Holy Ghost, who,
Matt. xii. 13, 14, saith from the mouth of Christ, “There-
fore speak I to them in parables, because they seeing, see not;
and in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, Their eyes
have they closed,” &c.
19 Wer. 40. He hath blinded their eyes.] Observe, that
whereas our translation saith, “He hath blinded their eyes,”
the word “he” is not in the original, which saith only thus
rerúðAwksy airãy rob; 34.0a Nºzoic, and may be rendered, “Ma-
lice, or wickedness, hath blinded their eyes,” as we read,
Wisd. ii. 21, or, (2) the personal is here put for the imper-
sonal, the active for the passive ; i. e. “He hath blinded
their eyes, and hardened their hearts,” for “Their eyes are
blinded, and their hearts hardened.” To give you a plain
instance of like nature, Isa, xliv. 18, in our translation we
read thus, “He hath shut their eyes, that they cannot see ;
and their hearts, that they cannot understand:” and yet
both the Greek and Chaldee paraphrast read them thus,
&mmaavg60nºray, “Their eyes are shut and darkened,” lest
they should see: and that this is the true import of the pro-
phet's words, not that God but Satan and their own evil dis-
positions had done this, is evident from this consideration ;
that this is spoken to the shame of them who made and
worshipped senseless images (ver. 9. 11), and to convince
them of their want of consideration (ver. 19). And that
this must be the sense here we learn not only from the
Septuagint, the Syriac, and the Arabic, which render these
words of Isaiah thus, “The heart of this people is waxed
gross, and their eyes have they closed, lest they should see
with their eyes;” but also from our blessed Saviour, who
Matt. xiii. 15, and from St. Paul, who, Acts xxviii. 26, 27,
exactly follow this translation of the words.
* Ver. 41. These things said Esaias, when he saw his
glory, &c.] i. e. When he saw the glory of the Lord Christ,
not, as some Socinians contend, of God the Father: for,
First, These words, “His glory,” and “He spake of him,”
contain two pronouns, which are not in the words of the pro-
phet, but only of the evangelist, and so must be referred to
him, of whom the evangelist here speaks; viz. to him “who
had done so many miracles among them,” and to him “in
whom they believed not” (ver. 37), and “in whom they could
not believe” (ver. 39).
Secondly, If those words, “These things said Esaias, when
he saw his glory,” are not to be understood of Christ, what
use have they, or to what purpose do they here serve, there
being no need to tell us, that Esaias then saw the glory of
God the Father, or spake of him 2
Thirdly, Socinus well observes and proves, that the apos-
tle's words do equally relate to both the passages produced
from Esaias ; because he saith not, “This,” but “These
things said Esaias.” Now it is evident, from the apostle
Paul, Rom. x. 16, citing these words, and applying them to
the gospel-times, that the first testimony relates to them, and
from the contents of the whole fifty-third chapter, that they
CHAPTER XIII.
387
not only among the people) but among * the chief
rulers also many believed on him ; but because of
the pharisees they did not (openly) confess him, lest
they should be put out of the synagogue:
43 For they loved the praise of men more than the
praise of God; (i. e. they valued their reputation with
men more than that honour which cometh of God only,
John v. 44).
44 Jesus (therefore) cried and said, He that be-
lieveth on me, believeth not * on me (only), but on
him that sent me (also).
45 And he that seeth me (doing the works of God),
* seeth (also) him that sent me.
46 I am * come a light into the world, that who-
soever believeth in me should not abide in darkness
(or be ignorant of the way to happiness).
47 And if any man hear my words, and believe
relate to Christ's sufferings, and his future glory, as Schlic-
tingius here grants, and consequently the words, “These
things spake Esaias,” must induce us to believe, that he
spake also in the other passage cited from him of the glory
of the same person. Schlictingius therefore answers, that
the prophet, by seeing the glory of God, is said also to see
the glory of Christ, which was to fill the whole earth; for
then was the whole earth replenished with his glory, when
God by him did his admirable works, when he raised him
from the dead, and placed him at his own right hand, sub-
jecting all things to his feet; when Esaias in the Spirit saw
his glory, John rightly says, “He saw the glory of Christ,”
the glory of God and of Christ being so inseparably con-
nected, as the means to the end, that the glory of Christ
directly tends to the glory of God the Father. But against
this evasion, it is observable,
That the prophet, ch. liii. if he speaks at all of the glory
of any person, as indeed he doth, ver. 10–12, speaks of
such a one, who “ poured out his soul unto death,” and was
“numbered with the transgressors, and bare the sin of
many;” which words cannot refer at all to God the Fa-
ther.”
Secondly, In the sixth chapter he speaks of one, whom
he then saw “sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and
whose train filled the temple” (ver. 1), and to whom the
Seraphims cried, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts:
the whole earth is full of his glory” (ver. 3). He therefore
speaketh not of any future glory, but of the glory he then
saw, and of which the seraphims then sang. And who can
reasonably think the prophet should cry out, ver. 5, “Woe
is me, because I have seen the King, the Lord of hosts 1'.'
only because he had seen a vision of a mere man, who had
as yet no being 2 However,
Thirdly, Seeing the prophetis so express in it, that it was
Jehovah-Zebaoth, the Lord of hosts, the king Jehovah, whose
glory he then saw, and of whose glory the angels then sang;
and yet the evangelist declares he spake these things when he
saw the glory of Christ—it follows, that Christ must be one
with this Jehovah.
* Ver. 42. Of the chief priests many believed on him,
i. e. They were inwardly convinced he was the Christ, though
(them) not, * I judge him not (i. e. I do not now con-
demn him); for I came not to judge (i.e. condemn) the
world, but to save the world (John iii. 17).
48 He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not m
words, hath one that judgeth him : the word that }
have spoken, the same shall judge him at the last
dav.
% For I have not spoken of myself (without com-
mission from above); but the Father which sent me,
he gave me commandment, what I should say, and
what I should speak.
50 And I know that (obedience to) his command-
ment is (the way to) life everlasting: whatsoever I
speak therefore, even as the Father said to me, so I
speak (and he will surely condemn those who are dis-
obedient to his word).
they durst not openly confess this faith, lest they should be
rendered infamous by being turned out of the synagogue, and
so their faith was insufficient in one great requisite, “con-
fession of it being made with the mouth unto salvation”
(Rom. x. 9. Matt. x. 32).
** Ver. 44. Believeth not on me] Only, but in him also
who hath set his seal to the testimony of me (John iii. 33):
so the word only is to be understood, when Christ saith, “He
that receiveth me, receiveth not me” (Mark ix. 37): and
when St. Peter saith to Amanias, “Thou hast not lied to man,
but to God” (Acts v. 4): St Paul, “He that despiseth us, de-
spiseth not man, but God” (1 Thess. iv. 8): and this addi-
tion is here necessary, to avoid a contradiction in these words,
“He that believeth in me, believeth not in me.” (2.) Be-
cause Christ so expressly doth require his disciples to believe
in him, saying, xiv. 1, “Ye believe in God, believe also in
me:” it is added, “He believes also in him that sent me,”
to express the dignity and excellency of this faith, and the
dreadful effects of incredulity, since he that believes not
makes God a liar (1 John v. 10).
* Ver. 45. He that seeth me, seeth him that sent me..] See
the note on xiv. 9.
* Ver. 46. I am come a light into the world..] That he
who believeth in me, and embraceth my doctrine, may not
abide in darkness, i. e. in ignorance of the way of life, nor
be cast out into outer darkness, as the Jews will be for their
incredulity (Matt. viii. 12).
* Ver. 47, 48. I judge him not..] i. e. I pass not on him
the decretory sentence here on earth, where I am to perform
the office of a prophet, not a judge (viii. 15); yet let him
know he shall hereafter be judged, and have the sentence
passed upon him, according to that doctrine which I preach,
and be punished by God for contempt of it, because the
“words I speak, I speak not of myself; but as he gave me
a commandment, so I speak.” Christ neither doth nor
could deny that he would judge all men at the last day, be-
cause he had declared the Father had committed “all judg-
ment to the Son’’ (John v. 27), and “had given him power
to raise them up and judge them at the last day" (ver. 26,
27), but only doth deny that he was to assume this office
whilst he was on earth, -
CHAPTER XIII.
1 Now, before the feast of the passover, when Je-
sus knew that his hour was come that he should de-
part out of this world to the Father, having loved his
own (apostles) which were in the world, he loved
them unto the end (or close of his life).
2 And supper (time) being ended (Gr. oome), (the
devil having now put (it) into the heart of Judas Is-
cariot, Simon’s son, to betray him,)
3 Jesus knowing (his great dignity, in) that the
Father had given all things into his hands, and that
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIII.
* Ver. 1. He loved them to the end..] i. e. To the close of
nis life, and showed this affection to them by washing their
feet. This passage therefore can afford no argument, that
the regenerate can never fall away, because Christ speaks
not of the choosing any to salvation, but only of those,
whom he had chosen out of the world to be his apostles
(xv. 19), nor of his love of them to the end of their lives,
but of his own.
* Ver. 2. And supper being ended.] That this was not
the paschal Supper, but a supper they were at before the
. . 2 C 2
388
JOHN.
he was "come (Gr. come forth) from God, and wen
to God; -
4 He (to show an admirable evample of humility)
riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments: and
took a towel, and girded himself (after the manner of
a Servant). -
5. After that he poured water into a basin, and be-
gan to “wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them
with the towel wherewith he was girded. -
6 Then cometh he to Simon Peter: and Peter saith
to him, Lord, dost thou (think I can suffer thee to)
wash my feet?
feast of the passover, ver. 1, see fully proved in the appen-
dix to the fourteenth chapter of St. Mark, answer to objec-
tion the second. To the arguments there offered for this
purpose add, that at this supper Christ only privately dis-
covers the traitor to St. John (ver. 25, 20), whereas at the
paschal supper he makes him known openly to them all
(Matt. xxvi. 25. Luke xxii. 21): here he discovers him to
St. John, by giving him a sop which he had dipped in the
dish (ver. 26), there he discovers him to the rest by this,
that his hand was with him in the dish (Matt. xxvi. 23.
Mark xiv. 20). Against what is here said it may be ob-
Jected, that Christ here saith (ver. 38), “The cock shall not
crow before thou hast denied me thrice:” now this seems to
have been said at Christ's last passover. To this I answer,
that when Christ said this to Peter elsewhere, he always adds
the circumstance of time, either Éy raûrn tº www.ri, “The cock
shall not crow this might” (Matt. xxvi. 34. Mark xiv. 30),
or a hasgow, “this day ” (Luke xxii. 34); whereas here no
circumstance of time is added, which makes it probable the
words here were not spoken at the same time.
Secondly, The words here were spoken upon occasion of
St. Peter's answer to these words of Christ, “Whither I go
thou canst not follow me now * (ver. 36); but the like words
in St. Matthew and St. Mark were spoken upon the occa-
sion of our Lord’s prediction, that they should all be scanda-
lized at him that night (Matt. xxvi. 31. Mark xiv. 27), and
in St. Luke, upon occasion of Christ's saying to Peter in
particular, “Satan hath desired to winnow thee” (Luke xxii.
31, 32), which makes it farther probable, that these words
here were spoken at a different time.
* Ver. 3. Jesus knowing, 3ri ätrö Oedii șix0s, xai ºrpäç Geºy
itráyet, that he came out from God, and went to God..] So
xvi. 28, “I came out from the Father, and am come into the
world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.”
Now seeing it is certain that he left the world, and went to
the Father, by ascending from the earth to the highest hea-
vens; must not the opposition require that he came out from
the Father into the world, by coming from heaven to earth?
For these two are opposite by commutation of terms: the
term from which in the one, being the term to which in the
other ; which opposition is wholly lost, by saying, with the
Socinians, that Christ is said to come forth from God, or
from the Rather, only because he came as his legate or am-
bassador, and was made known to the world by his creden-
tials, the miracles done by him in his Father's name. More-
over, according to this exposition, the opposite term, his
going to God, and to the Father, must import his ceasing to
be his legate, or to make himself known by the miracles
done by a power derived from his Father ; whereas he, after
his ascension, made himself still thus more known to the
world. Add to this, that the prophets of old, and Moses
especially, were God’s messengers, and made themselves
known to the world by, miracles done by God, as their cre-
dentials, and so were after them the apostles in like manner
the legates and ambassadors of God and Christ ; but yet it
never was nor could be said of them, or any of them, “I
went forth from God,” and from the Father, “and came into
the world; ” which shows this phrase is proper to our Lord;
and so the reason of it must be peculiar to him alone.
Obj. l. The apostles believed that Christ came forth from
God (John xvi. 30. xvii. 8), but yet they believed not that
he had a divine essence.
Ans. What reason have the Socinians to say this so con-
fidently of the apostles, who not only saw him do such migh-
ty miracles, as argued a divine power in him, and whom
7 Jesus answered and said to him, (For) what (end)
I do (this) thou "knowest not now ; but thou shalt
know hereafter, (when I have performed this ceremony,
ver. 12. 15). - •
8 Peter saith to him, Thou shalt never wash my
feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not (if thy
heart and thy affections be not purified by me), thou
hast no part with me (thou wilt not be fitted for my
service, or receive any benefit by me). *
9 Simon Peter saith to him, Lord, (if this washing
be so necessary to that end, wash) not my feet only,
but also my hands and my head.
he charges so often to believe, that he was in the Father, and
the Father in him, but also did themselves cast out devils,
aud heal diseases in his name throughout Judea, when he
was absent from them : this being a proof to them, that he,
though absent from them in the body, was always present
with them by his power P : What reason have they to con-
clude this from the places cited, since in the first, they argue
thus from his omniscience, an attribute inseparable from the
divine nature, saying, “Now we perceive that thou knowest
all things; and, #y roſtº, by this we believe thou camest
forth from God:” in the second, they hear him saying, “Fa- .
ther, glorify me with the glory I had with thee before the
world was,” ver. 5; and, ver. 7, are said to know that “all
things which the Father had given him,” even the power to
do and know all things, “were of God;’ and thence are
said to know that he truly or indeed “came from God.”
Obj. 2. But how can God be said to “come from God”
into the world, when he is always in the heavens ; or, to
leave the world, and go to the Father ? t
Ans. l. To this our Saviour partly himself answers, by
saying, that he was “in heaven,” even then when he says,
he “came down from heaven” (see the note on iii. 13).
2. I have observed, note on iii. 13, that as to his divine
nature, he is said to descend from heaven, not by a loca-
descent, or by quitting heaven, but only by the manifesta-
tion of himself upon earth ; and in this sense God himself
is often said to descend from heaven, when by any divine
work done on earth he demonstrates his presence there :
and he is also said to ascend again into heaven afterward.
Why therefore may not God the Word be said to descend
from heaven, and even dwell with men, as God is said to
dwell in the tabernacle and in the temple, when the Logos
dwelt in the human nature upon earth, and manifested his
glory in it; and also to leave the world, and go to the Fa-
ther, not only as properly doing this by the exaltation of
the human nature, but as doing all his divine works now.
from heaven, where he sits in the majesty and glory of the
Father ? wº
* Ver. 5. And he began to wash his disciples’ feet.] Great
is this instance of humility, if we consider (1.) the dignity of
the person expressed in the foregoing words; (2.) the action
itself, with the circumstances of it : for (1.) Christ lays aside
his garment, and he girds himself, as Philo saith servants
used to do when they ministered to their masters. (2.) He
actually washed his disciples’ feet, which also servants did to
their masters when they came from a journey, to cleanse
them from the dirt, and to refresh them (1 Tim. v. 10); ac-
cording to those words of Abigail to David, “Let me be a
servant to wash the feet of my lord ” (1 Sam. xxv. 41),
and which superiors did not do to inferiors (see Dr. Light-
foot on the place).
* Wer. 7. What I do, thow knowest mot now ; but thoºd
shalt know hereafter.] After the ceremony is finished, I shall
tell thee, it was intended as an example of that humility,
which I would have you show, in ministering to the mean-
est Christians; though you in station and office be superior
to them. It farther may be gathered from those words, ver.
8, “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part in me,” or, wilt re-
ceive no benefit by me; and from the purity, mentioned ver.
10, that Christ intended also by this rite that purity of mind
and of affection, which he required of all those who belonged
to him, and which he would increase in them by his word
and Spirit (Eph. v. 26), and which in scripture was usually
represented by washing and pouring of water, as in those
words, Isa. i. 17, “Wish ye, aa.0ago; yívea 08, be ye clean;
CHAPTER XII [.
389
10 Jesus saith to him, He that is washed, (i. e.
truly sanctified and cleansed once) “needeth not, save
to wash his feet (his heart and his affections), but (if
he still keep them pure and rightly inclined) is clean
every whit (in all his thoughts and actions proceeding
from them); and ye are (in a good measure clean), but
not all, (Judas being full of filthiness ; this exception
he made) -
11 For (because) he knew who should betray him;
therefore said he, Ye are not all clean. -
12 So after he had washed their feet, and taken his
garments (which he had laid aside in order to that
work), and was sat down again, he said to them,
Know ye what I have done to you?
13 Ye call me "Master and Lord : and ye say well
(i. e. what is right); for so I am. -
14 If ſ then, (who am) your Lord and Master, have
washed your feet; *ye also ought to wash one an-
other’s feet (i.e. to be as ready to do the meanest office
to other Christians). - -
15 For I (by doing this) have given you an example,
that ye should do (to others) as I have done to you.
16 Verily, verily, I say to you, The servant is not
greater than his lord: neither (is) he that is sent
greater than he that sent him (and therefore you, my
servants, whom I send to preach the gospel to all na-
tions, ought not to think it beneath you to do to others
what I, your Lord, from whom ye receive your commis-
sion, do to you). -
17 If ye know these things, (that knowledge, with-
out a suitable practice, will only aggravate your doom,
but) happy are ye if ye do them.
18 (And when I spake of your being happy.) I speak
not of you all; (for) I "know whom I have chosen
(i. e. what is the inward disposition of them); but
(one of them is so disposed towards me) that the scrip-
ture may be fulfilled, (which saith, Ps. xli. 9,) He that
eateth bread with me (as my familiar friend) hath
lifted up his heel against me.
19 Now I tell you (of this) before it come (to pass.)
that when it is come to pass, *ye may believe that I
am he (who searcheth all hearts, and also am the Son
of David, to whom these things belong.
20 And, believing this, you will see cause sufficient to
go on cheerfully in my service ; for) verily, verily, I
say to you, He that receiveth whomsoever I send
(shall be esteemed as one that) receiveth me ; and he
that receiveth me (as one that) receiveth him that sent
II].62. ' -
21 When Jesus had thus said, he was troubled in
(his) spirit, (partly at the apprehension of his suffer-
ings, and partly at the vileness and pernicious conse-
quences of the fact), and testified, and said, Verily,
verily, I say to you, That one of you shall betray me.
22 Then the disciples looked one on another,
doubting of whom he spake (this).
23 Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of
his disciples whom Jesus loved (viz. St. John).
24 Simon Peter therefore * beckoned to him, that
he should ask who it should be of whom he spake.
25 He then lying on Jesus’ breast, saith to him
(with a low voice), Lord, who is it 2 -
26 Jesus answered (him), He it is to whom I shall
give a sop, when I have dipped it (in the dish). And
when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Is-
cariot, the son of Simon.
27 And after the sop *Satan entered (more fully)
into him. Then said Jesus to him, *What thou do-
est (thou mayest) do quickly (as soon as thou wilt, for
I am ready to suffer).
and in that promise, Ezek. xxxvi. 35, “I will pour clean
water upon you, wał zadaptaśatre, and ye shall be cleansed
from your iniquities.”
* Ver, 10. Needeth not, save to wash his feet.] Because
they only gather dirt and gravel in a journey. So in the
metaphor, in our travel through the world, all the defilement
we contract arises from our misplaced or our immoderate
affections, love, desire, fear, aversion, hatred. The Jewish
priests were to wash their hands as well as feet when they
offered sacrifice to God (Exod. xxx. 19), because their hands
were chiefly employed in that work, and so their hands un-
washed were said to be unconsecrated, common, or unclean
(Maimonides, tr. de AEdif. Templi, cap. 1, § 6, et tr. 3, cap.
5, Š. 1). The apostles are required only to wash their feet,
their business being to travel through the world, preaching
the gospel. Note also, that Christ washed the feet of Judas;
for he was present at this rite, and is not said to be ex-
cepted : only Christ here saith, this washing did not make
him clean.
7 Ver, 13. Ye call me Master and Lord..] Your Master
by teaching, and your Lord by commanding: so Grotius.
But à Köpiog, the word “Lord” here seems to import “the
Lord from heaven” (ver. 1), or him who is “Lord of all;”
in which sense, to us Christians, “there is but one Lord”
(Acts ii. 36. 1 Cor. viii. 6).
* Ver. 14. Ye ought to wash one another's feet.] Not in
the literal sense, by doing this once a year; but in the
spiritual, by being always ready to do any service, by
which we may promote the welfare, and advance the pu-
rity, of any member of the church : for “the servant is not
above his lord.” -
* Ver. 18. I know whom I have chosen.] Christ speaks
not here of an election to faith, and by it to salvation ; that
being constantly in scripture ascribed to God the Father,
not to Christ acting as his prophet; but of being chosen to
the office of an apostle; nor does he intend here to say, that
he had chosen some of his apostles, and not others: for he
owns that he had chosen Judas, by saying, “Have I not
chosen twelve, and one of them is a devil?” (vi. 70.) The
import of these words seems therefore to be this——ſ know
the temper and disposition of them whom I have chosen,
and what I may expect from one of them ; for which cause
I said, “You are not all clean ; ” but God in his wisdom
hath permitted this, that as Ahithophel betrayed David,
though he was his familiar friend, so Judas, my familiar at
my table, might betray the Son of God ; and so the words
recorded, Ps. xli. 9, might be fulfilled in him also, of whom
king David was the type.
Hath lifted wip Tây Trrépyay airoij, his heel against me.] The-
ophylact here notes, that this is a metaphor taken ärö rôy
Taxatávrov, “from wrestlers; ” others from racers, who fol-
lowing others, endeavour to trip up their heels, and throw
them down : so Esau said of Jacob, who had his name from
the word akab, here used, “Is he not rightly called Jacob,
#Trvépying yáp (we, for he hath tripped up my heels, (or over-
thrown me) twice P’’ Gen. xxvii. 36, and Jer. ix. 4, “Every
brother will supplant, Trrègyn irrepvieſ; he with his heel will
trip up his brother's heels.”
* Ver. 19. That when it comes to pass, ye may believe,
§ri #y& Eigº, that I am..] Not only that I am the Christ, as
viii. 24, but also, that I am he, who searcheth the hearts,
and knows things future and contingent, which is the pro-
perty of God alone (1 Kings viii. 30. Isa. xli. 22, 23); and
so believing in me, may believe also in him that sent me,
ver. 20 (see Examen Millii).
* Ver. 24. Simon Peter beckons to him that he should
ask.] That all mentioned from this to the twenty-seventh
verse was done secretly—Simon only nodding to John, he
speaking to Christ only in his ear, and Christ so answering,
that he only understood his words—is plain from this, that
“no man at the table knew for what intent Christ said to
Judas, What thou doest, do quickly,” save St. John, ver, 27.
** Ver. 27. Satan entered into him.] Non secundiim Sub-
stantiam sed secundúm operationem, saith St. Jerome ; i. e.
not as to the substance, but as to the operation, as he is said
to do, when the will is fully inclined to obey his motions,
and we do not resist them: but of this, see the note Luke
xxii. 3.
* What thow doest do quickly..] This is not a command to
Judas to go on with his wicked enterprise, but only a decime
390 JOEIN.
28 Now no man at the table (save St. John) knew so now I say to you, (ye cannot come now till your
for what intent he spake this to him. work on earth be finished, ver. 36, and I have prepared
29 For some of them thought, because Judas had mansions in heaven for you, John xiv. 2).
the bag, that Jesus had said to him, Buy those things 34 A new commandment I give to you (to be con-
that we have need of against the (paschal) feast; or, tinually observed by all my disciples), That ye love one
that he should “give something to the poor. another (after my easample, who lay down my life for
30 He then, having received the sop, went imme- you, requiring) "as I have loved you, that ye also (so)
diately out (to accomplish his design) ; and it was love one another.
night (when he did so). 35 By "this shall all men know that ye are my
31 Therefore, when he was gone out, Jesus said, disciples, if ye (thus) love one another. #
*Now is the Son of man (to suffer, and then to be) || 36 Simon Peter said to him, Lord, whither goest
glorified (Luke xxiv. 26. Heb. ii. 9), and God is (to thou? Jesus answered him, Whither I go "thou.
be) glorified in him (thus suffering for the salvation of canst not follow me now (as being not yet prepared to
mankind). suffer for my sake) ; but thou shalt follow me after-
32 *If God be glorified in (and by) him, God shall ward (and suffer on the cross as I do).
also glorify him in himself (by committing all things 37 Peter said to him, Lord, why cannot I follow
to his hands, and seating him at the right hand of ma- thee now I will lay down my life for thy sake.
jesty and power, John xvii. 5), and shall straightway || 38 Jesus answered him, Wilt thou lay down thy
(thus) glorify him. life for my sake? Verily, verily, I say to thee, * The
33 Little children, yet a little "while I am with cock shall not crow (i. e. it shall not be the time of
you. (And then) ye shall seek me : and as I said cock-crowing) till thou hast denied me thrice.
(before) to the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come ;
ration made by Christ of his readiness to suffer death, as in my bodily presence; for he had promised to “abide for ever
the paraphrase. So Ezek. xx. 39, “GO ye, serve ye every with them ’’ by his Spirit (xiv. 16), and his divine presence
one his idols.” (Matt. xxviii. 20).
* Ver. 29. That he should give something to the poor.] * Ver. 34. As I have loved you..] Even to the shedding of
This charity seems to be the proper business at a feast, my blood for you, and even for mine enemies; not with re-
Esther ix. 22. spect to any merit on their part, or any advantage on mine,
is Ver, 31. Now is the Son of man glorified, &c.] The but out of pure affection for their souls: this is the love you
context seemeth to require the sense given in the para- are to imitate in your affection one to another.
phrase: and then the passive aorist is put for the future, as * Ver, 35. By this shall all men know that ye are my dis-
at tº Ash, “Will be not come 2" xi. 56, ignºn, “He shall ciples.] The disciples of the Baptist were known by the aus-
be cast out,” xv. 6 (see Glass. de Verbo, can. 47). Or else | terity of their lives; the disciples of the pharisees by their
the sense may be given thus, Hitherto hath the Son of man habit and separation from other men ; Christ will have his
been glorified by his doctrine and his miracles, by which he disciples known by their profound affection to each other,
hath fully proved his mission; and God hath been glorified which in the primitive ages was so great, that it made the
by them both ; he having still done and spoken them in his heathens” with admiration to cry out, Wide ut invicem
Father's name (see Examen Millii). se diligunt, “See how they love one another;” and even to
tº Ver. 32. If God be glorified in him, God will glorify hate and envy them for their brotherly affection. Hence
him, iv tavrá, in himself.j By signs done in the heaven and Julian proposes them to the heathens as a fit pattern for
the earth, which shall force men to say even at his death, their imitation.
“Truly this was the Son of God” (Matt. xxvii. 45.5l. 54), * Wer. 36. Thou camst not follow me now..] i. e. In my
by his glorious resurrection and ascension, and session at his sufferings, till by the descent of the Holy Ghost upon thee
own right hand, by giving him “all power in heaven and thou art strengthened. e g
earth, and a name above every name" (Phil. ii. 9). And * Ver. 38. Before the cock crow.] viz. In the morning,
this he will presently begin to do: so that you seeing such | styled emphatically, “the cock-crowing” (see the note on
admirable circumstances of my passion, and such a glorious | Matt. xxvi. 34).
issue of it, may go on cheerfully in preaching my gospel, --------------
expecting my power to assist you in the work, and a full re. * Tertul. Apol. cap. 39. Sic mutuo, quod doletis, amore
ward of all your sufferings for my sake.' - diligimus. Sic nos, quod invidetis, fratres vocamus. Minu-
” Wer. 33. Yet a little while am I with you..] i. e. By 'tius, p. 35, 36.
CHAPTER XIV.
1, LET not your hearts be troubled: 'ye believe in ficient to receive you, and all that believe in me, to
God, believe also in me, (who am one with the Father, eternal life); if it were not so, I would have told you,
and to whom all power is committed : see John x. 30. (that no such mansions were to be eaſpected ; but now)
38.) ! I go °to prepare a place for you. *
2 In my Father's house are many ‘mansions (suf- 3 And if I go and prepare (when I shall have gone
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIV those who propagate it; and in me, in whose name you are
to preach it, as having all power in heaven and in earth, and
* Ver. 1. IIIa rešere ei, röy Oay, wai sic tº tria-reſſers, Ye being always present with you, and therefore being able to
believe in God, believe also in me.] There being no example assist and preserve you from all dangers, and to reward your
T can find, where the same word in the same sentence is used faithful labours with that crown of glory I have promised.
both in the indicative and the imperative mood; I had rather * Ver.2. In my Father's house are many mansions.] In which,
render these words in the same mood, thus, “Believe in God, after your labours, you shall find eternal rest. So the Jews
believe also in me:” i. e. That I may prescribe a remedy to say, that in Paradise are seven mansions, which are each
that trouble, which hath seized your hearts from the con- twelve thousand miles long, ten thousand broad, and as many
sideration of my passion, and my departure from you, and high : so Moses Haddarson in Gen. ii. 9.
of the troubles you must expect in the execution of your. * I go to prepare a place for you..] For Christ, by his en-
office, I advise you to believe in God, the author of that trance with his sacrifice into heaven, procurcd for us an en-
doctrine you are to preach, and therefore the defender of trance into that place, which before was inaccessible, or a
*4
CHAPTER XIV.
391
and prepared) a place for you, “I will come again, and
receive you to myself; that where I am, (there) ye
may be also.
4 And whither I go ye know (for I have told you I
go to my Father), and the way ye know (for I am the
way, ver. 6, and the teacher of it : by observing whose
words you will come to me).
5 Thomas saith to him, Lord, we know not whi-
ther thou goest; and how (then) can we know the
way (to thee) P
6 Jesus saith to him, "I am the way, and the truth,
and the life (by teaching that way of saving truth
which leadeth to life eternal); no man cometh to the
Father, but by (faith in) me (and by observance of my
word).
7 *If ye had (fully) known me, ye should have
known my Father also (who is in me, and is made vi-
sible by his works done by me); and from henceforth
(from the time I have been with you) ye (have) know (n)
him (by his word), and have seen him (by his works).
8 Philip saith to him, Lord, show us the Father
(as he was seen by Moses and the Israelites, at the giv-
£ng of the law, in glorious symbols of his presence),
and it sufficeth us.
9 Jesus saith to him, Have I been so long with
you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip : he
that hath seen me hath seen (in me the works of) the
Father (by which only he is visible) ; and how sayest
new living way of entering through the veil rent for us at his
death, he preparing these mansions for us by his own entrance
first into heaven with his sacrifice : see the notes on Heb. ix.
8. 23, 24. x. 20. .*
* Wer. 3. I come again, and will receive you to myself.]
i. e. Into those mansions, that then you may be for ever
with me, and be made partakers of that happiness I there
enjoy. Whence it seems probable that all the saints, the
blessed apostles not excepted, are only to be crowned at
the same time, to wit, at our Lord's second advent (see
the note on Heb. xi, 40); and observe, that śāv 33 here is to
be rendered “When P come again” (see the note on Heb.
iii. 7).
* Ver. 6. I am the way, the truth, and the life.] The author
of the way that leadeth to life; the teacher of that truth
which directs to it; the giver of that life which is to be ob-
tained by walking in it. And this life consists in the vision
or enjoyment of the Father, to whom none cometh but by
faith in me, ver, 6.
* Ver. 7. If ye had known me, ye would have known
the Father also..] Note, that Christ here speaks not of the
knowledge of his Father's essence, (1.) because that is not
to be seen, as here the Father is said to be, ver, 9. (2)
Because the reason here assigned of this knowledge is, that
Christ spake not from himself, but from the Father; and so
the Father was to be known by what he taught. (3.) He
adds, that the works he did were done by the power of the
Father abiding in him; and so the power and other attributes
of the Father might be seen by them ; his goodness and
mercy by the kindness and mercy shown in all his wisdom,
righteeusness, and holiness, in the purity of his doctrine. In
me, Saith he, speaking my Father's words, ye do already
know him, i.e. his sacred will ; in me, doing my Father's
Yorks, ye see him, viz. his attributes; and of my ability to
do them, ye cannot well doubt, for I am in the Father, and
the Father in me, by virtue of his Spirit residing in me; so
that I both perfectly know his will, and can do the most
mighty works by this power of the Most High (Luke i. 35).
* Ver. 12. And shall do greater works than these, because
I go to the Father.] That which interpreters here say of
diseases healed by the shadow of Peter, and by napkins sent
from St. Paul, and of more miracles performed throughout
the world, and devils ejected through three whole centuries
everywhere, is not unfitly mentioned here, as answering to
these words; but yet I think this chiefly is to be referred to
the admirable success of the gospel, preached by the apostles
after the descent of the Holy Ghost upon them ; and the
V.
thou then, Show us the Father (as if thou hadst not
seen him, or could see him otherwise) P
10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and
the Father in me (by his Spirit enabling me to speak
the words and do the works of God) P the words that
I speak to you I speak not of myself (see note on viii.
14): but the Father, that dwelleth in me (by the
Spirit, John iii. 34), he doeth the works (by which my
prophetic office is confirmed).
11 Believe me that I am (thus) in the Father, and
the Father in me; or else (if thou believest not for my
own sake) believe me for the very works' sake (which
are done by the power and spirit of the Father).
12 Verily, verily, I say to you, He that believeth
on me, the works that I do shall he do also ; " and
greater works than these shall he do; because I go
to my Father (to send the Holy Ghost to enable them
to do them).
13 And * whatsoever, ye shall ask in my name
(for the promotion of the gospel), that will I (thus ena-
ble you to) do, that the Father may be glorified in
(by) the Son (sending the Holy Ghost upon you from
the Father).
14 If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will
do it. -
15 If ye love me, (eapress the sincerity of that love,
só as to) keep my commandments:
16 And (then) I will pray the Father, and he shall
inward gifts of tongues, and the interpretation of them ; of
prophecy, and discerning of spirits, and the imparting of
these gifts to others by baptism, and the imposition of the
apostles' hands: for as this was a greater work in our Lord
Jesus thus to assist so many with his mighty power, when
absent at so great a distance as is earth from heaven, than
to do miracles in their presence; so, to communicate these
inward gifts to men, and to enable them to transfer them to
others upon faith in Christ, is truly wonderful: for, as Arno-
bius saith, *Transcribere in alium jus tuum, et quod facere
solus possis, fragilissimae rei domare et participare faciendum,
super omnia sitae est potestatis, continentisque sub Se omni-
um rerum causas, et rationum facultatumque naturas. But
more especially, when he himself succeeded so little in three
years' preaching here on earth, and had so few sincere disci-
ples, that he should enable his apostles at one sermon to
convert some thousands, and cause his gospel to fly like
lightning through the world, and beat down all strong-holds
of opposition, this is truly admirable. That to these fruits
of the mission of the Holy Ghost these words do principally
relate, appeareth from the reason of them here assigned,
“Because I go to the Father;” viz. to send that Holy
Spirit down upon you, by whom these greater works are to
be done.
8 Ver. 13. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, I will
do..] Here Christ shows how these great works should be
done by them, viz. not by their own power, or any divine
virtue residing in them, as our Lord did his ; but in the
name and by the power of Christ (Acts iii. 12. 16), by faith
in him, and prayer to God in his name (Acts iv. 24. 30).
Note also here that Christ saith, Whatever ye shall thus ask
I will do; which, as it supposes in him omniscience, enabling
him to know the request of all Christians upon earth, and
omnipotence, enabling him to assist them everywhere in the
performance of the greatest works, so must it consequently
imply unity of essence betwixt the Father and the Son, and
so the Father is glorified in the Son. Hence, what is here,
“I will do,” is, xvi. 23, “The Father will give you. Note
also, that whereas the Jews used to beg a blessing for the
fathers' sake, or for the sake of Abraham, Isaac, and J acob,
though being only men they never prayed to them, the Chris-
tians not only prayed to the Father in the name ºf the Son,
but invoked the Son also, as being one God with the Father:
this being a periphrasis of Christians, that they were those
who called upon the name of Christ, Acts xix. 14. 21 (sea
.** –4%
* Arnob. lib. i. p. 31
392.
JOHN.
g
give you ? another Comforter (even the Holy Ghost), Iscariot, Lord (seeing thou art to be a glorious king
that he may abide with you (and those that shall suc- over us and all the nations of the world), *how is it that
ceed you) for ever; . -
17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world can-
not receive, because it seeth him not, neither know-
eth him (they having no ea perience of his presence with
them, or of his sanctifying operations on them, by which
alone he can be seen or known ; for being a holy Spirit,
he cannot abide with unholy souls); but ye (who are
sanctified by him) know him; for he dwelleth with
you, and shall be in you. -
18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to
you (by this Spirit). -
19 Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no
more; but ye (shall) see me, (i.e. shall find eaſperi-
mentally my presence with you ; for) "because I live,
ye (in the midst of all the perils and persecutions of
the world) shall live also (2 Cor. iv. 10, 11).
20 * At that day (that I send this Comforter) ye
shall know that I am in my Father (by receiving this
Spirit from him), and ye in me, and I in you (by this
Spirit communicated from me your head, to unite you
ny members to me).
21 He that hath my commandments, and keepeth
them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me
shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him,
* and will manifest myself to him (by the presence and
illuminations of the Spirit of truth).
22 Judas saith to him, not (he that was named)
note on Rom. x. 13). And this seems here to be mentioned
to confirm their faith in him, that he who so loved them had
power to do all things for them.
* Ver, 16. Another Comforter.] See note on xvi. 7.
19 Wer. 19. Because I live ye shall live also..] By virtue of
this promise, though the apostles were always delivered up
to death for the sake of Jesus, yet was the life of Christ
manifested in their mortal flesh, by preserving them, and
delivering them from so many deaths (2 Cor. iv. 10, 11);
and they are said to live by and with him (2 Cor. xiii. 4), by
virtue of that miraculous power he conferred upon them for
the promotion of the gospel (2 Cor. iv. 7. X. 4. xii. 10).
* Wer. 20. In that day ye shall know that I am in the
Father, and you in me, and I in you..] It is certain that
Christ was in his apostles, by his Spirit abiding with them
(ver. 16), and that they were in him by the same Spirit unit-
ing them to their head Christ (Eph. ii.22, iii. 16, 17. iv. 16);
and therefore Christ must be here said to be in the Father by
the Spirit of the Father residing in him, but with this differ-
ence—that the Spirit of the Father resided in Christ without
measure (iii. 34), and so that all that was the Father's was
also Christ's (xvi. 15), his wisdom and his power; whereas
he was in the apostles only by the gifts conferred upon them,
according to the measure of the gift of Christ. (2.) He was
in Christ, as Justin Martyr notes, not for indigence, but partly
because the nature of his prophetic office did so require,
and partly to be derived from him as the fountain upon all
his members; but he was given to them because they wanted
his assistance to fit them to be able ministers of the New Tes-
tament (2 Cor. iii. 5, 6). Theophylact observes, that we must
not say, that this is so in the same manner ; for Christ is in
the Father, &g pºooſa toº, “as being of one substance with
him,” but in the apostles only, &; 8on08; Kai ouvepyā;, “as a
helper and co-worker * with them : but perhaps the apostles
understood Christ thus; I, as a prophet, work miracles by
the Spirit of my Father dwelling in me (Matt. xii. 28), and
you shall work yours (mentioned ver. 12) by my Spirit abid-
ing in you (ver. 16).
12 Ver. 21. And will manifest myself to him.] As in the
paraphrase, so also by those miraculous works which shall
demonstrate my presence with him. This presence he pro-
miseth to his disciples, Matt. xxviii. 20. Mark xvi. 17, 18,
and made good by his powerful Spirit with his church, 1 Cor.
v. 4. 2 Cor. xiii.3—5.
* Ver. 22. How is it that thout will manifest thyself to us,
and not to the world?] This question scenis to be put to
thou wilt manifest thyself to us, and not to the world?
23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man
love me, he will keep my words; and (then) my Fa-
ther will love him, * and we will come to him, and ,
make our abode with him (by the Spirit of the Father
and the Son dwelling in him).
24 He that loveth me not (as the world doth not)
keepeth not my sayings (and so can neither know me
nor my Father), and (so cannot be loved by us ; for)
the word which you hear is not (originally) mine, but
the Father’s which sent me (and it is only obedience to
fit that procures his and my love).
25 These things have I spoken unto you, being
yet present with you. -
26 But the **Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost,
whom the Father will send in my name (i. e. as my
Spirit, to act in my name and for my honour), he shall
teach you all things (which are requisite to be known
by you, and taught to others), and bring all things to
your remembrance, whatsoever I have said to you.
27 * Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto
you (by giving you that Spirit whose fruits are joy and
peace); not as the world giveth (peace, when they part
from their friends, by wishing to them that peace which
they do not heartily desire, or are not able to impart),
give I (it) to you, (but effectually ; and therefore) let
not your heart be troubled (at my departure), neither
Christ according to that known opinion of the Jews, that the
kingdom of Christ was to be an earthly dominion over the
whole world, appearing with great outward splendour, or with
observation (Luke xvii. 20), so that the Jews under their
Messiah should lord it over the whole earth, and so he should
manifest himself to the whole world. So Josephus” speaks
of an ambiguous oracle among them, declaring that about
that time, 3rd tâ; X&pag ri; #xei, oy dºsi rāc oixovºzáynç, “one
of their country should reign over the whole earth,” and that
many of their own wise men did so interpret it. So Origen-f
tells us they expected, twāyav Kai Suváarny, Kai Tráang ri; yńc,
Rai Trávroy tºy #6voy zógicy Byat, that their Messiah should be
“a great potentate, and the lord of the whole earth, and of
!
all, mations.” And Trypho, in his dialogue with Justin
Martyr, saith the same.
* Ver. 23. And we will come to him, and take up our
abode with him.] By that Spirit whose temple is the body of
the saints (1 Cor. iii. 16. vi. 13), and by whose indwelling
they are made a habitation of God (Eph. ii. 22): here there-
fore is no express mention made of the Holy Spirit, because
by him it is that the Father and the Son dwell in us; and
so it is in the beginning of the epistles, praying for grace and
peace from the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, because
this grace and peace was to be conferred on men by the
Spirit. - - - -
* Wer. 26. But the Comforter, whom the Father will send
in my name.] Whom I will send you from the Father (John
xv. 26. xvi. 7): he proceeding from the Father and the Son,
him the Father shed forth according to his promise, Acts ii.
17, 18, the Son, ver. 33. Hence is he styled “ the Spirit of
the Father,” Matt. x. 20, and “the Spirit of the Son,”
Gal. iv. 6, “the Spirit of Christ,” 1 Pet. i. 11. Rom. viii. 9.
Phil. i. 19. # -
* Wer. 27. Peace I leave with you, not as the world..] In
empty wishes of what they neither do nor can give; nor that
external peace which is both temporary and uncertain ; but
inward peace of conscience arising from the pardon of your
sins (Rom. v. 1), from the sense of the favour of God, and
of my presence with you by the Spirit, that peace which no
man can take from you (xvi. 22), that peace which passeth
understanding, which will keep your hearts in the faith (Phil.
iv. 7), and free you from all solicitude and fear of the
world.
* De Bello Jud. lib. vii. cap. 31, p. 961, G.
ºf Contr, Cels, lib, iv. p. 78. + P. 249, B
CHAPTER XV.
993
let it be afraid (what may befall you when I am gone).
28 Ye have heard how I said to you, I go away,
and come again to you (but for a little while). If
you loved me (and my advancement as affectionately
and wisely as ye ought to do), ye would rejoice, be-
cause I said, I go to the Father: for "my Father is
greater than I.
29 And * now I have told you before it come to
pass, (that I am going to the Father to send the Com-
forter to you,) that, when it is come to pass, ye might
(have greater reason to) believe (in me). •
30 Hereafter I will not talk much with you; for
* the prince of this world (Satan) cometh (by his
agents, the rulers of the Jews, to take away my life),
and hath nothing in me, (no power over me to inflict
death upon me on the account of sin, as he hath over
others, Heb. ii. 14.) *
31 But (I give up myself to the death in compliance
with my Father’s will, John x. 18) that the world may
know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave
me commandment, even so I do. Arise (therefore),
let us go hence.
17 Wer. 28. For my Father is greater than I.] “This,”
saith Woltzogenius, “is a demonstration that Christ is not
the true God, than whom none is or can be greater.” But
the primitive fathers did not allow that there was any strength
in this argument; for they granted that there was one God
the Father who was “over all,” and yet that “Christ with
the Father was the God of the living, as having in all things
the excellency or sovereignty of the Father,” saith Irenaeus.”
They therefore owned that the Father was greater than the
Son, as to his orignal, the Son being begotten by him, and
yet declared that he was God, and equal to God, as to his
essence, as Tertullian-F and Novatiani teach. So then we
may grant, as to the divine nature, that as to his dependence
* Solus verax Magister et Dominus, ut discamus per ipsum
super omnia esse Patrem, etenim Pater (inquit) major me
est. Iren. lib. ii. cap. 48, 49. lib. iv. cap. 11, 12.
+ Pater est alius à Filio dum Filio major, dum alius qui
generat, alius qui generatur. Tertul. adv. Prax. cap. 9. Alius
tamen personae, non substantiae, nomine ;-ubique temco
unam substantiam in tribus cohaerentibus. Cap. 12. Pater
Deus, et Filius Deus, et Spiritus Sanctus Dcus. Cap. 13.
f Ambo unus atque idem, cap. 18. Patre minor est, dum
in illo esse se scit habens originem, Deus utique procedens
ex Deo Secundam personam efficiens, sed non eripiens illud
Patre quod unus est Deus. Nowat. cap. 21.
on the Father it is less, i. e. as it is received dependently
from the Father, “for greater is he that gives than he that
receives;” and yet, as to essence, they are both one God,
and so equal, &c airiog wai &#xh oi karð ‘púa'iy, Athan. Naz.
Basil. -
Add to this, that the argument produced to prove that
Christ speaks not of his human nature, viz. because none
could doubt but God is greater than man, proves as effec-
tually, that Christ could not be only man, because then
none could doubt but that God is greater than he ; nor is
any such comparison, as to greatness, to be found in Scrip-
ture betwixt God and mere man. •
* Ver. 29. And now I have told you before it come to pass.]
viz. Of my ascent into heaven, and of the mission of the Holy
Ghost, that when you have received this Spirit, you more
firmly may believe, I am the Son of God, invested with all
power in heaven and earth.
* Ver. 30. The prince of this world cometh.] By his
ministers, Judas and the rulers of the Jews, and findeth no-
thing in me ; he himself having no power to inflict death on
me, in whom is no sin, and they finding nothing in me worthy
of death (Acts xiii. 28). Though therefore I am to suffer
death, 1 do not suffer for any fault that can deserve it, or on
account of any power he or his ministers have over me to
inflict it, but I give up myself to the death in compliance
with my Father's will, that the world may know, and know-
ing imitate, my obedience to him in the severest precepts,
CHAPTER, XV.
| "I AM the true vine (which gives juice and now-
rishment to every branch belonging to me), and my
Father is (as) the husbandman (who prunes and
cleanses the branches of this vine, to render them more
fruitful : and therefore)
2 *Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he
taketh away (i. e. every professor of faith in me that
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XV.
* Ver. 1. I am the true vine, and my Father is the hus-
bandman.] That vine which gives vital juice to render all
my branches fruitful, and whose fruits refresh and fill their
hearts with joy, as doth the fruit of the vine the body (Judg.
ix. 13. Psal. civ. 15). Of the epithet “true,” see vi. 55.
“My Father is the husbandman,” who takes care of these
branches, cutting off the suckers and the withered branches,
pruning the vine, and purging the fruitful branches, that they
may bring forth more fruit. Grotius thinks the occasion of
this parable was taken from the Lord's supper he had then
celebrated, or was instantly to celebrate ; for as ch. vi.
discoursing of this passion, he calls himself “the true bread,”
So here he calls himself “the true vine,” nourishing to life
cternal, with relation to that element, which was “the fruit
of the vine” (Luke xxii. 18): and thus it seemed necessary
to speak of the fruit of his death; because his disciples were
offended at it, and their faith wavered on that account.
Others think, that having spoken of Judas, as a branch not
purged but withered, and fit only for the fire (xiii. 10, 11),
he admonishes them to be careful that they become not such
branches; and as he had said there, ver, 10, so he repeats
that saying here, wer. 3, “Ye are clean,” &c.
* Ver. 2. Jºvery branch in one that beareth not fruit.]
These ur:fruitful branches are said to be in Christ, or in his
is unfruitful), * and every branch that beareth fruit,
he purgeth it (from all those suckers that hinder the
growth of the fruit, or make it less), that it may bring
forth more fruit.
3 Now (thus it is with you, for) ye are clean
through the word which I have spoken to you.
4 * Abide in me, and I (will abide) in you. As the
church, as being by profession Christians, and by baptism
admitted into the church, and owning her faith ; but they
are still dead branches, because unfruitful in good works ;
for “faith without works is dead” (James ii. 26).
* And every branch that bringeth forth fruit he purgeth.]
In its season, or the fit time of pruning. The apostles then
laboured under many infirmities and prejudices of their
minds; they were weak in the faith, and understood but
little of Christ's salutary passion, and the oblation of himself
as a piacular victim for their sins (Luke xviii. 34), as judging
this not well consistent with that earthly kingdom which was
fixed in their hearts; they knew nothing of the calling of
the gentiles, or of God’s intended kindness to them, and
therefore would not preach to them without a special admo-
nition from heaven so to do (Acts xi. 19); they were con-
tending for primacy, and that out of prospect of carnal ad-
vantages (2 Cor. v. 16): from these and such like infirmities
the good husbandman purged them, when he shed the Holy
Ghost upon them, and sent them to preach the gospel to all
nations. When therefore he saith, You are now kağatol,
“clean” (ver. 3), we must not understand this absolutely,
but comparatively, in respect of those who did not believe
or obey his word ; and in good part, they being to be farther
purged by the operation of the Holy Spirit.
ºver, 4. Remain in me (by faith, love, ver, 9, and obe.
394.
JOHN.
branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in
the vine; no more (Gr. so neither) can you, except
you abide in me (by faith). -
5 I am the vine, ye are the branches (which receive
mourishment from the vine, and become fruitful by it):
he that abideth in me (by faith), and I in him (by the
Spirit), the same bringeth forth much fruit: for
* without me (abiding thus in you) ye can do nothing.
6 If a man abide not in me, he is “cast forth as a
branch, and (that) is withered; and men gather them
(or, and is gathered), and cast (them) into the fire, and
they are burned (Gr. kai katsrat, and is burned).
7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you
(so that ye yield obedience to them), "ye shall ask
what ye will (in my name, and for the glory of God),
and it shall be done to you. .
8 Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much
fruit, (kai, and) * so shall ye (appear to) be my disci-
ples. -
9 As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved
you: continue ye in my love.
10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide
in my love ; even "as I (his prophet) have kept my
Father’s commandments (doing all he sent me to do),
and (so) abide in his love. -
11 These things have I spoken to you (of my abode
in you by the Spirit, and your abiding in my words),
that (through the comforts of the Spirit) * my joy
* remain in you, and that your joy might be
ull. - w
12 This is my commandment, That yelove one an-
other, * as I have loved you (to the end, John xiii. 1,
and with a most fervent love).
13 Greater love hath no man * than this, that a
man *lay down his life for his friends, (and this love
will I show to you acting as my friends, and eagect you
should imitate it.
14 Now) ye are my “friends, (and shall receive the
Lſ
dience, ver. 10), x:y: Év šºv, and I will remain in you..] By
my Spirit. Here is an ellipsis of the word &svå, as Matt.
xx. 13, “To sit on my right hand—is not mine to give ; but
(it shall be given) to them for whom it is prepared of my
Father;” 2 Thess. ii. 7, “He that letteth (will let) till he be
taken away” (see 1 Cor. iv. 15. Gal. ii. 7).
* Ver. 5. He that abideth in me, and I in him, bringeth
forth much fruit: for, xopic pºoij, without me ye can do
nothing.] That is, xopic #zoº wrec, “being separated from
me;” wer. 4, “not abiding in me,” ver. 6, “being cast out
from me.” As this respects all Christians, the sense runs
thus, “If ye abide in me by that faith which purifies the
heart” (Acts xv. 9), “and worketh by love,” (Gal. v. 6), and
I in you by that Spirit (1 John iii. 24. iv. 13), without whom
none can be a member of Christ (Rom. viii. 9), you shall
abound in the fruits of the Spirit, but without my Spirit
abounding in you, and uniting you to me your head, you can
do nothing acceptable to me, or worthy of my gospel: as it
respects the apostles it may farther note, that without the
gifts and powerful assistance of the Holy Spirit, they could
do nothing to convert the world to the faith, as being not
sufficient of themselves for that work, but baving their suffi-
ciency from that God who giveth them the Holy Spirit
(2 Cor. iii. 5, 6). Hence they are bid to stay at Jerusalem
till this Spirit fell upon them (Acts i. 8).
* Ver. 6. He is cast out, &; rô wººd, wai Éng&v6m.] ‘o; ré
x^*a, supply ºch psgåøsvov Kagºrów, “As a branch bringing
forth no fruit;” or kai here signifies because, or that, and so
the sense runs thus, As a branch is cast out that is withered,
or because it is withered ; for branches are first withered,
and then cast out: So Josh. i. 5, Kai &amep, “For as I have
been with Moses, so will I be with thee:” xxii. 25, zai &m-ax-
×orpiða-oval, “For they will turn away thy children:” 1 Sam.
ii. 15, “Give us roast, kai oi º Aá8w, for I will not receive
sodden flesh of thee:” Micah vii. 8, “Rejoice not at my fall,
wai &vaarhorokat, for I shall rise again:” see Luke i. 24. John
vi. 54. It also signifies that, or which : so Isa. v. 4, “What
shall I do to my vine, Kai oix #mroinora, which I have not
done 2° so Matt. ix. 11, wai i8%rreg, “Which the pharisees
seeing:” Acts i. 19, xzi wooty, “Which thing was known”
(see Noldius de Partic. Heb. p. 297, 298).
7 Wer. 7. Ask what ye will, and it shall be given you..]
Whatever ye ask according to the will of God (1 John v. 14),
for the promotion of his glory (xiv. 13), and the furtherance
of your ministry (Matt. xxi. 21, 22), asking in faith (Mark
xi. 24), and in my name (John xvi. 23), ye shall receive (see
the note on Matt. xxi. 21). . .
* Ver. 8. And ye shall be my disciples.] By your likeness
to me your Master, who am intent on this, that I may glo-
rify my Father upon earth (xvii. 4), and give up myself to
the death, that I may be more fruitful in drawing all men to
the knowledge of him (xii. 24), it will appear that you, thus
bringing forth much fruit to the glory of God, are my genuine
disciples: #y rotºrº is here to be repeated from the beginning
of the verse.
* Ver. 10. As I keep my Father's commandments, and
abide in his love..] Here it is inquired; how Christ, being truly
God, could say he keeps his Father's commandments 2 I
answer, as on earth he sustained the person of a prophet
sent from him, it being necessary to that office that he should
be sent by him, and do his commandments, according to
those words of God, Deut. xviii. 18, “I will raise them up a
Prophet from among their brethren like unto thee, and will
put my words into his mouth ; and he shall speak to them
all that I shall command him” (see ver. 19, 20). Hence
Christ so often saith, “I speak not of myself, but as my
Father gave me commandment, so I speak” (xii. 49, 50);
declaring by these words he was no impostor, but that very
Prophet of whom Moses spake (see the note on vii. 16 and
viii. 28). Hence Chrysostom, Euthymius, and Theophylact
note, that Christ spake this according to his human nature.
But still Woltzogenius inquires, why, according to his human
mature, he is said to obey the commandment of the Father,
rather than of his own divine nature ? I answer, because
the Father is the fountain of the Deity, and because it be-
longed to Christ executing his prophetic office, to refer all to
the glory of his Father, whom the Jews only owned.
* Ver. 11. That my joy might be in you..] i. e. I speak of
your remaining in me by the Spirit, that your joy, arising
from his consolations, may be full; and this joy I call mine,
because this Spirit dwelleth in me, and is derived from me.
Pious and true is the note of Woltzogenius here, “that the
observation of God’s commandments gives here the fullest
and most perfect joy.” For what richer treasure is there
in this world, than that of a good conscience 2 and what
greater joy than that which flows from the good Spirit “tes-
tifying to our spirits that we are the sons of God, and shall
be made heirs of eternal life?” (Rom. viii. 17. Gal. iv. 6.)
* Ver. 12. As I have loved you..] Not only as in the
paraphrase, but so as to lay down my life for you (ver. 13).
* Ver. 13. Meiſova raûrn; &y&mny oběsic fixel, Wa. Greater
love than this hath no man, than that one should lay down.
his life for his friend.] Here it is observable, that ya after
asićoya signifies h ºva, quâm ut; so in the Third Epistle of
St. John, wer. 4, ºwesſorégay rotºrov own #x2, x&gåy, ºva, “I have
no greater joy, than that I may hear my children walking
in the truth.”
* To lay down his life for his friends.] It is certain
Christ did this for his enemies (Rom. v. 6–8). Christ not-
withstanding speaks of his friends, as speaking only to his
apostles, whom he here owneth as his friends. Note also,
that Christ here saith he doth Juxºy rióżyat, “lay down his
life” for his friends, rather to express the greatness of his
love than the merit of his passion ; and when he doth so,
he uses constantly this phrase, viz. John x. 15. 17. 1 John
iii. 16; but when the merit of his passion is expressed, the
phrase used is, étroSaveſy titrée àpºv, or tragi &gapºrtày, “to die
for us,” or “for our sins,” Rom. v. 6.8. 2 Cor. v. 15. Heb.
ii. 9. 1 Pet. iii. 18, as the circumstances of those places
show.
* Ver, 14. You are my friends if you do whatsoever F
command you..] For both Cicero and Sallust” make this
* Idem velle et idem molle ea demüm vera est amicitia.
Sallust. Est enim lex illa justae veræque amicitiae, ut idem
amici semper velint. Cic. Orat. pro Cn. Plan.
CHAPTER XV.
395
tokens of my love as such), if ye do whatsoever I com-
mand you. * -
15 (And therefore) henceforth I call you not *ser-
vants (nor treat you as such); for the servant (usually)
knoweth not what his lord doeth : but I have called
(and treated) you (as) friends; * for all things that I
have heard (i.e. received) of my Father (to impart to
Ayou) I have made known to you.
16 You have not chosen me, but " I have chosen
you (first) and ordained (i. e. appointed) you, that ye
should go (abroad into the world) and bring forth
(much) fruit (by converting many to the faith), and
that your fruit should remain (in a succession of
Christians to the world’s end); and (that being thus
employed in my service), whatsoever (in pursuance of
that work) ye shall ask the Father in my name, he
may give it you.
17 These things I (especially) command you, that
ye (moved by my eſcample, and by these tokens of my
love, may be induced to) love one another.
18 If the *world hate you, (let this give you no dis-
couragement in the performance of your office, since it
will be only with you as it hath been with me doing the
same work, for) ye know that it hated me before it
hated vou.
19 If ye were of the world (conforming yourselves
to it in your life and doctrine), the world would love
his own (men like to them); but because ye are not of
the world, but I have chosen you out of the world
(to lead a life and preach a doctrine opposite to the
vices of it), therefore the world hateth you.
20 (But) remember the word that I said to you,
(viz.) The servant is not greater than the lord (and so
cannot eaſpect to be treated better). If (then) they
have persecuted me, they will also persecute you
(who are doing the same work); if they have (had)
* kept my saying, they will (would) keep yours also
(who speak the same things).
21 But all these things, (this hatred, ver. 19, and
ersecution, ver, 20) will they do to you for my
"name’s sake, because they (after all the miracles I
have wrought in his name) know not him that sent me.
22 If I had not come and spoken to them (the
words of my Father), they had not had sin (in not
knowing him that sent me); but now (they have heard
and rejected his word) they have no cloak (or eacuse) .
for their sin, (it being the fruit not of their want of
knowledge of my Father’s will, but of their hatred to
him and his word ; for)
23 He that hateth me (speaking the words of God,
which I have learned from my Father, John xii. 49,
50) hateth my Father also.
24 If I had not done among them *the works
which no man did (Gr. hath dome), they had not had
(the) sin (of infidelity); but now (this sin must be
charged upon their hatred, for) they have both seen
(the works which the Father in me hath done), and (yet
have been so far from being convinced and reformed by
them, that they have) hated both me (who do them)
and my Father (by whose power and commission I do
them).
25 But (this cometh to pass, or, this they are per-
conformity of will to him we love the test of sincere friend-
ship.
º Wer. 15. Not servants; for the servant knoweth not
what his lord doeth.] i. e. I deal not with you as servants,
to whom I make known my counsels, où33 yag &ea márov påciv
# ºrgāśw 800xov; 35ſ sióēvat, “for servants are not,” saith Xeno-
phon, “to know the customs or actions of their lord,” but
only bosom friends (Epist. ad AEschinem).
* For all things which I have heard from my Father I
have made known writo you..] Not absolutely, for they were
not yet able to hear of the cessation of the law, of circum-
cision, and the Sabbath, the casting off of the Jews, and the
calling of the gentiles to be his church, without offence
(xvi. 12); but all things fit to be told them then, concerning
his salutary passion, his glorious resurrection and ascension,
the mission of the Holy Ghost, the future judgment, and
the promise of eternal life.
” Wer. 16. I have chosen you..] From the rest of the Jews
to bear witness of me (ver. 27), and to be my apostles. That
Christ speaks here of this election, appears (1.) from the
preceding words, “Ye have not chosen me,” as disciples
among the Jews chose to themselves a master, for ye came
not to me till I called you. (2.) From the persons called:
for, saith Christ, “Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of
you is a devil?” (vi. 70.) And (3.) from the end of their
vocation here, viz. that they might go into the world and
bring forth fruit, or that they should go forth and preach that
gospel to the world, which should abide for ever (2 John 2),
and erect that church against which the gates of hell should
not prevail. It follows, “That you should go and bring forth
fruit,” &c., iva 3, ri &y airhants, “that whatsoever ye shall
ask the Father in my name, he may give it you.” I have
observed, note on ver. 25, that there is often somewhat defi-
cient after Wa: so l Cor. i. 31, #2 (sub. yśwntal), “That (it
may be) as it is written ;” and so it seems to be here, the
full sense being either that, being thus employed, or being
thus fruitful, ye may ask what ye will.
* Ver. 18. If the world hate you—hated me first.] Here
Christ begins to fortify his apostles against the hatred of the
world, and to encourage them to continue firm and constant
in the performance of their office against all its opposition:
(1.) from his own example, who patiently had endured it
before their eyes, and was now to suffer death by reason of
it ; So that they, who preached the same doctrine which ren-
dered him so hateful to the world, might reasonably expect
the like treatment from it ; nor had they reason to expect
it should be otherwise, or grudge it was not better with the
disciple than with his master: for he being not of the world,
and they being chosen by him out of the world, the ground
of the world's hatred against them must be the same.
* Ver. 20. Ei rāy Aévoy ºzou äräpna'ay, If they had kept my
word.] Some conceive that ºrnésſy here imports to observe
with an insidious intent to carp at it, and accuse the author
of it, as it is said of the church to Satan, he rmpºrat, “shall
break, or observe, thy head” to wound it, xai at rmphoretº,
“and thou shalt bruise, or observe, his heel” to ensnare it;
Gen. iii. 15; but the right reading there seems to be relpha etc,
conteres, nor are there any instances in the New Testament
where the simple verb ºrnééo bears that sense: for Matt.
xxvii. 36.54, the word signifies only to observe, not to watch'
an opportunity against, that being tragatnºeſy (Mark iii. 2.
Luke vi. 7. xiv. l. xx. 20), and the phrase ºrnéety Aáyou; pov,
which is proper to St. John, is always taken in a good sense
for an obedient observance of the words of Christ, viz. John
viii. 51, 52.55. xiv. 23, 24. xvii. 6. 1 John ii. 5. Rev. iii. 8.
10. xxii. 7. 9.
* Ver. 21. But these things will they do for my name's
sake, because they know not him that sent me..] It is farther
ground of comfort to you that you should be thus hated, not
from your own fault, but for my sake, and so shall be entitled
by that hatred to a great reward in heaven (Matt. v. 12), and
that out of ignorance of, or hatred to, him that sent me, and
being hated for our sakes, you need not question our protec-
tion and assistance.
21 Wer. 24. Works which no man ever did : Ver. 22. If I
had not spoken to them,-no sin.] i. e. Nor yet can they be
said to hate me out of ignorance of my commission ; for I
have spoken to them a doctrine plainly divine, and worthy
of God, against which they have no exceptions which arise
not from their own lusts and prejudices, and have confirmed
it not only with the testimonies of Moses and the prophets
(v. 46), but also with such works as neither Moscs nor the
prophèts ever did; had not this been done by me, they could
not reasonably have been charged with the great sin of infi-
delity: but now, shutting their eyes against the light thus
shining on them, and hardening their hearts against that
strong conviction of my mission which my mighty works
afford, it is evident that they reject me, not out of ignorance
396
JOHN.
mitted to do) * that the word might be fulfilled that
is written in their law (Ps. xxxv. 19), *They hated
me without a cause.
26 But when the Comforter is come, * whom I
will send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of
truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall (by
his miraculous gifts) testify of me (who send him).
27 And *ye also shall bear witness (of me), be-
cause ye have been with me from the beginning (and
saw my works). -
and weakness, but out of wilful hatred to me and him that
sent me, and so their infidelity is inexcusable.
** Ver. 25. 'AAA' vo., But that..] i. e. This hath happened,
or is permitted. Examples of such an ellipsis we find fre-
quently in this gospel: so ix. 3, &AA’ ºva, “But this hath
happened” that the works of God might be made manifest ;
xiii. 18, 3AA’ Wa, “But this hath happened to Judas,” that
the scripture might be fulfilled ; xiv. 31, 3xx’ Wayvä, “But
this I do that the world may know” (see note on xii. 40, and
above at ver. 16). -
* For they have hated me without a cause.] This, which
David, who was a type of Christ, spake of himself, may rea-
sonably be thought, in the mystical sense, to relate to “the
Son of David,” especially if we consider that the sixty-ninth
Psalm, where these words are (ver. 5), is truly referred to
Christ (see the Synopsis in the argument of that psalm).
* Ver. 26. Whom I will send to you from the Father.]
It is certain, saith Betuleius, from the words, “I will send,”
that this cannot be understood of the eternal spiration of the
essence, but of the temporary mission of the Holy Ghost,
which Christ would ask of the Father (xiv. 16), and send
from him in his name (ver. 26), after his departure (xvi. 7),
after his glorification (vii. 39), and who was to be sent ac-
cording to the promise of the Father (Luke xxiv. 49).
* Ver. 27. And you shall testify of me, &c.] You have
been still my companions from the beginning of my prophetic
office, and so are fit witnesses of my works: for good men
use, and ought, to be believed, when they testify of what their
eyes have seen, and their ears have heard, as the apostles
did (Acts iv. 20. 1 John i. 1, 2).
CHAPTER XVI.
1 *THESE things have I spoken unto you, that you
should not be offended, (i. e. deterred from my ser-
vice, by the sufferings you will be eaſposed to from the
world : for)
2 * They shall put you out of the synagogues
(as persons eacommunicated) : * yea, the time cometh,
that whosoever killeth you, will think that he doeth
God service (by so doing).
3 And these things will they do to you, because
they have not known the (will of the) Father, nor me
(who am sent by him to reveal it to the world).
4 But these things have I told you (beforehand),
that “when the time shall come (when you are thus to
suffer them), you may remember that I told you of
them (and so may be confirmed in the truth, by seeing
my perfect knowledge of things future, and may remem-
ber you suffer only what I had forewarned you of).
And these things I said not to you at the beginning
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVI.
* Ver. 1. These things have I spoken to you, that ye be
not offended.] i. e. These things, concerning the hatred of the
world, and the reasons of it; and of those considerations
which may induce you to bear it patiently, lest they coming
unexpectedly upon you unarmed against them, you should
fall from the faith, or desist from your office in the propaga-
tion of it: that this is the true notion of being scandalized,
see the note on Matt. xviii. 6.
* Ver. 2. They shall put you out of the synagogues.] In
their synagogues they had not only assemblies for reading
the scriptures every sabbath day (Acts xiii. 27. xv.21), for
public prayers and exhortations to the people then and upon
other days (Acts xiii. 15), but offences committed against the
law were there corrected, and sometimes punished with
scourging (Matt. x. 17. xxiii. 34). And they who would not
be reformed by stripes, nor by the lesser excommunication,
which removed them, saith Buxtorf, * four feet from others,
were pronounced āroa wayoyo (John ix. 22.24. xii. 42), and
by a public recitation of their names were cast out of the
communication of the church; which, Luke vi. 22, is “sepa-
rating them, and casting out their names as evil;” this, Christ
here saith, would be their portion. * *
* 'Axx' pºstaſ Špa va, Yea, the hour cometh, when who-
soever killeth you shall think he doeth Aargelay reocºpégely
tà Geº, God service.] The particle &XXà here signifies yea,
and denotes the increase of a thing ; as Luke xii. 7, &xxâ
xai, “Yea, even your hairs are àll numbered ;” see 1 Cor.
iii. 2. xii. 22, iva is here put for Śre, when, as ver. 32, “The
time cometh (va akogºria Sãre, when you shall be scattered ;”
see the note on the third epistle of John, ver, 4. The
phrase Aarpsiaw ºrgoa pégely, “to offer sacrifice” is taken from
Exod. xxxii. 29, “Consecrate your hands to the Lord, every
one upon his brother ;” that is, saith the paraphrase of On-
kelos, Obtulistis oblationem, “Ye have offered an oblation.”
Hence the zealots among the Jews, who killed those they
esteemed transgressors with their own hands, not expecting
the judgment of the Sanhedrin, were by them deemed reli-
wº
* In voce Twiddui.
gious men, filled with zeal in the cause of God, they having
their name, saith Josephus,” &md tây Ér' 3)a $6 &n Novºzávay,
“from those that were zealous for what was good :” and
therefore, after infinite slaughters of their brethren, they pro-
nounced themselves &vapagºrnºrol,” “men without offences:”
and suitably to this prediction, Justin Martyr; informs us,
that the Jews did karapārðat #y raſ; a vyayoryaſ, attàv reiz
ºrizrevoyra, Éirl toy Xºta rēy, “disgrace and execrate the Chris-
tians in their synagogues,” and were airroyeige; airãºv, “killing
them with their own hands wherever they could.” This they
will do, saith Christ, because they know not the Father ; i. e.
how alien those cruelties are from his benign nature: so
Grotius (see the note on xv. 21).
* Ver, 4. That when the time cometh you may remember,
&c.] And so be assured of my divine prescience and vera-
city; and therefore may not doubt of that assistance and
consolation I have promised you under these troubles. But
here it may be asked, why Christ here saith, “These things
I said not to you at the beginning, because I was with you,”
when in the first mission of the apostles to preach in the
cities of Judea, he useth almost the same words? Matt. x.
17, 18, and the like words, Matt. xxiv. 9. Luke vi. 22.
Woltzogenius answers, that Christ in these places had in the
general informed them of the great persecutions they were to
suffer, but had not so clearly told them they were to suffer
them on the account of religion; but this seems a mistake,
for he had told them that they were to suffer these things in
the Jewish synagogues “for his name's sake,” and “for
righteousness' sake,” Matt. v. 12, 13. x. 18. xxiv. 9. I answer
therefore, that what was spoken, Matt. xxiv. 9, was said about
this time; and so Christ might well say, he “ said it not to
them from the beginning;” and that what Christ Saith, Matt.
x, and Luke vi., does plainly respect the times which were
to come upon them after our Lord's departure from them ;
for the words of Christ in St. Matthew, from ver, 16 to 36,
respect those times when they were to give testimony to him
* De Bello Jud. lib. vii. cap. 30, p. 986.
+ Ibid. cap. 34, p. 990, B.
# Dial. cum. Tryph. p. 234, C. 323, C. 363, C. Apol. ii.
p. 72. -
CHAPTER XVI.
397
(of my preaching), because I was (then) with you (to
protect you from, and comfort you in, all dangers).
5 But now I go my way to him that sent me : and
* none of you (now) asketh me (as you did before),
Whither goest thou ? .
6 But because I have said these things to you (con-
cerning my departure), sorrow hath filled your hearts.
7. Nevertheless I tell you the truth; (viz. That) "it
is expedient for you that I go away (from you); for if
I go not away, the Comforter will not come to you:
(he coming to supply my absence, and as the consequent
of my ascension into heaven, John vii. 39), but if (when)
I depart, I will send him to you.
8 And when he is come, " he will reprove the world
(and will convince men) of (their) sin (in rejecting me),
and of (my) righteousness, and of (a future) judgment:
9 Of sin, because they believe not in me (of whose
mission and resurrection he will convince them by his
wondrous gifts conferred on them that believe in me).
10 * Of (my) righteousness, because I go to my
Father (to whom I could not ascend were I not a righteous
person), and ye see me no more (on earth).
11 * Of judgment, because the prince of this world
is judged (i. e. the devil is condemned, and cast out of
his dominions by my servants; and consequently the
time will come when all the subjects of his dominions
shall be judged also).
12 I have yet "manythings to say to you (concern-
$ng the abrogation of the sabbath, and your ritual law .
of justification by faith without the works of the law,
&c.); but ye cannot bear (i. e. receive) them now
(without offence).
13 Howbeit when he, (who is) * the Spirit of truth,
is come, he will guide you (executing your office) into
all truth: for he shall not speak of himself (deceitful
and uncertain things invented by himself, as do the evil
spirits in the heathen oracles); but whatsoever he
(who searcheth the deep counsels of God) shall hear
(i.e. shall know to be the will of the Father), that shall
he speak: and he “will show you things to come.
14 He "shall (also) glorify me (by what he teach-
eth): for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it to
you (i. e. he shall be sent to impart to you the things
which relate to my kingdom, my laws, and service; and
what he teacheth you, is to be delivered in my name).
15 All things that the Father hath are mine; (the
before the gentiles (ver. 18), and were to be filled by the
Holy Spirit (ver. 20), and so do the words of St. Luke also,
as appears from the particle &ray, “When these things shall
happen ;” what therefore Christ there foretells as future, he
speaks of here as instant, and now ready to befall them.
* Wer. 5. And none of you asketh me, Whither goest
thou?] This Peter asked, xiii. 36, but received no direct an-
swer ; they did not therefore so ask as to know (xiv. 5)
much less to consider duly whither he was going, viz. to his
and their Father's house (John xx. 17), or why he went, viz.
“to prepare a mansion for you” (xiv. 2), or none of them
asked now his departure was at hand, and so gave greater
reason for this inquiry, whither he was going?
* Ver. 7. It is eaſpedient for you that I go away.] Since
by the advent of the Holy Spirit you will find greater com-
fort than from my presence; now this Spirit was not to come
till Christ was glorified, and had ascended into heaven (John
vii. 39). The word Trapaxxârnç, here mentioned, signifies an
advocate and a comforter ; he did the part of an advo-
cate in respect of Christ and his gospel, by convincing the
world of sin in not believing on him, and of the righte-
ousness of Christ (ver, 9–11), and by confirming the apos-
tles' testimony of him by signs and miracles, and various
gifts imparted to them (Heb. ii. 4. 1 John v. 6–8), and
by pleading their cause before kings and rulers (Matt. x.
18, 19), and against all their adversaries (Luke xxi. 15.
Acts vi. 10). In respect of the apostles and the faithful,
he also did the part of a comforter, as being sent for their
consolation and support in all their troubles, filling their
hearts with joy and gladness, and giving them an inward
testimony of God’s love to them, and an assurance of their
future happiness (Rom. viii. 15, 16).
7 Ver. 8, 9. He will convince the world of sin, because
they believe not in me.] The Holy Spirit had departed from
the Jews about four hundred years since ; and his return,
according to Christ's promise, must be sufficient to evince,
that Jesus who had thus shed the Spirit upon his disciples,
was the true Messiah, and so to convince them of sin, who
believe not in him, as we see it did, Acts. ii. 37. 41.
* Ver, 10. Of righteousness, because I go to the Father.]
For that was sufficient evidence, that the Father owned
him as a righteous person, and his true prophet, though by
the Jews he was condemned as an impostor. Now this the
Holy Spirit proved, because his mission from heaven, and
the miraculous powers done by him in the name of Jesus,
evinced, that he who sent this Spirit from heaven was trans-
lated thither. Hence Peter, from this effusion of the Holy
Spirit, argues that “this Jesus was by God made Lord and
Christ” (Acts ii. 36), and that the Jews had crucified that
Holy and Just One whom the Father had glorified (Acts
iii. 13, 14). -
* Ver. 11. Of judgment, because the prince of this world
is judged.] i. e. Because Satan, the prince of the world,
is now to be condemned, and cast out of his dominions:
whence it may appear, that all who belong to his king-
dom, and choose rather to serve him than Christ, their law-
ful prince and judge, shall be condemned with him (see the
preface to the Epistles, §. 10).
* Ver. 12. I have yet many things to say to yout, but ye
cannot bear them yet.] viz. Concerning the abolishment of
the sabbath and the ceremonial law, justification by faith
without the works of the law, the rejection of the Jews,
and the calling of the gentiles, which, through the preju-
dices you now lie under, ye cannot yet bear (see Orig. contra
Celsum, lib. ii. p. 57, 58).
il Ver. 13. The Spirit of truth shall lead you into all
truth.] Necessary to your apostolical office, and to direct
the Christian church to the end of the world in all saving
truth: for, as Irenaeus notes,” “The doctrine which they
taught, they after delivered in the scriptures, to be the pillar
and foundation of our faith.” And as St. Austin adds, i.
“Christ having committed to them the writing of those things,
which he would have us read, they chose out those things to
write which they judged sufficient to be written for the sal-
vation of the faithful.” It is therefore certain, that the apos-
tles, in compiling the canon of scripture, were so assisted
by the Holy Spirit, as to write all truths necessary for the
salvation of the believers, and, consequently, that all things
necessary to be believed or done by Christians, are fully
and perspicuously contained in the holy Scriptures.
** And he shall teach you things to come.] From this, and
from the parallel place, xiv. 26, “He shall bring all things
to your remembrance which I have said to you,” two things
are evident: (1) that this promise of the Holy Spirit can be-
long only to the apostles, seeing to their remembrance only
could Christ bring those things which he had said to them ;
(2.) that this promise can agree to no councils assembled
after their decease, seeing they never challenged to them-
selves the gift of prophecy, nor had future contingencies re-
vealed to them.
* Ver. 14, 15. He shall glorify me : for he shall receive
of mine, and show it to you. All things which the Fa-
ther hath are mine.] These words contain two arguments for
the divinity of Christ. For,
First, The things the Holy Spirit was to receive from
Christ, who is emphatically styled “the truth,” are “all
truth” by the aposties to be delivered to the church, and all
* Apostoli evangelium quod tunc praeconiayerunt, postea
per Dei voluntatem in scripturis nobis tradiderunt, funda-
mentum et columnam nostrae fidei futurum. Lib. iii. cap.
l, Quicquid Christus de suis factis et dictis nos legere voluit,
hoc scribendum illis tanquam suis manibus imperavit.
+ Electaque esse quae scriberentur ea quae Saluti creden-
tium sufficere videlyantur. De Consens. Evangel. lib. i. cap.
35, et Tr. 49 in Joh. p. 355. -
398
JOHN.
power to govern, and to give rules and laws to all men,
and to judge and recompense them according to those
laws, which under the Mosaical dispensation was done
by me, and in my name, Phil. ii. 9—ll ;) therefore said
I, that he shall take of mine, and shall show it to you.
16 (It is but) a little while, and ye shall not see
me (because I shall be taken from you by death); and
again, (after my resurrection, it is but) a little while,
and (that 9 ye shall see me; (and this I say,) because
(then) I go to my Father.
17 Then said some of his disciples among them-
selves, What is (the import of) this that he saith to
us, A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again
a little while, and ye shall see me: and, Because I go
to the Father
18 They said therefore, What is this that he saith,
A little while 2 we cannot tell (the meaning of) what
he saith.
19 Now Jesus knew that they were desirous to ask
him (the meaning of his words), and (therefore) said to
them, Doye inquire among yourselves of that (which)
I said, A little while, and ye shall not see me: and
again a little while, and ye shall see me?
20 Verily, verily, I say to you, That (for a season)
ye shall weep and lament, but the (men of the) world
(the rulers of the Jews) shall rejoice (at my sufferings):
and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be
turned into joy (at my resurrection, ascension, and
nission of the Holy Ghost, Luke xxiv. 41, 52. Acts
ii. 46).
21 (For as) a woman when she is in travail hath
sorrow, because her hour is come; but (so) as soon as
she is delivered of the child, she remembers no more
---º-º:
future contingencies respecting the church to the end of the
world : for, saith Schlictingius * here, “To this we are
to refer the Revelation of St. John, in which are contained
prophecies of the state of the church from that time to the
end of the world.” Now the knowledge of these things must
imply a divine prescience. “We speak,” saith the apostle
“the wisdom of God, which God hath revealed to us by
his Spirit” (1 Cor. ii. 7. 10): Christ therefore, from whom
the Spirit received these things, must be God. Lastly,
God Saith to the idols of the gentiles, “Show the things
that are to come, that we may know that ye are gods”
(Isa. xli. 23); he therefore who showeth these things to
the Spirit must be God.
Secondly, By saying, “All things which the Father hath
are mine;” he challenges to himself the incommunicable
attributes, and consequently that essence which is insepa-
rable from them.
Ans. To this Woltzogenius answers, That the phrase,
“all things,” must be restrained to the subject of Christ's
discourse, viz. to all things which the Spirit of truth was
to reveal to them, and which respected their office and the
good of the church; all which things the Father had com-
municated to him.
But (1.) Christ saith not here, I am conscious to the se-
crets of my Father ; but “All things which the Father hath
are mine” (2) Christ here gives the reason, why he had
said, “He shall receive of mine,” viz. “because all that the
Father hath is mine.” Take away anything from the ge-
nerality of this expression, and you render our Lorá's
inference infirm, since that which you take away, the Holy
Spirit might not receive from him. (3.) All those things,
which he confesses are here to be understood, are sufficient
º prove the divinity of Christ, as the citation from him
SI)0 WS,
* Ver. 23. And in that day ye shall ask me nothing.]
i. e. When I have sent the Holy Spirit, to “lead you into
* Is revelabit vobis quid vel cum mundo, velcum Judaico
populo, vel cum ecclesia in posterum agetur; hic etiam
pertinet tota Apocalypsis Johannis, in quâ continentur pro-
phetiae de mirabili statü ecclesiae Christi, ab illo tempore
usque ad finem mundi.
the anguish (she lay in), for joy that a man (child) is
born into the world: (so shall be your case.)
22 And ye now therefore (kai ipsic of v, for you
therefore) have (now) sorrow (because of my death):
but I will see you again (after my resurrection), and
your hearts shall rejoice, and (though I personally be
taken from you) your joy (through the Holy Spirit, shall
be such as) no man taketh (or can take) from you.
23 And in * that day (that you receive this Com-
forter) ye shall (have need to ) ask me nothing (for
resolution of your doubts, as now you do). Verily,
verily, I say to you, Whatsoever (assistance) ye shall
ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.
24 "Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name
(as Mediator betwiat God and man): ask (what is
requisite for the discharge of your office), and ye shall
receive (it), that your joy (in having all your peti-
tions granted) may be full.
25 These things have I spoken to you in proverbs
(obscurely of the Father); but the time cometh, when
I shall no more speak to you in proverbs, but I shall
show you plainly (the will) of the Father.
26 In that day ye shall ask in my name: * and I
say not to you (I need not say), that I will pray ( or
intercede with) the Father for you:
27 For the Father himself loveth you, because ye
have loved me, and have believed that I came out
from God.
28 (And as) " I came forth from the Father, and
am come into the world: (so) again, I (shall shortly)
leave the world, and go to the Father.
29 His disciples said to him, Lo, now speakest thou
plainly, and speakest no proverb.
all truth,” you shall have no need to inquire satisfaction in
anything, as now ye do, or to ask the sense of anything Sug-
gested to you by the Spirit, as you sometimes ask the
meaning of my words. This sense of the word igorgy is
gathered from ver. 19, “They were desirous igotáv to in-
quire of him” the sense of those words, “Yet a little while,”
and ver. 30, “There is no need that any one poºr; should
inquire of thee”—in that day, i.e. say St. Austin and Mal-
donate, in the day of the judgment ; but then the apostles
could have nothing farther to ask for the church's benefit.
And, secondly, it appears from the preceding verse, that
day was the time when they should see him again after
his resurrection, and so on. Nor can Origen's” conceit stand,
that Christ here excludes himself, requiring them to pray
only to God the Father ; this being contrary to the practice
of St. Paul and the whole Christian church (see note on
Rom. x. 13).
* Wer. 24. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name.]
i. e. By me as a mediator betwixt God and man, and with
respect to my merits ; do this after my death and inter-
cession for you at the right hand of God, and you shall re-
ceive such answers as will fill you with joy.
Wer. 25. These things I.have spoken to you #y ºraçoiſaiat;
in parables.] IIapoºia Hari Aéyo; 34%atºo; ºr ÉtrixgåJewg
Azergia; #x3e3égavoc, “A proverb,” saith St. Basil, “is a pro-
fitable speech uttered with some obscurity,” and so it is here,
as is apparent from the answer of the apostles, ver. 29,
“Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverb;”
and from the following words in the same verse, “Hereafter
I shall no more speak to you in proverbs, but shall show
you plainly (the will) of my Father.”
* Wer. 26, 27. And I say not that I will ask the Father,
for he himself loveth you..] i. e. I need not say this for your
comfort, that I will intercede with my Father for you,
Seeing his love to you, who have thus loved me, is so
great, as to incline him to grant your petitions on his own
accord. .
*7 Ver. 28. I came out from the Father.] See note on
xiii. 3.
* Oiºsyl rôy yewºrów wood'svºtéoy #~~iv, wi&# at tº rà Xelars
p 3. º º & y
&AN& rô Qiā ‘rāv ŠAwy zai ratgi. IIegi Eixãº, p. 48. . .
CHAPTER XVII.
399
30 Now we are sure that thou knowest all things
(in that thou knowest our secret whisperings among
ourselves), and (so) needest not that any man should
ask thee (that thou mayest know what they desire, thou
knowing this unasked); by this *we (more firmly)
believe thou camest forth from God. -
31 Jesus answered them, Do ye now believe?
32 Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that
ye shall be scattered, every man to his own (home)
* Wer. 30. By this we believe that thow camest forth
from God.] Why did they not believe him to be God? saith
Woltzogenius. Ans. They say this sufficiently, by owning
he knew all things, even the thoughts of men's hearts; and
thence, as they well might, concluding, “he came forth
from God:” for omniscience and the knowledge of the heart
being the attributes of God (1 Kings viii. 39. Jer. xvii. 10),
they cannot be communicated to any without the communi-
cation of the divine nature.
and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone
because the Father is with me.
33 These things I have spoken to you, that in me
(being with you by my Spirit) you may have Peace.
In the world ye shall have tribulation: but * be of
good cheer; I have overcome the world (and, as I am
able, so by my sufferings am I the more inclined to assist
and strengthen you against the temptations of it).
*
* Ver. 33. Be of good comfort, I have overcome the
world..] Being prepared to suffer that death, by which I am
to be freed from all the injuries of the world, and to be
crowned with glory, and you shall also do it by faith in me,
which is your victory over the world (1 John v. 4, 5), and
by my strength, which shall enable you to do all things
(Phil. iv. 13), of which you cannot doubt after so many
tokens of my love (Rom. viii. 35–37).
CHAPTER XVII.
1 THESE words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes
to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come (that
my work on earth by my sufferings now instant should
be finished, ver. 4) * glorify (now) thy Son (by his ad-
vancement to the right hand of majesty and power),
that thy Son also may glorify thee, (by propagating
the knowledge of thee and of thy gospel through the
world. See Examen Millii.)
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVII.
* Ver. 1. Glorify thy Son.] Not only by his advance-
ment to a state of glory, but by such wonders attending
his sufferings, and such a glorious resurrection, as may
entirely remove the scandal of the cross. In answer to
which request, some were forced, even by what they saw at
his death, to say, “Surely this man was the Son of God ;”
and others, who had clamoured for his death, to “smite
their breasts ;” and God soon after declared, that he had
made him “Lord and Christ, a Prince and Saviour” (Acts
ii. 36).
* Ver. 2. Ka83; #30xaç, As thou hast given him power
over all flesh.] In destination and promise only, say most
interpreters. But since the Baptist said 3:3&ºsy, “He hath
given all things into his hands” (iii. 35), seeing the evange-
list saith the same, xiii. 3, seeing Christ himself saith, “The
Father 3&ans hath given all judgment to the Son” (v. 22),
and promiseth to raise the dead, because #8wze, “he had
given him” power to judge all men, and Christ himself saith
not, Matt. xxviii. 18, “All power is now given me,” but
#360n “hath been given me in heaven and in earth ;” I see
no reason for this restriction or limitation of the word ; only
it may be granted, that as he only exercised his power upon
earth, whilst he was in it, so was he to exercise it from
heaven more fully after his resurrection.
* Ver. 3. To know thee, röy ºvoy &xnów?y Osºy, the only
true God, and him whom thout hast sent, Jesus Christ] i. e.
That the gentiles, quitting their dumb idols and false gods,
may own thee alone to be the living (1 Thess. i. 9), and
“true God,” who madest heaven and earth (Acts xiv. 15),
and that the Jews may own me to be thy Son sent to them
from heaven, and that Messiah, which, according to thy pro-
mise made to Abraham and David, thou hast sent to them, ;
for by knowing thee fully, they will know me also whom all
men are to worship “as they worship the Father,” and
whom he that doth not worship doth not truly honour the
Father (v. 23): for “I and the Father are one” (x. 30);
“whom no man knoweth who he is, but the Father, and he
to whom the Father will reveal him” (Luke x. 22); whom
“he that denies hath not the Father” (1 John ii. 33); doth
not know him, “and he that Seeth, sees the Father also’”
(xiv. 9. xv. 21. xvi. 3).
Obj. Here the Socinians say, that these words plainly
prove that the Father alone is the true God, and that by
2 * As thou hast given him power over all flesh,
that he should give eternal life to as many as thou
hast given him (so instate him in that kingdom in
which he shall exercise that power in bringing many to
the faith, and so fitting them for life etermal).
3 And this is (the true way) to life eternal, that
they may *know thee (to be) the only true God (in
opposition to those false gods they now ignorantly wor-
the words &évoy roy &Anówy, “the only true God,” Christ
must be excluded from being true God, since otherwise the
Father would not be only so. But to this we answer,
Ans. 1. That these words cannot be reasonably supposed
to exclude him from a true divinity, who is in scripture styled
§ 3AnSivā; ©ed: “the true God:” now that Christ is so styled,
see the note on 1 John v. 20. True therefore is the gloss.
of Grotius, that “he is styled the only true God, in ex-
clusion of those, quos falsa gentium persuasio introduxe-
rat, whom the false persuasion of the gentiles had intro-
duced ;” not so as to exclude the other persons, but war”
âyrðiaa’roxiw rā; Troxvöstag, “in opposition to polytheism ;”
as Epiphanius,” or Big &vaigea w rāv Kºš Trequxárov gival &Anówäy,
“for the removal of those which by nature are not true
gods,” as Athanasius saith."f Hence the Pseudo-Ignatius:
observes that “the evangelist saying, the Father is the only
true God, did not omit what belonged to our Lord, but
premised this, saying, In the beginning was the Word, and
the Word was God.” And in this sense the word “only”
is frequently applied to God in the Old Testament: so
Deut. xxxii. 12, Kūgio; Awāyo; “the Lord only was their
guide, and there was no QE3; &AAérgiºc, false God with them,”
and yet the angel in whom his name was (Exod xxiii. 21),
went with them ; “the angel of his presence saved them.”
(Isa. lxviii. 9), and was the captain of their host (Josh. v.
14): so also Isa. xliii. 11, “I am the Lord, and there is no
Saviour besides me;” and ver. 12, “I am the Lord your
God, and there is no &AAérptoº, strange God with me:”
(see Judg. x. 16. 1 Sam. vii. 3. Ps. lxxxi. 9): see also the
word solus, so used by Irenaeus often ; as when he saith of
the Maker of the world, that he is solus Deus, and solus
1)ominus, and solus Conditor, and solus Pater, and solus
continens omnia, and yet puts into the symbol of faith owned
by all Christians that Christ || is à Köpio; hºw xai QE3; (see
the note on 1 Cor. viii. 3).
Woltzogenius saith, this place proves Christ is not God
in the most perfect sense, in which he is to be understood
to be God, qui est auctor et origo omnis Deitatis, et qui
Deitatem à seipso habet, non ab alio, “who is the author
and original of the whole Deity, and who hath his divinity
from himself, and not from another:” and if this be all they
+ Cont. Ar. lib. iv. p. 257.
* Haer. 25, p. 6.
§ Lib. ii. cap. 1.
f Ep. ad Antioch. $.4.
| Lily. i. cap. 2.
400
JOHN.
ship), and (may know and believe in J Jesus Christ,
whom thou hast sent (to reveal this life to them).
4 I have glorified thee on the earth (by declaring
thy will to the Jews) : I have finished the work (the
prophetical office) whichthougavestmetodo (onearthy.
5 And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine
own self (by eaſalting even my human nature to the
right hand of glory, and crowning me) with “that glory
contend for, we, who believe that Christ is “God of God,”
may grant this, and yet maintain that he is God, not by title
only, as angels and magistrates are styled elohim, but by
communication of the divine nature, as being the true God,
and having the name of God distributively given, and the
divine attributes ascribed to him only; i. e. in opposition
to them who are only called gods, but are not by nature so.
2. We answer, that the exclusive particle only is not
in construction to be joined with the true God thus, “To
know thee only to be the true God:” for the words run not
thus, as pºévow roy &AmSiyâv Qady" but thus cré rév w8voy &Anóway
©sév, “Who only art true,” or “The God who alone art
true,” and whereas against this Crellius objects that the
word &AnSivāz, being an adjective, cannot be here the predi-
cate ; this is confuted by many instances in this gospel ; for
‘pā; rô &Anşıy?y is the light which is truly so, i. 9, and so is
“the true bread,” vi. 32, and “the true vine,” xv. 1, it
being manifest that in all these places, true is the attribute
or the thing predicated, of light, bread, the vine.
And whereas they urge farther, that the word solus, only,
added to it, excludes all other things from any communion
with that of which it is predicated, and so imports, that the
Father alone is a true God ; this assertion may be confuted
from many instances both of the Old and New Testament.
As when Jacob says of Benjamin “He is left alone” (Gen.
xlii. 38), viz. in respect of Joseph, not of his ten brethren ;
and of Christ, that “he was left alone,” viz. in respect of the
multitude, when yet his disciples were with him (Luke ix.
18. 36. John viii. 10), and when he saith, “Ye shall leave
me alone : and yet I am not alone, for the Father is with
me” (xvi. 32). But to proceed to instances more apposite,
we read of “the blessed and only Potentate, King of kings,
and Lord of lords, 3 pºvo; #xwy 30ayaaſay, who only hath
immortality” (1 Tim. vi. 15, 16). Now if this be said of
God the Father, as the Socinians must assert, or allow
Christ to be truly God, yet must they allow that Christ, who
is styled “King of kings, and Lord of lords,” by reason of
his powerful victories over the enemies of his church (Rev.
xvii. 14. xix. 15, 16), is also 8vyártnç, “a potentate ;” that
he who “ hath life in himself,” and “ of whose kingdom
there shall be no end” (John v. 26. Luke i. 33), “hath” also
“immortality ;” and he who is exalted to God's right hand,
“dwells” also “in light inaccessible :” they therefore must
allow that neither the word “only” before “potentate,” nor
before “immortality,” excludes Christ from a communion
in those attributes. Solomon saith of God, i. e. according
to the Socinians, of the Father (1 Kings viii. 39), oi, wovć-
ºrarog, “Thou only knowest the hearts of all men ;” and
yet Christ Saith, that “all the church shall know,” that he is
“the searcher of the hearts and reins,” viz. of all men, that
being necessary, that, as it follows, he might “give to all
men according to their works” (Rev. ii. 23): and St. Jude
speaks of some wicked men, who denied tây &áyov Aga rörny,
Osov, wał Köploy hºv, “our only Master, God, and Lord”
(ver. 4). If they say this is meant of Christ, as probably it
is, all these words being put by apposition with one only
article prefixed, and the same persons being by St. Peter said
“to deny the Lord that bought them” (2 Pet. ii. 1), surely
they will not say, these words exclude the Father from
being our Master, God, and Lord ; or if they do interpret
them of God the Father, they cannot deny, against express
scripture, that Christ is our Lord and Master (see John xiii.
13, 14. 1 Cor. viii. 6. Eph. iv. 5). All these instances there-
fore, showing the falsehood of that assertion, do also show
the weakness of the Socinians’ arguments from these words
against the Deity of Christ, and of the Holy Ghost.
* Ver. 5. And now, Father, glorify me with the glory
which I had with thee before the world was...] Having shown,
in the note on Phil. ii. 6, that Christ had a glory with God
the Father, before he took upon him our nature ; that when
which (as to my divine nature) I had with thee before
the world was.
6 I have manifested thy name (and doctrine) to
* the men which thou gavest me out of the world :
thine they were (by faith in thee before), and thou
gavest them me (by causing them to believe in me);
and they have kept thy word.
7 * Now they have (fully) known that all things
he did so, he laid aside his glory, “and took upon him the
form of a servant,” and that after his ascension he resumed
this glory, and appeared in it, and says that he will come
hereafter, sometimes, “in the glory of the Father,” as Matt.
xvi. 27, sometimes, “in his own glory,” Matt. xxv. 31, and
sometimes, in the glory of both, Luke ix. 26 ; this glory he
now desires to be given him, not only as the Word, as it was
before, but as the Word made flesh also: and therefore
Theophylact gives the sense thus, rºw &v6907riyny &ov påzw
āyaye eiç rºy 36%ay by sixoy trag& coi śy& A370s, “Bring my
human nature into a participation of the glory which I the
Aóyo; had with thee before the beginning of the world.”
But this plain and obvious exposition of the words demon-
strating his divinity, as I have shown in the note recited,
the Socinians will not admit of, and therefore say that he
requests that the glory which he had before in the appoint-
ment, or designation of the Father only to it hereafter, he
might now actually enjoy ; and Grotius joins with them in
this exposition. But,
First, It seems unreasonable to say absolutely he had
anything before he had a being to have, supposing a subject
in which that is contained which he is said to have. The
first place cited by Grotius as parallel, viz. that Christ was
foreknown “before the foundation of the world’” (1 Pet. i.
2), is plainly impertinent, there being no hint in the words
of Christ here of any such foreknowledge, but a plain asser-
tion that he “had " this glory “before the foundation of the
world.” So are the words cited from Eph. i. 4, “He hath
elected us in Christ before the foundation of the world, to be
holy :” for the apostle saith not, as Christ doth of his glory,
that we had any holiness before the foundation of the world,
but only that we were chosen to it. His third instance, from
Rev. xiii. 8, where we read thus, “Whose names were not
written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the found
ation of the world,” seems only pertinent because it is ill
translated ; for that the true translation should be thus,
“Whose names were not written from the foundation of the
world, (i. e. were not written) in the book of life of the Lamb
slain,” is evident from xvii. 8, where we read thus, “Whose
names are not written in the book of life from the foundation
of the world.” And, lastly, the citation from 2 Tim. i. 9,
“He hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling, ac-
cording to his own purpose, and the grace given to us in Christ
Jesus, before all ages,” seems only to be pertinent on the
same account ; translate the words thus, “According to his
own purpose before all ages, and the grace given us in Jesus
Christ,” and there is in them no appearance of any likeness
to Christ's words: and this translation is sufficiently con-
firmed from the parallel places, Tit. i. 2, 3. Eph. i. 3, 4.
Secondly, Christ here saith, “Glorify me with the glory
which I had trag& coi, with thee;” now that phrase signifies as
much as “with thee,” or “in thy presence,” in the perpetual
use of scripture. So Numb. xxii. 9, “Who are the men that
are trag& croi, with thee P’’ 1 Sam. xxii. 3, “Let my father
and my mother be trag& coi, with thee.” Now he that hath
no being cannot, without the greatest catachresis, be said to
be with another. And, lastly, Christ speaks of a glory,
which the Father had given him, because he loved him before
the foundation of the world : now sure it is improper to Say
anything is beloved when it is nothing, or when it has no
being. -
* Wer. 6. I have manifested thy mane to those whom thout
hast given me out of the world..] i. e. To my disciples whom
thou hast given to me, by causing them to believe in me ; I
have by my doctrine taught them, and by my miracles, done
before their eyes, given them the clearest prospect of thy
power, wisdom, holiness, and goodness.
* Ver. 7. Now they have known, By my divine doctrine
and miracles, which they have heard and seen, that I derived
both from thee.
CHAPTER XVII.
401
whatsoever thou hast given (i. e. authorized) me (to
do or say), are of thee (i. e. were indeed thy words and
works):
8 For I have given (i. e. declared) to them the
words, which thou gavest (in commission to) me (to
speak); and they have received them (as thine), and
have known surely that I came out from thee, and they
have believed that thou didst send me. .
9 I pray for them : " I pray not (in this address)
for the world, but for them which thou hast (already)
given me (out of it), for they are mine (having thee for
their Father).
10 And all mine are thine (thy children), and thine
are mine (having me for their teacher and guide); and
I am glorified in them (by the miracles done by them
in my name, and by the converts they make to the
Christian faith). $
11 And now I am no more in the world, * but
these (my apostles) are (to continue) in the world, and
I (am to) come to thee. Holy Father, keep through
thine "own name (or power) those whom thou hast
given me, that they may be one as we are (by the par-
ticipation of the Spirit. See Examen Millii).
12 While I was with them in the world, I have
kept them in thy name: (and by thy power imparted
7 Ver. 9. I pray not for the world..] These things which
follow respecting only my apostles, which are to preach my
gospel to all nations, I request not for that world which hath
no knowledge of me. They who hence argue that Christ died
not for the world, nor sought the Salvation of it, but of some
few persons in it, because he here prays not for it, must be
mistaken; for,
First, They plainly contradict both Christ and his apostles,
for Christ Saith, he “came not to condemn the world, but
that it might be saved,” John xii. 47; that “God sent his Son
into the world, that the world, through him, might be saved,”
iii. 17. Hence this evangelist assures us he was “the propi-
tiation for the sins of the whole world,” 1 John ii. 2, and
others of them, that he came “to seek and to save that
which was lost,” as doubtless all the world was (Matt.xviii.11).
Secondly, They vainly argue, that Christ never prayed for
the world, because he saith here, I do not do it now, which
is arguing against plain matter of fact : for how oft doth
he say to the Jews, “Ye are of the world " (John viii. 23),
and of his apostles chosen out of them, that they were called
“out of the world P’’ as here, ver. 6. 14. 16, and yet he saith
to them, Luke xix. 42. ei äyya;, “How do I wish that thou
hadst known, in this thy day, the things which belong to thy
peace | " And, hanging on the cross, he said, “Father, for-
give them,” Luke xxiii. 34, making intercession for those
transgressors, Isa. liii. 12. He therefore saith that, in this
address, he prayed not for them, because he was asking those
things which could not agree to them, but to his apostles only,
or to those whom God had given him out of the world; viz.
that they might be consecrated to their apostolical functions,
or by that Spirit which “the world could not receive,” John
xiv. 17, that their joy, from his presence with them, might
be full ; nor is there anything in this whole prayer which is
not proper to believers only. And,
Thirdly, This very prayer for them is made for the sake of
the world, and with respect to their saving faith; i. e. “for
them who should believe through his word,” ver. 20; that
“the world might believe and know that the Father hath
sent him?” ver. 23. So that he prayed for his apostles for
this very end, that the world by their means might believe,
and believing might have life through his name: it is there-
fore plain he made this prayer, in which he saith, “I pray
not for the world,” out of affection to the world, and with
this design, that the preaching of the apostles to them might
be more effectual for their conversion and salvation.
* Ver. 11. Kai otºrot, But they are in the world..] Kal here
signifies but, as Gen. xxxi. 7. Exod. i. 17. vii. 12. Numb. iv.
20. v. 28. Deut. i. 43. iii. 7. iv. 9. viii. 18. Josh. i. 8. 1 Sam.
i. 13. PS. iv. 3. Matt. i. 25. xi. 17. xii. 39. xvii. 12. John
W. 40.
* Keep them in thy name.] i. e. By thy power; so “name”
to me,) those that thou gavest me, I have kept, and
* none of them is lost (hath perished, or fallen off
from me), but the son of perdition (and this it was thy
pleasure to permit); that the scriptures might be ful-
filled (see Examen Millii).
13 And now come I to thee; and these things I
speak (in their audience while I am) in the world,
” that they might have my joy (the joy which I have
promised them, xv. 11,) fulfilled in themselves (by the
presence of the Spirit, whose fruits are joy and peace).
14, I have given (i. e. taught) them thy word; and
the *world hath hated them, because they are not of
the world, even as I am not of the world (see xv.
18, 19).
15 I pray thee not that thou shouldest take them.
out of the world, but that thou wouldest keep them
*from the evil (of the world.
16 And thus I pray, because) they are not of the
world (and so will certainly be hated by it), even as (I
have been, because) I am not of the world.
17 Sanctify “them through (Gr. in, or for the pro-
pagation of) thy truth (by sending the Holy Ghost
wpon them): thy word (they are to preach to the world)
is (the) truth.
18 As thou hast sent me into the world (to deliver
is used, 1 Sam. xvii. 45. 2 Chron. xvi. 11. Ps. xliv. 5. lxxxix.
24. Matt. vii. 22. Acts iv. 7.
Oüç #324.4; ºot" see Examen Millii in locum.
* Ver, 12. And none of them is lost.] i. e. Either by tem-
poral death (xviii. 9), or by falling off from me, but 5 við; rº;
&rºsias, “the son of perdition,” i. e. Judas, worthy of per-
dition. So “a son of death,” is one worthy of it, 2 Sam. xii.
5, and #6vo; 3roxsia; is a nation fit to be destroyed, Ecclus.
xvi. 9 (see Matt. xxiii. 15, and the note on Eph. ii. 3).
* Ver. 13. That they may have my joy fulfilled in them.]
i. e. That the joy they had hitherto from my love to them
(v. 11), my presence with them and care of them, may, in
my absence, be increased by the presence of that Spirit with
them, who will supply my bodily absence (xvi. 7), and
whose fruits are “joy and peace” (Gal. v. 22); yea, by
whom I, though absent in body, am still present with them
xiv. 11).
( * Ver. 14. The world hath hated them, &c.] This desire
of thy protection and assistance is needful to them, who will
be certainly exposed to great hatred from the world ; and
fit to be granted by thee, seeing they will be thus hated for
preaching thy word to the world.
* Ver. 15. But that thou shouldst keep them &md ºrcſ, ºrown-
god, from the evil..] From the evil men of the world, and from
Satan, the prince of the world, who, by their means, endea-
vours, by fiery persecutions, to suppress the truth, and destroy
or discourage the preachers of it ; whence their persecutions
are ascribed not to them but to Satan, Luke xxii. 31. 1 Thess.
ii. 18. iii. 5. Rev. ii. 10. From the eleventh to the sixteenth
verse we learn how necessary divine aid is to our preserva-
tion and success, even in pious enterprises, and so how neces-
sary it is to seek it by fervent prayer; and also from our
Saviour's affection to them, care of them, and prayer for
them, how certain they who sincercly devote themselves to
his service may be of his aid in it, and his protection while
they are so employed. « s
* Ver. 17. ‘Ayia&ov, &c. Sanctify them by thy truth.J. i. e.
Consecrate and set them apart, for the propagation of thy
truth. Now this sanctification to the priesthood, under the old
testament, was made, first, with a sacrifice offered for them.
So Moses receives a command, &yiáðsly, “to sanctify the
priests,” &cts isgateſ.stv pºol airočc, that they might serve or
offer to God, by the oblation of a bullock or a ram, Exod.
xxix. 1, and thus Christ sanctified his apostles by offering
up himself for them, ver. 19 ; secondly, by anointing them
with holy oil (ver. 7); and in this sense, Christ desires here
the Father to sanctify them to their office, by the descent of
the Holy Spirit, styled, “the oil of gladness,” and “the pro-
mise of the Father,” on them, and by whose assistance they
became “able ministers of the new testament” (2 Cor. iii. 6).
which before they were not; and are therefore bid not to be-
2 D
402
JOHN.
thy mind to it), even so have I also sent them into
the world (on the same errand; see note on xx. 21).
19 And “for their sakes I sanctify (i.e. offer up)
myself (a piacular victim), that they also (being justi-
fied through faith in me) might be sanctified through
(Gr. in or for) the truth (see ver. 17).
20 Neither pray I for "these alone, but for them
also which shall believe on me through their word;
21 17 That they all may be one; as thou, Father,
art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in
us (by the participation of that Spirit which is in me):
that the world (by the powerful operations of this
Spirit in them) may (be induced to) believe that thou
hast sent me. e
22 And * the glory which thou gavest me (i. e. the
power of doing miracles by the Spirit of God), I have
given them; that they may be one, as we are one
(ver. 21): -
23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be
| made perfect in one (spirit working in them as it did
in me); and that (so) the world may know that thou
hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast
loved me. *
24 Father, "I will that they also whom thou hast
given me (when they have finished their course on
earth) be with me where I am; that they may behold
my glory, which thou hast given me: for (because)
thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.
25 O righteous Father, (the men of) the world have
not known thee: but I have known thee, and these
have known that thou hast sent me.
26 And I have declared to them thy name, and
(farther) will declare it (by the illuminations of the
Holy Spirit): that (so) * the love wherewith thou
hast loved me (which moved thee to give the Holy
Spirit without measure to me, John iii. 34, 35) might
be in them, and I in them (by the same Spirit).
gin their preaching to the world, till this Spirit from on high
was come upon them (Luke xxiv. 49. Acts i. 8).
* Ver. 19. Kai Üzrig airãº, And for them. I sanctify myself.]
i. e. I offer up myself to be slain, as a piacular victim, as
Chrysostom saith here ; in which sense, the word &ytáčew is
often used, as I have shown, note on Heb. ii. 11. Nor do
these words admit of the sense which some give them, thus,
For their sakes I shall, by my resurrection, show myself to
be the Holy One ; for, as that is not to sanctify himself, so
neither was it so needful for their sakes, who believed this
already, saith our Lord, ver. 7, 8.
* Ver. 20. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them
that shall believe, &c.] As Christ (ver. 17) had prayed for
his apostles, that they might be filled with the Spirit, so here
he asks the same thing for those that should believe through
their word, that they also might be replenished with the gifts
of the Holy Ghost, according to the prediction of the Bap-
tist, Matt. iii. 11, and his own promise, vii. 38, 39, and as it
after came to pass. That these words, viz. “That they may
be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee;” are to be
interpreted not of a union of concord, but by the participation
of the Spirit, of the Father, and the Son, is proved; see note
on xiv. 20. Add that Christ declares, he did his miracles by
the Holy Spirit (Matt. xii. 28), that the Spirit was given to
him without measure (iii. 34), that thereby he was “anointed
to preach the gospel” (Luke iv. 18, 19). Christ also says,
that the Father, abiding in him, did these miracles (xiv. 10),
and that the Jews, by the doctrine thus preached, by virtue
of this unction, and the miracles thus done by the Spirit of
God, might and ought to know that the Father was in him,
and he in the Father (x. 38), and he promises, that they who
believed in him should do greater works than he had done,
because, going to the Father, he would send the Holy Spirit
to them, to abide ever with them (xiv. 12. 16–18); and
then adds, that “in that day you shall know that I am in
the Father, and you in me, and I in you" (ver. 20). All
which things prove that the Father was in Christ, and he in
him ; not only by the union of the divine nature with the
human, but by union of the same Spirit also residing in him;
and consequently the union of believers with them both must
be by the same Spirit: whence it is said, that “he that is
joined to the Lord, is v Trygüça, one spirit” with him, 1 Cor.
vi. 17, that their bodies are made “the temples of the Holy
Ghost,” ver. 19, and they are a “habitation of God through
the Spirit,” Eph. ii. 2. This farther will appear from the end
of this union, which is, Saith Christ, “that the world may
believe and know that thou hast sent me:” for this the apos-
tles testified, and made known to the world, not by their
concord, but by virtue of that Spirit with which they were
endowed from on high, and which God gave to them that
believe (Acts v. 32); and this interpretation we may learn
from the words of Irenaeus,” to the same effect. This also
will be still more evident from the words following.
* Effundit (Christus) Spiritum Patris in adunationem et
17 Wer. 21. “Iva Trávre; v &ri, That all may be one..] Origen
here saith, the apostles and the prophets shall then know the
Father, &raw yiyovrat ºv, &; við; xai trarăg #y slow, “when they
are become one, as the Son and Father are one,” which he
thus explains in his commentary on these words, Rom. v. 5,
“The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, by the Spirit
that he hath given us; ut per istud Spiritàs Sancti donum
compleatur ille sermo quem Dominus dixit, Sicut tu Pater in
me, et ego in te, et isti in nobis unum sint, divinae Scilicet
naturae participes effectiin abundantia charitatis per Spiritum
Sanctum ministratae; that by this gift might be fulfilled
that saying of the Lord, That they may be one in us, as thou,
Father, art in me, and I in thee, being made partakers of the
divine nature, in the abundance of love ministered to them
by the Holy Spirit:” agd in this sense the fathers often say
that at the resurrection we shall be 680motočºvot, as being then
completely made partakers of the divine nature, by the Spirit
of God then more fully dwelling in us, and so “God will be
all in all” in his glorified Saints.
19 Wer. 22. And I have given them the glory which thoſe
gavest me, &c.] By this glory we are to understand Christ's
power of working miracles; which power was given to the
apostles, and those who believed through their preaching,
by virtue of the Holy Spirit, which came down upon them :
for, by the power of this Spirit, Christ wrought his miracles,
and so manifested rºy Bóżay airoij, “his glory,” ch. ii. And
the administration of the gospel is upon this account Said to
be #y 3%h, “in or with glory,” 2 Cor. iii. 7, 11, and the apos-
tles are said to have seen “the glory of the Lord,” and
to have been “transformed into the likeness of it, from glory
to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord,” ver, 18 (see the
note there). This glory Christ is here said to have given his
apostles, not only that they might be one with the Father and
the Son, but also that the world might know the Father had
loved them, as he had loved Christ, whom he had so loved
as to give the Spirit without measure to him.
1° Wer. 24. I will that those whom thou hast given me, may
be with me, &c.] i. e. I will that they may be received up
after the resurrection into heaven, as I was ; for it seems pro-
bable, that none of the saints, no, not the apostles, are to be
received into the supreme heaven, to enjoy the beatific vision,
before that time (see note on xiv. 3).
29 Wer. 26. That the love wherewith thow hast loved me,
may be in them.] i. e. That thou mayest love them, as being
thy sons by adoption, so as to make them partakers of an
eternal inheritance (Rom. viii. 17), and so as to fill them
with thy Spirit (Gal. iv. 6), and, raising them from the dead,
mayest crown them with eternal glory.
communionem Dei et hominum, ad homimes quidem depo-
nens Deum per Spiritum, ad Deum rurstis imponens homi
nem per suam incarnationem. Lib. v. cap. 1.
CHAPTER XVIII.
103
1. WHEN Jesus had spoken these words, he went
forth (of the city) with his disciples, (and went) over
the brook Cedron, where was a garden, into which he
entered, and his disciples.
2 And Judas also, which betrayed him, knew the
place : for Jesus ofttimes resorted thither with his
disciples.
3 Judas then, having received a band of men and
officers from the chief priests and pharisees, cometh
thither (it being night) with lanterns, and torches,
and weapons (to apprehend him). •
4 Jesus therefore, *knowing all things which should
come upon him, went forth, and said to them, Whom
seek ye
5 They answered him, (We seek) Jesus of Naza-
reth. Jesus saith to them, I am he. And Judas
also, who betrayed him, stood with them (when he
said this).
6 As soon then as he had said to them, I am he,
they went backward, and fell to the ground.
7. Then (when they were risen up) asked he them
again, Whom seek ye And they said, Jesus of Na-
zareth. º
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVIII.
1 Wer. 1. ‘EğA6s, He went out with his disciples.] Not
only out of the chamber where he supped with them, for
that he did when he said, “Arise, let us go hence” (xiv. 31),
but out of the city; the gates, in such a time of peace, and
of such a comgress to the passover as the city could not well
contain, being not shut. The evangelist adds, that he went
“over the brook Cedron to a place where was a garden;”
that, as the sin of the first Adam, which brought destruction
upon his posterity, was committed in a garden, so that Salu-
tary passion of the second Adam, which was to rescue us
from that destruction, might begin in the like place: so the
fathers. Into this garden he went with the eleven disciples,
though going farther into it, to his agony, he took with him
only Peter, James, and John (Matt. xxvi. 37).
* Wer. 4. Jesus therefore knowing all things that were to
come upon him.] This the apostle notes, to show that Christ
fellmot into the hands of the Jews, for want either of power, as
he shows, ver. 6, by striking them all to the ground with a
word that came to apprehend him, the providence of God
not suffering him to die without these marks of a divine
majesty and power; or for want of wisdom to foresee their
machinations against him; but as freely giving up himself to
the death for the welfare of mankind. Wain therefore is the
saying of Celsus,” that “a wise man, had he foreseen the
danger, would have avoided it, if he could do it;” for, if
kings and captains have given up themselves freely to death,
and the utmost perils, for the temporary safety of their
country, much more might our blessed Lord do this for the
Salvation of the whole world. -
* Ver. 9. "Iva Tango,0; 5 x6,0;, &c. That the saying might
be fulfilled, which he spake, Of those which thou hast given
one have I lost mone.] That this saying could not relate to
the eternal state of Judas, or our Lord's apostles, appears,
(1.) from the precedent words, “Let then those go away ;”
for, Saith the evangelist, these very words were spoken, that
the saying of Christ, xvii. 12, might be fulfilled ; and yet
Christ's desire that they might quietly be dismissed was de-
signed only to secure their temporal preservation. (2.)
From the words themselves, recorded xvii. 12, “Of those
that thou hast given me I have lost none but the son of per-
dition, that the scripture might be fulfilled,” viz. Ps. ciz. 8.
Now this scripture St. Peter interprets of the temporal death
of Judas, Acts i. 16. 20. It is no objection against this in-
terpretation, that the apostles were not always preserved
* Apud Orig. lib. ii. p. 71.
8 Jesus answered, I have told you that I am he;
if therefore ye seek me (only), let these (my disciples)
go their way.
9 (And this he said) * that the saying might be ful-
filled, which he spake, Of them ( apostles) which
thou hast given me, have I lost none (i. e. I have
suffered none to perish).
10 Then Simon Peter having a sword drew it, and
smote the high-priest's servant, and cut off his right
ear. (And) the servant’s name was Malchus.
11 Then said Jesus to Peter, *Put up thy sword
into the sheath . (for) the cup which my Father hath
given me (to drink) shall I not drink it?
12 Then * the band, and the captain, and officers
of the Jews, took Jesus, and bound him,
13 And led him away to “Annas first : for he was
father-in-law to Caiaphas, which (Caiaphas) was the
high-priest that same year (that Jesus was crucified).
14 Now Caiaphas was he (Gr. and it was that Caia-
phas) which gave counsel to the Jews, that it was ex-
pedient that one man should die (Gr. perish) for the
(preservation of the) people.
15 And Simon Peter followed Jesus, and 7 (so did)
from a violent death, most of them being taken away by
martyrdom: for this our Lord could not intend, since he him-
self had told them, before he spake these words, that some
of them should be put to death, and some should drink
of his cup (Matt. xx. 23. xxiv. 9); but only that he being
prssent with them had thus lost none of them; and hence
he prays that in his absence his Father would thus keep
them: and accordingly the apostle testifies, that when they
were engaged in their apostolical function, they were wonder-
fully preserved by the divine providence, insomuch that even
this was a testimony of the life and power of Jesus (2 Cor.
i. 10. iv., 10, 11. xiii. 4), and especially they were so pre-
served, that none of them fell from their apostolic office, as
Judas did (Acts i. 25).
* Ver. 11. Put up thy sword into the sheath.] Wain here
is the inference of Bernard, in his epistle to pope Eugenius,
from these words, That both the spiritual and the material
sword belonged to the church, telling him, the material
sword is his, though it be not to be wielded by his hand, but
by the hand of the soldier, yet so as he is to do it ad nutum
Sacerdotis, at the will of the priest. For, with what sense
can it be gathered from Christ's reprehension of St. Peter
for using this sword, even before he was made a priest, ac-
cording to the doctrine of the Romanists; or from Christ's
command to put it up into the sheath, that it belonged to
the priest; or because Peter had a sword, which belonged not
at all to his office as an apostle, that the pope must have a
title to that more than to his met or fishing-boat? The two
swords, of which Christ spake, were both material, and of
them Christ said, “It is enough ;” not to combat with their
adversaries, but to show the peril of that present time (see
the note on Lukexxii. 38).
* Ver, 12. H &v cºreſea wai 3 xxta;xos, The band and the
captain...] At the time of the passover, it was customary for
the Roman president to send a whole band of a thousand
men for a guard to the temple; the captain of which band
is here called Xixiaºxoc. º
* Ver. 13. And they led him away to Annas first.] That
by him, who was more aged and better experienced in the
law, Caiaphas might be directed what to do in that case, or
because he was the prince of the Sanhedrin ; from him he
was sent bound to Caiaphas the high-priest, as appears from
ver, 24 (see the note there). Of his being sent to Annas
the other evangelists say nothing, because nothing was done
to Christ there, but all was performed at the palace of the
high-priest; there was Christ examined (ver. 19), and there
Peter denied him (Matt. xxvi. 57. 69).
7 Ver. 15. Kai & 4xxo; agsnºrk, And the other disciple.]
He seems not to be John : for he being a Galilean as well
2 D 2
404
Jſ) H.N.
another disciple: that disciple was known to the witness of the evil: but if (I have said) well, **why
high-priest, and went in with Jesus into the palace of
the high-priest. -
16 But Peter stood at the door without. Then
went out that other disciple, which was known to the
high-priest, and spake to her that kept the door, and
brought in Peter.
17. Then said the damsel that kept the door to
Peter, Art not thou also one of this man’s disciples 2
He saith, I am not. -
18 And the servants and officers stood there, who
had made a fire of coals; for it "was cold : and they
warmed themselves: and Peter stood with them, and
warmed himself.
19 The high-priest then (Annas having sent Jesus
to him) asked Jesus of his disciples, and of his doc-
trine.
20 Jesus answered him, I spake (my doctrine)
openly to the world; I ever taught (it) in "the syna-
gogue, and in the temple, whither the Jews always
resort: and in secret have I said nothing.
21 Why (then) askest thou me (of my doctrine) 9
ask (rather) them which heard me, what I have said
*
to them: behold, they know what I said.
22 And when he had thus spoken, one of the offi-
cers which stood by struck Jesus (on the cheek) with
the palm of his hand, saying, Answerest thou the
high-priest so (rudely) P
23 Jesus answered him, If I have spoken evil, bear
as Peter, they might have equally suspected him on that ac-
count." -
* Ver. 18. "ort Jºxo; #y, For it was cold.] The Jews,
saith Dr. Lightfoot, testify, that there might be snow or
frost at the passover; and Radulphus, that great dews
fell then, which made the air cold till the sun had exhaled
them. - -
* Ver. 20. I taught always in the synagogue, xał Św rô
ispá, and in the temple.] This confutes them who say, Christ
came not to Jerusalem, lest the Romans should suspect him
of affecting a kingdom; for here he testifies that “he taught
daily in the temple ;” aſter his first miracle done in Cana
of Galilee, we find him going up to Jerusalem to keep the
passover, where he abode at least eight days; and many see-
ing the miracles that he did believed on him, v. 1; and vi. 4,
he ascends again to the feast; so that we have reason to be-
lieve he never declined that feast. He also went up to the
feast of tabernacles (vii. 10), and preached to the people in
the temple (ver. 13), and wrought such wonders that the
Jews cried out, “When Christ cometh, will he do more mi-
racles than these” (ver. 31). This feast being ended, he goes
to the mount of Olives, and returns the next day to preach
in the temple (viii. 1, 2). At the feast of dedication, we
find him again walking in Solomon's porch (x. 23), and
there declaring himself to be the Son of God. Ch. xi. he is
at Bethany, but two miles distant from Jerusalem, where he
raises Lazarus from the dead; and from Bethany he goes to
Jerusalem, the people going before him, and crying, “Ho-
sanna to the Son of David.”
1° Wer. 23. Why smilest thow me !] Hence we learn that
we are not literally to understand the precept of turning the
other cheek to him that Smites us ; for Christ himself did
not this, but defends the innocency of his words; which also
shows that to stand up in the defence of our own innocen-
cy cannot be contrary to the Christian duties of patience
and forgiveness. It is the observation of Suidas and Pha-
vorinus, that 8:63 signifies rà èzºśćw, to eacoriate, Seigo 8: rö
Túrrow, but 3sipo, to smite ; but it is certain that &#pa bears the
sense of smiting in the New Testament ; thus āśga 3ágoy is
“smiting of the air,” 1 Cor. ix. 26, si; ºrgão wrov 88%iev, “to
smite on the face,” 2 Cor. xi. 20 (see Mark xii. 3. Acts xvi.
37), and also in profane authors; so 3&gsa Sai Kai &#Ety 3i hºzá-
gaç, is “ daily to beat,” or “to be beaten,” scholiast Aris-
toph. in Vespis, p. 463, F. (See Examen Millii).
* Wer. 24. 'Amréa-tetxey oby, Annas had sent him bound to
Caiaphas.] 'Aria're key, here the perfect is put for the plu-
perfect tense ; so #3naey airby, “He had bound him,” Matt,
smitest thou me?
24 (This he said to him,) now (that) Annas * had
sent him bound to Caiaphas the high-priest.
25 And Simon Peter stood and warmed himself
(with the servants). They said therefore to him (see
note on Matt. xxvi. 69), Art not thou also one of his
disciples He denied it, and said, I am not.
26 One of the servants of the high-priest, being his
kinsman whose ear Peter cut off, saith, Did not I see.
thee in the garden with him : -
27 Peter then denied (it) again; and immediately
the cock crew.
28. Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas to the hall
of judgment: and it was early; and (but) they “them-
selves went not into the judgment-hall (among the
heathens), lest they should be defiled (by them); but
(stayed without) that they might eat the passover (i. e.
the other paschal offerings, clean and undefiled). -
29 Pilate then went out to them, and said, What
accusation bring you against this man :
30 They answered and said to him, If he were not
a malefactor, we would not have delivered him up to
thee.
31 Then said Pilate to them, Take ye him, and
judge him according to your law. The Jews there-
fore said to him, ” It is not lawful for us to put any
man to death : (and this they said, not that they might
not have done this after such license given, but)
xiv. 3, and ver. 4, #xEye, “He had said;” so #xárnors, #3nars,
#Aeys, “He had apprehended and bound—had said,” Mark
vi. 17, 18, and ver. 26, & réxo‘!s, “he had cut off.”
* Ver. 28. They went not out into the judgment-hall.]
Among the gentiles, whom they esteemed as unclean (Acts
x. 28), lest by touching them they should be unclean, as the
law pronounces him that touches an unclean person (Numb.
xix. 22), and so should be unfit to eat the chagigah, or pas-
chal sacrifices, which began to be eaten on the fifteenth day,
and being holy things, might not be eaten in their defilement:
That these are also called the passover, and that the paschat
lamb was eaten the evening before, and that there was 1:0
translation of it to another day, either by reason of the Sab-
bath, or the uncleanness of the congregation, see the ap-
pendix to Mark xiv. and Dr. Lightfoot. º
13 Ver. 31. ‘Hºw oëx #sorry &rowrºyal cºva, It is not
lawful for us to put any man to death, The Jews say that
the power of inflicting capital punishments upon offenders
was taken from them by the Romans forty years before the
destruction of their city and temple: so weread in the Jeru-
salem Talmud, L. Sanhedrin, cap. 7, in that of Babylon,
Sanhedr. fol. 41, in Aboda Zara, fol. 2, in Maimonides, Tr.
Sanhedr. cap. ;4, sect. 13. And if it had remained with
them at this time, it is supposed they would have been mo".
speedy in cutting off our Saviour. But yet it seemeth eV}~
dent that the Jews still retained the power of judging and
condemning those to death, who were Jews by nature and
original, and by their laws deserved to die: for after they
were reduced to a Roman province, this privilege, saith Jo-
sephus,” was still granted to them, toſs waréolº #iº Ka.
ispoſº X5% Sai, “to use the sacred institutions and customs
derived to them from their fathers.” And it was granted to
Hyrcanus their high-priest, that if any controversy arose,
trig ri, 'lověatov 3,2%, “touching the discipline of the Jews
xti-w yávea Sai Tag' aircü, the judgment of it should be re-
ferred to him.”4 Accordingly we find the high-priest and his
council stoning Stephen, not jure zelotarum, “by the rage of
lots,” as some conceive, but according to the law, that the
blasphemer should be stoned (Lev. xxiv. 16. Deut. xvii. 6,
7), for he is brought before the high-priest and his council
(Acts vi. 15. vii. 1), who were the proper judges in this case;
witnesses are produced, who testify before them that he had
spoken blasphemous words “against the temple and the law,
against Moses and against God” (Acts vi. 11. 13); these
witnesses do also stone him first, according as the law re-
+ iº. 486.
* Antiq. lib. xiv. cap. 17, p. 487.
CHAPTER XIX.
405
32 That the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled,
which he spake, signifying what death he should die
(viz. by being lifted up upon the cross).
33 Then Pilate entered into the judgment-hall
again, and called Jesus, and said to him, Art thou
the King of the Jews?
34 Jesus answered him, Sayest thou this thing
(makest thou this inquiry) of thyself, (from a desire to
know the truth AE) or (because) others did tell it thee of
me 2 (laying it to my charge as a crime, that I profess
myself Messiah their King).
35 Pilate answered, Am I a Jew, (that I should ask
this for my own satisfaction ? The men of) thine own
nation and the chief priests have delivered thee to me:
what hast thou done (to incense them thus against
thee, and cause them to lay this crime to thy charge) *
36 Jesus answered, (True it is that I am a king ;
but) *my kingdom is not of this world, (nor to be
propagated by force of arms: for) if my kingdom
were of this world, then would my servants fight,
that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now
(this being not done, it appears that) my kingdom is
not from hence.
37 Pilate therefore said to him, Art thou a king
then Jesus answered, Thou sayest that (which is
true, for) I am a king. To this end was "I born,
(that I might reign over the house of Jacob for ever,
Luke i. 33), and for this cause came I into the world,
that I should bear witness to the truth. Every one
that is (a lover and believer) of the truth, heareth my
VOlC6.
38 Pilate said to him, What is truth And when
had said this, he went out again to the Jews, and
saith to them, I find in him no fault at all.
39 But ye have a custom, that I should release to
you one at the passover : will ye therefore that I
(should) release to you the King of the Jews :
40 Then cried they all again, saying, (Release to
ws) not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was
a robber.
quired. Thus also Saul, armed with the power of the high-
priests and elders, persecuted the Jewish Christians, 3x6i
6ayárciº, “unto death,” and led them bound to Jerusalem to
be punished (Acts xxii. 4, 5), thus also would they have
judged Paul after their own law (Acts. xxiv. 6), and “would
have killed him” (Acts xxiii. 37), had not Lysias the chief
captain rescued him from their hands; this, say they, he did
by violence, i.e. by an invasion of their rights; this, saith
he, I did, “knowing that he was a Roman,” and so would
not have done it, had he been a Jew only. They therefore
seem to say they could not do this in the case of Christ,
because they had accused him before Pilate, not of crimes
committed against their law, but of sedition, and aspiring to
a kingdom in prejudice to Caesar and the Roman govern-
ment, of which things it belonged to Pilate, not to them, to
judge. But perhaps this matter may be compounded by re-
flecting on Ananus the high-priest, who killed James the
brother of our Lord, and stoned many other Christians, &c
Trapavogaña'aytaç, “as being transgressors of the law;” this,
saith Josephus, of treet rol); Vágovg &ng:6sic, “they who best un-
derstood their laws disliked, saying that Ananus should not
have calleda council concerning life and death, without license
from Albinus the Roman president ;” whence I infer, that
the power of inflicting capital punishments, even upon the
Jews converted to the Christian faith, was then so taken from
them, that they could not ip6&c, “regularly” do it without
leave first obtained from the Roman president ; but with
his leave they might inflict upon them any capital punish-
ment denounced against malefactors by their law. And if
it be here said that Pilate gave them leave to inflict this
death on our Lord, by saying, “Take ye him, and crucify
him” (xix. 6); to this the answer is, (1.) that Pilate had
iven them no such license when he spake these words;
§ that crucifixion was none of the kinds of death as-
signed by their law; and, (3) that Pilate by these words
seems not to authorize them to do this, but rather to say to
them, Do it at your peril, for I judge him innocent (see the
note there).
* Ver. 36. My kingdom is not of this world..] And so
hath nothing to do with, or opposite to, the Roman govern-
ment ; it is not of human or mundane original, but from
heaven, and so it meddles not with the affairs of this world ;
it hath none of the pomp or splendour of the world; none
to fight for it with any carnal weapons (Luke ix. 56); it exer-
cises no dominion over men's bodies, but their souls only.
So the phrase #x roº ºff-gov oix Elvaſ, “not to be of this world,”
signifies, John viii. 23. xv. 19. xvii. 14, especially when it is
opposed to being #2 roi; traºrpāq, “from the Father,” 1 John
ii. 16, and #2 roi; Gezī, “from God,” l John iv. 4–6. So
when Domitian inquired of the kingdom of Christ, of what
nature it was, and when and where it was to be set up; the
nephews of that Judas who was the brother of our Lord,
answered, It was ““not an earthly but a heavenly kingdom,
to be set up at the end of the world.”
* Wer. 37. For this cause was I born, and for this cause
came I into the world, Hence the Socinians infer that Christ
was born before he came into the world: and that this latter
phrase denotes only his entrance on his public ministry (iii.
17, 19. ix. 39. xi. 27). But this follows not from these
words, which only may import the same thing; viz. that
Christ was born, and came into the world to this end, that he
might bear witness to the truth (see the notes upon the
places cited).
# el 2 w * 53' º w 2 º' 3? } 2 *
Ori oi kozºwiań pºev ovo ariyºto;, ougávio; 38 xaſ &yyexiwi,
rvyxável #ri avvrºsiº toč aiāo; yeynzowyn' Euseb. Hist. Eccl.
lib. iii. cap. 20.
*
CHAPTER XIX.
1 THEN Pilate therefore (to satisfy the clamours of
the Jews) took Jesus, and * scourged him.
2 And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and
put it upon his head, and they put upon him a pur-
ple robe,
3 And said, Hail, King of the Jews 1 and they
Smote him with their hands.
4 Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith to
them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may
know that I find no fault in him (let it therefore suf.
fice that I have scourged him). -
5 Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of
thorns and the purple robe. And Pilate saith to
them, Behold the man (how despicable he is, and
how ridiculous it is to think of his affecting a king-
dom, or attempting any thing against Caesar's govern-
ment.)
6 When the chief priests therefore and officers saw
him, they cried out, saying, Crucify him, crucify him.
Pilate saith to them, (If ye will have it so) “take ye
him, and crucify him; for I find no fault in him (and
therefore cannot do it myself).
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIX.
* Ver. 1. Kai #xactlywo's, And scourged him.] After the
manner of the Romans, who chastised them first with whips
who were to be crucified though Pilate did this not with an
intent to crucify him in whom he found no fault, but hoping
that their rage might be satisfied with it (see note on Luke
xxiii. 16).
* Ver. 6. Take ye him, and crucify him.] Pontius Pilate
does not give them leave to do this, but rather saith, If you
406
JOHN.
7 The Jews answered him, We have a law, and
°by our law he ought to die (as being guilty of blas-
phemy), because he made himself the Son of God
(John x. 33).
8 When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was
the more afraid (to crucify him);
9 And went again into the judgment hall, and
saith to Jesus, Whence art thou? But Jesus gave him
In O anSWer.
10 Then saith Pilate to him, Speakest thou not to
me 2 knowest thou not that I have power to crucify
thee, and have power to release thee :
11 Jesus answered, Thou (mayest have this power
over malefactors and ordinary men, but thou) couldest
have “no power at all against me (the Son of God,
and wholly innocent), except (through the wise counsel
of God appointing me to die for the salvation of man-
kind) it were given (i. e. permitted) thee from above
(to put me to death): therefore he that delivered me
(the Son of God) to thee (that I might be crucified as
a malefactor) hath the greater sin (though thy sin in
condemning him in whom thou findest no fault at all
cannot be little). -
12 And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release
him: but the Jews cried out, saying, "If thou let this
man go, thou art not Caesar’s friend: (for) whoso-
ever maketh himself a king, (he by so doing) speaketh
against Caesar (as saying in effect he is not the right-
jul king over us).
13 When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he
brought Jesus forth (of the judgment-hall), and sat
down in the judgment-seat, in a place that is called
the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha.
14 And it was the preparation of the passover,
(i. e. Friday in the paschal week, ver. 31. 42, see the
appendix to Mark xiv.) and about the sixth hour: he
saith to the Jews, Behold your King !
15 But they cried out, Away with him, away with
will have it so, do it yourselves at your peril, for I cannot
condemn a man without a fault (so Grotius).
* Wer. 7. By our law he ought to die, 3rt Havtºv vičy roi;
Osoſ; iroimaey, because he made himself the Son of God..] The
Jews could not here mean the law against false prophets,
Deut. xviii. 20, partly because the reason here assigned doth
not prove Christ a false prophet, partly because Christ nei-
ther tempted them to worship himself, and much less to wor-
ship false gods; nor did he give them any false sign; which
are the only reasons assigned in that chapter for putting the
false prophet to death; how much more probable is it that
they meant the law against blasphemy, Lev. xxiv. 16, be-
cause they do not only seek to kill him as a blasphemer, for
these very words, John v. 18, but to stone him, which was
the very kind of death assigned by that law to the blas-
phemer: see John x. 33. 36. Hence in the other evan-
gelists they charge him with blasphemy, and judge him
worthy of death for this confession, that “he was the Son of
God,” Matt. xxvi. 64–66. Mark xiv. 61. 64. Luke xxii. 71,
72, as judging that by this assertion, he being a man made
himself equal with God. Schlictingius owns this, but then
adds, that the Jews misunderstood and calumniated him in
this inference, Christ meaning no more by this assertion, than
that he was the true Messiah. But against this mitigation
of the import of the words there lies a plain objection, that
though Christ was so much concerned for the honour of his
Father, whose honour must be impaired by the advancement
of the best of men to an equality with it; and though this
blasphemy, if truly laid to his charge, was a sufficient evi-
dence that he was not the Christ: yet neither in the fifth nor
tenth of John, doth he ever plainly say he was not God, or
that he never did intend to signify, by this expression, that he
was equal with God, as is shown in the notes on those two
places; which yet, had he been only man, seems more neces-
sary to have been done, for the honour of God, and for the
removal of so just a prejudice against him, than to remove
any other calumny they falsely charged upon him.
him, crucify him. Pilate saith to them, Shall I
crucify your King : The chief priests answered,
"We have no (person we own as our) king but Caesar.
16 Then "delivered he him therefore to them to be
crucified. And they (i. e. the soldiers) took Jesus,
and led him away.
17 And he, bearing his cross (part of the way, see
note on Luke xxiii. 26), went forth to a place called
the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew,
Golgotha; t
18 Where they crucified him, and two others with
him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst.
19 And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross.
And the writing was, (This is) JESUS of NAZARETH
THE KING of THE JEws.
20 This title then read many of the Jews: for the
place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city:
and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin.
21 Then said the chief priests of the Jews to
Pilate, Write not, The King of the Jews; but that he
said, I am the King of the Jews. *
22 Pilate answered, What I have written I have
written (i. e. the inscription shall not be changed).
23 Then the soldiers, when they had crucified
Jesus, took his (other) garments and made four parts
(out of them), to every soldier a part; and (they took)
also his coat: now the coat was without seam, woven
from the top throughout.
24 They said therefore among themselves, * Let us
not rend it (it being all of one piece), but cast lots for
it, whose it shall be : (and this was dome) that the
scripture might be fulfilled, which saith (Ps. xx. 19),
They parted my raiment among them, and for my
vesture they did cast lots. These things therefore th
soldiers did. -
25 Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mo-
ther, and his mother's sister, "Mary the wife of Cleo-
phas, and Mary Magdalene.
* Ver. 11. Own sixs; #ovatay oiºsºciay war' woč, Thou
couldest have no power against me, &c.] This seems to be
a Jewish phrase, importing a power to take away the life of
another; as when Saul saith to Doeg, 1 Sam. xxii. 18, “Fall
upon the priests”—“Exercise authority among them,” saith
the Chaldee; and the same expression is there used when Da-
vid bids his servant “fall on the Amalekite,” 2 Sam. i. 15,
and when king Solomon “sent Benaiah to fall upon Adoni-
jah,” l Kings ii. 25, and upon Joab, wer. 29, 30, and upon
Shimei (see the paraphrase here).
* Wer. 12. If thou lettest this man go, thou art not Cal-
sar's friend.] This chiefly moved Pilate, because, as Tacitus
and Suetonius observe, Tiberius was apt to suspect the
worst; and the least crimes with him made a man guilty of
death, if they related to the government: he durst not there-
fore venture that this charge should be laid against him by
the Jews.
* Wer. 15. We have no king but Caesar..] By this how
plainly do they condemn themselves as guilty of rebellion in
all their attempts by war and tumults to free themselves
from the government of Caesar, and own that the terrible
destruction, which at last came upon them, was from them-
selves |
7 Wer. 16. Then Pilate delivered him to them.] Not to
the Jews, but to the soldiers, that he might be crucified, as
he was, by them; though he, who was delivered to the sol-
diers to be crucified only at their request, and to satisfy
their restless clamours, that he might be crucified, may be
well said to be delivered up to them who brought him to
º: for this end, and prevailed with him thus to give
him up.
* Wer. 24. Let us not remd it, but let ws cast lots for it.]
They divided his other garments into four parts, and then
cast lots what part each of them should choose (Matt. xxvii.
35. Mark xv. 24. Luke xxiii. 34), but they cast lots for his
coat who should have the whole. *
* Ver. 25. Mapia hºroú KAwºri, Mary the wife of Clcophas]
CHAPTER xx.
407
26 When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the
disciple standing by, whom he loved, he said to his
mother, "Woman, behold (him who is to take care of
thee, as if he were), thy son
27 Then saith he to his disciple, Behold (her whom
thou must henceforth treat as) thy mother And from
. time that disciple (St. John) took her to his own
OIſlC.
28 After this, Jesus knowing that all things (else
relating to his life on earth) were now accomplished,
that the scripture might (in this also) be fulfilled,
saith, I thirst.
29 Now there was set (for the soldiers) a vessel full
of vinegar: and they filled a sponge with vinegar,
and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth.
30 When Jesus therefore had received the vine-
gar, he saith, It (i. e. my work on earth) is finished :
and (then) he bowed his head and gave * up the
ghost. *
31 The Jews therefore, because it was the prepara-
tion (i. e. Friday), that the bodies should not remain
upon the cross on the sabbath-day, for that sabbath-
day was a high day (as being not a sabbath only, but
the second day of unleavened bread, from whence they
reckoned their sabbath till pentecost, and the day of
presenting or waving the sheaf-offering, Lev. xxiii. 11.
15, and so a triple festival), besought Pilate that their
legs might be broken, and that they might be taken
away.
32 Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of
the first, and of the other (thief) which was crucified
with him. *
Or, Alpheus ; "Sºn being flexible into Alphai or Cleophi.
Here it is to be rendered “Alpheus,” for this Mary was the
mother of James the less (Mark xv. 40), whose father was
Alpheus (Matt. x. 3).
* Ver. 26. Woman, behold thy son || Hence it is gathered,
that Joseph her husband was then dead; whence Christ takes
care she should not be destitute, and therefore charges his
beloved disciple to treat her as his mother; and he accord-
ingly takes her home to his own house.
* Ver. 30. IIagé8oxe rà rvsöza, He gave up his spirit.]
Into his Father's hands (Luke xxiii. 46). The Jews, saith
Grotius, who believed a judgment to come, used this phrase
to signify that the soul, leaving the body at the time of death,
“returned to God that gave it” (Eccles. xii. 7), to receive its
sentence from him.
** Ver. 33. They brake not his bones : Wer. 36. And this
was done that the scripture might be fulfilled (which saith)
Barody oi avtp:8áceral aircü, A bone of him (or, it) shall not
be broken.] This is usually referred to the command touch-
ing the paschal lamb, “Thou shalt not break a bone of it,”
Exod. xii. 46. Numb. ix. 12, where the Greek saith, jaroſy
où avvreſ pers är" airoij. But David being also a type of
Christ, we may as probably refer this to the words, Ps. xxxiv.
20, “He keepeth all their bones, £y # airãy oë avy'rgighore rat,
one of them shall not be broken:” that promise, which re-
spects all righteous persons, being more especially to be ful-
filled in this “Just One.”
*
33 But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he
was dead already, they "broke not his legs :
34 But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his
side, and forthwith came thereout *blood and water.
35 And he that (standing by the cross, ver. 26)
saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he
knoweth that he saith true, (and testifies it) that ye
might believe.
36 For these things were done (according to fore-
going prophecies concerning him), that the scripture
should be fulfilled, (which saith, Ps. xxxiv. 20,) A
bone of him shall not be broken.
37 'And again (that) * another scripture (might be
fulfilled, which) saith (Zech. xii. 10), They shall look
on him whom they pierced. -
38 And after this Joseph of Arimathea (being a
disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of (offending)
the Jews), besought Pilate that he might take away
the body of Jesus; and Pilate gave him leave. He
came therefore, and took the body of Jesus.
39 And there came also Nicodemus, which at the
first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture
of myrrh and aloes, about a *hundred pound wéight.
40 Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound
it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of
the Jews is to bury.
41 Now in (or near) the place where he was cruci-
fied, there was a garden; and in the garden a new
sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid.
42 There laid they Jesus therefore because of the
Jews' preparation-day; for the sepulchre was nigh at
hand.
1° Wer. 34. Kai Eğüç ###AŠey aiwa kai tºog, And forth-
with came thereout blood and water.] The covenant of
the old law was confirmed by blood mixed with water to
keep it from congealing (Heb. ix. 19): so also was the co-
venant of the new testament (1 John v. 6). Dr. Lightfoot
farther saith, that, according to the tradition of the Jewish
rabbins, when Moses smote the rock, there came forth first
blood, and then water; now “that rock was Christ” (1 Cor.
X. 4).
#) Wer. 37. And again another scripture saith, They
shall look upon him whom they had pierced.] The applica-
tion of these words to Christ agrees with the opinion of the
ancient Jews, who interpret Zech. xii. 10, of Messiah the
son of David, as Moses Haddarson in Gen. xxviii., though
R. Solomon Jarchi, R. David, and Abarbanel, refer it to the
death of Messiah the son of Joseph. Hence also note, that
what the Romans did by the instigation of the Jews, is fitly
ascribed to the Jews themselves.
15 Wer. 39. About a hundred pound weight.] Which was
an indication, not only of the wealth, but also of the great
affection of Nicodemus to the blessed Jesus: hence, also,
they not only anoint him, as they commonly used to do
others, but bury him with so great a mixture of spices as was
done at the funerals of great men. So Jacob was embalmed
after the Egyptian manner, Gen. l. 2; Asa “with spices and
sweet odours,” 2 Chron. xvi. 14.
º
CHAPTER XX.
1 THE first day of the week cometh Mary Mag-
dalene early, when it was yet dark, to the sepulchre
(other women being with her), and seeth the stone
taken away from the sepulchre.
2 Then (seeing this) she (instantly) *runneth, and
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XX.
* Wer. l. Mary Magdalene.] More women and more
Maries came to the sepulchre (Luke xxiii. 55. xxiv. 1), but
the other evangelists beginning still with her, St. John, by
cometh (not to all the disciples, but) to Simon Peter,
and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and
saith to them, They have taken away the Lord out of
the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid
him.
naming her who only spake, and only looked down into the
sepulchre, left the rest to be understood.
* Ver. 2. She runneth before, and cometh to Simon Peter.]
All the interpreters that I have met with say, that Mary ran
not presently to Peter and John, but only after she had seen
4:08
JOHN.
3 Peter therefore went forth, and that other disci-
ple, and came to (-wards) the sepulchre.
4 So they ran both together: and (but) the other
ºple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepul-
CITI'ê.
: 5 And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the
liſten clothes lying; yet went he not in. "
6 Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and
º into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes
le,
7 And the napkin, that was about his head, not
lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in
a place by itself.
8 Then went in also that other disciple, which
came first to the sepulchre, and * he saw, and be-
lieved (either the report of the women, or our Lord’s
resurrection, which they believed not before).
9 For as yet “they knew not (the import of) the
scriptures, (which said) that he must rise again from
the dead.
10 Then (these two) disciples went again to their
own home.
11. But Mary (returning with them) stood without
at the sepulchre weeping : and as she wept, she
stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre,
12 And seeth two angels in white sitting, the one
the Lord (ver. 18); and this they prove from Luke xxiv.
10, 11. Dut this cannot consist with the words of St. John,
who saith, she came to Peter and John only; whereas St.
Luke and the other evangelists say, she came to all the rest
of the apostles (Matt. xxviii. 8. Mark xvi. 10). When she
came to St. Peter and St. John she came alone, and com-
plained to them that Christ's body was taken away, not
thinking that he was risen; so here: when she came to the
rest of apostles, she came with the message from the angel,
and from Christ himself, that he was risen, Matt. xxviii. 7,
8. 10, and was seen of her, Mark xvi. 10, 11. Luke xxiv. 23;
so here, ver. 18: which plainly shows that all the other
evangelists speak only of this second coming, mentioned
ver, 18
Obj. St. Luke saith, “They came to the apostles;” and
º adds, xxiv. 12, that Peter #88wasy ran to the sepul-
CITIC.
Ans. That word may be thus rendered, “Peter had run,
and stooping down had seen;” as if he should have said,
The woman told the words of the angels to the disciples;
and Peter also, to his admiration, had seen the body gone,
and the linen clothes wrapped up by themselves: which,
by the way, is an evidence that Christ's body was not stolen
away by his disciples, since they would have carried it
away embalmed as it was, and not have stayed to wrap up
the napkins. -
* Ver, 8. And he saw, and believed.] Peter only saw and
admired at what was done (Luke xxiv. 12), but St. John saw
and believed, not the words of Mary, for we find not that
either of them suspected her of falsehood, but the resur-
rection of Jesus, or the words of Christ, “After three days
I will rise again :” this, John 'Saith, was the reason of his
faith, not the predictions of the Old Testament: for, as for
the apostles,
* Ver. 9. As yet they knew not the scripture (which saith)
that he ought to rise from the dead..] So infirm was the faith,
not only of the Jews in general in that age, but of the apostles
also, that they believed not the two fundamental articles of the
Christian faith, the death and resurrection of the Messiah : as
for the Jews, a contrary tradition had obtained among them
that their Messiah should not die (John xii. 34): and though
- ar Saviour spake oft to his disciples of his death and resur-
rection, this tradition and thoughts of his temporal kingdom
were so fixed in their heads, that his disciples “understood
not what he said: and this saying was concealed from them.”
(Mark ix. 32. Luke ix. 45. xviii. 34). Whence Christ, after
his resurrection, upbraids them with their slowness to believe
the scriptures, and shows them from them, that Christ “ought
to suffer, and rise again the third day,” Luke xxiv. 25. 44,
45. And hence it follows, that the Jews then understood
at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body
of Jesus had lain.
13 And they say to her, Woman, why weepest
thou? She saith to them, Because they have taken
i. my Lord, and I know not where they have laid
IIIl.
14 And when she had thus said, she turned herself
back, and saw Jesus standing, and (but she) knew not
that it was Jesus.
15 Jesus saith to her, Woman, why weepest thou?
whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to he the
gardener, saith to him, Sir, if thou hast taken him
away hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I
will take him away.
16 Jesus saith to her, Mary. She turneth herself,
and saith to him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.
17 Jesus saith to her, "Touch me not (spend not
now thy time in touching my body); for I am not yet
ascended (I shall not presently ascend) to my Father:
but go (first) to my brethren, and say to them, I (am
shortly to) ascend to my Father, and to your Father;
*and to my God, and to your God, (to do for you the
things of which I spake, xiv. 16).
18 Mary Magdalene (then) came and told the dis-
ciples that she had seen the Lord, and that he had
spoken these things to her.
not that any of their sacrifices were types of our Saviour's
passion, or availed to procure the remission of their sins on
that account, and so could have no explicate faith in his
blood, or expect justification by it. Whence St Paul in that
whole chapter, Heb. xi., in which he speaks so much of the
faith of the patriarchs, hath not the least intimation of any
relation that it had to the death of the Messiah.
* Wer. 17. Touch me not ; for I am not yet ascended to
my Father.] I was once inclined from these words to think,
that as the sacrifice was not only to be slain, but the blood
was to be brought into the sanctuary, and there presented
before God to obtain the remission of sins; so Christ here
intimated, that having offered up his body to the death, he,
to complete his priestly office, and procure the full pardon
of our sins, was immediately to ascend into the heavenly
sanctuary, to present there his blood before God: for why
else doth he say, “Hold, or detain, me not ; for I have not
yet ascended ?” Why doth he add these words, “Go, tell
my disciples, I ascend ?” But finding that no evangelist
ever speaks of any such immediate ascent after his resurrec-
tion, and that no commentator, ancient or modern, ever
thought of such a thing, I think it better to refer these words
to what Christ said to his disciples not long before his pas-
sion : for he had told them for their comfort, that he was
shortly to go to his Father (xiv. 12), and that then he
would enable them to do greater works than he himself had
done; and that this was just matter of their joy (ver. 28),
and was more expedient for them than his presence with
them (xvi. 7), because then he would send the Comforter,
and whatsoever they should ask the Father in his name
should be done to them (ver. 23), because the Father him-
self loved them (ver. 26, 27). “Go,” saith he, “therefore,
and tell my disciples, that now they shortly may expect
these gracious promises should be made good to them by
my ascent to the Father: and as for thee, thou needest not
to be solicitous to touch or hold me now, thou wilt have
time sufficient to converse with me, and to experiment the
truth of my resurrection; for I shall not immediately ascend,
but stay some time with you here on earth. Against this it
may be objected, that &va658m2a is an aorist, and so odºro
&yagégnac. should be rendered, “I have not yet ascended :''
not, “I do, or I shall, not yet ascend.” But to this I an-
swer, that grammarians observe, that the aorist is often put
both for the present tense and the future (see Glassius de
Verbo, lib. iii. tr. 3, can. 47): so is this word used in this
very gospel; as when Christ saith, “He that believeth in me
shall not come into condemnation, but as raffiénkey shall pass
from death to life” (John v. 24).
* Tºp3; ©sćy wou zai Qey ºpºv, To my God, and your God.]
Seeing Christ styles God his God, hence, say the Socinians,
CHAPTER XX.
409
19 Then the same (Lord's) day at evening, being
the first day of the week, when the "doors were shut
where the disciples were assembled, (and kept them-
selves close) for fear of the Jews, came Jesus, and
(opening silently the doors) stood in the midst (of them),
and saith to them, Peace be to you.
20 And when he had so said, he showed them his
(pierced) hands and his side. Then were the disciples
glad, when they saw the Lord.
21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be to you:
* as my Father hath sent me (to preach in his name),
even so send I you (to preach in my name).
22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them,
and saith to them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost (to ena-
ble you for this office); -
23 "Whose soever sins ye (thus commissionated, and
thus assisted by the Holy Ghost, declaratively shall)
remit, they are (and shall under the gospel-covenant be)
remitted to them; and whose soever sins ye (declara-
tively in your gospel shall) retain, they are (and shall
£n heaven be) retained.
24 But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus,
was not with them when Jesus came.
25 The other disciples therefore said to him, We
have seen the Lord. But he said to them, Except I
shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put
my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my
hand into his side, I will not believe.
26 And after eight days (i. e. the newt Lord’s-day)
again his disciples were within, and Thomas with
them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and
stood in the midst, and said, Peace be to you. .
27 Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger,
and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and
thrust it into myside: and benotfaithless, butbelieving.
28 And Thomas answered and said to him, (Dost
thou know what I said in thy absence? And hast thou
º thyself from the dead? Thou art) "my Lord and
mv God. -
º Jesus saith to him, Thomas, because thou hast
seen me, thou hast believed; (but more)” blessed are
they who have not seen, and yet have believed.
it is evident that Christ is not God; but from these words it
only follows, that he was not God according to that nature
which ascended : thus “God, even thy God, hath anointed
thee,” saith the psalmist of Christ; and yet he adds of the
same person, “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever,” Ps.
xlv. (see note on Heb. i. 8, 9).
* Ver. 19. Tày Svgåy keuxsicaävoy, The doors being shut.]
Though it be an ancient opinion, that Christ made his body
penetrate through the doors, yet it is both groundless and ab-
surd, and contrary to the very design of Christ in coming to
them. It is groundless: for why might not he, by his power,
Secretly open the doors, his disciples not perceiving it, as the
angel opened the prison-doors and gates to let out Peter P
(Acts xii. 10.) It is absurd: for since Christ rose in that
natural body, which was crucified and laid in the grave, phi-
losophy informs us that such a body could not penetrate
through another more solid body. And to this agree those
words of Cyril of Alexandria, 380Vatov cºp, a 31& crºwaroc
8thkely ºwn réavoy Kai rāpavāºwevov, “It is impossible that one
body should go through another without cutting it, or being
cut.” . And, thirdly, this fancy destroys not only the end of
Christ's then coming to them, but of all that he had said and
done to convince them it was the same body that was cru-
cified, in which he appeared to them : when he came the
first time, his disciples were troubled, supposing they had
seen a spirit ; now, to convince them of the contrary, Christ
saith, “See my hands and my feet, that it is even I; handle
me, and see ; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see
me have :” his second appearance, when the doors were shut,
was to convince Thomas of the truth of the resurrection of
his body; and this he does, by calling him to put his finger
into his pierced hands, and his hands into his pierced side;
and yet this supposed penetration through the doors de-
stroys both these arguments; it being as certain, that flesh
and bones cannot penetrate through a door, as that a spirit
hath not flesh and bones; and that his body must have
passed through the doors after the manner of a spirit, as
that it afterward appeared after the manner of a body; and
that the same power which made a natural body penetrate
through a door, could make a phantasm or aerial body ap-
pear like flesh and bone to the touch, and seem to have the
marks and prints of a crucified body: so that unless our Sa-
viour designed to invalidate the strength of what he said
and did to convince them of the truth of his resurrection,
he could not at the same time do a thing known to them,
which did evacuate the force of all his proofs. Nor would
the evangelist have twice recorded this circumstance, when
speaking of the resurrection, had he imagined the words
bore such a sense, as turned his body into a spirit, and mi-
nistered occasion to all that read it, to suspect the strength
of º of these arguments to confirm this fundamental ar-
ticle.
* Ver. 21. As my Father hath sent me, so send I you.]
Not only to preach in my name, as I did in his, but as he
Sending me baptized me with the Holy Ghost, and so anoint-
ed me to my office (Luke iv. 18. John x. 36), so will I send
you, baptizing you also with the Holy Ghost seat down
from heaven (Luke xxiv. 49), and so anoint you also for
your office (2 Cor. i. 21, 22); and in testimony of this, I say
to you now, “receive the Holy Ghost” (ver. 22), and will
soon after my ascension send him more plentifully down
upon you.
* Ver. 23. Whose sins ye do remit, they are reniitted,—
Tetain, &c.] Christ sent them to preach repentance and re-
mission of sins in his name, to Jew and gentile, Luke xxiv.
47, and here he adds, that whose soever sins they, thus as-
sisted by the Holy Ghost, declared remitted by virtue of the
gospel-covenant, ratified in his blood shed for the remission
of sins, should be remitted : and hence they preached re-
mission of sins to all that believed in his name, and justifica-
tion or exemption from the guilt of them (Acts ii. 38. xiii.
38, 39). And whose sins soever you retain, declaring to
them that according to the tenor of the gospel they still lie
under the guilt of them, they shall be retained; and hence
they declared to all that believed not on him, or lived not
according to his laws, and sought not for justification by faith
in his blood, that they were yet in their sins (1 Cor. xv. 17),
and could not be justified (Rom. ix. 32. x. 4).
* Ver. 28. ‘o Kūgū; prov, zai & Osé, ºwow, And Thomas an-
swered and said to him, My Lord and my God.] Here,
First, Let it be noted from Woltzogenius the Socinian,
that they are not to be hearkened to, who say, Thomas spake
these words not to Christ, but by way of admiration to God
the Father; for the apostle could not say that “Thomas
. and much less that he “answered and said to
him,” unless he had directed his words to him. who said unto
him in the precedent verse, “Be not faithless, but believe:”
and if he said to him, “Thou art my Lord and my God,”
he must acknowledge him as fully and as truly to be his God
as his Jord. And,
Secondly, Since Thomas had learned from the law, there
was one God alone, he could not own Christ as another God,
but as the same in essence with him. Note, &
Thirdly, That though Christ was still concerned for the
honour of the Father, he doth not reprehend Thomas for
thus owning him as his God, but doth attest that he be-
lieved aright concerning him, which shows that he did not
mistake in owning the divinity of Christ. And whereas
Woltzogenius here notes, that “Christ was never called God
before his resurrection,” when he was to be worshipped as a
divine Lord ; as it is evident that his resurrection could not
make him God, if he had been a creature only, nor justify
the worship of a creature as God, so is the reason of this
evident, because he acted as a prophet whilst he was on earth,
speaking still in his Father's name, and as one sent from
him, it being essential to a prophet to speak in the name of
him whose prophet he is (see the preface to this gospel, and
the note on Mark xiii. 32).
* Ver. 29. Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet
have believcd.] For faith is not praiseworthy, upon this ac-
410
JOHN.
30 And many other signs truly did Jesus in the
presence of his disciples, which are not written in this
book:
31 But these are written, that ye might “believe
that Jesus is the Christ, the (only-begotten) Son of
God: and that believing ye might have life through
his name.
count, that we believe what we see with our eyes, and there-
fore can no longer doubt of; but on this account, that we
"yield to arguments highly probable, and against which we
have nothing solid to object, and such evidence as wise men
consent to, and act by, in the most important concernments
of this present life; because this shows a greater affection
to the objects of our faith, and a better inclination to obey
the will of God.
** Ver. 31. But these things were written, that ye might
believe that Jesus is the Christ.] Hence the Socinians argue,
that they must err who think it was the intendment of this
gospel to show that Jesus Christ was the Word of God, be-
gotten of the Father before all worlds, and therefore a divine
person; whereas the apostle here plainly speaks only of the
miracles wrought by Christ, which we acknowledged to be
done to prove him the Messiah promised to the Jews, and
that prophet which was to come into the world, as St. John
here speaks; but yet this hinders not his being God, or the
Word of God, coexistent with the Father before all worlds.
Moreover, the apostle adds, these things were done to prove
he was “the Son of God :” now this even the Jews inter-
preted as a form of words by which Christ made himself
equal with God (see the notes on x. 33. xix. 7). Some also
think that St. John ended here his gospel, and that the fol-
lowing chapter was written by some other hands; but these
words give no ground for this imagination, since other apos-
tles, after they had seemed to have concluded their epistles,
add some new matter, as may be seen in the conclusions of
the epistles to the Romans and to the Hebrews (see thenote
on xxi. 24).
CHAPTER XXI.
1 * AFTER these things Jesus showed himself again
to the (greatest part of the) disciples at the sea of
Tiberias; and on this wise showed he himself. .
2 There were together Simon Peter, and Thomas
called Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee,
and the sons of Zebedee, and two other (in all seven)
of his disciples. -
3 Simon Peter saith to them, I (will) go a fishing.
They say to him, We also (will) go with thee. They
(then) went forth, and entered into a ship immedi-
ately; * and that night they caught nothing.
4 But when the morning was now come, Jesus
stood on the shore: but the disciples (then) knew not
that it was Jesus (who stood there).
5 Then Jesus saith to them, Children, have you
any meat They answered him, No.
6 And he said to them, Cast the net on the right
side of the ship, and ye shall find (fishes). They cast
therefore (the net as he had said), and now (the
draught was so great, that) they were not (well) able
to draw it (along) for the multitude of fishes (enclosed
in the net).
7. Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved saith
to Peter, It is the Lord (Jesus who hath done this).
Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord,
he girt his “fisher’s coat upon him, for he was naked
(to his shirt), and did cast himself into the sea (to
swim first to Jesus).
8 And the other disciples came in a little ship;
for they were not far from land, but as it were two
hundred cubits, dragging the net with (the) fishes
(in it.
9 And) as soon then as they were come to land,
they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon,
and bread (by it, all provided miraculously by Christ).
10 Jesus saith to them, Bring of the fish which ye
have now caught.
11 Simon Peter went up (into the boat), and drew
the met to the land full of great fishes, a hundred and
fifty and three. And for all there were so many, yet
was not the net broken.
12 Jesus saith to them, Come and dine. And
none of the disciples durst ask him, Who art thou?
(as) knowing that it was the Lord.
13 * Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and
giveth them, and fish likewise.
14 This is now the third time that Jesus showed
himself to (the body of) his disciples, after that he,
was risen from the dead.
15 So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon
Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, "lovest thou me more
than these (occCupations thou art now employed in) *
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXI.
* Ver. 1. Merå rajra, After these things.] i. e. After his
first apparition, mentioned xx. 20, and his second, mentioned
ver. 26, he appeared now rpivov, “the third time,” ver. 14.
* Ver. 3. In that night they caught nothing.] Christ be-
ing then absent; but when he is present, they, having his
command, enclose a very great multitude of fishes, to teach
them, that though in preaching of the gospel they were in-
sufficient to do anything of themselves (2 Cor. iii. 5); yet,
having his command to go and teach all nations, and the
promise of his presence with them, they should be wonder-
fully successful in bringing many to the faith. It is also very
likely they went then a fishing to supply their own want of
necessaries; Christ therefore, by this draught of fishes, not
only works a miracle to confirm them in the belief of his di-
vine power, but to inform them also, that while they were
employed in doing what he did command them, they should
never want what was convenient for them; and as, by mi-
raculously providing bread and fish broiling on the fire (ver.
9), he showed his ability to do so, so by this numerous
draught of fishes he supplied them with necessaries till the
Holy Ghost should come upon them to fit them for their mi-
nistry.
* Ver. 7. He girt about him, Töv inevöörny, his fisher's
coat, #y y&é yukºvág, for he was naked.] Suidas and Phavo-
rinus say tºreyöörn, is ipzártov rá ša ºratov, “the inner gar-
ment,” but Julius Pollux says it was xºray & #29sy, “the out-
ward coat;” the context here seems to make it most probable
it was his inward garment next his shirt: for “he was naked,”
signifies he only had his shirt on; for in this sense only Saul
lay naked among the prophets (1 Sam. xix. 24), and Da-
vid was naked when he danced before the ark (2 Sam. vi.
20), i.e. he had put off his royal robe (see the note on
Mark xiv. 51, see also Job xxii. 6. xxiv. 7. Isa. xx. 2, 3.
l Cor. iv. 11). -
* Ver. 13. Jesus taketh bread, and giveth to them, and
fish likewise.] As the father of the family he both makes
provision for them, and gives to every man his portion :
that he himself did eat is not said ; yet since St. Peter saith,
they “did eat and drink with him after his resurrection”
(Acts x. 41), and St. Luke saith that “he did eat before
them” (Luke xxiv. 42, 43), as he did that for confirmation
of his resurrection, so is it probable he might eat here for the
same end.
* Wer. 15. Lowest thow me, Irasſow rońroy, more than
these ?] Most interpreters think Christ asketh whether St.
Peter loved him more than the other disciples; but as Peter
CHAPTER XXI.
411.
He saith to him, Yea, Lord ; thou knowest that I
love thee. He saith to him, (Leave then these things
and employments, and) feed my lambs (my church,
shortly to be set up by new converts both of Jews and
gentiles).
16 He saith to him again the second time, Simon,
son of Jonas, lovest thou me He saith to him
(again), Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee.
He saith to him, Feed my sheep (i. e. my church thus
gathered). -
17 He saith to him the third time (that his three-
fold denial of him before the unbelievers might be
atoned for by a tººl confession of his affection to
him before his disciples), Simon, son of Jonas, lovest
thou me? Peter was grieved because he said to him
the third time, Lovest thou me 2 And he said to him,
* Lord, thou knowest all things; (and therefore) thou
knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith to him, Feed
my sheep.
18 Verily, verily, I say to thee, When thou wast
young thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither
thou wouldest (without restraint): but when thou
shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and
another shall gird thee (to the pillar where thou shalt
be scourged), and (then) carry thee (to the cross),
where (according to thy natural desires) thou would
not (be). --
19 This spake he (Jesus), signifying by what
(kind of) death he should glorify God (by this con-
firmation of the Christian faith). And when he had
spoken this, he (rose up and walked, and) saith to
him, Follow me: (to intimate to him that he was to
follow him in that kind of death he had suffered.)
20 Then Peter (who followed him) turning (his
head) about, seeth (St. John) the disciple whic't
Jesus loved following (also : viz.) which also leaneo
on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, who is he
that betrayeth thee R (John xiii. 25.)
21 Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and (Gr.
(but) what shall this man do? (how shall it fare with
him 8) ".
22 Jesus saith to him, "If I will that he tarry till
I come, what is that to thee R follow thou me.
23 Then went this saying abroad among the bre-
thren (who afterward understood that this was spoken
of his departure from this life), that that disciple
should not die : yet Jesus said not to him, He shall
not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come (in
judgment against Jerusalem, to destroy it by the Ro-
mans), what is that to thee
24 *This is the disciple which testifies of these
things: and we know (sure I am) that his testimon
is true. &
25 And there are also many other things which
could not answer to this question unless he knew their hearts,
so could he not show he did this by feeding Christ's sheep,
unless he fed them more than they. It is therefore observa-
ble, that after Christ had given them a commission to preach
the gospel (John xx. 21, 22), Peter betakes himself to his
fishing trade; Christ therefore here inquires whether he
loved him more than these nets and fisher-boats, about which
he was now employed, and saith, that if indeed he did so,
he should leave them, and wholly employ himself in feeding
his sheep and lambs. Some of the fathers add, that Christ
makes this inquiry thrice, that Peter by a threefold confes-
sion might atone for his threefold denial. They who hence
argue for the supremacy of Peter above the rest of the apos-
tles, are vain in their imaginations; for if by these words
Christ required Peter to feed all his sheep and lambs, it is
certain he was wanting in his duty; for ne never exercised
one act of Supremacy over the rest of the apostles, but, being
sent by them, obeyed (Acts viii. 14), and, being reproved by
St. Paul, he held his peace, and was so far from feeding all
Christ's sheep, that he never fed any of the province of St.
Paul. Did he feed those apostles on whom the same Holy
Ghost fell, who had the same commission, given at the same
time, and in the same words, to preach the gospel to all na-
tions, or to every creature ? If not, they were not in the num-
ber of the sheep, whom Peter is here bid to feed: or did all
other pastors receive commission from St. Peter to feed
Christ's sheep? Did St. Paul, who doth so solemnly de-
clare he had not his commission “from man, neither by
man?” (Gal. i. 1.) Did any of the bislops of Asia 2 No:
St. Paul assures us the Holy Ghost had made them over-
seers of the flock of Christ (Acts xx. 28). No, saith Pseudo-
Ambrosius,” not Peter only, sed nos cum eo, “but we with
him have received commission to feed Christ's sheep;” and
what is here said to Peter, “Feed my sheep,” ad omnes di-
citur, is, Saith St. Austin, said to all; and, saith St. Basil,
Christ here gave rāy any #ovoiav Träºl roi; ps; rotator, wai
3:3aºxáxotº, “the same power to all ensuing pastors and
teachers.”
* Ver. 17. Lord, at trayra ºak, thou knowest all things,
Schlictingius here saith, that Christ is here said to know all
things, because he knew many things. But this destroys St.
Peter's argument; for it follows not that Christ knew the
sincerity of St. Peter's heart, and his affection towards him,
unless he knew the secrets of all hearts. This therefore is
an argument that Christ was truly God, it being God alone
to whom the secrets of all hearts lie open (1 Kings viii. 39).
* De Sacerd. cap. 2. + De Agone Christi, cap. 30.
† Constit, Mon, cap. 22. -
7 Wer. 22. If I will that he stay io; exouai, till I come.]
viz. To the destruction of Jerusalem, after which this apos-
tle lived a long time, and he alone did so, the other apostles
being dead before ; of this coming the prophet Joel speaks,
saying, “The sun shall be turned into darkness, ºrgiy #A9sſy,
before the great and terrible day of the Lord cometh,” Joel
ii.31 (see ver. 1); so Mal. iii. 1, 2, ibot, itzerai, “Behold, he
cometh—but who shall abide the day of his coming P” and,
iv. 1, ièot exeral hººpa Kupiov, “Behold, the day of the Lord
cometh, which burneth as a furnace;” and, ver. 6, ºw; #A929,
“Lest coming he smite the land with a curse.” In the New
Testament we have frequent mention of this “coming” of
our Lord: for when our Lord spake of the destruction of the
temple, the apostles ask, “What is the sign rā; aſic ragovoriac,
“of thy coming,” Matt. xxiv. 3, and he tells them that ºra-
goveria, “the coming of the Son of man will be as lightning,”
yer. 27, and then should they see “the Son of man coming
in the clouds of heaven,” ver. 30, that “as it was in the
days of Noe, so should it be at the coming of the Son of man,”
ver. 37, 39, bidding them watch, “because they know not
when their Lord cometh,” ver, 42.44 (see Matt. xvi. 28.
Heb. x. 27. James v. 9, and the notes there, and on 2 Thess.
ii. 1). And note here, that whereas it is said, that the scrip-
ture mentions only two comings of our Lord, one when he
came and lived on earth, the other at the day of judgment,
when “he shall come ēz 35urégou, a second time without sin
unto Salvation” (Heb. ix. 20), this is indeed no objection
against thisintermediate adventso frequently and plainly men-
tioned in the New Testament; this being nota personal advent,
by a descent of Christ from heaven, but only a coming of our
Lord by the Roman army, and by signs from heaven, and in the
clouds of their approaching ruin. Wonderful here are the
words of Theophylact; for henot only saith, that some held
that John then lived, and was to do so till the coming of
antichrist, when he, with Elias, was to preach Christ, and to
be slain by antichrist, but adds this as the import of Christ's
words, “What if I will that he tarry till I come,” that he
should remain in Galilee till the destruction of Jerusalem;
as, Saith he, John did till the coming of Vespasian, and only
departed when Jerusalem was to be taken.
* Ver. 24. This is the disciple who testifies of these things,
and wrote these things, wal oièapwey &rt &Anóñ; #arly h (caerugia.
airoij, and we know that his testimony is true..] Here some
tell us that this chapter was writ by many, and therefore not
by St. John, and this they conclude from the word of agey,
“we know,” but without ground: for Dr. Lightfoothere ob-
serves, that “we know,” in the Chaldee dialect, is often used
of one. So Mary Magdalene saith of herself, “They have
taken the Lord out of the sepulchre, Kai oix of apºy, and we
412
JOHN.
Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every
one, I "suppose that even the world itself would not
contain the books which should be written (i. e. they
know not where they have laid him:” so St. Paul often, oft-
&apºsy yap, “Por we know that the law is spiritual, but I am
carnal,” 1 Thess. ii. 18, #982%a-ap.sv–#y2 &#y IIaixo", “We
would have come to you, I Paul:” so this apostle saith of
himself, hºws; (captugodºzey, “We testify,” Eph. iii. 12, and
that here it is only one that speaketh, is demonstrated from
the following word, cigal, “I suppose.” Nay, even thesewords
show that all the preceding words of this chapter were writ
by this disciple, and therefore were not written by the Asiatic
bishops: and therefore Theophylact here saith regi #4avroſ,
Aéyo &rt &A:0eijo.
* Ver. 25. Oiśā airy clºal rôy zárºoy Xopical r& yeapápasya
8.8×ia, I suppose the world itself would not contain the
books which should be written..] Here most interpreters say
the apostle's words contain a great hyperbole, with a ‘cata-
chresis, but Origen avoids them both, declaring that the
apostle saith, the world would not receive the books written,
would be so many that they would seem incredible to
the world to be done by one man). Amen.
not for the multitude of the books, but for the greatness of
the works recorded in them.” So the word is used by this
evangelist, introducing Christ saying to the Jews, “My word
ºxogeſ év tºy, “is not received by you:” so Eusebius saith,
that the men of former ages oix #y Trà xogely, “were not
able to receive Christ's doctrine” (lib. i. cap. 1, p. 8): so
Christ Saith, où Trávre; x&ge;v, “All men cannot receive this
saying” (Matt. xix. 11); and Philo saith, + “There are very
manythings in the world, & 33 wiyºgo, äyêgºrivo: Aoyaº, ot
Žogéſ, which for their greatness human reason cannot com-
prehend.” See many other examples of this sense of the
word in Stephanus, and in Grotius on Matt. xix. ll.
* Töyö6 º Xopsiv Tów affo'ºzov rá yeapéasya. 616Xia od 3-3 rà
TrañSoc rôy ypapºzárov, &; rive; Évêsztéoy, 3:AN& 3& ré ºftyeSo; Tây
qigayº &rov. Philoc. cap. 15, p. 46. s
+ De Mundo, p. 889.
A S E R M O N
ON JOHN VII. 47–49.
“Are ye also deceived? Have any of the rulers, or of the pharisees, believed on him ; But this people, who
knoweth not the law, is accursed.”
$.1. The miracles of our blessed Saviour, by which his
doctrine was confirmed, were so exceeding many, and ex-
ceeding great, that they prevailed on those plain-hearted
people who beheld them, to believe that he who wrought
them was indeed the Christ: for “many of the people be- |
lieved on him, saying, When Christ cometh, will he do more
miracles than these” (ver. 31). These apprehensions of the
vulgar did so alarm the chief priests and pharisees, who saw
their interest, authority, and credit with the people, must
decline as fast as that of Christ's prevailed, that they forth-
with dispatched their officers to take him, and bring him to
them (ver. 32). These officers, when they had heard the
gracious words which issued from the mouth of Christ,
were themselves taken by him : they, who were sent to bring
Christ to the priests and pharisees, were themselves brought
to Christ ; and so these converts neglect to do the office of
the high-priest's sergeants: and being asked the reason why
they had not brought Christ, they boldly answer, that they
had heard such gracious and heavenly words proceeding
from him, as never man before him spake ; and therefore
could not think it fit to apprehend so excellent a person as
he was. The pharisees, hearing this answer, do presently
conclude, their officers must be deceived in these kind
thoughts of Christ, and offer this, as they supposed, con-
vincing argument to prove it ; viz. that though the giddy
multitude, who had no knowledge of the law, and therefore no
capacity to understand the mind of God contained in it,
might be inclined to think that Jesus was indeed the Christ:
yet, since the rulers of the church, the Sanhedrin, seeing the
doctors and expounders of the law, the scribes and pharisees
believed not on him, but did unanimously reject him as a
vile impostor, they must be certainly deceived, who appre-
hended otherwise concerning him ; because they followed the
verdict of the ignorant and giddy multitude, in opposition to
the better judgments and the mature deliberations of their
church guides and learned clerks.
Now amongst all the arguments by which the emissaries
of the church of Rome endeavour to beguile unstable souls,
and beget in them a suspicion that they have been seduced
from the church, none is more plausible than this, which by
the pharisees is here laid down. I therefore shall endea-
WOur
i. To propound the argument, which is here urged by the
pharisees to prove our Jesus could not be the true Messiah,
:
in its full strength and vigour. And,
2. To show that what the papists do produce to prove
that protestants must be deceived, is exactly parallel to what
the pharisees did, or might, produce against our Saviour;
and the same a guments might with equal reason have been
urged by the ul.believing Jews against our Lord's disciples,
and those who laid the first foundations of, and became
early converts to, the Christian faith, as they are urged
by the papists against our departure from the church of
Rome.
§. 2. Now the argument contained in the text is this, viz.
You must be certainly deceived if you believe that Jesus is
the Christ; because you do, by entertaining this persuasion,
contradict the judgment of your church guides, which God
hath set over you. For they have frequently assembled for
the determination of this grand debate, “Whether this Je-
sus was the Messiah promised to the Jews, or not,” and they
have constantly determined that he was not the Christ; and
have unanimously concluded that he deserved to be punished
as a vile impostor, and that all who did confess that he was
the Christ should be excommunicated. In an assembly
..consisting of chief priests and pharisees, they positively de-
clare that Christ could be no prophet, because he was a Ga-
lilean (John vii. 41,42): this all, say they, who search the
scriptures, may plainly see (ver. 52). Moreover, they de-
termine in my text, that all, who so esteemed him, were
themselves deceived, and that they lay exposed to this delu-
sion for want of knowledge in the law (ver. 47–49). In
the ninth chapter of St. John, ver. 16, the pharisees again
declare, that “this man could not be of God, because he did
not keep the sabbath.” Moreover, these pharisees, and other
rulers of the church, avyeté6ewto, “determined and agreed
together, that whosoever did confess that Jesus was the Christ
should suffer excommunication” (John ix. 22. xii. 42). They
therefore thought themselves infallibly certain (if excommu-
nication be, as R. H.* informs us, an evidence of a claim
to be infallible), that Christ was not the true Messiah. Else-
where the scribes and pharisees do positively conclude that
Christ did only “cast out devils through Beelzebub” (Mark
iii. 22). After some days they again call a council, avyā-
3ptov avyāyayev, and there determined that it was fit that Christ
should die (John xi. 47.50. 53): this the high-priest declares,
and all the pharisees and the chief priests agree to execute
(Luke xxii. 66). A full assembly, consisting of the high-
* Disc.-ch. 4, §. 64, 65, 69, 70.
ON, JOHN vii. 47–49.
413
priest, and all the chief priests, presbyters, and scribes,
Christ being brought before their council, do with one voice
declare, that he was worthy to die as a blasphemer, and also
that “by their law he ought to die, because he made himself
the Son of God.” After his death, the chief priests and
the pharisees, with one consent, pronounce him a deceiver
(Matt. xxvii. 63). When the disciples began to witness that
he was risen from the dead, the high-priests, rulers, elders,
scribes, and all the kindred of the high-priest, assemble at
Jerusalem, and strictly do command them “not to speak at
all, nor teach, in the name of Jesus” (Acts iv. 6.18). Soon
after, the high-priest, the Sanhedrin, and all the elders of Is-
rael, being met in council, repeat the same command, and
chastise the apostles for their disobedience to it (Acts v. 40).
If therefore the decrees of many councils, consisting of the
guides of the whole Jewish church, may be esteemed suffi-
cient to decide a controversy, it must be certain that Jesus
Christ was not the true Messiah, promised to the Jews, but a
deceiver and blasphemer. Now as a Romanist,” having
produced five provincial and two general councils, falsely so
called, for that portentous doctrine of transubstantiation,
saith, “If the decrees of so many synods, so often weighing
the adversaries’ reasons and evidences were not sufficient for
Settling such a point, at least as to the obedience of future
silence, and noncontradiction, and as to suffering the church
to enjoy her peace, what can hereafter be sufficient P Or can
we ever hope that any controversy shall be finally determined
or ended by any future council, if this (of the Messiah) is
not by these forepast? Can there be any ground here to
question the integrity or lawful proceedings of so many coun-
cils, all concurring in the same judgment (for a corporal pre-
sence, Saith the Romanist, that Christ was a deceiver, saith
the Jew)? Or could there be a new light in this point attain-
able in those times (by the private person, or Christian con-
Vert), which those (guides of the Jewish church, who
condemned your Jesus) were not capable, or had no no-
tice of P”
2. They who so often and so unanimously condemn your
Saviour and his doctrine, saith the Jew, were the church
guides, by God appointed to “teach the children of Israel
all the statutes which the Lord had spoken to them by the
hand of Moses, to teach Jacob his judgments, and Israel
his law,” and by whose lips the knowledge of it was to be
preserved (Lev. x. 11. Deut. xxxiii. 10). They were the
men who are in scripture styled the “messengers (or the
ambassadors) of the Lord of hosts” (Mal. ii. 7); that is,
the men appointed by him to declare his message to the peo:
ple. They were the men ordained to “minister before the
Lord in every controversial matter,” men who were “set for
the judgment of the Lord, and for controversies" (Deut.
xvii. 8, 12. 2 Chron. xix. 8). “In controversy they shall
stand in judgment (saith the Lord), and by their word shall
every controversy be tried ” (Deut. xxi. 5. xvii. 12. Ezek.
xliv, 24). Wherefore, to act in opposition to the judgment
of these guides must be to act presumptuously, as God him-
self declares, to despise the verdict of God's messengers, and,
in a controversial matter of the highest moment, to reject
the sentence of those men who are by God ordained to de-
fine it, and by whose words, according to his ordinance, it
must be tried.
3. As for the common people, who in this matter did
oppose their private judgments to the decrees of their
church guides, not acquiescing in their conciliar determina-
tions, that your Jesus was not the true Messiah, they, saith
the Jew, must act against that rule, which both the law of
Moses and the prophets have prescribed ; for by that law
they are commanded, under pain of death, when any con-
troversy should arise among them, “to go to the priests and
Levites, and to the judge then living, to inquire the sentence
of judgment from his mouth, and to do according to the
sentence which they shall show them, and according to all
that they inform them, not declining from it to the right
hand, nor to the left” (Deut. xvii. 8–11). They by the
prophets are instructed to “ask the priests concerning the
law,” and to “seek the knowledge of it from their mouths”
(Hag. ii. 11. Mal. ii. 7). They therefore stood obliged to
assent to the determinations of the Sanhedrin, and the con-
* Rational Account, disc. i. ch. 6, §. 59, p. 58.
*
ciliar decrees of priests and Levites, scribes and pharisees,
confirmed by the high-priest, and so they were obliged to
believe that, according to the true intent and meaning of the
law, your Jesus could not be the true Messiah. And con-
sequently they must err, who, quitting the decisions of the
pharisees, and other rulers of the church, embrace that tenet
of the ignorant and giddy multitude.
§. 3. Thus the Jews pleaded from scripture against our
blessed Lord. And if you do compare these pleas, and
others of like nature, which might be offered from the scrip-
tures by the Jew, with what the Romanists do offer for the
infallibility of any of their councils, you will soon find that
all their pleas for this infallibility from the New Testament
are paralleled, or rather over-balanced, with places of like
nature in the Old, which do more strongly plead for the
infallibility of the high-priest and rulers of the Jewish
church. For,
1. Do the Romanists plead Christ's promise to be “for
ever with the church?” (Matt. xxviii. 20.)
Ans. The Jews had equal reason to expect God’s pre-
sence among them, because he promised “to dwell among
the children of Israel, to meet them at the tabernacle of the
congregation, and there speak with them ’’ (Exod. xxix. 42
—45), to “reign over them in Zion, from henceforth and
for ever" (Micah iv. 7). He “chose Zion for his habita-
tion,” and said of it, “This is my rest for ever, here will I
dwell” (Ps. cxxxii. 13, 14); and of Jerusalem, “that he
would put his name for ever in that place, and that his
eyes and his heart should be there for ever’ (2 Chron.
vii. 16).
2. Do they add that Christ had promised, that “where
two or three are gathered together in his name, he will be
in the midst of them 2" (Matt. xviii. 20.)
Ans. God also promised to the Jews, that he would “bless
them out of Zion” (Ps. cxxxiv. 3), and that “wheresoever
he did record his name, there would he come and bless his
people’’ (Exod. xx. 24.)
3. Do they allege the sayings of our Lord to his disciples;
viz. “He that heareth you, heareth me” (Luke x. 16); he
who neglects to hear the church shall be accounted as “a
heathen and a publican P” (Matt. xviii. 17.)
Ans. God also said, that “he who will not hearken to the
priest that stands to minister before the Lord, even that man
shall die for his presumption” (Deut. xvii. 12).
4. Do they say that Christ's apostles commanded Chris-
tians “to obey those that had the rule over them, and to fol-
low their faith?” (Heb. xiii. 7. 17.)
Ans. Our Jesus did command his hearers to “do all that
the scribes and pharisees did say unto them " (Matt. xxiii.
3), and that because of their authority derived from Moses ;
and God himself commanded all his people to do “accord-
ing to all that they should be informed of by the priests”
(Deut. xvii. 10). And,
5. Do they plead Christ's promise made to his apostles,
that “he would send the Spirit of truth to guide them into
all truth?” (John xiv. 26. xvi. 13.)
Ans. Whereas this promise doth personally belong to the
apostles, and not to their successors—for it is a promise “to
bring to their remembrance (by his Spirit) what he (before)
had said to them " (John xiv. 26), and to “show them things
to come * (John xvi. 13), to which Spirit of prophecy the
Roman doctors do not now pretend ; –I say, whereas this
promise did belong to the apostles only, God stood obliged
by covenant to cause his Holy Spirit to remain among the
rulers of the Jewish church : for thus he speaks, “Accord-
ing to the word that I covenanted with you, when ye
came out of Egypt, so my Spirit remains among you” (Hag.
ii. 5). Moreover, God promised to the Sanhedrin that “he
would put the spirit of Moses upon them” (Numb. xi. 17);
and in compliance with that promise he came down in a
cloud, and took the spirit, which was upon Moses, and gave
it to the seventy elders, so that “they prophesied, and did
not cease.” Or,
6. Do they argue for their infallibility, because the church
is styled by St. Paul, “the pillar and the ground of truth”
(1 Tim. iii. 15), by reason of that truth which is preserved
by her governors 2
Ans. God also hath declared, touching his priests, that
“the law of truth was in their mouth’ (Mal. ii. 6); and of
414
A SERMON
Jerusalem, that “she should be called the city of truth"
(Zech. viii. 3). And if the church of Judah hath since
failed, so also hath the church of Ephesus, of which alone
St. Paul affirmeth that it was the “pillar and the ground of
truth.”
7. Do they conclude that the church guides must be in-
fallible, because “God hath placed in the church, some
apostles, some prophets, some pastors, and some teachers,
for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry,
for the edifying of the body of Christ, that we henceforth be
no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with
every wind of doctrine" (Eph. iv. 11, 12).
Ans. Were not the Jewish priests placed also for this end,
for the work of their ministry, the perfecting of their saints,
the edifying of their flocks? Were not their lips to preserve
that knowledge, which should restrain the people from their
errors 2 Were not they appointed “to heal that which
was sick, and bring again that which was strayed P” (Ezek.
xxxiv. 4.) Or, *, *
Lastly, Do they triumph in that promise of our Lord,
that the “gates of hell should not prevail against the church?”
(Matt. xvi. 18.)
Ans. God also promised, that his “covenant rºade with
the Levites, priests, and ministers,” should be as certain and
perpetual as that of day and night (Jer. xxxiii. 20, 21).
So that I need not add, that by this phrase Christ only pro-
miseth, that pious Christians shall not for ever be detained
under the power of the grave; which I have elsewhere
shown to be the natural and only import of these words,
“the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church.”
Moreover, the plain meaning of the foregoing words, viz.
“Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my
church,” is, as Tertullian” well informs us, this: Thou who
hast, first of all my disciples, acknowledged me to be the
Christ, thou shalt first preach this doctrine to the world, and
by so doing lay the first foundation of a Christian church:
which he accordingly performed, first laying the foundation
of a church-i among the Jews by the conversion of three
thousand souls ; and after, laying the foundation of a church
among the gentiles, by the conversion of Cornelius and his
friends; Christ having, to fulfil his promise, “made choice
of him, among the rest of the apostles, that the gentiles by
his mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe.”f
Now to pretend to be Peter's successor in this matter, is in
effect to say, that the foundations of a Christian church are
not yet laid.
If therefore Roman Catholics conclude from these ambi-
guous and obscure places for the infallibility of councils, or
the major part of the church guides concurring with the
pope in any sentence or decree, although these places do not
speak one syllable of any pope, or major part of the church
guides, and much less of the Romish prelate, and less of
their infallible assistance, what ovations and triumphs
would they have made, had it been said expressly of their
cardinals and councils, as it is said of Jewish priests, that
they were set for judgment and for controversy % had God
fixed his glorious presence at Rome, as he did at Jerusalem,
and settled there a seat of judgment, and a continual court
of highest judicature, as was that Sanhedrin, which in Jeru-
salem was settled? had he dwelt in St. Peter's, as he dwelt
in the temple 2 had he left with them, as he did with the
Jewish priests, a standing oracle, a wrim and a thummim, to
consult with upon all occasions? so that this plea being
much stronger for the infallibility of the superiors of the
Jewish church, than for the infallibility of the whole western
church, or any of its councils, the Roman doctors must ac-
knowledge, either that they fallaciously urge it against pro-
testants, or must confess that it stands also good against the
Christian, and is a confirmation of all those traditions which
* Si, quia dixerit Petro Dominus, “Super hanc petram
aedificabo ecclesiam meam,” idcircó praesumis et ad te deri-
vâsse solvendi et ligandi potestatem, qualis es evertens et
commutans manifestam Domini intentionem personalitèr
(N. B.) hoc Petro conferentem, sic enim et exitus docet, in
ipso ecclesia exstructa est, id est, per ipsum.—Ipse primus
in Christi baptismo reseravit aditum coelestis regni. De Pudi-
citia, cap. 21, p. 574, B.
+ Acts iſ. 41. f Acts xv. 7.
were condemned by our Saviour, and a sufficient plea for all
those errors and corruptions, which, as the prophets do com-
plain, were generally taught and practised by the church
guides in the declining ages of the Jewish church: for” if
these arguments be good now, they were so then; and if
they were good then, for aught that I can see, the high
priest, and the major part of the church rulers of the Jews,
were always in the right ; and Christ, and his apostles, with
the holy prophets, must be in the wrong.
§. 4. Moreover, had we no evidence from scripture, may
the Jew say, in prosecution of this argument, reason seems
very strongly to conclude for this submission of the common
people, and some few priests, to the concurring judgments
of their church guides, and of the major part of the Jews, who
joined with them in condemnation of your Jesus as a blas-
phemer and false prophet, and of his followers as heretics
and schismatics, or men who worshipped God after that
way which by the Jews was called heresy (Acts xxiv. 14),
and were ringleaders of a sect (ibid. ver. 5). For, still to
argue after the manner of the Romish doctors,
1. Is it not reasonable to conceive, that they who were
God’s ministers appointed for this very thing to judge in
controversial matters and to make trial of such as did pre-
tend to prophecy, as was the Jewish Sanhedrin; I say, is it
not reasonable to conceive that the assistance of the Holy
Spirit should be vouchsafed to these rulers of the church
and doctors of the law, rather than to those common people,
who bore no such relation to God, had no commission from
him to direct others in the meaning of his word, but had so
many and such express injunctions to seek it at the mouth
of their church guides 2 Can we imagine that these phari-
sees and rulers should be the men ordained by God for con-
troversies, and by whose words they must be tried, and yet
should be such blind and stupid guides, as by your Jesus
they were said to be, that “he who was led by them must
fall into the ditch?” .
Moreover, were no assistance from above to be expected
in this case, it is not reasonable to think that these great
doctors of the law, those numerous priests, who made it
their whole business to study and search out the meaning of
the law of Moses, those members of the Sanhedrin, who
were still chosen out of the most learned persons, and the
most eminent for wisdom ; I say, may we not reasonably
conceive such persons to be fitter and more able judges of
the sense and meaning of that law, or of the truth of any
miracles pretended to be wrought by Christ or his apostles,
than was that rude and giddy multitude, which had no
knowledge of the law ºf “They therefore considering their
superiors’ study and learning in such things divine, and also
their own ignorance; they considering both the special ordi-
nation and commission of their superiors from God to teach
them in the necessary truth, and his charge laid upon them
to obey their ecclesiastical superiors, ought to depend upon
and adhere to their directions so much the more in any point
of faith, by how much it is esteemed more necessary, as
wherein there is a much greater hazard if they should err.”
3. All that your gospel doth suggest, or reason may pre-
tend, for the exemption of the first Jewish converts from
obedience to these decrees of their superiors in the Jewish
church, may, saith the Jew, be fully answered from the plain
principles, and almost in the words, of Roman Cathol?cs.
For, to proceed in the expressions of R. H., the guide in
controversies, with very little variation of them ;
§. 5. l. Will you affirm, that all the priests and rulers,
scribes and pharisees, and the whole Sanhedrin, acted against
their faith and conscience in these determinations by which
your Jesus was condemned as an impostor P -
Ans. R. H.; will tell you, “There is a moral certainty
that so many such persons cannot conspire in such a matter,
viz. a necessary to salvation, to falsify the truth against their
own belief and conscience to their subjects and posterity, with
an anathema to all dissenters,” or an excommunication of all
who preached and believed that Christ was the Messiah pro-
mised to the Jews, and was already risen from the dead, when
* Wid. Stillingfleet's Sermon upon Acts xxiv. 14, p. 39. ,
+ Vid. Ainsw. in Numb. xi. 16, 17.
: R. H., Discourse, ch. 13, p. 13.
§ Disc. i. ch. 3, §. 37, 38, p. 26.
ON JOHN vii. 47–49.
415
their own consciences could tell them that these things were
true * “If any can be so uncharitable as to credit of them
so great a wickedness, that the supreme councils of the
(Jewish) church should with design decree an error contrary
to their faith (or knowledge) in this necessary matter, and
then enjoin all their subjects to believe it under anathema,”
he must believe that “they most certainly do devote them-
selves to eternal perdition.” And therefore, “if not out of
charity or reverence to such sacred persons, yet from the
irrationality of such a defence, it is much better to pass over
this objection.” -
2. Will you say that these superiors were only to be ap-
pealed to in doubtful matters, and that this thing, “Whether
the scriptures declared your Jesus to be the true Messiah,”
was not doubtful P - &
Ans. R. H. informs you," that “a right judgment cannot
but account all those places doubtful, in the sense whereof
either the ancient or present major part of Christianity are
of a contrary judgment from himself.” That must be there-
fore doubtful, according to the ground and reason of this
rule, which you presume not to be doubtful, since it was that
in which the major part of the then present Jewish church
was of a contrary judgment from the Christian convert.
3. Will you plead, in favour of the vulgar, that they were
bound to hearken to these Jewish guides no longer than they
followed the rule of scriptures 2 e
Ans. Be it so ; but, saith R. H., f: “Who is appointed
judge of these supreme judges, when they transgress against
this rule P Their subjects P Who are from them to learn the
sense of the rule, where difficult and disputed, and who are
bidden to follow their faith? The right exercise of judgment
will not judge so.” For if the vulgar may pass this judg-
ment on the decrees of many councils, and the concurring
judgment of their superiors and church guides, I hope the
matter must be evident, even to the vulgar sort, that notwith-
standing the contrary judgment of chief priests and rulers,
scribes, pharisees, and elders, and almost all the Jewish na-
tion, that sense of scripture must be false, which their eccle-
siastical guides alleged to prove that Jesus was not the true
Messiah, and that, “according to their law, he was to die ;”
and that sense of the scripture must be true, which by the
apostles and their converts was alleged to prove that Jesus
was the Messiah promised to the Jews. Now, “how vainly,”
saith R. H., § “doth any one pretend or promise himself a
certainty of anything wherein (so many) councils, and a
much major part of the church, having all the same means
of certainty as he, judgeth contrary ; where it seems || the
scripture may be so doubtful, that the sense of the (then)
catholic church, or its (greatest) councils, they say, can be to
them no certain or infallible interpreter of it, where the
judgment or common reason of (these) councils thinks itself
so certain of the contrary, as to amathemize dissenters (or
cast them out of the church)? On what grounds here these
(private) persons, or (new erected) churches, could assure
themselves that their own sense of scripture was true, they
having left that of the churches, councils, and of a major part
of (Jews), who also judged their sense false, I understand
not : surely they will not say they have this certainty from
the scripture, because the true sense thereof is the thing so
mainly questioned, and the certainty or infallibility of the .
traditive sense of the (Jewish) church they renounced ; and
then, which only is left, their own judgment, or their own
common reason, when that of (their greatest) councils, or
major part of (their) church guides, differs from it, one would
think should be a more fallible ground to them than the
judgment or common reason of the church. For" (a man)
to presume himself-certain in a matter of faith, or in his own
sense of scripture (though the literal expression be never so
clear), where so many learned and his superiors (comparing
other texts, &c.), are of a contrary judgment; this,” saith
T. H., “is the same as if, in a matter of sense, a dim-sighted
person should profess himself certain that an object is white,
when a multitude of others, the most clear-sighted that can
be found, having all the same means of a right sensation as
he hath, pronounce it black, or of another colour.” More-
over, * if these scriptures or reasons be so clear, even to the
ignorant and unlearned Jews, must they not be as clear to
their church guides P And may not then their judgments
more securely be relied upon, at least for anything which is
presumed to be clear P “For if the scriptures + be main-
tained so clear in necessaries, that every one using a right
endeavour cannot mistake in them ; then shall the church
governors much rather, by reason of this clearness obvious to
every rustic, not err in them; and so shall the people, the
more the rule of faith is proved to be clear, the more securely
rely on, and be referred in them to their direction.”
4. If you pretend a more sincere endeavour in those few
converts, to find out the sense of scripture, or search out the
truth in these matters; which, in the case of the Bereans,
your scripture seemeth to assert:
Ans. I answer, still with the same author, f “That since
all parties do pretend sincere endeavour in the right under-
standing of the scriptures, and after it do differ so much in
their sense of it, it follows, that such sincere endeavours
being indifferently allowed to all parties, the sense of scrip-
ture (and the verdict of true reason) ought to be pronounced
clear, if on any, on that side as the major part doth appre-
hend it (which certainly was not the primitive converts, but
the unbelieving Jews and their ecclesiastical superiors).” For
surely $ we have reason to presume that the chief guides of
the church, in their consults concerning a point necessary to
salvation delivered in scripture (as that of the Messiah was),
use at least as much endeavour as a plain rustic doth to un-
derstand the meaning of it.” And, “whatsoever other thing
is supposed necessary besides sincere endeavour, or is under-
stood to be included in it (as freedom from passion and
secular interest, or also a freely professing the truths which
their sincere endeavour discovers to them), none can ration-
ally imagine, but that the supreme church governors should
be as much or more disengaged herein than private men :”
and, “that passion and interest blind private men or our-
selves sooner than general councils or a major part of the
church.”
See therefore here the wisdom of the unbelieving Jews,
“who to preserve themselves from erring in this matter,
made use of the securest way that reason could imagine,”
saith R. H., “ or that Christians are prescribed, whilst for
the sense of the scriptures that were controverted in this
point of the Messiah, they chose not to rely on their own
judgments, but on that of the supremest guides of the church,
and judges of divine truth, that were afforded them on earth;
and so if they erred, yet took the wisest course to have
missed erring, that religion or reason could dictate. To which
guides also the subjects of this former communion all believed
submission of their private judgments to be due, and to be
commanded; from whence also it follows, that till they are
convinced of error in this point, viz. that no submission was
due” to the decrees of all these councils, and the concurring
judgment of those spiritual guides by whom your Jesus was
condemned, “they are not capable of being convinced in any
other matter.” s
If, lastly, you affirm that the common people had convic-
tion and demonstration from the miracles of Christ of the
falsehood of the decrees, and the interpretations of their
church guides in this matter, and of the truth of that Chris;
tianity which they embraced in opposition to those said
decrees: Y-
Ans. This I confess is a great truth ; but then the Roman
doctors cannot plead it without rejecting most of their pro-
! fessed tenets and their strongest pleas for absolute submission
to the major part of their church guides. For, &
1. Admit our Saviour and his apostles wrought true mi-
racles, how did the vulgar perceive them so to be but by
their senses? and how did they infer from them the truth ºf
Christianity, but by their private reasons? Now”. “the exi-
dence of sense and reason must be both neglected,” saith the
* Disc. i. ch. 3, §. 37, 38, p. 25.
+ Disc. ch. 3, §. 44, p. 29.
§ Disc. ch. 3, §. 44, p. 143.
|| Rational Account, disc. iii. ch. 4, §. 42, p. 179.
T Ibid. disc. ii. ch. 2, §. 15, p. 95.
3: Ibid. p. 28.
* V. Rational Account, disc. ch.5, §: 42, p. 141.
+ Disc. ch. 3, §. 37, p. 24. f Disc. ch. 1, p. 4, 5.
§ Ibid. p. 24. - | Ibid. p. 145.
ºf Rational Account, disc. i. ch. 7, S. 77, p. 74.
* Disc. i. ch. 6, § 62, p. 63.
416
A SERMON .
Romanist, “when a divine revelation declares anything con-
trary to them ;” this, and this only, being their defence of
transubstantiation against the common sense and reason of
mankind.” Now, of the certainty of a divine revelation, or
the true sense of scripture, they make the judgment of the
major part of their church guides to be sufficient evidence,
and so there was sufficient evidence, according to this rule,
that all the miracles which Christ and his apostles seemed to
work, were done in opposition to divine revelation, or the
true sense of scripture. -
2. Certain it is that the rulers of the Jews, and the pre-
vailing part of the whole nation, differed from the converted
Christians in their apprehensions of these miracles, and
judged them all diabolical impostures, or trials of their faith,
&c. “Now this seems necessary to be granted,” saith R. H.”
“that in what kind of knowledge soever it be (whether of
our sense or reason, in whatever art’ or science), one can
never rightly assure himself, concerning his own knowledge;
that he is certain of anything for a truth, which all or most
others, of the same or better abilities for their cognoscitive
faculties, in all the same external means or grounds of the
knowledge thereof, do pronounce an error. So that where
all or most differ from me, it seems a strange pride not to
imagine this defect in myself, rather than them ; especially
when, as all the grounds of my science are commnnicated to
them, and when, as for my own mistakes, I cannot know
exactly the extent of supernatural delusions.” According
therefore to this rule, it was strange pride in the first con-
verts to Christianity among the Jews, to judge the miracles
of Christ or his apostles true, when most of their own nation,
as well as heathens, differed from them in that apprehension,
and spoke so freely everywhere against the sect of Chris-
tians.
3. The truth of the pretences of our Lord and his apostles
depended on two things, viz. the fulfilling of prophecies and
the truth of his miracles. ‘f “Now, according to the Roman
principles, no man could be certain of the truth of either of .
these without the authority of the then present church. For
the fulfilling of prophecies depended on the sense of many
obscure places of scripture, of which, say they, the major
part of the church guides must judge: and for miracles, they
tell us that there is no way of judging true from false, but
by the authority of the church. Now, if these things be so,
what ground could the first Jewish converts have to believe
Christ was the true Messiah, or a worker of true miracles,
when, in believing both these things, they must oppose the
authority of the then present church 2"
4. All that hath been discoursed in answer to the former
pleas, serves also against this: for who shall be judge
whether these miracles were true, and were sufficient to
confirm the Christian faith ? Those persons, whose office it
was to judge both of true prophets and true miracles, or those
who had no power or commission so to do? Were not the
Jewish Sanhedrin and other rulers of that church more able
judges of the truth and the validity of any miracles pre-
tended to be wrought by Christ and his apostles, than was
that multitude which, as experience teacheth, may be im-
posed upon with ease ? Were not those guides, who were
appointed to be judges in all other matters, the proper
judges of this controversy P Have we not reason to believe
their judgment was as free from interest and passion, and
their endeavours to search out the truth of these relations as
sincere, as was the judgment or endeavours of the laity ?
When therefore these church guides did, notwithstanding
those pretended miracles of Christ and his apostles, conclude
unanimously that Christ was a deceiver, was it not absurd to
say that what they so universally determined, might be dis-
cerned by any private judgment to be the clearest falsehood P
that vulgar persons had demonstration in this matter against
the judgment of the whole body of their guides, and that
their common reason was able to discern that to be mani-
festly true, which the same common reason of their superiors
judged to be manifestly false P
§. 6. Thus have we seen that scripture and reason do
more countenance the Jew pleading against our Lord and
the first Christian converts, than they do countenance the
* Rational Account, disc. iv. conf. 2, p. 384.
+ Stillingfleet, ibid. p. 42.
papist pleading against Trotestants. In the lagt place the
Jew may argue from tradition thus, viz.
These spiritual guides, in making this determination, and
passing of this judgment concerning Jesus, were guided by
that rule, which, by the greatest part of Christians, I mean
the Roman catholics, is highly magnified and equalled with
the holy scriptures, viz. tradition, acknowledged by the
present church for such. * And so your Jesus must also
upon this account be deemed an impostor, or the pretences
and pleadings of the Romanist against the protestant, from
the tradition of the church, must be acknowledged to be in
vain. For, - !.
1. It is most certain that the Jews had a tradition gene-
rally received amongst them, that their Messiah at his com-
ing should “restore the kingdom to Israel: ” that he should
subdue the nations under them, and should erect a temporal
dominion in the Jewish nation over all their enemies. Even
the disciples of our Lord did constantly believe this article,
till by the Holy Ghost's descent upon them, they were bet-
ter informed. Witness their contest, “who should be great-
est in that kingdom " (Matt. xviii. 1), and the desire of the
sons of Zebedee, “to sit one at his right hand, another at his
left hand in it” (Matt. xx. 21). This was our faith, Saith
Cleophas, “we trusted that this Jesus should have redeemed
our Israel” (Luke xxiv. 21): and when they were assem-
bled, after his resurrection, their first inquiry is this: “Lord,
wilt thou now restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts i. 6.)
It is therefore certain, that this was the received tradition of
the whole Jewish church, grounded, as they supposed, upon
the scriptures, which did necessitate them to expect a glo-
rious Messiah,” “not such a one,” saith Trypho, “as your
mean and despised Jesus was.”
2. It was also a tradition which generally obtained amongst
the Jews, that their Elias, who was called the Tishbite,
was to appear again in person before the advent of the true
Messiah : so was that place of Malachi translated by the
LXX. three hundred and eighty years before our Saviour's
coming; “Behold, I send unto you Elias roy Georgivny before
the great and terrible day of the Lord come * (Mal. iv. 5).
“All we expect,” saith Trypho, “that Christ should be
anointed by Elias, who is for to come; t and because this
Elias is not come, we think your Jesus cannot be the Christ.”
Accordingly the scribes, or the expounders of the law, did
with one voice declare it necessary “that Elias should first
come.” $ *
3. It was the general tradition of the Jews, that the law
of Moses should be perpetually obliging to them ; and that
it was to be observed even in the days of the Messiah. On
this presumption certainly it was, that Christ's disciples, after
his resurrection, were strict observers of the law of Moses for
a considerable time; and so were also many thousands of
the Jewish converts. St Peter was so mice in observation of
the Jewish customs, that till he was informed better by a
vision, he thought such meat was utterly unlawful as was
forbidden by the law ; so that when in that vision he was
bid “to slay and eat,” he presently cries out, as a man
tempted to an unlawful act, “Not so, Lord, for I have never
eaten anything that is unclean * (Acts x. 12). St. James
gives an account to Paul of the great zeal that all the Jewish
converts had to the law of Moses in these words, “Thou
seest, brother, how many thousands of the Jews there are
which believe, and they are all zealous of the law " (Acts
xxi. 20). He farther tells him how highly they were all of
fended with him, because they were informed he had taught
that they were not obliged to yield obedience to the consti-
tutions and customs of the Jewish law ; and, lastly, doth ex-
hort-him to do what might be proper to cause these zealots
to believe that “he also walked orderly and kept the law'”
(ver. 21. 24). St. Jerome || and Sulpicius'ſ inform us, that
fourteen immediate succeeding bishops, with their flocks,
* Synod. Trid. Sess. 4.
+ Attai hºzá; at yeapai Évêoftov, Kai ºftyav čvakºvety dvaykášov-
arty. Dial. p. 249, B.
# 'Ex 3è roi; ºn?? 'HXiay Éxn}\96eval oë roºrov & aroqawówevoy
Elyat. Dial. p. 268, A.
§ “ort 'HAíay 88ſ #ASsſy rºrov, Mark ix. 11.
| Chron. 2. ° Lib. ii. cap. 45.
ON JOHN
vii. 47–49. 417
were all observers of the law of Moses. And by the unbe-
lieving Jews nothing was more abhorred than the thoughts
of changing their Mosaic customs: for upon this account St.
Stephen was accused of blasphemy against Moses and the
law, because he said, “that the Messiah should change the cus-
toms which Moses had delivered to them ’’ (Acts vi. 11. 14).
This accusation before the scribes, the elders, and high-priest,
was deemed sufficient to prove him guilty of that capital
offence of blasphemy. On this account they bring St. Paul
before the judgment-seat of Gallio; because, say they, he
did persuade men to worship God ºraçã tºy Vágoy, “against or
otherwise than was commanded by the law of Moses” (Acts
xviii. 13). And this opinion they grounded chiefly upon
those places which seem to speak of the perpetual duration
of those statutes, and say they shall be “ordinances to them
for ever’’ (Exod, xii. 17. Lev. xxiii. 21. Deut. xxix. 29);
and consequently seem to infer a declaration from the mouth
of God, that they should not be altered.
Moreover, it is certain, that as the protestants condemn
as sinful and pernicious many traditions and customs of the
Romish church ; so did that Jesus, whom Christians honour
as the true Messiah, as frequently inveigh against and so-
lemnly condemn many traditions, which then were generally
received and practised in the Jewish church, as vain and sin-
ful customs, and such as tended to make void the scriptures,
and render the whole Jewish worship vain. He therefore
seemeth to have been as great an enemy to ecclesiastical
traditions, though they were generally owned by the then
present church as such, as protestants can be esteemed.
Lastly, Certain it is that the superiors and church rulers,
or at least the major and prevailing part of the church rulers,
did then as firmly and unquestionably believe that those
traditions, which were condemned by our Jesus, and which
so evidently proved, if true, he was not the Messiah pro-
mised to the Jews, were both agreeable to the word of God,
expounded by their church tradition, and were delivered to
them by Moses, and the patriarchs, and prophets, and were
continually practised by their forefathers, as doth the Roman
church believe that her traditions were taught and practised
by Christ or his apostles, and by their successors throughout
all ages of the church. Hence are they often styled by
them, “the traditions of the ancients, * or the traditions re-
ceived by succession from their fathers: ” and in their later
writers they are always held to be derived from God by
Moses, together with the written law, and as an explication
of it. Hence, like good Roman catholics, they were more
“exceedingly zealous for the traditions of their fathers,” than
|
for the law itself. They + accuse all who walked not ac-
cording to these customs of their fathers, as persons who
forsook the law of Moses; and to do anything against these
customs of their fathers was reputed criminal. This being
80,
I ask, why the tradition of the major part of the church
catholic, or Christians in any age whatsoever, and their con-
curring judgment, that what she doth at present teach and
practise, she received from Christ and his apostles, should
be esteemed sufficient to render all those persons guilty of
neresy and schism, who do not yield assent to what they
teach, or a compliance with their practices, as Roman ca-
tholics assert; and yet that the general tradition of the then
present Jewish church, even including the disciples of
Christ, should not conclude them schismatics and heretics,
who, being members of that church, would not assent unto
what they so generally taught, or comply with that which
they practised, as delivered to them by Moses, and the pa-
triarchs, and prophets?
Ş. 7. But to apply these things, if it be possible, yet more
particularly unto the pleadings of the Romish church, and
to show the weakness and the permicious results of their
most specious pretences, I add,
1. That notwithstanding it was the duty of the priests and
rulers of the Jewish church, both to preserve and teach untos
the people the knowledge of the law, yet did the major part
of these church guides both oft and dangerously swerve from
* IIagá80s tº táv Tr;eaſºvrégoy, Matt. xv. 2. At ºrarpinal
Tragašča sig, Gal i. 14.
t’Arooracia, 8th&ornet; 373 Moja šog, Ašvoy ºz; roſ, Sean reel-
ratsiy, Acts xxi. 21. xxviii. 17.
this their duty: for they did teach and practise, and direct
the people into those ways, which were destructive to the
eternal welfare of their souls. God by his prophets doth
complain, without exception, of them, that “they erred in
vision, and stumbled in judgment ; ” that “the teachers of .
his people made lies their refuge, and under falsehood hid
themselves, saying, The overflowing scourge shall not come
to us.” (Isa. xxviii. 7. 15); that their “interpreters had
transgressed against him, that his watchmen were blind, they
were all ignorant, all dumb dogs that could not bark, sleep-
ing, lying down, loving to slumber ; that they were greedy
dogs, that could not have enough" (Isa. xliii. 27. lvi. 10,
11); “shepherds that could not understand; that the priests
said not, Where is the Lord? and they that handled the law
knew him not ; that the pastors also transgressed against
him, and the prophets prophesied by Baal; and walked af.
ter the things that did not profit " (Jer. ii. 8): that “his
prophets prophesied falsely, and the priests bare rule by
their means” (Jer. v. 31): that “from the prophet to the
priest every one dealt falsely" (Jer. vi. 13, 14): that “they
healed also the hurts of the daughter of his people slightly,
saying, Peace, peace, when there was no peace” (Jer. viii.
9): that “his wise men had rejected the word of the Lord”
(Jer. xxiii. 1, 2); and that “the pastors, whose business it
was to feed his sheep, destroyed, and scattered, and drove
them away, and did not visit them " (ver. 11): that “both
priests and prophets were profane" (Ezek. xxii. 26): that
“they had violated his law, and had profaned his holy things,
putting no difference betwixt the holy and profane, the
clean and the unclean, and hid their eyes from the sabbaths”
(Ezek. xxxiv. l. 6); that “the shepherds of Israel fed
themselves, but did not feed the flock, the diseased did they
not strengthen, neither did they heal that which was sick,
nor bring again that which was driven away, nor seek that
which was lost, but with force and cruelty they ruled ; so
that the sheep were scattered because there was no shep-
herd * (Hos. iv. 6): that “they rejected knowledge, so
that God’s people were destroyed for lack of it’” (Zeph. iii.
4): that “her prophets were light and treacherous persons,
her priests had polluted the sanctuary, they had done vio-
lence to the law: that they had forgotten the law of their
God, they departed out of the way, they caused many to
stumble at the law, they corrupted the covenant of Levi"
(Mal. ii. 8).
Moreover, of these guides it is expressly said, that “they
which led the people, caused them to err’‘ (Isa. iii. 12),
“ and destroyed the way of their paths” (ix. 16): that “the
leaders of the people caused them to err, and they that were
led of them were destroyed, and that their shepherds caused
them to go astray” (Jer. l. 6). Our Lord declares that
“they were fools, blind guides, full of hypocrisy and of ini-
quity ; that they had taken away the key of knowledge, and
had shut up the kingdom of heaven against men, not going
in themselves, nor suffering them that were entering to go
in " (Matt. xxiii. 13. Luke xi. 52): that they made many
false decisions in matters of so great importance, as to
“make void the law of God, and render his whole worship
vain?’ (Matt. xv. 6. 9): that “they transgressed the com-
mandment of God by their traditions;” that notwithstand-
ing their instructions, the “people were as sheep without a
shepherd” (Matt. ix. 26), or only had “such guides as
would most certainly,” if they submitted to their guidance,
“lead them to the pit” (Matt. xv. 14). Hence therefore I
infer, -
1. That even those spiritual guides, who are by God's ap-
pointment constituted to instruct his people, and to feed his
flock (for such our Lord acknowledged the scribes and pha-
risees and rulers of the Jewish church to be), may scatter
and destroy that flock: and they, who are set for the judg-
ment of the Lord, and for controversies, may violate, cor-
rupt, pervert that law they should interpret ; they may be
partial in it ; they may depart out of the way ; they may
make the commandments of God of none effect, and his
whole worship vain by their traditions; they may cause
their sheep to err, stumble, and go astray, and that so dan-
gerously, that they who are led by them shall be destroyed
with them, and find no entrance into bliss. And hence, I
hope, I may assume the boldness to conclude against the
infallibility of our spiritual governors, or the concurring
2 E
4.4
418
A SERMON
judgments of the major part of them ; which is sufficient to
root up even the foundations of the Romish Babel.
2. Hence I infer, that notwithstanding 'all the foremen-
tioned scriptures, which say it was the duty of the people
... to ask of their spiritual guides the meaning of the law, and
seek the knowledge of it at their mouths, and to inquire
after their judgments in all those controversies they were not
able to resolve ; I say, hence I infer, that notwithstanding
this, the people were not absolutely obliged to rest in the de-
cision of the major part of these church guides, or bound to
practise all that they approved; for then an obligation must
be laid upon them, not only to err in judgment with them, to
countenance false prophets, and to speak peace to themselves
when there is no peace; but also to violate the law, and to
comply with their false glosses and corrupt interpretations
of it; nay, which is more unreasonable, they must be then
obliged to be destroyed, to fall into the pit, and to exclude
themselves from the enjoyment of Christ's kingdom: whereas
it is a contradiction to say that God obligeth any person to
transgress his law; and it is little less than blasphemy to say,
he doth require them to destroy themselves, to fall into the
pit, or to deprive themselves of the enjoyment of his king-
dom. Hence therefore I infer this corollary:
That neither are all Christian people, churches, or nations,
absolutely bound to rest in the decisions of the major part of
Christian bishops, nor to practise all that they approve and
impose: which proposition overthrows that absolute and blind
obedience to their church guides or councils, which Roman-
ists so stiffly plead for. t
3. Hence it is also evident, that private persons, or that
the minor part of the whole church, may have sufficient ground,
either from reason or clear scripture, for their refusal of assent
and of submission to the authority and definitions of the major
part of their church guides; for the Jews were bound to be-
lieve Christ to be the true Messiah, although the high-priest
and the elders had pronounced him a deceiver and a male-
factor: they were obliged to believe his miracles were wrought,
not by Beelzebub, but the Spirit of God; that Christ's king-
dom was not of this world; that John Baptist was that Elias
which was for to come; and that to eat with hands unwashed,
to heal the sick, to pluck some ears of corn on the Sabbath
day, were not unlawful actions, although the major part of
their church guides taught and believed the contrary (Matt.
xv. 5). They were obliged not to avoid that law of nature,
which required children to relieve their own distressed pa-
rents; and therefore stood obliged not to comply with those
traditions of the scribes and pharisees, which made the word
of God of none effect, and would not suffer them to yield
obedience to it. And seeing they had “many traditions and
decrees of the like nature,” which obtained amongst them,
and only were rejected by the Sadducees and disciples of our
Lord ; in none of these could they comply with their church
guides without the violation of that law of God, which sure
they had sufficient ground and reason to observe. In a word:
in all those cases, in which they were not bound to rest in the
decision of the major part of the church guides, or practise
what they did approve, that is, in all the cases mentioned in
the former head, they must have had sufficient ground, either
from scripture or from reason, for their refusal of submission
to them. Now these three inferences do fully justify the re-
formation of the church of England.
Š. 8.4. From what hath been discoursed, we may see the
weakness of those pleas the Roman doctors make in their own
defence, and of the arguments they use to show, that it is im-
possible they should be guilty of those corruptions in doctrine,
or in manners, which we charge them with. For their most
specious pretences are to this effect; that we confess the
church of Rome was once both true and orthodox : show then,
say they, how we did cease to be so, whether by schism or
heresy: with schism you cannot justly charge us; “for that
never can be of a much major and more dignified part, in
respect of a less and inferior, subject to it; because this main
body in any division is rightly taken for the whole, from which
a separation is schism, and to which every member ought to
adhere, as to the body and head here upon earth to which it
belongs:” we therefore being the much major and more dig-
* IIapóaota rotaira troXA&. Mark vii. 8.
ºf R. H. Rational Account, disc. iii. ch. 5, §. 63, p. 203.
nified part of the church, cannot be schismatics in reference
to protestants, who are, and were at their departure, a less
and an inferior body to us. If heresy be the crime charged
upon us, by what church were we condemned 2 What body
of men before you found fault with those corruptions which
you pretend to reform 2 for sure, it was not possible for so
many errors and corruptions to come into the church, and no
one take notice of them 2 Could this be so, where was the
watchful eye of Providence over the church P But, if we
could suppose this Providence was unconcerned for the pre-
servation of the church, could all the pastors fall asleep at
once P Or, could they all conspire together to deceive their
posterity ? Moreover, since God will always have a visible
church, what can you mention besides that which holds com-
munion with the church of Rome, as the then present visible
church of Christ, when you began your reformation (except
perhaps some eastern churches, which you dislike almost as
much as that of Rome) P And if that church could teach
such errors as you charge her with, as matters of the Christian
faith, what assurance can you have she hath not erred in de-
fining the canon of scriptures, and delivering some book or
books for the word of God, which are not so F This is the
sum of all the pleadings of the Roman party in their own
behalf: and they are only such as the Jewish doctors might
have pleaded with as much plausibility against our Lord's
disciples, and that first Christian church which they planted
in that nation. For,
1. Where, they may say, will” you produce the men of
former ages, who taxed the Jewish church with such errors
and corruptions as your Jesus did, and bid men “beware of
the leaven of the scribes and pharisees,” that is, the most
holy and learned members of our church P Do not the Chris-
tians themselves acknowledge, that we were once a “right
vine,” and the “beloved of the Lord?” How or when, there-
fore, did we cease to be so 2 If by schism, produce that
major part or body of the Jewish church from which we sepa-
rated, when first your Jesus, like another Luther, appeared
among us? Or, if by heresy we ceased to be so, by what
church, what councils, were we condemned 2 Who can be-
lieve that God would ever suffer such dangerous doctrines to
prevail in his own church, and raise up no church guides, no
prophets, to discover things so destructive to her very being,
till these new teachers and reformers first arose 2 Where,
then, had God a true church in the world, if not among the
people of the Jews P What other church could Christ or his
apostles mention, besides that which he so often taxed with
voiding the commandments of God, and rendering his wor-
ship vain, because of some traditions which they had received
from their forefathers ? If then God suffered this church to
be all overrun with such a fatal leprosy, and gave no clear
discovery thereof, where was the watchful eye of Providence?
Where was that God, who promised that he would “put his
name for ever in Jerusalem, and that his eyes and heart
should be perpetually there?” But suppose that Providence
was unconcerned, did all our pastors fall asleep at once? Or,
could they all conspire to deceive posterity P Were not the
oracles of God committed to us Jews? Did not your Chris-
tians receive them from us 2 If then our church might teach
her children such destructive errors as you charge her with,
how can you be assured that she hath not erred even in that
canon of scriptures which from her you have received P
Now though this instance, which I have largely prosecuted,
may be sufficient to show the vanity of the most plausible
pretences of R.H. against the protestants, both in his Rational
Account and his Discourse, it might be farther manifested,
that they as strongly plead for the heathen world against the
Jews; for the Mahometan against the Christian ; for the
priests of Baal against Elias and those seven thousand who
had not bowed the knee to Baal ; for the prevailing Arian
against the orthodox ; for the fornicator, the simoniac, the
covetous, and the debauched person, in all those ages, in
which these were the epidemical and almost general diseases
of the clergy, that is, from the tenth to the sixteenth century;
and, lastly, for antichrist himself, when he, according to the
predictions of the scripture, and the confession of many Roman
catholics, shall drive the church, that is, the orthodox profess-
* Wid. Stillingfleet's Sermon on Acts xxiv. 14.
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ACTS OF THE APOSTLEs.
419
ors of the faith, into the wilderness, and slay the witnesses of doth more strongly prove our blessed Jesus a deceiver, which
Christ, and of his doctrine. But,
To conclude, If this be truly the result of the most specious
pretences of the Roman party to draw our souls into their
deadly snares, if all their fairest pleas do make for Judaism
more naturally than they do for popery; if what they urge,
to prove the protestant divines to be deceivers of the people, .
is the highest blasphemy; I hope that nº true lover of this
Jesus will be much tempted by such pleds to entertain a good
opinion of the Romish faith: it being certainly that faith
which cannot be established but on the #. of Christianity,
nor embraced by any protestant, but with the greatest hazard,
if not the ruin of his soul. *
A CTS OF THE A POSTLES,
WITH AN NOTATIONS.
PREF A C E.
THE history of the acts of the apostles, if it relateth mat-
ters truly, is an invincible demonstration of the truth of
Christian faith. For,
First, It confirms the truth of Christ's great promise, John
xiv. 12, “He that believeth in me shall do greater works
than I have done; because I go to my Father” (see the note
there).
It ºrm his promise made to his disciples, that the
Spirit of his Father should speak in them, and “give them
a mouth and wisdom which all their adversaries should not
be able to gainsay” (Matt. x. 20. Luke xxi. 15. Acts vi. 10);
that they who believed in him after that he was glorified,
should “receive the Holy Ghost” (John vii. 39); and the
saying of his forerunner, that “he who was to come after
him, should baptize them with the Holy Ghost and with fire”
(Matt. iii. 11. Acts ii. 3); and of Christ's declaration, that
“when this Spirit was come he should convince the world of
sin, because they believed not in him " (John xvi. 9. Acts ii.
37), “and of righteousness, because he went to the Father ”
(ver. 33).
It confirms the truth of this prediction, that “after he was
lifted up, he would draw all men after him” (John xii. 31);
when he was “sown '' in the earth, he should “bring forth
much fruit” (ver. 14); and of his comparison of the kingdom
of God to “a grain of mustard seed" (Mark iv. 30), for its
wonderful increase (Acts ii. 41. iv. 4. v. 14): “so mightily
grew the word of God and prevailed” (Acts xix. 20).
It confirms all that Christ had said concerning the king-
dom of “Satan falling down like lightning” (Luke x. 17),
the “casting out and judging the prince of this world” (John
xii. 31. xvi. 11), and the conquest his disciples should have
“over all the power of the enemy” (Luke x. 18), by showing
the efficacy the gospel had to turn men “from the power of
Satan unto God.” .
To make these things more evident, I shall reflect more
largely upon two particulars which are the frequent subjects
of this history, viz. the gifts of the Holy Ghost conferred
upon the apostles and others, partly by the laying on of the
apostles' hands upon them, and partly at the preaching of
the apostles to them : and, (2) the miracles which the
apostles and other preachers of the gospel wrought for con-
firmation of their doctrine. And, º
First, Of these miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost, these
Acts of the Apostles have left upon record these signal in-
StanceS.
(1.) That on the day of Pentecost, the apostles and dis-
ciples of Christ Jesus being met together, “cloven tongues
like to fire fell upon them, and they were all filled with the
Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the
Spirit gave them utterance;” adding, that when this miracle
was wrought upon them, there were “devout men of every
nation,” who “heard them speak in their own tongues the
wondrous works of God;’ and upon this account did with
amazement ask, “Are not all these which speak Galileans ?
And how hear we every man in our own tongues wherein we
were born ?” and that St. Peter, one of Christ's disciples,
! did then and there declare, that the same Jesus, whom the
Jews had crucified, was by God raised up, and exalted to
his own right hand, and “having received of the Father the
promise of the Holy Ghost, had shed forth this which they
now saw and heard ;" and that he with these sayings in-
stantly converted three thousand souls; and that “God
* added to the church such as should be saved” (Acts
Bl.).
(2.) That when St. Philip had converted many people of
Samaria to the Christian faith, and had baptized them, St.
Peter and St. John laid their hands on them, “and they
received the Holy Ghost:” and that Simon Magus, seeing
this, offered them money to have this power imparted to
him, that “on whomsoever he should lay his hands, they
might receive the Holy Ghost” (Act. viii.).
(3.) That whilst St. Peter was preaching to Cornelius, his
kinsmen, and near friends, “the Holy Ghost fell on all
those that heard the word, and they spake with tongues, and
magnified God,” in the presence of the Jews (Acts x. 44,
45). -
(4.) That St. Paul finding twelve disciples of John the
Baptist who had not yet received the Holy Ghost, he bap-
tizeth them in the name of the Lord Jesus; and “when he
had laid his hands upon them, they received the Holy Ghost,
and prophesied” (Acts xix. 6).
Now all these things were done, saith this record, in popu-
lous and famous cities ; viz. .
The first in Jerusalem at the great feast of Pentecost,
immediately ensuing Christ's ascension, and therefore at a
time when all Jerusalem was met to celebrate that feast, and
when the fame of the Messiah, expected suddenly to appear
(Luke xix. 11), had brought great multitudes of Jews and
proselytes out of all nations to attend the issue of that ex-
pectation ; and so the matter of fact, if true, must be well
known by all Judea so to be : nor could it possibly be false,
but all then present and alive, when first this fact was pub-
lished to the world, would be so many living witnesses of the
falsehood of it. •
The second populous city whose converts received this
effusion of the Holy Ghost, was the metropolis of Samaria,
according to our Lord’s prediction, “You shall be my wit-
nesses in Samaria” (Acts. i. 8). The time when this was
done is noted by three characters ; viz. that it was done soon
after the death of Stephen (Acts viii. 2), and before the
conversion of St. Paul (ver. 1), and when Simon the cele-
brated magician was there, and had so gained upon the
people of that city, that they all “gave heed to him,” and
owned him as “the great power of God” (ver. 9, 10).
The third happened in the city of Caesarea (the seat of
the Roman governor of Judea, inhabited by Jews, Samari-
tans, and gentiles, and well stocked with Roman soldiers),
upon the person and kindred of Cornelius, a centurion of
the Roman band, one “well reported, of" by the whole ma-
tion of the Jews ; and so, not only Caesarea, but all Judea,
and Rome also, must be acquainted with the conversion of a
man so eminent for his post, so well approved by the whole
Jewish nation for his piety. The character of the time when
this was done we learn from these circumstances, that before
2 E 2
iºd

420
ACTS OF THE APOSTLEs.
the word was preached to the Jews only; and that this was
the first instance of their preaching to convert a gentile to
the faith of Christ (Acts xi. 19).
The fourth was done in Ephesus, the metropolis of the
proconsular Asia, about twelve years after the former, in a
city where dwelt many Jews, who were teachers of the law
in opposition to the gospel, and who had there a synagogue:
and after this, “all Asia, both Jews and Greeks, heard the
word of Christ” (Acts xix. 10. 17).
Secondly, Of the miracles performed by the apostles and
other persons assisted by the Holy Ghost, this history saith
in the general, that “with great power gave the apostles
witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus” (Acts iv. 33),
and that in confirmation of it “many signs and wonders
were done by the apostles' hands.” In particular it informs
uS,
(I.) That at Jerusalem Peter and John cured by the
name of Jesus a man forty years old, who had been so lame
from his mother's womb, that he was carried from one place
to another ; that this was done to the astonishment of the
people, who knew he had been so long impotent in his feet,
but now saw him “leaping and walking, and praising God:”
and that these two apostles being brought before the whole
Sanhedrin on this account, and asked “by what power or
by what name” they had done this cure, they openly declare
to them that they had done it “by faith in the name of that
Jesus of Nazareth” whom these men had crucified; and that
the council, “seeing the man that was healed standing by
them,” were forced to confess, “that it was manifest to all
them that dwelt at Jerusalem, that a notable miracle had
undeniably been done by them” (iii. 2, 11. iv. 6. 16).
(2.) That when the chief priests and sadducees had put
them by night into prison for preaching in the name of Jesus,
though the prison was “found shut with all safety, and the
keepers standing without before the doors,” yet were the
apostles on the morrow found standing in the temple, and
teaching the people; the angel of the Lord having opened
the prison doors and brought them forth, and commanded
them thus to preach (v. 18–25); and that this so affected
them, that they not only doubted what this might come to
(ver. 24), but were prevailed upon by the great and cele-
brated Gamaliel to “let these men alone, lest haply they
should be found to fight against God” (ver. 39).
(3.) That Stephen being “full of faith and power, did
great wonders and miracles among the people” (vi. 8).
(4.) That these miracles were so certainly and so effectu-
ally performed, that thereupon the people “brought forth
the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches,
that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might over-
shadow some of them ;” and that “a multitude came out
of the cities round about them to Jerusalem, bringing sick
folks, and them that were vexed with unclean spirits, and
they were healed every one” (v. 15, 16); and als... that by
their miracles and preaching, they converted to the Christian
faith at one time three thousand (ii. 41), at another time
five thousand persons (iv. 4), that men were “daily added
to the church” (ii. 47), that “believers were the more added
to the Lord, even multitudes of men and women” (v. 14),
that “the word of the Lord increased, and the multitude of
the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly, and a great
company of the priests were obedient to the faith” (vi. 7).
(5.) That upon St. Philip's preaching Christ at Samaria,
the people “with one accord gave heed to the things which
he spake, beholding the miracles which he did; for unclean
spirits crying with a loud voice came out of many that were
possessed with them, and many taken with palsies, and that
were lame, were healed :” and that these things prevailed
there, not only with many men and women to receive Chris-
tian baptism, but also forced Simon Magus, a famous sor-
cerer, to believe ; and, being baptized, to “continue with
Philip, wondering at the signs and miracles done by him”
(viii. 6, 7. 13).
(6.) That whilst St. Paul, a zealous pharisee, and a more
zealous persecutor, “breathed out threatenings and slaugh-
ter” against the disciples of the Lord, and had received com-
mission from the high-priests and elders “to bring them
bound unto Jerusalem to be punished ;” as he came nigh to
Damascus, “a light from heaven above the brightness of the
sun shone round about him,” and struck him blind; and
the Lord Jesus, by a voice from heaven, said unto him,
“Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me P” and that one Ana-
nias being sent by the same Jesus to lay his hands upon
him, he presently receives his sight, is “filled with the Holy
Ghost,” and preacheth Christ in the Jewish synagogues
erected in that famous city (Acts ix.): and to this miracu-
lous conversion he twice appeals (ch. xxii. xxvi.), in vindi-
cation of himself, declaring that partly the high-priests and
elders, partly those persons that were with him then, partly
one Ananias, “a devout man according to the law, and a
man of good report among all the Jews,” could bear witness
to them (xxii. 5. 9. 12), and that “none of these things
were hid” from king Agrippa's knowledge, “they being not
done in a corner;” and by this narrative he almost per-
suaded that king to “become a Christian,” xxvi. 26. 28 (see
note on xxii. 6).
(7.) That when St. Peter, being at Lydda, a city of Pa-
lestine, said to one AEneas there, who had “kept his bed
eight years, and was sick of a palsy, AEneas, Jesus Christ
maketh thee whole: arise, and make thy bed ;” he immedi-
ately did so; and that thereupon “all that dwelt at Lydda,”
seeing this, “were turned to the Lord” (ix. 32. 35).
(8.) That the same Peter at Joppa, a city of Phoenicia,
lying upon the Mediterranean, raiseth one Tabitha from the
dead; and that this being “known throughout all Joppa,
many believed in the Lord” (ibid. ver. 39.42). And here
let, it be noted, that at Jabneh, near Joppa, sat the great
Sanhedrin; and at Lydda were famous Schools and eminent
persons of the Jewish nation and religion.
(9.) That at Cyprus St. Paul converted Sergius Paulus,
the deputy of the island, by striking Elymas, a Jewish sor-
cerer there, blind with a word, because he sought “to turn
the deputy,” or the proconsul, “from the faith” (xiii. 7.
12).
to) That at Iconium, a city of Lycaonia, where also
was a synagogue of the Jews, Paul and Barnabas so preach-
ed, that “a great multitude both of the Jews and Greeks
believed” (xiv. 1), and that “the Lord gave testimony to
his word by granting signs and wonders to be done by their
hands” (ver. 3).
(11.) That at Ephesus Paul preached almost three years,
and prevailed so much among them, that all Asia, both
Jews, there very numerous, and Greeks, resorting to Ephe-
sus, heard, and many of them believed the gospel, “God
working,” in confirmation of it, “special miracles by the
hand of Paul ; so that from his body were brought hand-
kerchiefs and aprons;” and by this means “the diseases
departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them.”
(12.) That seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew (and of the
priests’ order, saith the Talmud), which were exorcists, per-
ceiving how powerful Paul was to cast out devils by the
name of Jesus, and therefore attempting to exorcise one
that had an evil spirit, by the name of that Jesus whom Paul
preached (supposing that the very name of Jesus, without
faith in him as the true Messiah, would be effectual to cast
out devils), they were set upon and overpowered by the evil
spirit, and forced to fly from the place “naked and wound-
ed;” and this being “known to all the Jews and Greeks,”
prevailed with many, who formerly had used magic arts, to
burn their books, confess their deeds, and believe in Jesus:
so “mightily grew the word of God and orevailed” (ch.
X]X. ).
à) That at the isle of Malta, St. Paul not only shook
off a viper from his hand that had fastened on it, without
harm, but healed the father of Publius, the chief man of
the island, lying sick of a fever, by laying his hands upon
him ; and that thereupon others in that island, who had
diseases, came and were healed ; and that thereupon they
honoured all Paul's companions, and loaded them at their
departure with such things as they needed (Acts xxviii.
3. 10); which things, if true, must be known to the inha-
bitants, and also to the two hundred and seventy-six per-
sons who were cast with Paul on that island (xxvii. 37).
So that this history affords us an account of miracles,
great and many, done in many places, upon persons remark-
able and well known : viz. the lame man laid at the Beautiful
gate of the temple ; upon Tabitha, eminent for her works
of charity ; upon Saul, a zealous persecutor of the church ;
upon Elymas the sorcerer, opposing “the right ways of the
CHAPTER I.
42.]
Lord ;” upon the Pythoness at Philippi (Acts xvi. }:
upon the sons of Sceva ; upon the father of Publius ; to t
conversion of many thousands, not only of the people, but of
multitudes of the priests at Jerusalem ; to the astonishment
of Simon Magus, that prince of sorcerers, and the conviction
and conversion of multitudes of the same wicked art at Ephe-
* a city famous for those practices (see the note on xix.
19). *
Moreover, these miracles were either done in Jerusalem,
Samaria, Ephesus, cities of which we have already spoken,
or where the Jews abounded; and that so certainly as St.
Paul, in his Epistle to the Hebrews, inquires, “How shall
we escape if we neglect so great salvation, which was con-
firmed to us by signs and wonders, and divers miracles, and
gifts of the Holy Ghost P” (Heb. ii. 3, 4.) And as for the
conversion of St. Paul, it was done at Damascus, the metro-
polis and a noble mart of Syria, where flourished many
thousand Jews ; upon a person known by the whole nation
of the Jews to be a strict and celebrated pharisee, and once
a zealous persecutor of the Christian faith ; one who, after
his conversion, which happened the next year after our
Lord's ascension, was hated and persecuted by his own na-
tion, for preaching up that faith he formerly endeavoured to
destroy: and so, not only they at Damascus, and they who
journeyed with him, and saw and felt that glorious light
which was the means of his conversion, but even the
whole Jewish nation, must be acquainted with, and even
alarmed at, this miraculous and sudden change. Lastly,
These miracles were mostly done within two years, and
all of them within twenty-seven years, after our Lord's
aSC62nS10I). -
Now, when times and places, circumstances and events,
are so particularly set down, and are of such a nature as
seem to carry in them a conspicuous evidence of the noto-
rious falsehood, or the clear truth of the narration, as it is
a sign the historian intended no deceit, so neither seems it
easy to conceive, how such great cities and regions should
be ignorant of the truth or falsehood of them, or be capable
of being imposed upon by such relations.
All that can possibly be offered to impair the credit of
these evidences of the miraculous operations of the Holy
Ghost, exercised by the apostles, and conferred on such as
did embrace the Christian faith, must be comprised in these
two particulars, viz. either that these things were not writ-
ten and published by St. Luke, or in his time ; or, that they
were not truly written but, contain false stories invented for
the credit of Christianity.
Now that this history was universally and originally
received, by the tradition of the church, amongst her true,
undoubted scriptures, Eusebius * sufficiently informs us.
* Ponit nempê Actus Apostolorum #y opcoxoyovkašvoic, et
e
Clemens of Alexandria * and Origen confirm the same tra-
dition. And as all agree that this history was written by
St. Luke, and owned as an unquestionable record of Chris-
tianity, so do we find it cited by St. Clemens, + St. Paul's
companion; by Papias, who conversed with men of the
apostles’ time ; and by Polycarp, $ who was St. John's dis-
ciple ; and Irenaeus, who flourished in the second century,
hath in a large chapter almost epitomized it: nor do I read
of any Jew or gentile who did except against the truth or
the sincerity of the relator of these things: now if a record
so early and so generally received, and cited by the Chris-
tians, may be, without all proof, rejected, as not written by
that author whose name it hath still borne ; if a writing
that has been always unanimously owned among the re-
cords of the Christian faith, may be, withou 5 all reason, re-
jected as a spurious or doubtful piece, the truth and credit
of all history must be entirely subverted ; and so there will
be nothing certain left concerning any records of antiquity.
But if, according to this general tradition, this history
was indeed writ and published by St. Luke, there must be
many myriads still living in Judea, Samaria, Damascus, /
Ephesus, Caesarea, and many other places mentioned in
these Acts, who could be able to disprove these things, had
they been false ; which yet was either not at all or unsuc-
cessfully attempted, as the issue, which concluded in its
general reception, testifies. We therefore may conclude,
that neither Jew nor gentile, orthodox Christian nor apo-
state, though they were all concerned to do it, found any
cause to doubt the certainty of what was thus recorded.
But to give scepticism its utmost scope ; be it, this
history was not published till a hundred years after our
Lord's ascension ; beyond which infidelity cannot go, if we
consider the citations of it before that time, and the abridg-
ment of it made by Irenaeus not long after ; either the facts
related in it were true, and then they are a signal evidence
of the miraculous operations of the Holy Ghost vouchsafed
to Christians ; or, they were false; and then, how is it
possible fmey should obtain so easy and so general be-
lief? Cºld they not know in Judea, Samaria, and Ephesus,
and in the other cities mentioned, by what means they were
first converted to the Christian faith ? must it not be suffi-
cient prejudice to them against these tales, that they had
lived so long in the profession of that faith, and had heard
nothing of these things, too wonderful, too much conducing
to the honour and confirmation of that faith to be so long
concealed, had they been truly done by two such eminent
apostles as were St. Peter and St. Paul ?
inter xará rày #xxxnaiaa’rizhy ragá80&ty &Améeſ; kai ärxāotovº,
wai &yoyº.oxoynºvac ypaspác. Hist. Eccl. lib. iii, cap. 4.
* Et. 25. . - + Ep. ad Cor. §. 18.
f Apud Euseb. H. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 39.
§ Ad Philip. $. i. lib. iii, cap. 12.
CHAPTER I.
1 THE former treatise have I made, O Theophilus,
* of all that Jesus began both to do and teach (as far
as I thought this needful for the instruction of a cate-
chumen).
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I.
* Ver. l II pi ºrávrov, Of all that Jesus began both to do
and teach,) Sºce the apostle John hath left on record
many things if e blessed Jesus did and taught, which are
not in St. Luke ; yea, since St. Luke himself doth about
ten times Say Christ taught the people, iv. 15. 31. v. 3, 17.
vi. 6. xiii. 10. xix. 47. xx. 1. xxi. 37. xxiii. 5, and yet in
none of those places records the words he taught, it is ne-
cessary to limit the generality of these words. Now though
the word all doth sometimes signify the chief of all the
things related to, as when our Saviour saith to his dis-
ciples, #yrºpto a bºy Trávra, “I have made known to you all
things which I have heard of my Father,” and yet he adds,
xvi. 12, “I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot,
bear them yet ;” notwithstanding, seeing all the excellent
2 Until the day in which he was taken up, after
that he “through the Holy Ghost had given command-
ments to the apostles whom he had chosen:
3 To whom also he showed himself alive after his pas-
discourses of our Saviour mentioned by St. John, and two of .
his great miracles, the cure of the man born blind, John ix.
and the raising of Lazarus, mentioned ch. xi., are not
recorded by St. Luke, though these discourses and these
miracles deserve well to be ranked among the chief things
which Christ did and taught, I prefer the exposition of
these words given in the paraphrase, as being in effect the
exposition, which the evangelist's own words afford, Luke
i. 4. ‘oy #6%aro, “Which Jesus began to do,” that is, which
Jesus did ; for the gospel of St. Luke contains what was
done by Christ from the beginning of his ministry to his
assumption ; and that &exogai is frequently an expletive,
see Matt. xvi. 22. Mark ii. 23. Luke xv. 24. Acts xi. 15.
* Wer. 2. At& IIveşºaro; #yiov, By the Holy Ghost.]
These words admit of several constructions, as, (1.) that he
had chosen his apostles by the Holy Ghost ; but against
423
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
sion by many ” infallible proofs (Gr. by many signs or
testimonies of his resurrection), being seen of them
forty days, and “speaking of the things pertaining to
the kingdom of God:
4 And, being *assembled together (or, eating and
conversing) with them, (he) commanded them that
they should not (or, not to) depart from Jerusalem
(till power from on high was come upon them, to fit
them for their work, Luke xxiv. 49), but (to) wait for
the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have
heard of me (Gr. for the promise of my Father, of
which you have heard).
this it is objected, that the scripture nowhere saith that
Christ chose his apostles by the Holy Ghost: or, (2) that
he was taken up into heaven by the Holy Ghost, as by the
same Spirit he was led into the wilderness (Luke iv. 1):
or, (3.) that he gave commandments to his disciples by the
Holy Ghost: which again is capable of divers construc-
tions; as, first, that he gave them these commandments by
the inward operations of the Holy Ghost, which he had
breathed in them (John xx. 22): but this sense seems not
very probable, (1.) because, after his breathing of the Holy
Ghost upon them, he still saith, he will send the promise of
his Father upon them, viz. the promise of the Holy Ghost ;
and bids them stay at Jerusalem till they had received
him, Luke xxiv. 29, and here, ver, 4, and (2.) because he
is said, ver. 3, to speak unto them the things which belonged
to the kingdom of God; or, secondly, as he did all his
miracles, and delivered all his doctrines, by virtue of the
Holy Ghost, whilst he discharged his prophetic office (see
note on Matt. iii. 16): so being yet on earth he spake these
things, and gave these commands to his apostles touching
his kingdom by the same Spirit. And his passion, mentioned
in the verse following, renders it probable that St. Luke
speaks of the commands relating to his kingdom, which he
had given them before his passion.
* Ver. 3. ‘Ey roaxoſ, Texamptotº, By many infallible proofs.]
For by speaking to, by walking, and by eating with them, he
gave them certain indications that he lived; that he was
Seen and handled by them was a sure evidence that he had
a true and natural body ; that he permitted Thomas to view
the scars of his feet and hands, and put his hand into his
side, was a certain token that the body raised was the same
which was crucified, and pierced by the soldier's lance.
*And speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of
God..] viz. Of the teaching the doctrine of this kingdom to
all nations, and the receiving them into it by baptism who
believed and professed to own it (Matt. xxviii. 19); of the
benefits which were promised to them who cordially believed
their doctrine, and the condemnation which belonged to them
who would not believe it (Mark xvi. 15, 16); of the en-
Couragements and assistances he would afford them in the
propagation of it by his continual presence with them (Matt.
xxviii. 20), and the assistance of his Spirit (ver. 4, 5), and
by the miracles by which their doctrine should be confirmed
by them, and others who believed it (Mark xvi. 17, 18).
*Ver, 4. Zuvaxićwevoc, Being assembled with them.] So
Phavorinus Saith that &Aićo is avya.0goića, “I assemble to-
gether:” So Herodotus in Clio,” cºro añy 3% avºxićovto, “So
they met together;” and again, Cyrus, avyaxica; ei, Tavré, F
“gathering together all his father's herds;” and cap. 125, wal
t& &#y airéay & Kūgo; awáxias, “Cyrus gathered together some
of the Persians;” and in his Euterpe he saith that Pheron,f
king of Egypt, six winy ºrów avyaxićov, “gathering together
all the women that had been false to their husbands into one
city, burnt them all with the city;” and so in Melpomene,
ãx{{sly a reary, is “to assemble,” or “gather together” the
army. Now this assembling them together is, by Dr. Light-
foot, thought to have been in Galilee; but this is contrary
both to the text in Luke and here: for Luke xxiv. 49 he
commands them wagićeasai, “to abide in" the city of Jeru-
Salem, here º Xoſpićaša Čºré, “not to depart from Jerusa-
lem,” &AW& ragafaévity, but to abide there; and it is added
in both places, that having spoken this, “he led them out (of
Jerusalem) to Bethany” (Luke xxiv. 51. Acts i.9), and there
was taken up into heaven, and that thence, intérrgé pay, “ they
+ Cap. 11 I.
* Clio, cap. 126. # Cap. 12. "
5 For John truly ('Iwdvvmg uév, John indeed) bap-
tized with water (only); but (as he said, Matt. iii. 11)
"you shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many
days hence (i. e. within ten days; for this was spoken
on the day of our Lord’s ascension, that is, ten days
before Pentecost).
6 When they therefore were come together, they
asked of him (that which they chiefly desired and ea-
pected), saying, Lord, "wilt thou at this time restore
again the kingdom to Israel? (i. e. Wilt thou now set
wp that temporal kingdom, in which the Jews shall rule
over all nations, which we impatiently eaſpect 8).
went back (from Bethany) to Jerusalem” (Luke xxiv. 51.
Acts i. 12); they must be therefore at Jerusalem when Christ
thus conversed with them, and there abiding, were to expect
the promise of the Father (Luke xxiv. 49). Al. Rowoyāy &X&y
xał rearré&ng, Chrys. CEcum. -
* Ver, 5. Batta Shasa-3s #y IIveſºari &yo, Ye shall be bap-
tized with the Holy Ghost.] The word ye, and the time af.
fixed to this baptism, the day of pentecost, show that this
baptism relates only to the disciples then present, and con-
versing with the holy Jesus: and to them the Holy Spirit
was given, (1.) to render them powerful or able witnesses of
our Lord’s resurrection (Luke xxiv. 48. Acts i. 8), and con-
sequently that he was the true Messiah, or that Prophet
“which was to come into the world,” and was to be the Sa-
viour of it (John xvi. 8–10). And therefore Peter speaks
thus to the Jews, “Ye have killed the Prince of life, whom
God hath raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses”
(Acts iii. 15): and he with the apostles says to them, “The
God of our fathers hath raised Jesus from the dead, whom
ye killed and hanged on a tree; him hath God exalted to his
own right hand to be a prince and a Saviour, to give repent-
ance to Israel, and remission of sins. And we are his wit-
nesses of these things, and so is the Holy Ghost, which he
hath given to them that obey him” (Acts v. 30–32). (2.)
To render them able to give us an exact account, as far as
divine wisdom saw it necessary, of what our Saviour did
and taught. “The Spirit,” saith he, “shall bear witness of
me, and you also shall be my witness, because you have been
with me from the beginning” (John xy. 26, 27): and be-
cause, were they never so faithful, yet could we not so trust
to the strength of their natural memories, as to depend on
those long discourses we meet with in the gospels of St. Mat-
thew, Luke, and John, as the very words of Christ, or be
assured thence, that they delivered all the circumstances of
Christ's miracles exactly as they were transacted ; therefore
hath he assured us that he would send “the Spirit of truth”
to them, to bring those things to their remembrance which
he had said unto them, John xiv. 26. (3.) To make them
able ministers of the new testament, able to acquaint all
Christians with all saving truth, and teach them all things
which he had commanded to be observed throughout all
ages of the church ; and to declare unto them by the spirit
of prophecy what should be hereafter : and hence he pro-
miseth them the Spirit, to teach them all things (John xiv.
26), to lead them into all truth (xvi. 13), and to teach them
things to come ; and upon the strength of this promise all
Christians of all ages have believed that the apostles and
writers of the New Testament both spake and wrote “as
they were moved, or directed, by the Spirit of God;” and
received those doctrines they taught and indited, “not as
the words of men, but, as they were in truth, the word of
God” (1 Thess. ii. 13).
7 Wer. 6. 'Ev rá xgåvº roſtæ àtrozaffia-távei; ; Wilt thow at
this time restore?] That temporal dominion over all other
nations, which the Jews then expected, being never before
granted to them, the word here cannot well be rendered re-
store, but rather grant, or establish, as it may be rendered ;
for 37 oxadiatów, say Suidas and Phavorinus, is 3:30;, xagº-
Čºvoc, “giving, or granting;” and in the Septuagint the
Word signifies to establish : so Amos v. 15, & Tozaraatha ers,
“Ye shall establish judgment in the gates;” and Ps. xvi. 5,
at El 6 arrozabia rāv, “Thou sustainest,” or establishest “my
lot.” Ingenious here is the conceit of Dr. Lightfoot, that the
reason of the question, “Wilt thou do it at this time 3’ arose
from their reflection on the indignities the Jews had done to
Christ, and was to this effect: Lord, wilt thou restore the
CHAPTER I.
423
7 And he said to them, It is not for you to know
the times or the seasons, which the Father "hath put
in his own power (i.e. reserved to himself).
8 But (for your satisfaction in what more concerns
wou, know that) *ye shall receive (a miraculous) power,
after the Holy Ghost (which I have promised) is come
upon you; and (then) ye shall be witnesses to me (of
what I said and did, John xv. 27), both in Jerusalem,
and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and to the "utter-
most parts of the earth. -
9 And when he had spoken these things, while
they beheld (him), he was taken up (into heaven);
and a cloud received him (and conveyed him) out of
their sight.
10 And while they looked stedfastly towards hea-
ven as he went up, behold, two (angels, like) men,
stood by them in white apparel; -
kingdom to those who have dealt so basely with thee? what!
to this generation so unworthy of that honour, as Iving un-
der the guilt of thy bloodshed 2
*Ver, 7. Which the Father hath put in his own power.]
i. e. Reserved to himself: for “secret things belong to God”
(Deut. xxix. 29); and not revealing the critical moment
when they shall come to pass to any of his prophets, he left
himself free to choose his own season when he will effect
them. Grotius here saith, this kingdom was granted to the
true Israel, i. e. the Christians, when Constantine and other
Christian kings began to reign ; but this agrees not with the
predictions of the prophets, which plainly speak of a glori-
ous kingdom belonging to the Jewish nation coming in to the
faith of Christ. Dr. Lightfoot is positive that this place hath
no relation to such a kingdom, and if he only means a tem-
poral kingdom, this may be granted; but this answer speak-
ing of times and seasons relating to a kingdom to be set up,
or granted to Israel, I know not why he may not respect that
time when the Jews generally shall be converted, and “all
nations shall flow” in to them, and make Christ's kingdom
glorious. -
* Ver. 8. Ah-le-SE 30yapaty ºrex0ávro; roi; &ytov IIveſºcaro;
#' tºº. Ye shall regeive power after that the Holy Ghost
is come upon you..] Or, ye shall receive “the power of the
Holy Ghost coming upon you :” for Sºvapaiº, in the New
Testament, when it relates to God the Father, Christ, or the
Holy Ghost, imports generally some miraculous or extraor-
dinary power; and what is here, “Ye shall receive power,
the Holy Ghost coming upon you,” is, Luke xxiv. 50, “Ye
shall be endued with power from on high,” and then yeshall
be my witnesses, enabled to confirm what you say of my
words and actions, and especially of my resurrection, with
signs and wonders, and divers distributions of the Holy
Ghost (Heb. ii. 4). -
* And to the uttermost parts of the earth.] That is, to the
Jews first, then to the Samaritans, and, lastly, to all the na-
tions of the world ; and yet it is evident that the apostles
and converted Jews at the first understood this of their
preaching only to the Jews dispersed through the earth, for
they preached the word “to the Jews only” (Acts xi. 19),
and thought it unlawful, till by a vision from heaven they
were taught otherwise, to preach to the gentiles.
* Ver. 11. Ośra's #AEóa grat āv rpádroy, Shall so come in like
manner as ye have seen him go up into heaven.] We are
told, 2 Thess, i. 7, 8, that he shall come down from heaven
“with his mighty angels in a flame of fire ;” and 1 Thess. iv.
16, 17, that he shall come down from heaven, and snatch us
up into the clouds; as therefore here the angels attended on
him ascending to heaven, so the cloud that received him
(ver. 9), must be such a cloud of fire in which God was wont
to appear with the attendance of his holy angels: of which
see mote on Phil. ii. 6, and this makes out the parallel; he
being then to come also with a cloud of glory, in his body,
and with the attendance of his holy angels. And thus Elias
went up to heaven in a fiery chariot (2 Kings ii. 12).
* Wer. 12. Which is from Jerusalem a sabbath-day's jour-
ney..] Note here, (1.) that St. Luke doth not intend to give
us the distance of the place of Christ's ascent from Jerusa-
lem, that being from Bethany (Luke xxiv. 50), “which was
from Jerusalem fifteen furlongs” (John xi. 18), but only
11 Who also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand.
ye (thus) gazing up into heaven, (after him whom ye
cannot now see? but the time will come, at the end of
the world, when) this same Jesus who is taken up
from you into heaven, “shall so come (down from
thence) in like manner as ye have (now) seen him go
into heaven.
12 Then returned they to Jerusalem from the
mount called Olivet, *which is from Jerusalem a
Sabbath-day’s journey (i.e. seven furlongs).
13 And when they were come in (thither), they
*went up into an upper room, where abode both
Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Philip,
and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James the
son of Alpheus, and Simon Zelotes, and Judas the
brother of James. -
14 These all continued with one accord in prayer
from the foot of mount Olivet, which was, say the Syriac
and Theophylact from Josephus,” “seven furlongs,” though
now we read in Josephus only “five furlongs.” Now, say
the Jews, a Sabbath-day’s journey is two thousand cubits,
that is, a thousand yards, which is about eight furlongs, or a
mile (see of this Buxt. Lex. Talm. p. 2582).
Note also, that the day of Christ's ascension seems not
settled in the church then, or that Chrysostom thought not
of it when he here said, That because Christ's ascension was
on the Sabbath-day, therefore St. Luke informs us, that the
way the disciples went out with him exceeded not a sabbath-
day's journey (Hom. 3 in Acts iii. 12).
* Ver. 13. They went atp si; twregów, into an upper room.]
Where and what this upper room was, as it is not much ma-
terial, so it is difficult to determine ; that it was not the
room in which Christ celebrated his last supper, appears
from this, that it is called čváysoy, Mark xiv. 15. Luke xxii.
12, which difference of names argues a difference in the thing
itself. For &vºysoy is any room above stairs, be it only one
story high, but treeºow is the highest room in the house
(Acts xx. 8, 9). Note,
Secondly, That there was basečov iv rà isgå, “an upper
room in the second temple,” in which Ezra sat with the chief
of the fathers of the people, as Josephus' testifies ; it is
therefore supposed there might be many such, in one of
which Christ's apostles, and the other Christians with them,
might abide. -
It was also common among the Jews, not only for their
rabbins to have an upper room for their Beth-Midrash, but
also for others to have such an upper room where they dis-
coursed of the law, or exercised other parts of religion ; now
in which of these two the apostles and disciples abode is the
question.
That it was an upper room in the temple is argued, (1.)
Because St. Luke tells us, that after their return to Jerusa-
lem, they were 34taytā, śy rà isgå, “always in the temple”
(Luke xxiv. 52, 53), and here, that after their return to Je-
rusalem they went up into this upper room, that they were
×arapºvovireº, “abiding there;” and ii. 46, it is said of them
convened, and remaining in this upper room, that they were
daily ºrporkaerspoëvre; 3v rá isgå, “abiding in the temple.”
But to this it is answered,
1. That the phrase, they were “always in the temple,”
doth not prove this: for Christ saith of himself, John
xviii. 10, I taught Trávrove #y rô ispá, “always in the tem-
ple,” and yet he had no habitation in any part of it.
2. We read, iii. 1, that Peter and John #y#8avoy, “went
up into the temple at the hour of prayer,” whereas, had
they been in an upper room of the temple, it should have
rather been said that they went down into it. It is also
said, that they continued there zaš’ hºcégay, “day after day,”
which seemeth to import that they lodged not there by
night.
º It follows that they broke bread, kar’ of toy, that is,
saith Dr. Hammond, “in the temple ;” but both these and
the former words are spoken of the whole number of Chris-
tians, which were now at least three thousand one hundred
and twenty, too many sure to lodge together in one upper
* Antiq, lib, xx. cap. 6. + Ibid. lib. xv. cap. 5.
424
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
and supplication, with the women, and “Mary the
mother of Jesus, and with his brethren. -
15 And in those days Peter stood up in the
midst of the disciples, and said, (the * number of
the names (of which) together were about a hundred
and twenty,)
16 Men and brethren, this scripture must needs
have been (Gr. be) fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost by
the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas,
who was guide to them that took Jesus.
17 For he was numbered with us (being one of the
twelve sent out, and empowered by Christ to preach in
his name, Matt. x. l. 5) and had obtained part of this
ministry.
18 Now this man *purchased a field with the re-
ward of (his) iniquity (i. e. with the reward of his
iniquity had no other advantage, but to return it back
to them that gave it, who with it purchased a field);
and (then) "falling headlong, he burst asunder in the
midst, and all his bowels gushed out.
19 And it (this fact) was known to all the dwellers
at Jerusalem; insomuch as that field is called in
their proper tongue, Aceldama, that is to say, The
field of blood.
20 * For it is written (by way of prediction concern-
room. Moreover, that kar’ olzov refers to houses distinct
from the temple, we learn from this evangelist, saying, v. 42,
they were teaching all the day, #y rà isg: Kai Kar'oïaoy, “in
the temple, and from house to house.”
4. That there were inregóa “upper rooms” in the temple
is granted, but then that they belonged to any besides the
priests and Levites is not proved : the tºrspºo, mentioned
by Josephus was that of Johanan the son of the high-priest.
And Maimonides, in his book de AEdificio Templi, mentions
sixteen conclavia, or chambers, but Saith, they were all ap-
pointed for sacred things or persons. How improbable there-
fore is it, that poor fishermen and Galileans, odious for their
Master's sake, should be permitted to crowd in such numbers
into one of these rooms (see the note on Luke xiv. 53).
* Wer. 14. And Mary the mother of Jesus.] Here is the
last time that we have any mention of this blessed mother :
of her ascension St. Luke saith nothing, because he knew
nothing of it ; that idle tale being the invention of latter
ages from apocryphal writings and vain revelations.
And with his brethren.] They therefore then believed,
though before they did not (John vii. 5).
* Ver. 15. The number Švopºroy of mames] i. e. Of per-
sons. So Rev. iii. 4, “Thou hast 3Aiya $vépzara, a few per-
sons in Sardis, which have not defiled their garments:” so
in Æschylus, to Ongaiov Švoua, is “one of Thebes:” in Ci-
cero,” Romanorum momen, is a Roman citizen ; and in
Virgil, Silvius Albanum nomen, a man of Albania.
* Wer. 18. This man purchased a field, #xthgaro Yogiov,
with the wages of iniquity.] As in the Old Testament men
are said to get or “purchase to themselves shame" (Prov.
ix. 7), and in the New, to “receive to themselves dam-
nation,” and in profane authors, wrhaaa-Sat #x00ay zai ovº-
dog&v, to “purchase enmity and calamities;” and we in our
language are said to “create trouble to ourselves,” when
this is the event, though it is not the intention of the action :
so is Judas here said to “purchase” this field by the wages
of his iniquity, which was bought with the money he re-
ceived as the reward of his iniquity, though he neither in
tended this nor was he instrumental to it.
7 And falling headlong he burst asunder.] See note on
Matt. xxvii. 5. $,
18 Ver. 20. For it is written in the book of Psalms (Ps.
lxix. 26), Let his habitation be desolate; and (Ps. cik. 1),
His bishopric (or office) let another take.] That the first
of these"Psalms refer to that Messiah, of whom David was
a type, we learn from the twenty-first verse, where it is
said, “They gave me gall to eat, and when I was thirsty
they gave me vinegar to drink,” which was true only of
Christ, and is applied to him, John xix. 29, and from the
* Lib. i. de Fin. + AFn, vi. 763.
ing him) in the book of Psalms, Let his habitation be
desolate, and let no man dwell, therein : and, His
bishopric let another take (or, his habitation shall be
desolate, and no man shall dwell in it, and his bishop-
ric let another take).
21 * Wherefore, of these men that have accom-
panied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went
in and out among us, (and so can testify of all he did
and said, John xv. 27.) *
22 Beginning from the baptism of John unto the
same day that he was taken up from us (into heaven),
must one be ordained to be witness with us of his re-
surrection (and of his words and actions).
23 And they appointed two, Joseph called Bar-
sabas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias (to
be presented before the Lord). \
24 And * they prayed, and said (Gr. and praying
they said), Thou, Lord, who knowest the hearts
of all men, show (by directing the lot to come out
with his name) whether of these two thou hast
chosen,
25 That he may take part of this ministry and
apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell,
* that he might go to his own place (as the reward of
his iniquity). -
ninth verse, where it is said, “The zeal of thy house hath
consumed me,and the reproaches of them that reproached thee
fell on me,” which is applied to Christ, John ii. 17. Rom.
xv. 3, and therefore what is said, ver. 26, of the enemies of
David, may reasonably be applied to Judas, the great enemy
of Christ ; what is said, Ps. cik. 8, if it primarily relate
either to Doeg or Ahithophel, the mortal enemies of David,
might by the Holy Spirit be intended to have its full com-
pletion in the betrayer of the Son of David, and this inten-
tion wight be suggested to St. Peter by the same Spirit
(see the appendix to the second chapter of St. Matthew).
19 Wer. 21. AEi oly, rôy avyEx86Vroy hºſy &y?pāy, &c. Where-
fore of these men who have accompanied with us all the
time, one must be ordained to be a witness.] One must be
chosen to make up the number twelve, answerable to the
twelve tribes of Israel: he must be one who always had
conversed with them, that he might be a witness of all that
Jesus said and did, John xv. 27, whilst he discharged his
office among them ; for that is the import of the phrase,
“go in and out ;” as when Moses says, “I am grown old,
I can no more go in and out before you,” Deut. xxxi. 3,
and when Solomon prays for wisdom, that he “might go in
and out before that great people,” 2 Chron. i. 10 (see Deut.
xxviii. 6. Ps. cxxi. 8).
* Ver. 24. And they praying said, Kāpis xagètoyyāora,
Lord, who knowest the hearts of all men, &c.] Here Wolt-
zogenius truly notes, that they prayed to the Lord Jesus,
because the apostles were at first chosen by him, were his
apostles, and were to be his witness, and then they must
ascribe to him the knowledge of all hearts, which is the pro-
perty of God alone.
* Ver. 25. TIopevşâyat eiç rêv rámcov föroy, That he might
go to his own place..] i. e. To the place worthy of him, and
which he had deserved by his sin. So the Jews said of
Balaam, 3r;x&ey #1, röy ºrárov airoij, “He went into his own
place” (Numb. xxiv. 14, 15), that is, saith Baal Turim, “to
hell.” So Ignatius * saith Éxacto; eiç roy thov rámcov xopeſ,
&#xxel, “Every one must hereafter go to his own place ;”
Barnabas F saith of those that walk in the light, that they
do afterward 388tely eig röy &piapaévoy rātroy, “go to the place
appointed for them ;” Clemens Romanus, that they do go
sic rôy &ytov rámcoy, “to the holy place, Biç rêy dºgtºwevoy
rātroy thv 3%ms, to the place of glory due to them ; and
Polycarp, that they are with the Lord, and go, eiç rºy $$eixá-
wevow airoi; ºrátov, “to the place appointed for them ;” ac-
cording to the Hebrew phrase here cited by Lightfoot, “He
came from his own place, that is, from hell, appointed for
idolaters.”
—r-
* Ep. ad Magn. sect. 5. + Sect. 19.
CHAPTER II.
425
26 And (then) * they gave forth their lots; and
the lot fell upon Matthias; and he was numbered
Obj. 1. Hell is not the proper place of Judas, but com-
mon to him with all the wicked.
Ans. St. Peter doth not expressly say he went to hell,
but into a place proper for him ; now Ignatius saith there
is appointed for every man, thio; tāmoc, “a proper place ;”
i. e. a place worthy of him, or agreeable to his actions.
This in Plato * is the place whither the genius which he
had chosen whilst he lived was appointed to bring him, viz.
the incorrigible wicked soul, sic rºw airfi trpárovaay oianaw,
“into a habitation fitted for it,” but the pure soul, sic tàroy
ºrgor%xovira, to a place convenient for it.” -
Obj. 2. Secondly, It is said that it belonged not to Peter
to pass sentence on Judas, or affirm anything of God’s se-
crets, such as Judas’s going to hell.
Ans. This is wonderful, that when Christ had pronounced
him a devil (John vi. 71), “a son of perdition” (John xvii.
12), and declared that it had been “better for him that he
had never been born” (Matt. xxvi. 24), it should be thought
a diving into God's secrets to say, he went into a place pre-
pared for, or due to, such miscreants. Moreover, doth not
our Saviour say, this fall of the son of perdition was fore-
told by the scripture ? (John xvii. 12.) Doth not St. Peter
here apply those scriptures to him which foretell the most
dreadful things? Does not Luke show the dreadful issue of
his iniquity upon his body ? and after all this, might he not
say, he went to a place proper for him P “Whosoever be-
trays an Israelite into the hands of the gentiles,” say the
Jews, “ hath no part in the world to come ;” how much
Jess he who betrays the Messiah, the king of Israel, into
the hands of the gentiles (Matt. xx. 19. xxvi. 24).
Obj. 3. It seems improper to say such a one sinned that
he might go to hell. --
Ans. This is even such an impropriety of speech as God
is pleased to use to his own people, when he saith by Hosea,
. viii. 4, “Of their silver and gold they made them idols, that
they might be cut off;” and by the prophet Micah, vi. 16,
“The statutes of Omri are kept, and ye walkin their counsels,
* In Phaed., p. 80, B, D, E.
with the eleven apostles (making their number
twelve).
that I should make you a desolation ;” and as Christ useth
when he saith, the Jews had shut their eyes and hardened
their hearts, “lest they should be converted and healed,” or
“lest their sin should be forgiven them” (Mark iv. 12. John
xii. 39, 40). By all which places it appears, that in divine
construction any man may be said to do an action to
that end which he knows will be the event of it, and which
by God is threatened to the doers of it.
Moreover, the other exposition, viz. that the xxiipo; 3ra-
zovia, Kał &roo roafis, “portion of the ministry and apostle-
ship,” is the province which fell to the lot of Judas in the
distribution of them among the apostles, and that this is
called the proper place from which Judas fell by his sin,
and into which Matthias is here said to go: I say this ex-
position is founded upon an evident mistake, viz. that the
several provinces into which the apostles were to go for
preaching the gospel, were distributed among them before
they were filled with the Holy Ghost, which is abundantly
confuted by Dr. Stillingfleet, Iren. lib. ii. cap. 6, §. 2. And
when, where, and to what end, should a province of preach-
ing the gospel after our Lord's ascension be distributed to
him who was before to be a son of perdition ? (2.) To suc-
ceed in the office of Judas, is not ºropsvěřival, to go into his
place, but Napºgávely, to take his place ; according to the
words of the Psalmist, “His office Aá80, £regoº, shall another
take.” And, lastly, had this been intended, a conjunction
copulative should have been put before Tropavşâval, and the
words should have run thus, Nagaſy rºy Kxh2oy—xai TropewSãval,
º take the share of this apostleship, and to go into his
place. *
** Ver. 26. Kai #3o4ay «Añéovº airãy, And they gave forth
their lots.] That is, saith Grotius, they put two lots into
two urns, the one containing the two names of Joseph and
Matthias, the other the name of an apostle, and a void lot ;
and then drawing forth the name of Joseph, and the void
lot, they knew that the lot containing the name of an apostle
belonged to Matthias (see Lucian's Hermotimus, sive de
Sectis, p. 232, 233). .
CHAPTER II.
1 * AND when the day of pentecost was fully come,
they were all with one accord (together) in one place.
2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven,
as of a rushing mighty wind (Gr. as of a strong wind
brought or coming thence), and it filled all the house
where they were sitting.
3 And there appeared to them cloven tongues, like
as of fire, and it sat (Gr. kai éká910s, sub. y\@oga, and
a tongue sat) upon each of them.
4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II.
* Ver. 1. Kai Év rá autºtrampoiașat, And when the day of
pentecost was fully come, they were wošvaa83, in rô air,
with one accord in one place.] Here the critical notes are
these ; (1.) that rangoûa-Sai and avºrançoia-Sat, when they
relate to time, signify only the coming of that time (see Dr.
Hammond). But Dr. Lightfoot here more critically ob-
serves, that the phrase hath a particular respect to the words
of the institution of the feast of pentecost, Lev. xxiii. 15,
where it is said, “You shall count to you from the morrow
after the sabbath” (that is, from the morrow of the first day
of unleavened bread, which always was a sabbath, because
no servile work was to be done in it ; or from the sixteenth
of Nisan), “seven sabbaths no pn complete,” 5xoxxhgowº, saith
the LXX. (even to the morrow, after the sabbath, shall ye
number fifty days). Now it is to be noted from R. Solomon,
that this account of the seven weeks complete was to begin
at the evening. “They reckoned,” saith Maimonides, “from
the night of the sixteenth of Nisan,” for else the weeks
began to speak with other tongues (than those which
they had learned), as the (gift of the) Spirit gave them
utterance.
5 And there were (then) dwelling at Jerusalem Jews,
(by nation and by proselytism, ver. 10,) devout men
out of every nation under heaven (where the Jews
dwelt).
6 Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude
came together, and was confounded (or, astonished at
the strangeness of the thing), because that (§rt, for)
would not be complete; and so this day, after the sabbath,
was none of the forty-nine, which made seven sabbaths com-
plete; but that even and Sunday made the first day of the
first week, and so Friday even amd Saturday the forty-ninth,
and Saturday evening and the Lord's day the fiftieth ; and so
on that day pentecost was fully come, as our translation
truly saith: so that, the evening beginning the account, pen-
tecost was on the fiftieth day ; but the day was not complete
till the fifty-first.
So that two things may be noted for the dignity and honour
of this day “which the Lord hath made:” that on this day
he rose from the dead, “and became the first-fruits of them
that slept:” and (2) that on this day he poured forth the
Holy Ghost on his apostles, and sent them forth to speak the
“wonderful works of God” to men of every language and
nation. It also is observable, that as the confusion of tongues
in Babel spread idolatry through the world, and made men
lose the knowledge of God and true religion, so God provided
by the gift of tongues at Sion, to repair the knowledge of
himself among those nations.
426
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
everyman (of them, who were of several nations,) heard
them speak in his own language. -
7 And they were (therefore) all amazed and mar-
velled, saying to one another, Behold, are not all these
that speak (these strange tongues by birth) Galileans ?
8 And how (then) hear we every man (of us them
speaking) in our own tongue, wherein we were born ?
9 (For being) Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites,
and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judea, and
Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia,
10 Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the
parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome,
Jews and proselytes,
11 Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in
our tongues the wonderful works of God.
12 And they (who said this) were all amazed, and
were in doubt (what the issue of this might be), saying
one to another, What meaneth this 2 (What importeth
this great matter 8
13 But) others mocking, said, These men are full
of new wine (and this causes them to speak thus).
14 But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted
up his voice, and said to them, Ye men of Judea, and
all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known to you,
and hearken to my words (which I am about to speak):
15 For these (men) are not drunken, as ye (scoffers)
suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day (i. e.
the ninth hour, or the time of the morning sacrifice, to
which we Jews usually come fasting).
16 But this (which is come to pass) is (the comple.
Secondly, Dr. Hammond, note on i. 15, saith, that śiri rô
aird signifies “assembling for the service of God ;” but
though this sometimes happens so to be, as when men meet
#mri rà abré, together to pray, to celebrate the Lord's supper,
as 1 Cor. xi.20, yet the phrase signifies only to meet pºoj
si; ºry airy rétroy, together, or in the same place, without
any relation to the business of the meeting; and indeed, I
might as well argue that it signifies meeting after religious
exercises are ended, because it is said, 1 Cor. vii. 5, “Let them
not separate, except for prayer or fasting, and then let them
come again ini ré aird together” (see Deut. xxii. 10. Luke
xvii. 35. Acts iii. 1). •
But the great important question here is this, Whether
“they all,” here signify all the hundred and twenty men-
tioned i. 15, as Grotius and Dr. Lightfoot think, or only the
twelve, as Dr. Hammond in his paraphrase ? This is a ques-
tion of some importance: for if the whole hundred and
twenty be here intended, the cloven tongues must sit upon
every one of them, as well as upon the twelve apostles, and
so must give them a right, though not an equal power, to be
Christ's witnesses; for a tongue sat upon “every one of
them” (ver. 3) who were met together in the house.
The arguments of Dr. Lightfoot seem only probable ; but
this is certain, that there were many besides the apostles of
their company, who had these gifts of the Holy Ghost: for
when the apostles came to appoint seven deacons, they com-
mand the assembly to “look out among them seven men full
of the Holy Ghost and wisdom;” there must therefore be
many such persons among them, known to them by the ex-
ercise of these gifts, who therefore must have received them
either at this time, or when they, praying that “God would
stretch forth his hands to heal, and to work signs and won-
ders by the name of Jesus, were all filled with the Holy
Ghost, and spake the word with great freedom” (Acts iv.
30, 31). Now if these gifts were given then to others for
this end, we may reasonably conceive that when that great
promise of him was to be fulfilled, they might be given to
others also. And if we consider what multitudes of several
languages were then met, and even living at Jerusalem, it
seems but rational to conceive this gift should be conferred
on many, to enable them to discourse intelligibly for their
conversion in the several synagogues, in which men of so
many divers languages must meet for divine service. More-
over, seeing the apostles themselves imparted the same gift,
by the imposition of hands, to those whom they ordained
ministers in particular churches, it seems unreasonable to
think that those extraordinary persons, who had been all
along in company with Christ and his apostles, and were to
be the great preachers of the gospel in several parts of the
world, should not be enriched with the same gifts.
And, lastly, this seems to have obtained as a tradition, or
a received opinion in the church ; for, saith St. Jerome,”
when Paula“ came to Sion, they showed her the place where
the Holy Ghost fell upon the hundred and twenty, to com-
plete the prophecy of Joel :” and St. Chrysostom + and
GEcumenius on the place say, “He fell not only upon the
apostles, but also upon the hundred and twenty ;” and that
* Ubi super centum viginti credentium Spiritus Sanctus
cecidisset. Epitaph. Paulae, f. 61, MI.
i Ti 3a;, &ga Éri tow; 36884a (ºvov; #x3ay, oix; }; in rº;
Acitroë; ; otºapa?: 3XX& kai tºr: Tºº $40.7% sizoz.
St. Luke would not have said Trávres, “all,” when the apostle.
were present, ei º wai &AAoi Kwéreo Xoy, “if others also haſ
not been made partakers of the Holy Ghost.”
Concerning this gift of tongues, let it be farther noted:
First, That they mistake the matter, who imagine that the
apostles only spake in their own mother tongue, and that the
hearers, of what tongue soever they were, understood them
as well as if they had spoken in their native language: for,
as Gregory Nazianzen well notes, this makes the miracle to be
wrought rather upon the hearers than upon the apostles; it
also contradicts the words of the text, which saith, “The
apostles began to speak #répat; yxºzoate, with other tongues,”
not “as the Spirit” gave the auditors ability to hear, but as
he “gave” the apostles “utterance.” - Nor could the several
auditors hear the apostles speak rà ièig Blaxéxtº, “in their
own proper dialect,” unless they had spoken in the language
of those nations who heard them. Nor,
Secondly, Are we to admit of the criticism of those who,
instead of oi xaroiwoºvre; 'Iověaſay, “the dwellers in Judea.”
(ver. 9), read of karoixoſyte: 'Iyèiay, “the dwellers in India,”
because, say they, it was no miracle for the men of Judea to
hear the apostles speaking in their language: for (1.) this
criticism is confuted by the following verse, which saith,
“All those men were Jews and proselytes.” And (2.) the
Jews are mentioned only to show that men of all nations
heard them speak in their own language, and in that consists
the miracle ; not that the Jews, but that every nation, heard
and understood them. t
Note also, That the nations here reckoned up, living some
in Asia, some in Africa, some in Europe, are said, though
not without an hyperbole, to be “Amen of every nation under
heaven” (ver. 5). And this phrase is not only used in the
scriptures, as when God saith, he would make the dread of
the Jews fall “upon every nation under heaven” (Deut. ii.
25); but it is frequent in Jewish writers who lived about this
time ; for Philo * often speaks of the Jews dwelling rayta-
Xášey rā; oizougačvnç, “everywhere through the whole earth;”
and says, that fºrãart of woupwéyn, almost the whole earth was
inhabited by them.” Agrippa also in Josephus saith, oùx Éarly
ãºri rāg oizou wºn; 37,404, “There is not a people upon earth,
among whom some Jews do not inhabit” (see the note on
Col. i. 23).
Note, Fourthly, That it seems incredible that they, who
said, “These men are full of new wine” (ver. 13), should be
so foolish as to think that new wine should enable them to
speak all languages, or to declare the wonderful works of
God: it is therefore well conjectured by Dr. Lightfoot, that
they who said this were men of Judea, who, not understand-
ing what the apostles spake in other languages, imagined
they had babbled some foolish gibberish they could make
nothing of, as drunken men are used to do. Note,
Fifthly, That St. Peter well confuteth this surmise, by
saying, ver. 15, “It is not yet the third hour of the day,” or
nine of the clock; because, before that time, especially on
the sabbath, and other feast days, the Jews were not wont So
much as to taste anything of meat or drink, as Dr. Lightfoot
here shows. And, saith Josephus, it by their tradition, they
were not to eat on their sabbaths till the sixth hour.
* Orat. in Flaccum, p. 752.
+ Leg. ad. Caium, p. 791, 802.
: Tây cºvo&y 3:#Avazy śiraxSoča a £xtn &ga, Ka8'?y cé66ao .
&gatoirotéïa 04 yºpºp.3, a rºy hºv, De Wità Suá, p. 1320, I).
CHAPTER II.
427
tion of) that which is spoken by the prophet Joel (ii.
28, in these words); -
17, “And it shall come to pass in the last days (i. e.
the times of the Messiah), saith God, I will pour out
of my Spirit upon all flesh (upon persons of all ranks):
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and
your young men shall see visions, and your old men
shall dream dreams: - |
18 And on my servants and on my handmaidens I
will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they
shall prophesy: w
19 And (for the terror and condemnation of those
who will not be convinced by this effusion of the Holy
Ghost) *I will show wonders in heaven above, and
signs in the earth beneath; (an ea traordinary effusion
of) blood, and (Matt. xxiv. 6, 7, strange appearances
of lightnings and of) fire, (devouring towns and cities,
and causing) pillars of smoke (to ascend up):
20 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the
moon into blood (the government in church and state
shall be dissolved), before that great and terrible day
of the Lord (be fully) come:
21 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall
* Ver. 17, 18. And it shall come to pass in the last days,
I will pour out of my Spirit wipon all flesh, &c.] For ex-
plication of these two verses, let it be observed ;
First, That even Kimchi owns, that in “ins in the prophet
Joel is here all one with b'n'ſ nºnrikh, “in the last days,” in
the prophet Isaiah, ii. 2, 3, where is a plain prophecy of the
exaltation of Christ's kingdom, and of the flowing in of the
nations to it; and so St. Peter hath truly rendered what is
in the prophet “afterward,” by Éy ão X&raig hºgaiº, “in the
last days;” and so it follows, that as there was no time before,
in which this promise fully was made good, so are we not to
expect any after times for the completion of it. Note,
Secondly, That as the words “all flesh” must be restrained
to all men, they only being capable of spiritual gifts, as when
the psalmist saith, Ps. cxlv. 50, “Let all flesh bless his holy
name ;” and the prophet Isaiah, lxvi. 23, “All flesh shall
come, and worship before me, saith the Lord:” so must all
men be here restrained to some of all ranks of men; as when
Hazael is said to bring to the prophet Elisha nilo 95, “all
the good of Damascus” (2 Kings viii. 9), i.e. some of every
good thing : so Christ healed Trázav yázov, “all kinds of dis-
eases,” Matt. iv. 23 (see Glass. Phil. Sac. p. 437). So that the
phrase includes all sorts of men, without exclusion of age,
young or old ; without exclusion of sex, viz. sons and daugh-
ters; without exclusion of conditions, servants and maidens;
without exclusion of nations, Jews or gentiles, “even as many
as the Lord shall call” (ver. 39). This promise being ful-
filled as well upon the Samaritans (viii. 17), and upon Cor-
nelius and his kinsfolk (Acts x.), as upon the Jews; and so
this promise contradicts the Jewish rules, that “prophecy
belonged only to Israelites, and to them only dwelling in
Judea, and them only being bºop, fitly prepared for it;” that
is, say they, “upon those who are wise, and valiant, and rich,
and who are free from sorrow” (see all this in Dr. Pocock on
Joel ii. 28). Moreover, this effusion of this Spirit upon all
flesh, as it denotes an inexhaustible fulness in that Spirit, who
was to fill all men with all diversity of gifts, as the glory of
God, and the good of the church required; so the effusion of
it upon all the several ranks of men and women mentioned,
is a full confutation of all the Jewish rules and glosses, re-
quiring such qualifications as they do to make men capable
of the gifts here promised. Again, these gifts being here
styled “prophecy,” “visions,” “dreams,” it is apparent that
the promise of distributing them to all flesh could be meant
only of the distribution of them to some of all ranks of men;
for it being never so, that all men individually had the gifts
of prophecy, dreams, visions, or revelations (I Cor. xii. 29,
30), this could never be promised ; it being certain that God
did punctually fulfil his promise. -
* Wer. 19, 20. And I will show wonders in heaven above,
and signs in the earlh beneath ; blood, and fire, and vapour
of smoke.] Tépata zai anºwetz, the first relating to signs in the
teavens, the second to those on earth (see note on Heb.
call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved (from
these direful judgments).
22 Ye men of Israel, hear these words (which I am
now about to speak; viz.) Jesus of Nazareth, a man
approved of (i.e. declared to be sent from) God *:::::
you by miracles, and wonders, and signs, which Go
did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also
know : *
23 *Him, being delivered (into your hands) by the
determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God (de-
claring by his prophets that he should lay down his life
for sinners), ye have taken, and by wicked hands have
crucified and slain :
24 (And he is that very person) whom God hath
raised up (from the grave), * loosed the pains
(or bands) of death: (as you may be assured he hath
doñe,) because it was impossible that he (who had life
in himself, John v. 26, and the promise of a speedy re-
surrection, ver. 25,) should be holden of it.
25 For David speaketh (thus, not of himself, but).
concerning him (Ps. xvi. 8, &c.), I foresaw the Lord
always before my face; for he is on my right hand,
that I should not be moved:
ii. 4). So Josephus,” speaking of the calamities of the Jews,
mentions ºrp3 raúrn; anºeia xai régata, “the signs and won-
ders” that preceded them (Praef. ad Bell. Jud. p. 708, C),
wał #yagyi répara, “the prodigies” which manifestly portend
their destruction, and the dreadful thunderings and lightnings,
wai &vkhºzara, a stoºvnç rāg yā; £aiata, “ and the vast earth-
quakes, which in the judgment of all men portend no small
evil to them” (see note on Matt. xxiv. 7, 8, and on Luke
xxi. 11). The “blood” very probably relates to that great
effusion of blood which was then made, partly by their con-
tinual conflicts with other nations, and the insults of other
nations upon them; the wars betwixt them and the Samari-
tans (Joseph. Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 5), betwixt them and the
Syrians at Caesarea (ibid. cap. 6, p. 695), betwixt them and
the Greeks and Syrians (lib. xviii, cap. 12, p. 649, 650), the
sedition betwixt them and the Greeks at Alexandria (Antiq.
lib. xix. cap. 4), the vast slaughter of them there, mentioned
by Philo in his oration against Flaccus, where rê; bºy #&#pac
#y aft,art Stºyoy, and by Josephus, in almost all the cities
round about them : and partly by the zealots and Sicarii, of
which Josephus-F speaks very tragically. The “fire” here
mentioned may relate either to the fiery meteors spoken of
by Josephus, viz. the flaming sword hanging over the city,
and the fiery comet pointing down upon it for a year; the
light that shone upon the temple and the altar in the night,
as if it had been noon-day, and the terrible lightnings now
mentioned; or to the continual burnings of their synagogues,
their oratories, their cities, villages, and houses, mentioned
by Philo, as done at Alexandria by Flaccus; by Josephus, i.
as done there by Tiberius ; in Galilee and in Judea, by Ces-
tius and Vespasian: from whence must arise pillars of
Smoke. -
Of the import of the sun's being darkened, and the moon
turned into blood, see the note on Matt. xxiv. 20: and of
the wonderful preservation of those who then called upon
the name of the Lord, as the Septuagint hath it, of the Eday-
yexićaevoi, i.e. of “those who haſd embraced the gospel,”
see the note on ver. 12. *
4 Ver. 23. Him being delivered by the determinate counsel
and foreknowledge of God, rå &gtaºyſ 8ovº, Kai Tºyºge:
roſ. 6205.] Here note, (1.) that in scripture that is said to be
done by the determinate counsel of God, which is done ac-
cording to what he had written and declared in his word, all
his predictions concerning things future being declarations
and determinations that they shall come to pass : “The Son
of man goeth as it is written of him,” saith St. Matthew,
xxvi. 24, wars to &gagévoy, “as it is determined by God con-
cerning him,” Luke xxii. 22. Note, (2) that in order to
the completion of this prediction, it was necessary that God
* De Bello Jud. lib. vii. cap. 31.
+ Lib. ii. cap. 34, 35.
† De Bello Jud, lib. ii. cap. 36.
428
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
26 Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue
}. glad; moreover also, * my flesh shall rest in
1OO6 -
†: Because (3rt, that) thou wilt not leave my soul
in hell (Gr. hades, i. e. my life in the grave), neither
wilt thou suffer thy Holy One to see corruption.
28 Thou hast made known to me the ways of life;
thou hast made me full of joy with thy countenance.
29 Men and brethren, let me freely speak to you
of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and
buried, and his sepulchre is (still seen) with us to
this day (from whence his body never rising, this can-
not personally belong to him).
30 Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that
God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit
of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up
Christ (from the dead) to sit upon his throne: º
31 He (I say), seeing this before, spake of the re-
should suffer Christ to fall into the hands of wicked men, for
they could have no power over him “unless it were thus
given them from above” (John xix. 11), and that he should
lay no restraints upon them from executing their malicious
designs upon him ; and this unrestrained permission is all
that is or can be signified by God's delivering Christ up into
their hands. Note, (3.) That this permission doth neither
hinder nor abate their sin in crucifying Christ ; for notwith-
standing this, it is plainly said, that they by wicked hands
had crucified him. Hence therefore it doth only follow
(1.) That God foresaw what he foretold, that Christ would
suffer by the hands of wicked men. (2.) That when their
malice should incline them to bring him to these sufferings,
he had determined not to interpose by his immediate power
to hinder them from doing it, but rather to permit them so
to do. But then it must be noted, that every divine permis-
sion of what God hath forbidden men to do, and of what he
requires them to repent of when they have done it, as God
doth by Peter here, is a permission of what he would not
have done by them, whom he forbids to do it, and a permis-
sion of that which cannot be done by them without sin, for
of that only are we called to repent. Hence therefore it
must follow, that this foreknowledge and determinate coun-
sel of God can be no intimation of his will that any man
should do what he forbids him to do, but only of his will to
permit the action to be done: for God cannot will that any
one should do what he forbids, i. e. wills he should not do.
Nor, secondly, can it lay on any person a necessity of doing
what he thus determines to permit ; for then it must remove
the sin, because it takes away the freedom of the action, and
renders it not mine, but his that laid upon me the unavoida-
ºble necessity of doing it. It only doth suppose that God can
See and foretell what man, not hindered by him, but left to
his own inclinations, will do; and if that foresight hath any
influence upon the will to make the action necessary, then
(1) not only all our actions must be necessary, they being
all foreseen, but also God must foresee that they are neces-
sary, for he foresees them as they are in their causes, and
doth not by foreseeing make them, i.e. cause them so to be,
since that must necessarily make him the cause of all the
sinful actions he foresees.
* Ver. 26, 27. My flesh shall rest in hope : that thou
will not leave rºy Juxºv (wou sic #8ov, neither will thou suffer
thy Holy One to see corruption.] That is, saith Dr. Ham-
mond, I am confident that though I die, yet shalt thou not
leave me so long dead, as that my body shall be putrefied;
or, thou wilt not “leave my life in the grave,” or in the state
of death. To explain and confirm this interpretation, let it
be considered,
First, That the Hebrew word nephesh, translated by the
Septuagint Juxº, doth, many hundred times, both in the Old
and the New Testament, signify life : so a 3a'at, rnesty, pv-
Äärrely rºy Juxºv is to “preserve life,” Gen. xix. 17. xxxii.
30. 1 Sam. xix. 11: Job ii. 6. Ps. lxxxv, 2. Jer. xlviii. 6.
li. 6 (see the note on Matt. xvi. 25, 26).
Zurāy rày Juxºv, is to “seek the life” of a man to destroy
it, Exod. iv. 19. 1 Sam. xx. l. xxiv. 9. xxv. 29. 2 Sam. iv.
8.1 Kings xix. 10. 14. PS. xiv. 4. xxiii. 3. xxxvii. 15. xxxix.
19. lxix. 2. cxli. 6. Jer. iv. 30. xi. 23. xxii. 25. xliv. 30.
‘Púa'ai, ###xed Sai, Avtgårat rºy Juxiv, is to “save life,” or
preserve it from death, Josh. ii. 13. 2 Sam. iv. 9. 1 Kings i.
12. 29. Ps. xvi. 14. xxi. 21. xxxii. 19. xl. 4. liv. 25. lvi. 5.
lxxi. 13. lxxxv. 12. lxxxviii. 47. cviii. 30. cxiv. 5. cxix. 2.
Isa. xliv. 20.
Aoûval Ağrpov rā; Juxºis, is to “give ransom for his life,”
Bxod. xxiii. 30. xxx. 12.
Yuxh &vt. Luxãº, is “life for life,” Exod. xxi. 23. Lev.
xxiv. 18. Deut. xix. 21, 1 Rings xxiii. 39.42 (see the note
on Matt. xxviii. 23), and slux; hºwāy 3,0' tºy, is “our life
for yours,” Josh. ii. 13. th
T10%val tºy Juxºv wov #y ºr Xelçi wov, is to “put my life in
jeopardy,” Judg. xii. 3. 1 Sam. xix. 5. xxviii. 21 (see for
this sense in the New Testament, the note on 1 Thess. ii. 8).
Note,
Secondly, That when a man dies, his “life,” in the scrip-
ture phrase, is said to go down to hades, to “the pit,” or
“into the house of silence ;” and when he is snatched from
the gates of death, his “life” is said to be “brought or lifted
up from hades,” or the grave ; and therefore, when their
bodies remain unquickened in the grave, their “ life” may
properly be said to be “left" in it. Thus Jacob saith, Gen.
xxxvii. 35, “I will go down to sheol to my son mourning,”
wata/3haouai się &Sov, “I will descend to hell,” saith the
LXX. lebeth kebortha, “to the sepulchre:” so Jonathan,
That I may be in the state of the dead as my son is: so
again, xlii. 38, “If mischief befall” my son Benjamin,
“you will bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to sheol,”
xwrážere eiç #8ov, “you will bring me down to hades"—
“into the house of the sepulchre,” saith Ben Uziel again;
and that to bring down his grey hairs, was to bring down
his “life to the grave,” is evident, because, when Judah
repeats these very words, xliv. 29. 31, he gives this rea-
son of them, because à Juxi airoi; #xxpÉpºatat #4 rāg roß-
rou Juxº, “his life depended on the lad's life:” so l Sam.
ii. 6, “The Lord,” saith Hannah, “killeth, and he maketh
alive, xaráys eiç #3ou kai äväyet he bringeth down to the
hades, and he raiseth up again ; where note, that these
words are by Josephus" used as a proof of the resurrec-
tion ; and that the Chaldee paraphrast was of the same
opinion, his words testify, for thus he renders them, “He
killeth, and he hath said we shall live again; he bringeth
down to hades, and he will after bring us up to life eternal:”
so again, Job. vii. 9, If a man karaghan eiç #8w “shall go
down to hades,” shall he rise up again? And Job xxxiii. 18,
we find these very words, “If God will teach him discipline
he will deliver nnu, ºn Twp) his life from the pit”—“from
corruption,” saith the Chaldee ; 373 Savarov, “from death,”
saith the Septuagint ; and ver. 22, “If his life draweth nigh
to the pit,” nny', wº), h £oh aircü eiç Sávaroy, “to death,”
and he says, “Redeem me from going down ſnv into cor-
ruption, #y #8), to hades; he shall return to the days of his
youth.” And Jonah, who was a type of Christ in this very
thing (Matt. xii. 39, 40), saith, “When, naphshi, my soul
failed in me, taal mishechath chaii, thou causedst my life to
ascend out of the pit” (Jonah ii. 6, 7). In the psalmist
this expression is very frequent : “O Lord,” saith he, &yāyaye;
# #8ow rºy Juxāv wov, “thou hast brought up, min sheoš
maphshi, my life from hell,” or hades, “thou hast preserved
me from going down into the pit,” Ps. xxx. 3. And again,
Ps. lxxxvi. 13, “Thou hast delivered my life rºy luxhv twov,
from the nethermost hell,” or hades—mishedl haragihla
“from sheol beneath,” or from the low earth, saith the Chal-
dee ; “from the state of death,” Ainsworth ; “from the
sepulchre,” I. T., into which Christ is said to have “de-
scended,” Eph. iv. 9 (see the note there); and into which
David, had he then died, would only have descended and
not into hell properly so called, Ps. lxxxviii. 3, chaii
lesheol, “My life draweth nigh to hell ;” # Juxh prov rá, ºn
“to hades;” and Ps. xciv. 14, “If the Lord had not been
my helper, my life had dwelt in silence, #y #8m in the grave,”
the house of silence, as appears from those words, Ps. cxv.
17, “The dead cannot praise thee, nor of Karaßaivovae; eig
#309, they that go down into hades,” LXX, ; “into silence,”
Heb.-‘into beth keborah, the house of the sepulchre,”
* Lib. de Maccab. p. 1101.
CHAPTER II.
A, 2 -
...' fºº &
surrection of Christ ('s body thus), that his soul "was
not (to be) left in hell (i. e. the grave), neither his
flesh did (should) see corruption.
32 This Jesus (I say) hath God raised u
we are all witnesses.
33 Therefore being by the right hand of God ex-
p, whereof
alted (Gr. eaſalted to the right hand of God), and hav-
ing “received of the Father the promise of the Holy
Ghost, he hath shed forth this (gift, of) which you
now see and hear (the effects).
34 For (this passage, which I am about to cite, can-
not belong to) "David (himself, seeing he) is not (yet).
Chaldee ; and Ps. lxxxix. 40, “What man is he that liveth
and shall not see death P Shall he deliver his soul from the
hand of hell, rºy Juxºv airrod in xeteåc #8ov, his life from the
hand of hades,” i. e. the grave 2 “Shall he be delivered from
the angel of death, shall he not descend into the house of
the sepulchre P” Parallel to which are the words of Heze-
kiah, Isa. xxxviii. 18, of iv #3n “They that are in hades,” or
sheol, “shall not praise, neither shall the dead bless thee :”
so Tob. iii. 10, “I shall bring the old age of my father with
sorrow” sic #8ov, that is, eiç rátov, “to the grave,” vi. 14, so
David saith to Solomon of Joab and Shimei, karášek Eic
#8ov, “Thou shalt bring down their grey hairs to the grave”
(1 Kings ii. 6. 9).
Note, Thirdly, That sheol throughout the Old Testament,
and £8m; in the Septuagint, answering to it, signifies not the
place of punishment, or of the souls of bad men, but the grave
only, or the place of death, appears,
1. From the root of it, shaal, which signifies to ask, crave,
and require, because it craves for all men (Prov. xxx. 16),
and will let no man escape its hands (Ps. lxxxviii.49), it
is is that sheol or hades, “whither we are all going” (Eccles.
ix. 10). “The Hebrew sheol,” saith Buxtorf, “signifies, in
general, the place of human bodies, when they are separated
from their souls;” &ny vexpāv xwgiov, exponunt Graeci, “The
Greeks say, that hades is the place of the dead,” saith D.
Windet ; it is 3 répoc, i régéog, “the tomb, or sepulchre,”
saith Phavorinus; thus, “to go to the gates of hades,” in
Homer, is, saith the scholiast, regiºgaai, Sayátov, “a descrip-
tion of death ;”—“He shall knock at the gates of hades,”
saith Theocritus, roãreat &moºsvāraī, “He shall die,” saith
the scholiast (see the note on Matt. xvi. 18).
2. Because it is the place to which the good, as well as the
bad, go ; for they whose souls go upwards descend into it ;
thither went Jacob, Gen. xxxvii. 35; there Job desired to be
xvi. 13, “for he knew that sheol was his house,” xvii. 13, and
“that to descend into the dust, was to descend into hades;”
where Olympiodorus brings him in speaking thus, ci, wolvöy
#Traorw 3,086Trot; r. 37:00avely; oëxi ºn; 37tacy & dixo; ; “Is
not death common to all men P Is not hades the house of
all men P” Hezekiah expected to be there after he went
hence ; for he said, “I will go to the gates of hades,” Isa.
should not go down into the pit,” xxx. 3, “My life draweth
nigh to the grave, I am counted with them that go down into
the pit,” Ps. lxxxviii. 3 (see Ps. cxv. 17. Isa. xxxviii. 10–
12). And that this must be the true import of the words,
will be still further evident, g
1. From the precedent words, “My flesh shall rest in
hope,” that thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, it being a
very proper prosopopoeia to bring his dead flesh, hoping it
shall be revived, but not so proper to introduce it, hoping
that its soul shall not be left in hell, or in the place of the
damned ; and also from the following words, “Thou wilt
not leave my soul in hell, for thou wilt show me the path of
life:” for, as life is opposed to death, so showing to one
dead, or in danger of it, the path of life, must signify the pre-
serving him from death, or the restoring him to life when
dead. And,
2. From the consideration of the person to whom these
words do in the primary sense belong : for, being spoken
by king David, when his life was continually in his hand,
and he was still in danger of death from a persecuting Saul,
they in respect of him can only signify his hope, that God
would not give him over unto death ; and so in reference to
the Son of David will very naturally import, that though thou
sufferest men to kill me, and lay m the grave, yet wilt
thou raise me from the dead. In a word, this phrase is by
St. Peter imported of our Lord's resurrection ; for so he
speaks, “Him, whom you by wicked hands have slain, God
hath raised up, loosing the bands of death,” ver. 23, 24,
“for David saith of him, Thou wilt not leave my soul in
hell,” i. e. my life in the grave ; and it is not opposed to
David's continuing in the grave, and in the state of death;
thus, “David is both dead and buried,” and his body lies
still in the sepulchre; he therefore could not say this of him-
self, but “being a prophet,” and so foreseeing that God
would raise up Jesus from the dead, he said this of the re-
surrection of Christ, “Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell,”
or, my life in the grave (see the appendix to this verse at the
end of the Acts). .
* Ver. 31. oë warexeipón h Jux} atroſ; eiç #8ov.] Here Dr.
Mills is confident that the words # Juxi, attoi were inserted
from ver. 26, because they are wanting in Irenaeus, lib. iii.
xxxviii. 30, that is, saith Jerome, “to those gates of which
the psalmist speaks, saying, Thou wilt lift me up from the
gates of death.”
all that died, and therefore say, Trávra, Ögºod Synºroug &fönç
The ancient Greeks assigned one hades to
cap. 12, p. 299, in the Vulgate, Syriac, and Cod. Alex., but
as these words are owned by the Arab., Chrysostom, and
CEcumenius, in locum, and by Origen,* in his commentary
on the Kings, where he says that they are read in the Psalms,
8éxºrai, “Hades receives all mortal men together,” eiç nowy and are interpreted in the Acts of the Apostles; so is it evi-
#8w träyre; #ova'iv 880tol, “all men go to hades.”
any receptacle of souls, they could not truly have declared
there was “no wisdom or knowledge in sheol,” Eccles. ix. 10,
no remembrance of God there, Ps. vi. 6, no praising in Sheol,
Isa. xxxviii. 18; for those heathens who looked upon it as
receptacle of souls, held it to be a place in which they would
be punished or rewarded.
Seeing then, karáyew rºy Juxºv eiç #3ou, is “to bring down
the life to the grave,” &váyev rºy Juxºv #% #8ov, is “to bring
the life up from the grave;” ºwn #ykaraxeirely rhy ºvyºv fºov
sic #8ov, may very properly here import, “not to leave the
life of Christ in the grave,” but to revive his dead body by
giving a new life and motion to the animal spirits, now dor-
mant in it, and a reunion of his soul to it; and so this first
part of the sentence, “Thou wilt not leave my life in the
grave,” will be in sense the same with the ensuing words,
“Thou wilt not suffer thy Holy One to see corruption ;” as
are those words in the psalmist, “What man is he that shall
not see death P” the same with the following words, “Shall
he deliver his life from the hand of hades 7" and those of
Job, xviii. 18, “The grave is my house, I have made my
bed in the darkness;” and those of Elihu, xxxiii. 28, “He
will deliver his life from going down into the pit, and his life
shall see the light;" and those of David, “Thou hast brought
| dent from the very words that they ought to be retained, for
3. Had the penmen of the Old Testament meant by hades
the words of the psalmist being these, oùx #ykaraxeislet; rºw
Juxhy aou eiç #Sov, the apostle here saying that David spake
this of the resurrection, ought to use the words that David
spake: and, (2) this is farther evident from the words follow-
ing, oběš agº: ağroš, “Nor did his flesh see corruption,” they
having a plain relation to # Juxh airrot going before.
* Ver. 33. He received the promise of the Spirit from the
Father.] i. e. The Spirit promised by him, and therefore
styled his promise, Luke xxiv. 49, and received from him by
Christ, who, as mediator betwixt God and man, is to convey
all blessings to man, “from that Father of light” from whom
“comes every good and perfect gift ; ” and thus this one
mediator betwixt God and man, “the man Christ Jesus ”
(1 Tim. ii. 5), is fitly said to have received this Spirit from
the Father, though as to his divine nature he also is the
Spirit of Christ (i Pet. i. 11), and he receives of his to give
unto us (John xvi. 14, see the note there); yea, he hath so
received him as to be the Lord of the Spirit (2 Cor. iii. 18),
and of all his administrations (1 Cor. xii. 5): So that all
Christians ever did receive him “according to the measure
of the gift of Christ" (Eph. iv. 7).
7 Ver. 34. David is not ascended into heaven.] i.e. With
his body, as Enoch and Elias did; but as Jesus, who is the
up my soul from the grave, thou hast kept me alive, that I
* Apud Huet. tom, i. p. 32.
430
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself (of
Christ), The Lord said to my Lord, "Sit thou on my
right hand, y
35 Until I make thy foes thy footstool.
36 Therefore let all the house of Israel know as-
suredly, that (by this exaltation of him to his right
hand), "God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye
have crucified, both Lord (of all things, x, 36,) and
Christ, (i. e. the king of Israel, John i. 50.)
37 Now when they heard this, they were pricked
(or filled with sorrow) in their hearts (for this sin),
and said to Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men
and brethren, what shall we do (to obtain the pardon
of so great a crime) P
38 Then Peter said to them, Repent, and be bap-
tized every one of you in the "name of Jesus Christ
for the remission of (your) sins, (which by this bap-
iism will be washed away, xxii. 16,) and (then) ye
(also) shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
39 For the promise (of him, mentioned Joel ii. 28,)
is (made) to you, and to your children, and (not to
them only, but also) to all that are afar off (i. e. the
gentiles), even (to) as many as the Lord our God
shall call.
40 And with many other words did he testify and
exhort (them to repentance), saying, Save yourselves
from (the evils coming on) this untoward generation.
41 Then they that gladly received the word were
baptized: and the same day there were added to
them (of the church) about three thousand souls (i. e.
persons).
42 And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’
doctrine, and (in) fellowship (with them, and one an-
other, I John i. 3. 7,) and in * breaking of bread, and
in prayers.
43 And fear came upon every soul (that was ac-
quainted with these things); and many wonders and
signs were done by the apostles. *
44 And all that believed “were together, and had
* all things common;
45 And sold their possessions and goods, and
parted them to all men as every man had need.
Son and Lord of David, and was to sit upon his throne (ver.
33), and reign over the house of Jacob for ever (Lukei. 32,
33), must have ascended thither: for thus did David pro-
phesy concerning him when he said, “The Lord said to my
Lord,” &c. of which words see the notes on Matt. xxii. 46.
Heb. i. 13.
* Sil thou on my right hand.] Christ's session at the right
hand of God, imports, (1.) the unspeakable felicity which
Christ, according to his human mature, now enjoys; for God's
right hand is represented as the place of everlasting happi-
ness and joy, as in those words, Ps. xvi. 11, “In thy presence
there is fulness of joy, at thy right hand there are pleasures
for evermore;” and hence the psalmist, having prophesied of
our Lord's resurrection, adds these words, “Thou wilt make
me full of joy with thy countenance,” ver. 28. (2.) The
glorious majesty to which our Saviour is advanced ; God's
right hand being styled in scripture, “the right hand of ma-
jesty,” Heb. i. 3 ; and as the most honourable place among
men is the right hand, and Solomon showed his mother
Bathsheba the highest honour, when he made her sit on the
right hand of his throne (1 Kings ii. 19); so hath the Father
advanced. Christ's human nature to the highest dignity, by
causing it to sit “on the right hand of the throne of the
Majesty in the heavens,” Heb. viii. 1. (3.) It signifies that
fulness of power with which he is invested over all things in
heaven and earth (Matt. xxviii. 18); for so the scripture
represents the greatness of his divine power by “the strength
of his right hand” (Ps. xx. 6. lxxxix. 13): and hence our
Lord is said to “sit on the right hand of power,” Matt. xxviii.
64. (4.) Because princes sit on their thrones to execute
judgment, and exert that dominion which God hath given
them over their subjects; therefore this session at the right
hand of God imports his authority to judge both the quick
and the dead, as being by it constituted Lord of the dead and
of the living (Rom. xiv. 9. 12). *
* Ver. 36. God hath made the same Jesus both Lord and
Christ.] Here the word Christ signifies the Messiah, accord-
ing to his regal office, in which sense he is still styled by
the Chaldee paraphrasts and Jewish writers, Tºp Tºwn, Mes-
sias, or “Christ the king,” as Buxtorf” shows in the word
Tºwn ; under which title the prophets frequently speak of
him as of a king to reign over God’s people, Ps. xxiv. 7. xlv.
1. Isa. xxxii. 1. Zech. ix. 9; and not the Jews only, but the whole
east under that title did expect him (see note on Luke ii. 38).
* Ver. 38, 39. Be baptized in the name of the Lord
Jesus, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, for
the promise is to you and to your children.] Here let it be
observed, 4.
First, That St. Peter exhorts the Jews to be baptized, not
in the name of the Father and the Holy Ghost, but only in
the name of Jesus, because they did already believe in God
the Father, and in the Holy Ghost, and profess obedience
to the laws of God, and of the Holy Ghost speaking by the
mouth of his prophets.
t
Secondly, That when it is said, “You shall receive the
Holy Ghost,” it is not intended that every one of them upon
their baptism should be endued with the extraordinary gifts
of tongues and prophecy: for it is manifest from the history
of the Acts, and especially from vi. 3, that he was given only
to some among them, though that was for the benefit of all ;
and hence is that inquiry of St. Paul, 1 Cor. xii. 29, 30,
“Are all prophets? do all speak with tongues?” But the
meaning of St. Peter is, that he should fall upon some of all
ranks of them, according to the true purport of the words of
Joel. Note,
Thirdly, That these words will not prove a right of infants
to receive baptism : the promise mentioned here being that
only of the Holy Ghost, mentioned wer. 16–18, and so re-
lating only to the times of the miraculous effusion of the
Holy Ghost, and to those persons who by age were made
capable of these extraordinary gifts.
* Wer. 42. And in breaking of bread..] I see no necessity
to think these words relate to the receiving of the Sacrament;
not from the phrase of breaking bread, for this is used by the
evangelists when they relate Christ's miraculous feeding of
the multitude, Matt. xv. 36. Mark viii. 19, 20, and in the
forty-sixth verse of this chapter they are said to “break
bread from house to house,” and to “eat their ment with
singleness of heart;” where it can only signify their friendly
converse with one another : but, (2.) allowing this to relate
to the receiving of the sacrament, and not to their breaking
bread at the feast of pentecost, either wine was also conse-
crated with the bread, or it was not ; if it was, then must
bread signify, by a synecdoche, very usual in the scripture,”
bread and drink ; and therefore, when that drink is wine, as
in the sacrament it is, bread and wine ; and then, if both
were consecrated, both might be distributed, according to
our Saviour's precept, “Drink ye all of this ;” if it was not,
the officiator, even according to the principles of the church
of Rome, must be guilty of sacrilege (see the notes on Luke
xxiv. 30. Acts xx. 7). *
* Ver. 44. They were it tº aird, all together.] There be-
ing added to the one hundred and twenty, three thousand
souls (ver. 41), it seemeth inconvenient to say, they were all
' together in one place, unless it were in one of those apart-
ments in the towers of the temple, which, saith Josephus, i.
would receive a hundred beds; and therefore it seems bet-
ter to refer this to their communion in the same action, in
which sense all the Jews are said to build #7. To airó, “to-
gether” (Ezra iv. 3), though they were far separated from one
another (Nch. iv. 19), and Joab and Abner's men to be šti
rô aird, “together” (2 Sam. ii. 12), though one were on the
ome, the other on the other side of the pool (see Ps. iv. 9.
xlix. 2. Isa. Ixvi. 17. Jer. vi. 12).
* And had all things common.] These words here, and
iv. 32, do not signify that they had no longer any property
* P. 1267.
* Gen. xliii. 16. 25. Exod. ii. 20. xvi. 3. xviii. 12. Luke
xiv. l. Matt. xv. 2. Mark iii. 10. Acts xxvii. 35.
ºf De Bello Jud, lib, vi, cap. 13, p. 915.
CHAPTER II.
431
46 And they continued daily with one accord in
the temple, and, breaking bread from house to house,
did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of
heart (or sincere liberality one towards another),
in what belonged to them, for then they could not sell them
afterward ; but that they used and disposed of them as
things common, freely imparting of them to all that had
need. And that this making sale of them was not done by
command, Peter declares, by telling Amanias he was under
no obligation so to do (Acts v. 4). Nor was it ever intended
for an example or precedent to other Christians, as is evi-
dent from all the epistles, in which we have frequent men-
tion of the distinction betwixt rich and poor; and frequent
exhortations to the wealthy to be rich in good works, but
not the least intimation that they ought to sell their posses-
sions; this being now done on a particular account, either by
them who had lands out of Judea, as Barnabas had his in
Cyprus, and being resolved not to return thither, but to
cleave to the apostles, could make but little benefit from
47 Praising God, and having favour with all the
people. And the Lord added to the church daily
such as should be “saved (Gr. the saved).
them there ; or else in Judea, and therefore they knowing,
from our Saviour's prophecy of the destruction of Jerusa-
lem, and from his exhortation, that they were shortly to fly
from and quit them to the enemy, were willing to part with
their estates for the benefit of the church, before they were
snatched from them by the enemy.
* Ver. 47. Totº cočoºzévouc, The saved.] The Christians are
so styled elsewhere: so 1 Cor. i. 18, roi; orogopºćvot; hºwſy, “To
us the saved Christ crucified is the power of God;’ and
when the means of salvation, or that “grace of God which
brings Salvation,” was vouchsafed to them, salvation is said
to come (Luke xix. 9. Rom. xi. 11), or to be sent to them
º xiii. 16. xxviii. 28, see the note on Eph. ii. 18. Tit.
iii. 5). .*
CHAPTER III.
I Now (Gr. and) Peter and John went up together
into the temple at the hour of prayer, (being) "the
ninth hour (Gr. at the ninth hour of prayer).
2 And a certain man (who had been) lame from his
mother’s womb was carried (thither), whom they
(who brought him) laid daily at the *gate of the tem-
ple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them
that entered into the temple; (by which means he be-
ccme well known to all who entered into it, ver. 10.)
3 Who seeing Peter and John about to go into the
temple asked (Gr. to receive) an alms (of them).
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III.
* Wer. 1. At the ninth hour of prayer.] Among the Jews
there were three stated hours of prayer ; the first at the
third hour of the day (Acts ii. 15), which answers to our
ninth; at which time they offered their morning sacrifice
(Exod. xxix. 30. Numb. xxviii. 3, 4), at the ninth hour, or
at three in the afternoon, when they offered their evening
sacrifice (Acts x, 3. 30). Of these two, the Hebrew doctors
say, The continual sacrifice of the morning made atonement
for the iniquities that were done in the night, and the evening
sacrifice for the iniquity that was done by day : but Philok
saith, “They were both sacrifices of thanksgiving for the
blessings God was pleased continually to confer upon man-
kind by day and night.” At both these times, special favours
were shown by God to his people; thus, Trgot &yagawoſanç rº;
Sucíaç, “In the morning when the mincha was offered,” the
thirsty land was miraculously filled with water (2 Kings iii.
20); and about the time of the evening oblation, God an-
swers Daniel's prayer, by sending the angel Gabriel to him
(Dan. ix. 21). Hence David says, “Let my prayer ascend
to thee as incense, and the lifting up of my hands as an
evening sacrifice” (Ps. cxli. 2); either because that also com-
prehends the morning Sacrifice, as Kimchi conjectures, or, as
R. Saadias, because by that all things were atoned, there be-
ing no sacrifice offered after that: and upon this account it
might be, that the apostles, and other persons went always
up into the temple at these “hours of prayer” (Acts ii. 46).
The third time of prayer was the sixth hour, that is, at
twelve of the clock, before they dined, or after dinner; at
which time we find Peter at his prayers, Acts x. 9. Of these
three times the royal psalmist speaketh thus, “At evening,
and at morning, and at noon, will I pray to thee” (Ps. lv.
17): and of Daniel it is recorded, that “he kneeled down
three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks (Dan. vi. 10.
* “rarăg sixagaria; #xátegow, row ºy trip Tây pºsſnºeglyāy,
ºrów 3’ birée Tāv www.to; eispygartów, &c &taſia twº xa: &8taa-tároſ,
‘rā yévet røy &v6;&zroy & Osó; Xºphysi. De Victimis, lib. i. p.
647, B. -
4 And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with
John (to raise his expectation of receiving some benefit
from them), said (to him), Look on us.
5 And he gave heed unto (Gr. looked on) them, ex-
pecting to receive something of them.
6 Then Peter said (to him), Silver and gold have
I none (to give); but such as I have (Gr. what I have)
give I to thee: (saying to thee,) In the name of Jesus
Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.
7 And he (having said this) took him by the right
hand, and lifted him up (Gr. and taking him by the
13). And the Jews say, they received these stated hours of
prayer from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: but yet as their
going to the temple is no precedent for us Christians to per-
form our private devotions in the church, which by our
Lord’s directions we rather are to do entering into our clo-
sets, God not being so present in our churches, as in a place
of his perpetual and glorious residence, as he was in the ta-
bernacle and the temple; so neither is their observation of
these hours of prayer any warrant for our institution of ca-
nonical hours of prayer, much less an evidence that the
apostles by going thither did institute these canonical hours,
as Baronius fancies. Notwithstanding, seeing we Christians
are as much obliged to perform both our public and private
devotions to God, as the Jews could be, it must be laudable
in us also to set apart solemn times for the performance of
those duties, as they did. And hence the Constitutions” of
the Apostles, having cited the Lord’s prayer, reig rā; hºwāgaç
orporaßease, “Pray thus thrice a day:” and Tertulliant says
that these three hours, morning, noon, and evening, were in-
signiores in orationibus diurnis, “the most celebrated in their
daily prayers.” And these three times, saith Theodoret,f
we glorify God, rā; Seia, Asiroupyia; #y #xxxnariat; trirexotiv'reg,
“using the sacred liturgies in the churches.”
* Ver. 2. IIgbº rºw Sógay roi; isgoû rāv Āeyop,ávny &palay, To
the gate of the temple called Beautiful..] This gate, being
the very front and entrance into the temple, was built with
such sumptuousness and glory, as became the frontispiece of
that place where the divine Majesty vouchsafed to dwell,
and hence bearing the name of the “Beautiful gate:” the
other three gates belonging to the entrance into the court of
the women, were, saith Josephus, Xpwoº; re, Kai égyº re-
waxwººval travtax60sy, “covered over with silver, and then
gilt;” but this gate, which he called the Corinthian gate,
as being made of Corinthian brass, was, saith he,S Troxi ri
ºrigii răç waragyūgov; Rai aſsetzgûa-ove wºrstáyova'a, “much ex-
ceeding in glory those of gold and silver.”
* Lib. vii. cap. 24. + De Orat. C.
† Ep. 145, p. 1023. -
§ De Bello Jud. lib. vi. cap. 14, p. 916, G.
4.32
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
right hand, he arose); and (for) immediately his feet
and ancle-bones received strength (to arise).
8 And he leaping up (from his bed) stood (up),
and walked, and entered with them into the temple,
walking, and leaping, and praising God (according to
the prophecy, Isa. xxxv. 6, Then the lame shall leap as
the hart). º
9 And all the people saw him walking, and (heard
him) praising God.
10 And they knew that it was he that sat for (to
beg) alms at the Beautiful gate of the temple: and
(therefore) they were filled with wonder and amaze-
ment at that which had happened to him.
11 And as the lame man which was healed held
Peter and John, all the people (present) ran together
to them in the porch called Solomon’s, greatly won-
dering (at what was done).
12 And when Peter saw it, he "answered (or,
spake) unto the people, Ye men of Israel, why mar-
vel ye at this or why look ye so earnestly on us, as
though by our own power * or holiness we had made
this man to walk 2
13 (This miracle is wholly to be ascribed to the
Lord Jesus ; for be it known to you, that) the God of
Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our
fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus; (placing him at
the right hand of his Majesty in the highest heavens,
Heb. i. 3, and giving him all power in heaven and
earth, Matt, xxvii. 18, even that Jesus) whom ye de-
livered up (to be crucified), and denied him, (or, re-
fused him) in the presence of Pilate, when he was de-
termined to let him go, (kpivavrog ároxistv, judging
him rather fit to be released ;
14 He, I say, would have released him, but ye “de-
nied the Holy One and the Just (i.e. him who was
truly so), and (instead of him) desired a murderer
(i. e. Barabbas, Luke xxiii. 19) to be granted to you,
15 And (ye) killed "the Prince of life whom God
hath raised from the dead; whereof we are wit-
IlêSSeS.
16 And his name, through (our) 7 faith in his
name, hath made this man strong (to walk), whom ye
see and know (to have been unable from his birth to
go); yea, the faith which is by him (i. e. which we
have in him, or which is efficacious by his power) hath
given him this perfect soundness in the presence of
you all.
17 And now, brethren, I wot that “through igno-
rance (of his mission from God) ye did it (i. e. these
things), as did also your rulers (through the like
ignorance, arising not from want of evidence that he
was sent of God, but from those prejudices which ob-
structed their discerning it).
18 But those things, which God before had shown
by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should
suffer, he hath so fulfilled (as that you, through this
ignorance, have been the very means of fulfilling what
they had foretold, Acts xiii. 27). *
19 Repent ye therefore (of the murder of the Just
One), and be converted (from your opposition to his
name and doctrine to faith in him), that your sins may
be blotted out, when "the times of refreshing shall
* Ver. 12. "Afrekpivaro, He answered.] This word is often
used without relation to any precedent question, and some-
times only signifies, that such a one began to speak, and is
usually joined with Ašwo or eitro, to speak ; so Matt. xi. 25,
Atrox;1653; &# 3 incois giray, Jesus Patrem compellans dixit,
“Jesus speaking to his Father, said;” or, Jesus began to say,
Matt. xii. 38. Some of the scribes, ārexplóncity Afyovré,
“Spake, saying,” xvii. 4; &mozpı9eiç de & IIErgö; simsy, “And
Peter speaking, said to Jesus:” see xxii. 1. xxvi. 63. xxvii.
21, xxviii. 5. Mark ix. 38. x. 51. xi. 14. 'Atroxºtósic à 'Inazoo;
Bºrey airi, “Jesus speaking, said to the fig-tree;” xii. 35.
xiv. 48. John v. 19. Acts v. 8. viii. 34. x 46. xv. 13, xxiv.
25. xxv. 9, so the Hebrew word ºps often signifies, as in
Exod. xv. 21 ; so Exod. xxi. 5, #39 &monet0m, “If the
servant say:” so 1 Kings ii. 1, 3rexpiyaro, David “speaks;”
and iii. 26, 3ringión # yvyi), “the woman said,” Ps. cxix. 172,
and frequently in the book of Job. Sometimes, though no
question is asked, and no discourse requiring an answer pre-
ceded, yet our Lord answers to the secret thoughts and in-
ward reasonings of the Jews, or to their admiration touch-
ing his words or works, as Matt. xvii. 4. xxviii. 5. Mark x.
24. Luke iii. 16. v. 22. viii. 40.
* *H eva'sésſº, Or holiness.] This is the reading of Chry-
sostom, and CEcumenius, and of all the MSS., and ancient
versions, excepting only the Syriac: for it is confessed by
Lorinus, that the ancient Latin copies, both MSS. and
printed, read not potestate but pietate. Here then is a plain
evidence of the variation of the Roman doctrine from that
of the apostles, assisted by the Holy Ghost; for the apostles
here plainly disclaim any excellency or piety in them, which
might make them worthy to be God’s instruments above any
others, in working such miracles as these : but the catechism
of the Trent council” plainly declares, that God confers upon
us many benefits, eorum merito, “by virtue of the merits of
the Saints;” and Lorinus on the place declares, that innu-
merable histories, and the practice of the church, show, quéd
sanctorum merita, ad impetranda miracula valeant, “that
the merits of the saints are prevalent for the working mi-
racles.”
* Ver. 14. Thy #ytov Kai Sikatoy hºvha ao SE.] These words I
would render thus, “You refused the Holy One:” so styled
by good angels, Luke i. 35, and by evil angels, Luke iv. 34,
* Par, iii. cap. 2, §. 12.
and even by Pilate's wife, that “Just One,” Matt. xxvii. 19,
for so &gyéopal doth often signify both in scripture and pro-
fane authors. So Acts vii. 25, “This Moses by hºvha ayro,
whom they refused :” Heb. xi. 24, ºpyha-aro, “He refused to
be called the son of Pharaoh.” So in Phavorinus, &pyºral 5
pº, Séxoy Troiſſa'ai ºri, is, “he that is unwilling,” and refuseth
“to do anything:” in Suidas, to &eveſo-Sat 3aysia rā;, is, “to
reject the usurers.” And to this sense, the very derivation
of the word seems to lead : it being, say grammarians, 373
rot aipew ré; Xeſpa; #ari rii ragatthaei, done “by lifting up
the hands in way of refusal.”
* Ver. 15. Apxnyy rā; 30%, The Prince of life.] The
person sent by God to lead you in the way to life eternal,
having first declared it fully to the world, 2 Tim. i. 10, pro-
posed it to believers, John vi., purchased it for them by his
death, shown the way to it by his doctrine, and being ap-
pointed to give it to his faithful servants, John xvii. 2, whence
he is styled, 3.8xnyā; tā; corneiaç, “the captain of our Sal-
vation,” Heb. ii. 10, § 36xnyès, “a Prince and a Saviour, to
give repentance unto Israel, and remission of sins,” v. 32.
Or, as Grotius here hath it, he is styled “a Prince of life,”
as having life in himself, and power to raise all men from the
dead, John v. 26. 29. To which sense the whole phrase,
“Ye have killed the Prince of life,” seems to lead us,
7 Wer. 16. ‘H triart; # 3i' airoij, The faith which is by
him.] For iy airó, “in him:” so Rom. xv. 20, “Nothing is
unclean, 8’ abroº, in itself?” Si iºaroº, “in the water,” 2
Pet. iii. 5, Tä, ölä roi, gāgator, “the things done in the body,”
2 Cor. v. 10, “they that sleep 8:3 roſ, incoiſ, in Jesus,” 1
Thess. iv. 14, and in this book, 8:3 rāg www.roc, “in the night,”
v. 19. xxiii. 31. **
* Ver. 17. Through ignorance ye did it, as did also your
Tulers.] Though the ignorance of the whole nation, and es-
pecially of the “rulers” in this case, was such as took away all
just excuse in them on the account of their infidelity (John
xv. 22. 24); yet, because it was occasioned by those preju-
dices they had contracted through the meanness of his cha-
racter, and their imagination that Christ should not die, an:
that his kingdom should be temporal, Christ bears with it
till the time of the effusion of the Holy Ghost, and then
calls them again by his apostles to repentance. See the
discourse of the sin against the Holy Ghost in the appendix
to Matt. xii.
* Wer. 10. “otrol; &y #ASwart kaigoi &ya Jºswg, When the
CHAPTER III.
433
(3rug fiv \000, that times of refreshing may) come
from the presence of the Lord.
20 And he shall send (kai droarsi\), and that he
may send) Jesus Christ, who "before was preached to
you, (to give you a final absolution from them at the
great day : him, I say.)
21 * Whom the heavens must receive till the
*times of restitution (or completion) of all things,
which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy
prophets * since the world began.
22 * For Moses truly said (or, said indeed) to the
fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up
to you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye
times of refreshing shall come upon you..] Here the critical
notes are these, (1.) that śiras & ASwat, is to be rendered
“that,” or, “so that they may come:” ut veniant ; so Ire-
naeus, lib. ii. cap. 12, p. 363, ut superveniant, Tertul. de Re-
sur. Carn. cap. 23. So the phrase is often used both in the
Old and New Testament, and in profane authors: in the
Old Testament it answers to lyn', and is often rendered
that : so Ps, ix. 14, Širo; &y Éayysław, “That I may show
forth thy praises:” Ps. xcii. 7, Širo; 3W #0X2825ušćgly, “That
they may be destroyed for ever:” Ps. cxix. 101, Širo's ºw
box&#2, “That I may keep thy words.” In the New Tes-
tament, 3rºg &y #x&ntha waiv, “That the residue of men may
seek after the Lord,” Acts xv. 17, Široc &y &Trozºv'pºorly,
“That the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed,” Luke
ii. 35, Široc &y Sikato Sãº, “That thou mayest be justified,”
Rom. iii. 4 ; so in Aristophanes, Štro; &y sièjì, “That he may
know” (see Budaeus). (2) of wagoi évalºoc, are times of
rest, refreshment, consolation : sometimes after great danger
and trouble, as when God had taken away the plague of
frogs, “Pharaoh saw there was āvá-pužić, refreshment,” or, as
we say, a breathing-time : so when the evil spirit was on
Saul, David played on the harp, x&i &vá-bvže, “and Saul was
refreshed” (2 Sam. xvi. 14). The king and all the people
came weary, wał &vé Lužay #xeſ, “and were refreshed there:”
so Ps. xxxviii. 13, “O spare me, ye āya-Lváà that I may re-
vive :” Ps. lxv. 11, “We have gone through fire and
water, and thou hast brought us forth, si; &ya-luxāv, to a
place of rest” (see 2 Macc. xiii. 13): and sometimes with-
out relation to it, as, a nation at ease, and without care, is
#Syo; x26%geyov gig &va Juxi, Jer. xlix. 30, I have found
&va-luxāv, “rest to myself,” Hos. xii. 8 (see 2 Macc. iv. 46)
Now these times of refreshing, rest, and comfort, are by
some referred to the times of the gospel, in which Christ
saith, “Come to me, ye that are weary and heavy laden, xat
&yarajaro, and I will refresh you” (Matt. xi. 28), “and ye
shall find, &vátravaty, rest to your souls” (ver. 30). So Dr.
Lightfoot, who gives the import of the words thus, “Repent,
&c. that your sins may be blotted out, that the times of re-
freshing from the gospel may come upon you.” But against
this interpretation there lies this objection, That these times
of refreshing were to come by the sending of that Jesus
who was ascended into heaven, and was not to come thence
till the day of judgment (ver. 21, 22). Grotius and Dr.
Hammond refer this to their deliverance from the destruc-
tion which shortly was to come on the obdurate Jews; but
though that was then future, and there is frequent mention
of a tragovºia, or “coming” of Christ, then, yet was it no
coming of Christ from heaven, but only a coming by the Ro-
man army. I therefore incline rather to the opinion of the
ancients, which refers this to the time of Christ's Second
coming, to give all his servants, after their troubles and per-
secutions in this world, rest with him (2 Thess. i. 6–8),
which he shall do by descending from heaven, raising them
from the dead, and causing them to enter into everlasting
rest (1 Thess. iv. 15, 16. 1 Cor. xv. 47). So the times of
the resurrection are by the Jews styled the days of consola-
tion, Targum in Hos. vi. 2.
* Wer. 20. Tày trºoxexmpuypºvov, Who before was preached
to you..] Some here read, röy Trgow8%Eigtaºzávoy, “before de-
signed,” viz. in the predictions of the law and the prophets,
or, before preached to you by them.
* Ver. 21. “ov 88ſ oigayby ºv &#aağal, Whom the hea-
wens must receive.] They who render the words thus, “Who
must receive the heavens,” i. e. govern there, seem to be
hear in all things whatsoever he shall say to you.
23 And it shall come to pass, that every soul (i. e.
person) who will not hear that prophet, shall be de-
stroyed from among the people.
24 Yea, and * all the prophets from Samuel and
those that follow after (or, and the times following),
as many as have spoken (of that prophet), have likewise
foretold of these days (of grace and refreshment by him.
25 Now) *ye are the children of (your fathers)
the prophets, and of the covenant which God made
with our fathers, saying to Abraham (Gen. xxii. 18),
And in " thy seed shall all the kingdoms of the earth
be blessed.
confuted by the limitation of time annexed to these words,
Christ being to reign in the heavens for ever.
** "Axel Xgévoy &rokataa-ráaeo's Trávrov, Till the times of
'restitution of all things.] That these words cannot be meant
of a restitution of all things to their former state, is certain;
for sure, it is very improper to say, there will be a restitution
of all things to their former state, “which God hath spoken
by the mouth of all his prophets:” for since these things re-
late to the forerunner of our Lord, Christ's coming in the
flesh, his life, death, resurrection, and ascension, the preach-
ing of the gospel to the gentiles, and the reign of antichrist,
the calling of the Jews, and the coming in of the fulness of
the gentiles, these things may very well be said to be exhi-
bited, performed, accomplished, and consummated; but I See
not with what propriety or truth they can be said to be re-
stored to the former state, or be renewed; and therefore &xpt
Xpávoy &moxaraa’rácso; Trávrov, is by the Syriac rendered,
“Until the fulness of the time of all things;” by the Arabic
“Till the time in which all things shall be perfected or fi-
mished;” by Tertullian,” Adusque tempora exhibitionis om-
mium; by Irenaeus,+ Usque ad tempora dispositionis om-
nium; i. e. “Till the time of the exhibition or disposal of
all things;” by CEcumenius, “Till the time of all things
does, gig Trégaç #x6sty, come to an end :” and for the confir-
mation of this import of the word, we have the suffrage of
Hesychius and Phavorinus, that &mozaráo radiº is rexeiodic,
“the consummation” of a thing. Hence then I argue thus
against the doctrine of the millenaries; since Christ is to
continue in heaven till the completion or consummation of
all things spoken by the holy prophets, if the millennium
were any of them, Christ must continue in heaven till the
consummation of that also, and therefore is not to come down
from heaven to reign on earth till the millennium be ended;
nor can that be contemporary with our Lord's second coming,
which is from heaven.
* 'Ar' atºyoſ, Since the world began.] That is, “from times
of old” (see note on Luke i. 70).
* Ver. 22. For Moses said, A prophet, &c.] Hence it
appears that this prophecy doth primarily respect Christ,
and not a series of prophets, as some imagine (see the note
on John i. 45. v. 46).
* Ver. 24. And all the prophets from Samuel.] Samuel,
saith Dr. Hammond, is here reckoned the first of the pro-
phets, because the schools of the prophets were first insti-
tuted and erected by him; we reading in his time of a com-
pany or college of prophets at Ramah, “ and Samuel
standing among them” (1 Sam. xix. 20). He is reckoned,
Saith Dr. Lightfoot, after Moses, partly because prophecy
from Moses to Samuel was very rare (1 Sam. iii. 1, 2), and
partly because he was the first after Moses that wrote his
prophecy. •
* Ver. 25. Ye are the children of the prophets.] The
prophets being styled spiritual fathers, 2 Kings ii. 12. xiii.
14, they who were taught by them were called “the sons of
the prophets,” 2 Kings ii. 3, and generally teachers were
called “fathers,” and they who were taught by them “chil-
dren” (see note on 1 Cor. xiv. 13).
* In thy seed shall all the families of the earth be
blessed.] Hence it is evident, that these words are not a form
of blessing to this effect, “God bless thee as he blessed
Abraham,” but a promise of a benediction to all nations
through Christ theseed of Abraham (see thenote on Gal.iii. 16).
* De Carn. cap. 23. + B. iii. cap. 12.
2 F
434
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
26. Unto you (therefore) first God, having raised sent him to bless you, in turning every one of you
up his Son Jesus, (as he promised by Moses, ver. 22) from his iniquities.
CHAPTER IV.
1 AND as they spake to the people, the priests, and
* the captain of the temple, and the sadducees, came
upon them (violently.
2 The sadducees) being grieved that they taught
the people, and preached (to them) through Jesus the
resurrection from the dead (which the sadducees de-
nied, xxiii. 8.)
3 And they laid hands on them, and put them in
hold (i. e. in prison) until the next day: for it was
now eventide.
4 Howbeit (38, but notwithstanding this treatment
of him) many of them which heard the word believed
(their doctrine) ; and the (whole) *number of the
men (that believed it) was about five thousand.
5 And it came to pass on the morrow, that their
rulers, and elders, and scribes,
6 And Annas the high-priest, and Caiaphas, and
John, and Alexander, and as many as were of the
kindred of the high-priest, were gathered together at
Jerusalem.
7 And when they had set them (Peter and John) in
the midst (of the assembly), they asked (them), By
what power, or by (virtue of) what name, have you
done this (cure)?
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV.
* Wer. 1.] Of this “captain of the temple,” see the note on
Luke xxii. 52. Before our Saviour's passion, the chief
agents against him were the scribes and pharisees; but now
that the apostles do not only assert the resurrection of our
Lord, but also “preach through him the resurrection of the
dead” (ver. 2), the Sadducees, who denied the resurrection
of the body, become their fiercest adversaries (see the note
on Acts xxiii. 6). -
* Ver. 4. And the number of the men was about five
thousand.] Not the number of the auditors, for they are
never reckoned up in Scripture, but the number of them that
believed, hearing Peter and John preach, and seeing the
miracle done by them: for so the words run, “Many of
them that heard the word believed, and the number of them
(that believed) was about five thousand.” Note also, that
the three thousand, mentioned ii. 41, belong not to this
number, but they were all new converts, converted by the
word which Peter and John had preached, for of them only
is the discourse from iii. 1 to this place.
* Ver. 11. This is the stone which the builders refused.]
Though the Chaldee paraphrast interprets this clause of the
psalmist (Ps. cxviii. 22), of David ; and Aben-Ezra of the
congregation of Israel, yet R. Solomon Jarchi, on Micah v.,
interprets these words of the Messiah, as our Saviour doth,
Matt. xxi. 42, the Jews not contradicting him, or saying
they belonged not to him.
* Ver. 12. Kai oik Early #y #AAw oiºsy: h corrugia, Nor is
there salvation in any other.] This some interpret thus,
There is no other name under heaven by which health can
be given to the diseased, or feet to the lame, &c. and this
interpretation will not be so strange as at first sight it seems
to be, if we consider, -
First, That it is very frequent in the gospels to say of them
who were cured, they were saved. So the woman saith,
Matt. ix. 21, “If I do but touch the hem of his garment,
a w8%rogat, I shall be saved;” and Christ answers, “Thy faith
a Écoxé are hath saved thee; kai Édºn, and the woman was
saved from that hour:” so the ruler of the synagogue prays
Christ to “put his hand upon his daughter, Širo; a`aº, that
she might be saved,” Mark v. 23. and vi. 56, “As many as
touched the hem of his garment, Édºſovºro, were saved:” so
to blind Bartimeus Christ saith, “Thy faith, créawkš as, hath
8 Then Peter (and John, being) filled with the
Holy Ghost, said to them, Ye rulers of the people,
and elders of Israel,
9 If we this day be examined of the good deed
done to the impotent man, (if you inquire) by what
means he is made whole;
10 Be it known to you all, and to all the people of
Israel, that by the name (and power) of Jesus Christ
of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, (and) whom God
(hath) raised from the dead, even by him doth this
man stand here before you whole.
11 * This (oirog, he is the stone which (according
to the words of the psalmist, Ps. cxviii. 22,) was set at
nought of you builders, (and) who is (now) become
the head (stone) of the corner (the prime foundation
of the whole fabric of the church).
12 “Neither is there (such) salvation (promised by
faith) in any other: for there is none other name
under heaven given among men, whereby (or, by
faith in which) we must (or may) be saved.
13 Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and
John, and perceived that they were "unlearned and
ignorant men (and therefore could not be thus bold on
the account of their own wisdom or skill in the Jewish
saved thee,” Mark x. 52, and so to the Samaritan leper,
Luke xvii. 19.
Secondly, That this opinion had obtained among the
Jews, and other nations, that there were some powerful
names that could cure diseases; this seems to be insinuated
in the question of the Sanhedrin, ver 7. Éy Troix véſzart, “In
what name have you done this cure?” Josephus * speaks
of the doing this by mention of the name of Solomon ; the
Talmud f of doing it by mention of the “separate name ; ”
the Christians by the name of the God of Abraham, &c.
(see note on Matt. xii. 27).
Thirdly, If we consider St. Peter's answer, viz. If the
question be #y riyi otto; a`āorwarrat, “by what name this man
is saved,” i.e. healed, be it known to you that he is healed
through the name of Jesus Christ, nor is there any other
name by which we can be saved. And from this sense of
the words it clearly follows, that no true miracles have been
ever done since Christ's ascension, by the invocation of the
names of saints; and, (2) that the disputes of the schools
from this place concerning the salvation of the gentiles, have
been impertinent. If the common sense be rather liked,
yet must it be acknowledged, that God is “no respecter of
persons,” as to their spiritual and eternal interests, but “in
every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness,
is accepted of him,” Acts x. 34, 35 (see the note there):
and that God would have all men diligently to seek, and to
come to him with a firm belief that he is “a rewarder” of
them that do so (Heb. ix. 6), and that he hath not suspended
that reward on an impossible condition, though he will only
give it with respect to what our Lord Jesus hath done or suf-
fered for them : that he hath not “left himself without a
witness” of his goodness to the heathen world, not only by
doing good to their bodies without regard to their souls, or
by being good only to them as we are to our hogs, by fatten-
ing them for a day of slaughter. It being, saith Maximus
Tyrius, it “a thought unworthy of God, that he should be
liberal in bestowing mean things on us, but penurious as to
better.”
* Ver. 13. They were 3/pápºpºarol zai tätºral, winlearned
* Antiq. lib. viii. cap. 2, p. 258. + Lightf. in locum.
t”H Troxxoiſ &álov woºzićeiç ré Östov ºrgö; why rà paiºa wax&c
wai &#86vo; Trageazevadaiyov, ºrgö, Ää rà ºf sirro &trogoy. Dissert.
22, p. 216.
CHAPTER IV.
435
tearning), they marvelled; and they took knowledge
of them, (Gr. Štrsytvwoków rs, but they knew) that they
had been with (that) Jesus (in whose name they pre-
tended to work this cure).
14 And beholding the man that was healed stand-
ing with them, they could say nothing against it
(i. e. their allegation). • ,
15 But when they had commanded them to go
aside out of the council, they conferred among them-
selves, t
16 Saying, What shall we do to (restrain) these
men ; for that indeed a notable miracle hath been
done by them is manifest to all them that dwell in
Jerusalem; and we cannot deny it. t
17 But, that it (their doctrine may) spread no far-
ther among the people, let us straitly threaten them,
that they speak henceforth to no man in his name.
18 And (so) they called them, and commanded
them (under pain of their displeasure) not to speak at
all (henceforth) nor teach in the name of Jesus.
19 But Peter and John answered and said to them,
*Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken
to you (forbidding,) more (i.e. rather) than to God
(commanding us to preach in the name of Jesus),
judge ye.
20 (As for us, be assured, we shall not obey your
commandments :) for we cannot but speak the things
which we have seen and heard.
21 So when they had farther threatened them,
they let them go, finding nothing (done by them
against the law), how (for which) they might punish
them, (and not daring to do it against the law) be-
and ignorant (or private) men.] This for three centuries was
the objection against the professors of Christianity; these
were the names given them by Lucian," Celsus,’ſ Asclepia-
des,f Cecilius, Š Porphyry, Hierocles," Julian, and by all
the heathens; as Justin, Tatian,“* Minucius, Tertullian, F+
Arnobius, if and Lactantius $$ testify : and though that is
not wholly true, yet it is a great confirmation of the Chris-
tian faith, and shows, as Justin Martyr)|| well observes, that
“it was not of human, but divine original,” and that “being
with Jesus,” was sufficient to make the ignorant and un-
learned wise.
* Ver. 19. Whether it be right in the sight of God to
hearken writo you rather than unto God, judge ye.] So So-
crates answered to his accusers, Treirogat ro, Osº (w:xxov h (pºv
(Apol. p. 23), “O ye Athenians, I will obey God rather than
you:” and so saith Arrian, When thy superiors command
thee anything thou must remember there is one above who
*"Avôearoi i8t&rat. Lucian, Perigr. p. 338.
+ Celsus Christianos confert, roſ; 3) goixotároic rāv čvěpá-
ray, Orig. contra Cels. lib. iii. p. 145, falsöque asserit, wävov;
#xišiovº, was 3,8vº, ka? &vata-Shrovº, aſsissy #8&Ely row; 3.842-
xovira; tºy Seſov Aáyov, p. 137. 141.
f Christiani sunt turba imperita, illiterata frequentia.
Asclep. apud Prudent. in R. Mart. p. 208.
§ Literarum rudes, studiorum profani. Caecil. apud Minut.
p. 4. -
| Origenes declinavit, ºrgö; ºr 34882gov ráxpanºa. Porphyr.
apud Euseb. H. Eccl. lib. vi. cap. 19.6
*| Petrus et Paulus, ſista rai, kai &mat3Evrot, zal yánvec.
Hierocl. apud Euseb. p. 512.
** Apud Tatianum, Christiani à Graecis appellantur, àv-
Spºro, ätzaštic dogmata Christianorum, rà flagflágoy 36/para.
Ed. Ox. $. 57. -
++ Illi prudentes, nos inepti. Tertul. Ap, cap. 9. Nos
hebetes, stolidi, fatui, obtusi pronuntiamur, et bruti.
$f Arnob. lib. i. p. 15, lib. ii. p. 45.
§§ Vulgó pro stultis, et ineptis habemur. Lact. lib. iv.
cap. 13, tºiotăy ºv, wai 8a;8ápov tº pöäykø, co-pây 33 wai
7ſtarrowy,
| | Töy votiv ixávrov, &c orvyāyat od.coºpia &ySpoºreia raira ye-
yovávai &AX& 8vváºst Osoſ; Aéyed 6ai. Justin. Apol. ii. p. 93. |
cause of the people: for all men glorified God for
that which was done.
22 For the man was about forty years old, on
whom this miracle of healing was showed (and so the
cure was the more remarkable). .
23 And being (thus) let go, they went to their own
company, and reported (to them) all that the chief
priests and elders had said to them.
24 And when they had heard that, they lifted up
their voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord,
thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth,
and the sea, and all that in them is :
25 "Who by the mouth of thy servant David hast
said (Ps. ii. 1), Why did the heathen rage and the
people imagine a vain thing 2
26 The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers
were gathered together against the Lord, and against
his Christ: (and what thou saidst by him is now ful-
filled.) •
27 For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus,
whom thou hast anointed (with the Holy Ghost), both
Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the gentiles (i. e.
Roman soldiers), and the people of Israel, were ga-
thered together.
28 For * to do whatsoever thy hand (of providence)
and thy counsel determined before to be done.
29 And (therefore) now, Lord, behold their threat-
enings : and grant unto thy servants (such courage),
ºth all boldness they may (still) speak thy
WOTC1.
30 (And assist them in so doing ) by stretching
forth thy hand to heal; (and by granting) that signs
sees thee kai Śri Keiyº as 88? &#xxoy 36%akely roörg “and that
thou oughtest to please him rather than man.”
7 Wer. 25. Who by the mouth of thy servant David hast
said, Why did the heathem rage, &c.] Here note,
First, Against Some late innovators, that what was said
by David is ascribed to God himself, to show that David
spake and composed these Psalms by the prophetical affla-
tus of the Holy Spirit.
Secondly, That though the latter Jews will not admit that
this Psalm belongs to the Messiah, yet R. Solomoni Jarchi
confesses that all their ancient rabbins did so interpret it
(see the note on Heb. i. 5).
* Wer. 28. To do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel
determined before to be done..] Here note, what is usually
observed, that the hand of God most frequently in the Old
Testament relates not so much to his power, as to his wis-
dom and providential dispensations : so Job xxvii. 11, “I
will teach you by the hand of God,” i.e. by his wisdom in
his providential dispensations (Eccles. ii. 24), “that a man
should enjoy the good of his labours, that is, from the hand
of God;” so “the good hand of God,” is his favour or his
gracious providence, Ezra vii-9. viii. 18. 22. Neh. ii. 8. 18,
and being here joined with God's counsel, and applied to
what was done by Pontius Pilate and the Roman soldiers,
and by the Jews towards the crucifixion of the holy Jesus,
to which actions, so highly displeasing to God, his power
could not actually concur, or effectively incline them, we
have great reason here to prefer this import of the phrase
before the other; and then the import of the words will be no
more than this, That Jews and gentiles were assembled to
accomplish those sufferings of our Saviour for mankind,
which God had foretold, and by foretelling had determined
should come to pass; according to those words of St. Paul,
Acts xiii. 27, “They who dwelt at Jerusalem, and their
princes, not knowing the voices of the prophets, have ful-
filled them by condemning him, doing all things which were
written of him,” ver. 29. As therefore St. Peter and Paul,
by calling the Jews to repentance for this sin in crucifying
the Lord of life, do evidence their sin was not the less, be-
cause they did by it fulfil the counsel of God's holy will
and kind intentions to mankind ; so do they consequently
evidence, that God's foreknowledge and determination of a
thing future do not impair the liberty of men's wills in the
2 tº 2
436
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
and wonders may be done by (us in ) the name of
thy holy child Jesus.
31 And when they had prayed, the place was
shaken where they were assembled together, (as on
the day of pentecost, Acts i. 2,) and * they were all
filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word
of God with boldness.
32 And the multitude of them that believed were
of one heart and of one soul (united in love and affec-
tion); neither said any of them that aught of the
things which he possessed was (so) his own (as not
to be imparted to others who had need of it); but they
had "all things common.
33 And with great power gave the apostles witness
accomplishment of it ; as all the ancient fathers have de-
clared in this particular (see the note on xxii. 22).
* Ver. 31. And they were all filled with the Holy
Ghost.] Not all the Christians, who, being now eight thou-
sand, could not be all in one house, but the hundred and
twenty mentioned i. 15, and being in the same house with
the apostles, this is their own company to which they went,
wer. 24, and therefore, if the Holy Ghost fell only on the
twelve before, yet now he must be supposed to fall on this
whole number, enabling them to speak the word of God with
boldness, as it follows here.
* Ver. 32. They had all things common.] As ii. 45,
not by possession, but as to use ; in which sense that of
of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus ; and great
grace (of God) was come upon them all.
34 Neither was there any among them that lacked:
for as many as had possessions of lands or houses sold
them, and brought the price of the thingsthat were sold,
35 And laid them down at the apostles’ feet; and
distribution was (by the apostles) made to every man
according as he had need.
36 And * Joses, who by the apostles was sur-
named Barnabas, which is, being interpreted, The
son of consolation, (he being) a Levite, and of the
* of Cyprus (by birth),
37 Having land (there), sold it, and brought the
money, and laid it at the apostles’ feet.
Tertullian is only true, Omnia indiscreta sunt apud nos
praeter uxores, “Among us all things are common except
our wives;” for it follows, that they had lands to sell (see
note on ii. 45).
* Ver. 36, 37. And Joses a Levite, and by birth a
Cypriot, having land, sold it..] For the Levites might have
lands, not only in foreign countries, as Joses had in Cyprus,
but even in their own : for Samuel, a Levite (1 Chron. vi.
33), was born upon his father's land, which had been pur-
chased by his great-grandfather Zuph (1 Sam. i. 1. ix. 5),
and that lands might fall to them by accident, which they
might sell, see the Bishop of Ely on Lev. xxvii. 21. -
CHAPTER. W.
1 BUT a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira
his wife, sold a possession, º
2 And (but he) kept back part of (Gr. he defalked
from) the price (of it), his wife also being privy (and
consenting) to it, and brought (Gr. bringing) a certain
part (of it only), and laid it at the apostles’ feet, (pre-
tending to do as the rest had done, iv. 35. 37.)
3 But Peter said (to kim), Ananias, why hath Satan
filled thy heart to lie unto the Holy Ghost, and (moved
thee) to keep back part of (or defalk from) the (full)
price of the land (which thou hast sold) *
4 Whilst it remained (unsold), was it not thine own
(possession, no share of it belonging to any other) 8 and
after it was sold, was it not in thine own power (to
dispose of the money as thou wouldest, and bring the
whole as others did) P why (then) hast thou conceived
this thing in thine heart (to defalk from the price, and
present to us a part only of it, as if it were the
whole 8 by doing this) * thou hast not lied unto men
(only), but to God (also).
5 And Ananias, hearing these words, fell down,
and gave up the ghost: and great fear came upon all
them that (saw and) heard these things.
6 And the young men (there) arose, wound him up,
and carried him out, and buried him.
7 And it was about the space of three hours after,
when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in.
8 And Peter answered (i. e. said) to her, Tell me
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. W.
* Ver. 2. Kai Évoróicato &ºrd rāg tip.fic, And he kept back
part of the price..] It is generally here supposed, that
Ananias and Sapphira had consecrated their estate to God
by vow, so that they were guilty of the sin of sacrilege; but
this may very well be doubted: (1) because in all the sales
of lands or houses, mentioned ch. ii. iv. and here, there is
not the least hint or intimation of any such vow; that there
was some fraud in the case, may be fairly gathered from the
woºpićašaſ, but that it was a sacrilegious fraud, cannot be
proved from the word. (2.) St. Peter accuses neither him
nor his wife of any such crime, but only of tempting, i. e.
distrusting, and making trial, of the wisdom of the Holy
Ghost, and going about to deceive him by this artifice: and,
(3) the apostle seems to own he had a right in his possession,
and in the money for which it was sold (ver. 3), which yet
he could not have, if he before had consecrated it to religious
uses. But yet they were guilty of a double fraud: (1.) in
laying down this part of the price at the apostles' feet, as the
others had done, and thereby tacitly implying they had now
the same right to be relieved from the public stock which
others had, as having nothing of their own, when indeed
they had money which they kept back : (2) in presenting
this before them as the whole price of the possession they
had sold, when it was only a part of it, which it appears they
did from St. Peter's question to his wife, “Tell me for how
much the land was sold * That the punishment of this sin
was so heavy, will not be admired, if we consider, (1.) that
it was a direct sin against the Holy Ghost, who was sent
down from heaven to propagate the gospel, an attempt to
put a cheat upon him, and questioning his wisdom to discern
things secret, and therefore deserved the greater punishment,
because it did so plainly tend to the hindrance of the gos-
pel, by declaring that the Spirit which assisted the apostles
was not able to discern things secret, and so might not be
able to acquaint them with the secret things of God. (2.)
We find God under the law very severe in his punishment
of those who first offended in offering strange fire, as in the
case of Nadab and Abihu ; and violated the Sabbath, as in.
the case of the man that “gathered sticks” upon that day,
and especially against those who rose up against Moses thc
prophet, and Aaron the priest of the Lord, as in case of
Corah and his company ; it was therefore fit the first great
offence of this kind should receive exemplary punishment
from the hand of God, that others might the more dread
those sins which thus affronted that Holy Spirit by whose
power the gospel began to be propagated. -
* Ver. 4. Oin isleſco ày68%roic, &Ax& rð Osº, Thou hast
not lied to man, but unto God.] Hence it is argued, that
if he that deceiveth or licth to the Spirit, attempteth to de-
ceive or lie to God, the Holy Spirit must be God.
To this Woltzogenius here and other Socinians answer,
that the like phrase is often used when the inference cannot
be good: for the Jews murmuring against Moses and Aaron,
are said to murmur not against them, but against God, Exod.
xvi. 8, and he that despiseth the preaching of the apostles,
CHAPTER. W.
437
whether you sold the land for so much (only as Ana-l
nias said)?’ and she said, Yea, (only) for so much.
9 Then Peter said to her, How is it that ye have
agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord (i. e.
to try whether the Spirit of the Lord in us was able to
detect your cheat) * behold, the feet of them which
have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall
carry thee out. - -
10 Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and
yielded up the ghost: and the young men came in,
and found her dead, and, carrying her forth, buried
her by her husband. -
ll. And great fear came upon all the church, and
upon as many as heard these things.
12 And by the hands of the apostles were many
signs and wonders wrought among the people; (and
they (of the church) were all with one accord in Solo-
'mon’s porch.
13 *And of the rest (that were not of the church)
durst no man join himself to them (i. c. to the apos-
tles); but the people magnified them. .
14 And believers were the more added to the Lord,
(even) multitudes both of men and women) (who owned
that Jesus was the Christ.
15 And so great and manifold were these miracles,
ãors,) insomuch that they (who beheld them) “brought
forth their sick into the streets, and laid them on beds
and couches, that at least the shadow of Peter passing
by might overshadow some of them. .
16 There came also a multitude out of the cities
round about to Jerusalem, bringing sick folks, and
them that were vexed with unclean spirits: and they
were healed every one. .
17 Then the high-priest rose up, and they that
were with him (which is (being) the "sect of the sad-
ducees), and (they) were filled with indignation,
18 And laid their hands upon the apostles, and put
them in the common prison.
19 But the angel of the Lord by night opened the
prison-doors, and brought them forth, and said (to
them),
20 Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people
all the "words of this life (which the sadducees deny,
and I have commanded you to preach, Acts xiii. 26).
21 And when they heard that, they entered into
the temple early in the morning, and taught. But the
high-priest came, and they that were with him, and
called the council together, and all the senate of the
children of Israel, and sent to the prison to have them
brought (out). . . . .
22 But when the officers came, and (Gr. but the
officers coming ) found them not in prison, they re-
turned, and (Gr. returning) told (the council of it),
23 Saying, The prison truly found we shut with all
safety, and the keepers standing without before the
doors; but when we had opened (them), we found no
man within. .
24 Now when the high-priest and "the captain of
the temple and the chief priests heard these things,
they "doubted of (i.e. concerning) them whereunto
this would grow (or, what the import of them might be).
25 Then came one, and told them, saying, Behold,
the men whom ye put in prison are standing in the
temple, and teaching the people.
26 Then went the captain (thither) with the officers,
and brought them without violence, for they feared
is said to despise “not man, but God, who had given them
the Holy Spirit,” 1 Thess. iv. 8, not them, but Christ, Matt.
x. 40. Luke x. 16, but hence it will not follow, that either
Moses, or Aaron, or the apostles, were God.
But to this answer, I reply, first, That these examples
rather do confirm than infringe this argument: for as they
who murmured against Moses and Aaron, murmured against
God, because they did it against them who were invested
with the authority of God, and acted in his name and by
his power ; and as they who despised the apostles, despised
God for the same reason ; so they who lied to the apostles
acting by the Spirit of God, or sought to deceive them by
lying, are said to lie to God, because they lied to the apos-
tles acting by the power and authority of God ; and there-
fore the power and authority of the Spirit must be the
power and authority of God.
Secondly, Moses and Aaron, and the apostles sent out by
Christ to preach, did only act in the name of God and
Christ, because they did this by commission from them, and
by their command ; but Ananias is here said to lie to God,
because he lied to the Spirit in the apostles, enabling them
to discern the secrets of men's hearts and actions, which
being the property of God alone, he that doth lie to him
must therefore lie to God, because he lies to one who hath
the incommunicable property of God, consequently the di-
vine essence.
* Ver. 13. Tày 3: Aoiträy oběšic iráàga x0xxâa Sai atroſ,
But of the rest durst no man cleave unto them.] That
is, saith Dr. Lightfoot, none of the hundred and eight durst
join to the twelve, or equal themselves to them in office or
dignity; but as there is no mention of that number in this
chapter, so did they never before this join themselves to the
apostles; nor doth the word xoxxârşal import any such
thing, but only to converse, associate with, or come to them;
as when Philip is bid woxxão Sai, “to join himself” to the
chariot of the eunuch (viii. 29), and Paul assayed after his
conversion, 40AA329at, “to join himself to the disciples” (ix.
16), and when Peter saith (x. 28), “You know that it is
unlawful for a Jew x0xxâa ºat, to join himself to one of an-
other nation ;” and, lastly, when it is said that some men
x0xxx.Sivre; airs, “joining themselves” to St. Paul, believed
(xvii. 35), which seems to favour the opinion of Grotius and
Beza, viz. that great fear came on all the church (ver. 11),
but of the rest, which were not yet of the church, durst no
man join themselves to, or associate with, them as members
of the church, for fear of the like punishment. But not-
withstanding this, the people magnified them, and multi-
tudes of them were added to the Lord, i.e. believed in
Christ, though they durst not yet consort with the twelve
apostles.
* Ver. 15. They brought forth their sick in/o the
streets, that at least the shadow of Peter passing by
night overshadow some of them.] Here it is left uncertain,
whether it were the faith of believers, or the superstition of
the Jews, which had such expectation from St. Peter's
shadow, whether St. Peter passed by that way, or not, or
whether his shadow wrought any cures, or not. But if God,
intending to magnify Peter, the minister of the circumcision,
in the eyes of the circumcised, healed some persons when
his shadow went over them, he did more certainly as much
to magnify St. Paul, the apostle of the gentiles; for “from
his body were brought handkerchiefs or aprons to the sick,
and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits
went out of them ’’ (xix. 12); but hence it is ridiculous to
argue, that the one, or the other, was prince of the apostles,
or that the relics of holy men are to be venerated.
* Wer. 17. ‘H cºora aſpect; rāv cabºovkaiov, Being the
sect of the sadducees.] Not that the Sanhedrin then con-
sisted chiefly of that sect, but because the doctrine of the
resurrection destroyed their sect, and therefore they are still
the readiest to oppose it (iv. 2), the pharisees being only
concerned to avoid the guilt of Christ's blood.
9 Wer. 20. Go, speak to the people all the words of
this life, ºrávra rā, śńºara rºg (wig raútnç.] i. e. Of this
life which I have commissionated you to preach, and which
the sadducees deny : S0, xiii. 26, “Ye children of Abraham,
and ye that fear God, üºwſy & Ağyo; rāg corneia; raûtn; &Traa-
ráAn, to you is the word of this salvation sent.”
7 Ver. 24. ‘O cargarmyā; roi isgoi, The captain of the
temple.] i. e. The captain of the garrison of the Levites
(see the note on Luke xxii. 52).
* They doubted of them what this thing should be, vi
3y yévoiro rotºro..] i. e. What this miraculous deliverance of
them might import, and to what this would tend. So,
438
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
the people, lest they should have been stoned (by them).
27 And when they had brought them, they set them
before the council, and the high-priest asked them,
28 Saying, Did not we straitly command you that
you should not teach in this name and (yet), be-
hold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and
intend to (Gr. would) bring (the guilt of) this man’s
blood upon us.
29 Then Peter and the other apostles answered
(to the charge of disobeying their commands) and said,
We ought to obey God rather than men.
30 (And as for the guilt of blood, that it is justly
charged upon you, God himself hath testified ; for) the
God of our fathers (hath) raised up (that) Jesus
whom ye slew and hanged on a tree (by being instant
with Pilate that he might be crucified).
31 *Him' (whom ye thus treated) hath God exalted
with (to) his right hand to be a prince and a Saviour,
to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.
x. 17, Peter doubted in himself, ºri &y sin rê šeakta, “what the
vision might import.”
* Ver. 31. Him hath God evalted to be a Prince and
a Saviour, to give repentance to Israel, and remission of
sins.] Upon that repentance, to be a Prince and a Saviour,
even the “Prince of life” (iii. 15), and “of salvation” (Heb.
ii. 10), on which account he is styled, ré corrhploy roß Osoſ,
“the salvation of God” (see note on Luke iii. 30); and he
is said to be exalted to give repentance and remission of sins,
by giving the knowledge of that remission of sins which is
promised to the penitent, and of those motives which should
induce them to repent. So the Baptist is said to “go before
him, to give the knowledge of Salvation to his people,
through the remission of sins;” and so God “gave unto the
gentiles repentance unto life,” when he sent Peter to them
to preach that word by which they repenting should be saved
(Acts xi. 14. 18).
* Ver. 34. A pharisee, named Gamaliel, a doctor of
the law, had in great reputation among the people.] He
was Paul's tutor (Acts xxii. 3), and was called Rabbin Ga-
maliel, a title of the highest eminency, and given, say the
Jews, only to seven persons; which shows sufficiently the
reputation that he had among the people.
The right reverend Bishop Pearson very probably conjec-
tures, that the sadducees, after our Lord's resurrection, being
the greatest enemies to the apostles; they being grieved
that they “preached through Christ the resurrection from
the dead” (Acts iv. 2. v. 17); Gamaliel being a pharisee,
and so a stiff assertor of the resurrection, did therefore give
advice for the dismission of the apostles; for we find the
pharisees, almost in the same words, pleading for Paul,
preaching the same doctrine, viz. that they ought not to mo-
test him, “lest they should be found, Seop.4xoi, fighters
against God” (Acts xxiii. 9).
* Ver. 36, 37. IIgs yåg roğrow rāv hºw#2, #y£orn Oevèac,
For before those days rose up Theudas; fast& roſtoy, after
him rose wp Judas of Galilee.] Here Gamaliel affirms two
things, (1.) That before those days, in which that council
was assembled, that is, before the twentieth of Tiberius, arose
Theudas, mentioned by him ; whereas the Theudas men-
tioned by Josephus, Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 5, arose and pe-
rished by the hands of Cuspius Fadus, in the fourth year of
Claudius, that is ten years after the meeting of this council.
(2.) He affirms that Judas of Galilee rose up after him, and
yet that he arose in the “days of the taxing,” which was under
the emperor Augustus, at the birth of Christ, and so thirty-
four years before this council ; and so this Theudas that
arose before him must have been at least thirty-five years be-
fore this council.
Some critics endeavour to solve these difficulties by tor-
turing the words of the text, and making Gamaliel say, that
Judas of Galilee arose, ºst& rotºrov, not after, but before
Theudas, contrary to the rule of Phavorinus, that weri, with
an accusative case ºf jarsgoxéviov, “signifies posteriority of
time.” Dr. Lightfoot here seems inconstant in his opinion,
for in his first notes upon the Acts he saith, that Gamaliel's
Theudas and Josephus’s “are not one and the same ; but as
it happened with Judas, that though he himself perished in
32 And (this we say not without proof, for) we are
his witnesses of these things; and so is also the
Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that
obey him. -
33 (And) when they heard (these words), they were
cut to the heart, and took counsel to slay them.
34 Then stood there up one in the council, (who
was) a pharisee, *named Gamaliel, a doctor of the
law, had in great reputation among the people, and
(he) commanded (the officers) to put the apostles forth
a little space (or while) ;
35 And (then) he said to them (of the council), Ye
men of Israel, take heed to yourselves what ye intend
(Gr. go about) to do as touching these men.
36 For "before these days rose up Theudas, boast-
ing himself to be somebody; to whom a number of
men, about four hundred, joined themselves: who
was slain, and all, as many as obeyed him, were scat-
tered, and brought to nought.
his error, and as many as obeyed him were scattered abroad,
as Gamaliel relateth, yet was not his error extinguished with
him, but revived and grew again : So that at least forty years
after his first appearing, his two sons, James and Simon, are
crucified for it by Tiberius Alexander, the successor of Fa-
dus (Jos. Antiq. lib. XX, cap. 3). And many years after
that, Eleazar a branch of the same Judas, appeareth in the
same opinion, with a desperate company with him (De Bell.
Jud. lib. vii. cap. 20). Even so may it be conceived of the
sect of Theudas, that it began before that of Judas, and that
the first author of it took upon him great things, as, to be a
prophet, and to work miracles, and the like ; but he was
soon slain, and all that obeyed him were scattered abroad,
and came to nought; but his folly and fancy perished not
with him, but (however at other times) in the times of Fa-
dus one of the same foolery and name, and probably his son,
would be a prophet again, and divide Jordan, and do I know
not what, whom Fadus destroyed, and brought his company
to ruin : so that Gamaliel's and Josephus’s Theudas are
very probably two men, but very likely father and son, or
tutor and scholar; agreeing so exactly in the same folly and
madness, that they agreed in the same name: and that name
either given to the latter, as parents name their children by
their own names, or assumed by him in imitation of the
former Theudas, whom as he delighted to imitate in his en-
thusiastic folly, so delighted he to follow him in denomination:
and I am the rather confirmed in this opinion about these
two men, because that as soon as ever Josephus hath told
the story of the destruction of Theudas by Fadus, he telleth
of the destruction of the sons of Judas by Tiberius Alexan-.
der: and I cannot but interpret both the stories in one
sense, that as in the latter he speaks of the offspring of
Judas, whose sect had begun many years before, so in the
former he speaketh of the offspring of Theudas, whose sect
had begun before that of Judas :” yet, in his latter exercita-
tions on this place he says, “This is but an imagination,”
and inclines rather to think, that Josephus slipped in his
chronology, “to whom,” saith he, “both in history and chro-
nology, it is no unusal thing to trip, or go out of the road of
truth.” -
I prefer his first opinion, as being generally embraced by
the ancients ; for (1.) Origen,* who had read Josephus, and
declares that he examined things relating to the scripture,
©ixaxm3%, “out of love to truth,” speaks thus, “We say
that there was one Theudas before the birth of Christ, who
among the Jews declared himself to be somebody.” And
again, that “Judas Galilaeus, and Theudas that was before
him, being not of God, perished.” And a third time, “be-
cause they gathered from the scriptures that the time of the
Messiah was come, first Theudas, and after him Judas of
* 'Epoiſºey 3ri Gevää, Trº ris yevic'sø; 'Inact yśyová rig trag'
'Iověaioi, ºyay riva £avròy Aéyov, contra Celsum, lib. i. p. 44.
et lib. vi. p. 282. Kai 'Iow8a; 3, Taxixafoc, &c. à Aouzăç #y roic
IIgážeat rôv'Amroarážov #ypasſey, #8ovXàSn Šavrévºtiva Biarely &#yay,
* * > p - y * * * * * * : Cy- *
kai Trgo #kelyovosvěž; #Trepúmo'ay Gevääç oùw &Miyov trºë0;, x&i
past’ $2.Évoy 'igū3a; ; Taxixafoº #y raï, aſſº êtrypa pric hºgale.
Tom. ii, in Joh, ed. Huet, p. 103, 104.
CHAPTER VI.
439
37 After this man rose up Judas of Galilee in the
days of taxing (or enrolling), and drew away much
people after him : (but) he also perished; and all,
even as many as obeyed him, were dispersed.
38 And now (kai rā vöv Aśya, juiv, therefore) I say
to you (for the present), Refrain from these men, and
let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of
men, it will come to nought; .
39 But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it
(nor ought you to attempt to do so); lest haply ye be
found even to fight against God.
40. And to him they agreed; and when they had
called the apostles, and beaten them (with rods), they
commanded (them) that they should not speak in
the name of Jesus (any more), and (then) let them
O.
g 41 And they departed from the presence of the
council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy “to
suffer shame for his name.
42 And daily in the temple, and in every house,
they ceased not to teach and preach (the doctrine of)
Jesus Christ. -
Galilee, tumultuated in the time of the taxing.” Hence do
the fathers unanimously say, that those words of Christ, John
x. 8, “All that come before me are thieves and robbers,”
relate to these two, Theudas and Judas of Galilee, which
shows their belief, that both of them were before the time
of Christ's preaching: so that it is extremely evident, that
the ancient fathers agreed in this, that there was a Theudas
* So Chrysost. CEcumen. Theoph. in locum, et Theod.
Heracl. et Mopseuest. Cat. Gr. in locum, et Isid. Pelus. lib.
iii. ep. 119.
pretending to great things, even before the coming of our
Lord, though Josephus hath taken no notice of him. .
* Ver. 41. 'Artºxazºval, To be reproached.] Or disho-
noured, by being scourged: for as, among the Romans, a
citizen of Rome was not to be scourged, so, among the Jews,
Saith Josephus,” it was rºogia ataxiarn, “the most shame-
ful punishment,” when inflicted upon a Jew, and that which
did $881&ly rô &£iopia, “stain his dignity.”
* Antiq., lib. iv. cap. 8.
CHAPTER VI.
1 AND in those days, when the number of the dis-
ciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of
the Grecians (Gr. of the *Hellenists, or Jews of the
dispersion who spake the Greek language) against the
Hebrews (who used the Hebrew or Syriac tongue), be-
cause their widows were neglected in the daily minis-
tration (of provisions, made for poor widows belonging
to the church, 1 Tim. v. 16).
2 * Then the twelve called the multitude of the
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VI.
* Ver. 1. Tów ‘Exxnvigºrày, Of the Grecians.] it is much
to be disputed who these Hellenists were: it is beyond doubt
that they were not Greeks by nation or birth, whether un-
converted or proselytes to the Jewish nation ; for these are
never called Hellenists, but always in the scripture "Exxnvec,
“Hellens,” and by Josephus, ‘ENAnyikoi, and are distinguish-
ed, not from the Hebrews, but the Jews; as when mention
is made 'Iow8aiov re wai‘Exxâvov, “ of the Jews and Greeks,”
Acts xvi. l. 3. 19. x. 17. xx. 20, 21. Rom. i. 16. ii. 9, 10.
iii. 9. x. 12. 1 Cor. ii. 22, 23. x. 32. xii. 13. Gal. iii. 28. Col.
iii. 11, see John xii. 20, and of those Greeks who came to
the Jewish synagogues, and therefore seem to have been pro-
selytes, Acts xiv. 1. xviii. 4, and a distinction is made, not
between Hebrews, but Jews and proselytes, Acts i. 10.
Moreover, they who were scattered upon the persecution
which followed the death of Stephen (Acts viii. 1), “spake
the word only to the Jews” Acts xi. 19, and yet they spake
wrpèc rows EXAnvigºràc, “to the Hellenists, * ver. 20. And,
thirdly, Paul coming to Jerusalem, disputed mgöc roi; ‘Exxn-
via têr, “against the Hellenists, and they went about to kill
him,” Acts iz. 29, as the Jews at Damascus had done before,
ver. 23, which shows they must be Jews by birth, and not
only strangers of other nations come thither; for how durst
they attempt to kill a Jew among the Jews without bring-
ing him to their tribunal P
Secondly, I think it not sufficient to say, with the Syriac
or St. Chrysostom, that they were Jews, ‘Exxnvicti p3syyāºws-
vot, “using the Greek tongue;” for this they of Judea,
especially the learned among them, generally did: for we
never find in Josephus, that they spake to the Romans, or
others who used that tongue, by an interpreter. Dr. Light-
foot therefore adds, that they were Jews, who, living among
the Greeks, understood and used that tongue only, and then
they must be called Hebrews, who used the Hebrew or Sy-
riac tongue as their usual dialect: but then, whereas T)r.
Lightfoot will not allow that in their synagogues they used
the Greek tongue, or read the scriptures according to the
Greek translation, I incline rather to the opinion of the
learned Grotius, that they used this tongue also in their sa-
cred exercises ; for why should they, whose synagogues con-
disciples to them, and said, It is not reason (-able y
that we should leave (preaching) the word of God,
and (daily be employed to) serve tables (or, make pro-
visions for the poor). -
3 Wherefore, brethren, look you out among you
seven men of honest report, “full of the Holy Ghost
and wisdom, “whom we may appoint over this busi-
ness (Gr. for this use). -
4 But we (and we being eased of this burden) will
*—
sisted of persons understanding neither Hebrew nor Syriac,
ilāve both or either of those languages read to them in their
assemblies 2 Moreover, that in their exhortation made in
their synagogues, consisting both of Jews and proselytes of
the Grecians, they used the Greek language, seems evident
from this, that Paul and Barnabas so spake in them, that “a
multitude of the Greeks as well as of the Jews believed”
(Acts xiii. 43. xiv. 1. xvii. 4. 12. xviii. 4).
* Wer. 2. And the twelve calling the multitude of the dis-
ciples, Gr. ºr grañ60; rāy (waffntör..] Here Dr. Lightfoot con-
jectures, that “the multitude of the disciples” doth not
import the multitude of believers, they being many thou-
Sands (Acts iii. 4l. iv. 4. v. 14), but only the one hundred
and eight presbyters, mentioned Acts i. 15). But (1.) it is
evident that the whole multitude of believers are called dis-
ciples, both here, ver. 7, and throughout this whole history
of the Acts: and, (2.) we are told that this multitude were
together (Acts ii. 44. iv. 23.32): and, (3.) it is here noted,
that the saying of the apostles was acceptable, Évºrtov rávros
toū ºrxāšovc, “before the whole multitude.” --
* Ver. 3. Full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom.] i. e. Of
the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost, and of the gift of
wisdom, mentioned 1 Cor. xii. 8. So, when they had prayed
that “God would stretch forth his hands to heal, and that
signs and wonders might be done by the name of Jesus,’
Acts iv. 30, it is added, ver. 31, that “they were filled with
the Holy Ghost ;” and of Barnabas it is said, that “he was
full of the Holy Ghost and of faith,” another of these gifts,
1 Cor. xii. 9, and so, by his means, “a great multitude was
added to the Lord,” Acts xi. 24, and here, ver. 8, that “Ste-
phen; being full of the Holy Ghost and power, did great
signs and miracles among the people :” and these gifts of
the Holy Ghost being given to them, not for their own use,
but to profit the church with them (1 Cor. xii. 7), and so
being not only qualifications of them for, but as it were pre-
elections of them to, some sacred functions (Acts xx. 28);
out of those who were thus endowed, they generally chose
church officers, and the very deacons and helps had these
gifts (Rom. xii. 7, 8, see note on 1 Cor. xii. 28); and hence.
the apostles here say, “Look ye out men full of the Holy
Ghost and wisdom.”
* Ver, 3.6. Whom we may appoint over this business;–
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the mi-
mistry of the word. - t
5 And the saying (of the apostles) pleased the
whole multitude: and they (accordingly) chose Ste-
phen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and
Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and
Parmenas, and Nicolas a proselyte of Antioch:
6 Whom they set before the apostles: and when
and they laid their hands upon them.] Here two things are
disputed: - -
First, Whether these seven were chosen and ordained to
a civil office only, viz. that of ministering only to the neces-
sities of widows and other indigent disciples; or else to the
sacred office of a deacon, and so empowered to preach the
word, and baptize. Certain it is, that of these seven, St.
Stephen did preach the word, and that Philip did baptize
(Acts viii. 12. 38). But then it is said, they did so, not as
men chosen and ordained to this office, but as being of the
number of the seventy disciples, # &y horay of #7 rà, “ of
whom these seven were, saith Epiphanius.” And, indeed,
the ancients seem to have been divided about this matter:
the council of Neocaesarea'i saying expressly, that “there
ought to be but seven deacons in the great cities, as we learn
3rd tâ; 3.8xov rôy IIpážsoy, from the Acts of the Apostles;”
and the apostles in their Constitutions, that they, “after
our Lord's ascension, had chosen Staxévov; ārºró roy 3618,43v,
seven deacons,” of which number Stephen was one : and
the synod in Trullo, on the other hand, saying, that the
apostles spake not there regi rāy ºrnſ; pºva'rngioiº Biaxovovºsyav,
“of those who served at the altar, but of those that served
taſ, Xpeia; rāy rears&y, to the business of tables;” but this
is as true of the deacons mentioned by St. Paul, 1 Tim. iii.,
that there is not a word said of their ministering at the altar:
and it seems very unlikely that the apostles would have made
this one requisite of the persons to be chosen, that they
should be “full of “ the extraordinary gifts of “the Holy
Ghost, and of wisdom,” if their office had confined them to
the ministry of the widows at Jerusalem ; or that they who
were evangelists before, as Philip is expressly styled, should
wholly lay aside the preaching of the word, and attend only
on a civil office (see Acts xxi. 8). Moreover, it is certain
that deacons were instituted before St. Paul wrote the first
epistle to Timothy ; for we have mention of them in the
epistle to the Philippians, written three years before that to
Timothy; and they are mentioned in the advice to Timothy,
not as an office to be instituted, but as a standing office then
settled in the church, as they must be if bishops were then
So, they being necessary attendants on that higher function,
according to the words of Epiphanius, Š &v=v 33 3iaxévov tri-
exo~roy 38tvaroy Bival, “a bishop cannot be without a deacon.”
Now if they were not instituted here by the apostles, I de-
sire to know when, where, and by whom they were instituted,
and what other record we have left us of such an institution
of them.
Obj. 1. Against this it is objected, first, That these seven
are never called deacons in the whole history of the Acts of
the Apostles, and that this name is never given either to St.
Stephen, or to Philip the evangelist.
Ans. But this objection can be of no strength against the
Suffrage of all antiquity, which hath still given them the name
of deacons, seeing they have no other name ascribed to them
in the whole Acts of the Apostles, or the sacred history;
they are never called 3,420Vol Teatre&v, “ministers of tables,”
in all the Acts, though here they are said to be appointed
for that work: and so saith Jerome” of the deacons of his
age, that they were mensarum et viduarum ministri, “the
ministers not only of the priests, but also of widows and
tables.” So he styles them in his Epistle to Evagrius, and
bids them learn the reason of their institution from the Acts
of the Apostles,
Obj. 2. It is farther objected, That in St. Paul's account
of the deacons of the church, there is no mention of this
part of their office, to provide for widows and “serve tables,”
nor any quality required of them which respects that office.
* Haer. Herod. p. 50, Š. 4. *F Can. 14.
3: Lib. viii. cap. 46. § Haer. lxxv. §. 5, p. 908.
| Non meminit mensarum et viduarum minister, se in ob-
sequium, et ministerium non solim sacerdotum, Sed et vidu-
arum, et pauperum delegatum, tom. ii. f. 251, K. Sciant
quare diaconi constituti sunt, legant Acta Apostolorum, re-
cordentur conditionis suas. Tom. ii. f. 117, H.
those that were absent.
I answer, That, according to this argument, should all that
hath been said be granted, the deacons could have no autho-
rity to baptize, or administer either the bread or the cup to
the laity, there being not one word of any such office belong-
ing to them in St. Paul’s Epistles to Timothy, nor of any
assistance they are to give the bishop.
Secondly, I answer, That as the deacons of St. Paul are
to be “grave,” and “hold the faith in a good conscience,”
so are the deacons here to be “men of honest report and
wisdom,” ver. 3, as they were to be “approved,” and then
to “execute the office of a deacon,” 1 Tim. iii. 9; so was it
here, ver, 5, 6. Now men of “double tongues, and given.
to much wine,” could neither be men of good report, nor
men of wisdom, and much less could they be approved as
such ; so that the characters of the deacons here seem virtu-
ally to include all the characters required of them there, and
two more, especially relating to sacred offices, viz. that they
should be “men full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom;” and
that which St. Stephen doth here, and St. Philip did in
preaching to the Samaritans, and then baptizing them, is the
foundation of the authority given by bishops to deacons to
preach the word and to baptize. Moreover, their being mi-
nisters of tables, made them also ministers at the Agapas,
where the bishop was to be acquainted with the necessities
of the widows and the poor, say the Apostolical Constitu-
tions,” 32 rºw ºrnéstºy, rovrša ri, 33 rày Blaxévoy, “by the
ministers, that is, the deacons;” and so they became attend-
ants also on him, or on the president, who consecrated the
eucharist, celebrated at the same time with these feasts of
charity ; and so they distributed the bread and wine to the
communicants, and carried them, saith Justin Martyr, t to
Hence they are styled by Igna-
tius f and Polycarp, Ś not only “the ministers of meats'and
drinks,” but “the servants of the church of God,” and said
to be “servants not of men, but of God and Christ,” as Ser-
vants are in that relation said to serve the Lord Christ, and
therefore are bid to do all things “as to the Lord, and not
unto men” (Col. iii. 23, 24). And Clemens of Alexan-
drial saith, that in the church the presbyters have, rāv flex-
rtorizºy sizéva, rºy tºrngeriköy 33 oi 31ázovoi, “the representa-
tion of those who make men better, and the deacons of them
that serve.” And, because they performed this ministry
under the inspection of the bishop, and gave him an account
of the condition of the widows and the poor, and had from
him, or his presbyters, the treasury of the church to distri-
bute to others, therefore is this so often mentioned in church
history as part of the episcopal office, to have the care of all
that are in need, as Justin Martyr'ſ Saith, the presbyters
and deacons doing this only by his authority.
In fine, To say that Philip and others of these deacons
might preach and baptize, but not as deacons, but only as
evangelists, is not sufficient in this case: for if they were all
evangelists, or, as Epiphanius saith of the seventy, and after-
ward by the apostles ordained deacons, it is hence evident
that they must have with this office a power to preach and
baptize, as doubtless the evangelists and seventy disciples
had ; and hence we find, that Philip, being one of those
seven (Acts xxi. 8), did both these offices by the direction
and assistance of the Holy Ghost (Acts viii. 12. 29.40). If
they were not, yet being men “full of the Holy Ghost,”
* Lib. ii. cap. 28. .
+ of naxoºvoi trag haiv 8tázovo. 3.8%acy £446 rº rāy Tañów-
row as taxaflāy &ré toº sixaglaévro; #3rov Kai ovov xaí úatos,
wai ºrdſ, oi ragºziv &topáčovat. Ap. ii. 97.
# of y& 6poºrov wai worów siew &ázoyot, 3AW #4xxn&ſaº
Gedā ātrngárai. Ign. ad Trall. Sect. 2.
§ Inculpati esse debent, &c_9sº kai Xpigro; 3:4xovat, ka?
cöz &ySpºrov. Polyc. Epist. ad Philip. Sect. 5.
| Strom. vii. p. 700. -
*I Kai &rA3; rºſ; iv xggiº dºzi zººspºv yiyerat, Just. p. 97,
98. "Qats war& rºy attoº #ovciay Trávra. Siouxsia-6at roſ; 350-
pivot; 3:3 rāy ºrgscºutigoy Kai rāv Blazovoy. Cam. Apost. 34,
vid, 31.
CHAPTER VII,
44}
they had prayed (Gr, they praying), “they laid their
hands upon them.
7 And (so, by the labours of the apostles,) the word
of God increased; and the number of the disciples |
multiplied in Jerusalem greatly; and a great com-
pany of the priests (also) were obedient to the faith.
8 And Stephen, (being) full of faith and power,
did great wonders and miracles among the people.
9 Then there arose “certain of the synagogue,
which is called the synagogue of the Libertines, and
(some of the synagogues of the) Cyrenians, and Alex-
andrians, and (some of) them of Cilicia and Asia,
disputing with Stephen.
10 " And they were not able to resist the wisdom
and the spirit (i. e. the wisdom of the Spirit) by which
he spake.
11 Then they suborned men, who (being brought
before the council) said, We have heard him speak
blasphemous words against Moses, and against God,
(and so by the law he deserves to be stoned, Lev.xxiv. 16.)
12 And they stirred up (against him) the people.
and the elders, and the scribes, and came upon him,
and caught him, and brought him to the council,
13 And set up false witnesses, which said, This
| man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against
this holy place, and the law : .
14 For we have heard him say, That this Jesus of
Nazareth (whom he preaches) shall destroy this place,
and shall change the customs which Moses delivered
(to) us.
15 And all that sat in the council, looking 'sted-
fastly on him, *saw (on him a great splendour, making)
his face (to shine) as if it had been the face of an
angel. -
and of that wisdom which enabled them to teach others, we
cannot reasonably conceive they were disabled, by their ordi-
nation to this office, from doing that work for which they
were thus fitted, and as it were appointed, by these gifts of
...he Holy Spirit conferred upon them. In a word, it is evi-
dent from this history, that before the ordination of these
deacons, the apostles themselves were engaged in this work;
for the treasure of the church was laid at the apostles' feet,
“ and distribution of it was made to every man according as
he had need” (iv. 35). This distribution therefore must be
made by them who had this treasure in their hands, and
therefore they appoint these seven over this business to ease
themselves of this trouble, that they might “give them-
selves” more entirely “to prayer and to the ministry of the
word,” and might not, by attending on this work, be hin-
dered in the execution of that higher office: now surely that
work which the apostles personally performed for a season,
must be consistent with their commission, to “teach and to
baptize all nations.” * = &
* Ver. 6. The apostles laid their hands on them.] Here
seemeth to be nothing in this relation which favours the au-
thority of the laity in choosing persons to sacred offices: for
though the choice of these seven was committed to them,
yet was this done (1.) by the particular appointment of the
apostles themselves; for “the twelve called the multitude,
and said to them, Look ye out seven men,” ver. 2, 3. (2.)
They specify the number and the qualifications of the per-
sons to be chosen to this office. (3.) They reserve to them-
selves the appointment of them to this work, saying, “Look
ye out seven men whom we may appoint over this business:”
and, lastly, they only laid their hands upon them (see Chry-
sost. in loc.). So in the case of the princes, or rulers over
thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens, Moses saith, as here,
Choose to yourselves men of wisdom and understanding, and
known to your tribes, votashmam, and I will set them to be
your heads (Deut. i. 13, 14): accordingly, he both appointed
them to (ver. 15), and instructed them in, the discharge of
their office (ver. 16, 17).
* Ver. 9. Certain of the synagogue of the Libertines, and
Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, and them of Cilicia, and Asia,
disputing with Stephen..] That the word synagogue is to be
repeated before all the places mentioned here, appears from
this ; that the Jews mention a synagogue of the Alexan-
drians at Jerusalem, as Dr. Lightfoot here noteth. More-
over, there being men of all these nations living in Jerusa-
lem, and speaking their native language, and who yet were
proselytes to the Jewish religion (ii. 8. 11), it is reasonable
to conceive that they had also synagogues for prayer and
hearing of the law, and pious exhortations in a tongue they
understood. By the synagogue of these Libertines, some
understand the Jews that were free-born, or had obtained
the Roman freedom, as St. Paul had : so Dr. Lightfoot.
Others think they were Roman servants who had obtained
their freedom ; of Popwatoy & trexe50sgol otra taxoivrai, saith
CEcumenius here. The first opinion seems to be most pro-
bable. For though Tacitus” in his Annals, saith, that qua-
tuor millia Libertini generis Judaică superstitiona infecta,
“four thousand Libertines, infected with the Jewish super-
stition, were banished into Sardinia;” yet Suetonius+ saith
that they were “Judaeorum juventus,” “the young men of
the Jewish nation that were sent thither;” and that reliquos
ejusdem gentis, autsimilia sectantes urbe submovit, “he only
expelled the other Jews and their proselytes out of the city ;”
Josephus, it that he commanded ºrāy ºrd 'Iow8aſzöy Tüç 'Pºp'ng
ãºrºnxv6éval, “all the Jews to be expelled Rome,” and that
“four thousand of them were sent to Sardinia by the con-
suls: and Philoš saith that “he suffered a great part of the
city beyond Tiber to be inhabited by the Jews,” and that
“these Jews, 'Pop.afot ha'aw of trasſow; &rexev6spošávteq, were
most of them Romans set at liberty ; for being carried cap-
tives into Italy, they obtained their freedom from their mas-
ters.”
7 Wer. 10. And they were not able to resist the wisdom
with which he spake.] So exactly was the promise made by
Christ, Matt. x. 20. Luke xxi. 15, fulfilled in St. Stephen.
* Wer. 15. Saw his face as the face of an angel.] This
expression of the “shining of the face like that of an angel,”
seems to have been proverbial among the Jews: for so
Esther speaks to Artaxerxes, “I saw thee as an angel of
God, and my heart was troubled, 370 pé8ov rāg 36%m; cov,
from fear of thy glory,” Esth. xv. 13. And the Chaldee
paraphrast, on Cant. i. 4, saith, “When Israel made the calf,
their visage was black as that of an Ethiopian; but when
they repented, and their sin was remitted, the splendour of
the glory of their countenance was like that of an angel.”
Now God by this splendour of St. Stephen testified his in-
nocence, and that he was pleasing to him as Moses was, in
that he made his face to shine as he did that of Moses.
* Lib. ii. edit. Lips. p. 92.
† Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 5, p. 623.
§ Leg. ad Caium, p. 785, C.
+ In Tib. cap. 36.
CHAPTER VII.
1 THEN said the high-priest, Are these things so |
(as is suggested by these witnesses) 8
2 And he said, "Men, brethren, and fathers, hear-
ken; *The God of glory appeared to our father Abra-
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VII.
* Ver. 2. "Avēges, 388xpo, Men, brethren.] It is customary
with the Hebrews to add the word man, when it imports no
more than the word to which it is annexed; as Gen. xiii. 8,
“Let there be no strife between thee and me, for we are
men, brethren;” Exod. xii. 14, “Who made thee a man, a
prince over us?” (see Gen. xxxviii. 1.) So accordingly,
“men, brethren,” occurs i. 16. ii. 29. 37, here, wer. 2, 26,
xiii. 15. 26. xv. 13. xxii. 3. xxiii. 1. 6. xxviii. 17, so Matt.
xiii. 28, #x0p8; 3,930 ro; is “an enemy” (see Luke xxiv. 7).
* The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham.]
sº
442
ACTS OF THE APOSTLEs.
ham, * when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt
in Charran (Gen. xi. 33).
3 And said to him, Get thee out of thy country,
and from thy kindred, (who are idolaters, Josh. xxiv.
2,) and come into the land which I shall show thee.
4 Then came he (in obedience to this call) out of
the land of the Chaldeans, and dwelt in Charran, (his
father Terah being then with him, Gen. xi. 31,) and
from thence, “when his father was dead, he (i. e.
God) removed him into this land of Canaan (Gen.
xii. 5), where ye now dwell.
5 And he gave him none inheritance in it, no,
* not so much as to set his foot on : yet (kai, although)
he promised that he would give it to him for a pos-
session, and (that is) to his seed after him, when as
yet he had no child. -
6 And "God spake on this wise, That his seed (be-
ginning from Isaac) should sojourn in a strange
land; and that they (among whom they sojourned)
should bring them into bondage, and entreat them
evil four hundred years.
7 And (then) the nation to whom they shall be
How God appeared to him, whether it were by a dream,
or a vision, or an angel, the text doth not tell us ; but this
phrase “The God of glory appeared,” seems to make it
probable this was done by a voice from the Shechinah, or
divine presence. w
* When he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in
Charran.] Here note, that that part of Mesopotamia, which
is next to Assyria, is called “the land of the Chaldees;” for
Ur, of Chaldea, as Abarbinel observes, was in, Mesopotamia,
lying in the way from Tigris to Nisibis; and therefore Am-
mianus, lib. v., speaks of an Ur in Mesopotamia so situated.
And Chaldea and Babylon are reckoned as parts of Meso-
potamia, both by Josephus” and by Pliny.' That God ap-
peared to Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, i. e. in
Ur of Chaldea, before he dwelt in Haran, though it be not
expressly said, Gen. xi. 31, yet it is to be understood there:
for Gen. xv. 7, God saith expressly to him, “I am Jehovah,
that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees;” and Neh. ix.
7, the Levites speak thus, “Thou art the Lord, which did
choose Abraham, and broughtest him forth out of Ur of the
Chaldees;” and therefore it is said of the rest, Gen. xi. 31,
that “they went forth with them,” that is, with Terah and
Abraham, “from Ur of Chaldea, and came to Haram.” Yea,
it is observable, that Terah is made the chief agent in this
remove; for he (saith the text) “took Abraham and Lot,
and went forth from Ur of the Chaldees,” with an intention
to go to Canaan; whence we may gather, that Abraham had
made known God’s call to him, and that he believed now
in that God, who had thus spoken to his son. For what
should move him to leave Ur, but obedience to the divine
call, which Abraham received, to which he would not have
agreed, if he had not believed in God, as it is certain Lot
and Sarah did, who went with them.
* Ver. 4. And from thence, after his father was dead, he
(God, by another call) removed him into the land of Ca-
maan.] Having proved in the former note, that Abraham
went out from “Ur of the Chaldees” by an especial call
from God; the call he received after his father's death, by
virtue of which he removed from Charran into the land of
Canaan, must be a second call, even that mentioned Gen. xii.
l, “Now the Lord said to Abraham, Get thee out of thy own
country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house,
to a land that I will show thee.” In the first call he is only
bid to go out of his country, and from his kindred, which at
his first removal was not completely done; for Charran was
in the land of Mesopotamia, as well as Ur, Xáña; ºréxic
Megotrorapaiac, as Stephanus informs us: and though Nahor
did not presently go along with his father to Haran, yet
that he followed after him with all his family, and dwelt in
Mesopotamia and in Charran, is evident; for Eliezer goes to
Mesopotamia, to the city of Nahor, for Rebekah, Laban's
sister, and the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milcah
the wife of Nahor (Gen. xxiv.), and Rebekah sent Jacob to
her brother Laban to Charran (Gen. xxvii. 43, see also Gen.
xxviii. 10. xxix. 5). At this second call therefore he is bid
to depart from his country, where he yet was, and (from his
kindred, and from his father's house, and) come to him
there; and now he leaves his brother Nahor, and all his fa-
ther's house behind him.
* Ver. 5. Not so much as to set his foot on..] He being
* Xax?aioy Kai rāy &AAwy Medororapatów a'raciávrov, Antiq.
lib. i. cap. 8. -
ºf Mesopotamia tota Assyriorum fuit vicatim dispersa
praeter Babyloniam et Ninum. Plin. lib, vi, cap. 26, p. 355.
Wide ibid. p. 356, 357.
forced there to buy a burial-place, that he might “bury his
dead out of his sight” (Gen. xxiii. 3, 4, 16).
* Wer. 6. God said, That his seed should sojourn in a
strange land, and that they should bring them into bondage,
and entreat him evil four hundred years.] This four hun-
dred years cannot respect their sojourning in Egypt, for that
was only two hundred and fifteen years, as both Josephus”
and the scriptures testify; and so four hundred and thirty
years after the promise made to Abraham, leaving Charran
to go into the land of Canaan; for that two hundred and
fifteen years after that promise they went down to Egypt, is
thus demonstrated:—Abraham was seventy-five years old
when he went from Haran to Canaan, and received the pro-
mise of that land (Gen. xii. 4.7), and from that time to the
birth of Isaac, when Abraham was one hundred years old
(Gen. xxi. 5), is twenty-five years: from the birth of Isaac
to that of Jacob was sixty years, for “Isaac was sixty years
old when Rebekah bore” him (Gen. xxv. 26): from Jacob's
birth to his descent into Egypt was, as he saith to Pharaoh,
one hundred and thirty years (Gen. xlvii. 9): which sums
| put together make two hundred and fifteen years, and so
their stay in Egypt two hundred and fifteen years more,
makes exactly four hundred and thirty years. Some there-
fore well observe, that they sojourned not only in Egypt, but
before in Canaan, &; #y yń &AAcrgia, “as in a strange land.”
Hence the whole land of Canaan is styled, the land in which
they were Trégoizot, “strangers,” or sojourners, Gen. xvii. 8.
xxvi. 8. xxxv. 27. Exod. vi. 4. Ps. cw. 12, and the author to
the Hebrews saith, “They dwelt in Canaan as in a strange
land,” xi. 9 (see the note there). Their evil treatment here,
and their bondage in Egypt, saith the text, shall be four hun-
dred years: these years some reckon from the birth of Isaac,
from which time to their deliverance out of Egypt was four
hundred and five years; they therefore tell us, that the five
odd years are not mentioned, no notice being taken of small
broken numbers: for thus, say they, the Greek interpreters,
being seventy-two, are called the seventy; and the Roman
writers call them centumviri, who were in all one hundred
and five; and Moses, Numb. xi. 21, saith the Israelites were
six hundred thousand, when they were three thousand five
hundred and fifty above that number, as appears from Numb.
i. 46. ii. 32. But others begin the account from the time
when Ishmael the son of Hagar mocked Isaac, Gen. xxi. 9,
for that it was done when Isaac was weaned, we read, ver.
8, and that this was when he was five years old, St. Jerome+
doth inform us from some of the Jews, and this mocking is
by St. Paul styled persecution, Gal. iv. 39. Now from this
time to the deliverance of the children of Israel out of Egypt
is exactly four hundred years, and from this time began the
evil treatment of his seed. Some, I know, begin the com-
putation of the four hundred and thirty years, from the first
call of Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees; but since the holy
Scripture hath given us no intimation of the age of Abraham
when he went from Ur of the Chaldees to Charran, nor of
the time of his stay there, this computation is upon both
these accounts precarious; and the scriptures being so ex-
press in saying, Abraham was seventy-five years old when he
left Charran to go into Canaan, the land of promise, if the
* Karáximoy & rºy Atyvirvoy perä, ärn retákov'ra zai retgazéaria.
% roy ºrpáyoyoy hºw "A8eapºoy eiç rºy Kayavatay #A08ſy, rºc Sà
'Iaxw8ou ºrayaa’ráaew; eiç rºw Aiyvarrow yeyop, #yn; Biaxodioic
Trpèg roſ, Šekarey're Éviatºrot; to regov. Antiq. lib. i. cap. 6.
+ Inter Hebraeos autem varia opinio est, asserentibus aliis
quinto anno ablactationis tempus statutum. Quaest. in Gen,
tom. ii.
CHAPTER VII.
443
kindred.”
(last) in bondage will I judge, saith God (Gen. xv.
14): and after that shall they come forth, and (shall)
” serve me in this place (i. e. in this land of Canaan).
8 And he gave him the covenant of circumcision:
and so Abraham (being circumcised himself) begat
Isaac, and circumcised him the eighth day; and
Isaac begat Jacob ; and Jacob begat the twelve pa-
triarchs. -
9 And (the residue of) the patriarchs, (being) moved
with envy (by reason of his dream), sold Joseph into
Egypt; but God was with him (there).
10 And delivered him out of all his afflictions, and
gave him favour and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh
king of Egypt; and he made him governor over
Egypt and (over) all his house.
Holy Ghost designed to give us any chronological account of
these matters, it seems more naturally to direct us to the
time assigned by these years, than to the time of which it
hath not given us any character at all: and though the scrip-
ture doth not tell us the exact time when Isaac was weaned;
yet, since it tells us the child was grown up, or “increased,”
Gen. xxi. 8, and was playing with Ishmael, ver. 9, hence it
is probable that the tradition of the Jews, mentioned by Je-
rome, that “Isaac was five years old when he was weaned,”
may be true.
7 Ver. 7. And serve-me in this place.] This is not said
expressly, Gen. xv. but ver. 16, it is said, that “in the fourth
generation they shall come forth, and return hither,” which
seems equivalent to this expression. This seems preferable
to the exposition of some, who refer this to what is said
Exod. iii. 12, four hundred years after, viz. “Ye shall serve
me in this mount,” that being mount Sinai in Arabia, and
not the place or land where St. Stephen was when he spake
these words.
* Ver. 14. 'Ey luxai, #330Mizoyra Trévre, Threescore and
fifteen souls.] The Hebrew text reckoned them only seventy,
Gen. xlvi. 27. Deut. x. 22, but the Septuagint, adding five
sons of Ephraim and Manasseh, born in Egypt, from 1
Chron. vii., makes them seventy-five; both which, for any-
thing I can see to the contrary, may be true: for mark the
way of counting in the Hebrew, “All the souls that came
into Egypt with Jacob from his loins were sixty-six;” and
then ver. 27, it is said, that “to Joseph were born in Egypt
two souls;” and then it is again said, that “all the house of
Jacob which came into Egypt” (viz. if you add to them Ja-
cob, Joseph, and his two sons) “were seventy souls.” So
also say the Septuagint, ver. 26. All the souls going with
Jacob into Egypt were sixty-six, as the Hebrew said; then,
ver. 27, the sons of Joseph were, with himself and father
Jacob, nine, viz. five being descended from Ephraim and
Manasseh, ver. 20, so that “all the souls of the house of Ja-
cob going down into Egypt,” if you add these nine to them,
“are seventy-five :” Moses saith, all the souls that he had
reckoned were seventy : but he says not there were no
more; the Septuagint add the names of five more, and then
say that “all the names they had reckoned were seventy-
five :” nor can the names they have reckoned be disproved,
for we find them in the book of Chronicles: so that I see no
cogent reason why the Hebrew, the Septuagint, and Ste-
phen, may not all speak the truth.
But, secondly, the texts both in the Hebrew and the
Greek seem plainly to hint another solution; for Gen. xlvi.
26, “All the souls that came into Egypt from the loins of
Jacob,” besides Jacob's sons' wives, were sixty and six; add to
these the wives of his eleven sons, and they made seventy and
seven; take from them Hezron and Hamul, not yet born, and
they were only seventy-five. Now it was the design of
Moses only to give an account of those that came out of Ja-.
cob's loins, as it is said, ver, 6–8. 26, and therefore he ex-
cepts their wives out of his catalogue of sixty-six, and makes
them up seventy, as before, ver. 27. But Stephen undertakes
only to tell us the number of those that Joseph called into
Egypt, viz. his father, wai rāoray avyyávetay aircü, “and all his
Some therefore of the list of Moses must be left
out of St. Stephen's number, viz. Joseph and his two sons,
who were there already, Hezron and Hamul, who were not
yet born, and Jacob, whom he reckons apart; that is, take
11 Now there came a dearth over all the land of
Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction; and our fa-
thers found no sustenance.
12 But when Jacob heard that there was corn in
Egypt, he sent out our fathers first (without Benjamin).
13 And at the second time (when Benjamin was
sent with them) Joseph was made known to his bre-
thren; and Joseph’s kindred was made known to
Pharaoh.
14 Then sent Joseph, and called his father Jacob
to him, and all his kindred, (who with their wives
were) * threescore and fifteen souls.
15 ° So Jacob went down into Egypt, and died, he,
and our fathers,
16 And (our fathers) were carried over into Sy-
out these six from the seventy, and there remain sixty-four;
which with the eleven wives of his sons are seventy-five,
Now that these wives were a part of those that were called
by Joseph, is certain, because he called “Jacob and his
household, aid all that he had,” Gen. xlv. 11. He sent
“Waggons for their wives,” ver. 19, and the sons of Jacob
carried their wives in them, xlvi. 5. And therefore Jose-
phus" gives us the words of Joseph thus, “Bring your wives,
and your little ones, and all your kindred hither.” And
that the words ovyyeyeſ, and cºvyyāysia, belong to wives, we
learn from Lev. xviii. 14. xx. 20. Josh. vi. 23, as well as from
Josephus.
* Ver, 15, 16. So Jacob went down into Egypt and died,
he and our fathers: and were carried over into Sychem,
and were laid in the sepulchre that Abraham bought for a
sum of money of the sons of Emmor, the father of Sy-
chem.] These words have in them many difficulties, I will
begin with the easiest of them. And,
First, That 'Epº rot; Xuxáſz, is well rendered “the fa-
ther of Sychem;” and that the Greek bears this interpreta-
tion, is proved, note on Luke xxiv. l.
Secondly, It is evident, that Jacob was buried with his fa.
thers, Abraham and Isaac, in the cave of Machpelah. Fol
thus he speaks to Joseph, “I will lie with my fathers, and
thou shalt bury me in their burial-place” (Gen. xlvii. 30);
and accordingly we read, that Joseph “buried him in the
cavé of Machpelah,” Gen. l. 13. Hence then it is certain,
that it cannot be said of Jacob, that he was carried into Sy-
chem, and buried there.
Thirdly, I add, that only Jacob was there buried, and that
all the rest of the patriarchs were translated to Sychem, and
buried there. That Jacob only, of all here mentioned, was,
buried there, is evident from an old tradition of the Jews,
mentioned by Jerome,'t Hegesippus, it and R. Sol. Jarchi;S
that Hebron was called Kirjath-Arba, “the city of the
four,” because four patriarchs, viz. Adam, Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, were buried there: and from the observation of
the cabalists, that in the word brºw" is contained by Rose
Theboth all that were buried in Hebron; to wit,
Isaac and Jacob, Adam, Abraham,
Sarah, Leah.
Rebekah,
As for the patriarchs, styled here “our fathers,” that they
being dead, were carried to Sychem, is here said in express
words. And St. Jerome, giving us a description of the tra-
vels of Paula through the Holy Land, saith, “She came to
Sychem, atque inde divertens widit duodecim patriarcharum
sepulcra, and passing thence she saw the sepulchres of the
twelve patriarchs,” they being buried, not in, but near to
Sychem (Josh. xxiv. 32). That Moses took the bones of
Joseph with him when he went out of Egypt, as he had
charged his brethren to do when God brought them thence,
* Aüry 33 rotºrov, xa: yuvaixa; bºxerágaç, wai réxya kai Träcay
rºy ºvyyávetay iſºv čvaxagóvre; #v6áðs (xeroxićease. Antiq.
lib. ii. cap. 3.
ºf Quia ibidem Abraham, et Isaac, et Jacob conditus est,
etipse princeps humani generis Adam. Qu. et Trad. in Gen.
f 74, G.
† In Descript. Terrae Sanctae. § In Gen. xxiii.
| Epitaph. Paul. tom. i. f. 62. 1.
444
w
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
chem, and (he was) laid in the sepulchre that Abra-
ham bought for a sum of money (they, in the sepulchre
bought) of the sons of Emmor the father of Sychem,
17 But when the time of the promise drew nigh,
(concerning) which God had sworn to Abraham (Gen.
xxii. 16–18), the people grew and multiplied in
Egypt, º
18 Till "another king arose that knew not Joseph.
19 The same (Gr. he) dealt subtilly with our kin-
dred, and evil-entreated our fathers, so that they cast
out their young children, to the end they might notlive.
20 In which time Moses was born, and (he) was
* exceeding fair, and nourished up in his father’s
house three months: -
21 And when he was cast out, Pharaoh’s daughter
took him up, and nourished him for her own son.
22 And (so it came to pass, that) *Moses was
learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and (he)
was mighty in words and deeds (i.e. his words came
to pass, and his deeds were wonderful).
Gen. 1. 25, we read, Exod. xiii. 19, that is, the children of
Israel did it by his command, Josh. xxiv. 32. And R. Solo-
mon, on Exod. xiii. 19, saith, “We may learn from this very
place, that the bones of all the patriarchs were brought up
with him :” and this will appear very probable,
First, Because the same cause that moved Joseph to de-
sire burial in the land of Canaan, could not but move all his
brethren to desire the like, they having the same faith in
the promise, and the same interest in the land, and so the
same principles to move them to desire it that Joseph had.
Secondly, The rest of the tribes bore the same honour to
their patriarch that the tribe of Joseph did to him; and there-
fore they must be as much concerned to preserve their bones
to be carried out of Egypt with them. And seeing Jacob their
father was so concerned to be buried, not in Egypt, but in the
land of promise (Gen. xlvii. 30), and Joseph to have his
bones carried from thence into it from the same faith (Heb.
xi. 22), who can imagine that the twelve fathers of the
church of Israel, and heirs of the land of Canaan, should be
left in the land of bondage, and not interred in their own
land P
Moreover, that their bones were buried in Sychem, with
the bones of Joseph, may be made probable from these con-
siderations: &
First, That though Joseph's bones were brought up with
them out of Egypt, they were not buried till Joshua had di-
vided the land among them, and had called all Israel to Sy-
chem, to renew the covenant God made with their fathers;
for then only it is said, “The bones of Joseph which the
children of Israel brought out of Egypt they buried in Sy-
chem.” Either then they buried the bones of the other pa-
triarchs at the same time, or not at all; for we read nothing
of their doing it in any other assembly, at any other time or
place, and so may reasonably conceive, that as they were re-
moved at the same time, so likewise were they buried.
Secondly, There were but two places assigned of the bu-
rial of the other patriarchs; one by Josephus, who saith,
“They were buried in Hebron;” the other by St. Jerome and
R. Solomon, that they were buried in Sychem. Now that
they were not buried by Joshua in Hebron, we have great
reason to believe:
First, Because we do not read that Joshua ever came to
Hebron, but to destroy the city. Secondly from the tradi-
tions already produced, that it was called Kirjath-Arba, be-
cause the four great patriarchs only were buried in it. And
thirdly, from the places where Josephus saith the contrary ;
for in his second book of Antiquities, ch. iv. he hath many
other idle tales, which may cause us to suspect this; and in
his book of the Jewish Wars, he begins the story thus,
fºubadovot,” “They of Hebron tell a tale so and so, zal Asſºvvci,
and they show their sepulchres to this day, ºráyv waxi, p.afºgou
wai piñoríºo's figyao'avia, wrought curiously in fine marble,
and a tree that had stood there from the creation.”
if you will believe Josephus here, you must believe they had
sepulchres of fine marble curiously wrought; and then how
wonderful is it that St. Jerome, giving us what was chiefly
observable in every place that Paula came at, saith only that
“she came to Hebron,” that is, Kirjath-Arba, id est, oppi-
dum quatuor virorum, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, et Adam;
“that is, to the town of the four patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, and Adam;” and bringing her from Hebron to Sy-
chem, should tell us, “she saw the sepulchres of the patri-
archs there,” not only being silent as to these curious marble
sepulchres, but contradicting Josephus in the whole story.
Now if these things are duly fixed, it is necessary, either
* Lib. v.
+ Ubi supra, E.
So that
to say, with the great Bochart, that some unskilful gramma-
rians thinking a nominative case was wanting before the
Word &yha-aro, “ was bought,” wrote in the margin the word
'A8egåø, which others put into the text, without which the
words run thus with the exact truth, “So Jacob went down
into Egypt and died (there); he, and our fathers, and they
(viz. our fathers) were carried over into Sychem, and laid in
the Sepulchre that was bought for a sum of money of the
sons of Emmor, the father of Sychem.” For that Jacob
bought of the sons of Hamor, the father of Sychem, a field
near Sychem, “for a hundred kesita,” we read Gen. xxxiii.
19, and that kesita is to rendered “pieces of money,” he
proves in Hieroz. lib. ii. cap. 43, where he treats largely on
this verse: the only objection against this conjecture, which
makes the words so plain, is this, that it is not supported by
any copies or versions, and on this account it seems neces-
Sary to admit of the sense given in the paraphrase ; viz.
Wer. 15. And Jacob went down into Egypt, and died, he,
and our fathers. . +
Wer. 16. And (our fathers) were carried over into Sychem,
and they were laid (Jacob) in the sepulchre that Abraham
bought for a sum of money (they in the sepulchre bought):
of the sons of Emmor the father of Sychem.
In which paraphrase there be three ellipses of words to be
repeated from the former words, but they are such as may be
often met with both in the Old and the New Testament; as
v. g. Ps. cxxxiii. 3, “As the dew of Hermon (and as the
dew) which fell upon the hills of Zion;” for Hermon and
Zion were far asunder; Eccles. x. 1, As “dead flies cause the
ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking sayour,
so a little folly (causeth) a man of reputation for wisdom
and honour (to become unsavoury).” See Numb. xxvi. 4.
In the New Testament we have the like examples: so 2
Thess. ii. 7, “He that letteth (will let) till he be taken
away;” John ix. 3, “Neither hath he sinned, nor his pa-
rents” (so that he should be born blind on that account,
ver. 2); 1 John ii. 19, “But (they went out from us) that
it might appear they were not of us” (see Glass. lib. iv. de
Figuris Gram. tract. 2, from observ. 8 to the 13th).
* Ver. 18. There arose another king who knew not Jo-
seph.] As it might very well be; this happening one hundred
and thirty-five years after the coming of the children of Is-
rael into Egypt; for they went out of it eighty years after,
when Moses was so old, and this happened sixty-four years
after the death of Joseph, so that the king reigning at that
distance, might know little of, and less regard, the good deeds
Joseph had done for Egypt. .
* Ver. 20. And Moses was 3a réfog rà Geº, exceeding
fair.] The word God being added to increase the significa-
tion: So Nineveh is called Tréxic asyáxn rô Qió, “an exceed-
ing great city,” John iii. 3; so $naa Suvară ră, GE3, 2 Cor. x.
4, are “very strong weapons:” so “cedars of God,” i. e.
goodly cedars, Ps. lxxx. 10, “mountains of God,” Ps. xxxvi.
7, i. e. great mountains (see Glass, tract. 1, de Nom. can. 17,
sect. 3). With this great beauty of Moses, the ancient hea-
thens were acquainted : for Justin out of Trogus saith,” that
eum formae pulchritudo commendabat, “The gracefulness of
his countenance recommended him to others:” and Huetius+
shows that the whole story of Adonis hid by Venus in an
ark and delivered to Proserpina, because she admired the
great beauty of the infant, was framed out of this story of
Moses.
* Ver. 22. And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of
the Egyptians, and was mighly in word and deed.] Like to
* Cap. 36, 2.
+ Demonstr. Evang, prop. iv. cap. 4, p. 113.
CHAPTER VIj.
445
23 And when he was full forty years old, it came
into his heart to visit his brethren the children of
Israel (and to make himself known to them, as one ap-
pointed of God to be their deliverer).
24 And (therefore) seeing one of them suffer wrong
(from an Egyptian taskmaster), he defended him, and
avenged him that was oppressed (by him), and smote
the Egyptian : - *
25 For he “supposed (that by this action) his
brethren would have understood how that God by
his hand would deliver them : but they understood
(it) not.
26 And the next day he showed himself to them as
they strove (one with another), and would have set
them at one again (i. e. made them friends), saying (to
them), Sirs, ye are brethren ; why do ye wrong one
to another O
27 But he that did his neighbour wrong thrust
him away, saying, Who made thee a ruler or judge
Over us
28 Wilt thou kill me (now) as thou didst the Egyp-
tian yesterday : * .
29 Then fled Moses (from Egypt) at this saying,
(the Egyptian king seeking his life on that account,
Exod. ii. 15,) and (he) was a stranger in the land of
Midian, where he (was married to Zipporah the daugh-
ter of Jethro, and) begat two sons.
30 And when forty years were expired, “there ap-
peared to him in the wilderness of mount Sinai, an
angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a bush (sent
from the Shechinah, where God was). -
31 When Moses saw it (this angel), he wondered
at the sight: and as he drew near to behold it, the
voice of the Lord (from the Shechinah) came to
him, -
32 Saying, I am the God of thy fathers, the God
of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of
Jacob. Then Moses (perceiving that God himself
spake to him) trembled, and durst not behold (the
wision ).
33 Then said the Lord to him, Put off thy shoes
from thy feet (in token of thy reverence to me, thus
speaking to thee); for the place where thou standest
is holy ground (being made so by my presence
there).
34 I have seen, I have seen the affliction of my
people which is in Egypt, and I have heard their
groaning (under their hard labour), and am come down
this saying is that of Lucian,” of an “Egyptian priest skilled
in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.” But what this learn-
ing of the Egyptians then was, it is not easy to define ; I
suppose with the Pseudo-Justin, i' that it might be astronomy,
astrology, and geometry; to which you may add, from Cle-
mens of Alexandria,j. “ skill in physic;” but whereas Philoš
adds, “arithmetic, music, hieroglyphical writing,” and saith,
Tây 33 &AAny #yxºzºicy ºratēsiav "EXAnve; #8%aakov, that “the
Greeks, sent for into Egypt for that purpose, taught him the
liberal sciences,” he is utterly out; for the Greeks had no
learning till long after the time of Moses, as Clemens Alex-
drinus, j Josephus, “I and many others testify; and what
they had, was at first borrowed from other nations: Moses,
saith Josephus,” being older, not only than their learning,
but even than their laws and gods.
* Ver, 25. He supposed that his brethren would have
aunderstood how that God, by his hand, would deliver them.]
Two things are here fit to be inquired into, viz. by what au-
thority or right Moses slew the Egyptian, and what reason
he had to expect the people should understand that God de-
signed him for their deliverer P The Jewish historians will
give us a very easy solution to these difficulties; for their
priests, saith Clemens of Alexandria, fºr declared, that “Moses
slew the Egyptian with a word,” and so gave them a mi-
racle to prove his mission, and so then he must be killed by
him who is the Lord of life and death. Josephus also saith
expressly,if that “God appeared to Amram, the father of
Moses, as he was praying to him for the afflicted Jews, and
told him, Thy son now in the womb of thy wife shall es-
cape the hands of the Egyptians, and rô Đºày ‘E6;atoy yévo; tº;
Trap' Aiyvirriov, &váykn; &moxási, shall deliver the Hebrews
from the afflictions of the Egyptians;” and that to confirm
this vision his wife brought him forth without any pain. He
also adds, that a celebrated prophet among the Egyptians
declared, that “a Hebrew should be born then, who should
afflict the Egyptians ;” and when Moses was grown up,
counselled the king of Egypt to destroy him, saying, that
“by killing him he would free the Egyptians from fear, and
cut off the hopes of the Hebrews.”$$ But not to depend on
* Mekºpianº àwhé tºv isp?y yeaºzaréoy Gavºc toy rºy co-piay,
kai rºy traßeiay Trázav Eið; rºy Aiyúrriov. Philosop. p. 842, C.
ºf Resp. ad. q. 25. # Tatgix #y. Clem. Strom. vi.
§ De Vita Mosis, p. 470.
| Teapºpºartºv "Exxnya; tra;& boyſzov. Strom. i. p. 344.
'E', tà, 3apſ3ápzy pixocepia; Trāaay pagoſºvny rºy trag’’ xxma-ty
£933ryūzévot coºpiay. Strom. vi. p. 614.
ºf Joseph, cap. 10, contra Apion. p. 1034.
** Antiq. Praef. p. 3.
†† Apud. Clem. Strom, i. p. 344.
†† Antiq, lib. ii. cap. 5, p. 55. §§ P. 57
these things, the Jerusalem Talmud declares, that Moses
slew the Egyptian “by the spirit of prophecy,” or that he
did it by an extraordinary impulse from God; and Maimon-
ides” make this action one degree of prophecy, and thus (as
Stephen saith) “it came into his heart (from God) to visit
his brethren” (ver. 23); and indeed otherwise he could not
have justified this fact to God and his own conscience. Now
Moses knowing what an extraordinary person he had been
“in words and deeds” (ver. 22), and what had been declared
of him to his father, and by this action working deliverance
to one of them, must justly hope they would look upon him
as one appointed by God to be their deliverer. For to be
8vyarā, śy Aáyotº, may well signify one that is endued with the
spirit of prophecy, Aéyo; copia; x&i yyoºrewº, being frequently
used to signify some extraordinary knowledge and wisdom,
and the person gifted with them being, by Clemens Rom.f
styled 3 Svyaté, Yvärty £eiträv, a man able to declare this
knowledge; and them 8ward; #y Epyotº will signify a man of
extraordinary and miraculous performances.
14 Ver. 30. There appeared to him in the wilderness of
mount Sinai the angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a
bush.] That God himself was gloriously present here, at-
tended with his holy angels as his ministers, of which one
appeared in the bush, and was by God employed in forming
the voice by which he spake to him, is evident, (1.) from the
express assertion of Christ, viz. that § 0:36, “God spake to
Moses in the bush’’ (Mark xii. 26); so Moses himself in-
forms us, when he prays, Deut. xxxiii. 16, that “the blessing
of him that appeared in the bush might fall upon the head
of Joseph,” that is, saith Onkelos, “ of him whose majesty
dwells in the heavens, and was revealed to Moses in the
bush ;” saith B. Uziel, “of him who made the glory of his
divine Majesty dwell in the bush.” (2.) This appears from
the words here spoken, saith Stephen, by the voice of the
Lord, “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, I have
heard the affliction of my people, I will send thee into
Egypt;” and also from the words in Exodus, for there Mo-
ses, who went boldly towards the angel to see that great
sight, when God said, “I am the God of Abraham, trembled,
and durst not behold,” Exod. iii.6, being afraid to look upon
God; and ver. 13, “Moses said to God, What is thy name *
and God answers, “I AM,” and bids him say, “I AM, and
the God of your fathers, hath sent me to you.” And, last-
ly, if these names could belong to a created angel, I would
gladly know how Christ received “a more excellent name
than the angels,” as we read, Heb. i. 4. So that God was
here present, as the chief person speaking to Moses, the an-
gel only as his minister and his attendant (see the note on
John i. 1). * *
* Nev. par. ii. cap. 14. Epist, ad. Corinth. $.48.
446
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
into Egypt (to that end).
35 *This Moses whom they (formerly) refused,
saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge (over
ws) 8 the same (Gr. him) did God send to be a ruler
and deliverer by the hands (or ministry) of the angel
which appeared to him (as God’s messenger) in the
bush : (and)
36 He brought them out (of Egypt), after that he
had shown wonders and signs in the land of Egypt,
and in the Red sea, and in the wilderness (after they
came from Egypt) forty years. -
37 This is that Moses, who said to the children of
Israel (Deut. xi. 15), * A prophet shall the Lord your
God raise up to you of your brethren, like to me;
him shall ye hear (which prophet was Christ).
* Ver. 35. This Moses whom they refused.1 For though
only one of them said to him, “Who made thee a ruler or
judge over us?” yet that one is thought to have been a ruler
of a tribe, and so to have spoken in the name of the rest.
Moreover, none of them acknowledged him as one by God
appointed to be their prince and Saviour out of the hands of
the Egyptians (ver. 27); and therefore it is said, that hºvá-
cravro, “they denied him,” as the Jews are said to deny that
Jesus yºn they would not acknowledge (see the note on
iii. 14).
* Ver. 37. A prophet shall the Lord—raise up to you,
&c.] See note on iii. 22.
* Ver. 38. With the angel that spoke to him in mount
Sinai.] Perhaps the same angel which appeared to him as
an attendant on the divine Majesty in the bush, for though
the law was given “by the disposition of angels,” ver. 53,
Kof which place see the note on John i. 1. Heb. ii. 2), yet
seems there to have been a principal angel (perhaps Michael
their prince, Dan. x. 21), who attended upon Moses and the
children of Israel, and who is therefore styled by God, “my
angel:”. So, Exod. xxiii. 23, “My angel shall go before thee,”
that is, saith Baal-Hatturim, “Michael, my peculiar angel:”
so also xxxii. 34. This Moses owns by saying, Numb. xx.
16, “When we cried to the Lord—he sent an angel, and
hath brought us forth out of Egypt,” that is, “Michael the
prince,” say the Jews, and therefore he saith, “I am come,
as captain of the host of the Lord,” Josh. v. 14, which is the
title of Michael, Dan. x. 13; but this is not so to be under-
stood as to exclude the presence of God himself, for this an-
gel was sent from the Shechinah or divine presence, which
was in the pillar of the cloud.
* Who received Aéyia ºwta, the lively oracles to give to
ws.] The law of Moses is here styled, “the lively oracles,”
not because they were able Kootroteſy, “to give life,” for that
St. Paul expressly denies, Gal. iii. 21, calling this law “the
ministry of death and condemnation,” 2 Cor. iii. 6.. 9 ; but
because they were oracles, proceeding, not from dumb idols,
but from “the living God,” and promising a prosperous and
happy life in Canaan, to all that obeyed them (Lev. xviii.
5. Deut. xv. 16. xxxii. 47), on which account this word is
styled, Heb. iv. 12, Aéyo; £ºvro; Osoſ, “the word of the liv-
ing God,” and, 1 Pet. i. 23, “the living word of God,” as being
* vigorous in its operations (see the note on Heb.
lW. 12% .
* Ver. 41. And they made a calf in those days, and of:
fered sacrifice to the idol,l Here note,
First, That the calf worshipped by the Jews is expressly
called an “idol,” and they who worshipped it are expressly
styled “idolaters,” I Cor. x. 7, and with good reason, be-
cause “they changed the image of the incorruptible God into
the similitude of a calf,” Ps. cwi. 19, 20. Note,
Secondly, That the worship performed by them to this
golden calf, was worship directed by them to the true God,
viz. to that God “which brought them from the land of
Egypt;" for when they had made them “a molten calf,”
they said, “This is thy God, which brought thee out of the
land of Egypt,” Neh. ix. 18.
Nor can we otherwise conceive, if we consider, (1.) that
by this God they could not possibly intend to signify the
very image they had made, there being nothing more repug-
mant to common sense, and more irrationally stupid, than
j
to deliver them. And now come, I will send thee
38 This is he, that was in the church (or congréga-
tion) in the wilderness " with the angel that spake to
him (from the divine presence) in mount Sinai, and
(to) our fathers : * who received the lively oracles to
give to us (which spake of him :
39 This is he) to whom our fathers would not
obey, but (they) thrust him from them, and in their
hearts turned back again into Egypt,
40 Saying unto Aaron, Make us gods to go before
us: for as for this Moses, which brought us out of
the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him
(and so it is no wonder that they will not hear God’s
prophet now).
41 **And they made a calf in those days, and of-
fered sacrifice to the idol, and rejoiced in the works
of their own hands.
to conceive that what they made the other day, was both
their maker and preserver, whilst it was nothing in the
world ; and that it gave them power, before it was in being:
men may assert such things, who have no other refuge or
defence, but cannot possibly believe themselves in what they
so wildly do affirm. (2.) They could not be conceived to
affirm, that this God, who brought them out of the land of
Egypt, was the Egyptian Serapis ; for then they must ima-
gime, that this Egyptian god wrought all the miracles they
saw done in Egypt upon those that owned and worshipped
him, in favour of those persons who did not own him for a
god, but looked upon him as a devil, and that he did inflict
the heaviest judgments upon them that feared him, and
showed the greatest kindness unto those that feared him not,
by separating betwixt them and the Egyptians, and not per-
mitting any of his judgments to molest or touch them. They
must believe that the Egyptian Serapis had enjoined them
to abstain from all those modes of worship with which he
was served in Egypt, as an abomination to him ; “for in the
day that he lifted up his hand unto them to bring them forth
of the land of Egypt,”—then said he unto them, “Cast
away every man the abominations of his eyes, and defile
not yourselves with the idols of Egypt, I am the Lord your
God,” Ezek. xx. 6, 7. Lastly, They must believe that he,
who executed his judgments on the Egyptian gods, was the
Egyptian god, and that the God of the Hebrews, who said,
“Let my people go, that they may serve me,” Exod. vii. 1,
was the god of Egypt, and that he, who wrought those mi-
racles unto this end, that the Egyptians might know that he
was the Lord, Exod. xiv. 18, was he whom the Egyptians
owned as their god ; all which deductions are too absurd to
be believed. Moreover, (1.) the reason why they desired
the making of this god to go before them, is delivered thus,
“ Up, make us gods which shall go before us ; for as for this
Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt,
we wot not what is become of him,” Exod. xxxii. 1. And
from these words it is apparent, that the want of Moses was
the only cause why they required this golden calf to “go be-
fore” them. Now it is certain, they esteemed not Moses to
be God, but only one who represented God, and who de-
clard his mind unto them; on which account God himself
saith, that he should be “to Aaron instead of God,” Exod.
iv. 16, and therefore it is also certain that they desired only
some other representative of God, which Aaron might con-
sult to know the mind of God. (2.) Here they expressly
do acknowledge that Moses brought them out of the land
of Egypt, i. e. the God of Moses did so. Now they all
knew the true Jehovah was that God whom Moses taught
them to adore, and that the God of Moses was not that calf,
which he knew nothing of, nor that Egyptian Apis, which
he had so much opposed and vilified: when therefore they
affirm, at the beholding of this calf, “These are thy gods,”
this affirmation must be supposed consistent with their for-
mer words, which do acknowledge that the God of Moses
brought them forth, &c. Now since the golden calf, or the
Egyptian Apis, was not, even in the apprehension of these
men, the God of Moses, these words, viz. “These are thy
gods,” cannot be spoken of the calf, or the Egyptian Apis,
and therefore must be understood of him who was indeed
the God of Moses, and so must signify, This is the sign, this
is the representation of that God which brought us forth, &c.
CHAPTER VII.
447
42 *Then God turned, and gave them up to wor-
ship the host of heaven; as it is written in the book
of the prophet (Amos, saying, v, 25), O ye house of
Israel,” have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacri-
fices by the space of forty years in the wilderness :
Again, this we may gather from the feasts they consecrated,
for Aaron doth expressly say it was “a feast to Jehovah; ”
whereas had it been really intended as an honour done to
the Egyptian demons, it cannot be conceived that Aaron
would both give unto those devils the proper and incommu-
nicable name of God, and also offer sacrifice to devils. He
therefore, whom he called Jehovah, and to whom he offered
those peace-offerings, was he who truly bears that name.
And, (3.) this is plain from St. Stephen's words, ver, 41,
42, “And they made a calf in those days, and offered sacri-
fice unto idols, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands;
then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of
heaven:” for it is observable, that the idolatry of the calf
Was distinct from the other heathen idolatry, this being the
punishment of the other, and only a consequent of that, for
“then God turned and gave them up to worship the host of
heaven.” Since then the worship of Osiris under the species
of a golden bull, and of the Egyptian Apis in the symbol of
a living calf, was really the worship of the Sun and moon, as
the great Selden” doth inform us, it follows, that when they
worshipped the golden calf, they were not given up unto
the worship of Osiris, or the Egyptian Apis, which were
adored by the Egyptians as the most glorious part of all
“ the host of heaven.”
Hence then it must demonstratively follow, that the wor-
ship of the true God in an image, or material representation,
is, in the scripture sense, idolatry.
Ver. 40. "O yaº Mor; otiro, oùw of agey, As for this Moses.]
This construction occurs often both in the Old and New
Testament: so Ps. xi. 4, Jehovah in the heavens is his
throne ; Küpio; #y obgavá á Spóvoc atroč, LXX., Ps. xviii. 30,
6 QE6; (wov &ºokwoº # 338; atroš, “As for God, his way is per-
fect;” Ps. civ. 17, “The stork, the fir-trees are his house”
(see Eccles. ii. 14. Hos. xii. 2. Nah. i. 3). So Matt. xxi.
42, Niðoy by áºreboxiºxacay, oùroç, “As for the stone which the
builders refused, it is become the head corner-stone:” see
also Rev. ii. 26, and the note on 1 John ii. 27, Kai tºsſ, rö
Xpiaka 3 #xá8ers &r' airoij, &c.
* Ver. 42. Then God gave them up to worship the host
of heaven.] i. e. From their worshipping him in images
against his command, he suffered them to proceed to “wor-
ship the creature instead of the Creator:” see note on Rom.
i. 21, 24. “The invention of idols" (i. e. images), saith
the book of Wisdom, “was the beginning of fornication,”
i. e. idolatry (see note on John viii. 41); and therefore God
is said to have “given this host of heaven to the heathens
to worship,” Big Senazelay zai orporavyety &; Seočg. See Dru-
sius and the Septuagint, Deut. iv. 19, Just. M. Dial. p. 274,
Clem. Alex. Strom. p. 609, B. viz. He suffered them to
proceed to that more vile idolatry in punishment of their
worship of him by images. And to this alludes that of the
Septuagint, Hos. xiii. 4, “God gave not the host of heaven
to you, ºrogeſſed Sai Triaw airów, to go after them,” but sent
nis prophets to forbid it, which he did not to the heathen world.
* Have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by
the space of forty years in the wilderness?] This question
is a strong negative, importing that though they really did
offer sacrifices, as he had commanded, yet did he not ac-
cept or look upon them as offered to him. The expres-
sion is like that of the prophet Zachary, vii. 5, “When ye
fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months, these
seventy years, did ye at all fast to me, even to me?” And
this is here denied,
First, Because God will accept of no worship as done
unto him, which is not done unto him alone; and when any
other is worshipped with him, he looks upon himself as
not worshipped at all. So of those nations which came
from Assyria into the cities of Samaria, it is said, 2 Rings
xvii. 23, “They feared the Lord and served their own gods.”
i. then it is added, ver, 34, that “they feared not the
ord.” &
* Lib. de Diis Syris, cap. 4.
(i. e. Hiſ trpoonvéykars, ye have not offered these things
to me.
43 Kai, But ) *ye took up the tabernacle of Mo-
loch (i. e. the sun), and the star of your god Rem-
phan (i.e. and a star to represent to you Saturn, these
Secondly, Because God will not own any worship as
performed to him, whilst men continue in their disobedience
to his laws, and in their hearts depart from him, and incline
to a worship he approves not of: thus the Jews in Zachary
are said, not to fast to him, because they would not hearken
to or obey his words (ver. 8), and he is said to have been
angry with them in the wilderness forty years, “because they
erred from him in their hearts,” Ps. xcv. 10, that is, saith
the Chaldee, “They had their idols in their hearts.” And
the Samaritans are said to “worship they know not what,”
John vi. 22, because they did not worship him according to
his will revealed in his word (see the note there).
** Ver. 43. Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and
the star of your god Remphan, figures which you made to
worship them, &c.] Here note, *
First, That these words are taken from Amos v. 26, where
the words in our translation are, “Ye have borne the taber-
nacle of your Moloch, and Chiun your images, the star of
your god.” Note, t
Secondly, That these words of the prophet are by St.
Stephen produced to prove, that God gave them up to wor-
ship “the host of heaven,” as the punishment of their
worshipping of the golden calf; even as God is said to have
given up the heathens to uncleanness and vile affections,
Rom. i. 24–26, as the punishment of their former idolatry,
ver. 21. 23. So that the gods here mentioned must belong
to “the host of heaven.” Note, -
Thirdly, That Moloch is thought to be the sun, for the
whole east did worship the sun and moon as the “king and
queen of heaven ;” and interpreters almost generally agree,
that Baal, Bel, or Belus, so often mentioned in the scrip-
tures as worshipped by the heathens, is the sun, or “lord of
heaven.” Now Baal the lord, and Moloch the king of hea-
ven, is the same. So Eusebius * tells us of the Phoenicians
out of Sanchoniathon, that “when drought happened, they
did tâ; xsigaçãpÉyely sic oigavoi); Trpic row #xtoy todrow yap pnal
05°w Évépzićoy ºzévoy oigayoi, kāploy BEENa'éºgy xaxodytes, lift up their
hands to heaven, to the sun, whom they owned as the only
lord of heaven, calling him Beelsam.cn, that is, the lord of
heaven ;” and Damascius + in Photius Saith, the Syrians and
Phoenicians roy Kgévoy"HA kai BàA štroyop, 3&oval, “call Saturn
El and Bel ;” and Servius * upon Virgil says that “the sun
and Saturn were worshipped by the Assyrians and the Afri-
cans under the name of Bel.” See for the farther proof of .
this, Voss. de Idol. lib. ii. cap. 4, Spencer de Ritibus Hebr.
. 551.
p As for the other word “Chiun,” changed by the Septuagint
into a name better known, viz. “Rephan” or “Remphan,”
Vossius thinks it signifies the moon, ibid. cap. 23. But
Aben-Ezra on the place informs us that it signifies Saturn,
and that with great probability, Saturnt bearing that name,
say the learned, in the Arabian and Persic tongues; and in
the Egyptian alphabet ‘Pºpay is Saturn. Note,
Fourthly, That to Moloch is ascribed succoth, a taber-
nacle or tabernacles, because he was worshipped in little
shrines, chapels, and tabernacles, which they used to carry
about with them, as Grotius and Dr. Hammond here prove ;
Remphan a star, because the heathens worshipped their
gods, demons, and heroes, under the name of some star ap-
propriated to them, as Dr. Spencer # shows ; and so the
Egyptian god Remphan or Remphin, mentioned by Diodo-
rus Siculus, might be worshipped in the star Saturn.
And because they made images of these gods, and put
them into these shrines, and chapels or tabernacles to be
* Praep. Evang. lib. i. cap. 10, p. 34.
+ Cod. 242, p. 1050. +
* Assyrios constat Saturnum (quem eundem et solem
dicunt) coluisse, quae numina etiam apud Afros postea culta
sunt ; unde et Punica linguá Bel Deus dicitur, apud As-
syrios autem Bel dicitur quadam sacrorum ratione et Satur-
nus et Sol. In Prim. AEneid. Virg. 733.
ºf Spencer, p. 551, 552. † P. 554.
448
ACTs of THE APOSTLEs.
being) figures which you made (whereby) to worship
them; and (therefore) I will carry you away beyond
Babylon.
44 (And yet) * our fathers had the tabernacle of
witness in the wilderness, as he (God) appointed,
speaking to Moses, that he should make it according
to the fashion that he had seen.
45 Which also our fathers that came after brought
in with Jesus (i.e. Joshua) into the possession of the
gentiles, whom God drave out before the face of our
fathers, (and this tabernacle continued) to the days of
David; i
46 Who found favour before God, and desired to
find a tabernacle (g habitation) for the God of Jacob
(the father of the Israelites).
47 But (he being a man of blood, 1 Chron. xxii. 8,
his son) Solomon built him a house. -
48 Howbeit (dAA’, but this he did, acknowledging
at the same time, 1 Kings viii. 27, that) the Most
High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as
saith the prophet (Isaiah, lxvi. 1, in these words spo-
ken from God),
49 Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my foot-
stool: what house (then) will ye build me saith the
Lord: or what is the place of my rest ?
50 Hath not my hand made all thesethings? (you must
not therefore think with the heathens, I leave heaven to
be present there, or am confined to rest in any building
made with your hands.)
51 Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and
ears, ye (surely deserve more than the heathens, uncir-
worshipped ; therefore the prophet calls them bºmby images
of their gods, which they had made.
Lastly, Because the tabernacles of Moloch and Saturn,
co whom they offered their sons and daughters, had septem
conclavia, * “seven cells,” or receptacles, according to the
inumber of the seven planets; therefore perhaps it is that St.
Stephen saith, they worshipped “the host of heaven.”
. Fifthly, That they were guilty of this idolatry whilst they
continued in the wilderness, though we read nothing of it
expressly in the five books of Moses, we cannot doubt, if
we believe the prophet Amos, declaring from God, that
“they did not offer sacrifice to him in the wilderness,” be-
cause they were then guilty of this idolatry; or Stephen
saying, that in punishment of the calf they made and wor-
shipped there, God gave them up to worship the host of
heaven. And to this we may refer the complaint of the
psalmist, that even then “they erred in their hearts, and
knew not his ways;” and more certainly the words of the
Joshua (xxiv. 14), “And now put away the strange gods
which your fathers served on the other side of the river,
and in Egypt, and serve the Lord ;” for if they had them
not among them they could not put them away; and
his following words (ver. 19), “Ye cannot serve the Lord
(whilst ye retain your idols), for he is a jealous God.”
And, Lastly, Whereas Stephen saith, “I will carry you
beyond Babylon,” though the prophet had only said, Í will
carry you beyond Damascus, this need give us little trouble,
seeing this prophecy was fulfilled by Shalmaneser, king of
Assyria, carrying them both beyondi)amascus and Babylon,
into the cities of the Medes, 2 Kings xvii. 6.
. * Ver. 44. Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness.]
i.e. In which the true God gave them signal testimonies of
his presence with them, and indications that he dwelt among
them, though, as in the wilderness, so till the times of Da-
vid, they fell off from him to idolatry: this David desired to
build. God a temple, and his heart was set upon it (Ps.
cxxxii.), and his son Solomon built it, and in this you place
your confidence, saying, “The temple of the Lord are we”
(Jer. vii. 4); but now, says St. Stephen, that the great God
of heaven cannot be confined to your temple, or to choose
it for a place of rest, as that he should not depart from it,
or suffer it to be destroyed again, as he formerly did for
* See Voss. de Idol. lib. ii, cap. 5, p. 169.
cumcised in the flesh, to be eacluded from God’s pre-
sence and habitation ; for ye) do always resist the
Holy Ghost (the Shechinah); as your fathers did, so
do ye.
52 Which of the prophets (acted by that Holy
Spirit) have not your fathers persecuted ; and (kai,
gea) they have slain them who showed before (by
the same Spirit) of the coming of the just one; of
whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers.
53 (Yea, you are the very same persons) * who
have received the law (immediately from the mouth of
God) by the disposition (administration) of angels,
and have not kept it (but violated even those laws
which were delivered from God immediately, as well as
those which he spake by the Holy Spirit in the prophets).
54 When they heard these things, they were cut to
the heart, and they gnashed upon him with their
teeth (through indigmation).
55 But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up
stedfastly into heaven, and * saw the glory of God,
and Jesus standing at the right hand of God,
56 And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened,
and the Son of man (the Messiah) standing at the
right hand of God.
57 Then they cried out with a loud voice, and
stopped their ears, and * ran upon him with one ac-
cord, -
58 And cast him out of the city, and stoned him :
*" and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young
man’s feet, whose name was Saul.
59 And they stoned Stephen, “calling upon
your crying provocations ; this therefore you may reasonably
expect, who are still a stiffnecked people, and uncircumcised
in heart, still resisting the Holy Ghost in God’s prophets,
as your fathers did, and adding to all your sins the murder
of your promised Messias; this, I say, you have reason to
expect, did not I warn you of it.
* Wer. 53. Who have received the law, Big 8tarayå;
&yyáAwy.] That is, saith Grotius, inter angelorum turmas,
“by God's appearing with his host of angels,” for so we
read he did at mount Sinai, when he gave the law : So Deut.
xxxiii. 2, “The Lord came from Sinai, he came with ten
thousand 37% Awy, of angels; from his right hand went a
fiery law for them ;” and Ps. lxviii. 17, “The chariots of
God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels, and the
Lord is among them as in Sinai.” I rather choose to say,
“by the administration of angels,” they all here ministering
to God when he gave the law (see note on John i. 1, and on
Heb. ii. 2).
* Ver. 55. He saw the glory of God..] That is the She-
chinah, the symbol of God’s glorious presence (see the notes
on Rom. i. 23, and on Heb. i. 3); and Jesus standing at
the right hand of God, as in a posture ready to receive
him. -
* Ver. 57. They ran upon him with one accord..] Though
they rush upon him in this case, yet they do it only because
by fresh words of blasphemy, as they conceived, he had
confirmed the former blasphemy testified against him by
two witnesses, and therefore they drew him out of the city,
because their traditions said, that “no man was to be stoned
in the camp, or in the city ;” and stone him after the legal
manner, the witnesses against him beginning the execution ;
and so here is no evidence that this was done jure zelotarum,
and not by course of justice, the Sanhedrin having before
sufficiently showed what they thought of him, by being
“mad against him, gnashing upon him with their teeth.”
*7 Wer. 58. And they laid their clothes at the feet of a
Woung man, whose name was Saul.] See note on Philem.
Ver. 9.
* Ver. 59. 'Etiwaxoſ pºevoy, Calling upon Christ and say-
ing, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit..] Here we find Stephen,
“full of the Holy Ghost,” calling religiously upon Christ,
now in heaven, to receive his spirit, and thereby testifying,
not only that religious worship was due to him, but also that
he could, hear his prayer, and receive his spirit at that dis-
tance, and therefore was omnipresent, and the searcher of
CHAPTER VIII.
449
God, and saying, Lord Jesus, *receive my spirit.
60 And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud
the hearts, and he in whose hands the spirits of men were :
for he doth not say, Kūpts rot; 'Inaroſ, “Thou who art the Lord
of Jesus ;” that phrase being never used in the New Testa-
ment, but Kügle 'Inzoğ, “Ilord Jesus, receive my spirit:” like
to this is that prayer of St. John, Rev. xxii. 20, Kāpiś 'Incoiſ,
“Lord Jesus, come quickly.”
* Receive my spirit..] Hence it appears that the spirit of
man is a substance distinct and separable from the body,
and which dies not with it ; for Stephen prays not to the
Lord Jesus to receive his body, but only to receive his spi-
rit, now to be separated from it (see the notes on Luke xxiii.
40, and on 2 Tim, i. 12). Now, if the spirit of a man died
voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And
when he had said this, he *fell asleep.
with the body, no reason can be given why St. Stephen
should pray to the Lord Jesus to receive his spirit rather
than his body. Moreover this, being said by a Jew in pre-
sence of the Jews, is doubtless to be understood to the sense
and the opinion of the Jews, who held, that “the souls of
just men were in the hand of God” (Wisd iii. 1), and were
“in peace:” which expressions agree not to a thing which is
insensate ; nor could an insensate being have any hope at
all, much less “a hope full of immortality,” as he there
speaks, ver. 2, 3.
* Ver. 60. He fell asleep.] See note on John xi. 11, .
CHAPTER V III.
1 AND Saul (when Stephen thus died) was consent-
ing to his death. And "at that time there was a great
persecution against the church which was at Jerusa-
lem; and they (that were of it) were all scattered
abroad “throughout the regions of Judea and Sama-
ria, except the apostles.
2 And devout men carried Stephen "to his burial,
and made great lamentation over him.
3. As for Saul, he made havoc of (Gr. and Saul
wasted or ºfflicted), the church, entering into every
house (of the faithful), and haling men and women
(thence, he) committed them to prison.
4 “Therefore they that were (Gr. they therefore
being) scattered abroad, went everywhere (Gr. went
through Judea and Samaria, ver. 1), preaching the
word.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VIII.
* Ver. 1. At that time there was a great persecution
against the church which was at Jerusalem.] The rage they
were in for what was spoken, as they conceived, against
the law and the temple,” for which they had the highest ve-
neration, and the cutting words St. Stephen had pronounced
before, and even of, the Sanhedrin, as of a stiffnecked and
uncircumcised generation, wanting that circumcision they
so gloried in, not observing that law they seemed so zealous
for, persecuting the prophets who foretold of the Messias,
betraying and murdering him when he was come, gave, in
all likelihood, the occasion to this persecution of all others
who believed this, as St. Stephen did ; and that this perse-
cuticn was set on by the authority of this great council, we
may learn from the part Saul bore in it ; for he confesses
that he received his authority to treat the Christians thus
from them (xxii. 5. xxvi. 11).
* They were all scattered abroad, nºw rôy &mocráxoy, ea-
cept the apostles.] It is a very ancient tradition, mentioned
by Clemens of Alexandria, that our Lord assigned twelve
years after his ascension for the conversion of the unbeliev-
ing Jews in Judea, lest any of them should say own hºotſcrap.sy
“WG have not heard ;” saying to his apostles, ºstă 343exa
#rn ###xSers sic rôy w$oºkov, “Go ye out into the world after
twelve years;” and Apollonius, it who flourished at the
same time, speaks of this, &c #x tragašárews, “as delivered
by tradition,” that our Lord commanded his apostles inſt
8388xa Éreat º Xofia 6ivat rā; ‘Ispovaaººw, “not to recede
from Jerusalem by the space of twelve years.” Now if
there be any truth in this tradition, it shows the reason why
the apostles continued at Jerusalem when the rest of the
disciples were scattered abroad.
* Ver. 2. zvvexéºtaray, Buried Stephen..] i. e. They pre-
pared Stephen for his burial, as the Greek word properly
Philo
* 'E:alperác Batty airoi; &macri i regi rā isgåy orwovëh.
Legat. p. 791. -
+ Stromat. lib. vi. p. 636, 637.
f Apud Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. v. cap. 17.
5 Then "Philip (the evangelist, being one of the
seven, xxi. 8), went down to the city of Samaria, and
preached Christ to them.
6 And the people with one accord gave heed to
those things which Philip spake, hearing and seeing
the miracles he did (to confirm his doctrine).
7 For unclean spirits, crying with (a) loud voice,
came out of many that were possessed with them :
and many taken with palsies, and that were lame, were
healed. - .
8 And there was great joy in that city (that a per-
son so beneficial was come to them).
9 But there was a certain man, called Simon, which
beforetime used sorceries in the same city, and be-
witched (Gr. and a certain man named Simon was be-
fore in that city, using magic, and astonishing) the peo-
imports; i. e. they did all things in order to it, washing his
body (Acts ix. 37), anointing it, and winding it up in linen,
putting it in the coffin, carrying it forth to the burial-place,
and weeping there over it after the manner of the Jews.
But whereas Grotius tells us from Austin, 4 De Civ. Dei,
lib. xxii. 8, that the relics of Stephen cured many diseases,
it is wonderful he should depend much on the authority of
St. Austin in this matter, seeing he tells us, that hujus mar-
tyris corpus ex illo usque ad ista tempora latuit, nuper au-
tem apparuit, sicut solent apparere sanctorum martyrum
corpora revelatione Dei, “the relics of this martyr were
latent for about four hundred years, and only found by re-
velation in his time:” for is there not sufficient reason to
suspect such revelations appearing only in that age, when
religion began much to decline, and superstition, as St.
Austin confesses, to abound 2 Would God thus honour this
martyr only then, and neglect to do it four hundred years 2
or, did not Grotius know, that Austin saith in that very
chapter of these very miracles, that they are “not of such
authority, that we should believe them without difficulty or
doubting * t
* Ver, 4. They that were scattered abroad went through
all places preaching the word.] Hence it is highly probable
that it was not the whole church of Jerusalem, or the body
of the laity (seeing we find “devout men” burying Stephen
ver. 3), that was thus “scattered abroad:” for what authority
had they to preach the word 2 but the hundred and eight
that were full of the Holy Ghost ; this persecution aiming
chiefly at those who were such as Stephen was ; and there-
fore the discourse passes on from him to Philip, another of
those persons so qualified to preach the gospel.
* Ver. 5. Philip] That this was Philip the deacon, and
not the apostle, seems evident from these considerations:
(l.) That he seems not to have had the power of giving the
Holy Ghost by imposition of hands; for “he fell upon none”
of the Samaritans till Peter and John came and “laid their
* Serm. xv. ed. a Sirmond. tom. x. p. 881.
+ Non tanta ea commendat autoritas, ut sine difficultate,
vel dubitatione credantur.
2 G
450
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
ple of Samaria, giving out (Gr. saying) that himself
was "some great one :
10 To whom they all gave heed, from the least to
the greatest, saying, This man is the great power of
OCl.
11 And to him they had regard, because that of
long time he had bewitched (astonished) them with
(his) sorceries.
12 But when they believed Philip preaching the
things "concerning the kingdom of God, and the name
of Jesus Christ, they were baptized both men and
women (for the remission of sin, ii. 38).
13 Then Simon himself believed also (that this Je-
sus, who enabled Philip to do these things, was some pow-
er superior to any he conversed with); and when he
was baptized, he continued with Philip, and wondered,
beholding the miracles and signs which were done.
14 Now when the apostles which were at Jerusa-
lem heard that Samaria had received the word of God,
*they sent to them Peter and John :
15 Who, when they were come down, "prayed for
them (Tspi abrów, over them whom the Holy Ghost saw
fit to be endued with prophetical gifts for the ministry
there), that they might receive the Holy Ghost:
hands upon them,” ver, 15–17, and ver. 18, it is particu-
larly noted, that the Holy Ghost was given only by the im-
position of the apostles' hands. (2.) That the apostles were
still at Jerusalem, wer. 1, whereas this Philip was one of
those that were dispersed ; for when St. Luke had said, that
the rest were dispersed, preaching the gospel, ver, 4, he adds,
ver. 5, “And Philip went down to Samaria preaching
Christ.” And (3.) he goes from Azotus, evangelizing in the
cities till he came to Caesarea (ver. 40), and there we find
Paul abiding in the house of that Philip, “who one of
the seven deacons” (Acts xxi. 8).
* Wer. 9. Aéyay Elyai riya Havröy ºw{yay, Saying he was
some great one ; and of whom the Samaritans said, that he
was h 36Vapºt; row Ogot, h ºxeyáAn the great power of God,
ver. 10.] The account which, according to St. Luke, this
magician gives of himself, is only this, that he was ºcéya;
ºric, “ some great person,” as mountebanks usually represent
themselves ; and the opinion which his magical pranks had
wrought in the Samaritans, only this, that he was “the great
power of God ;” by which words perhaps they only meant
some legate or minister of God, assisted by his mighty power;
and yet the fathers tell us, he declared himself to be, eum
quisit super omnia Pater, “the Father which is above all.”
So Irenaeus, * that he was bold to call himself “the chief
God,” so Tertullian; + and that the Samaritans held him
to be ºrgāvoy Osby, “the prime God;” yea, to be God tºrspávo
oráan; &#xii; Rai #overia; Kai Suvâţason, “above all principality,
power, and virtue;” so Justin Martyr; £ though he who
reads these words of Irenaeus, Esse se docuit sublimissimam
virtutem, hoc est, eum qui sit super omnia Pater ; and these
of Tertulliam, Hic ausus est summam se dicere virtutem, id
est, summum Deum, will be apt to think, they only did in-
fer this from these words of St. Luke, that the Samaritans
held he was h asyáxn roi; Osoſ, 359aºxic, “the great power of
God.” St. Luke goes on to inform us, that “he believed
, and was baptized” in the name of Jesus, with the rest of
the Samaritans ; and after this, it is difficult to conceive
how he should persuade the Samaritans that he was God
the Father, or the Jews that he was that Son, that Jesus,
into whose name he was baptized, or the gentiles, that he
was that Spirit which he would have purchased with money.
How can we easily conceive, that all Samaria should own
him as a great God, and yet he, as Theodoret $ informs us,
should presently after this leave them, as having received
the doctrine of Christ, and go thence to those who had not
yet received it, and come in the second year of Claudius,
i. e. about eight years after, to Rome, where he was con-
founded by the prayers of Peter 2 or that, being overcome
in the sight of all that dwelt at Rome, they should still
have erected, till the time of Justin Martyr, a statue, Simoni
Deo sancto, “to Simon the holy God 2" These things, I say,
seem neither easy to be believed in themselves, nor well
consistent with what is here recorded by St. Luke. How-
ever, seeing both Irenaeus and Theodoret, in the places men-
tioned, say expressly, 'Iověaiot; ºv &; vićy pavāyat, ºrgèg 33
zap, apeirac & Tratēga xarexnäv6éval, #y 33 roſ, &AAct; #3veaw &;
IIvetºza #ylov Šmigottàoat, “that Simon pretended to appear to
the Jews as the Son, to have descended to the Sainaritans
as the Father, and to other nations as the Holy Ghost ;”
this seems to show that the doctrine of the blessed Trinity
* Iren. lib. i. cap. 20.
+ Tertul. de Praescr. cap. 46.
f Just. Apol. ii. p. 691. Dial. p. 349, C.
§ Haer. Fab. lib. i. cap. 1.
was embraced by all Christians from the beginning, as St.
Basil proves from the testimonies of the fathers from the
beginning, and from these words of Clemens Rom. § 988c,
wai & Kūgio; 'Inaroi, Xgto-rºc, zai ré IIvetºza #ylov (Basil de
Spirità Sancto, tom. ii. cap. 29, p. 357, 358).
7 Ver, 12. Heel roi, jváuato, Concerning the name of Jesus
Christ.] That is, concerning the power of that name, when it
was used by believers to do the greatest miracles; so, iii. 16,
“His name, through faith in his name, hath made this man
strong,” that is, his power upon the invocation of his name
with faith hath done it: so the sadducees inquire of the
apostles, iv. 7, “By what have ye done this?” and they
answer, ver, 10, “By the name,” that is, the power, “of
Jesus ;” and afterward they pray, ver. 30, “that signs and
wonders may be done by his name,” i.e. by using of his
name with faith, and invocating of him ; the power of
Christ being then present with them that did so.
8 Ver. 14. They sent to them Peter.] Here we find Peter
sent by the other apostles, and by the church, which is a
sign he was not their head and superior ; for “greater is he
that sends, than he that is sent.”
9 Wer. 15. Who prayed over them that they might receive
the Holy Ghost.] Not that all, who had been baptized, might
receive it ; for it was never so in any church ; no, not at
Jerusalem ; there being only some among them full of the
Holy Ghost (Acts vi. 3); and therefore it seems reason-
able to say, with Dr. Lightfoot here, that they were such as
the Holy Ghost had pointed out to be ordained ministers,
or for the receiving of the prophetical gifts, which enabled
men then Astroveysīy, “to do Sacred offices” in the assemblies
where they were (Acts xiii. 2, 3); and these gifts being
conferred, either by God immediately, as in the case of
Cornelius, or only by the apostles' hands; Epiphanius *
observes rightly, that Philip, being only a deacon, had not
the power to confer them, and therefore these apostles were
sent to do it. But whereas Dr. Hammond saith, this lay-
ing on of hands was “to confirm, and to ordain elders and
bishops, in every city one,” this latter clause, of the ordain-
ing one bishop for every city of Samaria, when one city
only had received the faith, is very surprising, it being new
to hear of a bishop settled where there were no Christians,
and therefore they could have no flock. Moreover, as this
is spoken gratis, without any colour from the text, so is there
not the least mention of any deacons here ordained, though
Epiphanius saith, “there cannot be a bishop without dea-
cons.” And if this imposition of hands made them bishops
of so many cities of Samaria, by the same reason St. Paul
imposing his hands on twelve men at Ephesus (xix. 6),
must make them also bishops of twelve cities of Asia. In
a word, it is evident that by this imposition of hands the
Holy Ghost fell on them not to make them bishops of any
city, but only prophets and teachers in the churches where
they came, and to which they travelled ; thus Silas, coming
a prophet from Jerusalem, returns not to Judea, to exercise
any episcopal function there; but goes on with Paul to the
gentiles to visit and confirm the churches (Acts xv. 34.41).
Nor was one of them only placed in a city, but many ; five
at Antioch (Acts xiii. 1) more at Corinth, and perhaps at
Ephesus. As for the other opinion, that these hands were
laid on to confirm them ; if hands were not laid on all that
were baptized, this makes nothing for confirmation ; if they
were, then Simon Magus must be confirmed, and receive
the Holy Ghost. And both these opinions seem dangerous
* Haer. xxi. Sect l.
CHAPTER VIII.
451
15 For as yet he was fallen upon none of them :
3. they were baptized in the name of the Lord
€SUlS.
17 Then laid they their hands on them, and they
(visibly) received the Holy Ghost (so as to speak with
tongues, and prophesy, xix. 6).
18 And when Simon saw that through laying on of
the apostles’ hands the Holy Ghost was given, he of—
fered them money (to obtain the same power),
19 Saying, (Let this reward induce you to ) give me
also this power, that on whomsoever Ilay (my) hands,
he may receive the Holy Ghost.
20 But Peter said to him, *Thy money perish with
thee (i. e. without repentance thou wilt perish with it),
because thou hast thought that the gift of God may
be purchased with money. -
21 Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter
(i. e. the blessings of this kingdom) : for thy heart is
not right in the sight of God.
22 Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and
ray God, if perhaps the thought of thy heart may
i. forgiven thee.
23 For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bit-
terness, and in the bond of iniquity.
24 Then answered Simon, and said, Pray ye to the
on this account, that the Holy Ghost was never thus con-
ferred but by the hands of an apostle ; and consequently,
if confirmation and ordination be laid on this foundation,
they may be said to cease with the apostles. Notwith-
standing this may well be deemed a fit pattern for bishops
to follow in the apostolical rite of confirmation and ordi-
nation, by laying on of hands ; by which rite they, as suc-
cessors of the apostles, confer the ordinary gifts of the Holy
Ghost as the apostles did the extraordinary gifts of the
same Spirit.
* Ver. 20. Thy money perish with thee; because thout
hast thought that the gift of God might be purchased with
money.] As for the first clause of these words, the fathers
look upon them rather as a prophetical prediction than an
imprecation : and as for the sin of Simon, it seems not to
consist so much in his ambition and his avarice, that he
would be advanced to the highest dignity, and have those
gifts, by the exercise of which he hoped to be the greater
gainer; as in this, that he struck at the very foundation of
the Christian faith, supposing that the apostles and other
Christians did their miracles, in confirmation of it, by some
higher art of magic than that which he had learned, and so
they by the same art could teach others to do the same
works for any other end. Now what relation this sin bath
to what we now call simony, it is not easy to conceive; only
because he would have purchased this spiritual gift with
money ; hence, by analogy, all purchasing of spiritual
offices or places, by such sordid means, doth bear that
Ila Iſle. -
* Ver. 26. 'Emi rºy $33, rºw waragaivovaray ei, Táðay airá
Early ignºzoº. In the way which leadeth to Gaza, which way
is a desert.] So CEcumenius, There is a way to the south,
ºr 33 airá ša riv #nºvo; sºmey, “and that way, saith he, is
desert.” So Pliny,” Per continentem deserta, oppidum
Gaza. And this may be said to distinguish this Gaza of the
Philistines from another Gaza in the tribe of Ephraim, men-
tioned 1 Chron. vii. 28, not far from the place where Philip
In OW Was. &
* Wer. 27. 'Avig Aióios, evoixos, 8vy&artnç Kay84xn; rº;
3aorixia anç Aidiotrav, A man of Ethiopia, a eunuch, a man
of great authority under Candace queen of the Ethiopians.]
This was not Ethiopia in Arabia, where the queen of Sheba
dwelt, but Ethiopia in Africa, under Egypt; where Candace
had long been the name of their queens. So Pliny, F speak-
ing of Meroe, saith, There reigns Candace, quod nomen mul-
tis jain annis ad reginas transiit, “which hath for many years
been the name of their queens” (see Bochart. Geogr. S. lib.
. iv. cap. 26, §. 4).
Moreover, that this eunuch was a proselyte of justice, or
* Lib. vi. cap. 20. + Lib. vi. cap. 29, ad finem.
Lord for me, that none of those things which ye have
spoken come upon me. -
25 And they, when they had testified, and preached
the word of the Lord, returned to Jerusalem, and (by
the way) preached the gospel in many villages of the
Samaritans. - ---
26 And the angel of the Lord spake to Philip, say-
ing, Arise, and go towards the south to “the way that
goeth down from Jerusalem to Gaza, which (way) is
(through the) desert (of Judah, or, to old Gaza, which
is desert).
27 And he arose and went : and, behold, a *man
of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Can-
dace queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of
all her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem to
worship, •
28 Was returning (to his country), and sitting in
his chariot, (he) read (in) Esaias the prophet. r
29 Then the Spirit said to Philip, Go near, and
join thyself to this chariot.
30 And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him
read (in) the prophet Esaias, and said, Understandest
thou what thou readest ?
31 And he said, *How can I (understand a pro-
phecy of future times, with which I am wholly unac-
one who had embraced the Jewish faith, to which he was
converted by those Jews, which from Alexandria spread
themselves into Ethiopia, Grotius concludes ; not only be-
cause he came so long a journey to worship at Jerusalem,
and there to celebrate the feast of pentecost, but because
Cornelius was the first-fruits of the gentiles; and perhaps
the fame that he had heard in Jerusalem of the sufferings.
and resurrection of Christ, might induce him to read this
prophet.
* Ver. 31. How can I, eacept some man should guide
ºne..] Here Grotius notes, that “the eunuch did not think
the scripture was everywhere so perspicuous, or contained a
sense so obvious to all, as do now our mechanics and women,
who would do better if they thought they needed a guide:”
but sure it will not follow, that because the eunuch wanted
a guide in an obscure prophecy, therefore we must want one
to obtain the knowledge of the plain principles and precepts
of Christianity; nor surely could he be ignorant, that when
we assert the clearness and perspicuity of scripture, in all
things necessary to be believed or done, we do this not in
opposition to the assistance of reason, or in exclusion to the
instruction and help of others, but in opposition to the ne-
cessity of a living judge and infallible interpreter, supposed
necessary to the knowledge of that will of God, by which
alone we can be saved. Moreover, we do not say, that holy
scripture is absolutely and in all things perspicuous, for we
willingly acknowledge with Origen,* Chrysostom, t . Theo-
doret,f St. Austin, $ Gregory, and almost all the fathers,
that there is in scripture a mixture of obscure and plain
texts, some things which are 8vovánta, “hard to be under-
stood,” and some things which are easy to be apprehended
by very mean capacities; but our assertion is that of St.
Chrysostom, that trèvra rā āvaykaia 35×a, “all things ne-
cessary to be believed or done are there delivered with suffi-
cient clearness;” or so that all, who are concerned to know
and do them that they may be saved, may hence learn them;
and that of St. Austin," that quisque ibi fidem teneat, Sine
quà pié recteque non vivitur, “every one may there obtain
that faith, without which we cannot piously and rightly live.”
And the reason hereof, saith Mr. Chillingworth,” is convinc-
ing and demonstrative, because nothing is necessary to be
believed, but what is plainly revealed: for to say, that when
a place of scripture, by reason of ambiguous terms, lies in-
different between divers senses, whereof one is true, the other
is false, that God obliges men, under pain of damnation, not
* Philocal cap. 2, 12.
+ Hom. 36 in 1 ad Cor. tom iii. p. 488.
f In cap. ix. Dan. ep. iii. § Ep. ad Leand, cap. 4.
| Hom. 3 in 2 ad Thessal. | Ep. iii. p. 8.
* Chil. ch. 2, sect. 104 *
2 G :
4.52
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
ainted), except some man should guide (direct, or
34 And the eunuch answered Philip, and said, I
instruct) me? And he desired Philip that he would pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this of
come up and sit with him. .
32 The place (or section) of scripture which he read
himself, or of some other man 2
35 Then Philip opened mis mouth, and began at
was this, “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter: the same scripture, and preached to him Jesus.
and like a lamb dumb before the shearer, so opened
he not his mouth : -
33 * In his (state of) humiliation his judgment
was taken away (and no right done him); and who
can declare (the wickedness of) his generation? for his
life is ſwas) taken from the earth.
to mistake through error and human frailty, is to make God
a tyrant, and to say that he requires us certainly to attain
that end, for the attaining whereof we have no certain means.
Moreover, the apostles did not write only for the learned, but
for all men; and therefore, unless we will imagine the Holy
Ghost and them to have been wilfully wanting to their own
desire and purpose, we must conceive that they intended to
speak plain, even to the capacity of the simplest, at least
touching all things necessary to be published by them and
believed by us.
Secondly, We do not say that all things necessary to be
believed or done are conspicuously mentioned in all places
of the holy scripture, which respect those things; but then
we say, with Irenaeus,” and the generality of the fathers, that
those things which are ambiguously spoken in some places,
are to be expounded by those things which aperté, et sine
ambiguo posita sunt in scripturis, “are plainly, and without
ambiguity, contained in the scriptures ;”
be this way expounded, the sense of them cannot be needful
to be known : + for if God's will had been we should have
understood him more certainly in such places, he would have
spoken more plainly.
* Ver. 32. He was led as a sheep to the slaughter.] These
words are taken from Isa. liii. 8, where that the prophet
speaks of Christ no Christian can reasonably doubt, there
being scarce a verse in this whole chapter which is not by
the Holy Ghost in the New Testament applied to Christ;
the first verse, John xii. 38; the third, Mark ix. 12; the
fourth, Matt. viii. 17; the fifth, Mark xv. 28. And though
the latter Jews will not allow of this interpretation, yet some
of them not only do own that their “ancient rabbins did
with one mouth confess these words were spoken of Messiah
the king,”; but also spake thus of him, “The holy blessed
God began to covenant with the Messiah when he created
him, and said to him, The sins of those who are laid up in
secret with thce, will make thee to come under an iron yoke,
and make thee like to this young heifer, whose eyes are dim,
and fill thy spirit with anguish ; and because of their iniqui-
ties thy tongue shall cleave to the roof of thy mouth : wilt
thou then undergo this condition for them P The Messiah
said, I undertake it with the joy and exultation of my heart
on this condition, that not one of Israel may perish, and that
not only they may be saved who live in my days, but also
they who are dead from the days of the first man to this very
day. And again, when God created the world, he held forth
his hand under the throne of glory, and created the soul of
the Messiah, and his company, and said to him, Wilt thou
heal and redeem my sons after six thousand years 2 He
answered him, Yes. God said to him, If so, wilt thou bear
chastisements to expiate their iniquities, according to what
is written, Isa. liii. 4, ‘Surely he bore our griefs?” he an-
swered, I will endure them with joy.” Whence three things
are observable :
First, That what seems so strange and precarious to Crel-
lius, viz. that God should make a covenant with the Messiah
concerning his sufferings for the sins of his people, seems to
be only that with which the Jews were well acquainted, and
which seems also to be insinuated here by the prophet, say-
ing, “If he shall make his soul an offering for sin, he shall
prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper
* Lib. ii. cap. 46.47. ‘f Chil. ch. 2, sect. 84.
f Abarbanel ad Es. lii. 13, qu. 1. R. Mosis Ashee, ibid.
§ Wide Cartw. Mellif, lib. i. Crit. S. tom. ix. p. 2974.
|| Hulsius ex Pesikta, lib. i. 1, de Judaeorum Messia, par.
ii. p. 309. Cartw. ibid. p. 2975. -
or if they cannot ||
36 And as they went on their way they came to a
certain water : and the eunuch said, See, here is water;
what doth hinder me to be baptized? -
37 And Philip said, If thou believest with all thy
heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, "I
believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
in his hand; he shall see the travail of his soul, and be satis-
fied:” and in those words of the psalmist, “Sacrifice and
offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened :
burnt-offering and sin-offering hast thou not required. Then
said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written
of me, I delight to do thy will, O God: yea, thy law is within
my heart” (Ps. xl. 6–8, Heb. v. 6–8).
Secondly, that their Messiah was to suffer for their sakes,
to make atonement for their sins. And,
Thirdly, That he was to be the salvation, not only of those
who were to live in and after his time, but of all men from
the beginning. And though Grotius, in his notes upon this
chapter, endeavours to interpret the words concerning the
prophet Jeremy, yet in his excellent book of the truth of
Christian religion, having cited this whole chapter, he in-
quires,” Quis potest nominari aut regum aut prophetarum
in quem haec congruunt P Nemo sané.
* Ver. 33. In his humiliation his judgment was taken
away.] Here Mr. Clerc gives a good sense of these words,
viz. In his humiliation was his judgment; i.e. he appeared
so mean to Pilate and the Jews, that they passed judgment
against him, and he was taken away by them as an incon-
siderable person, fit to be sacrificed to prevent seditions, or
the coming of the Romans. The Hebrew saith, “From
force and from judgment he was taken away ;” i. e. it pro-
ceeded from the judgment of Pilate, and from the force, the
continual clamours the Jews laid upon him to pass that
judgment, that he was taken away, and who shall declare
the wickedness of that generation who dealt thus with their
Messiah P which therefore in the gospels is styled a viperous,
Luke iii. 7, an adulterous, Matt. xii. 34, 39, a wicked, ver.
45, an untoward generation, Acts. ii. 40, and was so to be,
say the Jews, in the days of the Messiah (see note on Phil.
iii. 2, and Dr. Lightfoot here).
Wer. 37. Ei micrºreček # 8Am; rā, Kagèiaç, #eariv.] This
clause by Dr. Mills is taken pro commate tragaš;8xmº.ávº, ä
primis Christianismi saeculis injecto, ut et alia in libro Acto-
rum Apostolicorum haud pauca, “for a supposititious clause
put into the text from the first ages of the church, as many
other clauses are in the Acts of the Apostles:” and yet this.
clause is found in the Vulgar and Arabic versions, in Irenasus,
lib. iii. cap. 12. lib. iv. cap. 40, in Tertullian, de Baptismo,
cap. 18, in Cyprian, ad Quirinum, lib. iii., §. 33, in Jerome,
tom. iv. fol. 46, lit. 1, in Austin, de Fide et Operibus, cap. 9,
12, and in CEcumenius in locum ; and even the doctor, Pro-
log. p. 40, col. 2, owns it in contradiction to his former self;
and hence we may judge of his other supposed additions, so
confidently and so frequently mentioned, in this and in the
other sacred books; which, were there any truth in what he
says, as blessed be God there seldom is, would render the
whole scriptures of the New Testament dubious and uncer-
tain (see Examen Millii, in ix. 5. x. 6. 21. xi. 6, 12. xy. 20.
29. xvi. 14. xviii. 10. 17. 21. 27. xx. 24, xxi. 3. 8. 13. 22.
xxii. 20, 21. 29, xxiii. 9. 30. 35. xxiv. 16. 18. xxv. 16. xxvi.
7. xxvii. 28. xxviii. 1. 16. 29.
* IIIa rečo rôy viðv rod Osoſ, aſyai Tôy 'Ina civ Xgiary, I believe
that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, &c.] Four things are
hence observable: (1.) That baptism was here performed by
a xará8aaric, or descent of the baptized person in the water.
(2.) That upon this faith, that Jesus Christ was the Son of
God, and that he died for our sins, which was the thing which
Philip preached to the eunuch, adult persons, who before
owned one God, and the spirit of prophecy, as the eunuch
did were received to that baptism, in which they were
* Lib. v. p. 283.
CHAPTER IX.
453
38 And he commanded the chariot to stand
still ; and they went down both into the water, both
jp and the eunuch; and he (Philip) baptized
III].
39 And when they were come out of the water,
” the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the
taught, and by which they were obliged to observe all things
that Jesus had commanded: for though the belief, that Jesus
was the Christ, the Son of God, was the great article pro-
pounded, and first preached to every convert ; yet the end
of baptism being the remission of sins, and the effect of it
justification, or the absolution of the baptized person from
his past sins, and this justification and remission of sins' being
declared to be obtained only through faith in his blood, it is
certain that believing in the Lord Jesus must include faith
in his meritorious death and passion, or, as the scripture
saith, “faith in his blood.” Hence the apostle reckons this
article,āv recºroic, “among the first” he preached to the Corinth-
ians, “that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures,”
1 Cor. xv. 3, and tells them, that he preached to them
“Christ crucified,” I Cor. i. 23, as the means of their justifica-
tion and salvation (see the preface to the General Epistle
of St. John). (3.) Observe that to the Jews and proselytes,
who already owned the true God, and believed his prophets
were inspired by the Holy Ghost, baptism was administered
in the name of Jesus Christ (Acts ii. 38. viii. 16. x. 48), or
in the name of the Lord ; but when the apostles were sent
st; rà éðwn, “to the gentiles,” who believed not these things,
eunuch saw him no more: and he went on his way re-
joicing.
40 But Philip was found at Azotus: and passing
through (it) he preached in all the cities till he came
to Caesarea (or, the tower of Straton, as it was named
before it was rebuilt by Herod).
they are commanded to “baptize them in the name of the
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,” Matt. xxviii. 20. Observe,
(4.) that in some copies we read thus, riveſpa #ytow itsatſ
ini rāv styoixov, xał &yyexo; Kvetov, “The Holy Ghost fell
upon the eunuch, and the angel of the Lord caught away
Philip :” so the Alexandrian and other manuscripts, and so
St. Jerome cites it, Dial. contra Lucif. f. 50, l, and, accord-
ing to this reading, the eunuch was sufficiently authorized to
preach to and convert the Ethiopians, as it is said he did
(see Iren. lib. iii. cap. 12. lib. iv. cap. 40. Euseb. Hist. Eccl.
lib. ii. cap. 1. Hieron. in Isa. liii.).
17 Wer. 39. The Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip.]
He did it, saith CEcumenius, because the eunuch had re-
quested him to go with him into Ethiopia; whereas God
had designed him to preach the gospel in other places of the
world, and so, by removing him thus from the eunuch, pre-
vented his compliance with him in that request.
'Eºropečero yáp, Pergebat autem.] As the Hebrew p, so the
Gr. 7&p often signifies but : So Luke xii. 58, &; yāp tºráygıç,
“But as thou goest with thine adversary :” so Phavorinus,
&vri row, 33, waſ rai, it is put for but.
CHAPTEB. IX.
1 AND Saul, yet "breathing out threatenings and
slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went to
the high-priest, (and to all the elders of the Sanhedrin
Acts xxii. 5).
2 And he desired of him (and them, ibid.) * letters
to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any
of this way, whether they were men or women, he
might bring them bound to Jerusalem, (to be judged
and punished by them : ibid.)
3 And as he journeyed (in pursuit of his commis-
sion), he came near Damascus; and suddenly (about
midday, Acts xxii. 6), there shined round about him
(and those that were with him, Acts xxvi. 13) a light
from heaven (above the brightness of the sun, ibid.).
4 And he (and all that were with him, Acts xxvi. 14),
fell to the earth, and (he) heard a (-n articulate) voice
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IX.
* Ver. 1. And Saul Épºrvéov &reix㺠Mai pávov, breathing
out threatenings and slaughter.] It appears hence, that the
power of capital punishments was not so taken from the
Jewish Sanhedrin, held at Jerusalem, but that they might
inflict this punishment upon those of their own nation, either
by their own power, or by the consent of the Roman govern-
ors, in cases punishable with death by their laws and customs.
For Saul confesses that he “persecuted this way unto the
death,” by virtue of this power received from the Sanhedrin,
binding and delivering up to prison men and women, Acts
xxii. 4 (see the note on John xviii. 31).
* Ver. 2. Letters to Damascus to the synagogues.] From
this, and from the twentieth verse, where Paul is said to
preach Christ at Damascus in the synagogues of the Jews,
it appears that there were more synagogues of the Jews than
one in that city; and that it was so also in other cities, see
Vitringa de Synag. Wit. lib. i. par. i. cap. 14, p. 255, &c.
* Wer. 4. Saul, why persecutest thou me?] The persecu-
tions of Christ's members are represented as the persecutions
of Christ himself, by reason of their union to him by the
Spirit, which renders them his body, and of that sympathy
he hath with them under all their sufferings, which makes
him awaraśāoral, “to suffer with them” (Heb. iv. 15. Isa.
lxiii. 9).
saying unto him (in the Hebrew tongue, ibid.), Saul,
*Saul, why persecutest thou me?
5 And he said (in answer to it, Acts xxii. 8), Who
art thou, Lord And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom
thou persecutest: it is (or will be) “hard for thee to
kick against the pricks (thus to set thyself to fight
against God).
6 And he trembling and (being) astonished, said,
Lord, what wilt thou have me to do (to avoid thy far-
ther displeasure)? And the Lord said unto him, Arise
(stand upon thy feet), and go into the city (of Da-
nascus), and (there) it shall be told thee what thou
must do ; (or, of all things which thou art appointed
to do, Acts. xxii. 10, for for this cause have I appeared
to thee, Acts xxvi. 17, 18.)
7 And the men that journeyed with him stood
* Ver. 5. It is hard for thee wed; xávrea Aawrićew, to kick
against the pricks.] This is a proverbial expression, signify-
ing the damage and hurt they are likely to receive who resist
and fight against those who are superior to them, and espe-
cially against God. So Euripides in Bacch. v. 794.
Oùop,' &y abrº añxxoy, 8vºodºwevo;
IIpăç xévréa Naxt{otºzi, Synºré, ºv, Osó.
“I will rather offer sacrifice to him, than, being a mortal
man, be angry with God, and kick against the goads.”
And Pindar” saith, we must not contend against God, but
bear the yoke he puts upon our neck mildly, “and not kick
against the goads,” Trori Révrpov 33 ro, Naxtić's way, that is, saith
the scholiast, not waxed-Sai rā tux; &v6pwroy Syra, “to fight
against God, being only men.” The great Bochart'ſ will not
have this proverb taken from AEschylus, Euripides, Pindar,
or Plautus, but from the scriptures, it being used, saith he,
by Moses, saying, “Jeshurun waxed fat, et recalcitravit, and
kicked against the law,” Deut. xxxii. 15, and by God him-
self, inquiring, “Why kick ye against my sacrifices P” 1 Sam.
ii. 29 (see Examen Millii).
* Ver. 7. 'Akočovts; paiy rāg polyſis, Hearing a voice.] To
reconcile this with xxii. 9, where it is said, that the men that
--~ *
* Pyth, Od. 2. + Hieroz. Tib. ii. cap. 39, p. 587.
454.
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
speechless (through fear, Acts xxii.9), "hearing a voice,
but seeing no man (nor knowing what was said to him).
8 And Saul arose from the earth (and they that were
with him); and when (the lids of) his eyes were
opened, he saw no man, (his eyes being dazzled with
the glory of that light, Acts xxii. 11), but they (who
were with him) led him by the hand, and brought him
to Damascus.
9 And he was three days without sight, and neither
did eat nor drink.
10 And there was a certain disciple at Damascus,
named Ananias, (a devout man according to the law,
having a good report of all the Jews that dwelt there,
Acts xxii. 12,) and to him said the Lord “in a vision,
Ananias. And he said, Behold, I am here, Lord.
were with him, rºy pavily oix #xovaray, “heard not the voice of
him that spake to, or with, him ;” Dr. Hammond notes, that
the word pov) signifies thunder, and so reconciles these
places, by saying, “They that were with me heard the voice
of the thunder, but heard not the voice of him that spake
unto me.” That this importance of the word pow) is fre-
quent in the Old Testament, cannot be doubted ; thus Exod.
ix. 23, “The Lord sent thunder and hail,” pově; xa, xâxa-
Čay and, ver. 29, “I will stretch forth my hand, and the
thunder shall cease,” xai ai payai ºraúzov'rai' and ver. 33,
“He stretched out his hand,” wai ai polyai śmaścavro' and
ver. 34, “When Pharaoh saw, §rt ºrénavrat # Xáxaça, xai ai
‘povai, that the hail and the thunder were ceased, he hard-
ened his heart:” so, Exod. xix. 16, “It came to pass on the
third day, that there were thunderings and lightnings, polyai
xai äargarai’ xx. 18, “All the people saw the thunderings
and lightnings,” rôy povy, wai rā; Aapºnráðaç' so, Ps. xviii.
13, “The Lord thundered out of heaven, and the Highest
gave his voice;” xxix. 3, “The voice of the Lord is upon the
waters, and the God of glory thundereth:” so, Ps. xix. l. 3,
“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament
(or clouds of heaven) showeth his handywork: there is no
speech nor language where their voice (i.e. their thunder) is
not heard.” If it be said, we find no mention of any thun-
der here, it may be answered, that it was usually an attend-
ant of such glorious coruscations as this was : if you add,
that here is mention of a voice speaking in the Hebrew
tongue, it may be still replied, that thus it was at Sinai,
where God answered Moses tº payń, “out of the thunder,”
Exod. xix. 19. If, thirdly, you object that it is said, they
heard a voice, “but they saw no person,” and in thunder this
is not expected; I answer, this is true of common thunder,
but in such an extraordinary illumination as this was, they
reasonably might expect the vision of an angel, or some glo-
rious person ; especially if the conjecture of most interpre-
ters be true, that Paul not only heard, but saw the Lord
Jesus speaking to him : this will be no objection against the
interpretation of this learned man. Or, (2.) this seeming
contradiction may be reconciled thus; they heard a voice, but
oùx hºovoray, “they understood not” the words of him that
spake unto me; for oix 3x008w frèquently in scripture signi-
fies not to understand what we hear : thus God saith of the
builders of Babel, “Let us confound their tongues, iva º
&xoãooo-w, that they may not understand one another's
speech,” Gen. xi. 7. xlii. 23; “The Lord shall bring upon
thee a nation, ot, oùx &Kočan ric pavā; atroſ, whose tongue
thou shalt not understand,” Deut. xxviii. 49; “I will bring
upon thee a nation, of oix àwočasic rā; qoyā; rºi; y\&on; ajroi,
whose language thou knowest not, neither understandest
what they say,” Jer. v. 15 ; “Speak in the Syrian tongue,
3rt ánoſoggy #xeſ, for we understand it,” 2 Kings xviii. 26 ;
“I sent thee not unto a people of a strange speech, and
hard language, &v own &xočan row: Aéyovº, whose words thou
canst not understand,” Ezek. iii. 6; “He that speaketh in
an unknown tongue, speaketh not to men, but to God, où8sic
y&é àzoöst, for no man understands him,” I Cor. xiv. 2. (3.)
CEcumenius affords a third solution, viz. that they heard the
voice of Saul speaking to Christ, où rāg &yo,0Ey, not the voice
of Christ speaking to him. *
• Wer. 10. The Lord said to him in a vision.] That is,
saith Grotius, “an angel in the shape of the Lord';” but as
we have no example in the New Testament of any such ap-
y
11 And the Lord said to him, Arise, and go into
the street which is called Straight, and *: in the
house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus : for,
behold, he prayeth,
12 And hath seen in a vision aman named Amanias
coming in, and putting his hand on him, that he might
receive his sight.
13 Then Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard by
many of this man, how much evil he hath done to thy
saints at Jerusalem : -
14 And here he hath authority from the chief priests
to bind "all that call on thy name (i. e. all thy dis-
ciples.
15 “But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way (upon
this my message); for he is a chosen vessel to me, to bear
pearance of an angel in the person of Christ, so is it certain
that here it was not so, but really was a vision of the Lord
Jesus: for Ananias not only calls him “Lord,” but calls
Christians “his saints,” and those “that call upon his name”
(ver. 13, 14).
7 Wer. 14. All that call upon thy name.] There be two
periphrases of a Christian, which occur in this chapter and
in other places of the Acts; the first (ver. 2), that they are
men and women rā, ś80ſ, “ of the way.” So when St. Paul
went into the synagogue at Corinth, they did Kaxonoysſº rāv
388V, “speak evil of the way” (Acts xix. 9); and at Ephesus,
“there was no small disturbance, regi rā; 330i, touching the
way” (see xxiv. 22). And so some of the ancients seem to
have spoken : so, in the history of the persecutions of the
Gallican church,” we read of some apostates from the faith,
8xagºnºzoivre; rºw £830, “who blasphemed the way:” and
Epiphanius+ introduceth the Melchisedecians, saying that
Christ was chosen that he might turn us from idols, wai üºré-
8stºs, hºw rºy 3339, “and might show us the way.” The second
periphrasis was this, that they were such as invoked Jesus
Christ, or “called upon his name.” Thus Ananias complains
of Saul to Christ, saying, “He hath done much evil to thy
saints, and is come hither to bind all that call upon thy
name;” and the unbelieving Jews say of him, preaching
Jesus Christ in their synagogues, “Is not this he who wasted
rob; imiwaxovºzávov; rê švoua rotºro, those that called upon that
name?" (ver. 21.) Thus Paul writes to saints called, and
to all other Christians, under the title of “all that call upon
the Lord Jesus Christ in every place,” l Cor. i. 2, and then
in the very next verse, he himself prays that “grace and
peace may be derived upon them, from God the Father, and
from the Lord Jesus Christ” (see the notes there); and
2 Tim. ii. 22, bids Christians follow after peace agra rāv #7t-
Maxovačvoy tºy Kiſetov, “with those that call upon the Lord
with a pure heart,” that is, with all believers, it being the
same thing to believe in, and to call upon, the name of the
Lord Jesus. Hence Peter saith, “He that believeth in him
shall not be ashamed ; because it is written (Joel ii. 32),
Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be
saved ” (see the note there). And hence we learn who that
Lord is, whom Ananias bids Paul invoke, when he saith, xxii.
16, “Arise, and be baptized, irixaxso 4.p.svos, calling upon the
name of the Lord,” even the Lord Jesus, who appeared to
him, ix. 17 (see the note on xxii. 16 ), and what is meant by
that phrase, viz. Profess thy faith, by being baptized in, and
by calling on, his name; this was a thing so continually
practised by the first Christians, that Pliny mentions it in his
epistle to Trajan, telling him, that it was the custom of the
Christians, carmen Christo quasi Deo camere, “to sing a
hymn to Christ as God:” for as Paul, in his thirteen first
epistles, prays for grace and peace from God the Father, and
our Lord Jesus Christ; and John, in his second epistle (ver.
3), doth the same; so doth Polycarp, the disciple of John,
in the proem of his epistle to the church of Philippi, pray
that “mercy and peace may be multiplied to them from God
omnipotent, wai Kugiou Incoiſ Xgia-roß roſ, corneo; hºw&v, and
from our Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour;” and the church of
Smyrna, in her circular epistle to all Christians, prays that
“mercy, peace, and love, may be multiplied to them from
* Euseb. Hist. lib. v. cap. 1, p. 163.
+ Haer. Melch. p. 574, sect. 8.
CHAP'I'ER IX.
455.
my name before (i. e. to preach Christ to) the gentiles
and kings, and (to) the children of Israel;
19 And when he had received meat, he was strength-
ened. Then, was Saul certain days with the disciples
16 For I will show him how great things he must which were at Damascus.
suffer for my name’s sake; (and yet the prospect of
them shall not make him disobedient to the heavenly vi-
sion, but as forward to preach as ever he was to perse-
cute the preachers of the gospel).
17 And (then) Ananias went his way, and entered
into the house (where Saul was) ; and putting his hands
on him (i. e. his eyes), said, Brother Saul, *the Lord,
even (that) Jesus that appeared to thee in the way as
thou camest (hither), hath sent me (to thee) that thou
mightest receive thy sight, and (at thy baptism into
his name mayest) be filled with the Holy Ghost, (as his
other apostles were ; I therefore say to thee in his name,
Receive thy sight, xxii. 13). -
18 And immediately there fell from his eyes as it
had been scales: and he received sight forthwith ;
and (when Ananias had said to him, The God of thy fa-
thers hath chosen thee that thou shouldest know his will
and see that Just One, and shouldest hear the voice of
his mouth, &c. Acts xxii. 14–16, he) "arose, and was
baptized.
God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.” Ignatius in
like manner, in the proem to his epistle to the Magnesians,
wishes them health “from God the Father and our Lord
Jesus Christ, QE6; hºw, our God:” in that to the church of
Smyrna, “Health Év čºkaw IIvetºzart, Rai Aéyò, Geoû, in the
immaculate Spirit, and the Word of God.” And as St.
Paul, in his epistles, often prays to Christ both for himself
(1 Cor. xii. 8–10, see the note there), and for other Chris-
tians (1 Thess. iii. 11, 12. 2 Thess. ii. 16. iii. 16), so did the
primitive Christians pray, and entreat others to pray to him.
So Ignatius * saith to the church of Rome, Arraysúcars rêv
Xpta-ray intrép tºod, “Pray to Christ for me, that by the beasts
I may be found a sacrifice to God;” and saith to the church
of Ephesus, “If Jesus Christ shall make me worthy by
your prayer:” and the church of Smyrna saith, it they
“could not leave Christ, wai &#8sc-Sai, orationis precem im-
dere, and worship or pray to any other.”
* Ver 17. The Lord Jesus who appeared to thee, § 349 st;
col, who was seen of thee..] I think it not necessary from
these words to affirm that St. Paul here saw the person of
Jesus Christ, seeing in three relations of this matter he men-
tions no such thing, but only that he saw the glorious light
in which he did appear, and which was the symbol of his
presence : for so in the Old Testament men are often said to
have seen the Lord, when they saw only the glory in which
he did appear, for they never saw his shape. Thus of the
nobles that went up with Moses into the mount, it is said,
Exod. xxiv. 10. 12, that “they saw God, the God of Israel,”
and yet they “saw no manner of similitude,” Deut. iv. 12.
15, whence the Chaldee paraphrast in all these places saith,
“They saw the glory of God;’ but if it were necessary to
Say St. Paul saw his person, the text seems rather to require
us to say, he saw him in the way, than in the heavens.
But yet by comparing these with the words of the same
person, “The God of our fathers hath before chosen thee to
see that Just One” (xxii. 14), as also from the inquiry of
St. Paul, “Am I not an apostle? have not I seen the Lord?”
(1 Cor. ix. 1,) and from those words (1 Cor. xv. 8), “Last of
all, &psºn wºol, he was seen of me also ;” it is certain that
St. Paul saw the person of Christ, and therefore highly pro-
bable that he did it at this time, or at his return to Jeru-
salem (Acts xxii. 17, 18).
* Ver. 18. He arose, and was baptized.] With water and
the Holy Ghost ; according to Christ's promise made to his
apostles, Acts i. 6.8. And note here, that this Amanias,
who at most is only supposed to have been one of the seventy
disciples, only laid his hands upon him that he might receive
his sight, and that he was replenished with the Holy Ghost
by the immediate gift of Christ, he being an “apostle not of
man, nor by man” (Gal. i. 1), but by Christ alone.
* Sect. 4. + Sect. 20.
f Act. Polycarp. apud Usser, p. 27.
20 And straightway he preached Christin the syna-
gogues, (there proving) that he is the Son of God.
21 But all that heard him were amazed, and said,
| Is not this he that destroyed them which called on
this name at Jerusalem, and came hither for that in-
tent, that he might bring them bound to the chief
priests?
22 But "Saul increased more in strength, and (by
the evidence of his reasonings) confounded the (unbe-
lieving) Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving (to
them from the scriptures) that this (Jesus whom he
preached) is (was the) very Christ (promised).
23 And after that *many days were fulfilled, the
Jews took counsel to kill him : -
24 But their laying (in) wait (to do it) was known
of Saul. And (for) they watched the gates day and
night to kill him.
25 Then the disciples took him by night, and let
him down by the wall in a basket.
26 And when Saul was come to Jerusalem, he as-
* Ver. 22. Paul increased in strength.] By the Spirit
of wisdom and of prophecy, orvºgt?ášov “proving that he is
the Christ.” The word here rendered proving, signifies to
persuade, teach, confirm, or discourse ; hence a vºz8i/3&aic is,
by Hesychius and Phavorinus, rendered Treizig, 313ax}, tria-ric,
“persuasion, doctrine, confirmation ;" cºup, 3,84&o by Suidas,
313&owo, “I teach :” so l Cor. ii. 16, ris a vºz8:34a et airów ;
“Who shall instruct,” or teach, God? So Exod. xviii. 6, ovº-
88ášo airrobº, “I make them known,” or teach them the
statutes of God; Deut. iv. 9, avºw884&ng, “Thou shalt teach
them thy sons:” so also Lev. x. 11. So God saith to Moses,
Exod. iv. 12, a vagića are, “I will teach thee what to say;”
ver. 15, a vºw88470 tºwāg, “I will teach” or instruct thee and
, Aaron what to do; and the angel to Daniel, ix. 12, “I came
forth a vºw818&cial ore, to instruct thee:” so Ps. xxxii. 8, oup.-
8.83 as, “I'vill instruct thee in the way in which thou shalt
go” (see Judg. xiii. 8. Isa. xl. 13). The doctrine he taught
and proved to the Jews was, ver. 20, that “Jesus was the
Son of God,” foretold Ps. ii., here that he was “the Christ;”
and when the Jews speak of the Son of God, or the apostles
or others speak to the unbelieving Jews of the Son of God.
it may reasonably be granted that no more is meant by that
phrase than the Messiah, they understanding nothing of the
divine original of the Son of God, and being first to be con-
Vinced that he was the Messiah ; but hence it follows not
that this phrase signifies no more when he is styled, 3 ºzovo-
yevic, “the only-begotten,” or ºto; viðc, “the proper Son of
God,” Rom. viii. 32, or when Christ argues from his doing
the works of God, that “God was his Father.”
* Wer. 23. And when many days were fuſilled.] The
history of St. Paul's preaching at Damascus, and going after
to Jerusalem, is somewhat intricate, and interpreters differ
much about it; some thinking that St. Paul preached at
Damascus immediately after his conversion, and that the
Jews then thought to kill him, and that then also he went
thence to Jerusalem ; others, that this only happened three
years after his conversion, and that then only he went to
Jerusalem: I shall therefore endeavour to give a brief ac-
count of this matter. And,
First, I grant that St. Paul preached at Damascus im-
mediately after his conversion ; this seems plain from the
text, which says, “He was baptized, and receiving meat was
strengthened, kai sù950s, and straightway he preached Jesus
in the synagogues of Damascus” (ver. 18–20). And, Se-
condly, from the amazement of the Jews, that he should do
this who “came hither for this very purpose, to bind them
that call upon this name.”
Secondly, It seems as evident that this consultation to kill
him could not be at his first conversion, but some years after;
for he was let down the wall in a basket, and escaped their
hands, and then went to Jerusalem, and was brought by
Barnabas to the apostles (ver. 26, 27). Now he himself
declares, that eiðáo; soon after his conversion, he went not
* . . . .
456
sayed to join himself to the disciples: but they were
all afraid of him, and believed not that he was a dis-
ciple.
... 27 But Barnabas took him, and brought him to
the apostles, and declared to them how he had seen
the Lord in the way (to Damascus), and that he had
spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly at
Damascus in the name of Jesus.
28 And he was with them coming in and going out
at Jerusalem.
29 And he spake boldly in the name of the Lord
Jesus, and disputed against the Grecians (i. e. the Jews
that used the Greek tongue) ; but they (also) went
about to slay him.
30 Which when the brethren knew, they brought
him down to Caesarea (Philippi), and sent him forth
to Tarsus.
31 Then had the churches rest throughout all Ju-
dea, and Galilee, and Samaria, *and were edified; and
walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of
the Holy Ghost, were multiplied. -
32 “And it came to pass, as Peter passed through
all quarters (of Judea, where disciples were), he came
down also to the saints which dwelt at Lydda (a city
of Palestine).
33 And there hefound a certain man named Eneas,
who had kept his bed eight years, and (who) was sick
of the palsy.
34 And Peter said to him, Eneas, Jesus Christ
maketh thee whole: (I therefore say to thee, in his
name,) Arise, and make thy bed. And he arose im-
mediately.
35 And all that dwelt at Lydda and (in the plain of)
º -
; • *.
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
Saron (entending from Caesarea Palestine to Joppa) saw
him, and (by this means) turned to the Lord.
36 Now there was at Joppa (a Phoenician city, ly-
ing upon the Mediterranean) a certain disciple, named
*Tabitha, who by interpretation is called Dorcas (a
roe); this woman was full of good works and alms-
deeds which she did. wº
37 And it came to pass in those days that she wa
sick, and died: whom when they had washed (in pre-
paration for her interment), they laid her in an upper
chamber.
38 And forasmuch as Lydda was nigh to Joppa,
and the disciples had heard that Peter was there, they
sent to him two men desiring him that he would not
delay to come to them.
39 Then Peter arose and went with them. And
when he was come, they brought him (Gr. whom being
come they brought) into the upper chamber : and all
the widows stood by him weeping, and showing the
coats and garments which Dorcas (had) made while
she was with them.
40 But Peter put them all forth, and kneeling
down prayed; and turning him to the body, said, Ta-
bitha, arise. And she opened her eyes: and when
she saw Peter, she sat up. .
41 And he gave her his hand, and lifted her up ;
and when he had called the saints and widows, pre-
sented her (to them) alive.
42 And it was known throughout all Joppa, and
many (upon that account also) believed in the Lord.
43 And it came to pass, that he tarried many days
in Joppa with one Simon a tanner.
*** * * ~ *------- - - -----...- --
up to Jerusalem “to those that were apostles before him,
but went into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus, and
after three years went up to Jerusalem, where he saw Peter
and James,” Gal. i. 16—19. The series of the history, there-
fore, seems to lie thus: (1.) St. Paul after his conversion
instantly preaches in the synagogues of Damascus, that Jesus
was the Son of God (ver. 20). (2.) That going thence into
Arabia, betwixt two and three years after, he returns to
Damascus (Gal. i. 17); and of this journey Luke, being
not with him, gives no account. (3.) That in his return,
being increased in wisdom and strength, he continues many
days in Damascus, proving that Jesus was the Christ. (4.)
That after three years, he, escaping from Damascus, comes
to Jerusalem, and is by Barnabas brought to the apostles
Peter and James, and continued there fifteen days (Gal. i.
18, 19). (5.) That there Christ appears to him in a vision;
commanding him to “depart out of Jerusalem;” and he
accordingly goes thence to Caesarea Philippi in Coelosyria,
and to Tarsus in Cilicia (Acts ix. 30. Gal. i. 21). It being
then so long before he came to Jerusalem, Barnabas might
well know, either from the brethren of Damascus coming
to Jerusalem, or from some journey he had taken thither,
the certainty of his conversion to the Christian faith.
* Ver. 31. And were edified.] Of the import of the
word edification, see note on Rom. xv. 2, it is added, “And
walking in the fear of God, and in the comfort of the Holy
Ghost, were multiplied ;” their shining piety above others,
and their great joy in the Holy Ghost, attracting others to
the faith.
* Ver. 32, 33. And it came to pass that Peter, passing
8ta trávrov, through all the forementioned places of Judea,
Samaria, and Galilee, he came down also to the saints that
dwelt at Lydda, a city in the tribe of Benjamin..] He, being
the chief apostle of the circumcision, visits the brethren in
those parts that were circumcised: but that he went down
to Antioch, and founded the church there, and sat bishop in
it five or seven years, as Baronius fancies, is not only besides
the text, which mentions nothing of St. Peter's going beyond
the places here mentioned, but is plainly inconsistent with
his imprisonment at Jerusalem (ch. xii.), and with his abode
at Joppa, till he went to Caesarea (ix.43. xi. 5). Still more
ridiculous are they who say, he went to visit all Christian
churches everywhere ; it being plain from the history of the
Acts, that he abode at Joppa till he went to Caesarea, and
that from thence he returned to Jerusalem (Acts xi. 2).
And there is as much reason to say, that Philip did so, be-
cause from Azotus, a city of the Philistines (1 Sam. v. 2),
“he preached through all the cities till he came to Caesarea”
(viii. 43). That ever he was at Antioch, till Paul and Bar-
nabas having founded a church there, he came and was
sharply rebuked by St. Paul, for his dissimulation against his
own knowledge and miraculous conviction, I find no reason
to believe.
* Ver, 36. Tabitha, which by interpretation is called
Dorcas.] i. e. “A roe,” both in Greek and Hebrew, say the
allegorists, from her quick sight into spiritual things, and her
high contemplations, these roes feeding on the mountains ;
as if this name had been given her by way of prophecy. The
reason why St. Luke gives this interpretation of her Syriac
name seems rather to be this, that she being a Graecizing
Jewess, was called by the first name by the Jews, and by
the second among the Greeks.
CHAPTER X.
1 THERE was a certain man in Caesarea called Cor-
2 (He was) a devout man, and * one that feared
nelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band, (the true) God with all his house, (they being all pro-
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. X.
were assembled, wai of poéoùºwavoi, and the proselytes;” they
* Ver. 2. Kai pogoûºevo; révosév,] So we read, 2 Chron. v. being men, saith Solomon, who “know thy name, rot poésia-
6, that king Solomon, “and all the congregation of Israel, 6aſ as, to fear thee,” vi. 32. This was the title given to them
CHAPTER x.
457
selytes of the gate, one also) who gave much alms to
and a devout soldier (who was a proselyte, and one)
the (indigent) people, and *prayed to God always, of them who waited on him continually;
(i.e. morning and evening daily, and at all the hours of
rayer.
8 And when he had declared all things to them
(which the angel had said to him), he sent them to
3 * And) he saw in a vision evidently, “about the Joppa (for Peter).
ninth hour of the day, (the time of the evening sacri-
fice, when he was praying, ver. 39), an angel of God
coming to him (in the likeness of a man, ver. 30), and
saying to him, Cornelius !
4 And when he looked on him, he was afraid, and
said, What is it, Lord, (thou wouldest say to me) *
And he said to him, "Thy prayers and thine alms are
come up for a memorial (for good to thee) before God.
, 5 And now send men to Joppa, and call for one
Simon, "whose surname is Peter:
6 He lodgeth (there) with one Simon a tanner, whose
house is by the sea-side: he (being come) shall tell
thee what thou oughtest to do, (that thou mayest be
saved, xi. 14).
7 And when the angel which spake to Cornelius
was departed, he called two of his household-servants,
*-
who so far embraced the Jewish religion as to worship the
God of Israel only, and were styled by them “proselytes of
the gate,” and “men fearing God.” So Bemidvar Rabba on
those words, “Blessed is the man à pogoûzewo, röv Küglov, that
feareth the Lord,” Ps. cxii. 1, saith, “These are the proselytes,
and therefore they are mentioned next to the men of Israel;”
as when St. Paul saith, “Ye men of Israel, kai of Év iſ civ po-
£oépcevo; rºy Qey, and ye that fear God,” hearken, Acts
xiii. 16. 26, where, saith CEcumenius, poſovºyow; rºy Otoy ºrgod-
MAörove #4áxet, “he calls the proselytes, men that feared
God:” and because these men had a court in the temple,
where they came to worship the true God, and offer sacrifices
to him; hence they were called a 586&Evot, “the worshippers,”
as when it is said, “Many of the Jews kai rāy asgogºvoy neoal-
m\rov, and of the worshipping proselytes, followed Paul
and Barnabas,” Acts xiii. 43, and “there followed them a
great multitude, röv deflop, #voy EXAflyov, of the worshipping
Greeks,” that is, “the proselytes,” saith CEcumenius.
And these being also called by them chasidim, are in the
New Testament called siześ, wał Eixa 8sic, “pious and de-
vout men,” as here, ver. 1.7. But notwithstanding all these
titles, they counted them unclean as well as other gentiles,
saying,” “A Sojourning proselyte is as a gentile in all things;”
and therefore they of the circumcision contend with Peter for
going in to converse with them. Yet it is not unpleasant to
observe, that though they held their persons thus unclean,
they deemed the alms they gave to the Jews clean, Saith
Lightfoot ; and because Cornelius was free in giving them to
the Jews of Samaria, he was “a man of good repute among
them all,” ver. 22.
* And prayed to God always.] i. e. Daily and at all the
hours of prayer (see the note on 1 Thess. v. 17). It also
well deserves to be observed, that “he feared God with all
his house ;” this being still the commendation of pious men,
that they made all their house religious: so Gen. xviii. 19,
“I know Abraham, that he will command his children and
his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the
Lord :” and, Josh. xxiv. 15, “As for me and my house, we
will serve the Lord :” and pious Christians made their whole
families converts to the Christian faith : so we read of the
nobleman at Capernaum, that “he himself believed, and all
his house” (John iv. 53); of the jailor, that “he believed
in God with all his house,” and was baptized, “he, and all
his straightway” (Acts xvi. 33, 34); and of Crispus, a chief
ruler of the synagogue, that he “believed in the Lord with
all his house” (xviii. 8). Hence they who had made their
whole family Christians, are saluted by St. Paul thus, To
such a one, “and the church in his house” (see note on 1
Cor. xvi. 19). And oh, that this was carefully observed and
mitated by all that are called Christians !
* Ver. 3. He saw in a vision, payséâc, openly..] i. e. Wak-
ing, and with his bodily eyes; for there were also visions in
a dream (Gen. xx. 3. xxviii. 12. Job iv. 13): so St. Paul
* Jerus. Jebamoth. f. 8, col. 4.
!
9 On the morrow, as they went on their journey,
and drew nigh to the city, " Peter went up upon the
housetop to pray (towards the temple) about the sixth
hour (being an hour of prayer):
10 And became very hungry, and would have
eaten; but while they made ready (Gr. were preparing
something for him to eat), he fell into a trance (or ec-
Stasy),
11 And saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel
descending to him as it had been a great sheet knit at
the four corners, and let down to the earth:
12 Wherein were all manner of fourfooted beasts of
the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and
fowls of the air (clean and unclean beasts together).
13 And there came a voice to him, (saying), Rise,
Peter; kill, and eat (of them without distinction).
saw, Év #xaráoil papaa, “a vision in an ecstasy” (xi. 5), and
when he was blind, “he saw in a vision Ananias” (ix. 12).
* About the ninth hour.] The time of the evening sacri-
fice ; a very fit time to tell him, that his prayers and alms,
which were spiritual sacrifices, were come up before God as
an evening Sacrifice: for at the same time, the angel was
sent to tell Daniel that his prayer was heard (Dan. ix. 21).
* Ver. 4. Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a
memorial, &c.] The word wymptôovycy, rendered “a memorial,”
is used both of the incense offered up with the sacrifice (Lev.
ii. 2. 9), and of a part or handful of the mincha offered up
to God (Lev. v. 12. Numb. v. 15. 18. 26); in which two
places no incense was to be admitted, it being an offering
for sin, or a memorial for iniquity; so that there, not the
incense or perfume, but of the mincha or oblation put upon
the altar, is called ascharah, “a memorial.” Now seeing
alms are the Christian sacrifices, and are called so by the
apöstle, Phil. iv. 18, and seeing our prayers are said to ascend
as incense, and are so styled, Rev. v. 8. viii. 3, seeing they
are our “sacrifice of praise,” Heb. xiii. 15, and alms our
“odour or sweet savour,” Phil. iv. 18, the allusion here may
very fitly relate to both. .
* Ver. 5. Whose surname is Peter.] And so throughout
this story: for Christ having said to him, “Thou art Peter,”
i. e. a rock, “and upon this rock will I build my church,”
i.e. lay the foundation of a church among the Jews, as he
did by Peter (Acts ii. 47), and among the gentiles, as he doth
here; therefore Cornelius is bid to send, not to Jerusalem to
James or John, nor to Damascus for Paul, the apostle of
the gentiles, but to Joppa for Simon, “whose surname is
Peter,” that from him he might hear those words “by which
he and his house should be saved” (xi. 14).
7 Wer. 9. Peter went up unto the housetop to pray at the
siath hour.] This being about noon, was, by the Jews, styled
“the time of the mincha gedola,” one of the three daily
hours of prayer, which devout men used. So Daniel prayed
“three times a day,” vi. 10, “morning, evening, and at the
mincha :” and David saith, Ps. lv. 17, “evening, and morn-
ing, and at noon, will I pray to thee;” “evening, and morn-
ing, and at mincha, three times of prayer:” so R. Saadias
and R. Solomon. Note also, that though Peter had been
; so long a convert to Christianity, he keeps close to the cus-
toms of the Jews, not only as to their hours of prayer, but
as to their manner of praying towards the temple, when they
were out of Judea or Jerusalem, and so could not go up to
the temple at the hour of prayer ; for he goes up to the top
or roof of the house, to pray towards Jerusalem, as Daniel
did, vi. 10: Solomon, at the dedication of the temple, pray-
ing so oft, that God would hear the prayers the men of Israel
should make towards that place (1 Kings viii. 29, 30. 35.38.
44. 48). And when it is said of Hezekiah, 2 Kings xx. 2.
Isa. xxxviii. 3, that he turned his face towards the wall, the
Targum saith, this was the wall of the house of the Sanctuary;
and therefore, in all likelihood, St. Peter, being at Joppa,
went up to the roof of the house to pray, for the same rea:
, son.
458
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
14 But Peter said, (I can) not (do) so, Lord; for
(out of regard to the law) I have never eaten anything
that is (in it styled) common or unclean.
15 And the voice spake to him again the second time
(saying), What (that) God (who instituted the law of
Moses, by this declaration of his will) * hath cleansed,
that call not thou (any longer) common.
16 (And) "this was done thrice, (for the certainty
of the thing); and (then) the vessel was received up
again into heaven.
17 Now while Peter doubted in himself what that
vision which he had seen should mean, behold the
men who were sent from Cornelius had made inquiry
for Simon’s house, and stood before the gate,
18 And called, and asked whether Simon, who was
surnamed Peter, lodged there.
19 While Peter thought on the vision, the Spirit
said unto him, Behold, three men seek thee.
20 Arise therefore, and get thee down, and go with
them, doubting nothing (of the unlawfulness of con-
versing with them): for I have sent them.
21 Then Peter went down to the men, which were
sent to him from Cornelius; and said, Behold, I am
he whom ye seek: what is the cause wherefore ye are
come (to me) 8
22 And they said, Cornelius the centurion, a just
man, and one that feareth God, and (is) of good re-
* Ver. 15. What God hath cleansed, call not thow common,
fuß at xoivov, do not thou pollute.] For explication of all that
in this chapter is mentioned, with relation to this matter, let
it be noted :
First, That it was the priest's office in case of leprosy,
and other matters of like nature, to pronounce the thing or
person under examination clean or unclean, and though
this was done only by a declarative sentence, yet it is
expressed effectively ; for in the Hebrew the words are
*Noto) innu, and in the Greek, wai xaôagić airy, xa, waveſ
airºv, “the priest shall cleanse, the priest shall pollute him:”
so Lev. xiii. 6.8. 11. 13. 17. 20, and so on. Accordingly,
the voice here says, “What God hath cleansed (i.e. by this
vision and command declared to be clean) that do not thou
pollute (i. e. pronounce not thou unclean).” Note,
Secondly, That the two great things which made the par-
tition wall betwixt Jew and gentile, were the rite of circum-
cision, and the distinction between clean and unclean meats;
of these two, circumcision was common to them from the
beginning with the Ishmaelites, and afterward with many
other nations ; but the abstaining from all meats, forbidden
by the law of Moses as unclean, was peculiar to the Jews,
and distinguished them from all the nations of the world;
and that this was the true scope of these laws, even to sepa-
rate them from all other nations, by a diet peculiar to them-
Selves, which might keep them from familiar converse with
the gentiles, and so from learning their idolatrous customs,
God himself declareth, saying, Lev. xx. 23–25, “I am the
Lord your God which have separated you from other people;
ye shall therefore put a difference between clean beasts and
unclean, and between unclean fowls and clean ; and you
shall not make yourselves abominable by beast, or by fowl, or
by any manner of creeping thing that creepeth on the ground,
which I have separated from you as unclean. And ye shall
be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy, and have severed
you from other people, that ye should be mine.” Hence it
must follow, that though the Egyptians, the Syrians, and
other, nations, might abstain from some of these beasts as
unclean, yet not any of them observed the distinction of
meats prescribed by Moses, for then could God not, by it,
have separated them from all other nations to himself. And
suitable to this is the account which Eleazar the high priest
gives of these laws in Aristeas,” that God, Távºrcésy #23;
"rapiéppašev čyveſaic, Kai Blå 8porāv kai Trorāv, Širo; #y ºnesyl
guya Mºyouſºvo ºn?' ºotyrs; paijaois 31& reopæ; Aap,8áyagey,
“had hedged them in with these purifications, as to meats
ſº
* Apud Joseph. p. 17.
port among all the nation of the Jews, was warned
from God by a holy angel to send for thee (to come)
into his house, and to hear words of thee.
23 Then called he them in, and lodged them. And
on the morrow Peter went away with them, and cer-
tain brethren from Joppa (sia, in number, being Jews),
accompanied him (the providence of God so ordering
it, that they might be witnesses of what was said and
dome). º -
24 And the morrow after they entered into Caesarea.
| And Cornelius waited for them, and had called to-
gether his kinsmen and near friends (Gr. and Corne-
lius, calling together his kinsmen and near friends, to
hear what Peter should say to them concerning the way
of salvation, xi. 14, was eaſpecting them).
25 And as Peter was coming in, "Cornelius met
him, and fell down at his feet, and worshipped him.
26 But Peter took him up, saying, Stand up ; I
myself also am a man (and so cannot receive such
worship). -
27 And as he talked with him, he went in, and
found many that were come together (to hear his
words).
28 And he said to them, Ye know that (according
to the traditions of the Jews) it is an unlawful thing
for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come
unto one of another nation (as being by them accounted
and drinks, that, not eating or conversing with evil men, they
might not be defiled.” Or as Eusebius” hath it from the
same author, Širo; ančevi rāy &xxoy #0voy #Traiaydºws&a ka rà
anèy, “that they might in nothing be mixed with other
nations, but be kept pure both as to soul and body.”
And, Lastly, Being thus separated by this precept from
all familiar converse with other nations, hence they came to
look on them who did not use this abstinence as unclean ;
because they freely did eat of those things which the law
made unclean to them ; and to say that the unclean beasts
did signify the people of the world (so R. Menahem on Lev.
xi.). Now hence we learn,
First, Why in this vision there is a representation of all
manner of beasts, fowls, and creeping things; viz. because
all these are mentioned Lev. xx. 24, as things, by abstaining
from some of which as unclean, God had separated them
from other nations to himself.
Secondly, We see the reason why the men of the circum-
cision object to Peter these two things, viz. that he “went in
to the uncircumcised, and did eat with them” (xi. 3); to wit,
because it was chiefly by these two things they were separated
from other nations,
Thirdly, We learn why Peter saith (ver. 28) that God
had by this vision shown that he should “call no man com-
mon or unclean,” viz. because he, by this declaration and
command, had taken away that distinction which hindered
their converse with other nations: and,
Fourthly, We see how necessary and expedient it was,
that this liberty of eating meats indifferently should be so
fully declared from heaven to the Jews ; because it being
by God declared a law given for this very purpose, that they
might be severed to himself from other nations, they durst
not do anything, without a revelation, which seemed to vio-
late it ; and without breaking through the traditions they
had received about it, they could not have executed their
commission to teach, or “make disciples in all nations.”
Hence Peter is bid to go to them, unbiy Alaxplyáſzewo, “put-
ting no difference” betwixt them and the Jews, as that
phrase * signifies (see Acts xv. 9, and the note on Rom.
kiv. 23).
* Ver. 16. This was done thrice.] As Pharaoh's dream was
doubled, for the certainty of the thing, Gen. xli. 32.
* Ver. 25, 26. Cornelius fell down at his feet and wor-
shipped him. But Peter said, Stand up ; I myself also am
a man.] If the worship intended and given to him by Cor-
nelius was religious worship, Peter declares such worship was
not to be given to a mere man ; if it was only civil worship,
* Praep. Evang. lib. viii. cap. 9, p. 371.
CHAPTER X.
459
unclean); but God hath shown me (by a vision) that
I should not (from henceforth) call any man com-
mon or unclean:
29 Therefore came I to you without gainsaying, as
soon as I was sent for : I ask therefore for what intent
ye have sent for me. -
30 And Cornelius said, "Four days ago I was fast-
ing unto this hour; and at the ninth hour I prayed in
my house, and, behold, (an angel in the shape of) a
man stood before me in bright clothing,
31 And said, Cornelius, thy prayer is heard, and
i. alms are had in remembrance in the sight of
od. - -
32 Send therefore to Joppa, and call hither Simon,
whose surname is Peter; he is lodged in the house of
one Simon a tanner, by the sea-side; who, when he
is come, shall speak to thee (ver. 6). -
33 Immediately therefore I sent to thee; and thou
hast done well that thou art come. Now therefore are
we all here present before God, to hear all things that
are commanded thee of God (to say to us).
34 Then Peter º his mouth, and said, Of a
truth *I perceive that God is no respecter of persons
(i.e. he accepts no man merely because he is of such a
nation, or descended from such ancestors):
35 But in every nation he that feareth him, and
worketh righteousness, is accepted with him. .
36 (Ye know) * the word which God sent to the
children of Israel, preaching peace (and reconciliation
to himself) by Jesus Christ; he is Lord of all: (God
having eaſalted him to be a Prince and a Saviour, to
give repentance and remission of sins, v. 21.) .
37 That word (I say) you know, which was pub-
lished throughout all Judea, and began from Galilee,
after the baptism which John preached;
38. How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth (i. e.
Jesus of Nazareth ye know, and how God anointed
him) with the Holy Ghost and with power: who
(thereupon) went about doing good, and healed all that
were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.
39 And we are witnesses of all things that he did,
both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem;
whom (yet) they (of the Jews) slew, and hanged on
a tree ; , /
40 (We also testify, that) him God raised up on the
third day, and showed him openly;
41 Not to all the people, but to (us his) witnesses,
chosen before God (to testify this to the world) ; to
us (I say), “who did eat and drink with him after
that he arose from the dead.
he, who thought it not fit to receive that, would much less
have received religious worship.
* Ver. 30. 'Atrö retáptn; hººpa; faāzet raûrnç rºº &gag #pany
ymorreſøy, Four days ago I was fasting until this hour.] The
Greek, say some critics, is to be rendered thus, “From the
fourth day to this hour I was, or have been, fasting;” so that
Cornelius, according to this import of them, must have been
fasting four days together; but this cannot be the true sense
of the words of Cornelius ; for “this hour" is the hour of
his speaking to St. Peter, and the same day he saw his vision,
which yet he saw not when St. Peter was come to him, but
four days before ; the meaning therefore is, that “four days
since” he was fasting till the same hour of the day in which
he spake thus to St. Peter: so 34” hºw Égay 3pxaiwy, is “a
long time ago,” Acts xv. 7, &mi trčevat, “a year ago,” 2 Cor.
viii. 10. ix. 2, and therefore Budaeus, having said that &md
is often put for ºxerê, Saith, these words are to be rendered,
Quarto abhinc die; and Grotius renders them thus, Die ante
hoc tempus quartà jejunaveram; both justifying our transla-
tion.
* Ver. 34. J perceive God is no respecter of persons,
&c.] I shall show, in the note on James ii. 1, that respect
of persons in matters judicial is shown, when men judge
others not according to the merits of the cause, but accord-
ing to outward respects, which relate nothing to it, as the
greatness, richness, meanness, and poverty of the person,
relation, friendship, or affection ; and so in spirituals, to ac-
cept persons is to respect them and their services, not on
the account of anything that makes them better, or more fit
to be regarded than others, or which is more acceptable in
the sight of God, but on the account of the nation to which
they belong, or the ancestors from which they were de-
scended. Thus, because God had chosen the Jews to be
his people, by reason of the piety of their forefathers, and
to perform his promise made to them, the Jews imagined
that God would accept them and their services on that ac-
count, that they were of the Jewish nation, and of the seed
of Abraham according to the flesh, and that he would not
accept the persons or regard the services of the gentiles, for
want of these things; but these false conceptions Paul, in
his epistle to the Romans, and Peter here, refute: showing
(1.) that men, not only of the Jewish, but of any other
nation, may be acceptable to God, there being “one God,
who is rich (in goodness) to all that call upon him,” whether
Jew or gentile (Rom. x. 12), he being “the God not of
Jews only, but also of the gentiles,” and so as ready to
justify them through faith, as to justify the Jews (Rom. iii.
29, 30). (2.) That God accepts such men, not on the ac-
count of their descent or circumcision, but because they
“fear God and work righteousness:” thus Cornelius, being
one that feared God, and gave much alms (ver. 2, 3), his
“prayers and alms came before God for a memorial" for
good to him ; whence it is evident, that some of other na-
tions, owning the true God, not only might, but actually did,
“fear God and work righteousness,” and otherwise they very
ill deserved the title given to the proselytes of the gate (see
the note on ver. 2); nor could Peter perceive that God was
no respecter of persons on the account of a thing which
never did nor could happen ; or Paul say, “Glory, honour,
and peace, shall be to every one that doeth good, to the Jew
first, and also to the gentile : for tºere is no respect of per-
sons with God” (Rom. ii. 10, 11). How far such persons
may be accepted with God, and on what account, see my
conjecture on Rom. ii. 14.
*Wer: 36. The word which God sent to the children of
Israel, &c.] The apostle's discourse from this to the forty-
third verse seems to be to this effect, viz. (1.) That there
was an offer made by the gospel of peace, i.e. of recon-
ciliation and salvation by Jesus Christ, the author of that
gospel, ver, 36, 37. (2.) That he was able to make good!
that promise, as being Lord of all things. (3.) That he
who preached this doctrine was a true prophet, he being
anointed with the Holy Ghost for that office, and confirming
what he said by powerful miracles, ver, 38. (4.) That this
doctrine, and these miracles, could not be reasonably ques.
tioned, they who were with him from the beginning being
witnesses of what he said and did, ver. 39. And (5.
whereas it might be objected, that he was dead, and so could
not be able to confer these blessings on them who believed
in him, it is added, wer. 40, that him God raised up the
third day according to his own prediction, and that of this
resurrection they were all eye-witnesses, sufficiently instruct-
ed to give in their testimony concerning it by his frequent
appearances to, and familiar converse with, them, ver. 41.
(6.) That after his resurrection they had received a com-
mission from God to testify that he was “appointed to be
Judge of the quick and dead,” and so to give that peace and
salvation he had promised in his gospel to his faithful ser-
vants, ver, 42. And, lastly, that to all this all the prophets
had given in their suffrages, by declaring that “through his
name all that believed in him should receive remission of
sins,” ver. 43. Note also, that it is not to be wondered that
Peter should say to Cornelius and his kinsmen, who were
already proselytes of the gate, and lived at Caesarea, the
seat of the governor of Judea, where the Jews dwelt, and
whither they continually resorted, and where Philip had
already preached the gospel (Acts viii. 40), “Ye know
this word,” he meaning not that they were persuaded of the
truth of it, but only that they had heard the fame, and were
acquainted with the report.
*Wer. 41. Who did eat and drink with him.] That in
their presence he did eat part of a fish and of a honeycomb
460
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
42 And he commanded us to preach to the people,
and to testify that it is he who was (is) ordained of
God to be the Judge of quick and dead.
43 To him give all the prophets witness, that
through (faith in) his name, whosoever believeth in
him shall receive remission of sins.
44 While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy
Ghost fell on all them that heard the word (as on the
apostles at the beginning, xi. 15),
45 And they of the circumcision which believed
(conceiving God had no such regard to the gentiles)
were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because
that on the gentiles also was poured out the gift of the
Holy Ghost. - -
46 For they heard them speak with tongues, and
magnity God. Then answered Peter,
47 '"Can any man forbid water, that these should
not be baptized (i. e. Can he gainsay the baptizing of
them with water), who have received the (baptism of
the J Holy Ghost as well as we ? -
48 And he ” commanded them to be baptized "in
the name of the Lord (Jesus). Then prayed they him
to tarry certain days.
* *-*.
they had then with them, we read expressly, Luke xxiv.
41–43, that they did eat of the bread and fish he had pro-
vided for them, may be collected from his invitation to them
to “come and dine,” John xxi. 12, which doubtless they re-
fused not ; and since we may reasonably suppose they did
not dine without drinking, we must have reason to believe
“they did eat and drink with him.”
* Wer. 47. Can any man forbid water, that these should
not be baptized?] These words contain a plain and a con-
vincing demonstration of the falsehood of the quakers’ doc-
trine, that water-baptism is unnecessary to them who have
received the inward baptism of the Spirit; since the apostle
here not only declares that water-baptism ought therefore to
be administered to these persons, because they had already
been baptized with the Holy Ghost, but also commands
them to be baptized upon that account.
* Ver, 48. And he commanded them to be baptized.]
Whom did he command to do this? the gentiles? It seem-
eth at first sight absurd, that they who were not yet baptized
should baptize others: or was it the Jews that came then
with him? they seem only to be lay-brethren, who only were
permitted to baptize in case of necessity ; it seemeth there-
fore reasonable to say, that he commanded water to be
brought for their baptism, and then performed himself the
office, or left it to be done by gifted persons.
17 In the name of the Lord Jesus.] Here the note of Gro-
tius is this, that in the name of Christ, the anointed, is un-
derstood he that anointed him, and the Spirit by whom he
was anointed; but here the Spirit had fallen upon them
already, and so they who thus felt his influence enabling
them to speak with tongues must believe in him already,
and being proselytes of the gate, they believed already in
God the Father, and came to hear what he should say to
them ; it was therefore only necessary that, by receiving
Christian baptism, they should profess their faith in the
Lord Jesus. .
CHAPTER XI.
1 *AND (63, then) #e apostles and brethren that
were in Judea heard that the gentiles had also re-
ceived the word of God.
2 And when Peter was come up to Jerusalem, “they
who were of the circumcision (being still zealous for
the law of Moses, and the traditions of the elders) con-
tended with him,
3 Saying, Thou (violating the tradition of our fa-
thers) wentest in to men uncircumcised, and didst eat
with them. -
4 But Peter rehearsed the matter from the begin-
ning, and expounded it by order to them (Gr. &pgá-
Plevoe #eriðero airoic ka0séïc, beginning, ea pounded to
them the matter orderly), saying,
5 I was in the city of Joppa praying: and in a
trance I saw a vision, (viz.) A certain vessel descend-
ed (Gr. descending), as it had been a great sheet, let
down from heaven by four corners; and it came even
to me: \
6 Upon the which when I had fastened mine eyes,
I considered (Gr. etc àv dreviaac carsváovv, attending
to which, I observed), and saw fourfooted beasts of the
earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls
of the air. -
7 And I heard a voice saying to me, Arise, Peter;
slay and eat (freely of them to satisfy thy hunger, x. 10).
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XI.
* Ver, 1. When the apostles and brethren had heard that
the gentiles had received the word of God..] This they then
only heard, because it was then only done, they who before
preached the word doing it only to the Jews, wer. 19.
* Ver, 2. Atengivoy to wº; airby oi is restropic, They of the
circumcision contended with him.] I see no reason here to
except any of the believing Jews (unless perhaps the apos-
tles) from this contention, they being “all zealous of the
law” and of their customs, and not enduring to hear that
any Jew should act contrary to them (Acts xxi. 20, 21);
8 But I said, (I can) not (do) so, Lord; for (being
a strict observer of the law of Moses) nothing com-
mon or unclean hath at any time entered into my
mouth.
9 But the voice (of the Lord) answered me again
(Gr. the second time) from heaven, (saying,) What
(that) God (who instituted the law of Moses, by this
declaration of his will) hath cleansed, that call not
thou (any longer) common. -
10 And this was done three times (for the certainty
of the thing); and (then) all (the things I had seen)
were drawn up again into heaven.
11 And, behold, immediately (after this vision)
there were three men already come to the house where
I was, (they being) sent from Caesarea to me.
12 And the Spirit bade me go with them, nothing
doubting (to converse with them though they were gen-
tiles, or putting no difference betwiat them and Jews, as
betwixt persons clean and unclean). Moreover these
six brethren (here present, as witnesses of the truth of
what I say,) accompanied me, and we entered into the
man’s house (who sent for me):
13 And he showed us how he had seen an angelin
his house, who stood (by him), and said to him, Send
men to Joppa, and (by them) call for Simon, whose
surname is Peter: *
and Peter himself being of that mind till he had received
this vision, and laying it down as a known rule (Acts x. 28),
that “it was unlawful for a Jew to converse with an alien,”
and even after this vision, withdrawing himself from the
believing gentiles for fear of the Jews, which came from
Jerusalem (Gal. ii. 12), and they of the dispersion preach-
ing to the Jews only. Note also hence, that the believers
knew nothing of the supremacy, and much less of the in-
fallibility of St. Peter; for otherwise they would not have
dared thus to rise up against their supreme governor, much
less would they have condemned the actions of their infal-
lible teacher. , -
CHAPTER XI.
46 |
14 °Who shall tell thee words, by which thou and
all thy house (believing them) shall be saved.
15 And as I began to speak (and had not long con-
tinued my discourse), “the Holy Ghost fell on them,
as (he had done) on us at the beginning, (Acts ii. ena-
bling º to speak with tongues, and to prophesy, x.
44–46). -
16 Then remembered I the word of the Lord (Je-
sus), how that he said (to us, Acts i. 5), John indeed
baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the
Holy Ghost.
17 Forasmuch then as God gave them (though gen-
*Wer. 14. Who shall speak to thee words, by which thou
and all thy house shall be saved.] God, saith Grotius, after
he had sent Christ, would admit of no other way of ob-
taining the salvation promised in the gospel, but by the
knowledge of him, which is certainly true of all who were
capable of coming to the knowledge of him ; how far he
might accept of others, see my conjecture, note on Rom.
ii. 14. - -
* Wer. 15. The Holy Ghost fell upon them, &ctrue wai ép'
#23; #y rfi &#xi, as wjmon us at the beginning.] They there-
fore having received the like gifts, which were the fruits of
faith, must be looked on as brethren and disciples of the
Lord, and so must be admitted into his church by that bap-
tism which Christ instituted to be administered to all his
disciples; being united by his Spirit to Christ their head,
they must be owned as his members ; God having owned
them, by imparting to them these spiritual gifts, they must
be owned by us, and he having purified their hearts by
faith (xv. 9), they must no longer be looked on by us as
unclean.
*Ver. 18. Then hath God granted to the gentiles repent-
ance wºnto life.] The Jews had the highest thoughts of them-
selves, as if all God’s blessings were designed for them only,
and the meanest and even wilest thoughts of all other nations,
as if God counted them only “as spittle.” “Thou madest
the world for our sakes,” saith the book of Esdras; “as for
the other people, thou hast said, They are nothing, but like
to spittle, and they have ever been reputed as nothing,”
2 Esd. vi. 55–57. They imagined that the Messiah was to
make them a glorious people, and to save them, but to de-
stroy or to enslave all other nations to them; and that God
would save all of them as being “children of Abraham,” .
but that all the rest of the world were “fuel for hell-fire ;”
and this made them so to contemn them, and never think of
their being saved any other way than by being proselytes to
their law. Hence, in the former chapter, they so much
admire that the Holy Ghost should fall on them, ver, 45,
and here speak of it as a thing beyond their imagination
that God should “grant repentance unto life” to them :
hence do the unbelieving Jews forbid the apostles “to speak
to the gentiles that they might be saved,” 2. Thess. ii. 16,
and cry out against St. Paul as one not fit to live, because
he said Christ would send him to the gentiles, Acts xxii. 21, 22.
Tot; #8wsaw & ©sé, ºwatávolay #8wzºw, Then hath God given
to the gentiles repentance..] From these words and from
Eph. ii. 8, “Faith is the gift of God,” and from God's pro-
mise to the Jews, “I will give them a heart to know me,”
Jer. xxiv. 7, “I will give them a new heart,” Ezek. xi.
19, xxxvi. 26, some argue thus—What God gives, we only
receive from him, and so are only passive in it; but God
gives faith, repentance, and a new heart ; therefore we
neither do, nor can do, anything towards the obtaining of
them.
In answer, therefore, to these and all other passages of a
like nature dispersed through the scriptures, I shall show,
first, that they must be consistent with God's commands and
exhortations directed to us to perform our duty, with his
promises and motives to excite us to the performance of it,
and with his threats denounced against those who do neglect
it; and so must be so far from excluding, that they do rather
presuppose our industry ; as will be evident,
First, Because he promises those very blessings he is said
to give, to their industry and diligence who receive them,
v. g. “The Lord giveth wisdom" (Eccles. ii. 16), but then
he gives it only on this condition, that we ask it in faith
tiles and uncircumcised) the like gift as (he had given)
to us (circumcised Jews), who believed on the Lord
Jesus Christ; what was I that I could withstand God
(Gr. how was I able to hinder God; viz. by refusing
to receive them into the church by baptism, x. 47, whom
he had already baptized with the Holy Ghost 8 . .
18 And) when they heard these things they held
their peace (being satisfied with this account of St.
Peter’s actions), and (they) glorified God (for his good-
ness to the gentiles), saying, then (Gr. dipa ys, surely)
hath “God also to the gentiles granted repentance unto
life.
(James i. 4), that we “apply our hearts to seek” it (Eccles.
vii. 25), so that to argue as these men do in this case is
plainly to contradict the mind of the Holy Ghost, who, for
this very reason, that God is the giver of it, requires us “to
incline our ears to wisdom, and to apply our hearts to un-
derstanding ; to cry after knowledge, and lift up our voice
for understanding; to seek for her as for silver, and to search
for her as for hid treasure ;” suspending our enjoyment of
her upon all this diligence, by saying, “Then shalt thou un-
derstand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of
God: for the Lord giveth wisdom” (Prov. ii. 2–6). Again,
“Faith cometh by hearing of the word of God “ (Rom. x.
17); this is the ordinary instrument which works repentance
and conversion in us; but that it may have this good effect,
we must hear it with good attention, and improve the know-
ledge received from it, for “to him that (thus) hath shall
more be given” (Mark iv. 24, 25); we must “receive it into
a good and honest heart,” and treasure it up there (Luke viii.
15): for to them only “it is given to know the mysteries”
of Christ's kingdom, who thus improve the knowledge
and talents which they have received (Matt. xiii. 11, 12.
xxv. 20). * -
Secondly, When there is a want of these or such-like dis-
positions, or some evil dispositions which prejudice us against,
or indispose us for, the performance of those duties, then it
is said that these things are not given: so Matt. xiii. 12,
“To them it is not given : for this people's heart is waxed
gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes
have they closed; lest at any time they should see with their
eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their
hearts, and be converted, and I should heal them :” so
Deut. xxix. 3, 4, “Ye have seen the temptations, signs, and
miracles, which God wrought for you; yet the Lord hath not
given you a heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to
hear, unto this day;” which must not be imputed to any
want of power in these things to move them, much less to
a want of the divine grace to work upon their hearts by
them, for then they could not be blamed for not having such
a heart; but it was wholly to be ascribed to their own negli-
gence and perverseness, which rendered them indisposed to
receive this gift : as will be farther evident, first, from God's
vehement desire that such good things might have been given
them, which through their own defect in the performance of
their duty were not given them ; as, v. g. “a heart” to fear
God: so Deut. v. 29, “Oh, that theré were such a heart in
them, that they would fear me, and keep all my command-
ments always ſ” which is an expression of a most earnest
desire that it might be so, and therefore an assurance that
there was nothing wanting on God’s part that was requisite
to the obtaining such a heart. Secondly, from his frequent
commands requiring men to believe, repent, and turn to him,
and to give their hearts to seek him : so l Chron. xxii. 19,
“And now 36ts, give your hearts and your souls to seek the
Lord:” for seeing God neither commands what is impossible
for us to do, nor what he himself will do without us, these
commands must relate to something which is in our power,
because it is our duty to perform it: and, thirdly, from the
commendations which the scriptures give to them who be-
lieved, repented, and turned to the Lord; and the reprehen-
sions they give, the punishments they threaten, to them who
neglect to do so : for seeing no man can receive a reward for
what he had no hand in doing, or blame and punishment for
not performing what he could not be capable of doing, these
praises and reprehensions show that these things might and
ought to have been done by us.
462
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
19 Now they which were scattered abroad upon the
persecution that arose about Stephen, travelled as far
as Phoenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch, “preaching the
word to none but to the Jews only. .
20 And some of them were (by birth) men of Cy-
prus and Cyrene, who, when they they were come to
Antioch, " spake to the Grecians, (Gr. ºrpèg roëg ‘EA-
p 9
Anviorâc, to the Jews using the Greek language, see note
on vi. 1), preaching the Lord Jesus.
21 And (they being men enabled and authorized for
this work by the Holy Ghost’s descent upon them for
this end, Acts i. 9, 10), the hand (or power) of the
Lord was with them, and a great number believed,
and turned unto the Lord.
22 Then tidings of these things came to the ears of
the church which was at Jerusalem: and they sent
forth Barnabas (a Cyprian), that he should go (8tex-
0siv, to go through those places) as far as (even to ,
Antioch. - -
23 Who when he came, and had seen (Gr. coming,
and seeing) the grace of God (i. e. the prevalency of
the gospel among them), was glad, and exhorted them
all, that with (full) purpose of heart they would cleave
to the Lord. -
24 For he was a good man, and full of the (gifts
of the) Holy Ghost and of faith; and (by this means)
much people was added to the Lord (i.e. believed in
the Lord Jesus).
25 Then departed Barnabas (from Antioch) to Tar-
sus, to seek Saul, (perhaps that he being an apostle
might lay his hands on some of them, that they might
receive the Holy Ghost, Acts viii. 17).
26 And when he had found him, he brought him
to Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year
-- *-*-- .
Having premised this, I proceed,
Secondly, To show what are the various imports of this
phrase in scripture, or how and why God may be said to
give what, by our industry or our co-operation with his grace
and blessing upon our endeavours, we enjoy.
First, then, When the thing said to be given is morally
evil; that God, who can neither himself do, nor incline others
to do, evil, can be said to give it, only because he gives
those faculties by which men are enabled to do it, and suffers
them, without restraint, to follow the inclinations of their
own wicked hearts: so #8was Kūgio;, “God gave a lying spirit
in the mouth of Ahab's prophets,” 1 Kings xxii. 23: so
#3&n rā; Smpio, “It was given to the beast to speak great
things and blasphemies,” Rev. xiii. 15 ; and, ver. 7, #869",
“It was given to him to make war with the saints, and over-
come them ;” and that in this sense God is said to give the
heathens up “to a reprobate mind, to the lustings of their
hearts, and to dishonourable affections,” see the note on
Rom. i. 28 ; that thus only he gave to the Jews “a spirit
of slumber,” see the note on Rom. xi. 8. Secondly, Some-
times to give doth only signify to pronounce, teach, and pre-
scribe; as when God saith, “Thou shalt put the blessing on
mount Gerizim,” Deut. xi. 29, i. e. thou shalt pronounce it
thence: thus is God said to give to the Jews his sabbaths,
viz. by commanding the observation of them, Exod. xvi. 29,
and to give them those laws and commandments he pre-
scribed and taught them by his servant Moses; and in this
sense he is said to give wisdom, because “out of his mouth
proceedeth understanding,” Prov. ii. 6, and so he saith,
“Give to the wise,” i. e. instruction, “and he will still be
wiser,” Prov. ix. 9. And in this sense also may he be said
to give both faith and repentance ; because he hath so fre-
quently prescribed them, and taught us the advantages we
shall reap by them, the means to produce them, the induce-
ments to perform them, and the evils we shall suffer from
the want of them.
Thirdly, Ilay this down as a most certain rule, That where
God is said to give us anything which it is our duty to ob-
tain, the exercise of that faculty is still supposed which he
hath given us already; and God is only said to give it by
giving us those faculties by which we are enabled to obtain
it, and the means and motives which are sufficient to excite
those faculties to the performance of their proper actions; I
say, the exercise of these faculties is always presupposed ;
and when God is said to give what we are to get, and what
it is our duty and will be our advantage to perform, the
meaning only is, he puts it into our power, by the exercise
of those facuities which he hath given us, by attendance to
the motives which he affords to excite us thus to exercise
them, and by the assistance he is ready still to give us upon
ºximate to do what he requires, to obtain those things.
And,
First, Thus it is always with respect to natural gifts; for
thus God giveth riches (Eccles. v. 19. vi. 2), because “he
giveth power to get wealth '' (Deut. viii. 18), but yet it is
“the diligent hand,” and the blessing of God upon our la-
bours, that “maketh rich " (Prov. x. 4. 22); “he giveth us
our daily bread,” yea, “he giveth food to all flesh” (Ps.
cxxxvi. 25), and yet we must eat it “in the sweat of our
brows,” and procure it with the labour of our hands (Gen.
iii. 19); “he giveth all things to all men” (Acts xvii. 25),
“and to the beasts their food” (Ps. cxlvii. 19), but then they
must employ those faculties which God hath given them to
get it : wherefore to argue thus—God giveth faith and re-
pentance, and therefore we do nothing to obtain them, is as
if I should say, God giveth us our daily bread, therefore we
must not labour for it ; God giveth food to all flesh, there-
fore they are not to seek after it.
Secondly, Thus it is also with respect to spirituals ; thus
“God giveth wisdom,” but it is to them who incline their
ears to the instructions he hath given them to make them
wise, and who apply their hearts to understanding: thus the
Jews argue that God had given repentance to the gentiles:
because he had commissionated Peter to preach to them
peace through Jesus Christ, and remission of sins, and they
upon his preaching had believed in Christ, and received the
Holy Ghost: so also, though faith be an assent to a divine
revelation, and faith in Christ an assent to the revelation
made in scripture concerning him, and so must be an act of
the understanding, requiring only the evidence of the truth
of that revelation to produce it; yet is it said to be “the
gift of God,” because the objects of that faith are only made
known to us by divine revelation; the motives to embrace
it are all contained in the same revelation, and both are con-
firmed and made credible to us by the testimony which God
hath given to them, and so God hath done all that is requi-
site on his part to produce this faith in us.
*Wer. 19. Preaching the word to none but the Jews only.]
As thinking it unlawful to converse with men of other na-
tions, and not believing that God would give repentance to
the gentiles. Woltzogenius here notes, that these men
preached without any mission ; and hence concludes, that
an ordinary mission is not required to authorize men to
preach the gospel. But this is said without just ground ;
for these men seem to be of the number of those on whom
the Holy Ghost fell on the day of pentecost, among whom
were those of Cyrene. Moreover, “the power of the Lord
was with them,” to confirm their doctrine by miracles, ver.
21. He then that will plead a commission from God to
preach the gospel without an ordinary mission, must show
the like extraordinary gifts or miraculous assistances; God
never sending any person to do his work without some
testimony from himself, or from persons commissionated
by him.
7 Ver. 20. And they spake ºrpèc rºc ‘Exxºviarăç, to the
Hellenists.] Grotius here saith, certö legendum, Trºö; row;
"EXAnyaz, we must certainly read, “to the Greeks,” because
the Syriac, Arabic, and Latin so read; whereas, that is no
ground at all ; for so they all read, vi. 1, where Grotius
himself acknowledges, the Jews are to be understood by
the Hellenists: he adds, that the Alexandrian M.S. so reads,
but so it doth in opposition to all other MSS. Chrysostom
here saith, that “they spake Greek, ‘E8éatoi by rec, being
Hebrews.” CEcumenius saith, he styles them Hellenists,
“not as being addicted to the worship of the Greeks, but as
"Exanyiari pSeyyápºevoi, speaking the Greek language ;” and
it seems necessary to understand the Jews using the Greek
tongue, and reading the scriptures in that tongue in their
synagogues, as Buxtorf says they did : (1.) because these
persons preached to the Jews only (ver. 19). And (2.)
CHAPTER XII.
463
they assembled themselves with (or in) the church,
º taught much people. And the (-y who formerly
were called) disciples * were called Christians first in
Antioch.
27 And in those days came prophets (i. e. men who
had the gift of forebelling things to come) from Jeru-
salem to Antioch.
28 And there stood up one of them named Agabus,
and signified by (the afflatus of) the Spirit, that there
because they of the church of Jerusalem send to them Bar-
nabas, whom they would scarce send to the uncircumcised.
* Ver. 26. And the disciples were called Christians
first at Antioch.] Before they were called “disciples,” as
here, “believers,” Acts v. 14, men “of the church,” Acts xii.
l, men “of the way,” see note on Acts ix. 2, “the saints,”
Acts ix. 13, “those that called on the name * of Christ, ver.
14, and by their enemies, Nazarenes and Galileans; but
now, by the conversion of Cornelius, and his kinsmen, and
his family, the believing Jews and gentiles being made one
church, that the name of Jew and heathen might no more
continue the distance that was betwixt them, this new name
was given to them both ; as some conceive, according to the
prophecy mentioned Isa. lxv. 15, a name embraced by all
Christians as most expressive of their relation to their master
Christ, and which they gloried in, and owned before the face
of their enemies (Tertull. Apol. cap. 3. 5, Euseb. Hist, Ec-
cles. lib. v. cap. 1). But that Evodius should be then bishop
of Antioch, and give this name first to the Christians, and
St. Luke should say nothing either of his doing this, or ever
mention his being there, it is not easy to believe.
* Ver 28. 'E4' $Any rºy oizovºzávny, Through the whole
world..] That oizoup, Éyn signifies the Roman empire, see the
note on Luke ii. 1. Accordingly, Eusebius” saith of this
famine, that it oppressed almost the whole empire; and that
it was recorded by historians, “most averse to our religion ;
viz. by Suetonius+ in the life of Claudius, who saith, it
happened, ob assiduas sterilitates, “through a long barren-
ness,” Josephust saith, that it raged so much in Judea, troXAów
trö #vösia; &va Napºrov p3eigopºvoy, “that many perished for
want of victuals:” and lion Cassius, that it was apºc
should be a great dearth "throughout all the world
(i. e. the Roman empire) : which came to pass in the
days of Claudius Caesar.
29 Then the disciples (of Antioch and the places
adjacent), every man according to his ability, deter-
mined to send relief to the brethren which dwelt in
Judea ;
30 Which also they did, and * sent it to the elders
(of the Jews) by the hands of Barnabas and Saul.
2
iºxvgöc, “a very great famine ;” and happened when Clau-
dius and Caius Largus were consuls, that is, in the second
year of Claudius, though it seems rather to have been that
which happened, as Eusebius in his Chronicon, and Orosius,
lib. vii. 6, place it, in the fourth year of Claudius.
* Ver. 30. And sent it ºrgă, roi; ºrgscºvrégovº, to the
elders.] It is doubtless the duty of all Christians to be ready
to relieve their Christian brethren in other nations according
to their abilities, as Paul shows, 2 Cor. viii. 9, and those
especially from whom they have received spiritual things
(Rom. xv. 27). But here it is farther to be noted, that it
was the constant custom of the Jews in their dispersions, to
send money into the land of Canaan for the sustaining of
the poor there, as Campegius Vitringa" proves. St. Paul
was therefore careful, that the unbelieving Jews should not
outdo the Christians in those offices of charity towards their
brethren in Judea ; and therefore, as he carries here the
charity of the Christians of Antioch, and the parts adjacent,
to the distressed brethren in Judea, so doth he show himself
always ready to advance this work (Gal. ii. 10), to plead
for and to promote it, as he did in the churches of Macedo-
nia and Achaia.
But whereas some contend, the elders mentioned here
were the bishops of Judea ; it is not certain that they were
Christians, or any other than the elders of the Jewish syna-
gogues, or the ºrpºrot rôy 'Isºodoxup, itäv, “chief men of Jeru-
salem ;” to whom, saith Josephus, i king Izates sent his
charity at the same time; and if they were Christians, they
might still be the elders of their synagogues, the Christians
then retaining the Jewish rites.
* H. Eccles. lib. ii. cap. 8. + Cap. 18.
# Antiq. lib. xx. cap. p. 686, D. § Hist. lib. lx. p. 146.
* De Syn. Vet lib. iii. par. i. cap. 13, p. 808, 811.
+ Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 2, p. 686.
CHAPTER XII.
1. Now about that time (that Agabus foretold of the
famine, xi. 28,) Herod (Agrippa) the king stretched
forth his hands to vex certain of the church (Gr.
caught hold of certain of the church to afflict them).
2 And * he killed James the brother of John (who
by this title was distinguished from James the son of
Alpheus, bishop of Jerusalem,) with the sword.
3 And because he saw it pleased the Jews (to see
the Christians thus afflicted and cut off), he proceeded
farther to take (into custody.) Peter also. (And when
this was done,) then were the days of unleavened
bread (the paschal festival).
4 And when (therefore) he had apprehended him,
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XII.
* Ver. 1. ‘Emā8axey ‘Hºn; rā; xeteac, Herod laid hands
wpon.] "Eart{3áNAsiv xeiga, being never used intransitively, but
always with the dative case, or an accusative with the prepo-
sition ini, cannot here be rendered, he attempted or resolved,
but the whole sentence filled up seems to be this, #8axe x=ſea;
Emi rivac rāv &nd rā, śawanata; Kakācal airoic, “He laid hold
of some of the church to afflict them:” the preposition
being often included in the verb, and being to be taken or
repeated from it to complete the sense.
* Ver. 2. 'Aveſas 3: 'Iáxw8oy, He killed James with the
sword.] Thus was the prediction of our Lord fulfilled, that
James should “drink of his cup" (Matt. xx. 23). But
he put him in prison, and delivered him to four qua-
termions of soldiers (i.e. sia teen soldiers) to keep him
(four at a time); intending * after Easter (or when
that festival was over, in which it was customary to re-
lease a prisoner to them, Matt. xxvii. 15,) to bring him
forth to the people (to be slain before them).
5 Peter therefore was kept in prison (for this end).
but *prayer was made without ceasing of the church
to God for (deliverance of) him.
6 And when Herod would have brought (was about
to bring) him forth, the same night (that he had deter-
mined to do this on the morrow, ver. 9,) Peter was
sleeping betwixt two soldiers, (being) bound (to them)
then he being cut off, A. D. 43, the story of his being long
in Spain must be an idle fable of the monks, like to that of
their placing vincula Sancti Petri upon the first of August,
when we learn from ver. 3, that he was put into those chains
at the paschal feast, and delivered from them at the close of
it (ver. 7), that is, above four months before.
* Ver. 4. Metá rà rācya, After the passover.] He being
reserved till then, either in honour of the feast, or that the
Christians, who, though they were hated by the rulers of the
Jews, were yet in favour with the people (ii. 47), might not
prevail with others to beg his life, according to the custom of
that feast (Matt. xxvii. 15), or to avoid a tumult.
* Ver. 5. TIgoa eux; %y in revºc, &c. Prayer , eºs made for
him by the church without ceasing.] That such prayers are
464
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
with two chains (Acts xxviii. 20); and the keepers, John, whose surname was Mark; where many were:
(being two other soldiers that stood) before the door, gathered together praying.
kept the prison.
7 And, behold, the (an) angel of the Lord came
to him (to deliver him), and a light shined in the pri-
son (to enable him to see what he was to do); and he
(the angel) smote, Peter on the side, and raised him
up, saying (to him), Arise up quickly, And (when he
had so said) * his chains fell off from his hands.
8 And the angel said to him, Gird thyself, and
bind on thy sandals. And so he did. A. (then) he
said to him, Cast thy garment about thee, and follow
II].6.
9 And he went out, and followed him; and wist
not that it was true which was done by the angel;
but thought he saw (had seen) a vision (only).
10 (And) when they were past the first and second
wards, they came to the iron gate that leadeth (from
the prison) to the city; which (gate) opened unto
them of his (its) own accord: and they went out, and
passed out (together) through one street; and "forth-
with the angel (having done all that was requisite for
his deliverance) departed from him.
11 And when Peter was come to himself (and saw
where he was ), he said, Now I know of a surety that
the Lörd hath sent his angel, and hath delivered me
out of the hand of Herod, and from all the expecta-
tion of the people of the Jews.
12 And when he had "considered (the thing done),
he came to the house of Mary the mother of (that)
prevalent for the preservation of very eminent members of
the church, we learn, not only from this instance, but also
from those words of St. Paul, “I know this shall happen to
my preservation through your prayers ” (Phil. i. 19), and
“I hope I shall through your prayers be given to you ’’
(Philem. 22). The word #wreyh; primarily signifies eatended;
but because the fervency of our desire is usually the cause
that we pray much, or long, for anything ; therefore to pray
#xtevãº, is also to pray fervently and importunately, Luke
xxii. 14, and &y&trn #x rević is “fervent love,” l Pet. i. 22.
iv. 8.
* Ver, 7. Eärscoy abroš ai äxjasic, His chains fell off
from his hands.] That some soldiers of Herod, converted to
the Christian faith, should mark and take away these chains,
and give them to the bishop of Jerusalem, and that they
should be kept as a treasure not only through all the Jewish
wars, but about four hundred years after, till Juvenal, bi-
shop of Jerusalem, gave them to Eudoxia, wife to Theodo-
sius the junior, who gave one of them to the church of St.
Peter's in Constantinople, and sent the other to Rome, is
a tale of Surius, that smells too rank of superstition to de-
serve the least credit.
* Ver. 10. 'Arrérrn 3 &yye),0; &m' airoij, And forthwith
the angel left him.] When he had done all things requisite
on his part for his deliverance, and which could not be done
by Peter, he leaves what was farther requisite to complete
the deliverance, and render him secure from danger, to his
own industry and prudence ; hereby instructing us, not to
expect an immediate assistance from God in things he hath
already put into our power, and given us abilities to
perform. -
7 Ver, 12. xvyºv rs ºffey in rºy oixiay Matía;, And con-
sidering of the thing, he came to the house of Mary, where
many were gathered together, praying.] Here note,
First, That it seems very unreasonable, without any au-
thority, to change ovyºv, “considering,” into a grºov,
“hastening,” either here or xiv. 6, against all the versions
in both places.
Secondly, Note, from these words, “the house of Mary,”
that all the Christians had not then sold their houses, and
their goods. And,
Thirdly, That they had then in those times of peril their
sacred assemblies in the night, Peter here coming to them
before day (ver. 18), and yet finding them praying ; whence
13 And as Peter knocked at the door of the gate,
a damsel came to hearken (what he who knocked would
say, and she was) named Rhoda.
14 And when she knew Peter's voice, she opened
not the gate for gladness, but (first) ran in, and told
(them within) how Peter stood before the gate. -
15 And they said unto her, Thou art mad (to en-
tertain such a thought). But she constantly affirmed
that it was even so. Then said they "It is his (good)
angel, (or a messenger sent from him.) -
ió But Peter continued knocking : and when they
* opened the door, and saw him, they were aston-
ished.
17 But he, beckoning to them with the hand to
hold their peace, declared to them how the Lord had
(by an angel) brought him out of the prison. And he
said, * Go, show these things to James, and the bre-
thren. And (then) he departed (from them), and went
into another place (of more safety).
18 Now as soon as it was day, there was no small
stir among the soldiers, (inquiring) what was become
of Peter. -
19 And when Herod sought for him, and found
him not, he examined the keepers (he questioned them
in a judicial manner), and (when they could tell nothing
of him, he) * commanded that they should be put to
death. And (then) he (i.e. king Agrippa) "went down
from Judea to Caesarea (to celebrate the solemnity kept
-- - - sess-s-s- *** - - - - - - - ** * * *
Pliny” makes mention of their coetus antelucani, “assem-
blies in the night,” and Cecilius+ objects to the Christians,
nocturnas congregationes, “their night meetings,” as know-
ing they were forbidden by the Roman laws ; as you may
see in Cicero, lib. ii. de Legibus, n. 25. 35–37.
8 Ver. 15. of 33 fixeyov, &yyexo; airoi; iotiv, But they said,
It is his angel.] Here it is acknowledged, that the word
&yyºo, signifies not only a celestial spirit, but also a messen-
ger sent from one to another ; as may be proved from many
other places besides those cited by the reverend Dr. Ham-
mond ; thus the messengers sent by the elders of Jabesh to
the Ammonites, 1 Sam. xi. 3, and by Saul through the coasts
of Israel, ver, 7.9, are styled áyyeaoſ, “angels;” so Saul
sent 3)) {\ovº, “messengers,” to take David, 1 Sam. xix. 20,
21, so David sent “messengers,” Ayyáxovº, to salute Nabal,
xxv. 14. Amaziah sent áyyāovº, “messengers,” to inquire
of Baalzebub, 2 Kings i. 2; so David saith, Ps. cli. Gr. ver.
4, he sent rāv Āyyexow aircü, “his angel,”, viz. Samuel, and
anointed me ; and James ii. 25, Rahab received rows.
3yyáxovº, “the messengers;” but when it is hence conjec-
tured, that the import of these words may be only this, that
some messenger was come from him, to impart something to
the church ; as I have met with mone of the ancients of this
opinion, so is there this plain objection against it, viz. that
the damsel could only know St. Peter by his voice, or face,
both which they might believe his angel could imitate,
whereas they knew a messenger, could he have had oppor-
tunity of sending one from the prison, could do neither,
Since then it was a vulgar opinion among the Jews, that good
men had their tutelar angels, or at least that angels were sent
down from heaven about theiraffairs, they, by this angel, might
understand either erroneously a guardian angel, attending on
him, or, agreeably to scripture, an angel sent from heaven to
acquaint them with something relating to him, in answer to
their prayers. Here then is no foundation for a guardian
angel still attending on good men, and had Peter himself
thought so, it is likely he would have ascribed this deli-
verance, not to an angel sent from heaven, but to his guar-
dian angel.
9 Wer. 17. Go, show these things to James, and to the
brethren.] That they might bless God for this extraordinary
answer to their prayers, and might be confirmed by it in
* Ep. 97. + Apud Minut. p. 8,
CHAPTER XIII.
465
for the honour of Caesar), and there abode (during the
time of that solemnity).
20 And Herod was highly displeased with them of
Tyre and Sidon (and designed to make war upon them):
but they came with one accord to him, and having
made Blastus the king’s chamberlain their friend, de-
sired (by him, that they might have), peace; because
their country was nourished by the king's country.
21 And upon a set day (the second day of the so-
lemnity, appointed in honour of Caesar), Herod, array-
ed in royal apparel (upon which the sun shining gave it
a glorious lustre), sat on his throne, and made an ora-
tion (in the theatre) to them (i. e. to the nobles and
governors which were come out of the whole province
to that solemnity). * *
22 And the people gave a shout, saying, The voice
their faith, and in their expectation of divine assistance and
pºſion in their endeavours to promote the interests of the
gospel. , -
* Wer. 19. He commanded them &máx.9%Wat, to be put to
death.] So in Hesychius &máyga Sai is sic Sázarov Baksa Sai,
“to be carried away to die,” or to be sent away to punish-
ment, as this phrase usually signifies in the best Greek au-
thors, and in Seneca.”
* Kai xarex0&y &r rºi; ‘Iověaia; sic rāv Kato &gstav, Sière-Bey,
And going down from Judea he abode at Caesarea.] That
it was not Peter, as some imagine, but king Agrippa, who
went down from Judea to Caesarea, we learn from Josephus,
who gives us a full account both of this journey and the oc-
casion of it, informing us that he went down sic tróxiv Kataº-
£8tay, “to the city of Caesarea, to perform the solemnity, or
the games celebrated there every Olympiad to the honour of
Caesar,” and that “the nobles and governors of the province
of Syria repaired to that city,” on the same account; that
“on the second day of the festival he came early into the
theatre, clothed with a wonderful garment, wholly made of
Silver, on which the sun shining, it cast forth a glorious splen-
dour” (Ant. lib. xix. cap. 7, p. 678,679). He farther adds,
that “flatterers came about him, Bećy trºogayopsûoyt E3, calling
him a god, and that the king oiw iuránrºe, où8é rºy woxaxstav
ão"Egotia’ay &rsarpélaro, did not repel or reprehend their im-
pious blasphemy.”
* Ver. 23. IIagaxpñºza 3: #mr&ražey abrov &yyºo, Kugiov,
And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, &c.]
That he was smitten by the Lord immediately on his receiv-
ing this implous flattery, is evident from Josephus ; for he
saith, that £48t’ daiyoy “after a while he sees the owl which
* Piso iratus clim duci jussisset eum, qui ex commeatſ)
sine commilitone redierat quasſºnterfecisset—ac jubet duci
utrumque—ipsum centurionem qui damnatum reduxerat,
duci jussit. De Irā, lib. i. cap. 16. See Budaeus in verbo
&máyo.
|
(of him that speaketh, is the voice) of a god, and not
of a (mere) man. - -
23 And * immediately the angel of the Lord smote
him, because he (received this flattery without repre-
hension, as due to him, and) gave not God the glory:
and he was eaten (and miserably tormented) with worms
(in his bowels), and so gave up the ghost.
24 But (and) the word of God (notwithstanding this
opposition) grew and multiplied.
25 And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusa-
lem, when they had fulfilled their ministry, (i. e. dis-
tributed the charity sent by the disciples from Antioch,
and other places, to be given by them to the elders of
Jerusalem, xi. 29, 30), and took with them John,
whose surname was Mark.
was the messenger of his calamity,” that &Spooy &xynºa, “a
sudden torment came upon him,” and that thereupon he in-
stantly tells the same auditors “he must die.” Again, Jo-
sephus doth not say that he was a koºnzá8°oto;, “eaten up of
worms,” but he saith he had &Ayāzara rāg worxiac, “vehement
torments in his bowels, which increasing upon him, in five
days he died,” and they in that time might breed worms in
him, as he confesses they did in his grandfather. And ex-
amples of the like exits of the persecutors of the Christian
faith we have many in church-history: thus Tertullian"
saith of one Claudius Heminianus, one of their persecutors,
that clim vivus vermibus ebullisset, “when worms broke
forth of him whilst he was alive, he said, Let no man know
it, Iest the Christians rejoice.” And Eusebius+ saith of
Maximinian, that “sudden ulcers arose in his fundament and
secret parts, from which sprung &AExtáv ºr rºbo; a wox#kov,
an incredible multitude of worms.” And of the uncle of
Julian the apostate, who persecuted the Christians, and
trampled upon the sacred vessels, Theodoret; and St. Chry-
sostom$ inform us, that he perished by this disease, 8ta46sgè;
y&p airrot aiboſov arzºnka; Érexsw, “for his scrotum corrupted
and bred worms.” An instance like to this we have in
Pherecydes Syrus, twº rów pºstgāv Āvaxw8ávtoº, “eaten up of
lice,” for boasting of his great wisdom and his pleasant life,
though he sacrificed, saith Ælian, to no god at all (Ælian.
War. Hist. lib. iv. cap. 28. Diog. Laer. lib. i. p. 75. 77; see
Bochart. Hieroz. par. ii. lib. iv. cap. 23, p. 620, 621). So
also was it under the Jewish state : for of Antiochus Epi-
phanes we read, fix rot a dºza ro; to; 8va aegoºg áeaſeſ, that
“worms sprung out of the body of this wicked man” (2
Macc. ix. 8, 9), and of Herod the Great, Josephus owns that
he had rod aičotov cºpic axóanka; #wrototoa, “a putrefaction
producing worms” (Antiq. lib. xvii, cap. 8, p. 597).
* In Scap. cap. 3. + Lib. viii. cap. 16.
† Hist. Eccl. lib. v. cap. 8.
§ Orat. S. Babyl. tom. v. p. 462.
CHAPTER XIII.
1 *Now there were in the church that was at An-
tioch certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIII.
* Wer. 1. "Ha'av Šá rive; #y "Avrioxeſ. Kara rºy &ray #xxxn-
a law ºrgopital wai 3.8%axaxoi, There were some prophets and
teachers in Antioch, belonging to that church..] So Grotius ;
and indeed Barnabas and Paul might well be reckoned such:
Barnabas being sent thither by the church of Jerusalem,
xi. 22, and he and Paul preaching there a whole year, ver.
26, and being sent by that church to Jerusalem, first, with
their alms, ver, 30, and about the question determined by
the council, Acts xv., and the rest being, very probably, some
of the one hundred and eight, who, being scattered abroad
by the persecution mentioned Acts viii. 1, came down to
Antioch (xi. 19); for Niger is by Epiphanius” declared to
have been “one of the seventy-two,” and Lucius was of Cy-
* Hacr. xxx. sect. 4, p. 50.
rene, saith the text; and so one of them that came down to
Antioch (xi. 20): but to say that either Paul or Barnabas
were bishops of Syria, as Dr. Hammond doth, is that which
never was before, nor can with any reason be asserted of the
apostle of the gentiles, or of Barnabas appointed to go with
him to the gentiles (ver. 2); nor could he have had any
temptation to have made the other three there named bi-
shops, but that he finds them laying on of hands (ver. 2),
imagining that was for ordination, whereas it was by way of
benediction on their enterprise only, or to recommend them
to the grace of God (xiv. 26); for who ever heard before of
an apostle ordained bishop, by laying on of the hands of
prophets or teachers P or of one prophet, teacher, or bishop,
laying his hands upon another prophet, bishop, or teacher,
to ordain him bishop P And indeed, if there were so many
bishops as he hath given us in Judea, Acts xv., in Syria and
Cilicia here, and so many ordained in all other churches, as
Q H
466
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene,
and Manaen, who had been brought up with Herod
the tetrarch, and Saul.
2 (And) “as they ministered to the Lord, and fast-
ed, the Holy Ghost said (to them), Separate me Bar-
nabas and Saul for the (peculiar) work whereunto I
have called them.
3 And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid
their hands on them, they sent them away (in pursu-
ance of it).
4 So they, being (thus) sent forth by the Holy
Ghost, departed unto Seleucia; and from “thence they
sailed to 8.
5 And when they were at Salamis, they preached
the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews: and
they had also “John (surnamed Mark, xii. 25) to their
minister (to minister to them).
6 And when they had gone through the isle to Pa-
phos, they found a certain "sorcerer, a false prophet, a
Jew, whose name was Bar-Jesus:
7 * Who was with the deputy of the country,
(named) Sergius Paulus, a prudent man; who called
for Barnabas and Saul, and desired to hear the word
of God (from their mouths).
8 But Elymas the sorcerer, (for so is his name by
interpretation) (from the Arabic word Elim), with-
stood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the
faith.
9 Then 7 Saul, (who is also called Paul,) (being)
filled with the (afflatus of the) Holy Ghost, set his
eyes on him,
10 And said, O (thou that art) full of all subtlety
he saith, xiv. 23, is it not wonderful that St. Paul, in all his
travels, should never meet with, resort to, or be entertained
by, any one of them, but only by the brethren at large P Or
that he should write to the churches of the Romans, Corin-
thians, Galatians, Colossians, and Thessalonians, before he
went bound to Rome, and never salute any bishops there, or
give any instructions to them, or so much as ever mention
that he had ordained any elders, that is, saith he, bishops,
there 2 It is also to be observed, that this only was a tem-
porary mission to preach to the gentiles, that being the work
to which St. Paul was called, ver. 2, and of which they give
an account to the church of Antioch, “declaring how God
had opened a door of faith to the gentiles,” which mission
they presently completed, and then returned to Antioch,
declaring to the church there what they had done in prose-
cution of it (xiv. 26, 27).
* Wer. 2. Astrougyoëvrov & abråy rô Kugio, And as they
ministered to the Lord.] Wain here is the inference of the
papists from this word, that they sacrificed the mass: for
Astroveysīy in Phavorinus and Hesychius is $ovXEffew, 8taxovév,
brnes reſy, “to serve and minister.” In the Old Testament
it often signifies the ministry of the Levites, who were not to
offer sacrifices, as Numb. iv. 23, 24. 26–28. 30. 35. 37. 39.
43. viii. 22. xvi. 9. xviii. 6. 21. 23. By Chrysostom * and
CEcumenius it is rendered “preaching,” and in profane au-
thors it is applied to any other work. Thus in Aristotle's
Politics, 'F men are said xeiroveysīy arsei rāg &pxãº, ºrgès tex-
yomotiay, rā, Kará rày Bioy, “to minister about government, in
getting children, and about the things of this life.”
* Ver. 4. And thence they sailed to Cyprus.] Where the
Jews so abounded, that Dio Cassius £ tells us, that in the
time of Trajan “they slew two hundred and forty thousand
men there;” and Jerome, Ś that the Jews “overthrew Sa-
lamis in Cyprus, killing all the gentiles there.”
* Astroveyoãvroy, routéart anpurrávrov, Chrysost. GEcumen.
in locum.
+ Lib. v. l. 7.
f 'Atrºxoviro zai ixeſ ºvetáče; tāo orage; xal sizoot, 31& rotiro
où3evi 'Iověaio, #więżval airii; #Earty. In Wità Trajani, Epit.
255.
§ Salaminam Cypri, interfectis in ea gentilibus, subvertère
Judaei. Chron. ad an. 19 Trajani.
and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy
of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the
right ways of the Lord (but plead for and use thy sor-
ceries in opposition to them)?
11 And now (therefore), behold, the hand of the
Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing
the sun for a season. And immediately there fell on
him a mist, and a darkness; and he went about seek-
ing some to lead him by the hand.
12 Then the deputy, when he saw what was done,
believed, being astonished at (the power which attend-
ed) the doctrine of the Lord.
13 Now when Paul and his company loosed from
Paphos, they came to Pergain Pamphylia: and (then)
John departing from them returned to Jerusalem.
14 But when they departed from Perga, they came
to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on
the sabbath-day, and sat down.
15 And after the reading of the law and the pro-
phets, the “rulers of the synagogue sent to them,
saying, Ye men and brethren, if ye have any word of
exhortation to the people, say on (Ašyers, speak it).
16 Then Paul stood up, and beckoning with his
hand, said, Men of Israel, and ye (Greeks) that fear
God, give audience.
17 The God of this people of Israel chose our fa-
thers (the patriarchs), and exalted the people (descend-
ing from them) when they dwelt as strangers in the
land of Egypt, and with a high arm brought he them
out of it.
18 And * about the time of forty years suffered
he their manners in the wilderness.
* Ver. 5. Kai sixay 'Iwāºvny wºrngárnv, They had John to
minister to them.] As the wise men and prophets among the
Jews had one to minister unto them, so the apostles had also
those who were their companions and fellow-labourers, who
ministered to them. So Timothy and Erastus are men-
tioned among those who ministered to St. Paul, Acts xix.
* Ver. 6. A sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name
was Bar-Jesus.] God having raised up prophets in the
Christian church, and given the apostles and other teachers
of the word a power to confirm it with mighty signs and
miracles ; the Jews who opposed Christianity, and laboured
to turn men from the faith, pretended to be prophets also,
and endeavoured by magic and enchantments to work mira-
cles, to cure diseases, and to cast out devils: of their magic
and enchantments, see Dr. CŞightfoot, Harm. of the New
Testament, p. 95, and of their attempts to cure diseases
and to cast out devils, note on xix. 13.
* Ver. 7. “o; #y civ Tó &yövorárºſ, Which was with the de-
puty of the country (Gr. the proconsul), Sergius Paulus.]
The difficulty which some find in giving the name of pro-
consul to the praetor or president of Cyprus, is solved by
these words of Walla, that not he only is styled a proconsul
who is sent to administer a province with consular power,
but also a praetor or president (Elegant. lib. iv.).
7 Ver. 9. Saul, who is also called Paul.] Origen, in his
preface to the Epistle to the Romans, saith, that whilst he
preached to the Jews he was called Saul, according to the
name he had among them at his circumcision, Paulum au-
tem appellatum esse clim Graecis et gentibus leges et prae-
cepta conscribit, “and that he was called by his Roman
name, Paul, when he preached to the gentiles.”
* Ver. 15. Of 36xiouváyoyot, The rulers of the synagogue
sent to them.] In what sense the rulers of the synagogue
were many, and in what sense but one, see the note on Mark
W. 22.
* Wer. 18. And about the time of forty years he suffered
their manners,Gr. Érporopéencey airoi;, in the wilderness.] Here
Dr. Hammond thinks it is without doubt that the true read-
ing is firgo popágnosy, “He bore them as a parent doth his
child,” because so the word is used, Deut. i. 31, where it is
said, “The Lord ārgo popóenai as, bore thee in this wilder-
ness as a man rgo popoghaat, would bear his Son,” and the
CHAPTER XIl I.
467
19 And when he had (for their sakes) destroyed
25 And as John fulfilled his course (i. e. performed
seven nations in the land of Canaan, he divided their his office), he said, Whom think ye that I am I am
land to them by lot.
20 And after that he “gave to them judges about
the space of four hundred and fifty years, until Sa-
muel the prophet. -
21 And afterward they desired a king; and God
gave them Saul the son of Cis, a man of the tribe of
Benjamin, (who with Samuel reigned) "by the space of
forty years. *
22 And when he had removed him, he raised up
to them David to be their king: to whom also he gave
testimony, and said. (Ps. lxxxix. 11), I have found
David, the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart,
who shall fulfil all my will.
23 Of this man’s seed hath God, according to his
promise, raised to Israel a Saviour, Jesus: -
24. When John had first preached before his com-
; the baptism of repentance to all the people of
Srael.
not he (i. e. the Christ). But, behold, there cometh
one after me, whose shoes of his (i. e. the shoes of
whose) feet I am not worthy to loose.
26 Men and brethren, children of the stock of
Abraham, and * whosoever amongst you feareth God,
to you is the word of this salvation (which Christ hath
brought into the world) sent.
27 For they that dwelt at Jerusalem, and their ru-
lers, because they knew him not, nor yet the (import
of the) voices of the prophets, which are read every
sabbath-day, they have fulfilled them in condemning
him (to that death which procures our remission of
sins).
28 And though they found no cause of death in
him, yet desired they Pilate that he should (might) be
slain.
29 And when they had fulfilled all that was written
of him, they took him down from the tree (John
woman in the Maccabees entreats her youngest son to pity
her reo®oºpoehoracay, “bearing him,” 2 Macc. vii. 27. And
according to this sense the word signifies rºw reophy pågely, “to
bring them nourishment,” as God did manna every day, or
réâqov 3ixny poggiv, “to bear them, as a nurse or mother doth
her child to give him suck,” or bring him up; which in Eu-
stathius is rºoqoqogºſy, Odyss. 6. v. 131. But though this
makes a very good sense, and very apposite, it seems not
necessary; for, first, Origen” there reads as here, štgomopéen-
aey, and expounds it śćaščea Sai as Tºg ºr āa śEvåg, “to ac-
commodate himself to the infirmities of his children,” and
so the word is used by Cicero ad Atticum, # when he saith,
röy rāqoy ºzou reowoºpäpna ov, “Bear patiently my pride, or
elation of mind.” And again, Origen, † citing Deut. i. 31,
thrice reads ago"roºffencey, “He bore their manners,” saying
it signifies &pg=6&sabai as ºrpès rê ša Ševčc, “to accommodate
himself to the infirmities of his children.” Procopius, on
the words of Moses, saith, that rô reowo togety properly sig-
nifies rêv traffèa 3voyspalvovta ºrpétrely wai aera pégely 31& oup.-
JºAta'ºzºv xai avykaraśāasov, “to carry about and appease
a froward child, by prattling with, and accommodating our-
selves to, him ;” and in the scholiast on Aristophanes ºrporo-
qopºv is roſ; Tººwoc tangereſy, “to bear with the manners of
another;” and so the word is used by Cicero, &c. (See Exa-
men Millii in locum.) -
* Wer. 20. God gave them judges about the space of four
hundred and fifty years..] Grotius and Bishop Usher note
here, that other copies read thus, xarexxngovágºnosy airroſ, rhy
yńy airów &; Érect rerºaxocriotç was "reyrāxovira, Kai ºwers raûra
#Boxey spirãº, “He divided to them their land about four
hundred and fifty years, and after that he gave them judges;”
and they begin the time of this computation from the birth
of Isaac, of whom it is said, “In Isaac shall thy seed be
called,” Gen. xxi. 12: from his birth to the children of Is-
rael's going out of Egypt was four hundred and five years,
their stay in the wilderness was forty years, seven years after
their land was divided to them ; these years put together
made four hundred and fifty-two ; and so the apostle saith,
the space from God's election of them to the dividing the
land to them was about four hundred and fifty years. But,
First, This reading is not owned by Chrysostom, or CEcu-
menius, or by the Syriac, or Arabic, who all read as we do.
Secondly, The words seem not to bear this sense, for the
apostle goes on orderly thus ; (1.) God chose our fathers;
(2) he brought them out of Egypt; (3) he led them in the
wilderness forty years ; (4.) he divided the land to them ;
and therefore it is reasonable to conceive he should go on to
tell what was done after the division of the land. Moreover,
the apostle does not say, “And all these things were done
in the space of four hundred and fifty years,” but, “He di-
vided their land to them about the space of four hundred
and fifty years;” which according to this reading signifies,
* Cont. Cels. lib. iv. p. 210, et Com. in Matt. ed. Huet.
p. 459, 475.
“F Lib. xiii. ep. 29.
† Tom. i. in Matt, p. 459, 475, in Celsum, lib. iv. p. 210.
he was so long in dividing their land; I therefore prefer the
other computation, which refers this to the judges, because if
you compute the years of the judges till Samuel, you will
find thein three hundred and thirty-nine, and the years of
the tyrants one hundred and eleven, which put together
make four hundred and fifty.
Thirdly, Because this computation then obtained among
the Jews, for Josephus * saith, Solomon began to build the
temple ºxerê štº revrnxória kai Évêvãxovira kai 300, “after five
hundred and ninety-two years of the children of Israel's
going out of Egypt.” Now if you make the time of the
judges four hundred and fifty, the computation is exactly
five hundred and ninety-one years; he therefore here, as in
the following verse, accords with the computation of his na-
tion at that time, that so they might not except against his
words:
Wilderness 40
Joshua * 17
Judges . te 450
Samuel and Saul 40
David e º 40
Solomon . © * @ ſº 4.
591
And yet he saith, &c, to show that computation was not
exact. Some here tell us, that the true reading here is three
hundred and fifty years; but seeing I find not one copy,
version, nor father, to countenance that reading, I think it
dangerous to admit of that solution of this difficulty; espe-
cially if we consider that St. Luke continually, both in his
gospel and in the Acts, follows exactly the computation of
the Septuagint and of the Jews, as we learn from his insert-
ing Cainan, Luke iii. 36, his making Saul to reign forty
years, ver. 21 of this chapter, and from this verse, where he
accords exactly with Josephus.
* Ver. 21. By the space of forty years..] So Josephus
saith, he reigned whilst Samuel lived Érn Śwrè trº, roſ, 35%a,
“eighteen years,” and after his death 360 ×al sixoat, “twenty-
two years;” but though this reckoning seems to have ob-
tained in the time of Josephus, it is far from being true that
Saul reigned twenty-two years after the death of Samuel ;
it is rather true, as the Jews conceive, that they both died
in the same year: so that the words, “forty years” are to be
connected thus—Until Samuel the prophet, who having
judged them about thirty years, afterward they desired a
king; and God, by Samuel, gave them Saul, whose reign
with that of Samuel's was about the space of forty years.
So saith Sulpitius Severus, Ego arbitror a Paulo etiam
Samuelis annos sub regis istius aetate numeratos, “I. Sup:
pose that the years of Šamuel also are added to the reign of
that king by Paul;” as doubtless they were, they making
together just forty years.
iº Ver, 26. And whosoever among you feareth God.]. So
ver. 16, that is, the proselytes among you; So Bemidbar
Rabba on those words of the psalmist, “Blessed is every
- - --------- + Lib. i. cap. 61.
* Antiq. lib. viii, cap. 2.
2 H2
468 \
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
xix. 31), and laid him in a sepulchre, (and they sealed
the sepulchre, and put a guard upon it, Matt. xxvii.
66).
30 But (notwithstanding this) God raised him from
the dead :
31, "And he was seen ſalive) many days of them
which came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem,
who are his witnesses to the people. -
32 And we declare to you glad tidings, (viz.) how
that the promise which was made to the fathers (that
in him should all the families of the earth be blessed),
33 * God hath fulfilled the same to us their child-
ren, in that he hath raised up Jesus again (to be a
Prince and a Saviour); as it is also "written (of him)
in the second Psalm (by God, saying, from the mouth
of David), Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten
thee.
34 And as concerning that (Gr. and that)" he
raised him up from the dead, now no more to return
to corruption (is evident, because) he said on this wise,
I will give you (Jews) the sure mercies of David.
35 Wherefore he saith also in another Psalm, Thou
shalt not suffer thy Holy One to see corruption;
(which words cannot respect David himself;)
36 For David, after he had served his own genera-
tion by the will of God, fell asleep, and was laid to
his fathers, and (his body) saw corruption:
37 But he, (that Jesus) whom God raised up, saw
no corruption (as to his body).
38 Be it known to you, therefore, men and bre-
thren, that " through this man (-'s death) is preached
to you the forgiveness of sins :
39 And by him all that believe are justified from
all things, from which ye could not he justified by
the law of Moses. -
40 Beware therefore, lest (for your infidelity) that
come upon you, which is spoken of in the prophets;
4] Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish:
for I work a work in your days, a work which ye
shall (will) in no wise believe, though a man declare it
to you.
42 And when the Jews were gone out of the syn-
agogue, the gentiles besought that these words migh-
be preached to them the *next sabbath (day).
43 Now when the congregation was broken up,
many of the Jews and religious proselytes followed
Paul and Barnabas: who, speaking to them, persuaded
them to continue in the grace of God.
44 And the next sabbath-day came almost the
whole city together to hear the word of God,
45 But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they
were filled with envy, and spake against those things
which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blas-
pheming (them).
46 Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said,
It was necessary (by Christ’s appointment, Acts. i. 8),
that the word of God should first have been spoken
to you : but seeing ye put it from you, and (by your
actions) "judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting
life, *lo, we turn (from you) to the géntiles.
47 For, so hath the Lord commanded, saying, I
have set thee (O Christ) to be a light to the gentiles,
* shouldest be for salvation to the ends of the
earth.
one that feareth the Lord,” saith, “they that fear the Lord,”
oi poéoùºwevot rôy Osęy, are the proselytes.
* Ver. 31. Who was seen many days of those who came
wp with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his wit-
messes.] These seem to be the hundred and eight mentioned
Acts i. 15, for these were Galileans, ver. 11, and avvex86vres,
“men coming with him,” and men that go in to the apostles,
wer. 13.
* Ver. 33. God hath fulfilled the promise made to your
jathers in raising up Jesus.] i. e. From the dead, ver. 30,
so as not to return to corruption. For the promise being
this, that God would “raise up one to sit upon the throne of
his father David,” Acts ii. 30, and to “reign over the house
of Jacob,” Luke i. 33; Christ upon his resurrection having
“all power in heaven and earth committed to him,” Matt.
xxviii. 18, and being “exalted to the right hand of God,”
Acts ii. 33, this promise, by his resurrection to that king-
dom, was fulfilled.
* As it is written in the second Psalm, Thow art my Son,
this day have I begotten thee..] That this psalm belongs to
the Messiah, and speaks of his dominion and kingdom, ap-
pears from the preceding words, “I have set thee, my king,
upon the holy hill of Sion ; Jehovah hath said to me, Thou
art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.” This also is
apparent from the following words, “I will give thee the
heathen for thine inheritance;” and from the exhortation of
all kings to submit to him (see the note on Heb, v. 5): and,
by this resurrection and exaltation, he is said to be begotten,
as being made the first-born from the dead, Col. i. 18. Rev.
i. 5, constituted “the Son of God with power,” Rom. i. 4,
and having received a new birth : hence those two things are
joined, Luke i. 32, “He shall be called the Son of the
Highest, and God shall give him the throne of his father
David” (see also Examen Millii in locum).
* Ver. 34. In that he raised him up, now no more to see
corruption, he said (Isa. lv. 3), I will give thee rà $ota
Aagið ‘rā ºrizºra, the sure mercies of David.] That is, of
Christ, the Son of David ; for that David, both in the lan-
guage of scripture and of the Jews, frequently signifies
Christ, see note on Matt. ii., and that here it bears this
sense, both Kimchi and Aben-Ezra confess, and the follow-
ing verse assures us; for of this very David it is said, ver, 4,
“Behold, I have given him for a witness, a leader and com-
mander to the people;” and he being thus raised up to be a
“King for ever,” so as to see no more corruption, the bless-
ings he confers upon his subjects must be sure and lasting.
* Ver. 38. Through him is preached to them forgiveness
of sins.] i. e. Those sins, from the guilt of which the law of
Moses could not cleanse the conscience, and from which we
could not be justified, i. e. from the guilt and condemnation
due to us, from which we could not be exempted by the law
of Moses (see the note on xv. 1).
* Ver. 42. Ei, tº we'raži a 498atov.] This phrase doth not
signify “the intermediate week,” as some conceive, or on
the second and fifth day of the week, but “on the following
sabbath ;’’ for we learn from the forty-fourth verse, that
they came not together till the following sabbath. So Jo-
sephus’ speaks of David and Solomon, Éri 33 rôy peeragö
roöray 8aaixãov, “and of the following kings of Judah;”
for there came none between them.
* Ver, 46. Kai oix déious Éavrov, weivers, And judge your-
selves wmworthy of etermal life.] Or rather discover, or by
your actions show yourselves unworthy of it: for when our
Saviour sent his apostles, he bid them, “into what village
or house soever they entered, to inquire, ri; &#10¢, who was
worthy in it,” and to “shake off the dust of their feet”
against the unworthy (Matt. x. 11, 15); i. e. against those
who would not receive their doctrine of salvation, or eternal
life. This unworthiness, saith the apostle, xpivºrs, you disco-
ver, by thus contradicting and blaspheming it. This is the
Sense of the word xpivea Sai, viz. to discern, discover, or make
known, when the apostle saith, he that cometh into the
assemblies of the prophets, ºpivºtal, “is discovered of them
all,” 1 Cor. xiv. 24, and the spiritual man “discovers all
things,” ii. 15.
* Lo, we turn to the gentiles.] Not from the Jews every-
where ; for we find St. Paul still preaching to them in every
synagogue where he came (Acts xvii. 2): but from those of
Antioch in Pisidia, to the gentiles there, it being not reason-
able that the Jews of other places should be deprived of the
gospel for the perverseness of those here.
* De Bello Jud. lib. vi. cap. 13, p. 913.
CHAPTER XIV.
469
48 And when the gentiles heard this, they were
glad, and glorified the word of the Lord (giving glory
to him for it) ; and * as many (of them) as were or-
dained to (Gr. disposed for) eternal life believed.
49 And the word of the Lord was published
throughout all the region. .
50 But the Jews stirred up the devout and honour-
able women, and chief men of the city, and raised
persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled
them out of their coasts.
51 But they shook off the dust of their feet against
them, and came to Iconium. ---
52 And the disciples were filled with joy, and with
the Holy Ghost.
*Ver. 48. And &ot hoay Tsºraykºvo, si, Čovºv aidylov, as
‘many as were ordained to eternal life believed.] These words
2annot signify a fixed number of persons absolutely by God
ordained to eternal life, so that they, and they only, shall
obtain it, and all others be excluded from it, as upon this
supposition they must be ; for if God, by his ordination or
decree, hath fixed the number of those whom he will bring
unto Salvation, all they who are not of that number will not
partake of that salvation. And this is evident from these
considerations:
First, That if the reason why these men believed be only
this, that they were men “ordained to eternal life;” the rea-
son why the rest believed not can be this only, that they
were not ordained by God to eternal life: and if so, what
necessity could there be that “the word of God should be
first preached” to them P as we read, ver, 46. Was it only
that their damnation might be the greater 2 This seems to
charge that Lover of souls, whose “tender mercies are over
all his works,” with the greatest cruelty, seeing it makes him
determine from all eternity, not only that so many souls, as
capable of Salvation as any other, shall perish everlastingly ;
but also to determine that the dispensations of his providence
shall be such towards them, as necessarily tend to the ag-
gravation of their condemnation. And what could even
their most malicious and most enraged enemy do more ?
What is it the very devil aims at by all his temptations, but
this very end, viz. the aggravation of our future punishment 2
And therefore to assert that God had determined that his
word should be spoken to these Jews for this very end, is to
make God as instrumental to their ruin as the very devil,
and seemeth wholly irreconcileable with his declarations,
that “he would have all men to be saved,” and “would not
that any man should perish.”
Secondly, The apostle gives this reason why he turned
from the Jews to the gentiles, viz. because the Jews “had
thrust away the word of God from them, and judged them-
selves unworthy of eternal life (ver. 46); whereas, accord-
ing to this supposition, this could be no sufficient reason for
his turning from them to the gentiles; for it was only they
among the Jews whom God had not ordained to eternal life,
who thus refused to believe and to obey the word of God ;
and as many among the gentiles as were not thus ordained
to eternal life must necessarily do the same ; and so there
could be no sufficient cause why he should turn from the
Jews to the gentiles on that account. And, -
Thirdly, Were this the reason why the Jews believed not,
that they were not by God ordained to eternal life, why doth
St. Paul by God's commission speak here to them thus:
“Be it known to you, brethren, that by this Jesus is de-
clared to you remission of sins P” Why doth he add, “and
by him every one that believeth is justified ?” &c. Why
doth he vehemently exhort them to “beware, lest that say-
ing of the prophet Habakkuk should be verified of them, I
will work a work in your days which you will not believe,
though one declare it to you?” (ver. 38.41.) For could
them that remission of sins and justification to life eternal
was proposed to them 2 Could it be revealed to St. Paul
dispositions and affections with thee.
mankind.”
that they could not believe to life eternal, as being not by
God ordained to it ; and yet would he so passionately ex-
hort them to that faith in Jesus which he well knew, by vir-
tue of this revelation, belonged not to them, nor could they
possibly exert P. These things seem clearly to evince that
this cannot be the proper import of the words; but they will
very well admit of these two senses: viz. (1.) As many as
were disposed for eternal life believed: or, (2.) As many as
were disposed to do it, believed to eternal life. And,
First, It is highly probable the genuine import of these
words is this, 3ao, haray rerayºzévot, “As many as were dis-
posed for eternal life believed ;” for this word retayºvo, by
this very author, is used in this sense to signify a man, not
outwardly ordained, but inwardly disposed ; or one deter-
mined, not by God, but his own inclination, to do such a
thing; as when it is said, Acts xx. 13, Paul “went on foot
to Assos, otºro, yāp #v 8tatsray(xãvoc, for so he was disposed to
do :” so the son of Sirach saith, hysºzovic, a viroi retayºvávn
#~rat, “The conduct or government of the wise man will be
well ordered, or disposed” (x.1). Thus Philo” saith to Cain,
“Thou needest not fear being killed by them who are #y of .
Teraygáyot avºwaxia, ranked on thy side;” i.e. of the same
And he saith of those
children who, having had vicious parents, have themselves
proved virtuous, that they are &eive retayuávº Tážst, t
“ placed in a better rank:” and speaking of Esau and Ja-
cob, he represents Esau as fierce, subject to anger and other
passions, and governed by his brutish part; but Jacob as a
lover of virtue and truth; and so #y r? 3satiovº retayºzávoy
+4&st,f “placed in a better rank of men,” or one of a bet-
ter temper and disposition; and adds, that Samuel Š was
Terayºyoc Qeſ, “one well disposed towards God:” so Sim-
plicius interprets this word; for when Epictetus || had said,
rºw 3: 88xºrtarov col parvovivov obro; #xov &; 3 aſ Geoû retay-
pºvo; sic raúrny rºv rឺv, “If thou hast a desire to be a phi-
losopher, so retain those things which seem best to thee, as
being by God placed in that rank;” that is, saith he," &; vir;
©eoſ reorgeria.svo, inti rajra, ºr yag &#yarov rāv #4 Qeot 30-
enévtov &v6eºroi, pixo~opia art, “as being incited by God
to it; for philosophy,” saith he, “eternal salvation,” saith
the scripture, “is the greatest gift that God has given to
And to this sense the very context leads ; the
persons opposite to those disposed for eternal life being
those who, for their indisposition to embrace the offer of it,
were “unworthy of eternal life.”
The second import of which these words are capable, is
this: That “as many as were well disposed believed to eternal
life :" and accordingly we are said to believe in Christ “to
eternal life, 1 Tim. i. 16, and “to the saving of the Soul,”
Heb. x, 30, and they who truly do believe are said to do it
“to eternal life,” because they, by believing, do obtain a
perfect right to that life, of which they cannot fail but by
departing from that faith, or suffering it to become unfruitful
in those works of righteousness which make them meet to be
partakers of eternal life.
God have determined that these very persons should not be-
lieve to life eternal, and yet commissionate his apostles to tell
+ De Nobil. p. 702, C.
§ De Temul. p. 203, C.
* P. 139.
* L. quod deter. p. 144.
† De Praem. et Poen. p. 712, B.
| Enchirid, cap. 29.
CHAPTER XIV.
1 AND it came to pass in Iconium, that they (viz.
Paul and Barnabas) - went both together into the syn-
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIV.
1 Sam. xi. 11, there were not two of them left in xará to
* * * * * *
aúrá, “together;” 2 Sam. ii. 16, “They fell down wará rà
* & s º gº e * & * * * * * r
abré, together;” 1 Kings iii. 18, hºweſ; Kará tê abré, “We
* Wer. 1, That they went xará tº abrè, both together.] So I were together.”
470
ACTS OF THE APOSTLEs.
agogue of the Jews (there), and so spake, that “a
great multitude both of the Jews and also of the
Greeks (i. e. the proselytes of the Jews) believed.
2 But the (oi 38, and that they unbelieving Jews
stirred up the gentiles, and made their minds (Gr. rose
up, and made the minds of the gentiles) evil (-ly) affected
against the brethren.
3 Long time therefore abode they (iravöv učv oëv
xpóvov čušrpupav, for indeed they had tarried a long
time) speaking boldly in (the name of) the Lord, who
gave testimony unto the words of his grace, and
granted signs and wonders to be done by their hands.
4 But (then) the multitude of the city was divided:
and part held with the (unbelieving) Jews, and part
with the apostles.
5 And when there was an assault (or tumult) made,
both of (i.e. by) the gentiles, and also of (by) the
Jews, with their rulers, (endeavouring) to use them
despitefully (or contumeliously), and to * stone them
(as blasphemers of the law),
6 They were aware of it, and (so) fled to Lystra,
and (then to) Derbe, (ver. 20), cities of Lycaonia, and
(then) to the region which lieth round about (those
cities):
7 And there they preached the gospel.
8 And there sat a man at Lystra, “impotent in his
feet, being a cripple from his mother’s womb, (and so
one) who never had walked.
9 The same heard Paul speak (-ing the word); who
* A great multitude, 'Iověaíoy wai ENAhyoy, of the Jews and
Greeks believed.] i. e. 2880&#voy Exxhvoy, “a great multi-
tude of Greek proselytes;” for they made a part of the
Jewish synagogue, and in it are converted to the faith: so
xvii. 4, and xviii. 4, “Paul spake in the synagogue at Co-
rinth,” and persuaded Jews and Greeks; see also xiii. 42.
xix. 8. 10. Note also, that the second verse is to be put in
a parenthesis.
* Wer. 5. And to stone them.] As blasphemers against
the law, Deut. xiii. 6. So they stoned Stephen as speaking
“blasphemous words against the law and the temple,” Acts
vi. 13. So St. Paul here, ver. 19, and so they attempted to
stone Christ for supposed blasphemy, John x. 33. And in
like manner, Josephus saith,” that “Ananias the high-
priest delivered up James, and other Christians, to be
stoned, as being accused of impiety against the law.”
* Ver, 8. 'Abūvaro, roſ; "rocły, Impotent in his feet.] This
word 38%waro, is frequently used in the Septuagint, for a
man feeble and helpless; as when Job saith, he was rarăg
38wároly, “the father of the helpless,” xxix. 16. xxxi. 20,
and Joel, iii. 10, § 38&varo, Aeyárw, “Let the weak say I
am strong.”
* Ver. 9. Seeing he had faith to be healed.] Faith, being
an act of the understanding, could not be discerned by the
eye of sense; this therefore is an instance of that power of
discerning the inward working of men's spirits, mentioned 1
Cor. xii. 10.
* Ver. 11. Saying, The gods are come down to us in the
likeness of men.] This was not only the imagination of the
poets, Homer and others here cited by Grotius, but even
of their philosophers: for Cicero hence proves the gods
must be of human shape, because they never appeared in
any other form (see the note on xvii. 29).
7 Wer. 12. And they called Barnabas, Jupiter; and
Paul, Mercury, because he was #yoëpºsvos, roſ, Aéyov, the chief
speaker.]. He is accounted, saith Justin Martyr, Aéyo;
#gºnyevrixás Kai Trávrov 818&ckaxoc, “the word that is the in-
terpreter and teacher of all men;” and he is called Hermes,
saith Philo, & #6 ºnvéa zai ºrpoºphºrny rāv Seiary, “as being the
interpreter and prophet of divine things:” he is, saith Por-
phery, Trapaatarixãº, “the exhibiter or representer of reason
P-
* Aswa &ndoºvov; raçëoxe. Antiq. Jud. lib. xx, cap. 8, p.
698, B.
# Ap. ii. p. 67.
: Apud Euseb. Praep. Evang, lib. iii, cap. 11.
stedfastly beholding him, and "perceiving (by his gift
of discerning spirits) that he had faith to be healed,
10 Said to him) with a loud voice, Stand upright
on thy feet. And (having said this) he (the impotent
man) leaped and walked.
11 And when the people saw what Paul had done,
they lifted up their voices, saying in the speech of
Lycaonia, "The gods are come down to us in the like-
ness of men.
12 "And they called Barnabas, Jupiter; and Paul,
Mercurius (i.e. his interpreter), because he was the
chief speaker.
13 Then the priest of Jupiter, who (i. e. whose
image) was before the city, brought oxen and garlands
(Gr. coronets) * to the gates (where Barnabas and Paul
were), and would have done sacrifice with the people
(i.e. he and they would have offered sacrifice to them as
gods).
14 Which, when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul,
heard of, they rent their clothes (to show their detesta-
tion of the fact), and ran in among the people, crying
Out,
15 And saying, Sirs, why do ye (attempt) these
things? (seeing) we also are men of like passions
with you, and preach to you that ye should turn from
these vanities (or dead idols) to the (worship of the)
living God, who made heaven, and earth, and the
sea, and all things that are therein:
16 °Who in times past (since the days of Noah, I
and eloquence:” he is called Mercury, saith Seneca, quia
ratio penès illum est (De Benef lib. iv. cap. 7).
8 Ver. 13. 'Em roi; ºrvX&vac, To the gates.] Not of the
temple of Jupiter, which was without the city, but the
gates of the house where Paul and Barnabas lodged; for
these things were done within the city (ver. 19). Hither
the priest of Jupiter brought oxen for sacrifice, and a riº:
aara, crowns or garlands, either to put upon the heads of
Paul and Barnabas, according to the heathen custom of
crowning their gods, mentioned in Jeremy's epistle to the
Jews in Babylon, ver. 9, and especially of offering golden
crowns to Jupiter, as Brissonius” shows they did; or to put
on the ox or heifer to be offered: hence have we mention in
Virgil + of the vittae juvencúm, “garlands of the heifers,”
where, saith Servius, velatum auro vittisque juvencum, is co-
romatum auro vittisque, i. e. “a heifer crowned” with them.
Athenaeus from Aristotle saithf this was done, because
nothing but what is perfect was to be offered to the gods ;
rö 83 arépew traigoaiy riva amºaivet, “now to crown signifies
perfection;” whence operi coronam imponere, is “to perfect
a work.”
"Hôexe Sösly, He would have sacrificed.] Here see, Saith
Chrysostom, the devil's malice ; he would have brought in
3,000 woxarpeſay divine worship of men by those very persons
who were sent to convert men from it, persuading them
again to esteem men as gods, as formerly they had done :
and how fully he hath done this in the Roman church,
where innumerable men are worshipped with invocation, and
even mental prayers, which suppose them to know the
hearts of the supplicants, and so to have the property as-
cribed to God alone in the scripture, I have fully shown in
a treatise on that subject.
9 Wer. 16. Who in times past suffered all nations to walk
in their own ways.] Not so as to allow of their manners,
or to leave them without any means sufficient to convince
them of the error of their ways, and their idolatrous wor-
ship ; for this he had done so effectually, as to “ leave them
without excuse,” in that “they did not worship him as God,
neither were thankful” for his benefits (Rom. i. 20, 21).
But he so far permitted this, as that he sent them no pro-
phet to instruct them better; and gave them no positive re-
velation of his will, no written instructions of that way in
which he would be worshipped, as he had done to the Jews.
* De Formulis, lib. ii. p. 249.
: Lib. xv. p. 674.
+ AEn. v. 366.
CHAPTER XV.
471
Pet. iii. 20), suffered all nations to walk in their own
ways (giving them no written law, and sending them no
prophets to instruct them in the true worship of him, as
he did to the Jews).
17 * Nevertheless he left not himself without wit-
mess (to them of his providence), in that he did good
(to us all), and gave (Gr. giving) us rain from heaven,
and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and
gladness.
18 And with these sayings scarce restrained they
the people, that they had not done (i. e. from doing)
sacrifice to them.
19 And (then) there came thither certain Jews from
Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people
(against the apostles), and (so they), having *stoned
Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had
been dead.
20 Howbeit, as the disciples stood round about
him, he rose up, and came into the city: and the next
day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe.
21 And when they had preached the gospel to that
city, and had taught many (Gr. had made many disci-
ples), they returned again to Lystra, and to Iconium,
and Antioch,
22 Confirming the souls of the disciples, and ex-
horting them to continue in the faith, and (telling
them) that we (Christians) must through much tribu-
lation enter into the kingdom of God.
23 And when they had “ordained them elders in
every church, and had prayed with fasting, (Gr. and
when praying with fasting, they had ordained, &c.) they
commended them to (the protection, of) the Lord
(Jesus), on whom they believed.
24 And after they had passed through Pisidia, they
came to Pamphylia.
25 And when they had preached the word in Perga,
they went down to Attalia:
26 And thence sailed to Antioch, from whence they
had been recommended to the grace of God (by prayer
for his assistance, Acts xiii. 3), for the work which
they (had now) fulfilled.
27 And when they were come, and had gathered the
church together, they rehearsed all that God had
done with (i.e. by) them, and how he had opened the
door of faith to the gentiles.
28 And there they abode (a) long time with the
disciples.
1° Wer. 17. Nevertheless he left not himself without a wit-
ness, in that he did them good, and gave them rain from hea-
ven.] From these words it appears (1.) that the giving of
rain in its season, and of fruitful seasons of the year, is
even to the heathens a testimony of the divine providence:
for, this rain coming from the clouds of heaven, and these
fruitful seasons depending so necessarily upon the sun,
moon, and other luminaries of heaven, and being so con-
stantly produced by them, must demonstrate that they
must derive them from, and owe them to, him who made
the heavens and the earth (ver. 15), and therefore that
they ought to worship and be thankful to him for them.
(2.) These being good things, and such as “filled their
hearts with food and gladness;” and being conferred freely
and constantly on them, who daily provoked him by their
idolatries and ingratitude, were also a clear testimony of his
goodness to them and therefore an assurance to them that
if they, knowing him by this means to be God, would turn
from their dumb idols, and worship him as God, they might
find grace and favour in his eyes, who was so good unto
them, even whilst they did continue to provoke him : now
the knowledge of the God that made heaven and earth, as
the only true God, who is to be worshipped, and whose pro-
vidence affords us all the blessings we enjoy, and the belief
that he is well inclined to show mercy to all that thus turn
to him, and are thus thankful to him, seems to be all that
God expected from the gentiles, as may be gathered from
Rom. i. 20, 21.
* Ver. 19. And stomed Paul.] God permitting this, saith
Woltzogenius, for the punishment of his sin, in being active
and assistant at the stoning of Stephen (Acts vii. 58. viii. 1).
* Ver. 23. Xeteorowharay're; 33 airdſ; trpsagurápov; war' #xxxn-
ariay, And ordaining them elders in every church..] That
XEsporoveſy ºrgar8vrégovº is not to choose elders by common
suffrage, or by lifting up the hands of the apostles, is fully
proved by Dr. Hammond and Mr. Selden ; but then, that
this constituting elders in these churches was making them
fixed bishops of those churches, is not proved.
To clear up this, let it be considered, that in those times
men received the gift of tongues and prophecy, or those spi-
ritual gifts which fitted them to minister in the church,
either immediately from heaven, as the apostles themselves
did, and so by God himself were fitted and appointed for
that work; so was it with the hundred and twenty who re-
ceived the Holy Ghost on the day of pentecost (see note on
Acts ii. 1), or when they prayed with Peter and John
(Acts iv. 31), and with St. Paul, who was baptized and
“filled with the Holy Ghost” (ix. 17); so was it with Cor-
nelius and his kinsmen (Acts x. 44), for “they spake with
tongues and magnified God,” even as the apostles did when
they had received the Holy Ghost ; for as they spake with
tongues asyaxeſa toû Osoſ, “the great things of God” (Acts
ii. 11), so did these men speak with tongues, asyaxoſyte: röy
Qey, “magnifying God,” and therefore St. Peter saith, they
had “received the Holy Ghost even as we’” (Acts X. 47. xi.
17); or else these gifts were given by imposition of the
apostles' hands; so when the Samaritans believed, and
were baptized, that they might have persons fitted to offi-
ciate in sacred things, the church of Jerusalem sends to
them Peter and John, who lay their hands on some of them,
and they “received the Holy Ghost” (Acts viii. 17). This
being done, the apostles returned to Jerusalem (ver. 25),
preaching the word to other villages of Samaria, but leaving
the conduct of the church to those gifted men; and these
seem to be the men who first officiated in all converted
churches; and wherever we meet with them, we find no
other persons constituted as bishops, or fixed overseers of
those churches, as in the churches of Corinth, Galatia, Thes-
salonica, and therefore have reason to conceive there were
no other elders constituted here, they being no more neces-
sary for the churches of Lystra and Iconium than for those
of Corinth and Galatia. Moreover, we have here only men-
tion of elders constituted in these churches, not of one dea-
con placed under them, which shows, these elders were not
bishops; since, by the rule of Epiphanius, a bishop cannot
be without a deacon. In a word, these prophetical men,
though they were officers placed in the church next to the
apostles (1 Cor. xii. 26), yet were they not fixed ministers;
but from what parts soever they come, and wherever they
are, they take upon them to officiate: so doth Barnabas at
Antioch (xi. 23, 24), and the other prophets there (xiii.
1, 2); and so doth Silas, sent from Jerusalem to Antioch,
continue there (Acts xv. 33), and from thence goes through
Syria and Cilicia, confirming the churches (ver. 41).
CHAPTER XV.
I AND certain men which came down from Judea
Moses (i.e. so as by that rite to submit to and observe
(to Antioch), taught the brethren (of the gentiles, say- his law), ye cannot be saved.
ing), 'Except ye be circumcised after the manner of
* ~ *-- - - - -- ~~~s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XV.
ver, i. ea as ºrianos, Except ye be circumcised
2. When therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small
after the manner (commanded in the law) of Moses, ye
cannot be saved.] Here note,
472
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
dissension and disputation with them (Gr. and a dis-
sension being made among the brethren, and no small
debate or reasoning of Paul and Barnabas against them
who taught this doctrine), * they (of Antioch) determi-
ned that Paul and Barnabas, and certain others of
them, should go up to Jerusalem *to the apostles and
elders (there), about this question.
3 And being brought on their way by the church,
they (Gr. of pév oëv ºrportupsávrsc, they therefore being
First, That these persons were of the sect of the pharisees
\ver. 5), and perhaps they were only the zealots of that sect,
for we find the Jews of different opinions in this matter,
even as to men's admission into their religion; for some of
them would not only permit them of other nations, who
owned the true God, to live quietly among them, but even
to embrace their religion without circumcision, whilst others
by no means would permit them so to do. Thus when
Izates,” the son of Helen, queen of Adiabene, embraced
the Jews' religion, Ananias declared he might do it without
circumcision, but Eleazar maintained, that it was ācā8sta,
“great impiety” to remain uncircumcised. And when two
eminent persons of Trachonitis fled to Josephus, the zea-
lots+ among the Jews were urgent for their circumcision,
“if they would abide with them;” but Josephus “persuaded
the multitude against it.” And this controversy continued
after they embraced Christianity, some allowing them to em-
brace Christianity without submitting to circumcision and
the Jewish law ; others contending, that without circum-
cision and the observance of the law, they “could not
be saved.” And these were the false apostles which trou-
bled the churches of Corinth, Galatia, and Philippi, and
were great enemies to St. Paul, who taught the con-
trary.
Secondly, Observe, that circumcision obliged those hea-
thens which submitted to it to observe the whole law (Gal.
v. 3); it is the same thing to say, “They must be circum-
cised after the manner of Moses” (ver. 1), and to say (ver.
5. 24), “They must be circumcised, and keep the law of
Moses.”
Thirdly, Observe, that they held this necessary to salva-
tion (ver. 1), and by that doctrine they “subverted the
souls” of the gentile converts (ver. 24), causing them to fall
from the grace of the gospel offered to them without circum-
cision (Gal. v. 4). Now this they did agreeably to their
common maxim, that omnes praeputiati descendunt in ge-
hennam, “all uncircumcised persons go to hell” (P. Eliezer,
Cap. 29, p. 66). &
Fourthly, Observe, that they who did this went out from
Judea (ver. 1), and were men going out as from the apostles
(ver. 24), and therefore St. John saith of them, “They went
out from us, but they were not of us” (1 John ii. 19).
* Ver. 2. They (of Antioch) determined that Paul and
Barnabas—should go up to Jerusalem, &c.] St. Paul de-
clares that he went then up to Jerusalem, xar' àmoxáxvskiy,
“according to revelation” (Gal. ii. 2); as therefore the pro-
phets and teachers at Antioch had before separated Paul
and Barnabas by revelation to preach to some of the gen-
tiles, and they having fulfilled that work returned to An-
tioch (xiv. 26); so is it probable, that by another revelation
made to the same persons, they were sent up to Jerusalem,
as being fittest to convince those of the contrary persuasion,
by declaring “what God had wrought by them among the
(uncircumcised) gentiles,” and his acceptance of them with-
out circumcision, or the observance of the law of Moses.
Hence St. Paul tells us, that by what he had declared to
them (ver. 4. 12), they saw, “the gospel of the uncircumci-
sion was committed to him, as the gospel of the circumcision
was to Peter;” because “he that wrought effectually by
Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, was mighty by
him towards the gentiles” (Gal. ii. 7, 8).
* To the apostles and elders.] Here Dr. Hammond tells
us they were sent to the apostles and bishops of Jerusalem,
and to the other bishops of Judea, and so, ver, 22, 23. 28,
he makes the other bishops of Judea to be a part of this
council, and for the proof of this he refers us to note b on
* Joseph. Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 2, p. 685, E
+ Wit. Joseph. p. 1007, B. 1010, C.
sent forth by the church) passed through Phoenice and
Samaria, declaring (to them) the conversion of the
gentiles ; and (by this) they caused great joy unto all
the brethren. **
4 And when they were come to Jerusalem, they
were received of the church, and of the apostles and
elders, and they declared (to them) all things which
God had done with them, (i.e. by them, ver. 12.)
5 But there arose up certain of the sect of the pha-
Acts A1., where he affirms that elders signify bishops, but
does not prove that the elders were bishops of Judea, unless
it be by saying, elders are bishops; and therefore there being
but one bishop at Jerusalem, and yet more elders, the rest,
excepting James, must be the bishops of Judea. But this
opinion I have sufficiently confuted, notes on James v. 14.
1 Pet. v. 1, and indeed it is mere novelty, not supported by
the authority of any one ancient writer: for though some of
them say, the names of bishop and presbyter, that is, elder,
were used promiscuously in the first age of Christianity, none
of them ever thought or said that the word presbyter or el-
der, in the New Testament, did always signify a bishop. My
opinion of these elders is, that they were of the one hundred
and eight who received the Holy Ghost at the beginning
with the apostles (see note * on Acts ii.); those “who had
been with Christ from the beginning,” out of which one was
to be chosen in the place of Judas (i. 21, 22), and of those
witnesses of his resurrection, which came up with him from
Galilee (xiii. 21). With these who had thus received the
Holy Ghost, Peter ranks himself, saying to the Jews, “The
elders that are among you I exhort, who also am an elder” (1
Pet. v. 1); and of these James seems to speak to the same
persons, when he saith, “Is any man sick, let him send for
the elders of the church” (v. 14): and perhaps these are the
hyotºzsvot, “who had the rule over them” (Heb. xiii. 7. 16);
for Judas and Silas, two of these elders, being prophets, are
styled āyāps; hyotºevo y roi; 38Exqoſº, “leading men, or go-
vernors, among the brethren.” That there were any other
bishops of Judea, I believe not, as finding nothing in anti-
quity concerning them, but as Christians multiplied, or grew
up in. Judea, though they all still were zealous for the law
and customs (Acts xxi. 20), and so still worshipped in the
synagogue; yet as they saw occasion they sent one or more
of these prophets or elders, to instruct and confirm them.
Thus when many Jews at Antioch, “believed and turned to
the Lord,” upon “tidings of these things, brought to the
church at Jerusalem,” they sent forth Barnabas, one full of
the Holy Ghost, that he should go as far as Antioch” (xi.
21–23). Such also were the governors and ministers of
church affairs in other places; they who received the Holy
Ghost at Samaria were to officiate there, and be a nursery
for other churches of Samaria, which should embrace the
gospel ; such were the prophets and teachers of Antioch
(xiii. 1), such the elders in every church (xiv. 23), such the
ºrporaráſzévot, those that “laboured among” the Thessalonians,
and “were over them in the Lord” (1 Thess. v. 12), the pro-
phets in the church of Corinth (1 Cor. xiii. 14), the spiri-
tual men in the church of the Galatians (vi.1, see the note
there), the men who had the gifts of prophecy and teaching
among the Romans (xii. 6, 7), and the twelve men on whom
the Holy Ghost fell at Ephesus, and made them overseers of
the churches there and in the neighbouring places: for at the
first conversion of any church, there being none among them
fitted to teach the Christian faith by their own skill and
learning, it seemeth necessary they should be fitted and or-
dained for this work by the immediate afflatus and the mi-
raculous endowments of the Holy Ghost : and when the
apostles, who only had the power of giving the Holy
Ghost, were about to leave the world, they placed fixed bi-
shops and pastors in the churches. Thus St. Paul sends about
Timothy and Titus for this work, giving them instructions
concerning the persons to be ordained.
Moreover, that these were all elders of Jerusalem, and not
of all Judea, we may learn because Barnabas and Saul were
appointed to go up only to Jerusalem, to the bishops and el-
ders there, about this question (ver. 2), and when they were
come to Jerusalem, they were received by the apostles and
elders (ver. 4), and (ver. 6) the apostles and elders came
together to consider of this matter. Now this meeting being
CHAPTER xv.
473
risees which believed, saying, That it was needful to
circumcise them (who believed among the gentiles), and
to command them to keep the law of Moses.
6 And (then) the apostles and elders came together
to consider of this matter.
7 And when there had been much disputing, Peter
rose up, and said to them, Men and brethren, ye
know how that “a good while ago (Gr. of days of
old), God made choice among us (Gr. 6 esāg #v Úptiv
{{s}\éčaro, God chose me out among you), that the gen-
tiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gos-
pel, and believe ; (commanding Cornelius to send for
me, Acts x. 5, and me to go to him with the messengers
sent for me, not making any difference betwiat him
and others, ver. 20.)
8 And God, who knoweth the hearts (of all men),
bare them witness (of his acceptance of them, though
wncircumcised, by) giving them the Holy Ghost, even
as he did to us (believing Jews).
9 And (he) "put no difference betwixt us and them
(on the account of their uncircumcision, but supplied
that by) purifying their hearts by faith (and so making
them a pure people, as circumcision formerly did us).
10 Now therefore why tempt ye God (i. e. why dis-
trust ye the truth of what he hath thus declared, by at-
tempting) "to put a yoke (of obedience to the law of
Moses) upon the necks of the disciples, which neither
our fathers nor we were able to bear (i. e. to perform
so as to be justified by it) P
not at any festival, and there being no mention of any per-
sons sent for to come thither from any other places, we have
reason to believe they were only the elders at Jerusalem, or
residing there.
* Ver. 7. Ye know that, 34’ ºwegåy &#xaoiv, a good while
ago God made choice of me.] Not only when he actually sent
him to Cornelius, but when he promised that by him he
would lay the foundation of his church, which was to be
erected among Jews and gentiles (see the note on Matt. xvi.
18, 19). And this is said to have been done & p’ hºwsgåy 36-
Xaiov, “from days of old,” as Mnason is styled, 3pxaio;
£waôntic, “an old disciple,” Acts xxi. 16, and the first minis-
ters of the gospel were styled oi &r’ &px?ic, “they that were
from the beginning,” and the doctrine preached to the Jews
by the apostles is styled #wroxi, Traxaia, “an old command-
mandment, which they had received from the beginning,”
Luke i. 2. 1 John. ii. 7.
* Ver. 9. And he put no difference, où8āv Štěx£ive, he made no
discrimination betwixt us and them.] The argument here is
plainly to this effect, That God by pouring his Holy Spirit
on the uncircumcised gentiles, as he had done upon the cir-
cumcised Jews, had plainly demonstrated that he had re-
ceived them to his favour, and made no discrimination, as to
his choicest gifts, betwixt them and the Jews; and that legal
purification, which seemed wanting to them on the account
of their noncircumcision, he had fully and abundantly sup-
plied in “purifying their hearts by faith;" and therefore,
saith he, your endeavour to impose upon them these legal ch-
servances, to render them acceptable to God, after so signal
an evidence that he accepteth them without them, must be a
“tempting God,” as that phrase constantly imports a dis-
trusting or disbelieving him after sufficient evidence vouch-
safed of his good-will and pleasure (see note on Matt. iv. 7).
* Wer. 10. To put a yoke upon the disciples' necks, which
neither we nor our forefathers were able to bear.] Though
these words are, by most interpreters, applied to the numer-
ous ritual precepts, the costly sacrifices, and to the frequent
tedious journeys up to Jerusalem, required by the law, which
made the observance of it difficult and irksome, I rather
would refer it to that defect that the apostle hath observed
in it, that it could not “purge the conscience” from the guilt
of sin, Heb. ix. 9. x. 1, that it could not give life, Gal. iii.
21, that it was a killing letter, leaving them under condem-
nation, 2 Cor. iii. 7. vi. 9, and so making it necessary for
them to believe in Christ, that they might be justified, Gal.
ii. 16, and redeemed from the curse of the law, Gal. iii. 13:
according to those words of St. Paul, Acts xiii. 38, 39, “Be
ll But we believe that through the grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ (or through God’s favour to us in
º we shall be saved "even as they (are to be saved
gy it).
12 Then all the multitude kept silence, and gave
audience to Barnabas and Saul, declaring (in confirm-
ation of this point) what miracles and wonders God
* wrought among the (uncircumcised) gentiles by
them.
13 And after they had held their peace, James an-
swered (to the question), saying, Men and brethren,
hearken to me:
14 Simeon hath declared how God at the first did
(by him) visit the gentiles, to take of them a people for
(the glory of his name.
15 And to this agree the words of the prophet
(Amos), as it is written, (ix. 11.)
16 After this I will return, and build again "the ta-
bernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will
build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up, (by
raising up Christ to sit upon his throne, Acts ii. 30,
and giving him the throne of his father David, Luke
i. 32.)
17 °That the residue of men might seek after the
Lord, and all the gentiles, upon whom my name is
called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things.
18 (This he foretold by his prescience ; for) known
unto God are all his works from the beginning of the
world.
it known to you, that through this man is preached to you
forgiveness of sins, and by him all that believe are justified
from-all things, from which they could not be justified
by the law of Moses.” for to this sense the following words
incline, “We could not bear this yoke; for we believe that
by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved.”
7 Ver, 11. Even as they..] This is not to be referred to the
words, “our forefathers,” as if the former Jews expected to
be saved by the grace of Christ; for whatsoever truth may
be in it with respect to the ancient Jews, it is certain that the
latter Jews expected justification, not by faith, but “by the
works of the law,” Rom. ix. 32; and believed nothing of the
Messiah, who should die to procure for them remission of
sins: the controversy here was concerning the necessity of
circumcision, and observation of the law of Moses to salva-
tion (ver. 1): this, saith St. Peter, cannot be so, because
God hath “purified their hearts by faith,” and so prepared
them by it for mercy and salvation; and as they are to be
saved by the grace of Christ, so we expect salvation by the
same grace; and this sense is confirmed from a like passage
in St. Paul, declaring that “it is the same God who justifies
both Jew and gentile through the same faith,” Rom. iii. 30.
And again, Gal. ii. 15, 16, “We Jews knowing that a man
is justified, not by the works of the law, but by the faith of
Christ, we have believed in him that we might be justified.”
Nor is it any argument to the contrary, that “our fathers”
are the nearest antecedent to the word Éasivo, “they,” for
the words “our fathers” are only mentioned accidentally.
Now it is very common in such cases for the relative to refer
to a remoter antecedent, which is the subject professedly
discoursed of: so Acts vii. 19, “He dealt subtly with our
fathers,” not Joseph immediately preceding, but the “king
that knew not Joseph :” x. 6, “He shall tell thee what thou
oughtest to do,” viz. not Simon the tanner, but Simon Peter
(see the note on 1 John v. 20).
8 Ver. 16. The tabernacle of David which is fallen down,
hanepleth.] Hence the Jews called the Messiah, Bar Naphli,
because it is written,” “I will build again the tabernacle of
David which is fallen down,” Amos ix. 10, 11. The most
ancient way of dwelling being in tents and tabernacles, a
man's house or habitation is usually, in the Hebrew language,
called mischemeah, “his tabernacle,” as you may see in the
book of Job, and in the prophets; so here the “tabernacle
of David” is the house and family of David,”
9 Ver. 17. That the residue of men might seek after the
* Sanhedr, fol. 69, 2.
474
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
19 "Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not
them, who from among the gentiles are turned to God
(with the observation of our law and ceremonies):
20. But (count it sufficient) that we write to them,
that they "abstain from pollutions of idols, and from
fornication, and from things strangled, and from
blood.
21 (Nor will this liberty be prejudicial to the Jews
adhering to the law of Moses :) for *Moses of (from)
old time hath in every city them that preach him,
being read in the synagogues every sabbath-day.
Lord..] Amosis. 12. In the Hebrew it is, “That they may pos-
sess the remnant of Edom,” who being the greatest enemies
to Israel, the calling of them must denote the calling of the
worst of the nations; the Greek version also, which St. Luke
follows, proves the thing more clearly, as making mention of
“all nations seeking after the Lord.”
* Ver, 19. Wherefore my sentence is, &c.] There be many
things contained in this chapter, which show the Christians
then had no apprehensions that St. Peter was by Christ ap-
pointed as the monarch of the church, or chief judge of
controversies: for,
First, St. Paul and Barnabas were sent for the decision of
this controversy, not to St. Peter in particular, but to the
apostles and elders of the church in general.
Secondly, The decretory sentence was given by St. James,
and not by Peter: neiva iyê, saith St. James, “I judge;”
that is, saith Chrysostom, Azer’ if ovaria, Afyo, rotºro, “I with
authority say this;” and this determination of the question
was made by James, saith Chrysostom, #zeſvo, yāg #y rºy
ãºxy #yxixeigiggåvoc, “because he had the government” (viz.
of the church of Jerusalem) “committed to him.”
Thirdly, The letters which are directed to the gentile
churches, run after this manner, “The apostles, elders, and
brethren, to the brethren which are of the gentiles in An-
tioch, Syria, and Cilicia, send greeting,” without any parti-
cular mention of St. Peter, the supposed judge of this and
other controversies, and the supposed governor of these and of
all other churches. Now all these things are an indication,
that the Christians of those times knew nothing of this
Supremacy of Peter, or of Christ's appointment of him to
be his vicar, and the judge of controversies, to whom appeals
were to be made in doubtful cases. For do any churches,
which are now subject to the pope of Rome, and do acknow-
ledge him to be Christ's vicar, send to the cardinals for the
decision of their controversies, and make no mention of his
holiness? Is it their custom, when such disputes as this
was do arise, to have recourse to them in general, and not
particularly to the pope 2 Doth any cardinal take upon him
to pass the decretory sentence in any question of this na-
ture ? Or, do their letters when they decide such questions
run after this manner, “We, the cardinals and bishops of
the church of Rome, send greeting 2" Since therefore they
who now acknowledge this vicar, neither do, nor by their
principles can do, as the Christians mentioned in the Acts
did, it must be certain that those Christians did not own that
vicar which is now set up by the church of Rome.
* Ver. 20. 'Atri răy &Airynſzárov rāv eiðxwy, From the
pollutions of idols, from fornication, from things strangled,
and from blood.] Dr. Spencer here rejects all the interpre-
tations given by others of these words, and then concludes,
that all these things were forbidden, as being causes, signs,
and attendants, on the idolatry of the heathens; things of.
fered to idols, whether meat or drink, being after eaten in
the idol's temple to his honour; and so, saith he, were blood
and things strangled ways of confederacy with demons, and
of offering the blood, that is the very soul, to them, as
by fornication they did the body. But (1.) these four are
plainly reckoned as things distinguished in themselves, and
from one another, and so are separated by a xai, or and, in-
terposed betwixt each of them; whereas, according to this
exposition, they are all sièoxáðvra, “things offered to idols,”
and much more are they all &Alayhºara, “pollutions of
idols.” Moreover, the things forbidden here, saith he, com-
prehend not only rites of fornication, but also of adultery
and masculine impurity, and all the abominable filthiness
committed by the heathens in their festivals of Venus, Bac-
22 Then pleased it the apostles and elders, with the
whole church, to send chosen men of their own com-
pany to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas; namely,
Judas surnamed Barsabas, and Silas, chief men among
the brethren:
23 And (they) wrote letters by them, after this
manner : The apostles, and elders, and brethren, send
greeting to the brethren which are of the gentiles in
Antioch, and Syria, and Cilicia :
24 Forasmuch as we have heard that certain (men)
which went out from us (1 John ii. 19) have troubled
chus, &c., and were all ways of entering into confederacy
with devils. Now what kind of Christians could they be at
Antioch, and other places, who were in danger of these
things, of consecrating things by heathemish ceremonies to an
idol, and afterward eating them in honour of him 2 Of of.
fering blood, and things strangled, or their bodies to fornica-
tion and adultery, by way of confederacy with devils, after
they had so solemnly turned from the service of them to the
worship of the living God, and so had expressly renounced
all these things in their very baptism 2
Others think that the true reason why these things were
particularly forbidden, was to avoid the scandal of the Jews,
among whom they conversed, and with whom many of them
still joined in the worship of the synagogue. This is ex-
plained several ways; viz. (1.) that all these things being
formerly forbidden to the gentiles, who conversed among
them, and were made proselytes of the gate, though they
were neither circumcised, nor obedient to the law, they
thought it necessary, though they remitted to the Christian
converts among the gentiles circumcision and the observation
of the law of Moses, they should be still obliged to those
things, which had been formerly required of all that dwelt
among or conversed with them, especially such things as
seemed not to the gentiles forbidden by the law of nature,
viz. the eating of things offered to idols, of blood, and of
things strangled, and simple fornication, which was generally
thought lawful by the gentiles (see the notes on Eph. v. 6,
1 Thess. iv. 5); and of which even Maimonides saith, that
“before the law, common whores were not forbidden "
(Treat. of Wives, cap. 1, §. 4). I confess it may be doubted,
whether those which they call “the seven precepts of Noah,”
were precepts given to the gentiles before the law of Moses,
though doubtless that of not eating blood was given to them,
Gen. ix.4, but then it is sufficient to countenance this inter-
pretation, that the proselytes of the gate were, as Buxtorf.”
testifies, forbidden these four things.
Others conceive that these things were particularly forbidden
the gentiles, as scandalous to the Jews, because Moses had
so signally marked them out as things contrary to the holi-
ness of a people, or to their separation from other nations to
himself: so, of things strangled, or dead in their blood, God
Saith, Deut. xiv. 21, “Thou shalt not eat of any carcase,”
i.e. of anything that dieth alone, or is not orderly slain,
“for thou art a holy people to the Lord:” fornication is
declared to be a thing not to be admitted in that common-
wealth, for it is expressly said, Deut. xxiii. 17, “There shall
be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor any whore-
monger of the sons of Israel;” the eating things offered to
idols is forbidden as a thing contrary to the worship of the
true God; the precept which commands abstaining from
blood is not only called “a statute for ever,” Lev. iii. 17,
but God threateneth to set his face against, and to cut him
off who did eat it, Lev. vii. 26. xvii. 10. These therefore
being things so solemnly forbidden the whole nation of the
Jews, either because they were a people “holy to the Lord,”
or as things not to be admitted in their commonwealth, or
as things to be punished with cutting off, or as symptoms of
idolatry, might for the present be forbidden the gentile con-
verts, that they might not do things so abominable in their
eyes (see Examen Millii in locum).
* Ver. 21. Morā; y&g $2 yevsåy 3pxaiwy, &c.] I cannot
consent to the interpretation of these words given by Gro-
tius and the reverend Dr. Hammond, viz. That the Christians
could not be supposed to contemn the law of Moses, because
* In voce ger.
CHAPTER XV.
475
you with words, subverting your souls (by) saying,
(Ye ought to) be circumcised, and keep the law; to
whom we gave no such commandment:
25 It seemed good to us, being assembled with one
accord, to send chosen men to you with our beloved
Barnabas and Paul,
26 (Who are) men that have hazarded their lives
for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
27 We have sent therefore Judas and Silas, who
shall also tell you the same things by (word of)
mouth.
28 °For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost (fall-
ing upon the uncircumcised gentiles), and to us, to lay
upon you no greater burden than these necessary
things: (i. e. these things necessary at present, to avoid
the scandal of the Jews : viz.)
29 That ye abstain from meats offered to idols (in
the idol temples), and from blood, and from things
strangled, and from fornication : from which if you
keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well.
30 So when they were dismissed, they came to An-
tioch : and when they had gathered the multitude to-
gether, they delivered the epistle:
31 And when they had read (it), they rejoiced for
the consolation (it afforded them).
32 And Judas and Silas, being “prophets also
themselves, exhorted the brethren with many words,
and confirmed them,
33 And after they had tarried there a space, they
were let go in peace from the brethren to the apos-
tles.
34 Notwithstanding it pleased Silas to abide there
still.
35 Paul also and Barnabas continued in Antioch,
teaching and preaching the word of the Lord, with
many others also (that were prophets and teachers there.
xiii. 1). -
36 And some days after Paul said to Barnabas, Let
us go again (see Acts xiii. 3, 4) and visit our brethren
in every city where we have preached the word of the
Lord, and see how they do.
37 And Barnabas determined (or counselled) to take
with them John, whose surname was Mark.
38 But Paul thought not good to take him with
them, who (when they went out before) departed from
them from Pamphylia (to go to Jerusalem, xiii. 13),
and * not (on) with them to the work (he had begun,
xiii. 5).
39 And the contention was so sharp between them,
that they departed asunder one from the other: and
so Barnabas took Mark, and sailed unto Cyprus;
40 And Paul chose Silas, and departed (with him),
being recommended by the brethren to the grace (and
favour) of God.
41 And he went through Syria and Cilicia, confirm-
ing the churches.
that law was read in the Christian synagogues every sabbath
day, as of old was done by the Jews; for, (I.) St. James
doth not say that Moses was read #y raſ; a vyayoyaſ, airãy,
“in their synagogues,” but absolutely #y raï, a vyayayaſ, “in
the synagogues,” by which word, not the assembly of Chris-
tians, but the Jews, is always signified. (2.) He doth not
say, as Dr. Hammond paraphrases the words, that “Moses
was read in their synagogues &; #x yews&v 3pxaíov, as from
former ages,” but that Moses Éx yeyeon 36%aiwy, “from former
ages, had those that preached him in every city,” being read
from old times in the synagogues; which cannot agree to
the assemblies of Christians which began but a few years
before. And (3.) the Christians did more certainly and
frequently read Moses and the prophets on the first day of
the week, as Justin Martyr testifies, than on the sabbath
day, and therefore their reading of him could not fitly be
restrained to that day. I therefore think with Chrysostom,
that St. James here gives the reason why they should write
only to the gentile converts, viz. because there was no reason
to write to the Jewish converts, they still adhering to the
synagogue, where Moses was read every sabbath, and so
this liberty, here granted to the gentiles only, could be no
occasion to turn them from the observation of the law of
Moses.
* Ver. 28. For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to
ws, &c.] Wain is the pretence from these words, that other
councils may use this preface to their decisions, viz. “It
seemeth good to us, and to the Holy Ghost.” For the reason
why the council here assembled use these words, is not be-,
cause they challenged to themselves any infallible assistance
of the Holy Ghost in their conventions, rather than in their
dispersions; but only upon this account, because the Holy
Ghost had by a miracle declared the truth of what they had
then decreed, that is, by falling down upon Cornelius and
his friends and kinsfolk, who were Romans, and only prose-
lytes of the gate at most, and so not circumcised (but obliged
only to observe the precepts given to Noah, to abstain from
things strangled, blood, idolatry, whoredom, &c.), I say, by
falling down upon these gentiles, as he did upon our Lord's
disciples, he evidently declared, that without their submis-
sion to any farther Jewish rites, the gentiles might be ac-
ceptable to him, and might enjoy the promise of the Father;
and therefore that it was not needful, in order to their ac-
ceptance with God, to require their submission to the Judaic
rites. This is the inference St. Peter Irlakes from this
miracle, when he first saw it, saying, Acts x. 47, “Can any
man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, who
have received the Holy Ghost even as we ?” This was the
answer he gives to them by whom it was objected, that he
held communion with the gentiles, viz. Acts xi. 17, “Foras-
much as God gave them the like gift as he did to us, who
believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, what was I, that I could
withstand God P” This was the answer by which the stick-
lers for the Jewish rites were then silenced ; and when the
question was renewed by them, and it was vehemently con-
tended that the gentiles must be “circumcised after the
manner of Moses,” St. Peter proves the contrary, by re-
minding them of the same instance, declaring, ver, 8–11,
that God, who knew the hearts, bare them witness, that
without circumcision they were acceptable to him, giving
them the Holy Ghost, even as he did to the apostles; and
therefore, by imposing this yoke upon them, they would
“tempt the Lord,” by a distrust of that which, by this
miracle, he had perspicuously taught. This being then the
very reason why they here say, “It seemed good unto the
Holy Ghost,” it is apparent, that no council can have hence
any warrant to use the same phrase or preface to their de-
crees, who have not the like confirmation of their doctrine,
by a miraculous operation of the Holy Ghost, designed pur-
posely to confirm their sentence.
14 Wer. 32. And Judas and Silas, being prophets also
themselves.] That is, saith Dr. Hammond, being two bishops
of Judea; but if so, why pleased it Silas to abide there still,
rather than to go back unto his charge P (ver. 34.) Yea,
why, after so long a stay at Antioch, doth he go along with
Paul in his travels through Syria and Cilicia, “confirming
the churches?” (ver. 41). Why do we find him still with
Paul, ch. xvi. xvii. and xviii. preaching at Thessalonica,
Corinth, and other places, but not at all returning to his see?
4.76
CHAPTER XVI.
1 THEN came he to Derbe and Lystra; and, be-
hold, a certain disciple was there, named Timotheus,
* the son of a certain woman which was a Jewess,
and believed ; but his father was a (-n uncircumcised)
Greek: ,
2 Which (disciple) was well reported of by the
brethren which were at Lystra and Iconium.
3 Him (therefore) would Paul have to go forth with
him (to the ministry), and (laying his hands upon him,
that he might receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, 2.
Tim. i. 6. he) took (him) and circumcised him, because
of the Jews which were in those quarters (who would
not endure to converse with one uncircumcised as they
might suspect Timothy was), for they all knew that his
father was a Greek.
4 And as they went through the cities,” they de-
livered them the decrees to keep, that were ordained
of the apostles and elders which were at Jerusalem.
5 And so (by their progress, 3 John 7), were the
churches established in the faith, and increased in
number daily.
6 Now when they had gone throughout Phrygia,
and the region of Galatia, and * were forbidden (by
the afflatus) of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in
Asia, (at that time :
7 And) after they were come to Mysia, they assayed
to go to (-wards) Bithynia: but the (same afflatus of
the) Spirit suffered them not.
8 And they passing by (or through) Mysia came
down to Troas.
9 And a vision appeared to Paul in the night;
(For) there stood (as seemed to him) a man of Mace-
donia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Mace-
donia, and help us.
10 And after he had seen the vision (I Luke being
with him), immediately we endeavoured to go into Ma-
cedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called
us to preach the gospel to them. * .
11 * Therefore loosing from Troas, we came with a
straight course to Samothracia, and the next day to
Neapolis;
l2 And from thence to Philippi, "which is the
chief (Trpárm, the first) city of that part of Macedonia,
(see the note on Phil. i. 1), and a colony; and we were
in that city abiding certain days.
13 And on the sabbath (day) we went out of the
city by a river side *were prayer was wont to be made
(Gr. where there was, by law or custom, an oratory);
and we sat down, and spake to the women which re-
sorted thither.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVI.
* Ver. 1. Yiğ; yuvaixác rivo: 'Iověaizº tria rāg, rare?: 33
"EXAnyoc, The son of a certain woman that was a Jewess, but
his father was a Greek.] The law, Saith Grotius, forbade the
Jewish males to marry with a woman not subject to the
law, but forbade not a Jewess to marry with a gentile, as
Esther did with Ahasuerus ; and this, saith he, may pro-
bably be concluded from the inquisition made by Ezra, of
this crime, and the remedy prescribed for it, seeing he only
inquires into those males who had taken strange wives,
chapter the ninth and the tenth, but makes no mention of
the women joined to strange husbands, or of their separa-
tion from them : yet it is certain from Josephus, that they
esteemed this contrary to their law in his time ; for he saith
that Drusilla married with Felix, an uncircumcised person,
in contempt of their law ; and that this is contrary to their
interpretation of the law, see Ainsw. in Deut. vii. 3.
Note also, That the reason why Timothy was not cir-
cumcised, seems not to have been this, that he was under
the power of his father and not of his mother; for then
Paul should not have circumcised him without his father's
leave ; but because his father being a Greek, he was not
to be circumcised but by his own choice. Now St. Paul
being to preach to the Jews in all places where he came,
as his custom was, could not have used Timothy in that
ministry had he not circumcised him ; he therefore was
only circumcised, as St. Paul became a “Jew to the Jews”
for the gospel's sake, that he might be instrumental to gain
the Jews.
1 add my conjecture, that it was at or about this time
‘hat the gift given him by laying on of the apostle's hands
(2 Tim. i. 6) might be conferred upon him ; for seeing
Barnabas was full of the Holy Ghost (xi. 24), John Mark
was cºvye;y&c, a coworker with Paul and Barnabas “for the
kingdom of God” (Col. iv. 10), Silas was a prophet (Acts
x v. 32), Luke an evangelist, it seems reasonable to conceive
that Timothy, being taken with him for the same end, should
be endued with the like gifts. Moreover, in the very next
chapter, they came to Thessalonica, where Silas and Timo-
theus were so instrumental to convert them to the faith,
that he indites his epistle to them thus, “Paul, and Sylva-
nus, and Timotheus, to the church of the Thessalonians ;”
and speaks of him as his “brother,” the “minister of God,”
and a “coworker” in the gospel of Christ, 1 Thess. iii. 2,
yea, as an “apostle of Christ,” and one who was by God
the apostles and elders.
“put in trust with the gospel,” ii. 4. 6. He therefore must
then have that imposition of hands, and those extraor-
dinary gifts of the Spirit, which fitted him for the ministry :
and yet this being the first time that St. Paul met with
him, he could not have them by imposition of his hands.
before.
* Ver. 4. And they delivered to them to keep, rà 33%ara.
r& askgºya tºr: Tây &mogréxov Rai rāv Trºszévrépov, the de-
crees ordained by the apostles and elders thut were at Jeru-
salem.] Here observe, that though it, be said, xv. 22, that it
seemed good to the apostles and elders, with the whole
church, to send men to Antioch ; and though the proem of
the decree runs thus, “The apostles, and the elders, and the
brethren,” write to the church of Antioch, &c., ver. 22, 23,
yet the decrees were made, not by the brethren, but only by
Thus, in like manner, the epistle
of Clemens begins thus, “The church of Rome to the church
of the Corinthians.” -
* Wer. 6. They were forbidden by the Holy Ghost to.
preach the word ' ' Asia.] viz. To preach it there at that
time, not because that province belonged to St. John ; for
St. Paul preached there himself three years (xx. 31), and
seven years after he leaves Timothy to correct the dis-
orders that were then among them : in all which time we
hear not one word of St. John's being there : nor, (2.) be-
cause those of Asia Minor were not disposed to receive
the gospel ; for the next year they do receive it ; but be-
cause the Lord would hasten them to a new work which
they had not yet begun, viz. to preach to a Roman colony
(ver. 12. 21).
* Ver. 11. Loosing from Troas we came.] Here CEcu-
menius notes, that this being the first time that St. Luke
speaks in the plural number, his travels with St. Paul must
begin from this time.
* Ver. 12. "Hºric art ºrgdºrn rā; ºtgèo; rà, Maxshovia; ºré-
Atç, x0xdºvia, Which is the first city of that part of Macedo-
nia, which is a colony.] Not the chief city or metropolis
of Macedonia, for that was Thessalonica ; but the first city,
which was a colony, which they who passed through the
gulf of Strymon into Asia came unto (see the note on
Phil. i. 1).
* Ver. 13. Ot, ivowićero reoasuzº lval, Where prayer was
wont to be made.] Or rather, Where a house of prayer, for
the Jews and proselytes, was allowed to be by the law, or
was accustomed to be ; for voºs-rai signifies sometimes
sióiata, it is accustomed, or usual; so vopaksasai yuyaſza; Trox-
CHAPTER XVI.
477
14 And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of
purple, (formerly) of the city of Thyatira, which wor-
shipped (the true) God, heard us: "whose heart the
Lord (so far) opened, that she attended to things
which were spoken of (i.e. by ). Paul.
15 And when she, (and those of her household, were
instructed in the Christian faith, and in the nature of
the baptism required by it, she) was baptized, and her
household; (then) she besought us, saying, If ye have
judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my
ouse, and abide there. And * she constrained (i. e.
was instant with) us (so to do).
16 And it came to pass, as we went to (the house of)
prayer, (that) a certain damsel, possessed with "a spi-
rit of divination, met us, which brought her mas-
ters much gain by soothsaying (i. e. by telling of
strange things). -
Xa, Exsw, in Herodotus, is “to have customarily more wives;”
yukºvov; storišval woºićEtat, in Aristophanes, Nub. i. 6, “It
is customary to come in naked ;” sometimes it signifies,
Saith Phavorinus, veyop, tºp, #voy iati, “it is by law established,”
as when Aristophanes saith, Nub. iv. 3, xai Azhy vevåøta rai
ys, “For so it is by law established ;” and iii. 3, § a wººoo-ºwn
vsvápºtorrat, “ Modesty is by law established :” many instances
of both these senses may be found in Stephanus. That
"reoasuzº signifies an oratory, or a house of prayer, hath
been noted on Luke vi. 12, and proved from the testimonies
of Philo and Josephus. The synagogues, or oratories, say
the Jewish writers, were often nºvn in the fields, and some-
times near rivers, as here, because of greater purity, saith
Philo ; and because perhaps the laws would not permit them
to exercise a strange religion within the city (see Vitringa
de Synag. Wet. lib. i. par. i. cap. 11). Accordingly Epipha-
nius saith,” that this very place proves that the Jews had
oratories out of the cities, and that the Samaritans also
had the like two miles from Sychem.
7 Ver. 14. "Hº & Kūgio; 3%voiás rºy Kagètay, trpoo #xsw, Whose
heart the Lord opened to attend to the things spoken by
Paul.] To “open the ear,” or “the heart,” is a phrase used
to signify the rendering any person willing or inclined to any-
thing. So Ps. xi. 7, “ Mine ears hast thou opened,” i. e.
“Thou hast inclined me to hearken to thy commandments,”
Chald. ; for so it follows, “Then said I, Lo, I come to do thy
will :” so l Chron. xvii. 15, #voića, to oſc, “Thou hast opened
the ear of thy servant to build thee a house.” This God is
sometimes said to do by awakening men by his afflicting
hand: so Job xxxvi. 8. 10, “If they be bound in fetters,
and holden with cords of affliction, he openeth their ears
to discipline,” ver. 10, and ver, 15, “He openeth their ears
in oppression:” and sometimes he doth it by the preaching
of the word; for as they who are said to be taught by the
word (see note on John vi. 45), or the example of God (see
note on 1 Thess. iv. 9), are said to be “taught of God ;”
so they who have their hearts affected with it, and opened
by it, may be said properly enough to have their hearts
opened by him. And here it deserveth to be noted, (1.)
that the Lord is said to open the heart of Lydia, not to
believe, but ºrporéxey, “to attend to the things spoken by
Paul,” viz. to weigh and seriously to consider of the great-
ness of the blessings promised to believers, remission of sins
and etermal life and that attention of hers produced this
faith in her. So the Lord represents himself as knocking at
the door of men's hearts (Rev. iii. 20), i.e. by the preachers
of his word, attended with the incitations of his Holy Spirit,
but entering only when men open their hearts to receive him.
And, lastly, Woltzogenius well notes, that if, in a place
where no example of faith had been given, no name of
Christ had been preached, some extraordinary assistance
was vouchsafed towards the conversion of this woman, this
single instance, in a case so extraordinary, must not be
looked upon as a thing absolutely necessary in all cases.
In a word, either she only was āśia “worthy,” i. e. prepared,
disposed, and fitted to receive this influx ; or if it were ab-
solutely necessary that she might believe, and yet she alone,
though no more fitted and disposed for it than the rest, re-
* Haer. lxxx. p. 1067, 1068.
17 The same (damsel) followed Paul and us, and
cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most
high God, who show to us the way of salvation.
18 And this did she many days. But Paul, being
grieved, turned, and said to the spirit, I command
thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.
And he came out the same hour.
19 And when her masters saw that the hope of
their gain was gone, they caught Paul and Silas, and
drew them into the market-place to the rulers.
20 And brought them to the magistrates (i. e. the
captains of the bands of Roman soldiers), saying,
These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our
Clty,
% And teach customs, "which are not lawful for
us to receive, neither to observe, being (a colony of
the) Romans. 4.
ceived it, the other auditors, for want of this extraordinary
influence, must lie under a necessity of not believing, and so
it could not be blameworthy in them that they did not
believe (see note on Matt. x. 11).
* Ver. 15. IIapeguáraro #4&c, She constrained us...] i. e.
By her urgent desires and pressing entreaties: so Gen xix.
3, “Lot wars614&ero añroic, constrained” the angels to come to
his house ; and Jacob #8táčero “constrained” Esau to re-
ceive his gift. So when Saul would not eat, Karsétá{cvto
aúrðy, “his servants and the woman constrained him” (l
Sam. xxviii.25): so it is said of Christ, that the two dis-
ciples trage6,4&ovro airby, “constrained him to go in with
them,” Luke xxiv. 29.
* Ver. 16. IIveſº, a tráðavo;, A spirit of divination] For
Hesychius, Suidas, and Phavorinus agree in this, that
Python is 3alpºvoy wavºriköy, “a spirit that divined, or fore-
told things to come.” In the temple of Apollo, who was
called Pytho, the organ of this oracle was always a woman,
who, sitting on her brazen tripos, received her enthusiasm fi
secretis ; their god, as Origen saith,” being delighted in
nothing more h toſ; kóatrol; rāy yvyaixòy, than in those parts;
and the woman being thus + filled with the spirit, and re-
taining in memory the phantasms raised by the agitation of
the demon, did to ea of cavoy ºrgoa yogaśsa Sot, “foretell what
would be” to those that inquired of her, as did the Python-
ess here ; she also delivered her answers f “with a low
voice as out of her belly,” and was hence styled ventriloqua,
and #yyaargip, avºriç ; and because others who pretended to
prophesy did also so, that if their answers were not true
it might be imputed to men's not hearing well what they
had uttered ; hence these diviners are by the Septuagint not
only styled #yyaarpiºw801, “speakers out of the belly” (Lev.
xix. 31. xx. 6. Deut. xviii. 11. 1 Sam. xxviii. 3. 7–9. 1
Chron. x. 13. 2 Chron. xxxiii. 6. Isa. viii. 19), but also said
to “speak out of the ground” (Isa. xix. 3).
* Ver. 21. Which it is not lawful for us to receive, being
Romans.] For though there was as yet no express law of
the senate or the emperor against the Christians, yet was
there an old law of the Romans, forbidding them, aut novos
deos aut alienigenas colere, $ “either to worship new gods,
or the gods of other nations ;” and requiring them to wor-
ship the gods kata rā ºrárgia, “ of their own country,”
from which Christianity dissuaded them, not suffering any
* Cont. Celsum, lib. vii. p. 335.
+ IIöSovac, rà, tº avºwari Tüşovo; #yścija'idio-ac, payraciay
payhoreo; wagexévra; aft roi; Satºwoliou wagºoºº. Suidas.
f II500 y á áyyaarpiuvšoc, *, *yyac reig, avºriç, Hesych. Pha-
vor. Einäs; 9&p Éatt—oiszóat rāv Os3y abrºv & Tep tow; #yya-
argºšov, eigõž»sas wānai wuvi trčğaya; trºoomyogevo, #vov; Évêvã-
pºewo sic tà oðgara trºopnrów intro®Seyyeſa 6at roſ; wivov cºxact
wai povā; xpdºwevov špyávoic. Thutarch. de Defect. Orac. p. 414.
§ Separatim memo habessit deos, neve novos sive advenas,
nisi publicë adscitos. Divos, et eos qui coelestes Semper
habiti, colunto, et ollos quos endo coelo merita locaverunt.
Cicero de Leg. lib. ii. n. 14 et n. 27. Deos aut novos aut
alienigenas coli confusionem habet religionum: ritus fami-
liae patrumque servanto. Ibid. i
| Omnes enim religione moventur, et deos patrios sibi re-
tinendos arbitrantur. Orat. v. in Verrem. To wiv Sefo abré:
478
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
22 And the multitude rose up together against
them: and the “magistrates rent off their clothes,
and commanded to beat them.
23 And when they had laid many stripes upon them,
they cast them into prison, charging the gaoler to
keep them safely:
24 Who, having received such a charge, thrust
them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast
in the stocks.
25 And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and
sang praises to God: and the prisoners heard them.
26 And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so
that the foundations of the prison were shaken : and
immediately all the doors were opened, and every |
one’s bands were loosed.
27 And the keeper of the prison awaking out of his
sleep, and seeing the prison-doors open, drew out his
sword, * and would have killed himself, supposing
that the prisoners had been fled (and so he must have
ôorne the punishment due to them).
28 But Paul (perceiving this by the Spirit) cried out
with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm : for
we are all here. -
29 Then called he for a light, and sprang in,
§. came trembling, and fell down before Paul and
ilas,
30 And brought them out (of the immer prison),
and said, Sirs, (I, by this miracle, am induced to be-
lieve you are men sent to show unto us the way of sal-
vation, ver. 17,) *what (therefore) must I do to be
saved
31 And they said, Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,
and thou shalt be saved, and thy house (for that faith
will bring thee and them into the way of salvation).
32 And they spake to him the word of the Lord,
and (to) all that were in his house.
33 And he took them the same hour of the night,
and washed their stripes; and *was baptized, he and
all his (house), straightway.
34 And when he had brought them into his house,
he set meat before them, and rejoiced, believing in
God with all his house.
35 And when it was day the magistrates sent the
serjeants, saying, Let those men go.
36 And the keeper of the prison told this saying
to Paul, (viz.) The magistrates have sent to let you go :
now therefore depart, and go in peace.
37 But Paul said, They have beaten us openly
(and) uncondemned, being Romans, and have cast
us into prison: and now do they (think to) thrust us
out privily nay, verily; but let them come them-
selves and fetch us out.
38 And the serjeants told these words to the magis-
trates: and they feared, when they heard that they
were Romans.
39 And they came and besought them, and
brought them out, and desired them to depart out
of the city.
40 And they went out of the prison, and entered
into the house of Lydia; and when they had seen the
brethren, they comforted them, and departed (thence).
of them to worship the gods of their fathers, but requiring
them to turn “from those dumb idols to the living God”
(1 Thess. i. 10); and hence St. Paul speaks thus to those of
Lystra, “We preach to you, that ye should turn from these
vanities to the living God, who made heaven and earth”
(xiv. 15).
* Ver. 22. The magistrates rent off their clothes.] i. e.
The clothes of Paul and Silas; for so it was the custom not
only among the Jews, as Dr. Hammond here notes, but
among the Roman magistrates, such as these were, to com-
mand the lictors, rºy ia Siira Karaśćal, raï, #488ot; to oºza
£aivety, “to rend open the clothes of the criminal, and to
beat his body with rods,” as Grotius here notes. The Ro-
man magistrates, saith Brissonius, nudari et spoliari homi-
nem, virgasque expediri jubent, “ command him to be made
naked, and spoiled of his clothes,” and the lictors “to be
ready with their rods ;” and this, saith he, in Plutarch, is
ão Sãra Taçao Xizai, “to rend his garments” (De Formulis,
lib. v. p. 481).
* Ver. 27. "Epºex^ew Havröw &vatºw, He was about to kill
himself.] Self-murder being common among the Greeks”
re orićov xará rà warpia, kai row: #AAovc rºy &váyxaće. Mae-
cen.ad August. apud Dion lib.lii. Wide Liv.lib. xxxix. cap. 16.
* Sapiens non dubitet, si ita melius sit, de vità migrare.
Torquatus apud Cic. de Fin. Bon. lib. i. Eixãyw; ºr paari ###ysty
#avrov ret; 3iov ry coºr kāy #y awangorée, yiyveral &Ayněčvi.
and Romans, allowed by all philosophers, and practised by
most of them, to avoid, or to “deliver themselves from any
misery they feared, or laboured under:” this gaoler there-
fore would have done it for fear of a severer punishment,
they who let prisoners escape being to suffer the punish-
ment they had deserved, L. ad commentariensem cap. de
custodia reorum, saith Grotius.
* Ver, 30. What shall I do ya orw83, that I may be saved?]
Grotius saith here, that he had conceived some hope of a
better life from tradition and the doctrine of the philosophers;
I rather think he spake thus to them, as knowing, or con-
ceiving from the words of the Pythoness, they were ap-
pointed to show to others the way of salvation.
* Ver. 33. He was baptized, he and all his.J St. Chry-
sostom here notes, that this gaoler was that Stephanas of
whom St. Paul saith, “I baptized also the household of Ste-
phanas” (1 Cor. i. 16); but if so he must have come from
Corinth, or some other part of Achaia, and have settled at
Philippi, and afterward have returned thither again ; for the
| Stephanas there mentioned by St. Paul, was “the first-fruits
of Achaia” (1 Cor. xvi. 15), and an eminent person at Co-
rinth (ver. 17).
Laert. de Sto. in Zeno. lib. vii. p. 195. Zeno, Democritus,
Cleanthes, Aristotle, Menippus, Metrocles, Empedocles
Pythagoras, Cato.
CHAPTER XVII.
1 Now when they had passed through Amphipolis
and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a
synagºgue of the Jews:
2 *And Paul, as his manner was (where he found
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVII.
* Wer. 2. And Paul, war& ré BioSãº, as his manner was,
went in to them, and three sabbath-days reasoned with them.]
Here we learn, (l,) that St. Paul was not restrained from
preaching to the Jews by his being an apostle of the gen-
tiles; for as the gospel was the power of God through faith
synagogues of the Jews), went in to them, and three
sabbath-days reasoned with them out of the scrip-
tureS
3 opening and alleging (Gr. eaplaining and setting
to the salvation of the “Jews first, and also of the gentiles,”
so Paul in preaching of it testifies to the Jews, and also to
the Greeks, “repentance towards God, and faith in our
Lord Jesus Christ” (xx. 21); and wheresoever he comes.
his manner is to go first into a synagogue of the Jews, and
to preach to them (Acts xiii. 5. 14.42. xiv. l. xvi. 15. xyll.
10. xviii. 4. 19. xix. 8). At the beginning of his conversion
CHAPTER XVII. t
479
before their eyes this doctrine), that Christ must needs
have suffered, and risen (Gr. that it behoved Christ to
suffer, and to rise) again from the dead; and (saying),
that this Jesus, whom I preach to you, is Christ (Gr.
that he is Christ the Saviour whom I declare to you).
4 And some of them believed, and consorted with
Paul and Silas ; and (also) *of the devout Greeks
great multitudes, and of the chief women not a few.
5 But the Jews which believed not, (being) moved
with envy (or zeal), took unto them certain lewd fel-
lows of the baser sort (or wicked men loitering in the
market), and gathered a company, and set (gathering
a company they set) all the city on an uproar, and as-
saulted (Gr. assaulting) the house of Jason, and (they)
sought to bring them (Paul and Silas) out to the peo-
ple (to be the objects of their rage).
6 And when they found them not, they drew Jason
and certain brethren to the rulers of the city, crying
(out), *These that have turned the world upside down
(i.e. unsettled the world) are come hither also;
7 Whom Jason hath received : and “these all do
(what is) contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying,
There is another King (besides him, even) one Jesus.
8 And they troubled the people and the rulers of
the city, when they (or who) heard these things.
9. And when they had taken security of Jason, and
of the other (ver. 6, to answer to the charge laid against
them), they let them go.
we find him preaching Christ in the synagogues (ix. 20),
and throughout all the region of Judea (xxvi. 20), his com-
mission authorizing him to “testify what he had seen and
heard to all men” (xxii. 15), to the people and to the gen-
tiles (xxvi. 17), to the gentiles and to the children of Is-
rael (ix. 15), which is sufficient to confound that distinc-
tion of provinces which some have imagined among the
apostles.
Moreover it is observable, that Paul enters into their sy-
nagogues, and reasons with, or preacheth to, them, only on
their sabbath days; for as here it is said, “He reasoned with
them three sabbath-days ;” so, xiii. 14. he enters into the
synagogues “on the sabbath-day,” and, ver, 42, the gentiles
desire him to preach to them “the next sabbath-day,” and,
ver. 44, almost all the whole city were assembled “on the
next sabbath-day ;” xvi. 13, he goes out of Philippi to a
synagogue “on the sabbath-day” and xviii. 4, he discourses
in the synagogue “every sabbath-day,” which seems to in-
timate, that, whatever they did in Jerusalem, or in Judea,
yet in the synagogues out of Judea they did not ordinarily
meet for religious worship on the second and fifth days of
the week; for otherwise why is it that St. Paul who rea-
soned “daily in the school of Tyrannus,” xix. 9, should only
go to the synagogues of the Jews to reason with them “on
the sabbath-day ?”
* Ver. 4. Tày re ceòoºvoy Exxhvoy—yvyatzów re rāv trº-
roy, Of the devout Greeks, and of the chief women.] Sover.
12, and xiii. 50. That by “the devout Greeks” we are to
understand the proselytes among the Greeks, is evident,
because they are so called, ver. 12, and are distinguished
from the Jews, ver. 17. xiv. 1. xvi. 14. xxiii. 4. They were
proselytes, not of justice, i.e. such as received circumcision,
and observed the law of Moses, but only proselytes of the
gate, who owned the true God of Israel, and went up to
worship him at their feasts (John xii. 20. Acts viii. 27), and
who were permitted to read the scriptures, as the eunuch
did, and to hear them read in the synagogues, otherwise they
could not have heard Paul there, and much less could they
have compared what he said with the writings of the pro-
phets, as we find they did, ver, 11, 12.
As for “the chief women,” we learn from Josephus,” that
the Jews, in many places where they dwelt, prevailed upon
many of them, either wholly to embrace their religion, or
* De incolis Damasci dicit eos à Judaeis occidendis ab-
stinuisse, eo quëd #3e3eigaaray rā; £avºrów yuyaſwag & Trázaç way
&Alyov tºrnyºva, rå Iow?aix; Bºna Reiz. De Bello Jud. lib. ii.
cap. 41.
10 And the brethren immediately sent away Paul
and Silas by night to Berea; who coming thither
went into a synagogue of the Jews.
11 "These were more noble than those in Thessalo-
nica, in that they (Gr. they of them that) received the
word with all readiness of mind, and searched (Gr.
searching) the scriptures daily, (to know) whether
these things were so (as Paul had said).
12 Therefore many of them (i. e. those Jews) be-
lieved; also of the honourable women which were
Greeks, and of (the) men (which were so), not a few.
13 But when the Jews of Thessalonica had know-
ledge that the word of God was preached of (by Paul
at Berea, they came thither also, and stirred up the
people (against him).
14 And immediately the brethren sent away Paul
to "go as it were to the sea (that so his persecutors
might miss of him) : but Silas and Timotheus abode
there still. -
15, And (but) they that conducted Paul brought him
to Athens (by land); and receiving a commandment
(directed) to Silas and Timotheus to come to him
(thither) with all speed, they departed.
16 Now when Paul waited for them at Athens, his
Spirit was stirred (Gr. erasperated) in him, when he
saw the "city wholly given to idolatry (Gr. full of
idols).
17 Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the
to become proselytes of the gate, and many of these be-
* * converts (see more of this in the note on 1
et. i. 1).
* Ver. 6. O &vaararáray'rs, They who disturb the world.]
i. e. So as to unsettle things and bring them into confusion ;
for this they conceived the introduction of new gods tended
to, as we learn from the words of the consuls" in Livy,
and the Roman laws (see the note on xvi. 21).
* Ver. 7. These all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar,
saying, There is another king.] This, saith Grotius, was
contrary to the decree of Caesar, because the senate first,
and afterward the emperor, suffered none to be called kings
without their permission. w
* Ver. 11. These were siyevérrego more noble, &c.] The
Jews looked upon themselves not only as of free but noble
birth, as being of the seed of Abraham (see the note on
1 Cor. i. 28). They are, saith Philo,"; in the opinion of their
calumniators, Baggagikoi, “barbarians, but in truth Exe5Sspot
wai Biyevéſz, they are free, and of noble birth ;” here therefore
St. Luke shows them wherein their true nobility consisted;
viz, in such a disposition of the soul as inclined them to
attend to the doctrine of the gospel.
"Ver. 14. To go as it were to the sea.] Words being de-
signed to represent our minds to others, we cannot deceive
them with ambiguous words without acting contrary to the
nature of them, ; but motions having no determinate signifi-
cation, to use them so as to consult our safety, in such a
motion as may deceive our enemies and secure us hath no-
thing in it blameworthy. §
* Ver. 16. When he saw the city rateſ&oxov, full of idols.]
i. e. Images, où yāp #y 3xxaxoſ roarajta t}sſy ºwna, “for sc
many images could not be seen elsewhere,” Pausanias; say-
ing that they did evosgeſ, Seº, 3xxxv ºxêov, “worship the
gods more than others,” and exceeded all others in their
diligence eiç rà. 88ſa, “to the gods;” and Strabo $ saying
that they were hospitable to the gods, aroxx& y&é rā, śaying,
ispáy wrapašša avro, “for they received many strange gods,”
insomuch that the comedians ridiculed them upon that
* Quoties hoc patrum avorumque aetate negotium est
magistratibus datum, ut sacra exterma fieri vocarent: judica-
bant enim prudentissimi viri, nihil aequé dissolvendae religi-
Onis esse quâm ubi non patrio, sed externo rità sacrificare-
tur. Liv. lib. xxxix. cap. 16. Qui novas et incognitas re-
ligiones inducunt ex quibus animi hominum moveantur,
honestiores deportantur. Paulus Sent. 5.
+ Legat. cap. 792.
Attic, cap. 17, 24. § Lib. x. p. 325.
48()
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
Jews, and with the devout persons (of the Greeks), |
and in the market daily with them that met with him
(or he met with there).
18 °Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans,
and of the stoics, encountered him. And some said,
What will this habbler say ” Other some (oi 38, but
others said), He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange
gods: because he preached to them Jesus, and the
fººtion (by him, iv. 2, or the resurrection of
im).
19 And they took him, and brought him to Areopa-
gus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine,
whereof thou speakest, is :
20 For thou bringest certain strange things to
our ears: we would know therefore what these things
IIl6a Il.
21 °(For all the Athenians and strangers which
were there, spent their time in nothing else but either
to tell or hear some new thing.) -
22 Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and
said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things
*ye are too superstitious.
23 For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions
(i. e. the objects of your worship), I found an altar
with this inscription, To THE UNKNowN GoD. Whom
therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I to you
(who he is, and how to be worshipped).
24 * God that made the world and all things
therein, seeing that he is (he being) Lord of heaven
and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands
(as one contained in, or confined to, them, by human
consecrations of them) ; -
account; and all the rest cited by Dr. Hammond say the
same thing; for in those times of heathenism they never
worshipped. a god without an image to represent him to
them ; and therefore, as St. Paul saith here, that they mul-
tiplied their idols; so ver. 22, that they were 8stortèatºzovéo-
ºrsºot, “more prone than others to worship demons.” We
may here also laugh at the absurd folly of Laurinus's cau-
tion, not to believe Stephanus, saying in his Lexicon, that
stºoxov signifies an image, and not as he would have it, a
shadow, spectrum, or phantom ; for would it not be ridicu-
lous to render St. Paul's words thus, I saw your city full
of phantoms, shadows, and appearances of nothing 2
* Ver. 18. Certain philosophers of the Epicureans and
stoics—said, What will & a tree&oxáyor of roc, this babbler say?
&c.] To show the appositeness of the apostle's discourse to
these philosophers, let it be noted,
First, That the Epicureans" did not believe that the
world was made by God, but by a casual conflux of atoms;
nor did they own the providence of God, or think he had
any care of mankind ; they also held that the gods were of
human shape, and that there was no resurrection, nor any
punishments after death.
The stoics + held the world to be a god, that matter was
eternal, and God was corporeal, and that all things were
subject to fate.
Secondly, As for the word a regaoxáyoc, “babbler,” Eusta-
thius gives us two senses of it, which seem to have been the
occasion of their application of it to St. Paul : (1.) That
Paul was “disputing with those he met with in the market,”
for, saith he, "Atrixol row; a refºxoMáyou: škáNow rob; Trºpi rā.
Épatrágia, wai äyogā; &largí8.wraç, “the Attics called them a rep-
&0\áyot, who were conversant in the markets, and places of
merchandise.” CEcumenius here saith, that a little bird that
gathered up the seeds scattered in the market-place was
called by this name, and hence, rot; sūrexsic, ka? oën &átov;
Xáyov, a treepwoxćyou; #xáxovy, “despicable persons, not worthy
to be named, were called a repºwoxáyotº” and in this etymology
Suidas, Phavorinus, the scholiast upon Aristophanes de
Avibus, p. 569, and almost all the grammarians do agree.
(2.) Because he pretended to some new systems of divinity,
which they were not acquainted with, and which they
thought proceeded from some vain opinions he had enter-
tained ; for the word a refºoxoyeſy, saith he, is used,' ini rāv
&Azóoyevº, #yov 30.8968w: #mi (, abnºrov #4 rivoy rapakova warov,
“of those who, from some false opinions, boasted unreason-
ably of their learning.”
Thirdly, They add, that St. Paul seemed to be “a setter
forth of strange gods,” because he preached up “Jesus and
the resurrection,” where Chrysostom and CEcumenius note,
that being accustomed to worship female goddesses, they
thought #váo ragw Seáv riva sīvat, “ &várraort, to be a god ;”
but, as Dr. Bentley || saith, they too well understood the
notion of a resurrection to think it a goddess, and therefore
I prefer the exposition in the paraphrase, as being confirmed
* Plutarch. de Plas. Philos. lib. i. cap. 7, p. 881. Seneca,
de Benef lib. iv. cap. 4. Cicero, de Natura Deorum.
+ Diogenes, lib. xx. p. 755.
: In Odyss. B. ad finem. § Ibid.
| Serm. ii. p. 1.
from ver. 32, “When they heard of the resurrection of the
dead, some mocked.”
* Ver. 21. The Athenians spent their time in telling or
hearing some new thing.] Of this see Grotius.
* Wer. 22. Karā Trávra &; 8storièaigovsarépov; juá; Seagº,
In all things I perceive you too much superstitious.] i. e.
Too much addicted to the worship of demons: for 3Elaibat-
provia is, saith Phavorinus, tá80; 3alpºvoy, “the fear of de-
mons.” And that in this sense St. Paul doth here use the
word is evident, he styling them thus superstitious, because
he found their city full of images, and “an altar to the un-
known God,” of which Pausanias," Lucian, Philostratus, and
others, speak. It is certain from Pausanias, and confessed
by St. Jerome, that they had altars Seoſ; 3) vića roig, “to the
unknown gods,” in the plural, yet it is as certain from
Lucian, as well as from CEcumenius, f that the altar was
inscribed rá Šeš Čywóato, though that was not the whole in-
scription, and therefore St. Jerome $ is too bold to correct
the apostle here. If the occasion of the erecting of this
altar was, as some say, the complaint of Pan, || that he was
not worshipped by them, this gave the apostle a fit occasion,
by calling them to worship rôy ini Trávra, “that God who
made the heaven and earth, and all things in them,” to say,
“Him that you ignorantly worship declare I unto you,” he
being also, as Josephus saith, war' obaiay &yvooroº, unknown
as to his essence,” and by the heathens called deus incertus,
because he would not be worshipped in an image, and so
they were uncertain where to find him; and in the scripture
being styled the God by own flywo, “whom the (heathen)
world” and their philosophers “knew not” (1 Cor. i. 21.
Gal. iv. 8, 9). Or if Iſàv be, as Plato'ſ saith, 3 Aáyoc, “the
Word,” and of whom Plutarch saith in his book De Defect.
Oracul. p. 419, that there was a great cry heard in the time
of Tiberius Caesar, that he was dead, then had he also hence
a fit occasion to “preach unto them Jesus.”
* Wer. 24, 25. God that made the world, and all things
therein, is not worshipped with men's hands, as if he
needed anything.] To clear up the argument of the apostle
here, it will be necessary to search a little into the principles'
of the heathems concerning God, and the worship of him ;
let it then be observed,
First, That the wisest heathens worshipped their gods in
human shape; so Maximus Tyrius” saith of the Greeks,
“They thought God must have a body, and that body they
generally held must be of human shape,” and therefore such
as might be represented “in an image of gold, silver, or
stone, made after the fashion of a man.” Thus Welleius++ in
* Attic. lib. i. cap. 1.
+ Nà Tây 3) worrow #y 'A3%vaig. Philop. p. 1121, 1129.
f "Eart 3: # rāga toû 32.0% #ºriypaqº rotatºrm, QEof, 'Aaſia;,
Edgårnç, kai Aiſéns, S㺠&yvárra Mał żyº. CEcum.
§ Inscriptio autem arae non ita erat ut Paulus asseruit,
sedita, Diis Asiae, diis ignotis et peregrinis. Hieron. in Titum,
cap. 8.
| See Chrysost. GEcum. in locum.
"I Cratyl, p. 280.
** "Axx& ré why ‘Exxºvixõy rºy Seou; #vépziče, iºn º zadaga,
pºogº, Sã 3,860miyn, réxyn 8ā āxp1857, &c. Dissert. xxxviii.
p. 370.
++ De Nat. Deor. lib. i, n. 34.
CHAPTER XVII.
481
25 Neither is (he) worshipped with (the works of)
men's hands, as though he needeth anything (as need-
ing any person’s art to promote his worship), seeing he
giveth to all life, and breath, and all things (and so
is able to produce these things, were they any ways
needful for his worship) ;
26 And (he) hath made of one blood (of Adam) all |
mations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and
hath détermined the times before appointed, (i. e.
set the fired seasons of the year, Gen. i. 14. viii. 22)
and the bounds of their habitations, (see Deut.
xxxii. 8);
27 That they should (or instructing them by those
means to ) *seek the Lord, if haply they might feel
after him, and find him (which in that darkness in
which they lie they cannot easily do), though he be not
far from every (any) one of us:
28 For in for by) him we live, and move, and have
our being; as certain also of your own poets have said,
For (they have declared that) we are also his off-
spring.
29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God,
we ought not to think that the Godhead is like to gold,
or silver, or stone, graven by art or man’s device
(i. e. that the Creator is like man, or his workman-
ship). -
30 And the times of this ignorance God (hath
hitherto) winked at (sending them no prophets to in-
struct them better) : * but now (he) commandeth all
men everywhere to repent (of this idolatry) :
Cicero, inquiring of the form of the gods, speaks thus: Ac
de formá quidem partim natura nos admonet, partim ratio
docet, nam a naturâ habemus omnes omnium gentium spe-
cien nullam aliam nisi humanam deorum, “That nature
teaches they are of human shape, seeing all nations represent
them in this form ; nor do they ever occur to any men,
sleeping or waking, in any other shape,” and that men, clim
artificium effingunt, fabricanque divinam,” “when they make
an image, or divine fabric, make all things in hominis figură,
in the shape of man;” whence his conclusion is this, “Homi-
nes esse specie deos confitendum est, “It must be owned
that the gods are like in shape to men.”
Secondly, They held indeed that God must be airaºznº,
“self-sufficient,” and thought with Lucian ºf it was ridiculous
to conceive &c &w88%ray Seol #yèseſ; sivi, “that the gods should
stand in need of men,” yet they conceived those images:
were, through the frailty of human nature, needful to the
worship of the Deity, that “they might view and touch them,
and have them near to them;” on these accounts they thought;
“there could be no religion without images,” and objected
this to the Christians, that they || “worshipped a god they
could not show,” and thought that even they used images,
though they concealed them; yea, they pronounced both
them and other nations, viz. Scythians, atheists, because they
had no images. And upon this account they used a kind of
magical consecration of their images, to bring their gods down
unto them : so Minutius'ſ saith, Funditur, fabricatur, scul-
pitur, nondum deus est, ecce ornatur, consecratur, oratur;
tunc postremö deus est.” Here therefore is the reason why
the apostle Saith,
First, That “God dwelleth not in temples made with
hands,” i.e. as one confined to them, and who could not be
addressed everywhere, since, as Seneca says, * there is no
need of going to the aedile that we may pray to the gods, or,
as Lucian says jocularly, it “ABsculapius is not deaf, that
men must go near that they may pray to him.” And,
Secondly, This is the reason why he saith, “He is not
worshipped with men's hands,” as if he could be only wor-
shipped or spoken to in a temple, or in a consecrated image
made by man. And,
Thirdly, Why he adds, that “we ought not to think the
Godhead like to an image made of gold or silver.”
* Ver. 27. That they should seek the Lord, if haply they
might feel after him, and find him.] Here, first, we learn,
that God framed the world with this design, that men by
contemplation of it might seek after the author of it, and
seeking, find him; and therefore must have made it so as to
contain sufficient evidence that it was made by his power
and wisdom. Now “to seek after God,” in the scripture
* N. 35. + Philop. p. 1121.
† Otrøe &pºst zai rii Seiz bºast, Sef ºiv oběšy 3,&xº~4tov,
&NXà éa Seyā; v ×oºtöß rô 3,666tratov, Rai 8tert&g roš Šatov Šalov
oùpayā; yºg. Max. Tyr, dis. Xxxviii. p. 369. Dicitis forté prae-
sentiam vobis quandam numinum exhiberi sub simulacris.
Arnob. lib. vi. p. 195.
§ Nec ullam religionem esse putant ubicunque illa non
fulserint. Lact. lib. ii. cap. 6.
| Deum colunt illi, quem nec ostendere possunt, nec
videre. Minut. p. 10. Cur nullas aras habent, nulla templa,
nulla nota simulacra 3 Ibid.
* Pag. 26. * Epist, 41.
++ Daemon. p. 718.
phrase, is not only to inquire whether there be a God, but
so to seek him out, that we may give him that worship
which is due to him; as when the apostle saith, “He that
cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a re-
warder of those that diligently seek him” (Heb. xi. 6). To
“find him,” is to obtain his grace and favour, or to find him
good and propitious to them : for to what other end should
men so solicitously seek after him, but to obtain his grace
and favour? Or why should they desire to find him, but
that they may receive some benefit from him thus found 2
Is it not upon this account that all men come to him, and
do him service P And would any one do it if they expected
no advantage by it? And in this sense God saith, “If from
thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find
him, if thou seek him with all thy heart,” Deut. iv. 29; “If
ye seek him, he will be found of you,” 2 Chron. xv. 2. Note,
Secondly, That sinners cannot thus seek or hope to find
God, unless they can expect to find him merciful in the par-
don of those sins which they do confess and do forsake; and
that this hath been a principle embraced by all nations ap-
péars from the propitiatory sacrifices which have so generally
obtained among them, even from the beginning. And there-
fore all this must depend upon this foundation, or the know-
ledge of this one thing, “that God is the maker of heaven
and earth, and all that therein is;” and so it evidently doth.
For,
First, That which made all things must be itself unmade,
and so must be eternal ; it must have power over all things,
and so be almighty.
Secondly, That which made all things must have all
power to direct, govern, order, and dispose of all things, as
he pleases, and so his creatures must depend on him for pro-
tection and the disposal of all their affairs.
Thirdly, That Being which made all things in such an
excellent order and dependence on each other, in such con-
stant and unchangeable vicissitudes, fitted with such faculties,
adapted to such ends and uses, must have infinite wisdom,
and must design things for those ends for which he hath thus
fitted them. - -
Fourthly, He who hath made things so, as that they con-
stantly in their respective seasons produce things good and
useful for the preservation and comfort of those creatures he
hath made, filling their mouths with food, and “their hearts
with gladness,” must be good to all, even “to the unthankful
and the wicked,” and so “ his tender mercies” must be “over
all his works ;" which is the argument here used, wer. 26.
Fifthly, He who vouchsafeth such kindness to, and maketh
such provisions for, those bodies, which we have common to
us with the brutes, must have made some provisions for that
soul which is our better part, and which is more cspecially
derived from him ; they therefore must be capable of re-
ceiving blessings and favours from him ; and if lapsed and
sinful creatures, and made so as that they certainly will be
subject to sin, they must be capable of finding mercy with
him, when they return from their iniquity.
* Ver. 30. God, who overlooked the times of ignorance,
ºravčy tragayyáxxei rāori rayraxoiſ, hath now sent his message
to all men every where to repent.] The ravºv here seems
not to refer to a stavosīy, to repent, as if God did not for-
merly require men to repent of their sins committed against
the law of nature, for then they were not obliged to reform,
or turn from them; but it refers rather to the word ºraçaº-
o
*
482
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
31 Because he hath appointed a day, in which he
will judge the world in righteousness by that man
whom he hath ordained (to be their judge) ; whereof
he hath given assurance to all men, in that he hath
raised him from the dead.
32 And when they heard of the resurrection of the
dead, “some (of them) mocked (at it : but) "others
said, We will hear thee again of this matter.
33 So Paul departed from among them.
34 Howbeit (his discourse was not wholly ineffectual,
for) certain men clave to him, and believed; among
the which (i. e. whom) was Dionysius the Areopa-
#. and a woman named Damaris, and others with
them.
yéxxst, and signifies, that whereas before he had sent no
messengers, or prophets, to the heathen world, to proclaim
his wrath against them for their ungodliness and unright-
eousness, and to call them to repentance for those sins, he
now had sent his apostles to all the ends of the earth with
this message; and that by them he had given them a fresh
assurance of his purpose to judge and condemn the impeni-
tent, by the resurrection of that Son of God whom he had
appointed to be the judge of all men : Mr. Dodwell there-
fore seems to be mistaken, when he concludes from these
words, and from Acts xiv. 16, that God had not obliged all
other nations, but only the peculium, to worship himself, be-
fore he had revealed his pleasure to them, and Saith,”
“That these words rather plainly imply the contrary, that
while the supreme God was #yvaaroº, “unknown,” God did
excuse them from that duty, on account of their ignorance
of what otherwise would have been their duty, if it had been
required of them, and they had known that the Supreme
being had required it :” for, first, this is directly contrary to
the express words of the apostle Paul, who declares that, rô
7 www.roy rod Osoſ, “that which might be known of God was
manifested to them, for God had declared it to them, to wit,
his eternal power and godhead;” and also, that this was
manifested to them from the beginning of the world, not by
any positive revelation, but “from the visible things of the
creation” (Rom. i. 19, 20), and that this manifestation ren-
dered them āyatroxáynto, “without excuse,” who “did not
glorify (and therefore worship) him as God, neither were
thankful” to him for his benefits conferred upon them.
And this is farther evident from the two places cited by
him ; for though God so far “suffered them to walk in their
own ways,” as that he sent no prophet to instruct them, ne-
vertheless “he left not himself without a witness,” that it
was he who “did them good,” &c. (Acts xiv. 17), and who
* P. 11, 12.
was therefore to be thanked and worshipped as their great
benefactor (see the note there): and though “he winked at
the times of ignorance,” yet even then he expected they
should so “seek the Lord that they might find him” (Acts
xvii. 17, see the note there); and it is strange, that the
dreadful consequences of this assertion did not deter him
from espousing it ; for hence it evidently follows, first, that
no man can know who is the true God, or that he is to be
worshipped, by the light of nature, without a revelation.
Secondly, that either idolatry or atheism must innocently
obtain throughout the whole heathen world; for if they are
left ignorant of the true God, and it is not their duty to wor-
ship him, they must either not be obliged to worship any
God, or left free, if not obliged, to commit idolatry, by giv-
ing the worship due to the true God alone, to them who
“by nature are no gods.” And, thirdly, that they must
either be obliged to worship the very devil, or left free to do
it ; “the gods of the heathens,” saith the scripture, “being
devils ;” and seeing God is the fountain of all obligation,
he must oblige them thus to worship his grand enemy.
Fourthly, hence it follows, that when they had the gospel
revelation imparted to them, they could not be obliged, as he
saith they were, to repent of their former idolatry, in giving
the worship due to the true God to idols or false gods; be-
cause he plainly here asserts, they could not know that it was
their duty to worship the true God, and so the first and
second commandments must be only positive precepts, but
no parts of the law of nature, or the moral law, that being of
perpetual and universal obligation.
* Ver. 32. Some mocked..] viz. The Epicureans, who be-
lieved no resurrection, nor any future judgment, here as-
serted by St. Paul.
* Others said, We will hear thee again of this matter.]
viz. Stoics, who asserted a conflagration and reviviscence of
the world, and allowed of something of future recompences,
though with great fluctuation, and held that souls might live
long, though not always, in a future state.
CHAPTER XVIII.
1 AFTER these things Paul departed from Athens,
and came to Corinth :
2 And found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in
Pontus, lately come from Italy, with his wife Priscilla
(because that 'Claudius had commanded all Jews
to depart from Rome); and (he) came to them.
3 And because he was of the same craft, he abode
with them, and wrought ſat it): for by their occupa-
tion they were tentmakers.
4 And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath
(day), and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks (that
Jesus was the Christ).
5 And when Silas and Timotheus were come from
Macedonia, Paul “was pressed in spirit, and testified
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVIII.
* Ver. 2. Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart
Jrom Rome.] Though Orosius fixeth this edict to the ninth
year of Claudius, yet did it not come forth till the twelfth of
Claudius; for the sedition of the Jews, mentioned by Euse-
bius from Josephus, happened in the eleventh year of
Claudius, under Quadratus, president of Syria, and con-
cerned not the Romans, the calamity falling only on the
Jews; but after it followed another the same year, in which
the thieves in Judea assaulted Stephen, “the servant of
Caesar, took away his baggage, and killed the Roman sol-
diers,” as both Tacitus” and Josephus’] do inform us: and
then Claudius, causis rebellionis auditis, “having heard”
from the president “the causes of this rebellion,” made this
edict, of which Tacitus Saith nothing, because it came not
from the decree of the Senate, but was the edict of Claudius
* Annal. 12, p. 263,264. | De Bello Jud. lib, ii, cap, 20.
only; and of which Suetonius” saith thus, Judaeos impul-
sore Chresto assidué tumultuantes Romá expulit, “He ex-
pelled the Jews from Rome, they making continual tumults
by the impulse or persuasion of Christ;” where, as he mis-
takes in the name, so in the thing, the Jews having had
then no contests at Rome that we read of with the Chris-
tians; and the Christians to be sure causing no tumults
there. The true cause of their banishment was therefore
that which hath been hinted from Tacitus.
* Ver. 5. 2weixsºro tº tryávºcati, He was pressed in spirit.}
i. e. Either his own or the Holy Spirit so powerfully urged
and constrained him, that he could not refrain from speak-
ing: so Luke xii. 50, “I have a baptism to be baptized
with, Kai Trö; avyáxopwai, and how am I straitened till it be
accomplished tº 2 Cor. v. 14, “The love of Christ, avyÉxes,
constraineth us,” i. e. it will not suffer us to rest from pro-
moting the service of Christ. When this word is joined with
• In Claud cap. 25.
CHAPTER XVIII.
483
(again) to the Jews that Jesus was (the) Christ.
6 And when they opposed themselves (to this doc-
trine), and blasphemed (Christ), “he shook his rai-
ment (in token of his intention to leave them to their
infidelity), and (therefore) said to them, Your blood
be upon your own heads; I am clean (from it): “from
henceforth I will go (and preach) to the gentiles.
7 And he departed thence, and entered into a cer-
tain man’s house, named Justus, (being) one that wor-
shipped (the true) God, whose house joined hard to
the synagogue.
8 And Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue,
believed on the Lord with all his house: and many of
the Corinthians hearing (the word) believed, and were
baptized.
9 Then spake Lord to Paul by night in a vision
(saying), Benotafraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace:
10 For I am with thee, and no man shall set on
thee to hurt thee: (speak freely,) for "I have much
people in this city.
11 And he continued there a year and six months,
teaching the word of God among them.
12 And when Gallio was the deputy of Achaia, the
Jews made insurrection with one accord against Paul,
and brought him to the judgment-seat (of Gallio),
13 Saying, This fellow persuadeth men to worship
Jod contrary to the law (of the Jews).
14 And when Paul was now about to open his
a passion that restrains from action, then it is to be rendered
restrain, as avyázsa Sat 4.686), “to be restrained by fear,”
Job iii. 24. Luke viii. 37; when the motive is both ways,
then is the pressure so also ; as when St. Paul Saith, avyéxo-
feat #x rāy 300, “I am pressed between two,” urged to de-
part that I may “be with Christ,” restrained from it that I
may do farther service to his church (Phil. i. 23).
* Wer. 6. He shook his raiment, and said, Your blood be
wpon your own heads.] The command of our Saviour was
to “shake off the dust from their feet;” and so St. Paul and
Barnabas do, xiii. 51, but here Paul also shakes it off from
his raiment, as a testimony to them, that he had now re-
nounced any farther dealings with them of that place, as
being a refractory people; adding, that now their blood or
ruin would lie upon their own heads, that is, they only
would be guilty of it (see Matt. xxvii. 24, 25. Acts xx. 26).
* From henceforth I will turn to the gentiles.] This at
first sight seems to be a declaration that he would leave off
preaching to the Jews wherever he came, and wholly apply
himself to the conversion of the gentiles; but by comparing
his actions with the places where this phrase, or something
like it, doth occur, it appears he only did intend to say, he
would no longer preach to the Jews of that place ; for after
this is said, we find him still entering into the synagogues,
and preaching to the Jews, or calling them to him to hear
the word: so he speaks to the Jews, xiii. 46, “Seeing ye re-
fuse the word, lo, we turn to the gentiles;” and yet, xiv.
l, he enters at Iconium into the synagogue of the Jews, and
preacheth to them : so also xix. 9. xxviii. 28.
* Ver. 10. I have much people in this city.] So they
are called who are still heathens, not because of any abso-
lute decree of their election to etermal life, but because
Christ saw they were disposed to believe, and by faith be-
come his people ; as elsewhere, John x. 16, he calls the
sheep, who should hereafter believe on him. e
* Ver. 15. But if the question be regi rod Aéyov, of a word
and names.] Of the word Paul preaches to you, whether it
accord with your law or not (ver. 13), or, whether the name
of the Messiah, or Christ, belong to that Jesus “whom Paul
preacheth;” of things of this nature I will be no judge.
7 Wer. 17. Sosthemes, the chief ruler of the synagogue, and
beat him.] “They beat the Jews,” saith Grotius, “to chase
them from the judgment-seat;” he adds, that in great cities
there were more synagogues than one; every one of which
had a chief ruler, as mere Crispus is the chief ruler of one
synagogue, and Sosthenes of another; so likewise, Saith he,
was it in great churches; they having at Rome, Antioch,
and other places, excepting Alexandria (of which Epipha-
mouth, Gallio said to the Jews, If it were a matter of
wrong or wicked lewdness, O ye Jews (which you ob-
ject against this man), reason would that I should bear
with you:
15 °But if it be a question (only) of a word and
names, and of your law, look you to it; for I will be
no judge of such matters.
16 And he drove them from the judgment-seat.
17 Then all the Greeks took "Sosthenes the chief
ruler of the (Jewish) synagogue, and beat him before
the judgment-seat. And Gallio cared for none of
these things.
18 And Paul after this tarried there yet a good
while, and then took his leave of the ºrdiºn, and
sailed thence into Syria, and with him Priscilla and
Aquila; * having shorn his head in Cenchrea: for he
had a vow (of Nazaritism upon him, which being ea:-
pired, he was to shave his head according to the law,
Numb. vi.). -
19 And he came to Ephesus, and left them there ;
but he himself entered into the synagogue, and rea-
soned with the Jews.
20 (And) when they desired him to tarry longer
time with them, he consented not ; -
21 But bade them farewell, saying, I must by all
means keep this feast that cometh in Jerusalem, but
I will return again to you, if God will. And he sail-
ed from Ephesus. &
nius saith, it had but one bishop), more bishops than one at
a time; but as this is uncertain, so have I shown, note on
Phil. i. 1, that Epiphanius speaks not of the primitive and
apostolic times, but of the times of the Meletians, saying,
That though in other churches there were Meletian as well
as catholic bishops at the same time, yet it was never so in
Alexandria. -
8 Ver, 18. Having shorn his head in Cench rea: for he
had a vow.] The text leaves it uncertain whether it were
Paul or Aquila that made this vow; though Aquila being
left at Ephesus, and not going up to Jerusalem, as St. Paul
did, hence I conclude the vow was made by St. Paul ;
moreover, this is certain, that it was the vow of Nazaritism
mow finished, and which by Philo" is styled sixà &#xéºn,
“the great vow,” which caused this votary to shave his
head; for this vow was either for a term of life, as in the in-
stances of Samson and John the Baptist, or for a term of
days, which being completed, the Nazarite was to shave his
head, and bring offerings (see Numb. vi. 13, 14. Acts xxi.
26, 27). But whosoever is the Nazarite, the question is,
why he shaves his head at Cenchrea, as if his hair was to be
consecrated to Apollo, and not at Jerusalem, according to
the commandment P What some imagine, that this votary
was casually defiled, and so stood bound, according to the
law, to shave his head, and to begin his vow again, answers
not the doubt ; because he could not begin his vow anew
till he had offered his sin-offering (Numb. vi. 9–12), and
that was only to be offered at the tabernacle and temple.
Others say, this law of shaving at the door of the temple,
and offering these oblations, obliged those only who thus
vowed in the land of Judea, not those that were out of it;
and if this will not satisfy, because we find so little of it in
the ancient Jews, we may perhaps say, there was in the vow
of the Nazarites a moral part, viz. the consecration of them-
selves to the service of God, and a greater degree of purity;
and in this Christians might comply with it without scruple;
and it had a ceremonial part, the cutting off the hair, and
the offering sacrifices when it was accomplished; and as to
this, St. Paul, and other Christians, knowing the law was
not now obligatory, might dispense with themselyºs; omit,
or do them, as prudence and the case of scandal did require;
For though St. Paul went up now to Jerusalem, We read
not of any offering that he made according to the law, nor
perhaps would he have shaved his head on this account,
had not some scrupulous Jews at Corinth been conscious to
his vow.
*
# De Vict, p. 654, E. 2 I
2
484
ACTS OF THE APOSTLEs.
22 "And when he had landed at Caesarea (Stra-
tonis), and gone up (to Jerusalem), and saluted the
church, he went down to Antioch.
23 And after he had spent some time there, he de-
arted, and went over all the country of Galatia and
hrygia in order, strengthening all the disciples.
24 And a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alèx-
andria, (being) an eloquent man, and mighty in the
scriptures, came to Ephesus.
25 This man was (somewhat) instructed in the .
of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit, he spake an
taught diligently (Gr. eacquisitely) the things of the
Lord, "knowing only the baptism of John (which
called the Jews to repentance, in eaſpectation of the
Messiah, who was suddenly to appear, and to baptize
them with the Holy Ghost). *
26 And he began to speak boldly (or openly) in the
synagogue (that the time of the promised Messiah
must be come): whom when Aquila and Priscilla had
heard, they took him to them, and expounded to him
the way of God more perfectly.
27 And when he was disposed to passinto Achaïa,the
brethren (at Ephesus) wrote, exhorting the disciples to
receive him: who, when he was come, helped them much
* who had believed through (the) grace (of God):
28 For he mightily convinced the Jews, and that
publicly, showing by the (testimony of) the scriptures
that Jesus was (the) Christ. -
* Ver. 22. And when he had landed at Caesarea, and gone
up, and saluted the church.] Here the question is, whether
St. Paul went up from the ship to the church of Caesarea, or
from Caesarea to the church at Jerusalem. And in favour
of the latter sense, let it be observed, (1.) that in the lan-
guage of the author of the Acts, to go from Caesarea to Je-
rusalem, is to go up, and to go from Jerusalem to Caesarea,
is to go down. So “Festus went up from Caesarea to Jeru-
salem,” Acts xxv. 1, and, wer. 5, he speaks to the rulers at
Jerusalem orvywaraſaively, “to go down with him” from
thence to Caesarea; and, ver. 6, xaraß&;, “going down to
Caesarea,” he sits on the tribunal, and they of Jerusalem
warağaiyoyrsc, “going down,” accuse Paul, ver. 7; and ver.
9, he asks Paul, whether évagãº, “going up to Jerusalem,
he would be there judged :” so Peter &vé8m, “went up from
Caesarea to Jerusalem,” Acts xi. 2 (see also xxi. 8. 12). So
that to interpret these words of his going up from Caesarea
to Jerusalem is suitable to the phrase of the evangelist.
(2.) St. Paul declares, he “must by all means keep the
feast at Jerusalem” (ver. 21), and that he therefore could
not tarry with them; and yet if he went not now to Jeru-
salem, he went not at all thither at this time: for, from this
church, he goes down to Antioch in Syria, and so through
Galatia and Phrygia, ver. 22, 23, and so comes back to
Ephesus, xix. 1, according to his promise, ver. 21, “I will
return again to you.”
* Wer. 25. Knowing only the baptism of John..] That
this Apollos had not only the gift of eloquence, but the mi-
raculous gifts of the Holy Ghost, by which he was made an
able minister of the gospel, is evident from the epistle to the
Corinthians; for he is there styled “a minister, by whom
they believed according to the gift that God had given him,”
l Cor. iii. 5; he is “a coworker with God,” ver, 9. But
how he came by these gifts, which rendered him so fit to
“water” these churches, and made him St. Paul's brother,
is not easy to determine. Grotius saith that the phrase
33 rā; xágiros, “by grace,” belongs to him, he helping the
church by the gifts he had received before baptism in the
name of Christ; the grace of God preventing the hands of
the apostles, but where, or by whom he was baptized he
saith not. Lorinus saith he was baptized by Aquila, or
some of Ephesus, but the text only saith that Aquila
and, Priscilla instructed, not that they baptized him. I
conjecture, therefore, that he had been baptized already
by those who instructed him “in the way of the Lord” (ver.
25): for in those times persons were baptized immediately
upon their profession of faith in Christ Jesus, as appears
from the instances of the eunuch, Lydia, the gaoler, and
many others; and that when it is here said, “He knew only
the baptism of John,” that relates only to the knowledge he
had received in Judea, before he returned to Alexandria,
where he received farther instruction concerning the death
and resurrection of Christ; but yet perhaps knew not why
he suffered, the Jewish nation having then no notion of a
Messiah that was to suffer for the sins of the people, nor
that his kingdom was to be only spiritual, they all expect-
ing that he should erect a temporal kingdom; nor that he
was to be “a light to the gentiles,” or to receive them into
favour without circumcision or observance of the law of
Moses; this being not made known to the apostles after the
Holy Ghost had fallen on them, till it was revealed to St.
Peter by a vision; nor seems the freedom of the Jews, from
the Mosaic law, to be made known to the apostles or the
disciples at Jerusalem for a long time after, as we may learn
from Acts xxi. 20, 21. 24.
* Ver. 27. Who had believed through grace.] i. e. Through
the gospel, saith Dr. Hammond, or through the favour of
God, in vouchsafing them the knowledge of it (see the note
on 2 Cor. vi. 1).
CHAPTER XIX,
1 AND it came to pass, that while Apollos was at
Corinth, Paul, having passed through the upper coasts
(ºf Asia Minor, to wit, Galatia and Phrygia, xviii. 23),
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIX.
* Ver, 1–6. He finding certain disciples, &c.] Observe
here,
First, That these disciples were converts to the Christian
faith, i. e. that they believed that Jesus was the Christ, and
that he was risen from the dead, is evident, because St. Paul
not only calls them believers, but inquires whether they had
received the Holy Ghost ; which none but they who thus
believed did or could receive : the gift of prophecy, which
is the Jewish import of the Holy Ghost, being not given
(Acts ii. § nor to be given till Jesus was glorified (John
vii. 37–39
Secondly, When therefore they say, “We have not so
much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost,” their
meaning is, We have not as yet heard that the gift of pro-
phecy, which, for the space of about four hundred years, had
been restrained from the Jewish church, was yet restored.
Now that which rendered them thus unacquainted with this
came to Ephesus: and *finding certain disciples
(abiding there),
2 He said to them, Have ye received the (gift of
new effusion of the Holy Ghost was this, that as Apollos had
left Jerusalem, and gone to Alexandria before the miracu-
lous effusion of the Holy Ghost on the apostles at the day of
pentecost, so had they also done, and had been travelling
into other parts of the world, where the gospel had not yet
been planted. Observe,
Thirdly, That these persons, who were before baptized
with the “baptism of John,” are again baptized “in the name
of the Lord Jesus,” as is evident from these words, “And
when they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the
Lord Jesus; ” for they are manifestly mistaken who say,
these are the words not of St. Luke but of St. Paul, and
make the sense of the words run thus, John baptized with
the baptism of repentance, saying, that men should believe
in him that should come after him, that is, in Christ Jesus ;
and they that heard John were by his baptism baptized in
the name of the Lord Jesus. For, (1.) That Paul laid his
hands on these persons is certain from ver. 6, and that he
baptized them when he laid his hands on them, seems evi-
CHAPTER XIX.
485
the) Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said to
him, We have not so much as heard whether there be
any (entraordinary gift of prophecy, or of the) Holy
Ghost (restored again, or vouchsafed to the church).
3 And he said to them, Into what (baptism) then
were ye baptized?. And they said, Into John’s bap-
tism.
4 Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the
baptism of repentance, saying to the people, that they
(repenting) should believe on him who should come
after him, that is, on Christ Jesus, (who would baptize
them with the Holy Ghost, Matt. iii. 11.
5. And) when they heard this, they were baptized
in the name of the Lord Jesus.
6 And when Paul had laid his hands upon them,
the Holy Ghost came upon them; and they spake
with tongues, and prophesied.
7 And all the men (that did so) were about twelve.
8 And he went into the synagogue (of the Jews
there), and spake boldly for the space of three months,
disputing (discoursing of) and persuading the things
concerning (Gr. persuading them concerning the things
of) the kingdom of God. *
9 *But when divers were hardened, and believed
not, but spake evil of that way before the multitude,
he departed from them, and separated the disciples,
disputing daily in the school of one Tyrannus.
10 *And this (practice he) continued by the space
of two years; so that all they who dwelt in Asia heard
the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks.
II And God wrought special miracles by the hands
of Paul:
12 So that from his body were brought to the sick
handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed
from them, and the evil spirits went out of them.
13 Then certain of the vagabond Jews, (being) “ex-
orcists, took upon them to call over them which had
evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We
adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth (to come
forth). -
dent from the connexion of the words, “They were baptized
in the name of the Lord Jesus,” and when Paul “laid his
hands on them, the Holy Ghost fell upon them ; ” whereas,
according to the former sense, Paul must have laid his hands
upon all that were baptized by the Baptist, and they who
were baptized by John must have received by Paul's hands
the Holy Ghost: for either these words must signify at large,
They that heard John and were baptized of him ; and then
the words following must import that Paul laid his hands on
all that heard John, and they received the Holy Ghost ; or
they must refer to those that heard Paul, and then they
must first be baptized by him, and then receive the Holy
Ghost by imposition of his hands. (2.) This is evident from
the words of Peter, to all those many thousands that heard
him, “Be ye baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, and
ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost; ” for since he
spake to the men of Jerusalem in general, Acts ii. 14, and
of Judea, and all Jerusalem and Judea were baptized of
John, saith Matthew, iii. 5, 6, all, or at least many of those
to whom he spake, must already have been baptized with
the baptism of John, and yet he makes it necessary for them
to be “baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.” Whence
two things are extremely evident, and consequent from each
other; viz. (1.) That he exhorts them who had been bap-
tized with John's baptism to be “baptized in the name of
the Lord Jesus.” (2.) That therefore they who were bap-
tized with his baptism, were not baptized “in the mame of
the Lord Jesus ;” and this is visible even in the words of
Paul here, John said to those that came to his baptism, ºva.
widºreč-wow, not that they did, but that “they should be-
lieve in him that was coming after him, that is, in the Lord
Jesus ; ” now they were not to be baptized in the name of
Jesus Christ, till they did actually believe in him, which they
who had received John's baptism were so far from doing,
that they were “musing whether John himself were not the
Christ,” Luke iii. 15, and asking, “Why baptizest thou, if
thou art not the Christ?” John i. 25. And, (3.) As our
Saviour never said openly and expressly to the Jews, that
he was the Christ, so he charges his apostles to tell no man
that he was so till his resurrection. But to what end should
he do this, if both the Baptist and his disciples had before
baptized all men into this faith, “that he was the Christ,”
and so had published this faith to all Judea 2 Only here
note, that this is no ground for rebaptizing any now, by rea-
son of the great difference betwixt the baptism of John then,
and that in the name of Jesus after his resurrection ; of
which see the note on Matt. iii. 11. (4.) Observe, that after
the imposition of the apostles' hands, these men “spake with
tongues and prophesied,” receiving the same gifts of the Holy
Ghost, which the apostles and others had received to fit them
for the ministry, which was then generally performed by such
gifted men commissionated for that work by the Holy Ghost
thus falling on them ; whence we find these prophets and
teachers Astroveyoğytaç, “ministering to the Lord” in their
assemblies, Acts xiii. 1–3; and this renders the opinion of
Bishop Stillingfleet very probable, viz. “that St. Paul, de-
signed these twelve men for a nursery of the churches in
Asia, or persons to be sent from Ephesus to preach among
them.”
* Wer. 9. 'Q: 35 twe; Baxxmpúvoyro, But as some were hard-
ened.] I have shown, note on Mark viii. 17, that men are
then said to be hardened, when having had sufficient evi-
dence of what they ought to do or believe, they refuse to
believe or do it: and thus were these persons hardened here,
i. e. they would not believe, after sufficient evidence, that
Jesus was the Christ.
* Ver. 10. And this continued for the space of two years;
so that all that dwelt in Asia heard the word, both Jews and
Greeks.] Here it is carefully to be noted, that we read not
of Paul's coming to Ephesus at all, till xviii. 19, and then
“he would not tarry with them,” ver. 20, but makes haste
up to Jerusalem ; when he had saluted the church there,
he goes thence to Antioch, and tarries there some time, ver.
23; then he goes through Phrygia and Galatia, “ confirming
the brethren,” ibid., and then to Ephesus; there he disputes
three months in the synagogues of the Jews, then two years
more in the school of Tyrannus; after he leaves Ephesus, he
goes through Macedonia and Achaia to Jerusalem, as he had
before determined to do, ver. 21. xx. 1, not coming at all to
any part of Asia till he came to Miletus, ver. 10. 17. They
therefore who make him spend three quarters of a year in
-other parts of Asia, do not only say this without proof, or
without assigning any other city of Asia, where he preached;
but they say this against the account here given of him by
St. Luke ; his three years therefore, mentioned xx. 31, must
be reckoned from his first coming to Ephesus.
* Ver. 13. 'Iow8aiwy £oexia-röy, Of the Jewish evorcists.]
That the Jews were wont to exorcise devils, or to cast them
out, not only by invocation of the name of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, but by skill in magic, we learn from Josephus,”
who mentions one Eleazar before Vespasian, his sons, his
captains, and a great number of his soldiers, robº wºrö 3al-
fºoviow Aaºğavoºyou; &moxiſov’ra roºrov, “delivering them who
were possessed with evil spirits from them, and drawing forth
31& Tây ºvºvápov rô Satºwāvtov, the devil by the nose, by put-
ting to his nose who was possessed a ring, having under the
seal of it a root, of which Solomon had discovered the virtue,
and adjuring him by the adjuration taught by Solomon, Kai
Tຠin w83, 3, aviónksy ixºyo; #TiNáyoy, and saying over him
the incantations which Solomon composed :” they had also
“books of enchantments, kai réâtrov; Hºogºrsoy, and modes
of exorcising demons, avy raćogºvovº, composed,” as they gave
it out, “by Solomon; and they,” saith he, “are of great use
to this day.” As for the root of which he speaks, he informs
us that it was a very dangerous thing to pluck it up, and
prescribes a very superstitious way of doing it ; but being
thus gathered, and brought to those that are possessed, saith
he, 3atºšvia roſ, &civ Eidºvépceva ºraxáo; #Aaïvet, “it quickly
expels the demons out of men's bodies” (De Bell. Jud. lib.
vii. cap. 23, p. 981).
* Lib. i. cap, 2, p. 257, 258.
486
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
14 And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew,
and chief (among the orders) of the priests, which did
SO.
15 And the evil spirit answered, and said, Jesus I
know, and Paul I know (to be persons having authority
to command me) ; but who are ye (that ye should take
wpon you £o do it)? *
16 And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped
on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against
them, so that they fled out of the house naked and
wounded.
17 And this (being done publicly) was known to all
the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus; and
fear (of this powerful name) fell on them all, and the
name of the Lord Jesus was magnified.
18 And many that believed came, and confessed
(their former magicalpractices), and showed their deeds.
19 Many also of them which used "curious (i. e.
nagic) arts, brought their books together, and burned
"them before all men: and they counted the price of
them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.
20 So mightily grew the word of God and pre-
vailed.
21 After these things were ended, Paul purposed in
the Spirit, when he had passed through Macedonia
and Achaia, to go to Jerusalem, saying, After I have
been there, I must also see Rome.
22 So he sent into Macedonia two of them that
ministered to him, (viz.) Timotheus and Erastus; but
he himself stayed in Asia (at Ephesus, 1 Cor. xvi. 8,
here, ver. 26, 30), for a season.
23 And the same time there arose no small stir about
that way (which Paul preached).
24 For a certain man named Demetrius, (being) a
silversmith, who "made silver shrinesfor Diana, brought
no small gain to the craftsmen;
25 Whom he called together with the workmen of
like occupation, and said (to them), Sirs, ye know that
by this craft we have our wealth.
26 Moreover you see and hear, that not alone at
Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul
hath turned away much people (Gr. that this Paul
hath persuaded much people, not only of Ephesus, but
of all Asia), saying that they be no gods which are
made with hands (there being no divinity residing in
them):
27 So that not only this our craft is in danger to
be set at nought, but also that the temple of the great
goddess Diana should be despised, and her magnifi-
cence should be destroyed, whom all Asia and the
world worshippeth (in her images).
28 And when they heard these things, they were
full of wrath, and cried out, saying, Great is Diana of
the Ephesians !
29 And the whole city was filled with confusion:
and (the men of it) * having caught Gaius and Aris-
tarchus, men of Macedonia, Paul’s companions in
travel, they rushed with one accord into the theatre.
30 And when Paul would have entered in to the
people, the disciples suffered him not.
31 And certain of the "chief of Asia (Gr. of the
priests or magistrates of Asia, who governed the games),
who were his friends, sent to him, desiring him that
he would not adventure himself into the theatre.
32 Some therefore cried one thing, and some ano-
ther: for the assembly was confused, and the most
part knew not wherefore they were come together.
33 And they drew Alexander out of the multitude,
the Jews putting him forward (either to plead the com-
non cause against images, or to earpose him to the peo-
ple’s rage, because he was turned Christian). And
Alexander beckoned with his hand, and would have
made his defence to the people.
34 But when they knew that he was a Jew (and so a
* Ver. 19. They that used replieya, curious arts.] That is,
arts of magic. That this is the import of the word, Grotius
and Dr. Hammond prove from the account that Irenaeus *
gives us of the disciples of Simon Magus, that they used
amatoria et agogima, et quaecundue sunt alia parerga, l, peri-
erga, “love charms and philtres, and all other curious arts.”
For Porphyry, speaking of these magicians, saith, 31& roſ-
toy platea kai éporize waraoksváçovaty of Mazoğalºoys, “They
by these evil spirits make their philtres and love charms;”
and it seems to have had this signification, because the magi,
as Origen f saith, were regispyağuevo rāv Šalºzoviov čvágari,
zai Suyápºsiç, xzi ºrpážeiç, wai in ºc, zai Botáva; dizziz, Saipaoat,
wai xíšovc, “curiously employed about searching into the
names, the forms, the powers, the actions, the incantations
of demons, and the herbs, stones, and sculptures, made in
them, proper to these demons; whereas,” saith he, “à"regi-
Beyoy #60;, “a life free from these curiosities is acceptable to
God, and the Lord Christ would leave, to be vexed with evil
spirits, rspiegyağp.svoyèatºoviov dyāuara,him that is thus curious
about the names of demons, and seeks after ways of enchant-
ing them:” hence the books here brought to be burnt are by
the fathers styled yon-rinai Bišnot, “books of sorcery.” Nor
is it to be wondered that these arts should abound at Ephe-
sus, where Plutarch Š speaks, regi rāy pºéyoy #y’Eçãcº Sigret-
83vrov, “ of magicians conversing;” that city being so famous
for sorcery and enchantments of demons, that the magical
words used to that effect were styled 'Eºforia yeapºtzara,
“Ephesian letters;” and Plutarch | tells us, that “the magi:
cians bid them who were possessed with devils to read and
recite the Ephesian letters.”
* They burnt their books before all men.] Note also, that
* Lib. i. cap. 20. + De Abst. lib. ii. S. 42.
t Contra Celsum, lib. viii. p. 418.
§ In Vità Alexand. p. 666.
{l Oi ºffyot roi; Batºzovićop, #vov, kexedova', tà 'Eºforia ypáſzºwara
Trºc airº; Kazakiyev kai yogaśw. Sympos. lib. vii. qu. 5,
p. 706.
they sold not those books, though they were of great value,
because, saith CEcumenius, they would not be gainers by
such wicked arts, nor would they contribute, by selling them,
to the teaching others the same arts.
7 Ver. 24. IIotöv waci), āpyupoti, 'Agrégºog, Who made silver
shrines for JDiana.] That these shrines were x866ta Falkpā,
“little chapels,” representing the form of a temple with an
image in it, which being set upon an altar, or some other
solemn place, and the leaves of the door being opened, the
image stood, or sat in state, and so was represented to the
spectators, see Dr. Hammond on the place, and Chrysostom.
* Ver. 29. Having caught Gaius and Aristarchus, Paul's
companions—they rushed into the theatre.] Say Some, to
throw them to the wild beasts, as blasphemers of their god-
dess; on which account, the town-clerk seems to Say, “You
have brought these men here, who are neither robbers of
churches, nor yet blasphemers of your goddess,” ver. 37,
for that the theatre was the place where they did Smptoftwaxeſy,
“fight with beasts,” see note on 1 Cor. iv. 9, and that this
was done at Ephesus, see note on 1 Cor. xv. 32.
* Ver. 31. Chief of Asia, Gr. ‘Aataexaſ.] Here again
Grotius and Dr. Hammond note, that among the heathens
there were games instituted, ad placanda bona numina, “to
appease the good gods,” or in honour of them; of these the
pontifices or chief priests were presidents at Rome; in
other provinces the priests or magistrates presided, saith Sal-
masius,” and these were called from their provinces, Asi-
archae, Syriarchae, Bithyniarchae, officers belonging to these
games in those provinces. Thus in the martyrdom of Poly-
carp, bishop of Symrna in Asia, they ask Töv 'Aqiaºxy
oiximºroy, “Philip, the ruler of the games” there to let out
a lion upon Polycarp, which he declares he could not do, be-
cause the games were ended; whence it appears that it be-
longed to these Asiarchae here mentioned, to let loose the
*-*
* Exercit. p. 865, et Wales. H. Eccl. lib. iv. cap. 15.
+ De Martyr. Polyc, Ep. Smyr. Eccl. § 12.
&
CHAPTER XX.
487
professed enemy to their religion and to image-worship,
they) all with one voice, about the space of two hours,
cried out, Great is Diana of the Ephesians !
35 And when the * town-clerk (or register) had
appeased the people, he said, Ye men of Ephesus,
* what man is there that knoweth not how that the
city of Ephesus is a worshipper of the great goddess
Diana, and of the image which fell down from Jupiter?
36 Seeing then that these things cannot be spoken
against, ye ought to be quiet, and to do nothing
rashly (in punishing those men ye have now laid hold on).
37 For ye have brought hither these men (for that
end), who are neither robbers of churches, nor yet
blasphemers of your goddess (and so not worthy to be
thrown to the wild beasts).
38 Wherefore if Demetrius, and the craftsmen that
are with him, have matter (of complaint) against any
man, “the law is open, and there are deputies (Gr.
there are judicial days of pleading, and the proconsuls
are present) ; let them implead one another.
39 But if ye inquire anything concerning other
matters (than those relating to your private injuries),
it shall be determined “in a lawful assembly (and
ought not to be prosecuted in this tumultuous manner).
40 For we are in danger to be called in question
(by the Romans) for this day’s uproar, there being no
cause whereby we may give an account of this con-
COUlrSe.
41 And when he had thus spoken, he dismissed the
assembly.
wild beasts upon malefactors; accordingly, they are here
present, and being kind to Paul, send to him not to come
thither. \
* Ver. 35. 'O yeappearsöc, The town-clerk.] This word is
rendered by Budaeus, “the chancellor;” he was an officer
chosen by the people to preside over the games, saith Dom-
ninus, cited by Johannes Antiochenus, and so the fitter to
appease their tumults.
* Who knows not, rºw ‘E4'Eatov orów Veøxápow ovaray, that
the city of the Ephesians is a worshipper of the great god-
dess Diana 7) After all the learning our critics have spent
upon this place, I see no reason to change our translation;
for though the city or people of Ephesus may have this title
in the coins, it cannot here be an epithet of the city, for then
it should be vsøkápov, as it is in the coins. Again, it being
plain from Julius Pollux,” that the veoxépoi were of tây Saôy
Sepairsvrai, “the servants, ministers, and worshippers of the
* Lib. i. cap. 1, §. 16, p. 5.
35
gods;” and from Phavorinus, that weakágoc was 3 rod yaoi,
#Triºexoſkevoº, “one that took care of the temple;” and from
Hesychius, Suidas, and Phavorinus, that he was one who
did adorn and beautify it, it may be very reasonable to be-
stow this title on the Ephesians, who were so peculiarly ad-
dicted to her worship, who had there that temple of Diana
which was accounted the miracle of the world, and who had
expended so much in the beautifying and adorning of it, and
in this sense only could they be styled neocori of “the image
which fell down from Jupiter.”
* Ver. 38. ‘Ayigato, 3) cyrat, The law is open..] i. e.
“Court days are kept,” for so the word with an accent in the
antepenultima signifies, hºwāgas being understood; for 3%pator,
say Suidas and Phavorinus, is h hººpa šy fi &yog& Texeiraſ, “w
day in which a court is kept.”
* Wer. 39. 'Evépző #xxxncia, In a lawful assembly..] Threy
days in every month, saith CEcumenius, were appointed fo
assemblies to hear causes, of which this being none, it was an
unlawful assembly. -
CHAPTER XX.
1 AND after the uproar was ceased, Paul called to
him the disciples, and embracing them, departed to go
into Macedonia.
2 And when he had gone over those parts, and
had given them much exhortation, he came into
Greece,
3 And there abode three months. And when the
Jews laid wait for him, as he was about to sail into
Syria (to carry alms to Jerusalem), he purposed (or
Tesolved) to return through Macedonia.
4 And there accompanied him into Asia (without
going from him) Sopater of Berea; and (but) of the
Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus; and Gaius
of Derbe, and Timotheus; and of Asia, Tychicus
and Trophimus.
5 These (were persons who) going before tarried for
us at Troas.
6 And we sailed away from Philippi after the days
of unleavened bread (were ended), and came to them
to Troas in five days, where we abode seven days. .
7 * And upon the first day of the week, when the
disciples came together to break bread (i. e. to cele-
brate the eucharist), Paul preached to them, (being) rea-
dy to depart on the morrow; and continued his dis-
course until midnight.
8 And there were many lights in the upper cham-
ber, where they were gathered together (for religious
worship ; see the note oni. 13.)
9 And there sat in a window a certain young man
named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep: and
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XX.
* Ver. 7. 'Ev 33 aft £213 rāy orać84 row, And upon the first
day of the week, when the disciples were gathered together
to break bread..] These words seem fairly to evince, that it
was the custom of the first Christians, and of the apostles, to
keep the Lord's-day holy, or as a day appointed for religious
worship: for, - .
First, That ºwia 'rºy caſ'8ároy, “the first day of the week,”
was the Lord’s-day, is fully proved, note on 1 Cor. xvi. 1.
Secondly, Observe, that on this day the disciples were not
summoned extraordinarily to come together, that St. Paul
did not ºwetaxa Nziv “call them together,” as he did the as-
sembly of the elders of the church, wer. 17, but the disciples
were themselves avynypºvot, “met” in their symavis, or as-
sembly; the text informs us, that “Paul tarried with them
seven days,” and in none of them have we any mention of
an assembly to this purpose, but only “on the first day of
the week.”
Thirdly, Observe, that they then met together, “to break
formed in celebration of the holy Sacrament, which it was
the custom of the primitive Christians to receive in all their
church assemblies on the Lord’s-day: this the apostle inti-
mates when he complains of his Corinthians, 1 Cor. xi.,
that they “came together for the worse, because, when they
came together in the church, there were divisions among
them,” so that they did not eat together of the table of the
Lord. Now thus “to come together in one place,” saith
he, “is not to eat the Lord's supper;” i.e. it is not so to do
it as that sacred action ought to be performed : this there-
fore when they came together in the church they did, and
therefore, what is “coming together,” ver. 17, “coming to
the church,” ver. 18, “ coming to one place,” ver. 19, is
“coming together to eat,” ver, 33. Accordingly, it was the
custom of the church from the apostles' times thus to com-
municate upon the Lord’s day: for Pliny, in his epistle” to
the emperor Trajan, tells him, that he found nothing to al-
lege against the Christians, “but their obstimacy in their su-
* Soliti sunt stato die ante lucem convenire. Ep. lib. x.
bread;" which phrase doth signify the sacred actions per- ep, 97
488
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
l
as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep,
and fell down from the third loft, and was taken up
(as one) dead.
10 And (but) Paul went down, and fell on him, and
embracing him said, Trouble not yourselves (more
about him), for his life is (safe) in him.
11 When he therefore was come up again, and had
*broken bread, and eaten (i. e. had celebrated the sa-
crament of the Lord’s body and blood), and had talked
a long while, even till break of day, so he departed,
(as he had designed to do on the morrow, ver, 7.)
12 And they brought the young man (up) alive, and
were not a little comforted (at it).
13 And we went before to the ship, and sailed to
Assos, there intending to take in Paul; for so had he
* appointed (Gr. so he was disposed), minding himself
to go (thither) on foot.
14 And when he met with us at Assos, we took
him in, and came to Mitylene.
15 And we sailed thence, and came the next day
over against Chios: and the next day we arrived at
Samos, and tarried at Trogyllium : and the next day
we came to Miletus (ten miles distant from Ephe-
Sus).
16 For Paul had determined to sail by Ephesus (ant
touching there), because he would not spend the time
in Asia: for he hasted, if it were possible for him, to
be at Jerusalem the day of Pentecost.
17 “And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and
called the elders of the church.
18 And when they were come to him, he said to
them, Ye know from the first day that I came into
Asia, after what manner I have been with you at all
SeaSOnS,
19 Serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and
with many tears, and temptations, which befell me by
the lying in wait of the Jews :
20 And how I kept back nothing that was profita-
ble for you, but have shown you, and have taught
you (what was necessary to be known) publicly, and
from house to house,
21 Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the
Greeks, (that they should evercise) repentance towards
God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ (i. e.
perstition; and that it was their custom to meet together on
a set day before it was light, and to bind themselves by the
sacrament to do no evil.” Now this epistle was writ only
six years after the death of the evangelist St. John. And
Justin Martyr," who wrote but forty years after his death,
thus speaks, “On Sunday all the Christians in the city or
country meet together, because that is the day of our Lord's
resurrection, and then we have read unto us the writings of
the prophets and apostles; this done, the president makes an
oration to the assembly, to exhort them to imitate and do the
things they heard; then we all join in prayer, and after that
we celebrate the sacrament, and they that are willing and
able give alms,” &c.
* Ver. 1]. And had broken bread.] Though here be
mention only of breaking bread, yet that the cup was also
consecrated and distributed, is evident from the doctrine of
the church of Rome; for they agree with the protestants in
this, that the priests always ought to consecrate the eucharist
in both kinds, and say, that if one species be consecrated
without the other,' sacrilegium committitur, “it would be
sacrilege;” and yet if this place prove anything for commu-
nion in one kind, it proves as much for consecration in one
kind, and for the sumption of one kind only by the priest
that consecrates, though they hold it necessary for him to
receive both. And hence it was declared in the council of
Trent,iſ that “these places, and the reasons from them,
must be laid aside, because by them it would be concluded,
that it was not sacrilege to consecrate one kind without the
other ; which is contrary to all the doctors, and the meaning
of the church, and overthroweth the distinction of the eu-
charist, as it is a sacrifice, and as it is a sacrament.”
* Ver. 13. For so he had appointed, oùro, yā; %y 8tareray-
ºvaç, for so he was disposed.] Here is an evidence, that the
word rerayºyol, used xiii. 48, may there signify disposed, as
here apparently it doth.
* Wer. 17. And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and
called the elders of the church.] From these words, com-
pared with the twenty-sixth verse, where the same persons
are called “bishops,” who are here styled "resa'99'regoi, “el-
ders,” Chrysostom, St. Jerome, Theodoret, CEcumenius, and
Theophylact, have inferred, that the same persons, were in
the first ages of the church styled bishops or presbyters in-
differently: Dr. Hammond, on the contrary, and others do
contend, that the word ºrgsa'99'repot, “elders,” here signifies
only bishops; and because there lies this obvious objection
against this interpretation, that then there must have been
many bishops in the church of Ephesus, since all these
elders were called from Ephesus; he answers, that those el-
* Thy & #xtov hugeay wow; Trávre; ry guyêevary rotočarša,
imsº, 'incoj, xeters; 3 hºrspo; corrºp rā air; tā hºw#4 in vizgāv
&yearm. Apol. ii. p. 98, 99.
i Valentia de Usú Sacram. cap. 13.
3. History of the Council of Trent, lib. vi. p. 486.
ders were all the bishops of Asia, and saith that Paul, send-
ing to the metropolis of Asia, by that means gave notice
to the bishops of Asia to come to him : this he confirms (1.)
from the testimony of Irenaeus, who saith, they were called"
ab Epheso, et reliquis proximis civitatibus, “from Ephesus,
and the rest of the cities that were near ;” (2.) from the
words of the text, for “the flock,” saith he, “was not the
Christians of one city, but the Christians of all Asia; those
with whom Paul had been from the first day he came to
Asia, ver, 18, all among whom he had gone preaching the
kingdom of God, wer. 25.” But to the first argument it
may be answered,
First, That Chrysostom, St. Jerome, Theodoret, CEcume-
nius, and Theophylact, knew nothing of St. Paul's sending
to any other bishops besides those of Ephesus, for otherwise
they could not have argued as they do from this place, that
those persons could not be bishops, properly so called, be-
cause there could only be one bishop of one city. Bishop
Stillingfleet also saith, that St. Paul was in so great a haste,
that he would not so much as go to Ephesus, nor send ally
whither but to that city ; and yet those to whom he com-
mitted the whole flock then in Asia, came from Ephesus to
Miletus. But (2.) let it be granted that he sent to other
cities also, though it be plainly contrary to the text, which
mentions Ephesus only, yet it is evident, both from Irenaeus
and the text, that the same persons are called “presbyters”
in the seventeenth verse, who are called “bishops,” ver, 28 ;
for, from ver, 18 to the twenty-seventh inclusively, he con-
tinues his discourse to those presbyters whom he had called,
and in ver. 28 bids them take care of the church, “over which
the Holy Ghost had made them bishops:” this is also plain
from Irenaeus, for he saith expressly that, convocatis episco-
pis et presbyteris, “having called the bishops and presby-
ters,” he gave them charge of the church,+ in quo eos Spiritus
proposuit episcopos, “in which the Spirit had made them
bishops.”
Secondly, To the second argument the answer is evident
from the note made on xix. 10, that St. Paul, from the se-
cond time he came to Ephesus, stirred not thence, till he,
in prosecution of his purpose, mentioned there, ver. 21,
went from thence to Macedonia, in order to go to Jerusalem;
whence we learn, how he had been with them of Asia, from
the first day he came to Ephesus, preaching to Jews and
gentiles, viz. by disputing daily in the school of Tyrannus in
Ephesus, “ so that all they that dwelt in Asia heard the word,
both Jews and Greeks,” xix. 10, and by disputing thus, “he
persuaded much people,” oi uévvy Eqiaow, 3×N& axº, Tárºs
r; 'Agia;, i.e., not as we have the words rendered, “not only
at Ephesus, but throughout all Asia,” but, “not only of
Ephesus, but of all Asia.”
* Lib. iii. cap. 14,
+ Lib. c. cap. 14.
CHAPTER XXI.
489
that they should turn to God, doing works meet
jor repentance, and should believe in the Lord
Jesus).
22 "And now, behold, I go bound in the Spirit
(i. e. foreseeing by the Spirit that I shall be bound) to
Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me
there :
23 Save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every
city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me.
24 But none of these things move me, neither
count I my life dear to myself, so that I might finish
my course with joy; and the ministry which I have
received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of
the grace of God.
25 And now, behold, I know that ye all, among
whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God,
shall see my face no more.
26 Wherefore I take you to record this day, that
*I am pure from the blood of men (i. e. not guilty of
their ruin if they perish).
27 For I have not shunned to declare to you all the
counsel of God (the whole Christian doctrine, which if
Ayou keep in memory and practice, ye shall be saved, 1
Cor. xv. 3).
28 "Take heed therefore to yourselves, and to all
the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made
you overseers, “to feed the church of God, which he
hath purchased with his own blood.
29. For I know this, that "after my departing shall
* Ver. 22. And now, behold, I go 353sºvo; tº ITVečkati,
bound in the Spirit..] i. e. Not resolving in his own spirit, but
as Grotius saith truly, foreseeing by the Spirit that I shall
there be bound; for so it follows, ver. 23, “The Holy Ghost
witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions
abide me.”
* Ver. 26, 27. I am free from the blood of all men, for
I have not shunned to declare to you all the counsel of
God.] Hence we learn, that it is necessary for a pastor to de-
clare to his people all that is necessary for them to be-
lieve and do, in order to salvation, that the guilt of their ruin
may not lie upon him.
7 Wer. 28. Take heed therefore to yourselves, and to all
the flock, over which the Holy Ghost hath made you over-
seers.] I have shown in the note on 1 Cor. xii. 8-10, that
in those times the Holy Spirit did enable the apostles to dis-
cern who were fit to be governors of the church, and accord-
ingly by this afflatus of the Holy Ghost they were chosen for
that work; and to this the words of the apostle may re-
fer. But it is also to be noted from xix. 6, 7, that, at Ephe-
sus, Paul having laid his hands upon twelve men, “the Holy
Ghost fell on them, and they spake with tongues, and pro-
phesied;” and Bishop Stillingfleet conceives, these were men
kept at Ephesus as a nursery, to be sent forth as occasion
served, to preach and preside among the converts of Asia;
and if so, these words may more peculiarly relate to them.
* IIolaalysty rºy #xxxnciay rod OBoiſ, To feed the church of
God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.] If this
be the true reading, it follows unavoidably, that Jesus Christ,
who shed his blood for us, is here styled God; now this read-
ing is confirmed by the Vulgar, Arabic, Ethiopic, by Chry-
grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing (to
tear) the flock. a
30 °Also (out) of your own selves shall men arise,
speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after
them.
31 Therefore watch and remember, that by the
space of three years I ceased not to warn every one (of
you) night and day with tears.
32 And now, brethren, I commend you to God,
and to the word of his grace, which is able to build
you up (in your holy faith), and to give you an inhe-
ritance among all them that are sanctified.
33 I have coveted no man’s silver, or gold, or ap-
parel.
34 Yea, you yourselves know, that these hands
have ministered to my necessities, and to (the necessi-
ties of) them that are with me.
35 I have shown you all (these) things (to instruct
you), how that so labouring you ought to support the
weak, and (to) remember the words of the Lord Jesus
*how he said, It is more blessed to give than to
receive. -
36 And when he had thus spoken, he kneeled down
and prayed with them all.
37 And they all wept sore, and fell on Paul’s neck,
and kissed him,
38 Sorrowing most of all for those words that he
spake, that they should see his face no more. And
they accompanied him to the ship.
sostom and CEcumenius on the place. It is true, indeed,
that in Irenaeus, lib. iii. 14, in the Alexandrian MS., and
in the Syriac we read, rºy Éxxxna-lav roſ, Kvelov, “the church
of the Lord,” which may be construed, the church of the
Lord Jesus, but it may also be construed from the Arabic,
and other MSS., “the church of our Lord God;" if we con-
sider that “the church of God” is a phrase very frequent in
the New Testament (see 1 Cor. i. 2. x. 32. xi. 22. xv. 9. 2
Cor. i. 1. Gal. i. 13. 1 Tim. iii. 5), but “the church of the
Lord,” is a phrase never used in the New Testament.
* Ver. 29. After my departure shall grievous wolves enter
in, not sparing the flock.] Such were Cerinthus who set up
in Asia, see the note on Col. ii. 10, and other false apostles
and deceitful workers of the Jews, of whom see note on
1 Tim. i. 7, on iv. 2, 3, on vi. 21, on 2 Tim. i. 15, and
on iii. 2–4. -
* Wer. 30. Also of yourselves shall men arise, speaking
perverse things.] Such as Hymenaeus and Alexander were,
who “made shipwreck of the faith,” 1 Tim. i. 20; Hyme-
maus and Philetus, who taught “that the resurrection was
past already,” 2 Tim. ii. 17; for these epistles being written
chiefly for the Ephesians, it is reasonable to think he speaks
of men dwelling there who dispersed these doctrines among
them.
* Ver. 35. How he said, It is more blessed to give than
to receive.] This saying of Christ we find not in the gospels,
but yet these and the like words are so far from giving any
patronage to unwritten traditions, that they are a demonstra-
tion against them, it being certain that we had never known
any such thing, had not St. Luke recorded it.
CHAPTER XXI.
1 AND it came to pass, that after we were gotten
from them (of Ephesus), and had launched (into the
sea), we came with a straight course to Coos, and the
day following to Rhodes, and from thence to Patara :
2 And finding a ship sailing over into Phoenicia,
we went aboard, and set forth. -
3 Now when we had discovered Cyprus, we left
it on the left hand, and sailed into Syria, and landed
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXI.
* Ver. 3. ‘Ayagavévts; 38 rºy Körgov, And discerning or dis-
60wering Cyprus.] So &va paively yiv riva, is “ to discover
such a land;” and therefore both Stephanus, and from him
Schmidius, render these words thus, Quum cernere Cyprum
coepissemus, all other readings or conjectures being by Schmi-
dius confuted.
4.90
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
at Tyre: for there the ship was to unlade her burden.
4 And finding disciples, we tarried there seven
days: who (being endued with the gifts of the Holy
Ghost) said to Paul “through the Spirit, that (if he
*egarded his safety, ver. 11), he should not go up to
Jerusalem.
5 And when we had accomplished those days, we
departed and went away : and they all brought us on
our way, with (their) wives and children, till we were
out of the city; and them) we kneeled down on the
shore, and prayed.
6 And when we had taken our leave one of another
we took ship; and they returned home again.
7 *And when we had finished our course (Gr. and
finishing our sail) from Tyre, we came to Ptolemais,
and saluted the brethren, and abode with them one
JalV. -
§ And the next day we that were of Paul’s company
departed, and came to Caesarea: and we entered into
the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of
the seven (deacons mentioned, ch. vi.) and abode with
him.
9 And the same man had “four daughters, virgins,
who did prophesy (according to the prophecy men-
tioned ii. 17).
10 And as we tarried there many days, there came
down from Judea a certain prophet, named Agabus.
11 And when he was come to us, he took Paul’s
girdle, and bound his own hands (first) and (then af-
terward his) feet (with it), and said, Thus saith the
* Ver. 4. Who said to Paul by the Spirit, that he should
not go up to Jerusalem.] If this had been said absolutely by
an afflatus of the Holy Ghost, St. Paul could not have acted
contrary to it without sin, in opposing what the Holy Ghost
required, and doing what he did forbid; seeing then Paul
persists in his resolution, after what both they here, and the
prophet Agabus had said, ver, ll, these words must admit of
the limitation mentiomed in the paraphrase, that if he would
not be there bound, and evilly entreated, he should not go
up thither ; and this was only what the Spirit had before
told him; for, saith he, “I go bound in the Spirit to Jeru-
salem,” xx. 22. Or, they said to him, the Spirit revealing to
them what he was to suffer there, “they would not have him
go up,” as also did the disciples of Caesarea, and they that
came up with him from Troas on the same account.
* Ver. 7. Aë 8tavčarayre; roy TrAoûv, And when we had fi-
mished our course.] There is no need to read here 8wayat-
cray’reº, or to think that this phrase signifies only, having
sailed; it truly imports, that finishing our voyage by sea, we
came from Tyre to Ptolemais; for from thence they went by
land to Caesarea, and from thence to Jerusalem, and so were
then finishing their navigation, or their course by sea.
* Ver. 9. He had four daughters.] Hence CEcumenius
observes, that rô wolvoyāqayri yák, wy 8taxovsſy #aaat, “one
that useth matrimony may be a deacon.”
* Ver, 11. So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind this man.]
Not so as to the girdle, for he was only bound with chains;
nor so as to the binding of his feet, for St. Paul seems only
to have the chains fastened to his hands ; but so as to be as
truly and as much bound as Agabus was, not personally by
the Jews, but by the Romans at their instigation, and on their
account.
* Ver. 16. One Mnason, an old disciple..] Converted by
Paul and Barnabas when they were at Cyprus, say Grotius
and Dr. Hammond, but very improbably; for that they were
at Cyprus we find, Acts xiii. 4, but there is not a word of
him, or any other convert that they made there.: the words,
“an old disciple,” rather induce us to conceive he was one
of the disciples or followers of Christ.
7 Ver. 18. And Paul went in with us to James, and all
the elders were present.] “All the bishops of Judea,” saith
Dr. Hammond, without one word to prove it; for there is
nothing of this matter in his note on Phil. i. b, to which he
refers; and without all probability: for if there were then any
other bishops constituted in Judea, of which we read nothing
in scripture, or primitive antiquity, how came they all, un-
Holy Ghost, "So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the
man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into
the hands of the gentiles.
12 And when we heard these things, both we (that
were with him) and they of that place, besought him
(with tears) not to go up to Jerusalem.
13 Then Paul answered, What mean ye to weep,
and to break my heart 2 (Gr. ri trousire k\atovréc,
why do you this, weeping and breaking my heart ºy for
I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at
Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. ,
14 And when he would not be persuaded, we ceased
(our importunity), saying,The will of the Lord be done.
15 And after those days we took up our carriages,
and went up to Jerusalem.
16 There went with us also certain of the disciples
of Caesarea, and brought with them one "Mnason of
Cyprus, an old disciple, with whom we should lodge.
17 And when we were come to Jerusalem, the bre-
thren received us gladly.
18 And the day following 7 Paul went in with us to
James; and all the elders (of Jerusalem) were present.
19 And when he had saluted them, he declared
particularly what things God had wrought among the
gentiles by his ministry.
20 And when they heard it, they glorified the Lord
and said to him, Thou seest, brother, how many thou-
sands of Jews there are which believe : * and they are
all zealous (for the observance) of the law (by all that
are Jews):
sent for, to be absent from their flocks, and present at Jeru-
Salem, especially when all the apostles, except James, seem
to be absent P More probable and modest is the observa-
tion, that here we find “James bishop of Jerusalem, oi resa-
85 regoi, his presbyters, or elders,” with him, and his seven
deacons, mentioned ver. 18, and so have reason to believe
that other celebrated churches conformed to this model, hav-
ing bishops, presbyters, and deacons.
* Wer. 20. And they are all zealous of the law.] The
zealots among the believers were urgent for the circumcision
of the gentiles, and for requiring them to observe the law of
Moses (Acts xv. 1. 5). But the whole body of the con-
verted Jews, bishops, and elders, as well as the laity, were
zealous for the observation of their laws and customs by the
Jews, and that because they knew the law to be of a divine
original; and therefore thought they could not throw off the
observance of it without apostasy from God, as is insinuated
in these words, “Thou teachest &mocraciay, apostasy from
Moses” (ver. 21). Thus Philo” doth inform us, that they
believed their laws to be Aoyia Seáxgnara, “ divine oracles,”
and “this doctrine they being taught from their infancy,
they are so afraid of offending against them in the least, that
they will rather suffer the loss of all human blessings than
be guilty of it; yea,” saith he, “they are wont willingly to
suffer death as the way to immortality, rather than permit
their rites to be violated.” Josephus: saith the same, that
“they are taught from their cradle to call them Øeot 86%ara,
the doctrines of God, and therefore continue in the observ-
ance of them, not adding anything to them, or taking any-
thing from them, and when it is necessary, dying freely for
them.” And again, “We,” saith he,S “think it our only
* Kai tre+ fixao's ºwāv Āzartov rāv Binyogeupwévoy ośrw;, &;
&racay Thy rač’ &v62%mot; eits eituxicy, Eirs sièatºovíay Xº,
×axeſy, ºwn3árot’ &y tºrêp trapaſ'égeo; Kai rot Tuxávros &y invax-
A&#aa-6at. Legat. ad Caium, p. 791.
+ Eiw83; #xovalici; &ya&#xed-8at Sayároic, čaršć &Sayaziay, itrée
‘rāv ºwn?āv rôy ratgiov reptèsſy &vateoſºvoy. Ibid. p. 780, F.
f IIāzi yüp a ſºpvrév šarty stºic fix rāq Trpárn; yeyão so; 'low-
8aioig vowä&eiv air& ©Boi, 33 ypcara. Contr. Apion. p. 1037, A.
§ ‘Høst, 8: Toivávrtov ºſay Biya wai ºpfäynaw Rai ägethy
ūtreixº papasy, rô ºwn?èv čaw; Utreyavtſov (white Trpážai, whºrs 8tayon-
Säval toſs tº 3.8x5, woºzoSerharactiv–#&ſy 83 roſ, ºrgia 9sſory #
3px; reflāyat row vágoy nati, Ogot, 805xuaty, où8' size&#; % rotºrey
quxártsy' ri yüp autot rig &y &Eraxwña siev, # ri kāAAtoy #sigot.
Ibid. p. 1073, D.
CHAPTER XXI.
491
21 And they are informed of thee, that thou teach-
est all the Jews which are among the gentiles to for-
sake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise
their children, neither (ought they) to walk after the
customs (of our forefathers).
22 What is it therefore ? (rt oëv šart; what is there-
fore to be done, seeing) the multitude (which have been
thus informed of thee) must needs come together for
they will hear that thou art come.
23 Do therefore this that we say to thee; (to wit,)
We have four men which have a vow on them ;
24 Them take, and purify thyself with them, and
'be at charges with them (making provision of sacri-
fices for them, as the law requires), that (when the days
of their purification are ended) they may shave their
heads: and (by this practice) all may know that those
things, whereof they are informed concerning thee,
are nothing (have no truth in them), but that thou thy-
self also walkest orderly, and keepest the law.
25 As touching the gentiles which believe, we have
written and concluded that they observe no such thing,
save only that they keep themselves from things offer-
ed to idols, and from blood, and from (things) stran-
gled, and from fornication.
26 Then Paul took the men, and the next day pu-
rifying himself with them (i.e. beginning the separation
wisdom and virtue neither to do nor think anything con-
trary to our laws; and being persuaded from the beginning
that they are suitable to the will of God, we think nothing
else so holy as to keep them, for who can remove anything
of them, or find anything better?” He also frequently de-
clares that they were thus addicted to the observation of
their laws, “from an opinion of the etermal punishments
they must expect to suffer, who even for fear of death durst
violate them, and from a firm assurance of eternal happiness
if they were faithful to the death in the observance of
them.” It is not therefore to be wondered that men who
had imbibed such opinions of them from their infancy, that
they derived from God, and knew of no revelation made
by him that they were to cease after the death of their Mes-
siah, should be still zealous for them; or that they, who
thought they could not be removed, or that any better laws
could be given, should think them fit to be observed; or that
they, who feared such dreadful evils if they did forsake them,
expected so great blessings from being faithful to them to the
death, should be averse from any doctrine, which taught
them to apostatize from, or to forsake the law of Moses :
and yet it pleased God as yet not to convince them of this
error by any revelation, or any afflatus of that Spirit which
many of them had received; partly because he saw this
might have obstructed the faith even of the little remnant
which belonged to “the election of grace;” partly because
he knew the time would shortly come, when the destruction
of their temple, and their exclusion from their own land,
would render it impossible for them to observe this law, and
the severity of divine judgments on them would convince
them, as it did some, that: “God had utterly cast off that
nation” from being any more his people.
* Ver. 26, 27. Atayyáxxov rºy #xtrañºwaty rôv hasgåy roi,
&ywºod, Signifying the accomplishment of the days of pu-
Tification.] i. e. Not signifying that those days were already
accomplished, for, that is contrary to the following verse,
which shows that Paul was apprehended in the temple, be-
fore the seven days were ended, or, as the Greek may be ren-
dered, “as they were about to be accomplished;” but, as
Grotius well notes, signifying by that action that he would
* Tavčašai re ºráxiv wai Bioy &ºsivo Aa3iv in regurgoºrſic, p.
1076, A. Mö poºnbåøsy roy Sokočvra. 3roxrsively tº a 6 p.a., p.éya;
y&p lux; Rivövo; #y aiovio Bazavio ºff xeiºsvo; roſ; Trapaſaivovari
ºrky Byroxy roi, Qeoû, De Maccab. p. 1097, D.
+ "Ečst yet t; to; Osoſ, yyāºwn; a roxášša Sai wai yivāakely
3rt to TráAzt piaow airò pixoy Ioviaiwy &roxeig waréyvola rai.
Eicaz. apud Joseph. de Bello Jud. lib. vii, cap. 34, p. 990,
5 e -
of a Nazarite) he entered into the temple, to "signify
(when would be) the accomplishment of the days of
purification, until (Éwg oil, even to the time) that an of-
fering should be offered for every one of them, (as
the law required at the close of them, Numb. vi. 13).
27. And when the seven days (i. e. the time designed
for the separation) were almost ended (or were about to
be accomplished), the Jews which were of Asia, (where
Paul had preached three years, xx. 31, with great op-
position from the Jews, xix. 9. xx. 19. 1 Cor. xvi. 9),
when they saw him in the temple, stirred up all the
people, and laid hands on him,
28 Crying out, Men of Israel, help; (for) this is
the man that teacheth all men everywhere against
the people (of the Jews), and (against) the law, and
this place; and farther (or also hath) brought Greeks
into the temple, and (by so doing) hath polluted this
holy place.
29 (And this they said,) for (because) they had seen
before with him in the city Trophimus an Ephesian,
whom they supposed that Paul had brought into the
temple.
30 And all the city was moved (at these words),
and the people ran together: and they took Paul, and
drew him out of the temple (that it might not be de-
filed with his blood); and forthwith the doors were shut.
accomplish seven days of purification, even to the time that
the sacrifices were to be offered for them, with whom he had
thus joined in this purification; for whereas some would
evade this, by saying that the seven days, mentioned ver. 27,
were the seven days wherein those sacrifices were to be per-
formed; that is contrary to the law, which appoints the
same day in which they shaved their heads, and so concluded
their purification, for the oblation of their offerings (Numb
vi. 13, 14).
But here it may reasonably be inquired, how the apost),
who knew that our Saviour by his death had “abolished the
hand-writing of ordinances, and taken it out of the way”
(Eph. ii. 15. Col. ii. 14), that Christians were “dead to the
law by the body of Christ” (Rom. vii. 4), that the Jewish
sacrifices were only to continue till “the time of reforma-
tion” (Heb. ix. 10), and that Christ had taken away these
sacrifices by the sacrifice of himself (x.9), should yet sub-
mit to these rites, and make provision for these sacrifices.
To this it may be answered, (1.) that the vow of Nazaritism
being only a stricter sort of separation of themselves from
all pollution to the service of God, and to be holy, and free
from all kind of defilement, seems very well consistent with
the design and spirit of Christianity. (2.) Observe, that
the offerings of the temporary Nazarite, at the completion
of his vow, being a burnt-offering, a sin-offering, and a peace-
offering (Numb. vi. 14), and two of these being not sacri-
fices appointed to expiate sin, but offerings of thanksgiving
to God, who had enabled them to perform their vow, and of .
acknowledgment of God's sovereign dominion ; and the ad-
vice here being not personally to make or present these of.
ferings, but only to “purify himself, ka? Batavāv in 'airoſ, and
to help” the Nazarites in bearing some part of the charges of
these offerings; which, saith Maimonides, others might help
the Nazarites to do; this action seems to have little or no-
thing inconsistent with the doctrine of St. Paul. But,
thirdly, though St. Paul knew these constitutions were not
now obliging in themselves, yet seeing they were rites be-
longing to that temple, which was yet standing, and God
had not, by any express declaration made to the Jews pro-
hibited the continuance of them, St. Paul might lawfully
submit to this compliance with them, to prevent the scan-
dal of the unbelieving Jews, which might divert them from
that Christianity they had embraced, and to promote their
Salvation by his preaching Christ unto them; for upon this
account he circumcised Timothy (Acts xvi. 3), and “to the
Jew became as a Jew, that he might gain the Jew; to them
that were under the law, as under the law, that he might
gain them that were under the law” (1 Cor. ix. 20). Whence
we may learn, what great condescension in lesser matters may
be used for the promotion of the salvation of others.
492
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
31 **And as they went about to kill him, tidings
came to the chief captain of the band (of Romans),
that all Jerusalem was in an uproar.
32 Who immediately took soldiers and centurions,
and ran down to them : and when they saw the chief
captain and the soldiers, they left beating of Paul.
33 Then the chief captain came near, and took him,
and commanded him to be bound with two chains;
and demanded who he was, and what he had done
(to incense them so against him).
34 And some cried one thing, some another, among
the multitude: and when he could not know the cer-
tainty for (i.e. by reason of) the tumult, he command-
ed him to be carried into the castle (of Antonia).
35. And when he came upon the stairs, so it was,
that he was borne of the soldiers for the violence of
the people.
36 For the multitude of the people followed after,
crying, Away with him, (let him not live, xxii. 22.)
37 And as Paul was (about) to be led into the cas-
tle, he said to the chief captain, May I speak to thee?
Who said, Canst thou speak Greek?
38 “Art not thou that Egyptian, which before these
days madest an uproar, and leddest out into the wil-
derness four thousand men that were murderers 2
39 But Paul said, I am a man which am a Jew of
Tarsus, a city of Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city: and
I beseech thee suffer me to speak the people.
40 And when he had given him license, Paul stood
on the stairs, and beckoned with the hand to the
people (to be silent). And when there was made a
great silence, he spake to them in the Hebrew tongue,
saying,
* Ver. 31. And as they went about to kill him.] To wit,
with the “rebels’ beating,” which, saith Dr. Lightfoot here,
was “stripes without measure, even unto death, and that,
without judicial proceeding;” and this they did, either as
presuming that he had brought an uncircumcised person
within the step of the temple, which was, saith Philo,” pre-
sent death; or, because they conceived he had spoken against
the law and the temple, for which cause they before had
stoned Stephen.
* Ver. 38. Art not thou that Egyptian that before
these days leddest out four thousand men which were mur-
derers?] It seems to be a mistake in Grotius and others, to
say, the Egyptian mentioned by Josephus was later than
these times: for it is apparent from Josephus, both in his
* Qāyaro; 3rspairnro; &gia rai Kará rày ei; rol, ivºr:; trepićxov;
Tragex$3vrov. Legat. p. 791.
Antiquities, lib. xx. cap. 6, and his History of the Jewish
Wars, that this Egyptian did this in the first or second year
of Nero, whereas Paul came not to Jerusalem till the fourth
of Nero. But whereas here are mentioned only “four
thousand,” and by Eusebius in his Chronicle, “three thou-
sand ;’ Josephus, and out of him Eusebius, say, that he
gathered repl reto ºvgious, “about thirty thousand :” to this
Some say, that in the wilderness they increased to that num-
ber; others, that of this number only four thousand were
sicarii, “murderers.” I had rather say, that rptoºglot, in
Josephus, only signifies “three thousand ;” for he tells us,
De Bell. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 23, that the Egyptian “fled with
a few;” and that tragiaroi rāy wer” airod, “most of those
that were with him were taken,” and yet saith that only
“four hundred of them were killed, and two hundred were
taken,” Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 6.
CHAPTER XXII.
1 MEN, brethren, and fathers, hear ye my defence
which I make now to you (Gr. my apology to you for
ny change from a zealous Jew to an assertor of the
Christian faith). º:
2 And when they heard that he spake in the He-
brew tongue to them (i.e. as a Hebrew of the Hebrews,
Phil. iii. 5, and not as a Hellenistic Jewſ: see note on
vi. i.) they kept the more silence: and he saith (i. e.
spake to them thus),
. 3 I am verily a man which am a Jew, born (indeed)
in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet (but) brought up in
this city “at the feet of Gamaliel, (a pharisee, and cele-
brated doctor of the law, Acts v. 34), and (was) taught
(by him) according to the perfect manner (Gr. dxpt-
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXII.
"Ver. 3. Born in Tarsus.] The metropolis of Cilicia;
where they applied themselves so much, saith Strabo,” to
the study of philosophy, and all the liberal Sciences, &c.
ins;8=3anytai Kai 'Abhya, Kai 'Axt{ay?gstay, as that they ex-
celled the men of Athens and of Alexandria, “ and of all
other places dedicated to the study of those sciences.”
.* At the feet of Gamaliel.] It was, saith Pseud-Ambro-
sius,t “the tradition of the synagogue to dispute sitting ;
the seniors in dignity, in chairs; those next to them ºn
benches; and the last on the pavement upon mats.” For
the disciples, saith Buxtorf, f * sat at the feet of their mas.
* Lib. xiv. p. 673, D.
+ Haec traditio synagogae est, ut sedentes disputent, seni-
ores dignitate in cathedris, sequentes in subselliis, movissimi
in pavinmento super mattas, in 1 Cor. ch. xii.
* ºn voce pink Pirk. Avoth, cap. i. §. 4.
8stav, the ea actness) of the law of the fathers (i. e. de-
livered from our fathers to us), and was zealous to-
wards (or for the observance of the law of) God (in
the same manner) as ye all are this day.
4 And I persecuted (the men of) this way (i.e. the
Christians) to the death, binding and delivering into
prison both men and women (professing Christianity,
that they might be punished with death as blasphemers
of the law, Acts vi. 13).
5 As also the high-priest *.doth bear me witness
(Gr. will, I suppose, if asked, bear me witness), and all
the estate (or senate) of the elders: from whom also
I received letters to the brethren, and went (Gr. re-
ceiving letters went) to Damascus, to bring (Gr. kai
ters,” and therefore, by way of advice to others, to become
disciples of their “wise men,” they used to say, Pulveriza te
pulvere pedum sapientum, “Put thyself in the dust of their
feet.” Accordingly we find Mary sitting at the feet of
Christ, Luke x. 39. Note also, that this Gamaliel was so far
from being well affected to Christianity, that some of the
Jewish writings say, he added to their daily prayers that
which they used in their synagogues against the progress of
Christianity, called “the prayer against heretics” (see
Lightf. Hor. Hebr. in Matt. vi. 9). By this Gamaliel, saith
he, was I taught according to the exactness of the law of our
fathers, being by sect a pharisee, and very well skilled in the
traditions pretended to be delivered to us from our forefa-
thers (Gal. i. 14, see note on xxvi. 5): and I was, saith he,
&nxotº, Ogot, “zealous towards God, as ye all are.” Now
they being not all of the sect of the zealots, which obtained
then among them, this phrase cannot necessarily import that
Paul was of that sect.
* Ver, 5. Doth bear ºne witness.] Magruptſ here being not
of the present tense, but the second future, should be ren-
dered “will witness,” as in the paraphrase.
CHAPTER XXII.
4.93
āśwy, and was about to bring) them which were there
bound to Jerusalem, to be punished.
6 “And it came to pass, that, as I made my journey
(on this errand), and was come nigh to Damascus
about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great
light round about me, (and them that journeyed with
ºne, xxvi. 13.) 3.
7 And (through the terror of it, both) I (and they
that were with me) fell to the ground (xxvi. 14), and
(I) heard a (-n articulate) voice saying to me (in the
Hebrew tongue, ibid.) Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou
me 2
8 And I answered, Who art thou, Lord And he
said to me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou per-
SecuteSt.
9 And they that were with me saw indeed the light,
(and heard a voice, ix. 7,) and were afraid; but they
heard not the voice of him that spake to me.
10 And I said, What shall I do, Lord And the
Lord said to me, Arise, and go to Damascus; and
there it shall be (farther) told thee of all things which
are appointed for thee to do, (and suffers for me,
ix. 16.
11 And when I (being risen) could not see for the
glory of that light (which shone upon me), being led by
the hand of them that were with me, 'I came to Da-
IIläSCUIS.
12 And one Amanias, (a Christian indeed, but still)
a devout man according to the law, (and) having a
good report of (from ) all the Jews that dwelt there,
13 Came to me, and stood (by me), and said to
me, Brother Saul, receive thy sight, (for the Lord
Jesus hath sent me to thee for that end, ix. 17.) And
the same hour I looked up upon him.
14 And he said, The God of our fathers hath cho-
sen thee, (designing) that thou shouldest know his
*Ver. 6. And it came to pass as I made my journey, and
was come nigh to Damascus, &c.] I have in the notes on
ch. ix. of this book given the exposition of this history, and
shall here establish the truth of it, and consequently of that
faith to which he was converted. In order to this end, let
us consider,
First, Who St. Paul was before this wonderful conver-
Sion ; and here the scripture doth inform us, that his educa-
tion was in the schools of Tarsus ; from thence he came to
the university at Jerusalem for the study of divinity and of
the Jewish law : his tutor was Gamaliel, a man of special
note among the people; he was, by his profession, of the
most strict and most exact sect of the pharisees, a sect of all
men most estranged from, and enraged against, Christianity:
and for the truth of this, St. Paul appeals to the whole Jew-
ish nation in these words: “My manner of life from my
youth, which was at the first among mine own nation at Je-
rusalem, know all the Jews, which know from the beginning,
if they would testify, that, after the most strict sect of our
religion, I lived a pharisee ;” by practice and employment
he was an early, zealous, and industrious persecutor of the
professors of the Christian faith. When Stephen, the first
martyr, perished by law, or by judicial sentence, Saul was
consenting to his murder; being inflamed by this zeal, he
instantly proceeds to make “great havoc.” in the church,
“entering into every house, and haling men and women into
prison, breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the
disciples of the Lord;” he obtains letters from the high-priest
and elders of Jerusalem, or a commission, “if he found any
of this way, whether men or women, to bring them bound
to Jerusalem,” to be there sentenced by the Sanhedrin
(Yer. 2); and in pursuance of this commission he persecutes
Christians to the death, “binding and delivering up” unto
it “men and women;” he “punished them oft in the syna-
gogues, and compelled them to blaspheme ; and being ex-
ceeding mad against them, he persecuted them to strange
cities.” And for the truth of these particulars, he solemnly
*ppeals to those chief priests and elders from whom he had
received his commission; for of this, saith he, “the high-
priest can bear me witness, and all the estates of the elders.”
yea, it was a thing notorious to all that heard him “preach
that faith which he had formerly destroyed;” for they were
all amazed at it, and said, “Is not this he that destroyed
them that called on this name in Jerusalem, and who came
hither for this intent, that he might bring them bound to the
chief priests P’’ so that he was by education, by profession,
by employment, as fully prejudiced against the Christian
faith as any of the Jews could be. And therefore, though
he was not, as St. Austin and some others say, converted by
an irresistible force, or such a violence as took away the
freedom of his will, for then he could not have been “dis-
obedient to the heavenly vision,” since there can be no dis-
obedience to, where there is no resistance of, the will of God;
vet was it wrought in that stupendous manner, and with
that signal evidence, which could not be resisted without
wilful sin and obstimate perverseness: for,
First, This scene was opened with a heavenly light, tran-
scending that of the meridian Sun: now this was by the
Jews still looked on as the symbol of a divine and glorious
presence, and is in scripture often styled shechinah, the ma-
jestic presence and the glory of God ; wherefore both Saul
and his companions fell on their faces, not only through the
terror of this light, but also as it were an indication of the
appearance of some divine and glorious person to them, it
being usual both for the patriarchs and Jews to fall flat on
their faces at such a glorious appearance; for so did Abra-
ham, Gen. xvii. 3, so did the Jews, Lev. ix. 24, so did Moses
and Aaron, when the glory of the Lord appeared to them,
Numb. xxix. 6, so did Balaam, Numb. xxii. 21, Joshua,
Josh. v. 14, Manoah and his wife, Judg. xiii. 20, David and
all the elders, 1 Chron. xxi. 16, Ezekiel, i. 1, and Daniel,
viii. 17.
Secondly, He hears a voice directed from this shining
cloud, and saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou
me?” and giving him assurance that it was Jesus of Naza-
reth who then appeared to him, and who complained that
he was persecuted by him in all the cruelties which he in-
flicted on the living members of his body; so that he could
no longer question either the resurrection or ascension of
the holy Jesus, or his advancement to the right hand of
lory.
3. Thirdly, He by the glory of this light is struck stark
blind, and so continues till one of Christ's disciples comes
and lays his hands upon him, and in the name of Jesus
restoreth his lost sight unto him : he prays to him he had so
lately persecuted, and doth in answer to that prayer receive
a vision of that very person who should restore unto him his
lost sight: he lastly is baptized in the name of Jesus, and
with that baptism receives a plentiful effusion of the Holy
Ghost: so that he had the greatest evidence imaginable, both
of the presence and the power of the holy Jesus, and of the
glorious things which were performed in his name, and were
vouchsafed to the professors of the faith of Christ. Now for
the truth of these particulars, that in his journey to Damas-
cus that glorious light appeared, and a voice spake unto him,
all his companions, whose eyes beheld that light, and whose
ears heard that voice, could testify : that for a season he was
blind, both they who led him to Damascus, and the whole
family of Judas where he lodged, must be sufficient wit-
nesses: that he was afterward restored to his sight the same
persons could attest: that he was thereupon converted to
the Christian faith, all they who, to their admiration, heard
him preach that faith, which before he had laboured to de-
stroy, must know. Moreover, had not this persecutor been
turned to a promoter of the Christian faith, why were the
Jews so vehemently incensed against him 2. Why do they
lie in wait to kill him even in the place of his conversion 3
Why do they watch the gates continually that he might not
escape their bloody hands? Why were the Hellenists of
Jerusalem still thirsting for his blood P Why do even forty
of them bind themselves under a curse that “they would
neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul ?”, Why, do
they with such violence cry out, “Away with such a fellow
from the earth; it is not fit that he should live?” Why was
it that the chief priests and elders, and all the multitude of
the Jews, were so desirous of his death, crying out before all
494
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
will, and see that Just One (who appeared to thee),
and shouldest hear the voice of his mouth.
15 For (this being done) thou shalt be his witness
to all men of what thou hast seen and heard.
16 And now why tarriest thou? arise, and be bap-
tized (Gr. arising, be baptized), and (so) wash away
thy sins, "calling upon the name of the Lord (Jesus,
who thereupon will consecrate thee to, and enable thee
jor, this work, by filling thee with the Holy Ghost, ix.
17).
I7 And (accordingly) it came to pass, that, when I
was come again to Jerusalem, even while I prayed in
the temple, (Gr. and it happened to me returning to
Jerusalem, and praying in the temple, that) I was (Gr.
to be) in a trance (or ecstasy) ;
18 °And saw him (Gr. and to see, i. e. to perceive
him,) saying to me, Make haste, and get thee quickly
out of Jerusalem : for they will not receive thy testi-
mony concerning me.
19 "And I said, Lord, (it is wonderful that they
should not receive my testimony, seeing) they know
the Roman governors, that “he ought not to live any
longer ?” This sure is evidence sufficient, that he whom
they commissioned to persecute the Christian faith was now
become a convert to, and an industrious promoter of it;
and hence also it must be evident, that he who spake unto
him was no other than the holy Jesus ; that upon his con-
version he received the gifts and the miraculous operations of
the Holy Ghost, must be apparent from the tongues he
spake, the miracles he did for confirmation of that faith ;
that his sight was recovered by the name of Jesus, as it de-
pends upon the testimony of Ananias, so is that Ananias
declared to be “a devout man according to the law, having
a good report of all the Jews that lived at Damascus,” and
so a witness against whom those Jews could make no just
exception. And surely the conversion of a person so fully
prejudiced against the Christian faith, to that faith he did so
vehemently oppose and persecute, by such a visible appear-
ance of this very Jesus to him, with such glorious circum-
stances, the sight which was restored to him by one of his
disciples, the effusion of the Holy Ghost upon him when
baptized, whereby he was enabled to preach the gospel with
“demonstration of the Spirit, and with power,” must give
sufficient demonstration not only of the truth of his conver-
sion, but also of that doctrine which he preached, viz. that
“Jesus was the Son of God.” "
*Wer. 16. 'Etrikaxerágsvoc ºrd āyoga rod Kvelov, Calling
upon the name of the Lord.] Here Grotius would have us
read airot, “his name,” and refer this, not to Christ, but
to God the Father, mentioned ver. 14; whereas even Wolt-
zogenius here saith, we are to understand Jesus Christ, of
whom here mention is made both in the antecedent and
subsequent words; and this is evident from the interpreta-
tion of Ananias, who, to prevent such a mistake, saith, & Kö-
£ioc, “The Lord, even Jesus, who was seen of thee, hath
sent me to thee” (ix. 17); and having told us that Chris-
tians were persons who “ called upon the name” of Christ,
ver. 14, we have reason to conceive that he adviseth Paul
thus to profess, and show he was a Christian; and hence the
inference of Chrysostom" from this place is this, that “by
these words he shows that Christ was God, because it is not
lawful to invoke any besides God.”
* Ver. 18. Kai ièsſy airčy, And to see him.] That is, saith
Grotius, “an angel instead of Christ;” but this is plainly
contrary to the text, both here and ch. xxvi., for here the
promise made to him is, that he “should see that Just One,
and hear the words of his mouth,” ver. 14, and there it is
said, that he would “appear to him to teach him what he
was to preach,” wer. 16, and therefore here Paul calls him
“Lord,” ver. 19, and elsewhere saith, “Am I not an apostle,
have I not seen the Lord Jesus Christ?” 1 Cor. ix. 1.
7 Wer. 19. And I said, Lord, they know that I imprisoned
* > p * * *g *e * f * *
Erikaxezákeswo; +3 you a rot. Xºta toû roºro 3sixávrác Šarly
abrèv Gay &yra' ou yā; vi äregåv riva trixaxšarazôa, si zh ty
Esáv.
that (formerly) I imprisoned and beat in every syna-
gogue them that believed in thee.
20 And (that) when the blood of thy martyr Ste-
phen was shed, I also was standing by, and consent-
ing to his death, and kept the raiment of them that
slew him.
21 And (but) he said to me, (Argue not, but) de-
part: for I will send thee far hence to the gentiles.
22 And they gave him audience to (i.e. until) this
word, and then (they) lifted up their voices, and said,
Away with such a fellow from the earth: for it is not
fit that he should live.
23 And as they cried out, and *cast off their clothes,
(as persons ready to stone him, v. 57,) and threw dust
into the air (to show their rage against him),
24 *The chief captain commanded him to be
brought into the castle, and bade that he should be
examined by scourging : that (by his confession) he
might know wherefore they cried so against him.
25 And as they bound #. with thongs (in order
to the scourging of him), Paul said to the centurion
and beat in every synagogue them that believed in thee..] i. e.
Lord, my former zeal against those that believed in thee is
so well known to them all, by so many remarkable instances
shown among them, that sure they must be convinced that
it is upon some certain and irresistible grounds of persuasion
that I am now become a preacher of that faith I formerly
destroyed and persecuted with so great zeal; and so I am
apt to think they should more diligently attend to the mar-
rative I give of my wonderful change, and to the reasons I
now offer to confirm the truth of the Christian faith.
*Wer. 23. And as they cast off their clothes, and threw dust
into the air.] They cast off their clothes, as in the instance
of St. Stephen, vii. 58, that they might be the more ready
to stone him ; and they threw dust into the air, to show
their rage against him, and their abhorrence of him, as of a
person not fit to be conversed with any longer, it being usual
to testify this by shaking the dust from their feet (Lukeix. 5.
Acts xiii. 35). g
9 Wer. 24. The chief captain commanded Azágrićty &ystá-
£ersal airy, to examine him by scourging.] 'Aystášily is to
examine by way of torment, to find out, or cause men to
confess, a crime; so in Hesychius and Phavorinus ºtésa Sa.
is apier8at wai Bao'avičarðat, “to be punished and torment-
ed,” and ##variº is 8agaviapa?:, torment : So Gen. xii. 17,
wal ºracey & ©ed; roy bagaš Švaggots, “God plagued Pharaoh
with great plagues;” and Esth. ii. 22, “The king ºrga's
examined, or tormented, the two eunuchs:” so the wick-
ed say of the righteous, Bacăvă ărăa wasy abrév, “Let us
try him with torments,” Wisd. ii. 19, and the author of
that book, vi. 6, “that the mighty Suvarā; #ºrao Sharovrat,
shall be mightily tormented;” and in the son of Sirach,
xxiii. 9, oizárnº Šćeraçáºzevox, is “a servant that was beaten.”
This examination was used by the Romans, and by other
nations, to force them who were thus scourged to confess
what they had done, why, and who were conscious to the
fact; as Tacitus” saith of Herennius Gallus, that he received
stripes that they might know, quo pretio, et quibus consciis
prodidisset exercitum, “at what price, and with what con-
federates, he betrayed the Roman army.” (3.) They who
were thus scourged had their arms extended, and their bodies
tied to a pillar, as Lipsius+ shows; and thus here they seem
wreorgivew, “to stretch out Paul's body to the whip and
scourge.” (4.) This punishment of scourging, not with
rods, but ačarić wai ſaaat, “with whips and thongs,” as
here, was not used to a Roman, but to strangers only ; on
which account Cicero, in his oration pro Rabirio, speaks
against Labienus thus: Porcia lex virgas ab omnium civium
corpore amovit; hic misericors flagella retulit, “the Porcian
law permits not a citizen to be whipped with rods; but he
hath done it with scourges;” and upon this account Paul
here saith, “Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a
Roman, and uncondemned 2" ver. 25.
.*
* Hist, lib. iv. p. 573. + Tr. de Cruc. lib. ii, cap. 3.
CHAPTER XXIII.
4.95
that stood by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man
that is a Roman, and (is) uncondemned?
26 When the centurion heard that (this), he went
and told the chief captain, saying, Take heed what
thou doest: for this man is a Roman.
27 Then the chief captain came, and said to him,
Tell me, art thou a Roman (And) he said, Yea.
28 And the chief captain answered, "With a great
sum (of money) obtained I this freedom (of a citizen
of Rome). And Paul said, But I was free born (viz.
in a city which had this privilege, and so needed not to
acquire it by money).
29. Then straightway they departed from him which
should have examined him ; and the chief captain
also was afraid, after he knew that he was a Roman,
and (he thus feared) because he had bound him (in
order to the scourging him). -
30 On the morrow, because he would have known
the certainty wherefore he was accused of the Jews,
he loosed him from his bonds, and commanded the
chief priests and all their council to appear, and
brought Paul down (from the castle), and set him
before them. .
* Ver. 28. With a great sum of money obtained I this
freedom. And Paul said, But I was free born.] Dion *
and Tacitus inform us, that about the time of Claudius the
rights of a Roman citizen were bought with little money;
but it is more difficult to show how St. Paul came to be free
born ; Grotius and Le Clerc will not have it to be on the
account of his being born in Tarsus, that being no Roman
colony; but it makes fair for the opinion of those who think
Tarsus had obtained this freedom through the favour of
some emperor, that Dion Cassiusi says, that they so favoured
* P 148. + Lib. xlvii.
Julius Caesar in the civil war, and afterward Octavius, that
it obtained the name of Juliopolis, and was honoured with
the greatest privileges; and that Dio Chrysostom in his
oration saith, it received from Caesar all that honour and
power which one could give to his friends and companions:
but Carthusianus, and the gloss upon 2 Tim. iv. 12, say more
fully, that they received this freedom because they met the
Roman ambassadors with peace and crowns, and that then
the father of Paul, going out with them, received the penula
or cloak which St. Paul sent for, as an ensign or mark of a
Roman citizen.
CHAPTER XXIII.
1 AND Paul, earnestly beholding the council, said,
Men and brethren,” I have lived in all good conscience
before God until this day.
2 And the high-priest Ananias commanded them
that stood by him to smite him on the mouth.
3 Then said Paul to him, “God shall smite thee,
thou whited wall (i. e. thou hypocrite); for sittest thou
(as a magistrate) to judge me after the law, and (yet)
commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXIII.
* Ver. l. I have lived in all good conscience to this day.]
Not as a good conscience signifies a conscience void of error
and offence, for he owns himself to have been guilty of great
sin in persecuting the church of Christ, 1 Tim. i. 13. 15 ;
but as it signifies a conscience acting according to his per-
suasion that he ought to act ; and in this sense, when he
'blasphemed against Christ and persecuted his church, he did
this even through a persuasion that he “ought to do many
things contrary to the name of Jesus,” Acts xxvi. 9, 10.
Moreover, by saying that he lived in all good conscience,
whilst he professed Judaism, and was, “as to the righteous-
ness of the law, blameless,” Phil. iii. 6, he gives them to un-
derstand that he left not the religion of the Jews, out of
any hardships which it did require, or any prejudice he had
against the precepts of it ; and by adding, that he also had
lived unblameably in the profession of the Christian faith,
he intimates that he became and continued a Christian out
of a full conviction that he was bound in conscience so to be
and so to act, and that he still served God from a pure
conscience (2 Tim. i. 3). -
* Ver. 3. God shall smite thee, thou whited wall.] H
elegantly compares him to a whited wall, because, as that
had a fair outside, but nothing but dirt, sticks, or stones
within, so he had an outward appearance of a righteous judge,
sitting as one that would pass judgment according to the law,
and yet commanding him to be punished for speaking the
truth, and so condemning the innocent against the law of
mature and of Moses, which saith “Thou shalt do no un-
righteousness in judgment,” Lev. xix. 15. And he fore-
tells that God shall smite him, by that gift of prophecy which
God had given him, which came to pass, he being slain, saith
Chrysostom ; lie perishing in the siege of Jerusalem, saith
Dr. Lightfoot ; he being deposed, and sent bound to Rome,
saith Josephus, Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 5, p. 692, E.
Kai ai ná0; Keiyow ºf Kará têy várzoy, x2] Tragā āºoy next&sic
(which saith, Thou shalt do no unrighteousness in judg-
ment, Lev. xix. 15.)
4 And they that stood by said, Revilest thou God's
high-priest?
5 Then said Paul, "I wist (or knew) not, brethren.
that he (who commanded me to be smitten) was the
high-priest : (the knowledge of that might haply have
restrained ine from speaking thus, ) for it is written,
Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people.
ºws.ºrátra-sa-3 at ; For sittest thow to judge me according to the
law, and yet commandest me to be smitten contrary to the
law?] Here Stephanus makes two easy emendations, news,
and tragayogaśy, and so renders the words thus ; “Sittest thou
as one about to judge me according to the law, and yet,
violating that law, commandest me (uncondemned) to be
smitten ?” The first I think unnecessary, because Ananias
was them actually on the seat of judgment, and executing
the office of a judge ; the second seems not to be an emen-
dation, but the more common reading of the text.
* Ver. 5. Oix #8sly 8tt Harly 3pxtepsûc, &c. I wist not that
he was the high-priest : for it is written, &c.] I am not will-
ing to own that Paul, who doubtless was filled with the
Holy Ghost, and had a share in the promise of his assistance
and direction, when they came before governors, should here
be guilty of a transgression of the law, especially when I
suppose him acted by a prophetic impulse ; and yet it is
not easy to put any likely sense upon these words by which
we can avoid it. We cannot do it according to our transla-
tion, or the observation of some critics, that own ºstv sig-
nifies, “I considered not ;” for that seems plainly to insinu-
ate, that if he had well considered or weighed his words, he
should not have uttered them, as being contrary to the pre-
cept, not to speak evil of the ruler of the people ; which
surely is to confess, that he had by them violated that com-
mand, had he considered to whom he spake. Nor (2.) ae-
cording to the exposition of Dr. Hammond ; for though
he saith he was not truly the high-priest (note on Luke iii.
c), yet he confesseth that Amanias was then “ruler of the
people,” and so makes Paul to say in his paraphrase, “I
confess I did amiss.” Dr. Lightfoot and Grotius think as I
do, that Paul does not go about to excuse his mistake, but
rather saith, I know well enough that God's high-priest is
not to be reviled, but that this Ananias is a high-priest I
know not, i. e. I do not own him as such, who hath procured
this title by bribery: our celebrated rabbins” having de-
* Talm Tr. de Synedrio.
496
6 But when Paul perceived (or, then Paul knowing)
that the one part (of the council and of the people)
were sadducees, and the other pharisees (who asserted
the resurrection of the body, which the sadducees denied),
he cried out in the council, Men and brethren, I am a
pharisee, the son of a pharisee : of (i.e. concerning
one of their doctrines, viz.) “the hope and resurrection
(i. e. the hope of the resurrection) of the dead I am
called in question.
7 And when he had so said, there arose a dissen-
sion between the pharisees and the sadducees: and
the multitude was divided.
8 (These words of St. Paul being a plain declaration
of his opposition to the doctrine of the sadducees); "for
the sadducees say that there is no resurrection (of the
body), neither (is there any permanent) angel, nor
spirit; but the pharisees confess both (angels and other
spirits remaining after their separation from the body).
9 And there arose (upon this dissension) a great cry
(or clamour); and (for) the scribes which were of the
pharisees’ part arose, and strove (in defence and justi-
fication of St. Paul), saying, We find no evil in this
man: but if a spirit or an angel hath spoken to him,
let us not fight against God.
10 And when there arose a great dissension (Gr.
and the dissension growing great), the chief captain,
clared that such a one “is neither a judge, nor to be honoured
as such ;” in which sense the blind man saith of Christ to
the pharisees, “That he is a sinner, oix dièa, I know not,”
John ix. 25, and this he might say, because the high-priest
had not then on him those robes peculiar to him, by which
he was distinguished from other priests. Or, º the latent
sense may be this, The prophetic impulse that was upon
me, and inwardly moved me thus to speak, permitted me
not to advert that it was the high-priest, lest that law I men-
tion might have restrained me from complying with that
impulse ; and it is certain from the example of Christ styl-
ing Herod, “fox,” Luke xiii. 32, and of Paul calling Nero,
“lion,” 2 Tim. iv. 17, and acknowledged by the Jews, that
he who acted as a prophet was not under the obligation of
this precept, as others were ; but Paul speaks so obscurely,
because, saith Grotius, he knew he would find no credit
from them in this assertion.
* Ver. 6. For the hope and resurrection of the dead I
am called in question.] That is, for the hope of the resur-
rection of the dead; so x&gt; zai &roaroxº, is “the grace of
apostleship,” (wº kai tryoh, “the breath of life,” Acts xvii.
25 (see Glassius, Philol. i. lib. iii. tr. de Nom.); but then it
is inquired, why Paul here saith he was called in question
for this hope in general, and xxiv. 15. xxvi. 6, repeats the
same thing, when he was only called in question concerning
the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Now the reason of this
will appear from this observation ; that before our Saviour's
passion the doctrine which he preached being chiefly levelled
against the vain traditions of the scribes and pharisees, and
his woes denounced against them, they still appear in op-
position to him, the sadducees being scarce ever mentioned
as his adversaries; but after his resurrection the testimony
of the apostles being this, that Christ was risen from the
dead, and so directly contrary to that which distinguished
the Sadducees from the pharisees, we find them most forward
to oppose their testimony; then “the sadducees came upon
them, being grieved that they preached the resurrection of
the dead through Jesus,” iv. 1, 2, then “the high-priest and
all the sect of the sadducees were filled with zeal against
them,” v. 17, the scribes, which were of the sect of the
pharisees, rather siding with Paul in this matter. Another
reason, why Paul thus mixed these things together, might
be this, that the apostles testified the resurrection of the
dead “through Jesus,” Acts iv. 2, and taught that God would
“raise us up by Jesus” l Thess. iv. 14, and so the proof of
the one, viz. that Christ was risen, was a confirmation of
the general resurrection.
* Wer. 8. The sadducees say there is no resurrection,
neither angel, nor spirit..] That the sadducees did not be-
lieve the resurrection of the body, as all the ancient Chris-
t
* * º
º,
**t
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
fearing lest Paul should have been pulled in pieces of
them, commanded the soldiers to go down, and to
take him by force from among them, and to bring
him into the castle (of Antonia).
11 And the night following "the Lord (Jesus) stood
by him, and said (to him), Be of good cheer, Paul, for
as thou hast testified of me at Jerusalem, 'so must
thou bear witness also (of me) at Rome.
12 And when it was day, certain of the Jews banded
together,” and bound themselves under a curse, saying
(with an imprecation) that they would neither eat nor
drink till they had killed Paul.
13 And they were more than forty (persons) who
had made this conspiracy (against him, out of zeal to
their religion). &
14 And (the better to accomplish it) they came to
the chief priests and elders, (men as zealous for his
destruction as themselves, xxv. 15), and said (to them),
We have bound ourselves under a great curse, that
we will eat nothing till we have slain Paul.
15 Now therefore ye with the (whole) council sig-
nify (your request) to the chief captain that he (would)
bring him down to you to-morrow, as though you
would inquire something more perfectly concerning
him: and we, or ever (i.e. before) he come near (to the
council), are ready to kill him.
tians “plainly do assert, so this scripture, and Matt. xxii.
23, plainly testify. (2.) They said, that after the giving of
the law at least, there was no angel ; and that when they are
said to appear so often in the law of Moses, they were
framed for that purpose, and after ceased to have any being,
for otherwise it is hard to conceive, how they could believe
the law of Moses, and yet deny that angels ever did exist.
And, (3.) when they are said to deny any spirits, that is not
to be so understood, as if they denied God to be a spirit, or
that there was any spirit of man within him, but as Josephusf .
testifies they denied tâ; Juxic rāv 8taxoyāy “the perma-
mency of the soul after death ;” and so they denied any
spirits separated from bodies which could appear, or reveal
anything to them ; the pharisees held the contrary, as is
apparent from these words, ver. 9, “If an angel or spirit
hath spoken to him:” of such apparitions, believed by the
apostles, we have mention Matt. xiv. 26. Luke xxiv. 37, and
the Jews believed that Samuel thus appeared to Saul, and
Elias frequently to them, the Sadducees denying all such
apparitions.
• Wer. 11. The Lord stood by him, Per angelum, “by
an angel,” saith Grotius, without all ground; an angel never
being styled 3 Kūgog, “the Lord,” in the New Testament,
but only “the angel of the Lord,” Matt. i. 20. ii. 13. xix.
21. xxviii. 2. Luke i. 11. ii. 9. Acts v. 19. viii. 26. xii. 7. 23,
and said Ságaret IIaixa, “Be of good courage, Paul ;” for as
when thou testifiedst of me in Jerusalem, and they went
about to kill thee (Acts ix. 29, 30), I delivered thee; so
will I also deliver thee from the gentiles at Rome, according
to my promise made to thee (Acts xxvi. 17).
7 Asſa's eiç ‘Pºgºny pagrue:gal, Thow must testify of me, at
Rome] Here is an instance of divine appointment, without
any necessity laid upon the will of Paul ; whose appeal to
Caesar was only made as an expedient to preserve him from
the rage of the Jews (Acts xxv. 11. 24. xxviii. 19), and so
was only a matter of prudence, and not of absolute ne-
cessity.
* Ver. 12. Who bound themselves under a curse.] It was
a thing too common among the zealots of the Jews, to cut
off, without any judicial process, those whom they looked
upon as transgressors of their laws, and enemies to the Jews.
Josephus + informs us that they committed infinite slaugh-
ters, tº Kºšytara kaków &ya83 woºićovreć, “thinking the vilest
* Just. M. Dial. cum Tryph. p. 307. Iren. lib. iv. cap.
ll. Constit. Apost. lib. vi. cap. 6. Tertul. de Praescript. cap,
45. Orig. in Matt. tom. i. p. 485—487.
+ De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 12.
: Ibid, lib. v. cap. 19. 21. lib. vii. 30.
CHAPTER XXIV.
497
16 And when Paul’s sister's son heard of their lying
in wait, he went, and entered (Gr. being present, and
entering) into the castle, and (Gr. he] told Paul.
17 "Then Paul called one of the centurions to him,
and said, Bring this young man to the chief captain:
for he hath a certain thing to tell him.
18 So he took him, and brought him to the chief
captain, and said, Paul the prisoner called me to him,
and prayed me to bring this young man to thee, who
hath something to say to thee.
19 Then the chief captain took him by the hand,
and went (with him) aside privately, and asked him,
What is it that thou hast to tell me?
20 And he said, (Certain of) the Jews have agreed
to desire thee (by intercession of the council) that thou
wouldest bring down Paul to-morrow to the council,
as if they would inquire something of him more per-
fectly.
# But do not thou yield (this) to them: for there
lie in wait for him of them more than forty men, who
have bound themselves with an oath, that they will
neither eat nor drink till they have killed him: and
now are they ready, looking for a promise from thee
(to bring him down),
22 So the chief captain let the young man depart,
and charged him (saying), See thou tell no man that
thou hast shown these things to me.
23 And he called to him two centurions, saying (to
them), Make ready two hundred soldiers to go to
Caesarea, and horsemen threescore and ten, and
spearmen two hundred, at the third hour of the
night; -
24 And provide them beasts, that they may set
Paul on, and bring him safe to Felix the governor.
25 And he wrote a letter (to him) after this manner:
things were good when done by them. And Philo * speaks
of some among them, of pºvčovaty ºrgaíºcara zai a pay&c, “who
swore to wound and kill others, wai &yvºrspºë'roc air& 323ial,
and did so without delay;” and that the chief priests and
Sanhedrin approved of such murders done out of such per-
nicious designs, we learn from their confident address to
them, ver. 14, 15, and their consent to the fact, ver. 20,
* De Spec. Leg. p. 595.
26 Claudius Lysias to the most excellent governor
Felix sendeth greeting.
27 This man (whom I send to thee) was taken of the
Jews, and should have been killed of them : then came
I with an army, and rescued him, having understood
(Gr. this man taken by the Jews, and being about to be
killed by them, I, knowing it, with my army rescued him,
wnderstanding ) that he was a Roman.
28 And when I would have known (Gr. being
wiłling to know) the cause wherefore (for which) they
accused him, I brought him forth into their council:
29 Whom I perceived to be accused of (i. e. con-
cerning) questions of their law, but to have nothing
laid to his charge worthy of death or of bonds.
30 And when it was told me how that the Jews
laid wait for the man (or when I was told of a conspi-
racy that would be against him from the Jews), I sent
(him) straightway to thee, and gave commandment to
his accusers also to say before thee what they had (to
say) against him. Farewell.
31 Then the soldiers, as it was commanded them.
took Paul, and brought him by night to Antipatris.
32 (And) on the morrow they left the horsemen to
go (on) with him, and (the foot) returned to the
castle :
33 Who (i. e. which horsemen), when they came to
Caesarea, and delivered the epistle to the governor.
presented Paul also before him.
34 And when the governor had read the letter, ho
asked of what province he was. And when he under-
stood that he was of Cilicia;
35 I will hear thee, said he (to Paul), when thine
accusers are also come. And he commanded him (in
the meantime) to be kept in Herod’s judgment-hall.
plainly proving, by their lying and murderous dispositions,
that they were children of the devil, John viii. 44 (see xxv.
2, 3.
* Ver. 17. Then Paul called one of the centurions, &c.,
Hence it appears, that even after a promise of our safety
(see note on ver. 11), we ought not to neglect any honest
means of our preservation, though it be to be accomplished
by our addresses to men alien from the faith.
CHAPTER, XXIV.
1 AND after five days Amanias the high-priest de-
scended with the elders, and with a certain orator
named Tertullus, "who informed the governor (Gr.
(showed themselves to the governor) against Paul.
2 And when he was called forth, Tertullus began
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXIV.
* Ver. 1. Oírive; five pávioray tº hyeº,6vi, Who informed
the governor.] This word answers to the Hebrew yº", as it
in hiphil signifies to make known, show, declare, appear ;
and where a dative case follows, an accusative is to be un-
derstood, and is most frequently added ; as when Moses
says, Exod. xxxiii. 13, #4449iaºyaoi weavºy, “Show to me
thyself;” thus Esther five påvic's rô 6actXE; rà rā, śarigouxºr,
“showed or declared the conspiracy to the king,” Esth. ii.
22; so John xiv. 21, “How is it &rt hºw ºxxsic tº pavićely
c'èavròy, that thou wilt manifest thyself to us, and not to the
world P’’ And accordingly here and xxv. 2. 15, £avroic is to
be understood, and the whole should be rendered, “Who
showed or declared themselves to the governoragainst Paul;”
not that they informed the governor ; for the information
follows, ver. 5, 6, and so our translators have rendered the
word, xxiii. 22, and Heb. xi. 14.
* Ver. 2. IIoxxii; eiphyn; rvyxávovire; 33 roi, Seeing we en-
$oy great peace by thee &c.] In this and in the following
to accuse him, saying (to the governor), “Seeing that
by thee we enjoy great quietness, and that very wor-
thy deeds are done to this nation by thy providence,
3 We accept it always, and in all places, most noble
Felix, with all thankfulness.
verses the orator is guilty of sordid flattery and falsehood:
for though it be true, that Felix did some kindness to the
Jewish nation in delivering them from the thieves and the
magicians which infested them, as Josephus * doth acknow-
ledge; yet that he otherwise was guilty of great injustice
towards the Jews, and was on that account accused before
Nero by the chief of the Jews dwelling at Caesarea, and
had been punished for his wickedness, had not his brother
Pallas, who was then high in favour with Nero, succoured
him, the same Josephus + testifies. (2) That Paul moved
the Jews to sedition against the government, or that he went
about to profane the temple, was utterly false, see xxi. 28,
and so was it also, that they took him to Judge him accord-
ing to their law ; for they took him by violence, and drew
him out of the temple, and went about to kill him without
any judicial process (xxi. 30, 3I).
* Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 6. De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 12.
+ Kai Trávrov, &ve?83&ns, råy sic 'lověaiovº 331&mºtoy rºwbizz,
st wharoxx& airey & Naçãv rá, 388x96 IIax^ávri tragako Aéray'rs
cºuvexágna's. Antiq. lib. xx, cap. 7.
2 K.
498
ACTS OF THE APOSTHLES.
4. Notwithstanding, that I be not (Gr. but that I
may not be) farther tedious to thee, I pray thee that
thou wouldest hear us of thy clemency a few words.
5 For we have found this man a pestilent fellow,
and a mover of sedition among all the Jews through-
out the world, and a ringleader, of the sect (called
from one Jesus of Nazareth, the sect) of the Naza-
TeneS :
6 Who also hath gone about to profane the temple
(of Jerusalem, by bringing into it heathens, xxi. 28),
whom we (therefore) took “and would have judged
according to our law.
7 But the chief captain Lysias came upon us, and
with great violence took him away out of our hands,
8 Commanding his accusers to come to thee: by
examining of whom (thou) thyself mayest take know-
ledge of all these things, whereof we accuse him.
9 And the Jews also assented (to this accusation),
saying that these things were so.
10 Then Paul, after that the governor had beckon-
ed to him to speak, answered, Forasmuch as I know
that thou hast been for many years a judge to this
nation (and so camst not be ignorant of the things be-
longing to Christianity, or to the Jews), I do the more
cheerfully answer for myself (before thee);
11 Because that thou mayest understand, that there
are yet but twelve days since I went up to Jerusalem
to worship. -
12 And (since my coming thither) they neither
found me in the temple disputing with any man, nor
(have they found me) raising up t e people (Gr. mak-
ing a sedition among the multitude), neither in the syna-
gogues, nor in the city:
13 Neither can they prove ( any other of) the things
whereof they now accuse me.
14 But (as for that part of their accusation which
* Ver. 6. And would have judged him according to ontr
law.] From this, and from the complaint of violence used
by Lysias in taking Paul out of their hands, it seemeth to
appear, that the Jews still either had or claimed a power of
inflicting death upon capital offenders against their law.
* Wer. 14. After that way which they call heresy.] They
accusing Paul as a ringleader rā; +& Naçagaiovaigéagos, “ of
the heresy of the Nazarenes,” that is, of the Christians, so
styled both by Jew and gentile from their faith in Jesus of
Nazareth. Now the word aipāoric bears often an indifferent
sense, both in the scriptures, as when it is said, Acts xv.
5, that some believers were #x rā; rāy pagicatory aigłogoº, “ of
the sect of the pharisees ;” and when the Jews at Rome in-
quire of Paul, what he thought Tregi rā; aigéago; ratrng, “ of
the sect” of Christians, xxviii. 22, and when St. Paul saith
in commendation of himself, that he lived war& Tºv &x;1882–
ºrármy aſpeciv, “according to the exactest sect (or heresy) of
their religion,” xxvi. 5, and also in the ancient Jewish wri-
ters; as when Josephus gives an account of the three digéaeic,
“heresies,” or pixocoqiaç, “ philosophical opinions” of the
Jews, Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 2, et de Bello Jud, lib. ii. cap.
12, yet seeing the prayer against the Christians, called bera-
ooth haininim, if we may credit the Jews, was made by R.
Samuel in the time of Gamaliel ; and seeing Justin Martyr *
doth inform us, that they very early sent their emissaries to
all nations against the Christians, representing them as aſpect;
&Seo; zai &vopºlog, “an atheistical and wicked heresy,” we
have reason to believe, that in this sense they accused Paul
as a ringleader of “the heresy of the Nazarenes.”
* Ver. 15. Both of the just and of the wºnjust.] This
seemeth necessarily to be added, because the doctrine of the
pharisees, according to Josephus, restrained the resurrection
to the just, condemning the unjust to perpetual torments
* Contr. Tryph. p. 234, 235.
ºf Kai roſ; ºv sigyºv eſā-ow "rooaríSea Sat, roſ, Šâ hazarówny
roº &yagiotſ. Antiq. Tib. xviii. cap. 2. Karagaively Big £rsecy
relates to the sect of the Nazarenes) this I confess
unto thee, that “after the way which they call heresy,
so worship I the God of my fathers (viz. through
Jesus Christ), believing all things which are written
in the law and the prophets (concerning him) :
15 And I have hope towards God (in God), which
they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resur-
rection from the dead, "both of the just and of the
unjust.
16 And *herein (therefore) do I exercise myself, to
have always a conscience void of offence towards God,
and towards men.
17 Now "after many years (from my conversion), I
came to bring alms to my nation, and offerings (from
º Christians of Macedonia and Achaia, Rom. xv.
26).
18 Whereupon certain Jews (that came) from Asia
found me purified in the temple (after the manner of
the Nazarites, Acts xxi. 24. 26, and in compliance with
the law of Moses concerning them that had a vow upon
them, as then I had, xviii. 18, but I was there) neither
with multitude (i. e. concourse of any to profane the
temple, as they imagined, xxi. 23), nor with (any) tu-
mult (made by me whilst I was there).
19 Who (being my accusers) ought to have been
here before thee, and object (it, as doubtless they would
do) if they had aught against me.
20 Or else, let these same here (who have assented
to the accusation of Tertullus, ver. 9) say, “if they
have found any evil doing in me, whilst I stood be-
fore the council,
21 Except it be (their pleasure to accuse me) for
this one voice, that I cried standing among them,
(viz. That) touching the resurrection of the dead I
am called in question by you this day.
22 And when Felix heard these things, "having (as
without any resurrection, the entrance into another body
belonging only to the souls of the just.
6 Ver. 16. ’ey rotºrº, 3Å, And herein..] The critics say, that
here and 2 Cor. v. 2, #y rotºrº signifies interim, interea, “ in
the meantime,” but I think without any necessity ; for in
both places it may either signify Étri Toito, ob hanc rem,
“for this cause,” or have relation to the former verse ; so
here äy roſta hath relation to Éatriód Éxwy, and signifies,
“having hope in this thing ;” and in the other place it hath
relation to Syrs; #y rô a whyst, and signifies, “Being in this
tabernacle, we groan.”
7 Ver. 17. After many years I came to bring alms.] The
alms brought by him from Antioch (xi. 29, 30), cannot be
here intended, they being brought by him and Barnabas,
but seven years at most after his con ersion ; and nothing
which he here relates touching purification, and concerning
the Jews of Asia finding him in the temple, happening then:
but only when he went up to Jerusalem with the alms and
oblations of the churches of Macedonia and Achaia; then
had he his vows upon him (xviii. 18), then did the Jews
from Asia take hold of him in the temple (xxi. 17).
* Ver. 20. If they have found any evil doing in me while
I stood before the council.] Hence it appears that he thought
not he did evil in saying to Ananias, the high priest, “God
shall smite thee,” &c.
* Ver. 22. 'Angiflécretoy sº; rà regi rā; $800.] It seems
to me evident, that these words cannot admit the explication
of Grotius and others, that Felix deferred them that he
might have a more exact knowledge of Christianity ; but
that having his residence at Caesarea, where Cornelius the
centurion and his friends were converted, where Philip the
evangelist dwelt, and where there were many disciples (xxi.
8. 16), he became thus acquainted with the way of Chris-
tianity.
*g ** * Af * f • * * * *
a 3& Thy Tāv &yaśāy ºvny, Tây 3: Tºv paſſawy &#8tº rºwgiº
x0x48,823at. De Bello Jud. lib. ii, cap. 12, p. 788, F.
CHAPTER XXV.
499
being many years a judge of that nation, ver. 9) more
perfect knowledge of that way (Gr. ric 630i, of the
way of Christianity), he deferred (the farther hearing
of) them, and said, When Lysias the chief captain
shall come down (to Caesarea), I will know the utter-
most of your matter (Gr. I shall know the business be-
tween you).
23 And (then) he commanded a centurion to keep
Paul, and to let him have liberty (from his bonds),
and that he should forbid none of his acquaintance
to minister or come to him.
24 And after certain days, when Felix came with
his wife Drusilla, which was a Jewess (who had left
her husband Isis or Azizus, king of the Emisseni, and
had married Felia, an uncircumcised person, contrary
| to the law), he sent for Paul, and heard him concern-
ing the faith of Christ.
25 And as he (Paul) reasoned of *righteousness,
temperance (Gr. justice and continence), and (of) judg-
ment to comfe, Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy
way for this time; (and) when I have a convenient
season, I will call for thee. -
26 He hoped also (being a taker of bribes) that
money should have been given him of Paul, that he
might loose him (from his chain); wherefore he
sent for him the oftener, and communed with him.
27 But "after two years (not of the government of
Felia, ver, 10, but of St. Paul’s imprisonment), Por-
tius Festus came into Felix’s room: and Felix, (being)
willing to show the Jews a pleasure, left Paul bound.
* Ver. 25. TIEg: 8twatorównº wał #yxpareia; tai toº weigaroº,
Qf justice and continency, and of the judgment to come.] Of
this Felix, Tacitus * informs us, that per omnem saevitiam
et libidinem jus regium servili ingenio exercuit, “he prac-
tised all cruelty and lust in his government,” thinking that he
might do ºf cuncta malefacta impuné, “all wickedness with-
out punishment.” And Josephus + informs us of Drusilla,
that leaving her husband, king Isis, she married with a hea-
then Felix, doing evil and transgressing tº ºrárgia Vápºtºwa,
“the laws of her country :” to persons so unjust, Paul dis-
courseth very appositely of justice and chastity, against which
they had both so highly offended, as knowing that it was to
* Hist. lib. v. p. 619.
+ Annal. 12, p. 263.
† Antiq. Jud. lib. xxiii. cap. 5, p. 693.
little purpose to speak to them of Christianity till they for-
Sook their sins: and discoursing also of “a judgment to
come,” where Felix, could not hope to escape unpunished,
as here he did, it is no wonder that Felix trembled ; and
that Drusilla did not so also, was an argument of her Jew-
ish confidence, that she might then escape by being a daughter
of Abraham. -
* Ver. 27. Ateria; 3% manpo,6sianç, But after two years..]
Baronius is here mistaken, who conceives that these “two
years” are the two first years of Nero's reign, whereas indeed
he continued procurator, as Bishop Pearson saith, till the
sixth year of Nero. The two years plainly relate to St.
Paul's being taken by the Jews in the temple, and put into
the castle by the chief captain Lysias, which was, saith the
same bishop, in the fourth year of Nero.
CHAPTER XXV.
1 Now when Festus was come into the (government
of the) province, after three days he ascended from
Caesarea to Jerusalem. r
2 Then the high-priest and the chief of the Jews
informed him against Paul, and besought him,
3 And desired (Gr. desiring this) favour against
him, that he would send for him to Jerusalem, (they)
*laying wait in the way to kill him.
4 But Festus answered, that Paul should be kept
at Caesarea, and that he himself would depart shortly
thither. -
5 Let them therefore, said he, which among you
are able, go down with me, and accuse this man, if
there be any wickedness in him (for which he ought to
Öe punished by the Roman laws).
6 And when he had tarried among them more than
ten days, he went down (from Jerusalem) to Caesarea;
and the next day sitting in the judgment-seat (he)
commanded Paul to be brought (before him).
7 And when he was come, the Jews which came
down from Jerusalem stood round about, and laid
many and grievous complaints against Paul, which
they could not prove.
8 While he answered for himself, (Gr, he apologiz-
ing, That) *neither against the law of the Jews (Acts
xxviii. 17), nor against the temple (xxiv. 12), nor
yet against Caesar, have I offended anything at
all -
9 But Festus, (being) willing to do the Jews a
pleasure, answered Paul, and said, Wilt thou go up
to Jerusalem, and there be judged of these things
before me 2 -
10 Then said Paul, I stand at Caesar’s judgment-
seat, where I (being a Roman) ought to be judged :
to the Jews have I done no wrong, as thou very well
knowest; (they being now unable to prove any charge
they lay against me, ver, 7.)
II For if I be an offender (Gr. if indeed I have been
unjust), or have committed anything worthy of death,
I refuse not to die; but if there be none of these
things whereof they accuse me (true, or punishable by
death), “no man may deliver me to them (who wait
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. xxv.
| * Ver. 3. Laying wait in the way to kill him.] We need
not wonder that the high-priest and chief of the Jews should
be thus bloody-minded against Paul, when about this time
they were arming one against the other.
end of the procuratorship of Felix, Josephus” informs us,
that there was, roi; &#xtepetal aráort; ºrgö, row; iséeſ, ka? row;
ºrpoºrov, roi; Tañóovg rôy 'Isèccoxvºirów, “a sedition betwixt
the high-priests, and the priests, and chief men of Jerusalem,
and that every one of them gathered a band of the most
bold and seditious men, and became a leader of them; and
that they reviled, and threw stones at one another;” and
that the high-priests were so impudent, “as to send their
servants to take away the tithe-corrl of the priests, so that
some of them perished for hunger.”
* Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 6.
For at the latter
* Wer. 8. Neither against the law of the Jews.] For he
| had committed nothing against the customs of their fathers
(xxviii. 17), and to the Jews he became as a Jew” (1 Cor.
ix. 29), nor against the temple, for he had not profaned it,
nor raised any tumult in it (xxiv. 18), nor against Caesar,
whom he commanded all men to obey as God’s ordinance
(Rom. xiii.). ~
* Ver. li. Otºsis ºwe Sºvarat x&gia-aa-Sat aircíº, No man
can deliver me to them.] i. e. No man can justly do it; I be-
ing not only an innocent person, having done them no wrong
(ver. 10), but also a Roman, and therefore one who ought
to be judged not by them, or their laws, but at the tribunal
of Caesar, by the Roman laws: so the word ºvarai is often
used to signify that only which may be lawfully done, as v. g.
Exod. viii. 26, où 3&arat yeyéa flat off ro, “It is not meet so to
do;” Deut. xii. 17, où 8vyńan páygºv, “Thou mayest not eat
of it within thy gates;” Acts x. 47, rig. 30% rat; “Who can
forbid water P” (see the note on Mark ii. 19.) , ;
2 K 2
500
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
for an opportunity to kill me, ver. 3): “I appeal unto
Caesar.
12 Then Festus, when he had "conferred with the
council, answered, Hast thou (or, thou hast) appealed
to Caesar 2 (and therefore) unto Caesar shalt thou go.
13 And after certain days king Agrippa (tetrarch
of Galilee) and Bernice (his sister) came to Caesarea
to salute Festus.
14 And when they had been there many days,
Festus declared Paul’s cause to the king, saying,
There is a certain man left in bonds by Felix:
15 About whom, when I was at Jerusalem, the
chief priests and the elders of the Jews informed me,
iºns to have judgment (of death, ver. 16) against
ll II].
16 To whom I answered, (Gr. That) "it is not the
manner of the Romans to deliver any man to die,
before that he who is accused have the accusers face
to face, and have license to answer for himself con-
cerning the crime laid against him.
17 Therefore, when they were come hither, without
any delay on the morrow { sat on the judgment-seat,
and commanded the man to be brought forth.
18 Against whom, when the accusers stood up,
they brought no accusation of such things as I Sup-
posed (they would, no charge of sedition or of offence
against the Roman laws):
19 But had certain questions against him of their
own superstition, and of (i.e. concerning) one Jesus,
who was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive (again).
20 And because I doubted (whether I ought to
judge) of such manner of questions, I asked him whe-
ther he would go to Jerusalem, and there be judged
of these matters.
21 But when Paul had appealed to be reserved to
the hearing of Augustus, I commanded him to be
kept till I might send him to Caesar.
22 Then Agrippa said to Festus, I would also hear
the man myself. To-morrow, said he, thou shalt
hear him.
23 And on the morrow, when Agrippa was come,
and Bernice, "with great pomp (or retinue), and was
entered into the place of hearing, with the chief cap-
tains, and principal men of the city, at Festus’s com-
mandment Paul was brought forth.
24 And Festus said, King Agrippa, and all (ye)
men which are here present with us, ye see this man,
about whom all the multitude of the Jews have dealt
with (or besought) me, both at Jerusalem, and also
here, crying (out) that he ought not to live any longer.
25 But when I found that he had committed no-
thing worthy of death, and that he himself had ap-
pealed to Augustus, I have determined to send him.
26 Of whom I have no certain thing to write to
my lord. Wherefore I have brought him forth be-
fore you, and especially before thee, O king Agrippa,
that, after examination had (of him), I might have
somewhat to write.
27 For it seemeth to me unreasonable to send a
prisoner, and not withal to signify the crimes laid
against him.
* I appeal writo Caesar..] Hence it appears that Paul
owned even Nero for his prince and supreme governor upon
earth; and, (2.) that in ases of necessity, Christians may
have recourse even to heathen judicatures, especially when
they have to do with persons who are aliens from the faith.
* Ver. 12. xvXXaAña as pºetà rou avºw8ovXiov, Conferring
with the council.] Not with the council of the Jews, as
Chrysostom conceives; for they never would have advised
him to admit of Paul's appeal, or to send him to Caesar out
of their reach; but, as Grotius saith, with his own Roman
council, which assisted him.
* Ver. 16. It is not the manner of the Romans to deliver
any man to die before—he have his accusers face to face,
&c.] Thus Philo” saith of them, that “they yielded them-
selves to be common judges, hearing equally the accusers and
defendants, and condemning no man unheard.” And Ap-
pian in Grotius saith the same: this also was the law of the
sº
* "Icov wai rāy wer:7&pay za rāy &roAoyoup.svay &kpoºp.svos
* p $ *g
Mančevö, äwgirov Trºoxaraywºrkely āśioëvres. In Flaccum, p.
tºy sº
759,
Jews, to which Nicodemus appealed in the case of Christ,
John vii. 51.
7 Wer. 23. Merå woxx; pavraoriac, With great pomp.] i. e.
With a great train of attendants, as the word signifies in La-
ertius, when he saith,” Bion had payracíay 3xoxovëſia’ay atrº,
“a great train of mariners following him;’ or with great
splendour, as when Athenion+ was carried to Athens in a chair
of state with silver and purple hangings, the people ran out
to see the sight, no Roman ever entering the city, iv too aſſrn
©ay rariº, “in so great splendour;” though after there is
mention of many servants going before, and following after
him, which makes for the first sense. See more instances
of this acceptation of the word in Dr. Bois on the place.
And to them add that of Bardesanes in Eusebius, that the
Bastrian women appeared on horses adorned with gold and
jewels, pattà ToMAşç payraaiac, “with great pomp,” and with
a train of young men and maidens attending them (Euseb.
Praep. Evang. lib. vi. cap. 10, p. 276).
* In Vitā Bionis. †: Athen, lib. v. p. 212, C.
CHAPTER XXVI.
1 THEN Agrippa said to Paul, Thou art permitted
to speak for thyself. Then Paul stretched forth his
hand (to the people to keep silence), and (then he an-
swered for himself; (saying,)
2 * I think myself happy (i. e. I judge it no small ad-
vantage to me and my cause), king Agrippa, because
(that) I shall answer for myself this day before thee,
touching all the things whereof I am accused of the
Jews:
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXVI.
* Ver. 2. "Hyng, at #4avºrów Łakáptow, I count myself happy.]
Though this phrase may signify no more than, “I look upon
it as a considerable advantage,” as when we call a lucky
man a happy man, and so the word &akágios and felia are often
used in profane authors, and ºwn in the Hebrew, as when
|
3 Especially because I know thee to be (not only a
person of a good temper and sedate mind, but also) ex-
pert in all customs and questions which are among
the Jews : wherefore I beseech thee to hear me pa-
tiently. -
4 My manner of life from my youth, which was at
the first among my own nation at Jerusalem, (where
I was bred up at the feet of Gamaliel, xxii. 3,) know
all the Jews; - *
Leah calls her son Asher, Gen. xxx. 13, saying, “I am
happy, for the daughters shall call me happy;” and Jeremy
inquires, “Wherefore are all they happy,” i. e. prosperous,
“who deal very treacherously 2” (see Ps. cxxvii. 5. cxxviii.
3. cxxxvii. 8, 9;) yet I believe the apostle here respects not
any personal advantage, but the benefit Christianity might
receive from what he was to say before a person so able to
judge of it.
CHAPTER XXVI. *
501
5 Who knew (this of) me from the beginning, if
they would testify (the truth of me), that *after the
most straitest sect of our religion I lived a pharisee.
6 *And now I stand, and am judged for the hope
(#arnka kpwéuevog #1'. Atriël, I stand questioned about
the hope) of the promise made of God to our fathers,
(I saying that is accomplished by the coming of Jesus
Christ ; and that this is proved by the resurrection of
him from the dead; they denying his resurrection, and
therefore expecting the accomplishment of this promise
by the coming of some other person to be their Mes-
siah): - -
* Ver. 5. Kara rºw &ket&sztárov aſ Eaw, &c. According to
the ea’actest sect of our religion, I lived a pharisee.] That
they were so according to the opinion of the Jews, Jose-
phus" testifies, by saying, this was “a sect of the Jews,
which was thought eio'séatagov eſyai rāy &AAwy, xal row, yāºov;
&x£18áategoy & phystrðat, “to be more pious than others, and
more exact in the interpretation of their laws,” that they
did, F &#ya peovoy #mr' &ngléo et roi; ºrarpºšov vätzov, “esteem
highly of themselves for their exactness in the law,” and
that they were the sect oi regi rā ºrérgia Vápºtº, a 30×otal tăy
ãaxoy &xpésiº 3a pégely, “who seemed to excel others in their
exact knowledge of the customs of their fathers,f Kai oi
3oxoivre; wer' &npığalaç iºnysia'8at rà vápºtºza, and to be most
exact in the interpretation of their laws:” and indeed, com-
paratively, they seem to have been the exactest of their
celebrated sects; for the sadducees, by denying the resurrec-
tion, and all future punishments, took away the rewards of a
virtuous, and gave liberty to a vicious life. The essenes, be-
ing Jews by nature, were guilty of a great schism, in sepa-
rating themselves wholly from the worship of the temple,
and of equal disobedience in not bringing their sacrificess to
the temple, and of idolatry in making prayers or religious ad-
dresses; to the sun, as Josephus, who lived three years among
them, testifies, if ºrgö; airty refers to #xtoy, but seeing the
same Josephus saith, that they were ºrpèc rô 6sſow ièio, eias-
8sic, “especially religious towards God,” and brings the words
following as a proof of that, I think these prayers were of.
fered rather to God than to the sun (see the note on Col. ii.
22, 23).
* Ver. 6, 7. And now I stand and am judged for the
hope of the promise made to our fathers.] Why Paul here
speaks as if he were questioned touching the article of the
resurrection of the dead in general, see the note on xxiii. 6,
and why he speaks of the twelve tribes, see note on James
i. 1; but whereas he styles the resurrection, “the promise
made to their fathers,” and saith, the twelve tribes served
God in expectation of it, this needs a little explication, be-
cause many deny that any such promise was made to the
fathers, or can be found in the Old Testament. I therefore
assert, -
First, That it is evident from the history of the Maccabees
and other writings, both sacred and profane, that the Jews
then, and the pharisees afterward, did believe the resurrec-
tion of the body. Thus the second son saith, 2 Macc. vii.
9, “The King of the world shall raise us up, who have died
for his laws, unto everlasting life,” eig aid voy &va£iolory ºw;
âvaarharet' the third and fourth express their hope to be
“raised up by God to life again,” ver. 1 1. 14, and the mo-
ther of them bids them not doubt “but the Creator of the
world would give them breath and life again.” That the
pharisees believed this doctrine, we learn not only from Jose-
phus, but from their satisfaction that Christ had put the
Sadducees to silence in that matter, Matt. xxii. 34, and for
their stickling for St. Paul himself upon this declaration,
that “he was called in question for the hope of the resur-
rection,” Acts xxiii. 9.
Secondly, That they conceived this hope was built upon
the covenant of God made with them, and the promise of
God made to them, is also evident from their words; for the
last of these seven martyrs is introduced, saying, “Our bre-
thren are dead under God's covenant of everlasting life,”
* De Bello Jud. lib. i. cap. 4. ‘l Antiq. lib. xvii, cap. 3.
† De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 12, p. 788, E.
§ Ad templum donaria mittentes, 6vciaç clºt #7ttºrexotzi,
Białogórnºr; 3) vsišy 36 vokićolev wai Si' air eleybugyo row wowoč
repreviaºwa toº, #4' airāy TຠSvaria, #mit5Aoûai. Antiq. lib.
xviii. cap. 2, p. 617, G.
| Priusquam oriatur Sol, nihil profani loquuntur, travetov;
38 rivac sic airów Eixã; &rtrep insteðoyré; &vatsiaat. De Belio
Jud. lib. ii. cap. 11, p. 785, E.
wer. 36. Josephus" introduceth the mother of these seven
children, comforting her dying sons with those words of
Moses, “I kill, and I make alive,” Deut. xxxii. 39, and “It
is your life and length of days,” ver. 47, and that of Solo-
mon, Prov. iii. 18, “Wisdom is a tree of life to them that
lay hold on her,” and that of Ezekiel, xxxvii. 3, “Shall these
dry bones live?”
Thirdly, They had just reason both from the law and pro-
phets for this hope ; from the law, for thence our Saviour
proves the resurrection of the body, Matt. xxii. 31, 32 (see
the note there). And that our Saviour did not there argue
for the felicity of the souls of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
only, is evident from this, that he argues for something fu-
ture, which should happen to them &ray &yaarājai, “when
they shall arise;” whereas in truth, and in the opinion of the
Jews themselves, the souls of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
were with God already : Josephus saith, that “they who
die for God, Kojat rô QE3 &rare: 'A864&pº, 'larakw, Kai Tax38,
zai ºrávre; oi raretáexat, shall live with God, as do Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, and all the patriarchs.”
2. From the prophets; the words of Daniel being these,
“Many of them that slept in the dust shall awake, some to
everlasting life, and some to everlasting confusion,” xii. 2;
where note, that though men in misery and affliction are
sometimes said to sit, or dwell in the dust, Isa. xxvi. 19.
xxvii. 1. Neh. iii. 18, yet oi ka9a03ovreć, “they that sleep in the
dust,” doth always signify they that die, as Job vii. 21. xx.
11. xxi. 6, and hath no other sense in scripture. And, (2.)
that though men that sit in the dust may be raised out of
that afflicted, into a very comfortable and pleasant state, yet,
seeing they must shortly die, they can in no propriety of
speech be said to arise to life eternal. (3.) From the law
and the prophets; for saith Paul, xxiv. 14, 15, “I worship
the God of our fathers, believing all things that are written in
the law and the prophets, having hope that there shall be a
resurrection both of the just and the unjust ;” and here, ver,
23, “I say nothing but what is contained in the law and the
prophets, that Christ shall be the first # &yaa’ráago; Vexºv,
of those that rise from the dead,” plainly insinuating, that
the resurrection of others after Christ was contained in the
law and the prophets. Hence the apostle tells us, that the
champions of the Jewish church all died in faith, in expec-
tation of “a better resurrection,” Heb. xi. 35. 39.
Amd, Lastly, That this hope was rightly built upon the cove-
nant of God, that he would be “their God” (Gen. xvii. 7), is
evident, for that to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Ja-
cob, is to be that God who will raise them from the dead,
we learn from our Saviour's argument, Matt. xxii. 32, and that
he was therefore “called their God,” because “he had pre-
pared for them a heavenly city,” from Heb. xi. 15, and from
his promise made to the spiritual seed of Abraham, ac-
cording to those words of the apostle, Gal. iii. 29, “If
ye are Christ's, them are ye Abraham's seed; and heirs ac-
cording to the promise” (see the note there). And (3.) from
the promise of entering into his rest, Heb. iv. 3.9 (see the
note there). And (4.) from the promise of a Messiah, it
being one of their fundamental articles, that their “Messiah
shall raise the dead, and bring them into paradise" (see
Maimonides Expl. 10, Tract. Sanhedrin, p. 136, and Dr.
Pocock's notes, p. 109, 110). And, lastly, this seems
evident from the nature of the thing; for God being the Fa-
ther of our spirits, which are immortal, and must live for
ever, it is absurd to think his promises to the obedient should
relate only to this present life, and yet he should engage them.
to be faithful to the death, and suffer here the worst of evils
for his sake; since if they “had hope only in this life, they
must of all men be most miserable” (1 Cor. xv. 19).
* De Maccab. cap. 18, p. 1101, 1102.
ºf Ibid. cap. 17, p. 1 100.
502
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
7 “To which promise (of the Messiah) our twelve
tribes, instantly (or earnestly) serving God day and
night, hope (yet) to come. For which hope’s sake
(trept åg Atriðog; concerning which hope), king Agrippa,
I am accused of the Jews, (for saying, that Jesus,
whom they have crucified, God hath raised from the
dead, and that he is the hope of Israel, xxviii. 10, some
of them saying, on the contrary, that there is no resur-
rection of the dead at all ; others denying that Christ
is risen from the dead.
8 Of the first I inquire.) Why should it be thought
(ri kptveral ; why is it judged) a thing incredible with
you, that God (infinite in power and wisdom) should
(be able to) raise the dead 2
9 (As for the second, I was once of their opinion ;
jor) I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do
many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Naza-
reth (i.e. in opposition to those who believed that he
was the Christ, and that he was risen from the dead).
10 Which thing I also did in Jerusalem; and many
of the saints (i. e. the Christians) did I shut up in
prison, having received authority from the chief
priests (and elders so to do, xxii. 5); and when they
were put to death, I gave my voice against them,
(i. e. I, in the instance of St. Stephen, approved of the
sentence, viii. 1.)
11 And I punished them oft in every synagogue
(where I found any of them), and (by these punish-
ments) compelled them to blaspheme (the name of
Jesus); and being exceedingly mad against them, I
persecuted them (forcing them to fly from Judea) even
to strange cities. -
12 Whereupon as I went to Damascus (the metro-
polis of Syria), with authority and commission from
the chief priests, (that if I found any of them there
ân the Jewish synagogues, I should bring them bound to
Jerusalem, ix. 2.) q
13 At midday, O king, I saw in the way a light
from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining
round about me and (about) them which journeyed
with me.
14 And when we were all fallen to the earth, I
heard a voice speaking to me, and saying in the He-
brew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?
it is (or will be) hard for thee to kick against the
pricks (i. e. to fight against God. See ix. 5).
15 And I said, Who art thou, Lord 2 And he said,
I am Jesus (of Nazareth) whom thou persecutest.
16 But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have
appeared to thee for this purpose, to make thee a mi-
mister and a witness both of those things which thou
hast seen (now ), and of those things in which (i. e.
'for the discovery of which) I will appear to thee;
17 (And in testifying of them, I will be with thee,)
delivering thee from the people (of the Jews), and (of)
the gentiles, to whom now I send thee,
18 To open their (blind) eyes, and to turn them
from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan
unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins,
and (an) inheritance among them that are sanctified
by faith that is in me.
19 Whereupon, O king Agrippa, (having had this
convincing testimony of the resurrection of this Jesus)
*I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision:
20 But showed first to them of Damascus (where
this vision happened), and (then to them) at Jerusalem,
and (so) throughout all the coasts of Judea, and then
to the gentiles, that they (of the Jews) should repent
(of their great sin in crucifying this Jesus), and (should)
turn to God, and do works meet for (Gr. meet works
of) repentance. -
21 For these causes the Jews caught me (as I was)
in the temple, and went about to kill me (xxi. 31).
22 Having therefore obtained help of God, (accord-
ing to the promise made by Jesus, ver, 17,) I continue
to this day, witnessing both to small and great (the
Tesurrection of Jesus ; and in this) saying none other
things than those which the prophets and Moses did
say should come (to pass :
23 Viz.) *That Christ (the Messiah of the Jews)
should suffer, and that he should be the first that
should rise from the dead (so as to return no more to
death, Acts xiii. 34), and (that he) should show light
to the people, and to the gentiles.
24 And as he thus spake for himself, Festus said
with a loud voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself; much
learning doth make thee mad (or transport thee).
25 But he said, I am not mad, most noble Festus;
but I speak forth the words of truth and soberness
(or, of a sound mind).
26 For the king knoweth of these things, before
whom also (Tpog ov kai, to whom therefore) I speak
freely (of them); for I am persuaded that none of
these things (concerning the resurrection of Christ, or
even my conversion,) are hidden from him ; for this
thing was not done in a corner (but was of public cog-
nizance).
27 King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets (to
whose testimonies I appeal for the truth of Christ's
sufferings and his resurrection ? ver. 22, 23.) I know
* Ver. 7. To which promise, rö 30,88844 vXcy hºàv, &c. our
twelve tribes—hope to come.] That some of the twelve tribes
remained in, and some of them returned to, the land of Is-
rael, see proved, note on James i. 1. Why St. Paul Saith
he was questioned touching this hope of the resurrection in
the general, when he was only duestioned concerning the re-
surrection of Christ from the dead, see the chief reason,
note on xxiv. 15. To which add, that St Paul connects
these things thus, because in the truth of the thing, and
according to the testimony of the apostles, and even the sem-
timents of the Jews, the resurrection was to be effected by
the Messiah, or by Jesus Christ, saying, that “God would
raise us up by Jesus” (1 Thess. iv. 4), and that “God had
appointed him to be the judge both of the quick and dead”
(Acts X. 47), and had given assurance that he would judge
all men by him, “in that he had raised him from the dead”
(Acts xvii. 31), he being risen as “the first that should rise
from the dead” (ver. 23 of this chapter), or “the first-fruits
of them that sleep” (1 Cor. xv. 22). Hence it is so ex-
pressly noted, iv. 1, 2, that “the sadducees were grieved,”
not that the apostles declared that Jesus “was the Christ,”
or that he was risen, but that they taught “through Jesus
the resurrection from the dead.” Note also, that he repre-
3. p
sents this as the hope of the twelve tribes, though it was de-
nied by the sadducees; because, as Josephus" informs us,
ei: 3Xiyov, &věpa; oûto, & Näyo; &#izero, they were but few, and
these few, when they designed to be magistrates, were forced
to profess the doctrine of the pharisees, 3:3 to ºwn &xxo; &vÉw-
tov; yeyéa-6at roi; ºrxhôeaty, “seeing the common people would
not otherwise have endured them.” And that the apostle
here spake with respect to the doctrine of the Sadducees,
appeareth from the following words, ver. 8, “Why should it
be judged a thing incredible that God should raise the dead?”
It being only the sect of the sadducees, which held this in-
credible, and that which did exceed even the power of God
(Matt. xxii. 29).
* Ver. 19. I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.]
For, saith Grotius, though this vision gave him sufficient
conviction of the truth, it left it in his power to obey or dis-
obey it, as you will find it proved in the appendix to the
sixth chapter of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians.
• Wer. 23. Ei raðnir); 3 Xetarôc, That Christ hath suffered.]
Tö ei, &yºr roſ, Št 1,–Ei here being put for 3rt, that, saith
(Ecumenius (see note on 1 Tim. v. 10. Heb. iii. 11).
* Antiq. Jud, lib. xviii, cap. 2, p. 617.
CHAPTER XXVII.
503
that thou believest (them : to them therefore I remit up, and the governor, and Bernice, and they that sat
thee).
28 Then Agrippa said to Paul, "Almost thou per-
suadest me to be a Christian,
29 And Paul said, I would to God, that not only
thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both
almost, and altogether such as I am, except these
bonds (i. e. as to faith in Christ, though not as to
the bond I suffer for it).
30 And when he had thus spoken, the king rose
7 Ver. 28 ‘Eyðaiya, Aze ºreiðsic, &c. Almost thou persuadest
me to be a Christian.] So Plato, #yway oty kai treet Troinºrów
#v 3xiya rotºro, “I almost knew the same touching the poets;”
and #7 &xi;) ov is interpreted axéðoy, schol. Aristoph. p. 837.
And that they, who interpret these words thus, “Wouldest
with them :
31 And when they were gone aside, they talked
between themselves, saying, This man doth nothing
worthy of death or of bonds (by the Roman laws, by
which he is to be judged). -
32 Then said Agrippa unto Festus, This man might
have been set at liberty, if he had not appealed to
Caesar (to whose judgment he is therefore now to be re-
served).
thou in so little time persuade me to be a Christian P” must
mistake, is evident from the following words of the apostle,
“I would to God, that not only iy 3Aiyo, &Ax’ #y aroxxâj, all
that hear me were not almost only, but altogether such as I
am.”
CHAPTER XXVII.
1 AND when it was determined that we should sail
into Italy, they delivered Paul and certain other pri-
soners to one named Julius, a centurion of Augustus’s
band (i.e. of the band of the legion of Augustus).
2 And entering into a ship of Adramyttium (a
sea-town of Mysia), we launched (forth), meaning to
sail by the coasts of Asia; * one Aristarchus, a Mace-
donian of Thessalonica (and a companion of Paul),
being with us.
3 And the next day we touched at Sidon. And
(there) Julius courteously entreated Paul, and gave
him liberty to go to his friends to refresh himself.
4 And when we had launched from thence, we sailed
under Cyprus, because the winds were contrary (to us).
5 And when we had sailed over the sea of Cilicia
and Pamphylia, we came to Myra, a city of Lycia.
6 And there the centurion found a ship of Alexan-
dria sailing into Italy; and he put us therein.
7 And when we had sailed slowly many days, and
scarce were come over against Cnidus, the wind not
suffering us (to go on directly), we sailed under Crete,
over against (the promontory of) Salmone;
8 And, hardly passing (by) it, came to a place
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXVII.
* Ver. 2. One Aristarchus.] He was a convert of Mace-
domia, who accompanied Paul in his travels from Macedonia
to Jerusalem (Acts xix. 29. xx. 4), was a coadjutor with
him in the work of the gospel (Philem. 24), went with him
to Rome, and was there in bonds with him (Col. iv. 10),
and is therefore here taken notice of as a companion of St.
Paul's.
* Ver. 9. And sailing was now dangerous, 31& ré was rhy
vºteſaw ºn Trage anxv6ával, because the fast was now already
past.] That is, the annual fast of expiation for the sins of
the people of Israel, which began on the tenth of the month
Tisri, answering to the twenty-fifth of our September, was
already past, and so the time of sailing became dangerous
by reason of the winter, and of the Michaelmas flows which
were then upon the sea. Thus Philo” informs us, that this
feast of tabernacles was held ºgró rºy as Toroplvåy ionºsefay,
“after the winter equinoctial;” and the same feast of taber-
macles, which was on the fifteenth of the same month, is
said by Josephus + to be celebrated, restrogºśvov ºrd Actºrów roi;
wateow 7pog tåy xeipzépiov &gay, “when it began to be winter:”
and Philof adds, that Flaccus was carried from Egypt to
Tome, 3pxºpwéyou Xeºvog, “at the beginning of winter, 335i
y&g airów Kai Tøy #y 6axátºrn poészów &roAaja’at, it being fit that
he who had disturbed all things by land should be disturbed
by the tempests of the sea;” and in his Legatio ad Flac-
* In Flaccum, p. 760. + Antiq, lib. iii, cap. 10, F.
# Ibid. p. 761.
that haven), “they sailed close by Crete.
which is called The Fair Havens; nigh whereunto was
the city of Lasea.
9 Now when much time was spent, and when
*sailing was now dangerous, because the (yearly) fast
É. eaſpiation) was now already past, Paul admonished
them,
10 And said to them, Sirs, I perceive that this
voyage will be with hurt and much damage, not only
of the lading and ship, but also of our lives.
11 Nevertheless the centurion believed the master
and the owner of the ship, more than those things
which were spoken by Paul.
12 And because the haven was not commodious to
winter in, the most part (of the passengers) advised
(us) to depart thence also, if by any means they might
attain to Phenice to winter (there); which (Phenice) is
a haven of Crete, and lieth towards the south-west
and north-west.
13 And when the south wind blew softly, supposing
that they had obtained their purpose, loosing (from
14 But not long after there arose against it (the
ship) “a tempestuous wind, called Euroclydon.
cum,” he saith, that “the beginning of autumn was rexsutafog
traoüç roſ; 6axarº'sévvaiy, the last time for mariners to put to
sea.” See more of this in Dr. Hammond's note upon the
place.
* Ver. 13. "Aao'oy Tragex{yovro rºy Kehrmy, They sailed close
by Crete.] The Vulgar has made this the proper name of
a place, and indeed there was such a place near Troas and
Mitylene, mentioned Acts xx. 13, 14, but that was at too
wide a distance from Crete to be here mentioned; there
were four other places of that name mentioned by Schmidius
here, but none of them were near Crete; Stephanus, as he is
cited by Lorinus, saith, Assos is "roxixylov Kehtnc., “a little
city of Crete;” but then Pliny informs us that it was not a
sea-port, but situated in Mediterraneo, “in the Mediter-
ranean,” lib. iv. cap. 12, p. 213. Others therefore think
this is an adverb, used by Homer, Hesiod, and Herodotus,
to signify quickly, or near to the place, as Phavorinus and
other grammarians say it doth, and so the whole should be
rendered thus, “Loosing from the incommodious harbour,”
mentioned ver. 12, “with a favourable wind, propiùs prae-
terlegebant Cretam, they sailed by Crete near to it.”
* Ver. 14. "Ayego; rv$ovinë;, & waxoëpºvo, Eitokºłow, A
tempestuous wind called Euroclydon.] Ventus typhonicus,
saith Pliny, “is a whirlwind,” and the name of it here
mentioned is thought by Grotius, Bochart, and Dr. Ham-
mond, to be Eügoaxšawy, as it is rendered by the Vulgar, that
is, the north-east wind, that being opposite to the south-
west wind, mentioned ver, 12.
*
* P. 770, B + H. Nat. Jib. ii. cap. 41.
504 sº
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
$
15 And when the ship was caught (i.e. driven along
by it), and * could not bear up into (i.e. resist) the
wind, we let her drive. *
16 And running under a certain island which is
called Clauda, we had much work to come by the
boat (i. e. to draw it to us):
17 Which when they had taken up, they used helps,
undergirding the ship (with ropes, to preserve it from
splitting); and, fearing lest they should fall into the
quicksands, (they) struck sail, and so were driven.
18 And being exceedingly tossed with a tempest,
the next day they lightened the ship;
19 And the third day we cast out with our hands
the tackling of the ship.
20 And when neither sun nor stars in many days
appeared, and no small tempest lay upon us, all hope
that we should be saved (or escape) was then taken
a WaW.
º But after long abstinence Paul stood forth in the
midst of them, and said, Sirs, ye should have hear-
kened to me, and "not have loosed from Crete, and
to have gained (i.e. sustained) this harm and loss.
22 And now I exhort you to be of good cheer: for
there shall be no loss of (any man’s) life among you,
but of the ship (only).
23 For there stood by me this night the angel of
God, whose (apostle) I am, and whom I serve,
24 Saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought
before Caesar: and, lo, God hath given thee (the life
of) all them that sail with thee (provided they will
hearken unto thee).
25. Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe
(in) God, (and therefore rest assured) that it shall be
even as it was told me.
26 Howbeit we must be cast upon a certain island.
27 But (and) when the fourteenth night was come,
as we were driven up and down in Adria, about mid-
night the shipmen deemed that they drew near to
some country;
* Ver. 15. We could not, &vropóaxºv rá ávéºwo, bear wy
against the wind.] So the word properly imports, but me-
taphorically, we could not resist or stand up against the
force of it; so Polybius” saith of the Messenians, that they
could not, &viro40axºsſy ºrgèg rö 94.80; rāy Aax=3atºvtov, “re-
sist the force of the Lacedemonians;” and that they could
not ºrpºº rāv Šekºv &yroºpSaxpatſy, “resist their impressions”
(see more instances in Budaeus and Bois).
* Ver. 21. "Eºst ºy ºzº &váyea-6at, You should not have
loosed from Crete, zepôňa ai are rºy iſºely raúrny Kai rāv Čnºtay,
do have gained this harm and loss.] Great industry is used
here to carry off these words from their native sense, to
make $881; signify a tempest, and xse?aively, to escape,
whereas there needeth no such artifice, for it was indeed
#8pic, “an infamy” to them to be such unskilful mariners as
to put to Sea when the season of the year rendered their
voyage so dangerous; and having been forced for their own
safety to lighten the ship, and to cast out some of her lading
and tackling to preserve themselves, they might well be said,
xegèaivety thy Knºwiczy raúrny, jacturam hanc lucri in loco pomere,
or “to count this loss their gain;” the particle ºch, which
here seems necessary to be repeated, shows that x868aively
here cannot signify to escape, seeing the sense would then
run thus, Ye should not have escaped the loss. Though,
since x863aively seems to bear this sense in those words of
Aristotle, i. 6 xará. Aáyov ćnºſav Šv Anſely, rôy to rotoiroy asp?ai-
voyra Būtv3.5 papwéy, “We call him fortunate who escapes
that punishment or damage he reasonably might have suf.
fered;” in this sense the words run thus, “You should not
have loosed from Crete, but stayed there, that you might
have escaped this infamy and loss.”
7 Ver, 31. Ercept these abide in the ship ye cannot be
saved.] This shows, as Grotius well notes, that what was
Y Lib. iv. + Magn. Mor. lib. ii. cap. 8.
28 And (they) sounded (with their plummet), and
found it twenty fathoms (of water); and when they
had gone a little farther, they sounded again, and
found it (the water) fifteen fathoms (deep).
29 Then fearing lest they should have fallen upon
rocks, they cast four anchors out of the stern, and
wished for the day (that by the help of the light they
might discern the shore).
30 And as the shipmen were about (Gr. and the
shipmen seeking) to flee out of the ship, (to that end)
when they had let down the boat into the sea, under
colour as if they would have cast anchor out of the
foreship,
31 Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers,
* Except these (mariners) abide in the ship (to conduct
it), ye cannot be saved.
32 Then the soldiers cut off the ropes of the boat,
and let her fall off.
33 And while the day was coming on, Paul besought
them all to take meat (i.e. he eaſhorted them to eat, till
the day appearing, they might employ themselves other-
wise), saying, “This day is the fourteenth day that ye
have tarried and continued fasting, have eaten nothing
(i.e. observed no times of eating).
34 Wherefore I pray you to take some meat: for
this is for your health (and let not the fear of death
hinder you); for there shall not a hair fall from the
head of any of you (ye shall not die).
35 And when he had thus spoken, he took bread,
and gave thanks to God in the presence of them all:
and when he had broken it, he began to eat.
36 Then were they all of good cheer, and they also
took some meat.
37 And we were in all in the ship two hundred
threescore and sixteen souls (i. e. persons).
38 And when they had eaten enough, they lightened
the ship, and cast out the wheat into the sea.
39. And when it was day, they knew not the land:
but they discovered a certain creek, with a shore, into
said, ver. 21, was to be understood with this limitation, Si
me audiatis, “If ye will hearken to my counsel;” and also
with this proviso, that you will do that which is in your
power, and God hath given you skill and ability to do ;
those that could swim being saved by 'swimming, and they
that could not by getting upon boards and broken planks of
the ship (ver. 43,44) : for in all promises in which God is
said to give this or that, this must be understood, because he
hath already given that which he hath given us faculties, or
abilities and wisdom to obtain; so that we cannot want or
fall short of it, unless we wilfully neglect to use the facul-
ties which God hath given us for that end : they therefore
having with them mariners, skilled in conducting of the
ship, and power sufficient to retain them in it, St. Paul in-
forms them, that God's promise of their safety was to be ef.
fective by their means, and belonged not to them who fully
neglected them. t
* Ver. 33. This is the fourteenth day that ye have con-
tinued fasting, having taken nothing.] It being impossible
for them, without a miracle, to continue fasting fourteen
days without eating anything, some render the words thus,
“You have continued expecting the fourteenth day as a cri-
tical day,” which they were either to find safety in, or were
not like to outlive; but as we read nothing of such a critical
day, so the troxxi &orirua, “long fasting,” mentioned ver. 21,
and continued till this day, proves the contrary. The mean-
ing therefore seems to be this, that they had not set times
of eating, but what they ate was seldom, little, and without
order, or assembling together for that end. Thus Zetzes
saith,” that Hesiod speaks thus, où8é ri airov ja'6toy, “They
ate no meat, 31& rö ºn 8' by roi; wateoſ; rāy Tpa Trećy—Éa-6:Bºy,
because they ate not at meal-times.”
# Fol. 28.
#
i
CHAPTER XXVIII. ge
which they were minded, if it were possible, to thrust
in the ship.
40 And when they had taken up the anchors, they
committed themselves to the sea, and loosed the
rudder-bands, and hoisted up the mainsail to the
wind, and made towards shore.
41 And falling into a place where two seas met,
they ran the ship on ground: and the forepart stuck
fast, and remained unmoveable, but the hinder part
was broken with the violence of the waves.
505
42 And the soldiers’ counsel was to kill the pri-
soners, lest any of them should swim out, and escape
(justice).
43 But the centurion, (being) willing to save Paul,
kept them from their purpose; and commanded that
they who could swim should cast themselves first into
the sea, and get to land.
44 And the rest (got) some on boards, and some
on broken pieces of the ship. And so it came to pass,
that they escaped all safe to land.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
1 AND when they were escaped (to land), then they
knew that the island was called "Melita (now Malta).
2 And the “barbarous people showed us no little
(or ordinary) kindness : for they kindled a fire, and
received us every one (into their houses), because of
the present rain, and because of the cold.
3 And when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks,
and laid them (Gr. but Paul turning many sticks, and
laying then) upon the fire, there came “a viper out of
iſ.” the heat, and fastened (herself) upon his
and. *
4 And when the barbarians saw the venomous
beast hang on his hand, they said among themselves,
No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he
hath escaped the sea, yet (divine) vengeance suffereth
not to live.
5 And he shook (Gr. then he shaking) off the beast
into the fire, (and) felt no harm.
6 Howbeit they looked when he should have swol-
len, or fallen down dead suddenly: but after they had
looked a great while (i. e. eaſpected this long), and
(yet) saw no harm come to him, they changed their
minds, and (Gr. changing their minds, they) *said that
he was a god.
7 (And) in the same quarters (Gr. in that place)
were possessions (habitations) of the chief man (the
governor) of the island, whose name was Publius;
—A
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXVIII.
* Ver. 1. Mexitn, The island was called Melita.] It is
now called Malta, and is famous for the knights of Rhodes,
and hath yet a place called “the arrival or haven of St.
Paul;" that it was this African Malta, and not the other
Illyrican Melite, or Melatine, see proved by Bochartus,
Phaleg, par. iii. lib. i. cap. 26.
* Ver. 2, Oi 33 8áč8apoi, The barbarous people..] Dr.
Lightfoot thinks that these barbarians were Africans brought
thither by the Carthaginians when they had possession of
that island. Bochartus from Diodorus Siculus saith, they
were bowizoy &moixos, “a colony of the Phoenicians,” who
sailing upon their merchandise to the western ocean,” warra-
‘psvyāy fixoy raúrny rāy w$ooy eixiºvoy cºa'ay, “made this island
their refuge, for the convenience of its havens;” but the
Phoenicians abounding in Africa, the difference betwixt these
two opinions is not great. As for the word barbarous,
Strabot informs us, that it was the name Trávrov 3% traxy-
orogowrov, “given to all that spake gross and rough lan-
guage;” and that afterward the Greeks used it, &; #8wing:
xoivºj čvápart ávrièlatfoëvre; ºrgö; rob; “Exxnvas, “as a common
name by which they distinguished themselves from other na-
tions.” However, these barbarous people were taught hu-
manity by the light of nature; they had their notions of
divine justice, or memesis, from tradition; they therefore did
believe there was a providence which did protect and re-
ward the good, and punish the evil-doer.
* Ver. 3. "Exºva, A viper.] Of this viper, see Bochart.
Hieroz. par. ii. lib. iii. cap. 2.
* Lib. v. p. 204. + Lib. xiv. p. 455.
who received us (into them), and lodged us three days
courteously.
8 And it came to pass, (Gr. so it was) that the fa-
ther of Publius lay sick of a fever and of a bloody
flux: to whom Paul entered in and prayed, and laid
his hands on him, and healed him. *
9 So when this was done, others also, who had
diseases in the island, came, and were healed :
10 *Who also (Gr. and they) honoured us with
many honours (or presented us with much provisions);
and when we departed, they laded us with such things
as were necessary (for us).
11 And after three months we departed in a ship
of Alexandria, which had wintered in the isle, "whose
sign was Castor and Pollux.
12 And landing at Syracuse, we tarried there three
days.
}. And from thence we fetched a compass, and
came to Rhegium ; and after one day the south wind
blew, and we came the next day to "Puteoli:
14 Where we found (Christian) brethren, and were
desired (I and Aristarchus) to tarry with them seven
days: and so we went towards Rome.
15 And from thence, when the "brethren (of Rome)
heard of us, they came to meet us, (some) as far as Ap-
pii Forum, and (others to) The Three Taverns: whom
when Paul saw, he thanked God, and took courage.
* Ver. 6. They said he was a god..] Perhaps Hercules
&A=#xazoc, who was worshipped in that island, Saith Pto-
lemy,” and was one of the gods of the Phoenicians. Vide
Lucian. de Deá Syra, et Euseb. Chron. N. 142.
* Ver. 10. IIoxxaſ; ripaſ, #tiºnaray hºàº, Who honoured
ws with many honours..] i. e. “Gave us many gifts and
provisions for our voyage:” so “What is thy name,” saith
Manoah to the angel, “that we may do thee honour?”
Judg. xiii. 17, ºva Sage:y magaaixãºwsy, “that we may tender
thee a gift,” saith Josephus. See this import of the word
tipah, note on 1 Tim. v. 3.
* Ver, 11. IIagachºwº, Atoczoágotº, Whose sign was Castor
and Pollur.] The picture of these two supposed sons of
Jupiter was painted on the forepart of the ship, they being,
in conjunction, thought propitious to mariners, and looked
upon, when thus appearing, as a sign of a tempest ceasing ;
and yet in a ship having such an idolatrous image, St. Paul
refuses not to sail, nor doth St. Luke refuse to use that
name; these being used only as the name of the ship in
which they sailed, as Dr. Hammond here notes.
7 Ver. 13, 14. We came to Puteoli, where we found bre-
thren.] It is not to be wondered that there should be
Christians there, seeing Strabo + informs us, that it was #476-
glow ºftytotov, “a very great mart town, where there were hil-
vens made by art for the goodness of the river.”
* Ver. 15. The brethren came to meet ws as far as 47-
pii Forum, and The Three Taverns.] These “three taverns’
were nearer to Rome than Appii Forum, as appears from the
words of Cicero to Atticus. f. It is not to be wondered that
* Georg. lib. iv. cap. 4. + Lib, v. p. 196.
† Ab Appii Foro, hora quartà dederam aliam pauld ante
à Tribus Tabernis. Ad Att, lib. ii. ep. 10.
506 °
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
16 And when we came to Rome, the centurion de-
livered the (other) prisoners to the captain of the
guard (i.e. of the praetorian band); "but Paul was
suffered to dwell by himself with a soldier that kept
him.
* 17 And it came to pass, that after three days Paul
called the chief of the Jews together: and when they
were come together, he said to them, Men and bre-
thren, though I have committed nothing against the
people, or customs of our fathers, yet was I delivered
prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Ro-
IIla IlS.
18 Who, when they had examined me, would have
let me go, because there was no cause of death in me.
19 But when the Jews spake against it, I was con-
strained to appeal to Caesar; not that I had aught to
accuse my nation of.
20 For this cause therefore have I called for you,
to see you, and to speak with you; because, that for
(that Messiah and that resurrection which is) *the
hope of Israel"I am bound with this chain.
21 And they said to him, We neither received let-
ters out of Judea concerning thee, neither any of the
brethren which came (hither) showed or spake any
harm of thee.
22 But we desire to hear of thee what thou think-
est (of them who are called Nazarenes) : for as con-
cerning this sect, we know that everywhere it is
spoken against.
23 And when they had appointed him a day, there
came many to him into his lodging; * to whom he
expounded and testified (that) the kingdom of God
there should be many Christians then at Tºome, though per-
haps no apostle had been there to preach to them. For
since Christianity had now continued twenty-eight years
from the ascension of our Saviour, and “the sound of it had
gone through all the world,” Rom. x. 18, it is reasonable to
expect, that as it converted Cornelius and his kinsmen to
the faith, so it should prevail on many other Romans in all
places; and that Rome being the place to which, ob majorem
principatum, “there was a general conflux from all places
of the world,” as both heathen and Christian writers have
observed, it should be stocked with Christian brethren from
all parts.
* Wer. 16. Tāj 33 IIaşxº insteam'n wévely kab’ Havröy, But
Paul was permitted to dwell by himself.] They who were
sent prisoners out of the provinces were usually sent to the
praefectus praetorii, F or general of the camp; it was there-
fore a favour that St. Paul was thus permitted to dwell in
his own hired house; and this kindness perhaps was shown
him, either through the testimony the centurion had given
of him as a good and virtuous man, or by reason of a letter
sent by Festus to Caesar concerning him, that he was guilty
of no crimes committed against the Roman laws.
* Ver. 20. For the hope of Israel.] i. e. Either for my
faith in Jesus, the true Messiah, who is the hope of Israel;
or for the hope of the resurrection of the dead (Acts xxvi.
6), which the Jews expected from the Messiah.
* In commune imperii caput undique gentium convenitur;
eo quðd clementissimum principem in håc parte degentem,
varia omnium desideria vel necessitates sequuntur. Symmac.
lib. iv. ep. 28. Máxia ra. Bē rô Trá90; tā ‘Pogatov ráxei izaarsv
&re troAvaySpdtry oian Rai roug Travraxášev invočexop, #yn. He-
rodian. lib. i. p. 19. Ad hanc ecclesiam propter poten-
tiorem principalitatem necesse est omnem convenire eccle-
siam. Iren. lib. iii. cap. 3.
+ Vinctus mitti ad praefectum praetorii mei debet. Trajan.
ad Plin. lib. x. ep. 65.
(was come), persuading them concerning Jesus (that
he was the Christ), both out of the law of Moses and
out of the prophets, from morning till evening.
24 And some believed the things which were spo-
ken, and some believed not.
25 And when they agreed not among themselves,
they departed, after that Paul had spoken (Gr. Paul
having spoken) one word (that nearly touched them,
viz. Ért, That) well spake the Holy Ghost (i.e. right-
ly) by Esaias the prophet to our fathers,
26 Saying, Go to this people, and say, (propheti-
cally to them), * Hearing ye shall (will) hear, and
shall (will) not understand; and seeing ye shall (will)
see, and (will) not perceive :
27 For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and
their ears are dull of hearing (Gr. they hear heavily
with their ears), and their eyes have they closed; lest
they should see with their eyes, and hear with their
ears, and understand with their hearts, and should be
converted (Gr. should turn themselves), and I should
heal them.
28 Be it known therefore to you, that the salvation
of God is sent to the gentiles, and that they will
hear it.
29 And when he had said these words, the Jews
departed, and had great reasoning among themselves.
30 **And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own
hired house, and received all that came in to him,
31 Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching
those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ,
with all confidence, no man forbidding him.
- - -- ºw---
* I am bound with this chain.] Having a chain on his
right hand, by which he was bound to the soldier that kept
him : the chain being also on the soldier's left hand, and so
long that they may go conveniently together. Thus Athenion"
tells the men of Athens, that Mithridates had made Quintus
Oppius 3%aºzlov, “a prisoner,” or “one bound with a chain,”
as St. Paul often speaks, and had bound Manlius Aquilius
&Aéret &axpa, “with a long chain to one Bastarne, who being
on horseback, dragged him along on foot, bound to him with
a chain five cubits long.” Sometimes, for greater security,
they were bound to two soldiers, by two chains, one fastened
to their right, the other to their left hand, as St. Peter was,
Acts xii. 6, 7, and St. Paul, Acts xxi. 13.
* Ver. 23. Oi, Éstiêero, 3rap, aprupéºsyo; rºw gaatasiav rod
Osotſ, To whom he earpounded, testifying the kingdom of
God.] Which they expected, Luke ii. 25.38. xix. 11, was
already come ; and persuading them of the truth of the
things which he asserted concerning the birth, life, miracles,
the death, the resurrection, and ascension of the Lord Jesus;
he expounded what related to them out of the law and the
prophets, as Christ had done to his disciples after his resur-
rection, Luke xxiv. 26, 27.
*Ver. 26, 27. Hearing ye will hear, and will not under-
stand, &c.] See the note on Matt. xiii. 12. 15.
* Ver. 30, 31. Paul continued two years—no man for-
bidding him.] Hence it appears that there was no edict of
Nero, or any preceding emperor, against the Christians, till
the tenth of Nero, i. e. the year after that Paul was loosed
from his bonds. (2.) Here we have the plain reason why
St. Luke ends his history, because, as the bishop of Chester
saith, St. Paul came not to Rome till the seventh of Nero,
in the month of February ; and in the ninth of Nero, i. e.
after two years, he was set at liberty, and leaving Rome
went into some other part of Italy, intending to go from
thence into Judea (Heb. xiii. 23, 24), and so here ends St.
Paul's stay at Rome, and with that St. Luke's history.
ºp
* Athen. Deipm. lib. v. p. 213.
APPENDIX • * - 507
A P P E N D I X
TO CHAP. II. VER. 27.
I KNOW not one objection against that exposition which
I have given of the phrase, “Thou wilt not leave my soul
in hell ; only it may be said, that if this be the proper
import of the words, we have no reason to believe that Christ
descended into hell ; for this can never be an article of
Christian faith, unless it be either expressly or virtually deli-
vered in that Scripture which is the rule of faith: now it is
certain that it is not delivered in any other place of scripture;
not in those words of the apostle Paul, “He that ascended
is the same that descended first into the lower parts of the
earth” (Eph. iv. 9), for that phrase only signifies that Christ's
body was buried in the earth, as Chrysostom, Theodoret, and
Photius there say, not that his soul descended into hell; the
phrase is plainly taken from the psalmist's words, “They
that seek my soul to destroy it shall go into the lower parts
of the earth,” Ps. lxiii. 9, where if it signifies, “they shall
go to hell,” the foxes must go thither also ; for the words
following are, “They shall be a portion for foxes.” Not
from that passage of St. Peter, 1 Pet. iii. 19, “By which
Spirit he went and preached to those in prison :” for as they
in prison do not there signify those who were naturally dead,
but only the gentiles dead in trespasses and sins, and by the
prophet Isaiah thrice styled of iv ºvXauff, “they who are in
prison ;” so certain it is, the Spirit, by which he is said to
go and preach to them, was not his own spirit, by separation
of which from the body he was dead, but the Holy Spirit by
which he was quickened; for which reason St. Austin, ep.
99, pronounceth of this place, that omninó ad inferos non
pertineat, “it belongs not at all to Christ's descent into
hell;" if then it cannot be proved from this place, it must
be owned that it hath no sufficient ground at all in scripture.
To this I answer, first, in the words of Bishop Pearson,
“That in the Aquileian creed, where this article was first
expressed, in the fourth century, there was no mention of
, Christ's burial; but the words of their confession ran thus,
“Crucified under Pontius Pilate, he descended in ânferna.”
From whence there is no question but the observation of
Rufinus, who first expounded it, was most true, that though
the Roman and oriental creeds had not these words, yet they
had the sense of them in the word buried. It appeared
therefore that the first intention of putting these words in
the creed, was only to express the burial of our Saviour, or
the descent of his body into the grave.” Now doubtless the
burial of Christ's body, or its descent into the grave, is an
article of faith clearly delivered in holy scripture.
Secondly, I add, that the phrase wavagaively, or kars),0sfy
sis #3", or sis #3ov (rétroy), “to descend into hades,” in the
Old Testament and the apocryphal writers, still signifies, to
go down into the grave, or sepulchre, and so cannot refer to
the soul, but the body only ; in this sense Jacob says, Gen.
xxxvii. 35, Karaghoop, at gig #3ov, “I will go down to the
grave to my son mourning:” so Numb. xvi. 30, 33, “If the
earth swallow them up, wai karaghaoyra Öyrs, ei, #309, and
they go down alive into the pit, wai xaráðharay si; #309, and
they went down alive into the pit;” Job vii. 9, #3, #298070;
waraß; eis #3my, “If a man go down to the grave he shall
come up no more ;” and, xvii. 16, waraćirov.ral st; #3ny,
“They shall go down to the grave, they shall rest in the
dust ;” Isa. xiv. 11, Katéén etc à8ou # 36%a crow, “Thy pomp
is gone down to the grave, the worm is spread under thee;”
and, Yer. 19, “Thou shalt be as those that are dead, wara-
£atvávrov is #32v, like those that go down into the grave:”
so Esth. xiii. 7, karsasávre; sic #3ry, “They going down to
the grave, we shall be free from trouble ;” and Baruch iii.
19, “They are vanished, Kai Big #8ov Karáðharay, and gone
down to the grave.” And according to this sense, which
Dr. Hammond and others put upon the words, “He conti-
nued for some time in the grave,” it is also a plain article of
Christian faith. e
Thirdly, It is most certain, that though the creeds of the
church were very numerous, yet in none of them was this
descent into hell found till the close of the fourth century,
when it was first put into the symbol of the church of Aqui-
leia; for, Saith the reverend Bishop Pearson, “It is not to
be found in the rules of faith delivered by Irenaeus, lib. i,
cap. 2, by Origen, lib. regi 'Apxöy, in Prooem. or by Tertul-
lian, adv. Praxeam, cap. 2, de Virg. Veland. cap. 1, de Prae-
Scrip. adv. Haer. cap. 13. It is not expressed in those creeds
which were made by the councils as larger explications of
the apostles' creed: not in the Nicene or Constantinopoli-
tan ; not in that of Ephesus or Chalcedon ; not in those
confessions made at Sardica, Antioch, Seleucia, Sirmium,
&c. It is not mentioned in several confessions of faith de-
livered by particular persons; not in that of Eusebius Cae-
Sariensis, presented to the council of Nice, Theodoret, lib. i.
cap. 2, not in that of Marcellus, bishop of Ancyra, delivered
to Pope Julius, Epiphan. Haer. lxxii. not in that of Arius
and Euzoius, presented to Constantine, Socrat. lib. i. cap. 19,
not in that of Acacius, bishop of Caesarea, delivered in to
the Synod of Seleucia, Socrat. lib. ii. cap. 40, not in that of
Eustathius, Theophylus, and Silvanus, sent to Liberius, So-
crat. lib. iv. cap. 11. There is no mention of it in the creed
of St. Basil, Trac. de Fide in Asceticis; in the creed of Epi-
phanius, in Ancorato, cap. 120, or of Gelasius, Damasus,
Macarius, &c. It is not in the creed expounded by St. Cy-
ril, though some have produced that creed to prove it ; it is
not in the creed expounded by St. Austin, de Fide et Sym-
bolo ; not in that de Symbolo ad Catechumenos, attributed
to St. Augustine ; not in that which is expounded by Maxi-
mus Taurinensis; not in that so often interpreted by Petrus
Chrysologus; nor in that of the church of Antioch, delivered
by Cassian, de Incarn. lib. vi.; neither is it to be seen in the
MS. creeds set forth by the learned archbishop of Armagh.
Indeed it is affirmed by Ruffinus, that in his time it was
neither in the Roman nor the oriental creeds, Sciendum
Sané est, quðd in ecclesiae Romanae symbolo non habetur
additum, Descendit ad inferna, sed nec in orientis ecclesiis
habetur hic sermo (Ruff in Exposit. Symboli). “It is cer-
tain therefore’ (nor can we disprove it by any acknowledged
evidence of antiquity), ‘that the article of the descent into
hell was not in the Roman, or any of the oriental creeds.’”
Now had they conceived those creeds in which this article
was wanting deficient in a necessary point of Christian doc-
trine, could they have styled all, or any of them, a perfect
confession, comprising “the whole doctrine of faith, the
whole of Christian doctrine, the comprehension and perfec-
tion of the Christian faith, a comprisal of all the articles of
faith, a symbol that speaks of every part of faith, the faith
sufficient for salvation, the life-giving, the saving faith, the
saving knowledge, the only truth, which they received from
the apostles, the only rule which admits of no correction, no
addition, and no diminution, the only faith delivered by the
church to be kept by her children P” Could they have told
us, that “the most learned could believe no more, and the
meanest Christian did believe no less; that they needed to
know no more, that they desired to believe no more, that
they believed this first, that nothing more was to be believed,
... that in it nothing was to be innovated P” Could they have
said expressly, that “the apostles delivered in it whatsoever
they thought necessary for all believers ; and that they in-
dited it to be a mark by which he should be known who
preached Christ truly according to the rules of the apostles;
and by producing of which it might be known” (saith Ruffi-
nus) “whether he were an enemy or a companion.” And,
lastly, could their great and general councils have defined
so often, that “it should be lawful for no man” £régay triarty
Trºopègely, avyyed pew, h avyrtóšval, to introduce, write, or
compose another faith besides that which was defined by the
Nicene council?” These are the words of the third general
council, where presided that Cyril of Alexandria, who, in
his letter to John of Antioch, saith, “We by means permit
the faith defined, firot to rāg triarsaw; a ſp.80×oy, or the symbol
of faith made by the holy fathers met at Nice, to be shaken
by any; nor do we suffer ourselves or others to change one
word, or transgress one syllable of what is there contained.”
This epistle, saith Mark, bishop of Ephesus, was read and
approved by the fourth general council, which also decreed, i.
&ndevi ºn36xw; #s:val, ºrporSaſyat rā cup.63% roſtº, h &#8Asiv
&r' airtoiſ, “that it should be lawful for no man to add any
thing to this symbol, or take anything from it, or to change
* Concil. Ephes. can. 7.
+ Apud Concil. Fiorent, sect. 5.
§:
508
it at all, or transform it into another symbol.” Athanasius,"
speaking of the synod of Ariminum, saith, that “the ortho-
dox, and true servants of the Lord defined, that men should
be contented with that faith alone, which was held at Nice,
xai ºnbåv trašov # 8Aarrow trag #xeivny &ntaſy ka? peoveſv, and
Imind, and seek for nothing more or less, and that they de-
ºposed them who taught the contrary.” And again, that
“they should'ſ ºwn&#y Tračov Čnteſy, seek for nothing more than
what was confessed by the fathers at Nice.” In the fifth ge-
neral synod, John, patriarch of Constantinople, saith, “We
have taken care,f ºrby Sepwéatov rà, Trio rew, kara rºw &ylov ºra-
‘régov Traçášoa w śayń 31aº, #vely, that the foundation of faith
might remain inviolate according to the tradition of the holy
fathers.” And this determination they declared was made,
First, Because this venerable symbol, saith the general
council of Chalcedon, Ś &éxeſ si; Émiyyaſa w śwroxii; rā; &An-
Silas, “sufficeth to the perfect knowledge of the truth;”
and as the bishop of Ephesus well notes upon that place,
“It is manifest, 3ri ră textiº oëy fixAstores, nothing is
wanting to what is perfect;” they also said there was no
need of adding anything to it, “because it was sufficient,"
Eic àvargotriy Tráang &zegoiſ; aigéo soc, for the subversion of
every wicked heresy, Trägay &a=6errátny afésary àvarpélat, to
overthrow all the most ungodly heresies,” and that it was
ornºoyºaqia xará ràon; aigia Eag, “an inscription as upon a
pillar against all heresies.”
Secondly, Because they would not alter the traditions
they had received from their forefathers: “We,” saith
Cyril, in the general council of Ephesus, “have taken this
care that nothing shall be added to, or altered in, the Ni-
cene symbol, as being mindful of him that said,” whºrage
āpia aid via & #8Evro of traºréps; o'ow, Remove not the ancient
bounds which thy fathers have set.”
Thirdly, Because they would not give occasion to any to
Suspect their faith as imperfect, or that any article of faith
was wanting in the creeds already made. Thus the synod
of Sardis decreed, ºwn?iy Hri regi riotswº ypáðso Sai, “that
nothing more should be written touching the faith,” but
“that all should rest satisfied with the faith confessed by
the Nicene fathers, fºr 3.3 tº ºn&#y air; Asſºrsy, because it was
deficient in nothing ; and iva º # NExaig ypa púra &; &tex};
oùo a vowto 65, lest that of Nice should be esteemed imper-
fect,” and a pretence should be given to as many as will to
write and define touching the faith. The orthodox fathers
in the council of Ariminum professed, ºf that they were
“children of the Nicene fathers; but if,” say they, “we
should dare to take away anything from what they have
written, à trºooºsivaí ri, or add anything to it, we should be
spurious children, Kathyopoi rāy yeyevnzárov yeyépcevoi, as being
accusers of what they did, who delivered tây &ngið wayóva rāg
Triatios, an exact rule of faith.” And again they declare
it, $$ #7ixivövyov, “a dangerous thing to add anything to, or
take anything from, the Nicene creed, because if either of
these things should be done, Éarat roſ; #x0aoſ; &#Eta rot Troisſy
#Tree flotawral, the enemies would have liberty to do what
they would.” And Athanasius in his epistle|||ſ to John and
Antiochus his presbyters commands them, roi, txàoy ri raû-
tn; hixarrow Aaºtiv 0#xovira; &mozºrgépew, “to reject them who
would say more or less than was contained in that creed.”
And the bishop of Ephesus well argues," "I that we can suffer
* Theodoret. H. Eccl. lib. ii. cap. 18. + Ibid.
£ Syn. Constant. Sub Menna. act. 5, p. 87, apud Bin.
tom. iv.
§ Apud Concil. Flor. Sess. 5. Bin. Concil. tom. viii. p.
591.
| Ibid.
*| Athan. Epist. ad Afric. Episc. p. 932. Orat. de Div.
Christi, p. 165. Syn. Sard. apud Afhan. Ep. ad Afric.
Episc. p. 941.
* Apud Concil. Flor. Sess. 5. Bin. Concil. tom. viii. p.
589.
++ Apud Athan. Ep. Ad. Antioch. p. 576.
f: Theodoret. H. Eccl. lib. ii. cap. 15. §§ Ibid.
|| P. 95i.
T'ſ Apud Concil. Flor. Sess. 8. Bin, ibid. p. 627.
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
nothing by keeping to the same faith, which the divine fa-
thers confessed and believed, since none but madmen can
accuse it of imperfection.
ow hence it demonstratively follows, that these creeds
which wanted this article must be a perfect digest of all
things necessary to be believed now, and throughout all
succeeding ages of the world; for how can it be necessary
for any Christian to have more in his creed than the apostles
and the Christians of the first four centuries had 2 May the
churches of after-ages make the narrow way to life more
narrow than our Saviour, his apostles, and the fathers left
it 2 When the whole church hath so expressly taught that
this faith was sufficient for the perfect knowledge of the
truth, that in it nothing was deficient, may others yet come
after them, and by adding to them any other article remove
the ancient bounds which our fathers have set P What rea-
son can any man give, why any person should not be saved
now by the same faith, which was sufficient for salvation in
the first days of the apostles, and the first four centuries?
Are we wiser than they P Or, are our doctors more learned,
or more faithful? Is there another covenant made with the
church since their days P Are other terms of salvation since
made 2 Or, is God less merciful to us than he was to them 2
Is not the famous rule of Lirinensis this, Quod ab omnibus,
quod ubique, quod semper ? “That which was always, and
everywhere believed of all, that is the rule of faith ?” And
must it not hence follow, that there can be no new article,
no declaration obliging us to believe anything, which was
not always matter of the Christian faith ? I conclude this
head with the words of the judicious Dr. Barrow, “That the
inserting this not only as an article distinct from Christ's
death, burial, and continuance in the state of death, but
also necessary to be believed as such, reflects upon the more
ancient compilers, both of this and other breviaries of faith,
as the Nicene and Constantinopolitan councils, Irenaeus,
Tertullian, &c. who left it out; which they should not have
done, if it contain anything highly material, and different
from what is here otherwise expressed ; whose credit is (as
I conceive) more to be tendered than that of their juniors
and followers, unknown to us; and so much more, for that
in a matter of this kind defect or omission is less tolerable
than any redundance of expression ; which inconvenience
may seem in a manner to reach higher, even to St. Paul
himself, who, in the fifteenth chapter of his first epistle to
the Corinthians, declaring the sum of what he both learned.
and taught concerning our Saviour's last grand perform-
ances, only mentions his death, burial, and resurrection ; ‘’
delivered unto you first,’ says he, “that Christ died for our sinf
according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that
he arose again the third day;’ which enumeration of his we
may, it seems, well acquiesce in, as sufficient and complete.
and may thence, with great probability, infer, that no othe.
descent of our Saviour into hell, besides his death and bus
.rial, was by him understood, or delivered in his catechetical
discourses and preachings, as a point of faith.”
Fourthly, I add, that these words may be admitted as a
distinct article of faith, contained in the holy scriptures, il.
a very good sense, very agreeable to the word descent, and
to the import of the word hades; for the scripture doth as-
sure us, that the soul of the holy Jesus being separated
from his body, went to paradise (Luke xxiii. 43): and
thence it must descend into the grave or sepulchre to be
united to his body, that it might be revived, and thus it may
be truly said, “He was dead and buried, his soul descended
afterward into hades,” to be united to his body, and his
body being thus revived, “he arose again the third day.”
Hence Grotius, on that place of St. Luke, Saith, Qui sym-
bolo fidei Christianae ascripserunt waré8m sic #8ov, Christi
verbis optimè id tueri potuerunt, “They who added this
article to the symbol of faith, may best defend themselves
by those words:” nor, saith he, was this addition superflu-
ous, seeing it proves the separate existence of the soul from
the body, which many philosophers denied, and others
doubted of.
A.
PARAPHRASE AND COMMENTARY
ON
THE EP is T LEs.
TO THE RIGHT REVEREND FATHER IN GOD,
GILBERT,
LORD BISHOP OF SALISBURY,
CHANCELLOR OF THE MOST NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER,
*mºmº
MY LoRD,
THough, since I had the happiness to be admitted
to an acquaintance with a person of your character
and merit, and have had a large share of your favour,
I have had obligations to make some public acknow-
ledgment of it; yet had I never so fair an oppor-
tunity to do it, as this work, which now craves your
lordship’s acceptance, doth afford.
For, such a particular veneration and profound
affection for the sacred records as your lordship,
upon all occasions, shows, may not only render this
attempt to add some light unto them acceptable, but
even cover the imperfections that you must needs
discover in it.
Since therefore it is customary to dedicate works
of this nature to persons of great eminence in station,
and more raised worth, I thought myself obliged to
set forth these labours under your lordship’s patron-
age, not only to express my gratitude, but also out
of justice to that goodness which moved your lord-
ship not only to peruse, but to approve this work,
and to suggest many things, which otherwise would
have been wanting to it.
I am here carried to say somewhat of the pattern
you set us in an unwearied diligence in the discharge
of your high function; but I know you cannot bear
it, and that you had much rather see your clergy
imitate you in this, than hear them commend you for
it. I will therefore rather study from your example,
how to do my own duty, than publish to the world
how you do yours.
That God would still continue your good lordship
as great a blessing as you are an honour to our
church, and give you a sure but late enjoyment of
celestial blessings, to which your soul, by its devout
affections and indefatigable labours, still aspires, is
the continual prayer of,
My lord,
Your lordship's most obliged,
Most humble, and most obedient servant,
DANIEL WHITBY.
PREFACE
TO THE READ Eið.
BY way of preface to this work, some things there be of
which I think fit to advertise the reader, and some things in
which I shall beg his favour. And,
First, Because it may be useful to read the epistles of St.
Paul, not in the order in which they are placed in our
Bibles, but rather in that order of time in which they were
Written, I here think fit to place them according to that
order, following the chronology of Bishop Pearson.
A. D. 52. The First Epistle to the Thessalonians.
A. D. 53. The Second Epistle to the Thessalonians.
The First Epistle to the Corinthians.
A. D. 57 The Epistle to the Galatians.
* * * * \ The Second Epistle to the Corinthians.
The Epistle to the Romans.
The Epistle to the Ephesians.
A. D. 62 The Epistle to the Philippians.
‘ ‘’’ “Y The Epistle to the Colossians.
The Epistle to Philemon.
A. D. 63. The Epistle to the Hebrews.
A. D. 65 The First Epistle to Timothy.
‘ ‘’’ “” The Epistle to Titus.
A. D. 67. The Second Epistle to Timothy
I have in the prefaces to these epistles given the reasons
why I place the writing of them about the time assigned ;
only of the time of writing the Epistle to the Galatians 1
have there said nothing: I therefore here subjoin the rea-
son why it is placed in the same year with the First Epistle
to the Corinthians; viz. because St. Paul, at his first coming
to Galatia, converts them to the Christian faith (Acts xvi.
6), at his second advent, he strengthens the brethren there
(Acts xviii. 23), and in his epistle to them; he “marvels
that they were so soon removed from him that called them
to another gospel” (i. 6); it therefore could not be written
long after he had been with them to strengthen them, which
yet was before he had begun his three years abode at Ephesus
(Acts xix. 1. 31), at the very close of which the First Epis-
tle to the Corinthians is supposed to have been written.
§ desire the reader to take an estimate of the true date of
these epistles, not from what may have slipped from me by
the bye in a note, and hath been overlooked in the review
of my papers, but from what is here set down, and is con-
firmed in the prefaces to these epistles.
The use that may be made of observing this order, I shall
exemplify in two instances; of which the
First is that of Demas, concerning which Dr. Lightfoot,
Harm. p. 137, Beza, Esthius, and others say, that though
he left Paul for a season, yet after he returned to him . be-
cause, say they, in two epistles, written after that to Timo-
thy, in which he is said to have “forsaken him, having loved
this present world” (2 Tim. iv. 10), he is reckoned among the
coworkers with Paul, viz. Col. iv. 14. Philem. 24. But I
have destroyed the foundation of this argument by establish-
ing the opinion of the ancients, that the Second Epistle to
Timothy was the last that St. Paul writ; and therefore the
opinion of Chrysostom, Theodoret, CEcumenius, and Theo-
phylact, that he did past& Taira fiaSupafly, “ afterward be-
come slothful,” and, saith CEcumenius, returned again, sic
‘EXAnvigºy, “to heathenism,” is the more probable,
510
THE GENERAL PREFACE
The second relates to that opinion of Grotius, that St.
Paul spake for a time as if he had believed that the day of
judgment might happen in his time, and that this is proved
from 1 Cor. xv. 53.2 Cor. v. 1–3. Whereas in his Second
Epistle to the Thessalonians, writ four years before those to
the Corinthians, he saith what is sufficient to show he could
not be of that opinion, or have declared anything of that
nature, and therefore could not afterward say anything to
that purpose (see the note on 1 Thess. iv. 15).
Secondly, I advertise the reader that this work has been
retarded by the animadversions of Mr. Le Clerc upon the
reverend and learned Dr. Hammond; which having perused,
I found so many things said in favour of the Arians, and so
many unworthy reflections upon the writings of St. Paul,
that I chose rather to review and transcribe a considerable
part of this work, than suffer those things to pass without an
antidote. I acknowledge him to be a learned person,
and honour his parts, and I know he cannot justly be of.
fended with me, for being concerned for what I judge to be
the truth, and for the honour of St. Paul, who has been
somewhat rudely handled by him.
Thirdly, That I have been so often forced to differ from the
same reverend person he attacks sometimes so indecently, is
to be a matter of regret; but it hath been truly observed by
others, that this great man had two darling opinions, viz.
That the heresy of the Gnostics, and the destruction of
Jerusalem, were the great things to which no little part of
these epistles had relation ; in which I have offered my
reasons why I dissent from him, retaining still a just vene-
ration for his parts and piety. , -
Lastly, I advertise him, that I have, as exactly as I could,
made indexes, (1.) of all the Greek words and particles, (2.)
of all the scripture phrases explained, and (3.) of all the
material doctrines handled in these annotations.
The things in which I beg the reader's favour are,
First, That where he finds or thinks that I have erred
either in point of doctrine, or the interpretation of the
scriptures, as doubtless in the latter I have sometimes done,
he would be so kind as to let me know my errors; which,
upon conviction, I will not only own, but do it with all due
acknowledgments and thankfulness to him who shall do that
kind office to me. …
Secondly, That if in anything I seem to him to differ
from the received doctrine of the church of England, as
Some may haply conceive I do in the annotations on the
fifth chapter to the Romans; he would do me the justice to
believe, that as he thinks I do, so I conceive I do not, con-
tradict her doctrine; and also would consider, that even the
church of Rome allows her commentators to vary from the
sense of any particular scripture on which they build their
doctrines, provided they say nothing which doth expressly
contradict them.
Thirdly, That if he should receive any advantage from
this work, especially if it should be so happy as to suggest
to him anything which may render him the better man, he
would give God the glory of it, and pray for,
His friend and servant,
DANIEL WHITBY.
THE
GENERAL PREFACE,
CONCERNING
THE DIVINE AUTHORITY OF THESE EPISTLES,
AND OF
THE TRUTH OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH.
CONTENTS,
$. I. That what is delivered in these epistles as necessary to
be believed or done, must be as necessary to be believed
and done as what is contained in the gospels: that there
are some things necessary to be believed and done, con-
tained in these epistles, which are not clearly delivered
in the holy gospels. S. II. The truth of the Christian re-
ligion proved, (1.) from what our Saviour promised and
undertook, and what the apostles declared concerning the
gifts and operations of the Holy Ghost. Š. III. (2.)
From plain matter of fact concerning this effusion of the
Holy Ghost, and his miraculous gifts related in the epis-
tles. $. IV. (3.) From the confident appeals of the
apostles and primitive professors to those gifts, in their
contests and debates with friends and adversaries, be-
licvers and rejecters of the Christian faith. S. W. (4.)
From the prayers and thanksgivings made for them, the
exhortations and directions given in these epistles concern-
ing these miraculous gifts. S. VI. (5.) From what is re-
quired to be done and suffered by all Christians upon no
other inducements or enjoyments, than what depended on
the truth and certainty of these gifts. S. VII. (6.) That
these epistles were indited whilst the apostles lived, and
are proved genuine by more authentic arguments than can
be produced for any book, writing, charter, law, or statute.
The external arguments to prove them genuine. S. VIII.'
The internal arguments. Ş. IX. The truth of Christi-
anity proved, (7.) from a particular consideration of these
gifts; as (1.) the gift of healing. §. X. (2.) Of ejecting
devils out of men, their temples, and their oracles. $.
XI. (3.) From the gift of tongues. S. XII. (4.) Of pro-
phecy. §. XIII. (5.) Of discerning spirits. §. XIV.
That these extraordinary gifts were conferred upon all
other churches not mentioned in these epistles. $. XV.
That they continued in the two first ages of the church.
§. XVI. What engagements the truth of Christianity lays
upon us to live suitably to the rules delivered in those sa-
cred records. The danger of those who neglect their sal-
vation.
THAT these epistles were indited by divine assistance, and
were received from the beginning, as epistles written by the
conduct and assistance of the Spirit of God, I have endea-
voured to evince in the general preface to the gospels.
Ş. 1. Hence then it follows, that what the apostles have
delivered in these epistles as necessary to be believed or
done by Christians, must be as necessary to be believed and
practised in order to Salvation, as what was personally taught
by Christ himself, and is contained in the gospels; they be-
ing in the writing these epistles, the servants, apostles, am-
bassadors, and ministers of Christ, and stewards of the
mysteries of God; and the doctrines and precepts they deli-
vered in them being the will, the mind, the truth, and the
commandments of God.
Now evident it will be to any one who judiciously reads
these epistles, that they contain some things delivered and
done which were not clearly taught by Christ whilst he was on
earth, nor are clearly delivered in the gospels; as we may
learn,
First, From the doctrines contained in these epistles: as,
v. g. that “by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justi-
fied” (Rom. xiii. 20); that both Jew and gentile, being un-
der condemnation, were only to be “justified freely by God's
grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom
God had set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his
blood” (ver. 25); that “if righteousness came by the law,
then was Christ dead in vain” (Gal. ii. 21); that “as many
as are of the law are under the curse” (iii. 16); that “if we
be circumcised, Christ shall profit us nothing; Christ is be-
come of none effect to them that are under the law; they
are fallen from grace” (v. 2. 5); that the law was to “con-
tinue only till the time of reformation” (Heb. ix. 10), and
was then to be disannulled “for the weakness and unpro-
fitableness of it” (vii. 18); that “ Christ is a pricst for ever
after the order of Melchisedec” (v. 5, 6); that “he hath an
unchangeable priesthood;” that he in heaven is continually
“making intercession for us, and therefore is able to save
us to the utmost” (vii. 24, 25): for all these doetrines clearly
delivered in these epistles, are either not to be found at alſ,
or not so clearly in the gospels.
Secondly, In these epistles only have we instructions about
many great and necessary duties; as, Y. g. that all our
thanksgivings are to be offered up to God in the name of
Christ (Eph. v. 8. 20. 1 Thess. v. 18. Heb. xiii. 14, 15): the
duties which we owe to our civil governors are only hinted in
To THE EPISTLEs.
51 |
these words of Christ, “Render to Caesar the things that are
Caesar's,” but are enlarged upon in the Epistles to the Ro-
mans, ch. xiii. to Titus, iii. 1, and in the first Epistle of St.
Peter, ii. 10. 17: so also are the duties we owe to our spi-
ritual superiors taught more expressly in these epistles, Gal.
vi. 6. 1 Thess. v. 12, 13. Heb. xiii. 17, 18. In fine, all the
particular duties belonging to the relations of husbands and
wives, parents and children, masters and servants, are par-
ticularly handled in these epistles, Eph. v. 28. 33. vi. 1.9.
Col. iii. 11. 25, but are scarce ever mentioned in the gospels.
But it may be objected,
Obj. 1. That these epistles were written to those who were
in the faith already, and so could not be designed to teach
them the fundamental articles, and points necessary to sal-
vation, or to instruct them in what was necessary to make
them Christians.
Ans. It follows not from their being Christians already,
that the apostles designed not to write to them in these
epistles of any fundamental articles or points necessary to
Salvation, for it is very plain they do so. Paul, in his Epis-
tle to the Corinthians, 1 Cor. xv. 3, writes of the resurrec-
tion of the dead, and of Christ's death and resurrection, as
of doctrines necessary to be believed; and in his Epistle to
the Galatians, of seeking justification by the works of the law
as a thing opposite to, and destructive of, the grace of Christ.
And since there were among them “false apostles, and de-
ceitful workers,” who corrupted the word, and “handled the
word of God deceitfully” (2 Cor. ii. 17. iv. 2); yea, cor-
rupted their minds from the simplicity of Christ” (xi. 3),
“turned them from him that called them to another gospel”
(Gal. i. 6), sought to “deprive them of their reward” (Col.
ii. 18, 19), and separate them from their head, Christ
Jesus; who “put away a good conscience, and so make
shipwreck of the faith” (1 Tim. ii. 19); whose “doctrine
did spread as a gangrene, and overthrew the faith of some”
(2 Tim. ii. 16); many “disputers of corrupt minds turning
from the truth” (1 Tim. vi. 5), many “unruly and vain
talkers and deceivers, who subverted whole houses, teaching
things that they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake”. (Tit. i.
10, 11): Imust not these things administer occasion to these
Sacred penmen to endeavour to establish and confirm them
in the faith, by letting them they wrote to know the moment
of those articles, the necessity of that faith, they had been
taught, and the pernicious consequences of those practices to
which they were seduced by these deceivers ?
Again, seeing these writings were intended as a rule, not
to them only to whom they were sent, but to all future ages
of the church; and the Spirit expressly told them, that “in
the latter days some should depart from the faith, giving
heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils” (1 Tim. iv.
1, 2); that “the time would come when they would not en-
dure sound doctrine, but would turn their ears from the
truth” (2 Tim. iv. 3, 4); when “false prophets should arise
among them, bringing in damnable doctrines, whose permi-
cious ways many should follow” (2 Pet. ii. 1, 2); seeing
they knew, that “after their departure grievous wolves would
enter in, not sparing the flock” (Acts xx. 29, 30); must not
all these considerations give just occasion to them to write of
the great articles of Christian faith, and the necessary points
of Christian conversation, to preserve them, and those that
come after them, from their damnable doctrines and perni-
clous ways 2 **
Moreover, this objection is therefore insignificant, because
the apostles do inform us, that they found it “safe to write
the same things” to them they had heard (Phil. iii. 1),
“ though they knew the truth, and were confirmed in it” (1
John ii. 21), “that they might have these things always in
remembrance” (2 Pet. i. 12. 15); and that some who, for the
time of their conversion, might have been great proficients
in the faith, had yet “need to be taught again the first prin-
ciples of the oracles of God” (Heb. v. 12).
Obj. 2. It also may be said, “that these epistles were
writ upon particular occasions, and without those occasions
had not been written ; and so cannot be thought necessary
to salvation.”
Ans. This objection is neither exactly true of all the
epistles, nor of all that's contained in them. Not of all the
epistles, for it appears not that five of the general epistles,
or that the Epistles to the IRomans, to the Ephesians, and
to the Hebrews, were writ upon particular occasions,
unless the instructing men in the faith, and preserving them
from heresy, or apostasy, be called particular occasions; and
where this doth appear, it is very evident, that when the
apostles had writ what they thought proper upon those
occasions, they add many excellent ruſes of piety and
virtue.
Ans. 2. Secondly, Were it exactly true that all the
epistles were writ upon particular occasions, it will not fol-
low hence that they were not directed in writing them by
the Holy Spirit; or that they contain nothing necessary to
be believed or done, in order to salvation : for the book of
Psalms was not only writ upon particular occasions, but was
also adapted to and fitted for them. The prophets were all
sent by God to testify against, and call the Jews to repent-
ance for sins committed in their time, to reform their man-
ners, or comfort them in their distresses, that is, upon par-
ticular occasions; but will it therefore follow, that they did
not write by the assistance of the Spirit of God, or that there
is nothing in the Psalms, or in the prophets, which was
necessary to be believed or practised by the Jews? More-
over the Gospel of St. Luke was writ upon a particular oc-
casiod, viz. to instruct Theophilus in the certainty of the
things he had been taught, and yet Epiphanius informs us,
that “the Holy Ghost compelled and stimulated him to the
work.” The Gospel of St. Mark was writ, say the ancients,
at the request of the converts at Rome, and yet he writ it,
saith Epiphanius, IIvéupwart &yia, #xtrepognºvoc, “by the im-
pulse of the Holy Ghost.” They also say, that St. John
was importuned by all the Asiatics to write his gospel ; and
yet, saith Epiphanius, “the Holy Spirit did inwardly impel
him to the writing of it.”f The Gospel of St. Matthew, say
they,S was indited at the request of the Hebrews, that he
might supply by writing the want of his presence with them.
So that we see the writings of the apostles and evangelists
may be occasionally penned, and yet be the products of the
Holy Ghost, and contain things necessary to be believed and
done. *
Ans. 3. The particular occasions of some of these writings
being the errors or waverings of Christians in fundamental
points, as appears from the Epistles to the Corinthians, Gala-
tians, &c. and in others the busy industry of “false apostles
and deceitful workers,” to pervert them from the faith ; that
these epistles were writ on such occasions, is rather a pre-
sumption that they were writ upon some fundamental points,
than that they could not be indited upon these occasions.
Moreover, great advantages arise from the occasional
writing these epistles, and such as might induce the Holy
Spirit to excite them to that work. For,
1. All the occasions which they took to write from the
disorders, errors, heresies, and mistakes, which at first crept
into the church, render these writings standing rules for the
decision of like cases through all future ages.
2. The deportment of the apostles towards these errome-
ous persons and disorderly walkers, the care they used to re-
cover, or inform them better, the zeal and tenderness they
showed, and the rules they laid down in those cases, are excel-
lent precedents and directions for all church governors, in
cases of like nature.
3. All the occasions which they had to write for the direc-
tion of church governors, how to “behave themselves in the
church of God,” to give rules for the qualifications of those
who were to be admitted to those offices, and touching their
behaviour in them for the settlement of the affairs of the
church, and the decent and regular performance of divine
service, afford us standing rules of government, and of ad-
mitting and ordaining a succession of those divers orders in
the church.
Lastly, These various occasions give us full assurance,
that these epistles must be written in those very times when
these disorders happened, and these errors crept into the
* 'Avayuáósi ré &yoy IIveſº, kai ämiyūrtet rôy &rio, Aoukāy.
Haer. li. sect. 7.
+ Ibid. sect. 6. Euseb. lib. ii. cap. 15, 16. y
f 'Avayzáðs, r3 #ytoy IIysºp, a röy 'Ioláwny tragalºročºvoy eſſay-
yexicacSat. Sect. 6.. 9. *
§ Euseb. Eccles. Hist. lib. iii. cap. 24. Chrys. Hom. 1
in Matt.
512
*
THE GENERAL PREFACE
church, and so take off all jealousy or suspicion that they
were writings contrived in the following ages of the church ;
whereas, had their writings been only systems of theological
doctrines and rules of life, which equally concerned all the
ages of the church, it might have been more plausibly ob-
lected, that they were framed by some Christian bishops as-
sembled for that end.
Obj. 3. But if all or most of the truths declared in these
epistles were to be received and believed as fundamental
articles, what then became of those Christians who were
fallen asleep before those things in the epistles were revealed
to them?
Ans. 1. This question equally concerns the evangelists,
and more especially the Gospel of John, which, say the an-
cients, was either the last portion of scripture” which was
written, or the last save his epistles, it being written after
his return from his exile in Patmos to Ephesus; and so if
it contain any fundamental articles, as necessary rules of
'ife, what became of those Christians who died before they
were revealed in it 2
Ans. 2. We say not, that all or most of the truths, de-
elared either in the epistles or gospels, are to be accounted
Sundamental or necessary articles; but only that some of
them ought to be so accounted, especially those which have
this character of a necessary article, or rule of life; that the
denial or nonpractice of them, is represented as that which
will endanger our salvation, or cut us off from the commu-
nion of the church.
Ans. 3. It is also a precarious supposition, that they who
died before the epistles were writ to them, must die before
the necessary things contained in them were revealed to
them, seeing we know that the apostles writ the same things
which they had preached before: and Luke writ his gospel,
that Theophilus “might know the certainty of the things he
had been taught ;” and in those times of the effusion of the
Spirit of wisdom and of knowledge, they had an unction
which could teach them all things (1 John ii. 27), and so
supply the unavoidable defects of outward teachers.
Obj. 4. The gospel was to be preached “to the poor,” now
they are not capable of sublime notions, nor can they com-
prehend mysterious reasonings.
Ans. 1. Whether this objection be intended against the
necessity of believing the epistles of Paul only, or also the
Gospel of John, is uncertain; the sublime notions and mys-
terious reasonings being common to both.
Ans. 2. There seemeth no necessity of troubling the poor
common people with sublime notions, or mysterious reason-
ings, since both the ancient church and our own catechism
declare that all the articles of Christian faith, common to
all that bear that name, are comprised in the apostles' creed.
For when the child saith, “My godfathers and my god-
mothers promised I should believe all the articles of the
Christian faith,” since it is evident they only stipulated for
the belief of the apostles' creed in baptism, and when he doth
rehearse those articles, he only doth rehearse the apostles'
creed; it is certain that, by our catechism, it must be sup-
posed to contain all the articles of the Christian faith.
Moreover, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to make
such persons have a right conception of the spiritual nature
and the attributes of God, or to enable them, by reason, to
prove the providence of God, or the immortality of the
soul; but yet these things must be proposed to them as arti-
cles or foundations of their faith. And as it is not very dif.
ficult for them to learn from scripture the truth of these
things, so neither is it difficult from the same scripture to
learn the truth of all the articles of the apostles' creed, even
in that sense in which all Christian ages did receive them.
In a word: were these mechanics as much concerned for
spirituals as they are for temporals, as many of them have
attained to great proficiency in their respective arts, so
might they also, by a Christian diligence, attain a compe-
tent proficiency in all the necessary articles of Christian
faith, and in the rules of Christian piety, or of their duty to
God, and man. Now Christianity being “that doctrine
which is after godliness” (Tit. i. 1), I believe nothing is
proposed in it as necessary to be believed to salvation,
* Novissimus omnium scripsit evangelium. Hieron. Prae-
fat. in Matt.
which hath not some tendency to the promotion of true
piety -
Ş. II. Having thus established the divine authority of
these epistles, I shall endeavour to confirm the truth of the
Christian faith from what is copiously delivered in them.
This is of absolute necessity in this degenerate age, in
which all manner of impiety exceedingly abounds, and men
are by their lives disposed and even concerned to question
the truth of that religion, and of those writings, which
threaten the severest punishments to their enormities ; and
so industriously, and even impudently, pursue this black de-
sign both in their discourses and writings.
Now to prove, against these enemies of revealed religion,
the truth and certainty of the Christian faith, from what is
copiously delivered in these epistles, it will be only requi-
site to show, that they contain a declaration of such things
as could not possibly be true, but they must also be a full
and convincing demonstration of the truth of the Christian
faith, and that we have great reason to believe the truth of
what is thus related by them. And,
(1.) That they contain a declaration of such things as could
not possibly be true, but they must also be a full and con-
vincing declaration of the truth of the Christian faith, the
declaration they afford will be sufficient to evince : for it
was this,
That the miraculous gifts and powerful operations of the
Holy Ghost were plentifully afforded to them who preached
the gospel to the world, and also to those Christian churches
which received the gospel, and embraced the faith they
taught.
By way of preface to what I shall collect from these
epistles, concerning these miraculous gifts and operations of
the Holy Ghost, it may deserve to be considered, that as the
blessed Jesus “spake as never man spake,” that is, delivered
such just, holy, beneficial commands, as never were before
made known to the world; and did, for confirmation of his
doctrine, “the works that no other man did :” so was he
pleased to lay the truth of his prophetic office upon such
future and miraculous events, as no impostor that had any
wit would undertake, or could be able to perform.
For the prophecies which he had undertaken to fulfil;
and his own frequent declarations, made it necessary, (1.)
That he should die a peculiar death, i.e. by being lifted up
upon the cross. (2.) That in three days he should rise
again. (3.) That after his resurrection his gospel should in
the space of forty years, or before the destruction of Jeru-
Salem, be propagated throughout the world, or the whole
Roman empire. (4.) That, in order to the propagation of
it, the Holy Ghost should plentifully be vouchsafed to his
apostles, and should endue them with power from on high,
and even enable them to do greater works than he himself
had done (John xiv. 12).
At the great day of the feast of tabernacles, when all the
Jews assembled at Jerusalem were joyful in their beth
haschoavah, or “house of drawing water,” and were (say
their traditions) in expectation that the Holy Ghost should
fall upon them, “Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man
thirst, let him come unto me, and drink: he that believeth
in me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living waters.
This spake he of the Spirit, which they that believed on him
should receive” (John vii. 37, 38). And at the close of his
life on earth, he comforts his disciples with the promise of
this Holy Ghost, who should continue with them, not only
to “teach them all things, and bring all things to their re-
membrance ;” but also to “convince the world of sin, be-
cause they believed not in him; and of his righteousness,”
who was so gloriously exalted to the right hand of God his
Father; and of a future “judgment, because the prince of
this world,” being cast out from those he had possessed,
“was judged” (John xvi. 7. 11). And after his resurrec-
tion he speaks thus to them : “Behold, I send the promise
of my Father upon you, for ye shall be baptized with the
Holy Ghost, not many days hence” (Luke xxiv. 49) : “and
ye shall receive power, after the Holy Ghost is come upon
you, and ye shall be witnesses to me both in Jerusalem, and
in all Judea, and in Samaria, and to the utmost parts of the
earth” (Acts i. 8). And, lastly, to encourage others to be-
lieve the doctrine which they taught, he saith, “These signs
shall follow them that believe; in my name shall they cast
TO THE EPISTLEs.
513 -
out devils, they shall speak with new tongues, they shall
take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing it
shall not hurt them ; they shall lay hands on the sick, and
they shall recover.” Now I desire to know whether any
thing of this nature was ever undertaken, or laid as the
foundation of their credit, by any other author of any doc-
trine, religion, sect, or heresy 2 Whether they ever made
their own violent death and resurrection the foundation of
their veracity; or promised the like powers and assistances,
when they were risen, to those who should promote or
should embrace their doctrine P Or, whether that which no
man else durst undertake, was not performed by the holy
Jesus so effectually, as that his doctrine presently prevailed,
and was received throughout the world, in spite of all the
opposition of men and devils made against it, and wrought
in Christians such a lasting faith, as time and vice, though
most concerned to do it, were never able to deface?
But though we have no instances of any other persons
that made the like attempts, yet do our Lord’s disciples
tread exactly in their master's steps: for the first thing
which they declared to the world was this, that the forerun-
ner of their Lord, John the Baptist, when Jerusalem, and
all Judea, and all the regions about Jordan, and in particu-
lar the pharisees and sadducees, the publicans and soldiers,
repaired to his baptism, declared in the audience of them all,
There was one shortly to come after him, one that stood
then among them, who would “baptize them with the Holy
Ghost, and fire” (Matt. iii. 11). They also add, that their
Lord both before and after his resurrection made a like pro-
mise to them, that he would suddenly send down upon
them the Spirit promised by the Father, that they should
“receive power from on high, and be baptized with the
Holy Ghost,” and so should be enabled to be witnesses of
his resurrection and of his doctrine.
When these apostles had themselves received the Holy
Ghost, they declare, they only had received what God had
promised by the prophet Joel, saying, ii. 28, “It shall come
to pass in the last days, I will pour my Spirit upon all flesh;
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your
young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream
dreams,” Acts ii. 16, where note, that it is a received rule
among the Jews, that “the last days,” when used by the
prophets, do signify the times of the Messiah (see the note
on 1 Tim. iv. 1). Note also, that God of old revealed his
will to his people by visions, dreams, and by prophetic re-
velations; so that this is a promise, that in the days of the
Messiah God would miraculously pour his Spirit upon men,
and by that Spirit would enable them to prophesy, and to
reveal his will to others. Yea, they say boldly to all that
stood amazed at it, “Repent, and be baptized every one of
you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins,
and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost; for the pro-
mise is to you, and to your children, and to all that are afar
off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.” Here
then we see how fully they both claim a promise of the Holy
Ghost made by their Master to them, and also promise the
like gift to them who should believe and be baptized in his
Ila One:
Now, these promises were actually performed and made
good before they were indited, and put in the records of the
Christian faith, the writings of the apostles and evangelists,
or they were not ; if all these promises were fulfilled before
the records which contain them were indited, then had
Christ sent the Holy Ghost upon the apostles, and given
them the promise of the Father, then the believing Jews
and gentiles were actually baptized with the Holy Ghost,
and were enabled to “speak with tongues and prophesy;”
and so Christ must have given certain demonstration both
of his resurrection and his promises: but if these promises
were not made good before these records were indited, then
the whole story of John, and of the Acts of the Apostles,
might easily have been convinced of falsehood by many
thousand living witnesses, both in Jerusalem and in all other
places where they lay the scene of this great dispensation ;
because they had heard nothing of these things, but from
their histories: then, by the suffrage of our own evangelists,
our Lord’s forerunner must be a deceiver, when he declared
the Messiah should “baptize them with the Holy Ghost and
fire,” whom he had then baptized with water; yea, in those
very histories designed to convince others that Jesus was
Christ, they must leave on record a promise, made not to
them only, but to all believers, which never was fulfilled;
the apostles also must be falsely introduced, saying, “This
was that which was spoken by the prophet Joel,” and with
the greatest impudence promising that Holy Ghost to others
which they themselves had not received; and surely then
those Jews which after all Christ's miracles required a sign,
would have required of the apostles, Where is that great ef.
fusion of the Spirit promised by the prophet Joel, which
may assure us, that the times of the Messiah are now come?
Where is that fiery baptism P. Where are those rivers of
spiritual water which your pretended Christ, and his fore-
runner, promised ? Let us see them that we may believe
him. With what face could St. Peter promise that Holy
Ghost to others, upon faith in Christ, which they themselves
had not received P or with what face could Luke declare he
did this before such an audience, of which the greatest part
must be then living, and so as with that promise to convert
three thousand souls, had neither these converts, nor this
audiehce, found any experience of that affair 2 In fine, if
these apostles were not assisted with these miraculous powers
of the Holy Ghost, they must be well assured, that he who
had so oft engaged whilst he lived to send this Comforter to
them, and at his resurrection promised, that in a few days
they should all be baptized with the Holy Ghost, was a de-
ceiver and false prophet ; and then what motive could they
have, or how could they conceive it a thing possible, to be
his witnesses successfully to the uttermost parts of the earth?
If by the coming of the Holy Ghost upon them they were
indeed enabled to speak all languages; this gift was a suffi-
cient confirmation of the resurrection and ascension of that
Jesus who thus made good his promise to them. If they
had no such gift, how was it possible that such unlearned
persons, who only understood their mother-tongue, should dis-
course in their several languages to the Romans, Grecians,
Egyptians, Persians, Armenians, Scythians, Indians, and all
the barbarous nations of the world 2 And to what purpose
was it for them to travel to those nations, to stand mute
among them, or else to tell a story to them of which they
could not understand one word P. If, as the Sacred story
doth inform us, they preached the word “with demonstra-
tion of the Spirit, and power;” if they “went forth preach-
ing everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirm-
ing the word with signs following, God also bearing witness
to them by signs and miracles, and by divers powers and
distributions of the Holy Ghost,” then might they boldly
say, “We are his witnesses of these things, and so is the
Holy Ghost, which God hath given to those that obey him”
(Acts v. 32). But if no such assistance was vouchsafed to
them, what evidence could they give to the world that he
had sent them on this errand 2 or how could they expect to
reverse all the ancient laws and religions of the world, and
to persuade all nations to own and worship, as the great Sa-
viour of the world, one who was lately “hanged on a tree ?”
Their compliance therefore with this mission, and their con-
tinuance in this testimony under those dreadful miseries
they suffered for it, as well as their incredible success in the
propagation of the Christian faith to every nation, will not
suffer us to doubt that they were well assured of the com.
pletion of this promise to them, and so of Christ's miracu-
lous assistance of them.
§. III. Moreover, these epistles do almost severally con-
tain sufficient proofs of the effusion of the Holy Ghost upon
believers, and of his miraculous assistance of the first
preachers of the Christian faith, and jointly do concur to
make this evidence triumphant over infidelity. For,
First, Paul writes to the Romans thus ; “I long to see
you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift, to the
end you may be established,” Rom. i. 11 (see the note
there). “For I know,” saith he, “that when I come to see
you, I shall come in the fulness, rā; sixoyiaç, of the blessing
of the gospel of Christ,” xv. 29, i. e. that fulness of spiritual
gifts with which all Christians were blessed in Christ Jesus,
according to that promise of the prophet Isaiah, xiv. 2, 3,
“Fear not, Jacob my servant, and Israel whom I have
chosen, for I will put my Spirit on thy seed, xzi rā; six2yiac
gov, and my blessings on thy children.” Now that the
apostle came to Rome, both scripture and the whole *
2
514
THE GENERAL PREFACE
rent of antiquity attest: either then he came to them with
“the fulness of the blessings of the gospel of Christ,” and
did impart unto them those spiritual gifts which tended to
confirm them in the Christian faith, or he did not : if he did
impart them, he gave them an assured demonstration of the
certainty of Christian faith; if he did not, he himself minis-
tered to them a full objection against his own apostleship :
for this must render him a vain-boaster of things he was not
able to perform, and a deceiver of the church of Rome.
And why then doth he speak thus to them P “I have
whereof I may glory through Jesus Christ in those things
which pertain to God: for I will not dare to speak of any-
thing which Christ hath not wrought by me, to make the
gentiles obedient in word and deed, in the power of signs
and wonders, and in the power of the Spirit of God” (Rom.
xv. 17–19). These powers, saith he, have accompanied
my preaching “from Jerusalem, round about unto Illyri-
cum, and this grace,” saith he, “was given to me of God,
that I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the gentiles,
ministering the gospel of God to them, that the offering up
of the gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the
Holy Ghost.” Where he compares himself, preaching the
gospel, to the priest, conversant about his sacrifice, to pre-
pare and fit it to be offered: the gentiles, dedicated by him
to the service of God, are his sacrifice or oblation; the
Holy Spirit conferred upon them is the libamen by which
they arê Sanctified, and rendered acceptable to God. More-
over, the Epistle to the Romans must be false, or else it
must be sent by the apostle before he had seen Rome, for
it contained an intimation that he had not then seen them,
a desire to see them, and a promise to come to them ; for,
Saith he, “I make it my request to God, if by any means
now at length I might have a prosperous journey, by the
will of God, to come to you, for I long to see you” (Rom.
i. 10, 11. 13); and, “I often purposed to come to you, but
was let hitherto:” and again, “I have been much hindered
from coming to you; having therefore a great desire these
many years to come to you, whensoever I take my journey,
into Spain I will come to you” (xv. 22–24). It is also
certain that he afterward did see them ; for after his appeal
to Caesar he was sent to Rome, and lived there at least two
years: he therefore must have sent his epistle to them, and
they must have received it before that time. In a word,
from those words in the close of this epistle, xv. 25, 26,
“But now I go to Jerusalem to minister to the saints; for
it hath pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia to make a
certain contribution for the poor saints that are at Jerusa-
lem;” it is evident he writ this epistle before that collection
was carried by him to Jerusalem in the third year of Nero,
and sent it from Corinth, as the postscript saith. Note also,
that this epistle is often cited by Clemens and Polycarp.
In his epistle to the church at Corinth, he declares, they
were “enriched with all utterance and knowledge, or in
tongues and prophecy,” 1 Cor. i. 5 (see the note there):
that they abounded “in everything, in faith, in utterance,
and knowledge” (2 Cor. viii. 7), “so that they came behind
the other churches in no gift.” His twelfth chapter begins
thus : “Now concerning spiritual gifts, I would not have
you ignorant, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God
calleth Jesus accursed; and that no man can say that Jesus
is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. Now there are diver-
sities of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are differences
of administrations (or offices in the church to which these
gifts belong), but (all proceeding from) the same Lord; and
there are diversities of operations (performed by these gifted
men), but it is the same God who worketh all (these opera-
tions) in (them) all” (ver. 4–6). Then he proceeds to the
enumeration of the gifts conferred upon the officers and
members of the church, viz. the gifts of knowledge, wisdom,
prophecy, and the discerning of spirits; the gift of miracles,
of faith, of healing, of divers kinds of tongues, and the in-
terpretation of them; saying, that “God had placed in the
church, first apostles; secondly, prophets; thirdly, teachers;
after that, miracles; then gifts of healing, helps, govern-
ments, diversities of tongues;” concluding with this question,
“Are all apostles P are all prophets? are all teachers 2 are
all workers of miracles 2 have all the gifts of healing 2 do
all speak with tongues? do all interpret P But covet ear-
nestly the best gifts and yet show I to you a more excel-
lent way (even that of charity: for) though I have the gift
of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all know-
ledge; and though I have all faith, so that I can remova
mountains, and have no charity, I am nothing” (xiii. 1, 2):
“for prophecies shall fail, and tongues shall cease, and
knowledge shall be done away, but charity never faileth”
wer. 8).
( N...) this epistle must be indited and sent to them whilst
their schisms, contentions, and disorders remained, because
it was designed to corrrect them, and whilst Paul was in a
capacity to come to them, and so before his bonds, because
he saith, “The rest will I set in order when I come” (xi.
34). Hence, after notice given of their schisms, conten-
tions, and divisions, he adds, “These things have I in a
figure transferred to myself and Apollos for your sakes, that
you might learn in us, not to think of men above that
which is written, that no one of you be puffed up, for one
against another” (iv. 6), saying, “I have also sent Timo-
theus to you, and I myself will come unto you shortly;”
and then he puts the question to them thus, “What will
you ? that I come unto you with a rod, or in love, and in
the spirit of meekness P” (ver. 16–19.) Ch. v. he com-
mands them to “put away” from them, and to “deliver up
to Satan,” the incestuous person; and that accordingly they
did so, his second epistle shows, in which he writes to them
to forgive and comfort him (2 Cor. ii. 7).
Moreover, he writes part of this epistle in answer to some
questions they had sent to him, which required a speedy
answer, as being cases of conscience which concerned their
conversation, their freedom from idolatry, and the preserva-
tion of weak Christians. The rest of his epistle is spent in
endeavouring to correct their great disorders about the sacra-
ment, their church assemblies, and the use of their spiritual
gifts (ch. xi. and xiv.), and their great error touching the
resurrection (ch. xv.), and to give directions touching their
charity (ch. xvi.). All which things required speedy in-
structions; and that this epistle was sent accordingly, the
words do manifest: “When I come, whomsoever you shall
approve by your letters, them will I send to bring your libe-
rality to Jerusalem ; and if it be meet that I go also, they
shall go with me” (xvi. 3, 4). “Now I will come to you
when I pass through Macedonia, and it may be that I will
abide, yea, and winter with you” (ver. 5, 6). I say, hence
it is evident, that they soon received this epistle ; for they
accordingly made their collections, with which he went up
to Jerusalem ; and in this second epistle he apologizes for
not coming to them, according to those words, i. 16, 17.
Moreover the second epistle is a strong confirmation of the
first, in which he hath pointed out unto them those disor-
ders which he would have remedied, those things he would
have done before his coming ; for then in this he tells them
their obedience to his former letter had filled him with joy
and comfort, that his instructions concerning the incestuous
person had found so good effect, that they approved them-
selves to be clear in this matter, and caused him to rejoice,
that he could have such confidence in them all things (ch.
vii.). Whence it is evident, that they had not only then
received, but in some measure had complied with the in-
structions given them in that epistle.
Add to this, that Clemens Romanus, with the whole
church of Rome, in an epistle sent to the Corinthians, not
many years after this of Paul's was written, declares (S. 2),
that there was traign; &yiol IIysiºcaro; #yxuai; #Ti Trávras, “a
full effusion of the Holy Ghost upon them all ;” and that
Paul “had written to them an epistle touching their divisions
about himself” (S. 37), and Cephas, and Apollos ; which is
a great confirmation, both of the early knowledge and use
of this epistle in the church, as also of the truth of what
Paul relateth in it, touching the gifts of the Holy Ghost
conferred upon them.
In his Epistle to the Galatians, he compares himself
with the “chief of the apostles,” and the pillars of the
church, declaring, that “he that wrought effectually in Peter
to the apostleship of the circumcision, was as efficacious in
him towards the gentiles ;” that these pillars saw, and “per-
ceived by the grace given to him, that the gospel of the un-
circumcision was committed to him, as the gospel of the cir-
cumcision was to Peter, and therefore gave to him the right
hand of fellowship; that he with Barnabas should go to the
TO THE EPISTLES.
515
gentiles, and they to the circumcision” (ii. 7–9); adding,
for consolation to the gentiles, that “Christ had redeemed
them from the curse of the law; that the blessing of Abra-
ham might come upon the gentiles, that they might re-
ceive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (iii. 13); and
also, that “through the Spirit they did wait for the hope of
righteousness by faith” (v. 5). - -
Now in this epistle, he mentions the “life that he now
lived in the flesh” (ii. 20), his fear of them, his desire to see
them, and the desire of the false brethren to exclude him
from any share in their affections, and the persecutions he
yet suffered in the flesh (iii. 2. iv. 11. 15.17. 20. v. 11): and
he concludes it thus: “You see how large a letter I have
written to you with my own hand;” and “from henceforth
let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of
the Lord Jesus” (vi. 11. 17). Which words demonstrate,
that this epistle must be written and sent to them whilst he
lived, after he had suffered greatly for the name of Christ.
Moreover, the occasion of it shows it must be written by
Paul himself; for it was written upon occasion of some Ju-
daizers, who preached up the necessity of circumcising the
gentiles, and requiring them to observe the law of Moses,
and who endeavoured to disparage this apostle, who had
taught the contrary, as inferior to other apostles, and his
doctrine as contrary to what they taught: now these dis-
tempers requiring a speedy remedy, we cannot doubt but the
apostle sent this epistle to them, as soon as he had heard
how they had been perverted from the sincerity of the faith.
It is also cited by Polycarp ad Philip. §. 5.
In his Epistle to the Ephesians, he tells them, he was
made “a minister of the gospel according to the gift of the
grace of God given to him, by the effectual working of his
power” (iii. 7); and, that “to every one of us is given grace
according to the measure of the gift of Christ:” for “he
ascending up on high, gave gifts unto men :” and “he gave
some apostles, some prophets, Some evangelists, some pas-
tors and teachers ;" and that all these had their spiritual
gifts (see the note on iv. 7, 8. 11): and adds, that “after
they believed they were sealed with the Spirit of promise,
which is the earnest of our inheritance, till the redemption
of the purchased possession” (i. 13, 14).
Now in this epistle he makes mention of his bonds, and
of his being then “an ambassador in bonds” (vi. 20), saying
“I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you gentiles ; I
Paul, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you” (iii. 1. iv. 1).
This epistle therefore must be sent unto them whilst he was
in bonds at Rome ; and so it must be sent unto them Anno
Christi 62, since Paul was set at liberty the next year. He
also adds, that it was sent by Tychicus, whom he sent to
them on purpose, to make known his affairs whilst he abode.
at Rome, and begs their prayers for courage in making known
the º of the gospel, whilst he was thus in bonds (vi.
19–22).
Moreover, this epistle is cited by Clemens (Ep. ad Cor. §.
46), about six years after the writing of it. It is twice cited
by Polycarp (§. l. 12), in his epistle to the Philippians.
Ignatius ($. 12), in his epistle to the Ephesians, saith, that
Paul in his whole epistle made mention of them in Christ
Jesus: so early was this epistle known to and read by the
Christians.
In his Epistle to the Colossians, he declares, that he had
laboured in preaching the gospel to them, according to the
energy of him that wrought with him, #y 3uyápast, by a mighty
power (i. 29), and saith, “Let the word of God dwell in you
richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another
in psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs” (iii. 16). Now
in this epistle he saith, that he then “rejoiced in the afflictions
which he suffered for them” (i. 24). He also speaks of his
“solicitude for them, and those of Laodicea, and for as many
as had not seen his face in Christ,” of his “ salutation with
his own hand” (iv. 18), and of his bonds, and of his sending
Tychicus and Onesimus, to give them an account of his af.
fairs, and of the salutations of many brethren. He there-
fore, and they also, must be all alive when this epistle was
sent to them. -
In his Epistle to the Thessalonians, he testifies, his gos-
pel, “came unto them not in word only, but in power, and
in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance,” and that “they
the Holy Ghost” (1 Thess. i. 5, 6); and for this he appeals
to their own experience, adding these words, “Ye know
what manner of persons we were amongst you for your
sakes;” whence he infers, that he that despised his admo-
nitions, “despised not man, but God, who also had given
them this Holy Spirit” (iv. 8).
Now in this epistle he speaks of his absence from them,
and of his great desire to see them (1 Thess. ii. 17), of his
solicitude for their stedfastness under their sufferings (iii.
5, 6), his sending Timothy to give him an account of it, his
comfort when he heard that they stood firm ; and maketh
Sylvanus and Timotheus his associates in sending it. This
epistle therefore must be written whilst both they and he
were living, and it is cited by Polycarp in his epistle to the
Philippians, Š. 11.
In his Epistle to Titus, he speaks thus (iii. 5, 6). “Ac-
cording to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of rege-
neration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed
on us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Now,
of epistles thus written to particular persons, I think it need-
less to prove that they were written whilst both Paul and
they were living, and were not sent unto them from, or in
another world: though that is here sufficiently proved from
these words, iii. 12, “When I shall send Artemas to thee,
or Tychicus, be diligent to come to me to Nicopolis.”
Arg. 2. §. IV. Secondly, That God vouchsafed to the pro-
fessors and first propagators of the Christian faith these
admirable powers, and various distributions of the Holy
Ghost, is farther evident from this consideration, that the
apostles, in all their contests and debates with friends and
adversaries, believers and rejecters of the Christian faith,
false apostles, antichrists, corrupters of it, and apostates from
it, appeal with greatest confidence to these miraculous ope-
rations and distributions of the Holy Ghost.
In their first controversy, touching the resurrection of our
Lord, gainsaid by the rulers of the Jews, Peter speaks thus
to them: “The God of our fathers hath raised up Jesus
whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath God ex-
alted to his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give
repentance to Israel, and remission of sins. And we are
his witnesses of these things; and so is also that Holy Ghost
whom God hath given to them that obey him” (Acts v. 30
—32). And again, “This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof .
we are all witnesses: therefore being by the right hand of
God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise
of the Holy Ghost, he hath shown forth this, which ye now
see and hear” (Acts ii. 32, 33). Now evident it is, this plea
could not be offered to convince these rulers, by an appeal
to their own senses, without the highest impudence and
plain confusion of their cause, had there been no effusion of
the Holy Ghost imparted to the apostles who attested, and
believers which embraced this faith ; nor could it have been
published in that generation, and recorded by Luke, as made
by the apostles before so great an auditory, if it had been
false, so many witnesses being then living to confute this story.
Secondly, The next dispute arose betwixt Peter and the
converts of the circumcision, accusing him as a transgressor,
for eating and conversing with Cornelius, and other uncir-
cumcised persons; in which case his apology runs thus:
“As I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as upon
us at the beginning. Then remembered I the word of the
Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with water;
but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. Forasmuch
then as God gave them the like gift as he did to us, who be-
lieved on the Lord Jesus Christ ; what was I, that I could
withstand God?” (Acts xi. 15–17.) And thus he puts to
silence the zealots for the circumcision, men too tenacious
of their rites, too zealous for the law, to be satisfied with any
thing that did not carry with it a convincing evidence.
Thirdly, A third contest arose at Antioch, where Some be-
lieving Jews contended, that it was necessary to circumcise
the gentile converts, and to command them to observe the
law of Moses: this vain pretension Peter baffles by this ar-
gument, that “ God who knows the hearts bare them wit-
ness,” that whilst uncircumcised they were accepted with
him, by “giving them the Holy Ghost even as he did to us,
and putting no difference betwixt them and us, purifying
their hearts by faith ;” and thence concluding that by en-
received the word with much affliction,” but yet “with joy of deavouring to “put this yoke” on the believing gentiles, they
f
2
L 2
516
THE GENERAL PREFACE
would “tempt,” that is, would disbelieve, and even oppose
themselves to that God who had vouchsafed so clear a de-
monstration of his acceptance of them, not being circum-
cised (Acts xv. 8, 9). Hence also the whole college of the
apostles write unto them thus: “It seemed good to the
Holy Ghost to lay upon you no such burden” (ver. 28).
Fourthly, When the zealots had infected the church of
the Galatians with the pernicious doctrine of the necessity
of circumcision, and of the observation of the law of Moses,
Paul writes thus to them: “O foolish Galatians ! who hath
bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth 2 This
only would I learn of you : Received ye the Spirit (in his
miraculous gifts and operations) by (obedience to) the
works of the law, or by hearing of faith?” (Gal. iii. 1, 2.)
If by the latter, as ye know ye did, this is a demonstration
that your justification and acceptance with God, is the fruit
of faith in Christ, not of obedience to the law of Moses;
this the apostle reassumes, saying, “He that ministereth the
Spirit to you, and worketh miracles among you, doth he it
by (virtue of your obedience to) the works of the law, or by
the hearing of faith?” We see then this was the chief argu-
ment which carried the cause in the council at Jerusalem,
and which is urged by Paul to confirm the Galatians in the
truth, and silence those who laboured to prevail upon them
to admit of circumcision, and the observance of the law of
Moses: this confirmation therefore of the truth of the
Christian faith was such, as none concerned to do it then
were able to gainsay, much less can any now find reason to
doubt of it.
In the epistle to the church of Corinth, he is even forced
to prove the truth of his apostleship, against those “false
apostles and deceitful workers” who had set up against him,
and for the satisfaction of those Corinthians who “sought a
proof of Jesus Christ speaking in him” (2 Cor. xiii. 3). He
therefore justifies and confirms it by declaring that “the
signs of an apostle have been wrought among them (by him),
in all patience, in signs and wonders, and in mighty deeds”
(2 Cor. xii. 12); that he “was not a whit behind the very
chief of the apostles” in these gifts (xi. 5, 6); that both he
and his fellow-labourers among them approved themselves
as the ministers of Christ “by the Holy Ghost, by the word
of truth, and by the power of God” (vi. 6, 7); that they to
whom he writ were “manifestly declared to be his letters
commendatory,” as being “the epistle of Christ ministered
by him, written not with ink, but by the Spirit of the living
God” (ch. iii.), and that they “came behind the other
churches in no gift” (xii. 13). To the Galatians infected
with the like distemper, he declares, that “he who wrought
effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision,
was as efficacious in him towards the gentiles;” and that
this was so manifest even to the chief of the apostles, that
they were, by the grace vouchsafed to him, convinced that
the gospel of the uncircumcision was by Christ committed
to his charge.
Some there seem to have been among the members of the
church of Corinth, who “ had not the knowledge of the
truth,” and who even questioned whether “Christ was among
them or not :” to them he testified that the church of Corinth
“came behind the other churches in no gift,” and that by this
“the testimony of Christ was confirmed among them” (1
Cor. i. 5–7, see the note there): that the word he preached
was not delivered “in the enticing words of human wisdom,”
but “in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that their
faith might not seem to consist in the wisdom of man, but
in the power of the Holy Ghost” (ii. 4, 5); that God had
established them in Christ, by “giving the earnest of his
Spirit in their hearts” (2 Cor. i. 21, 22). Now for the truth
of what he thus delivers, he makes a solemn and religious
appeal to their own hearts and consciences, saying, “We
are made manifest to God, and we trust also we are made
manifest in your own consciences” (2 Cor. v. 11), “for we
are not as many who corrupt the word, but as of sin-
cerity, as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ”
(ii. 17). “We do by manifestation of the truth commend
ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God”
(iv. 2). Yea, he appeals to all prophets and spiritual men
among them, not only for the truth, but also for the divine
authority of his epistles, saying, “If any man be a prophet,
or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things I write unto
you are the commandments of God” (1 Cor. vii. 3. 7).
Now evident it is, that arguments of this nature neither
could be urged by this apostle without confusion to his cause,
and the impairing of his credit; nor, being offered, could
prevail upon the church of Achaia, and other churches, to
own him as a true apostle, and his epistles as “the com-
mandments of the Lord,” had not the matter of fact, on
which they did entirely depend, been incontestable. For,
had these things been false, or questionable, they whom he
styleth “false apostles and deceitful workers,” must have
been able to reply, that he himself, in his appeal to the mira-
culous operations of the Holy Ghost for confirmation of his
doctrine and apostleship, must have been guilty of that very
crime he laid to their charge ; and all the churches to which
he had directed these epistles, must rather be confirmed in
the suspicions they had entertained against him, than wrought
off from them by these vain pretences and false surmises of
those distributions of the Holy Spirit, of which they had found
no experience, and had received no convincing evidence.
The believing Jews lay under two dangerous distempers:
the first was that which James takes notice of in his epistle,
viz. that faith alone would be sufficient to save them without
works; and upon this the heretics mentioned by Irenaeus,”
and others, grounded their licentious doctrines, that they
might live as they listed, they being not to be saved by good
works, but by faith only. The second was a proneness to
apostasy, or falling back from the faith to Judaism, to avoid
persecution ; and this the heretics also so far improved, as to
declare it lawful, in times of persecution, to commit idola-
try, and to deny Christ with the mouth. Now in opposition
to the first assertion, Paul, in his second chapter of the Epistle
to the Hebrews, shows the necessity of taking more abundant
heed to the precepts of Christianity, as being all confirmed
by signs and miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost; and
therefore puts to them the question thus: “If the word
spoken by angels was firm, and every transgression and dis-
obedience received a just recompence of reward; how shall
we escape, if we neglect so great salvation, which at the first
began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by
them that heard it ; God also bearing them witness both with
signs and wonders, and divers miracles and gifts of the Holy
Ghost, according to his own will ?” In opposition to their
proneness to apostasy, he declares it a most dreadful thing
to fall from the profession of the Christian faith, after they
had received such strong convictions of it, by those gifts of
the Holy Ghost they had received with it: for, saith he,
“It is impossible for them who were once enlightened, and
have tasted of the heavenly gift, and have been made par-
takers of the Holy Ghost, and yet fall away, to be renewed
to repentance, seeing they crucify again the Son of God, and
put him to an open shame” (vi. 4–6, see the note there).
Again to such “there remains no more sacrifice for sin, but
a fearful looking-for of judgment and fiery indignation, see-
ing they trample under foot the Son of God, and count the
blood of the covenant, by which they were sanctified, an
unholy thing, and reproach the Spirit of grace” (x. 26. 29,
see the note there). Now visible it is, that the foundation
of both these arguments depends upon the certainty of this
matter, that God confirmed the truth of the doctrine de-
livered by Christ and his apostles, by divers miracles and
gifts of the Holy Ghost, and that Christians then were made
partakers of those gifts. -
Lastly, Against the seductions of the antichrists and the
deceivers, which were then crept into the church, St. John
fortifies the believers with these words: “These things have
I written concerning them that deceive you. But the anoint-
ing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye
need not that any one teach you, but as the same anointing
teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie ; and
even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him” (1 John
ii. 26, 27). And again, “Beloved, believe not every spirit,
but try the spirits whether they are of God; for many false
prophets are gone out into the world. By this ye shall know
the Spirit of God; every spirit that confesseth Jesus Christ
* Ut liberos agere quae velint, Secundum enim ipsius gra-
tiam Salvari homines, et non secundum opera justa. Iren.
lib. i. cap. 20. Theodoret. Haer. Fab, lib. i. cap. 1.
+ Orig, contra Celsum, lib. vi. p. 282.
TO THE EPISTLES.
517
coming in the flesh, is of God; and every spirit that con-
fesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of
God” (iv. 1–3, see the strength of the argument in the
note there). And it is the Spirit that witnesseth that Jesus
is the Son of God, “because the Spirit is truth” (v. 6).
“He that believeth in the Son of God hath the witness in
himself” (ver. 10). Now when men thus lay claim in their
epistles to their converts to the power of God co-operating
with them in the promotion of the faith, declaring, that he
testified to the truth of what they preached, by divers mira-
cles and gifts of the Holy Ghost; when they confidently
speak of an unction of the Spirit of truth abiding in them,
of which they to whom they write were made partakers, and
by this very argument endeavour to convince them what a
dreadful thing it would be for them to despise the admoni-
tions they had given, or to neglect the great Salvation they
had tendered to them ; there can remain no cause of doubt-
ing of the truth of these assertions, especially when they to
whom they write not only do continue stedfast in the faith,
but also do admit those writings, which assert these things,
as divine records, and the word of God. .
And this argument will be much strengthened from this
consideration, that the primitive professors, in all the con-
flicts with Jews, gentiles, magicians, false prophets, heretics,
and false pretenders to be the successors of the apostles,
still used this argument from the miraculous operations the
Christians then performed, and the gifts of the Holy Ghost
they still received and exercised, as an effectual confirmation
of the Christian faith, and a sufficient confutation of the
pretences of their adversaries; v. g.
First, From this they prove to the Jews, that God had
deserted them, and was now graciously present with the
Christian assemblies; that the Shechinah and prophetic gifts,”
which were long since departed from them, were still extant
among Christians, and exercised both by men and women.
Secondly, Hence they triumph over the heathen deities,'t
that by the name of Jesus such cures were wrought on the
diseased, as none of their supposed deities could perform ;
and that they by this name expelled those devils which their
conjurers could not expel, and forced them to confess they
were evil spirits. |
Thirdly, They triumph over the Simonians f and Gnostics,
the magicians and heretics of their times, by the same argui,
ments, that they could neither cure all diseases, nor expel
all kinds of devils, as the Christians did.
Fourthly, By this they, after the example of Paul, 1 Cor.
xii. 3, and of John, 1 John iv. 1–3, taught Christians to
distinguish Ś betwixt true and false prophets ; and by this
they confuted the Montanists, because they left no succession
of prophets, which yet continued in the true church of
Christ. Some heretics finding themselves unable even to
pretend to such a gift of prophecy as the gospel of John
had promised, and the epistles of Paul mentioned, rejected
both that gospel and those epistles. Now these, saith Ire-
naus, are unhappy men, qui gratiam prophetiae repellunt
ab ecclesiá, “who go about to exclude the grace of prophecy
from the church, and thereby make themselves false pro-
phets,” i. e. assertors of things in God’s name which they
have not received from him.
Lastly, As for the true successors of the apostles, Ire-
naus'ſ informs us, that cum successione apostolatās charisma
T * IIae? yā; hºw wai &#xpt vöv trºopnºtixx xaeia watá ša riv, #
of wai airroi avvieval épsiAste, &ri ră ră»at #y tº yśvel tºy &vra,
Eic hºàº (we’reté0m. Just. Dial, Tryph. p. 308, B. et 315.
Orig. contra Celsum, lib. ii. p. 62, et lib. vii. p. 337.
ºf ‘mºrè rôy &Axwy Trávrov in opxia-rów, wai äradºrów, wai
‘patºwaxevrāy whic.6:9taç iáo avro. Just. Mart. Apol. i. p. 45.
Wide Theophil. ad Autolycum, lib. ii. p. 87. Tertull. Apol.
cap. 23. Cypr. de Idol. Wan. Ox. p. 14. ad Demetr. p. 191.
Arnob. lib. i. p. 29. Lactant. lib. iv. cap. 27.
f Super hac arguentur qui sunt à Simone, et Carpocrate,
et si qui alii virtutes operari dicuntur per magicas elusi-
ones, mec enim cascis possunt donsre visum, neque surdis
auditum, neque omnes daemones effugare, &c. Iren. lib. ii.
cap. 55, 56.
§ Hermas, lib. ii. cap. 11, 12. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib.
v. cap. 15. See the section of the Gift of Prophecy, Ś. 20.
| Lib. iii, cap. 11. T Lib. iv. cap. 43-
| 20. iii. 14.
veritatis certum secundam beneplacitum Patris acceperunt,
“with their succession they received the gift of truth ;” and
hence infers, that ubi igitur charismata Domini posita sunt,
ibi discere oportet veritatem, “where therefore these gifts of
the Lord are placed, there the truth is to be learned.”
Arg. 3. §. W. The prayers and the thanksgivings made
for these divine assistances, the charges the apostles gave
concerning them, the exhortations and directions which they
send to Christian governors and churches, touching these
gifts and operations of the Holy Ghost, are a convincing de-
monstration that they were frequent, and notoriously exer-
cised in the church of God. For instance, “I thank my
God,” saith the apostle to the church of Corinth, “for the
grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ, that in
everything ye are enriched by him in all utterance and all
knowledge (or in tongues and prophecy), so that ye come
behind the other churches in no gift” (1 Cor. i. 5–7, see the
note there). He begins his epistle to the church of Ephe-
sus thus: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly things in Christ” (Eph. i. 3, see the note there):
praying that the same God would “give to them the Spirit
of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him” (ver.
17). He prays for the Romans, that they may “abound in
hope through the power of the Holy Ghost” (xv. 13), and
for his Colossians, that “they may be filled with the know-
ledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding”
i. 9).
( Hºme convened the Asiatic bishops, he requires them
to “take heed to the flock over which the Holy Ghost had
made them overseers” (Acts xx. 28). To the church of
Rome he speaks thus: “Having therefore, Xagiarºa'ra 314-
popa, different gifts, whether prophecy, let us do it according
to the proportion of faith ; or ministering, let us wait on our
ministering ; or he that teacheth, on teaching,” Rom. xii. 6
–8 (see the note there). He exhorts the Ephesians and Co-
lossians, to be filled with the Spirit, speaking to themselves
in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, Eph. v. 18, 19.
Col. iii. 16. Two of his admonitions to his Thessalonians
are conceived in these words, “Quench not the Holy Spirit,
despise not prophecy,” 1 Thess. v. 19, 20. To his son
Timothy he speaks thus: “Neglect not the gift that is in
thee, which was given thee by prophecy,” 1 Tim. iv. 14. And
in his second epistle, “Stir up the gift that is in thee by the
| putting on of my hands,” i. 6, for, saith he “God hath not
given us the spirit of fear, but of power, love, and wisdom,”
ver. 7. He exhorts him also to “keep the good thing com-
mitted to him by the Holy Ghost that dwelleth in him,” ver
14. Now, in these epistles he speaks of himself as a pri-
soner and a sufferer for the cause of Christ, saying, “Be not
thou ashamed of the testimony of the Lord, nor of me his
prisoner ;” he tells him, he was “ready to be offered, and
the time of his departure was at hand ;” informs him, that
“l)emas had forsaken him,” and desires him “when he came
to him to bring Mark with him,” 2 Tim. i. 8. ii. 8. 10. iv.
6. 10–12. He speaks of Hymenaeus and Alexander, “whom
he had delivered up to Satan,” and saith, “These things I
write unto thee, hoping to come to thee shortly,” 1 Tim. i.
All which are evident proofs that these epistles
must be sent to Timothy, whilst Paul was living and was a
prisoner at Rome. Peter advertiseth the converted Jews that
the gospel was preached to them “by the Holy Ghost sent
down from heaven ;” and he gives these instructions to them
for the use of their extraordinary gifts: “As every man
hath received the gift, so let him minister, as good stewards
of the manifold grace of God ; if any man speak, let him
speak as the oracles of God ; if any man minister, let him
do it as of the ability which God giveth, that God in all
things may be glorified through Jesus Christ,” 1 Pet iv. 10,
ll. Now the messenger by which he sent this epistle, and
the salutations in the close of it, show that it was written
whilst Mark and Sylvanus were living. -
But the great scene of these directions and admonitions
lies in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, where he exhorts
them to “covet earnestly” spiritual gifts, but chiefly that of
prophecy, 1 Cor. xiv. 1, to “covet to prophesy, and forbid
not to speak with tongues,” ver. 39. , Moreover, he directs
them in the due exercise of these spiritual gifts after this
manner: “Forasmuch as ye are zealous spiritual gifts,
518.
THE GENERAL PREFACE
seek that ye may excel to the edifying of the church,” ver.
12; “Wherefore let him that speaketh in an unknown tongue
pray that he may interpret,” ver. 13. And again, “If any
man speak in an unknown tongue, let it be by two, or at
most by three, and let one interpret; but if there be no in-
terpreter, let him keep silence in the church,” wer. 27, 28 ;
“Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the others
judge,” ver. 29; “If anything be revealed to another that
sitteth by, let the first hold his peace: for ye may all pro-
phesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be com-
forted,” ver, 30, 31. In the same chapter he chides them
for using these spiritual gifts without profit to the hearer,
and so as to breed confusion in the church. “How is it,”
Saith he, “brethren, that when you come together, every one
of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a
revelation, hath an interpretation ? Let all things be done
to edifying,” ver. 26, declaring that, by using tongues not un-
derstood in the assembly, they would give to the infidel and
unbeliever occasion to say they were mad, ver. 23. “But
if all prophesy,” saith he, “and there come in one that be-
lieveth not, or one unlearned, he is convinced of all; he is
judged of all: and thus are the secrets of his heart made
manifest; and so falling down on his face, he will worship
God, and report that God is in you of a truth,” ver, 24, 25.
So notorious are these gifts supposed to be, not only to the
Saint, but to the infidel, and so powerful for his conversion.
Now had these great apostles given thanks for gifts conferred
upon these churches which they never had enjoyed; had they
exhorted them to desire, and earnestly to covet, to stir up
and excel in gifts they never had, and which were not im-
parted to any members of the church; had they given these
grave directions and solemn charges, touching those gifts of
prophecy and revelation, of tongues and the interpretation
of them, which never had been exercised in that of Corinth,
or any other Christian church; had they severely chid them
for abusing those gifts they never had, and shown themselves
so much concerned to correct an abuse of which they were
incapable, as having not the use of what they are supposed
to abuse; had they condemned the Hºurmurings of them who
had them in a less, the boastings of them who had them in a
higher measure, by such inquiries as these, “What hast thou
which thou hast not received 2 And if thou hast received
(them), wherefore dost thou boast, as if thou hadst not re-
ceived (them)?” I Cor. iv. 7 (see the note there); and show-
ing the necessity that there should be such a diversity of
gifts and operations in the body, 1 Cor. xii. 14–27, and done
and said all this without a just foundation; this, must have
rendered those epistles, in which these passages are contained,
the matter of their derision and disdain, rather than worthy
to be owned as the oracles of God: and those apostles which
indited them must rather have been esteemed by them
º: enthusiasts, than men inspired by the Spirit of
od.
Since then these writings generally were received as di-
vine records by all Christians, and by those very churches to
which they were indited, it must be certain, that in all these
assertions they contain matter of unquestionable truth, and
only spake of those spiritual gifts of which these churches
had a full experience; there being, saith Clemens Romanus
in his epistle writ soon after to them, “a full effusion of the
Holy Ghost” upon them all.
Arg. 4. Ś. VI. This will still be more evident, if we con-
sider what Christianity the author and the propagators of
it required of all that would embrace the Christian faith,
and what were the encouragements they tendered as the chief
‘inducements so to hope, believe, and act, or suffer, as Chris-
tianity required. And,
First, They call upon all Christians to take up the cross
of Christ daily, and for his sake to “forsake father and mo-
ther, wife and children, goods and relations, and even life
itself,” declaring that without this they cannot be Christ's
disciples, Luke xiv. 26, 27, informing them, that “all that
will live godly must suffer persecution,” 2 Tim. iii. 12, that
“ through many tribulations they must enter into the king-
dom of God,” Acts iv. 22, that they were “called to suffer,”
and were “appointed to this very thing,” 1 Thess. iii. 3,
4. 1 Pet. ii. 21. Accordingly we find that the Corinthians
were “partakers with them of their sufferings,” 2 Cor. i. 7;
that the Galatians had “suffered many things,” Gal. iii. 4;
that to the Philippians it was “given, not only to believe in
Christ, but also to suffer for his sake,” Phil. i. 29; that Paul
commends the Colossians for their stedfastness in the faith
under all their persecutions, i. 11, and prays they “may be
strengthened with all might, according to his glorious gospel,
to all patience, and long-suffering, with joyfulness,” ii. 5.
He saith the Thessalonians suffered the same from their
countrymen, as did the believing Jews from theirs, 1 Thess.
ii. 14; that he sent Timothy to “stablish and to comfort
them concerning their faith,” and to exhort them “not to be
moved at those afflictions to which they were appointed,”
iii. 34; adding that he “gloried in them in the churches of
God, for their patience and faith in all their persecutions,”
2 Thess. i. 4. In his Epistle to the Hebrews he saith, they
“suffered a great fight of afflictions, partly while they were
made a gazing-stock, both by reproaches and afflictions, and
partly whilst they became companions of them who were
so used,” and that they “took joyfully the spoiling of their
goods :'' and he exhorts them “not to cast away their con-
fidence,” because they had “need of patience.” Heb. x. 32.
36, and, after the example of that cloud of witnesses which
he had set before them, to run their Christian race with pa"
tience, xii. 1. Peter tells the same believing Jews, they
“were in heaviness for a season through manifold tempta-
tions,” 1 Pet. i. 6, desiring them “not to think it strange
concerning the fiery trial which was come to try them,” iv.
12. These tribulations they exhort them to endure with
faith and courage, patience and perseverance, joy and tri-
umph ; and yet the only thing they offer them to raise this
joy and comfort, engage them to this perseverance, and to sup-
port them under their fiery trials, is the promise, or the actual
vouchsafement, of the Holy Ghost helping their infirmities,
that as they were partakers of the sufferings of the apostles,
so should they be also of their consolations, 2 Cor. i. 7, that
“if they suffered for the name of Christ, happy were they ;
for the Spirit of glory and of God should rest upon them,”
1 Pet. iv. 14. This, say they, ye have found, “for you be-
came followers of the Lord, and of us, having received the
word with much affliction, and with joy of the Holy Ghost,”
1 Thess. i. 6, and may well suffer hardships as good soldiers
of Jesus Christ, for God “hath not given us the spirit of
fear, but tº Suvápagos, of courage,” to endure, of that love
which casts out fear, and of that prudence which willinstruct
us how to bear or to escape them (2 Tim. i. 7). Now if this
promise was sensibly made good to them under these afflic-
tions, they by it did receive an earnest of the truth of Chris-
tian faith, and an assurance of God's concern to comfort and
reward their Christian patience in his cause. But if under
these fiery trials they found no sensible experience of the
Holy Ghost thus helping their infirmities, no inward joys,
supports, and consolations of the promised Comforter, what
reason had they to continue to “take joyfully the spoiling
their goods,” the loss of credit, life, and all their worldly
comforts, for the profession of that faith, which had so pal-
pably deceived them in the chief motive which it offered
to engage them to suffer for the name of Christ, or for the
truth and divine authority of those epistles which contained
these apparent falsehoods?
This argument may be enforced from the consideration of
the multitude of Christian martyrs in the first three ages of
the church, all which could have no other motive thus to
suffer, but this promised assistance of the Holy Ghost at pre-
sent, and the assurance which this earnest of the Spirit gave
them of an eternal state of happiness hereafter; and so if
they had no experience of this assistance under sufferings,
and no assurance of such an “earnest of the Spirit” in their
hearts, must suffer all these dreadful things without just
ground or motive, which even a heathen Cicero” doth repre-
sent as a thing impossible to be performed, the hardness of
some Jewish zealots, and some deluded Christian sects, in
suffering, being no instance to the contrary; for though they
mistake the application of this future happiness, in prospect
of which they thus endure, to themselves, the principle upon
which they suffer is undisputably true, and owned even by
* Nullo igitur modo fieri potest ut quisquam tanti a stimet
aequitatem et fidem, ut ejus conservandae causá nullum Sup-
plicium recuset, nisi is rebus assensus sit, quae falsae esse non
possunt. Acad. Quaest. lib. ii. n. 25, 26.
TO THE EPISTLES.
519
Epicurus himself; Ut voluptates omittantur majorum vo-
luptatum adipiscendarum causá, aut dolores suscipiantur
majorum dolorum effugiendorum gratiâ, “That we should
part with our temporal enjoyments for a season here, for a
better and more enduring substance, and suffer these light
afflictions, which are for a moment, that we may escape
more lasting and intolerable torments,” this being only, saith
Torquatus,” the choice which the wise men of Epicurus
ought to make. In a word, the manner of their sufferings
doth give us full assurance that the assistance of the Holy
Ghost, which Christ and his apostles promised to the true be-
lievers, was accordingly vouchsafed to the Christian martyrs
and confessors, they being enabled to bear the greatest suf-
ferings, not only with undaunted courage, “putting off the
body,” saith Origen, F “more cheerfully than a philosopher
would put off his coat ;” “despising death,” saith Lucian,t
“and willingly submitting to it;" but with great joy and
exultation, being “strengthened to all long-suffering with
joyfulness” (Col. ii. 5), “rejoicings in tribulations, counting
it all joy when they fell into divers temptations, and happy
when they did endure them” (James i. 3. 12), and rejoicing
when they were in heaviness through manifold afflictions" (1
Pet i. 6); yea, sometimes withſ miraculous experience of
consolations under all their sufferings, causing this joy and
gladness in them ; and sometimes with a perfect freedom
from all sense of pain under the most afflicting torments; as
in the case of the evangelist St. John," and of Blandina,”
these sufferings not being able to extort from them one com-
plaint or groan.* Now this being done as well bypt chil-
dren and the weakest sex, by the idiot as well as by the
wisest sages, gives a full demonstration of the truth of that
assertion of Eusebius, $$ That the love of Christ, the hopes of
immortality, and the Spirit of the Father, inspired them with
this courage; for what else coºl create such joys and ex-
ultations, or suggest such comiulls and supports under the
sharpest trials 2 What could procure to them a freedom
from the sense of pain, under the greatest torments and most
intolerable burdens to flesh and blood P -
Secondly, Again, they engage all Christians in the most
difficult acts of self-denial and mortification of all carnal
lusts, in the cutting off their right hands, and the plucking
out their eyes ; in patience under, and the forgiveness of,
* Itaque harum rerum hic tenetur à sapiente delectus, ut
aut rejiciendis voluptatibus majores alias consequatur, aut
perferendis doloribus asperiores repellat. De Finibus Bono-
rum, &c. lib. i. n. 27, 29.
+ 2; Seixõy yÉvo, Aével 3' hºſi, sīvat, Kai pixo~&garoy yévoc,
oùro ºrpoxeſpo; tºrâp eige6eia; tışévºra; r. cºp.a., &; ot,83 rô
ipzártov &roºtſaat &y six spºº pixácoºp.cº. Contra Cels. lib. vii.
p. 357.
... + IIETreixdori yüº attoic of taxe?aigows;, r3 ºziv Šxoy 33&Waroi
Fasa flat, Kai Biº-gabal rôy &ei xzévov, rap’ 3 wai waraqpoyoffat roi,
6avárov, xzi #xévre; abrovº intëlèéaaty of iroxxoi. Lucian.
Peregr. f. 338.
§ 9ayatočkaevol Xaigowev. Just. M. p. 265. Magisque
damnati quâm absoluti gaudemus.
Metà Xapā; kai yéxoto, wai sãºppoo dyn; rºw icºrárnv &réparty roi;
Bayárov Kara&#x32 Sai Solebant. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. viii.
cap. 9.
| Solebant etenim ré &Aurov wai &régaxov st; airy rhy
Texevraiav čvaryov 8tatnesſy, immö 3rránvoy zaprettay, &cts
-béx^eiv, xai ºvov; Mał sixaplatia; eig rºy rāv ŠAoy Osów &yarrég-
Trew. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. viii. cap. 9.
* Tertull. de Praescrip. cap. 36.
**” HV airfic &váanslic Rai äväravariº wai &vaxynoria. Euseb.
Hist. Eccl. lib. v. cap. 1. "Aaaéxo; 3’ &c. wep, wai &cºatos,
ow?' Braísiv 8oków rāy &Ayněévoy. Lib. viii. cap. 10, p. 338, 339.
++ Quot ex nostris non dexteram solūm sed totum corpus
luri, cremari, sine ullis ejulatibus pertulerant. Minutius, p.
41. Tortores suos taciti vincunt, exprimere illis gemitum
nec ignis potest. Lact. lib. v. cap. 13.
£f Pueri nostri et mulierculae nostrae, cruces, et tormenta,
feras, et omnes suppliciorum terriculas, inspirată patientiã do-
loris illudunt. Minut. p. 42. Athenag. Legat, pro Christ.
p. 12, A. -
§§ Exe ivov; £ºv yºg árexoſpićey à Xaga rā; aapºrvpiac, was #
#Awis rāv Barnyyexpºvoy, Rai # meåg rev Xetarāv Āyārn, xa, rà
IIvetºza rô rarfixów. Hist. Eccles, lib. v. cap. 1, p. 160, C.
Tertul. ad Scap. cap. 1.
the greatest injuries ; in love and charity to the worst of
enemies, in temperance as to the pleasures and honours of
this present life, in a deadness to the world, and the enjoy-
ments of it, in piety, and purity, and heavenly-mindedness,
because they cannot otherwise be Christ's disciples, cannot
be worthy of him (Matt. x. 37, 38), they cannot enter into
his kingdom (Matt. xix. 23, 24), but shall hereafter be denied
and rejected by him (Matt. x. 32, 33). Now what could such
threats signify to them who were not, by his miracles, and by
experience “of the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven,”
convinced that he was indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the
world 2 The encouragement they give them to be thus sted-
fast, immoveable, always abounding in the fear of the Lord,
was only the promise of a future and unseen reward, chiefly
to be enjoyed after the resurrection of the body, which, to
the sadducees among the Jews, and the whole race of hea-
then sages, seemed a thing incredible. It is therefore not to
be imagined, that so many myriads of Christian converts
should renounce all the pleasures of the flesh, all the grati-
fications of this present world, all their old rites, religions,
customs, evil habits, submit to all this self-denial and morti-
fication, only to be partakers of these unseen blessings after
the resurrection, without a full assurance that they hereaf-
ter should enjoy them. Now the only assurance which the
apostles and holy scriptures did afford them of this blessed
resurrection and eternal happiness, was the miracles by which
their doctrine was confirmed, the powers, gifts, and distribu-
tions of the Holy Ghost vouchsafed to them. After the
dissolution of this body, we expect, say they, “a house not
made with hands, eternal in the heavens; we groan, desiring
to be clothed with this house from heaven, that mortality may
be swallowed up of life. Now he that hath wrought this hope
within us, is that God who hath given us the earnest of the
Spirit” (2 Cor. v. 1–5). And again, “The promises of God
are all yea and amen,” or sure and certain, “in Jesus Christ;”
and “He who hath established us with you,” in expectation
of them, “is that God who hath anointed us, and sealed us,
and given the earnest of his Spirit in our hearts” (2 Cor, i.
20,21); enabling us by the Spirit “to wait for the adoption,
even the redemption of the body” (Rom. viii. 23), adding,
that by the Spirit of adoption they were enabled to cry,
“Abba, Father” (ver. 15, 16); that he “bore witness with
their spirits that they were the sons of God,” the love of
God being “shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Ghost,
which God had given them” (Gal. iv. 6). Hence they con-
tinually declare, that “after they believed, they were sealed
with the Spirit of promise, which was the earnest of their
inheritance till the redemption of the purchased possession”
(Eph. i. 13, 14); that by him they were “sealed up to the
day of redemption” (iv. 30), that he was the “earnest of
their future inheritance ;” that they were not ashamed of
their hope, they “through the Spirit waiting for the hope of
righteousness” (Gal. v. 5), and “abounding in hope through
the power of the Holy Ghost” (Rom. xv. 13). Hence he is
styled by John, “the witness of God within” them, 1 John
v. 19, and by this, saith he, do we Christians know, that “God
abideth in us, and we in him,” even “by the Spirit that he
hath given us,” iv. 13. By all which sayings it appears, that
if these things were true, they to whom this assistance of the
Holy Spirit was vouchsafed, must be very sensible of his
dwelling and his acting in them; that they could plainly
know they had this “unction from the Holy One,” and could
be hence assured of the divine affection to them, and of their
future hopes and expectations, since otherwise he could be
no such seal, pledge, and earnest to them, and no such wit-
ness of God within them, and no such confirmation of their
faith, or token of the love of God: and if these things were
false, and they had no such sensible experience of the good
Spirit acting and abiding in them, if they found no such con-
firmation of their hopes from any inward testimony and
outward operations of the Holy Ghost, they must not only
have no certain ground or motive to assure them of that fu-
ture recompence, which was the only reason which could in-
duce them to embrace and to continue stedfast in the Chris-
tian faith, but must have a convincing demonstration that the
whole doctrine of Christianity depended on a false suggestion
of such a sensible and certain testimony of these future
hopes, of which they never had, nor could have, any know-
ledge or experience; and that the apostles and first assertors
520
THE GENERAL PREFACE
of this faith had laid the whole foundation of their hopes
upon a false and a precarious appeal to their own consciences,
concerning that of which they had no knowledge or experi-
ence. And being once assured of this, that the great funda-
mentals of the Christian faith were bottomed on a confident
appeal to their perception of those things, of which they
who embraced this faith had yet not found the least experi-
ence, it is incredible to believe they should continue stedfast
in and endure such continual persecutions for that faith, and
should receive those very records as the word of God
which made these false appeals unto their conscience and
experience. -
$. VII. I think I have sufficiently made it appear that
these epistles, which contain these things, must be indited
whilst the apostles lived, and so they must be sent to those
churches and persons to whom they are directed, at a time
when all the members of those churches must be able to
discern the truth or falsehood of what is thus asserted in
them : yet, because the pretence that it might be otherwise
containeth the whole strength of scepticism, let it be farther
noted,
First, That these epistles from which these things are
cited, one alone excepted, bear the names of the apostles,
by whom they are supposed to be written: now had they
not been really indited by them, this could not have
been done by any, but he must put a cheat upon all Chris-
tians, and substitute his own inventions for the word of
God.
Secondly, That all of them, excepting one, which is yet
proved to be genuine in the preface to the Epistle to the
Hebrews, have been delivered down unto us by the perpe-
tual and uncontrolled tradition of the whole church of
Christ, as the undoubted works of these apostles, and as the
word of God. Moreover, it is apparent from the writings of
Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, that
even from the apostles' days they have been cited, read, and
generally received as such. Now this is a tradition more ge-
neral, and of a firmer credit, than any other book, writing,
charter, law, or statute whatsoever can pretend to. Consider,
Thirdly, That the tradition which concerns these books
was a tradition concerning things of the highest moment,
and which it was the interest of all Christians to be well as-
sured of, these writings being at present the chief ground of
their support under their sharpest trials, and of their future
hopes ; they therefore must be writings which they were con-
cerned to get and keep, to hear and read. There were books
written to whole churches and nations, yea, to all that
“called on the name of Christ Jesus in every place ;” who
could not easily have received and yielded such a firm as-
sent unto them, as we know they did, had the apostles, by
whom they were converted, given no intimations of them.
They were also books of the greatest opposition to the vain
tradition of the Jews, and to the superstition of the heathens,
to the “false apostles and deceitful workers,” and which de-
nounced upon them the greatest plagues and judgments,
which must oblige them narrowly to search into the flaws
that could be spied in them, and, as much as possible, to la-
, bour to discover the falsehood or imposture of them : and
yet these works were not denied by them to be the books of
those apostles whose names they bear, though the apostles
themselves, especially St. Paul, was persecuted by them with
a restless malice, as an apostate from the law ; and upon
this account all his epistles were rejected by those Jewish
Christians, who maintained the necessity of the observance of
the law of Moses: most of them also are writ about that
very controversy, and against those very men who pleaded
the necessity of circumcision, and of observing the whole
law of Moses ; which yet could be no controversy after the
ruin of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, seeing
that rendered the observation of the precepts of that law for
the most part impossible. They were books which could not
be spread abroad in the apostles' days, and in their names,
unless the apostles had indited and sent them to these
churches; or be esteemed as the great charters of the Chris-
tian faith, if the apostles were so forgetful of them as not to
let those persons, for whose sake they were written, know it.
They were books which pretended to a commission from the
Atly Jesus, to leave a rule of life and doctrine to mankind,
which was intrusted only in the hands of the apostles, all
others still pretending to deliver only what they received
from them. They also were indited" partly to confirm the
Christian faith, and to engage men to believe it ; partly to
put an end to the contentions, and rectify the errors which
had crept into the church in the apostles' days, and needed
speedy reformation ; partly to justify themselves against
false brethren, and to assert the truth of their apostleship ;
and partly to preserve their proselytes from such as did per-
vert the faith, and to instruct them how to bear up in fiery
trials, and to support the souls of Christians under the mise-
ries they suffered from a persecuting world ; and therefore
they were written on such grounds as did require a quick
dispatch upon these errands to the churches for which they
intended: and so the apostles must be supposed to give
early notice of them, and to divulge them to the Christian
world, whilst they to whom they were committed were able
to disprove them if they had been false.
Let us consider all the writings which pass for true au-
thentic records in the world, and we shall find there is not
any reason to conceive them such, which is not with advantage
applicable to these books. -
The arguments which can be offered to prove a book or
writing genuine, are only of two kinds ; eaternal, from the
testimony of persons who lived near to the times of the au-
thor ; and internal, from the things contained in and
serted by those writings, and the firm faith they ob-
tained among them to whom they were directed and com-
mitted.
The evternal testimonies have their force partly from the
number and the eminence of the testators, their nearness to
the times when such a book is said to be written, or such a
writing published by the original copies, preserved by those
to whom they were at first committed, and from the general
reception and citation of them as such writings and re-
cords.
Now as for these external evidences, no writings can com-
pare with those epistles I have mentioned, they having all
the circumstances by which any writing can be proved genu-
ine, and many others of great weight, which are peculiar to
them, and which no other writing can pretend to. I say,
they have all the circumstances to prove them genuine,
which any other writing can pretend to. For, -
First, Their originals were preserved in their respective .
churches till Tertullian's time ; who speaks thus to the he-
retics of his age, or of the third century,” “Go to the apo-
stolical churches, where their authentic epistles are still re-
cited, representing the voice and face of each of them.
Secondly, They were not doubted of, but, as Clementt and
Origen say, all that I have cited, excepting only the Epistle
to the Hebrews, mentioned by Peter, were generally received
by all orthodox Christians throughout the world. .. - *
Thirdly, The writers by whom they were cited, lived either
in those times when they were written, as Clemens Roma-
nus, or in the very next age, as Ignatius, Polycarp, Jus:
tin Martyr, Irenaeus, and were therefore styled apostolical
Inên.
Fourthly, They were very eminent both for their learning,
and for their sufferings for the faith contained in them, or
for their opposition to it, as Celsus was ; now sure we have
unquestionable certainty of such books as have been handed
down to us by the tradition of all ages of the church, in-
serted into all her catalogues, cited by all her writers as books
of a divine authority, and by her very adversaries preserved
so long in their originals, and of which never any doubt
was made by any genuine member of the church of Christ.
I add
Secondly, That there are many circumstances of great
weight to confirm these testimonies, which are peculiar to
these writings: as,
First, A general dispersion of them through those places
which were converted to that faith which the apostles
* Percurre ecclesias apostolicas, apud quas ipse authen-
ticae literae eorum recitantur, somantes Vocem et repræsen-
tantes faciem uniuscujusque, De Prescript. cap. 36. , .
+ “A wał żyayriñāntá šarly iy aft tº rôy otpavy iskAnal; ‘rov
©edſ. Ita de evangeliis, Orig. apud Euseb. lib, viz. cap; 25.
Kai rajra pºiy iv pºoyoup,ávoic. Euseb. de Epistolis, lib. ii.
cap. 25.
TO THE EP]^3TLES.
521
| them, Épºol yáp Haftancey ivrvXsſy abroſ., for I took care to
preached: for the apostles, saith Irenaeus, “first preached
the gospel, and after, by the will of God, in scripturis nobis
tradiderunt, delivered it to us in the scriptures, to be here-
after the pillar and foundation of our faith” (Lib. iii. cap.
l). Eusebius saith that “the first successors of the apos-
tles, leaving their countries, preached to them who had not
yet heard of the Christian faith, and then delivered to them,
as the foundation of their faith, råv táv Seiwy stayyexiwy ypa-
gºv, the writings of the holy evangelists” (Hist. Eccles. lib.
iii. cap. 37).
Secondly, The translation of them into other languages;
that of the Syriac being so ancient that it leaves out the
Second Epistle of St. Peter, and the Second and Third
Epistles of St. John, and the Revelation, as being for a
time controverted in some of the eastern churches: that of
the Latin, styled in Jerome's time “the old translation,”
and very probably made from the beginning of a settled
church among them; for the Latin church could not be
well without a Latin version, it being the custom of all
churches to read these scriptures on the Lord’s-day; which
sure they would not do in a language not to be understood
by those that heard it.
Thirdly, The constant reading of them in public and in
private, in their assemblies, and in their closets and fami-
lies. “On Sunday,” saith Justin Martyr,” “all the Chris-
tians in the city or country meet together, and then we have
read unto us the writings of the prophets, and r& 3"roºyngo-
vºcate, röy &roatóAwy, the monuments of the apostles;”
and having read them, they did publicly ºf rā; Seia, Éean-
veðew yeapæg, “expound them to the people:” that they
Were also read by the most eminent and pious Christians
every day, that: discat unusquisque ex Scripturis sanctis of.
ficium suum, “every one might learn his duty from the
holy Scriptures,” we learn from the question in the Con-
stitutions of Clement, “Whether a man ought, the day
after he had done the duties of wedlock, or been subject to
any involuntary defilement, 3.8xiou Stygiv, touch the book;”
and the declaration of Clement," that “the matrimonial
duties should not be done, itnyika sixfic zai čvayvºrso, 3 xat-
gic, when was the time of prayer, or reading of the scriptures;
and that the sacrifices of the true gnostic'ſ were, sixai re
zai alvoi, kai ai ºrgö tä; iotiao w; Évrećeiç rôy yeapāy, prayers
and praises, and the reading of the holy scriptures before
meals.” And seeing Irenaeus” saith that “he who had a
care of his salvation might read the form of his faith in the
epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians;” since that epistle, H.
and the epistle of Clementiff to the church of Corinth,
which were their genuine works; yea, the epistle of St. Bar-
nabas, Š and the book of Hermas, ſ|| which two were reck-
oned as apocryphal, were read publicly in many churches,
doubtless they must be more concerned to read the un-
doubted writings of the apostles, which they esteemed the
rule of faith, which they styled IT libri deifici, “books which
transformed them into a divine nature;” which they looked
upon as the records of their eternal interests, as books by
which they must be judged at the last day, and according to
which they should be punished or rewarded everlastingly.
Fourthly, The early perusal of them both by Jews and
heathens, who writ against them, and did endeavour to de-
stroy them, that so they might cause the Christian faith to
perish, but never did deny them to be indeed the works of the
apostles, whose names they bore : by Jews, for Trypho ***
speaks thus at least of the gospels,” The precepts contained
in your gospels are so great, that I suspect no man can keep
* Apol. ii. p. 98.
+ Euseb. Eccles. Hist. lib. vi. cap. 19.
: Orig. Hom. l l in Exod. f. 50, L.
| Paedag. lib. ii, cap. 10, p. 194, D.
T Strom. vii. p. 728, B. * Lib. iii. cap. 3.
++ Suidas in voce Polycarpus.
# Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. iii. cap. 38. lib. iv. cap. 23.
Epiph. Haer. xxx. p. 15. Phot. Cod. 113.
§§ Hieron. vicibus Barnabas et Hermas.
| Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. iii, cap. 3. Athanas. Epist.
Paschal. tom. ii. p. 39, 40.
TITI Cypr. de Elv. et lib. et Eph. 52. Pass. Sancti Felicis
passim.
* Apud Justin. Dial. p. 227, C.
§ Lib. vi. cap. 27.
read them.” The Ebionites,” who also were Jews, rejected
all the epistles of Paul, as gathering from them that he was
an apostate from the law of Moses. The heathens; for
Celsus + not only boasts that he knew all things belonging
to the Christians, but often carps at the writings of the
evangelists and of Paul. And indeed the Christians freely of
fered them to be perused by them : “For that we may not
seem to impose upon you,” saith Justin Martyr to the Ro-
man emperor, “we offer to you some of the doctrines of
Christ; and you, being emperors, t may £etáasty, search
whether we truly have been taught, and teach these doc-
trines.” And again, “The prince of evil spirits is by us
called a serpent, Satan, and the devil, & Kai ša rēy #zetégoy
cºvyygaºzárov špewharay'rs; ºwaffety ºvac SE, as you may learn
by searching into our writings.” “Thou who thinkest we
are not concerned for the safety of Caesar,” saith Tertul-
lian, “look into the words of God, quas neque ipsi sup-
primimus, et plerique casus ad extraneos transferunt, which
we do not suppress, and which many accidents bring into the
hands of heathens.” From their endeavours to destroy the
Christian faith by burning these books, came the edicts of
Diocletian, "I rāg yeapā; &#aveſ; ºrvº yivsaga, rgocrátroyra,
“commanding that the scriptures should be committed to
the flames,” and the ** actual burning of them where they
could be found, and the tormenting of the Christians to de-
liver up the scriptures.
Fifthly, The direful torments which the Christians chose
to suffer, rather than they would desert the faith contained
in these books, or deliver them up to their tormentors, and
the infamy of those that did so, they being branded with the
odious name of traditors. Now what writings in the world
have been so generally dispersed, and so much perused by
all sorts of persons, friends, foes, assertors of, and enemies to,
the faith of Christians? What laws, or writings whatsoever,
have been so early translated into other languages 2 Who
were so much concerned to peruse them, as were all Chris-
tians to peruse the laws of Christ P Who suffered so much
for them as the Christians did P Since then this early read-
ing of them in public, and in private, by the Christians, this
general dispersion of them through all Christian churches,
this quick translation of them into other languages, this con-
stant suffering for them, are all corroborating circumstances
of the unquestionable evidence all Christians had obtained
that they were genuine works, and truly what they did pre-
tend to be, it is also clear these writings are more worthy
to be received as genuine, and writings of unquestionable
truth, than any profane writings in the world.
$. VIII. The internal arguments, which usually are or
can be offered to prove other writings genuine, are only
taken from the things contained in them, that they were
proper to the times in which the author was supposed to
write, and from the freedom of them from anything which
is not well consistent with those times, which are all mean
and trifling things, compared to those internal arguments
which these epistles do afford, that they are the authentic
records of those apostles whose names they bear, and that
those things which they assert, touching the gifts and power-
ful operations of the Holy Ghost, both exercised by them
and conferred on other churches, were unquestionably true.
For,
First, It is not once nor twice, it is not by the bye, but
it is frequently, professedly, and upon all occasions, they re-
fer to these miraculous powers and spiritual gifts, as yield-
ing a full proof and confirmation of the testimony they gave
of Christ, and that Christ was among them, and as a demon-
stration of the truth of their apostleship against all opposers,
and of the preference of that faith which was attended with
them, above the law, which some desired to observe; spend-
ing whole chapters in discoursing of these spiritual gifts,
distinguishing them somewhat nicely into gifts, administra-
Orig. lib. v. p. 274. Euseb. lib.
* Iren. lib. i. cap. 26.
iii. cap. 27. º -
+ Apud Orig. p. 11, 227, &c. f Apol. ii. p. 61, D.
§ P. 71, B. S. | Apol. cap. 31.
*I Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. viii. cap. 8.
* Scripturae repertae incenduntur, Lact. de Mort. Per-
SCC,
522
THE GENERAL PREFACE
tions, and operations; ranking them under nine several
heads, and specifying the very names of those who did by
office exercise them, and showing the necessity there was of
this variety of gifts and operations in the body, appealing to
the senses, the consciences, and the experience of those to
whom they wrote, touching the truth and certainty of what
they had asserted touching those spiritual gifts, by such in-
quiries as these : “What! know ye not that Christ is among
you?” 2 Cor. xiii. 5; “Am I not an apostle P Surely I am
so to you; for the seal of my apostleship are ye in the
Lord,” 1 Cor. ix. 1, 2; It is manifest you are “the epistle
of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with
the Spirit of the living God,” 2 Cor. iii. 3; “Surely the
signs of an apostle have been wrought among you in all pa-
tience, in signs and wonders and mighty deeds,” 2 Cor. xii.
12 ; “Have you received” from the false apostles “another
spirit which ye have not received from us?” xi. 14; “This
only would I learn of you, he that ministered to you the
Spirit, and wrought miracles among you, did he it by the
works of the law, or by the hearing of faith ? Are ye so
foolish P having begun in the Spirit, are ye (desirous to be)
made perfect in the flesh P” Gal. iii. 3–5; “Our gospel
came not to you in word only, but in power, and in the
Holy Ghost, and in much assurance, as ye know what man-
ner of persons we were among you,” 1 Thess. i. 5. Which
words are either plain inquiries upbraiding their doubtfulness
and hesitation in so plain a case, or else appeals unto their
certain knowledge of these things; nor is it to be wondered
that they should make these confident inquiries and ap-
peals, seeing the external miracles, and the internal gifts
and distributions of the Holy Ghost, mentioned in those
epistles, were either such of which even infidels might from
the nature of them be convinced, or such as, from some
outward and sensible appearances and effects, or by their in-
ward operations, made themselves known to them who
heard and saw them. For instance, the working of mira-
cles, the casting out of devils by the name of Jesus, and the
healing the sick through faith in his name, the gift of pro-
phecy, or foretelling things future, the discerning of spirits,
the gift of tongues, and the interpretation of them, if truly
done, were things self-evident, and could not well be exer-
cised without a sensible demonstration to all that saw, per-
ceived, heard, or felt them, that they were performed ; and
therefore God, by assisting the apostles, and by enabling
others to perform them, must give full “testimony to the
word of his grace:” and the apostles, by this constant ap-
peal to them as to things which their own eyes had seen,
and their consciences bore witness to, and they in person
had performed, must appeal to the senses and experience of
those to whom they writ, in matters subject daily to their
experience, and to the senses of the members of those re-
spective churches, touching the truth of their apostleship,
and of the confirmation they pretend to have given of it.
Now, as it seemeth highly incredible that persons able to
write the deepest mysteries and the exactest precepts of mo-
rality, should be so foolish as to confirm them only by an
appeal to the senses and experience ºf those very men of
whom they were assured that they had never seen, or done,
or found the least experience of any of the things they men-
tioned; so is it still far more incredible, that an appeal of
such apparent falsehood, made to the consciences of men
who never saw these miracles, or found these comforts of the
Holy Ghost, and never had these gifts of tongues, interpre-
tation, healings, prophecy, which these epistles tell us were
their daily exercise, should embrace these very epistles as
divine, these records as the word of God. And yet we know
both they and other churches did thus actually esteem them,
and receive them as such, and therefore must be well as-
sured, that what they thus asserted of the gifts of the Holy
Ghost, were things confirmed to them by their own senses
and experience.
Secondly, Add to this, that these men, in these very writ-
ings, confidently say, that this was their rejoicing, “even the
testimony of their conscience, that in simplicity and godly
sincerity they had their conversation in the world, and more
abundantly towards them,” 2 Cor. i. 13, and that “they
writ no other things than what they did acknowledge, and
they trusted would acknowledge to the end,” v. 11. “We
are,” say they, “made manifest to God, and we trust also
we are made manifest in your consciences,” v. 11. They re-
present it as a great absurdity, that they should be “found
false witnesses of God,” 1 Cor. xv. 15. They distinguish
themselves from others they call “false apostles and deceit–
ful workers,” by this very character of their sincerity. “For
we,” say they, “are not as many, who corrupt the word of
God; but as of sincerity, as of God, in the sight of God
speak we in Christ,” 2 Cor. ii. 17; “We have renounced the
hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor
handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation
of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's con-
science in the sight of God,” iv. 2; yea, for this they appeal
to the Searcher of all hearts, and to the consciences of those
to whom they write, saying, “Our exhortation was not of
deceit, or guile: for neither at any time used we flattering
words, as ye know; nor of men sought we glory, neither of
you, nor yet of others: ye are witnesses, and God also, how
holy, and justly, and unblameably, we behaved ourselves
among you that believe,” 1 Thess. ii. 3. 5, 6. 10. Now
with what face could these things be asserted by men who
knew that they, in these epistles, had told such things as
even the senses and experience of those to whom they wrote
must know to be the greatest falsehoods? Or how could
they to whom they wrote give credit to such impudent un-
truths as these must be, if the relations which they made of
these miraculous operations of the Holy Ghost had been fic-
titious things? This therefore is a farther evidence of their
sincerity and truth in these relations. -
Thirdly, Let us consider how the apostle treats those
churches of Corinth and Galatia, in which he speaks most
copiously of these operations of the Holy Ghost, and how
they stood affected to the apostle Paul. The Corinthians,
in his first chapter, are represented as schismatical ; in his
third, as carnal ; in the fifth, as glorying in an incestuous
person; in the sixth, as contentious, to their own shame, and
to the scandal of Christianity; in the eighth, as murderers
of them for whom Christ died ; in the tenth, as murmurers,
tempters of Christ, fornicators, idolaters, partakers of the
table of devils; in the eleventh, as coming to the Lord's
supper, “not for the better, but the worse,” offending in it
both against the rules of charity, and temperance, and faith,
in “not discerning the Lord's body;” in the twelfth and
fourteenth, as guilty of emulation, schisms, and contentions,
touching spiritual persons, and of vain-glory, scandal, and
confusion in the exercise of their spiritual gifts; and in the
fifteenth, as deniers of that resurrection, which was the great
foundation of all the future hopes of Christians. In his
second epistle he declares his fears that he might “find
among them debates, envyings, wrath, strifes, backbitings,
whisperings, swellings;” and that he should find among them
“many who had not yet repented of the uncleanness, fornis
cation, and lasciviousness, which they had committed,” 2
Cor. xii. 20, 21. And for these things, if not reformed, he
threatens he would “use sharpness,” and “come to them
with a rod,” 2 Cor. x. 6. xiii. 2. He charges the Galatians
with apostasy, admiring that “they were so soon removed
from him that called them to another gospel,” i. 6, and repre-
sents them as foolish and bewitched for falling from that
gospel, by which they had received these spiritual gifts, to
the beggarly elements of the law, iii. 1. 5. Now how could
the Corinthians be guilty of such emulations about spiritual
persons, or such disorders in the exercise of their spiritual
gifts, provided there were among them no such persons, and
they had no such gifts 2 How could they fear the lashes of
his rod, on the account of crimes of which they neither were
nor could be guilty? Why should they not be rather for
Cephas or Apollos, than for Paul, if Paul imposed upon them
with false stories and sensible untruths P Or why should not
the Galatians even quit that gospel in which he endeavoured
to confirm them only by an appeal to that which they must
know to be a lie P
Moreover, the affections of the members of these churches
were not so firm to him, their esteem of him was not so
great, as that he might securely lessen it by venturing on
these arts of falsehood, for he found some of his Corinthians
“puffed up” against him, and preferring others much before
him (1 Cor. iv. 18), charging him with lightness and incon,
stancy (2 Cor. i. 17), and “walking according to the flesh
(x. 2), looking upon him as a man too much transported,
TO THE EPISTLES.
523
and almost beside himself (2 Cor. v. 13), as “base in per-
son, and in speech contemptible” (x. 10): he complains that
they were “straitened in their bowels of affection” towards
him, and that the “more he loved him, the less he was be-
loved” by them (2 Cor. xii. 15), that they questioned his
apostleship, and even sought a proof of Christ speaking in
him (xiii. 3). He represents the Galatians as men who
questioned his apostleship and doctrine, or at least thought
him much inferior in both to others, ch. i., and in the second,
as supposing he dissembled with them, and elsewhere
preached himself that circumcision, he condemned in them,
v. 11, yea, who looked upon him as their enemy, and were
even ready to exclude him, iv. 16, 17. Now under these
circumstances could he hope to repair his credit with them,
and to establish his apostleship they questioned, by an ap-
peal to, and a relation of, such things as both their senses and
experience knew to be manifest untruths P But,
Fourthly, Could it be supposed that these churches were
so stupid and insensible, that they did not, or so partially
affected to these apostles, that they would not, take notice of
these things 2 These epistles inform us of other subtle and
industrious adversaries, men zealous to oppose and to adul-
terate the gospel which he preached, and desirous to find oc-
casions to depress and lessen the promoters of it, and to ad-
vance themselves above them (2 Cor. x. 12. xv. 11, 12).
Paul complains, that the Corinthians had among them “false
apostles, and deceitful workers, who transformed themselves
into the apostles of Christ,” when in truth they were “minis-
ters of Satan,” 2 Cor. xi. 13. 15, “men who corrupted the
word of God,” ii. 17, and sought to “corrupt them from the
simplicity that is in Christ,” xi. 3 : that among the Gala-
tians there were evil agents, who “troubled them, and would
pervert the gospel of Christ,” i. 7, “false brethren, who
come in privily to spy out their liberty,” ii. 4, men that de-
sired to “exclude” the apostles, that they might be affected
by them, iv. 17, men who constrained them to be circum-
cised, and observe the law, and yet keep it not themselves,
but only did this lest they should suffer persecution for the
cross of Christ, vi. 12, 13, wishing they were “cut off who”
did thus “trouble them,” v. 12. The like he saith, Phil. i.
15, 16. iii. 18. Col. ii. 4. 8. 19, 20. J. Tim. i. 5, 6. vi. 3—5.
2 Tim. ii. 17–19. iii. 5.8. Tit. i. 10, 11. Now if he him-
self were a vain talker, and “deceitful worker,” one who
endeavoured to impose upon them with false tales, with what
face could he object those things to others of which he was
himself so guilty P Or how could they whom he so confi-
dently doth accuse as guilty of these things, neglect this ob-
vious reply to such an accusation, that he himself, in his
appeal to the miraculous operations of the Holy Ghost, for
confirmation of his doctrine and apostleship, had done the
very thing he laid to their charge P. We have no reason to
suspect that all or any of these adversaries neglected any
pains or diligence to search into the truth of what Paul thus
offered to confirm his doctrine, and magnify his office; and
to vindicate himself from the aspersions which they cast
upon him. Since then we never find the truth of these rela-
tions questioned by any of those Jews, who so insatiably
thirsted for his blood, or by those Judaizing Christians, those
of the circumcision, who so vehemently inveighed against his
doctrine, his person, and his office ; and since we are assured
by the event, that if they ever made any such attempts they
all proved ineffectual, and insufficient to impair the credit of
those writings in the Christian world; it may be certainly
concluded, that these epistles could not be convinced of
falsehood, but contained matter of unquestionable truth in
these assertions touching the powerful operations of the Holy
Ghost.
Lastly, Let us consider what the apostles suffered for
this testimony, and what it cost them to propagate this faith
throughout the Christian world, and in what tragical expres-
sions they are set forth in scripture; “God,” saith Paul,
“hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to
death, for we are made a spectacle to the world, to angels,
and to men. Even to this present hour we both hunger,
and thirst, are naked, and buffeted, and have no certain
dwelling-place; and labour, working with our hands. Being
reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer if : being de-
famed, we entreat: we are made as the filth of the world,
and the off-scouring of all things to this very day,” I Cor. !
iv. 9. 11—13; that they “died daily;” or “stood in jeopardy
of it every hour,” 1 Cor. xv. 31; that they “approved them-
selves as ministers of Christ in much patience, in afflictions,
in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in
tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings,” 2 Cor. vi. 4, 5.
“We were,” saith he, “pressed above measure, beyond
strength, insomuch that we despaired of life,” 2 Cor. i. 8;
and in the eleventh chapter he gives such a dreadful account
of his own afflictions as can scarcely be read without trem-
bling. Now by what motive could they be acted in the pub-
lication of that faith, for which they suffered all that wit and
malice could inflict upon them, but the conviction of the
truth of what they published; seeing they actually lost all
in this, and could expect no blessings in another world
for calling God to witness to a lie? The moralists assure us,
that it is impossible for men to act without appearance of
some good to be pursued by that action; that love of life,
and a desire of self-preservation, is common to us with the
brutes, and it is as natural both for them and us to avoid
misery and torments: if then the apostles did actually
abandon all the enjoyments and expectations both of this
and of a better life, and wilfully subject themselves unto the
worst of misery and torments, in propagation of a testimony
from which they could expect no profit or advantage, they
must be even bereft of common sense, renounce the natural
instincts of mankind, and be in love with misery and ruin.
I confess, it is possible for men to lay down their lives for
false opinions, provided they believe them true; but if the
apostles were guilty of any cheat at all in this matter, they
must be guilty of a known imposture, and so must sacrifice
their lives for falsehood, i. e. for that from which they could
expect no good at all; which seems so inconsistent with the
common principles of reason and self-love, that nothing can
be more incredible. *
And this, I hope, may be sufficient to convince any rea-
sonable person that these epistles must be written whilst the
apostles lived, and be their genuine writings, and then the
truth of what they do so copiously assert concerning the mi-
raculous gifts and operations of the Holy Ghost, vouchsafed
to the believers of those times, cannot be reasonably con-
tested. -
§. IX. But yet I shall proceed to farther confirmation of
this argument from these two heads.
First, From a particular consideration of the gifts they
mention.
Secondly, From the reason we have to believe that these
extraordinary gifts were equally conferred upon all other
Christian churches, as upon those which the apostles men-
tion in their epistles, and also were of a lasting continuance
among them.
First, From a particular consideration of the miraculous
operations and the gifts they mention. Now they were of
tWO SOrtS :
The healing of the sick, and the curing of the lame, blind,
and maimed, the raising of the dead, the ejecting of devils
out of men, and from their oracles and temples; which being
performed by the apostles and primitive professors of Chris-
tianity upon others, I style outward operations.
Or else those inward gifts by which the understanding
was enlightened, and was enabled to discern that which their
natural powers could not reach, as, the gift of speaking with
unknown tongues, of prophecy, of discerning spirits. I be-
gin with -
The gift of healing the sick, and the diseased. Of which
let it be noted, -
First, That this gift was not confined to the apostles, but
was conferred on the inferior clergy, and other members of
the church indifferently : for amongst the gifts conferred
upon the church, the apostle mentions xagic para idºwärow,
those “ of healing,” 1 Cor. xii. 9, and, ver. 29, they who ex-
ercised those gifts are reckoned after apostles, prophets,
teachers, as being both distinct from them and inferior to
them; and ver. 30, the question is thus put, “Have all the
gifts of healing P” James directs the sick and the diseased
to the rulers of the church, with promise that the “prayer
of faith,” joined with the.holy oil, “should heal the sick,”
James v. 14, 15. And this is by our Saviour promised as
one of the signs that should “follow them that believed” in
his name; “They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall
524.
THE GENERAL PREFACE
recover,” Mark xvi. 18. This being therefore made as well
the matter of a promise, as of their frequent prayers; had
not these prayers been answered, and this promise verified,
Christianity would have, in probability, been blasted by it.
Secondly, This gift continued frequent and notorious in
the three first ages of the church, and the salutary influences
of it were dispersed throughout the world. Soon after the
destruction of Jerusalem, the Christians, saith Epiphanius,"
“returned from Pella, a nºweta Kºśyaxa #yačaevoi iázsoy,
working great miracles of healing.” Amongst the opera-
tions of the Holy Ghost conferred at baptism upon the con-
verts of his time, Justin Martyr'ſ enumerates, r3 rºc iáa sac,
“the gift of healing.” Irenaeus: proves the certainty of
our Lord's resurrection, from those miracles which his dis-
ciples performed still in his name: “For some of them,”
saith he, “cast out devils, others heal those that are diseased,
and even now the dead have been raised, and continue with
us many years. The spirits of many dead men have re-
turned again, and the man hath oft been given to the prayers
of the saints, the whole church of that place requesting it
with prayer and fasting.”—“Even to this day,” saith Ori-
gen, “there remain footsteps of that Holy Spirit, who ap-
peared in the shape of a dove among the Christians, for
#éetrážovat 8aipovac, kai troAXà; iázs, #writexotiat, they cast out
devils, and perform many cures.” And again, “Even now
the name of Christ exempts men from ecstasies, scares
away 8aiwowa; Hôn 3é Kai várovº, devils and diseases. Some
footsteps and remainders of the miracles which Christ per-
formed'ſ #y rai, #xxxnariat; zai ºxei viv yivsta, are to this
day done in the church by the name of Jesus.” And,
lastly, to that inquiry of Celsus, “What magnificent work
hath your Jesus done P” he answers,” “This is one magnifi-
cent work, that ºxg a hºegow, even to this day his name doth
héal diseases.” Now of the truth of what they thus deli-
ver, they pretend,
First, To be themselves eye-witnesses. “We can pro-
duce,” saith Origen, it “a vast number of Greeks and barba-
rians who believe in Christ ; some of whom, as a token of
the power of that faith they have embraced, heal diseases by
invocation of the name of God and Christ: xa, hºwſ; £op&xa-
&Ey, and we ourselves have seen many delivered by these
things from dangerous symptoms, ecstasies, and madness,
and ten thousand other evils which neither men nor devils
could exempt them from.”
Secondly, They call the God of heaven to witness to the
truth of what they say: “We have seen many such things,”
Saith Origen, if “being present, and beholding them with our
eyes, which should 'we write the heathens would laugh at
them as things feigned, &AA& y&6 Geó; ºfterve toč hºstégov
guyêtêáros, but God is witness to my conscience, that I do
not endeavour by false testimonies to commend the doctrine
of Christ.”
Thirdly, They appeal to the testimonies of their very
enemies. For thus TertullianS$ speaks to Scapula, a judge
in Carthage: “All these things may be suggested to thee
from thy office, and the advocates of it, who have received
these advantages from Christians; for the notary of one, the
child and kinsmen of another, have been freed by us from
devils: et quanti homesti viri (de vulgaribus enim non dici-
mus) aut à daemoniis, aut valetudinibus remediati suntº
And how many honourable men (for we speak not of the
vulgar) have been delivered from devils or diseases by the
Christians? It was Proculus,” saith he, “the Christian, that
* De Mens. et Ponder. sect. 15.
+ Dial. cum Tryph. p. 258.
f "AWAoi Bè rows Káºzyovra; 33 rā; rāv xetpāy imişārsac iſſyra,
wai üyüß &rokašiztáviv, #3m 3: Kai venpoi #y#0mgay wai tragé-
£zeway hºw iravoſ, Érezºv. Lib. ii. cap. 57. IIoxxâxic Six
ºrê švaykaſov, tºº war& rémoy Éxxxnaria; Tráan; airncraºync ºxer&
ymersia; woxxi, zaï 37-ysiac, Étréatpele rô mysia, roſ, Texsw-
ºrmzáros, zal #xagigön 3 &ySgorroc taſ; eixaſ, råy &ytov. Ibid.
cap. 56.
§ Contr. Cels. lib. i. p. 34.
T In Joh. tom. xxvi. p. 328, C.
** Contr. Cels. lib. ii. p. 20.
++ Lib. iii. p. 124.
# Lib. i. p. 35.
| P. 55.
§§ Cap. 4.
healed with oil Evodus; which so ingratiated him to Severus
that he kept him in his palace to his death.” And,
Lastly, By this very argument they triumph over the like
attempts of heretics and heathens, who pretend to do these
things by magic, or that their gods performed the same.
l. Over those heretics, who, knowing these miraculous cures
were frequently performed by the orthodox, were forced to
pretend the like. Thus Irenaeus comparing the miracles of
Christians with the magical operations of Simon Magus,
Carpocrates, and others of that gang: “This,” saith he,”
“is sufficient to confute them, that they can neither give
sight to the blind, nor hearing to the deaf, nor cure the weak,
the lame, the paralytic, nor those that are diseased in any
other part of the body; which yet,” saith he, “was often
done by Christians to the benefit of the heathens.” 2. Over
the like pretences of the heathens, who boasted that woxxa:
orop, &roy Trngdo-et; lºor&mday, “their gods did many cures, that
they gavef morbis medelam, spem afflictis, opem miseris, .
medicine to the diseased, hope to the afflicted, help to the
miserable; and that their gods had often cured $ multorum
hominum morbos valetudinesque, “the diseases of many.”
For to this they do not only answer, by saying they had no
assurance that their demons, however courted by them, could
heal the infirmities of human bodies, as Origen || replies to
Celsus; and that if they had anything of this kind, it was
only by applying medicines, and directing them to such
meats, such potions, and such juices of herbs, that is, saith
Arnobius, “by showing the skill of a physician rather than
the power of a god :” but that they could do nothing of this
nature worthy to be named with that which Christ and his
apostles did ; “he.” say they, “with a word commanded the
blind to see, the lame to walk, and cured all diseases with a
touch of his hand. Now, can you show us any among all
your magicians," consimile aliquid Christo millesimã ex
parte qui fecerit, who have done anything in the least resem-
bling Christ P” Yea,” Quid simile dii omnes quibus opem
dicitis aegris et periclitantibus latam P “What like to this
have any of your gods, to whom you do ascribe the cure of
the sick, performed P” That whereas their gods could not
transmit their supposed powers to others, our Jesus derived
this power to the mganest, “to rustics, fishermen, day-
labourers, F+ and did himself nothing which he gave not them
also power to do:” and that the name of Jesus restored
them to perfect health who were incurable by all the powers
of human art, the assistance of the demons or of the heathen
deities. “Seeing you have the confidence,” say they, “to
bring the cures of the heathen deities into contest with those
of Christ, how many thousand shall we instance in, who
have in vain repaired with supplications to all the temples
of the gods; in vain have tired the ears of your admired
AEsculapius ºff Quid ergö prodest ostendere unum aut al-
terum fortassé curatos, clim tot millibus subvenerit memo 2
And what availeth it, to tell us of the good success of two
or three, when the complaints of thousands receiving no help
from them show their want of power to assist the needy ?”
Let it be then considered, that the Christians, for three
whole centuries together, healed many myriads throughout
the world, who laboured under those diseases which were
incurable by all the arts of men and devils ; that they made
frequently the lame to walk, the deaf to hear, the blind to
See, and Sometimes raised the dead, by invocation of the
name of Jesus; and we shall find just reason to conclude,
* Nec enim calcis possunt donare visum, neque surdis au-
ditum, neque debiles, aut claudos, aut paralyticos curare,
vel alià quádam parte corporis vexatos, quemadodim saepè
evenit fieri Secundám corporalem infirmitatem, vel earum,
quas a foris accidunt, infirmitatum bonas valetudines restau-
rare.” Lib. ii. cap. 56, 57.
+ Cels. apud Orig. lib. viii. p. 415, 416.
# Caecil. apud Minut. p. 9.
$ Arnob. lib. i. p. 28.
| Lib. viii. p. 418.
* Arnob. lib. i. p. 25. ** P. 28.
++ Neque quicquam estab illo gestum, quod non omne
donaverat faciendum parvulis illis, et rusticis, et eorum sub-
jecerit potestati. P. 30, 31.
3: Ibid. p. 29.
To THE EPISTLEs.
525
“this was the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous
eyes.”
§. X. Secondly, Our Lord promised, that they who be-
lieved in him should “cast out devils,” which promise he
performed with such a constant scene of glorious instances,
and such amazing circumstances, if in this matter we may
credit the primitive professors of, and martyrs for, Christian-
ity, that it is not possible for any man to doubt the
truth and certainty of the Christian faith, who does not look
upon them as impudent untruths and lying legends. For,
First, Let us consider to whom this power was committed
over this “strong man armed,” over these “principalities,
and the rulers of the darkness of this world.” Our blessed
Saviour having said, “Behold, I give you authority over all
the power of the enemy,” great multitudes of Christians gave
a continual demonstration of the truth of this prediction.
For “that our Lord was sent for the destruction of these
evil spirits, wai vöv ša rāv bºr' 3-ply yiyogºvoy wa&sſy %yacºs, you
may now learn,” saith Justin Martyr,” “from what is done
before your eyes; for many Christians throughout all the
world, and in the very city of your empire, have healed
many that were possessed of the devil, and still do they eject
them by invocation of the name of Jesus, whom none of
your enchanters, conjurers, or sorcerers were able to expel.”
—“Those Christians are not few,” saith Origen, “who
eject devils from them that are possessed with them, and
this they do without all curious arts, or any sorcery or magic,
only by prayers, and simple adjuration of them, & imitray yºp
i86tal rô rootſtow ºrpárroval, for mostly this is done even by
the meanest Christians, the grace assistant to the word of
Christ demonstrating by this the devil's weakness, that to
expel them from the soul or body of a man, there is no need
of men of wisdom, or powerful demonstration of the faith.
Now” saith he,t “were not Christ of a divine composition,
the devils would not thus quit the bodies they possess at the
bare invocation of his name.” Fidelis quisque daimonibus
imperat, “Every Christian hath command over devils,” saith
Clemens. “Yea, such is the efficacy of the name of Jesus,”
saith Origen, & Eas' &rs kai Urd tačnov yogačaavoy &včev,
“that it sometimes profits when it is used by wicked men,”
according to our Lord's prediction, that at the dreadful audit
many should be rejected who could make this plea, “In thy
name we have cast out devils” (Matt. vii. 22). It was
sometimes efficacious even when used by them who were no
followers of the holy Jesus; as in the instance mentioned by
John, “Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name,
and we forbade him, because he followed not us” (Mark ix.
38); and this gave courage to the Jewish exorcists, the sons
of Sceva, to “adjure evil spirits by the name of Jesus.”
(Acts xix. 14). And not the Jews'ſ only, but other en-
chanters also, saith Austin,” “mixed the name of Jesus
with their incantations.”
Secondly, This name was efficacious against all evil spirits
whatsoever, none of them being able to resist the power of
it. “Even now,” saith Justin Martyr, ºf “we who believe
in Jesus, rà èatºwāvia Trávra zai Twelftwara Troyne& #0pxićovireº,
itrotao'agºsya, hºw fixogey, adjuring the whole herd of devils
and malignant spirits, have them all subject to our power.”
And again, “By the name of the Son of God, Trày Saikwáviov
ãºxičákºvoy vixárai, wał brotára Erat, all kinds of devils, being
adjured, are overcome, and brought into subjection.”—“It is
evidently seen,” saith Origen, if “that by the name of Jesus
ten thousand devils have been expelled from the souls and
bodies of those who were possessed by them.” On this ac-
count they triumphed over the heathen exorcists, that by the
name of Jesus they expelled those devils, “which none of
their sorcerers, enchanters, or magicians,” saith Justin Mar-
in our
* Apol. i. p. 45. + Contr. Cels. lib. vii. p. 334.
† El yag paſſ Seášev #v airó, 309stora aſ a racic. Lib. iii.
. 133.
p § Recogn. lib. iv. cap. 33, p. 461.
T Pug. Fid. p. 289, 290.
* Illi ipsi qui seducunt per ligaturas, per praecantationes,
per machinamenta inimici, miscent praecantationibus suis
nomen Christi. Tract. 7 in Joh. tom. ix. p. 63.
++ Dial. cum Tryph. p. 302, A. et 311.
It In Celsum, lib. i. p. 20. -
| Lib. i. p. 7.
tyr,” “could expel ;” and over all the heathen deities.
“Bring one possessed, mad, and raging,” saith Lactantius,t
“to your Jupiter, or, because he is not skilful in those mat-
ters, bring him to Æsculapius, or Apollo ; let both their
priests adjure him in the name of their supposed deities, to
quit his station ; they in vain attempt it ; but let the same
devils be adjured in the name of the true God, and instantly
they fly. Quae ratio est ut timeant Christum, Jovem non
timeant P Were this Jove any better than themselves, why
do they fear our Christ, and not their Jupiter P” And on
the same account they triumphed over those heretics, which
then appeared to corrupt the truth": for “we by this,” saith
Irenaeus: “confound the heresies of Simon Magus, Carpo-
crates, and the whole tribe of these deceitful workers, that
they cannot, omnes daemones effugare, expel all kinds of
devils, but only such as are confederate with them, if they
indeed do that.” Consider,
Thirdly, That they expelled them not only out of men,
but also from their temples, oracles, and altars. “We are so
far,” saith Origen,S“from worshipping of demons, that we ex-
pel them &nd rémoy #y of airoi; iègūkaa'iy, from the places where
they are seated.”—“Go no more,” saith Clemens of Alexan-
dria, in his exhortation to the Greeks, “to your Castalian,
or other fountains: all these prophetic streams are now dried
up, and they are passed away with their own fables.”—“Di-
vination and oracles,” saith Strabo," “were by the ancients
much regarded ; but now they are as generally neglected
and contemned, the oracle at Delphos and at Hammon being
wholly silent.”—“Not above one or two remains,” saith Plu-
tarch,” “the rest are wholly silent, or entirely desolate.”—
“The spirit of the gods” saith the apostate Julian, it “comes
now a ravia; ºfty kai Év čxiyotº, but rarely, and to very few.”
Thus are the very heathens forced, with Porphyry, it to con-
fess the triumphs of our Jesus over their supposed deities.
Nor did they only silence their oracles, and stop the mouths
both of their priests and of those demons that inspired them;
but they did open them, at the same time, to force them to
confess, even before their priests and votaries, that they were
evil spirits. “This most men,” saith Minutius,S$ “know, and
some of you, that all your demons, when they are forced out
of bodies by our words and prayers, do with grief confess
what they are, not belying their own filthiness, even in
your presence; ipsis testibus esse eos daemones de severum
confitentibus credite, believe their testimony when truly they
confess themselves to be but devils.”—“All the dominion we
have over them,” saith Tertullian, || “proceedeth from the
name of Christ, and the commembration of those things they
are to suffer from him as their judge ; this causeth them, at
our command, to come forth of the bodies they possess, with
great reluctance, and grief, and shame, when you are pre-
sent: you, who have credited their lies, believe them when
they speak the truth of themselves, for none will lie to their
disgrace, but for their honour ; they are more to be believed
who confess against themselves, than who deny for them.-
selves.”—“These devils,” saith Cyprian," || “being adjured
by the true God, do instantly confess, and are compelled to
* Apol. i. p. 45. + Lib. iv. cap. 27.
it Lib. ii. cap. 56.
§ Contra Cels. lib. vii. p. 376. | P. 9, A, B.
T Toſ: 3pxaiot; a 3xxovºv #y rººft xa: # wavrix}, xa,06xou, ka?
Xpna rhºta, vvyi y' \iyogia xaráxei woxxi., §iárep wai Tà èv"Aº-
govi aysłów tº #xxâxeirta, Xanothelov, trpársgow 3: Hºretianto.
Lib. xvii. p. 813. Et de fano Delphico, Nüy aiv &Aydºrral
xai ré isgöv, ºrgátegov 33 inreggaxxévroſ, Štip, Sn. Lib. ix. p. 419.
** ov3iv iſ ºrig' ray as truyóávez Sai Kai Statropäytäväyraßa.
Töv xenºrmatov Āgaſeolaiv, p.3.xxoy 3: waky vic h ºvery &rávry,
#xxeſſiv påyrac, rºw 3’ &xxoy rā ºfty atyń, rà è way tº #7%ia
xaría X.nze. De Defect. Orac. p. 411, E, F.
++ Apud Cyril. Al. lib. vi. p. 198, 199.
if Apud Euseb. Praep. Evang, lib. V. cap. 1.
§§ Hæc omniasciunt pleraque parsvestrum, ipsos demones
de semetipsis confiteri, quoties à nobis tormentis verborum,
et orationis incendiis de corporibus exiguntur. P. 31.
|| De corporibus nostro imperio excedunt inviti, et dolen-
tes, et vobis praesentibus erubescentes ; credite illis qum
verum de se ioquuntur, qui mentientibus creditis. Nemo
ad suum dedecus mentitur, &c. Apol. cap. 23.
*I'ſ De Idol. Wan. ed. Ox. p. 14.
526
THE GENERAL PREFACE
come out of the bodies they possess; you may see them by
our voice, and by the power of the invisible Majesty, as it
were whipped and scorched, and as their torment doth in-
crease, you may hear them howling, groaning, deprecating,
confessing, even in the audience of their votaries, whence they
come, and when they will depart.” In his epistles to Dona-
tus,” this is made one property of a Christian, “to force im-
pure spirits to confess what they are, and to urge them by
their powerful strokes to depart.” Consider,
Fourthly, This was done not in Rome and Carthage only
and other cities of the chiefest note, but, as it is observed by
Justin Martyr,t war& Trávra rēy wégaoy, “throughout all the
world,” not only for some weeks or months together, but, as
these records testify, from the first rise of Christians to the
days of Constantine ; for even about that time Lactantius f
speaks thus: “As Christ himself, whilst he conversed with
men, did with a word expel all kinds of devils, ita munc
sectatores ejus, so now his followers expel these filthy spirits
by their Master's name, and by the sign of his passion.”
Eusebius adds, that sizért kai yüy, “even now he shows
the virtue of his divine power, by expelling wicked and
hurtful devils from the bodies and the souls of men, only by
mention of his name, &c airſ releg warsºpapasy, as from ex-
perience we have found.” This they did,
Lastly, Say these authors, without the use of medicines
or magical incantations, only “by invocation of the name of
Jesus,” or “by reciting the sacred books,” saith Origen ;|
“without deceit, or without gain,” saith Irenaeus; ºff sine
pramio, sine mercede, “without advantage or reward,” saith
Tertullian ;** it being then conceived criminal to gain by
such spiritual gifts, and contrary to that injunction of their
Lord, Matt. x. 8, “Freely ye have received, freely give.”
And truly to conceive these things were done by any medi-
cines, or magical enchantments, is the greatest folly ; for
how should multitudes of mean and simple Christians arrive
at such a skill in any of those arts, which neither Jew nor
gentile, who had long exercised them, could attain unto,
and which none of these numerous apostates or heretics
which fell off from them in the times of persecution could
discover or instruct others to perform, or themselves ex-
ercise P And much less is it to be thought that Satan should
assist them to build Christianity upon the ruins of his own
kingdom, and to promote an interest as contrary both to his
mature and designs, as is light to darkness. . Moreover, that
none might doubt the truth of these particulars;
First, They frequently appeal even to the senses of the
very infidels. “If you are willing,” saith Justin Martyr, if
xał vily iz rāy it’ & ‘Liv yiyogaśvoy flow taſy arsicºval, “it is
easy for you even now to be assured of these things with
your own eyes.” Dictis non stetis, si oculi vestri et aures
permiserint vobis, “Disbelieve these things,” saith Tertul-
lian, f: “if your eyes and ears will suffer you to do so.”
Admirable are those words of Cyprian SS to Demetrianus, a
persecutor of the Christians, Veni et cognosce vera esse quae
dicinus. “Come and experiment the truth of what we say;
and since thou Sayest thou worshippest the gods, believe the
gods thou worshippest ; or if thou wilt, believe thyself: for
he that now dwells in thy breast, and holds thy soul in igno-
rance, shall in thy audience speak of thee; thou shalt see
them entreating us whom thou entreatest, them whom thou
fearest fearing us ; thou shalt see them bound, and trem-
bling under our hand, whom thou adorest as gods; sure this
must be sufficient to confound thee in thy errors, whom thou
Seest and hearest thy gods, at our command, instantly con-
* Immundos et erraticos spiritus, qui se expugnandis
hominibus immerserint, ad confessionem minis increpantibus
cogere, ut recedant duris verberibus urgere. Ibid. p. 4.
+ Apol. p. 45. £ Lib. iv. cap. 27.
§ Contra Hierocl. p. 514.
| Lib. iv. p. 124. lib. vii. p. 376.
* Lib. ii. cap. 57. ** Apol, cap. 37.
++ Dial. cum. Tryph. p. 311. †† Apol. cap. 23.
§§ Si volueris de teipso loquetur, audiente te; wide-
bis nos rogariab is quos tu rogas, timeri ab is quos tutimes,
quos tu adoras widebis sub manå nostrá stare vinctos, et tre-
º captivos quos tu suspicis et veneraris ut dominos.
. 191.
fessing what they are, and not during to conceal their cheats
in thy presence.” -
Secondly, They also appeal to their consciences; “We
expel devils out of men,” saith Tertullian,” sicut plurimis
notum est, “as very many know.”—“Most men are very
well acquainted with these things,” saith Minutius, ºf pars
veström, “and so some of you heathens are.” They appeal,
Thirdly, To the confessions of the very devils, as hath
been proved already from the testimonies of Tertullian,
Minutius, Cyprian ; and by this very argument Theophilust
proves them to be evil spirits, that ºw#x2, Tot 3sigo, “even at
this day, being exorcised by the name of the true God, they
confess themselves to be deceitful spirits.” And,
Fourthly, They appeal to the effects produced upon the
persons thus dispossessed, even their conversion by this
means to the Christian faith. “Some Christians,” saith Ire-
naeus," “have the gift of casting out devils so firmly, and
So certainly, Šars aroxxâxt; ºria rečety abrovº #xsivov; xaflagto-Sèvrac
ătră răy royngöv Trygvºrov, that many times they who are
healed, and delivered from these evil spirits, believe, and do
continue in the church.” Haec denique testimonia deorum
vestrorum Christianos facere consueverunt, “These testimo-
nies of your gods do oft make Christians,” saith Tertullian; |
“believing them, we believe in Christ, they advance the
credit of our writings, and build up our hope; for you
worship them even with the blood of Christians ; they there-
fore would not lose such profitable votaries, lest turning
Christians, you should, with us, expel them, si illis, sub Chris-
tiano volente vobis veritatem probare, mentiri liceret, if they
durst lie to a Christian attempting to confirm you in the
truth.” Lactantius," accounting for the multitude of Chris-
tians, saith, this is no small reason of it, “that the devils
being cast out by Christians, omnes qui resanati fuerint,
adhaerent religioni cujus potentiam Senserunt, they who are
healed embrace that faith whose benefit and power they have
felt.”
Fifthly, They encourage others to embrace the Christian
faith by promising to them this power of ejecting devils,
when they should cordially embrace it. “Be ye baptized,”
saith Clemens,” “in the name of the most holy Trinity ;
and then if you believe with an entire faith, and with true
purity of mind, etiam ex aliis vos malignos spiritus effuge-
tis, et daemones, you shall expel impure spirits and devils out
of others, and free men from diseases; for the devils know
and own those who have given up themselves to God, and
sometimes at their very presence are cast out ; we exhort
you therefore to be of our religion, and we assure you that
when you do advance to the same faith and innocence of
life with us, erit par vobis atque eadem etiam contra daemo-
nes potestas, you shall obtain like power over the evil
spirits.”
Lastly, They offer upon pain of death, and all that could
be dear to them, to make this experiment before the eyes
of heathens, i. e. not only to eject those very demons they
invoked, but even to force them to confess they were cheats,
and own themselves to be but devils. “I come now,” saith
Tertullian, ºf “to the demonstration” of the point, Edatur
hic aliquis coram tribunalibus vestris, “Let any one be
placed before your tribunals who manifestly is possessed by
the devil, being commanded by any Christian to speak what
he is, he shall as certainly truly confess himself to be a devil,
as elsewhere he doth falsely profess to be a god; produce
any of them who profess to be inspired by any of your gods,
nisi se daemones confessi fuerint, Christiano mentiri non
audentes, ibidem illius Christiani procacissimi sanguinem
fundite, if they do not confess themselves to be devils, not
daring to lie to a Christian, let the blood of that malapert
Christian be shed before you in that very place. What is
more manifest than this experiment, more faithful than this
proof? Here is plain evidence laid before you, whose virtue
will assist itself; here can be no suspicion; even say, that
magic, or some such fallacy, is imposed upon you, if your
eyes and ears will permit you.”
* Ad. Scap. cap. 2. +
f Ad Autol. lib. ii. p. 87, C. §
| Apol. cap. 23.
"I Lib. v. cap. 27
†† Apol. cap. 23.
P. 31.
Lib. ii. cap. 57.
** Recog. lib. iv. sect. 33, 34.
TO THE EPISTLES,
527
All this we have delivered upon certain knowledge, and
* confirmed to us with the highest attestations, by men of
greatest wisdom, to distinguish betwixt truth and falsehood,
and so discern matters of real fact from vain impostures ;
by men of that sincerity and undisguised piety, as renders
their veracity, in matters subject to their senses and their
experience, incontestable ; by men who suffered all that is
terrible to human nature, for the profession of a faith whose
truth depended on the certainty of these events, and which,
in this world, called for continual acts of self-denial and
austerity, and the renouncing all that tends to gratify the
sensual appetite, only for the enjoyment of inward and spi-
ritual pleasures here, and of celestial joys hereafter. Again,
all that is said in their discourses directed to heathen empe-
rors and judges, or to the heathen world, partly to mitigate
their hatred of them, and their severities against them, and
partly to engage them to embrace the Christian faith, which
sure no person of sincerity would, no men of wisdom could,
attempt by such untruths as might be easily detected by
them: for could they boast of their continual triumphs over
Satan's kingdom throughout all the world, and send the
heathems to Rome and Carthage, and other famous cities, to
be convinced of the truth of what they said: would they
talk of the multitude of converts they had made to the
Christian faith by dispossessing men of devils, or forcing evil
spirits in their presence to confess they were but devils:
would they encourage others to embrace the Christian faith,
by promise of like power when they did cordially believe
and practise suitably to it: would they appeal to the senses,
to the ears and eyes, to the conscience and experience of
their most spiteful adversaries: would they provoke them
to make the experiment of the truth of what they said with
the hazard of their lives, and even encourage them to shed
their blood, if, upon trial, they should fail of the perform-
ance: or could they by such means as these prevail upon
the world, and daily gain new proselytes, had not the evi-
dence of truth confirmed their sayings 2 And if in these
assertions they speak “the words of truth and soberness,”
they give the clearest evidence of the power of that Jesus
whose name so mightily prevailed over the host of these
infernal legions. For it is reasonable to conceive these devils,
without constraint from a superior power, should not only
quit the power they so long had exercised over the bodies
and the souls of them who worshipped them as gods; but
also should confess so oft, even in the presence of their vota-
ries, at the command of them who sought the ruin of their
Kingdom, and used their confession to that purpose, that they
were evil spirits? or could the name of Jesus, without the
power to which he pretended, have been so great a terror
and a forment to them, or be thus efficacious even in the
mouths of wicked men, and those who followed not him,
had not this also tended to the confirmation of his power 2
Did ever any of the heathen jugglers, with all their arts of
magic, extort such plain confessions from them P Did they
thus force them to desert the bodies and the temples they
possessed, and to exert their power to the ruin of them-
selves, and the amendment of those souls they had ensnared P
This therefore being only done by our Jesus, or others in
his name, demonstrates his divine commission.
Obj. Against this signal demonstration of the truth of
the Christian faith, the only cavil which the infidels and |
sceptics raise, is this, that we find no mention of persons
thus possessed with the devil among Jews or gentiles before
our Saviour's advent; nor have we now experience of any
such thing, either among Christians or in the heathen world,
and therefore cannot easily believe it was so then, but rather
that the persons represented as demonhcs were only per-
sons afflicted with some strange diseases, fits of the mother,
convulsions, falling-sickness, madness, and the like.
Ans. 1. To this I answer, That were this granted, yet
must this be a demonstration of the power of Christ, and of
the truth of the Christian faith, that it enabled its professors
everywhere, by virtue of the name and invocation of the
holy Jesus, thus to heal all manner of distempers, which |
no physicians could cure by their art, much less by speaking
of a word.
Secondly, Moreover, I have sufficiently confuted this
cavil, by showing that the Christians of those times ejected
devils, not only out of men, but also from their temples, ora-
cles, and altars; and that so signally, that even the best
historians of those ages, though by religion heathens, and
some of the professed enemies of Christianity, are forced to
confess their oracles were silent, and that Christianity had
thus triumphed over their supposed deities; and also by
showing, that they forced these evil spirits to confess they
were but devils. Besides, we find, both in the sacred re-
cords, and in the writings of those fathers, a constant and a
plain distinction betwixt these two things, “the curing dis-
eases,” and “the casting out of devils;” so Mark i. 34, “He
healed many that were sick of divers diseases, and cast out
many devils, and suffered not the devils to speak, because
they knew him;” Matt. x. 1, “He gave to the apostles power
against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all
manner of sickness and diseases.” The Christians, saith Ire-
maeus,” “truly cast out devils and heal the sick by imposition
of hands.” 'egaargãourt &alp.oya; Kai roºs tariº intrºxº,
“They cast out devils and heal many diseases,” saith Ori-
gen.: “How many honest men have by us been healed, or
freed from devils?” is the inquiry of Tertullian.f
Thirdly, The falsehood of the suggestion, that men pos-
sessed with evil spirits were not known among the Jews in
former ages, appears from the plain testimonies of Jose-
phus, who saith, that “God taught Solomon this wisdom
for the benefit of men; and that he left behind him those
ways of exorcising demons, which so effectually expelled
them, that they never entered into them more; and from
that time to this hath that way of curing those who were
possessed been very powerful.” He also talks of a strange
herb, or shrub, which being artificially pulled up, lºrë wºod.
asva Balºcávia taxšac Éexačves, “presently expels devils.”
We also read in the Acts of sevensons of one Sceva, a Jew,
who were exorcists, Acts xix. 13, and of “their children
casting out devils,” Matt. xii. 27. And both Justin Mar-
tyrºl and Irenaeus,” inform us, that they did this before the
time of our Saviour, “by the invocation of the God of Abra-
ham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
That among the heathens there were persons thus pos-
sessed, appears sufficiently by this, that otherwise the Chris
tians could not have pretended to cast them out; and from
the exorcists and magicians in every nation, of whom Plu:
tarch++ saith, that “they advised those who were possessed
to repeat the Ephesian letters:” and Lucianff mentions it
as thing known to all, that they had those “who did dispos:
sess demons.” Justin. Martyrss saith, the Jews exorcised
them, ºr; réxyn &ree zai rā #Synxpégévot, “using that art as
the heathens did.” The names of Abraham, Isaac, and Ja-
cob, are used, saith Origen, || not only by the J ewish exor
cists, 3xx& y&p axe33v ×ai Trávraº rows ré ºw #Trºy *a,
paystºw ºrgayº arguºvovº, “but almost by all that practise
the art of magic or enchantment.” So that it is certain that
the history of Christ and his apostles casting out devils in
Judea, and of the Christians casting them out throughout the
world, was therefore never questioned by Jew or gentile,
because they had among themselves in every place pre-
tenders to it.
And if after the triumphs of the gospel there now con-
tinue among Christians no footsteps of this power of Satan,
this is a testimony of the truth of what our Lord foretold,
“Now is the prince of this world cast out,” John xii. 31.
S. XI. Of those internal gifts, which show the power of
the Holy Ghost engaged to promote the Christian faith.
First, That of tongues is most illustrious. This WaS 3.
gift exceeding requisite to the speedy propagation of the
gospel, which in the space of forty years was by our Lord's
* Lib. ii. cap. 56, 57. Contra Celsum, lib. i. p. 43.
it Ad Scap. cap. 4. *
§ Kai reárov; £oendorsov xaráñeirºv, of vºodºva rā 3alſºa,
&; anxár' ºravºx6sſy ix81%xoval, zai abrº Fºx; ºv was nºw
0epareia traffarov ioxſet. Arch. lib. viii, cap. 2, P. 257.
| De Bello Jud. Jib. vii. cap. 23, p. 981.
ºf Dial. p. 311. ** Lib. ii. cap. 5. * - . / *
++ of gayoi row; 3atºovičow#vov; wixeſouri rà Epigºtéº-
ºwara ºrgö, airoi; warañáyely. Sympos. lib. i. 1, 3, P. 706.
††"ocol row, Sawoyºvira; 3raxxáTroval rôy 3eigwéroy. Phi-
lops. ed. Gr. p. 363, 364.
§§ Dial. p. 311. e e -
| Lib. iv. p. 184, 185, et lib. i. p. 17.
528
THE GENERAL PREFACE
prediction, Matt. xxiv. 14, to spread itself throughout the
world. And therefore it was daily exercised among the
heathens to convert them, and by themselves, when they
embraced the Christian faith; for the family, the friends, and
kindred of Cornelius, “received the Holy Ghost;” and, to
the amazement of the Jewish converts, “spake with tongues,
and magnified God,” Acts x. 46. Upon the twelve disciples
of the Baptist, the apostle lays his hands, and they “receive
the Holy Ghost, and speak with tongues,” Acts xix. 6. St.
Paul, in his Epistle to the church of Corinth, saith, “They
were enriched with, and they abounded, Éy Travºr: Aéyò, in all
tongues,” 2 Cor. i. 5 (see the note there). Among the gifts
imparted to them, he reckons “divers kinds of tongues, and
the interpretation of them,” 1 Cor. xii. 9, and puts the
question to them thus, ver. 30, “Do all speak with tongues?”
This he objecteth as their crime, that “when they came to-
gether every one had his tongue,” 1 Cor. xiv. 26, and adds,
that if they thus continued to use this gift, it would breed
confusion in their churches, and cause their auditors to say,
“That they were mad,” ver. 23. Whence he adviseth them,
who used these tongues, to “pray they might interpret,”
ver. 23, permitting only two or three to speak with tongues
in one assembly, and that “by course, and with interpreta-
tion,” ver. 26–28, imposing silence on them when no in-
terpreter was present ; and order, saith he, being thus
observed, “Let no man forbid to speak with tongues,” ver.
39. And if this gift was so abundantly conferred upon that
church, in which the apostle found so great miscarriages, and
of which only he saith, “They came behind the other
churches in no gifts;” we reasonably may suppose others, and
better churches, had an equal share in this gift. Accordingly,
“we have heard,” saith Irenaeus, lib. v. cap. 6, “many bre-
thren who have received the Spirit of God, Kai Tray'rošarraſ;
Aaxoſyrov Šiš II,Eigato; yacázaag, and by that Spirit spake all
languages.”
And now, what can the unbeliever offer to invalidate the
strength of this convincing demonstration ? Will he ascribe
this gift to the assistance of the devil? Let him produce
one instance of like nature from any heathen writer, to show
that ever this was done by any besides Christians: or tellus,
why that subtle spirit should thus concern himself to pro-
pagate and to confirm that faith, which bears the clearest
opposition both to his nature and designs P Will they as-
cribe it to some fit of melancholy, or some distemper of the
brain 2 What can be more absurd, than to assert, that at
the preaching of a sermon, the rushing of a mighty wind,
the laying on of an apostle's hands, or the baptizing of a
person in the name of Jesus, such unaccountable diseases
should seize on many thousands, and should enable them to
speak a language they had never learned P Or, is it rea-
sonable to think this distemper should be so peculiar to
Christian constitutions, as that no other persons should pre-
tend to it? And that it should wholly cease from them,
when once the Christian faith had spread itself over all na-
tions, Christians themselves never pretending that it lasted
beyond the second century 2
Š. XII. The second internal gift, of which the scripture
maketh frequent mention, is that of prophecy; of which let
it be noted,
That seeing the Jews, from the foundation of their church
to the completion of the canon of the Old Testament, had a
continual succession of prophets to instruct them in the
mind of God, it seemeth highly requisite that the like gift
should for some season be conferred upon the church of
Christ, which was not only to succeed, but highly to excel
the Jewish economy. Especially, if we consider, that their
own prophet Joel had foretold, touching the times of the
Messiah promised to the Jews, God would then “pour his
Spirit upon all flesh, and their sons and daughters should
prophesy” (Joel ii. 28); and also, that our Lord had pro-
mised to send the Spirit of truth to his disciples, to lead
them into all truth, and to declare unto them things to come
(John xvi. 13), and to send to the Jewish nation, “prophets
and wise men” (Matt. xxiii. 34); and some of these must be
supposed to speak, when he engageth, that “he that re-
ceiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet, shall receive a
prophet's reward” (Matt. x. 41). So that you see the Chris-
tians had just reason to expect the spirit of prophecy should
be again revived in their days, and plentifully conferred upon
them; and that both Jew and gentile must have had sitſ:-
cient cause to question the whole truth of Christian faith,
had not this spirit of prophecy been found amongst them :
and therefore of the completion of this promise we are
assured,
First, From the catalogue of Christian prophets, men-
tioned in the New Testament and ancient writers of the
church. For Acts xi. 27, 28, mention is made of Christian
prophets coming from Jerusalem; and of Agabus, who fore-
told the famine that happened in the days of Claudius
Caesar, as Josephus,” Suetonius, F and Dion testify.j: In
the thirteenth chapter, we are told of five prophets in the
church of Antioch, who, whilst they were employed in the
public ministry, received a divine afflatus, commanding
them to “separate Barnabas and Saul,” to some special
work, to which the Holy Spirit had designed them, ver. 3.
And xv. 32, we read of Judas and Silas, who, “being pro-
phets, exhorted the brethren with many words:” and xix. 6,
of twelve disciples who, when Paul had laid his hands upon
them, “spake with tongues and prophesied.” In the Re-
velation of John, mention is made of Christ's “servants, the
prophets,” xvi. 6, and of “the blood of the prophets slain.”
by the beast, xviii. 20. 24, and of “the prophets his brethren,”
xix. 10. Eusebius's cites an ancient author, who speaks of
Quadratus and others, as Trygvºcato poºnflávre; aſsoºnrai, “in-
spired prophets,” and who declared that the prophetic gift
continued still in the church. Moreover, as Joel had fore-
told, that “in those days their daughters and their hand-
maids should prophesy;” so we read, in the history of the
Acts, of “four daughters of Philip the evangelist who did
prophesy,” Acts xxi. 9, in the Epistle to the Corinthians, of
women prophesying, 1 Cor. xi. 5, and in the Ecclesiastical
History, of Ammial of Philadelphia, “a prophetess.”
In a word, there was not any church in which this gift of
prophecy was not frequent. We read of prophets at Jeru-
salem, the mother of all churches, Acts xi. 27, in the church
of Antioch, Acts .xiii. 1, of the gift of prophecy in the
church of Rome, Rom. xii. 6, in that of Corinth and Thes-
salonica, 1 Thess. v. 20, and of “spiritual persons” in the
church of Galatia, vi. 1. They are said to be placed in the
church in general : “For God,” saith the apostle, “hath set
some in the church ; first, apostles ; Secondly, prophets;
thirdly, teachers:” as therefore the apostles and the teachers,
so did the prophets exercise their functions in all churches.
They were given to the church for ends which equally con-
cerned all their assemblies, Christ having given “some apos-
tles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and
teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the
ministry, for the edifying the body of Christ,” Eph. ix. 11,
12. Now these are ends in which all churches must be
equally concerned, and therefore we have reason to believe,
that as apostles, evangelists, and pastors, so prophets also
were vouchsafed to them all.
Moreover, it seems evident, that at the first foundation of
a Christian church among the gentiles, there were no set-
tled pastors to perform the public offices in their assemblies;
but they were generally performed by prophets, or by spi-
ritual men, who had the gift of prophecy, or were in the as-
sembly excited to that work by an afflatus of the 'Holy
Spirit. To clear up this, let it be noted :
First, That as soon as any person then embraced the
Christian faith, they received with it the gift of prophecy,
or of the Holy Ghost ; so when Peter and John laid hands
on the Samaritan converts, “they received the Holy Ghost”
(Acts viii. 15); when Peter preached to Cornelius and his
friends, “the Holy Ghost fell on all them that heard the
word, and they spake with tongues, and magnified God”
(Acts x. 44. 46); so also the twelve disciples of the Baptist,
when St. Paul laid his hands upon them, “spake with tongues
and prophesied” (Acts xix. 6); so that this gift of prophecy
was still contemporary with a Christian church, or family of
Christian converts.
Note, Secondly, That the apostles did not presently, upon
the conversion of any number of persons to the Christian
faith, ordain them “elders in every church,” but left them
for a season to the conduct of those prophets and spiritual
* Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 2. + Cap. 18. f Lib. lx.
§ Hist. Eccles, lib. v. cap. 17. | Ibid.
w
TO THE EPISTLES.
529
men the Holy Ghost had fitted for that work. The church
of Antioch was converted, saith Dr. Lightfoot, in the fortieth
year of our Lord, and “a great number of them turned to
the Lord” (Acts xi. 21), and yet no elders were ordained
among them till the fiftieth year (Acts xiv. 23): but in this
interval, there were prophets among them who ministered in
their assemblies to the Lord (xiii. 2). The inhabitants of
the isle of Crete were converted for some considerable time
before St. Paul sent Titus to them, “to set in order the
things which were lacking, and ordain elders in every city”
(i. 5). How were they then in the meantime supplied with
teachers, and men that ministered in their assemblies, unless
by men assisted by that Spirit “which was shed on them
abundantly” at their conversion ? (iii. 5, 6,) And if we may
take an estimate of other churches, by what was certainly
performed in the assemblies of the church of Corinth, we
cannot reasonably doubt the truth of this assertion. For,
whereas all the public offices performed in the church
were prayer and psalmody, expounding or preaching of
the word, and eucharistical oblations; all these are in the
fourteenth chapter of the First Epistle ascribed to the pro-
phets in that church, or to the men endowed with spiritual
gifts among them : for when they came together, some of
them prayed, others composed sacred hymns by their “spi-
ritual gift,” ver, 15. Their prophets did then teach for eai-
fication, exhortation, and comfort, ver. 3. 31, they also d'."
then sixoyeſy, “bless,” which is the word used for consecra
tion of the eucharist, x. 16, and Eixagtateſy, “give thanks,
twhich is the word used in our Lord’s institution of this sa-
crament, I Cor. xi. 21, and at this thanksgiving the people
answered, “Amen,” as they were wont to do at the cele-
bration of the sacrament, ver, 16, 17. That all, or any of
those things were done by stated pastors, we never read in
the epistles to that church. And this seems yet more
probable, touching the church of Corinth, because there
seems no order observed among them in their prophesying,
and no subjecting of the prophets in their assemblies to
any ruler in that church. When the incestuous person was
to be delivered up to Satan, this was done by the authority
of Paul, with the concurrence of the whole assembly ;
“When you are met together,” saith he, “to deliver such a
one to Satan” (1 Cor. v. 4), “put away from yourselves that
wicked person” (ver. 13). And when he speaketh of this
act of discipline, he calls it Émitigia ind tây Tragiovov, “the
punishment inflicted by many,” 2 Cor. ii. 6 (see the note
there). And when the same person was to be absolved,
there is no direction sent to any rulers of the church to give
him absolution, but all seems immediately to be done by the
authority of St. Paul, and by the whole assembly. And,
lastly, in the epistle sent from Corinth to the church of
Rome, we find not any salutation sent to Rome from any bi-
shop or elder of the church of Corinth, but only from the
kindred of Paul, from “ Gaius the host” of that church,
“Erastus the chamberlain of the city,” and “Quartus a bro-
ther” (xvi. 21–23). All which things put together, render
it more than probable there were then no settled pastors in
the church of Corinth, which makes it necessary that the
affairs of their church assemblies should be wholly managed
by their prophets and spiritual persons.
It seemeth also highly probable, this was the case of other
churches, since the apostle, directing his epistles to many of
them, maketh no mention of any church governors amongst
them, either in the beginning of them, as he doth in his
epistle to the Philippians, or the salutations at the close of
them, as he doth in that to the Hebrews, saying, “Salute all
them who have the rule over you,” xiii. 24. For instance,
there is no direction of the epistle writ to the Galatians to
any church governors among them, no salutation of them in
the close of it, no charge against them for suffering those
great disorders which had obtained in that church; no exhor-
tation to them to take heed to their ministry, or to oppose
themselves to the deceivers then crept in among them ; but
there are plain directions given to the spiritual men, or to
the prophets then among them, in these words, “Brethren,
if any man be overtaken with a fault, ye that are spiritual,”
i. e. who are endowed with those spiritual gifts which enable
• Justin Mart. Apol. ii. p. 97. Constit. Ap, lib, viii.
cap. 12.
you for public ministrations in the church, “restore such an
one in the spirit of meekness,” vi. 1 (see the note there);
which makes it highly probable, that church was managed,
not by stated pastors, but by prophets and spiritual teachers
of the word. - - -
Thus also seems it to have been in the church of Thessa-
lonica. For (1.) we find no notice taken of them in the
front of the epistles to them, no salutation of them in the
close; the words of salutation being only these, “Salute all
the brethren with a holy kiss.” (2) We find no directions
given to them in particular, but only to the brethren in gen-
eral, touching such matters as must have related to their
office only, or chiefly, had they been settled rulers in that
church. The charge, 1 Thess. v. 14, runs thus: “We ex-
hort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the
feeble-minded, support the weak:” and, 2 Thess. ii. 6, thus:
“We command you, brethren, in the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that
walks disorderly, and not according to the tradition which
ye have received from us:” and, ver. 13, 14, “And ye,
brethren, if any man obey not the word by this epistle,
note that man, and have no company with him, that he may
be ashamed; yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish
him as a brother:” and, lastly, to these brethren the adjura-
tion, mentioned v. 27, is directed, “charging them by the
lord, that this epistle be read to all the holy brethren.”
The same may be observed of the epistle directed by the
same apostle to the church of Rome; for it is directed in
the general, “to all that are in Rome, beloved of God, and
Saints called ;” and among the numerous salutations in the
close, we find not one directed to any stated pastors of that
church; but this we find, that having finished his great dis-
pute concerning justification, and the rejection of the Jews,
he exhorts them “to be wise to sobriety, as God had distri-
buted to every one the measure of faith,” xii. 4, and adds,
“Having therefore gifts differing according to the grace given
us, whether it be prophecy, let us prophecy according to the
proportion of faith ; or ministry, let us wait on our minis-
try; or he that teacheth on teaching.” Now evident it is,
that both the prophets and teachers in those times are reck-
oned as men who exercised those offices by a spiritual
afflatus, and were enabled to perform them by the miracu '
lous gifts of the Holy Spirit then vouchsafed to them;
whence they are styled, in the words now cited, Xagiogata,
“spiritual gifts.” Hence therefore it is highly probable,
these were the men who then presided in their assemblies,
and exercised those sacred offices in the church of Rome.
Now if these things were so, all Christian churches, at their
first conversion to Christianity, must have a sensible and
constant demonstration of the exercise of these spiritual
gifts in their assemblies, and so a certain evidence of the
divine presence with them, and of the truth of the profession
they embraced.
This will be farther evident, if we consider what is as-
cribed to these prophets, what demonstrations they afforded
that they were truly acted by a divine afflatus.
In prosecution of this head, I do acknowledge that pro-
phecy doth, 1 Cor. xiv., signify expounding the scriptures,
“for exhortation, edification, and comfort ;” but then it sig-
nifies the doing this by a divine afflatus; and when this gift
was exercised by singing, or by praising God, this was still
done, as holy scripture doth inform us, &8aſ, Trygvaarººſ,
in psalms, and hymns, and odes, composed by the immediate
impulse and assistance of the Holy Ghost; for upon that
account alone could this be styled “praying” and “singing
in the Holy Ghost,” and mentioned as an instance of their
spiritual gifts: and such a manifestation of the Spirit did
attend them in this exercise, as made it easy for others to
discern that they were prophets: for either with the gift of
prophecy they had the gift of tongues, as in the first effusion
of the Holy Ghost, when “they spake with other tongues
the wonderful things of God” (Acts ii. 1]), and thereby
showed the spirit of prophecy, which God had promised by
his servant Joel, was fulfilled upon them, and on Cornelius
and his kinsmen, the first gentile converts; for by this were
the Jews convinced that * God had shed on them also the
gift of the Holy Ghost, that they heard them speak with
tongues, and magnify God” (Acts x. 44, 45); or secondly,
they foretold things future and contingent, * OuT
530
THE GENERAL PREFACE
Saviour's promise, that “the Spirit he would send should
show them things to come” (John xvi. 13). Thus we find
mention in the sacred story of the prophet Agabus, who
foretold the year before that dearth which happened in the
reign of Claudius (Acts xi. 27), that other Christians might
be moved by this prediction to send their charity to their
brethren where the famine pinched them most, as it did in
Judea, saith Josephus; and of Timothy, chosen to be an
evangelist “according to the foregoing prophecies concerning
him;” whence by the ancients this gift was styled, 3 riſ,
orgayyaraac,” the gift of foreknowledge.”
Moreover, in the epistles of Paul we find not only mention
of prophets settled in the church, and of prophecy reckoned
among the gifts of the good Spirit, but we find him com-
paring it with other gifts; particularly (1.) with that of
tongues, and preferring it before that gift, as being such a
gift as tended more to the edification of the church : “for
greater is he that prophesieth than he that speaketh with
tongues,” saith the apostle ; “for he that speaketh with
tongues edifieth himself only, but he that prophesieth edifies
the church” (1 Cor. xiv. 2, 5). Hence he declareth his de-
sire that they should “rather prophesy” than speak with
tongues. (2.) He compares it with that of charity, declar-
ing, in that case, that charity excels it, because, “though we
have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and
all knowledge, yet if we have no charity we are nothing”
(1 Cor. xiii. 2); and because “prophecies shall cease,” but
“charity never ceaseth” (ver. 8). Moreover, he gives direc-
tions to prophets, to “prophesy according to the proportion
of faith” (Rom. xii. 19), to prophesy successively, or one by
one, and let the other prophets judge” (1 Cor. xiv. 22), and
to “hold their peace when anything is revealed to another
prophet” (ver. 10). He also blames them for prophesying
all together in a confused manner, and without observation
of due order, and for suffering their women to prophesy in
the church (ver. 39). And yet after all these directions, he
exhorts them to “covet prophecy,” and saith, “Quench not
the Holy Spirit, despise not prophecies” (1 Thess. v. 19,20).
Now these things give us an unquestionable evidence, that
this gift was then plentifully conferred upon the church of
Christ; for could the apostle talk with so great confidence, in
his epistles directed to Christian churches, of prophets, and
of a “gift of prophecy” vouchsafed to them and settled in
the church of God: could he speak so much of the edifica-
tion which the church received by those who had the gift of
prophecy, and of the revelations which they made by virtue
of it, and of the effect it had on unbelievers, to force them
to acknowledge that “God was present” with the church:
could he compare it with other gifts then extant in the
church, and give it the pre-eminence above them; and with
the grace of charity, exalting that even above tongues and
prophecy: could he give directions to the prophets then
among them how to exercise this gift, and chide them for
abusing it: could he say to them, “Covet and despise not
prophecies;” and could he close those sayings with these
words, “If any man be a prophet, or spiritual, let him ac-
knowledge that the things I write to you are the command-
ments of God” (1 Cor. xiv. 37): I say, could he have writ-
ten all these things in such epistles as were embraced as the
word of God, had it not been beyond exception, that there
was such a gift of prophecy vouchsafed to, and exercised in,
the church of God?
Lastly, Of the continuance of this gift of prophecy, not
only in the age of the apostles, but also in the age succeed-
ing, we have sufficient evidence from the best writers of the
Christian church. For,
First, Hermas, contemporary with Paul, speaks of this
gift as still remaining, and usually practised in the church of
Christ: for he professedly gives rules, by which all Christians
might distinguish betwixt true and false prophets, those who
were acted by an evil spirit, and those who were acted by
the Holy Ghost ; saying, “That he who had the earthly
spirit, came not into the congregation of just men; or if he
came thither” (lib, ii. cap. 11), obmutescit, nec quidquam
potest loqui, “he was presently struck dumb, and had no
power to speak before them. But when a man comes,”
saith he,” “who hath the Spirit of God, into the congrega-
* Cüm ergö venerit homo, qui habet Spiritum Dei, in ec-
tion of the just, and prays to God, he is then filled with a
divine afflatus, and speaketh as God will.” Whence two
things are evident, -
First, That he supposeth there were then men in the
church inspired with the spirit of prophecy: Secondly, That
this prophetical afflatus came upon them, and was exerted
by them, in the assemblies of the church.
Of the continuance of this gift in the second century we
have a signal testimony of the church of Smyrna, declaring,
that Polycarp, their bishop, was 313&orkaxo; 3roarroxixás, ka?
ºrgo pnºrixás, “an apostolical and prophetical teacher ;” for,
say they,” “every word he spake hath been already ful-
filled, and will be fulfilled.”
Eusebius makes mention of Quadratus+ as “an apostolical
man,” and one of the first order of their successors, “who
was,” saith he, reophrixá Xagſaaari 8tangélag, “celebrated
for his prophetical gift.”
Justin Martyr speaks of himself as a disciple of the apos-
tles; and Methodius saith, “He was not far from the apos-
tles:” now he expressly saith to Trypho,f ºrap' hºw xal
Kašxel viv recºntikä. xagiarº ará šarty, “We have still pro-
phetical gifts among us.”
Irenaeus was also near to the apostles' time, Saith Basil
and Austin; and he not only declares that some Christians
had then $ 7rpáyyoorly rāv ºxávrov, Kai irraciaç, Kai ##ast;
Trgoºnrikāc, “the knowledge of things future, and visions,
and prophetical predictions;” but confirms this from what
he and others had then heard; “for,” saith he, “Paul calls
them perfect, who had received the Spirit, and by him
spake with all tongues; x20&g wai &xoiſoºcey Troxx&y 388x4&y
#y rfi śwºxnaig trºoq'n'rikā Xapiagara fixávrov, as also we have
heard many brethren in the church, who had prophetical
gifts, and by the Spirit spake with all tongues, and disco-
vered the secrets of men, and expounded the mysteries of
God.” Moreover, three things are in this matter very re-
markable.
First, That by this very argument the Christians of the
second and third century endeavoured to convince the Jews,
that their religion was to give place to Christianity; that
God had left their synagogues, and was now efficaciously
present with those churches who had embraced the Chris-
tian faith; because that gift of prophecy, which formerly
had been peculiar to the Jewish church, had now entirely
left them, and was translated to the assemblies of Christians,
among whom it remained, ºxpt viv, “to that present time,”
as hath been proved already by the testimony of Justin Mar-
tyr, in his dialogue with Trypho." Thus to Celsus, pleading
in the person of a Jew for that religion against Christianity,
Origen declares that the divinity of Christ had transferred
his providence from the Jews to the converted gentiles,
“for,” saith he, “we may see them after the coming of our
Lord entirely deserted, and having nothing venerable that
remains among them, they having now no prophets and no
miracles,” &v xày txyn ini régow rapi, Xgartayoſ, siglazerai,
xaí riva ys, pºsićoya, of which some considerable footsteps
have so long remained among Christians.”
Secondly, The case of Montanus and his followers, pre-
tending to this gift of prophecy, hath it in many circumstan-
ces, which plainly show this gift did still continue in some
measure in the church. For,
First, Eusebius informs us, that when Montanus, Alcibi-
ades, and Theodotus in Phrygia, pretended to the gift of
prophecy, fºr “many believed they might be prophets, be-
cause many extraordinary operations of the divine gifts
were still performed in divers churches.”
clesiam justorum habentium fidem Dei, et oratio fit ad Deum,
tunc nuncius sanctus Divinitatis implet hominem illum Spi-
rità Sancto, et loquitur in turbā sicut Deus vult.
* IIāv yag #pa 3 #a pixey in roi; a réparo; aircü, kai irs.
Neidºn, wai reasioShaerai. Martyr. Polyc. sect. 16.
† Hist. Eccles. lib. iii. cap. 37.
f P. 308, B.
| Lib. v. cap. 6.
** Lib. ii. p. 62, vid. lib. vii. p. 337.
++ IIAsſoºral yèg ovy wał &NNai trapabožotroitat roi; 38tov xaplo-
*aroº, Biaºri rére war& 8tabégov; ixxxnaria; ŠtriteXoup, eval, Trio-
Tºy Trapa Troxxoſ, rot wºxeivov; argo.pnrevery rapetzov. Ilist. Ec-
cles. lib. V. cap. 3.
§ Lib. ii. cap. 57.
ºf P. 308.
TO THE EPISTLES.
531
Secondly, They confute the Montanists' pretence to this
gift, by the falsehoods which they uttered; Maximilla, one
of his prophetesses, having declared that “after her there
should be no prophets, but the consummation of all things;”
and because they left no prophets to succeed them ;
“whereas,” say they,” “the prophetic gift is to continue
in all churches;” which shows it did continue then, for
otherwise this objection must have been as strong against
the church of Christ, as against the sect of the Montanists.
And, lastly, they confute them from their way of prophesy-
ing, they speaking still in ecstasies and strange emotions of
their minds; “whereas,” say they," “the prophets under the
old testament, and ours under the new, Agabus, Judas, Silas,
Quadratus, and many others, were never subject to such ec-
stasies;” whence they concluded, ań św trºophºrny Év Škaráast
Aaxeſy, “that prophets must not speak in ecstasies.”
Lastly, It farther is observable, that some heretics de-
nied the Gospel of John, because he had so fully spoken of
the promise, which our Lord had made to his disciples, that
he “would send the Comforter to teach them all things,
and show them things to come.” They rejected also the
epistles of Paul; because in his Epistle to the Corinthians
he had so fully spoken, de propheticis charismatibus, “of
the prophetical gifts.” Now, “these,” saith Irenaeus,f “are
unhappy men, who choose themselves to be false prophets,”
i. e. to speak in God's name, when they confess they are not
taught of God, “and who endeavour to repel the grace of
prophecy from the church;” which words suppose it was ex-
tant in the church of God.
§. XIII. There is one other divine gift win.ch beareth
some affinity to that of prophecy, which therefore I shall
briefly handle, viz. that of discerning spirits. Now this im-
ports not only the skill of discerning betwixt true and false
prophets, which he that had seems, by Clemens, to be
styled, 3 copé, iv 8taxplores róv Aéyov, “a wise man in discern-
ing words,” or in distinguishing betwixt the lying wonders
and magical operations of evil spirits, and the powers of the
Holy Ghost, which must be in some measure common to all
Christians, they being all enjoined to “try the spirits whe-
ther they be of God” (1 Thess. v. 20. John iv. 1): but
chiefly it signifies the power of discerning the inward opera-
tions of the Soul, and of discovering the secrets of men's
hearts. Thus of the prophets of the church of Corinth;
“Every one,” saith Paul, “hath his revelation.” And
again, “If ye all prophesy, and there come into your assem-
bly one who is an unbeliever, or unlearned, he is convinced
of all,” &vaxçiveral ind Trávrov, his actions are discerned by
all the prophets; “and thus are the secrets of his heart laid
open, and so falling down upon his face, he will worship
God, and declare that God is in you of a truth” (1 Cor.
xiv. 14. 26. 30). So Peter discerned the heart of Ananias
and Sapphira, saying to Ananias, “Why hath Satan filled
thy heart to lie to the Holy Ghost?” And to Sapphira,
“Why have you agreed to tempt the Holy Ghost?” (Acts
iii. 5. 9;) i. e. having joined yourselves to the assembly of
the Christians, where you have had so great experience of
the assistance of the Holy Spirit, to declare the secrets of
men, why, after such experience, have you dared to lie in
the assemblies of those men in which the Holy Spirit thus
resides, and thereby show you doubt his power to reveal
what you have fraudulently concealed P. He also knew the
heart of Simon Magus, for to him he speaks thus (Acts viii.
22, 23), “I perceive thy heart is not right before God, but
thou art in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of ini-
quity.” It was by this gift that Paul at Lystra, looking
upon a blind man, “ saw that he had faith to be healed”
(Acts xiv. 9). Ignatius] also speaks of the Spirit in him
* Asſy ya; siva rā trºopnvºy Xápiapa iv tázp tº fixºnzig.
Ibid. cap. 17.
+ Totºrcy 83 reómoy, oërë riva rāy war& rºy ºraxataw, otºrs rôy
xará rày zawāv, "ryevº atopopsa-Sèvra ºrpoºpatów 88%at 8vyñaoy'rai.
Apud Euseb. lib. v. cap. 17. -
† Simul evangelium et propheticum expellunt Spiritum
infelices were qui pseudoprophetae quidem esse volunt, pro-
phetiae autem gratiam repellunt ab ecclesia. Lib. iii, cap.
11, p. 259.
§ Ep. ad Cor. Sect. 42.
| Ep. ad Philad. Sect. 7.
*
spiritual operations done among them.
that did tâ spurrà Hºtyxely, “reprove things secret;” and
Irenaeus,” that the brethren, which had the “spiritual gift,”
did ‘rā ºpiºia röy &v$86troy eig paysgåy &yely, “discover the
hidden things of men.” *
It was discovered in discerning men's fitness or qualifica-
tions for any office in the church ; and accordingly in set-
ting them apart for that office. Thus the Holy Ghost, in the
prophets, said, “Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the
work to which I have called them.” Thus is the Holy
Ghost said to have made the bishops and presbyters in Asia
the overseers of the churches there, Acts xx. 28, because as
Clemens Romanus'ſ Saith, “the apostles constituted bishops
and deacons, 3oxºovre; Tô IIvetºzart, approving of them by
the Spirit.” And Clemens of Alexandria, that John “or-
dained to be of the clergy, row: áir) rot IIveſºcaro; &ylov
anºatokiyous, them who were signified to him by the Spirit.”
And Ignatius's saith of the bishops of his time, that they
were “constituted not by men, but 'Incoſ, Xgiaroi yuápan,
by the counsel of Christ Jesus.”
§. XIV. I proceed, lastly, to show the reason we have to
believe that these extraordinary gifts were equally conferred
upon the other churches, as upon those which the apostles
mention in their epistles. This we may gather,
First, From these expressions of Paul to the church of
Corinth, in which they were so plentifully exercised; for his
inquiry to them runs thus: “What is it wherein you were
inferior to other churches 2° 2 Cor. xii. 13, and his assertion
thus, “In everything you are enriched by him in all utter-
ance, and in all knowledge, so that ye came behind the
other churches in no gift,” 1 Cor. i. 5. 7, which words
plainly insinuate, that all the other churches were plenti-
fully endowed with these gifts.
Secondly, This also may be gathered from the reason of
the thing: for the operations of the Holy Ghost are said to
be designed for these ends; 1. The confirmation of the tes-
timony and the faith of Christ, 1 Cor. i. 6, and their estab-
lishment in Christ, 2 Cor. i. 12, 22. 2. “The edification of
the body of Christ,” 1 Cor. xii. 7. Eph. iv. 11, 12. 3. To
be a pledge and earnest of their adoption, and their future
happiness, Rom. viii. 23.2 Cor. i. 22. Gal. iv. 6, 7. Eph. i.
13. 4. To be their comfort under persecutions, Rom. v. 3.
5. 2 Cor. i. 7. 1 Pet. iv. 14. Now these are ends as neces-
sary for all, as for any Christian churches, who must all
equally need the confirmation of their faith, of the ministry,
the perfecting the saints, and the edification of the body of
Christ, the support and comfort of the Spirit under persecu-
tions, the pledge and earnest of their future hopes.
Thirdly, This also may be gathered from that account
which the apostle giveth of spiritual gifts and spiritual per-
sons in the church. The gifts given for the edification of
the church in general are these, “the word of wisdom, and
of knowledge, the gifts of healing, the working of miracles,
prophecy, discerning of spirits, kinds of tongues, and the in-
terpretation of them” (1 Cor. xii. 8–10). The persons ex-
ercising them are mentioned thus ; “God hath set some in
the church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers,
after that miracles, then the gifts of healing,” &c. (ver. 28).
And in the Epistle to the Ephesians thus, “He gave some
apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and
teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the
ministry, for the edifying the body of Christ” (Eph. iv. 11,
12). Which places evidently show, that these were gifts
designed for the benefit of all the churches of Christ in gene-
ral, and exercised by these persons as they went about to
plant or to confirm the churches; the power of miracles,
and the gift of healing, being also exercised by them in con-
firmation of that faith they preached, according to our Sa-
viour's promise. So that some gifts seem for some time
constantly exercised by the members of each church in their
assemblies, and others by those persons who preached the
gospel first among them, or travelled to confirm , the
churches, and so all had experience, more or less, of these
Lastly, From the consideration of that
* Lib. v. cap. 6.
+ Ep. ad Cor. sect. 42.
† Apud Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. iii. cap. 23.
§ Prooem. Ep. ad Philad. et sect. 1, 3, 6.
baptism which
2 M 2
532
they all generally received; for as the promise ran to the
Jews in general, that “they should be baptized with the
Holy Ghost” (Matt. iii. 11), to every one that would
believe, and be baptized, that they “should receive the
Holy Ghost” (Acts ii. 38), and that because “the pro-
mise was to them, and to their children, xai rāori roſ; sic
Awaxgåy, and to all that were afar off, even as many as the
Lord should call;” so was this promise signally fulfilled to
the believers of the Jewish nation, who being enlightened,
‘porta-Sèvres, that is, baptized, they also “tasted of the spi-
ritual gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and
of the powers of the world to come” (Heb. vi. 4, 5, see the
note there), and “great grace was upon them all” (Acts iv.
33): to the believers in Samaria, for when the apostles,
Peter and John, “laid their hands upon them, they received
the Holy Ghost” (Acts viii. 17): to the converts of the gen-
tiles; “for by one Spirit they were all baptized into one
body” (1 Cor. xii. 13), and “after they believed, they were
all sealed with the Spirit of promise” (Eph. i. 13), they
being saved “by the washing of regeneration, and the re-
newing of the Holy Ghost, which was shed on them abun-
dantly through Jesus Christ” (Tit. ii. 5, 6). All Christians
therefore being made members of Christ's body by baptism,
all Christian churches and bodies must have these powerful
gifts conferred upon, and exercised by, some of the members
of those churches, to the edification of the rest.
Accordingly it is declared by Justin Martyr of them who
were converted to the Christian faith, that “being” baptized
~ in the name of Christ, they received, some the Spirit of
knowledge, some of counsel, some of fortitude, some of heal-
ing, some of foreknowledge, some of doctrine.”
§. XV. To conclude, The primitive professors and mar-
tyrs for the Christian faith afford us a full testimony of the
continuance of these gifts and operations of the Holy Ghost
in the next ages of the church. Clemens Romanus, in his
epistle to the church of Corinth, saith, “There was raign;
IIvsögaro; &yiou #yxuri; #mri Trávraç, a full effusion of the
Holy Spirit upon them all.” Ignatius'; saith of the church
of Smyrna, that “she was #xenºwn #y mayri Xapiapart, fa-
voured with all gifts, and was deficient in none.” Justin §
saith, that “even their men and women had the gifts of the
Holy Ghost.” Eusebius having mentioned the first order
of the successors of the apostles, he saith, that || “even then
they performed many wondrous works by the Holy Ghost.”
It is needless, saith Irenaeus," to insist upon particulars,
“for the miraculous gifts, which the church throughout the
world enjoys, and the beneficial miracles she worketh for the
good of heathens, are innumerable.” This he saith after he
had enumerated, among the gifts then given to believers,
“the casting out of devils, prophecy, the knowledge of
things future, the healing the sick, and the raising the dead.”
And when Montanus appeared, there was not only in the
church the gift of prophecy, but in divers churches” “many
other strange works performed by the divine gifts.”
Here then we find, by all these early testimonies, that in
* of kai Aap,8ávovort 8%wara Éxactor &; āśtoi sial, parić we-
yoi 31& rot vägaro; rot, Xploroú, 6 &#y yūp Aaºğäys, avvæsø;
riveñºza, § 3; 8ovääc, & 33 iáotoc, & 33 ºrpoyvågsø;, & 33 33aoka-
Aiac. Dial. cum Tryph. p. 258.
+ Sect. 2.
f Prooem. Ep. Smyrn.
§ IIap' hºſy irrivièsſy, xai ºnAsia; kai ägaevac, Xagiogara
&m's roš IIveſºaro; rod Osoſ; fixoyrac. Dial. cum Tryph. p.
315, D. *
| Tot. Setov IIvsöp, aro; sizéri rére 3i' air&y ºraeſarra, Tragá-
Božai Buyápºeic #vićyovy. Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 37.
* Own Early 3819.3, eiträy rāv Xggiorgºrov &v warà rayrö,
xãopov # #xxanaia rag& ©ect, Aagoûca, Év rá čvágar. ‘Incoſ xpia-
ºrot, Éxáarn; hºwāga; #w' Bispynaig ri rāy Svöy irºrs agſ. Lib.
ii. cap. 57.
* IIAstoral yèg civ xa: #AAa ragabºomoitat roi, Selow xaglo-
&aroc sizért tºrs war& 3iaºpov; #xxxnaia; in itsNoüaiyai, &c.
Hist, Eccles. lib. v. cap. 3.
GENERAL PREFACE TO THE EPISTLES.
the first two centuries many gifts of the Holy Ghost were
still continued in all churches, that every one at their bap-
tism received some or other of them. These also are rela-
tions not of things past, or things done in a corner, but of
things commonly performed in the face of the assemblies,
and so confirmed by the joint testimonies of all Christian
churches; they were miracles which their own eyes had
seen; tongues and prophetic gifts which their own ears had
heard; gifts which they used against the Jews and heretics
for their conviction; and beneficial miracles so truly wrought
upon the heathen, that they were efficacious to engage them
to espouse and persevere to the end in the profession of the
Christian faith. This therefore is, saith Origen,” oixsta
&máðsići; rot Aéyov, “the proper demonstration of our Jesus,”
no other pretender to the power of doing signs or wonders
having ever derived that power from himself to others, en-
gaged that believers should so generally receive it; none ever
pretending to enable their followers to speak with tongues,
discover the secrets of men's hearts, or confer all or any of
these gifts upon their proselytes. It also must be owned, as
a most convincing demonstration of the truth and the divine
original of that faith, which ministered these gifts so plenti-
fully to its professors.
Š. XVI. And, oh that all who, by this demonstration of
the Spirit, are convinced of the truth of the Christian faith,
would seriously consider how much it does concern them,
in point of interest and wisdom, to yield obedience to all
the precepts of that faith ! for if the gentiles were “given
up to vile affections and a reprobate mind” (Rom. i. 24.
26), only for sins committed against the dim and imperfect
light of nature; if the Jews “received a just recompense”
for every transgression of the law delivered by Moses to
them, “how shall we escape if we neglect this great salva-
tion, which at the first was spoken by the Lord, and was
confirmed by them that heard; God bearing witness to it by
divers signs and wonders, and distributions of the Holy
Ghost P” (Heb. ii. 3, 4.) And to this end consider,
First, That by our disobedience to the Christian precepts
we contradict the great design of all these demonstrations of
the Holy Spirit, they being all intended, saith Paul, “to
make the gentiles obedient in word and deed” (Rom. xv.
18).
Secondly, That all our certainty of the Christian faith
doth highly aggravate the guilt of our transgression of the
Christian precepts: for the stronger the motive is to believe,
the greater is the guilt of disobedience; because such mo-
tives may be easily discerned, and so our ignorance of them
must be less excusable; and we cannot resist their evidence,
but we must offer violence to the convictions of our con-
Sciences; and so we have no cloak for our sin.
Thirdly, That though we own the Christian faith and our
Lord Jesus, yet whilst we live in disobedience to his pre-
cepts, God looks upon us as mere infidels, such as “in
words profess to know him, but in works deny him, being
disobedient” (Titus i. 16). Our faith at least must be irra-
tional and absurd, for “why call ye me Lord, Lord,” saith
Christ, “and do not the things that I say ?” (Luke vi. 46.)
And it will be as unprofitable as it is irrational; for though
we “know these things,” we only can be “happy if we do
them” (John xiii. 17).
To conclude all, Our convictions of the truth of the
Christian faith add strength to those engagements and en-
couragements which that religion offers towards a virtuous
and holy life; for if all that is delivered in these sacred re-
cords be the revealed will of God, then all the promises and
comfortable passages contained in them will be assuredly
made good to all obedient Christians, and the assurance of
such inestimable blessings as the gospel promiseth must
lay upon us strong engagements “to be stedfast and un-
moveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, as
knowing that our labour shall not be in vain in the Lord”
(1 Cor. xv. 58).
* Contra Celsum, lib. i. p. 5.
THE
EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS,
- WITH AN NOTATIONS.
PREFACE.
*-
It is the general note of the ancient commentators, that,
though this epistle be in place the first of all St. Paul's
epistles, yet was it not first written by him,” but was the
last of all he wrote from Asia, Macedonia, and Achaia, be-
fore he went to Rome : the Epistles to the Thessalonians,
to the Corinthians, and the Epistle to the Galatians, being
writ before it. They therefore think that it was placed first,
either as being writtent to the imperial city, as some thought;
or for the excellency of the doctrine contained in it, as others
do conjecture. So saith Theodoret in his preface.
It was written from Corinth, as the same ancients note,
for he calleth Erastus the chamberlain of the city from
whence he writ it, xvi. 23; and he had his abode at Corinth,
2 Tim. ii. 4. He calleth Gaius his host, i. e. the man with
whom he lodged, xvi. 23; now he was a Corinthian, 1 Cor.
i. 14. He commendeth to them Phebe, a servant of the
church at Cenchrea, xvi. 1; now Cenchrea was a port of
Corinth. Moreover, it was written thence, not when St.
Paul travelled through Greece, Acts xx. 2.; for that then
he came to Corinth is not said; may, it is gainsaid by St.
Paul himself, who, in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians,
writ the same year with this, excuses himself for not coming
to them, ch. i., and declares that “the third time he was
ready to come to them,” xiii. 1. Add to this, that when he
* IIacºvia Xàrn rāy rā; 'Aria: kai Maxe?ovia, Kai 'Axaiac
#xwspapósio &v. Chrysost. Theodoret.
+ ‘dº aravroła arºy Exourav 8,820 waxiav wai rāv Tây Soyuároy
&xétéstay 3-& Tragićvov 3,840 xovo av, rivăç 33 pariv ºri riv waxy
tºwre; &c rā, oizovºvn; ºrpoxaflnºśvny, zai ºri, Baaixeia; ra
axiwtea waréxovoay, ºrpºrny iražay rày rpá, rotºrov, yºaq'sſaay
#mravoxhy. Theodoret.
writ this Epistle to the Romans, he knew the contributions
of the church of Corinth were actually made, and even de-
posited in his hands, he being then going up with them to
Jerusalem, Rom. xv. 25. 28 ; whereas when he travelled
Greece, and came to Macedonia, Acts xx. 1. 3, they either
indeed were not so, or at the least he knew not that they
were so, and therefore sent first Titus, and then his Second
Epistle to them, that they might be so, viii. 9.
It was written to the Romans when he had not seen them,
i. 11, and before he was gone up to Jerusalem, for he was
but then going thither, xv. 25, and purposed from thence
to go by Rome to Spain, ver. 28. And so it must be written,
A. D. 57; for we find him at Jerusalem, Acts xxi. 6, and a
prisoner under Felix, in the fourth year of Nero (see Dr.
Pearson, Annal. Paulin. p. 15, 16).
That the church of Rome consisted partly of the Jews
then dwelling there, we learn both from the fourteenth
chapter, where the gentiles are exhorted to bear with their
weakness; and from the fifteenth chapter, where he speaks
thus, “I have written unto you more boldly, 3 w8 &#ov; as to
(the gentile) part” (see the note there, ver. 15, 16); and
from the salutations sent to them at Rome, they being
chiefly sent to them of the Jewish nation.
The two great doctrines laid down in this epistle are, (1.)
that of justification by faith alone, without the works of the
law ; of which see the preface to the Epistle to the Gala-
tians: and, (2) the mystery of the calling of the gentiles,
the rejection at present of the Jews, and the recalling of
them when the fulness of the gentiles was to come in.
Lastly, It is observable, that among all his salutations to
those of Rome, he hath not one directed to St. Peter, nor
doth he give us any hint that St. Peter then had ever been
at Rome, or planted any church there ; which, as it makes
it highly probable he had not then been there at all, so doth
it make it certain that St. Paul knew not of his being there
when this epistle was indited.
CHAPTER I.
1 PAUL, a servant of Jesus Ghrist, called to be an
apostle, "separated to the gospel of God,
2 Which (gospel) he had promised afore by his
prophets in the holy scriptures, (speaking in them)
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I.
* Wer. 1. ‘Abaptop.évoc, Separated.] He in this word seems
to allude to his former separation when he lived a pharisee,
i.e. one separated from all ceremonial defilement, and from
the people of the earth, i. e. the common people, who ob-
served not the exact rules of legal purity ; saying, that he
was separated now, not to a nicer observation of the Jewish
rites and customs, but to the preaching of the gospel of God:
and the affinity betwixt this and the Epistle to the Gala-
tians, both as to matter and style, inclines me not to interpret
the apostle of the separation mentioned Acts xiii. 2, where
the Holy Ghost saith, “Separate me Barnabas and Saul for
the work of the ministry to which I have appointed them ;”
but of God's separating him “from his mother's womb,”
and calling him to that work, Gal. i. 15.
* Ver. 4. ‘opia'8évros, Declared to be the Son of God.]
Christ, while he was on earth, declared that he was the Son
of God, whom the Father had sanctified and set apart to
his prophetic office: accordingly the Spirit of God descended
3 Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who
was made the seed of David according to the flesh;
(Acts ii. 30. 2 Tim. ii. 8, and)
4 * Declared to be the Son of God (invested) with
on him at his baptism, and a voice from heaven said, “This
is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” This he
proved from the powerful works wrought by him, that he
was “the Son of God,” sanctified and consecrated to his
office by the Spirit of God abiding in him, and so was “in
the Father, and the Father in him,” declaring that he did
his miracles by the power of the Holy Ghost, and “by the
Spirit of God” did “cast out devils” (Matt. xii. 28). And
thus Peter represents this prophet to Cornelius, saying,
“God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and
with power; who (therefore) went about doing good, and
healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was
with him” (Acts x. 38). And thus it seemeth necessary
he should act in his prophetical office; a prophet being a
person sent from God, and speaking in his name, and acted
by his Spirit in the delivery and confirmation of his message.
That our great prophet Jesus was, as in a more sublime, so
in this sense, “the Son of God,” endowed with power of
working miracles by the Holy Ghost for confirmation of his
doctrine, God hath demonstrated, saith the apostle here, by
“raising him from the dead.”
534
ROMANS.
power, according to the Spirit of holiness (residing in
him without measure, John iii. 34, and) by the resur-
rection from the dead : . . .
5 By whom (thus raised and invested with all power,
and acting now not as a prophet, but as Lord of all,
by the whole fulness of the Godhead,) we have received
*grace and apostleship (i.e. the office of an apostle,
and the grace belonging to it), for obedience to the
faith among (Gr. in) all nations:
6. Among whom are ye also the called of Jesus
Christ: -
7 (I Paul write) to all that be in Rome, beloved of
God, called to be saints: (Gr. saints called : see note
on 1 Cor. i. 1, wishing) grace (may) be (given) to you
from God our Father, and (from) the Lord Jesus
Christ.
8 (And) first, I thank my God through Jesus
Christ (the fountain of all our blessings, Eph. i. 3)
for (the conversion wrought in ) you all (so visibly),
that your faith is spoken of throughout the world.
9 (This happy success of the gospel being very grate-
ful to me,) for ğ. is my witness, whom I serve with
my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceas-
ing (Gr. how incessantly) I make mention of you;
10 Making request (Gr. requesting) always in my
prayers to come to you, if by any means now at length
* Wer. 5. Xágºy wał &moa'roxy, Grace and apostleship.]
That is, Saith CEcumenius, Xáply sic &mocroXºy, “grace for the
office of apostles;” the favour to be apostles, say some, be-
cause the apostle calls this office “grace,” Rom. xv. 15.
Gal. ii. 9. Eph. iii. 2. 7, but where he doth so there is al-
ways something added of the gifts and powers by which
they were enabled to exercise it: v. g. “To me is this grace
given, that I may be the minister of Christ to the gentiles,”
Rom. xv. 15, 16; “In the power of signs, and miracles, and
gifts of the Holy Ghost,” ver. 19 ; James, Cephas, and
John “knew the grace given to me,” Gal. ii. 9, because God
had “wrought mightily with me towards the gentiles,” ver.
8, and Eph. iii. 2, there is mention of “the grace of God”
given to Paul; but then it is added, that he is made a
minister “according to the gift of the grace of God given to
him by the effectual working of his power,” ver, 7. I there-
fore think fit to join both together, and give the sense of
the words thus: “By whom we have received the office of
apostles, and grace through his name to call all nations to
the obedience of faith in him ;” or to yield obedience to the
faith preached in his name. . -
- * Ver, 11. “Iva ri asraº Xágicºa tºy trysvaatizèy, That
I might impart to you some spiritual gift.] This is by
most interpreted of the Spirit of wisdom and knowledge, by
which Paul would instruct them : I rather choose to refer it
to some spiritual gift he at his coming would bestow upon
them, by the imposition of his hands upon some of them, as
the apostles used to do (Acts viii. 17. xix. 6. 2 Tim. i. 6).
For (1.) that is most agreeable to the phrase, ºra?oiva,
Xépio'ºza ºryevkarixòy, to “give the Spirit,” or “a spiritual
gift:” and (2) to his words in the close of this epistle, that
he shall “come to them in the fulness rºi; eWAoyiaç, of the
blessing of the gospel of Christ,” that phrase being applied
to the giying of the Spirit, and his gifts, Gal. iii. 14. Eph. i.
3, and (3.) to the end here assigned of the imparting this
gift, viz. the establishment of the Romans in the faith; for
the vouchsafement of the Spirit and his gifts unto the
churches, is still called 858aiwatc, “the confirmation” of
them in the faith, 1 Cor. i. 5, 6. 2 Cor. i. 21, 22. v. 5. Gal.
V. 5. l Thess. i. 5.
* Ver. 12, 2wº raçaºval, To be comforted together
with you..] It being both a comfort and establishment of
faith in them to receive these gifts of the Spirit, and in him
to be able to impart them to them, and to find God so effec-
tually working by him.
* Ver. 14, 15. I am a debtor, &c. otra.] Here it is
observable, that some translators begin the fourteenth verse
with for, though there is nothing that answers to it in the
Greek: yet it should be rendered thus, “I am a debtor to
the Greek and the barbarian, to the wise and the unwise;”
I might have a prosperous journey to you by the will
of God.
11 For I long to see you, “that I may impart to
you some spiritual gift, to the end that you may be
established; -
12 That is, that I may be "comforted together with
you by the mutual faith both of you (through faith
receiving) and me (by faith imparting these gifts).
13 Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren,
that oftentimes I purposed to come to you, that I
might have some fruit among you also, even as among
other gentiles, (though through many hinderances I
have not been able to accomplish my purpose, xv. 22.)
14 For (as) "I am a debtor both to the Greeks,
and the barbarians; both to the wise, and to the un-
wise, (as having by God the dispensation of the gospel
committed to me for their sakes, 1 Cor. ix. 6.)
15 So, as much as is in me, I am ready to "preach
the gospel to you that are at Rome also.
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ :
for it is (attended with) the power of God to salvation
to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, (to whom
it was by God’s appointment to be first preached, Acts
iii. 26. xiii. 46) and also to the gentile. -
17 For therein is ° the righteousness of God re-
vealed "from faith to faith (Gr. the righteousness of
viz. olºra, or otro wai, “and therefore as much as in me lies
I am ready to preach the gospel to you also that are in
Rome.” For though offra, and otrowº, when joined with &g,
signify generally so; yet when they are put absolutely, and
especially when they begin a sentence, they signify idcircă,
... aque, and answer to al chen in the Hebrew: so Rev. iii.
16, oºrwº, 3ri XXiagö, ä, “Wherefore, because thou art luke-
warm ;” upon which place the critics note, that otºrws hic
non est similitudinis, Sed ratiocinativum, valetdue al chen,
igitur : so Rom. vi. 11, “Knowing that Jesus Christ, being
raised from the dead, dieth no more ; otºro kai tºsſ; Noyićaše,
therefore also reckon ye yourselves dead unto sin;” l Cor.
xv. 44, 45, oùro, kal yáygamºral, “And therefore it is written ;”
so Luke xxiv. 26, “So it is written, xa, otºrwg, and therefore
Christ ought to suffer;” and John iv. 6, “Jesus then being
weary with his journey, izašićero cirwº, sat therefore upon
the well.”
7 Wer. 15. 'Yuſy roſ; iv ‘P&n stayyextraoğa, To preach
the gospel to you at Rome.] Paul here seems plainly to
challenge Rome as part of his province, as being “the apos-
tle of the gentiles:” so again, xi. 13, “I speak to you gen-
tiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the gentiles, I magnify
my office;” and xv. 15, “I have written the more boldly to
you in part,” i.e. as to the gentile part among you, “as put-
ting you in remembrance of the grace given to me of God;’
ver. 16, “that I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to
the gentiles;” and so on to ver, 30; and here, “I purposed
to come to you gentiles, for I am a debtor,” &c. When
therefore the ancients tell us that Peter was bishop of Rome
as well as Paul, this can be only true of Peter as to the
Jewish converts there, whilst Paul was the apostle and
bishop of the gentiles at Rome, according to the agreement
made between them, that “Paul and Barnabas should go
unto the gentiles, Peter and John to the circumcision”
(Gal.ii.9); and so the bishop of Rome, if he will be St. Peter's
successor, must only preach to the Jews, or be the bishop of
the circumcision. Moreover, it seems highly probable that
Peter was not yet come to Rome, much less had settled his
see there: for if so, why should Paul be so desirous, so often
purposing to come to them, “that he might impart some
spiritual gift to them, to the end they might be established,”
unless Peter were either insufficient for, or very negligent in
that work (see the preface to this epistle).
* Wer. 17. Atxaloa ºwn @eoiſ, The righteousness of God.]
This phrase, in Paul's style, doth always signify “the righte-
ousness of faith in Christ Jesus” dying, or shedding his
blood for us: so iii. 20, 21, “The righteousness of God,
without the law, is manifest, to wit, the righteousness of God
through faith in Jesus Christ.” The same apostle having
declared, that “the gentiles who followed not after righteous-
CHAPTER [.
535
God by faith is revealed to beget in men faith); as it is
written, "The just shall live by faith.
18 (And this way of justification, or obtaining re-
mission of sins, is necessary to eaempt all men, whether
Jew or gentile, from the wrath of God :) for (to begin
first with the gentiles) "the wrath of God is revealed
from heaven “against all ungodliness and unrighte-
ousness of (those) men, who hold the truth (which
they know by the light of nature) in unrighteousness;
19. Because that which may be known of God (by
the light of nature) is manifest in (or, to) them; for
God hath shown it to them.
20 For the invisible things of him *from the crea-
tion of the world are clearly seen (or, are clearly seen
(even) from the creation of the world), being under-
stood by the things that are made (i.e. by his works),
even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they
are without excuse (viz. who do not worship him alone
as God, who is the Creator of all things, but rather
give the worship due unto him to the works of their
hands):
21 Because when they knew God, they glorified
him not as God (by giving him the honour due to the
Deity), neither were thankful (to him who giveth to all
men life, breath, and all things, Acts xvii. 28. xiv. 17),
but became vain in their imaginations (of him), and
their foolish heart was darkened.
22 Professing themselves to be wise, (and usurping
that name, ver, 14. 1 Cor. i. 20, 21) they became (in
their actions) fools, .
23, And changed “the glory of the incorruptible
God into an image made like to corruptible men, and
to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
24 Wherefore God also gave them up to unclean-
mess through the lusts of their own hearts, to disho-
mour their bodies among themselves (as did the
Sodomites and Canaanites of old, &rºSoča at Ötrica,
gapkóc Śrépac, Jude 7).
ness, had attained to righteousness, even the righteousness
of faith ;” but Israel not believing “had not attained to the
law of righteousness,” Rom. ix. 30, 31, he proves the second
assertion thus: “For they being ignorant of the righteous-
mess of God, and seeking to establish their own righteousness
(which is of the lºw), have not submitted tº 3inatorávn roſ,
©got to the righteusness of God,” i. e. to the righteousness
of faith in Christ, to which the gentiles had submitted, x. 3,
“for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness;” i. e.
for justification through faith in Christ, wer. 10 (see the
note on 2 Cor. v. 21). “The righteousness of God” is there-
fore manifestly taken for gospel righteousness, as Mr. Clerc
notes on Rom. iii. p. 263. But when he adds, “That is,
for sanctity of life consequent upon repentance,” he is
miserably out ; for this righteousness consists not in our
sanctification, but in our justification, or absolution from our
sins past, through faith in the blood of Christ, shed for the
remission of sins.
* 'Ex ºria rew; eiç triotiv, From, i. e. by faith to faith.]
'Ex being here put for 8tá, as in this very verse, “The just
shall live, ix. Triarewº, by his faith :” so iii. 20, “It is one God
who will justify the circumcision, #x tria reog, through faith,
and the uncircumcision, 33 riºtswg, by (the same) faith,” so
# #x ºria rew; Sikatoadyn is “the righteousness that is by faith,”
ix. 30, and x. 6, 8tratorſyn Hºri rj triars, and 33 ºria rew; Toč
xpiatoſ, “the righteousness by faith in Christ.” Vain
therefore is the descant of Mr. Le Clerc upon these words,
“That from the faith whereby the Jews believed the prophets
and the gentiles their ancestors, they might proceed to ano-
ther faith;” for if he means they should proceed from the one
faith to the other, this is true of the Jews, who were to add
to their faith in God, and in his prophets, faith in our Lord
Jesus Christ (John xiv. 4) : but it is false as to the gentiles,
who were to renounce and turn from the faith of their an-
cestors, that they might believe in Christ. If he means, by
“proceeding from faith to faith,” renouncing the one to em-
brace the other, this is true of the gentiles, but false when
applied to the Jews, who were not to renounce their faith in
the prophets, but by virtue of it to embrace this righteous-
ness of God, “testified by the law and the prophets.” The
sense of these words seems plainly to be this: The righ-
teousness of God, which is by faith, is revealed in the gospel
to beget faith in men.
* 'O 3inato; #4 ºria reac Čhorerai, The just shall live by
his faith..] In God’s promises; whence it appears that faith
doth not include obedience, but only a firm belief of God's
promises obliging to obedience. Hence the apostle argues
from this very place, Gal. iii. 10, 11, that “the law is not of
faith,” because it saith, “The man that doeth these things
shall live in them,” making obedience the condition of justi-
fication by the law.
* Wer. 18. 'Ogy; Geoû, The wrath of God,) This was be-
fore more expressly revealed against the unrighteousness of
the Jews, God in the meantime so far “winking at”
the unrighteousness of the gentiles, as to make no express
denunciation of his wrath against them; but now “he calls
all men everywhere to repent” of their unrighteousness,
“because he hath appointed a day in which he will judge
the world in righteousness,” Acts xvii. 30, 31.
* 'Emi rāgav čo 6stay was 38tºtay 3,634trov, Against all
wngodliness and unrighteousness of men.] The “ungodli-
ness” of men signifies their impiety in robbing God of his
honour, and giving it to graven images, or to them which
“by nature were no gods,” and so being ungrateful to him,
who was the author of all their blessings, ver. 11—26; their
“unrighteousness” is their injustice to one another; from ver.
26 to the 30th. And they are said to “retain the truth in
unrighteousness,” by acting contrary to the notions of it they
had, or might have learned, from the law of nature, and by
suppressing or corrupting the dictates of their natural con-
science. So of the builders of the tower of Babel, Philo
saith” that “it sufficed them not r} ºrgèc row: #4.04%) ov; avy-
xety bikata, to confound the laws of justice among men, but
also they invaded heaven, 38wlay &#y a weigoyres, &c'é8stay 3:
65éićovireº, sowing unrighteousness, and reaping ungodliness.”
* Ver. 20. "Aaró wrized; xào.gov, From the creation of
the world..] This phrase seems not to signify the means by
which they came to the knowledge of God, for that is after-
ward expressed in these words, wothºact voodºweva, “ being
made known by his works ;' but rather to import, that from
the beginning of the world the heathens had this means of
knowing the true God from the works of the creation ; so
3r' 3pxi, zárezov, is “from the beginning of the world,”
Matt. xxiv. 21, 3rd zaragonii, Rózºov, “from the foundation
of the world,” Matt. xiii. 35. Luke xi. 50. Heb. iv. 3. ix.
26. Strange is the conceit of a learned person, who inter-
prets these and all the following words of this chapter of the
Gnostics; for who ever heard that the Gnostics “changed the
glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to
birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things P” Who of
the ancients ever said, “Their women changed the natural
use of the body for that which is against mature?” Or, how
is it possible that the apostle should here accuse them of
all this idolatry and image-worship, and yet in the next
chapter say Óf the same Gnostics, according to the interpre-
tation of the same person, “Thou that abhorrest idols, dost
thou commit sacrilege P” ver. 22. Doubtless the apostle
speaks here of that knowledge of God which by the light of
nature was in the heart of the gentiles, and so was manifest
in, and to them, even from the time of the creation of the
world, by his works, because “the heavens declare the glory
of God; and the firmament showeth his handy-work,” Ps.
xix. 1, and therefore doth not here say, that his mercy, and
grace, and love to mankind, but that his “eternal power
and Godhead” were shown by these works, which yet in rea-
son he should have mentioned here, as he doth elsewhere,
had he spoken of the discoveries God made of himself by
the gospel revelation. -
14 Vér. 23. Tºy 34%av roſ. 34,940 tou Osoſ, The glory of the
incorruptible God..] The description of God in the New
Testament is this, that “he dwelleth in light inaccessible,”
* De Confus. Ling, p. 267, F.
536
RO MANS.
25 (As being also men) who changed the truth of
God into a lie, (worshipping as gods them who by na-
ture were no gods, Gal. iv. 8, or only demons, 1 Cor. x.
20) and served the "creature more than the Creator,
who is blessed for ever. Amen. -
26 For this cause God gave them (farther) up to
vile affections: for even their women did change the
matural use (of their bodies) into that which is against
nature: (see Lucian. Atd.X. "Erasp. KAwwéptov kai Asai-
via.)
27 And also the men, leaving the natural use of
the woman, burned in their lusts one towards an-
other; men with men working that which was un-
seemly (Gr. filthiness), and receiving in themselves
that recompence of their error which was meet (i.e.
being given up thus to dishonour their own bodies, see
Lucian’s "Epwrec, for the dishonour they did to God by
their idolatry).
28 And as they liked not to retain God in their
knowledge, (so) “God gave them up "to a reprobate
l Tim. i. 16, that he “is light,” 1 John i. 5, 6. And thus
he always exhibited himself to men in a mighty splendour of
flame and light, as a visible token of his special and majestic
presence. Thus he appeared to the antediluvians, to Adam,
saith the learned Bishop of Ely on Gen. ii. 15. iii. 8, and to
Cain and Abel, when they brought their offerings to the Lord,
i. e. to the place where the Shechinah or glorious presence
used to appear; for God “had respect to Abel and his offer-
ing,” i. e...saith Theodotion's translation, Byströgma’sy, “He set
it on fire by a stream of light,” or flame from the Shechinah,
which then usually appeared at the place of worship: why
else doth Cain complainthus, “From thy face shall I be hid P."
Or why is he said to “go out from the presence of the
Lord P” Gen. iv. 4. 14. So after the flood, we may presume
he appeared to Noah offering burnt-offerings to him ; for
God accepting his oblation, as he did that of Abel's, it is rea-
sonable to conceive that he gave the like token of that ac-
ceptance. So he appeared to Abraham, when he said unto
him, “Get thee out of thine own country,” in a lamp of fire
consuming his sacrifices, Gen. xv. 17. Whence Stephen
saith, 3 Qed; 36%ms, “The God of glory appeared to our fath
Abraham,” Acts vii. 2. In this visible majesty God appeal cu.
to him again, xvii. 1. For in the conclusion of that chap-
ter it is said, “God went up from Abraham,” i. e. “The
glory of the Lord ascended,” saith the Chaldee paraphrase,
and B. Uziel. So he appeared to Moses in the bush, Exod.
iii. 2, so to the people on mount Sinai, Exod. xxiv. 16, 17,
where rê štěo; rºi; 8%m; roń Kugiou &asi rip, “the sight of the
glory of the Lord was like fire.” This visible appearance of
God in the light is above thirty times in the Old Testament
styled “the glory of the Lord” (see note on Phil. ii. 8, and
on Heb. i. 3). And this Shechinah was not only given to
the Jews after the law, but to the gentiles before the law, as
a preservative from idolatry, or to instruct them to make no
other resemblance of him, or symbol of his presence, besides
that which he from the beginning had chosen to appear in ;
but this, Saith the apostle, “they changed into the similitude
of men and birds,” &c. And of the Jews making the gold-
en calf, God says, “They changed 36%ay attäy, their glory
into the similitude of a calf,” Ps. cwi. 20, and of the same
Jews departing from God to idols, it is said, “My people
#AA4%aro rºy 36%av aircü, hath changed its glory for that which
cannot profit them,” Jer. ii. 11.
* Ver. 25. Ex&rgsvoray rfi wrizet, They served the crea-
ture.] In the twenty-third verse they are charged only with
false representations of God; in this also with a false ob-
ject of their worship, by giving the divine honour to a
creature,
* Ver. 28. Ei, 38&lpoy vety, To a reprobate mind.] To a
mind that could not be approved of by God or men, to
do tº º kaðhkoyra, things not agreeable to nature, or to
TeaSOIl.
*7 Hapé8wkey airob; 3 Oedº, God gave them up to a repro-
bate mind. Wer. 24. God gave them up in the lustings of
their hearts to uncleanness. Ver. 26. God gave them up to
dishonourable affections.] Here the fathers carefully inform
us, that these phrases cannot be so understood as to lay upon
them, of whom Paul speaks, a necessity of being thus un-
clean and unnatural in their affections, or thus perverse in
their minds. “For then,” say they,” “this would not be
* Non enim vires agitur, neque necessitate in alteram
partem anima declinatur ; alioquin nec culpa ejus, nec vir-
tus posset ascribi; nec boni electio, praemium, nec declinatio
mali, supplicium mereretur; sed servatur ei in omnibus li-
bertas arbitrii, ut in quodcunque voluerit, ipsa declinet. Ori-
gen. in locum, -
their fault, nor would it be blameworthy in them to do all
these things.”
Secondly, They positively tell us, that the apostle here
puts the phrase,” “He gave them up,” for “He permitted
them to be given up.”
Thirdly, That this was done, (1.) “by leaving them naked
and destitute of his former providence and care of them ;”+
not giving them any warning of his displeasure against
them for these tº.ings by his prophets, as he did to the old
world, and Nineveh, or by hisjudgments, in order to their
reformation. (2.) By giving them up to Satan, that un-
clean spirit, who will not fail, when he hath permission, to
provoke them to such uncleanness, and who is that “god of
the world, who blinds men's eyes, that they should not see
the truth,” 2 Cor. iv. 4. So the Lord moved David to say,
“Go, number Israel and Judah,” 2 Saºxxiv.; l, i. e. Satan
provoked him to do it, 1 Chron. xxi. 1. And thus, say
they, “a physician gives up his patient to do what he will,
when he finds he will not follow his prescriptions.” Lastly,
They observe, that they were thus deserted and given up by
God, as the just punishment of their iniquities committed
against the law of nature, which they had received, because
they “held the truth” revealed “in unrighteousness” (ver. 18);
because “when they knew God, they did not glorify him as
God, nor were they thankful” (ver. 21); and because,
“knowing that they who did these things were worthy of
death, they not only did the same, but had pleasure in them
that did them;” and so indeeds they were delivered up to
do these things by their own wickedness (ver. 24. 26).
Whence the same apostle saith, Éavrov, tragé8wway, “They
gave themselves up to all lasciviousness,” Eph. iv. 19.
Thus on the contrary we say, “Such a man's money
destroyed him,” when it was not the money, but his intem-
perate and evil use of it that did so. And “Such a man's
flatterers corrupted him,” when it was his hearkening to
them, and being persuaded by them, which did it; whereas
he had it in his power not to hearken to them. And in this
permissive sense the word razé8wksy, “he gave them up,” is
used almost a hundred times in the Old Testament; when
God is said to give men up into the hands of their enemies,
—to give them up to the sword. Thus the three children
raçá8wway, “gave up their bodies to be burned,” Dan. iii. 20;
thus David prays he may “not be given up into the hard
of his oppressors,” i. e. that God would not leave him to
their power, Ps. cxix. 121, and the son of Sirach, that God
would “not give him up to a proud look,” Ecclus, xxiii. 4,
and so God “gave his people up to their own heart's lusts;”
i.e. he let them follow their own inventions, Ps. lxxxi. 12.
And this is farther evident from ver. 32, where they are said
* IIagéºokev čvrt roi; ovvexºpnas. Theodoret. 'Avri roi; sta-
asy. Chrysostom, Theophylact. -
ºf Tā; oixeiac aréounösia; #yúayware. Theod. Oüx aire,
Tragašovc, &rºye || 3xx' airã; ºfty airów hºw#xec’sy &; āya:tov. By-
Toy Knösaoyiac. Photius. Thy rod Osoſ waráxei Juy, ragášooty
āyogaśćet. Theoph.
ºf Aoströv 8: Aaflow airrot, 52arayå; tragé8wkey sic & wagé8oxey.
Phot. Tă yāé àvarrºopſ roi; Osoſ; slo Aysra, voic 386Miao, ºraçã.
rów 3alpºvov, rotiro è rapáēoriy So, waxeſ, tº ypadſ. CEcum.
§ Tô 3è trapéºokev airob; 3 ©eå;, rovréatriy i si. Siły rangzºá-
Aeta Kai trapovia, hoixeia atröy ºrgážic, # #x00aio; trºport; airrº
tragé8oxey airrow; eiç rà tº &ripwizz wēśn, wai iwi roſ, vay’rlov yā;
sióBakey Aiyev ºr ārāaeasy airy ro àgyögtov, waito oi &eyüploy
&réxxva w śxx& &a wro; airoij Kai Émi waxâj Xghai;, xal 3&4 Saipay
airy rāv x0xázov rô Trxiēoº, kairot oix #xtivo Siaºssipova'iy,
tº rà Trºozèxely zai traiSeq 0a roſtok, Širst #arly #y rā yápa
tº #45 tº trešio 6a, ºft. Photius.
CHAPTER II.
53?
mind, to do those things which were not convenient;
(they)
29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornica-
tion, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of
envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whisperers,
30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud,
boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
to have done all these things against their knowledge of the
judgment of God upon such evil-doers. -
He that would see a larger comment upon ver. 29–31,
let him consult the learned Grotius; I only shall observe
from the Greek commentators, (1.) That from these words
“being filled with all unrighteousness,” it seemeth reasonable
to interpret almost all that follows as some species of un-
righteousness or injustice. (2.) That roympia signifies that
wickedness which causes men to do mischief against their
neighbour by treachery; waxia, to do it out of malice; waxo-
#9sia, to accustom themselves to do so. (3.) That $16vgºrai
are they that whisper things to the damage of others when
they are present ; waráxaxoi, they that openly defame them
being absent. (4.) “Yºregnqavia, is that pride which puffs us
up on the account of the things we do enjoy; &xagoyeiz, that
boasting we make of things which we have not.
* Ver. 32. "Agioi Bayárov, Worthy of death.] That mur-
der, adultery, and unnatural lusts deserved death, they knew
not only by the light of nature and of conscience, but by
their own laws, condemning them who did them to death.
That all these sins being species of injustice, condemned by
the law of nature, rendered them obnoxious to the displea-
sure of that God who is the governor of the world and the
avenger of all unrighteousness, and so obnoxious to death
for violating the laws he had given them to govern themselves
by, they might know by the light of nature.
Hence of their Tartarus, which they held to be carcer
poenarum infernarum,” Tertullian speaks thus; Illuc ab-
strudi solent impii quoque in parentes, et in sorores incesti,
et maritarum adulteri, et virginum raptores, et puerorum
contaminatores, et qui saeviunt, et qui furantur, et qui occi-
* Apol. cap. 11.
3] Without understanding, covenant-breakers, whil.-
out natural affection, implacable, ummerciful:
32 Who knowing the judgment of God, (viz.) that
they who do such things are *worthy of death, not
only do the same, but "have pleasure in them that
do them.
dunt, et qui decipiunt; and to this agrees the description of
their punishments in Virgil:*
Hic, quihus invisi fratres, dum vita manebat
Pulsatusve parens, et fraus innexa clienti;
Aut qui divitiis Soli incubuere repertis,
Nec partem posuere suis: quae maxima turba est;
Quique ob adulterium caesi; quique arma secuti
Impia, nec veriti dominorum fallere dextras;
Inclusi poenam expectant, &c.
Wendidithic auro patriam, dominumque potentem
Imposuit: fixit leges pretio, atque refixit.
Hic thalamum invasit natae, vetitosque hymenaeos,
Ausi omnes immane nefas.
Mr. L. here reads, oùx #véna'ay &rt, and renders the words
thus “Who knowing the judgment of God, knew not that
they who did these things were worthy of death ;” but this
reading cannot stand: for what righteous judgment of God
could they know to be due to them who did these things,
who knew not that they were worthy of death, and “to
whom sin,” saith he, “could not be imputed without (a posi-
tive) law,” which we know the gentiles had not? See the
reading of the text largely confirmed, Examen Millii in
locum.
* Zwevěokoča's rot; ºrgácaroval, Have pleasure in them that
do them.] This, say the Greek commentators, is much worse
than the bare doing of them ; for a man may do them
through the power of temptation, and by consideration may
after become sensible of his folly, and repent of it; but
when he is arrived at the height of wickedness, that he not
only approves but delights in seeing the like things done by
others, he demonstrates such a strong affection to them as is
| incurable.
- * Aºn. Vl, a versu bû8 ad 622.
CHAPTER II.
1 THEREFORE (since God hath shown his displea-
sure thus against the gentiles for sinning against the
law of nature), thou art inexcusable, O (Jewish) man,
whoever thou art that judgest (so severely of them):
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II.
* The apostle had in the former chapter laid down this as
the foundation of his discourse, that “the gospel of Christ
was the power of God to the salvation both of Jew and gen-
tile,” ver, 16, and that there only was revealed that righte-
ousness of God through faith, by which alone life and salva-
tion was to be obtained. He had also shown the necessity of
this faith, because “the wrath of God was revealed from
heaven against all unrighteousness of men, who held the
truth in unrighteousness;” and that this the gentiles had done,
by acting against the light of mature; and that God had
been angry with, and punished them for it, he had shown
from ver. 19 to the end of that chapter.
These gentiles were reputed by the Jews as unclean, great
sinners, and so incapable of salvation; and their great quar-
rel against the gospel was this, that it admitted such men to
the favour of God without circumcision, and obedience to
the law of Moses. To those Jews the apostle in this chap-
ter directeth his discourse, proving here, that they who lived
under the law wanted this justification as much as others,
being also great sinners : and in the following chapters, that
neither they nor the gentiles could obtain this justification by
the law (see ver, 13. 17).
* Wer. l. Tà y&g abrå mpárael;, For thou doest the same
things.] If to any one it seem strange that the apostle
should pronounce the Jews guilty of the same sins of which
he had accused the gentiles, ch. i., \et him consider what
for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest
thyself; for * thou that judgest doest the same things
(offending as much against the law of Moses, as they
have done against the law of nature).
their own Josephus” hath recorded of them, and he will
cease to wonder. For, first, he assures us, there “was not a
nation under heaven more wicked than they were. What,”
saith he, “have you done of all the good things required by
our lawgiver? What have ye not done of all those things
which he pronounced accursed? So that had the Romans
delayed to come against these execrable persons, I believe,”
saith he, “either the earth would have swallowed up, or a
deluge would have swept away, their city; or fire from hea-
ven would have consumed it, as it did Sodom, for it brought
forth a generation of men far more wicked than they who
suffered such things.” There is not a sin mentioned, ch. i.,
of which he doth not in that history accuse them, not ex-
cepting that of unnatural lusts: for of their zealots, he
Saith,; “It was sport to them to force women; they freely
* Kaššxaa-row ºy oily #meåtåval rºy trapavoglav airāv 380yarov,
avvexévra 3’ eiträſy whºrs ºréxiv #xxny rotaira retrovšāyat, whº's
yevsåy # aiãvo; yeyovával waxia; yovitzwréeay. De Bell. Jud. lib.
vi, cap. 27, p. 933. ‘Yºy & ri rāv eixoynbávrov trà rod
voposárov Tränganrai; ºri 83 rāv in fixtivov warngalºway traganá-
Msirrat. Cap. 26, p. 930, C.
+ Oizat 'Pagaiwy 88aºuvévroy #mri row: áxitneſovº, # zaramo-
6āyal &y trè Xázuavoc, , zaraavºivai rāy rôly rous ric
2030pxhvng ºraxaſ'sſy ×egavoic, wroxi, Yêf rāy ratta traSévros
#veyze yews&y &Searégay. De Bell. Jud. lib. vi. cap. 37.
f Twaixãvigget; maičovro, wai Fast, 38sia; fiveSnavráSave rº
538
ROMANS. * ..
2 But whatsoever thou mayest think, *we are sure
that the judgment of God is according to truth, against
them which commit such things (it being equitable
that he should, and certain that he will, deal with men
according to his word).
3 And (then) thinkest thou this, O man, who judg-
est them who do such things (against the law of na-
ture), and doest the same (against the law of Moses),
that thou shalt escape the judgment of God (which
they have so severely felt) *
4 Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness (to
thee above them, in giving the law, covenant, and pro-
mises, to thee, ix. 4), and (his) forbearance and long-
suffering (emercised hitherto to thee, who hast long de-
served his wrath, ix. 22), not knowing (or discerning)
that the goodness of God (naturally) leadeth thee to
repentance, (and is a powerful motive to engage thee
to it? 2 Pet. iii. 9, 15.)
5 But, after the hardness and impenitency of thy
heart (which will not suffer thee to repent and believe
the gospel), treasurest (yet) up (more) wrath against
the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous
judgment of God (Rom. ix. 22. 1 Thess. ii. 16. v.
9 e
6 who will render to every man (Jew and gentile)
according to his deeds: -
7 To them who, “by patient continuance in well-
doing, seek for glory, and honour, and immortality,
eternal life;
8 But to them who are contentious (against), and
gave up themselves to the passions of women, exercising and
requiring unnatural lusts, and filling the whole city with im-
purities.” And again, “They committed all kinds of
wickedness, omitting none which ever came to the memory
of man, esteeming the worst of evils to be good, and finding
that reward of their iniquity which was meet, and a judg-
meat worthy of God.” -
* Ver. 2. But we are sure, of apºsy Bé, or, and we know.
* Ver. 7. Ka8' inopovy #you äya Soń, By patient con-
tinuance in well-doing.] This good work being put in the
singular number, seems to intimate some work eminently so.
Now when the Jews asked our Saviour, “What shall we do
that we may work the works of God?” his answer was,
“This is the work of God, that ye believe in him whom he
hath sent,” John vi. 28, 29. The preaching of this faith is
styled emphatically, “the works,” Acts v. 31. xiii. 2. xiv.
26. xv. 58, and sometimes “the work of Christ,” Phil. ii.
30, “the work of the Lord,” I Cor. xvi. 10. The faith
Wrought by it is #yov mia-rewº, “the work of faith,” 2. Thess.
i. 2, and he that begets it in us, is said to begin in us #yov
#ya837, “the good work,” Phil. i. 6. And in this sense it
accords well with the scope of the apostle, whether it be
joined with the word “patience,” or with the following words;
for the apostle had said in the former chapter, that “the
gospel of Christ was the power of God through faith to sal-
Vation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also
to the gentile,” Rom. i. 16. This he here prosecutes, say-
ing that “to them who by patience in the faith of Christ,
seek the glory, honour, and immortality,” promised in the
gospel, God will give “eternal life.”
*A*Sapa ſay, Incorruption.] This, saith Theophylact, refers
to the body, and by using this word, rå; regi &yaa’rácEw;
ăvoiye Şügaç, “he openeth the gates of the resurrection.”
* Ver, 8. Kai 3.7s.6dial paſſy tº 3Anësi, And obey not the
truth.] The gospel being styled “the truth of God,” Rom.
iii. 7. xv. 8, “the word of truth,” Eph. i. 3. Col. i. 5.
2 Tim. ii. 15. James i. 18; the knowledge of it being
#riyvºroo’ic &AnSeiac, “the knowledge of the truth,” 1 Tim. ii.
Képeſ of ºvov 8: wěopcow, &AX& Kai rāšn yuvaixãy Épargoſyro, kai
3: Wºrs;8oNºw &oexygia; 36epairov, hºová, imsváncay. Lib. vii. cap.
_34, p. 897. IIáv yap xaxia; Beyov #sºftwhaayiro, ºwn& sºrt
ºrgérégov trgovirapy:Sāv, ºvhan trapa?:3oxey, atrol wagaxtºrávre;
āśńxwrov, rà wiya'ra waxy &yaść vowićovre;’ totyagoûy rà
wrpoo’ixoy #xacºroi ré réxo; eigavro, roi, ogoi rºy 3%iay #wi ºrāavy
airoic rºwgiay 8pa£sdaayroº. Lib. vii. cap. 30, p. 986, E.
"obey not the truth (of the gospel, as generally you
Jews do not), “but obey unrighteousness (or false-
hood), indignation and wrath,
9 Tribulation and anguish (I say shall be) upon
every soul that worketh evil, upon the Jew first, (as
being under greater light, and as having the gospel first
preached to them, Acts xiii. 46, and to whom Christ
was first, and in person sent, Acts iii. 26,) and also
upon the gentile : (for though God winked at the times
of their former ignorance, Acts xvii. 30, yet now he
hath revealed his wrath from heaven against all unrigh-
teousness, i. 17, they must expect his just displeasure
who turn not from it to the way of truth, as the gospel
is called, 2 Pet. ii. 2).
10 But glory, honour, and peace, shall be to every
man that worketh good, to the Jew first, (as being the
church of God, to whom the promises of the Messiah
chiefly did belong, Rom. ix.4,) and also to the (be-
lieving) gentile; (they being by faith Abraham’s seed,
and heirs according to the promise, Gal. iii. 29.
11 I say to the gentile also, ) for there is "no respect
of persons with God.
12 Tribulation, and anguish, I say, shall be on every
soul that worketh evil, whether Jew or gentile,) for "as
many as have sinned without the (written) law (which
is the case of the gentiles) shall perish without (that)
law (being condemned by the law written in their hearts):
and as many as have sinned in (or under) the law
(which is the case of the Jews), shall be judged (and
condemned for their evil deeds) by the law :
4. iv. 3. 2 Tim. ii. 25. Tit. i. 1. Heb. x. 26; the belief of it
being triart; &Amósiac, “the belief of the truth,” 2. Thess. ii.
13; obedience to it being “obedience to the truth,” Gal. i.
3. v. 7; walking according to it being “walking according to
the truth,” 1 John ii. 4. John iii. 3; the gospel itself being
emphatically styled “the truth,” Eph. iv. 21. 2 John 3, 4.
3 John 12; to know it, being “to know the truth,” l Jöhn
ii. 21; to profess it, “to be of the truth,” 1 John iii. 19 ;
to reject it, “not to believe the truth,” 2 Thess. ii. 12; to
err from it, “to err from the truth,” Titus i. 14. James v.
19; I say, this being so, oi ść #19siac, “they that are con-
tentious” here, and “obey not the truth,” may be, first, the
unbelieving Jews, or false apostles, coming from them, who
“preached Christ, iž #giðeiaç, out of contention” against
Paul, Phil. i. 16, and, secondly, the gentiles which spake
against the truth, and rejected it; and both these obeyed, and
gave up themselves to falsehood: the gentiles, by “changing
the truth of God into a lie,” i. 25; the Jews, by adhering
to their “vain traditions,” which made void the commands
of God, and owning them as derived from Moses, when they
were only “the doctrines of men.”
* IIEiðoºyot; 33 tº 38wig, But obey unrighteousness.] Here
Chrysostom notes, that the apostle doth not say, 8iałowiyotº,
ºrvpavyovºwävoic, “who are forced to,” but “who obey unrighte-
ousness,” “va £149.h; Śri Trgoatpéa Ew; tº Trrãºa, oùx &váyxng tº
#ywºnga, §§ey Kai čašyvoo rot, “that thou mayest learn, that
they offend of choice, and not of necessity, and therefore
are unworthy of pardon.”
7 Wer. 11. Oi Trgoo wroxn-lia, no respect of persons.] i. e.
He is not one who will commive at men doing wickedly, be-
cause they are Jews, whilst he punisheth the like wickedness
in the gentiles; or afford justification and salvation to the
Jew believing, and working that which is good, and not to
the believing and obedient gentile (Rom. iii. 29, 30).
* Wer. 12. Ayāºw; &moxoivrat—Éy véºw ºpiShaoyºtai, As many
as have sinned without law shall also perish without law,
and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by
the law.] Here Mr. Dodwell” says, “That some advantage
may be taken from the words &moxoivrai and x8%govtat,
that which is called perishing in the case of the gentiles, and
so may be understood as well of ceasing to be, as of any
positive inflictions, being opposed to be judged in the latter
clause relating to the Jews.” But (1.) the word ārox^{ety,
“to perish,” is often used in the New Testament, and espe-
* P 141.
sº •" CHAPTER II.
539
^
thence.”
13 For (know this, O thou Jew, that) *not the hear-
ers (only) of the law are (upon that account) just
before God, but the doers of it (only) shall be justi-
fied, (i.e. accepted of God, as acting suitably to their
profession.
14 And say not, That the gentiles therefore cannot
be justified or accepted with God, because they having
not the law cannot be doers of it :) for "when the gen-
tiles, who have not the law (of Moses), do by nature
the things contained in the (moral) law, they, having
not the (written) law, are a law (a rule of living) to
themselves: --
*
cially in the epistles, of those Christians who by his own
hypothesis are to perish by being subject to eternal punish-
ments, as in those words, whºmóNAws, “Destroy not with thy
meat thy brother, for whom Christ died,” Rom. xiv. 15, and
in 1 Cor. viii. 11, wai &moxeſ rat, “And so shall thy brother
perish, for whom Christ died:” so also 2 Cor. xv. 4, 5. 2
Thess. ii. 10. 2 Pet. iii. 9, yea, this criticism would exempt
not only Judas the traitor, that við; &moxeiac, “son of perdi-
tion,” John xvii. 12, but even the very devils from this fu-
ture punishment; for their question is, #x0s; &moxia at #23;;
“Art thou come to destroy us before the time?” Luke iv.
34. It is used in the gospels of Christ's little ones, in those
words, “It is not the will of my Father, ºva &móAnrat, that
one of these little ones should perish,” Matt. v. 29. xviii. 14;
of losing the soul by denying Christ, Matt. x. 39. xvi. 25.
And, lastly, it is used of the destruction of soul and body,
in hell, Matt. x. 28. (2.) KgiSharovrai, here applied to the
Jews, signifies xaraxptSharovrai, “they shall be condemned,”
as appears from the opposition it bears to 3ixatosho'oya'at,
“ they shall be justified,” ver. 13. And this it still doth, and
must do, when it relates to the judgment passed upon the
wicked at that day: so John iii. 18. xii. 48. xvi. 11. 2
Thess. ii. 12. Heb. xiii. 4. And this being introduced as a
proof, that in that day there should be “tribulation and an-
guish upon every soul that worketh evil,” whether he be Jew
or gentile, and that because “God is no respecter of per-
sons,” shows that both Jew and gentile working evil must
fall under that tribulation and anguish. And the reason of
the variation of the words may be probably this, that the
gentile being condemned by the law written in his own heart,
and so being as it were a confessed criminal, there needs no-
thing more than to sentence him to the perdition which his
sin deserves; whereas the Jew being to be sentenced by a
Written law, which he may think he has not violated, so
as to deserve condemnation, he must be judged and con-
demned by the sentence which the law hath pronounced
against him.
* Ver. 13. Oi of &zºoarai rod yégou, Not the hearers of the
law.] The Jewish religion was very much corrupted at our
Saviour's coming, so that they thought it sufficient to obtain
God's favour, and to secure them from his judgments, (1.)
that they were of the seed of Abraham. And hence the
Baptist speaks thus to them, “Bring forth fruits meet for re-
pentance, and think it not sufficient to say within yourselves,
We have Abraham for our father,” Matt. iii. 8, 9. The
Chaldee paraphrasts do often mention their expectation of
being preserved for the merits or good works of their fore-
fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and their writers add,
that” “hell-fire hath no power over the sinners of Israel,
because Abraham and Isaac descend thither to fetch them
(2.) They held that circumcision was of sufficient
virtue to render them accepted of God, and to preserve them
from eternal ruin; for they teach + that “no circumcised
person goes to hell,” God having promised to deliver them
from it, “for the merit of circumcision;” and having told
Abraham, that “when his children fell into transgression,
and did wicked works, he would remember the odour of
their foreskins, and would be satisfied with their piety.”. And
(3.) they taught, that: “all Israelites had a portion in the
world to come;” and that notwithstanding their sins, yea,
though they were condemned here for their wickedness: this
is the first sentence in the Capitula Patrum, whereas of all
the gentiles, without exception, they pronounce that's “they
are fuel for hell-fire.” (4.) They teach, that to be employ-
ed in hearing and studying the law, was a thing sufficient to
make them acceptable with God. To this James seems to
refer in these words, “And be ye doers of the word, and
* Pocock. Miscell. p. 172, 227.
+ Pug. Fid, par. iii. dis. 3, cap. 16, sect. 36, 37.
f See Smith's Jewish Notion of Legal Right ch. 3.
§ Pirk. Eliez, p. 69, sect, 4. *
not hearers only, deceiving your own souls,” James i. 22.
Now most of these vain opinions the apostle in this chapter,
and throughout this epistle, labours to confute: the first
here, ver. 9, the second, ver. 24, the third, from ver. 2 to the
9th, and the fourth, in this verse.
* Ver. 14. “oray y&g #6vn, For when the gentiles.] Most
interpreters understand this of the believing gentiles, “the
righteousness of the law being fulfilled in them” only “who
walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit,” Rom. viii. 4,
and he being “only the inward Jew, who hath the cir-
cumcision of the heart in the Spirit,” ver. 29. But all the
ancient commentators interpret these last six verses, not in-
deed of the idolatrous gentiles, but of such gentiles as lived be-
fore the law, as Melchisedec and Job; or were worshippers of
the true God as Cornelius; or repented, as the Ninevites. These
examples, saith Chrysostom, he sets before the Jews, as being
such as they could not contradict. And in his comment on
the fifteenth verse, he makes this inference from the words,”
“By these things he shows that God made man sufficient of
himself to choose virtue and avoid vice;” adding, that this
was necessary to be said, to stop the mouths of them who
inquired, troß roy #2780-8sy Xpévoy rā rā; too affirm; ºrpovoia; hy;
“Where were the footsteps of such a providence in former
times P” This the apostle seems plainly to insinuate, by ar-
guing that God did and will accept the gentile, living accord-
ing to “the law written in his heart,” and therefore owning
him as the true God, and honouring or “glorifying him
as that God,” who made the heaven and the earth; be-
cause he is “no respecter of persons.” This seems the ob-
vious meaning of those words of Peter, in the case of Cor-
nelius and all his friends, “Of a truth I perceive that God.
is no respecter of persons” (i.e. he affects them not barely
because they are circumcised, or of such a nation), “but in
every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness,
is acceptable to him,” Acts xx. 34, 35, supposing that there
might be such in every nation. And the argument of Ori-
gen seems here considerable; that “if God condemned the
gentiles because they held the truth in unrighteousness, and
when they knew God did not glorify him as God, neither
were thankful; it seems reasonable to conceive, that had
they done what they ſulpably neglected, and might have
done, i. e. had they glorified him as God, and been thank-
ful, they would have done what had been acceptable to God,
and fit to be rewarded by his goodness;” i.e. had they held
the truth in righteousness, and abstained from those actions
for which their conscience did accuse them, and for which
“they knew they were worthy of death,” as they who were
inexcusable for not doing of them might have done, they
would have escaped “the wrath of God revealed from hea-
ven against all unrighteousness.” But then these things
may here be offered to consideration:
First, That this acceptance may not reach so far as to put
them under the same privileges and favours with his church
and people; but if they live in such times and places where
an exacter knowledge of his will might be obtained, it may
induce his providence to find out means of imparting that
also to them, as in the case of Cornelius and his friends, who
have told things “by which he and his house should be
saved,” Acts xi. 14.
Secondly, That though God may and will reward such
honest heathens, because otherwise they could have no en-
couragement to own or serve him as their God, since “he
* Aix roºrov #8siže réxiv 3rt airãexn rôy &ySgorror woina's 3
©E3; Trºc tºy ric àperä, aſpeciv, kai rāv rà, Maxia; puyāy.
+ Si enim videtur apostolus condemnare gentiles, ex ed
quðd naturali intelligentiá clim cognovissent Deum, non sicut
Deum magnificaverunt, quandô non putamus quðd etiam col-
laudare eos possit et debeat, si qui in his cognoscentes Deum,
sicut Deum magnificent dubitari igitur non puto, quin is
qui pro malo opere condemnari meruisset, idem, si operatur
bonum, remuneratione boni operis dignus haberetur.
540
ROMANS.
15 (Doing those things) which show the work of
the law written in their hearts, their consciences also
bearing witness (to it), and their thoughts meanwhile
(or their reasonings within themselves) accusing or
else excusing one another: (and so the uncircumcision
keeping the righteousness of the law, and fulfilling the
law, shall be by God accounted for circumcision, and
be as acceptable to him as the circumcision, ver. 26,
16 And these rewards and punishments will be dis-
tributed to Jew and gentile) in the day when God shall
judge the secrets of men's (hearts) by Jesus Christ
according to my gospel; (or, as my gospel testifies he
will ; for the heathens are not be judged according to
the tenor of the gospel, but according to the light of
nature, ver. 12.)
17 Behold, (thou who gloriest in this, that) * thou
art called a Jew, (one of that nation which God hath
known above all the families of the earth, Amos iii. 2,
to whom pertaineth the adoption and covenants, ix. 4,)
and resteth in (the outward performances of) the law,
that cometh to God,” saith the apostle, “must believe that
he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him,” Heb. xi.
6, yet is he not obliged to give them the glorious reward
which he hath promised to the Christian: for this not being
due to their works, they could not from the light of nature
be assured of it; and it being so peculiarly assigned to
faith in Christ, both affirmatively and negatively, when the
apostle saith, “God hath given us eternal life, and that life
is in his Son; he that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath
not the Son hath not life; this is life eternal, that they know
thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast
sent; this is the true God and eternal life” (1 John v. 11—
13. 20. John xvii. 3, see John i. 4. xiii. 16. 36. v. 24. vi.
27); it cannot well be said to belong to any other; and
therefore Origen” freely grants this, and yet thinks such per-
sons may not be utterly deprived of a reward; especially it
seems not equitable that they should be deprived of all re-
ward, purely for want of an impossible condition; i.e. be-
cause they believed not in him of whom they had not, and
very often could not, have heard. It may be added,
Thirdly, That if any of them did arrive at such a state as
made them indeed to “fear God, and work righteousness,”
they did this not merely by the strength of matural light;
for though some of them seem to say, that'ſ nature or philo-
sophy “was a sufficient guide to virtue,” yet that they meant
not this exclusively of the divine assistance, which they saw
necessary to preserve them against the infirmities of human
nature, their own words t do fully testify. And if God
owned any of them as truly righteous, it was by virtue of
their faith in God; i.e. that faith by which they believed he
was “a rewarder of them that diligently seek him ;” which
being, as to kind, the same with that which the apostle so
highly commends, Heb. xi., even “the expectation of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,” when it pro-
duced in them a sincere endeavour to serve and please him,
according to the light of nature, and cleave to their duty,
though they might suffer for it in this world, might be im-
puted unto them for righteousness. I conclude these con-
jectures with Origen on the same place: Sed tamen in arbi-
trio legentis est probare quae dicta sunt, vel non.
* Licét alienus à vità videatur aeternă qui non credit
Christo, videtur quëd per haec quae dicuntur ab apostolo, bo-
norum operum gloriam, et honorem, et pacem perdere
penitās non possit. “.
+ Nec est quisquam gentisullius, qui ducem naturam nac-
tus, ad virtutem venire non possit. Cic. de Leg. lib. i. n. 3.
† Multos et nostra civitas et Graecia tulit singulares viros,
quorum neminem, misijuvante Deo, talem fuisse credendum
est Nemo igitur vir magnus sine aliquo afflatā divino
unquam fuit. Cic. de Nat. Deorum, lib. ii. n. 124. 725.
At 3: éparat Juxic pógei; &ºpicánthaipºol Év werpiº ris &nga;
āşerāz, ºrgö, rāv Āaxárny Kºox3rgiav was wºulogával, 3iorral £vya-
yama-rot Quoi, zal avXXhºrrogcc. Max. Tyr. Dissert. 22, p.
218.
and maketh thy boast of God (as the author and pa-
tron of thy religion, and thy God in covenant),
18 And (that thou) knowest his will, and approvest
the things that are most excellent, being instructed
out of the law (concerning them) ;
19 And art confident that thou thyself art (able to
be) a guide *to the blind (gentile), a light of them
(that sit) in darkness,
20 An instructor of “the foolish, a teacher of babes,
which hast the form of knowledge and of truth in the
law (i. e. a scheme or draught of the affirmative precepts
of the law which instruct thee what to do, and of the
negative precepts which teach thee what to leave un-
done).
21 Thou therefore * which teachest another (i. e.
who wadertakest to be a guide unto, and teacher of, the
gentile), teachest thou not thyself (to practise thine
own lessons) 8 thou that preachest (or proclaimest) a
man should not steal, dost thou steal (and so con-
demn thyself out of thine own mouth) P
22 Thou that sayest a man *should not commit
* Ver. 17. xi, 'lověaſo; inovo&#ón, Thow art called a Jew.]
The apostle doth not here begin to speak to the Jew, but to
prove farther and illustrate what he said before, as is evident
from the words ièë ov, “Behold thou (to whom I speak) art
called a Jew ;" he therefore may be supposed to speak this
| farther, to convince him that he, doing the same things, shall
not escape the judgment of God; and that the hearing of
the law he doth not practise will be so far from justifying
him before God, that it will add to his condemnation.
’133, Bi Wā—rvpxãy, as Dr. Mills reads: see Examen Millii
here.
* Ver. 19. Twºxöy, Of the blind.] “The blind,” and
“them that sit in darkness,” is a periphrasis of the gentiles
(see Isa. ix. 1. xlii. 6, 7. xlix. 9. Luke i. 79. Eph. v. 8).
*Wer. 20. Apsávoy, Of the foolish..] The “foolish” and
the “babes” seem to be here the proselytes to the Jewish
law, whom they accounted as “infants new-born.”
* Wer. 21. ‘o ośy 313&ºrxoy Érseoy, Thow that teachest an-
other.] This verse may be illustrated out of the Jewish writ-
ings ; for they say, that * “he who teaches others what he
doth not himself, is like a blind man who hath a candle in
his hand to give light to others, whilst he himself doth walk
in darkness.” So apposite is the first question to convince
those Jews, who pretended to be guides and lights to the
blind gentiles, that they themselves were blind. And again,
“How can a wise man say in the congregation, Thou shalt
not steal, when he steals P” Whence it appears, that in
their account this was sufficient to cut off their pretence to
wisdom.
* Ver, 22. ‘O Aéyov tº woxidew, Thow that sayest a man
should not commit adultery, &c.] Of all these things the
Jewish doctors were notoriously guilty, and of most of them
they were accused by our Lord. As, v. g. first, that “they
said, and did not ;” that “they laid heavy burdens upon
others, which they would not touch with their own fingers”
(Matt. xxiii. 3, 4); that they made his Father's house “a
den of thieves” (Matt. xxi. 13. John ii. 16); that they were
guilty of adultery, by unjust divorces (Matt. xix. 9); and
their polygamy was so shameful, that they would proclaim
in any place where they came, Quaenam erit mihi uxor ir.
diem, ºf “Who will be my wife for this day,” or while I stay
in this place P And surely such a wife was little better than
a whore, Hence Justin Martyr'ſ tells the Jews, that where-
ever they travelled, or came, they did, with the permission
of their rabbins, vågari yágov yuyaſzag äyearsat, “take wo-
men, and use them as their wives, under pretence of marri-
age.” And the theft and merchandise of which they are
accused, Matt. xxi. John ii., being about holy things, may
be well also styled sacrilege ; though of this they being ac-
cused in the times of the prophet Malachi, doubtless they
were more guilty of it in these worst times. Accordingly
* Sepher Hamaaloth, p. 87.
+ Lightf in Matt. xix. 3.
† Dial. cum Tryph. p. 363, D, 371, A.
CHAPTER II.
541
adultery, dost thou commit adultery: "Thou that
abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege (robbing
God of his honour another way) 8
23 Thou that makest thy boast of (thy skill in) the
law, through breaking the law (in those instances
which the conscience of the very heathen doth condemn,)
dishonourest thou (the name of) God (among the gen-
tiles)? -
24 For "the name of God is blasphemed among
the gentiles through you (Jews, pretending to be so
dear to God, and so great favourites of heaven, and
yet living so licentiously as you do, and so it hath hap-
pened to you, according) as it is written (of you, Isa.
lii. 5. Ezek. xxxvi. 23.
25 This violation of the law cuts off the benefit of
gour circumcision) ; for circumcision verily profiteth,
if thou keepest the law, (as circumcision obligeth thee
to do, Gal. v. 2,) but if thou art (still) a breaker of
the law, thy circumcision is made (of no more advan-
tage to free thee from God’s condemnation, than) un-
circumcision.” -
26 Therefore (on the other side) if the uncircumci-
Josephus” doth pronounce them guilty, not only of “theft,
treachery, adultery, sacrilege,” but of “rapines and mur-
ders, and new ways of wickedness invented by them, of all
which the temple was made the receptacle.” Add to this,
that the same Josephus informs us, that not long after the
writing of this epistle, the servants of the high-priests, rä; rāv
isgéav Šexára, Éxápagavoy Biaćºwevot, “took away by violence
the tithes of the priests, so that many of them perished for
want of food” (Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 8, p. 698, E).
Note also from these words, “Thou that abhorrest idols,”
the mistake of those who think the Gnostics are here refer-
red to; they being so far from abhorring idols, that Irenaeus+
informs us, “they had their images, they worshipped idols
without fear, and went first to the feasts celebrated in the
idol-temple.” Origen f also assures us, that he, viz. Simon
Magus, taught his disciples to “count idolatry as a thing in-
different.” º -
* Thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege 2]
Robbing that God of his honour this way, who hath required
thee to “honour him with thy substance and the firstfruits
of thy increase” (Prov. iii. 9. Mal. iii. 8,9. Ecclus. xxxv.
8), as the idolater doth by giving his honour to an idol. And
of this sin they being accused by God himself, declaring by
his prophet Malachi that they had “robbed him in tithes
and offerings,” doubtless they were more guilty of it in these
worst times of the Jewish nation.
*7 Wer. 24. BAacq mºſtal iv roſ; Svect, Is blasphemed
among the gentiles.] Of this Josephus $ doth frequently ac-
* Tà wºunt& ºv rôy &#xaprºpºrov #80%xats, xxoråc Aéya,
xai évéºga;, xzi wouxsia;, &etrayaſ; 3' #gićere kai pāvoic, wai živac'
waworoweſ rs waxiac 38ovº, #x3oxeſoy & Trávrov rá isgöy yéyove. De
Bell. Jud, lib. vi. cap. 26.
+ 'emi rāoray optáalºow rāv #Syöv réºlly, sic rºw rôy si33-
Xoy yeyop,ávny, ºrgårot avviaaw. Lib. i. p. 26, D. Imagi-
nes quidem depictas, quasdam autem et de reliquà materia
fabricatas habent, et has coronant, et proponunt eas cum
imaginibus mundi philosophorum, videlicet cum imagine
Pythagorae, Platonis, et Aristotelis, et reliquorum, et reli-
quam observationem circa eas ut gentes faciunt. Lib. i. cap.
24. Wide Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. ii. cap. 13.
f 'Eyašta togety ºrgès rêy Eiðoxºargsiay. Contra Celsum, lib. vi.
p. 282. t -
§ Tí8; aty&ral trap' iºſy % ri apümrrºra, ri 33 oix, wai roſ.
#x960ſ; pavegöv yáyoys; "roºtreiſers y&g "ragayogotyrs;, xa, xas'
ãºpay £gićers, ris Xsipov yiveral, rāg 33xia; &map &gerä; ini-
8sićly wrototpaevol. De Bell. Jud. lib. vi. p. 931, B, C.
sion (i. e. the gentile, though uncircumcised) *keep the
righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision
be accounted for circumcision? (i.e. shall he not be
as acceptable to God, as if he had been circumcised ?)
27 And shall not (the) *uncircumcision which is
by nature (i. e. the gentile, who continues uncircum-
cised as he was by nature), if it fulfil the law, judge
(and condemn) thee, who by the letter (i.e. having the
letter of the law) dost transgress the law
28 For he is not (in God’s account) a Jew (i.e. one
beloved of him) who is one (only) outwardly (by pro-
fession); neither is that (valued by him as true) cir-
cumcision, which is outward in the flesh (only).
29 But he is a Jew (in God’s esteem) who is one
inwardly (by the purification of his heart from inward
filth, and evil dispositions and affections) ; and (the)
circumcision (valued by him) is that of the heart, in
the Spirit (wrought in us by the Spirit), and not in (or
by) the letter: whose praise is not of men (who are
not able to discern it), but of God (who is the searcher
of the heart). - i
{
cuse them, saying, “What wickedness do you conceal or
hide, which is not known to your enemies? You triumph in
your wickedness, strive daily who shall be most vile, making
a show of your wickedness as if it were virtue.” And think-
est thou this, O man, that thou shalt escape the judgment of
God, who punisheth the gentiles, when thou art as guilty as
they, of acting against thy conscience, and doing that for
which thine own mouth condemns thee, or which is as bad as
that which thou condemnest in them, and which doth also
cause them to “blaspheme that holy name by which thou
art called P” surely, after these things so scandalously done,
it will be of no advantage to thee that “thou art called a
Jew,” or hast received the sign of circumcision.
* Wer. 25.] Having thus proved that the sins of the Jews
must render them obnoxious to the divine wrath, as well as
those of the gentiles, he proceeds to prove what he said, ver.
7, 10, that the righteousness of the circumcised gentile must
also render him acceptable to God, and rewardable by him,
as well as the righteousness of the Jew.
* Wer. 26. Tā. Śiwai&ara rot vägov, The righteousnesses
or ordinances of the law.] The word 3xat&ºcata is used
sometimes for the divine judgments, which being always
done in equity, and according to the deserts of men, are
fitly called 8waidjaara, or “righteous judgments,” Rom. i.
32. Rev. xv. 4. And sometimes it relates to the ceremo-
nial institutions which God thought fit for a season to pre-
scribe to the Jews, and then it seems best to be rendered
ordinances, as Heb. ix. 1, 10. And sometimes to the moral
precepts of the law, as when the apostle saith, tº 3xaíoºza
rod vôºov, “The righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us,
who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit,” which
seems to be the sense of the phrase here.
* Ver. 27. ‘H #x 4%rew; &ngoğuaria, The uncircumcision
which is by nature.] Most interpreters think that the apostle
speaks in these two verses of the believing gentile, and only
doth design to prove against the Jew, that his want of cir-
cumcision, if he be a doer of righteousness, will not hinder
his acceptance with God (1 Cor. vii. 19. Gal. v. 6. vi. 15),
and that because this righteousness of the law is said to be
fulfilled by them “who walk according to the Spirit” (viii.
4), i.e. by them “who are in Christ Jesus” (ver. 1). But
Grotius and CEcumenius seem to interpret this of the hea-
thens, such as the centurions in the gospel were, because the
condemnation of the Jew seems to arise from this, that he
who had the letter of the law did not that which they who
were without it did.
512
f :
CHAPTER III. -
1 (But you will say, If the uncircumcised person,
keeping the righteousness of the law, is to be reckoned
as circumcised, ii. 26, and if the inward circumcision
be that alone which is acceptable to God, ver. 28, 29),
... what advantage then hath the Jew (above the gentile)?
or what profit is there of (the) circumcision (above
uncircumcision?. - -
2 I answer), Much every way: (ix. 4, but) chiefly,
because unto them were committed the oracles of
God, (in which the covenants and promises made to them,
and chiefly that of the Messiah, and of justification by
faith in him, were contained;
3 Which oracles must be made good notwithstanding
their infidelity.) for what if some of them (to whom
these oracles and the promise of the Messiah, or a seed
in whom the nations of the earth shall be blessed, were
committed,) did not believe (in the promised seed),
shall their unbelief make the faith (or fidelity) of God
(in making this promise to Abraham) of none effect?
4, God forbid (that such a thought should enter into
our hearts) : yea (Gr. but, on the contrary), let God be
(acknowledged) true (and faithful to his word), but every
man a liar (i.e. though all men should prove liars); as
it is written (Ps. li. 4), "That thou mayest be justified
in thy sayings (or mayest appear just and faithful in
performing them), and clear when “thou art judged
(i. e. when thou judgest and contendest with men).
5 But if our unrighteousness commends (illustrates
and establishes) "the righteousness of God (that way
of justification by faith which he alone approves of),
“what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh
vengeance (on the Jew and gentile, for these sins which
thus commend his righteousness, and show the wisdom
and grace of God in admitting this way of our justift-
cation)? "I speak as a man, (i. e. as a heathen or un-
believer would be apt to conclude from our doctrine of
justification by faith:
6 For) God forbid (that I should have a thought
that God can be unrighteous): for how then shall God
judge the world (for their unrighteousness 2
7 Speak, I say their sense), for (say they) if the truth
of God hath more abounded to his glory" through my
lie (if the truth of his promise to justify the gentile
through faith in Christ, hath appeared more illustriously
to the glory of his grace, through my idolatry, and
changing his truth into a lie), why am I also judged as
a sinner (as well as the Jew)?
8 And (why will it) not rather (follow, 3rt trouijaw-
psy), that we should do evil that good may come (or
that God may be glorified)? as we be slanderously
reported, and as some affirm, that (in effect) we say,
(by asserting the doctrine of justification by faith, which
get we are so far from saying, that we declare them who
do so men)" whose damnation is just.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III.
* "Wer, 4."Orw; by 3inatoffs, That thou mayest be justified.]
These words are a confession of king David, that how se-
verely soever God should deal with him for his sin, he
could not accuse him of too much rigour, but must justify
him in his proceedings, and clear him from all imputations
of injustice ; and so they cannot be here brought to prove,
as Esthius imagines, that notwithstanding our sins, God will
be faithful to his promises, but to show, that though God
should reject the Jews for their infidelity, they would have
no reason to complain of his severity, or charge him with
injustice or unfaithfulness on that account, they having for-
feited their right to be the seed of Abraham, the father of
the faithful, by their infidelity, and the gentiles, by imitating
his faith, being now become his children. . Note also, that
the Hebrew TP1, which we render pure or clean, Ps. li. 4, is
well rendered by the Septuagint vixhans, “might overcome;”
it bearing oft that sense in the Syriac, and among the rab-
bins, as Buxtorf proves in his Lexicon, p. 668.
* Ew tº "giveabai ore, Heb. Tºwn, When thou judgest,
Or contendest with any man, or enterest into judgment with
him, or indictest or accusest him of sin; so the word is very
often used in the Old and New Testament. So Job xiii. 19,
ti, Éari à kºtóngºvá, wol; “Who is he that will contend
with nje ?” Eccles. vi. 10, où 8who eral agiðval, “He cannot
contend with one who is stronger than himself;” Isa. xliii.
26, “Put me in remembrance,” wai x818&Ey, “and let us
plead together;” Isa. lxvi. 16, #y rā ºrvei keiðhostal & Kleios,
“By fire will the Lord plead with all flesh ;” Matt. v. 40,
Séaowri got kçişāyat, “To him that will contend with thee;”
I Cor. vi. 1, toxºff art; ºverbai; “Dares any one contend
before the unjust 2" See note on 1 Pet. iv. 6.
* Ver. 5. Aikatooſºny Oscú, The righteousness of God.]
That this phrase in the epistles doth signify always the
righteousness of faith, or our justification through faith in
Christ, hath been shovyn, note on Rom. i. 17, and on 2 Cor.
W. 21 ; and this seem s to establish the exposition given in
the paraphrase. .
* T isotºpy; a #8, wo; ; Os3; #ripígay rºy Spyäy, What shall
we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance 2] The
apostle had laid down the proposition which is the founda-
tion of this discours , and of the whole epistle, in these
words: “The gospel is the power of God to the salvation of
every one that believ es, Jew or gentile ; for therein is re-
vealed the righteousness of God by faith, to beget faith in
both.” The necessity of this faith he shows, (1.) with re-
spect to the gentiles, because they, being unrighteous, could
not otherwise be justified before God, or escape his wrath,
“revealed against all unrighteousness,” by any other way
than that of faith ; and this proof he concludes chapter the
first. In the second chapter he shows the same, touching
the Jews, by reason of their unrighteousness, and therefore
saith here, ver, 9, “We have before proved both Jews and
gentiles to be under sin.” Now this most plainly serves to
commend and establish this way of righteousness by faith in
Christ, from the necessity of it to the justification both of
Jew and gentile. This then must be the import of the ob-
jection ; if the unrighteousness both of Jew and gentile
tends so visibly to illustrate and recommend the wisdom of
God, and the grace or favour of God, in appointing this way
of justification by faith in Christ, is it righteous in God to
punish both Jew and gentile, as you say he did (i. 24. 26.
32), and will do (i. 18. ii. 2, 4–6. 8, 9), for that unrigh-
|teousness that tends so highly to the glory of the gospel
grace P tº
* Kar’ &ySgorrow Aéyo, I speak as a man.] i. e. As a mere
natural man, not acquainted with the revealed will of God,
or not acted by his Spirit: so Chrysostom and CEcumenius,
“I speak war' &ySpºrivoy Aoylapºv, according to human
reason; oi yºg #y& raûra Aéyo, &AA& rāy &AAoy réfleixa No-
yokºowº, for it is not I that say these things, but I propose
the reasonings of others.” That this is the constant import
of the phrase see note on 1 Cor. ix. 8, 9. 15. 32.
* Ver. 7. 'Ev rá škº Jºãogari, By my lie.] The idols of
the heathens are called “ lying vanities,” Ps. xxxi. 7. Jonah
ii. 8, numina falsa ; the makers of them are said to “frame
Ypw, a lie,” Jer. x. 14, and to have and frame “a lie” with
their right hand, Isa. xliv. 20. They who worship them are
said, “to turn aside to lies,” Ps. xl. 5, and to hearken to “a
teacher of lies,” Hab. ii. 18, and to “turn the truth of God
into a lie,” Rom. i. 25. Hence are the heathens introduced
making this confession, “Surely our fathers did inherit lies,”
&; Jºn #xthoray'ro oi raºréps; hºw sºaxa, Jer. xvi. 19. Now
this argument being that by which the apostle in the first
chapter proves the gentiles to be sinners, worthy of condem-
nation, and so incapable of justification by any other way
than that of faith, this may reasonably be supposed to be
the thing referred to in this verse.
7 Ver, 8. ‘ay tº agita #yêiköy ior, Whose damnation is
CHAPTER III.
543
9 What then (or wherefore) are we better than they?
(Do we Jews earcel the gentiles?) *No, in no wise (oil
arávrwg, not altogether, as to the benefit mentioned, ver
2, but not as to justification) ; for we have before
proved (touching) both Jews (ch. ii.) and gentiles, (ch.
i.) that they are all under sin (and so all stand in need
of justification by faith :
10 The Jews, I say, as well as the gentiles,) "as it is
written (of them), There is none righteous, no, not
Oſle :
11 There is none that understandeth, there is none
that seeketh after God.
12 They are all gone out of the way, they are alto-
gether become unprofitable; there is none that doeth
good, no, not one. -
13 Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their
tongues have they used deceit; the poison of asps is
under their lips: (they are men)
14 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:
15 Their feet are swift to shed blood:
16 Destruction and misery are in their way:
17 And the way of peace have they not known:
18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.
19 (Which words of the psalmist may justly be
applied to them :) for we know that what things
soever the law saith (not applying the words to any
others), it saith to them that are under the law : that
(not only the mouths of the gentiles, but) every mouth
may be stopped, and all the world may (see they are)
become guilty before God.
20. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no
flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the
*knowledge of (that) sin (which rendereth us obnorious
to condemnation). y .
21 But now (in the dispensation of the gospel) the
righteousness of God without (performing the works
of) the law is manifested (to the world), being wit-
nessed (i. e. attested to) by the law (giving us the know-
ledge of sin, ver. 20), and by the prophets (declaring
that the just man shall live by faith) ;
22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith
in Jesus Christ to all and upon all that believe: for
(as to the way of justification) there is no difference
(betwiat Jew and gentile) ; -
23 For all have sinned, and (so) come short of (at-
taining) *the glory of God (without a free act of jus-
tification by grace);
24 Being justified (i. e. absolved from the guilt and
condemnation due to us for our past sins) freely by his
grace, *through the redemption that is in 3.
Christ.
25 Whom God hath set forth (or proposed) to be
** a propitiation (a propitiatory or mercy-seat) through
faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness (i. e.
the way 3. justification by faith, which God alone ad-
mits of) “for the remission of sins that are past,through
just.] They by thus objecting against that dispensation of
divine grace and wisdom, which they should thankfully em-
brace and accept, and without which they cannot be justi-
fied, and so rejecting it as absurd in their imaginations, ren-
der it just that they should still lie under the guilt of sin,
and under the wrath of God for it.
8 Ver. 9. oil ºrávºrac, No, in no wise.] That these words
may be rendered “not altogether,” as well as oil wavre; is
rendered “not all,” 2 Thess. iii. 2. Heb. iii. 16, we learn
from CEcumenius, who paraphrases them thus, oix #x Travrò;
apárov, “not in every kind;” so of Trávrov, signifies, 1 Cor.
v. 10, viz. “I do not altogether forbid you to accompany
with fornicators, for then you must go out of the world ;”
and then the context will plainly force this rendering, as
being that which answers to the following reason, the words
bearing this sense: We do indeed excel them, in having
the promise of a Messiah, and the salvation tendered by
him, first made to us (ii. 10); in having the knowledge of
the law (ver. 17), and the oracles of God committed to us
(iii. 2): but we do not wholly or in all things excel them,
because not in the matter of justification by faith, which
Jew and gentile equally stand in need of. &
* Ver. 10. Ka83; yśyearrat, As it is written..] These words
are cited from the fourteenth psalm, according to the edition
of the Septuagint ; but I do not conceive it necessary to
make good the apostle's words, or argument, that they
should be spoken of the Jews of that age in general, espe-
cially seeing they are there said to have “devoured God’s
people, and to have “shamed the counsel of the poor.” It
is enough (1.) that they should generally agree to the Jews
of the age in which the apostle wrote, as both the scriptures
of the New Testament and the writings of Josephus fully
prove they do. And (2.) that the law condemning any for
these crimes doth more especially condemn those under the
law, who at any time are guilty of crimes thus noted, and
condemned by the law. And with this conclusion of the
apostle the Jews themselves accord, saying, “There is not a
man who is not obnoxious to God (or might rººt justly be
condemned by him), were it not for his mercy and clemency.”
Moreover, it is farther to be noted, that in the close of this
psalm there seems to be a prayer for the redemption of the
Jews by the Messiah, in those words, “O that the salvation
of Israel were come out of Zion,” ver, 7, the Deliverer that
was to come out of Zion, being the Messiah, as we learn
from Isaiah, lix. 20, and from this apostle, xi. 26. Note,
* Cart. Mellif. p. 3012.
secondly, that, according to the doctrine of the Jews, their
Messiah was to come in those times when the Jewish nation
was most corrupt, and so most resembled the description
here alleged (see the note on Phil. iii. 1).
* Wer. 20. "Emrlywoot; &#xapriac, The knowledge of sin.]
This knowledge of sin being chiefly by the moral law (vii.
7), shows that the apostle excludes as well that as the cere-
monial from justification ; and evident it is, that the anti-
thesis runs all along, not between moral and ceremonial
works, but between works in general and faith, ver. 20. 22,
the law of works and faith, ver. 27. iv. 2. 6. ix. 32. x. 5, 6.
* Ver. 23. Tiſc 86%m; rod Osoſ, The glory of God..] i. e.
The fruition of God in glory ; for “being justified by faith,
we have peace with God; and rejoice in hope of the glory
of God” (Rom. v. 1, 2).
* Ver, 24. At& rāg &noxvirpºreog, Through the redemp-
tion.] Purchased by the death and blood of Christ shed
for us; we having “redemption through his blood, the re-
mission of sins” (Eph. i. 7, Col. i. 14). •
* Wer. 25. Tày ºrgoyeyoyárov &gaermºzárov, Of sins thać
are past.] For in this only consists our first justification,
which is by faith alone : the remission of our future sins
committed against the new covenant, established in the blood
of Jesus, being to be obtained (if they be wilful sins, which
only violate the covenant of grace) by a sincere and parti-
cular repentance for them; which brings us again under
that covenant, and so under the promise of forgiveness
through the blood of Jesus: the ixza rhetov, or “mercy-
seat,” was so called, because God there showed himself
propitious, by reason of the blood of the sacrifice sprinkled
before it. The apostle, therefore, in allusion to it, Saith
that God hath set forth Christ to be his “mercy-seat,” i. e.
the person through whom he will be propitious to us
through faith in his blood, styled “the blood of sprinkling,”
Heb. xii. 24, and presented before him in the heavens.
* “Ixacºrheroy, To be a propitiation.] In the Old Testa-
ment we find the mercy-seat still styled inacrägtoy, because
it was the place where God promised to be propitious to
them, and where the high-priest made an atonement for
himself, and all the congregation, by sprinkling the blood of
the sin-offering before the mercy-seat; when therefore the
apostle saith that God hath set forth Jesus Christ to be a
mercy-seat to us through faith in his blood, we have reason
to believe the blood of Christ, as our sin-offering, doth make
atonement for, and render God propitious to us. And as
under the Old Testament, they who desired to have God
propitious to them, were to come with the blood of their
544 &
ROMANS
the forbearance of God, (not imputing their trespasses
to them who believe in him, 2 Cor. v. 19.
26 I say, God hath now proposed him as our pro-
pitiatory,) * to declare at this time his righteousness
(or the way of justification he allows of): that he (by
justifying us only through the redemption that is in
Christ Jesus), might (appear to) be "just (in requir-
ing this satisfaction for our sins), and yet the justifier
of them that believe in Jesus.
27 (And if this be the only way of justification, or
being righteous before God), where is (there any ground
of) boasting then it is excluded. By what law
(that) of works Nay; (for he that is justified by works
hath whereof to boast, fixel Kaúxmua, iv. 2), but by the
law of faith (only). -
28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by
"faith (alone) without (respect to) the deeds of the
law (given to the Jews; for)
sin-offering to the mercy-seat ; so under the gospel dispen-
sation they must expect to find God propitious to them,
through the blood of Christ their mercy-seat, by whom they
coming to God, as the Jews did by appearing before his
mercy-seat, should find him gracious in pardoning their
iniquities “through the redemption that is in Jesus.”
Whence I argue against the Socinians, for our Lord's satis-
faction, thus: What is it we do obtain by this redemption ?
It is, saith the apostle, “remission of sins.” What is it that
procures this remission ? It is the blood of Christ, for “we
have redemption through his blood, even the remission of
sins” (Eph. i. 7. Col. i. 14); it is the death of Christ (Heb.
ix. 15). Since, then, by the confession of Schlictingius upon
the place, our Lord is mentioned here as a piacular victim,
and seeing it is certain those victims still suffered in the
sinner's stead, and that whensoever in the Old Testament
mention is made of the remission of sins, the blood of these
sacrifices was the thing that made atonement for them, re-
mission of sins was the thing purchased by that blood; have
we not reason from what is here said of Christ, our piacular
victim, to conceive he suffered in our stead, and that his
blood, shed for us, procured the remission of our sins, as it
atoned an offended God for our transgressions P
* Ver. 26. Tā; 31%atorównº, To declare his righteousness.]
This phrase, “the righteousness of God,” as I have before
observed, doth always in the epistles signify our justification
by faith in Christ, as being the only righteousness that God
approves of, and is here styled, ver. 22, “the righteousness
of God through faith:” and therefore this righteousness
cannot be demonstrated, as some conceive, by winking at
the sins committed in former ages (Acts xvii. 30), but by
proposing, by the gospel, the way of remitting men's past
sins through faith in Christ, or his own non-imputation of
them.
* Ei, rà stral airy 3inatov, That he might be just.] The
reverend Dr. Hammond saith, the word 3ixalog is here to be
29 Is he the God of the Jews only is he not also
of the gentiles, (which have not the law 2 hath he vouch-
safed to them no means of justification or acceptance
with him £) Yes, (doubtless he is the God) of the gen-
tiles also: . -
30 Seeing it is one God, who will justify "the cir-
cumcision by faith, and (the) uncircumcision through
(the same) faith.
31 Do we then make void the law through (this)
faith? (Do we contradict it, or say it is a useless thing,
or against the promises 8 Gal. iii. 19. 21.) God for-
bid (that this should be affirmed by us); nay, we estab-
lish the law, (by declaring that it gives the knowledge
of sin, ver. 20, gives witness to this way of justification,
ver. 21, and so shows the necessity of faith, and so is
our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, who is the end
of the law, Rom. x. 4. Gal. iii. 24).
rendered clement and merciful, and that it is commonly
taken in that notion, and seldom in that of vindictive justice:
but, in opposition to this I assert, that the word 3inato; is
used about eighty times in the New Testament, and not
once in that sense of clemency and mercy in which he saith
it is commonly taken : he himself produces but one place,
viz. Matt. i. 19, “Joseph being a just man, and not willing
to make Mary a public example, was minded to put her
away privily :”—“Where,” saith Dr. Lightfoot, “men tor-
ment the word Binaios, to make it signify clement and mer-
ciful, when it bears clearly the ordinary sense; thus, Joseph,
being a just man, would not cohabit with an adulteress, and
yet being not willing to make her a public example, and no
necessity,” as he there shows, “ lying upon him so to do, he
was minded to put her away privily.” (2.) It is in the
New Testament distinguished from the good and merciful
man ; as when Joseph of Arimathea is styled áya%; wat
Bixalog, “a good man and just,” Luke xxiii. 50 ; when the
law is called 3izata wai &yaôň, “just and good,” Rom. vii. 12;
and when it is said, v. 7, that scarcely in # 3-waiov, “for a
righteous man will one die, though trée àya.005, for a good
man one would even dare to die.” And (3.) when it relates
to God, as here, it always signifies, either the equity and
congruity of his dealings, as 2 Thess. i. 5, 6 ; or his faithful-
ness to his word, 1 John i. 9. Rev. xv. 3.; or his vindictive
justice, as Rev. xvi. 5–7. xix. 2. 2 Tim. iv. 8.
” Wer. 28. IIiatel, By faith..] Justification from our past
sins is by faith alone, without respect to any of our works;
we being “justified freely by his grace,” ver. 23; “Not by
works of righteousness which we have done, but through his
mercy he saved us,” Titus iii. 5, i.e. he justified us by his
grace, and so put us in the way of salvation. -
* Wer. 30.} Note, that so the Jews say, “If a man be-
lieve not as he ought, circumcision will not make him a
Jew ; but if he believe as he ought, he is a Jew, though he
be not circumcised.” Nitzachon, sect. vii. sub. 21.
CHAPTER IV.
1 WHAT shall we say then (Gr. what therefore do
we say, as some of our nation), that Abraham, our
father as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? (Gr.
hath found justification and acceptance with God, by
virtue of his circumcision in the flesh 8
2 Surely, no:) for if Abraham were justified by (his
* --
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV.
* Wer. 1. Karā a 4xa, According to the flesh.] i. e. By
virtue of his obedience to God's command, in circumcising
the flesh of his foreskin. So Israel warā a 48×a, “according
to the flesh.” I Cor. x. 18, is, Israel according to the cir-
cumcision of the flesh. To “know Christ according to the
flesh,” 2 Cor. v. 16, is to know him according to his circum-
cision, or being of the stock of Abraham. To glory xará rày
a'éexa, “according to the flesh,” is to glory in being circum-
cised, 2 Cor. xi. 18. In this the Jews had the greatest con-
fidence of being acceptable to God, and therefore are repre-
sented by St. Paul as "remo,66tt; #y cagxi, “having confidence
in the flesh,” Phil. iii. 3, 4, declaring, that “no circumcised
Jews go to hell,” God having promised to deliver them “for
the merit of circumcision” (see the note on ii. 13). More-
over, that wain opinion had obtained among the Jews, that
Abraham was not pure, or accepted with God, till after his
circumcision. This is hinted in the Targum of B. Uziel,
who renders Gen. xvii. 1, thus, “Walk before me, and be
thou perfect Twinn, in thy flesh:” but is in express words
asserted, Pirk. Eliezer, cap. 29, p. 64. This opinion the
apostle here confutes, and then, ver. 11, shows what his
circumcision signified. Mr. Clerc interprets this phrase
thus, “According to the flesh;” i. e. “in the judgment
of man, or according to carnal judgment.” But there
CHAPTER IV.
545
own) works (i. e. his obedience to God’s command to
circumcise himself and his whole family), he hath
whereof to glory (Gr. ground of boasting in those
works by which he was thus justified); but (manifest
§ is he had) not (whereof to boast, or glory) before
od.
3 For what saith the scripture? (even this,) *Abra-
ham believed God, and it (viz. that faith) was counted
to him for righteousness. - -
4 Now (or whereas) to him that worketh (and by
that obtaineth righteousness) is the reward reckoned
not of grace, but of debt (he having performed all that
was required, in order to his being righteous before
God). . -
5 But to him that worketh not (i. e. who hath not
anything on account of which he can be deemed righteous
by virtue of his works), but believeth * on him that
justifieth the ungodly (on the account of his faith), his
faith is accounted for righteousness.
6 (And this account of justification is) “even (such)
as David also (the other great person to whom God had
promised a blessing to all nations through his seed, Isa.
xi. 10. Acts ii. 30. xiii. 23), describeth (speaking of)
the blessedness of the man to whom God imputeth
righteousness without works, t
7 Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are for-
given, and whose sins are covered.
8 Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not
impute (the) sin (he hath committed). -
9 Cometh this blessedness then (of righteousness,
by not imputing sin) upon the circumcision only, or upon
the uncircumcision also (This question may be decided
by the evample of our father Abraham,) for we say that
*faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteous- .
IlêSS. •
10. How was it then reckoned (to him for righteous-
ness? was it) when he was in circumcision, or in un-
circumcision ? not (when he was) in circumcision, but
in uncircumcision; (he believing unto righteousness
| before he was circumcised, Gen. xv. 6.)
11 And he received (afterward) the sign of circum-
cision, (as) a "seal of the righteousness of the faith
can be nothing more alien from the mind of Paul than
this interpretation: for the apostle. had been before assert-
ing, that circumcision, acceptable to God, was not that
made in the flesh (ii. 28). In the beginning of the next
chapter he answers the inquiry of the Jews; If it doth not
render us more acceptable to God, what then is the benefit
of circumcision ? It hath many other advantages, saith he,
but not that of justification before God, that being the re-
sult of faith; “for it is one (and the same) God who will
justify the circumcision through faith, and the umcircumci-
sion by faith.” What then, saith he, do we say in this af.
fair P Do we say, as the Jews, that Abraham, “the father
of the faithful,” found justification (the thing I now dis-
course of) Karā orágxa, by that laborious work of circumci-
Sion, performed upon himself, when he was ninety-nine
years old, and upon all his family P. On which account, say
the Jews,” “God smelt the sweet odour of their foreskins,
and Said, when they transgressed, he would remember this
odour, and they should be replenished with his mercies.”
Here is a rational account of the connexion and pertinence
of the apostle's argument.
of men with a ri ow; “What then do we say P” when no-
thing at all had been said of their judgment, nor was the
apostle discoursing of justification according to man's carnal
judgment. He goes on and says, “If Abraham was ac-
counted just for his works in the judgment of men, he hath
whereof to glory; he hath waix.nºa, boasting,” saith he,
“before men:” but is that the zašxºa, or boasting, which
the apostle said was excluded, “not by the law of works,
but by the law of faith P” (iii. 27) no sure; but boasting
before God: this therefore must be here repeated: If Abra-
ham were justified by works, i. e. the works of circumcision
performed upon himself and his whole family, he hath
whereof to boast before God; but he cannot have whereof
to boast before God of any iustification of this kind, for
“ what saith the scripture,” &c. In fine, nati, a 4eza never
signifies in scripture, “the judgment of man,” but the fleshly
lustings, desires, and motions of men; John xviii. 5, to
“judge according to the flesh,” is to judge ex carnali af.
fectſ, “from carnal affection ;” and 2 Cor. i. 17, to “pur-
pose according to the flesh,” is to do it according to carnal
principles and advantages; as to “walk after the flesh,” is
to be governed and acted by carnal principles, Rom. viii. 1.
4, 5. 12, 13. 2 Cor. x. 2.
* Ver. 3. 'Etria reva's 3: 'A&aša rēš Osº, Abraham be-
lieved God.] We learn from the author to the Hebrews,
that Abraham had faith before this was said unto him, for
“by faith Abraham being called, obeyed and went forth,”
&c. and that by a yet stronger faith he “offered up his son
Isaac, believing that God was able to raise him up from the
dead” (Heb. xi. 8. 17). But neither of these instances is
pitched upon by the apostle, as fit for his purpose, because,
in both, obedience was joined with faith; whereas here was
* Pug. Fid. p. 674.
But how comes in the judgment
a pure act of faith without works, and of this act of faith is
said, what is not said of either of the other, “it was imputed
to him for righteousness” (see ver, 22). (2.) God for this
act of faith, and not upon the former, dealt with him as
a righteous person, by entering into covenant with him,
which was a sign that he accepted him, and pardoned
all his sins past; for it is said, “In that very day God
entered into covenant with Abraham” (Gen. xv. 18),
which he had not done before. Moreover this was spoken
to Abraham before his circumcision, and so is very proper
to convince the Jews of the no necessity of circumcision to
justification : but Abraham offered Isaac after his circumci-
Sion, and so the apostle could not allege that instance of his
faith here (ver. 10, 11); he therefore was accounted right-
eous by virtue of that faith which excludes boasting (ii. 27),
and only justifies by grace.
* Ver. 5. 'Etri row 3.xaloëvra rēy &a=65, On him that justi-
fies the ungodly..] Justification being only the nonimputa-
tion or the pardon of their past sins on the account of that
faith, which laid the highest obligations upon all believers to
die unto sin for the future, there is no absurdity in saying,
that God thus “justifies the ungodly,” repenting of, and en-
gaging to cease from, their ungodliness (ver, 6). :
* Ver. 6. Even as David Aéys rôy ºakagicaäv.] Speaks of
the blessedness of those, to whom God imputeth Sikatoa ºvny,
justification, i. e. exemption from the guilt and punishment
of sin, without such works as can justly plead for that ex-
emption and freedom from punishment, by saying, “Blessed
is the man to whom the Lord imputeth no sin.” In which
citation there is not one word of any work to make him
righteous in the sight of God, and therefore blessed, but
only of an act of free grace in the forgiveness or the nonim-
putation of his sin, in which the evangelical justification for-
mally consists (see the preface to the Epistle to the Gala-
tians, section the 4th).
* Ver. 9. "Exoyia Sn Tâ’A8pača i. triotic, Faith was reck-
oned to Abraham for righteousness.] The gloss of R.
Salmon on Gen. xv. 6 is this: “The blessed God reputed
this to Abraham for righteousness and merit, for the faith by
which he believed in him.” And the book Ikkarim” saith
thus: “Our father Abraham was praised for his faith, as
saith the scripture, Abraham believed God, and it was
counted to him for righteousness.”
* Wer. 11, 24 payièa rā; 3inatorſynç rº, oria-reac rº, #y rà
ãx606variº, The seal of the righteousness of faith, &c.] The
apostle in this epistle insists much upon the justification of
the uncircumcised gentiles, called therefore by the Jews #
âzgoóvaria, “the uncircumcision” (Eph. ii. 11. Rom. ii. 25–
27), declaring that God is not the God of the Jews only,
but also of the gentiles, seeing he will justify both the cir-
cumcision, and the uncircumcision through faith (iii. 29, 30);
that the blessing of justification came not only on the cir-
cumcision but on the uncircumcision also (ver. 9), faith
being accounted to Abraham for righteousness, when he was
* Lib. i. cap. 21.
2 N
546
ROMANS. {
which he had yet being uncircumcised (and so of his
acceptance with that God, who thus entered into cove-
nant with him, and owned himself his God, Gen. xvii.
1): that he might be the "father of all them that be-
lieve, though they be not circumcised; that righteous-
ness might be imputed to them also (which it could
not be, were circumcision the condition of justification
and acceptance with God):
12 And (that he might be) the father of (the) cir-
cumcision also, (i.e. a father) to them who are not of
the circumcision only, but also walk in the steps of
that faith of our father Abraham, which he had being
yet uncircumcised.
13. (I say, that he might be the father of the uncir-
cumcised through faith, and of the circumcision through
the like faith, iii. 30), for the promise (made to Abra-
ham, Gen. xii. 3, or to his seed, Gen. xxii. 18), that
* he should be the heir of the world (i.e. of those
blessings which should be derived from him to all the
jamilies and nations of the earth), was not (made) to
Abraham, or to his seed, through (or by virtue of
their obedience to) the law, but through (and by virtue
of) the righteousness of faith.
14 For if they which are of the law be heirs (accord-
ing to the promise made upon that account), "faith is
made void (as being insufficient to justify without the
law), and the promise is made of none effect (for then
the nations which are not under the law cannot be
blessed in the seed of Abraham):
15 Because * the law worketh wrath (by condemning
the transgressor to that death to which without the
law he would not be subject); for where no law is,
there is no transgression, (and so no condemnation for
it.
16 And) therefore it (the inheritance, Gal. iii. 18) is
of faith, that it might be by grace; (which both Jew
and gentile wanted as to justification, iii. 23, 24), to the
end the promise (of it) might be sure to all the seed
(of Abraham); not to that only which is of the law,
but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who
is the father of us all; (i. e. that it might be made
good to the gentile also, believing as their father Abra-
ham did.
17 I say the father of us all,) as it is written, (Gen.
xvii. 5), I have made thee a *father of many nations,
(which words, though spoken them when Abraham had
no seed, yet were they certain,) before (or in respect of)
him whom he believed, even (that) God, * who
quickeneth the dead (and so was able to quicken his
body, now dead, and the deadness of Sarah’s womb),
in uncircumcision (ver. 10). So that these words may be
rendered thus, “And he received the sign of circumcision, a
seal of the righteousness of that faith which is in the uncir-
cumcision;" i.e. of God’s acceptance of the uncircumcised
gentiles through faith in Christ. ! .
7 IIaréga, The father.] i. e. That he might the father of
all nations, whether Jew or gentile, and they might all be
blessed in him, according to the promise, “In thee shall all
the nations of the earth be blessed,” Gen. xii. 3, or as it is
Gen. xxii. 18, “In thy seed.”
* Wer. 13. Têv xxngová wow airy fival rot, wäc peov, That he
should be the heir of the world..] The whole difficulty of
this verse rests upon the true interpretation of this phrase,
“That he should be the heir of the world.” Some think
that to be “the heir of the world” here, is to be “heir of
the land of Canaan,” and the parts adjacent to it, Idumea,
&c. But this is not only impertinent to the purpose
of the apostle, who is here proving, not that temporal
possessions, but that justification is not by the law, but
by faith; but seemeth flatly contrary to the apostle; for the
promise of the land of Canaan was made to Abraham on his
circumcision, and to his seed (Gen. xvii. 7, 8), and the
possession of, and their continuance in it, was still promised
to the Jews, upon condition of their obedience to the law of
Moses. Others think, that to be “heir of the world,” is to
be heir of the spiritual and heavenly Canaan : but then, as
it is hard to find where any such promise was made to Abra-
ham and his seed; so it is as difficult to show how this ac-
cords with the main scope of the apostle, which is to esta-
blish our justification by faith. The ancient Greek scholiasts
interpret the words thus: That he should be heir of the
world, toirearw, Év airá excysſa Sat Trávra rà rod wéa gov
#8wn, i.e. “that all the nations of the world should be
blessed in him.” So Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact,
Quod enim dicit, Benedicentur in te omnes tribus terrae, hoc
est hapredem factum esse totius mundi: so Origen. And
this is confirmed from the parallel place, Gal. iii. 8, for the
promise mentioned here must be the same with the pro-
. mentioned there, because the argument is the same.
ow, -
Christ, “shall all the families of the earth be blessed” (ver.
12). And (2.) he there speaks of a promise made four hun-
dred and thirty years before the law, which term only agrees
to the promise made Gen. xii. 3. (3.) This is the blessing
of Abraham that was to come upon the gentiles, Gal. iii. 14;
for, Saith the apostle, “the scriptures foreseeing that God
would justify the gentiles through faith (in the promised
seed), preached the gospel before to Abraham, saying, In
thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed : so then
they that are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.”
He first, as being the father of the faithful, and so the heir
(1.) the promise there is, “In thy seed,” that is
of the believing world; and they after him, as being his sons
and seed, by walking in the steps of his faith, and so be-
coming heirs with him of the same promise; for “if you be
Christ's,” if by faith you be interested in him, saith the
apostle, “then are you Abraham's seed, and heirs according
to the promise,” Gal. iii. 29; so Heb. xi. 7. Noah is said
by his faith to condemn the unbelieving world, and to be
‘rā; xará riorary 8tratorſync ºngovágos, “the heir of righteous-
ness which is by faith,” i. e. the father of all that believed
unto justification, or righteousness, after him.
* Ver. 14. If they which are of the law be heirs, faith is
made void.] It is made void to them who are not of the
law, because then they cannot by it be made heirs; and it
is also made void to them that are of the law, because they
were heirs before, and may still be without it, ver. 15.
* Ver. 15. For the law worketh wrath.] To wit, to the
transgressors of it: “for where there is no law, there is no
transgression.” It is a very great mistake to think, as some
do, that the apostle Jays down this as a general rule, that
where there is no positive law to which threats and punish-
ments are annexed, there is no transgression; for the plain
consequence of this would be, that the heathens, having no
positive law, could be guilty of no transgression, whereas
the scripture represents them as “dead in trespasses and
sins” (Eph. ii. 1. Col. ii. 13), as persons who shall be
judged hereafter “according to their works” (Rom. ii. 6),
and shall receive “tribulation and wrath” for working evil
(ver. 9), who sin “without (a positive) law,” and shall
therefore perish without law (ver. 12), and as men, who are
“condemned in their own consciences by the law written in
their hearts” (ver. 15). The apostle therefore must be only
conceived to prove from this general rule, that where there
is no law at all, there is no transgression; and that if the
law of Moses worketh wrath, there must be a transgression
of it rendering men obnoxious to the death it threateneth
(ver. 19, 20, vide Examen Millii).
* Wer. 17. A father of many nations.] The Jews hence
prove that a proselyte, converted to the Jewish faith, might
be legatus synagogae, quia scriptum extat, Constitui te pa-
trem universitatis gentium, “because it is written (Gen. xvii.
5), I have made thee a father of all nations:” before this
time, say they, he was only a father of the Syrians; but
from this time, he was the father of all nations (see Campe-
gius Vitringa de Synag. Wet. lib. iii. par. ii. cap. 6, p. 943).
* Toj čootrotoivºro; row; vexeotic, Who quickeneth the dead.]
This being an instance of the faith of Abraham, it seems
most reasonable to refer to the object of this faith, viz. that
he should have a numerous seed; yea, that he should have
the promised seed from Sarah, though her womb was dead;.
“and it ceased to be with her after the manner of women;”
and so Hilary the deacon doth interpret this phrase.
CHAPTER IV.
547
and * calleth those things which be not (i. e. the gen-
tiles, which were not then a people) as if they were.
18 Who, I say, “against (all natural grounds of)
hope, believed in hope, that he might (Gr, should) be-
come the father of many nations, according to that
which was spoken (to him, Gen. xv. 5, As the stars of
heaven) so shall thy seed be.
19 And being not weak in faith, he considered not
his own body *now dead (or grown already dead, he
being about one hundred years old), neither yet the
deadness of Sarah’s womb : (with whom it had ceased
to be after the manner of women, Gen. xviii. 11).
* Kanoivºro; rà whövta, &; $vta, And calleth things that be
not as if they were.] “He that is far from God,” saith
Origen, “as we gentiles were before we came to the know-
1ege of the truth, is said not to be ;” and therefore God, de-
signing to render them the seed of Abraham by faith, is said
to “call those things that be not, as if they were:” for rà.
&# 8vra, “things which are not,” both in the language of the
Old Testament, and of the Jews, and of the primitive
Christians, signifies the gentiles, by converting whom, saith
Clemens R.” #x&AEasy #23; oix 6yrac, Kai #6%ancey #x roi; ºft
3yroc sival hººk, “God called us that were not, and would
that of nothing we should have a being;” as I have shown,
note on 1 Cor. i. 8.
* Ver. 18.] Note, that this verse confirms the exposition
of the former verse, showing that the faith there mentioned
hath reference to this promise,
.* Ver. 19. Neveugwºzévoy, Now dead..] It is here objected,
that Abraham's body could not be thus dead, since after the
death of Sarah, even forty years after, he had six sons by
Keturah (Gen. xxv. 1). But they who here tell us, that
Abraham’s body was not simply dead, but only as to Sarah's
womb, and that by a young woman he was able to have seed
them, speaks expressly against the text, which saith, “his
body was grown dead,” and against the opinion of Abraham
himself, Gen. xvii. 17, and of Sarah concerning him, Gen.
xviii. 12. They who add that this need not seem strange,
that Abraham should have children by Keturah, considering
the age to which he had lived, since in our time men have
had children after they have been seventy or eighty years
old; they will not suffer that to be strange to us which
seems strange to Abraham himself; witness his answer to
the promise of Almighty God, “Shall a child be born to him
that is a hundred years old P’’ Gen. xvii. 17, “O that Ish-
mael might live before thee I’’ and to Sarah, Gen. xviii. 12.
They deny the miracle effected by the great power of God,
which therefore the angel doth encourage Sarah to believe,
because “nothing can be too hard for God” (Gen. xviii.
13). They lessen the faith of Abraham which is so highly
magnified here, as being “hope against hope” (ver. 18),
“believing in him that quickeneth the dead” (ver. 17), not
“staggering at the promise, but being strong in faith” (ver.
20). That therefore must be here acknowledged, which the
Jewish doctors and all the Christian fathers say, that God
gave a new blessing to their bodies, and by that rendered
them capable of getting and bearing children, when by na-
ture they were not so. This of Sarah, the Targum of B.
Uziel hints, by paraphrasing the words thus, Gen. xvii. 16,
“As for Sarah, I will bless her, nºn, in her body.” And
the apostle more plainly in these words, “Through faith also
Sarah herself receiveth strength to conceive seed” (Heb. xi. |
ll).
* Ver. 20. Oi 3.expión rà &riatiº, He doubted not
through unbelief. It seems, his faith was not without some
doubting, from that answer he returns to God, “Shall a child
be born to Abraham, that is a hundred years old? And
shall Sarah, that is ninety years old bear’?” In which words
he seems to consider both “his own dead body, and Sarah's
dead womb,” which the apostle here denies, ver. 18, and ver.
19, he says to God, “O that Ishmael might live before thee!”
as if he expected no other offspring. To the first objection
it is answered that those words, “Shall a child be born to
Abraham P’’ are to be considered as words of admiration,
not of doubting; for he rejoiced at it, saith the Chaldee, and
* Ep. 2. sect. 1.
20 He "staggered not at (Gr. he doubted not of)
the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong
in faith, giving glory to God (by acknowledging his
power to make it good);
21 And being fully persuaded that what he had
promised, he was able also to perform.
22 And therefore it (viz. this strong faith) was im-
puted to him for righteousness.
23 "Now it was not written (thus of him) for his
sake alone, that it (viz. his faith) was imputed to him
(for righteousness);
24 But for (the benefit of) us also, to whom it (viz.
the Hebrew word, which we render “laughed,” hath this
import, xxi. 6. Nor is Abraham repehended for it, as Sarah
is, xviii. 13. John viii. 56. To the second it is answered,
That he only desires God to bless him also, as well as the
seed promised, which appears probable from God’s answer,
Gen. xvii. 20, “As for Ishmael, I have heard thee: behold,
I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful.” -
*7 Wer. 23–25.] Note, That from these last three verses
many things may be observed, which tend to the illustration
of the doctrine of faith, and of justification by faith. And,
First, From ver. 3. 22, 23, 24, it is extremely evident,
that it is the very act of faith, and not the object of it, viz.
Christ's righteousness, which was imputed to Abraham, and
is imputed to us for righteousness. As then the faith of
Abraham, which is here said to be imputed to him for righ-
teousness, was not the obeying God in his commands of
“walking before him, and being perfect,” but, as is here ex-
pressly said, his believing God’s power, and his reliance on
it without any doubting, was the thing that was imputed to
him for righteousness, as well as that other act of faith, that
“in his seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed:”
so the faith that shall be imputed to us for justification,
is not, saith the apostle, that which includeth the perform-
ance of sincere obedience, not only faith in the blood of
Christ shed for the remission of our sins; but faith in him
that raised up Jesus from the dead, that he will raise us also
from the dead, and glorify us with him (see the note on
Rom. x.9). So also is the faith of Abraham and Sarah re-
presented, Heb. xi. 11.
Secondly, Hence also we learn that our justification de-
pends not only on the death of Christ, but on his resurrec-
tion: so the apostle doth again teach us, saying, “Who is
he that condemneth us? it is Christ that died (as a piacular
victim for our sins), yea, rather that is risen again, who is
even at the right hand of God (presenting the blood of this
victim in his presence for us) who (by it) also maketh inter-
cession for us.” For the clearing up of this matter, let it be
noted, -
First, That as the victim offered under the Old Testa-
ment was brought to the altar, and there slain ; so Christ,
offering himself for us, was also brought to the altar of the
cross on which he suffered, as a piacular victim for us,
“bearing our sins in his own body on the tree.”
Secondly, As the blood of the beast thus slain was to be
brought before the mercy-seat, or into the holy of holies,
and there presented before God to make atonement with ;
so was the blood of Christ, thus slain also, to be carried into
the heavenly sanctuary, and there presented before God to
make atonement for our sins.
Thirdly, As the beast, when dead, could not offer up its
own blood; so Christ, being dead, could not, before his re-
surrection, make an offering of his own blood, in the hea-
vens for this end ; whence the apostle tells us that “such
a high-priest became us, who is higher than the heavens”
(Heb. vii. 26). And were the opinion of some true, that
Christ appeared not with his blood in the heavens, he must
be only a metaphorical high-priest, the offering or present-
ing of the blood before God being only the proper office of
the priesthood, and the parallel the apostle makes betwixt
him and the Aaronical priests must be wholly overthrown :
for with what congruity could the apostle insist so much on
the comparison betwixt the blood of Christ brought into the
heavenly tabernacle, and the blood of the legal sacrifices
brought into the earthly tabernacle, if indeed the blood of
Christ was not carried into the true tabernacle, sº there
2 N 2
548
ROMANS,
the like faith) shall be imputed (for righteousness), if
we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from
the dead (that he can and will raise us also by Jesus
from the dead, and crown us with him) : «
25 Who was delivered (to the death) for our offences
(to offer up himself a piacular victim for them), and was
raised again for our justification (i. e. to appear before
God with the blood of this victim, to make atonement
before God for us, and thereby to procure our justifica-
tion, or our absolution from the guilt of sin).
presented to God 2 When the apostle saith so oft, the
Jewish “high-priest entered into the holy place with the
blood of bulls and goats,” doth he not mean that he carried
their blood in thither? When then the same apostle saith,
“Christ, not by the blood of bulls and goats, but 3:3 tº
i8tov aſaaroº, by his own proper blood, entered into the holy
place,” must he not also mean that Christ carried his own
blood into the heavenly sanctuary P
CHAPTER V.
1 THEREFone being justified by faith (and so ab-
solved from those sins which rendered us obnorious to
the displeasure of God), we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ : ſº , ºn 9 *
2 By whom also we have access by faith into this
(state ºf) grace (or favour of God), wherein we stand,
and rejoice in hope of (the fruition of the glory of
God.
3 And not only so, but we glory in tribulations
also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;
4 And patience (gives) experience (of God's power
with us, enabling us to bear these tribulations, and of
our sincere affection to him, for whose sake we suffer
them) ; and experience (of these things worketh in us)
hope (of a reward): e
5 And hope maketh (us) not ashamed (of our faith
in Christ, Rom. i. 16), because (a sense of) the love.
of God is “shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy
Ghost which is given to us (believers, as the earnest
of our future inheritance, Eph. i. 14. iv.30, and the
fruit of our faith, Eph. i. 13. Gal. iii. 14.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. W.
1 Wer. 5. “H &yárn roi, Ogoj, The love of God..] To us
thus believing. So viii. 35. 39. 2 Cor. v. 14. xiii. 13. 1
John iii. 9, 10. …
* 'Exxâxvrai, Is shed abroad.] This is the word still used
in the New Testament, when speaking of the effusion of the
Holy Ghost, Acts ii. 17. x. 45. Titus iii. 6, and it is taken
from Joel ii. 28, 29, and so this may refer to the Xapiapaara
of the Holy Ghost, so liberally imparted to them.
* Wer. 6. "Ovroy hºày &c. Sevöv, When we were weak.] It
may here be noted, that the words ā-Sevåg, da Seyāo, &a Séveta,
in the LXX. answer to the Hebrew by-, and signify to fall,
and stumble to our ruin. So Ps. ix. 3, “They shall fall
and perish, &a Seyāzova i zai ätroxoºv rat, at thy presence ;”
Ps. xxvi. 4, “They stumbled and fell,” ha-Sávnaray xai Éirearoy.
Ps. cwi. 12, #2.8% morav, “They fell down, and there was none
to help them ;” Prov. xxiv. 16, “The wicked shall fall into
mischief,” &c. Seyha'oval #y waxoſ. Jer. vi. 21. “I will lay stum-
blingblocks before this people, and the fathers and sons shall
fall together,” &c. Sevia oval Éy airſ. xviii. 15. xlvi. 6. 12, and
ver, 16, “He made many to fall,” rô TA506; cov has #ynae, l.
32. Lam. v. 15; Dan. xi. 14, “Many shall stand up against the
king of the south, but they shall fall,” &c. Sevicovot. So ver.
19. 33–35; so Hosea iv. 5. v. 5. xiv. 2. 10. And this im-
port of the word suits well with the text, and so is proper to
represent our fall by sin ; and the words following, ver. 8,
ãºzagroxãy Syroy hºv, “Even whilst we were sinners Christ
died for us,” do render it so probable, that I thought fit to
mention it in the paraphrase.
* Ver. 7..] 'Ayatov is not only a virtuous, but an obliging,
charitable man, Matt. xx. 15, “Is thy eye evil because I
am good P” “Overcome evil #v rá áya 96, with kindness,”
Rom. xii. 21. Tó àya.66w arou, is “thy kindness,” Philem. 14.
So &ya%; 349axpañº is “the liberal eye,” Ecclus. xxxv. 8,
..See Buxtorf. in voce \"y, p. 1601. -
* Wer. 8. xvyiarmart 3: 6 Gedº, But God commends his
love to us...] The death of Christ is usually in scripture repre-
sented as an instance of the great love of God the Father to
us, because his wisdom did contrive this way of redemption
6 Of which love to us, even before we believed, the
gospel gives us the highest demonstrations); for when
we were yet without strength, in due time (Gr. we
being fallen at the appointed time) Christ died for the
ungodly, (for us, who since our fall had no righteous-
ness of our own.
7 Which surely is a high degree of love, beyond all
human evample ;) for scarcely for a righteous man
will one die (I say, for a righteous man only) : yet
peradventure for a "good (i. e. a highly kind and cha-
ritable) man some would even dare to die.
8 But "God commendeth his love towards us, in
that, whilst we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
9 (And if God through Christ Jesus showed, such
kindness to us, being sinners,) much more then being
justified by his blood (and so made righteous in his
sight, and having peace with God, ver. 1.) we shall be
saved from (the) wrath (of God) through him.
10 For if, when we were enemies (to him), we were
* reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much
more, being reconciled, we shall be saved "by his life.
for us (Eph. i. 4, 5); “he sent his Son into the world to be
the propitiation for our sins, that we might live through him.”
(I John iv. 9, 10); he graciously accepted of his suffering
in our stead, and justifies us “freely by his grace, through
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. iii. 24);
“He spared not his own Son, but gave him up freely for us
all” (Rom. viii. 32): though it be also true, that “Christ
loved us, and gave himself for us" (Gal. ii. 20. Eph. v. 2);
and that this “love of Christ” ought to “constrain us” to
obedience (2 Cor. v. 14). -
* Ver. 10. 'Ev'r; £off atroſ, By his life.] He being able
to “save us to the uttermost,” because “he ever lives to
make intercession for us.” (Heb. vii. 25); and having all
power committed to him, “that he might give eternal life to
them whom God hath given him " (John xvii. 2).
7 KarnxAáymp. By tº Osº, We were reconciled to God.]
Here are many arguments to establish the doctrine of our
Lord's satisfaction by suffering in our stead, to reconcile an
offended God to us. For,
First, When it is here said that “Christ died for the un-
godly,” 1 Pet. iii. 18, that “when we were yet sinners Christ
died for us,” I Cor. v. 15, and elsewhere, that “he suffered
for our sins, the just for the unjust,” Heb. i. 9. 1 Pet. iv. 1,
in these and such-like places, one of these two things is inti-
mated, that our Lord suffered in our stead, or that he bore
the punishment of our sin: this being the plain import of
the like expressions when they are used in the Old or New
Testament. For when we read in the Old Testament, “The
fathers shall not be put to death for the children, nor the
children for the fathers; every man shall be put to death
for his own sin,” Deut. xxiv. 17; of Amaziah, that he “slew
those servants that had murdered the king his father, but the
children of those murderers he slew not,” according to those
words of Moses, “The fathers shall not be put to death,”
oix &roflavºviral, “they shall not die for the children,” &c.
2 Kings xiv. 6. 2 Chron. xxv. 4, and in the prophet Eze-
kiel, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die ; the son shall not
bear the iniquity of the father, nor shall the father bear the
iniquity of the son,” Ezek. xviii. in all these places it is plair.
no substitution is intended, because no exemption of the
CHAPTER V.
549
11 And not only so (i. e. we are not only reconciled
to), but we also joy (Gr. we are rejoicing) in God
through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom *we have
received the atonement (or reconciliation).
12 Wherefore (öuá roîro, by reason of this reconci-
liation, life is procured to us by the second Adam, as
death came by the first, for) as by one man sin en-
father, because the son, or of the son, because the father
suffers : but then it is plainly intimated that the one in this
case would bear the punishment of the other's sin. But
when David saith concerning Absalom, “Would God I had
died for thee, O Absalom,” rig 33 rv Şāyatów (cow &vri cov; 2
Sam. xviii. 33, “O that my death might have gone instead
of thine !” when here the apostle saith that “scarcely for a
righteous person one would die, but for a good man some
would even dare to die;” there evidently a substitution is
intended of the one to free the other from death by the
death he suffers. When therefore the apostle before and
after these words saith, “ Christ died for the ungodly" and
the sinner, must he not also signify that our Lord died
in their stead, to deliver them from death 2 It is evident, be-
yond exception, that in all piacular sacrifices, both Jew and
gentile always took this for granted, that the victim suffered
in their stead, and for their sins. Since then the Socinians
own that our Lord suffered as victima piacularis, or “an ex-
piatory sacrifice,” surely both Jew and gentile must conceive
that all these phrases did import that our Lord suffered in
our stead, and for our sins.
Secondly, A second argument is taken from the “recon-
ciliation,” mentioned as the effect of our Lord's suffering for
us; for seeing it is alone the guilt of sin, or sin unpardoned,
that maketh God displeased with us, the death which is here
said to “procure our peace and reconciliation” to God, must
make atonement for the guilt of our iniquities.
Crellius replies, that by “reconciliation * here the apostle
intends not God's réconciliation to us, but ours to God, by
that conversion to him, which maketh us at friendship with
him. But this may be refuted,
First, From the import of the words karaxxârrey and
waraxxayń, for they do naturally import the reconciliation of
one that is angry or displeased with us, both in profane and ,
Jewish writers; thus, #y rivi SiaNAayha-Erai ; “In what shall
David reconcile himself to his lord?” 1 Sam. xxix. 4.
When Apame, the famous concubine, was angry with king
Darius, he flattered her 8mo: Staxxa); airá, that “she might
be reconciled to him,” 1 Esd. iv. 21. After the reviling or
falling out of friends, Éari Staxxayń “there is, or may be, re-
conciliation,” saith the son of Sirach, Ecclus. xxii. 22. The
Jews in Egypt pray for those in Judea, that the Lord
would hear their prayer, Kai kataxxayein, “and be reconciled
to them,” 2 Macc. i. 5 adding, that as Jerusalem was for-
saken through the wrath of the Almighty, so y aſ toū asy4-
Aov AEaºrérov KaraNAayſ, “when the great God was reconciled,
it was set up with glory,” v. 20. And again, though the
Lord, say they, be angry with us a little while for our chas-
tisement and correction, ºráxiv xaraxxayácerat, “he will
again be reconciled to his servants,” vii. 33. And they be-
seech the Lord sic réxo; xaraxxayāyat, “to be reconciled to
his servants for ever,” viii. 29. Whence we learn, that re-
conciliation always respecteth some preceding anger or dis-
pleasure ; and that the reconciling of God was the appeasing
of his anger: when therefore we here read in the same words
of “enemies reconciled to God,” and so “saved from his
wrath,” what can we imagine, but that a God once angry and
offended with them is now appeased ? And when we farther
read, that this reconciliation was effected by the death and
blood of Christ, is it not obvious to conceive his wrath and
anger was averted by the shedding this blood for us?
Secondly, It is evident that “when we were sinners Christ
died for us,” ver. 8, and “when we were enemies, we were
reconciled to God by the death of his Son,” ver. 10, are
words of the same import ; for seeing these words “Christ
died for us,” and “Christ shed his blood for us,” signify the
Same thing, and by his blood shed we are reconciled ; it is
evident that “Christ dying for us,” and “Christ reconciling
us by his death,” or blood shed for us, must be the same;
now we are “justified by his blood,” as it procures our
tered into the world, and death by sin (or for siny .
and so death passed upon all men (through him), "in
whom all had (so far) sinned (as to become equally
obnoa'ious to death with him : so the second Adam came
to deliver all men from the death procured by him :
13 Through him, I say,) for (it must indeed be con-
jessed, that) until the law sin was in the world : but
“peace with God,” ver. 1, as it “saves us from his wrath,”
ver, 9. Therefore we are reconciled to God by it on the
SamG account. -
Thirdly, We being here considered as “sinners,” “un-
godly,” “enemies to God,” as persons who have, upon that
account “fallen short of the glory,” that is, saith Crellius,
“of the approbation of God” (Rom. iii. 23), is there no
need of reconciling God unto such persons? And when un-
der these circumstances we are said to be “justified through
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. iii. 25, 26),
and “being justified, to have peace with God through our
Lord Jesus Christ,” can we conceive that nothing was done
by this Jesus to procure God's reconciliation to the sinner,
or to purchase his peace with an offended God? Especially
if we consider that the death of Christ here mentioned, as
that by which we are reconciled to God, is the death of him
who suffered as a sin-offering for us; the blood, by which
we are justified, is the blood of atonement, or propitiation, or
the “blood shed to make reconciliation for the sins of the
people" (Heb. ii. 17).
* Ver. 11. Thy Kataºayy #x480pxey, We have received
the atonement.] Crellius excepts against this interpretation,
alleging that to “receive or obtain reconciliation ” is a
phrase unknown to Jew and gentile ; and would have the
words rendered thus, “By whom we have obtained this con-
version to God:” but to obtain reconciliation, when it is the
effect of blood shed for the remission of sins, is very proper;
for it was the constant practice under the law to procure re-
conciliation by shedding the blood of the sin-offering; and
all nations by this means endeavoured to reconcile God to
them, and what reconciliation the priest, by offering this
blood, procured, the sinner received and obtained ; and
therefore to “receive atonement” or “obtain reconciliation ”
by an expiatory sacrifice, must be a thing very well known
to Jew and gentile : but to receive conversion by it, is in-
deed a phrase unknown to them, and the whole church of
Christ. Moreover, this note of Crellius shows his little skill in
the Greek, for as Ságaroº Aap,8ávely is “to be courageous,” Acts
xxviii. 15, 36xhy Aap,8ávely is “to begin,” Añów Aaºğävely is “to
forget,” Heb. ii. 3, tºrépzynow Aaºz84vely “to remember,” 2 Tim.
i. 5, reſpay Aap,8ávely “to experiment,” Heb. ix. 36, oikołopºv
Aap,8ávely “to be edified,” l Cor. xiv. 15, so wara NAayily Napa-
8ávely is “to be reconciled,” as noxam capere is “to be hurt.”
* Ver. 12. E4' 6, In whom.] The critics have been very
industrious to find some other sense of these words than
that which our translation gives, some rendering this last
clause, “for that,” some, “because all have sinned.” But
our exposition is confirmed beyond all contradiction from
the following words, which declare, that “by the sin of one
man, many die ;” and that “by the sin of one, death reigned
by one ;” and that “by one offence the sentence of death
came upon all,” ver. 15–18. All which are parallel to the
expression here, that death came upon all men through
Adam, “in whom,” saith the same apostle, “all men die ’’
(1 Cor. xv. 22.). And the words following, that “by the
disobedience of many were made sinners,” are plainly paral-
lel to these, “in whom all have sinned.” y
2. None of the other senses are true, or suitable to the
scope and argument of the apostle; v. g. It is not true that
death came upon all men, “for that,” or “because” all have
sinned. For the apostle directly here asserts the contrary ;
viz. that the death, and condemnation to it, which befell all
men, was for the sin of Adam only : for here it is expressly
said that “by the sin of one man many died ;” that “the
sentence was for one,” and “by one man sinning to condem-
nation;” and that “by the sin of one death reigned by
one;” therefore the apostle doth expressly teach us that
this death, this condemnation to it, came not upon us for the
sin of all, but only for the sin of one, i.e. of that one Adam,
“in whom all men die” (1 Cor. xv.22).
550
ROMANS.
(it must also be acknowledged that) sin is not *(gene-
rally them) "imputed (to death) where there is no law
(condemning men to death for it).
14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses
(the giver of a new law, threatening death to the trans-
gressors of it), even over them that had not sinned
after the similitude of Adam’s transgression (i.e. men
were all the while subject to death, though they sinned
not as Adam did against an express law, threatening
death to them for it, and therefore death must reign
over them for the sin of Adam), who (in this) is the
figure (or resemblance) of him (i.e. of the second Adam,
Christ) that was to come. W
15 But (in this resemblance there are #wo advan-
tageous dissimilitudes ; for) not as the offence, so also
is the free gift: for if through the offence of one man
* many be dead (Gr. died), much more the grace of
God, and the gift (of justification procured) by (or
through) the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, hath
abounded to many.
He also farther teacheth, that this death and condemna-
tion came upon all for one sin of that one man, for it came,
3. Evêc traparroºpaaroº, “by one offence” upon all men; it
came not therefore upon all men for the sin of all: and this
the comparison plainly requires, which saith, the opposite
justification and free gift came upon all men “by one man,
Jesus Christ;” “by the obedience of one,” and 3’ #yö, Sixató-
ºwaroº, “by one righteousness,” ver. 16—19, i.e. by the obe-
dience to the death of that one man. Yea, the apostle doth,
3. Not only thus plainly and frequently assert that death
came upon all men for the sin of Adam, but he proves it by
this argument; that “death reigned from Adam to Moses,
over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's
transgression ;” i. e. against a law threatening death to them
for sin ; they therefore, saith he, could not die for their own
sins: for though indeed they were then sinners, yet being
under no such law as Adam was, their sin was not imputed
to death, and so they could not die on that account; death
º came upon them, as I asserted, through the sin of
8.IIl.
* Ver. 13.] I add, generally: because though all men
died after Adam, all were not punished with death for
their own personal sin, but only the antediluvians and the
'Sodomites. -
Here also note, that the apostle cannot be rationally con-
ceived to assert, as Mr. L. suggests, that “no man can incur
a penalty without the sanction of a positive law declaring
and establishing that penalty.” For this assertion entirely
destroys the obligation of the heathens to perform any duty,
since no man can be obliged to do that, which he may omit
without fear of punishment, and renders the heathens, who
had no positive law given them, incapable of incurring any
penalty by any sins they had committed. The meaning
therefore of the apostle seems to be only this, that the law
threatening death to Adam, being not made to all mankind,
but to him alone, all men, good and bad, could not then
generally die for their own sins; but this mortality fell on
them all without distinction in that interval on the account
of that one sin of Adam, which rendered all his posterity
subject to that mortality he had incurred by his sin; where-
fore to say that all men were not subject to mortality by
reason of the sin of Adam, would be to contradict Paul:
but to say that they, who were swept away by the flood
with an untimely death, did not die for their own, but for
Adam's sin, is to contradict God himself, saying, “I will
destroy man from the earth, for the iniquity of man is very
great,” &c. (Gen. v.).
* Agaeria. 83 oix #xxoyeſ rat, Sin was not imputed.] The
apostle doth not mean that Göd did not account them sin-
mers who transgressed against the law of nature, or that he
was not displeased with them for their offences, but only
that he did not so impute them as to condemn them to
death for them. To make this out, and to give you the
true import of the word “imputation,” let it be observed,
First, That wherever this phrase occurs affirmatively,
that such a thing was “imputed” to any one, it is some per-
Bonal thing or action of our own, and not anything of an-
other's which is thus said to be imputed. As when it is
said, Rom. ii. 26, that “if the uncircumcision keep the righ-
teousness of the law, his uncircumcision” on that account
sic Tregºrouhy Aoya Shaerat, “shall be accounted for circumci-
sion,” i.e. he shall be accepted as well as if he were circum-
cised. So Rom. iv. 3, “Abraham believed God, and it (that
is, his faith) was imputed to him for righteousness:” for
so it is explained, wer. 5, “To him that worketh not, but
believeth, his faith is imputed to him for righteousness:”
and ver, 9, “We say that faith was imputed to Abraham for
righteousness” (see Gal.iii. 6. James ii. 23). And of our faith
in him that raised Christ from the dead, it is said, Rom. iv.
24, that “it shall be imputed to us for righteousness.”
Secondly, When the phrase is used with a negative, or
when sin is said to be imputed, or not to be imputed, it is
not only a man's own personal sin that is intended ; but the
non-imputation of it is the not inflicting some condigm pun-
ishment upon him for it. So Rom. iv. 8, “Blessed is the
man to whom the Lord imputeth no sin ;’ which being
spoken on the account of God’s heavy hand on David for
his sin, Ps. xxxii. 2–4, shows that the import of it must be
this; Blessed is the man whom God doth not punish for his
iniquity. So 2 Tim. iv. 16, “In my first answer no man
stood by me, twº avroſ: Aoyiaºsin, may it not be imputed to
them,” i.e. let them not suffer for it. So 2 Sam. xvi. 19,
Shimei speaks to David thus, wi Aoyia &aso. 5 xúgiā; wou ävo-
ºwiay, “Let not my lord impute to me mine iniquity;” i. e.
let him not remember it to punish it. When therefore it is
said, 2 Cor. v. 19, that “God was in Christ reconciling the
world to himself, wº Aoyićasyoc, not imputing to them their
iniquities;” the meaning is, that for Christ's sake he was
pleased to exempt them from the punishment of their trans-
gressions: so in like manner here, sin is said not to be im-
puted, whilst there is no law; not that God did not look
upon men then as sinners, but that he did not punish them
with death for it, but that they died a mere death, as being
the offspring of Adam made mortal.
Hence note, that in the scripture there is no mention of
the imputation, either of one man's sin, or of his righteous-
ness, unto another, but only of the imputation of his good
deeds for righteousness, or of his evil deeds for punishment.
Secondly, that the punishment of Adam's sin devolved upon
his whole posterity, is fully proved from this chapter: but
it is not here said that they were truly and formally made
sinners by his sin. So likewise, that for the obedience of
one unto the death many were made righteous, and were
delivered from that death to which they were obnoxious,
we are assured from this and other scriptures; but that they
were made formally righteous by our Saviour's righteousness
imputed to them, the scripture doth nowhere assert.
i” Wer. 15. Oi Troxxoi &rflavoy, Many were dead.] When
God said to Adam, “In the day that thou eatest thereof,
thou shalt die,” he did not mean that he should then give
up the ghost, but that he should be subject to mortality,
and at the last return to the dust from whence he came ; as
experience showed, and as the fathers interpret it. Now in
this sense, that of the apostle is most true, that in Adam all
die, i.e. became obnoxious to mortality ; but it is not true
that all men die only on the account of Adam's sin. The
old world was drowned on the account of their own sins, and
the Jews suffered both by the hand of God and man, for
sins committed against the law ; and this perhaps might be
the reason why the apostle saith, not by the offence of one
“all,” but “many,” died. The advantage therefore here
mentioned, may consist in this, that all that die, die not
purely for the sin of Adam, but many times bring death
upon themselves for their own sin; but all that are justified,
and so freed from death, are thus exempted from it only by
virtue of the death of Christ. This is the doctrine both of
the Jews and of the church of Christ: not that all formally
sinned in Adam, but that all men became obnoxious to
death for Adam's sin. “God,” saith the author of the book
of Wisdom, “created man to be immortal; but through the
envy of the devil death entered into the world,” Wisd. ii.
23, 24; “By the woman was the beginning of sin, and by
her we all die,” saith the son of Sirach, Ecclus. xxv. 24;
“By the counsel which the serpent gave to Eve, all the in-
CHAPTER V.
551
16 And (affain) not as it was by one that sinned, so
is the gift: for the judgment (Gr. the sentence) was
by one (sin) to condemnation (we being all sentenced
to death on the account of Adam’s sin), but the free
gift is of “many offences unto (that) justification (of
which cometh life). - ... •
17 For if by one man’s offence death reigned by
(that) one (man over all his posterity) ; much more
they which receive (or are made partakers of) abun-
dance of grace, and (by it) of the “gift of righteous-
ness (or justification), shall reign in life by (the recon-
º purchased for them by the death of) one, Jesus
hrist.
18 Therefore as by the offence of one (Gr. by one
offence), the judgment (Gr. sentence) came upon all
men to (the) condemnation (of death); even so by the
righteousness of one (by one righteous act, the obedi-
ence of Christ to the death for us) the free gift came
upon all men (believing in him) to justification of life.
19 For as by one man’s disobedience many were
* made sinners (being made subject to the death, which
was inflicted upon Adam for sin, as much as if they them-
selves had violated the law which rendered him obnoſcious
to it), so by the obedience of one (suffering death, the
punishment of sin, for them) shall many be made righ-
teous (i.e. be as truly justified, and eaempted from
habitants of the earth became obnoxious to death,” saith
the Targum on Ruth iv. ver, ult. And the same Chaldee
paraphrase upon Eccles. vii. the last verse, saith, “God
made man pure and upright, but the serpent and Eve se-
duced him to eat of the fruit of the tree, and so they made
death to rush upon him, and upon all the inhabitants of the
earth.”
* Wer. 16. "Ex moxxây Traparrogaåroy, From many of.
fences.] This is the second advantageous difference, viz. that
whereas we became obnoxious to death for one sin of Adam,
we by faith in Christ are justified, and thereby freed not
only from the condemnation which came upon us for that
sin, but also from the condemnation due unto us for all our
offences against God.
Note also, that the word xgiºa, especially when it is joined
with death, doth usually signify a sentence condemning any
person ; xeipza Savárov is “the sentence of death,” Deut.
xxi. 22. So Luke xxiv. 20, “The high priests and rulers
delivered up Jesus, eic agiºca Savátov, to the sentence of
death,” see xxiii. 40 : Ecclus. xli. 2, “O death, how ac-
ceptable is rô xpipzá orov, thy sentence to the needy l’’ and,
ver. 3, “Fear not keipza Savárov, the sentence of death. Re-
member them that have been before thee, and that come
after thee, rotºro ºrd agiºca "rapi, Kupiov ráan aragni, for this is
the sentence of the Lord over all flesh.”
* Ver. 15. "H 3ogs& #y x&gºrt. Ver. 17. ‘H 8wes& 8tzato-
orávnç. The gift of righteousness.] I have interpreted these
phrases of the gift of justification, as others do ; but it is
very probable that they may import the Holy Spirit given
in baptism, and upon faith, to the believers of those times,
who being made sons by faith in Christ, received the Spirit
of adoption, Rom. viii. 14–16. Gal. iv. 6, and believing,
“were sealed with the Spirit of promise,” Eph. i. 13; for he
is styled emphatically, h \ogs& #mrovgävlos, “the heavenly
gift,” Heb. vi. 4; # 8oge&, “the gift,” Acts xi. 17; # 3oge:
Geoiſ, “the gift of God,” Acts viii. 20; “the gift of the grace
of God,” Eph. iii. 7 ; # 3268.3 roi; Xgia roi, “the gift of
Christ,” Eph. iv. 7 ; “the gift of the Holy Ghost,” Acts ii.
38. x. 45. So the Holy Ghost, given to the prophets and
holy men of old, is by the primitive Christians usually styled
ń &vo.68w świ row, &yiov; &vègaçãºrex800ca. 8wpea, “the gift com-
ing from above upon holy men,” Just. Mart. adv. Gr. p. 9,
B. p. 11, D. p. 30, D. p. 31, C. -
* Ver. 19. "Apºagtoxoi warscráðharay of woxxol, Many were
ºnade sinners.] In the exposition of this, and of the phrase
in the twelfth verse, “in whom all have sinned,” I follow
the Greek expositors, Chrysostom, Theodoret, CEcumenius,
mnd Theophylact, upon the place: and to make good the
interpretation, I shall show first the inconsistency of any
other sense, ascribed to them, with the text, with scripture,
and with reason. And,
First, It cannot be truly affirmed that we all actually and
formally sinned in Adam, and upon that account were made
sinners; for then it was not by the “disobedience of one,”
but of many, that many were made sinners; (2) then
death, the punishment of sin, came upon all, not “for the
sin of one,” or for one sin of that one man, but for the sin
of all ; both which things I have plainly proved to be con-
trary to the express words of the apostle. Then (3.) all
men must have sinned “after the similitude of Adam’s
transgression;” for if we all sinned in or with him, we must
sin by the same act, the same will, and in the same person,
against the same law ; and Surely they that thus sin, must
sin “after the similitude of Adam's transgression:” for what
dissimilitude can there be in sins committed by the same
act, and the same will, of one and the same person, against
the same law 2 But of the posterity of Adam, the apostle
here expressly saith, “They sinned not after the similitude
of Adam's transgression;” therefore they were not sinners by
the same act and will, of the same person, against the same
law. Moreover, if all the posterity of Adam sinned in
Adam, they sinned against some law given to them, “for
sin is the transgression of a law, and where there is no law
there is no transgression:” now they could sin in Adam, so
as to deserve death for their sin, only by sinning against the
law requiring Adam not to eat of the forbidden fruit: for
Adam himself became guilty of death only by transgressing
that law, but all the posterity of Adam cannot be said to
have sinned against that law, for when did they sin against
it 2 If when Adam did so, then all his posterity must be
actually sinners from the beginning of the world, i.e. some
thousands of years before the greatest part of them had a
being: now seeing action must be the action of some being,
does it not seem absurd at first sight to say, that so many
myriads were actually sinners, when they were not in being 2
and when they came into the world, they could not sin in
Adam, or in his action, for he did not then eat of the forbid-
den fruit in the midst of paradise. Again, we cannot sin
against a law which is not in being ; since therefore there is
now no paradise, and no forbidden fruit in being, we cannot
be obliged by any law of God now not to eat of the fruit in
the midst of paradise, and so cannot be sinners by trans-
gressing against such a law.
Secondly, It cannot truly be affirmed that we all sinned
in Adam, and by his disobedience were made sinners, because
his sin and disobedience were imputed to us: for I have
shown already, that the scripture nowhere maketh the least
mention of anything of another's imputed to a man for re-
ward or guilt, but only of some personal thing or action of
our own : see note on ver. 14. Moreover, this imputation
either makes the sin of Adam truly ours, or it doth not : if
it doth not, how can we be made sinners by it? if it doth,
then death came upon us for our sin ; and so not for the
sin of one, but for the sin of all, which is the thing disproved
already, note on ver. 12. (3.) I ask whether this imputa-
tion made the posterity of Adam sinners, or whether it
found them so before ? If it found them so before, it was
plainly needless, for they might have been condemned to
death without it : if it made them so, then, since this impu-
tation is the act of God, and not of man, it plainly follows
that God must be the author of that sin, because the imputa-
tion flows immediately from him, without the intervention
of any action on the part of those men to whom it is im-
puted. Moreover, then the imputation must be false, as
charging them with sin whom he did not find sinners, but
only by his arbitrary imputation made them so. Now far
be it from any Christian to affirm that God should falsely
impute sin to any man. In a word, Aoyićeaffa and impulare
is to reckon, to account a thing to any man, to chargé him
with it, to lay the charge of it to him. This action there-
fore on God’s part must suppose, in the very nature of it,
some action done by the posterity of Adam which is blame-
worthy, and may be justly charged upon them, before there
can be any ground for imputation of it; and this shows
that it is impossible that the imputation should be the very
thing that renders them blameworthy, or persons worthy to
be charged with guilt. And yet if the sin of Adam becomes
ours only by imputation, it must be ours only because it is
552
ROMANS.
that death, which is the punishment of sin, as if they
had personally suffered ; and also accepted and treated
by God, as if indeed they had been righteous persons.
20 I say, before the law we became obnorious to death
by one man’s disobedience,) * but the law entered that
the offence might abound (unto death, and men might
be found obnorious to it also, on the account of their
transgressions against the law); but where sin (thus)
abounded (unto death), grace did much more abound
(unto life) :
21 That as sin hath reigned unto death (seizing on
all men for it), even so grace might reign through
righteousness (Gr. justification) to eternal life, by Je-
sus Christ our Lord.
by God imputed to us, and not imputed because it is ours;
that is, God by this imputation must make us sinners, and
not find us such ; for this imputation is the action of the
Judge, not of the supposed criminal ; remove or take away
this action, and no crime can be charged upon him. In fine,
if the sin of Adam becomes ours only by imputation, it de-
serves condemnation only by the same imputation, i.e. by
the action of God; that therefore we deserve condemnation
for it is to be ascribed directly to the action of God, and
only by accident to that of Adam. Whence therefore is
our destruction, according to this opinion, but of God, who
makes us worthy of condemnation, by imputing to us that
sin which by his imputation only we stand guilty of 2
These interpretations being so inconsistent with the
apostle's words, and with the plainest evidence of reason, I
am forced to prefer before them that of the Greek fathers,
viz. that we all sinned in Adam, i.e. by becoming obnoxious
to that death which was the punishment of his sin, and that
“by one man's disobedience many were made sinners,” by
being subject to the death, and temporal calamities and
miseries, which came upon all mankind for Adam’s sin ; so
that we become sinners in him, or by his disobedience, by a
metonymy of the effect, by suffering the punishment which
God had threatened to him for it, as the experience of all
men and women shows we do in all the parts of the threat ;
and this is a common sense of the word Run, which signifies
both sin and the punishment of it. So Gen. iv. 7, “If thou
doest evil, nºton, sin lieth at the door;” that is, the punish-
ment of sin, ver. 13. So Gen. xix. 15, “Make haste,” saith
the angel to Lot, “and escape, lest thou be consumed myn,
in the sin of the city,” i. e. in the punishment of the city;
in plagº descendente propter culpam incolarum urbis,
Arab. And Gen. xxxi. 39, Jacob speaks to Laban thus,
That which was torn of beasts, Hitons ºx, #y& étre+rivvoy,
poenas dabam, “I suffered for it;”—“the sin was upon me,”
saith Aben Ezra. Gen. xliii. 9, Judah speaks thus to Jacob
concerning Benjamin, “If I bring him not again,” 19 ºnkºm
#4a:ºx&; iodºal fic vs, i. e. “I will suffer punishment;”
see xlii. 37, i.e. let me bear the blame; so also xliv. 32.
So Bathsheba said to David, “I and my son Solomon shall
be B'Riorſ, &#xaeroxoi, sinners,” 1 Kings i. 21, that is, We
shall be punished as sinners, and be in danger of our life.
So yºvn R5, impium non faciet, “He will not condemn
him,” Ps. xxxvii. 33 ; hy'vn pl ET, Et sanguinem innocen-
tem condemnabunt, Ps. xciv. 21 ; so also Job ix. 20. So
the lepers say one to another, “We do not well if we tarry
till the morning-light, then we shall be found sinners,” 2
Kings vii. 9, i. e. we shall be punished by the king. And
Zech. xiv. 19, “This shall be Enyn nxton, &aaeria Aiyêr-
Tov, the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all
nations that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles.”
This phrase of bearing sin is constantly used in this sense;
as when it is said "Rw DRun, “They shall bear their iniqui.
tv, they shall die,” Lev. xx. 20, and &aagriay zoºloïvtat,
37oizoyrat, Lev. xx. 17. 19 ; Num. xiv. 34, Xà l'aés àgatºria;
tºw, Lam. v. 7, iriakopºv rá &yopºpºata aúrðy, “We have
borne their iniquity.” If therefore &gaeria in the Old Tes-
tament so often signifies the punishment of sin, which in
this case was death, what exception can be made against
these words of Chrysostom,” “What is the meaning of these
words, In whom all have sinned? It is this, he falling, even
they who did not eat of the tree were by him made mortal;”
—“Even as if they themselves had fallen,” saith Theophy-
lact, “when he did.” “For,” saith Theodoret, “he being
* Ti 3: #7tt, #4' & irávre; #xaprov; #xsivov rearévroz, wal of tº
‘páyovre; 373 roi; ºxov yeyóvacy #4 #xeivov ráyrs; Synºroi. Chry-
Sost. in locum.
+ "nº ºw kai airo; ºr, ‘aavts; 8.6t, #xsiyo; #rraia sy.
phyl, in locum -
Theo-
obnoxious to the decree of death, in that state he begat Cain
and Abel, and others, ātravre; ovy &; #x rototºrov påyte; Synthy
sixoy rºy pºorly, all therefore became mortal, as being begotten
of one that was mortal.” And seeing it is said &aaptaxoi,
or hºagtnxórs; a oyrat, “They shall be sinners,” who are to
suffer punishment ; why may not these words, “By the
disobedience of one many were made sinners,” admit the
sense which Chrysostom, GEcumenius, and Theophylact give
them 2–rovréa-riy insiºvvoi x0xácsi, zai xará8ixoi Savāºrov,
“They shall for his disobedience be subject unto death and
punishment,” the effects of sin: “for,” saith St. Chrysos-
tom, “it is no absurdity to say, that he sinning, and so being
mortal, they who proceed from him should be mortal also ;
but how can it justly follow that by his disobedience another
should be made a sinner, for such a one will be found to de-
serve no punishment, as not being personally a sinner P”
Tö 3; #x rāg ragano; #xeivov £regoy &pagroxêy yeyśa Sat Trotav
&xoxovºia, oxoin; sigs%agrai yüp ošto (anāś 3ixny $$eiaoy &
rototroc, elys w; otzoffew yśyoyey &p, aproxác. It is true, we meet
not with the words āpaap"roy and &ºwagºraſaol arearáðharay, in
this sense elsewhere in the New Testament ; but then this
may be, because the comparison is not elsewhere made, be-
twixt the first Adam, and the effects of his disobedience, and
the second Adam, and the effects of his obedience to the
death; and because the opposite phrase, 8ixatoi wated ráðno av,
required that the words opposed should be used in the me-
tonymical sense: for when the apostle saith, “By the obe-
dience of one man many were made righteous,” it is evident
he spoke not of Christ's active obedience, but of his passive
obedience, or suffering death for us. For (1.) the whole
chapter is employed in setting forth the benefits accruing to
us by his death, ver, 6.8—ll. (2.) The effect of this obe-
dience is our justification; now that, through the whole
scripture, and in this very chapter, is constantly ascribed to
the death of Christ, and his blood shed for us, ver, 9, 10.
16–18. (3.) The disobedience by which many were made
sinners, is plainly declared by the apostle to be one single
act of disobedience in Adam, and therefore the obedience
opposed to it cannot in reason be the active obedience of
Christ's whole life, but that obedience to the death which
the apostle mentions, Phil. ii. 6.8. Now by this passive
obedience we cannot be made formally righteous, but only
metonymically, by being made partakers of that freedom
from the condemnation and guilt of sin, and that reconcilia-
tion which Christ purchased by his meritorious death and
passion. Dissolvens enim eam, quae ab initio in ligno facta
fuerat, inobedientiam, obediens factus est usque ad mortem,
mortem autem crucis, eam quae in ligno fuerat, inobedien-
tiam, per eam quae in ligno fuerat obedientiam Sanans.
Iren. lib. v. Cap. 56.
Moreover, we in the New Testament find frequently ex-
pressions equivalent to these ; as (1.) when Christ is said to
“bear our sins,” only because he bore the punishment due to
them. (2.) When he is said to be “made sin for us,” 2 Cor.
v. 21, he being made so not by contracting the guilt of our
sins, but only by suffering punishment for our iniquities ; and
when he is said to “appear a second time, xopiº #4aeriac,
without sin,” Heb. ix. 28, i. e. without another sacrifice, in
which he was to suffer for our sin ; and when it is said that
“by sin,” Rom. viii. 2, i.e. by his sacrifice for it, “he con-
demned sin for the flesh.” And (3.) when he is said to be
“made a curse for us,” Gal. iii. 13, he being only so by suf-
fering the death which the law styled accursed, and not as
being so in the sight of God. -
* Wer. 20. “Iya masováan rā tragán'ropºa, The law entered
that sin might abound unto death.] Hence it is styled,
“the letter that killeth,” the “ministry of death” and “ of
condemnation,” 2 Cor. iii. 6–9, and said to subject all
that are under it to a curse, Gal. iii. 10. -
5.
CHAPTER WI.
1 WHAT shall we say then? “shall we continue in
sin (Gr. what do we say then P do we say this 8 Let us
who have received this grace, continue still in sin,) that
grace may abound (towards us P that is, do we by de-
claring that we are justified freely by grace, through the
redemption that is in Christ Jesus, iii. 24, and that as
sin abounded, grace did more abound, v. 20, give occa-
sion to this inference).8
2 God forbid (we should make any such inference
from, or any use of, this doctrine, so contrary to that
very baptism by which we enter into the Christian cove-
nant and put on Christ, for) how shall we who are
dead (Gr. have died) to sin (by our baptism, or entrance
into the Christian covenant), live any longer therein
3 (For) know ye not, that as many (of us) as were
baptized into (and by that baptism professed ourselves
disciples of) Jesus Christ, were baptized into (the like-
ness of) his death? (and so engaged to die unto sin, as
he did for sin, 1 Pet. iv. 1, 2, and to live to him that
died for us, and rose again 8 2 Cor. v. 15.
4 For) therefore we are “buried with him by bap-
tism (plunging us under the water) into (a conformity
to his) death (which put his body under the earth):
that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the
glory (glorious power) of the Father, even so we also
(thus dead in baptism) should (rise with him, and)
walk in newness of life. .
5 For if we have been planted together in the like-
mess of his death (by dying unto sin), we shall be also
in the likeness of his resurrection, (by being so risen
from our death unto sin, as never to let sin have any
more dominion over us, but dying unto sin once for all,
and henceforth living unto God, ver. 9, 10, or we shall
tise to a life immortal, ver. 8, as he hath done. -
6 And thus we stand engaged to die to sin,) knowing
this, that our old man is (was) crucified with him, that
the body of sin (i.e. the appetites of the body which
subject us to sin) might be destroyed, that henceforth
we might not serve sin, (for he bore our sins in his
own body on the cross, that we, being dead to sin, might
live unto righteousness, 1.Pet. ii. 24.
7 Which we shall not do if we be truly dead unto
it :) for he that is dead is free from sin, (1 Pet. iv. 4,
he sins no more.)
8 Now if we be (thus) dead with Christ, we believe
that "we shall also live with him (not a spiritual
only, but a happy and immortal life:
9 And thus conformed to his death we should be,
and therefore) knowing that Christ being raised from
the dead (now) dieth no more; death hath no more
dominion over him.
10 For in that he died, he died “once to sin (or, for
sin, i.e. that he died to the putting away of sin, Heb.
ix. 26, 28, he died thus once for all); but in that he
liveth, he liveth unto God; (i. e. the life he liveth is
an eternal life, wholly dedicated to the glory of God,
Phil. ii. 9–11.
11 * Likewise reckon ye all yourselves to be indeed
dead unto sin, but living to God, through Jesus Christ
our Lord.
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body,
"that you should obey it in the lust thereof.
13 Neither yield ye your members (any longer) as
instruments of unrighteousness to sin: but yield (up)
yourselves (entirely) to (the service of) God, as those
that are (with Christ) alive from the dead, and (yield)
{. members as instruments of righteousness to
od.
14 (And say not this is beyond your strength, seeing
the law in your members leads you captive to sin x)" for
sin shall not have dominion over you: for you are
not under the (pedagogy of) the law (which gives the

ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VI.
* Ver, 1.] Note here, that if the faith, to which St. Paul
in this epistle doth ascribe justification, did not only oblige
us to, but even comprehend, evangelical and constant obedi-
ence, there could be no colour for this objection ; that there-
fore must be a mistake.
* Ver. 4. zvetépngey oily airá, 31& roi; 8amºria garoc, We
are buried with him in baptism.] It being so expressly de-
clared here, and Col. ii. 12, that “we are buried with Christ
in baptism,” by being buried under water; and the argument
to oblige us to a conformity to his death, by dying to sin,
being taken hence, and this immersion being religiously ob-
served by all Christians for thirteen centuries, and approved
by our church, and the change of it unto sprinkling, even
without any allowance from the Author of this institution,
or any license from any council of the church, being that
which the Romanist still urgeth to justify his refusal of the
cup to the laity, it were to be wished that this custom
might be again of general use, and aspersion only per-
mitted, as of old, in case of the clinici, or in present danger
of death. -
* Wer. 8. Xučharopaev airó, We shall live with him.] As
being delivered, by his death, from that death which is the
punishment of sin, and having that Spirit which is the giver
of life, and the pledge and earnest of it, imparted to us: it
is this life which is the object of our faith, and of this the
apostle speaks, 2 Tim. ii. 11, saying, “If we have been
dead with him, we shall also live with him ; if we suffer, we
shall also reign together with him.”
* Wer. 10. "Azré0ayey #$47a3, He died once for all.] That
is, Christ so died for our sins once, as never to undergo death
again, and therefore his living to God seems to import his re-
surrection to eternal life; and so the phrase is used by Luke,
where of “the children of the resurrection,” which can die
no more, he saith, “They live unto God,” Luke xx. 26.
28, and in Josephus," who saith, that they who die for God
&al rô Geº, “live to God, as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
and all the patriarchs do; they love that piety which brings
them to eternal life.”
* Ver. 11. Otro wai úpreſs, So also reckon ye yourselves
dead unto sin.] Once for all, so as never to have any need of
dying to it again, but as still engaged to live to God's glory:
for, say the ancients, we can have but one baptism, and this
supposes we should so die to sin once, as never to have oc-
casion to perform that work again. Hence therefore it ap-
pears, how far they are from conformity to the death of
Christ, who still suffer sin to revive in them, after that, by
pious resolutions and repentance, they have began to mortify
it, and so are still beginning again to die to it. And oh
that Christians would more carefully attend to this confor-
mity to the death of Christ
6 Ver. 12. Eic ré üraxoſsiy, To obey it..] For this obedi-
ence to it in the lustings of it, is a certain sign of the do-
minion of sin in us, and of our being none of Christ's ser-
vants; “for they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh,
with the affections and lusts” (Gal. v. 24, see Examen
Millii).
7 W. 14. Agapºria yap oi kugeiſast, For sin shall not have
* De Maccab. p. 1100.
+ P. 1102, A.
*554 -
ROMANS.
knowledge of sin, but not sufficient strength to mortify
it), but under (that economy of) grace (which affords
that Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which frees us from
the law of sin and death).
15 What then Shall we (go on in) sin, because
we are not under the law (which condemns us for every
transgression), but under (that covenant of) grace
(which allows the pardon, and promises the forgiveness
of it 8 Heb. viii. 12.) God forbid (that we should con-
tinue in the sins forbidden by the law, because we are
not under the law). -
16 Know ye not (this), that to whom ye yield your-
selves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom
ye obey (and from him you must eaſpect your wages) ;
whether (you be the servants) of sin to (receive the
wages of sin, which is) death, or (the servants of God)
by obedience to (the obtaining the fruits of) righteous-
ness * - -
17 But *God be thanked, that (and, God be thank-
ed, that though formerly, ver. 19) ye were the servants
of sin, but (yet since your conversion) you have obey-
ed from the heart that form of (Christian) doctrine
which was delivered to you.
18 Being then (for being) made free from (the law
of) sin, (by the grace and assistance of that Spirit of
life the gospel ministers, ch. viii. 2,) ye became servants
unto righteousness.
19 I speak "after the manner of men, because of
the infirmity of your flesh: for as you have yielded
your members servants to uncleanness, and to ini-
quity to (commit) iniquity; even so now yield your
members servants to righteousness, unto holiness.
20 (Now, I say, for before you could not do it,) for
when you were the servants of sin, ye were free from
righteousness, (doing then no service at all to it.
21 And that you may not be still enamoured with
gour former service unto sin, I ask,) what fruit had
then in (from) those things of which you are now
ashamed * (surely none worthy to be compared with
the fruits of righteousness,) for the end of those things
is death. - - -
22 But now being made free from sin, and become
servants to God, you have (at present) your fruit unto
holiness, and the end thereof (will be) everlasting life.
23 For * the wages of sin (to its servants) is death;
but the gift of God (to his servants) is eternal life,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
dominion.] This is a pious sense, but seems to some to give
no place for the following objection. Others therefore para-
phrase the words thus: “For then sin shall not have domi-
nion over you, so as to condemn you for each transgression ;
for you are not under the law (which pronounceth a curse on
them that do not obey it), but under (that covenant of)
grace which affords pardon and forgiveness of it,” 1 John
i. 7 (see Examen Millii).
* Ver. 17. Xágic 8: rô Qsº, But God be thanked.] He
doth not here thank God that they had been the servants of
sin, but that they, who had been servants to it, were become
obedient to the precepts of Christianity; as our Lord thanks
his heavenly Father, that he had “hid these things from the
wise and prudent, and revealed them to babes,” Matt. xi.
25, i. e. that having hid from the one, he notwithstanding
had revealed them to the other. -
The particle 83 is sometimes rendered and, as Luke ix. 6.
xi. 18. Acts iii. 5. iv. 36. viii. 30. ix. 17. xi. 12. xiii. 15. xv.
6. xxi. 14. xxiii. 9. 13.
Sometimes, then, Acts vi. 2. 7. ix. 13. 16. xii. 3. Matt. i.
19. Luke viii. 29. 35.
Sometimes, so, Acts vii. 15. Rom. viii. 8.
Sometimes, yea, 1 Cor. ix. 16. xiii. 21. Rom. xi. 30. xvi.
9. 1 Cor. ii. 9.
Sometimes, but, in the sense of yet, Acts xxviii. 22. 1 Cor.
xiv. 1. -
And, yet, Matt. vi. 9. .
Sometimes, for, Luke xii. 2, 48. xxiii. 14, Acts vii. 25.
1 Thess. ii. 16.
Also, Luke xii. 8. xiii. 6.
Moreover, 2 Pet. i. 15.
Howbeit, 1 Cor. ii. 9.
And so accordingly the words may be here rendered,
“And God be thanked,” or “God be thanked then, that
though ye were the servants of sin, yet,” and in the verse
following, Éaeußepw8ávre; 3ā, “for being delivered.”
* Ver. 19. `Av66&Tivov Aéyo, I speak after the manner of
men.] The apostle doth not here speak, as some unhappily
imagine, by way of excuse for not using the best argument
he could use in this affair, but such as was best fitted to the
capacities and notions of those he writes to ; for what induce-
ments to yield their members instruments of righteousness
to that holiness which will conclude in life eternal, could he
use more rational and proper than this, that they had for-
merly yielded them servants to commit that sin, whose wages
upon these words is this, ºf pécsi ºwe're& rºy tragaived iv, “I
frame my exhortation with a due consideration of the infir-
mity of our flesh,” requiring that only which even to human
reason seems highly equitable, viz. that you should do that
service now to God, which you have formerly done to sin. I
rather think the apostle discourseth to this éffect: In this
discourse of your being servants formerly to sin, and your
obligation now to be servants of righteousness, I speak that
which all natural men must have had experience of, by rea-
son of the infirmity of the flesh, and of which they may
thence take a just idea ; requiring only, that as they have
yielded their members instruments of sin, so they would
yield them instruments of righteousness.
And that this is the genuine import of the words āyffeºmº-
vov Aéyw, “I speak after the manner of men,” may appear
from the like use of it, 1 Cor. x. 10, “No temptation hath
happened to you, but that which is 3,68&ntvoc, common to
human nature,” and supportable by men of reason ; and
from the constant use of the phrase kar’ &v62070V Aéyo, “I
speak after the manner of men,” of which see note on
1 Cor. ix. 8,
1° Wer. 23. Tà yè6 3-lºvia rig &aapriac Sávaroc, For the
wages of sin is death.] Hence divines usually conclude that
even infants must have sinned, because they are subject to
death. Now though this be so far true, that death came
upon all men, and so upon infants, by that sin of Adam
which rendered him, and by him all his offspring, subject to
mortality; yet this will no more follow from these words,
than it will follow, that because the wages of rebellion is
death, all that die must be guilty of rebellion. Moreover
the intention of the apostle is not here to teach us that
death is the punishment due to every sin, but that that death
which is in scripture styled “the second death,” and stands
opposed to “eternal life,” will be the certain issue of a life
spent in the service of sin. For the apostle throughout this
chapter speaks of that sin in which we continue, ver, l, and
which we serve, wer. 6. 20, and which so “reigneth in our
mortal bodies, that we obey it in the lusts thereof.” ver. 12,
by which we “ yield our members instruments of unrigh-
teousness to sin,” ver. 13. 19, in which we so serve sin as to
obey its commands, ver. 16, 17, and live “free from righteous-
ness,” or in neglect of it, ver. 20. “The wages,” saith he,
“of sin” thus reigning in, and served by, us, “is (eternal)
death.” It is therefore manifest the apostle speaks nothere
of sin imputed, but only of personal sin, nor of each single
is death P But he speaks this by way of illustration of his act, but of an habitual practice of a course of sin (see Ex-
argument, or exhortation. The sense which the ancients put amen Millii).
555
CHAPTER VII.
I (And of the truth of what I told you, vi. 14, that
sin oi kvptsäges, shall not have dominion over you, be-
cause you are not under the law, but under grace, ye
cannot well be ignorant, for) know ye not brethren,
for I speak to them that know the law (i.e. to the
Jews or proselytes), that the law (to which you were
espoused by Moses) hath dominion over a man as long
as he liveth (only P
2 The case of a man thus under the law, i. e. in his
legal state, being like that of a woman married to a hus-
band ;) for the woman that hath a husband is bound
by the law to (be subject to) her husband so long as
he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is (then)
free from the law of (subjection to) her husband.
3 So then (Gr. therefore) if, while her husband
liveth, she shall be married to another, * she shall be
(truly) called an adulteress: but if her husband be
dead, she is free from that law (which bound her to be
in subjection to, and yield conjugal affection to, her hus-
band only ; so that she is no adulteress, though she
be married to another man.
4 Wherefore, my brethren, (as the woman is become
free from the law of her husband by his death, even so)
*ye also are become dead (Gr. 30avarð0srs, ye have
been dead) to the law (and so free from it) by (the
crucifixion of the body of Christ (which hath dis-
solved your obligation to the law, as the death of the
husband doth the obligation of the wife to him,) that
ye should (or may) be married to another (husband),
even to him who is raised from the dead, that (being
made free from sin, ver. 21, 22, by virtue of your union
to him) ye may bring forth fruit unto God.
5 (We are, I say, become thus dead to the law, this
being necessary, that we might bring forth fruit unto
God:) *for when we were in the flesh (i. e. when we
lived under the carnal ordinances of the law, without
the assistance of the Spirit), “the lustings of sin,
which were (forbidden and restrained) by the law, did
work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death
(rendering us obnoarious to death, the punishment threat-
ened by the law to the transgressor of it).
6 But now we are delivered from the law (and
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VII.
* Ver. 3. Moixaxis xºngariosi, She shall be called an adul-
teress.] The apostle, saith Theodoret, considers not here the
permission given to the woman divorced by the law of Moses
to be married to another, as being taught by Christ not to
approve of such divorces; but the apostle seems only to in-
timate that she hath no power to dissolve this bond by put-
ting away her husband, or that this divorce rendered her
husband dead in law to her, she being not to return to him
again (Deut. xxiv. 4). Now this, saith the apostle, is the
case of those who are under the law ; their entering into
that legal covenant was “the day of their espousals” (Jer.
ii. 2), and they were married to it, or to him that put them
in subjection under it, and were his spouse (Jer. iii. 14), and
so obliged to serve God in the oldness of the letter ; but
now this law being dead, and you being espoused to another
husband, even Christ (2 Cor. xi. 2), are henceforth bound to
serve God according to that new spiritual law which he hath
given you, and not according to the letter of the old law.
* Ver. 4. 'EŠaward Snts róváaw.] This phrase, “Ye are
dead to the law,” or, “Ye have been made dead to the
law,” is, say interpreters, “The law is put to death for you;”
for to that, say they, the drift of the discourse directs: but
(1.) this interpretation puts a plain force upon the words,
without any instance that they are elsewhere used in this
sense. (2.) The parallel words, Gal. ii. 19, 20, run thus;
“I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live to
God: I am crucified together with Christ.” Now those
words seem to fix the proper sense of these, showing it to
be also this ; Ye are dead to the law, that is, you are free
from subjection to the precepts of the law, which as a hus-
band had dominion over you, and from the motions of sin
which are by the law, as if you were dead. To strengthen
this interpretation, let the Hebrew phrase be noted;* “When
a man dies he is made free from the commands, the law oë
xvgleſet, hath no dominion over him,” no power to subject
him to the motions of sin which are by the law, for “he
that is dead is free from sin” (vi. 6, 7), so that he doth no
longer SovaEiſely, “serve the motions of it:” and hence the
apostle makes this inference, that “if we be dead with Christ,”
and buried with him, or crucified together with him, sin º
xvpisſet, “shall not have dominion over us,” as it had whilst
we were under the Jewish dispensation ; for “we are not
under the law, but under grace.” And again, “Walk in
the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh,” Gal.
* Nidda, f 76.
v. 16, and ver. 18, for “if ye be led by the Spirit, ye are
not under the law.” Wherefore the sense of these four last
verses seems to be this ; The law hath dominion over a man
as long as he lives (under it), for the case of a man’s subjec-
tion to the law in this is like to the woman's subjection to her
husband, it continues whilst he lives, but when he is once
dead she is free from any farther subjection to him, seeing
he being dead can have no farther power over her, and so
she must be free to be married to another: in like manner
you being made dead to the law, to which you were espoused,
by the death of Christ, as being “buried” and “crucified
together with him,” the law can have no farther power over
you, to retain you in subjection to it, and so you must be
free to be married, or put into subjection to another husband,
even Christ, to whom “I have espoused you” (2 Cor. xi. 2);
and the law itself being also dead to you, through the death
of Christ abolishing it, and freeing Christians from the power
and obligation of it, you are free to marry another husband,
even Christ (ver. 5).
* Ver. 5. "Ore yā; hºwev #y rñ capki, For when we were in
the flesh.] When I consider that of Syrs, āy capºt and of warà.
a &gna ºvreć, viii. 5, 8, signifies those that are acted and go-
verned by the fleshly principle, in opposition to the guidance
and motions of the Holy Spirit, and that sival #y aragxi, ver.
9, §v, trepitrateſy ×arā orápxa, ver, 12, 13, bear the same
sense, I judge that “When we were in the flesh,” here,
doth not only signify to be under the carnal ordinances of
the law, for so were all the pious Jews who lived from Moses
to the gospel times; but more especially relates to them,
who, living under these ordinances, were themselves carnal,
and without any assistance of the Holy Spirit: and so had
“the law of the flesh still warring against the law of their
minds, and bringing them into captivity to the law of sin,”
which could not be the state of Zacharias and Elisabeth, or
any other of those persons who were “righteous before God,”
and “walked in all the commandments of the Lord blame-
less.” And if of such only we understand the apostle's fol-
lowing discourse in this chapter, the sense will be clear.
*T& 8:3 roi; Vázov, The motions of sin which were by the
law.] Here Mr. L. saith, “Interpreters cast a strange impu-
tation on the law of God, by saying it excited men to sin
by forbidding it,” whereas they only say that the carnal
minds of men excited them to transgress the law when they
were under it, as the apostle saith, ver. 8, and Mr. L. in his
gloss on the eighth verse says, “Sin took the opportunity of
my being under the law to stir up concupiscence in me; for
without the law, which annexes death to the trangression of
it, sin is not able to have its will upon me:” now is this anv
556
ROMANS.
from the motions of sin caused by it), "that being dead
wherein we were held (in subjection, as the wife was
to her living husband); "that we should serve God in
newness of (that) Spirit (of life in Christ Jesus, which
makes us free from the law of sin and death), and not
(as before) in the oldness of the letter, (which killeth,
or subjecteth us to death, 2 Cor. iii. 6.. 9).
7 What shall we say then? Is the law (from which
we must be delivered, that we may not obey the lusts
of the flesh) sinf (Is it the cause of that sin which
worketh in our members whilst we are under the law 'J
God forbid (that we should say so). Nay (so for other-
wise is it, that) I had not known sin (to be so) but by
the law, (instructing me what is to be avoided as sin,
and under what penalty) ; for I had not known lust
(i. e. the lustings, or covetous desires of the heart to be
things worthy of death), except that the law had said,
Thou shalt not covet; (and so made him that coveteth
obnoarious to death, as being a transgressor of the law).
8 But (nevertheless) sin, taking occasion by the
commandment, wrought in me all manner of concu-
more an imputation upon the law of God, than it is an im-
putation on his providence, that it provides that corn and
wine which carnal men abuse to drunkenness and excess?
* Wer. 6. ’Aroðavövro;..] The Syriac and Arabic versions,
Origen, Theodoret, CEcumenius, and Theophylact, read &To-
6ayóvºrsº, “We being dead to that in which we were held,”
which, saith Origen, is undoubtedly the best reading: and
this reading confirms the sense of the fourth verse, as to these
words, “Ye are dead to the law,” which I have offered in
the paraphrase ; i.e. we being freed from the obligation and
commands of it, and so from the lustings and motions it
wrought in us.
*"more &ovaeſsly hºà; iv waivötnºri IIvetºzaroc, That we might
serve God in the newness of the Spirit.] The law and the
gospel are, by the apostle, in this distinguished ; that the
first is only “the ministration of the letter,” the other “ of
the Spirit” (2 Cor. iii. 6–9). The “ministration of the
Spirit” is also declared to be the fruit, “not of the law,” but
“of the hearing of faith,” Gal. iii. 3. Hence the apostle
here infers, that we must be dead unto, or free from subjec-
tion to the law, that we may be enabled to serve God in new-
ness of spirit. Whence it is evident, that to “serve God in
the Spirit,” is not “to enjoy the spiritual sense of the law,”
as Mr. Le Clerc thinks; but, First, As the opposition shows,
to serve him with a freedom from the prevalency of the
flesh, by virtue of the Spirit, which enables us to mortify
the deeds of the flesh (viii. 13). Secondly, To serve God,
not chiefly with bodily service and carnal ordinances, but in
the spirit of our minds (xii. 2, Phil. iii. 2), having our minds
renewed and transformed after the image of God in holiness,
and righteousness, and truth, which are the fruits of the Spi-
rit (Eph. iv. 23, 24). Thirdly, To serve him by the assist-
ance of the Spirit, so as to live and walk in the Spirit (Rom.
viii. 5. Gal. v. 25), so that we are strengthened with might
by the Spirit in the inward man (Eph. iii. 16).
"Ver. 9. Eyð 8; £oy xotic véſzov, I was alive without the
daw.] IIgú roi, Moja šog, “Before the law of Moses came.”
So, Chrysostom, GEcumenius, Theophylact.
* Ver. 10. Ordained.] This word is not in the original ;
you may therefore paraphrase the words thus, The com-
mandment which was given for life, i. e. with this promise,
Do this, and live, was found to me unto death.
* Ver. 8–11.] For the explication of these four last
verses, let it be noted;
First, That it is the opinion of judicious commentators,
that when the apostle saith, “Sin taking occasion by the
commandment wrought in him all manner of concupiscence,”
ver. 8, and “deceived” him, ver. 11, he means that it did by
this saying, only, “Thou shalt not covet,” but assigning no
punishment to him that coveted. But this interpretation
cannot stand, for these two reasons: for, First, It plainly con-
tradicts the words of the law, which pronounce a curse upon
“every one who continues not in all things written in the
law to do them ;” and much more doth it contradict the
drift of the apostle's discourse in this, and the Epistle to the
piscence, (or vehement desires after that which was
forbidden by the law, which became mortal to me by
virtue of the prohibition of the law). For (whilst I
was) without the law sin was dead, (i. e. unable to
have this effect upon me : for where there is no law there
is no transgression imputed to death, v. 13).
9 For "I (the seed of Abraham) was alive (or in-
deed lived) without the law once (before the law was
given, I being not obnoſcious to death for that to which
the law had not threatened death); but when the com-
mandment came (forbidding it under that penalty),
sin revived, and I died (i. e. it got strength to draw me
to sin, and so condemned me to death).
10 And the commandment, which was “ordained
to (or given for) life, (as teaching those things, which
fif a man do he shall live in them, Lev. xviii. 5) was
found to me (transgressing it to be) unto death.
11 For *sin, taking occasion by the commandment,
deceived me (or enticed me to the commission of it),
and by it (condemning me to death for that transgres-
sion) slew me.
Galatians, viz. that the law required perfect obedience to its
precepts ; condemning him to death, or rendering him ob-
noxious to condemnation, who in anything transgressed it,
and so could be no means of justification ; “as many as
were under the law being under the curse,” because trans-
gressors of it.
Secondly, This agrees not with the following reason, or
the nature of the thing : for if the law given encouraged
them to covet, because it had no present penalty annexed to
it, they must be more free to covet, or follow their natural
or carnal inclinations, when there was no law at all forbid-
ding them to covet ; and therefore sin could take no more
occasion by a law without penalty, than by none at all, to
“work in us all manner of concupiscence,” nor could con-
cupiscence be dead without the law, more than with it.
The old and common interpretation is this, That the pro-
hibition of what we desire makes us to think the enjoyment
of it more sweet and valuable; or at least provokes the car-
nal mind, which is not subject to the law of God, to a more
fervent lusting after it, Dum prohibita non tam refugit quâm
ardentius expetit; and this agrees very well with this ex-
pression. Or,
Thirdly, Sin is in scripture represented as an enemy, that
seeks our ruin and destruction, and takes all occasions to
effect it: it is here said to “war against the mind,” ver, 23;
elsewhere, to “war against the soul,” 1 Pet. ii. 11; to “sur-
round” and “beset us,” Heb. xii. 1; to “bring us into bond-
age” and subjection, and get the dominion of us, Rom. vi.
12; to “entice” us, and so to work our death, James i. 15,
16; and to do all that Satan, the grand enemy of mankind,
doth, by tempting and soliciting us to the commission of it:
whence Chrysostom, upon those words, Heb. xii. 4, “You
have not yet resisted unto blood, ºrgā; rºy & wagºria, āyraya-
vić weyol, striving against sin,” represents sin as an armed
and flagrant adversary : when therefore it finds a law which
threateneth death to the violation of it, it takes occasion
thence more earnestly to attempt and allure us to the viola-
tion of it, that so it may more effectually subject us to death
and condemnation upon that account; for “the sting of
death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law,” condemning
us to death upon the violation of it; thus when God had
forbidden, under the pain of death, the cating of the forbid-
den fruit, Satan thence took occasion to tempt our first pa-
rents to the breach of it, and so slew them, or made them
subject to death: hºrárnate, “He deceived them,” Gen. iii.
13. 1 Tim. ii. 14, which is the word here used, ver, 11.
Secondly, Observe the import of the phrase, “Without the
law sin was (or is) dead;” which seems not to be this, that
the inclinations of men to sin were in their nature less when
they were unrestrained by a law; but rather this, that sin
was then comparatively dead, as to its power of condemning
us to death ; and this, first, the antithesis doth plainly hint,
for thus it runs, “Without the law, &aaeria vexes, #yá, 3:
#(oy, sin was dead, but I was living; but when the com-
mandment came, sin revived, and I died.” How were men
CHAPTER VII.
557
12 Wherefore the law (forbidding sin) is holy, and
the commandment (to abstain from it) holy, just, and
good (as requiring only what is equitable in itself, and
good for me to do).
13 Was then that which is good made death to me
(Gr. hath that therefore which is good become death to
me?’ i. e. is that the sole and proper cause of bringing
death to me) 8 God forbid (we should so say). But
(this charge is to be laid upon) sin (which) that it might
appear sin (i. e. pernicious and destructive), working
death in (or to) me by that which is good (i. e. the
law, made me obnoxious to death); that sin by the com-
mandment (forbidding it) "might become exceeding
sinful, (i. e. abounding to death, by making me abound
in new transgressions of the law, v. 21.
14 And that sin should thus prevail over us in this
state of lapsed nature to transgress the law, and to be-
come obnoxious to death by it, will not seem strange, if
every natural man considers the contrariety there is
betwiat him and the law ;) for we know that the law is
spiritual (and requires spiritual things) ; but (every
matural man hath cause to say of himself, ) I am car-
mal, "sold under sin, (i. e. enslaved by my corrupt aſ-
jections : - -
15 As may be easily discerned from the workings of
our conscience against the evil that we do :) for that
which I do *I allow not (in my own mind); for that I
would do (in compliance with the law), that (through
the prevalence of my corrupt nature) do I not; but
what (through the conviction of my conscience) *I
hate (to do), that do I. * -
16 If then (it be so with me, that) I do that which
I would not, (by his unwillingness to act in contradiction
to it) I consent unto the law that it is good (and com-
mands what is good for me to do). •
17 Now then (this being done by those corrupt af.
fections, which overpower me against the approbation
of my mind) it is no more I (according to the better
part from which I am denominated) that do it, but
“sin that dwelleth in me (i. e. in my flesh, ver. 23,
and captivates me to the obedience of it.
18 And upon this I have just ground to charge it :)
for I know that in me (that is in my flesh) dwelleth
no good thing : for to will (that which is good) is pre-
sent with me (or to me) ; but to perform that which
is good I find not (strength by nature).
19 For (in event, I find that) the good that I would
(do) I do not : but the evil which (the law prohibits,
and) I would not (do), that (being overpowered by the
flesh) I do.
20 Now if I (thus) do that I would not, it is no
more I (choosing and approving the action in my mind)
that do this, but sin that dwelleth in me, (i. e. in my
flesh, that hurries me to the commission of it against the
law and conviction of my mind. • -
21 For so it is that) I find then (Gr. dipa, indeed,)
a law (in my members so thwarting the convictions of
my mind) that when I would do (the) good (to which
living before the law, but because then no law condemned
them 2 Sin therefore must be then dead as to its power of
condemning. How did they die when the law came, but by
the law condemning them to death P Sin therefore then re-
vived as to its condemning power, which it received first from
the sin of Adam, which brought death into the world ; and
next from the law of Moses, which “entered that the offence
might abound, and reign more unto death” (Rom. v. 20,
21). For though sin was in the world from Adam unto
Moses, or until the law given, yet was it not imputed unto
death, when there was no law given that did threaten death
unto it; so that death reigned, in that interval, by virtue of
Adam's sin alone, even over them who had not sinned after
the similitude of Adam's trangression, i. e. against a positive
law forbidding it under the penalty of death ; which law
being delivered by Moses, sin revived, i. e. it had again its
force to condemn men as before to death, by virtue of a law
which threatened death to them. And in this sense doth
the apostle seem to say that “the law was added because of
transgressions” (Gal. iii. 19), to convince us of the wrath
and punishment due to them ; and that the law therefore
“worketh wrath,” because “where no law is, there is no
transgression” (Rom. iv. 15), subjecting us to wrath, or no
such sense of the divine wrath as where a plain divine law
threatening death and condemnation is violated. Upon the
Sense thus given of these two phrases doth our exposition
stand.
* Ver. 13. Ka8' tºrsp60Xày &ágroxoc, Evceeding sinful.]
That it might appear el; Sávaroy twe;24xxovara (v. 20, 21),
“abounding unto death,” and so exceeding vile and hateful
to us, the end and “wages” of it being “death” and con-
demnation (vi. 21, 23).
* Ver. 14. Tergakºvo; two rºy &ºagriav, Sold under sin.]
i. e. In peccati potestatem libidinis, et concupiscentiae pretio
redactus, Origen. So enslaved to it, saith Theophylact,
&are º &va£xɺla, 359aaSat, “that he could not look up;”
“A willing slave, who had sold himself to it,” saith Theo-
doret. And this is continually the import of the phrase in
the Old Testament; as when it is said of Ahab, 1 Kings xxi.
20, Trévgaa’at Troiſſa at rô movmpy, “Thou hast sold thyself to
do wickedly;” and, ver. 25, Érg40m rotºral rô Townpöy, “He
sold himself to do wickedly.” Of the Jews, Isa. l. 1, rai;
&gapriat; tıºv #784&nts, “You have sold yourselves to your
iniquities.” And of the Jews who, under Antiochus Epi-
phanes, revolted from their religion to heathenism, it is said,
that imgá0naray ºr moyngöv, “They sold themselves to do evil,”
1 Macc. i. 15. .
* Ver. 15. Oi yivørway, I allow not..] This interpretation,
saith Mr. L., “makes the following words a tautology,”
whereas I judge it very reasonable to say, “I allow not, be-
cause I would not; yea, I hate to do, what I do.”
18 "o ºctaº, That which I hate.] 'Yºró rā; hôoyā; wara.08×yā-
p.svot motojºwsy %wee &; tracáyop, a 68Exvirtãºześa, “Being
allured with pleasure, we,” say Theodoret and CEcumenius,
“oft do those things which are abominable, as being opposite
to the law;” for whilst the law represents sin as permicious,
and destructive both to soul and body, it is as natural for all
men to hate it, as to love themselves : but then, as Photius
saith, when to #87 Toij ºrgáygaro; ºrpo64X\etat, “the sweetness
or pleasure of the action is proposed to the mind, the hatred
goes off,” and the soul is wrought up to an affection to it;
and thus it is with every enlightened man, that sins against
his conscience, and doth the evil which he would not do.
“These words,” saith Origen, “show that the carnal man, of
whom he speaks, resistere aliquantulum vitiis conatur, en-
deavours a little to resist his vices, legis Sc. naturalis in-
stinctſ, by the instinct of the law of nature, but that at last
he is overcome by them, and oppressed with them.”
* Ver. 17. ‘H oixdia a #y $ºoi &pwagºria, Sin that dwelleth in
me.] This he speaks, saith Theodoret, calling toº you rhy
3ovxelay, xai rāy traśāv rºy &Earoteiay, “the slavery of the
mind, and the dominion,” or, as Theophylact, “the tyranny
of the passions, sin.”—“It is,” saith Origen, lex et voluntas
carnis quae captivos mos ducit in lege peccati, “the law and
the will of the flesh, which lead us captive to the law of
sin.” Hence this sin dwelling in us is so often styled, “the
law of sin in our members,” ver. 20–22. 25. viii. 2. Here
the apostle seems to speak according to the philosophy of
the heathens, with which the Jews began to be acquainted,
that man was not to be denominated from his body, or his
sensual and carnal part, but from his mind, his vows or
Aoyuki, 3,490ta, which in Philo's" phrase is, 3 #y Éxao tº hºw
&ySporos, “the man within us;” 3 ºrpèc &A#Selay 3,822 toº,
“the true man,”f the man properly so called ; who saith,
moreover, Aéys 83 rajra & 3xnsive, 3,0soro. 3 #wi boxic Easyxos,
“This saith the true man, the reprover in the soul.” And
of himself he speaks thus; “Men have power over my body,
but that is nothing to me, #y& yag ärö roi; Kpeltrowoc rāc iv
+ Ibid. p. 363.
* De Profugis, p. 360.
558
ROMANS,
the law directs me) evil is present with me (to oppose
and hinder me from doing it : -
22. I say, when I would do good :) for I delight in
the law of God "after the inward man (my mind ap-
proving for some time, and being pleased with its good
and holy precepts) : -
23 But I see (or perceive) another law (of the flesh)
in my members, warring against the law of my mind,
and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which
is in my members, (for of what a man is overcome, of
that he is brought into bondage, 2 Pet. ii. 19. John viii.
34. Rom. vi. 16.
24 And being thus enslaved to that sin which ren-
ders me obnoarious to death, the wages of it, I am even
forced to cry out,) O wretched man that I am who
shall deliver me from the body of (sin which worketh)
this death
25 (And so) I (have great reason to) *thank God
through Jesus Christ our Lord (whom he hath sent to
redeem me from this death to which I am obnorious by
sin). So then (to shut up this discourse, thus it is
with me, whilst under the law only and carnally minded),
with the mind” I myself (or I the same man) serve the
law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
#završ 8tavoia; Xenºzarić2, for I am denominated from my
mind, the better part, according to which I design to live.”
* Ver. 22. Kará rày Boa &y8807oy, According to the in-
ward man.] It is plain “the inward man” here cannot sig-
nify “the new man, which is created after God in righteous-
ness and holiness,” Eph. iv. 24, and which is not put on, till
all “old things are passed away,” 2 Cor. v. 17, and “all
things are become new,” and till we have “put off the old
man with his deeds” (Col. iii. 9, 10), for sure this cannot be
said of him, who is still “carnal, sold under sin,” and “cap-
tivated to the law of sin which is in his members;” but only
the mind of man, the voic, as the apostle doth interpret him-
self, wer. 25. So Origen informs us, that the soul, using the
body as its instrument, is called & Hooj čv6goroº, “the inward
man,” contra Cels, lib. vii. p. 357;-Éow &v860 trov rāv votiv
Afyii. So Theodoret, CEcumenius, Theophylact. So the
very next verse shows, the words running thus; “I delight
in the law of God in the inward man, but I see another law
in my members warring against the law of my mind,”, i. e.
of my inward man. And so the apostle useth the phrase
when he saith, 2 Cor. iv. 16, that though á šéo &v%amroc, “the
outward man (i. e. the body) was corrupted, yet é a offey, the
inward man was renewed day by day.” And that this de-
light is no evidence of a regenerate man, is evident from the
example of the stony ground, which “heard the word wer.
Xapãº, with joy,” Matt. xiii. 20, of Herod, who “heard John
the Baptist, hēśwc, with delight,” Mark vi. 20, of the Jews,
who “rejoiced in his light,” John v. 35, and heard our Sa-
viour “gladly,” Mark xii. 37.
* Wer. 25. Etxaggrä rā Qº, I thank God..] The Eatin
version and one Greek copy read, Xágic roi; Geoû, “The grace
of God;” but the Syriac, Arabic, and all the Greek com-
mentators agree with our translation, which therefore is to
be preferred before that lection (see Examen Millii in lo-
cum).
*7 Air㺠by?, The same man.] Of whom he had before
spoken, not I Paul now writing this epistle. It hath been
a controversy since Austin's time, whether Paul here speak-
eth in his own person, or in the person of a regenerate man,
or only in the person of a Jew conflicting with the motions
of his lusts, only by the assistance of the letter of the law,
without the aids and powerful assistance of the Holy Spirit;
which is as great an instance of the force of prejudice, and
the heat of opposition, to pervert the plainest truths, as can
be happily produced: for, I think, nothing can be more evi-
dent, and unquestionably true, than this, that the apostle
doth not here speak of himself in his own person, or in the
state he was then in ; but, as the ancient commentators do in-
himself he represents man in common,” and saith not, as he
might have done, You that are under the law are carnal, but
|
can the man who is “carnal,” and “sold under sin,”
himself the person of those who before grace were van-
quished by sin, he groans and laments, as a man set in the
midst of his enemies, enslaved and constrained to serve, and
seeing no help; and thus he shows the law unable to help
us.” And so Origen also frequently in his commentary on
the place; and Austin saith expressly and frequently, De-
scribitur homo sub lege positus ante gratiam, Liber Expos.
Quat. Propos. ex Epist. ad Rom. Quo loco videtur mihl
apostolus, transfigurăssein Sehominem sub lege positum, Ad
Simplic. Mediol. lib. i. Et in haec verba, Non ego operor
illud, &c. loquitur adhuc ex personá hominis sub lege consti-
tuti, nondum sub gratiâ: though he was pleased afterward to
change his opinion, and so gave occasion to the perverting
the plain sense of the apostle. For confutation of this dan-
gerous opinion, I need not say much after the labours of
Arminius, the reverend Dr. Hammond, Mr. Bull, and Mr.
Kettlewell, who have made it manifest,
First, That it is usual with the apostle to make this meta-
schematism, or to speak especially of things that might be
otherwise offensive and ungrateful, in his own name, when
indeed they belong not to him, but to other men; as in these
words, Rom. iii. 7, “If the truth of God hath more abounded
through my lie, why am I also judged as a sinner P” i. e. not
I Paul, but I who make this objection. So Gal. ii. 16, 17.
1 Cor. iv. 6, “These things ºversaryngºrica, I have in a fi-
gure transferred to myself and Apollos for your sakes” (I
Cor. vi. 12. xiii. 2. x. 22. 30. Eph. ii. 3. 1 Thess. iv. 17).
Secondly, That such things are in this chapter said of the
person spoken of, as can by no means agree to Paul, or to
any regenerate person: to which may be added,
First, That had Paul spoken here of himself, considered
in the state in which he was at the inditing of this epistle, he
must have contradicted what he had said of himself in the
Epistle to the Thessalonians, and to the Corinthians, which
were writ before this epistle. For (1.) in his Epistle to the
Thessalonians he saith, “You are witnesses, and God also,
how holily, and righteously, and unblameably we have be-
haved ourselves among you that believed,” 1 Thess. ii. 10.
In his Second Epistle to the Corinthians he speaks thus:
“This is our rejoicing, even the testimony of our conscience,
that in simplicity, and godly sincerity, not in fleshly wisdom,
but by the grace of God, we have conversed in this world,”
2 Cor. i. 12; that he knew nothing by himself, for which to
condemn himself, 1 Cor. iv. 4; that he “kept under his
body, and brought it into subjection,” 1 Cor. ix. 27. Now,
’ who
hath no power in him to do any good, who “finds a law in
his members warring against the law of his mind, and bringing
terpret him, 8' Havroſ: 3 &mártoxo; row wowy &věporov &nxoſ, “by
r&#xsivoy #4' £avrot axnºwaričov, wai rà reaxi, a poègºw irºdov, Kai
*Baivav ºri ºrigi #avrov axnºatokoyiº, “representing what be-
longed to them in his own person, and so taking off the
harshness, and mollifying the invidiousness of the sentence,”
by speaking of it in his own person, he saith, “I am carnal,
sold under sin.” So Photius and CEcumenius. Theodoret
also doth inform us, that the apostle here introduceth, ver.
14, röy ºrgē ric Xágiro; #y6porov wroxtoexoduceroy two rºw trabãv,
“a man before grace overcome by his passions; for he calls
him carnal who had not yet obtained the assistance of the
Holy Spirit.” And again, ver. 23, he adds, that the apostle
having discoursed all these things, &c'rs 38%aí rive; why ºrpo
ºric Xápiro; hºwey, “to show what we were before grace, and
what we were made after grace, and as it were taking upon
him into captivity to the law of sin, which is in his members,”
call God and the church to witness to his holy and unblame-
able life? Can he boast of keeping under his fleshly body,
and bringing that into subjection, which by his own confes-
sion bringeth him into captivity P Can he, who does not
what he would in his mind and conscience do, but what he
hates; not “the good which he would,” but “the evil which
he would not,” do; can he, I say, rejoice in the testimony of
his conscience P Can he honestly declare “he knows no-
thing by himself, for which his conscience can condemn
him P”
Secondly, How oft doth the apostle propose himself for
a pattern to the churches unto whom he writes, requiring
them to be “followers of him as he was also of Christ P”
1 Cor. xi. 1. And again, “What things you have learned,
and received, and heard, and seen in me, these do, and the
God of love and peace shall be with you,” l’hil. iv. 8, i.e.
CHAPTER VIII.
559
be you “carnal, sold under sin ;” living in the commis-
sion of the things you hate, and your mind condemns, and
doing what you judge to be evil, and yielding yourselves
“captive to the law of sin which is in your members,” and
then “the God of love and peace shall be with you.” This
sure is an absurd, if not blasphemous, exhortation, and yet,
according to this exposition, it must be suitable to the mind
of the apostle.
Thirdly, With what indignation doth he reject the accusa-
tions of them, who looked upon him as “walking after
the flesh,” and how severely doth he threaten them, how
peremptorily doth he reject their scandalous imputation ;
declaring that “though he walked in the flesh, yet did he
not walk according to the flesh,” 2 Cor. x. 2, 3, and yet, if
he were “carnal, sold under sin;” if “with the flesh he
served the law of sin;” if the law of the fleshly members
“warred against the law of his mind, and brought him into
captivity to the law of sin, " he doth here in effect confess
what there he peremptorily denies, and with such indignation
doth reject. -
Fourthly, This exposition of the seventh chapter makes
it entirely to confute the chapter which immediately goes
before, and that which follows after; and it gives an invinci-
ble strength to the objections he endeavours to answer in
the sixth chapter. The first objection there begins by way
of inquiry, “What do we say then 2 Shall we still continue
in sin, that grace may abound 9” his second by way of like
inquiry, “Shall we, sin because we are not under the law,
but under grace P” ver, 15; “God forbid,” saith he, that it
should be thus with any Christian: and yet, according to this
exposition, it was thus with himself, one of the best of
Christians: for sure he must continue in sin, who was still
“sold under sin,” still “serving the law of sin with his
flesh;” still doing that evil he allowed not, the evil which
he hated, and he would not do; and who was still “brought
into captivity to the law of sin which was in his members.”
Again, In his answer to these inquiries, he shows the Chris-
tian could not continue in, or live any longer in it, because
he was “dead to sin,” his “old man was crucified with
Christ, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that hence-
forth he might not serve sin” (ver. 2. 6); and because being
dead to, he was “freed from sin” (ver. 7), he was made
“made free from sin, and became the servant of righteous-
ness.” But can he that is “ sold under sin,” and is “brought
into captivity to the law of sin, which is in his members,”
be at the same time “dead to sin,” and “free from sin P”
Can he who “ with his flesh serves the law of, sin,” be said
to “cease from sin,” and “not henceforth to serve sin P”
not to “obey it in the lusts thereof.” (ver. 12), not to “yield
his members instruments of sin unto unrighteousness 2" ver.
13. Surely there is as clear an opposition betwixt the
Christian represented in the sixth chapter, as free from sin,
and in the seventh, as miserably enslaved to the law of sin
and death which was in his members, as betwixt light and
darkness |
Again, he saith expressly, viii. 2, “The law of the Spirit
of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of
sin and death.” Whereas the person mentioned in the se-
venth is “sold under sin,” is “brought into captivity to the
law of sin,” and crieth out under his bondage, “O miserable
man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this
death?” He therefore cannot be the person “freed by the
Spirit from the law of sin and death.”
In fine, this exposition of the close of this chapter con-
tradicts the beginning of it; for there the apostle saith of
himself, and all his Christian brethren, that this was only
their state under the law, from which they are delivered,
“that they might bring forth fruit unto God,” and “serve
him in newness of spirit.” For what else can be the mean-
ing of these words, ver. 5, 6, “For when we were in the
flesh, the motions of sin, which were by the law, did work
in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. But now
we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we
were held; that we should serve God in newness of spirit,
and not in the oldness of the letter.” So that they who
make the apostle say of himself, that he was “brought into
captivity to the law of sin, which was in his members,” and
to cry out, “O wretched man that I am; who shall deliver
me from the body of this death P” i. e. this body of sin
which worketh death; make him also to confess, that “the
motions of sin did still work in his members, to bring forth
fruit unto death,” and that therefore he was still in the flesh.
I therefore conclude this discourse in the words of Grotius
on ver. 19, Deo laus sit quéd optimi, i. e. trium priorum se-
culorum Christiani hunc locum, sicut oportet, intellexerint,
dictante illo Spirità per quem vita illorum regebatur.
CHAPTER VIII.
1 (Being then married to this other husband, Christ,
and so freed from the motions of sin, which are by the
law, that we may serve God in newness of spirit, vii.
4–6). There is therefore (àpa, verily) now no con-
demnation to them which are in "Christ Jesus (by
jaith, they being such) who walk not after the flesh (as
whilst they were under the law they did) but after the
Spirit (conferred upon them by faith in Christ).
2 For *the law of the Spirit of life (given to them
who are) in Christ Jesus hath made me (believing in
him) free from the law of sin, and (so from that) death
(which is the wages of it).
3 °For what the law could not do (i. e. that life and
that deliverance from death it could not give ), in that
it was (made) weak through the flesh (rendering us
subject to the transgression of it, and so to death), God
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VIII.
Wer. 1. ‘Ey Xplorø, In, Christ.] The phrase sivat #y Xºto-rój,
“to be in Christ,” saith Mr. Le Clerc, is often used by
Paul for being a Christian, which note he borrowed from
Castalio, who renders it Christiani facti; but if either of
them mean only Christians by profession, or by being only
members of the Christian church, this will by no means
agree with this place, nor any other of like nature: since
freedom from condemnation, and other benefits conferred
upon us through Jesus Christ, will not follow our being
Christians in this sense; but upon a lively faith in Christ,
our union to him by the Spirit, and our being so in him as
to become new creatures, according to those words, ver, 9,
“If any man have not the Spirit of Christ dwelling in him,
he is none of his;” 2 Cor. v. 17, “They that are Christ's
have crucified the flesh, with its affections and lusts” (see
1 Cor. i. 30. 2 Cor. x. 7. xiii. 5. Gal. iii. 28, 29. v. 6, 1
Thess. iv. 16. 1 John v. 20). -
Toſ; karū a 48×a regiºnarcial, &AX& xará. IIvetºza.]
These
words, saith Dr. Mills, are an addition to the text: see the
proof of the contrary, Examen Millii in locum.
* Ver. 2. ‘o y&é yé.0, rot IIveſgaroº, For the law of the
Spirit of life.] i. e. The Spirit of Christ giving me a new
life, is now another law or rule of my actions, freeing me
from the motions and power of sin, to which I was subject
whilst under the law, and from the death to which that sub-
jected me; or the gospel, attended with the Spirit, hath
wrought this freedom in me, as Methodius interprets the
words, 5 yievéac, rot IIvetºzara;, & 33 or Tô Eijayyáxtov, Me-
thod. apud Phot. p. 918, ver. 3.
* Ver. 3, T3 yā; 33%aroy roi; vizov, For what could not be
done by the law,) i. e. That freedom from the guilt of sin
and death it could not minister, & Os3; rêv Šavroſ view ºréºlas
iy jaoićgar cagº, &aagrías, “God sending his Son in the
likeness of sinful flesh,” sub. Buyaté, étroinae, hath made fea-
sible: examples of the like ellipsis are numerous: So Luke
xi. 17, “Every kingdom, Siapaspirščía'a, divided against itself
is brought to desolation,” was dizoc ini dixon, subºiaºtaº,
and “a house (divided) against a house falleth. That this
is the sense is evident from Matt. xii. 25. Mark iii. 25, where
it is olxia aegio Sáza.k.a6' Havriv so zººsvárov, “ command-
ing,” is to be understood after woxvivºrov, “forbidding,” 1
560
ROMANS.
sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh)
(did), and *for sin (Gr. kai trºpi &papriac, and” by a
sacrifice for sin) condemned sin in the flesh (i. e. took
away its power to condemn us, the condemnation due
wnto us for it being inflicted on him):
4 That the "righteousness of the law (i. e. the in-
ward purity and righteousness the law required) might
be (performed and) fulfilled in (and by) us, who walk
not after (the lusts of) the flesh, but after the (motions
of the) Spirit. Or,
“That the justification which the law promised, by
saying, Do this, and thou shalt live, Luke x. 28, Deut.
iv. 1. xxx. 15. 19. Ezek. xx. 11, and that this shall be
thy righteousness, Deut. vi. 25, might be completed in
us, who walk according to the Spirit, and so are ab-
solved not only from condemnation for our past sins,
by faith, but from condemnation by the new covenant,
by walking according to the Spirit : for to be spiritu-
ally minded is life, ver. 6.” -
5. Not after the flesh, I say,) for they that are of the
flesh do mind the things of the flesh (i. e. affect, and
desire, and pursue carnal things) ; but they that are
after the Spirit (affect, desire, and pursue,) the things
of the Spirit (and so the one pursues the things which
; to death, and the other those things which tend to
ife).
6. For "to be carnally minded is (the way which
tends to) death; but to be spiritually minded is (the
Tim. iv. 3, and wavyāa św, “let him rejoice,” is to be sup-
plied from the ninth verse, James i. 10.
* Kai Trºpi àºcapriaç, And for sin.] This phrase in the Old
Testament is the usual phrase for a sin-offering: so “a bul-
lock for a sin-offering” is ºwärxo; Treći & wagtiac, Lev. iv. 3.
18. viii. 2, 14. ix. 2. 8. xvi. 3. 6. 27, ver. 9. 11; the “lamb
for a sin-offering” is ºrpá8aroy megi rā, śºagriac, Lev. iv. 32,
or épavčº Trºpi &p.afriaç, Lev. v. 6, 7. Numb. vi. 16. And in
like manner, the “goat for a sin-offering” is xiº alga regi
ãºagriac, Lev. v. 6, or xiºzigoº, Lev. ix. 3. 15. x. 6. xvi. 5.
15. 27. xxiii. 19, &c.; the “dove for a sin-offering” is 3 ºrgū-
yov ºrigi &pagriac, Lev. v. 7. xii. 6.8. xiv. 22. 31. xv. 15,
&c.; the “sin-offering” is ºrd ºrepi &ºaeriac, Lev. v. 8, 9. 11.
vi. 30. vii. 7. 37, &c., and so in many other places. This
therefore is sufficient to establish the sense of these words
given in the paraphrase. Now the constant effect of this sin-
offering was this, to make an atonement for the sin commit-
ted, that it might be forgiven, and the guilt of it might be
done away. It therefore seems most reasonable to interpret
the effect of this sacrifice delivered in these words, “And for
sin, condemned sin in the flesh,” agreeably to the constant de-
sign of all sacrifices for sin; and then these words must sig-
nify, not that he gave us power to kill sin, or, by this exam-
ple of his wrath against it, engaged us to forsake our sinful
courses; but that he took away its condemning power; he
condemned that which before condemned us, enabling us to
say, ris & karaxeivov; “Who is he that condemns us? it is
Christ that died,” Rom. viii. 34. He killed sin, or made it
dead by that death, which caused it not to be imputed to us
to death (2 Cor. xv. 19). And this is the thing which the
law could not do; it could not give life to a person con-
demned to death (Gal. iii. 21); it could not justify, or free
us from condemnation. -
* Kai Trºpi & wagtiac, And by a sacrifice for sin condemned
sin in the flesh.] The plain meaning of these words, saith
Mr. L., is this, “That sin itself was condemned, or put to
death in Christ's flesh, i. e. was suffered to have no life or
being in the flesh of our Saviour, he being in all things
tempted as we are, yet without sin, Heb. iv. 15.” But this
certainly is a false interpretation; for as sin could not be
“put to death” in him, in whom it never lived, or could
have any being; so much less could this be done.by his of.
fering a sacrifice for sin, that being only done at the close of
his life; whereas Christ was free from sin from his concep-
tion; and being done then by a sin-offering to make atone-
ment for the guilt of sin. The true meaning of the words is
therefore this, That justification, or freedom from the guilt of
sin, which the law could not procure, because of the weak-
ness of the flesh rendering us obnoxious to sin, and so to
death for it, God by sending his Son in our human nature
did procure, and by giving up his Son to be a sacrifice to
make atonement for the sin committed by the flesh, #xeive
xaſ' #4apriay, “he judged against sin in the flesh;” that is,
either he showed that it deserved condemnation, as requiring
an atonement to free us from the guilt of it; or else he, by
this sacrifice, condemned that which before, condemned us,
and took away its power of condemning believers, enabling
them to say, “Who is he that condemns us? It is Christ
that died,” ver. 34. -
* Ver. 4. To Bikaioga toº véſzov, The righteousness of the
law, Is a phrase which occurs only here, and Rom. ii. 26,
where it plainly signifies the righteousness contained in the
moral law, or those internal principles of holiness, justice,
and goodness, which are comprised in it, these being the
“weightier matters of the law,” Matt. xxiii. 23, and the only
things in which the uncircumcision, or the gentiles, could
keep, rà èizaidºwata rot, yāpºov, “the righteousness of the
law;” here therefore, I conceive, the phrase bears the same
sense, and confutes the vain imaginations of the Antino-
IIllan S.
That which hath made most commentators interpret the
third verse otherwise than I have done, seems to be this,
that they seem not sufficiently to have considered the double
effect of our Lord's death and passion, and the order in
which they are placed in scripture, viz. (1.) freedom from
condemnation, justification, and reconciliation to God ; and
(2.) the vouchsafement of his Spirit, as the consequent of
that faith which rendered us the sons of God; God being first
reconciled to us by faith in his Son's blood, and then giving
us this token of his love, viz. his Spirit to dwell in our
hearts; by the first of which we are justified, and by the se—
cond we are sanctified; by the first freed from the law of
death, by the second from the law of sin, 1 Cor. vi. 11; the
first is, “the grace of God,” we being “justified freely by
his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,”
Rom. iii. 24; the second is “the gift through grace:” the
first justification, the second h \oped Bikatoa tºwnç, “the gift fol-
lowing upon our justification,”—“being justified freely by
his grace, we have peace with God,” Rom. v. 1; and then,
“the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, by the Spirit
that he hath given us,” ver. 5; “Ye are all the sons of God
by faith in Christ Jesus, and because ye are sons, God hath
sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts,” Gal. iv. 6.
Whence he is here styled “the Spirit of adoption,” ver 16;
“Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, that
the blessing of Abraham (i.e. justification by faith) might
come upon the gentiles, that they might receive the promise
of the Spirit,” Gal. iii. 14. For believing in him, “we are
sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise,” Eph. i. 14. Now
these two being always connexed, the apostle goes fre-
quently from the one to the other; first mentioning our
freedom from condemnation, then our “walking in the Spi-
rit,” ver. 1, 2. Our freedom from the guilt of sin by the
death of Christ, ver. 3, and then our fulfilling the righteous-
ness of the law by the Spirit of Christ, ver, 4. And because
the law could not justify, or free us from the condemning
power of sin, therefore concluding that it could not give the
Spirit of Christ to sanctify us, and that we therefore must be
“freed from the law,” that we might “serve God in the
newness of the Spirit,” Rom. vi. 7. Gal. iii. 3, ver, 6, 7.9.
7 Ver. 6, 7. To be carnally minded, (Gr. ºppávnº, a rā; alag-
xöc, the wisdom of the flesh) is death, because the carnal
mind (Gr. the wisdom of the flesh) is enmity to God, for it
is not subject to the law of God, meither can be ; so they
who are in the flesh cannot please God.] Hence it is by
some inferred, that the unregenerate can do nothing that is
truly good, nothing but what is evil, and displeasing to
God.
To this I answer, That this is one of the texts abused by
ancient heretics, to prove that “the flesh was by nature
evil,” we learn from Epiphanius,” and from Chrysostom
upon the place, who therefore well observes, that by flesh
here, we are not to understand the body, or the substance of
the body, 3xxd tây capkixõy 8íov wai xo~pºixày, xa, revºřic za:
* Hasr. lxiv. n. 49, 5].
CHAPTER VIII.
- 561
way that leads to) life and peace (ver. 7, which life and
peace cannot be obtained by them that are carnally
minded).
7 Because the carnal mind is (that which sets us at)
enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law
of God, neither indeed can be (subject to it, whilst it
continues such).
8 So then they
God.
9 But (it is not so with you Christians, for) ye are not
in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit
that are in the flesh cannot please
of God dwell in you. Now "if any man have not the
\
Spirit of Christ (dwelling in him), he is none of his.
10 But if Christ be in you (by his Spirit), "the
body is dead (it is indeed mortal) because of sin
(which will never cease to be in us till we die) ; but the
Spirit is life (i. e. will give life to it again) because of
righteousness (or of that justification which is unto
life, Rom. v. 17, 18.)
11 But (for) if the Spirit of him that raised up
Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up
Christ from the dead (by the Spirit dwelling in him)
*shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his (same)
*Spirit that dwelleth in you.
ãowria; yíaoyra, röy $xoy a 4pka Troisſyra ré, évôporov, “but a
worldly carnal life, full of luxury and riotous living, and
turning the whole man into flesh,” as is evident from the
phrase, “the wisdom of the flesh,” engaging us only to mind
the things of the flesh, and to be of the flesh, as the true
Christian is of the Spirit, being led by, and walking in, the
Spirit. And, saith Methodius,” were this said of them, who
are in this body of flesh, that they cannot please God; they
who commit theft, whoredom, or any other like sin, could
not, on this account, be subject to reprehension by a just
judge; it being then impossible for the flesh to be subject to
the law of God; nor could then the intemperate person be
reduced to chastity and virtue, the body lying under a natu-
ral necessity not to be subject to the law of God.
Secondly, The apostle doth indeed say, that they, who
thus mind carnal things, while they continue so to do, can-
not please God; this being only in effect to say, in the
words of Chrysostom, 38twarov Troynºy ºvovira, that whilst
men go on in their sinful courses, they cannot please God,
or live in subjection to his laws: but then, saith he, as
Christ only says, “An evil tree,” whilst it continues such,
“cannot bring forth good fruit;” but doth not say an evil
tree cannot be made good, but on the contrary saith, “Make
the tree good, that the fruit may be good,” Matt. xii. 33, so
is it here; for the apostle, by his frequent exhortations to
these carnal men, to “crucify the flesh,” and “mortify the
flesh, with its lusts,” or the deeds of it, and to “put off the
old man with his deeds;” by his threats, that “if they live
after the flesh they shall die;” and by his promises, that “if
through the Spirit they do mortify the deeds of the flesh,
they shall live,” doth show, that men may cease to live ac-
cording to the flesh, and may so mortify the deeds of the
flesh, that they may live. God, saith Chrysostom, hath put
this iv inev6egiº ºrpoagéagog, “in our free choice,” so that, #y
coi Motºrów Łart wai roöto yºvác Šal, kāzāīyo, since the vouchsafe-
ment of the gospel, “it is in thine own power to be carnally
minded, or spiritually,” there being now greater strength
and inducement so to be than ever. -
* Ver. 9. If any man be in Christ he is a new creature;
and he that hath not the Spirit of Christ dwelling in him, is
none of his.] Hence it is plain, that none are truly said to
be in Christ, by a profession of faith, provided they live not
answerable to that profession, or be not renewed in mind,
will, affections, and conversation; and from the following
words, “If the Spirit of Christ dwell in you, he that raised
the Lord Jesus from the dead, shall also quicken your mor-
tal bodies by his Spirit dwelling in you,” it is evident, first,
that it is not the soul, but the mortal body, which the Spirit
is said here, Čooroisſy, to give life to. Secondly, That the
promise of being raised by the Spirit of Christ belongs only
to them whose bodies shall be raised to the resurrection of |
life eternal. As for others, they being only, Xºta rayoi čvo-
Awaćºwevot, “Christians in name,” and not in truth and sin-
cerity (1 Cor. V. ll), and persons to whom Christ will then.
say, “I never knew you,” they shall be raised by the power
of Christ, but not by virtue of a union with the Spirit of
Christ.
* Ver. 10. To ºv dºza vexe?y 3i' &p, aeriay, The body is dead
because of sin.] That the apostle speaks not here of a mo-
ral, but of a natural death of the body, appears from this
consideration, that in the verse following he speaks of this
mortal body, and of the raising it from the dead; and that
by “the Spirit” he doth not understand the spirit of a man,
• Apud Epiph, ibid. m. 51.
but the Holy Ghost, is also evident, because this Spirit, in
the foregoing verse, is “the Spirit of Christ;” in the follow-
ing verse, “the Spirit that raised Christ from the dead,” and
will raise us, in whom he doth inhabit, from it. -
Now the reason why, after our freedom from condemna-
tion by the death of Christ, our bodies are still subject to
death, is thus assigned by the fathers;” “Because should
we have lived for ever in this imperfect state, we should
have sinned for ever,” and therefore “God permits good
men still to die, that sin might not live for ever in them,
doing this not out of his displeasure to punish them for sin,
but out of mercy to free them from it.”
* Ver. 11. Zworotha's rà Synºr& a dºzara jºy, Shall
quicken your mortal bodies.] The late commentator and
paraphrast, here exposed by Mr. Locke, is D. W., and yet
he is so unhappy, as neither to approve of Mr. L.'s inter-
pretation, nor dislike his own. He cannot approve of Mr.
L.'s interpretation, that cap, a vexpy, and Syntôy, signify a
body morally dead, because sin reigns not in it ; (1.) be-
cause arápa vexedy, absolutely put, bears no such sense in
scripture, but only signifies a body without life, or breath,
James ii. 26. (2.) Because this interpretation makes the
apostle say, ver, 10, the body is dead already, ... e. as to all
activity of sin, which reigns no longer in it, its sinful carnal
lust being mortified, and yet makes him promise, ver. 11,
that if the Spirit of God dwell in us, God shall quicken our
mortal bodies, i.e. saith Mr. L., “he shall deliver them from
the dominion of their carnal lusts;” that is, it makes him
promise God shall do hereafter what he told us, ver. 10, was
already done. (3.) In those words, “He that raiseth Christ
from the dead,” the apostle must be supposed to speak of a
real death of the body; and therefore in the latter clause of
the same sentence, “He shall quicken their mortal bodies,” it
is reasonable to conceive, he speaks of quickening those bodies
in the same sense, viz. by raising them from the dead. Nor
hath Mr. L said anything of weight against this sense. For,
First, Whereas he saith, “It cannot be proved that
Synta, mortal bodies, here signifies the same as vexes:” (1.)
he hath not proved the contrary. (2.) His own interpretation
plainly makes them both to signify the same. And, (3.)
what is more likely than that cºp, a vexedy, ver. 10, and a 3&ara.
Syntë, ver. 11, should be of the same import?
Secondly, When he addeth, that “Synty, mortal, always
signifies the thing joined with it to be living ;” he considered
not that the same apostle saith, that at the resurrection
from the dead, ré Synty roºro, “this mortal body shall put
on immortality;” and that when, rö Synty rotºro, “this mor-
tal body shall have put on immortality, death shall be swal-
lowed up in victory.” Secondly, I add, that Syntów, when
* Deus ejecit hominem de paradiso, et à ligno vitae longé
transtulit eum, non invidensei lignum vitae, quemadmodum
quidam dicunt, sed miserens ejus, ut non perseveret Semper
transgressor; neque immortale esset, quod esset circa eum
peccatum, et malum interminabile et insanabile: prohibuit
autem ejus transgressionem, interponens mortem, et cessare
faciens pecatum. Iren. lib. iii. cap. 37. z
‘o Qū; asy4xny sispysciay répezzº 3,6;&rg ré º 3iºsty
airy si; rºy aiāva #y &ºagrig wra. Theoph. ad Autolycum,
lib ii. p. 103. a t , \ , t , as
Tây Sávaroy 3 esā, ºrgö, ävaigsaw tº &gºtia; tº hºw
eigato, ºva wº Év &Svárot; hºw &yateixaora 33&vavoc ń. Me-
thod. apud Epiph. Haer. lxiv. sect. 60, -
“Iva &# 3Sávarov Høy Thy &#ocria, 8tarnºść”. Basil. tom.
i. hom. Quod Deus mom sit author mali, P. 38. O
2
562
ROMANs.
12 Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the
flesh, to live after the flesh (any longer, but rather to
live after the Spirit). -
13 For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die (i. e.
be subject to death, as the punishment of sin, or to the
second death); but if ye through the Spirit do mortify
the deeds of the flesh, ye shall live (and your bodies
shall be raised to eternal life).
14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God,
they are the *sons of God.
15 For ye have not received “the spirit of bondage
again to (the) fear (of death, as they who were under
the law did, that threatening death to every one that
continued not in all things written in the law to do them,
Deut. xxvii. 16); but ye have received the Spirit of
adoption, (given to us because we are sons, Gal. iv. 6,)
whereby we cry, Abba, Father, (i. e. we are assured
that God is our Father, and so that we are heirs of God
and sons of the resurrection.
16 For) the Spirit itself (Gr. the same Spirit) bear-
eth witness with our spirit, that we are the children
of God (and this gives us a full assurance of that
blessed life, enabling us to conclude thus): *
17 And if (therefore we be) children, then (are we
also) heirs; *heirs of God, and joint heirs with
Christ (the Son of God, now reigning gloriously in
heaven) ; if so be we suffer with him, (and so be com-
formed to his image, ver. 29,) that we may be also
glorified together.
18 (Which sufferings we have reason to endure for
the securing this glorious estate ;) for Ireckon that the
sufferings of this present time (we live in the world)
are not worthy to be compared with the glory which
shall be revealed *in us (or to the glory afterward to
be revealed to us). -
19 For (so desirable is it, that) *the earnest
expectation of the creature (subject now to vanity)
waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God
(i. e. the whole race of mankind earnestly eaſpects
it.) -
20 For the creature was made subject to vanity, not
willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected
the same, (i. e. the j krigug, whole race of men, i krioric
div$pwtrivn, 1 Pet. ii. 13, were made subject to corrup-
tion not of their own accord, but by reason of Adam,
who by his sin subjected his posterity to death and cor-
it relates, as here, to a body, to be quickened, never bears
any other sense, but that of a dead body.
Thirdly, “If by quickening here,” saith he, “be meant
the raising them to life from the dead, how can this be
mentioned as a peculiar favour to those who have the Spirit
of God?” for God will also raise the bodies of the wicked.
Ans. True, but he will raise them by his power, not by his
Spirit dwelling in them: not as “the sons of God,” to be
made “joint heirs” with Christ, ver. 16, 17, but as the
children of Satan, to be cast into the “fire prepared for the
devil and his angels:” not lastly, to live a happy life, ver.
13, but to die “the second death.” -
Lastly, Whereas he objects the want of connexion in this
interpretation, with the subject the apostle is here discours-
ing of, that is very plain ; for the apostle is here discoursing
of the benefits and advantages which Christians shall receive
by living, “not after the flesh, but after the Spirit;” that
this will cause them to “mind spiritual things,” ver. 5, that
it will give them “life and peace,” ver. 6. So that though
their bodies die because of sin, they shall obtain a happy
resurrection through the Spirit dwelling in them ; &ga civ,
“therefore,” saith he, ver. 12, “we are debtors not to live
after the flesh, for they that do so, &roðváczov'rat, shall die”
(not in the moral, but the penal sense), “but they who
through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the flesh shall
live ;” for, ver, 14, “as many as are led by the Spirit of
God, they are the sons of God,” and so shall obtain “the
* i. e. the redemption of the body” from corruption,
Wer. Zij.
* At& rod Évoixoſyroc aircü IIyeºwaro, #y it.ſv, By the Spirit
that dwelleth in you..] This is spoken according to the opi-
nion of the Jews, that the resurrection shall be effected by
virtue of the Holy Spirit, which they conclude from those
words of the prophet Ezekiel, xxxvii. 9, 10, “Come O Spirit,
from the four winds, and blow upon these dead, that they
may live.” Thus was our Lord raised from the dead (l
Pet. iii. 18): thus shall we be raised, who are “the temple
of the Holy Ghost,” saith this verse. And with this agrees
the doctrine of the ancient fathers: “Our bodies rising by
the Spirit,” saith Irenaeus,” “shall be made spiritual, and
by the Spirit shall have life.”—“They who are dead and
buried with Christ, may know that by the Spirit, which
raised him up, they shall be raised.” So Origen.
* Ver. 14. Tioi Osoſ, Sons of God..] The strength of this
argument will be exceeding clear from these considerations;
that the adopted sons of God are “heirs of God, joint heirs
* Deinde per Spiritum surgentia fiunt corpora spiritualia,
uti per Spiritum semper manentem habeant vitam. Iren.
lib. v. cap. 7. - -
+ Sciant, se per Spiritum ejus qui suscitavit Jesum a
with Christ,” and so must reign with him, ver. 17, which
till they live again, and be raised from the dead, they cannot
do ; and that their adoption is “the redemption of their
bodies” from corruption, ver. 23. (2.) That we are then
completely “the sons of God,” when we are “sons of the
resurrection,” Luke xx. 37, when we have “overcome,” ac-
cording to those words, Rev. xxi. 7, “He that overcometh
shall inherit all things, and I will be to him a God, and he
shall be to me a son.” And something like this is that of
the Jews on these words, Ps. lxxii. 17, how m), filiabitur
nomen ejus ; for, say they, * “His name is called Jinnon,
quia ipse filiaturus est omnes dormientes in pulvere, because
he will raise, and so make sons, all that sleep in the dust.”
18 Wer. 15. IIvčík.a SovXejaz, The spirit of bondage.] That
the law was to the Jews a yoke of bondage, the apostle doth
inform us, Gal. v. 1. And that they who were under it,
were “in bondage to the elements of the world,” Gal. iv. 3.
8; that it “gendered to bondage,” and subjected its children
to bondage, ver. 24, 25, 31 ; that they were “all their life-
time subject to bondage,” through the fear of death, he in-
forms us, Heb. ii. 15. And they had reason so to be, since,
as the apostle teacheth, the law given by Moses did not ex-
empt them from the death which Adam's sin had brought
upon them, but rather made that death abound, and them
obnoxious to it on many fresh accounts ; for “the law en-
tered that the offence might abound” (unto death), Rom. v.
1, and the law coming, “sin revived, and I died; and the
commandment was found to be unto death,” the “motions
of sin which were by the law working in their members to
bring forth fruit unto death,” vii. 4. 10. This therefore
gives a clear account of the paraphrase of the first part of
the verse: But we, saith he, shall live a life immortal, and
enjoy a happy resurrection, as being the “sons of God,” and
in token of this we have received “the Spirit of adoption,”
enabling us to call God Father, and assuring us we are his
children, and so he, being our God, must have “prepared for
us a city,” Heb. xi. 16.
* Wer. 17. KAngoyápºol wiv Osoſ, The heirs of God, joint
heirs with Christ.] All having our share in this glorious in-
heritance, though he, as the eldest brother, hath a double
portion. .
* Ver. 18.] Ei; #43, often signifies, to, or towards us ;
and is so rendered in this epistle, v. 8. Or, for us, as xvi.
6. See for the first sense, l Cor. xiv. 36. 2 Cor. i. 11. ix. 5.8.
x. 1. xiii. 3. Eph. i. 8, 9. Col. i. 5, 1 Thess. iv. 8. Heb. ii.
3, and for the second, 1 Cor. xv. 10. 2 Cor. ii. 4. Eph. iii.
2. Col. i. 25. 1 Thess. v. 18. -
16 Wer. 19. 'ArouagaSonia rā; arizewº, The earnest erpec-
tation of the creature.] Here it is to be noted, that, in the
sacred dialect, desire and expectation is ascribed to creatures
in reference to things they want, and which tend to their
mortuis vivificandos esse, et ad Christi similitudinem resusci-
tandos à mortuis. Orig. in Rom... viii. 11.
* Midrash Tillim in Ps. xciii. 2.
CHAPTER VIII.
563
ruption, and the earth to a curse, Gen. iii. 17, and this
creature waiteth)
21 " In hope; because (Gr. 3rt that) the creature
itself also shall be (then) delivered from the bondage
§ gruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of
OCl. .”
22 For we know that the * whole creation (all man-
advantage, though they explicitly know nothing of them.
Thus the Messiah is called ºrpozłoxia rāv #Syöv, “the Expec-
tation of the gentiles,” Gen. xlix. 10, nººn, “the Desire of
all nations,” Hag. iii. 7. -
* Ver. 21. 'Et' iAfriði, In hope.] So the Syriac and many
Greek commentators do begin this verse.
'Atri Täç 80yAsia; tā; $9083, From the bondage of corrup-
tion.] That is, from the mortality which all their lives long
made them subject to bondage (Heb. ii. 15).
* Ver, 22., IIāra h ºrigic, The whole creation.] All the
world under that sense of mortality which still subjects them
to bondage ; for, as Cicero confesses,” “death must be ter-
rible to those who with their life lose the enjoyment of all
good things, and if it be an evil, must be an eternal evil, be-
cause it doth for ever deprive them of all good ;” that +
mortis metú omnis quietae vitae status perturbatur, “the
“the fear of it disturbs all the tranquillity of life;” and that
this renders our whole life miserable,f quae enim potest in
vità esse jucunditas, cum dies et noctes cogitandum sit jam
jamque esse moriendum ? i. e. “for what pleasure can there
be in that life which is perpetually perplexed with the
thoughts of death P”
* Ver. 23. Tiofficiay, The adoption.] I know there is
another exposition of these words, to this effect: That by
the creature, we are to understand the gentile world, in op-
position to the Christian, the word mixºn among the rabbins
signifying the gentiles, in opposition to the Jews, the people
of God; that their “waiting for the manifestation of the
sons of God,” is their waiting to see what the Jews will do,
who of them will be true sons of God, who not ; who of
them will embrace the faith of Christ, who not ; their hap-
piness depending punctually upon the issue of this : their
being made “subject to vanity,” is their being subject to
“ the vanity of their minds,” ignorance, and idolatry, Rom. i.
21. Eph. iii. 20. Eph. i. 17. That to this idolatry they were
made subject, “not willingly,” but by the devil's imposing
it upon them, as an act of religion, saith the reverend Dr.
Hammond: in poenam incepti Babylonici, “in punishment
of their attempt to build the tower of Babel,” saith Dr.
Lightfoot. That their hopes of being “delivered from this
bondage of corruption,” are their hopes of being rescued
from this idolatry, those filthy courses they were engaged
in, and the bondage they were in to Satan; and to be made
Christ's freemen, to have a right to God's favour, and the
future blessings consequent upon it, the word p303& having
that sense (Deut. iv. 6. Wisd. xiv. 12. 2 Pet. i. 4. ii. 12. I
Cor. xv. 33.2 Cor. xi, 3). But against every part of this
interpretation there lies this objection, that it is not only
wholly new, but wholly contrary to all antiquity, and also
to the text ; and it is liable to many just exceptions, as, v.g.
first, wriotº, saith this interpretation, is the gentile world,
whereas Träda ºrial; hath no such sense in scripture. The
phrase "rāora xºrioic is used but three or four times more in
the New Testament ; twice in the Epistle to the Colossians,
where Christ is styled the first-born ºráanº triarsog, “ of the
Whole creation,” not only of the gentile world: and the
gospel is said to be preached #y régh tº wrize, Col. i. 23,
i. e. to Jew and gentile, to the whole world, or to all man-
kind, ver. 6; once in Peter, where subjection is required
Tráon 3,080"rivn wrize, to magistrates among men, 1 Pet. ii. 13,
not only heathen sure, but also Christian, when the govern-
ment should be put into their hands; and once in Mark,
where the apostles are commanded to preach the gospel ºrázy
ºff wrize, “to every creature,” Mark xvi. 15. Now because
A.
ºr
* Sit mors terribilis is quorum cum vità omnia extin-
guuntur. Parad. 23. Simors malum est sempiternum ma-
lum. Tusc. Quaest. lib. i. p. 1190.
+ De Fine Bonorum, lib. i. p. 38.
# Tuscul. Qaest. 1, 11, 13.
kind) groaneth and travaileth in pain together (under
this bondage to corruption) until now.
23 And not only they, but ourselves also, who have
the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan
within ourselves, waiting for the *adoption (viz. the
glorious resurrection, and thereby) the redemption of
our body.
the same disciples are commanded to preach Big Trávra tº
#8wn, “to all nations,” Matt. xviii. 19, hence it is argued, that
Tráora xºrizic signifies the heathen world, in opposition to the
Jews ; whereas it plainly signifies all nations, both Jew and
gentile, as is evident from these words of Christ to them,
that they should “preach in his name repentance and re-
mission of sins si; Trávra, Tâ #Syn, to all nations, beginning
at Jerusalem,” Luke xxiv. 47. And so the whole founda-
tion of this interpretation is destroyed, for in these places
Trāa'a wriori; is equivalent to all mankind.
To “wait for the manifestation of the sons of God,” is
not to wait to see what the Jews would do, who had not re-
ceived the adoption, and were not the sons of God, as want-
ing that faith by which men become sons, Gal. iii. 26, but to
expect rºw hºw#v=gay rexstory, “our perfection, rºw 34 Sagariav,
our advancement to a state of incorruption; rºy ºzáNAovoay
hºwāv Bółay, our future glory ;” so Chrysostom, Theodoret,
CEcumenius, Theophylact: for it must (by reason of the
connective particle yāé) be the same with “the glory that is
to be revealed,” ver. 18, and with “the glorious liberty of
the sons of God,” ver 12. “They expect,” saith Origen,
“that time when these things shall be revealed, which are
prepared for them that are the sons of God.”
To be “made subject to vanity,” is not to be made sub-
ject to idolatry, but to be made subject to corruption, rſ
$80på so Chrysostom, GEcumenius, Theophylact; for rhy
Acatalárnºra waxeſ rºw $30gåy, “he calls that mutability and
Vanity, to which all things in the world are subject, corrup-
tion,” saith Theodoret. When the apostle saith, “The crea-
ture was made subject to vanity,” and in bondage to corrup-
tion,” mihi videtur quéd de häc materiali, et corruptibilis
corporis substantiá ista dicuntur, neque enim corruptio alicui
cuiquam dominaturnisi corpori; “this,” saith Origen, “seems
to be spoken of the body, for that only is subject to corrup-
tion.” As is apparent also from the thing they groan for,
viz. “the redemption of the body” from corruption, that
“this mortal might put on immortality,” or be clothed with
its house from heaven, that “mortality might be swallowed
up of life,” 2 Cor. v. 1–5. Secondly, it cannot truly be
said that the heathen were not willingly subject to idolatry;
for the apostle saith they subjected themselves to it against
the light of nature, and so “became without excuse,” and
that “when they knew God, they did not glorify him as God,”
Rom. i. 20–23. And this sense of the word vantty is very
frequent in the Psalms, and in Ecclesiastes. Thus David
contemplating the frailty of man, and how soon he vanisheth
away, cries out, “Every man therefore is but vanity,” rô
aſſººrayra waratórn; Trä; &všeoro; Kºy, Ps. xxxix. 5. 11. And
again, #ySgorro; £catalàrnºr &gaoidºm, “Man is like to vanity,
his days pass away like a shadow,” Ps. cxliv. 4. And be-
cause all things here below are so frail, so subject to change
and to vanish, and man hath so short a time to possess them;
therefore, saith the Preacher, “Vanity of vanities,” are they,
“all is vanity,” Eccles. i. 2. And when Adam became mor-
tal, he called his son Abel, “vanity,” Gen. iv. 2.
The vanity to which the whole creation is subject, doth
not therefore signify the vain employments and distractions
of this present life, but that state of mortality from which
the psalmist infers, “Every man therefore is but vanity;”
for it is thus subject to vanity in hope of deliverance from
that bondage of corruption, which Mr. Le Clerc owns to be
the corruption to which our body is naturally liable, and
from which we Christians wait to be delivered by the re-
demption of the body from corruption (see note on ver. 23):
and therefore he who subjected us to this state is not God,
who brought not death into the world, but Adam, “by whom
sin entered into the world, and death by sin.” To be “de-
livered from this bondage of corruption,” is not to be deli-
* Origen in locum.
2 O 2
564
ROMANS.
24 (Waiting, I say, for it, though we do not see it :)
for (as yet) *we are saved (only) by hope: but hope
(of a thing) that is seen is not hope (truly so called) :
for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for
25 But if we hope for that we see not, then do we
with patience wait for it.
26 (And as patience, so) likewise "the Spirit also
helpeth (to relieve us in) our infirmities: for (when we
are burdened with them) we know not what to pray
for as we ought (whether for increase of patience under,
or deliverance from them ; or if so, whether by absence
jrom the body, or being clothed upon) ; but the Spirit
itself (or, the same Spirit which testifies that we are
vered from idolatry, nor doth Sovksia rº; 4,0963; ever bear this
sense ; but the sense is oix #r. Hara, 30aptº, “the creature
shall not then be corruptible, ša ral yèg wrizic & pSaeros, &c.-
"rep Kai 8t' hºc㺠yéyove pSaºri, for as the creature was made
corruptible by us, so shall it be made incorruptible with us:”
so CEcumenius, Theodoret, Theophylact. For that which it
groans for is its redemption from corruption (ver. 23). Hav-
ing thus offered my reasons against this interpretation, it
will be very easy to confirm the ancient and true explication
of the words from the scope and argument of the apostle
here. For I have shown from ver, 11, that the apostle is
here treating of the resurrection of the body to eternal life;
that, ver, 13, he declares that life belongs to them alone, who
“through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the flesh; ” that,
ver. 14, he proves they shall enjoy this life and resurrection,
because they are “the sons of God :'' and, ver. 17, that
being sons, they must be “heirs of God, joint heirs with
Christ ;” first suffering, and then reigning in glory with him;
that, ver. 18, to encourage Christians thus to suffer, he shows
the greatness of that glory they shall then enjoy, styling it
36%ay ºxova'ay &rokaxv+65vat, “the glory to be revealed here-
after,” i.e. after the sufferings of this present life,” to which
it is opposed, are ended: for, as Chrysostom and Theophy-
lact well note, he saith not weig rºw ºxxovaray &v=aly, these
sufferings are not worthy to be compared “to our future
ease” from them in this life, but mp3; tºy wixAovaay 3%ay, “to
our future glory” in the next; when they that have commu-
nicated with Christ in his sufferings, shall rejoice in riſ & aro-
xaxºpe tº 8%m; at row, “the revelation of his glory,” saith
Peter, l Pet. iv. 13, a w80%ázov'rat, “shall be glorified with
him ;” here, ver. 17, this glory he styles &mozáxv-lic rôy vićy
Tot. Geoff, “the revelation of the sons of God,” i.e. say the
fathers, the time when they shall rºw #4 Sagariay &roxap,8ávez-
Sat, “become incorruptible, this corruptible putting on incor-
ruption;” when they shall appear to be the sons of God, ric
āvaaráaeo; viol Śwrec, “being sons of the resurrection,” ver.
14, comforting them in the expectation of it, and their groan-
ing after it, with this consideration, that it is the expectation
of all the world, and they groan together with them for it,
desiring with them to be delivered from this “bondage to
corruption, into the glorious liberty of the sons of God,” and
adding, that not only they, but even Christians also, who had
the first-fruits of that Spirit who is the earnest of our inhe-
ritance, sic &roxirpoſely rā; reptºroúaewº, “till the redemption
of the purchased possession,” Eph. i. 14, and “by whom we
are sealed up ei, hºw#ay 4troAvrg&soc, to the day of redemp-
tion,” Eph. iv. 30, did “groan, waiting for the adoption, viz.
Tây &roxirpoºly roi; oºzaro; hºw&v, the redemption of our bo-
dies from corruption,” ver. 23. For that this was the thing
for which they groaned, the same apostle informs usin these
words; “We that are in this tabernacle groan being bur-
dened, that we might be clothed upon with our house from
heaven, that mortality might be swallowed up of life,” 2 Cor.
v. 2, 4. And as here, they who have the first-fruits of the
Spirit do thus groan, so there it is said, ver. 5, “He who
hath wrought this expectation in us is God, who hath also
given to us the earnest of his Spirit.” That this was the
ancient and almost primitive exposition of these words, we
learn from Irenaeus,” in these words: Oportet ergö etipsam
conditionem redintegratam ad pristinum, sine prohibitione
servire justis, et hoc apostolus fecit manifestum, in ea quae est
ad Romanos sic dicens, Nam expectatio creaturae est revela-
*–
* Lib. v. 32. 36. p. 506.
the sons of God, ver. 16) intercedeth for us with
groanings that cannot be uttered, (Gr. with silent groan-
ings after this redemption, ver, 23. 2 Cor. v. 2, 4, 5.)
27 And he that searcheth the hearts (of the saints)
knoweth what is the mind (or the desire) of the Spirit,
for he maketh intercession for the saints according to
the will (or purpose) of God (to give them this redemp-
tion of the body).
28 And (though we know not in our distresses what
to pray for in particular, or when we shall obtain this
ºredemption of the body, otóap.sv Šē, yet we know) that
*all things shall work together for:good (for securing
this happiness) to them that love God, to them that
tionem filiorum Dei expectat: and from these of Tertullian,”
Tuncerit mali finis, clim praeses ejus diabolus abierit in ig-
nem, cum revelatio filiorum Dei redemerit conditionem à
malo, utique vanitati subjectam. I differ only from the fa-
thers in this interpretation as to this single circumstance,
that I do not extend this desire of “the redemption of the
body from corruption” to brute beasts and insensate crea-
tures, but only to mankind in general, subject by Adam’s
fall to mortality.
* Ver. 24. Tiyêe Éxºriº, icºnºsy, We are saved by hope.]
Of this resurrection and redemption of the body, being “be-
gotten to a lively hope, through the resurrection of our Lord
Jesus Christ, of an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and
that fadeth not away, reserved in the heavens for us” (1 Pet.
i. 5), and “rejoicing in hope of the glory of God” (Rom.
v. 2); and “through the Spirit waiting for the hope of righ-
teousness through faith” (Gal. v. 5). -
* Ver. 26. Tà IIveſºa, The Spirit.] Here these words
cannot signify the spirit of a man, for that cannot be said to
help with us, being a constituent part of us; or to intercede
for us, when “we know not (ourselves) what to pray for as
we ought;" for, Saith Theophylact, Moses thus prayed to see
the land of Canaan, and Jeremy for the Jews, and Paul to
be delivered from “the thorn in the flesh:” but that Spirit
of God who is said to intercede for us, not as an advocate or
mediator betwixt God and us, that being the office of our
great High Priest, but as an exciter or director of us in our
addresses to God, to render them for matter according to the
will of God, and for manner, fervent and effectual; mporeux;
#v=pyovºzávn, “inwrought prayer,” and to make our very sighs
and groanings prevalent; for he is here said only to inter-
cede for us with sighs and groanings, excited by him, after
that redemption to which he sealeth us, and of which he
being the earnest and pledge, we are hence moved with
greater faith and fervency to long for the enjoyment of it:
and this is the reason why I think not fit to interpret this
passage with some of the fathers of a public charisma, or
gift of prayer, since that must spend itself in words for the
edification of the church, and not in silent groanings (see
Exod. ii. 24. vi. 5. Judg. ii. 18. Ps. xxxviii. 9. cii. 20. Acts
vii. 34). Thus when our Lord had twice “groaned in the
Spirit” (John xi. 33, 38), he saith, “I thank thee, O Fa-
ther, that thou hast heard me” (ver. 41).
* Ver. 28. IIávra, All things.] That under “all things”
should be comprehended “the sins of good men,” is the un-
reasonable suggestion of St. Austin ; and some of the school-
men after him confuted the declaration of God by Ezekiel,
that “if the righteous man forsake his righteousness and
commit iniquity, in the sin that he hath done shall he die”
(Ezek. xviii.); and by this apostle declaring to the He-
brews, “The just shall live by his faith, but if he draws
back, my soul (saith God) shall have no pleasure in him”
(Heb. x. 37, 38). Secondly, The test of love to God being
“keeping his commandments,” this interpretation makes
the sense of these words run thus: To them that keep his
commandments, even all their disobedience to them “shall
work together for good.” Thirdly, If the words “all things”
comprehend all the sins that are or can be committed by
them that love God, they may as well rejoice in all their
wickedness, as in all their sufferings for the sake of Christ,
seeing they may rejoice in that which by God’s designation
tendeth to their good ; and so all the motives urged ch. vi.
to engage them to die to sin, and live no longer in it, must
*
3% Contr. Hermog. cap. 11.
CHAPTER VIII.
565
are * called (to the adoption of sons) according to his
purpose (of bringing many sons to glory by him, Heb.
ii. 10, he having predestinated us to the adoption of
sons through Jesus Christ, according to the good plea-
sure of his will, Eph. i. 5, according to his purpose in
Christ Jesus, 2 Tim. i. 9).
29 For whom he did (thus) * foreknow he also did
* predestinate (or appoint) to be conformed to the
image of his Son, (by having their vile bodies changed
into the likeness of his glorious body, Phil. iii. 21,) that
he might be the first-born (or chief) among many
brethren (who are to be coheirs and glorified together
with him, ver. 17). -
30 And (the method he used to bring those whom he
had designed to be thus conformed to the image of his
Son, was this, viz.) whom he thus predestinated, them
he also called (first to the profession of the Christian
faith); and whom he called (upon their cordial em-
not only be enervated, but even esteemed motives designed
to hinder them from that which is for their good, or, accord-
ing to the descants of St. Austin and St. Bernard, to hinder
their proficience in caution and humility.
* Called according to his purpose.] From these words
some argue thus: If all that love God are called according
to his purpose, then had he no purpose of calling them that
do not love him. If they who are foreknown are “predes-
tinated to be conformed to the image of his Son,” they who
are not conformed to it were not foreknown. Now, in an-
swer to these arguments, let it be observed, that this text
expressly speaks of those who actually love God, not of
those whom God hath loved with this supposed discriminat-
ing affection; and that to “love God,” and to be “called
according to his purpose,” are words put by way of apposi-
tion, to show that they are both of the same import ; that
which God purposed in calling us by Christ being this, “that
we might be holy and unblameable before him in love”
(Eph. i. 4. 9); so that the whole of this argument may be
granted: they who are called by God according to his pur-
pose, or are effectually called, so that God's calling hath its
designed effect upon them, being only such as love God, and
are conformed according to the image of his Son. And let
it be farther observed, that when the apostle saith in the fol-
lowing verse, 3ri oil; Tºofyva, “For whom he foreknew,” &c.
the particle &r is connective, and this verse giving the reason
or confirmation of what was spoken in the former, it seems
necessary to interpret these words thus, “Whom he fore-
knew” to be persons called according to his purpose, and
therefore qualified for the adoption mentioned ver, 23,
“them he predestinated to be conformed to the image of his
Son” (see the note on ver. 29). And it deserves to be con-
sidered, that all antiquity to the time of St. Austin do with
one consent concur in the interpretation of Pseud-Ambro-
sins on this place, viz. Quos praescivit sibi devotos, ipsos ele-
git ad promissa praemia capessenda, “Those whom he foresaw
would be devoted to his service, he elected to the reward
promised such persons; those whom he foreknew to be roë;
&£ious rā; xxhaeoc, worthy to be called:” so Theodoret and
Theophylact. Some of them in their descants upon these
words, “Called according to purpose,” expound them of the
purpose or freewill of man, declaring that a man is called
war& Trgoalgeariv, “according to his choice;” and that” of ºx#-
ai; ºvov, &AA& Kai fi TrećSeat; rāy waxovºzávoy cornelay sipyā-
oraro, “it is not the calling only, but the purpose of those
that are called, which works salvation.” For who, saith
Origen, should be called to justification, but those God
loves P. The apostle, saith he, rºw roi; #4, hºw airíay wegia-rnal
ºric ºrpošša Boc, zai rāg ºrgoyyazewº, “makes the will of man
the cause of God’s purpose and foreknowledge, by saying,
We know that all things work together for good to them
that love God; Śri &étoi etal avyseyśa soc, they being worthy
of his co-operation.” And in his Latin commentary on these
words he saith, he uses the word foreknew to show that they
were foreknown by God; In quibus sciens quales essent,
amorem suum Deus affectumque posuisset, “On whom God
placed his affection, as knowing what they would be.”
Secondly, If, saith he, you will refer this purpose to
God, men are then called according to the purpose of him,
qui sciens in eis religiosam mentem, et Salutis inesse de-
siderium, “who knowing they had a religious mind and a de-
sire of salvation, called them; and in this sense neither the
cause of our perdition or salvation will be placed in God's
foreknowledge, nor our justification only in our calling; ne-
que gloriari de nostră penitàs potestate sublatum est; nor
will our glorification be wholly exempt from our own power.”
Moreover he adds, that by embracing this absurd opinion,
* Chrysost. # In Ep. ad Rom, ed Huet, tom. ii. p. 425.
i
§
which saith, man therefore is not justified, and so not glori-
fied, because he is not predestimated, and that he is not pre-
destinated, because not foreknown—Ingentem fenestram
aperiemus eis, quinegant in hominis potestate esse ut Salvus.
fiat ; “we shall give great advantage to them who deny that
it is in the power of man to be saved:” whence they infer,
that they are guilty of “no fault who are not justified, be-
cause they are not called, are not predestinated, are not fore-
known.” And CEcumenius Saith the apostle mentions being
“called according to the purpose,” that he might not fall
into an absurdity, which would follow, El 6 @Eá; riva; at #7roinae,
ºrwäç 33 oi, zai ºrporatroºn-lia; 3raNAártel rêv Oedy, “if God
should do good to some persons, and not to others ; and that
he might free him from being an accepter of persons.”
Wherefore, according to the received interpretation of the
ancient fathers, the import of these words is this: Those
whom God foresaw would be true lovers of him, fit for the
kingdom of God, and āśiot, “worthy” of the “peace,” and
blessings of the gospel, “he foreappointed to be conformable
to the image of his Son,” that is, to be like him in glory (ver.
17), them also he called in due time to the salvation pro-
mised and offered in the gospel (2 Tim. i. 8, 9. Tit. i. 2, 3);
and they believing in Christ upon his call, he justified them
from and remitted all their past sins (Acts xiii. 38, 39. Eph.
i.7); and them he also glorified, by giving them that Spi-
rit, who is the earnest of that glory (Eph. i. 13); and by
participation of which Spirit, Christians are said not only to
“behold the glory of the Lord,” but also to be “changed
into the same image from glory to glory.” So Origen on this
place. And this exposition agrees well with the context ;
for the apostle had said before, that Christians having the
“first-fruits of the Spirit, groaned” after this “redemption of
the body,” ver. 23,26, that “the Spirit helpeth their infirmi-
ties,” interceding for them, “with silent groanings” after it;
and that he “intercedeth for the saints according to the mind
of God,” to give them this redemption; and then it follows,
of agey 8*, *Therefore we know that all things shall work to-
gether for good to them that love God.”
* Wer. 29. “ori oil; ºrgósyvo, For whom he did foreknow.]
This particle 3rt is connective ; and this verse giving the
reason or confirmation of what was spoken in the former, it
seems necessary to interpret it thus; Whom he foreknew to
be persons called according to his purpose, and therefore
qualified for this adoption. It therefore is to be observed,
that the words know and foreknow, in the scripture lan-
guage, import an affectionate knowledge, joined with appro-
bation and affection. So Matt. vii. 23. John x. 14. 1 Cor.
viii. 3, “If any man love God, ošto; #yywara, he is known
of God;” Gal. iv. 1, “But now that ye know God, or are ra-
ther known of God;” 2 Tim. ii. 19, #yvo Köpiog, “The Lord
knoweth who are his.” So is the word ºrgoëyvo used in this
epistle, xi. 2, when the apostle saith, “The Lord hath not
cast off his people, 3v trgośywo, whom he foreknew” to be
faithful,” as were those seven thousand persons who had
not bowed the knee to Baal; “whom he thus foreknew.”
See note 1 on ch. xi.
* IIgodºice, He before appointed.] To be conformed to the
image of his Son, that as they had “borne the image of the
earthly” Adam, they might “also bear the image of the hea-
venly,” 1 Cor. xv. 49. Having glorious bodies like to his,
saith Theodoret; and this agrees well with the scope and
subject matter of this chapter, and with the following words,
“That he might be the first-born,” or chief, “among many
brethren;” for as here these brethren are said to be “coheirs.”
with him, the “elder brother” (ver, 17), so elsewhere he is
styled, “the first-born from the dead, that in all things he
* Quos praescivit futuros sibi devotos, ipsos elegit ad pro-
missa praemia capessenda.
566
ROMANS.
bracing of that faith), them he also justified (and so
jreed" from condemnation to death); and whom he
justified, them he also “glorified.
31 What shall we say then (Gr. what say we then)
to these things (i. e. what farther ground of assur-
ance and so of patient waiting for these things can
we want £) For if God beforus, who can (successfully)
be against us (so as to frustrate, or deprive us of this
gloribus state) * -
32 He that (in pursuance of this design) spared
not his own Son, but delivered him up for (the re-
demption of) us all, how shall he not also with him
freely give us all things (belonging to that glory and
happiness he hath purchased for us) 8
33 * Who shall lay anything to the charge of
God’s elect (i. e. to them who are called by him to
Christianity, to hinder their redemption, by charging
them with that guilt which rendereth them obnoarious to
death.) . It is God that justifieth (and who will there-
jore glorify them). -
34 Who is he that condemneth (them to abide still
wnder the power of death) 8. It is Christ that died (to
redeem them from it), yea, rather that is risen again,
might have the pre-eminence,” or that they might be changed
into his image by the participation of the same Spirit (see
note on 2 Cor. iii. 18).
** Ver. 30. Toſºrov, wai i8%age, Them he also glorified.]
At present in their head Christ Jesus (they being “blessed
with all their spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus,” Eph. i. 3.; they being “quickened together with
Christ, and raised up together, and made to sit together in
heavenly places in Christ Jesus,” Eph. ii. 5, 6); and them
he will hereafter glorify by making their “vile bodies like
unto his glorious body.” Or, ..
Tofftovº zai #3%ace, Them he hath also glorified. By giv-
ing them that Spirit who is the earnest of their glory, #86-
#aa's 8th Tây xagtaº.4 ray, 31& rā; viośscia;-33 rā, Xapiap,4-
tov 'ric vioSsaiac. So Chrysostom and CEcumenius. 'E3%a-
zey vious vowaćºvos, wał IIyevº aros &yiov 3ognzáſzewo, Xáew,
Theodoret and Theophylact. Magnificavit illos ut similes
fiant Filio Dei, Pseud-Ambrosius. And by reason of which
Spirit given, with the preaching of the gospel, the ministra-
tion of justification is said to be Év 3én, “in glory,” as being
the ministration of the Spirit, 2 Cor. iii. 8–11, and we, by
participation of this Spirit of the Lord, are said, not only to
“behold the glory of the Lord,” but also to be “changed
into the same image with him from glory to glory,” ver, l8,
see the note there, and John xvii. 22. So Origen on the
place ; De glorificatione possumus in praesenti seculo intelli-
gere quod dicit apostolus, Nos autem omnes revelatá facie
gloriam Domini speculantes, eadem imagine transformamur
à gloriá in gloriam, tanquam a Domini Spirità. In favour of
thisinterpretation let it be noted, that when the apostle speaks
of our final glorification in this chapter, he still speaks of it
as of a thing future, saying, “We shall be glorified with
him” (ver. 17, 18. 21), whereas he here speaks of it as a
thing past, saying, “Whom he hath justified, them he hath
also glorified.” So when a miracle was wrought in Christ's
name, #3%age, “God glorified him,” Acts ii. 13 (see Luke
iv. 15. John viii. 45. xi. 4. xiii. 31, 32. xvi. 14. 1 Cor. xii.
26). And when God wrought signs by Moses, #86%aasy abrév,
* he glorified him,” Ecclus. xlv. 3 (see the preface to the
Epistle to the Galatians).
* Ver. 33, 34.] Here it is well observed by Mr. L. that
these words being read by way of interrogation, as is ver, 35,
carry a full and clear sense thus: “Who shall plead against
God's elect P Shall the God who justifies them do it 2 Who
is he that condemns them 2 Can it be that Christ who died
for them P”
* Ver. 35. Nothing shall be able to separate us from the
dove of God, which is in Christ Jesus.] To answer the argu-
ment hence urged, to show that men cannot fall from grace,
because if they once truly loved God, they cannot cease to
do so, let it be noted:
First, That this inquiry is not, Who shall separate us from
(for their justification, Rom. iv. 24. And if when we
were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death
of his Son, much more being reconciled we shall be
saved by his life, Rom. v. 10,) who is even at the right.
hand of God, (invested with all manner of power, that
he should give eternal life unto them, John xvii. 2,)
who also maketh intercession for us, (and so is able
to save us to the uttermost, sic travrºëc, Heb. vii. 25).
35 °Who shall separate us from the love of Christ :
(that love which he had shown in procuring this re-
demption for us, ver. 37), shall tribulation, or distress,
or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or
sword 2
36 (Befalling us) as it is written (Ps. xliv. 22), For
thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are ac-
counted as sheep (appointed) for the slaughter.
37 Nay, (as there it is said, All this is come upon
ws, yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt
falsely in thy covenant, ver. 17, 18, so may all this
happen to us, dAA’ but) in all these things we are
(already) *more than conquerors through (the grace
and Spirit of) him that loved us.
38 (And I trust after this happy eaſperience it will
the love with which we love God and Christ P but Who shall
separate us, who truly love God, and testify that love by our
obedience to his commands (John xv. 10), and . our patient
sufferings for his sake (ver. 36, 37), from his affection towards
uS 9
The apostle therefore only intimates, that such persons,
continuing in the love of God, shall be preserved by him
from, or enabled to overcome, the temptations here mentioned,
and so supported by his grace and Holy Spirit, as to be able
to triumph over them. But he doth not say, that the love
of no Christian shall “wax cold,” Matt. xxiv. 12, that none
of them shall lose his “first love,” Rev. ii. 6. Were there
no fear of this, why doth Christ exhort his disciples to con-
tinue in his love P John xv. 9, and his apostles exhort others
to “keep themselves in the love of God,” Jude 21, to “con-
tinue in the grace of God,” Acts xiii. 43, to look diligently
to it, that they “fall not from the grace and favour of God,”
Heb. xii. 15 P Note.
Secondly, That the apostle doth not say that nothing shall
separate true believers from the love of God, or Christ ; but
only saith, at ver. 38, tréºrgio'ſ cat, “I am persuaded” nothing
will do it ; nor have I any cause to fear, that any of these
temporal sufferings or enjoyments should shake their sted-
fastness, in expectation of those eternal and inestimable
blessings which God hath promised, and Christ hath pur-
chased for his church ; “these light afflictions being not
worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed”
(ver. 18), and “all co-operating for the good of them that
love God” (ver. 28); that as for the weakness of the flesh,
which rendered these temptations so dreadful, and gave
strength unto them, they lived in hopes of a glorious “re-
demption of the body” from them (ver. 23); and whilst they
groan under them, they have the assistance of the Spirit of
God to strengthen them, and help them to bear their infirmi-
ties; a powerful and loving Father to be with them, a Sa-
viour exalted to the right hand of God to “intercede for
them” (ver. 33, 34). Upon all which accounts, he might
well say, “I am persuaded” that none of these things shall
separate you from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus.
The apostle doth not by these words intend to teach belie-
vers, that they could not be shaken by these things; for this
would have contradicted the drift of his epistles, in which he
doth so often express his fears lest they should be shaken
with them; and so far tempted by them as to be “moved
away from the hope of the gospel” (Col. i. 23), and render
all his labours vain (1 Thess. iii. 3, 4); and offers so many
arguments and motives to prevent the effect of those temp-
tations; but only doth intend to say, that upon these consi-
derations, they had so great inducements to persevere and
continue in the love of God, as made him strongly persuaded
that they would do so.
* Ver. 37. 'ºrºregyiköpasy, We are more than conquerors.]
CHAPTER IX.
567
be so still,) for I am persuaded, that neither (fear of)
death, nor (hope of) life, nor (evil) angels, nor prin-
cipalities, nor powers (persecuting us for Christ’s sake),
nor (the) things (we endure at) present, nor things to
come (or which we may hereafter suffer),
39 Nor height (of honour), nor depth (of ignominy),
nor any other creature (or thing), shall be able to
separate us from the love of God, which is (vouchsafed
to us) in Christ Jesus our Lord.
For we not only bear, but “glory in tribulations” (Rom. v.
3), we are “in deaths often,” but still delivered from death
(2 Cor. i. 10), and “as the sufferings of Christ abound to-
\
wards us, so also doth our consolation” under them “abound
through Christ.”
CHAPTER IX.
1 (As for the unbelieving Jews, my brethren in the
flesh, that what I am to speak concerning them may not
seem to proceed from any disaffection to them), I say
the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also
bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, (i. e. I call
Christ and the Holy Ghost to bear witness with my own
conscience, that I only speak the truth when I say, )
2 That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow
in my heart (on the account of their infidelity, that ob-
duration and spirit of slumber, and that rejection of
them, which are the dismal consequences of their unbe-
lief).
3 For (so great is my concern for them, that were it
proper, and could it avail to the procuring their salva-
tion,) *I could wish that myself were accursed from
Christ for (these) my brethren, my kinsmen according
to the flesh: -
4 (And surely, I have very great reason to be highly
concerned for them) who are Israelites; (i. e. persons
descended from one whose faith and virtue were so emi-
ment, that as a prince he prevailed with God, and so had
his name changed from Jacob to Israel, as a mark of
God’s affection to him, Gen. xxxii. 28). to whom per-
taineth the adoption, (God having owned them as his
sons and his first-born, Exod. iv. 22, 23. Hosea xi. 1),
and the glory, (the Shechinah, or glorious presence
dwelling among them between the two cherubims, and
from thence shining forth upon them, Ps. i. 2. lxxx. 2),
and the covenants, (made with Abrahain, Gal. iii. 17,
and with Moses, Exod. xxiv. 8, the two covenants, Gal.
iv. 24, the old and new covenant, Jer. xxxi. 31. xxxii.
40), and the giving of the law (that writ with his own
finger in tables of stone, Deut. x. 1. 4, and many other
eacellent judicial laws), and the (acceptable) service of
God, and the promises (not only of signal blessings in
the land of Canaan, to those who should observe his
laws, but the promise of a Messiah, and of a new cove-
nant established upon better promises);
5 Whose are the fathers, (they being the offspring of
those patriarchs to whom the promises were first made,
Heb. xi. 9. 13. 17), and of whom as concerning the
flesh Christ (the promised Messiah) came, (he being
born of one of their nation, and so according to the
flesh their offspring, even he) who (according to his
divine nature) is ° over all, God blessed for ever.
Amen. -
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IX.
* Wer. 1. Xupap, aprupoiſon; ºot rā; avvetēha"Bog Év IIvetºzart
âyiel, My conscience bearing witness in (or with) the Holy
Ghost.] This verse not only shows that in cases of great mo-
ment, which cannot otherwise be sufficiently confirmed, a
Christian may establish his saying by an oath; but also that
he may swear by Christ, and by the Holy Ghost, and call
them to be witnesses of the sincerity of his own conscience
in what he doth assert. So Philo, ©edy ºffervea waxå rot avy-
eiðroc, “I call God to witness with my conscience.” Now
an oath being an act of religious worship, in which God is
called upon as a witness to the truth, or an avenger of the
falsehood, of what we testify or promise, by swearing by our
Lord Christ, and the Holy Ghost, the apostle must perform
an act of religious worship to them, and by that agnize their
divinity, according to those words of Moses, “Thou shalt
fear the Lord thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by
his name,” Deut. vi. 13. And by calling upon them to bear
witness to the secrets of his heart and conscience, he must
ascribe to them the knowledge of the secrets of the hearts of
men, which is the property of God alone (1 Sam. xvi. 7. 1
Kings i. 39. 1 Chron. xxviii. 9. Ps. vii. 9. Jer, xi. 20. xvii. 10.
xx. 12).
* Ver, 3. Höxäany y&é àvá0sº, eſyat, For I could wish my-
self accursed.] The word anathema being still used in St.
Paul's epistles in the severest sense, 1 Cor. xvi. 22. Gal. i. 8,
9, and the words āvá0sp, a sivat 373 roi; Kpta toû, “to be ana-
thema from Christ,” importing, in their literal sense, a sepa-
ration from Christ himself, and not only from the extermal
communion of his church, and being in the descants of the
Greek” fathers the samé as xogizsäval rā, śyárnº, ixºrsa'sſy rº,
3óżnº, &AAérgiov Eiral roi; Kpia rod, a salute separari, “to be sepa-
rated from the love of Christ, to be alienated from him, to
fall from the glory” and the salvation purchased by him ; I
think it reasonable to interpret the apostle's words in this
* Origen. Chrysost. Theod, CEcum. Phot. Theophylact.
sense. Nor is it a sufficient objection against this interpre-
tation, that this can be no truly Christian wish, for the apos-
tle doth not say, I wish; but as the ancients do well inter-
pret him, si èvex&get, si èyséxero, “If it were proper to make
such a wish ;” if it would avail to make so great a multitude
happy, mixáſzny, optarim equidem, “I could even wish” so
great a blessing to my brethren, though with the loss of my
own happiness.
* Wer. 5. ‘O &y Éari Trávray @Eð; eWAoynto; eig rol); aiºvac,
Who is God over all blessed for ever.] This place galls the
Arians: the note of Le Clerc upon it is this, that Dr. Ham-
mond “should rather have examined the animadversions of
Grotius upon it, than copied out of the Jewish fables,
which make little to the purpose ; Erasmus having written
enough to overthrow all that can be inferred from them : for
if what Grotius and Erasmus have observed stand good,
Dr. Hammond's reasoning cannot be thought of any force.”
Now here I might refer him to the solid confutation of what
Erasmus had said by Josue Placaeus, par. iii. disp. 25, or to
himself, Art. Critic. par. iii. p. 102, 106. But to give him
all possible satisfaction in this matter,
First, I assert that the reading we follow is certainly the
true reading, - g
1. Because it is the reading with which all the versions
agree, the Latin, the Arabic, the Ethiopic, and the Syriac ;
for it is a mistake in Grotius, when he insinuates the contrary
of the Syriac version, which in Tremellius runs thus; Quis
est Deus, qui est Super omnia, -
2. Because it hath the general consent, omnium fermé
patrum, of almost all the fathers, who have thus cited it
from the second to the sixth century; viz. the testimony of
Irenaeus, lib. iii. 18, of Origen in locum, of Tertullian, con-
tra Praxeam, cap. 13, 15, Novatian, de Trin, cap. 13. 20.
Cyprian, lib. ii. de Testim. contra Jud. Sect. 6, Quðd
Deus Christus, ubi editio Oxoniensis hac habet; Interea
agnoscere oportebit, vocem “Deus,” in Spirensiveteri in-
nominatá Remboldi, et Erasmi editionibus abesse, sed in
sequentibus habetur, atque etiam in omnibus editionibus
568
ROMANS.
6 (But we must) not (ea aggerate this blindness and
rejection of the Jews, whose were the covenants and the
promises, in prejudice of the veracity of God,) as
though the word of God had taken none effect; (i. e.
the promises of God concerning the seed of Israel, and
the blessings to be conferred upon them, śkirātrokev, had.
failed; this doth by no means follow.J For they “are
not all Israel, who are of Israel: (i. e. all that are
descended from the loins of Israel by carnal generation,
are not the children of the promise made to Jacob, Gen.
xxviii. 14, which yet are only to be accounted for the
seed, ver, 8.) + .
7 Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham
(according to the flesh), are they all children (of the
promise made to Abraham); but (only they who are the
seed of Isaac, for thus the promise runs, ) In Isaac
shall thy seed be called.
8 That is, they which are the children of the flesh
(of Abraham, and have the sign of the covenant in their
flesh ), these are not (on that account alone) the chil-
quas consului, quamobrem defectus iste jure merito ab
Erasmo librariis imputatur. Hilarius in Ps. cxxii. Unus
Deus ex quo omnia—Et, rursăm, ex quibus Christus quiest
super omnia Deus. Notathic Erasmus; Nescio ex quibus
MSS. adduxisse Hilarium hunc locum, omissà Deimentione,
quod tamen, inquit, incurià librariorum omissum videri po-
test: de quo me quispiam ulterius dubitet, Erasmi aut Grotii
versutiis deceptus, en locum parallelum de Trin. Sed non
ignorat Paulus Christum Deum, dicens, Quorum patres, et ex
quibus Christus, quiest super omnia Deus, non hic creatura
in Deum deputatur, sed creaturarum Deus est qui super
omnia Deus est. Verba haec etiam Chrysostomi textti oc-
currunt, qui insuper verba sequentia & Hariv et Noynºrð; sic row;
aiºvac, ab apostolo dicta pronunciat, pro omnibus gratiarum
actionem unigenito Dei referente; agnoscente autem Erasmo
non potest hac particula ad Christum pertinere, nisi ad
eundem et illa referantur, Qui est super omnia Deus. His
adde testimonia Athanasii, Orat. 2, et quint. contra Arian.
Greg. Nysseni, lib. x. Contră Eunom. Ambrosii (Apostolus
de Christo dixit, Qui est super omnia Deus benedictus in se-
cula,) de Sp. Sancto, lib. i. cap. 3, p. 155. Similia habent,
Hilarius Diac. in locum, Marius Victorinus, contra Arium,
lib. primo, Theodoret. in locum, Cyrill. lib. i., Thes. Augus-
tin. de Trin. lib. ii. cap. 13, Idacius contra Wirimadum, lib.
i., Cassian. init. lib. iii. de Incarn. cap. 1, G. Magnus,
Hom. 8, in Ezek., Isid. Hispal. lib. de Different. Num. 2.
Wide Petav. Theol. Dogm. de Trin. lib. ii. cap. 9, sect. 2.
Quid de hoc loco facient Ariani, in quo apertè Christus “Su-
per omnia Deus” esse praescribitur P Origen in locum.
Secondly, I assert, that the words will not admit of that
interpunction and interpretation of Erasmus, which will do
any service to the Arians or Socinians, viz. that a colon
must be put after the words war& a 4.gxa, “after the flesh;”
and the words following must be an ecphonema, and grateful
exclamation for the blessings conferred upon the Jews, thus,
“God who is over all be blessed for ever.” For this expo-
sition is so harsh, and without any like example in the whole
New Testament, that as none of the orthodox ever thought
upon it, so I find not that it ever came into the head of any
Arian : Socinus himself rejects it for this very good reason,
that QE3; sixoynto; “God be blessed,” is an unusual and
unnatural construction; for wherever else these words sig-
nify “blessed be God,” BöAoyntz, is put before God, as Luke
i. 68. 2 Cor. i. 3. Eph. i. 3. 1 Pet. i. 3, and QE3; hath an ar-
ticle prefixed to it, nor are they ever immediately joined to-
gether otherwise. The phrase occurs twenty times in the
Old Testament, but in every place Eixoynto; goes before, and
the article is annexed to the word God, which is a demonstra-
tion that this is a perversion of the sense of the apostle's words.
(2.) The apostle having said in the immediate preceding
words, that Christ came from the fathers war& a 4pxa, “ac-
cording to the flesh,” or as to his human nature, is it not
reasonable to conceive he would proceed to say what he was
according to his divine nature, especially when he was dis-
coursing of and to those Jews, who, as Trypho saith,” and
Origen, and Jerome: testify, held their Messiah was only to
be a man, and denied his divinity ? Is it not unreasonable
to think he should then say nothing of the rà war& Trystad,
* "Eyð y&p Rai woxxoi. 'Iovëaiotç, xai aroqoiſ, ye ārayyaxxogávot;
Elva avaganòy, otºsync &zhzoa imaryotyro; rôy Aáyov fival rôy vičy
roi. Otoč. Lib, viii. p. 177, F, et lib. iii. p. 75, A.
+ Orig, contra Celsum, lib. ii. p. 79, et lib. iv. p. 162.
+ Judaei spem habent in homine, in Christo widelicet suo,
quem non filium Dei, Sed purum hominem putant esse
yenturum. Hier. in Jer, xvii, f. 135, F, Trypho, apud
Justin, p.267, B. - -
or the superior nature of Christ P Especially if we consider
that the limitation ºrd karð c àpka, “according to the flesh,”
plainly insinuated there was another nature in him, accord-
ing to which he came not from the fathers. In a word, all
the ancient versions render the words as we do, taking no.
notice of this interpunction. All the Greek Scholiasts, and
the ancient commentators among the Latins, excepting
Chrysostom, here triumph over Arius, one of them indeed
hinting, “that there might be men, who would be inclined to
say these things were not spoken of Christ,” but none ever
saying that any did then actually ascribe them to any other
person. Hence from the beginning, these words have been
used by the fathers as an argument of Christ's divinity. For,
saith Irenaeus," “because he is Emanuel, lest we should
think him a man only, the apostle Saith, Of whom, as con-
cerning the flesh, Christ came;” qui est Deus super omnes
benedictus in secula. And in a like expression to this of
the apostle, he saith, Secundum id quðd verbum Dei homo
erat ex radice Jessa?, filius Abrahami; “According to that
nature in which the Word of God was man, of the root of
Jesse, and the son of Abraham, the Spirit of God rested
upon him ;”f secundum autem quéd Deus erat, “but as to
that nature by which he was God, he judged not after the
sight of his eyes, for he knew what was in man.” And if
these words are spoken by the Spirit of God concerning
Christ, the arguments hence to prove him truly and properly
God are invincible : for, first, 3 Qed; in ºrávrov, “God over
all,” is the periphrasis by which all the heathen philosophers
did usually represent the supreme God: and so is God the
Father described both in the Old-and the New Testament,
as 5 #mri Trávrov, he that “is over all,” Eph. iv. 6. Secondly,
This is the constant epithet and periphrasis of the great God
in the Old Testament, that he is sixoyntº; sic Töv aiāva, “God
blessed for evermore,” 1 Chron. xvi. 36. Ps. xli. 13. lxxxix.
52, and also in the New, where he is styled the God £, Éariz
eixoyntô; eiç rob; aiāvac, “who is blessed for ever.” This was
so evident to Enjedinus the Socinian, that he saith, this epi-
thet is so peculiar to God the Father, “that it is never attri-
buted in the New Testament to any other, but wheresoever
we find this phrase, “God blessed for ever,’ it is always
ascribed to the Father.” Of the custom of adding to the
name of God “blessed for evermore,” used by the Jews,
the reverend doctor hath said sufficient; and why all that he
here saith should pass with Mr. Clerc for Jewish fables, what
reason can be given, if not his averseness to the doctrine the
doctor here endeavours to establish P especially when we find
this very phrase, sixoynto, Kūpto:, ; Os3; 373 rot aiāvoc, zai sic
rév atóva, or eixoynto, Kūeto; eiç rºy aidya, “Blessed be the
Lord God from everlasting,” Ps. xl. 13. lxxxviii. 51, cv. 48,
and find Paul following his example, and Clemens Romanus
in his epistle so often using the same epithet when he makes
mention of the God of heaven: Edit. Jun. p. 29, 42, 50,
57, 59, 66, ver. 6.
* Ver. 6. Are not all Israel.] The apostle having de-
clared, that both Jew and gentiles had sinned, and “fallen
short of the glory of God,” and so were to be justified only
by faith in Christ, Rom. iii. 23, 24, the Jews objected against
this, (1.) that they being the seed of Abraham, to whom the
promises were made, it was not consistent with the divine
veracity to exclude them from the blessings promised, and
to confer them on the believing gentiles. To the first part
of this objection the apostle answers, by distinguishing be-
* Si quis autem non putat de Christo dictum quðd est'
Deus, det personam de quo dictum est; de Patre enim Deo
hóc loco mentio facta non est. Pseud. Ambros.
... + Lib, iii, cap. 18, p. 276. Lib. iii, cap 10.
CHAPTER IX.
569
dren of God, (of whom it is said, I will be a God unto |
thee, and thy seed after thee, Gen. xvii.7); but (they
only who are) the children of the promise (as Isaac
was) are (to be) * counted for the seed. r
9 For this is the word of promise, (Gen. xviii. 10).
At this time will I come, and Sarah shall have a son
(which words confine the children of the promise to the
seed of Sarah, excluding that of Hagar from it).
10 And not only this (instance is proper to demon-
strate the distinction of the seed of Abraham according
to the promise); but (that) also (of) Rebecca, who con-
ceived by one, even by our father Isaac (two children
born of the same father, and of the same mother, and
lying in the same womb);
11 For the "children (of her womb) being not yet
born, neither having dome any good nor evil, (which
twixt “the seed of Abraham, according to the flesh,” and
“according to promise,” or the spiritual seed, from ver, 6 to
the 14th, at those words, “What shall we say then P is there
injustice in God?” He begins to answer the second part of
the objection, that the adoption, and the promises belonging
to the Jews, ver. 4, and the gentiles being strangers from the
covenant of promise, it seemed unreasonable to confer those
blessings on them, and not upon the Jews. To this the
apostle answers, that this justly befell them, because they
continued in their infidelity, after all the miracles wrought to
convince them that Christ was the true Messiah ; and so
as by their obstinacy, like to that of Pharaoh, they had made
themselves obnoxious to the severest of his judgments ; so
had they rendered themselves incapable of the blessings pro-
mised to Abraham and his seed, “they who are of faith,”
being only “the children of Abraham, and heirs according
to the promise,” Gal. iii. 7. 9. 29, whereas the gentiles be-
lieving in Christ, are through this faith entitled to the bless-
ings promised to Abraham and his seed, ver, 14, for they
being Christ's by faith, “are Abraham's seed, and heirs ac-
cording to the promise,” ver. 29.
* Ver. 8. Aoyićeral st; an epca, Are accounted for the
seed.] That is, of this distinction of seeds, to which the pro-
mise belongs, you have a manifest instance in the seed of
Abraham; for before Abraham had any seed at all the pro
mise of inheriting the land of Canaan was made unto him
thus, “Unto thy seed will I give this land,” Gen. xii. 7;
“All the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to
thy seed after thee for ever,” Gen. xiii. 13; “Unto thy seed
have I given this land,” Gen. xv. 18. But though Ishmael
was his first-born, and had that circumcision which was the
seal of the covenant made with Abraham; yet he, and his
posterity, those twelve princes and great nations which issued
from him, were all excluded from the covenant; and Isaac,
not yet circumcised, or born, and his posterity, are declared
to be the seed of Abraham, to whom the promise should be
made good, and with whom the covenant should be esta-
blished. For when Abraham said to God, “O that Ishmael
might live before thee l’” God returns him this answer: “As
for Ishmael, I have heard thee; behold, I have blessed
him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him ex-
ceedingly ; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make
him a great nation ; but my covenant will I establish with
Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear unto thee,” Gen. xvii. 18. 20,
21. Again, when Sarah had said of Ishmael, “Cast out
this bondwoman and her son; for the son of this bond woman
shall not inherit with my son, even with Isaac,” Gen. xxi.
10, and Abraham thereupon was grieved because of his son,
ver. 11, God speaks thus to him, “Let it not be grievous in
thine eyes, because of the lad; in all that Sarah hath said,
hearken to her, for in Isaac shall thy seed be called,” ver.
12. . Which instance shows, it was not being of the seed of
Abraham according to the flesh, or having the sign of
the covenant in the flesh, that rendered men the sons
of God, or children of the promise then : for Ishmael was
Abraham's first-born, and circumcised, and yet by God ex-
cluded from the promise; Isaac not circumcised, not yet
born, not having the right of promogeniture, and yet to him,
and his seed alone, belong the adoption and the promises.
Two things may here be added for illustration of this instance.
First, That the Jews can make no just exceptions against
this argument of the apostle, it being suitable to their own
theology; for it is a rule among them, that” “whoso vows
concerning Abraham's seed, is free from Ishmael and Esau’s
sons, and is not bound but touching Israelites, for in Isaac
shall seed be called to thee;” and so Isaac said of Jacob,
“And God give thee the blessing of Abraham.”
Secondly, That there is a great emphasis in these words,
“The children of the promise;” for upon this account it was
* Maimon, of Vows, ch. 9, sect. 21.
said of Isaac, that he was “not born according to the flesh,
but according to the promise,” Gal. iv. 23. Thus Ishmael
was Abraham's son “according to the flesh,” but Isaac “ac-
cording to the Spirit ;” to be therefore children of the pro-
mise, seems to be Abraham's spiritual seed ; whence the
apostle saith of those who believe in this seed, that they
are “the sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus,” and so are
Abraham's seed, “and heirs according to the promise,”
Gal. iii. 29. That they according to Isaac, are “chil-
dren of the promise,” Gal. iv. 28. That they are chil-
dren “not of the bondwoman, but of the free,” ver, 31.
Accordingly the Jews say,” “A proselyte is the son of Abra-
ham, who is the father of the whole world, as it is said, A
father of many nations have I made thee.” And because
the Jews might quarrel against the pertinence of this in-
stance, alleging this might be because Ishmael was only
the son of Abraham’s bondmaid, whereas Isaac was the
seed of his own wife; or that Ishmael had forfeited his right
by idolatry, or denying the world to come, of which they
accuse him : here follows the instance of choosing Jacob and
his seed, excluding Esau and his seed, against which no such
cavil could take place. *
* Ver. 11. Māºro yag yawnóévroy, For the children being
not yet born.] The argument of the apostle is to this effect,
that though both Jacob and Esau had the same father and
the same mother, yet of these two, when they were yet un-
born, and so were neither circumcised, nor had done any
thing at all to oblige or disoblige God, or to give any ground
for any difference to be made betwixt them, and their off-
spring, God speaks thus of them to Rebecca, “Two manner
of people shall be separated from thy bowels, and the one
people shall be stronger than the other people, and the elder
shall serve the younger” (Gen. xxv. 23); i. e. not he to
whom by birthright it belonged, but he whom God was freely
pleased to choose, should inherit the land of Canaan, pro-
mised to the seed of Abraham, and the other privileges of
his seed. Which instance seems plainly to inform us, that
the choice which God makes of men to the enjoyment of
the favour of being his people, and beloved by him above
others, as to such things, is not according to their external
privileges or works, but according to his free choice. And
this prediction was fully verified in after ages; for Jacob and
his posterity were planted in the land of Canaan, which
“flowed with milk and honey,” and was “the glory of all
lands,” whereas the Edomites were planted in a barren de-
sert land; and this gave ground for those words of the pro-
phet Malachi, “I have loved you, saith the Lord to Israel,
yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau
Jacob's brother P saith the Lord: yet I loved Jacob, and
hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste
for the dragons of the wilderness.” Now for farther expli-
cation of these words, let it be observed,
First, That this instance of Esau’s being rejected, and not
owned by God as belonging to the promised seed, is suitable
to the sentiments of the Jews, not only because he, being an
idolater, and a denier of the resurrection, and of the bless-
ings of the world to come, was not, according to their fore-
mentioned canon, to be accounted for seed; and their re-
ceived rule, “That he who swears concerning the seed of
Abraham, is free from Ishmael, and Esau's son,” and is not.
bound but touching Israelites; but also from their observa-
tion on these words of Jacob,f “The God of my father
Abraham, of my father Isaac ;” viz. that “he Saith not so
of Esau, that Abraham and Isaac were his fathers, because
he chose not to walk in their ways, and do their works.”
Secondly, Hence it is evident that the apostle speaks not
here of the persons, but of the nations and posterity of
* Pug. Fid. par. ii. cap. 9; sect. 6, p. 303.
+ See Targ. Jerus. et B. Uziel in Gen. xxv. 29. 34.
† Berisch. Rabba Minor. Parash 76, in Gen. xxxii. 9.
570
ROMANS.
might move God to dislike the one more than the other,
purpose of God according to election might stand,
not of (Gr. from) works, but of him that calleth; (i. e.
that the purpose of God in preferring one of these seeds
and nations before the other, to be the promised seed,
and so his church and people might appear to be, not
on consideration of their works, but his free choice :)
12 It was (then) said unto her, The elder (in his
posterity) shall serve the younger, (i.e. shall be inferior
to him, who had the right of primogeniture according to
the flesh.
13 According to which preference it happened to
their posterity,) as it is written (Mal. i. 2, 3), Jacob
have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
14 What shall we say then (after these instances)?
as may be alleged in the case of Ishmael), that 7 the
Is there (any cause to say there is) unrighteousness
with God? (in taking then, for the seed of Abraham,
or for his sons and people, the posterity of Isaac, rather
than of Ishmael ; the posterity of Jacob, rather than
the Edomites ? or in calling now the gentiles, and upon
their faith owning them for his people, the spiritual seed
of Abraham : and rejecting the Jews from these advan-
tages and privileges, because of their unbelief?) God
forbid (that we should accuse God of unrighteous deal-
fing upon this account).
15 For (to begin with the freedom which God re-
serveth to himself, in showing acts of grace and favour
to an offending people, in this he only doth what) he
saith to Moses, (he would do, making this declaration
Jacob and Esau, or not of them personally, but nationally
considered, according to the note of Irenaeus, Partum Re-
beccae prophetiam fuisse duorum populorum (lib. iv. cap.
38). This is plain, -
(1.) From the words of God to Rebecca, “Two nations
are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be sepa-
rated from thy bowels, and the one people shall be stronger
than the other.” (2.) From this observation, That as to the
persons of Esau and Jacob, it was never true that the elder
did serve the younger, but only as to their posterity, when
the Edomites became tributaries to David (2 Sam. viii. 14),
And, (3) because what is here offered as a proof or confirm-
ation of this, is cited from the prophet Malachi, who pro-
phesied long after Jacob and Esau were personally dead,
and so could only speak of their posterity the Israelites and
Edomites, as he expressly doth. And,
Thirdly, Hence it clearly follows, that the apostle cannot
here discourse of any personal election of them to eternal
life, or any absolute love or hatred of them, with respect to
their eternal interest; for if so, seeing he manifestly speaks
of the whole nation of Israel, they must, according to that
opinion, be all elected to salvation; whereas the apostle in-
forms us that “God had no pleasure in many of them,” 1
Again, then must the whole posterity of Esau be the object
of God's hatred and his reprobation, which is so far from
being true, that Job and all his friends appear to have been
of the posterity of Esau. And (2) then it must follow, as
Esthius contends, that not only election, but even reproba-
tion also, must be without any respect to works, and so God
must adjudge men to eternal perdition, without respect to
any evil done, or to be done by them; for “the children
having done neither good nor evil,” saith the apostle, it hap-
pened to them as it is written, “Jacob have I loved, and
Esau have I hated.” It is certain then, that the apostle
speaks here only of the election of one seed and nation be-
fore another, to be accounted and treated by him as the seed
of Abraham; this only doth his argument require, and his
instances prove, and this is sufficient to justify God's dealing
with the unbelieving Jews, so as to reject them from being
accounted for, and treated as, the seed of Abraham; and his
raising up children to Abraham out of those believing gen-
tiles, who, imitating the faith of Abraham, became the spi-
ritual seed and “heirs according to the promise,” that he
would be a God to his seed, and that he should be “the fa-
ther of many nations,” and “in him should all the families
of the earth be blessed,” and his calling them to the faith,
though sinners of the gentiles; that depending not on works,
but his free pleasure.
Note also, that those words, “The children being not yet
born, nor having done good nor evil,” being used as an argu-
ment to prove the election or preference of the one above
the other could not be of works, is a strong argument
against the pre-existence of souls, and their being sent into
bodies by way of punishment for their former sins: for upon
that supposition it could not be true, that “the children had
done neither good nor evil,” before they were born ; nor
could the argument be firm, that one could not be preferred
before the other on the account of any works done by them,
seeing the one might have sinned more than the other in
their state of pre-existence.
7 ‘H war' #xxoyāy ºrgáSeat; Qeoiſ, The purpose of God ac-
cording to election.] Here I shall briefly consider the im-
port of the words ºrgáSeats, the purpose ; Trpáyyagic, the fore-
knowledge; ºrpoºgºog, the foreappointment of God ; of all
which, let it be noted,
First, That none of them relate to particular and indi-
vidual persons (save only when they are used of our blessed
Lord, and his sufferings for us), but only to whole churches
and nations; and, in general, to the whole body of believ-
ing Jews and gentiles, whom God had chosen, ºrgoogía ac,
“foreappointing them to the adoption, by Jesus Christ,”
Eph. i. 5, “in whom also,” saith he, Éxxng&Smpsey, “we are
made his portion, or peculiar people, ºrgooglo-Sivre; xará. Trºé-
Sealy, being foreappointed so to be according to his purpose,”
ver. 11, God having purposed and foreappointed that this
should be the portion of believers, and the consequence of
faith in Christ, by which we become the sons of God. To
all the converted Jews throughout their dispersions, they
being chosen war& TrećSeriy, “according to the purpose of
God the Father” (1 Pet. i. 2); and, lastly, to the posterity
of Jacob, of whom, that h wata. Os3y ºrgáSea-ic, “the purpose
of God, according to the election, might stand,” it was
said, when Rebecca bore twins, “The elder shall serve the
younger.”
Cor. x. 5, and the whole Jewish history shows the contrary.
Secondly, That this foreknowledge, purpose, or appoint-
ment, is only that of calling men to the knowledge of salva-
tion by Christ Jesus. Thus the apostle teacheth, that he
was appointed to “preach to the gentiles the unsearchable
riches of Christ, according to the ancient purpose which God
hath made in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Eph. iii. 11); and
that “according to his purpose before ages, he called us with
a holy calling” (2 Tim. i. 9).
Thirdly, This calling is designed by God ini rotto, “for
this end,” that they who are called might “obtain Salvation
through sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth”
(2 Thess. ii. 13); “through sanctification of the Spirit of
obedience, and through the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus”
(1 Pet. i. 2): all Christians being chosen to this end, “that
they might be holy, and unblameable before God in love”
(Eph. i. 4). But hence it cannot reasonably be concluded,
that this election is no larger than the holiness designed to
be produced by it; for “the riches of God's goodness, pa-
tience, and long-suffering” are designed to “lead” all those
to whom it is vouchsafed “to repentance.” But hence it
cannot be concluded that this riches, goodness, patience, and
long-suffering, is exercised to none but those who truly do
repent, seeing the apostle mentions many who despised
these means, and after the vouchsafement of them still con-
tinued to “treasure up wrath against the day of wrath”
(Rom. ii. 4). The Baptist was sent “to turn the hearts of
the fathers to the children, and of the disobedient unto the
wisdom of the just,” but his preaching was far from having
its effects on all that heard him. The end of the Messiah's
advent to the Jews was, that he might “save his people
from their sins,” and might engage them to “serve him in
holiness and righteousness all the days of their life” (Luke
i.75): but yet it sadly failed of this effect upon the stub-
born people; “the saving grace of God appeared to all
men, to teach them, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts,
to live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present
world;” but yet it is too sadly evident, it hath not had this
good effect on all. º ºg
Fourthly, As men were appointed from the beginning to
CHAPTER IX.
571.
to him, Exod. xxxiii. 19), "I will have mercy on whom
I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom
I will have compassion. -
16 So then (these instances show, that) *it is not of
him that willeth, (for Abraham willed that Ishmael
might live to be partaker of the blessings promised to
his seed, when he said, O that Ishmael might live before
thee! Gen. xvii. 18, and when he was grieved at the
saying of Sarah, The son of the bondwoman shall not be
heir with my son Isaac, Gen. xxi. 11), nor of him that
runneth (for when Esau ran to fetch venison for his
father, that he might receive the blessing, Gen. xxvii. 5,
God’s wisdom saw it fit to have it otherwise), but of
God that showeth mercy (that any one is chosen to be
the seed to which the promise made to Abraham belongs,
and so to be his church and people.
To proceed now to the other part of the objection,
the seeming injustice or severity of rejecting and re-
serving them to wrath, and of giving them up to an
obdurate heart, who will not accept of the way God
hath appointed for their justification, viz. that of faith
in Christ, but rather will continue in their infidelity:
this will be cleared by another instance, that of Pha-
raoh, who had so often hardened his heart, refusing to
let Israel go). -
17 For the scripture saith (upon that account) to
Pharaoh, Even for this cause * have I raised thee up
(i.e. have made thee stand in the plague of boils, and
prolonged thy life for some farther time), that I might
(the more illustriously) show my power in thee, and
that my name might be declared throughout all the
earth, (by that conspicuous judgment I will eaecute upon
be called, so the gospel, which is “the wisdom of God
through faith unto salvation,” was that y ºrgotágio"Ey, “which
God had foreappointed” to be preached to men for that end,
1 Cor. ii. 7, this word of God giving the hope of that salva-
tion, which he had “promised before all ages.” And hence,
by virtue of this promise and foreappointment, men were in
time called by the gospel to the faith in Christ, whence they
who were thus called are said to be called “according to the
purpose of God” (Rom. viii.28), and “according to his pur-
pose and grace given us through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. i.
10): the knowledge and purpose, from the foundation of
the world, of sending Christ to die for the remission of sins,
being the ground of this calling, on which account he is said
to be “given up to the death according to the foreknow-
ledge of God, and his foreappointed counsel” (Acts ii. 23);
and they who slew him are said to have done only what his
counsel had foreappointed to be done (Acts iv. 28). These
observations will direct us to answer what is argued from
these and such like places of scripture in favour of an abso-
lute election.
* Ver. 15. "Exeha o ży &y #xe?, I will have mercy on whom
I will have mercy.] It is here to be noted, that God made
this declaration after Israel had committed idolatry, in
making the golden calf, and so had made themselves naked,
i. e. divested of the divine presence and protection, or of a
covenant relation to him, insomuch that God sent this dread-
ful message to them, “I will come up into the midst of thee
in a moment, and consume thee” (Exod. xxxiii. 5), and said
to Moses, “Let me alone, that I may destroy them in a
moment.” And though God suffered himself to be prevailed
upon by Moses to adopt them again for his people ; yet he
lets him know this was part of his glory, “to be gracious to
whom he will be gracious, and also to show mercy to whom
he will show mercy” (Exod. xxxiii. 19). If therefore, upon
the infidelity of the Jews, he will call the idolatrous gen-
tiles, and receive them to be his people, as he did the Jews
again after their idolatry, who can accuse him of injustice
upon that account P (see the note on ver. 18.)
* Ver. 16. Ob row SéNovros, où83 roi; ºrgéxorroc, It is not of
him that willeth, nor of him that runneth.] i. e. You see
this is not to be obtained by the most passionate wishes of
a faithful Abraham, nor by the fervent desires of an Esau
(Heb. xii. 17), nor by the greatest zeal we can employ in
such courses as seem best to our own wisdom; but we must
own it to be a blessing which depends merely upon the di-
vine goodness; and therefore must seek it according to his
pleasure, in Such ways as he appoints, and not in those
which seem to us most proper to obtain it; though then you
have a zeal for God, and follow after the law, that you may
obtain righteousness, it is not to be wondered you obtain not
the blessing of justification promised to the seed of Abra-
ham, because you seek it not by faith in the Messiah, which
is the only way in which God hath declared he will con-
fer it.
Some of the fathers” interpret these words thus; “It is
not of him that wills, or runs only, but of God that showeth
mercy, and crowns the work by his assistance; for other-
* of roi Sáxoviro; ºvov, oběš roi; ºrgáxoviro; ºvov, &AA& 88ſ wai
roi. Seášev #xéov, wai rā, śkeſ Sey avºxazia;. CEcum. Chrys.
Hom. 12 in Hebr. p. 489. G. Nazianz. Orat. 31.
wise,” say they, “it cannot be our duty, either to will or
run, provided we can, neither by willing nor running, do any-
thing to incline God to show mercy; and why then doth
God blame us for not willing P” (Matt. xxiii. 17. John v.
40) and require us “so to run that we may obtain P” ( 1
Cor. ix. 24. Heb. xii. 1.) And whereas Austin objects, That
according to this interpretation it might be said, It is not of
God that showeth mercy only, but of man that wills and
runs; Origen,* Chrysostom,” and Theophylact,f answer,
That this follows not, because man's willing and running
would not avail without the divine aid, to enable him to run,
and his grace and mercy to accept his running; and there-
fore according to the custom of the scripture, the effect is to
be ascribed to the chief agent only ; as “Except the Lord
build the house, their labour is but vain that build it,” &c.
Ps. cxxvii. 1; so, “Paul that plants, and Apollos that wa-
ters, is nothing, but God that giveth the increase,” 1 Cor.
iii. 6, 7, “I laboured, yet not I, but the grace of God,” 1
Cor. xv. 10.
* Ver. 17. "Eéhysić as, I have raised thee up.] Heb.
Tºntºyſ, “I have made thee to stand,” Exod. ix. 16, or,
have preserved thee; Évszky rotºrov 31stnehönç, “For this cause
hast thou been kept,” so the LXX.; i. e. from falling by
the plague of boils, so Junius and Tremellius; Feciut Super-
stes maneres, “I have kept thee alive,” saith the Targum of
B. Uziel. See the Chaldee, the Syriac, and the Arabic ver-
sions to the same sense; and the connexion of this with the
former verse rightly rendered makes this sense necessary;
for the fifteenth verse cannot be rendered in the future
tense, as our translation doth, “Now I will stretch out my
hand, that I may smite thee and thy people with the pesti-
lence, and thou shalt be cut off from the earth;” for Pha-
raoh and his people did not die by the pestilence. It is
therefore to be rendered, as the Jews, Fagius, Amama,
Cartwright, and Ainsworth, translate it; “For now I had
sent out my hand, and I had smitten thee and thy people
with the pestilence, and thou hadst been cut off from the
earth; but in very deed, for this cause I have made thee
stand up.”$ So the Targum of B. Uziel, Quum jam mise-
rim plagam fortitudinis meas, aequum erit ut percuterem te
et populum tuum morte, ut perderem te à terrá; verüm pro-
fectà non ut benefaciam tibi in vità conservavite, Sed ut vi-
dere faciam te robur meum, &c. Whence we may learn
how alien from the truth, and from the import of the words,
is that exposition which saith, “For this cause have I created
thee,” or “raised thee to be the king of Egypt.”
Observe farther, that God hardened Pharaoh's heart, not
by any positive influx upon it, which made it necessary for
him to continue obstimate. This Origen observes from those
words, “If thou refuse to let my people go, I will do so and
so ;” that Pharaoh's heart was not so hardened as to take
away ºrd airs:oſatov, “all power from him” to let the people
go, for this he doth at last when God's hand was strong upon
him, according to these words, iii. 19, “I am sure that the
king of Egypt will not let you go ;” ſpiri Tºn Rºn nisi per
manum fortem, Vulg. #&y whºsrå Xelpêc agatalàº, “if not by
a strong hand,” Septuagint ; nisi cum manā valida, Samarit.
* Orig. de Princip. lib. iii. cap. 1. tº
+ Chrysost, ut suprā. # Theoph. in locum.
§ See the Bishop of Ely on the place.
572
ROMANs.
thee, in the sight of all nations of the earth, Josh. ii.
10. 1 Sam. iv. 8).
18 Therefore (from these instances and scriptures
we may learn that) * he (God) hath mercy on whom
he will have mercy, and (that) whom he will he
hardeneth (or reserves for punishment).
19 Thou wilt say then to me (against this account
“but by a strong hand,” so the Bishop of Bath and Wells.
This sense the words will bear, saith Ainsworth, being ren-
dered si, Exod. iv. 23. Numb. xii. 14. And this sense is
plain and certain from the words following; “And I will
stretch out my hand, and smite Egypt with all my wonders,
which I will do in the midst thereof, and after that he will
let you go,” Exod. iii. 20. And again, vi. 1, Then said the
Lord to Moses, “Now shalt thou see what I will do to Pha-
raoh, for with a strong hand shall he let them go.” Hence
God is always said to have brought them out of Egypt
npin Tºn “with a strong hand,” Exod. xxxii. 11. Deut. v.
15. vi. 21. vii. 8. ix. 26. Dan. ix. 15. Nor can they who
think otherwise, show any way how or in what sense Pharaoh
can be so often said to have “hardened his own heart,” if
God himself had hardened his heart before ; or why God
doth so often command him to let his people go (vii. 16.
viii. 1. 20. ix. 1. 13), i. e. to do what he had rendered him
unable to do ; or why Moses should say, “Let not Pharaoh
deal deceitfully any more, in not letting the people go”
(viii. 29); or why God did reprove him, because he had
hitherto refused to let the people go (vii. 16. viii. 29. ix. 17.
x. 3); or why he threatens judgments to him, if he refuse to
let them go (viii. 2. 21. ix. 2, 3. 14, 15), and executes them
on him upon that refusal, since memo tenetur ad impossibi-
lia, “no man is obliged to do what he cannot ;" much, less
what he cannot do by virtue of a disability that God hath
laid upon him ; and no man justly can be blamed, and much
less punished, for not doing what he is not obliged to do.
Nor can God command any man to do what he himself by
his own influx restrains him from doing, even when he doth
command it ; for what he thus restrains him from, he is not
willing he should do ; whereas what he commands he is
willing should be done ; and when he punisheth any one for
not obeying his command, he punisheth them for not doing
his will. Now it is impossible that God at the same time,
and in reference to the same action, should be both willing
and not willing it should be done. This will be farther
evident from a consideration of all the places where the heart
of Pharaoh is said to be hardened. As,
Ch. vii. 13, “And he hardened Pharaoh's heart;” Heb.
Pin", “And the heart of Pharaoh was hardened. So the
same words are rendered by us, ver 22, and so hereby
Ainsworth, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, the Bishop of
Ely, and all the versions on this verse; nor is there any
person mentioned in the verse, besides Pharaoh, to whom
this action can be ascribed ; his heart was therefore hard-
ened at this time, not by God, but by the arts of his sor-
cerers, for “the magicians did so with their enchantments,
and Pharaoh's heart was hardened” (ver 22).
Ch. viii. 15, we read thus, “When Pharaoh saw there
was respite, he hardened his heart;” when the fathers
truly observe that Quoi, ºax606vºid oxxnçoxagłac airia, i. e. the
heart of Pharaoh was hardened by God's mercy, in taking
off his hand from him : thus upon removal of the flies,
“Pharaoh hardened his heart” (ver. 31, 32); “and when he
saw that the rain, and the hail, and the thunders, were ceased,
he sinned yet more, and hardened his heart, he and his ser-
vants:” and then immediately follow these words ; “And
the Lord said to Moses, Goin unto Pharaoh, for (or, although)
I have hardened his heart, and the heart of his servants,”
x. l ; so ver. 20, the Lord then “hardened Pharaoh’s
heart” only by taking away the locusts; and, ver. 27, “the
Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart” only by taking away the
darkness, the three days assigned to it being ended, as Aben
Ezra observes on ver, 24, “None rose from his place during
those three days,” but post triduum, they being ended, Pha-
raoh called unto Moses; and hence we read, not as at other
times, that Pharaoh asked for the removal of this plague ;
and therefore when it is said, ix. 12, that “the Lord hardened
the heart of Pharaoh, and he hearkened not unto them,” i. e.
not to Moses and Aaron ; we have reason to conclude he did
of the divine dispensations towards the unbelieving Jews,
If God hardeneth us because he will), why doth he yet
find fault (with us for our impenitence)? For who
hath (at any time) resisted his will? (How therefore
is it in our power to avoid being hardened, if it be his
will we should be so 8) -
20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest
that also by removing the plague of the boils; for had the
boils continued upon the Egyptians, there was no reason for
calling for the succeeding plague of hail, nor could the ser-
vants of Pharaoh, with their boils upon them, have gone into
the field to house their cattle, ver. 20. We read also, xiv.
8. 17, that “the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart” to follow
the Israelites; and of this we may give the same account,
that he did this by causing the Israelites to encamp so as to
give occasion to Pharaoh to say, “They are entangled in the
land, the wilderness hath shut them in” (ver. 3), and by
causing him to see the Israelites walking safely through the
midst of the sea, But I am not concerned for these places,
the hardening of Pharaoh then being not for sin (God having
not commanded Pharaoh not to pursue after them, or follow
them into the Red sea), but for punishment: when there-
fore God saith, iv. 21, “I will harden the heart of Pharaoh,
that he shall not let the people go ;” his meaning may be
only this, I will so order matters by removing the plagues
inflicted on him and his people, to mollify him, and engage
him to permit them to go, that he shall be hardened, till I
come with my strong hand and slay his son, even his first-
born (ver. 23), after which he did let them go (xii. 31. 33).
From these two observations it is easy to discern how appo-
site this example is to the case of the Jewish nation. For,
First, Did God harden Pharaoh by his lenity, in removing
his plagues and judgments from him P the same God saith
of the Jews in this epistle, when he speaks thus unto them,
ii. 4, 5, “Despisest thou the riches of his goodness, and for-
bearance, and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness
of God leadeth thee to repentance; but after thy hardness
and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against
the day of wrath, and revelation of God's righteous judgment?”
Secondly, If they object, that if God would have cast them
off from being his people, and have cut them off from any
share in the promises made to the seed of Abraham, why did
he not this before, when they had so oft deserved it for their
idolatries, from which they were now free ? the answer is,
from the example of Pharaoh preserved alive when he had
long deserved to be cut off, that he might fall at last, more tº
the illustration of God’s power, justice, and glory; and this
is the thing hinted ver. 22, as you will see in the exposition of it.
* Ver. 18. “Ov Šáxei AREſ, by 3: Séast awangúvel. He hath
mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he
hardeneth.] That is, hence it appears that God shows mercy
according to his own wise pleasure, and not as we think fit ;
and he gives men up to the hardness of their own hearts, and
so reserveth them to be examples of his illustrious judgments,
according to the same good pleasure, and not according to
the time and measures that they would prescribe ; showing
mercy to you Jews, when you deserved to be cut off for your
idolatry, in making and worshipping the golden calf, and
reassuming you to be his people, and reserving the execution
of his wrath upon Pharaoh, who had before deserved it for
the hardness of his heart, till his destruction would minister
to the greater illustration of his power and justice upon stub-
born sinners.
Execrable is the note of Esthius here, that God is here
said to harden whom he will, quðd induratio cujuspiam in
primâ suá origine, quae est prima derelictio, seu peccati per-
missio, non aliam habet causam quâm Dei voluntatem ;
“because the first rise of any man's induration, which is
God's dereliction of him, hath no other cause than the will
of God:” for as this is contrary to the known saying even of
Austin, Deus non deserit nisi deserentem, “God deserts no
man, who leaves not him first ;” so it makes God alone the
cause of all men's hardening, since causa causae est causa
causati: for if this dereliction be the cause of induration, and
that hath no other cause but the will of God, the will of God
must be the cause of all men's hardening it. It also makes
all God's exhortations to men not to harden their hearts, and
his reproofs and punishments of them for so doing, exhorta-
CHAPTER IX.
573
(thus) against God?_Shall the thing formed say to
him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
21 Hath not the * potter power over the clay, of
the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and
another unto dishonour *
22 What (therefore) if God, (being) * willing to
show his wrath, and to make his power (more illus-
triously) known, endured with much long-suffering
(you réfractory Jews, which were so long ago) the
vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, (or for breaking,
Ps. Xxxi. 13, what reason have you to complain
against him on this account 2)
23, And (what if God) that he might make known
the riches of his glory (showed mercy) on the vessels
of his mercy,” whom he had before (by working faith in
them) prepared unto glory (or to be a glorious church)?
24 Even us, whom he hath called, (us, I say,) not
of the Jews only (the natural seed of Abraham), but
also of the gentiles (What is there in this that should
offend you?
25 For, first, as for the called gentiles, is not this the
very thing foretold by their own prophet Hosea, when
he introduceth God thus speaking,) As he saith also in
Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my
people; and her beloved, which (then) was not beloved.
26 And it shall come to pass, that in the place (and
nation) where (formerly) it was said unto them, Ye are
not my people; “there shall they be called (i. e. there
shall arise a people which shall be called) the children
of the living God.
tions to what his will is the true cause of their not doing, and
reproofs and punishments of that which his will caused them
to do.
* Ver. 21. Oüx #xet #ovciay 3 negapºeic roſ, ruxº; Hath
not the potter power over the clay ?] That is, there is no
more cause from God's dispensation in this case, in taking
away the means of grace from and rejecting such a hardened
people, and showing his favour unto others, who submit to
his terms of mercy, to make this objection, than for the clay
of Jeremy, when it was marred and broken (Jer. xviii. 4.6),
to complain against the potter, that he took one part of it
and made it a vessel of dishonour, and another part of it and
made it a vessel of honour. -
That this example, of the clay in the hands of the potter,
relates to God's dealing with sinners according to his plea-
sure, is evident not only from the application of it here to
the impenitent, ver. 7, 8, but also from the like passage in
Ecclesiasticus, where we are taught from this very instance,
that “the ways of God are kará rày stºoziay abroſ, according
to his good pleasure ;” because “as the clay is in the hands
of the potter, so is man in the hands of him that made him,
to render to them as liketh him best, warà rºy ºpioiy aircü,
according to his righteous judgment” (Ecclus. xxxiii. 13).
* Ver. 22. El 3: Séxov 3 Os3c, What if God, &c.] i. e.
What injustice therefºre is it in God to deal with you as he
dealt with a hardened Pharaoh, you having as oft refused to
hearken to his voice as Pharaoh did P Or what if he long
hath, and still at present bears with such “vessels of his
wrath fitted for destruction,” till in a more illustrious manner,
and with more signal marks of his displeasure, for thus reject-
ing the gospel, and the promised Messiah, he swallow up
their nation, their people, their temple, and their holy city,
in one general destruction ? Is it not for the glory of the
divine power and wisdom to reserve the rejectors of the
Messiah, sent to bless them, and the persecutors of the
Christian faith, to be at last cut off with such a remarkable
destruction, as shall render it visible to the world that God’s
indignation is incensed against them for this sin, and so shall
give to Jew and gentile a farther motive to believe in Jesus?
And again, What if God is pleased, upon their impeni-
tence and obduration, to show the riches of his glorious good-
ness and mercy upon those Jews and gentiles, whom he hath
called to the faith of Christ, and so hath fitted and prepared
to be the vessels of his mercy P. Hath he not a just right to
show his mercy to such persons who have submitted to the
terms upon which he hath promised favour and acceptance,
27 (And whereas but a small remnant of Israel have
believed, and so but a few of them are fitted to be vessels
of his mercy; is not this also the very thing foretold
by their own prophet) Esaias also, (when he] crieth
concerning Israel (x. 22, 23), Though the number
of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea,
(yet) a remnant (only of them) shall be saved (i. e.
shall be converted to good, say the Jews, and so con-
tinue to enjoy the name and title of his people):
28 For (saith he ) he will finish the work, and cut
it short in righteousness: because * a short work will
the Lord make upon the earth (i. e. the land of
Judea).
29 And (this hath happened according) as Esaias
said before, (i. 9, That there was a time when the sins
of that people were so highly provoking, that) except
the Lord of sabaoth had left us a seed, (eacept his ea-
ceeding goodness had redeemed us in mercy, there were
sins in us, saith the Chaldee paraphrast, for which) we
had been as Sodom, and been made like unto Go-
morrha. -
30 "What shall we say then 2 (ri oëv špoipsv; what
do we say then 8 i. e. what is therefore the substance of
what I have intended in this discourse? It is even this, )
That the gentiles which followed not after righteous-
ness (i. e. who before the coming of Christ were not
solicitous touching justification before God, as having
no idea, and no notice of it, or call to it, and so as
little thought of being preferred before Israel, as Isaac,
being not born, of being preferred before Ishmael; and
and so to own them as the spiritual seed of Abraham, and so
as his peculiar people?
* Ver. 23. “A trºonroigacay ei, 3%ay, Whom he hath pre-
pared for his glory..] Thus the apostle, discoursing of the day
of the Lord, which was coming to execute his dreadful judg-
ments on the Jews, saith thus, “God hath not appointed us
to wrath, but to obtain salvation by oup Lord Jesus Christ”
(1 Thess. v. 9). * e
15 Wer. 26. ’Exsſ wan&#arovrai, There shall they be called the
children of the living God..] It must be acknowledged, that
in these words the prophet primarily speaketh of the restora-
tion of the Jews exiled, and cast off from being his people ;
but yet that these words may not only be accommodated,
but even extended to the gentiles, who were emphatically not
his people, and yet by faith became the seed of Abraham ;
and the true Israelites being the sons of God by faith in
Jesus Christ (ver. 6. 8), may be argued from the phrase
Eppin, “in the place” or nation “where it was said, Ye are
not my people:” and so the Jews themselves interpret these
words in the gloss upon the Talmud, saying, “They who
were not of my people shall adhere to the Lord, and be to
me for a people” (Glos. Talmud. in Tract. de Paschate, ad
cap. 8); according to that of the prophet Zechariah, “And
many nations shall adhere to the Lord in that day, and shall
be my people” (Zech. ii. 11).
16 Wer. 28. Ağyoy avyterpºnºvow. A short work.] i.e. Such
a consumption and decision is by God designed upon that
multitude of evil-doers in the land of Israel, as shall cut
them very short and lop them off, so that they shall be as a
tree, of which only the stump remaineth ; “They shall be
reduced,” saith R. Solomon, “to a small remnant, and a
remnant of that remnant shall be converted” (see Examen
Millii here). - -
17 Wer. 30. Ti ºy godøty; What do we then say?] From
this recapitulation of the whole dispute of the apostle in this
chapter, and his declaration that this was the design of it, to
justify God in this proceeding and dealing with them both,
it is exceeding evident that it was not at all designed to
determine anything touching God's absolute decrees of deal:
ing with mankind in general, thus or thus, as to their final
and eternal state, but only to justify his dealings, as in his
providence he had actually done with the unbelieving Jews,
rejecting them upon their stubborn infidelity and the hard-
ness of their hearts ; and with the believing gentiles, admit-
ting them to be his church and people, and the spiritual seed
of Abraham, upon their faith and submission to the terms he
574
ROMANS.
Jacob in the womb, of being chosen to be the promised
seed before Esau), have (yet, through God’s grace and
favour through faith,) attained to righteousness, even
the righteousness which is of faith (and so are made
God’s, and his peculiar people).
31 But Israel, (to whom the promises were first made,
and) which followed after the law of righteousness
(i. e. earnestly pursued after righteousness, and accept-
ance by the works of the law), hath not attained to the
law of righteousness, (or to the righteousness which
God accepteth. -
32 And) wherefore (is it so)? Because (they sought
had proposed for their justification and acceptance with
him.
* Ver. 32. ‘Q; # #yoy Vágºv.] ‘snº, say Hesychius and
Phavorinus, is used äyri roi; 3vraº &AmSojº, as in in the He-
brew is, or as an expletive: so Matt. xiv. 5. xxi. 6. John i.
14. 2 Cor. i. 17. Phil. ii. 7, 1 Pet. i. 12, so Neh. vii. 2,
aërë; &; āvāp &An6×, “He was a true man, and one that
feared the Lord:” see Noldius, Concord. Partic. p. 376, 377,
and is, as the Greek commentators often note, oùx épcolºr=w;
&AXà. 888atózews wał &yeº pia'8%rov 8tograpcot, “a particle not
of similitude but of confirmation,” and so may here be
rendered, “But verily,” or, “But indeed, by the works of
the law.”
* IIgoréxoslav yap, For they stumbled, &c.] They sought
not justification by faith in Christ, because whereas God
had pointed out to them this way of salvation, by saying,
“Behold, I lay in Zion a corner-stone, elect and precious,
and whosoever believeth in him shall not be ashamed,” Isà.
xxviii. 16, this corner-stone became to them of Israel, ac-
not this justification) by (that) faith which alone God
prescribed for that end), but "as (if) it were (to be ob-
tained) by the works of the law, (by which no flesh can
be justified, iii. 20, and the reason why they sought not
by faith in Christ is this), for they "stumbled at that
stumbling-stone; (and so it happened to them,)
33 As it is written, Behold, Ilay in Zion a "stum-
bling-stone and a rock of offence: and whosoever be-
lieveth on him shall not be ashamed, (but they that
believe not shall stumble, and fall, and be broken by the
* of stumbling, and rock of offence, Isa. viii. 14,
15).
cording to the words of the same prophet, viii. 14, “a stone
of stumbling, and a rock of offence:” they being offended
at him because of his poverty, humility, and outward mean-
ness, and the spirituality of his kingdom ; and so they
stumbled and fell off from being God’s people, and exclude
themselves from the blessings procured for and offered to
them by the Messias promised to their forefathers (see 1
Pet. ii. 6–8).
* Ver. 33. TIgoaxówkaro; Aidow, A stone of stumbling,
&c.] The Jews say, “The Son of David, i. e. the Messias,
cometh not till the two houses of the fathers of Israel shall
be taken away, to wit, the head of the captivity of Babylon,
and the prince who is in Israel, as it is said, “He shall be a
stone of stumbling, and a rock of ruin, to the two houses of
Israel, and many of them shall stumble and fall, and be
broken.” And the Chaldee paraphrast upon the place saith
thus, &c. Inb-pn R5 ER), “And if they will not obey, or re-
ceive (him), my word shall be to them for scandal and ruin
to the princes of the two houses of Israel.”
CHAPTER X.
l_BRETHREN, my heart’s desire and "prayer to God
for Israel is, that they might be saved.
2 For I bear them record that they have * a zeal
of God (being very desirous to do what they conceive
well pleasing to him, and acceptable in his sight), but
(this zeal is) not according to knowledge (i. e. not
joined with the knowledge of those things which would
render them truly acceptable to him).
3 For they being ignorant (through unbelief, 1 Tim.
i. 13,) of God’s righteousness, (i.e. of that way of
justification which alone renders us righteous, and ac-
ceptable in the sight of God, see note on Rom. i. 17.
2 Cor. v. 21,) and going about to establish their own
righteousness (which is of the law, Phil. iii. 9, and so a
ºrighteousness peculiar to them who are Jews), have not
submitted themselves to (that rightecusness which is
gº faith in Christ, and is) the righteousness of
God. *
4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteous-
ness (to be imputed) to every one that believeth (in
him ; the law being our schoolmaster to bring us to
Christ, that we might be justified by faith, Gal. iii. 25.
5 Which righteousness by faith can never be ob-
tained by the works of the law J for Moses describeth
the righteousness which is of the law (thus), That
the man which doeth those things “shall live by them
(so that this righteousness is, plainly, not of faith, but
works.) . . -
6 But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh
(so as that we may accommodate the works of Moses to
it) on this wise, Say not in thy heart, Who shall as-
cend into heaven? that is, to bring Christ down from
above (to be a teacher of it to us):
7 Or, Who shall “descend into the deep that is,
to bring up Christ again from the dead (to give us the
salvation purchased by his death). -
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. X.
* Ver. 1. ‘H 3ánaig, My prayer.] That the apostle speaks
not in the preceding chapter of the absolute and peremp-
tory rejection and reprobation of Israel, is evident from this
prayer, and vehement desire; for on supposition of such a
decree of reprobation, this must not only be a vain prayer,
but also an opposing of his will, and stºozia, to “the good
pleasure” of Almighty God revealed to him ; for it is evident
he prays here for all Israel, for them whose “zeal to God”
was “not according to knowledge,” and who were “igno-
rant of God’s righteousness,” ver. 2, 3, not for those only,
as Esthius descants, whom God hath predestinated to be
saved by the prayers of the saints.
* Wer. 2. Ziaoy OBoö, A zeal for God.] Hence were some
of them called “zealots,” taking that name 373 rºw in"
&ya33 &nxop.évov, “from those who were zealous for that
which was good,” saith Josephus, de Bello Jud. lib. vii, cap.
30, p. 986. -
* Ver. 5. Zhore rat #y aircíº, Shall live by them, A prosper-
ous and happy life in the land of Canaan, as Origen”
* Non dixit in aeternum, sed tantummodó wivet in ea.
Orig. in locum.
interprets the words, eternal life being not the promise of
the law, but of the gospel; and if eternal life was obscurely
hinted as the reward of their obedience to the law of Moses,
it related not to their obedience to the ceremonial, but to the
moral law ; of which our Saviour saith, “If thou wilt enter
into life (eternal, ver. 16), keep the commandments,” Matt.
xix. 18, and “This do, and thou shalt live,” Luke x. 28.
Obedience to which includes faith in his word and promises:
and so faith in Christ, when once that is revealed as the con-
dition of our justification, and the obedience they yielded
to it, availed to their salvation, only through the new cove-
nant of grace, which pardoned the infirmities of that obedi-
ence (see Examen Millii here).
* Ver. 7. Tig waragha-eral sic rºw #8warooy ; Who shall de-
scend into the deep 3) The words, Deut. xxx. 13, are these
“Who shall go over the sea?” that is, say the Targums of
Jerusalem and B. Uziel, “the great sea,” or the deep sea ;
and the Jerusalem Targum renders the words thus, “Oh that
there were one like Jonas the prophet, who would descend
Rn prºvº, into the depth of the great sea!” Now we know
Jonas descending into the deep was a type of Christ, Matt.
xii. 20, “ descending into the deep of the earth,” Ps. lxxi.
20, and being brought again, say the LXX. #x rāv 38áco-wv
CHAPTER X.
575
8 But what saith it (what therefore saith it 8) |
The word is "nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in
thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach;
9 That if thou shalt "confess with thy mouth the
Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God
hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
10 For with the heart man believeth unto righte-
ousness (Gr. to justification) ; and 7 with the mouth
confession is made (of that faith) unto salvation.
11 For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth
on him, shall not be ashamed (of his hope and salva-
tion by him, Rom. iv. 5. -
12 And it rightly saith, Whosoever,) for there is n
difference (as to the way of justification and salvation)
between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord
over all is rich unto all that call upon him (for salva-
tion).
13 For (as the prophet Joel saith, ii. 32) *whoso-
eVer ºu call upon the name of the Lord shall be
SaVCC1.
14 Now this calling upon him supposes God’s inten-
tion, that the gentiles, as well as Jews, should hear, in
order to their believing ; for did they not believe,) how
then shall they call upon him in whom they have not
believed (Did they not hear, and how shall they
believe in him of whom they have not heard And
(this hearing supposeth some preacher was to be sent to
the gentiles, for) how shall they hear without a
preacher 2
15. And (this preacher must have a commission from
God, for) how shall they preach unless they be sent?
(Now certainly we have been sent to you Jews, preach-
ing peace to you by Jesus Christ, Acts x. 36) as it is
written (Isa. lii. 7, 8), How "beautiful ( wpon the
yñº, “from the abysses of the earth ;” and this might give
occasion to the apostle to allude to their traditional interpre-
tation, or paraphrase on the words of Moses; like to which
are those of Baruch, iii. 16, “Who hath gone up into
heaven, and taken wisdom, and brought her down from the
clouds? who hath gone over the sea, and found her ?” And
to this effect is that of Philo, “What need is there ºwązgaç
oièomopia;, & roi; Baxarriety, either to take long journeys, or
go to sea in search of virtue, we having the root of it within
us?” or, as Moses saith, “in our mouth, in our heart, and in
our hand?” lib. Quod omnis probus liber, p. 677, E. Note
also, that the apostle says not, to bring Christ ab inferis, as
Esthius here doth, but only to bring him #x vengºr, “from .
the dead;” this place therefore concerns not Christ's descent
into hell, in the sense of Esthius. *
* Wer. 8. 'Eyyā; cow, Nigh thee..] It is neither far from
any man’s hearing, for we preach it everywhere ; nor far
from his understanding, for in preaching it “we use great
plainness of speech,” 2 Cor. iii. 12; it is in thy mouth to
profess, and in thy heart to believe it, and thus we preach.
* Ver. 9. 'E&y peoxoyńanç, If thou shalt confess, &c.]
Hence observe, *
First, That the justification is here expressly ascribed to
faith, and that not as including works, but only as being that
principle which, when it is cordial and sincere, will certainly
produce them : I say, not as including all those works which
by the gospel are required to salvation ; for then the righte-
ousness of faith must be described as is the righteousness of
the law, viz. that “the man who doth these things shall live
in them,” which is contrary to the words of the apostle, ver. 5,
6. See the preface to the Epistle to the Galatians.
Secondly, Observe, that the faith to which justification and
Salvation are ascribed, is not here, as it is elsewhere said to
be, faith in his blood, but a belief that “God had raised up
Jesus from the dead.” So Paul, having discoursed of the
faith of Abraham, which was imputed to him for righteous-
ness, Saith, “This was not written for his sake alone,” that
it was imputed to him, “but for us also to whom it shall be
imputed, if we believe in him that raised up Jesus our Lord
from the dead” (Rom. iv. 23, 24). Thus are we said to be
risen with Christ “through the faith of the operation of God,
who hath raised him from the dead” (Col. ii. 12). And in
Peter, the Christian is said to “believe through Christ in
God, who raised him from the dead, that our faith and hope
might be in God” (1 Pet. i. 21). Now this belief in God,
as raising our Lord Jesus from the dead, is therefore repre-
sented as faith unto Salvation, because it ministereth to us a
full assurance of Salvation by Christ, and of our resurrection
also ; for “if we believe that Jesus Christ died and rose
again, even so them also that sleep in Jesus will God bring
with him” (1 Thess. iv. 14); “knowing that he that raised
up the Lord Jesus, shall also raise us up by Jesus” (2 Cor.
iv. 13, 14). And this belief of a happy resurrection to eter-
mal life is a sufficient motive to be “stedfast, immoveable,
always abounding in the work of the Lord” (1 Cor. xv. 58).
And where it hath not these effects upon us, we do not in
the scripture sense duly believe and attend to it. Note,
Thirdly, That when the apostle saith, “If thou dost thus
confess and believe thou shalt be saved,” we need not under-
stand this of actual and complete Salvation, to be imparted
at the day of judgment; but that this faith and this confes-
sion will put us in the way of salvation, and give us a right
to it, whilst we continue to act suitably to this faith, which
I have shown to be the frequent import of the word salva-
tion and saved, when salvation is ascribed to faith and grace
(see the notes on Eph. ii. 8. Titus iii. 5).
* Ver. 10. X-régarº 38 peoxoyeſ rai, With the mouth confes-
sion is made to salvation.] For in those times of persecu-
tion for the sake of Christ, he that continued, under those
fiery trials, to hold fast his profession, could do it only
through that lively faith in Christ, and that sincere affection
to him above all worldly interests, which he hath promised
to reward with life eternal.
* Ver, 13. "Ertzañéanta rā Śwoºd Kugiov, Shall call upon
the name of the Lord.] The word in the original is Jehovah,
whence it is certain that the prophet speaks these words of
the true and only God ; and yet it is as certain that the
apostle here ascribes them to our Lord Jesus Christ, both
from the following words, “How shall they call on him in
whom they have not believed?” (for the apostle in this whole
chapter discourseth of faith in Christ;) and from the words
foregoing, of which these are a proof, and to which they are
connected with the particle yag for those words, “Whoso-
ever believeth in him shall not be ashamed,” are spoken
by the prophet Isaiah of Jesus Christ the “corner-stone,”
Isa. xxviii. 16, and so are they interpreted by Peter, 1 Pet.
ii. 6, 7. And in the prophet Joel these words follow, eúay-
yexićpºvot, où; Kūgio; Trºozzéxxntal, “And the evangelized,
whom the Lord shall call, shall be saved.” Here then we
have two arguments for the divinity of Christ: (1.) That
what is spoken of Jehovah is ascribed to him. (2.) That he
is made the object of our religious invocation (see note on
1 Cor. i. 2). But
Mr. L. indeed attempts to invalidate the force of both
these arguments, first, by saying that this calling upon the
name of the Lord doth not import the invocation of Christ,
but only an open profession of faith in him, because St.
Paul argues closely, and yet in the three preceding verses
requires an open profession of the gospel. Ans. There is
not one word of professing either in the eleventh or twelfth
verses ; in the ninth or tenth he mentions “confession with
the mouth,” and believing with the heart, as necessary, be-
cause the scripture saith, “Whosoever believeth shall not be
ashamed, the same Lord over all being rich to all that call
upon him :” for, Joel ii. 32, “Whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved.” If then Paul be a
close reasoner, he must speak of invocation of the name of
the Lord. Moreover, this being the character of the disciples
of Christ, even before they were called Christians (see note
on Acts ix. 2), and the continual practice of all Christians
from the beginning (see note on 1 Cor. i. 2), the apostle
might well argue from believers, to those that call upon
Christ’s name. The first argument he would invalidate by
denying that the words cited by Paul from Joel are to be
understood in the sense in which they are used by the pro-
phet, which in effect is to deny that the apostle argued either
closely or truly, for the whole of the apostle's inference is
lost, if either “the Lord,” ver, 13, be not the same Lord
with him in ver, 12, or if to “call upon” him doth not bear
the same sense in both places.
* Ver. 15. ‘oc &gaſol, How beautiful, &c.] The Midrash
Shir Hashirim upon those words of Cant. ii. 12, “The voice
576
ROMANS,
mountains) are the feet of them that preach the gospel
of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! (that
say unto Zion, Thy God reigneth, or, as the Chaldee,
The kingdom of thy God is revealed.) *
16 But (if the apostles were sent to the Jews, how is
it that) they have not all obeyed the gospel? (I an:
swer, This incredulity of the Jews is only that which
was foretold by their own prophets) ; for (so) Esaias
saith (of them, liii. 1), Lord, who hath believed our re-
port? (rºw groñu judiv.)
17 So then (ápa, these testimonies show that) faith
cometh by hearing, and hearing by (the preaching of)
the word of God.
18 But (Gr. moreover) I say (of the gentiles), have ||
they not heard? Yes verily (that of the psalmist being
true of us the preachers of the gospel), their “sound
of the turtle is heard in our land,” saith thus, “This is the
voice of the King Messiah, crying out, and saying, How
beautiful,” &c. Moreover, from those words, “How shall
they believe in him of whom they have not heard?” ver, 14,
and from those, ver. 17, “Faith cometh by hearing,” &c., it
follows that those gentiles who never had the gospel preached
to them, or any opportunity of hearing it, cannot be con-
demned for want of faith in Christ or in his doctrine, that
being to condemn them for the want of that which they
never were in a capacity to have ; if therefore they are ca-
pable of a reward, as they must be who are obliged to “be
lieve that God is the rewarder of all them that diligently
seek him” (Heb. xi. 6), Christ must be a Saviour to them
who do thus seek him, though they know not of him.
1° Wer. 18. “o $93,0; airøy, Their voice.] These words
being spoken literally of the preaching of the Hebrews to
the gentiles, touching the power, wisdom, and the goodness of
God; and the psalmist speaking immediately after of God's
teaching his people by the law, as a more glorious discovery
of his will to the Jews, the apostle very appositely accom-
modates these words to the revelation of his power, wisdom,
goodness and mercy, in the gospel to the heathens.
went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends
of the world. (ch. viii. Colos. i. 16. 23.)
1g "But (yea, or also, ) I say, Did not Israel know
(of the preaching of the gospel to the gentiles, and of
their own infidelity in rejecting it 2 This surely they
might know from their own scriptures; for) first Moses
saith, I will provoke you (refusing to believe) to jea-
lousy by then that are (yet) *no people (of God),
and by a foolish nation I will anger you.
20 But Esaias is very bold (in his eaſpression), and
saith (of the gentiles), I was found of them that (for-
merly) sought me not ; I was made manifest to them
that asked not after me.
21 But to Israel (foretelling their infidelity) he saith,
*All day long have I stretched forth my hands unto
a disobedient and gainsaying people. ,
Moreover, that tºp, which we render “their line,” Ps.
xix. 4, does signify “their loud cry,” and so is well ren:
dered by the apostle here 5 pSáyyo, airów, “their sound,”
i. e. the sound of the apostles, is fully proved by Dr. Po-
cock, Miscel. cap. 4, p. 48.
11 Wer. 19. `Axx3, But..] That 3xx& signifies yea, see our
translation rendering it so five times, 2 Cor. vii. 11. John
xvi. 2. That it signifies, quin etiam, quin immö, see Nol-
dius, and Luke xii. 7. 1 Cor. iii. 2. xii. 22.
* 'Em' oën Svet, By them that are no people.] That this
is the description of the heathens, see note on 1 Cor. i. 28.
who are also styled, not only by the Jews, but by the scrip-
tures, whilst idolaters, “a foolish people,” Jer. x. 8. Rom.
i. 21, 22. Titus iii. 3. -
19 Wer. 21. “oxºv 'rºy #wigay, All the day long.] These
words are cited from Isa. lxv. 1, 2, and Aben Ezra informs
us, that R. Moses Hacoben” said, “The first verse is to be
understood of the nations of the world, as if it had been
said, I am found of the nations which are not called by my
name, but to my people have I stretched out my hand:” and
so the apostle interprets and applies the words here.
* Voisin de Lege Div. p. 494.
CHAPTER XI.
1 I SAY then, (that the generality of the Jews are
hardened and cast off, but what then 8) Hath God cast
away his people (utterly and without eaception) 8 God
forbid (we should so think). For I am also an Israel-
ite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin
(and yet chosen to be an apostle of Christ).
2 God (therefore) hath not (thus) cast away his
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XI.
* Wer. 2. “Ov trpoÉyyo, Whom he foreknew.] Concerning the
people of Israel, Moses speaks thus ; “Thou art a holy
people to the Lord thy God; the Lord thy God ºrgosiasto,
hath chosen thee to be a special people to himself above
(or, before) all people that are upon the face of the earth,”
Deut. vii. 6.x. 15. Now to be “chosen,” and to be “known
of God,” are the same thing in scripture, and therefore the
phrase is elsewhere varied thus; “You only have I known
before all the families of the earth,” Amos iii. 2, tº 3¢ flyvoy
#x racáv rāv pundiv rā; 7% Numb. xvi. 5, “To-morrow,
yºn, and the Lord will know who are his, and who is holy,
even him whom he hath chosen,” which by the LXX. is thus
translated, xai Éyvo 3.98% row; Syrac aircü, wai roic &yíov;
où; #8Aé%aro airó, “The Lord knoweth who are his, and
the holy ones whom he hath chosen to himself;” and, ver. 7,
“The man whom the Lord doth choose, he shall be holy.”
And those words of Hosea, “Judah yet ruleth with the
Lord, and is faithful with his saints,” xi. 12, are by the Sep-
tuagint thus rendered, zal 'Io98a vöv #yvo airoi; 3 Oesc, was 3
Aáo; #yto; ºnShore rat Qsoij, “And as for Judah, now God hath
known them, and he shall be called the holy people of
people *whom he foreknew. (Ps. xcv. 3, And to repre-
sent this in a like case well known to you,) Wot you
not what the scripture saith of Elias (#v 'HAig, in the
history of Elias); how he (in it) maketh intercession
to God *against (the king and people of) Israel, say-
lng,
3 Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged
God:” so that the “people whom he foreknew,” may be
here only a periphrasis of the Jewish nation, which God
hath chosen before all other nations of the world, and there-
fore would not utterly cast off, because his “gifts and call-
ings are without repentance” (ver. 29): or it may signify
those of them who believed in Christ, and so were such as
he had purposed to save, or “the election according to grace’
(ver. 5. 7), which sense this phrase bears, Rom. viii. 29.1
Pet. i. 1, 2.
* Evrvyxável tº Osó war& roi. 'Iopaña, He maketh interces-
sion to God against Israel.] 'Ev'rvyxávely tree, is to intercede
or be an advocate for a person, and he that doth so is called
avyāyogog, and this is the office of our blessed Lord, “who
ever lives to make intercession for us;” but #y'rvyxávely wará
rivos, is to accuse, or charge a person with a crime, and so to
intercede against him. So I Macc. viii. 32, “If the Jews
complain against thee, #&v #yréxoat wará orov, we will do them
justice.” And when wicked men came to king Alexander
to complain against Jonathan, the king commanded a pro-
clamation to be made, roi; ºftöEva èvrvyxávely xar' airoi; treet
ºwnbeyā; ºrgáypºaroº, “that no man should complain against
him about any matter,” l Macc. x. 61. 63. And again, xi.
25, “Some wicked men complained against him,” #yrūyxaycy
CHAPTER XI.
577
"down thine altars; and I am left alone (of all thy
prophets), and they seek my life. -
4 But what saith the answer of God to him (in that
history) 8 (It speaks thus,) I have reserved to myself
seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee
“to the image of Baal.
5 Even so then (is it) at this present time also, (for
even now) there is a remnant according to the "elec-
tion of grace.
6 And if (they who are chosen in Christ, Eph. i. 4,
to be God’s church and people, are put into this state)
by grace, (being justified freely by his grace, Rom. iii.
24,) then it is no more of (the) works (of the law that
they are thus justified and accepted by him); otherwise
grace is no more grace; (for what need is there of
grace, where men have continued in all things written
in the law to do them 8 Moses having said, The man
that doth these things shall live by them, Rom. x. 5.)
But (on the other hand) if it be of works (that we are
justified and accepted), then it is no more (of) grace:
otherwise work is no more work (for grace comes in
only to supply the defect of works, that is, to procure
pardon for the non-performance of them, according to
the tenor of the law). -
7 What then (must be said in this case but this 2
viz. that the whole nation of) Israel hath not obtained
that (righteousness or justification, Rom. ix. 30, 31)
which he seeketh for ; but the election (the chosen
generation of believers, 1 Pet. ii. 9) hath obtained it,
and the rest were blinded
8 (And this blindness hath.happened to them, J (ac-
cording as it is written, “God hath given them the
spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and
ears that they should not hear,) unto this day.
9 And (as) David saith, Let their table be (or" their
table shall be) made a snare, and a trap, and a
war' attoº. So here, Évrvyxávew war& roi; 'Iapañx, is to
“complain against Israel.”
* Ver. 3. Tà Svataa rhetá arov, Thy altars..] Not those
which God approved of after the building of the temple,
they being then obliged to offer all their sacrifices “at the
place which God had chosen to put his name there,” Deut.
xii. 5, 6; but those which had before been used by the patri-
archs and prophets for the service of God, as that of Samuel
in Ramah and in Mizpeh, 1 Sam. vii. 9. ix. 13, in Gil-
gal, xi. 16, at Bethlehem, xvi. 2. 4, and the altar of the
Lord at Carmel, I Kings xviii. 30, on which the pious peo-
ple of the ten tribes sacrificed when they were not permitted
to go up to Jerusalem, that law, saith Kimchi, then ceasing
as to them. -
* Ver. 4. Tº Báax, To Baal.] That is, to the image of
Baal ; so Hos. ii. 8, “I gave her the gold and the silver
which she prepared for Baal,” Gr. airi, 33 &eyvgä kal Xava &
#moinae r? Báza, “But she prepared this gold and silver for
the image of Baal ;” she made idols of them, saith the Tar-
gum ; so Tobit i. 5, #Svoy rà Báax rà èagáxet, “They sacri-
ficed to the heifer Baal;” Jer. ii. 28, “according to the
number of their streets in Jerusalem, #6voy riſ Báax, have
they sacrificed to the image of Baal;” for sure they had not
as many Baalims as they had streets, and therefore, where
the Septuagint reads, riſ Báax, there the Chaldee add ,
“idols,” or “images:” “I will blot out the names of Baal,”
& vºcata rā; Báax; rehquias idolorum Baal, Targum (see
Hosea xiii. 1). This I prefer before that notion of the
º Selden, that Baal was ājjevo.9%xv., " male and fe-
male.”
* Ver. 5. The election of grace.] See note on ver. 28.
That many who belonged to this election fell away, is evi-
gent from the Epistle to the Hebrews (see the note on 2
Thess. ii. 3); and whereas Dr. Mills contends that the words
following, viz. ei ?? §§ {pyov, oix #r. Hari x&gt;, #wei ré Beyov
obs iri iary eyor, are supposititious, as being not found in the
Vulgar, in Hilary the deacon, and in the Latin Origen: that
they are genuine, is proved in the Syriac and Arabic versions,
from Theodoret, Photius, CEcumenius, and Theophylact, who
all retain them : and from these words of Chrysostom, who,
tom. v. ed. Morell. p. 718, explains and confirms them thus:
He that contends he is to be saved by the works of the law,
hath no title to grace, 3rse oty wai IIaixo, aivitréasyo, #Asysy,
si xéetti, &c. ei 3; # Epyov, oix #r. Hari xágic, ins: rö eyov oëw
ãrt a riv #yov. See Examen Millii in locum.
* Ver. 8, "Eboxey abroſ, 3 QE3;, God hath given them a spi-
wit of slumber, &c.] The Hebrew in), and the Greek 3:30ai,
is often used to signify a permission of that which we can
hinder, as Gen. xxxi. 7, oùx #8wasy airá 6 @gic taxonroiſſa'ai £45,
“God (saith Jacob) permitted not Laban to hurt me,”
Deut. xviii. 14, waſ co, oùx offrac àoxe Kūeto; 5 Osó, cov, “The
Lord thy God hath not suffered thee to do so" (see also
Judg. xv. 1. Acts ii. 27. xiii. 35). So again, 1 Kings xxii.
22, 23, “The Lord hath put, #8wkey à Gºc, a lying spirit in
the mouth of all thy prophets;” i. e. he hath permitted him
freely to go forth, and to deceive them, ver. 22. Esth. ix. 13,
“If it please the king, .300%to 'Iověaiotº, let it be granted to
the Jews to do so to-morrow also.” Of him that sat upon
the red horse it is said, that #360; airó, “it was given him to
take peace from the earth,” Rev. vi. 4. ix. 3. 5; of the beast
it is said, #360n airó, “There was given to him a mouth to
speak great things, and blasphemies; and it was given him
to make war with the saints, and overcome them” (see Hos.
xiii. 11. Joel ii. 17. 19. Rev. vi. 8. ix. 14, 15, see the note
on i. 24.26). And in this sense God is here said to have
given the Jews “a spirit of slumber,” by permitting them to
lie under those prejudices against the true Messiah, which
their traditions concerning him, and the doctrine and autho-
rity of the scribes and pharisees had wrought within them ;
as also by delivering the things belonging to Christ's king-
dom obscurely to them, and in parables, because they would
not receive them when more plainly taught (Matt. xiii. 13);
and by “taking the kingdom of God from them, and giving
it to a nation that would bring forth the fruits of it,” because
they contradicted and blasphemed the doctrine of that king-
dom, and so caused the apostles to turn from them to the
gentiles (Matt. xxiii. 43. Acts xiii. 45,46); and by refusing
to walk in the light whilst they enjoyed it, they made it just
that “darkness should (thus) come upon them,” or that they
should “have eyes, and see not, ears, and hear not;” which
is a mode of speaking used frequently in the Old Testament,
and in Philo the Jew, and others, to represent men who had
contracted such prejudices against God’s word, and such wi-
cious habits, as made them not to discern or give ear to the
voice of God, or reason, calling them to reformation and
amendment. So God speaks by his prophet Isaiah, “Hear
ye deaf; and look, ye blind: seeing many things, but thou
observest not; opening the ears, but he heareth not,” Isa.
xlii. 18.20. And by the prophet Jeremiah, “Hear now this,
O foolish people, and without understanding ; which have
eyes, and see not, which have ears, and hear not,” Jer. v. 21.
By the prophet Ezekiel, saying, “They have eyes to see,
and see not: ears to hear, and hear not : for they are a
rebellious house,” Ezek. xii. 2. So Christ speaks to his own
disciples, “Having eyes, do ye not see Pº' Mark viii. 18.
So Philo often saith of men addicted to their sensual plea-
sures, and pursuing them against the dictates of their minds,
that” ježvºrs; oix àpºrt, Kai &zotovºre; oix àxočovat, “seeing they
see not, and hearing they hear not;” this he saith, regi rāv
#3oyā, Kenognaávoy, “ of persons satiated with pleasure, and
drunk with the love of wine.” This, saith he, happens,’t #y
roſ. 26gotº, #y raï, ºftBatº, “when we indulge to gluttony, or
drnnkenness;” andf #y raï, Ka8’ invoy payracials, “in the
phantasms of our dreams.” Thus of those heathens who
worshipped the works of their own hands, Justin, Martyrs
saith, that 340axpºol); #xovre; oix #48wy, ciº Kagºſa, ixºte,
owſeray, “having eyes, they saw not, and having hearts, they
did not understand.”
7 Wer. 9. Teynóñro, &c. Their table shall be, and their eyes
shall be..] They who are skilled in the Hebrew tongue, know
that these words are as capable of the future, as the impe-
rative mood and tense: they are rendered in the future by
-***** *
* Aleg. Leg. lib. ii. p. 72. + Aleg. lib. iii. p. 150.
: L. de Josepho, p. 424, G.
§ Dial cum. Tryph. p. 295, B.
- 2 P
578
ROMANS.
stumblingblock, and a recompence unto them (of favour) be (to the gentiles), but (even as) life (or a re-
their evil deeds):
10 Let their eyes be (or their eyes shall be) dark-
surrection) from the dead 2 -
16 (Nor are you to imagine this is an improbable
ened, that they may not see, and (thou shalt) *bow ’ and even desperate supposition :) for if the (patriarchs,
down their back alway.
ll I say then (or moreover, of those of the Jewish
| who were the) *first-fruits (of them) be (were) holy
(called and separated to the service of God from all
nation which are thus blinded), Have they (so) stumbled the people of the earth), the lump (of the whole nation)

that they should (irrecoverably) fall God forbid (we is also (in God’s designation) holy: and if the root (of
should think so of them) : but (so hath it happened them, viz. Abraham) be (was) holy (and beloved of
through the wise counsel of God thatj through their
fall salvation is come unto the gentiles (whom God
hath now chosen to be his people), for to provoke them
to jealousy (or to an emulation of their faith, that they
also may be saved).
12 Now (st 68, and) if the fall of them (from the
prerogative of being God’s peculiar people happened
thus to) be the riches of the (gentile) world, and the
diminishing of them the riches (and increase) of the
gentiles; how much more (shall) "their fulness (be
the increase of them) 8
13 (Of you gentiles, I say,) for I speak (this) to you
gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the gentiles,
(and by thus speaking) I magnify my office, (as declar-
ing it to reach to the whole body of the gentiles, and
to have been thus efficacious among them, Rom. xv.
18, 19.
14 And I speak of your being chosen thus to be
God’s people j “if by any means I may provoke to
(an) emulation (of your faith) them which are my
flesh, and (so) might (be a means to) save some of
them. -
15 (And indeed their salvation is desirable, not only
for their own, but for your sakes :) for if the casting
away of them be (an occasion of) the reconciling of the
world, what shall the receiving of them (again into
Arias Montanus: and the Seventy interpreters sometimes
render them in the imperative, as Ps. cik. 6. 15, and some-
times in the future, as ver. 17, “As he loved cursing, so let
it come upon him, Rai #et airó, as he delighted not in bless-
ing, so let it be far from him,” kai (waxpv6%areras &r airoij,
and ver, 8, “Let them curse, but bless thou,” xarapároy'ral
airoi, zai ai sùxoyhoeic, “They shall curse, but thou shalt
bless.” -
* Ver. 10. Tov wºrow airów, &c. Ever bow down their
backs.] That is, let them be in slavery and bondage ; the
contrary, “going upright,” signifying their freedom from
Egyptian thraldom, by taking that yoke of bondage from
them, which made them stoop under it. So Lev. xxvi.
13, “I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you
to go upright.” So the Midrash Tillim upon these words
of the psalmist, Ps. cxlvi. 8, “The Lord raiseth them that
are bowed down,” saith, “These are the Israelites carried
captive from their own land; for since they were banished
from Jerusalem, they have not been able to stand upright,
but have bowed down their backs before their enemies, who
go over them.:” and therefore in their second benediction,
before their reading of the morning schema, they pray thus,
“Bring us in peace from the four wings of the earth, et duc
nos staturâ erectà in terram nostram, and lead us standing
upright into our own land.” Having thus answered the first
question, he proceeds to inquire, whether they of them who
thus stumbled have fallen so as that they shall never be re-
covered.
* Ver. 12., IIAfteopºa aúrów, Their fulness.] As ºrxheoga
‘rod Xgóvov, signifies the whole tract of time appointed for
such an event, Gal. iv. 4. Eph. i. 10, traigoga t}; yńc, “the
whole contents of the earth,” 1 Cor. x. 26. 28, and rxheap.a.
rā; Seárnrog is “the full perfection of the Deity,” Col. ii. 9,
and Trafičaka rot. Xela toû, is “the perfection,” or the fulness
of grace and wisdom, with which he fills his members, Eph.
iv. 13, and that #4 rot Trampºgaro; auroi, from that fulness
of the Spirit which is in him, John i. 16, and arxāpoºp.a. Geoſ,
is the same fülness derived from God, Eph. iii. 19 ; so here,
Trañpop, a rôy airów is the time when the gentiles should
more fully come in, and God would show mercy to there
God), so are the branches (also beloved still of God
for the fathers' sake, and so will be once more, in his
good time, admitted to his favour).
17 And if (it hath so happened that) some of the
branches (through infidelity) be broken off, and thou
(gentile), being a wild olive-tree (or branch), wert
graffed in among them, and with them (who believey
partakest (of the privileges) of the root and the fatness
of the olive-tree (into which thou art graffed);
18 Boast not against the branches (now cut off, as
if they were utterly rejected from God’s care and fa-
vour) : but if thou boast, (consider) thou bearest not
the root, but the root thee; (the promises being not
made to thee, but to Abraham their root ; and if thou
becomest partaker of them only by being the spiritual
seed of Abraham, by imitation of his faith, how much
more shall they, who are by lineal descent the seed of
Abraham and so the primary and direct heirs of the
promise, Acts iii. 25. xii. 26, in due time be graffed into
their own root * ver. 24.)
19 Thou wilt say then, The (natural) branches
were broken off (for their infidelity), that I might be
graffed in (i. e. received as God’s people in their
stead). -
20 Well; because of unbelief they were broken off,
(i.e. rejected from being his church and people, ver.
all, ver. 25. 32, and Trahçop, a röy Iověaíoy, “the fulness of
the Jews,” is “the coming-in of all Israel,” ver. 26. And
so Paul himself all along interprets it, styling it, ver. 15,
"rgác An-pic, “the receiving them into grace” and favour by
God, the “engraffing” them who were broken off, as the un-
believing Jews were, “into their own olive-tree,” ver. 23, 24,
the “turning away iniquity from Jacob,” ver. 26.
* Ver. 14. Ef ºrog Trapaénxiào'o, If by any means I may
provoke them, &c.] This seems to be said in allusion to
those words of God, Deut. xxxii. 21, “They have moved
me to jealousy with that which is not God, xiiya, Tragašnx&aw
and I will move them to jealousy with those that are not a
people,” ver. 12; that seeing them who before were not
the people of God, now chosen to be his people, and in-
vested with all the privileges which formally belonged to
them, viz. being of his church, among whom he dwells, and
to whom he gives his Spirit, his new law, his prophets, apos-
tles, and evangelists, they might be induced to believe, and
so might still share in all those blessings. Hence also it
appears that the apostle did not think they were so blinded
or given up to a spirit of slumber, but that they might still
be saved. - -
* Ver. 16. Ei 3; # 3 tra exh, The first-fruits of them were
holy.] It is generally known that the word holy, when ap-
plied to persons, families, churches, and nations, signifies
their being called, consecrated, and separated from the world
unto God’s service: in which sense, in the Old Testament,
it is frequently applied to the priest, Numb. xvi. 5. Ps. cwi.
16, to the Levites, Numb. iii. 13. viii. 14—17, to the whole
Jewish nation, Exod. xxii. 31. xix. 6. Deut. vii. 6. xiv. 2.
21. xxviii. 9. Isa. lxii. 12. Dan. viii. 24. xii. 7. Hence then
the argument runs thus: If God so loved Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, as to engage his word that he would be their God,
and the God of their seed for ever, Gen. xvii. 7, and by
thus entering into covenant with them, hallowed to himself
all their posterity, even as the “first-fruits” of their dough,
made an offering, “hallowed the whole lump,” Numb. xv.
20, then will he, in his good time, be so mindful of them
as to bring them again into his covenant, so that “they shall.
be his people, and he will be their God ;” for “as touching
CHAPTER XI.
579
15,) and thou standest (Gr. hast stood) by faith. Be
not highminded, (vaunt not thyself over them, ver. 18.
25,) but fear (lest this should also be thy case) :
21 For if God spared not the natural branches,
6. hast cause to fear) *lest he also spare not
thee. -
22 Behold therefore (in this dispensation) the good-
ness and severity of God: on them which fell, seve-
rity (in taking the kingdom of God away from them,
Matt. xxi. 43); but to thee, goodness (in admitting
thee to be his church and people; which goodness will
be still shown to thee), if thou continue in (or worthy
of) his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off
(for thy infidelity and disobedience).
23 And (as thou standest by faith, so) they also, if
they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in :
* for God is able to (work in them that faith which
will) graff them in again.
24 (And that he will thus graff them in, we have just
cause to think :) for if “thou wert cut out of (Gr. off
from) the olive-tree which is wild by nature, and wert
graffed, contrary to nature, into a good olive-tree: how
much more shall these, which be the natural branches
(though now cut off), be graffed (again) into their own
olive-tree *
25 (And this now I declare :) for I would not, bre-
thren, that you should be ignorant of this *mystery
(of the intended calling of the now-rejected Jews), lest
you should be wise in your own conceits (boasting
over them, ver, 18, as, being yourselves men of greater
wisdom, and more highly favoured of God); that
blindness in part is happened to Israel, (i. e. as to the
greatest part of them, a remnant only being now
brought into the faith, ver. 5. 7. ix. 27,) till the (time
of the) fulness (or more complete conversion) of the
gentiles be come in.
26 And so *all (the nations of) Israel shall be
saved (i.e. called and put into a state of salvation,
1 Tim. i. 9); as it is written (Isa. lix. 20), There
shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn
away ungodliness from Jacob.
27 And (again he by Isaiah saith) this is my cove-
nant to them (Isa. lix. 21), when I shall take away
their sins, (xxvii. 9.)
28 As concerning the gospel (preached to them first,
and upon their rejection of it, to the gentiles, Acts xiii.
45.47) they are (now) enemies (to it, and by opposing
it, to God and Christ) for your sakes, (being prejudiced
against it, because you are received to the blessings of
it, and that without circumcision, or being joined to
them, Acts xvii. 13. xxii. 21, 22. 1 Thess. ii. 16,) but
* as touching the election (of that nation to be a holy
people to himself), they are (thus) beloved for the
fathers’ sakes.
the election, they are still beloved for the fathers' sake.” If
this argument runs only upon the Supposition that they do
believe, it saith that only which is as true of all gentiles; it
therefore seems to be an argument that they will be received
into favour, and therefore will believe, wer. 21.
* Wer. 21. Māºrw; otöä cow ºptiºn rat, Lest he also spare
not thee]. 96865, “Fear” is to be repeated from the former
verse. So I Thess, iii. 5, “I sent to know your faith,” aft-
wrog insigacey ºptic, subaud, poéoétiewo, “fearinglest the temp-
ter should have tempted you.” .
* Wer. 23. Award, yā; Harw & Oedº, For God is able, &c.]
From which power we may reasonably conclude his will to
do so, for so the apostle argues, xiv. 4, “He shall be holden
up, for God is able to make him stand ; 2 Cor. vi. 8, “He
that soweth liberally, shall reap liberally ; for God is able
to make all grace abound towards you” (see note on xiv. 4).
* Ver. 24.] Note, that there should be a fulness of the
fallen Jews, and a receiving them again into favour, whom
God had now cast off, the apostle plainly doth suppose, ver.
12. 15, and now he sets himself to the proof of it, by an
argument, à minori ad majus, viz. If they, who had no such
relation to Abraham, and the blessings promised to him,
as the Jews had, were yet partakers of the blessings pro-
mised to Abraham, the root of that nation, how much more
shall this favour, in God's due time, be granted to them who
are children of the stock of Abraham P
* Ver. 25. To ºvarăgtoy rojvo, This mystery, &c.] See
the confirmation of this exposition in the appendix to this
epistle.
* Ver. 26.] Hence the second argument for a general
conversion of the Jews runs thus: If that part of the Jews
to which blindness hath happened shall be delivered from
that heavy judgment, if “there shall come to them out of
Zion a Deliverer to turn away their iniquity,” if God will
accomplish his covenant hereafter with them, “by taking
away their sins,” then they who are thus blinded shall be
converted to the Christian faith. Where note,
First, That this promise is made to that part of the Jews
to which blindness had happened, ver. 15, and so the pro-
mise of Salvation to this Israel, cannot be interpreted of all
the true children of Abraham, Jews and gentiles both.
Secondly, It saith that God will take away their sins,
and “turn away ungodliness from Jacob,” Now if this sig-
nifies that God will send “a Deliverer out of Zion,” to pro-
cure the pardon of this people's sins, since pardon only can
be given to them through faith in Christ, this Deliverer must
be that Jesus who saves his people from their sins ; if it
imports that God would take away the punishment of their
iniquity, that being the blindness and spiritual slumber
which was then, and is still upon them ; the removal of it
must signify their conversion, this blindness being only then
to be taken away, “when they shall turn to the Lord,” 2
Cor. iii. 14—16.
* Ver. 28. Kaºri: 88 rºy #xxoyiv, As touching the election.]
Here is in this chapter mention of a double election, viz.
#x?oyà Xàtiros, “election of grace,” ver. 5, the gospel elec-
tion of persons and nations to be his church and people,
which being purely on the account of that faith which is the
gift of God, without consideration of any other worthiness that
we had, or any works that we had done, is styled “the elec-
tion of grace ;” and thus a remnant only of the Jews were
chosen, ver. 7, “for many” of them were “called,” by the
preaching of the gospel to the faith, it being preached to
them first, Acts xiii. 45, but “few” of them were “chosen”
to be members of the church of Christ, because few of them
believed. And, secondly, there is an election, 31& row; ºraré-
ga;, to be God's people for their fathers' sake, in which sense
the whole nation of the Jews are styled the elect: as in these
words, “Because he loved thy fathers,” viz. Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, Deut. iv. 37, Kai #8Aéaro rā cºrêteza airāy aft’
abrovº tºxar, “therefore he chose you their seed after them,
and brought you out of Egypt by his mighty power;” where
it is evident that all that were brought out of Egypt, were
the elect, or the chosen seed. So Deut. vii. 6–8, “The
Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, oi Trgost-
xero tºwāg, he did not fore-elect you, because you were more
in number than any people; but because the Lord loved you
and because that he would keep the oath which he had sworn
to your fathers, hath he brought you out with a mighty hand,
and redeemed you out of the house of bondage.” Where
again it is evident, (1.) that their being chosen to be God’s
peculiar people before other nations, is their election: and
(2.) that all who were brought out of Egypt were thus be:
loved, and thus chosen. And again, x. 14, 15, “The Lord
had a delight in thy fathers to love them, xai #EA£aro tº
a répºca airāy ºr airob; tº 3¢, therefore he elected you their
seed after them above all people; circumcise therefore the
foreskin of your hearts, and be no more stiffnecked.”
Where again evident it is, that the whole seed of Abra-
ham by Isaac, even the stiffnecked of them, were the be-
loved, and the elect of God; it being therefore not upon
account of their righteousness, Deut. ix. 5, but for the love
he had, and the promises he made, to their fathers, that he
first loved and chose them for his people ; and his love to
these forefathers being still the same, and his promise to
them being this, that he would be “for ever a Godº them,
2 P 2
580
ROMANS.
29 For (though they have rendered themselves unwor-
thy of his favour, yet) the * gifts and calling of God
are without repentance.
º 30 (Nor will their present infidelity and disobedience
be any obstacle to this conversion :) for as ye (gentiles)
in times past have not believed God (Gr. were disobe-
dient to God), yet have now obtained mercy through
their unbelief (God having received you gentiles to be
his people, because of their infidelity):
31 Even so have these also now not believed (Gr.
not obeyed), that "through your mercy they also may
obtain mercy.
32 For * God hath concluded all (both Jew and ||
gentile) in unbelief, that (at last) he might have
mercy upon all.
33 O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom
and knowledge of God! (by which he is able to con-
and their seed after them,” Gen. xvii. 7, he must have that
kind affection and regard to them, which will engage him to
choose them again for his peculiar people, notwithstanding
their present blindness; and “all Israel” being thus elected
“for the fathers' sake,” this calling must belong to them all.
* Ver. 29. Tà Xapiapara, For the gifts, &c.] The par-
ticle for shows that these words relate to what was said in the
former verse, viz. “They are beloved for their fathers' sake,”
to whom God gave this 31&0%xn aid vior, “everlasting covenant
to be the God of their seed after them,” Gen. xvii. 7. Now
this covenant made with the fathers being absolute, and the
calling of their seed to be his peculiar people being the
effect of it, God will not repent for ever of his kindness to
them ; hence he engageth to save them “with an everlasting
salvation,” Isa. xlv. 17, “with everlasting kindness to have
mercy on them,” liv. 8, lvi. 5. lx. 19, 20. lxi. 7, and saith,
“I have loved thee with an everlasting love,” Jer. xxxi. 3.
If then God will not repent for ever of his covenant made
with their forefathers, “to be the God of their seed after
them for ever,” or that “he chose Jacob for himself, and
Israel for his heritage,” Ps. cxxxv. 4, then will he certainly
restore them to that privilege and happy state ; but God
vert all things to the honour and glory of his name, and
make his severest judgments to conclude at last in
nercy () How unsearchable are his judgments (to any
human understanding), and his ways past finding out
(by any wit of man) / - -
34 For who hath (through his own wisdom, without
revelation, ) known the mind of the Lord? Or who
hath been his counsellor (in thus ordering matters re-
lating to Jew or gentile) 8 -
35 Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be
recompensed to him again (i. e. who hath laid any
obligations on him to reward him 8 Surely no man.)
36 For of him (as the donor), and through him (as
the director and providential orderer), and to him (as
the end), are all things: to whom be glory for ever.
Amen. -
will not thus repent, “for the gifts and callings of God are
without repentance.”
* Ver. 31. Tº ºperápa, ixási, To your mercy.] i. e. Which
unbelief hath happened not to your rejection, as it did to
them, but “to your mercy,” that they also may obtain mercy
together with you, and you with them, the fulness of the
gentiles coming in with their conversion.
This argument for calling the Jews runs thus: If God
hath called the gentiles to his grace after a long idolatry and
infidelity, though they were not before ever admitted to those
privileges the Jews enjoyed, nor had not God promised to
be their God for ever, much more will he recall his chosen
people from their infidelity.
* Ver. 32.] Esthius's note upon these three verses is
this, That the apostle doth without controversy in these
words speak of Israel according to the flesh, and therefore
in the preceding words must be supposed to speak of the
same Israel; so that hence the tradition of the church con-
cerning the calling of the Jews towards the end of the world
is established.
(See the appendix to this chapter, concerning the calling of .
the Jews to the Christian faith, at the end of this Epistle.)
CHAPTER XII,
1 I BESEECH you, therefore, brethren, by the mer-
cies of (that) God, (of whom, and through whom are all
things, and to whose glory they are all designed, xi. 36,
or by the mercies of God, mentioned xi. 30–32), that
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XII.
* Wer. 1. IIaşaatia at rà oðgara tºy 090'iay &ray, To
present your bodies a living sacrifice..] By sin reigning in our
mortal bodies, and by obeying the motions of it in our in-
ward actions, we being said to present rà aftan iaºy, “the
members of our bodies instruments of unrighteousness to
sin” (vi. 12, 13), the apostle here doth, properly exhort us
tragarrigal, “to present” the same bodies now “a living sa-
crifice,” in opposition to the legal sacrifices, which were first
slain, and then offered up to God upon the altar, viz. by
being now “dead unto sin, but alive unto God, through Jé-
sus Christ our Lord:” a holy sacrifice, as being consecrated
to the service of God, and “having our fruit unto holiness,” as
the servants of God still have (Rom. vi. 22); and as the sa-
crifices offered to God were to be free from any spot and
blemish, and so holy; so are our bodies made “a holy Sa-
crifice,” when they are kept “in sanctification and honour,”
and free from “all filthiness of the flesh,” and so a sacrifice
“acceptable and well-pleasing” to that God, who desired not
the legal sacrifices, nor delighted in burnt-offerings (Ps. li.
16. Heb. x. 8) ; and this, saith he, is not as the sacrifices of
the law, in rāv Āhoyov, “of dead and unreasonable beasts,”
which was bodily service, or that in which the body chiefly
was employed; but it is Aoyini, Aarpeia, “a sacrifice of our
reason,” devoting ourselves, who are rational creatures, to
his services, and also is highly suitable to our reason.
ye * present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy,
acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
2 And * be not conformed to (the evil customs of)
this (heathen) world: but be ye transformed (into other
* Ver. 2. Kai º a varxnºwaríčease rà aiāv roërö, And be
not conformed to this world..] It is the observation of Gro-
tius on the former verse, that the apostle having shown
before that justification could not be obtained by the law,
comes now to show how the gospel perfected and spiritu-
alized the law, as to the ritual and the judicial parts of it,
and engaged us more exactly to fulfil the moral parts of it;
beginning first with the sacrifices, which by the Jews were
esteemed one great and chief part of their ritual worship.
And then he may here proceed to their separations from men
of other nations, or, as the pharisees had improved it, even
from the vulgar sort, thinking it unlawful to eat, or converse
with, or even touch “the people of the earth,” as they styled
them, and making their holiness to consist chiefly in such
niceties and separations; showing that we do most effectually
comply with all that God designed by any precepts of this
nature, when we “keep ourselves unspotted from the world,”
or free from any conformity unto the sinful customs of it,
as Christianity especially requires, Christ giving up himself
for our sins, “that he might deliver us from this present evil
world” (Gal. i. 4); or, he instructs them how to change their
former heathen into a Christian conversation, declaring that
whereas formerly they walked war& rêv ałóva rot; négºcov
toūrov, “according to the course of this world,” Eph. ii. 2,
and “according to the will of the gentiles,” 1 Pet. iv. 3, they
should “no longer live the rest of their time to the lusts of
men, but to the will of God,” ver. 2.
CHAPTER XII.
581
men) *by the renewing of your mind (and judgment of
things), that ye may prove (Gr. discern and approve,
see note on 1 Cor. xi. 28. Gal. vi. 4), what is “that
good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God; (i. e.
that will which under the gospel requires only what is
substantially good, and therefore always acceptable to
: and perfectly instructs us in our whole Christian
wiy. *
3 Which will of God you will the better discern by
Syour humility and diligence in the enercise of your spi-
ritual gifts;) for I say, through the grace (of apostle-
ship, see note on i. 5), given to me, to every man
that is among you (thus gifted), not to think of him-
self more highly than he ought to think, (on the account
of those ministerial gifts conferred upon him, not for
his own sake, but for the benefit of others, 1 Cor. iv.
6, 7, xii. 7, as did the scribes and pharisees, and doc-
tors of the law, on the account of their wisdom and
knowledge of it, Rom. viii. 18. 23), but to think so-
berly (of himself), according as God hath dealt to
every man the "measure of faith. -
4 For as we have many members in one body (na-
tural) and (Gr. but) all (the) members (of it) have not
the same office (but some are more feeble, some more
vigorous, some employed in more, some in less honour-
able services, 1 Cor. xii, from ver. 12 to 27).
5. So we (Christians), being many, are one body in
Christ (our head), and every one (of us are different)
members one of another.
6 Having then gifts differing according to the grace
(or favour of God) that is given to us, whether (it be)
prophecy, let us prophesy according to “the propor-
tion of faith;
7 Or (if it be)" ministry (that of an evangelist), let us
wait on our ministry; or he that teacheth, on teaching;
8 Or he that exhorteth (by a spiritual afflatus, I
Cor. xiv. 3. 31), on exhortation: he that * giveth
(or distributes to the church’s stock), let him do it with
* Tii śvaxatváael rod Voic ipºv, By the renewal. of your
mind.] The whole new creature doth consist in the renewal
of the mind, the will, the affections, and actions of men (l
Thess. v. 23), but because this renewal doth begin with the
change of mind, discerning and approving “what is accept-
able to the Lord,” and upon that follows the choice of what
is so by the will, and the inclination of the affections to
what the mind doth thus approve of, and the regulation of
our outward actions is according to what we thus approve,
choose, and affect; this “renewal of the mind” is put for
the renovation of the whole man, and we are said to be “re-
newed in the spirit of our mind,” and to “put on the new
man,” Eph. iv. 23, 24, “which is renewed sic imiyya'a w, in
knowledge, according to the image of him that created him,”
Col. iii. 10.
* Tö 8%anga roi; Geoû rā āya.08w zai sãpearoy xai réAstov,
The good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God..] The ri-
tual precepts of the law had no internal goodness in them
antecedent to the command; and so God himself says of
them, “I gave them statutes which were not good,” Ezek.
xx. 25, and in opposition to their costly sacrifices and burnt-
offerings, saith, “He hath shown thee, O man, what is good,
and what the Lord requireth of thee, even to do justice,
and love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God,” Micah
vi. 8. They were not pleasing to him in themselves, Ps. li. 14.
Heb. x. 8, but he declareth his delight in justice and mercy,
Jer. xxii. 16, and the design of the apostle in the whole
Epistle to the Hebrews, is to prove the imperfection of the
sacrifices, and of the old covenant, and therefore the neces-
sity of a better sacrifice, and a new and better covenant; and
so in opposition to these ritual injunctions, he may here style
the gospel institution, the “good, and acceptable, and the
perfect will of God.”
* Ver. 3. Météoy Triorsog, The measure of faith..] Here the
Greek scholiasts agree in the exposition of these words, that
by “the measure of faith,” we are to understand the mea-
sure of gifts proceeding from this miraculous faith which was
required to the exercise of them, rot, yā; Xagic paro; atriov
# Triatic, “for faith is the cause of these gifts,” saith Chry-
sostom ; and when they found this faith raised in them,
they exercised them ; they being given, saith Theodoret,
“according to the measure of their faith.” This faith en-
abled them to “remove mountains,” 1 Cor. xiii. 2, to “heal
the sick,” James v. 15, to “cast out devils,” Matt. xvii. 20;
and hence Peter exhorts them who had received these gifts
to “minister them &; Éx iaºſo; he Xognyeſ & ©säc, as from the
ability and strength of faith which God giveth,” l Pet. iv.
11; and this is elsewhere styled “the measure of the gift of
Christ,” Eph. iv. 7. This they did, saith Origen,* Six rºw
Triary raúrny, “by this faith,” Ka83; ei, waaro; a`ārāy rºy
8weezy eſſanºps traº' aircü, “as every one received the gift from
Christ,” saith Irenaeus. This phrase occurs twice in Mai-
monides,f where he saith, “God declared he would try the
Jews with false prophets, to know, mensuram fidei vestrae
* Comt. Celsum, lib. iii. p. 124. Lib. ii, cap. 57.
# More Nevoch, par. iii, cap. 24, p. 406, 408.
in veritate legis, the measure of their faith in the law;” et ad
mensuram fidei vestrae in lucem producendum Ilum firmitër
et constantër persistatis in ea : whence we learn that the
strength and firmness of faith is the measure of it.
* Ver. 6. Kara rºw &vaxoyſay tº; Triatews, According to
the proportion of faith..] That is, say some, according to
those principles of faith and good life, which are known
among you; but surely they who prophesied by a spiritual
gift, could not do otherwise; for no man can by the Holy
Spirit be excited to contradict the doctrine or precepts of
Christianity; others, let him do it according to the mea-
sure of the miraculous faith imparted to him, enabling
him now to reveal mysteries, now to foretell things, now to
disclose the secrets of men, according as God, upon his faith,
shall grant ability to him to do it. And therefore Chrysos-
tom,” CEcumenius, and Theophylact say, that though this
was a gift, yet “it flowed in upon a man according as by his
faith he made himself a vessel fit to receive the gift of pro-
phecy.” And this seemeth to be the better exposition, not
only because it hath the suffrage of the ancient expositors,
but because it answers to “the measure of faith” mentioned
ver. 3; for #yaxoyia, saith Origen here, is not ratio, as the
Latins render it, but mensura competens, “a competent
measure,” and war' &yaxoyſay in Hesychius is war& ré ºrpov,
“according to the measure;” and it agrees best with the
phrase of Peter, to exercise these gifts according to the
ability that God hath given them, and to be content with
that, though others may enjoy it in higher measures.
7 Wer. 7. Ataxovia, Ministry.] This charisma being reck-
oned here before that of teaching or exhortation, I think it
best to interpret it of the office of the evangelist, ranked
before that of the pastor and teacher, Eph. iv. 11, and
immediately after that of the prophets, as here, rather
than to interpret it of the office of a deacon; all these
four offices, of apostle, prophet, evangelist, and teacher,
being designed, saith the apostle there, ver. 12, Big Egyov
8tazoviaç, “for the work of the ministry.” Hence Paul
writes thus to Timothy, “Do the work of an evangelist,
fulfil rºw 8taxoviay arov, thy ministry,” 2 Tim. iv. 5, and of
Mark, the evangelist, he saith, “Bring Mark with thee, for
he is profitable to me, eiç Biakoviay, to the ministry;” i. e. to
be sent to preach the gospel, or visit the churches where I
cannot come (ver. 11); and in this sense saith Peter, ºf ric
8taxovii, “If any man ministers, let him do it as of the
ability that God giveth,” not as of the charity of others,
which was the proper office of the deacon. Of the teachers,
see note on 1 Cor. xii. 28. Eph. iv. 4. Acts vi. 4. xiii. 1. XX.
24. 2 Cor. vi. 3. Col. iv. 17.
* Ver. 8. ‘o pastaðiðoic, He that giveth, and he that show-
eth mercy.] These two expressions seem to denote the same
persons who are called “helps,” 1 Cor. xii. 28 (see the note
there). “He that ruleth,” may be the same with those who
are there styled “governments,” and elsewhere reosarà rec, or
orgoſatápasyot, 1 Thess. v. 12. 1 Tim. iii. 4. v. 17, or, & Kºsta-
+ 2 * * a > * * w 2. 2 * * * * º
Ei yā; wai x&gt; a ri rocoutoy pºſſyro: strift ovoy, ay sup;
awstos ºriars w; air; trºogevex$év.
582
RoMANs.
simplicity (or liberality, see the note on 2 Cor. viii. 2); |
he that ruleth (or presides over that stock), with dili-
gence; he that showeth mercy (to the sick, impotent,
strangers, orphans), with cheerfulness. -
9 Let love be without dissimulation (not in word
only, but in deed, and in truth, 1 John iii. 18). Abhor
that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.
10 Be kindly affectioned one to another with bro-
therly love (not bearing only such a kindness to one
another as common humanity calls for, but such as the
relation of Christian brethren and the bonds of consan-
guinity require); in honour preferring one another
(through humility acting as if you conceived others more
worthy of honour than yourselves, see note on Phil. ii.
3, and being well contented that they should be placed
in a more honourable post); -
11 Not slothful in business (in the concerns of God,
and of one another); fervent in spirit, (ardently and
zealously engaging in the service of God, and of one
another, as knowing you are then) "serving the Lord.
12 Rejoicing in hope (of the glory of God, Rom. v.
2, or of eternal life, Tit. i. 3), patient in tribulation
(for the cause of Christ); continuing instant in prayer
(that you may stand firm in the faith, and have a sea-
sonable deliverance from your troubles ); -
13 * Distributing to the necessities of the (perse-
cuted) saints; given to (or pursuing) hospitality (to-
wards them when they come to you).
31%ic here may signify him that is moved by an afflatus to
give to the church's stock; for so the word is used in Job,
saying, àppayå pºeté8oza, “I have given of my meat to the
orphan,” xxxi. 17; Prov. xi. 26, “A blessing shall be on the
head roi; peraðiðávros, of him that giveth.” So Luke iii. 11,
“He that hath two coats, ºrabóra, let him give to him that
hath none;” Eph. iv. 28, “Let him work with his hands,
that he may have ustaðiðával, to give to him that needs;”
and then the "rgoEarā; will be the person set over this
stock to manage it aright; for as the Jews had in every city
viros notos et fideles, “men of note for their fidelity,” who
were constituted to be collectors and distributors of their
alms to the poor; so say the apostles, “Look you out &y?pa,
£caprugovačvour, seven men of honest report, où; kara-ráca.ey,
whom we will appoint over this business,” Acts vi. 3, and
these are styled trºoarárat and argésvot, and by Eustathius
are said ºrgota raağa, Tây £évoy, “to preside over strangers”
(see Beza in Rom. xvi. 2). So Origen on the place, Qui
tribuit, et praeest indigentibus; and Theophylact, Treofataa-
Sat 33 Éari ră 60n&siv, kai 3& #mºrov, kai 3.3 roi; a 4xaroc,
“To preside is to help both with words and deeds” (see the
note on 1 Cor. xii. 28). This in after ages was made the
work of the bishop, but in the first ages of the church was
the work of the deacon. i
* Ver. 11. Tº Kugiº Sov) Bijoy’res, Serving the Lord.] So the
Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic versions, and all the Greek scho-
liasts read. The other reading, rā waità, 3ovAsſovtsº, “serv-
ing the time,” mentioned by Ambrose, St Jerome, and
Ruffinus, seems to have had its rise from the abbreviation
of the word in MSS. they reading KQ, though it hath a good
sense thus, Tempori servite, rebus praesentibus vos accom-
modantes; et si quid inciderit incommodorum, vel declinantes
siliceat commodè, vel tolerantes: see Eph. v. 26. Col. iv. 5.
(see Examen Millii here).
* Ver, 13. Taf, Xésiais rôy &yioly wowoyoivre..] So read all
the Greek scholia, Basil, tom. ii. p. 474, the Vulgar, and all
the other ancient versions. And wherein Dr. Mills con-
tends the true reading is rai, ºysia is rôy &yiov, see this abun-
dantly confuted in the examination of him upon this
place. -
* Ver, 17. Tà wax&, Honourable.] That there be actions,
which, according to the voice of nature, and antecedently to
any positive commands, are good and evil, honourable and
praiseworthy, or matter of dishonour, or dispraise, in the ge-
‘neral opinion of the world; and that these actions are rà
waxå, “honour:ºle before men,” as well as “in the sight
of God” (2 Cor, viii. 21), this epistle doth abundantly de-
14 Bless (i. e. wish well to, and pray for) them
which persecute you : bless, and curse not (whatever
provocations you may have to do so.)
15 Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with
them that weep, (as the relation of members of the
same body doth require, 1 Cor. xii. 26). -
16 Be of the same mind one towards another (being
concerned for the same good to them which you desire
for yourselves). Mind not high things, but conde-
scend to men of low estate (to the meanest concerns of
the meanest Christians). Be not wise in your own
conceits, (so as to think you need not the assistance of
divine wisdom, or the advice and counsel of your Chris-
tian brethren, Prov. iii. 5. 7. Luke xii. 53, or so as to
neglect the concerns of your Christian brethren, Prov.
iii. 5. 7. Luke xii. 53).
17 Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide
things "honest (Gr. honourable) in the sight of all
IIlêIl. - -
18 If it be possible, as much as
peaceably with all men. - -
19 Dearly beloved, ”avenge not yourselves (upon
your enemies, ver, 20), but rather *gtve place unto
(the) wrath (of God against them); for it is written,
(Deut. xxxii. 35), Vengeance is mine; I will repay
it, saith the Lord.
20 Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, (rather) feed
him; if he thirst, give him drink: for *in so doing
lieth in you, live
monstrate; for the apostle in the first chapter having men-
tioned all the unrighteousness and impure actions of the
heathen world, he adds, that the heathens knew from the
consideration of the righteousness of God, that “they who
did such things were worthy of death,” ver. 32. In the se-
cond chapter he informs us, that the gentiles having not a
written law, and notwithstanding “doing by nature the thing
contained in the moral law, show the work of the law written
in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to it, and
their thoughts accusing or else excusing one another,”
ver. 14, 15; that the exercise of righteousness and peace
renders us not only “acceptable to God,” but also “approved
of men” (xiv. 17). Accordingly the wise man saith that
“by observing mercy and truth we shall ºrpowosſy ×ax&, pro-
vide things honourable in the sight of God and men” (Prov.
iii. 3, 4).
12 wº. 19. Avenge not yourselves.] When Phocion was
condemned to die by the Athenians, some of his friends
desired him to leave some precept to his son, how he should
demean himself: his command therefore to him was ºwn?āv
'A$nvaiot; ºvnaikaxeſy, “not to remember the injuries the Athe-
nians had done him;” and for this, saith Ælian, every wise
man must UtreeSavºčely roy &y?pa, “very much admire the
man” (War. Hist. lib. xii. cap. 49). - • , .
* Ağrs rémoy rā āgyi, Give place unto wrath.] i. e. Refer
it to the punishment of God, avyxoghorov attà èrešex$sſy,
ºrcüro yát éart, 36ts timoy rfi čºyń' “Suffer him to come in
with his wrath upon those who are your enemies, and per-
secute you for his sake ; for this is the import of these
words, Give place unto wrath.” So Chrysostom, CEcume-
nius, Theophylact. And this exposition is confirmed by the
ensuing reason, “For vengeance is mine, I will repay it;”
and from the occasion of those words, Deut. xxxii. 35, they
being spoken for the comfort of God's people, whose cause
he will plead, and for whose sakes he will repent of the evil
he brought upon them. wer. 36.
* Wer. 20. "Ay%aza; Trvgö; cogsäceiç #wi rºy as paxy airroº,
Thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head..] I know that
many good interpreters conceive here is an allusion to arti-
ficers that melt lead, or other metals, by heaping coals of fire
upon them, and so imagine that the import of these words is
this, Thou shalt melt him down, or work him, by this oblig-
ing kindness, into good affection towards thee: but I be-
lieve the sense is rather this, That if he persevere in his en-
mity to, his persecution of thee, and perverseness towards
thee after these kind offices, the event, though not sought by
thee, will be this ; thou by thy patience shalt engage the
CHAPTER XIII.
583
thou shalt heap coals of fire (tho divine vengeance)
on his head.
21 Benot “overcome of evil (let it not prevail upon
thee to be impatient under or avenge it), but overcome
evil with good.
wrath of God to fall upon him, and to maintain thy cause
against him ; and so shalt be more certainly and happily
delivered from his malice, than by avenging thyself thou
wouldest be. So Prov. xx. 22, “Say not thou, I will re-
compense evil, but wait on the Lord, and he shall save thee.”
For, - - -
First, This suits best with the connexion of this with the
foregoing verse by the particle, “Therefore, avenge not your-
selves, but rather give place to the wrath” of God, to fall
upon your enemies, or persecutors, seeing he “will repay
vengeance” to them. Therefore, let not their enmity hinder
you from being kind to them ; for that kindness, if it do
not mollify them, will cause the wrath of God to wax hot
against them.
Secondly, Because the words are plainly taken from Prov.
xxv. 21, where they are exactly to be found; where, saith
Grotius, apparet de poena diviná agi, “it is evident the wise
man speaks of the divine vengeanee.” And this is the con-
tinual import of the phrase in the Old Testament, where only
it occurs, and where it still signifies the wrath and indigna-
tion of the Lord. So Ps. cxl. 9, 10, “As for the head of
them that compass me about, let the mischief of their own
lips cover them, let àvščaks; ºrvpic, coals of fire fall upon
them.” So Isa. xlvii. 14, “They shall not deliver them-
selves from the power of the flame, 3rt fixes; ºvšeaza; true?:
xasia at #7' airrobº, for thou hast coals of fire to cause to sit
upon them.” So Ezek. x. 2, God commands the angel to
fill his hand, &ySpåkov ºrvgöc, “with coals of fire,” and to scat-
ter them over the city to burn the city with them. And 2
Esdr. xvi. 53, “ Let not the sinner say he hath not sinned,
for God shall heap coals of fire upon his head, who saith
before the Lord God, and his glory, he hath not sinned” (see
the like saying in Stob. Serm. 82, p. 477).
* Ver. 21. Mā vixá úmò rod waxoi, Be not overcome of evil.]
Vincitur à malo qui vult peccare in alium, quia ille peccavit
in ipsum. Aquinas.
CHAPTER XIII.
*-*
1 LET every soul be subject to the higher powers
(or supreme authority dº over them). For there is
no "power but of God (the fountain of it): the
powers that be are ordained of God.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIII.
* Ver. I. of yág a riv šovaria et &# 3rd Ogoj, There is no
power but of God..] That this may be rightly understood, let
it be noted, (1.) That God doth not now, as in the case of
Saul and David, by himself appoint and nominate the per-
son who shall sway the sceptre in any nation of the world.
The Roman emperors, the powers then in being when Paul
writ this epistle, had no such appointment, but were elected
by the Roman armies, or chosen and confirmed by the se-
nate; whence it appears, that an immediate appointment, or
designation of the person by God, cannot be necessary to ren-
der any prince God’s ordinance.
(2.) By virtue of God's general appointment or ordinance,
whether in the fifth commandment, or by a law of nature, re-
quiring that all nations should have some government placed
over them, no individual person can claim a right to be the
“higher power” in any nation, more than others; nor are the
people by it tied to yield obedience to this man more rather
than to that. This therefore cannot be sufficient to make a
man the individual person who is God’s ordinance, in re-
ference to such a nation. It remains, therefore,
(3.) That this authority be conveyed to this or that in-
dividual person or family by compact, consent, or choice of
the persons governed, that such a person or family shall have
the Supreme authority in such a nation. It therefore must
be such a choice, consent, or contract, that renders any per-
son the ordinance of God to such a nation: and this is what
men call “a legal right,” or title to the crown; that is, a title
by the laws and constitutions of the land.
But then, as mutual consent and contract make two pers
Sons man and wife, and yet matrimony is God's ordinance,
and the power of man over the wife, and of the wife over
the body of the husband, is from God: and as among us,
one becomes a master, another a servant, by consent and
covenant, and yet the master hath from God authority over
his servant ; so here, the individual person becomes the
higher power, by the consent, the choice, or contract, ori-
ginal or actual, of the community; but yet the power he
exercises in that station is of God, the fountain of all power;
and he acts in that station, not as the minister of man, but
of God.
* Ver. 2. ‘O &vritara dºzewo, rā āovariº, Whosoever resisteth
the power.] Origen” having cited this and the preceding
* IIoxx;, &nthaswº otan; Kará rày rémoy, 8:3 roug &p.árepov wai
ºrvpavvikóregow &;%aytaç, roi; Éx roi; &#xely ātri 6púskiy, Kai
ºrgnqvy #ozáNNovºrai. Lib. viii. p. 42].
f
2 Whosoever therefore *resisteth the power, resist-
eth the ordinance of God: and they that resist (the or-
dinance of God) * shall receive to themselves damma-
tion (Gr. judgment). -
verse in his Dissertation against Celsus, confesses it is a
place “capable of much disquisition, by reason of such
princes as govern cruelly and tyrannically, or who by reason
of their power fall into effeminacy and carnal pleasures;” re-
ferring us to his comment on that place for the farther ex-
plication of the words. Now-there he saith,” “This is not
to be understood of persecuting powers, for in such cases
that of the apostle takes place, We must obey God rather
than man, but of those powers, which are not a terror to
good works, but to the evil:” and it is a contradiction to the
holiness, justice, and goodness of God, to say that he hath
given princes any power to oppress, rob, spoil, murder, or
to do any injury to their subjects. They cannot purely
upon this account, that they are “the ordinance of God,”
have any power or authority to do evil to them; and so re-.
sisting, i.e. not being subject or obedient to them in any such
thing, cannot be that resisting of God's ordinance to which
the penalty is here annexed. Now this is the non-resistance
of which the Greek commentators speak, even the non-per-
formance of subjection and obedience to their commands;
and so the coherence seems to require, which saith, “Let
every soul be subject to the higher powers, for whosoever
doth resist them (by not being subject) resisteth the or-
dinance of God:” moreover, they only are “the ordinances
of God” as they are “the ministers of God,” ver. 3, 4 ; now
they are only “the ministers of God for good, for the pun-
ishment of evil-doers, and for the praise of them that do
well,” ver, 4. And, thirdly, the subjection here required, to
which the resistance is opposed, is a subjection due to them,
“not only for wrath, but for conscience' sake;” but we can-
not be obliged, from conscience towards God, to be subject
to them in those things which they have no authority from
God to require, and for refusal of obedience to which we
have God’s authority.
They who interpret this of violent resistance by force of
arms, speak the truth, but not the whole truth, that being
not the only resistance hereforbidden. For, as Dr. Falkner.
observes, āyriºrâca Ec-Sai, which we translate to resist, includes
all practising out of a spirit of averseness, opposition, and
contradiction, and whatsoever is contrary to tworáa'asabai,
“the being subject,” ver, 1.5 (see Acts xiii. 8. xviii. 6).
* “Eavroſ, weiga AğJoyrat, Shall receive judgment to them-
* Non hic de illis potestatibus dicit quae persecutiones in-
ferunt fidei, ibi enim dicendum est, Oportet Deo obtemperare
magis quam hominibus, sed de istis potestatibus dicit, quae
mon Sunt timoriboni operis, sed mali.
584
ROMANS.
3 For rulers (if they act by the authority of God,
and according to law,) are not a terror.to good works
(i.e. such as the light of nature pronounceth good),
but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the
power (that it will do thee any harm) 8 do (then) that
which is good, and thou shalt (rather) have praise of
the same. -
4 For he is (by his institution) the minister of God
to thee for good (if thou art a doer of what is good).
But if thou doest that which is evil, (thou hast cause
to) be afraid; for he beareth not the sword (of jus-
tice) in vain: for he is the minister of God, (a re-
venger) to execute wrath (Gr. for wrath) on him that
doeth evil. -
5. Wherefore ye must needs (Gr. ye ought to) be
subject (to this minister of God), not only for wrath,
but also for conscience’ sake -
6 For, “for this cause pay ye tribute also (to them):
for (that) they are God’s ministers, attending con-
tinually on this very thing (the emecuting judgment be-
ween man and man, to preserve every man in his right,
and to punish the wrong doer).
7 °Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to
whom tribute is due ; custom to whom custom (i. e.
all legal impositions) ; fear to whom fear; honour to
whom honour (is due). - -
8 Owe no man anything (which justice obligeth you
to render him), but (be especially concerned) to love
one * another (which love, if ye observe its precepts,
will preserve you from doing any evil or injustice to
selves.] i. e. They shall be sentenced, punished, and con-
demned for it by the magistrate, who is a terror to all evil
works. So the word x6iº, a signifies in these words, “Fear-
est not thou God, seeing thou art #y airſ weigwart, under the
same sentence of condemnation” by the magistrates? (Luke
xxiii. 40, see note on v. 16.)
nexion inclines, “He shall receive sentence or punishment
(from the rulers), for rulers are a terror to evil works; if
therefore thou doest evil, be afraid ; for he beareth not the
sword in vain, but is an avenger of wrath.” Or, if he escape
the hand of the magistrate, he shall be punished by that God
whose minister and ordinance the power he resisteth is ;
this follows from the obligation to be subject, not only out
of wrath, but also from conscience towards God; but hence
it does not follow that he must be damned, as that imports
his being sentenced by God to eternal torments; it follows
not from the word xpiºa, seeing that in its literal import
signifies judgment, and no more, and sometimes is applied to
human judgments; not from the obligation to be subject out
of conscience, for then all men must be damned who neg-
lect what they, in conscience towards God, stand bound to
do, or do what they in conscience are obliged not to do, and
then, woe be to them who through weakness or prejudice
mistake their duty, or are ignorant of it, and therefore do
neglect it, or transgress against it. Seeing then the resister
of God's ordinance here is not only the wilful rebel, but he
who also is not subject and obedient to the commands of
lawful authority, if the punishment of this sin, without ex-
ception, be eternal torments, all must be sentenced to them
who, out of ignorance and weakness, misunderstanding or
prejudice, refuse in any lawful matter to yield obedience to
the commands of their superiors, and so not only sins of
wilfulness, but sins of ignorance and weakness, must be
damnable.
Now according to this double notion of resistance, let it
be noted,
First, That the resistance which consists in non-subjection,
or a refusal to yield actual obedience to the law of the supe-
rior, can only be allowed when the matter of the law is sin-
ful, and so forbidden by the higher power, not when it is
judged inexpedient or unprofitable only ; for of this subjects
are not to judge, but the lawgiver only, in that they lawfully
may, and therefore, to avoid scandal and punishment, and
from respect to him who is God's vicegerent, ought to obey,
even as servants ought to obey their froward masters (1 Pet.
ii. 18), and children their parents in all lawful things (Col.
iii. 20), not disputing their authority in such matters, and
this from conscience towards God.
Secondly, That no resistance of the higher powers by
force of arms, or violence, can be allowed purely on the
account of religion; for, if so, we could not be obliged to
“suffer wrong” in such cases “from conscience towards
God,” as the apostle Saith we are, l Pet. ii. 19, or from the
example of our Lord, ver, 21, 24, because the sufferings
which God hath not obliged us to undergo, we cannot un-
dergo “from conscience towards God.”
Thirdly, That no violent resistance, or no resistance of
the higher powers by force, can be allowed to any who have
not the power of the sword, and who are no “avengers of
wrath;” for he that thus useth it, plainly “takes the sword”
without authority from him to whom belongeth vengeance,
And to this sense the con- |
and the power of life and death originally, and so without
authority from him to whom this power of the sword origi-
mally belongs; and therefore, by our Saviour's aphorism,
deserves to perish by it (Matt. xxvi. 52). Hence therefore
it must follow, -
1. That in absolute governments there is no power of lift-
ing up the Sword against the higher powers, because there is
none can claim a share in the government, and so none can
have any power of the sword, or right to be “an avenger of
evil,” but the absolute power. -
2. That in mixed governments, if any persons or states
can claim the power, it must be either, (1.) upon compact
that such persons shall have power to defend their laws; or,
(2.) by virtue of that rule of Grotius,” that “where a peo-
ple hath conferred, not an absolute power, but a government
according to the law, they must be supposed to have re-
served to themselves a power necessary to preserve their
laws.” Or else by some act done by the superior which is
a virtual abdication, or a renunciation of his government; in
all which cases we can have no direction from the words of
the apostle, who in general commands subjection to the
higher powers, but declares not how far any man is so, or
when he ceaseth to be so.
* Wer. 6. Ată roſto yūg xai pégov; rexeſºte, For this cause
pay ye tribute also..] Hence it appears, that paying tribute
to, is an acknowledgment of the right of government in him
to whom we pay it, it being payable only on this account,
“because he is the minister of God,” &c. and rendered to
Caesar because it is Caesar's ; i.e. because it doth belong to
him as being Caesar, or the power God hath set over us.
* Ver. 7. 'Atré8ore obv Trägi rāg 34 six&c, Render to all their
dues.] It is observable, that all that is said here and Tit. iii.
l. 1 Pet. ii. 11, 12, seems plainly to relate to those false doc-
trines and opinions which had obtained among the Jews,
and were destructive to all government, and which all Chris-
tians therefore were concerned to show their freedom from,
and opposition to, that so they might stop the mouths of
those heathens who, looking upon Christians as the offspring
of the Jews, were apt to charge them with the same princi-
ples of opposition to all heathen governments. Now their
principles are these :
First, That being the people of God, God alone was to
be owned as their lord and governor, in opposition to all
earthly governors; at least in opposition to all governors
which were not of their own nation, and by him immediately
chosen, and ruling by his laws. See this fully proved, note
on 1 Pet. ii. 16.
Secondly, As a consequent of this, they refused to pay
tribute to Caesar, crying out to Agrippa, i ră ră»n ävaigºv,
“to take away their tributes; looking upon them as a sign
of subjection, which they ought not to submit to.”
* Ver. 8. Tiy regow, Another.] This being, ver. 10, riv
* Si populus regem fecerit, non pleno jure, sed additis
legibus, poterunt per eas leges contrarii actus irriti fieri aut
omnimó, aut ex parte, quia eatenis populus jus sibi servavit.
De Jure Belli et Pacis, lib. xiv. sect. 2.
+ Tây Tà ètritiºnariv oběšy &AAo &vrtkgüç 300Asiay #mriqíguy
Aśyovres. Joseph. Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 1. De Bell. Jud. lib.
º º 1, p. 775, D. cap. 12, p. 714. See note on James iv.
2 * *
CHAPTER XIII.
585
your brother) : for he that (truly) loveth another hath
fulfilled the law (relating to him). -
9 For this (that which the law forbiddeth in these
words), Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt
not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear
false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be
any other commandment (of the law relating to thy
neighbour), it is briefly comprehended in this saying,
namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,
(i. e. with the like love thou bearest to thyself, though
not with love equal to it. See note on Matt. xxii. 39, 40.
10 He that is acted by) love "worketh no ill to his
neighbour (which is the thing required in these negative
precepts) : therefore "love is the fulfilling of the law.
11 And that (Gr. this) (eahortation to obey authority,
and walk in fervent charity towards all men, I recom-
mend to you now, is very seasonable), knowing the
time, that now it is high time (for all) to "awake out
of sleep : for now is our "salvation (or, the salvation
of the gentiles) nearer than when we (first) believed.
12 “The night (of heathen ignorance, Acts xvii.
31) is far spent, ”the day (of grace and salvation to
them) is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works
of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.
13 Let us walk “honestly, as in the day; not in
rioting and drunkenness, not in “chambering and
wantonness (1 Pet. iv. 3), not in strife and envying
(things inconsistent with that Christian charity which
is the glory of our profession).
14 But "put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and
make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts
thereof.
orangiov, “his neighbour,” shows that every man is the Chris-
tian's neighbour.
7 Ver. 10. Kazèy obn āpy&ćeral, Worketh no evil.] Not that
the law is exactly fulfilled by doing no evil to our neigh-
bour, but because, in Christ's interpretation, the neglect of
doing any good we are able, and have opportunity to do for
him, is doing evil, Mark iii. 4. Here therefore is a meio-
sis, for “charity is” also “kind,” 1 Cor. xiii. 4, and engag-
eth us “by love to serve another,” Gal. v. 13, 14.
* IIA%goºd ovy Vázov # 37&nn, Love therefore is the fulfilling
of the law.] The apostle plainly here discourseth of the ful-
filling of the law as it relateth to our neighbour; but, as
Esthius here notes, love is also the fulfilling of it as it re-
spects our duty to God; for he that loves his neighbour
aright, loves him for God's sake, and in obedience to him,
and so must principally love God: he also “loves his neigh-
bour as himself.” now no man truly loves himself who loves
not him above all things who is his chief good, and in loving
whom thus his happiness consists (see Matt. xxii. 37).
* Wer. 11. ‘E: invov #ysp0%ai, To awake out of sleep,
Is a phrase importing two things: (1.) The conversion of
heathens to Christianity, as in that call to them mentioned
Eph. iv. 14, “Wherefore he saith, Awake, thouthat sleepest,
arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee life,” or shine
lupon thee. (2.) Our care to walk as becometh converts,
with true Christian vigilance; as when the apostle saith to
the Corinthians, “Awake to righteousness, and sin not,”
1 Cor. xv. 34, and to the Thessalonians thus, “Let us not
sleep, as do others,” 1 Thess. v. 6, 7. -
* Nºw yºp #yyörsgow hºw&v h carnpia, For now is our salva-
tion nearer..] i. e. Say some, the deliverance of you Chris-
tians from the persecution of the Jews, stirring up the hea-
thens against you. And I believe this passage hath a
relation to the destruction of the Jewish nation, and the dis-
solution of that church, and of the worship confined to the
temple; but chiefly upon this account, that then was the
time when the Salvation of the gentiles was to be more fully
and gloriously accomplished, that being the time when God
would show forth all his wrath upon the unbelieving Jews,
the crucifiers of our Lord, and their Messiah, and upon that
account “the vessels of his wrath” (Rom. ix. 22). Hence
the apostle exhorteth the believing Jews to constancy in the
faith, “forasmuch as they saw this day approaching” (Heb.
x. 25); and they being then, saving a little remnant, entirely
rejected, and cut off from being any more the church of
God, the gentiles were to be more fully called and owned as
his church. The apostle had before discoursed of this mat-
ter, telling the Romans, that “by their rejection and fall
came, a wºngia, Salvation to the gentiles,” xi. 11, that their
fall would be “the riches of the world, and the diminishing
of them the riches of the gentiles,” ver. 12; and, ver. 13, 15,
“I speak,” saith he, “to you gentiles,” that their rejection
will be “the reconciling of the world.” And of this salva-
tion of the gentiles he saith, “It is now nearer than when
they first believed,” the time of the utter rejection of the
Jews drawing nigh; and therefore he advised them, especi-
ally now at this season, to give no obstruction to their con-
version, and lay no obstacle in their way, by any disobedi-
ence against their superiors; but by their submission “to
every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake,” to put to si-
lence all the objections of ignorant men against them, as
disturbers of government; and that they would diligently
avoid all works of darkness, that they who “ spoke of them
as evil-doers, might, by their good works which they beheld,
(be induced to) glorify God in the day of their visitation” (I
Pet. ii. 12, 14), and to avoid all strife and envy, and to
walk in love, as being that which rendered them so amiable
in the eyes of the very heathen
* Ver. 12. ‘H vb% wedivojsy, The night is far spent.] Núx-
ºra waxeſ rºy &yvoia; xagöv, “He calls the night the time of
the ignorance of the gentiles,” saith Theodoret; and so the
day must be the appearance of the gospel light to them :
and this is very suitable to the language of the holy scripture,
which speaketh of the gentiles thus, “Ye were sometimes
darkness, but now ye are light in the Lord,” Eph. v. 8, and
as men darkened, and “blinded in their minds,” Eph. iv.
18, and “whose foolish hearts were darkened,” Rom. i. 20.
In the Old Testament they are still represented as men who
“sat in darkness, and in the shadow of death,” Isa. ix. 1,
and when Christ was sent to be “a light to the gentiles,”
he is said to be sent “to give light to them that sat in dark-
ness,” Luke i. 78, 79. And when Paul was sent to convert
them, he is said to be sent “to turn them from darkness to
light,” Acts xxvi. 18. And when Peter mentions their con-
version, he tells them, “God had called them from darkness
into his marvellous light,” 1 Pet. ii. 9.
**H 83 hºw#pa #yyizey, And the day is at hand.J. i. e. The
day of salvation, 2 Cor. vi. 8, whence they to whom this
salvation was come, by receiving this gospel light, are said
to be rā; #&#gaç, “men of the day,” and vici rā; #4ágac,
“children of the day,” l Thess. v. 5, 8, and bid here “to
walk homestly as in the day.”
* Ver. 13. Eiaºxngwévos, Honestly..] Decently, honourably,
as becometh Christians, both towards our governors, having
our conversation waxy, “honourable,” and decorous among
the gentiles, that they, “beholding our good works, may
glorify God,” that is, may own him whom the Christians
worship as a good and holy God, and so be gained to the
faith.
* Koirai, Kai &rexygiatº, In chambering and wantonness.]
Koiral y&é yuvaixãv šartóvºaia, &c=xyń; #mr’ &gasvikoú ini 3: Snav-
zoº obnári. Hesych. Phavor.
* Ver. 14. 'Evêárazós rêy xplory, Put ye on the Lord
Jesus Christ.] i. e. Be conformable to his doctrine and holy
life. So Chrysostom saith it was a common phrase, 6 &tiva
'röv Seiya #v=3&aaro, “Such a one hath put on such a one;”
that is, he is an imitator of him : so, to “put on the new
man,” is to walk as new men in newness of life and conver-
sation, Eph. iv. 24, “in holiness and righteousness, after
the image of him that hath created us” anew, Col. iii. 10.
586
CHAPTER XIV.
1 (Now to prevent these strifés and envyings,) him
that is weak in the faith (and so not rightly grounded
in it) receive ye (into Christian communion), but not
to ‘doubtful disputations (not respecting the difference
in their thoughts and reasonings from yours).
2 For (such difference of conceptions there is among
the Jewish and gentile Christians, that) one (i. e. the
gentile Christian) believeth that he may eat all things:
another, who is “weak (Gr. but the weak, i.e. the Jew-
ish convert, who is mistaken in, and doth not rightly
understand his Christian liberty, abstaineth from all
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIV.
* Wer. l. Mº eiç Biangiotic 8taxoytopway, Not to doubtful dis-
putations.] Not discriminating them by their inward thoughts
or reasonings, or rejecting any from communion upon that
account, because they are weak in judgment; this sense the
antithesis seems to require, and this sense will be confirmed
from our note on ver. 23, and from a like passage of James,
“If you say to the man in gay clothing, Sit thou here honour-
ably, and to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit down at my
footstool, oil 8texgión're Év Šavroſ: F do you not put a difference
or a discrimination amongyourselves, and are become judges,
8taxoylapººy Troyngöv, of evil reasonings.”
* Ver. 2. ‘O 3: 30-6syöy, But the weak.] I have observed,
note on v. 6. 1 Cor. viii. 13, that “the weak º' person is not
the man of a doubting conscience, about a thing indifferent,
but of an erroneous conscience, about a thing unlawful; this
is plain, 1 Cor. viii. 7, from these words, “Some with con-
science of the idol to this hour eat it as a thing offered to an
idol, and their conscience being weak is defiled.” Now to
eat “with conscience of the idol,” must be to eat with an
erroneous conscience; and the thing is as plain here from
ver, 14, which shows that the weak person “esteemeth that
unclean, which in itself was not so,” and therefore acted
from an erroneous conscience. I have observed there also,
that à écréevic, “the weak,” and 3al6aysīy, “to be weak,” is to
fall and stumble; and here it also signifieth one that stum-
bleth at some doctrine of Christianity, viz. at that of Chris-
tian liberty from Jewish observances, and who is scandalized
at it, or made to fall by the use of that liberty by others, as
is evident also from these words, ver. 21, “It is good not to
eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor to do any other thing
whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made
weak.” And wer. 13, “Let us not therefore judge one an-
other any more, but judge this rather, that no man put a
stumbling-block, or an occasion to fall (Gr. a scandal) in his
brother's way.”
* Aáxaya #28iel, Eateth herbs.] Why herbs only P Chry-
sostom thinks it was 33 rd pø yivso-0ai sãAoy, “that it might
not appear whether they did it out of observance of the
Jewish law, or only out of temperance;” but this the apostle
contradicts, by saying, not that he did this, being cautious,
but he did it, “being weak; and (ver. 14) that he did it,
esteeming that which he abstaineth from as unclean; and
this is supposed as a thing evident throughout this chapter,
that he abstained out of conscience from eating that which
he esteemed unlawful. Others say, the word x4xava,
“herbs,” is taken synecdochically, “for all sorts of meat al.
lowed by the law;' but then they ought in reason to show
us some example, or instance, where the word A4xaya is
used in this sense. Let it be therefore noted, (1.) That the
Essenes,” among the Jews, abstained from all flesh, “ using
as victuals, with great delight, green herbs, and the fruit of
trees:” and this they did, as judging flesh, a warx ºriv,
“ not to be natural food,” as there it follows. Philo saith, F
they had reáiréay Kaffaçãy rāv Švaipºon, “a table pure from
*"A"rać &rávrov (Čáow) āºréxºrai, Aaxay&ei XXén, was wāp-
ºrot; 3ivºgºv ºrporosºftwaaly hôiary 3roxača's XP%gevoi. Apud
Euseb. Praep. Evang. lib. viii. cap. 14.
+ De Wit. Contemp. p. 696, D, E.
neats, as fearing they may pollute him, and so) eateth
(only)*herbs. • -
3 Let not him that (suitably to this belief) eateth (all
kinds of meat) despise him that (through weakness)
eateth not (of any); and let not him that eateth not
judge (and condemn) him that eateth (as unclean for
not observing these distinctions between meats clean and
wnclean by the law, or according to their traditions, by
being offered to idols, or polluted by the unclean): for
* God hath received him.
4 (Since therefore God hath received and owned him
anything that had bloodin it, as being an incentive to concu-
piscence, and did only eat bread and salt, and hyssop” (see
note on Col. ii. 1). Here then is one instance of them, who
“being weak, did eat herbs.” Moreover, Josephus saith of
Some priests of his acquaintance, sent bound to Rome from
Judea, for some little crime, that * “they were good men,
who in their afflictions forgot not their piety to God, nourish-
ing themselves there with figs and nuts;” yea, their super-
stition would not permit them to use the oil of heathens, i.
as being not clean, and so such as they could not use the
meats of gentiles, much less things offered to idols (as some-
times all the meat sold in the shambles was), without trans-
gressing their own institutions and traditions. They therefore
might eat herbs, either that they might avoid eating things
sold in the shambles, which had been offered to idols, and
which were therefore deemed koiyā “common or unclean,”
by the whole Jewish nation ; # or to avoid the eating things
which they esteemed polluted by the gentiles, as the Jewish
priests mentioned by Josephus did. Moreover, the person
who “believeth he may eat all things,” here, is so like the
person who saith “All things are lawful for me,” 1 Cor. x.
23, where the apostle is speaking of things offered to idols,
and the arguments, many of them, are so apparently in sense
the same here, and l Cor. viii. and ch. x., that I can see no
reason wholly to exclude this sense.
* Ver. 3. "O GE3; y&p airév trgovex48sro, For God hath re-
ceived him.] This is St. Peter's argument, Acts xv. 9, “God
put no difference betwixt us (Jews) and them, purifying
their hearts by faith,” and so making them clean in his sight,
though they were not circumcised, nor abstained from those
meats we count unclean; he therefore received them without
requiring this of them, and therefore so should we. Note
here, that though God testified his reception of them by a vi-
sible and miraculous dispensation of the gift of tongues and
prophecy; yet doth not the apostle say, God hath thus testi-
fied his reception of them, but only, “He hath received
them,” i. e. into communion with him, viz. by giving them
that Spirit which is the medium of our union to, and com-
munion with him. Note also, that these words prove against
Esthius, that the apostle here speaks not of the Jews, but of
the gentiles, whom the Jews always deemed unclean, till
they became proselytes to their law, and so obliged to ob-
serve these differences between meats (see note on 1 Cor.
vii. 14); and therefore thought God would not receive them,
whilst they did not observe this law. Moreover, when the
apostle saith, ver. 2, “Another believeth he may eat all
things:” is this other the Jew P then the strong Jew be-
lieved not only that he might eat swine's flesh, but even
“things offered to idols,” which yet Esthius denies, ver. 1,
the reason is, because both these must be included in quibus-
libet cibis, all kinds of meat. But if it be the gentile, as is
far more probable, then the apostle speaks here of the gen-
tiles. Again, when the same apostle saith, “Another es-
* Katorsp iv waxci, Syre; otz Éexášovro rig sic rô Beſoy stag-
8siaçº &lergé'powto 33 artwork, kai wagiotç. De Wità Suá, p. 999. C.
+ 'Ezrsiºn oix #xova w śxaloy 3 xgha ovral zadagāv ºw# 3."
&váyzny"EXAnvix& xpdgewoi, rå väzºa Tragagaivaaiy. Ibid. p.
1040, B.
†: Aboda Zara Per. 2,
11, 12.
7. Maim. de Idol. cap. 7, sect.
CHAPTER XIV O
587
as his servant,) who art thou that "judgest another
man’s servant? to (God) his own master he standeth
or falleth, (and by him only he is to be judged; he is
at present weak indeed, ) yet he "shall be holden up
(a raóñosrat 68, but he shall be established); for God is
"able to make him stand (orijaat airóv, to establish
him). -
5 One man esteemeth one (Jewish) day above an-
other (i. e. more fit to do God service in, as being set
apart by him for that end); another esteemeth every
(such) day (alike fit for that purpose). Let every
man be “fully persuaded in his own mind (or act with
fulness of persuasion that he doeth what is lawful).
6 (And to engage you to maintain friendship and
communion, without censuring and condemning one an-
other for these matters, consider that) he that regard-
eth a day, regardeth it "to the Lord (or out of consci-
ence towards him); and he that regardeth not the day,
teemeth every day alike,” does he mean the Jews? did the
Jew think the obligation to observe the sabbath was abo-
lished? and if he meant the gentile, the apostle must here
speak of them. But, saith Esthius, this doctrine could not
extend to the gentile, to whom it was not lawful to comply
with the legal observances, no, not for the sake of the in-
firm Jews. To this I answer, (1.) That the apostle says no-
thing in this whole chapter which doth oblige him so to do,
but only not to judge, not to exclude from communion,
those Jews that did so, and not to eat of those meats, when
that would minister scandal to the Jews; and doth he not
prescribe the same rule to the gentile, in the case of this
scandal, in these words, “But if any man say unto thee,
This is offered to idols, eat not for his sake that showeth it,
and for conscience' sake P” 1 Cor. x. 28. (2.) Paul, who
had the same persuasion, that the law was not binding to
him, as any gentile could have, yet “to the Jew became as
a Jew, that he might gain the Jew ;” why therefore might
he not permit the strong gentile so to do, especially when
this was not doné out of respect to the law of Moses, but
purely to the higher law of charity ?
* Wer. 4, 2ö ºri, El & Agivoy &AAérgiov oixérºy; Who art thou
that judgest another man's servant 2] Some interpret these
words thus: We are not to judge another man's servant for
doing what his own master alloweth or permitteth. But this
is adding to the text; for the apostle doth not say, Who art
thou that judgest another man's servant wrongfully, or con-
demnest in him what God allows 2 nay, he plainly supposeth
him weak and erroneous, and yet allows not any condemn-
ing and rejecting him, and “excluding him,” saith Dr.
Hammond, “out of the church,” because God hath received
him to be his servant. -
* 3ra6%a'etat, He shall be established.] The apostle seems
plainly here to speak of the weak Jew, who, through the
error of his judgment, might be apt to stumble at the liberty
which the strong Christian used, and which the Christian
doctrine taught that Christ had purchased for him also, as
thinking both himself and others obliged to observe the law
of Moses; and of him he saith, He is now indeed weak, but
he shall be established, i.e. the time will come, when, by the
destruction of the Jewish temple, to which their service was
annexed, and in which alone a great part of their ceremonial
worship was to be performed, they should be better satisfied
of the cessation of their obligation to obey those precepts.
Thus also he saith, Phil. iii. 15, “As many as are réxeto,
fully instructed in the Christian liberty, let them mind this
thing,” viz. that it is only “the circumcision of the Spirit”
that God now regardeth (ver. 3), and “if any be otherwise
minded, God shall reveal even this unto you,” i.e. he will
in his due time convince them of this truth (see the note
there). Note also, that the effusion of the Spirit on the Jews,
though circumcised and zealous for the observation of the
law, was an argument that God also had received the be-
lieving Jew to his favour, notwithstanding his weakness of
judgment in these matters.
7 Avvarā; ydºg #arty & Os3; aria at airów, For God is able to
make him stand.] The apostle elsewhere argues from God's
power to his will ; so xi. 23, “If they abide not in unbelief
they shall be graffed in, for God is able to graff them in
again;” xvi. 25, “To him that is able to confirm you ;”
2 Cor. ix. 6, 8, “He that Soweth liberally shall reap liberally;
for God is able to make all grace abound towards you ;” Heb.
ii. 18, “He is able to succour them that are tempted.” And
this argument is always good, where we put no obstruction
to his will, by rendering ourselves unworthy of nis illumina-
tions and his favours; he being otherwise always as ready as
he is able to do what he sees needful and truly conducing to
our spiritual good.
* Ver. 5. "Exaaro; #y rà ièiº, vot ºrampopopsia90, Let every one
be fully persuaded in his own mind.] The Greek and Latin
fathers give this sense of these words : In matters of this
nature, touching the observation of a day, required by Moses,
to the Lord, or not, the abstaining from meats, or not, “let
every man abound in his own sense ;” i.e. let there be no
condemning, no excluding any man on the account of such
different sentiments: and this sense is very agreeable to the
context, if the word trangopopéo will bear it, of which, sure,
the Greek interpreters must be sufficient judges ; especially
when Phavorinus saith that rampoºpéphorov is the same with
Trafigoſa ov, fulfil, as in that of the apostle, rāv 8taxovíay arov
Trangotápno'ow, “Fulfil thy ministry,” 2 Tim. iv. 5, and when
this sense accords so well with the Hebrew proverb, Rºn" wºx
in', nN, i. e. “Let a man fulfil his heart,” or do his pleasure.
They who render the words thus, as we do, “Let every
man be fully persuaded in his own mind,” as the word rampo-
poeia doth import, Col. ii. 2. Heb. vi. 9. x. 22. 1 Thess.
i. 5, either refer it to the preceding words thus, Let every
man content himself with this, that he is fully persuaded he
doth as he ought, and not search into the actions or judg-
ments of other men about these matters, to condemn them
for them ; and this also is a sense against which I know no
exception, and is made more probable from ver. 14. 21, 22,
or else give the sense thus, Let a man have that persuasion
of the lawfulness of what he doth, or abstains from, as will
preserve him from sinning against conscience in it.
9 Wer. 6. Kugiº, To the Lord.] If “the Lord” here signifies
the Lord Christ, as we may gather from ver, 7–9, it is evi-
dent from the reason following, “for he giveth God thanks,”
that Christ is God: if it signify God the Father, yet the fol-
lowing verses, which apply it to Christ, make it plain that
the argument is good from God the Father to our Lord
Christ, and again from Christ, ver, 10, to God the Father,
ver. 11, and consequently that they must equally be God
(see Examen Millii).
Here we are told, that “no man can be said to do any
thing to the Lord, or out of conscience towards God, in such
cases wherein God has not interposed, his authority ; nor is
any man in scripture said to do anything to the Lord, who
cannot produce a plain law for what he does; but when both
contending parties can produce a divine authority for doing
or not doing the same thing (i.e. the law forbidding, and yet
commanding the same thing), there is great reason for them
to receive one another, because they both act out of reverence
to the divine authority.” But this assertion may be evidently
disproved,
First, From the example of St. Paul, who “ served God
from his forefathers with a pure conscience” (2 Tim. i. 3),
and conversed before God “in all good conscience” (Acts
xiii. 1), and was “zealous for God,” even when he persecuted
Christians to the death (Acts xxii. 3, 4), and thought himself
bound in conscience “to do many things against the name of
Jesus” (Acts xxvi. 9); he therefore, if he may be believed,
did these things “out of conscience towards God,” wherein
God had not interposed his authority. - -
Secondly, This also is evident from the instances related in
this verse; for a law cancelled and disannulled by God hiº-
self, hath no divine authority; and he who only produceth
such a law, is so far from producing a plain law for what he
doth, that he produceth none at all, nor doth he act out of
reverence to the divine authority, but only with respect to
his own erroneous conceptions of a divine authority, when
there is no such thing; nor can he produce any divine
authority for what he doth. “Oh but God had once inter-
posed his authority in this case, and the Jews could not be
satisfied that this authority was repealed.” . I answer ; And
so it is with all the unbelieving Jews unto this very day, who
588 .
ROMANS.
to the Lord he doth not regard it (i.e. because his
Lord hath freed him from any obligation so to do).
He that eateth (freely of all kinds of meats), eateth to
the Lord (or to his glory), for he giveth God thanks
(for his liberty thus to eat); and he that eateth not
(so), to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks
(even for those herbs he eateth, or that he hath pro-
vided for him other food).
7 For none of us (who are Christians) * liveth to
himself, (but to him that died for him and rose again,
2 Cor. v. 16,) and no man (dying) dieth to himself (so
as to be emempted from the power and jurisdiction of
the Lord, whose servants we are).
8 For whether we live, we (Christians, if we act
suitably to our duty and our obligations, ) live unto the
Lord (under his dominion, and under the government
of his laws); and whether we die, we die (and, dying,
we are still subject) unto the Lord: whether we live
therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s.
9 For to this end Christ both died, and rose and
revived, that he "might be Lord both of the dead and
living (Phil. ii. 10).
10 But why (why then) dost thou judge thy bro-
ther ? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother?
(as if he were thy servant, and thou his master and his
judge, seeing) we shall all stand before the judgment-
seat of Christ (and from him, who is our Lord and
Master, shall receive the sentence according to our
works).
11 For it is written (Isa. liv. 23), As I live, saith
the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every
tongue shall confess to God.
12 So then every one of us shall” give account
of himself (and of his behaviour in these matters)
still observe the law of Moses, as far as under their present
circumstances they can ; as believing it was given them for
an everlasting covenant, and so being unsatisfied that the
authority of it is repealed ; so far is it from being true, that
this case hath no parallel: it is therefore evident that in this
sense it cannot be said, He that regardeth a day, enjoined by
the law of Moses, regardeth it to the Lord ; and he that
eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not : for the apostle, in
this very chapter, declareth himself persuaded by the faith of
the Lord Jesus, that “there was nothing unclean of itself.”
but only through the mistaken estimation of the Jew (ver. 14);
and elsewhere, that the Jewish feasts, new moons, and Sab-
baths, were only “shadows of good things to come,” and that
Christ was the body or the substance of them (Col. ii. 17),
and that there was made 30Årnatic, “a disamnulling of the
former command, by reason of the weakness and unprofitable-
mess of it” (Heb. vii. 18). It could be therefore nothing but
prejudice and error, which made the Jew conceive he observed
those days, and abstained from those meats, by a divine
authority, or that he could produce such an authority for so
doing ; he therefore must be said to do this “to the Lord,”
and “out of conscience towards God,” because he, through
the weakness and error of his judgment, thought the law of
Moses obliged him still in conscience to the observance of
these things. Now this is so far from being an unparalleled
case, that it is the very case of the Romanists, using still the
anointing of the sick; of the anabaptists, dipping them who
are baptized ; of the Greek church, refusing to eat things
strangled, and blood, out of reverence to the apostolical in-
junction; of the dissenters, using prayer “by the Spirit,” or
conceived prayer, out of reverence to the command, to “pray
in the Holy Ghost,” and abstaining from communion with
that church which observes no church-discipline, out of
respect to the command, to “purge the evil from among us;”
for all this is done by them out of a mistaken reverence to a
divine authority, which they conceive obliging to them. But
then the Greek expositors here note, that this indulgence to
men of an erroneous conscience is not to be extended to
“ doctrines of faith, and matters of great moment, but only
to cases of meat and fasting, and the like ;” and that it is
especially to be granted to those who are infirm, and want
indulgence.
19 Wer. 7. Oiºsk yag hºw avrò £7, For none of us liveth
to himself.] This I conceive to be a reason, not of that which
is contained in the sixth verse, but of what was delivered
ver. 4, viz. that Christ was our Master, and we his servants ;
and therefore, by judging one another for these things, they
took upon them to judge another man's servant. For (1.)
in the next verse the apostle reassumes this matter, inquir-
ing, “Who art thou that judgest thy brother ?” and (2.) those
words are a plain proof of this; for we are his servants to
whom we live, and to whom we must give an account of our
actions, and who is “Lord both of the dead and the living :”
*Tajra ow aregi rāy ynarečovrov, Kai Écôioytovićixã; #4Antritévy,
3xx& tº #iri &Axov rivāv, où Yùg #Tr; Trávºra 3 xàvoy otro; 31%xes,
3xx' iszó; #arty Émi rotºro ºvov, Kai rāv čezoiov regixapagavāºvoc.
Chrysost. Theod. Phot. (Ecum. Theophylact.
but they seem not so applicable to what is delivered, ver, 6,
or to give a clear reason why he that abstains from swine's
flesh, or that religiously observes a Jewish festival, doth this
unto the Lord Christ, who came to take away, not to enforce,
the obligation of those things.
Il Ver. 9. "Iya, ºversion, That he might be Lord.] He by
his resurrection being constituted “Lord of all things,” and
having “all power both in heaven and earth” conferred upon
him, must have power over all, we being all his servants, and
so obliged “not to live unto ourselves, but to him that died
for us, and rose again” (2 Cor. v. 16). He being also the
rewarder of all those that serve him faithfully, he must be
the Lord over the dead, so as to be able to bring them to
life again, that they may receive the promised reward.
12 Wer. 12. ITspi žavroſ, Aéyoy 3&orei Tô QEß, Shall give an
account of himself to God.] Here CEcumenius notes, that it
is said of God the Father, that “he judgeth no man, but
hath committed all judgment to his Son” (John v. 22), and
therefore, what the apostle here saith, viz. “Every man shall
confess to God, and bow the knee to him” (ver. 11), and
“give an account of himself to God” (ver. 12), is manifestly
spoken of Christ as judge, &ga Os3; á Xgiards, “and therefore
Christ is God :” and this argument was used before the Ni-
cene council by Novatian” and others. It is a wonder that
Socinus should deny that the apostle says, that “every knee
should bow” to Christ, when, citing the same place, Phil. ii.
10, 11, the apostle so expressly declares, that “at the name
of Jesus every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that
Jesus is the Lord ;” and here, from this place, proves, that
“Christ is Lord both of the dead and the living,” before
whose tribunal they must all stand ; and so must own his
power and authority over them, which is the thing expressed
metaphorically by bending of the knee, and the confession
of the tongue: and if these words, which the prophet cer-
tainly spake of Jehovah, the God of the Jews, be well applied
by the apostle to Christ, Christ must be also the person
intended by them ; for how could the apostle prove that
“every knee must bow” to Christ, from the words of God,
saying, “To me every knee shall bow,” if Christ were, in his
whole nature and essence, as different from that God who
spake those words of himself, as is a creature from his great
Creator P Crellius here saith, Paul accommodates this
passage to Christ, tº not that he is God, but because what is
contained in it shall, by Christ, as subordinate to God, be ex-
hibited and performed to God himself.” But this subterfuge
is confuted by the words of the apostle, who saith expressly,
Phil. ii. 10, il, that “to the name of Jesus every knee shall
bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Lord ;" and
so declares, these words are fulfilled by the honour exhibited,
not to God the Father, but to our Lord Jesus Christ : and
seeing he is Lord over the dead, by the power by which “he
* Neque enim, si non et Deus esset, omnese nomine ejus
genuflecteret. Novat, cap. 17. Wide Epist. Polycarp.
sect. 6. -
+ Non quéd Christus sit ipse Deus, sed quia quod in hóc
testimonio continetur, per Christum, tanquam Deo subordi-
matum, ipsi Deo praestari et exhiberi debeat.
CHAPTER XIV.
589
to God (and it becomes not us to antedate his judg-
ment).
13 Let us not therefore (take upon us to) judge one
another any more; but (let us) judge this rather, that
no man (ought to) *put a stumbling-block or an occa-
sion to fall (from the faith) in his brother’s way.
14 I know, and am persuaded by (the faith of) the
Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself:
but (notwithstanding this) to him that “esteemeth any-
thing to be unclean, to him (as to the use of it) it is
unclean.
15 But (though nothing be unclean of itself, yet) if
thy brother be "grieved (i. e. scandalized) with thy
meat, now walkest thou not charitably (in eating it to
his offence and ruin ; wherefore) destroy not him with
thy meat for whom Christ died.
16 Let not then (anything be done by you, whereby)
* your good (i.e. your Christian calling may) be evil
spoken of (Gr. blasphemed) (by them who are thus of.
fended at this use of your Christian liberty).
17 For the kingdom of God is not (a thing which
consists in) meat and drink; but (in) righteousness,
and peace, and "joy in the Holy Ghost.
18 For he that in these things serveth Christ is
acceptable to God, and approved of men.
19 Let us therefore follow after the things which
make for (the) peace (of the church), and wherewith
one may edify (and build up) another (in Chris-
tian lové and union into one spiritual temple in the
Lord).
20 For meat destroy not the work of God, (i. e. the
Christian convert, 1 Cor. iii. 9, for though) all things
indeed are pure, but (yet) it is evil for that man who
eateth with offence (to do so).
21 It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine,
nor (to do) any (other) thing (from which thou mayest
is able to subdue all things to himself” (Phil. iii. 21), which
doubtless is the power of God ; and seeing, having raised all
men, he “will bring to light the hidden things” which they
have done, and “manifest the counsels of their hearts” (1 Cor.
iv. 5), and so must be omniscient, and have the knowledge
of the secrets of the heart; and it is the property of God
alone to raise the dead by his power, and be the Searcher of
all hearts: these properties ascribed to Christ here, and else-
where, must show that he is truly God (see the note on
Phil. ii. 10). - -
* Ver. 13. Må riščval ºrgárzopºua, Not to put a stumbling-
block.] i. e. Not to cause our brother to stumble at the
Christian faith, and fall off from it, or to perish ; for what is
here, Do not put a stumbling-block (by thy meat) in thy
brother's way, is, wer. 15, “Destroy not him with thy meat
for whom Christ died;” and to eat, 3.3 mporkápapaaroº, so as
to put this stumbling-block before him, is “for meat to de-
stroy the work of God:” and that in this sense the phrase
is still used in the epistles, see note on 1 Cor. viii. 9;
only let it be noted that, where there is the same danger
of destroying my brother, or dissolving the work of God, be
it not by infidelity, but schism, or idolatry, or loose living,
there is the same reason and obligation, “not to put a stum-
bling-block, or an occasion to fall in our brother's way:” for
the reason why the apostle would not have us put this
stumbling-block, which makes our brother fall from the
faith, in his way, is this, because he would not have us be
instrumental to his perishing, or to “destroy him for whom
Christ died.” He therefore must equally forbid the doing
any other thing which may be left undone without sin; and,
being done, hath a like tendency to cause my weak brother
to perish.
* Ver. 14. Tº Aoytčokávº, ri koiyāy, To him that esteemeth
anything unclean, &c.] Here is a plain demonstration that
the person here mentioned, as “weak in faith,” was also
weak in understanding ; i.e. one who understood not that
meat to be free from uncleanness which indeed was so; and
that he was therefore “weak in the faith,” because he was
so in his understanding; and so also it is plainly, 1 Cor. viii.
7. 10. It is therefore without ground affirmed, That these
two sorts of weak persons must be used very differently; you
must have a care of offending those who are weak in faith,
but you must instruct and govern those who are weak in un-
derstanding.
Secondly, Here also is a plain evidence that the weak Jew
had no just matter of offence given him by the gentiles' eat-
ing, or that they did not take offence at the open violation
of an express law of God by the gentiles' eating; nor were
they thus weak out of reverence to any express positive law,
which all men agreed was given by God to them, at whose
eating they were scandalized. To make this very clear, con-
sider that the weakness of the Jews consisted in two
things;
... l. That they were not convinced that the law of Moses
was out of date, and therefore durst not do anything which
was forbidden by that law, nor omit doing what the law
commanded: and as to this, it is true, they were weak out
of reverence to an express positive law, which, through the
weakness of their understanding, they thought to be still
binding, but the apostle here declares to be by Christ taken
a WåY.
g That they could not endure to see others do what they
themselves durst not do; i. e. they could not endure to see
the gentile converts eat those meats which the law of Moses
forbade the Jews to eat : now here, I say, they were not
weak out of reverence to any express positive law ; nor
could they take offence at the open violation of any express
law of God: for there was no such law given to the gentiles,
to abstain from such meats as unclean, nor to the gentile
converts to Christianity to observe any such law; they there-
fore by eating of these meats did violate no law given by
God to them, and so the Jews could take no offence at their
violation of any such law. And so much stronger is the
case of eating things offered to idols, in which yet the apos-
tle doth require this abstinence, with regard to the conscience
of the weak Jew (1 Cor. viii. 7. 10. x. 28, 29), for the eat-
ing of things offered to idols (unless it were done in the idol-
temple, the place appointed for his worship) was against no
law of God, but only against the canons of the Jews; and
so here the Jews could not be thus offended with that action,
out of reverence to any law which God had made against it,
but only from the Jewish canons, and interpretations of the
law, touching abstaining from idolatry: the imagination of
the Jew, that such meats bought in the shambles, or set be-
fore Christians at a friendly entertainment, were unlawful,
was a vain imagination, and so they had only an imaginary
law which occasioned their offence. Nor doth the apostoli-
cal canon concern any other meats offered to idols than
those which were eaten in the idol-temple: for sure the
apostle, who was a part of that council, would not here
freely allow what the whole college of apostles thought ne-
cessary even for the gentile converts to abstain from. This
scandal therefore of the weak Jews was plainly scandalum
acceptum, non datum, “received, but not given;” for they
had no reason at all to believe that the law of Moses was
ever given to, or was in force among, the gentiles, and much
less that their Jewish canons could be so.
* Ver. 15. Ei Aurºrai, If thy brother be grieved.] The
Greek imports such sorrow as puts a man in danger of his
life, and therefore, in the metaphorical sense, such sorrow as
endangered his Christian life. So Job xxxi. 39, “If I have
caused the owners thereof to lose their life:” si Juxºy #x0-
Trnora, “If I have grieved his soul,” say the LXX. ‘nnEIT,
“If I have caused his life to expire, or break out” (see Dr.
Hammond on the place).
Note also here, that the apostle plainly doth suppose tha.
he, for whom Christ died, might perish (see the note on 1
Cor. viii. 11). -
* Ver. 16. ’Ayaôy, Your good.] Tây triarty waxeſ, “He
calleth our faith our good,” say all the Greek commentators,
and that very appositely ; for the Jews blasphemed and
fell off from Christianity upon this account.
” Wer. 17. Kai xagā āv IIvsdaar, 3xiº, And joy in the
Holy Ghost.] This cannot here signify delight to do good,
or rejoicing in unanimity, for the phrase hath no such sense
in scripture, but always signifies an inward joy arising from
590 *-
ROM ANS:
abstain) whereby thy “brother stumbleth, or is of.
fended, or is made weak.
22 Hast thou (then) faith 2 (or, a persuasion that all
meats are clean, and lawfully may be eaten ?) have it
to thyself before God (and satisfy thyself with that).
* Happy is he that condemneth not himself (by
the consolations of the Holy Ghost; as when the apostle
saith, the Thessalonians “received the word with much af.
fection, and with joy in the Holy Ghost,” 1 Thess. i. 6, and
when Luke informs us, the churches had peace, “and, walk-
ing in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied,”
Acts ix. 31.
* Ver. 21. IIgoaxérres, # axay3axićeral, # 3-Seysſ, Stum-
#leth, or is offended, or is made weak.] I have shown what.
it is to be made weak, note on ver, l, what it is to stumble,
note on ver, 13. To offend or scandalize a weak brother, is
also to be an occasion of his ruin, by causing him to fall off
from the faith, or to be prejudiced against it, as will appear
from a brief view of the places where the phrase is used. So
Matt. v. 29, 30, “If thy right eye, or hand, a kay?axićs, as,
offend thee,” i.e. if it lead thee to hell and to perdition, cut it
off. So xi. 6, “Blessed is he who is not offended with me;”
i. e. who is not by the meanness of my present circum-
stances, or by the doctrine I am sent to preach, diverted
from believing in me. So xiii. 21, “When persecution
comes, the stony ground sióüç orway&axićeral, is presently of
fended.” So wer. 57. xv. 11. Mark vi. 3. Luke vii. 23. The
Jews were scandalized at Christ; i. e. they were diverted
from owning him as their Messiah, either by reason of his
words, or the meanness of his original, and his appearance
in the world. So were the multitude, and some of his dis-
ciples, scandalized at his discourse about eating his flesh,
John xvi. 60, 61. So doth our Lord admonish his disciples
not to be Scandalized at the persecutions they should suffer,
John xvi. 1. So he foretells that many, who had once be-
lieved in him, would be scandalized, when tribulations
should abound, Matt. xxiv. 10. So he tells his own disci-
ples, that they would be “scandalized” at his sufferings,
Matt. xxvi. 3]. And so both Peter and the rest of them
were offended, or “scandalized,” their faith in him failing
for a season, Luke xxiv. 21. So are we to understand
those words, “Woe to him that offends,” or scandalizeth,
“one of these little ones,” as appears from the reason follow-
ing, wer. 14, “It is not the will of your heavenly Father,
that one of these little ones should perish.” So I have
shown the word is used, 1 Cor. viii. 13. And so it may be
well interpreted, when the apostle saith, 2 Cor. xi. 29,
acting uncharitably) in that thing which he alloweth.
23 And he that * doubteth (Gr. that puts a differ-
ence between meats) is damned if he eat (against his
conscience, making that difference), because he eateth
not of faith (but against his own persuasion): for
* whatsoever is not of faith is sin.
“Who is offended,” i.e. in danger to fall off from the Chris-
tian faith, “and I burn not” with a fervent zeal for his re-
covery 2 (see Examen Millii.)
* Ver, 22. Maxágio; 5 ºch kévoy Havrév, Happy is he
that condemneth not himself, &c.] i. e. He is compara-
tively a happy man, that hath this firm persuasion of the
lawfulness of eating anything that is set before him, without
asking any question about it for conscience' sake; for he
createth no trouble or condemnation to himself about these
matters, nor is he troublesome to others by his niceness, or
scrupulosity; whereas he that puts a difference betwixt
meats, is not only troublesome to others with whom he doth
converse, but condemns himself, as oft as he is tempted to
eat of that which his conscience doth not allow of (see Ex-
amen Millii).
* Ver. 23. ‘o 3axplyázavoc, He that doubteth..] He that dis-
cerneth, and puts a difference between meats lawful and un-
lawful; this is the import of this word elsewhere. So Matt.
xvi. 3, “You know how 8taxpively, to discern the face of the
heavens;” Acts x. 28. xi. 12, “Go with them, ºwn&#y 3iakºſ-
yówevoc, making no difference” betwixt the gentiles and the
Jews, the circumcised and the uncircumcised, not counting
them unclean any longer, as Peter doth himself interpret it,
ver. 28. And again, Acts xv. 9, où8ây Siâxeive, “He put no
difference betwixt them and us, purifying their hearts by
faith;” 1 Cor. iv. 7, Ti; as Staxpive; “Who put the differ-
ence betwixt thee and others ?” xi. 29, twº 8taxpivov, “Not
discerning the Lord’s body,” or not discriminating it from
other meats. So Jude 22, “Of some have compassion,
8taxgivápasyo, making a difference.” -
* IIāv 3; 3 oix #x riotswº, Whatever is not of faith..] i. e.
With a due persuasion of the lawfulness of the action; for
that is the faith spoken of in the foregoing verse, when the
apostle saith, “Hast thou faith P have it to thyself;” and
that is the faith which stands opposed to doubting in this
verse; and to this faith alone agree the preceding words, He
that makes a discrimination between meats lawful and un-
lawful, and yet eats of them without discrimination, is con-
demned by his own conscience, if he eats, because he eateth
not of faith, or with persuasion of the lawfulness of eating
what he doth partake of.
CHAPTER XV.
I WE then that are strong (and rightly understand
our Christian liberty and duty) ought to bear the in-
firmities of the weak (being careful to forbear the doing
that which doth scandalize and hurt the souls of them
who have not this knowledge), and not to (do things be-
cause they) please ourselves (when our weak brother is
thus injured by them). *
2 Let (therefore) every one (of us rather choose to)
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XV.
* Wer. 2. IIpă: oikołopºv, To edification.] Edification, in the
Scriptures, sometimes signifies our increase in the knowledge
of our Christian duty; in which sense it is seven times used,
1 Cor. xiv. 3, 4, 5. 12. 16. 26. 29. Eph. iv. 29, especially in
that knowledge which tends to our advancement in piety;
and therefore is called oizoöopań Ogot, “the edification of
God,” 1 Tim. i. 4. Sometimes our growth, or confirmation
in the faith, Jude 20. Sometimes it refers to the whole
body, which is called @soi, oizoëoº, “the building of God,”
1 Cor. iii. 2. Eph. ii. 21. iv. 12. And then the body is edi-
fied, (1.) By the mutual love of its members; in which
sense, saith the apostle, “charity edifieth,” l Cor. viii. 1,
and this is olxoëoº y áyátry, “ edification in love,” Eph. iv.
lä. (2.) By the strict union of the members to, and their
peaceable conversation with, one another; and this is styled,
please his neighbour for his good to (the) edification
(of him in his Christian faith).
3 For even Christ (whose ea ample we are called to
imitate) pleased not himself (i. e. and indulged not so
to his own pleasure, ease, and quiet, as to neglect the
glory of God, or the good of others); but (willingly
bore with the infirmities, and sustained the reproaches
of men), * as it is written (of him, Ps. lxix. 9), The
oixoSoº, si, röy #va, “the edifying the church into one,” 1
Thess. v. 11. And thus we are bid to “follow after things
which make for peace, and r& rā, oixoSoºs tº Fis 3xxâxous,
the edification of one of us unto another,” xiv. 19. Now
the edification, which consists in knowledge of our Christian
duty, cannot be here understood; because our forbearance of
that which scandalizes our brother tends not to the informa-
tion of his understanding, but, as it is an act of charity,
it tends to the edification of the body in love ; as it is
the avoiding that which may scandalize the weak, and 89
induce him to stumble at, and fall off from Christianity, it
tends to his edification in the faith; and as it is receiving the
weak into fellowship and communion, notwithstanding his
different conceptions from us, it tends to the edifying the
body in union and peace. -
2 Ver, 3. Ka82; yíygamºral, As it is written..] That this
CHAPTER XV.
501
.*
reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me,
(i.e. he was afflicted for them, his zeal for the glory of
God, and the good of souls, caused him patiently to en-
dure the contradiction of sinners, Heb. xii. 2, 3, to
bear the cross they laid, and despise thé shame they
cast upon him ; which sure is more than to abstavn
from a little meat on the account of others. º
4 Nor ought we to think ourselves unconcerned in
what was said so long before by David of others,) for
(this and) whatsoever things were written aforetime
were written for our learning, that we through pa-
tience (in bearing the like censures, reproaches, and in-
firmities of others) and (through the) comfort of the
scriptures (promising a reward to that patience) might
have hope (of being rewarded for it).
5 Now the God of patience and consolation (who
works this patience in us, and gives this consolation to
ws) grant you to be like-minded one towards another
(i. e. to have a like concern for others as for your-
selves) according to (the easample of) Christ Jesus.
6 That ye (thus bearing with the infirmities of the
weak, and thus receiving one another into communion)
may * with one mind and one mouth (in your assem-
Ölies) glorify (and worship) God, even the “Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ (or the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ).
7 Wherefore receive ye one another (Jew and gen-
tile, into mutual and love fellowship, without contention
about the things in which your judgments differ), as
Christ also received us (both reconciling both to God
in one body on the cross, and to one another, Col. i.
20. Eph. ii. 14), to the glory of God (which will be
much promoted by this union).
8 (As he hath received us, ).áyw 68,) Now I say that
Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision (or
the Jews) for (the establishment of) the truth of God,
to confirm the promises made to the fathers (of that
nation, and so he showed his love and mercy towards
them). *
9 And (he was also the Saviour of the gentiles) that
the gentiles (also) might glorify God for his mercy
(to them) ; as it is written (Ps. xviii.49), For this
cause I "will confess to thee (i. e. praise and celebrate
thee) among the gentiles (or v Švsgu, with the gem-
tiles), and (will) sing to thy name. -
10 And again he (the same David) saith, (Ps. lxvii.
4), Rejoice, ye gentiles, with his people.
11 And again (Ps. cxvii. 1), Praise the Lord, all ye
gentiles; and laud him, all ye people.
12 And again, "Esaias saith (xi. 1. 10), There shall
be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise to reign over
the gentiles; in him shall the gentiles trust.
13 Now (may) the God of hope fill you with all joy
and peace (the fruits qf hope) in believing (those things),
that ye may abound in hope, through the power of
the Holy Ghost (witnessing to your spirits that ye are
the sons of God, viii. 16, 17, and shedding abroad the
sense of his love in your hearts, v. 5, and so sealing you
wp to the day of redemption, Eph. iv. 30). . .
14 And (this, I pray, not doubting the assistance of
this good Spirit with you, for) I myself also am per-
suaded of you, my brethren, that ye also are full of
goodness, filled (by the Spirit) with all knowledge,
able also to admonish one another.
15 Nevertheless, brethren, I have written the more
boldly to you in some sort (Gr. darò pºpovg, as to the
gentile part of you, see note on 2 Cor. ii. 5), as putting
you in mind (of the favour of God to you gentiles, and
your duty to him), because of the grace that is given
to me of God, (i.e. because of the apostolical office by
him committed to me: see note on Rom. i. 5).
16 That I should be the minister of Jesus Christ
to the gentiles, " ministering the gospel of God (i. e.
eaſercising myself in the offices of the gospel, as the
priest in the legal services), that the offering up of the
gentiles (by me) might be acceptable, being sanctified
(not with salt, or any other libamen, but) by (the effu-
sion of) the Holy Ghost (upon them).
17 (And this I have so effectually performed by his
grace, that) I have therefore whereof I may glory
through (the assistance of) Jesus Christin those things
which pertain to (my service of) God (in this gospel.
18 And here I shall only mention what I myself, by
the assistance of his grace, have done y) for “I will not
psalm was undoubtedly spoken of the Messiah, we learn
from ver, 22, applied to Christ, John xix. 28, 29, and from
the former part of the verse cited here, viz. “The zeal of
thine house hath consumed me,” applied to Christ, John ii.
17. And the Jews themselves say, that the things contained
in this psalm shall be accomplished “in the days of David,”
or “in the days of the Messiah;” and that which is said in
the close of the psalm, that “God will save Zion,” &c., “that
men may dwell therein, and have it in possession,” shall be
accomplished nºwpm ºn a “in the days of the Messiah,”
the rabbins own. + *
* Ver, 6. Op.00upwałby Év Evi arépart, With one mind and
mouth.] i. e. Not only praising God with the same words in
your doxologies, but also joining in those praises with a
mind full of Christian love, and sense of the divine good-
Il CSS. -
* Tây Gey ka? warāga, &c. The God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ.] So 2 Cor. i. 3. xi. 31. Eph. i. 3. Col. i.
3. 1 Pet. i. 3. Rev. i. 6. 12. On which words the descant
of the fathers; is to this effect, “That the first person of the
sacred Trinity is the God of Jesus Christ, in respect of his
manhood, his Father in respect of his divinity, or as he is
the Word.” Or the words may be rendered thus: “God
who is,” or “The God that is,” or “God, to wit, the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ,” for the Hebrew , and so the
Greek xai, signifies sometimes id est (Noldius. Partic. Hebr.
* Voisin, de Leg. Div. p. 584.
... + Pug. Fid. par. iii. dist. 2, cap. 16, sect. 25.
:: Os3; &#y yā; roi; Xºta toû Kaºri, r3 &v$gotriyev, "rathe 33 kara
ńy Seárn ra. Theoph. Deus hominis, pater Verbi,
p. 180, 181); sometimes nempē, to wit (p. 207), and some-
times qui est, who is (p. 315). -
* Wer. 9. 'Ełogowoyhºokwat, I will confess unto thee..] The
very next words, “Great deliverances giveth he unto his
king, and showeth mercy to David, invnº, his Messiah,” or
Anointed, are by the Jews” interpreted of the Messiah, that
is, Christ, and so the preceding words are doubtless fitly ap-
plied to him. -
* Ver. 12. ‘Haraſa; Aéyet, Esaias saith..] The Chaldee pa-
raphrast interprets the first verse of the Messiah; and R.
Chanini proves from the tenth verse, that “King Messiah
is not to come, but to give precepts to the nations of the
world.”
7 Wer. 16. Isgowpycivra ré stayyáxiov, Ministering the gos-
pel.] Here is a plain allusion to the Jewish sacrifices, offered
by the priest, and sanctified or made acceptable and Savoury
by the libamen offered with it; for he compares himself in
the preaching of the gospel to the priest, sacris operanti, con-
versant about his sacrifice, to prepare and fit it to be offered.
The gentiles, dedicated by him to the service of God, are his
sacrifice, or oblation; the Holy Spirit is the libamen poured
on this sacrifice, by which they are sanctified, and rendered
sūrgārēewra, “acceptable to God” (see Numb. xv. 3. 10).
8 Ver. 18. oë yāp roxaharo, Aaxeſ, ºri, For I will not dare
to speak anything of what Christ hath not wrought by ºne.]
The critics here tell us, that they take off the force of the
apostle's words who render them “I dare not,” because that
intimates the apostle had a mind to do so, but fear withheld
* Pug. Fid. par. ii. cap. 5, sect. 8,
+ Voisin, de Leg, Div. p. 595,
592
ROMANS.
dare to speak of any of those things which Christ hath
not (but only of those which he hath) wrought by me,
to make the gentiles obedient, by word and deed.
19 (Viz. That he hath assisted me in preaching the
gospel) "through mighty (Gr. Šv. Övvápist, with the
power of) signs and wonders, by the power of the
Spirit of God; so that from Jerusalem, and round
about unto Illyricum, I have fully preached the gospel
of Christ.
20 Yea, so have I strived to preach the gospel, (as
to do it) not where Christ was named (i. e. preached
by others before me), lest I should build upon another
man’s foundation:
21 But (my preaching hath been) as it is written
(Isa. lii. 15), To whom he was not spoken of, they
* : and they that have not heard shall under-
Stand.
22 For which cause also (wherefore, by going from
one region to another to preach the gospel,) I have been
much hindered from coming to you.
23 But now having no more place (s) in these
parts (unacquainted with the gospel), and having a
great desire these many years to come to you;
24 Whensoever I take my (intended) journey into
Spain, "I will (by God’s assistance) come to you: for
I trust to see you in my journey, and to be brought
on my way thitherward by you, if first I be somewhat
filled (i.e. satisfied) with your company.
25 But now I go to Jerusalem to minister to (the
necessities of) the saints (there).
him ; they therefore would have the words rendered here,
and Jude 9, oùx #réxºnore, “Michael, contending with the
devil, durst not bring against him a railing accusation ;”
Non sustineo, “I suffer, not myself,” and “He suffered not
himself:” but our translation may be justified, by a like ex-
pression of the same apostle in the same case, oi kai roxſwai-
feev #yxºval avyweivat Havroſſ; rior, “We dare not make our-
selves of the number, or compare ourselves with some who
commend themselves,” 2 Cor. x. 12. And this, doubtless,
he saith not to intimate that he and Timothy had a mind to
do that themselves, which there he represents as folly in
others; but only to intimate that he did not think it fit and
prudent so to do, and therefore durst not do it, and this sense
the word well bears, 1 Cor. vi. 15. Jude 9.
* Ver, '19. "Ev Buyáſzei a mastov, #y 3vvápast IIvetºzaroc, i. e.
Confirming the gospel by outward miracles, and by the in-
ward distributions of the Holy Ghost. See the difference
between them, note on Heb. ii. 4. r
* Ver. 24. 'Exedo-opsai ºrpä, ötzāc, I will come to you, &c.]
Here is an evidence that Paul, in purposes of this nature,
was not assisted by the Holy Ghost, they being purposes
which by the providence of God he was hindered from ful-
filling. It is also evident from i. 10, 11, and from this, and
from the twenty-eighth verse, that Paul writ this epistle
while he was at liberty, and before Christ had told him he
26 For it hath pleased them of Macedonia and
Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor
saints which are at Jerusalem.
27 It hath pleased them (I say), and (with good
reason, seeing) their debtors they are. For if the gen-
tiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things
(receiving the gospel from Judea), their duty is also (in
gratitude) to minister to them in carnal things.
28 When therefore I have performed this (charita-
ble office), and have sealed (and secured) to them this
fruit (of the gentiles’ liberality), I will come by you
into Spain.
29 And I am sure that, when I come to you, I shall
come in the fulness of the blessing of the gospel of
Christ, (or with a full impartment of spiritual gifts to
$you : see note on i. 11.) .
30 Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus
Christ’s sake, and for the love (which is the fruit) of
the Spirit, that you “strive together with me in your
prayers to God for me;
31 That I may be delivered from them that do not
believe in Judea; and that my service which I have
for (my brethren in ) Jerusalem may be accepted of
the Saints (there, though it come from the churches of
the gentiles);
32 That I may come to you with (the greater)
joy by the will of God, and may with you be re-
fleshed.
33 Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.
must “testify of him at Rome,” Acts xxiii. 11, and before
he was constrained to appeal to Caesar, Acts xxv. 11 ; for
in this epistle he speaks still of his journey to Rome, and
from thence to Spain, as of a voluntary undertaking ; hop-
ing then that the unbelieving Jews would not have given
him that disturbance, when he went up to Jerusalem with
his alms gathered for his nation, which afterward he found
they did, ver. 27 (see Examen Millii).
* Ver. 30. 'Ey raï, ºrgoa Buxaſ, In your prayers for me.]
“If Paul,” saith Esthius, “might desire the prayers of the
Romans,” why might not the Romans desire the prayers of
Paul ?” I answer they might desire his prayers, as he did
theirs, by an epistle directed to him to pray for them ; he
adds, “If they might desire his prayers whilst living, why
not when dead and reigning with Christ P” I answer, because
then they could direct no epistle to him, or any other way
acquaint him with their mind. Hence Elijah, being to be
taken up into heaven, speaks to Elisha thus, “Ask what I
shall do for thee before I am taken away from thee,” 2 Kings
ii. 9. Note also, that we say not that such desires of the
saints departed are injurious to the intercession of Christ:
but that they are idolatrous, implying that creatures are
omniscient, omnipresent, and have the knowledge of the
heart.
CHAPTER XVI.
1 I CoMMEND to you-(r care) " Phebe our sister (in
the faith), which is a servant of (or, one that ministers
to) the church which is at Cenchrea (or the assembly
of Christians at the haven of Corinth) ;
2 That you receive her in the Lord (i. e. for the
Lord’s sake, or as one that belongs to him, Matt. x.
42), as becometh saints (i. e. Christians), and that ye
assist her in whatsoever business she hath need of
you : for she hath been a succourer of many, and *of
myself also.
3 Greet "Priscilla and Aquila my helpers in (the
work of) Christ Jesus;
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVI.
* Ver. 1. dolºny rºy 388x33, hºv, Phebe our sister.] This
Phebe was a deaconess, chosen to that office according to
the apostolical prescription, 1 Tim. v. 10. So Origen and
Chrysostom.
* Ver. 2. Kai aircü Haº, And of myself also..] Hence
Some infer that she was not a deaconess, but one that mi-
nistered to the apostles, in the preaching, of her substance ;
but Paul had none such to minister to him, 1 Cor. ix. 5. 15,
and this made one condition of a deaconess, 1 Tim. V. 10 ;
Trportacíay rºy pixoževiay wai xn&sºoylay waxeſ, “He saith, She
hath been a succourer of many, by reason of her care of, and
hospitality towards them.” Theodoret.
* Ver. 3. 'Agráraağs IIgſakixxay, Greet Priscilla.] Pris-
cilia seems to be named first here, and 2 Tim. iv. 19, as
CHAPTER XV [.
593
4. Who have for my life laid down their necks (i. e.
eaposed themselves to the hazard of their own lives) :
to whom not only I give thanks (for my own preser-
vation), but also all the churches of the gentiles (for
preservation of their apostle).
5 Likewise greet the “church which is in their
house (i. e. their Christian family). Salute my well-
beloved Epenetus, who is the "first-fruits of Achaia
unto Christ.
6 Salute Mary who bestowed much labour on us.
7 Salute Andronicus and Junia "my kinsmen, and
my fellow-prisoners, who are of "note among the
apostles, who also were in Christ (that is converted to
the Christian faith) before me.
8 Greet Amplias my beloved in the Lord.
9. Salute Urbane, our helper in (the gospel of)
Christ, and Stachys my beloved.
10 Salute Apelles “approved in Christ (by the sin-
cerity of his faith, and the integrity of his life).
Salute them that are (in Christ) of Aristobulus,
household.
11 Salute Herodion my kinsman. , Greet them
that be of the household of Narcissus, " which are in
the Lord.
12 Salute Tryphena and Tryphosa, who labour in
the Lord ('s service). Salute the beloved Persis,
which laboured much in the Lord.
13 Salute Rufus * chosen of the Lord, and his
mother and mine (she being one who showed the affec-
tion of a mother to me also).
14 Salute Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermas, Patrobas,
Hermes, and the brethren which are with them.
15 Salute Philologus, and Julia, Nereus, and his
sister, and Olympas, and * all the saints that are with
them.
16 Salute one another with a *holy kiss. The
churches of Christ salute you.
17 Now I beseech you, brethren, “mark them
being first converted, say interpreters; but she is named last,
Acts xviii. 2, 26. 1 Cor. xvi. 19, and therefore the gloss
Saith, “She is here placed first, there being in Christ Jesus
neither male nor female.”
* Ver, 5. Kai rāy war' diacy airāv #xxxnciay, And the church
in their house.] They were so zealous in the faith, say Chry-
sostom, Theodoret, and Theophylact, &are row olzov airów
Trávºra; ºria row; trotical, rońrov; Rai #xxxnariav &véuaa sy, “that
they converted their whole families to the Christian profes-
sion of it, for such families he calls the church.” See this
proved, note on 1 Cor. xvi. 19.
* 'Aragxi rā; "Axaíaz, The first-fruits of Achaia.] So
Chrysostom, Theodoret, CEcumenius, Theophylact, the Sy-
riac and Arabic versions; but the Alexandrian copy, the
Ethiopic, the Vulgar, and almost all the Latin commenta-
tors read, rā; 'Aging, “the first-fruits of Asia Minor.” So
doth Origen on this place, and Hom. 11 on Numbers, f. 109,
D and G, and Jerome on Ezek. xliii. f. 241, 1. And this
reading is to be preferred before the other, because the same
apostle Saith expressly, that Stephanas “was the first-fruits
of Achaia,” 1 Cor. xvi. 15; that is, he was first converted
to the faith there, and Epenetus in Asia Minor, for so the
phrase, “the first-fruits,” is used by St. Clemens.”
"Ver, 7. Tow; ovyyeyeſ, wov, My kinsmen.] So Paul styles
all the Jews, Rom. ix. 3. Kai avaixaaXárovº, “And fel-
low-prisoners.”. Before Paul went to Rome he was, #y by-
^axºs ºrigizzoricas, “in prisons often,” 2 Cor. xi. 23, ºr rā-
*16 biºza poézas, “bearing his chain seven times,” saith
Clemens,t and so might well have many fellow-prisoners.
...’ 'Fºrzhºol iv toſ: 3roatáxois, Of note among the apostles.]
That is, say some, men highly esteemed by them; men emi-
ment, say Chrysostom and Theodoret, not only among the
teachers, but the apostles of the churches. For they who
are co-workers with the apostles in planting of the churches
are styled ārśa toxoi iuxAnalây, “apostles of the churches,”
2 Cor. viii. 23. Phil. ii. 25. In which sense Barnabas in
scripture is called the apostle, Acts xiv. 14, and Philip the
º by the ancients; see Coteler. Not. in Constit. Apost.
p. 262. º
* Ver, 10. Aérºpov, Approved.] By suffering patiently
great tribulations, saith Origen: for “tribulation worketh
patience, and patience 3ozºv, experience” of our sincere
affection to him for whose sake we suffer them, Rom. v. 4.
But because all the Greek scholiasts say it signifies rob,
&TNova rigovº, row: eißsic, row; 8paśī; rày vénary, * men sim-
ple, foolish, and slow of understanding,” and because the
word often bears this sense in the book of Proverbs, as when
the wise man says àwaxos, “The simple believeth every
word,” xiv.15 ; when he calls upon the “simple to hear
wisdom,” viii. 5, and promises to “give subtlety to the sim-
ple,” i. 4; and when he adds, xxi. 11, “When a scorner is
punished, the simple is made wise,”—this exposition, being
. pertinent to the words, may be preferred before the
Other.
* Kaffia-ráva rāg &rapy &; airãy si; Émizzónrov, Ka: Sianóyov,
&ENAávrov triateiſely. Epist. 1 ad Corinth. Sect. 42.
+ Epist, ad Cor. sect. 5.
* Wer. 11. Toi); #wra; iv Kugiº, Which are in the Lord.]
From these two verses is confirmed our observation, that
when the whole family was converted, the apostle writes to
the church in such a house; when not, the salvation is di-
rected to as many as were in the Lord in that family, ac-
cording to the descant of Origen” on the place.
.” Wer. 13. Toy #xNext?y iy Kvgiº, Chosen in the Lord.]
One of great excellency in Christianity, as we say, “A choice
man :” so the word #xxext3; often signifies; Ps. lxxviii. 31,
“They smote down rob; #axeztotic, the chosen men that were
of Israel:” so taxext& paympºsia, are “choice sepulchres,”
Gen. xxiii. 6 ; #xxâxt& rāv Šćgov, “choice gifts,” Deut. xii.
11; and &věpe; #xxaarot, “ choice men,” Judg. xx. 11 (see
Acts xv. 25, 26).
* Ver. 15. IIávraç rob; &yiovº, All the saints.] Note here,
that saints and Christian brethren are all one.
* Ver. 16. 'Ew pºpcar &yiº, With a holy kiss.] Of the
kiss of charity, let it be observed,
(1.) That it was used at the end of the prayer before the
celebration of the sacrament. So Justin Martyr'ſ saith ex-
pressly, &AA#Nov; pºpulari àatağpºeşa Travačkºvoi Tøy sixãv,
“Prayers being ended, we salute one another with a holy
kiss, and then the bread and cup are brought to the presi-
dent.” (2.) That this seems to have been done by the men
apart, and the women apart, as their; separate places in the
church or synagogue seemed to require. So the Apostolical
Institutions say, $ “These things being done, let the men
apart, and the women apart, salute one another with a kiss
in the Lord.” Though Origen || seems to make this practice
proper to the men only.
* Ver. 17. xxoweſ, rot; tā; 31Xocracia: Kai rā azāy?&Aa.
Trototyraç, Mark them that cause divisions and scandals.}
By “scandals” the Greek scholiasts understand heresies,
whereas, through the whole New Testament this word seems
rather to import such actions as give occasion to others to
stumble at, and fall off from the Christian faith (see note on
Matt. xviii. 6. Rom. xiv. 13). Esthius here notes, (1.)
That unwritten traditions may be hence proved, because the
apostle saith, “Mark them that cause offences contrary, not
to the scriptures, but to the doctrine they had received.”
But to make this argument of any force, he must prove that
the doctrine they had received was not contained in the
scriptures either then, or after written: (2.) The apostle
plainly speaks here of doctrines received from the months of
* Widentur quidem plures fuisse ex domo seu familia
Narcissi, sed non omnes in Domino fuisse, et ided addit eos,
salutandos qui sunt in Domino.
+-Apol. ii. p. 97. -
f Ai yuwaizé, nexoplatºvac. Const. Apol. lib.ii, cap. 57, p.
203. Joseph. de Beli. Jud. lib. vi. cap. 14, p. 916, F. Philo
de Wit. Contempl. p. 691, P,
§ 'Adºraća Swaay 3xxâxou, oi &věpec, wai äxxâxac ai Yuvaſzeg,
rö iv Kugiº pixiiga. Lib. ii. cap. 57, et lib. viii. cap. 11. Aa-
traća 6acay of Naixo. #y?ps; row: *aizoic, ai yuwaſas, Taº Yuvaſka.
Wide Coteler. Not. in lib. ii. cap. 57.
| Exhóc sermone mos ecclesiis traditus est, ut post ora-
tiones osculose invicem suscipiant fratres. In locum.
2 Q
594
ROMANS.
which cause divisions and offences contrary to the
doctrine which you have learned (of the apostles);
and avoid them (or turn from them).
18 For * they that are such serve not our Lord
Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good
words and fair speeches deceive the hearts * of the
simple (i.e. of innocent well-meaning persons.
19 This eſchortation I direct to you to preserve you
in the way in which hitherto you have walked to the cre-
dit of the gospel ;) for (the fame of) your obedience
(to it) is come abroad unto all men. I am glad there-
fore on your behalf (that ye are not yet infected with
these Judaizers); but yet I would have you wise to
(discern and hold fast) that which is good, and sim-
ple concerning evil (1 Cor. xiv. 20, i. e. as men who
have no knowledge of it, and no skill to practise it).
20 And (to encourage you to continue such, know
that) the God of peace (who is an enemy to these divi-
sions, mentioned ver, 17) shall bruise "Satan under
your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
be with you. Amen.
21 Timotheus my work-fellow in the gospel, and
Lucius, and Jason, and Sosipater, my kinsmen, salute
Oll.
22 I Tertius, who wrote this epistle, salute you in
(the name of) the Lord. -
23 Gaius mine host, and (the host) of the church,
saluteth you. Erastus the chamberlain of the city
Saluteth you, and Quartus a brother.
24 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you
all. Amen.
25 Now unto him that is " of power to establish
you “according to my gospel, and the preaching of
Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mys-
tery, which was kept secret "since the world began
(or from former ages),
26 But now is made manifest, and by the *scrip-
tures of the prophets, according to the commandment
of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for
the obedience of faith;
27(That is) to God * only (essentially and from
himself) wise be glory through Jesus Christ (the me-
diator of the new covenant, the author and finisher of
our faith) for ever. Amen.
the apostles by those very men to whom he writ; and when
he hath once proved the unwritten traditions of the church
of Rome to be such, we shall be ready to receive them. (3.)
He adds, that “this place makes for a diligent inquisition
after heretics,” as if Paul was setting up an inquisition here:
whereas the word axowsty doth only signify to mark, or to
look to them, as Luke xi. 35. 2 Cor. iv. 18. Gal. vi. 1. Phil.
ii. 4. Nor doth he exhort the Romans to observe them, in
order to the apprehending or punishing, but, as he himself
notes, in order to the declining of them. (4.) He observes
truly, that the apostle here insinuates, that even the vulgar
people may from some general principles discern the true
doctrine, and that which was delivered by the apostles, from
that which was false, and was not so delivered; but this was
only then to be done by comparing that which was thus
delivered from the mouth of the apostles, who preached it
by the assistance of the Holy Ghost, and confirmed their
doctrine by miracles, with that which was delivered besides,
or in opposition to it, and was not so confirmed ; and this
can only now be done by them, by comparing all pretenders
to the apostles' doctrine with those scriptures which they
indited by the assistance of the Holy Spirit, and confirmed
by miracles.
* Ver. 18. Oi y&g roctºroi, They that are such..] That is,
the Gnostics, saith Dr. Hammond, to whom indeed these
characters do well agree. But Theodoret saith thus, rob,
waxovs ro: várzov avynyópov; 3& roſtoy aivivºrs rat, “By these
words he strikes at the evil defenders of the law,” or those
who preached up circumcision and the observance of the law
as necessary to the salvation of the gentiles; rob; # 'lověat-
ow aiyirrerai, “He means the Jews,” say Chrysostom, CEcu-
menius, and Theophylact, “for he still taxes them with the
love of their bellies.” And certain it is, that these men
caused divisions and separations from others, as unclean, and
not fit to be conversed with (Acts xi, 3. Gal. ii. 12, 13),
and scandal, “subverting the souls of the gentiles” (Acts
xv. 24), “evacuating the gospel of Christ” (Gal. ii. 21),
and causing men to “fall from grace” (Gal. v. 2.4); that
they did this Év Aáyº zoNaxsiac, “by flattering words” (1 Thess,
li. 5), and that in this “they served not Christ, but their own
bellies” (Phil. iii. 19), doing these things “for filthy lucre's
sake” (Tit. i. 10, 11); whence it appears there is no neces-
sity of referring these words to the Gnostics, or deserting the
opinions of the ancients, as touching the persons here in-
tended (see also Examen Millii).
* 'Azaxów, Of the simple..] "Anaxo, in the Septuagint,
answers to the Hebrew-En, “the upright,” Job viii. 20. Ps.
xxv.21. Prov. xiii. 6, and ākaxia to Bºnn, “integrity,” Job
xxvii. 5. xxxi. 6. PS. vii. 9. xxvi. l. ll. xxxvi. 39. xl, 13.
xxxiii. 13. c. 3, and so here it seems to signify men of up-
right and honest hearts.
* Ver. 20. Toy Saravāy, Satan.] By “Satan” we may un-
derstand those persecuting Jews and Judaizers, who are
styled the “messengers” and “ministers of Satan,” 2 Cor.
xi. 15. xii. 7, their persecutions being ascribed to Satan, who
animates and provokes them to them, 1 Thess. iii. 5. Rev. ii.
9, 10. And then God's bruising him under their feet, must
signify his taking away their power thus to deceive and per-
secute, by the destruction of Jerusalem, and these impostors
with it. -
*7 Ver. 25. Tº 8: 8vyapárğ, To him that hath power, And
will to execute that power (see note on xiv. 4).
* Kará rà stayyáxiáy 'wov, According to my gospel, and the
preaching of Jesus Christ.] Both these expressions, say the
fathers, are of the same import, the gospel which the apostle
preached being the same with that which Christ preached
whilst he was on earth; and they, after his ascension, preach-
ing in his name, by his authority, and by the assistance of
his Spirit, and so delivering his laws and doctrine, not their
OWIle
* Xgévoic aiovior; a satymºzárov, Kept secret since the world
began.] The Greek may signify “from the beginning of
ages,” the promise of the Messiah being obscurely made, or
hinted to Adam from the beginning; though the fathers only
render these words &vo9sy, “before,” as Theodoret, or ºráAal,
“ of old,” as Chrysostom, GEcumenius, and Theophylact (see
the notes on 2 Tim. ii. 2).
* Ver. 26. At& ypaqāv trgopnºrixów, By the scriptures of the
prophets.] They of old foretold of the Messiah, and of the
calling of the gentiles; but yet, as to many circumstances,
this was still a mystery, till these prophetic sayings were
more clearly revealed by the Spirit given to the apostles and
prophets, and by the actual accomplishment of what they
foretold (see note on Eph. iii. 6). e
* Ver. 27. Mávº cop; Osº, To the only wise God..] This,
as the fathers note, cannot exclude the divine nature of Je-
sus Christ, who is “the wisdom of the Father,” from this
title, any more than those words, “who only hath immorta-
lity,” 1 Tim. vi. 16, exclude Christ from being immortal.
A P P E N ID IX
TO CHAP. XI.,
CONTAINING
A DISCOURSE
- ON THE
CALLING OF THE JEWS TO THE CHRISTIAN FAITH.
To strengthen the argument which I have offered frºm
this chapter for the conversion of the Jewish nation to the
Christian faith, let it be noted, o -
First, That this hath been the constant doctrine of the
church of Christ, owned by the Greek and Latin fathers
APPENDIX.
595
and by all commentators I have met with on this place.
Among the Greek fathers, by St. Chrysostom,” whose words
are these : “When the fulness of the gentiles is come, then
all Israel shall be saved, at the time of Christ's second com-
ing, and the consummation of all things.”—“After the gen-
tiles have received the salutary faith, they also shall receive
the faith (saith Theodorett) when the great Elias shall come
and preach it to them.” Gennadius; descants upon the
words of the apostle thus: “They being blinded and ex-
cluded from Salvation, God translated this salvation to you.”
And again, “All you being called, and come in, grace shall
again receive them all; for this the prophet Isaiah testifies.”
“Before (saith Photius Š) the heathen being disobedient,
the Jews were saved.” Again, “The Jews becoming dis-
obedient, the gentiles are saved; and the gentiles being saved,
the Jews, emulating them, shall also be saved :”—“Because
(saith Theophylactſ) the Jews, being then blinded, have not
obtained this salvation, that which the apostle speaks of
shall happen to them afterward.”—“They of the people of
Israel who believed not, and for their unbelief were deserted,
that God's mercy might be shown to you, shall not be al-
ways left in unbelief (saith Origen'ſ), but when the dispen-
sation of the fulness of the gentiles is completed, they also
shall find mercy.” And therefore, when Celsus had, as it
were, prophesied that the Jews should presently perish,
“this (saith Origen) he said, not knowing how present God
was formerly with them, and how that, by their sin, salva-
tion came to the gentiles, and their fall brought riches to the
world,” till the fulness of the gentiles be come in, that after
this all Israel, which Celsus understands not, may be saved.”
In his fifth homily upon Jeremiah, he exhorts the Christian
to live so as that he may not receive a bill of divorce, F+ “but
may enter into the holy inheritance. And Israel may then
also enter; for, if the fulness of the gentiles be come in, then
all Israel shall be saved, and there shall be one fold and
one shepherd.” In his commentary on St. Matthew he
saith (ibid. p. 410, C.), “Those that whipped Christ were
whipped, and shall be whipped till the fulness of the gen-
tiles is come in :” and (p. 397, D.) “that they were worthy
to be deserted, either till the fulness of the gentiles was come
in, or till they had fulfilled the punishment of their sins.”
Nor is this denied by him in the passage cited from his book
against Celsus; for he saith not there, “They shall never be
converted to the Christian faith,” but that they should never
be restored to their own worship or country, that “they had
been long since cast out from rā; a savic gyarsia, wai Nar-
feias, their venerable service and ceremonies, or purgations, if
and we confidently affirm, Śri otº’ &roxa rarraðharovrai, that
they shall never be restored again to Jerusalem, or the land
of promise, which before,” saith he, “they were; for then,
being captivated, they returned to their own land, and en-
* Kará têy kaigºw rā; tragovoia; tā; 8suriga; kai rā; auvreasiac,
in ver, ll.
+ Tây Yap Syâv 8:#awévoy tº whºvywa, riotăucourt wºol,
'HAia toû Trávu Tagayevo.ávov wai rā; riºtso; airrois rºy 3.8aarita-
Xiaºw trºod pépoyroº, in ver. 25.
# TFoºtov, *zi rºy corneiay &ra,00vašvoy instvoy, #4, 5,23:
Fairfiver's raûrmy & ©sº, sia"roinsivrov ºvvci révray bºy ag.
asſºvº aſsic # xéet, 3 wavra, weeixº Jeral, Acaptwº yºg air;
Tºro kai ră toº "Ha'alov \{ylov yeapixáv. Apud CEcum. inver.
25.
§ 23.8% ºy rāy ºvºv trapaénxoivºrs; 'Iověaſol cºora, was ag-
roi. Apud CEcum. ver. 31.
| Erii oºrw raûrn; Éruxov, merópolyra, yè8, to repow ºxxei
yiyea flat roºro, in ver. 26.
* Non usquequaque relinquenter in incredulitate suá, sed
gum plenitudinis gentium fuerit impleta dispensatio, etiam
ipsi miscricordiam consequentur.
** "Axptº 25 tº Traftoga röw #8w&v Eiaº, Wa pers roºr,
Trä;, & ºvosī Kāgos, Iagaix goff. In Celsum, lib. vi. p. 331.
++ 'AAA& 8vyns&ey #257; ini rāy wanpovoaiav &ylay (sia sassiy)
fºrè toº ºn;&aro; tā, śvāv coSivros, 8vº; Kai rére 3’ia:
gań Five*śv, #&v y&e tº trañéop, a röy ióvãy sizens?, Táre ºrg:
'izza?, a w8ñaeta, Kai yºvácovrai ºia Troiavn, xa, sº, Trotſwäy.
Apud Huet. tom. i. p. 74, C.
y †† E; kai rāts is:{a, 3' &c, aeria; zaraxeſºred Sat, où3sy %rrow
#7sºkorºnagy, Rai itayºvre; tā Pia &rsº party, &c. Orig.
cont. Cels, lib. iv, p. 174.
*
joyed their laws as before, which now they shall never be
restored to.” All the Latin fathers, who have left us any
commentaries or notes on this epistle, are plainly of the
same mind, as you may see by consulting Hilary the deacon,
Primasius, Sedulius, and Haymo, upon the twenty-fifth verse
of this chapter. This also many of the fathers do conclude,
First, From those words of the prophet Hosea, “The
children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and
without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an
altar, and without an ephod, and without teraphim. After-
ward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord
their God, and David their king, and shall fear the Lord,
and his goodness, in the latter days,” iii. 4, 5. Which words
Augustine” having produced, to prove that “the carnal Is-
raelites, who now will not believe, shall hereafter do so,” he
he saith, “Nothing is more manifest than that, by David
their king, the prophet here meaneth Jesus Christ, in whom
they now believe not.”—“This,” saith Jerome, “is the
blindness that happened to Israel in part, that the fulness of
the gentiles might come in, and all Israel be saved, and after
a long time might return and seek the Lord. Some (saith
he) do interpret this of the captivity of Babylon; but others
(saith he), with us, refer it to a time yet future.” Cyril
saith, “Here is a manifest declaration of what shall hereafter
happen to the adulterous synagogue, and that she should be
received again; that Israel + should not always be rejected,
but, being recalled and converted to the faith, should own
Christ according to the flesh to be the king of all, and that
this glorious grace should be afforded to her at the end of
the world.”
Secondly, That in which they universally agree, excepting
only Jerome, is, That Elias is to come before the end of the
world, to convert the Jews to Christ: and this they gather
from those words of Malachi, “Behold, I will send you
Elijah the prophet, before the great and terrible day of the
Lord; and he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the chil-
dren,” iv. 5, 6; and those of Christ, “Elias truly shall
come first, and shall restore all things,” Matt. xvii. 11. “We
know (saith Justin Martyr, Dial. cum Tryph. p. 268, 269.
306) that Elias shall come before the Lord's second advent,
and that then the Jews shall know him whom they have
dishonoured.” Origen says $ that “by those words of Ma-
lachi it seemeth to appear, that Elias shall come before
Christ, and by his sacred words, and the dispositions they,
shall work in their souls, shall prepare them for the coming
of Christ.” Theodoret paraphraseth the words of Malachi
thus: “Lest at my second coming, finding you all in unbe-
lief, I should subject you to eternal punishment, Elias shall
come first, and teach you of my advent, and shall prevail
upon you, O Jews, without doubting, to join yourselves to
the churches of the gentiles, and to be made one.” || Yea,
even St. Jerome, upon these words of St. Matthew, “Elias
indeed shall come, and restore all things,” descants thus: "I
“He who is to come in the body at our Lord's second ad-
* Istos autem carnales Israelitas, qui nunc nolunt credere
in Christum, posteå credituros, id est, filios eorum. De Civ.
Dei, lib. xviii. cap. 28, et lib. de Oct. Quaest. Dulcitii, tom.
iv. p. 674.
i Haec est cascitas quae ex parte accidit Israeli, ut subin-
traret plenitudo gentium, et tunc omnis Israel salvus fieret,
et multo post tempore revertentur, et quaerent Dominum
Słłll]]] alii, ut nos, in futurum differunt tempus. Com-
ment. in locum.
3. † IIºw oùx #y roſtol; bazarº, où8ă ăwãºrspºro; ãotºro, '6
IorgañA ša rai, xexxhaeral yèg warā waipovº, wał żºrtarpiºs: 31&
triarsoc, zai étriyyáceral röv karū arágxa Xplotov Kaiščc
(38) abroſ; rā; atro Aapºre&; wai čálay&arov xágºro;, & reaev-
raioc, zai v šaxároic, wai Év Xetaró. In locum. .
§ "Eoixà ye 313 rotºrov &nxoča-Sat 3rt reosurgeria's 3 HAia; ºr:
#y8%, Xétarot irºnºwitz Stö rivāv ispáy Aéywy, Kai Karaatáasov
#y raï, buxaſ; roi; six rotºro Émirnësiov; yiyoºyous. In Matt.
tom. xiii. et Huet, p. 307, D.
|| Kai reires tº 3¢, & 'Iow8aſot, roſ; # #Syâv sis #2.É retriºtsu-
wáaw &yevèvão ro, #yaq,0āvas, wai giay &ropâyat rºy #why #xxxn-
cíav. In locum.
‘ſ Ipse qui venturus est in secundo Salvatoris adventſ
juxta corporis fidem, nunc per Johannem Venit, in virtute et
spirità. In Matt. xvii.
2 Q 2
596
A DISCOURSE OF THE
vent, came now by John in virtue and the Spirit.” And in
his comment on the third of Habakkuk, ver. 17, having
cited those words of Christ spoken of the barren fig-tree,
“Let no fruit grow on thee for ever,” Matt. xxi. 19, he bids
us * “diligently consider, that he saith not for ever and
ever, but only, in seculum, for that age ; and when that age
is past, and the fulness of the gentiles is come in, then shall
the fig-tree bring forth her fruits, and all Israel shall be
saved.”
ancients.
Moreover, as this doctrine hath the suffrage of all the an-
cient fathers, and commentators do thus generally agree in
exposition of this chapter, so is it easy to confirm it, by
showing the absurdity of other expositions, and the plain in-
consistence of them both with truth and with the words of
the apostle. For,
First, The words of the apostle cannot be expounded, as
Dr. Lightfoott and others do interpret them, of the spiritual
Israel, i.e. of all those persons, whether Jew or gentile,
which belong to God's election. For, (1.) the text speaks
of that which was a mystery to the believing gentiles, i.e. a
secret not obvious to their understanding. Now that God's
elect, whether Jew or gentile, should be saved, could be no
mystery, but the first article of Christian faith ; and so of
this the apostle could not say, “I would not have you igno-
rant, lest you should be wise in your own conceit:” especi-
ally since the apostle had before said of the believing Jews,
“There is now an election of grace,” ver. 5; and, ver. 7,
“The election hath obtained.”
Secondly, The Jews and Israelites here mentioned are
manifestly distinguished from the elect of Israel by this cha-
racter, that they were the blinded Israel, ver. 7, who lay
under a spiritual slumber, ver. 8, whose eyes were blinded
that they saw not, ver. 10, who had stumbled at the stum-
bling-stone, ver. 11; they are that Israel, whose casting away
was the riches of the world, whose diminution was their ful-
ness, ver, 12; they are Israel “according to the flesh,” ver,
14, the branches broken off for unbelief, ver. 17. 19, 20,
they “who believed not,” ver. 23. 30–32, and who were
enemies to the gospel for the gentiles' sake, ver. 29; this is
the Israel of whom the apostle here asserts, “They shall be
saved,” of this blinded, this unbelieving, this Israel cut off,
these branches broken from their own olive-tree, these ene:
mies to the converted gentiles; as there hath been, saith the
apostle, a diminution, so shall there be a fulness; as there
hath been a casting them off, so shall there be a reception
of them; as there hath been a breaking them off from their
own olive-tree, so shall there be an inserting of them into it
again, ver. 24; as there hath been a time of their unbelief,
and so of severity, ver, 22, and of wrath to them, Rom. ix.
22. 1 Thess. ii. 16, so shall there be a time of mercy, ver.
31, 32. Now since the unbelief, the diminution, the reject-
ing, the breaking the branches off, must necessarily be un-
derstood of Israel according to the flesh, of the natural
branches of the stock of Abraham, ver, 22. 24, beloved for
the fathers' sake, ver. 28, of the seed of Jacob, whose sins
were not yet taken away, ver. 26, if you understand the ful-
ness, the reception, the ingraffing of them, the salvation
here mentioned of the spiritual Israel, and of the elect Op-
posed to Israel that was blinded, ver, 7, the antithesis is
wholly lost; since then the diminution and the fulness, the
rejection and reception, the breaking off and the insertion,
the severity and the mercy, will not relate to the same per-
sons. Again, “Blindness in part hath happened to Israel,”
saith the apostle, “till the fulness of the gentiles shall come
in, and then all Israel shall be saved;” now certainly the
blindness happened to Israel according to the flesh, and must
not the antithesis require that the salvation should belong to
the same Israel? It happened not to the elect, for “the
election,” saith the apostle, “hath obtained, and the rest ||
were blinded,” and therefore the salvation cannot respect
them only.
* Et diligentër considera quid dixerit, Non afferes fructum
in seculum, non ait usque in secula seculorum; sed clim se-
culum illud pertransierit, et intraverit plenitudo gentium,
tune etiam ha-c ficus afferet fructus suos, et onnis Israel sal-
vabitur. F. 90, tit, 1.
f Harmony of the New Testament, p. 194 105.
So generally did this doctrine obtain among the
Moreover, to whom did this blindness happen P Was it
not to the mational church and body of the Jews? to them
to whom our Saviour had said, “Whilst you have the light,
believe in the light, lest darkness come upon you?” John xii.
35. Is it not of the children of Israel that the aposthe saith,
“They could not see to the end of that which was to be abo-
lished,” 2 Cor. iii. 13, 14, “but their minds are blinded, for
until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away 2” Was
it not that very people who “ had eyes, and saw not; ears,
and heard not ; whose heart was waxed gross, their ears dull,
and their eyes closed ?” Isa. vi. 9. Acts xxviii. 26, 27. ver, 8.
10, and from whose eyes were “hid the things which belonged
to their peace, because they knew not the time of their visi-
tation ?” Luke xix. 42.44. To whom belonged this à močoxi,
“rejection,” or casting off? Doth it not respect the generality
of that church and nation ? Doth not our Saviour say of
them, “The children of the kingdom shall be cast out into
utter darkness,” Matt. viii. 12, that “their house should be
left unto them desolate,” Matt. xxiii. 38, that “the kingdom
of God should be taken from them, and given to a nation
bringing forth the fruits thereof P” Matt. xxi. 41. Who were
the branches broken off, are they not all the unbelieving
Jews 2 (ver. 20) i. e. the bulk and body of that church and
nation. Doth not our Saviour tell them, that their vineyard
should be let out to other husbandmen 2 Matt. xxi. 41 ; are
not they that barren tree which was to be hewn down P Luke
xiii. 7.9 ; and must not then the recovery of them from this
blindness, the receiving of them again, the ingraffing them
into their own olive-tree, respect, not some few straggling con-
verts of them only, but the chief bulk or body of that nation 2
Thirdly, It is easy to observe two questions in this chap-
ter; the first is this, Aéyw oiv, ºwn &rarato, &c. “I say them,
Hath God cast off his people * ver 1, to which the answer
is, “God hath not cast off his people whom he foreknew,” or
the “remnant according to the election of grace,” ver. 5. 7,
but only the obdurate Jew, ver. 8–10. The second is this,
Aéya, oùy, º żºrraia-aw ºya. Trêa wat ; I say then, Have these un-
believing Jews, who stumbled at the stumbling-stone, ix. 32,
33, “stumbled, that they should fall” entirely, so as that they
should never rise again P And to this the apostle answers in
the negative, from wer. 11 to the 25th, and proves it from ver.
25 to the 32nd. It is therefore evident, that his discourse,
from ver. 11 to the 32nd, respects not the spiritual Israel, i.e.
the gentile converts, nor the elect of Israel, but the obdurate,
blinded nation, which God hath then cast off. And,
Fourthly, Here is evidently a time prefixed for this con-
version of the Jews, viz. “when the fulfilling of the gentiles
is come in ;” here is a blindness to continue on them till that
time: whilst blindness doth continue on them, their salvation
is not to be expected, and when they shall be saved that
blindness, of necessity, must cease: but to the spiritual Israel,
or the elect converted at all times, nothing of this can be
applied, for their conversion is not limited to the time of
the coming in of the fulness of the gentiles, but they are con-
verted in every age, and at all times.
Secondly, The opinion of the reverend Dr. Hammond is
to this effect:* 1. “That it is not necessary that this should
still belong to any yet future return of the Jews, in a visible
and remarkable manner, the circumstances of the context
applying it to the first times, wherein the epistle was writ.
2. ‘i’ “'That the fulness of the Jews, mentioned ver. 12, is
their being added to the church, their coming in, and being
gathered, and laying hold of the faith, being provoked so to
do by seeing the gentiles believe, and so filling up the vacui-
ties, as it were, which were formerly in the church, by their
standing out impertinently; and the fulness of the gentiles
is the gentiles coming into the church, receiving the faith,
they then becoming one part of the visible church, as the
Jews another.
3. “That the mysteryf here mentioned is this, that a great
part of the Jews are now become blind, and that that is made
| use of by God, that by occasion of that the gospel may (by
departing awhile from them) be preached to, and received
by, the generality of the gentiles, and they compacted into
Christian churches ; and this in very mercy to those Jews,
that they, by seeing the gentiles believe, might at length be
provoked to do so too, by way of emulation (ver. 11. 31).
* Note D in ver, 11. ‘F Ibid. + Paraphr. in ver.25.
CALLING OF THE JEWS.
$97
4. “That so * “all Israel shall be saved," i. e. all the true
children of Abraham, Jews and heathens both ; but particu-
larly the remnant of the Jews shall come in, and repent, and
believe in Christ.
5. “That the addition of + Jewish believers shall be
matter of confirmation of the faith to the gentiles, and a
means to bring them all to receive it, to convert the gentiles
over all the world.
6. “As for the truth of that, that as yet many more Jews
should repent and receive the gospel, that, Saith he, has been
demonstrated by the event; (1.) When the Jews saw Christ's
predictions, Matt. xxiv., manifestly fulfilled in the Roman
armies sitting down before the city, for then many turned
Christians, and went out of the city, and were delivered from
the following evils. And,
(2.) “After that, when the temple and city were destroyed,
and they brought into subjection by the Romans, then many
were humbled, and turned Christians. And,
(3.) “After that also, in Justin Martyr's days, every day
there were some that came in to be Christ's disciples. Now
to these things I
Answer First, That whereas this reverend person saith, the
circumstances of the context apply this conversion of the
Jews to the times in which this epistle was writ, i. e. about
the year of Christ 56, it seems extremely evident, both from
the circumstances of the context, and from many other scrip-
tures, that nothing could more unfitly be assigned as the
time of the conversion of the then hardened and rejected
Jews than this. For, w
1. In the ninth chapter of this epistle, the apostle calls
our Lord Christ, the Holy Ghost, and his own conscience to
witness, that he had “great heaviness, and continual sorrow
in his heart,” on the account of the infidelity of his Jewish
brethren, the spiritual slumber and blindness which then was
upon them, and their rejection by God, ver, 1–3. And,
ver. .22, he plainly represents them as “vessels of wrath
fitted for destruction,” and only reserved, as Pharaoh was of
old, for a more illustrious ruin, in which God's vengeance on
them, and the causes of it, should be conspicuously seen.
And, ver. 27, he proceeds to show, from the predictions of
the prophets, that only a little remnant of them should be
saved ; a remnant, like to those seven thousand men reserved
in the ten tribes of Israel, when the whole visible body of
them had revolted to Baal: and, ver. 31, speaking of them
in general, he saith, “Israel hath not attained to justifica-
tion, because they sought it not of faith, but stumbled at” the
Messiah, even at that Jesus who is “the end of the law for
justification, to every one that believeth,” x. 4, he being to
them “a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence.”
In the tenth chapter he declares that they had “not sub-
mitted to the righteousness which was of God through faith,”
ver. 2, 3, and from ver, 16 to the end of that chapter, he
proves that the preaching of the gospel to the gentiles, and
the incredulity of the Jews, was a thing long ago foretold in
the prophetic writings. In this chapter, he begins with the
inquiry to which his former discourse, and the general infi-
delity of that people, had given occasion, viz. “Hath God
entirely cast off his people?” and answers it by saying that
as in the time of Elias, in that general revolt of the ten tribes,
God still “reserved seven thousand who had not bowed the
knee to Baal, oùtwº zai #y tº vöv zapá, so in this season also”
he had reserved a like “remnant according to the election of
grace,” ver. 5, confessing, notwithstanding, touching the body
of that church and people, that “Israel had not attained to
that righteousness” it sought for, but was, excepting this elec-
tion only, wholly blinded ; that God had “given them up to
a spirit of slumber,” and “blinded their eyes ;” had “broken
them off” for their infidelity, and had shown his “severity”
upon them. Wherefore the times, when this epistle was
written, being the times of the apostle's “heaviness,” and his
“continual sorrow” for their rejection ; the times when they
are represented by him as “vessels of wrath fitted for destruc-
tion;” when the prophets had foretold their incredulity ;
when “Israel had not attained to justification, but had
stumbled at” the Messiah; when they were “ignorant of the
righteousness of God,” and had not submitted to it; when
* Paraphr. in ver, 26. + Paraphr, in ver, 12.
to that very day they were blinded, and given up to a spi-
ritual slumber ; is it possible that these should be the very
times assigned by the apostle for the ceasing of their blind-
mess, and that so generally, that it might be truly said all
Israel were then saved, and God had mercy on them all P
The same apostle, anno Christi 49, speaks to them of that
nation thus: “It was necessary that the word of God should
be first spoken to you ; but since you thrust it from you, and
judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, lo, we turn (from
you) to the gentiles,” Acts xiii. 46. In his First Epistle to
the Thessalonians, written A. D. 51, he declares of the Jews,
that they “killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets,
and they persecuted the apostles; and they pleased not God,
and were contrary to all men,” 1 Thess. ii. 14–16, “forbid-
ding us to speak to the gentiles, that they might be saved, to
fill up their sins always, for the wrath is come upon them to
the uttermost.” “That is,” saith Dr. Hammond, “by this
they do so fill up the measure of their sins, that the wrath of
God to the utter destruction of them is now come out upon
them, already denounced, and, within a very little while,
most certain to overtake them.” In his Second Epistle to
the Corinthians, written before that to the IRomans, though
perhaps in the same year, he saith that even then their minds
were blinded, and the veil stili remained upon them. And
when he came to Rome, about three years after the writing
this epistle, and preached to some of the chief of them resid-
ing in that city, he declares that these words of Isaiah were
fulfilled upon them, Acts xxviii. 23, viz. “Hearing you shall
hear, and shall not understand; and seeing you shall see, and
not perceive : for the heart of this people is waxed gross, and
their ears are dull of hearing, and they have closed their
eyes; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their
ears, and understand with their hearts, and be converted, and
I should heal them.” Concluding thus, “Beit known there-
fore to you, that the salvation of God is sent to the gentiles,
and they will hear it.” Now after they had thus “put away
the gospel from them, and judged themselves unworthy of
eternal life,” and the apostles had thus turned from them to
the gentiles; after the “wrath was thus determined to come
upon them, ei, ráño;, to the end,” that is, say all the ancient
commentators, not as in the times of the judges, for twenty
or forty years, or, as in the time of their captivity, for seventy
years, but for many generations; after their minds were thus
blinded, their eyes thus shut, their hearts thus hardened, can
we expect this blindness suddenly should cease, and this
wrath presently give place to mercy and salvation ?
Secondly, That “many of the Jews turned Christians,
when they saw Christ's prediction, Matt. xxiv., fulfilled in the
Roman army sitting down before that city, and went out of
the city with the Christians, and so were delivered from the
following evils,” is also said, without all ground or testimony
of writers of those times. Epiphanius,” who lived in Pales-
time, and Eusebius,t who was born and educated there, give
us an accurate relation of this matter, and carefully inform
us, that of £20m rai, “the disciples of Christ, oi iv Xetariº tretri-
a revzáriº, they that believed in Christ,” being admonished by
an angel, or by an oracle, so to do, “left Jerusalem,” and
went to Pella, “where they were preserved;” but of one
convert of the Jews then made they say not a word. How
unlikely then it is that the same Epiphanius, who so parti-
cularly relates the conversion of one single Aquila from
Judaism to Christianity, when they returned to Jerusalem
after the ruin of it, and his revolt again to Judaism, should
never speak one word of these supposed converts before their
departure
Moreover, this was the time when there happened a great
apostasy of the Jewish converts, according to our Lord's
prediction, that, “because iniquity should then abound, the
love of many should wax cold,” Matt. xxiv. 12. And there-
fore the Epistle to the Hebrews written in the ninth, the
Epistle of James writ also in the ninth, and the Epistle of
Peter writ in the tenth year of Nero, all near this very time,
are very full of exhortations to them that they would not be
double-minded, wavering, or unstable in the faith, James i.
6–8; that they would not count “that fiery trial, which was
—º
* De Mens. et Pond, cap. 15, et Haºr, xxix. Sect 7.
... + Eccles. Hist, lib. iii, cap. 6.
598
A DISCOURSE OF THE
come to try them, a strange thing,” 1 Pet. iv. 12; that they
would patiently, and with long-suffering endure it, as know-
ing “they were happy who did thus endure,” James i. 12.
v. 8. 10, ll. 1 Pet. iii. 13, 14. v. 9, 10. The Epistle to the
Hebrews is full of exhortations to them, to see to it that there
be not in them “an evil heart of unbelief in departing from
the living God,” Heb. iii. 12, that they “hold the beginning
of their confidence firm to the end,” ver. 14, to “fear, lest,
a promise being made of entering into rest, they should fall
short of it through unbelief,” iv. l. 11, there being no renew-
ing them to repentance, who, after such miraculous evidences
of the truth, apostatized, vi. 6, and “no more sacrifice for
sin” for them, x. 25, that they would not “cast away their
confidence,” God having said, xii. 35.38, “If any man draw
back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him ;" and that they
would “diligently look to it, lest any man failed of the grace
of God,” xii. 15. These, saith our Saviour, “are the times
of vengeance,” and of “wrath upon that people,” Luke xxi.
22, 23, the times when, “the things belonging to their peace
being hid from their eyes,” their “house was to be left unto
them desolate,” Luke xix. 42—44. And could the times of
the apostasy, even of the converted Jews, be the times of the
Salvation of the unbelieving Jews? Was it to be expected
they should then, more than ever, see “the things belonging
to their peace,” when they were hidden from their eyes P or
could the times of wrath and “vengeance upon that people,”
when the avenger came out of Zion, to punish the iniquity
of Zion with the sorest judgments, be the very times when
“the Deliverer came out of Zion to turn away iniquity from
Jacob P”
Thirdly, Whereas it is added, that “after that, when the
temple and city were destroyed, and they brought into sub-
jection by the Romans, then many were humbled, and turned
Christians; and that after that, even in Justin Martyr's days,
every day there were some who came in to be Christ's disci-
ples:” I answer,
1. That as for their conversion when the temple and city
were destroyed, I cannot find one word in church history con-
cerning it, but much to the contrary : for, (1.) Epiphanius
speaks particularly of the return of the Christians to Jerusa-
lem after the ruin of it, and of the miracles they then wrought,
and yet he mentions only one Aquila, a Jew, converted to
the Christian faith ; adding that he soon after renounced the
faith, and turned to his former Judaism. And Justin Mar-
tyr” observes, in express contradiction to the doctor, that
“ after their country was destroyed, and their city laid waste,
they repented not, but proceeded still in their execrations of
Christ, and of all that believed in him.” And Tertullian-f
adds, that, “seeing from the time of Tiberius to Vespasian
they repented not, their land was made desolate, and their
cities burnt with fire.” And indeed this was the very time
when wrath came actually upon them to the uttermost; when
this barren tree was hewn down, and cast into the fire, Luke
xiii. 7, 9; when their house was left desolate, because they
would not be gathered ; when all the righteous blood, shed
by them from Noah to that time, came upon them, and they
had filled up the measure of their sins, Matt. xxiii. 35. 37,
38, when the kingdom was wholly taken from them ; when
the Son of man came to take vengeance on them ; and when
he sent forth his armies to destroy those murderers, and to
burn up their city, because they refused to come unto the
marriage-feast, Matt. xxii. 7. And could this be the time of
their humiliation and conversion ? Was this a fit time to
expect the completion of those words of Paul, concerning the
sending the Deliverer out of Zion, to turn away iniquity from
Jacob, and to take away their sins, and to show mercy to
them, in such a signal manner, that all Israel should be
saved 2
To proceed to the history of them in the following times:
Justin Martyr in his Apology, writ in the year of the Lord
140, saith of the Jews in all places, That they were f “as
* Kai &Aoûon; buºy rfic ºráneos, xzi rā; yā; #pngo,0airnc, ot
Kºstavottre, &NA& xai karação 8at airrot Kai rāy ºria reſoy roy sic
airey Trávrov 'roxpºre. Dial. cum Tryph. p. 335.
+ Cúm tempus medium a Tiberio usque ad Vespasianum
mon poenitentiam intellexissent, facta est terra eorum deserta,
civitates eorum exustae igni. Adv. Marcion. lib. iii. cap. 23.
# 'Ex860i); hºwäç Kai troxtºftovº hydūyrat, Škoiw, vºwſy &valgoûy-
great enemies to the Christians in all places as the heathéns
were, and as ready to torment and kill them, when they could
do it;” and “ that this was evident from the last Jewish war,
in which their captain Barchochebas commanded only the
Christians to be tormented, if they refused to deny and to
blaspheme the Lord Jesus Christ.” Now this carries down
the hatred of the Jews against Christians, and their impeni-
tency, till after the times both of Trajan and Hadrian. Some
years after this, he writ his Dialogue with Trypho; and there
he informs us that the Jews” still continued “to curse those
who believed in Jesus, and to lay violent hands upon them
when they could do it ;” that “even then their hand was
high to do wickedness, they still hating and killing Christians
as oft as it was in their power.”
But we are told that this very Justin Martyr saith that
“every day there were some (of them) who came in to be
Christ's disciples.”
I answer, That what Justin Martyr there saith, relates not
at all to any Jewish converts, but to the gentiles coming in
from the way of deceit to the faith of Christ; and as he had
told the emperors in his Apology, p. 45, B, that the “con-
summation of the world was deferred, 31& ré arméppa rºy
Xetariavºv, for the seed of Christians, which was then spring-
ing up :” so he tells Trypho, p. 256, D, that the day of judg-
ment, of which he had before spoken, and of which the Psalms
he there citeth treats, was h" deferred by God, because he
knew that some would come daily in to be Christ's disciples,
and would quit the way of deceit.” Now that this cannot be
spoken of the Jews is evident, because “wrath was come.
upon them to the uttermost,” as Justin Martyr often inti-
mates, not saying that God had not brought wrath and judg-
ment upon them; but only that he had not brought the
general judgment on the world for this cause. He goes on,
and says that “everyone of those, who thus believed, received
gifts from Christ as they were worthy :” and this he proves,
because it was prophesied that f° after our Lord's ascent to
heaven, he should lead us captive from our error, and should
give us gifts;” where the word ºrxáyn, used ordinarily of the
gentiles deceived by Satan, and especially the word hºwäç, us,
show that the Martyr speaks not of the Jews, but gentile con-
verts; and so it follows, “Therefore we gentiles, who have
received these gifts, show you Jews to be fools,” &c.; so that
the good doctor was utterly mistaken in applying this passage
to the Jews, as others led by his authority have done.
From this time to the days of Constantine, the period
assigned by Mr. Calvert for the conversion mentioned by
Paul, the fathers generally represent them as a nation whose
“ears were shut, and their hearts hardened,”S declaring, that
the “scripture had clearly foretold they should be disinherited,
and fall off from the grace of God.”|| Origen'ſ testifies, that
rec, wał woxáčoyrs; hºwä, ätröray Şüyovrai, &; zai ºrgia Siyat
8&vadºs, wał yā; #v rá včv yeyevnºw#vø Iovëaixò ºrox#wº, Bapxc-
xáða; á rà; 'Iověatory &roztáaew; ãºxnyárnº, Xstatiavov; ºvovc
Big Tºwgia; Beiyā;, si ºwn &gwaivro 'Inarody rév Xplatºv, Kai 8xaa pn-
Facity, ixéaevey &réyea Sai. P. 72, E. \
* Ei Bè abroš Te #xsivov zai rāy Big #xeſvov ºria rečovrov kara-
pāoºs, Kai Öröray Éovciaw #xnta, āyaſpeſºre. P. 323. B; wide
pp. 226, 350.
"Ert y&é àºn33; # Weig tºwāy ºrgö; xazorcíav tºº, 3rt #23.
row; tria rečoytaç Fºiastºrs, kai poysºsts, jcáxi; &V A487ts #ova'iay.
P. 363.
+ “oy obv ºrgárov 313 rotic #Trraxtoxixiovº insivov; of oix #xagº-
slay yāvu tº Báax, råy gyńy oëk #7épses rêts à Gedº, tºy airby
t?átroy Kai yüv oë3étro, rày Keia w śarīyeyxey # #tráyet, yºvćaxoy fºr ka9'
hºwāgay riv㺠(ca.Smrevokwávov; sic ºr 8vowa toû Xeta-row aircü, ka?
ătroAsimoy raç rºy $83, rā; tragºns. Dial. cum Tryph. p. 257,
E, 258, A.
f Mer& rºy rot, Xgia toû sic row obgay?y &váxevarty argosºnºrečSh
aixºaxwrāja at airby hºwā; 373 rā; Trxāynç, wai &otival hºwſ, 36%ata.
Ibid. B.
$’ota tºy répéax rat, wai ai Kačiai tre+heoyºrai. Just. p. 250.
| Si cognovissent nos futuros, et usuros his testimoniis,
quae sunt ex scripturis, nunquam dubitässent insi suas com-
burere scripturas, quae reliquas omnes gentes manifestant par-
ticipare vitae, et eos, qui gloriantur domum se esse Jacob, et
populum Israelis, exhaereditari ostendunt à gratiá Dei. Iren.
lib. iii. cap. 24. -
* "Early ovy ièaſy &età rāy 'Inaoû #Tiênºiay, 'Iovčaſov, xataxs-
CALLING OF THE JEWS. .
599
“God had turned his providence from the Jews to the gen-
tiles; that they were wholly deserted, and retained nothing
of what before was venerable among them, nor any footsteps
of the divine presence with them ; that after the crucifixion
of our Lord they were perfectly deserted, and not to be con-
verted till the end of the world.”
from the time that they crucified their Lord, God had taken
from them the prophet, wise man, and the Holy Spirit, and
had left them destitute of his grace;” and that “only at his
second coming, he should be received by them who had thus
rejected him.” And this seems most agreeable to our Lord’s
predictions, that “the kingdom of God should be taken from
them, and given to another nation that would bring forth the
fruit of it;” that he would “miserably destroy those hus-
bandmen, and would let out his vineyard to other husband-
men, who should render him the fruits in their season,” Matt.
xxi. 41.43, that “none of them who were bidden and refused,
should taste of his supper,” Luke xiv.24, that “many should
come from the east and west, and should sit down with Abra-
ham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven, but
the children of the kingdom should be cast out into utter
darkness,” Matt. viii. 11, 12, that “they who were first (i. e.
the Jews) should be the last,” and they who were “the last
(i.e. the gentiles) should be first ;” for that this is spoken of
the rejection of the Jews, and the calling of the gentiles, is
evident from these words of Luke xiii. 26–30, “Then shall
ye (Jews) begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy pre-
sence, and thou hast taught in our streets. But he shall say,
I tell you, I know you not whence you are, depart from me,
all ye workers of iniquity. There shall be weeping and
gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac,
and Jacob, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust
out. And they shall come from the east, and from the west,
and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in
the kingdom of God. And, behold, there are last which shall be
first, and there are first which shall be last.” Now if we do
consider that “wrath was come upon” this nation, eiç réA0;,
“to the end,” can we imagine either that this kingdom taken
from them, this vineyard let out to other husbandmen, these
children of the kingdom cast out into outer darkness, should
suddenly receive again this kingdom, be restored to this vine-
yard, or admitted to the light of the gospel? or that all Israel
should be saved, or iniquity should be taken away from Jacob,
whilst that nation lay under these dreadful judgments P or
that when our Lord hath so solemnly foretold there should
be “wrath upon this people,” and “they shall fall by the
edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all
nations; and Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the gen-
tiles, until the time of the gentiles be fulfilled” (Luke xxi.
23, 24), this wrath should not continue on them whilst they
were captives in all nations, and Jerusalem was trodden
down 2
Here, I confess, the reverend doctor (on Luke xxi. 23)
hath a peculiar notion, “That the treading down of Jerusa-
lem by the gentiles, is not particularly their victory over it
by Titus, but their consequent possessing it, and even till
Hadrian's rebuilding a part of it, and calling it by his own
name Ælia, and inhabiting it by gentiles upon the doing
this,” saith he, “it followed, that as all the (unbelieving) Jews
were utterly banished the city, so the believing Jews re-
turned thither again from their dispersions, and inhabited it
again, and joined, and made one congregation, one church
with the gentiles, which had then, till that time, received the
faith also, and till then continued a distinct church from the
Jews: by which it appears how punctually this prediction,
in our notion, was fulfilled, that Jerusalem should be inha-
bited by the gentiles, all the Jews in a manner excluded, till
the time that the gospel had been freely preached to the
gentiles, and by them in some eminent manner been received;
and then it should be reinhabited by the Jews again, i.e. the
Christian Jews, who, being wrought on by emulation of the
Astºvov; Trávrn, &c. Adv. Celsum, lib. ii. p. 62. 'Em.
'Paºzaig, rhy fasyirºny trothaayre; &#x26tíav Šv rá 3roxrsiva, röy
'Incouv, ºréastoy #yaareasiq,6maray, lib. iv. cap. 4. p. 183.
* Abstulit enim Dominus Sabaoth a Judaea et ab Hieru-
salem inter caetera et prophetam, et Sapientem architectum,
Spiritum sc. Sanctum ; nam exinde apud illos destitit Dei
gratia. Adv. Marcion, lib. iii. cap. 23; vide cap, 6, 7.
Tertullian" saith, “that,
gentiles, were now, many of them, brought to receive the
faith. In his note on the two witnesses, I&ev. xi. 2, he makes
them to be the two bishops of the church in Jerusalem, one
of the Jewish, the other of the gentile converts; which state
of that church continued, saith he, till the time of Marcus, a
gentile bishop of that church, i. e. from after the destruction
of Jerusalem by Titus till that time.” But here again are
many things delivered, not only without all suffrage of his-
§ but in perfect opposition to the histories of those times.
or, -
First, Eusebius and Sulpitius Severus do inform us, that,
till the time of Hadrian,“ all the bishops and priests of Je-
rusalem were only of the circumcision. Here therefore is
no room for his two bishops, one of the Jewish, the other of
the gentile converts, till the time of Marcus.
Secondly, They also do inform us that all the Christians
then at Jerusalem were of the circumcision, and so not of
the gentiles; for Sulpitius observes, that the edict of Ha-
driant (for banishing all the Jews from Jerusalem) “hap-
pened for the advantage of the Christian faith, because, till
then, they almost all joined the observation of the law to
the faith of Christ : the Lord so ordering it, that, by this
means, the servitude of that law might be removed from the
church.” Eusebius also saith, that the whole “church of
Jerusalem ºf consisted of the faithful Hebrews, who, from
the times of the apostles, had continued there till the siege
of Bitter, in the eighteenth year of Hadrian :” So that here
is no room for his supposed gentile converts to be governed
by a bishop of the gentiles.
Thirdly, They also do expressly say, not only that the
unbelieving Jews, but that all the Jews in general, were by
this edict banished both from Jerusalem and from the re-
gion round about it. “He placed a band of soldiers which
should banish all the Jews from Jerusalem,” saith Sulpitius;
and this he did, quia Christiani ex Judaeis potissimilm puta-
bantur, “because the Christians were thought to have their
rise chiefly from the Jews.” Eusebius saith that rô Trây
#8vo., “the whole nation was banished from Jerusalem, and
the country round about, and not permitted to set one foot
in it. And then adds, that § “the city being after this man-
ner emptied of the Jews, and wholly cleared of its inhabi-
tants, and made up of aliens flowing in thither, it was made
a Roman city and colony, and, in honour of the emperor,
was named Ælia.” The same is said by him in his Evan-
gelical demonstrations, and by Tertullian," that “not one
Jew was permitted to stay there.” Eusebius also adds,”
that riſ, abréS. ixxxnaia: #4 #693, avyxgorn&eianº, “the church
there consisting only of the gentiles, Marcus was the first
bishop of it.” So that here is no place for the doctor's Sup-
posed church, consisting both of Jews and gentiles, or for
the inhabiting of it by the Christian Jews, and much less for
his feigned “many of them brought now to receive the faith
by emulation of the gentiles.” In a word, Epiphanius Saith
that Hadrian the emperor, travelling to Jerusalem, found
there only, rāvāzºngiay (wikpāv, “one little church,” and seven
synagogues, standing like cottages; and was this likely to be
the seat of two great bishops ? So that I find nothing
agreeable to the truth of history, in anything which this re-
verend person saith upon this subject, and much less any-
thing confirmed either by scripture or antiquity.
* Namque tum Hierosolymae non nisi ex circumcisione
habebat ecclesia sacerdotem. Sulpitius, lib. ii. cap. 45.
Iſºro: ağ, rot, in regirouš: imaxárov, rºy insia's Asiroupyia,
#yxsießeral Mápkoç. Euseb. Eccles. Hist, lib. iv. cap. 6.
+ Militum cohortem custodias in perpetuum agitare
jussit, qua. Judaeos omnes Hierosolyma adità arceret, quod
quidem Christianae, fidei proficiebat, quitum penè omnes
Christum Deum sub legis observatione credebant, nimirüm
id Domino ordinante dispositum, ut legis servitus à libertate
fidei atque ecclesia tolleretur. Sulp. lib. ii. cap; 5, ,
fxuviaráva, yā; airdſ; rére wiray iºnºiavić'E8patow wig-
rāy &ro rºy &roaréxov, Kai sic rāv ráts 3iagxforévrov woxiºia”.
Hist. Eccles, lib. iv. Cap 5.
§ otro, 3Å rā, ºréxsw, six ignºziav roº 'low'ala, išºv, xzi way-
Tex; psogay tºy tréxar olznrápoy. Aşoianº, ižákºv ri yivov;
auvuuia Selanc, &c. Hist. Eccles. lib iv. Cap. 6.
| Demon. Evang, lib. viii. p. 411, D.
* Cont. Jud. cap. 15. Apol. cap. 16. ** Ibid.
600
A DISCOURSE OF THE
to confute the exposition of this reverend and learned per-
son, as being not agreeable to matter of fact ; for when was
there any such conversion made of the Jews at the times
assigned by him, which can in any probability of construc-
tion answer to the phrase used by the apostle, that by it “all
Israel shall be saved ;” “ungodliness should be turned away
from Jacob ;” God should bless them by “taking away their
sins;” that they who now were blinded should “ have the
veil taken away from before their eyes;” they, who now
were diminished, should have again their fulness; and they,
who now were cast off, should be again received 2 This could
not happen in the very times when this epistle was at first
indited: for though it be true that James mentions “many
thousands” or “myriads” of Jewish converts, “all zealous
of the law,” Acts xxi. 20, yet were they all converted at or
before the time of writing this epistle, and so belonged only
to “the remnant according to the election of grace,” here
mentioned, not to the residue that were blinded, of whose
conversion the apostle here speaks from ver. 12 to 32. Nor
could their conversion and salvation be a mystery to be then
revealed to the gentiles. That no such conversion after the
blindness mentioned in this chapter happened to them, upon
their seeing “the abomination of desolation standing in the
holy place,” or soon after the destruction of Jerusalem,
hath been already shown; and that Justin Martyr saith
nothing of any such remarkable conversion of them hath
been also proved.
That there might be some conversion of them in the
reign of Trajan, is by some argued from the words of Euse-
bius; “that Justus,” then bishop of Jerusalem, was one of
the many myriads or thousands of the circumcision which
then had believed.” Yet is this testimony of no force, as to
this matter; for, (1.) grammarians well know that ºpta and
avpiáēs;, when put indefinitely, do only signify, many: now
if the tréalai avpiá8s;, the “many myriads,” mentioned by
James, hindered not, but that the Jewish converts might be
only a “little remnant,” in respect to the blinded Jews, this
may be as true of the Ba'ai ºvºiáðss, the “so many my-
riads” of Eusebius; especially if we consider that most of
them might be the very persons mentioned by James, he
carefully informing us that the whole church of Jerusalem,
under her fifteen bishops of Jerusalem, of which this
Justus was the eleventh, was made up of “believers who had
continued from the apostles' time till the wars and siege
under Hadrian ;” and speaking of these persons, not as men
believing then, but as "retria reuzăres, “men who had before
that time embraced the Christian faith.” And hence Ruf.
finus’; makes no mention of these supposed myriads, but
only saith, “that Justus, being one of those of the circum-
cision who had embraced the faith of Christ, was made their
bishop.” In a word, this very Eusebius concurring so ex-
actly with the sentiments of all other fathers, that the Jews
were then rejected, and lay under a curse, and proving from
this very apostle, and from the words contained in the be-
ginning of this very chapter, that they should generally fall
and be rejected for their unbelief, a Traviov # airãy si; roy
awrāga kai Küploy hºày riºtevgåvrov, “a very few of them
only believing "# and that “after the coming in of all na-
tions to the Christian faith, they did not yet see or under-
stand ;”$ he cannot be supposed to mention anything which
answers to the conversion of the Jews intended in this
chapter, but must, with us, refer that to that glorious time
when the prophecies | shall more fully (saith he be fulfilled;
i. e. the time when the fulness mentioned by the apostle
shall come in.
pleaded for the remarkable conversion of the Jews, after the
- 3 ºr > - ºn **
* Tºjº y Isgowoxãºot; Briaxoträ; roy Seávo, Iow8afé, ri; Gyoga
tº - r | > - gº.
Iowa toº, ºvgiov cow #4 wepitopºi, si; rêy xplorëv Tryizajra .
werizrevkóray, iſ zai air㺠&V, &lašxerai. Hist. Eccl.lib. iii.
cap. 35.
+ Justus quidam ex his qui de circumcisione
Christi venerunt, episcopatum suscepit.
† Demonst. Evang, lib. ii. p. 62, B, et passim.
§ Lib. ix. p. 455, A, B. -
| "Eara, 8i ºr wangearátn h ºrpoºntsia avºwsgarShatra,
iway tº wxºgwººd tây Sväy sizéx6; rā ºrgè;"ºrdi isgoń &rogréxoſ,
8:30Awaévoy. Lib. ix. p. 458, D.
ad fidem
This being therefore all that hath been
What hath been thus discoursed is abundantly sufficient
writing this epistle ; and this all being almost nothing, and
far from bearing any correspondence to the comprehensive
words of the apostle on that subject ; I conclude that no
conversion of this nature happened to them, between the
writing this epistle and the times of Constantine.
And whereas it is said that this conversion should be
wrought in them by way of emulation, and that they should
lay hold of the faith, being provoked so to do by seeing the
gentiles believe, it is confessed that the apostle represents
this a fit means to work this emulation in them ; but it is
as certain that it hath not yet had the designed effect upon
them, they being so far from being provoked to embrace the
Christian faith, by seeing the gentiles admitted to it, that
this was to them the great stumbling-block, and they were
“enemies to the gospel for their sakes,” ver. 28, they being
prejudiced against it, because the gentiles were admitted to
the blessing of it without circumcision, and observance of
the law of Moses: see note on Gal. iii. 4. vi. 12. This is
that prejudice of the Judaizing Christians which the apostle
labours to remove in most of his epistles, but more especially
in that to the Galatians; and as for the unbelieving Jews,
they could not endure to hear of any to be sent for the con-
verting of the gentiles, Acts xxii. 21, 22, but they persecuted
the apostles upon this account, “forbidding them to preach
to. the gentiles that they might be saved,” 1 Thess. ii. 16.
And the same enmity to the Christians seems to continue to
this day among them upon the same accounts. e
Wherefore there having been as yet, so far as we are able
to discern, no such remarkable conversion of the Jews, since
the inditing this epistle, and no such happy emulation of the
converted gentiles, as did provoke them to embrace the
Christian faith, this could not be, as here the doctor doth
suggest, a confirmation of faith to the gentiles, and much
less a means to bring them all to receive it, or to convert
the gentiles over all the world. And what records and histo-
ries make the least mention of any such conversion of the
gentile world, on the account of the remarkable conversion
of the Jews after the writing this epistle 2 When came in
such a fulness of the unbelieving Jews, as was the riches of
the world 2 ver, 12, or such a reception of them to the
Christian faith, as was unto them life from the dead? ver.
15. Or how can these assertions be reconciled to the words
of the apostle P For, if the coming in of the fulness of the
gentiles be their receiving the faith in those times, then the
partial blindness of the Jews must cease in those times also ;
for “blindness,” saith the apostle “hath happened to the
Jews in part,” and that blindness is to continue only “till
the fulness of the gentiles shall come in :” if then the
blindness of the Jews is not yet ceased, but they have gene-
rally continued, even from the time of writing this epistle,
to this very moment, in as much blindness and obduracy as
they then lay under, and as much branches broken off as
now they are, it follows, that the fulness of the gentiles,
mentioned by the apostle, is not yet come in.
Lastly, The mystery mentioned ver. 25 cannot be this,
that, by occasion of the infidelity of the Jews, the gospel
was preached to, and received of the gentiles; for of this
the apostle introduceth the believing gentiles speaking thus,
ver. 19, “Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off,
that I might be graffed in,” &c. This therefore could not
be to them a mystery. Nor could it be this, viz. that this
was done in mercy to the Jews, viz. that they, by seeing the
gentiles believe, might at length be provoked to do so too.
For of this the apostle had spoken twice, declaring it to be
foretold by Moses, saying, “I will provoke you to jealousy
by them that are no people,” x. 19. And in this chapter,
saying, “Through their fall salvation is come to the gentiles,
to provoke them to jealousy,” ver. 11. It remains then, as
the apostle and the primitive church from him declare, that
it be this, that when the time for the fulness, i. e. for the
conversion of the still heathen gentiles is come in, then shall
the blindness of the Jews be removed, and so “all Israel
shall be saved ;” and then “all nations shall flow in unto
them,” and their reception shall be to the gentiles “as life
from the dead.” - º
I think I have said what is sufficient to show these words
cannot admit the sense imposed upon them by the reverend
Dr. Hammond ; I proceed now more largely to discuss the
proper import of that phrase, “The fulness of the gentiles
CALLING OF THE JEWS. f
601
shall come in.” This is by some interpreted thus, Blindness
hath happened to the Jews, till the full number of the gen-
tiles, which God shall call, be completed. But this sense is
contrary to the express words of the apostle, who declares
tnere shall be a greater and more glorious conversion of the
gentiles than that which happened by occasion of their fall,
that their fulness should be much more the riches of the
gentiles than their fall was, ver, 12. and that their coming
in should be unto the gentiles “as life unto the dead,” and
should much more enrich them than their casting off,
ver. 15.
Note therefore, that there is a double fulness of the gen- ;
tiles mentioned in the holy scriptures:
First, That which is spoken of ver, 12, in these words,
“If the diminution of them was the fulness of the gentiles;”
and this consisted in the preaching of the gospel to all na-
tions, and the imparting the glad tidings of Salvation to
them, and was, in a great measure, to be accomplished be-
fore the destruction of Jerusalem, and the ruin of that
church and nation, according to our Lord’s prediction, in
these words, “The gospel of the kingdom shall be preached
in all the world for a witness to all nations, and then shall
the end come,” Matt. xxiv. 14. Mark xiii. 10.
Secondly, There is to be another fulness of the gentiles
by a more glorious conversion of them, and coming in of
those nations which have not hitherto embraced the gospel,
or have relapsed into heathenism or Mahometism, to be ef.
fected when this rejection of the Jews shall cease, and God
shall send the “Deliverer out of Zion, to turn away iniquity
from Jacob :” and of this only can we understand those
words of the apostle, ver, 12, “If the fall of the Jews hath
been (already) the riches of the (gentile) world, and the di-
minution of them the riches of the gentiles, how much more
shall their fulness,” i. e. the time of their conversion, be the
increase and fulness of the same gentiles? And, ver. 15,
“If the casting away of them be reconciling of the world,
what shall the receiving them again be (to the same world),
but even as life, from the dead?” And ver. 25, “Blindness
in part hath happened to the Jews, till the fulness of the
gentiles shall come in,” This blindness therefore still con-
tinuing upon them, as much as ever, another fulness of the
gentiles is to be expected, when it entirely shall be removed
from them, and so “all Israel shall be saved.”
Secondly, Jerusalem is yet trodden down of the nations,
and the Jews are yet captives in all nations, whereas the
captivity and the treading down of Jerusalem is to cease
when the times of the gentiles are fulfilled ; according to
those words of Christ concerning the destruction of the
Jews, “They shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall
be carried captive into all nations, and Jerusalem shall be
trodden down, till the times of the gentiles be fulfilled”
(Luke xxi. 24); i. e. till the times when they shall have a
plenary conversion by the coming in of the Jews, and shall
no more lord it over them, as now they do, but serve them,
and “flow in unto them.” And to this purpose let it be
noted,
First, That, if we consult ancient prophecies concerning
the vast extent of our Saviour's kingdom over all nations,
we shall find reason to believe they had not yet had their
full accomplishment upon them ; for he hath not yet had the
“uttermost parts of the earth for his possession” (Ps. ii.
8); God hath not yet made “all people, nations, and lan-
guages, to serve him,” and “all dominions to obey him”
(Dan. vii. 4. 27); he hath not yet “filled the whole earth.”
or “broke in pieces and consumed all other kingdoms”
(Dan. ii. 34, 35). That seems not yet fulfilled which was
foretold by Micah, that “the Lord should be king over all
the earth” (Micah v. 4), and by Zechariah, that “there
should be but one Lord, and his name one” (Zech. xiv. 9);
and by David, that “all kings shall fall down before him, and
all nations serve him ;” that “all the ends of the earth
should remember, and turn to the Lord, and all the kindreds
of the nations worship before him” (Ps. lxxii. 8). These,
and sundry other such-like prophecies there are, which yet
were never accomplished according to the full import of
them. For, as Brerewood observes,” “If we divide the
* Inquir. ch. 14, p. 118.
known regions of the world into thirty equal parts, the
Christians' part is (only) as five, the Mahometans' as six, the
idolaters’ as nineteen ;” whence we have reason to conclude,
That there is yet a time to come, before the consummation
ofall things, in which our Saviour will yet once more display
the victorious banner of his cross; and, like a mighty man of
war, march on, conquering and to conquer, till he hath con-
founded or converted his enemies, and finally consummated
his victories in a glorious triumph over all the powers of the
earth, and made “all nations, tongues, and languages, to
serve him.”
Secondly, That there is still to be a glorious conversion of
the Jewish nation, as it seems evident from the words of the
apostle here, who speaketh of a time when the partial blind-
ness which then had happened to the Jews, and still con-
tinues upon them, should cease ; when God would “turn
away ungodliness from Jacob,” and “take away (the punish-
ment of) their sins,” which yet he hath not done ; when not
a little remnant only, as at our Lord’s first advent, but “all
Israel shall be saved ;” when that Israel, whose minds were
then, and still are blinded by the veil that is upon them,
shall have that veil taken away by their turning to the Lord.
So also from those prophecies of the Old Testament, which
promise to that nation such kindness, favour, and salvation,
as either hath not been at all as yet, or but imperfectly ful-
filled ; as when he promiseth to bless her with such bless-
ings as never should be taken from her, and to show mercy
to her, so as never to forsake her more. To this effect are
these expressions: “As I have sworn that the waters of
Noah should no more go over the earth, so I have sworn
that I would not be wroth with thee nor rebuke thee (any
more); for the mountains shall depart, and the hills be re-
moved, but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither
shall the covenant of my peace be removed, Saith the Lord,
that hath mercy on thee,” Isa. liv. 9, 10. “And the Re-
deemer shall come to Zion, and to them that turn from
transgression in Jacob, saith the Lord. As for me, this is my
covenant with them, saith the Lord ; my Spirit that is upon
thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall
not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy
seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, from hence-
forth and for ever,” Isa. lix. 20, 21. “I will make thee an
eternal excellency, a joy of many generations. Violence
shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction
within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation,
and thy gates Praise. The sun shall be no more thy light
by day, neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto
thee; but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light,
and thy God thy glory. Thy sun shall no more go down,
neither shall thy moon withdraw itself; for the Lord shall be
thy everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be
ended,” Isa. lx. 15.18—20. “Everlasting joy shall be unto
them, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them,”
Isa. lxi. 7,8. “Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken,
neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate, but
thou shalt be called Hephzi-bah, and thy land Beulah ; for
the Lord delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married,”
Isa. lxii. 4. 12. “I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my
people ; and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in
her, nor the voice of crying,” Isa. lxv. 19. “For as the new
heavens and new earth, which I will make, shall remain be-
fore me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name
remain,” Isa. lxvi. 22. “And I will give them one heart,
and one way, that they may fear me for ever, for the good
of them, and of their children after them. And I will make
an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away
from them to do them good, but I will put my fear in their
hearts, and they shall not depart from me,” Jer. xxxii. 39,
40. “And they shall be no more a prey to the heathen,
neither shall the beasts of the land devour them ; but they
shall dwell safely, and none shall make them afraid. And
I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be
no more consumed with hunger in the land, neither bear the
shame of the heathen any more,” Ezek. xxxiv. 28, 29. “And
they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my
servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt, and they shall
dwell therein, even they and their children and their chil-
dren's children for ever ; and my servant David shall be
their prince for ever. Moreover, I will make a covenant of
602
PREFACE TO THE
peace with them ; it shall be an everlasting covenant with
them; and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set
my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. My ta-
bernacle shall be with them; yea, I will be their God, and
they shall be my people,” Ezek. xxxvii. 25–27. “I have
gathered them unto their own land, and have left none of
them any more there: neither will I hide my face any more
from them,” Ezek. xxxix. 28, 29. “And I will plant them
upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of
their land, which I have given them, saith the Lord thy
God,” Amos iz. 15.
Now it seems, very evident, that scarcely any of these
things can be applied to the return of the Jews from their
captivity in Babylon. For, since that time, his kindness
hath departed from them, and his covenant of peace hath
been removed for above one thousand six hundred years ;
violence hath been heard in their land, wasting and destruc-
tion within their borders, and their land hath been made
desolate ; the days of wrath, of mourning, and of weeping,
have been long upon them ; their sun hath been, according
to our Lord's prediction, darkened, and their moon hath not
given her light ; their sanctuary and tabernacle have been
consumed, and they have been a prey to the heathen ; they
have long since ceased to be his people, and he to be their
God.
Nor can we reasonably confine these promises to that
little remnant which believed in the times of the apostles,
for they were never gathered out of all lands, nor did they
inherit.the land for ever, but were banished thence, as well
as the unbelieving Jews, by Hadrian ; they can in no pro-
priety of speech be styled “the house of Israel,” the “whole
house of Israel.” Nothing, indeed, seems more unlikely,
than that the time of the casting them off, the breaking of
the branches, the leaving them under a spiritual slumber,
the taking the kingdom from them, and casting them out
into utter darkness, should be the time of the completion
of these glorious promises ; and that this sense cannot accord
with the discourse of our apostle here, hath been already
shown.
Nor, Thirdly, Can we apply these promises to the believing
gentiles ; for sure they could not be “a prey to the heathens,”
or “bear their shame,” or be the people whom God hath
led into captivity, and after gathered into their own land,
and so planted there as never to be plucked up again ; the
promise could not be made to them, that they should “sucks
the breasts and eat the riches of the gentiles.”
Fourthly, I have already shown from scripture prophe-
cies, that, after this conversion, the nations generally “shall
flow into them, and walk in their light,” and so their fulness
(which signifies not their incorporation into another church,
but as the opposite words, their fall, their diminution, their
rejection, require, and as the apostle doth himself interpret
it, their reception to the Christian faith, and so into the
favour of God) shall be the riches of the gentiles, and “as
life from the dead” to them : then the gentiles “shall come
to their light, and kings to the brightness of their rising ;
and nations that have not known them shall run in unto
them, because God hath glorified them. Then,” saith God,
“I will gather all nations and tongues, and they shall come
and see my glory,” Isa. lv. 5. lvi. lxvi. 18. 22. Then “all
nations shall turn, and fear the Lord truly,” saith Tobit,
xiii. 10, 11. And this I conceive to be that fulness of the
gentiles of which the apostle here speaketh.
THE
FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORIN THIANS,
WITH AN N OTATION S.
P. R. E. F. A. C. E.
§. 1. THAT this was an epistle written by Paul the apostle,
as is asserted, i. 1, was never doubted in the church of God;
but whether this was the first epistle of Paul to the Corin-
thians, hath been a matter of dispute; because he saith
in it, “I have written to you in an epistle,” (v. 9), which
seemeth plainly to relate to some epistle formerly by him
writ to them: for this, saith Pseud-Ambrosius, was spoken
de praeterità epistolà quam ante hanc, que prima dicitur,
scripserat. But, as I have observed in the note upon that
verse, no fathers ever ascribed to St. Paul more than four-
teen epistles, including that to the Hebrews. Eusebius ne-
ver mentions any third epistle to the Corinthians, amongst
the true, controverted, or spurious writings which pass under
his name: mo Christian writer ever cited anything from this
supposed epistle: all the Greek scholiasts declare the apos-
tle speaketh in those words, not of another, but of this very
epistle, which is sufficient to justify the version I have given
of those words, “I had written,” or “was writing in this
epistle.” Moreover, his supposed epistle to Laodicea is
cited as a book exploded by Jerome;” his epistles to Seneca
are in like manner cited by Jerome and Austin ºf the Acts
v. Paulus in Catal. Script. Eccl.
+ W. Seneca, ibid. et St. Aug. Ep, ad Maced. 54, p.
254, B.
of Paul are cited and rejected by Origen and Eusebius,"
but none of them makes any mention of more than two
epistles to the church of Corinth.
§ 2. That this epistle was written by Paul whilst he was
at Ephesus, and before he went thence to Macedonia, is clear
from the very words of this epistle: for xvi. 8, he saith, “I
will tarry still at Ephesus till pentecost;” and adds, ver. 19,
“The churches of Asia” (of which Ephesus was the metro-
polis) “salute you; Aquila and Priscilla salute you, with
the church which is in their house.” Now that they dwelt
at Ephesus we read Acts xviii. 25. That it was writ before he
went thence into Macedonia, these words inform us, xvi. 5.
“I will come to you when I pass through Macedonia; for I
do pass through Macedonia.” It is therefore generally
agreed, that it was written in the fifty-seventh, as Dr. Pear-
son, or in the fifty-fifth year of Christ, as Dr. Lightfoot hath
it. As also may be probably concluded thus: In the ninth
year of Claudius, saith Orosius, in the tenth, say others, in
the twelfth, saith Dr. Pearson, the Jews were banished from
Rome, and St. Paul, coming into Corinth, finds Aquila and
Priscilla newly come from thence to Corinth, upon that oc-
casion (Acts xviii. 2): he stays there a year and a half (ver.
11), that is, till the eleventh of Claudius, at Ephesus three
years (Acts xx. 31); and at the close of these three years he
* Orig. Iſegi 'Aéxãv, lib. i. cap. 2, f. 114, D. Euseb.
Eccles. Hist, lib, iii, cap. 3 et cap. 25.
FIRST EPISTLE TO
THE CORINTHIANs. 603
writes this epistle. If then you begin this banishment of
the Jews from Rome, as Walesius doth, in the tenth of Clau-
dius, these five years that Paul continued at Corinth and
Ephesus will end in the first of Nero, A. D. 55; if, with Dr.
Pearson, you begin them only at the twelfth of Claudius, they
will end in the third of Nero, A. D. 57.
§ 3. That the persons to whom it was written were chiefly
gentiles, is evident from these words, “Ye know that ye were
gentiles, carried away to these dumb idols, even as ye were led”
(xii. 2): that it was also written to the Jewish converts then
at Corinth, Esthius conjectures, because he saith (x.1) that
“all our fathers were under the cloud.” But it is not neces-
sary that should relate to their fathers according to the flesh,
but only to the preceding church of God called before them
out of Egypt, and partaking of like privileges with them: for
the apostle declares, that “not they who are the children of
the flesh are counted for the seed, but they who are the chil-
dren of the promise” (Rom. ix. 8); and that the promise
belonged not only to the seed according to the law, but
“according to the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us
all,” Rom. iv. 16 (see Gal. iii. 14. 29. iv. 28).
Š. 4. The occasions of writing this epistle we may best
learn from the ancients, and from the epistle itself.
First, then, The ancients inform us of this city, that “Co-
rinth was full of rhetoricians” and philosophers, and that they
gave occasion to most of those miscarriages which the apos-
tle reprehends in this epistle.”
Secondly, That there were: “Judaizers crept in among
them, who magnified themselves, and debased the apostle as
a great boaster, but of little worth, styling him an apos-
i. from the law, and commanding the observation of it to
them.
Thirdly, They add, that the “city of Corinth was very
rich,+ and that some of them chose themselves teachers out
of the rich, as being most able to support them, as others did
out of the philosophers, as being most able to teach them
more than the apostle could do.” -
Fourthly, They say, that “the Corinthians sent questions
to Paul,S concerning marriage and virginity, by Stephanas,
Fortunatus, and Achaicus, by whom the apostle more fully
was informed of the state of their church; and therefore sent
his answer to them concerning these several heads.”
And, suitable to these things mentioned by the ancients,
we find,
First, That the apostle spends the latter part of the first
chapter, from ver. 20 to the end, in showing the vanity of
the wisdom which the philosophers pretended to, in compa-
rison to the wisdom discovered by the gospel preached by the
apostles. And, chapter the second, he shows the impos-
sibility of knowing or assenting to the things delivered by
the gospel, by those who, depending on philosophy and
human reason, rejected what was taught purely by revelation,
and consequently the necessity of admitting that revelation
of the Spirit they challenged to themselves, that the doc-
trine of the gospel might be made known to the world. And
**H 35 xał Śntágoy Troxxây #wrago; # aréxi; ka? pixo~épov’
#viot yet airröy of a p38pa Bari-revoy &váq-raciy ºval coºray, rà
rā; ‘Examvikā; pºopia; it voo'oùvreć, kai yüp #mayºra raira 373 rā;
xará roy pixo~opfav rāv Āšošev čvoiac-Érixts ro, wai airn v ráv
waxóv h ºrné, Chrysost. et Theoph. Praef. in hanc Epist.
+ Kai yüé àoav wrap' airdſ; # Iovatov ºftya peovoivºrsc, xat
ITaſſow &iagáxxovre;, &; áxášoya kai obºey8; &#toy Xéyov. Chrys.
Praefat. in Secundam Epist. Tiyā; rāv 'Iověaiwy remia revzáray
any woºzikºv &cºraćºvoi Troxitelaw wavroze regivoroúvra, rhy
470-toxixày 3.8aa waxiav Ště8axxov, 3roatárny Kai Trapávocco, röy
Séatriotov IIaixoy &roxaxoivres, Kai puxártely āraai rāy wégow
trageyyvävres. Theod. Praefat, in Secundam Epist.
# "H Köpw80; wroxxâ traoürº zai copiº Koºzåa'a, świa reva's ºw
ºr; Xeta-rá §ite traoûriot tºta; avºxogia; in otheravro, wai
oi o oboi at ièizº. Chrysost. Theodor. Theoph. IIagarksváče:
twäç #4 raw trapā a piai ºrxovalov Kai pixozápov airroxeteorovárov;
Tréodºrateſy roi; &nºwo; #y ºrdic tryEvºzartzoic ºrgáypºala w, &; Aottröy
roi. Agot troXAoû; toil; paſſy roſ, araouziotç &; 8vyatoſ; 7:00 xoeiaſat,
rot 3: roi; pixo~640i, &c traffoy 31%aksiy Svyap.évois Trapá rày roi;
&moatóNov 3:32%fty. Theod. apud CEcum.
Ś IIegi yázov Kai ºraçSeviac, regi rāy sièoxoSörov, arsei Tây
wrvivºcatiköy Xapiapaéray, zai Aottröy Trºgi čvaarácsong. CEcum.
Theodoret.
against both the rhetoricians and philosophers, he shows the
necessity of preaching the gospel, “not in the words of hu-
man wisdom,” i. 17—19. ii. 1. iii. 18, 19. 28. iv. 20.
Secondly, Because on the account of those philosophers
and rhetoricians, as well as of the Judaizers, they broke out
into parties and factions, he reminds them of those factions,
beseeching them carefully to avoid them, i. 10, as tending to
the dividing of Christ's body, ver. 13, and as indications
that they were “yet carnal,” iii. 4, pursuing this under his
own name, and that of Apollos, through the whole third
chapter; showing that they ought not to glory in men, or be
puffed up for one against another, whatever were their gifts
or eloquence, but give the glory of their labours unto God
alone (see iv. 8).
Thirdly, Because they, who declared they were of Ce-
phas, seem to be those Judaizers who looked on the apos-
tle as unfaithful in his office, for rejecting the circumcision
and the law, he declares that he found no occasion thus to
charge himself, nor was he much concerned for their censures
of him in that kind, iv. 4, 5, showing, by his sufferings, how
great an evidence he had given of his fidelity in the dis;
charge of his office, from ver, 9 to the 14th, and that he had
begotten them to that faith in which they ought to stand,
and follow his example, from ver, 14 to the 17th : and be-
cause, he having sent Timothy to them, they imagined he
either durst not or would not come to them himself, he de-
clares he would both come and use his apostolical authority
amongst them, and try the power of them who were thus
puffed up against him by reason of their human wisdom.
Fourthly, Because one of these eloquent persons had been
guilty of a very heinous crime, he commands them to pu-
mish him by removing him from their society, and delivering
him up to Satan. And, -
Fifthly, Because being rich and wealthy (iv. 8), they were
unwilling to part with their wealth, and therefore went to
law, for preservation of it, before heathen judges, to the scan-
dal of Christianity, he reprehends this vice in them, ch. vi.
from ver. 1 to the 10th; and having said all this by way of
preface, he begins, ch. vii., to return his answer to the ques-
tions they had sent unto him.
S. 5. There is one farther observation useful for, and
worthy to be pondered by, the licentious persons of our age,
that because fornication and lasciviousness were vices to
which the heathens were generally addicted, and their phi-
losophers, and perhaps some heretics, viz. the Nicolaitans,
which were amongst them, maintained this was a thing in-
different, therefore the apostle, both in the Epistles to the
Corinthians, and to most other churches, is very copious
in showing the destructive nature of this sin. It is to be
observed, that Corinth was, above all other cities, even to
a proverb, infamous for fornication and lasciviousness, so that
Koptysia yuvi, “a Corinthian woman,” is, in the language of
the ancients, a whorish woman, according to the proverb, a
Koew8ía Boixa, xoporoxha'ely; Ut Corinthia yideris corpore
quaestum factura: and Kogyºtáðsly, Kogwěláčeo Sat, is rat-
pečew, scortationibus indulgere (Hesych. Phayor.). There
was, saith Strabo,' in it a temple dedicated to Venus, which
orxsiov; ; Xixia; isé08o0nov; ixéxºrnto Éraipac. These vices also
reigned in Galatia, the worshippers of “the mother of the
gods;” in Ephesus (see note on Eph. v. 5), Thessalonica,
Creté (Athenaeus, lib. xii. p. 527, A. 528, C.), and generally
in all heathen nations. Hence the apostle is so frequent and
express in his condemning this vice:
|First, As a sin contrary to nature, as being against our own
body (i Cor. vi. 18): a sin of unrighteousness, to which
God gave them up for their idolatry (Rom. i. 28); and a
sin, which they who committed, were “given up to a repro-
bate mind,” and knew they did things worthy of death (ver,
29. 32); a sin contrary to the moral law, or to the law of
nature; for he declares that law was given for the condemn-
ing fornicators (1 Tim. i. 10). …
Secondly, As a sin contrary to the Christian faith, and
inconsistent with it. “Know ye not,” saith he, “that yout
bodies are the members of Christ; shall I then take the
members of Christ, and make them the members of a hat-
lot 2 God forbid!” (1 Cor. vi. 15.) And again, “But forni-
* Wide Eras. Adag. Cent. 7, p. 633, 720.
+ Lib. viii. p. 378, D.
'604,
PREFACE TO TIHE
cation, and all uncleanness, let it not be once named among
you, as becometh saints” (Eph. v. 3); “for God hath
called us to uncleanness, but unto holiness. He theref
that despiseth this his call, despiseth not man but God, who
also hath given us of his Spirit”(1 Thess. iv. 7, 8). Hence he
declares it to be contrary to the sound doctrine of the gospel
(1 Tim. i. 10, 11), and forbids Christians to eat with any
brother who is a fornicator (1 Cor. v. 11).
Thirdly, As being a sin which will exclude the fornicator
from the kingdom of God. “Be not deceived,” saith he,
“no fornicator shall inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal. vi.
10, 11). To the Galatians he speaks thus, “The works of
the flesh are manifest ; adultery, fornication, uncleanness,
lasciviousness: of which I tell you again, that they who do
such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal. v.
19–21). To the Ephesians thus, “This know ye, that no
fornicator, nor unclean person, hath any inheritance in the
kingdom of Christ, or of God” (John v. 5). They, saith
John, shall be excluded from the New Jerusalem (Rev. xxii.
15).
Fourthly, As that which will assuredly expose them to
the wrath of God. For thus he speaks to the Colossians;
“Mortify your earthly members, fornication and uncleanness;
for which things cometh the wrath of God upon the children
of disobedience” (Col. iii. 5, 6). To the Ephesians thus,
“Be not deceived with vain words, for because of these
things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobe-
dience” (Eph. v. 6).
Fifthly, As that which will subject them to eternal
punishment. For “whoremongers and adulterers xpiysi &
©sic, God will adjudge to condemnation” (Heb. xiii. 4): the
portion of the whoremonger shall be assigned him “in the
lake that burns with fire and brimstone” (Rev. xxi. 8).
§. 6. And this is all that I at first intended by way of
preface to this epistle. But finding that the doctrine of the
resurrection of the same body which dieth, is now either
questioned, or thought unnecessary to be believed, though
anciently the very heathens looked upon it as a fundamental
doctrine of Christianity, and the ground of their most raised
hopes ; and upon this account they burnt the very bones of
Christian martyrs, and reduced them to ashes, and then
threw those ashes into the river Rhodamus, or Rhone, that
Secondly, From Irenaeus,” who in the second century
makes this one article of faith of the whole church received
from the apostles, and kept, taught, and delivered in all
so they might defeat “the hope of a resurrection, which
enabled the Christians to suffer death with alacrity, and to
endure all kinds of torments for their religion ;’” which
sure had been a vain attempt had not the Christian doctrine
promised, as the foundation of their hopes, the resurrection
of the same body thus consumed, but only of some other
body in its stead; and seeing the fifteenth chapter of this
epistle is the seat of that controversy—I shall therefore
endeavour briefly to evince two things:—
1. That it was certainly the received doctrine of the pro-
fessors of the Christian faith.
2. That it is truly grounded on the scriptures, and
therefore ought to be owned as an article of Christian faith.
And,
1. That it was certainly the ancient and received doc-
trine of the orthodox professors of the Christian faith, is
evident,
First, From the second epistle of Clemens Romanus, i.
writ in the first century; for there he doth expressly caution
Christians against the denial of this article, in these words,-
“Let none of you say that this same flesh shall not be
judged, for as you were called in the flesh, so shall you come
in the flesh to judgment, and in this very flesh shall you re-
ceive your reward.” And in his First Epistle, to prove that
God will raise them from the dead, who have served him
in holiness, he cites those words from Job xix. 25, 26,
&varrhagic rºw a 48×4 &ov raûrny, “Thou wilt raise up this my
flesh, which hath suffered all these things.”
places with the greatest care and uniformity; viz. that
Christ will come from heaven in glory, &varrºrai são an
oráčxa Tráanº àv6eomárnºrog, “to raise up all flesh of all man-
kind.” Tertullian,t in the third century, producing the
Christian's creed as the rule of faith, which came from
Christ, and was by his companions handed down to the
church, “the institution of Christ, which all nations ought to
believe,” makes this one article of it, that “Christ will come
to judge the quick and dead ;” factà utriusque partis resus-
citatione cum carnis restitutione, or per carnis resurrectionem,
“by raising and restoring of their flesh.” Accordingly, the
article of “the resurrection of the flesh ;” or, as the Aquileian
Symbol hath it, hujus carnis, “ of this flesh ;” or, as other
confessions have it, “ of their bodies,” lºath been received in
all Christian churches. And they have been condemned as
heretics from the beginning of the second century, who de-
nied caçxö, äváaraow,f “the resurrection of the flesh ; et
carnis salutem et regenerationem ejus, dicentes non eam
capacem esse incorruptibilitatis, “the life and reproduction
of the flesh, saying, it was incapable of incorruption ;” as
did the Valentinians, the Basilidians, and the Marcionites,
say the fathers. -
§. 7. I proceed, secondly, to show, that this doctrine of
the primitive Christians is truly grounded on the scriptures,
and therefore ought to be received and owned as an article
of Christian faith. This I prove,
1. From all those places which speak of the resurrection
of the body ; these places I shall produce, for their sakes
who “do not remember, in any place of the New Testament,
any such expression as the resurrection of the body ;” v. g.
“He that raised Jesus from the dead, Koom othael Kai, shall
also make alive your mortal bodies” (Rom. viii. 11); that is
he shall raise them from the dead: for that £woroſsiy anc.
#ysigsty, to quicken and rais wip, are, with relation to this
matter, words of the same import, we learn from these
words: “As the Father, i yºgel row; vexgoûc, xal Kooroºf,
raiseth up the dead, and quit Keneth them, so the Son Koectrosſ
quickeneth whom he will” John v. 21). Again, saith the
apostle, “How are the dead raised up P” i. e. the bodies of
the dead; it follows, kai Troiº cºp, art, “and with what kind
of bodies do they come” forth of the grave P (1 Cor. xv. 35.)
So ver. 44, It is sown a natural body, it is raised orāºa.
myevgarikov, “a spiritual body.” And still more evidently,
ré p$agry rotºro, “this corruptible (body) must put on in-
corruption, xai ºr Synty rotiro, and this mortal (body) must
put on immortality” (ver. 53). “So when this corruptible
(body) shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal
(body) put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass
the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.”
If any one likes not my addition of ~&a, body, to the pro-
noun and adjective, four times here mentioned, I desire him
to find out, if he can, another substantive ; if he cannot, he
must confess the resurrection of the body is here mentioned
four times: for the apostle argues thus, “The dead shall be
raised up, 35ſ yag, for this corruptible (body) must put on
incorruption ;” and when this is done, then death, which
only happens to this corruptible mortal body, “ shall be
swallowed up in victory.”
It is said, that “he who reads with attention this dis-
course of Paul, where he speaks of the resurrection, will see
that he plainly distinguisheth between the dead that shall be
raised, and the bodies of the dead; for it is vexpos, Trávts; oi,
which are the nominative cases to #ysipovirat, Kootronóñºzvras,
#ysp6%aroyrat, all along, and not a dºzara, bodies, which one
may in reason think would somewhere or other have been
expressed, if all this had been said to propose it as an article
of faith, that the same bodies shall be raised.” The same
* “Iva (3; #xeyov insivo) tº 8: Arièa ºx&aw &rarrácsa", §
# revolsárez–waraqºoyotai rāv Āsīyāy, rotºol wal ºré x&pás
#koyrs; in rēy Sávaroy. Euseb. Eccles, lib. V. cap. 1, p. 165.
+ Kai º Aºyára ric tºy airn h, gº ou xgivgraft, où8:
&via rarat
ixeſota-Si-kai hºſ. iv taúrn tº gaoki ätroanskápa:0a tºy ºzè%.
Clem. Ep, 2, S. 9. 36
* º * º
§y ºrgātroy y&p #y rā a-agxi ixxhônte, Rai #y tº capiti
!
* Lib. i. cap. 2, 3.
+ Apol. cap. 47 de Praescript. cap. 9, 13; de Veland.
Virg. cap. 1.
f Just. in Dial. cum Tryph. p. 307, B.
§ Iren. lib. v. cap. 2.
| Iren. lib. i. cap. 23, 29. Tertul. de Præscript, cap. 3%,
Theodoret. Haer. Fab, lib. i. cap. 4, 7.
FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.
605
manner of speaking the Spirit of God observes all through
the New Testament, where it is said, “ raise the dead,”
“quicken” or “make alive the dead,” the “resurrection of
the dead,” Matt. xxii. 27. 52. John v. 28, 29. Rom. iv. 17.
2 Cor. i. 9. 1 Thess. iv. 16.
Ans. I hope the instances produced already are sufficient
to confute this observation ; I shall, therefore, go on farther
to observe and prove, that the resurrection of the dead is by
the apostle used with plain relation to the bodies of the dead:
so that he even proves the resurrection of the dead, because
the body is raised, and so doth not “plainly distinguish be-
twixt the dead that shall be raised, and the bodies of the
dead.” This is evident enough from what I have observed
already, that the apostle proves of vengol #ysp0%arovrat, “the
dead shall be raised,” because “the corruptible body must
put on incorruption,” &c.
these words: “So is also &váarradiº rāv vengåy, the resurrec-
tion of the dead ; for it is sown in corruption, it is raised in
incorruption,” ver, 42, 43, where I desire to know what is
the nominative case to #ysiperat, “it is raised,” used three
times here 2 If it be orówa, body, I have sufficiently confuted
this criticism ; if it be not, why doth the apostle so ex-
pound it in the immediate ensuing words, “It is sown a
natural body, #ysiogral oriºga ºryevºwarikāy, it is raised a spiri-
tual body ?” .
I add, that this appears almost from all the places cited,
that the of vexeol, and the Trávre; 3roôvāakov’rs;, “the dead,”
and “the all dying,” hath relation to the body only, which,
being that alone which is by death bereft of life, must be that
only which, in propriety of speech, is said to die. Thus,
when it is said, “These very words, urged for the resurrec-
tion of the same body, run thus, Trávre; oi By roi; ºvnºBiotº,
“All that are in the graves, shall hear his voice, and shall
come forth ; they that have done good si; &váataa'iy Koſñº, to
the resurrection of life, but they that have done evil to the
resurrection of condemnation :’ and is then added, “Would
not a well-meaning searcher be apt to think, that if the
thing here intended by our Saviour were to teach and propose
it as an article of faith, necessary to be believed by every
one, that the very same bodies of the dead should be raised,
the words should rather have been révra rà côºara rā, śy
roſe wymºlois, i. e. ‘all the bodies that are in the graves,”
rather than “all who are in their graves; which must denote
persons, and not precisely bodies P’’
To this I answer, (1.) that the words orávre; of #y roſ;
paympºsiotº, i. e. “all that are in the graves,” and rávra rā.
a'étwata rā āy ºrdſ, ºympºsiots, “all the bodies that are in the
graves,” are plainly words of the same import. For what is
laid down in the graves or sepulchres? is it not crºwara rºw
xixotºnºvoy “the bodies of them that sleep” only 2 (Matt.
xxvii. 52) and must it not then be these bodies that come
forth of them 2 May we not discern, in the passage now
cited, how the Holy Ghost passes immediately from the
bodies of the Saints that slept, to their persons, saying,
“The bodies of the Saints that slept arose, kai #ex03, re; #x
ºrów Łympºsiov, and they, coming out of their graves after his
resurrection, went into the holy city, and appeared unto.
many 2” (ver. 53.) -
(2.) When God said to Adam, what was also true of his
posterity, “In sorrow shalt thou eat thy bread, until thou
return to the ground ; for out of it wast thou taken : for dust
thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (Gen. iii. 19);
and the psalmist, of man in general, “His breath (or spirit)
goeth forth ; he returneth to his earth” (Ps. cxlvi. 5): will
any one be tempted, from these personal demonstrative pro-
nouns, thou and he, to say that these words must denote the
persons, and not precisely the bodies of men P and thence
infer, that the whole person of Adam was taken out of the .
earth, and was but dust, and that the whole person of man
“returneth to his earth P” If not, why is it argued that
the like pronoun oi, they, must here denote persons, and not
precisely bodies? Are we not told that the word person
stands for a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and
reflection, and can consider itself as itself? And can they
who are in their graves do this? If so, surely they are not
dead in them, but huried alive: if they cannot, why must
these words of #y roſ, ºwnpºsioic denote persons?
But it is said, that, “according to this interpretation of
these words of our Saviour, no other substance being raised
but what hears his voice ; and no other substance hearing his
But it is still more evident from
voice, but what, being called, comes out of the grave; and no
other substance coming out of the grave, but what was in the
grave, any one must conclude that the soul, unless it be
in the grave, will make no part of the person that is raised.”
Ans. To this I answer, that any one may reasonably
hence conclude, that the soul makes no raised part of him
that is raised, or that it is not called, or raised out of the
grave, as the body is ; but by what logic can we hence con-
clude it makes no part of the raised person 2 For instance,
we profess in our creed to believe that “Jesus Christ died,
and rose again,” i. e. from the grave: and saith Peter,
“This Jesus hath God raised up, having loosed the pains of
death, because it was impossible he should be holden of it”
(Acts ii. 24.32): now because nothing can be raised from
the dead but that which died, nothing can be raised from
the grave but what was laid in it ; shall we hence infer, that
the soul of the Lord Jesus, or his spirit (which he commended
into his Father's hands, and which went to paradise), unless
it died, and was in the grave, could make no part of the per-
son, which was dead, and was raised from the dead, and out
of the grave? When our Lord says (ver. 28, 29), “They
that were in the graves shall come forth to the resurrection
of life : and (ver. 25), “The dead shall live:” what can
live again but that which was dead 2 What can have a re-
surrection to life, but that which had no life ; and was not
that the body only 2 Yea, are not these things said in pur-
suance of what went before: “As the Father raiseth up the
dead, and quickeneth (or gives life to) them, even so the
Son quickeneth whom he will.” Now what can be raised
from the dead, but that which was dead 2 What can be
quickened, or have life given to it, but that which had no
life 2 If then that were the body only, must not the raising
of the dead and quickening them import only the raising
and quickening of the body, although this be performed
completely by the union of the soul to the raised body ?
Secondly, That, in our Saviour's discourse against the sad-
ducees, regi rā, śvarrázso, röy vexpºv, “touching the resur-
rection of the dead,” he also speaks of raising that which
was dead, i. e. the body, is evident from this, that he saith
of them who partake of that resurrection, oùx āti 35Vayra,
&roðavely, “They can die no more” (Matt. xxii. Mark xii.
Luke xx. 35, 36), which can be only spoken of that body
which died before.
Thirdly, We read of God rol, Kootrototyro; Toi); yeagoi;
“quickening the dead” (Rom. iv. 7). Now what doth he
quickening, but what was dead 2 What doth he give life to,
but that which ceased to have life, that is, the body ?
Fourthly, Paul saith, “We had in ourselves the sentence
of death, that we might not trust in ourselves, but in God,
rā āysipovti rob; yergoúc, who raiseth the dead” (2 Cor. i. 9).
Now what was this “sentence of death P” Did Paul and his
Christian companions believe the whole man should be
killed by their persecutors P or, as their Lord had taught
them, that they “could kill the body,” but “could not kill
the soul ?” (Matt. x. 26.) Doth he not say in their names,
that that which “perished,” or was corrupted, was only 3
#o, hºw &vôpoºroº, “our outward man” (2 Cor. iv. 16), in
opposition to the “inwardman?” That, whilst they lived, they
were “at home in the body,” and that at death they did #x3n-
aſſa at #4 roº adºaroº, “dwell out of the body” (2 Cor. iv. 16),
or, as to the soul, were absent from it? And must not then
“the sentence of death,” they had in themselves, be only
this, that their bodies might die by the hands of persecutors ;
that their outward man might perish by them P And must
not then their trust in God, “that raiseth the dead,” relate
to his raising their dead bodies? .
Fifthly, The dead in Christ that shall be raised (1 Thess.
iv. 16), are they that sleep (ver. 13. 15), that is, that “sleep
in the dust” (Dan. xii. 2); now is it not rà oðgara, “the
bodies of the saints” that thus sleep (Matt. xxvii. 52), and
must not then the apostle speak of them only 2 Is not this
spoken to comfort the Thessalonians, “concerning them that
were asleep P” (ver. 13. 18;) and were they troubled for the
souls of them that slept in Jesus? (ver. 14;) or doth, the
apostle say anything to comfort them, but that which relates
to the body only 3 And will it not hence follow that what.
he there saith, touching the resurrection of the dead, con-
cerneth their dead bodies only 2—Thus have I shown that
all the places here cited, as speaking of the resurrection of
the dead, refer to the resurrection of the bodies.
606
PREFACE TO THE
§. 8. But farther, had not the scripture so expressly
spoken, of raising our mortal bodies, of raising that “a spiri-
tual body” which was “sown a natural body,” and proved
“the dead shall be raised,” because “this corruptible shall
put on incorruption ;" and could it not be proved, that rais-
ing of the dead, and of the bodies of the dead, were in im-
port the same, this article might be established from other
passages of scripture, speaking the same thing in effect; as, V.g.
First, “We who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, groan
within ourselves, expecting vio9saiaw the sonship, even the re-
demption of our body” (Rom. viii. 23). Now what is this
redemption roi, a dºzaro; hºwāv, “ of our body,” but the de-
livery of it “from the bondage of corruption?” (ver. 21.)
What did they “groan” for 2 It was, saith the same apostle,
“that mortality might be swallowed up of life” (2 Cor. v. 4,
5), which only is to be done “when this mortal body shall
put on immortality,” saith the same apostle ; this therefore
was to be done to accomplish “the redemption of the body”
spoken of ; and is not then the redemption, and the resur-
rection of the body, in effect the same 2 -
Secondly, “We expect that Saviour, the Lord Jesus
Christ from heaven, who shall change ºr capca rāg rarel-
wºrso; hºwy, our vile body into the likeness of his glorious
body” (Phil. iii. 20, 21). The body therefore to be changed
is capca #4&y, “our body,” “the body of our humiliation,”
so styled, as Methodius saith, because rarelyotirai &md a páA-
featoº, “it is humbled and made mortal by the fall;” or, as
Irenaeus (lib. v. cap. 13), quéd et humiliatur cadens in ter-
ram, “because it is humbled by falling into the earth.”
This body is therefore to be thus changed when our Lord
cometh down from heaven, that is, at the resurrection of it ;
for “the Lord shall descend from heaven, and the dead in
Christ shall rise first” (1 Thess. iv. 16). Is it not therefore
manifest from these words, that our “vile mortal bodies,”
fallen into the earth, or laid in it, shall be raised, and by or
at the resurrection, shall be “changed into the likeness of .
Christ's glorious body?”
Now hence I argue for the resurrection of the same body
thus: If the scripture teacheth that there shall be a “quick-
ening,” by raising up “our mortal bodies,” a “redemption,”
by the resurrection of our bodies, a “changing” of our bodies,
at and by the resurrection, “into the likeness of Christ's
glorious body,” it seems sufficiently to say, there shall be a
resurrection of the same body which before was mortal, and
change by it, of the same body which was vile, or humble ;
and a redemption by it from corruption, of the same body
which was formerly “in bondage to corruption ;” for all
this must be said of the same body, or not of the same
body: if of the same body, then the same body must be
raised ; if not of the same body, then of another: and how
then is it said of our body ? How are these other bodies, rà.
Synt& gºpºara Üzów, “your mortal bodies” (Rom. viii. 11);
the redemption of them, “the redemption roi, a dºwaro; hºw&v’”
the change of them, “the change roi; or&garo; rarely&so;
hºv, of our mortal vile bodies?”
Secondly, When the apostle saith, * “this corruptible,”
“this mortal body,” does he mean this body of ours, or does
he not ? If he does mean this mortal, corruptible body of
ours, then he asserts of that, that it shall be raised immortal
and incorruptible; if he does ºnot mean it of ours, he
must mean it of some other body than ours, and how then
is that “raised a spiritual body,” which was “sown a
matural body ?” How doth “this mortal put on immortal-
ity ?” How are we concerned in the resurrection of another
body? Or what assurance doth it give us, that we shall rise
from the dead, seeing, when any of us departs this life, it is
our body that dies, and not another's P Yea, why then doth
he say, “The dead shall rise, and we,” that are living, “shall
be changed?”—“We shall all be changed;” i. e. “our
vile bodies shall be changed into the likeness of Christ's
glorious body :” our mortal bodies into immortal; our natu-
ral bodies shall be changed by being raised spiritual bodies.
* Cúm dicit istud corruptivum et istud mortale, cutem
ipsam tenens dicit. Certë istud nisi de comparenti pronun-
tiâsse non potuit: demonstrationis corporalis est verbum.'
Tertull. de Resurrect. Carn. cap. 51. .
‘ogăç rºy &ngičelay, rö Synty rotiro #8stºe sixtixãº, (a gº
#AAn; woºziºn; cagº; &yárracy. Theod, ibid.
Let any man try his utmost skill, and see if he can find any
nominative case to a reſperat, “itis sown,” used here four times,
but a jºka, body, or understand this of any other body than
ours: seeing then the same word is the nominative case to
#ysiperat, “it is raised,” which was so to a neigsrat, “it is
sown,” the apostle must be supposed to say, this body of ours
is raised in incorruption.
§. 9. Arg. 2. To proceed to other scriptures of like im-
port: “All that are in their graves shall come forth,” saith
Christ, #xtropečaravrat #4 ray ºwnºgiov, “they shall come out of
the graves in which they were” (John v. 28, 29). Shall
they come forth with the same body which was laid in the
grave, or with another? If with the same, then the same
body must be raised; if with another, how came these graves
to be called their graves, and how are the dead, and they
that are in the graves, raised out of them, and not another F
Again, when it is said, “The sea gave up the dead, iv airfi
in it, and death and hades, (the place of the dead) gave up
the dead in them ’’ (Rev. xx. 13): did they give up the
same bodies which were laid down in them, or some others ?
The first is the thing contended for: if they gave up some
others, how did they give up the dead that were laid down
in them P
To say that “a greater part of these dead bodies possibly
may have undergone variety of changes, and entered into
other concretions, even in the bodies of other men,” is to
me no objection against the raising of the same body, if God
hath engaged so to do ; for then, as he is able, so is his pro-
vidence concerned to prevent the entering of one body so
into the concretion of another, as to hinder it from being
the same body when raised, as it was when laid down in the
sea, or grave; and I know “what he hath promised he is
able to perform.” r
Lastly, Even the phrase “the resurrection of the dead,”
and especially the resurrection #x vexpów, “from the dead,”
used Col. i. 18. Bev. i. 15, where Christ is styled “the first-
born of those that arise from the dead,” proves this. For
the proper notion of a resurrection consists in this, that it is
a substantial change, by which that which was before, and
died, or was corrupted, is reproduced the same thing again.
I call it a change of that which died, or was corrupted, dis-
junctively, because in the resurrection of our Lord, and of
Lazarus, and others whom he raised from the dead, the body
was not corrupted. Hence it follows,
(1.) That the soul, which is immortal and incorruptible,
cannot be said to rise again, resurrection implying a repro-
duction ; whereas that which, after it was, never ceased to
be what it was, cannot be reproduced ; and so the resurrec-
tion of the dead:# can only signify the resurrection of the
bodies of the dead, with the reunion of them to those souls
to which they were before united, which makes this resur-
rection advance into a resurrection of life. And seeing that
which never fell cannot be said to be raised up, that which
did never die cannot be restored from death ; men cannot
properly be said to rise again from the dead, but in respect
to that part, or that state, which had fallen and was dead.
And as for a man to be born at first signifies the production
and union of the essential parts of an individual man, his
body and his soul: so to be born again, or born from the
dead, implies the restitution and reunion of his body and
his soul; a man only by that becoming the same entire per-
son which he was before. Seeing therefore it is acknow-
ledged, that “the same persons shall be raised,” yea, that
“there can be nothing plainer than that in the scripture it is
* Resurrectionis vocabulum non aliam rem vendicat quam
quae cecidit: surgere enim potest dici et quod omninó mon
cecidit, sed semper retrô jacuit ; resurgere autem non est nisi
ejus quod cecidit; iterüm enim surgendo, quia cecidit, re-
surgere dicitur. Tertull, advers. Marc. lib. v. cap. 9. -
'Aváa raciç yā; oi kaatſrat roi; Pah retrºtoxáros. Epiph.
Haer. 67, sect 6.
+ 'Ayāoraciº y&g # 3voŠey arágic, rô dºza 3: a ri tº pºstgé-
pºevoy, Kai Staxvápasyov' roërov 'roivuv h &vo9ew cºa raat; Eixãroc
waxstºrat āvāorracic rāg yā; 3% &Savárov quxft, oùx &várragic,
&xx' Trávoão; yíyveral ºrgèg rô a 3pta. Maxploy 3: Képêov ×al 6
Mávnç, wai &rot røy a wº.4 row oix #3ážayro &vázºaaiy, &c &3óvarov
Trayvexö; révès rêy 8toy #6 axoy Theodor. Haer. Fab. lib. v.
| cap. 19, p. 293, A, B.
FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.
607
revealed, that the same persons shall be raised, and appear
before the judgment-seat of Christ, to answer for what they
have done in the body ;” and the same person cannot be
raised without the raising of his body to be united to his
soul, much less be raised from the dead, without raising that
of him which was dead, which only was his own, and not
another body, which before was not part of him : it follows
that, if the same person be raised from the dead, that of
them which was dead, or their own bodies, must be raised ;
and so the meaning of the scripture, when it saith, the same
persons shall be raised, must be this, that their bodies, sepa-
rated from their souls by death, shall be raised from the
dead.
Moreover, by saying that the resurrection is only of that
which died, or was corrupted, it appears, that I, with the
ancients, only assert the resurrection of that body which died
or was corrupted, and am not in the least concerned for any
changes that it underwent before ; and so the scripture forces
me to speak, when it styles the resurrection, the quickening
of the dead ; the vivification of our mortal bodies ; the
raising of those bodies which were sown in corruption ; the
coming forth of them which were in their graves; the
awakening of them that sleep in the dust of the earth ; and
Saith that then the sea, and hades, shall give up their dead,
allowing a resurrection only to them that shall then be
dead, and saying only of them that shall be found alive,
“They shall be changed.” And if this only be the true
sense of the scripture in this matter, and this only the re-
surrection there intended, it cannot be concerned in the least
in what the philosophers say touching the change the body
undergoes whilst living, though I am far from thinking, that,
to the raising the same bodies, it can be requisite that these
bodies should be made up wholly of the same particles,
which were once vitally united to their souls in their former
life, without the mixture of any other particle of matter: for
were this necessary to the same living body, we could not
have the same bodies for a day ; and if it be not necessary
to make the body continue still the same while we live, it
cannot be necessary to make the raised body the same with
that which died. -
That which here seems to me of greatest moment to be
considered is this, that the dead being raised that they may
be “judged according to their works” (Rev. xx. 12), and
“that every one may receive rà 31& roi, a dºzaroc, the things
done by the body,” as the instrument of the soul, it is only
requisite that the dying body, which is to be raised to the
“resurrection of condemnation,” should be then united to a
soul, sentenced hereafter to condemnation for the evils done
whilst in the body, and by the body as its instrument, and
not repented of, and reformed, before its separation from the
body. And, that the body should be raised to “the resur-
rection of life,” it is only requisite that, some time or other
before its death, it should have been united to a soul that
truly repented of all its past sins, and did, from thencefor-
ward, do that which was “lawful and right” whilst they were
thus united : now seeing this is the state of all bodies which
arise to “the resurrection of life,” or “ of condemnation,” it
is only necessary to this last resurrection that it should be the
raising the bodies of men dying in their sins, as in my hypo-
thesis it is, and that the bodies, raised to the resurrection of
life, should be the bodies of men dying in the favour of God;
it is therefore only necessary their dying bodies should arise.
And now the argument arising from these scriptures, which
teach that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, and so of
their dead bodies, “ that every one may receive according to
what he hath done in (or by) the body,” will run thus:
Either the body is to be raised, and reunited to the soul,
to receive rewards and punishments with it, or to be the in-
strument by which the soul shall be rewarded or punished;
or it is not : if not to any of these ends, why is it raised at
all 2 why do good men, by the direction of the Holy Spirit,
“expect the resurrection of the body ?” or why is it pro-
pounded as their great encouragement, to be “stedfast, im-
moveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord?”
(1 Cor. xv. 58. 1 Thess. iv. 18) and as a comfort to them
that mourn for the dead? Why are the wicked to be “pu-
nished with everlasting fire,” or said to “go away” after the
resurrection “into eternal punishment 2" (Matt. xxv. 41.46.)
Or why doth our Saviour require us, “not to fear them who
t
can kill the body, but can do no more,” in comparison of him
who can “destroy both soul and body in hell-fire P” (Matt.
x. 28) and say that “it is better one of thy members perish,
than that thy whole body should be cast into hell-fire P’’
(Matt. v. 29, 30.) If it be to be raised for these ends, it is
necessary the same body should be raised which sinned with,
or was the instrument of the soul in doing good or evil, it
being absurd to think, that one body should sin, and another
should be punished for it ; or that one body should suffer,
and another should be crowned for it: and, for anything I
can discern to the contrary, we might as well appear before
Christ's judgment-seat without any body at all, as without
that which we deposited. Let it now be remembered, that
the body, in which the impenitent is to suffer, is only the
same body which was laid down in the grave, and then the
arguments usually offered to invalidate his suffering in his
own body, or in the same body in which he sinned, will be
almost as strong to excuse a murderer from suffering in his
body for a murder committed twenty years ago, as to the
purposes they are used in this case : nay, I have met with
nothing said in this affair, which does not prove as strongly
that the body of our blessed Lord, born of the Virgin Mary,
after he had sucked and digested that milk into chyle, was
not the same body which was born of the Virgin, as not
having all the same individual particles, and then, when he
grew in stature, he grew into another body, and so into a
body which came not from the loins of Abraham, and was
not “of the seed of David according to the flesh ;” and that,
when the Jews destroyed his body, they destroyed not that
body of which he spake, when he said, “Destroy this body,”
because the body they destroyed had by perspiration lost,
and by nutrition gained, many particles.
Ş. 10. I come now to answer the objections against this
article ; viz.
“The appellation the apostle bestows on him that enters
into this inquiry, Whether the dead shall have the same
bodies or no? seems not much to encourage him in that in-
quiry; nor will he, by the remainder of Paul's answer, find
the determination of the apostle to be much in favour of the
very same body, unless the being told, that the body sown is
not the body that shall be ; that the body raised is as dif-
ferent from that which was laid down as the flesh of a man
is from the flesh of beasts, fishes, and birds; or as the sun,
moon, and stars; are different from one another ; or as dif-
ferent as a corruptible, weak, natural, mortal body is from an
incorruptible, powerful, spiritual, immortal body; and, lastly,
as a body that is flesh and blood is from a body that is not
flesh and blood; for flesh and blood cannot (says Paul, in
this very place) inherit the kingdom of God ; unless, I say,
all this, which is contained in St. Paul's words, can be sup-
posed to be the way to deliver this as an article of faith,
which is required to be believed of every one.”
Now to this I answer:
First, That it seems to me a great mistake, to say the apos-
tle in that appellation, “Thou fool,” reflects upon him that
inquires, Whether the same body which was dead shall be
raised or no? He had already entirely dispatched that
question against those philosophers who said there is no re-
surrection* (ver. 12), and that the resurrection of the body
was a thing impossible (ver. 15). He begins the inquiry,
not about the truth of the resurrection, but about the man-
ner in which it shall be made, and the qualities which the
raised bodies should have, asking the question of philo-
sophers, rotº a 6%ati, with what kind of bodies, or with
what qualified bodies do they come 2 For they conceiving
that the body was the prison of the soul, and that it was her
punishment to be tied to it, thought we could not be truly
happy, till, by death, we were delivered from it; they there-
fore judged it an unjust and an unworthy thing for God to
raise these bodies to be united to the souls of good men; and
therefore Celsus saith, “The hope of the resurrection of the
* Hinc dicit Plinius ne Deum quidem posse omnia, nec
mortales acternitate domare, nec revocare defunctos, Hist.
Nat. lib. ii. cap. 7. Negant haec fieri posse. Lactant. lib.
vii. cap. 22. * -
+ Utröm sine corpore, an cum corporibus P. et corporibus
quibus, ipsisne, an innovatis resurgatur 2 Cecil. apud Min.
p. 11
608 PREFACE
TO THE
*
flesh is the hope of worms, a filthy and abominable thing,
and so a thing which God neither will nor can do” (see all
this proved from their own words, in the note upon this verse).
Now to this objection the apostle returns a full and satisfac-
tory answer, by showing the happy change which will then
pass upon the raised body, and the excellent qualities it
shall then have, and which were wanting to it, whilst it was
on earth.*
Secondly, When the apostle adds, ver. 37, “That which
thou sowest (when thou sowest it) is not that body which
shall be (again produced), but bare (or naked) grain;” it is
evident he speaketh there not of the body of man, but of the
body “of wheat, or of some other grain,” and is there still
pursuing the same question, “With what kind of bodies do
they come P” answering, as it was common with the Jews to
do, by this very similitude, to a like question among them,
viz. Whether the body should arise naked, or clothed upon P+
and therefore saith, “Thou sowest not the body which shall
be,” i.e. a body clothed with a shell, as in peas, beans, and
lentils; or with a hull, or chaff, as in wheat, rye, barley: but
xvºvy xázkov, “naked grain,” whereas God raiseth it up
clothed : and so, Saith he, will it be with our bodies at the
resurrection ; they will not be raised yuavà “naked,” but
#y?va'akºva, “clothed upon,” for “this corruptible body must
put on incorruption” (2 Cor. v. 2–4). This being then the
whole intendment of this similitude, it ought not to be urged
any farther. -
Thirdly, The same is evidently the apostle's purpose in the
following verses, which in sense run thus:
Ver. 39. “ (And as) all flesh is not the same (manner or
kind of) flesh, but there is one kind of flesh of men, another
$.” of) flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of
IrOIS :
Ver, 40. “(And as there is a like difference in the quali-
ties of bodies, for) there are also celestial bodies, and bodies
terrestrial ; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the
glory of the terrestrial is another :
Ver. 41. “(And as in the celestial bodies) there is one
glory of the Sun, and another of the moon, and another of the
stars (among themselves); for one star differeth from another
star in glory :
Wer. 42. “So also is (it, as to) the resurrection of the
dead (the body raised being in qualities much different from
the body we now have, for) it is sown in corruption, (frail,
nortal, subject to putrefaction,) it is raised in incorruption,”
&c. Now from the words thus paraphrased, let it be noted;
First, That the apostle says not, that the body raised is as
different from that which is laid down, as the flesh of man is
from the flesh of beasts, fishes, and birds; or, as the sun,
moon, and stars, are different from one another; but only as
the flesh of men differs in quality from that of beasts, fishes,
and birds, and as the Sun, moon, and stars, differ in their
glorious qualities from one another; so do our raised bodies
differ in quality from those earthly bodies we at present have;
as is evident from the ensuing words, in which he mentions
this difference betwixt them in qualities. Note,
Secondly, That in the instances of flesh of man and beasts,
and of celestial and terrestrial bodies, and of celestial bodies
among themselves, here used by the apostle, there is not only
a difference as to qualities, but also as to the subject-matter,
that being in them only specifically, but not numerically the
same ; whereas it is not so as to our bodies sown and raised,
they differing only as to the qualities from the body sown,
but not as to the subject-matter, it being “this corruptible
* Non considerat apostolus in håc similitudine diversita-
tem rei, sed qualitatis et conditionis, quod et quaestio re-
quirebat, Quali corpore veniunt 2 Itaque falluntur, qui, ex
his apostoli verbis, corpora non eadem secundúm substantiam
resuscitanda esse colligunt: quod qui dicunt, resurrectionem
revera tollunt, non enim resurgit nisi id ipsum quod cecidit.
Esthius.
ºf Pirk. Eliez. cap. 33, p. 80.
body” which “must put on incorruption.” As therefore tho
different qualities of divers souls, good and bad, learned and
unlearned, made glorious and miserable, infer a difference in
substance, because the subject of those qualities is not the
same; but when the same soul becomes virtuous and learned,
all this new ornament of grace and knowledge, and even its
advancement to a state of perfect happiness and glory, makes
it not cease to be the same soul still ; so it is here as to the
difference of glorious qualities, the raised body hath above
the body sown. I therefore,
Thirdly, Grant that the raised body is as different from the
earthly body we at present have, as a corruptible, weak,
natural, mortal body is from an incorruptible, powerful,
spiritual, immortal body; but then the subject of these dif-
ferent qualities being still the same, this difference hinders
not its being the same body still, since otherwise Christ's
body, being also raised an incorruptible, powerful, immortal
body, could not be the same with that in which he suffered;
and if his body is still the same that suffered, and was raised.
from the dead, then a like change of our vile bodies will not
hinder their being still the same. -
But it is still objected, that “the body raised is as different
from the bodies we at present have, and lay down in the grave,
as a body, that is flesh and blood, is from a body that is not
flesh and blood; for ‘flesh and blood,” (saith St. Paul) ‘can-
not inherit the kingdom of God.’”
Ans. To this I answer, (1.) ab absurdo, that if even this
hinder the body raised from being the same body, our Sa-
viour cannot now have the same body with that which he
suffered in, or which was raised from the dead; for doubtless
he is entered into, and doth inherit, the kingdom of God: if
therefore “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of
God,” and the body which hath not flesh and blood cannot
be the same body with that which hath flesh and blood; our
Saviour's glorified body cannot be the same body which was
raised from the dead, or in which he suffered.
Secondly, I answer, that flesh and blood do, in the scrip-
ture language, denote the weakness and the frailty of that
which is compounded of them, as when it is said, “We
wrestle not with flesh and blood,” i.e. weak frail men, Eph.
vi. 12 (see Matt. xvi. 17. Gal. i. 16. Heb. ii. 14. Ecclus. xiv.
18). And thus it is true, that flesh and blood, that is, such
weak frail bodies as they are, which here consist of flesh and
blood, unchanged into incorruptible bodies, or unclothed
upon with their celestial bodies, which will keep them from
mortality, or a possibility of corruption (ver. 48, 49. 2 Cor.
v. 1, 2), “cannot inherit the kingdom of God ;” and there-
fore the apostle adds, that “this mortal must put on immor-
tality, this corruptible put on incorruption,” and so it shall
be changed, as to its qualities: but then I have shown that
this change from mortal and corruptible, to an immortal and
incorruptible body, hinders not its being still the same body,
that is, the same in substance as it was before. -
Thirdly, I think it is evident, from the apostle's words,
that the bodies of good men, then living, shall have the same
qualities with ºthe bodies of them who are raised from the
dead, for they also shall “inherit the kingdom of God ;”
they shall have spiritual, powerful, immortal bodies; their
bodies, saith he, “shall be changed ; for this corruptible must
put on incorruption:” and yet can it be thought that this
change shall amount to the destruction of that body they
then had, and the production of another body, as it must do,
if they cease to have the same body which they had before
this change 2 If it do not, it is hence evident that the body
may still be the same body, notwithstanding the great change
which shall then pass upon it.
In a word, what the apostle says here, evidently concerns
only the bodies of good men, and so gives us no cause to
think the bodies of the wicked shall be changed at all; and
if the wicked shall be raised with the same bodies to the re-
surrection of condemnation, why not the good with the same
bodies to the resurrection of life?
CHAPTER I.
*
609
1 PAUL, called to be an apostle (or the called apos-
tle) of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sos-
thenes our brother,
2 Unto * the church of God which is at Corinth, to
them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be
saints (or, the saints called), * with all that in every
place "call upon upon the name of Jesus Christ our
Lord, “(yea) both theirs and ours: -
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I.
* Wer. 2. Tº #xxxnrig roſ, esoſ, The church of God..] The
“sanctified in Christ Jesus, the saints called,” seem here to
be words of the same import, denoting such as are called out
of the world, and separated from others, through faith in
Christ, to be a peculiar people to God, as the Jews were
before: all Christians being, by virtue of this calling, “a
chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a pe-
culiar people” (1 Pet. ii. 9): though many members of the
church of Corinth, and of other churches, wanted the in-
ward sanctification of the Holy Spirit. So that the word
saints in many places of the Acts and the epistles, is as
large as the word Christians, and stands opposed not to the
unsound Christians, but to the heathen world ; Acts ix. 13.
32.41. xxvi. 10. 1 Cor. vi. 1, 2 (see here, 1 Cor. xiv. 33.
xvi. l. 15. 2 Cor. viii. 4. ix. l. 12. xiii. 13).
* With all that in every place.] Hence it appears that St.
Paul’s epistles, though occasionally written and directed to
particular churches, were designed for the use of all Chris-
tians.
* Totº #rixa Novgåvoir àrowa Kvelov, That call upon the name
of the Lord Jesus.] This, in the New Testament, is the cha-
racter of a Christian, that he is one that “calleth on his
name,” Acts ix. 14. 21. xxii. 16. Rom. x. 12, 13, 2 Tim.
ii. 22. And that these words ought not to be rendered pas-
sively, viz. “all that are called by the name of Christ,” is
evident from the Septuagint, who still translate the phrase
tºwn Rºp", which is active, by Érikanāastal Év čváºzart Osoſ, or
#v Šváºzart Kveiou, i. e. “He shall call on the name of the
Lord” (see Gen. iv. 26. xii 8. xiii. 4. xxi. 33. xxv. 25. Ps.
1xxix. 6. xcix. 6. cxvi. 4. Isa. lxv. 1. Lam. iii. 55. Zech. xiii.
9). But when the phrase runs thus, Rºp. Tow, that is, “Thy
name is called upon,” or, “We are called by thy name,” it
is rendered thus, r3 woºzá cow #mixáxxntal #4, #x3;, Deut.
xxviii. 10. 1 Kings viii. 43. 2 Chron. vii. 14. Isa. iv. l. lxiii.
19. Jer. xiv. 9, xv. 16. Dan. ix. 18, 19. Amos ix. 12 (see
the note on Acts ix. 2. xxii. 16).
Secondly, We are expressly told that the disciples were
first called Christians at Antioch, Acts xi. 26. Now, before
this time, we find not only Stephen Érikaxoßwevoy, “calling
upon” this name, and saying, “Ilord Jesus, receive my
spirit” (Acts vii. 59), and Paul bid to wash away his sins,
“calling upon the name of the Lord,” or Émixaxočasyo, rà
Evoga roš Kugiov (Acts xxii. 16), but we find this to have
been the character of a disciple, or a convert to the faith of
Christ, that he was one that called upon the name of the
Lord. Thus Ananias speaks to the Lord Jesus of St. Paul,
“He is one who hath received power from the high-priest,
to bind roic #wixaaovgåvov; rô 8voº & orov, all that called upon
thy name” (Acts ix. 14), and of Paul, converted, it is said,
.that he had destroyed row: #Tixaxovſzévov; tā āyoga toûro,
: * that are called upon this name in Jerusalem” (ver.
Thirdly, The reverend Dr. Hammond, who here translates
this phrase passively, doth elsewhere translate it actively, the
context forcing him so to do. So Rom. x. 13, “Whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord,” i. e. pray and adhere
to Christ, “shall be saved;” and, Acts ix. 14, “He hath au-
thority to bind all that call upon thy name,” i.e. saith he,
that publicly own the worship of Christ (Acts xxii. 16).
* Yea, both theirs and ours..] All the Greek interpreters,
Chrysostom, Theodoret, CEcumenius, Theophylact, observe,
that the words “theirs and ours,” are to be connected with
the word “Lord,” ºr 33 airãy re zal høy rô Květo avyńfºcoa-
3 * Grace be unto you, and peace from God our
Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
4 I thank my God always on your behalf, "for the
grace of God which is given you by (orin) Jesus Christ;
5 That in everything yeare (ºr, have been) enriched
by him, "in all utterance (of tongues), and in all
knowledge (of divine mysteries, or, in the gift of pro-
phecy, 1 Cor. xiv.). -
ra, and so the sense is this, The Lord, I say, both of me
who write, and you to whom I write. -
* Ver. 3. Xáps; ig.ſy, &c.] It is unadvisedly said by some,
that this is a wish, and not a prayer. The full import of the
phrase is, as Peter, 2 Pet. i. 2, and Jude, wer. 2, and Poly-
carpº do cite it, viz. “Grace and peace be multiplied to you
from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Now, is not this to desire for them grace and peace from
God the Father, and consequently to pray for it 2 Why,
therefore, is it not also to desire the same blessings from
God the Son 2 Are they not both the givers of grace and
peace to the church 2 Doth not Christ know all the neces-
sities of his church in this kind? Doth not he who “Search-
eth the heart and reins” (Rev. ii. 23), know the desires of
his servants P And why then should they only wish these
things from I know not whom, and not pray to him who
is the giver of grace and peace for them P Especially when
they have Paul's example for it in these words, “For this
thing I besought the Lord (Christ) thrice, and he said unto
me, My grace is sufficient for thee” (2 Cor. xii. 8–10). And
again, “The Lord Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who
hath loved us, and given us eternal consolation, and good
hope through grace, comfort your hearts, and confirm you in
every good word and work” (1 Thess. iii. 11, 12. 2 Thess.
ii. 16). -
6 %. 4. 'Etri ră Xágºrt tº Osoſ, For the grace of God.]
Here the context seems to restrain this phrase to the favour
of God shown to the Corinthians, in vouchsafing these spi-
ritual gifts, which is a frequent import of this phrase in scrip-
ture. So Rom. xii. 6, “Having gifts differing according to
the grace (of God) that is given to us, whether prophecy, let
us prophesy according to the proportion of faith,” &c.;
Eph. iv. 7, 8, “To every one of us is given grace according
to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith,
When he ascended upon high, he led captivity captive, and
gave gifts unto men;” 1 Pet. iv. 10, “As every one hath re-
ceived the gift, so minister the same one to another, as good
stewards of the manifold grace of God;’ 2 Cor. i. 12, “ Not
in fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our
conversation in the world, and more abundantly to you-
ward,” our preaching to you being not in the words of hu-
man wisdom, but “in demonstration of the Spirit, and in
power” (1 Cor. ii. 4). Thus, to “sing with grace in the
heart” (Eph. v. 19. Col. iii. 16), is, say the ancients, to
sing, “using the spiritual gift” vouchsafed to them by the
Holy Ghost: which interpretation is confirmed from the
spiritual psalms, hymns, and songs, there mentioned (see l
Cor. xiv. 15. Eph. vi. 18). And this is very suitable to the
language of the Jews, who, when the Hebrew mentions in
“grace,” do render it, “the Spirit of prophecy:” so Ps. xlv.
2, “Grace is poured into thy lips,” Datus est Spiritus pro-
phetiae in labiis tuis, Saith the Chaldee.
7 Ver. 5. Ey wayri Aéyò.] Esthius saith, this ought not to
be interpreted of the gift of tongues, because Aéyo; in Scrip-
ture never bears that sense. But (1.) it is certain, from VCT,
7, that it is xágicºa, “a gift;” and it is joined with faith and
knowledge, which are gifts, 2 Cor. viii. 7, and cannot well be
referred to any other gift vouchsafed then to the church.
And (2) the yºgi, relating to prophecy, or the knowledge
of mysteries, was usually attended with the gift of tongues
(see Acts xix. 6); and though we find not the word Nºyo; ab-
* Prooemio Epist. ad Philip. f p f
+ 'Arr; Xagic garo; 3& ric 3rd rot &yiow TIVEſparo; 3.08:aw,
yápiros,
2 R
6|| 0
I. CORINTHIANS.
6 * Even as (by these gifts) the testimony (we gave)
of (or, doctrine concerning) Christ was confirmed in
you (or, established among you); r
7 * So that ye come behind (the other churches) in
no gift; waiting for the coming (or revelation) of our
Lord Jesus Christ: -
8 * Who shall confirm you to the end, that you
may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus
Christ.
9 (For) God is faithful, by whom ye were called to
the fellowship (or communion) of his Son Jesus Christ
our Lord. (i. e. That God, by whom ye are called, is
faithful to perform his part, in preserving you blameless
to that day, or to confer upon you the promised inheri-
tance.) - - -
10 Now, I beseech you, brethren, by the name of
our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing
(owning and teaching the same doctrine which you have
received, I Cor. xi. 2. xv. 1. Rom. xvi. 17, in love and
wnity), and that there be no divisions (or schisms)
among you; but (that) ye be perfectly joined "to-
gether in the same mind, and in the same judgment
(in the same belief, and in the same kind affections, one
towards another). - -
11 For it hath been declared to me of you, my bre-
thren, by them that are of the house of Chloe, that
there are contentions among you.
12 Now this I say (or mean by charging you with
these contentions), that every one of you saith, (one)
* I am (a follower) of Paul; and (another), I of Apol-
los: and (a third), I of Cephas; and (a fourth), I
1° of Christ.
13 (Why do you not all say the same thing 8 viz. I
am of Christ, iii. 23.) Is Christ divided ? (Was it one
Christ that sent and enabled Paul : another that sent
Peter to preach the gospel to you ? Is not one and the
solutely put in this sense, yet Aéyo; copiaç, “the word of
wisdom,” and Aéyo; yºa-Ewº, “the word of knowledge,” are
reckoned among spiritual gifts, 1 Cor. xii. 8. All this, in-
deed, with Mr. Le Clerc, passes for “mere niceties;” and he
saith, it is “more natural to understand by Aáyo; the know-
ledge of religion,” though that, as he confesses, “is the im-
port of the following word yuáriº, knowledge :” so that, ac-
cording to this exposition, the apostle thanks God here, and
2 Cor. viii. 7, commends them for “abounding in the know-
ledge, and in the knowledge of religion.” Besides, the
knowledge of religion cannot be called grace in the sense
given of that phrase, ver. 4, nor was the testimony of Christ
confirmed to the Corinthians (ver. 6), by that, but by the
gifts of the Holy Spirit. -
& Wer. 6. Kaščc, Even as...] This particle signifies some-
times when, as Acts vii. 17, kaśā; 83 #yyičay 6 xzévos, “But
when the time drew nigh.” - -
* Ver. 7, 8.] From these two verses it is to be observed,
first, that the Corinthians were abundantly replenished with
the gifts of the Holy Ghost, the gifts of tongues and know-
ledge (ver. 5), that they “came behind the other churches
in no gift” (ver. 7).
Secondly, That they obtained these gifts by Jesus Christ,
and through faith in him (ver. 4). t
Thirdly, That by these, the doctrine of Christ, the testi-
mony of the apostles concerning him, that he was “raised
from the dead, and become the author of salvation to them
that believe,” was confirmed to them (ver. 6).
Fourthly, That by these gifts, and by this earnest of the
Spirit, they had encouragement to expect, or wait for, the
second coming of the Lord.
* Yer, 8. Begatóast iºc, Who shall also confirm you to
the end, &c.] These words are by the ancients thus inter-
preted, viz. Who, in that day of the Lord Jesus which you
expect, will confirm you for ever blameless. And this is
suitable to his prayer, that Christians may be “unblameable
in the day of the Lord,” Phil. i. 9, 10. 1 Thess. iii. 12, 13.
v. 23, for, say they, God is faithful who hath promised to
them that obey the gospel viofficiay, “the adoption, that is,
the redemption of the body” (Rom. viii. 23), or, that they
shall be partakers of that kingdom and glory to which he
hath called them, 1 Thess. ii. 12. Others thus, He will do
all that is requisite on his part, quod Suarum est partium,”
to render you unblameable to the end ; so that you shall
not fail of it through any want of divine grace necessary to
that end, or any unfaithfulness on God's part to his promise,
who hath already reconciled you to himself, through, the
death of Christ, “to present you holy and unblameable,
and unreprovable in his sight; if you continue in the faith
grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope
of the gospel,” Col. i. 21–23 (see Phil. i. 6. Heb. iii. 6. 14).
That the apostle speaks not here of any promise of perse-
verance made to the elect only among the Corinthians, is
evident, (1.) because he plainly speaks to the whole body of
the church, “to the church of God which was in Corinth, to
all that call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
* Grotius,
And (2) he speaks not only of their being preserved from
falling away finally; but of their being preserved “un-
blameable,” whereas it is certain, the elect are not always so
preserved.
* Ver. 10. 'Ev rá air; vot, That ye be perfectly joined
fin the same mind and judgment.] *This can be no farther
the matter of an exhortation than it is in our power to obey
it; seeing then it is in any man's power to change his
settled judgment, or to think otherwise upon our entreaty,
because our exhortation gives no conviction to the under-
standing, it follows that this exhortation must only be to do
what was in the power of the Corinthians; viz. (1.) to pre-
vail with them to lay aside their strife, envy, and divisions
(I Cor. iii. 3), and the sad consequents of them, “debate,
wrath, backbiting, whispering, swelling, tumult” (2 Cor. xii.
20), and to this the reason of this exhortation leads, “Be of
one mind, and judgment, for I hear there be contentions
among you” (ver. 11). And (2.) to engage them unanim-
ously to own the doctrine they had received, and he had
preached to them (1 Cor. xv. 1), which, if they were so
minded, might easily be done, since they so lately had
received it, the heads of it were so few (1 Cor. xv. 3), and
it was so easy for them to consult the apostles in their doubt-
ings of the sense of what he had delivered. But at this
distance of time from the first discovery of the Christian
faith, and after it is become a system of very many, and
those disputable opinions, for the truth of which we have
now no apostle, no living and infallible judge of controversies,
to consult, if it be not sufficient to preserve unity in the
church, that men heartily believe all the articles of the apos-
tles' creed, which are plainly delivered in scripture, and live
peaceably and quietly together, “following after peace and
charity with all that call upon the Lord Jesus out of a pure.
heart” (2 Tim. ii. 22), and avoiding any separations from
their brethren, where nothing sinful is enjoined to be believed,
or done, to hold communion with them, I doubt there will
be little union in the church of God.
* Ver. 12. ‘Eyd, sigt IIaşxov, I am of Paul, &c.] Of the
gentile part of the church of Corinth, some preferred Paul,
as being their spiritual father, who “ in Christ Jesus had be-
gotten them through the gospel” (1 Cor. iv. 14, 15); others
preferred Apollos, as being “an eloquent man, and mighty
in the scriptures” (Acts xviii. 24): the Jewish Christians
preferring Peter as the chief apostle of the circumcision out
of the territories of Judea. That this is here said, not by
a fiction of names or persons, under which the apostle taxed
the heads of the sects among the Corinthians; but that they
really divided upon these accounts is evident, first, from
Paul's thanking God that he baptized so few of them, lest
they should have occasion to say he baptized in his own
name, and so made disciples to himself; secondly, from these
words, “Let no man glory in men; for all are yours, whether
Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas” (iii. 21, 22).
* I am of Christ.] Epiphanius+ observes of the Ebion-
* Hoc ad affectus animirefertur. Sicyºn Sumitur, Apoc.
xvii. 13. 2 Macc. ix. 20. Grot. ,
+ Haer, 30, §. 30.
CHAPTER I.
6] 1
same Christ preached to you by us all 8 or is his body;
divided ?. 2 Cor. xi. 4.) Was Paul (or any other but
Christ Jesus) crucified for you (that you should be bap-
tized into their death, as Christians are into the death
of Christ) * or were you baptized in the name of
Pauli (so as to be called the disciples of Paul.)
14 I thank God (whose providence so ordered it)
that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and Gaius;
15 Lest any should say that I had baptized in my
OWI) IQaiſle. - >
16 And I baptized also the household of Stephanas:
besides, “I know not whether I baptized any other.
17 For * Christ (when he called me) sent me not to
baptize, but to preach the gospel (to the gentiles ; and
that) not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of
Christ (i. e. the doctrine of Christ crucified) should be
made of none effect (by that means).
18 For the preaching of the cross (or, of a cruci-
Jied Jesus, in this plain manner), is (only) to them that
perish (by rejecting it, because not attended with this
human wisdom,) foolishness: but unto us who are
saved (by it) it is (evidently) the power of God; (we
embracing this faith, because it is confirmed by demon-
strations of the Spirit and power, ii. 4.
ites, that they pleaded for the circumcision of Christians,
from the example of Christ, who was circumcised, because
the disciple was to be as his Master; and so the import of
these words may be this, Others say, I am for the circum-
cision of the gentiles, that they may be like Christ.
* Ver. 16. Own ofta, I know not..] Therefore his inspira-
tion, or divine assistance in writing his epistles, did not reach
to an information in such things as these, but only to di-
rect him in all the truth he was to teach unto the churches
(see xvi. 7. 1 Pet. v. 12).
* Ver. 17. Où yże &miatsixé as Xetarč; Éamºrºsiv, Christ
sent me not to baptize, but to preach, &c.] i. e. When he
appeared himself, and after sent Ananias to him, he ex-
pressly sent him to preach to the gentiles (Acts xxii. 21),
and (xxvi. 16, 17) to bear his name before the gentiles (Acts
ix. 15): but, in that threefold rehearsal of his commission,
there is no mention made of his being sent to baptize ; nor
was it needful, after the general commission given to Christ's
apostles for that end (Matt. xxviii. 19); that was not, say
the Greek expositors, his great business; for” “to baptize is
easy to any who is admitted to sacred orders;” but to preach
the gospel requires a divine revelation, and great assistance
of the power of God. Hence Peter himself preaches to
Cornelius and his kinsmen, but commands them to be bap-
tized by others (Acts x. 48); and this gospel he sent me to
preach, “not with the wisdom of words, lest the cross of
Christ should be made of none effect:” men not ascribing
the prevailing of it to the power of God, but to the persua.
sion of human wisdom; God not approving (ver. 15), and
therefore not assisting the preaching of the gospel in that
way. Irw; yet, si záAAo, Kai Öree86 v ºpária;, &; ra Trag'
"ENA" Savºaçãºweva, sixty h ypaº, tºreyāngev #y ric of rāv
éºsº wºkéarnºśya rāv 3v3;&trov, &AN3 rºw a baiyoºyºy
ékonovšíay, xai ră ră, pºéaso; káxxoe isluxaywynnéval' row:
4x50wºvovº. Orig. Philocal. p. 25. -
* Ver. 20. Hoß ropic ;] That is, What hath been done by
the wisdom of the philosophers, or by the Jewish doc-
tors, or by the searchers into nature's secrets, to bring men
to the true knowledge of God, and of his will P Hath not
God discovered their wisdom to be but folly, in compari-
son of this way which he hath chosen to bring men to the
knowledge of himself? The “disputer of this world" is by
Jerome rendered, Causarum naturalium scrutator, Com.
in Gal. iii., and so the naturalists are styled by the Jews
ºpſºn "pºn,'t Sapientes scrutationis, “the searchers into the
secrets of nature;” though I conceive the apostle here doth
rather understand, the midrashim, or the disputers in the
+ º * * w • * w º *
II: a w śarly Eurstèc roi; ispoſa-ºwn; 3%top, #yotº.
gust. contra lit. Petil. lib. iii. cap. 56.
+ Buxt. Lex. in voce prio.
Theod. Au-
19 Whereas the preaching of it, in the words of
human wisdom, would render it of mone effect :) for it
is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and
will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent
(Isa. xxix. 14, as he hath already done: for)
20 "Where is (now the wisdom of) the wise (philo-
sophers among the gentiles)? where is (the wisdom of)
the scribe (the interpreter of the law, or teacher of
traditions among the Jews) 8 where is the disputer of
this world (or the searcher into the secrets of nature,
or into the sense of the scripture)? hath not God (by
this dispensation) made (or declared to be) foolish the
wisdom of this world
21 * For (to begin with the philosophers) * after
that, in the wisdom of God (discernible in his works
of creation and providence), the world by (all its) wis-
dom knew not (the true) God, (so as to glorify him
as God, and to be thankful to him for his blessings,
Rom. i. 21), it pleased God by the foolishness of
preaching (as they think fit to style it) to save them
º believe (in a crucified Jesus, thus preached to
them.
22 Which salvation, thus tendered, the wise men of
the world and the Jewish doctors will not accept ;) for
Jewish schools and academies, touching their traditions.
That the aroqê;, i. e. the wise man, mentioned here, refers not
to the chacmim, or wise men of the Jews, but to the philo-
sophers among the gentiles, is evident; for that “the wisdom
of the wise” (ver. 19), is the wisdom of the heathen world,
appears from ver. 21, where it is said, “The world through
wisdom knew not God,” which is true only of the gentiles,
not of the Jews. It is therefore reasonable to conceive
“the wise,” in the twentieth verse, should signify the same
persons: so doth Paul interpret “the wise” in these words,
“I am a debtor to the Greek, and to the barbarian; to the
wise, and to the unwise” (Rom. i. 14). So Chrysostom,
Theodoret,” CEcumenius, Theophylact, upon the place, say-
ing that by “the wise” the apostle understands the man
adorned with the verbosity and eloquence of the Greeks. I
have not been solicitous to show the agreement of the words
of St. Paul here with those of Isaiah, xxxiii. 18, because I
find not that Paul intendeth here to cite them.
17 Ver. 21.] Here two things are to be learned, (1.) That
from the creation, beauty, order, and grandeur of the world,
and the direction of all things in it to an end, and the fitting
them with parts and instruments adapted best to the obtain-
ing that end, it might be known that the Creator of the
world was God alone, and so was only “to be glorified as
God,” Ps. xix. 1, 2. civ. 24. cxxxvi. 5. Jer. x. 12. li. 15.
Rom. i. 19, 20. (2.) That the gospel was sent into the world,
that they, who did not know the true God acceptably by the
true light of nature, might do it by the light of that revela-
tion, which made such a bright and glorious manifestation of
the power, wisdom, justice, and goodness of God, which
they whom Satan had not blinded must discern (2 Cor.
iv. 4). -
*. 21. ‘Emeº, yāe, Wer. 22. Hºrst3% wal.] The argu-
ment here seems to lie thus: The wise men among the
Greeks, the scribe or interpreter of scripture among the
Jews, are by this dispensation convinced of folly, and insuf-
ficiency to give men the knowledge of saving truth; #76:3#
yag, for, since the world by all its wisdom could not obtain
the right, knowledge of God, he by this dispensation hath
given this saving knowledge to believers. And Étretº Kai,
seeing also the unbelieving Jews for confirmation of this doc-
trine “require a sign, and the Greeks seek after (human)
wisdom,” it is on that account a scandal to those Jews, and
in the estimation of the unbelieving Greeks is “foolishness:”
yet is he and his doctrine, to the believing Greeks, “ Christ
the wisdom of God,” they seeing in it wisdom sufficient to
engage them to believe this doctrine; and, to the believing
Jews, “the power of God,” they being convinced of its
truth by the signs wrought in confirmation of it : and with
* Töv tº ‘EXAnviz; a twºv»ia kozºolºgyov.
2 R 2
612
I. COR IN THIANS.
the Jews require "a sign, and the Greeks seek after
(profound) wisdom (to induce them to believe):
23 But (or, nevertheless) we preach Christ cruci-
fied, (though his crucifiarion be) * unto the Jews a
stumblingblock, and * to the Greeks foolishness;
24 (For this he is to infidels only ; ) but unto them
which are called, both Jews and Greeks, (he is) Christ
the power of God (in the signs and wonders which are
wrought by faith in Christ for confirmation of this
doctrine, and so he gives the sign the Jews require), and
the wisdom of God, (in the manifold and divine wis-
dom discovered in this dispensation for the saving lost
man, ver. 30, and so answers the Greeks’ request for
wisdom.
25 I say, the power and the wisdom of God :) be-
cause the foolishness of God (i. e. the way of God,
which is esteemed foolishness by the Greeks) is wiser
than (all the wisdom of) men (and much to be prefer-
red before it) ; and the weakness of God (i. e. that
way of propagating man’s salvation, which is weak in
their eyes) is stronger than (the power of) men: (for
fhe weapons of our warfare are mighty through God to
the pulling down of strong holds, and confounding all
the strength, policy, and wisdom of the world opposed
against it, 2 Č. x. 3, 4.)
26 For you see (Gr. look upon) your calling, bre-
thren, (and you will discern) how (agreeably to these
things the divine wisdom hath so ordered it), that * not
many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty. not
many noble, are (either) called (by, or made use of to
propagate, the gospel) : -
27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the
world (that simple way of instructing mankind which
they call foolishness, and those unlearned apostles
whom they represent as fools, ) to confound the wise
(philosophers, so that they shall not be able to gainsay
or resist the wisdom with which they speak, Luke xxi.
15. Acts vi. 10), and God hath chosen the weak things
of the world (unarmed fishermen, tent-makers, assisted
with no human force,) to confound the things that are
mighty; (to break through all the opposition that the
kings and rulers of the world do make against them, to
pull down the strong holds, cast down the reasonings,
level the heights of the philosophers, who do easalt
themselves against the knowledge of Christ, 2 Cor. x.
4, 5.)
28 And (he hath chosen the) base things of the
world, *and things which are despised hath God
chosen, yea, and things which are not (i. e. the gen-
tiles who are esteemed base, and looked upon as nothing
by the Jews), to bring to nought (Gr. to abolish) things
that are: (to become God’s church and people, and so
to cause the Jewish church and economy to cease, Rom.
xi. 15. 17. Phil. iii. 3.)
29 That no flesh should (have cause to) glory in his
presence (either of their wisdom, birth, or privileges.
30 Not you who are advanced to this happy state ;)
for of him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is
great reason do they so esteem it, for what the unbelieving
Greeks deem foolishness, hath more of Sound reason in it
than all the wisdom of the Greeks, or those who are account-
ed wise men by the Jews, have shown ; they who by them
are deemed fools having discovered that “wisdom of God in
a mystery,” which they with all their wisdom never knew,
and that which they style weakness is attended with such a
visible power of God, as enables it, without human power
or wisdom, to prevail over all the strength and wisdom which
Jew or gentile can oppose against it.
* xmºsſov, A sign.] From heaven, such as was that of
. Moses, giving them “bread from heaven” (John vi. 30, 31),
that in the time of Joshua, when the sun stood still (x. 13),
or of Elijah, who brought down fire from heaven to consume
the offering (1 Kings xviii. 38), and to consume the captains
and their fifties (2 Kings i. 10. 12. Luke ix. 54); the Son
of man being to “come in the clouds of heaven,” as he did
at the destruction of Jerusalem (Dam. vii. 13. Matt. xxiv.
30), and to give “signs from heaven” (Joel ii. 30), as he did
at the day of pentecost (Acts ii. 2), and as God did by a
voice from heaven at our Saviour s baptism (Matt. iii. 17),
at his transfiguration (Matt. xvii. 5), and at his preaching
(John xii. 28, 29).
* Wer. 23. 'lovèaiotº ºv orwävèaxov, Unto the Jews a stum-
bling block.] “Your Jesus,” saith Trypho, “having by this
fallen under the extremest curse of the law of God, we can-
not sufficiently admire how you can expect any good from
God, who place your hopes in a man that was crucified,” it
&ySgorrow a ravgošávra (Dial. cum Just. p. 227, 249, 317).
And again, “We doubt of your Christ, who was so ignomi-
niously crucified; for our law styles every one that is cruci-
fied, accursed.” Hence, by way of ignominy, they still call
our Saviour talui,” suspensum, “one hanged upon the tree.”
* To the Greeks foolishness.] “They count us mad,”
saith Justin Martyr," “that after the immutable and eter-
nal God, the Father of all things, we give the second place
&vŠećmº, a ravgosévri, to a man that was crucified.”—“It is
wicked and abominable,” saith Celsus.j:—“The wise men of
the world insult over us,” saith St. Austin, $ “ and ask,
Where is your understanding, who worship him for a God
--
* Buxt. Lex. Tal. in voce.
+ Apol. ii. p. 60, 61.
f Kazèy kai čvártov. Apud Orig. lib. vii. p. 340.
§ Quale cor habetis qui Deum colitis crucifixum ? Serm.
viii. de Verb. Apost.
to be lords over us” (2 Esd. vi. 56, 57).
who was crucified ?” So M. Felix, p. 9. Arnob. lib. i. p. 20.
Lact. lib. iv. cap. 16. Euseb. lib. iii. de Vità Const. cap. 1.
* Ver. 26. Oi TroxAoi aroqoi, Not many wise.] This seems
to be spoken in a direct opposition to that celebrated maxim
of the Jews, that “prophecy resides not but upon a wise,
a strong, and a rich man.”
* Ver. 28. Kal r& ſº wra, &c.] To confirm the explica-
tion of these words given in the paraphrase, let it be noted,
First, That the apostle in this chapter often speaks con-
junctly of the Jew and gentile, interweaving them together
in his discourse: so ver. 20, he speaks of the wise men of the
Greeks, and then of the scribes among the Jews; ver. 22, of
the Jews requiring signs, and the Greeks wisdom; of Christ
crucified being “to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the
gentiles foolishmess.” So here, ver. 27, he seems to speak of
the gospel, preached by the apostles in a plain familiar way,
and by them deemed weakness, and styled foolishness, as
confounding all the wisdom and the power of the Greeks;
and ver. 28, of the gentile church succeeding and abolishing
that of the Jews. Note therefore,
Secondly, That the Jews looked upon themselves as the
only styeyeſ, persons of true nobility, as being of the stock
of Abraham. “Even the poorest Israelite,” saith R. Aki-
bah, “is to be looked upon as a gentleman, as being the son
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” But the gentiles they horri-
bly despised, as the base people of the earth, not fit to be con-
versed with by them, they being in their law styled own 39Woz,
“not a nation,” Aa3c 5 rs3.6m-6p.svog, “a people that shall be
horn” (Ps. xxii. 31), 3 ºriškasyo, “that shall be created in
the generation to come” (Ps. cii. 19), and so yet had no
being (Deut. xxxi. 21), où Aa3;, “not a people” (Hos. i. 10).
And it being said by the prophet, that “all the heathens are
as nothing, and were accounted as nothing” (Isa. xl. 17),
they still accounted them as such. Hence Mordecai is in-
troduced as praying thus: “Lord, give not thy sceptre, ºrdic
º, oùat, to them that are not” (Esth. iv. 11): and Esdras
speaking to God thus, “As for the people which also came
of Adam, thou hast said they are nothing, but like unto
spittle, and hast likened the abundance of them to a drop
that falleth from a vessel. And now, O Lord, these hea-
thens, who have ever been reputed as nothing, have begun
Thus Abraham is
said to be the father of the gentiles, “before that God who
calleth things” which are not as if they were” (Rom. iv.17):
sº *
* T3 º żvra, &; 3yra.
CHAPTER II.
6.13
| viz.) He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord (so
made unto us “wisdom, and righteousness, and sanc-
tification, and redemption:
31 That, according as it is written (Isa. lxv. 16,
and Clemens Romanus” saith of the gentiles, “He called
us who were not, and would that of no being we should have
a being.” So fitly are the gentiles represented here by rā.
Aah Syra, rà &ysvä, tº £ºv0synºwłva, the things base, accounted
as nothing, and the things which are not (see also 1 Cor.
vi. 4). And this is the ancient exposition of Origen, who
speaking of the rejection of the Jews and the calling of the
gentiles, and God’s provoking the Jews “to jealousy by
them that were not a nation,” he confirms this from these
words, “God hath chosen the base things of the world, and
the things which are not, that he might abolish the things
which were before, that Israel according to the flesh might
not glory before God.”
* Wer. 30. x0+ia, &c. Wisdom.] As being the author of that
evangelical wisdom which far excels the wisdom of the phi-
* 'Exáxeasy yag #paa, oùx āyrac, wai #0áanasy #x ºch 5Vroc aſyat
huā;. Epist. xi. S. l. Ut essemus qui nomdum eramus.
Iren. lib. v. cap. 1.
+ "Iva ixtiva rā ºrgáripov Švra waragyńan, xai º kauxhoeral
3 xará cépka 'loga}x waxoſºvo; two roi; 3rogróxov cagº èvário,
esot. Philocal. p. 3.
|
it may be done by us Christians).
losopher and scribe, and even that legal constitution which
is called the wisdom of the Jews, Deut. iv. 6. The author
of justification, as procuring for us that remission of sins
which the law could not give (Gal. ii. 21. iii. 21). The au-
thor of sanctification, as procuring for and working in us, not
only an external and relative holiness, as was that of the
Jews, but áriárnta rā; &Anósiaç, “true and eternal holiness”
(Eph. iv. 24), wrought in us by the Holy Spirit. The au-
thor of redemption, not from the Egyptian bondage or Ba-
bylonish captivity, but from the servitude of Satan, the
dominion of sin and death, and “from the bondage of cor-
ruption, into the glorious liberty of the sons of God, or the
redemption of the body” (Rom. viii. 21. 23). They who
say Christ is made our righteousness, by his righteousness
imputed to us, have the same reason to say also that he is
made our wisdom by his wisdom, and our sanctification by
his holiness imputed to us.
[See the discourse concerning the imputation of Christ's
perfect righteousness, or obedience to the law, to us,
for righteousness, or justification, at the end of this
epistle.]
CHAPTER II.
1 AND I, brethren, (have acted suitably to what I
told you, that Christ sent me not to preach the gospel
with wisdom of words, 1 Cor. i. 17, for) when I came
to you, (I) came not with excellency of speech or of
gºw wisdom, declaring to you the testimony of
od:
2 For I determined "not to know anything among
you (i. e. to discover any other knowledge to you), save
(that of) Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
3 And I was with you “in weakness, and ‘in fear,
and in much trembling (or, in much fear and trem-
bling).
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II.
* Ver. 1. Tó gapºréetov rod Osei, The testimony of God.]
This is the reading of Chrysostom, CEcumenius, Theophy.
lact, who intimate not in the least that they knew any co-
pies which read ºva rāgiov. The testimony of the apostles
concerning the Messiah, or the Son of God, his death, his
resurrection, and exaltation to be a prince and staviour, is
called the testimony of God, 1 John v. 9, because God tes-
tified to the truth of these doctrines “by signs, and wonders,
and divers miracles, and distributions of the Holy Ghost”
(Heb. ii. 4).
* Ver. 2. Oi slºyal ºrt, Not to know anything.] To act as
one who knew nothing, rā; £o aroqiaº, of the eloquence and
wisdom of the Greeks, but only to give you the knowledge
of a crucified Saviour, which was to them foolishness (i. 23).
So Chrysostom.
*Ver, 3. 'Ew &a bevelz, In weakness.] Of the body, and of
Speech, “his bodily presence being weak (and mean), and
his speech contemptible” (2 Cor. x. 10). This infirmity of
º º him despicable in the eyes of others (Gal. iv.
* Ex pá89 Kai iv rešº, In fear and trembling.] By rea-
son of the violent opposition which he found from the Jews,
which made so deep impression on him when he was at Co-
rinth, that Christ saw fit to appear to him, and encourage
him, by saying, “Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy
peace, for I am with thee” (Acts xviii. 6. 9).
* Ver, 4. 'Evárošićs. IIvetºzavoc, In demonstration of the
Spirit..] This is, saith Origen,” by demonstration of the truth
of what I said concerning Christ out of the prophets, who
* Contra Celsum, p. 5.
4 And my speech and my preaching was not with
enticing words of man’s wisdom, but * in demonstra-
tion of the Spirit and of power: (the power of God
confirming what I preached with signs and wonders,
Rom. xv. 19. 2 Cor. xii. 12.) -
5 That your faith should not (seem to) stand in the
wisdom of man, but in the power of God.
6 Howbeit we speak the (highest) wisdom " among
them that are perfect (men in Christ Jesus ; i. e. fully
instructed in the principles of Christian faith) : yet
not the wisdom of the (heathen) world, nor of the
princes of the world (the Jewish magistrates and doc-
spake by the Spirit, and comparing spiritual things revealed
to us with spiritual things revealed to them (ver. 13); rea-
soning with the Jews out of the scripture, as Paul’s man-
ner was (Acts xvii. 2): “ and saying no other things but
those which Moses and the prophets said should come, that
Christ should suffer, and that he should rise from the dead,
and should show light to the gentiles” (Acts xxvi. 22, 23).
Others, as Chrysostom, * Theodoret, CEcumenius, and
Theophylact, understand by this phrase the miraculous gifts
of the Holy Ghost ; only it must be noted against Mr. Le
Clerc, that neither the word IIvsöga is to be restrained to the
gift of tongues, but comprehends all the internal gifts of the
Holy Ghost; nor must the word 39, aftaic, “power,” be re-
strained to healing diseases, but comprehend all the external
gifts shown upon others, as casting out devils, raising the
dead, &c.
* Ver. 6. 'Ey roſ, Texeioic, Among them that are perfect.]
i. e. Fully instructed in the principles of the Christian faith;
that this is the sense of the word “perfect” here, appears
from the opposition of those that are perfect to the “babes
in Christ;” as in those words, “You have need that one
teach you which be the first principles of the oracles of God,
and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong
drink; for every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word
of righteousness. Therefore, leaving the principles of the
doctrine of Christ, let us go on to perfection” (Heb. v. 12,
13. vi. 1), eiç rāv reast&rara. Thus to the question of the
young man, “What lack I yet?” Christ answereth, el Sá-
Neiç réxeto, sīvat, “If thou wilt be perfect,” i. e. fully in-
structed in the conditions of life required by the gospel,
t Ata y&g row &ziou IIveſparoc, Mai rāv #% airrod anºtion, kai
$vvápasay, rā; 37:38sićsic vot &Anşā Āšyely tragexºséa. Photius.
614
I. CORINTHIANS.
tors), who come to nought (ana are to be abolish-
ed):
7 But we "speak the wisdom of God in a mys-
tery, even "the hidden wisdom, which God ordained
* before the world (to be revealed in due time), to our
glory (i. e. to be the means of our happiness and glory);
8 Which " none of the princes of this world knew :
for had they known it, they would not have crucified
the Lord of glory. -
9 But (God hath dealt with us) as it is written,
(Isa. lxiv. 4), "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,
neither have entered into the heart of man, the things
which God hath prepared for them that love him.
10 But God hath revealed them to us by his Spirit:
for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep (and
mysterious) things of God.
“go sell all, and follow me” (Matt. xix. 21): so Phil. iii.
15, “Let us therefore, as many as be perfect,” i. e. fully in-
structed in our Christian liberty, “mind this” (see 1 Cor.
xiii. 10. Col. i. 28). “Strong meat is for them that are
perfect” (Heb. v. 14). - . . . t
7 Ver. 7. We speak the wisdom, ºv trgo&tasy & Os3; ºrph rāy
aiºvoy, which God hath ordained before the world to our
glory..] Hence also it seems plain, that God hath appointed
his gospel for the salvation of all to whom it is revealed:
for though the apostle charged many of the church of Co-
rinth with those things that would exclude them without
repentance from this glory, yet he excludes none of them
from being by God ordained or appointed to receive glory
by it. -
* Tây &rowszeupºny, The hidden wisdom.] i. e. Before,
not after, the revelation of it; for this mystery, Saith the
apostle, “God has revealed to us by his Spirit” (v. 10). It
is “the mystery which hath been hid from ages and genera-
tions, but now is made manifest to the Saints” (Rom. xvi.
25, 26. Eph. i. 9. iii. 3, 4, 9, 10. vi. 19. Col. i. 26, 27. ii. 2.
iv. 3,'4.
* Tº rāy aidyay, Before the world..] At the beginning of
the ages of the world (Gen. iii. 15), and before any of them
were completed, or run out. Hence it is styled the mystery
concealed in the times of the preceding ages (Rom. xvi. 25),
as being “not made known in other ages to the sons of men
as now it is” (Eph. iii. 5), but being a mystery hid from
those ages (ver. 9). In this sense seemeth it to be, that
God hath promised us eternal life. 760 xpévoy aiovior, “from
ancient generations,” # 36x7c, “from the beginning,” saith
Photius; and this grace in the promise of it is said to be
“given us in Christ,” 2 Tim. i. 9, ºrgö xpévoy aiolyion, “a long
time,” saith Dr. Hammond; āya,0sy, xai # 3px?ic, “from the
beginning, or of old,” saith Theodoret.
* Ver, 8. oběsic rºw &#xftyroy, None of the princes.] Pi—
late, or the Jewish rulers, for they only can be said to have
“crucified the Lord of glory,” they only are the rulers which
were to be “abolished” (ver. 6); and they are styled of it-
2:ovreć, “princes and rulers,” Luke xiv. 1, and xviii. 18, the
princes which stood up, and the rulers which took counsel
against the Lord, and against his Anointed (Ps. ii. 2. Acts
iv. 26). They were the princes who delivered him to be
condemned to death, and crucified him, and this they did
out of ignorance (Acts iii. 17. xiii. 27).
* Ver. 9. 'Oºpſaxº; oth ºs, Eye hath not seen.] These
words do not immediately respect the blessings of another
world, but are spoken by the prophet of the gospel-state,
and the blessings then to be enjoyed by them that love God
(Rom. viii. 28). For “all the prophets,” say the Jews,”
“prophesied only of the days of the Messiah; but as for the
world to come,” or the state of things then, “ (as it is writ-
ten,) Eye hath not seen, O God, besides thee,” where the
gloss adds, “The eyes of the prophets could not see these
things.” Hence the apostle adds in the following verse,
“But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit ;”
whereas our future happiness is not yet revealed, saith John
(1 John iii. 2). Yea, the words of Isaiah, lxiv. 4, in their
primary sense, may only intimate that no man, by his own
-
* Light, in locum.
11 (And as it is among men, so it is here in refer-
ence to these things ;) for what man knoweth the
(secrét) things of a man, save the spirit of man which
ls in him Even so the (secret) things of God know-
eth no man (Gr. none), but the *Spirit of God (which
is in him).
12 Now we have not received the spirit of the
world (which suggests worldly wisdom), but the Spirit
which is of God; that we might know the things
that are freely given to us of God.
13. Which things also we speak, not in the words
which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy
Ghost teacheth; * comparing spiritual things with
spiritual.
14 But “the natural man (who acteth only on the
principles of human reason, and of worldly wisdom)
sense or reason, or by instruction from others, can discern
any other God besides the true God, or know what kind-
ness he will afford them that wait on him. And both the
context, and the opposition of these words to the revelation
of these things by the Spirit, show the primary intent of the
apostle to be this, that no human wisdom, by anything that
may be seen, heard of, or conceived by us, can acquaint us
with the things taught by the Holy Spirit, without a revela-
tion.
* Wer. 11. Ei kº rô IIysiſ, a roº Gºod, But the Spirit of
God.]. These words accord with those of the book of Wis-
dom, “Thy counsel who hath known, except thou give wis-
dom, and send thy Spirit from above, which knoweth and
understandeth all things P’ (xix. 11) whence it seems
plainly to follow,
First, That the Holy Spirit is omniscient, “as knowing all
things, even the deep things of God.” “Wisdom is a lov-
ing Spirit, and will not acquit a blasphemer of his words;
for God is witness of his reins, and a beholder of his heart,
and a hearer of his tongue: for the Spirit of the Lord fill-
eth the world, and that which containeth all things hath the
knowledge of the voice” (Wisd. i. 6, 7).
Secondly, That the Holy Spirit is with God, and in God,
even as intimately as the soul is in the body, according to
those words of the book of Wisdom, “She is ºwe'rá cov with
thee, an assessor of thy throne, and was present with thee
when thou madest the world” (Wisd. ix. 4. 9).
* Ver. 13. IIvsupca’rikā mysvaarizdī; avykºvovireº, Compar-
ing spiritual things with spiritual.] “That is,” says Mr.
Le Clerc, “speaking spiritual things to spiritual men.” But
where doth avyxziva signify to speak, or why doth he limit
what is spoken to the spiritual man, since the apostles spake
as well to the unbelieving Jew and gentile, as to the spiri-
tual man 2 And how doth it appear that &v6poros, man, is
here to be understood, because it follows in the next verse,
rather than trečywara, things, which is understood in the .
immediate foregoing words? The interpretation of the fathers
is much more probable, viz. we speak these things in the
words taught by the Holy Ghost,” comparing the things
which were writ by the Spirit of the Old Testament with
what is now revealed to us by the same Spirit, and con-
firming our doctrines from them. Moreover, from this and
the preceding verses, as also from the following, it is ex-
ceeding evident that the apostles spake and writ by inspi-
ration of the Holy Ghost, as did the prophets of old time,
and delivered only those things as from God which God re-
vealed to them by the Holy Spirit; according to those words
of Peter, “We preach the gospel to you by the Holy Ghost
sent down from heaven” (1 Pet. i. 12).
* Ver. 14. Yuxºn; 3,680 troº, The natural man.] “By the
natural man,” saith Mr. Le Clerc, “is not here meant the
man that makes use of nothing but reason ; but the man
that is wholly devoted and enslaved to earthly things, and
entirely taken up with the concernments of this life, like a
brute creature. . The opposition made here between spiritual
and animal things,” saith he, “plainly proves what I have
said:” whereas there is not a word spoken of Juxxx, “ani-
1 ºf - * ** and , f s w º
* "Exogey yip tº Traxatāq 8tašázn; p.afrveſay wai 3 extins;
rāy waivhy 6:3aiodºxey. Theodoret.
CHAPTER II.
615
* receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for
they are foolishness to him (as being destitute of his
human wisdom, i. 23), "neither can he know them (by
any study of his own), because they are spiritually
discerned (i.e. by scripture prophecies, and by the re-
velation of the Spirit , and therefore, while he con-
tinues to reject this way of knowledge, he cannot re-
ceive them).
rmal things” in the whole chapter, but only an opposition
between Juxxâc, the natural or animal, and rvivºcatinë;,
spiritual person, whom I shall prove to be a person endued
with a spiritual afflatus, and by that confound his notion.
That the natural man here is the man who rejects revelation,
and admits of no higher principle to judge of things by but
philosophy, and demonstration from the principles of natu-
ral reason, or, in the words of Porphyry,” ràc war& roy Aoyia-
Fºy Treº6.5¢ eigtaxop,ávnº, “ of persuasion to be found out by a
rational deduction,” is the express assertion of Theodoret, f
Chrysostom, : Photius, CEcumenius, and Theophylact, $ upon
the place; they therefore thought the word would bear this
sense: and evident it is to any one who considers the chain
of the apostle's discourse from i. 17 to the end of this chap-
ter, that this must be the sense ; for, ver. 17, he begins to
declare, he preached the gospel, oùx #y croq (, Náyov, “not in
wisdom of words,” or human wisdom; here, wer. 1, that he
did not ka8' jarspoxy Náyou º copiac, “with excellency of
speech,” or human wisdom ; there the persons which reject
the gospel are aroqoi, “the wise men of the world,” ver. 19–
21, styled a opoi war& oráčka, “wise men according to the
flesh ;” the Greeks that “seek for wisdom,” ver. 22, they
who esteemed it foolishness are the same Greeks, ver. 23 ;
here it is the Juxxâg, “matural man” who “receives it not,”
and to whom it is “foolishness.” Who therefore sees not
that the natural man is the same with the wise man, the
disputer, the philosopher, the Greek, there? There the
gospel rejected by them for want of this wisdom, and ac-
counted foolishness, is indeed “the power of God, and the
wisdom of God,” ver, 24: here it is “the wisdom of God
in a mystery” revealed to the apostles by the Spirit (ver. 7.
10); i.e. the Spirit, not of the world, or of human wisdom,
but the Spirit they had received from God, that they might
know it (ver. 12); and therefore they delivered it, “not in
the words of human wisdom,” in which the Greeks gloried,
and which they sought for in the gospel, but in words taught
them by the Holy Ghost (ver. 13); when then it follows,
“But the natural man receives not rà roi; IIyeºkaroc, the
things of the Spirit,” must he not be the man who receives
not the things taught by the revelation of the Holy Ghost 2
The opposition which he bears to the mysvºcatikör, the man
who hath this wisdom revealed to him by the Spirit of
God, demonstrates this to be the sense.
* Où 3éxeral, &c. He receiveth not the things of the Spirit
of God..] But counts them foolishness (i. 23), when pro-
pounded to him, because he doth not see them proved from
principles of natural reason by philosophical deductions,
which is the wisdom he seeks after (ver. 22). Hence again
it is evident he is the Greek, and not the sensual person.
** Oi 8&varai yāyat, He cannot know them.] viz. By that
wisdom which alone he will be conducted by, because they
are spiritually discerned, or by the revelation of the Spirit;
for, being mysteries, they are not knowable by human rea-
son, till God is pleased to reveal them (so ver, 9–11. 16).
Note also, That the apostle doth not here discourse of
the inability of a heathen to understand the sense of any
revelations discovered to him, for how then are they to be dis-
covered to him 2 but only of his ability to find out, and
originally come to the knowledge of them by the mere light
of reason ; and from the denial of this, he infers the neces-
sity of a supernatural revelation, that the hidden wisdom of
* De Abst. lib. i. §. 1.
tº Yuxxâv waxeſ rêv påvot; roi; oizeloſ: 3px;p, Evoy Aoylapºoſ,
xai rºw rot IIveſºaro; 3:3ackaxiay tº reociépcevow. Theodoret.
f Yuxºi, #arty § rö Tráv roſ; Aoycºpºdſ; roſ; Jux20ſ; 38ovº,
wai whyopºićov livo,8áy two; 8sſa Sai. Chrysost.
§ Töv Pºn?iv triars, bayāºsyov, pºts yogićovrá tºo; &y2Sty $gia-
Sai Gonóilaz. Theoph.
human wisdom.
15 But he that is spiritual (i. e. who hath the reve-
lation of the Spirit) "judgeth (or, discerneth) all
things (relating to this mystery, ver. 7), yet he himself
is judged of no man (or discerned by none, who hath
no higher principles than that of mature to discern
things by). : -
16 For who (without a revelation) hath known the
mind of the Lord, * that he may instruct him 2 (or,
God may be made known to the world. Nor doth he say
that the natural man cannot understand these revelations
when discovered to him, because he wants farther means to
do it, but only that he cannot know them before they are
discovered by the revelation of the Spirit; and that he
will not then receive them, because they are not taught him,
as the wisdom of the world is, by deductions from principles
of human reason. The Jew, saith he, admits of revelation,
and so he only doth “require a sign” to prove this revela-
tion ; but the Greek seeks after human wisdom, and because
he finds not that in our way of preaching, he will not receive
the revelation, though it be confirmed “by demonstration of
the Spirit, and of power.” - *
17 Wer. 15. 'Avangiyet, Judgeth all things.] The passive
&vaxgive rat is rendered “discerned” in the foregoing verse,
and so should have been rendered here ; and the active,
“searcheth” or “discerneth,” as Acts xvii. 11, and here, X.
25. 27, and xiv. 24. So Iren. lib. iv. cap. 66. Hic exa-
minat omnes, ā memine autem examinatur.
18 Wer. 16. “o; avg.8:34a et abrév, That he may instruct
him.] Though these words in the prophet Isaiah do certainly
refer to God, they lying in the Hebrew thus, “Who hath
directed the Spirit of the Lord 2 And (who is) the man as
his counsel that made him to know?” (xl. 13, 14) yet, as
they are varied here thus, “Who hath known the mind of
the Lord 2 who will (or can) direct him *, they seem
plainly to refer to the spiritual man, and to affirm that he
could not be instructed in the mysteries of the gospel by any
(1.) Because our knowing of the mind of
Christ may enable us to direct others; but not that Lord who
affords us this knowledge. (2.) Because this is plainly intro-
duced as a proof that the spiritual man can be judged or dis-
cerned by no other person, who is not spiritual, and therefore
must respect not God but him.
IIwevaarizã; here, and in other places of this epistle, is not
the man who is adorned with the fruits of the good Spirit,
much less, as Mr. Le Clerc suggests, the man who “relishes,
or is affected with the spiritual doctrines of the gospel ;”
bute 3 +% roſ, IIveſºzaro, Xágiro; #iogávo, “the man who is
endued with a spiritual afflatus,” and hath those gifts of the
Spirit which are styled “the word of wisdom and of know-
ledge” (xii. 8); for (1.) he is the man who speaks “in de-
monstration of the Spirit” (ver. 4), “the wisdom of God in
a mystery” (ver. 7), “te whom God hath revealed it by the
Holy Spirit” (ver, 10), “that he might know the things that
are freely given us of God” (ver, 12), and, who speaks of
them “in words taught by the Holy Ghost” (ver. 13), and
who, by this revelation of the Spirit, hath the mind of Christ
made known to him (ver. 16), who speaks IIváčkºrt Osº,
“by the Spirit of God,” and by the Holy Ghost (xii. 3).
Such were the prophets in the first age of the church, who
by this afflatus performed all sacred offices in the church,
before they had stated church-officers among them (see note
on 1 Cor. xiv. 32). Whence the apostle saith, “If any man
be a prophet among you, or spiritual, let him know” (i.e.
acknowledge and discern by its spiritual afflatus) “that the
things which I write unto you are the commandments of
the Lord” (1 Cor. xiv. 37): and to those prophets he writes
thus, “Brethren, if any man be overtaken with a fault, you
that are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of meek.
ness” (Gal. vi. 1. see the note there). This is the constant
notion of the spiritual man in Irenaeus,' who, speaking of
* Theod. - . . .
+ Perfectos dicit eos qui acceperunt Spiritum Dei, et
omnibus linguis loquuntur per Spiritum Dei, quemadmodim
et multos audiwimus fratres in ecclesiá prophetica habentes
charismata, et per Spiritum universis linguis 10%uentes et
absconditahominuminmanifestum producentesad utilitatem,
616.
I. CORINTHIANs.
which will and can instruct him in these things & Sure
no man by natural principles 9 but we (who are spi-
<!-
ritual) have the mind of Christ (and so are able to
discern and instruct others in it).
those men who had the prophetical gifts for the edification of
the church, saith, “They are men whom the apostle styles
spiritual.” When afterward church-governors were ap-
pointed, they seem to have been chosen out of these spiritual
men, or to have had for a time, together with their ordina-
tion, this gift, which therefore he styles “the gift of truth:”
and “from whom,” saith he, “the truth is to learned oy
others.” If the church of Rome would from this chapter
et mysteria Dei enarrantes, quos et spirituales apostolus
vocat, Secundum participationem Spiritàs existentes spiri-
tuales, Lib. iv. cap. 75.
gather the infallibility of their doctors met in council, let
them show it by their spiritual gifts, or exhibit charismata
veritatis, as Irenaeus speaks.” *
* Eis qui in ecclesiá sunt, presbyteris obedire oportet
his, qui successionem habent ab apostolis, qui cum episco-
patás successione charisma veritatis certum secundam
beneplacitum patris acceperunt. Lib. iv. cap. 43. Posuit
Deus in ecclesia 1° apostolos, 2° prophetas, 3° doctores:
ubi igitur charismata Domini posita Sunt, ibi discere oportet
veritatem, Ib. cap. 45.
CHAPTER III.
1 AND I, brethren, (though I speak the highest wis-
dom among them that are perfect, yet) could (I) not
speak unto you as to spiritual (persons), but as unto
carnal, (by reason of those fruits of the flesh which
still abide in you, ver. 3, and your affections to those
who are only wise according to the flesh, chap. xxviii,
and) even as unto babes in Christ. -
2 I have fed you with milk, (the principles of the
doctrines of Christ, Heb. v. 12, 13. vi. 1; see 1 Cor.
xv. 2, 3), and not with meat (the higher doctrines of
Christianity); for hitherto (or then) ye were not able
to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. -
3 For ye are “yet carnal: for whereas there is (yet)
among you envying, and strife, and divisions, (which
are the works of the flesh, Gal. v. 20, 21), are ye not
carnal, and walk as men (who have little of the Spirit
in you? see note on ix. 8.)
4 For while one saith (in opposition to each other),
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III.
* Wer. 2. Otºral yèp höövaase, For yet you could not, add.
bear it..] So in the Old Testament bonx Nº is often used, i. e.
“I cannot,” or “I would not,” where endure, or bear it, is
understood : so Job xxxi. 23, “By reason of his highness I
could not,” sup, endure; Ps. ci. 5, “Him that is of any
haughty eye and proud look, I cannot ;” Isa. i. 13, “The
calling of assemblies I cannot,” i.e. bear.
2 Wer. 3.
plainly applied to the works of the flesh, seems to imply that
the spiritual man, opposed to him, should signify the man
endued with the fruits of the good Spirit, or who “walketh
in the Spirit, not fulfilling the lusts of the flesh” (Rom. viii.
1. 4. Gal. v. 16). And thus the Greek interpreters do un-
derstand these words; hence noting, that it is possible for
men to have great gifts, as the Corinthians had, and yet be
carnal. Yet Irenasusº interprets the words thus, that “they
were carnal, because the Spirit of the Father did not rest
upon them ;” i.e. because he, being the Spirit of love and
union, would not abide with them when they indulged to
envy and divisions, or be unto them a Spirit of instruction;
and, according to this interpretation, he must deny them to
be spiritual, as the word signifies one who enjoys some
spiritual gift, and receives some illumination from him : or
as one that is not purely governed by the revelation made
by the Spirit, but rather walks war' & '8807, av, as a man at-
tending not the dictates of the Spirit, but of human reason,
or of his natural inclinations, for that this is the genuine im-
port of that phrase, to “walk as men,” see note on Rom.
iii. 5. 1 Cor. ix. 8. Whatever be the sense, it must be
noted that the apostle doth not here style them carnal, in
that worst sense in which the carnal person is represented as
* Nondum autem Spiritus patris requiescit super yos
propter vestram infirmitatem. Lib. iv. cap. 75.
I am (the disciple) of Paul; and another, I am of
Apollos; are ye not carnal? º
5 Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos ? (not au-
thors of your faith) but (only) ministers by whom ye
believed (which faith also they wrought in you), even
as the Lord gave (his gifts) to every man (and his
blessings on their labours).
6 I have planted (the gospel among you), Apollos
watered (the seed sown) ; but God (only) gave the in-
crease (of it). -
7 So then neither is he that planteth (to be esteem-
ed as) anything, nor he that watereth; * but (the glory
of all must be ascribed to) God that giveth the in-
CTeaS6.
8 Now he that planteth and he that watereth “are
one (in the design and ministry); and every man (of
them) shall receive his own reward (from that God
whose workmen they are) according to his own labour.
one who is “not subject to the law of God, neither indeed
can be" (Rom. viii. 7, 8), and therefore can do nothing
pleasing to God; and as it wholly doth exclude us from any
interest in Christ (Gal. v. 24), for he allows them to be
“babes in Christ” (ver. 1); but as it imports men, through
zap2ixol, Carnal.] This word, being here |
the too great prevalency of their carnal appetites lusting
against the Spirit, still subject to such things as showed some
strong remainders of a carnal mind in them.
But one great difficulty remains, scarce observed by any
interpreter excepting Crellius, viz. How the same Corin-
thians could be such “babes in Christ,” and have such
“need of milk, and not of meat,” and yet be “enriched in
all utterance and knowledge” (1 Cor. i. 5), and “abound in
faith, utterance, and knowledge” (2 Cor. viii. 7). . .
I answer, that these encomiums must be restrained to
some few of them who were their extraordinary church
officers, and enjoyed this faith and knowledge for the in-
struction of the rest; and then, notwithstanding this, it may
be true that the apostle could not write to the generality of
them as such, but rather as to “babes in Christ.” Or (2.
this “faith, utterance, and knowledge,” must be restraine
to the gift of miracles, of tongues, and the interpretation of
them, which might be given for the confirmation of the gos:
pel, and the good of others, to them who were not spiritual
in the best sense, but of very small proficiency in the saving
fruits of the good Spirit. Hence we find them “puffed up.”
on the account of these gifts, envying others who had
them in a higher measure, and abusing them to vain osten-
tation and confusion in the church, and not to edification,
which things sufficiently evidence they were but “babes in
Christ.”
* Ver. 7. Axx' & ©e:c, But God, &c.] Whence it is evi-
dent, that there can be no cause why you should run into
factions about, or desire to be named from them, who have
no excellency but from God, and do nothing but by his
assistance. - •
* Ver, 8. "Eysław, Are one..] Katy tº 3iakoſſay, according
CHAPTER III.
617
9 q say, according to his labour, for we are labour-
ers together with God (his grace assisting us) : ye are
* God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building: &
10 According to the grace of God which is given
unto me, as a wise "master-builder (assisted by divine
wisdom), I have laid the foundation (Jesus Christ, and
him crucified, 1 Cor. ii. 2), and another (coming after
me) buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed
how he buildeth thereupon. * -
11 For other (true) foundation can no man lay than
that (which) is laid (already by me), which is (faith
in) Jesus Christ.
12 Now if any man build upon this foundation
gold, silver, precious stones (i.e. sound doctrine, which
will bear the trial of fire), wood, hay, stubble (hu-
man eloquence and wisdom, legal rites and Judaical
traditions, which will be abolished and vanished
away); -
13 Every man's work shall be made manifest: " for
the day (of Christ's advent to destroy the Jewish tem-
ple, church, and nation,) shall declare it, because it
shall be (Gr. it is) revealed by fire; (i. e. to be attend-
ed with great tribulation, Matt. xxiv. 21, trupúget trpóg
repaguáv, with burning for trial, 1 Pet. iv. 12), and
the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is
(whether it be gold or silver, to abide the fire; or
hay and stubble, to be consumed by it).
14 If any man’s work abide which he hath built
thereupon (as sound evangelical doctrine will, suffer-
to their ministry, saith Clemens Alexandrinus,” as being
God's ministers in this dispensation; or, Évèrnºr rot IIvićtwaroº,
as having both received their different gifts from the same
Spirit, it being “one and the same Spirit, who divideth to
every man as he will” (1 Cor. xii. 11). -
5 Wer. 9. Osoſ, ye&eytov, God's husbandry.] This I think is
better rendered “God’s field,” by Chrysostom,'t CEcumenius,
and Theophylact, who hence infer, that the field is God’s ;
the apostles only, yeo pyci airoi, his labourers sent forth to
labour in it, and enabled by him for that work; and that
they ought as a field to be fenced, ivi ră peayº rā, śaoyotas,
with the hedge of concord, and not be divided into parties.
Accordingly the word answers to the Hebrew ntv: so Prov.
xxiv. 30, “I went by yeaeytoy the field of the slothful ;” and,
xxxi. 16, “The wise woman considereth, ye&pylov, a field, and
buyeth it.”
* Ver. 10. "Atxºrtarov, A master-builder.] So the Jews
call their wise men, D'Rin, architecti (see Buxtorf. Lex.
Talm. p. 318), which the apostle here uses.
7 Wer. 13. ‘H yag #paiga Saxºcet, For the day will declare
it..] Here observe,
First, That a day, absolutely put, doth often signify a day
or a time of punishment; so, “They that come after him
shall be astonished at his day,” Job xviii. 21. “The Lord
shall laugh at him, for he seeth that his day is coming.” Ps.
xxxvii. 13. “Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom,
what they did in the day of Jerusalem,” Psal. cxxxvii. 7.
So “the day of Midian,” Isa. ix.4 ; “Woe unto them, for
their day is come, the time of their visitation,” Jer. l. 27.
Secondly, That in like manner the day, here mentioned,
is the day of our Lord's coming, to destroy the unbelieving
Jews, to burn their temple, and to destroy the Jewish eco-
nomy, will appear probable from the description of that day,
“as a refiner's fire,” Mal. iii. 2, 3. iv. 1, 2. Joel ii. 1. 13. 30,
31, and as the fire of an oven, burning up the chaff and stub-
ble; for, “behold the day of the Lord cometh, that shall
burn as an oven, and all the proud, and all that do wickedly,
shall be as stubble, and the day that cometh shall burn them
up.”
But whether we understand these words of that day, or
any other day of judgment, this is certain, that the apostle
cannot be here supposed to speak of the Roman purgatory
fire; (1) because the fire the apostle speaks of, as Origent
* Strom. p. 272, D. + In locum.
f In Celsum, lib. iv. p. 168.
ing nothing by, but being confirmed by, the conflagra-
tion which shall burn up the Jewish economy), he shall
receive a reward, (be approved as a wise builder, and
shall be eminently preserved from the evils of that day
of trial, Matt. xxiv. 13.)
15 If any man’s work shall be burned (as theirs
must be, who build upon the foundation of legal obser-
vances and Judaical rites, for they must perish with
that church and temple, which is the foundation of
them), he shall suffer (the) loss (of all his labour) :
but he himself shall be saved; “yet so as by fire:
(i. e. not without great hazard and difficulty, as one
snatched out of the fire.) r
16 (Moreover, to pass from their false doctrines, to
the evil effects of them in your divisions :) know ye not
that ye (Christians) are the temple of God, and that
the Spirit of God dwelleth in you (the Christian
church, as the Shechinah did in the temple) 8
17 If (then) any man *defile the temple of God (by
dividing that church which is the temple, and in which
one and the same Spirit dwells, into parts and frac-
tions), him shall God destroy; for the temple of the
Lord is holy, (and therefore not to be profaned by those
divisions which render you carnal, . 1 Cor. iii. 1.3,)
which temple ye are.
18 (And because you break into these divisions on the
account of, or are taught these practices by, the philo-
sophers of this age, men in whom you glory for their
eloquence and wisdom ;) let no man deceive himself.
hath noted, is not miſe Üxixòy zai aloºnrēy, 3xx& rºom-oxoyix}y,
“fire properly, but metaphorically, so called,” as appears
from those words, “He shallescape as by fire.” (2.) Because
this fire is to try “every man’s work,” Paul's and Apollos's,
as well as theirs who built on the foundation hay and stub-
ble ; and sure they will not say Paul and Apollos went to
purgatory. (3.) This fire shall try every man’s work “ of
what sort it is :” now purgatory fire doth not try every man's
works, but punishes them for them.
8 Wer. 15. ‘O, 31& trugès, As out of the fire.] To be “saved
out of the fire,” is a proverbial speech concerning them that
escape with great danger out of a calamity ; so it is used in
the Old Testament, “I have plucked them as a firebrand out
of the fire,” Amos iv. l l ; “Is not this a brand plucked out
of the fire?” Zech. iii. 2. So L. AEmilius, in Livy,” saith, he
“escaped the popular flame half burnt.” The interpretation
of Sir Norton Knatchbull, “He shall be saved, but so as he
pass through the fire of persecution with constancy to the
faith,” accords well with Christ's words, Matt. xxiv. 13, but
not with the use of this proverbial expression. Now hence
it is evident, that the apostle speaks not of the Gnostics, who
denied the resurrection (1 Cor. xv. 14. 17), and so believed
in vain, and taught that Christ might be denied with the
mouth in the time of persecution, and so were then ashamed
of him, and also were abominably filthy both in doctrine and
manners: for of such the apostles would not say, They
should be saved yet, but so as by fire ; but, as Jude and
Peter do, they are “of old ordained to condemnation ; their
judgment lingereth not, and their damnation doth not slum-
ber” (Jude 4, 13. 2 Pet. ii. 3).
* Wer. 17. E! rig röy way roi, Ogot, pSaigai, If any man cor-
rupt the temple of God..] I have, in the paraphrase, followed
the common interpretation of these words; but the like
words used ch. vi. from ver. 15 to 19, by way of dehortation
from fornication, and 2 Cor. vi. 16, from communion with
heathens in their idolatrous rites and evil practices, and by way
of inducement to “cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh
and spirit” (vii. 1), more naturally incline us to refer these
verses to the corrupting of the temple of God, by filthiness of
the flesh, uncleanness, and fornication, or by filthiness of the
spirit, i. e. idolatrous practices; both which the Corinthians
did (see the note on 1 Cor. vii. 1); and then the connexion
will run thus—I have declared you to be “a building of God”
(ver. 9), as being “built up together for a habitation of God
* Lib. xxii, cap. 40.
6.18
I. CORINTHIANS.
If any man among you seemeth to be "wise in (the
wisdom and learning of) this world, let him embrace
that gospel and doctrine of Christ, which the world
calls foolishness, and so) become a fool (to them), that
he may be wise, (according to the wisdom of God, 1
Cor. i. 24, 25.) -
19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with
God. For it is written (Job v. 13), He taketh the
wise in their own craftiness (causing one sect of philo-
sophers to destroy what another established, and so
showing the uncertainty and vanity of their pretended
wisdom ). - .
20 And again (Ps. xciv. 11), The Lord knoweth
the thoughts (and machinations) of the wise, that they
are vain. * *
21 Therefore let no man (so) glory in men (as to
induced by their esteem of them to rend or divide the
church, or to indulge those vile practices which corrupt
the temple of God); for "all things (or persons) are
yours (as being appointed for your service) ;
22 Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas (they have
received their apostleship for your sakes), or the world
(as being made for you), or life, or death, or things
present, or things to come ; all are yours (as being all
designed for your good) :
23 And ye are (only) Christ's (who is your head);
| and Christ "is God’s (or, of God, having, as Mediator,
his commission and his power from him, and acting all
things to his glory). - º
through the Spirit” (Eph. ii. 22). If therefore you do not
keep this temple of God holy, but corrupt it by “joining the
temple of God with idols" (2 Cor. vi. 16), or profane and
defile it by uncleanness and fornication, you may expect that
these sins, by which God's temple is destroyed, should end
in your own ruin and destruction. - -
1° Wer. 18. 2048; fivat #y rà, aiāyt rotºrº, To be wise in th
wisdom of this world..] That the Corinthians were induced to
eat things offered to idols in the idol-temples, by men pre-
tending to great knowledge, see viii. 1, 2, that they also intro-
duced among them the doctrine of the lawfulness of fornica-
tion, see note on v. 1. vi. 16. vii. 1. And to this sense of the
two last verses agree the descants of the ancients, who say
the apostle (ver. 17) begins to speak reel rod retroºvevºros,
“of him that had committed fornication” (v. 1), and against
them, quiturpitër wiventes corpora sua violando corruperunt,
“who by filthy practices had corrupted their bodies, and
violated the temple of the Holy Ghost:” these teachers seem
to have been of the Nicolaitans, who received their doctrines
from the philosophers. -
* Ver. 21. IIávra. Öpºy #arly, All are yours.] The Jews
believed that the world was made for them, and that God
despised the gentiles, and looked upon them as nothing when
he made it (2 Esd. vi. 55.59). The apostle, on the contrary,
affirms the world was made for the gentiles, converted to the
Christian faith: and adds, that the apostles had received their
gifts and authority for their sakes ; that if life were continued
to them under continual perils, it was “for their furtherance
and joy in the faith” (Phil. i. 15); or if we, saith he, be
always given up to death, so that “death worketh in us,” it
is that “life may work in you” (2 Cor. iv. 11, 12), for “we
suffer all things for you” (ver. 15. 2 Tim. ii. 10); that
“things present,” the pressures they now suffered, and “things
to come,” the prosperity and adversity they might afterward
be subject to, were for their sakes ; “for whether we be
afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation ; or whether
3. be * it is for your consolation and salvation” (2
or. i. 6). -
* Ver, 23. Xgiard; 33 Osoſ, And Christ is God's.] Here the
Socinians cry out, Wide hic discrimen inter Deum et Christum,
“See here the difference betwixt God and Christ.”—“Hence
it appears,” saith Crellius, “that Christ is in nowise God
most high, as having another above him, as his head, on whom
he depends, and from whom he is here manifestly distin-
guished.”
But the fathers thought not so, who say Christ is of God,
&; trºoaidºvicy yávynºa wai &; airiay ixoy tºy ratēga, “as being
begotten by him before all ages, and having him for his
Father, É aurot yeyevnºw#voc watá rày Seárnºra, as receiving the
divine nature from him.” Others grant this of Christ as
mediator betwixt us and God, in which sense he performing
that office as man, or by virtue of his human nature, in which
alone he could be a prophet sent from God, or offer up him-
self to the death for us, or intercede in our behalf, or be
“exalted to the right hand of God, to be a prince and a Savi-
our;” he therefore was exalted thus “to the glory of God the
Father,” and so depended on him in the exercise of that
office (see note on 1 Cor. xi. 3).
CHAPTER IV.
1 (We are yours, I say : yet) let a man (also) so
account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stew-
ards of the mysteries of God; (i.e. of those revela-
tions of the gospel which are styled mysteries, as not
* before revealed to the world. See note on ii.
2. 7.
2 Moreover, it (chiefly) is required in stewards, that
* (taking that office upon him) be found faith-
3 But (whether it be thus, or not, ) with me it is a
very small thing "that I should be judged of you, or
of man’s judgment; yea, I judge not my own self (so
as to acquiesce in that judgment).
4 For I know nothing (of unfaithfulness) by my-
self; * yet I am not thereby justified (at God’s tribu-
mal); but he that (farther) judgeth me is the Lord.
5 Therefore "judge nothing before the time, until
the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hid-

ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV.
* Ver. 3. "Iya i p'ipzővávaxg105, That I should be judged of
you..] Not that he was unconcerned whether the Corinthians
had a good esteem of him or not ; the contrary is evident
from the whole drift of his epistles, in which he labours to
convince them of the truth of his doctrine and of his sincerity
in the discharge of his office, and rejoiceth greatly in their
affection to him (2 Cor. vi. 13. vii. 14, 15. viii. 24). His
meaning only is, that their judgment is little to him in com-
parison of the final and unerring judgment of the Lord.
* Ver. 4. Oix roërg! 3e3tzaiolºat, Yet am I not thereby jus-
tified.] Here also the apostle doth not intend to say that he,
and others, could have no good assurance of their present
justification and favour with God, from the testimony of an
upright conscience, which, Saith John, gives “confidence
with God” (1 John iii. 21); for then farewell all joy and
comfort in this world: he doth himself assure us, that their
“rejoicing was this, even the testimony of their conscience,
that in simplicity and godly sincerity they had their conver-
sation in this world” (2 Cor. i. 12): he adviseth all men to
approve their actions to themselves, and then (saith he)“they
shall have rejoicing in themselves, and not in another” (Gal.
vi. 4) : his meaning therefore is, that our final justification, or
absolution from condemnation, depends not on the judgment
which we pass upon ourselves, but upon that which God, the
righteous judge, will pass upon us at the last day. Here
also note in Paul another sense of justification, as it relates
to our absolution from condemnation, and our approbation
as righteous at the last day, which will be, saith he, accord-
ing to our works (2 Cor. v. 10), and our fidelity in execution
of the trusts committed to us (ver. 2). -- ... •
* Ver. 5. M% ºrº Katºoij ºri Agivers, Judge nothing before the
time.] The apostle doth not here condemn all judgment,
CHAPTER IV.
619
den things of darkness, and will “make manifest the
counsels of the heart: and then shall every man have
praise of God.
6 And these things, brethren, "I have in a figure
transferred to myself, (one rude in speech, but not in
knowledge, 2 Cor. xi. 6,) and to Apollos, (a man of
eloquence and wisdom, Acts xviii. 24) for your sakes;
that you might learn in (the eaſample of) us not to
think of (other) men above that which is written (viz.
that we are only ministers of Christ by which ye believ-
ed., iii. 5), that no one of you be puffed up for one
against another (because of the different gifts vouch-
safed to them).
7 For * who maketh thee (what doctor soever thou
art) to differ from another ? and what (gift) hast thou
that thou didst not receive (from God); now if thou
didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst
not received it (from him) 8
8 Now 7 ye (Corinthians) are full (of secular wis-
dom), now ye are rich (both in wealth and spiritual
gifts, 1 Cor. xiv. 26), ye have reigned as kings (flour-
ishing in the enjoyment of these things in all tranquillity
and honour) without (any want of us ; and I would
civil or ecclesiastical, of any persons, deeds, or words, or bid
us suspend our judgment of things occurring to our senses
till the day of judgment ; but only forbids our censures of
things uncertain, of which no righteous judgment can be
passed, because we cannot be certain of the truth of that
judgment, and of things which it belongs not to us to judge
of And this appears both from the words and the occasion
of them : from the words, for they respect “the hidden
things of darkness,” and “the counsels of the heart,” of which
no certain judgment can be passed ; from the occasion of
them, they passing their censures on Paul (ver. 3), and
questioning his fidelity in his office (ver. 2), of whom they
had no authority so to judge, nor any occasion so to judge.
* “o; pavegºost rā; 8ovXà; rāy wagötöv, Who will make mani-
fest the counsels of the heart.] Hence note, that Jesus Christ
must have the knowledge of the secrets of the hearts of all
men subject to his judgment, and so must be that God who
alone knows the -hearts of all men (1 Kings viii. 39), and is
alone “the Searcher of all hearts” (1 Chron. xxviii. 9); “to
give every man according to his ways, and according to the
fruit of his doing” (Jer. xvii. 10); and therefore Christ ex-
pressly ascribes this knowledge to himself, by saying, “All
the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the
reins and the hearts, and I will give to every one of you ac-
cording to your works” (Rev. ii. 23).
* Wer. 6. Mered Xng, &rica, I have in a figure transferred.]
This seems not to refer, as most interpreters conceive, to
what the apostle had said, i. 12, viz. their saying, “I am of
Paul, I am of Apollos, I of Cephas,” for here is nothing said
of Cephas; but it refers to what he had said, iii. 5–8, that
Paul and Apollos were only ministers by whom they believed;
that therefore neither Paul nor Apollos was to be looked
upon as anything, they doing nothing but by the grace given
them by that God, to whom therefore the whole praise was
due for the success of all their labours. And this scheme of
speech I have used, saith he, touching myself and Apollos,
instructing you not to think highly of other doctors among
you, who have done less for the promoting your faith than
we have done.
6 Ver, 7. Ti; as Stawelvet; Who maketh thee to differ?] The
apostle manifestly speaking here of those gifts of the Spirit
which were immediately infused without human industry,
and were dispensed by God and by his Spirit according to his
good pleasure (1 Cor. iii. 15. xii. 11); it cannot be hence
argued that no man doth anything to make himself differ
from another, in any virtue or pious disposition. For to
what purpose are men continually exhorted and stirred up by
powerful motives to all Christian duties, and particularly to
excel in virtue, if these exhortations and motives are not pro-
posed to engage them to exercise these Christian virtues, to
choose the good and refuse the evil? And if one man, upon
consideration of these motives, doth choose to live a pious
life, whereas another is not by the same motives prevailed on
to God ye did reign (indeed, and not in conceit only),
that we also (poor, persecuted, and despised apostles,)
might reign with you.
9 For 1 think dº God hath set forth us the apos-
tles last (i. e. as the last, or the meridian gladiators),
as it were (men) “appointed unto death: for we are
made a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to
IIle11.
10 We are (counted as) fools for Christ’s sake, but
ye, (who flourish in your eloquence and wisdom, are
accounted) wise in Christ; we are weak (as to bodily
presence, 2 Cor. x. 10, and bodily infirmities, 1 Cor.
ii. 3. 2 Cor. xii. 9, and made still weaker by our con-
tinual wants and persecutions), but ye are strong (and
lusty) : ye are honourable (for your gifts and wisdom,
which have gotten you a great name and reputation
among others), but we are despised (or in disgrace
everywhere). º
li Even to this present hour we both hunger, and
thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no
certain dwelling-place (or, are in no certain condi-
tion) ;
12 And labour, working with our own hands:
so to do, doth he not differ from another by virtue of that
choice P And though the grace of God, by way of excitation,
worketh in us thus to will; yet, since our faculties do first
deliberate upon and then comply, and choose to do that
thing to which this grace excites us; if to consider be to dif.
fer from him that does not so, and to comply with and em-
brace the call of God, be to differ from him who complies not
with the same call, it must be certain, that as God's grace
preventing and exciting, so my faculties co-operating, tend
to make me differ from another, though having also these
faculties from God, the action may be well ascribed, and the
whole glory of it must be due, to him. .
Seeing then no act of virtue and no good habit is produced
in us without a frequent and manifold co-operation of our
own faculties to the same action and habit, whereas these
gifts of tongues, interpretation, and prophecy, were gifts con-
#rred upon Christians in the primitive times, without any
such co-operation of their faculties: it cannot, with like rea-
son, be inquired of the former, as it may be of these gifts,
“Who made thee to differ” from another in them 2 And
though all ground and even pretence of glorying, by this im-
mediate infusion of these gifts, is evidently excluded; yet
the apostles do themselves glory in those good actions which
they choose to do (1 Cor. ix. 15, 16. 2 Cor. i. 12. xi. 20);
and say to others thus, “Let every man try and approve his
own work, and then shall he have kačxmºº rejoicing, or
glorying in himself” (Gal. vi. 4).
7 Ver. 8. Kenoesopºłyol iari, in Aourhoars, Ye are filled, ye.
are rich..] All the ancient commentators having noted, in
their prefaces to this epistle, that Corinth” was a city.“ which
abounded in wealth, and was full of rhetoricians, and of phi-
losophers,” and that hence arose their disorders, pride, and
vain glory, as well as from their gifts; I thought fit in the
paraphrase to take notice of both. -
8 Ver 9. 'Q; in Savarious, As men appointed unto death.]
Here the apostle seems to allude to the Roman spectacle,
+5; rāy Snºop,4x2y, Kai Pºowoºaxia; ãºpopévov, that of the
bestiarii# and the gladiators, where in the morning men Were
brought upon the theatre to fight with wild beasts, and to
them was allowed armour to defend themselves, and Smite
the boasts that did assail them ; but in the meridian specta-
cle were brought forth the gladiators naked, and without any
thing to defend them from the sword of the assailant, and he
that then escaped was only reserved for slaughter to another
day ; so that these men might be well called ºrišavériot,
“men appointed for death;” and this being the last appear-
ance on the theatre for that day, they are said here to be set
* Kág,00; ºfty wasovskvågaz 32 rººf, #232d, ºr;3 rāvāAAw,
Tráory rfi Xantºrov regiovaig-hy 3: Kai finrápoly Trºy sº.
Trxāo; # Tréat, wai pixo~6$ow.
+ Iren, lib. i. p. 26.
620
I. CORINTHIANS.
being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer
it (or we bear, as weak persons, who know not how to
escape, or help ourselves) :
13 Being defamed, we entreat : we are made as
* the filth of the world, and (are as) the offscouring
(or refuse) of all things to this day. -
14 (But though I thus speak of your glorying in
these things, with the neglect of us, ver, 8,) I write not
these things to shame you, but as, my beloved sons I
warn you (to behave yourselves hereafter more like
dutiful children towards me).
15 For though you have ten thousand instructers
in Christ, yet have you “not many fathers (indeed,
not any besides me) ; for in Christ Jesus I have begot-
ten you through the gospel.
16 Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me,
(adhering to the doctrine received from me, and walk-
ing as I do, and teach, ver. 17.)
17 For this cause have I sent unto you Timothens,
who is my beloved son, and faithful in the Lord, who
* -- ~~ *-
forth frxaroi, “the last.” Of these two spectacles Seneca.”
speaks thus: “In the morning men are exposed to lions and
to bears; at midday to their spectators; those that kill are
exposed to one another; the victor is detained for another
slaughter; the conclusion of this fight is death. The former
fighting, compared to this, was mercy; here is only butchery:
they have nothing to cover them, their whole body is ex-
posed to every stroke,” &c. Hence Tertulliant cites these
words thus: Puto nos Deus apostolos novissimos elegit velut
bestiarios; “I think God hath chosen us apostles last, as
men to be exposed to wild beasts.”
* Ver. 13. II-eikašágºzara, ºrigiºnaa..] These words, which
we render filth and offscouring, do probably relate to the
sacrifices which the heathens used for the lustration of a city.
“The Athenians,” saith Phavorinus,t “nourished some very
base and refuse people, and, when any calamity or plague
befell them, they sacrificed them for the purgation of the city,”
and “these they called xaBáppeara.” And Suidas Š saith,
they said of such a man, “Be thou our ºregiºnºwa, redemption,
or propitiation, and then flung him into the sea as a sacrifice
to Neptune.” Hence Origen| saith, that our Lord, giving
up himself for the propitiation of our sins, was made much
more than his apostles, regixáðagºza row zéopov, ºrávrov repi-
<!nºwa, “the lustration of the world, and peculiar sacrifice of
all men.” -
* Wer. 15. Oi woMAoû, ºrarígaç, Not many fathers.] The
masters of tradition among the Jews'ſ called them children
whom they instructed in their traditions; and the Targum
upon Numb. iii. 1, observes, that Nadab and Abihu are called
* Manè leonibus et ursis homines, meridié spectatoribus
suis objiciuntur. Interfectores inter se jubentur objici, et
victor in aliam detinetur cadem ; exitus pugnantium mors
est—quicquid ante pugnatum est misericordia fuit : nunc,
omissis mugis, mera homicidia sunt ; nihil habent quo tegan-
tur; ad ictum totis corporibus expositi, nunquam frustrå
manum mittunt. Epist. 7.
+ De Pudicitiã, cap. 14, p. 566.
f "Erpetºv rivac’ASnvaſor Xiay 4, Eyeſ; wal 3xpharov;, xai iv
zaseº avºpogăç rivo: #mix809ain; rā ºréxes, Aoifact aflyw, § rotočarov
river, iSvoy roërov; £vexa roi, Kaşağäval roi; ºtáogator, où; xat
#Trovãºwaćov xaSápºara, Phav. 'Tºrse roi; kaðagtapºot, ºréxia's
&vipovy Haroxiopºvoy riva ºw #xáNovy xáSaekwa, &c. Arist. Plut.
p. 24, et in Equit. p. 240.
§ IIegiºn[...a hºw yśyov, Hroi o armpia, wai &moxárgaſaig, Suid.
Wide Outram de Sacrif lib. i. cap. 22.
| Com. in Joh. tom. xiii. p. 363, D, E,
* Galat. lib. i. cap. 2, p. 5.
shall bring you into remembrance of my ways which
are in Christ, as I teach everywhere in every church.
18 Now some (among you) are puffed up, as though
(because I have sent Timothy to you) I would not (my-
self) come to you.
19 But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord will,
and will know (and eaſamine), not the speech (and elo-
quence) of them which are puffed up, but the power
(and spiritual authority which attends their preaching,
whether that be equal to the power God has given us
for edification).
20 For the kingdom of God is (confirmed and pro-
pagated) *not in (and by the wisdom of the) word, but
in (and by the) power (of the Spirit , which if they
want they cannot be sent from God, as we are).
21 What will you? shall I come unto you “with a
rod (inflicting punishments upon you), or (will you so
ºreform that I may come unto you) in love, and in the
spirit of meekness?
“ the sons of Moses,” because he had instructed them : for
he who teacheth another is, as it were, his father. Thus the
disciples of the prophets are called “the sons of the pro-
phets.” So Jonathan, “These are the names of the sons of
Aaron, the disciples of Moses, and the sons of Israel, who
were called by his name:” and so both Irenaeus” and Clemens
Alexandrinus’t do observe that “they were called fathers,
who taught and catechised others; and they sons, who were
taught by them.” -
* Wer. 20. Oi v Aéyw, &XX #y 8vvápaei, Not in word, but in
power.] It is propagated, saith Theophylact, 31& amasia” tº
Auyákºsi rod IIveſpearoº yºvokzāvow, “by miracles done by the
power of the Spirit;” for to convince men of the truth of it,
saith Chrysostom, it is not enough to use fine words, but the
dead must be raised, the devils cast out, and other mighty
wonders must be wrought: by these things the gospel is
established.
** Ver. 21. 'Ev Šá882, With a rod..] That the apostles had
power of inflicting corporal punishments on some who did
oppose the progress of, or who notoriously offended against,
the rules of the gospel, is the opinion of all the ancient com-
mentators, who instance in the death inflicted by St. Peter
on Ananias and Sapphira (Acts v. 10), the blindness inflicted
by St. Paul on Elymas (xiii. 11), the delivery of Hymenaeus
and Alexander, and the incestuous person unto Satan (1 Tim.
i. 20. 1 Cor. v. 5), &c'rs trai?sical rô dºza, “ so as to chastise
the body of them,” saith Theodoret; Wa viaº airy rhán,
“that he might macerate him with some disease,” say Chry-
sostom, CEcumenius, and Theophylact; and so they interpret
these words, “Shall I come unto you with a rod?” that is,
iv woxácsi, Évºri!, weig, “with punishments and chastisements.”
And this sense will appear highly probable, if we consider
these words of the apostle, “I write unto you, being absent,
lest, being present, I should use sharpness, according to the
power God hath given me for edification, and not for de-
struction” (2 Cor. xiii. 10): for, that these words cannot be
understood only of the power of excommunication, common
to him with others, we may learn from the same words, 2
Cor. x. 8, where the mighty weapons of his warfare, “able to
remove every height exalting itself against, and to captivate
every mind to, the obedience of Christ, and to avenge all dis-
obedience,” being premised, it follows, “For should I boast
exceedingly of the power God hath given me for edification,
and not for destruction, I should not be ashamed.”
* Qui enim est ab aliquo edoctus verbo, filius docentis
dicitur, et ille ejus pater. Iren. lib. iv. cap. 29.
+ IIuriga; row; warmy hoavrá; papaty, Clem. Strom. i. p. 1,
621
CHAPTER W.
1 IT is reported commonly that there is fornication
among you, and such fornication as is not 'so much
as named among the gentiles, (viz.) * that one should
have his father’s wife (i.e. his stepmother).
2 And *ye are puffed up, and “have not rather
mourned (for the scandal of this great offence, nor
taken care) that he that hath done this deed (so re-
proachful to the society of Christians) may be taken
away (and cast out) from among you (as he ought to be).
3 For I verily, as (being) absent in the body, but
* present (with you, Col. ii. 5), in (and by the) Spirit
(eaciting me so to do), have judged already, as though
I were present, concerning him that hath so done
this deed, (that he ought to be removed from your body,
and delivered up to Satan.
4 And do therefore command you) in the name of
our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together
(in your Christian assemblies), and my spirit (supply-
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. W.
* Ver. 1. Otºč Švoºs-rat, Not named..] i. e. Not counte-
manced among civilized heathens, but forbidden by their
laws; by the laws of the Greeks, say Ocellus Lucanus” and
Jamblichus r and by the Romans, it being, saith Cicero,
scelus inauditum, “an unheard-of wickedness,” of which the
Persians only are accused by Philo,f Tertullian,S Minutius
Felix;| and therefore this was one of the three great
infamies with which the ‘ſ heathens loaded the primitive
Christians, that they had incesta convivia among them, and
practised the very crime here censured by Paul, and the
words ŠAw: áxočst at, “It is everywhere heard of,” do make
it not improbable that this very thing might give the rise to
that vile objection against Christianity, especially if the
Corinthians had the foundation of this practice from the
Jews, from whom the Christians for some time were not dis-
tinguished.
*"Clare yuyaſzá `riya roß rarpèg #xsw, That one should
have his father's wife.] Either as his wife, or so as to com-
mit fornication with her. Now this, saith Dr. Lightfoot, was
done by them agreeably to the Jewish doctrine concerning
proselytes; viz. that they were “as persons new born, and
had lost all their kindred they had before:” so that by the
law, as the rabbins expounded it,” they might marry their
mother and sister. And to this Tacitus++ seems to refer in
his account of the Jews, when he saith, “All things by
them are deemed profane, which to us are sacred, rurslim
concessa apud illos quae nobis incesta, and what we account
incestuous is with them lawful ;” and that they are first of
all taught to contemm the gods, parentes, liberos, fratres vilia
habere, and to have no regard to parents, children, and
brethren. But considering that Corinth abounded with
philosophers, and that Chrysippus: the Stoic reckons the
enjoyment of a mother, sister, or daughter, as things blamed
without reason ; and that hence the Nicolaitans and Carpo-
cratians $$ had their doctrine of the community of women,
not excepting mothers, and daughters, and sisters ; I think
it probable that this corruption might have had its rise
* Qui inter trºovarápxovira véºtºxa iy raſ, ‘Exxnyikaï, ºréasat,
enumerant, r3 ºwnrpáci avyyūga Sai. De Vitā Pyth. cab.
31, p. 188. Ocel. Orat. pro Cluentio, n. 10.
+ IIsri riis rod wavrö; ovaewº, cap. 4. Plato de Repub. lib.
v. p. 657, E, F.
# De Leg. Special. p. 600.
| Minut. p. 35.
* Qibitroëiov; faićeic. Just. Apol. 2, p. 70. Athenag. p. 4,
43. Theoph. lib. iii. p. 199.
** Per legem elicitum est ethnico ducere in uxorem ma-
trem Suam, aut sororem ex matre, quae proselytae fiunt.
Maimon. in Issurei Bia, cap. 14. Lightf. in Joh. iii. 3.
Seld. Heb. libr. ii. cap. 18. De Jur. Nat. et Gent. lib. ii.
cap. 4.
++ Hist. lib. v. ab initio.
# Tö ºntpéry Svyarpäriv h 388xpai; ovyy:verðat 3Aéyw;
3ia£iğan rat. De Stoic. Repugn. p. 1044, F. Sext. Empyr.
lib. cap. 24, 25.
§§ Mºyvvada ºro; #Aoisy aſ, gov.owro. De Carpocr. Cl.
Alex. Strom. iii. p. 430, D. Tod wºoxaraxagávro; #xártny
#xávrov ºval, p. 431. Imö Persarum more, anre&qi, xat
Suyatéâct, Kai 388x3 aſ ºtyvva flat. Ibid. Et de Nicolaitanis,
ºrāvānaoy &pgobirny Koivoviay ava riky &vayogºſova'iy, p. 436, D.
§ Tertull. Apol. cap. 9.
from them, and that, upon one or other of these ac-
counts, they so tamely endured him who had done this
infamous thing: yea, they were puffed up, say the Greek
interpreters on account of the eloquence and wisdom of this
very man. -
* Wer. 2. IIs puriapºiwot Barré, Ye are puffed up.] Either in
your conceit, that you have got such a profound and elo-
quent teacher ; or on the account of some high wisdom
which makes you look on these things as indifferent.
It is conjectured that this woman, cohabiting with her
son-in-law, had divorced herself from her husband; and true
it is, as I have observed, note on vii. 11, that the Attic laws
allowed the woman to do this, but then she was first to bring,
rā; &moxei Jew; ypággara, the causes why she desired to leave
her husband, before the archon, or judge of such matters, and
to have his allowance so to do : if this stepmother did not
this, she was still her husband's wife ; if she did, and the
causes she alleged were allowed of by the judge, this freed
her from that relation to her former husband, and then he
suffered no wrong by this action, as the apostle intimates
that he did, by styling him 38tºn9ívra “the person that had
suffered wrong” (2 Cor. vii. 12). *
Kai oix; 23xxoy #mrºha are, And have not rather
mourned.] It was the custom, both of the Jews and Chris-
tians, when any one was to be cut off from the church as a
dead member, to do it with fasting and humiliation, to show
their sympathy with him, and to demonstrate their sorrow
for the scandal brought upon the Society.
“The school of Pythagoras,” saith Origen,” “put coffins
in the room of them who deserted the society, looking upon
them as dead men; and the Christians lament them who
have been guilty of lasciviousness, or any other absurd action,
as persons lost and dead to God.” And among the Apos-
tolical Constitutions; this is one, “With sorrow and mourn-
ing cut off from the church the incurable person ; for, saith
the apostle, You shall put away from among you the evil
person:” and to this custom the apostle seemeth to allude,
2 Cor. ii. 1–3. xii. 21
* Ver. 3. IIag&y 33 rà mysugart, Present in spirit..] That
is, say the fathers, not only with mind and consent,; but
33 rà, ITysºgato; xágºroc, “by the gift of the Spirit,” by
which I am enabled to discern what is fit to be done in this
case ; even by the Spirit by which I am enabled, Kai rā.
rāja Sey sièyat, “to discern things done at a distance,” as
Elisha did the actions of Gehazi by his prophetic spirit
(2 Kings v. 26). So Chrysostom and Theophylact. And so
the phrase seems to be used in these words: “For though I
am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in the Spirit, re-
joicing and beholding your order, and the stedfastness of
your faith” (Col. ii. 5): since in his absence he could not
behold their order, and the stedfastness of their faith by his
own spirit, but only by the assistance of the Holy Spirit.
So also do they interpret, toº woã rveſ, aros, “my Spirit”
(ver. 4), by “my spiritual gift ;” so that the sense of these
words, ver, 3, 4, seems to run thus, I, by the Spirit of dis-
cerning, and the authority God hath given me, have already
* otrol 33 &moxazóra, Kai reflynxára; rô Qe; toº #7
3a exygia: # rvoc &rárov vivian&#vov; 3: vskgoi; we,00üo."
Contra Cels. lib. iii. p. 142, 143.
+ Metà Aſtrº; wa; wiv%v; áyiárw: #x2yra rº; #xxxnzia;
&móworts: if algºre yáp. Lib. ii. cap. 41, p. 190.
f Theodoret, ºval, p. 430.
622
I. CORINTHIANS.
ing my absence), * with the power of our Lord Jesus
Christ (is present with you),
5 To deliver such a one to (the buffetings of) Satan
from the destruction of the flesh (solascivient in him),
º the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord
€SUIS.
6 "Your glorying (in such a doctor, or such wisdom)
is not good. Know ye not that (as) a little leaven
* leaveneth (and soureth) the lump, (so such a mem-
ber, continued among you, will defile the whole body or
society) 2
7 "Purge out therefore the old.leaven, that ye may
be a new lump, (forasmuch) as ye are (by your Chris-
tianity obliged to be) unleavened. For even Christ
our passover is sacrificed for us (Christians, and, at
that feast, all leaven was to be put out of their houses,
Exod. xii. 15).
8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with (the) old
leaven (of our former uncleanness), nor with the (pha-
risaical) *leaven of malice and (deceitful) wickedness;
* with the unleavened bread of sincerity and
truth.
adjudged that this person ought to be delivered up to Satan ;
and therefore, when you are gathered together in the name
of Christ, and have my Spirit, who also presides in your
assemblies, and there assists you in the performance of your
Christian offices, and have the power of Christ ready to
confirm and execute your sentence, do you in his name de-
liver such a one to Satan.
* Ver. 4. ziy tº Auyáſzel, With the power of the Lord
Jesus Christ.] The word 36Vapºtº, power, hath still reference
to some miraculous and extraordinary power, and is not
used, that I know of, concerning any simple act of disci-
pline ; as when Christ answers Paul thus, # 36Vapai; peov,
“My power is perfected in weakness;” and the apostle
saith on that account, “Most gladly will I rejoice in my
weakness, ºva # 359apºt; toi, Xgicroi, that the power of Christ
may rest upon me” (2 Cor. xii. 9, 10): i. e. say the
ancients, that, in the midst of my manifold infirmities, the
power of Christ, enabling me to do all kinds of miracles, may
more conspicuously reside in me. This miraculous assist-
ance is by the apostle sometimes called simply, “the power,”
1 Cor. ii. 4. iv. 19, 20. xii. 28, 29 ; sometimes “the power
of God,” l; Cor. ii. 5, 6. 14. xviii. 24. 2 Cor. iv. 7. xiii. 4,
and sometimes “the power of Christ,” as in the place now
cited. Now among the powers of Christ, which attended
the preaching of the gospel, this was one, of delivering men
for their offences up to Satan, to inflict corporal punish-
ments on them for the destruction of the flesh. This power
seems to have been peculiar to the apostles, and therefore
here Paul prescribes the doing of it, the authority or power
of his Spirit being present with them. That this is indeed
the import of delivering up to Satan “for the destruction of
the flesh,” is evident, not only from the concurring exposi-
tion of the ancients, who all interpret it of some disease to
be inflicted on him by Satan,” but also from the end of that
delivery to him, which is, saith the apostle here, “for the
destruction of the flesh;” and in the case of Hymenaeus and
Philetus, “that they might not learn to blaspheme.” Now
bodily afflictions plainly tend to mortify the flesh, and to
awaken men as oft as they came thus from a miraculous
power, to consider of their ways, and quit those courses
which thus subject them to the hand of God; whereas ex-
communication hath no apparent tendency to those ends,
when no such dreadful issue follows from it, and therefore
seems not to be all that is intended by this delivery up to
Satan: though, I confess, the Jews expected some like
effect of their excommunication, called cherem, which, saith
Buxtorff ran in this form of words, Sint super ipsum
plaga magnæ, et fideles, morbi magni, et horribiles: “Let
his strokes be great, and his diseases horrible.” Moreover,
the apostle speaks not of this as a common act of discipline,
which every presbyter might exercise, but as of that which
required his extraordinary presence in the Spirit, and the
power of Christ assisting them ; and therefore seems to
speak of it as an act which was to be attended with some
miraculous effect.
7. Ver. 6. Oil waxy ré waſ ºnga tºw.] Some Latin copies
omit the negative ob, whence, saith Dr. Mills, this is un-
doubtedly the true reading; whereas it is retained by all the
Greek commentators, and all the versions, by Hilary the
deacon, and Cod. Alex, and so undoubtedly ought to be
read : that also pögaka Čvºwſ, and not boxof, is the true
* Hic traditur Satanae in interitum carnis, ut serpens ter-
ram ejus lingeret, animae mon noceret. Ambros. de Poen.
lib. i. cap. 12. See note on ch. iv. 21.
+ Lex. Tal. in voce cherem.
ºng here, and Gal. v. 2, see proved Examen Millii
lerø.
* Zvºzdī, Leavens.] i. e. Soureth and corrupteth : so Je-
rome, Totam massam corrumpit, “It corrupts the whole
lump.” Thus Plutarch saith” the priest of Jupiter might
not touch leaven, because h £6.4 m 35 yéyovey in p$ogăç, airi,
$Seige, rö 'pěpaga ºwlyvvºwn, “leaven both arises from cor-
ruption, and corrupts the mass it is mixed with.”
* Wer. 7. 'Exxagágars riv ºraxalay Çüpany, Purge out the old
leaven.] Here the apostle speaks of cutting off the incestuous
person, according to the metaphor of the Jews, whose say-
ing is, that, “as a little leaven leavens the whole lump, so
concupiscence corrupts the whole man;" and that, by the
command to abstain from leaven, adultery is forbidden.
This impurity he calls the “old leaven” to be purged out,
because the Corinthians were infamous for it to a proverb,
as Phavorinus, Hesychius, and Erasmus, show. He al-
ludes also to the command to put away leaven out of their
house, in commanding to put away the evil person ; and
to the paschal feast, in giving this reason why the old leaven
should be put away, “because Christ our passover is sacri-
ficed for us;” which being done once for all, we Christians
must ever keep the feast, by being always a new lump, pure
from hypocrisy, which is “the leaven of the pharisees”
(Luke xii. 1), from the leaven of false doctrine, and cor-
rupting of the word of God, which is the leaven of the
pharisees and Sadducees (Matt. xvi. 6. 12), and from the
leaven of wickedness, and wicked men, according to those
words of the psalmist, “Deliver me out of the hands of
the wicked; and from the hands of the cruel, Ynnnn, and
the leavened” (Ps. lxxi. 4), i. e. the sour and the angry man,
who corrupts and depraves others.
* Ver. 8. Mn3; #y £iºn waxiac, Not with the leaven of that
malice..] Which is usually carried on with dissimulation of
affection, and concern for piety, and so is pharisaical. Nor
with that wickedness which prompts us to deceive another
to his hurt. Thus Theophylact here saith, “He is xazoc, an
evil man, who doth evil things; but he is "royngö, who doth
them with profound subtlety, and deceitful (or hurtful)
counsel.” Thus royngol wai yin-ric, “evil men and deceitful,”
are joined together as “deceiving and being deceived” 2 Tim.
iii. 13. “But with the unleavened bread of sincerity;”
which expression seems to allude to the import of the He-
brew nism, or azyma, which, saith Bochart, signifies panes
puros et sinceros, “pure and sincere loaves,” from all mixture
of leaven. And so this is an exhortation to reject such false
apostles, and deceitful workers, as this doctor was, and others
in the church of Corinth, who “transformed themselves into
the apostles of Christ” (2 Cor. xi. 13), and yet were not
iž sixingivsiaç, “men of sincerity” (2 Cor. ii. 17), but cor-
rupters of the truth, who “walked in craftiness, handling
the word of God deceitfully” (2 Cor. iv. 2), and by their
“subtlety seduced them from the simplicity which was in
Christ” (2 Cor. xi. 3). More intolerable is it in the doctor
to reject these words 3xx' #y 3&ot; sixtapºeiac, Kai 3×nésiac,
upon the sole authority of the Ethiopic version, they being
owned by all the other versions, by all the Greek scholiasts,
by Origen, ed. Huet. in Jer. p. 143, in Matt. p. 170, in Joh.
163, 172, by Hilary the deacon, by Jerome, lib. i. contra
Pelag. f. 97; and the very word nyn azymos, might have
taught him the pertinency and elegancy of these words; that
* Quaest. Rom. p. 289, E.
+ Verba, Kāpiv6oc, zogi,8táčey, Hesych. Phavor. Corinthiari
adag., p. 720 ; ut Corinthia videris. p. 633.
... Hieroz, lib. ii, cap. 50, p. 601.
CHAPTER VI.
623
9 * I wrote to you in an epistle, (or, I had writ to
you in this epistle, before I was fully acquainted with
the state of your affairs, by the coming of Stephanas,
Fortunatus, and Achaicus, 1 Cor. xvi. 17), not to com-
pany with fornicators. - .
10 Yet not (intending) altogether (to forbid you
any conversation) with the fornicators of this world, or
with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters;
for then must ye needs go out of the world.
11 *But now (since I heard this great miscarriage,
and have been more exactly informed of the state of
Syour church,) I have (changed my style, and) written
to you not to keep company, if any man that is “call-
ed a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idola-
ter, or a railer (a contumelious person), or a drunkard,
or an extortioner; (and that so strictly, as to charge
you) with such a one *no, not to eat.
12 * For what have I to do to judge (or censure)
them also that are without (the church, as heathem for-
nicators, and the stepmother of this incestuous forni-
cator are)? do not ye (and all other churches and
societies) judge them that are within (their body) 8
13 But them that are without God judgeth. There-
fore (leaving them to the judgment of God, censure
them that thus offended within your body, and you will,
by so doing) put away from among yourselves that
wicked person. -
signifying, saith Bochart, panes puros et sinceros, ch. vi.
5.
version, though it be owned by all the versions, and all the
Greek and Latin commentators.
licentiousness, Examen Millii in locum.
* Ver, 9. "Eyea-la taſy #y tº imia-roxfi, I had written to
3/0w in this epistle] All the Greek commentators upon this
place conclude he wrote this, oùx iv &xxn, &Ax’ iy raûrn, “not
in another, but in this epistle:” so Chrysostom, Theodoret,
CEcumenius, Photius, and Theophylact, on this place. And
who ever heard among the ancients of more than fourteen
epistles of Paul? or of one word cited from an epistle of
his to the Corinthians supposed to be lost P It cannot there-
fore be concluded hence, that any epistle of Paul writ and
sent to the church of Corinth is lost: but only that some
things in this epistle were changed by him, before he sent it
to them. But, saith Mr. Clerc, “there is a contrariety in
this interpretation to all the rules of grammar,” which it
seems none of the Greek scholiasts understood so well as he.
Moreover, it is the common observation of grammarians,
that the aorist is so called because it is of an indefinite sig-
nification, and is sometimes used for the perfect, sometimes
for the plusquam perfect tense. So Herod, laying hold of
John, £8mzew airby, “had bound him,” Matt. xiv. 3; “He
commanded his servants to be called, ol; #8wks ré àpyūgtoy, to
whom he had given the silver,” Luke xix. 15; “Jesus $ºap-
Túčno ev, had testified,” John iv. 44; ###v=vasy, “He had
withdrawn himself,” John v. 13; “Annas &méo reixty, had
sent him bound to Caiaphas,” John xviii. 24. (2.) That ºf
as Phavorinus saith, is put &yri roi rajrh, “instead of this,”
he both confesses and proves from Col. iv. 16. 1 Thess. v.
27, and where then is the contrariety of this interpretation
to the rules of grammar 2
12 Me 11. Nvvi 88 yea-la taſy, But now I have written to
3/070.
Obj. l. “This only shows,” saith Mr. Clerc, “that the
apostle here speaks of this epistle, and in ver. 9 of another.”
Ans. This only shows that he speaks of this epistle sent,
and of ver, 9, of what he had writ in it, before he saw this
cause to change his style, and to add, to what he had said
before, “a railer” and “a drunkard.”
Obj. 2. “But,” saith he, “he had nowhere, in the former
part of this, admonished his Corinthians not to associate with
fornicators.”
Ans. Nor is it to be wondered, that he should nowhere
say that which he had changed into these words, ver. 11.
And, secondly, according to my exposition, what he before
had written is contained in the immediate preceding words
ver, l (). -
* 'Ovoº aftesvoc 388x33c, Called a brother.] Some think
the word ávowaćºwevoc refers to the words following, and im-
ports that if any man be defamed, and noted for the vices
He rejects oběš sic, upon the sole authority of the same
See the mischief of this
following, he is by the apostle's direction to be avoided : but
the word plainly refers to the brother, and imports, that if
any one, who hath professed himself a Christian, be found
guilty of these crimes, he is to be avoided : now of all these
sins some among the Corinthians were still guilty; of for-
nication, 2 Cor. xii. 21, of covetousness and extortion, 1.
Cor. vi. 8. 2 Cor. xi. 20; they were idolaters, 1 Cor. x. 7.
xiv. 20, railers or contumelious persons, 2 Cor. x. 2. xi. 19,
drunkards, 1 Cor. vi. 21. -
* Mn3: avia 6iew, No not to eat.] According to the Jew-
ish canons, it was not lawful to eat or drink with one that
was under their cherein. Tertullian and Theodoret carry
this farther and say, Cum talibus non vult nos cibum Sumere,
nedum eucharistiam, “With such we must not eat at our
own, much less at the Lord's table.” But this, being a
matter of discipline, can concern only those who are intrusted
with the government of the church, not private communi-
cants; though doubtless he, who was by excommunication
separated from the place where this and other sacred func-
tions were performed, was also separated from the table of
the Lord.
* Ver. 12. Tt yáp (wo wai roi; Éo spively; For what have
I to do to judge them that are without 3] Here 6ur critic
Mr. Le Clerc is too bold; (1.) when he quarrels with Paul's
Greek ; asking, what construction this is, ri fºot xpively; I
answer, none at all, but ri (wo ºrgoa fixs wai rows $o weively;
“What concerns it me to judge them that are without 2"
is both good sense and good Greek. As in Latin, Quid mea
refert? In English, “What is it to me?” So Ti ºol ºpsºo; ;
“What profit (is it) to me?” 1 Cor. xv. 32, ri yat, “Whāt
is it” to the truth of God P Rom. iii. 3, ri yap, Quid enim
refert P Phil. i. 18. (2.) It is horribly bold to add, without
any, yea, against all copies, ºfty ow yº instead of x&ively obz},
which have no affinity either in letters or in sense : the
words need none of these criticisms ; they are taken from
Deut. xiii. 5. xxii. 21, and there they run thus, kai Éaipeſ, r3
Troyngöy if ipaśy airāv, “So shall you put away the evil from
among you ;” and the Greek commentators read them thus,
xal #aipeirs ºr roympèv, “And you will put away the evil.”
So the whole sense runs thus, xáxetka, I have judged already
of the incestuous person (ver. 3), and I judge concerning
all other persons, in profession Christians, but in practice
fornicators, &c., that you ought not to communicate with
them ; but I say nothing of the stepmother of this person,
who hath not owned the Christian faith: for what belongs it
to me to judge of them who are without the church 2 Do
not you, in your church and civil assemblies, judge them only
which are of your body ? But them who are without the
church, God, who is the governor of all men, judgeth; and
by thus judging those that are within your body, you will
put away the evil, or, this evil person, from you. -
CHAPTER WI.
1 DARE any of you, having a matter (of complaint,
suit, or action,) against another, “go to law before the
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VI.
* Ver. 1. Kºlºasai iwi răy 38ixay, Go to law before the
unjust (the heathen tribunals), and not (rather submit
it to be heard) before the saints : -
unjust] The saying of the Jews is this, That”. “he who
goes to law before the tribunal of the gentiles, profanes the
* Buxt. Lex. Talm. p. 1666.
624
1. CORINTHIANS.
2 Do you not know (from Daniel) that "the saints
(of the Most High shall receive the kingdom, Dan. vii.
27, and so) shall judge the world? and if the world
shall be judged by you (Christians, and by Christian
wgistrates), are ye unworthy (of the smallest judica-.
tures, or) to judge “the smallest matters : w
3 Know ye not (from Christ) that we (endued with
the Holy Spirit) * shall judge, (condemn, and cast out,
the prince of this world, and his evil) angels? “how
much more (worthy are we, by the assistance of the
same Spirit, to judge of they things that pertain to.
this life -
4 If then ye have judgments, (controversies, or ju-
dicial causes,) of things pertaining to this life, (do ye)
set them to judge who" are least esteemed in (and by)
the church (i. e. the heathen magistrates).
5 I speak (this) to your shame. Is it so, that (by
this action you should even confess before the heathen,
that) there is not a wise man among you? no, not
one that shall be able to judge between his brethren?
6 But brother goeth to law with (his Christian)
brother, and that before the unbelievers (as if there
were not among them one believer sufficient to decide
their controversies).
7 Now therefore "there is utterly a fault (or a de-
Ject) among you, because ye go to law (about these
matters) one with another. Why do you not rather
take wrong why do you not rather suffer yourselves
to be defrauded?
name of God and gives honour to an idol; that he is to be
accounted a wicked man, and as one that hath reproached
and blasphemed, and lifted up his hand against the law of
Moses.” Accordingly, the apostle here represents this ac-
tion in the Christian, as a reproach to the society, and to the
spirit of wisdom which was poured out upon the church (ver.
5, 6), and as that which gave occasion to the heathens to ob-
serve in the Christians a contentious spirit.
* Ver. 2. Oi &yiot rôy xéa wov xpivotal, The saints shall judge
the world.] We often read that even the best of saints shall
“stand before the judgment-seat of Christ” (Matt. xxv. 33.
2 Cor. v. 10. Rev. xx. 12), that they shall be assessors with
Christ then, we read not; the words of Christ, Matt. xix. 28,
in what sense soever taken, prove it not; they being spoken
not of all saints, of whom the apostle here speaks, but of the
twelve apostles only : these words must therefore admit of
one of these two senses ; viz. that there shall be Christian
magistrates, who shall be governors, and so judges of the
world, according to the prophecy of Isaiah, that “kings shall
be their nursing-fathers, and queens their nursing-mothers”
(Isa. xlix. 23), and that of Daniel (vii. 18), “The saints of
the Most High shall take the kingdom;” or, that they shall
judge and condemn the world by the faith preached for a
testimony to them (Matt. x. 18. xxiv. 14. Luke xxi. 13. 1
Cor. i. 6. ii. 1.2 Thess. i. 10. 1 Tim. ii. 6. 2 Tim. i. 8), as
Noah did (Heb. xi. 7, whence is the gospel so often called,
“ the testimony of Christ”), and by the Spirit given “to con-
vince the world of sin, of righteousness, and judgment”
(John xvi. 8), in which sense our Lord saith, “Now is the
judgment of this world,” John xii. 31.
* Kettnploy #xaxia-ray, The smallest matters.] This word
reitheta here, and wer. 4, Saith Grotius, doth not signify tri-
bunals, but controversies and judicial causes.
the Biwrikā Mººrhetz, “judgments concerning things of this
life,” ver. 4, are by Photius rendered rà. 8torixá pixovsixãºara,
wai rā; ºrgèc &AAñNov; 3iza; kai Égºaç, “Their controversies,
contentions, and judicial causes, against each other,” about
these matters. •
* Ver. 3. ‘AyyáNovº »givotasy, We shall judge angels.] i. e.
Evil angels, say all the Greek scholiasts; and this the
Christians gloriously did by expelling them from their seats
and their dominions, and forcing them to confess before their
votaries they were only devils (see the general preface, Ş. 18):
in which sense, saith our Saviour, “Now is the prince of this
world cast out; the prince of this world is judged,” John
xii. 31. xvi. 11. * *
* Mári ye fliwrixá, IIow much more.] Miri ys, Tráza, ys
Accordingly
... 8 Nay, (so far are you from this Christian temper
* bearing injuries with patience, that) you do wrong, ...
and defraud, and that your brethren.
9 (Ajid what will be the issue of these evil prac-
tices ºf Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not
inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived; nei-
ther fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor .
effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
10 Northieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor
revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom
of God.
11, And such were some of you; but ye are washed
(by baptism), but ye are sanctified, but "ye are justi-
fied in the name of our Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit
of our God. -
12 (And whereas your false teachers encourage you
to eat things offered to idols, in the idol temples, x. 23,
and to indulges unto earcess, because all meats are law-
ful; I grant that) all (these) things are lawful to me,
but all things (lawful) are not expedient (to be done,
especially when tending to my brother's ruin, or my
own) ; all things (of this nature) are lawful for me,
but I will not be brought under the power of any (so
as that I cannot refrain from them in such cases).
13 Meats (indeed are) for the belly, and the belly
for meats (nor have either of them any other use); but
(this is only for this present life : the time will come
when) * God shall destroy both it and them. And .
(but now, whereas some eaſtend the words all things are
£23AAoy, Hesychius, Phavorinus, and Photius apud CEcume-
nium.
* Wer. 4. Toijº Hºovšeynºwivov;, Them who are least es-
teemed.] That the Éovševnºvo are the heathens, hath been
shown, note on 1 Cor. i. 27, 28. Moreover, it is manifest
that these words are to be read by way of question, as in
the paraphrase; or by way of charge against them, thus, lif
you still retain your secular judicatures, or tribunals, you set
them to be judges over you, who are despised in the church.
For the apostle doth not here command them to do this, but
sharply doth rebuke them for it, saying, “I speak this to
your shame:” and this he doth by showing that this in
effect signified that there was “not a wise man among
them.”
7 Wer. 7. “oxw; ºrtnºwa, There is utterly a defect,
Among you, that go to law at all; it being either on the one
side, want of patience and Christian contentment, that
you do not rather bear some injuries than thus seek to re-
dress them ; or, on the other, covetousness and injustice,
which move you to do wrong to and defraud your brethren.
8 Ver. 11. "Axx 8inatºrs #y rā Śvēºwari Kveiov, &c. But
ye are justified in the name of our Lord.] Here is the fi-
gure called hyperbaton, for, we are justified in the name of
our Lord Jesus Christ, and sanctified by the Spirit of our
God: so Philem. 5, “Hearing of thy love and faith which
thou hast towards the Lord Jesus Christ, and towards all
saints;” i. e. which faith thou hast towards Christ, and love
to his saints. Moreover, whereas Mr. Clerc here Saith that
“to be justified is the same thing with being washed, or
sanctified, and that to be so by the name of the Lord, is to
be so by taking upon them the profession of the Christian
religion in baptism,” he is utterly out in both, for sure I am
he cannot produce one passage in all Paul's epistles, where
3.xata Säval, “to be justified,” bears any such sense; but it
still signifies to be absolved from the guilt of sin, and ap-
proved as righteous, either at present, or before God's tribu-
nal. And so the name of Christ, when we are said to be
justified by it, must signify, not the profession of Christianity.
but faith in Christ dying for us, and be the same with ey
airº, “in him, for in him shall all that believe be justified,”
&c. (Acts xii. 39). Moreover, justification here is ascribed
to the name of Christ, i. e. to faith in him; sanctification, to
the Spirit of God; which shows they cannot signify the same
thing: for, where the cause is different, the effect must be
So also.
9 Wer. 13. ‘o Ged; xa rapyżasi, God shall destroy both it
and them.] From these words that opinion, not of Origen
CHAPTER VII.
625
lawful for me, to fornication also : know ye that) "the
body is not (at all) for fornication, but for (the ser-
vice of) the Lord (the head of the body); and the
Lord for (the resurrection and glorification of) the
body. - ... •
º And (accordingly) God hath both raised up the
Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power. .
15 Know ye not that your bodies are members of
Christ (your head? I Cor. xii. 12. 27;) shall I “then
take the members of Christ, and make them the
members of a harlot (as I by fornication shall most
surely do) 8 God forbid. - 3.
16. What know ye not that he who is joined to a
harlot is one body (with her)? for two, saith he,
shall (by that action) be one flesh (as doing that by
which, according to God’s institution, two are made
one flesh). *
17 But he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit
only, but of Athanasius,” Basil, ºf Hilary, f Theodoret,S
and others, seems to be confirmed, that at the resurrection,
when we shall neither eat nor drink, “marry, nor be given in
marriage” (Matt. xii. 30), there will be, as no meat, the
world being then burnt up; so no belly, nec quae Sunt sub
ventre, nor any difference of sexes.
* Tö 33 cºpca oi rii Troéveig,. The body is not for fornica-
tion.] The heresy of the Nicolaitans held that it was lawful
to eat things offered to idols, and to commit fornication (Rev.
ii. 14, 15), as Irenäeus, Clemens Alexandrinus, Theodoret,
and Austin testify (see the notes on 2 Pet. ii. and the
Epistle of Jude). And therefore Theodoret introduces the
words thus, rotiro Aéysic, “This thou sayest in defence of thy
eating thus, and of thy fornication, All things are lawful for
me.” - g
* Ver. 15. "Aga; otv.] Taking them then from Christ, shall
l make them the members of a harlot ? For, saith Hilary
here, Membra adhaerentia meretrici desinunt esse membra
Christi, “The members, which cleave to a harlot, cease to
belong to Christ.” *
* Ver. 18. Eic tà têtoy cººla, Against his own body.]
Other sins pollute the heart and the soul, but those of
fornication and uncleanness do properly pollute the body.
Hence are those actions styled always in the scripture, pol-
lutions: for “though all sins,” saith Hilary, “render a man
carnal, yet is this more especially desiderium carnis, quod
sordibus maculatam animam cum corpore tradit gehennae,
carnal concupiscence, which exposes to hell the soul together
with the body, defiled by its filthiness.” This argument
against fornication, from the defilement of the body by it,
plainly shows, that it is a sin against the law of nature, and
is a fault in man, as man.
* Ver. 19. Tà côºq ūgāy vač;, &c. Your body is the tem-
ple of the Holy Ghost.] Two things concur to make up the
uotion of a temple: *
First, That the divinity should either dwell in or give
some signal tokens of his especial presence there. Hence
was the temple of Jerusalem called “the house of God's
habitation, " and the tabernacle, the house where the di-
vinity or Shechinah dwelt in the midst of them. Accord-
ingly, “I am with you,” Hag. ii. 4, is there interpreted, ver.
5, “My Spirit is in the midst of you,” or among you. Hence
* Orat. 3 cont. Arian. F In Ps. cxiv. It Con. 23 in Matt.
§ In locum. Wide Huet. Orig. lib. ii. qu. 9, §. 8.
(with him, as being partaker of his Spirit: for by one
Spirit we Christians are all united to this head, Rom.
viii. 11. 1 Cor. xii. 13).
18 Flee (therefore) fornication. (For) every (other)
sin that a man doeth is without (the pollution of) the
body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth
* against (and polluteth) his own body.
19 What I know ye not that * your body is the
temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, (and)
which you have of God, and you are not your own
(he having by his Spirit taken possession of you, and
sealed you up as his own proper goods) *
20 (You, I say, are not your own :) for you are
bought with a price (even the precious blood of
Christ) : *therefore glorify God in your body, and
in your spirit, which are God’s (by right of purchase
and the possession of his Spirit).
is the tabernacle styled, “The place of the habitation of
God’s glory,” Ps. xxvi. 8, and from thence he is said to
“shine forth,” when he gave them a testimony of his gra-
cious presence. Now the Holy Spirit, being that in the New
Testament which answers to the Shechinah in the Old, he
dwelling in the bodies, and being present in the assemblies of
the saints, doth make them a “spiritual temple,” or “habi-
tation of the Lord” (Eph. ii. 22).
Secondly, That it be a place dedicated and appropriated
to his use : hence were the tabernacle and temple so often
styled the house and temple of the Lord, and by him “my
house,” according to those words of Christ, “Wist you not
that I must be iv roſ, roi; margãº, in my Father's house?” for
as to be #y rot; roi; Alès,” is to be “in the temple of Jupiter,”
so to be Éy roſ, roi; ºrarpèc, must signify to be “in my Father's
temple;” and therefore, saith the apostle, “you are not your
own,” as being dedicated and appropriated to God’s use and
Sel"W1Cé.
He also saith, “If any man corrupt” or desecrate, “the
temple of God, him will God destroy, for the temple of God
is holy” (1 Cor. iii. 17), i. e. appropriated and consecrated
to his use. And he exhorts all Christians to abstain from
all idolatrous and profane actions by this inquiry, “What
communion hath the temple of God with idols?” proving
all Christians to be the temple of God, and so appropriated
to him by these words, “You are the temple of God, as
God hath said, I will dwell and walkin them; l will be their
God, and they shall be to me a people” (2 Cor. vi. 16).
Excellent therefore is the inference of Tertullian,” that
“since all Christians are become the temple of God, by vir-
tue of his Holy Spirit sent into their hearts, and consecrating
their bodies to his service, we should make chastity the
keeper of this sacred house, and suffer nothing unclean or
profane to enter into it, lest that God who dwelleth in it, be-
ing offended, should desert his house thus defiled.” -
* Ver. 20. Aožárats 3% roy Osów.] See this reading justified.
Examen Millii in locum.
* Apud Joseph. lib. i. contr. Apion. 1043, A.
+ Cúm omnes templum simus Dei, illato in nos et conse-
crato Spiritº Sancto, ejus templi aeditua et antistita pudicitia
est, qui nihil immundum mec profanum inferri sinat, ne Deus
ille, qui inhabitat, inquinatam sedem offensus derelinquat.
De Cultà Foemin, lib. ii. cap. 1.
CHAPTER VII,
1 Now (to speak) concerning the things whereof
you wrote unto me: (viz.) "It is good for a man not
to touch a woman (i. e. to live unmarried, or without
the use of a woman, or, it is not good to marry, Matt.
xix. 10. This I grant as Christ did to him who, hav-
ing the gift of continency, can receive the saying).
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VII.
* Ver, 1. Kaºy 3,033ro, yuvaix}; tº #wre-Sai, It is good
jor a man not to touch a woman.] It was an old philosophi-
cal question, An uxor ducenda esset, whether a man should
marry P. In which many of them held the negative, as Bion.
and Antisthenes,” who said, “A handsome wife would be
* Laert. in Bion. p. 108, in Antist, lib. vi. p. ;
2
626
I. CORINTHIANS.
2 Nevertheless, to avoid (that) fornication (which
is so common at Corinth, and so freely practised by
the Nicolaitans, under the pretence that matrimony is a
thing indifferent), let every man have (#xárw, retain,)
i. º wife, and let every woman have her own hus-
a ſld.
3 Let (also) the husband render to the wife due
benevolence (i. e. the conjugal duty); and likewise
also the wife to the husband. ar
4 (For) the wife " hath not power over her own
body, but the husband : and likewise also the hus-
band hath no power of his own body, but the wife.
5 Defraud ye not (therefore) one another (of this
benevolence), except it be with (mutual) consent for a
time, that ye may give yourselves “to fasting and
prayer; and (then) “come together again, that Satan
tempt you not for your incontinency.
common, one deformed a punishment, où Anwrāoy &ga, there-
fore we should have none.” Hence that of Menander,”
où yapºsts, éây ye you, Éxeiç, “if thou art wise, thou wilt not
marry.” This was held out of different sentiments; as, v. g.
by some out of good liking to that celebrated doctrine of
Plato, wolvå; ºfty yuvaikac, koivov; 33 ºval trai?aº, “that women
and children should be common ;” and this doctrine was
improved by the Nicolaitans into all manner of impurity,
who therefore did &vaíðhy Éxtrogweiſely, “commit whoredom
without shame.” But others of the school of Pythagoras
refused to touch a woman, as being an impediment to phi-
losophy, and that which defiled that purity they aimed at.
Hence Apollonius+ the magician is represented as a man
of so great chastity, yuyaikeia; 3rt kaśagöv Šavriv ºftso; 31&
rào; #yaye, “that he lived ever free from converse with wo-
men.” And Porphyry saithf that “a philosopher must
not marry;” that, to live the intellectual life, we must ab-
stain from women, all use of them being a defilement. The
word yuyń, which in this chapter still signifies a wife, seems
to refer this question to the first opinion, but the phrase
yvyatkö; º żºrreašai, inclines us to refer it to the latter; the
first question being too gross to be propounded by the Corin-
thians to the apostle ; the second being a question then in
vogue, on the account of which Apollonius and the Pytha-
goreans obtained great repute.
* Ver. 4. Oix #ovatáðel, Hath not power.] Here is a plain
argument against polygamy: for, if the man hath no power
over his own body, he cannot give the power of it to another,
and so he cannot marry another; nor could his wife, ex-
clusively to him, have the power of his body, if he could
give his body to another. -
* Ver. 5. Tº vnarsig zai rii Trgovevº, To fasting and
Trayer.] The apostle speaks not here of ordinary prayer,
which is the daily work of Christians, but of extraordinary
devotions on Some special occasions; for daily prayers,
public or private, needed no such consent of parties, nor
by them could either of them be defrauded of their due be-
nevolence. Vain therefore are the questions of St. Jerome,
Quale illud bonum est quod orare prohibit, quare non ingre-
diumtur ecclesias 2 as if the bed undefiled could hinder men's
prayers, or their going to church. Vain is his inference, Si
Sacerdoti Semper orandum est, ergö semper carendum matri-
monio, “If the priest must always pray, he must never
marry :” for to pray always, and without ceasing, is also the
duty of the laity (Luke xviii. 1. Eph. vi. 18. 1 Thess. v. 17).
* Kai réaly iri tº air ovéxicºs, And come together
again..] This chapter affords many arguments against the vow
of continence, and those perpetual divorces from the bed,
which are so commonly practised by the papists, on pretence
of religion. For (1.) the apostle here admits of no separa-
tion of the wife and husband, but only with condition that
they “come together again” to perform conjugal duties, as
the word avysaştīy doth import, not allowing a perpetual
separation, no, that they may “give themselves to prayer
* Athen. lib. iii. p. 559. + Euseb. contr. Hier. p. 520.
# II;3; rày xará yaäv Čohv 398wréoy & ppoètaiov. De Abst.
lib i. $.41, p. 34. Oi y&g sic yágoy Mabinow 3 piñároğaç, lib.
ii. Ş. 52, p. 92. Tà éppoëzie & taivet, lib. iv. S. 20, p. 173.
Kał wačáraž Čºppobtaia paraívei. p. 174.
6 But I speak this (which I am now about to say
of continence, ver. 2) by permission, and not by
ſº (of the Lord, enjoin continence, ver.
25). w"
7 For I would that all men were (unmarried) even
as I myself (am). But every man hath his proper
#. of God, one after this manner, and another after
that.
8 I say therefore "to the unmarried (men) and (to
#, widows, It is good for them if they abide even as
(do).
9 But if they "cannot contain, let them marry: for
it is better to marry than to burn (or to be inquieted
with filthy lustings).
10 And to the married I command, yet not I (only),
but the Lord (also, Matt. xix.), “Let not the wife de-
part (or separate herself) from her husband.
and fasting;” and that for a perpetual reason, at least whilst
an age capable of temptation, and which may be subject to
incontinence, remains. (2.) He declares the gift of continence
not to be common to all, but proper to some only, as being
the proper gift of God, and therefore not to be gotten by
our industry: “I would,” saith he, “that all men were un-
married, even as I myself am ; but every man hath his pro-
per gift of God, one after this manner, and another after
that ;” “he then that can receive it” (Matt, xix. 12), saith
our Saviour, “let him receive it:” whence it is natural to
conclude that all men cannot. (3.) Notwithstanding the
present necessity which rendered it so desirable, that they
might “serve the Lord without distraction,” and which made
their condition better and more happy who had the gift of
continence, he abstains from laying any obligation to celi-
bacy upon them, lest he should lay a smare on their con-
sciences (ver. 35), and bring them under a necessity of
burning (ver. 9). Much less would he have urged young men
and women to that vow, which lays a greater Snare and an
absolute necessity upon them, rather to burn than marry.
And, lastly, he supposes that some cannot contain (ver. 9),
Some have a necessity to marry, and need so requires them
to do (ver. 36, 37). This respects not what the apostle had
said, but what he was about to say of continence, it being
very usual with the apostle to make this preface to what he
was about to say: so ver. 29, of this chapter, rotro 8á pnºwl,
“But this, I say, brethren, the time is short ;” 1 Cor. i. 12,
toūro è Aéyò, “But this I say,” viz. “That every one of
you saith, I am of Paul;” 1 Cor. xi. 17, roſto è tragayyáx-
Mov, “But as to this I am about to declare unto you, I praise
you not.” 1 Thess. iv. 15 ; see Gal. iii. 17 ; blot out therefore
the note there, and substitute this in the room of it.
* Ver. 8. ‘Ayáºzoic, The unmarried men.] The apostle
begins his discourse concerning the virgin man and woman,
ver, 25, here therefore he must speak of the unmarried man,
or the man loosed from a wife, and of the widow, as, ver. 11,
&yapwo; is the woman who must not embrace a second mar-
riage. And perhaps this only was St. Paul's case, as may,
saith Grotius, be probably collected from this place, and may
be argued from the testimony of Clemens of Alexandria,”
and the interpolated Ignatius, who both reckon Paul among
the apostles that were married; and from the strictness of the
Jewish canons, which obliged all Jews to marry at twenty.
7 Wer. 9. El 33 pai, #yºgarajoyrat, yawna &racay, If they
contain not, let them marry..] Had the apostle then known
of any vow of continence, or any ecclesiastical law render-
ing it a damnable sin, and a renouncing their first faith to
marry, though they burned, he could not so generally have
propounded and prescribed marriage as the remedy of that
disease ; but would have restrained his word, as Esthius
here doth, iis quibus conjugii contrahendi potestas esset, id
est, qui à lege et voto continentiae sunt liberi, “to those who
were free from the law and vow of celibacy.” But I believe
he knew of none whom God’s law had placed under a ne-
cessity of burning; that is, say the Greek commentators,
of being subject to the insults of lust.
* Ver. 10. Twaika 373 àvègö; º Xogia 6ival, Let not the
* Strom. vii. p. 736, 741, et Strom. iii. p. 448. Ignat. In-
terp. Ep. ad Philad. S. 4.
CHAPTER VII.
627
*
11 But if she depart (Gr. Šáv Šē Yaptoëff, but if
she be separated), let her remain unmarried, or be re-
conciled to her husband: and let not the husband
put away (or divorce) his wife.
12 But to the rest (you mention to me, who are
coupled with unbelievers, J speak I, "not the Lord (by
any decision he hath made, or any precept he hath
given, in this case, ver. 25, as in the former instance):
If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she
wife depart from her husband.] Note, that the apostle speaks
here of the married persons, who had mutually embraced
the Christian faith, forbidding them to divorce themselves,
except for cause of fornication, as it was customary for
women as well as men to do, both among the Jews and
Romans. Dr. Lightfoot on this place cites this canon from
R. Juchanan, “The wife hath power to put away her hus-
band ;” and he gives instances of it in Herodias divorcing
herself from Philip, and Drusilla from Azizas ; and our
Lord supposes this was practised, in these words, “If a wo-
man put away her husband, and marry another, she com-
mits adultery” (Mark x. 12). That this was common among
the heathens, is apparent from that saying of Seneca,”
that “none blushes at it, because there was scarce a marriage
without it.” Hence had they divers names for the divorce
of both kinds: for the wife being after marriage carried to
the house of her husband, her divorce was called:# &motropºrº
“a sending her away from his house;” and because the
woman, being not mistress of the house, could not do this
to the man, but only leave his house, her divorce was called
&réxetºpic, “a leaving of the house,” though it was conceived
in the usual form, Restuas tibi habeto (see note on 1 Tim.
iii. 2. 12): and therefore, though the word 34téro be used
both ver. 12 and 13, it was not amiss in our translators, when
it relates to the man, to render it, “Let him not, 3roré wºrsty,
put, or send her away ;” and when it related to the woman,
to render it, “Let her not &moxetirely, leave him :” that here
the apostle condemns these divorces, with our Saviour, is evi-
dent, because he saith, he speaks this “ by commandment
of the Lord.”
*Wer. 12. Oüx ā Kūpioc, Not the Lord.] St. Paul doth not
say this to intimate that this direction was given by him, only
as a man using his natural reason to direct them to what he
the ught best, but not as delivering the mind of Christ ; for
he had before declared the contrary, saying, “We have the
mind of Christ,” ii. 16, and after doth it in these words, “If
any man think himself a prophet, or spiritual, let him ac-
knowledge that the things I write unto you are the com-
mandments of the Lord,” xiv. 37, but he speaks thus to de-
clare our Lord, in his discourse touching divorce, had not
decided the case, de imparibus conjugiis, of the marriage of
a believer with an infidel; but left this to the decision of the
apostles, by the assistance of the Holy Ghost, promised to
lead them into all truth. Theophylact here notes, that this
and the former verse speak of those who were both infidels
when they first married; for, saith he, obs' Saw: ###y mp3; &mid-
roy Keſſyvva-6at, “it was not lawful for a Christian to be joined
to an infidel.” -
* Ver. 13. Må &@téro airröv, Let her not leave him.] This
caution was needful, because the primitive Christians were
sometimes in doubt of this, as finding that the Jews did null
all marriages of the holy seed with infidels; and hence con-
jecturing that they also might be obliged to do so, and think-
ing it &oeflèc, “an impious thing” to cohabit with a heathem,
especially if he were addicted also to unnaturallusts, and that
by being jºxotrot, “bedfellows” to such a one, they com-
* Nunquam jam ulla repudio erubescit, postguam illustres
quaedam et nobiles foeminae, non consulum numero, Sed ma-
ritorum annos Suos computant, et exeunt matrimonii causã,
nubunt repudii. Tamditi istud timebatur, quamdia rarum
erat. Quia veró nulla sine divortioacta sunt quod Saepú audie-
bant, facilè didicerunt. De Benef lib. iii, cap. 16.
+ Ti; &moxei peº; yººkar & Trapá rà ééxoy!! #9nks war&
Töy vépcov. Plato in Alcib. p. 195, C. Wide Jül. Polluc. lib.
iii. cap. 5. Alex. ab Alex. Gen. Dier. lib. iv. cap. 8. S. Pe-
tit. Comment. in Leges Attic. lib. vi. p. 459. Seld. de Jure
Natural. &c. lib. V. cap. 7 p. 591.
be pleased to dwell with him, ” let him not put her
3.W8 W.
*. And the woman which hath a husband that be-
lieveth not, and (yet) he be pleased to dwell with her,
1° let her not leave him.
14 For the unbelieving husband is (Gr. hath been)
sanctified" by the (believing) wife, and the unbeliev-
ing wife is (hath been) sanctified by the (believing)
husband : * else were your children (seminally) un-
municated with him in his iniquity and idolatry; and con-
cluding, that as he who was joined to a harlot was “one
body with her,” so she that was joined to an idolater was
one body with him. Hence Justin Martyr saith of one of
these Christian women, not without seeming approbation of .
the fact, that * rô Aeyākāvoy Trag' tº stroëlow Boğaz HXogía 6n,
“giving him a bill of divorce, she was separated from him.”
* Ver. 14. 'Ev'ry yuyatki, By the wife.] Uxoris gratiá, be-,
cause of the wife, i.e. hé is to be reputed as Sanctified, be-
cause he is one flesh with her who is holy. So #80ſºwogy
'Iceañx #y yuvaixi, zai évyvvaix! #4 UNážato, “Israel served for
a wife, and for a wife he kept sheep,” Hos. xii. 12; “I
desire that you faint not, #y rai; Saisleai ºov, by reason of
my tribulations,” Eph. iii. 13; and that “no man be shaken
#y raï, SAisleat raúraig, by reason of these tribulations,” 1
Thess. iii. 3 (see Noldius in the twenty-third signification of
the particle n). Or we may take these words in the sense
of the Greek interpreters, viz. The unbelieving husband hath
been sanctified by the believing wife, by his consent to co-
habit with her, and to have seed by her.
1°'Ews: #pa tº réuva tºw 3x40agrá šart, Vöv # 37.1% art,
Else were your children unclean, but now they are holy.]
He doth not say, Else were your children bastards, but now
they are legitimate ; but, Else were they unclean, i.e. hea-
then children, not to be owned as a holy seed, and therefore
not to be admitted into covenant with God, as belonging to
his holy people. That this is the true import of the words
3x40agra and #yta, will be apparent from the scriptures, in
which the heathens are styled “the unclean,” in opposition
to the Jews in covenant with God, and therefore styled “a
holy people.” So Isa. xxxy. 8, $83; Masat& #7tal insi, ka?
$33; #yta ºnShaerat, “A highway shall be there, and it shall
be called, The way of holiness; 34&Saproc, the unclean shall
not pass over it; but the redeemed of the Lord shall walk
therein,” ver, 9; and lii. 1, God saith of Jerusalem, the
holy city, “There shall no more come into thee, &regirºnto;
wal 3x46aproº, the uncircumcised and unclean : So Acts x.
28, “You know that it is unlawful for a Jew to keep com-
pany with a man of another nation; but God hath shown
me that I should call no man common, or éxáSaeroy, un-
clean.” Whence it is evident that the Jews looked upon
themselves as 305Aot Osoſ, waſ agoi, “the clean servants of God”
(Neh. ii. 20), and upon all heathens and their offspring as
unclean, by reason of their want of circumcision, the sign of
the covenant. Hence, whereas it is said that Joshua cir-
cumcised the people (v. 4), the Septuagint say, trigºśćat-
gey, “he cleansed” them. Moreover, of heathen children,
and such as are not circumcised, they say, “They are not
born in holiness ;' but they on the contrary are styled
wrip vºi, a régua &yoy, “a holy Seed” (Isa. vi. 13. Ezra ix.
2), and the offspring from them, and from those proselytes
which had embraced their religion, are said to be born
nvºnpa in holiness, and so thought fit to be admitted to cir-
cumcision, or baptism, or whatsoever might initiate then
into the jewish church; and therefore to this sense of the
words holy and unclean the apostle may be here most rā-
tionally supposed to allude, declaring that the seed of hºly
persons, the offspring born #x rôy &yiagºvoy “of Saints,” +
as Christians are still called in the New Testament, are also
holy. And though one of the parents be still a heathen, yet
is the denomination to be taken from the better, and so their
offspring are to be esteemed, not as heathens, i.e. unclean,
but holy, as all Christians by denomination are: So Cle-
mens Alexandrinus; infers, saying, “I suppose the seed of
* Apol. i. p. 42, A, B.
‘F See note on ch. i. 2. * \ . . . A * * : * *
f rays; 3) as Sávrov &yoy cigai Kai rā ºréº Fis riva Aºyº
2 S 2
628
I. CORINTHIANS.
clean (and so not to be admitted to the Christian cove-
nant); but now are they holy. -
15 But if the unbelieving (person will) depart (and
so break off the matrimonial duty), let him depart. A
brother or sister “is not under bondage (Gr. is not
enslaved) in such cases : but God hath called us to.
peace (and therefore we must give no occasion of
quarrel with, or separation from, so near a relative, or
..Qf disturbance of the family).
16 For what knowest thou, O wife, whether (by
dwelling with him) thou shalt (not be a means to) save
thy husband * or how knowest thou, O man, whether
thou shalt (not, by dwelling thus with her, be a means
to) save thy wife 2
17 *But (whether this be so or not) as God hath
distributed (the gift of continence) to every man (or
not), as the Lord hath called every one (to the faith,
married to an unbeliever, or servant to them, or not),
so let him walk (doing nothing on his part contrary to
those relations). And so ordain I in all churches
(which I have converted).
those that are holy is holy, according to that saying of the
apostle Paul, The unbelieving wife is sanctified by the hus-
band,” &c. Hence then the argument for infant baptism
runs thus: If the holy seed among the Jews was therefore
to be circumcised, and be made federally holy by receiving
the sign of the covenant, and being admitted into the num-
ber of God's holy people, because they were born in sanc-
tity, or were seminally holy; for, “the root being holy, so
are the branches also:” then, by like reason, the holy seed
of Christians ought to be admitted to baptism, and receive
the sign of the Christian covenant, “the laver of regenera-
tion,” and so be entered into the society of the Christian
church. The substance of this argument is in Tertullian de
Animã, cap. 39, and the author of the Questions, ad Antio-
chum, qu. 114.
Else were your children, 3x3926ta, wholean, &c.] I think
that the other translation, “Else were your children bas-
tards,” is not sufficiently confuted by saying that then the
argument will not prove what the apostle had asserted: for
what more strongly enforceth the believer of each sex to own
that they may lawfully cohabit still as man and wife, than
this inference, that otherwise they must own that the guilt
of whoredom lay upon them both, and that their children
were born ix trágynç, i.e. bastards 2 (Deut. xxiii. 2) but then
the word used for a bastard by this apostle being yášo; (Heb.
xii. 8), and the word ywhalog being the proper word for a
legitimate offspring, had the apostle intended such a sense,
he would have used the words which in the Greek writers
are generally used in that sense, and not such words as in
the Septuagint and in the Jewish language always have a
relation to federal holiness, or the want of it, but none at all
to the legitimacy or spuriousness of the birth.
* Ver, 15. Oi 3880ſºorai, Is not under bondage.] That is,
saith Hilary,” “the Christian in this case is free to marry to
another Christian.”—“He is free,” saith Photius,” “to de-
part, because the other hath dissolved the marriage.”—“If
he depart,” say Chrysostom, CEcumenius, and Theophylact,t
“because thou wilt not communicate with him in his infi-
delity, be thou divorced, or quit the yoke; for it is better
that thy marriage should be dissolved than thy piety.”
These fathers therefore plainly supposed that the laws which
say, “He that marries her which is put away committeth
adultery” (Matt. v. 32), and that “the wife is bound to the
husband as long as he liveth” (ver. 39. Rom. vii. 1–3),
concerned only equal marriages; partly because the apostle
saith he had no commandment of the Lord to produce for
the decision of this case, and partly because he doth not
ă ărăa-roxo; IIaijao; #ytársas Aëyet rºy yuyaſza tºr: roi; 3,383, §
ºrdy &věpa wºrö yuvaixás. Strom. lib. iii. p. 445, D.
* Liberum habet arbitrium nubere legis suae viro. Pseud.
Ambr.
+ 'Exedºspé, Édºri Kai airoi; Aſſov’ro; rôy yáºzov, wai air㺠8taa-
rºyal. Photius.
†: Ataſetyvva-Sat 8:Nºrtov ya; toy yápaoy, h rºy sizé88tay Avşā-
val. Chrysost. Theophylact.
18 Is any man called being circumcised : *let
him not (endeavour to) become (as one) uncircum-
cised. Is any (man) called in uncircumcision? let
him not be circumcised.
19 Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is
nothing (that renders us more or less acceptable in the
sight of God), but the keeping of the commandments
of God (is all in all).
20 Let every man (still) abide in the same calling
in which he was called (to the faith, not thinking him-
self obliged by it to quit his calling). *::, , 4
21 Art thou called being a servant 2 care not for
it: but if thou canst (lawfully) be made free, use it
rather. (Care not I say)
22 For he that is called in the Lord, being a ser-
vant, is the Lord’s freeman (being delivered by him
from his bondage to sin, John viii. 36): likewise he
that is called, being free, (nevertheless) is Christ's ser-
Vant.
23 *Ye are bought with a price; (Gr. Have you
been bought with a price from your slavery 8) be not ye
here say, as in the case of equal marriages, ver, 11, #&y Xo-
gia Sà, “If she be separated, let her remain unmarried.”. It
is the opinion of Mr. Thorndike,” that the apostle looked
upon marriage made by persons before they were Christians,
to lay no stricter obligations on them than the laws which
they were under when the marriage was contracted designed
to lay upon them; but this seems not consistent with our
Lord’s decision touching divorce and polygamy ; for though
they were allowed both by Jews and gentiles, our Saviour
pronounces them disagreeable to the first institution of ma-
trimony by God; and, these laws binding all that were Chris-
tians, no Christian convert could, after his or her conversion,
do anything on their parts opposite to them; and whatsoever
liberty of divorce the laws of Jew or gentile might allow of,
the apostle will not permit the believing wife or husband to
make use of them by beginning the separation (ver, 12, 13.
15): if then these words, “A brother or sister is not in
bondage in these cases,” do import they are not obliged to
live unmarried, such a total and perpetual desertion must
dissolve the matrimony, and render the deserting person as
dead unto the other : but though all the Romanists, and
many of the reformed, allow of this interpretation of the
fathers, it must be dangerous to admit of it without this re-
striction.—A brother or sister is not enslaved, after all means
of peace and reconciliation have been in vain attempted,
and the unbeliever hath entered into another marriage, or
rather haſh dissolved the former by adultery, as may well be
supposed of those heathens who thus separated from their
Christian mates: and this interpretation seems to be con-
firmed from the former words relating to the case of the
believing wives and husbands; “If they depart, let them
remain unmarried :” it being not to be supposed that be-
lievers would dissolve the bond of matrimony by adultery.
Therefore the apostle seems to grant this in the case of unbe-
lievers departing from Christians on the account of their faith.
14 Wer. 17. Ei ºl, But..] Or rather, if not. So I'R BR and
Nº DR, Gen. xviii. 21, si è ºch, “And if it be not so;” see
xxiv. 8, and xlii. 16. 37; Job ix. 24, ei 35 ºth, “And if it
be not so, who will make me a liar 2" and xxiv. 25; John
xiv. 2, si 33 aft, “If it were not so, I would have told you”
(see Noldius de Partic. Hebr. p. 92). To others, si è Pº
seems to be misplaced, as being added to the beginning of
this verse, when indeed it belongs to the close of the former,
thus: “How knowest thou, O man, ei rºy yuvaika adiatic,
whether thou shalt save thy wife or not P’’ And so the seven-
teenth verse will begin #xácrº, as the twentieth and the four-
and-twentieth verses, which answer to it, do.
15 Wer. 18. Mº, ärta trác Šol, Let him not be uncircumcised.]
"ort zai ämö regiſtop:%; &xgå8varot yivoviral, Epiph. de Ponder.
et Mensur. p. 172. He also says that Esau did this, and
therefore God said, “Esau have I hated” (Photius apud
CEcum. p. 423).
16 Wer. 23. Tºgº, #yogācºnts, Have ye been bought with a
* Laws of the Church, p. 117.
CHAPTER VII.
629
* again), the servants of men (who are unbelievers, 1
Tim. vi. 2.
24 Otherwise, ) brethren, let every man, wherein he
is called, therein "abide with God.
25 Now * concerning virgins I have no (particu-
lar) commandment of the Lord, "yet I give my judg-
ment, as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to
be (found) faithful (in my apostolical function, by ad-
vising still what is best and most eaſpedient in those
cases to be done).
26 I suppose therefore that this is good *for the
present distress (of Christians, daily subject to perse-
cution), I say, that it is good for a man so to be (i. e.
a virgin still).
27 Art thou (then) bound to a wife 2 seek not to be
ºd. Art thou loosed from a wife seek not a
WIIe.
28 But if thou marry, thou hast not sinned; and if
a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. Nevertheless
such (in these times of persecution) shall have (more)
price 3) That the charity of Christians was employed to buy
their brethren out of slavery, we learn from the Apologies
of Justin Martyr,” and Tertullian, who tell us, that “the
offerings of Christians at the sacrament were, amongst others,
employed for that use :” and that these words ought to be
rendered by way of interrogation is evident from the pre-
ceding discourse, which is still by way of question: “Is any
man called, being uncircumcised ?” (ver. 18) “Art thou
called, being a servant P” (ver. 21.) And that they are to
be thus interpreted the design of the apostle shows, which is
to inform them that their Christianity did not exempt them
from their secular relations to heathens, the believer still
continuing in his conjugal relation, and in the same relation
of a servant to his heathen master. Now to tell them they
were bought with a price by Christ, and therefore ought not
to be the servants of men, is plainly to contradict this.design;
but it is well consistent with the foregoing advice, “If thou
canst be made free, use it rather,” to add, Are ye then
bought out of servitude by the charity of Christians ? return
not again to the service of unbelievers.
* Ver. 24. Let him abide with God..] Neither deserting
his master upon pretence of being God's servant, nor doing
anything against the laws of God in obedience to his
Imaster.
* Ver. 25. TIsei Tây TragSévoy invirayy Kugiov oda Xo,
Concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord,J
To produce, touching their continuance in, or change of that
state. Here Esthius takes care to add, that the apostle must
be understood only de virginibus quae nondum Deo voverunt
continentiam, “ of such virgins which were not under the vow
of continence.” And when the apostle saith without exception,
“If a virgin marry, she hath not sinned” (ver. 28), he adds,
Nisi sit virgo Christo dicata, i.e. “ Unless she be a virgin con-
Secrated to Christ by such a vow ;” both which exceptions,
seeing Paul, assisted by the Holy Spirit, thought not fit to
add ; we may presume that he knew nothing of that matter.
* Tycºpºny 33 3:30pxt, &c. But I give my judgment, as one
that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be found faithful.]
This, saith the apostle, is all that is required of a minister of
God, and a steward of his mysteries, that he be found faith-
ful in administering the grace of his apostleship (1 Cor. iv.
1, 2). And this fidelity was still attended with the power
of Christ assisting them, as appears from these words, “I
thank Christ Jesus our Lord who hath enabled me, for that
he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry” (1 Tim.
i. 12). So that this phrase doth not imply, as some ima-
gine, that the apostle had only an ordinary assistance in this
advice, such as any pious skilful pastor may still expect ;
* Tö a vaxeyóſzévov ºrać, tº resortóri świriSerai, waivrö; #mri-
xovº gºok, Kai xàpaic, kai roſ; iv Seaſºdic ovat. Apol. ii.
p. 99.
+ Haec quasi deposita pietatis sunt; mam indé non epulis
nec potaculis dispensatur, sed egenis alendis, humandisque
et pueris et puellis re ac parentibus destitutis Et si qui,
in metallis, et si qui in insulis, vel in custodiis, &c. Apol.
trouble in the flesh: but I spare you (not thinking it
therefore fit to lay the yoke of celibacy upon you).
29 But this I say, brethren, (that) the time (of this
life) is short : it remains (then) that both they that
have wives be as though they had none; .
30 And they that weep, as though they wept not;
and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not ;
and they that buy, as though they possessed not;
31 And they that use this world, *as not abusing
it, (or, as those that use it not) : for the fashion of
this world passeth away.
32 But (this advice, I give, because) I would have
you without carefulness (for the things of the world :
now so it is that) he that is unmarried careth (only)
for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may
please the Lord:
33 But he that is married careth (also) for the
things that are of the world, (and is solicitous) how
he may please his wife.
34 *There is (the same) difference also between a
much less that this is a counsel which might be disregarded
without sin.
* Ver. 26. At& rºy #yearðaray &váyzny, For the present
distress.] This phrase plainly shows this cannot relate ad
pacata ecclesiae tempora, to the peaceable times of the
church, for they are not times of tribulation, as the word
&véyan often signifies: so Luke xxi. 23, “There shall be
āyāyam ºweyáàn great tribulation, Év čváykaiº, #y a revoxogiaig,
in afflictions, necessities, distresses,” 2 Cor. vi. 4, Év čváyxatc,
iv 3royºoſ, “in necessities and persecutions,” 2 Cor. xii. 10.
Nor can it signify the troubles common to this life, for they
are not always instant or present: see ver. 28, where the
phrase is SXi Jig #y cagxi “ trouble in the flesh.”
* Ver. 31. Q, whaaraxe6, Evol, As not abusing it..] So
this expression is used in Philo ;* “This is another's, do not
covet it ; this is thy own, use it so as not abusing it; hast
thou abundance? give to others: for the excellency of wealth
consists not in thy purses, but in helping those that want.”
Note also, That they who interpret these words, “The
time is short,” with relation to the troubles shortly to come
at the destruction of Jerusalem, and the fashion of the world
passing away, of a new scene of things beginning to appear,
seem not to give the true import of the apostle's words:
for (1.) It is not easy to conceive what concernment the Co-
rinthians then had in the destruction of Jerusalem ; what
peculiar troubles happened ; what loss of wives or of pos-
sessions they did then sustain ; or indeed, what persecution
they then lay under, from which the destruction of Jerusa-
lem might free them.
Secondly, The fashion of the world passing away, seems
plainly to refer to the dissolution of it, or at least to our
passing out of it in a short time, according to those words of
John, “Love not the world, nor the things of the world: for
the fashion of the world passeth away, and the lusts thereof.”
(1 John ii. 15. 17). Again, to have, and use these things,
as if we had them not, or did not use them, is to be mode-
rate in the enjoyment of them ; not to be much affected
with them when we have, or much afflicted when we want
or lose them.
* Ver. 34. Mapºgtarai yuyi, wai h trapºvog, There is a
difference between a wife and a virgin..] The reading of the
king's manuscript is this, wai (wegågarai, “And is distracted.”
And then begins the thirty-fourth verse, thus, wai hyvyā āya-
pºos, was h trapSávo; # &yapoc, “And the unmarried woman,”
i. e. the widow, “and the virgin careth for the things of the
Lord :” but though this reading makes a good sense, it is
not found in any of the Greek or Latin interpreters. (2.) It
makes too great a variation from the ordinary reading, by
adding zaï before aspañºla rat, and by joining # yvyi, h #yakos,
which in all printed copies and ancient interpreters are
separated. And (3.) it makes # yvy; here to signify the sex
only, and to be indeed a virgin, or unmarried woman: whereas
in this chapter it above twenty times signifies a wife. and
always stands opposed to the virgin, or unmarried person :
* "18toy rotºro x86 pº Karaxpººyoº. De Joseph. p. 428.
630
I. CORINTHIANs. f
\
wife.and a virgin. (For) the unmarried woman careth
(only) for the things of the Lord, that she may be
holy both in body and spirit; but she that is married
careth (also) for the things of the world, how she
may please her husband.
35 And (of) this (difference) I speak for your own
profit, not that I may cast a snare upon you (by re-
straining you wholly from marriage) ; but for that
which is comely, and that you may attend upon the
Lord without distraction.
36 But if any man think that he behaveth himself
uncomely towards his virgin, “if she pass the flower
of her age (Gr. if it be overaged), and need so require
(or, he thinks this ought to be done), let him do what
he will, he sinneth not: let them (who so think)
marry.
37 * Nevertheless, he that stands stedfast in his
so ver. 1, 2, ver. 3 twice; ver. 4. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 twice,
16 twice; 27 thrice, 29. 39 ; which observation is sufficient
to destroy this reading ; especially seeing the common
reading gives a good sense, and may be rendered thus, The
virgin and the wife are divided, or drawn several ways: the
first looking only after purity; the second, after the pleasure
of her husband also.
* Ver. 36. "Exy # in Éganizoc, If it be overaged.] The
Jews, * from the precept to “increase and multiply,”
thought themselves obliged to marry at twenty, and that
they offended against the law if they did not so, declaring
that whosoever neglected this precept was guilty of homi-
cide. The philosophers say, with Hesiod, that yágoc &gtoc,
“marriage was seasonable to the woman about twenty, to
the male from thirty to thirty-five.” By the law of Lycur-
gus,f they who continued unmarried were prohibited to see
the games: by the laws of the Spartans they were punished:
and by Plato, they are declared unworthy of any honour:
to either of these opinions the discourse of the apostle may
relate.
* Ver. 37.] Note, It is generally supposed, that these
three verses relate to virgins under the power of parents and
guardians ; and hence the usual inference is this, Children
are to be disposed of in marriage by their parents. Now
this may be true, but it hath no foundation in this text; for
ºrnéây Éavrot Tagbévov, is not to keep his daughter's, but
his own virginity, or rather his purpose of virginity: for, as
Phavorinuss informs us, “He is called a virgin who freely
gives up himself to the Lord, renouncing matrimony, and
preferring a life spent in continency.”
And that this must be the true import of these words,
appears from this consideration, that this depends upon the
purpose of his own heart, and the power he hath over his
own will, and the no necessity arising from himself to change
this purpose: whereas the keeping a daughter unmarried
* Seld. de Jure Natural. &c. lib. v. cap. 3.
+ Tágou 3: boy fival ºften wiv 3 w8 #zzaíčeva èrów el; stºozi,
xégé, Bă ăză relákoyra weye; rāy ºrévre zai Tºiázoyra. Plato.
de Leg. lib. vi. p. 877. Wide quae Stob. in hanc rem citat ex
Dial. 4 de Rep. Serm. 42, p. 296.
# 37agrarăy véºo; rārrel Čnºciay rºw aſpárºv ćyapaiov, Tây
8svréay 3-hyakſov. Stobaeus, Serm. 56, p. 412.
§ IIaşşiyog voºrai & #xovaio; #avròy reorayay?v rá Kveto,
Kai äoloraćéºévoc tº yázº was rêv #y &yiacºzó; 6.3V reorianca,
heart, having no necessity, but hath power over his
own will, and hath so decreed (or determined) in his
heart that he will keep his virgin (i.e. virginity), doeth
well.
38 So then he that giveth (her) in marriage doeth
well; but he that giveth (her) not in marriage doeth
better. (Or thus, So that he that marrieth doeth well,
bat he that marrieth not doeth better.)
39 The wife is bound by the law so long as her
husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is
at liberty to be married to whom she will; only (she
ought to do it) * in the Lord. *
40 *But she is happier if she (can, and therefore
doth) so abide, after my judgment: and I think also
I have the Spirit of God (to direct me even in this
judgment, Öokä, öä kgyº, I think that I also have the
Spirit of God).
depends not on these conditions on her father's part, but
on her own ; for, let her have a necessity, Surely the apostle
would not advise the father to keep her a virgin, because he
hath determined so to do; nor could there be any doubt
whether the father had power over his own will or not, when
no necessity lay upon him to betroth his virgin. The Greek
runs to this sense, If he had stood already firm in his heart,
finding no necessity, to wit, to change his purpose ; and
hath power over his own will not to marry, finding himself
able to persist in the resolution he hath made to keep his
virginity ; he doeth well to continue a virgin : and then the
phrase, “If any man thinks he behaves himself unseemingly
towards his virgin, if it be overaged,” and thinks he ought
rather to join in marriage, refers to the aforesaid opinions
of Jew and gentile, that all ought to marry at such an age ;
if any think thus, saith the apostle, let them do what they
will, let them marry, for, in so doing, they do not sin; and
then he concludes with those words applied to both cases,
“So then both he that marries doeth well, and he that
marries not doeth better.”
* Ver. 39. 'Ey Kvetº, In the Lord.] That is, pºorlarº, “to
one of the same faith,” say Theodoret, Tertullian, Cyprian,
and Jerome, declaring that all marriage with heathens is
forbid to Christians. Hence also it is evident that second
marriages are allowable (see Rom. vii. 3. 1 Tim. v. 14).
* Ver. 40.] “This (say some) is not spoken with the
authority of an apostle, or a teacher sent from God, but in
such a style as implies an ordinary assistance, such as any
skilful pastor may still expect.” -
But these men did not well consider, that the apostle was
writing to them who were apt to question his apostleship,
and required “a proof of Christ speaking in him” (2 Cor.
xiii. 3), to whom it was proper to say, “Whatsoever you
may conceive of me, I suppose I have the Spirit of God.”
Nor (2.) that Boxão, is frequently an expletive, and so box&
#xely may be here rendered, “I have the Spirit of God.”
So 3 3oxeſ Éxsw, “that which he seems to have,” Luke viii. 18,
is 3 #xel, “that which he hath,” Matt. xiii. 12. ; of 3oxoivºrs;
&pxely, “they which are accounted to rule,” Mark x. 42, are
&éxovireº, “they which rule,” Matt. xx. 25 ; so, in this epistle,
é 30ków £atáyat, is “he that stands,” x. 12, § 3ozów gºval pixá-
Veikoç, “he that is contentious,” xi. 16, and stºric ºweſtrºophºrnç,
“If any man be a prophet, or spiritual, let him know that
the things I write unto you are the commandments of the
Lord,” xiv. 37.
CHAPTER VIII.
1 *.Now as for the plea mentioned in your letter)
touching (the lawfulness of eating) things offered to
idols, we (who abstain from eating these things to the
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VIII.
* Ver. l. IIspi rāv Biêoxofféroy, Now as touching things
offered to idols.] This is that of doctrine of the Nicolaitans,
Nullam differentiam esse docentes, idolothyton edere, “That
scandal of others) know (as well as others) that (an
idol is nothing, for) we all have (this) knowledge.
(Yet) knowledge (when it is not joined with charity)
things offered to idols might be eaten without discrimination;”
which the apostle here sets himself to confute, speaking of
these things both in the general, x. 23 to the end ; and in
particular, as they were eaten with relation to the idols, in the
idol's temple,
CHAPTER VIII.
631
puffeth up (against), but charity edifieth (our bro-
ther). ... -
2 And (therefore) if any man think he knoweth
anything (and by reason of that knowledge despiseth
others, not regarding their welfare), he knoweth no-
thingB. * as he ought to know. * -
3 But if any man love God (and for his sake, his
brother, John iv. 17, using his knowledge to the glory
of God, and the benefit of his brother), the same is
known (and accepted) of him.
4 As concerning therefore the eating of those
things that are offered in sacrifice to idols, we (also
generally), know that “an idol is nothing in the
world (of that it is esteemed by them that worship
it, i. e. no deity), and that there is no other God
but one. -
5 For though there be that are called gods, whe-
ther in heaven or in earth, *as (to the heathens) there
are gods many, and lords many (they having their ce-
lestial and terrestrial gods and lords); -
6 But (or, yet) to us (Christians) there is but "one
God the Father, of whom are all things, and we in
* Ver. 2. Kašā; 387 yºval, As he ought to know.] To
know thus, saith St. Bernard,” is to know in what order,
with what study and endeavour, and to what end, we ought
to know all things. “In what order,” as desiring to know
that first which is most necessary to salvation. “With what
study,” as desiring most ardently to know that which is most
vehemently to be loved, and most tends to provoke love in
us. “To what end,” viz. not out of curiosity, vain-glory, or
filthy lucre ; but for the edification of thyself, or of thy
brother. -
* Ver. 4. Oiśāy sºonov, An idol is nothing.] This aphorism,
that an idol was nothing, was usual among the Jews, who
were taught by the Old Testament, that the heathen deities
were ºbnn and E-bºx, “vanities and nothings.” Thus in
Echa Rabboth, or the old comment on the Lamentations,
Rachael speaks thus to God, “Why enviest thou an idol,
which is nothing P” And in the Elle Shemeth Rabba, f we
have this aphorism, “There is nothing solid in an idol.” And
hence the rabbins concluded, saith Dr. Lightfoot, that it could
have no power to pollute, and that whatsoever worship was
paid to it, if it were not worshipped under the notion of a
God, it was nothing; but whatever they meant of an idol’s
being nothing, it is certain the apostle only means that it is
nothing of a God ; for he proves that it is nothing, because
“there is no God but one ;” and so all the criticisms about
the word Elöwhov, idol, are impertinent.
* Ver. 5. "Qa"rep stori 080i troxxoi, As there are gods many,
and lords many.] Here Mr. Clercs translates the words thus,
“As really there are gods many,” &c. and magisterially
saith, “The apostle hath no reference to the gods or idols of
the heathens; but, by gods in heaven, are meant God and
the angels; in the earth, magistrates, who are also called the
lords of the world.” But he proves not a word of all this:
yea, the contrary is not only said by all the ancient fathers
and commentators] upon the place, who both assert and
prove the contrary, but also is evident from the words them-
selves: for, first, when the apostle had said expressly, “We
(Christians) know there is no God but one ;” would he im-
mediately add, There are really gods many ? What would
this have been, but, as Chrysostom and Theophylact say,
ºrdſ; payegoſ, wäxº~8at, “to speak things repugnant 2" Which
to avoid, the apostle adds, though there be of Asyāºevol 680i,
“ those that are called gods,” by these words separating them
from him who truly is so : and showing they are only so in
name, but not in reality ; not in truth, but in word only.
And this is evident from the words following: “Though (to
them) there be gods many, and lords many, rag”Exxnari 650i
wał zögioi Aeyáſzewo, yet to us (Christians) there is but one God
and one Lord.” Lastly, whereas he saith, “By gods in
heaven are meant God and the angels,” let him show any
instance in the New Testament where 650i is put for God and
the angels ; or where both are thus mentioned under that
one name. Here to be sure it cannot be so, for the apostle
had not only said before, “We (Christians) know there is no
other God but one';” but saith after, this is he, “ of whom
* In Cant. Cantic. cap. 36, p. 151. # F. 56, col. 1.
:: Sect. 30. § Wid. Art. ‘Crit. par. ii. cap. 5, §. 77.
| @Eoi Aeyóſzewo, ä paganis, Ambrosius. Kará rày ‘Exxâvoy
fav$oxoyiay, Theodoret. IIaş’ “EXAnaw, Chrysostom, Photius,
(Ecumenius, Theoph. *
Dixit enim et separavit eos qui dicuntur quidem, non sunt
autem dii, ab uno Deo patre. Iren. lib. iii. cap. 6.
Oüx &txà, eiziv, &AA& Asyázavoi, oix #y &Anşāta byte;, &Na’ iv
Máyg. Chrys. Theoph.
Kaº; to Neyāk.Evot, oùk Etzi yáp. Phot.
are all things,” i. e. whose creatures the angels are ; could he
then say, in the intermediate words, There really are many
gods in heaven, God and the angels.
* Ver. 6. Eig QE3; 3 trarig, One God the Father.] Hence
the Arians and Socinians argue thus against the Deity of
Christ, viz. “As he who saith there is one emperor, to wit,
Caesar, Saith in effect there is no other emperor but Caesar;
so he that saith there is one God the Father, saith in effect
there is no other God besides the Father.” Again, “He who,
having separately spoken of one God, proceeds distinctly to
speak of one Lord, to wit, Jesus Christ, doth by that distinct
title sufficiently show Jesus Christ is not that God.”
Ans. To the second argument the reply is obvious, by re-
torting the argument as do the ancient commentators, against
this Arian objection, thus: That as the apostle, by saying,
“there is one Lord,” to wit, Jesus Christ, cannot be reason-
ably supposed to exclude the Father from being also the
Lord of Christians, as he is often styled in the New Testa-
ment ; so neither by saying, “there is one God the Father,”
ought he to be supposed to exclude Jesus Christ from being
also the God of Christians. So Origen” and Novatian.-F
Especially if we consider, (1.) that he is here styled that one
Lord, “ by whom are all things,” i. e. “by whom all things
are created’, Eph. iii. 9. “All things which are in heaven
or in earth,” Col. i. 16, “for he that made all things is God,”
Heb. iii. 5, and by the work of the creation is the Godhead
known, Rom. i. 20. And this is elsewhere made the very
description of God the Father, that it is he “by whom are
all things,” Rom. xi. 35. Heb. ii. 10. (2.) That all things
were created, not only by this Lord, but eiç atry, “for him”
also, Col. i. 16. Now this is the very thing which the apos-
tle here ascribes to God the Father.
Secondly, To the other argument I answer, That we and
all the ancients assert, as truly as they can do, the unity of
the Godhead, and that Christ Jesus is not another God, but
only another person from the Father; and that the applica-
tion of the word God here to the Father, doth not necessa-
rily exclude the Son from being God also; but only from
being the fountain of the Deity, as the Father is. Thus,
when these words, “I am Alpha and Omega, the first and
last” (Rev. i. 17. ii. 8. xxii. 13), are by John applied to
Christ ; it cannot be concluded hence that the Father is not
also “Alpha and Omega, the first and the last,” as he is
often called in the Old Testament: and though “our Savi-
our” be the proper title of our Lord Jesus, as his very name
informs us; yet is the Father in scripture styled “our
Saviour,” 1 Tim. i. 1. ii. 3, and “the Saviour of all men,”
iv. 10. The primitive fathers therefore considering God the
Father as the fountain of the Deity, and Jesus Christ as
“God of God,” do frequently assert two things which may
serve to illustrate this passage ; viz.
* Miror quomodó quidam legentes unus Deus pater ex quo
omnia, et unus Dominus Jesus Christus per quem omnia,
negent filium Dei Deum debere profiteri, ne duos dicere
videantur: sed non advertunt qui haºc ita sentiunt, quðd
sicut Dominum Jesum Christumnonita unum esse Dominum
dixit, ut ex hôc Deus pater non Dominus dicatur, ita et
Deum patrem non dixit ita esse unum Deum, ut Deus filius
non credatur. Origen. in Tom. ix. 5.
+ Si non putant aliquà ratione offici posse ei, quod unus
Dominus est, per illud quod est Dominus et Christus, aut illi
quod unus est bonus, per illud quod bonus sit nuncupatus et
Christus, eaden ratione intelligant offici non posse ab illo
quod unus est Deus, ei quod Deus pronuntiatus est Christus,
Novatian. cap. 30.
632
I. CORINTHIANS.
(or, for) him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom
are all things, and we by him. -
7 * Howbeit there is not in every man this know-
ledge: for some with conscience of the idol ('s being
something) unto this hour eat (what is offered to) it,
as a thing offered to an idol (i. e. not as common meat,
but as a sacred banquet in honour of the idol); and
their conscience being weak (i. e. erroneous, subject to
stumble and fall,) is defiled.
8 But (it is to be considered by us, that) meat com-
mendeth us not to God : for neither, if we eat, are we
the better (for so doing in the sight of God); neither,
if we eat not, are we the worse (you therefore ought
not so to eat, as to give occasion to the fall of your
weak brother). -
9 But (rather to) take heed, lest by any means this
liberty of yours become a stumbling-block to them
that are weak" (so as to provoke them to fall from
Christianity, or to defile themselves with idolatry).
10 For if any man (who with this erroneous con-
science goes to these feasts) see thee who hast know-
ledge “sit at meat in the idol’s temple, shall not the
conscience of him that is weak be (the more) embold-
ened (by thy evample) to eat those things which are
offered to idols (in honour of the idol, or as thinking it
no hurt to worship idols) 8
11 And (so) through thy knowledge shall thy
weak brother perish, for "whom Christ died ?
12 But (surely it deserves well to be considered,
that) when ye sin so against the brethren, and wound
their weak consciences, ye sin against Christ (wound-
ing and murdering the members of his body : defeating
the great end of his death ; and destroying them whom
he designed to save).
13 Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend
(and so to perish), "I will eat no flesh whilst the
world stands, lest I make my brother to offend (and
perish).
First, That Christians” acknowledge one God only, even
the Father, and yet that Jesus Christ was truly God, of the
substance of the Father.
Secondly, That God the Father was the Creator of all
things, and yet that all things were created by the Word.
* Wer. 7. "Axx' oix #y Tràciv h yyāorig, There is not in all
this knowledge.] This contradicts not what is said, ver. 1,
“We all have knowledge;” that being spoken of them who
abstained from things offered to idols, out of scandal to others
only ; this of them who through weakness did eat of them :
the first, being well-informed Christians, knew there was but
one God the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ, to be wor-
shipped : the weak thought there might be some deastri, or
“inferior lords,” to whom some reverence was due.
7 Ver. 9. IIgórzoºf, a yivsa.0a roſ. 3al6ayoja'iy, To be a stum-
bling-block to the weak, Is not barely to offend them, or to
induce them to do anything with a doubting conscience ; but
to make them stumble at the Christian faith, or fall off from
it, or perish by idolatry. For thus it follows, “And so shall
thy weak brother perish :” so, Rom. ix. 32, 33, “Israel
stumbled at the stone of stumbling, as it is written, Behold,
I lay in Zion, Aiboy reorwäpº aroc, a stone of stumbling;” 1
Pet. ii. 8, “To them that be disobedient, the stone, which
the builders disallowed, is made xiàoy argoa wdºwparoc, a stone
of stumbling.”
* Ver. 10. "Ew sièoasio waraxeigeyov, Sitting at meat in the
idol's temple.] The gentiles, saith Josephus,'F offer hecatombs
* Haeretici aixºaxwrićoverly &rd rāg &Añ0slaç rob; pº, #822iav
rºw trictly sic #va Osov waréga. Travrokpáropa wał si; #ya Küploy
'Incoſy Xetary vićy Ogot, 8tapuxárcovrac. Iren. lib. i. p. 18. Jºt
tamen fidem ab ecclesia receptam hanc esse tradit, Wa xetar;
'Inact rā Kugiº, hºw xai Qeº rāy yévv xápºn, cap. 2, p. 50.
Prophetis quidem et apostolis patrem et filium comfitentibus,
et inso Domino patrem tantâm Deum, et Dominum eum qui
Solus est Deus et dominator omnium, tradente discipulis,
sequinos oportet. Lib. iii, cap. 9. Et tamen (cap. 10) se-
cundum id quðd Werbum Dei homo erat requiescebat
Spiritus Dei super eum, Secundum autem quéd Deus
erat, non Secundum gloriam judicabit. Wide cap. 11. Apos-
toli autem. Secundum eos transgressores praeceptiostenduntur
demiurgum Deum et Dominum et patrem confitentes—Si
non hic Solus est Deus et pater. Lib. iv. cap. 2. Et tamen
(cap. 11) ipse igitur Christus cum patre vivorum est Deus.
Itaque deos omnino non dicam, nec dominos, sed apostolum
sequar, ut si paritēr nominandi fuerint pater et filius, Deum
patrem appellem, et Jesum Christum Dominum nominem,
Bolum autem Christum potero Deum dicere, sicut idem apos-
tolus, Ex quibus est Christus, qui est Deus super omnia
benedictus in omne a-vum. Tertul, adv. Prax. cap. 31. Est
ergö Deus pater omnium institutor et creator, solus originem
mesciens unus Deus. Novatian, cap. 31. Et tamen ex
patre processit substantiailla divini cujus nomen est Verbum,
per quod facta sunt omnia—Deus utique procedens ex
Deo, secundam personam efficiens, sed non eripiens illud
patri quod unus est Deus. Ibid.
+ Cont. A pion. lib. ii. p. 1069, A.
to their gods, wał xpāvrai ispeiot; ºrgö; eboxiay, “and use their
temples for their banqueting-house ;” so we read Judg. ix.
27. Amos ii. 27, and in profane authors very frequently.
When therefore, saith the apostle, the weak Jews who ab-
horred idols, or the gentiles newly converted from the wor-
ship of them, shall see thee doing the same thing which
heathens do in honour of their idols, and that in places ap-
propriated to their worship; will they not be tempted, by
the example of such a strong and knowing Christian, to con-
clude, that either idolatry is by Christians accounted no sin,
or that the idol deserves some honour ; and so comply with
them from these erroneous principles in eating things offered
to idols 2
9 Wer. 11. At’ & x8tarö; &má6ayev, For whom Christ died.]
From this, and the like place, Rom. xiv. 15, it is strongly
argued, that Christ intentionally died for those that may for
ever perish : for here the apostle dissuades the Corinthians
from scandalizing their weak brethren, by an argument taken
from the irreparable mischiefs they do them, the eternal ruin
they may bring upon them, by this scandal: whereas, if it
be as some assert, that all things, even the sins of the elect,
shall work together for their good, and that they can never
perish ; if the apostle knew and taught this doctrine to them,
why doth he go about to fright them from this scandal, by
telling them it might have that effect, which he before had
told them was impossible P If you interpret his words thus,
So shall he perish for whom in charity you ought to judge
Christ died ; it is certain from this doctrine, that they must .
be assured this judgment of charity must be false, or that
their brother could not perish. In the first case, they could
not be obliged to act by it; and, in the Second, they could
not rationally be moved by it, to abstain from giving Scandal
on that impossible supposition. If you interpret him thus,
So shalt thou do that which in its nature tends to make thy
brother perish, and might have that effect, had not God de-
termined to preserve all for whom Christ died from perish-
ing ; since this determination renders it sure to me, who
know it, that they cannot actually perish, it must assure me
there can be no cause of abstaining from this scandal, lest
they should perish by it. Moreover, by thus offending, saith
the apostle, ye sin against Christ, viz, by sinning against them
whom he hath purchased with his blood, and destroying
them for whose salvation he hath suffered. Deny now this
intent of Christ's death, and show, if you can, in what Christ
hath demonstrated his great love to them that perish ; how
they can ever sin against redeeming love ; or, how by thus
offending them, who neither do nor can belong to him as
members of his body mystical, we are injurious to Christ.
1° Ver, 13. of twº páya ngéa, I will eat no flesh..] It being
customary for the heathens to consecrate all the flesh they
used to eat to some demon" or idol, and the weak Jews being
so nice in matters of that nature, this necessity might some-
times lie upon the Christians to abstain from all flesh, to
avoid the offence of the weak brother; and the apostle here
engageth rather to submit to it, than to be an occasion of his
* See Dr. Spencer, de Rit. Hebr. pp. 500, 50l.
CHAPTER IX.
633 .
rum (see Theodor. H. Eccl. lib. iii, cap. 15, and the note on
Rom. xiv. 2).
Note also, That there is nothing in this chapter which
intimates that the apostle discourseth of a conscience doubt-
ing about things indifferent ; but rather that he all along dis-
courseth of an erroneous conscience, which from a false per-
suasion falleth into sin: for, Saith he, “ some with conscience
of the idol, to this hour, eat it as a thing offered to the idol”
(ver. 7). Now so to do, is to act plainly, not from a doubt-
ing conscience about a thing indifferent, but from an errone-
ous conscience about a thing unlawful; and yet this is the
man “whose conscience, being weak, is defiled.” And in
this sense are the words &a 6evåg, &c'6eveia, &c'0Eyeſy, to be weak,
and weakness, commonly used in the Septuagint, answering
to the Hebrew burn which signifies to fall and stumble (see
note on Rom. v. 6). -
To scandalize, or offend, this weak brother is not only to
do a thing ungrateful to him, or to cause him to sin by act-
ing with a doubting conscience ; but to divert him from the
faith, or cause him to dislike it, because he sees that Chris-
tians so freely do communicate with idols ; or to encourage
him to join idolatry with the profession of it. That this is
the constant sense of the word akaw8axičeotal, see noté on
Rom. xiv. 13. 21.
Hence evident it is, that what dissenters say from hence
against our ceremonies, that they offend or grieve them, that
they cannot comply with them by reason of those doubts
which they lie under, touching the lawfulness of the use of
them, is impertinent to the apostle's argument ; if they
would have the apostle here to patronize them, they must
confess that they are acted herein by a false judgment and
erroneous conscience, as the weak person mentioned by him
WłłS.
Nevertheless, this seemeth to press hard on them, who
believe the schism of such weak persons will finally tend to
their ruin, and render them exiles from the flock of Christ,
and yet, in things indifferent, will in this dreadful sense cause
their weak brother to offend, or to be scandalized ; since this
they do for that which commends them not to God; which
doing, they are not the better, or omitting, they are not the
worse (ver. 8). For if schism or idolatry be equally damn-
ing sins, and equally cause my brother to offend, and him to
perish for whom Christ died, we are equally to take heed in
both cases, lest £ovala hºw&y, our power to do the thing in-
different become a stumbling-block to the weak, or the erro-
neous, in their judgment of these things. For let men
imagine what other difference they please in the case, whilst
the sad issue or event is in general the same, to wit, the
perishing of my brother, and my power to have abstained
from that which, through his erroneous conscience, gave
occasion to it, is the same, I fear the guilt will be the same.
To this purpose tend those words of Origen:* “If we did
more diligently attend to these things, we should avoid sin-
ning against our brethren, and wounding their weak con-
sciences; tº a £º gig Xplory &p, agrávousy, that we'rmay not
sin against Christ, aroxxâxi; &moxxâgºvoy oi ºvoy rfi hºzerégº
ywózel, &AA& kai &AAoic ºrial rôy rag” hºwg, 388x9&v, 3’ oë; 3
Xpta-röc &ré0avey, #4 oi, eiç Xetary &ºaprávoyre; riorowev 3ixaç,
#v8tkovº, #yn; ràc rāv 8" hºwſic &moxxvºw#voy Juxā; # hºv, our
brethren that are among us, for whom Christ died, often
perishing, not only by our knowledge, but by many other
ways and things; in which things we, sinning against Christ,
shall suffer punishment, the soul of them, that perish by
by us, being required of, and avenged upon, us.”
* Ed. IIuet. to. p. 228, A. B.
CHAPTER IX.
1 AM. I not (who thus abstain from what is offensive
to the weak) an apostle (as well as others) 8 am I not
free (to do what they may) * *have I not seen Jesus
Christ our Lord (as well as they) P and are not you
my work in the Lord * (and so if others have a power
to live upon your temporal things, have not I rather ?
ver, 11, 12.) * -
2 If I be not (so visibly and demonstratively) an
apostle to others, yet doubtless I am (so) to you : for
the "seal (and testimony) of my apostleship are ye
in the Lord; (as being converted by me, eagercising
the signs of an apostle among you in all patience ;
in signs and wonders, and in mighty deeds, 2 Cor.
xii. 12.)
3 My answer (or apology) to them that do examine
me (why I and my companions use not the same freedom
as other apostles and evangelists) is this,
4 Have we not power to eat and to drink (without
using so much abstinence ; or at the charge of the
church, as well as they) P
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IX.
* Ver 1. Oiz elal &méa toxo; ; Am not I an apostle 2] The
apostle here, from his own example, in abstaining from the
power which the Lord had given him to receive the
necessaries and conveniences of life from them to whom he
preached the gospel, shows how much it concerned them, in
a matter unnecessary, to abstain from the exercise ric
#ovariaç, of their rightful power granted by Christ ; to avoid
the scandal of the weak, and to promote men's spiritual
welfare (so Esthius). This condescension indeed was not in
the exercise of his apostolical authority; but it was in that
which he might have challenged as an apostle of Christ
(1 Thess. ii. 6). Hence he speaks thus, “Am not I an
apostle 2" and, therefore, have I not #ovoriay, “power to eat
and drink?” Yea, it was in that he might have challenged
by the nature of his office (ver. 7), by the prescriptions of
the law (ver. 8), and by the ordinance of Christ (ver. 14).
And this abstinence he used not only in Achaia, but in
Thessalonica (1 Thess. ii. 9. 2 Thess. iii. 8), that he might
be an example for their imitation (ver. 9). It was not
therefore any private or personal right which he here waved,
but a right of office belonging to all who did officiate in things
sacred (see note on 2 Cor. ix. 2).
* Oix} Xptarów ideaka ; Have I not seen Christ J The
apostles being chosen to be witnesses of the resurrection, it
was requisite that St. Paul, being called to that office, should
also see him risen. Hence Ananias speaks to him, “The
God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest sce
the Just One, and shouldest hear the words of his mouth :
for thou shalt be his witness to all men of what thou hast
seen and heard” (Acts xxii. 14, 15. xxvi. 26). Accordingly
we find, that Christ was seen of him (1 Cor. xv. 8), yea,
often appeared to him after his resurrection (Acts xviii. 9.
xxii. 18), and that he was taught the gospel by the imme-
diate revelation of Jesus Christ (Gal. i. 12). The Syriac,
Arabic, and some MSS. read thus, “Am I not free? Am
I not an apostle P Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Ilord?”
* Wer. 2. The seal of my apostleship are ye in the Lord.]
This text seems very much abused by our sectaries, when
from these words they argue, That seeing they have been
instrumental to work some reformation in others by their
preaching or discourses, therefore they have a legal, yea,
divine call to exercise their ministry, and to administer the
holy sacraments ; which argument will plead as much for
masters or mistresses of large families, who have success-
fully employed themselves in a religious education of their
children and servants; and for schoolmasters, who have
instilled good principles of virtue and religion into their
scholars; and for every good man and woman, who spend
themselves in examples of exhortation, and encouragement
to others, to lead a virtuous and religious life, and therefore
prevail more than others, because they know they do it not
from prospect of advantage, or in pursuance of their calling,
but out of pure affection to their souls. Moreover I inquire,
what it is they would prove from these words P_ Is it that
they are of the number of Christ's apostles 2 If not, why
do they use this text 2 Is it that thcy have converted men
634.
I. CORINTHIANS.
5 Have we not power “to lead (or carry) about a
sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and as the bre-
thren of the Lord, and Cephas 2
6 Or I only and Barnabas, have we not power to
forbear working (and to receive maintenance of the
church as others do) P
7 *Who goeth a warfare at any time at his own
charge who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of
the fruit thereof * or who feedeth a flock, and eateth
not of the milk of the flock? (And shall we, soldiers
of Jesus Christ, 2 Tim. ii. 2, the planters of his spi-
ritual vineyard, the pastors of his flock, Acts xx. 28,
be debarred of this privilege 8)
8 Say I these things "as a man (only, from prin-
ciples of natural reason and equity)? or saith not the
law the same also :
9 For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt
not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the
corn. Doth God (say this only to show he take (-th)
care for oxen 2
10 Or saith he it altogether for our sakes : "For our
sakes, no doubt, this is written: that (in this spiritual
husbandry, 1 Cor. iii. 9,) he that ploughs . should
plough in hope (redping some advantage by it); and
(that) he that thresheth in (that) hope should be par-
taker of his hope.
from heathenism to Christianity, “by signs and miracles,
and powers of the Holy Ghost?” or that “the signs of an
apostle have been wrought among” their auditors, “by signs,
wonders, and powerful operations,” as this apostle doth 2
2 Cor. xii. 12. Or that they have given their hearers such a
proof of Christ speaking in them, as Paul did? xiii. 3. Or
by their means their hearers were endowed with the gifts of
tongues and prophecy, as the Corinthians were 2 If not, this
text cannot concern them at all, who had no such seal or
sign of their apostleship, as Paul Saith he did.
* Ver. 5. 'A&EAphy yuvaixa regiáygiv, To lead about a sister,
a wife.] It is the observation of Hilary, CEcumenius, and
Theophylact, That as some women attended on the Lord
when he was on earth, to minister necessaries to him and
his disciples; so some rich women, converted by them, fol-
lowed the apostles to provide diet and other necessaries for
them; and they, who so interpret these words, translate
them a sister-woman. This exposition Theodoret men-
tions, but seems not to approve ; and indeed it seems
to have had its rise from Tertulliam+. when he was a
Montanist.
For Clemens of Alexandria'ſ not only saith, that he
that marrieth, sixóva; #xei row: átroo’ráňovº, “ hath the apostles
for examples; and that Peter carried his wife with him till
her martyrdom;” but confutes the enemies of matrimony
from these very words, “Have we not power to lead about
a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles?” adding, that oty:
&c yap, Erāq, &AA’ &c &88), påg, "regiºvoy Tຠyvyaſzag,t “they
carried their wives about, not as wives, but as sisters, to
minister to those that were mistresses of families ; that so the
doctrine of the Lord might, without any reprehension or
evil suspicion, enter into the apartments of the women.”
This exposition seemeth (1.) most agreeable to the words,
which are not yuvaika 388xºny, but Jºexpy yuvaſza, which
cannot be well rendered “a sister-woman,” there being no
sister which is not a woman. (2.) It is most agreeable to
the context, which plainly seems to speak, not of such
wealthy women which could nourish the apostles out of
their abundance, but of such which were to be nourished
with them by others. And (3.) to the language of the Jews,
who called their wives sisters. Thus Tobit saith to his wife,
&# Aéyoy #x5, 38Expº, “Take no care, my sister” (Tob. v.
20): and Clemens, in the words now cited, saith, “They
were carried with them not as wives, but as sisters.” And,
lastly, this seems best to consult the credit and esteem of
the apostles, who could not, without evil suspicion, carry
about with them single women, or the wives of other men.
As for the women who are said to have followed Christ, they
were none of his retinue, they attended not upon his person,
but upon his doctrine, and so they ministered no such
ground of suspicion. But hence I think it doth not follow,
as Mr Clerc saith, that Paul then had a wife, but only that
he, or Barnabas, had one, or at least might have had one,
no law then forbidding it: Tertullian saying, if not in his
own sense, yet in the person of the orthodox, Licebat apos-
tolis nubere, et uxores circumducere. (De Exhort. Castit.
cap. 8).
* Ver. 7. Ti; crgareſs rai; Who goeth a warfare?] The
pertinency of this instance will be more visible if we com-
sider that, both in the Old and New Testament, the ministe-
* Nom uxores demonstrat ab apostolo circumductas, sed
simplicitèr mulieres. De Morlag, cap. 8.
+ Strom. vii. p. 736, 741. * Strom. iii. p. 446.
rial function is represented as a warfare (see note on 1 Tim.
i. 18): and the Levite, who was consecrated to the service of
the tabernacle, is said to “enter into the host,” Numb, iv. 3,
Astrouſ yety, “to officiate,” saith the Septuagint ; “to serve the
service,” saith the Chaldee. The church of God is also re-
presented as his vineyard, Isa. V. l. 5. Matt. XX. l. xxi. 18.
33. 40, 41. Luke xiii. 6, 7, and as his flock, Isa. xl. 11.
lxiii. 11. Matt. xxvi. 31. Luke xii. 32. Acts xx. 28, 29.
1 Pet. v. 1, 2. But then St. Chrysostom” and Theophylact
observe that “he saith not, Who goeth a warfare, and is not
rich P Who plants a vineyard, and heaps not up gold of the
fruits of it? Who feeds a flock, and makes not a merchan-
dize of the sheep 2 Teaching us, that the spiritual pastor
should be content with little, and seek only what is neces-
sary, not what is superfluous.”
• Wer. 8. Kar' &ySgwrov, As a man.] This phrase in the
New Testament doth always signify to speak, act, and live,
after the manner of a mere natural man, not yet acquainted
with the mind of God, nor acting by the guidance of divine
wisdom, or not assisted by the Holy Spirit. So Rom. iii.
5, “I speak war' &yščaroy, as a man” by mere strength of
reason would be apt to argue ; 1 Cor. iii. 3, “Are ye not
carnal, and walk as men,” i. e. as natural and not spiritual
men (ver. 1); 1 Cor. xv. 32, “If, kar’ &v3porov, after the
manner of men,” i. e. the heathen manner, “I have fought
with beasts at Ephesus;” Gal. i. 11, “The gospel which was
preached by me was not war' &ySgorrow, after man,” i. e. it
was not the product of human wisdom, but received from
the revelation of Jesus Christ ; Gal. iii. 15, “Brethren,
I speak after the manner of men,” i. e. what is acknowledged
in all civilized nations (see note on 1 Pet. iv. 6).
7 Wer. 10. At #43; y&p #ygá$n, For our sakes this was
written..] A like expression occurs in Maimonides, who,
having cited these words, “Thou shalt not take the dam
with the young,” saith, “If God took such care for beasts
and birds, how much more for men 2° And R. Menahem,
on the same words, saith, The intention of the command was
not to show mercy to birds, sed propter homines hoc dicit,
but he saith this to teach men mildness and commiseration;
and Philot, in the beginning of his discourse "repi Suávroy,
“of those who offer sacrifice,” says, “The law took not care
of brutes, but of reasonable creatures,” oi rāv Svobºvoy
&Ax& rày Sväyrov, by its prescriptions that the sacrifice should
be perfect and without blemish, having regard not to things
offered, but to him that offered them, that he should be free
from vile passions, or evil dispositions : so that these words
do not import that God takes no care for beasts, for “he
saveth man and beast” (Ps. xxxvi. 6), “and giveth to the
beasts their food” (Ps. cxlvii. 9); but only that the com-
mands he gives us, to show mercy and kindness to our
beasts, are especially designed to teach us greater kindness
to our brother man. Thus the high-priest Eleazar Saith to
Aristaeas, that “all the precepts of this nature, delivered
by Moses, had Aéyov 8ağüy, a profound sense; and that God
did not make them as being concerned about mice, or
weasels or such-like beasts, but that all these laws were
* Asixvi); ºr pixeſ. Trageºvšíg row 88&uaxov čezeſzóat 88%
- * ** 2 º * \ aw 2. * • * *
Tpopſ, Kai tº &vayzaig Fºoyſ, ºrd Xesúða; Knºrów Łóvoy, oùxī rô
wegiatáv.
# More Nevoch, par. iii, cap. 48, p. 497, f P. 656.
§ 'Axxi, ºrps, &yºy wizzsºly, zai ºrgárov #4priºv,
º --- w ... *v
3.naroºn; £vsney a tºy rāyta äyatéraxtat. Arist. p. 17.
CHAPTER IX.
635.
11 If (then) we have sown unto you spiritual
things, is it a great thing if we shall reap (some of)
your carnal things 2 (Rom. xv. 27.)
12 If others be partakers of this "power over you,
are not we rather (so, who laid the foundation of a
Christian church among you, 1 Cor. iii. 10, and have
begotten you through the gospel 2 I Cor. iv. 15). Ne-
vertheless we have not used this power (among you,
2 Cor. xi. 7–9); but (choose rather to) suffer (the
want of) all things, lest we should hinder the (advance-
ment of the) gospel of Christ.
13 (And not to insist only on mystical interpreta-
tions of the law J Do not you know that they who
minister about holy things (eacoriating, washing, and
preparing a sacrifice for the altar, as do the Levites,)
live of the (holy) things of the temple 2 and (that)
they which wait at the altar"are (,according to the in-
stitution of the law) partakers with the altar 2 (for
that consumes not always the whole sacrifice, but leaves
some portion to be eaten by the priests.)
14 Even so hath the Lord (Jesus, in the gospel,
Matt, x. 20. Luke x. 7), ordained, that they who
preach the gospel should live of the gospel.
15 But (yet) I have used none of these things:
neither have I written these things that it should be
so done unto me; for it were better for me to die (for
want of food), than that any man should make my
glorying (in thus advancing the gospel) void.
16 (I say, my glorying ;) For though I preach the
gospel I have nothing to glory of (upon that account):
for necessity is laid upon me (by the command and
special call of our Lord Jesus Christ, so to do); yea,
woe is to me, if I preach not the gospell (because then
. I shall be guilty of disobedience to the heavenly vision,
Acts xxvi. 9.)
17 °For if I do this thing willingly (if I choose to
take nothing for preaching the gospel, when I am under
no obligation so to do), I have a (special) reward (and
may glory in it) : but if against my will ( I preach the
gospel, yet am I under a necessity of doing this ; and
therefore cannot glory in it, or eaſpect any special re-
ward above others for it, since) a dispensation of the
gospel is committed to me (and so in that I only can
discharge my trust). -
18 "What is my reward then (or, what is matter of
special reward and glory to me) 8 Verily (this), that,
when I preach the gospel, I may make the gospel of
Christ without charge, that I abuse not (or use not,
see 1 Cor. vii. 31) my power (which is given me) in
the gospel: (and this matter of rejoicing I have :)
19 For though I be free from all men (as being a
servant to none), yet have I made myself (as a) ser-
vant to all, that I might gain the more.
20 And to the (unconverted) Jews I became as a
Jew, (circumcising Timothy for their sakes, Acts xvi.
3,) that I might gain the Jews; to them that (in their
opinion) are (yet) under the (obligation of the) law, as
under the law, (purifying myself in the temple, because
they were zealous of the law, Acts xx. 21. 26,) that I
might gain them that are under the law;
21 To them that are without law, (the unbelieving
gentiles, I became) as without law (discoursing to them
from those natural principles which they owned, Acts
xvii., rather than from the law and the prophets),
being not without law to God, but under the law to
Christ (or obedient to the law of Christ, and taking
care notwithstanding that I did nothing contrary to the
moral law of God, and to the rules of Christianity),
that I might gain them that are without law.
22 *To the weak (converts among the gentiles) I
became as weak (by condescending to abstain from what
might hurt their consciences), that I might gain the
weak: I am made all things to all men (by my com-
pliance with them in all lawful matters), that I might
by all means save some.
23 And this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I
might be partaker of (the promises and rewards of) it
with you. * r”
24 (Which neither you nor I shall obtain by the
bare profession or knowledge of it without charity, and
a life suitable to the precepts of it: for) know ye not
(among whom the Isthmian games are acted) that they
made for righteousness' sake and the information of our
manners.”
* Ver. 12. "Egovcia; tºy, Power over you..] So #ovaria;
Trygvºrov is “power over unclean spirits,” Matt. x. l ;
#ovcia; Trávn; oraçxic, “power over all flesh,” John xvii. 2.
* Ver. 17. Ei yā; #4&y roſto ºrpáczo, If I do this willingly.]
This is the interpretation of CEcumenius, and it seems best
to suit with the scope of the apostle: the other sense, men-
tioned by the ancients, and followed by most interpreters, is
this, If I preached the gospel as a volunteer, having no com-
mand from Christ to do it, I might expect a peculiar reward;
but having this command from Christ, I execute it only in
obedience to the trust committed to me, and so I cannot
glory in, or expect a reward for that above others.”
* Ver. 18.] Note, first, from ver. 12, 15. 18, that our
power, in things indifferent and uncommanded, is not to be
used to the hinderance of the gospel of Christ, and the
Scandal of the weak.
Secondly, That there is kaºnga, or matter of glorying in
things done by the assistance of the grace of God, and it is
for the glory of a man to do them (ver. 15, 16. 2 Cor. xi.
10), h Kaixnaric hºv, “Our rejoicing,” or “our glorying, in
this, even the testimony of our conscience” (2 Cor. i. 12).
And again, “Let every man approve himself” to his own
conscience, “and then shall he have rà waſ x^{xa, rejoicing in
himself, and not in another” (Gal. vi. 4). The glorying
therefore, or the waſy nºwa, which the apostle elsewhere doth
reject and exclude, is only that of the merit of our works, or
their sufficiency to procure the justification of a sinner
(Rom. iii. 27. iv. 2), or that which doth exclude the help or
the assistance of the grace of God in Christ (1 Cor. i. 29. 31).
Note,
Thirdly, That there may be some actions cminently good,
which fall under no particular command ; I say, particular
command ; for I believe this very action of Paul, in which
he glories, was done according to that charity which secketh
not her own, but the things of Jesus Christ (Phil. ii. 5), and
that it was in the general his duty to take care not to hinder
the gospel of Christ (ver. 12), and to cut off occasion
from others to glory, to the impairing of the truth (2 Cor. xi.
12), to perform that which rendered him instrumental to
gain the more (ver. 19); and therefore he saith (ver. 27),
“All this I do for the gospel's sake, that I may be partaker
of it with you.” I think every good work, which respects
our duty towards God, falls under the general command of
loving God with all our heart, our mind, and our soul; and
all the kindness we show to our brother, under the command
of loving him as ourselves; and think no action eminently
good can be done by any Christian, which is not compre-
hended under the general precept of doing “whatsoever
things are true, homest, just, pure, lovely, and of good re-
port ; if there be any virtue, any praise,” &c. (Phil. iv. 8).
But yet this action, as to the substance of it, being under no
precept, but being a refusal to use the power God had
granted to him as much as others, and this refusal being
done out of respect unto God’s glory, and the good of Souls,
was that of which he justly gloried, and for which, though he
did not merit anything, yet he might reasonably expect
from God, whose glory he promoted by it, an especial, re-
compence, according to the rule of his own nation, “To him
a reward is given, who doth anything uncommanded,”.
Il Vor. 23, 23.] See the reading of the text vindicated
against the surmises of Dr. Mills, as also x. 19.24, 28. 31.
Examen Millii in haec loca.
# Maimon, More Nevoch. lib. iii, cap. 17, p. 3Af,
636
I. CORINTHIANS.
who run in a race run all, but one (of them only) re-
ceiveth the prize So (therefore) run (your Christian
race), that ye may obtain (the reward of it):
25 And (then you will be moved to abstain, as I do.
from what may cause your weak brother to fall and
perish : for) every man that striveth for the mastery
(or is a wrestler in these games) is temperate in all
things (i.e. observeth a strict abstinence). Now they
(who thus abstain, that they may prevail in wrestling.)
do it (only) to obtain a corruptible crown (of bays or
olives) ; but we (Christians, by using this temperance,
shall obtain) an incorruptible (crown). º
26 I therefore so run (this race), not as uncertainly
12 Ver. 27. 'A36xpº.05, Lest I myself should be a castaway.]
i. e. One disapproved of by God at the last. Excellent here
is the note of the ancient commentators, ei 35 TIaijao; Tºro
3:30ixey, 3 roaoûrov; 3íðağaç, ºri ày sinolºgy hºsí, ; “If Paul,
so great a man, one who had preached and laboured so much,
dreaded this, what cause have we to fear lest this should
befall us?”
Note also, That the agonistical phrases, mentioned in these
four last verses, are fully and excellently explained by the
reverend Dr. Hammond, who informs us,
First, That the Isthmian games” were celebrated among
the Corinthians, and therefore the apostle speaks thus to
them, “Inow ye not P” -
Secondly, That, of the five games there used, the apostle
alludes only to two or three, running, ver. 24. 26, Wrestling,
ver. 25, cuffing, ver. 26, 27.
Thirdly, That he, who won the race by running, was to
observe the laws of racing, keeping within the white line,
which marked out the path or compass in which they were
to run, and was also to outrun the rest, and come first to the
goal, otherwise he ran “uncertainly” (ver. 24. 26), and
was 38&ntºwoc, one to whom the prize would not be judged by
the 8828surai, or judges of the games.
Fourthly, That the athletae, combatants, or wrestlers, ob-
* In Isthmo ludi quinquennales Isthmiaci. Solin. cap.
13. In eo est oppidum Cenchreas ludis quos Isthmicos
vocant celebre. Mela, lib. ii. Cap. 3, lin. 75.
Idem in haec verba, &#82 rātra's.
(or not regarding whether I am within the lines, or
come first to the goal or not); so fight I, not as one
that beateth the air, (i. e. not vainly, as you seem to
do: for what advantage have you by going to the idol’s
temples, or eating things offered to idols, to the destruc-
tion of your brother 8)
27 But I keep under my body, and bring it into
subjection (by denying myself these liberties in things
indifferent), *lest that by any means; when I have
preached to others, I myself should be a castaway;
(as being not partaker of the blessings of the gospel,
ver. 23.) * -
served a set diet,” both for the quantity and quality of their
meat, and carefully abstained from all things that might
render them less able for the combat ; whence they are here
said to be the “temperate in all things” (ver. 25).
Fifthly, 'That he who cuffed used to prepare himself for
the exercise by a cºxloº,axia,t or thrusting out his arm into
the air. And this is styled, “so fighting as to beat the air”
(ver. 26); but, when he came to the combat, then his fist
strove to hit the face and eyes of his adversaries; and this is,
ver, 27, incomiáćety, to strike under the eye, or give his adver-
sary a blue eye, and, applied to the body, is so to keep it
under, by beating it black and blue, as these combatants did
one another.
Sixthly, That the rewards of all these exercises were only
a crown made of leaves of some plant, or boughs of some
tree, the olive, bays, or laurel, which therefore the apostle
here calls “a corruptible crown” (ver. 25).
* Méxel coi 'oxtºwnſiz vix?cat — 88ſ a 'Birawrāv, &rayzorgopºv,
ãoréxec-Sai Trººp.4taly, yukºváðeasal agö, äväykny, Éy #6.
retayºvn, Šv Katºwart, #y Jºxei, ºwn juxpy wively, wi oivov, &c
#ruxey &rA&c, &c tarză wapa?:3oxéval orgavrév tº #widtáth’
Bira sic roy &yāya tragéexsa Sat. Epict. cap. 35.
+ 'Aápa #3alpoy, º kai śakioğxovy. Eustath. Tivic ºw
3rd rāv wuyºó roy rºy rotaúrny Tragotºxiay signa-Sat 3oxoiſaiy.
Il. 2. p. 1215, ed. Rom.
† Toí; 39Ahraic # air㺠Sãoral vixhaaat a répayog. Por-
phyr. de Antro Nymph. p. 270.
CHAPTER X.
I MoREover, brethren (to make you the more dili-
gent in running this Christian race, and to avoid these
sins which will cause you to fail of the prize you run
for, I shall lay before you the case of the Israelites,
gour forerunners, showing what privileges and what
advantages they had, and by what means most of them
so unhappily miscarried: for, to begin with their pri-
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. X.
* Ver. 1. ‘rº tºy ſepiary hoay, Were under the cloud.]
To understand the allusion here, note, that to be “under the
cloud,” is to be under the protection or covert of the cloud.
For “the cloud of glory,” saith the tradition of the Jews,” “sig-
mified the care and providence of God, and his presence with
them day and night;" and that accordingly it compassed
their camp, “as a wall doth a city.” And therefore of
the feast of tabernacles, which in the Hebrew is chagigah
succoth, “the feast of coverings,” the Jews; say, it was es-
pecially appointed to admonish them of the divine protec-
tion exhibited to them by the cloud. And the Chaldee pa-
raphrase saith, this feast was instituted, “that their posterity
might know that I made the children of Israel to dwell un-
der the shadow of the cloud:” and therefore Philot styles
it a kerae rhetov, “a covering.” And so the psalmist repre-
* Buxt. de Arcá Faed. cap. 14, p. 126, 127.
+ Buxt. Synag. Jud. cap. 21, p. 447.
: Quis Rer. Div. Haer. p. 397.
vileges), I would not that ye should be ignorant, how
that all our fathers (the church of Israel) were under
(the protection of) the cloud, and all passed through
the sea; -
2 And (so) were all baptized into (the covenant
made with God, and the doctrine taught by) Moses in
the cloud and in the sea;
sents it, when he says, “He spread out the cloud for a co-
vering to them, and a fire to enlighten them by night” (Ps.
cv. 39). And the prophet, when he says, “The Lord will
create upon every dwelling-place of mount Zion, and upon
her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining
of flaming fire by night; for upon all their glory shall be a
covering” (Isa, iv. 5, 6). IIávra rā TEgiziº air; a ziąast
# yeºn, “The cloud shall overshadow all her circuits,” saith
the Septuagint, “He was to them as a covering by day, and
a light of stars in the night-season,” saith the Book of Wis-
dom (x. 17). By these things Mr. Clerc may see we have
good warrant for saying, “The cloud was a covering to them,
and that they were under the cloud, because it was over
them;” not only because it went before them, which indeed
is a greater impropriety than that which he charges upon
others, that being indeed none at all : for what hinders the
same cloud from being at one time contracted into the figure
of a pillar, and at another expanded as a covering 2 For
do we not read that “the cloud covered the mount P” (Exod.
xxiv. 15) that it “covered the seat of the congregation ?”
(Exod. xl. 34) that it “covered the tabernacle?” (Numb
CHAPTER X.
637
3 And did all eat “the same spiritual meat; (that
manna which was a type of Christ, the true bread which
came down from heaven, John vi.)
ix. 15, 16). The learned Bishop of Ely notes, that there
were three several uses of the cloud: (1.) To guide them in
their journeys; and this it did as a pillar going before them.
(2.) To preserve them from the heat of the sun in the wil-
derness; and then it was spread out as covering (Ps. cy. 39),
and was “a cloud shadowing the camp” (Wisd. xix. 7).
(3.) To defend them from their enemies that they might not
assault them; and so it stood betwixt the whole host of Is-
rael and the Egyptians, and was a cloud of darkness to the
latter, so that they came not near the Israelites (Exod. xiv.
20): it therefore must be large enough to darken their whole
Call) O, -
Secondly, That “they all passed through the sea, so as
to come to the opposite shore,” saith Josephus;* they “went
through it,” saith St. Paul, elsewhere; “through the middle
of it,” say the Septuagint.: I confess some rabbins and
commentators say, they only fetched a compass like to a
half-circle in the sea, and came out again on the same side;
because before they entered into the sea, they were in the
edge of the wilderness Etham (Numb. xxxiii. 6), and after
they had passed the sea, they go three days’ journey in the
wilderness of Etham (Exod. xv.22). But to this it is an-
Swered, that the wilderness on each side of that arm of the
Sea, was called the wilderness of Etham, and beyond the
Red sea was the same with Shur (Exod. xv.22), for the
Hebrew word Hyp which we render edge, is by the Septua-
gint forty times rendered &#60;, “a part.” And here, say
they, they came to Buthan, 3 at a #30; tā, Āghºlov, “which
in some part of the wilderness” (Numb. xxxiii. 6); intimat-
ing that beyond the sea there was another part of the same
wilderness. And, Thirdly, as it follows,
Wer. 2. They were baptized unto Moses in the cloud.] i. e.
Into the doctrine taught by Moses: for the cloud was not
only for direction, but for a covering over them; according
to the words of the psalmist, “He spread out the cloud for .
a covering” (Ps. cxxxv. 29).
And in the sea.] For they were covered with the sea on
both sides (Exod. xiv. 22): so that both the cloud and the
sea had some resemblance to our being covered with water
in baptism; their going into the sea resembled the ancient
rite of going into the water, and their coming out of it their
rising up out of the water. And this the Jews; do so far
own, that they say “they were baptized in the desert, and
admitted into covenant with God before the law was given.”
Note, Fourthly, That the cloud had a bright shining side,
as Well as a dark side: so that their baptism in the sea
answered to that of water ; and the baptism in the cloud, to
baptism by fire, or by the Holy Ghost; which, say the Jews,
was represented by the Shechinah, or the cloud of glory.
* Ver. 3, T3 air 83&a, r3 air? rāga, The same meat and
the same drink.] For though some manuscripts omit tº aire,
“the same,” in both these verses, yet is that word to be re-
tained in both places: for so read Irenaeus'ſ and all the Greek
expositors (see Examen Millii in locum). And whereas
Esthius interprets the words thus, “They ate the same
among themselves, not the same with us:” this exposition is
Contrary, not only to what Austin” and all the Greek fathers
teach, but also to the scope of the apostle, which is to show
that they had the like spiritual advantages and privileges
With us, which yet he doth not do, unless their spiritual meat
and drink signified or typified to them Christ, as ours doth
to us. That all of them were not believers in Christ by
* "E4Sadav el; rāv Āvriirspay yńy. Antiq. lib. i cap. 7.
ºf Atá8nday rºy 'Epw863v Šáxaca’aw. Heb. xi. 29.
# Athéna'ay ºftcoy rā; Saxázon; si; rêy Henaoy. Josh. iv. 23.
IIaph?"Snaay. Neh. ix. 11.
§ Maim. ex Sisra in Seder Kodash. ed. Pocock, p. 27.
| Wide Masium in Josh. ix.
* Lib. iv. cap. 45. -
... ** Aliud illi, aliud nos, sed specie visibili, quod tamen hoc
idem significaret virtute spirituali sacrimenta illa fuerunt,
in signis diversa Sunt, sed in re quae significatur paria sunt,
Aug. Tr. 26 in Joh, to. ix. p. 228, B, C.
4 And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for
they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them :
and that Rock was Christ: (as typifying him, and
faith, but some of them were unbelievers, is no objection
against this sense : for so it is with Christians now ; the
wicked not partaking of the benefit of Christ by faith, as the
fathers speak, though they receive the sacrament of his body
and blood with their mouths.
Note also, That Paul represents manna as spiritual food ;
and the rock as being spiritual, and affording them spiritual
drink, agreeably to the descants of the Jews: for manna,
saith Philo,” “is the food of the soul ; it signifies the law
of God, and the divine Logos, whence all permanent instruc-
tion and knowledge flow. And this is the heavenly food, of
which Moses, in the person of God, speaketh, saying, Behold
I rain down for you bread from heaven.”—“The food of the
soul,” saith the same Philo, “is heavenly, not earthly, as the
holy scripture testifieth, saying, I rain down for you bread
from heaven.” He calls the manna put into the ark, rºc
oùgavíov ×al Seia, rgo på vä &ynºſov, “the memorial of the
divine and heavenly food,” and Saith, that “mannaji is the
divine Logos, the celestial and incorruptible nourishment of
a soul desirous of knowledge.” The Jews also declare that
manna‘ was a type of the external happiness of man : that it
had its rise from heaven, and thence descended on the earth,
by opening the gates of heaven ; that it is “the divine light
incorporated, the splendour of the glory of the majesty of
God the bread on which angels feed, and by which the sons
of the world to come are to subsist.” And with these repre-
sentations of it agree the words of the apostle, saying, the
Jews by eating of it did eat rô air 8pāºa ºryevºwariköy, “the
same spiritual food” with us. But here Mr. Clerc saith,
“The word "ryevº artwäc, spiritual, is here opposed to purtwäç,
natural, not to orogatikög, corporeal; for manna was corpo-
real food, which could not be spiritual in any other respect
than as it was prepared, not by sensible causes, but by spirits ;
viz. angels, whose bread therefore it is said to be, Ps. lxxviii.
2.” I answer, Here is nothing true, or at least nothing
certain : for (1.) the Chaldee paraphrast saith it is called
the bread of angels in the psalmist, “ because it came from
heaven, the habitation of the angels;” as the psalmist him-
self interprets it, saying, “He opened the gates of heaven,
he rained upon them manna for to eat, and gave them bread
from heaven ; bread of the mighty did man eat.” (2.) Why
did he say, “It could not be called spiritual food in any
othersense than as it was prepared by spirits?” It is because it
was corporeal food. And might it not be also the food of the
soul? Are not bread and wine corporeal food? And yet may
they not be also spiritual food P Yea, doth not the apostle's ar-
gument plainly require that the manna should be spiritual?
For how else did they “eat the same spiritual food” with us?
And, (3.) how absurd is it to say, it is called “spiritual food”
because prepared by spirits? Can he give one instance of
any corporealthings called spiritual upon that account P Was
it not spiritual meat, as the water issuing from the rock was
spiritual drink, and was that so because prepared by spirits 2
* Ver 4. And that rock was Christ.] i. e. It typified
Christ : for as the rock, being smitten, gave forth waters, so
our Lord, being smitten, water came forth out of his side ;
and the Holy Ghost, signified by this effusion of waters from
the rock, was poured forth as a river. “By the solid rock,”
saith Philo, “Moses understands the wisdom of God, which
* Zºrácayºrs; xatri to reštov ša ri rºy Juxºv eigov 'zašávre;
#aa Osoſ Mai Aévoy Seſov, & p’ of Târa, traičiai zai copia: #ovziy
&évyato, ; 3’ #atiy i oigávio; ºrpoºpi' anyūeral 3; #9 rat; i.egaſ;
avyypaqaſ, Év trgozówº roš airiov Aéyovros, ibot, yº to bºy
āprov; #4 rot, oùpayoi. L. de Profugis, p. 367, B. “Or, 8; ot
yāiyot axx' oileávio at lux; reopai, was rusho's 8& wastóvoy &
ispöc Aáyoc, ièoi i yº toº, &c. Alleg. lib. i. p. 69, B.
+ De Congr. Quaer. Erud. Gratiá, p. 344, A.
f Tā ºftwa rēy Seſov Aéyoy, row oigävlov pixoSeákovo, buxic
#40aeroy reophy. Quis Rer. Divin. Haer. p. 384, D.
§ Buxt. Hist. Manna, p. 336,339, 352. w &
| IIárpay rºw ováñay kai 38táxorrow #zºpaſyay coºlav escº, roy
rečboy was ºrišnvokéºw wai xovgorpépoy rāy 34,046 row Stairng pit-
&#ywy rºy tréréav raúrny répo,0; avywyvºid X?&prºvoº Raxi;
ſ
638
I. CORINTHIANS.
the * waters to be received from him, John iii.
37, 39. -
5 But (notwithstanding these privileges and favours
common to them with us), with many of them God
was not well pleased : for they were overthrown (by
him) in the wilderness (Heb. iii. 17).
6 Now these things were (written for) “our ex-
amples (who succeed them in like privileges and fa-
vours), to the intent we should not lust after evil
things, as they also lusted (after flesh, when they had
manna, food sufficient for them, Numb. xi. 4).
7 Neither be ye idolaters (by eating things offered
to idols, and partaking of the table of devils), as were
some of them; as it is written, "The people sat down
to eat and drink (of the sacrifices offered to the golden
calf), and "rose up to play. '.
8 Neither let us commit "fornication, as some of
them committed (fornication, at the sacrifices of Baal-
peor, Numb. xxv. 16–18), and (upon that account,
there) fell in one day “three and twenty thousand (of
them).
9 Neither let us tempt "Christ (our Lord), as some
is the nurse and the instructor of all that desire the incor-
ruptible life. He by a synonymous word calls the rock
manna; that is, the most ancient of beings, the divine Lo-
gos.” And again, “the rock, cleft in the top, is the wisdom
of which he makes the souls that love him to drink ; and
being thus made to drink, they are also filled with the uni-
versal manna, for manna is called ri, which is the progeny
of all things. Now the most general cause of all things is
God, and the second the Word of God.” By these things
Mr. Clerc may be convinced, that the Jews might under-
stand these types by tradition ; and seeing them thus ac-
complished, might be induced to believe. And as for
Christians, the apostle here shows the influence they ought
to have on them, viz. to preserve them from the like offences,
lest they become subject to the like judgments to which the
Jews were obnoxious (ver. 5, 6). But Mr. Clerc denies that
the words bear this sense, The rock signifies Christ, or repre-
sented him ; and saith, the import of these words, “That
Rock was Christ,” is only this, “That which may be said of
that rock in a carnal sense, may in a spiritual be affirmed of
Christ:” which is to expound the apostle as speaking thus,
They all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank of
the Rock that followed them : now, what may be said of
that rock in a carnal sense, may be said of Christ in a spi-
ritual; i. e. “They all drank the same spiritual drink,”
because what they drank was carnal. Moreover, we find
many phrases of the like nature, both in the Old and New
Testament, as when it is said, “The three branches are
three days ;”, “The seven kine, and seven ears of corn, are
seven years : “The four great beasts are four kingdoms;”
“Thou art the golden head;” “The seed is the word;”
“The field is the world, the reapers are the angels, the har-
west is the end of the world;” “The hair is Jerusalem ;”
“This bread is my body,” “This cup is my blood” (Gen.
xl. 12. xliii. 26. Ezra v. 5. Dan. ii. 38. vii. 17. Matt. xiii. 38,
39. xxvi. 26, 27. Luke viii. 11). Now in all these instances
doth not is import typifies, signifies, represents 2 Why there-
fore should it not do so in the like proposition, “This rock
is Christ?” Or what one instance can Mr. Clerc produce,
that anything was ever said to be another thing, because
.“What might be said of it in a carnal sense might in a
spiritual sense be said of the other P” And is it not sufficient
prejudice against this wrapspºnysia, or uncouth interpretation,
that it hath no parallel example? Whereas our exposition is
confirmed from numerous examples of like nature.
* Ver, 6. Türo hºw, Our examples.] “The examples he
here puts,” saith Theodoret, “exactly answer to the sins of
the Corinthians;” for as the Jews lusted to eat flesh, so the
Corinthians lusted to eat things offered to idols, when they
had other meat provided plentifully by God for them :
“for the earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof.”
(ver. 28). -
* Ver. 7. Exášiai, 3 Aa3; paysīy, &c. The people sat down
to eat and drink, and rose up to play.] When the heathens
had offered upon the altar, and consumed that part which
belonged to the god they worshipped, they banqueted in the
idol temple upon the remains, and so did epulis accumbere
ºvva, rêv Tresagüra-row rāv Švrov, Aéycy Señoy. Quod deter.
g * * sº
pot. p. 137, A, C. Hyèp 34:3togo; 7árez ha'otia Osoſ; Harry,
#y &zeay was "rgotiatny Érapasy &rö róv Šavrot, 8vyápagoy, ###,
#2 * 9: * - * sº S. gº 33 w * * *
motiše rā; pixośćov; Jux&;, ºroria Seſa at 3: Kai ºrcü p.4ty& #2-
Tripwiraavtat rot, ysvizorérov Kaxeſ rat 733 to £24vya ‘ri, 3 argy-
roy a ri yiyo;' rú 33 yevizorarów Ła riv 3 Qaā;, xai 3sºrseo; 5 Otoč
Aöyo; Legis Alleg. lib. iii. p. 853, A, B.
divièm, as Virgil 4 speaks, at long tables prepared for that
purpose, whence this is by the apostle called partaking of the
tables of devils ; and used very appositely, say the fathers,
to convince the Corinthians, that, by eating things offered to
the idols in the idol temple, they must be guilty of heathen-
ish idolatry.
* Rose wp to play, Here almost all the critics observe,
that ºrgićely, to play, bears an impure sense, importing their
... with one another ; as when we say, such a one
hath played the whore ; but this criticism seems here to be
without foundation: for (1.) the scripture often mentions
their idolatry, but never charges them with whoredom, then
committed when they made the golden calf ; all that God
himself charges upon them is, that they had made them a
molten calf, and had worshipped and sacrificed to it, and
said, “These be thy gods,” Exod xxii. 8. 35. Neh. ix. 18.
Ps. cwi. 19, 20. Acts vii. 41. (2.) The apostle speaks of
whoredom in the verse following as a distinct sin, and there-
fore cannot reasonably be supposed to charge them with it
here. (3.) The exposition of the ancients, that they rose up
to dance before the calf, is confirmed by these words “And
when Moses saw the calf, and the dancing, he was wroth”
(Exod. xxii. 19). And because this was done after the
manner of the heathens,” and was one of the rites by which
they honoured their gods, the apostle useth it as a confirma-
tion of their idolatry. And this is all the fathers seem to
mean by saying, that to play, is used äyri roi; sièoxoMarpääEly,
“for committing idolatry ;” and the Jerusalem Targum,
when it saith, they did ludere cultà peregrino, “play after the
heathen manner.”
7 Wer. 8. Mºë rogvedagºgy, Neither let us commit fornica-
tion, as some of them committed.] How prone the Christians
of the church of Corinth were to this sin, which made the
heathen Corinth infamous to a proverb, we learn from these
words of the apostle, “I fear when I come, I shall bewail.
many who have sinned already, and have not repented of the
uncleanness, and fornication, and lasciviousness which they
committed” 2 Cor. xii. 21 (see l Cor. iii. 16, 17. v. ll. vi.
9. 13. 15, 16). s
* Eixo~iresſ, Xixtá88c, Three and twenty thousand.] The
number of the slain was four and twenty thousand (Numb.
xxv. 9), and so QEcumenius saith some ancient copies read
here ; but of this number one thousand was slain by the
judges, and that probably the day before the plague ; three-
and twenty thousand by the immediate hand of God. Now
the design of the apostle here, is only to mention them who
fell in one day by the hand of God (see Bochart. Hieroz. lib.
ii. cap. 34).
* Wer. 9. Toy Xgtaºy, Christ.] This reading ought not to
be questioned, for we find it not only in Hilary the deacon,
Chrysostom, CEcumenius, Theophylact, but in Irenaeus.f.
Hence Primasius of old proved the divinity of Christ, as be-
ing that God whom they tempted (Ps. cwi. 14), and others
his pre-existence before the birth of the blessed Virgin,
against the Socinians. That the apostle here cannot speak,
as Crellius contends, of Moses, is plain:
* AEm. i. 83. Wide Turneb. lib. xxx. cap. 5. -
# Inter vescendum diis laudes canebant, pedibusque cir-
cum aras complodentes ad numeros psallebant. Rosin.
Antiq. lib. iii. cap. 33. Virgil. Eclog. v. 73. Ubi Servius,
sané ut in religionibus Saltaretur haec est ratio, quod nullam
majores nostri partem corporis esse voluerunt quae non sen-
tiret religionem. -
+ Lib. iv. cap. 45.
CHAPTER X.
639
of them also tempted (him), and were destroyed of
serpents (Numb. xxi. 5, 6).
10 Neither murmur ye, as some of them also mur-
mured (Numb. xiv. 2), and were destroyed "of the
destroyer (ver. 37).
11 Now all these things happened to them for ex-
amples (to posterity); and they are written for our
admonition, *upon whom the ends of the world (the
last of ages) are come (i. e. the Christian age).
12 Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth
(and is in high favour with God, as they once were, and
still think they are,) take heed lest he fall.
13 (And whereas the great inducement to symbolize
with Jew or gentile in their rites is this, that you may
avoid persecution, you have no cause to doubt of Christ's
protection under them, for he hath so preserved you
hitherto, that) there hath no temptation taken you but
such as is common to man (āv0pôtruvoc, supportable by
the strength and resolution of a man): but (moreover).
God is faithful, **who will not suffer you to be tempted
(at any time) above that you are able, but will with
the temptation also make a way (so fair) to escape
(it), that you may be able to bear it.
14 Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from (the)
idolatry (committed by the participation of things of
fered to idols in the idol temple). -
15 I speak as to wise men (in what I am now offer-
ing, to show the idolatry of this practice) ; judge ye
(the reasonableness of) what I say. e
16 °The cup of blessing which we bless (or receive
with thanksgiving to God for it) is it not the *.com-
munion of the blood of Christ (or that rite by which
we Christians do profess to hold communion with, and
own him as, our Lord and Saviour, who shed his blood
for us) 8 The bread which we break, is it not (also)
the communion of the body of Christ (i. e. do we not
First, Because, though the name of Jesus be once given
to Joshua (Heb. iv. 8) in the New Testament, as being the
true import of his name, and the translation of it by the
Septuagint, yet is the name of Christ never given to Moses,
nor doth it bear any affinity with his name. Nor,
Secondly, Is Moses ever called Christ in the Old Testa-
ment. For though Crellius contends that name is given
him in these words of Habakkuk (iii. 13), “Thou wentest
forth for the salvation of thy people with thy Christ ;” yet it
is evident that this is spoken of God’s going forth with
Joshua, by “the captain of the Lord's host” (who is de-
scribed, Josh. v. 14, 15, and so honoured by Joshua, as to
leave no place of doubting that he was a divine person);
or, wer. 11, the prophet saith, “ The Sun and moon stood
still,” as they did only in the time of Joshua (x. 12), and
ver. 12, “Thou didst march though the land in indignation,
thou didst thresh the heathens in anger,” as he did by
Joshua; and then follow the words cited. (2.) This appears
farther from the words tempt and tempted, which, both in
the Old and New Testament, signify distrusting the power
or the will of God to do what he had given those who
tempted him sufficient evidence he was able and willing to
perform (see this proved, note on Matt. iv. 7). Now thus
they did not tempt Moses (Numb. xi. 6), but God, by dis-
trusting his power to give them bread and water in the wil-
derness (ver. 5).
Their Second answer therefore is, That there being no
accusative case expressed after the words x&0&; xxi rive;
aúrów Łºreigaa-aw, “As some of them tempted,” they may as
well add God, as we add him. But, -
l. This exposition must ascribe that divine power to
Christ, which belonged unto him they tempted in the wilder-
ness, by virtue of the preceding argument, and also render
it as wicked and as dreadful to tempt Christ now, as it
was to tempt God then; and so by consequence it must as-
cribe to him that divine nature, from which a divine power is
inseparable.
2. They have not yet produced one instance where the
person spoken of in reference to the same action, in the same
instance, is thus changed. Crellius, indeed, who never wants
a shift, such as it is, brings his instance from ver. 6, viz.
“These things were spoken, that we might not be lusters af.
ter evil things, as they also lusted:” but as here is the fallacy
of a transition, eiç &AA0 yévoc, from things to persons; so is
there nothing said, ver, 6, to signify that the evil things for-
bid to the Corinthians to be the subject of their lusts, were
to be quails or flesh, as in the Jews they were, but only that
they were, for the kind, evil, as theirs also were.
* Ver. 10. "Ynè roč ŠxoSpevroſ, Of the destroyer.] i. e. By
a plague sent by the hand of Sammael, the angel of death,
called āošpeſov, “the destroyer,” Wisd. xviii. 25. Heb. xi.
28, and “him that had the power of death,” Heb. ii. 14.
Now the Corinthians murmured, saith Theodoret, because
some of them had received only inferior gifts; say others, by
reason of the persecutions they suffered for the Christian
faith. .
* Ver. 11. T& réan rāy aidyay, The end of the ages.] This
phrase either signifies the end of the Jewish age, as if the apos-
tle did intend to say, These things, which happenedin the be-
ginning of the Jewish age, were recorded for caution and ex-
ample to us, who are come to the conclusion of it; or the last of
the ages of the world, i. e. the Christian age; for the Jews, ac-
cording to the tradition of Elias, divide the duration of the
world into three ages: the age before the law, the age of the
law, and the age after the law, or that of the Messiah (Tal-
mud. in Sanhedr. cap. Chelek).
* Wer. 13. “og own iácsi ükäc, Who will not suffer yow.]
i. e. Any of you, who do what in you lies to arm yourselves
against them, to be tempted above what you are able ; this
therefore ought not to be restrained to the elect: for the pre-
ceding words, “No temptation hath happened to you,” are
spoken to all the members of the church at Corinth; and
God hath doubtless engaged to all that enter into covenant
with him, to enable them to perform the condition of that
covenant, since a covenant upon an impossible condition, he
knows, cannot be performed; and all are bound to pray in
faith, that God would not “suffer them to be tempted above
what they are able,” by his strength, to bear.
* Ver. 16. To Trorhetov rā; sixoyſaº, The cup of blessing.]
The paschal cup being styled by the Jews, “the cup of
blessing,” because they sanctified it, i. e. they gave thanks
for it in these words, “Blessed be thou, O Lord our God, the
King of the world, who hast created the fruit of the vine ;”
and being also styled “the cup of blessing of the table,” it
cannot reasonably be doubted that the eucharistical cup was
so called for the same reason, and that it was sanctified or
consecrated by thanksgiving to God for it.
* Koivovia, The communion.] This word “communion”
hath two significations: (1.) when the subject spoken of may
be distributed into parts, so that each man may have a share
of it, it denotes a distribution and a communication of those
parts to the community, or body mentioned. Thus in the
case of alms, seeing there is a distribution of our substance
to those that want, this is in scripture styled xolyovia, and is
sometimes rendered “contribution” (Rom. xv. 26), some-
times “distribution” (i. 9. 13. Heb. xiii. 16); and since
there were 3iagécsig “ divisions and diversities” of gifts, mi-
mistrations, and operations vouchsafed to the church ; all
which the Holy Ghost wrought, “dividing to every member
of it severally as he would” (2 Cor. xii. 11); the giving these
gifts and several operations to them, is called “the commu-
nion of the Spirit,” 2 Cor. xiii. 13. Phil. ii. 1. Thus, be-
cause one consecrated loaf was anciently distributed among all
the communicants, and they all drank their share of the same
cup of blessing, therefore the bread, thus broken and shared
out, may be said to be the communion or communication of
the body of Christ, as being the communication of that
bread which represented his broken body; and the cup they
severally drank of may be styled the communication of the
blood of Christ, as being the communication of that wine
which represented his blood shed: and to this import lead
the following words, “Because the bread (or loaf) is one (of
which we all partake) we being many are one body, for we
are all partakers of one loaf,” according to the old proverbial
expression, oria attoi Kai ciſ-a-wºot.
But where the subject mentioned is not capable of such
640
I. CORINTHIANS.
by eating at his table, declare our fellowship with,
and own him as our Lord, whose body was thus broken
for us) P -
17 *For we being many are one bread, and one
body (or, because the bread is one, one loaf being broken
jor us all, we who partake of it, being many, are one
body, owning ourselves thereby all members of that
body of which Christ Jesus is the head); for we are all
partakers of that one bread (and thus you see that, by
partaking of this Christian sacrifice, we own ourselves
to have communion with the Lord Jesus, and with the
whole society of Christians).
18 Behold Israel after the flesh, (and see if it be
not so there also: for) are not they who eat of the sa-
crifices (the peace-offerings, for of these only did the
people eat,) *partakers of the altar (and so hold com-
munion with him whose altar it is 2 ix. 13.)
19 What say ... then (i. e. what need I then to say)?
that the idol is anything, or that which is offered in .
sacrifice to idols is anything (which can of its own.
nature pollute) *
20 But (this) I say, that the things which the gen-
tiles sacrifice, they sacrifice " to devils, and not to
God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship
with devils (or do service to them in the idol temples:
jor)
21 You cannot drink the cup of the Lord (and
thereby declare your fellowship with him, and that you
own him as your Lord, in opposition to all others), and
(yet drink) the cup of devils (and so make the like ac-
knowledgment concerning them) : ye cannot be par-
takers of the Lord’s table, *and the tables of devils.
22 Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy (by bring-
ing devils into competition with him) P are we stronger
division, or distribution, but every one is to have the whole,
or the same with another, it imports a fellowship and com-
munion in the same thing; in which sense we are said to be
called by God, si, zolyoviay “to the fellowship of his Son,” 1
Cor. i. 9, “to have koiyoviay a fellowship in his sufferings; to
have xolyoviay communion with God, and the Son,” 1 John i.
5, and in the apostles’ symbol, to believe “the communion
of saints:” and in this import of the word the sense runs
thus, Do we not, by partaking of this bread and wine, con-
secrated in memorial of Christ giving his body broken and
his blood shed for us, hold communion, or declare our fellow-
ship, with Christ P Both these senses seem agreeable to the
scope of the apostle, and the first infers the second.
* Ver. 17. “Or, si, #proc, #y cºwa oi roxxoi iousy, Because
the bread is one, we being many are one body..] These words,
“The bread which we break,” the loaf or bread “is one,”
and “We all partake of one loaf,” and therefore are one
body, show how grossly the church of Rome hath varied from
Christ's institution, in distributing to the communicants se-
verally an unbroken wafer, so that they neither are partakers
of one bread, or loaf, or of bread broken, as the custom both
of Jews and Christians was to do, It also deserves to be
noted from the testimonies of Jamblichus” and Laertius, i.
that anciently this was a token of friendship; and that Py-
thagoras forbade his scholars àprov Karayyáely “to break their
bread,” because that was not to be broken which made
friendship. •.
* Ver. 18. Kowoyol rod Svariac-rmpiov, Partakers of the al-
tar.] i. e. Do they not by partaking of the gift consecrated
by the altar, and of which one part is consumed upon it,
partake with the altar, and own that they communicate with
and worship that God at whose altar or table the meat was
offered in honour of him 2 (Mal. i. 7.) For as swearing by
the altar, is also swearing by him whose altar it is (Matt.
xxiii. 20), so, having communion with the altar, is having
communion with him whose altar it is. To illustrate this let
it be noted, (1.) that, in these Bºbby or peace-offerings,
there was a threefold participation ; 1. God had his part,
offered him upon the altar, viz. the blood and the en-
trails; part was given to the priest, viz. the breast and shoul-
der; and part to the offerer, viz. the skin and the rest of the
flesh; and this in token, say the Jews, of friendship and
communion of the party offering them, with God and the
priest: and he, by eating the remainder, and feasting on it
in the temple, or the holy city, became partaker with the al-
tar, or with God, who had received his share upon the altar.
Note, (2.) that these peace-offerings were offered either by
way of thanksgiving for mercies obtained, or by way of vow
or of free devotion; for this division of peace-offerings, we
find Lev. vii. Moreover, these being offered to the God of
Israel, signified the owning him as that God from whom they
received and expected all their mercies.
17 Wer. 20. Aalp.oyiotº, To devils.] Here Mr. Clerc saith,
* Tö 8; &#xafov 8268agikā; rávts: iri Eva Čercy avvieray of
‘pixot. De Vitā Pythag. p. 89. - -
+*Ori Bºri Éva oi ºráxai rāy pixoy #4 of roy wasáreº wai viv of
8á68apot' ºwn?: Blaſésſy, 3: avyáyst autoſs. Laert, in Vitā Pythag.
p. 222.
“The word Saigºśviot doth not necessarily signify devils or
evil spirits; for the heathen did not always sacrifice to evil
spirits, if we consider what were their true thoughts.” But
the wisdom of God did not think fit to consider the specu-
lations of some of their philosophers; but what was indeed
their practice, and what the objects and directors of their
worship were, and who was gratified by it: they pretended to
own a supreme Deity; but the spirits which spake in the
oracles they consulted, which moved their idols, and resided
in them, and set up and promoted their whole idolatrous
worship, were doubtless evil spirits; and so the primitive
Christians engage to force them to confess themselves to be,”
even before them who paid homage to them. The pulling
down of this idolatrous worship is, in our Saviour's lan-
guage, “the casting out of the prince of this world,” John
xii. 31, and xvi. 11; the converting the gentiles from this
idolatry to the worship of the true God, is, the “turning
them from the power of Satan unto God,” Acts xxvi. 18;
“the delivering them from the power of darkness,” Col. i.
13, who before walked according to the “prince of the power
of darkness,” Eph. ii. 2, and were “led captive by Satan at
his will,” 2 Tim. ii. 26. The psalmist, according to the
Septuagint, saith, Śri rāyrs; oi 680: #6vây Saipzávia, “that all
the gods of the heathens are devils” (Ps. xcvi. 5): and of
the Jews who sacrificed to them it is said, “they sacrificed.
to devils, and not to God,” Bºtwº, to evil, wasting, and de-
stroying spirits. The Jews said the same of the gentiles,
that they were Šča ayre; 3alpcovicic, “sacrificing to devils,”
and not to God, Baruch iv. 7, and so they are also styled, 2
Chron. xi. 15. Rev. ix. 20: and so all Christians ever did
expound this place, and with good reason, it being absurd to
think St. Paul is here dissuading Christians from having fel-
lowship with good angels.
* Ver. 21. Kai rparéén, Saipaoyiov, And of the table of de-
vils.] This being the design of the apostle, to show that the
Corinthians could not partake of the idol sacrifices in the
idol temples without being wolvoyoi rāv Šatºvoviov, “men who
held communion with devils;” and the proof of this being
taken from the practice of Christians in partaking of the eu-
charist, and of the Jews in partaking of sacrifices offered at
the altar; it is evident that the sixteenth verse must be in-
terpreted suitably to this design, and so as to be a fit medium
to prove this conclusion. It is therefore evident,
First, That zowavia, “ communion,” cannot here signify
the real and substantial communication of the body and
blood of Christ, since that sense renders the apostle's argu-
ment infirm ; for how doth it. hence follow, that because
Christians eat substantially the body, and drink the blood, of
Christ, therefore they who eat of the idol sacrifices are guilty
of idolatry, and hold communion with devils. Moreover.
the eating of things offered to idols, could not in this sense
make them that did it “communicators of the devils,” for
surely they did not eat of the substance of the devils: thy
therefore cannot be the import of the words. Nor,
* Quicquid daemonum colitis, victi dolore, quid sunt elo-
quuntur, ipsis testibus esse eos daemones de se verum con-
fitentibus credite. Minutius, p. 31. Tertull. Apol, cap. 23.
Cyp. ad Don. 4, de Van. Idol. p. 15.
CHAPTER X.
641
... than he? (so that we need fear not the punishments he 27 And again I say,) If any of them that believe
may inflict on them who give his honour to another.
23 And whereas you plead thus for yourselves,) All
things are lawful for me (i. e. all meats may lawfully
be eaten : be it so :) but (yet) all (lawful) things are not
expedient (to be done): all things are lawful for me,
but all things edify not, (as charity doth, viii. 1.
24 For the rule of charity is this 9 Let no man
seek his own (only) but every man another’s wealth,
(preferring the public to his private good, and the good
of souls’to that of his own body.
25 Concerning then the eating of things offered to
idols in the general, and without relation to the idol
temple, in which to eat them is idolatry, I thus deter.
mine J Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, that eat
(ye), asking no question for conscience’ sake (as if
you thought it matter of conscience, whether you might
eat it, if offered to idols, or not).
26 For the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness
thereof, (and therefore you may eat of any creature the
earth provideth for your food, without scruple of con-
science, when others are not scandalized at it.
***
Secondly, Can the sense of them be to this effect: The
cup and bread communicate to us the spiritual effects of
Christ's broken body, or his blood shed for us; though this
be in itself a certain truth. For,
1. These spiritual effects cannot be shared among be-
lievers, so that every one shall have a part of them only ;
but the same benefits are wholly communicated to every due
receiver (see note on ver, 16).
2. The apostle here attempts to prove, not that the Co-
rinthians, by eating things offered to idols in the idol tem-
ple, received any spiritual influence from devils, but only
that, by that action, they did partake of what was offered to
them, and was a solemn part of their religious worship, as
the eating these sacrifices was still leputed; so that by
it they must own themselves the worshippers of idols, and
then, by parity of reason, he must, by the example of the
eucharist, intend to prove, not that the Christian did partake
of the spiritual effects of our Lord's passion, but that he did
partake of what was consecrated in honour of him, and re-
ceived as a solemn act of religious worship and communion
with him. And this appears yet farther from the words
which the apostle useth, as the close of this argument, and
as the thing which answers to the two preceding instances:
for they do not run thus, By the things which the gentiles
offer they receive spiritual influences from evil spirits ; but
thus, “This I say,” to complete this argument, and to rem-
der the Sacrifice offered to idols parallel to those of Chris-
tians and of Jews; that as these are offered to the honour of
Christ and of the God of Israel, so “the things which the
gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and I would not that
ye should be partakers with devils;” viz. by feasting of the
sacrifices thus offered to them, and of which the devils had
n part; and that it was by the act of eating and drinking of
these idol sacrifices, that they became partakers of the cup
and table of devils, and thereby guilty of idolatry, as the fa-
thers declare,” so is it evident from these words, “Ye can-
not drink of the cup of the Lord, and of the cup of devils ;
ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and the table of
devils;” it was therefore by these actions that they held com-
munion with them, and committed idolatry: the eating of
the feast made of things offered to idols in the idol temple
being as much a federal rite, as was the eating of peace-
ufferings of the Jews, eaten in the temple, or the holy city,
* Qute autem animam simul et corpus polluunt: partici-
pare daemonum mensae, hoc est immolata degustare, et si
fluid aliud est quod damonibus oblatum est. Clem, lib. iv.
Ş. 36. *
'Atrö 3è sièoxoşūrov psûyers, ār; ripºſ y&p 8atºwāyay Sãova',
ratra, 8vo; Azh yivsa SE Kowayoi 3alpºvoy. Const. Apol. lib. vii.
cap. 21.
Tô ºv yºp eiðoxéSutov Ščeral Saipao, ot;, yai ou Xpm toy roi,
©soil &ySpätroy Koivoviv rawá&n; Saigovíay yive-Sai. Orig. con-
tra Celsum, lib. viii. p. 396, 397.
: not bid (or invite) you to a feast, and you be disposed
to go ; *whatsoever is set before you, eat, asking no
question for conscience’ sake.
28 But if any man say unt, you, This is offered in
sacrifice to idols (thinking that, by thus partaking
in such meat, you must own the idol, or concur in the
worship of it), eat not for his sake that showed it, and
for conscience’ sake : for the earth is the Lord’s and
the fulness thereof (who therefore can replenish thee
out of other meats provided for thy food) :
29 Conscience, I say, (meaning) not thy own, but
(that) of the others (who showed thee this was offered
to idols) : for why is my liberty (so used by me, as
that I be) judged of (and condemned by) another man's
conscience 2
30 For if I by grace be a partaker (of God’s good
creatures), * why (do I use them so as that) I am evil
spoken of (by others) for that for which I give thanks
(because of benefits received by it) *
31 Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatso-
ever ye do,” do all to the glory of God.
or the sacramental bread eaten in the church by Christians,
whence the oblations made there were styled a Trovãai év tº
3alp.6vov, “oblations in honour of our demons.”
tº Wer. 27. II&w ºr "ragatiºšwevow tºy ia-6ſsºrs, Whatsoever
is set before you, eat.] The apostle had before discoursed of
eating things offered to idols in the idol-temple, and shown,
(1.) the scandal it might give to the weak gentile Christian :
and (2.) that it was indeed an idolatrous action: here he
begins his discourse of eating at all things offered to idols,
with respect chiefly to the weak Jewish convert. And (1.)
whereas by their canons” an idol, and all things appertaining
to it, and whatever was offered to it, were wholly forbidden,
the rabbins pronouncing the eating or possessing anything of
it forbidden, in these words, “Thou shalt not bring an abo-
mination into thine house” (Deut. vii. 26); the apostle re-
lieves the conscience of the Christian in this case, letting him
know that he might eat these things, when sold in shambles,
without scruple of conscience, ver, 25. (2.) Whereas their
canons teach, that +if a heathen unake a banquet for his son
or daughter, a Jew is forbidden to eat of his meat, because
he is forbidden, if called, to eat of his sacrifice (Exod. xxxiv.
15); the apostle exempts the conscience of the Christian
from this obligation also, ver. 27.
39 Wer. 30. Ti 3Xaa-ºngoigcai ; Why am I evil spoken of 3)
This is the exposition of all the Greek scholiasts, and it is
confirmed by the parallel place, “Let not your good be evil
spoken of.” Rom. xiv. 16 ; i.e. let not your faith, or the
liberty you take by reason of it, be used so as to minister
occasion to others to speak evil of that faith, as the Jews did
of Christianity upon occasion of this liberty ; for they held
the eating of things offered to idols to be idolatry, and pro-
nounced all idolaters to be apostates from the law and the
prophets: and this was one of their great objections against
Christians, that “they did eat things offered to idols, and
thought not themselves defiled by doing so;’ though in
truth this was done chiefly by the heretics of those times, the
Nicolaitans, the Gnostics, and the followers of Basilides :
but “the true Christians,” saith Justin Martyr," “will rather
suffer death than be guilty of idolatry, or eating things offered
to idols.”
* Ver, 31. IIávra etc. 36%ay Ogot, Troisſºrs, Do all to the glory
* Maim. Idol. cap. vii. Ş. 2, 11.
+ Ibid. cap. ii. Ş. 3, 8.
f Kai ºfty réxxov; tāv ráy 'incočv Aeyávray pºoxoyeſv, *z, Afyº-
gévoy Xetariavāv, rvyšávokat io9isty rà sièoxášura, Kai (anºi, iz
rotºrov 3xáirrea Sat, Aéyety. Tryph. apud Justin. p. 253.
§ Nicolaitae indiscreté vivunt, nullam differentiam esse di-
centes in mocchando et idolothyton edere. Iren, lib. i. Cap. 27.
| De Gnosticis idem, kai yag Biêoxóðvtz 38taqāpoº a 6iova,
anā; ºversal ön' airów hyotºsyci. Lib. i. p. 26. De
Basilid. ibid. cap. 23. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. iv. cap. 7.
* Méxet, irzárov Savárov intopºvoval trepi rot ºnté stºo-
Aargāz at, ants ºw836vra payº. Justin. Mart. Dial. | 253
2 y
642
I. CORIN THIANS.
sº
ceive them.
32 Give “no offence, neither to the (weak) Jews,
nor to the (unbelieving) gentiles, nor to the (weak
members of the) church of God:
33 (But walk) even as I (do, who) please all men
in all (lawful) things, not seeking my own profit, but
the profit of many, that they may be saved.
sº-º-º-º-º-º-º-º-º-º-º-º-º- =-º-º-º- -sº-º-º-º- * * * ****
of God..] In things capable of honouring God positively,
or proper to give glory to him, have always a general in-
tention of glorifying God in the doing of them, that in the
virtue of that intention you may proceed to particular
actions.
In things not capable of honouring God positively, be
careful that you act so that the name of God be not blas-
phemed, or his doctrine evil thought or evil spoken of, by
reason of your actions: yea, do and abstain from all things
so as to satisfy your own conscience, and discover to others,
that the honour of God and the advancement of the in-
terests of his kingdom are much dearer to you than any
gratifications of your carnal appetites, or any temporal con-
CelT).
** Ver. 32. No offence :] As, by thus eating things offered
to idols in the idol temple, or elsewhere, being thus admo-
nished of it (ver. 28), you are like to do: for the Jews will
be apt hence to conclude that Christianity renders you ene-
mies to the law and the prophets; the gentiles, that your
professed abhorrence of idols is not real, and that the prac-
tice, in which you comply with them, is not sinful; and the
weak Christian will be tempted, by your example, to eat
these things “ with conscience of the idol” (viii. 7), or to fly
off from the Christian faith.
CHAPTER XI.
1 BE ye (therefore) followers of me (in this con-
descension for the good of others), as I also am of
Christ (in it, Rom. xv. 2, 3. Gal. vi. 2. Phil. ii. 5, 6.
2 Cor. viii. 9).
2 Now I praise you, brethren, that you remember
me in all things (I have taught you), * and keep the
ordinances (Gr. traditions), as I delivered them to
WOll.
3 But (I must farther advertise you of somethings
which I had no occasion, when present, to take notice
of, and therefore) I would have you know, that the
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XI.
1 Wer. 2. "ort waſ 3; grap#8oza tºw, rā; trapałówek Karéxºte,
That you keep the traditions, as I delivered them to you..] .
This commendation must be restrained to the generality, or
sounder part of the church of Corinth, or must be understood
as such general expressions used to be, & #7 tº roº, as for
the most part, or excepting those few things in which after- .
ward I find reason to complain of your neglect, xv. 3, and
here, ver. 23.
Vain is the note of Esthius on this text, that “it makes
plainly for unwritten traditions:” for (1.) the word tradition
is common to things written and unwritten, to things deli-
vered by word and by epistle (2 Thess. ii. 15); the whole
Christian faith is a tradition (Jude 3); the doctrine of |
Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, is a tradition ; tragé-
Soka yap, “For I delivered to you” these doctrines, saith
Paul (1 Cor. xv. 13); and will the Romanists say that these
things are not written in the New Testament? (2) To
prove traditions extra-scriptural, it is not sufficient to cite a
passage out of scripture, speaking of traditions not then
written by one apostle; but it must be proved that these
traditions were neither then, when mentioned, in writing, nor
afterward committed to writing by himself, or any other in-
spired person. (3.) The traditions mentioned here, and 2
Thess. ii. 15, were traditions immediately delivered to those
churches from the mouth of an apostle ; and when the
Romanists can make this good from like authentic testimony
of any of their fardle of traditions, we shall be ready to re-
* Ver. 3. Kspax; }; xploroſ & eºs, And the head of Christ
is God..] “We are hence taught,” saith Schlictingius, “that
the head of Christ is God ; whereas the most high God can
have no head above him, so that Christ, who hath this head
above him, cannot be most high.”
Ans. To this some of the fathers answer, That God is here
said to be the head of Christ, as being the Father” of the Son,
and so the cause of him; but yet, as the woman is of the
same nature with the man who is her head, so is Christ of the
* Ată ră şival airie; airdſ &; Travās vict. Theod. Theoph.
* * sº * t *
Kepaxi, 33 roi, Xgiaroſ & trarăp &; yewärwe, trºogońsic, wał Śwood-
& * * * g * y * y ^
orios airoij as paxi, 33 yuvaix}; ā āvāč, Šrs wai avtåg yºvárog, ka;
wrpoãoxsic, Rai #400&io; twāºxe, airſ. CEcumen.
head of every man is Christ; and the head of the
woman is the man; and * the head of Christ is God:
(and so, as Christ, as mediator, acts in subordination
to the Father, so must the woman act in subordination.
to the man.)
4 Every man (therefore) praying or prophesying
* (in the church), having his head covered, dishonour-
eth “his head (Christ, as acting unsuitably to that re-
lation which he bears to God and Christ ; for man.
ought not to cover his head, because he is the image and
glory of God, ver. 17).
same nature with God the Father: they also add, that the
word head is here used as a note of principality,” or causality
in the Father, but not of subjection in the Son, which wholly
enervates the argument of Crellius from this place. And,
though the schools seem not to allow of this language, yet it
was used by Irenaeus in these words, “The Father is above
all things, and he is the head of Christ; the Word is through
all things, and he is the head of the church.”F
Others answer, That the Father is here styled the head of
Christ, considered as Mediator, in which relation he received
his kingdom and dominion from him (John xvii. 2, 1 Cor.
xv. 27. Heb. ii. 8), and exercises it wholly to his glory (Phil.
ii. 9–11): in which sense the Father may be styled his
head, because he doth all things according to his Father's
will, to his glory, and by authority derived from him : and
this interpretation is confirmed by these words, “The head
; of every man is Christ ;" he being man’s head by virtue of
the power and dominion given him over all flesh (xv. 27.
John xvii. 2. Eph. i. 19. 22), and that power being given to
the man Christ Jesus. . - -
* Wer. 4. In the church.] For that the apostle speaks not
of prophesying at home, as Mr. Clerc imagines, but in the
church, is evident from the apostle's argument, ver. 16,
against this practice, in these words, “We have no such cus-
tom, neither the churches of God.”
contrary is answered in the note on ver, 6.
His argument to the
* Thy xebaxy airroſ, His head..] That is, Christ;” for (1.)
he is the head of the man, ver, 3. (2.) This seemeth most
agreeable to the reason assigned, why he should be uncovered
| when he doth service in the church, viz. because he is the
image and the glory of God. And, (3.) did he dishonour
his own head by covering it, he ought never to be covered;
whereas if this only respects his head, Christ, whom he repre-
sents in praying and prophesying in the church, it is sufficient
that he is uncovered, when he thus acteth as his minister.
Lastly, The head the woman dishonoureth is the man, styled
her head; and so the head the man dishonoureth is Christ,
styled his head, ver, 3.
* 'Apx;, wiy 3xx' oën iworayā; 3WAwrików. Theodoret.
+ Super omnia quidem pater, et ipse est caput Christi ;
per omnia autem Verbum, et ipse est caput ecclesiae. Lib. v.
cap. 18.
Theoph.
f Karataxiwei rāy Xptory riv xspaxy abrov.
CHAPTER XI.
643
5 But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth
* with her head uncovered dishonoureth (Å. man) her
head (whose glory she is, as being put in subjection to
him); for that is even all one as if she were shaven
(and so had removed the token of subjection to the man
which nature gave her).
6 For if the woman be not covered, let her also be
shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn
or shaven, let her be covered (see note on ver. 5).
7 For a man indeed ought not to cover his head
(as a sign of subjection), forasmuch as he is “the
image and glory of God (as having the government of
the world committed by God to him) : but the woman
(ought to cover her head, forasmuch as she) is the
glory of the man (as being taken from, made for, and
put into subjection to him).
8 For the man is not of the woman; but the wo-
man of the man.
9 Neither was the man created for the woman; but
the woman for the man. -
* Wer. 5. Kaºri, Kspaxii; fixay, With his head covered,
ākarakaAin'tº rā kep3??, with her head uncovered.] For ex-
plication of these words, let it be noted from Theodoret,”
that “the men of Corinth, according to the custom of the
Greeks, both wore long hair, and prayed to God with their
heads covered in the public assemblies.” So also, saith Plu-
tarch,+ did the Romans; so, saith Lightfoot, t did the Jews;
so did, saith Servius, “all that sacrificed to any god except-
ing Saturn.” But the heathen woman paid her devotion to
the gods, resoluta comas, seu capillos, “with her hair loose
and hanging down ;” or, in the language of the poets, crine
jacente, aut demisso. Note,
Secondly, That the Jews judged it ‘rā aiazºv, a shameful
and indecent thing for a woman to be shaved, and permitted
this only in the case of whoredom, as a token of their
shame. And among the heathens it was indicium ultimi
luctſis, “a token of the highest grief.”—“It is customary,”
saith Plutarch,” “for men to be shorn, and for women to
wear long hair; and therefore, in times of mourning, the men
let their hair grow, and the women are shaved, this being con-
trary to custom among the Greeks and Romans.” It was
also customary for the Jewish women to go veiled.* Note,
Thirdly, That the apostle doth not here approve of the
woman's praying or prophesying in the church, as is evident
from 1 Cor. xiv. 34. 1 Tim. ii. 11, 12, though he here says
nothing to the contrary, as intending to rectify that disorder,
when he spoke of other disorders in the case of prophesying,
xiv. 34. - -
* Wer. 7. Eixãy xai 86%a Geoû, The image and glory of
God..] True here is the note of Theodoret, that man is here
styled the image and glory of God, neither as to his body,
nor as to his soul ; for, in respect of the soul, the woman is
equally the glory of God, as to spirituality and immortality,
and so is equally said to be made after his image, Gen. ii. 27,
but kará pºšvoy ºrd áčxikºv, “only as to rule and government,”
* Karā y&g to ‘Ex^nvixºv #60;, xa, xéºa; sixov, Kai rā; kepa A&;
kixaxvºuávac Éxovre; reorgüxovro Tô Qsì. Theodoret.
+ Tot; Sā Śect: Trporavyouvre; itrixaxiſ wroviral rºy Kepaxy,
'ramewoëvre; £avroic rā ātrikeºpei rā; 25%axis. Plutarch. 'Ey
airiot; ºral Powa’rixoſ. p. 266.
: In locum.
§ Sané sciendum est sacrificantes diis omnibus capita
velare consuetos, ob hoc, ne se inter religionem vagis offerat
aliquid obtutibus, excepto tantūm Saturno. Serv. in Virg.
AEn. iii. 405,
| Neque radat illud nisi propter scortationem. Pirk.
Eliezer, cap. 14, p. 31.
*|| IIÉvêov; ºy oixeſov rá pºš ovynSãº, avynSéaragoy 33 raft; ºfty
yvyatºly, #ykExaxvºraivaig, roſ: 3; 3v38áciv, & Kaağırroic, st; r.
3mºrtov reociéval' zai yag rag "EAAnaw, ºray 8vº.ruxia ric
yiveral, Keigovtzi ºfty ai yuwaize, kopečat 33 oi &vèges' 3rt roi; ºv
ºrs xeipersat, roſ. 33 rôxopway aruynóē; Hariv. Plut. Quaest. Rom.
p. 267, A, B.
* Apud Judaeostam solenne est foeminis eorum velamen
capitis, ut inde noscantur. Tertull. de Coron, cap. 4,
|
10 (Moreover,) for this cause ought the woman to
have "power (a veil) upon her head because of the
(evil) angels (she being tempted by the prince of them
to do that which is perpetuul cause of shame to her,
and which increased her subjection to the man, Gen. iii.
26, ought therefore to use this token of shamefacedness
and subjection).
11 Nevertheless, neither is the man without the
woman, nor the woman without the man, in the ſwis-
dom of the) Lord (ordaining that one should coine out
of the other). -
12 For as the woman is (taken out) of the man,
even so is the man also (propagated) by the woman;
but all (these) things (are) of God (who made woman
out of the man, and by his benediction increaseth men
by the woman).
13 Judge in yourselves: is it comely that a wo-
man pray (publicly) to God uncovered (when God
himself hath given her a covering by nature, to inti-
mate to her that she should be veiled)?
which is the proper glory of a man, according to the psalm-
ist's words, “Thou hast crowned him 36% zai ºrigi; with glory
and honour, and hast set him over the work of thy hands,
and hast put all things in subjection under his feet” (Ps. viii.
7 Ver. 10. "Eéovciay Éxity #wi rā; as paxi, 3.3 row: áyyáxovº,
A veil wbon her head, because of the angels.] Here let it be
noted, (1.) that all the ancient interpreters agree in this, that
#ovcia, which we render power, doth signify a veil or cover-
ing, which, being put over her head, compels her to hang
down her eyelids ; and it is here, say they, called power, as
being rig roi; 3,833; #ovcia; ka kupićrnto; Évêsix rºy, “the token
of the power and dominion of the man over her.” Note,
Secondly, That the reading 31& rā; &yyexiac, “by reason of
her revelations,” as Mr. Clerc doth, instead of 31& row: áyyá-
Novg, without consent of any copy or version, is not to be en-
dured. Moreover, 31& rā; &yyexia; signifies barely by message, .
not “by reason of her revelations,” that being properly in
Greek 33 ràc dyyexia; ràc trag' airii;. :
Thirdly, That evil angels are absolutely styled angels, in
these words of this epistle, “Know ye not that ye shall judge
angels?” l Cor. vi. 3, and elsewhere, “The angels that sin-
ned,” 2 Pet. ii. 4, or “that kept not their first station,” Jude
6. Note,
Fourthly, That among the nine maledictions of the woman,
which the Jews reckon up, this is one, That she is to have
caput velatum instar lugentis,” “her head covered like one
that mourneth,” and this, they say, she is to wear, not so
much as a token of subjection, as of shame; whence Philo
calls the rà èrizzavoy, + “cover of the woman's head,” rô rā;
ał80ſ, a jºgoNow, “the symbol of her shame ;” and this shame,
say they, is due to her, “because she brought the first sin
into the world.”:—“It is with her,” say they, “as when one
transgresseth and is ashamed, and therefore she comes forth
with her head covered.”—“She ought,” saith Tertulliam,S
“by her habit to resemble Eve, a mourner and a penitent, ob
ignominiam primi delicti, for the shame of the first sin:”
hence he often interprets this text of evil angels.]]
Moreover, in the judgment both of Jews and Christians,
the serpent, which deceived Eve, acted by the suggestion of
| the devil," or of Sammael, whom the Jews style “the prince
of devils.” That therefore these words may be interpreted
as in the paraphrase, is evident, not only from those obser-
vations, but especially from a place parallel to this, “Let the
woman learn in silence with all subjection. For I suffer not
a woman to. usurp authority: for Adam was first formed,
then Eve” (as here, ver. 8,9); “and Adam was not deceived,
* P. Eliezer, cap. 14.
+ De Spec. Leg. p. 606, D.
f Berisch. Rab. § 17, f. 12, col. 1.
§ De Cultà Foem. lib. i. cap. 1.
| Propter angelos quos legimus à coºlis excidisse. De
Veland. Virg. cap. 7. Propter angelos apostatas. Contr.
Marcion. lib. i. cap. 8. -
* P. Eliez. cap. 13, Buxt, in voce Sammael.
2 T2
644
I. CORINTHIANS.
14 "Doth not even nature itself (which hath made
man the image and glory of God, created him before
the woman, and given him dominion over her,) teach
you, that, if a man have long hair (the covering and
token of subjection in the other sea), it is a shame to
him (see note on ver, 5.) -
15 But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to
her (she being fitted by it to represent the condition of
her sea); for her hair is given her for a covering
(i. e. in token of subjection to her husband).
16 But if (after what hath been thus said) any man
seem (still) to be contentious, (I shall add only this,
that) we have no such custom," neither the churches
of God (it being only customary in the assemblies of
heathens for women to pay their devotions to the gods
thus. See note on ver. 5). -
17 Now in this (other thing) that I (am about to)
declare unto you I praise you not, (viz.) that you
but the woman being deceived was in the transgression,”
l Tim. ii. 11–13, where the same reason is assigned for her
subjection, which I offer for explication of these words.
Others interpret the words thus: The woman ought to act
decently in the church, and therefore to be covered, because
of the angels, who are present in the assemblies of the Saints;
it being the opinion, both of Jews” and Christians, that the
ministering angels are there present. -
8 Wer. 14. "H of 33 air’, ‘ ‘pºſaic; Doth not even nature itself?]
The exposition given in the paraphrase is so natural, and so
well founded on the words and argument of the apostle, and
so agreeable to the sentiments of all the ancient commenta-
tors on the place, that we seem not here to need the indus-
try and learning the critics have so liberally spent upon this
place: the apostle here by nature understanding not any in-
ward principle implanted in the heart and reason of a man,
but the first rise and constitution which man and woman have
received from the God of nature. It is against nature, say
the fathers, for a man to wear long hair, for by it he assumes
the habit of a woman, zai &exeiv tax6eig rö tä; in orayā; a ſº-
86×oy tragašxerat, “and being made by God to rule, he takes
upon him the symbol of subjection.” Of the criticisms upon
the word xopway they say not a word.
9 Wer. 16. Oñ83 #xxxnarial roſ, Geoû, Nor the churches of
God.] Hence it is manifest, (1.) that the apostle here can-
not be thought to have respect only to the custom of the
Greeks, as Mr. Le Clerc imagines, for then why doth he plead
the custom of all the churches of God against this practice 2
Secondly, Hence note, that in things only respecting de-
cency, and in conforming to which there is no violation of
the command of God, the custom of the church should be
our rule, it being an argument of pride and a contentious
spirit, in matters of so little moment, to be singular, and to
create disturbance to the church of God. -
* Ver, 18. xxia gara, Schisms.] Here the word schisms
is not used of men separating from the church, but of them
coming together in the church, but yet eating the Lord's Sup-
per separately, and so as not to join with the whole assem-
bly in that ordinance: so the word also is used i. 10, “not
of a separation from the unity of the catholic church,” saith
Fsthius, “but of sects and divisions in the church.”
* Ver. 19. Así y&g aigéret; sūai, For there must be here-
sies, &c.] This necessity of heresies is not absolute, or of
God's making, but only on supposition of the pride and vain-
glory, strife, envyings, and contentions, which were already
in the church of Corinth (1 Cor. iii. 3), and God’s permis-
sion that men so affected should act according to the corrupt
affections and dispositions of their hearts; as the necessity of
diseases in the body arises from men's intemperance. Nor
is the reason here assigned of them properly causal, as if the
wisdom of God designed there should be heresies for this end,
that they who were approved of him might be made manifest,
but rather eventual ; F as if the apostle had said, Whence it
will come to pass, that they who are approved will be made
manifest.
* See IDr. Hammond, and Synopsis in locum. .
* * ej * º 2 y J * y • * aw
+ Tö y&; iva oi waºraxoi airioxoyia; Éariv, &XX& "rox^axoi,
wai rā; rāy agayº.4 roy #x3&aswg. Chrysost. in locum.
come together (so as is) not for the better, but for the
WOTS62.
18 For first of all, when you come together in the
church, I hear that there be * divisions (Gr. schisms)
among you; and I partly believe it (or, I believe it
| true kará pºšpog Ti, of some part of you).
19 "For (according to our Lord’s saying, Matt.
xviii. 7) there must be also heresies (or sects) among
you (the flesh, the world, and the devil, tempting to it,
and the wisdom of God permitting it), that they who are
approved (of him) may be made manifest among you.
20 When you come together therefore (thus) into
one place, this is not (acting as if you came) to eat
the Lord’s supper (the feast of Christian charity and
communion).
21 For in (your way of) eating *every one taketh
before (the) other his own supper, (not tarrying for,
or regarding, others, ver. 23) and (so it falls out, that)
* Ver. 21. “Exarro; to ºtoy stºrvov trgo?ap.34vet, Every one
takes before his own supper.] It is the opinion of Dr. Light-
foot, that the apostle speaks not here of the agapas, or love-
feasts, which accompanied the eucharist, as the tradition of
the ancient church supposed ; but of the paschal supper,
which these Judaizers did eat before the eucharist, as think-
ing that the eucharist, which our Lord instituted after that
Supper, was only an appendix of it; and that it was not in-
stituted in commemoration of the death of Christ, but as a
new form of their commemoration of their deliverance out of
Egypt: and that on this account the apostle here repeats the
institution of that sacrament by our Lord, and so oft tells
them that Christ appointed this supper for the commemora-
tion of his death, and that we might show it forth till he
comes ; and charges them with not discerning it to be the
Lord's body (ver. 29). But he seems to be mistaken in both
these conjectures. For, -
First, It is very unlikely they should mistake the Lord’s
supper, celebrated then every week at least, for that paschal
Supper which was only to be celebrated once a year, and was
them rather to be celebrated at home, in every man's farmily,
than in the church; and which, according to the Jewish ca-
nons, could not be observed at all in Corinth, or out of Ju-
dea, whilst the temple stood. -
Secondly, Those words of the apostle in the preceding
chapter, viz. “The cup of blessing which we'bless, is it not
the communion of the blood of Christ P The bread we break,
is it not the communion of the body of Christ 2 " and those
that follow, “Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the
cup of devils; ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table,
and of the table of devils,” do plainly show that the apostle
there supposes they well knew that in that supper they were
partakers of the cup and table of the Lord, and had commu-
nion with his body and blood.
Dr. Lightfoot adds, That those words, “One is hungry,
and another is drunken,” refer not to the poor and the rich,
but to the gentile who came fasting to the Lord's supper;
whereas the Judaizing Christian, according to his custom,
drank freely at his paschal supper; and he concludes, that
the apostle doth not here reprehend their manner of coming
to these suppers, but that he reprehends them for the very
. of them. But here again he seems much mistaken,
for,
First, It is evident the apostle reprehends them not for
the supper itself, i.e. the eating and the drinking, but because
they did Trgoxapagávely take their meat and their drink before
others, not staying till they came (ver. 21.33). Hence, for
a remedy for this disorder, he saith not, Abstain from these
suppers, but only “When ye come together, tarry one for
another.”
Secondly, That the “hungry” here were the gentile con-
verts, who chose to eat the eucharist fasting, is very impro-
bable, not only because it was then generally received at
night, but because the apostle, both here and ver. 34, allows
all to eat and drink before they come, not taking notice of
any that scrupled the doing this. Moreover, the oi º #xoy-
res, “the hungry” here, are not men who have no houses,
but who have nothing to eat or drink: for they were put to
shame by this, that they had nothing to eat or drink, as
UHAPTER X [.
645
one (who had nothing to bring) is (still) hungry, *and
another (with his plenty) is drunken.
22 at I have ye not houses to eat and to drink
in (if need be before you come * ver. 34) or despise
ye (those poor Christians who are members of) the
church of God (as well as you), and (put to) shame
them that have not (what to eat or drink) 2 What
shall I say to you? shall I praise you in doing this
I praise you not.
23 (To come together thus, I say, is not to come as
they ought to do, who assemble to eat the Lord’s sup-
per 8) for I have received of the Lord that which
also I (as I received) delivered unto you, That the
Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed
* took bread: -
others had, nor were thought worthy to partake with them
that had, in the assembly of which they were a part; it being
not the place where they assembled, which is called the
church of God, but the persons who assembled ; for by the
same action was the church despised, and they that had no-
thing put to shame : now it is not easy to conceive how, by
this separate meeting in a church, they should despise a
church, whereas, by denying their poor brethren any share in
their banquet, they visibly despised them. -
And with that agrees the note of Chrysostom on the place,
that an assembly is called, oix ºva èngmºvoi &rt of avvex0ávts;,
&AA'iya of 3inénºw#vot avnºvot, “not that they who came
together might be divided, but that they who are at home
divided may join together.”
Thirdly, These agapas, or feasts of charity, being men-
tioned by Jude, ver, 12, by Ignatius, Ep. ad Smyrn. §. 8,
by Clemens Alex. Paedag. lib. ii. cap. 1, p. 41, by Tertul-
lian, Apol. cap. 39, by the Apostolical Constitutions, lib. ii.
cap. 28, and by Julian the Apostate,” it is very unreason-
able to call this custom into question, or to imagine that
Paul here rather referred to a paschal supper than to this
appendix of the supper of our Lord. When I call it an
appendix, I do not mean that it was eaten by them after the
Lord's supper, for the word ºrgoNap,94vely, “to take before his
own supper,” shows the contrary, viz. that this banquet was
celebrated before the Lord's supper; but only that it was
joined to the Lord's supper in imitation of our Lord, who
celebrated the Sacrament after the paschal supper.
* “o, 3; &#Süst, And another is drunken..] This may
either refer to the gentile converts among the Corinthians,
retaining still their heathen custom of drinking liberally after
their sacrifices, whence assústy, “to be drunk,” is by the
grammarians thought to have its original from &er& rā Sūew,
because of the free drinking they indulged in after their sa-
crifices; or to the Judaizing converts, who thought themselves
obliged to drink plentifully at their festivals, four large cups
of wine, saith Dr. Lightfoot, at the paschal supper, and to
be quite drunk, saith Buxtorff in the feast of Purim.
* Ver. 23. "Exafley 3prov, Took bread, &c.) The argument
lies thus: Christ gave an equal distribution of the sacra-
mental bread to every one at the table, in token that he died
equally for all; and he appointed them all to eat together of
it at one common table, in remembrance of his love to them
all : can you then eat every one separately his own supper,
excluding those to whom he equally distributed the sacred
bread from any share of yours, leaving them hungry and in
want of bread, and yet conceive you worthily eat the Lord's
Supper, and duly participate of, and thankfully commemo-
rate, this great feast of love? But farther observe,
First, That this bread is called in the present tense, r3
gººd ºutvoy, rà, a 3pxa 3.8% ºvov, “ Christ's “body broken,”
his “body given,” Luke xxii. 19, even whilst he was alive,
and so his body was not actually broken, or given for us; it
therefore could not be literally and naturally his broken
body, but only by way of representation, as being then in-
stituted to represent that body which was shortly to be given
and broken on the cross for us: so also it is said of his blood,
yet in his veins, that it is rā ai, a rô #xxvvéºwevoy, his “blood
shed,” Matt. xxvi. 28. Mark xiv. 24. Luke xxii. 20, and
24 And when he had given thanks, he brake it,
and said (to them ally, *Take, eat : this is my body,
which is broken for you : this do in remembrance of
me (giving my body to be broken for you all).
25 After the same manner he took "the cup, when
he had supped, saying, This cup (i. e. the wine con-
tained in it) is the (memorial of the) new testament
(or covenant ratified) in my blood : this do ye, as
often as you drink it, in remembrance of me (confirm-
ing this covenant with my blood).
26 For as often as you eat this bread, and drink
this cup, ye do *" show (by this memorial of it) the
Lord’s death till he come (to judgment).
27 Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and
(or) * drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily (as they
this according to the usual sacramental phrase. Thus before
the paschal sacrament was celebrated, it was said, “This
orázza Hari tā Kveig, is the passover to the Lord (Exod. xii.
11. I3), i.e. this is that which is instituted to represent it;
“for this night I will smite all the firstborn of Egypt, and
will pass over you:” and of circumcision it is said, “This is
my covenant” (Gen. xiv. 10), before that Abraham was ac-
tually circumcised (ver. 23, 24).
Secondly, Observe that Paul calleth that five times bread
which they did eat of, which was to them “the communion
of the body of Christ,” and by eating of which unworthily,
they became “guilty of the body of Christ, not discerning
the Lord's body,” l Cor. x. 16, 17. xi. 26, 27, 28. He there-
fore five times calls that bread which was consecrated, and
by our Saviour called his body : now is it not a wonder that
one single passage, mentioned by our Saviour whilst he was
alive, should be deemed sufficient to make us all believe that
his whole body, and so his hand, was in his hand, and that
this living Christ was at the same time dead and sacrificed;
and that the same body which was whole before the eyes of
his disciples was also broken for them at the same time, with
many thousand contradictions more; and yet that what the
Holy Ghost, who knew the meaning of our Saviour's words
better than any Romanist, hath said so often, to inform us
that this element is, after consecration, bread, should not be
thought sufficient to make us think it bread, though it appears
to all our senses so to be 2 -
* Ver. 24. A43rrs, páyers.] See the defence of these words
against Dr. Mills, Examen Millii in locum.
* Ver, 25. Iſothotov, The cup.] Note here two reasons for
the participating of the cup by the whole body of the church
at Corinth. (1.) Because it is “the blood of the new cove-
nant,” which belongs as much to the laity as to the priests :
the “blood shed for the remission of the sins” not only of
the priests, but of the laity. (2.) Because, by the drinking
of this cup they remembered Christ's blood shed for them,
and showed forth his death. Now since these reasons do
equally concern all Christians, the drinking of the cup by
which this commemoration, by our Lord's institution, is to
be made, must equally concern them; for sure the means
which Christ appointed for an end ought to be used by all
who are obliged to pursue that end; and if the apostle here
reprehends the Corinthians for varying from the tradition re-
ceived from the Lord in the celebration of the sacrament, he
would have reprehended them much more, had they so va-
ried from it as to neglect the distribution of that cup which
he had instituted for those sacred ends.
17 Wer. 26. Tāv Šávaroy Kupiou warayyáAxers, Ye show the
Lord's death.] If then this be the end and use of this sacra-
ment, to be a solemn commemoration of the death of Christ
during his absence from us; if it was designed to be a stand-
ing memorial of his sufferings till he came again to judgment;
the obligation that lies upon all Christians to observe it is
perpetual, and ought not to cease till the world ends. In-
deed, saith Theodoret,” “after his presence there will be no
more of the symbols of his body, because the body itself
will then appear.” Which words are a full confutation of
the doctrine of transubstantiation.
is Ver. 27. ‘H triºn, Or drink.] Here Obadiah Walker's
fine Fragm.
* In + Temple Service, p. 146.
; Lex. Talm. 324.
**
* - * * aw * - p ** a
* Merå y&p 3% tºy wagovatay aircü oix #rt Xgeia rāy avº&Aww
º º - f ºw w
ºroij cágaro;, &brov qaivopwévov toº awkwaroc,
646 - *
I. CORINTHIANs.
must do who, by this practice, thwart the great design
of this institution, which was to show his equal love to
all to whom he equally gave these elements, and to
oblige us to live in continual remembrance of it), shall
be guilty of (violating the sacrament of) the body and
blood of the Lord. *
28 But "let a man examine himself, and so let
him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.
29 For he that eateth and drinketh * unworthily
(as they who make those divisions and distinctions, and
commit these disorders, when they come together to eat
the Lord's supper do), eateth and drinketh * damna-
tion (Gr. judgment) to himself, not discerning the
Lord’s body, (to be given as an indication of his equal
kindness to all his members, without any difference or
distinction, and as a symbol of their mutual communion
with one another, x. 16, 17).
30 For this cause (the not discerning the Lord’s
body, it is, that) many are weak and sickly among
you, and many sleep. -
31 For if we would (thus) judge (and discern) our-
º we should not be judged (or, thus punished by
Od).
32. But when (neglecting this) we are judged, we
are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be con-
demned with the world (but awakened by those chas-
tisements to reform those evil practices which render
ws obnoxious to condemnation).
33 Wherefore, my brethren (that this miscar-
riage may be rectified), when ye come together to
eat (the Lord's supper), tarry one for another (that
#. may all eat of that and your love-feasts toge-
ther).
34 And if any man (pretend to do this out of) hun-
ger let him eat at home (before he come); that ye come
not together to condemnation. And the rest will I
set in order when I come (or, as for the other things
relating to this ordinance, or your letter, I will set
them in order when I come).
note is this: The Greek h, or, that he might lead you to think
there was something in the popish argument taken hence to
prove that the whole Christ was contained in either species;
because either by eating or drinking unworthily, men become
guilty of profaning both the body and blood of Christ : but
for justification of our version, and, it may be noted that the
Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions read and, and so does
Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom. i. p. 271, Cyril. Al. de Ador.
Sp. p. 421, Athanas. de Pass. Domini, p. 1027, Aut. Quaest.
ad Antioch. p. 375.
Secondly, That according to Phavorinus, 3 xeirai &vri roſ,
zai, that is, “h is often put for and ;” so what is in the He-
brew in, or, is in the LXX. rendered xai, and, Lev. iv. 23.
28. Numb. xv. 18. Mal. ii. 7. So what is #, Luke xx. 2, is
xxi, Matt. xxi. 23. Mark xi. 28. So the promise made to
Abraham, was rój gºrée wart airoij, Gen. xvii. 8, is the promise
made to him, rā; a wrépºart, “and to his seed,” Gal. iii. 6;
and so the Hebrew vowel, when it divides or distributes, is
rendered sometimes à, or, as Exod. xxi. 17. Deut. iii. 34.
2 Sam. xxiv. 13. Ps. viii. 4. Prov. xx. 20, and sometimes
xai, and, as Josh. viii. 22. Judg. iv. 6. xiii. 7. 1 Sam. xvii.
34. Jer. xiii. 23. Amos v. 19, and eating and drinking going
here before, ver. 26, and following after, ver. 28, 29, this in-
termediate verse must bear the same sense.
* Ver. 28. Aoxºgačáto Havrov, Let him examine himself.]
Aoxºsty is to discern or approve ; so, Bozizéðsic, “Thou
approvest the things which are most excellent,” Rom. ii. 18;
“Happy is the man that condemneth not himself, Éy & 3oxt-
*śćet, in that which he approves,” Rom. xiv. 22. Aozºá-
Četv Šavrºv, is “to approve himself to himself,” or discern
how it is with himself: so 2 Cor. xiii. 5, £avroi); 3ozºáčers,
“Prove yourselves: know ye not that Jesus Christ is among
you, except ye be reprobates ?” Gal. vi. 4, 3oxipzáćera, “Let
every man approve his own work.” And so here the sense
is, Let a man approve himself to his own heart, as a good
Christian, and one that comes to celebrate this ordinance with
a grateful commemoration of the love of Christ dying for him,
and with true charity and unfeigned kindness to all those for
whom he did equally shed his blood, and gave his body to be
broken; and so he may repair to it with a true Christian spi-
fit, and in an acceptable manner.
* Ver. 29. 'Ayagio, Unworthily.] i.e. “Not discerning
the Lord's body;” which words plainly teach us what it is to
eat and drink unworthily, viz. to do it so as in that action not
to discern the Lord's body. Now this, as hath already been
observed, cannot signify not to apprehend the sacrament to
represent Christ's body broken and his blood shed for us: for
of this ignorance had the Corinthians been guilty, the apostle
would have argued ex non concessis, “from things not granted
by them” (x. 16. 21). It therefore signifies their behaving
themselves as if they had not considered that this sacrament
was instituted in a thankful and practical remembrance of
Christ dying for them, and ratifying by his blood the covenant
in which he promised to be “merciful to their iniquities, and
remember their sins no more;” and as a feast of love, designed
equally for the benefit of all his members, and to knit them in
the closest bonds of unity and friendship to each other : when
, this was wanting, they did not discern aright the Lord's body,
or the sacrament of it, and so did eat and drink unworthily.
In the Talmud, saith Dr. Pocock,” there is a distinction be-
twixt a man who ate the passover, Fºx: Evº, “in obedience
to the command,” which was, that they should do it as it
memorial of God’s passing over them when he destroyed the
Egyptians, by reason of the blood of the paschal lamb (Exod.
xii. 13, 14); and he that thus ate it, was the just man that
walked in the ways of the Lord, mentioned Hos. xiv. 9, and
betwixt another who did eat it only as common food, i.e.
without respect to the commandment, or the ends of its insti-
tution; and is compared to the transgressor there mentioned,
that shall fall therein. So here, he that eateth this holy sa-
crament with a thankful memorial of the benefits conferred
upon us, the death from which we are delivered by the blood
of Christ, the true paschal lamb sacrificed for us, eats it wor-
thily; but he that partakes of it only as common bread and
wine, not considering the ends for which it was designed, and
the benefits of Christ's death it represented and consigned,
discerns not the Lord's body; i.e. he putteth no sufficient
difference betwixt that and common food, as the word 3ia-
xgivo doth import (see note on Rom. xiv. 23).
* Kºſºva, Damnation.] The word imports temporal judg-
ments; as when Peter saith, “The time is come &#aa'flat
tº xgſø.a, that judgment must begin at the house of God”
(1 Pet. iv. 17), not damnation surely: and this is certainly
the import of the word here, (1.) because the Corinthians
did thus eat unworthily, and yet the judgments inflicted on
them for so doing were only temporal; viz. weakness, sick-
ness, and death, ver. 30. (2.) Because the reason assigned
of those judgments is, that they might not be condemned
in the other world, or that they might not be obnoxious to
damnation. -
* In Hos. xiv. 9, p. 814.
CHAPTER XII.
1. Now concerning spiritual gifts (or, persons, ver. you ignorant (of what it concerns you to know of them,
3), brethren (which is another thing in and about eaſer- and yourselves that eaſercise them).
cise of which you offend ; making them matter of con-
2 Ye know that (before your conversion to that
tention, emulation, and vain-glory), I would not have faith, by which ye received these gifts,) ye were gen-
CHAPTER XII.
64.
tiles, carried away to (the service of) "those dumb
idols (which could not speak themselves, much less
enable you to speak), even as you were led (by seducing
guides). .
3 Wherefore I give you to understand, that no
man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus *ac-
cursed (or, anathema); and that no man can say that
Jesus is the Lord (and confirm that doctrine with su-
pernatural gifts and miracles), but by the Holy Ghost.
4 Now there are “diversities of (these spiritual)
gifts, but (it is) the same Spirit (which enables us to
eacercise any of them).
5 And there are differences of administrations (or,
offices in the church, to which this diversity of gifts
belongs), but (it is) the same Lord (who hath appointed
all these offices, Eph. iv. 12). -
6 And there are diversities of operations (performed
by these offices in the church by virtue of these gifts),
but it is the same God, who (by giving them this Spi-
rit) worketh (them) all in all. w -
7 *But the manifestation of the Spirit (in the caer-
cise of these gifts) is given to every man (not for his
own private use, but) to profit (others) withal.
8 For to one is given by the Spirit the word of
* ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XII. .
* Ver. 2. II; rà têox. 340,e, To dumb idols.] For though
the priests told them they were only the receptacles of those
deities they worshipped, that they resided in the image, and
gave answers by it, as the Christian writers own;" yet both
the prophets and writers of the New Testament, and all the
fathers in their apologies, still represent them as they were
in themselves, saying, “They have mouths, but speak not”
(Ps. cxv. 5. cxxxv. 16), are dumb stones (Hab. ii. 19), et
muta simulacra, and such only as gave answers, when they
gave any, by the means of evil spirits º
* Wer. 3. ‘AyáSega, Accursed.] This the Jews did, as we
learn not only from the words of Justin Martyr, but also
from their nineteenth prayer against heretics, ; made by
Samuel the younger in the days of Gamaliel: their exorcists
and diviners therefore, though they pretend to it, Saith the
apostle, cannot be acted by the Spirit of God: nor can they
who confirm the doctrine of Christ by miracles be acted by
any other but the Holy Ghost; for no evil spirit would assist
them to confirm a doctrine so opposite to, and destructive
of, their kingdom and design.
* Ver. 4. Atalgáraic 8: Xapiapºrey, There are diversities of
gifts.] These gifts being in the nature of spiritual faculties,
or habits, are very properly ascribed to that Spirit who ani-
mates the Christian, and by whom he lives the new life ;
and these ministries as properly to the Lord Christ, whose
ministers and servants the apostles, prophets, teachers, &c.
are in the propagation of the gospel. These operations
being miraculous, and far exceeding the power of any crea-
ture, as fitly are ascribed to the Creator of all things. But
whereas Crellius hence infers, that this third person being
distinguished from the other two by the title of “the same
God,” he only must be truly and properly so called; he
might as well have argued, that because the second person
mentioned here is styled “the same Lord,” he must be only
so, exclusively to the same God; and because the first is
called “the same Spirit,” he must be so exclusively of the
same God and Lord, who are equally spirits.
* Ver. 7–10.] It is exceeding difficult to fix the true im-
port of all these gifts; I therefore shall propose what follows
by way of conjecture, till I receive better information from
more able hands.
First, then, By “the word of wisdom,” I understand the
wisdom given to the apostles to reveal the gospel to the
world; for that, in this epistle, is styled “the wisdom of God
in a mystery—the hidden wisdom,” I Cor. ii. 7, and else-
where, “the manifold wisdom of God,” Eph. iii. 10. Christ,
the great teacher of it, is also styled “the wisdom of God,”
1 Cor. i. 24, and in him are said to be contained “all the
treasures of wisdom,” Col. ii. 3. The apostles, to whom
this gospel was committed, are called coºpoi, “wise men;”—
“Behold, I send unto you prophets and apostles,” Luke xi.
49, “ and wise men,” Matt. xxiii. 34, and they are said to
teach this gospel “according to the wisdom given to them,”
2 Pet. iii. 15. -
Secondly, The “word of knowledge” being distinguished
from that of revelation and of prophecy, 1 Cor. xiv. 6. xiii.
-*.
* Arnob. lib. vi. p. 203. Lact. lib. ii. cap. 2.
+ 'A3taxEirro; warapāa Ss wai airò weiva, Kai roi; &n' airoij.
Dial. cum Tryph. p. 363.
† In quâ aeternum exitium illis imprecantur, qui à lege
Judaică deficiutit ad Christianos. Buxt. Lex Talm. voee
Min, p. 120l.
8, and being set by way of apposition, or explication, with
“the knowledge of all mysteries,” 1 Cor. xiii. 2, seems to
signify the gift of understanding mysteries, or things con-
cealed: "such was the mystery of calling the gentiles, before
it was revealed, Rom. xi. 25. Eph. i. 9. iii. 9, the mystery
of recalling the Jews, Rom. xi. 25, the “mystery of ini-
quity,” 2. Thess. ii. 7, “the mystery of the beast,” Rev. x.
7, but more especially the gift of understanding the mysti-
tical sense of the scriptures of the Old Testament. And in
this sense Barnabas seems to speak of it, when he saith
(sect. 6), “Blessed be God, 3 o'opiay kal voiy 6% swo; #y hºw
‘rāy kpupio, airoij, who hath given us the wisdom and know-
ledge of his secrets;” and so it agrees with that gift which
the fathers call trpáyywort;, as when Irenaeus saith,” “Some
have the knowledge of things to come, and visions, and pro-
phetical sayings;” and the man thus gifted seems to be, in
Clemens Romanus, “the powerful man to utter know-
ledge.” -
Thirdly, That by “fith" we are to understand a miracu-
lous faith, enabling them to do things most difficult, seems
highly probable from these words, “Though I have all faith,
so as to remove mountains,” 1 Cor. xiii. 2. But chiefly I
would understand by it a peculiar impulse that came upon
them when any difficult matter was to be performed, which
inwardly assured them God’s power would assist them in the
performance of it (see note on James v. 15). Whence it is
often mentioned as a preparatory disposition to the working
such miracles, and is sometimes styled the “faith of God”
(Mark xi. 22), sometimes faith without doubting (Matt. xxi.
21), and so it was a prerequisite to the casting out stubborn
devils (Matt. xvii. 20), and to the ensuing gifts of healing and
working miracles; and hence perhaps it is that in the follow-
ing enumeration of them, ver, 28–30, we find no mention
of it.
Fourthly, 'Eveeyhºwara Buyáºzsov, “the working of mira-
cles,” is, by the fathers, referred to the power residing in the
apostles to inflict diseases, and even death itself, upon offend-
ers, as in the case of Ananias and Sapphira, Acts v. 5. 10,
and of Elymas the sorcerer, Acts xiii. 11, and of the inces-
tuous person, 1 Cor. v. 4, where the apostle makes mention
rā; 3vyápagoc Xgto-Toij, of the power of Christ; and where he
speaks of his rod, he calls it the power that God hath given
him, 1 Cor. iv. 19, 20. 2 Cor. x. 8. xiii. 10. But yet I
doubt not but these words are truly rendered “the working
of miracles ;” for to them the word 35Vapºlº, power, generally
relates in the New Testament: as, when mention is made of
the miracles done by Christ himself, Matt. xi. 20. 23. xiii.
54.58. xiv. 2. Mark v. 30, Luke iv. 36. v. 17. vi. 19. xix.
37. Acts ii. 22. x. 38, and of the miracles done by others in
the name of Christ, Matt. vii. 22. Mark ix. 39. Luke ix. 1.
Acts i. 8. iv. 33. vi. 8. viii. 13. xix. 11. 1 Cor. ii. 4. 2 Cor.
xii. 12. Gal. iii. 5. 1 Thess. i. 5. Hence it is frequently
mentioned in conjunction with “signs and wonders,” Acts ii.
22. viii. 13. Rom. xv. 19. Heb. ii. 4. It is also here plainly
distinguished from the gift of healing; and it is as plainly
distinguished from the power of casting out devils, in these
words, “In thy name have we prophesied and cast out
devils, and done 3vyápºst; Troxx&c, many mighty works,” Mark
vii. 22. It therefore rightly seemeth in the paraphrase to
be restrained to the doing things beyond the course of nature,
and wrought by an immediate divine hand: such as the Sup-
* * ^ Z *g ºw * * 3 g t
* of 33 rpáyvoorly #xovai rāv Kºsawávrov, xai Štrºtaciaç, xat
#arei, Trºopntizás. Lib. ii. cap. 57. ‘O 8vyató; yyāoriy ###17teſv.
Epist. ad Cor. §. 48.
• *
. . ºf
648
wisdom (to reveal that faith to others which is the wis-
dom of God); to another the word of knowledge (to
reveal mysteries, 1 Cor. xiii. 2, and understand the mind
of God in the Old Testament for confirmation of that
faith) by the same Spirit; - -
9 To another faith (to enable him to believe firmly,
that he should be empowered to do things most difficult)
by the same Spirit; to another the gift of healing (all
manner of diseases) by the same Spirit;
10 To another the working of miracles (or, powers,
such as raising the dead to life); to another prophecy
(enabling him to foretell things future, and speak by a
divine afflatus): to another discerning of (the) spirits
(of others); to another divers kinds of tongues; to
another the interpretation of tongues: . . .
1. CORINTHIANS. - -
11 But all these gifts) worketh that one and the
v. . . .
self-same Spirit, dividing them to every man severally
*as he will. t
12 For as the (natural) body is one, and (yet)
hath many members, and (Gr. but) all the members
of that one body, being many, are one body (the
body is one still; the whole łº, animated by the
same soul, which is a spirit): so also "is (it the
body of) Christ (all whose members, though there be
many, and adorned with different gifts, make but one
body mystical, united by the Spirit to their head, Christ
Jesus). -
13 For by one Spirit" we are all (Gr. have been all)
baptized into (this) one body, whether we be Jews or
gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and (by receiv-
plying a defective member, or the raising of the dead. Thus
to the first order of the successors of the apostles, Eusebius’
ascribes “many strange powers of the Holy Ghost;" and
Justin Martyr’t speaks of the powers done in his time by
the name of Christ. -
Fifthly, The gift of “prophecy" is not to be restrained, as
Some do, to teaching, and the interpretation of the scripture,
which it importeth only as that was done by a particular
inspiration of the Holy Ghost ; for otherwise, as here the
prophets and the teachers are two distinct offices in the church,
so also are they reckoned as such in the church at Antioch,
Acts xiii. 1, and they are reckoned as distinct x apicºata in
these words, “Having gifts different, whether prophecy, let
us prophesy according to the proportion of faith ; or minis-
try, let us wait on our ministering ; or he that teacheth, on
teaching” (Rom. xii. 6, 7). And so they are reckoned by
Justin Martyr, when he saith, “One man receives at bap-
tism the Spirit of understanding, & 33 Trgoyydia eo;, & 33 818aa-
xaxia;, another of foreknowledge, or prophecy, and another
of teaching;” and this discovers to us another sense of pro-
phecy; viz. that it imports, as Irenaeus saith, Trºyvoo w
Tây ºxxávrov, “the foreknowledge or prediction of things
future,” and that in order to the exhortation to some duty.
Thus Agabus foretold by the Spirit the dearth that was to
come over all Judea, Acts xi. 28–30, that the other Chris-
tians might be moved, as they were, to send their charity
thither. Thus “Judas and Silas, being prophets, 31& Aáyou
aroxxod, with many words they comforted the brethren, and
established them.” (Acts xvi. 32). This gift was exercised
also by foretelling who would be fit persons to do good ser-
vice in the church. Thus Paul commits a charge to Timo-
thy, “according to the foregoing prophecies concerning him.”
(1 Tim. i. 18), and saith, “Neglect not the gift that is in
thee, that was given thee by prophecy” (iv. 14). And
in this sense the fathers understood it, is evident, not only
from the word ºrgáyyoric, foreknowledge, by which they
did express it, but from the arguments they use against the
Jews to convince them that God hath left their church, and
had owned and embraced the societies of Christians, because
he had left them no prophets, but had transferred that gift to
the Christians: and these predictions being made by revela-
tion of the Spirit, 3roxáAuspic, or revelation, is accounted a
part of this gift ; for to the prophet is ascribed “his revela-
tion,” 1 Cor. xiv. 26. 30, and the Revelation of John is “the
book of his prophecy;” and to the prophet is ascribed the
• Imanifestation of the secrets of men's hearts, as in those words,
“If all prophesy, and there come in an unbeliever, or one
unlearned, he is convinced of all, he is judged of all : and
thus are the secrets of his heart laid open” (1 Cor. xiv. 24,
25). Thus of those prophets Irenaeus (lib. v. cap. 6) saith,
that they did not only explain the mysteries of God, but
also tº kevºpia &v6p37oy ei; pavepov &yely iwi tº avºw pigwºrt,
“manifest the secret things of men, when it was needful or
profitable for them, or the church” (see Origen against Cel- |
sus, lib. i. p. 34).
* Toi Seicu IIvávaaro; traficta; tragaščov, 8vvápºsiç. Euseb.
Hist. Eccles. lib. iii. cap. 17.
+ Tây &ré toº 3,644 ato; attoº, xa: yòy yiyokºvoy 3 vyāp.fxv.
Dial. p. 254.
† Dial, p. 250, A.
Sixthly, The 8táxgtai, mysuº &roy, “discerning of spirits,”
not only imports the faculty of discerning betwixt the im-
pulse of false and true prophets, which he that hath seems
to be styled by Clemens, 3 copic y Blaxplosi rāy Aéyov, “a
wise man in discerning words,” and betwixt the lying won-
ders and magical operations of evil spirits, and the powers of
the Holy Ghost, as 1 Cor. xiv. 29. 1 Thess. v. 20, 21. 1 John
iv. 1, but also a judgment of discerning the spirits of other
men, whether they were qualified for such an office in the
church, and accordingly choosing them out for that work.
So the Spirit, in the prophets, said, “Separate me Barnabas
and Paul for the work whereunto I have called them,” Acts
xiii. 2, 3, and thus the Holy Ghost is said to have consti-
tuted the bishops and presbyters in Asia, Acts x. 28, be-
cause, as Clemens Romanus saith,” “they constituted bi-
shops and deacons, Boxtºfta ayre; Tô IIvºcati, making trial of
them by the Holy Ghost.” And Clemens of Alexandria, f
that John “ordained to be of the clergy, row: árà rot; IIveſ-
ºwaro; a nºwaivo", ivov;, such as were signified to him by the
Spirit.” Ignatius; saith of the bishops of his time, that
they were constituted, “not by men, but Izzou Kg77.5 yréºn,
by the counsel of Christ Jesus.” Cyprian,S. that they were
constituted, “not only by the consent of the people, and
the suffrage of their fellow-bishops, but also judicio divino
et Dei testimonio, by the judgment and testimony of God.”
And, lastly, this gift seems also to imply a discovering of
what was done inwardly, or in the spirit of a man ; so Peter
discerned the heart of Ananias and Sapphira, Acts v. 3. 9,
and of Simon Magus, Acts viii. 21. 23, Paul of Elymas,
Acts xiii. 10, and of the lame man, “seeing he had faith to
be healed,” Acts xiv. 9. And Ignatius|| Speaks of the Spi-
rit in him that did foretell, and r& Agurtà #xéyxsw, “reprove
things secret.” &
5 Ver, 11. Kağıç gočxeral, As he will.] Here seems to be
a plain argument for the personality of the Holy Ghost, be-
cause a will is here ascribed to him. (2.) Iſence it is evi-
dent that he is no creature, because no creature can enable
others to do these works. (3.) That he is God: for as all
this diversity of operations is ascribed to the same God, wer.
6, so it is here said, “All these worketh one and the same
Spirit.” -
6 Ver. 12. So is Christ.] That is, saith Chrysostom, ré
toū xe-a-rot cºa, “the body of Christ,” that is, his church,
as appears from ver. 21, “The head cannot say to the feet,
I have ho need of you ;” this being not true of Christ, the
head of that church, which is his body, but only of the mi-
nisterial heads under him.
7 Ver. 13. Ei, ºy ar&p, a 3atrvicónºway, We were baptized
into one body..] Vain here is the note of Mr. Clerc, viz. that
“we are baptized that we might be called by one name, be
of one society, the church of Christ:” for it is not by par-
taking of one spirit that we are called Christians, but by pro-
* Ep. ad Cor. viii. 42.
+ Apud Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 23.
: Prooem. Ep. ad Philad. et S. l. Ep. ad Eph. S. 1, 3, 6.
§ Ed. Ox. Ep. 55 et 69.
| Ad. Philad. §. 7.
‘ſ 'EvrajSa yść signx&; rôy Qey #v=ºyeſ,' &gt;& 8paxša $nai
trávra 33 raûta iyigyeſ rà èy zai tº air IIvčík.a. Chrys. Theod.
(FCumen. Theophylact.
t
CHAPTER XII.
649
ºng of that living water, we) have been all made "to
drink into (or, of) one Spirit. -
14 (All, I say,) for. (as) the (natural, so the mys-
tical) body is not one member, but many.
15 If the foot shall say, Because I am not the
hand, I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the
body ? -
º And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the
eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the
body ?
17 * If the whole body were an eye, where were
the hearing If the whole were hearing, where were
the smelling 2 -
18 But now hath God set the members every one
of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.
19 And if they were all one member, where were
the body. -
20 But now are they many members, yet but one
body.
º And the eye (the man endowed with the word of
wisdom or knowledge) cannot say to the hand (the per-
son employed in lesser ministries) I have no need of
thee; nor again the head (the person placed in the
highest dignities in the church) to the feet (the deacon,
or man employed in the lowest offices of the church), I
have no need of you.
22 Nay, much more those members of the body,
which seem to be more feeble, are necessary (Gr, but
he members of the body which seem more weak are
* Sed neque oculos toto corpore esse velim, ne castera
embra suum officium perdant. Quintil Instit, lib. viii.
cap. 5, ad finem.
fessing faith in Christ. The apostle is plainly proving, that
as the natural body is one, so is the mystical : now the natu-
ral body is one, as being informed by one soul and spirit
united to it, and animating all the parts of it ; so is it, saith
he, in the mystical body united together by one and the same
Spirit received in baptism, and from our spiritual head, Christ
Jesus, communicated to all the living members of his body,
to give them spiritual life and motion (see Eph. iv. 16).
* Eiº 2v IIvetipca #moria Snºwsy, We were made to drink of one
Spirit..] So our Lord represents the participation of the Holy
Spirit, saying, “If any man thirst, let him come to me and
drink. He that believeth, out of his belly shall flow rivers
of living waters. This spake he of the Spirit, which they
that believed in him should receive” (John vii. 37–39).
And the apostle calls the water which was a symbol of the
Spirit, “spiritual drink,” 1 Cor. x. 4, and as believers are £y
Trvsöga, one spirit with Christ (I Cor. vi. 17), so doth Christ
invite them to come to him to drink of this Spirit.
* Ver. 23. Tºv rega'a orégav, More abundant honour.]
The clothes God made to cover the nakedness of Adan, and
Eve, are styled by Onkelos “clothes of honour:” and the
word rø, here rendered “honour,” is in the Septuagint put
to signify a cover; so, “Behold, he is to thee a covering of
thy eye” (Gen. xx 16), is in the Septuagint, sig rºy rºw
ºroi, ºrgozórow a ov, “for an honour on thy face.”
* Ver. 24. xvyExégaze ºr capaa, Hath so tempered the body.]
Agreeable to this is that of Cicero,” Principio corporis nos-
tri magnam natura ipsa videtur habuisse rationem, quae for-
man] nostram, reliquamgue figuram in quâ, esset species
honesta, eam posuit in promptă ; quae autem partes corporis
ad necessitatem datae, aspectum essent deformen habiturae,
atgue turpem, eas contexit atque abdidit; hanc tam diligen-
tem naturae fabricam imitata est homimum verecundia, quae
enim natura occultavit, eadem omnes, qui Saná mente sunt,
removent ab oculis.
* Wer. 25. "Iya (, ; ; axiaga, That there may be no schism
in the body..] Of this schism of the members against the body,
see Menenius apud Livium, lib. ii, cap. 32. Max. Tyr. diss. v.
is ver. 27.] For illustration of this long comparison be-
'twixt the body natural and mystical, observe, (1.) that this
* De Officiis, lib. i. n. 177.
more necessary; viz. the brain, the stomach, and the
guts) :
23 And those members of the body, which we
think to be less honourable (Gr. more dishonourable),
upon these we bestow (Gr. put) "more abundant hom-
our ; and our uncomely parts have more abundant
comeliness.
24 For our comely parts have no need : but God
*hath tempered the body together (agreeably to the
condition of each member), giving more abundant
honour (or eovering) to that part that lacked: (plac-
ing them so, that even nature may be a covering to
them.
25 And so hath he dealt also with the body mystical,
making the meaner offices of them who attend upon the
poor more necessary, and to them more homoured who
need their help,) that there should be no "schism in
the body, but that the members should have the same
care for (and regard to) one another
26 And whether one member (of the natural body)
suffer, all the members suffer with it (by sympathy) ;
or one member be honoured (or adorned), all the mem-
bers rejoice with it (i. e. if, being indisposed, it be-
comes sound, being weak, it recovers strength, all the
members are eased, and so may be said to rejoice with
it).
27 Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in
particular, “(or, severally are members of that body,
and so ought to act in the mystical body as do the
members in the natural, rejoicing with them that do re-
# and mourning with them that weep, Rom. xii.
15.
comparison is taken from the Jews, who teach that such order
ought to be observed betwixt the priesthood and the people as
in the human body, in which there are members superior, and
others serving to the rest, for all of them serve the heart from
whence life proceeds; and so it is meet that the Levites should
serve the priests, and the people the Levites (Paulus Fagius,
in Lev. iii. 7). The argument which the apostle useth from
the comparison of the natural with the mystical body, seems
to consist in these particulars. r.
First, That as the most inferior members of the natural
body are as much the members of that body as the most noble,
so are the most inferior Christians as much the members of
Christ's body.
Secondly, That there would be no perfect natural body
without this diversity of members, and in like manner no
mystical body without such diversity of gifts and offices as
God hath ordered in his church (ver. 17. 19).
Thirdly, That the members are placed in the body accord-
ing to the wisdom and the good pleasure of God (ver. 18,
24), and so it is in the members of the mystical body, which
therefore ought to acquiesce in the good pleasure of his will,
in whatsoever station and condition his wisdom doth see fit to
place them.
Fourthly, That the members which seem the weakest and
the meanest are as necessary and serviceable to the body as
the other : human life could not continue, nor human kind
subsist without them (ver. 22): so in the mystical body, they
that are employed in works of charity and mercy to the poor
and the sick, those that “serve tables,” are in their kind as
necessary and Serviceable as other members of the church,
and had their x&giak, ata, or spiritual gifts, as well as others
(Rom. xii. 6–8. 1 Pet. iv. 10, 11).
Fifthly, That as nature had provided a covering for the less
honourable parts, and taught us to employ our care in cover-
ing and adorning them, so was it also with respect to the less
honourable members of the ecclesiastical body; there were
“helps” and ministers particularly appointed to take care ci
them, to cover their nakedness and supply their wants, and
promises were made to those who employed themselves in
such acts of charity (ver. 23, 24).
Sixthly, That as there was no division in the members of
the natural body, but all the members took care of, and were
employed for, the good of the whole; so God hath orders.
650
I. coRINTHIANs.
28 “And God hath set some in the (the body of
the) church, first apostles (to exercise the gift of wis-
dom), secondarily prophets (to evert those of knowledge
and prophecy), thirdly teachers (to labour in the word
and doctrine), after that (workers of) miracles, then
(they that have the ) gifts of healing, helps (to take
care of the poor), governments (rulers of the church),
diversities of tongues.
29 Are all apostles 2 are all prophets? are all
teachers ? are all workers of miracles
30 Have all the gifts of healing 2 do all speak with
tongues 2 do all interpret 2
31 But covet earnestly the best (and the most use-
ful) gifts: and yet show I to you a more excellent
way (of ministering to the welfare of the church, and of
gour own souls ; even that of charity).
matters thus in the body mystical, that there snould pe no
divisions, no separate interests in it, but they should mutu-
ally regard the interests of one another, sympathizing and
rejoicing together (ver. 25, 26).
* Ver. 28.] Note, for explication of these offices,
First, That to prophets I ascribe the “gifts of knowledge
and of prophecy, from these words, “If I have prophecy,
and know all mysteries and all knowledge” (1 Cor. xiii. 2):
and as the first gift, “the word of wisdom,” belongs especi-
ally to the apostles, so it seems probable that the second, the
“word of knowledge,” should belong to the second office,
that of prophets. But whereas Mr. Clerc saith that “the
prophets did not teach by inspiration, but only had been
fitted to teach by inspiration; that they spake as they saw
fit themselves; and those things which they received from
Christ and his apostles they interpreted after their own man-
mer;” this seems to be confuted by these words of the apostle,
“If anything be revealed to him that sitteth by, let the first
prophet be silent; for the spirits of the prophets are subject
to the prophets.”
Secondly, The “teachers” seem to be men who, having
received the doctrine of faith from the apostles, preached it
to others for their conversion to the faith, and so they are
the men who “laboured in the word and doctrine,” 1 Tim.
v. 17. They were, saith Eusebius,” &mocráxoy (ca.6ntai, “the
disciples of the apostles, who built up the churches in the
faith which the apostles had planted, promoting the preach-
ing of the gospel more and more, and spreading among them
the salutary seed of the heavenly kingdom.” And they of
them, who preached the gospel to them who had not heard
it, were called evangelists, and sometimes apostles: so
Andronicus and Junia are called Émirnuo; #y roſ. &mdarróxotº,
“men of esteem among the apostles,” Rom. xvi. 7, and of
these John saith, “For his name's sake they went forth,
taking nothing of the gentiles; we therefore ought to receive
* Eccles. Hist. lib. iii. cap. 37.
such, that we may be fellow-helpers to the truth” (3 John
7, 8). But whereas Theophylact and Mr. Le Clerc say,
that the prophets indeed spake by the Holy Ghost, but these
teachers from themselves: this I cannot assent to, for
8tºacºaxia, “teaching,” is numbered among the spiritual
gifts, Rom. xii. 6, and 3.8%akaAoi, “teachers,” among them
to whom Christ had given these gifts (see the note on Eph.
iv. 11).
Thirdly, The “helps” seem to be the deacons and other
officers who ministered, not only to the sick and poor, but in
holy things also—in baptizing and distributing the euchâ-
rist ; &vrixaft.8ávea bat, whence comes the word “helps,” sig-
nifies, to take of others; and these also, as before I noted,
had their spiritual gifts. As then the Talmudists, saith Dr.
Lightfoot, call the Levites “the helps of the priests;” so
may the apostle call the deacons, which answered to them,
the helps of the apostles and bishops of the church.
Fourthly, “Governments” are almost generally supposed
to denote the rulers of the churches planted by the apostles,
and, who are sometimes styled “bishops,” Acts xx. 28,
sometimes hyoſagyot, “guides” or “rulers,” Heb. xiii. 7. 17,
and sometimes reosarörsc, “presidents” or “prelates,” Rom.
xii. 8. 1 Thess. v. 12. But Dr. Lightfoot conjectures they
were the men who had the gift of discerning spirits, because
xv6sgyńasic, which we here render governments, signifies in
the Old Testament, wise counsels, and skill in giving judg-
ment of things; thus 6 vožºoy Kv6sgyńasic wrhaerat, “A man
of understanding shall attain to wise counsels,” Prov. i. 5,
oi; ºth irráži zvépynoic, “Where no counsel is the people
fall ; but in much counsel there is safety,” Prov. xi. 14, and
£cer& ºv8spyho-soº, “By wise counsel thou shalt make war,”
Prov. xxiv. 6. It is not reasonable, saith he, to suppose no
office should be appointed for this so necessary gift, and
yet no other is here mentioned to which we can apply it.
Let the reader choose which of these interpretations he likes
best.
CHAPTER XIII.
1 ' (For), though I speak with the tongues of
men and of angels (the languages of all nations, or
knew to converse with angels), and have not charity, I
am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal
(benefiting no man by my empty and confused, and
pleasing no man with my shrill and noisy, sound).
2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and un-
derstand all mysteries and all knowledge; and though
I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains,
and have no charity, I am nothing (worth in the sight
of God). º
3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the
poor, and though I give my body to be burned (for
the faith), and have not charity (to man, but do this
rather out of vain-glory, or to be admired and praised
of men), it profiteth me nothing (as to my eternal state).
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIII.
* Ver. 1–3.] Note. Here it is to be noted, that the apostle
in these verses reckons up the things which were of highest
value to the Jews, and which rendered their wise men the
most celebrated. Thus of R. Jochanan ben Zachai,” they
say that he understood the language of the angels; and of
R. Azai,' that there was not in his days “a rooter up of
mountains” like to him, or one that could do so great things
as he did. The man on whom the spirit of prophecy did
rest, or who was fit to receive him, must, say they, be “a
wise man, a religious man, a temperate man, and one that is
endued with all probity of manners.”f Of alms they say,
that “whosoever diminisheth anything of his substance to
* Bava Bathra, f. 134, l. + Buxt. Lex. in voce npy.
f Maim. Praef. in Seder Zeraim, Poc. p. 18.
bestow in alms, shall be delivered from hell.” And as for
martyrdom for the law, they thought it sufficient to expiate,
not only for their own sins, but even for the sins of the
whole nation. Hence Josephust brings in Eleazar, praying
thus for the Jews, “Let my blood be an expiation for them,
and receive my life for their lives.” And thus he saith of
the martyrs that suffered under Antiochus Epiphanes, that
“the divine providence saved all Israel from the evils they
suffered, by the blood and the propitiatory death of those
pious men.”:
* Buxt. Floril. p. 89, 90.
t Ka8ápotov airów Troiſſa'ai rā āºw aiwa war &vt. juxāy
airòy 2.48s rāy #why Juxiv. Joseph. in Maccab. cap. 6,
p. 1090.
# At& rod atºaro; rāv Bios939 fixeiray, zai roß ixacºrngiov
Savátov attºv, h &eia argévot, rôy 'la'paña ºrepixazo,0ávra 8:#aaars.
Ibid. p. 1101, B.
CHAPTER XIII.
651
4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity'en-
vieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed
up, -
5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her
own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
6 Rejoiceth not “in iniquity (or falsehood), but re-
joiceth in the truth;
7 * Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth
all things, endureth all things.
8 Charity never faileth (as to the proper and elicit
acts of it); but (as for other gifts) whether there be
prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues,
they shall cease; whether there be (the gift of) know-
ledge, it shall vanish away.
9 For (with all our gifts) we know (still but) in
But here is raised a dispute, whether the gifts here men-
tioned were at any time, or could be, exercised by them
who wanted charity 2 or such profuse alms, and constancy
in suffering to the death, were ever, or could be, separated
from that grace? To which I answer, It is true that the
apostle here speaketh hypothetically, that, were these things
performed without charity, they would not profit to salva-
tion ; but then that supposition seems fairly to imply the
thing itself was not impossible ; or that there was no neces-
sary connexion betwixt these gifts and actions and the grace
of charity. Moreover, our Saviour seems plainly to inform
us that men might prophesy and cast out devils, and do
mighty works in his name (Matt. vii. 22, 23), and yet be
workers of iniquity, and persons whom he would not own at
the last day. He also teacheth that some may do their
alms to be applauded by men (Matt. vi. 2), and therefore
do them so as receive no reward from God ; and so informs
us, that alms may be given without true love to God, or to
our neighbour for his sake. And, lastly, All the fathers
teach, that it is not the suffering but the reason of it, that
makes the martyr; and that “when men, in schism or
heresy, thus give their bodies to be burnt, they are not to
be deemed true martyrs, by reason of the want of charity.”
And the same they say of them who suffer for vain-glory;
viz. that “they shed their blood in vain.”f -
* Ver. 6. 'Ev 38tzig. In iniquity.] That 38tzia here signi-
fies falsehood, the “truth,” to which it is opposed, shows; so
it signifies in the Old Testament above a hundred times, and
the word ºpw, which in the Hebrew signifies a lie, is as often
by the Septuagint translated 33iziz as Jeff30; so “a right
hand of falsehood” is 88%ia 33%ia;, Ps. cxliv. 11, the “way
of lying,” is £38, 38tziaº, Ps. cxix. 29, and “he that telleth
lies,” is Aaxåv &34a, see Ps. cwii. 7, and cxix. 69. 78. 86.
118. 128. 163. Ps. lxiii. 11. Exod. xxii. 7. Now “false-
hood” and “a lie,” in the Old and New Testament, do often
signify a false religion, or a religion containing a false object
of worship. Thus “the molten image is a teacher of lies,”
Hag. ii. 28, and he that maketh it, is said to have “a lie in
his right hand,” Isa. xliv. 20, he that goes after them
“walketh in lies,” Jer. xxiii. 14, and “inherits lies,” &c.
Jevđà èzrāgavro oi ratégs; hºw etàoxa e turns the truth of
God into a lie, Rom. i. 25, believes a jie, 2 Thess. ii. 10, ll
(see the note on Rom. iii. 7). And “the truth” in the New
Testament is emphatically put to signify the gospel, or the
Christian faith: so the Second Epistle of John, ver. 3, 4, “I
rejoiced greatly to find thy children walking in the truth:”
and the Third Epistle, ver. 3, 4, “I have no greater joy than
to hear that my children walk in the truth.” So that the
import of these words may be this—Charity will not permit
* Esse martyr non potest, qui in ecclesia non est;
exhibere se non potest martyrem, qui fraternam non tenuit
charitatem, docet hoc, et contestatur Paulus dicens, Etsi
tradidero corpus meum ut ardeam. Cypr. de Unit. Eccl. ed.
Oxon. p. 113 ; Lib. de Orat. Dom. 150 ; De Zelo et Livore,
p. 225. Ep. 55, p. 44. Ep. 73, p. 207. Chrys. in Eph. Serm.
11, tom. iii. p. 822. August. de Verbis Dom. tom. x.
p. 192.
+ Timeo dicere, sed dicendum est, martyrium ipsum si
ided fiat ut admirationi et laudi habeamur à fratribus, frustrå
sanguis effusus est. Hieron. ad Gal. v. 26.
part, and we prophesy (but) in part (knowing but few
things in comparison to our future knowledge).
10 But when that (state of knowledge) which is per-
fect is come, then that (knowledge) which is in part
shall be done away.
11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I un-
derstood as a child, I thought as a child : but when
I became a man, I put away childish things (and the
like difference will there be betwixt us now and then).
12 For now we see (only as) through a glass,
darkly; but then (we shall see) face to face (with the
greatest nearness and perspicuity, which now we can-
not ; for no man, saith God, shall see my face and
live, Exod. xxxiii. 20, 23. 2 John 12. 3 John 14):
now I know (but) in part; but then shall I know
us to rejoice, but rather cause us to be troubled, to find men
still continue in their false worship, as the gentiles, or in op-
position to the gospel delivered to them, as the Jews do ;
but it rejoiceth to see men walking according to the truth of
the gospel.
* Ver. 7..] From these four comprehensive verses, we
learn the properties and fruits of charity. (1.) What it re-
quires us to do to all. (2.) What it will not permit us to
do to any. (3.) What it requires us to do, or will not per-
mit us to do, to our offending brother.
First, What deportment it requires towards all men ; viz.
1. It is good, kind, and tender-hearted, towards all (ver.
4); “The Lord make your charity to abound to one an-
other, and to all men,” 1 Thess. iii. 12; for charity requireth
us to love our brother as ourselves, it must engage us to
consider him as we do ourselves, and so extend the same
kindness to him, when he needs it, as we show to ourselves
(Gal. vi. 10).
2. It is active and laborious, engaging us “by love to
serve one another” (Gal. v. 13, 14), to do them any service
we are able with good-will, and without grudging ; for
there must be in us, 3 xàºro; rig &yáTrng, “ the labour of love”
(2 Thess. i. 3. Heb. vi. 10).
3. It “rejoiceth in the truth” (ver. 6); that is, in men's
doing righteously, and living according to the gospel, which
is called by way of eminence “the truth;” it begets in us a
complacency and inward pleasure, to behold truth and
righteousness, piety and goodness, prevailing in the world.
4. It makes us ready to believe all things (ver. 7); that
is, all the good it hears, or can have any charitable ground
to think of others.
5. It “hopeth all things” (ver. 7); i. e. it inclines us to
hope still the best concerning men's intentions and actions
liable to doubt ; and if our brother be at present bad, to
hope and not despair of his amendment, and so still to en-
deavour his reformation by all proper means.
Secondly, The things which charity will not permit us to
do to any are these ; viz.
1. “Charity worketh no evil to our neighbour,” in his per-
son, estate, good name, or relations (Rom. xiii. 10), much
less in reference to his Soul: and therefore,
2. It will not suffer us to scandalize, or to offend our
brother, by doing anything which either may embolden him
to sin, or disaffect him to religion, or discourage him in
the practice of his duty; for, “if thy brother be grieved
with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably” (Rom.
xiv. 15).
3. of Aoyićeral tº wanöv (ver. 5). It will not permit us to
surmise or suspect that evil of others which we do not
know ; it “imputes not evil” to them, nor puts to any man's
account beyond absolute necessity. It doth not censure
their miscarriages as done out of malice, or with ill inten-
tions. So Theodoret.
4. It “rejoiceth not in iniquity” (ver. 6), in any evil done
to, much less by, others; it permits no man to be pleased
with any deceit, or falsehood spoken of, or done to, others, or
with any ill stories, or maliciousinsinuations, concerning them.
5. It envies not the happiness or the prosperity of others,
but is well pleased with it (ver. 4).
6. ooz &rynºcys, “It behaveth not itself unseemingly.”
towards any, in words or gestures; it refuseth not to do the
652 °
I. CORINTHIANS.
*even as also I am known, (more fully and completely,
seeing God as he is, 1 John iii. 2).
13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these
three (all great and excellent virtues, and superior to:
the gifts now mentioned); but the greatest of these is
•- - - - - - - --~ * * *
meanest offices of kindness to them, as if it were unseemly,
or below us to be employed in them (ver. 5). So Chrysos-
tom, Theodoret, CEcumen. Theoph. -
7. Oi ºvºioitat, “It vaunteth not itself” (ver. 4): it “is
not puffed up” against our brethren ; it roots out of us all
elation of mind, ambition, ostentation, pride in over-valuing
ourselves, and despising others (Eph. iv. 2); oi regregsösrat,
it is not rash, heady, or precipitate in speaking of, or acting
towards, others. So Chrysostom and CEcumenius. It doth
not curiously search into other men's matters which belong
not to us. So Theodoret.
8. It “seeketh not her own” praise, profit, or pleasure, to
the hurt of others; but inclines men to seek the good of
others (1 Cor. x. 24). -
9. Oi 34xyet, “It bites not” with the tongue (Gal. v. 14,
15), but cuts off all strife, contentions, bitter zeal, animosi-
ties (ver. 21, 22), all bitterness, wrath, clamour, evil speak-
ing (Eph. iv. 31, 32). -
Thirdly, The deportment charity requires to our offend-
ing brother is expressed in these particulars:
1. Charity “beareth long,” and causeth us to endure pro-
vocations with much patience, before we do conceive any
displeasure against others.
2. It “endureth all things,” though grievous to be borne,
without returning evil for evil, enabling us to “forbear one
another in love” (Eph. iv. 2. Col. iii. 13); and will not
charity (both for duration, as continuing when faith
shall end in vision, 2 Cor. v. 7, and hope in enjoyment,
Rom. viii. 23, 24, and for perfection, as rendering us
more like to God, and beneficial to men). -
cease from being kind and well-affected to our brother, by
reason of any provocation whatsoever.
3. It “covers all things,” i. e. inclines us to conceal the
evil that we know of others'; and thus it “covers a multitude
of sins” (James v. 20). -
4. Oi ragożóveral (ver. 5), “It is not highly exasperated,”
and breaks not forth into violent ungovernable passions on
any provocation. -
5. It is easy to be entreated, ready to forgive, and full of
mercy (Col. iii. 13. Eph. iv. 32. James iii. 17).
* Ver. 13. Ka83); Rai #Treywółaśny, Even as I am known.]
I do not think that either these, or the words of John, “We
shall see him as he is,” afford any just grounds for the specu-
lations of the schools, touching the intuitive vision of the
essence of God, or their speculum Trinitatis, without which
the invocations of Saints and angels cannot be excused from
idolatry: for as the words, 1 John iii. 2, refer not to the
vision of God the Father, but of Christ Jesus, appearing at
the day of judgment in his glory, and rendering “our bodies
like unto his glorious body ;” so these words refer not to the
knowledge of God's essence, but rather to the knowledge of
those great things he hath prepared for those that love him,
revealed now in part, by the Spirit of prophecy and wisdom
(1 Cor. ii. 9, 10), which then, saith the apostle, we shall
know in the most clear and perfect manner, as we ourselves
are known of God.
CHAPTER XIV.
1 FoELow (therefore) after charity (above all things),
and desire (also) spiritual gifts, but rather that ye
may prophesy (i. e. earpound the scripture, or reveal
some mystery to the edification of the church).
2 * For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue
(not understood, nor ea plained) speaketh not to (the
wnderstanding of) men, for no man understands him,
but to (the understanding of) God (only); howbeit (or
though) in the Spirit he speaketh mysteries (the pro-
jound things of God).
3 But he that prophesieth (in plain intelligible
words) speaketh to (the profit of) men, (viz.) to (their)
edification (by the scripture he eaſpounds), and (to
their) exhortation (by what he teacheth), and (to their)
comfort (by his revelation). -
4 He that speaketh in an unknown tongue *edi-
fieth himself (only); but he that prophesieth edifieth
the church.
5 I would that ye all spake with tongues, but ra-
ther that ye prophesied : for greater (because more
beneficial) is he that prophesies than he that speak-
eth with tongues, except he interpret (his tongue, and
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIV.
* Ver. 2. ‘o yº Maxây yx&sh, For he that speaketh
with an unknown tongue.] That what is said in this verse
is spoken only by way of concession, as Mr. Clerc imagines,
ſcannot be true, because it is expressly said, that “in the
Spirit he speaketh mysteries;” for mysteries, when the apos-
the speaketh of spiritual gifts, hath still relation to some
profound secret things, 1 Cor. ii. 7, and xiii. 2. And IIveſ-
Awar; XaAEſ cannot here signify, as Mr. Clerc conceives, “He
speaketh to his own understanding:” since the apostle,
through this whole chapter, is speaking of spiritual gifts,
which also he expressly calleth “ spirits,” saying, “Seeing
you are zealous rvevº.4 row, of spirits,” i.e. of spiritual gifts;
and the afflatus or inspiration here was to enable the man
to speak the mystery, and not to use the unknown tongue.
For explication of this whole matter, let it be noted,
First, That the gift of tongues and prophecy, in their
original donation, did still go together; and they who spake
with tongues, spake rà ways affa roſ, esci, “the great things
of God”. (Acts ii. 11. x. 46), “they spake with tongues and
prophesied” (Acts xix. 6); and the reason seems plain, viz.
because the gift of tongues was given as a help to prophecy.
Now these two things, thus joined by God, should not have
been used separately by these gifted men; yea, the gift of
tongues was only to be used when they were, to speak to
gentiles in their own language, which was one great design of
the gift of tongues (ver. 22). Nor should they have used
the gift of tongues when an afflatus came upon them, and
some mystery was imparted to them, by which the church
was to be edified, unless they knew there was one present
who had the gift of interpretation of tongues: this therefore
was a great abuse of this gift, that when they had a mystery
revealed to them they did not utter it in a language under-
stood by the assembly, but only by themselves, and so they
did not edify the church by it, though it was given, as all
- the other gifts were, for edification (xii. 7). Note,
Secondly, That the gift of tongues being imparted per
modum habitus, as a permanent gift, like to a habit ; they
who had received this gift could always use it at their plea-
sure, and so could also use it when a prophetical afflatus
came upon them ; but the gift of prophecy, being an affia-
tus in manner of a revelation, could be only used when the
afflatus came upon them ; so that the first gift might at
any time be used without any fresh operation of the Holy
Ghost, whereas the second gift always required that afflatus.
* Ver. 4. ‘Eavröy oizołowsi, Edifieth himself.] He therefore
understood himself, as the church did him that prophesied:
and indeed, by speaking what he hintself understood not,
he would have been as much a barbarian, and unprofitable
to himself, as he was to others. To say with Cajetan, “The
words were pious which he uttered, and he had pious affec-
tions when he uttered them,” is unsatisfactory: for what if
the matter of them was so, since if he understood them no
more than a parrot, his piety in speaking of them could be
no more than that of a parrot ; he neither could know they
CHAPTER XIV.
653
the mystery he utters in it), "that the church may re-
ceive edifying (by it). -
6 Now (therefore), brethren, if I come unto you
speaking with (strange) tongues, what shall I profit
you, except I shall speak to you (also) either by reve-
lation (of some secret), or by knowledge (of some mys-
tery), or “by prophesying (i. e. foretelling of some-
thing to come), or by doctrine (instructing you what to
believe or practise) *
7 And (thus it is) even (in) things without life
giving sound, whether (it be) pipe or harp; (for) ex-
cept they give a distinction in the sound (to render it
intelligible), how shall it be known what is piped or
harped : -
8 For if the trumpet (for eaſample) give an uncer-
tain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle
(at the hearing of it) 8
9 So likewise you, except you utter by the tongue
words easy to be understood (by your auditors), how
shall it be known what is spoken (by you) 8 for (by
speaking what they know not) ye shall (be as men who)
speak (only) to the air (vain and unprofitable words,
lost in the speaking, as the voice is in the air).
10 There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices
(languages and idioms, as there be nations, or, as the
Jews compute, to the number of seventy) in the world,
and none of them is without signification (but this sig-
nification they have only to them that understand them).
11 Therefore, if I know not the meaning of the
voice, I shall be to him that speaketh (as if he spake
to) "a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be (as )
a barbarian to me (not understanding what he saith).
12 Even so ye, forasmuch as ye are zealous of
spiritual gifts (ć , of spirits, that you may not be bar-
barians, and unprofitable in the use of them), seek that
ye may excel (in them which tend) to the edifying of
the church.
13 Wherefore let him that speaketh in an unknown
tongue (in which he cannot edify) pray that he "may
interpret (i. e. pray so, as to interpret what he prays).
were pious, nor receive any benefit by them, supposing they
were so, whilst he understood nothing of them ; nor could
any pious affections be raised in him by words not under-
stood. To say with Grotius, Sentit in se vim Christi, he
perceives the gift of Christ operating in him, if he perceived
not the meaning of his own words, is to talk as unintelligibly
as he spake ; for that can only signify, he knew he had the
gift of tongues, which sure could not much edify him who
formerly had used that gift, and so could not be ignorant he
had that gift. Moreover, doth not the apostle bid him, who
speaks with tongues not interpreted, “speak only to himself,
and to God 2" (ver. 28.) And can he speak to himself more
than to others, who understands not himself P Or is it fit that
he should speak to God he knows not what? However, it is
certain that the apostle not only dislikes, but plainly forbids
this way of speaking in the church (ver. 28); and so, by
parity of reason, forbids the like way of speaking to others
in the church of Rome.
* Ver. 5. "Iya # #xxxnario oizołowºw A43m, That the church
ºmay receive edification] Hence I gather, that in this un-
known tongue he uttered something tending to, and by God
designed for, the edification of the church, though by utter-
ing his mystery (ver. 2) in an unknown tongue, he frustra-
ted that design.
* Ver., 6. 'Hiy, ºrgoºntsiz, Or in prophesying.] Though
prophesying, in this verse, being distinguished from revela-
tion, knowledge, and doctrine, seems only to import the fore-
telling of something to come, yet doth the apostle, in this
and the foregoing chapter, manifestly speak of it in the
whole latitude of the word, as comprehending all these other
things; as v. g. revelation, so ver, 24, “If all prophesy, and
there come in an unbeliever, and one unlearned, he is con-
vinced of all, he is judged by all, and so the secrets of his
heart shall be made manifest:” according to that other
sense we have given of this gift, ch. xii. that it was that
which enabled them to manifest the secret things of men ;
hence to the prophet is assigned “his revelation,” ver, 30.
Secondly, yyāoric, here rendered “knowledge,” viz. of the
mind and will of God: so xiii. 2, “If I have prophecy,
and know all mysteries, kai răzayyyāoriv, and all knowledge.”
Whence to the prophet belongs Aéyo; yyāa soc, “the word of
knowledge,” mentioned xii. 8. And this is the ordinary no-
tion of it, viz. that it imports a gift by which the mind of
God, or his will, is, by the divine afflatus, discovered for the
good of others. And thirdly, doctrine ; whence the prophet
is said to speak to the edifying of the church (ver. 3), so
that “all may learn” of him, be exhorted, and comforted
by him (ver, 3.31). And prophecy, in the Old Testament,
doth often signify a divine afflatus, enabling him who had it
to compose hymns or psalms of praise to God (1 Sam. x.
5. 1 Chron. xxv. 1): accordingly the psalm here mentioned
(ver. 26), and the singing with the Spirit (ver. 15, 16), are
the effects of the prophetical afflatus, by which the Chris-
tians of those times “taught and admonished one another
in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs” (Col. iii. 16.
Eph. v. 20). And the praying in the Soirit ver. 15), or in
the Holy Ghost (Jude 20), seems to be praying by a like
afflatus of the Holy Ghost, helping their infirmities, and
teaching them what was proper to be asked for the good of
the church (see note on Rom. viii. 26, 27): and therefore
though, when they came together, “every man had a psalm,
a doctrine, a tongue, a revelation, and interpretation,” for
the correcting their miscarriages in all these things, the
apostle gives only rules concerning tongues and prophesying.
* Ver. 11. Bápéapoc, A barbarian.] It was not only the
Greeks that called all other nations barbarians, according to
that of the apostle, “I am debtor to the Greek and the bar-
barian ;” in which sense Julius Pollux* reckons up yaärray
"Exxała, wai 8á88agov, “the tongue of the Greeks and of the
barbarians ;” but almost every nation called strangers, who
understood not their language, by that name, as the same
Pollux + noteth in these words, rci, 3; 3apſ3ágous kai živov;
#xáxovy. So the Jews (upon those words, “When Israel
came out of Egypt, and the house of Jacob Ty” byn, āz Aaoû
8ag£ápov, from a strange people”) say “All language that is
not the holy language is barbarous:” so the Chaldeans f:
styled those who spake not the Chaldee, and the Romans
those who spake not Latin. Hence Verres $ is, in Cicero's
style, linguá et natione barbarus, “by language and by na-
tion a barbarian.”
* Ver. 13. IIgoa'svXéa.00 (va Bisºnveón, Let him pray that
he may interpret.] Seeing it is evident, from the fourth and
twenty-eighth verses, that he who spake with tongues under-
stood the meaning of his own tongue ; nor can he be said to
have the gift of tongues who only hath the gift of talking
he knows not what, as the Phanatici did among the hea-
thens; nor can it be supposed the Spirit of God should
assist men in that useless mannner: these words cannot be
here understood as an exhortation to this linguist, that he
should pray that he might understand, and so be able to in-
terpret his own words, which he already could do, had he
been as willing as he was able, and had not more regarded
the vain ostentation of His gift, than the edification of the
church. Some, therefore, give the sense of the words thus:
Let him rather pray that he may have the gift of interpre-
tation, than that of tongues; for covet (saith the apostle)
the best gifts (xii. 13), seek to excel in those which tend to
the edification of the church (ver. 12): now this doth the
gift of interpretation more than that of tongues, But I
rather choose to interpret them thus: Let him (so) pray
(with his gift, as) that he may (by the words used in his
prayer, or by explaining it in a known language) interpret
and impart to others what the afflatus hath imparted to him,
and not out of vain ostentation utter it in a tongue un-
known. To strengthen this sense, let it be observed, first,
that the apostle here plainly discourseth of speaking with an
unknown tongue in prayer, and of praying also by the affia-
tus of the Spirit, as is apparent from the illative words, . For
if I pray in an unknown tongue my spirit prayeth,” &c.
* Lib. ii. cap. 4, p 26. + Lib. i. cap. 10, p. 43.
ºf Buxt. Lex. Talm. p. 1151. § Orat. 6 in Ver, n. 12.
654
I. CORINTHIANS.
14 For if I pray in an unknown tongue, "my spirit
prayeth (i.e. my spiritual gift is evercised), but my
understanding is unfruitful (to others).
15 What is it then (i. e. What then is to be
done?) I will pray "with the spirit (i. e. with my spi-
ritual gifts), and I will pray with the understanding
also : I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with
the understanding also (i.e. so using my spiritual gift
in prayer and psalmody in public, as that I may be un-
derstood by others).
16 Else when thou shalt bless, (i. e. give thanks to
God) with the spirit (-ual afflatus not understood by
others), how shall he that "occupieth the room of the
unlearned (i. e. the laic, or the man who only knows
his mother-tongue) say Amen (or give his assent) at thy
giving of thanks, seeing he understands not what
thou Sayest ?
17 For thou verily givest thanks well (with thy
spiritual gift, i. e. piously), but the other is not edi-
fied (by it).
Secondly, Observe from Buda us, that the particle otºro is
sometimes elegantly deficient, of which he gives two instan-
ces from Aristotle ; to which add these from the New Tes-
tament, “As in heaven, xai (pro off-ro zai) Bºri răç yńc, so also
upon earth,” Matt. vi. 10; Luke xi. 2, xa, ei č zarayåg, for
kai otºro, Ei, “And so if Satan ;” Mark iii. 26, “As my Fa-
ther sent me, kāyā (for off-ro zºy&), so send I you ;” and with
this ellipsis the word runs thus, oùro reoasuzéa Sø wa ka?,
“Let him so pray, as that he also may interpret.” Or ob-
serve from Noldius and Pasor, that va signifies aded ut, “so
as that :” so the word was hidden from them, iva ºch at-Soy-
rat airó, “So as that they perceived it not,” Luke ix. 45 ;
“He will do greater works than these, ºva iºceſ: 9avºčnts,
so that you may marvel” at the greatness of them, John v.
20; “Did I purpose according to God, ºva # ºrać goi, so as
that there should be with me yea yea, may nay ?” 2 Cor. i.
17 ; “I rejoiced that you sorrowed according to the flesh,
Iva, so as that you might be damaged by us in nothing :” so
Rev. viii. 12. ix. 29. xiii. 13; and then the words may be
rendered thus: “Let him pray, ºwa 3 isfanyºn, so as he may
interpret.”
7 Ver, 14. To trysiºd wov Trºozsáxera, My spirit prayeth.]
Here Mr. Clerc asks, “What mortal would have rendered tº
wrvedº, Kaou by my gift 2" I answer, Every one who knows
the apostle is here speaking of spiritual gifts. And secondly
he not only warrants, but constrains them to do so, by say-
ing, ver. 12, Seeing you are &nxorai rvsupc&rov, “zealous of
spiritual gifts;” and ver. 32, orvetºzara reoporſºy, “The spiri-
tual afflatuses of the prophets are subject to the prophets;”
and ver, 2, wVečkari, “He by the spirit speaketh mysteries.”
And, thirdly, the word ºrvetºza never signifies the mind in all
this discourse, or the Understanding, that being in the very
next verse vojº, the word opposed to trysiºca, “spirit.” He
adds, “What intolerable language is it to say, My gift
prays ſº I answer, Just such intolerable language as “The
Spirit intercedeth,” Rom viii. 26; for that is only “The
gift of the Spirit intercedeth ; and though that may pass for
a catachresis, yet to say, My gift is exercised in prayer, or,
as ver, 15, “I pray with my gift,” is to give the true mean-
ing of Paul’s words. When he adds, that “nothing is more
ordinary than for the spirit and the body to be opposed to
one another:” this is, first, impertinent; here being no op-
position betwixt the spirit and the body, but only betwixt
the spirit and the mind, i. e. according to Mr. Clerc, betwixt
my mind and my mind ; and what mortal would have so in-
tèrpreted r3 ºrvetºzá Awou ? Secondly, The thing itself is not
proved by him ; see, saith he, Rom. viii. 23; where yet
there is no such opposition at all, but only an assertion that
they, “who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, wait for the
redemption of the body.” Now what mortal would have
interpreted these words thus, We that have the first-fruits
of the mind groan, waiting for the body opposed to it 2 see
says he, Gal. vi. 15, where again is no opposition betwixt
the spirit and the body, but only betwixt the Spirit and the
flesh ; or rather betwixt walking in the Spirit, that is, ac-
cording to the conduct of the Holy Spirit, and fulfilling the
18 I thank my God, I speak with tongues more
than you all:
19 Yet in the church (of God) I had rather speak
five words with my understanding (so employed) that
by my voice I may teach others also, than ten thou-
sand words in an unknown tongue.
20 Brethren, be not (like) children in understand-
ing (choosing what pleases you before what profits
others); howbeit in (freedom from) malice be you
(as) children, but in understanding be (and act as)
men (as persons of maturity of judgment to know what
is fitting to be spoken).
21 * In the law it is written, (by way of a sign to
a disobedient and unbelieving people, thus :) With men
of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this
people ; and yet for all that they will not hear me,
saith the Lord.
22. Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them
that believe (and so not to be used in their assemblies),
but to them that believe not (they being designed for
lusts of the flesh (see I Cor. iii. 1. 3. Rom. viii. 4, 5. 13–15).
He might more pertinently have cited l Cor. vii. 34. Janics
ii, 26.
* Ver. 15. Tº IIysiºcar, With the Spirit..] I do not think
that this phrase, “with the Spirit,” relates here to the gift of
tongues, but to an afflatus enabling them to pray and sing
by the impulse of the Holy Ghost: the uttering what this
afflatus suggested, in an unknown tongue they had before
received, was the great fault the apostle in this chapter en-
deavours to correct ; the person speaking with an unknown
tongue, is 6 Aaxây y\dºran' the person speaking with an af-
flatus, whether mysteries (ver. 2), prayer, or psalmody, is
& Aaxöv IIveſºari, “he that speaketh by the Spirit.”
* Ver, 16. ‘O &yatrangăy rêy rátroy roi; i314+ov, Who fills
wp the place of the idiot.] That is, 3 Aaixãº, “the laic,”
say Chrysostom, Theodoret, GEcumenius, and Theophylact.
Buxtorf” informs us, this is a phrase frequent among the
Jews: and Maimonides + teacheth, that the word place is
used to denote the dignity or estimation of any man, it being
frequent with their rabbins to say, “Such a one fills up the
place of his fathers” in such a thing, that is, he resembles
them. So Epictetus, in his Enchiridion, Saith, h pixo~éºpov
ºrឺv #7éxely 3eſ, ičićrov, “Thou must either hold the place
of a philosopher, or of one unlearned :” so that “to fill up
the place of an idiot” or unlearned person, is to be one of
them, or to be like them in want of understanding of strange
tongues. Ridiculous, therefore, are those popish commen-
tators who interpret this of “the clerk of the congregation,”
there being no such office then, either among Jews or Chris-
tions, but “when the minister of the synagogue said
prayers, all the people of the synagogue answered Amen
after him.”$ “It was the custom in the Jewish church,”
saith Buxtorf “to say Amen to the blessings or cursings of
the priests.” To his curses; so the woman, suspected of
adultery, was to confirm his imprecations by saying, “Amen,
Amen” (Numb. v. 22): so all the people answered “Amen,”
to the curses pronounced from mount Ebal (Deut. vii. 15.
26); and to the oath and imprecation imposed upon them
by Nehemiah (v. 12, 13). To his blessings; so when Ezra
blessed the congregation, “All the people answered Amen,
Amen” (Neh. viii. 6). And this practice was from them
translated to the primitive church.
* Wer. 21. 'Ev'ró yẠyéyparta, In the law it is written.]
All interpreters I have met with refer this to the saying of
the prophet Isaiah, xxviii. 11, telling us, it is there men-
tioned as a miracle shown to the people, that God would
send prophets to them “in a language they understood not ;”
but I find no mention of any miracle there : wherefore it
may be noted, that in the law, properly so called, among the
curses threatened to them “for a sign and a wonder,” this
is one, “that the Lord shall bring against them a nation
* Lex. Talm. p. 2001.
+ Cap. 37.
| Lex. Talm. p. 114.
* Tégata kai a maſſa LXX. Deut. xxviii. 46.49, 58.
+ More Nevoch. par. i. cap. 8.
§ R. Eliez. cap. 44, p. 118.
CHAPTER XIV.
655
the more speedy and effectual propagation of the gospel
by this gift, among those nations whose languages they
wnderstood not) : but prophesying (by teaching the
doctrines of the New, or eapounding the mysteries of |
the Old Testament) serveth not for them that believe
not (that faith, or those scriptures), but for them that
believe (them).
23 If therefore the whole church be come together
into one place, and all speak with tongues, and there
come in those that are unlearned, or * unbelievers,
will they not (be tempted, by hearing you thus speaking
to one another in unknown languages, to) say that you
are mad 2
24 But if all prophesy (one after another, ver. 31)
and there come in one that believeth not, or one un-
learned, he is convinced (or discovered) of all, he is
judged (or discerned) of all (that prophesy):
- 25 And thus are the * secrets of his heart made
manifest (by the prophet’s revelation of them); and so
falling down upon his face he will worship God (the
searcher of the heart), and report (from his own eaſpe-
rience) that God is in (or among) you of a truth.
26 How is it then (or, what is then to be done),
brethren? (since) when you come together, every one
of you (that is a spiritual or gifted person) hath a
psalm, (or) hath a doctrine, (or) hath a tongue, (or)
hath a revelation, (or) hath an interpretation (of
33
whose tongue they understood not ;” and then it is intimated,
that yet they would not hear: to both these places the apostle
may here refer.
In the law it is written, &c.] Jerome, upon Isaiah xxviii.
11, 12, saith, the apostle cites this, not according to the
translation of the Septuagint, or of Symmachus, or Thedo-
tion, but from the Hebrew. But Origen “ saith, stºo, rà.
icobuyaºcoövra tº Aée, raûrn #y rfi rot; 'Azúxov icºnveig weig, Eva,
“I found in the translation of Aquila words equivalent to
those of the apostle here.”
* Ver. 23. "H 3ria rot] Here Grotius notes that the hea-
thens and unbelievers then used to come to the assemblies
of the Christians; and so we read they did, Acts xiii. 44.
48, and whilst they assembled in the Jewish synagogue, it
could not be otherwise.
* Ver, 25. Tà ºðurtă ră; tapčia; atroſ, ‘pavegå yivstat,
The secrets of his heart are made manifest.] For, as Theo-
phylact notes, # 3roxáxvski; stºo; £y reopmtsia, “revelation is
one species of prophecy:” and though it is taken in a re-
strained sense, and so distinguished from prophecy, ver, 6 ;
yet, ver. 30, it is supposed that revelation belongeth to a
prophet ; and the doctrine, the revelation, the psalm, ver.
26, do all seem to belong to the prophets ; the speaker with
tongues, the interpreter of them, and the prophet, being the
only persons mentioned in the ensuing words, and in this
whole chapter ; so that what cannot be ascribed to the one
must belong to the other. -
* Ver. 28. 'Ev 3é º # 3istºnyevrºz, c tyára, But if there
be not an interpreter, let him be silent.] The apostle permits
him to use his tongue in the presence of one who had the
gift of interpretation of tongues, because then the church
was not only edified by the interpretation, but the faith of
the hearers was confirmed by the exercise of two miracu-
lous gifts: but the apostle permits him not to be his own in-
terpreter, though he could do it; because his speaking that
first in an unknown tongue, which he himself must after-
ward interpret in a known language, served only for osten-
tation, not for edification ; nor could it be known whether
his tongue was supernatural, or acquired only.
* Ver. 29. Kai oi &AAct 8taxelvárowcay, And let the rest
discern.] Since it is impossible that the afflatus of the Holy
Spirit should suggest any falsehood to him that had it, there
can be no ground to judge him that had it, as Grotius+
hath well observed upon this place. But, saith Theodoret,
* Ed. Huet. tom. ii. p. 428.
+ Multúm aberrant qui putant dona prophetica aliis pro-
phetis esse subjecta: non pugnant inter se Dei dona nec
sententiae exquirendae sunt, ubi Deum loqui constat.
tongues). Let all (these) things be done to edifying; .
(let them be managed so as best conduceth to the end
for which they were designed, xii. 7).
27. If any speak in an unknown tongue, let it be
(used only) by two, or at the most by three (at one
neeting), and that by course (i.e. successively); and
let one (who hath the gift) interpret (what is spoken).
28 “But if there be no interpreter (present), let
him (that only speaks with tongues) keep silence in
the church; and let him (only) speak (mentally) to
himself, and to God, (in prayer and thanksgiving, ver.
15, 16). -
- 29 Let the prophets speak two or three (succes-
sively), * and let the other (prophets) judge or dis-
Cer]]. -
30 (And) if (whilst one prophesies) anything be
revealed to another that sitteth by, let the first hold
his peace (or cease, before the other utter his revela-
tion). - -
31 For (so) ye (that have the gift) may all pro-
phesy one by one, that (by your mutual discourses) all
may learn, and all may be comforted (or eahorted to
good works). z
32 And (this is not difficult for you to do, since)
* the spirits of the prophets are subject to (and there-
fore may be restrained by) the prophets.
33 (And God, doubtless, in this case would have the
as the devil raised up false apostles to oppose the true apos-
tles (1 Tim. ii. 1), so did he also false prophets (2 Pet. ii. 1.
1 John iv. 1), in opposition to those who truly were inspired ;
and of these, say the Greek interpreters, the true prophets
were to judge: or else 3iangyároday, “let them discern” the
agreement of what they utter with the dictates of the same
Spirit in the Old Testament, “ comparing spiritual things
with spiritual” (1 Cor. ii. 13). So in the conference, Acts
xv., when Peter had given his judgment in that matter,
James adds, “With this agree the words of the prophets, as
it is written,” ver. 15.
* Ver. 32. IIvsöpeara arpoºnrºy, The spirits of the pro-
phets are subject to the prophets.] The common interpreta-
tion of these words, that the spirits of the true prophets are
subject to the judgment, examination, and regulation of other .
prophets, seems not agreeable to the apostle's affirmation,
that “he that is spiritual is judged of none,” l Cor. ii. 13.
15, nor is there any ground for judging his doctrine who
speaks by the impulse of the Holy Ghost ; nor doth the
apostle say, the spirits of the prophets ought to be, but two-
ºrga'a stat, actually are subject to the prophets, I prefer
therefore the interpretation of CEcumenius * and Theophy-
lact, that this is spoken in opposition to the heathen pro-
phets; for the prophets among the Greeks, receiving an af.
flatus from the evil spirit, could not be silent if they would ;
but it was not so with the holy prophets: “They had it in
their power to speak, or to be silent ; and to this the apostle
refers, by saying, The spirits of the prophets, that is, their
spiritual gifts, are subject to the prophets; that is, it is in their
power to restrain them,” and consequently they may pro-
phesy the one after the other. And upon this account the
church rejected the ecstatic prophets of the Montanists, that
they had an ungovernable impetus ; for, say they, “They
can show no truly inspired prophet in the Old or New Tes-
tament who was moved after this manner.”: Moreover, it
is the opinion of persons eminently learned and judicious,
that in Corinth, and some other churches, there were then
no settled pastors to perform the public offices, but they
were all performed by prophets and by gifted men, excited
to that work in the assembly, Christ being thus in the midst
* of pºv trag "Exxnart &#yrgic, inreið3v 3raž Katsaxéºnaray
ūr; roi; 3aipºoyoº, wäy #80ſhowro, otº ºvayro atyāy, of 3; wag' hºwſ,
#yiot reophrai oix otroc, &AA& wag' abroſ, pnziv, ša ri rô alyāy
# *a*sty, wai rotºro Harry &reg pnay &ri ré Tysºzara rāv Trºopmtöv,
tov'réart, rà Xapiapata rāy trºopnrów, bºretázaretal attoſ.
+ Toºrov 8: röy rpárov obrá riva rāy war& rºy waxatay, oùrs
rāv xata rāy waivy (8ta&#xny), Trvevºcatotopnäävra Trºophºrny
3s; at 3vyāa oyrai, Euseb. Hist. Eccles, lib. V. cap. 17.
656
I. CORINTHIANS.
first to be silent :) for God is not the author "of con-
fusion (which yet would follow upon all the prophets
speaking together, so that one should confound the
other), but of peace, as (may be seen by the regular
evercise of these gifts) in all the churches of the
saints.
34 "Let your women keep silence in the churches :
for it is not permitted to them to speak (by way of
teaching or prophesying, but only by joining with the
church in prayer and psalmody); but they are com-
manded to be under obedience, as also saith the law
(Gen. iii. 16).
35 And if they will learn anything, let them ask
their husbands at home : for it is a shame (i. e. a
thing indecent) for women "to speak in the church.
36 (And whereas in this matter you think fit to
practise contrary to all the churches of the saints, even
those in Judea, I ask, ) What? came the word of God
of them (Matt. xviii. 20), according to his promise. And
this they judge more probable touching the church of Corinth,
because there seems no order to be observed among them,
and no subjection of their prophets to any ruler of the
church ; no direction of the sentence to them, when the in-
cestuous person was to be “delivered up to Satan,” or when
he was to be absolved: but all seems to be done by the im-
mediate authority of Paul. They also, from this chapter,
do observe, that whereas all the public offices then performed
in the church were prayers and psalmody, expounding or
preaching the word, and thanksgiving, all these are here
ascribed to men endowed with these spiritual gifts; for that,
when they came together, some of them prayed, others com-
posed sacred hymns by their spiritual gifts, we plainly read,
ver. 15, that their prophets did then teach for edification,
instruction, and comfort, ver. 3. 31 ; that they did also
sixoyév “bless,” and Eixaglareſ, “give thanks,”, we learn
from ver. 16, 17 ; but that all or any of these things were
done by stated pastors, we never read in these epistles: now
if this were so, the occasional prophets might be subject to
the standing prophets, mentioned ch. xii. and thus these
words may be interpreted by them, who like mot the expo-
sition given in the paraphrase.
* Ver. 33. 'Azaraa raciaç, Of confusion.] This also con-
firms the interpretation given of the preceding words; for
out from you (to all other churches)? or came it to
you only (and not to other churches, that you thus dif-
fer in your practice from them) 8
37 If any man think himself to be a prophet, or
spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things I (now)
Write unto you are the commandments of the Lord
(see note on ii. 15).
38 But if any man (pretends to) be ignorant (whe-
ther he be so or not), let him be ignorant (at his peril
be it, I shall not contend farther with him; or dyvostro,
let him not be acknowledged as a true prophet, or spi-
ritual person).
39 Wherefore, brethren, covet to prophesy, and
forbid not to speak with tongues, (provided these di-
rections be observed : but)
i. Let all (these) things be done * decently and in
OrC101'.
the prophesying of many together would necessarily breed
confusion ; whereas the neglect of judging of their prophe-
cies could only be supposed to breed error.
” Wer. 34. Ai yuvaſzec ipºv, Let your women be silent in
the church..] In that of Corinth the women not only pro-
phesied in the church, but they did it with the head uncovered,
1 Cor. xi. 5, the latter indecency he corrects there and the
first here (see 1 Tim. ii. 12).
* Ver. 35. 'Ev inzanaiz Azaeiv, To speak in the church.]
So the Hebrew canon saith,” “A woman must not read in
the synagogue for the honour due to that assembly :” and
the heathens declared it indecent for a woman &ng, myogºſy,
“to speak publicly” (Stob. serm. 72, p. 443, f ff.)
* Ver. 40. Ebºxnºva', wai xará rà%ly, Decently and in
order.] This order, saith Theodoret, he had taught in the
words foregoing, “Let all things be decently :” not like
children (ver. 20), not so as to give occasion to others to
say you are mad (ver. 23), not so as to breed confusion (ver.
33), not indecently by women speaking in the church (ver.
34, 35); “in order,” that is, one after another ; or by course
(ver 27.31), see Chrysostom, CEcumenius, and Theophylact,
descanting upon these words to this effect.
* Dr. Lightfoot in locum.
CHAPTER XV.
1 MoREover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel
which I preached to you, which also ye have received,
and wherein ye º (Gr. have stood);
2 * By which also ye are (in the way to be) saved, if
ye keep in memory what (i.e. retain the gospel as) I
preached (it) to you, (which you will do) unless ye
have believed in vain.
3 (I declare, I say, the gospel which I preached;) for
I delivered to you first of all (or among the principal
doctrines of faith) that which I also received, how
that Christ died for our sins according to the scrip-
ture ;
4 And that he was buried, and that he rose again
the third day according to the scriptures;
5 And that he was seen (after his resurrection) of
Cephas (Luke xxiv. 34), then * of the twelve (ver.
36. John xx. 19, 26).
6 (And, that you may not depend upon their testi-
mony only,) after that, he was seen of above “five
hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XV.
* Ver. 2. At' of kai a 4&sass, By which also ye are saved.]
They who by embracing the Christian faith were brought
into that way which leadeth to salvation, and in which, iſ
they persevered, they would assuredly be saved, are styled in
scripture, oi aroğºwevot, “the saved,” Acts ii. 47. 1 Cor. i. 28,
and are said a 6&sa Sat, “to be saved,” Rom. viii. 24. 2 Tim.
i. 9. 1 Pet. iii. 21 (see note on Eph. ii. 5.8, and on Tit. iii.
5), so here it signifies, you are at present in a state of salva-
tion, and will assuredly enjoy it, if you retain and live suit-
ably to the faith delivered to you.
* Ver. 5. Toſ, 333ewa, Of the twelve.] i. e. Of the society
of the apostles, consisting formerly of twelve persons, and
therefore so called still (John xx 24), though in strictness
of speech they were but eleven when Thomas was with
them, and ten in his absence (Matt. xxviii. 16. Luke
xxiv. 33).
9 Wer. 6. Iſsyraxco’iot; 388xpoſs, To five hundred brethren;]
Of whom he was seen in Galilee, where he had many disci-
ples; for before his resurrection he told his disciples that,
being risen, he would go before them into Galilee (Matt.
xxvi. 32); after his resurrection the angel sent this message
to them, “Behold, he goes before you into Galilee, there you
shall see him, as he said unto you” (Mark xvi. 7). Now it
may reasonably be thought that the eleven, who went them-
selves into Galilee to the mountain which Jesus had ap-
pointed, even after they had seen him at Jerusalem (Luke
xxiv. 33.36), would acquaint the seventy, and others who
believed in Jesus, where it was he appointed to be seen of
them ; and then, no doubt, their curiosity, as well as their
affection to him, would induce them to repair to the place.
CHAPTER XV.
657
remain unto this present (day to testify it), but some
are fallen asleep.
7 After that, he was seen of “James; then of all the
apostles (at his ascension).
8 And last of all he was seen of me also (Acts ix.
17), * as of one born out of due time (or shape).
9 For I am the least of the apostles, .# one) that
am not meet to be called an apostle, because I perse-
cuted the church of God.
10 But by the grace (and favour) of God (notwith-
standing) I am what (now) I am : and his grace which
was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured
more abundantly than they all: yet (it is) not I, but
the grace of God that was with me (to which the fruit
of all my labour is to be ascribed).
11 Therefore, whether it were I or they (who preach
the gospel), so we preach, and so ye (also) believed.
12 Now if Christ be (sg) preached that (all who do
so unanimously affirm) he rose from the dead, “how
say some among yoil that there is no resurrection of
the dead s
13 But (or for) if (it be so that) there be no resur-
rection of the dead, then is Christ not risen.
14 And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching
(in) vain, and your faith is also vain.
15 Yea, and we are (then) found false witnesses of
God, because" we have testified of (or by) God that he
raised up Christ, whom he raised not up, if so be that
the dead rise not (at all).
16 For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ
raised :
17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain;
you are yet in your sins (not justified nor absolved
from them, seeing he died for our sins, and rose again
for our justification, Rom. iv. 21).
18 Then they also who have fallen asleep in Christ
(and suffered for his name) are perished (so as never to
rise up out of that sleep, and so are truly miserable).
Now, that they who had believed in Jesus were very many,
will be evident, if we consider how often it is said in the gos-
pel, that “many believed on his name,” John ii. 23. vii. 31.
viii. 10. x. 42, and that “great multitudes believed on him,”
John xii. 42. iv. l ; that “many of the rulers believed on
him,” that “he baptized more disciples than John,” and
that the pharisees complained that “the world was gone after
him.” If you say we only read of the eleven going to Gali-
lee, Matt. xxviii. 16, I answer, that others might go with
them, though no mention be made of them ; or that the rest
might be inhabitants of Galilee, where most of Christ's disci-
ples dwelt. If you still object, that “the number of the
names” of Christ's disciples, after his ascension, are reckoned
only “one hundred and twenty,” Acts i. 15, it is answered
by Dr. Lightfoot, that the number of one hundred and twenty
are not to be accounted the whole number of believers at
that time, but only the number of those who had followed
Christ continually, ver. 21; to be sure they were not all the
disciples in Judea, but only in Jerusalem.
That this appearance of Christ to them was before his
ascension, is evident, because this was in Galilee (Luke xxiv.
50), and, saith tradition, on mount Tabor; his ascension was
nigh to Jerusalem from the mount of Olives (Acts i. 12);
and Christ and his angel giving them such timely notice of
his going before them to the place, it is probable it was some
considerable time before his ascension.
As for the note of some, that Christ was seen of these
“five hundred brethren” in the air, because the Greek word
is imávo, “upwards,” it seems very light; for that wordjoined
with numbers still signifies plusquam, or more than, as doth
our English word upwards, and the Hebrew byp : so Mark
xiv. 5, Érévo rºtaxocrioly $nvagiov, is “more than three hundred
pieces of silver ;" &nd Trévºrs wai sinoo'aerotic kai iwávo, “from
five and twenty years and upwards,” Numb. iv. 3. 23. 30.
35. 39.43. 47. viii. 25; 3rd sixogastoù, wał żºrávo, “from
twenty years and upwards,” Numb. i. 3. 20. 22. 24. 26. 28.
xiv. 29. 1, Chron. xxiii. 24, 2 Chron. xxxi. 17. Ezra iii. 8 ;
&nd twºviaiov Kai Hºrávo, “from a month and upwards,” Numb.
iii. 15. 22. 28. 34, 39.43, xxvi. 62. -
* Ver. 7. 'Iaxó89, Of James, The Just, the brother of
the Lord, saith the tradition of the church, and the gospel of
the Nazarenes (see Dr. Hammond, and Jerome in Catal.
Script. Eccles.). *
* Ver. 8. ‘Ala ºregel tº #wreºart, As of one born out of due
time.] "Extboºza, say Hesychius, Phrynicus, and Phavorinus,
is trai&low vexgåy ào.gov, “a dead child born out of due time ;
#x80xh yvyatköc, one whom the woman casts forth.” St. Paul
therefore having not seen Christ, of whom he was to testify,
till after his conversion, and our Lord’s ascension, as the rest
of the apostles had (John xv. 27. Acts i. 21, 22), speaks of
himself as a witness “born out of due time.”
* Wer. 12. IT&; Aéyouri rive; #y tºw, How say some among
gow 2] That there were some in the apostle's time who
taught that the resurrection was past already, we learn from
2 Tim. ii. 18, but that they were Jews, who of sadducees had
embraced the Christian religion, as Mr. Le Clerc asserts,” I
* Suppl. to Dr. Hammond, p. 363.
find no reason to believe: much less, that the false apostle,
or apostles, so styled by St. Paul, not in his First but Second
Epistle to the Corinthians, should be of the Jewish saddu-
cees; for they being the great opposers of Christ's resurrec-
tion (Acts iv. 1, 2), and the great adversaries of St. Paul,
upon this very account, that he testified that Christ was risen
from the dead (Acts xxiii. 6.8), and this doctrine being of
so great importance, that the denying of it rendered both the
preaching of the apostles and the faith of their hearers vain
(ver. 14 of this chapter): sure the apostle could not say of
such men, “Are they the ministers of Christ P I am more;”
so 2 Cor. xi. 23; or that they transformed themselves “into
the apostles of Christ” (ver. 13).
The Gnostics” taught not that the resurrection was past
already, but only that the flesh was not fit to rise, and that
it was incapable of salvation and incorruption, and therefore
they are generally said by the ancients to deny the resurrec-
tion, but none of them insinuate that it was past already.
The Marcionitest are by Clemens Alexandrinus said to have
held this doctrine, and to have renounced matrimony, because
in the resurrection (saith Christ) they do not marry. . But
Marcion began his heresy in the second century, and there-
fore could not infect the church of Corinth with it in Paul's
time. Menander indeed taught, that they who received his
baptism were made partakers of the resurrection by it, and
that they should not die ; and he, according to many of the
ancients, was contemporary with Paul (see note on 2 Tim.
ii, 18): but haply Paul refers here to none of these, but only
to the philosophers among them, as Chrysostom thinks ; for
Corinth being an eminent city of Achaia, where the philoso-
phers and wise men of the world abounded, who looked upon
the resurrection of the flesh as a thing both impossible and
absurd (see here note on ver. 35), and placed their future
happiness in their exemption from the clog and prison of the
body, they might put a new construction on the doctrine of
the resurrection, saying it only did import a renovation of
our manners, or a resurrection from the death of sin unto a
life of righteousness, and so it was performed already in that
baptism in which we are raised with Christ from the dead
(Col. ii. 12).
7 Ver. 15. 'Epcaerugha aſkey Kara rod OBoö, We have testified
of God..] It being very rare that war& with a genitive case
signifies de, i.e. of, these words may be rendered per Deum,
by God; as “Because he could swear war' ow8evo; agićevoº,
by none greater, he hath sworn x26. Havroſ by himself,” Heb.
vi. 13, and ver. 16, “Men swear war& roi; pºsićovoc, by a
greater :” so Matt. xxvi. 63, “I adjure thee war& Osov, by
God:” so in the Old Testament, “The Lord hath sworn xas'
#avvoſ, by himself,” or, “I have sworn xar’āpaavroſ, by my-
self.” Isa. xlv. 23. Jer. xlix. 13. Amos vi. 6: Sol Kings ii.
23, Solomon swears xará roń Kugiov, “by the Lord ;” and iii.
43, “The oath of the Lord,” xará coiſ, made by the Septua-
gint “Them that swore xarà roſ. Kugiou, by the Lord, war& by
Malcham” (see Isa. lxii. 8. Amos iv. 2. viii. 7. 14). And then
* See note on 2 Tim. ii. 18.
+ Tāv Āvácracy & retah party, &; attoi Aéyova'i, waſ 3.3 Toºro
38e ſoča rivyāk.oy. Strom. p. 3, 448 B.
()
658
I. CORINTHIANS.
19 (For)"if in this life only we have hope in Christ,
we (Christian sufferers) are of all men most miserable.
20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and be-
come the first-fruits of them that slept, (who therefore
shall follow after him thus risen, as the whole harvest
follows the first-fruits, ver. 23).
21 For since by man came death, by man came also
the resurrection of the dead (the wisdom of God so or-
dering it, that the same nature which had lost life and
immortality should regain it).
22 For as in (the man) Adam (and for his sin in
eating the forbidden fruit) all (men proceeding naturally
from him) die, even so "in (and by the man) Christ
shall all (partakers of his nature and Spirit) be made
alive.
23 But every man in his own order: Christ the first-
fruits; afterward they that are Christ’s “at his coming
(to judgment).
24 Then cometh the end, when he shall have deli-
-º-º- sº **-*. ººº-º-º-º-º-º-º-º-º-
the sense runs thus: We have pretended to be £246tups;
airoč, God's witnesses in this matter (Acts v. 32), and by the
power of miracles, and of the Holy Ghost, derived from him,
to bear witness to the resurrection of Christ ; and so must
be false witnesses of God, if he hath not raised him from the
dead (see here Examen Millii).
* Ver. 19. Ei iv tº Kofi rajrh, If in this life only we have
hope.] The apostle seems not here to say that if there
should be no resurrection. of the body the Christian could
have only hope in this life ; for if the soul be immortal, and
may be happy after its separation from the body, this seems
not to follow : but he argues thus, If Christ is not risen for
our justification, we are yet under the guilt of sin (ver. 17),
and if so, both soul and body must perish after death (ver.
18), and then the hope of Christians must terminate with
this life, which being more especially to them a life of misery,
by reason of the sufferings to which their faith doth here ex-
pose them, they would of all men be most miserable.
* Ver. 22. 'Ev rá xeta rā, In Christ.] The opinion of the
Jews was this, that the Messias was “the second Adam who
should raise the dead:” his name, say they,” is called Jimmon,
Ps. lxxii. 17, for “he shall raise them that sleep in the dust.”
And the last man, or Adam, is the Messiah, who “shall be
above Moses, and above the ministering angels: he shall take
away the old sin from whence death came, and in his days
shall be the resurrection of the dead ; and this God intended
in the creation of Adam, that he should be immortal, but
sin brought death upon him, therefore the divine intention,
which was not fulfilled in the first Adam, was fulfilled in the
King Messiah.” Thus is the doctrine of the church delivered
by Irenaeus,f that Christ took our nature upon him, and suf.
fered death in it ; that “as, by man vanquished, death fell
upon all mankind, so, by man conquering, we may ascend to
life ; that, whereas we were all dead in the animal Adam, we
may be quickened in the spiritual.”
* Ver. 23. 'Ew rº Tragovoria airoij, At his coming.] This
chapter contains many arguments against the doctrine of the
resurrection of some saints before the rest, to reign with
Christ on earth a thousand years: for (1.) from the words,
“every man in his own order,” it might have reasonably been
expected, that some mention should have been made, as of
“Christ the first-fruits,” so of the first and second resurrec-
tion ; but yet we see that when the apostle is professedly
speaking of the order in which we shall arise, he has nothing
to say of this first resurrection, which, it seems, is to happen
a thousand years before the general resurrection; and nothing
of a first or second advent of our Lord ; one to reign on
earth a thousand years, a second to judge all the world ; and
yet this double advent is as necessary as is Christ's reign on
earth.
* Buxt. Lex. Talm. p. 961.
+ Neve Shallom, lib. ix. cap. 5, 8.
f Ut quemadmodiim in animali omnes mortui sumus, sic
in spirituali omnes vivificemur. Lib. v. cap. 1. Ut quemad-
modum per hominem victum descendit in mortem genus
humanum, sic etiam per hominem victorem ascendamus in
vitam. Cap. 11.
vered up (Gr. deliver up) the (mediatory) kingdom to
God, even the Father; when he shall have put down
all (other) rule and all authority and power (both of
men and devils which opposed his church.
25 Which kingdom till then he cannot deliver up ;)
for he must reign (according to the promise, Ps. cx.
1), till he (who made this promise) hath put allenemies
under his feet.
26 The last enemy which shall be destroyed (by him)
is death.
27 For he (namely the Father) hath (saith the
psalmist) put all things under his feet. But when he
saith, All things are put under him, it is manifest that
he is excepted (from this subjection), who did put all
things under him (see note on Heb. ii. 8).
28 And when all things shall be subdued unto him,
then shall the Son also himself (lay down his kingly
office in governing his church, and as a man) be subject
to him that put all things under him,” that God (the
Moreover, the end and the delivery up of this kingdom
are here made contemporary with his advent; and the re-
surrection of all that are Christ's is to be at this very advent :
but how can he deliver up his kingdom, and yet reign on
earth a thousand years 2 In a word, if all that are his must
be raised at his coming to the final judgment, then none
before that coming, and then they must be all raised toge-
ther, not some a thousand years before the rest.
* Ver. 28. “Iya # 3 ©s; révra iv tria-w, That God may be
all in all.] He saith not that the Father, mentioned ver, 24,
but that “God may be all in all,” and so he seems to lead
us to that interpretation of the Godhead which comprehends
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ; and then the import of the
phrase, “That God may be all in all,” will be this: That the
Godhead may govern all things immediately by himself,
without the intervention of a Mediator hetween him and us,
to exact our obedience in his name, and convey to us his
favours and rewards, we being then to tender all our duty
immediately to him, and derive all our happiness immediately
from him. So that as now Christ, Theanthropos, God-man,
is all in all (Col. iii. 11), because the Father hath put all
things into his hands, does all things, and governs all things,
by him ; when this economy ceases, the Godhead alone will
be all in all, as governing and influencing all things by him-
self immediately,
Moreover, the Jews say, that “the kingdom of the Messiah
shall return to its first Author,” and so saith the apostle
here ; for, though it shall have no such end as the preceding
monarchies had (Luke i. 32, 33), by giving place to a suc-
ceeding kingdom ; for till the world last, oi rage asſa's rat, “it
shall not pass away, or be dissolved by any other kingdom”
(Dan. vii. 14), but shall be an eternal kingdom, in the sense
in which he is a “priest for ever,” and hath rºy isga'adyny
&magá8arov, “a priesthood that doth not pass away” (Heb.
vii. 17. 24, 25), and so he is able to intercede for ever for
us; yet, as that priesthood must needs cease when the sub-
ject of it ceaseth, and he hath none to intercede for, so must
his kingly office cease when all his friends have that eternal
life conferred upon them for which this power was committed
to him (John xvii. 2), and all his enemies are become his
footstool (Ps. cx. 1), when there is no more a house of Jacob
to reign over, or a throne of David to sit on (Luke i. 32, 33.
Rev. xi. 15); and the whole office of a Mediator must then
cease, when God and man are made completely and indisso-
lubly one.
For farther explication of this matter, let it be observed:
First, That this mediatory kingdom was given to our Lord
by the Father ; for “he hath put all things in subjection to
him” (ver. 27), and that after his resurrection; for it was
given as the reward of his sufferings, and so could not be
given till they were accomplished: “he humbled himself,
and became obedient to the death, even to the death of the
cross; wherefore God hath highly exalted him, and given
him a name, which is above every name, that at the name
of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and on
earth, and under the earth ; and that every tongue should
* Pirk. Eliezer, cap. 12, p. 26.
CHAPTER XV.
659
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,) may be (immediately)
all in all, (by a full communication of himself to, and an
intimate union with, all his saints.
29 I say, in opposition to them among you who say
there is no resurrection from the dead, that Christ is
risen, and become the first-fruits of them that slept.)
else what shall (will) they do *who are baptized for
the dead (as they must be, if he in whose name they are
baptized be still dead), if the dead rise not at all (and
so Christ himself is not risen)? why are they then (who
hold this doctrine) baptized for the dead?
30 And why stand we in jeopardy every hour (for
a dead Jesus)?
31 I protest by your rejoicing (i.e. by that rejoic-
confess that Jesus Christ is Iord, to the glory of God, the
Father” (Phil. ii. 8. 10, 1]). Accordingly, after his resur-
rection, he speaks to his disciples thus, “All power is given
to me in heaven and in earth,” Matt. xxviii. 18. But why
this reward should not cease when the work is done ; why,
v. g. his dominion over death should not cease when death
is destroyed ; his power of giving eternal life, or judging,
when all are judged, and none are left to be crowned; I con-
fess I do not understand.
2. Seeing the human nature only suffered, and seeing the
divine nature is capable of no such exaltation, or new do-
minion, it is certain that this kingdom could be given to
Christ only according to his human nature; for though the
Godhead could alone enable him to execute his kingly office;
yet was he thus exalted, this power and judgment was con-
ferred upon him “because he was the Son of man” (John v.
27).
all favours are granted to the church through him, and God
will judge the world by the man Christ Jesus.
3. During this reign of Christ, God the Father immedi-
ately “judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to
the Son, that all men might honour the Son (by owning his
authority) even as they honoured the Father” (John v. 22,
23), by owning his authority over them. He made him
Łord of all things, to punish and reward according to his wis-
dom, will, and pleasure : and so his human nature, or Christ
as man, though subject to the Father, as his viceroy, acting
by the authority of him who “put all things into his hands,”
and “set him over the works of his hands” (Heb. ii. 7, 8),
and doing all “to the glory of God the Father,” yet seems
not now to be in the same order of subjection to the Father
as are other creatures, i. e. So as to act by his immediate
command in all particular transactions, as the holy angels do,
“obeying his commands, and hearkening to the voice of his
word” (Ps. ciii. 20). They are all “ministering spirits”
(Heb. i. 13, 14), but he is “ sat down at the right hand of
God” in full possession of his mediatory kingdom. Whilst
he continued on earth, and acted as a prophet sent from God,
he always owned that he could “do nothing of himself, but
as the Father gave him commandment, so he did, and so he
spake” (John v. 30. viii. 38. xii. 49) : but, being once ex-
alted to be “Lord of all things,” he acteth as a Lord in all
things which relate to his kingly office over his church, giving
laws to all, as being Lord of all, and rewarding and punish-
ing according to his will.
4. The exercise of his authority he shall then lay down,
when all things are subdued to him, no other kingdom or
dominion being to be exercised in the celestial state, but what
is essential to the whole Godhead : and though he shall ever
so far reign, as to be still “at the right hand of God,” highly
exalted in honour, dignity, and beatitude ; and to have still
religious respect and veneration from all Saints who then are
to reign with him (2 Tim. ii. 12), and be owned by them as .
their king ; and though the effects of his kingly power shall
continue for ever, his enemies being destroyed, and his saints
reigning in bliss for ever; yet the exercise of that kingly
power shall then cease, and he as man shall be then subject
to the Father, as other saints and angels will be ; that so as
Christ before was “all in all” (Col. iii. 13), with reference to
his church, and from “his fulness did they all receive,” so
1:ow the Godhead may be all in all, and fill all things imme-
diately by himself. This is only my conjecture of the sense
of this obscure place, from which, upon better information, I
shall willingly recede.
Ver. 28. Társ wai air㺠& vić..] The word við; crept im,
saith Dr. Mills, from the margin : see this confuted by full
authority, Examen Millii.
* Ver. 29. Oi 8artićasyo, Úrip rāv vexpåy, Who are bap-
tized for the dead..] i. e. For that Jesus, who, according to
their doctrine, must be still dead To strengthen this expo-
sition, let it be noted,
He intercedeth still in heaven by virtue of his blood;
First, That it is absolutely certain that all who received
Christian baptism were baptized in the name of Jesus; but
it is very uncertain whether any in the apostle's time were
baptized for them who died without baptism, or to fill up
the place of those Christians who died after baptism: there
is no intimation of any such thing in scripture, or in primi-
tive antiquity.
Secondly, That the apostle doth not say, What do they
that baptize for the dead 2 but ri trotha'ovaty of 8am ºrišćgevoi,
“What will they do who are baptized” already, if the dead
rise not again?’ ri wał 8amºrišovtat, “Why are they also bap-
tized for the dead 2" We who believe otherwise of him,
and preach év tá 'Imaoſ, by this raised Jesus, the resurrection
from the dead (Acts iv. 2), may well be baptized in the name
of Christ; but why are they so, who believe him dead 2 what
will they do P what motive can they have to stand to their
baptismal covenant, and own a dead man as their Lord and
Saviour P what inducement can they have to continue faith-
ful to him to the end, but this, that, “if they suffer, they
shall also reign together with him P” what will they do for
comfort against the fear of death, if, when they fall asleep,
they perish, and shall not rise again? must they not be as
well the worst of fools as the most miserable of men, to Suf-
fer thus for a dead man, who could not help himself, and
therefore is not likely to give them any help in life, or hope
in death 2
Thirdly, That ürèe often signifies in gratiam, on the ac-
count, or for the sake: so Rom. i. 5, “We have received
grace and apostleship, &c., Ürèë roſ, Šváºzaro, attoº, for his
name's sake;” Eph. iii. 13, “I desire that you faint not at
my tribulations, imip tºy, which I suffer for your sake ;”
Phil. i. 29, “To you it is given brig Xºta row, for the sake of
Christ, not only to suffer;” Col. iii. 24, Urie rot a dºzaro;
airoij, “For the sake of his body;” 2 Thess. i. 5, “That you
may be accounted worthy of the kingdom of God, wirie #:
ráºzers, for the sake of which ye also suffer.” See more
examples, both sacred and profane, in Schmidius on the
place, and Dr. Fdwards in his preface to the Authority, &c.
of the Holy Scripture.
Fourthly, Observe that of venpoi is used in scripture, when
speaking of one single person. Thus, when Christ had
raised the widow's son, he bids John's disciples tell him that
yeagoi, “the dead are raised,” Luke vii. 15. 22, and so here,
ver. 12, 13, “If there be no &váa racic vexpºv, resurrection of
(one single person from) the dead, then is not Christ risen:”
yea, the resurrection vexed v, “ of the dead” in general is thrice
mentioned by this apostle, when speaking of the resurrec-
tion of Christ alone: thus, when he saith, “God will judge
the world by Christ, of which he hath given us a demonstra-
tion, having raised him #4 vsześy, from the dead,” Acts xvii.
30, 31, it follows, that “when they heard him asserting the
resurrection of the dead, &váatary vexpāv, they mocked;”
whereas he had only asserted the resurrection of Christ from
the dead. Thus Paul saith twice, Tree; zał Śaribo; &yaarácsac
yezºv, “For the hope and resurrection of the dead, I am
called in question,” Acts xxiii. 6. xxiv. 21 ; and yet he was
not called in question about the resurrection of the dead in
general, for that the pharisees believed as well as he, but only
* concerning one Jesus who was dead, whom Paul affirmed
to be alive” (Acts xxv. 19), or risen from the dead. ... And
so the apostle saith, Christ was declared to be the Son of
God with power, iž Čvarrázew, vexpāv, “by his rising from
the dead,” Rom. i. 4, and here, “If Christ be risen, how say
some among you, that &Vázqart; Vekºv ob% Éarty, there
is no resurrection of the dead " . And this import of the
phrase seems to be confirmed by the word āś, viz. If it be
wholly and entirely true of all that are dead, that they rise
not, and so Christ is not risen, what avails it any that they
are baptized for the dead?
'Em's ri trothorovarty of 8atrrićgevoi bºr㺠vix;&v, Were it not
so, what will they do who are baptized for the º?] Here
2 2
660
I, CoRINTHIANs.
ing) which I have (common with you under all our
sufferings, Rom. v. 3), in Christ Jesus our Lord, I
(run the hazard to) die daily (or, by that rejoicing I
have in you, as my children and the fruits of my labours
in Christ, l. Cor. ix. 16. 2 Cor. i. 14. vii. 4. ix. 2. Phil.
ii. 16. 1 Thess. ii. 19).
Mr. Dodwell refers to the custom mentioned by Epiphanius,
that some heretics, when any who professed Christianity died
without baptism, baptized others in their stead; whereas the
words are only capable of these two interpretations, either
that of the ancients,” “Why are they baptized for the re-
surrection of the dead?” that is, in expectation and belief
of that fundamental article of the Christian faith? Or, why
are they baptized for, or on the account of, that Jesus who is
dead; and, say they, is not risen from the dead? which is
the sense I have given of these words. To make this evi-
dent, and show the vanity of the interpretation which Mr.
Dodwell hath embraced, let it be noted, -
First, That the conjunctive particle, Émei, as Phavorinus
and Budaeus have observed, signifies si è Paſſ, alioquin, quðd
si non; “if it be otherwise,” or, “were it not so :” thus it
is used by the apostle ten several times, Rom. iii. 6, #wel “If
it be not so, that God is righteous, how shall he judge the
world?” xi. 6, inst, “If it were otherwise, grace would not
be grace; insi, and were it otherwise, works would not be
works;” and ver. 22, #wei, “Otherwise thou shalt be cut
off;” 1 Cor. xii. 14, #ms?, “Were it not so, your children
would be unclean ;” xiv. 16, #ms: #&v, “Otherwise, when
thou blessest in the Spirit, how shall the unlearned say,
Amen 2" Heb. ix. 17, Éms, “Otherwise his will is of no
force;” and ver. 26, #mrei oix &y Émaézarto, “Otherwise they
would not have ceased to be offered” (which by the way is a
probable inducement to believe that the Epistle to the He-
brews was written by Paul; this conjunction being not once
used in this sense by the evangelists, or in the other epistles):
now hence it clearly follows, that this conjunction must
contain an inference from what was said before, viz. that
“Christ was risen as the first-fruits of them that slept,”
and were to be raised by him from that sleep, and was to
reign till he had vanquished their last enemy death ; for
(saith the apostle) if this were not so, that is, if Christ were
not risen, or, being risen, were not to reign till he had over-
come death, and so had raised us also from it; why are
men baptized tºrãe rów vexpāv, for a dead Jesus, or in hopes
of a resurrection by him from the dead? So that one of
these two senses of this dark passage must obtain.
Secondly, Observe, that the apostle's question runs not
thus, Why do they baptize others for the dead P or Why are
others baptized in their stead 2 but, ri ºrothorovaly, “What
will they do who are baptized P” Which question relating
to the deportmeut of those who undergo this baptism, and
not at all to them for whose sakes they do it, excludes any
relation of these words to that pretended practice ; for, if it
was done by any, it was not with relation to their own de-
portment, who were living, but with relation to the dead.
Moreover, the three questions, “Why are they baptized for
the dead P’’ or, “Why stand we in jeopardy every hour P”
or, “What advantageth it me, if I have fought with beasts
at Ephesus?” seem plainly to relate to the same matter, and
therefore must all relate to the deportment of the living un-
der the evils and persecutions which Christians suffered in
this present life, and be to this effect: Why are they who
say, Christ is not risen, and therefore can expect no resurrec-
tion from him, baptized in his name, or in expectation of
this benefit from him P What will they do in times of per-
secution ? What inducement can they have to stand to
their baptismal covenant, and own a dead man as their Lord
and Saviour P -
Add to this, that though Tertullian,'t by saying, Si autem
et baptizantur quidam pro mortuis, supposes such a thing
might be done by some, yet he neither mentions time nor
persons. Epiphanius,t in the fourth century, saith they
had a tradition concerning Some heretics in Asia and Ga-
* Chrysost. Theodoret, Photius, CEcumenius in locum.
Isidor. Pelus. lib. i. ep. 221. Epiph. Haer. xxviii. Ş. 6.
+ De Resurr. Car. cap. 48, et contra Marcion. b. 5, p. 473.
: Haer. 28, § 6, p. 114.
| nothing of that trouble.
32 If 1° after the manner of men I have fought with
beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the
dead rise not 2 (it will be then more reasonable to say,)
let us eat and drink; for to-morrow we die (Isa.
xxii. 13).
33 (But) be not deceived (with such discourses, rather
latia, &c rivāv ańy arag' airoi; ºrgo?0ayávrov reasurfio al āveil
garriagaroº, &AAov; 3: 39t' airröy six yoga insivoy flattiğiasat,
“ that some among them being prevented by death from re-
ceiving baptism, others of them were baptized in their names;
was roštováveza horagáēoric # #xSoča a rag” #&#; $nal rôy abrèv
#ytoy &réctoxov signxâyat si èaw;, &c., and that he had received
it by tradition, that upon this account the apostle said, If
the dead rise not at all, why are they then baptized for the
dead?” But as he is the only person who speaks of this
tradition, so he is guilty of a manifest contradiction in his
relation of it: for having told us that the heretics, who prac-
tised thus, owned indeed the resurrection of our Lord ;
which, saith he, the Corinthians denied, and therefore were
not of this sect ; but yet said, vexpoë, 33 oix #yeigsa Sai, that
the dead were not to be raised, and so denied the resurrec-
tion of the dead; yet he adds, that they used this practice, .
invie roi; º; #y rā āyaatácsi évadºrávra; airoi; 3iznvºyal rºw-
pia; 347trigga º sixmpéraç, “that they who died without
baptism might not, at the resurrection, be punished for want
of baptism.” Chrysostom and Theophylact, say that the
Marcionites, when any of their sect died without baptism,
put a live man under the bed in which the dead man lay,
and then asked the dead, whether he would be baptized ;
and the man under the bed answering, Yes, they baptized
the dead man; stra #yxaxočºvot, and, being accused of this
ridiculous practice, they pleaded that the apostle spake of
some who were baptized for the dead, rö 88 obz oftwº #xet,
“whereas he said no such matter, but only said, If the dead rise
not, why are they baptized for the resurrection of the dead?”
They therefore knew of no such practice in the apostle's
time, or of any tradition relating to it: and certain it is, the
apostle could not relate unto this practice of the Marcionites,
seeing Marcion began his heresy in the second century, and
so long after the writing of this epistle. In a word, if they
who are supposed to practise thus, believed the resurrection,
they could not be concerned in the apostle's argument
against them who did not believe it; if they did not believe
the resurrection of the body, when once dead, it cannot be
imagined, why they should be concerned to baptize a dead
body, or any other body for it. See the text defended
against the surmises of Dr. Mills, Examen Millii, ibid.
19 Wer. 32. Kaºr’ &vópoºrov, After the manner of men.] i. e.
After the usual manner of heathens. That St. Paul thus
fought with beasts indeed, and they would not touch him,
they, saith Nicephorus,” who writ the life of this apostle do
affirm. Theodoret seems plainly to hint the same thing in
these words, “In human opinion I was made the food of
beasts, but I was wonderfully preserved from them :"t and
this sense will appear more probable,
1. From the phrase war' àv%aroy, which signifies, as men
used to do, but never according to men's purposes, or, to
speak after the manner of men (see the note on 1 Cor.
ix. 8).
2. From the place here particularly mentioned, Ephesus,
which cannot refer to the tumult there caused by Demetrius,
for the apostle suffered nothing in it. Had he intended a
combat with metaphorical beasts, or Savage men, that at
Lystra, where he was stoned and left for dead (Acts xiv. 19),
had been more properly mentioned; see the note on 2 Cor.
i. 8–10, where he speaks of such troubles that befell him in
Asia, as made him to “despair even of life;” though as we
read nothing in the Acts of this fight with beasts, so we read
It is therefore no objection against
this interpretation, that this fight with beasts is not recorded
by Luke, or that Paul speaks not expressly of it in the cata-
logue of his afflictions, 2 Cor. xi.; it is sufficient that there
he tells us, he was “in deaths often” (ver. 23).
* Hist. Eccles. lib. ii. cap. 25.
+ Kara &y88%trivoy Xoylagöy Sºngiov #yêvãºwry 3063, 3AA& Traga-
36%2; #360ny. In locum.
CHAPTER XV.
66-
avoid them; for) evil communications corrupt good
Ina Ilſleſ S. .
34 Awake to righteousness, and sin not; (which
advertisement is very needful,) for some among you
have not the knowledge of (that righteousness of) Č.
(which doth oblige him to render to men according to
their works, 2 Thess. i. 6, 7. Heb. vi. 10). I speak
this to your shame. t º
35 But some men will (yet) say, How are the dead
raised up (again)? “and with what (kind of) body do
they come 2
36 Thou fool, (who makest an inquiry about a matter
of which thou hast an instance in the very seed thousowest,
for) that which thou sowest is not quickened, except
(first) it die (and lie buried in the earth):
37 And (again) that which thou sowest, (when) thou
sowest (it is) not that body which shall be (again pro-
duced), but "bare (or naked) grain, it may chance of
wheat, or of some other grain;
38 But God giveth it a body (clothed) as it hath
pleased him, and (yet) to every seed (he giveth with the
clothing) his own (kind of) body.
39 (And as ) all flesh is not #. same (kind of) flesh,
but there is one kind of flesh of men, another (kind of)
flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds:
40 (And as there is a like difference in the qualities
of bodies ; for) there are also celestial bodies, and
bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one,
and the glory of the terrestrial is another:
41 (And as in the celestial bodies) there is one glory
of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another
glory of the stars; for one star differeth from another
star in glory:
42 So also is (it as to) the resurrection of the dead,
(the body raised being in quality much different from
the earthly body we at present have ; for) it is sown in
corruption (frail, mortal, subject to death and putre-
faction) ; it is raised in incorruption (not subject any
more to death or dissolution): -
43 It is sown in dishonour (with some dishonoura-
ble parts, 1 Cor. xii. 23, a vile body, Phil. iii. 21, sub-
ject to filth and deformity); it is raised in glory
(in clarity and splendour, shining like the sun, Matt.
xiii. 43, and like Christ’s glorious body, Phil. iii. 21,
free from all defect or deformity of its members, or
from any dishonourable parts, 1 Cor. vi. 13): it is sown
in weakness (subject to weakness by labour, to decays
by age, to impotency and wasting by diseases); it is
raised in power (nimble, strong, active, and that with-
out renitency, or molestation, grief, pain, or lassitude):
44 It is sown a natural (Gr. * an animal) body (hav-
ing multiplicity of organs, muscles, tendons, arteries,
If this sense be not liked, you may interpret zar’ &v6ºw-
Troy, according to the intention of men, it being the intention
of the men of Asia in that tumult, to deal so with Paul's
companions, and much more with him, had not his friends
dissuaded him from entering into the theatre (see the note on
Acts xix. 29); and note also, that cruel and bloody-minded
men are often represented under this metaphor of beasts :
so Ignatius,” when he was carried from Syria to Rome, under
a band of soldiers (who, saith he, are the worse for the kind-
ness I show to them), he saith, 3rd Xupia; Kºśxpt ‘Pāanç.
Smptop.axå, “From Syria to Rome I fight with beasts.” And
Heraclitus+ the Ephesian saith, Ephesiorum cives conversos
esse in bestias, “The Ephesians were turned into beasts, be-
cause they slew one another.”
* Ver. 35. IIolº cºp, art, With what kind of body ?] This was
the question of the philosophers, f whose chief objection against
the resurrection of the flesh, and of the body, was this; That the
body was $* the prison and the sepulchre of the soul,” and that
it was her punishment to be tied to it; that the body was “the
great hinderance to the knowledge of the truth;” and that
we could not be truly happy till by death we were delivered
from it: it was thereby judged by them, not only an impos-
sible thing, but even an unjust, unworthy thing, for God to
raise these bodies to be united to those souls, whose happi-
ness consisted in being delivered from the body, and whose
punishment it was to be confined to it ; that being according
to their philosophy, not to make them alive but “die
* Epist. ad Rom. sect. 5.
+ Epist. 1, ad Hermodorum.
f Utröm sine corpore an cum corporibus, et corporibus
quibus, ipsisme, an innovatis resurgatur?. Cecil. apud Minut.
p. 11. - -
§ Kal hºst; rô wºri rešºvákºv, xai tº ºvač, ć Šarly hºày
ałºwa. Jamb. Protrept. Adh. cap. 17. -
Kai yat a ſºft rivé; paa'iy airè fival rô Juxic, &c reşapºyn;
#y rô viv tragévri. Plato in Cratylo, p. 275, E.
Corpus hoc animi pondus et poena est, permanente illo
argetur, in vinculis est. Sen. ep. 65.
"AAAotº #30; & Trep #x 3Earpºv rod adºpwato, & araXX&rtsa-
Jambl. de Vitā Pythag. p. 220.
"Ew; &w ré a 34& #x2k.tv, xai Évºreºvºzávn # #4&v h Jux;
ºf ré, roi; ºroioſºrov waxoş, où pai, röre ºrnadºesa izavā; ot
#Tišup.ojp.sv. Jambl. Protrept. cap. 13, p. 73. Plat. Phaed.
p. 49, 50.
|| Ut semel defuncti denud existerent Ei Bikaſov hy, y &v Kai
Švyaróv. M. Anton. lib. xii. S. 5.
Tojº Tráxai Trotă ătroSayãytaç airwī; cagáày #xeivatº &ºr; tº;
yi; & aroščvat——axoxãzov h Éamiç, a 4.3%a pºtafov, Kai &ºr;Trrvo-
Stat.
again.” And therefore Celsus saith, “The hope of the re-
surrection of the flesh is the hope of worms, a filthy, an
abominable, an impossible thing, which God neither will nor
can do.” Hence probably it was that the Valentinians, Mar-
cionites, Basilidians, the followers of Saturninus, and other
primitive heretics, denied so stiffly ràc capkö, äváataa'iy, “the
resurrection of the flesh” (Just. Mart. Dial. p. 307, 253),
and said, non esse capacem carnem vitae, “that the flesh was
not capable of life” (Iren. lib. i. cap. 29. lib. v. cap. 41),
because they held with the philosophers, corpus esse car-
cerem, “the body was the prison of the soul” (idem, lib. i.
cap. 24). Now, to this objection the apostle here returns a full
and satisfactory answer, by showing the happy change which
shall then pass upon the raised body; and this he seems to
do with some resemblance to the ancient philosophy of the
Pythagoreans and Platonists, and to the sentiments of the
Jews. -
That here are two questions, but then both have respect
to the manner or the qualities of the bodies to be raised, for
the apostle saith not 8tari, Why are dead men raised to life
again 2 or, Why do they live again 2 but rô; #yeleoyºral,
“How, after what manner, are they raised P” are they
raised with such mortal bodies as they had before, or with
bodies subject to the like distempers and infirmities which we
now suffer in this life 2 or if not, “with what kind of bodies?”
do their bodies rise naked 2 or are they clothed upon 2
This is exceedingly evident from the whole discourse of the
apostle in answer to these questions, which gives no reason
why they being dead do rise again, but wholly is employed
in showing what are the qualities and conditions of the raised
bodies of good men.
* Ver. 37. Tvøvåy wéxzov, Naked grain..] Note here, that
the Jewish rabbins* use the same similitude of grain in the
affair of the resurrection, and speak also of “a clothing of
the body raised,” from the example of grain raised with a
covering (see note on 2 Cor. v. 2–4). Note also, that St.
Paul is not discoursing of the identity of the raised body, but
only of the qualities with which it is raised.
* Ver. 44. 23.2a. Juxiały, An animal body.] It seems
hence probable that the word sown doth not relate to the
body's being laid in the earth, but rather to its production
into the world; for, when it is interred, it is no more an
animal body, but a body void of life; it is not only weak,
toy #pag, wai & Sºvatoy ot, ri ye alaxpú & QE3; 30yarat, ovº
r& Trag& pia'iv 800xera, cágwa 3; asathy &v oběš sireſ, kakaw
&ropiwai ragaxéyac, où8; 8ovahasrat ā Qeóg, ow8; 8who era.
Apud Orig. lib. v. p. 240.
* Pirk. Eliez. cap. 33, p. 80.
662
I. CORIN THIANS.
veins, nerves, by which, by the assistance of the animal
and vital spirits, it perceives the objects of sense, moves,
and conveys nourishment to all its parts, wanting con-
tinual recruits of meat and drink); it is raised a spiritual
body (possessed and acted by the Holy Spirit, and
advanced so far to the perfection of spirits, as to be
free from grossness, ponderosity, from needing rest,
sleep, or sustenance). There is a natural (Gr. animal)
body, and there is a spiritual body.
45 And so it is written, The first man Adam (from
whom we all derive our bodies and our animal life) was
made a living soul; (Gen. ii. 7; whereas) the last Adam
(i.e. Christ) was made "a quickening spirit, (as having
power to quicken and confer eternal life on all his mem-
but wholly destitute of power: and this appears yet farther,
from the following proof of these words, “It is sown an
animal body, for so it is written, The first man Adam was
made a living soul.” The apostle doth indeed, ver. 36, 37,
speak of seed sown in the earth, but then he speaks of it as
still alive, and having its seminal virtue, or animal spirit in
it, and after dying there; whereas our bodies first die, and
then are cast into the earth.
Secondly, Hence it is also probable that the apostle dis-
courseth not here of the different degrees of glory which the
saints hereafter shall enjoy; for he speaks only of what is
raised, that is, the body, and of the qualities belonging to all
bodies that are raised.
Thirdly, Certain it is that the apostle in this chapter dis-
courseth only of the resurrection of the just, since it is alone
their bodies that shall undergo this happy change.
Fourthly, Observe, that there is another sense of the
forty-fourth verse, as good as that which I have given in the
paraphrase, viz. There is an animal body, i. e. a body fitted
for this lower sensible state in which we live at present; and
there is a spiritual body, that is, a body fitted for our spi-
ritual and celestial state: in this state we are forced to serve
our bodies, and to attend their leisure, and mightily depend
upon them in the operations of the mind; in the other, our
bodies shall wholly serve our spirits, and minister to them,
and depend upon them, and therefore may be styled spi-
ritual. But,
Fifthly, That our bodies shall be then spiritual, thin, and
aerial, is neither a new doctrine nor proper to the fol-
lowers of Origen ; for so both Chrysostom and Theophylact
upon the place allow it to be. “What incredible thing as-
sert we,” saith Isidore Pelusiota,” “if we say the body is
small and aerial 2 for by this we do not deny it to be the
same body.” And again, “The apostle calls our bodies spi-
ritual, 31& rô Koſºpa zai ałSépta aftaxsty Érea Sai, F because here-
after they shall be light and etherial.” And this, which the
apostle here says, is suitable to the philosophy of the Py-
thagoreans and Platonists, who taught that good and pure
souls were by death delivered from those gross and earthly
bodies which press down the soul (Wisd. ix. 15), and were
after the dissolution of the body, said they, will be at the
resurrection of the body saith he, “invested with thin and
aerial, with active and spiritual, with bright and shining, and,
lastly, with celestial and eternal bodies.” Now to this
plainly answers the description of our raised bodies here given
by Paul, in answer to the second question of the philosophers
at Corinth, “With what bodies do they come forth out of
the grave P” declaring in their very terms, that this body
will be cráºza Trygvaatikºv Kai oipáviov, “a spiritual and celestial
body,” ver. 44. 46, 48, 49. 2 Cor. v. 1, that it will be oizia
aiºvios, “an eternal house,” a 3pxa ºp&aprow xa, 3349a roy, “an
incorruptible and immortal body,” ver. 53, 54, that it will
be raised Év 3%h, “in glory,” and so be aiyogiès, “a shining
body.” “The just,” saith Christ, “shall shine as the sun,
and as the brightness of the firmament” (Matt. xiii. 43);
“and as the stars,” saith Daniel (xii. 3). And this answers
to the cºua &argoebic, which these philsophers mention as
the same with their aiyostºic, “shining body.” Lastly, “It
is raised in power,” and this is in sense the same with their
câpça Etxivntov, “agile body,” and of quick motion. Indeed,
the parallel is so exact, that seeing I find nothing of this na-
* Lib. ii. ep. 42. + Lib. iii. e.p. 77.
# Kai yā; Trāa'ay livXày &váyan ºrpá rày Syntów aropºrov
&äiots, xa, sixtyńroi; tızı xºcºa, adºwaa'iy, &; Mar’otatay ºr zweiy.
Procl. in Tim. lib. v. p. 259. 264 a aīyoBiê; zai äßiov.
Hier, in Carm. Pyth. p. 306, 313. 23/22 oilfävloy, 373toy.
airycgi?ic. Philoponus. Tô Trvivºcatiºv cºp.a. Idem. Wide
testimonia Galeni, Pselli, Suidae, &c., apud D. Cudworth.
Syst. Intellect. lib. i., cap. 5, p. 783, 806, ed. fol.
ture in the life of Pythagoras, writ by Diogenes Laertius, or
in Plato, but only in those writers who lived since Christ's
time, and were professed enemies of Christianity, Hierocles,
Porphyry, Proclus, and Jamblichus, I am apt to suspect,
that as in other things they apparently dressed up their
philosophy and morality anew, to accommodate it the better
to the Christian philosophy, that so there might seem less
need of Christianity ; and particularly made the felicity of
souls hereafter much like the Christian doctrine, that so they
might destroy, or render needless, the doctrine of the resur-
rection ; so they gave to the dying souls of good men this
#xn&a livXī;, or “vehicle of a spiritual, immortal, shining,
heavenly body” also, from the Christian notion of the change
our raised bodies should then undergo. See the text de-
fended against the surmises of Dr. Mills, Examen Millii,
ibid.
17 Wei. 45. TIvcüpıa £oomolody, A quickening spirit..] All the
ancients till Austin, by “a spiritual body” seem to under-
stand a body possessed and acted by the Holy Spirit, as the
natural body is by the animal and vital spirits; and say that
Christ was made a quickening spirit, “by the seed of the
Holy Spirit, which unites him to all his members,” and con-
fers on them a new life and immortality. Irenaeus” is very
express and copious in this matter, saying that, “as from the
beginning of our frame in Adam, that inspiration of life
which proceeded from God, united to the body, animated
man, and made him a reasonable creature ; so in the end,
the word of the Father, and the Spirit of God, united to the
old substance of the frame of Adam, make a living and a
perfect man, receiving the perfect Father; that, as we all
died in the animal, we may be all quickened in the spiritual
Adam; and that by the Spirit the bodies rising are made
spiritual, as by the Spirit they have life eternal.”—“It is
called spiritual, as putting on the Spirit,” saith Tertullian:#
“As receiving the whole energy and communion of the Spi-
rit,” saith Methodius.j: And that the resurrection of the
just shall be effected by the Spirit of God, seems to be plainly
taught by the apostle in these words, “If the Spirit of
him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that
raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mor-
tal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you” (Rom. viii.
10). And this agrees with the opinion of the Jews, who
ascribe the resurrection of the Spirit, from Ezek. xxxvii. 10,
and in particular to the Spirit of the Messiah. And from
this differs not much the opinion of Theodoret, and others,
That Christ is made a quickening Spirit, because he himself,
being quickened by the Spirit (1 Pet. iii. 18), hath himself
the power to quicken and raise the bodies of his servants to
eternal life; for “as the Father raiseth up the dead, and
quickeneth them, so the Son quicketh whom he will” (John
v. 21), and “as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he
given to the Son to have life in himself” (ver. 26).
Moreover, that Christ is said here to be sic wysºza (20-
"roofy, “for a quickening spirit,” not with his relation to his
quickening the soul by the body only, is visible to any who
will peruse the whole discourse of the apostle here, since
* Sic in fine Verbum patris et Spiritus Dei adumitus an-
tiquae substantiae plasmationis Adaº, Viventem et perfectum
efficit hominem capientem perfectum patrem, ut quemado-
dim in animali omnes mortui Sumus, sic in spirituali omnes
viveficemur. Lib. v. cap. J. Per Spiritum fiunt corpora
spiritualia, ut per Spiritum semper manentem habent vitam.
Ibid. cap. 7, et cap. 12.
+ Sicut ergö ante animale corpus caro recipiens animam,
ita et posteå spirituale induens Spiritum. Wide etiam de
Resur. 6, 50.
† IIvevgartwäv Aáystal rô Xopoly Trāaav roi; &ylov ITVečkoto;
#yśćyevay wai xoivoviay. Methodius apud (Ecum. Vid. Chry
sost. Hilarium diacon. (Ecumenium et Theophyl, in locum.
CHAPTER XV.
663
bers ; or, as being the giver of that quickening Spirit by
which we shall be raised from the dead, and made spi-
ritual as his body is.
46 I say, there is an animal body, and there is a
spiritual body J howbeit that (body) was not first which
is spiritual, but that which is natural (Gr. animal);
and afterward that which is spiritual. .
47 (For) the first man (Adam) is (was) of the earth,
earthy (having a body formed of it : and so the animal
body derived from him must be earthy); the second man
is the Lord (descending) *from heaven (to raise our
bodies and advance them to that place).
48 AS is (was) the earthy, such are they also that
it relateth only to the truth and manner of the resurrection.
For after the apostle had dispatched his proof of our Lord's
resurrection, he concludes thus, “Now is Christ risen from
the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept; for
as by man came death, so by man came also the resurrection
of the dead :” for as, #, rö 'A3&º, “by Adam all men die,
so also, Év rá Xpia ră, by Christ, all Óootroinéizov'rai, shall be
made alive again.” Now this is the very word used by
Christ, in reference to his power of raising the dead, when
he saith, “As the Father raises the dead, xa, Čootroleſ, and
makes them alive again, so the Son & woroiºſ, gives life to
whom he will. For as the Father hath given life in himself,
: hath he given to the Son to have life in himself” (John v.
1. 26).
* this the apostle proceeds to the inquiry of the un-
believer, “How are the dead raised up P’ &c. And, in his
answer to this, he begins with the same word; “That which
thou sowest, où Koozoisſºral, is not quickened except it die;”
and then shows the difference of our present body, subject
to death, and the condition of our future bodies, saying, “It
is sown,” or born into the world, cººa JºvXºy, “an animal
body ;” that is, a body which, by the animal and vital spi-
rits in it, lives, moves, perceives, and conveys nourishment to
all its parts; “it is raised, cºwa. Twevºwartzöv, a spiritual
body;” that is, a body quickened by the Spirit of Christ
(Rom. viii. 11), and advanced so far to the perfection of spi-
rits, as to be immortal as they are (Luke xx. 35, 36), and so
fitted for the celestial and immortal state : for, saith, he “so
it is written, The first man Adam,” from whom we all derive
our bodies and our animal life, was therefore made, sic sluxāv
&ay, “with a soul giving life” to his body, and conveying
this animal life to others (Gen. ii. 7); the second was made
eiç ºrvetºza Çootrototy, to revive the body, and quicken it by
his Spirit (John vi. 63); for having promised that he would
raise up them who spiritually did eat his flesh and drink his
blood, he adds, ºr IIveſ, a £ari to &oowowiv, “It is the Spirit
that quickeneth.” He saith also, that “the first man,”
whose image we bear in our bodies, was x0%;, formed &Trô
Xojº, from the dust, and so is to return to the dust ; “the"
second man,” whose image we shall bear, “is the Lord from
heaven;” to wit, descending from it with his glorious and
heavenly body, whose image we shall bear by having bodies
“made like unto his glorious body;” not then consisting,
when they ascend thither, of flesh and blood, or subject to
corruption, as now they are; “for this corruptible must put
on incorruption, and this mortal body must put on immor-
tality.” And this happy resurrection is to be effected by the
Spirit of Christ dwelling in us; “for if the Spirit of Christ
dwell in us, he that raised up Christ from the dead, Kootrotha's
xai, shall also quicken our mortal bodies, by his Spirit dwell-
ing in us” (Rom. viii. 11); whence it is evident that Christ,
the second Adam, is said to be sig ºvetºza Čoorototy, not with
relation to our souls, but to our bodies, to be raised by him.
And thus are these words expounded by Photius in CEcume-
nius, and by Theophylact on the place.
* Ver. 47. 'E; oveavä, From heaven.] Not as some fancy,
because Christ's body was from heaven, and not from the
Virgin Mary; for the scripture expressly teacheth that he
was begotten ## air%, from her body, Matt. i. 16. Luke i.
35, and was the fruit of her womb, Luke i. 42, that he was
made # yuvaixãº, “out of a woman,” and came from the ſa-
thers, rö kari, a 4&nd, “according to the flesh,” Rom. ix. 5;
and had his body been derived from heaven, it must have
been immortal, as our bodies will be when we bear the image
are earthy (and live in the animal body as he did); and
as is the heavenly, such are they (to be) also that are
(to have) heavenly (immortal and shining bodies).
49 And as we have borne the image of the earthy
(Adam, being begotten after his fall in his own likeness,
with earthy, mortal bodies, Gen. v. 3), so we shall also
*"bear the image of the heavenly (partaking in our
bodies of his heavenly glory, he changing our vile bodies
into the likeness of his glorious body, Phil. iii. 21).
50 Now this I say, brethren, that *flesh and blood
(such as ours is) cannot inherit the kingdom of God:
neither doth (nor can) corruption inherit incorrup-
tlOn. -
of the heavenly Adam; both which things make it neces-
sary to interpret “the Lord from heaven,” as I have done in
the paraphrase.
* Ver. 49. Q'opéroºey, We shall bear.] Irenaeus, lib. v.
cap. 9, Tertullian de Resur. Carnis, cap. 49, et adversis
Marcion. lib. v. cap. 10, Cyprian adv. Jud. lib. ii. §. 10, et
lib. iii. §. 11, de Habità Virg. ed. Ox. p. 103, de Zelo et
Livore, p. 226, Hilar. diac. in locum, Jerome in Isa. lii.
f. 84, l, read portemus, which answers to the Greek popédia-
£wev, as Chrysostom reads, and as the Alexandrian and other
copies read. The other reading is owned by Origen against
Celsus twice, lib. v. p. 243, and also by Methodius. Theo-
doret also and Theophylact well note, that the words are not
to be read by way of exhortation, popézog, ev, “Let us bear,”
but pogéologgy as a prediction of what we shall be: for the
apostle, from ver. 42 to this verse, still passeth on from
what we were to what we shall be ; and having said, “As
is the heavenly, such are (i.e. shall be) they that are hea-
venly;” he proves this, because “as we have borne the image
of the earthly Adam, so shall we bear the image of the
heavenly.” -
Note also that Philo speaks much like the apostle; for
he saith,” “There are two kinds of men, one made after the
image of God, and another made out of the earth.” The
last he proves from the very words the apostle useth to
prove there is a natural or animal body ; the first from this,
that “God made man after his own image,” which image he
styles “the divine Word ;” and says he is the #trovgávio;
ão Tºp, “the heavenly star, the fountain of all sensible stars.”
The last he calls “the earthly and corruptible Adam ; the
first, the Adam made after the image which is not,” saith
he, “earthly, but heavenly. The one is heavenly, as being
made after the image of God; and so incapable of any
corruptible or earthy sibstance ; the other out of seminal
matter, which the scripture calleth earth.” But then he
saith that “the heavenly man was formed first, and after
him the earthy;” and perhaps, for the correction of that
error, the apostle might here say, “That was not first which
is spiritual, but that which was natural.”
29 Wer. 50. 23.8% zai aiza, Flesh and blood, &c.] Most
of the fathers interpret these words of flesh and blood, not
naturally, but morally, taken for the corrupt affection of the
flesh. But,
l. Though flesh itself in scripture sometimes bears this
sense, yet flesh and blood jointly never seems to have this
import in Scripture.
2. It is plain, and confessed by Austin,; that the apostle
is not here speaking of the requisites to make our Souls
meet to inherit this kingdom, but of the manner of the resur-
rection of the body.
* Ajo yag & Seároly yán, to 3i kará rày sixáva yeywis, kai tº
tre+xagºvoy #x 7%. Lib. iii. Alleg. ab initio. Osſow A$yow
wai Qsoi Ağyoy, sixáva Aéye Osoſ. De Mundi Opif. p. 5.
+ "nate oys &notati, 'A34. Tiyâvoy, Kai 46apt?, sing: ºs'
3 yśp war sixávº, où yāīvoc, 3xx' oupávio. Leg. Alleg. Jib. i. p:
43. Attra 3,664mow yśyn & ºfty yap to riv obºdytos évºzoº, 3
33 yńoc: ; asy ºv cºgávoc, 3rs kat' sixáva 9to5 yeyevès, $8%ric
wai avyčxwº yeaftou odria; 32.Étoxo~ & 33 yīāo; #4 atro;48% tºns,
#y xºv Kázanzey, ºráyn. Ibid. p. 34. Ata???& traºkeyist;
㺠roi, ºy arxa Sávro; 3,98&nov, zai toº kará rày fixóva Osoſ
yeyoyáro; wºrstoy. De Opif. Mundi, p. 23. . .
f Non de operibus, sed de modo resurrectionis. Ep. 146
ad Consent.
664
I. CORINTHIANS.
51 Behold, I show you a mystery (i. e. a thing not
Known to you before y We” shall not all sleep, but we
shall all be changed (in our bodies, before they enter
into this kingdom).
52 “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at
the last trump : for the trumpet shall sound, and the
dead (in Christ) shall be raised incorruptible, and we
(Christians that are them alive) shall be changed (as to
this mortal body).
3. The apostle speaks of flesh and blood as subject to cor-
ruption here, ver. 52, or of such flesh and blood as must be
changed, and put on incorruption, as of flesh and blood
naturally taken.
4. It is evident to sense that flesh may be cut and divided,
and blood let out, and so must, whilst they continue such,
be subject to corruption; and also that a heavenly and
spiritual body, a “house from heaven,” cannot consist of
such flesh and blood as we have at present.
It therefore must be said that, though the same flesh and
blood may rise from the grave, it will then, or afterward, re-
ceive such a change as will render it spiritual or incorrupti-
ble, and so perhaps, when it comes to heaven, will not be
flesh and blood; or that it will be clothed with such a hea-
venly body as will keep it from a possibility of corruption ;
and so the import of these words may be this, That flesh
and blood unchanged, and unclothed with its heavenly body,
cannot inherit the kingdom of God.
* Ver. 51. IIáyrs; wiy oi kotºzněnaréaeśa, ºráyre; 3ā āAxa-
ymajºsëa, We shall not all sleep, &c.] This reading is much
to be preferred, before either of the other two ; viz. “We
shall all rise,” or “We shall all sleep, but shall not all be
changed ;’ as being,
1. Not only the reading of Chrysostom, Theodoret, and
Theophylact, on the place, but also of Origen,* Theodotus,
* Jerome, and of Pseudo-Justin, qu. 61 and
2. As being enforced from the next words repeated thus,
“And we shall be changed ;” from the like words, 1 Thess.
iv. 17, and from the observation of almost all the commen-
tators on the place, that the apostle in this chapter speaks
only of the resurrection of the just ; and from the falsehood
of the other words, “We shall not all be changed,” seeing
the bodies of the wicked will certainly be changed by the
fire they go into ; and, lastly, from the sense, for what sense
is it to say, “We shall not be changed in a moment,” and
to add this reason of that saying, viz. “For the dead shall
be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed 3”
Note also, that it cannot be hence concluded that he and
the rest of the apostles should live to the general resurrec-
tion ; no, he elsewhere discovers his expectation, that the
same God who raised up Jesus should raise them also from
the dead, 2 Cor. iv. 14. He speaks this therefore, not in his
own, but in the person of all pious Christians that should then
live (see the note on 1 Thess. iv. 15. 17).
* Ver. 52. ‘Ey &réºw, In a moment.] It is the observa-
tion of Jerome,f that by these words the apostle cunctam
prima, et secundae resurrectionis excludit fabulam, “destroys
the fable of the first and second resurrection.” He doth it
sufficiently in the description of the state of all the raised
bodies of the just: for though the patrons of this opinion
would avoid it, it is certain that the old assertors of it held
that they should be raised to enjoy the pleasures of meat
and drink, as Irenaeus'; speaks. Now can thin, spiritual,
glorious, heavenly bodies, and such as are made like to
Christ’s “glorious body,” eat and drink, and enjoy these
sensual pleasures? Moreover, who shall be changed 2 Those
that have already been raised a thousand years? If not, they
must not be alive, for Christians then alive shall be changed;
but if they must be changed, then must their bodies be
raised corruptible, and they must twice “bear the image of
the earthy,” or the animal Adam.
Ver. 53. Así y&g rö $9apry rotiro.] It is said, r3 4.Sapry
* Contra Marcion, Ş. 5, p. 143.
+ Ep. 20, 3, f. 66, A.
3: Et adjacentem habebunt paratam mensam a Deo pas-
eentem eos epulis. Lib. v. cap. 33.
53 For this corruptible (body) must put on incor-
ruption, and this mortal (body) must put on immor-
tality. e
54 So when this corruptible shall have *put on
incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on im-
mortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying
that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory;
(i. e. is overcome for ever, so as never to have any
strength or power over our bodies any more.
and rô Synty have not cºa for their substantive, but are put
in the neuter gender absolute, and stand to represent vexpoi,
“the dead;” but this is a great mistake; for the words are
not only rô p$agry, rô Bynröy, but rô $8agrèy roºro, “this cor-
ruptible, this mortal;” now istud, saith Tertullian, is a word
demonstrative of the body; this hoc, saith Ruffinus, est vox
corpus suum quodammodó contingentis, “is the voice of one
as it were pointing to the body.” Moreover, what is mortal
and corruptible; what puts on incorruption, but the body
sown in corruption, and raised in incorruption ? (ver. 42.)
What is mortal but the body ? what therefore can be raised
to immortality but the same body ? When it is farther said
that the apostle saying, oi, ºrgâroy ºrd "ryevºwariköy, &AA& ré
Juxtºy, “That is not first which is spiritual, but that which
is natural,” he uses the neuter gender, to signify the persons
of Adam and of Christ, that is another plain mistake; they
plainly being used to signify the body received from Adam,
and raised by Christ, as is evident from the precedent words,
for agº, a luxtºv, wai Écri a 3&a rvivºzartºv, “There is an
animal body, and there is a spiritual body; but that body
which is spiritual is not first, but that which is animal.”
* Wer. 54. 'Evêſa's rat &#Sagariay, Shall put on incorrup-
tion.] The scripture and all the ancients speaks of a cloth-
ing which our raised bodies shall put on. Thus Psellus,” in
his commentary on the Chaldaic Oracles, saith, “The Chal-
dees give the soul two clothings; one of the spiritual body,
weaved out of that which is subject to sense ; the other a
shining, thin body, not subject to the touch, which they call
the superficies;” and the conjecture of the Jews is this, that
it shall be “a clothing of light,” or “of a pure flame.” So
the ancient book Zohari saith, that “the bodies of the just
shall be clothed with the light of glory.” R. Phineas
saith that the blessed God will give to the bodies of the
just mºs", “an ornament,” according to that of Isaiah, lviii. 11,
“He shall satisfy the soul, ninynxi, with white or splendid
things;” and R. Levi, that “the soul, in the state of its
glory, sustains itself by the superior light,” and when it re-
turns to the body, “it shall come with this light, and then
the body shall shine as with the brightness of the heavens.”
And this agrees with the transfiguration of our Lord's body,
Matt. xvii. 2, and with his appearance to Paul, Acts iz. 3,
and to John, Rev. i. 14, 15, and to the descriptions made in
the Old Testament, of the just rising from their graves, that
“they shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and as
the stars for ever,” Dan. xii. 3. Wisd. iii. 7; and in the New,
that “they shall shine as the sun in the kingdom of the Fa-
ther,” Matt. xiii. 43, and thus may they be “salted,” and
preserved from corruption “by fire,” Matt. ix.49.
* KatamréSºn & Sáyaro; Big Wixoc, Death is swallowed up in
victory..] Or, “for ever,” sic ºzo; often signifies; so, “Shall
the sword devour ei; vino; for ever ?” 2 Sam. ii. 26; Job
xxxvi. 7, “He will set them on the throne sic vizo; for ever;”
Jer. iii. 5, “Will he keep his anger si; vizo; for ever ?” Lam.
v. 20, “Why dost thou forget us ei; vizo, for ever?” Amos
i. 11, “His anger did tear for ever,” eiç wikoç and viii. 7,
“He will not forget their works Big Wizo, for ever.” Nor is
the phrase eiç yixo; used in any other sense in the Septuagint.
Though therefore death is represented as the last enemy to
be vanquished, ver. 26, and the apostle asks, “O grave, where
is thy victory P” and gives thanks to God “who giveth us the
victory,” ver. 55.57, yet seeing he hath given us this victory
by swallowing death up for ever, by swallowing up death of
life eternal, 2 Cor. v. 4, I see no reason why we should think
tºg *g * * *
* Aſſo XIrāva; *trévèvri rºy Juxºv of Xax?aſoi, Kai Toy Fair
* * gº f º * *
rysvaarikāy ovépcaoray &md roi aid ºntoſ; gubay&#yra aún š, tºy &
atyczığ, Aerty, Kai ävaqā, śvarap Éritreºow.
+ Voisin in Pug, Fid, par. iii, cap. 8, p. 491.
CHAPTER XVI.
665
55 So that Christians may sing triumphantly in the
words of the prophet Hosea, xiii. 14), O death,” where
is thy sting º O grave, where is (now) thy victory :
(it is for ever swallowed up of life, 2 Cor. v. 4.)
56 The sting of death (or that which causeth death)
is (was) sin; and the strength of sin (to cubject us to
it) is (was) the law (threatening death for it).
57 But thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory
(over it) through (the death and resurrection of) our
Lord Jesus Christ.
58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast,
(and) unmoveable (by any temptations from this faith,
and be ye) always abounding *in the work of the Lord,
forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain
in the Lord (but shall be plentifully recompensed by
him at the resurrection of the just).
the apostle had not here respect to the constant use of this
phrase in the Septuagint; it being taken from Isa. xxv. 8.
See the text defended against the surmises of Dr. Mills,
Examen Millii, ibid.
* Wer. 55. Where is thy sting 2] What is by the apostle
rendered aroſ, “where,” is in the Hebrew ºnx “I will be ;”
but that word is thought by a metathesis to signify the same
as Fºx, “where;” accordingly it is so rendered, Hos. xiii. 10,
by the Septuagint, the Chaldee, the Syriac, the Arabic, and
in this fourteenth verse by the LXX. the Syriac, the Arabic,
and by many Jews, which is sufficient to justify the apostle
here (see Dr. Pocock on Hos. xiii. 10. 14).
* Ver. 58. 'Ev Épyº rot, Kupíov.] “Ov Kūčio; 3) amº Rai
&maireſ Trap" hºw&v.
CHAPTER XVI.
1 Now concerning the collection for the saints
(i. e. the suffering Christians in Judea), as I have
given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye.
2 * Upon the first day of the week (the day of your
Christian assemblies) *let every one of you lay by
him in store (on this account), as God hath prospered
him, that there be no (farther need of) gathering
when I come.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVI.
I Wer. 2. Karā ºctaw agg34tov, Upon the first day of the
week.] So we read in Matthew, that our Lord rose from the
dead, ºr; twig rāyaa38árov, “upon the first day of the week,”
Matt. xxviii. 1; in Mark, that “the sabbath being over,
Mary Magdalene and others came early, ‘rā; ºtá, röv cagáà-
Toy, the first day of the week,” xvi. 9, and found Christ
risen from the dead; and in Luke, that “they rested on the
sabbath-day, according to the commandment,” and that they
came to the sepulchre, rſſ & & rāy a agáároy, “on the first
day of the week,” xxiii. 56. xxiv. 1, and so accordingly
saith John, xx. 1: So that this phrase doth certainly import
“the first day of the week,” the day of our Lord's resur-
rection from the dead; and this the word ºwia usually signi-
fies in the Septuagint, when it is joined with days, weeks,
and months; as “the evening and the morning were hºga
(wia the first day;” so hºwiga wía rot anyà, is “the first day of
the month,” Exod. xl. 2. Ezra iii. 6. x. 17, and ºwia roi; ºn-
vo; is “ the first day of the month,” Lev. xxiii. 24, Numb.
i. l. 18. xix. 1. xxiii. 38. Deut. i. 3. Ezek. xxvi. l. xxxii. 1.
xlv. 18. Hag. i. 1. ii. 2.
Moreover, Kara wizy may be rendered “every first day,”
as xará réaly,” “in every city;” war olzov, “in every fa-
mily;” war'évêpa, viritim, “man by man;” warā ºftya, “every
month;” and kari, ºwiay, sigillatim.
Secondly, Observe, that the Jews in every city where they
dwelt had their collectors of alms,ºf who in the week days
went about the city collecting alms, according to the quality
and wealth of every Jew; and “in the evening of the sab-
bath” distributed to the poor among the Jews as much as
was needful for the following week : and after this example,
the apostle seems to have ordained that the Christians should
lay up for the poor, or make provisions for them on the
Lord's-day.
Thirdly, Observe, that from the beginning the Christians
did assemble on the first day of the week, called by them
“the Lord's day,” to perform their religious worship, “to
read the scriptures, to preach, and celebrate the Lord's sup-
per.” “This being the Lord's day, we keep it holy,” saith
Dionysius,S bishop of Corinth. “On Sunday,” saith Jus-
* Lex Constant.
+ Buxt. Lex. Talmud. voce 'Rh1, p. 375, voce hºp, p.
2096.
† Tây a hasgow ow Rupiaxy &yſay #2.Éeay &nyáyokey. Apud
Euseb. Hist. Eccles, lib. iv. cap. 23.
* * •e p p w *w
§ Tºv 33 toº ºxiou hºcégay now; ºrávts; rºw avváxevaty rotočaeśa:
#rsºn & 'Inaciº Xplairós, ò haërepo; a witho, tº airfi tº haćea ;
•w 2 # p «, 0 m/zerépo; tºp, tº avrn tº nºw& 24 vs-
xpay awsortm.
tin,” “all Christians in the city or country meet together,
because that is the day of our Lord's resurrection, and then
we read the writings of the prophets and apostles; this being
done, the president makes an oration to the assembly, to ex-
hort them to imitate and do the things they heard; then we
all join in prayer, and after that we celebrate the sacra-
ment.”
Fourthly, Observe, that the apostle gave orders, that here
and in the churches of Galatia collections should be made
for the poor on that day; and that all Christians, in com-
pliance with that precept, still offered their alms upon that
day. So Justin Martyr, “Then they that are able and
willing give what they think fit, and what is thus collected
is laid up in the hands of the president, who distributes it to
orphans and widows, and other Christians, as their wants re-
quire.”
Fifthly, Observe, that no good reason can be given why
the apostle should limit the collections of the churches of
Corinth and Galatia to “the first day of the week,” but this,
that this day was appointed for the worship of our Lord, and
so more fit for the performance of those duties which con-
cerned his distressed members in those times; for as the
works of charity and mercy are proper duties of this day, so
doth the day contain a special motive in it to enlarge their
charity, as being the day in which they were “begotten to a
lively hope, through the resurrection of Christ Jesus from
the dead, of an inheritance incorruptible,” 1 Pet. i. 3; and in
which they constantly participated of his precious body and
blood, and therefore, having received spiritual things so plen-
tifully from Christ, must be more ready to impart somewhat
of their temporals to his needy servants.
**Exacto; jºy trag' gavrò riéro, Sºnoravčičov, &c. Let every
one of you lay by him in store, that there be no gathering
when I come.] From these last words is gathered that ºn-
caugićev is to put into a common box his charity; because if
they had kept it at home, there would have been need of
gathering it when the apostle came. But the words #xacto;
mraº avrò ri0éro, “let every one place it with himself,” ad-
mit not of this sense; nor when this was done could there
be any necessity of making collections, as that imports soli-
citing the charities of others, but only of receiving the charity
thus laid by for the use of the saints; and yet that such need
there was, is evident from the eighth and ninth chapters of
the Second Epistle: for why is so much care taken that they
* Just. Mart. Apol. ii. p. 96, 99. Wide Ignat. Epist. ad
Magnes. $.9. Clem. Alex. Strom. vii. p. 744. Orig. cout.
Celsum, lib. viii. p. 392. Melito Sard. apud Euseb. lib. iv.
cap. 26. Iren. apud Author. Q. et Res. Qu. 115.
ºf oi sãºrogoivºrs, wal of 80UAéaewoi, kará trºoaigiety #xaats;
ºrºv Havroſ, 3 80CAEra: 3:30ai. Ibid.
666
I. CORINTHIANS.
3 And when I come, whosoever you shall approve
by letters, “them will I send (or them will I with my
letters send) to bring your liberality to Jerusalem.
4 And if it be (thought) meet that I go also, they
shall go with me (to be witnesses of the distribution of
ºyour charity).
5 Now I will come unto you, when “I shall pass
(or shall have passed) through Macedonia: for I do
(intend shortly to remove hence and to) pass through
Macedonia.
6 And it may be that I will abide, yea, and winter
with you, that ye may bring me on my journey whi-
thersoever I go.
7 For I will not see you now by the way, but I
trust (hereafter) to tarry a while with you, if the
Lord permit.
8 But I will tarry (still) at Ephesus "till pente-
COSt.
9 For a great door and effectual is opened to me
(for propagation of the gospel there), and there are
many adversaries (of the truth, especially those of the
circumcision, which makes my stay there necessary).
10 Now "if Timotheus come (to you), see that he
may be with you without fear (of disturbance from the
factious): for he worketh the work of the Lord, as I
also do.
ll Let no man therefore despise him (because of
his youth, 1 Tim. iv. 12), but " conduct (ye) him forth
in peace, that he may come to me: for I look for
him with the brethren (or, I and the brethren look for
him).
12. As touching our brother Apollos, I greatly de-
sired him to come to you with the brethren: but "his
might be ready, if their whole contribution was already in the
common box P
* Ver. 3. Odº Bay 3oxtºw&a nºrs 3’ intº tox&y, roſtov, ºréºlo,
Them with my letters will I send..] That this is the true
sense is evident, because the apostle, supposing himself then
to be come to them, could not need their commendatory
epistles.
* Ver, 5. Make?ovíay 8:3zowat, I do pass through Maceau-
ºig.] Not presently, but after I have finished my stay at
Ephesus (ver, 8) : for that Paul writ this epistle from Ephe-
sus, and not from Philippi, may be gathered from the salu-
tations in the close of it, not from the churches of Macedonia,
but of Ephesus; and in his Second Epistle he saith, he
passed from Troas to Macedonia, and that there Titus came
to him, 2 Cor. ii. 13 and vii. 5, 6, who was not come to
him when he writ his First Epistle.
* Ver. 8. "Eag rā, ºrsyrnkorris, Till pentecost.] It there-
fore was the following pentecost that he hastened to be at
Jerusalem, Acts xx. 16.
* Ver, 10. E&y 3: #Asp TiwáStoc, If Timothy come to you.]
Hence it appears that this epistle was not sent by Timothy,
for then he must have come to them,
* Ver. 11. ITP27éºats atry, Conduct him forth.] It is
the observation of the reverend and learned Dr. Hammond,
that the word "goirée, Tsv signifies not only to accompany
one, and bring him on his way, as ver, 6, but also to provide
for the necessaries of his journey. But this scoms not suit.
able to the inquiry of the apostle, “Did I make gain of you
by any of them whom Isent to you? Did Titus make a gain
of you?” 2 Cor. xii. 17.
* Ver. 12. Oikºv Běamºa Wa vöy #Ash, IIe was not willing
to come now..] Perhaps, because he would not countenance
a faction that was begun under his name, by his presence
With them, which, saith Aquinas, shows he was not their
bishop, as some of the ancients have represented him; for
º he ought not to have left his flock under so great disor-
€IS.
* Ver. 19. Xy rā Kat' o'cow airãw izºna'iz, With the church
in their house.] This phrase doth not import that the whole
church of Corinth, &c. met in such a family; for then this
salutation would be the salutation of all the Christians in
that place; but that this is not so, is evident from so many
will was not at all to come at this time; but he will
come when he shall have a convenient time.
13 Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit ye (your-
selves) like men, be strong.
14 Let all your things be done with charity (or a
sincere desire of your brother’s weal).
15 I beseech you, brethren, (seeing) ye know the
house of Stephanas, that it is the first-fruits of (the
gospel in) Achaia, and that they have (ever since) ad-
dicted themselves to the ministry of the saints;
16 That you submit yourselves to such (giving re-
verence and honour to them), and to every one that
helpeth with us, and laboureth.
17 I am glad of the coming of Stephanas and For-
tunatus and Achaicus (whom you sent with your let-
ters of inquiry to me); for that (account of your af-
fairs) which was lacking on your part (in your letter)
they have supplied.
18 (I am glad, I say,) for they have refreshed my
spirit (with their presence and discourse) and (will &t
their return refresh) yours: therefore acknowledge ye
them that are such.
19 The churches of Asia salute you. Aquila and
Priscilla salute you much in the Lord, "witn the
church that is in their house (i. e. their Christian fa-
nily).
20 All the brethren greet you. Greet ye one an-
other with a holy kiss (see note on Rom. xvi. 16).
2I The salutation of me Paul " with my own
hand.
22 If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let
him be * Anathema Maran-atha (i. e. accursed when
the Lord comes to judgment).
salutations directed to other persons and families in the same
place : so Rom. xvi. 5, “Salute Aquila and Priscilla, and
the church in their house” (see the note there); and then
follow salutations to many other persons and brethren of the
church - so Col. iv. 15, “Salute the brethren in Laodicea,
and Nymphas, with the church in his house” (see the note
there); so Philem. 2, we read thus, “Paul, a prisoner, to
Philemon—to Apphia, to Archippus our fellow-soldier, and
to the church in thy house:” and here, after this salutation.
follow the words, “All the brethren greet you.”
It rather seems to signify, as all the Greek scholiasts and
Grotius say, “a family consisting wholly of Christian con-
verts,” as was the gaoler's house, Acts xvi. 31, 32, and that
of Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue at Corinth, Acts
xviii. 8, for when it was otherwise, and the family was not
entirely converted, the apostle alters his style, and saith only,
“Salute them which are of Aristobulus's household, and of
the household of Narcissus in the Lord,” Rom. xvi. 10, 11 ;
“Salute Asyncritus, Phlegon, &c. and the brethren that are
with them,” ver. 14; 15, “The saints that are with them ;”
“They of the house of Caesar salute you,” Phil. iv. 22.
* Ver. 21. Tº #2; xeipi, With my own hand.] He writ-
ing by an amanuensis, itom. xvi. 22, still closed his epistle
with his own hand, as a token that it came from him, 2
Thess. iii. 17.
* Ver. 22. 'Avá0sº a gºaçãy-ášá.] That maran-atha is a
Syriac word, and signifies “the Lord comes,” most of the
ancient interpreters inform us.* Buxtorf gives us the full
* Maran-atha magis Syrum est quâm Hebraeum, et inter-
pretatur, Dominus venit. Hieron, Epist. 137, ad Marcel.
Pseud. Amb. in loc. Mapāy-&S& Totto oi răç ‘E824taç, &c ºrt-
ve; ºréxagoy, 3ÅA& rā; Xàpoy #cºri ºpovic, h;ºnveyra, 35, 3 Kūgio;
#ASE. Theod. in locum. Ita Philo, Carabas quidam insanus
ab Alexandrinis in ludibrium Agrippae (capaw vocabatur, ot-
row; 33 paariv xúptov Švowāśa 6al traçã žūgotc. Contra Flaccum,
p. 751, F, Vox ista Syra in Novo Testamento, NnN Tºp,
Dominus venit, occurrit 1 Cor. xvi. 22, quâ, extremum ana-
thema indicabant, quo ex omni societate homo exclusus ; et
omnibus poenis humanis major, committebatur judicio seve-
rissimo anathematis divini, et exitio aeterno, quasi dicere vo-
luissent prisei illi pii, V emiat Dominus, et eum exitio aeterno
A DISCOURSE, &c.
667
23 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with
you. -
sense of it, saying, “It is a Syrian word, by which they sig-
nified the utmost anathema, by which a man, being excluded
from all human society, and obnoxious to greater punish-
feriat; commissus sit Christi totius mundi judicis adventui,
ut aeternå ipsius maledictione pereat. In voce maran, p.
1248. -
24 My love be with you all in Christ Jesus,
Amen.
ments than man could inflict, was committed to the severest
judgment of the divine anathema, and to eternal destruction.
As if those pious men of old would have said, Let the Lord
come, and smite him with eternal pèrdition, let him be re-
served to the coming of the Judge of the whole world, that
he may perish by his everlasting curse.”
A HD IS C
O U R S E
CONCERNING THE
IMPUTATION OF CHRIST'S PERFECT RIGHTEOUSNESS, OR OBEDIENCE TO THE LAW
TO US, FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS, OR JUSTIFICATION.
IN WIIICH
I. The opinion of the necessity of this imputation is delivered, in the words of the Rev. Bishop Beveridge.
II. It is proved that this opinion hath no foundation in the holy Scripture.
And,
III. It is proved to be fully and expressly contrary both to scripture and reason.
TO THE READER,
I Do not think it an insult upon the sacred character of
this great and good man, that I make bold to examine one
article of his “Private Thoughts,” which, in my settled judg-
ment, is of evil consequence to the souls of men. For though
he died a bishop, yet, Saith the preface, “The following
sheets were written by him in his younger years, upon his
first entrance into holy orders:” and this article is considered
by one who hath already passed the age of man. I could
have reflected upon twenty other passages, which, in my
judgment, might have kept these “thoughts” still “private,”
as the good bishop, in his lifetime, did : but what I have said
upon this article will, I hope, be sufficient to show they are
not so perfect and correct as to be deemed a standard of the
truth of doctrines, though his pious resolutions are very pro-
per to produce in us that holiness of life which will hereafter
be of more value to us than the most refined notions. Though
therefore I cannot comply with him in his “private thoughts,”
to imitate him in his pious resolutions is the desire of,
Thy friend and servant,
D. W.
SECT. I.
THE imputation of Christ's active and perfect obedience
to us being, in my judgment, a very false and pernicious doc-
trine, and yet being of late propounded by an eminent and
good bishop, as a thing absolutely necessary to our justifica-
tion, and to obtain a title to eternal life; I shall,
First, Lay down this doctrine in the bishop's own words.
Secondly, I shall endeavour to show that it hath no foun-
dation in the holy scripture; and that the good bishop hath
produced nothing, either from scripture or from reason, which
is sufficient to confirm it. And,
Thirdly, That it is fully and directly contrary to scripture
and to reason. -
And, first, the bishop, in the eighth article concerning
his “Private Thoughts of Religion,” delivers' this doctrine
in these words (p. 89): “He (viz. the Son of God) being
in and of himself perfectly co-equal, co-essential, and co-eter-
Ilal with the Father, was in no sort bound to do more than
the Father himself did, and so whatsoever he should do
which the Father did not, might justly be accounted a work
of supererogation, N. B. which, without any violation of di-
vine justice, might be set on the account of some other per-
sons, even of such as he pleased to do it for. And hereupon,
out of mercy and compassion to fallen man, he covenanted
with his Father that, if it pleased his majesty to accept it, he
would take upon him the suffering of those punishments
which were due from him to man, and the performance of
those duties which were due from man to him : N. B. so that
whatsoever he should thus humble himself to do or suffer,
should wholly be on the account of man ; himself being not
anyways bound to do or suffer more in time than he had from
eternity.
“This motion the Father, out of the riches of his grace
and mercy, was pleased to consent unto: and hereupon the
Son, assuming our nature into his deity, N. B. becomes sub-
ject and obedient both to the moral and ceremonial laws of
his Father, and at last to death itself, ‘ even the death of
the cross;’ in the one he paid an active, in the other a
passive obedience, and so did not only fulfil the will of
his Father, in obeying what he had commanded, but Sa-
tisfied his justice in suffering the punishment due to us for
the transgressing of it. His active obedience, as it was in
finitely pure and perfect, did without doubt infinitely trans-
cend all the obedience of the sons of men, even of Adam
too in his primitive state (p. 88); for the obedience of
Adam, make the best of it, was but the obedience of a finite
creature, whereas the obedience of Christ was the obedience
of one who was infinite God as well as man. By which
means the laws of God had higher obedience performed to
them, than themselves in their primitive institution required;
for being made only to finite creatures, they could command
no more than the obedience of finite creatures ; whereas the
obedience of Christ was the obedience of one who was the
infinite Creator as well as a finite creature.
“Now this obedience being more than Christ was bound
668
A DISCOURSE ON THE
to, and only performed on the account of those whose na-
ture he had assumed, as we by faith lay hold upon it; so
God, through grace, N. B. imputes it to us as if it had been
performed by us in our own persons. And hence it is, that
as in one place Christ is said to be ‘made sin for us,’ 2 Cor.
v. 21, so in another place he is said to be ‘made our righte-
ousness,’ 1 Cor. i. 30; and in the forecited place, 2 Cor. v.
21, as he is said to be ‘made sin for us,” so are we said to
be ‘made righteousness’ in him ; but what righteousness 2
our own 2 No, “the righteousness of God,” radically his, but
imputatively ours; and this is the only way whereby we are
said to be made ‘the righteousness of God,” even by the
righteousness of Christ being made ours, by which we are
accounted and reputed as righteous before God. These
things considered, I very much wonder how any man can
presume to exclude the active obedience of Christ from our
justification before God ; as if what Christ did in the flesh
was only of duty, not at all of merit, or as if it was for him-
self, and not for us; especially when I consider that suffering
the penalty is not what the law primarily required, for the
law of God requires perfect obedience, the penalty being
only threatened to, not properly required of, the breakers of
it; for let a man suffer the penalty of the law in never so
high a manner, he is not therefore accounted obedient to it,
his punishment speaks not his innocence, but rather his
transgression of the law. Hence it is that I cannot look
upon Christ as having made full satisfaction to God’s justice
for me, unless he had performed the obedience I owe to
God’s laws, as well as borne the punishment that is due for
my sins: for though he should have borne my sins, I cannot
see how that should denominate me righteous or obedient to
the law, so as to entitle me to eternal life according to the
tenor of the old law (p. 89), “Do this and live: N. B.
which old covenant is not disannulled or abrogated by the
covenant of grace, but rather established (Rom. iii. 31);
especially as to the obedience it requires of us in order to
the life it promiseth, otherwise the laws of God would be
mutable, N. B. and so come short of the laws of the very
Medes and Persians, which altered not. Obedience, there-
fore, is as strictly required under the New, as it was under
the Old Testament, but with this difference—there obedi-
ence was required in our own persons, as absolutely neces-
sary ; here obedience in our surety is accepted as completely
sufficient: but now, if we have no such obedience in our
Surety (as we cannot have, if he did not live as well as die
for us), let any man tell me what title he hath, or can have,
to eternal life 2 I suppose he will tell me he hath none in
himself, because he hath not performed perfect obedience to
the law, N. B. and I tell him he hath none in Christ, unless
Christ hath performed that obedience for him, which none
can say he did, who doth not believe his active as well as
passive obedience to be wholly upon our account.” Now
these words contain these several propositions:
First, “That the Son of God covenanted with his Father,
that he would take upon him the obedience which was due
from man to him (p.86), so that whatever he should do
should be on the account of man, and that to this motion the
Father, of his rich grace and mercy, was pleased to consent.
Secondly, “That he, in pursuance of this covenant, be-
came obedient and subject both to the moral and ceremonial
laws of his Father, and so, by his active obedience to these
laws, fulfilled the will of his Father in obeying what he had
commanded.
Thirdly (p. 86, 87), “That this obedience of Christ was
perfect, and did infinitely transcend all the obedience of the
Sons of men, even of Adam in his primitive state, and so
Christ performed higher obedience to the laws of God than
was required of man in the primitive institution.
Fourthly, “That this obedience being more than Christ
was bound to do, and being only performed on the account
of those whose nature he had assumed (p. 87), it is by vir-
tue of our faith imputed to us, as if it had been performed
by us in our own persons. •r
Fifthly, “That we are to be entitled to eternal life ac-
cording to the tenor of the old law, Lev. v. 8. 15, that old
covenant being not disannulled (p. 89) and abrogated by the
covenant of grace, but rather established (Rom. iii. 31), es-
pecially as to the obedience it requires from us, in order to
the life it promiseth.” And, r
Sixthly, ibid., “That therefore obedience is as strictly re-
quired under the New, as it was under the Old Testament,
but with this difference : there obedience in our own persons
was required as absolutely necessary, here obedience in our
surety is accepted as completely sufficient. -
Seventhly, “That no man hath, or can have, a title to
eternal life, unless Christ bath paid perfect obedience to
the law for him, and so Christ could not have made full
satisfaction to God's justice for us, unless he had performed
the obedience due to God’s laws, as well as borne the pu-
nishment due to our sins. º
Eighthly, “That therefore the only way whereby we
are said to be made righteous with ‘the righteousness of
God,” is by the righteousness of Christ being made ours, by
which we are reputed and accounted righteous before God.”
Having thus given you the state of the question in the
bishop's own words, I shall proceed briefly to consider what
he hath laid down as the foundation of his doctrine, and
then to make some brief reflections upon these several pro-
positions. -
Now the foundation of this doctrine is laid down in these
words:—“He (i. e. the Son of God) being co-equal, co-
eternal, and co-essential with the Father (and so depending
not upon him either for his existence or actions, p. 83), was
in no sort bound to do more than the Father himself did,
and so whatsoever he should do, which the Father did not,
might justly be accounted as a work of supererogation, which,
without any violation of divine justice, might be set upon the
account of some other persons, even of such whom he pleased
to do it for.” Now this is such a scheme of new divinity as
cannot easily be matched.
For, (1.) here is a God, “co-equal and co-essential with
the Father, and who depends not on him either for his exist-
ence or his actions,” and therefore not God of God, but
plainly another God, existing and acting independently of
the Father; and so the Father cannot be (as, saith Dr. Bull,
de Subord. Filii, S. 4, all the fathers without fear pronounced
him) principium, causa, āśxà, airia, auctor filii, et airloy row
Ety&ſ.
(2) We have this God “independent in existence” (which
is the same with essence) and “actions on the Father,”
bound to do so much as the Father : now all obligation
arising from a law to which the person bound is subject, by
whose law must this co-equal person be “bound to do so
much P”
(3.) This independent God is said to supererogate by
doing more than he was bound to do. Now supererogation
supposes the person Supererogating under a command, and
exceeding the virtuous action commanded ; but how can he,
who is independent on any, both as to existence and actions,
be subject to the commands of another ? Moreover, seeing
the Father was not bound to create the world, or send his
Son to be the Saviour of it, or to do any other thing which it
was not necessary from the perfection of his nature to per-
form, why must not he in all these actions supererogate as
well as his coequal, independent Son 2
Secondly, That which merits from God must be some-
thing from which he receives some benefit or advantage; but
the Father is incapable of receiving any advantage from this
supposed Supererogation of his Son. And,
Thirdly, That which merits for another must oblige the
person of whom he merits in justice to accept his action for
another: now God the Father cannot be obliged to accept
this action of his Son for us, because it was not done by us;
and so, if he doth accept it as if it had been done by us, this
must be perfectly of his free grace, or, as the bishop saith,
p. 86, “out of the riches of his grace and mercy.” For the
obedience of man to the laws of God was certainly a personal
due, it being that which God required of him in person ; and
therefore the obedience of another to the law given to him
and not to another, can do nothing to acquit him from the
performance of what God personally required of him and not
of another, but by a pure act of grace : nor can the action
of another be reckoned as done by him but by a false impu-
tation ; for such must that be which imputes that as done
by me, which indeed was not done by me, but by another.
As therefore, to speak exactly, God doth not impute Christ's
passive obedience to us, or account that we have suffered
because he did, but only doth exempt us from suffering,
IMPUTATION OF CHRIST'S RIGHTEOUSINESS.
669
because he hath suffered instead ; so neither can he impute
the obedience of another to us, or account that we have
obeyed because another hath done it upon our account, but
only exempt us from obedience in person upon that account.
Lastly, Here is a rich fund for the pope's treasury of
meritorious supererogating actions, that which the papists
have imagined to fill up their treasury being only the merits
of finite men; whereas, saith the good bishop, p. 87, “The
obedience of Christ was the obedience of one that was infi-
mite God as well as man, the obedience of one who was the
infinite Creator, as well as a finite creature.” Yea, if any-
thing could be meritorious in respect to God, this doctrine
would render every good action of a believer meritorious, or
an act of supererogation; for if, as the bishop saith, p. 89,
“under the new covenant obedience in our surety is accepted
as completely sufficient,” and Christ hath performed that
obedience for us by which we have a title to life eternal, all
believers “who have by faith laid hold on Christ,” and so
have his obedience imputed to them as if performed by them
in person, must be entirely exempted from any obligation to
perform personal obedience, and so all the obedience they
perform must be so many acts of supererogation.
To proceed now to the consideration of the propositions
plainly collected from his words; of which the first is this:—
“That Christ covenanted with the Father that he would
take upon him the obedience which was due from man to
him; so that whatever he should do should wholly be on the
account of man, and that to this motion the Father was
pleased to consent.”
This proposition is founded on a chimerical covenant be-
twixt God the Father and the Son, of which there is not the
least item in the holy scripture; and so the whole scheme of
this doctrine, being built upon this vain imagination, must be
also vain.
(2.) This covenant is also both in the nature of the thing
impossible, and in the immediate consequences of it irreligi.
ous. It is in the nature of the thing impossible, that Christ
should covenant to perform the obedience due from man to
God’s law, for him, or in his stead, and that God the Father
should accept and repute what he thus did for him, as if per-
formed by man personally ; because the moral law, the law
engraven on the heart of man, is indispensable; it being ab-
solutely necessary that man should be obliged, personally, to
obey the moral law, and that God should require him, in
person, so to do; and so no promise of another to perform it
for him can avail anything to exempt him from the obliga-
tion he was, is, and ever will be under to perform it person.
ally: this is apparent from those words of Christ, in which
he gives us the abridgment of the law and the prophets; viz.
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and
with all thy mind, and with all thy soul; and thou shalt love
thy neighbour as thyself” (Matt. xxii. 37, 39): from the
personal observance of which laws, who ever thought he was,
or he could be, exempted by anything which Christ had done
for him # It therefore is profane and irreligious to say that
either the holy Jesus made such a covenant, or that the
righteous God ever consented to such a motion, or that the
obedience of our surety to the moral law should be accepted
in the new covenant, as completely sufficient to give us a
title to eternal life ; this being in effect to say that Christ,
by his obedience to the moral law, hath freed every one that
believes in him from his whole duty to God, his neighbour,
and himself; and that God the Father hath consented that
all such persons should be free from any obligation person-
ally to “live righteously, soberly, and godly, in this present
world;” because what hath already been performed by their
Surety, pp. 88, 89, is completely sufficient to denominate
them righteous, or obedient to the law, so as to entitle them
to eternal life; and so they cannot be obliged to a personal
performance of those duties in order to that end, though the
apostle plainly Saith they are, Tit. ii. 12, 13.
Secondly, When he saith, in the second proposition, that
Christ, “by his active obedience to God's moral and ceremo-
nial laws, fulfilled the will of his Father in obeying what he
commanded :'' doth he mean what the Father had person
ally commanded him 2 If so, Christ himself must lie under
a personal obligation to fulfil both the moral and the cere-
monial law ; and so, in doing this, he could do only what he
himself was commanded to do, and could not merit for
|
another; and so the only reason why the bishop “wonders
at them who say that what Christ did in the flesh was only
of duty,” must be this, because, as he observes, p. 88, “that
would exclude Christ's active obedience from our justification
before God.” If he means what the Father had not com-
manded him, but only had required us to obey, then can he
not be properly said to have herein obeyed at all ; obedience,
of necessity, importing a relation to a command laid upon
him who is obedient ; and much less could he fulfil that
command, which was never given to him, and so the Father
might say to him, in the words of the prophet, “Who hath
required this at thy hand 2* He himself declares he had
“received a commandment from his Father to lay down his
life for his sheep;"+ and in pursuance of it, “he became
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”f And he
who saith, Christ also did perform his active obedience on
our account, and by that “fulfilled the will of his Father, in
obeying what he had commanded for us,” must produce a
like command of the Father, requiring him thus to obey for .
us; which is, first, needless, we being still of necessity under
as strong an obligation of personal obedience to the moral
law, as a rule of duty, as we were before Christ performed
that obedience in his human nature. Secondly, It also
necessarily infers a personal exemption of all believers from
any obligation to obey the moral law ; the pernicious conse-
quences of which doctrine have been already shown. Thirdly,
It is contrary to the words of the bishop himself; for he
affirms, p. 89, that, “under the Old Testament, obedience
was required in our own persons as absolutely necessary ;
and that this old covenant was not disannulled, but rather
established by the covenant of grace, especially as to the
obedience it requires in order to the life it promiseth.” The
obedience then required under the old law, as absolutely
necessary, in order to the life it promiseth, being obedience
to be performed in our own persons, to use the bishop's
words, p. 88, “who can see” how the obedience of Christ,
that is, of another in our stead, “could denominate us righte-
ous, or obedient to the law, so as to entitle us to eternal life,
according to the tenor of the old law, Do this, in your own
persons, and live P” In a word, we neither are nor can be
exempted from obedience to the moral law, as a rule of duty,
but we are exempted from obedience to it as a means of jus-
tification ; or, we are not exempted from an obligation to
perform the righteousness of the law, but only from the curse
of the law pronounced against them “who continue not in
all things written in the book of the law to do them” (Gal.
iii. 10). And from this curse we are delivered, saith the
apostle, not by Christ's active and perfect obedience to the
law, imputed to us, but by his sufferings on the cross for us.
Thirdly, Of the third proposition, that the obedience of
Christ did “infinitely transcend all the obedience of the sons
of men, as being the obedience of an infinite God,” I shall
only observe at present, that though the obedience of “an
infinite God” and “infinite Creator” be absurd expressions
(as importing a subjection of this infinite God and Creator to
the laws of some superior, or paying infinite obedience to his
infinite self); yet was it necessary to be asserted that Christ's
active obedience might suffice, by reason of this supposed
infinite excellency, to be imputed to all men ; since other-
wise it being only that which every individual man was per-
sonally obliged to perform, it could only have answered the
obedience required of one single person. gº
Fourthly, To the fourth proposition, that “the obedience
of Christ being more than he was bound to, it is, by virtue of
our faith, imputed to us, as if it had been performed by us
in our own persons:” I answer, º
First, That it being certain that the obedience which God
requires by law from us must be personal (for, where there
is no law requiring personal obedience, there can be no per-
sonal transgression), hence it is evident that there can be
no performance of personal obedience by a surety, and there-
fore no true imputation of his obedience to us, but only an
exemption from any obligation to that obedience which hath
been performed for us by our surety. tº
Secondly, When he saith that this obedience was “more
than Christ was bound to do,” if he means this of the obe-
dience of the divine nature ; this, if it be not that which was
† Phil. ii. 8.
* {sa. i. 12. + John x. 18.
\
70
A DISCOURSE ON THE
condemned in the Arian heresy, is a great absurdity in the
supposition, that he, who is absolutely supreme, should be
obedient, i.e. subject to the law of a superior ; if of Christ's
human nature, in that he was certainly obliged to “fulfil all
righteousness,” i.e. all things required of all men by the
moral law ; this also was absolutely necessary to the dis-
charge of his priestly office, viz. that he should be perfectly
righteous, and without sin in his own person ; for “such a
high-priest became us as was holy, &xazoc, free from evil, un-
defiled, separated from sinners, who had no need to offer
first for his own sins” (Heb. vii. 26, 27), since otherwise he
must have died not for ours, but his own sins: now the per-
Sonal righteousness which was absolutely necessary to render
him a fit high-priest to offer a true expiatory sacrifice for our
sins, could not be more than he was bound to do, as our
high-priest.
Fifthly, That his fifth proposition, which affirms that “we
are entitled to eternal life by the tenor of the old law, Do
this and live,” &c. is a flat contradiction to the doctrine of
Paul, in his Epistles to the Romans, to the Galatians, and to
the Hebrews, will be hereafter fully manifested.
Sixthly, The difference betwixt the justification and obe-
dience required by the old and new covenant doth not con-
sist, as the bishop saith it is, in this, “that, in the first, obe-
dience in our own persons was required as absolutely neces-
sary; in the second, obedience in our surety is accepted as
completely sufficient:” but in this, that whereas the old law
required perfect obedience, in order to our justification, allow-
ing no pardon for sins committed, but leaving all under the
curse, who “continued not in all things written in the law to
do them” (Gal. iii. 10): the new covenant requires only
faith in the blood of Christ, for the remission of our past sins,
as will be fully proved hereafter. And though the new
covenant doth not exempt us from the moral law, as a rule
of duty ; it being a contradiction to say that God permits us
to omit our duty, or transgress his law (since that permission
would render duty no duty, and transgression no transgres-
sion); yet doth it accept of sincere obedience, pardoning the
sins of ignorance and infirmity which still cleave to our duties
in this imperfect state, not for the active, but passive obedi-
ence of the blessed Jesus, according to these words of John,
“If ye walk in the light, as God is in the light, the blood of
Jesus Christ, N. B. cleanseth you from all sin,” I John i. 8.
And again, ii. 2, “If we sin, we have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation
for our sins.” -
Seventhly, The seventh proposition will be proved false in
every branch of it in the third section. -
Eighthly, The eighth to be a gross mistake of the true
sense of the apostle's words, 2 Cor. v. 21, section the second.
SECT. II.
Having, in the foregoing section, sufficiently declared
what is the doctrine I reject, viz. that which asserts that
Christ's active and passive obedience must be imputed to us
to eternal life, or to justification; I proceed,
Secondly, To show that this doctrine hath not the least
foundation in the holy scriptures. Now this I shall make
evident, by a particular consideration of the texts of scrip-
ture produced by the good bishop, and other patrons of this
doctrine, in favour of it. And,
First, Whereas the bishop saith, p. 87, that, as Christ is
said to be “made sin for us,” so are we said to be “made
the righteousness of God in him” (2 Cor. v. 21), and thence
concludes, that “the only way whereby we are said to be
made the righteousness of God, is by the righteousness of
Christ's being made ours, by which we are accounted and
reputed as righteous before God:” I am sorry to find he was
So unacquainted with the true import of either of these
phrases, or so regardless of the context. For,
First, This phrase, “the righteousness of God,” doth never
signify the active obedience or righteousness of Christ, per-
formed unto the law, but always hath relation to the righte-
ousness of faith, in opposition to the law, or that righteous-
ness which is procured by faith in the blood of Christ, and
accepted by God to our justification ; thus, Rom. i. 17,
# 8tzalozüyn Geoſ #4 ºria rews, “The righteousness of God
through faith, is revealed” in the gospel, “to beget faith in
us, as it is written. The just shall live by faith:” now these
righteousness of God in him,
very words the apostle useth to prove that “no man is jus-
tified by obedience to the law before God; for (saith the
scripture) The just shall live by faith ; but the law is not of
faith ; but (in opposition to it, saith, Lev. xviii. 5) The man
that doth these things shall live by them ;” which are the
very words the bishop useth to prove against Paul, that “we
must be denominated righteous, or obedient to the law, so as
to have a title to eternal life, according to the tenor of the
old law (p. 88,89), Do this, and live,” Lev. xviii. 5. So
again, iii. 21, h \inatoo’iyn Geoiſ, “The righteousness of God,
without the law, is manifested, being testified by the law and
the prophets,” to wit, the righteousness of God, communi-
cated to all believers, by faith in Christ's blood (ver. 22);
“We being justified freely, by the redemption which is in
Christ Jesus” (ver. 23); “in whom we have redemption
through his blood, even the remission of sins” (Eph. i. 7.
Col. i. 14); “God having set him forth for a propitiation,
through faith in his blood;” p. 11, so evident is it, that
“the righteousness of God,” twice mentioned, is the justifi-
cation God vouchsafes to us, through faith in Christ's blood,
shed for the remission of our sins. Again, Rom. x. 3, the
Jews “not knowing rày Sixaozüvny ro: Geoû, the righteousness
of God, but seeking to establish their own righteousness,”
which was by the works of the law, “have not submitted,
rfi &ratorávn roi; Geº, to the righteousness of God,” which is
the righteousness to be obtained by faith in Christ. Now this
righteousness of the law, which the Jews seeking after,
“submitted not to the righteousness of God,” is, saith the
apostle, that which Moses mentioned, Lev. xviii. 5, which
saith, “The man that doth these things shall live by them;”
so grossly doth the bishop mistake, in saying, p. 89, that
“this very righteousness was established by the covenant of
grace.” What is the righteousness of faith the apostles
preached in opposition to it 2 even a belief that God hath
raised Christ from the dead (ver. 9), he dying for our sins,
and rising again for our justification (Rom. iv. 24). Can then
anything be more clear from the apostle's words, than that
“the righteousness of God through faith” stands in direct
opposition to the righteousness of the law, which saith, “Do
this, and live ;” and therefore cannot consist in Christ's per-
ſect obedience to the law imputed to us, as our righteous-
mess P And, lastly, Phil. iii. 9, § #x Osot, 3.xaloa tºwn, “the
righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ,” stands
directly opposite to the righteousness of the law, or to that
righteousness which the Jews sought for by obedience to the
law.
Secondly, The phrase, “He was made sin for us,” is only
capable of these two senses ;-l. He was made guilty of
our sins by imputation, which, I fear, is the bishop's sense ;
partly because the opposite imputation of Christ's righteous-
ness to us, as if personally performed by us, is by him said
to be meant by our being “made the righteousness of God
in him ;” partly because he plainly seems to own it in these
words, p. 72, “His righteousness being as really by faith im-
puted to me, as my sins were laid upon him ;” then, as his
righteousness is imputed to me, as if it had been personally
performed by me; so my sins must be imputed to him, as if
they had been performed by him, and so he must be, by
God's own imputation, guilty of doing murder, idolatry,
adultery, and all the other sins committed by mankind ;
which blasphemy will be more fully rebuked in the following
section ; or, secondly, he was made & wagtia, a sin-offering,
or expiatory sacrifice for us, which is the frequent sensé of
the word āºwatºria, in the Levitical law concerning sacrifices;
and is here put upon the words by all the commentators I
have seen. Now this interpretation of the phrase relating
to the death of Christ as an expiatory sacrifice, the proper
and immediate effect of it cannot be the imputation of the
obedience of Christ's life unto us, but our freedom from
condemnation on the account of sin, in which our justifica-
tion is still placed by the apostle; for such an effect must
of necessity be signified by these words, “We are made the
” which suits with the cause of
it, viz. the death of Christ as an expiatory sacrifice for the
remission of sin ; now the proper and direct effect of such
a sacrifice is deliverance from the guilt and punishment of
sin, and not the imputation of Christ's active obedience
unto men : for Christ offered this expiatory sacrifice, not
that men might be made righteous by the righteousness of
IMPUTATION OF CHRIST’S RIGHTEOUSNESS
671
his life, but that sinners might be justified by his blood, shed
for the remission of sins, and reconciled to God by the death
of his Son (Rom. v. 9, 10). This, therefore, must be the
true import of our being made the righteousness of God in
him. And,
Thirdly, This is farther evident from the context; “for
God was in Christ” (saith the apostle), “reconciling the
world unto himself:” how hath Christ done this 2 he hath,
saith the apostle, “reconciled us to God in the body of his
flesh by death” (Col. i. 21). He adds, that God was thus
“reconciling the world unto himself, by not imputing to
them their trespasses;” why did he not impute them 2 be-
cause Christ, by his death, had made an expiatory sacrifice
for the remission of them ; for he saith, “he made him” a
sacrifice for “sin, who knew no sin:” whence it must fol-
low, that we are “made the righteousness of God in him,”
by the reconciliation purchased for us by his death, and the
non-imputation of sin to us, as the consequent of that death.
And it may farther be observed, that every branch of this
exposition is confirmed, and the sense imposed on these
words by the bishop is plainly confuted, by the descants of
the ancient commentators on this place. For,
First, They plainly say that by the word” &apºria, sin, we
are to understand, to regi śwagtiāv Süºwa, “a sacrifice for
sin;”+ non immeritó peccatum factus dicitur, quia et hostia
in lege, quae pro peccatis offerebatur, peccatum nuncu-
pabatur, “the sacrifice offered in the law for sin, being so
called.”
Secondly, They add, that to be made the righteousness
of God in Christ, is, t 31& avyxaphoreo; ºtzato Sāvat 8:' airrot,
“to be justified by a gracious pardon through him :” that
this is the righteousness of God, 3ray ris Xágºt 3%atášn
#,0a ºrga'a & captiz hºpávia rat, Ś “when a man is so justified
by grace, that all his sin is made to vanish away.”
Thirdly, They add, that we are then righteous with the
righteousness of God, when we are justified, º #: #yov
vá, ov, axx' in rā; Xágito, rod Osoſ, “not by the works of the
law, but by the grace of God.”
'exeivn yā; # Treoripa vépcow Kai Hºyoy 34atoriºn, alth 33 Osoſ;
Sixaoo-ºwn, “The first,” saith Chrysostom, “is justification by
the law ; this, that of God.” I conclude then in the words
of Gataker against Gomarus, producing this very text for the
same purpose as the bishop doth, Quid ferê clarius contra
se producere poterat quâm illud, 2 Cor. v. 21.
The second text, produced by the bishop, contains these
words, “Of him are you in Christ Jesus, who is made unto
us of God, wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and
redemption.”
Ans. From these words it is evident, that Christ is in no
other sense said to be made unto us “righteousness,” than
he is said to be made to us “wisdom, sanctification, and
redemption.” Hence therefore, Iretort the argument thus:
Christ is not here said to be made unto us of God, wisdom,
sanctification, and redemption, by his wisdom, Sanctification,
and redemption imputed to us; therefore he is not here said
to be made our righteousness, by his righteousness or active
obedience imputed to us. The consequence is evident ; for
they who hence say that Christ is made our righteousness
by his righteousness imputed to us, have the same reason to
say from this text, that he is made our wisdom by his wis-
dom, and our sanctification by his holiness, and our redemp-
tion by his redemption imputed to us. The antecedent is
also evident : for,
First, It is evidently absurd to say we are made wise by
the same wisdom with which Christ was, imputed to us.
And, Secondly, If we are made Sanctification by the holi-
ness of Christ imputed to us, there can be no necessity that
we ourselves should “have our fruit unto holiness, that the
end may be eternal life” (Rom. vi. 22); nor can it be true,
that, “without (personal) sanctification, no man shall see the
Lord” (Heb. xii. 14); nor could it be necessary that he
should give up himself to the death for his church, that “he
might sanctify her” (Eph. v. 25–27); he having done this
completely by the holiness of his life imputed to her.
And, Thirdly, The redemption here mentioned being dis-
tinguished from, and following justification and sanctifica-
---------- + Hilar. Diac.
§ Chrysost. Theoph.
* OEcum. t CEcum.
| giving us the Spirit of sanctification ;'
tion, it must import the redemption of the body from cor-
ruption ; now, is it not absurd to say that the redemption of
Christ's body from corruption is imputed to us? and will it
not hence follow, that we are not to expect any personal .
redemption of our own bodies from corruption ? It remains
then to say, with the ancient commentators,” that Christ is
made to us wisdom, by being atrio; rā; a cºpias, “the author
of our spiritual wisdom ;” of our justification, röy &papriðv
råy & peariv 8wenzáºzavoc,+ “by procuring for us, by his
death,” that “remission of sins,” in which consisteth our
justification ; our sanctification, rô IIvetºza Xagićgewoc, “by
’ and our redemption,
by procuring for us, rºy &monſºrgoorly rāg treetºroúa'80s, “the
redemption of life,” or of our bodies, “from corruption,
into the glorious liberty of the sons of God” (Rom. viii. 21
23). -
Thirdly, Whereas the bishop argues that “the old cove-
nant which saith, Do this, and live, Lev. xviii. 5, is not dis-
annulled or abrogated by the covenant of grace, especially
as to the obedience it requires from us in order to the life it
promiseth;” because the apostle saith, Rom. iii. 31, “Do
we then make void the law through faith? nay, we establish
the law, and because otherwise the laws of God would be
mutable:” one would wonder how he could fall into so plain
a contradiction to the express words of the apostle, in his
plea for justification by faith, and not by the works of the
law; in his frequent declarations, not only of the freedom of
Christians from the yoke of the law, but also of the necessity
of the change of the law; and much more how he could do
it from those words, which, considered with the context, are
a full confutation of his doctrine. For,
First, The apostle saith twice expressly, that the righte-
ousness of the law which he disputes against, and by which
“no man can be justified before God,” is that very righteous-
ness which saith, Lev. xviii. 5, “The man. that doeth
these things, shall live in and by them” (see Rom. x. 5.
Gal. iii. 12). 4
Secondly, Paul having declared that the law was only
given “till the promised seed should come,” Gal. iii. 19, and
that he being come, we were no longer under the pedagogy of
the law ; that Christians were “dead to the law, through the
body of Christ,” Rom. vii. 4, that it was “evacuated,” 2 Cor.
iii. 11, and they were “loosed from the law, that being dead
wherein they were held,” Rom. vii. 6, that they were re-
deemed from it by Christ, Gal. iv. 5, and ought no more to
be subject to the “yoke of bondage,” or return to those
“beggarly elements,” ver, 9. v. 1, that it was only to con-
tinue to the “time of reformation,” Heb. ix. 10, that “the
priesthood being changed, there was made of necessity, a
change also of the law,” vii. 12, and that “there was a dis-
annulling of the commandment going before, because of the
weakness and unprofitableness of it,” ver. 18, and that God
by speaking of a new covenant, retraxaiwks, “had pro-
nounced the first old ; and that that which decayeth and
waxeth old was ready to vanish away,” viii. 13, and lastly,
that there was to be “a removal of those things which were
shaken,” i.e. of the law given with the shaking of the earth,
xii. 25–27, with many things of a like nature ; that, after
all this, the bishop should so positively say, that “the cove:
nant of grace had not disannulled, but established this old
law,” and speak of it as an absurdity, that those laws of his
should be mutable, which he himself declared were only to
continue “till the promised seed should come,” and “till
the time of reformation,” is matter of just admiration. And,
Thirdly, This is still the infelicity of the assertors of this
doctrine, that the texts they produce for it, considered with
relation to the context, are the fullest confutation of it. For
the apostle is proving, from ver. 14 of this chapter to the
end of the fourth, that “no flesh can be justified by the
works of the law,” ver. 16, and that the justification, which
is of God, is manifested to be “by faith, without the works
of the law,” and he concludes the argument of this chapter
thus, Aoyićassa cºy, “We reckon therefore,” from the pre-
mises, “that a man is justified by faith, without the works
of the law,” ver, 28. Now, can he, who is only justified by
the works of the law accounted as if performed by himself,
w
* Chrysost. + Theod. Theoph.
672
A DISCOURSE ON THE
be justified by faith alone, without the works of the law 2
The ancient commentators here say, }
First, That the apostle, by the word *i-r&sy, “We esta-
blish,” or make the law to stand, shows it to be, xeia.svoy, a.a-
Asvåg.svoy, katax5xupºvoy, “fallen, shaken, and dissolved ;”
and that non evacuat legem clim illam cessare debere jam
docet : + and that “he doth not make void the law by
teaching that it must now cease.” -
Secondly, They give two senses of these words; first, that
he established the law, by establishing the work of the law,
which was biza toy rotical roy &v880mov, “to make man righ-
teous;” for the law being not able to do this through the in-
firmity of the flesh (Rom. viii. 3), subjecting all men to sin,
faith hath performed it, jø05 yag rig #ria-reva's zai #3izatiºn,
“for, as soon as a man believes, he is justified :” so Chry-
sostom, CEcumenius, and Theophylact. *
Thirdly, We establish the law by faith, saith Theodoret,
because the law and the prophets have given in their testi-
mony to the justification by faith, Rom. iii. 21, 22, the law
by giving us the knowledge of sin, ver. 20, the prophets, by
saying, Hab. ii. 4, “The just shall live by faith,” and so be-
coming “our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, who is the end
of the law, si, 8tzaloadwmv, for justification,” Rom x. 4. Gal.
iv. 24; 3exãºsyol rolvvy rºy triarriv 888aiodºsy row vágov, “so
that, by embracing faith, we establish the law,” saith Theo-
doret. And this I conceive to be the truest interpretation of
the text.
Fourthly, The bishop argues from the title of “surety”
given to Christ, Heb. vii. 22. “For,” saith he, p. 90, “a
surety is bound to pay our debt, in case we are insolvent.
Now, there are two things we owe to God, first, obedience to
his laws, as he is our creator and governor ; and, secondly,
and by consequence, the punishment that is annexed to the
breach of those laws of which we are guilty. Now, though
Christ should pay the latter part of our debt for us, by
bearing the pumishment that is due unto us; yet if he did
not pay the former, and principal part of it too, i. e. perform
the obedience which we owe to God, he would not fully have
performed the office of suretyship, which he undertook for
us, and so would be but a half Mediator, and half Saviour.”
Now here it may deserve to be observed,
First, That the bishop cites this passage to prove our
obligation to perform obedience to the old law, from a chap-
ter which expressly teacheth that, “the priesthood being
changed, there was a necessity of the change of the law,”
ver. 12, and that “there was a disannulling of the com-
mandment, by reason of the weakness and unprofitableness
of it. ver. 18, and that “the law made nothing perfect,”
ver. 19.
Secondly, This passage is produced to prove that Christ
was our surety for the performance of the old covenant ;
whereas the text saith expressly, he was “the surety of a
better covenant,” which introduced “a better hope,” ver. 19,
and was “established upon better promises,” viii. 6, even
“a new covemant” opposed to the old, as to that which was
“ready to vanish away ;” and which “through his death”
procured the “remission. of sins, committed under the old
covenant,” ix. 15.
Thirdly, "Eyyvoº, “a sponsor,” say the civilians, is only
one that promiseth for another, and so he is obliged to do
no more for him than he promised: and I have shown
already, that neither could Christ promise to yield perfect
obedience to the law for us, nor could the Father consent
that we should be accounted as obedient to it upon such a
promise. And, lastly, his fancy, that we can stand bound to
yield perfect obedience to the law, so as never to offend ;
and yet to undergo the punishment due to all our transgres-
sions; and that, without doing both, no satisfaction can be
made to justice, and no title to eternal life can be procured,
will be proved false in the ensuing section ; at present, there-
fore, I shall only add, that it seems to me as ridiculous, as to
say a thief cannot satisfy the law by being hanged, unless
he also did yield perfect obedience to the law, which saith,
“Thou shalt not steal.” -
This is all that the bishop hath produced to confirm this
doctrine ; others produce some other arguments from scrip-
ture, which shall here briefly be considered ; as, v. g.
+ Hilar. D.
* Chrys. CEcum, Theophyl.
First, That the apostle teacheth that “as by one man's
(Adam's) disobedience many were made sinners, so by the
obedience of one many shall be made righteous” (Rom. v.
19); but men were made sinners by the disobedience of
Adam imputed to them ; therefore by the active obedience
or righteousness of Christ imputed to us we must be made
righteous.
Ans. This is the only text of scripture which speaks of
the obedience of Christ, and of our being justified, or made
righteous by it, and so hath any true appearance of an ar-
gument ; and yet that it is only an appearance, is evident
from this one consideration, that the apostle, in that whole
chapter, speaketh not one word of the antecedent obedience
of Christ's life, but only of his passive obedience; i.e. his
obedience to the death.
For the apostle having said (iv. 24) that “Christ was de-
livered to death for our sins, and raised again for our justi-
fication:” he adds (v. 1), that, being “justified by this faith”
in Christ's death, “we have peace with God;" he dying “for
sinners, and for the ungodly” (ver. 6. 8), and we “being
justified by his blood,” and “reconciled to God by his
death” (ver. 9, 10), and then follows this comparison, with a
Bià rodro, intimating that it was made upon the account of
our Lord's salutary passion, and ran thus: That as death,
the punishment of sin, passed upon all men, by reason of one
sin of one man ; so, through one righteousness of one Jesus
Christ, the free gift came upon all men to justification of
life (ver. 18), and this justification is, saith the apostle, ix.
Trox\xy Tragartoºzárov, “from many transgressions;” and
what can justification from offences signify, but freedom
from the condemnation due unto us for them 2 now that can
never be obtained for sinners by Christ's active obedience,
for could we, after many offences committed, perform as per-
fect obedience as Christ did, we only could thereby perform
our duty for the future, but could do nothing to procure the
pardon of our past offences. Thirdly, The disobedience by
which many were made sinners, is plainly declared by the
apostle to be one single act of disobedience in Adam, and
therefore the obedience opposed to it cannot in reason be
the active obedience of Christ's whole life, but that obe-
dience to the death which the apostle mentions, Phil ii. 8.
Now, by this passive obedience we cannot be made formally
righteous, but only metonymically, by being made partakers
of that freedom from the guilt and punishment of sin, and
of that reconciliation which Christ hath purchased by his
meritorious death and passion.
Secondly, I answer, that it was not by Adam's active
disobedience imputed to us, that death or condemnation to
it passed upon all men, but by the punishment he suffered
for that disobedience, as will be fully proved hereafter ; for
he being by that disobedience made mortal, and obnoxious
to death, yeyāyaa w ść #xeiyov rávºrs; Syntoi, “all, that were be-
gotten of him, became mortal,” say all the Greek commen-
tators here ; and so by the obedience of Christ to the death
in their stead who were thus obnoxious to death, or by his
suffering that death which was the punishment of sin,
we became justified ; i. e. exempted from that punish-
Iment.
Obj. 2. Secondly, Whereas it is said, Rom. , iii. 3, 4, that
Christ by being “made sin for us,” i. e. a sacrifice for sin,
“condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the
law might be fulfilled in us,” &c., hence some conclude
that Christ's active obedience must be imputed to us; for,
say they, the righteousness of the law can in no sense be said
to be fulfilled, in or by us, but only by Christ's perfect obe-
dience to the law imputed to us.
Ans. The text by no means will admit of this interpreta-
tion. For,
First, The righteousness here mentioned is not to be ful-
filled, #y Xgia’ró, in or by Christ, but Év waſy, by us personally.
Secondly, It is not to be fulfilled by the imputation of
Christ's righteousness to us, but by our “walking in the
Spirit,” for “to be spiritually minded is life,” ver, 6, “and
if through the Spirit we do mortify the deeds of the flesh,
we shall live,” ver. 13, “for as many as are led by the Spirit
of God, they are sons of God,” ver. 14, and, being sons, are
“heirs of God, joint-heirs with Christ, and to be glorified with
him,” ver. 17. Whence it is exceeding evident, that the
righteousness here mentioned is to be fulfilled, not by the
IMPUTATION OF CHRIST's RIGHTEOUSNESS.
673
imputation of the righteousness of another to us, but by our
own obedience performed by the assistance of God's Holy
Spirit, -
SECT. III.
I hope I have returned a sufficient answer to the texts
alleged to prove the necessity of the imputation of Christ's
active and perfect obedience to the law to us for righte-
OllSłleSS.
It remains now that I should propound those arguments
which, in my judgment, seem fully to confute that doctrine,
and they are these, -
Arg. l. (1.) This doctrine is contrary to all those scrip-
tures which expressly say, that faith is imputed to us for
righteousness, and which prove this from the example of
Abraham, the father of the faithfūl ; for they inform us
that “Abraham believed in God, and it (i.e. this faith of his)
was imputed to him for righteousness,” Rom. iv. 3, and ver.
5, that “to him that worketh not, but believeth in him that
justifies the ungodly” (that is, in God the Father, for “it is
God that justifieth,” Rom. viii. 33), “his faith is imputed
to him for justification ;” and ver. 9, “We say then that
faith was imputed to Abraham Big Sikatooivºv, for justification;”
and, ver. 20. 22. “He was strong in faith, giving glory to
God, wherefore it (i. e. this faith) was imputed to him for
justification.” Whence the apostle makes this general con-
clusion, that what the scripture Saith of Abraham, viz. that
his faith was imputed to him for righteousness, “was not
written for his sake alone, but for us also, to whom it (that
is, the like faith) shall be imputed (for righteousness), if we
believe on him who raised up Jesus from the dead” (that is,
on God the Father). In the third chapter of the Epistle
to the Galatians he repeats the same example of the faith
of Abraham, saying, “Abraham believed in God, and it
(i.e. his faith in God) was imputed to him for righteousness”
ver. 6, and thence he makes this inference : “Know, there-
fore, that they who are (the children) of faith, are the sons
of Abraham ;” and ver. 9, that “they who are of faith are
blessed with faithful Abraham :” and ver. 24, he adds, that
“the law was our schoolmaster, to bring us to Christ, that
we might be justified by faith, the scripture foreseeing that
God would justify the gentiles through faith.” Now hence,
First, It is evident that the doctrine of justification by
the very act of faith is expressly and frequently delivered in
the holy scriptures, whereas it hath been proved already,
that the doctrine of the imputation of Christ's active righte-
ousness to us for justification hath no ground in scripture.
Secondly, What interpretation of the apostle's words can
be more uncouth and unsound than this, “Faith is imputed
to us for righteousness;” i. e. it is not faith, but Christ's ac-
tive righteousness, which is imputed to us for righteousness P
Is not this evidently to convert the apostle's affirmative into
a negative, to deny constantly what he as constantly asserts,
and to make him always mean what, in relation to justifica-
tion, he doth never Say? “To him that believeth on him
that justifieth the ungodly, his faith,” saith the apostle, “is
imputed ;” it is not his faith, saith this interpretation, but
Christ's righteousness which is thus imputed. And how
then doth God justify the ungodly, if he only justifies them
who have as true a title to Christ's perfect obedience, as if
they had personally performed it, and upon that account
alone are justified ; can they be styled “the ungodly,” who
are and must be as righteous as Christ was, before they can
be justified ? -
Thirdly, This interpretation cannot possibly agree to the
faith of Abraham ; for it is not only said that “he believed
in God,” not in the righteousness of Christ, but that his faith
was in that “God who quickens the dead, and calleth the
things that are not, as if they were” (ver. 17); “that he was
strong in faith, being fully persuaded, that what God had
promised, he was able to perform.” It therefore is evident,
that it was faith in God's promise, and in his power to per-
form it, by which Abraham was justified. Now what affinity
hath this faith with Christ's obedience to the law, not yet
given, as the apostle argues, Gal. iii. 17, though it hath an
evident affinity with God's promise, of justifying him that
believeth in Jesus, and who believeth “in that God who hath
raised up Jesus from the dead?" (Rom. iv. 24.)
Arg. 2. (2.) This will be farther evident from all those
Gal. iii. 21, 22,
places which show that our justification consists entirely in
the remission of sin, and that to be justified and to be freed
from condemnation, or to have the guilt and punishment of
our sims remitted, are phrases of the same import. This we
may learn,
First, From those arguments by which the apostle proves
that Jew and gentile are to be justified by faith without the
works of the law ; viz. (1.) because both Jew and gentile
lay under sin (Rom. iii. 9), and so both needed to be justi-
fied by faith, or by an act of grace, pardoning their sins,
through faith in Christ (ver. 24); that therefore “by the law
no flesh can be justified, because by the law is the knowledge
of sin,” rendering us obnoxious to condemnation ; where
then there remains the guilt of sin, there can be no justifi-
cation ; where therefore there is a remission of the, guilt of
sin by God, there is our justification. Again, “All have
sinned, saith he, and fallen short of the glory of God,” there-
fore absolution from this sin must be sufficient to make us
obtain this glory of God. We who have thus sinned “are
justified,” saith he, “freely by his grace, through the redemp-
tion which is in Christ Jesus” (ver. 24). Now, what is this
redemption ? It is, saith the apostle twice, “remission of
sins,” Eph. i. 7. Col. i. 14. To the same effect, he saith,
that justification cannot be by the law,
because the law cannot give life ; and this it cannot do, be-
cause the scripture hath “concluded all under sin,” and so
hath shut out that way of being justified : our freedom
therefore from the guilt of sin must be sufficient for our
justification to life. In the fourth chapter to the Romans
he describes that justification in which faith is accounted to
us for righteousness, by the non-imputation and forgiveness
of sin, and proves this from the words of David, saying,
“Blessed is the man, whose iniquity is forgiven, and whose
sin is covered ; blessed is the man to whom the Lord im-
puteth no sin” (ver. 4–8). Since then the blessedness, of
which the apostle there discourseth, is that of justification of
the ungodly by faith ; and since this blessedness is said to
consist in the remission, the covering, the not imputing his
sin to him, it cannot reasonably be denied, that the blessed-
ness of a justified person is here described by the blessedness
of a pardoned person, as being one and the same thing.
Secondly, This will be farther evident from the considera-
tion of the phrases the apostle useth as equivalent to justi-
fication, and interpretative of it. As,
First, Reconciliation to God; that this is the same with
justification, appears by these words, “ Much more, being
justified by his blood, we shahl be saved from wrath by him :
for if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by
the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall
be saved by his life,” Rom. v. 9, 10, where, being justified
by his blood, and being reconciled by his death, seem plainly
the same thing ; now, that reconciliation is effected by the
remission of sins is evident from these words, 2 Cor. W. 19,
“God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not im-
puting their trespasses to them,” and therefore justification
must be so obtained.
Secondly, Justification stands directly opposed to con-
demnation in these words, “Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect 2 ºri; #ywaxéret karū, who shall object a
crime against them 2 It is God that justifieth, who is he
that condemneth them P’’ Rom. viii. 33, 34. And again,
“If the ministration of condemnation,” i. e. the law which
renders us obnoxious to condemnation, “was glorious, much
more the ministration, ºrii, Sikatoa tºwnç, of justification exceeds
in glory:” now, what is it that mankind is accused of, or
charged with by the law, but sin P What do they stand
condemned for at God's bar, but the transgression of his law 2
Justification therefore, which stands opposed to it, must be
a clearing and discharging them from the guilt or the con-
demning power of sin.
Thirdly, Justification is said to be from sin; “By him all
that believe are justified, Éx Trávrov, from all those sins from
which they could not be justified by the law of Moses,” Acts
xiii. 39, and again, “The judgment was from one sin to con-
demnation, but the free gift to justification, #4 Troxxây raga-
orrow&rov, from many sins,” Rom. v. 16. Now, what can
justification from sin signify, besides our absolution from the
guilt of sin 2
Fourthly, The justifying the believer, and the remission of
- 2 X
.: 674,
A DISCOURSE ON THE
his sins, are only different expressions of the same thing, as
is apparent from these words, “God hath justified us freely.
by his grace, having set forth Christ to be the propitiation
for our sins, through faith in his blood, to declare his righte-
ousness in the remission of sins to those who have this faith”
(Rom. xxiii. 24, 25); i.e. to manifest the way of justification
by faith, which he alone admits of for the remission of sins.
Fifthly, “We are justified,” saith the apostle, “through
the redemption that is in Jesus, through faith in his blood,”
Rom. iii. 24, 25, “through his blood,” Rom. v. 9. Now
what doth this blood procure for us? “Remission of sins,”
Eph. i. 7. Col. i. 14, it being “shed for the remission of sins,”
Matt. xxvi. 28. What benefit have believers by it P “He
hath loved them, and washed them from their sins in his own
blood,” Rev. i. 5. “He hath made peace for them by the
blood of the cross,” Col. i. 20, with a God only angry for
sin; he hath obtained eternal redemption from transgressions
by it, Heb. ix. 12. 15, by all which equivalent expressions it
appears that God’s justifying the sinner, in Paul's sense of
the expression, is his absolving him from the guilt of his past
sins, from punishment and condemnation by the law for them,
by an act of grace, and free pardon of them through the
blood of Jesus, his being as fully reconciled to us as if we
never had offended against the former covenant we were all
under, till that new covenant was established in the blood of
Jesus, which promises God would be “merciful to our iniqui-
ties,” and would “remember our sins no more,” Heb. viii. 12.
Now this observation perfectly destroys the imputation of
Christ's active obedience to us for righteousness, since they
who contend for that doctrine do make remission of sins but
one half of justification, and Christ's active obedience im-
puted to us still necessary to procure us a title to eternal life;
and that by the first, p. 72, “God only looks upon us as
perfectly innocent, and therefore not fit to be cast down to
hell; whereas, by the other, he looks upon us as perfectly
righteous, and therefore fit to be brought up to heaven.”
Secondly, These two things are plainly needless and incon-
sistent: for he that is discharged from the guilt of all his
sins must also be discharged from that penal death which is
the wages of sin, and so must, by that freedom, have a title
to life; for, between freedom from condemnation and abso-
lution, freedom from the death due to sin and the gift of life,
in subjects capable of either,” there is no medium. More-
over, either this want of righteousness is our sin, or it is not;
if it be not, then, as it is not our duty to be thus righteous in
order to our justification before God, so neither can we be
under that covenant which saith, “Do this, and live,” nor
can Christ's active obedience be necessary on that account :
if it be our sin, then must the want of it be forgiven by the
remission of all our sins: whereas, if God requires that Christ's
perfect obedience should be imputed to us, the want of it
neither is nor can be forgiven, since then God must impute
that as sin, to us. And hence ariseth a third argument
against the imputation of Christ's active and perfect obedi-
ence to us for justification, viz.
Arg, 3. (3.) That it renders the death of Christ to pro-
cure the remission of our sins vain, and that upon many
accounts.
First, Because the perfect righteousness of Christ, im-
puted to us, doth render his death unnecessary to procure
any farther righteousness or justification in our behalf; for,
if by virtue of this imputation we be as righteous as Christ
was in his life, there can be no more need that Christ should
die for us, than that he should die for himself, or any other
should die for him; yea, then Christ, dying only for the bene-
fit of believers, could not have died for the unjust, but only
for the just, i. e. for them for whom there could be no neces-
sity that he should die, but only that he should live for them ;
seeing faith in him as a Mediator, performing perfect obedi.
ence to the law for them, must make them persons for whom
there could be no necessity that he should die, but only that
he should live for them ; seeing faith in him as a Mediator,
performing perfect obedience to the law for them, must make
them for whom he thus obeyed perfectly obedient, and there-
fore must have given them a full title to the promise, “Do
this, and live.” Add to this, that perfect obedience is unsin-
ning obedience, and sure there can be no necessity that Christ
* Inter privativa opposita non datur medium.
|
should die for the sins of them who by his life had performed
unsinning obedience. To strengthen this argument, consider
that Christ performed his active obedience to the law en-
, tirely before he suffered for our sins; and so this righteous-
ness, being first performed and purchased for us, should be
first imputed, and made over to us; and might, for anything
I can perceive to the contrary, have been imputed to all that
believed in him before he actually suffered ; yea, to all such
persons, though he had returned to heaven without dying.
For seeing nothing more can be required to a perfect justifi.
cation from the condemnation of the law than a perfect
righteousness, i. e. a perfect fulfilling of the law, there could
be no need of satisfaction made to divine justice, for any
violations of it, since that must necessarily suppose that law
not perfectly fulfilled by Christ upon their account. *
Secondly, According to this doctrine there remains no
place for the remission of sins to believers, for God neither
did nor could forgive any sin in Christ, because he was per-
fectly righteous, “and in him was no sin ;” if then believers
be righteous, with the same righteousness imputed to them
with which Christ was righteous, they must be as completely
righteous as Christ was, and so have no more sin to be par-
doned than he had, and so no more need to be pardoned
than he had ; whereas the apostle saith that “if we (Chris-
tians) sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ
the righteous ; and he is the propitiation for our sins” (l
John ii. 1): thus doth that doctrine destroy Christ's inter.
cession for us, according to the words now cited ; and also
the necessity of his salutary passion, according to those words
of Paul, “If righteousness (i.e. justification) come by the
law, then Christ is dead in vain:” for if righteousness cannot
come by the law, it cannot come by Christ's perfect obedi-
ence to the law ; but if it can, then the apostle's inference is
plainly this, that “Christ is dead in vain,” i. e. there could
be no necessity of his dying upon this account, that we had
personally transgressed the law, since he who hath a righte-
ousness, or an obedience to the law, imputed to him, as per-
fect as was that of Christ, can be no more condemned for
transgressing the law than Christ himself.
Thirdly, According to this doctrine God can see no sin in
believers; for certain it is, he saw no sin in Christ: if then
believers be righteous, with a righteousness as perfect as
Christ's was, imputed to them, he can see no more sin in them
than he beheld in Christ.
Fourthly, This doctrine renders it unnecessary for a be-
liever to repent, at least, of sins committed after he truly
hath believed : for our repentance must suppose an antece-
dent failure, since that time, in our obedience ; whereas,
there being no such failure in the active obedience of Christ,
if that, by imputation, be made as much and truly the obe-
dience of believers as if they personally had performed it,
there can be no failure in the obedience of a believer, and so
no place for his repentance. The perfect obedience which
Christ performed to the law, was the reason why he needed
no repentance; if then, through faith, it be as much theirs
by imputation as if they personally had performed it, must
it not be equally a reason why they need no repentance 3
Lastly, The assertors of this doctrine say, Christ's perfect
obedience must be imputed to believers, that they may have
a just title to eternal life by virtue of this precept, “Do this,
and live:” this title he who is a sinner, i. e. a violater of the
law, requiring perfect obedience, can never have ; and there-
fore he who needs repentance cannot have it, that being only
needful for the remission of sins, and that we may live and
not die.
Arg. 4. (4.) This doctrine renders it unnecessary to have
any personal inherent righteousness; for as Christ's passive
obedience, sustained in our stead, makes it unnecessary, if
not unjust, that we should personally suffer any punishment
for the remission of those sins which render us obnoxious to
death ; so in like manner must Christ's active and perfect
obedience to the law, imputed to us, render it as unnecessary
that we should personally be righteous, by doing righteous-
ness, that we may live ; for if we can be as righteous as
Christ was without doing righteousness, sure we need not be
more than so: yea, then we may have a title to life eternal,
without any inherent righteousness; and so there can be no
need of “having our fruit unto holiness,” that the end may
be eternal life.
IMPUTATION OF CHRIST'S RIGHTEOUSNESS.
675
* The good bishop saw the absurdity of a consequence so
obstructive of all practical Christianity, and so plainly excus-
ing all men from any necessity of living “righteously, soberly,
and godly, in this present world:” he therefore saith, p. 89,
“I believe the active obedience of Christ will stand me in no
stead, unless I endeavour after sincere obedience in my per-
son ; his active as well as his passive obedience being im-
puted to none but only to them who apply it to themselves
by faith, which faith will certainly put such as are possessed
with it upon obedience.” Where the bishop did well to
deny the conclusion, seeing the consequence was so evident
from his own words that he could not formally deny it ; for
if, as he saith, p. 86, “Christ covenanted to perform those
duties which were due from man to God, provided what he
thus did should wholly be put on the account of man ; and
the Father was pleased to consent to this motion:” can the
Father, after this consent, require that man himself should
perform all or any of those duties to God which Christ
already had performed on his account P If, as he saith, p.
87, “Christ performed that obedience only on the account of
those whose nature he had assumed, as they, by faith, lay
hold upon it ; and God, by grace, imputes this obedience to
them, as if it had been performed by them in their own per-
sons:” can God require that, after Christ's performance of
it perfectly, they should imperfectly perform the same again?
Or, after the imputation of Christ's perfect obedience to them,
as fully as if they had performed it personally, require that
they should perform it personally P. When Christ, “by his
obedience imputed to them, hath entitled them to eternal
life;” as he saith, p. 88; can it be still necessary that they
should have their fruit unto holiness, that the end may be
eternal life? (Rom. vi. 22) when, as he saith, p. 89, under
the new covenant, “obedience in our surety is accepted as
completely sufficient;” can personal obedience be required
of us by the same covenant?
To say, that “faith will put the person that is possessed
of it upon obedience to God,” is nothing to the purpose ;
for the question is, not what faith will do, but what he is
obliged to do, who by this faith is as much entitled to
Christ's perfect obedience, as if it had been personally per-
formed by him; and what God, after this perfect obedience
imputed to him, can require him to do, in order to that eter-
nal life which this perfect obedience imputed hath given
him a certain title to, whether it be necessary for him, after
this, “by patient continuance in well-doing, to seek for glory
and immortality, that he may have eternal life,” and,
“through the Spirit, to mortify the deeds of the flesh, that
he may live;”; and to “live righteously, soberly, and godly,
in this present world, that he may comfortably expect the
blessed hope.”: I conclude then in the words of the be-
loved apostle, Good Christians, “let no man deceive you,”
not he who applies Christ's active righteousness to himself,
though he never did it, but “he that doeth righteousness is
righteous, even as he (i. e. Christ) is righteous.”$
Arg. 5. (5.) It is a thing impossible, that, by the obe-
dience of another imputed to us, we can obtain a title to
the life promised by that law, which saith, “Do this, and live.”
1. Because the law requires personal obedience that we
may live, by saying, “The man that doeth these things shall
live by (doing) them ;” and this the bishop grants by saying,
p. 89, “The obedience the old covenant required as abso-
lutely necessary, was that of our own persons;” whereas the
obedience of another cannot be our personal obedience, nor
can it be imputed to us but by the relaxation of the law,
which requires of us personal obedience; and so our per-
sonal obedience, which is the only thing required by the law,
must be remitted, that we may be made righteous with the
righteousness of another. To make this farther evident, let
it be noted, that men do generally mistake, when they say
Christ, by his sufferings in our stead, made satisfaction to the
Jaw, which said, “In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt
die the death :” this he could not possibly do, because the
law expressly saith, “The soul that sinneth he shall die;” and
only threatened death to the person that violates the law.
He indeed made a satisfaction to divine justice, by suffering,
in our stead, that death which justice might have personally
* Rom. ii 7.
† Tit. ii. 12, 13.
+ Chap. viii. 13.
1 John iii. 7.
| inflicted upon us ; but then this admission of another to
suffer in our stead is a full relaxation of that law, which
required us personally to suffer, and an entire remission of
the punishment the law required of us personally; and so it
is also in this case. -
2. Because the law requires unsinning obedience, saying,
“Cursed is the man that continueth not in all things written
in the law to do them,” not promising any pardon to the sin-
ner; so that, unless Christ's righteousness imputed to us can
make us never to have been sinners, and so never to have
needed forgiveness of sin, it cannot afford us a legal righteous-
ness. Hence the apostle saith, “ Christ hath redeemed us
from the curse of the law,” not by his continuance in all
things written in the law to do them, but by suffering the
punishment which the law threatened to offenders, to wit,
by being hanged on the tree. -
Arg. 6. (6.) This doctrine partly answers and partly con-
futes all the arguments which the apostle useth in his
Epistles to the Romans and the Galatians, to prove that
justification must be by faith only, and not at all by the
works of the law. For, • *
First, This doctrine destroys that argument of Paul, by
which he proves, that no man can be justified by the works
of the law, because all men have sinned, and therefore stand
condemned by the law of works; affording a full answer to
it by saying, that though we could not be thus justified by our
own personal obedience, we might be justified by Christ's
active obedience imputed to us, that being perfect obedience
to the law.
Secondly, Whereas neither the apostle nor the holy scrip-
ture Saith, that Christ was righteous or obedient to the law
for us, or that by his obedience to the law imputed to us we
are made legally righteous, but absolutely denies that righte-
ousness could have been by the law, because the law could
not give life: “for,” saith Paul, Gal. iii. 21, “had there
been a law which could have given life, verily righteousness
(i.e. justification to life) should have been by the law :” this
doctrine, plainly contradicts those words of the apostle, by
introducing a necessity of perfect obedience to the law, that
we may live ; and contending that we must be entitled to
eternal life, according to the tenor of that law, which saith,
“Do this, and live,” p. 88, 89.
Thirdly, Whereas this doctrine makes it necessary that
the reward should be of works as well as of grace, yea, of the
works of that law which saith, “Do this, and live;” Paul
puts these things in an absolute opposition to each other:
and represents the one as entirely destructive of the other.
“I'or,” saith he, “to him that worketh, a reward is not
reckoned, x27& xàºw, &AA& kará rà épsiAnºa, of grace, but of
debt; but to him that worketh not, but believeth in him that
justifies the ungodly, his faith (without works) is imputed for
righteousness, even as David speaketh of the blessedness of
the man to whom the Lord imputetn righteousness, xopic
#yov, without works” (Rom. iv. 4–6); whereas God can-
not impute justification or righteousness to any without
works, if he impute it to them only to whom Christ's
perfect works of righteousness belong : nor can this righ-
teousness be “ of grace, through faith,” and “not of
debt,” if it belongs to them only who are “debtors to
fulfil the whole law ;” since the apostle saith expressly,
that they who are thus debtors to fulfil the law, or sought
for justification by fulfilling it, are “fallen from grace’
(Gal. v. 4): nor can it be here said that they were not in-
deed debtors to fulfil it personally, but only to have that
obedience by which Christ fulfilled it imputed to them: for
the apostle saith, in the immediate preceeding words, “Christ
is become of none effect to you, whosoever of you are seeking
to be justified by the law;” whereas he could not be of none
effect to them, who was the only person by whom they were
enabled to perform that law to their justification. Again, the
apostle puts this plain difference betwixt that righteous-
ness which is by faith, and by the works of the law, that
the first requires only believing from the heart to salvation ;
the second requires works excluding grace, by saying, “He
that doeth, these things shall live by (doing) them" (Rom.
x. 5. 9, 10); whence he argues thus, that “if justification
be of grace, it is not of works, otherwise grace is no more
* Gal. iii. 10.
2 X 2
676
A DISCOURSE ON THE
grace ; and, if it be of works, it is not of grace, otherwise
work is no more work " (Rom. xi. 6).
Fourthly, This doctrine flatly contradicts all the places in
which the apostle positively asserts, that “by the works of
the law can no man be justified, but by faith only, or by
faith without the works of the law ;” as Rom. iii. 20. 22.
24; for, if a man be justified by the righteousness of Christ
imputed to him, he must be justified by the works of the
law, because the active obedience of Christ * as truly
in the performance of those works, as our own personal
righteousness would have done. Moreover, if the righteous-
mess of God consisted in the imputation of Christ's legal
righteousness, it could not be manifested, as the apostle Saith
it is, “without the works of the law ;” because, to such a
righteousness, the works of the law are plainly necessary.
So again, when he saith, Gal. ii. 16, “Knowing that a
man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith
of Jesus Christ, even we ourselves have believed in Christ,
that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by
the works of the law :” doth not this doctrine contradict
these words, by teaching that we are to be justified by the
works of the law performed by Christ, and imputed to us,
as if we personally had performed them 2 For Christ's per-
formance of them alters not the nature and property of the
works, they being still the works of the law, whosoever doeth
them : and so he that is justified by them, done by another
in his stead, must be still justified by the works of the law.
Note also here, that the apostle doth not say a man is
not justified by the works of the law, but by the works of
Jesus Christ, or not by the works of the law, as performed
by us, but only as performed by Christ; but on the contrary
saith, “We have believed that we might be justified by faith
in Christ, and not by the works of the law,” excluding the
works of the law from justification by faith in Christ; where-
as this doctrine makes faith entitle us to the works of the
law, performed by Christ, and made over to us for our justi-
fication. º
Thirdly, When the apostle argues thus, “That no man is
justified by the works of the law is manifest, because the
scripture saith, The just shall live by faith, but the law is
not of faith,” i. e. it speaks nothing of, and promiseth no
justification to any man by faith, but only saith, “The man
that doeth these things (which are required of him by the
law) shall live by (doing) them " (Gal. iii. 11, 12): doth
not that doctrine fully contradict these words, which saith,
The man that is justified by faith must do the things re-
quired by the law, that he may live, and must have a true
title to a perfect observance of the law, in order to that
end ?
Fourthly, When the apostle saith, “If they who are (ob-
servers) of the law be heirs (with faithful Abraham, who was
justified by faith) faith is made void,” as being insufficient to
justify us without the observation of the law (Rom. iv. 14):
doth not this doctrine say also, that faith is insufficient to
justify us, without the observation of the law, and so as
plainly make void justification by faith ? Doth it not also
make them heirs who are observers of the law, as having
life by virtue of a legal righteousness imputed to them, as
fully as if it had been personally performed by them 2
And though these things are so clear that they need no
farther confirmation, yet may it here be noted, that whereas
not one of these scriptures can be wrested from the plain
sense they literally bear, or from asserting that no justifica-
tion can be had by the works of the law, but by this distinc-
tion, that true indeed it is, that no justification can be had
by the works of the law, personally performed by us, but it
may be had by the perfect obedience of Christ imputed to
us; the apostle, throughout this whole discourse against jus-
tification by the works of the law, never gives the least hint
of this distinction: and whereas the bishop places the better
half of justification, to wit, that which gives us a title to
eternal life, in this perfect righteousness of Christ imputed
to us by faith, the apostle mentious not one word of this in
either of his epistles, but in both sums up the matter so as
plainly to demonstrate that he meant no such thing. For in
his Epistle to the Romans,” he thus concludes, ri ośy £otºsy;
“What is it then that we say ? (even this,) That Israel fol-
* Rom. ix. 29, &c.
| Iowing after the law of righteousness hath not attained to the
law of righteousness, because they sought it not by faith, but
as (if) it were (to be obtained) by the works of the law.”
Now, might they not, according to this doctrine, that the
works of the law, performed by Christ, are upon our faith
imputed to us for righteousness, as truly as if they had been
personally performed by us, have sought it both by faith and
by the works of the law P In his Epistle to the Galatians,”
he concludes thus, “Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty
(from the observance of the law to justification) in which
Christ hath made you free, and be not again entangled in
the yoke of bondage: behold, I testify to you, that, if you
be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing;” mark the
reason, ver. 3, “For every one that is circumcised is a
debtor to the whole law :” whence the argument runs thus:
Him that is a debtor to do the whole law, Christ will profit
nothing; but (saith the bishop) every Christian is a debtor
to perform the whole law, for what else can be the import of
these words, p. 89, “The old covenant which saith, Do this,
and live, Lev. xviii. 5, is not disamnulled, but rather estab-
lished by the covenant of grace, especially as to the obedi-
ence it requires from us in order to the life it promiseth 2"
therefore (according to the apostle) Christ can profit him
nothing. Now, how could the apostle have made this in-
ference, had he believed, as the bishop did, that even faith
itself could profit us nothing without entitling us to that obe-
dience which the law requires from us, as performed by
Christ our Surety : surely this doctrine saith, in full contra-
diction to Paul, that nothing but Christ's active obedience can
profit us as to the life which the law promiseth, and that for
this very reason, that we are still debtors to perform the whole
law. In fine, the great indignation of the Jews against the
apostles, for teaching the doctrine of justification by faith, was
this, that by it he made void the law as to justification ; but
had he only sought it in the sense of the bishop, he had,
as the bishop contends, “not disannulled, but rather had
established the law,” even as to justification of life, and so
must rather have ingratiated himself with, than so incensed
the Jews against him ; since then he must have said what
would have been highly acceptable to them, viz. that their
law was still of a perpetual and necessary obligation even in
order to justification, and that Christ himself had so estab-
lished it, as to enable both us and them to yield perfect obe-
dience to it, in order to that life it promised. -
Arg. 7. (7.) The apostle saith expressly, Rom. iii. 24,
that “we are justified freely by God’s grace, through the
redemption that is in Christ Jesus,” i. e. through the remis-
sion of sins purchased by his blood, for “we have redemp-
tion through his blood, even the remission of sins,” Eph. i.
7. Col. i. 14, and ver. 25, that “God hath set forth Christ as
a propitiation through faith in his blood, that he might be
the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus ;” and v. 9, that
“we are justified by his blood, and reconciled to God by his
death;” ver. 10, that “Christ hath redeemed us from the
curse of the law,” by suffering that death the law pro-
nounced accursed, Gal. iii. 11, that Christ “entering once
into the holy place, by his blood hath purchased eternal re-
demption for us,” Heb. ix. 12; and that, through Christ's
will to suffer for us, “we are sanctified through the offering
of the body of Christ,” Heb. x. 10, ascribing our justifica-
tion, our reconciliation to God, our propitiation, our redemp-
tion from the curse of the law, our eternal redemption, our
sanctification in the sacrificial sense, i. e. our freedom from
the guilt of sin, for which alone we can be condemned to
die, to the death and blood of Christ. Now all this, Saith
the bishop, p. 90, “makes him but a half Mediator, or
half Saviour;” this indeed, says he, frees us from death, but
gives us no title to etermal life. “Hence it is,” saith he,
“that I cannot look upon Christ as having made full satis-
faction to God's justice for me, unless he had performed the
obedience I owe to God's laws, as well as borne the pun-
ishment that is due to my sins,” &c., p. 88 ; so that, ac-
coding to the bishop, Christ cannot have redeemed us from
the curse of the law, by his death for us, or by his blood
have obtained eternal redemption for us, that being certainly
redemption from dying for ever, or 476*57;24 tº rā; ºr:tº-
a soc, * redemption of life,” Eph. ii. 14. And, if our Sa-
* Gal. v. 1, 2.
IMPUTATION OF CHRIST'S HIGHTE() USN ESS.
677
viour's blood and passion gives to believers no title to eter-
mal life, why doth the apostle say that “we have freedom
to enter into heaven by the blood of Jesus” (Heb. x. 19),
and that “by his death,” undergone for the redemption of
transgressions, “we receive the promise of an eternal in-
heritance?” (Heb. ix. 15.) Moreover, when God justifies
from the guilt of sin, i. e. from transgressing the law, what
charge can the law lay against us, as having not performed
what it required? Can God be propitious, and fully reconciled
to us by the blood shed for us, and yet exclude us from his
blissful presence 2 Can Christ have “brought us nigh to
God, and made him at peace with us through the blood
of the cross” (Eph. ii. 13. 15), and yet exclude us from the
glory of God, who, having peace with him, “rejoice in the
glory of God?” (Rom. v. 1, 2.)
Arg. 8. (8.) This doctrine renders it impossible that God
should make a covenant of grace with man, and consc-
quently asserts that Christians must be under the same
obligations as ever to perform the covenant of works, and
this the bishop, p. 89, not only asserts, but contends for.
For, how can a man be more under the law, and under the
covenant of works, than by being under the obligation to do
all that the covenant of works requires, and to yield perfect
obedience to the law, that he may be accounted righteous
before God P whereas the apostle saith expressly, “We are
not under the law, but under grace,” Rom. vi. 1; that
3.xaloa ſyn, “justification, is by faith, that it might be of
grace,” Rom. iv. 16, that “we are justified freely by the
grace of God,” not through the active obedience, but “through
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,” i. e. through the
remission of sins procured by his blood; that “by grace we
are saved through faith, not of works,” Eph. ii. 8, and, in
fine, that “if justification be by grace, then is it not of works,”
Rom. xi. 6.
And this is still more evident from this consideration, that
this doctrine plainly makes both the covenants the same;
for, where the parties covenanting are the same, the thing
covenanted for is the same, if the conditions of the co-
venants be the same, the covenants must be the same :
now here it is certain that the persons covenanting, to wit,
God and man, are the same; the thing covenanted for, life
and acceptance with God, is the same; if then the condi-
tion of both, “Do this, and live,” be the same (which is the
thing asserted, p. 89), the covenants themselves must be the
Saſſlé.
Nor is it material to answer here in the bishop's words,
that the condition of the first covenant was this, “Do this in
your own persons, and live;” the condition of the new only,
“Do this by yourself, or by your surety, and live;” for even
this disjunctive was also contained in the first covenant, or
it was not ; if it was, then the condition of the first co-
Venant could be only that which is said to have been the con-
dition of the second also, i. e. Do this by thyself, or by
another, and live ; if it were not, then the doing this by
another could not make us legally righteous; because “the
law required this obedience in our own persons,” saith the
bishop, p. 89, “as absolutely necessary;” and so Christ's obe-
dience to the law imputed to us, but not performed by us,
could not fulfil that law, which only saith, “Do this in
your own persons and live.” And evident it is, that the al-
lowing another to do that duty for me, or in my stead,
which I owe personally to God, is as truly an exempting
me from doing that duty in my own person, as the allowing
another to suffer the punishment due to my sins in my
stead is an exempting me from suffering that punishment in
my own person. And had the bishop attended to his own
words, he would have seen this consequence; for his argu-
ment, p. 82, “That one man can merit by that which an-
other performs is a plain contradiction; for, in that he merits
it is as necessarily inplied that he himself acts that by which
he is said to merit; but in that he depends upon another's
action, it is as necessarily implied that he himself doth
not do that by which he is said to merit,” by changing the
word merit into obey, runs thus, That one person can obey
the law by the obedience which another performs, is a plain
contradiction; for, in that he obeys, it is as necessarily sup-
posed that he himself doth that by which he is said to obey;
but, in that he depends on the obedience of another for the
performing that which the law requires of him, it is as neces-
sarily supposed that he himself doth not do that by which he
is said to obey the law. -
Arg. 9. (9.) As the foundation of this imputation is pre-
carious, there being no evidence in scripture of such a co-
venant as is here mentioned, p. 36, but only a command laid
upon Christ, that he should “lay down his life for his sheep;”
so is there in the scripture no such notion of imputation as is
here supposed. For, *
1. Wheresoever this phrase occurs affirmatively, that such
a thing was imputed to such a person, it is some personal ac-
tion or thing which is thus said to be thus imputed: as when
it is said, Rom. ii. 26, “If the uncircumcision (i.e. the uncir-
cumcised person) keep the righteousness of the law, his un-
circumcision eiç regitogºv Aoya Shastat, shall be accounted
for circumcision;” i.e. he shall be as well accepted, as if
he was circumcised : so Rom. iv. 3, “Abraham believed
God, and it (that is, his faith) was imputed to him for
righteousness:” for so it is explained, ver. 5, in these words,
“To him that worketh not, but believeth, his faith is im-
puted to him for righteousness;” and, ver. 9, “We say that
faith was imputed to Abraham for righteousness:” so also,
Gal. iii. 6. James ii. 23, and of our faith in him who raised
Christ from the dead, it is said, Rom. iv.24, “It shall be im-
puted to us for righteousness.”
I also add, that the righteousness of one cannot be truly
thus imputed to another by him who speaks of things as they
really are. God indeed may and often doth good to one, es-
pecially in temporals, for the righteousness of another, as he
did to the Jews for the sake of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
and at the prayer of Moses and Aaron, in which sense, saith
James, “the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous man
availeth much,” v. 16; he also showeth mercy to the poste-
rity of them that fear him, for their parents' sake, but he
neither doth nor truly can Aoyićic Sai, reckon or repute them
righteous, because Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or their pa-
rents, were so ; because, as sin, so righteousness is a per-
sonal action or a habit inherent in the subject that doth it.
And, therefore, to remove the common instances which are
usually produced with relation to this matter, I add, as the
conclusion of what I shall offer on this subject,
Lastly, That in the holy scripture there is no mention of
the imputation of any man's sin or righteousness to an-
other, but only of the imputation of his own good deeds
for righteousness, or of his evil deeds for punishment. And
therefore I say,
First, That it cannot be truly affirmed, that we all sinned
in Adam, and by his disobedience were made sinners, be-
cause his sin and disobedience were imputed to us: for I
have shown already, that the scripture nowhere maketh
the least mention of anything of any other's imputed to us,
but only of some personal thing or action of our own, ac-
counted to us for reward or punishment. Moreover, this
imputation either makes the sin of Adam truly ours, or it
doth not; if it doth not, how can we be made sinners by it 2
if it doth, then death came upon us for our own sin, and so
not for the sin of one, but for the sin of all: whereas the
apostle saith expressly, that death came upon us, tº rod Évº;
"ragarrºzart, “by the sin of one,” Rom. v. 15, 17, 8,
#yā; 3pxaprhaavros, “by one man simming,” ver. 16, and 3' 8vº;
Traparrºzavoc, “by the offence of that one man,” ver. 18.
Thirdly, I ask, whether this imputation made the posterity
of Adam sinners, or whether it found them so before ? if
it found them so before, it must be plainly needless, see-
ing then they might have been condemned to death with-
out it : if it made them so, then since this imputation is
the act of God, and not of man, it plainly follows that God
must be the author of that sin; because this imputation
flows immediately from him, without the intervention of any
action on the part of any of those men to whom it is im-
puted : moreover, then the imputation must be false, as
charging them with sin, whom he did not find sinners, but
only by his arbitrary imputation made them so., . Now far
be it from any Christian to assert that God should falsely im-
pute sin to any man. In a word, Aoyićaša, imputare, is
to reckon or account anything to any man, to charge him
with it, or lay the charge of it to him; this therefore on
God's part must suppose, in the very nature of it, some
action done by the posterity of Adam, which is blamewor-
thy, and may be justly charged upon them, before there can
678
PREFACE TO THE
be any ground for imputation of it; and this shows that it
is impossible that this imputation should be the very thing
that renders them blameworthy, or persons worthy to be
charged with guilt; and yet, if the sin of Adam become ours
only by imputation, it must be ours only because it is by
God imputed to us, and not imputed because it is ours;
that is, God by this imputation must make us sinners, and
not find us such ; for this imputation is the action of the
judge, and not of the supposed criminal; remove or take
away this action, and no crime can be charged upon him.
In fine, if the sin of Adam becomes ours only by imputa-
tion, it deserves condemnation only by the same imputation,
that is, by the action of God; that therefore we deserve con-
demnation for it, is to be ascribed directly to the action of
God, and only by accident to the action of Adam. Whence,
therefore, is our destruction, according to this opinion, but of
God, who makes us worthy of condemnation, by imputing
to us that sin which by his imputation only we stand guilty
of P
Secondly, It cannot be truly affirmed that our sins were
so imputed to Christ, when he became our surety, as that
he became partaker of the guilt of them, but only so, as
that he suffered the punishment which was due unto us for
them, it being absolutely necessary, not only in the case
of Christ, but of all vicarial punishments, to separate the
punishment from the guilt; for though a man may become
obnoxious to the punishment or sufferings of another by an
innocent consent, he can never partake of the guilt of an-
other's action but by a criminal consent unto it ; and so far
as he suffers for that action of him, he becomes guilty by this
criminal consent, he suffers for his own sin, because that con-
sent made the sin his own; whence in such cases he suffers
not as a substitute, but as a party. Seeing then our blessed
Lord could not be guilty of any criminal consent to any of
our actions, it is impossible that he should contract the
guilt of sin by his consent to suffer for us; when therefore
the prophet saith,” that God “laid on him the iniquity of us
all,” we are to understand this only of the punishment, or the
chastisement of our sin ; and to extend this farther, and
£ay, with some, that, by his consent thus to suffer, he suffered
for those sins which he had truly made his own, is not only
false for the forementioned reason, but is contrary to the
* Isa, liii.
whole tenor of the scripture, which saith negatively that he
was “such a high priest, who was holy, undefiled, separate
from sinners, and who needed not to offer up sacrifices for his
own sins;” that “he was in all things like to us, x&pi; &#4a:-
riac, sin only excepted ;” that we “are redeemed by the
precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without spot or ble-
mish;” that “he did no sin,” that “he knew no sin,” that
“he suffered, the just for the unjust :” and affirmatively,
that he died not for his own, but for our sins; that “he Suf-
fered for our sins, according to the scriptures ;" he suffered
“for the sins of the unjust ;” he was “the propitiation for
our sins,” and “made reconciliation for the sins of the peo-
ple.” + In a word, this assertion borders upon blasphemy;
for if Christ made all our iniquities his own, he made himself
as guilty and as great a sinner as were all the sinners for
whose sake he suffered. Nor is it any refuge here to say he
was the greatest sinner only by imputation of sin to him, not
by commission of sin personally : for as the righteousness of
God cannot impute sin to him who did no sin, and gave no
criminal consent to the sin of others; or whom he doth not
first look upon as a sinner and a guilty person; so is it not con-
sistent with the virtue, the intent, and mature of our Saviour's
sufferings, that God should look upon him as a sinner, and a
guilty person ; for then he must have looked upon him as
one who deserved to die for his own sin, or as one guilty of
death, and then his death could have made no satisfaction for
the sin of others; yea, then he must have suffered death, not
for our sins, as they were ours, but as they were his own by
imputation ; whereas the scripture always saith he suffered
death for our sins, but never for his own by imputation or
inhesion. I conclude, therefore, in the words of Bishop Da-
venant; and Dr. Outram,S “That Christ was willing so far
to take our sins upon him, non ut inde peccator, sed hostia
pro peccato constitueretur; not as to be made a sinner, but
only a sacrifice for sin by and for them.”
* Heb. vii. 26, 27. iv. 15. 1 Pet. i. 19. ii. 21. 24. 2 Cor.
v. 21. 1 Pet. iii. 18.
+ 1 Cor. xv. 3. 1 Pet. iii. 18. Heb. vii. 27.
i: Dav. de Just. Habit. p. 333.
§ Quae mala corpori illius inerant, ea non ipsa vitia nostra
seu peccata propriè dicta, sed quae passim in Sacris literis
peccata appellari Solent, peccatorum nostrorum poenae erant.
Outr. lib. ii. cap. 5, sect. 9. -
SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANs,
WITH AN NOTATIONS.
P. R. E. F. A. C. E.
THAT this epistle was written a year after the first is pro-
bably collected from these words, ix. 2, “Achaia was ready
a year ago ;” for he having given instructions for that coi-
lection he in these words refers to, only at the close of his
First Epistle, they could not have the forwardness there
mentioned before that time. Now that the First Epistle was
written early in the year 55, or 57, appears from these words
in it, “I will stay at Ephesus till pentecost” (xvi. 8): for
he stayed some considerable time in Asia after his purpose to
leave Ephesus and go to Macedonia (Acts is. 21, 23), and
yet making here his apology for not wintering at Corinth, as
*.
he thought to do (1 Cor. xvi. 6), this epistle must be writ
after winter, and so when a new year was begun. It there-
fore seems to be written after his second coming to Macedonia,
mentioned Acts xx. 3, for (1.) it was written after he had
been at Troas, and had left that place to return to Macedo-
nia ; now that was at his second going thither: see note on
ii. 12. (2.) It was written when Timothy was with him ;
now when he left Ephesus to go into Macedonia Timothy
went not with him, but was sent before him (Acts xix. 22),
but at his second going through Macedonia, Timothy was
with him (Acts xx. 4). (3.) He speaks of some Macedoni-
ans that were like to coine with him, ix. 4; now, at his se-
cond going from Macedonia, there accompanied him Aristar-
chus, Secundus, and Gaius of Thessalonica, the metropolis
CHAPTER I.
6.79
And (4.) the postscript saith, as instant, xiii. 1, and that which he was now ready to do,
of Macedonia (Acts xx. 4).
this epistle was written from Philippi, as we find it in Theo-
xii. 14, and did, saith Dr. Lightfoot, in his journey from Phi-
doret and CEcumenius, where St. Paul was till the days of lippi to Troas, he sailing about from Philippi to Corinth, to
unleavened bread (Acts xx. 6). It therefore seems to be
make good his promise, whilst the rest that were with him
sent from thence to them by Titus, and some other person, | (Acts xx. 4) went directly the next cut to Tróas, and there
not long before Paul's coming to them, which he speaks of waited for him.
CHAPTER I.
1, PAUL, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of
God, and "Timothy our brother, to the church of God
which is at Corinth, with all the saints which are in
all Achaia (see note on 1 Cor. i. 1):
2 * Grace be (given) to you, and peace from God our
Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
3 Blessed be God, even (our God and ) * the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and
the God of all comfort;
4 Who comfortethus in all our tribulations (by that
inward peace and earnest of the Spirit he gives under
them), that we may be able to comfort them which are
in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves
are comforted of God (God’s servants never wanting his
comforts under all their sufferings).
5 For as the “sufferings of Christ abound in us, so
° Our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.
6 And whether we be afflicted, it is for your conso-
lation and salvation, which is effectual (Gr. wrought)
in (or by ) the enduring the same sufferings which we
also suffer (and which by our example you are encou-
raged to endure); or whether we be comforted, it is for
your consolation and salvation, (which is accomplished
by your patient perseverance under all your sufferings,
to which patience you are animated by the eaſperience of
that consolation God affords his servants under all their
sufferings, Matt. v. 12. xxiv. 13. 2 Cor. iv. 17. 2 Tim.
ii. 11, 12. James i. 12).
7 And our hope of you is stedfast, knowing, that as
you are partakers of the sufferings (we endure, 1 Cor.
x. 13), so shall ye be also of the consolation (we enjoy
ān all our sufferings:
8 Our sufferings, I say,) for we would not, brethren,
have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in
Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above
strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life:
9 But we (therefore) had the sentence of death in
ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but
in God that raiseth the dead:
10 Who (then) delivered us * from so great a death,
and (daily) doth deliver (us), in whom we trust that
he will yet deliver us;
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I.
* Ver. 1. Kai Tºš0so: § 38;xqº, And Timotheus a brother.]
I have observed, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, that it is usual
with St. Paul to call Timothy his brother (Col. i. 1. 1 Thess.
iii. 2. Philem. 1. Heb. xiii. 23), and this he probably did,
that he might not be despised for his youth, as he intimates
he might be, l Tim. iv. 12, eight years after the writing of this
epistle, this being written A. D. 57, that to Timothy A. D.
65.
* Ver, 2, X&gt; kai siężyn, Grace and peace.] May that
grace and favour of God on which your salvation and happi-
ness depend (Tit. i. 1), and that peace which passeth under-
standing (Phil. iv. 7), and is the effect of the divine favour,
be continually with you, and derived from God the Father,
the fountain of all blessings, and from Jesus Christ, the pro-
curer and dispenser of them (1 Cor. i. 4. Eph. i. 3) on you.
And from our Lord Jesus Christ.] See note on 1 Cop.
i. 3.
TIarº; hºwāv, Kai Kvpiov 'Isa'ot, Xetarct.] Dr. Mills saith:
these words are inserted into this place from other epistles ;
whereas Origen, in Matt. p. 500, Cod. Alexandrinus, all the
Greek commentators, and all the ancient versions, own them
(see Examen Millii).
* Ver. 3. Kai tra tºp, The Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ.] Why, saith Schlictingius, should God be styled
thus, “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” if Christ be
God equally with the Father, seeing, by being thus distin-
guished from, he seems to be denied to be God? . .
I answer, He is by these words denied to be God the
Father, since that would render him father to himself; but
his being thus distinguished from God the Father hinders
not his being God of God the Father, who by way of emi-
nency is sometimes absolutely styled God, because he is
the fountain of the Deity. For as the words “Our Lord,”
ascribed here to Christ, do not exclude the Father from be-
ing our Lord ; so the word “God,” ascribed to God the
Father, excludes not Christ from being what Thomas styles
him, “our Lord and our God,” John xx. 28. And, as God
was under the Old Testament styled “the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob,” to confirm the faith of the Jews in the
promises made to them and their seed, so is he usually in
the New Testament styled “ the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ,” to confirm to us his love in Christ Jesus, his “be-
loved Son, in whom he is well pleased ;” and to assure us
that he is, as here it follows, “the Father of mercies,” in the
plural, to signify, according to the Hebrew way of speaking,
the greatness and multitude of his mercies; and “the God of
all consolation,” as being the giver of that “Paraclete,” or
Holy Spirit, whence all our comforts are derived. &
4 Ver. 5. Ta raóñºzara roi, Xgia Toij, The sufferings of
Christ.] The sufferings of Christ's members, for his sake,
are styled “his sufferings,” because they are evils inflicted
on his members out of enmity to him, and by reason of their
mystical union to him, and because of the sympathy he has
with them in their sufferings (Luke x. 16. Acts is. 4. Isa.
lxiii. 9). Hence is he said, avºraðirai, “to suffer with us”
in our infirmities, Heb. iv. 15. But when the Greek fathers
add here, that”, “ Christ suffered more in his members than
he did in his own person;” this sounds harsh in the ears of
most divines, and shows they had not those thoughts of our
Lord's sufferings and satisfaction which we have.
* ‘H tragánxma'i, hºw, Our consolation] Abounds by
Christ, because, as he promised, so he conferred the Spirit
of consolation on those who suffered for his sake ; so that,
though they received the word with much affliction, they
did it also with “joy in the Holy Ghost,” 1 Thess. i. 6, hav-
ing “the Spirit of faith,” 2 Cor. iv. 13, “ of glory, and of
God, resting on them,” 2 Tim. i. 7. 1 Pet. iv. 14 (see here,
ver. 21, 22).
• Wer. 10. "En tuxixaºrov Savárov, From so great a death.]
Most interpreters refer what is said in these three last verses
to the commotion raised against Paul by Demetrius at
Ephesus, Acts xix. from ver, 26 to the end of that chapter.
But we read not that in that commotion any hands were
laid upon Paul, or that he suffered anything. He therefore
had no occasion from it to say that he was “pressed above
measure, and above strength, so as to despair of life;” that
he had “the sentence of death within him ;” and that he was
“delivered from so great a death,” and as it were raised
from the dead: these high expressions rather seem to signify,
that he indeed was put to fight with beasts at Ephesus (as
* "ori oº ºvoy rā, śasſyov &AX& zai wasiowa iwoºvoval ºrá6m.
Chrys. IIAetºva, ºr imašev ć X;12 rô, ačaxopsy. CEcum.
Theoph.
680
II. CORINTH IANS.
11 "You also helping together by prayer for us,
that for * the gift bestowed upon us (or the favour con-
ferred on us) by the means of many persons thanks
may be given by many on our behalf.
12 For (in all our afflictions) our rejoicing is this,
the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and
godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but "by the
grace of God, we have had our conversation in the
world, and more abundantly to you-ward.
13 (And of the truth of this you may rest assured:)
for we write no other things unto you (of it), than
what you read (Gr. know, remember), or "acknow-
edge; and I trust you shall acknowledge even to the
end;
14 As also you have acknowledged us in part,
(i. e. as to the sounder part of the church ; see note
on ii. 5, though some have represented us as walking
according to the flesh, x. 2), that we are (just matter
of) your rejoicing, even as ye also are (at present,
he speaks, I Cor. xv. 32, see the note there), and was by
God delivered from them.
7 Ver. 11. xvvuroviyoſyrov xai tºy brèg hºw tº 3sharei,
You also helping together by prayer for us...] Hence note
that the more public prayers are, the more prevailing they
will be ; and also, that God will be more glorified by the
thanksgivings rendered for the success of them. But
whereas Esthius hence pleads for prayers to the souls of
saints departed, the practice of the apostle here and else-
where is a strong argument against them : for he passion-
ately entreats the Christians living at Rome to strive toge-
ther with him in their prayers to God, Rom. xv. 30 ; the
Corinthians, to help together with him in prayer, 2 Cor. i.
1 l ; the Ephesians, to pray for him for all perseverance,
Eph. vi. 18, 19 ; the Colossians, to continue in prayer for
him, Col. iv. 1–3 ; the Thessalonians, to pray for him,
“that the word of the Lord might have free course, and be
glorified,” l Thess. v. 25, and that he may be “delivered
from unreasonable and wicked men,” 2. Thess. iii. 1, 2, and
the believing Jews to pray for him that he might sooner be
restored to them, Heb. xiii. 18, 19. But, in all his epistles,
we have not one petition of like nature directed to any saint
departed ; whereas, had he thought them capable of hearing
him, and their addresses more effectual for the same ends,
we may reasonably think his zeal would have prompted him
to put up his requests to them, and leave us some examples
of this nature.
* T3 si; hºcá; x&gtºga, The gift bestowed upon us...] The
word xágicºa in the New Testament always importing a
spiritual gift, must be interpreted here of the gifts bestowed
on Paul for the discharge of his apostolical function ; and
if the right reading here be taré; hºv, “on our behalf,” the
sense of this verse may run thus, We trust that he will de-
liver us for the furtherance of the gospel, through the assist-
ance of your prayers, that so the gift being exercised by us
through the joint suffrage of many persons for the benefit of
many, thanks may be returned by many for us. If trip tºwāy,
“on your behalf,” as other copies have it, be the right reading,
the sense runs thus: I hope to be still preserved by your
prayers for the benefit of the church, that so the gift bestowed
upon us, being made useful to the benefit of others by the
prayers of so many, thanks may be given to God by many
on your behalf. Whichsoever be the true reading, that he
speaks of the spiritual gift conferred upon him will be evi-
dent from the following words, ver. 12.
Or, Secondly, T3 si; #23, Žágicºa, may signify that won-
derful deliverance vouchsafed to them from so great a dan-
ger, by the prayers of many persons.
* Ver. 12. 'Ev ×ápiri Osoſ, In the grace of God..] Tourézrt,
an&eta;, kai regáriv &tiya Xafizpeara ºw Geoû, “ i.e. by signs
and miracles;” that is, according to the wisdom of the
Spirit, and the miraculous power given us by the grace of
God for the propagation of the gospel. So Chrysostom.
* Cum multis donis spiritualibus. Grot
and much more will be) ours in the day of the Lord
Jesus.
15 And in this confidence (of you) I was minded to
come to you before (this time), that you might have
** a second benefit (or grace);
16 “And to pass by you (though not so as to see
gou in that passage, 1 Cor. xvi. 7), into Macedonia,
and to come again (Gr. and again to come) out of
Macedonia to you, and of you to be brought on my
; way towards Judea.
17 When I therefore was thus minded (or, resolved
thus), did I (afterward) use lightness (in changing this
resolution)? or the things that I purpose, do I purpose
(them) "according to the flesh (or, carnal interests),
that with me there should be yea yea, and (again) may
nay F (i. e. inconstancy and mutability to serve my car-
mal interests, so that you should hence gather, that, in
preaching the gospel of Christ, I walk according to the
flesh, x. 2. '
Which exposition, saith he, is confirmed from these words,
“And more abundantly to you-ward ;” for the apostle's sin-
cerity and care to walk according to the rules of the gospel
was everywhere the same, but the powerful operations and
gifts of the Holy Ghost seem to have been more abundantly
exercised by him in, and vouchsafed by him to, that church
in which he staid so long, and of which he had so particu-
lar a promise, that Christ would be with him in his preach-
ing to them (Acts xviii. 10, 11). The connexion of this
with the former verse seems rather to be thus: And there
is good reason why you should thus pray for us, who have
acted with the same sincerity towards you, and so much to
your advantage,
10 Wer. 13. 'Avaywºrxers.] "A airci úpasſ; lars, “Which
you yourselves know,” Chrysostom. Touréatry tropºpayár-
xed-6s, “Which you remember,” CEcumenius, Theophylact.
* Ver. 15. AEvrépay xágy, A second benefit of grace.] I
coming to establish you, Rom. i. 11, and to promote your
joy, ver. 24. Hence it appears, that the apostle had been
only once with them when he writ this.
1° Wer. 16. Kai 3i' tºy 31829sivel: Maasboyſay, And to pass
by you into Macedonia.] Interpreters, ancient and modern,
are much troubled how to reconcile these words with what
the apostle hath said in his former epistle, “I will come
unto you when I have passed through Macedonia,” 1 Cor.
xvi. 5, for there he expressly declares, his purpose was first
to go into Macedonia, and then to come to Corinth from
thence. Here, say they, he declares he purposed first to
come to Corinth, and then to Macedonia, and return again
from Macedonia to Corinth : but the apostle seems to say
no more here than he did there. There he declares that he
would first go to Macedonia ; but he adds also, that he
would go from Ephesus, passing by them into Macedonia ;
saying also, that he would not then see them iy Trapé8w, “in
his passage by them,” ver, 7, and here he only Saith he pur-
poseth 3.fx0sfy, “to pass by them into Macedonia; but Saith
not, that he would call upon them in that passage, but only
when he came again from Macedonia, and intended to go to
Syria; which he did not, partly by reason of Titus's absence,
who was not yet returned to him to give an account of their
affairs, but went again from Troas to Macedonia (2 Cor. ii.
12), where he met Titus (vii. 5, 6), and partly by reason of
the Jews, who waylaid him in his passage to Syria (Acts xx.
3); and for this delay and nonperformance of his purpose,
that he came not from Macedonia the first time he went
thither, to winter with them, he makes this apology (see the
preface to this epistle).
1° Wer. 17. Karā a 48×a, According to the flesh.J Perhaps
the Judaizers might object this, because being in Greece
(Acts xx. 2), and so near to Corinth, and having passed
through Macedonia, he came not to go by them into Syria,
because the Jews laid wait for him by the way, but returned
back to Macedonia without seeing them (ver. 3); this, I
say, they might interpret a consulting of his carnal in-
terests.
CHAPTER I.
68]
* 18 No surely :) but “as (sure as) God is true, our trine of) Christ, and (who) hath anointed us (with the
word towards you “was not yea and may (i.e. our
preaching was not variable, we now saying one thing,
anon another).
19 °For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was
preached among you by us, ſeven) by me, and Silva-
nus, and Timotheus, was not yea and may, but in him
was yea.
20 "For all the promises of God in him are yea, and
in him Amen (i. e. are true and certain through him),
to the glory of God (demonstrated in the confirmation
of them) by us.
21 Now he that established us with you in (the doc-
* Ver. 18. Iſtarā; 3; 3 Os3c, But as God is true.] The
phrase trio rā, ś Os3g, “God is faithful,” is used where there
is no oath intended ; as 1 Cor. i. 9, “God is faithful, by
whom we are called ;" and, x. 13, ºria rö; 3 Oedº, “But God
is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above what
you are able.” But here the phrase, being used absolutely,
seems rather to be a form of swearing: and then, triarré; 3: 3
Osic, will signify, Dei fidem testor, i. e. “I swear by the
faith of God;” so Dominus vivit, i. e. “I swear by the life
of God;” or, “As the Lord liveth,” Jer. xii. 16. xliv. 26.
IHos. iv. 15, compared with Jer. xxxviii. 16. Judg. viii. 19.
Ruth iii. 13. 1 Sam, xiv. 39.46. xix. 6. xx. 3. So to swear,
“as thy soul liveth,” is to swear by the life of another.
* Otx #yévero wai kai oë, Was not yea and nay.] i. e. It
was not with any variance, but by his assistance we all said
still the same thing, and promised the same advantages to
those who shonld believe in Christ; or it was not the preach-
ing of what was uncertain, but fully confirmed to you by the
power received from him. That this is the true import of
the phrase, “Yea, yea, nay, nay,” we learn from the Jews
from whom it is taken ; for they say,” “There is a yea
which is as may, and a nay which is as yea,” viz. when a man
asserts and denies a thing ironically ; butt “the just man's
yea is yea, and his may is may ;” that is, whatever he affirms
or denies is true and certain. When a man gives a bill of
divorce to his wife, we try him, say they, three times:
“whether his may be may, and his yea be yea:” that is, whe-
ther he continue firm in his resolution to divorce her. And
whereas the Hebrew saith, when Elijah said to the Jews,
“How long will you halt betwixt two opinions? If God be
God, follow him ; if Baal, follow him : the people answered
him not a word,” 1 Kings xviii. 21: the Jewish gloss runs
thus, “They would not say unto him, yea or may, because
they were doubtful.” And whereas, Exod. xx. 1, we read
thus, “And God spake all these words, saying,” R. Solomon
notes, that this word nox', teacheth that “they answered
to every yea, yea, and to every no, no ;” that is, they
engaged to do the affirmative, and not to do the negative
precepts.
* Ver. 19. “O yap Osci; viðc-8; hºwāv kneux Selç; For the Son
of God Jesus Christ preached by us...] Here Theodoret well
notes, that Christ preached is put &yti knpūyaaroº, instead of
preaching concerning him ; the sense of these words being
this, 3 regi roi; viot, rod Osoſ; X&Yoç, “the word concerning the
Son of God” preached by me, Timothy, and Silvanus, was
still the same without any variance from one another; we
all saying the same things of him, and confirming them by
the like miracles.
* Ver. 20.] Or, all the promises of God made to you
are true and certain, through Christ, the author of the new
covenant, established upon better promises, to the glory of
that God who made them by us.
* Ver. 22. ‘O zai appaytagºevo; hºc, Who hath sealed
tes.] Sealing was used not only as a mark of distinction of
what belongs to us, from what is others', but also for con-
firmation ; as when we set our seal to a bond, indenture,
will, covenant, or ordinance ; to a covenant, Neh. ix. 38,
to an evidence, Jer. xxxii. 10, to an ordinance, that it may
not be reversed, 1 Kings xxi. 8. Esth. viii. 8. Isa. viii. 16,
* Buxt. Lex. Talm. in voce in, p. 642, et in hunc locum,
+ Florileg. p. 329.
: Cartwright Mellif, Hebr. in humic locum,
Holy Ghost) is God;
22 *Who hath also (thus) sealed us (up to the day of
| redemption, Eph. iv. 30), and given the earnest of the
Spirit (to the pledge and assiirance of it, 2 Cor. V. 5.
Eph. i. 13, 14), in our hearts (see note on 1 Cor. i. 5-8).
23 Moreover, (it was not thereforeout of lightness, but)
1° I call God for a record upon my soul, that (it was
merely) to spareyou(that) Icame not as yet unto Corinth.
24 (Yet this I say,) not for that we have dominion
over your faith, but are helpers of your joy: *for by
faith you stand (rā Yāp trigrét #3th cars, for ye have
stood in the faith).
in which sense the circumcision of Abraham is styled a
“seal of the righteousness of faith,” Rom. iv. 11, and the
Corinthians, the seal of Paul's apostleship ; for preservation
and security, as when we seal up our treasures, Deut. XXX]].
34, so the servants of God were “sealed in their foreheads,”
Rev. vii. 3. ix. 4 ; so “the foundation of God standeth sure,
having this seal, The Lord knoweth who are his,” 2 Tim. ii.
19, and so the Jews made the sepulchre secure, “sealing the
stone,” Matt. xxvii. 66. In all which senses was the Holy
Spirit given to believers as a mark that they belonged to
Christ, Rom. viii. 9, and were the sons of God, Gal. iv. 6,
as a confirmation of the covenant God had made with them,
and of the blessings promised, he being the earnest, and
pledge of them, and so a security to them against doubting
of them ; and also a preserver of them in the faith against
all temptations (2 Tim. i. 7. 1 Pet iv. 14). , , , *
19 wer. 23. Māºrvea Tây Osły Łtrixaxoãºzi iwi rºy ºv Puxi),
I call God to record upon my soul..] The apostle useth this
form of speech so oft in this epistle, that I think it, not
amiss to give an account of the reason of his doing so; which
may be best done from the consideration of the occasion,
the reason, and the end of assertory oaths, which are the only
oaths he uses. : *
First, Then, there must be some #yriaoxia, i. e. Some
doubting of, or contradiction to, the thing asserted, which
must give an occasion to an assertory oath (Heb. vi. 16),
there being no need to confirm, in this solemn manner; what
nobody doubts of Now, in the church of Corinth, the au-
thority and the sincerity of the apostle was much doubted
of, he being acknowledged of them but in part (yer. 14),
some seeking still “a proof of Christ speaking by him” (xiii.
3), and others looking on him as one that “walked after the
flésh” (x. 2). This therefore gave occasion to the assertory
oaths so frequent in this epistle.
Secondly, The end of an oath is sic 3-6aiwaw, “ for con-
firmation” of the thing asserted (Heb. vi. 16); and if oaths
were allowed, and thought necessary in civil matters for this
end, they must be more allowable in sacred and spiritual
matters, which concerned the truth of the gospel, and the
salvation of souls for the same end, which manifestly was
here the case.
Thirdly, The matter, thus confirmed by an oath, must be
such as could not be sufficiently confirmed by other witnesses
of the fact, he being only privy to them, who doth thus con:
firm them ; for where sufficient testimonies of the matter of
fact can bé produced, an oath seems the less needfift in the
case. And that this was so, in all the instances in which the
apostle thus confirms his sayings, will be easily discerned
from the perusal of the places, in which the apostle thus as-
sorts the truth of what he had affirmed, viz. i. 18. 23. xi. 10,
ll. 31. xii. 19.
* Ver. 24. Tº yag riºrs frthwars, For you have stood in
the faith..] Tº giv tri-rew: ávezey oběaº; bºy #7%éºpºlº,
tº 52p raśrn, tyielay replkstage, Theodoret; that is, “I do not
by this threat challenge to myself a power to exercise any
dominion over you on the account of your faith,” as I did
upon Hymenaeus and Alexander (1 Tin. i. 12), and intend
to do upon some of your false teachers, when your obedience
is fulfilled (x. 6); for I acknowledge, you have generally
stood firm in the profession of the Christian faith (though
some among you once questioned the great article of the re-
surrection of the body, I Cor. xv. 12), but I design by it to
excite you to cure your divisions and contentions, and re-
682
II. CORINTHIANS.
form your gross miscarriages (xii. 20, 21), that so I might that joy which you will find in such a reformation of your-
not be found towards you “such as you would not,” nor | selves. -
create to you any farther trouble, but may be a promoter of
CHAPTER II.
I (And indeed a helper of your joy I would gladly
be, ) but I determined this with myself, that I would
not come again to you in heaviness (i. e. so as to
make you sad, if possibly I could avoid it).
2 For if I (be constrained by your disorders to)
make you sorry, 'who is he then that maketh me
glad, but the same that is made sorry by me? (i. e.
What can make me glad but the reformation, and so
the joy of the same persons 8 the apostle's chiefest joy
being in the welfare of his converts, i. 14. Phil. ii. 3.
16. iv. 1. 1 Thess. ii. 19, 20.)
3 And I wrote this same to you (or, this very thing
have I written to you before my coming, to excite you
to this reformation), lest, when I came, I should have
sorrow from them of whom I ought to rejoice; hav-
iing confidence in you all, that (you stand so affected
to me, that) my joy is the joy of you all.
4 (I say, lest I should have sorrow ;) for out 2 of
much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you
(my former epistle) with many tears; (which yet I
say.) not that you should be grieved (or made sorry),
but that you might know the love which I have more
abundantly to you.
5 But if any have caused grief (as the incestuous
person hath already done), he hath not grieved me
(only), “but in part: that I may not overcharge (or
be too heavy upon) you all.
6 Sufficient, to such a man is “this punishment,
which was inflicted of many.
7 * So that contrariwise you ought rather (now) to
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II.
* Ver. 2. Kai Ti; a rºy, Who is he then 3) The Hebrew
rendered by xai, is very often in our translation, them. See
Gen. xiii. 16. xxiv. 41. xxviii. 21. xxxi. 8. xlii. 34.38. Exod.
vi. 1. vii. 9. 11. Lev. iv. 3. 14. 23. 28. v. 5. vi. 4. Numb. v.
15. 21. Deut. vi. 21. viii. 10. Josh. i. 15. xxiv. 12. 1 Sam.
i. 11. vi. 9. And thus also is xal translated by us in the New
Testament, Matt. xxiii. 32. xxv. 27. Mark vii. 1. 10. 26.
John iv. 35. vii. 33. xiv. 9. Acts xxvi. 20. Rom. viii. 17. xi.
5. I Cor. xv. 29. James ii. 4. Rev. xxii. 9.
* Ver. 4. ‘Ex toxxii; S.Alsºsa's, Wilh much affliction, &c.]
As the apostle's zeal for the good of souls made him rejoice
at their welfare (ver. 2), so also did it cause him to weep
for ; miscarriages (Acts xx. 19. 31. 2 Cor. xii. 21. Phil.
iii. 18).
*Ver. 5. 'Atri ºgovº, In part.] This phrase is commonly
used by Paul for the distinction of one sort of persons from
another : so Rom. xi, 25, “Blindness hath happened to Is-
rael, 3rd &#ovº, in part,” as to the unbelieving part of them;
Rom. xv. 15, “I have written to you more boldly in part,”
473 ºipovº, i. e. as to that part of you who are gentiles, de-
claring that I was called by Jesus Christ to be “the apostle
of the gentiles;” 2 Cor. i. 14, “You have acknowledged me
étro ºftovº, in part,” i. e. as to the sound part of you; and
according to this use of the phrase, the words may be para-
phrased thus, He hath not only grieved me, but, as to the
sound part, you all; for there were some among them who
grieved not for this crime, but “were puffed up,” 1 Cor. v.
2; I therefore say in part, that I may not too much load that
miserable person. -
* Ver. 6. 'H #wiriºia airn him rāy ºrxsióvoy, This punish-
ment, &c.] Some learned persons, who exclude the laity
from having any share in the excommunication or absolution
of public offenders, tell us, this punishment was inflicted only
by the clergy or the presbytery of Corinth in the presence of
the laity. But it seems clear in both these epistles, that the
apostle writes to the church of Corinth in the general : for
when he commands that the incestuous person should be ex-
cluded from their society, and be “delivered up to Satan,”
he speaks to all that were assembled together, 1 Cor. v. 4, to
all that ought to have mourned for that fact, ver. 2, to
all that were obliged to abstain from eating with him, ver. 11,
and asserts the power they had of judging those that were
within the church, ver. 12, and here, speaking of the execu-
tion of that sentence, he saith it was #wiripcia, “a punish-
ment inflicted,” not ºrph, before, only, but intrö Tây Trastávoy,
“by the community:” hence he exhorts them all to forgive
and comfort him, wer. 8, adding, ver. 10, “To whomsoever
you forgive anything, I forgive also :” but there is not in
this whole affair the least mention of any of the clergy sepa-
rately from the church, either executing or relaxing this cen-
Sll I'62,
alone, by his apostolical authority, passeth the sentence, say-
&ng, #3, ##xg:ka, “I have already judged him,” 1 Cor. v. 3,
Indeed Paul here carries the matter so high, that he
and also that of absolution, saying here, ver. 10, #y& key:4-
piakat, “I have forgiven him,” committing only the execu-
tion of each sentence to them : so that this instance gives no
colour to the pretences of the independents and other sec-
taries, especially if we add, what is highly probable, that the
Corinthian church had then no ordinary or settled governors,
or pastors, but all their offices were performed by prophets,
or men enabled to perform them by the gift of prophecy (see
note on 1 Cor. xiv. 29); and if so, it cannot be expected
that the same practice should continue when these extraor-
dinary prophets ceased, and bishops and pastors were every-
where appointed to rule over their respective flocks. In the
primitive church, when any person was to be excommuni-
cated, the laity were first consulted about the fact; the guilty
person pleaded in their presence; they judged of the matter
of fact, as do our juries in criminal causes, and by their suf.
frage they consented to his condemnation, as Cyprianº doth
often inform us; but then he still asserts, that neither they
nor the inferior clergy could pass the sentence of excommu-
nication without the bishop, who, as the president of the
assembly, still pronounced the sentence. They also con-
sented to the readmission of them into favour, and to the
communion of the church, but then their actual admission
was performed by the imposition of the hands of the bishop
and clergy, the power of the keys, saith he, being given to
them by Christ, saying, “Thou art Peter,” &c.;
* Ver. 7..] Note, Hence it appears, that in notorious crimes
which give great cause of scandal to the church and to Chris-
tianity, the consolation of the offender depends not only on
his inward grief and repentance towards God, but also on
the relaxation of his censures by the church; for it is certain
that the apostle is here speaking not, as Grotius thinks, of
the taking off the disease which Satan had inflicted on the
incestuous person, but of restoring him to communion by re-
laxation of the church’s censures: for (1.) the word Émirata,
punishment, ver. 6, refers to the canonical censures of the
church. (2.) He commands them not only Xagićea Sai, to
“forgive” (ver. 7. 10), but also to “confirm their love to
him;” both which expressions plainly seem to intimate, that
he would have him restored to communion ; and this he
* Praesentibus et judicantibus laicis, ed. Ox. 14, p. 33. Ep.
16, p. 34. Ep. 17, p. 39. Ep. 30, p. 59. Ep. 31, p. 63. Ep.
43, p. 82. Ep. 52, p. 97. Ep. 55, p. 102. Wide Albaspin.
Observ. lib. ii. cap. 22. Du Pin, de Antiq. Eccles. Discipl.
p. 247. Dodwell de Jure Laicorum Sacerd. p. 130.
+ Inde per temporum et successionum vices episcoporum
ordinatio et ecclesiae ratio decurrit, ut ecclesiae per eosdem
praepositos gubernetur. Ep. 33. - -
f Per manus impositionem episcopi et clerijus communi-
cationis accipiunt. Ep. 16, p. 37...Nec ad communica-
tionem quis venire possit, nisi prins illiab episcopo et clero
manus fuerit imposita. Ep. 17, p. 30.
CHAPTER II.
683
forgive him, and comfort him (by receiving him again
into the church, which is the proper consolation to one
cast out, than continue your aversion to him), "lest
perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with
overmuch sorrow (and so fall into despair).
8 Wherefore I (who commanded the inflicting this
censure on him, do now) beseech you that you would
confirm your love towards him (by readmitting him,
thus penitent, to your society : for the church ought,
after the evample of God, to do so).
9 For to this end also did I write (Éypaſpa, have I
written this), that I might know the proof of you,
whether ye be obedient (to me) in all things.
10 (And be assured of this, that) to whom you for-
give anything, I forgive (it) also : for if I forgave
anything (Gr. have forgiven heretofore), to whom I
forgave it, for your sakes I forgave it (though I did it)
"in the person (i.e. by the authority) of Christ.
11 * (And this forgiveness of the incestuous person I
therefore press,) lest Satan should get an advantage
over us (by hurrying him into despair, or representing
the church-discipline as that which tendeth to men’s
tuin, and so tempting him to apostasy) : for we are not
ignorant of his devices.
-se
would have performed according to the discipline now men-
tioned from Cyprian, with the consent of the pious laity.
* Lest such a one should be swallowed up with sorrow.]
Hence also Chrysostom observes, that, in prescribing the
measures of penance, regard is to be had, not only to the na-
ture of the sin, &AA& Kai re?: 31&votay wał Ży rāy &paprayévray,
“but also to the mind and temper of the sinner.”
7 Ver. T0. 'Ey ºrporary Xgiaroſ, In the person of Christ.]
That is, saith Theodoret, Christ beholding and approving
what was done ; for as he delivered the incestuous person
to Satan “in the name of the Lord Christ” (1 Cor. v. 4), so
in his person and by his authority he relaxes the sentence.
This place teaches us, saith Schlictingius, “that the provi-
dence of Christ reacheth to, and inspecteth, not only our
actions, but even our minds and thoughts.” Hence then I
argue for his Godhead, God alone being the searcher of the
heart, and of the secrets of it (1 Kings viii. 39).
* Ver. 11.] Note ; Vain here is all the discourse of Es-
thius concerning indulgences, or the remission of the satis-
faction required by the church ; for the apostle here speaks
only of the remission of this excommunication, and hath not
one word of any satisfaction the incestuous person had volun-
tarily undertaken on the account of his offence, or anything
imposed on him to do on that account, but only of a delivery
of him to Satan, and an exclusion of him from the church,
in both which he was passive.
* Ver, 12. EA82 v 33 eic rāv Tºwá3a, But coming to Troas.]
That this was not the first time of St. Paul's coming to
Troas is plain, seeing we find him there long before, Acts xvi.
8, though then he seems to have staid there but a night:
it was not the time mentioned Acts xx. 6, for then he came
from Macedonia to Troas, here he goes from Troas to Mace-
donia. It remains then that it was some intermediate time
which all interpreters I meet with think was in his way from
Ephesus to Macedonia, Acts xx. 1, but at his first journey
from Ephesus to Macedonia he sailed, not by Troas, but
by Corinth, though not touching there (see note on i. 16):
it was then after passing through those parts he came by
Troas into Greece; and if so, this epistle could not be written
till after St. Paul's coming the second time to Macedonia
(see the preface).
* Ver. 16. "Ooº Kośc, xa, Savárov, A savour of life and
death..] Here is a continual allusion to the phraseology of
the Jews, who speak from the prophets of non Ep,” “a
mortal savour,” or as the Chaldee saith, Nnºt spp., (Esth.
i. 21. Jer. xi. 19), and of Dºnn DD, “a savour of life,” or
“a vital unguent,” and saying of the law, that “it is to Is-
rael a savpur of life, but to the nations of the world a sa-
vour of death ;” of which the apostle seemeth here to give
* Buxtorf in voce Ep, p. 1494.
sostom” and Theodoret informs us.
12 Furthermore (that ye may know my great con-
cernment for you, ) "when I come to Troas to preach
Christ’s gospel, and a door was opened to me of the
Lord (for the propagation of it there),
13 I had (notwithstanding) no rest in my spirit,
because I found not Titus my brother (whom I had
sent to know the state of your affairs, returned); but
taking my leave of them, I went from thence into
Macedonia (hoping to find him there, where he arrived,
and gave me a very comfortable account of you).
14 Now thanks (therefore) be to God, who always
causeth us to triumph in (and through) Christ, and
maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us
in every place (where we come).
15 For we are unto God a sweet savour (in our
preaching) of Christ, (both) in them that are saved,
and in them that perish: -
16 To the one (viz. to them that perish for rejecting
Christ preached to them) we are "the savour of death
unto death; and to the other (who believe in him) the
savour of life unto life. And who is sufficient for
these (great and weighty) things
17 (We are, I say, very acceptable to God in this
work :) for we are not as many, "who corrupt the
the reverse, saying, the gospel was to them, as being the
rejecters of it, the savour of death, but to the gentiles, who
embraced it, the savour of life. . -
Kai Trgö, raûra ric ixayá; ;] Here the Vulgar ridiculously
read, Et ad haec quis tam idoneus, i.e. quâm ego 2 and this
reading is defended by Dr. Mills, against all the Greek scho-
lia, the Syriac and Arabic versions, Cod. Alex. and Hilary
the deacon, and that by surmises little better than that version
(see Examen Millii in locum). -
* Ver. 17. Karnºedovre, röy Aéyov, Who corrupt the word.]
Here is an allusion to those hucksters of whom the prophet
Isaiah speaks, saying, oi x&min\of arov wiryoval rôy divoy tºari,
“Thy vintners mix wine with water” (Isa. i. 22); and so
the meaning of the words is this, We do not adulterate the
sincerity of the word, as your false apostles do. So Theo-
doret here. $
Who these corrupters of the word of God were, we learn
from xi, 22, where it is evident that they were not Samari-
tans, but Jews ; not pretenders to be the Christ, or ministers
of Simon-Magus, but ministers of Christ, or such as owned
our Jesus, not Simon Magus or Dositheus, to be Christ.
Notwithstanding, a reverend person asserts that they were
Gnostics; and to this opinion he is inclined by two pas-
sages in the epistles of Ignatius: the first is in the Epistle
to the Magnesians, were, saith he, “speaking of the Gnostic
Judaizers, as enemies of the cross of Christ, whose God is
their belly, who mind earthly things (Phil. iii. 18, 19), who
were lowers of pleasure and not lovers of God, having a form
of godliness, but denying the power of it, he adds, that they
were of xpia réºtropol, röy Aéyov Karnxeſſov’rs;, xai rāv 'Inaoüy
Traxoivre;, merchants of Christ, huckstering the word, selling
Jesus.” But,
1. The Gnostics were so far from being Judaizers, that
they denied the God of the Jews, declared that he was not
the supreme God, and taught men to despise the law and
the prophets (see note on Col. ii. 12).
2. All these epithets or characteristics agree perfectly to
the Jewish false teachers; they were the men of whom the
apostle saith, “Their god is their belly,” &c., as both Chry-
They were the men
who were “lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God,”
and who had “a form of godliness,” which the impure Gnos-
tics had not (see note on 2 Tim, iii. 5). The Jews also were
the persons who bought Christ for thirty pieces of silver;
they corrupted the word here, by mixing the law and their
* Evreiðey 37Aoy &; regi 'tovëaiow Taira 4 naiv, &ei yüe atrów
yaarpiº, aeyia; Karmyopsi, zai &AAaxoſ pnaiv 69 @E3; # zoºxia.
Theod. et Chrysost. in Rom. xvi. 17. Ex quibus quidam
zelum habentes traditionis Judaica, nec de Christo bené do
cebant. 1'seud. Anubr. hic.
684.
II. CORINTHIANS.
word of God; but (act) as (men) of sincerity,
but as (commissionated) of God, (and as) in the
| sight of God speak we in (preaching) Christ (unto
3/0w).
traditions with the gospel, and they made a gain of Christ
(see note on 1 Tim vi. 5). So that what is here cited from
the ninth section of this epistle, agrees exactly to them.
2. It chiefly is to be observed, that these words are not in
the true Ignatius, but are the additions of his interpolator.
And (2) there is not a word in this place to show that they
belonged to the Gnostics, or any other persons, who, owning
the profession of the Christian faith, corrupted it ; but are
expressly said to belong to such enemies of Christ as denied
him :* whereas the true Ignatius is plainly in this place
speaking of the Jews, F of whom we interpret this ; and the
same is also evident from the interpolator.
The second passage is cited from the Epistle ad Trallianos,
where he saith, “There are some vain speakers and impos-
tors, not Christians, but merchants of Christ, 3rétº reptºpé-
poºre; r. 8vop, a roi, Kºtaro; wai xanºsſovre; roy Aëyov rod stayye-
×iov, carrying the name of Christ for deceit, and huckstering
the word of the gospel.” “And who these were he speci-
fies in the process of the epistle, viz. Simon, the first-born
of Satan, Menander, Basilides, the unclean Nicolaitans,
row; lºvěoydºzovº, “those that are falsely named,’ that is, the
Gnostics.” But here again,
**ow rà rékya rā, śmoxsia; &gyotiv rai i ix360: roi; corā-
goº. Ibid. §. 9.
+ Mi waayázós rai, £rsgo.30%laig, ºwn&# avšešºaqi roi; ºraxal-
of évanºflaw ova w’ Ei yā6 &#xpt yºv xará včkov 'Io. 3aizey Kºpaev,
tºokoyºziv x&gly ºw; sixmpéyat. §. 8. Ep. ad Magnes. 8, 9.
1 We have not the true Ignatius, but his interpolator
imposed upon us.
2. This interpolator doth not say those persons, falsely
named, where the Gnostics: no, that is the doctor's inter-
pretation, against the true sense of the Greek; and the ma-
nifest words of the old interpreter, who says, they were the
Nicolaitans,” so called, because they falsely bore his name,
he being no such person as they represented him : and in-
deed, this is the common epithet of the Nicolaitans; he
himself, by Clemens Alexandrinus t and others being de-
clared free from the doctrines these heretics vented in his
name. And,
3 This interpolator plainly insinuates that, in the section
cited by the doctor, he meant the Judaizers, $ as using the
same words which he had used in the Epistle to the Magne-
sians concerning them.
* Fugit quoque illos immundissimos falsi nominis Nico-
laitas, amatores libidinis, malos calumniatores: nec enim
talis fuit apostolorum minister Nicolaus. Sect. 11.
+ Oi yüy Jevđâywºot Nixoxaſrat. Const. Apost. lib. vi. cap.
8. Wide Ep. interp. ad Philadelph. §. 6. Theod. Haer. Fab.
lib. iii. cap. 1. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. iii. cap. 29.
£ Clem. Strom. iii. p. 436. Steph. Gobar. apud Phot. p.
902, 903.
§ Ita et Judaizantes Xºlotsk, wráčovc, idem interpolator in
Epistolâ ad Magnesianos nominaverat, et røy Affyoy Katrºstov-
raç, Usher. ib. n. 26.
CHAPTER III.
l, Do we (by speaking thus of our sincerity, ii. 16),
begin again to commend yourselves 2 or 'need we, as
Some others (have), * epistles of commendation to you,
or letters of commendation from you (to others)?
2 Ye are our epistle “written in our hearts, (you
being always in our minds, and evidently appearing to
ws so to be, and) known and read of all men (who have
heard the fame of your conversion);
3 Forasmuch as ye are (by this conversion) mani-
festly declared to be “the epistle of Christ, ministered
(or penned) by us, written not with ink, but with the
Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone (as were
the ten commandments),butinthefleshytablesoftheheart.
4 And such (confidence or) trust have we through
(the grace and favour of) Christ to God-ward (viz. that
he will still thus efficaciously assist our ministry):
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III.
* Ver. 1. Ei º Xºjićoºey ; Do we need ?] These particles
ei º often signify mum in the Old Testanent; ei º żqays; ;
“Hast thou eaten of the tree ?” Gen. iii. 11 (see Gen. iv. 9.
xviii. 4. 17. 23. 27.38. xxx. 15. xxxi. 14. xli. 38. xliii. 7).
So Kwº also signifies, 1 Cor. ix. 4, & own #ovariav #xogasy ;
“Have we not power?” and ver, 8.
* Xvaratiköy imicroXàv, Letters of commendation.] That
commendatory epistles were ancient in the church, we learn
from Tertullian * and Cyprian. And that they had their
rise from the tesserae hospitalitatis among the heathens, is
the opinion of the reverend Dr. Hammond on the place.
But others think these letters were derived from the Jews,
among whom they were in use, as their writings, so this very
place shows; for the persons here mentioned were the
Judaizers. -
* Wer. 2. ‘Eyyty&apºp, #yn #y raï, Kaºtai, hºcãy, Written in
our hearts.] This is a frequent phrase in the Old Testament,
and among the Jewish doctors, importing (1.) the clearness
and perspicuity of what is said to be thus in our hearts,
Deut. xxx. 11. 14, 15. Rom. x. 8, 9, and (2.) our care to
have it continually in our minds, and upon our spirits, 1}eut.
vi. 6. Prov. iii. 3. vii. 2 (see this proved, note on Heb.
viii. 10).
And thus the phrase is commonly used in profane authors,
both Greek and Latin. Thus Antisthenes saith to one, who
* Haeretici nullum jus capiunt Christianarum literarum.
Praescript. cap. 37. Wide cap. 20. -
+ Cyprian, ep. 4, §. 1. Wide 1)odw. Diss. Cypr. 2.
had lost his register or note-book, “Thou shouldest #y rà
Jux: air&, wai º #y raſ; x&grat; yºãºpew," write these things
in thy soul, and not in thy papers.” So Seneca'ſ saith of
Portius Latro, who made use of no books or notes, Aiebatse
scribere animo, “He said he wrote all things in his mind.”
So Terence,f Scripta illa dicta sunt in animo Chrysidis; which
in Pindar S is, Trézé; pºeyi, hºwā; yśygarta, “It is written in
my mind.”
So that these words may be thus paraphrased, We need
no letters of commendation to you, for we well know, and
have continually in remembrance, how powerfully God
wrought with us for your conversion, so that “the seal of our
apostleship are you in the Lord” (1 Cor. ix. 2); “the signs
of an apostle being wrought among you in all patience, in
signs, wonders, and in mighty deeds” (2 Cor. xii. 12); so
that you are our best letters commendatory to yourselves:
nor need we letters of commendation from you to others, the
fame of your conversion by us, and of the gifts we, with the
gospel, have imparted to you, being spread throughout the
world.
* Ver. 3. 'exteroxi, Xgia roſ, The epistle of Christ.] His
commendatory epistle, declaring and commending his power
in your conversion, by such signs and gifts of the Holy Ghost
imparted to you, and exercised by us among you, as he
enabled us to do : and this epistle is written in the fleshy
tables of your hearts, i. e. in your hearts made soft, pliable,
*-
* Apud Laert. lib. vi. p. 139.
+ Praefat. libri prim. Controvers.
: Andria.
§ Olym. 10, v. 2.
CHAP'I'ER III.
685
5 Not (having any confidence in ourselves) that we
are sufficient of ourselves "to think anything as of
ourselves (to bring men to the faith of Christ by our
own reasonings, without the power and assistance of the
Spirit of God), but our sufficiency (as to this matter)
is of God (alone);
6 Who also hath made us able ministers of the new
testament (promised in opposition to the old, Jer. xxxi.
33, and so) not of the letter (only, as was that of Moses),
but of the Spirit, (promised, Ezek. xxxvi. 27),
* the letter (of the law condemns the disobedient, and
killeth, but the Spirit (ministered by the gospel) gi
life; (for if the Spirit of him that raised Jesus from the
dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the
dead, shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit
that dwelleth in you, Rom. viii. 11).
7 " But (then) if (that law which is ) the ministration
of death, (and was) written and engraven in stone, was
glorious (in the ministry of it), so that the children of
Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses,
for the glory of his countenance; which glory (yet was
and ready to obey the word by the operation of the Holy
Spirit, according to the promise, “I will take away the stony
heart from you, and give you a heart of flesh,” Ezek. xi. 19.
xxxvi. 26. w
* Ver, 5. Aoyićea flat ri, &c. To reason anything as of our-
selves.] The apostle, in the second chapter of his First Epis-
tle, contends that there was a necessity of a divine revelation,
to enable them to make known to us the truths contained in
the gospel, because human reason, without it, was not able
to know or to discern them ; and therefore here also he dis-
claims this sufficiency as of themselves, without divine assist-
ance for this work; that is, without those illuminations and
powerful operations of the Holy Spirit which made them
“able ministers of the New Testament.” This text, there-
fore, is impertinently cited to show that no man is sufficient
of himself to thinka good thought, and might as well have been
produced to prove him not sufficient of himself to think at all.
* Ver. 6. Tºàpºp, a &toxrsive, The letter killeth..] From the
exposition of these words given in the paraphrase, it appears,
how vain are the imaginations of those men who, by the kill-
ing letter, understand not the law condemning to death, but
the literal and historical sense of the scriptures in general ;
and by the life-giving spirit, the mystical and spiritual sense
of them. Wain also are they who by the letter understand
the law as it was understood by the Jewish doctors in a
literal or grammatical sense, by the Spirit, the mind of the
lawgiver ; it being evident from the whole chapter, that by
the letter the apostle understands the law engraved in stones,
ver. 3, 7, the law as delivered by Moses, and as at first ad-
ministered with an appearance of the glory of the Lord ; and
by the Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, ver. 17, or the Holy Spirit
given to the apostles to enable them to preach the gospel,
and conferred on those that believed it.
7 Ver. 7–11.] That the allusion here from ver, 7 to the
eleventh may be the better understood, let it be noted:
First, that the glory of God, or of the Lord, in the Old
Testament, imports a bright light or flame included in a
cloud, styled “the cloud of glory ;” and because this, when-
ever it appeared, was a symbol of God's glorious presence, it
is styled by the Jews Shechinah,” “the habitation :” so
Exod. xvi. 7, “In the morning ye shall see the glory of God;"
and ver, 10, “The glory of God abode upon mount Sinai,
and the cloud covered it six days, and the light of the glory
of the Lord was like devouring fire;” Exod. xl. 34, “A cloud
covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the
Lord filled the tabernacle, puy, the habitation of God.”—
“This glory,” saith the author of Cosri, “is the divine light
which God vouchsafeth to his people.”—“By the Shechi-
nah,” saith Elias, “we understand the Holy Spirit,” as it is
evident they do in these sayings, “The Shechinah will not
dwell with sorrowful or melancholy men. The Shechinah
will only dwell with the strong, rich, wise, and humble man.
The Shechinah dwells with the meek. When ten sit, and
* Wide Buxt. Lex. p. 2396. + Par. ii.
Š. 8.
only such as) was to be done away (or vanish, as the
law was to do);
8 How shall not (that gospel which is) the ministra-
tion of the Spirit, be rather glorious (both in itself and
âts ambassadors)?
9 For if (that law, which was) the ministration of
condemnation (by pronouncing the sentence of death
upon all that did not perfectly obey it), be (or was
attended with) glory, much more doth (the gospel, which
is) the ministration of righteousness (or of justification
to life, Rom. v. 18), exceed in glory.
10 For even that (law) which was made glorious (at
the first administration of it, may be said to have) had
no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory (of the
gospel) which excelleth (and so eclipseth it).
11 For if that which is (now) done away (aud abo-
lished) were glorious, much more that which remaineth
(for ever) is (to be) glorious (in the powerful operations
of the Spirit of God assisting the dispensers of it).
12 Seeing then that we have such hope (of the glo-
rious efficacy of our ministry, and of the power of God
study the law, the Shechinah dwells among them” (see
many other instances in Buxtorf's Lexicon, p. 2396, &c.).
Secondly, Observe, that after the covenant made with God
at mount Sinai, Exod. xxiv. 7, 8, was broken, and the law
given from mount Sinai violated by the idolatry of the Jews,
in making and worshipping the golden calf, Exod. xxxiii.,
Moses is again called up into mount Sinai to renew it, Exod.
xxxiv. 27, and God there descends to him again in the cloud
of glory, ver, 5, and then was it that the skin of his face
shone, to the terror of those that saw him, so that he was
forced to put a veil over his face, ver, 29, 30. And the
allusion here is chiefly to this glory, or shining brightness of
the face of Moses, when he received the law the second time,
as is evident from wer. 7, and from the words here used by
Paul, où3: 3836%aa-rai ré 3:30%azºvoy, “That which was made
glorious was not glorious ;” for they are the very words used
by the Septuagint, concerning the shining of the face of
Moses, 3836%aatat # 64; roº x642&to; ºrzozówou airoij, Exod.
xxxiv. 29 ; zai #y 3e30%acpzéyn # 3-pic, ver. 30.
Thirdly, Observe, that as the glory of the Lord descended
on the mount, at the delivery of the law, so, to enable the
apostles to be “able ministers of the New Testament,” the
Spirit of God descended on the apostles at the day of pente-
cost, in the likeness of cloven tongues, or tongues of fire, sit-
ting upon them (Acts ii. 3); and as the tabernacle and tem-
ple were filled with the glory of God, so were they all filled
with the Holy Ghost (ver. 4); and as the shining of the face
of Moses signified the glory of that law which he delivered to
the Jews, so the gifts of the Holy Ghost, Shining forth in these
ambassadors of Christ, signified the glory of the gospel. Now,
saith the apostle, this glory is more excellent than that which
attended the law given by Moses:
1. Because the glory appearing on mount Sinai made the
people afraid of death, saying, “Let God not speak to us any
more, lest we die” (Exod. xx. 19), “neither let us see this
great fire any more, that we die not” (Deut. xviii. 16).
And when the face of Moses shone, the people were afraid
to come nigh him (Exod. xxxiv. 30), for the law being the
ministration of death and condemnation, even the glory of
it struck a terror into their hearts, and left a fear of death
upon their spirits; and thus received they “the spirit of
bondage unto fear” (Rom. viii. 15), whilst we have given to
us “the Spirit of power and love” (2 Tim. i. 7), and “the
Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father:” and to
this difference the author to the Hebrews alludes, xii. 18–24.
2. Moses, with all his glory, was only the minister of the
law, written in tables of stone ; the apostles of the gospel,
written in the hearts of believers: he only gave the Jews the
killing letter of the law, they with the gospel gave the quick-
ening Spirit. t
3. The glory which Moses received at the giving of the
law did more and more diminish, because his law was to
vanish away; but the glory which they received from Christ
did increase “from glory to giory” (ver. 18), the doctrine
they delivered by it being to remain for ever.
686
II. CORINTH IANS
so illustriously.shining forth in it), we use great “plain-
ness of speech:
13 And (act) not as Moses (the minister of the law),
who put a veil over his face (even that of types and
shadows, so) that the children of Israel could not sted-
fastly look to the "end (or the accomplishment) of that
which is (now) abolished: -
14 But (that which hinders them from seeing through
this veil, is this, that) their minds were (then and still
are) blinded: for, until this day remaineth the same
veil untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament;
which veil is (only) done away (by faith) in Christ.
15 But (or, whereas they not believing in him) even
to this day, when Moses is read, the veil is (still) upon
their heart. * *
16 Nevertheless (as when Moses turned to the Lord,
the veil was taken from his face, Exod. xxxiv. 34, so)
* Ver. 12. IIaşna‘iz.] This word seems to import open-
ness and plainness of speech. So, “he spake this, saying,
Trašānaiz, openly,” Mark viii. 32; “If thou art Christ, tell
us traśānaig, plainly,” John x. 24; “Having spoiled princi-
palities and powers, he triumphed over them, Éy trafinaig,
openly,” Col. ii. 15 (see John vii. 4. 13. xi. 14. xvi. 25.
29. xviii. 20). And to this sense the opposition in these
words, “We use great plainness of speech, and do not put a
veil before our face, as Moses did,” seems to lead.
* Ver. 13. Eic ré réxoç roš Karapyovſzévov, To the end of
that which was to be abolished,J i. e. Either to Christ and his
gospel, as the body veiled under these types and shadows
(Col. ii. 16), or they could not look unto that Christ, who is
the ends of the law for justification (Rom. x. 4), that being
only “our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ” (Gal. iii. 24,
*} And here is the
ourth excellency of the gospel above the law, that
whereas that was veiled under types and shadows, the gos-
pel was delivered with great perspicuity and plainness of
speech; which is a confirmation of the perspicuity of the New
Testament in all things necessary.
* Wer. 16. ‘Hyuna 3’ &y #Tria-rgé!, reig Küglov, When it shall
turn to the Lord.] The apostle discoursing, ver. 13, of the
sons of Israel, of those to whom belonged the old covenant,
and to whom the law of Moses was read, ver. 14, 15, must
be supposed to speak here of the same persons; and then the
apostle here plainly taketh it for granted, that there will come
a time when the Jewish nation shall turn unto the Lord, or
be converted to the Christian faith; and so, looking on
Christ' as the end of the law, and being enlightened by his
Spirit, shall clearly discern the spiritual sense of the law, and
the true meaning of their own prophecies concerning their
Messiah. Nor is it any objection against this exposition that
the word is iriarpiºn, in the singular, for as that answers
well to Israel, or the Jewish nation, so is it a known rule”
that in the Hebrew tongue a verb of the singular number is
joined to a noun or a participle plural.
* Ver. 17. ‘o 8: Kögto: rö IIºwa cry, Now the Lord is
that Spirit..] The Ethiopian version reads not 3 83, but of 33
Kūptos, “Where the Lord is, there is the Spirit,” which makes
the sense of these words clear; but this reading hath no
authority from any ancient copy, or Christian writer. Ori-
gent cites the words, according to the common reading,
* Glassius, lib. iii. tr. 3, can. 52, p. 397.
+ Contr. Celsum, lib. v. p. 27 f ; in Matth, ed. Huet.
p. 219 et p. 253.
when * it (the Jewish nation), shall turn to the Lord
(Jesus), the veil shall be taken away (from them).
17 * Now the Lord is (the giver of) that Spirit (which
is received by the gospel, und by which it is confirmed):
and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty,
(and so the law, which is as a yoke of bondage, Acts
xv. 10. Gal. v. 1. is taken away, and we obtain our
Christian liberty. * -
18 °And it is not with us as it was with the Jews,
(for they only saw the face of Moses shining through the
veil, but received no impression from, or derivation of,
his glory upon themselves ;) but we all (under the gos-
pel), with open (and unveiled) face, beholding as in a
glass the glory of the Lord (Jesus), are changed into
the same image (with him) from (his) glory to glory
(derived on us), even as by the Spirit of the Lord (or,
as receiving it from the Lord and giver of the Spirit).
gºs--- * - ----
thrice; nor is it suitable to the Greek, which should have
been, according to that reading, où 3ā Kūgio; #xtſ rô IIvetºza.
I therefore prefer the other interpretation, which saith, The
Lord is the Spirit, as he is the way, the life, John xiv. 6, the
resurrection and the life, xi.;15, as being the author and
giver of them. He it is who “baptizeth with the Spirit and
fire” (Matt. iii. 11), who giveth this good Spirit to all be-
lievers, and sends him to them from the Father (John vii.
38, 39. xv. 26. xvi. 7): he is 5 Kügloº, the Lord who ministers
to his church all the gifts and operations of the Spirit (1 Cor.
xii. 5. Eph. iv. 8). And this interpretation is favoured by the
last words of the chapter, drà Kvgiov IIvsögaroº, “from, the
Lord of the Spirit;” for, through the New Testament, wher-
ever the Spirit of the Lord is mentioned, rö IIvetºza is put
before, but never follows, the word Kügtoc, as according to
the common interpretation here it doth (see also Examen
Millii in locum).
* Ver. 18.] Here are two farther excellencies of the glory
of the gospel above that of the law, viz. **
5. That the Jews only saw the shining of the face of
Moses through a veil; but we behold the glory of the gos-
pel of Christ in the person of Christ, our lawgiver, with open
face.
6. They saw it through a veil, which hindered the reflec-
tion or shining of it upon them, and so this glory shone only
on the face of Moses, but not at all upon them ; whereas the
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ shines as in a glass,
which reflects the image upon us Christians, so that we all
are transformed into the same image, deriving the glorious
gifts and graces of the Spirit, with the gospel, from Christ
the Lord and great distributer of them (1 Cor. xii. 5), and so
the glory which the Father gave to him he hath given us
(John xvii. 22). It is therefore rather with us as it was with
Moses himself, concerning whom God speaketh thus, “To
whom will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and
not in dark speeches, and the similitude, rºw ºav Kupíov, the
glory of the Lord shall he behold,” Numb. xii. 8. For as he
saw the glory of God apparently, so “we, with open face,
behold the glory of the Lord :” as he by seeing of this glory
was changed into the likeness of it, and his face shone, or was
3530%arºšyn “made glorious ;” so we, “beholding the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ (iv. 6), are changed into
the same glory.” But then, though this may in some mea-
sure be enlarged to the church in general, in which these gifts
were exercised, I think it chiefly, and more eminently, refers
to the apostles mentioned ver. 12, and iv. l.
CHAPTER IV.
1 THEREFORE, seeing we have this (glorious) minis-
it to us, 1 Tim. i. 12, so) we "faint not (under the pres-
try, as we have received mercy (from God, in committing sures to which it doth eanose us);
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV.
* Ver, 1. Oºz izaaxojøey.] Is not to slacken in, or cease
from, the performance of an enterprise (Luke xviii. 1. Gal.
vi. 9. 2 Thess. iii. 13), particularly paſſ taxaxeſy #y SAi-peat,
“not to faint under tribulations,” Eph. iii. 13, and here,
ver. 16. And this sense is confirmed by the words following.
from ver, 7 to 16.
CHAPTER IV.
(387
t
2 But have renounced "the hidden things of disho- -
the truth) our gospel be hid (from any to whom
nesty (or shame), not walking in craftiness (and guile),
nor handling the word of God deceitfully, (as do your
false apostles and deceitful workers, xi. 13), but by mani-
festation of the truth commending ourselves to .
man’s conscience(as persons acting) inthe sight of God.
* Ver. 2. Tà xévirtà tºic airy ſync, The hidden things of
shame.] The apostle often speaks of some deceivers crept
into the church, “whose glory was in their shame,” Phil. iii.
19, whose exhortation was attended with uncleanness, deceit,
and guile, 1.Thess. ii. 3, and here, who did “the hidden things
of shame.”
the “false apostles, rh rot, Váczov šarºtéſz rô Befoy kägvyºza.
Ala#Seipovreć, who corrupted the gospel, by mixing it” with
the law,” as is apparent from the apostle's words; for speak- |
ing of these “false apostles and deceitful workers,” xi. 13, he
saith, ver, 22, “Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they
Israelites 2 so am I. Are they the seed of Abraham P so
am I.” And that the Jewish doctors were prone to fornica-
tion, uncleanness, and adultery, we learn from the apostle's
question, “Thou that sayest a man should not commit adul-
tery, dost thou commit adultery P” Rom. i. 22, and from the
testimony of their Josephus concerning their zealots, who
professed great sanctity, but were indeed guilty of “theft,
treachery, adultery, the hidden things of sin :” from the
exhortation of Paul to them to look diligently, “lest there
be among them any fornicator, or profane person,” Heb. xii.
16. And again, “Let marriage be honourable among all,
and the bed undefiled ; for whoremongers and adulterers
God will judge,” Heb. xiii. 4 (see the note there). But
this is still more evident from these Epistles to the Corinth-
ians, among whom these deceivers had taught that fornica-
tion was a thing lawful, 1 Cor. vi. 12, and so had taught
them to “corrupt the temple of God,” 1 Cor. iii. 16, 17;
whence he says to them, “Let no man deceive you,” ver.
18, and demonstrates to them by many arguments, that for-
nication was a sin inconsistent with the profession of Chris-
tianity, 1 Cor. vi. 13–20, that it excluded persons “from
the kingdom of God,” ver. 9, 10, and should exclude them
from the society of Christians, v. 11. Upon all which ac-
counts he saith, “Neither let us commit fornication, as some
of the Jews did,” l Cor. x. 8. And in his Second Epistle,
and twelfth chapter, he expresses his fears, lest, when he
came among them, he should find many who, through the
seduction of those men, “ had sinned, and had not repented
of the uncleanness, formication, and lasciviousness, which
they had committed.” That these men might be followers
of Cerinthus, or of the Ebionites, see note on xi. 22. But
these things do more plainly agree to the sect of Nicolas,
one of the seven deacons resident at Jerusalem (Acts vi. 5),
they being, saith Peter, “men walking after the flesh, in the
lusts of the flesh,” 2 Pet. ii. 10, and “alluring others
through the lusts of the flesh,” ver. 18, and, saith Jude,
“men walking after their own lusts, and foaming out their
own shame,” ver, 13. That these men were at Pergamus,
“teaching men to commit fornication,” we learn from Rev.
ii. 14, 15, that they were also at Ephesus, and so near to
Corinth, from Rev. ii. 6, and so might probably be the per-
sons noted by Paul, saying, Eph. v. 11, 12, “It is a shame
to speak of r3 ºvºi yuvépziya Ötr' airów, the things done by
them in secret;” and that they were at Corinth, see-note on
1 Cor. vi. 13–15.
* Ver. 3. Ei 3ā wai Éari keka Muppºvoy to stayyáatov hºw&y, If
our gospel be hid.] Hence we learn, that the apostles deli-
vered the gospel, in all things necessary to be believed or
done, with sufficient plainness and perspicuity; for other-
wise they could not be truly said to have “manifested the
truth to every man's conscience.” The apostle also, by de-
claring, that if this gospel was hid from any to whom it was
preached, it was only hid to them “whose minds the god of
this world had blinded, lest the light of the glorious gospel
should shine in upon them,” doth plainly teach, that the
gospel was not hid from them for want of clearness on the
* T3. Rguart, pºv táv & capriºrow #803;ázare, ºxo~2: Aéyo,
xai #véºpa, Kai (, cºsiac. De Bell. Jud. lib. xvi, cap. 26, p.
930, C. -
Now these, say all the Greek scholiasts, were | -
scriptures to be read or understood by us, but of the gospel
3 *But if (notwithstanding this manifestation of
it is preached), it is hid (only) to them that are
lost :
4 In (or among) whom “the god of this world hath
blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the
part of them who preached it, but only by reason of that
blindness which Satan had wrought in them that heard it ;
so that, if it were not manifest to all, “the fault is not in us,
or in the obscurity of the gospel, but in their own blindness,
for we hide nothing from them.” So the fathers.
But here, Saith Esthius, the apostle speaks not of the
preached by him.
Ans. To this I answer, That the scriptures writ and read
to them, contain the same gospel of Christ which they
preached; and as the reading of the law of Moses is
styled “the preaching of Moses every sabbath-day,”
Acts xv. 21, so is the public reading the scriptures of
the New Testament, the preaching Christ and his gospel:
what reason then can be assigned why they, who confessedly
preach the gospel plainly, should write the same things to
the same persons obscurely ; especially if we consider that
they did r& air& yºpsiy, “write the same things to them for
their safety,” Phil. iii. 1, to “put them in remembrance of
those things which they knew, and in which they were estab-
lished” by their preaching, 2 Pet. i. 13, 14, and to “stir up
their pure minds by way of remembrance, that they might
be mindful of the commandments of the apostles of our Lord,”
iii. 1, 2, that by “reading them they might understand their
knowledge in the mystery of Christ?” Eph. iii. 4. And were
these ends best prosecuted, or to be obtained, by writing
that obscurely which they had plainly preached to them 9
Moreover, “whatsoever things were written aforetime,” saith
the apostle, “were written for our learning,” Rom. xv. 4.
And surely they, who writ after by the same Spirit, writ to
the same end, that they to whom they wrote might be “wise
to that which is good,” Rom. xvi. 19, that they might “un-
derstand what the will of the Lord is,” Eph. v. 17, or might
“prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of
God,” Rom. xii. 2. And if they writ “for our learning and
instruction” in these things, to be sure they writ plainly and
clearly as to them, since otherwise they writ not so as to in-
struct and teach, but to confound the reader. Seeing there-
fore the great end of writing the scripture was to instruct the
world in the will and mind of God, and the great things of
the Christian faith; either we must say, that both the writers
of the scripture, and the Holy Ghost that inspired them,
were defective in skill, or in care, so to write as to obtain
this end, or that their writings are an effectual means to ob-
tain it, which yet they cannot be, unless they are plain and
clear, as to the great things of religion.
In short, every wise agent pursues his end by the most
proper and effectual means: now surely, to write plainly,
and not obscurely, is the most proper means to instruct men
by writing ; and so the apostles must have used this means
of instructing in their writings, or else they cannot be esteem-
ed wise agents.
* Ver. 4. ‘o Seic rod atºvo; rotºrov, The god of this world,
&c.] Here observe, (1.) an hyperbaton, the true sense and
position of the words being thus, “Among whom are the
unbelievers, whose eyes the god of this world hath blinded.”
&c. Note (2.) that Satan here is called by Paul “the god
of this world,” and Eph. vi. 12, “the ruler of the darkness
of this world,” agreeably both to the Jewish and Christian
notion ; the first ascribing to him the dominion over all that
were not of the religion of the Jews, and introducing God
speaking to the angel of death, or Satan, thus, “Though I
have made thee koap, owpároga, a ruler among the creatures of
the nations, thou shalt have nothing to do with this people,
because they are my sons;”; where also it presently follows
“This is the angel of death, which is called Darkness.”
* oběšy spurröy wap” hººv. CEcum. Oba hºw to #yxxnaw,
# rā; &oraq sta; Toº Evayyexiou, 3AN& Tā; #xeivov ºrvºorew;.
Theoph. in locum.
+ Buxtorf's Lexicon, p. 2007.
688
II. CORINTHIANS.
light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image
of God, should shine unto them.
5 (I say the gospel of Christ;) for we preach not
ourselves (as aiming at our own glory or profit in this .
work), but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your
servants for Jesus’ sake.
6 (And this gospel I style the gospel of the glory of
Christ; ) for God, who (by saying, Let there be light,
and there was light) commanded the light to shine out
of darkness,” hath (also) shined in our hearts, to give
(us)" the light of the knowledge of the glory of God
in. the face (or person) of Jesus Christ (or, into the
hearts of us apostles, to give us, and enable us to give
to others, the light of the knowledge of God through
Christ, whose ambassadors we are. See ver. 7).
7 But we have this (glorious) treasure in earthen
vessels (i. e. in bodies subject to be broken with conti-
nual pressures), that the excellency of the power (which
preserves such frail creatures under them, and enables
them to do such great things in them) may (appear to)
be of God, and not of us. . ...”
8 (For though) we are troubled (and griped) on
every side, yet (are we) not (so) distressed (as to be
brought unto extremities); we are perplexed, but not
(brought) in (to) despair (of help from God);
9 (We are) persecuted (or pursued), but not for-
saken (or cast behind so as to lose the crown we run for);
cast down, but not destroyed (or killed by the fall.
see these agonistical terms eaſplained by Dr. Ham-
mond); -
10 Always bearing about in the body (a resemblance
to) the dying of the Lord Jesus, that “the life also of
Jesus might be made manifest in our body.
11 For we who (yet) live are alway delivered up to
death for Jesus' sake, (dying daily, or standing in jeo-
pardy of it every hour, whilst we are ministering the
gospel unto you, I Cor. xv. 30, 31), that the life also of
Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh
(still eaſposed to death by our enemies, but still preserved
in life by the power of Christ.
12 So then (the) death (of Christ) worketh (Gr.
wrought) in us, (who fill up that which is behind of the
sufferings of Christ in our flesh, Col. i. 24), but (the)
life (of Christ only) "in you. -
13 (Yet) we having the same Spirit of faith (i.e. the
same faith wrought by the Spirit), according as it is
written, (in the Psalms, viz.) "I believed, and there-
fore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore
(continue still, under all these sufferings, to) speak (and
preach the gospel of Christ); -
14 Knowing that *he, who raised up the Lord Je-
sus, shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present
us with you (to enjoy his heavenly kingdom together).
15 For (or, and) all (these) things (we preach and
And the Christians allowing him to be ruler over all that
were not converted to Christianity, and speaking of that as
of the dispensation which “delivered them from the power
of darkness into the kingdom of Christ,” Col. i. 13. 1 Pet.
ii. 9, and “turned them from Satan unto God,” Acts xxvi.
18, and of the gentile world, as walking before “according to
the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that worketh in
the children of disobedience,” Eph. ii. 2; which, had the fa-
thers considered, they would not have contended so stiffly
against the Marcionites and Manichees, that the god of this
world here mentioned was the true God, as both Irenaeus”
and Tertullian, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Photius, Theophy-
lact, and, as Austin: testifies, “almost all the ancients did;”
whereas, indeed, the true God is never represented in scrip-
ture as the god of this world, but as the God of them who are
called out of the world; nor is it the design of God, but of the
devil, to hide the glorious light of the gospel from the world.
*"O; #arly sixòw roi; Geoff, Who is the image of God.] Christ
seems here to be styled “the image of God,” not in the sense
of Theodoret, as being “God of God,” but rather, as the
text insinuates, with relation to the gospel and his mediatory
office; in which he hath given us many glorious demonstra-
tions of the power, wisdom, the holiness, purity and Justice,
the mercy, goodness, and philanthropy of God (Tit. iii. 4).
* Ver, 6. "O; #Napºlev.] “O; here seems put for ot-roc, he ;
so l Cor. vii. 7, 8; priv ośroº, 3; 3: oºrw;, is quidem sic, ille
autem sic; and xi. 21, 8; wiv Tsvå, is quidem sitit, ºr fair pas-
6981, ille autem inebriatur.
7 Ifás partiałºwº, yºdºrso; tā; 3&n; roš Osos, The light of
the knowledge of the glory of God.] Here seems to be an
allusion to the shining of the face of Moses, after he had
obtained his desire of seeing the glory of God, Exod. xxxiii.
16. 19, upon which 3e36%aarai # 3.J.tº, “his face was made
glorious,” Exod. xxxiv. 29, 30, by reason of the glory of
God that he had seen. This now, saith Paul, belongs to us
apostles, the glory of God shining more gloriously in the face
or person of Jesus Christ, than ever it did in Moses, and we
“beholding with open face the glory of the Lord,” iii. 20;
whereas the children of Israel “could not stedfastly behold
the glory of the face of Moses.” Note also, that y ºrgo-ºrg,
is the constant reading of the Greek scholiasts.
* Ver. 10. "Iya xa: h £2% roſ, 'Inzoſ, &c. That the life of
* Deus excacavit mentes infidelium hujus seculi. Iren.
lib. iii. cap. 7.
+ Tertull. contra Marcion, lib. v. cap. 11.
# Quam quidem sententiam plerique noström ita distit-
guunt, ut Deum verum dicant excaccàsse infidelium mentes,
Contra Faust. Manich. lib. xxi. cap. 2.
Jesus might be made manifest.] It being a certain demon-
stration that Christ is risen, and still lives, that we, who per-
suade others to believe this, are enabled to do such mighty
wonders in his name, and patiently and constantly to suffer
such fiery trials by his grace.
* Ver. 12. 'Ew taſy, In you..] As being made partakers of
the vital efficacy of Christ, in his spiritual gifts, and of an
assimilation to his resurrection by a life of holiness, but not
of the like sufferings with us (1 Cor. iv. 8. 10). - '
* Ver. 13. "Emirrevaa, 313 ÉxáAnara, I believed, therefore
have I spoken.] These words of David were spoken when
“the sorrows of death compassed him round about, and the
pangs of sheol caught hold upon him,” and yet he believed
he “should walk before God in the land of the living,” Ps.
cxvi. 3. 9, 10, and therefore are applied by the apostle in
the spiritual sense of them to the resurrection, thus ; That
as David, notwithstanding all the persecutions which he suf-
fered from the hands of Saul, firmly believed he should be
preserved and raised to a temporal kingdom, so we apostles
believe that, after all our sufferings for the gospel, we shall
be raised and advanced to a heavenly kingdom.
* Ver. 14. ‘o Hysiga; toy Köztoy 'Incoſy, He that raised up
the Lord Jesus.] Here Schlictingius observes two things, (1.)
That our Lord Jesus did not raise up himself, but was raised
from the dead by the Father. (2.) That though Christ Jesus
shall raise us up, yet shall he do this, not by his own power,
but by the power he received from the Father.
First, Now here I acknowledge that the resurrection of our
Lord is frequently ascribed in scripture to God the Father,
Acts iii. 26. xiii. 32. xvii. 31. Rom. iv. 24. x. 9. 1 Cor. vi.
14. xv. 15. Gal. i. 1. Eph. i. 20. Col. ii. 12. 1 Thess. i. 9,
10. Heb. xiii. 20. 1 Pet. i. 3. 21, and the reason of the Chris-
tian dispensation requires it should be so, this being a demon-
stration that God the Father was satisfied with his perform-
ances and sufferings for us, and that he owned him as a true
prophet, and his beloved Son, in that he raised him from the
dead : but then this is not sq to be understood as to exclude
Christ, wholly from the same action ; for he himself promised
to do this when he said of the temple of his body, “Destroy
this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,” John ii.
19. 22. And that he did so, we learn from this, that after
his resurrection the disciples “believed the word which Je-
sus spake ;” whereas, had he not raised up himself, they
could not have believed his word.
Let it then be noted, that our Lord was “quickened by the
Spirit,” 1 Pet. iii. 18, even by the Spirit by which he offered
up himself (Heb. ix. 15). Since then this Spirit of God
dwelt in Christ, and is by him communicated to all believers,
it is easy to be understood how Christ raised up himself, and
CHAPTER V.
689
suffer) are for your sakes, that the abundant grace
(conferred upon you by our ministry) might, through
the thanksgiving of many, redound to the glory of
God.
16 For which cause we faint not (under the tribula-
tions we thus suffer); but though our outward man
perish, yet the * inward man is renewed (with vigour.
and alacrity in the performance of our duty) day by day.
17. For (we know that) our light affliction, which is
but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceed-
ing and etérnal *weight of glory.
18 (We faint not, I say,) *while we look not at the
things which are seen, but at the things which are
not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal,
but the things which are not seen are eternal.
yet was raised up “by the power of God,” as the Holy Ghost
is styled, Luke i. 35. Thus also the resurrection of the just
is ascribed to God the Father, Acts xxvi. 8. 1 Cor. vi. 14.
Heb. xi. 19. 2 Pet. i. 3, and yet the same resurrection is fre-
quently ascribed to Christ, John v. 28. vi. 39, 40. xi.;27.
Rom. xiv. 19. 1 Cor. xv. 21, 22. 25, 26. Rev. iii. 18. "And
this he will effect by the power he hath in himself, John v.
26, by himself, John vi. 47, 54, “I will raise him up at the
last day;” by his word, “The dead shall hear the voice of
the Son of God and live,” John v. 28; by “the power by
which he is able to subdue all things to himself.” Phil. iii. 21.
Now to raise the dead being a thing proper to God himself
(Rom. iv. 7. Acts xxvi. 8), an instance of the power of God
Matt. xxii. 29), and the belief of it being faith in God (Heb.
xi. 19. 1 Pet. i. 3), whosoever hath the power of raising all
men from the dead, must have the power of God; the God-
head, “the energy of the power of the might of God” (Eph.
i. 19), and the whole fulness of the Godhead dwelling in
him; and if Christ did receive this power from the Father,
he must receive it from him by the communication of the
Godhead to him. -
1° Wer. 16. ‘o Hara Sey &vSewaroc, The inward man.] Hence
we learn that the distinction betwixt the outward and inward
man is not of the same import with that of the old and new
man (Rom. vi. 6), “which is renewed after the image of
God in righteousness and holiness” (Eph. iv. 22. Col. iii. 9,
10); but the “outward man” that perisheth signifies only
the body, the “inward” is only the mind or spirit which is
in man : so that when the apostle Saith in the person of it
man under the law, “I delight in the law of God after the
inward man,” Rom. vii. 22, he saith nothing which intimates
that the person speaking was “renewed in the spirit of his
mind,” but only that his mind was inclined to obey the law
of God, though, through “the law in his members” warring
against it, he was “led captive to the law of sin.”
* Ver. 17. Bégo; 3%mº, Weight of glory..] The Hebrew
word Th2 which answers to 8ápoc, weight, signifies not only
multitude, but greatness, and in the rabbins, as well as scrip-
ture, honourable: so Gen. xviii. 20, “Their sin was TRI) nºn-,
very great” (see Gen. l. ll. Exod. ix. 3) : honourable, so
Exod. xx. 12, Thi), “Honour thy father and thy mother”
(see Deut. xxviii. 58): so that this word may signify the
magnificence, the abundance, and the honour of the future
glory which is prepared for the Christian sufferer.
*Wer. 18.] Note hence, that it is not only lawful, but
even laudable, after the example of the apostles, in our ac-
tions and sufferings, to have respect to the recompence of
reward, that being by the wisdom of the Holy Ghost pro-
pounded as our encouragement to do and suffer these things,
CHAPTER V.
1 Fon we know that if our earthly house of this
tabernacle were dissolved, we have (provided for us,
at the restoring of it) * a building of God, a house not
made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
2 For in this (tabernacle) we groan, earnestly de-
siring * to be clothed upon with our house which is
from heaven:
3 (We are, Isay, desirous of this,) * if so be that (or,
seeing that at the resurrection) being clothed we shall
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. W.
I Wer. 1. oixoSoºy Toº Osoſ; #xogey, We have a building of
God..] It was the doctrine of the Platonists,” That the soul
was a kind of being which could not well subsist or act with-
out a body, and therefore, after her separation from the body,
wanted some vehicle or clothing by which she might subsist
and act; and this notion was embraced by Origen, and this text
was accordingly interpreted by him (see the note on 1 Cor.
xv. 44, 45): and according to this notion, good Christians,
as soon as they depart this life, are not found naked, but
“clothed with their house from heaven,” which, at the re-
surrection, shall be the #7ávèvºwa, or “clothing” of their raised
bodies, which renders them immortal. But the apostle can-
not here be supposed to mean, that as soon as ever good Chris-
tians die they shall be clothed upon with this house which is
from heaven, but only that they shall be so at the resurrec-
tion. For (1.) we Christians, saith he, “groan, earnestly
desiring to be clothed upon” with this house, ver. 2. Now,
saith the same apostle, “we ourselves groan within ourselves,
waiting for the adoption, that is, the redemption of the body,”
* xxºa 3xxo ignetºic rā alo Snt; roſta gerð riv. ivrećSay
#x3mºziav #xet, Éxt:6&Evo; rºy ºvzhy &a dºzarov wºrö 'ti r^atovikás
3ropaveral airthy. Tú yāp kai wer; rāvārī tº 46a wov 3ropol-
thriv axhºwaro; atrºy AsiaSat, kai treet&oxii; Aiyêty &; cil ºvyatº-
ºny Katarxeºva yukyńy. Method. ap. Phot. p. 930,
Eph. iii. 2 (see the note there).
not be found “naked (i.e. since then we shall not be
found naked as the wicked, but clothed with a body not
subject to death). -
4 For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being
burdened; not for that (through impatience under our
sufferings) we would be unclothed (by putting off the
body), but (as desiring, ver. 2, to be) clothed upon
(with our celestial body), that mortality might be swal-
lowed up of life. - -
Rom. viii. 23. (2.) They “groaned to be clothed upon, that
mortality might be swallowed up of life,” ver, 4. Now
“when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and
this mortal immortality, then (only) shall be brought to pass
the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory”
(1 Cor. xv. 24). - - -
2 Ver. 2. 'Evêvão ao Sai, To be clothed upon.] By putting
over this mortal body an incorruptible and eternal house.
The Jews say that Adam, in, his first creation, being made,
in 349aga'ig, “for incorruption” (Wisd. i. 23), his body was
covered from corruption veste onychinā, with a clothing like
in colour to the mail of the hand. Accordingly, the apostle
represents the future bodies raised incorruptible, as clothed
with an immortal covering, 1 Cor. xv. 53, 54.
* Ver. 3. Ef ye wai, If so be..] That these words may be
also rendered since, and seeing that, is evident from scrip-
ture, and good authors. Thus here, ver. 4, si signifies
quandoguidem, so ti yº #x00aars, “Seeing ye have heard,”
And again, Eph. iv. l.
Or else, retaining our own version, we may give this sense
to the words, If so be that (then) we shall be found clothed
(with our celestial bodies, and so fitted for a blessed immor-
tality), and not (as the wicked) naked (and without this
heavenly building).
4 rvºvoi, Naked.j i. e. Not clothed upon with another
body. So, I Cor. xv. 37, “Thou sowest, yugyº ºxey, naked
grain,” not covered with a blade, or cover of chaff, as when
it riseth up out of the earth it is, or with a cod, as in beans,
690
II. CORINTHIANS.
5 Now he that hath ‘wrought us for the self-same
thing (i. e., hath wrought in us this earnest desire) is
God, who hath also given to us the earnest of the
Spirit (whereby we are sealed up to the day of redemp-
tion, Eph. iv. 30, and wait for the redemption of the
body, Rom, viii. 23). e &
6. Therefore (having this earnest of the Spirit) we
are always confident, knowing (Gr. being therefore al-
ways confident, and knowing) that, whilst we are at
home in the body, we are absent from the Lord :
7 (For (whilst it is thus with us) we walk by faith
(only), not by sight:)
8 *We are confident, I say, and willing (we in this
confidence are willing) rather to be absent from (or tra-
vel out of) the body, and to be present with the Lord
(or at home with him). -
9 Wherefore we labour, that, whether (we be) pre-
sent (iny or absent (from the body), we may be accepted
of him (at his appearance). -
10 For we must all appear before the judgment-seat
peas, and lentiles: and accordingly, the rabbins" introduce
a Samaritan or gentile, inquiring of R. Meir, “Whether the
dead rise naked or clothed P” and him answering thus,
that “peas, which are sown naked, arise clothed, or covered
with a cod, and much more the dead:” but then they seem
to restrain this to the just, saying, that “the just shall rise
clothed.”
* Ver. 5. “o wattpyarápasyo; hºwäç sic aird rotto, He that
hath wrought us for the selfsame thing.] Hence it appears,
there is no ground for that dangerous opinion; that the apos-
tle here speaks as one that believed the general resurrection
and advent of our Lord to judgment would be suddenly ;
for, this persuasion being false, the apostle could not, in this
sense, say, “We know that if this earthly tabernacle were
dissolved, we have (immediately) a building of God,” i. e.
a heavenly body to put on. God could not “work them
up” to this desire, that they might not be unclothed, i. e. not
die, but live to the resurrection, to be then clothed upon; nor
could the apostle, consistently with this persuasion, intro-
duce the same Christians willing to be “absent from the
body, that they might be present with the Lord.” More-
over, in the preceding chapter, ver. 14, he plainly says, that
they expected to be raised up by Jesus from the dead, and
therefore must expect to die (see the note on 1 Thess. iv.
15).
* Wer. 8. Qajoſºey 33, We are confident.] i. e. We have
not only confidence at his appearance (John ii. 28), but
always, even in death itself, that, though it renders us absent
from the body, it will bring us home to Christ, and to a
nearer fruition of him. Only here note, that according to
the doctrine of all the ancients, the souls of pious men are
not assumed into the highest heavens, or the immediate pre-
sence of God and Christ, instantly upon their departure
hence: for thus only we shall be “ever present with the
Lord,” 1 Thess. iv.16, 17, when, by the power of God, at the
last trump, we shall be raised up to “meet him in the air;”
this promise being made at his second coming to receive his
disciples to himself, that “where he is, they may be also,”
John xiv. 3. But yet, according to all antiquity, the souls
of pious men, in the mean time, are “in the place ap-
pointed for them, trapa rô Kvpiº, with the Lord,” that is,
with him in paradise, where they enjoy the sight and conver-
sation of their Saviour by way of vision : for “Paul, and the
rest of the apostles,” saith Polycarp, “are in the place ap-
pointed for them, with the Lord.”—“Not only in heaven,”
saith Irenaeus, “but in paradise also, our Saviour shall be
seen, as men are worthy to behold him.” And this doth
Pseudo-Justin; gather from this very place, that “the souls
of the just go to paradise, and converse there with Christ by
vision.”
Wer. 9..] I confess it is difficult to give the clear sense of
the apostle's words from ver. 1 to 9, but, to do my endea-
vour farther towards it, observe, g
First, That it cannot be proved from anything said here,
or in any other place of Paul's epistles, that the apostle him-
self either thought, or taught others to think, that the coming
* Pirk. Eliezer, cap. 30, p. 80. Midrash Coheleth, cap.
5, 1].
g 2. N., 3 p * & 4. ...? * gº p
ºf Eic row 54 sixápasyov auroſ; rôtrov Eiri wapā tº Kvgiº. Ep.
Š. 9.
: IIayraxoi, kai 3 o'orºp gabha eral Raš3; &#to £coyºral oi
tgºv.rsc. Iren, lib, V. cap. 36.
§ "EyS g } . Sé > Éx * , 3. *
Sa avy'rvXia Te Kai &#a &yyāNov tº xai ä6%ayyāoy
war' 3rraciay, 8: Kai roi d'orizo; Xgiaroj Katz ºr eign wävov,
#x3nºoúvts; #2 rod cºwator, Mai Évêmºodyts; Trºö; rºy Kiev v.
Pseudo-Justin. Quaest. et Resp. 75.
of Christ was not far off, as I have fully proved in the note
on 1. Thess. iv. 15. And, indeed, this doctrine being found
by experience to be false, had he himself asserted, or taught
others to expect, that the coming of our Lord to judgment
was at hand; seeing in that he must have been mistaken,
and mislead others, what certainty can we have, that he was
not mistaken, or did not mislead others, in what else he
taught in his epistles? Thus, ver. 9, if when he said, l Cor.
vii. 31, “Brethren, the time is short, and the fashion of this
world passeth away ;” he thus dogmatically spake not of the
time of human life, and the relation we had to the world,
and the world to us, but of Christ's coming to judgment, and
the destruction of the world, he certainly taught false doc-
trine. If, when he saith, x. 11, that upon them the end of
the ages was come ; he meant not the last, that is the Jew-
ish, concurring with the gospel age, but the end of the
world, he then taught false doctrine. If, when he saith,
Heb. x. 37, “Yet a little while, and he that shall come will
come, and will not tarry;” he meant this not of Christ's
coming to the destruction of Jerusalem, and of the Jewish
state and nation, but of his coming to the final judgment, he
again taught false doctrine, and endeavoured to support them
with false hope, which sure must be sufficient to impair his
credit in other matters taught in his epistles. Lastly, That
there is no ground for this opinion is proved, note on ver. 5;
they, indeed, who had “the first-fruits of the Spirit” in
them might wait for his coming, as all good Christians
do, but they could not by virtue of his words expect it
suddenly. -
Secondly, Observe, that the apostle here cannot intend to
assert, that good Christians, as soon as they die, shall in-
stantly be clothed upon with their house from heaven, but
only that they shall be so at the resurrection ; for, saith he,
we desire to be thus clothed upon, “that mortality may be
swallowed up in life:” now this he had told us, 1 Cor. xv.
54, was only to be expected, at the resurrection ; for, “when
this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mor-
tal immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying
that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.”
Thirdly, Observe, that the time of the resurrection of the
just, being declared to be the time of their recompence, their
being crowned and like to the angels, and being “ever with
the Lord,” as hath been fully proved on the note on 2 Tim.
iv. 5, they had good reason to be groaning after “the re-
demption of the body,” and that crown of glory which God
would give them in that day. But then, say they, we do
not groan through impatience under our present afflictions;
nor, as some philosophers, from an opinion that the body
is the prison of the soul, and hinderance to the knowledge of
the truth, and therefore counting it a happiness to be di-
vested of it; but from a vehement desire of that glorious
resurrection of it, which shall complete the happiness
* of soul and body, and place it for ever with the
ord.
Lastly, Observe, that at the resurrection there shall not
be only an Évèuga, or clothing of the soul with its former
naked body; but an Émévèvpxa, a clothing of the body raised,
with a covering that shall preserve it from corruption ; and
this is plainly the apostle's meaning in the similitude of grain
rising not “naked,” as it was sown, but “clothed upon,” as
is proved, note on ver. 3 here, and on 1 Cor. xv. 37. And
this, I think, is the meaning of those words, ver. 3, “If so
be,” or “seeing we shall be Évèvráºzsvot, clothed upon,” as
the bodies of the just will be, and not yupwroi, “naked,” as the
bodies of the wicked shall be: for, that the wicked shall have
immortal bodies at the resurrection, I nowhere find clearly
delivered in the holy scripture, but only that the destruction
CHAPTER V.
691
of Christ; that every one may (then) receive the things
done "in his body (or, by the body), according to that
he hath done, whether it be good or bad.
11 Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we
persuade men (to believe we act in all sincerity and truth,
when we propound these things to them); but (in this)
we are made manifest to God; and I trust also (we)
are made manifest in your consciences (and have given
gou good assurance that we act sincerely).
12 For we commend not ourselves again unto you
(as if we doubted of your good opinion of us), but (we
say these things to) give you occasion to glory on our
behalf, that you may have somewhat to answer them
... which glory in appearance, and not in heart (or truth
and sincerity, but either of other men's labours, 2 Cor.
X. 15, § of things not really done by them, 2 Cor. xi.
12–21).
13 For whether we be beside ourselves (transported
in speaking of our raptures, ecstasies, and visions), it is
to (do service to) God; or whether we be sober (in our
discourses, not desiring that others should think of us
above what they see in us, 2 Cor. xii. 6), it is for your
sakes. z-
14 For the love of Christ constraineth us (thus to
promote his glory, and to seek your good); because we
thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead
(i.e. obnoarious to death, and condemned to it for sin);
15 And that *he died for all, that they who live (by
of their bodies, as well as the torment of their souls, will be
everlasting (see the reading of the text, ver. 3, vindicated,
Examen Millii in locum).
7 Ver. 10. Tà 31& roi; adºpºaros, The things done in the
body..] Some manuscripts read tº $8ta row oºzaroc, propria
corporis, “the things proper to the body;” so the Vulgar
Latin: both readings do sufficiently confute the doctrine of
the Roman purgatory, and their prayers for the dead, as
teaching men shall receive hereafter, not according to the
prayers of others for them, when they are out of the body,
but according to what they themselves have done in the
body. Now it is sure, that what the living do of this kind
for them after death, they themselves do not in the body,
and so no account will be had of it in the great day. And
why should they before suffer such dreadful pains in purga-
tory, who afterward must receive rewards or punishments,
according, not to what they have suffered there, but according
to what they had done in the flesh P The fathers here do
farther note,
First, That the same body, which was dissolved, shall be
raised again, and not another; it being absurd to think that
one body should sin, and yet another should be punished for
it ; one body suffer, another should be crowned for it: so
Methodius, Chrysostom, and Theophylact. g
Secondly, That the soul is to receive its retributions with
the body, and not without it, according to Methodius,” The-
odoret,” and Hilary: the deacon, who passeth under the
name of St. Ambrose.
* Ver. 15. Kai iwig ºrávrov &réSaver, And he died for all.]
Here observe, *
First, That Christ died for all, all that were dead, all who
were by his death engaged to live to him ; as all, to whom
the knowledge of the gospel is vouchsafed, are. -
Secondly, That they do certainly mistake the meaning of
these words, “Then were all dead,” who thus interpret
them, ś Then were all obliged to be dead to sin ; for, (1.) in
these two verses the word & ré8avoy, “dead” is four times
used, once before, and twice after these words, “Then were
* Oü8; yāp yukºvi, h Juxh, &AN& 8:3 rod adºpºaro; yopaiſerai
raira. Method. Apud CEcumen. in loc.
+ "Eºtićs &#xał Tā; rigougivac, kai rā; kºokºva; Juxā;
£weta rāy oropºrov beyopwévac rā; &vrièāoreig. Theod.
† Si judicante Christo unusquisque noström facta corporis
recipiet, non utique sine corpore adjudicabitur bono aut
malo, Hilar. “ -
§ Esthius, Schlictingius.
his death) should not henceforth live unto themselves,
but unto him that died for them (i. e. for their sins),
and rose again (for their justification, Rom. iv. 24, 25).
16 Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the
flesh (i. e. according to carnal interests, the riches,
honours, pleasures, and advantages of this world, 2 Cor.
i. 17. x. 2); yea, though we have known Christ after
the flesh (eaſpecting him as a temporal king, and hoping
for great advancements in his kingdom, as being his dis-
ciples), yet now henceforth *know we him (so) no
II].OTC.
17 (And so it is with all his sincere votaries;) there-
fore if any man be in Christ, he is (become) a new
creature: old things are passed away (his affection to
all temporal and carnal things); behold, "all things
are become new (in him).
18 And all (these) things (belonging to the new cre-
ation, this change of our affections, this constraining
love,) are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself
by Jesus Christ, and hath given (or committed) to us
the ministry of reconciliation;
19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the
world to himself, (and) not imputing their (former)
trespasses unto them; and hath committed to us the
word of reconciliation;
20 Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as
though God did beseech you by us; we pray you in
Christ’s stead, be ye * reconciled to God.
all dead,” and both before and after it, undeniably signifies
death in the proper acceptation of the word : who then can
think that, the second time in the same sentence, it should
import only an obligation to die to sin, or to ourselves 2
Whensoever in the scripture it bears a metaphorical sense,
some other word is joined to it, which doth enforce that
sense ; as when we are said to “die to sin,” Rom. vi. 2, to
“die with Christ,” Rom. vi. 8. Col. ii. 20, to “die to the law,”
Gal. ii. 19, to “die to the world,” Gal. vi. 14. Col. iii. 3.
Here, therefore, nothing being added to enforce that sense,
it must be deemed alien from the text (see Examen Millii
in locum).
* Wer. 16. Oñx ºri yiyāakopaev, We know him so no more.]
It is manifest, that the disciples, whilst Christ was with
them, were much addicted to those temporal interests, still
striving and contending who among them should be the
greatest in Christ's kingdom, Luke ix. 46. xxii. 24, asking
to “sit one at his right hand, the other on his left hand, in
his kingdom,” Mark x. 37, and saying, “We have left all,
and followed thee, what shall we have therefore ?” Matt. xix.
27, and presently after his resurrection inquiring, “Wilt
thou now, Lord, restore the kingdom to Israel?” Acts i. 6.
These expectations, saith the apostle, we have now laid
aside, and serve Christ only for spiritual and eternal advan-
tages. Or, we may interpret these words thus: We know
(i.e. respect) no man according to the flesh (i.e. according
to his circumcision or nation), as being an Israelite, or of the
stock of Abraham, as “knowing that in Christ Jesus neither
circumcision availeth anything but a new creature,” Gal.
vi. 15, and though we Jews at first knew Christ according to
the flesh, adhering to circumcision and the law, even after
faith in Christ, yet now do we not so ; but all these old
things are now passed away, we being “dead to the law,
that we might live to God,” Gal. ii. 20, and serving him
now “in newness of spirit, not in the oldness of the letter,”
Rom. vii. 5.
19. Wer. 17. Kaiyā rà rávra, All things shall become new.]
Kai Lux” walvã, Kai arijaa kavy, zai Aarpeia xatyń, “The soul
shall be renewed in the mind, will, and affections,” the body
new in its actions, as being made an instrument of righteous-
ness, Rom. iv. 13, the worship new, Rom. vii. 6. Phil. iii.
3, the whole life new, Rom. vi. 4; so Chrysostom (see this
reading vindicated, Examen Millii in locum).
Il Ver. 20. Asé.8%a trip xglaroi, KaraNAáynts tº OF3, Be
ge reconciled to God.] Here is observable against the So-
cinians a double reconciliation: (1) a reconciliation of God
to us; for “God was in Christ reconciling the *: to him-
2 2
692
II. CoſtiNTHIANs.
21 For he hath *made him to be (a) sin (offering)
for us, who (himself) knew no sin, that we might be
made (righteous with) the righteousness of God in
him. . - * -
self” through him ; and that not by renewing our natures,
but by “not imputing our trespasses to us.” This reconcilia-
tion was effected, saith the next verse, by making Christ a
sin-offering for us, “that we might be made the righteous-
ness of God in him ;” and this reconciliation is followed with
an exhortation on our parts “to be reconciled to God.”
Obj. But Crellius objects, That the reconciliation, here
mentioned, is ascribed to God, and so it cannot be the ap-
peasing of his anger by making any satisfaction to him ; for
can it be supposed, saith he, that God, being angry, should
appease himself, and that by making satisfaction by another
to himself?
Ans. I answer, That the text doth not barely say, God re-
conciled us to himself, but that he was reconciling the world
to himself in Christ, that is, by Christ as the means of our re-
conciliation, or as the sin-offering by which this reconciliation
was procured. It therefore is not necessary that these words
should import that God, being angry, should appease him-
self, but only that he should declare himself so far appeased
by Christ's sufferings for us, and so well satisfied with his
blood shed for the remission of our sins, that he would not
impute those sins to any that believed in him : the blood
of Christ made a sin-offering making atonement for us, as
the blood of the sin-offering under the law made atonement
for the sinner, and procured the forgiveness of his sins: and
if under the law satisfaction was made by the sinner to God,
by a beast of his own appointing, why may it not be made
under the gospel by a Saviour of his own sending 2
* Ver. 21. “Yºrêp hºw &agríay Éraina’sy, He made him sin
jor us...] The words here, being sacrificial, must be explained
by their use in the old law, when applied to legal sacrifices.
Now the word áºzaeria, which we render “sin,” is used there
customarily for a sin-offering, and is well expounded by
(Ecumenius, tº regi čºagriðv Şütza. So alyss, #1406, p.áaxo;
itré; &#xagºriac, Ezek. xliii. 22. 25. xliv. 29. xlv. 22, 23. 25.
So “the law of the sin-offering” is 3 vápºtº rā, św.agriac, Lev.
vi. 25, the bullock appointed for a sin-offering is tº ºocy:46:ow
afts &#xagtiaº, ö (26a 3:2; 3 rāg &#xagºriac, “the bullock of sin,”
Exod. xxix. 36. Lev. iv. 8. 20; the goat to be sacrificed for
sin, is h xiºzºa # rāg &apºria;, “the goat of sin,” Lev. iv.
29. To make such a beast a sin-offering for the people, is,
in the sacrificial phrase, Troisſy &ºagriay, moisſy rô wee: ágapºria;,
“to make it sin,” Lev. iv. 20. ix. 7. xiv. 18. xv. 19. Numb.
vi. 11. 16. viii. 12. It cannot therefore be doubted, but tha
Troisſy inväg hºw&y & wagºríav rôy xpirröy doth signify here to
make Christ a sin-offering, or sacrifice for sin for us. The
end for which he was thus made a sacrifice is this, “that we
might be made the righteousness of God in him,” i. e. that
we might be justified by God, or might obtain forgiveness of
sins, through faith in the blood of this sin-offering. For
3.xaloa ºwn Osoſ, “the righteousness” or “the justification of
God,” in Paul's style, still signifies the righteousness of faith,
in Christ dying or shedding his blood for us; as in these
words, 3:42too dyn yag Geoû, “For the righteousness of God in
him is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, The jus:
shall live by his faith,” Rom. i. 17. Again, 2.xaloa ºwn Ogot,
“The righteousness of God without the law is manifest—to
wit, the righteousness of God through faith of Christ,” Rom.
iii. 21, 22. And, x. 3, 4, “For they not knowing rºy Bikato-
aivny roi; Osoti, the righteousness of God, and going about to
establish their own righteousness, have not submitted rà
Bixalogºwn ºrdſ, Osoſ, to the righteousness of God. For Christ is
the end of the law for righteousness (that is, justification)
to every one that believeth ;” Phil. iii. 9, “That I may be
found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is of
the law, but that which is by the faith of Christ, rºy in Osoſ;
3.xaloa dyny #7. Tº Triztet, the righteousness of God by faith.”
The interpretation, therefore, given in the paraphrase, is very
agreeable to scripture, whereas the gloss of the Socinians
puts a continual force upon the words; for where in scrip-
ture doth troisſy & zapriay signify to treat an innocent person
as a sinner 2 where is it that to be made the righteousness
of God in Christ, doth signify our being made new creatures,
or our being sanctified 2 where doth God's reconciling us by
Jesus Christ import his converting the world to himself by
Christ as his ambassador? why is God said not to impute to
men their trespasses by the preaching of Christ, who preach-
ed “only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” rather
than by the preaching of the apostles to the whole gentile
world? how was he “made sin” more than they, if he
were only treated as a sinner on the account of the same
doctrine, which they equally preached, and suffered for P and
why may not men be said to be “made the righteousness of
God” in the apostles, as well as in Christ, if this only im-
ports our being converted, and so made righteous, by the
doctrine they, as well as he, delivered?
CHAPTER VI.
... 1 WE then, as workers together with him (I Cor.
iii. 9, and his ambassadors, 2 Cor. v. 20) beseech you
also that ye receive not the grace of God in
* vain.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VI.
Ver. 1. Xáply roi, Geoû, The grace of God..] The grace of
God, in the Old Testament, imports his favour and kind
affection to us; and in this sense it is said in general, “A
good man obtaineth, Tx., x&gly rapi, Kugiº, favour of the
Lord,” Prov. iii. 34. xii. 2, or in particular, that such a pious
man found in, xágy, “grace in the sight of God,” 2 Sam. xv.
25. Gen. vi. 8, for as when it is said that “Joseph found
grace in his master's sight,” Gen. xxxix. 4. xliii. 14. xlvii.
25. Exod. iii. 21. xi. 3. xii. 36, the meaning is, his master
showed favour to him ; and when it is added, that “the
Egyptians found grace in the sight of Joseph,” the meaning
is, he was inclined to show favour to them, and grant them
corn for their subsistence: so when the scripture saith, that
pious persons “found grace in the sight of God,” the phrase
must signify God's inclination to show mercy, and bear a
kind affection to them. The grace of God in the New
Testament, when it is not used to signify the miraculous gifts
of the Holy Ghost, bears generally the same sense : as when
the angel saith to Mary, “Thou hast found grace with God,”
Luke i. 30; Stephen of king David, that “he found grace
with God,” Acts vii. 46; Luke, that “Jesus increased, xàpitt,
in grace with God and man,” Luke ii. 52; when Paul and
Silas are said to be “commended to the grace of God,” for the
work of the ministry, Acts xiii. 3. xiv. 26. xv. 40, this being
done by their prayers to God for his favour and assistance in
that work. When men said to be “justified by the grace of
God,” Acts xv. 11. Rom. iii. 24. Eph. i. 7, and so have for-
giveness of their sins, “according to the riches of his grace,”
it must import the same ; for justification and forgiveness of
sin are acts of God’s free grace and favour to the sinner.
When it is said that “we are saved by the grace of our
Lord Jesus,” Acts xv. 11; “By grace ye are saved, not of
works ;” “By grace we are saved, through faith,” Eph. ii. 8,
9; seeing this is spoken to men yet alive, and so obliged to
“work out their salvation with fear and trembling,” it can-
not mean they were actually saved, but only that they were
called to a state of salvation, enjoyed the means, and were
put in the way of salvation by grace, according to those
words of the same apostle, “He hath saved us, and called
us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but the
grace given us in Christ Jesus,” 2 Tim. i. 9; and to be thus
saved by grace, is to be saved by the mercy and favour of
God to us, according to those words of the apostle, “When
the kindness and love of God our Saviour to man appeared,
not by works of righteousness which we have done, but by
his mercy he saved us,” Tit. iii. 4, 5, it being purely of the
CHAPTER VI.
693
2 For he saith (Isa. xlix. 8), * I have heard thee in
a time accepted (i.e. of favour and acceptance), and
in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: be-
hold, now is the (well) accepted time, now is the day
of salvation, (when God sends his ministers to preach,
and offer it to you, 2 Cor. v. 20.
3 Which we are so careful to preach, as becomes
workers with God, ver. 1) giving no (just) offence in
anything, that the ministry be not blamed:
4 But in all things approving ourselves as the mi-
misters of God, in much patience, * in afflictions, in
necessities, in distresses,
5 In stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults (raised
against us for preaching the gospel), in labours, in
watchings, in fastings (i. e. in constant enduring all
sorts of sufferings, and ea’ercising all kinds of self-
denial, for the gospel’s sake);
6 By pureness (of conversation), by knowledge (of
the divine mysteries), by long-suffering (under all pro-
wocations), by kindness (towards all men), by the (va-
rious gifts of the) Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned,
7 By the word of truth (preached), by the power of
God (confirming it, Rom. xv. 19), by the armour of
righteousness (which covers and protects us when as-
saulted), * on the right hand (by prosperous) and on
the left (by adverse events),
8 By (going through the various conditions of) ho-
mour and dishonour, by (going through) evil report
and good report; (being looked upon by the wise men.
of the world) as deceivers, and yet (being) true (dis-
pensers of the word of life to them);
9 As unknown (and obscure persons), and yet well
known (by the powerful works we perform); as dying,
(daily by our continual persecutions), and (yet), be-,
hold, we live; as chastened, and (yet) not killed;
10 As sorrowful (in outward appearance), yet.
always (inwardly) rejoicing ; as poor (in the concern-
nents of the world), yet making many (truly and spi-
ritually) rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing
all things (in contentedness of mind, Phil. iv. 18, in
the favour of that God who giveth all things richly to
enjoy, 1 Tim. vi. 17, in Christ Jesus who is all in all,
Col. iii. 11, and in whom we are blessed with all spi-
ritual blessings, Eph. i. 3, and in the promise to in-
herit all things, Rev. xxi. 7).
11 O ye Corinthians, "our mouth is (freely) open
to you (in speaking well of you, vii. 4) our heart (and
our affection) is enlarged (to you).
12 Ye are not straitened in us (you have a large
Toom in our hearts), but you are straitened (rather)
in your own bowels (of affection to us).
13 * Now, for a recompence in the same (kind), I
speak as to my children, be ye also enlarged (in your
affections to me your spiritual father).
14 * Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbe-
lievers (do not join with them in their idol-feasts, and
mercy and the grace of God, that any nation is called to the
knowledge of salvation by Christ. When the grace of God
is said to have “abounded towards us,” Rom. v. 15. 20. xv.
16, that grace is styled “the free gift of God.” When Paul
saith, “By the grace of God I am what I am,” 1 Cor. xv.
10; that he was “called by his grace,” Gal. i. 15; and that
“the grace of God was abundant” to him, 1 Tim. i. 13, 14,
he himself interprets this of God’s great mercy to so great a
sinner. When he saith, “I do not frustrate the grace of
God,” Gal. ii. 21, this he interprets to be God's favour to
mankind, in sending his Son to die for us. “The exceed-
ing riches of his grace,” Eph. ii. 7, is God's great kindness to
us in Christ Jesus; and “by the grace of God” it is that
“Christ tasted death for every man,” 2 Tim. i. 9. Heb. ii. 9.
Hence is this gospel styled, “the grace of God, which brings
salvation,” Tit. ii. 11; “the grace of God, which is able to
build us up, and procure us an inheritance among them that
are sanctified,” Acts xx. 32. This also must be the import
of the word, when the apostles exhort their converts to “con-
tinue in the grace of God,” Acts xiii. 43; and when they
inform us, that God “confirmed the word of his grace by
doing signs and wonders,” Acts xiv. 3, and that “the law
came by Moses, but grace by Jesus Christ,” John i. 17 (see
the notes on Heb. xii. 28. xiii. 9. James iv. 6).
* Mā eiç ºvoy rºw Xàgy &#aağat, Not to receive this grace in
vain.] This we do, (1.) when we do not obtain the end for
which it was designed, viz. “ to teach us, denying all ungod-
liness and worldly lusts, to live righteously, soberly, and godly
in this present world.” Thus those oblations, which are not
acceptable to God, are styled “vain oblations,” Isa. i. 13,
and the worship which is not according to his will, “vain
worship,” Matt. xv. 9; because this worship, and these
oblations, though designed to procure God's favour, will not
do it. (2.) When we receive no benefit by the grace received,
and it conveys no pardon or salvation to us, so upon suppo-
sition that there will be no resurrection, “your faith is in
vain,” 1 Cor. xv. 17, and, if you retain it not, “ye have be-
lieved in vain,” ver. 2. So to “labour in vain,” and “run
in vain,” Gal. ii. 2. iv. 11, is to do these things without pro-
fit to them for whose sakes they are done ; and those are
called “vain questions,” and “vain words,” Tit. iii. 9. Matt.
xii. 36, which are unprofitable. -
* Ver. 2. Kaipº 8Exté, Érikova & arov, I have heard thee in
a time acceptable.] These are the words of God the Father
to Christ, signifying, that he had accepted his intercession
for the conversion of the gentiles, and declaring that he had
given him Big 8taShºw rāv #3väy, “for a covenant to the na-
tions, a light to the gentiles, and his salvation to the ends of
the earth,” Isa. xlix, 6.8 ; and so the Jews interpret them,
in Pug. Fid. par. ii. cap. 11, Š. 21. That salvation, either
in the prophet, speaking of Christ as “the salvation of the
ends of the earth,” or in the apostle, speaking of “the day
of salvation,” should mean the deliverance of the Christians
from the persecuting Jews, is very improbable in itself, and
is confuted by those words, “Now is the day of salvation ;”
for Christians then groaned under persecution, both from
Jew and gentile ; and the destruction of Jerusalem, which
is supposed to have brought this deliverance to the Chris-
tians from the persecuting Jews, was fourteen years after
the writing this epistle.
4 Ver. 4. 'Ev 0xt perty, Say some, imports afflictions in
the general ; &váyxa, more grievous troubles; a revox.orgia,
such pressures as reduce us to the greatest straits (see iv. 8,
9. vii. 11. 13).
* Wer. 7. Asāīāv kai épia’tsºv, On the right hand and on
the left.] All the Greek scholiasts here understand by Bežič,
r& Eiðupwérºga, “things prosperous and grateful;” by Tā āglo-
regº, tú Avrag& Trávra, “all things which are grievous, or
afflictive :" instructing us, that both these things have their
temptations, against which we are to arm ourselves; and
to such things I have referred them in the paraphrase. But
the scholiast upon Sophocles” informs us, that égia Tegå of
Traxaioi Tà pºog& #xáNouv, Šešić, 33 rà avera, “the ancients
styled foolish things left-handed, but wise things right-
handed.” And in Aristophanes,t wayflávely 88%tà, is “to
learn wise things;” and so this armour may be to protect
them against the follies of the vulgar, and the wisdom of
the philosophers and wise men of the world.
* Wer. 11. To ºtéga høy &yêºys ºrpäç tºwāg, Our mouth is
opened to you..] That is, say the Greek interpreters, we are
so full of affection, that we cannot, a lyāy ºrgö, Ü/43%, be silent,
or abstain from declaring our affection to you, and our boast-
ing of you, 2 Cor. vii. 14. ix. 2, 3.
7 Ver, 13. Tºy airy 3; &vrtkºta Siay (&; tāzvot, Aéyo).] The
sense of these words seems to run thus, Aéyo 33 bºy &
ríavoic, “And I say unto you as children, rāy airy 3; 3Wrt.
pata-Siay &va?sićavre; tºy ia'étnta rā; pixia; #x2ytes, showing the
same affection by way of recompence, ºrnaröyönte kai tºſs,
let your hearts or affections be enlarged towards us, as ours
are towards you,” ver, 11. So CEcumenius and Theophylact.
* Ver. 14. M% yivsa-Se firspoćvyoivºrs, āºria rotº, Be not un-
equally yoked with unbelievers.] Here note, that these words
cannot be duly brought to prove, that Christians must not
communicate with vicious persons at the table of the Lord,
* In Ajace, f. 6, A. + Buxt. Lex, p. 403.
694
II. CORINTHIANS.
heathenish rites, or in the matrimonial yoke) ; for
what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteous-
ness? and what communion hath light with dark-
mess 2
15 And what concord hath Christ with Belial 2 or
what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?
16 And what agreement hath the temple of God
with idols? (you therefore must have none with them,)
for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath
said, I will dwell in them, and walk in (i. e. among)
them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my
people. -
17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be
ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the un-
clean thing, and I will receive (and accept) you,
18 And * will be a Father unto you, and ye shall
be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty,
though they be Christians in profession, since the apostle
only speaks of unbelievers. (2.) The apostle here useth the
very words by which the prophet Isaiah (lii. 11) exhorts the
Jews to preserve themselves in Babylon from the contagion
of their idolatry, and by which St. John exhorts all Chris-
tians not to partake of the sins, or the spiritual whoredom
of the beast, Rev. xviii. 4. He, therefore, cannot be sup-
posed to forbid all Christians all converse even with the un-
believer; for he permits the believing husband to live with
his unbelieving wife, and will not-suffer the believing wife to
depart from her unbelieving husband (1 Cor. vii.12, 13);
he therefore only doth forbid communion with them in
actions proper to them as heathens, and alien from the pro-
fession of Christianity; viz. their feastings and sacrifices in
the idol temples (1 Cor. viii. 10. x. 21); and by analogy, he
also may be supposed to forbid Christians to marry with an
unbeliever; for this was always held unlawful for the Jews
to marry with a heathen,* till they became proselytes to
their religion ; for they, looking upon themselves as the pure
servants of God (Neh. ii. 20, see note on 1 Cor. vii. 14.)
thought it a corruption of the holy seed to marry with “the
people of the earth ;” and hence, when this was done Ezra
complains, Traffixºn arréeſ, a #ylov #y roi; Aaoſ; rºc yńc, “the
holy seed was mixed with the people of the earth” Ezra ix.
9. Now, the Christians being made “a holy nation, a
peculiar people,” the holy temple in which God by his Spirit
dwelt, it seemeth as unfit that they should marry with hea-
thenish idolaters ; and therefore to such of them as were
free, the apostle speaks thus, “Let them marry only in the
Lord,” I Cor. vii. 39. i. e. to one of their own religion: the
marriage with an infidel being the closest conjunction with
them, subjecting them many times to necessary abstinence
from Christian assemblies, and to continual temptation to
apostasy, or compliance with their evil manners.
* Ver. 18. "Ecopal tºy gig ºrarápa, I will be to you a Fa-
ther.] These words are not to be found in Jer. xxxi. 9, but
they are the words of God to Solomon, the ruler of his peo-
ple, bizarrºw viðy a ou Kai Svyarépov, “a judge over his sons
and daughters,” Wisd. ix. 7; and they begin thus, r3 3:
* Ran, act. iv. sc. 2, p. 264.
Aéysi Kügto; Travroxpárap, “Thus saith the Lord Almighty,”
2 Sam. vii. 8, and ver. 14, #y& Bookwai airò si; traréga, xa,
airrö; Éarai wo sic vičy, “I will be to him a Father, and he
shall be to me a son;” which words are by the apostle
ascribed to Christ, Heb. i. 4, 5, and here to all Christians, as
being members of his body, and joint-heirs with him. More-
over the Jews” boasted that “the divine Majesty dwelt
among them.” “After the days of Jacob,” saith the book
Cosri,’ſ “holy men increased into a great assembly ; and the
Shechinah, or divine Majesty, rested upon them by love, to
be their God.” This favour God here promises to pious
Christians, as being the true Israelites. Again, they also
thought that purity from uncleanness was a necessary re-
quisite to obtain this presence of God: “For God,” say
they, “doth not appropriate his name to Israel, to be called
their God, but when their camps are holy; but at that very
moment that they are so, he makes his presence to dwell
among them and becomes their God "t and these things the
apostle, according to the scripture language, here applies to
the Society of Christians. And oh what a powerful argu-
ment do they minister to all Christians, to “cleanse them-
selves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holi-
ness in the fear of God,” as they desire this Almighty Lord
and Protector to be still present with them, and would not
be obnoxious to the dreadful woe which will certainly follow
upon his departure (Hos. ix.12); as they would have this
God to be “their God,” which is a state of present bliss ; for
“blessed are the people who have the Lord for their God;”
as they would have him related to them as a heavenly
Father, which relation secures the enjoyment of all blessings
to them, which they daily ask (Matt. vii. 12); lastly, as
they desire to be his “sons and daughters,” and, by that
glorious relation, to be made “heirs of God, joint-heirs with
Christ” (Rom. viii. 17), and to have “the Spirit of his Son
in their hearts, crying Abba, Father” (Gal. iv. 6).
[See the Appendix to this chapter, at the end of this
epistle.]
* Targ. in Cant. i. 4, 5. + Par. iii. §. 17, p. 179.
† Cosri, ibid. p. 178. Bamidkar. Rab. §. 8, in Deut.
xxiii. 14. - - -
CHAPTER VII. .
I HAVING therefore these promises, dearly beloved
(of a God thus related to and dwelling with us), let us
cleanse ourselves *from all filthiness of the flesh (all
wncleanness and intemperance) and spirit (all idolatry),
perfecting (or still making progress in) holiness in the
fear of (that holy) God (who dwelleth in, and stands so
near related to, us.
2. And) receive us (into your kind affections ; for)
we have wronged no man, we have corrupted no man
(from the truth), we have defrauded no man (as your
false apostles have done, 2 Cor. xi. 3. 20).
3 I speak not this (with an evil mind) to condemn
}. (as suspecting such things of us); for I have said
efore that you are in our hearts (iii. 2, so that we are 3
ready) to die and live with you; (i. e. we love you so
affectionately, that we could even die for the promotion
of your welfare. .
4 And therefore) great is my boldness (or freedom)
of speech towards you, great (also) is my glorying of
you: I am filled with comfort (for your obedience,
ver. 14, and your liberality, 2 Cor. ix. 2), I am exceed-
ing joyful (on that account) * in all our tribulations.
5 (I say, our tribulations;) for, when we were come
to Macedonia, our flesh had no rest (from them), but
we were troubled (and pressed) on every side; without
were fightings (with the opposers of the gospel), within
were fears, (lest the false apostles should have perverted
Ayou from the simplicity which is in Christ, 2 Cor. xi.
).
6 Nevertheless (that) God, that comforteth those
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VII.
* Wer. 1. 'Ar. rayröc (coxvraoû, &c. From all filthiness
of flesh and spirit..] The sins of the Corinthians being un-
cleanness and idolatry (see the preface to the first epistle, and
the notes on ch. x.), they seem to be here more especially
intended. -
* Ver, 4. 'Etri réch rà SAilst hºv, Under all our tribula.
CHAPTER VIII.
695
! that are cast down, comforted us (also) by the coming
of Titus (with good tidings from you, ver. 13).
7 And not by his coming only, but by the consola-
tion wherewith he was comforted in you, (which he
discovered to us) when he told us your earnest desire
(to rectify what was amiss in the matter of the incestuous
person), your mourning (for your miscarriage in it),
your fervent mind towards me (and zeal against my
adversaries); so that I rejoiced the more (for his con-
solation, than for his coming.
8 For (therefore) though I made you sorry with a
letter, “I do not repent (Gr. I am not sorry), though I
did repent: (Gr. though I was sorry, viz. that I was
forced to make you so, ii. 4), for I perceive that the
same epistle made you sorry, though it were but for a
(little) season. . ... •
9 Now I rejoice, not (barely) that ye were made
sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance: for ye were
made sorry after a godly manner, that ye might receive
damage by us in nothing.
10 For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation
*not to be repented of (Gr. not repented of); but the
sorrow of the world worketh death.
11 For behold this self-same thing, that ye sorrowed
after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you
(of obeying my directions, ver. 15), yea, what clearing
of yourselves (from guilt, by inflicting censures on the
guilty person, and putting away evil from among you, I
Cor. xv. 13), yea, what indignation (against him who
had so dishonoured his profession, and defiled the church),
yea, what fear (of my displeasure, or the rod I threat-
ened, 1 Cor. iv. 21), yea, what vehement desire (to
rectify what was amiss in this matter, ver. 7), yea, what
zeal (forme), yea, what revenge (in punishing the delin-
º ! so that) in all things (by this deportment) you
ave approved yourselves * to be clear (from guilt) in
this matter.
12. Wherefore, though I wrote (so severely) to you,
I did it not for his cause that had done the wrong
(as delighting in his punishment), nor for his cause that
j wrong (i.e. out of particular kindness to the
father of the incestuous person), but (chiefly) that our
care for you in the sight of God might appear to you.
13 Therefore we are comforted in your comfort
(i. e. in the comfort we received from your deportment
in this matter) : yea, and exceedingly the more joyed
we for the joy of Titus (in you), because his spirit was
refreshed by you all.
14 For (now) if I have boasted anything to him of
you, I am not ashamed : but as we speak all things
to you in truth (and sincerity), even so our boasting,
which I made before Titus, is found a truth.
15 And his inward affection (Gr. his bowels), is more
abundant towards you, whilst he remembereth the
obedience of you all, how with fear and trembling you
received him (lest there should be anything found in you
that might offend him, or require my rod).
16 I rejoice therefore that I (can) have (this) confi-
dence in you in all things.
tions.] As Émi signifies, Mark ii. 26. Luke iii. 2. iv. 17. Acts
xi. 28. 1 Cor. vi. 1.6, or, “amidst them,” as Luke xii. 14,
or, “after them,” as Phil. ii. 27. Heb. ix. 15.
* Ver. 8. Oil &etapºopaat, I do not repent.] It seems in-
congruous that the apostle should repent of what he writ by
the direction of the Holy Ghost, and to this very end to stir
up a godly sorrow in them; and therefore it seems better to
render the orginal, où agrapºop, at si zai wereºexãpany, with
Grotius and others, Non doleo quanquam doluit mihi, “I am
not sorry now, though , was sorry when I writ this epistle,”
doing it with many tear, (ii. 4). Or thus, “I do not repent,
though I should have repented,” viz. if it had not found this
good effect upon you.
* Wer. 10. 'Aggrapºnroy, Not repented of..] That is, such
a change from the service of sin, to the service of God, as we
do not revoke, or repent of, by relapsing again into the sins
once left off. Note also, that godly sorrow is not itself re-
pentance, but that which tends to work it in us, by preserv-
ing us from relapsing into that offence, which created so
much bitterness, and anguish to us. “The sorrow of the
world worketh death,” it dries up the moisture of the body
(Prov. xvii. 22), and hath killed many (Ecclus. xxx. 23).
* Ver. 11. ‘Ayyob; sival, To be clear.] Note, here, that true
repentance from sin clears us from the guilt of it, not only
in the sight of God, but man; so that it is both uncharitable
and unchristian, to stigmatize or reproach any person for the
sin we know, or believe, he hath truly repented of.
CHAPTER VIII.
1 MoREover, brethren, we do you to wit of (Gr.
(we make known to you) * the grace of God bestowed
on the churches of Macedonia, (Philippi, Thessalonica,
Berea, &c.) }
2 How that, in a great trial of affliction, the abund-
ance of their joy (in the Holy Ghost appeared, 1 Thess.
i. 6), and their deep poverty abounded “to the riches
of their liberality (or how they being very poor, and
much afflicted), Acts xvi. 20. xvii. 5. 13, did notwith-
standing, with great cheerfulness and joy, make a rich
contribution towards the relief of their poor brethren in
Judea).
3 For to their power I bear record, yea, and "beyond
their power (or abilities), they (unsolicited by us) were
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VIII.
* Ver. 1. Thy xágºy Geoû tºy 3:30pxávny iv, The grace of God
Westowed on..] Or the charitable contribution given in the
-nurches of Macedonia, to which they were excited by God’s
rich grace towards them ; for that x&gt; signifies liberality,
appears from ver. 6, “I exhorted Titus to finish in you
xágºy raúrny, this charitable contribution;” and ver, 7, that
ye also may abound Év rñ. xàpiri rairn, “in this liberal con-
tribution;” and ver. 19, “Who was chosen of the churches
to travel with us, aiw rii Xápºrt raûrn, with this charity” to
be dispensed by us. So ix. 8, “God is able to make ºrāoray
Xáply, all liberality” abound among you; and 1 Cor. xvi. 3,
“to bring rºw x&gly, your liberality” to the poor Christians.
Hence xáčºv is by Hesychius and Phavorinus interpreted “a
gift,” as it is here, by the apostle saying of this abounding
charity, “Thanks be to God for this unspeakable gift,” ix.
14, 15. This charity is styled “the grace of God,” either
for its exceeding greatness, as “the cedars of God,” and
“mountains of God,” signify great mountains and cedars
(Ps. xxxvi. 7. lxxx. 11, see note on Acts vii. 20. Gen. xxiii.
6. xxx. 5. John iv. 3), or rather as proceeding from God
as the giver of this disposition, and the motive to this cha-
rity, as “the zeal of God,” 2 Cor. xi. 2, “the love of God,”
2 Cor. v. 14, “the grace of God,” Tit. ii. 11.
* Wer. 2. Eic rāy ºracijrow rii; &n Aérºroc airów, To the riches
of their liberality.] So the word &rAárn; usually signifies
both in the Old and New Testament. So Prov, xi. 25,
Juxi, 3raſ, “The liberal soul shall be made fat;” Rom. Xii.
8, “He that giveth, let him do it #y &m Aórnºr, with libe-
rality;” 2 Cor. ix. 11, “Being enriched in all things, sic
trägay &nxörnra, to all liberality;” and again, ver, 13, James
i. 5, “If any man lack wisdom, let him ask it of God, who
giveth &txàº, liberally.”
* Ver, 3. ‘Yºri: 89,aaw, Beyond their power.] Thus Philo"
* I, Quis Ror. Div. Haeres, p. 376, B, C.
696
II. CORINTHIANs.
willing of themselves (to contribute to the necessities
of the poor saints of Judea).
4 Not being entreated by us, but) praying us with
much entreaty that we would receive the gift, and take
upon us the fellowship of ministering to the saints;
(or be one of those who should take care for the admi-
nistration and conveyance of it to them, ver. 19—21.
ix. 12, 13. 1 Cor. xvi. 4. Acts xiv. 17). -
5 And this they did, “not as we hoped (or thought
the event would be, who could eaſpect only a small col-
Jection from men so poor, and so exhausted), but first
(they) gave themselves unto the Lord (i.e. to his service
in it), and unto us (to be employed in the promotion of
this charity, or the distribution of it to others), by the
will of God (moving them so to do, or according to his
will, 2 Cor. ix. 4). -
6 Insomuch that (seeing this forwardness in others)
we desired Titus, that as he had (in his last visit of
you) begun, so he would (now) finish in you the same
grace (or charity) also (and see that ye be not defective
in it). -
7. Therefore (Gr. &AA', but ) as ye abound in every
(other) thing (or gift), in faith, in utterance, and know-
ledge (I Cor. i. 5), and in all diligence (to amend what
I had blamed you for, 2 Cor. vii. il), and in your love
to us, (ibid, ver, 7, so) see that ye abound (or, I pray
that ye would abound) in this grace also.
8 I speak "not (this) by (way of) commandment,
but (of advice only, ver. 10), by occasion of the for-
wardness of others, and to prove the since... .ſ "your
love (to Christ and his saints.
9 And command you I need not ; ) for ye know the
* All the Greek scholiasts here read tºgrápa;.
notes it as the excellency of a servant to engage in his mas- .
ter's service, not only readily and laboriously, but even virie
8&vapaw, “beyond his strength.”
* Ver. 5. Oi Ra8&; #Atria apaev, Not as we hoped.] The
Word #xtrica;, hoping, is used by the Attics, say gramma-
rians,” “not only touching good things, but simply touching
the event of what is future.” The word hath two senses
which well agree to this place, viz. (l.) ºrgozłokäv, to eapect;
and so it is rendered by Hesychius and Phavorinus. (2.) To
conjecture; so Eustachius says, &yri rod aroxáðso Sai xeitat,
r; tawea Sat, “The word signifies to conjecture” (see Aris-
totle ad Nichom. lib. ix. cap. 4).
* Ver. 8. Oi zar' #writayºv, Not by way of commandment
or injunction.] i. e. The apostle commands not how much
they should confer, much less that they should give all their
substance and live upon a common stock, leaving nothing to
themselves which they could call their own; for where no
man hath anything of his own, there is no place for liberality.
* Ver. 9. A'itºic irröxevas traoğrioc &v, &c., Being rich,
he became poor for you..] These words the Socinians inter-
pret thus; That Christ being the only Son of God, conceived
by the Holy Ghost, and endued with the power of the
Holy Ghost, and being one to whose power all things in
the earth did yield, was therefore styled rich ; and that he
became poor when he was bound, led away, exposed to con-
tempt, spit upon, Smitten on the face, whipped, crucified.
But this interpretation seems not well consistent with the
words of the apostle. For,
1. All these sufferings are indeed proper indications of in-
famy cast upon him, and seeming infirmity in him, but not
of poverty, seeing the richest man may be exposed to all or
any of those things. -
2. The words seem to imply some change in the person,
of whom it is here said, that “being rich, he became poor;”
whereas Christ was not less the Son of God, or less endued
with power, when he thus suffered, as appears by the great
Amiracles he then did. Others of them say, that he became
poor by leading a poor life on earth. But (1.) it is not by
his poverty on earth that “we are made rich,” but by the
* 'Extrizaç, oi ºvoy in' 3,293W, 3xx &rA&; iwi tā ro;
#AAºro; #48ág's Aéystal ºrać''Atrixoſ. Suidas,
grace (or kindness) of our Lord Jesus Christ, that,
though he was rich (Gr. that being rich), yet for your
sakes he became poor, that (ipsic) ye through his po-
verty might be rich (or, as Chrysostom and CEcume-
nius read, that (ºpsic) we through his poverty might be
rich ; which is the same in sense with the other reading)
10 And herein I give my advice: for this is expe-
dient for you, who have begun before, " not only to
do, but also to be forward *a year ago.
11 Now therefore perform (or complete) the doing
of it; that as there was a readiness to will, so there
may be a performance (of that will) also out of that
which ye have.
12 For if there be first a willing mind, (whatsoever
is given) it is accepted according to that a man hath,
° and not (eaſpected he should give) according to that he
hath not. -
13 For I mean not that other men be eased (or by
gour charity should live at ease), and you (in the
neamtime) burdened (with want): º
14 But (that Christian charity should be managed)
by "an equality, that now at this time your abundance
may be a supply for their want, that (another time)
their abundance also may be for your want: that
there may be an equality:
15 (That in your peregrination it may be) as it is
written (of the Jews travelling into the wilderness,
where) he that had gathered much (manna) had nothing
over; and he that had gathered little had no lack
(Exod. xvi. 18).
16 But thanks be to God, which put the same ear-
nest care into the heart of Titus for you.
17 For indeed he (not only) accepted the exhortation
-*
humiliation of himself. And (2.) he was thus poor from his
birth and cradle, even before the Holy Spirit descended on
him at his baptism. How much more naturally therefore
are these words interpreted by that of the same apostle, that
“being in the form of God, and thinking it no robbery to be
equal with God, he emptied himself” of all his glory, when
he came to take our nature on him, taking together with it
“the form of a servant, and humbling himself to the death,
even the death of the cross P” Phil. ii. 7, 8 (see the note
there). Which death, saith Irenaeus, he could only suffer
havX4a ayroº rot Aéyov, “the divine nature being then quies-
cent,” and not active in him. This is that “glory which he
had with the Father before the world was,” and which he,
after his ascension, reassumed (John xvii. 5). Now, if Christ
thus emptied himself of his glory, that we might be spi-
ritually rich, it becomes us, in imitation of his great example,
to part with our temporals, to supply the exigencies of his
needy and afflicted members.
7 Wer. 10. Où Đăyov ré Trotºzai, 3XX& 33 ré SáAew, Not only
to do, but to be willing or forward.] It is known that the
will goes before the deed ; and therefore rà Sixely here can-
not barely signify to will, but either to do it ast& ºrgošuºiac,
with readiness and zeal, as the following verse interprets it,
or with delight, as the word often signifies: so l Sam. xviii.
22, 8; as #y arol 3aortatic, “The king delights in thee.” See
2 Sam. xv. 26. Ps. v. 4. xxi. 8. xl. 12. Esth. vi. 6, 7. viii.
11. Mal. iii. 1. Matt. xxvii. 43, in all which places it answers
to the Hebrew word YEn.
* Azrö ºréevori, A year ago.] The apostle had exhorted them
in his epistle, writ a year ago, to this contribution (1 Cor.
xvi. 2); and they, in obedience to his directions, had begun
to lay up in store willingly this charity he now exhorts them
to consummate; and this he says, to show they were not only
moved to it by the example of the Macedonians, but rather
were examples to them (ix. 2).
.9 Wer. 12. Où was 3 otz fixei, Not according to what he hath
not..] What is due to another, either by debt or duty of
making provision for those of his own family, cannot be cha-
ritably given, as being not our own.
19 Wer. 14. 'Irárnº, An equality.] So far Christianity seems
to require this equality, as that we should not suffer others to
CHAPTER IX.
{597
(I made to him concerning this employment); but being
more forward (than I thought to find him), * of his
own'accord he went unto you.
18 And we have sent with him the brother, * whose
praise is in the gospel throughout all the churches;
19 And not that (or so) only, but who was also
chosen of the churches to travel with us with this
grace (or charity), which is administe
by us to the glory of the same Lord, and (to the)
declaration of your ready mind (to relieve your poor
brethren, or of our ready mind to perform this charita-
ble office. Theodoret and CEcumenius read, judºv :
20. We, by taking such faithful companions with us,)
avoiding (or taking care of) this, that no man should
blame us (or charge us with insincerity) in this
sºlute (of your liberality) which is administered
y us:
d (or dispensed) |
21 (And so) providing for honest (Gr. creditable)
things, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in
the sight of men.
22 And we have sent with them *our brother, whom
we have oftentimes proved diligent in many things.
but now much more diligent (in this employment).
upon the great confidence that I have in you.
23 Whether any do inquire of Titus, he is my part-
ner and fellow-helper concerning you (in promoting
gour welfare and reformation, 2 Cor. ii. 13. vii. 6, 7),
or (whether) our brethren be inquired of, they are the
messengers of the churches, and (the promoters of)
the glory of Christ. * -
24 Wherefore show ye to them, and before the
churches, the proof of your love (to me), and of our
boasting on your behalf (i.e. that we did not vainly
boast of your readiness to performsuch works of charity).
lack the necessaries of this present life whilst we abound in
them. . * =
* Ver. 17. At 8alestoc, Of his own accord.] Here we see
the sweet harmony there is betwixt the gifts of God and our
persuasion and free-will. Titus was moved to this work by
Paul's exhortation, and was also “willing of his own ac-
cord ;” and yet God, saith the apostle, “put this earnest
care into his heart.”
* Ver. 18. Oğ 3 #raiyo: ây Tà stayyexle, 31& Traorév táv
taxºn riāv, Whose praise is in the gospel.] Who this brother
was is much contested; antiquity hath carried it for Luke,
worthy of praise in all churches for the gospel he writ. The
authority of this assertion seems to rest upon the words of
Origen,” the interpolated Ignatius, and St. Jerome.j: And
this difficulty lies against it, that this brother is sent before
* *
* Orig. apud Euseb. lib. vi. cap. 25.
+ O., p.afrvest Aoukā; oš & #7talvo; #y rð
rºy #xxxnariæv.
Ep. ad Eph. §. 15.
† Scripsit evangelium de quo idem Paulus, Misimus cum
eſſayyektº 31& Traorév
Lightfoot.
Paul to Corinth with Titus, whereas Luke went with him to
Troas, and from thence to Corinth (Acts xx. 4.6). So Dr.
To which it may be answered, that it is not cer-
tain that Paul went from Troas to Corinth; perhaps he
rather went from Philippi to Corinth, and so to Troas (see
the preface). And so this person being chosen by the
churches to travel with this charity (ver. 19), might be both
sent before to prepare it; and being returned, to give notice
to Paul that it was ready, might go back with him to re-
ceive it. - -
* Ver. 22. Tºv 388x33v hºców, Our brother.] Apollos, say
some of the ancients, viz. Theodoret and CEcumenius, who
before doubted of them, and so was not disposed to come to
them (1 Cor. xvi. 12): but now upon Paul's confidence of
their readiness to obey his precepts, was prevailed upon to
CODO €.
illo fratrem cujus laus est in evangelio per omnes ecclesias;
verbo Lucas. Ita Titus Bostrensis in Luc. i. p. 763.
CHAPTER IX.
I (To me, I say, and to those messengers of the
church.) for as touching the ministering to the saints
(in Judea), it is superfluous for me to write to you
(again):
2 For I know the "forwardness of your minds (in
that affair), for which I boast of you to them of Ma-
cedonia, that Achaia was ready a year ago; and (the
Jame and example of) your zeal hath provoked very
many. -
3 Yet have I sent the brethren (mentioned viii. 17,
18), lest our boasting of you should be in vain in this
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IX. .
* Ver. 2. Tºv ºrpoévºziay ipºv, Your forwardness.] Some
tell us that St. Paul preached the gospel at Corinth freely for
two reasons: (1.) Because he observed in them such a saving
temper, as would hinder the progress of the gospel if it should
prove matter of charge to them. But this cannot be a true
account of the matter: (1.) because he doth the same at
Thessalonica, the metropolis of Macedonia, “labouring night
and day, because he would not become chargeable to any of
them” (1 Thess. ii. 6. 9.2 Thess. iii. 8), and throughout all
Asia, saying thus to them, “You know that these hands have
ministered to my necessities, and to those that are with me.”
(Acts xx. 33). And it seems plain from his own words, that
“no church communicated” anything to him, but that of
Philippi (Phil. iv. 15, 16). (2.) Because he commends
them for their readiness and willing mind here, and viii. 11.
19, and mentions the liberality of their contribution, and
their “unspeakable gift,” with thanks to God, ver, 13–15,
º ; that, as I said (viii. 11), you may be (found)
ready : *
4 Lest haply if they of Macedonia (who gave them-
selves up to us, viii. 5) come with me, and find you
unprepared, we (that we say not, you) should be
ashamed in this same confident boasting.
5 Therefore I thought it necessary to exhort the
(aforesaid) brethren, that they would go before unto
you, and make up beforehand “your bounty, whereof
you had notice before, that the same might be ready,
as a matter of (free) bounty, and not (eactorted from
apostles,” and suffered them to take of them ; so he in
sinuates in these words, “If others are partakers of this
power over you, are not we much more ?” This he speaks,
say Chrysostom and the Greek scholiasts, not of Peter or the
other apostles; for then he would not have said, “Are not
we much more ” partakers of this power than they 2 &AA'
ărépay rºyoy Vá92w, “but of some false apostles,” and cor-
rupters of them, of whom he saith, 2 Cor. xi. 20, “You
suffer if a man devour you, if he take of you;” which is also
a confutation of the second pretended reason of this absti-
nence, that the apostle did this to disappoint the arts of these .
false teachers, who preached the gospel freely, and gloried
in so doing (see the note on 2 Cor. xi. 12, 13). The apostle
himself gives another reason of the doing this, both here and
elsewhere, viz. not because we have not power, but “to make
ourselves an example for you to follow us,” 2. Thess. iii. 9.
And again, Acts xx. 34, “I have shown you all things, how
that so doing you ought to support the weak, and to remem-
ber the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is better to
in this chapter, in which he doth exhort them to complete it. five than to receive.”
(3.) Because they contributed to others, who were “false
* Ver, 5. Tºy ºxoyſay tºy, Your gift.] Or present, to the

698
II. CORINTHIANS,
you with difficulty) as * (a matter) of covetous-
IlêSS. g
6 But (to preserve you from this temper) this I say,
He who soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly;
and he who soweth bountifully shall reap also bounti-
fully (from God again, Prov. xi. 24, 25).
7. Every man (then) according as he purposeth in
his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or (as) * of
necessity (to avoid shame, or only to comply with the
example or importunity of others); for God loveth a
cheerful giver. -
8 And (to this end consider, that) * God is able to
make all grace abound towards you; that ye, always
having all sufficiency in all things, may abound in
every good (and charitable) work:
9 (According) as it is written (Psal. cxii. 9), He
hath dispersed abroad: he hath given to the poor:
°his righteousness (i.e. his liberality) remaineth for
ever (in remembrance before God).
10 Now (may) he that ministereth seed to the Sower
both minister bread for your food, and multiply your
seed sown, and increase the fruits of your "righteous-
IleSS.
11 (That you may still make progress in them,) being
enriched in every thing to all bountifulness, which
* through us (who dispense it) thanksgiving to
OCl.
12 For the administration of this service not only
supplieth the wat of the saints, but is abundant also
by many thanksgivings to (the glory of) God;
13 Whilst by the experiment of this ministration
they (who receive the benefit of it) glorify God for your
* professed subjection to the gospel of Christ, and for
your liberal distribution to them and to all men.
14 And (you also will receive advantage) by their
prayers for you, which long after you (and earnestly
desire your welfare) for the exceeding grace of God
(they see) in you.
15 Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift (i. e.
this admirable charity, by which God is so much glori-
fied, the gospel receives such credit, others are so much
benefited, and you will be so plentifully by God rewarded.
churches in Judea; for as the Hebrew Hann, so the Greek
sixoyia, oft signifies a gift, or present: as when Jacob saith
to Esau, Aá8s rê; sixoyia; twoff, “Receive my present,” Gen.
xxxiii. 11, and Abigail to David, Aa38 rºw sixoyiay raûrny,
“Receive this gift,” 1 Sam. xxv. 27, and Naaman to Elisha,
Aa3; rºy eixoyiay, “Receive a gift from thy servant,” 2 Kings
v. 15 (see also Judg. i. 15.1 Sam. xxx. 26).
* Kai pah &amse rasovs?iav, And not as a matter of covet-
ousness.] The Corinthians abounded, saith Chrysostom,”
regi rāvānxwy rāvray rà rāy Xenºzárov regiovaig, “in wealth
above all other cities, as being a very famous mart,” and so
the apostle is concerned to stir them up to an abundant cha-
rity, as he did, ver. 14, and because riches begat covetous-
ness, he here arms them against that vice. Note also, that
to give alms out of shame, or to satisfy the importunity of
others, rather than out of love and good-will, is a symptom
of a covetous temper.
* Ver, 7. M% # &váyznº, Not of necessity.] Note, that ne-
cessity in scripture stands opposed not to coaction, but to the
free election of the will (see the note on Philem. 14, and on
1 Pet. v. 2).
* Wer. 8. Avvard; 3 esāg, God is able.] Here note, that not
only the promise but the power of that God, who is good to
* Praefatio in Epist. Prim.
all, is a motive to expect his grace and favour (see the note
on Rom. xi. 23. Heb. ii. 18). Note, secondly, aspiazeta at
here signifies to ſnake, or cause to abound; so Matt. xiii. 22.
xxv. 29. Whosoever hath, to him shall be given, xat
Trºpica’sºre rat, “and he shall be made to abound;’ 1 Thess.
iii. 12, “The Lord make you to increase, xai Trºpica Eija-as, and
to abound in love.”
* Ver. 9. "H 3.xatorſyn airrod, His righteousness.] That is,
his liberality, as the word often signifies in the Septuagint.
So Gen. xix. 19. Thou hast magnified rºy Bixaloa ſyny arov,
“thy mercy, or kindness to me;” xx. 13, raûrgy rºy Bixato-
a ſyny, “This kindness thou shalt show me;” xxiv. 27, He
“hath not left rºw 3.xaloa ſyny airoij, his kindness to Abraham”
(see ver, 49. xxxii. 10. Exod. xv. 13. xxxiv. 7. Prov. xx.
28. xxxi. 21. Isa. lxiii. 7). Hence np is is ten times by the
Septuagint rendered #xempwoodyn, “alms.”
7 Wer. 10.] Note, that all the Greek scholia read, 8tzgio-
aſync not 3iazowiak, “ministry.”
* Wer. 13. Eri ră înorayå väg jøxoyiaç.] ‘owoxoyia in the
New Testament still signifies the confession of faith, l Tim.
vi. 12, 13. Heb. iii. l. iv. 14. x. 23, in orayń, subjection to
the precepts of that faith. So the apostle signifies, that men
seeing in them, by this charity, the sincerity of their love
(viii. 8), and so of their obedience to the gospel, will be in-
duced to glorify God, and own the excellency of that reli-
gion which produceth such fruits of righteousness.
CHAPTER X.
1. Now I Paul myself (who would not deal severely
with you) beseech you by the meekness and gentle-
ness of Christ (which I desire to imitate, even I), who
in (or, as to my) presence am (esteemed) base among
you, but being absent am (accounted) bold towards
you (ver. 10).
2. But (whatsoever you esteem me) I beseech you,
that I may not (find reason to) be bold when I am
present with that confidence, wherewith I think (meet)
to be bold against some, who think of us as if we
walked according to the flesh; (now saying one thing,
and then another, according to our carnal interests, 2
Cor. i. 17.)
3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. X.
1 Wer. 4, T& &n Aa rā; argareia: huàr, The weapons of our
warfare.] That these include the censures of the apostolical
authority is certain ; but that they are to be restrained to
them I do not think; but rather that they chiefly do refer to
the miraculous powers God hath given them for the conver-
sion of the gentiles to the Christian faith. Moreover, the
after the flesh (eaſercising our authority in weak-
mess).
4 For the weapons of our warfare are not (weak,
Isa. xxxi. 3, and) carnal, but mighty through God to
the pulling down of (the) strongholds (of the gentiles).
5 Casting down(their)imaginations (and reasonings),
and every high thing that exalteth itself against the
knowledge of God, and *bringing into captivity every
thought to the obedience of (the gospel of) Christ
(i. e. making the gentiles obedient to it in word and
deed, by mighty signs and wonders, and by the power
of the Spirit of God, Rom. xv. 18, 19).
6 And having in a readiness to revenge, all (the)
disobedience (of your dissolute members, xii. 20, 21.
apostolical rod seems not to relate to the power of excom-
munication, but of inflicting corporal diseases on persons re-
fractory and disorderly, and seemeth not to have been
continued after the death of the apostles.
* Ver. 5. Atxºaxwričovre; arāy wénºa, Captivating every
thought.] The apostle speaks not here of captivating the
reason of a Christian to the articles of faith, by his belief of
any thing proposed as such, though never so absurd, or con-
CHAPTER X.
699
and of these deceitful workers, by punishing them with
our spiritual rod, 1 Cor.iv.21), "when your obedience
is (or shall have been) fulfilled.
7 Do you look on things after the outward appear-
ance (judging of me from my outward person, and the
infirmities of my body, v. 1, 2, and not from the power
of Christ resting upon me, 2 Cor. xii. 9, and working
by me)? If any man (on account of his gifts) trust to
himself that he is Christ's, (a minister of Christ, 2 Cor.
xi. 23, an apostle of Christ, ver. 13,) let him of him-
self think (or conclude) this again, that, as he is
Christ's, even so are we Christ's; (for the proofs of
Christ speaking in me are not weak, but mighty, 2 Cor.
xiii. 3, and in nothing are we behind the very chiefest
apostles, xii. 11.)
8 For though I should boast somewhat more (than
I do, or they can do,) * of our authority, which the
Lord has given us for edification, and not for (your)
destruction, I should not be ashamed (or put to
shame);
9 (And this I say), that I may not seem as if I
would terrify you by letters (as you say I do).
10 * For his letters, say they, are weighty and
powerful; but his "bodily presence is weak, and his
speech contemptible.
11 (But) let such a one think (or conclude) this,
that such as we are in word by letters, when we are
absent, such also will we be also in deed when we are
present, (for if I come again I will not spare, xiii. 2,
But punish all disobedience.
12 This I say only,) for we dare not make ourselves
of the number, or compare ourselves with some (among
gow), who commend themselves (for their own per-
formances above measure, not considering how much
they fall short of the performances of them they vilify) :
but they (thus) measuring themselves (only) by them-
selves, and comparing themselves (only) among them-
selves (one false apostle with another), are not wise. ,
13 "But we will not boast (Gr. neither will we
boast) of things without our measure (or the commission
given us by Christ to go the gentiles, Rom. xv. 16. Gal.
ii. 7. 9), but according to the measure of the rule which
God hath distributed to us, a measure to reach even
to you (gentiles, we having preached through all the in-
terjacent provinces from Judea to you of Corinth, Rom.
xv. 19).
14 For we stretch not ourselves beyond our mea-
sure, though we reached not to you: for we are come
(before any others) as far as to you also in preaching
the gospel of Christ: -
15 Not boasting of things without our measure,
that is, of other men's labours; but having hope, when
your faith is increased, that we shall be enlarged by
you (giving testimony to our labours) according to our
rule (Gr. in respect of our line) º:
16 To preach the gospel in the regions beyond you,
and not to boast in another man’s line of things made
ready to our hand.
17 But he (of us) that glorieth (of his apostleship or
ministry), let him glory in the (power or assistance the)
Lord (affordeth to render it successful).
18 For not he who commendeth himself is (an) ap-
proved (minister or apostle of Christ), but (he) whom
the Lord commendeth (by his gifts vouchsafed to, and
by the power of Christ attending on him in that minis-
try). &
trary to the reason of all mankind, as some popish doctors
lewdly talk; but of captivating the reasons of Jew and gen-
tile against the Christian faith, by the demonstration of the
Spirit and power (1 Cor. ii. 4). Captivat intellectum, dum
contradicentem ratione vincit. Ambr.
* Ver, 6. “oray rampoff tºy # imazoº, When your obe-
dience is fulfilled.] His love to the Corinthians, whom he
desired to spare, and the infirm state of their church at pre-
sent, made him choose to defer the punishment of these of
fenders, till he had wrought off the affections of the Corin-
thians from their false apostles, and made them more
unanimous in their regards to him: and this is the best ex-
cuse that can be made for the neglect of Christian discipline
in any church, viz. that” “there is no place for severe reme-
dies, when the disease hath infected the whole church :” the
apostle being here forced to yield to this necessity, because
the offenders in the church of Corinth being many, they
could not easily be punished. Accordingly the primitive
church relaxed the severity of its discipline, when great mul-
titudes were concerned, or such as were like to draw great
multitudes after them.
* Ver. 8. IIegi rā; #overia: #4&y, Of our authority.] The
apostle seems to refer to the authority peculiar to the apos-
tles, of inflicting corporal punishments on refractory persons,
and delivering them up to Satan (see note on 1 Cor. iv. 21.
v. 5): which power none of these false teachers could pre-
tend to (1 Cor. iv. 19, 20). And this, saith he, the Lord
hath given me for edification, and not for destruction, it being
designed for revenging men's disobedience (ver. 6), for the
saving of the spirit (1 Cor. v. 5), and to teach men, by what
* Neque enim duris remediis locus est, ubi tota ecclesia in
morbo cubat. Grot. Neque potest esse salutaris correptio,
nisi clim ille corripitur quinon habet sociam multitudinem.
Cüm autem idem morbus plurimos occupaverit, nihil aliud
bonis restat quam dolor et gemitus. August. contra Epist.
Parmen, lib. iii. p. 61, B, D. Necessitate temporum succu-
buit. Cypr. ed. Ox. 55, §. 3, 6, 9, 10.
they suffer, “not to blåspheme” the truth (1 Tim. i.
20Y. g e
łve. 10. "Emria-rokai, Letters.] It cannot be hence con-
cluded, that Paul writ more than one epistle to them ; for
nothing is more common than this enallage of number. So
Polycarp, writing to the Philippians, saith, that Paul, being
absent, #ygaxley bºy #mria-rox&;, “writ epistles to you” (see
Cotelerius there).
* IIapova'ia roi, a daaro; 30.98%, His bodily presence is
mean, Seems plainly to refer to that which Chrysostom,”
Nicephorus, and Lucian, relate of Paul, that “his stature
was low, his body crooked, and his head bald,” and so he was
literally war& ºrgāramrow ramewºc, “low in person” (ver. 1).
When it is added, that his speech was contemptible, this can-
not be understood as if it were so for want of eloquence, or
the floridness of the Greek, for that was as much wanting in
his letters as his speech or sermons; it therefore seemeth to
refer to some infirmity of his speech in teaching (see note on
2 Cor. xii. 7). tº º
où avºriv.] See this reading vindicated, Examen Millii
in locum. -
7 Ver. 13, &c.] In these four verses the apostle seems to
advance himself above the false apostles in these things:
(1.) that whereas they could show no commission to preach
to the Corinthians, no measure by which God had distributed
the Corinthians to them as their province, he could do so,
ver. 13. (2) That whereas they went out of their line,
leaping from one church to another, he went on orderly in
conversion of churches to the faith, from Judea through all
the interjacent provinces till he came to Corinth. (3.)
Whereas they only came to and perverted those churches
where the faith had been already preached, and so could only
boast of things made ready to their hands (ver. 16), he had
still “striven to preach the gospel where Christ was not
named, lest he should build upon another man's foundation”
(Rom. xv. 20).
* “o retirnxv. 3,600 moc. Chrys, tom. v. p. 992, lin, 40.
700
CHAPTER XI.
1 Would to God you could bear with me a little
in (this) "my (seeming) folly (in boasting of my own
performances); and indeed bear with me.
2 For (I therefore do it, because) I am jealous over
you with a godly jealousy; for I have espoused you
to one husband, (and desire) that I may present you
as “a chaste virgin unto Christ (your husband).
3 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent be-
guiled “Eve through his subtlety, so your minds
should (by the subtlety of deceitful workers) be cor-
rupted from the simplicity (of the faith) that is in
Christ (by miring the observation of the law with the
gospel, as these Judaizers did, and so returning as it
were to your former husband. . See note on Rom. vii.
4 (I say, I am jealous of you, lest you be corrupted
by these false apostles ;) for if he that cometh (after
yme) preacheth another Jesus (i.e. hath another Sa-
viour to propound to you), whom we have not preached,
or if ye receive (from him) another spirit, (affording
such spiritual gifts) which ye have not received (from
ws), or another gospel, which ye have not accepted
(or received already), ye might well bear with him
(in his pretensions to eaceed us ; but this cannot be
said :)
5. For I suppose (in these things) I was not a whit
behind the very chiefest apostles, (Peter, James, and
John, from whom these false teachers from Judea may
pretend to come, 1 Cor. i. 12.
6 But) though I be “rude in speech, yet (am I) not
(so) in knowledge (of Christ and his gospel) ; but we
have been thoroughly made manifest among you in
all things (of this nature, xii. 11, 12). R
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XI.
* Ver. 1. Th; 34 goa'iyn; prov, My folly..] Though the neces-
sity which lay on the apostle thus to commend himself, for
vindication of his apostleship, made him free from folly in
this matter; yet, because self-commendation usually pro-
ceeds from vanity and folly, and they who know not the ne-
cessity which lay upon him so to speak, would be apt to im-
pute this to him, he useth this word here, though saying, ver.
16, “Let no man think me a fool in this my boasting,” and,
xii. 6, “Though I did glory, I should not be a fool.”
* Ver. 2. IIapSévoy &yväy, A chaste virgin..] Here is thought
to be an allusion to the éppašavyol of the Lacedemonians, who
formed the lives and manners of the virgins, and made them
, regular, and so prepared them for their husbands. But the
Greek commentators agree with our translation, rendering
the word hpºorápany by Éaynarevordany, “I have espoused you.”
So Phavorinus” doth interpret these very words; and so the
word is used frequently by Herodotus,' and it bears the
same sense in the Septuagint, rapi, Kveiou &ppašćeral yuri &vègi,
“The wife is espoused to the husband of the Lord.” (Prov.
xix. 14.) As therefore the Jews say, that “Moses espoused
Israel to God in mount Sinai,”f when he made them enter
into covenant with them ; so saith the apostle here, By con-
verting you to the Christian faith, “I have espoused you to
one husband, even Christ.”
* Ver. 3. Eday, Eve.] He mentions Eve, not Adam, because
she was only personally deceived by the serpent, and was
“first in the transgression” (1 Tim. ii. 14). And he calls
this deceit, pödea, in allusion to the metaphor of virginity.
* Hºwocººny, Hºvna revorópaev, & 6 &tréa toxcº, hººkozápasy tºwā;
$vi äväpi, firot rô Xgiariº Haynºrsva &pany tºxic.
+ “Hºpwoºral rºy Miaoyo: Svyatéga. Anºozhön; yuwaiza. Herod.
lib. iii, cap. 138. ‘Aeºcoa:4p, evo; Thºvo; 6vyarípa. v. 47. IIav-
cavin; hºwórato Svyatépa. Ibid.
# Devarim Rabba, cap. 7, col. 4
7 Have I committed an offence in abasing myself
(so far as to labour with mine own hands) "that you
might be exalted (by the spiritual riches and advan-
tages of the gospel, and in having an apostle more re-
gardful of you than of other churches), because (being
chargeable to some of them) I have preached to you
the gospel of God freely?
8 * I robbed (i. e. made naked) other churches,
taking wages (or a stipend) of them, to do you service.
9 And when I was present with you, and wanted,
" I was chargeable to no man: for that which was
lacking to me the brethren which came from (Phi-
lippi, Phil. iv. 15, 16, in) Macedonia supplied: and
in all things I have kept myself from being burden-
some to you, and so will I keep myself.
10 As the truth of Christ is in me, no man shall
stop me of this boasting in the regions of Achaia.
11 (And) wherefore (do I thus resolve 8 Is it) be-
cause I love you not God knows (the contrary).
12 But what I do (of this kind), that I will (still)
do, that I may cut off occasion (of boasting) from
them which desire occasion; * that wherein they
glory, they may be found even as we.
13 For such are (your) false apostles, deceitful
workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of
Christ (seeming to do as we do, or desiring to be
thought equal to us in all things).
14 And no marvel; for Satan himself is (some.
times) transformed into an angel of light (pretending
to do their work, and be a ministering spirit to them
whom he intendeth to destroy).
15 Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers
also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness;
* Wer. 6, 18tºrm; rā Aéyòl, Rude in speech..] This cannot
refer to his want of eloquence, or rhetorical artifice in his
compositions; for this seems equally wanting in the epistles
of Peter and James ; it therefore must refer to some imper-
fection in his speech, which they had not.
* Wer. 7. “Iva pasſ; is a Siire, That you might be ea'alted.]
So James useth the word, saying, “Let the brother of low
degree rejoice #y rà isles airrot, in his exaltation” to the riches
and privileges of the Christian faith, i. 9. So the song of
the virgin mother saith, that God, by sending the Messiah,
ūJoaº rarelytic, “hath exalted them that were low,” Luke
i. 52; and Capernaum is said to be tºposefa a, “exalted to
heaven” by our Saviour's frequent preaching to them, Luke
x. 15. &
* Ver. 8. 'Earáxna'a, I robbed.] xvAgy, yugyotiv, the word sig-
nifies “to make naked,” saith Phavorinus; “to spoil,” say
others: for the churches of Macedonia, from whom he re-
ceived his gifts, being poorer than that of Corinth (2 Cor.
viii. 2), might comparatively seem by this to be spoiled of
what was necessary for them. &
7 Wer. 9. Oi karsvápana'a oièsyöc, I stunned nobody with
complaints.] I importuned none of them to supply my
wants.
* Ver. 12. “Iya iy & Kavyºvrat, That in what they glory.]
This most interpreters thus gloss: That whereas the false
apostles glory in preaching the gospel freely, they may be
found even in that to do only what we have still done among
you. And true it is, that the Jewish writers tell us, that
their wise men of old would not be nourished so from the
church, but rather chose to get their living by their own la-
bour ; and therefore used to say, “It is better to skin dead
beasts, than to say to the people, I am a wise man, or a priest,
therefore nourish me;” and that the most excellent and per-
fect of them clave wood, and carried timber, and drew water,
and wrought in iron and coals, and neither asked nor would
receive anything of the church. And, therefore, to-make
himself equal with the best of these wise men of the Jews,
CHAPTER XI.
701
|
whose end shall be according (not to their specious
and hypocritical pretences, but) to their works (Phil.
iii. 18).
16 I say again, Let no man think me a fool (in
boasting thus of myself); if otherwise, yet as a fool re-
ceive (i.e. suffer) me, that I may boast myself a little.
17 That which I speak (thus), I speak it not after
the Lord (as commanded by him so to speak), but as it
were foolishly, in this confidence of boasting (though
the false apostles have made it necessary, and so a part
of Christian wisdom so to do, xii. 11, to vindicate my
apostleship, and to confirm you in the truth).
18 Seeing that many glory after the flesh (as being
the seed of Abraham according to the flesh), I will
glory (as to that) also.
19 (Nor can my seeming folly offend you, if you be
indeed what you pretend,) for you (will) suffer fools
gladly, seeing you yourselves are wise (in your own
conceits ; or, being wise, you must suffer fools gladly.
20 And sure I am, you can bear with greater mat-
ters ;) for ye suffer, if a man bring you into bond-
age (to the Jewish rites, Gal. iv. 9. v. 1,) if a man de-
vour you (as did the pharisees widows’ houses, living
deliciously upon your substance), if a man take of you”
(if he take away what is yours), * if a man exalt him-
self (above you), if a man Smite you on the face (or
wse you contumeliously.
21 That which I said of smiting you upon the face,)
I speak as concerning (the) reproach (they cast upon
gyou as profane, uncircumcised, whereas they are all a
holy nation), * as though we had been weak (i. e. in-
ferior to them in these things, not able to ascribe to
ourselves these advantages as well as they). Howbeit
whereinsoever any is bold (in this kind), I speak fool-
ishly, I am bold also. -
22 (For,) * are they Hebrews (speaking the Jewish
language 8 Phil. iii. 5) so am I. Are they Israelites
(descended from beloved Jacob, Mal. i. 2, not from
Paul might refuse maintenance from the churches of Achaia
(see Campegius Vitringa de Synag. Wet. lib. iii. par. i. cap.
18, p. 884, 885). But this exposition is liable to this great
objection, That the apostle, speaking to the Corinthians of
the same persons, saith, “Ye suffer if a man devour you, if a
man take of you,” ver. 20, and 1 Cor. ix. 12, “If others are
partakers of this power, are not we much more ?” and else-
where, where he represents these Jewish teachers as “count-
ing gain godliness,” and doing all things for “filthy lucre,”
Phil. iii. 19. 1 Tim. vi. 5. 2 Tim. iii. 2. Tit. i. 1 1. Others
therefore interpret the words thus: This I will do, that I
may cut off occasion of glory from them who seek occasion,
that they might be found even as us: in which thing they.
would glory; but now they cannot uu it, because they are
known to receive of you.
* Ver. 20. Ef ri; Agºëvet.] Supply & p’ pºv, “If a man
take away what is yours;” for this word is used, saith Phavo-
rinus, when we take that which the owner is not willing to
part with. So the word signifies, in Christ's exhortation to
the church of Philadelphia, to retain what she had, Wa Azn-
8sic X48, row a répayév a ov, “that none may take away thy
crown” (Rev. iii. 11); and when it was given to the angel,
Xageſy rºw eighyny àmà yñº, “to take away peace from the
earth:” so P. Gregory” interprets these words, Si quis rapit,
accipere enim aliquandó dicinus auferre: so the Hebrew
word rip! is rendered by the Septuagint, 3roxapagávo, 3ro-
‘pápa, aiko, & pagão. Others render the words thus: “If a
man makes a gain of you :” so Budaeus saith, Aap.8ávely is
xsp?alysty, “to gain :” so 2 Cor. xii. 16, 36Aq, tºwā; #Nagoy;
“Did I take you by guile 2" is interpreted by in NBovékºrna'a
tºwā; ; “Did I make a gain of you ?” ver. 17, 18. And for
this sense our Gataker pleads in his Adversaria, giving many
instances where not only Añupwa and Añspic, nouns derived
from Aap,8ávely, but also where ºr Aagsſy bears this sense
(Adversar. cap. 27, p. 293).
19 Ei ri; maizerai, If a man ea'alt himself.] The Jews had
a very high opinion of themselves, as being the seed of Abra-
ham, and so of noble birth (see note on 1 Cor. i. 26); the
people of God, and so holy and beloved of him ; his “first-
born and only-begotten, for whom the world was made,” 2
Esd. vi. 59, 60. Hence in their prayers to God they say,
Populus tuus sumus foederati tui, progenies Abrahami, amici
tui, cui sacramento fidem tuam obstrinxisti in monte Moriae,
semen Isaaci dilecti tui, qui ligatus fuit super altari tuo,
coetus Jacobi filii tui, primogeniti tui, &c. And they had as
mean and despicable thoughts of all other men, whom there-
fore they insulted over, calling them “the people of the
earth, the profane :”h yea, likening them to “dogs” (see
note on Phil. iii. 2) and “spittle” (2 Esd. vi. 56.57): and
from this opinion, that “the world was made for them” (see
note on 1 Cor. iii.22), they might easily conclude that it
was lawful for them to take it away from others, as being
usurpers of it. Hence Buxtorff cites this passage from the
* Lib. xxxiii. in Job. cap. 16.
+ See Buxt. Lex. voce By, p. 1626.
+ Voce po), p. 1345.
Talmud, that “all the possessions of the gentiles are as
common ; he that first seizes on them is lord of them.”
in Ver. 21. ‘o: 3rt hºst; ha-Seyho-apºey, As if we were
weak.] To be weak, in this epistle, ch. xiii., is to be un-
able to exercise the apostolical rod, or the power that Christ
had given them to inflict censures and diseases on the refrac
tory, ver. 3, 4. 9. Toxgår, “to be bold,” is to exercise
these censures on the disobedient, x. 2, where the apostle
argues for this boldness, ver, 7, as here, “Are they Christ's
ministers? so are we;” and adds, as here, ver. 8, that he
could “glory of the power Christ had given him for edifica-
tion, and not for destruction.” So that the import of these
words seems to be this ; You suffer patiently from these
false prophets, as if their power over you was to be dreaded
(though indeed there was nothing in it besides big words,
I Cor. iv. 19, see note on v. 3), but we to be despised as
weak, and having no power you need to dread; whereas we
shall be as bold as they, if you do not reform, as being much
more the ministers of Christ, and having suffered more, to
show our fidelity to him, and therefore having greater reason
to expect his powerful assistance than they have.
12 Wer. 22. ‘Egraſoi stat ; IceanAirai stat ; Are they He-
brews? Are they Israelites ?! Here is a certain indication
that these false apostles and deceitful workers were not ori-
ginally Samaritans, as Simon Magus, Dositheus, and their
followers were, but of the Jewish extract. Secondly, That
they were Jews converted to, and still owning and preaching
up, the faith of Christ, as is evident from the words following ;
“Are they ministers of Christ 2 so am I :” as also from x. 7.
It therefore seems that they must be of the sect of Cerin-
thus,” that great stickler against St. Paul for the necessity
of circumcising the gentiles, and for their observation of the
law of Moses; or the Nazarenes, or Ebionites: for these are
not the names of persons who were the authors of any sects :
but of the Jews, f which believed in Jesus, and yet were
zealous observers of the law of Moses. Now these Jews,
before they believed, were of two sorts; such as admitted
other nations to live quietly among them, and even to em-
brace their religion without circumcision ; and such as by no
means would permit them so to do. Thus when Izates, the
son of Helen queen of Adiabene, embraced the Jewish reli-
gion, Ananias; declared he might do it without circumcision;
but Eleazar; maintained that it was āa ś8sia, great impiety to
* Iren. lib. iii. cap 11. Euseb. lib. iii. cap. 28. Epiph.
Haer. xxviii. Ş. 2. Theodor. Haer. Fab. lib. ii. cap. 3.
+ of &ará'íověatov, sic rôy ’Ingotiv wto teſov’res, oi, karaxexoi-
war rºy oráretoy vigov. Bioča, yāº xar' airby, Étrévvºo ris
wară răy ix3oxy roxsia; rot vätzov yeyeºnºvoi. 'E8twº ºf Yêe
3 trox); rag: 'Iověator, waxeſ rai, zai 'Egiovaſcº Xenºſovº:
&r io93atow ray 'incoty &; Xgiary tragašežákºvoi. Origen. in
Celsum, lib. ii. p. 56. p
+ Amanias £4m xai xogic rāq Treptºroºs rô Satoy gigsy, stys
Trávrov, xáxgive ºn Noüy ri, ºrárgia Tów 'Iovºaiev, rotºto syai wupt:-
recoy roi; ºrigitápºto Sai. Jos. Ant. Jud. lib. xx. cap. 2, p.
685, E. f
§ Ibid.
II. CORINTHIANS.
Esau) P so am I. Are they the seed of Abraham
(and not proselytes)? so am I.
23 *Are they ministers of Christ (I speak as a
fool,) I am more (so); in labours more abundant
(than any of them), in stripes above measure (Acts
xvi. 22, 23), in prisons more frequent (ver. 24), in
deaths oft (1 Cor. xv. 31. 2 Cor. iv. 11).
24 Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes
** save one. -
25 Thrice (by the gentiles) was I beaten with rods
(Acts xvi, 23), once was I stoned (Acts xiv. 19), thrice
I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been
*in the deep.
26 In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in
perils of robbers, in perils by my own countrymen
(Acts xx. 3), in perils by the heathen, in perils in the
city (Damascus, Jerusalem, Ephesus), in perils in the
wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false
brethren;
27 In weariness and painfulness, in watchings
often (2 Thess. iii. 8), in hunger and thirst, in fast-
ings often, in cold and nakedness (1 Cor. iv. 11. 2
Cor. vi. 5). (
28 (And) besides those things which are without,
that which cometh upon me daily (is), the care of all
the churches (planted by me, 2 Cor. vii. 5, or by
others among the gentiles, Col. ii. 1).
29 (For) who (of them) is weak, and I am not (as)
weak (in compassionating them, and complying with
their weakness? I Cor. ix. 22) who is offended (or
ready to fall from his profession), and I burn not
(with zeal to recover him) P
30 If I needs must glory, I will glory of the things
which concern my infirmities (i.e. rather in my suf-
ferings for Christ, than in the great things he hath
done by me).
31 The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
which is blessed for evermore, knoweth that I lie not
(in anything I have now said of my sufferings).
32 In Damascus the governor under Aretas the
king kept the city of the Damascenes with a garrison,
desirous to apprehend me (in compliance with the
Jews):
33 And through a window in a basket was I let
down by the wall,” and escaped his hands.
remain uncircumcised. And when two eminent persons of
Trachonitis fled to Josephus, the zealots” among the Jews
were urgent for their circumcision, if they would abide with
them ; but Josephus persuaded the multitude against it.
And this controversy continued after they embraced Chris-
tianity, some allowing them to embrace Christianity without
submitting to circumcision and the Jewish law; others con-
tending, that without circumcision and the observance of the
law they could not be saved. And these were the false
apostles which troubled the churches of Corinth, Galatia,
Philippi, and were great enemies to Paul, who taught the
contrary. So Epiphanius informs us of the Cerinthians,t
adding also of the Nazarenes, that they in all things accord
with the doctrines of the Cerinthians. And certain it is,
that such persons went from Judea, and gave great disturb-
ance to all Christian churches, especially to those which hai
been planted by St. Paul ; for, in the First Epistle to Tim-
othy, and that to Titus, we have mention of those of the
circumcision, who were vain talkers and deceivers, Tit. i. 10,
11...] Tim, i.4.6. vi. 4, 5 (see Gal. iv. 9, 10. vi. 12, 13.
Phil. iii. 2. Col. ii. 26, 27).
* Wer. 23.] Note here, that the apostle proves the truth
of his ministry and apostleship not, as elsewhere, from the
miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost which accompanied his
preaching, but from his sufferings, as being the things these
false apostles could not pretend to (Gal. v. 11. vi. 12), and
* Toºrov, regiréºved Sai rāv 'lověatov čvaykašávrov, El 6% overty
fivat rat' airdſ. . Wit. Joseph. p. 1007, B. oöxäºstaev ćy
Aśyovrić whºstagival 6&oytaç Bic rā wag' airoi; ;Sn. Ibid.
1010, C
† 'Atrozºávray yap roºray, xa, si; lev3aºroa réxov; rpaºrévrov,
×al 3xxov; JºsvěatrogréNov; &rootsixávrov sic rºy 'Ayrtéxtiay wai
sic daxovs róvov;, Afyovrak &rt ày ań reevranSãre, &c. obz #
Tuxºra rātā raçaxi, Hyèvero, xal of rot slow of aragā rô IIaşaw
sienkévot levèarráztoxoi. Haer. xxviii. §. 4. zāyxgovo heav
º Kai Wºola kākruyrat rà provhaara. Haer. xxix. $. 1,
P. l l ( .
so could not glory that they were like unto him in them
(ver. 13).
* Ver. 24. IIapā aiay, Save one.] The law assigned forty
stripes to them that were worthy to be beaten, but forbade
them to exceed that number, Deut. xxv. 3. But it being
their custom to beat them with a whip that had three cords,
and so every stroke with it going for three, they could only
give them thirty-nine, or forty-two, which would have ex-
ceeded the number appointed by the law ; and therefore
Josephus says,” “He that did contrary to the law received,
by a public whip, forty stripes save one.”
* Ver. 25. "Ev rá, 8v83, In the deep.] This cannot be well
understood of the prison at Cyzicum ; for we never read that
Paul preached there ; nor of the shipwreck mentioned Acts
xxvii., for that happened after the writing of this epistle; but
probably of some of the other shipwrecks mentioned here, in
which he might be so long tossed to and fro in the sea, upon
some broken piece of a ship, before he got to land, as
Josephusf saith he was. Theodoret saith he was put into a
prison so called at Lystra; but of this we read nothing in the
Acts of the Apostles, ch. xiv., where Luke gives an account
of his treatment there. -
* Ver. 33. 'Ełépuyov.] Of such a flight as only is designed
to preserve us still in a capacity of preaching the gospel,
especially where our charge is not any settled church, but the
church in general, or, as Paul's was, the whole gentile world,
Austin: speaks well thus, Quicumque isto modo fugit, ut
ecclesiae necessarium ministerium, eo fugiente, non desit, facit
quod Dominus praecepit, sive permisit; qui autem sic fugit,
ut gregi Christi ea, quibus spiritualitër vivit, alimenta sub-
trahantur: mercenarius ille est, qui vidit lupum venientem
et fugit, quoniam non est ei cura de ovibus.
* 'O 3: Trag& raira Trothorac, ºranyë, wi&; Attºroúatac recora-
gáxcyra tº 3mºocío, a kärst Aa3&y, rºweia, raûrmy airzio rhy
#Aeësgo; tºroksváro. Antiq. lib. iv. cap. 8, p. 124. E.
+ Barria&#vros yaº hºv roſ, ºraotov Kará pºšarov 'A38tay, 3: .
#An: rig wºröc ivnéáºzsöz. Joseph. de Vita suá, p. 999.
£ Ep. 80, ad Honoratum.
CHAPTER XII.
1 *IT is not expedient for me doubtless to glory:
(but since it may be so to you) I will come to visions
and revelations of the Lord.
2 I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago
(whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out
of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth); (I say, I
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XII.
Ver, 1. Kauxāzsa. 3% of avaºist as J All the Greek
scholiasts own our reading of these words, which may from
the Greek be rendered, “Surely it profiteth (or it advan-
tageth) not me to glory, for I shall come to visions;” and then
the sense may be supplied thus ; But it may be so to you,
for I shall come to visions and revelations of the Lord, in
CHAPTER XII.
703
knew) such a one caught up to the third heaven (the
habitation of the blessed angels, and of the majesty of
God).
3 And (again) I knew such a man (whether in the
body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God know-
eth); -
4 How that he was (at another time) * caught up
into paradise, and (there) heard unspeakable words,
which it is not lawful (or possible) for a man to utter.
5 Of such a one (thus rapt out of himself) will I
glory : yet (or, but) of myself (as I appear to you in
ºny own person) I will not glory (willingly), but in mine
infirmities.
which I shall give such an evidence of the favour of Christ
to me, such a testimony of my mission from heaven, as
none of these false apostles or deceitful workers can pretend
to. -
Kavyāorðat 35 oil avºw påget tºot, It becomes not me to glory.]
Chrysostom, Theodoret, CEcumenius, and Theophylact, all
agree in this reading, making no mention of the other, si xav-
Xāa śat 88ſ; which therefore is to be rejected.
* Ver. 4. ‘Agºrayávra.] Here (1.) it is inquired, Whether
Paul was either, as to soul only, or as to soul and body
jointly, rapt into heaven, or paradise, as the Spirit #8trars,
“caught up Philip,” Acts viii. 39, or whether he had only a
vision of these things on earth, as the Spirit took up Ezekiel
in a vision, Ezek. xi. 24, and as John was “carried away
into the wilderness?” I incline to the opinion that this was
a real rapture, as being most agreeable (1.) to the words
#práyn #wº, “He was snatched up as far as to the third
Heaven,” and hºráyn sic trap48sia ov, “He was snatched up into
paradise;” for these words do not well agree to a vision, or
to an ecstasy. As for the seeming raptures of Ezekiel and
John, the text plainly informs us that they were not real, by
saying, “The Spirit took me up, and brought me in a vision
by the Spirit of God into Chaldea,” Ezek. xi. 24. And
again, “The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me
out in the Spirit of the Lord, and sat me down in the midst
of the valley that was full of bones,” xxxvii. 1. And of
John, “He carried me away in the Spirit into the wilder-
ness,” Rev. xvii. 3; and xxi. 10, “He carried me in the
Spirit to a great and high mountain.” In these two instances
all is expressly said to be done #y IIveſºat, “in the Spirit;”
but nothing of this nature is intimated in Paul's rapture. If
you say he owns that this was done iv čºrraziº, “in a vision;”
I answer, he seems not to say so, but only that in this rap-
ture he had a vision of the Lord. (2.) He says he cannot
tell whether he was then in the body, or out of the body;
whereas, in all imaginary visions, the soul continues in the
body. (3.) He adds, that he “heard there unspeakable
words;” which intimates that he was really in paradise.
Quest. 2. A second inquiry is, Whether Paul here speaks
of one vision or rapture only, or of more ? I answer, The
opinion of all the ancients seems to have been this, that he
was rapt at several times into several places, and, conse-
quently, that he speaks of more raptures than one. Irenaeus"
Saith, that “he was caught up into the third heaven, and
again was carried into paradise.” So also say Tertullian and
Pseud-Ambrosius: Epiphanius; speaks thus: “Who can
hear the opinion of Origen, which placed paradise in the
third heaven?” And this appears highly probable, (1) from
these words, “I will proceed to visions and revelations of the
Lord ;’ which intimates that he would speak of more than
one; and from ver, 7, “Lest he should be exalted integon;
Tāv Āmokaºlfoy with this multitude of revelations.” (2.)
Methodius of old did well infer this from the repetition of
those words, “Whether in the body,” &c. for such a repeti-
tion must have been needless concerning one and the same
* Usque ad tertium coelum raptum se esse significans, et
rursăm delatum esse in paradisum quid illi prodest aut
in paradisum introitus, aut in tertium coelum assumptio, lib.
ii. cap. 54. ©
+ Tertul. de Praescript. cap. 34. Ambros, in locum.
# Quis audiat in tertio coelo donantem nobis Origenem
paradisum 2 Ep, ad Joh. Hieros. cap. 3.
6 (Not that I really esteem it a folly so to do, though
in compliance with you. I do style it foolishness, 2 Cor.
xi. 1. H6, 17. xii. 11';) for though I should desire to
glory (of these things), I shall not be a fool; for I will
(shall only) say the truth: but now I forbear (even to
speak of that), lest any man should think of me above
that which he sees me to be, or heareth of me (above
what my constant words and actions testify of
7me).
7 And lest I should be exalted above measure
through the abundance of the revelations (vouchsafed
to me), there was given to me a thorn in the flesh,
* the messenger of Satan, to buffet me (or, that a mes-
vision. “For hence,” saith he,” “he intimates that he had
seen two great visions, being twice assumed, first into the
third heaven, and then into paradise.” Hence therefore it
doth not follow that paradise is in the third heaven, as later
writers have hence gathered against the opinion of all the
ancient Christians: and therefore Epiphanius+ answers to
this text produced by Origen, by saying, “He was rapt up
into the third heaven, and after adding into paradise, he shows
heaven to be in one place, and paradise in another.” Though
therefore the third heaven here, according to the language
and distinction of the Jews, doth signify the angelic heaven,
it doth not follow hence, that paradise, into which the apos-
tle was caught up at another time, and in another vision,
must signify the third heaven. •
3. Hence we may strongly argue for the distinction of the
soul from the body, and its capacity to receive and under-
stand celestial things in separation from the body’; for if the
soul be not distinguished from the body, nor is capable of
any vision or revelation when out of the body, there remains
no foundation for the apostle's doubt, whether he had these
visions in the body, or out of the body, there being a neces-
sity, upon that supposition, to have them in the body, or not
at all.
* Ver. 7. "Ayyao, Xarâv.] They who interpret this “mes-
senger of Satan,” and “thorn in the flesh,” of the motions of
concupiscence, and the suggestions of lust arising in Paul,
are guilty of a great mistake: for this “thorn in the flesh”
was given him of God, who raiseth in us no impure lustings
(James i. 13–15), and never cures one sin by another; nor
would Paul have wished that all men should have been as he,
if he had felt these burnings, nor would he have refused that
remedy against them he prescribed to others, 1 Cor. vii. 7, 9,
nor could he have “gloried,” much less “took pleasure,” in
these infirmities, as here, ver, 9, 10, he doth in this “thorn
in the flesh.” In a word, by confessing such impure motions
lodged in his breast, he would not have defended his reputa-
tion against his adversaries, but rather have given them fresh
occasion to reproach him, and would have rendered his threats
against the unclean, xii. 21, less prevalent. Let it be then
observed, .
1. That this “thorn in the flesh” was surely some infirmity
in the flesh or body of Paul. So doth Paul himself inform
us, by saying, roy traigaokačv fºou roy #y rfi cagxi prov, oix #2v-
Seyha'are, ošā ā;sºrrúa are, “You did not count me as nothing,
nor spit upon me, because of my temptation, which was in
my flesh,” Gal. iv. 14, “but received me (notwithstanding)
as an angel or messenger of God.” Whence two things are
obseryable: (1.) that this thorn, or this temptation, was in
the flesh, or in his body: and (2.) that it was such as ren-
dered him in his preaching obnoxious to great contempt, and
made him despicable in the eyes of others.
2. It is highly probable that this infirmity in the flesh hap-
pened to him after these visions and revelations of which he
here speaks; for he saith it was sent to, or befell him, “that
he might not be exalted through the multitude of his revela-
tions;” and therefore must be given him after he had that
temptation they afforded to exalt himself.
3. It is certain that it was some infirmity of the flesh which
* Air &va»nºpSel; #vaeyā;, &maž Kaiv reirov oëzavod, #7a; 33
six rºy tragáàticov. Apud Epiph. Haer. lxiv. $.47, p. 572,
C, D.
+ Ubi supra apud Hieron, tom. ii. 57, E.
704.
II. CORINTHIANs.
senger of Satan might buffet me), lest I should be ex- |
alted above measure. tº
8 For this thing “I besought the Lord (Christ, ver,
9) thrice, that it might depart from me (i.e. that I
might be delivered from this thorn in my flesh).
9 And he said unto me, My grace (or favour) is
sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect
(and shown more illustriously) in (this thy) weakness.
Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infir-
mities, that the power of Christ may (more conspicu-
ously appear to) rest upon me.
10 Therefore I take pleasure in (these) infirmities
(of the flesh), in (the) reproaches (I suffer upon that
account), in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses
for Christ’s sake: for when I am (thus) weak (in my-
self), then am I strong (in the power of Christ. This
latter clause is in all the Greek scholiasts).
11 I am become (as) a foolin glorying (thus ; but)
e have compelled me (to it): for I ought (rather) to
ave been commended of you : for in nothing am I
behind the very chiefest apostles, though I be nothing
(of myself; but through the grace of God I am what I
am, 1 Cor. xv. 10).
12 Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought
among you (by me) in all patience, in signs and won-
ders, and (in) mighty deeds (see the note on Heb.
ii. 4). -
13 For what is it wherein you were inferior to
other churches, except (it were in this) that I myself
was not burdensome to you? forgive me this wrong.
14 Behold, the third *time I am ready to come to
you; and I will (still continue) not (to) be burden-
some to you; for I seek not yours, but you: "for
the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but
the parents for the children.
crafty, I caught you with
15 And I (like a good spiritual father) will very
gladly spend (my spiritual treasures on you) and be
spent (myself) for you; though the more abundantly
I love you, the less I be .
16 But be it so, I did not burden you (myself);
nevertheless (it may be suggested by some, that) being
guile (getting much from
$you by the means of others). :
17 (I ask, therefore,) did I make a gain of you by
any of them whom I sent to you?
18 I desired Titus (to go to you), and with him I
sent a brother. Did Titus make a gain of you?
walked we not in the same spirit 2 walked we not in
the same steps ?
19 Again, think you that we excuse ourselves unto
you (by specious pretences, when we say that we defer-
red our coming, that we might spare you and be helpers
of your joy # 2 Cor. ii. 23, 24) we speak (as) before
God in Christ (calling him again to record that we use
no such arts); but we do all things, dearly beloved,
(as we did that) for your edifying. -
20 And too much reason had we so to do :) for (yet)
I fear, lest, when I come, I shall not find you such as
I would, and that I shall be found unto you (by
ânflicting necessary censures and punishments upon
gow) such as you would not : lest there be debates,
envying, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings,
swellings, tumults (the usual, and almost neces-
sary consequences of schisms and factions in a
church): !
21 And lest, when I come again, my God will
humble me among you, and that I shall (find reasoil
to) bewail many who have sinned already, " and have
not repented of the uncleanness, and fornication, and
lasciviousness which they have committed (after the
naturally tended to obstruct the efficacy of his preaching, and
rendered his ministry less grateful and acceptable to others,
and made him subject to reproach and to contempt in the
discharge of this his function. This is extremely evident
from the place cited from Gal. iv. 14, where, Saith Theodoret,
waſ rot aroxxây Đepov ini rot; a dºzaro; 3ripciay, “Though I
brought with me great ignominy in my body, you did not re-
ject me;” and also from Christ's answer to him, That his
power was perfected in Paul's weakness, i. e. The greater is
thy infirmity in preaching the gospel, the greater is my power
in rendering it efficacious when preached by one subject to
so great infirmity. - -
4. It is also certain that this was objected to by the Co-
rinthians and the false apostles, to the disparagement of Paul,
and rendered him contemptible in their eyes, that he was
išićrn; rà Aéyº, “rude in speech,” 2 Cor. x. 10 (which, as ‘I
have observed upon that place, cannot refer to his want of
eloquence, that being as much wanting in his epistles, which
they allowed to be “powerful and weighty,” as in his ser-
mons to them); that “in presence he was base among them,”
ver. 1, that “the presence of his body was weak and mean,
xai 3 Aéyo; #ovšeynºvoc, his speech” such as rendered him “con-
temptible,” where the apostle useth that very word which
he had applied to the infirmity of his flesh, Gal. iv. 14.
5. It cannot be denied but that an ioxyotovia, a staſhmer-
ing in speech, or a squeaking shrillness in the voice, joined
with a low deformed stature, does naturally tend to render a
man contemptible in his preaching; and therefore Moses
declines the message God sent him upon to Pharaoh, because
he was “slow of speech, and of a stammering tongue,” Exod.
iv. 10, toxyépovoc, zai 82aºyaozzo,.
6. These words, “a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Sa-
tan,” being here put by way of apposition, must signify the
same thing; and so he must be buffeted by Satan, when, by
these false apostles and ministers of Satan (2 Cor. xi. 15) he
was contemned, and made the subject of their scorn, and
laughter, for this infirmity in his speech. But it is observ-
able, that these words may be rendered thus: “There was
given me a thorn in the flesh, #yysao, Xarây (va ºf Końatiºn,.]
that the angel of Satan might buffet me.” Since then he
calls the false apostles ministers of Satan, it is not to be won-
dered that he here styles them, or the chief of them, who
thus reviled and contemned him for this infirmity, and there-
fore laboured to take off the affections of the Corinthians
from him, “an angel of Satan buffeting him” (see CEcu-
menius on the place).
* Ver. 8. IIapexâxera, I besought the Lord.] “Here,”
saith Schlictingius, “is an instance of prayer directed to
Christ;” ergo, say I, here is an instance of his divinity:
prayer made to Christ by all Christians, in all times and
places, and for all things, being an evidence of his omnisci-
ence, omnipotence, and omnipresence.
Note also, that though this “thorn in the flesh” was not
removed upon the prayer of the apostle, yet was that granted
for which he desired that it might be removed, viz. that he
should preach the gospel more effectually, and to the honour
of his Lord ; and therefore he not only rests satisfied under
this infirmity, but even glories in it on this account, that it
tended to demonstrate the power of Christ residing in him.
Thus doth God truly answer our requests, when he gives not
what we would, but what he sees to be more for his glory and
our good.
* Ver. 14. Tei roy, The third time.] Most interpreters say
that Paul had made two resolutions before to come to them;
for proof of which they cite, 1 Cor. xvi. 5. 2 Cor. i. 16, but
both the texts seem plainly to refer to one and the same re-
solution, and the last to be only an apology for nonperform-
ance of the first. His meaning therefore may be this; I
have once actually been with you : I was ready once more
to come, though your disorders unreformed hindered the
performing that intended journey (2 Cor. i. 23), and I am
now ready the third time.
* For the children ought not to lay up for the fathens,
but, &c.] i. e. If fathers of the flesh, they ought to lay up
for them temporals; if spiritual fathers, as Paul was (1 Cor.
iv. 15), to provide spirituals for them, good instructions, and
advice for the welfare of their souls. *
7 Wer. 21. Marayona'āvrov.] IIence it is evident, against .
CHAPTER XIII.
705
example and by the instigation of their false teachers, Cor. iv. 2, and whose eahortation is
who themselves practise the hidden things of shame, 2 || 1 Thess. ii. 3).
of uncleanness,
Novatian, that the Christian dispensation admits sinners to great offences, and lapsed into the sins of the flesh, mentioned
repentance, though they have, after baptism, committed | Gal. v. 19–21.
w.
CHAPTER XIII.
1 'THIS is the third time I am coming to you. *In
the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word
be established. -
2 I told you before (in my First Epistle, iv. 19—21,
being then absent in body, but present in spirit, v. 3),
and (I still continue in my resolution) foretell (-ing.)
you, as if I were present the second time (or, I fore-
tell you as present in spirit the second time); and
being absent (in body) Inow write to them which here-
tofore have sinned (and have not repented, xii. 21),
and to all others (who shall fall into the like sins),
that, if I come again (which I now am fully resolved
upon) I will not spare (you) :
3 Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in (and
by) me, (even that Christ) who to you-ward is not
weak, but is mighty “in (and among) you (you shall
find it in the exerting the power he hath given us to
chastise such offenders). -
4 For though he was crucified through (the) weak-
ness (of that human nature which he took upon him, and
in that appeared to others as weak), yet he liveth (and
discovers efficaciously that he doth so) by the power of
God (so gloriously attending the invocation of his name,
and faith in him). “For we also (Gr. and so we also)
are (as yet, in your apprehensions,) weak in him, but
we shall (appear to) live with him by the power of
God (everting itself by us) towards you.
5 (And for the farther evidence that Christ preached
by me hath not been weak, but mighty towards you,y
examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove
your own selves. Know ye not (of) your own selves,
(by the miracles done among you, and the variety of
gifts conferred upon you), how that Jesus "Christ is
in (among) you," except ye be reprobates (i. e. disap-
proved by God, and so he hath withdrawn these gifts
from you) 8 - -
6 But (however it may be with you) I trust that you
shall know we are not reprobates (i. e. not disapproved
of, but owned by God and Christ).
7 Now I pray to God that ye do no evil (which may
force us to ea:ercise and show our power among you, as
desiring) not that we should appear approved (by our
power in punishing your offences), but (rather) that
you should do that which is honest, though we be (in
show)" as reprobates (i.e. as destitute of the power of
Christ in your eyes).
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIII.
* Ver. 1. Thirov roß ro, This is the third time.] Of his
coming the third time, see note on xii. 14. These witnesses,
saith Dr. Lightfoot, were Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achai-
cus, sent to assure them of his coming: say others, his own
reiterated testimony to them by letters, that if these admoni-
tions did not prevail on them who had sinned to reform, he
would not spare them.
* In the mouth of two or three witnesses.] Though these
words seem to be cited from Deut. xix. 15, rather than from
Matt. xviii. 16, it being rare to find this apostle citing any-
thing from the New Testament without calling it “an ordi-
nance of the Lord ;” yet it is probable that the apostle here
alludes to the practice there prescribed for the reclaiming of
offenders; and then his First Epistle being written with this
introduction, “Paul an apostle, and Sosthenes ;” his second
thus, “Paul, and Timotheus,” may pass for two or three
witnesses; and his presence the third time in person, to ex-
ercise his censures on these offenders before the body of the
church, may bear a fair resemblance to the prescription relat-
ing to the church.
* Ver. 3. "Evilºv, Among you..] Christ showed his power
among them, by enabling Paul to preach the gospel to them,
in “demonstration of the Spirit and power,” so efficaciously,
as to convert them to the faith, 1 Cor. ii. 4; in that variety
of gifts conferred on them, together with the gospel, by which
their “testimony of Christ was confirmed,” l Cor. i. 6; by |
his power, conspicuous in seconding St. Paul's delivery of the
incestuous person up to Satan, 1 Cor. v. 4, 5 ; by the chas-
tisements they suffered for communicating in the Lord's sup-
per unworthily.
* Ver. 4. Kał yże zai, And so we also..] These particles
signify atque ita, even so and so, and in like manner; and
accordingly are rendered by Pasor, sic et nos, as in this para-
phrase. Again, it is evident from scripture, that though
Christ appeared to the world weak, and unable to escape his
sufferings, by permitting himself to be taken, and carried
bound before the high-priest and Pilate, and at last to be
lifted up upon the cross, and there die, yet was he only in
appearance then weak; for he permitted not himself to be
taken till he had with a word struck them to the ground
who came to apprehend him (John xviii. 6), and had de-
clared that he was able to deliver himself out of their hands
(Matt. xxvi. 53). Even so, saith the apostle, we seem weak
to you Corinthians, because we do not exercise that power
among you which God hath given us, 2 Cor. x. 10. xi. 21,
and here, ver. 9, but we shall show ourselves to live by
| the power of God exercised upon the offenders in your
i church. -
* Ver. 5. “Or, Xzia-Tö; #y tºy Harw, That Christ is in you.]
i. e. With, or among, you: so at #y hºwſy El Kögte, “Thou,
Lord, art with us,” Jer. xiv. 9, oùxī Kūpio; #y hºly; “Is not
the Lord among us P” see Gen. xxiii. 6. Ps. cxxiv. l. The
words seem to allude to those spoken by the tempting, con-
tumacious Israelites, who, after all the signs and wonders
God had shown to them, remained still doubtful of his pre-
sence with them, inquiring, si Kügto; #y hºſy ; “Is the Lord
among us, or not?” Exod. xvii. 7. So saith the apostle ;
Seeing, after all the miracles done among you, and the mira-
culous gifts received in you, you still seek a proof of Christ
speaking in or by me, ask your ownselves: know ye not by
the gifts exercised among you, except ye be rejected of God.
that his Spirit, conveyed by my ministry, is still among you ?
But then let it be noted here, that this place speaks not of
their being in Christ, but of Christ's being in them ; not of
his being in them, by their faith in him, but his miraculous
presence with then ; not of his being in any private person,
but in the church of Corinth in general.
• Ei ºftti &8áxiaoi are, If ye be not reprobates.] i. e.
Christians in name only, and “not in deeds,” so Grotius;
“stupid and hardened,” Dr. Hammond; “wicked and unfit
for the faith,” Worstius; “unworthy of the name of Chris-
tians,” Dickson; “deprived of faith, light, grace, and know-
ledge,” Menochius; “Unless you by your crimes have cast
off Christ,” Calvin. -
7 Ver. 7. ‘o; #36xigot, As reprobates.] It is to be observed,
that the word 386 cºog, which we render reprobate, hath no
relation in scripture to any decree of God, either absolutely
excluding men from a capacity of salvation, or doing it con-
ditionally, on the account of the sin of Adam ; but only doth
denote such men as have made themselves unworthy, by the
corruption of their faith or manners, to be approved and
owned by God. Thus they who, “when they knew God, did
2 Z c
'706
II. CORINTHIANS.
8 (And then you will be secure from our chastise-
ments :) for we can do nothing against the truth, but
(only) for the truth (having our power given for edifi-
cation only, and not for destruction, ver. 10.
9 Nor have we any desire to use our power thus ;)
for we are (rather) glad, when we are weak (as having
no occasion to manifest our power), and ye are strong
(in faith and good works); and this also we wish,
even your perfection (in them.
10 And) therefore I write these things being absent
(to warn and reform you), lest being present I should
(be constrained to) use sharpness (towards the unre-
formed among you), according to the power which the
Lord hath given me to edification, and not to destruc-
tion. * . - -
11 Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect (-ly knit
together), be of good comfort (under all calamities),
be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love
and peace shall be with you.
12 Greet one another with “a holy kiss.
13 All the saints (here) salute you.
14 "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the
love of God (the Father), and the communion of th
Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen. -
not glorify him as God, neither were thankful, but changed
the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped the creature more
than the Creator, and liked not to retain God in their hearts”
(Rom. i. 21–28), are the men “given up” by God, eiç yºv
38ánikcoy, “to a reprobate mind;” which prompted them to
do those things God could not approve of, but abhor: and
they who resisted the truth through the corruption of their
minds, are styled 336:1pxoi ºrepi rºy triarty, i.e. “reprobates
concerning the faith,” 2 Tim. iii. 8, i. e. men whose faith can-
not be owned or approved of. They also are in scripture, as
to their manners, styled “reprobates,” whose “mind and
conscience is defiled ;” so that though “in word they profess
to know God, yet in works they deny him, being abominable,
disobedient, and to every good work, 386xpect, reprobate ;”
i. e. Void, not of judgment only to discern, but of affection to
approve of it. Thus, that earth is styled 333xpoc, “repro-
bate,” or rejected, which, after all the showers which fall upon
it, “brings forth only thorns and briers,” Heb. vi. 8, and that
silver, 36%ploy 388xiºzov, “reprobate silver,” which, being false
stamped, or coined, will not be received, but rejected (Prov.
xxv. 4. Isa. i. 22); and in this sense Paul saith, he kept
under his body, “lest whilst he preached to others, he him-
self should be, 383rlºog, disowned” and rejected by God (1
Cor. ix. 27).
And though 386 cºol here seems to signify one that cannot
give a proof of his power, as when it relates to the apostle,
ver. 6, 7, yet seeing the apostle, pretending that the Lord
had given him this power, must be 336x4.2%, one fit to be re-
jected as a false pretender if he had it not; and though, when
it relates to the Corinthians, wer. 5, it signifies persons who
could not give a proof that they belonged to Christ, or had
his presence with them ; yet, seeing the want of this proof
showed they were to be rejected as persons not approved by
Christ, this differs not much from the sense assigned of that
word. º -
8 Ver. 12. 'Ey &yio, piańºwari, With a holy kiss.] As bre-
thren: for this seems to be the Jews' osculum propinquitatis,
of which see Buxtorf's Lexicon, p. 1404, 1405.
* Ver. 14.] Note, that here plainly, as in the form of bap-
tism, Matt. xxviii. 19, we have the names of the sacred Tri-
nity ; and the Father and Son in both places being men-
tioned as distinct persons, we have no reason to doubt of the
personality of the Holy Ghost thus mentioned with them.
A P P E N D I X
TO CHAP. VI.
MoNSIEUR Le Clerc hath observed in his Ars Critica, par.
i. cap. 8, p. 110, that “since the time of St. Austin scarce
any word hath been used more frequently in speaking con-
cerning the conversion of a sinner, than is that of grace;
and yet if you ask them that use it what they mean by it,
they can give you no clear answer: so that a Jesuit said, not
unpleasantly, That it was nothing but a nescio quid, and that
the grace of God in scripture doth always signify, not any
secret afflatus, but his mercy and his kindness to us.” Now
that I may not seem, with his witty Jesuit, to ridicule, or
with the Pelagians to deny, that grace, because my note on
this chapter partly accordeth with his critics, I shall here
briefly show two things:
1. That it seems necessary to assert, that God vouchsafes
to men not only the outward dispensations of his word to be
the ordinary means of their conversion and sanctification, but
also some assistances and operations of the Holy Spirit.
2. I shall endeavour to show that these assistances may
be so explained as to be no more unintelligible than are all the
influences of God upon the soul, or the temptations of the evil
spirit.
First, That it is necessary to assert, that God vouchsafes
to men some inward operations or assistances of his Holy
Spirit, to incline them to what is good, convert and sanctify
them. For, -
1. Why else is it expressly said that “God works in us
both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Phil. ii. 13), and
“doth within us what is acceptable in his sight?” (Heb. xiii.
21) for sure he cannot properly be said vegysſy, was roleſ, #y
#paſy, “to act and work within us,” who does and worketh
nothing in us. Yea, how doth the word of God itself, when
neard or read, work on us, but by making impressions on our
minds? And shall that be denied to God himself which we
allow to his word? Or shall he not be believed when he saith
he doth “work in us both to will and to do P” he “doth in
us what is acceptable in his sight P”
Again; Does it not seem unreasonable to deny that influ-
ence to God and the good Spirit, to excite men to goodness,
which generally is and must, according to the scripture, be
allowed to the evil spirit tempting men to wickedness P Now
though this evil spirit cannot lay us under a necessity of doing
wickedly, yet he is frequently in scripture represented as a
tempter to sin ; which he can only be mediately, by raising
some ideas in our brain which do excite, dispose, and move
us, as our own thoughts or inward sentiments at other times
were wont to do, to what is evil. He also is in scripture
styled that spirit which five-yeſ, “works inwardly in the chil-
dren of disobedience,” Eph. ii. 2, and “leads them captive
si; ºr: ixeiyou Séamºa, to do his will,” 2 Tim. ii. 26, which
words seem plainly to import some inward energy of Satan
to excite them to this disobedience to the will of God, and
this compliance with his own will: since then “stronger is
he that is in us than he that is in the world” (1 John iv. 4),
i. e. that good Spirit which dwells in pious men is more
powerful in them than Satan is in wicked men, we must allow
this good Spirit śyegyeſy, “to work” in the children of obedi-
ence, as Satan is allowed to work in his own children.
Moreover, the evil spirit is represented as “a lying spirit”
in the mouth of Ahab's prophets, 1 Kings xxi. 21, he “moved
David to number the people,” 1 Chron. xxi. 1, he “entered
into” Judas, Luke xxii. 3, he “filled the heart” of Ananias
“to lie to the Holy Ghost,” Acts v. 3. All which expres-
sions can never be accounted for without allowing him some
power to work upon the spirits of these persons, so as to
raise within them some such ideas as would excite and stir
them up to the performance of those actions: nor can we
otherwise give any rational account of the snares, methods,
wiles, and devices of Satan, mentioned 2 Cor. ii. 11. Eph.
vi. 11, or tell how he comes and “takes away the word out
of the heart,” Luke viii. 12, or how he “takes advantage
over us” when we are overwhelmed with grief, 2 Cor. ii. 10.
When, therefore, on the other hand, God is said to “put
his fear and his law in our hearts,” Jer. xxxii. 40. Heb. viii.
.* * CHAPTER VI.
707
19, and “his Spirit within us,” Ezek. xxxvi. 27, to “create in
us à clean heart, and renew in us a right spirit,” ibid., to
“give us a new heart,” Ezek xi. 19, “to circumcise” and to
“convert the heart,” Deut. xxx. 6. Jer. xxxi. 18, if he by his
good Spirit raiseth no good motions or ideas in us, which
may dispose us to his fear, and by attention to them may
convert and cleanse our hearts; if he vouchsafes unto us no
inward illuminations, by attending to which we may discern
“the wondrous things of this law,” what can these words or
metaphors import 2 or why is his Spirit put within us if he
hath nothing to do there 2 Yea, why are we said to be
“strengthened with might through the Spirit in the inward
man” to do his will 2 Eph. iii. 16; to be enabled, “through
the Spirit, to mortify the deeds of the flesh?” Rom. viii. 13.
Why is the Spirit said to “help our infirmities,” ver. 26, to
“purify our hearts,” 1 Pet. i. 22, to be unto us a “Spirit of
sanctification,” 1 Cor. vi. 11, “the Comforter,” the “Spirit
of power, love, and of a sound mind?” 2 Tim. i. 7. For how
is it possible he should be all or any of these things to us, or
should do all or any of those things for us, by doing no-
thing in us? And seeing consolation ariseth only from the
inward testimony of the conscience ; seeing sanctification
consists in the renewing of the inward man, and hath the soul
for its subject ; seeing the heart is purified by an inward
change and temper, which renders it averse from sin, and sets
he affections, desires, and inclinations of the soul against it ;
seeing the deeds of the flesh are only mortified by such a
renovation of the mind as makes us to discern the pernicious
effects and dreadful consequences of living still according to
our fleshly appetites, and so begetteth a dread and hatred of
them, a resolution to forsake them, a vehement desire to be
freed from them, a sincere endeavour to resist the motions of
the flesh, and a care that we do not for the future yield obe-
dience to it in the lustings of it, if there be no renovation
wrought in us by the Spirit, no testimony of him “with our
spirits, that we are the sons of God,” how can a man conceive
that all this should be done by the Spirit without any energy
in the mind and the affections of a man, and by that, con-
sequently, on the will ?
Moreover, if the Holy Spirit hath no hand in producing
and carrying on the new life, why is he styled IIvetºza Čolo-
wrotoſy, “a quickening,” or “life-giving, Spirit P* Seeing all
vital operations issue from a spirit acting in us, why are we
said to “live in the Spirit,” Gal. v. 16, and to “walk in the
Spirit,” Rom. viii. 14, and #yerflat, “to be led,” or conducted
“by the Spirit” of God? For as in natural and moral ac-
tions we cannot be said to live or walk without an inward
principle of life and motion, or to be led or guided in those
actions but by the light of reason ; so neither can we pro-
perly be said to live and walk in the Spirit, or to be guided
by him, if he imparts no inward light to guide us in the ways
of piety, no inward motions to excite us to walk in them,
no inward strength or vital efficacy for the performance of
them. And were it otherwise, why are all those inward
habits and dispositions which adorn the soul, and make it
“meet for the inheritance of the saints in light,” styled “the
fruits,” not of the preaching of the word, or of our own
consideration, but “of the Holy Spirit 2" For how are they
his fruits, if he doth nothing to produce them 2 Why are
they still ascribed, according to his doctrine, never to that
which only doth, but to that only which doth not, produce
them P
To say these things and those expressions concern only
the times in which the extraordinary gifts and operations of
the Holy Spirit were vouchsafed, is to make future ages, since
the ceasing of these gifts, despair of being quickened, sanc-
tified, or comforted, or even enabled to purify the heart, or
to mortify the deeds of the flesh, to live or walk in the
Spirit ; and consequently to despair of being now the sons
of God, united to Christ Jesus, or having any of the fruits of
the Spirit wrought within them. And were it only then that
no man could be regenerate or born again without water and
the Holy Ghost, by what are we now regenerated 2 why are
we now baptized P or why is baptism administered still in
the name of the Holy Ghost 2
In fine, it seems not possible, according to this hypothesis,
to explain how, or to what end, the Holy Spirit is so often
said to “dwell,” or to “abide” within us; how we are
“made a habitation of God through the Spirit;” how we
are made “the temples of God through the Holy Ghost
which is in us,” or united to Christ by the Spirit, or to what
end the Holy Ghost thus dwells or takes up his abode in
them, in whom he acteth nothing, or rests upon those Chris-
tian sufferers whom he doth not inspire with inward courage:
and yet this abode of the good Spirit with us, is represented
not only as the highest privilege, but as the inestimable ad-
vantage of the Christian. By this Christ doth encourage
his disciples to demonstrate their love to him by keeping his
commandments, that then “the Father will love them, and
we,” saith he, “ will take up our abode with him,” John
xiv. 23. By this, saith the apostle, God becomes our God,
and we his people ; he our Father, we his sons and daughters,
2 Cor. vi. 16, and from our union by his Spirit to our head
Christ Jesus, such an Évépygia, or “inward working,” is said
to be diffused through every part of his mystical body, as
causeth “the whole body to increase, and edify itself in love,”
Eph. iv. 16. Col. ii. 19. Now what account can be offered
of these things, without allowing some inward operations of
the Holy Spirit, as the consequence of this spiritual union,
and this inhabitation of the Holy Spirit in us? yea, who can
tell what is the advantage of these promises, “I will put my
Spirit in you,” or “pour him upon you.” Prov. i. 23. Jer.
xxxvi. 27. xxxvii. 14. Zech. xii. 10. John vii. 37, 38, if we
receive no influx from him thus put into our hearts P what,
lastly, is it for the Holy Spirit to “depart,” or to be “taken”
from us? or what can be the dreadful misery and “woe”
denounced upon us when he doth so 2 for if he did nothing
in us, whilst he continued to be with us, what can we lose
by his departure 2 or why did David so importunately beg
God would not take his Holy Spirit from him 2 Ps. li. 12.
To say here the Holy Spirit only dwelt in Christians
whilst the extraordinary gifts and afflatus of the Holy Spirit
were continued to the church, and they lay under persecu-
tion from the heathen emperors, is not only to contradict
the tenor of the scriptures, which declare that all Christ's
living members are thus united by the Spirit to their Head
(1 Cor. xii. 13), and that “if any man have not the Spirit
of Christ,” dwelling in him, “he is none of his” (Rom. viii.
9); he cannot be the son of God, for “as many as are led
by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (ver, 14);
he hath no right to call God Father (ver. 15), no interest in
the “adoption,” and in the inheritance of sons (ver. 17);
but it is also to enervate the virtue of the promises of Christ,
and the consolation of Christians of all future ages under
their sufferings for the sake of Christ; yea, it is in effect to
make the dispensation of the gospel cease, the difference
betwixt that and the law being by the apostle placed in this,
that the one is “ the ministration of the letter” only, the
other also “ of the Spirit;” and if this were so only whilst
these extraordinary operations of the Holy Spirit lasted,
then from the time that they have ceased, the gospel doth
not in this differ from the law, or deserve to be preferred
above it on that account.
Arg. 2. This doctrine seems to take off from the energy of
prayer in general, and from the virtue of prayer for the Holy
Spirit in particular, and so to make men slight and neglect
that duty of which the scripture speaketh so magnificently,
and to which it so frequently exhorts us; at least, it seems
not well consistent with the tenor of those inspired prayers,
or those prescriptions for it recorded in the holy scripture :
for who can reconcile it with those expressions, in which holy
men of God so often beg God “would incline their hearts”
unto him, since this he cannot do without some operation on
their hearts; that he would “draw them, that they might-
run after him;” that he would “open their eyes, and give
them understanding to discern his law ;” that he would
“lead them in the right way, in the way everlasting,” and
“guide them by his eye?” . For if God by his Spirit hath
no influence upon the heart or soul, how doth he incline or
draw it? if none upon the understanding, how doth he en:
lighten or instruct it 2 If this be done only by the word
read, preached, and pondered in the heart, we may as well
apply ourselves to that work without as with prayer, unless
we in these cases pray for some new external revelations, or
for some motives not contained in scripture. -
Moreover, according to this doctrine, it seems both fruit-
less and absurd to pray for the assistance of the Holy Spirit,
or to expect we should enjoy it. And so that * of
2 Z 2
... r".
708
Luke, “Ask, and ye shall receive ; seek, and you shall find;
knock, and it shall be open unto you : for if evil parents give
good gifts to their children, how much more will your hea-
venly Father give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him P”
Luke xi. 9. 13, must be of no use or virtue to us. For
what in these expressions can we pray for, but the assistance
of the Holy Spirit 2 and what assistance can he afford us, if
he doth not operate at all upon our souls 2
To say this promise is to be confined to the apostles' days
seems not agreeable to reason : for why then do we hear of
it in the sermon on the mount, which certainly was spoken
eiç &zo㺠Aact, “in the audience of the multitude 2" why doth
it run in words so general, Trä; yāp, “For every one that
asks receives?” Moreover, those spiritual and ordinary
efforts for which the Holy Spirit was then given, those fruits
of the Spirit they produced in them, are as needful and as
spiritually good for Christians now, as when our Saviour
spake these words: for as the Holy Spirit was needful then
to strengthen Christ's servants “in the inward man” to do
his will, Eph. iii. 16, to comfort them in tribulations, and sup-
port them under fiery trials, and to preserve them from the
subtleties of Satan, and the temptations of the wicked world;
so is there the same need of his assistance now for all these
gracious ends, and therefore the same reason to expect him
still to all these purposes. Moreover, the conditions of this
promise may be performed by us now as well as then ; we
may be now sincerely desirous to obey the holy will of God,
and with true fervency and importunity may beg the Holy
Spirit to this end. And if we may acceptably perform these
duties to which this promise is annexed, why may we not as
confidently expect the blessings promised from the God of
truth? For the encouragement here given to expect the
assistance of the Holy Spirit is this, that we ask him of our
heavenly Father: now this most comfortable relation God
bears to all his children, of what age soever; he is “the
same yesterday, to-day, and for ever;” and therefore there is
now, and ever will he, the same benignity in God, the same
good-will and readiness in him to give his Holy Spirit
now unto his children for all needful purposes, as in all
former ages. If therefore in like manner we do ask, we
must have equal reason to expect we should receive him.
To proceed therefore,
Secondly, To explain, as far as I am able, and think it
needful so to do, how those “fruits of the Spirit,” which the
schools call “graces,” are wrought in us by the Spirit of God.
First, I assert, that the manner in which the Holy Spirit
acts upon the minds and hearts of men, for the production
of these fruits or graces, and the preparatory dispositions of
the soul towards them, may reasonably be conceived to be
such as is suitable to the reason and faculties of men, viz.
the understanding and the will. Now it is certain, that what
naturally makes the understanding to perceive, is evidence
proposed and apprehended, considered or adverted to ; for
nothing farther can be requisite to make me “come to the
knowledge of the truth,” and “understanding what the will
of the Lord is,” and so be “wise unto salvation.” Hence
the apostle prays that his Philippians might “abound more
and more in knowledge, and in all wisdom,” iv Träan
aia Shorel, “in all perception,” that so they may “approve
the things that are most excellent,” Phil. i. 9, 10. Hence
he speaks to the Romans thus, “Be ye transformed by the
renewing of your mind, si; rö 80xpºsiy, that you may dis-
cern and approve what is according to the good, and accept-
able, and perfect will of God,” Rom. xii. 2, and saith to the
Ephesians, “Be ye not unwise, but understanding what the
will of the Lord is,” Eph. v. 17, and yer. 8. 10, “Walk as
children of the light, approving what is acceptable to the
Lord.” Again, what makes the will choose, is something
approved by the understanding, and consequently appearing
to the soul as good; and whatsoever it refuseth, is something
represented by the understanding, and so appearing to the
will as evil : whence all that God requires of us is, and can
be, only this, to “refuse the evil, and to choose the good.”
Wherefore to say that evidence proposed, apprehended, and
considered, is not sufficient to make the understanding to
approve ; or that the greatest good proposed, the greatest
evil threatened, when equally believed and reflected on, is
not sufficient to engage the will to choose that good, and to
refuse that evil, is in effect to say, that which alone doth
II. CORINTHIANS.
move the will to choose or to refuse is not sufficient to en
gage it so to do ; that which alone is requisite to make me
understand and approve, is not sufficient so to do. Now this
being contradictory to itself, must of necessity be false.
Be it then that we have naturally an aversion to the
truths proposed to us in the gospel, that can only make us
indisposed to attend to them, but cannot hinder our convic-
tion when we apprehend them and attend to them. Wherice.
for removal of it, the apostle only prays that “the eyes of
our understanding may be enlightened, that we may know
them,” Eph. i. 18, adding, that where “the light of the
knowledge of the glory of God in Christ Jesus” was revealed,
if after this “the gospel was hid” from any, it was only so,
“because the god of this world had blinded the conceptions
of their minds, that the light of the gospel might not shine
into them,” 2 Cor. iv. 3, 4. Be it that there is in us a re-
nitency to the good we are to choose, that only can indispose
us to believe and to approve it as our chiefest good. De it
that we are prone to the evil which we should decline, that
only can render it the more difficult for us to believe it is
the worst of evils. But yet, what we do really conceive to
be our chiefest good will still be chosen, and what we appre-
hend to be the worst of evils, will, whilst we do continue
under that conviction, be refused by us. It therefore can
be only requisite, in order to these ends, that the good
Spirit should so illuminate our understandings, that we,
attending to and considering what lies before us, should ap-
prehend and be convinced of our duty, and that the bless-
ings of the gospel should be so propounded to us, as that we
may discern them to be our chiefest good, and the miseries
it threatens, so as we may be convinced they are the worst
of evils, that we may choose the one, and refuse the other.
Now to consider, in order to approbation and conviction,
to choose in order to our good, and refuse, that we may
avoid misery, must be the actions not of God but man,
though the light that doth convince, and the motives which
engage him thus to choose and to refuse, are certainly from
God. -
To illustrate this more familiarly by an instance taken
from ourselves, or our deportment towards others: When a
man, in words plain and intelligible, speaks to another, if.
he will hearken to what he says, he must understand his
mind; for, by that very impression the words make upon
his brain, he immediately perceives his meaning: and can-
not the divine impression on the brain, which is God's
speaking inwardly to man, do the same thing? This action
is indeed so necessary, that as it is not virtuous or praise-
worthy in any man to understand the mind of him who
doth thus speak to him, so neither seemeth it praise-
worthy in us purely to understand the mind of God thus
speaking to us. Again, these words of man contain some
exhortation to me to do what he desires I would do, backed
with encouragements to do so, taken from the proposal of
some advantage, the promise of some good I shall receive by
complying with his exhortation ; or they contain some de-
hortation from doing what he would not have me to do,
because it will be hurtful to me, or will be certainly at-
tended with some evil consequences. Is not this the
method used by all the world in dealing with one another ?
And do they not all do this with hopes and expectation of
success 2 And is it not a great disparagement to the word
of God, to think that his persuasions, admonitions, exhorta-
tions, promises, and threats, should be all insufficient to
prevail with us to turn from our sinful courses, and turn to
him, when all men who do use these methods towards their
children, servants, friends, or relations, do it in hopes that
they shall be successful by these means? Moreover, if the
person they address be slow of understanding, do they not
hope to overcome that difficulty by the clearness of their
discourse, and by reiterating the same thing by such variety
of expressions as he is best able to perceive P If he be
averse from doing that which is desired, do they not hope
to overcome that aversion by repeated exhortations, and
vigorous impressions of those encouragements they tender
to prevail upon him to comply with their desire? If he be
strongly inclined to that from which they vehemently dehort
him, do they not endeavour to turn the bent and current of his
inclinations by the like repeated exhortations, and lively
representations of the evils he will be certainly exposed to
APPENDIX.
709
by so doing? All men are therefore of this opinion in their
practice, that acting with men by convincing reason, and by
motives and persuasions, is acting with them suitably to
their faculties; and is not God himself of the same mind P
Hath he not revealed his will on purpose that we may know
it P Hath he not directed his letters and epistles to us, that
by reading we may understand in them, “and know the
things which do belong to our peace?” I)id not our Saviour
utter all his discourses to the same end? Why else doth he
inquire so oft, “Why is it that you do not understand my
speech 2 (John viii. 43.) “How is it that ye do not under-
stand P” §. viii. 21.) Why doth he preface them with
this instruction, “Hear and understand P’’ (Matt. xv. 10.)
Doth not God call upon us to “consider our ways, and lay
to heart” his sayings, and his dispensations? (Hag. i. 5. 7.)
Doth he not prescribe this as the remedy for preventing his
judgments, when he saith, “Oh consider this, ye that forget
God I" (Ps. 1, 22) and of being wise, by saying, “Oh that
they were wise, that they would consider their latter end "
(Deut. xxxii. 29.) Doth he not represent this as the source
of all the wickedness and idolatry of his own people, that
they “would not consider in their hearts P” (Isa. i. 3. xliv.
19.) Doth he not make conversion the effect of this consi-
deration, when he saith, “Because he considereth and turn-
eth away from all the transgressions that he hath committed,
he shall surely live P” (Ezek. xviii. 29. Ps. cxix. 59) yea,
doth he not represent this as a just ground of hope, that
even the most stubborn sinners may be reformed, when he
saith to the prophet, “Remove by day in their sight : it may
be they will consider, though they be a rebellious people *
(Ezek. xii. 3.) Does not the apostle pray, that his Colos-
sians “may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all
wisdom, that (so) they might walk worthy of the Lord, to
all well-pleasing, being fruitful in every good work 2" (Col.
i. 9, 10) that his Philippians might “ discern and approve
the things that are most excellent, that they might be sin-
cere, and without offence, being filled with all the fruits of
righteousness?” &c. (Phil. i. 10, 11.) . And must not then
this knowledge and approbation of his will be a means of
rendering us fruitful in all works of righteousness 2 Does
not God require his people to “choose life” (Deut. xxx. 19),
pronouncing a blessing on them who choose the things that
please him (Isa. lvi. 4), and threatening destruction to them
that “would not choose the fear of the Lord” (Prov. i. 20),
but “choose the things in which he delighteth mot?” (Isa.
lvi. 4.) Now, doth he anything more to prevail with them
who do “not choose the fear of the Lord, do not the things
that please him,” to engage them so to do, or not to do the
contrary, but teach them his way, and persuade them to
walk in them P Must it not then be certain, that either he
transacts with them as men who might by these things be
induced to choose to fear him, and do the things that please
him, and abstain from the contrary ; or threatens to destroy
them for doing what they could not help, and had no means
sufficient to avoid, and for not doing what it was impossible
for them to do 2 Again, doth he not exhort men to be
“willing and obedient,” promising a full pardon, and a
blessing to them that do so 2 (Isa. i. 18, 19.) Doth not
Christ resolve the destruction of the Jews into this, “You
will not come unto me that you may have life P” (John V.
40) declaring this to be the reason why they were not
gathered, because he “often would have gathered them, but
they would not” be gathered (Luke xiii. 34), because, being
so graciously invited to the marriage-feast, they would not
come 2 (Matt. xxii. 34.) Now what did he to engage them
to come unto him, to gather them, to prevail upon them to
come unto the marriage-feast, but show them the way of
life, exhort them and invite them to come unto the feast 2
Either then he transacted with them as one who knew this
was sufficient for these ends, and that these things might
have prevailed upon them to be willing, or else he resolved
on their exclusion from the marriage-feast ; and their not
tasting his supper, for not doing what they could not do; and
condemned them for not coming when they could not, because
the Father did not draw them orgive them to him (John vi. 37.
44), and for not being, gathered when indeed he would not,
whatever he said to the contrary, seeing he would not do
that for them without which they could not be gathered.
'Moreover, doth he not earnestly exhort and persuade men to
repent, and turn from the evil of their ways 2 Doth he nº
say, “Oh that my people would have hearkened to me :
that Israel would have walked in my ways l’’ (Ps. lxxxi. 13.)
“Oh that they were wise, that they would understand this 1”
(Deut. xxxii. 29) “O Jerusalem I wilt thou not be made
clean 2 when shall it once be?” (Jer. xiii. 27.) “Oh that
thou hadst known, in this thy day, the things which belong
unto thy peace P” (Luke xix. 42.) Now either in these
exhortations and persuasions he acts with men suitable to
their faculties, exhorting them to do, and pathetically
wishing they had done, what they might have done, though
they did it not ; or called them to repent that they did not
do what they never could do; that they did not avoid what
it was impossible they should avoid ; and even to repent
that God had not irresistibly done this for them, and seri-
ously wished they themselves would have done what, if it ever
had been done, must have been done by himself, and there-
fore was not done, because he would not irresistibly work
the change in them.
In fine, doth not God encourage men to repent and be-
lieve, to be “willing and obedient,” by great and precious
promises of the most excellent and lasting blessings P Hath
he not threatened eternal damnation to them that do not
believe? (Mark xvi. 15, 16) hath not he said, “He will
come in flaming fire, taking vengeance on all that obey not
the gospel?” (2 Thess. i. 7.) And must not all these things
sufficiently convince us, that God acts with men as one who
doth indeed suppose that men may hearken to his exhorta-
tions, and comply with his persuasions to believe and to
obey his gospel 2 may be prevailed on, by his promises, to
the performance of their duty, and terrified by the con-
sideration of the judgments threatened from their disobe-
dience? Why else is it said that God has given us these
“great and precious promises, that by them we may be
made partakers of a divine nature?” (2 Pet. i. 2) or why
are we exhorted, “having these promiscs, to cleanse our-
selves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holi-
ness in the fear of God?” (2 Cor. vii. 1) or why doth the
apostle say, “Knowing then the terrors of the Lord, we
persuade men P” (2 Cor. v. 11.) If beyond all this there
be some physical and irresistible operation on God’s part,
necessary to make men know, and knowing choose the good,
and refuse the evil, this being not wrought in them who are
not born anew, why is the want of this new birth and this
spiritual regeneration so oft imputed to their want of con-
sideration, and their not laying to heart the things pro-
pounded to them ; to their not inclining their mind to wis-
dom, and not applying their hearts to understanding ; and
their not framing their doings to turn unto the Lord? (Prov.
i. 14. 30. Hos. v. 4.) If it be said, This may be done, be-
cause they had grace and strength sufficient in their first
parents so to do ; I answer, Admit that vain imagination,
that we had what we never indeed had, or could have, be-
cause it was lost long before we had a being ; yea, what
Adam never had, because then we must have had power to
repent after his fall, and then we must have it still; for what
power he had to repent after his fall, he could not lose by
his fall: I say, admit this supposition, what is it to the im-
port of all the exhortations, persuasions, and motives, con-
tained in the gospel, which are all directed to fallen man ;
and so, if God be serious in them, declare his great un-
willingness that fallen man should perish, his passionate
desire that he should be saved ; and if he speaketh in them
suitably to the capacities and faculties of fallen man, plainly ,
suppose him still in a capacity, by these assistances and
motives, to understand his duty, and to choose the good, and
refuse the evil?
Prop. 2. I add, That this is not ordinarily, and needs not
at all to be done now, by propounding to the understanding
any truths, or to the will any motives or inducements, which
are not contained in holy scripture. For, if the word of God
be a perspicuous and perfect rule, “able to make us wise to
salvation,” and “furnished for every good work,” sure the
good Spirit may, by suggesting the truths contained in it,
and bringing them to our remembrance, and “opening our
understandings to perceive the scriptures,” sufficiently re-
move the darkness that is in our minds ; if it be a “light
shining in darkness” (2 Pet. i. 19), and Trávra rā āśyxéºya,
“all errors” to be corrected, all vices to be reproved, “are
71ſ)
II. CORINTH HANS.
made manifest by the light” (Eph. v. 13), then must it be
sufficient to illuminate our understandings and direct our
paths, or “lead our feet into the way of truth.” Again,
seeing the motives contained in the scripture to engage us
to turn from those evil ways which tend to our disquiet,
torment, and misery at present, and will hereafter subject
us to eternal miseries, must be sufficient to turn us from the
evil of our ways, or else the highest motives that can be
offered must be insufficient to that end; all other motives to
deter us from any action, as pernicious and disadvantageous
to us, being as nothing when compared to that, “Depart
from me, ye wicked, into eternal fire;” all evils we can dread
or suffer from the hand of man, are little in respect of that
we must have cause to fear from him who “can destroy both
soul and body in hell-fire.” Since, on the other hand, the
promise of everlasting happiness, recorded in the same
scriptures, as the result of our sincere obedience, must be
sufficient to engage us in a sincere endeavour to yield that
obedience to the good and holy will of God, or no induce-
ments can be sufficient to that end ; seeing this motive
eminently contains all other motives in it, there being more
in those two words, the enjoyment of God and everlasting
happiness, than kingdoms, thrones, and treasures, joy, plea-
sures, honours, and all that can express the good things of
this world, import ; and therefore a more vehement con-
straining power in them, to the performance of our duty,
than in the united strength of worldly greatness, honour,
pleasures, and that which representeth to our hopes and our
desires that which incomparably excels all we can hope for,
or desire, besides: I say, this being so, the Holy Spirit, by
making deep impressions on the mind of the advantages and
rewards promised to our conversion and sincere obedience,
and of the dreadful evils threatened to the disobedient, and
bringing these things oft to our remembrance, which, in the
scripture-phrase, is “putting these laws in our minds, and
writing them upon our hearts” (see mote on Heb. viii. 10),
must do what is sufficient to work in us conversion and sin-
cere obedience. For what reason can be given why the
Spirit of wisdom, having “enlightened the eyes of our un-
derstanding to know what is the hope of our calling, and the
glorious riches of the inheritance of the saints" (Eph. i. 18),
and these things being thus made present to our minds,
should not have greater prevalence upon our wills to obe-
dience, than any temporal concerns to yield obedience to
the laws of man P. It is certain, Satan can only tempt us
by suggesting some temporal allurements and advantages,
or some temporal losses or affrightments to us: since then
the scripture doth assure us, “this is our victory over the
world, even our faith” (1 John v. 4), i. e. our “expectation
of things hoped for, our evidence of things not seen” (Heb.
xi. 1); these objects of our faith contained in the scriptures
being presented to us, and impressed upon us by the Holy
Spirit, must be sufficient to baffle all the temptations of sin,
Satan, and the world. In fine, of this we may be sufficiently
convinced from the experience of mankind; for, since the
apprehension of good or evil is the sole motive to make us
undertake or decline any action, the greater the good or evil
is, the stronger motive it must be. Now, do not many mil-
lions in the world forego their present ease and pleasure,
encounter difficulties, and venture upon dangers, and un-
dergo most toilSome labours, in expectation of some finite
temporal advantage, of which they cannot have assurance?
Do they not oft abstain from what they passionately love,
only for fear of dangers which possibly might not ensue
upon the satisfaction of their appetites? Do they not sow,
and plant, and trade, only in hopes of an increase ? And
should not, then, the hopes of infinite eternal happiness, and
the dread of endless miseries, more powerfully engage us to
obey God's precepts, and to resist all the temptations which
flesh and blood suggest against them? •
But, then, because the blessings afid miseries of another
world are things invisible, and only are discerned by the eye
of faith, they being only moral and spiritual motives, which
only work upon us as they are present to our minds by
actual consideration and reflection on them, and this they
are not always, when the temptations of the world, the
devil, and the flesh, by sensual objects, are thus present with
us; it is therefore necessary that at all times, when they are
not thus present with us, and therefore cannot operate upon
us, the Holy Spirit should, either by representing to ns from
the scriptures those divine truths with which our under-
standings have not been sufficiently enlightened, instruct and
guide us, or else by reviving and impressing, i. e. inculcating
on our spirits, those motives and inducements to resist those
temptations, and to perform those duties which are required
at our hands, assist us so to do.
Prop. 3. I therefore humbly conceive this inward opera-
tion of the Holy Spirit to consist in these two things:
First, In representing divine truths more clearly to our
understandings, that we may have a fuller evidence, stronger
conviction and assurance of them, which is in scripture
styled “the illumination of the mind.”
Secondly, In bringing these truths to our remembrance,
that so they may be present with us, when this is requisite to
enable us to resist temptations, and to encourage us to the
performance of our duty. And upon supposition of these
two things, that God acts with us suitably to the nature of
out faculties (on our understanding, by representing the
light to it, and on our wills by motives to choose the good
and refuse the evil, and that the highest motives and induce-
ments possible, when firmly believed, and present to the
mind, must be sufficient to produce their ends), it can be
only requisite to our conversion and sincere obedience, that
the good Spirit should assist us in this work, by that illu-
mination which is sufficient to produce this strong convic-
tion and plerophory of faith, and should present those
motives to our memories, and make a deep impression of
them there; which, being present, will move our wills and
our affections to prosecute the ends for which they are
sufficient.
I am not ignorant that there may be many who, beyond
all this, require a physical and irresistible motion of the
Holy Spirit, in which we are wholly passive, to the con-
version of a sinner; and I shall not dispute with them, that
controversy being so fully handled by Dr. Claget, but shall
endeavour briefly to compound and state the matter.
First, then, I say it must be granted, that in raising an
idea in my brain by the Holy Spirit, and the impression
made upon it there, the action is properly physical.
Secondly, That in these actions I am purely passive; that
is, I myself do nothing formally to produce these ideas, but
the good Spirit, without my operation, doth produce them
in me. And,
Thirdly, That these operations must be irresistible in their
production, because they are immediately produced in me
without my knowledge of them, and without my will, and
so without those faculties by which I am enabled to act.
But then I add, that, as far as they are so, they cannot
be imputable to me; i. e. it cannot be praiseworthy in me,
or rewardable, that I have such ideas raised in me; but only
that, when they are thus raised in me, I attend to them,
comply with, and improve them to the ends for which they
were designed by the Holy Spirit. To make this evident
by an example: It is on all hands granted, that Satan can
so work upon the brain, as to raise up in it impure and
blasphemous ideas; but then it is generally held, that the
thoughts they immediately produce will never be imputed
to us as our sins, nor will God be displeased with us for
them, if we do not after show any good liking of them, or
consent to them, but manfully resist, and rise up into de-
testation and abhorrence of them; and that, because the
raising these ideas is the devil's action, not our own, we are
purely passive in them till we consent to, or show some
liking of, them : and they are also inevitable and irresistible,
it being in the power of no man to prevent or resist them ;
i. e. to hinder them from being raised in his brain, or any
ways to suppress them, till he doth first perceive them raised
there. And therefore, for the same reasons, those ideas
which are objectively good, being thus raised in us, cannot
be imputed to us for reward, nor can God be well pleased
with us for them, till we co-operate with them ; because the
raising of them is properly God's, not our own action, and
we are purely passive in it, nor is it in our power to prevent
or to resist them: but, then, God having planted in us a
principle of reason and discretion, we can attend to them
being raised, and so improve them to the illumination of
our understandings, and to the approbation of them in our
minds. He also having given us a will to choose the good
PREFACE TO THE GALATIANS.
711
and refuse the evil, we may consent to the good suggestions,
and pursue the good motions raised thus in us; for to what
other ends can they be raised in us by the Holy Spirit P
As, therefore, our attendance and consent to the suggestions
of the evil spirit being free, and what we may avoid, is cul-
pable; so our attendance to, and compliance with, these
motions and ideas of the Holy Spirit, being things in which
we are free and active, and that upon deliberation ; and so
in them we do perform the proper and free actions of a man,
doing that which we might not do, and refusing to do that
we have both power and temptations to perform ; therefore
these things must be praiseworthy and acceptable in the
sight of God.
I also add, that these ideas being thus raised up in us by
God alone, and even the power of attending and consenting
to them being, together with our nature, entirely derived from
God, and all the inducements which we have to attend to
them, and comply with them, being properly of divine exter-
nal revelation, or such divine internal operation as, if they
had not intervened, we should have had none of these good
effects produced upon us; these effects are properly to be
ascribed to God, and all the praise and glory of them must
be due to him alone, because the principle of acting, and the
inducement thus to act, is solely from him.
To conclude: The greatest instance of powerful conver-
sion I can call to mind is that of persecuting Saul. He is
confounded by a light shining round about him, brighter
than the sun ; by this he is struck down to the earth, and
hears a dreadful voice from heaven, saying, “Saul, Saul, why
persecutest thou me?” Now in all this he was purely pas-
sive, and the action done upon him was physical and irre-
sistible; and therefore this action being wholly Christ's, not
his, there could be nothing in it on his part praiseworthy, or
rendering him a better man. But then, when he inquires of
the holy Jesus, “Lord, what wouldest thou have me to do?”
when he prays earnestly for the forgiveness of his sins (Acts
ix. 11); when he submits to that baptism which was ap-
pointed by the holy Jesus for that end, and for the dedica-
tion of himself to his service; when, being told what grievous
things he was to suffer for the name of Jesus, he notwith-
standing “was not disobedient to the heavenly vision,” but
went and preached up that faith which he had formerly op-
posed; these being actions of deliberation and free choice,
proceeding from reflections on the heavenly vision, and the
conviction it had wrought upon him, must be praiseworthy
and acceptable in the sight of God: though, being the re-
sults of what our Lord had done upon him, he very properly
ascribeth the whole glory of them to the grace and favour of
our Lord towards him. Hence, say Chrysostom and CEcu-
menius, he doth so magnify the grace of God in this matter,
as tº Avºyaasai tº aire?ouzig, “not to invalidate man's
free-will” (see note on 1 Tim. i. 12). And that there is a
perfect harmony betwixt the operation of God’s grace and
the co-operation of our wills, we learn from two examples
recorded in one chapter, viz. 2 Cor. viii. 1. 3, where the apos-
tle advertiseth the Corinthians “of the grace of God given to
them of Macedonia:” for, saith the apostle, they were “accord-
ing to their power, yea, and above their power, at Saige'rol,
of themselves willing” to contribute to the necessities of the
saints ; viz. the contribution was an act of their own free
wills, proceeding from their choice; but the grace and favour
of God given to them was the spring and motive of it.
So again, ver. 16, 17, “Thanks be to God, tº 3.869'rt, to him
that gave this care in the heart of Titus; for he accepted the
exhortation, and being more forward, at Saigero; ###A02, he
went to you of his own accord;” i. e. the exhortation was
from Paul; that which gave the weight and vigour to it, and
rendered him more forward in it, was the grace and favour
of God to him : the reflection on both made this journey the
matter of his own choice, and so he became “willing of his
own accord:” yea, this is evident even from the very words,
by some thought to assert the contrary, Phil. ii. 12, 13,
“Wherefore, beloved—not only as in my presence (when
you had me to be your monitor), but much more now in my
absence (which God by the workings, and inward teachings
of his Spirit supplies), work out your salvation with fear and
trembling: for it is God that worketh in you, both to will
and to do of his own pleasure” (i.e. sometimes by outward,
and sometimes by inward means): for if beyond these in-
ward suggestions and persuasions some physical and irre-
sistible operations be required on God's part, which makes
it necessary for us both to will and do, why are we then com-
manded to work out our own salvation; for can we act where
we are truly passive P Or can that be a reason why we our-
selves should work, that another will effectually do that very
thing without our co-operation ? Is it not rather a manifest
reason why we should neither will nor work at all, since both
is and will be irresistibly performed without us? Why, se-
condly, are we said to work out our salvation with fear and
trembling 2 for, can there be any cause of fear and trem-
bling, lest that salvation should not be wrought out which
God works in us irresistibly 2 Surely, if God works in us
irresistibly both to will and to do, there can be no possibility
of miscarrying, and so no ground for fear and trembling.
Why, thirdly, are the Philippians exhorted to do this, much
more in Paul's absence than in his presence, if, when he was
present, God wrought in them irresistibly to will and do, and
could do no more in his absence? It is therefore evident
from these considerations, that God works in us both to will
and to do, by giving us our wills and faculties, and then
stirring them up to put forth their own acts.
THE
EPISTLE To THE GALATIANs,
WITH AN NO TATION S.
PREFACE.
$. 1. THOUGH, in the pure and primitive ages of the church
I find no controversy touching the nature of faith, or of jus-
tification, they saying nothing of justification but as it is in-
cluded in the article of “remission of sins;” yet seeing both
this faith and the justification which is ascribed to it have,
in the latter ages, ministered occasion to many questions and
disputes, canvassed with much contention, and prosecuted
with the greatest zeal, as being judged matters of very high
\
Importance; and the Epistles to the Romans and the Gala-
tians are the epistles which treat chiefly of this subject; I
therefore shall, by way of preface to this epistle, endeavour
to show,
1. What is the import of the word “faith,” in scripture,
especially as it relates to the matter of justification, or what
the scripture representeth as true Christian faith.
2. What it is to be “justified,” in Paul's acceptation of
that word.
3. That this justification is by Paul ascribed to faith alonc,
in opposition to works of righteousness, done either by the
Jew or gentile.
712
TU THE
PREFACE
, 4. That it seems necessary ſrom the nature of the thing,
and the state and condition of the persons to whom the gos-
pel was then preached, that it should be so.
5. That though this faith doth not include sincere obe-
dience, and much less perseverance in it to the end, which
yet are necessary and essential conditions, even of the new
covenant ; yet,
1. It lays the highest obligations on us to perform them,
under the penalty of forfeiting the blessings of it.. And,
2. It tendereth sufficient motives to this obedience, and,
where it is sincere and lasting, it will most certainly produce
it.
§ 2. And (1.) as for the import of the word “faith,” in
scripture, I think scarce anything is more evident through-
out the whole New Testament, than that the faith there men-
tioned is only a cordial and firm belief that Jesus is the
Christ, the Lord, the true Messiah, or Prophet, sent from
God, to reveal his will to the world; the Son of God, the Sa-
viour of the world. To make this manifest,
Consider, (1.) That divine faith, in general, is only a firm
assent to, or full persuasion of mind concerning the truth of,
what is testified, revealed, or reported by God himself, or
persons commissioned by God to reveal, or to bear record to
it : for, seeing human faith is only a persuasion of the truth
of what is told us or testified by man, divine faith must be a
firm persuasion of the truth of what is testified or revealed
to us by God. And this description of faith is clearly taught
us by John, l John V., who having declared, ver, 4, 5,
that the faith by which we overcome the world, is the belief
that Jesus is the Son of God, proceeds to show we have
great reason to believe this proposition, that Jesus is the Son
of God: 1. Because the Holy Spirit beareth witness to it,
and he is the Spirit of truth, ver. 6. 2. Decause “there are
three that bear record in heaven to it, viz. the Father, the
Word, and the Holy Ghost,” ver. 7. Now, saith he, “if we
receive the witness of men;” if we rely upon their testi-
mony in any court of judicature; if by the mouth of two or
three human witnesses our weightiest matters are determined,
shall not the witness of God be greater P i.e. shall it not be of
more validity for confirmation of our faith in this particular,
that “Jesus is the Son of God 2" ver, 9. Surely we cannot
disbelieve this truth, but we must give the lie to him, saith
the apostle, ver. 10, “because we believe not the record
which God hath given of his Son;' but if we do receive
this testimony on his authority, “we set to our seal that God
is true,” John iii. 33.
This being, then, the nature of divine faith in general,
faith in our Lord Jesus Christ must be a full assent to, or
firſh persuasion of mind concerning, the truth of what is
testified, revealed, or reported by God himself, or by per-
sons commissioned by him to reveal his will, concerning
our Lord Jesus Christ. Or briefly thus, It is a firm persua.
sion that he who suffered at Jerusalem was the true Messiah,
the Saviour of the world, the Prophet who was for to come,
that person who was constituted Lord of all things; or, which
amounts to the same thing, that he was Christ, the Son of
God. For explication of this proposition,
Consider, (1.) that the scripture mentions this as the great
thing testified concerning him, by all the witnesses of the
Messiah; as, v. g.
1. By John the Baptist, who came “for a witness to
testify of the Light,” John i. 7, and who “ saw, and bare re-
cord that this is the Son of God,” ver, 34: hence do John's
disciples say, “IIe to whom thou barest witness baptizeth,”
John iii. 26, and Christ speaks thus to the Jews, “You sent
to John, and he bare witness to the truth,” John v. 33.
2. God the Father bare him record, and testified by divers
methods, that he was the Son of God; so do we read ex-
pressly, John v. 32, “There is another that beareth witness
of me; and I know that the witness which he witnesseth of
me is true; the Father himself, who hath sent me, beareth
witness of me.” And again, xvii. 18, “It is written in your
law, that the testimony of two men is true,” i. e. it is to be
received as such : “I am one that bear witness of myself,
and the Father which sent me beareth witness of me.” Now
God the Father bore witness to his Son (1.) by a voice from
heaven, saying, “Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am
well pleased,” Mark i. 11. This voice was personally di-
rected to Christ himself, as being that commission which was
'sent him from heaven, to exercise the office of God's sti-
preme minister, or legate, in the world; but it was also pre-
faced with an ièov, “Behold,” directing the people to attend
to it (Matt. iii. 17), (2.) By giving him the power of work-
ing miracles for confirmation of his doctrine and his own
testimony; and therefore he speaks thus to the people, “I
have a greater testimony than that of John : the works which
my Father hath given me to do, they bear witness of me,
that the Father hath sent me” (John v. 36). -
3. The Holy Spirit beareth witness that Jesus is the Son
of God (1 John v. 6); and this he did, not only by his de-
scent upon our Saviour at his baptism, and by raising him
from the dead, he being “put to death in the flesh, but
quickened by the Spirit” (1 Pet. iii. 18), but by enabling
him to cast out devils, and to perform such works as never
any other person did, or could do. Whence he thus argues,
“If by the Spirit of God I cast out devils, then is the king-
dom of God come to you;” i. e. then is it clear that I am
the Messiah, sent from God to preach the doctrine of this
kingdom to you (Matt. xii. 28): since my commission is
confirmed by these operations of his Spirit, and testified to
“by the finger of God,” as the phrase is varied, Luke xi. 20,
and this, after our Lord's ascension, this Spirit was to do
more fully: “for when,” saith Christ, “the Comforter is
come, even the Spirit of truth, he shall testify of me,” (John
xv. 26), and this he actually did ; whence Christ is said to
be “justified by the Spirit,” 1 Tim. iii. 16, i. e. freed, by his
testimony, from the suspicion of being an impostor, or false
pretender, when he declared he was Christ, “the Son of
God. e *
4. The apostles were men chosen for this very end: “Ye
shall bear witness of me,” saith Christ, “because ye have
been with me from the beginning” (John xv. 27). “Ye
shall be witnesses to me both in Jerusalem and Judea, and
in Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.” Hence
are they styled “witnesses chosen of God,” Acts x. 41, “eye-
witnesses” of what he did and suffered, Luke i. 2, “eye-
witnesses of his glory,” 2 Pet. i. 16; “That which we have
heard, and seen, and looked upon, waptugotºzºv, we witness,
and declare unto you,” saith John, 1 John i. 2.
5. Moses also and the prophetsareproduced as his witnesses;
for “unto him give all the prophets witness” (Acts x. 43).
All the scriptures: “Search the scriptures,” saith Christ,
“for they are they which testify of me” (John v. 39); and
Moses in particular ; “for if you believed Moses, you would
believe me: for he wrote of me” (ver. 46).
Consider, (2) the things for which the witnesses are pro-
duced, the evidence they give in concerning the Messiah,
and that will teach us what is faith in Christ. Sometimes
it is said that they bear record that he is “ the Son of God,”
John i. 34. 1 John v. 5. 10; sometimes they testify that he
was “the Christ ;” thus Paul “confounded the Jews, testi-
fying that he was the Christ,” Acts ix. 20. 22, Peter, testi-
fying to all the house of Israel, that “God had made him
Lord and Christ,” Acts ii. 36: sometimes they testify that
he was “the Saviour of the world ;” so 1 John iv. 14, “We
have seen and do testify, that God hath sent his Son to be
the Saviour of the world ;” or, that he was “the Lamb of
God, that taketh away the sins of the world,” John i. 29,
that him “God hath exalted to be a Saviour, to give repent-
ance and remission of sins to them that believed in his name,”
Acts v. 31. xiii. 38; sometimes they testify that he is “Lord
of all things,” Acts x. 36, and, as a consequent of this, that
he, by God’s appointment, was to be judge of all men, for
“he commanded us,” saith Peter, “to preach to the people,
and to testify that it was he who was ordained to be the
judge of the quick and the dead,” Acts x. 42 ; sometimes
they are said to bear witness of his resurrection, Acts i. 22,
saying, “This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we are
witnesses,” Acts xxiii. 2, for “we have testified of God that
he raised up Christ,” 1 Cor. xv. 15.
3. Observe that all these several testimonies, though they
differ in expressions, they differ little in reality, and in effect
do only signify that he is Jesus Christ our Lord: for, (1.) to
say he is “the Son of God,” is in effect to say he “is the
Christ,” that person by God anointed to be our prophet.
Matthew gives us the confession of Peter thus, “Thou art.
the Christ, the Son of the living God,” xvi. 16; Mark thus,
“Thou art the Christ,” viii. 20; Luke, “Thou art the Christ
EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
,713
of God,” ix. 10. And when our Lord forbids them to di-
vulge this to the world, he only saith, “Tell no man that I
am Jesus the Christ,” Matt. xvi. 20. “Art thou the Christ,
the Son of God?” saith the high-priest to him, Matt. xxvi.
63; whereas St. Luke relates the question only thus, “Art
thou the Christ P* xxii. 67. (2) To be “the Son of God,”
is, in effect, to be “the Lord of all things,” the person to
whom all power is given in heaven and earth ; that every
knee should bow unto him, as their sovereign Lord and
King: and, therefore, whereas Pilate is, in the other evange-
lists, said only to ask, “Art thou the Christ, the Son of God?”
John relates the question thus, “Art thou the King of the
Jews?” (3.) To be “the Son of God,” must also signify to be
“the Saviour of the world;” the testimony of the apostles
being this, that “God had sent his Son to be the Saviour of
the world,” 1 John iv. 14; to testify that he was “risen from
the dead,” was in effect to testify he was “the Son of God;”
for he was “declared to be the Son of God with power, by
the resurrection from the dead,” Rom. i. 4. It was in effect
to testify that he was made “both Lord and Christ;” and
therefore Peter, having proved Christ's resurrection and
exaltation to the right hand of God, infers that we may all
be hence assured, that “God hath made him Lord,” Acts ii.
36, and Paul tells us it was a demonstration that God by
him would judge the world, Acts xvii. 31. And since his
resurrection was performed by the almighty power of God,
it must be a sufficient demonstration of the truth of what
Christ testified of himself, viz. that he was “Christ the Sa-
viour of the world,” and that he should hereafter “sit at the
right hand of Power,” it being impossible that God should
have employed so great power in raising him from the dead,
Had he not been his well-beloved Son, or that Messiah he
declared himself to be. -
This being then the thing which all those witnesses were
so concerned to attest and to engage men to believe, we may
be sure this is, according to the tenor of the holy Scripture,
faith in Christ; and that by heartily believing that Christ is
the Messiah, sent into the world to instruct us in the will of
God, the Saviour of the world, sent to redeem us by his
death from death and misery, and give Salvation to all his
faithful servants; that he is our Lord and King, by whose
laws we are to be governed, and by whose laws we shall be
judged and rewarded at the last day: we truly do believe in
Christ. Which yet will farther be apparent,
1. From plain texts which seem expressly to assert the
same. We find Nathanael saying, “Rabbi, thou art the Son
of God; thou art the King of Israel,” John i. 49, and Christ
thus answering to him, “Because I saw thee under the fig-
tree believest thou?” Whence it is evident, that to acknow-
Hedge Jesus to be the Son of God, the king of Israel, was to
believe in him. This was the faith of the Samaritan woman
and her fellow citizens, John iv. 26 : for to this woman our
Saviour testifies he was the true Messiah, saying, “I that
speak unto thee am he,” ver. 29, then the woman goes into
the city, and saith to the men of it, “Come, see a man that
told me all things that ever I did ; is not this the Christ?”
This being said, “many of the Samaritans believed on him,
because of the saying of the woman;” and many more be-
lieved, “ because of his own words,” ver. 39; that is, they
were persuaded, partly by what they heard her testify, partly
by what they heard our Saviour speak, to acknowledge he
was the true Messiah, or the Saviour of the World: for so
they do themselves explain the meaning of believing on him,
saying to the woman, “Now we believe, not because of thy
word: for we ourselves have heard, and know that this is
verily the Christ, the Saviour of the world,” ver. 42. This
was the faith of Martha: for Jesus having said to her, “I am
the resurrection and the life; he that believeth on me, though
he were dead, yet shall he live: believest thou this?” she
answers, “Yea, Lord: I believe thou art the Christ, the Son
of God, who wast to come into the world,” John xi. 25, 26;
to believe this was, therefore, to believe in Christ, if Martha
did so. We find Paul “opening and alleging that Christ
must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead,”
Acts xvii. 3, and that “this Jesus,” whom he preached, “was
the Christ;” and then it follows, that “some of them believed,”
ver. 4, inteia:0mcay, they were persuaded of the truth of what
Paul had testified. Again, it follows that those of Berea,
searching the scriptures, and finding that these things were
so, believed, ver, ll, i. e. they were persuaded of the truth
of what Paul had taught, that “Jesus was the Christ;” that
he had suffered, and was risen from the dead: this therefore
must be to believe. Again, Paul was “pressed in spirit, and
testified to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ,” Acts xviii.
5, whereupon Crispus, “a chief ruler of the synagogue, and
many of the Corinthians, believed ;” i. e. they acknowledged
the truth of Paul’s testimony, that “Jesus was the Christ.”
“The word of faith which we preach,” saith the same Paul,
is this, that “if thou confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus,
and in thy heart believest that God hath raised him from the
dead, thou shalt be saved,” Rom. x. 8, 9; and this he proves,
because the scripture saith, “Whosoever believeth in him
shall not be ashamed,” ver. 10. To confess, therefore, and
acknowledge that “Jesus is the Lord,” and that God raised
him from the dead, is to believe on him. Lastly, “This,” saith
John, “is the victory over the world, even our faith,” 1 John
v.4; and thenitfollows, “Who is he that overcometh the world,
but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God P” To be-
lieve therefore that “Jesus is the Son of God,” is Christian
faith. -
3. This was the faith which the apostles did require in
order to baptism ; and where there was a due appearance of
it, there persons were admitted into the number of “be-
lievers.” For instance, Peter saith to the Jews, “Let all
the house of Israel know that God hath made this Jesus,
whom ye crucified, Lord and Christ,” Acts ii. 36 ; this pricks
them to the heart, and makes them to inquire, “What shall
we do P” Peter answers, “Repent you, and believe every
one of you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, for the
remission of sins,” ver. 38; and then it follows, that “they
who gladly received his word were baptized ; and there were
added to the church three thousand souls,” wer. 41 ; and, ver.
47, “The Lord daily added to the church, roi; orwćopwéyovº,
the saved,” i.e. such who were by his faith put into a way
of salvation ; and if they persevered in it, would obtain it.
Again, Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and
“preached to them Christ,” Acts viii. 5, and “when they
believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom
of God,” ver. 12, i. e. when they did heartily assent to them,
“they were baptized, both men and women:” and when the
eunuch puts the question to him, “What hindereth me to be
baptized P” Philip returns this answer, “If thou believest
with all thy heart, thou mayest,” ver. 37; and when the eu-
much answered, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of
God,” then was he instantly baptized; so that the faith re-
quired to baptism was only a hearty acknowledgment that
“Jesus Christ was the Son of God.”
§ 3. And because there be many false, and, in my appre-
hension, dangerous descriptions of true faith, which have ob-
tained in these latter ages, I will here briefly lay them down,
and then proceed to other confirmations of the scripture
notion of true faith, by which we may abundantly discern
thc falsehood of them. Now they are such as these, viz.
1. That “faith is a firm assent, by which every true be-
liever is persuaded, not only that remission of sins is pro-
mised in the general, but to him in particular.” So Calvin;
and after him the generality of the French and Dutch divines.
2. That faith consists “in the application of Christ's merits
to ourselves, in casting ourselves upon the merits of Christ,
in apprehending, relying, or laying hold upon Christ for Sal-
vation;”; or, as others say, “it is a recumbency on Christ for
* Synops. Purior. Theol. Disp. 31, §. 1. Hanc fidem jus-
tificantem sic definimus; nempê esse firmum assensum pro-
missionibus evangelii, quo fidelis non tantüm credit eas esse
veras, sed etiam ad se peculiaritēr pertinere. Thes. Sedan.
vol. i. p. 633, Ş. 12. Nunc justa fidei definitio nobis consta-
bit, si dicamus esse divinae erga nos benevolentia firmam
certamgue cognitionem. Calv. Instit. lib. iii. cap. 2, § 7, 28.
+ “The principal acts of saving faith are accepting, re-
ceiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification.”
Assemb. Catech. chap. 14, q. 2. -
Quo homo electus promissiones gratuitas de Christo Sibi
applicat, iisque suavissimè acquiescit. Wolleb. Christ. Theol.
lib. i. cap. 29. Fides igitur ista proprié dicitur justificans,
quá recumbimus in Christum ad remissionem peccatorum ad
saluten. Ames. Theol, lib. i. cap. 27, Š. 17.
714
PREFACE TO THE
salvation.” Of all which motions of justifying, or true Chris-
tian faith, this is a full confutation, that they are perfectly
unscriptural: for the first cannot be contained in scripture,
it being certain, to a demonstration, that scripture nowhere
saith, that Daniel, John, or Thomas, &c., have remission of
sins. This, therefore, cannot be divine faith, or faith built
immediately on a divine revelation or record, but rests upon
our own experience, or knowledge of ourselves; for the argu-
ment must run thus, “He that repenteth and believeth, shall
be saved.” I, Daniel, and Thomas, have done this ; which
may indeed be matter of their knowledge, but not of divine
faith, as being not revealed in scripture.
3. Nor are the other opinions less unscriptural ; for we
do not once read in scripture any command to apply Christ's
merits to ourselves, or to apprehend his merits, or to lean
and roll ourselves upon him for salvation: we find no exhor-
tation in scripture to do so; no reprehension of any person
for not resting on, or not applying Christ's merits to them-
selves ; no promise made to any upon the application of
Christ's merits: in a word, the scripture is wholly unac-
quainted with these phrases. And is that likely to be the
duty on which our justification, adoption, and all our happi-
ness depends, which hath no precept, promise, or example
in the holy scripture? But I shall add some farther con-
firmations of the scripture notion of true faith, by which all
these unscriptural opinions will be at once confuted. And
therefore,
4. The scripture frequently informs us, that the miracles
done by Christ are propounded as the great motive to believe
on him, and as the aggravation of their sin, who still con-
tinue in their infidelity; and also that the consideration of
them caused many to believe. On this account he requires
to be believed ; “If you believe not me, believe my works”
(John x. 38. xiv. 11): “for the works that I do bear wit-
ness of me, that the Father hath sent me " (John v. 36. x.
25). On this account he pronounces the infidelity of the Jews
inexcusable, saying, “If I had not done among them the
works that no other man did, they had not had sin ; but now
they have no cloak for their sin” (John xv. 22. 24). It was
this consideration which induced many of them to believe ;
for “many believed on his name when they saw the miracles
which he did" (John ii. 23. vii. 30). Now what were all
his miracles designed to produce in them, but a firm belief
that he was “Christ the Son of God?” So doth John ex-
pressly teach us, saying, “There be many other miracles
which Jesus did, that are not written in this book; but these
are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Son of
God " (John xx. 30). If you imagine that faith is a firm
assent that Christ died for you in particular, and that you
have remission of sins by him ; that it is an application of
Christ, or of his merits to yourselves, or a rolling yourselves
upon him for salvation; how do his miracles convince you
that you should thus believe on him 2 But if you say, it is
a firm persuasion that he is the Christ, the Son of God, no-
thing can be more proper to convince us of the truth of what
he thus declared, than these miracles; then may you say
with Nicodemus, “We know thou art a teacher sent from
God: for no man can do such miracles as thou doest, except
God were with him " (John iii. 2).
5. This will be yet more evident from all those places
which ascribe our justification and salvation to faith in God,
or in him that sent this Jesus into the world. So doth our
Lord himself in these words, “Verily, verily, I say unto you,
He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent
me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemna-
tion; but is passed from death to life” (John v. 24. xii. 44).
The faith of Abraham is thus described, “Abraham believed
God, and it was imputed to him for righteousness,” Rom. iv.
3, i. e. this faith in God was imputed to him for righteous-
ness: when therefore the apostle adds, that “he is the father
of them that believe, that righteousness might be imputed to
them also,” ver, 9, must it not be imputed upon their believ-
ing in God, as he did 2 Doth not the apostle hence infer,
that “unto him that worketh Ilot, but believeth in him that
justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness?”
ver. 5. Now to “believe in him that justifieth the ungodly,”
is certainly to believe in God the Father, for “it is God that
justifieth " (Rom. viii. 33). To be justified by this faith,
must therefore signify to be justified by faith in God the
Father, according to those words of Peter, “We through him
believe in God, that our faith and hope might be in God”
(1 Pet. i. 21). Now if faith is supposed to consist in believ-
ing that our own sins are pardoned, in application of Christ's
merits to ourselves, or in rolling ourselves upon the person
of Christ, what affinity or connexion is there betwixt believ-
ing in God, believing the truth of his promises, as Abraham
did, and was justified, and believing that our own sins are
pardoned, applying the merits of Christ to ourselves, or roll-
ing ourselves upon him for salvation ? But then if justify-
ing faith doth primarily consist in a firm persuasion that
Jesus is the Son of God, the Saviour of the world ; the
Prophet sent of God to show us the way of salvation; the
Lord and King, by whose laws we are to be governed if we
would obtain it, then faith in Christ and faith in God are one
thing: for God having testified all this concerning his Son
Jesus Christ, and also promised that “every one that hath
seen the Son and believed on him, shall have eternal life"
(John vi. 40); by thus believing we “receive his testimony,”
and “set to our seal that God is true.”
6. This may be argued from all those places which ascribe
our justification and salvation to the belief of the resurrection
of Jesus Christ, or of God's power exercised in raising him
from the dead. Thus doth Paul in that very chapter in
which he professedly disputes of justification by faith ; for
he expressly declares, that to them that “believe in him who
raised Jesus from the dead, that faith shall be imputed for
righteousness,” Rom. iv. 24, as Abraham's faith in him that
quickened the dead was imputed unto him for righteousness,
And again, “If we believe with the heart that God hath
raised up the Lord Jesus from the dead, we shall be saved;
for with the heart man believeth to justification,” Rom. x.
9, 10. Now what agreement is there betwixt my believing
my own sins are pardoned, or my applying Christ's merits to
myself, or rolling myself upon him, and Christ's resurrection
from the dead by the power of God 2 But then if we say,
that faith is a firm persuasion that Jesus was the Son of
God, the Saviour of the world, the Prophet that was to come
into the world, the Lord and ruler over all ; this, as he tes-
tified of himself whilst living, and God the Father also testi-
fied, so was he “declared to be the Son of God with power
by the resurrection from the dead" (Rom. i. 4); by this all
Israel might “know that God had made him Lord and
Christ” (Acts ii. 24, 36), and that “God had exalted him
to his right hand, to be a Prince and Saviour, to give repent-
ance to Israel, and remission of sins” (Acts v. 31). Hence
the apostle teacheth that Christ “died for our sins, and rose
again for our justification,” Rom. iv. 25, and puts the ques-
tion, “Who is he that condemneth us? It is Christ that
died, yea, rather that is risen again,” viii. 34, -
7. This appears farther from this consideration, that” in
all the scriptures of the New Testament, there is not to be
found one exhortation to any Christian to believe in Christ,
or to act faith on Christ. When the apostles preached to
Jews or gentiles, men not converted to the Christian faith,
they still exhort them to believe that Jesus was the Christ,
the Son of God, the Saviour of the world, or to “believe in
the Lord Jesus.” And this was necessary to be preached to
them, to persuade them to believe in, and to obey him : for
till they did believe he was a person sent from God, and that
they should receive some benefit by doing so, they could
have no inducement to own, and no encouragement to obey
him. It was therefore necessary that this should be first
preached to Jew and gentile, that Christ was a person sent
from God to preach the doctrine which he taught, and that
remission of sins and everlasting life was to be obtained by
his name, and by obedience to this teacher. But then I say,
the same apostles in their epistles directed to those persons
who were already Christians, and who had testified their faith
by being baptized in the name of Jesus, have not one exhor-
tation to any of them to believe in Christ ; but only to be
stedfast in the faith, to increase and grow in faith, and to
repent of what they had done contrary to the faith they had
received. The exhortations of our Lord to the seven
churches, and more particularly to that of Sardis, in which
* Concerning this passage, see an advertisement to the
reader at the end of this preface.
A
EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
715
there were but very few who had not defiled themselves
(Rev. iii. 1–3), and that of Laodicea, which he threatened
to spue out of his mouth for her lukewarmness (ver. 16. 18),
are only to repent, and to renew their first works, not to be-
lieve in him, or to apply his merits to themselves. Now
what account can be given of this thing by those who are so
zealous in their sermons to exhort Christians to believe in
Christ, to roll themselves upon him and apply his merits to
themselves, and are so full of motives to persuade them so to
do? I say what reason can they give, why men, assisted by
the Holy Ghost, never exhorted any Christians to be-
lieve, but only to “show forth their faith by their works "
(James ii. 18), and to “add unto their faith virtue?” (2 Pet.
i. 5, &c.) But then if Christian faith be only a firm persua-
sion that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour of
the world, the reason is exceeding manifest why no Christian
should be exhorted to believe, because whoever is a Christian
not only doth believe all this already, but hath professed his
belief of it by being baptized in the name of Jesus. There
therefore needs no exhortation to any Christian to believe in
Christ, but only to walk answerably to that faith, to be
stedfast in it, and to “add to his faith virtue, knowledge,
temperance, godliness, brotherly kindness, charity” (2 Pet.
i. 5. 8), that they may not be “slothful and unfruitful in the
knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Obj. If it be here objected that John saith, “These things
have I written to you that believe on the name of the Son
of God, that ye may know ye have eternal life, xa, tya ºria-
ºričnts, and ye may believe in the name of the Son of God”
(1 John v. 13) : I answer,
First, That the Alexandrian and other Greek manuscripts,
read not kai Wa triarsinºs, but ºria redovres, “that ye may
know ye have eternal life, who believe in the name of the
Son of God.” And this reading is confirmed by the Vulgar,
the Syriac, and Ethiopic versions.
Secondly, They who retain our version interpret the words
thus, That ye may “continue to believe in the name of the
Son of God;’ or, that ye may “more firmly and certainly
believe.” ... Nor will the words bear any other meaning, un-
less you will suppose John should seriously exhort believers
to begin to do what he had told them, in the immediate pre-
ceding words, was so effectually done by them already, that
they might “know they had eternal life.”
In a word, either it is true before we actually believe it,
that our sins are pardoned, that we have a right to apply
Christ's merit to us, and to roll ourselves upon his person
for salvation, or it is not. If it be true before we have be-
lieved, we must have faith before, since nothing can produce
his pardon of our sins, or give us any right to apply his
merits to ourselves, or depend on him for salvation, but
faith in Christ. If it be not true, we must obtain the par-
‘lon of our sins, and an interest in Christ's merits, by believ-
ing a lie; and so much for the first particular. To the next
lnquiry;
Ş. 4. Secondly, What is it to be “justified” in Paul's ac-
ceptation of the word? I answer,
First, That this justification which Paul speaks of, is an
act of God terminated upon man. This the apostle expressly
doth deliver in these words, “Who shall lay anything to
the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies,” Rom.
viii. 33. And again, “It is one God that justifies the cir-
cumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith,”
Rom. iii. 30. “It is God that justifieth the ungodly,” Rom.
iv. 5. “He is just, and the justifier of him that believeth in
Jesus,” Rom. iii. 26. Now, according to the clear tenor of
the scripture, g
Secondly, God justifies the sinner by absolving him from
the guilt of his past sins, by a free act of grace in pardoning
his iniquities, or not imputing his sins to him, and so his
justification must import his absolution from the guilt of sin,
and, as a necessary and immediate consequence of that, our
being reconciled to God, and received into favour with lim.
This will be evident, if we consider,
* Ut certiàs et firmiès credant. Calv. Ut in fide per-
severetis. Vorst. Episcop. “That yo may be encouraged to
continue in the faith.” Dr. Hammond. Itta Tešery &ötarákºrwº,
CEcum.
First, What the Baptist testified concerning him, that all
men might believe, viz. that he was “the Lamb of God, that
taketh away the sins of the world” (John i. 29); and what
Christ testified of himself, viz. that “he that believeth in him
should not come into condemnation " (John iii. 36); that
his blood was “the blood of the new covenant, which was
shed for the remission of sins” (Matt. xxvi. 28), even of
that covenant in which God promises to be “merciful to our
unrighteousness, and to remember our iniquities no more ”
(Heb. viii. 13. x. 17). As also from what his apostles pro-
mised to win men to the faith of Jesus, viz. remission of
sins. Thus, when the Jews were pricked to the heart, and
said, “What shall we do 2" Peter answers, “Repent ye,
and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remis-
sion of sins,” Acts ii. 37. And again, “Repent you, and
be converted, that your sins may be blotted out,” Acts iii.
19: for “him hath God exalted to be a Prince and a
Saviour, to give repentance and remission of sins,” Acts v.
13. Peter begins his sermon to Cornelius thus, “The word
which God hath sent us to preach, is peace by Jesus Christ,”
Acts x. 36. “To him give all the prophets witness, that
through his name whosoever believeth on him shall receive
remission of sins ;” Acts xiii. 23. Paul declares that “God
had raised up to Israel’a Saviour, Jesus:” and then he adds,
“Known therefore be it to you, that through this man is
preached to you remission of sins; and in him every believer
on him shall be justified from all things, from which they
could not be justified by the law of Moses.” Heb. x. 1. 4,
that law being not able to take away sins, Rom. iii. 23, i. e.
to free men from the guilt of sin. Seeing then the benefit
proposed to the believer, is the remission of sins to be ob:
tained through Christ, through his name; seeing we are said
to be justified through Christ, Rom. v. 9, through faith in
his blood, Eph. i. 7, that blood which is so often said to be
“shed for the remission of our sins,” Col. i. 14. 20, and to
procure our peace and our redemption; since, lastly, we are
said by believing in Christ to be justified from sin, Acts xiii.
39, which phrase can only signify exemption from the con-
demnation of it: I say, from these expressions it appears,
that God's justification of a sinner by faith, or through faith
in the blood of Jesus, is chiefly the remission of the believ-
er's sins, and the exemption of him from the condemnation
of the law, by virtue of Christ's blood shed for the remission
of sins.
2. This we may learn from the reasonings by which the
apostle confirms his conclusion, or the arguments by which
he proves, that both Jew and gentile are to be justified by
faith without the works of the law, or without works. His
conclusion is laid down, Rom. i. 17, thus, “The righteous-
ness of God (which proceeds) from faith, is revealed in the
gospel, to (beget) faith in Jew and gentile,” ver, 16 (see the
note there). And this way of obtaining righteousness or
justification he proves to be absolutely necessary to them
both, beginning first with the gentiles, whom he pronounces
subject to the wrath of God, for “holding the truth” they
by the light of nature knew “in unrighteousness,” yer. 18.
And this he proves to the end of that chapter, which con-
cludes thus, that they, “knowing the judgment of God, that
they who did such things were worthy of death; not only
did the same, but had pleasure in them that did them.” In
the second chapter he declares the Jews guilty of the same
things the heathens did, and so obnoxious to the same con-
demnation, and also guilty of violating the law of Moses;
and thence concludes, that as to this matter there was no
difference between them, he having proved both Jews and
gentiles to be “all under sin” (iii. 9), and so both equally
needing to be justified by faith, or to be justified freely by
an act of grace, pardoning their sins through faith in Christ
(ver. 24). His argument then is plainly this ; both Jew
and gentile lie under the guilt of sin, there being “none of
them that is righteous” (Rom. iii. 9}, i. e. free from sin;
“no not one” (ver. 10). Neither of them can be justified
by the law, because they by the sentence of it are bróðikoi
rå øeg, “guilty before God” (ver. 19, 20), and obnoxious
to punishment, as being both transgressors of it; therefore,
saith he, “by the law can no flesh be justified, for by the
law is the knowledge of sin,” rendering us obnoxious to
condemnation: where then there remains the guilt of sin,
there can be no justification; where therefore there is re-
716
PREFACE TO THE
mission of sin, and so a freedom from being guilty of it be-
fore God, there is justification. Again, “All have sinned,”
saith he, “and fallen short of the glory of God” (ver. 23);
that is, either of his approbation, as that phrase signifies,
John xii. 43, or of the fruition of the glory of God, as it
imports, Rom. v. 1, 2; therefore absolution from this sin
must be sufficient to make us obtain this glory of God. We
who have thus sinned, saith he, “are justified freely by his
grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (ver.
24). Now what is this redemption? It is, saith the same |
apostle twice, “remission of our sins,” Eph. i. 7. Col. i. 14.
The apostle argues to the same effect in the Epistle to the
Galatians, that justification cannot be by the law, “because
the law cannot give life ;” and this it cannot do, because
the scripture “hath concluded all under sin” (Gal. iii. 21,
22), and so shut out that way of being justified: our free-
dom therefore from the guilt of sin must be sufficient for
our justification to life. In his fourth chapter to the Ro-
mans he describes justification by the not imputing sin, and
the forgiveness of it, in these words, “To him that worketh
not, but believeth in him that justifieth the ungodly, his
faith is counted for righteousness, as David speaks of the
blessedness of the man to whom the Lord imputeth righ-
teousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose
unrighteousness is forgiven, and whose sin is covered; blessed
is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not sin” (ver. 5–8).
Since then the blessedness of which the apostle was discours-
ing was that of justification, the justification of the ungodly,
and since this blessedness is said to consist in the remission,
covering, the not imputing his sins to him, it cannot reason-
ably be denied, that the blessedness of a justified person is
here described by the blessedness of a pardoned person, as
being one and the same thing.
3. This will be farther evident from the consideration of
the phrases the apostle useth as equivalent to justification,
and interpretative of it. As,
... 1. Reconciliation to God: that this is the same with jus-
tification, appears by these words; “Much more being justi-
fied by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath by him: for
if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the
death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be
saved by his life,” Rom. v. 9, 10, where to be “justified by
his blood,” and “reconciled by his death,” seem plainly the
same thing. . Now, that reconciliation is effected by the re-
mission of sins, is evident from these words; “God was in
Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing
their trespasses unto them,” 2 Cor. v. 19, and therefore jus:
tification also must be so obtained: ſor if, upon the not im-
puting sin, to us, God did not account us as righteous, he
could not be reconciled to us, because he cannot be recon-
ciled to any man continuing unrighteous, or under the no-
tion of a sinner. - .
2. Justification stands utterly opposed to condemnation,
in these words; “Who shall lay any thing to the charge of
God's elect,” or to believers? Ti; #yxaxéré, warā, who shall
object a crime against them? “It is God that justifieth,
who is he that condemneth them 2° Rom. i. 33, 34. And
again, “If the administration of condemnation,” i. e. the
law, which chargeth us with guilt, and so rendereth us ob-
noxious to condemnation “was glorious, much more the
ministration, rā; Bikatová, nº, of justification, doth exceed in
glory,” 2 Cor. iii. 9. Now what is it that mankind is ac-
cused of, and charged with by the law, but sin 2 What is
it that they stand condemned for at God's bar, but the
transgression of his law P Justification, therefore, which
stands opposed to it, must be a clearing and discharging
them from the guilt or the condemning power of sin.
3. Justification is said to be from sin; “By him all that
believe are justified, in Trávrov, from all those sins from
which they could not be justified by the law of Moses,”
Acts xix. 39. And again, “The judgment was from one
sin to condemnation, but the free gift to justification, in
Trox^3v &pcagºrnºzárov, from many sins,” Rom. v. 16. Now
what can justification from sin signify besides our absolution
from the guilt of sin 2
4. The justifying the believer and the remission of his
5ins are divers expressions of the same thing, as is apparent
from these words, “God hath set forth Christ to be a propi-
tiation through faith in his blood :” this he bath done, saith
grace, then is it not of works,” Ronn. xi. 6.
the apostle, “to declare his righteousness in the remission
of sins,” Rom. iii. 25, viz. to those that have this faith, i. e.
to manifest the way of justification by faith, which he alone
admits of for the remission of sins. He did this, saith the
next verse, “to declare his righteousness, that he might be
just,” in requiring this propitiation for our sins, “and the
justifier of him that believeth in Jesus,” ver. 26. Is it not
therefore manifest, that to justify the believer and to remit
his sins, must be the same thing P .
5. “We are justified,” saith the apostle, “through the
redemption that is in Jesus, through faith in his blood,”
Rom. iii. 24, 25, “through his blood,” Rom. v. 9. Now
what doth this blood procure for us? “Forgiveness of
sins,” Eph. i. 7. Col. i. 14, saith the apostle, it being “shed
for the remission of sins,” Matt. xxvi. 28, he appearing “in
the end of the world to put away sin by the sacrifice of
himself.” Heb. ix. 26., What benefit have believers by it
“He hath loved them, and washed them from their sins in
his blood,” Rev. i. 5; he hath made peace for them “by
the blood of his cross,” Col. i. 20, with a God only angry
for sin ; he hath “obtained eternal redemption” from
transgressions by it, Heb. ix. 12. 15. By all these equiva-
lent expressions it appears, that God's justifying the sinner,
in Paul's sense of the expression, is his absolving him from
the guilt of his past sins, from punishment and condemna-
tion by the law for them, by an act of grace and free pardon
of them through the blood of Jesus; his being as fully re-
conciled to us as if we never had offended against the former
covenant we were all under, till the new covenant was es-
tablished in the blood of Jesus.
§. 5. Thirdly, I add, that this justification is, by St.
Paul, ascribed to faith alone, in opposition to works of
righteousness done, either by the Jew or gentile.
plainly follows from that notion of justification which I
This
have established as the true sense of the expression in Paul;
| for how could Jew or gentile be justified by the works of
that law, whether Mosaical or natural, which rendered them
both obnoxious to condemnation for sin, and guilty before
God? Could they receive remission of sins by compliance
with that law which left them under condemnation for it 2
Can any man imagine, after the charge he lays against the
gentiles, ch. i., and against the Jews, ch. ii. iii., he could
have any inclination to assert they should be justified, or
absolved from the guilt of those offences, by their works,
and not by faith only 2 The mistake in this matter seems
to lie here, that men look upon justification, not as looking
backward only, and procuring an absolution from our past
sins ; but as looking forward to our whole Christian conver-
sation, and importing our absolution from all our sins com-
mitted against the tenor of the covenant of grace, or the
new covenant ; whereas it only doth consist, #y ºf tragécsi
rāy ºrgoygyovátov & wagºrnºw.&rov, “in the remission of our past
sins,” Rom. iii. 25, in the “redemption of us from rāy wi
tji Trgdºrn 8taššan Trapa?áaewy, the sins committed against our
former covenant,” Heb. ix. 15, in the purgation of the be-
liever, rāy ºráxas attoiſ &aptićy, “from his old sins,” 2 Pet.
i. 9, and leaves us afterward to be absolved or condemned,
as we obey, perform, or violate the conditions of the new
covenant, and so to be judged hereafter, not according to our
faith, but works (see the note on Rom. iii.25). t
Secondly, This is exceeding evident from the plain words
of the apostle, and by the arguments by which he proves we
must be justified by faith, and not by works. “For,” saith
he, “by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in
his sight; for by the law is the knowledge of (that) sin
(which renders us obnoxious to condemnation).” Now this
knowledge of sin, being chiefly produced by the moral law,
Rom. vii. 7, shows the apostle excludes as well that as the
ceremonial law from justification. And evident it is, that
the antithesis runs all along not between ceremonial and
moral works, or between works done by the law of Moses,
or by the tenor of the law of nature, but between works in
general, and faith, the law of works and the law of faith.
Again, “We are,” saith he, “justified freely by his grace,”
Rom. iii. 24, i.e. by a free act of grace in pardoning our
past sins, by which we had “fallen short of the glory of
God.” Now a free act of grace is still opposed to works.
Thus, if our election or calling to the faith of Christ, “be of
“By grace ye
EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
717
are saved through faith, not of works,” Eph. ii. 8, 9 (see
the note there). “ Not by works of righteousness which we
had done,” before the goodness and loving-kindness of God
our Saviour appeared to us, “but according to his mercy he
saved us,” Tit. iii. 5 (see the note there). Moreover, “we
reckon,” saith he, “that a man is justified by faith without
the works of the law,” ver. 28, where it is on all sides
granted, that the works of the law of Moses are entirely ex-
cluded from justification by faith, and then much more the
works of the gentiles; it being “the same God who justifies
the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through
faith,” ver. 30. In the next chapter he saith, “To him
that worketh not, but believeth in him that justifieth the
ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness,” Rom. iv. 5.
Now, how can the ungodly be justified by works, and by
what words can works be more entirely excluded, than by
not working P -
Thirdly, That evangelical obedience, or works of righ-
teousness, done by us after faith in Christ, are excluded
from that faith which justifies, is evident, because they fol-
low the faith which justifies, i. e. procures the pardon of our
past sins. “For,” saith the apostle, “we are saved” from
the wrath due unto us for our past sins, Rom. v. 9, or, we
are put into the way or state of salvation “by grace through
faith, not of works; for we are created in Jesus Christ to
good works, which God hath ordained that we should walk
in,” Eph. ii. 8–10. So that we must be first in Christ by
virtue of this faith, before we can be fitted to do works of
evangelical righteousness. And this argument may be con-
firmed from many instances of persons who believed, and
were immediately baptized the same day; for, being bap-
tized “for the remission of sins,” they must be justified.
Thus, at Peter's sermon, three thousand believed, and were
“baptized the same day,” Acts ii. 41. Thus the Samari-
tans, upon the hearing Philip preach “concerning the king-
dom of God, and the name of the Lord Jesus,” were imme-
diately baptized, Acts viii. 12; so also was the eunuch upon
his preaching to him, ver. 38 ; so was Cornelius, and all
that heard Peter's sermon, Acts x. 48; so was the gaoler,
and “all his house straightway,” Acts xvi. 33 (see Acts ix.
35. 42, xi. 21. xiii. 12.48, 49. xiv. 1. xvii. 4. 12. 34. xix.
18. Now what evangelical obedience could these men per-
form to render them justified by works 2
Fourthly, This may be fairly argued from the example of
Abraham's justification, and the passage whence St. Paul
concludes it ; “Abraham believed God, and it was imputed
to him for righteousness :” for it deserves to be observed,
that Abraham had faith, or was a believer, before this was
said unto him.; for “by faith Abraham, being called, obeyed,
and went forth,” Heb. xi. 8, and after by a strong faith he
offered up his son Isaac, “believing that God was able to
raise him from the dead,” ver. 17. But neither of these in-
stances is pitched upon by the apostle as fit for his purpose,
because in both obedience was joined with faith, whereas
here was a pure act of faith without works; and of this act
of faith it is said, what is not said of either of the other, “it
was imputed to him for righteousness.” If therefore thus it
was in the example of the “father of the faithful,” we may
hence conclude it was so also in the children of “faithful
Abraham.” -
Lastly, The scripture is express and frequent in this asser-
tion, that believers are justified by faith ; in which expres-
Sion either faith must include works, or evangelical obedi-
ence, or it doth not ; if it doth not, we must be justified by
faith alone: and that it doth not formally include works of
evangelical righteousness, appears,
First, From the plain distinction which the scripture puts
between them, when it informs us, Gal. v. 6. James ii. 18.
22. 2 Pet. i. 5, 6. Rom. xvi. 26. 1 Thess. i. 3, that “faith
works by love, acts with our works, and is made perfect by
them ;” when it calls upon us to “show forth our faith
by our works,” and to “add to our faith, virtue, know-
ledge, godliness, temperance, patience, brotherly-kindness,
charity ;” and when it speaks of the “works of faith,” and
the “obedience of faith.”. -
Secondly, Faith, in the nature of it, is only an assent to a
testimony; divine faith, an assent to a divine testimony;
faith in Christ, an assent to the testimony given by God of
Christ. Now it is not reasonable to conceive, that Christ
and his apostles, making use of a word which had this known
and fixed import, should mean more by the word than what
it signified in common use, as sure they must have done, had
they included in the meaning of the word the whole of our
evangelical righteousness. Though therefore faith is the
spring and the foundation of that righteousness, and, where
it is cordial and lasting, will most assuredly produce it ; yet
is not that righteousness included in the very nature, or con,
tained in the very import of it.
Obj. But doth not St. James say expressly, that “a man
is justified by works,” and “not by faith only P” ii. 24.
Ans. In answer to this capital objection, I shall first
produce the words of the apostle James, with a short para-
phrase, and then return a positive answer to the objection.
The words I paraphrase thus: -
Ver. 14. (And let mot any Jew or Christian think his
faith sufficient to justify and save him, without those works
of charity and mercy here spoken of, ver. 8–13, for J what
doth it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath faith, (i. e.
in words profess to have faith in God, ver. 19, or in Christ,
ver. 1), and have no works (to evidence the truth of that
profession) ; can (such a naked, fruitless) faith save him P
Wer. 15. “If a brother or sister be naked, or destitute of
daily food; - -
Ver. 16. “And one of you say unto them, Depart in
peace, be you warmed and filled, (making profession of
compassion for and good will to them in your words, but )
notwithstanding ye give them not those things which be
needful for (the clothing or feeding of) the body, what doth
it profit (them to hear your kind words) 2 -
Ver. 17. “Even so faith (professed with the mouth), if it
hath not works (answerable to that profession, or conse-
quent upon it), is dead (and fruitless as those words), being
alone (i. e. without works showing the truth of it).
Wer. 18 “Yea, a man may say (to such a solifidian),
Thou hast (in profession) faith, and I have (real) works:
show me thy faith (which thow professest) without thy works
(which thou canst never do, faith being seated in thy heart,
and only discoverable by its effects), and I will show thee by
my works my faith (as the cause is demonstrated by the
effect). -
Wer. 19. “Thou (being a Jew) believest there is one
God ; thou (in this) doest well: (but doest no more than
the very, devils ; for) the devils also believe and tremble
(and if thow hast no better faith than they, thou hast the
same reason to tremble which they have ).
Wer. 20. “But wilt thou know, O vain man (who makest
profession of such a naked faith), that faith without works
is dead 2 (and so wrable to justify or save thee : see it in
the ea'ample of that very Abraham, in thy relation to whom
thow so confidest :
Wer. 21. “ For) was not Abraham (whom we style) our
father justified by works (proceeding from his faith), when
he had offered his son Isaac upon the altar P (counting
that God was able to raise him from the dead, Heb. xi. 17,
19.)
Ver. 22. “Seest thou how (Gr. thou seest by this example
that) faith wrought with his works (to produce them)? and
by works was faith made perfect (and advanced in him to
the greatest height).
Wer. 23. “And the scripture was (again) fulfilled, which
saith, Abraham believed (in ) God, and it (viz. that faith
which produced these works) was accounted to him for
righteousness: and (wpon that account) he was called the
Friend of God.
Ver. 24. “Ye see then how that by works (proceeding
from faith) a man is justified, and not by faith only (i. e.
being alone, and without them.) -
Now, in answer to the objection from these words, I say,
That when Paul saith, we are justified “by faith without
the works of the law,” and that “to him that worketh not,
but believeth in him that justifieth the ungodly, faith is im-
puted for righteousness,” or to justification; justification.
there ascribed to faith without works, imports only our ab-
solution from condemnation by reason of our past sins com-
mitted before faith in Christ, and our reconciliation to God
by the pardon of them, or the not imputing them to those
who believe in him. This I have shown already, and it is
apparent, from the chief argument the apostle useth, to prove,
718
PREFACE TO THE
that both Jew and gentile should be justified freely by his
grace, and not by works, because they were all under sin,
and become guilty before God, all having “sinned, and come
short of the glory of God,” Rom. iii. 9, 19. 23, whereas,
saith he, “being justified by faith, we have peace with God,
and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God,” Rom. v. 1, 2.
Therefore, ch. iii., he must be speaking of the condition
both of Jew and gentile, before faith in Christ. So again
when the apostle saith, “The scripture hath concluded all
under sin, that the promise (of justification) by (the) faith of
Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe (in him).
Wherefore the law was (then) our schoolmaster to bring us
to Christ, that we might be justified by faith (in him); but
now, after that faith is come, we are no longer under a
schoolmaster (i.e. under the pedagogy of the law); for ye
are all the children of God through faith in Jesus Christ,”
Gal. iii. 22–26, he plainly insinuates that we cannot be jus-
tified by the works of the law, because the law leads us to
Christ for justification. And again, “We are justified by
grace, not of works ; for we are God's workmanship, crea-
ted in Christ Jesus to good works,” Eph. ii. 10; where the
argument seems plainly to run thus, We cannot be justified
by works preceding faith, because we do no good works till
by faith we are interested in Christ Jesus: whereas James
speaks plainly of those works which follow faith, are wrought
by it, and are the effects of it, and of their necessity in or-
der to our continuance in a state of justification, and our
freedom from final condemnation. James speaks of a mere
profession of faith with the mouth; Paul of believing from
the heart: James of a faith dead and fruitless, when we have
it; Paul of a faith working by love when we have it, and of
a person only justified without works, because he had no
faith to produce them.
§. 6. Fourthly, It seemoth necessary from the nature
of the thing, and the state and condition of the persons to
whom the gospel was first preached, that they should be
justified, or absolved from the guilt of their past sins, without
new obedience, or without actual obedience to all the com-
mandments of Christ ; though not without that faith which
did engage them to it, and was sufficient to produce it.
Or, &
First, This was all that could be done by the convinced
Jews or gentiles, who at one sermon or discourse believed,
and were baptized for the remission of sins. It is manifest
they then knew but little of the commandments of Christ,
and so could not be doers of them. Either then they were
not justified, and faith is not “imputed to them for right-
eousness,” nor did baptism consign to them “remission of
sins';” or they were justified by that faith which did not in-
clude actual obedience to all the commandments of Christ,
as the condition of that justification. And seeing perse-
verance to the end, and being “faithful to the death,” are
by our Lord himself made the conditions of salvation, and of
receiving from his hands “the crown of life ;” if these be
also the conditions of the justification promised to faith in
Christ, no person is or can be justified by faith till he dies.
This faith, therefore, in Jew and gentile, thus converted,
could only import three things: (1.) By way of preparation
for it, an owning the true God, who gave this testimony to
his Son, and so a “turning from dumb idols to serve the
living God,” and a sorrow for their sins committed against
him in the time of their ignorance; and in the Jews, a sor-
row for their past sins, and in particular for having “cruci-
fied the Lord of life ;” and in this sense repentance goes
before faith : and Christ's apostles preached to the Jews
“repentance for the remission of sins through faith in his
name,” Acts xiv. 15, and to the gentiles, to “turn from these
vain things to the Hving God, who made heaven and earth;”
and to both, “repentance towards God, and faith in our
Lord Jesus Christ,” Acts xx. 21. (2.) As a means to obtain
this remission of sins, faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. (3.)
An engagement for the future to cease from sin, and to give
up themselves to the service of God, according to the rules
and precepts delivered to them by his Son. Now this en-
gagement was virtually contained in their repentance and
their faith in Christ, and was solemnly made by them at
their baptism, as will be proved hereafter. Now this being
all that they could then do, it must be all they were obliged
to do, in order to their justification ; and yet it is certain,
that a promise of obedience is not obedience, and that even
the new covenant requires, in order to salvation, a sincere
and constant performance of the obedience thus promised:
so that the conditions of salvation, and of justification from
our past offences, can never be the same.
Secondly, This will he farther evident, if we consider that
no man can enter into covenant with God, be reconciled to
him, be admitted to his grace and favour, or be enabled to
serve him acceptably, till his sins be pardoned ; for God
cannot be reconciled to sinners whilst they continue under
the gmilt of sin unpardoned ; nor can he enter into covenant
with them, or receive them to his grace and favour, or ac-
cept their services, till he be reconciled to them. When
God entered into covenant with his own people, a sacrifice
was first offered to make atonement for their sins, and the
blood of it was sprinkled upon all the people (Heb. ix. 19);
and the new covenant, in which he promised to “be merci-
ful to our iniquities, and to remember our sins no more,”
was established in the blood of Jesus shed for the remission
of our sins: so that the sins of a believer must be imme-
diately pardoned upon his faith in Christ, or he can have no
peace with God, no reconcilement to him, no interest in the
new covenant, and be in no capacity to do him any accept-
able service. This is the import of those words, “Christ
suffered for our sins, iva #43; reorayáyn rā Qeſ, that he
might bring us to God,” l Pet. iii. 18, for “to bring us to
God,” in all other places of the New Testament in which
this phrase is used with respect to Christ, is to give us free-
dom of access to God, who by our sins were formerly exclu-
ded from it, and banished from his gracious presence: “ By
him,” saith the apostle, “we have ºrporayayy re?, röy ºra-
riga, admission to the Father,” Eph. ii. 18. By him we do
obtain “a freedom sic rºw reorayayār, of access to God with
confidence,” ISph. iii. 12. This is obtained, saith the same
apostle, by virtue of Christ's blood ; for “we, who some-
times were afar off, are by the blood of Christ brought nigh.
unto him, for he is our peace,” ver. 13, 14, and he hath re-
conciled both Jew and gentile to God by his cross. If then
the blood of Christ procured this freedom of access to God,
it is certain we had no freedom of access to him without it;
and it is as certain we must have it by that faith which gi-
veth us an interest in the propitiation purchased by it.
To set this matter in the clearest light, and show the rea-
son why it was necessary that such an act of grace in par-
doning our past sins upon our faith in Christ should be
vouchsafed, that so we might be reconciled to God, capaci-
tated for his friendship, and fitted for his service, let it be
observed,
First, That “to come to God,” is to approach him in the
way of worship, as in those words, “He that cometh to God
must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them
that diligently seek him,” Heb. xi. 6 (see Psal. xlii. 2. lxy.
2. lxxxvi. 9. xcv. 26. Isa. i. 12).
Secondly, That God being a holy God, none were to come
into his presence who had any pollution or defilement upon
them, upon pain of death, till they were sanctified, or cleansed
from it, by some purification or atonement made for them to
God. He dwelt in the whole camp of Israel, and so those
lepers, who were so unclean as to pollute the camp, Were
driven from it (Lev. xiii. 46. Numb. v. 2, 3.2 Kings xy. 5):
and those sin-offerings which were polluted with the sins of
the whole congregation, were carried out of the camp (Lev.
xvi. 21, 22, 27. Heb. xiii. 11). God dwelt more especially
in the temple, and therefore they who had lesser impurities,
i. e. who were defiled by the dead, or by an issue, and all
menstruous women, were not to come thither till they were
cleansed from those defilements (Lev. xii. 14. xv. 21).
Moreover, he being a God “ of purer eyes than to behold
iniquity,” they who had committed any sin of ignorance, or
lay under the guilt of it, were not permitted to come into the
court of the God of Israel till they had brought their offering
of atonement (see Ainsworth on Numb. v. 3).
Thirdly, They who had no ceremonial defilement to be
purged away, and no known sin to make atonement for, were
admitted to come near to God, as being holy ; they had
orporayayy tº Oslº, “a freedom of access to God” in his
tabernacle, and in his temple; whence they are styled, 3 Aa3, .
iyyićov airó, “the people that draw near to God,” Ps. lxy.
4. cxlviii. 14. Lev. x. 3. And God is said to be 3 Qiā.
EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
719
f -
iyyićay abroſ., “a God drawing near to them,” Deut. vii. 4,
both by relation, as having owned them as his children, and
entered into covenant to be their God, and by his more
especial presence with them; for the Shechinah, or the glo-
rious presence, dwelt among them in the holy place, and so
to them belonged, h \argela; the privilege of coming to his
court to worship him, and a promise of his blessing if they
sincerely did it: whereas the heathens, who by reason of
their idolatry were not permitted to serve him, are said to be
“afar off,” and so far without God in the world, as to have
no freedom of access to his service, no such converse with
him, or relation to him (Eph. i. 12, 13. 17. 19). º
• Now God being still as holy a God as ever, and still “of
purer eyes than to behold iniquity,” the scriptures of the New
Testament seem as plainly to make our freedom of access to
God to depend upon our being sanctified in the sacrificial
sense, i.e. our being purged and delivered from the guilt of
sin by an atonement made forus by the blood of Christ, that
our sins being thus pardoned through faith in his blood, we
may have peace with God, and an access to his favour. This
plainly seems to be the import of those words, “If the blood
of bulls and goats, and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the
unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh” (and by so
doing procureth an admission of the person cleansed to serve
God in the sanctuary), “how much more shall the blood of
Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself with-
out spot to God (for us), purge your conscience from dead
works, (or works exposing you to death, the punishment
of the person who came unclean into God's presence, that
so you may be admitted) to serve the living God?” Heb.
ix. 12 (see the notes three). So again, the apostle having
said that the covenant established in the blood of Christ was
this, that he would “be merciful to our iniquities, and re-
member our sins no more;” and having thence inferred, that
having thus obtained remission for us, there was no need that
he should make himself again “an offering for sin,” he adds,
that “therefore we may draw near to God with full assurance
of faith,” that we shall be accepted through the Beloved,
“as having our hearts sprinkled” by his blood, and therefore
cleansed from all guilt of conscience, “and our bodies washed
(by baptism) with pure water” (Heb. x. 16–21).
Two things observed by the judicious Dr. Barrow seem
here considerable :
First, “That the apostle in this discourse implies that no
precedent dispensation had exhibited any manifest overture
or promise of pardon, and upon that account we were in a
main point defective ; for the light of nature doth only direct
to duty, condemning every man in his own judgment and
conscience, who transgresseth ; but as to pardon, in case of
transgression, it is blind and silent: and the law of Moses
rigorously exacteth punctual obedience, denouncing in ex-
press terms a condemnation and curse to the transgressors of
it in any part ; and so it was a law, oi, 8vvæpºvo; Kooroño'at,
‘not able to give life’ (Gal. iii. 21), or save us from death.
Hence doth the apostle lay down this as the foundation of
this whole dispute, that the gospel alone was the ‘power of
God through faith to the salvation’ both of Jew and gentile,
Rom. i. 16, 17, because in that alone was ‘the righteousness
of God by faith revealed’ to beget faith in them, even the
faith by which ‘the just shall live, declaring that no prece-
dent dispensation could justify any man, and that a man is
justified by faith, or hath an absolute need of such a justifi-
cation as that which the gospel tendereth. Aoyićassa cüy,
‘We therefore collect,” saith he, “that a man is justified by
faith without the works of the law,” whether natural or Mo-
saical ; which justification must therefore import their re-
ceiving that free pardon which the criminal and guilty world
did stand in need of, and without which no man could have
any comfort in his mind, or peace with God: for if the state
of man was a state of rebellion, and so of heinous guilt, of
having forfeited God’s favour, and of obnoxiousness to his
wrath, then that justification, which he needed, must be a
dispensation of mercy removing that guilt, and restoring him
to the favour of God.”
And this may also strongly be argued from the objections
which the Jew and gentile made against this doctrine of jus-
tification by a free act of grace, that it seemed to render it
unjust in God to take vengeance on those sins which tended
so highly to the glory of God's grace (see the note on Rom.
iii. 5); and to encourage us to “do evil that good may come”
(see the note on ver. 8); and more especially from the ob-
jections which he answers, vi. 1. 15. For thus they run; ri
očy isotºsy; “What do we say then 2 (do we say this,) Let
us (who have received this grace) continue (still) in sin, that
grace may abound (towards us) P” And ver, 15, “What
then, shall we (go on in) sin, because we are not under the
law (which condemns us to death for every transgression)
but under (that covenant of) grace (which allows the par-
don, and promises the forgiveness of it) * That is, do we,
by declaring that “we are justified freely by his grace,
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (iii. 24),
and that “as sin abounded, grace did more abound,” give just
occasion for these inferences 2 Now, if the faith to which
Paul, in this discourse, ascribed our justification, did not
oblige us to, but even comprehend and include evangelical
and constant obedience, what colour could there be for these
objections? And therefore,
Secondly, The doctor (p. 83) proposes it as his conjecture,
that the apostle in this discourse designedly sets himself to
answer this objection of the Jew and gentile against this doc-
trine of Christianity; viz. That it did upon so slender a con-
dition or performance as that of faith, tender to all persons
indifferently, howsoever culpable their former lives had been,
a plenary remission of their sins, and reception into God's
favour. The Jews could not conceive or relish, that any man
so easily should be translated into a state equal or superior
to that which they supposed they did enjoy. The gentiles
themselves could hardly digest it, that the Christians said,
“Believe, and # ºria-ric arov ada's as, thy faith shall save thee:”
this is one of the exceptions which Celsus makes against it.
And Zosimus” having said, that the heathen priests having
told Constantine that their religion afforded no purgation for
his crimes, he was persuaded to embrace Christianity, as
being told the Christian doctrine would take away all sin;
and had this promise annexed to it, “That the ungodly who
would embrace it, should presently be absolved from all sins,”
intimates, that he looked on this as a just exception against
the Christian faith. This prejudice against the gospel, saith
he, Paul removes, by showing, that “because of all men's
guilt and sinfulness, such an exhibition of mercy, such an
overture of acceptance and remission of sins, was necessary
in order to salvation ; so that without it no man could be ex-
empted from wrath and misery, and that consequently all
other religions, as not exhibiting such a remission, must be
esteemed in a main point defective.”
§. 7. Obj. 1. But against this it may be objected, that
our justification seems to be connected with our glorification;
for “whom he justifies, them he also glorifies” (Rom. viii. 30).
Now it is certain that our future state of glory depends not
only on our faith, but works ; and by the same apostle, in
the same epistle, is promised to him that “worketh good”
(Rom. ii. 6, 7. 10), we being all to be hereafter recompensed
“according to our works.” -
Ans. 1. To this it may be answered in the words of the re-
verend Dr. Hammond (Pr. Cat. p. 89), “That whom God
justifies, if they pass out of this life in a justified state, them
he will certainly glorify ;” or, as in this paraphrase, “Whom
he called to suffer after the example of his Son, them, upon
patience and perseverance under those sufferings, he justifies,
i. e. he approves of as sincere and worthy, as they suffer for,
so to be glorified with him, Rom. viii. 17. 2 Tim. ii. 11, 12.
1 Pet. iv. 13, and whom he thus justifies, them he will also
glorify.” And according to this import of the words, justifi-
cation doth not signify, as in the great dispute of the apostle,
the remission of our past sins committed before faith in
Christ ; but rather our justification at the great day of our
accounts, as his sincere and faithful servants. As it seems
to import most clearly in those words of the same apostle,
“I know nothing of myself (whereby to condemn myself of
unfaithfulness in the discharge of my office), yet I am not
thereby justified, but he that judgeth me is the Lord,” I Cor.
* IIpoorin roi; isésiai wasáppeara rāy hºaptrºëvov airāv 33
staróvray &; ot tragaš8oral xaSafºod reá wo; 8va asgåpara anxi-
xatra was ſiga, 8vyák, Evo;. Hist. lib. ii. p. 61. -
+ IIáanc àºzagrá80; &vapºrixáv tíva rāy rāy Xºta rayåv Šáčar,
wai rºto #xely imáyyexºa rà row: áo e6sſ; we taxapºgávovrac
air;, ºráanº & wagtia; #w Taçaxpºp.a kašiatao Sai. Ibid.
720 PREFACE
TO THE
iv. 4. And in those words of the Epistle to the Romans,
“Not the hearers of the law only shall be šikatoi, just before
God, but the doers of the law, 8tzata Shaowrat, shall be justi-
fied” (Rom. ii. 13): and so James, “Abraham was justified
by works, and he was called the friend of God.”
Ans. 2. But secondly, There is another ancient interpreta-
tion of these words, which cuts off the whole force of this ar-
gument, viz. “Those he glorified, by giving them that Spirit
of glory,” and of God, who is the earnest of their future in-
heritance. “He glorified them,” say Chrysostom,” Theo-
doret, CEcumenius, and Theophylact, “ by the Spirit of adop-
tion, calling them sons, and giving them the grace of the
Holy Spirit.” To strengthen this interpretation, let it be con-
sidered, that our Saviour is said, whilst he was on earth, to
have wrought his miracles by the Spirit of God; and by those
miracles he is said sometimes to be 80%aćgsvos, “glorified”
(Luke iv. 15), sometimes to “show forth rºy 36%ay airoij,
his glory” (John ii. 11), and sometimes it is said that God
#3%ace, “glorified him” (John viii. 54. xi. 4. xiii. 31, 32. xvi.
14). And when Christ gave to his apostles and believers
the Holy Spirit, to enable them to work the like miracles, he,
expresses himself thus to his Father, “The glory which thou
gavest me I have given them, that the world may know that
thou hast sent me” (John xvii. 22, 23). Moreover, by rea-
son of this Spirit given with the gospel, the ministration of
justification is said to be iv 8%h, with, or “in glory" (2 Cor.
iii. 8–11), as being the ministration of the Spirit; and be-
lievers, by the participation of this Spirit of the Lord, are
said not only to “behold the glory of the Lord,” but also
to be “changed into the same image with him from glory to
glory” (ver. 18), and so to be “conformed to the image of
his Son.” And thus, saith Origen on this place, i.” they may
be said to be glorified in this life.” Note also, that when
the apostle speaks of our final glorification in this chapter, he
still speaks of it as a thing future, saying, “We shall be glo-
rified with him” (ver. 17, 18. 21), whereas here he speaks of
it as a thing past already, saying, oi); 3; #3xators, rotºrov, Kai
ë8%ars, “Whom he hath justified, them he hath also glori-
fied ;” which confirms this interpretation. And, lastly, thus
it connects well with the foregoing words, “The Spirit which
helpeth our infirmities, intercedeth according to the mind
of God for the saints; of$agºsy 83, we know therefore that all
things shall work together for good to them who love God,
who are called according to his purpose (of making them the
sons of God by adoption, and giving them the Spirit of his
Son in their hearts, Gal. iv. 6. Eph. i. 5. 13), for whom he
(thus) foreknew, them he predestinated (or appointed) to be
thus conformed to the image of his Son; and whom he (thus)
predestinated, them he also called (to the Christian faith);
and whom he called (upon their cordial embracing of that
faith) he justified (we being made the sons of God through
faith in Christ Jesus, Gal. iii. 26), and whom he (hath thus)
justified, them he hath also glorified.”
$. 8. Obj. 2. It may be said, that not only our justifi-
cation, but salvation, is by the apostle ascribed to faith : as
when he says, “By grace ye are saved through faith,” Eph.
ii. 8, 9, and, “If thou believest with the heart, thou shalt be
saved,” Rom. x.9. Tit. iii. 5, whereas doubtless salvation
dependeth on our works, which therefore must be included
in this faith.
Ans. To this objection I answer, that salvation may very
well in scripture be ascribed to faith upon these two accounts:
1. Because faith puts us in the way of salvation ; that
way of owning the Saviour of the world, and subjecting our-
selves to his government, which gives us a present right to
salvation, should God take us hence soon after baptism into
this faith, or a sincere belief in Christ; as in the case of those
many martyrs who believed and suffered the same day; and
if we live by, and suitably to, this faith, still owning the
Lord Jesus, and still subjecting ourselves to his laws and .
government, will keep us in the state of salvation ; for “he
that (thus) believeth in the Son hath eternal life,” John iii.
* 'E3%age 313 ×aptºp,4twy 8:3 rā; vio9szia; 313 rºw xaptauá-
roy ric viošeciaç. Chrys. CEcum. 'E3%aaey vici), āyogađâuswoc,
xzi IIvetºzaro; &yiov baſenorápasyo, Xágy. Theodor. Theoph.
ºf De glorificatione in praesenti seculo possumus illud in-
telligere quod dicit apostolus, Nos autem omnes revelatà
facie gloriam Domini speculantes, eadem imagine transforma-
mur à glorià in gloriam.
36 (see wer. 16), i.e. he hath a present right to it, and may
“rejoice in the hope of the glory of God,” and by continu.
ing so to do, he shall receive “the end of his faith even the
salvation of his soul.” It puts us in a present state of free-
dom from condemnation, by procuring the pardon of all our
past sins; for he that thus “believeth shall not come into
condemnation, but is passed from death to life” (John v. 24
iii. 18). It doth at present save us from the wrath of God,
he being only angry with us on the account of sin unpar-
doned ; for “being justified,” saith the apostle, “by faith in
his blood, we shall be saved from wrath by him” (Rom. v.
9). Now this is all which very frequently is signified by the
words saved and salvation : as when it is said of Zaccheus,
“This day is salvation come unto this house;” and “The
Lord daily added to the church row; awfoºyou;, the saved,”
Acts ii. 47, and again, “The word of the cross is ºrdſ; aroğoº-
Voic hºſy, to us the saved, the power of God,” 2 Cor. i. 18.
See this farther proved in the notes on Eph. iii. 8. Tit. iii. 5.
Secondly, Salvation may be well ascribed to faith, not in-
deed in opposition to, or exclusion of works, but rather as
the cause and the producer of all works of piety and righte-
ousness: and both the wisdom and the excellency of this
method for the procuring the great ends of Christian piety, of
purity of life, and of sincere obedience to the whole will of
God, will be extremely evident from these considerations:
1. That this faith consigned by baptism doth lay the
highest obligations on us to a life of holiness and obedience,
under the pain of forfeiting all the blessings of the new
covenant, or all the privileges of Christianity. For (1.)
faith in him as the true Messiah, the prophet sent from God
to declare his will, and make known his precepts, and to lay
down the terms on which we may expect salvation from him,
must surely oblige us to perform that will, and to submit to
the terms on which alone salvation is thus tendered to us,
not only that we may not miss of that salvation, but that we
may not be condemned as despisers of so great Salvation.
Again, Faith in him as our Saviour, one who hath, by his
death, purchased deliverance to us from death, and from the
wrath to come, must surely oblige us, as well in point of duty
as of gratitude, to “live to him who died for us” (2 Cor. V.
15), and being bought with such a price, “to glorify him with
our souls and bodies which are his” (1 Cor. vi. 20); especially
we consider that this was one great end of these his suffer-
ings ; hé having “died for all, that they who live should not
henceforth live to themselves, but to him that died for them ;”
that he might “redeem us from this present evil world” (Gal.
i. 4), “and purify us to himself, a people zealous of good
works” (Eph. v. 25, 26), and that we, “being dead to sin,
might live to righteousness” (1 Pet. ii. 24); and surely,
they cannot expect the blessings of his salutary passion, who
defeat the design and frustrate the purpose of it. .
Faith in him, as our Lord and King, as it doth presuppose
his right to require service from, and prescribe laws to us, so
must it engage us to the honour and service of this Lord (for
“why” saith he, “call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the
things that I say?” (Luke vi. 46) to fear and to obey this King
of Saints, as knowing he will say to all his disobedient sub-
jects, “Bring these mine enemies, which would not I should
reign over them, and slay them before me” (Luke xix. 27).
Faith, lastly, in him as our Judge and our Rewarder, must
cause us herein to “exercise ourselves always to have con-
sciences void of offence towards God and man” (Acts. xxiv.
16), as we desire to be found blameless at that day, and to
be stedfast and abounding in the work of the Lord, which
will so plentifully be rewarded (1 Cor. xv. 58).
In a word, to what other end can we think a holy God
was so concerned that we should firmly be persuaded of, and
yield a free assent to, these things 2 Can it be only this,
that he should fill our heads with notions, but leave us still
at liberty to disobey the message sent us from heaven by his
only Son 2 why then, said he, “This is my beloved Son ;
hear him P” (Matt. xvii. 5). Can he suffer us to slight the
terms on which alone salvation is thus tendered to us? why
then were they at all propounded ? Can he permit us to be
disobedient to this Lord, or rebels to this King of saints 2 why
then was this authority conferred upon him 2 Hath he made
him the judge and rewarder of all men at the great day ?
and will he not reward them all according to their works?
But then if we consider farther this faith, as it hath bap-
tism annexed to it, according to these words of Christ, “He
EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.
721
that believeth and is baptized shall be saved " our obliga-
tion to obedience by it will still be more evident. For is
not our baptism “in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost,” an entire dedication of ourselves to the service of
the blessed Trinity, a solemn entrance into covenant that we
will own no other God, will serve no other Lord, will not be
led by the unclean, but by the conduct of the good and
Holy Spirit P Did not Christ command his disciples to teach
them whom they baptized, to “observe all things which he
commanded ?” (Matt. xxviii. 20) and must they not be ob-
liged to obey what they were to be taught in his name P
What is it to baptize, but waſnteſsiv, to “make disciples” to
the holy Jesus? and hath he not said, “Then only are ye
my disciples indeed, when ye continue in my word?” (John
viii. 31.) What is it to be baptized, but to make “the stipu-
lation of a good conscience towards God?” (1 Pet. iii. 21);
and are not we obliged to be true to this solemn promise
made to God 2 or can we neglect to do so without mocking
him, and taking his sacred name in vain 2 Are we not bap-
tized in the name of Christ P and are not they who name
that name engaged to “depart from all iniquity ?” (2 Tim.
ii. 19). Hath not Paul informed us, that “as many as are
baptized into Christ, are baptized into his death?” (Rom. vi.
3) and so are by that baptism obliged to “die to sin” (ver.
6. 11), “not to obey it in the lusts thereof; not to yield their
members instruments of sin to unrighteousness,” but to
“walk in newness of life” (ver. 12, 13); to “live to God,”
and to “present their members instruments of righteousness
to God” (ver. 4. 10. 13), and to “ have their fruit to holiness,
that the end may be eternal life” (ver. 22); and that upon
this conformity to Christ's death and resurrection depends
our hope that we “shall live with him 2" (ver, 8.) So that
it is evident, to a demonstration, that both our faith and
baptism do lay upon us the strictest obligations to depart
from alliniquity, and yield sincere obedience to the laws of God
and Christ, as we expect the blessings purchased by him for or
promised to believers. As then Peter saith on this account,
that “baptism now saveth us” (1 Pet. iii. 21), so may sal-
vation be on the same account ascribed to our faith in Christ.
Secondly, Faith is the spring and the foundation of all
the obedience we afterward perform, and therefore may be
well said to save as many as obtain Salvation, because it
worketh in them that obedience by which they are saved,
and moves them to perform those conditions on which their
actual salvation doth depend. Thus of faith in God, the
apostle teacheth, that it must be necessarily laid as the foun-
dation of all the service we perform unto him ; for “he that
cometh to God must believe that he is a rewarder of them
that diligently seek (to please) him” (Heb. xi. 6). And
thus he shows it was with all the patriarchs and holy peo-
ple of God before the revelation of the gospel ; they by
that faith, which was “the expectation of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen, obtained testimony that they
were righteous” (Heb. xi. 4), and that they “pleased God”
(ver. 5.8. 18, 19), obeyed his call in the most difficult in-
stances, “chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of
God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season ; wrought
righteousness, and suffered death, not accepting a deliver-
ance” (ver. 25, 26. 33.35). And so it is with faith in Christ;
it is the foundation of all our obedience, which therefore is
in scripture styled “the obedience of faith,” Rom. i. 5. xvi.
26, and of all our good works, they being all the “work of
faith.” 2. Thess. i. 11. It is by virtue of this faith that
we are enabled to “overcome the world,” to “resist the
devil,” and to “quench all the fiery darts of Satan” (1 John
v. 5,1 Pet v. 9. Eph. vi. 16). It is “faith that works by
love” to God, and to our brother ; which love we testify to
God, by “keeping his commandments,” and to our neigh-
bour, by fulfilling the laws of justice and charity ; and this
is very evident, even from the nature of faith: for can any
man obey the precepts this Prophet hath delivered in his
Father's name, unless he believes he was that prophet which
was sent by him to reveal his will, and that king by whose
laws we must be governed 2 Can he submit to the terms of
Salvation propounded by him, till he believes “he is the
author of salvation to all that obey him P” Can he herein
“exercise himself to have always a conscience void of offence
towards God and man,” but by that faith which doth assure
him that he will judge all men by these laws, awarding
“glory and immortality to every man that worketh righte-
ousness” (Rom. ii. 8), and “punishing them with everlastin
destruction from his presence that obey not his gospel ?”
(2 Thess. i. 8.) And is not then this faith the true founda-
tion of all Christian piety 2 Thus, doth “the just man live
by his faith,” and doing so “believeth to the salvation of his
soul.” As therefore we are said to be “saved by hope,”
Rom. viii. 24, because it is the motive to stedfastness in our
obedience, so may we be said to be saved by faith upon the
same account. And,
Thirdly, We may be well said to be saved by faith, be-
cause where faith is hearty and constant it will produce sin-
cere obedience, and holiness will follow in the life: and wher.
it doth not follow, this is to be ascribed to the want of faith,
This will be evident if we consider the material objects of
our faith, the blessings promised to the obedient, and the
evils threatened to the disobedient: for it is certain that
the blessings promised in the gospel do far exceed all other
blessings that we can enjoy ; and that the evils threatened
there are far more lasting and intolerable than any other
evils we can suffer: and it is no less certain that these bless-
ings are by our Lord confined to the obedient; for “not every
one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter,” saith he,
“into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of
my Father which is in heaven” (Matt. vii. 21); and it is as
sure that these tremendous evils are entailed upon the wicked,
Christ having solemnly declared he will say to them at the
great day, “Depart from me, I know ye not, ye workers of
iniquity” (ver. 23); and if we do believe our Saviour was a
prophet sent from God, we must believe these revelations he
hath made concerning both our future happiness and misery,
and the conditions on which alone the one can be obtained,
and the other is to be avoided. Now, can a man at the
same time believe these are the greatest blessings that he can
enjoy, and yet prefer a lesser good before them P if not,
whenever he doth this, he ceases in effect to have this faith.
Can a man fully be persuaded, that what he is about to do
will render him obnoxious to the worst of evils, and yet be
moved to do it to avoid a lesser evil? if not, whenever he
doth choose to do what renders him obnoxious to the worst
of evils, he ceaseth to believe they are so. When therefore
we neglect to do that which is by our Lord declared abso-
lutely necessary to obtain and to secure our eternal interests,
and venture upon that to which he threateneth everlasting
misery, it is certain that we have no lively full persuasion of
these truths then present to our minds, and therefore do not
actually believe them then. So that although we may have
still such an habitual assent to all that this great Prophet
hath delivered, as that we do not doubt the truth of what
he taught : yet doth not Christ “dwell in our hearts by
faith,” nor have we any living sense or permanent persuasion
of these truths on our souls, but faith is at the present dead,
and so no more deserves the name of faith than a dead man
can properly be called a man. Thus, for example, when
Christ saith to his disciples fearing to perish in the storm,
“How is it that ye have not faith?” (Mark iv. 40) he lays
this to their charge, not that they disbelieved his power to
save them, for this they testify, by saying, “Master, save us;”
but they did not actually exert this trust by an entire com-
mission of themselves to the protection of his providence.
As therefore, when we do what is contrary to our love to
God, or to our hope, and our affiance in him, there always is a
want of love and hope and trustin God: so when we do what
is opposite to the great objects of our faith, there must be in
us a like want of faith ; and so when this is customarily done,
there must be a defect as to the habit, or the grace of faith.
Secondly, This will be still more evident, if we consider
all the glorious things which are ascribed in scripture to this
faith, and do compare them with other passages of the same
scripture: for instance, “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is
the Christ, is born of God,” saith the apostle John, 1 Epist.
v. 1; but then he adds in the same chapter, “Whosoever is
born of God overcometh the world,” ver. 5, by virtue of this
faith: and again, “We know that whosoever is born of God
sinneth not ; but he that is begotten of God keepeth
himself, and the wicked one toucheth him not,” ver. 18. iii.
9. Whence it must follow, that he believeth not in the
apostle's sense, that “Jesus is the Christ,” who overcometh
not, by virtue of that faith, the temptations of the wº
3
722 ~ *
GALATIANS,
PREFACE TO
flesh, and the devil. “Whosoever confesseth,” saith the
same apostle, “that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth
in him, and he in God” (1 John iv. 15), but then he also
saith, “He that abideth in him ought also to walk as he
walked,” 1 John ii. 6, that we do hereby “know that we are
in him, by keeping of his word,” ver. 5, that “whosoever
abideth in him sinneth not, and he that sinneth hath not seen
him, neither known him ; that if we say we have fellowship
with him, and walk in darkness, we lie:” so that if this faith
doth not preserve us from sin, and engage us to walk in the
light, and as he walked, it is not that faith in the Son of
God the apostle speaks of. We are not “justified by the
works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus,” saith Paul to
the Galatians, Gal. v. 6. vi. 15 ; but then it is, saith he,
that “faith which works by love,” and renders us “new
creatures.” The same he saithin the Epistle to the Romans
declaring that his gospel was “the power of God through
faith unto salvation,” Rom. i. 16. ver. 5; but then it is “the
obedience of faith,” in the same chapter; “obedience in
word and deed,” xv. 18, “obeying from the heart the form
of doctrine delivered to them,” vi. 16, which makes this
faith become the power of God to salvation. Whence it is
evident that he esteemed that alone true faith which was
productive of obedience, and so doth virtually, although not
formally, include obedience, as the effect is virtually con-
tained in the cause: so that the difference between men of
judgment, as to saving faith, is more in words than sense,
they all designing the same thing, that we cannot be saved
by that faith which doth not produce in us a sincere obedi-
ence to the laws of Christ. - - -
AN ADVERTISEMENT
RELATING TO THE
FOREGOING PREFACE
TO THE
BPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.*
ONE passage in the preface to the Epistle to the Galatians
hath met with very hard usage from different hands; but
more especially from one who styles his book, “The Preach-
er,” but gives full demonstration that he is no Solomon. His
words are these, p. 153, F “And can we imagine that that
other author hath a better opinion of the writings of the
New Testament, who tells us, that ‘in all the scriptures of
the New Testament, there is not to be found one exhorta-
tion to believe in Christ, or to act faith on Christ P’ and ac-
cordingly he adds afterward; ‘Now what account can be
given of this thing by those who are so zealous in their ser-
mons to exhort Christians to believe in Christ, and are so full
of motives to persuade them so do P’ It seems we have
been in a great error and mistake hitherto; and all our ser-
mons to our Christian auditors, to persuade them to exert
faith in our Lord Christ, have been idle and vain; and the
more zealous we have been in this matter, the more foolish
we have been; for Christians are nowhere exhorted in the
New Testament to believe in Christ; they are only uncon-
verted Jews and gentiles who are called upon to do this.”
And such were the apostles and disciples, when our Saviour
exhorted them to believe in God, and to believe also in him:
“who sees not that is abusing the scriptures P’ Now here,
. First, Sure I have reason to complain of very hard mea-
sure, and of great injustice, that after all the pains I have
taken to prove this proposition, That the apostles and evan-
gelists indited these scriptures by the assistance of the Holy
Ghost; and that, therefore, I allow no slips of memory, no
* $. 3, Arg. 7. + Pref. p. 255.
f Gen. Preface to the Gospels, S. l.
| rules of human prudence, without the guidance and direct
|tion of the Holy Spirit, $. 3, I should be publicly traduced
as one, that “cannot be imagined to have a better opinion of
the writings of the New Testament,” than one who asserts,
that “there are several repugnances in several parts of it;
that it is altered in very many places, and some of the
greatest moment; and hath too many disagreements, which
are material and weighty.” How far I am from thinking
anything of this nature, how zealous in my opposition to such
sentiments, the world will shortly farther see. And, that
the words here cited by the Preacher have no relation to,
and contain no detraction either from the authority or ve-
neration due to that inspired book, is evident to all discern-
ing persons: such vile and scandalous suggestions, without
all ground or show of reason, is that of which I hope I never
shall be guilty.
Secondly, I add, that the assertion here exposed, as “a
visible abuse of scripture,” is as certain and demonstrable as
any proposition in the book of Euclid. . Thus,
Definition. A Christian is one that believes in Christ; nor
can he eease to do so whilst he is a Christian; as a man can-
not cease to have a human nature whilst he lives.
Postulatum. It cannot be consistent with the wisdom of
the Holy Ghost, or of the holy scripture, to exhort any
Christian to do what he knows every Christian must do, and
cannot choose to do, any more than a living man can cease
to have a human nature.
Ergo. It cannot be consistent with the wisdom of the Holy
Ghost to exhort any Christian to believe in Christ; this being
| the same in effect as to exhort a living man to retain his hu-
man nature during life.
Thirdly, To the argument of the Preacher, from John
xix. 1, I have returned a full reply in my answer to a late
pamphlet, p. 20–23, to which I add, that it is not certain
that these words contain any exhortation to believe in Christ;
even the Synopsis informs us, that they may be rendered in
the indicative mood thus, Creditis in Deum, et me creditis:
in which sense they contain no exhortation, but an assertion
only of this great truth, that the disciples of Christ believed
in God the Father, and in Christ his only Son ; and from
that faith had ground of comfort under all the troubles they
should meet with in the world. -
Fourthly, Had he not changed my words, he would have
had no show of ground for his vain imagination, that I count
it “a great error to persuade Christians to exert faith in our
Lord Christ.” Now this I nowhere say, but only that there
is no exhortation in the New Testament to any Christian to
believe in Christ, or (in the sense of the presbyterians, and
independents, against whom I there dispute) to “act faith on
Christ;” to exert that faith we have in Christ, by showing
forth the fruits of it, and walking answerably to it, and com-
forting and supporting ourselves from the consideration of
it; and the encouraging ourselves to the performance of all
Christian obedience, is the duty of all Christians, to which I
there say the scripture doth exhort them; but to act faith on
Christ for justification, or that Christians may be believers,
which is the sense those writers put upon the phrase, is an
unscriptural expression.
In fine, it might have reasonably been expected, that after
all these hideous outcries, after these terrible accusations,
that by this assertion I have visibly abused the holy Scrip-
tures, and made it unimaginable that I have any good opi-
nion of the writings of the New Testament, some plain text
should have been produced from those scriptures exhorting
those, who were already Christians, to believe in Christ ; and
though I judge my assertion a truth, equally certain to a
demonstration, yet when either the Preacher or the Pam-
phleteer, or any other bold condemner of it, shall show the
contrary by one plain text containing such an exhortation, I
promise to renounce it publiclv.
* Preacher, p. 152.
23
CHAPTER I.
1 (I) PAUL, (who am) an apostle, not of men, nei-
ther by man (for I received not my call or my commis-
sion to that office from man, nor was I chosen to it by
man, as Matthias was), but by Jesus Christ (appear-
ing to me in person for that end, that he might send me
to the gentiles, Acts xxii. 21. xxvi. 16, 17) and God
the Father, (who chose me that I should know his will,
and see that Just One, and be his witness to all men of
what I had seen and heard, Acts xxii. 14, 15, and re-
vealed his Son to me, ver. 13, even that God) who
raised him from the dead :
2 *And all the brethren which are with me (and
own the doctrine which I preach, send greeting) to the
churches of Galatia: -
3 (Wishing that) grace (may be) to you, and peace,
from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ,
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I.
* Ver. 1. oºk 3r' &y83&tov, où8; 3. dy986trov, Not of man,
neither by man.] It is no objection against the truth of these
words, that the Holy Ghost, saying by the prophets at An-
tioch, “Separate me Barnabas and Saul to the work of the
ministry, to which I have called them,” they fasted and
prayed, and laid their hands on them, and sent them away
(Acts xiii. 2, 3): for that this was not a mission to the apos-
tolical office, appears, because Paul, at least nine years be-
fore, was immediately called to it by God, and sent to exer-
cise it by Jesus Christ; and because Barnabas is here equally
separated to this office, and ser:t with him, who yet was never
an apostle properly so called. This separation and mission
therefore of them was only by way of prayer and benedic-
tion of them in their ministry; or by way of special com-
mission to preach in the synagogues of the Jews (ver. 5).
And this mission they presently completed, and then returned
to Antioch, declaring to then what they had done in pur-
suance of it (Acts xiv. 26, 27).
* Wer. 2. Kai oi roy #&oi Trávre; 388xpoi, And all the bre-
thren that are with me..] It is the conjecture of the reverend
Dr. Hammond, that the word “brethren” here denotes those
that accompanied St. Paul in his travels, and assisted him in
preaching the gospel; in which sense Sosthenes is called “a
brother,” I Cor. i. 1, as also Apollos, 1 Cor. xvi. 12, Timothy,
2 Cor. i. 1. Titus, ii. 12, Tychicus, Eph. vi. 23, Epaphroditus,
Phil. ii. 25, Onesimus, Col. iv. 9, Sylvanus, 1 Pet. v. 12,
Paul, 2 Pet. iii. 15. And in this sense the word “brethren”
seems to be distinguished from that of “saints,” Phil. iv.
21; and mention is made of the “brother whose praise is in
the gospel, * 2 Cor. viii. 18, of Titus, Paul’s “fellow-
worker ;” of the brethren who are the “apostles of the
church,” and of the brethren who, for his name's sake, went
forth to preach the gospel, “taking nothing of the gentiles,”
3 John 3. 7, or else it may be said, that the apostle writes
according to the form of epistles, used in the beginning of
Christianity, when bishops sent to other churches, not in their
own names only, but in the names of the whole church
where they resided: so Clemens* begins his epistle to the
church of Corinth thus, “The church of God in Rome, to
the church of God at Corinth ;” and so this epistle being
writ from Rome, shows the consent of that church with him
in his doctrine. -
* Wer. 4. "Iva ###Anrai hºzá; Ex roi; iverråro; aiāvoc ºrovnpod,
That he might deliver us from this present evil world.]
That “this present evil age” should signify “the present
Jewish constitution and nation together,” is very improba-
ble: for did Christ die for our sins, to deliver the Galatians
and other gentiles from the Jewish nation, or from that con-
stitution they were never under P. How much more natural
is it to say, with the fathers, he died for our sins, that he might
—y-
b * º aw ad
* H. ixzanola. ©ict # raçoixòa a 'Pºny ºff inzºngiz @sº
wragoixoſan Kágiv6oy. -
4 Who gave himself (an empiatory sacrifice) for our
sins, “that he might deliver us from (the wrath and
condemnation of, or from conformity to,) this present
evil world, “according to the will of God and our Fa-
ther (Gr. of our God and Father): -
5 To whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
6 I marvel that ye are so soon removed "from him
that called you to “the grace of Christ to another
gospel:
7 Which (whatsoever some may suggest, who preach
another thing, under the special title of the gospel) " is
not (indeed) another (gospel, nor would be so esteemed
by any of you) ; but (that) there be some who trouble
you (with false stories), and would pervert the gospel
of Christ (by mining with it the necessary observance of
the law of Moses).
deliver us Éx rôy troympāy ºrgáásoy zai Bisp9agºzávnç Końs, “from
the evil actions and corrupt manners of this present world,”
or age; from those lusts of the flesh, and that corruption of
mind, in which the heathens formerly lived, war& rôy aidya.
rot, wäagov roſtov, “according to that course of life” the men
of the world then led (Eph. ii. 2, 3), when they were guided
by the wisdom, raû aiºvo, roºrov, “of this world” (2 Cor. iv.
4), and under the power of the rulers, roi; a.kórow; ºrcſ, aiºvo;
rotºrov, “ of the darkness of this world” (Eph. vi. 12).
* Katë to Séamºa rod Osoſ, According to the will of God.]
These words may refer to our deliverance, in Tây Troynkºv
Tréâ€eay wai rā; 8tepôapaévnç Końs, CEcum., from the evil man-
ners of this world; this being “the will of God, even our
sanctification” (1 Thess. iv. 3), and the great end of our
Lord's salutary passion “who gave himself for us, that he
might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify to himself a
peculiar people, zealous of good works; and bare our sins in
his body on the tree, that we, being dead to sin, might
live to righteousness” (1 Pet. ii. 24. 2 Cor. v. 15. Eph. v. 25,
26): whence it is evident that Christ's inherent righteous-
ness is not imputed to us; for sure he died not to this end,
that we might do ourselves what he already had done for us,
and so what he had made it needless for us to do. Or else
these words may be connected thus; Christ gave himself for
us according to the will of God, viz. that he should die for
our sins; and then the apostle here asserts, in opposition to
the Judaizing Christians, that our justification by faith in
Christ's death is according to the will of God, and that he
died in pursuance of his decree to establish that new cove-
nant in his blood by faith, by which we are translated from
that wrath and state of alienation from God in which the
world lies, and have obtained peace with God, and are be-
come his church and people.
* Wer. 6. 'Atrö roi waxécavro; upwig, From him that called
you..] i. e. From God: for the apostle scarce ever ascribes
this work to himself, but constantly to God the Father: see
Rom. ix. 24. 1 Cor. vii. 15. Gal. i. 15. 1 Thess. ii. 12. iv. 7.
v. 24. 2 Thess, ii. 14. 2 Tim. i. 9.
* Ev xàgirl Xeta-rod, To the grace of Christ.] Or rather,
“by,” or “through, the grace of Christ” offered you in the
gospel; for though #y be often put for eig, yet Év Xàgiri, where
it is elsewhere used, doth either signify, “in the grace,” or
“through the grace,” as Rom. v. 15. 2 Cor. i. 12. 2 Thess.
ii. 16. 2 Tim. ii. 1; nor do I find where it is ever used in the
epistles for Big Xágy.
7 Ver, 7. “o oix ariy &Axo.] These words cannot signify,
“Which is not anything else;” or, “Which is not owing to
anything else,” as one here thinks: for the pronoun 8 hath
no other antecedent but Éregov stayyáxtov, ver, 6. Nor is it
any objection against our translation that the apostle doth
not say, 3 oix #arty £regow, as before, but &AAo; it being noted
by Budaeus and others, that the Greeks use, &xx0 xai Érsgow
#x raçaºx#xov, these two words as equivalent: and when two
&AAos come together, the second is always rendered, freeo",
“another;” &AA2; trºë; &xxov Aéyovreć, “Saying one to an-
other,” Acts ii. 12. xxi. 34 ; so &AAn cagº. 3,634trov, &AA; 3:
3 A 2
724
|GALATIANS.
8 But (whatsoever they suggest to you of another
gospel, taught by Peter, James, and John,) though we
(apostles) or (even) an angel from heaven, (should)
preach any other gospel to you, than that which we
(Paul and Barnabas) have preached to you, let him
be accursed.
9 (And that ye may not think this proceeds rashly
from me, but may the more regard it, ) as we said be
fore, so say I now again, If any man preach any other
gospel to you than that ye have received (from us),
*let him be accursed. -
10 (But this you cannot reasonably suspect concerning
me,) for do I now (in the eaecution of my apostleship)
*persuade (obey, or seek to please) men, or God?" or
wrávoy, “There is one flesh of men, and another flesh of
beasts,” &c. 1 Cor. xv. 31; and again, ver. 41. The apostle's
meaning then is, that the preaching of the gospel to you,
"rag 2 stayyeatorápassa, “besides that which we have preach-
ed,” would be the preaching of another gospel : but that
which these perverters of the Galatians taught as such, was
not indeed another gospel, but rather a setting up of the
law in opposition to the gospel. Note also, that ei º here
is used as ii. 16. 1 Cor. vii. 17. Rev. ix. 4. 21. 27.
* Wer. 9. 'Avášska floºro, Let him be anathema..] Hence
it follows, (1.) that the doctrine of justification by faith, as
it stands opposed to the contrary doctrine of the necessity of
the observance of the Mosaical law to justification, is a fun-
damental doctrine, to which he that opposeth himself, main-
taining the necessity of observing the law of Moses to that
end, deserveth an anathema, as introducing another gospel:
whence commentators here observe, that the apostle calls not
the Galatians “saints,” because they had begun to decline
from the gospel, by seeking thus to be justified by the law;
but speaks of them as those who had Christ yet to beformed
in them, and who were to be “born again,” iv. 19.
(2.) Hence it appears, that a man may err fundamentally,
not only by rejecting a fundamental article of faith, but also
by maintaining and teaching in the name of Christ things
unnecessary to be necessary, so as to say, salvation cannot
be obtained without them: and herein consists the great
guilt of the church of Rome, and particularly of the Trent
council, that they have added many unnecessary articles to
the Christian creed, and have defined them to be so necessary
to be believed by all Christians, that no salvation can be ob-
tained without the belief of them : and so they seem plainly to
have fallen under the anathema of St. Paul, more dreadful
than all the vain anathemas they have thundered out against
the protestants. ...
Mr. Obadiah Walker and Grotius note, that the apostle
speaks here only of doctrines contrary to his gospel; but
this exposition is (1.) contrary to the very words of the
apostle, who Saith not “against,” but traf’ &, “besides what
I have delivered:” and it is contrary to the exposition of
the fathers,” Chrysostom, CEcumenius, among the Greeks,
and Austin among the Latins, whose note is this: “He saith
not, If they preach things contrary, but, If they preach
things never so little different from the gospel which I have
preached to you.” It is very true, as Esthius suggests, that
the apostle doth not pretend to propound an anathema
against any man who shall suggest anything farther in con-
firmation of Christ’s gospel, as John after did, or give any
farther rules pursuant to the precepts of it, by the sugges-
tion of that Spirit by which the gospel was indited, for then
he would have pronounced an anathema upon all that writ
after him, and even upon himself, who writ many epistles af.
ter this; but yet he pronounceth an anathema upon all those
who preached a gospel which differed from the gospel which
they preached, to whom alone it was by Christ committed
to propound the terms of salvation; and this is that of which
we do accuse the church of Rome, that they propound terms
of Salvation nowhere delivered by Christ or his apostles.
* Kałowº, firey ièy way ria xarayyáAAova.iv, 3xx& Rºy airpáy 'ri
siayyixićovrat trap' 3 stayyextráºześa. Restat ergö, ut nonex
divinis scripturis, sed ex vobis ista dicatis. Proinde dig-
nissimè respondebitur, Anathema sitis. Tenent enim ec-
clesiae apostolico labore fundatae, cum quantá curá sibi
praedictum sit; Si quis vobis evangelizaverit praeterquam quod
accepistis, anathema sit. De Unitate Eccl. contra Epist.
Peril. tom. vii. cap. 15, p. 542. Sive de Christo, sive de ejus
ecclesia, sive de quâcunque alià re, quae pertinet ad fidem
vitamgue nostram, si angelus de coelo (nobis evangelizaverit
praeterquam quod in scripturis legalibus et evangeliis accep-
istis, anathema: sit. Lib. iii. contra Lit. Peril. cap. 6, p. 167.
Secondly, This exposition of Mr. Walker will not free
them from the anathema of the apostle; for by this very
thing, that they add anything to the gospel of Christ as ne-
cessary to be believed, or done to salvation, they do no less
oppose the doctrine of the apostle, than they did who joined
the observation of the law of Moses, as necessary to the
faith of Christ: for therefore did they oppose his doctrine,
because they teaching this was needful to salvation, did
thereby teach, that what the apostle had taught as sufficient
to salvation, was not so without their additions, which is the
very thing the papists do by their new articles and tradi-
tionary doctrines, for if they be indeed necessary to Salvation,
what is delivered in the gospel, in which confessedly some of
their doctrines are not, cannot be sufficient to salvation.
Moreover, it is extremely evident, that prayer in unknown
tongue is plainly contrary to the apostle's doctrine, 1 Cor.
xiv., and that communion in one kind is opposite both to
Christ's institution, and to Paul's discourse upon that sacra-
ment, 1 Cor. xi. -
* Ver. 10. IIsiósiv, To persuade.] The critics here observe
that the word reiðsly signifies to pacify and appease any one
incensed against us. So when David's soldiers, hunted and
harassed by Saul, were earnest, when they found Saul in the
cave, that they might have liberty to slay him, insio’s Aagi? Tow:
&vèga; airoi; iv. Aáyotº, “ David pacified his men with words,”
1 Sam. xxiv. 7. So, to induce the soldiers to own that
Christ's body was stolen away by his disciples from the Se-
pulchre whilst they slept, the chief priests and elders pro-
mise, that if this come to the governor's ear, relaokasy airey,
“we will appease him,” Matt. xxviii. 14. And Menelaus
promised Ptolemy to give him much money, ºrgö; rô neia at
röy 8aaixãa, “if he would pacify the king towards him,” 2
Macc. iv. 5. Or (2) the word may signify to obey; for so
the word is used by Paul in this epistle, when he says, “Who
hath bewitched you, rå &xnSeiz Azi, reiðsa'8al, that you should
not obey the truth P' iii. 1, and, “Ye did run well, who hin-
dered you, tº 3xnSeſa º weiðsabai, that you should not
obey the truth P” v. 7, and elsewhere : so roſ; 3rs:00üri Kºśy
r; &AnØsia, reflowflyot, 8: 7; 38tzig, “To those who obey not
the truth, but obey unrighteousness,” Rom. ii. 8, ºrsi&saºs
aroſ. hyoupwévoic, “Obey your governors,” Heb. xiii. 17 (see
also Acts v. 36, 37. James iii. 3). And so is the word often
used by heathen authors when they treat of moral subjects:
so Platoº saith, philosophy “compels the irrational affec-
tions to obey reason,” and introduceth Socratest saying,
metropaal rô Geg (cãXAoy pºv, “I will obey God rather
than you.” Plutarchit saith, “It is the same thing, £rea 6ai
Os3, wai ré meta-aa-Sat xàyo, to follow God, and obey reason,”
So Arrian,S “This is to be placed among the highest plea-
sures, 3rt rsiºn rô Qaş, that thou obeyest God; I am free,
and the friend of God, W’ #4&y reiðapwai airó, that I might
willingly obey him. I know to whom I ought to be subject,
rwl traiSea Sai, rô Osó wał ºrof, pººr’ #xsivoy, and to obey God,
and those that are next to him.” And Zeno, “That it is
fit, r3 wit}szóat traßa; roſ; trai?aywydiº, that children should
obey their masters” (Diog. Laert. lib. vii. p. 432). So then
the import of these words is this: Do I in preaching the gos-
pel act in obedience to men, who everywhere persecute me
and oppose me for it, or in obedience to that God who called
me to be an apostle of the gentiles 2 (ver. 15, 16.) And
this sense is confirmed by the verse following.
* Mr. Clerc here is positive that reisa, signifies only to
persuade; whereas the lexicographers say expressly, Tria
significat pareo, morem gero, suadeo, persuadeo. So Hesy-
* Tö ºy &Moyoy tº Aoyix; reiðsa Sat. Tim. Locr. p.
1096, C.
+ Apol. p. 23, B. † De Audit. p. 37, F.
§ Arrian. lib. iii. cap. 4, p. 343, lib. iv. cap. 3, 12.
| Constantine.
CHAPTER I.
725
do I seek to please men 2 (no sure,) for if I yet
pleased men (if I made that my business) " I should
nót be the servant of Christ (in that work of the gospel
which creates me so much hazard from them).
11. But (howsoever others may lessen my gospel). I
certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was
preached of me (i.e. by me to you and others) is not
after man.
12 * For I neither received it of man (as the Jews
do their traditions from their fathers), neither was I
É. it, but by the (immediate) * revelation of Jesus
Christ.
13 And of this you may be farther satisfied from my
former conversation, and my deportment since I began
to preach the faith of Christ :) for (doubtless) ye have
heard of my conversation in times past in the Jews’
religion, (which was such) that beyond measure I per-
secuted the church of God, and wasted it (Acts viii.
3. ix. 1. 13, 14. xxii. 4. xxvi. 10, 11):
14 And profited in the Jews' religion above many
my equals in mine own nation (or above many Jews
of the same age with me), being more exceedingly
chius, reibo as ráðs ºrd ºrpáyga, “I obey thee in this thing;”
and rešotºgi ral routo, saith Stephanus, ought to be rendered,
paleo tibi in håc re, or, pareo consilio tuo in håc re. And
whereas he fancies an ellipsis of pañ &yazawrity pºot, “not to
be displeased with me ;” making the sense to run thus, For
do I now persuade men, or God, not to be displeased with
me? he is still out ; for who can see either any connexion
of these with the former words, or any force in the apostle's
reason, according to this strained sense ? “If any man,”
saith he, “preach any other gospel than that which ye have
received from us, let him be amathema" (ver. 9): for do I
in preaching this gospel obey men or God? Saith our inter-
pretation, making both the connexion clear, and the reason
strong; seeing God could not command him to preach one
gospel and others another. “Let him be anathema,” saith
Mr. Clerc, “for do I now persuade God not to be displeased
with me?”, where, let him that can, show either reason or
connexion. Secondly, how could Paul say, he did not per-
suade men not to be displeased with him, when in this
epistle he so often doth it, saying, “Brethren, I beseech you
be as I am,” iv. 12; “Am I therefore become your enemy,
because I tell you the truth 2" ver. 16 ; “From henceforth
let no man trouble me,” vi. 17 (see v. 11). And, thirdly, why
should he tell the Galatians he persuaded God not to be dis-
pleased with him, when he was so honestly discharging his
office, that he knew nothing of insincerity by himself in the
execution of it (1 Cor. iv. 4), and surely had no mind to
give them any reason to suspect he had displeased him.
*H &ntā āyºgówoi, Češa kily;] These words, which Dr. Mills
saith crept in from the margin, are owned by all the Greek
scholiasts, by the Vulgar, the Cod. Alexandrinus, Hilarius
Diac. and Jerome (see Examen Millii in locum).
* Xgiaroi, Aoû0; own &y hºwny, I show.ld not be the servant of
Christ.] That is, say the Greek commentators, I should
not have left Judaism to embrace Christianity; i. e. I should
not have quitted honour, friends, and kindred, for dangers,
persecutions, and dishonours, which I continually suffer for
the cause of Christ. And this exposition is confirmed from
those words, “If I preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer
persecution, since then is the offence of the cross ceased ?”
v. 11, and from this account, that others preached up circum-
cision only “lest they should suffer persecution for the cross
of Christ,” vi. 12.
* Ver. 12. Ow rap' 3,934mov, I received it not by man.]
In the first verse he saith, he was not an apostle by man,
“but by Jesus Christ :” here, that he was not taught his
gospel by man, but “by Jesus Christ;” whence Chrysostom,
Theodoret, Jerome, CEcumenius, and Theophylact conclude,
that our Lord was not only man, but God; and so Novatian
(ch. xiii.) argued before the Nicene council, “If Paul
was not constituted an apostle of, or by man, and yet
was constituted such by Jesus Christ, meritó Christus
est Deus, Christ must be God: for though the scripture
Sometimes calleth magistrates and judges gods, as Crellius
zealous (than they were) * of the traditions of my
fathers.
15 (Thus, I say, was my conversation in times past;)
but when it pleased God, who separated me from my
mother’s womb (as he had formerly done Jeremiah, to
be a prophet of the nations, i. 5) and (after) called me
by his grace (to preach the gospel, Acts xxii. 14),
16 To reveal his Son “in (to) me, that I might
preach him among the heathen ; immediately I con-
ferred not "with flesh and blood (i. e. with any man
so as to receive any mission from them to that work,
or any instructions how to perform it):
17 Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them that
were apostles before me (as, if I had wanted either
authority or instruction, I should have done), but I
went from Damascus (the place of my conversion) to
* Arabia, and returned again to Damascus (preaching
the gospel there). -
18 Then after three years (of my conversion) I went
up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fif-
teen days.
19 But “other of the apostles saw I none, save
here notes, it never saith, that what was done by them was
not done by man. Crellius adds farther, that our Lord, being
the only-begotten Son of God, and having now obtained his
celestial kingdom, was exempted from the common rank of
men ; “and from the state of mortal men,” saith Grotius :
and so the apostle might speak of him not as a man, as Sam-
son saith of himself, “If they bind me with wreaths I shall
be as a man" (Judg. xvi. 7. 11.17), but DTN inx2, “as one
man ;” i. e. as weak as one man only, or having no more
strength than another man. Crellius therefore hath not
said anything apposite in answer to this argument: nor doth
the apostle here oppose man to man, or mortal man to those
blessed spirits who are immortal, but only to Jesus Christ and
God the Father.
* At’ &rowa Núspeak, By revelation.] At what time this
revelation was made to him is uncertain, but it is probable it
must be before he went to preach the gospel to the gentiles ;
for the words following, “I consulted not with flesh and
blood, but preached at Damascus,” seem plainly to imply
this revelation was made to him before he preached there, or
went to Jerusalem.
* Ver. 14. Tày marpixãy wrapałóa say, Of the traditions of
my fathers.] He being a pharisee, and speaking of the tra-
ditions not of the law, but of the fathers, seems to mean the
oral traditions that sect so highly magnified, even above the
law and the prophets (see note on Mark vii. 3. Acts xxvii.
17). Now there is reason to believe, that a man so exceed-
ing zealous for the religion of the Jews, and so full of hatred
to that of Christians would not have renounced a religion he
had so great a reverence for, to embrace that he was so in-
censed against, without some more than human motive.
* Ver. 16. 'Ev Hºoi, To me..] So 3 Aaxåy 5 v šºol, “He
that speaketh to me shall be a barbarian,” 1 Cor. i. 11 (see
Mark i. 15. Acts iv. 12. 1 Cor. ix. 15. 2 Cor. iv. 3. viii. 1).
* xapki ka? aſaari, With flesh and blood.] This phrase in
scripture and among Jewish writers is only a periphrasis for
man, as Matt. xvi. 17. 1 Cor. xv. 20. Eph. vi. 12. Heb. ii.
14. Ecclus. xiv. 18, and so all other interpretations of it
must be alien from the scope of the apostle.
17 Wer. 17. Eic "Agagiay, Into Arabia.] Of this journey
into Arabia, St. Luke, not being with him, saith nothing.
18 Wer. 19. "Ersgow rôy &roaráñóy, Other of the apostles.]
Hence it appears,
First, That only Peter and James were then at Jerusalem,
for Barnabas brought him to the apostles that were there
(Acts ix. 27).
Secondly, That James, the Lord's brother, was an
apostle in the strict and proper sense of the word, since
Peter, who is mentioned with him, was doubtless so, and
Barnabas, who brought him to Peter and James, is said to
bring him to the apostles; and Peter, James, and John, who
are here called the “men of reputation,” and “pillars of the
church,” ii. 6. 0, seem plainly to be the same persons who,
in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians are called Aſay &ré-
726
GALATIANS.
James the Lord’s brother (and therefore could not
learn my gospel from them).
20 Now (of the truth of) the things which I write
to you (you may rest assured, for,) *behold, before
God I lie not.
21 Afterward I came into the regions of Syria (i. e.
to Caesarea, Acts xxii. 17, 18) and Cilicia (to Troas,
Acts ix. 30. xxii. 3, in Asia Minor) :
*** **
a-roxoi, “the chief of the apostles:” and Origen” saith ex-
pressly of James the Just, “This is that James whom Paul,
in his Epistle to the Galatians saith he saw,” citing these
very words for the proof of it. See this confirmed in the
preface to the Epistle of James. Note,
Thirdly, That the apostle's argument is to this effect,
Having therefore preached the gospel so long before I saw
them, and staying so little while with them, and going then
only to see, not to learn of them, it cannot be conceived I
should receive my instructions how to preach the gospel from
them.
Note also, that Nicephorus+ saith, this James was roi;
*-* - - - - - - - --
* 14xogo; 3% tariv obro;, & Aiysi IIaijao; i38ſy #y rfi rºc Tax4-
ºrac fºrtaroxº, eiträy recoy 33 rāy &zoa réawy, &c. Hom. 13 in
Matt. ed. Huet. p. 223, C, et lib. i, contra Celsum, p. 35.
+ Hist. Eccles. lib. ii. cap. 3.
22 And was (all the while) unknown by face to the
churches of Judea which were in Christ. ſº
23, But they had heard only, that he which perse-
cuted us (Christians) in times past, now preacheth
the faith.” which once he destroyed.
24 * And they glorified God (for the conversion he
had wrought) in me.
Kavharoeo, toº Iowa'hº rais, “the son of Joseph, the husband
of the mother of our Lord.”
* Ver. 20. I?ob ivºrov roi; Geoff, Behold, before God.]
Hence it is evident that the apostle, when it was necessary
to confirm the truth of the gospel, or of his commission to,
or his sincerity in preaching it, i. e. when the benefit of souls
required him thus to attest to men, what otherwise they
could not be assured of, refused not to swear, and so esteemed
not our Saviour's prohibition of an oath to be absolute (see
Rom. i. 2. ix. 1. 2 Cor. i. 23. xi. 31. 1 Thess. ii. 5, see the
note on 2 Cor. i. 23).
* Ver, 23. Hy rots inégès.] See this reading vindicated,
Examen Millii in locum.
* Ver. 24.] This testimony of the Jewish Christians was
a confirmation of his doctrine; for if they could have found
any just exceptions against it, they would not have glorified
God for his preaching of it.
CHAPTER II.
1 THEN, 'fourteen years after (my first journey thi-
ther), I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas,
and took Titus with me also (though uncircumcised, to
show the liberty I took of conversing with persons not
circumcised).
2 And I went up by revelation, and communicated
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II.
* Ver. 1. Ali, Sewaterarágoy #~&v, Fourteen years after.]
I cannot assent to those critics who, for 38wated a 4807, “four-
teen,” would read reacápov, “four years after ;” for not only
all the manuscript copies and versions read “fourteen,” but
Irenaeus, lib. iii. cap. 13, doth confirm this reading in these
words. “Then after fourteen years I went up to Jerusalem,
&c. lf any man carefully examine, by the Acts of the Apos-
tles, the time mentioned of his ascent to Jerusalem for the
question aforesaid, he will find the years agreeing with those
mentioned by Paul.” Now these years must be reckoned
from the time of his conversion, mentioned here, i. 18, which
happened in the year of our Lord 35, his journey to Peter
was A.D. 38, and then between that and the council of Jeru-
salem, assembled anno Christi 49, will be fourteen intervening
years; for whereas some reckon these fourteen years from
the third year of his conversion to the council met at Jerusa-
iem, and so make that council meet anno Domini 52, because
it is said here, Étretra “ afterward,” and ráxiv &vé8w, “I went
up again;” it may be answered, that the word Émeira, “after-
ward,” doth not connect these words with the three years
mentioned i. 18, as is evident, because there follows another
ãºreira, “afterward,” ver. 21, nor doth oráAly &v£3my, “I went
up again,” relate to his first journey to Jerusalem, mentioned
i. 18, for he had been twice at Jerusalem ; three years after his
conversion to see Peter, and nine years after that to carry
alms to the brethren at Jerusalem (Acts xi. 30), though,
seeing then none of the apostles, he makes no mention of
that journey here, as being nothing to his purpose (see Dr.
Pearson's Annal. Paulin. p. 8, 9): so that whereas he had
said, i. 18, that “three years after "my conversion “I went
up to Jerusalem to see Peter,” he saith here, “and fourteen
years after it I went up again.” Now, that the apostle here
speaks of the journey to Jerusalem mentioned Acts xv. will
appear, t -
First, From the agreement of what he here relates with
what then happened, as that he “communicated to them the
gospel, which he preached among the gentiles,” ver. 2, as he
then did, Acts xv. 4, that circumcision was not then judged
necessary to the gentiles, ver. 3, as we find, Acts xv. 24,
to them (at Jerusalem) that gospel which I preach
ſeverywhere) among the gentiles; but (this I did) * pri-
vately to them which were of reputation, (or the chief
men there : not that I distrusted my doctrine, or needed
their instructions, but) lest by any means (or false sug-
gestions of the Judaizers, that my doctrine was con-
that “when they saw the gospel of uncircumcision was com-
mitted to him, they gave to him and Barnabas the right
hand of fellowship,” ver, 9, as then they did, sending their
very decree, with one consent, to the gentiles, “by the hands
of Paul and Barnabas,” Acts xv. 22, 25, who were received
by the “ whole church,” wer. 4, and styled “beloved,” ver,
25.
Secondly, It seems not likely that the apostle, writing
this epistle about nine years after the decree of that council,
should make no mention of a thing so advantageous to the
cause he is pleading here, and so proper to confute the pre-
tences of the adversaries he disputes against. And
Thirdly, James, Peter, and John, being all the apostles
that were present at the council then held at Jerusalem,
the mention of their consent to his doctrine and practice was
all that was necessary to his purpose to be mentioned con-
cerning that council. It is no objection against this opinion,
that we find no mention, Acts xv., of Titus's being with him ;
for he is not mentioned in the whole book of the Acts, during
which interval this journey must have happened.
* Ver. 2. 'Avé8my war& 3roxáxvskiy, I went up by revelation.]
Made to the apostle, saith Dr. Hammond, to comply with
this determination of the church of Antioch ; made to the
prophets of the church of Antioch, to send them, saith Dr.
Lightfoot, which I do not gainsay. But the apostle doth not
say he went up, 3i' 3roxaağsog, “by revelation,” but war&
&m oxi. Avskiy, “according to revelation:” now he had said
before he received not his doctrine or gospel by men, or of
men, “but by the revelation of Jesus Christ ;” and here he
may be supposed to add, that in his journey he acted suita-
bly to the revelation which constituted him the apostle of
the gentiles; telling the church of Jerusalem what things he
had done among the gentiles in pursuance of it, not inquiring
what they did, but declaring what God did by him, not per-
mitting Titus, a Greek, to be circumcised, “not giving place
for an hour” to the “false brethren,” &c.
* Kat' ibiay 3s roſ. 30xotiat, Privately to them of reputation.]
Not that his doctrine might be confirmed by the concurrence
of Peter, or others with him in it, as Esthius from Jerome
and Austin here suggests ; for sure that doctrine, which he
received by immediate revelation from Jesus Christ and God
CHAPTER II.
727
trary to what they who were called before me preached,
and such as they would not own) I should run (hereaf-
ter), or had run (hitherto), in vain.
3 But (even then was nothing done by me, which
showed any change in my doctrine or practice, or any
opposition made by them to it : for) neither Titus, who
was (then) with me, being a Greek, was (upon that ac-
count) compelled to be circumcised (as they would
have contended he should, had they thought circumcision
wiecessary to the gentiles):
4 And that (which concerns the bringing and retain-
£ng Titus with me uncircumcised was done) * because
of false brethren (who came down to Antioch, Acts
xv. 1) unawares brought in (Gr. introduced into the
assembly, Acts xv. 5, or insinuating themselves into the
church of Antioch, ver, 1), who came in privily to spy
out (Gr. to ensnare us in) our liberty (from the observ-
ance of the Jewish law) which we hayein (and through)
Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage
(to it, they pleading for the necessity of circumcising
the gentiles, and commanding them to keep the law,
Acts xv. 1).
5 "To whom we gave place by subjection, no, not
for an hour (by submission to their demands, but con-
tinued firm to our resolution, not to subject the gentiles
to this yoke of bondage); that the truth of the gospel
of Christ, which frees the gentiles from the obligation.
of the law) might continue with (or among) you.
6 But of those who seemed to be somewhat, what-
the Father, needed no farther confirmation from the autho-
rity of man ; but only to obviate the cavils of those who
laboured to hinder the effect of his gospel, by suggesting that
it was contrary to, or disowned by, those apostles who were
called before him.
* Ver. 4. At& roic lºvěabéxpovº, Because of false brethren.]
These false brethren, saith Epiphanius,” were Cerinthus,
and those of his party. 3.
At& 3i, &c.] Here also it seems necessary to supply the
sense from the first verse thus; avºiragéxaflow 3: Tiroy 3:3 row;
Jévèabéxpou, ; “And I took with me Titus, because of the
false brethren.” Examples of the like ellipsis, or deficiency,
to be supplied from the precedent words, in the Old Testa.
ment, are very numerous; see Glassius de Figuris Gramma-
ticis, lib. iv. tract. 2, observ. 11. So Matt. ii. 10, i.88, rec 3:
ºrów & réga, “seeing the star,” a röta ärávo º ży rà raistow,
add, “standing over the place where the child was, (ver, 9),
they rejoiced.” This addition was necessary, because they
before saw the star going before them (ver. 9). So John ix.
3, “Neither hath he sinned, nor his parents;” add, from
yer. 2, ºva twº; yewnóñ, “that he should be born blind,”
&AA& ºva, but add again, “he was so born, that the works of
God might be made manifest in him;” 1 John ii. 19, “They
went out from us, but they (who thus went out) were not of
us; for if they had been of us, they might have remained
with us,” &NA’, supply, ###A00w if hºw, “but (they went out
from us) that it might appear they all were not of us.”
* Ver. 5. Ois ow8; reig &gay sºap.sv rà intorayå.] Here Dr.
Mills contends from the authority of the Vulgate,Tertullian,
and Hilary the deacon, that ovë is an addition to the text;
though Jerome positively saith, that this was only the read.
ing quorundam Latinorum codicum, reclamantibus Graecis,
“of some Latin copies against the authority of the Greek
fathers:” see this reading confuted, Examen Millii in locum.
And there also, oi Bokoúvres, ver. 6, is proved against the
doctor, not to be irreptitious.
Ver. 6. Oi ärö 3è,] As some would read, if not suitable
to the Greek idiom ; begin the words as you must the con-
struction, Čºrºſol &# ºrote %~ay 3rd røy Boxolyrov slyai ºri, and the
sense is plain, But of what quality they were, who seemed
to be somewhat, or were of reputation, où8āy got Stapfeet, I
* Kai ºors drázw & Kägiv6oc, zai of us'' airrot, eigyāqayro,
3. s & aw f * * * *
#y air; tº Isgowo axiº, örnyika TIaijan; &#x0s werå Tírov–36
wai IIzºº; Aiyi, &AA& oiº Tiro; 3 aw woi, &c. Haer. xxviii.
Ş. 4, p. 112.
soever they were (or, but whatsoever they were who
seemed to be somewhat), it maketh no matter to me
(their seeming, or their real greatness, affects not my
doctrine) : God accepteth no man’s person; for they
who seemed to be somewhat in conference added no-
thing to me (or to my doctrine, nor corrected anything
in it, and so neither am I concerned for their great-
ness, nor doth God respect them the more upon that ac-
Count :
7 They added, I say, nothing to my doctrine,) but
contrariwise (they approved of it ; for) when they
saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was com-
mitted to me (and I was authorized to preach to the
gentiles), as the gospel of the circumcision was to
Peter (he being appointed to preach to the Jews :
8 As evidently it was ;) for he who wrought effec-
tually in (with) Peter towards the apostleship of the
circumcision, the same was mighty in me (Gr. wrought
also in me) towards the gentiles (Rom. xv. 19):
9 *And when James, Cephas, and John, who
seemed to be pillars (of the church), perceived the
grace (of God) that was given to me (for the apostolic
office), they gave to me and Barnabas the right hand
of fellowship; (concluding) that we should (still) go
(on to preach) to the heathen, and they (should still
continue preaching) to the circumcision.
10 * Only they would that we should remember the
poor (Christians in Judea), the same which (Gr. which
same thing) I also was forward to do :
was not the better for it ; where note, that the Scholiast
on Thucydides saith thus, 8tabéget, i.e. &@ºst, the word sig-
nifies “to profit, or be advantageous.” Phavorinus and He-
sychius say, that it signifies 8áxtroy ºval, “to be the better;”
so that the words may be thus rendered : “It was no advan-
tage to me, I was not the better for it;” and this sense is
confirmed by the following reason, “For they who were of
reputation added nothing to me.” º
* Ver. 9..] Note, that the beginning of this verse from the
Greek runs thus, “And James, Cephas, and John, who
seemed to be pillars of the church, knowing the grace,” &c.
7 Ver. 10.] Note, that from these four verses, the Supre-
macy of Peter over the rest of the apostles, and the whole
church, may be by many arguments refuted. For,
1. James is here mentioned first among the apostles of the
circumcision, according to the common doctrine of the an-
cients, who style him, “the first bishop, archbishop, prince,
and bishop of bishops, tºy rā; yía; ‘Iseova'aºſ, 36x47téâtnyov,
röy rāv isgåøy #ysøya, röy &roatáNow roy #26%, tºy #y kepa Naic
kogvºv, the chieftain of the new Jerusalem, the leader of the
priests, the prince of the apostles, the top of the heads.”
And this agrees with the ecclesiastical tradition mentioned
by Eusebius, that the brethren and kinsmen of our Lord,
whilst they lived, were preferred before other apostles and
bishops, and that therefore Peter and John contended not
with James, the Lord’s brother, but “chose him bishop of
Jerusalem, and after his death judged Simeon, his cousin-
german, worthy of that see, &; áird yévov; byroº rot Kufiov, as
being of the kindred of our Lord.”
Secondly, He puts no difference betwixt these “pillars”
or “chief of the apostles;” which no more agrees with the
supposed supremacy of Peter, than it would with the pope's
supremacy to be reckoned among or after some of the
cardinals; which as it is never done by them who own the
pope's supremacy, so neither would this have been done by
Paul, had he owned the supremacy of Peter. -
Thirdly, He says the gospel of the uncircumcision was
committed to him, as was that of the circumcision to Peter,
by which words “he shows himself equal to Peter,” say the
scholiasts. By these words, saith Hilary the deacon, Plena
* Hesych. apud Phot. Cod. 275, p. 1525. See Cotel.
Not. in Barnab. p. 6.
+ Eccles. Hist. lib. ii. cap. 1, lib.
20, 32. £º
it Asiavurw Havrov icórigov rá IIírge, Éav'ry #10 of riš IIirpº.
Chrys. CEcum. Theoph.
iii, cap. 11, lib. iv. cap.
, 728
GALATIANS.
11. But when Peter was come to Antioch, "I with must be, if we be still obliged to observe that law we
stood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.
have renounced as unable to justify us), is therefore
12 For before that certain (brethren of the Jews)] Christ (who taught us thus to renounce the law, and to
came from James, he did (freely) eat with the gen- seek justification by faith in him) the minister of sin:
tiles; but when they were come, he withdrew, and God forbid (that we should charge this on him.
separated himself (from them), fearing (to evasperate
or scandalize) them which were of the circumcision.
13 And the other Jews dissembled likewise with
him, insomuch that (even) Barnabas also was carried.
away with their dissimulation.
14 But when I saw that (in this matter) * they
walked not uprightly, according to the truth of the
gospel, I said to Peter before them all, If thou, being
a Jew (one of that nation to which alone the law of
Moses was given), livest after the manner of the gen-
tiles (conversing freely with them, and eating of their
meats, as, since the vision which thou sawest, thou hast
done), and not as do the Jews (abstaining from their
meats and persons as unclean), why (now) compellest
}. the gentiles (by thy etcample) to live as do the
ews 2 * *
15 We who are Jews by (birth or) nature, and not
* sinners of the gentiles (not idolatrous heathens),
16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the
works of the law, but (only) by the faith of Jesus
Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that
we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and
(thereby have testified to our conviction, that we could)
not (be justified) by the works of the law (as indeed
we cannot be); for by the works of the law shall no
flesh be justified.
17 *But if, while we (thus) seek to be justified by
Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners (as we
18 And yet we, by asserting the necessity that the
gentiles should observe the law, and so much more the
Jews, do in effect say that Christ hath taught us to be
sinners ;) for if I (thus) build again the things that I
destroyed (urging the necessity of observing that law
to justification which I declared unable to justify, and
therefore renounced for faith in Christ,) I make my-
self a transgressor (by not observing it to that end.
19 But whatsoever others may think fit to do, far be
it from me to imitate them,) for I through the law
(teaching me that it condemns all men to death, and
bearing witness to the justification which is of God by
jaith, Rom. iii. 21) am (become) dead to (the observ-
ance of) the law, that I might (for the future) live to
God (Rom. vii. 4).
20 I am crucified with Christ (and so dead to the
law, Rom. vi. 4): nevertheless I live; yet not I (as
formerly, a Jew and an observer of the law) but Christ
liveth in me, (and I am acted by his Spirit : Rom. vii.
6) and the life that I now (lead) in the flesh, I live
by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and
gave himself for me.
21 I do not frustrate the grace of God (as I should
do, did I seek for righteousness by the law); for if
righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in
vain (there being then no necessity that he should die
to purchase justification for us, and no sufficient virtue
in his death to procure it).
autoritas Petri in praedicatione Judaismi data dignoscitur, et
Pauli perfecta autoritas in praedicatione gentilium invenitur.
So that then Peter's supremacy was not owned at Rome.
Lastly, “It makes no matter to me,” saith he, “what
they were ;” which sure could not fitly be said of him whom
Christ had constituted to be his head and judge.
*Ver. 11. Auré àrría rºy, I withstood him, &c.] Quis ergö
auderet Petro, primo apostolo—resistere, nisi alius talis qui
fiducià suæ electionis, sciens se non esse imparem, constantër
improbaret quid ille sine consilio fecerat P*
*Ver. 14. Oik Šeštroºpia, re; rºy &xi;Sesay roi sãayyeaſov,
They walked not uprightly, &c.] By this action Peter is
charged with a sinful fear, ver. 13, “not walking uprightly ac-
cording to the truth of the gospel,” ver. 14, with hypocrisy and
dissimulation against his own knowledgeand practice elsewhere,
ver, 13, with “building again what he had pulled down,”
ver. 18, and with “compelling the gentiles to live as do the
Jews,” ver, 14; where observe, that he is said to “ compel,”
in scripture, not only who doth violently force, but who,
being of authority, provokes by his example, as here ; as
also they who lay a necessity on others to do anything, either
by their deportment, as the Corinthians who “ compelled”
Paul to glory, 2 Cor. xii. 11, or by their doctrine, as did the
Judaizers, “compelling the gentiles to be circumcised,” Gal.
* Hilar. in locum.
vi. 12, and in this sense our Saviour says to his disciples
“Compel them to come in,” Luke xiv. 23.
* Ver. 15. "Ap, agroxoi, Sinners of the gentiles.] This
word in the scripture phrase signifies a great and habitual
sinner; and because the gentiles were by the Jewish nation
still esteemed such, and generally were so, therefore the word
is used to denote the gentiles that knew not God. So what
is #Sykai, “the heathens,” in many copies, Matt. v. 46, 47,
is &#xaproxoi, “sinners,” Luke vi. 32—34, and to be delivered
Big XEſpaç rāy &pagroxöy, “into the hands of sinners,” Matt.
xxvi. 45. Mark xiv. 41, is, to be delivered roi; ;6;eart, “to
the gentiles,” Matt. xx. 19. Mark x. 33. Luke xviii. 32.
* Ver. 17, 18.] This exposition of these two verses,
which I have taken from Hilary, and all the Greek scho-
liasts, seems much better than that of late commentators,
who make the seventeenth verse to be an objection against
Paul's doctrine of justification by faith, and the eighteenth an
answer to it; for which I see no ground in the apostle's
words.
Or these words may be paraphrased thus: si yüp & karş-
Avra, If the things which (by Christ's authority committed
to his apostles, Matt. xviii. 18) I have loosed (by declaring
men absolved from the ritual precepts of the law of Moses),
I again build up (by teaching they are to be observed), I
make myself a transgressor.
/
CHAPTER III.
1 * O FooDISH Galatians, "who hath bewitched you,
ºmºsºmºsºmms-
(or envied your happiness, and so endeavoured) that
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III.
*Ver, l; "a ºnto, Qfoolish, &c.] The apostle, by calling
the Galatians “foolish,” doth not contradict our Šaviour's
precept, because he doth it not sixà, “rashly and without
cause,” saith Theophylact, nor out of anger and ill-will to
them, but from an ardent desire to make them sensible of
their folly.
* Tº tags #34akaye; Who hath bowitched you ?] tº #.
Šávnas; “Who hath looked upon you with an evil or envious
eye,” as envying you the blessings of the gospel ? So the
Greek scholiasts. The word also signifies, oculis praestigia
imponere, “to put delusions,” or, as we say, “mists before
the eyes,” which import suits best with the following words.
The reverend Dr. Hammond observes here, that this seduc-
tion may refer to the Ebionites, if the time would permit,
as doubtless it will ; for they were only a branch of the
Nazarenes or Cerinthians, who were contemporary with
CHAPTER III.
729
you should not obey the truth, ‘before whose eyes
Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified
among you ?
2 This only would I learn of you, Received you
the Spirit (in his gifts and powerful operations) by
(obedience to) the works of the law, or by the hearing
of faith? (i. e. the belief of the gospel ; if by the lat-
ter, this is a manifest token that your justification and
acceptance with God was the fruit of your faith, and
not of your obedience to the law ; since God, by giving
you his Spirit whilst uncircumcised, as well as to the
believing Jews, bare witness to this very thing, that he
puts no difference betwirt you and them on that account,
Acts xv. 8, 9.)
3 Are ye (then) so foolish 2 having (thus) begun in
the Spirit (as to receive his miraculous gifts by faith,
without the works of the law), are ye now (seeking to
be) made perfect by the flesh (by circumcision, and ob-
serving the carnal ordinances of the law)?
4 Have ye suffered so many things (from the pen-
secuting Jews, Acts. xvii. 5) in vain?" if it be yet (or
even) in vain.
5 (To reassume my argument :) He therefore that
ministereth the Spirit to you (in his ea traordinary
gifts), and * worketh miracles among you, doeth
he it by (virtue of your obedience to) the works of
the law, or by the hearing of faith (i. e. that
jaith which taught you to believe in a crucified Sa-
viour.)
6 For we must be justified) even as Abraham (the
father of the faithful was, who) * believed in God, and
it was accounted to him for righteousness.
7. Know ye therefore that they who are of faith
(and seek justification by it), the same are the (true)
children of (faithful) Abraham.
8 And the (Holy Ghost in) scripture foreseeing that
God would justify the heathen through faith, "preached
before (the giving of the law, and before his circumci-

Paul; and all his epistles show that then there were many
who maintained and eagerly promoted, among the gentile
converts, the chief doctrine of those sects, viz. “that they
were obliged to observe the legal constitution,” as being not
capable of salvation only by faith in Christ, and a life agree-
able to it.” And if this once be granted, there will be no
need of his Gnostics in this, and perhaps not in any other of
Paul's epistles.
T; 3xnseig tº reissg.sai;] These words, saith Jerome, are
not extant, in exemplaribus Adamantii, “in the copies of
Origen;” but they are extant in the Arabic version, the
Vulgar, Hilary the deacon, Theodoret, CEcumenius, and
Theophylact.
I cannot sufficiently wonder at Mr. Le Clerc's wild con-
jecture, that the Ebionites were Samaritans, especially after
he had given us the words of Origen, in which he twice
saith, they were of &mi 'lovèaiwy Ric row 'Incotiv wiztidovreć,
“those of the Jews that believed in Jesus,” lib. ii. contr.
Cels. p. 56. Had he not read in Irenaeus that they did
prophetica curiositis exponere, et Judaico charactere vitae
uti, et Hierosolymam adorare, quasi domus sit Dei? lib, i.
cap. 26. And could the Samaritans do this 2 doth not St.
Jerome say of them, Dum volunt Judaei esse, et Christiani,
nec Judaei sunt, mec Christiani ? Ep. ad August. Yea, even
his own Epiphanius informs us (Haer. x. Anaceph. p. 240),
that 'Iow8aioi Švreº, “being Jews,” they used the gospel.
* ot; war' 359axpºol; ‘Inaoü, Xºta rā, ºrpotyfāºn, iv tºy
to taupapaévoc.] These words may bear this construction,
“Before whose eyes Jesus Christ crucified, hath been evi-
dently set forth to, or among you;” viz. in and from the
scriptures of the Old Testament; for the words #y iº.ſy are
not in the Alexandrian manuscript, and so may be here
omitted, or construed with the word Trposyg&pn; and so they
accord both with the context and with the way of preaching
used by the apostles, whose custom it was to prove, out of
the Old Testament, that “Jesus was the Christ,” and that
“Christ ought to have suffered for us according to the scrip-
tures” (Acts xvii. 3): and then the argument runs thus, If
he died to procure the pardon of our sins, and so our justifi-
cation, why do we render his death upon the cross vain, by
seeking to be justified by the law P. He having by his suffer-
ings “blotted out the hand-writing which was against us, and
nailed (these ordinances) to the cross, why is it that you,
who are dead with Christ from these elements of the world,
are still subject to ordinances P” (Eph. ii. 15. 16. Col. ii.
14, 20.)
* Wer. 4. Ef ye wai six5, If it be in vain..] As it must be
upon your hypothesis of the necessity of the observance of
the law, for “then is the scandal of the cross ceased ” (v.
ll), and all necessity of suffering persecution is removed;
these deceivers themselves doing and urging others to these
things, only “lest they should suffer persecution for the cross
of Christ” (vi. 12): for the first persecutions which the
church suffered, were either from the Jews in person, or by
* 'Q; º; 313 affyn, rā; el: rév xpirºv, xai roi, Kar 'airºv
Biov ca,Shaogávov;, Euseb, Eccl. Hist, lib, iii, cap. 27,
the incitation of the Jews (Acts viii. 1. 1 Thess. ii. 14–16,
Acts xiii. 15. xiv. 19. xvii. 5. 13), who being everywhere
dispersed, “sent chosen men from Jerusalem to all places,
where they and the Christians were, to stir up the heathen
governors against them,” as Justin Martyr" testifies. Note
also, that they were chiefly scandalized at the doctrine of
the cross (1 Cor. i. 23), not only as it contradicted their
pleasant dream of a temporal Messiah, under whom they
should live gloriously and triumphantly, but as being that
which put an end to the Jewish ceremonies, and taught men
to expect justification, not by observance of the law, but by
faith in the blood of Christ shed for us; upon which ac-
count they were incensed against all who thus taught or thus
believed it. -
Note also hence, that all the good actions we have done
will be done in vain, if we persevere not in well-doing to
the end. *
* Ver. 5. 'Evegyöv Švvápºsiç, He that worketh miracles
among you..] This is the observation of all the ancients, i.
that comment upon this and the second verse, that “to
commend the beginning of the Christian faith, the gift of
tongues, prophecy, and working of miracles, were vouch-
safed to believers, as to the apostles at the beginning, accord-
ing to our Lord's prediction,” Mark xvi. 17. 18.
And let those that question the truth of Christianity ob-
serve, that this was the chief argument which carried the
cause in the council at Jerusalem, that the miraculous gifts
of the Holy Ghost were equally vouchsafed to the uncir-
cumcised gentile and to Jews, Acts xv. 8.9; and that this
is here urged by Paul as a thing undeniable, to confirm the
Galatians, and to confute those who endeavoured to prevail
on them to admit of circumcision, and the observance of
other legal rites. This confirmation, therefore, of the truth
of Christian faith, was such as none, concerned to do it then,
were able to gainsay, much less can any now find reason to
doubt of it.
* Ver. 6. 'Emiotsva's ro, Osó, Believed God.] Hence it
is evident, that it is the act of faith, and not the object
of it, which doth justify; for Abraham believed God awn'),
et imputavit eam fidem, “and he imputed that faith in him
for righteousness,” Gen. xv. 6. “The blessed God,” saith
R. Salom, “imputed this to Abraham for righteousness, for
the faith by which he believed in him.”
7 Wer. 8. Preached the gospel to Abraham, saying, &c.]
Well might the apostle argue thus from the example of
Abraham, he being styled by the Jerusalem Talmud, “Abra-
ham the just,” Gen. xv. 1. xviii. 2; and these words being
paraphrased thus, “In thy righteousness shall all the families
of the earth be blessed.” Here Jerome saith, Hoc autem
in omnibus penê testimoniis, quae de veteribus libris in Novo
* Dial. cum Tryph. p. 234.
+ Ad rudimenta fidei commendanda, Hilar. in locum.
Kar' #xsivy row ratgåy of rā; Trvevºwarikā, xégºro; 3%ioſºvo, kal
yadºrrai; 8:24.620: #A&Nouv, kai trgospårevoy, Kai #929%atočeyouw,
&nd rôy 9ava&row xaggäyovre; rot ºnečyºcato; tºw 356aiwariy.
Theodoret. Chrysost. CEcum. Theophylact.
730
GALATIANS.
sion) the gospel to Abraham, (by) saying (Gen. xii. 3),
*In thee shall all nations be blessed.
9 So then they which are of faith (and seek justift-
cation by it, Rom. ix. 32) are blessed with faithful
Abraham, (and as he was ;
10 And not by the works of the law ;) for as many
as are of the works of the law (and seek to be justified
by them) are under the curse (of it, and so incapable
of justification by it): for it is written (there), Cursed
is every one that continueth not in all things that are
written in the book of the law to do them (Deut.
xxvii. 26. Now this being perfectly done by none, all
that are under the law are under the curse of it.)
11 But that no man is justified by (observance of)
assumpta sunt Testamento, observare debemus, quëd me-
moria” crediderunt evangelistae, vel apostoli, et tantūm sensſ
explicato, Saepè ordinem transmutaverunt, nonnunquam vel
detraxerint verba, vel addiderint : for which wild note this
verse ministers no occasion: for though the words, “in thy
seed,” occur not, ch. xxii., yet xii. 2, they are found ex-
pressly as they are cited here, only with the addition of
373 yńs, of the earth, which adds nothing to the sense. So
again, on ver. 10, he makes this note, Incertum habemus
utrām Septuaginta interpretes addiderint “omnis homo,” et
“in omnibus,” an in veteri Hebraico ita fuerit, et postea a
Judaeis deletum sit; in hanc me suspicionem illa res stimulat,
quëd verbum “omnis,' et ‘in omnibus' apostolus vir He-
braeae peritiae, et in lege doctissimus, nunquam protulissit,
nisi in Hebraeis voluminibus haberentur; whereas, as I have
shown, that nothing is here added, but what was necessarily
included in the full sense of the words, and therefore is
in the version of the Septuagint ; so to imagine, that all
the apostles who understood Ilebrew must have cited all
that they produced out of the Old Testament, exactly ac-
cording to the Hebrew, and not at all according to the
Septuagint, is an imagination contrary to ocular demon-
stration.
* "Ey cot, In thee..] That is, “in thy seed,” ver. 6; so Acts
iii.25, “Ye are the sons of the prophets, and of the covenant
which God made with your fathers, saying, And in thy seed
shall all the families of the earth be blessed ;” that is, in
Christ: for so it follows, ver. 26, “To you first, God having
raised up his child Jesus, sent him to bless you.” And this
confutes them who, with the Jews, interpret these words
as a form of benediction thus, “God make thee like to
Abraham.”
* Ver. 11. ‘o 3inator, &c. The just shall live by faith.]
Thus do the Jews themselves expound these words of Ha-
bakkuk, “Faith is the cause of blessedness, as it is the cause
of eternal life, according to these words, The just shall live
by his faith” (Sepher Ikkarim, lib. i. cap. 21).
* Ver. 13. For it is written, Érizatágaro; Trá, 3 weep,4-
*Evoc tri žáxov.] Here again St. Jerome's note is, Scire nom
possum, quare apostolus in eo, quod scriptum est, ‘maledic-
tus à Deo omnis, qui pendet in ligno, vel subtraxerit aliquid,
vel addiderit; si enim semel autoritatem Septuaginta inter-
pretum sequebatur, debuit, sicut ab illis editum est, et Dei
momen adjungere, sin verö, ut Hebraeus ex Hebraeis, id quod
in linguà Suá legerit, putabat esse verissimum, nec “omnis,'
nec ‘in ligno,' quae in Hebræo non habentur, assumere; ex
quo mihi videtur, aut veteres Hebræorum libri (libros)
alitër habuisse quâm nunc habent, aut apostolum sensum
scripturarum posuisse, non verba ; aut quod magis aestiman-
dum est, post passionem Christi, et in Hebraeis, et in nostris
codicibus ab aliquo Dei momen appositum, ut infamiam
nobis inureret, qui in ligno Christum maledictum a Deo
credimus. But to omit the incredible supposition, that the
Jews should have falsified both the Hebrew and Greek text,
and the Samaritan copy should agree with them in that
falsation ; - t
First, The words in ºxov are no addition to the text,
Yy by being in the former verse, which saith, “You shall hang
him on a tree;” and #"rixarágaro; is in effect waráparo; 3rd
row &goj.
Secondly, The business of the apostle here is, to show
that Christ had redeemed us, #2 rā, Karáčac, “from the curse,
by being made a curse for us;” i.e. by suffering that death
the law in the sight of God, it is (farther) evident:
for (the prophet Habakkuk saith, ii. 4), "The just
shall live by faith.
12 And (now, or whereas) the law is not of faith :
but (saith), The man that doeth them (i. e. that per-
fectly observes what is required by the law) shall live
in (or by) them.
13 (This being so) Christ hath redeemed us from
the curse of the law, (by) being made (according to
the sentence of the law) a curse for us: for (there) it
is written, "Cursed is every one that hangeth on a
tree (as you know he did upon the cross :
14 And this he suffered,) that the blessing of Abra-
ham might come on the gentiles through (faith in)
which by the law was counted execrable: now to prove this,
it was sufficient to show, that by being hanged on the tree
Christ suffered that punishment which by the law was styled
execrable.
Thirdly, The Hebrew saith, Dºnbºn nºbn “accursed by
the judges,” is he that is hanged on a tree. Now these
judges being the ordinance of God, he that receives an
execrable sentence from them may be said to lie under the
curse of God, as receiving that execrable punishment, which
his vicegerents do inflict upon him, by the determinate coun-
sel of God ; in which sense Christ is said to be “smitten of
(that) God,” who made our sins to meet upon him (Isa.
liii. 4.6), and to be “delivered up for our offences;” and
he who suffers a death which the law styles accursed by the
p'nºx or magistrates, who are appointed to execute the
judgment of the Lord, may be said to undergo his curse.
'Ezrixarágaro; Träç, Cursed is every one..] When all were
obnoxious to the curse of the law, saith Theodoret, he un-
dertook that death which by the law was accursed, to free
us from the curse. To restrain the words, “He redeemed
us from the curse of the law,” to the Jews only, is in effect
to say, Christ only suffered for the Jews, seeing he only
suffered by hanging on the cross, the tree on which he did
expire. The gentiles were not indeed subject to the par-
ticular maledictions contained in the law of Moses, because
that law was not given to them, but only to the Jews: but
they were subject to that death, which was the general
punishment threatened to the violators of the law, and was
the curse denounced against Adam and his seed. And
since it was by virtue of Christ's hanging on the cross that
“the blessing of Abraham came upon the gentiles,” he must
have been thus made a curse for them also, and not for the
Jews only.
Now here seems to be a plain evidence that our Lord suf-
fered in our stead, by way of surrogation, the punishment
the law denounced against us for sin: for we were obnoxious
by the law to a curse; he, that he might redeem us from it,
did for our sakes, and in our stead, willingly submit himself
to that death which, by the sentence of the law, did render
any man accursed ; for “he bare our sins in his own body
on the tree.” Now the law expressly saith, “Cursed is every
one that hangeth on a tree;” and Crellius here is forced to
own a double commutation, both of the person suffering and
of the evils suffered; for whereas we ought to have suffered,
Christ, saith he, suffered for us; and whereas we ought to
have suffered a curse, Christ suffered a curse for us. But
then he adds, that we ought to have suffered a real curse,
Christ only suffered a curse improperly so called for us. The
curse threatened by the law to us was death eternal, the
curse Christ suffered for us was only temporal death. But,
First, If the curse threatened to us was only the curse of
the law, and Christ suffered the curse of the law, both which
things the apostle here affirms, what ground hath Crellius
to put these differences betwixt the curse Christ suffered,
and the curse threatened by the law? or does he not hereby
seem to make the apostle's argument Sophistical and uncon-
cluding 2
Secondly, The sins to which the curse is threatened,
Deut. xxvii., were either such to which God elsewhere
threatened death, or cutting off, or such as he required them
to abstain from. that they might live, and not die. Now,
seeing the Socinians so stiffly do contend that the life pro-
miscq to the observers of the law was only temporal, why
CHAPTER III.
731
Jesus Christ, that we (gentiles, believing in him) might
receive the promise of the Spirit "through faith;
(for we are all the sons of God through faith in Christ
Jesus ; and because we are sons, God hath sent forth
the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, iv. 5, 6.)
15 Brethren, I speak after the *manner of men;
(using an example taken from the common practice of
all men, and speaking what is owned in all civilized na-
tions : see note on 1 Cor. ix. 8.) Though it be but a
man’s covenant (that is made), yet if it be (legally)
confirmed, no man disannulleth (it), or addeth any-
thing thereto.
16 Now to Abraham and his * seed were the pro-
mises made. He (God) saith not, And to seeds, as
of many; but as (speaking) of one, And “to thy seed,
which is Christ. - -
17 And this I (farther) say, that the covenant,
****
should they say, that the death threatened to the violation
of it is eternal death 2 It is true, all death must be eternal
to them that cannot raise themselves, and have no promise
of a resurrection ; upon which two accounts our Saviour's
death was not eternal, because he had power to revive him-
self, and had a promise that “he should not see corrup-
tion;” but the death threatened by the law, in its own
nature, being only the separation of the soul and body, this
our Lord did as truly suffer, as they could do who should
never live again. -
The distinction, therefore, which the case requires, is only
that which results necessarily from the difference of the
person ; i. e. we should have suffered the curse of the law
for our own sins, and consequently should also have been
accursed in the sight of God. Christ actually suffered the
legal curse to obtain pardon for the sins of others, and there-
fore only was accursed in the eye of the law, and in the
sight of men; but being in his own person wholly innocent,
he could not be accursed in the sight of God: and thus it
is, and must be, in all vicarial sufferings, the person sinning,
and he that undertakes to suffer for him, are both guilty in
the eye of the law, and suffer the punishment the law re-
quires, but one of them alone is guilty in the sight of God.
Christ therefore was so made a curse, as he was “made sin
for us” (2 Cor. v. 20), not by contracting the guilt, but by
suffering the punishment of our sins, by being “numbered
with transgressors,” and condemned with them to the death
which the law styles “accursed.”
* Ver. 14. At& rā; widteac, Through faith..] It seems to
follow from these words, and from 2 Cor. ii. 7, 8, that the
ministration of the Spirit belonged not to the law, but to the
gospel, the law being rather the ministration of death: hence
the apostle here opposes to the eurse of the law, “the bless-
ing of Abraham, which,” saith he, “is the promise of the
Spirit through faith.”
* Ver. 15. “op, w; 3,926trov kexupogévny Staşâzny otºel; int-
8tatáozerai.] Here I would read dºwąg, which signifies āpºoiac,
similitèr, in like manner; in which sense aw; is plainly
used in these words, 30.0, rà & Luxa, and is translated, “in
like manner,” 1 Cor. xiv. 7.
*Wer. 16. At #trayyexial, The promises.] Made to Abraham,
Gen. xii. 3; and repeated, Gen. xxii. 18; and to Isaac,
Gen. xxvi. 4. -
...” Kai tº a résuari cov, And to thy seed, which is Christ.]
This interpretation is owned by the Jews,” who observe, that
“it is not written here, thy son, but thy seed; that is, the
King Messiah.” And, as Theodoret observes, the words are
capable of no other sense; for by Christ only was the pro-
mise fulfilled, and in him alone did the gentiles receive this
blessing. He, therefore, in whom alone this promise was
verified, must be the person of whom it was chiefly, if not
only, intended. And so Peter, assisted by the Holy Ghost,
interprets these words, saying, “You are the children of the
prophets, and of the covenant which God hath made to your
fathers, saying, And in thy seed shall all the families of the
earth be blessed: to you first, God having raised up his
child Jesus, sent him to bless you:” this child therefore is
which was confirmed before of God in Christ (i. e.
the covenant made in Christ the promised seed, and
confirmed by God to Abraham before the law was given),
the law, which was (given) "four hundred and thirty
years after, cannot disannul, (so) that it should make
the promise (be) of none effect (as it must have done,
were justification to be obtained by the law : for then
none could be blessed in and by the promised seed only,
or without the law). -
18 For if the inheritance (of the blessing promised
to Abraham) be (to be obtained by observance) of the
law, it is no more (the effect) of (the) promise: but
(that cannot be said, for) God gave it to Abraham by
promise. -
19 (But you will inquire,) Wherefore then serveth
the law? (I answer,) It was added (after the promise
made) * because of transgressions, until the seed
the seed. We need not the gloss of Mr. Clerc, that Paul
here argues “according to the allegorical interpretation of
that age ; but if it be considered in itself, it cannot be
thought of any force by those who have other sentiments,
because the Hebrew yºr is a collective name:” for this is
the very objection of R. Isaac, that great enemy of the
Christian faith, and is answered by the right reverend Bishop
of Bath and Wells, by showing that the Hebrew word is
used of one, Gen. iii. 15. iv. 25. xv. 3. xxxviii. 8, 9, and
that the Jews themselves so expound it (Demonstrat. of the
Messiah, par. ii. p. 256): nor his other corrupt gloss, that
“by Christ is meant Christ's disciples;” for is this sense, In
thy seed, i. e. in Christ's disciples, shall all the families of
the earth be blessed ? Is not this to ascribe that to Christ's
disciples which belongs to him alone; and to make them
the saviours of the world P And why does he say that
“nothing was promised to Christ,” when the apostle tells us,
that “in thee" and “in thy seed ” signifies Christ, who was
to be the blessing both of Jew and gentile 2 for though in-
deed the promise was to Abraham, the first subject of it was
Christ, which is all the apostle here intends.
* Ver. 17. Mer& Érn terpaxšarta wai relázov'ra, Four hun-
dred and thirty years after.] Hence it is evident, that the
apostle here refers primarily to the promise made, Gen. xii.
3; since from that only are the four hundred and thirty
years to be computed ; for then Abraham was seventy-five
years old (Gen. xii. 4); from thence to the birth of Isaac,
which happened when Abraham was a hundred years old
(Gen. xxi. 5), is five-and-twenty years; from his birth to the
birth of Jacob was sixty years; for Isaac was sixty years old
when Rebecca bare him (Gen. xxv. 26); from Jacob's birth
to his descent into Egypt was one hundred and thirty
years, as he saith to Pharaoh, Gen. xlvii. 9; the abode of
him and his posterity in Egypt was two hundred and fifteen
years; so that, with their sojourning in Canaan, was four
hundred and thirty years (Exod. xii. 40), according to the
Septuagint. , ,
* Ver. 19. Töv tragaſ3ázgow Xágiv, Because ºf transgres-
sions.] Maimonides,” in his More Nevochim, acknowledges,
that the ceremonial law was given for the extirpation of ido-
latry: “For (saith he) when God sent Moses to redeem his
people out of Egypt, it was the usual custom of the world,
and the worship in which all nations were bred up, to build
temples in honour of the sun, moon, and stars, and to offer
divers kinds of animals to them, and to have priests ap-
pointed for that end : therefore God, knowing it is beyond
the strength of human nature instantly to quit that which
it hath been long accustomed to, and so is powerfully in-
clined to, would not command that all that worship should
be abolished, and he should be worshipped only in spirit;
but that he only should be the object of this outward wor-
ship; that these temples and altars should be built to him
alone ; these sacrifices offered to him only, and these
priests should be consecrated to his service” (Exod. xx. 24.
xxv. 24. xxxiv. 14. Lev. i. 2. xxii. 19. And the like
is said by Cedrenusi of their festivals, separations, purga-
tions, oblations, decimations, that God enjoined them, that
* Moses Haddarsan ad Gen. xix. 34.
* Par, ii, cap. 32, p. 432, 433. ‘F Comp. Hist. p. 239.
732
GALATIANS.
should come to whom the promise was made; and it
was ordained (or delivered, not as the promise, imme-
diately by God himself to Abraham, but) by angels, (it
being the word spoken by angels, Heb. ii. 2, not as the
promise, without a mediator betwict God giving, and
Abraham receiving, but) in the hand of a mediator
(even Moses, who stood between them and the Lord at
that time, to show them the word of the Lord, Deut. v.
5, and ratify the covenant on the people’s part).
20 Now (but the promise required no mediator, for)
17 a mediator is not of one (party only), but God (who
made the promise to Abraham) is one (only).
21 Is the law then against the promises of God, (as
it must be, if it condemns them to whom the promise
doth assign a blessing? or is it against those promises
which say, The just shall live by faith, and the blessing
of Abraham shall come upon us by faith : as it must
be, provided we are to be justified not by faith, but by
the works of the law 8 but) God forbid (it should be
thought he had given a law which disannulled his pro-
mises ; as it must have done, had justification to life
depended on the observance of it); for if there had
been (such) a law given which could have given life,
verily righteousness (i.e. justification to life, Rom. v.
18) should have been by the law; (whereas it subject-
ing us to death, we may be sure God never did intend
it for that end.) - -
22 But the scripture hath concluded all (men of all
nations) under sin, (and so under condemnation by the
law moral and ceremonial, and sentenced not to life,
but death by it, and thereby shown the necessity) that
the promise (of justification) by faith of Jesus Christ
(the promised seed) might be given to them that be-
lieve (in him ; and thus the law is not contrary, but
subservient to the promises of living by faith).
23 But before faith came (to be revealed), we were
kept under (the discipline of) the law, * shut up unto
the faith which should afterward be revealed.
+?, troxv6 ov wrxāyn; incºrhawral, “being employed in doing
these things to the true God, they might abstain from ido-
latry.” And thus, saith Dr. Spencer, were they kept or
guarded under the discipline of the law, and shut up from
the idolatrous rites and customs of the heathen world, by
the strictness of these legal observations, and the penalties
denounced against the violators of them. And it is well
known that all the ancient fathers were of this opinion, that
God gave the Jews only the decalogue, till they had made
the golden calf, and that afterward he laid this yoke of cere-
monies upon them to restrain them from idolatry. Thus
when God first brought them out of Egypt, and commanded
them not to “defile themselves with the idols of Egypt”
(Ezek. xx. 7), he is said to have “given them his statutes,
and showed them his judgments, which if a man do he shall
live in them” (ver. 11). But, saith he, still their hearts
were after their fathers' idols, the Egyptian Apis, &c.
“Wherefore I gave them statutes which were not good, and
judgments whereby they should not live” (ver. 24, 25), that
is, that law of carnal commandments, which, Saith the apos-
tle, was abolished for “the weakness and unprofitableness of
it,” Heb. viii. 16. 18. And those words of Maimonides
give us a clear reason why these rituals were called by Paul
croixºſa rot adaptov, “the rudiments of the world,” Gal. vi.
3. Col. ii. 28, namely, because, for matter, they were the
same which heathens used before to their false gods. This
is a very ancient exposition, and is partly true, but it con-
taineth not the whole truth ; for the apostle, in the Epistle
to the Romans, which is the best expositor of this, informs.
us, that “the law entered, that sin might abound,” Rom. v.
20, i. e. that it might appear to abound unto death, that
“sin might appear sin, working death in us,” vii. 13, and
that “the law worketh wrath,” iv. 15. iii. 20, by giving us
the knowledge of that sin which deserveth it: and this
answers to that which the apostle here saith, that “the law
was added because of transgressions,” viz. to discover them
and their punishment; that “the scripture hath concluded
all men under sin,” viz. by virtue of the law ; that “as many
as are under the law are under the curse,” ver. 10, and that
upon these accounts, “the law is our schoolmaster, to bring
us to Christ, that we may be justified through faith in him,”
who are condemned by the law, ver. 24, “Christ being the
end of the law for justification to every one that believeth,”
Rom. x. 3.
17 Wer. 20. ‘o 33 geairnç.] Perhaps these words may
better be expounded thus:* “But this mediator (viz. Moses)
was only the mediator of the Jews ; and so was only media-
tor of one party, to whom belonged the blessing of Abraham,
ver. 8. 14, but God who made the promise, that in one
should all the families of the earth be blessed, is one,” the
God of the other party, the gentiles, as well as of the Jews,
* Aéyet roſvvy Sri Moorii, ºy #2eatreva's trpèc rºy 36-y rot,
z y * * * & g g nº ſº * * t * &
wáaov, &xx' #vi ºvoy #xeciravasy #Syst, 387 33 roy &; &An63;
pañxxovira (weatreſsly argī; rāv rāv &or:#yroy #8way Éva Os3y, oùx
trip #yā; 38wov; &AA’ trip révrov kown, rºy ºzeatrelay rotáazôat,
* * jº * * e tº
inetº, kai rārroy #975, 7, #3-ri Qiá;, Gennadius in locum.
and so as ready to justify the one as the other; Érsiorse eit #
Osęc, “seeing he is one God who will justify the circumcision
by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith” (Rom. iii.
30). To strengthen this exposition, let it be noted, that the
ancient Jews thought, that in those words, “The Lord thy
God is one God” (Deut. vi. 4), was contained this mystery,
that God should be owned and celebrated not by the Jews
only, but by the gentiles; that he should be the king over
all the earth, and in that day the Lord should be one, and
his name one. So Jarchius on these words, “The Lord our
God is one God,” says, “It is intimated that Jehovah, who
is now our God, and not the God of the gentiles, shall here-
after be one God, as it is written, Zeph. iii. 9, Then will I
turn to the nations the pure lip, that they may all call upon
the name of the Lord ; and Zech. xiv. 9, The Lord shall be
king over all the earth, and in that day shall the Lord be
one, and his name one” (see Campegius Vitringa de Synag.
Wet. lib. iii. par. ii. cap. 17, p. 1084, 1086).
Secondly, This exposition is confirmed from the place
parallel to this, Rom. iv. 14. 16 ; for as there it is argued,
that if oi in várzov xxn;ovágot, “they that are of the law be
heirs,” faith is made void, “and the promise is of no effect:”
so here he argues, ver. 18, that if #x yágov xxhéovoala, “the
inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise.” And
as there the apostle adds, ver. 16, that “therefore the inhe-
ritance is of faith, that the promise might be made firm to all
the seed ; not to that of the law only,” but to that part also
which becomes so by the faith of Abraham, “who is the
father of us all:” so here he must be supposed to argue, that
the inheritance could not be by the law delivered by Moses
to the Jews, as the mediator betwixt God and them, be-
cause he was not the mediator, travri rô a Trépºcati, “to all
the seed of Abraham,” but to that part of it only which was
of the law, that is, to the Jews only : or the words may be
paraphrased thus; “The promise, I say, was made to the
seed of Abraham, &c & p’ Evêc, “as of one,” wer. 16, § 38
&sairng, but this mediator, Moses, is not the mediator of
one (i.e. of that one seed, Christ, which was to bring the
blessing), but God (who made the promise, that in one seed
all the nations of the earth, whether Jew or gentile, should
be blessed) is one (and the same, always true to his word).”
So Dr. Allix.
18 Ver. 23. xvywezNetopºvci.] The apostle having said in
the foregoing verse, a wíkAttasy, “The scripture hath shut up
all, both Jew and gentile, under sin,” it seems most reason-
able to interpret the word here, of men shut up as prisoners,
condemned by the law to death, the punishment of sin, till
that faith came to be revealed, by which we obtain a happy
freedom from condemnation to death.
Or this may be spoken of the Jews, who only were under
the law, and were, by virtue of the peculiar observations it
required, an enclosed people, separated from communion
with all other nations, till the Messiah, the great object of
their faith, should be revealed.
And having thus explained the apostle's argument, it
seemeth necessary a little to consider what Mr. Clerc here
offers in his notes upon this chapter, from ver, 10 to the end,
CHAPTER III.
733
24 "Wherefore the law was (then) our schoolmas-
ter to bring us to Christ (and cause us, thus condemned
by the law, to fly to him who is the end of the law for !
| righteousness, Rom. x. 3), that we might be justified
by faith (in him).
25 But (now), after that faith is come, we are no
1. Therefore when he says, “It was very difficult indeed
to observe all the rites of Moses, yet he supposes his law
might be observed, and that it did not require a degree of
holiness above human strength:” I answer, with the dis-
tinction mentioned note on ver. 24, This is all true as to
such a sincere performance of it as God would accept
of ; but it is not true as to the most exact, perfect, and
unsinning observation of it in the highest import of the
words.
Obj. But doth then God command what is impossible 2
Is it not absurd to make laws that cannot be kept, and to
punish men for what they cannot do?
Ans. God never commands what is naturally impossible,
and which when we offend against; we can justly plead, that
had we used our utmost strength and diligence, we could
, lot have avoided the doing what was forbid, or leaving un-
done what was commanded ; for of what is so impossible no
man can rationally repent, nor can his conscience condemn
him for it; but he may require what, through the weakness
of the flesh, is morally impossible to be always done or
avoided ; v. g. an infinitely holy God cannot but command
that we should not sin against him, “sin being a transgres-
sion of the law :” but though there be no particular sin of
which we can truly say, it is impossible we should have
avoided it ; yet, through the infirmity of human nature, we
have too much cause to say that it is morally impossible we
should live without or always be free from sin.
Secondly, When he says, “The laws of Moses are not so
severe as not to pardon the least sin, God having instituted
sacrifices for some sins:” this also I grant, according to the
distinction mentioned, viz. that God for the sake of those
sacrifices cleansed them from ceremonial defilements, and
freed them from the civil and ecclesiastical punishments
which by the law of Moses they would have been subject to,
mad no such sacrifice been offered for them. God also fully
pardoned the sins of the upright Jews, and freed them from
the punishments of the other life, but not by virtue of “the
blood of bulls and goats,” for the reasons there alleged, but
by virtue of their faith in the Messiah, owned by them to be
“the Messiah their righteousness.”
Thirdly, When he says that “the Jews in Paul's time had
got quite another notion of it than the law of Moses, as it is
set down in the Pentateuch, had, and boasted it to be the
most complete and perfect pattern of sanctity imaginable ;
as appears by several places in Josephus, and particularly
in his books against Apio :”
Ans. I answer, that neither is Josephus in this matter of
much credit ; neither saith he more than Moses had said
before him in these words, “What nation is there so great,
that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all the law
which I set before you this day 2” Deut. iv. 8, and much less
than David, when he saith, “The law of the Lord is per-
fect,” Ps. xix. 8. Besides, our Saviour seems to give us a
contrary account of this matter, in his sermon on the mount,
where though it be disputed whether he added to the law
itself, yet no man questions but that he added to the gross
senses the Jews had then of it, and had upon it.
Fourthly, When he adds, that “the rabbins used (as ap-
pears by the version of the Septuagint and the citations of
St. Paul in this place) to interpret Deut. xxvii. 26 as if the
meaning of Moses was there, that God required of them the
most perfect holiness, which if they did not perform, they
must expect to be cursed by him ; but in reality all that
Moses says, is only, that the people were to curse him that
did not confirm the words of the law to do them.”
Ans. In all this there is scarce one word of truth: for,
(1) the rabbins were so far from expounding this, or any
other text of Moses, in so high a sense, that they thought it
sufficient to exempt them from God’s curse, that they were
“of the seed of Abraham,” and had him “for their father”
(Matt. iii. 8, 9), that they should be accepted for “the merit
of circumcision,” and that it was enough to be “hearers of
the law, though they were not doers of it” (James i. 22),
and that the observation of some precepts of the law would
excuse their neglect of the rest (see note on Rom. ii. 13, and
James ii. 10, 1}, and the note there).
(2.) Whereas he saith, “This appears by the version of
the Septuagint:" if that way of arguing be of any force, then
the contrary appears from the Targum of Onkelos, and
B. Uziel, who have added nothing to the words. Moreover,
what hath the Septuagint here added, which is not necessa-
rily contained in the sense of the words, as they lie in the
Hebrew 2 For (1.) whereas they add, Trä, äv6pwrog, “every
man;” do not all interpreters add “he,” and is not that the
same in sense P Ought not every man, who committed the
sins against which any of these curses were denounced, to
think himself subject to these curses? (2.) Whereas they
add Év Träori to the Hebrew, doth not the context plainly
lead them to that addition ? when it saith, wer. 3, 8, “Thou
shalt write, ºn 195, all the words of this law,” were not the
Jews obliged to do all the words of the law, i. e. all things
commanded by the law of Moses? Deut. xix. 9. Yea, are
not the blessings in the next chapter promised to them only
who “observe to do all the commandments,” ver. 1, and
the curses denounced against them who “do not observe to
de all his commandments and statutes ?” ver, 15. Doth not
the Holy Ghost, assisting the sacred penman, warrant this
addition in other places 2 “See that thou make according
to the pattern,” say the Hebrew and the Septuagint, Exod.
xxv. 43, “See that thou make ºrávra, all things according to
the pattern,” saith Paul, Heb. viii. 5. “At the mouth of
two or three witnesses shall a word be established,” saith the
Hebrew: a raśāzerai rāv Āga, “shall every word be esta-
blished,” say the Septuagint and Paul. Nor’ (3.) hath
Paul added anything to the sense of the words; for all
the words of the law being written by Moses in the book
of the law, it is plainly the same thing to say, “all the
words of the law,” and “all the words written in the book of
the law.”
(4.) When he saith, “Doubtless St. Paul would never
have altered anything in the words of Moses, nor followed
the Septuagint at all, but rendered the Hebrew himself ex-
actly, if he had reasoned from the bare authority of the
prophet, and not from the opinion of the Jews:” I an-
swer, -
First, That he casts the vilest imputation on St. Paul, by
saying here, that he argues only upon the false supposition
of the Jews: for St. Paul lays down this general proposition,
“As many as are under the law are under the curse :”
“This is false,” saith Mr. Clerc.: “for in reality all that
Moses says is only, that the people were to curse him that
did not confirm the words of the law to do them.” It is so,
saith St. Paul, yśyearral yáp, “for it is written :” By your
good leave, St. Paul, you are out again, there is no such
thing; but you are guilty of adding to the word of God; if
you understand yourself, you do not, and if you understand
the words of Moses, you cannot in this argument depend
upon what is written, but only on the false and rotten no-
tion of the Jews touching these words: so Le Clerc.
Secondly, Through the sides of Paul here he wounds our
blessed Saviour, and all the sacred penmen: for if it be
true of Paul, it must be also true of them, that if they had
reasoned from the bare authority of the prophets, and no:
from the opinion of the Jews (not grounded on the true
sense of the prophets), they would have rendered the He-
brew exactly, and never have altered anything in the words
of Moses, nor followed the Septuagint at all ; which, seeing
ocular demonstration shows, that both our Lord and his
apostles have often done, “you must not think,” saith Mr.
Clerc, “that they have given us the true sense of the pro-
phets,” but only some corrupt opinions which the Jews had
of them. And let Mr. Clerc say as dogmatically as he
pleases, that “it is common with St. Paul to cite the Old
Testament,” so as it was usually alleged by the doctors of
the Jews, whom they call nºw-T, that is to say, “with little
regard to the circumstances of the place, or the proper signi-
fication of the words, and to argue from them so alleged,”
I cannot but look upon it as a very bad suggestion.
* Ver. 24.] Note, for the right explication of these words
from ver, 21 to this verse,
First, That it cannot be denied that good and holy men
under the law were justificd, and obtained the pardon of
734
GALATIANS.
longer under a schoolmaster (being no longer children
in minority, Rom. vii. 3).
26 For ye are all the (adult) * children of God
(and so heirs of God) by faith in Christ Jesus.
27 For as many of you as have (believed in Christ,
and upon that faith have) been baptized into Christ,
have put on Christ, (and so are become sons of God;
for to as many as believed in him he gave power to be
the sons of God, John i. 12.)
their sins; since otherwise they could not be accepted by
God here, or saved hereafter.
Secondly, It also seemeth evident from the discourse of
the apostle in this and the Epistle to the Romans, that they
could not be justified by the observance of the law ; for he
lays down this as the foundation of his discourse, that “by
the works of the law no man is justified,” Rom. iii. 20, and
“no flesh shall be justified,” Gal. ii. 16. The proofs he
offers to confirm this position do equally concern all times
and persons, from the giving of the law to the revealing of
the gospel: as, v. g. (1.) Because “by the law is the know-
jedge of sin,” condemning us to death, Rom. iii. 20. vii.
9–11. 13. Gal. iii. 22. (2.) “Because the just,” saith the
prophet Habakkuk, “shall live by his faith,” Rom. i. 17 ;
whereas “the law is not of faith ;” whence he infers, that
“no man is justified in the sight of God by the works of the
law,” Gal. iii. 11. (3.) Because “as many as are under
the law are under the curse,” ver. 10. (4.) Because it was
impossible, through the weakness of the flesh, that the law
should justify (Rom. viii. 3), or that it should give life (Gal.
iii. 21), and so it never was designed for that end. It had
indeed its expiatory sacrifices, but they procured only par-
don of that guilt which rendered them obnoxious to the
violent death threatened by the law to such and such offend-
ers, but gave no remedy against natural death, by the pro-
mise of a resurrection to eternal life, and so exempted no
man from the punishment of Adam's sin; or they only re-
leased offenders from the obligation to civil and ecclesiasti-
cal punishments, but could not free them from the punish-
ment of the other life: for the apostle assures us, that “the
blood of bulls and goats could not take away sin,” Heb. x.
4, and that they did only “sanctify to the purifying of the
flesh,” Heb. vii. 13 (see the note there). -
Now, Thirdly, Hence it follows, that they also must be
justified by faith from all those sins from which they could
not be justified by the law of Moses (Acts xiii. 39).
Obj. But are not the Jews styled “righteous before
God,” by virtue of their obedience to the law of Moses 2
As in these words of David, “The Lord rewarded me ac-
cording to my righteousness ; for I have kept the ways of
the Lord, and have not wickedly departed from my God;
for all his judgments were before me, and I did not put
away his statutes from me: I was also upright before him,
and kept myself from mine iniquity, therefore hath the
Lord recompensed me according to my righteousness,” Ps.
xviii. 20–24. Is it not said of Zacharias and Elizabeth,
that “they were both righteous before God, walking in all
the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless P”
Luke i. 6. Yea, doth not our apostle say, “Not the hearers
of the law are binato, just before God, but the doers of the
law Bizaw8ázov'rat, shall be justified ?” Rom. ii. 13.
Ans. Now to this I answer, That there is a double justi-
fication of which the scripture speaks: (1) that which con-
sists in the absolution of a sinner from the guilt of sin, by
God’s free pardon or remission of it, or his not imputing it
to the sinner. And thus no man is or can be justified by
the law, either ceremonial or moral, since neither of them
does contain any promise of the pardon of it. Now all men
being sinners, this justification must be necessary to all men,
to put and keep them in a state of favour with God. And
this is that justification which Paul ascribes to faith, and
which, saith he, could never be obtained from the works of
the law. But, .
(2.) There is a justification to be undergone by all men
at the great day of their accounts; and this is only the pro-
nouncing them sincere in the performance of their covenants,
legal or evangelical, or in compliance with the laws of na-.
ture, Moses, or of grace, the providence of God had placed
28 There is (under the gospel dispensation) neither
(distinction made of) Jew nor Greek, there is neither
(of) bond nor free, there is neither (of) male nor fe-
male (as under the Jewish economy, the male only bear-
ing the sign of the covenant); for ye are all one (as to
the privileges of the gospel) in Christ Jesus. . .
29 And if ye be Christ's, then are ye (indeed)
Abraham’s seed (not from Ishmael, but Isaac), and
(therefore) heirs “according to the promise.
them under; and in this sense we find mention of men
“working righteousness” under the law of nature, Job. i. 1.
Acts x. 35, under the law of Moses, Ps. xviii. 20. 24. Luke
i. 6, and under the law of grace, 1 John iii. 7. Rev. xxii. 11.
And thus all pious persons, who made it their sincere en-
deavour to obey the law of Moses, were righteous before
God; though still the imperfections which cleaved to their
obedience were pardoned through faith. To explain this,
note,
First, That the whole nation of the Jews believed in the
promised Messiah, or the Messiah that was to come, and
that in the seed of Abraham should all the families of the
earth be blessed; this being one of their fundamental articles.
Secondly, They believed that this Messiah should confer
upon them not only temporal, but spiritual, yea, eternal
blessings; they expected spiritual blessings from him, even
remission of sins. So Zacharias speaks of the Baptist, that
“he should go before the Lord to prepare his way, to give
knowledge to his people of salvation through the remission
of sins,” Luke i. 76, 77. “To him,” saith Peter, “give all
the prophets witness, that through his name all that believe
in him should receive remission of sins,” Acts x.43. So the
Jews say, that the Messias” was to remove ºn ynn, “the
general sin of mankind,” or “the sin of the first man.” 2.
They expected by him justification, he being styled by the
prophet, “the Lord our righteousness,” and by the Jews,
hypºgrºwn, “Messiah our justification.” Now this, say the
ancient fathers, might be a justifying faith in them, without
explicitly believing that Christ should die for their sins;
though we have no reason to think, that they who were so
plainly taught this by the prophet Isaiah, by the type of
Isaac, the lifting up of the serpent, and by their sacrifices,
should be wholly ignorant of it.
20 Wer. 26. Yiol Osoſ, Šiš rāg triarsoº, The sons of God,
through faith..] Hence, saith the antipaedobaptist, it ap-
pears, that infants cannot be made the sons of God by bap-
tism, because we are all made the sons of God “by faith in
Christ Jesus:” now infants have no faith. Ans. They might
as well argue thus: “By grace you are saved, through
faith,” Eph. ii. 7, but infants have no faith, therefore they
cannot be saved. Or thus: “He that believeth not shall
be damned,” Mark xvi. 16, no infants do believe, ergo, all
infants shall be damned. The apostle plainly speaks here
of persons converted from heathenism to Christianity, who
were therefore baptized, being adult persons, as he doth in
the Gospel of Mark and the Epistle to the Ephesians.
This place can therefore with no more reason be applied to
the case of infants, than the places cited from Mark and
that epistle (see the preface to this epistle). .**
* Wer. 29. Kar' #rayyexiay wangováºzoi, Heirs according to
the promise.] It is to be observed, for the explication of
many places in these epistles, that there is frequent mention
in the New Testament of the promises in the plural number;
to the Israelites “belong the promises,” Rom. viii. 4, “Je-
sus Christ was a minister of the circumcision to confirm the
promises,” Rom. xv. 8; “To Abraham and his seed were
the promises made,” Gal. iii. 16; and, ver. 21, “Is the law
then against the promises 2 These all died in faith, not
having received the promises,” Heb. xi. 13. 17, and, ver.
39, “They all having obtained a good report through faith,
received not the promises.”
Now there is mention made in the New Testament of
three sorts of promises: + -
First, The promise of a seed, “in which all the families
of the earth shall be blessed,” viz. in Christ, Acts iii. 25.
* Voisin de Leg. Div. lib. i. cap. 8, p. 6 66–68.
CHAPTER IV.
735
xii. 23. 33. xxvi. 6. Rom. iv. 13, 14. 20. ix. 9. Gal. iii. 21,
22 (see the note there). . . .
Secondly, The promise of the Holy Spirit, in his extraor-
dinary gifts and operations, Acts ii. 33.39, by which believ-
ers were then “sealed up to the day of redemption,” Eph.
i. 13, and this is called “the promise of the Father,” Luke
xxiv. 49. Acts i. 4. And this promise was not immediately
made to Abraham, but was the consequent of the blessing
which God had promised to his seed; “the blessing of Abra-
ham” being first to come upon the gentiles, that they might
receive the promise of the Spirit, i. e. that being made “the
sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus,” the seed pro-
mised, “God might send the Spirit of his Son into their
hearts, crying, Abba, Father,” iv. 6. - -
Thirdly, The promise of a future rest, and an eternal in-
heritance ; there being “a promise made of entering into
rest,” Heb. iv. 3. 9 (see the note there), peculiar to believ-
ers, and to the people of God, after the rest which God had
given them in Canaan, and a promise of “an eternal inherit-
ance,” Heb. ix. 15. x. 36. For that the patriarchs did by
faith expect “a city having foundations, whose builder and
maker was God,” and “a heavenly country,” we learn from
Heb. xi. 9. 14, 15; yea, they expected to obtain “a better
resurrection,” ver, 35, viz. by virtue of their Messiah, this
being their common saying, “The Messiah shall raise up
those that sleep in the dust ;”* and one of their fundamen-
* Maim. Expl. cap. 10. Tract. Sanhed. p. 136. Pocock,
not. p. 109, 110.
tal articles is this, That the Messiah will come, Nnºx bºnn,
“and will raise the dead,” and bring them into paradise.
This faith generally obtained among them before our Sa-
viour's advent, as we learn, not only from the book of the
: Maccabees, but from Paul's plain words, Acts xxiv. 15.
xxvi. 7, 8. If you inquire, where any such promise was
made to Abraham or others, I answer, That such a pro-
mise was made to him and to the patriarchs, we are assured
from this, that they by faith expected such things, all faith
being built upon a promise; this promise therefore might be
made to Abraham, Gen. xvii. 7, where God saith, “I will
establish my covenant betwixt thee and thy seed after thee,
in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be thy
God, and the God of thy seed after thee;” for that to be
“ the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” is to be the God
that will raise them up from the dead, we learn from our
Saviour's argument, Matt. xxii. 32 (see the note there), and
that he therefore was “called their God, because he had
prepared for them a city,” from Heb. xi. 15. And in re-
ference to this future recompence it is that the apostle saith,
“These all died in faith, not having received the promise,
God having provided some better thing for us, that they
without us should not be made perfect,” Heb. xi. 39, 40
(see the note there); now this seems to be the promise
mentioned here, of which Christians are said to be the heirs,
they “being heirs of God, joint-heirs with Christ,” Rom.
viii. 15. Gal. iv. 7.
CHAPTER IV.
1 Now say (to show how you, who are heirs of the
promises, should be kept in bondage under a schoolmas-
ter, iii. 23. 25), That the heir, as long as he is a
child, differeth nothing (as to the possession and free
wse of his estate) from a servant, though he be (by
right of inheritance) lord of all (his father left);
2 But is under tutors and governors until the time
appointed by the father (in his last will and testament).
3 Even so we (the seed of Abraham), when we were
children (as till faith came we were), were in bondage
under the elements of the world (as servants were of
old to their masters): -
4 But when the fulness of the time (appointed for
the appearance of the Messiah for the benefit of the
Jew and gentile, that they might be made sons by him, )
was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman,
made under (subjection to) the law,
5 To redeem them that were under the law (from
the bondage of it), that we (together with them) might
receive the adoption of sons.
6 And because ye are (now made) sons (of God by
faith, iii. 25), God hath sent forth the Spirit of his
Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father (i. e. wit-
nessing to your spirits that ye are the sons of God,
and that he is your Father, Rom. viii. 15, 16, and ena-
bling you to use the language, not of servants, but of
Sons).
7 Wherefore thou art (after this redemption wrought)
no more a servant, *but a son; and if a son, then an
heir of God through Christ. s
8 (I say, thou art no more a servant, ) howbeit then,
when ye knew not God, *ye did service “to them
which by nature are no gods. -
9 But now, after that ye have known God, or
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV.
* Wer. 3. Xºroixºſa toû widºwow, The elements of the worid.]
i. e. The Jewish rites so called ; because, as was observed,
iii. 19, they were for matter mostly the same which had be-
fore obtained in the world, only they were directed to a better
object and a better end.
* Ver. 7. 'AAA' við;, But a son.] That the notion of adop-
tion includes a state of immortality ; and that the sons of
God were to be “sons of the resurrection,” I have shown
upon the parallel place, Rom. viii. 16—23, and that the
Jews were not ignorant of this import of the phrase, we
learn from the author of the Book of Wisdom (ii. 12),
who introduces the wicked atheists speaking thus, “Let us
lay in wait for the righteous, for he calleth himself a child of
God. He maketh his boast that God is his Father. Let us
see if his works be true for if the just man be the Son of
God, he will help him. Let us condemn him to a shame-
ful death, for by his own saying he shall be respected. Thus,”
saith he, “were they deceived, neither hoped they for the
wages of righteousness, nor discerned a reward for blameless
souls. For God created man to be immortal, and made him
an image of his own eternity. The souls of the righteous
are in the hands of God, and their hope is full of immor-
tality. Having been a little chastised, they shall be greatly
rewarded ; for God tried them, and found them worthy of
himself.” And ch. v. he introduced the same wicked per-
sons, saying, “We fools counted his life madness, and his
end to be without honour ; how is he numbered among the
children of God, and his lot is among the saints l’’ where,
1. The righteous are represented as “the sons” and
“children of God:” and it is farther said,
2. That as such they are to be rewarded in their souls,
which are to be received “into the hands of God,” and to be
at rest: and in their bodies, which are to be immortal.
3. That, at the day of recompence, they shall “stand in
great boldness,” and shall, as being “the sons of God,”
have their “lot and portion with the saints,” #y &yiotç 3 xxico;
aúroö, that is, he shall be 3 xxºpovágos, “an heir "with the
Saints.
* Ver. 8. 'E8ovaeſarars, Ye did service.] Hence we learn
how frivolous is the distinction of the papists, that latria is
indeed service proper to God, but dulia is such worship as
may be paid to saints and angels; for seeing saints and an-
gels are by nature no gods, the giving dulia to them must be
the thing condemned here in the heathens, that being only
this, that they did 3ovaeściw, “give dulia to them which by
nature were no gods.”
* Tcf, tº pöce, otori Seois, To them which are not gods by
nature.] Hence we learn the consequence of the Socinian
786
GALATIANS.
rather are known of God (being made his sons by
adoption), how (after this freedom purchased by Christ)
turn ye" again to the weak and beggarly elements (of
the law), whereunto you desire again to be in bondage.
10 (For) ye observe (the Jewish sabbath) * days,
and months (the new moons), and times (of their so-
'emn festivals), and (sabbatical) years.
*
11 * I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed on
you labour in vain (in preaching the gospel to you).
12 Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am; for “I am
as ye are: ye have not injured me at all. -
13 Ye know how (that) through infirmity of the
flesh I preached the gospel to you at the first.
14 And (notwithstanding) "my temptation which
hypothesis, that Jesus Christ is not by nature God, and yet
is to be honoured with the same worship, which all Chris-
tians give to him who is by nature God, seeing it teacheth
*Is to do what Paul here condemneth in the very heathens:
and surely it must be absurd to make that an article of
Christian faith, and a part of Christian worship, which the
apostle here makes a great crime of the heathen world, and
a certain evidence of their ignorance of the true God. That
*he Socinians cannot answer this objection, appears from
what they here return to it; viz. that “‘gods by nature' is
not here opposed to “gods by grace,” or to those who have
received their divinity from the one true God ; for to serve
and worship such a God, by reason of the empire which he
hath received from God, is not profane and wicked, but
pious and necessary.” Now in answer to this, I say,
First, That it is very evident from the text, that those
who “are not gods by nature,” are opposed to him who is
God by nature; viz. to him whom the heathens knew not,
and to him whom the Galatians, being Christians, knew,
and by whom they were known. Since then the Socinians'
“God by grace’ is not a “God by nature ;” since he is not
the God intended in these words, “Ye knew not God:” he
must be ranked among those who are here opposed to him.
Secondly, I have elsewhere shown, that the heathens had
the very same sentiments with the Socinians, as to the wor-
ship of their inferior deities ; and it is wonderful to see how
they concur in sense, and almost in words.
..SOCINIANI.
1. Qui divinitatem habet ab illo uno Deo acceptam. Crell.
2. Christum pro ratione imperii, quod a Deo accepit, colen-
dum sentiumt. Crell.
3. Eum sic colere pium et necessarium est. Crell. Christi
W. honor et adoratio spectat ad gloriam Dei patris.
ODI. -
ETHNICI.
. Dii minores ab uno illo facti, et sublimitër collocati.
Apud August. de Civ. Dei, lib. iv. cap. 1.
2. Todrow owy, röv #xeſ&sy #ovzia; rituxnzóra, ob Separeds 3-
waiw; 3 oré8wy roy Geów ; Cels, apud Orig. lib. vii. p. 377.
Tây Separedovra Seoi, ºratiovac rā Āv ri rāv roi; ºtyáxov
Stearsūgīv pixoy Rai #y rošta, ixtivº Troisſy. Cels, ibid. lib.
viii. p. 381.
|
3.
Indeed, there is scarce any plea they use for the worship
of Jesus Christ, as a “made God,” which was not before
used by the philosophers + for the worship of their inferior
deities. -
Secondly, Hence also it appears to be a mistake, to say
that the Galatians, to whom the apostle here writes, before
they received the gospel, were, as to the greatest part of
them, proselytes of the gate, or also of righteousness; see-
ing it is plain that they were heathens, not knowing the true
God, but serving them which “by nature were no gods,” iv.
8, 9, and by the gospel were to be delivered #x roi, Hyearāro;
ałºwoc Troyngotſ, “from the present evil age,” i. 4, from which
they who were made proselytes of the gate, and worshipped
the true God, were in a great measure delivered. Thirdly,
The great endeavour of the Judaizers that crept in among
them, was to persuade them to be circumcised (Gal. v. 2. vi.
12); whereas all the proselytes of righteousness, all the gen-
tiles which had before been subject to the Jewish rites, must
* Natură dii non opponuntur diis ex gratiâ, qui divinita-
tem habent ab illo uno Deo acceptam ; tali enim Deo, pro
ratione imperii quod & Deo accepit, servire, eumque colere,
non est profanum et impium, sed pium et necessarium.
Crellius in locum. a
+ Wide Tract. de Verá Christi Deitate,
to these elements.”
be circumcised when they were admitted to be proselytes of
righteousness, they being made such by circumcision, and a
promise of obedience to the law of Moses.
Obj. It is the Jewish law which is styled “the elements
of the world, to which they were in bondage,” iv. 3.
Ans. The Jewish law is indeed so called, but it was for
this reason, that it was made up of ceremonies, which for the
matter were the same with those which had been used by
other nations of the world, the object of them only being
changed (see the note on iii. 19); and they are nowhere
called the “elements of piety,” as Mr. Clerc supposes.
* Ver. 9. IIáxivitri rā āa śiyā wai ºrro.2:3 croixsſa, Again to
the weak and beggarly elements.] Here interpreters find great
difficulty to show how the Galatians, who were never under
the law, can be said to be “again,” and “anew, in bondage
But the observation made on iii. 19,
that the rites of the Jews and heathens were for the matter
mostly the same, removes that difficulty; and shows that
they are said to return to these elements, not because they
before observed the Jewish ceremonies, but because the ce-
remonies of the law, being for the matter mostly the same
with those the gentiles used to their heathen deities, by re-
turning to them, they returned to those elements. These
rites are also weak and beggarly elements in comparison of
the riches of the Holy Ghost, and the power of the Holy
Ghost; they are weak, as having no power to cleanse the
soul; and beggarly, as not being able to confer upon us the
spiritual riches of the gospel, pardon of sins, adoption, the
gifts and graces of the Spirit, eternal redemption.
* Ver. 10. "Hºga; zai ºvac, Days and months.] That
this verse is to be interpreted of the Jewish solemn times,
and the festivals observed by them, as far as they could be
observed out of Judea, the whole drift of this epistle shows,
which is to bring off the Galatians from thinking they were
obliged to observe the rites and ceremonies of the law : for
that the Jews did Bootášew, “keep their feasts” in Egypt and
Alexandria, and wherever they were settled among the
heathens, we learn from Philo,” in his oration against
Flaccus; that they were very numerous in Asia Minor, of
which Galatia was a part, see the note on James i. 1, that in
those places where they dwelt, they had converted a great
many to the Jewish worship, and made them as it were a
part of themselves, Josephus testifies (see note on 1 Pet.
i. 1); and if it were so at Galatia, this might make them so
ready to relapse to their old Jewish rites.
* Ver, 11. 9080ipal iaſic, I am afraid of you..] As well
he might; for by this practice they must revolt again from
Christ to the Jewish synagogues: for it belonged only to
their great Sanhedrin, F or to the doctors of the law, to state
the certain times of their new moons and other festivals; so
that for the due observation of them they must entirely de-
pend upon the Jewish Sanhedrin.
* Ver, 12. "ort Rºyā, &c tºeſ, I am as you are.] That is,
say the fathers, I was once zealous for the law as you are ;
but now I live as do the gentiles, and not as do the Jews ;
do you who are not Jews, but gentiles, live in like manner,
as men exempted from the law : but this exposition seems
not to cohere with these words, “Ye have not injured me at
all.” They may therefore be thus interpreted: Brethren, be
still as affectionate to me as I am to you, and count me not
your enemy, because I tell you the truth ; for I am still as
affectionate to you as ever you were to me (ver. 14). I do
not look upon you as persons who have done anything with
an intent to injure me; and though your false teachers have
done you this injury, by their pernicious doctrines, yet have
they not prevailed on you to speak evil of me, or act injuri-
ously towards me.
* Ver. 14. Ty regarpºv gov rá, iv tº cagxi, My tempta-
• P. 760, A, B.
* Mechilta Parasch.
CHAP'I'E.R. J. V.
737
was in my flesh ye despised (me) not, nor rejected
(me); but received me (rather) as an angel of God,
even as Christ Jesus (thinking yourselves very happy
in having such an apostle).
15 Where is then the blessedness ye spake of (in
having me for your apostle, who taught you no such
thing as this, that you were to be justified by the ob-
servance of the law) 8 for I bear you record, (you had
once such a great affection to me,) that, if it had been
possible, you would have plucked out your own eyes,
and have given them to me.
16 (And after this) am I therefore become your
enemy (or looked upon as such), because I tell you the
truth 2
17 They (who seduce you, do indeed) zealously af-
fect you, but not well (and in a due manner); yea,
tion which was in the flesh.] It is the opinion of the Greek
commentators, and of the reverend Dr. Hammond, that the
&Séveta rā; capºc, “the infirmity of the flesh,” ver. 13, and
“the temptation in the flesh,” here, only signify the persecu-
tions the apostle suffered for preaching the gospel ; but that
this cannot be the full import of the words, is evident from
these considerations: (1.) That the persecutions which he
suffered for the cause of Christ could administer no reason
to the Galatians, ÉovSeyāoral kai čkºrriety, “to condemn,
vilify, despise” him as nothing, and even to “spit upon him,”
who preached the gospel with such great demonstration of
the Spirit, and such power of miracles under all his persecu-
tions. Moreover, the apostle, in the Epistles to the Co-
rinthians, represents these sufferings as a vindication of the
truth of his apostleship ; yea, as an argument of the “life
and power of that Jesus” who did such mighty things by his
apostles under all their sufferings, and as that which should
create the greater respect to him ; and gives them a large
catalogue of them, confirming it with an oath, 2 Cor. xi. 31;
which shows, that though he sometimes feared the greatmess
of his tribulations might make them faint, or shake them who
were taught that they must also be partakers of the like suf-
ferings ; yet did he not conceive himself more contemptible
or vile in his own person for his persecutions; and therefore,
as he mentions this to the Thessalonians as a proof of his sin-
cerity, that “having before suffered, and been shamefully en-
treated at Philippi, he was still bold to preach the gospel to
them,” 1 Thess. ii. 2; as he mentions his sufferings to the
Ephesians, as “their glory,” iii. 13, so here he declares to
his Galatians, that he still suffered persecution ; and he con-
cludes his epistle thus, “From henceforth let no man trouble
me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus,”
Gal. v. 11, insinuating that these sufferings were so far from
giving any person a just reason to despise him, that they
were rather an inducement to a more honourable treatment
of him.
Secondly, Though 32.8%wsia and reguºpº, “infirmity" and
“temptation,” absolutely put, do sometimes signify afflictions
or persecutions; yet do we never elsewhere read that &a Sé-
vita capköz, Treigaaºs v caeni, a xào. v c agxi, an “infirmity,
temptation, or thorn in the flesh,” is used in that sense. Nor
was it only the sufferings he endured in his body, but the
very presence of his body, which was weak: see note on 2
Cor. xii. 7–9. Having therefore in that place proved, that
besides his persecutions, he had a weakness and imperfec-
tion in his body; which rendered both his person and his
speech contemptible, I think it reasonable to refer these
words to it.
Ver. 18. 'E, waxš.] It is thought, that by this expression
Paul means himself; but it seems not reasonable to think
that he would call himself “a good man,” when he was
speaking to them who had so bad an opinion of him ; but he
might Say this of his doctrine, nor will the Greek bear the
other sense.
* Ver. 20. 'AAx4%al rºw povăv.] To temper my voice to
you, as your affairs require ; lamenting the fall of Some, and
striving to recover them, and commending the stedfastness
of others in the faith. w
* Ver. 21. Tóy yépcow oix &zoſers ; Do not you hear the
law 7) i. e. Do not you, Christians, to whom the law and the
prophets are read every Lord's-day, and which you have the
they would exclude us (from your affections), that you
might affect them (only). . A
18 But it is good (for you) to be zealously affected
always in a good thing (as your affection to me, and
to the truth I preached, is ), and not only when I am
present with you. -
19 My little children, of whom I travail in birth
again (to renew you in the faith from whence ye are
fallen) till Christ be (fully) formed in you (as the
child is in the womb),
20 I desire to be present with you now, and to
* change my voice; for I stand in doubt of you.
21 * Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law,
do ye not hear (what is contained in the Pentateuch,
the book of) the law
22 For it is (there) written, that Abraham had two
liberty to read at all times, hear what the law speaks 2
Here, saith Mr. Clerc, “it is to be noted, that St. Paul
argues from Some received midrash vulgarly known ; for if
that allegory whereof he here speaks had not been before
heard of, he would have had no reason to wonder that the
Galatians had never collected any such thing from the story
which he refers to.” tº
Ans. 1. To this I answer, That no such interpretation of
this passage was vulgarly known among the Jews, is appa-
rent from the silence of all the Jewish paraphrasters upon
the place, and of all those interpreters who have conversed
most in the writings of the Jewish rabbins; and yet produce
not the least hint of any such thing, nor can Mr. Clerc do it.
It is true indeed that the Jews had this canon, that proles
sequitur matrem, and so allowed that the offspring of a bond-
woman must be born in bondage, the offspring of a freewo-
man must be free ; but it is not true that they ever deemed
Agar the representative of those under the first or legal
covenant, and Sarah only of those who were under the new
and gospel covenant.
Secondly, This supposed midrash is contrary to their
known and avowed principle, that their law was to be
eternal, and so that there was no new covenant to succeed
for the abolishing of it, as is plain from the apostle's dispute
against them, both here and in the Epistle to the Romans,
and in that to the Hebrews. Moreover, doth not Mr. Clerc
tell us, in his annotations on the former chapter, that “the
law, and a perfect pattern of holiness, was the same in the
opinion of the Jews?” and must this “perfect pattern of
holiness” here, in the opinion of the same Jews, be only a
“covenant gendering to bondage,” and represented by Agar,
a bondwoman P
Thirdly, The apostle doth not wonder that the Galatians
had collected no such allegory from the story referred to ;
but only asks, if they had not heard the words he doth thus
allegorically expound to them. . He proceeds thus:
Obj. “Farther, seeing this interpretation could not be
urged against those who might deny that the scripture ought
to be so understood, and the apostle doth not make use of
his authority to confirm it; it is evident that he argues here
from what was generally allowed, which kind of things it is
not material should be true, or well-grounded, as long as
they contain nothing prejudicial to true piety, and are be-
lieved by those against whom we dispute. So that from St.
Paul's using such an allegory against the Judaizing Galatians,
it does not follow that we in this age are bound to admit it
as a secret revealed from heaven to the apostle.”
Ans. To this I answer, (1.) That it is too confidently said,
that “the apostle doth not make use of his authority to con-
firm this interpretation;” for is it not “Paul an apostle, not
of man, but of Jesus Christ, and of God the Father” (i. 1),
who writes thus to the Galatians? And had not the apostles
from the Holy Ghost “the word of wisdom, and of know-
ledge,” to direct them in the understanding the mysteries of
the Old Testament 2 Does he not declare, they spake “the
wisdom of God in a mystery P” 1 Cor. ii. 7. That wisdom
“which God had revealed to them by his Spirit º’ ver, 10,
that they had “received the Spirit which is of God that they
might know the things which are freely given us of God ;
which things they also spake not in the words which man's
wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost * CODºl-
- 3
738
GALATIANS.
sons, the one (to wit, Ishmael) by (Agar) a bondmaid,
the other (to wit, Isaac) by (Sarah) a freewoman (a
lady or princess, as her name imports). t
23 But he that was of the bondwoman *was born
after the flesh (and so was not to be accounted for the
seed); but (whereas) he of the freewoman was by pro-
mise, (and so was only to be accounted for the pro-
mised seed, Rom. ix. 8).
24 Which things are an allegory (eapressing one
thing, and by that hinting another to us) : for these
(two, Agar and Sarah,) are (intended typically to re-
present to us) the two covenants; the one (viz. that of
the law, given) from mount Sinai, (is that covenant)
which gendereth to bondage, (i.e. subjects its chil-
dren to bondage, and is the covenant) which is (typified
by) Agar (the bondwoman).
25 °For this Agar (whose name signifies a rock)
is (in the allegory) mount Sinai in Arabia (whence the
law was given), and (so she) answereth to (that) Jeru-
salem which now is (they living long in the wilderness,
and receiving the law from mount Sinai, in Arabia),
and is in bondage with her children (to the law given
there).
26 (Thus it was and is with the terrestrial Jerusa-
lem,) but (the) “Jerusalem which is (from) above
(and is signified by Sarah, the type of the second cove-
paring spiritual things with spiritual 2” see the note, ver, 12,
13, there. And is not this a sufficient confirmation of all
which they declared they writ, as the apostles of Jesus
Christ P * - -
Secondly, I add, that it cannot reasonably be said, “He
argues here from what was generally allowed,” not only be-
cause I have proved that nothing of this nature ever was, or
could be, allowed by the Jews; but also because no one in-
stance can be produced where the apostle useth any such
argument ad hominem, or from their own mistaken princi-
ples; but where it is evident from his own words and de-
clarations that he doth so. Had the apostle said, as he is
forced in his paraphrase to make him speak, “These things
used to be allegorically explained by the Jews, and may be
interpreted so as to signify what I a little before said ;” or,
as he begins his Christian allegorist, “We take you at your
word, O Jews?” there might have been some probability in
this fancy: but the apostle having not given us the least hint
of anything of this nature, it must pass for mere romance ;
and the other things he adds can be no better than a reflec-
tion on the authority and writings of the apostles ; for “Do
you not hear the law P” saith the apostle: No, saith Mr.
Clerc, that they do not, yea, they cannot in this case ; “it
being not at all necessary that the words of scripture should
have any such allegorical interpretation as that which is
supposed (here) to belong to them.”—“Do you not hear the
law, for it is written ?” saith the apostle: What then, saith
Mr. Clerc, you grossly impose upon us in these words, con-
necting them to the former by a y&t, “for” and saying
gravely, “It is written ;” when indeed you argue not from
what is written, but from some whimsies of the Jews, per-
haps neither true nor well-grounded. These things “are an
allegory,” saith the apostle: So you say, St. Paul, quoth
this critic: but “if we thoroughly consider it, we shall find
that most that hath been said by learned men against this
way of interpreting scripture in the general, may be objected
against this particular allegory.”—“These are the two testa-
ments,” saith St. Paul ; “But,” saith Mr. Clerc, “we of this
age are not bound to admit this as a secret revealed from
heaven to you:” and by your good leave, “this interpreta-
tion cannot be urged against those who deny that the scrip-
ture ought to be so understood.”
To conclude, what shall we say to the unbelieving Jews,
objecting thus from this interpretation 2 “Finding that
Your apostle hath produced against us a weak argument,
false and ill-grounded, you pretend to help him out by say-
ing, it is a Jewish midrash vulgarly known : this we must
take for an officious lie, till you can show that either we, or
our fathers, or Philo the allegorist, who speaks of Agar and
Sarah in a quite different way of allegory, had any such sen-
timents. And if your apostle hath imposed upon you here
with such ill-grounded arguments and interpretations, with-
out giving you the least hint that he was arguing only from
our concessions, how know you that he hath not often done.
the like in all his other writings?”
... *Ver. 23. Karā a 3pxa yeyśwnrai, Was born after the flesh.]
i. e. By natural generation, and the strength of the flesh,
before Abraham's body became dead (Rom. iv. 19); the
other by virtue of the promise made to him by God, when
his body and Sarah's womb were both dead (ver. 20), and
only quickened by that Spirit which is the power of God.
* Ver. 25. Tà yā; "Ayap zwä $20; Barły, For this Agar is
anount Sinai in Arabia.] i. e. She represents it (1.) in lieſ
name, for 727, in the Arabian language, signifies a rock, as
t
|
mount Sinai is called. (2.) By her flight, she flying twice
into Arabia from her mistress, Gen. xvi. 7, into the wilder-
mess of Shur, called by the Chaldee “Chagra,” there and
Gen. xxv. 18, and after flying again into the same wilder-
ness. And (3.) by her station, for there dwelt the posterity
of Ishmael, called from her name Hagarens, as the oriental
writers witness: see Bochart. Geogr. Sacr. lib. iv. cap. 11,
p. 255. cap. 27, p. 312, and Grotius here.
Tö y&p "Ayap, ziyā āpoº Horiy #y 'Aga£iz.] Note, that it seems
very unreasonable to me to expunge these words, ziyā ā;0;
#arly #y 'Agagig, against the plain evidence of all the ancient
versions, and the current suffrage of all the ancient interpret-
ers, Chrysostom, Theodoret, CEcumenius, and Theophylact,
among the Greeks; Ambrose and St. Jerome among the
Latins, who take not the least notice of any various reading
here ; and to add 83 for y&é, only to solve a difficulty : for if
this liberty may be allowed, we may take the same liberty in
all other places, and strike out such words as spurious or sus-
pected, which create the difficulty. And this is less to be
allowed when the words rejected, according to the descants
of the ancients, give a plain reason why Agar is made the
symbol of the covenant given from mount Sinai, viz. rā ºftºp
8vo, a row "Ayag, “because the name Agar,” saith Bochart,
“is by interpretation a rock;” and, say the Greek interpret-
ers, “is the name given to mount Sinai, #y 'Agagãy yxºzoºn,
in the Arabian tongue.” But we need here no various lec-
tion, the interpretation which Dr. Mills hath excellently
given us of this place being very clear, only by adding xar'
itrotºroa'iy, “by representation,” after the word Éa riv, which is
the sense it usually bears in allegorical propositions, and by
referring avatoix:f 33 tº yūy 'Ispovaaºº, not to the mountain,
but to Agar, for then the sense of the whole runs thus:
These two sons of Abraham, Ishmael born of Agar his
handmaid, and Isaac born of Sarah the freewoman, contain
an allegory, in which the name is put for the thing signified
or represented by it ; for these two women and their children
are, by representation, the two covenants ; the one covenant
being that from mount Sinai, gendering to bondage, ºrig
#arty, which is, by representation, Agar the bondwoman, and
so bearing a child which also was in bondage, to yag "Ayap,
for that which is signified by Agar, from whom Ishmael
descended, is mount Sinai in Arabia, whence the law was
given; and this Agar answers to Jerusalem that now is, and
is in bondage with her children to the law, as the bondwo-
man and her child were to Abraham ; but the Jerusalem
which is above, #xEvşâpa ša riv, is by representation Sarah the
freewoman, whose son was born, not according to the flesh,
but “according to the promise :” and this woman is the
mother of us all ; for “we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the
children of the promise,” and so the spiritual seed of Abra-
ham, and “heirs according to the promise.” And this in-
terpretation is confirmed by the conclusion of the whole
allegory thus: “So then, brethren, we are not the children
of the bondwoman, but of the free.” O si sic omnia :
* Ver. 26. ‘H &yo Ispovo axiº, The Jerusalem which is
above..] As the state of the church under the gospel is styled,
by the evangelists, “the kingdom of heaven;” so here the
Jerusalem which is from above, the gospel-state, or new
kingdom, being erected by the Holy Ghost sent down from
heaven, and leading us to it, is styled “the heavenly Jerusa-
lem.” Note also, that the Jews tell us,” that “the inferior
Jerusalem is a type of that which is above.”
* Voisin de Lege, p. 369.
CHAPTER V.
739
nant) is free, (is the freewoman, and so her children
cannot be in bondage to the law, as the Jews were, and
it is this Jerusalem) which is the mother of us all.
27 For (of this Jerusalem, Isa. liv. 1) it is written,
Rejoice, thou barren which bearest not; break forth
and cry, thou that travailest not (and so in this art
tike to Sarah) : for (now) the desolate hath many
more children than she that hath a husband (the gen-
tile, than the Jewish church). -
28 Now (to apply these things to us) we, brethren,
as Isaac was, are the children of the promise (as being
born, not of the flesh, but of the Spirit, by virtue of
the promise, In thy seed shall all the families of the
earth be blessed). .
29 But as then he that was born after the flesh
(i. e. Ishmael) * persecuted him that was born after
Ver. 27.] Note, that the Jews themselves interpret these
words, cited from Isa. liv. 1, of the times of the Messiah
(Midrash Shir Hashirim, ad Cant. i. 5).
* Wer. 29. 'E3;oxs, Persecuted.] Jerome here saith,
“Ishmael struck Isaac " but the text, Gen. xxi. 9, saith
only, that he mocked him : this derision therefore must be
reputed as a persecuting him with the tongue.
* Ver. 30. Ot, ºn;ovoghan, Shall not be heir..] Hence
we may learn what that persecution, mentioned ver. 29, was,
even a derision of Isaac's pretensions to be the heir of
Abraham ; (so among the Jews Rabbi Salom,” cited by
* R. Sal. ait, Ismaelem cum Isaaco de haereditate con-
the Spirit, (i. e. Isaac, the seed produced by the Spirit
of God, and the representative of us who are born of
the Spirit, John iii. 3. 5) even so it is now ; (the Jews,
the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, everywhere
persecuting us Christians, 1 Thess. ii. 14—16).
30 Nevertheless, what saith the scripture ? (i. e.
What is contained in the scripture ? even these words,
approved by God, Gen. xxi. 12) Cast out the bond-
woman and her son : for the son of the bondwoman
"shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.
31 So then, brethren, we (being children of the
promise, ver. 28) are not children of the bondwoman
(and so in subjection to the law), but of the free (wo-
man, and therefore at liberty from the obligation or
bondage of it).
*ēt-
Cartwright on Gen. xxi. 9, and Jerome in his Questions and
Traditions upon Genesis ;) even as the carnal Jews con-
tended with the believing gentiles, that they must be the
true heirs of the promise made to Abraham, who were his
seed according to the flesh.
tendisse, dicentem, ego Sum primogenitus, et duplex portio
ad me pertinet. Duplicitér hocºb Hebræis exponitur, sive
quod idola ludo fecerit, sive quod adversim Isaac quasi
majoris astatis joco sibi et ludo primogenita vendicaret.
Tom. ult. f. 73, L. -
CHAPTER V.
1 STAND fast therefore in the liberty wherewith
{}hrist hath made us (Christians) free, and be not en-
tangled again with the yoke of bondage (to the law,
Acts xv. 10).
2 Behold, I Paul say unto you (Galatians), that if
ye be circumcised (in order to your justification), Christ
shall profit you nothing (ii. l. 3, 4).
3 For I testify again to every man that is circum-
cised, that he is a debtor (by virtue of that circum-
cision) to do the whole law.
4 Christ is become of none effect to you, whosoever
of you are (seeking to be) justified by the law (and not
by faith in him only) : ye are fallen from (justification
by) grace.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. W.
* Ver. 3. Maerûgopºat ºráxiv, I testify again.] These
words must not be thought to import, that he had testified
this before in this epistle, and now did it again, there being
nothing said before of this matter; but thus, “I Paul say to
you, that if ye be circumcised Christ shall profit you no-
thing:” and again, “I testify that you are debtors, by ad-
mitting this circumcision, to yield obedience to the whole law
of Moses:” for as by baptism we Christians do oblige ourselves
to observe all the institutions of the Christian faith ; so did
the Jews by circumcision oblige themselves to yield obedi-
ence to the whole law of Moses. This the apostle elsewhere
intimates, by saying to the Jews, “Circumcision verily pro-
fiteth, if you keep the law,” Rom. ii. 25, to which thou art
obliged by it; and by objecting to them who were so zealous
for the circumcision of others, that they acted insincerely in
that zeal, because they themselves did not keep the law,
Gal. vi. 13. When any one became a proselyte of justice,
or turned from heathenism to Judaism, they first instructed
him in the law of Moses, and when he declared himself re-
solved to obey it, then they circumcised him, and so ad-
mitted him into the congregation, and he became as one of
them. For circumcision being the sign by which they entered
into covenant with God, when the Mosaical law became the
covenant betwixt God and the seed of Abraham ; that cir-
cumcision, by which they entered into covenant with him,
must lay an obligation on them to observe the law of Moses.
And hence the Judaizing Christians, who held that the law
of Moses was an everlasting covenant, thought that the be-
lieving gentiles were to be dealt with as their proselytes;
that is, unless they were circumcised, and observed the law,
they could not be saved (Acts xv. 1).
But still it remains a great inquiry, whether the words con-
tained in the second, third, and fourth verses, are to be taken
generally, so as to exclude all believing Jews from any bene-
fit by Christ, or by the covenant of grace, who sought for
justification by the works of the law 2 or whether they are
to be restrained only to the believing gentiles? Now in an-
swer to this question, let it be noted,
. First, That it is not the being circumcised, which is here
said to exclude from grace and salvation, but the being cir-
cumcised to obtain justification and Salvation by it ; as is .
apparent from the words, “Christ is become of none effect
to you, whosoever of you are justified by the law.” Had the
bare use of circumcision rendered Christ unprofitable to the
Jew and gentile, or put them under the curse of the law,
Paul would not have circumcised Timothy, nor have owned
the believing Jews as Christian brethren, who were still zea-
lous for the law.
Secondly, Observe, that the law of Moses, being given to
the Jews, and some of its precepts being styled “everlasting
covenants and commandments,” and they having all engaged
to observe it, might think themselves obliged still to be cir-
cumcised, and observe the law, by virtue of God’s precept,
till it was more solemnly by God declared to be abrogated,
though they expected not to be justified by it; for so we
find it was with the believing Jews: they all continued
“zealous of the law,” Acts xxi. 20, and thought all Jews
obliged to observe it, ver. 24, but then they thought to be
saved, not by the law, “but by the grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ,” Acts xv. 11, as the believing gentiles were, and they
“believed in Christ, that they might be justified by faith in
Christ, and not by the works of the law,” Gal. ii. 16. But
now the gentiles being not under the obligation of the law of
Moses, they having first believed in Christ, and *
- • 3 2
'740
GALATIANS.
5 For we (Christians) through the Spirit (which
we have received) wait *for the hope of righteousness
by faith.
6 (We eanect it, I say, by that faith which ministers
this Spirit, and not by circumcision :) for in (the eco-
nomy of) Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth
anything, nor uncircumcision (as to our acceptance
with God, and our reward from him) ; but *faith which
worketh by love.
7 Ye did run well (in the beginning of your Chris-
tian race) ; who did hinder you that ye should not
(continue to) obey the truth?
8 * This persuasion (of the necessity of your being
circumcised, and obeying the law of Moses) cometh
not of him (i. e. that God) that calleth (Gr. called)
you (to the faith of Christ.
9 Nor ought this circumcision to seem a little thing
to you, nor are these Judaicers to be disregarded be-
cause they are few, for they are like to leaven ; now ye
know) "a little leaven leaveneth (and so corrupteth)
the whole lump (see the note on 1 Cor. v. 6).
10 (But) I have confidence in you through the
Lord, that (after consideration of what I have written)
you will be no otherwise minded (than I eahort you to
be); but he that troubleth you shall bear his judg-
ment (rö kptua, the sentence of condemnation due to
him on that account), whoever he be.
11 And (whereas some of the Judaizers have sug-
gested, that I elsewhere preach up that circumcision I
oppose in you), brethren, (you may learn the falsehood
of that suggestion from my sufferings, for) "if I yet
preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution
(from the Jews ; since) then is the offence (they take
at preaching) of the cross ceased ?
12 "I would they were even cut off (from the com-
munion of the church) that (do thus) trouble (and un-
settle) you. -
13 For, brethren, ye have been called (by Chris-
tianity) to liberty (from the Jewish yoke) ; only
(be careful that ye) use not (your) liberty " for an
occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one an-
other.
upon that faith, the Holy Ghost, they could not afterward
submit to the observance of the law ; but by so doing, they
must testify they thought not faith in Christ sufficient to
justification, or acceptance with God, without the observance
of the law ; and therefore must submit to it for these ends,
and so must in effect deny that faith in Christ would jus-
tify them, or that the giving of the Holy Ghost was a suffi-
cient evidence of their acceptance with God ; which was a
tempting or distrusting of God, after so full a demonstration
of his grace and favour to them (Acts xv. 8–10).
I therefore think these words concern as well those Jews
as gentiles, who sought for justification still, not by their faith
in Christ, but through the works of the law (Rom. ix. 31,
32), and held circumcision necessary to all; not by way of
precept only, but as a necessary means of salvation : for by
these things, saith the apostle, they in effect declared that
“Christ was dead in vain,” and “frustrated the grace of
Christ” (Gal. ii. 21), and so fell from it. Nor is it easy to
perceive how they should have justification and salvation
from him, from whom, after the revelation of him, they did
not expect it; or have faith in him to justification, by whom
they thought not that they should be justified.
* Ver. 5. Extrêa 3xaloa ſync, Hope of righteousness.] Or
justification, i. e. the hope of glory, the consequent of our
justification: for, “being justified by faith, we have peace
with God, and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God:” it
is through the Spirit that we wait for, and expect this glory:
for he is the pledge and earnest of it; “by him we are
sealed up to the day of redemption, and wrought up to the
expectation of it” (Rom. v. 1, 2. Eph. i. 14.2 Cor. i. 22.
Eph. iv. 33. 2 Cor. V. 5. Rom. v. 5); and therefore are not
ashamed of our hope, “because the love of God is shed
abroad in our hearts by the Spirit he hath given us:” and
thus do we, “who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, wait for
the redemption of our bodies, and the glorious liberty of the
sons of God” (Rom. viii. 21.23).
* Ver. 6. Iſiart; 3’ &yárn; #v=ºyowaffyn, Faith working by
love.] There be great disputes about, and divers interpreta-
tions of, these words, which I think may be rendered, Faith
working or made active by love, or excited to perform our
duty to God, and to our neighbour for his sake, by that love
which we bear to him ; or from considerations of his great
iove to us, according to those words of the apostle, “The
love of Christ constraineth us,” 2 Cor. v. 14. And here,
“The life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the
Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me,” Gal.
ii. 20.
* Ver, 8. This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth
gow.] Here Jerome's note runs thus: Persuasio nostra non
est ex eo qui vocavit nos, sed ex nobis qui consentimus, vel
non consentimus vocanti; aliud quippe Dei opus, aliud ho-
minum : Dei opus est vocare, hominum credere, ve; non
credere; et sicubialitër de scripturis liberum hominis affir-
matur arbitrium, utibi, Si volueritis, et si audieritisme, Exod.
xix. 2, et iterüm, Et nunc Israel, quid petit a te Dominus
Deus tuus P Deut. x., et ex hôc loco vel maximë comproba-
tur. Accusat enim, quare non obediverint veritati, Ostendens
in eorum arbitrio positum vel obedire vel non obedire. And
in this he speaks the sense of all the ancients till Austin's time.
* Ver. 9. A little leaven, &c.] That is, saith Chrysostom,
circumcision, though it be but one command, brings us under
an obligation to obey the whole Jewish law, as the apostle
teacheth, ver. 3. -
* Wer. 11. Ei repºroºy #rt ºneča oro, If I yet preach cir-
cumcision.] All the Greek interpreters say, this verse re-
turns an answer to the suggestions of the patrons of the law,
viz. that * “he was a hypocrite, in some places preaching up
circumcision, in others not” (see the note on iii. 4).
7 Wer. 12. "opexow ka? &moxás!oy'ral, I wish they were even
cut off.] The interpretation of all the Greek fathers. and of
Ambrose, Austin, and Jerome on this place, is this, Utinam
non solim circumcidantur, sed etiam abscindantur, “I wish
not only they were circumcised, but even made like the
priests of the mother of the gods, worshipped formerly by
you of Galatia, who had that member cut off.” But if this
interpretation seem too light to be affixed to the words of
the apostle, I rather choose to interpret them as a wish, that
they were cut off from the communión of the church, because
this seems agreeable to a like passage, 1 Cor. v. 6, 7, where
having said, as here, “A little leaven leavens the whole lump,”
he adds, “Purge out therefore the old leaven,” i. e. “Put
away from yourselves the wicked person,” which he himself
here would not do alone ; because he saw his authority
among them was impaired, and he feared this rather might
exasperate, than cure their distemper (see note on 2 Cor.
x. 16). That 3pexov is sometimes joined with an aorist, and
sometimes with an imperfect of the indicative mood, we
learn from these examples ºpexoy #y #85 as itſaağaç, “I wish
thou wouldest hide me in the grave,” Job xiv. 13; &#8Aoy y?
#3.7ineſſ-are, “I wish you did reign,” 1 Cor. iv. 8.
* Ver. 13. Eic & pogºzhy ºf cagxi, For an occasion of the
flesh.] This is done (1.) by a carnal use of it to gratify the
motions of the flesh, as they who “turned the grace of God
into lasciviousness,” and thought they might sin more freely,
“ because they were not under the law, but under grace”
(Rom. vi. I. 15): or, (2) by an uncharitable use of it, to
the scandal of their weak brethren ; or the contempt of
those who did not fully understand their liberty ; or by con-
tending with, or biting one another (ver. 16), which was an
evidence that they were carnal (1 Cor. iii. 3) : or, lastly, by
refusing obedience to their masters (see note on 1 Tim. vi.
1, 2), and subjection to superiors (see note on 1 Pet. ii.16);
the remedy of which distempers is true Christian love ; for
“he that loves sincerely will not refuse to serve him whom
he loves.”f
* “rtroxgºtá; #arty &AAaxoſ, weptropºv xngúrowy, &AAaxoſ. 33
Theodoret.
+ O y&g sixtapivo: &patrāy oběš Bouxsiew wrapairstral tº
‘pińoupaśyº. Theophylact.
•
0U,
CHAPTER WI.
741.
14 °For all the (moral) law (respecting our neigh-
bour) is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. -
15 But "if you (in contradiction to this law) bite
(calumniate) and devour one another, take heed that
ye be not (in the issue) consumed one of another.
16 "This I say then (to prevent these miscarriages),
Walk in the Spirit (i. e. according to the motions of
the Holy Spirit, Rom. viii. 1, 2. 9. 12–14), and ye
shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh : (i. e. these car-
'mal motions, ver, 13, and those uncharitable contentions,
ver. 15.)
17 For the flesh (indeed) lusteth against the Spirit
(and so incites you to these things), and (but) the Spi-
rit (lusteth) against the flesh; and these (two princi-
ples) are contrary one to the other: so that ye (who
are led by the Spirit) cannot do the things ye would
(according to the flesh : nor ye who are led by the flesh,
the things that ye would according to the Spirit).
18 But if ye are led by the (conduct of the Holy)
Spirit, ye are not under the law (and so sin shall not
have dominion over you, Rom. vi. 14).
* Wer. 14. The whole law is fulfilled in this, That thou
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.] So that if thou be still
desirous to fulfil the law, thou mayest do it by observing
this comprehensive law of love. So CEcumenius.
* Ver. 15. El 33 &Axhºovº 34xysts, If ye bite, &c.] Theo-
doret here notes, that the contentions and quarrels which
arose betwixt them that stood firm, and those who warped
to the legal observances, gave occasion to these words: and
as I have observed, that the zeal of the Jews would not
suffer an uncircumcised person to live among them, so might
it be also with these zealous Judaizers.
* Ver. 16, 17.] Note, that I have interpreted these verses
as most commentators do ; but I conceive, they may be
best interpreted from Rom. vii. thus:
Ver. 16. “But this I say (to take you off from this bon-
dage to the law), Walk in the Spirit (in newness of the
Spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter, Rom. vii. 6) and
ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh ; (i.e. the motions of
the flesh shall not have dominion over you, and bring you
captive to the law of sin, as it doth in them ; because ye are
not under the law, but under grace, Rom. vi. 14.)
Ver. 17. “For (in them) the flesh lusteth against the
Spirit (or inward man not renewed, ver. 23. 25), and the
Spirit lusteth against the flesh (ver. 19–22), and these two
are contrary ; so that ye (who are under the law, and walk
not in newness of the Spirit) cannot do the things that ye
would (for the good that ye would, ye do not, ver. 19).”
* Ver. 19. Tà ègya rā, cagxás, The works of the flesh.]
That some of these may very properly be called works of
the flesh, cannot be doubted ; but seeing some of these sins
seem chiefly to consist in errors of the mind, as heresy and
idolatry, and others of them to derive from evil dispositions
of the spirit, as envy, malice, witchcraft, it seems not easy to
perceive with what propriety they are here called the works
of the flesh. But,
1. That “strife, contentions, bitter zeal,” are indeed works
of the flesh, we may discern from a reflection on the usual
objects of them ; for we do not use to contend with or envy
men on the account of things truly spiritual, because they
bring forth the fruits of the Spirit, or have the pleasures of
an upright conscience ; but our contentions generally are
about worldly, carnal things, the pleasures, honours, or en-
joyments of the present world : for “whence come zeal and
19 ° Now the works of the flesh are manifest,
which are these; adultery, fornication, uncleanness,
lasciviousness,
20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulation,
wrath, strife, sedition, heresy,
21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings,
and such like : of the which I tell you before, as I
have also told you in times past, that they who do such
things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
23 Meekness, temperance: against such “there is
no law (that can condemn or render them obnowious to
the wrath of God). -
24 And they that are Christ's have crucified the
flesh, with the affections and lusts (of it).
25 If (then) we (pretend to) live in (and by) the
Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit (according to the
motions, not of the flesh but of the Spirit).
26 Let us not be desirous of vain-glory (Gr. vain-
glorious ), * provoking one another, envying one an-
other.
envy P” saith James, “come they not from your lusts which
war in your members ?” James iv. 1.
oreover, “murder” and “witchcrafts,” or pagºzaxeſai, as
that word imports, those poisonous ingredients which are
used to destroy human life, are the fruits of this hatred,
envy, malice ; and so must have their rise from the same
sensual lusts.
The idolatry of the heathens, not only as it was at-
tended with revellings and uncleanness, but as it repre-
sented God to corporeal eyes in images, and brought him
down unto the senses, may well be deemed a sensual
crime. tº e
And, lastly, heresy, according to the Scripture notion, be-
ing not a pure mistake of judgment, but an espousing a false
doctrine out of disgust, pride, or envy, or from worldly princi-
ples, or to avoid persecution or trouble in the flesh, may well
be ranked among carnal lusts. Hence are such men said,
“not to serve God, but their own belly” (Rom. xvi. 17,
18), to “teach what they ought not for filthy lucre's sake”
(Tit. i. 11), to “account gain for godliness” (1 Tim. vi. 5), and
“through covetousness, with feigned words, to make mer-
chandise of others” (2 Pet. ii. 3); and therefore the apostle
doth not advise us to convince, but only to admonish and
reject the heretic, as knowing that “he sins, being convinced
of his own conscience” (see note on Tit. iii. 10).
* Wer. 23. Oùx #ari väºok, There is no law.] The expo-
sition of those who say, “Such persons had no law,” is not
to be approved, because it suits not with the word xará.
rotoſtoy, “Against such there is no law.” Moreover, the
law of liberty they are under was given to oblige them to
the practice of these virtues; and so was needful to that
end.
* Ver. 26. ’AXA#xov; ºrgozaxočºvot, Provoking one another,
&c.] Theodoret here observes, that they who stood firm in
the faith, and so enjoyed their spiritual gifts, might be apt
to condemn, and glory over the weak on that account; and
others might envy their gifts: and this shows the seasonable-
ness of this exhortation, and connects these words with the
beginning of the following chapter, where the apostle con-
demns them who had high thoughts of themselves, and upon
that account were apt to overlook and to neglect their fallen
brother.
CHAPTER VI.
1 BRETHREN, if any man be overtaken with “a
**
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VI
* Ver. l. IIagarrà, art, With a fault..] They seem not well
to have considered the use of this word in scripture, who
say it is, lapsus hominis ex improviso impingentis, “a fault
fault, * you that are spiritual (endowed with those spi-
y
committed unawares, or for want of circumspection;” since
the apostle applies it to all the sins of the heathen world,
styling them vexpo. #y roi; Tagan tºwagi, “dead in trespasses,”
Eph. ii. 1. 5. Col. ii. 13, and to all the sins forgiven us
through faith in Christ, Rom. iv. 25. V. 16. 2 Cor. v. 19. Eph.
742
GALATIANS.
ritual gifts which enable you for the public ministra-
tions in the church) restore such a one * in the spirit
of meekness (to a right understanding of his duty, and
a suitable practice) ; considering thyself, “lest thou
also be tempted (and so fall as he did). -
2 Bear ye one another’s burdens (infirmities in judg-
ment or in manners), and so fulfil the law of Christ
(which requires you by love to serve one another, v. 13).
3 For * if a man think himself to be something,
when (wanting charity, I Cor. xiii. 2, 3) he is nothing,
he deceiveth himself.
4 But (to avoid this deceit) *let every man prove
his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in
himself alone, and not (only) in (comparing himself
with) another.
5 For every man shall bear 7 his own burden.
(The apostle having thus instructed their teachers, or
spiritual men, not to despise or undervalue their Chris-
tian brethren, proceeds now to instruct these brethren
how to behave themselves towards their teachers, say-
ing,)
i. 7. The word rºoxn+9; seems rather to import such a
surprise.
* “Yºsſ; of Trygvºcatixol, You that are spiritual.] I have
noted on 1 Cor. xiv. 32, that in the beginning of Christianity,
when churches were first converted, they had for a time no
settled church-governors; but all their church-offices were
performed by men who had spiritual gifts; and by them are
said to prophesy in the church, to their edification, exhorta-
tion, and comfort, ver. 3. So I conceive it was when Paul
*Vrit to the Galatians: for, here is no direction of this epistle
to any stated church-governors; no salutation of any in the
close ; no charge against any for suffering these great mis-
carriages in the church ; no exhortation to them to take
heed of their ministry, and to oppose themselves to these
deceivers: and then the spiritual men here mentioned must
be the prophets, who then performed all spiritual offices
among them. e
*"Ey Tysiąart regórntos, In the spirit of meekness, 2 Tim.
ii. 24, that so they may not provoke them to fly off to
Judaism (v. 26), whom they should restore to a right under-
standing of their Christian liberty, and to a freedom from
that yoke of bondage.
* M: Mai zi "repacóñº, Lest thou also be tempted.] i. e. Lest
thou fall by temptation: for to stand firm against tempta-
tion, when it assaults us, is not a proper consideration to
engage us to pity those that fall by it. This is the import
of the word, when we are taught to pray, That we enter not
into temptation, Matt. vi. 13, when the apostle bids the
married persons live together, “that Satan tempt them not
for their incontinence,” 1 Cor. vii. 5; when he is solicitous
for the Thessalonians, “lest the tempter should have tempted
them, and rendered his labours vain,” 1 Thess. iii. 3; and
when James saith, “Every man is tempted when he is led
away by his own lust,” James i. 14.
* Ver. 3. Ei yap 3ozef ric aſyai ri, ºn3āv &y, If a man thinks
himself something, being nothing,) Of himself, but “by the
grace of God being what he is” (1 Cor. xv. 10. 2 Cor. xii.
11): So some truly, but not so pertinently to the scope of
the text: say others, “Being nothing in the sight of God;”
who regards him not for his knowledge, but his charity
(1 Cor. xiii. 2, 3); i. e. if upon this account he overlooks
and despiseth his weak offending brother, not sympathizing
with him (ver. 2), or endeavouring to restore him (ver. 1),
but rather glorying in this, that he is a strong Christian
in comparison of others; he is then nothing in the sight
of God.
* Ver. 4. Aoxºašáro #xaaroº, Let every man prove..] i. e.
Let him approve his actions to God and his own conscience;
and then he may take comfort simply in himself, that he is
a good man, and not in this only, that he is better than
others. So the word signifies, Rom. i. 28, oùx #3ozigzagay,
“They approved not ” of God ; Rom. ii. 18, Sozigáðsic,
“Thou approvest the things which are most excellent ;”
Rom. xii. 2, “Be transformed by the renewing of your
mind, ei, tº 3oxtºssy, that you may approve the good, and
6 Let him that is taught in the word "communi-
cate to him that teacheth in all good things (he stands
in need of, as God’s blessing may enable him).
7 Be not deceived (by your false teachers); God is
not mocked; for whatsoever a man Soweth, (of) that
(kind) shall he also reap. .
8 For he that soweth to the flesh (by doing the
works of the flesh, v. 20, 21) shall of the flesh reap
corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit (by bring-
ing forth the fruits of the Spirit, mentioned v. 22, 23)
small of the Spirit (raising him up to it, Rom. viii. 11)
reap life everlasting. -
9. And (but then) let us not be weary of well-doing
(or of emercising these fruits of the Spirit) ; for * in
due season we shall reap (the rewards of them), if we
faint not (but hold out unto the end). -
10 As we have therefore opportunity (ability), let
us do good (and charitable offices) to all men, "espe-
cially to them who are of the household of faith.
11 Ye "see how large a letter I have written unto
you with my own hand.
acceptable, and perfect will of God;” and, xiv. 22, “Happy
is the man who doth not condemn,” or act against his con-
science, iv. & Sox pºet, “in that which by his actions he ap-
proves of" (see Eph. v. 10. Phil. i. 10. 1 Thess. ii. 4. 1 Tim.
iii. 10, and note on 1 Cor. xi. 28).
7 Wer. 5. To fêtov pogriov, His own burden.J. i. e. This
every man is concerned to do; viz. to make his own work
good, and approved in the sight of God: for another man's
greater sins will not excuse thee from bearing the burden of
thy own. w
° Wer. 6. Kolyolveiro, Let him communicate.] This he else-
where styles, “communication, giç Aéyoy 36~Ewe, zal Añºleoc,
by giving “ their good things, and “receiving” his good in-
structions (Phil. iv. 15), by “sowing spirituals” and “reap-
ing ” of them “carnal things” (1 Cor. ix. 11): and if this
was their duty towards such teachers, as had no need of
books or study to fit themselves for the work, they being
enabled for it by immediate assistance and gifts of the Holy
Ghost; how much 'more towards them who spend much
time and money to fit themselves for that work, and must
be still employed in studying and reading, to make them-
selves such “workmen as need not to be ashamed P”
The following words, ver. 7, are by most interpreters re-
ferred to the same subject thus, “Make no false excuses in
this case, God will not be mocked with vain pretences.”
But I rather think the apostle proceeds to a new general
exhortation against the carnal doctrines of their deceivers,
“the hidden things of dishonesty,” which he charges them
with, 2 Cor. iv. 2. vii. 1, 2. xii. 21, whose “exhortation was
attended with uncleanness,” 1 Thess. ii. 2 (see note on 2 Cor.
iv. 2), against which doctrines this is his usual preface, “Let
no man deceive you with vain words,” Eph. v. 6. 1 Cor. vi.
9. James i. 16.
* Ver. 9. Katº iºto, In due season.] i. e. In the proper
time of recompence : for the encouragement Christ gives
unto the works of charity is this, “Thou shalt be recom-
pensed at the resurrection of the just,” Luke xiv. 14.
19 Wer. 10. Let us do good to all men.] By this precept,
saith Chrysostom, he extends the love of the Christian be-
yond that of the Jews, which was confined, ºrpäç row; dºo-
46Aouc, “to men of their own nation and religion.”
* Ver. 11. "13sºre ºrnxikoi; iºdiv yºup, acty Éypaspa tº #45
Xetti, See how large a letter I have written to you with my
own hand.] It is true that yºpºpºara sometimes signifies
“ epistles,” as when the Jews Says to Paul, oits yeappeara
trepi cow #32;40sša, “We have received no letters concerning
thee,” Acts xxviii. 21 ; but then it is also true, that Paul
elsewhere uses seventeen times the word ÉmicroXał, but never
the word yºãºwata, when he speaks of his epistles. Though,
therefore, it be true that Paul wrote his other epistles by an
amanuensis (Rom. xvi. 22), adding only in the close of
them the salutation with his own hand, as an indication that
he indited the epistles (see note on 2 Thess. iii. 17); where-
as this whole epistle was written with his own hand for
their greater assurance, and as a testimony of his great
PREFACE To
EPHESIANS. 7.43
12 As many as desire to make a fair showin (things
concerning) the flesh (endeavouring to gratify men, and
avoid their displeasure), they (would) constrain you to
be circumcised; only lest they should suffer persecu-
tion (from their hands) *for the cross of Christ.
13 (I say, it is upon this account, and not out of re-
gard to the law, that they so zealously plead for cir-
cumcision, and the observation of it :) *for neither do
they themselves who are circumcised keep the law;
but desire to have you circumcised, “that they may
glory in your flesh. .
14 But (whatsoever they may glory in) God forbid
that I should glory, save in the (knowledge and in the
profession of the) cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by
whom the world is crucified to me, and I unto the
world (ii. 20, as being dead to sin, Rom. vi. 3, 4, to
the flesh, Gal. v. 24, to the law by the body of Christ,
and separated from the world to live unto God).
affection and concernment for them : yet ºráxixa ypággara,
“what kind of letters,” may not refer to that ; but, as the
Greek scholiast conceives, to the largeness or inelegancy of
the characters in which it was written, this inaccurateness
in writing or forming the Greek characters being the most
probable account why all his other epistles were written by
another hand.
* Ver. 12. Tº a ravgå, &c. For the cross of Christ.] I
have shown (note on v. 11) that this was the great stum-
bling-block of the Jews, partly because their law pronounced
a curse on those that “hanged on a tree” (see note on 1 Cor.
i. 23); partly because the cross, and sufferings of Christ on
it, was the foundation of the doctrine of justification by
faith in his blood, of the cessation of the ceremonial law,
and the removal of the partition-wall betwixt the Jew and
gentile (Col. ii. 14. 16); on which account chiefly they were
scandalized at it, and persecuted those who thought that this
was the result of our Lord's death and sufferings. St.Jerome
here saith, that Octavianus Augustus, Tiberius, and Caius
Caesar had made laws that the Jews dispersed through the
whole Roman empire should live according to their own
laws and ceremonies; whosoever therefore was circumcised,
though he believed in Christ, was by the gentiles deemed a
Jew ; but they who had not this token of a Jew, viz. the
circumcision of the flesh, were persecuted both by Jew and
gentiles: has igitur persecutiones hi, qui Galatas deprava-
verant, declinare cupientes, circumcisionem pro defensione
discipulis persuadebant; “and hence they who perverted
the Galatians persuaded them to be circumcised, that they
might avoid persecution.” e -
* Ver. 13. Oiśā yèg véſzow puxaca ovaty. For neither do they
keep the law.] This was unquestionably true of these Ju-
15 For "in (the economy of) Christ Jesus neither
circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision,
but a new creature (one dead to sin, the flesh, and the
world, but living unto God).
16 And as many as walk according to this rule
(being chiefly concerned that the new creature may be
formed in them), peace (shall) be upon them, and
mercy, and (or, that is) upon the Israel (not of the
flesh, but) of God. gº !
17 From henceforth let no man * trouble me (with
their contentions against my office ; because I renounce
circumcision, and my legal righteousness): for I bear
in my body the marks of (a servant, not of the law,
but of) the Lord Jesus (these wounds and stripes which
testify me to be a faithful servant of that Jesus for
whose sake I suffer them).
18 Brethren, the grace (favour and good-will) of
our Lord Jesus Christ be " with your spirit. Amen.
daizing Christians: for how, saith Theodoret, could they in
Galatia regularly observe the Jewish feasts, or offer sacrifice,
or cleanse themselves from their defilements, by touching
anything that was unclean P
*"Iva #y tº igerieg cagni kavyhawytal, That they might
glory in your flesh.] i. e. Might boast of this among the
Jews, that they promoted circumcision even among the
gentiles, and by that pretence might avoid persecution from
them. - --
15 Wer. 15. 'Evyāp Xstatā 'incot, oùre treetropºft ri ioxist.j
Dr. Mills omits the words scored, and reads of Trégºropah tº
#arſ, but the words, as they are in the text, are not only
owned by the Vulgar, Arabic, Theodoret, CEcumenius, and
Theophylact, but are exactly the same in v. 6 (see Examet,
Millii in locum).
* Ver. 17. Let no man trouble me, By2 yap rà ariyaara
roi. Kugiov 'Inaroj čy rô a dºzari ºou 8aaráðw, for I bear in
my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.] i. e. Let no man
henceforth question, whether I truly style myself Paul the
servant of Jesus Christ, or fight the good fight of faith, as a
good soldier under this Captain of salvation; seeing whereas
servants and soldiers have only one ariyaa, as a mark of
their relation to their masters and generals, in their hands or
wrists, I bear many marks of these relations to the Lord
Jesus, throughout my whole body, in those many wounds
and stripes I have received for his sake.
17 Wer. 18. Marx roi; ºryeºgaro; ipºv, With your spirit..]
That is, “with you ;” for in other epistles it is us?' tº
“with you,” 1 Cor. xvi. 23. Col. iv. 18. 1 Thess. v. 28, or
peera trávrov tºy, “with you all,” Rom. xvi. 24, 2 Cor.
xiii. 13. Phil. iv. 23. 2 Thess. iii. 18. Tit. iii. 15. Heb.
xiii. 25.
THE
EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS,”
WITH ANNoTATIONS.
P. R. E. F. A. C. E.
§. 1. THAT this Epistle to the Ephesians was indeed
written by Paul, and directed to them, and not to any other
church, we cannot doubt, if we believe either the epistle or
Paul himself. For, -
* H rº, 'Eºsaiov; 'Eriotoxi. See this title confirmed by
the clear testimony of the fathers of the four centuries, and
the mistakes of Dr. Mills discovered, Examen Millii.
First, It begins thus: “Paul, an apostle (writeth these
things) to the saints that are at Ephesus.” And in this
reading all the versions and all the manuscripts agree.
Secondly, In the close of this epistle he speaks thus to
them : “That you may know my affairs, and how I do,
Tychicus, a beloved brother and faithful minister in the
Lord, shall make known to you all things ; whom I have
sent unto you,” vi. 21, 22: and in the Second Epistle to
Timothy he saith, “Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus,”
iv. 12.
" ; ,
744,
Moreover, all antiquity agrees in this, that this epistle was
written by Paul: Ignatius" is express for it in his Epistle to
the Ephesians. Irenaeus,'t Clemens of Alexandria, ; and
Origen, Š in divers places of their works. We learn, indeed,
from the argument of this epistle in CEcumenius, and more
fully from Theodoret, that some of the ancients thought
this epistle was writ by Paul before he had seen the Ephe-
sians, or at least before his three years' converse with them:
but not any of the ancients, excepting Marcion, ever thought
that this epistle was not written among other churches to
that of Ephesus, but that of Laodicea ; and therefore Ter-
tullian'ſ takes notice of it as a thing proper to those here-
tics, though indeed both might be true; for this epistle being
writ not only to the saints at Ephesus, but also “to the
faithful in Christ Jesus,” might be writ also to the Colos-
sians, the Laodiceans, and others, who had not seen his face
(Col. ii. 1, see note on Col. iv. 16). And this observation
gives a sufficient answer to the arguments from i. 15. iii. 2,
from which some have conjectured, that this epistle could
not be writ to them after St. Paul had staid three years in
Asia, though they more fully are considered in their respec-
tive places. w
§ 2. That this epistle was written when Paul was prisoner
at Rome, is evident from iii. 1, where he is styled “Paul
the prisoner of Jesus Christ;” and, iv. 1, “a prisoner in the
Lord.” Now, it must be at soonest in the third year of
Nero that he was sent prisoner to Rome; for Felix was
made procurator of Judea by Nero in his first year, saith
* “Oc iv rád; into 'rox; ºvnaovićs, buºy. Ep. ad Eph. S. 12.
t Apostolus Ephesiis ait, lib. v. cap. 8, 14. Quemadmo-
dúm beatus apostolus in ea-quae estad Ephesios Epistolà,
cap. 2. Paulus, lib. i. p. 16, A. p. 37, A, D. lib. iii, cap. 20,
Apostolus Paulus, lib. iv. cap. 55.
+ Percurre ecclesias apostolicas
authenticae litcrae eorum recitantur si potes in Asiam
tendere habes Ephesurn. De Praescript. cap. 36.
§ ‘O &réa toxo; 'Especious yºpoy. Clem. Alex. Paedag. lib. i.
cap. 5, p. 88, C. Paulus, Strom. lib. iii. p. 496. Onct 3; 3
Tº imzoº &réa toxo; IIajaos, r3 ºvarhetoy roºro (, śya idºriy.
Orig. adv. Cels. lib. iv. p. 197, 211.
, Toy Séléraroy IIaşxcy wºrw rot; 'Eqeriov, rs3sauávoy, rhy
Étriatoxy wº; atrov; yeypaspéval.
* In epistolà quam nos ad Ephesios praescriptam habe-
mus, harctici verö ad Laodicenos. Adv. Marc. lib. v. cap.
11, Paulus ad Ephes. In the fourth century, Athanas. Or.
3, adv. Ar. p. 446, ibid. p. 416, § 3; Iſaiao; #y rº trº; 'Eps-
ałowº, Epiphan: rig irº, 'Eºsatov, p. 371, 372, Gr. Nyssén.
$nai yüp ºpé, 'Eºgaiov, ye&#ov, in Cant. p. 396, 33 rºw ºrps;
‘Eyszłov, Aéywy, Orat. 1, de Resur. p. 828.
apud quasipsae adhuc
EPHESIANS: ,
Josephus,” and after two years he left Paul prisoner at
Caesarea (Acts xxiv. 27). Portius Festus succeeds him, and
after some time hears him twice at Caesarea, and sends him
afterward to Rome ; which interval, if we consider how .
long it was before he reached Rome, may very well be
supposed to take up another year: he therefore could not
write this epistle till the fourth or fifth of Nero. He did
not write it, saith Bishop Pearson, till the eighth of Nero,
A.D. 62.
§. 3. That this epistle was writ against Simon Magus, and
his followers, as Esthius hints, none of the ancients say.
More probable is the conjecture of Grotius, that the apostle
rather designed by it to arm them against the doctrines of
the philosophers, and of those Jews who endeavoured to
bring them to the observation of their rites; for that there
were then many Jews at Ephesus, and throughout Asia, we
learn both from the Acts of the Apostles, which inform us,
that Paul being at Ephesus, “entered into a synagogue of
the Jews” (Acts xviii. 19. xix. 8–10), and discoursed with
them, till by their perverseness he was forced to separate
from them; and that by his preaching, “all that were in
Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks:”
as also from Philo, who informs us, that “the Jews in-
habited the most and best cities in the provinces and islands
both of Europe and Asia.” And that these Jews were dis-
turbers of the churches of Asia, and of Ephesus in particu-
lar, and sticklers to introduce a mixture of Judaism with
Christianity, we learn from both the Epistles to Timothy.
Against their doctrine of the necessity of the observance of
the law of Moses to justification and salvation, he seemeth
to oppose these words, “By grace ye are saved, not of works,
lest any man should boast,” ii. 8, 9, which manifestly an-
swer to his discourse upon that subject, Rom. iii., where he
asserts, that “we are justified freely by his grace,” ver. 24,
“ and not by the works of the law,” ver. 20, and that all
“boasting is excluded, not by the law of works, but of
faith.”f Against that other notion of theirs, depending on
the former, that the gentiles should be admitted into the
church only as proselytes, and not assumed to the same
privileges with the Jews, he declares himself more largely,
ii. 12—20. iii. 6—10.
* Eic 3: Tây Aoirºv 'lovèaiay ºxixa warfarnasy trirgorov. De
Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 22. Tº redrº rā; Nigavoc &gxi, Éirst.
Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 5 vel 11, p. 694, P.
‘t lověaiovº yūp X&ea ºxia 31& Troxvayóporelay ob xoesſ, h;
airiac vexa rēc "rxeiata; ka? stºatºoverrátaç rāv #y Eüpoğwn zai
'Aziz. trāagov, Kará re who ous wai hireigov, #wyśworrai. In Flac-
cum, p. 752, et Leg. ad Caium, p. 768, C.
£ See also the note on iii. 15, 16.
CHAPTER I.
1, PAUL, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of |
God (calling me to that office), 'to the saints that are
at Ephesus, *and to the faithful in Christ Jesus
(throughout all Asia):
2 * Grace be (given) to you, and peace, from God
our Father, and (from) the Lord Jesus Christ.
3 Blessed be (that) God, and (who is) the Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with “all
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I.
* Ver. l. Toſc &ytoic, To the saints.] See the note on
l Cor. i. 1 . -
* Kai, And, that is...] See note on Col. i. 3.
Kai ºria rº, And (that is) to the faithful..] So oi in treet-
Torºñº Trio roi, are “the believers of the circumcision,” Acts
x. 35 ; tā; ºis ºrigró ºr 3riarov, “What portion hath a
believer, with an infidel?” 2 Cor. vi. 15; so Acts xvi. 1.
| Tim. iv. 3. 10. 12. Tit. i. 6; yet it is very probable, as
Mr. L. here suggests, that here and Col. i. 2, these words
may particularly relate to such Christians as kept the doc-
trine of Christ from the corrupt mixtures of those Judaizers,
who went about, Karnxedovres, 2 Cor. ii. 17, xat 36xoſyrs; +3)
#" corrupting and handling the work of God deceit-
y.
* Ver. 2. Xágic, Grace.] This grace is given by the com-
munication of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son
to the church (John xiv. 23), which is the reason that the
Holy Ghost is not mentioned in these salutations.
* Ver. 3. ‘Ex rāgh stºoyie, Tysvæark; iv rºſ; iroueavior.]
These words iv roſ; irovpatotº, “in heavenly places” may
probably refer to the gifts of the Holy Ghost then conferred
upon the church, and styled by the prophet, ºxoyia, Ogot,
“ the blessings of God:”—“Fear not, Jacob my servant, and
Israel whom I have chosen, for I will put my Spirit on thy
seed, Kał Taº etxoyia; wov, and my blessings on thy children,”
Isa. xliv. 2, 3, where the word in the Hebrew and Chaldee is
‘nanan, “and my benediction,” and so well correspondeth
with the words of the apostle, “God hath blessed us with all
spiritual blessings.”. The same apostle styles these gifts
fixoyia roš evaxygalov, “the blessings of the gospel;” for
having said to the Romans, “I long to see you that I may
impart unto you xàgia, a ré Tryavaarikāy, some spiritual gift,
to the end you may be established,” i. 11, he adds, “When
I come to see you, I shall come in the fulness, rā, śāoyfaç,
CHAPTI. H. I. 745
spiritual blessings in heavenly places (or, things) in
(and through) Christ;
4. According as he hath "chosen us (gentiles, iii.6)
in him before the foundation of the world, (ch. ii.,
designing) that we (thus chosen) should be "holy, and
without blame before him in love, (by virtue of our
* in Christ, and love to one another, iii. 17. Gal.
v. 6.
5_Having predestinated (or foreappointed) us to
the " adoption of children by (through) Jesus Christ
of the blessing of the gospel,” xv. 29. And the promise of
the Spirit is styled, sixoyia toû 'A8;a&a, “the blessing of that
Abraham in whom all the families of the earth were to be
blessed,” in these words, “That the blessing of Abraham
might come upon the gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we
might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith,” Gal.
iii. 14. These gifts are also called ěmovgåvia, “heavenly
things:” thus when our Saviour had discoursed of the Spirit
to be received in baptism, he saith, he had told them rà
#"rougávia, “heavenly things,” John iii. 12, and they who
were made partakers of these gifts were said to have tasted
Tis ºpe㺠ºri, Troupáviov, “ of the heavenly gift,” Heb. vi. 4.
9r (2.) God's blessing us iv in oveavious, “with heavenly things
in Christ Jesus,” may signify his exalting us to a blessed
state of immortality in the heavens through him ; his giving
us “a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens”
(2 Cor. v. 1, 2), and “clothing us with a house from
heaven ;” his giving us “an inheritance incorruptible, unde-
filed, reserved in the heavens for us;” on the account of
which incorruptible and immortal bodies, we are styled intov-
Páviot, “heavenly,” as Christ is, 1 Cor. xv. 58 ; and the apos-
tle saith, that as we have borne the image of the earthly
Adam by our mortal bodies, so by our bodies made immortal,
“we shall bear, sixáva toû in oveaviou, the image of the heavenly
Adam,” ver. 49, and hence we are said to be partakers,
*Añoza, irovºaziov, “ of our heavenly calling.” In a word,
Christ, having delivered us from that death and mortality
which came upon us by the sin of Adam, hath blessed us
with this heavenly blessing, having “made us sit together
with him in heavenly places,” Eph. ii. 6. And this is the
hope of our calling, ver. 18 of this chapter.
* Ver, 4. Ełex£ato hºà..] It was the opinion of the Jews,
that God in framing the world had a particular regard for
them, and that the world was made for their sakes (Esd. ii.
55.59), and that the Messiah being created before the world,
God entered into covenant with him, that he should redeem
the world, and them especially. “The holy blessed God,”
say they, “began to covenant with the Messiah when he
created him, and said unto him, The sins of those who are
jaid up in secret with thee, will make thee to come under an
iron yoke, and make thee like to this young heifer, whose
eyes are dim, and fill thy spirit with anguish ; and because
of their iniquity, thy tongue shall cleave to the roof of thy
mouth : wilt thou undergo their condition for them 2 The
Messiah said, I undertake it with joy, and exultation of
heart, on this condition, That not one of Israel may perish;
and that not only they may be saved, who live in my days;
but also they who are dead from the days of the first man to
this very day.” And again, “When God created the world,
he held forth his hand under the throne of glory, and created
the soul of the Messiah and his company, and said to him,
Wilt thou heal, and redeem my sons after six thousand
years 2 He answered, Yes. God said to him, If so, wilt
thou bear chastisement to expiate their iniquities 2 according
to what is written, Isa. liii. 4, Surely he bare our griefs. He
answered, I will endure them with joy.” Now because the
Jews held, that God thus elected them from the beginning of
the world, and sent the Messiah that none of them should
perish, the apostle, to take from them all cause of boasting
against the gentiles upon that account, declares the gentiles
were thus elected in Christ Jesus, even before the foundation
of the world ; i. e. that he designed then to choose them to
be his church and people, i.e. a holy people to the Lord.
*
* Cartw. Mell. lib. i. Crit. Sac. tom. ix. p. 2074.
+ Cartw. ibid. p. 2975. Huls. de Jud. Mess, par. ii. p.
309.
unto himself (Gr. sic vioSéglav sig airów, unto the adop-
tion of sons to him through Christ Jesus, we being all
the sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, Gal. iii.
26. John i. 12), according to the good pleasure of his
will;
6 (And this he hath done) to the praise of the glory
of his grace, where he hath made us accepted (or,
with which he hath favoured us, #xapírwasy juác) in
(and through) the Beloved :
7 In whom we have "redemption (from the curse of
* That we may be Sancti et immaculati, holy and unblame-
able.] There is a difference, saith Jerome, betwixt these two
things, parvuli quippe immaculati sunt, quia integro corpore
nullum fecerunt peccatum ; et tamen non sancti, quia sanc-
titas studio et labore comparatur ; “so children are unblame-
able, as having done no sin in the body; and yet they are
not holy, because holiness proceeds from the will and the en-
deavour.” This in other men would be styled Pelagianism.
7 Wer. 5. Eic viościay, To the adoption of children.] This
in the scripture phrase imports adoption to a blessed resur-
rection, and a state of immortality both of soul and body:
for being sons of God, saith Luke (xx. 36), we are “sons of
the resurrection ;” “and if sons,” saith the apostle, “then
heirs of God, joint-heirs of Christ”(Rom. viii. 16, 17). The
“revelation of the sons of God” is their future glory to be
revealed at Christ's appearing (ver. 18, 19, see Col. iii.4).
Their adoption is “the redemption of their bodies” from cor-
ruption (ver. 23). This being so, God’s “electing us in
Christ before the foundation of the world,” is his purpose
before the world was made, or from the fall, to give to those
that should believe in Christ this adoption, i. e. the redemp-
tion of their bodies from that mortality to which the fall of
Adam had subjected them (Gen. iii. 15); whence he is said
to have elected us, trgoogica; hºà; si; viośsaiay, “forcordained
as to this adoption, xará rày stºoziav, according to the good
pleasure of his will,” or his free grace and favour, there being
nothing in us, or even in our faith, that could deserve this
glorious adoption.
* Wer. 7, Thy &rºfftºwa'iy, Redemption.] All mankind ,
lying under the sentence of condemnation on the account of
sin, “all having sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God”
upon that account (Rom. iii. 23), it was necessary that some-
thing should be done to take away the guilt of sin, and recon-
cile us to a God displeased with us for it, that so we, as to
our persons and performances, might find acceptance with
him : this could not be done by any righteousness of our own
before faith in Christ, we “being in Christ Jesus created to
good works” (Eph. ii. 10), and therefore was necessary to be
done by an act of grace on God’s part, accepting us as
righteous through faith in Christ, and justifying us freely
through faith in his blood. Hence do the scriptures of the
New Testament seem plainly to make our reconciliation, and
so our access to God, depend on our being purged from the
guilt of sin, by an atonement made by the blood of Christ
for our iniquities, that so, they being pardoned, we may have
peace with God, and freedom of access to him ; “Christ suf-
fered,” saith Peter, {\a hºà, Treodayáyn rô QEð, “that he
might bring us to God,” 1 Pet. iii. 18; i. e. to give us free-
dom of access to God ; “for, by him we have, ºrporayolyºv,
admission to the Father,” Eph. ii. 18 (see the note there);
and “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself,
not imputing their trespasses to them,” 2 Cor. v. 18. 21 ;
and this reconciliation was effected by making Christ &agria,
“a sin-offering for us, though he knew no sin, that we might
be made the righteousness of God (or righteous with that
righteousness which God only will accept through faith) in
him” (see the note on that verse). And the author to the
Hebrews having said, that the covenant established in the
blood of Christ was this, that he would “be merciful to our
iniquities, and remember our sins no more,” Heb. x. 16, 17;
and having thence inferred, that having thus obtained remis-
sion for us by his blood, there was no need that he should
again make himself an offering for sin, ver, 18, he adds, that
therefore we may “draw near with full assurance of faith,”
that we should be accepted through his Beloved, as “having
our hearts sprinkled by his blood,” ver, 19–22, and there-
fore cleansed from any guilt of conscience on that account.
746
EPHESIANS.
the law, Gal. iii. 13, and from the condemnation due to
us for sin, Rom. iii. 24, 25) through his blood, (the
blood of atonement shed for) the forgiveness of sins,
according to the riches of his grace;
8 Wherein (or, in which dispensation) he hath
abounded to us in "all wisdom and prudence;
9 Having made known; to us the mystery of his
will, according to his good pleasure which he hath
And this remission was also necessary, that we might obtain
that adoption of sons to which believers were afore appointed,
because into the new Jerusalem can “nothing enter that is
defiled, or unclean :” nor can there be any enjoyment of God
tili “the blood of Christ hath cleansed us from all sin;” and
therefore, Saith the apostle, “he became the mediator of the
new covenant,” that having suffered death for the redemption
of us from the sins we formerly had committed under the old
covenant, “they that were called might receive the promise
of an eternal inheritance,” Heb. ix. 15.
Redemption through his blood.] Here Jerome saith, Du-
plicitèr Sanguis Christi et caro intelligitur; vel spiritualis ista,
atque divina, de quâ ipse dixit, Caro mea est verè cibus, et
sanguis meus verè est potus ; nisi manducaveritis carnem
mean et Sanguinem meum biberitis, non habebitis vitam
aeternam,_vel caro, et sanguis, quae crucifixa est, et quae
militis effusa est lanceå: where he plainly distinguishes the
flesh and blood received in the sacrament, from the flesh of
Christ crucified, and his blood shed upon the cross; calling
the first spiritual, in opposition to his material flesh and
blood.
* Ver. 8, 'Ew träzº a.opia zai peoyáres, In all wisdom and
prudence.] That is, say some, in the spiritual gifts of wisdom
and prudence ; but though copia be reckoned among spiritual
gifts, I find not that ºpówna is is so. Moreover, he hath thus
“abounded towards us in all wisdom and prudence,” saith |
the apostle, “by making known to us the mystery of his
will ;” which leads to the other exposition, that refers this to
the manifold wisdom of God, shown in contriving this dispen-
sation (iii. 10), and his prudence in executing the counsel of
his will by this means, viz. by sending of his Son to be our
Saviour. And whereas the deists seem to side with the
Socinians, in denying the wisdom of this dispensation of God,
in sending his Son into the world to suffer for our sins, and
by his sufferings to make an atonement for them, it seemeth
easy to demonstrate, as well the manifold wisdom, as the rich
grace and favour of God to us in this dispensation. For,
First, It seemeth absolutely requisite, either that the sub-
stitution of another to suffer in our stead should be admitted,
or that we ourselves should suffer the reward of our iniquities,
or that a full remission and free pardon of our sins should be
vouchsafed us without any suffering: now the admission of
another to suffer in our stead is the thing pleaded for ; if
therefore that be granted, the wisdom of that God who act-
eth all things “ according to the counsel of his will,” must
also be acknowledged in this dispensation: if we ourselves
must suffer the reward of our iniquity, that being death
eternal, or death without recovery from it by a blessed resur-
rection, all mankind must inevitably be subject to that
punishment, “all having sinned, and fallen short of the glory
of God” (Rom. iii. 33): and, thirdly, should God have
issued out a free pardon, and given us a full remission of our
sins, without anything required by way of reparation for the
violation of his law, he must have pardoned sinners without
anything required to show his hatred of sin, and his resolu-
tion, not to let it go unpunished ; and so without sufficient
motive to deter us from it for the future, which seems not
Well consistent with his holiness and justice, and the relation
of a governor, which seemeth plainly to require the vindica-
tion of his honour, and the preservation of the laws he hath
established from contempt: it was then an act of grace not
to require we should personally suffer the reward of our ini-
quities; it was an act of wisdom not to afford a full remis-
Sion of our sin, without requiring anything by way of repara-
tion for the violation of his law; it must be therefore an act
of wisdom also to admit another to suffer in our stead ;
especially if we consider,
Secondly, That by the obedience of our Lord Christ to the
death in our stead, all the great ends of punishment designed
by governors were very signally obtained, and that with more
advantage to God's glory, than if the punishment of our
offences had been inflicted upon us, and so God by it may be
truly said to have been satisfied ; seeing that justice, which
consists in punishing for the transgression of a law, is truly
satisfied, when all those ends for which the punishment of
the offenders could be desired are obtained. Now the ends
of punishment are,
l. IIagá8tlyºa, That they who suffer may be exemplary to
others; and may, by what they do endure, deter others from
the commission of the offences for which they suffer.
2. Novščaia, That the offender may learn wisdom by the
rod ; that the remembrance of what he suffered for it might
prevent the repetition of his sin, and that he may be fitted
to embrace the counsel of our Saviour, “Sin no more, lest a
worse thing come upon thee.”
3. Tºxogia, The vindication of the prince's honour, and
the preservation of the laws he hath established from con-
tempt. -
Now, First, God by this dispensation hath given us the
most effectual example to deter us from sin. For, (1.) by
what our Saviour suffered in our stead, we see that God is
certainly in earnest when he threateneth death to sinners;
that he is thoroughly resolved upon the punishment of sin,
since he inflicted so great punishment on the Beloved of his
Soul, when he became our Surety ; for if on this account
“God spared not his only Son” (Rom. viii. 32), we may be
Sure he will not spare his stubborn enemies. But let us say
with the Socinians, that Christ suffered all his bitter agonies,
his ignominious and painful death, not as the punishment of
sin, or to make an atonement for it, but from a pure act of
God’s dominion ; how will it follow hence, that God will
surely punish sin, and with severity avenge the transgressions
of his law, if he laid none of these sufferings on Christ for the
punishment of sin P Seems it not strange to say that the
severities laid on Christ without respect to sin, should be de-
signed as an instance of God's severity against sin P “This
shows,” saith Crellius,” “that he, who laid such bitter suf.
ferings on his innocent and well-beloved Son, will inflict the
severest punishments on wicked men.”
I answer, This will indeed follow in respect to sufferings
for the same cause ; for “if the righteous be recompensed
upon earth, much more the sinner, and the wicked” (Prov.
xi. 3]). If good Eli and holy David suffered so great
punishments for their sins, much more shall a wicked Cain,
and a profane Esau. But will it follow, that because holy
Job suffered so much by way of trial, or St. Paul for propa-
gation of the Christian faith, that therefore sinners shall be
obnoxious to greater punishment? Crellius+ himself saith,
Christ's sufferings cannot be an exemplary punishment, be-
cause, abundé fuerint à Deo compensatae, “they were so
abundantly rewarded by God ;” and doth not the same rea-
son show that they could not be a warning to us, if he only
suffered “with respect to the recompence of reward P” For
are the light afflictions which Christians suffer here in pros-
pect of an eternal recompence, ever made an instance of
God's severity against sin P Moreover, this example shows
how insupportable the punishment will be, which justice will
inflict upon the sinner; for if the apprehension of it pro-
duced such agonies and consternations in the soul of Christ,
that God saw need to serid an angel to support him
(Luke xxii. 43), how must the sinner sink under the burden
when it is laid upon his shoulders P If he, who was the
well-beloved Son of God, found it so dreadful to lie under
the burden for some hours, to lie exposed for ever to it must
be far more intolerable.
Secondly, Whereas inevitable ruin must have followed
upon the execution of the deserved punishment on the
offending person, God by this method hath taken a fit way
for reformation of the sinner, which was the second end of
* Nam si Deus Christo licet innocentissimo, et unigenito
filio Suo non pepercit, sed tam dirae, tamque ignominiosa: .
morti eum subjecit ; quanta censemus, quámque acerba Sup-
plicia Deum sumpturum de hominibus impiis P Resp. ad
Grot. cap. 1, par. 57.
+ Ibid.
CHAPTER I.
\
747
purposed in himself, (viz. his secret purpose to choose
us gentiles to be fellow-heirs of the same body, iii. 6.)
10 That (so) in the dispensation (which was to be
accomplished by sending of Christ) in the fulness of
time, he might "gather together in one all things in
Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are in
earth, even in him :
11 In whom also we (believing Jews) have "ob-
tained an inheritance (or, are become his portion),
being predestinated (or foreordained to it), according
to the purpose of him who worketh all things after
the counsel of his own will;
12 That we should be to the praise of his glory,
* who first trusted in Christ (the glorious gifts he hath
punishment ; for what can be a more effectual motive to
abstain from sin than this example, which represents the
greatness of the provocation in the greatness of the punish-
ment, and shows it is impossible the guilty person should
avoid the stroke of God's vindictive justice, or bear the
weight of his almighty arm. But the Socinian tenet, which
denies that God was angry with us on the account of sin,
or that he did require any punishment or satisfaction, in
order to the pardon of it, so far obstructs this reformation,
as it affords the sinner hopes that he may not hereafter be
angry with him on that account, or require any punishment
or satisfaction in order to the pardon of his future sins.
Thirdly, God by this dispensation hath sufficiently con-
sulted the preservation of his honour, and secured the re-
verence and observation of his laws ; which was the third
great end of punishment: he, by declaring that he would
not pardon our offences, without a satisfaction made for the
violations of his law, hath fully vindicated his institutions
from contempt, seeing, by this example, he hath let all men
know, that though he be a God of mercy and long-suffering,
he will by no means “clear the guilty,” or let the transgressor
of them go unpunished.
Again, God by this dispensation hath vindicated his
honour more than if he had destroyed the sinner, having
more evidently showed his hatred of, and great displeasure
against, sin, by punishing it so severely in his own Son; for
the greater is the inducement to remit the punishment of
sin, the greater must be his hatred of it who inflicts it.
That therefore this consideration, that he who suffered was
his only beloved Son, would not induce him to remit the
punishment, must be the strongest demonstration of his
most perfect hatred of all iniquity.
But now remove this supposition, and say, with the Soci-
nians, That God pardoned all men's sins against him with-
out any valuable consideration, and with an absolute
freedom forgave men all the punishments his law had
threatened to them ; and ceased from all his anger and dis-
pleasure against sinners, without any atonement made unto,
or required by, him ; and how will it appear God was at all
concerned to vindicate the honour of his laws, or show his
hatred against sin P. Hence Crellius” saw it necessary to
own, that “the sufferings of Christ are a demonstration of
God's hatred of iniquity, because our sins were the cause of
them ;” but he means not that they were the meritorious,
but only that they were the final cause of his sufferings; not
that he suffered to prevail with God to pardon sinners, but
only to prevail with sinners to break off their sins. Now
hence, indeed, we may conclude that God is very desirous
that sinners should desist from sin; but it follows not hence,
that they must certainly expect the most heavy punish-
ments if they do not : for if God could freely pardon the sins
of the whole world, without any satisfaction made to his
offended justice ; if there be nothing in God, as rector of the
universe, that requires he should punish sin, or show his dis-
pleasure against it ; if the punishment of sin depends
purely upon his arbitrary will, why may not sinners hope,
notwithstanding all that Christ hath suffered for their
good, for a like act of his free grace hereafter, in the
remission of their sins, without a reformation ; and that God
may be reconciled to them again, whilst they continue in
their sins 2
Since then no laws require the punishment of the offender
himself, rather than of another who is willing to be his
Surety, and suffer for him, on any other account than this;
that the punishment of the offender, and not another for
him, will only answer the forementioned ends of punishment;
when that can equally be done by what another suffers, the
,” Hinc enim manifestissimè apparet summum Dei adver-
Sūs peccatum odium, si quidem Deus, ut abillis nos penitàs
abstraheret, unigenito filio suo non pepercit. Ibid.
law given must equally be satisfied, because the ends of the
law are equally obtained.
Ver, 9..] From this ninth verse it appears, that the elec-
tion and foreappointment, mentioned ver. 4, 5, is as large
as is his manifestation of his will to the gentiles : for as
Treo6;tarev, “he foreappointed them to sonship by Jesus
Christ,” ver. 5, so here, ºrpoššeto, “he purposed before to
make known his will unto them ; #y airò, in him,” accord-
ing to the same “pleasure of his will.” Note also, that the
words being not iv Havré, but Év airó, should not have been
rendered “in himself,” that is, in God the Father, but “in
him,” that is, in Christ (ver. 4), as the following preceding
verses show. *}
19 Wer. 10. 'Ayazs4axatóa'aasai, To gather together in
one..] i. e. God hath now by the gospel accomplished the
secret purpose of his will; to “make the gentiles fellow-heirs
of the same body” and privileges with the Jews; having re-
conciled both Jew and gentile to him in one body on the
cross (Eph. ii. 14. 16), and so “gathered together in one all
things on earth;” and by procuring for us that adoption,
which is the redemption of the body from mortality (Ron).
viii. 23), and making us like to the angels, by being “chil-
dren of the resurrection,” he hath “Summed up in one all
things in heaven ;” for they being styled the sons of God,
Job i. 6. ii. 1. xxxviii. 7 ; because they live already in their
Father's house, and are an image of his immortality; when
the resurrection hath put us into that happy state, that we
“can die no more, but are equal to the angels, and are the
children of God, being the children of the resurrection”
(Luke xx. 35, 36), then shall we be made one with them.
The interpretation of the ancient fathers seems to give this
sense, That God hath by this dispensation gathered under
one head, viz. Christ, the head of the church, “all things on
earth,” i. e. Jews and gentiles; and “all things in heaven,”
Christ being the “head over all angels and principalities ;”
they being all ministering spirits to him. And this sense
seems agreeable to the like words, Col. i. 20 (see the note
there).
ii Ver. 11. ‘ExxºpæSnºwey, We have obtained an inherit-
ance.] The Jews were before chosen of God, to be a people
of inheritance, Deut. iv. 20, and “a peculiar people,” Exod.
xix. 5; and as such, God provided for them a habitation
and inheritance in the land of Canaan ; but the Jewish
church being now to be dissolved, the Jews being to be
banished from their own land, and the unbelieving Jews cut
off from their relation to God as his people ; the believing
Jews were through faith in Christ to be chosen again, to be
God's portion, and inheritance, and his peculiar people
(1 Pet. ii. 9. Tit. ii. 14), and to be admitted to a better in-
heritance, si; rºy ºzspiða row xxhgow rāy &yizy śy tº pori, viz.
“to the portion of the inheritance of Saints in light” (Col.
i. 12). And to this, saith the apostle, they believing were
appointed, God having foreordained that this inheritance
should be the portion of believers, and the consequent of
faith in Christ ; by virtue of which we become the sons of
God.
'Ew & wai #xxng&Snºwsy.] Note also, that here the Alexan.
drian copy and the Syriac read inxhënºv, “we are called,"
and the note of Jerome here is this: Vult Deus quaecumque
sunt rationis plena et consilii, vult ‘salvari omnes, et in
agnitionem veritatis venire ; sed quia nullus, absºlue pro-
prià voluntate servatur, liberi enim arbitrii sumus, vult
mos bonum velle, et clim voluerimus, vult in nobis ipse
suum implere consilium. *
1° Wer. 12. Tow; Tºonxtrixáraç, Who before trusted in
Christ.] I see no reason why ws and we, in the first ten
verses, may not signify believers in the general, and then us
and we, ver, 11, may signify the believing Jews, who liter-
ally were reonarikātag. believers in Christ before the gen-
tiles; nor could anything tend more to the establishment or
the freedom of the believing gentiles from Judaical ob-
748 t
EPHESIANS.
bestowed upon us, and the eminent graces, he hath
wrought in us, tending highly to the glory of his grace,
ver, 6. Phil. i. 11.)
13 In whom ye also (trusted), after that ye heard
(or, hearing) the word of the truth, the gospel of your
salvation: in whom also after that ye believed (or,
believing) ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of pro-
mise, (i.e. the Spirit promised to the sons of God;
for because ye are sons, God hath sent the Spirit of his
Son into your hearts, Gal. iv. 6.)
14 Who is the earnest of our inheritance until "the
redemption of the purchased possession (for the pro-
curing this salutary redemption), to the praise of his
lory.
g . Wherefore I also, * after I heard (Gr. having
heard) of your (stedfast) faith in the Lord Jesus, and
(your increasing) love to all the saints (i. e. that the
|faith and love wrought in you continue stedfast, and
abound),
16 Cease not to give thanks for you, making men-
tion of you in my prayers;
17 (Praying) that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of glory, may give unto you (in greater
measure) * the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the
knowledge (or to the farther acknowledgment) of him:
18 The eyes of your understanding being enlight-
ened (or, that he would give you understandings en-
lightened); that you may know what (i.e. how glori-
ous) is the hope of his calling (i. e. to which he hath
called you), and what the riches of the glory of his
inheritance in the saints (i.e. how great is the inherit-
ance he hath designed for the saints),
19 And what is “ the exceeding greatness of his
power (which he will evert) towards us who believe
servances than this consideration, that the Jews them-
selves could only obtain the benefits of Christianity,
by being chosen anew to be God's people through faith
in Christ.
13 Wer 14. Et, 3rox&rgoorly rā, wreptºrothaeoc, Till the re-
demption of life.] There is a twofold &roxirpºols, “redemp-
tion,” mentioned here, and in other places of the New Tes-
tament. The first consists in the remission of sin, or our
redemption from the guilt of it; and of this we have men-
tion, ver. 7. Rom. iii. 24. Col. i. 14. The second in the
redemption of the body from corruption, that it may be par-
taker of eternal life: and of this the apostle speaks, Rom.
viii. 23, calling it “the adoption,” and āroºrºozy rot.
crºwaroº, “the redemption of the body,” or “the glorious
deliverance of the sons of God from the bondage of corrup-
tion,” ver. 21. Thus l Cor. i. 30, “Christ is made to us jus-
tification, wai &moxárgolaric, and redemption:” where redemp-
tion being distinguished from, and following justification and
sanctification, it must import the redemption of the body
from corruption. And Eph. iv. 30, where we are said to be
“sealed by the Spirit, ei; hºwāgaw &roxvirg&agog, to the day of
redemption:” the first delivers us from the guilt which con-
demns us to death ; the second confirms the promise of
eternal life on them who are thus delivered. Heb. ix. 15,
ºrspºrotéſy, is to save alive, and treetºroinzi, is preservation,
orspºroimat; Juxſic, “the salvation of the soul,” Heb. x. 39.
So Gen. xii. 12, “They will kill me, c'è 3: Treptºrotharovrai, but
they will save thee alive;” Numb. xxii. 23, “I had killed
thee, Éxsſycy 33 rspistroincépany, but him I have saved alive :”
Josh. vi. 17, “As for Rahab, ºrigierotiago.38 airky, ye shall
save her alive.” “Go slay Amalek, oi regiºrcíazars # airtoiſ,
ye shall save none of them alive,” 1 Sam, xv. 3 ; “but Saul,
"reºrgieroincaro, saved Agag alive,” ver. 9. 15 ; 2 Chron. xiv.
13; “The Ethiopians were overthrown, &c'rs pº sival iv
airoi; ºriginoimoiy, so that none of them were left alive.” So
Phavorinus, regimotheray'rs, āyri roſ. 3iagºray'rs;. See also Ps.
lxxix. 11. Exod. i. 16. Whence it appears that &roxgrºwai,
ºric regimothºrewº, is fitly rendered “the redemption of life ;”
or, the redemption of those who are to be preserved
from death.
"o; iarty &#48&v, &c. Who is the earnest of our inherit-
ance.] It was the custom, both of the Jews and heathens,
to confirm a promise or a bargain, by giving something as
an earnest of, or an obligation to perform it. This the La-
tins styled arra, the Greeks &#agöw, was #yÉxvgoy (see Plaut.
Mostell. act. iii. sc. l. Miles Glorios. act. iv. sc. 1); the
Jews eraban: so when Judah had promised Tamar a kid,
he gives her &#28&va, “an earnest,” that he would per-
form his promise, Gen. xxxviii. 17, 18. And in like man-
ner God having promised to his faithful servants an eter-
mal inheritance, gives them his Holy Spirit as “the earnest”
of it.
* Ver. 15. 'Akočca:, Having heard.] Hence some infer,
that Paul could not write this to the church of Ephesus,
where he abode about three years (Acts xx. 31), and had
converted many to the faith throughout most parts of Asia
(Acts xix. 26): he therefore could not need to hear of
their faith.
To this it is answered by the Rev. Dr. Hammond, that
the word &xoſsiy, as the Hebrew vow not only signifies to hear,
but to understand and know ; and therefore should be ren-
dered here, Cúm sciverim, “knowing,” or “Having known
your faith.” And indeed the word bears this sense undoubt-
edly in those words, 1 Cor. xiv. 2, “He that speaketh in an
unknown tongue, speaketh not to man, où8sic yag äxotist, for
no man understands him :” so Gen. xi. 7, “Let us confound
their language, Wa (wº àxoña waiv, that they may not under-
stand one another's speech:” and xlii. 23, “They knew not,
3ri äxoães, that Joseph understood them, for he spake to them
by an interpreter” (see Deut. xxviii. 29. 2 Kings xviii. 29.
Jer. v. 15. Ezek. iii. 6). But,
Secondly, I answer, that this epistle was writ, not only to
the metropolis of Ephesus, but to “the faithful in Christ
Jesus” in the general, and more especially to those of the
Lesser Asia; among whom many might have been converted
by Apollos and others, and Paul might have only heard of
it; he preaching only at Ephesus, and they of Asia hearing
the gospel only by their resort unto him there (see the note
on Acts xix. 10). Yea, he insinuates that this epistle was
read at Laodicea ; and gives order for the reading of it at
Colosse, Col. iv. 16 (see the note there); at both which
places he had never been (Col. ii. 1). And,
Thirdly, From the epistle of Paul to Timothy it appears,
that a dangerous and almost epidemical apostasy from the
purity of the Christian faith happened among the Jewish
churches in Asia ; which verified Paul's prediction concern-
ing them, that “after his departure,” not only “grievous
wolves should enter in among them,” but that “among them-
selves should arise men speaking perverse things, to draw
away disciples after them,” Acts xx. 29, 30; and made it
proper for him, after eight years' absence, to give thanks to
God for the stedfastness in the faith, which he had heard
of in the rest (see 1 Thess. iii. 6).
* Ver. 17. Hysſip, a cotiac, The Spirit of wisdom]. Paul
having asserted the necessity of the revelation of the Spirit,
“that we may know the things that are freely given us of
God,” they being not naturally to be perceived (1 Cor. vi.
2. 12), doth therefore pray, that the Spirit of wisdom, know-
ledge, and revelation, may be imparted to Christians for
that end.
* Ver. 19. To irst84xxoy &#y:Soc rā; 8vyápago; aircü, The
exceeding greatness of his power.] Some interpret these two
verses of the power of God, working faith in believers, making
it equal to that which effected the resurrection of our Lord,
and thence concluding, that we are merely passive in the
whole work of our conversion: but as this power is not con-
sistent with persuasion and a rational choice, and, if it were
exerted, would not render it praiseworthyin us to turn to God;
nor could it truly and properly be said that we turned, but
only that we were turned to God; so is not this exposition
agreeable to the words: for the apostle speaks not of the
power exercised on us, to render us believers; but of the
power which shall be exercised on us, who believe already :
not of the power exercised upon our souls, to raise them
from a death in sin ; but of the power to be exercised upon
our bodies, to give them a glorious resurrection to eternal
life.
Kai Ti tā insp;34xxoy ºftyeSoc, And what is the eaceeding
greatness of his power towards us...] The apostle doth not
here pray, as Mr. L. suggests in his paraphrase, that the
CHAPTER II.
749
(by raising us up to the enjoyment of this inheritance),
according to the working of his mighty power,
20 Which (power) he (hath already) wrought in
Christ (our head) when he raised (Gr. raising) him
from the dead, and set him (whom he hath set) at his
own right hand in heavenly places,
21 Far above all principalities, and powers, and
might, and dominion, and every name that is named,
" not only in this world, but also in that which is to
COIſle : x
22 And (he) hath put all things under his feet, and
hath given him to be the head over all things to (the
benefit of) the church,
23 Which is his body, (and so) the fulness of him
(even that Jesus) who filleth *all in all.
Ephesians might have the Spirit of wisdom and revelation,
that they might know the exceeding greatness of that power
God “had employed already in bringing them to the faith;”
for that they knew already ; it being the mighty power of
those miracles they had seen done before their eyes, which
induced the gentiles to believe (Rom. xv. 18, 19), but he
prays, that by these means they might know, what at present
they had no experience of, viz. how glorious was the object
of their hope, how great their future inheritance, and how
excellent was the power God would show in raising them up
from the dead, as he had done Christ, to the enjoyment of it.
” Wer. 21. Oi ºvoy #y rô aiāv roſta, Not only in this
world..] By comparing these words with Col. ii. 10, where
Christ is said to be “the head of all principality” and power;
and with Phil. ii. 9, where God is said to have given him a
name above every name,” I am inclined to think these
words only signify, that our Lord Christ is exalted above all
power that is, or ever shall be ; for, not to be done “in this
world, nor in the world to come,” Matt. xii. 32, is never to
be done, Luke xii. 32 (see note on Matt. xii. 32). Note
also, that the word āyoga, name, doth also signify persons:
(see the note on Acts i. 15): and that men of great power
and dignity are styled, both in scripture and in other writings,
bwn wox, oi &věps; ol āyogaarol, “men of name,” that is, re-
nown; so are the giants styled, Gen. vi. 4, and “the princes
of the congregation,” Numb. xvi. 2; so that to be “exalted
above every name that is named,” is to be advanced, even in
his human nature, above men and angels of the highest
power and dignity, by being exalted to the right hand of the
Father (Heb. i. 4, 5). After the dignity of Christ was con-
tested by the Arians, the fathers, to avoid their argument
from these words, chose rather to interpret this of the name
of the Son, mentioned by Paul, Heb. i. 5, “To which of the
angels said he, Thou art my Son P’’ So Theodoret, CEcume-
nius, Theophylact, on this place, and Epiphanius, Haer, lxix.
p. 325, though the words, ver. 20, “He hath raised him
from the dead, and set him on his right hand in heavenly
places,” strongly plead for the first interpretation (see the
note on Heb. i. 4).
18 IIávra iv trägi, All in all.] For he ascended up on high,
that he might fill the members of his church with all gifts
necessary for the edification of his saints, till they came “to
the fulness of the measure of the stature of Christ '' (iv. 10
—12); “In him all fulness dwells, and we are "retrançoºvot,
filled full ifi him, who is the head of principalities and
powers” (Col. ii. 9, 10).
CHAPTE R II.
1 AND you (also) hath he (raised and) quickened,
(with and by Christ, i. 20. ii. 5) who were * dead in
trespasses and sins;
2. Wherein (in which sins) in time past ye walked
(living) *according to the course (and fashion) of this
(evil) world, "according to (the suggestions of) the
prince of the power of the air, the spirit which (even)
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II.
* Ver. 1. Nexpcic raï, &pagtiaº, Dead in sins.] They who
interpret this phrase thus, “You who are dead to sins by
baptism,” seem not to have looked to the fifth verse, where
they who are here said to be “dead in trespasses and sins”
are said to be “quickened ;” or to the parallel place, Col.
ii. 13, where it is said, “You who were dead in sins, and the
uncircumcision of the flesh, he hath quickened;” nor indeed
to the phrase, which is never used in the plural number in
that sense, but only in the singular, viz. Rom. vi. 2. x. 11.
Kai, And..] That this glorious hope, this blessed inherit-
ance, this happy resurrection, will be your portion, you may
learn from what God hath already done for you ; “for he
hath quickened you who were dead in trespasses and sins,”
ver. 1, and so hath brought you into a state of salvation, ver,
5, “and made you meet to be partakers of the inheritance
of the saints in light,” Col. i. 12. He also hath raised up
your head, and placed him, and in him your nature in hea-
venly places, and so hath, in a manner, “raised you up, and
made you sit together with him there,” ver. 6, you being
hence assured that all his living members shall be raised up
to live for ever with him: for “if we believe that Christ is
risen, we must believe that them who sleep in Jesus will God
bring with him, to be for ever with the Lord,” 1 Thess. iv.
14, 17. “And to him that overcometh,” saith Christ, “will
I give to sit down with me on my throne, even as I also have
overcome, and am set down with my Father on his throne,”
Rev. iii. 21.
* Ver. 2. Kará rày ałya, According to the course of this
world.] That is, according to the life which men of this
world, destitute of faith in Christ, do live: for, as Phavori- |
now worketh in the children of disobedience (the hea-
then world) ;
3 Among whom also we all (who are gentiles) had
our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh,
fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind (or
of our hearts) ; and were by “nature (indeed by birth
among heathens, and in our natural estate before
*** ---
nus saith, aly, “the word age is # 80%, wai & 3ioc, the life of
man, or rô (wéreov rā; 3,9pon ſyn; £oñº, the measure of human
life.” Thus, rôy aidya $14).Ew, in Isocrates and Xenophon, is
to pass the time of life; reasuria at rāy aidya, in Herodotus,
and Sophocles, is to end this life, or to die.
* Kará rày &exovira rā, śćovaria; roi; &#803, According to the
prince of the power of the air.] It was the opinion both of
Jews and heathens, siyat rôy &#a luxāy Épatrasov, “that the
air was full of spirits,” called “demons,” as Diogenes" saith
in the life of Pythagoras: and the Jews in the Pirke Avoth
teach, a terrà usque ad firmamentum omnia esse plena
turmis et praefectis, that “from the earth to the firmament
all things were full of these companies and rulers;” and that
there was a prince over them, who was called 3 koo-ºoxgåroe,
“the governor of the world,” that is, of the darkness of it,
see note on vi. 12. This evil spirit is here said, #ysgyffy,
“inwardly to work in the children of disobedience ;” and
elsewhere, to “lead them captive at his will,” 2 Tim. ii. 26;
and their conversion is styled a recovery of them “from the
power of Satan,” Acts xxvi. 18. And hence we may ra-
tionally conclude, that the good Spirit doth also inwardly
work in pious persons, enabling them to will and to do ; it
being unreasonable to conceive the evil spirit should have
more power over those wicked men in whom he dwells, than
the good Spirit hath in those pious persons in whose hearts
he is said to dwell.
* Ver. 3. Kai Hºey rénya pºorst Spyſ;, And were by nature
children of wrath.] The ancient fathers generally affirm,
that sin cannot owe its original purely to that nature in which
we were born, but only rā adrešovariº, i. e. to the choice or
* Lib. viii. p. 221.
750
EPHESIANS.
Christ) the children of wrath, even as others (of the
gentiles were. & - |
4 This, I say, was our former state ;) but God, who
is rich in mercy, for his great love, wherewith he loved
us (gentiles),
5. Even when we were (thus) dead in sins, *hath
quickened us together with Christ, (through his rich
grace ; for) by grace ye are saved (i. e. are brought
into a state of salvation) ;
6 And hath raised us up together, (not only by a
spiritual conformity to his resurrection, Rom. vi. 5.11,
but also by an assurance of a like resurrection, 1 Pet.
i. 3; he being risen as the first-fruits, 1 Cor. xv. 20,
and the first-born from the dead, Col. i. 18) and made
us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
(our head thus raised and ea'alted, and thus ascended
into heaven, as our forerunner, Heb. vi. 20. x. 13, 14.)
7 That in (and through) the ages to come he might
(by this means) show the exceeding riches of his grace
in (this) his kindness to us through Christ Jesus.
8 (I say, the riches of his grace,) for "by grace are
ye saved through faith (in Christ) ; and that (faith
consent of the will; and that they who make us to be sin-
ners, merely by the derivation of our natures from our pro-
genitors, do make God, the author of our nature, to be the
author of our sin. The same they seem to do, who say that
sin is propagated by generation, and that an infant is there-
fore properly by birth a sinner, it being God who hath esta-
blished that order in the generation of mankind, which nei-
ther he that begets, nor he that is begotten, can correct, and
by whose benediction mankind increase and multiply: and
reason will instruct us, that to be born or not is not in our
power, and that what is not in our power to avoid can never,
be our crime, nor render us obnoxious to the eternal wrath
of God.
. Moreover, the circumstances of the text demonstrate, that
the apostle here intendeth no such thing, because he speaks
of persons “dead in (actual) trespasses and sins, in which
in times past they had walked, according to the course of
the (heathen) world,” and the suggestions of Satan; of men
“who had their conversation in times past in the flesh; ful-
filling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were
(on that account) the children of wrath as well as other
heathens.” And therefore Suidas, agreeably to the context,
Saith, that “nature is here put for customary practice,” ac-
cording to the frequent import of that word in the profane
authors; in Philo," in whom custom is #x363 pºrt: 3X*Selac,
‘‘ a nature opposite to truth;” and in our common proverb,
that “custom is a second nature.” His words are these;
“When the apostle saith, We are by nature the children of
wrath, he saith not this according to the proper acceptation
of the word nature, for then he had cast the blame on the
Author of nature; but he understands by it a long and evil
custom.” And Didymus Alexandrinus saith,t the apostle
intends by it rô rºokstºwevow tº pörst, où ré xará párty, “not
that which is according to nature, but that which accessory
to it. -
2. The fathers do more generally say, That to be by na-
ture the children of wrath, is here the same as to be “truly
and indeed so;"$ and that the Ephesians and other nations are,
styled such here, because in that estate they continually pro-
voked God to wrath by their idolatries and fleshly lusts; and
so they are here styled, say they, “children of wrath,” partly
as being born in heathenism, and therefore indole idolatrae,
and so out of covenant with God (in which estate the whoſe
body of the heathens are represented, as having no hope of
the blessings promised to those who were in covenant with
God), and “without (the favour and protection of) God in
the World:” and persons so abandoned by him are inscripture
styled the objects of his hatred, comparatively to those
who are in covenant with him, as in these words, “Jacob
have I loved, and Esau have I hated,” Mal. i. 2. And
when God determined to reject and to forsake his people, he
styles them “the generation of his wrath,” Jer. vii. 29, as
being worthy of his wrath, as wicked persons are styled
“sons of death and of perdition,” as having done those things
* De Temul. p. 205, C. MsAlth Xeovigºsis a si; ‘púa'iy Kasia-
'rarat. Stob. Eccl. &c., p. 181.
t"Otay 3: Aiyé à &réaroño, kał żasy tºya gºat, Seyū;, ot
*** Tºro tº anºwaivéºtroy piloso; Aéys, imit toº roſha'ayro: #y
* Hykanºa, 3xxx rāvāºwevow kai zazia rºw stašerty, wai 2:30yiay,
×al roynºv avynésiay, intelligit.
# Apud Combes,
§ Tô 3: púret &vri roſ. 3anšč, was yrnator. CEcum. Theoph.
prorsås et, omniné apud Hieron. vel rà ric syſ; £ia rā-
Toyréc. Chrysost. Theodoret. Hieron. >
| See Cl, Art, Crit, par. ii. cap. 7, §. 6, p. 104.
which rendered them worthy of death and destruction, i. e.
not for original sin, but for a long series of actual and habi-
tual transgressions. So Abiathar is, &våg 9ayárov, “a man
of death,” l Rings ii. 26. And whereas Esthius Saith,
that réxya, “children,” shows that this phrase relates to what
they were from their nativity ; this may be easily confuted
from these following expressions, some of them frequent in
the holy scripture, viz. Ténya Gsot, “the children of God,”
John i. 12, rézya aroqiaç, “the children of wisdom,” Matt. x.
19, réxva invaxoſic, “children of obedience,” l Pet. i. 14,
réxva rā, śmayyexiac, “children of the promise,” opposed to
children of the flesh, Rom. ix. 1. Gal. iv. 28, xarápac réaya,
“accursed children,” 2 Pet. ii. 14; for we are not sons of
God, of wisdom, of obedience, of the promise, or curse, by
nativity; but by our own good or evil actions. And whereas
he adds, that the apostle writes this in the person of the
Jews, this is most plainly false, the Jews being not under
“the prince of the power of the air,” i. e. the conduct and
government of Satan, as were those heathens, whose gods
were demons, and wno “sacrificed to devils, and not to
God.” Moreover, they who are here said to be quickened,
when they were “dead in trespasses,” are said, Col. ii. 13,
to be quickened when “dead in trespasses, and the uncircum-
cision of the flesh,” which cannot possibly agree to the
Jews. “We all” here therefore is only all the gentiles,
whatsoever Mr. Clerc says to the contrary; nor is there any
thing more common than for Paul to speak thus. So Tit.
iii. 3, “We ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedi-
ent, deceived ; serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in
malice and envy, hateful and hating one another;” not we
apostles, or we Jews, but we gentiles. And this is here evi-
pent to demonstration ; for what is here we, ver, 2 and 5, is
ge, ver, 8; what is we, ver. 10, is again ye, ver. 11, 12, 13;
what is we, ver. 18, is ye, ver. 10. -
Ka; hºwev rázya púa's ºpyäs, And were by nature children of
wrath.] We were children of wrath, saith Jerome, vel prop-
ter corpus humilitatis, corpusque mortis, “by reason of the
vile mortal body to which our souls were condemned,” which
was the opinion of Origen; or, quod ab adolescentiá mens
hominum apposita sit ad malitiam, “because the mind of
man is prone to iniquity from his youth; vel quëd exeo tem-
pore quo possumus habere notitiam Dei et ad pubertatem
venimus omnes aut operä, aut linguá, aut cogitatione pecca-
mus; or, because, when we come to ripeness of years, and
attain to the knowledge of God, we offend all in thought,
word, and deed :” where it is observable, that though he
brings in Origen's peculiar opinion, as one reason of this ap-
pellation; yet hath he not the least hint of our being “the
children of wrath,” on the account of Adam's sin. See my
interpretation confirmed by Mr. Thorndike, &c.
* Ver. 5. 2wyeóworoinºre tº Xplatº, Huth quickened us to-
gether with Christ.] Not only by giving us a new birth, or
renovation of life, but an assurance also of eternal life; for
“because I live” saith Christ, “you shall live also" (John
xiv. 19), “We shall be saved by his life” (Rom. v. 10).
* Ver. 8. Tº yap xápiri šare area orgaśvot, For by grace ye
are saved.] That we may understand aright how we are
here, and in cther places, said to be saved by grace and
mercy, and not by works, it may deserve to be observed,
T'irst, That though the apostle here saith, “By grace ye
are saved, not of works;” yet, lest any man should hence be
tempted to infer, that Christians may be saved without doing
works of righteousness, when they have time and opportu-
nity to do them, he expressly adds, and that by way of rea-
sort of what he had asserted, that “we are his workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus to good works, which God hath or-
CHAPTER II.
|
jºy.
75
is ) not of (and from) yourselves: it is the gift of God
(the objects of our faith being only made known by di-
vine revelation, 1 Cor. ii., and only confirmed and so
made creditable to us, by the testimony which God hath
given to them) :
9 Not of works (done before faith by us), lest any
man should boast (as doing anything which might an-
tecedently deserve, or make him meet to be acquainted
with, and made partaker of this saving grace:
10 Not of works, for this reason also ; ) for we are
his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to good
dained that we should walk in them.” Since then to “walk in
righteousness,” according to the import of that phrase in
scripture, implies, that the tenor of our lives be spent in
works of righteousness; surely we cannot reasonably hope to
be accepted by God, if we neglect the very end for which
we are created in Christ Jesus, or decline that way in which
God hath ordained us to walk. Hence the apostle tells the
same Ephesians, that if they had been taught the Christian
faith, “as the truth was in Jesus,” they knew themselves
obliged to “put off the old man, and to put on the new,
which after God is created in righteousness and true holi-
ness;” and that it was their duty to “walk as children of
light, proving what is acceptable to the Lord,” and bringing
forth those fruits of the Spirit, which “are in all goodness,
righteousness, and truth,” iv. 21, 22. v. 8, 9.
Note, Secondly, That when the apostle saith, “We are
saved not by works,” his meaning is not to exclude all
works from having any influence on our salvation; but only
to exclude those works, which are done antecedently to faith,
and to the renovation of the Holy Ghost, or antecedently to
their being called by the gospel to salvation: this is apparent
from the reason here assigned, why we are not saved by
works, viz. because we were not fitted or prepared to do good
works till we were first in Christ; which, as it doth exclude
good works performed before faithin Christ, so doth it as effec-
tually establish those which are afterward to be performed
by virtue of the new nature given to us, and the renewing
of the Holy Ghost.
Obj. And whereas some object against this answer, that
the apostle saith, “We are saved by grace, not of works,
lest any man should boast,” which boasting doth not seem
to be excluded, if our salvation doth any way depend on
Works done by us, whether they be legal or evangelical, done
before or after faith : - -
Ans. To this I answer, That though salvation doth depend
upon good works, or on sincere obedience to be performed
by us after faith; yet is all boasting utterly excluded; (1.)
Because the good works we do proceed not from ourselves,
but purely from the grace and Spirit of God, for “it is God
that worketh in us both to will and to do, of his good plea-
sure.” As therefore the apostle saith, of the gift of tongues,
and healing, and the like, which were so frequent in the
church of Corinth, and were occasions of their boasting,
“Who maketh thee to differ in these things from others 2 or
what gift hast thou which thou hast not received? and if
thou hast received it, wherefore dost thou boast, as if it were
thine own, and thou hadst not received it?” I Cor. iv. 7, so
may we here: What good work dost thou, which thou hast
not received grace and the good Spirit to perform 2 And if
thou hast received strength from God, for the performance
of them, wherefore dost thou boast P This being the apos-
tle's rule, that we can boast of nothing but of that which we
have not received, or which is purely from ourselves.
(2.) Though God is pleased to make the doing good
works a necessary condition of salvation, so that without
them we shall not obtain it; yet is all boasting utterly ex-
cluded, because it is of grace, that our imperfect works are
counted good, and that they are at all rewarded by God.
For it is alone through that new covenant, which God hath
established in Christ Jesus, that all the imperfections which
adhere to our best performances are pardoned ; seeing the
covenant of works requires perfect obedience, and tendereth
no pardon to the least offence. Now upon what account can
any of us boast of doing that which in itself deserves con-
demnation, though through grace it finds acceptance. Boast-
ing, saith the apostle, is not excluded by the law of works
works, which God "hath before ordained (oic irpontoi-
pagev (sub.) pāc à esāg, to which God hath prepared
us) that we should walk in them.
11 Wherefore remember, that ye being (were) in
times past gentiles in the flesh, who are called the
Uncircumcision by that (nation of the Jews) which is
called the Circumcision (by reason of their circumci-
sion) made with hands; -
12 (And) that at that time ye were without (the
knowledge of) Christ, being aliens from the common-
wealth of Israel (to whom the Messiah primarily be-
(Rom. iii. 27. iv. 4), because “to him that worketh, the re-
ward is not reckoned of grace, but of debt” (Rom. xi. 6),
grace and works that deserve justification and salvation, be-
ing perfectly opposite to one another. Where therefore the
reward is still of grace, and not of debt; where it is giver,
on the account of works imperfect, which deserve nothing
from God, there boasting is excluded. Note,
Thirdly, That when the apostle saith, “We are saved by
grace,” there the word “saved” doth not signify the final and
complete salvation which we shall enjoy in heaven; but only
our being placed in the way of Salvation, and put into
that estate, in which “if we continue grounded and settled
in the faith, and be not moved from the hope of the gospel’
(Col. i. 23), we shall undoubtedly be saved. That this may
be the sense of these expressions, “We are saved by grace,”
and “According to his mercy he saved us” (Tit. iii. 5),
cannot be doubted, if we consider that this is frequently
the import of this phrase in other places ; as when it is
said at the conversion of Zaccheus, “This day is Salvation
come to this house,” Luke xix. 3, that “baptism doth save
us,” 1 Pet. iii. 21, that “there were added to the church or
cočasyo, the saved,” Acts i. 47 (see John iv. 22. Rom. viii.
24. 1 Cor. i. 18). That this must be the proper import of
it in these places, is evident from this consideration, that the
persons to whom the apostle here speaks were not actually
and completely saved, but only by embracing the gospel,
which is styled “the word,” “the gospel of salvation,” “the
power of God through faith to salvation,” were placed in
that way which leadeth to etermal life, and which is called
the way of salvation. It being therefore of God's free grace
and mercy that any church or nation is called to the know-
ledge of salvation, and hath the word of life revealed to
them, it being by that faith which is the gift of God that
they are justified, and so placed in the way of Salvation, and
by his free gift that they enjoy the Holy Spirit, by which
they are enabled to work out their salvation; they may well
be said to be saved by grace, through faith, according to those
words of the same apostle (2 Tim. i. 9), “He hath saved
us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our
works, but according to his purpose and grace, which was
given us in Christ.” But then this hinders not our complete
salvation at the great day, from being conferred upon us,
with respect to our works, by him who hath declared, “He
will render to every one according to his works: glory, hon-
our, and immortality, to every one that worketh good, and
that by patient continuance in well-doing seeketh for it”
(Rom. ii. 6, 7).
7 Ver. 10. Iſeontoiaaaay, He hath before prepared us...}
i. e. Before we do them, by giving us the knowledge of his
will, and the assistance of his Spirit to perform them : i. e.
our entire renovation or new creation, by which alone we are
enabled to do works good and acceptable in his sight, is
from God, who by Christ Jesus hath given us the knowledge
of our duty, and by his grace and Spirit hath enabled us for
the performance of it. They mislead men who extend this
to our whole salvation, from the beginning to the end, which
though it be so of grace, as to be carried on from the begin-
ning of the new nature to the end of our life, by the assist-
ance of God's grace and Holy Spirit; yet is not so of grace
as to exclude those works of righteousness God hath pre-
pared us to walk in, they being the conditions requisite to
make faith saving, the terms on which alone we are to enter
into life (Matt. vii. 21. Luke x. 25. 28. Rom. ii. 6, 7, 10. 2
Pet. i. 5, 11. Rev. xxii. 14), and according to which we
shall receive our future recompence (Rom. ii. 6. 1 Cor. iii.
8. 2 Cor. v. 10. Gal. vi. 4, 5). -
752
EPHESIANS. *
longed), and strangers from the covenants of promise
(made to their forefathers) * having no (firm and lively)
hope (of spiritual and future blessings), and (being)
*without (the knowledge of the true) God in the world:
13 But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were
afar off (from God, and from the blessings imparted to
the Jews), are made "nigh (to God, as they were) by
the blood of Christ.
14 For he is our peace (maker) who hath made both
(Jew and gentile) one (as to the privileges of the gos-
pel, John x. 16. Gal. iv. 28), and hath broken down
the * middle wall of partition betwixt us (i. e. abo-
lished the ceremonial law, which was a partition wall
betwiat Jew and gentile) ;
15 Having abolished in (or by) his (own) flesh (that
which made) the enmity (betwixt Jew and gentile), even
the law of commandments (consisting) in ordinances
ſpeculiar to the Jews) ; for to make in himself (or
create) of two, * one new man (to whom as their head
they are both united into one body, thus) making” peace
(betwict both) ;
16 And that he might reconcile both unto God, in
one body “by the cross, having slain the enmity (be-
twict both to God) thereby (or, upon it : for when we
were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of
his Son, Rom. v. 10. 2 Cor. v. 18. Col. i. 21, or, hav-
ing slain, that is, abolished by his cross, those ordinances
which were trevavria juiv, contrary to us, Col. ii. 14,
as excluding us from the society of God’s people, and
ſº the enmity betwict the Jews and gentiles, ver.
15).
17 And (having procured this reconciliation, he J
came, and (#A0dºw sinyysłigaro, he coming by his apos-
tles) preached peace to you (gentiles) which were afar
off, and to them that were near (i.e. Jews).
18 For through him (thus reconciling us to God)
*we both (Jew and gentile) have access by one Spirit
(of adoption conferred upon us) to the Father, (and are
* Ver. 12. "Exºriša ºil Éxovts.:, Having no hope] After this
life (1 Thess. iv. 13); “I would not have you sorrowful for
them that sleep, as oi Aotoi, the residue of the world, who
have no hope” (see note on 2 Tim. i. 10).
* "A0sot, Without the true God..] For then not knowing
God, they served roi; ºch pāorst clai Beoſº, “those which by
nature were not gods” (Gal. iv. 8); even their wise men
“changed the truth of God into a lie,” and worshipped, the
vulgar deities (Rom. i. 25); they were heathens, “carried
about to dumb idols” (1 Cor. xii. 2). Hence at their con-
version they are said to “turn from idols to serve the living
and true God” (1 Thess. i. 9). In this sense the Christians
styled the heathens &Seot “atheists,” because tºy poiy Syra,
&rra Os3y #ywońkari, “they knew not the true God.” So
Clem. Alex. Protrept. p. 14, and Theodoret here. And the
heathens styled the Christians so, because they denied those
to be gods whom they esteemed truly such ; so Just. Mart.
Apol. ii. p. 56. Athenag. p. 6. And the stoics reckoned two
kinds of atheists; one that “contemned the gods, rév rs
#vavirio; Osiº Aeyépcevow, the other that “spake things contrary
to the Deity,” Laert. lib. vii. §. 119.
* Ver. 13. "Eyyūz, Nigh..] Those Jews who had no cere-
monial defilement to be purged away, and who had made an
atonement for their known sins, were admitted to come near
to God, as being holy; they had a freedom of access to God
in his tabernacle and temple, whence they are styled, 3 xa?:
#yyićow airá, “the people that draw near to God,” Lev. x. 3.
Ps. lxv. 4, cxlviii. 14, and God is said to be, 3 QE2: Éyyićov
abroſ., “a God near to them,” Deut. vii. 4, both by relation,
as having owned them as his children and family, and en-
tered into covenant to be their God, and by his more espe-
cial presence with them; for the Shechinah, or the glorious
presence, dwelt among them in the holy place. Now all
these privileges, saith the apostle, are equally conferred
upon the gentiles, they are now made near to God, ver. 13,
have “access to him,” ver. 18, are “fellow-citizens of the
Saints, and of the family of God,” ver, 19, the Shechinah
dwells in them as in a temple, and they “are made a habi-
tation of God through the Spirit,” ver. 21, 22.
* Ver. 14. To werároixov, The middle wall.] This refers
to that partition-wall in the temple which separated the
court of the gentiles from that into which the Jews entered,
on which was written, “That no alien might go into it;” it
being, saith Josephus,” a sanction of Antiochus, twº 3sty &A-
Népuxov ivrö; roß &yſov trgociéval, “that no alien should enter
into the court of the sanctuary, which was enclosed with the
Sept:” and this inscription was writ in Greek and Latin.
* Ver, 15. Eic Eva zatvöy &v%anov, Into one new man.]
As being both to walk in newness of life, and by the new
law of Christianity, and by Christ's new commandments of
love.
* Eighvny, Peace.] This peace Christ hath made between
Jew and gentile, by abolishing the ceremonial law, which
made the enmity; and with God, by reconciling both to him
by his death.
* Antiq. lib. xii. cap. 3. De Bello Jud. lib. v. cap. 14
* Ver, 16. 'Ev airá.] i.e. 'Ev rá craveº, “By the cross.”
So Chrysostom, Theodoret, CEcumenius, and Theophylact,
read. Other copies read, #y Éavrò, “in himself:” but this
reading, saith Jerome, is only of the Latin copies, and it
seems to have had its rise from the former verse (see Exa.
men Millii). -
* Ver, 18. Oi 32%tseol, We both.] Hence we learn (1.)
that Christ not only reconciled Jew and gentile to one ano-
ther, but that he reconciled both to God, “for by him we
have, ºrgocrayolyhy, access to the Father,” a freedom of access
to God, yer. 18, and iii. 12. Now where this phrase in the
New Testament is used with respect to Christ, it still im-
ports the freedom of access vouchsafed to them who formerly
were by their sins excluded from God's gracious presence:
this is obtained, say these words, by virtue of his blood,
making our peace by him, reconciling us to God by his
cross, and bringing them near to God who were afar off.
How is he our peace? because “the chastisement which
procured our peace was upon him,” Isa. liii. 5. How did
he reconcile us to God, but “by the cross;” i. e. “by bear-
ing our sins in his body on the cross P” 1 Pet. ii. 24. By
virtue of his blood the gentiles, who formerly were aliens,
are made near to God; they who were strangers were made
God's domestics ; they who emphatically were “sinners,”
Gal. ii. 15, were made “fellow-citizens of the saints;” they
who were “children of wrath,” ver. 2, to them is God “re-
conciled :” and after all this can it be reasonably denied,
that Christ hath pacified God to the gentiles by his blood 2
or doth not all this import a reconciliation, on God's part, to
them P
To show the reason of this reconciliation let it be noted,
that God being a holy God, none were to come into his pre-
sence who had any pollution or defilement on them, upon
pain of death, till they were sanctified or cleansed from it
by some purification, or atonement made for them to God.
He dwelt in the camp of Israel; and so those lepers which
were so unclean as to pollute the camp were driven from it
(Lev. xiii. 46. Numb. v. 2, 3.2 Kings xv. 5), and those sin-
offerings, which were polluted with the sins of the whole
congregation, were carried out of the camp (Lev. xvi. 21,
22. Heb. xiii. 11).
God dwelt more especially in the temple, and therefore
they who had lesser impurities, i. e. who were defiled by
the dead, or by an issue, or a menstruous woman, were not
to come thither, till they were cleansed from those defile-
ments (Lev. xii. 4. xv. 31).
Moreover, he being a God of purer eyes than to behold
iniquity, they who had committed any sin of ignorance, and
lay under the guilt of it, were not permitted to come into
the court of the men of Israel, till they had brought their
offering of atonement (Ainsworth on Numb. v. 3). -
Now God being still the same holy God, of purer eyes
than to behold iniquity, the scriptures of the New Testa-
ment seem as plainly to make our freedom of access to God
to depend upon our being sanctified, or purged from our de-
filement, and our being delivered from the guilt of sin, by
an atonement made by the blood of Christ for our iniquities;
CHAPTER III.
T53
enabled to come unto him as our Father, Rom. viii.
15.)
reckoned as) * strangers and foreigners, but (as) fel-
low-citizens with the saints, and of the household of
God; .
20 And are built upon the foundation of the apostles
(of the new) and the prophets (of the old covenant),
Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone,
(who supports and cements the whole building, both of
19 Now therefore ye ; (gentiles) are no more (to be
believing Jews and gentiles, and unites both into one
| body by the Spirit, Ps. cxvii. 22).
21 In whom all the building (being thus) fitly
framed together (or compacted), groweth into one
holy temple in the Lord; (they then belong not to this.
building, whose bodies are not a holy temple to the
Lord :) .
22 In whom ye (Ephesians) also are builded to-
gether, for "a habitation of God through the
Spirit.
that so they being pardoned, we may have peace with God,
and an access to his favour. This plainly seems to be the
import of the words, Heb. ix. 13, “If the blood of bulls and
goats, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanc-
tifieth to the purifying of the flesh,” and by so doing pro-
cureth an admission of the person cleansed to serve God in
the sanctuary (Numb. xix. 9. 12. 17), “how much more shall
the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered
himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from
dead works (or works exposing you to death, the punish-
ment of the person who came unclean into God’s presence,
that so you may be admitted) to serve the living God?”
* Ver, 19. Eávo, Strangers.] The proselytes who joined
themselves to the God of Israel, were by the Jews, and by
the scriptures, styled “strangers.” He that only took upon
him to worship the true God, and observe the precepts of
Noah, was nwnn ha, a stranger permitted to dwell among
them, and to worship in the court of the gentiles: he that
was circumcised, and became obedient to the law of Moses,
was pºly ºn, “a proselyte of righteousness:” but both were
called strangers, according to that maxim of the Jews, “All
the nations of the world are called pºll, strangers before the
God of Israel:” but the Jews are said to be nºn-p, “near
to him.” But now, saith the apostle, there is no such dif-
ference, the believing gentiles being equally admitted with
the believing Jews to the privileges of the new Jerusalem,
and equally related to God, as part of his family.
*7 Ver. 22.] Thus Philo” saith, that good men are 9600
oixos xai ispy, “God’s house and holy temple” (see note on
I Cor. vi. 20.
* L. de Somnis, p. 456, E.
! CHAPTER III.
1 * For this cause, I Paul (&m) the prisoner of Je-
sus Christ for you gentiles,
2 (I am, I say, a prisoner for you gentiles, as you
must know,) *if (since) ye have heard of the dispensa-
tion of the grace of God which is given me to you-
ward (or, for you gentiles):
3 How that he (3rt, for he, or that he,) by (particu-
lar) revelation made known to me the mystery (of the
calling of the gentiles, Gal. i. 16. Aets ix. 15. 21, 22)
as I wrote before in few words (viz. i. 9–12. ii. 19):
4. Whereby, when you read (sic & divayuvêakov.rsc, to
which attending), you may understand my knowledge
in the mystery of Christ (touching the calling of the
gentiles),
5 Which in other ages was not made known to the
Sons of men, “as it is now revealed to his holy apos-
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III.
* Wer. l. Toºrou xàgiv, For this cause.] i. e. Because I
assert that these privileges belong equally to the believing
gentiles, though they be not circumcised: this being the rea-
son why the Jews so fiercely persecuted him, and forced him
to appeal to Caesar (Acts xxii. 22. xxv. 11, 12. xxvi. 17);
and why, after he came to Rome, the Jews preached Christ
not sincerely, but out of envy to him, to “add affliction to
his bonds” (Phil. i. 15, 16).
* Wer. 2. Ely's hºodcrate, If ye have heard.] Hence some
raise a second objection against this epistle's being written
by Paul to the Ephesians; for, say they, to them with whom
he had so long conversed, there could be no doubt, whether
they had “heard of the dispensation of the grace of God
given him towards them.” But indeed this is no objection to
them who will consider, that this epistle was not written to
the Ephesians only, but also to “all the faithful in Christ
Jesus;” many of whom had never seen his face, nor heard
his voice. And, secondly, if we consider, that he speaks
here particularly of the manner of his receiving this dispen-
sation, viz. “by immediate revelation from Christ Jesus;”
of which the Galatians, among whom he had also preached,
were ignorant: and therefore the apostle in his epistle to
them, saith, yogića tºxiv, “Of this I certify you,” confirm-
ing his assertion with an oath (Gal. i. 11, 12. 16). Add to
this, thirdly, that the particle stye is not here a particle of
doubting, but of affirmation, and is to be rendered, as The-
ophylact doth, Étretà, “since :” so the Hebrew ER is often
rendered quandoquidem ; and so Philo uses this particle in
these words,” stye rà éxoſcia, kai rā war’āyvotay of 33 33iºnaá-
‘ray Aévoy #xeiv pagi rives, “Seeing some say of things done
involuntarily, and out of ignorance, that they are not to be
. * Alleg, lib. i. p. 36, G.
| accounted sins ; and when he says, “Abel yet lives,” stye Kai
izé'rn; &y Osoti wai pow; xpdºzavoc Bieizzerai, seeing that he had
still a voice to cry to God;" and that Sarah is represented
by Moses both as barren and very fruitful, F Bºys rô Troxvav-
680.7%aratov táv #6vöy # airüç jø0Xoys' yºvéa Sai, “since he con-
fesses, that from her should proceed the most populous of
nations” (see also the note on i. 15).
* Ver. 5. Q; yūy &rewaxãºn, As it hath been now re-
vealed.] It was in the general made known, that in Abra-
ham should “all the families of the earth be blessed ;” and
that Christ should be “a light to the gentiles;” of which
see note on ver. 10. But it was not made known to the
Jews, that the gentiles should be “fellow-heirs with them "
of the same salvation and celestial inheritance: for that this
was matter of admiration to the first Jewish converts, we
learn from these words, “Then hath God also given to the
gentiles repentance unto life,” Acts xi. 18. They did know,
or believe, that the gentiles should be made members of the
same body, and admitted to the same privileges, and made
partakers of the same Spirit with them. Hence the believing
Jews, Éarmoray, “were in an ecstasy,” when they saw that
the gift of the Holy Ghost was poured on the gentiles (Acts
x. 45. Gal. ii. 14); and much less did they know, that the
partition-wall, which made the distance and enmity between
them, should be taken away by the Messiah as the apostle
here teacheth (ver. 14, 15), that “the hand-writing of ordi-
nances” was to be blotted out on this account (Col. ii.
24), and that these privileges were to be conferred upon
them without circumcision, or observation of the law of
Moses. They rather thought they were either first to be
made Jews, and then Christians, or only were to come
as slaves and drudges to them, who were the children of the
kingdom. And hence the apostle spends a great part of the
* Quod. deter. p. 230, E.
+ De Congressà Quaer. p. 532, B.
3 G
754
EPHESIANS.
tles and * prophets by the Spirit (of wisdom and of
'knowledge, given them to discern all mysteries, 1 Cor.
xii. 8. xiii. 2. -
6 It being not before revealed as now it is,) that the
gentiles should be fellow-heirs (of God with the be-
lieving Jews), and of the same body (with them), and
partakers of his promise (the promise of his Spirit,
Gal. iii. 14) in (and through) Christ (only) by (virtue
of) the gospel (preached to them, and believed by
them):
7 Of which (gospel) I was made “a minister, “ac-
cording to the gift of the grace of God given to me
(to be the apostle of the gentiles; for which work I was
enabled) by the effectual working of his power (in
signs and wonders, &c. Rom. xv. 19).
8 Unto me (I say), who (by reason of my former
persecutions of the church of Christ, 1 Cor. xv. 9) am
less than the least of all saints, is this grace given,
that I should preach among the gentiles the unsearch-
able riches of Christ (i. e. the eaceeding blessings to be
obtained by faith in him) : .
9 And to make all men (Jews and gentiles) see what
is the fellowship of the mystery (of the calling of the
gentiles to be thus fellow-heirs with the Jews), which
from the beginning of the world hath been hid (diró
Töv aid vov, from former ages) in (the purpose of) God,
" who created all things (belonging to the old and new
creation) by Jesus Christ : . .
10 To the intent that (Gr. ºva, that) now, to the
* principalities and powers in heavenly places, might
be known by the (things done in and by the) church
the manifold wisdom of God.
Epistles to the Romans and Galatians, to assert this privi-
lege of the gentiles against the Judaizing Christians. In a
word, to the Jews anciently belonged vicSeaſia, “the sonship,”
and so the inheritance, for “if sons, then heirs?” (Rom.viii.
17); and “the promises” (Rom. ix. 4); and they con-
ceived that none were ever to be admitted into their body,
or partake of those privileges, unless they were circumcised,
and became obedient to the law of Moses (Acts xv. 1),
which they thought never was to cease, or to be antiquated.
And therefore, say the Greek fathers, the apostle here de-
clares, that God now, under the gospel dispensation, equally
admitted the believing gentiles to these privileges by faith
without circumcision, or obedience to the law of Moses.
* Kai Trgophraic, And to the prophets.] That the apostle
here understands the prophets of the New Testament, or
those who in the first ages of the church received the pro-
phetical grace, and by it understood “all mysteries” (1 Cor.
xiii. 2), the words &; vöv, “Now it is revealed ” under the
gospel to the prophets, will not suffer us to doubt. And
this fully answers all the objections of Esthius against the
expositions I have given of the former words.
* Ver. 7. Ot #ysvéºny Štázoyoc, Of which I am made a
minister.] Mr. L. thinks, that “this strongly implies a de-
nial, that others were made ministers of the same doctrine ;”
but as it cannot imply that Barnabas, and others appointed
to go with him, or that Silas and Timotheus, who preached
the same doctrine (2 Cor. i. 19), were not also ministers of
that doctrine; so the commission Christ gave to all his apos-
tles, being to preach the gospel, and to make disciples
through all the gentile world, it is not easy to conceive, that
those nine, who were sent to preach to the gentiles, as well
as Paul, should none of them understand their commission
aright ; especially if we consider how fully the council met
at Jerusalem establish Paul’s doctrine, with respect to the
gentile converts, declaring, as Peter doth, that they, being
Jews, expected to be saved by faith in Christ as did the gen-
tiles ; that God had put no difference betwixt them and the
circumcised Jews, “purifying their hearts by fäith,” and
giving them the Holy Spirit, as he had done to his believing
Jews; and that therefore to endeavour to put the yoke of
circumcision on their necks, was to “tempt God;” that is,
to distrust the evidence that he had given of his acceptance
of them without circumcision (Acts xv. 8–11). And the
whole synod declare that they who said, they ought to be
circumcised, and to keep the law, troubled them with words
tending to the subversion of their souls (ver. 24); whereas
“it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to them, to lay
upon them none of these burdens” (ver. 28). And lastly,
that they who were pillars of the church of the circumcision,
knowing the grace given to Paul, approved his commission
of preaching to the gentiles, as he did, Gal. ii. 9. -
* Karā Tºv 32 pe:y rā; x&pires, According to the gift of
grace.] That the apostolate is by Paul oft styled grace, see
the note on Rom. i. 5. And that in this sense he under-
stands the gift of grace here, is evident from the following
words.
7 Ver. 9. Tº rāyra wrírayri, Who created all things.]
The ancients commonly say, that God the Father is 3 reºro,
3mºtoveyor, “the prime and chief Creator of the world,” as
being the original of all creating power, and he as it were
commanding, and the Son executing his command, who is
or persons in heaven, is very evident.
hence styled,” 5 recoraxh; 3ngioveyºc, “the immediate Creator,”
or abrovºyā; roi, zárgov, “the Artificer of the world.” Hence
Irenaeus'; so often saith, Patrem omnia fecisse per Werbum,
or Verbo virtutis; and that the Son and Holy Spirit aref
quasi manus, “as it were the hands of God by which he
made all things,” and to both which all the angels are
Subject.
At& 'Inso Xplºroſ...] See these words vindicated, Examen
Millii in locum.
* Ver. 10. Taft, 3.8xaſ, xa, raſ; 8% ovariatº, To the princi-
palities and powers.] This phrase, though used of evil spirits,
vi. 12, may be understood of good angels, the mystery of
godliness being then “seen of angels,” 1 Tim. iii. 16, and
the things which the apostles preached by the Holy Ghost,
being such as “the angels desired to look into,” I Pet. i. 12.
That the words #Tovº&vioc, and #7 ovgåvia, always signify things,
So rarie #novgávio;
is “our heavenly Father,” Matt. xviii. 25, 3 Hºrove&vios, “the
Lord from heaven,” l Cor. xv. 48, 49, rà èroupávia, “hea-
venly things,” to be taught only by him “who was in hea-
ven,” John iii. 12, 13, a &gara #7 oupévia, “heavenly bodies,”
viz. the stars, 1 Cor. xv. 40, 8aa’ixeia. Śrougárioc, “the king-
dom to be enjoyed in heaven,” 2 Tim. iv. 18. Heb. xi. 16,
‘Isfavorax%, movgávio, “the Jerusalem that is above,” Heb.
xii. 22, 5738siyaa rāv Āmroveaviov, “the pattern of things in
heaven,” Heb. viii. 5, rà èrove&via, “ heavenly things,” Heb.
ix. 23. Hence are they distinguished from “things on
earth,” or “under the earth,” Phil. ii. 10. The words are
five times used in this epistle, and always signify “ heavenly
places.” So it doth when we are said to “sit down with
Christ, #y roſ; trowgavici;, in heavenly places,” ii. 6, when
Christ is said to be “sat down with God, #y roi; #trovgayiotç, in
heavenly places,” i. 10; that being the consequence of his
ascension into heaven (1 Pet. iii. 22. Heb. xiii. 10. 12), and
therefore it is well rendered “in heavenly places,” ver. 3.
So it signifies, when the apostle speaks of “principalities,
powers, and spiritual wickednesses,” #y toſ; troveaviotç, vi. 12,
and so it must signify, when he speaks here of good angels
in the same places: nor can it be well joined with copia, be-
cause 31& rā, śxxxnaria; intervenes.
To Mr. L.'s objection, that “it is not easy to conceive
that the declaration of this mystery should be to this intent,
that the angels, good or bad, should be acquainted with it,”
it may be answered,
First, That the apostle doth not say "this was God's sole
intent in the revelation of this mystery; but only, that this,
amongst others more important, might be one.
Secondly, That the particle Wa signifies, aded ut, “so
that ” (see note on 1 Cor. xiv. 13); and then the words will
not respect God’s intention in this revelation, but only the
consequence of it. But whereas from those words, ver. 6,
“Was not made known,” &c., Mr. Le Clerc saith thus, “The
same thing which is there said in other ages not to have been
made known to the sons of men, is said here to have been
unknown also to angels; which being so, I confess I do not
well understand how they who are neither prophets nor an-
gels can find out so many places in the prophets, in which
* Orig, in Cels, lib. vi. p. 317.
+ Lib. ii. cap. 2. lib. iii, cap. 8, 11.
+ Lib. iii. Praef. cap. 17.
CHAPTER III.
755
11 "According to the eternal purpose which he
purposed (or made) in Christ Jesus our Lord :
12 In whom we have boldness (or freedom) and
access with confidence (to God the Father) by the
faith of him : (i. e. the faith we have in him as our
Mediator; see note on ii. 18.)
13 Wherefore I (Paul the prisoner of Jesus Christ ||
for you gentiles, ver. 1) desire that you faint not (that
gou be not disheartened) at my tribulation for you,
which is (rather matter of) your glory, (you having
cause to glory, that I, your apostle, suffer so much for
the gospel I preach to you, this being to you a confirma-
tion of the truth of it. ,
14 And) for this cause I bow my knees to the Fa-
ther of our Lord Jesus Christ (praying to him),
15 Of whom "the whole family in heaven and
the calling of the gentiles is manifestly and directly foretold :
for certainly if it was revealed to the prophets, they under-
stood it ; and if it could be gathered from the literal sense
of any prophecies, the angels might have understood it by
those prophecies:” whereas, I say, he descants thus: What
would he have P. Would he deny against the plain and fre-
quent sayings of Paul, that the calling of the gentiles was
revealed to, and plainly foretold by, the prophets, as his
words do import? Let him, if he can, confute Paul proving
it against him, that the Lord had commanded the gentiles
should be called in these words of the prophet Isaiah, “I
have set thee to be a light to the gentiles, and to be for sal-
vation to the ends of the earth’” (Acts xiii. 46,47): and
his four other proofs from the prophets, Moses, David, and
Esaias, that the gentiles were to glorify God for his mercy to
them, in Christ Jesus, that root of Jesse, who was to rise up
to govern the gentiles, and in whom the gentiles were to
trust (Rom. xv. 9–12); yea, let him confute the apostle
James, saying, “Simeon hath declared how God at first did
visit the gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name:
and to this agree the words of the prophets, After this I will
build again the tabernacle of David, &c. that the residue of
men might seek after the Lord, and all the nations upon
whom my name is called ” (Acts xv. 14. 17). Nor doth the
apostle anywhere hint, that the calling of the gentiles was
not revealed to or by the prophets; but only that it was not
so made known in all the particularities of it, &c viv, “as it
is now discovered” by the apostles and prophets of the New
Testament (see the note on ver. 6). Secondly, It was also
known to, and preached by, the angels, declaring the glad
tidings of great joy “which should be to all nations” through
Christ (Luke ii. 10, 11), he being as well “a light to lighten
the gentiles,” as “the glory of his people Israel.” Nor does
the apostle here say, as he suggests, that this was unknown to
the angels, but only that what was before made known to them
by prophecies, was now made known to them by the church,
i. e. the gentiles actually called ; though all the circumstan.
£es mentioned note on ver. 6, might not be fully known be-
fore, even to them.
* Ver, 11. Karā Trgéðiew tºy.gióvoy, According to the fore-
disposing of the ages.] In the first of the ages his wisdom
seeing fit to give the promise of a Saviour to a fallen Adam;
in the second age to typify and represent him to the Jews in
sacred persons, rites, and sacrifices; and in the age of the
Messiah, or the last age, to reveal him to the Jews, and
preach him to the gentiles.
* Ver. 15. Hára trarpið, The whole family.] It is fre-
quent with the Jews to make.mention of the angels as “the
family in heaven;” and of men, especially those that are in
covenant with God, as his “family on earth;” as when they
say, “God doeth nothing but he first consults with his family
Tºynbv above,” that is, with the angels: and that “he that
addicts himself to the study of the divine law for the sake of
the law, conciliates to himself peace with the family above,
and with the family below ;” that is, with angels in heaven,
and men on earth. They are also called Hºyo wip “thé
Saints above,” Targ. in Job xv. 15, and “the sons of God,”
as in these words of Job i. 6, and ii. 1, “And on a day came
âyyºo Osotſ, the sons of God,” and xxxviii. 7, “Where wast
thou when äyyäAoi fºou, all the sons of God shouted for joy?”
And so are all true believers styled, for “to as many is be-
| earth is named (the angels in heaven and saints on earth
being styled the sons of God),
16 That he would grant you, according to the
riches of his glory (i. e. according to his glorious
ºriches), to be (still more) strengthened with might by
his (Holy) Spirit in the inward man; -
17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith;
that you, being (firmly) rooted and grounded in love
(to him, who sent his Son to die for you);
18 May be able to comprehend (together) with all
Saints, what is “ the breadth, and length, and depth,
and height (of this mysterious love towards you),
19 And may (be able to) know the love of Christ,
which (in its full eatent, even) passeth knowledge, that
you may be filled with all the *fulness of God.
20 Now, to him that is able to do exceeding abun-
lieved, he gave power to be the sons of God,” John i. 12,
and they at the resurrection shall be “like the angels, and
be the sons of God,” Luke xx. 36.
*Ver. 18. Tà TA&ro; Kai &#x0;, &c. The breadth, length,
depth, and height.] By “the breadth " of this love, some of
the fathers understand the great extent and generality of
Christ's affection : his death being designed for the benefit of
all persons, Jew and gentile, through all ages, from Adam to
the end of the world, and in all places, he having by it
“reconciled things in heaven, and things in the earth” (i. 10).
By “the depth " of it, say they, is signified the greatness
of his humiliation ; love to mankind having induced him to
change “the form of God” for that of a servant, humbled
the Lord of life to an ignominious and painful death, and
brought him from the highest heaven to the lowest hell, into
which, they conceive, he descended for our sakes. “The
length " of it imports, say they, his love to us from the be-
ginning of the world, we being “chosen in Christ from the
beginning (i. 4. iii. 11). “The height” of his affection is
manifested, say they, in that being now exalted to the right
hand of Majesty, he is still there employed in acts of great-
est kindness to us, using his whole power in heaven and earth
for the benefit of his church. But it seems more natural to
say, that the apostle, by enumerating these dimensions, only
intends to signify the exceeding greatness of “the love of
Christ, which passeth knowledge.” Thus Job, speaking of
the unsearchable wisdom of God, and his unfathomable per-
fections, puts these inquiries: “Canst thou search him out
to perfection ? It is higher than the heaven, what canst
thou do? Deeper than hell, what canst thou know?
The measure of it is longer than the earth, and the
breadth of it than the sea” (Job xi. 7, 8); and the son of
Sirach saith, “The height of heaven, and the breadth of the
earth, the abyss and wisdom, who can search out P” (Ecclus.
i. 3), and the apostle cries out, “O the depth of the wisdom
and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments,”
&c. (Rom. xi. 33). And in this sense these four dimen-
sions will chiefly be designed to import what the apostle
styles, (ver. 8), “the unsearchable riches of the love of
Christ.” It therefore seems unreasonable to think, that
“the love of Christ passing knowledge,” should import only
the love of Christ passing, i. e. “excelling the knowledge or
skill in mystical interpretations, which the Gnostics pre-
tended to :” for, as the word yºat; put absolutely hath no
such import, that I know of, in the holy scripture; so after
the mention of all these dimensions, and “the unsearchable
riches” of it (ver. 8), it seems a very faint expression to say,
it surpasseth that vain and insignificant knowledge to which
the Gnostics pretended; their mystical interpretations, re-
corded by Irenaeus, being above measure vain and impious,
even a mystery of iniquity: and as for the phrase tºrsp;8&x-
Xova'a rāg yyácsoc, it is justified by Aristotle,” who hath it
twice in one chapter, viz. Ursg3áAńsly rà, avºxerciaç, “to ex-
ceed the measure,” Urs;8&AAEw rāy TrAwrigoy, “to excel other
navigators.”
**Ver. 19. Eic rāy tº trºpowa toû Osoſ, With all the ful-
mess of God..] Ei, pro y (see note on Col. i. 20), that is,
say some, with the highest degrees of faith and love; or with
all fulness of spiritual gifts, especially those of knowledge
* Polit, lib. iii, cap. 13, p. 447, 448.
3 C 2
'756
EPHESIANS.
dantly above all that we ask or think, according to
the power (of the Holy Ghost) that worketh in us (and
so miraculously confirms his doctrine to the world),
21 Unto him (I say) be (ascribed all) glory in the
(assemblies of the) church by (and through) Christ
Jesus (through whom we offer up all prayers and
praises, Heb. xiii. 15. Eph, v. 20) throughout all
ages, world without end. Amen.
and wisdom, which might enable them to comprehend the
greatness of his love. Thus iv. 10, “He ascended up on
high, that he might fill all things” with spiritual gifts, men-
tioned ver. 10, that he might “give gifts unto men,” ver, 8;
and i. 23, his church is styled, “the fulness of him that filleth
all in all;” i. e. who filleth all his members with those gifts.
CHAPTER IV.
1 I THEREFORE, the prisoner of the Lord (Év Kvpiq,
in bonds for Christ), beseech you that you would walk
worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, -
2 * With all lowliness and meekness, with long-
suffering, (and so) forbearing one another in love;
3 Endeavouring (thus) to keep the unity of the
Spirit in the bond of peace.
4 (For you know, that) there is one body (of the
whole church), and * one Spirit (which animates the
whole body), even as you are called in one hope of
your calling; (i. e. and you know also, that you are all
called to the same hope of eternal life.
5 There is also to us Christians) one Lord, ° one
faith (in this Lord), one baptism (by which we do pro-
fess this faith),
6 * One God and Father of all, who is above all (by
his essence), and through all (by his providence), and
in you all (by his Spirit).
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV.
1 Wer. 2, 3.] Note here from the fathers, that śāy rhy
&y&ºrny #xapºgy &ve;#288.a 3xxâxoy, “where love is retained,
there will be mutual forbearance;” and from Zanchy, that
peace cannot be preserved without that mutual forbearance,
and that humility, which exclude, and that meekness, which
is opposite to, anger and contention.
* Wer. 4. “Ev IIveijº, a, One Spirit.] From these and the
former words, “the unity of the Spirit,” it seems plain to
me that the union of the mystical body of the church catho-
lic consists in this, that they all have the same Spirit com-
municated to them from their head Christ Jesus. For the
whole body of Christians is here said to have “one Spirit,”
and their unity is styled, “the unity of the Spirit.” “The
body is one,” saith the apostle, 1 Cor. xii. 12, “for by one
Spirit we are all baptized into one body,” ver, 23. And to
the whole body of the church of Corinith he speaks thus,
“I(now ye not that you are the temple of God, and that the
Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” 1 Cor. iii. 16; “Know ye
not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, that is
in you?” vi. 19. Christ, saith the apostle here, ii. 16–18,
hath reconciled both Jew and gentile into one body unto
God, and hath made peace between them ; “for by him we
háve both access by one Spirit to the Father;” &ga cºy, and
therefore having thus one Spirit, by which we are made one
body, and Sons of the same Father, “we are all fellow-citi-
zens of the saints, and of the family of God;” and are “built
up all together into a habitation of God through the Spirit.”
Now hence it follows,
First, That only sincere Christians are truly members of
that church catholic of which Jesus Christ is the head, since
the whole body is united to him by the communication of
the Holy Spirit, whom the wicked of the world “cannot re-
ceive ". (John xiv. 17), they being “sensual, having not the
Spirit” (Jude 19).
Secondly, That nothing can unite any professor of Chris-
tianity to this one body, but the participation of the Spirit of
Christ ; and therefore nothing else can make him a true
member of that church which is his body. Hence the apostle
doth inform us negatively, that “if any man have not the
Spirit of Christ” dwelling in him, “he is none of his,” Rom.
viii. 9, 11, and affirmatively, that “by this we know that he
abideth in us, by the Spirit that he hath given us,” I John
iii. 24. And again, “By this we know that he abideth in
us, and we in him, because he hath given us of his Spirit,”
iv. 13. For “as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they
are sons of God,” Rom viii. 14, and “because we are sons,
God hath sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts,” Gal. iv.
6. It therefore must be owned as a certain truth, that no-
thing can unite us to that church and body, of which Christ
Jesus is the head, but the participation of the Spirit.
Thirdly, That no error in judgment, or mistake in practice,
which doth not tend to deprive a Christian of the Spirit of
Christ, can separate him from the church of Christ.
Fourthly, Hence it demonstratively follows, that no church-
governors, jointly or severally, can be by God appointed to
be the living judges, or the infallible directors of our faith.
|For since in matters of faith we must have a judgment of
certainty, we cannot own him as such by virtue of that
assistance of the Holy Ghost, which alone can make them
such, till we are certain they belong to that church of which
Christ Jesus is the head, and to which only the promise of
the Spirit doth belong; i. e. till we are certain they are sin-
cere and upright Christians. Since therefore God hath given
us no certain rule to know this by, we may rest Satisfied, that
he designed no such magisterial guides should be continued
in his church. -
9 Wer. 5. Mia tria-ric, One faith..] It plainly is asserted
in the holy scriptures, that there is one “common faith.”
Tit. i. 4, one “like precious faith,” 2 Pet. i. 1, of all that
bear the name of Christians; a “unity of faith,” and “ of
the knowledge of the Son of God,” to which we must all
arrive, Eph. iv. 13; a “faith once delivered to the saints,”
Jude 3, for which we must “strive earnestly,” and in which
we must “build up ourselves;” a “faith of the gospel” for
which we are exhorted to “contend as with one soul,” Phil.
i. 27. But vain is hence the inference of the papists, that
this one faith must be either theirs, and then we cannot be
saved without it ; or ours, and then they cannot be saved :
for this “one faith,” into which all Christians were baptized,
contains neither the doctrines in which they differ from us,
nor we from them, but only the Apostles' Creed, which the
whole church of Christ, for many centuries, received as a
perfect system of things necessary to be believed in order to
salvation ; as I have fully proved, Treatise of Tradition, par.
ii. chap. vii. $.4–8.
* Ver. 6. Ei, Oslº, One God.] Here, say the Socinians,
that God who is styled “one,” is also styled “the Father,”
and to him is ascribed this epithet so common among the
philosophers, to demote the supreme Deity, that he is 3 &y iri
Trāat, “God over all.” But to this it is answered,
, I. That we deny not that God the Father is “one God
over all,” or that there is one who is both God and the
Father; only we add, that there is also one who is one God
of the same essence, and the Son; and so also say we of the
Holy Spirit: and that as the one Lord, and the one Spirit
here, do not exclude the Father from being both Lord and
Spirit, so neither doth the “one God and Father ” exclude
the Son, or Holy Spirit, from being God, but only from being
God the Father. It is also to be noted, that the primitive
fathers before the Nicene cquncil did not scruple to distin-
guish Christ from God the father, by styling him another
God from the maker of all things, brēc ºy &Axo; Oed; oix Eart,
“above whom there is no other God.” Justin Martyr”
twice describes the Father by this distinctive character, that
he is God, trip ºy &AA0; ©ed; oux Fati, “above whom there is no
other God;” saying, that Christ did nothing but what 3 rôy
* Dial. cum Tryph. p. 275, cap. 276, D.
CHAPTER J W. 75
7.
7 But (though the body is but one, yet) unto every ascended up "far above all heavens, that he might fill
one of us (who are members of this body) "is given
grace (enabling us to serve this body) according to the
measure of the gift of Christ.
8 *Wherefore (to manifest this) he (the psalmist)
saith, When he (Christ) ascended up on high, he led
captivity (Satan and death) captive (Judg. v. 12. Heb.
ii. 14), and " gave gifts unto men (i.e. received them,
Ps. lxviii. 19, to give to them).
9 Now that he ascended, what is it but (a demon-
stration) that he also descended first “into the lower
parts of the earth
10 He that descended (thus into the lower parts of
the earth) is the same also who (after his resurrection)
wáaptov ºrothoraç, ºrée àw &AXoc côw floºr. Os3g, “the Maker of the
world, above whom there is no other God, would have him
do ;” and yet he at least twenty times asserts, that Christ is
“God and Lord,” and that he is the person, & p’ of oveaväy
wai yºv,” “by whom he made the heaven and earth,” and by
whom he will renew them ; the Word of God, 8t' ot, oùpavā;
zai yº, kai à Trāa a wriat; #yévero, “by whom the heaven and
the earth, and the whole creation was made.” So Irenaeus+
often saith that “the Father is only to be called God and
Lord ;” and yet he adds, that this is not said to exclude the
Son, “who is in the Father, and hath the Father in him,
and hath his principality in all things.”
* Ver. 7. 'E36&n # Xágic, Is given grace.] These graces
being therefore the gift of Christ, and not our own, no one
should be puffed up, or despise others on the account of
them ; nor should envy any others to whom he thinks fit to
give them in a higher measure.
• Wer. 8. At Náyst, Wherefore he saith, That this psalm
relates to the Messiah, we learn from the Jews themselves,
who interpret this psalm of him ; for the words, ver. 32, are
by them thus paraphrased, “All nations shall bring gifts to
the King Messiah,” Schemoth Rabbah, S. 15. Let it be
also noted, that Christ triumphed over death and Satan on
the cross * (Col. ii. 15), but he led Satan captive more
gloriously, when, after this ascension, he poured his Holy
Spirit on his apostles and disciples, and by that Spirit enabled
them to cast out devils in his name, and turn men from the
power of Satan to God (Acts xxvi. 18). He also then tri-
umphed over death most signally, when, thus ascending, he
became Lord over the dead, and “had the keys of death and
hades in his hand ” (Rom. xiv. 9. Rev. i. 18). Note also,
that to “lead captivity captive,” is a phrase common in the
Old Testament, to signify a conquest over enemies, especially
over such as formerly had led them captive: so Judg. v. 12,
“Arise, Barak, aixºax&tia ow aix/waxo~lav, lead captivity
captive” (see 1 Kings viii. 46. 2 Chron. xxviii. 5. ll. 17.
Numb. xxi. 1. Deut. xxi. 10).
7 Kai #8was 36p.ara, And gave gifts.] That is, saith Dr.
Hammond, “he received gifts to give to men,” from the
nature of the Hebrew ripp, which signifies both to give and
to receive, and thus it is rendered by the Targum, Syriac, and
Arabic: but, saith Mr. Clerc, “When the word signifies to
give, there follows a dative case, Exod. xxv. 2, whereas the
Hebrew here hath pixii, which has made learned men con-
jecture, that St. Paul read DTNº, to man.” But, first, this is
not always true, for, Hos. xiv. 2, we read thus, “Take away
iniquity, and rip), and give good;” and where a dative case
is added, an accusative either goes before it, as, “Thou hast
received, nnn, gifts for men,” and Judg. xiv. 2, * Finns imp,
“Give her to me,” and ver, 3 ; or else follows after it, as 1
* P. 340. -
+ Nemo igitur alius Deus nominatur, aut Dominus appel-
latur, nisi quiest omnium Deus et Dominus–Et hujus filius
Jesus Christus Dominus noster, lib. iii. cap. 6.-Quiet solus
Deus super quem alius Deus non est, &c. 9. Ipsum Domi-
mum sequinos oportet; patrem tantùm Deum et Dominum
eum qui solus est Deus, et Dominator omnium, tradentem
discipulis, et tamen haec dicta esse pronuntiat do prophetis
quidem, et apostolis patrem, et filium confitentibus, alterum
autem neminem, neque Deum nominantibus, neque Domi-
num confitentibus, lib. iii. cap. 6. Filius est in patre, ct habet
in se patrem, et in omnibus principatum ejus habet,
all things (with his gifts, according to his promise, that
when he was ascended he would send the Spirit upon.
his apostles and disciples, John xiv. 17. xv. 26. xvii. 5.
Luke xxiv. 49). -
11 And (accordingly) he gave some, apostles (to
reveal his will) ; and some, prophets (to earplain the
mysteries of faith); and some, evangelists (to propa-
gate this faith to other nations) ; and "some, pastors
and teachers (to instruct others in it.
12 “And this variety of gifts was conferred upon
them) for the perfecting (Gr. compacting) of the saints
(into one body), for the work of the ministry (that they
who had them might minister to the temporal necessity,
Kings iii. 24. nºn “” inp, “Give me a sword” (see xvii. 10.
Exod. xviii. 12. xxv.2): and as for n in DTNH, who knows
not that it sometimes signifies pro, for, and sometimes only
is the sign of the dative case ? (see Noldius de Partic. Hebr.
p. 158, 163.)
* Ver. 9. Eic tà war&rega ºften rā; yńs, Into the lower parts
of the earth.] That is, into the grave: so Ps. lxiii. 9,
“They that seek my soul to destroy it, shall go into the
lower parts of the earth,” i. e. they shall fall by the sword,
ver. 10; Isa. xliv. 23, “Sing, O heavens ! shout, the lower
parts of the earth.” “We cannot be assured,” saith Bishop
Pearson,” “that the descent of Christ, which St. Paul here
speaketh of, was performed after his death, nor can we be
assured that “the lower parts of the earth’ do signify hell .
they may as well refer to his incarnation,” according to that
of David, Psal. cxxxix. 15, “My substance was not hid from
thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in
the lower parts of the earth;” or to his burial, according to
that of the prophet, “They that seek my soul to destroy it,
shall go into the lower parts of the earth ; karðrspa yāe ºn
Tºy Sāvatoy #x3AEasy, “He calls his death his descent into the
lower parts of the earth, say Chrysostom and Theodorct on
the place.
* Ver. 10. “rragávo orávray rày otgavºy, Far above all hea-
vens.] He being made “higher than the heavens,” Heb.
vii. 26, that is, than the airy and the starry heavens, and
ascending above them into the presence of God, who hath
“set his glory above the heavens,” Psal. viii. 1, and is ex-
alted above them, Psal. lvii. 5, 11. cviii. 4, 5.
19 Wer. 11. Tobc 33 motºčva; zai StöczakáNovº, And some pas-
tors and teachers.] That these “pastors and teachers ” were
in the first ages men of extraordinary gifts, is evident from
this very place ; for the preceding words, “He gave gifts unto
men, some apostles, some prophets,” &c. show that all the
persons mentioned here were partakers of the gifts which
Christ, ascending up on high and sending down the Holy
Spirit, gave to men. Hence, among the different xaglakata,
gifts of the Holy Ghost, are reckoned, 3.8aazaxia, “teach-
ing,” Rom. xii. 6, 7 ; and among the gifts exercised in their
assemblies, 33ax}, “doctrine,” l Cor. xiv. 6. 26; among the
persons who had received the 8taipéast; xafloº &rov, “di-
versities of gifts,” are reckoned, after prophets, 8.3%axaxoi,
“teachers,” 1 Cor. xii. 28. Rom. xii. 6, 7, and here: and so
Tertullian: makes mention of them, as persons “endued
with the grace of knowledge.” The “pastors" seem proba-
bly the same with the ºv6sayńasic, “governments,” 1 Cor. xii.
28, and the reoEarārez, Rom. xii. 8: and it is evident, from
both those places, that there were also men endued with
those spiritual gifts there mentioned. Hence it is observable
of these doctors, that when the extraordinary gifts of the
church ceased, their very names grew out of use, they being
very rarely mentioned in the succeeding ages of the church.
* Ver. 12–15.] From these five verses the papists argue
for an infallible guide, thus: “Christ gave apostles, pastors,
and teachers, that Christians might not be tossed to and fro
with every wind of doctrine: this end could not be compassed
by giving us such guides and instructors in belief as were
merely fallible, and who might lead us into circumvention of
error. Moreover, God gave such pastors to his church, till
* Art. v. p. 228.
+ Est itaque frater aliquis dector gratia sapientiae donatus
De Praescript, cap. 3
758
EPHESIANS.
as did the deacons, and the spiritual concerns of others,
as did the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and
doctors), for the edifying of the body of Christ (in
Jaith and love) :
13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of
the knowledge (or acknowledgment) of the Son of God,
unto a perfect man (i. e. to perfection in knowledge of
the faith and of the will of God, Col. i. 28), unto the
measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ (i. e.
so as to be Christians of a full maturity and ripeness
in all the graces derived from Christ Jesus to the body);
14 That (so arriving to perfection in faith and know-
ledge) we henceforth (may) be no more children toss-
ed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of
doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning crafti-
mess, whereby they lie in wait to deceive (Gr. by the
subtlety of men, through their craftiness, for the ma-
naging of deceit) ;
|
15 But, speaking (or keeping) the truth in love,
may grow up into (or increase in) him in all things,
who is the head, even (into) Christ :
16 °From whom the whole body fitly joined toge-
ther and compacted by that which every joint sup-
plieth, according to the effectual working in the mea-
sure of every part (Gr. compacted and cemented toge-
ther by every joint of supply, according to its power in
proportion of every part), maketh increase of the body
to the edifying of itselfin love.
17 This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord,
that ye (who have these assistances in faith and piety)
walk not henceforth as other (unconverted) gentiles,
*in the vanity of their (own) mind;
18 Having the understanding darkened, (and) being
“alienated from the life of God "through the igno-
rance that is in them, because of the *blindness of
their heart;
we all come to the unity of the faith, which will not be till
the last days of all ; wherefore, till the end of the world, the
world shall be provided of them, and by them be secured
from being “like children tossed to and fro.’”
Ans. I answer, That this text is so far from proving a suc-
cession of infallible guides, in matters of faith, to the world’s
end, that it seems rather to establish the doctrine of the pro-
testants, touching the fulness and perspicuity of the holy
scripture in all necessary articles of Christian faith, and to
overthrow the pretended necessity of infallible guides in order
to that end. For,
First, To “come to a perfect man,” as to the unity of
faith and knowledge of the Son of God, is, in the scripture
language, to be sufficiently instructed in the articles of the
Christian faith and knowledge. Thus, when our Lord saith
to the young man, “If thou wilt be perfect, sell all that thou
hast,” Matt. xix. 21, by comparing these words with those
in Mark and Luke, Mark x. 21, “One thing is lacking,” or,
is wanting to thee, Luke xviii. 22, it is evident, that to “be
perfect” there, is not to be wanting in the knowledge or
practice of anything to be done, that this young man might
have eternal life. -
When Paul saith, “We speak wisdom, #y roi; ºrexeizig,
among them that are perfect,” 1 Cor. ii. 6, the meaning is,
say the Greek commentators,” Traps aroſ, rexelay tragašeža-
pºvot, ºria riv, “among those who are perfectly instructed in
the faith:” and when he saith, “As many as are perfect, let
us mind the same thing,” he speaks of persons fully instructed
in their Christian liberty: and when he saith, “Leaving the
principles of the oracles of Christ, let us go on to perfection,”
he calls us to advance to a more full instruction in the faith
and knowledge of Christ (see note on 1 Cor. ii. 6).
Secondly, Note, that the apostles and first preachers of
the gospel were made ministers of his church, trangāraī rūy
Aávoy row Qeod, “to teach fully the word of God,” Col. i. 25,
26; “to teach every man in all wisdom, that they might
present every man perfect in Christ Jesus,” ver. 28. And
accordingly, departing from the churches planted by them,
they commended them only “to the word of grace, which
was able to build them up, and give them an inheritance
among all that are sanctified,” Acts xx. 32. '
Thirdly, Observe, that the apostles, prophets, evangelists,
pastors, and teachers, here named, were given at our Lord's
ascension for these ends; for “when he ascended up on high,
#3ake, he (actually) gave some apostles,” &c. and that even
those pastors and teachers had their Xagiogata, or super-
natural gifts of the Holy Spirit, to fit them for that end.
Whence it demonstratively follows, that these gifts ceasing
soon after, a succession of such persons was neither pro-
mised nor was necessary to this end; for if so, Christ must
be charged with breach of promise, and being wanting to the
church in what is necessary for the obtainment of those ends.
Fourthly, Observe, that these apostles, prophets, evan-
gelists, pastors, and teachers, endued with these supernatural
gifts, “for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the
body of Christ into a perfect man,” not doing all or any of
* Theodoret.
these things in person since their death, and yet being given
for the accomplishing these ends, must be acknowledged to
have done all these things, as far as they were needful, by
some other way. Now there being no other way in which
they could do it, but by their writings left behind them as a
rule of faith, and by which “they being dead yet speak ;” it
follows, that these writings, duly attended to, must be suffi-
cient for these ends; and consequently they must, both with
sufficient fulness and perspicuity, instruct us in all the neces-
sary articles of Christian faith and knowledge. Hence
Chrysostom” informs us, that they writ the gospel, ºrgöc
zaragrapºy rāv Āyioly, “for the perfecting the saints, for the
work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.”
In a word, it is evident this text doth as much prove a neces-
sity of apostles, prophets, and evangelists, in all future ages
of the church, to keep her members fixed in the truth, as of
pastors and doctors ; these apostles, prophets, and evangel-
ists, being here placed in the first rank of those whom God
hath given for this end : since therefore these apostles, pro-
phets, and evangelists were only given in the first ages of the
church, it evidently follows, that the persons mentioned in
this text were not given them to do this personally to the
world's end, but only to do it by the doctrine they then
taught.
” Wer. 16. 'E: ot, From whom.] That is, from which
head the whole body of Christians, duly compacted together,
some sustaining the office of an inferior head, some of an eye,
some of a hand, some of a foot (1 Cor. xii. 15–17), by the
assistance which every of these parts, thus united together,
gives to the whole, according to the particular proportion of
its gifts, increaseth or grows in love, and so each member
edifies one another.
* Ver. 17. 'Ey garaiornºr roi; vios, In the vanity of the
mind.] The heathen idols are frequently in the Old Testa-
ment styled £24tata,“vain things;” and the apostles preached
to the gentiles to abstain, and turn &nd rôy Awa’raiov 'rojtov,
“from those vain things,” Acts xiv. 15, by compliance with
which they became “vain in their imaginations, and their
foolish hearts were darkened,” Rom. i. 22, and this seems to
be the “vain conversation” from which, saith Peter, they
were redeemed, l Pet. i. 18, and the “vanity of the mind.”
here mentioned. .
* Wer. 18. 'AmnxNorgioſºvot, Alienated from the life of
God..] i. e. Not only from that way of life which God ap-
proves of, but which resembles him in purity, righteousness,
truth, and goodness.
* At& rºy &yvolay rºw oiaav čv airoic, By the ignorance that
is in them.] This seems to refer to their ignorance of the
nature, the attributes, and the providence of God, and of a
future state of happiness and misery.
* The blindness of their hearts,) Here mentioned, they
had contracted by wicked habits and customs, the frequency
of vile examples, and by those corrupt principles which
made them insensible of their impurity and lasciviousness ;
for they committed whoredom and adultery, saith Origen,t
* In locum.
+ Contra Celsum, lib. iv. p. 177, et Hom, v, in Joh, p. 79.
CHAPTER IV.
7.59
19 Who being past feeling (insensible of the vile-
ness of their actions) have given themselves up to
work all uncleanness " with greediness. -
20 But ye have not so learned (the doctrine of)
Christ;
21 If so be (or since) that ye have heard him (by
owr preaching), and have been taught by him (Gr. in-
structed in him) as the truth is in Jesus: -
22 (To wit, ) that ye put off, concerning the former
conversation (in heathenism) * the old man, which is
corrupt according to the deceitful lusts: (i. e. the lusts
which deceive you, promising that pleasure and satis-
faction which they cannot yield; or which you prac-
tised whilst heathens, being deceived by your heathen
priests, declaring that they were acceptable to the gods,
and the philosophy and vain deceit of those men who
allowed them :)
23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
24 And that ye (may) put on the new man, which
- - - - - - ** --------------------
3:34-xoyrs; twº ºrávrov, Trag& ré kaśńxcy rotºro yiver6at, “teach-
ing that in these things they did nothing contrary to good
manners.” -
17 Wer. 19. 'Ew TNBoyság, With greediness.] Hoc totum
fecerunt in avaritiã, dum nunquam luxuriando Saturantur,
nec eorum terminum habet voluptas (Hieronymus in
locum).
18 Wer. 22. Tºv traxaty &v6potrow, The old man, Signifies
those evil habits they so long practised in the state of hea-
thenism; “the new man,” that divine life, that life of
righteousness and holiness which Christianity requires: and
it is called “holiness of truth,” or inward holiness, in op-
position to the outward and ceremonial holiness of the
Jews.
* Ver. 25. To Jeff30s, Lying.] Which the heathen phi-
losophers thought lawful, when it was good or profitable for
them; as owning that rule of Menander, wºrrow 3: #Aéa Stat
Jsjöcc, 3 &An6äç waxby, “A lie is better than a hurtful truth:”
and that of Proclus, rö y&p &yaśāv Kºeſtrów Łati răç &Anósiaç,
“Good is better than truth :” and that of Darius in Hero-
dotus,” #yŠa yap ºr 35ſ wai Jºão, Aéyeaša, Asyāa św, “When
a lie will profit, let it be used :” and that of Plato, “He
may lie, who knows how to do it, #y 8āowri Katº, in a fit sea-
son:” for “there is nothing decorous in truth,” saith Maxi-
mus Tyrius, “but when it is profitable: yea, sometimes,”
saith he, ka? Jºëo, &vnasy &v66&wovº, was r" &Anşā; #8xaspey,
“truth hurts, and a lie profits men.” And to countenance
this practice, both Platoš and the stoics | seem to have
framed a Jesuitical distinction between lying in words, and
with assent to an untruth, which they called “ lying in the
soul:” the first they allowed “to an enemy in prospect of
advantage; and for many other dispensations of this life:”
that is, their wise man may tell a lie craftily, and for gain;
but he must not embrace a falsehood through ignorance, or
assent to an untruth.
29 Wer. 26. ’oºyićsa-Se wai º żºagrávers, Be angry, and
sin not..] These words, though spoken inperatively, are not
a command to be angry, but a caution to avoid sinful anger;
as when the prophet saith to Nineveh, “Fortify thy strong
holds, the sword shall cut thee off.” Nah. iii. 14, i. e. though
thou dost fortify them, it shall do so. And the son of Sirach,
“Cocker thy child, and he shall make thee afraid,” xxx. 9,
i. e. this will be the issue of it. So Isa. viii. 9, 10.
* Lib, iii. p. 191.
† Diss. iii. p. 29.
§ Tà Juxi, wegi rā, śyra lºsa Sai argyre; ºwicoſa-i, rö 8; iv
toſ, Aéyot; Jeff36; trots x&irot Xgha tºwow, &c'rs pºſſ &#toy eſval
pºtatovº. Plato de Republ. lib. ii. p. 607. Totº &excva'i rii;
tráneo; Treoráxei Jºësa Sat, h woxegiov h aroxirãy Évèza. Lib.
iii. p. 611.
| Tö ºšvrol Jºe wrote avyxºzaaSai yogićova'iv airòy war&
woxxotº, reárov; &v=v avyxarašiceos, Kai yº kari, a rpathyiay
ãvriºraxãv, kai xará rày rot; cup, pégovto; Tréoégaariv, kai war'
&\xa; oizcyopia; roi; 3iov troXXàº, Jºão; 3’ tºroxap.8ávely obºšTrots
4&zi réu coºpév. Stob. de Stoicis, tom. i. lib. ii, tit. 4, S. 4, et
Eccl. &c. p. 183.
+ Apud Stob. Serm. 12.
after (the image of) God is created in righteousness
and true holiness.
25 Wherefore putting away "lying (a vice too com-
non among heathens, and opposite to truth and righte-
ousness), speak every man truth with his neighbour :
for we are members one of another: (now lying tends to
dissolve societies, and hurt the members of the same body.
26 If you) * be angry (take heed), and sin not :
*let not the sun go down upon your wrath:
d ; * Neither give place to the (temptation of the)
€VLi.
28 “Let him that stole (before his conversion) steal
no more ; but rather let him labour, working with
his hands the thing which is good, that he “may
have to give to him that needeth.
29 Let no corrupt communication proceed out of
your mouths, but that which is good to the use of
edifying, * that it may minister grace unto the hearers.
30 *And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, where-
* ‘o Halo: &# Trièvároſ, Let not the sun go down upon thy
wrath.] This precept, saith Plutarch,” the scholars of Py-
thagoras observed, who, when they had been angry, and re-
proached one another, trply § rày ſixtoy 3ival, &c. “before the
sun went down, they shook hands, and embraced one another.”
This must the Christian do, before he offers up to God his
evening Sacrifice, that so he may lift up to God “pure hands
without wrath” (1 Tim. ii. 8).
** Ver. 27.] Let a man be always careful that he be not
angry, say the Jews; for whoso is angry, omnes species
gehennae ei dominantur, “is subject to the dominion of the
infernal fiends.”
* Ver. 28. ‘o ºx#Troy, Let him that stole, &c.] This ex-
hortation was needful, because “in many nations it was not
counted a sin to steal,” saith Sextus Empiricus: “ nor were
they much ashamed at it, when it was objected to them,”
saith Bardesanes...}
* “Iva #xn ºf rabičával, That he may have to give.] This
charity the primitive Christians expected even from them
that laboured with their own hands. So Hermas || Saith,
“It is good to give liberally to all that are in need, out of the
labour of our own hands.” -
Wer. 29. Let mo corrupt communication proceed out of
gow, mouth, but that which is good for edification]. Severe
here are the words of Jerome ; Quotiens loguimur aut non
in tempore, aut opportuno loco, aut non ut convenit audien-
tibus, totiens sermo malus procedit de ore nostro ad destruc-
tionem eorum qui audiunt ; consideremus itaque quid
loquimur, quia ‘pro omni verbo otioso reddituri Sumus ra-
tionem in die judicii, et etiamsi non laidamus, non tamen
edificemus, mali verbi nobis luenda sit poena. To qualify
the rigid severity of these words, see the note on Matt. xii.
36. See the reading of this and the thirty-second verse win-
dicated, Examen Millii ibid.
* “Iva 86 xágy, That it may minister grace.] That is,
saith Theodoret, that it may be acceptable to as well as good
for the hearers: see the note on Col. iii. 16.
** Ver. 30. Kai º Avºreſts, And grieve not the Holy Spi-
rit..] The Holy Spirit being a divine person, it is certain that
he cannot properly be grieved or vexed as we are. We
therefore must remove from this expression, when it is ap-
plied to him, all turbulent motions, all real pain, disquiet,
discontent, and look upon it as spoken &ySgorrotraSā;, i.e. so
as to intimate we do that to him, which, when it is done to
men, creates grief to them. As (1.) when we refuse to
hearken to his counsels, rebel against his government, and do
ººm-
* De Fratr. Amor. p. 488.
+ Buxt. Floril. p. 135.
f Tö 3: Anarečew trag troXXdi, rāv Batſágoy oix &rotroy. Pyr.
Hypot. lib. iii. cap. 24. Bessi, Coralli, Medi quidam ac
Danthelitas, ºrávra rajra Anaretnárata #Syn. Strabo, lib. vii.
§ 'Atrö Eöppárov wrotagoû, wai (wéxg rod &zeavoº, &; #wi
&varox&c, & Xo180goûzeyo; &; ºxézan; oil wayu &yayaxteſ. Apud
Euseb. Praepar. Evan. lib. vi. cap. 10. :
|| Kaxy cºv irriv, a rºy ièſov «Troy, Św Ość; ; atyophyeſ,
wärty zºrego: pºva; tragéxsty &rA34. Lib. ii. Mand. 2, p. 45.
760
EPHESIANS.
by ye are sealed to the day of redemption (i. 13, 14).
3i (And to this end) let all bitterness, and wrath,
and anger, and clamour, and evil-speaking, be put
away from you, with all malice: --
32 And be ye kind one towards another, tender-
nearted, forgiving one another, even as God for
Christ's sake hath forgiven you.
that which is opposite to his holy nature. (2.) He is said
to be grieved, by a metonymy of the effect, when he acts so
towards us, as men are wont to do when they are grieved
by us, and displeased at us, withdrawing their wonted kind-
ness, flying our company, and abandoning us to our ene-
IYY1CS.
CHAPTER V.
I BE yetherefore followers of (this love of) God, as
(becomes his) dear children;
2 And walk in love, as Christ also (hath given an
evample, who) hath loved us, and hath given himself
for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-
smelling savour. *
3 But fornication, and all uncleanneSS, or covet-
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. W.
Wer. 2. Iſeo.ºrgotáv xał Svariay, An offering and oblation.]
That the death of Christ is here styled an oblation offered up
to God for us, cannot be denied: but Crellius saith that the
apostle speaks not here of an expiatory oblation ; because
the oblation here mentioned is said to be offered for a sweet-
smelling savour, which phrase is scarce ever used concerning
expiatory sacrifices, but chiefly of burnt-offerings, which were
not of themselves expiatory, and are by Moses distinguished
from sacrifices for sin.
But (1.) that sacrifices of a sweet-smelling savour were
used to make atonement for, and to expiate the sin of, men,
is proved from the sacrifice of Noah : for, whereas in the
Greek we read, that when that sacrifice was offered, God
smelled jagºy stºias, “a sacrifice of a sweet savour;” in the
Hebrew he is said to smell nºn nºn nx “a savour of rest;”
that is, which made God’s anger to rest, say the Jewish
writers. Josephus” informs us, that Noah by this sacrifice
“entreated that God would now be atoned, and would no
more conceive such displeasure against the earth,” i. e. the
inhabitants of it. And by the Syriac version it is rendered
an “odour of placability,” because, as Watablus and Munster
on the place observe, God then ceased from his anger, and
was appeased: so that the first time this phrase is used it is
taken for an expiatory sacrifice, and is designed to appease
the wrath of God. The sacrifices which Job offered for his
sons and daughters, and for his three friends, were burnt-
offerings, as the phrase nºy shows, and yet they were offered,
the one to expiate for the sin of his children (Job i. 5), the
other to appease the wrath of God kindled against his three
friends (xiii. 7). Moreover, it is evident from scripture that
this phrase 3aº evočiaç, “a sweet savour,” is used, not only
of burnt-offerings, but of sacrifices for sin: thus, “If any
people of the land sin through ignorance——when his sin comes
to his knowledge,” the text saith, “he shall bring his offer-
ing, a kid of the goats, a female without blemish, ºrigi aric
&#4a:rize a sacrifice for the sin he hath sinned, and the priest
shall burn it upon the altar, si, Čakºv Eilabiaç, for a sweet
savour to the Lord; and the priest shall make atonement for
him, and it shall be forgiven him.” To this importance of
the phrase doth David manifestly allude, when he saith to
Saul, “If the Lord hath stirred thee up against me, 3rºpav-
Şsin à Sugia, let him smell an offering.” And when this
3rº Etobias, “sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savour” is applied
to burnt-offerings, they are declared to be “favourably
accepted, to make atonement for him that offers them.” This
the son of Sirach seems plainly to say, of their sacrifices of
Sweet Savour in the general, when he speaks thus of Aaron ºf
." He chose him out of all the people to offer sacrifices to the
* Eºpºvă, civ aurëw ºrporãxed Sai Tây flucíay trapskáael, rai
(wn?sºciav Šćyāy Fºrt rºy yºv čºotay Aa3;ſy. Antiq. Jud. lib. i.
cap. 4.
i Kai evočíay big paymºzózvyov, #2.Édº so flat Tregi Toiſ Xavi, cov.
Eccius. xlv. 16.
ousness (inordinate desire), let it not be once named
among you (that you may walk) “as becometh saints,
4 Neither (Gr. kai, and let not) *filthiness, nor (and)
foolish talking, nor jesting, which are (things) not
convenient (to your calling, be used among you); but
tº: (let your employment be that of) giving of
thanks.
Lord, incense and a sweet Savour, for a memorial, to make a
reconciliation for his people.” Thus of the burnt-offerings in
Leviticus it is said, that he that brings them “shall put his
hand upon the head of the burnt-offering, and it shall be ac-
cepted for him to make atonement for him,” Lev. i. 4. Now,
as the Hebrew doctors" tell us, that this imposition of hands
was always joined with confession of sins over the sacrifice,
which confession still concluded with a prayer, that the sacri-
fice might be an expiation for them : so the phrase, “It
shall be accepted to make atonement for him,” Lev. xiv. 20,
used here and elsewhere concerning holy things, is as much
as is ever said of expiatory sacrifices: nor is it any objection
to the contrary, that burnt-offerings are usually distinguished
from sin-offerings; the reason of that being this, saith Ains-
worth,’ that burnt-offerings were for the atonement of
general sins, and such as often were unknown to Inen,
whereas for special sins there was appointed a special sacri-
fice and sin-offering. This, Saith Dr. Outram,: was the
opinion of the Jews, that burnt-offerings were intended for
the expiation of sin. And this, saith Mr. Selden,S was their
practice, to offer these as expiatory sacrifices for strangers.
* Wer. 3. Ka83; ºrpéret &yiotç, As becometh saints.] Wor-
thy of observation is the note of Jerome here, Ex quo sanctus
non potest appellari, quicunque, extra fornicationem, in ali-
quá immunditiá, et avaritiã voluptatum, quâ se delectaverit,
invenitur.
* Ver. 4.] That the words wopoxoyia and sirgarexia, are
to be interpreted to an impure sense, may probably be
gathered from the words joined with them, fornication, un-
cleanness, filthiness, and more probably from the reason
rendered for the abandoning them all ; viz. that “no formi-
cator, or unclean person, hath any inheritance in the king-
dom of God, or of Christ.” Mogonoyia is in the rabbinical
phrase, n5 nibn), turpitudo oris, of which they | proverbially
say, ‘E 95x)n 95, Quicunque foedè loquitur, perinde est ac si
introduceret porcum in Sanctuarium. To commit mºn),
“folly in Israel,” is to cominit whoredom, or adultery : and
the word by the Septuagint is sometimes rendered ºr &axmaoy,
“indecency,” sometimes éppoa tºwn, sometimes pºwgia, “folly,”
and sometimes àxaSagzia, “filthiness.” And the soliciting
a woman to fornication by filthy words is in the Targum ex-
pressed thus, binin Rº, Non deturpabis verbum oris, “Thou
shalt not speak impurely with thy mouth, to cause thy flesh
to sin,” Eccles. v. 6.
Eürgarexia is by Suidas rendered a wºoxoyia, woupérnç, “scur-
Tility, levity;” by Phavorinus, 82.Écoxoxia. Now 8wºoxéxos,
is a filthy scurrilous man ; and in Aristophanes, 8wºoxéxot:
#mrsor Xaigew, is “to be pleased with filthy scurrilous words.”
Hence CEcumenius and Theophylact reckon them both as
3xñºzara rā, ºrogygiac, “the forerunners or incentives to forni-
cation.”
* Wide Outram, lib. i. cap. 15, §.
+ In Lev. j. 4. j. Ibid.
§ De Jure Nat. et Gent. lib. iii, cap. 2, 6.
| Buxt. Lex, in voce 'ºr).
CHAPTER V.
761
5 For this ye know, that no whoremonger, or un-
clean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater,
hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of
God (the Father).
6 * Let no man deceive you with vain words (as if
these things might be consistent with the favour of God);
for because of these things cometh the wrath of God
upon the children of disobedience.
7 Be not ye therefore partakers with them (in those
sins). -
8 For ye were * sometimes (children of) darkness,
(being subject to those deeds of darkness, ii. 1–3. iv.
18, 19.), but now are ye (children of the) light (by
$/our faith) in the Lord: walk (therefore) as children
of the light: - -
9 For the fruit" of the (Holy) Spirit (by which you
are enlightened) is in all goodness, righteousness, and
truth, (and so instructs you to avoid these deeds of
wickedness.
10 Walk then as children of the light :) proving (60-
kipääovréc, approving) what is acceptable to the Lord.
11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful
works of darkness (committed by the heathens), but
" rather reprove them.
12 (They being such as deserve to be reproved º) for
it is a shame even to speak of those things which are
* done of them in secret. *
13 But all things that are reproved are made ma-
mifest by the light (or being discovered by the light are
made manifest) ; for whatsoever doth make (anything)
manifest, is light.
14 Wherefore (to show that Christians are light,
and so obliged to avoid the works of darkness) "he
(the Lord) saith (to those gentiles who are yet in dark-
ness), Awake, thou that sleepest, arise from the dead,
and Christ shall give thee light.
15 See then that ye walk circumspectly (or how ea:-
actly you walk), not as fools (running yourselves into
As for the word Trasovsåia, that it hath sometimes an im-
pure sense, see note on 1 Thess. iv. 6; though being here
styled “idolatry,” it seems more naturally to relate to the
love of riches, which renders us most truly guilty of that sin:
though it be also true that he who loveth pleasures more
than God is guilty of that sin, and this impurity was a fre-
quent and almost general appendix of idol-worship.
That the Ephesians stood in need of these instructions we
learn from Democritus Ephesius,” who, speaking of the tem-
ple of the Ephesian Diana, hath much regi rā; xxt3% abrów,
“of the softness and luxury of the Ephesians;” and from
Euacles in his book de Ephesiacis,'t who saith, iv 'Eºforº isgå.
i830a ao Sai Éraig', 'Appobirn, “In Ephesus they built temples
to Venus, the mistress of the whores;” and from Strabo, who
informs us that “in their ancient temples there were old
images, but in their new axoxià #ya, vile works were done,”
lib. xiv. p. 640.
* Ver., 6. Mnºsis 3rarároſ, Let no man deceive you.]
Among the heathens, simple fornication was held a thing in-
different ; the laws allowed and provided for it in many
nations; whence the grave Epictetus counsels his scholars,
“only to whore, &; vápºtºwow art, ; according to law :” and in
all places they connived at it. “He that blames young men
for their meretricious amours,” saith Cicero, Š “does what is
repugnant to the custom and concessions of our ancestors, for
when was not this done 2 when was it not permitted 2” This
was suitable both to the principles and practices of many of
their grave philosophers, especially of the stoics, who held
it “lawful for others to use whores, and for them to get their
living by such practices.” Hence even in the church of
Corinth some had taught this doctrine (see note on 1 Cor.
vi. 13).
* Ver. 8. IIore a záros, Sometimes darkness.] That the state
of the gentile world, both in the Old and the New Testament,
is represented by a state of darkness, and that of Christians
by a state of light, see note on Rom. xiii. 12.
* Ver. 9. Toi IIvsjøaroc, Of the Spirit.] Many Greek
copies, and all the Latin and the Syriac, read rot poro, “the
fruits of the light,” with which you are enlightened; and so
doth Jerome here, taking no notice of the other reading.
7 Ver. 11. ‘Exéyxsts.] Reprove them, make them ashamed
of them, by bringing them to the light, #xÉyxely yºg ávri roſ,
gia xúvely, #xéyxa, rô Ksxºvºvoy &rármºzá two; eiç p3; &yw.
Phavorinus. -
* Ver. 12. T& kevºp; yºvápasya, Done of them in secret.] In
their mysteries, which therefore were styled āmānta
* Athenaeus. lib. xii. p. 585.
+ Idem, lib. xiii. p. 573. : Enchir. cap. 47.
§ Abhorret non modó a licentiá hujus saeculi, veräm etiam
à majorum consuetudine atque concessis: quandó enim hoc
non factum est? quandó non permissum 2 quandú reprehen-
sum 2 quandô denique fuit ut quod licet non liceret P Orat.
pro Coelio, p. 533, n. 37.
|| Kai row, croixov; 33 pāºgy, oùw &romov eſyat Aéyovra, to
traitº avoikeſv, * r *% #Taipa, āpya;ia; 3,affy. Scyt. Empir.
Pyr. Hypot. lib. iii. cap. 24.
ºurthgia, none being permitted to divulge them upon pain
of death. Hence even the word ºvarrhetov hath its name,
say grammarians, from £40sly rô a réºza, “to stop the mouth.”
The Eleusinia Sacra were performed in the night, agreeably
to the deeds of darkness committed in them ; so were the
Bacchamalia, hence called Nyctelia.; and they were both full
of detestable iniquity; and upon that account, Saith Livy,”
were banished by the Roman senate out of Rome and Italy:
&xóNov6a yāg rð Stoyvortaxš Trávº rā āq poèiata, “lust being a con-
sequent on the bacchamalia,” says the scholiasti on Aristo-
phanes. Hence is that of Aristippus, f #y 8axxeſpearly oia.’
# ord peow oil 8taqāsehzārat, “A chaste woman will not be cor-
rupted at the bacchanalia:” and those precepts, that a mar-
ried woman should abstain § roſ, Šeytaggots wai wargo'agºo?:,
“from the feasts of Bacchus, and the mother of the gods,”
because they tended to drunkenness, and the corrupting of
chaste women.
* Ver. 14. Aéyst, He saith..] Epiphanius] saith these words
were spoken by Elias; and Georgius Syncellus," that they
were taken from the apocryphal books of Jeremiah; others
think they are cited from Isa. lx. 1. 19. 22, “Awake, thou
that sleepest, and arise from the dead, xzi ºrigado's dot 3
Xptatic, and Christ shall enlighten thee, or shine upon thee:”
and yet our translation, that “Christ shall give thee life,” is
very justifiable, as giving the true sense of the metaphor: so
Ps. xiii. 14, “Lighten my eyes, that I sleep not in death,”
i. e. preserve my life: Prov. xxix. 13, “The poor and rich
meet together, the Lord enlighteneth both their eyes” (see
Job iii. 20. xxxiii. 30). Mr. Dodwell, citing these words,
saith, “ Christ shall give thee light, is the same with the
immortal light; and this is an address to the dead, who are
frequently said to sleep, in the prophetic style of the New
Testament; and the light seems to allude to the baptismal
illumination of the Spirit, upon owning of the true faith:”
but as in this he is singular, and hath not one authority,
ancient or modern, agreeing with him in this interpretation,
or to the application of it to Christ preaching to the dead
in hades, and baptizing them; St. Chrysostom, Theodoret,
Photius, and Theophylact, among the Greek interpreters,
Ambrose, or Hilary the deacon, and St. Jerome among the
Latins, all saying positively, that the words are to be under-
stood metaphorically of a sleep, and death in trespasses and
sins; so is it also evident, that the words cannot bear this
sense : for, 7
First, If “they that sleep,” here signifies literally those
whose bodies sleep in the grave, the address to them to rise
from the dead, must be an address to their bodies to rise
from the grave ; and so they must be first raised from the
dead before Christ gives them light.
Secondly, To “sleep,” when it is used to signify death, in
the New Testament, always relates to the body sleeping in
* Lib. lxxxix. dec. 4.
f Apud Stob. Serm. v. p. 66.
§ Ibid. Serm. 72. p. 444, 445.
| IIaer. xlii. p. 372.
* Non posse suavitër vivi. Secund. Epic. p. 1101, F.
+ Aristoph. p. 384.
762
EPHESIANS.
unnecessary dangers, by an indiscreet zeal), but as
wise (to manage your affairs so as to avoid them by all
lawful means).
16 °Redeeming the time (i.e. using all prudent
means to prolong your lives), because the days (in
which you live) are evil (and therefore perilous, and
such as will require much wisdom to preserve you from
dangers).
17 Wherefore be ye not unwise (in managing this
and other affairs), but (act as) understanding what
the will of the Lord is (viz. that in such cases he re-
quires you to be wise as serpents, and not to cast pearls
- *-*s------
--------- - -* ---
the grave, or in the dust, as John v. 28, 29. 1 Cor. xi. 30.
xv. 20. 51. 1 Thess, iv. 14. v. 10, and never to the soul in
hades, or to the spirits in prison there : for, as Jerome notes
on the place, spiritàs mortem nunquam legimus; “we never
read in scripture of the death of the spirit” in the literal
sense. And, s
Thirdly, The preceding verses plainly show, that the
apostle introduceth these words as a call to the gentiles,
sitting in darkness, to awake out of their sleep in sin, their
death in trespasses and sins (ii. l. 5), that they might enjoy
the light of Christ's gospel: for, saith he, ver. 8, “Ye were
once darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord ; walk as
children of the light, and have no fellowship with the un-
fruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them,” ver, l 1,
which you, who are “children of the light, and on whom
God hath shined to give the light of the glory of God in the
face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. iv. 6), may do; “for all that
maketh manifest is light,” ver. 13. Wherefore, Aéyst, “the
scripture saith” to those gentiles who are yet in darkness,
“Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and
Christ shall give thee light:” so again, 1 Thess. v. 5, 6, “Ye
are the children of the light, and of the day, not of the
night, nor of darkness; therefore let us not sleep as others
do” (see the note on Rom. xiii. 12). So Clemens Alexan-
drinus,” in his Exhortation to the Gentiles, saith, & pvrviće, ys
rot, Kai roi; orzárov; aircü row; ºrem Navnºw#vov; āyiqrng-ty, “He,
by his exhortation, raises out of sleep those that erred in
and through darkness.” See also the reading of the text
confirmed,. Examen Millii in locum.
* Ver. 16. "Egayapaśākāvol rôy zaigöy, Redeeming the time.]
Here note, -
First, That the times of peril and trouble are styled “evil
days:” in this sense Jacob saith, his days were “evil,” Troyn-
£a; hºw#2, by reason of the troubles he met with from Laban
and his brother Esau, Gen. xlvii. 9; the psalmist, that the
righteous shall not be ashamed, Év Kalgä roympg, “in the evil
day,” lxxvii. 19 ; the wise man shall be silent, saith Amos,
in that time, for it is, xate?c ºrovnpäc, “an evil time,” v. 13 ;
i. e. “a time of lamentation,” ver. 16, “ of darkness,” ver.
18; and that is by.the prophet Micah styled, 3 xagö; aroynpöc,
“an evil time,” Micah ii. 2, which brought those judgments
on them which they could not escape. And in the close of
this epistle, to stand #y rfi hºzée, rà Troyne?, is to stand in the
times of fiery trials and severe persecutions, by the instru-
ments of Satan, vi. 13.
'Eğayopášew roy Kalpêy, To redeem the time, Is, by all
honest ways and prudent methods, to endeavour to avoid
the dangers, and to escape the persecutions, to which these
perilous times may render us obnoxious. So when king
Nebuchadnezzar had threatened that the Chaldeans and
magicians should be cut in pieces, if they declared not his
dream, and they still put him off with this answer, “Let the
king tell the dream, and we will tell him the interpreta-
tion:” the king replies, “Of a truth I know, ºri naigöv iºceſ;
{{ayopéðere, that you would gain the time ;” i.e. you hope
by these answers to delay the time of your punishment, and
to contrive some way to escape it. So the scholiast upon
the place.expounds it, xaſp?y tºsſ, 3,024&sre, roviréctiv Úrée-
6saw Sepārēs &larks84a ai rā āva66?? roi, wateoû axorioſyre, rö
Trap' bºy Kuroſºevoy, “You hunt after delays ; seeking, by
the protracting of the time, to make me forget what I asked
of you :” and Theodoret expounds it thus; “You prolong
the time, rā; £434ceo; rev Kalgów &vaºvovireº, hoping for time
to escape:” so also, Col. iv. 5, “Walk in wisdom towards
+ |
.* *
5 !.
|
before swine who will tear you from them : and sem
blably not to sacrifice your lives by an indiscreet zeal
in discovering those mysteries, but to show the vileness
of them with such prudence as may preserve you from
perishing by the discovery).
18 “And be not drunk with wine (as the heathens
*se to be in the festivals of their gods, and especially
in their bacchanalia), * wherein is excess (Gr. daoría,
dissoluteness); but be (ye) filled with the (Holy) Spi-
rit (as Christians use to be in their assemblies. See
Prov. xxiii. 30. xx. 1).
19 Speaking to yourselves *in psalms and hymns
---
those that are without,” i.e. your heathen governors and
magistrates, “redeeming the time;” i. e. endeavouring, by
all Christian prudence, to avoid the calamities they are still
ready to bring upon you, answering them with as much
wisdom and gentleness of speech as you are able; for, walk-
ing among wolves, it concerns you to be “wise as serpents.”
And though it may be so pertinent to this text, yet will it
be very profitable to the men of this age to consider the
practice of the heathen in this case: for AElian” informs us
of the Lacedemonians, that they were much concerned that
men should spend their time well, ragwiejſzewo, Travºraxáðey sic
irstyéºya, “employing it still upon urgent business, and suf.
fering no man either to be idle, or to employ himself about
trifles, &c &y tº ºrg?; rê šo rāg 3perä, ävaxiaxáſzewoc, so that
he might employ his whole time in virtuous actions:” and
Stobaeus+ saith that the Lucani, a people of Italy, and the
Athenians, punished those that were idle as well as those
that were guilty, &xxov rivā; 38whº aroc, of any other crime.
And seeing time is a talent given us by that God in whose
hand our lives are, it must be given us for some good
end, and must be misspent when it is not employed to
such ends.
* Ver. 18. Må øeóða wease oftwo, Be not drunk with wine.]
The heathens, who held drunkenness unlawful at other
times, thought it a duty at the solemnity of Bacchus, and
of other gods. Plato Saith, that “no man should be allowed
to be drunk, but at the solemnities of the god that gave
them wine.” And when Megillus, the Lacedemonian, had
told the Athenians that he saw their whole cities drunk at
the Solemnities of Bacchus, and that the inhabitants of
Tarentum did the same, “Marvel not at that,” saith the
Athenian, “for the law with us requires it:”; and Plutarch
saith, that pytáðoyts; # Svaiz tº Tráčovreć, TEAetaſ, “when
they celebrated the orgia of Bacchus, or were present at
their sacrifices or sacred mysteries, they allowed themselves
to be delighted, Azéx&t ºnc, even to drunkenness.” This
was the usual appendix of their sacrifices, they thinking
this a duty, saith Athenaeus,S in the service of their gods.
Hence Aristotle and others say, that drunkenness had its
name from the intemperance they used after they had
offered sacrifice.
* 'Ev & Horrºw &a oria, In, which is earcess.] That 3a'aria
signifies luaury, is proved from the prodigal, of whom it
being said, that he lived doºroº, Luke xv. 13, this is inter-
preted, ver. 30, by “devouring his living with harlots;” and
from Hesychius, who interprets &aºrw; by the word airy:8%,
“filthily.” Phavorinus saith, the Čawro, is the 3x3xaaroc,
&Exyng, “lustful and unchaste person ;” and hence &c &rtov
signifies a stew, or brothel-house. Now that this drunken-
ness ministers to this lasciviousness, as the poets often
teach, so the practice and experience of the heathens found
it true, their compotation and banquetings seldom con-
cluding without the introduction of ewd women, and their
bacchanalia ending in whoredom and adultery, &néxarrow
oivoc, Prov. xx. 1.
* Wer. 19. Yaºzoic zal jºyotº, In psalms and hymns,
* War. Hist. lib. ii. cap. 5. + Serm. 42. p. 291.
£ IIively 3: Ei; (250ny otre &AA00i arov ºrgéme, traßy #y raï, roſ,
röy divoy Bówro; ©eoû £opta;;. De Leg. lib. vi. p. 870, F. Mº
Saúwače, & #ve, våg.0; o'S' hºv obrog. Ibid. lib. i. 777.
§ 2.ÉNevzog 33 pnal rô Traxaty oix Elyai 300; oft' oſyoy, oùr’&AAny
hèuiráðstay 7902 pâgea3at, ºw; 68&v Évexa toûro Spörrac, 313 xa:
Boivac, Kai 6axia;, xzi paž3a; &yāpaağov, rā; ºfty Stå 65ci); oivodo 6al
tºrexégaſ'avoy tº 3s (cESöew pnzi 'Agia tota\}; tā (wetā Sūsly
Xpicºat. Athen, lib. ii. p. 10, C.
CHAPTER v.
763
and spiritual songs (with which the Christians were
inspired in their assemblies, 1 Cor. xiv. 15. 26), sing-
ing (them with the mouth), and (also) making melody
in your hearts to the Lord;
20 Giving thanks “always for all things unto God,
and (or, who is) the Father (of us all, iv. 6) in the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ;
21 Submitting yourselves one to another (accord-
ing to the divine ordinance) in the fear of God, (who is
the author of that order.
22 And therefore) wives, submit yourselves unto
your own husbands, as unto the (ordinance of the)
Lord (the husband of his spouse the church).
23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even
as Christ is the head of the church; and (this) he
is (as being) the saviour of the body.
24 Therefore, as the church is subject to Christ,
so let the wives be to their own husbands in every
(lawful) thing.
25 (And ye) husbands (also, see that you) love
your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and
gave himself (up to the death) for it;
26 That he might sanctify (or consecrate and fit it
for his service) and cleanse it (Gr. having cleansed it)
by the washing of water (i.e. by that baptism which is
the laver of regeneration, Tit. iii. 5, and) * by the
word (of his grace, which is able to sanctify us, Acts
xx. 32. John xvii. 17). -
27 That (so) he might present it to himself a glori-
ous church, 1° not having spot, or wrinkle, or any
such thing; but that it should be holy and without
blemish. -
28 So ought men to love their wives" as their own
bodies, (they two being made one flesh ; so that) he
that loveth his wife loveth himself.
29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but
nourisheth it and cherisheth it, even as (doth) the
Lord the church (which is his spouse) :
30 For we are members of his body, * of his flesh,
and of his bones.
31 For this cause (was it said at the production of
Eve, and her being given for a meet-help to Adam,
Gen. ii. 24, that) a man shall leave his father and
mother, * and shall cleave to his wife, and they two
shall be one flesh.
32 * This is a great mystery: but (when Irepresent
&c.] In their bacchanalia they sung their drunken hymns
to Bacchus, saying, eioſ Xagoſ, stof Baxxâ, and had their
‘paxxix& &cºara. In opposition to which drunken and im-
pure songs, the apostle here exhorts the Christians to sing
the psalms of David, or the hymns composed by spiritual
men, such as Zacharias and Simeon, or by the afflatus of the
Spirit vouchsafed unto them, 1 Cor. xiv. 15. Jerome here
Saith, Canere igitur et psallere, magis animo quâm voce de-
bemus, hoc est, quippe quðd dicitur ‘cantantes, et psallentes
in cordibus vestribus Domino.” Audiant hac adolescentuli,
audiant hi, quibus psallendi in ecclesia officium est, Deo non
voce Sed corde cantandum, mec tragoedorum ad modum gut-
tur et fauces dulci medicamine colliniendas, ut in ecclesiá
theatrales moduli audiantur, et cantica, sed in timore, in
opere, in scientia scripturarum; which shows that choristers,
or choir-men, had then obtained an office in the church,
though he seems not much to approve them.
* Ver. 20. IIávrote, Always.] See note on 1 Thess. v. 17;
ūrāp Trávrov, “for all things ;” for his sparing mercies, Ps.
ciii. 3, 4, his preventing mercies, Eph. i. 4. Tit. i. 2, his
distinguishing and peculiar mercies, Heb. ii. 16, for his com-
mon mercies and benefits bestowed daily upon us, as well
as his extraordinary favours; for past mercies to be cele-
brated by annual festivals, Exod. xii. 14. 17. 24. Lev. xxiii.
21, for the mercies we hope for, l Pet. i. 3, 4, for adverse as
well as prosperous events, blessing him who doth thus give
us warning, Ps. xvi. 17, but chiefly for spiritual blessings.
* Ver. 26. ’Ey #aart, By the word..] That is, saith Chry-
sostom, by the words used in the form of baptism ; to wit,
“I baptize thee in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost.”
* Ver. 27. Mº Xova'ay cºrixey, fivrièa, Not having spot
or wrinkle.] This seems to refer to the accuracy of the
Jewish baptism, who thought not the person well baptized,
if there were any wrinkle which kept the flesh from the
water, or any spot or dirt which was not thoroughly washed
by it. And thus the church is cleansed at present from the
guilt of sin by the blood of Christ, 1 John i. 7. 2 Cor. xi. 2.
Col. i. 22.
17 Wer. 28. ‘oc gavrāy a dºzara, As their own bodies.] The
Jews say, “He that loveth his wife as his own body, and
honoureth her more than his own body, of him the scrip-
ture saith, Peace shall be in his tabernacle, and he shall
visit his tabernacle, and shall not sin” (Talmud. Sanh. fol.
76. 2). -
is *. 30. Ex rā; a gewö; auroi, wai Éx tºy firríoy adroń.
Of his flesh, and of his bones.] This phrase being not only
used to express an intimate relation, Gen. xxix. 14. Judg.
ix. 2, but being the very words which Adam used concern-
ing Eve, made out of his rib, Gen. ii. 23, shows that the
apostle had his eye upon the mystical sense of the produc-
tion of the woman from the man, of which the Jews speak.
* Ver, 31. Kai ºrgozzº&#zerai Tr;3; rºy yuyaſza autov...]
Jerome being an enemy to wedlock, insinuates that these
words are an addition to the text; but the contrary is evident,
they being found in all versions, all the Greek scholiasts, in
the Codex Alex., and Hilary the deacon.
20 Wer. 32. Tà ºvarhetov rodro &#ya Éativ, This is a great
mystery.] He doth not say as Mr. Clerc interprets the words,
“But I speak concerning the love of Christ to his church;"
nor was that any mystery at all, as being long ago revealed,
and a thing known to all Christians. But this was indeed a
mystery, till the apostle here revealed it to the Ephesians,
that, as the learned Dr. Allix” saith, “The first match be-
tween Adam and Eve was a type of that between Christ
and his church; and in this,” saith he, “the apostle followed
the Jewish nations; for the Jews say,+ according to Voisin,
“The mystery of Adam is the mystery of Messiah, who
is the bridegroom of the church.” These two great persons,
therefore, confirm the observation of Munster, that “the
creation of the woman from the rib of the man, was made
by the Jews to signify the marriage of the celestial man,
who is blessed, or of the Messiah, with the church;” whence
the apostle applies the very words which Adam said con-
cerning Eve his spouse, to those Christians, who are the
spouse of Christ, saying, “We are members of his body, of
his flesh, and of his bones,” ver. 30. For the fuller expli-
cation of these words, note from the bishop of Ely, f “that
the profoundest of the Hebrew divines, whom they now call
cabbalists, having such a notion as this among them, that
sensible things are but an imitation of things above, con-
ceived from thence, that there was an original pattern of love
and union, which is between a man and his wife in this
world; this being expressed by the kindness of Tipheret and
Malcuth, which are the names they give to the invisible
bridegroom and bride in the upper world; and this Tipheret,
or the great Adam, in opposition to the terrestial and little
Adam here below; as Malcuth (i.e. the kingdom) they call
also by the name of chemeseth Israel, “the congregation of
Israel, who is united, say they, to ‘the celestial Adam,’ as
Eve was to the terrestrial. So that, in sum, they seem to
say the same that the apostle doth, when he tells us that
‘marriage is a great mystery; but he speaks, concerning
Christ and his church:’ for the marriage of Tipheret and
Malcuth, or chemeseth Israel, is the marriage of Christ, the
Lord from heaven, with his spouse the church, which is the
conjunction of Adam and Eve, and of all other men and
women descended from them.” Origen; seems to have had
some notice of the relation this passage had to Adam and
Eve, when he speaks thus, “If any man deride us for using
the example of Adam and Eve, in these words, “And Adam
* The Judgment of the Jewish Church.
+ Tzeror. Hamor. SS. Berischitz.
: Preface to the Canticles, ii. 4.
§ Com. in Joh. p. 264.
764
EPHESIANS.
*t as such) I speak (chiefly of the mystical sense of it)
concerning Christ and the church.
33 Nevertheless (on the other account also) let
every one of you in particular so love his wife even as
himself; and (let) the wife see that she reverence her
husband.
knew his wife,” when we treat of the knowledge of God, let
him consider these words, “This is a great mystery.’” Ter-
tullian frequently alludes to the same thing, saying, This is a
great sacrament, carnalitër in Adam, spiritualitër in Christo,
propter spirituales nuptias Christi et ecclesia: ; “carnally
in Adam, spiritually in Christ, by reason of the spiritual
marriage betwixt him and his church” (Exhort. ad Castitat.
lib. v. p. 521 ; de Animă, cap. 11, 12; et adv. Marcion.
lib. iii, cap. 5).
CHAPTER VI.
1 CHILDREN, obey your parents, 'in (compliance
with the commandment of) the Lord : for this is right,
(that you should yield obedience to them who gave you
life.
2 For) Honour thy father and mother (with reve-
remce, obedience, and maintenance, saith the fifth com-
mandment); which is the first commandment (in the
decalogue) * with (a) promise (annered to it.
3 *And the promise is this,) That it may be well
with thee, and (that) thou mayest live long upon the
earth.
4 And, ye fathers, provoke “not your children to
wrath (by severe treatment and rigid injunctions: see
Col. iii. 21) but (rather) “bring them up in the nur-
ture and admonition of the Lord (instructing them in
the principles of piety towards God, and faith in our
Ilord Jesus).
5 Servants, be obedient to them that are your mas-
ters, (though they be only so) according to the flesh
(the spirit being immediately subject to God alone),
with fear (of displeasing them) and trembling (lest you
justly should incur their anger, serving them) in single-
mess of your heart, as (knowing that in thus serving
them, you do service) to Christ (who requires this of
you ; whose gospel you will credit by your sincere obe-
diemce to your masters for his sake, Tit. ii. 2, and
whose doctrine you will blaspheme by your disobedi-
ence, under pretence of any Christian liberty from the
observance of your duty to them, 1 Tim. vi. 1, 2.
6 Serve them therefore) not with eye-service (and
whilst they behold you), as men-pleasers (use to do),
but as (becomes) the servants of Christ, (in this rela-
tion) doing the will of God (who requires this obedi-
ence to them, 1 Pet. ii. 18–20) from the heart;
7 With good-will doing (them) service, as (consi-
dering you do it) to the Lord (himself), and not to
men (only): -
8 (And) knowing that whatever good any man
doeth, (out of obedience to the Lord, a reward of)
the same he shall receive * of the Lord, whether he
be (a) bond (man) or free. --
9 And, ye masters, do the same things to them
(show the like good-will to and concern for them),
forbearing threatenings (Gr. divièvrég, remitting oft the
evils which you threaten to them) : " knowing that
your Master also is in heaven; neither is there re-
spect of persons (or conditions) with him.
10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord,
and in the power of his might.
ll (And to this end) put on the whole armour of
God, that ye may be able to stand (your ground)
against “the wiles of the devil. -
12 For we wrestle not (only) against flesh and
blood (i. e. men who are compounded of them, see note
on Gal. i. 16), but (also) against (evil) principalities,
and against powers (such as Christ triumphed over,
Col. ii. 15), against the rulers of the darkness of this
world (i. e. those evil spirits which still rule in those
heathen nations which are yet in darkness, v. 8. 1 Thess.
v. 5, see note on Rom. xiii. 12), and against spiritual
wickednesses in high places (i. e. against those evil
spirits which have their stations in the regions of the
air : see note on ii. 2).
13 Wherefore (I again eachort you to) take unto you
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VI.
* Ver. 1. ‘Ev Kupia, In the Lord.] That is, say OEcume-
nius and Theophylact, as far as their commandments are
consistent with the will of God.
4x
promise; for that which is annexed to the second com-
mandment, is rather a
promise.
* Ver, 3.] The apostle doth not add these words, “Which |
saith Chrysostom, “that Christians should be more careful of
the education of their children P” especially if they consider,
that upon this education depends much their eternal state ;
and that they will contract the guilt of their eternal ruin,
2- ? who neglect this duty. -
* Ver. 2. 'Evêtrayyski, With the promise.] i. e. A special
* 'Ev'rpépers, Bring them up in the nurture.] This, saith
CEcumenius, is the way to make them obedient ; and if you
general assertion than a special
furnish them with spirituals, temporal things will follow :
“Make them read the scriptures,” saith Theophylact, “which
is the duty of all Christians; for is it not a shame to in-
the Lord giveth thee;” because they particularly belonged struct them in heathen authors, whence they may learn bad
to the Israelites, who were to be excluded from their own things, and not to instruct them in the oracles of God?”
land, and he would give them no ground to think they should
continue in it. . Note also hence, that the gospel hath its
temporal promises as well as spiritual, Matt. vi. 33. 1 Tim.
iv. 8, 1 Pet. iii. 10–12. That this promise did not at all
concern the Ephesians, is Mr. Clerc's mistake ; for God is
not the God of the Jews only, but also of the gentiles, and
will reward moral duties performed by them as well as by
the Jews. ey
* Ver, 4. Provoke not your children to anger] By disin-
heriting them, by laying heavy burdens upon them, and using
them rather as slaves than sons, but “bring them up in the
nurture and admonition of the Lord.” For it is not, saith
Aristides, a thing of a small consideration, what principles
are put into them in their youth ; but it is, r3 rāy, the foun-
dation of all they do hereafter. “And if lovers of horses,
birds, and dogs, are careful of their education ; is it not just,”
* Ver. 8. The same shall he receive of the Lord.] So that
though he be not rewarded for the good he doth by his
earthly and unbelieving master, he will, most certainly, be
recompensed by his Lord Christ.
7 Ver, 9. Eiðires, Knowing.] (1.) That you with respect
to God are servants, and that as you mete to your servants
he will mete to you. (2.) That his compassion and readi-
mess to forgive your trespasses should make you also ready
to remit the trespasses of your servants. (3.) That the re-
lation of servants doth not make God less ready to show
kindness to them, and own them as his children, and therefore
should not induce us to despise and deal severely with them.
* Ver. 11. T&c ºxe608siaç, The wiles.] That is, saith Pha-
vorinus, Évrºgothèq, Évéðgaç, 36Novº, the deceits he puts upon
us, the Snares he lays for us, the machinations he contrives
against us. -
CHAPTER VI.
765
* the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to
withstand (these dangerous enemies) in the evil day (of
trial, persecution, and temptation), and having done
all, to stand (firm against them).
14, Stand therefore, having your loins girt about
"with truth, and having on the breast-plate of righ-
teousness;
15 “And your feet shod with the preparation of
the gospel of peace ;
16 Above all (the rest), taking * the shield of faith,
wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery
darts of the wicked (one).
17 And take the * helmet of salvation (for a hel-
met the hope of salvation, 1 Thess. v. 8), and the sword
of the Spirit, which is the word of God (by hiding
which in your hearts you will be preserved from sin,
Ps. cxix. 11). º
18 Praying always (see 1 Thess. v. 17) with all
prayer and º (1 Tim. ii. 1), in the Spirit
(see note on 1 Cor. xiv. 6), and watching thereunto
with all perseverance and (with) supplication, (not
* Ver. 13. Thy Travoraiay roi, Osbü, The whole armour of
God, J Here, and ver. 10, ll, which makes us “strong in the
Lord, and in the power of his might,” consists of such
things as either are in us, as truth, faith, righteousness, peace,
the hopes of salvation; or are to be used by us, as prayer, and
attendance on the word of God ; and not in any immediate
influx of the power of God without the use of these. Yea,
this is here styled, “the whole armour of God,” nothing
more being requisite to enable us to come off victors in this
combat ; so that in these things doth consist the power of
his might; or by these it is certainly to be obtained.
That “the evil day” is the day of trial, and persecution,
See note on v. 16.
* Ver. 14. 'Ew &\nósia, With truth.] That the gospel is
throughout the epistles emphatically styled “the truth,” see
note on Rom ii. 8. And this seems to be the truth here
mentioned, viz. a full persuasion of the truth of that reli-
gion we profess, or that stedfastness in the faith, by which
we are enabled to resist the roaring lion (1 Pet. v. 8, 9, see
1 Thess. iii. 5. James i. 6). The “breast-plate of righteous-
mess” is an exact observance of our duty to God. and a
righteous deportment towards men, in all the office of jus-
tice, truth, and charity, which will beget in us that good
conscience which will support us in the day of temptation,
and procure honour and esteem, love and compassion, from
men. The phrase is taken from Isaiah lix. 18.
* Ver. 15. 'Y'troëna'étaevo robº Tráðaç, And your feet shod,
&c.] For explication of this phrase observe, first, that shoes
were anciently a part of military armour ; for in the story
of Goliath there is mention of his “greaves of brass upon
his legs” (1 Sam. xvii. 6), and in the story of the Trojan
wars, XaAkokºnºiºs; "Axalol, “the Grecians which were shod
with greaves of brass,” are the armed Grecians. Note,
secondly, that to “be shod” doth signify our being ready
for the work we go about : thus the Israelites were com-
manded to eat the passover “shod,” i. e. ready for their
journey out of Egypt: and the apostles are required to be
“shod with sandals,” that they might be ready to go whither
their Master should be pleased to send them (Mark vi. 8).
“The gospel of peace” is either that gospel which proclaims
peace with God, through faith in Christ, or which lays upon
us the highest obligations to live peaceably with all men: so
that the meaning of these words seems to be this, That ye
may be ready for the combat, be ye shod with the gospel of
pence, i. e. endeavour after that peaceable and quiet mind
for yourselves only, but) for all saints (your charity to
others being a means to procure God’s favour to your-
selves) ;
19 And for me (in particular),” that (a door of)
utterance may be given to me, that I may open my
mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the
gospel,
20 For which I am an ambassador in bonds; that
therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.
21 But (and) that ye also may know my affairs,
and how I do (at Rome), Tychicus, a beloved bro-
ther and faithful minister in (the things of) the Lord,
shall make known to you all things:
22 Whom I have sent to you for the same pur-
pose, that ye might know our affairs, and that he
might comfort your hearts. -
23 Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith,
from God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
24 Grace be with all them that love the Lord Jesus
Christ "in sincerity. Amen. - -
w
the gospel calls for ; be not easily provoked or prone to
quarrel, but show all gentleness and long-suffering to all men;
and this will as certainly preserve you from many great
temptations and persecutions, as did those shoes of brass the
soldiers from those sharp sticks and gall-traps, which were
wont to be laid privily in the ways, to obstruct the marching
of the enemy.
* Ver. 16. Tāv Bugsy rā, ºria rews, The shield of faith.]
That faith which is the confident “expectation of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb. xi. 1) “for
this is the victory over the world, even our faith” (1 John
V. 5).
* Wer. 17. Tºy Tregixspaxalay roi; oraorngiov, The helmet of
salvation.] i. e. We must be well assured, that if we “fight
the good fight of faith,” there will be “laid up for us an im-
mortal crown of glory, which God the righteous judge will
give us” (2 Tim. iv. 8): that he who cannot lie, hath promised
“to him that overcometh, to eat of the tree of life” (Rev.
ii. 7), to taste “the hidden manna" (ver. 17), to be “a pillar”
in the new Jerusalem (Rev. iii. 12): that you strive and
fight for “an incorruptible crown” that fadeth not away
(1 Cor. ix. 25); and this hope will be as a helmet to defend
your heads from all the strokes of a temptation. This in
Isaiah lix. 17, is regixe4axaia carnpiov, “the helmet of salva-
tion upon the head.”
14 Wer. 19. Aiyo; #y &voiže, a réparoc, That utterance may
be given to me..] “A door of utterance,” Col. iv. 6. This
is a rabbinical phrase,” nº Trini), “the opening of the mouth
signifying an occasion of speaking, and confidence in speak-
ing:” so that the apostle here requests their prayers, that
he, being loosed from his bonds, may have again an oppor-
tunity of preaching the gospel, and also that he may do it
publicly and plainly, werå traffnaiac, “with due confidence
and boldness.” -
15 Wer. 24. 'Ew 349agai. In sincerity.] i. e. Not only
with a sincere love, uncorrupted by the opposite love of any
lust forbidden by him ; but with a constant and perpetual
love, which no temptation can abate, or cause to cease, or to
wax cold. Or, as Mr. L., without the mixture of those
legal observations, by which the enemy, saith Paul, $9agº,
corrupts the minds of Christians from the simplicity of the
gospel (2 Cor. xi. 3. See the note on i. 2).
* Buxt. Lex. Talm. p. 1872.
766
THE
EPISTLE TO THE
PHILIPPIANs.
witH ANNOTATIONS.
PREFACE.
It is the observation of Theodoret, CEcumenius, and
others, that Philippi was a city of Macedonia, under the
metropolis of Thessalonica, which is confirmed, note on the
first verse. tº º
This epistle is by the same Greek scholiasts said to be
written by Paul when he was in bonds at Rome. That he
had been in bonds some time before, we may gather from i.
12. 14, from the Philippians sending Epaphroditus to him
with relief, and his return to them with this epistle, after a
dangerous sickness, and from his hopes to come quickly to
them, ii. 24; and therefore he is supposed, by the Imost ex-
act chronologers, to have writ this epistle in the eighth year
of Nero, and the sixty-second of our Lord. g
That the apostle here warns them against the Gnostics, or
that “these Gnostics joined with the Judaizing Christians to
persuade the gentiles to Judaize,” I have not read in any
of the ancients; but the Greek scholiasts agree in this, that
he warns against * rºy #arathy Tāv šć 'Iověaſov wiy retria rev-
xároly, “the deceit of the believing Jews,” who endeavoured
to corrupt them, Trpoºpéret riſ; axiຠrot vägou, kai ºrigiToºwºc,
“ by imposing on them circumcision, and the shadows of the
law, and saying, that without these they could not be justi-
fied” (iii. 18, 19). And this is abundantly confirmed from
the whole third chapter, where the apostle declares, he judges
it for their safety to write to them to “beware of dogs, of
evil-workers, and of the concision,” and his styling them
“the enemies of the cross of Christ,” ver. 18 (see note on
iii. 2, 3. 15, 16). -
And, lastly, it is noted by Theodoret, and others of the
fathers, that Epaphroditus, mentioned in this epistle as
“their messenger” (ii. 15. and iv. 18), was also their bishop,'F
8; rày luxāv airów Śria reč0m #wrºastav, or “the person to
whom the care of their souls had been committed ;” though,
I confess the words ‘rāv ćtróa'roxoy ipºv, “your apostle,” do
not prove it.
* Theod. Chrys. Theoph. + Ibid.
CHAPTER. I.
1 PAUL and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus
Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at
(Gr. in) Philippi, * with the bishops and deacons
(there :
2 I wish) grace to you, and peace from God the
Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
3 (And) I (Paul) thank my God upon every re-
membrance of you (in my prayers),
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I.
* Ver, 1.] Note, that Timothy is here joined with Paul
in the salutation, not in the writing this epistle (see ver. 3).
* xúy Émia Károl; wai 8taxávotº, With the bishops and deacons.]
Various are the expositions of these words, and great are the
contentions about the true import of them. For,
1. Some, with the Pseud-Ambrosius, interpret these words
thus: “Paul and Timothy, the servants of Jesus Christ,
with the bishops and deacons that are with us, to the saints
in Philippi.” But as none of the Greek fathers thought fit
to take any notice of this strained exposition, so may the
harshness of it appear by comparing it with the like prefaces
to some of the other epistles; v. g. 1 Cor. i. 1, 2, “Paul, an
apostle of Jesus Christ, to the church of God that is at
Corinth, arby Trāzi roſ; Émixaxovačvot; r. 8vo, a rot, Kvetov, with
all that call upon the name of Lord ;” 2 Cor. i. 1, “Paul,
an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the church of God that is at
Corinth, aröy rot; #y §an t; 'A Xaig, with all the saints that are
in all Achaia,” are places exactly parallel to these words,
“Paul and Timothy, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the
saints that are in Philippi, with the bishops and deacons:”
and yet can any man think, that Paul the apostle, with all
that call upon the name of the Lord Christ, or with all the
saints that were in all Achaia, writ to the church of Corinth,
which was part of that Achaia 2 (2.) When the apostle takes
in those that were with him as copartners in writing to
another church, he doth it thus, “Paul an apostle zai ci aw
#wº ºrávre; 33expot, and all the brethren that are with me,”
write to the churches of Galatia, Gal. i. 1. 3. Had he then
intended to greet the Philippians in the like manner, he
would have writ in the like style, “Paul and Timothy, xat
oi aw #xoi äriazotrot Kai 8tákovot, and the bishops and deacons
that are with me,” to the church in Philippi.
“The learned Dr. Hammond saith, that Philippi was a
metropolis, which had many bishops under it, on which ac-
count it is styled, Trººtn rā; assiè0; ri; Makešovia; ºréxic, “the
chief city of that part of Macedonia,” Acts xvi. 12, and by
Photius, rā; Makebävoy traºxia; ºnrºmoxic, “the metropolis
of the province of the Macedonians.” And “by this,” saith
he, “it appears, that in Philippi there might be more
bishops than one, even as many as there were cities under
that metropolis.” But this solution was,
First, Unknown to the ancient fathers, Chrysostom, The-
odoret, and Jerome, who all contend that “bishops here
must signify presbyters, because there could not be more
bishops than one, properly so called, in one city ;” whereas
had they known this to have been a metropolis, they must
have known that this had been a satisfactory answer to
that objection.
Secondly, They tell us, that Philippi was then under the
metropolis of Thessalonica, which was the metropolis of all
Macedonia. Thus Chrysostom on these words, iv. 16
“When I was in Thessalonica ye ministered to my neces-
sity,” &c., observes, this was a great encomium of the Phi-
lippians, that śy ºwn reordaši zagãº, evoc ºraçã rā, ºrgā, śrpépsto
Tréaswº, “being in the metropolis, he was nourished by a little
city.” Thus Theodoret,” in his preface to this epistle, saith,
©ixtºrträzio; tº; Maxe?oviac ha'aw tºró Kºnroënoxv ráre Oecoraxo-
vikºv, “The Philippians were inhabitants of Macedonia,
under the metropolis of Thessalonica:” and Theophylact,
that they were, ind &nrgároxiv ráte Qaaaaxovſzny rexoſyrs;,
* Apud (Ecum.
CHAPTER I.
767
4 Always in every prayer of mine for you all
making request with joy,
5 (Which joy I have) for your "fellowship in the
gospel from the first day until now (i. e. for your
continuance in the faith and the profession of the gos-
pel); -
6 * Being confident of this very thing, that he who
hath begun a good work (the good work of faith) m
(or among) you will perform it to the day of Jesus
Christ: - -
7 Even as it is meet for me to think this of you
all (Gr. rońro ºppovsiv, to have this care for you all,
which I show in my prayers, and my continual remem-
brance of you, ver. 4), "because I have you in my
heart (or you have me in your heart); inasmuch as in
my bonds, and in the defence and confirmation of the
then, when the apostle writ this to them, “under the metro-
polis of Thessalonica.” That Thessalonica was then the
metropolis of Macedonia, is plain from Antipater, the Thes-
salonian poet, who flourished in the time of Augustus
Caesar, and calleth Thessalonica” “the mother of all Mace-
donia.”
Socrates: and in the ecclesiastical sense it is so called by
AEtius, the bishop thereof, in the council of Sardica: and
so say all the Notitia: Antiquae, at the end of Carolus Pau-
lus, who saith that Philippi was no metropolis for the first
six centuries; but after that Macedonia was divided into
Prima and Secunda, it came to have the honorary title of
the metropolitan city, and therefore might be styled so by
Photius, who lived in the ninth century : but by Iluke it is
not styled the first city, rā, śarapyiac, “ of the province ;” but
‘rā, ºspíšoc, “ of that part of Macedonia” which they that
came from Thrace thither touched at ; as appears by Dion's:
description of it, and chiefly from Diodorus Siculus, Š who
saith, #3: Tréxic air; neigáyn war& rº; Qpáznº, that “this city,”
being taken by Philip, was very serviceable to him, as “ly-
ing near Thrace,” and other places very conveniently.
Thirdly, The Greek and Latin fathers do with one consent
declare, that rob; aſpearðuráčov; ošto, #xáAsas, “the apostle
here calls their presbyters their bishops.” So Chrysostom,
Theodoret, CEcumenius, and Theophylact, among the
Greeks, and among the Latins, Jerome, Pseud-Ambrosius,"|
Pelagius, and Primasius ; and that not only for the afore-
mentioned reason, that “there could be but one bishop pro-
perly so called in one city;” but for another alleged by them ||
all, that ºréaſ, #xolydºyovy roi; Śwówaari, “then the names were
common to both orders,” the bishops being called presby-
ters, and the presbyters bishops. And this, Saith Theodoret,
is manifest in this place, because “he adds here deacons to
the bishops, making no mention of their presbyters.”** The
learned Dr. Pearson therefore seems 320x80sly rà intoğası, too
much to favour his own. hypothesis, when, against all these
testimonies both of Greek and Latin fathers, he saith, “It
is not yet proved, that there was then at Philippi any pres-
byters of the second order;” for surely this is proved from
the authority of all these fathers. He therefore saith, (1.)
That before the converted Jews and gentiles did unite into
one church, there were two bishops of the same church.
This he proves from those words of Epiphanius, H. “Alexan-
dria never had two bishops at a time, &; ai &AAzı âxxxnariat,
as other churches had :” but if I am not much mistaken,
this relates not to the primitive and apostolic time, but to
the times of the Meletians, who founded bishops, presbyters,
and deacons, and by them #xxxnciaçiötaç, “private churches,”
calling them “churches of the martyrs;” whereas those
of Peter's party called theirs catholic churches. But
though this schism continued long, and even in the time
of Theodoret prevailed in Egypt, and, as Danaeus notes, in-
fected almost all Christian regions; yet, saith Epiphanius, it
never so prevailed in Alexandria as in other churches, there
being never there two bishops, one of the catholic, another
of the Meletian churches, as there were in many other
places: and if this be the true import of these words, it is
easy to discern how impertinent they are to the true exposi-
tion of this place. He adds also from the same Epiphanius,
that Paul and Peter were both apostles and bishops of
* 20; Kºe, Ognizing axvAngége, Oscaraxovizn,
Màrne h ºráa.m.; Trégº-be Maxn}oving. Anthol. lib. i.
+ Cap. 16. + Lib. xlvii. 327.
§ Lib. xvi. p. 514; al. 412.
| Ep. 89, ad Evagr. et Ep. ad Tit. i. 9.
* Com. in Ep. ad Eph. -
** Kai Évºraúða .38 &nxty rotºro rewoints' roſ; y&g #Triawāroic
*taxévov; cºvševže, röy ºrgscºutigov of troincápasyo; payńany.
++ Haer. lxviii., § 6, p. 722. - -
It is called also “the metropolis of Macedonia” by
Rome, as doubtless they also were at Antioch, and wherever
they met ; but they were only bishops there, because apos-
tles there, one of the Jews, the other of the gentiles, and in
this they had no successors. Jerome” indeed takes notice
of this evasion, but then he ſays the censure of contentious
persons upon them that made it.
The same learned bishop adds, That were it true, that
there were but one bishop in one city, it would not follow
that the word “bishops” here could not be taken in the pro-
per sense, because the apostle doth not here call them
bishops of the church or city of Philippi, but only saith,
they were then at Philippi; he might write therefore to
them whom he knew to be then at Philippi, though they
were bishops of other churches. But, (1.) as none of the
ancients have ever said one word of any other bishops than
those met at Philippi, so the words seem not well consis-
tent with this evasion; for writing roi; ovariv #y pixirroic, he
doubtless writes “to the saints dwelling in Philippi ;” writ-
ing therefore to them with the bishops and deacons, he must
be supposed to write also to the bishops and deacons dwelling
at Philippi.
I therefore acquiesce in the opinion of Theodoret, who
says, that Paul then writ to the presbyters and deacons of
that city, because their bishop Epaphroditus, whom he styles
his brother and companion in labour, and fellow-soldier, and
their apostle, was then with him at Rome, ii. 25, and
that he therefore mentions them, because they were so instru-
mental in Sending the contributions to him, mentioned iv. 15.
* Ver. 5. Koivoviz.] That “fellowship ;” for that koivovia.
here doth not signify their liberality towards the propagation
of the gospel, but their communion with the apostles in
the gospel, as it doth, 1 John i. 3. 7, I gather (1.) from
the phrase #yov &yaôy, which is emphatically put to signify
ºrd Beyov trio reoc, “the work of faith;” as when we are said,
was’ troºzovy pyov &ya.000, “by patient continuance in the
good work to seek for glory,” Rom. ii. 7, that “being the
work of God that we should believe in his Son,” John vi.
29. (2.) From the phrase, “He that hath begun the good
work in you, will perform it to the day of the Lord Jesus
Christ,” that being still used by the apostle to testify his
hopes, that they would continue stedfast in faith and obedi-
ence, till they received their crown, 1 Cor. i. 8. 1 Thess. iii.
13. v. 23. e
* Ver. 6. IIeroi62, air rotºro, Being confident, &c.] This
the apostle speaks, not out of any opinion of the election of
all the Philippians to eternal life, or of the certainty of their
perseverance to the end by virtue of that election ; for then
why doth he exhort them to “work out their salvation with
fear and trembling,” ii. 12; “to stand fast in the Lord,” iv.
1 ; and to “retain the word of life, that he might have joy
in the day of Christ, that he had not run in vain, or laboured
in vain among them P” (ii. 16.) He speaks this therefore
from a judgment of charity, 3rd røy trapsASávray x2' ºregi rāy
ºxávrov a roxaçãºwevoc, conjecturing, saith Theophylact, from
what was past, what they would be for the future ; because,
Saith he, it seems just or fit for me to conceive this good
hope of you, by reason of that great affection you retain to
me, and your patience in enduring the like afflictions: now
he that only gives these reasons of his confidence, gives us
just reasons to conceive, he knew nothing of the neces-
sity of their perseverance by virtue of any absolute election
to Salvation. -
* Ver, 7.] i. e. Because you have had your hearts upon
me in my bonds, sending Epaphroditus to minister to me in
my necessities (ii. 25), and contributing of your own sub-
stance to me (iv. 14), sending once and again to me, whilst
I was in bonds for the defence of the faith (ver. 15, 16),
* Ac ne quis in ună ecclesia contentiosé plures episcopog
fuisse contendat. Epist, ad Evagrium. -
768
PHILIPPIANS,
gospel, you all are partakers of my grace; (Gr. as
º who are all my copartners of grace in my bonds,
EC. -
8 And of this my care for you I can call God to
witness 9 for God is my record, how greatly I long
after you in the bowels of Jesus Christ (or the most
passionate degree of Christian love).
9 And this I pray (for you), that your love may
abound yet more and more in knowledge and all
*judgment;
10 That ye may approve (the) things that are ex-
cellent; " that ye may be sincere and without offence
till the day of §
II, "Being filled with the fruits of righteousness,
which are (taught) by Jesus Christ, to the glory and
praise of God. -
12 But (to proceed to my own affairs, about which
Syou have been so solicitous, ver. 7) I would ye should
understand, brethren, that the things which have
happened to me (through the malice of my adversa-
ries) have fallen out rather to the furtherance (than
the hinderance) of the gospel;
13 So that my bonds in (and for the cause of)
Christ are manifest in the palace, and in all other
places (i. e. it is manifest not only in the palace, but
throughout all Rome, that I am in bonds for the faith
of Christ);
14 "And Inany of the brethren of the Lord, wax-
ing confident by my (patience and courage in my)
bonds, are (become) much more bold to speak the
word (of God) without fear. 6
15 Some indeed (there are who) preach Christ even
of envy and strife; and some also of goodwill (and
kind affection to me and to the gospel) : -
16 The one (party) preach Christ of contention,
not sincerely, (not from love to him, but disaffection
towards me,) supposing (by this means) to add afflic-
tion to my bonds (or to bring farther tribulation on
me now in bonds):
17 But the other (party preach Christ out) of love
(to him, and me his servant), knowing that I am set
up (or lie in bonds) for the defence of the gospel.
18 What then (shall this afflict me? No, since)
notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence or
in truth, Christ is (still) preached; and I therein do
rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. -
19 For I know that this shall (be so far from ac-
complishing their end of adding tribulation to my bonds,
that it shall) turn to my salvation (i. e. my deliver-
ance) through your prayers (for me), and the supply
of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, (enabling me to plead so
as shall tend to my enlargement, ver. 25).
20 According to my earnest expectation and xy
hope, that (through the assistance of the Spirit of cow-
tage which God hath promised and given to us, 2 Tim.
i. 7) in nothing I shall be ashamed, but (that) with
all boldness, as always (hitherto), so now also "Christ
shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by (my)
life (now ), or by (my) death (hereafter).
21 For (the motive) to me to live is (the service of)
Christ, and to die (for him) is (my greatest) gain.
22 But if (it happen that) I live in the flesh, this is
the fruit of my labour (Gr. is worth my labour) : yet
what I shall choose "I know not (i. e. were it left to
my choice, I should be in a strait which of the two con-
ditions to choose). -
23 For I am in a strait between (these) two, having
a desire * to depart, and to be with Christ; which is
those things, which, being “a sweet savour, a sacrifice ac-
ceptable and well-pleasing to God” (ver. 18), confirm my
hope concerning you; especially when I find you yet stand-
ing firm under the like afflictions, “having the same conflict
which you saw in me,” when I was among you (Acts xvi.),
“and now hear to be in me” (i. 30).
* Ver. 9. 'Ev ráan aio Shas.j The outward senses being
the instruments by which we discern and distinguish ma–
terial objects; the word airSnaic, which is here rendered |
“judgment,” is from them derived to the mind discerning
and passing judgment on spiritual things ; and is by Phavo-
rinus styled ñ vºc ystaic 3x918%; rºw 8taxgwoºãvoy, “the exact
taste of things that differ, or are to be discerned by the mind:”
in which sense the word is often used by the LXX., especi-
ally in the book of Proverbs, where it is twenty times so
used; and hence it bears the like sense in the apostle; and
they, who have this exactness of judgment, are said to have
algºrigia, “senses exercised” to discern betwixt good and
evil (Heb. v. 14).
* Ver, 10. "Iva fire sixxplysis, xai &rgáczoroi..] Eixingwei, wrº;
ºrów Osby, 3rººkoroi at 3,0porov, “Sincere in their deportment
towards God, inoffensive in their behaviour towardsman.”
* Ver, 11.] For all that Christ does as a prophet sent
from God, or as assuming the person of a mediator, must
refer ultimately to the glory of the Father (ii. 11).
* Ver, 14–18.] For explication of these four verses, let
it be noted in the general, that they, who preached Christ #
iélèsias, “out of contention,” did not preach Christ, or the
gospel in truth, and out of love to it (ver. 17, 18), but only
in pretence, or upon this occasion, from strife and envy
against Paul, being grieved that he had free liberty of preach-
ing Christ to all that came to him for two years (Acts xxviii.
30), and also that they did not acknowledge Paul to be “set
up,” or by God appointed for the defence and propagation of
the gospel. Whence it appears, that they could be only the
persons who did contend with Paul for the glory of being
the most diligent and successful promoters of the gospel; or
as such, envying the apostle's glory, set up for themselves,
boasting as if they were the only publishers of the gospel:
but yet it is difficult to assign the persons here intended by
Paul; CEcumenius and Theophylact say, they were the un-
believing Jews, who, by divulging everywhere about Rome
what was the doctrine of Christianity which Paul preached;
how opposite it was to the Roman gods and their worship;
what tumults it had caused; how many it had turned from
their old religion to the faith of Christ; and who he was in
whom the Christians did believe; thought to enrage the em-
peror against Paul, the great promoter of this doctrine: and
in this, say they, might Paul rejoice, as giving occasion to
others to inquire into the Christian faith, and so to come unto
it ; for, saith Tertullian, desinunt od?sse quod desinunt igno-
rare; “when they once know they cease to hate it ;” but
such cannot be said to preach Christ without an intolerable
catachresis; nor can Paul be supposed to rejoice in such a
representation of the Christian faith as they made. Others
therefore say, with a greater likelihood, these were the Juda-
izing Christians, who with the gospel taught the observation
of the law ; for from these arose #t38; xał 31%atacial, “strife
and dissensions,” 1 Cor. i. 11. iii. 3, “zeal, animosities, and
contentions,” 2 Cor. xii. 20, and that on the account of this
apostle, whom they would scarce own as an apostle of Christ,
2 Cor. vii. 2, but rather looked upon as one that “walked
according to the flesh,” x. 2, and would have “excluded
him” from the churches, Gal. iv. 16, 17, and yet at their
preaching Christ, though not sincerely, the apostle may be
supposed to rejoice, because he knew the time was near when
the “hay and stubble” they built on the foundation should be
revealed, and the destruction of the temple and city of Jeru-
salem would sufficiently confute their vain additions to the faith.
19 Wer. 20. 'Ev'rój gºaari wou, Christ shall be magnified
by me in my body..] For if I live in the body, the power of
Christ will be magnified in delivering me out of so great dan-
ger: but if I be put to death for his sake, that power will
be magnified which enables me so cheerfully to die for the
faith, as I am ready to do.
in Wer. 22. Ot, yyapić, I know not..] "Araž Asyāºwevoviv rod-
rø rā a-ngaiyoºyº. This yopićw, saith J. Gregory, is but
once used in this sense; which is true, if he confines this to
the New Testament. But Phavorinus mentions another
Gregory who used it in this sense; and Constantine says it
occurs thus in Isocrates and Lucian.
12 Ver, 23. IICAN& P.3xxoy ºpeſa.gov, To depart and to be
CHAPTER II.
760
far better (for me than continuing here, were I only to
respect my own interest):
24 Nevertheless (for me) to abide in the flesh is
more needful for you.
25 And having this confidence (that you will re-
ceive this advantage by my abiding in the flesh), I
know that I shall abide and continue with you all for
your furtherance (in) and joy of faith;
26 That your rejoicing may be more abundant in
Jesus Christ by (or through) my coming to you again.
27 Only let (this be your care, that) your conversa-
tion be as becometh the gospel of Christ : that whe-
ther I come and see you, or else be absent, I may
hear (a comfortable account) of your affairs, that you
stand fast "in one spirit, with one mind striving to-
gether for the faith of the gospel;
28 And (being) in nothing terrified by (the threats
and persecutions of) your adversaries: which is to
them an evident token of (your) perdition (viz. that
$/ou are an obstinate people, bent on your own ruin),
but to you (it is a token) of salvation, and that of
God, (it being righteous with God to recompense tribu-
lation to them that trouble you, but to you rest, 2.
Thess. i. 5). -
29 For “unto you it is given (by God as an espe-
cial favour) in the behalf of Christ, not only to be-
lieve in him, but also to suffer for his sake;
30 Having the same conflict (with the enemies of
the faith) which you saw in me (when I was among
Jou, Acts xvi. 23. 1 Thess. ii. 2) and now hear to be
in me' (ver. 16). -
with Christ, which is much better.] “Because,” saith Crel-
lius, “the time betwixt death and the resurrection is not to
be reckoned, therefore the apostle might speak thus, though
the soul hath no sense of anything after death.” But could
Paul think a state of insensibility much better than a life
tending so much as his did, to the glory of God, to the pro-
pagation of the gospel, and the furtherance of the joy of
Christians? Could he call such an insensate state, a being
“with Christ,” and a “walking by sight,” in opposition to
the life of faith ? (2 Cor. v. 7, 8). Others say the apostle
speaketh thus because he expected that the general resur-
rection, and the day of judgment, should be in his time: but
the words will not bear this sense; for the apostle saith, he
is in a constraint betwixt these two, whether he should choose
that life which would enable him to gain many to Christ,
and minister greatly to the necessities of his church ; or
that which would cause him to live with Christ, viz. as to his
better part, i. e. whether his body and soul should be dis-
solved, or he should live in the flesh. Now it is impossible
that the same man, at the same time, should expect the re-
surrection and the day of judgment, and yet expect to live
in the flesh, and to abide with the church in the flesh, when
none of the members of the church should abide in the flesh,
but should enjoy that resurrection which would place them
with Christ, as well as himself; that he should desire his
soul should be dissolved, or separated from the body, that he
might be present with the Lord, and yet at the same time
expect that day when he should be clothed upon with his
celestial body. Moreover, he himself informs us, that the
apostles expected only the resurrection, when other Chris-
tians should arise, at the great day; for thus he speaks, “He
that raised up the Lord Jesus from the dead, will raise us
also by him, and will present us with you,” 2 Cor. iv. 14,
and this confutes their gloss, who say the apostle expected
to be with Christ, as an especial privilege belonging to him
as an apostle, or a martyr for Christ (see the note on 2 Cor.
v. 8). ." -
* Ver. 27. In one spirit, with one mind.] That is, with
love and concord, saith CEcumenius (see note on 1 Cor. i. 10,
11), or with full consent: So buyff (wig, 1 Chron. xii. 38; so
in Irenaeus, lib. i. cap. 3, to act, avºpowoc, “with one accord
and consent,” is to act as having, ºzizy Jux}y, wał rºw atºry
xagötav, xał w a réºza, “one soul, heart, and mouth.”
* Ver. 29. To you it is given not only to believe in him,
but also to suffer for his name.] Where note, ().) that to
suffer for Christ's sake is, x&pi;, “grace and favour,” ver. 7;
it is a gift which is matter of great joy, Matt. v. 12. Rom.
v. 13. James i. 2. (2.) That they who, from these words,
“To you it is given to believe,” infer, that faith is so far the
gift of God as that men are purely passive in it, have as
much reason to infer that we suffer for the name of Christ
without the concurrence of our own wills, both being said to
be equally given.
CHAPTER II.
1 If there be therefore any consolation (raptiºn-
ouc, any force of eaſhortation) in (beseeching you in the
name of) Christ, if (there be) any comfort of (mutual)
love, if (there bé) any fellowship of the Spirit (of love
eaciting you to it), if (ye have) any bowels and mer-
cies (for me the prisoner of Christ),
2 Fulfil ye my joy (in this), that ye be (all) like-
minded, having the same love (one to another), being
of one accord, of one mind (or minding the same
thing). - -
3 Let nothing be done (among you) through strile
(who shall be the greatest) or (through desire of) vain-
glory ; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem.
(an) other better than himself. we
4 Look not every man on his own things (or con-
cernments only), but every man also on the things of
others (being concerned for their welfare).
5 Let this mind be in you (with respect to these
matters), which was also in Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being *in the form of God (when he ap-
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II.
* Ver. 3. Let each esteem, &c.] This refers not to judg-
ment, it being not in our power always thus to esteem of
others, but to practice; as if he should have said, Be as
ready to assist and help others, as if you were their subjects
and inferiors: so the example of Christ requires, and so the
precept runs, that “he who is the greatest should be a ser-
vant” to others. : ; :
* Ver, 6.’Ey gºogº; Osó, In the form of God..] By this ex-
pression most interpreters do understand, that the apostle
doth intend Christ was essentially and truly God; but though
this be a certain truth, yet I conceive this cannot be theim-
port of this expression in this place.
First, Because the apostle exhorteth his Philippians to hu-
mility, after the example of our Lord: now humility con-
sists not in the change of nature, but of condition; and
therefore his exinanition of the form of God seems rather
to respect our Lord's condition, than his nature.
Secondly, There is no more reason to say, “the form of
God” signifies the essence of God, than that “the form of a
servant” signifies the essence of a servant; but evident it is,
that “the form of a servant” doth not signify the essence,
but the state and the condition of a servant, which is a mere
relation; nor doth his manumission change his nature, but his
State.
Thirdly, According to this import of the phrase, it cannot
well be shown how he did “empty himself,” or lay aside this
form : for though by taking of a body, he concealed, yet
could he not be said to empty himself of, or lay aside, the
Godhead; especially when in that body he gave such nume-
rous and signal demonstrations of divine power and wisdom,
both in his miracles, his doctrine, and knowledge of the
hearts of men. -
3 D
770
PHILIPPIANS.
Fourthly, This word &opº, “form,” both in the Old and
New Testament, doth often signify the external shape: as
when it is said of Belshazzar,” Dan. v. 6. 10, and of Da-
niel, vii. 28, that their “forms were changed;” of Nebu-
chadnezzar, that: “his form returned to him,” Dan iv. 46;
of Christ, that he appeared to two of his disciples, #y régº
progºff, “in another form,” Mark xvi. 12, and that ºf rºof-
‘pººn, “he was transfigured” before three of them, Matt.
xvii. 2; but it nowhere seems to signify the essence of a man
either in the Old or the New Testament.
Grotius and the Socinians say, that Christ is said to be
“in the form of God,” by reason of the miracles he wrought
on earth, they being indications of the power of God resid-
ing in him. But this interpretation cannot stand. For,
First, Christ is here plainly said to have been “in the form
of God,” before he took upon him “the form of a servant,”
or the similitude of a man; for as these words, “being found
in the fashion of a man, he humbled himself, and became obe-
dient unto death,” do show that he was “found in the fashion
of a man” before “he humbled himself to become obedient
to the death;” so, by parity of reason, these words, “Being
in the form of God, &c., he emptied himself, and took upon
him the form of a servant, being found in the likeness of
man,” do show that he was first in the form of God, before
that, being found in the likeness of man, he took upon him
the form of a servant.
Secondly, It is plainly here asserted, that Christ “emptied
himself” of this “form of God” at his humiliation; whereas
he mever laid aside his power of working miracles, but did
continue to exert it to his death.
Thirdly, This power of miracles is never in the scripture
styled “the form of God;” and were this all that was in-
tended by that phrase, both Moses and Elias, and our
Lord's apostles, might upon that account be said to have
been “in the form of God;” seeing both Moses and Elias
Wrought many miracles on earth, and Christ declared con-
cerning his disciples, that they should work “greater miracles
than those which he had done,” John xiv. 12.
I therefore by this “form of God,” do understand that
glorious form in which God on his throne is represented; that
majesty in which he said to appear inscripture, and in which
the Aévos, or the Word, did show himself of old to Moses
and the patriarchs. For explication of this sense, I shall
show, (1.), how God in the Old Testament is represented
as appearing, showing his form and glory to the sons of
lſ] GI).
Secondly, That Christ did in this form appear to Moses
and the patriarchs of old.
Thirdly, That since our Lord's ascension he hath been in-
yested with the form of God, he hath appeared in it, and
hath declared it belongs to him; though, for the time of his
humiliation, he was pleased to dispose, or put it off. And,
First, The appearance or similitude of God is represented
in the Old Testament in a bright shining cloud or light, a
flame of fire, or the attendance of a host of angels. Thus
in that vision of the prophet Daniel, “The Ancient of days
did sit; his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as
burning fire; a stream of fire did issue from before him,
thousand of thousands ministered unto him, and ten thou.
sand times ten thousand stood before him,” Dan. vii. 9, 10.
Thus God appeared on mount Sinai, where his presence was
attended with a host of angels, according to that saying of
the psalmist, “The chariots of God are twenty thousand,
even thousands of angels, and the Lord is among them as
in Sinai,” Ps. lxviii. 17, where the Targum adds, “The
Word of the Lord desired to place his majesty upon it;”
Jehovah dwelleth only in the heaven of heavens for ever.
He appeared there also in a bright shining cloud, or flame of
fire; for “the glory abode upon mount Sinai, and the cloud
covered it six days, and the sight of the glory of the Lord
was like devouring fire,” Exod. xxiv. 16, 17. And seeing
of these majestic symbols, is to see God, ver, 12, to “see the
God of Israel,” ver, 10; that is, say Onkelos and Jonathan,
“the glory of God.” And when Moses doth again repeat
the decalogue he adds these words, Deut. v. 22, 24, “The
Lord spake to all your assembly in the mount, out of the
midst of the fire of the cloud: and you said, Behold, the
Lord God hath shown us his glory, and we have heard his
voice out of the midst of the fire. We have seen this day
that God doth talk with man, and he liveth.”—“The Word
of the Lord our God showed the divine majesty of his glory,”
saith the Targum of Jonathan; and “We heard the yoice of
his words,” saith Onkelos. And the prophet Habakkuk, in
his song of God, saith thus, “His glory covered the heavens,
his brightness was as the light, and bright beams came out of
his side,” Hab. iii. 3, 4. There he discovereth “his She-
chinah,” i. e. “his glorious majesty,” saith the Targum.
When Jacob had a vision of angels ascending and descend-
ing, he presently cries out, “This is no other than the house
of God; this is the gate of heaven: surely Jehovah is in this
place; and I knew it not,” Gen. xxviii. 17; "Tºnyºv, “The
glory of the Lord is here,” say the Targums. And when God
showed himself to the people in the cloud, then did the glory
or similitude of God appear, as the expression is, Numb.
xii. 8, rºy 36%ay Kugiov, “The glory of the Lord,” saith the
Septuagint; so 1 Kings viii. 11. Thus doth the scripture re-
present that God who dwelleth in light inaccessible, before
whose face the angels do continually stand as ministering spi-
rits. And this also is the rabbinical exposition of the
“T-man,” “the glory of the Lord;” that it is either a ray of
divine light, or a guard of angels.
Secondly, That Christ was in the form of God, even be-
fore he took upon him human nature, will be apparent, if
we consider, that even before he purged our sins, he was “the
brightness of his Father's glory,” light of light, Heb. i. 3,
and, in the language of the book of Wisdom, “A pure
stream flowing from the glory of the Almighty, the bright-
ness of the everlasting light,” Wisd. vii. 25, 26, and that he
at the conclusion of his humiliation prays, that God would
“glorify him with the glory, which he had with him before
the foundation of the world,” John xvii. 5. (2.) That it was the
opinion both of the ancient Jews and of the Christians, from
the beginning, that it was the Aéros, or the Messiah, who ap-
peared to the patriarchs of old in light and splendour, and
sometimes with the attendance of holy angels. And, (3.)
that we have great evidence of this matter, both in the Old
and New Testament. In the books of Exodus and Num-
bers we read, that the children of Israel tempted the Lord.
saying, “Is the Lord among us, or not ?” Exod. xvii. 7.
Numb. xxi. 6, and that the Lord sent therefore fiery serpents
among them; but in the tenth chapter of the First Epistle
to the Corinthians, we are informed that “they tempted
Christ, and were destroyed of serpents.” See this reading
justified, note on 1 Cor. x. 9. Christ, therefore, as to his di-
vine nature, was then present with, and tempted by them.
God also saith to his people thus, Exod. xxiii. 20. 23, “Be-
hold, I send an angel before thee to keep thee in thy way,
and to bring thee to the place which I prepared. Beware
of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not ; he will not
pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him.” Now the
ancient rabbins' say, this was “the Angel, the Redeemer;”
or an uncreated angel, in whom was Jehovah ; and the
words plainly seem to intimate this to us, seeing the power
of remitting sins, ascribed here to him, belongeth only to
that God against whom they were committed. Moreover,
when God, being incensed against Israel for making the
golden calf, had threatened to withdraw himself, and only
send an angel before them to drive out the inhabitants of Ca-
naan before them, Exod. xxxiii. 2, this seems an evil word
to the people, and they mourn because of it, viz. of those
words, “I will not go up in the midst of thee;” that is, say
Onkelos and Jonathan, “I will not cause ºnlºw, my glorious
presence to go up with thee.” Nor doth Moses himself rest
in this answer, but speaks thus to God, “If thy presence go
not with me, carry us not up hence,” ver. 15; “If the She-
chinah go not with us,” saith Onkelos, ei º air㺠aº, “If
thou thyself go not with us,” say the Septuagint, R. Salo-
mon, and Aben Ezra : which sense the following words re-
quire, “For wherein shall it be known that I and thy people
have found grace in thy sight, is it not in that thou goest
with us?” ver, 16. Whence it is evident, that they were
not contented with the promise of a created angel, but
* Toj 8aaixão; # ºppº ºxxid;64.
z
3 * +"Hºoººh.
: ‘H pºop på øov šarēzºres psy #7, #&#.
* Cosri, par. ii. §. 2, p. 81, par. iv. p. 277, 278.
* See Ambr. in locum, et Cartw.
CHAPTER II.
771
peared to the patriarchs), "thought it no robbery to be |
* equal with God (Gr. did not covet to appear as
God):
7 But (divesting himself of his former glo y) made
himself of no reputation, and took upon him the
* form of a servant (by ministering to others), and
required God's presence to go with them ; and that God
granted this request, ver. 17. Thus Philo Judaeus” often
informs us, that the angel who went before them was no
created angel, but the divine Word, or God himself: “F or,”
saith he, “Moses prays to God himself to be his governor,
in the way that leadeth to himself, saying, If thou go not
with us, carry us not up hence.” And again, “He uses the
divine Word for a guide, for so speaks the oracle, Behold, I
will send my angel before thy face, to lead thee in the way,”
Exod. xxiii. 20.
Thirdly, That after his ascension to the right hand of ma-
jesty and glory, the Lord Christ did again reassume this form,
and appear in his majestic splendour, is evident from the
New Testament: thus he appeared to Stephen, who, looking
up stedfastly to heaven, “saw the glory of God, and the Son
of man standing at the right hand of God,” Acts vii. 55.
Thus he appeared to a persecuting Saul, in “a light from
heaven, above the brightness of the sun, saying to him, I am
Jesus whom thou persecutest,” Acts xxvi. 13. Thus in the
vision of John, Rev. i. 14, 16, “His eyes were as a flaming
fire, and his countenance as the sun shining in its strength.”
Thus he declared he would appear at the destruction of Je-
rusalem, to punish that rebellious people, “The Son of
man,” saith he, “will come in the glory of his Father, with
his holy angels,” Matt. xvi. 27. Luke ix. 26. 28. And his
second advent shall be with the same tremendous glory, for
“he shall be then revealed from heaven with his mighty an-
gels, in flaming fire,” 2. Thess. i. 7, 8.
Fourthly, Seeing then this splendour, and this attendance
of holy angels, is represented in scripture as the similitude,
the shape, the face, and majestic presence of God; seeing it
is evident, before the incarnation, the Aéyor, or divine Word,
had this glory, and in it did appear to Moses and the patri-
archs, and that in order to the exercise of a regal power over
his church ; seeing it is certain from the New Testament,
that after his ascension he again reassumed this form and
power, it is highly probable this was the form of God here
mentioned; this was the likeness to God in which, at his hu-
miliation, he “did not covet to appear,” but rather chose to
lay it aside, that so he might appear amongst us, not as the
Lord of heaven, attended with a host of angels, or in the
dazzling brightness of his Father's glory, but in the fashion
of a man.
*oix 36traytºv #yńorato ºr ºval to a Gsä, Thought it no rob-
bery to be equal with God..] This Greek phrase is only to be
met with in Plutarch, saith Grotius (though I cannot find it
there), and in Heliodorus; in which writer it plainly signi-
fies, to “covet earnestly,” or look upon a thing as much to
be desired, and snatched at. Thus when Cybele went about
to allure Theagenes to the lustful embraces of Arsace, find-
ing him out of the temple, in a bye apartment, she didt
#prayaa ºroisſy rºy £vy'ruxiav, i. e. “she snatched at the occa-
sion,” or looked upon it as a thing desirable for her purpose;
and when none of her proposals or allurements would pre-
vail with Theagenes to gratify the queen's desires, she brake
forth into this admiration, ; “What adverseness from love is
this? A young man in the flower of his age thrusts from
him, or refuses a woman like unto himself, and desirous of
him, xal oix 3èmayºa oběš Éegatov hyeſta rā trpáyºza, and does
not look upon this as a great offer, and a thing very de-
sirable:” and when she had found out that his affection to
Chariclea was the cause of this averseness, she proposes to
Arsace the death of Chariclea, as an expedient to gain his
affection, and $ #prayga rā ānsāy Érothaaro # 'Aggāºn, “Arsace
embraces the motion as a thing very desirable, or to be co-
veted.” So that 3pmayºa hygia Sai, saith Semidius, is rem
optatam persequi, et studiosissimé occupare.
* Tº Elyai Tora Geº.] Is to be, or appear as God, or in the
* Atómeº tºxsta Majoric air; tº Geº Xºſa-Sat #ysuévi ºr;3:
rºw airröv &youdav čáy Aéye, yā6, si º airo; ai ovºtrogstan, £ch
pas àyáy; ivrčSey. De Migrat. Abrah. p. 334, C. Hysºzów,
r; 3365 xºrai Aoyá 6sia, Xencº yáp Barry, ibot 3 worrêaxa röy
ăyygady gov ºrgö ºrpoo &ºrov gov. Ibid. lit. F.
+ Heliodor. lib. vii. p. 322. ... P. 340. § P. 337.
likeness of God: so the word fºra is adverbially used fre-
quently in the Septuagint, answering to the Hebrew 5,
Job v. 14, “They grope in the noon-day, Ta'a yvºri, as in the
might,” x. 10, “Hast thou not curdled me, Tora rveó, as
cheese;” xi. 12, “Man is born, ſo a 3vo, #nºwirn, like a wild
ass's colt;” xiii. 12, “Your remembrance is, fora cºro83, like
unto ashes;” and, ver. 20, “He consumeth, fora &#3, as a
bottle;” xv. 16, “Man drinketh in iniquity, ira Troró, as
drink;” xxiv. 20, “Wickedness shall be broken, ſo a £vXà, as
a tree;” xxvii. 16, “He prepareth raiment, ſa'a ºrnxó, as the
clay;” xxviii. 2, “Brass is molten out of the stone, ºra x1%,
as the stone;” xxix. 14, “I put on judgment, Íza 8 trxcíði,
as a robe;” xl. 15, “He eateth grass, is a 8%wciw, as an ox;”
Isa. li. 23, “Thou hast laid thy body, ira rā yń, as the
earth;” Wisd. vii. 1, “I myself am a mortal man, Troy &raat,
like to all men; and the first voice I uttered was wāarty fºra.
xxaiwy, weeping as all others do,” ver, 3. So that the sense
of these words seems to me to be this, That though Christ in
his former appearances still represented himself in the form
and likeness of God; yet coming now into the world for the
Salvation of mankind, he did not covet or desire to appear
in that majestic splendour and authority, but rather chose to
come in the similitude of a man, and in the form of a ser-
vant. Nor doth this exposition give any advantage to the
Socinians, but equally confutes their heresy, and gives a better
answer to their arguments than the usual exposition can
give. For,
First, Hence the pre-existence of Christ, before his being
born of the blessed virgin, is proved to a demonstration.
Secondly, Hence also it is evident, that there must be two
natures in Christ ; that of the Aśyoc, which appeared from
the beginning to the patriarchs; and that which he received,
when as man he was conceived in the virgin's womb.
Thirdly, Hence it appears that this nature in which he
appeared before his conception in the virgin's womb must
be divine. For what other nature could appear in the form
of God, and challenge to itself the glory, which by the Jews
was still a certain indication of the divine presence, and in
the New Testament is styled “the glory of the Father 2"
Especially if we consider, that he who thus appeared hath
the incommunicable name Jehovah so oft ascribed to him, is
styled “the Judge of the whole earth,” and either challengeth
to himself the divine attributes and offices, or never doth re-
fuse them when they are offered to him by men. Moreover,
where is the humiliation, or the eximanition here mentioned
in that Christ would not be, or appear as God in the world,
if having only a human nature, he could not do so without
being guilty of the blasphemy the Jews laid to his charge,
“That he, being a man, made himself God?” Whereas he
differed in nothing from an ordinary man, but only in the
extraordinary gifts conferred by God upon him. And if his
nature was divine, it of necessity must be eternal, since the
divine nature can have no beginning of existence.
* Wer. 7. Mogºńy 30JAov Aaſºv. He took upon him the form
of a servant.] This phrase cannot import only his taking of
the human nature, that being sufficiently expressed by say-
ing that “he was made in the likeness of man:” besides,
he still retains the human nature, but doth not now retain
the form of a servant, but of “the Lord of all things.” Nor
are we to understand by it “his outward poverty, which
equalled him to servants,” saith the learned Grotius, “as
having nothing of his own ;” for that is not the state of a
servant only, but of a son in his minority, and of many un-
fortunate persons who were never servants. Nor, thirdly,
must we understand by it, as the Socinians do, his submis-
sion to be used as a slave or servant, by being whipped, and
bound, and crucified ; for that is the humiliation which he
suffered after he had taken upon him the form of a servant,
as those words plainly show, “He took upon him the form
of a servant, and being found in the fashion of a man, he
became obedient to the death :” nor is this proper to a ser-
vant, but to a malefactor ; for a servant is not less a servant
when he is not whipped or scourged ; he therefore may be
rather said to have taken upon him the form of a servant,
by ministering to men, and being among them “as one that
3 D 2
772
PHILIPPIANS.
* was made in the likeness of man (Gr. being in the
likeness of man):
8 And being found in fashion as a (n ordinary)
man, he humbled himself (yet more), and became obe-
dient to death, even the death of the cross.
9 Wherefore " God also hath highly exalted him
(even as to his manhood), and given him a name (a
dignity and majesty) which is above every name (of
majesty, Eph. i. 21. Heb. i. 4).
10 That at the name of Jesus every knee should
bow, (humbly acknowledging his superiority, even those)
of things in heaven (i. e. the holy angels), and things
in earth (i.e. men), and things under the earth (the
dead, who, being raised by him, shall acknowledge his
power; for to them the apostle doth apply these very
words of the prophet Isaiah, Rom. xiv. 11, 12. Rev. v.
13. Isa. xlv. 23). -
served ;'' for as the business of a servant is to do nothing
for himself, but for the good of others, and to spend himself
in ministering to their advantage ; so the Son of man “came
not to be ministered to, but to minister, and” at the close of
that ministry, “to give his life a ransom for many.”
* 'Ew dºzoºxart 3,863roy yºváaevoc, And being in the like-
ness of man.] That our Lord had the real nature, and not
only the outward shape or resemblance of a man ; that he
had a body consisting of flesh, blood, and bones; a soul and
spirit; and so all the constituent parts of a man, the scrip-
ture plainly testifies. Nor doth this phrase iv Spºoººwatt,
“in the likeness of man,” contradict it, it being used of a
real likeness by the participation of the same nature as to
kind. Thus Adam is said to beget a son, iv jaolºzari airoij,
“in his own likeness,” who yet was certainly of the same
nature with him : and Christ is said, jºcotoşāyat, “to be made
like to his brethren,” by the participation of the nature of
Abraham, and his communion with them in the same flesh
and blood, Heb. ii. 14. 16, 17, and it was both proper and
elegant for the apostle to use this expression here, by reason
of the opposition he designed to show, betwixt Christ's
former glorious and his then present humble state, he being
then iv frogºń roi, Geoû, “in the form of God,” now i, juold-
bºat row &v63&mov, “in the likeness of a man.”
* Ver. 9. Atrév inspirpore, God hath ea alted him.] The
fathers on this place advise us, si; rºy 3,084 roariv, wal oix sic
Tºy Seárnta raira 8tavosſy, “to refer these things not to the
divine, but to the human nature,” the apostle not speaking
here of the exaltation of the divine nature of Christ, by the
manifestation of his concealed glory and power, but of the
exaltation of that nature which had suffered ; this exalta-
tion being in scripture represented as the reward of our
Lord's salutary passion: for “we see him,” saith the apostle
“who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffer-
ing of death, crowned with glory and honour,” Heb. ii. 9;
and again, the elders about the throne say, “Worthy is the
Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wis-
dom, and strength, and honour, and glory,” Rev. iv. 11. v.
12. Moreover, John declares, that this dominion and power
was given to the Son of man because he was so (John v. 17),
though it was given to the man Christ Jesus, because the
fulness of the Godhead dwelt in him. -
* Ver, 11. Ei, 8%ay, To the glory.] He does not say, as
the Socinians contend, that Christ is exalted to the glory of .
God the Father, though that be true of the advancement of
his human nature ; but he saith, that being thus exalted, he
is to be acknowledged of all tongues and nations as their
Lord, to the glory of the Father; nothing more tending to his
glory, than that all persons owning Christ as their Lord, and
yielding obedience to him, should abound in these works of
righteousness, “which are through Jesus Christ to the
glory of God the Father,” i. 11. Eph. i. 12. Moreover-see-
ing the Father thus exalted the humanity of Christ since he
united the Aéyo; to the human nature (for “it pleased the
Father that in him should all fulness dwell”), what hinders
that this exaltation should be said to be to the glory of God
the Father, from whom he received even the divine nature?
* Ver. 12. 'Ev'r? &n overia fºou, In my absence..] i. e. When
I was present with you, I by my counsels and exhortations
stirred you up to desire and do what was according to the
ll And that every tongue (i. e. men of all nations
and languages, Rev. vii. 13) should confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord, ° to the glory of God the Fa-
ther.
12 Wherefore, my beloved (remembering the dig-
nity of Christ, and your subjection to him), as ye have
always obeyed, not as in my presence only (when you
had me to be your monitor), but now much more in
my 'absence (which God by the workings of his Holy
Spirit supplies), work out your own salvation with
fear and trembling.
13 For it is God who (in my absence, by his inward
teachings) worketh in you both to will and to do of
his own good pleasure.
14 (And) * do all things without murmurings and
disputings (i.e. obey the precepts of the Christian
jaith and of your spiritual monitors cheerfully, and
mind of God: he, in my absence, is more immediately pre-
sent with you, by the inward motions of his Holy Spirit to
excite you both to will and to do what is well pleasing to
him. Having therefore now all things administered more
immediately by God, which are requisite to make you will-
ing and able to perform your duty, it doth more highly con-
cern you to work out your salvation. Thus Ignatius * saith
that he being now in chains, and going to Rome to receive
the crown of martyrdom, the church of Syria had God, in-
stead of him, to be her pastor, and that Christ alone was
bishop over her. This sense I gather from these words,
“much more in my absence ;” for what other reason can be
offered of these words than that which this interpretation
ives 2
g Hence it is evident, that God worketh in us to will and
to do, not by a physical operation, which makes it necessary
for us to will and to do what he would have us do ; for why
then doth the apostle admonish his Philippians to “work
out their salvation with fear and trembling?” For what is
more absurd, than to exhort another to do himself what God
doth for him without his concurrence ; or to require him to
will what he cannot but will and do for this reason, because
another renders it necessary for him so to will P and what
ground of fear can there be, lest God should fail in his work P
That the word āvehysiv doth not require this sense, is evident,
because in scripture it occurs very often, where it must be
understood, not of a physical, but only of a moral operation ;
as when Satan is said, #yspytty, to “work in the children of
disobedience,” Eph. ii. 2, and of the mystery of iniquity,
that tyseysīrat, “it now works,” 2 Thess. ii. 7. (2.) When it
is attributed to those causes which produce not their effects
by any physical, but only by moral operations, as when the
word is said to be #ysey's, “powerful,” Heb. iv. 12; “The
word 3 #ysgyeºrai, which effectually works in them that be-
lieve,” l Thess. ii. 13; that “faith that worketh by love,”
Gal. v. 6 ; that charity is #v=eyhº, “effectual,” Philem. 6;
and of concupiscence, that #v=pyeſ rai, it “worketh in our
members,” Rom. vii. 5. (3.) When it is ascribed to God
sending upon men Évépygiay ºrxāynº, “the efficacy of deceit:”
for surely God worketh no evil physically. In a word, did
God thus work in us to will and to do, the work could no
more be ascribed to us, than the motion which was impressed
on the body of Lazarus, when he came out of the grave, or
upon Paul, when rapt up to the third heavens, could be
ascribed to them ; and the will would not deserve that name,
as being neither free nor praiseworthy. And therefore all
the Greek interpreters observe, that the apostle Saith, “It is
God that worketh in us both to will and to do, oix dº à paiº,
ºrd aireéoùortov, not as denying our free-will, or row: áxovira,
8taćºvoc, constraining the unwilling,”f &AW ºr "rºośvatay
sigia way, after raúrny 8:3 rā; xágiros’ “but, because finding a
readiness of mind, he increaseth it by his grace ; and be-
cause he works together with those who work out their sal-
vation with fear and trembling, roſ; yºg rotoſtoic avyspyrſ,
ſor with such he co-operates,” saith CEcumenius.
1° Wer. 14. Do all things without murmurings, xai 8taxo-
* 'Avrt tº wrotuivi rā QE3 xgåral, ºvo; atriy Imagic.
Xgtovë, Bºreakórnors. Ep. ad Rom. §. 9.
+ Theodoret in locum.
CHAPTER II.
773
without grudging, and readily, without evacting a rea-
son of every command they lay upon you) :
15 That ye may be blameless and harmless, (as
becomes) the sons of God, (being) without rebuke, in
the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among
whom ye shine as lights in the world;
16 Holding forth (bºréxovreg, holding fast) the word
of life (under all persecutions and temptations); that I
may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run
in vain, neither laboured in vain.
17 (And as for me, a prisoner, if I not only should
continue absent from, dAA’ si kai,) but if I be (also)
* offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith
(i.e. that I may present you gentiles an acceptable sa-
crifice to God, through faith, and the sanctification of
the Holy Spirit, Rom. xv. 16), I joy, and rejoice with
you all; (I count these sufferings the matter, not of
my sorrow, but my joy.
18 And if this come to pass,) for the same cause (or
in the like manner) also do ye joy, and rejoice with me.
19 But (though I speak thus) I trust in the Lord
Jesus (that he will work such a deliverance for me, i. 19.
25, as that, not needing him so much here, I may be
able) to send Timotheus shortly to you, that (whatever
be my condition here) I also may (or I may yet) be of
good comfort, when I know your state, (i.e. your
stedfastness in the faith, and your charity to one another.
20 To send Timothy, I say :) for I have no man
(with me) like-minded, who will (so) naturally (and
with like affection) care for your estate.
21 For all (here) seek their own (interests and safe-
ty, and) not the things which are Jesus Christ’s (that
is, comparatively to Timothy and Epaphroditus, men.
tioned ver. 25, for I find others too generally more
concerned for their own safety, than for advancing the
kingdom of Christ with the hazard of their own lives
and fortunes).
22 But ye know the proof (ye have had eaperience)
of him, that, as a son with the father, he hath served
with me in the gospel (yielding honour and obedience
to me, and with the like spirit labouring to promote the
affairs of the gospel).
23 Him therefore I hope to send (to you) presently,
so soon as I shall see how it will go with me (i. e.
what will be the issue of my bonds).
24 But I trust (or I trust also) in the Lord, that I
also myself (being set at liberty) shall come shortly (to
Ow).
3/ 25 Yet (being not hitherto able to come myself, or to
send Timothy,) I supposed it necessary to send to you
Epaphroditus, my brother, and companion in labour,
and fellow-soldier, but your *messenger, and he that
ministered to my wants.
26 For he longed after you all (i. e. desired much to

see you), and was full of heaviness, because that ye
had heard that he had been sick (as knowing your af-
fection to him would render you full of sorrow upo
his account). -
27 * For (and) indeed he was sick, nigh unto death :
but God had mercy upon him; and not on him only,
but on me also, lest (by his death) I should have sor-
row upon sorrow.
28 I sent him therefore the more carefully, that,
when ye see him again (recovered), ye may rejoice (on
the account of it), and that I may be the less Sorrow-
ful (finding your sorrow for him turned into joy).
29 Receive him therefore in the Lord (and for his
sake) with great gladness; and hold such (as stand
thus affected to his service) in reputation:
30 Because for the work of Christ (i.e. the promo-
tion of his gospel, and the ministration to me, the pri-
soner of the Lord) he was nigh unto death, “not
regarding (but freely hazarding) his (own) life, to sup-
ply your lack of service towards me.
yakºv, and disputings.] That is, say the Greek commenta-
tors, without murmuring under your sufferings for the sake
of Christ (i. 20), or doubtings, or reasonings, whether you
should continue stedfast in the faith, or not.
* Ver. 17. Ei arévêopal, If I offered.] The apostle here
hath an elegant allusion to the Jewish sacrifices: they were
prepared for the altar, on which they were to be offered, by
the Levites and the priests, and this was their xeiroupyia,
“Service,” and there was poured upon the sacrifice oil or
wine, which was the atroyº, or “libation :” if then, saith the
apostle, whilst I am thus, Astroupy&v, wholly employed in
rendering you gentiles an acceptable sacrifice to the Lord,
my blood should be the libation to be poured out upon this
sacrifice ; I should rejoice even thus to die in your service,
and for the confirmation of your faith (see Rom. xv. 16).
* Ver. 25. Tºy &mérroMov, Your apostle.] So they were
usually styled, who gathered sacred money, and carried it
up to Jerusalem ; and so, say some, he calls Epaphroditus,
because he brought the contributions of the Philippians to
him at Rome. But the word apostle is never used in the
New Testament, but either of those who were in the strict
sense “apostles of the Lord,” or else were eminent minis-
ters and preachers of the gospel: thus Titus and the brother
of Paul (which is the usual appellation of Timothy, see note
on Heb. xiii. 23) are &méa toxoi, “the apostles of the
churches,” 2 Cor. viii. 22, 23, and Andronicus and Junia,
who had long preached the gospel, are styled Émianº.ot #y roi;
&roatéaois, “eminent among the apostles of Christ.” I
therefore conclude with Theodoret” upon the place, and
upon i.1, that “the episcopal care of this church was com-
mitted to him ;” and that this is the import of the word apostle
here. This being the note of the same Theodoret, that
formerly, row; viv xanovºzávov; Étriaxárovº, 3rogróaovº &váezačov,
“they who are now called bishops were styled apostles;”
* za pā, Toivuv ŠtěaÉey, &c rºw intoxowikºv oſsovopºſay air},
#wetriztávro, #x&V &troaréNov recºmyogiav.
and Hilary the deacon saying here, Erat enim eorum apos-
tolus, ab apostolo factus, “He was constituted their apostle
(i.e. bishop) by Paul,” who therefore commands them to
receive him “in the Lord,” wer. 28, i. e. for the sake, of the
Lord Christ, whose minister he was.
* Ver, 27.] Note, that here we find Epaphroditus was
not recovered by the gift of healing, then frequent in the
church, that gift being not exercised by them to whom it was
imparted at their own pleasure; but as God was pleased
by a special instinct, and a strong faith, to incite them to
the exercise of it: these gifts being therefore given for the
sake of unbelievers, to convince them of the truth of the
Christian faith, God thought not fit that it should be ordi-
narily exercised upon believers, lest it should be looked upon
not as a gift, but as the effect of art or skill, or a thing done
among them by confederacy. g
14 Wer. 30. HapagovXEva Čºvac, Not regarding his life;]
Or as others read, ragašoxevačkºvoc, or "ragaflowna &#xevoº,
“hazarding his life;” that is, say the Greek commentators,
si, ºvoy #, Jay gavry, “He brought himself in danger of
death;” not by venturing on the emperor's displeasure, but
by labouring so as to contract a dangerous disease (which
he did, saith the apostle, “to supply your lack of service
towards me”), which is not so to be understood, as if he
charged them with any want of service or affection to him
(see iv. 10); but thus, that Epaphroditus did this, being
present with him, to supply that service, which they, being
absent, were not in a capacity to perform. Note also, that
ºratagovaeugéasyo, is the reading of all the Greek, scholia,
Photius, and Cod. Alexand, and, say Hesychius and Phavo.
rinus, is in sense the same with tragaffoxtugéºvos, and so it
is not certain that there was ever any other reading. And
therefore Theodoret on the place saith, the apostle speaks
thus, oix in sºv wai roi; &zoyra Blášetat, 3xx' *: TrpoSupaiay
eigſakov atºst raûrmy 33 rā; xágito, “not as if God con-
strained the unwilling, but because, where he finds a eadi-
ness of mind, he increaseth it by his grace.”
774
CHAPTER III.
1 FINALLY (rö Aottröv, henceforth), my brethren, re-
joice in the Lord. To write the same things (which
I have delivered) to you (by word of mouth), to me is
not grievous, but to (for) you "it is safe.
2 (I therefore eahort you again, to) beware of
* dogs, beware of *evil-workers, beware of the “con-
cision.
3 For we are the (true and spiritual) circumci-
sion, which worship God in the spirit (of our mind,
Eph. iv. 23) and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have "no
confidence in the (circumcision of the) flesh (as if this
would commend us to God). +
4 Though (were this any proper ground of conft-
dence) I might also have confidence in the flesh (as
well as they who boast of this ; for) if any other man
think that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh,
I (have) more (reason so to do:
5 For I was) “circumcised the eighth day, (the very
day prescribed by the law, Gen. xvii. 12,) of the stock
of Israel (my parents and ancestors being all of Israel),
of the tribe of Benjamin, (that tribe which cleaved to
Judah, and revolted not with Jeroboam to the worship
of the calves, 1 Kings xii. 21,) a Hebrew of the He-
brews (both by nation and language, 2 Cor. xi. 22.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III.
- C
1 Wer. l. ’Agºaxãº, It is safe.] viz. Because things
only delivered by word of mouth may slip out of memory ;
litera scripta manet. Here is Paul's judgment against oral
tradition. - - -
i 2 Wer. 2. Tot; kóvac, Dogs.] It is the observation of the
fathers,” that the name of “dogs" was anciently given to
the gentiles, as being without the covenant, according to
those words of Christ, “It is not meet to take the children's
bread, and give it to dogs:” but with the things the names
are now changed, they being now without the covenant, and
the believing gentiles admitted to it ; and therefore they are
called the children, but the Jews dogs. And it is well noted
by Dr. Lightfoot, F that our Lord used this language, Matt.
xy. 26, “not to express his own sentiments of the gentiles,
but in compliance with the common language of the Jews,
who proverbially said, The gentiles are likened to dogs,
whereas we are God’s peculiar people, even his sons and
daughters.” Where also is observed by the same worthy
person, that even the Talmudists say of the generation in
which the Messiah, or the Son of David, should come, that
“the synagogues should become stews, and the faces of that
generation shall be as dogs.”
* Evil-workers.] For they labour only to pull down God's
building, and to destroy the church of Christ. Elsewhere
he styles them “deceitful workers,” 2 Cor. xi. 13, not speak-
ing of the Gnostics, as some imagine, but of the Jews; for so
it follows: “Are they Hebrews? Are they Israelites? so
am I,’” ver. 22. -
* Thy xararoºy, The concision.] For circumcision being
no longer a rite of entering into covenant with God, it
is no better than a cutting off the flesh ; and they, who
still insisted on it as a thing necessary to justification and
salvation, cut themselves off from Christ (Gal. v. 2, 3).
* Ver. 3. No confidence in the flesh.] That the Jews had
a great confidence in the merit of circumcision, see note on
Rom. ii. 13. -
* Ver. 5. IIsºrouh wrañºzsgog, Circumcised the eighth
* Tojºro aráxes róv ššvāy ºvovopºa, oùx Éart yūg, pnaiv ć Kágios,
waxby x&gely roy &grow rāy rézvoy Kai Bodyat roſ; Kvyapiot;’ &AA&
&Eré8m pºetà Pºv rāv Treayſzárov Kai rā Śvēgata, Kai rā Āzāv
#Sºn viol, 'Inv8aſol ye ºrgorayopetowtai Kwés. Theod. Chrysost.
(Ecum. Theophylact.
+ Harm. p. 136.
Acts xxi, 40); as touching (the observance of) the law,
a pharisee (one of the strictest sects of our religion,
Acts xxvi. 5). -
6 Concerning zeal (for the Jewish religion, I have
shown that above others, in) persecuting the church (of
Christ, Acts xxii. 3, 4, xxvi. 11), touching the righte-
ousness which is in (and by the law (I have lived).
blameless (as to that, Acts xxxiii. 1).
7 But what things (of this nature) were (then re-
puted) gain to me, those I (have) accounted (as) loss
for Christ ('s sake). - -
8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things (of this
world) but loss " for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered
the loss of all things, and do count them but dung,
that I may win Christ (i. e. obtain an interest in him,
and the blessings purchased by him).
9 And be found in him, not having my own righ-
teousness, which is of the law, (which cannot justify
me, but leaves me still under the curse of it, Rom. iii.
20. Gal. iii. 10), but that which is through the faith of
Christ, (viz.) * the righteousness which is (approved)
of God (i. e. the righteousness which is) by faith (in
Christ):
day.] The Jews themselves say, that circumcision before
that time was no circumcision, and after that time it was of
lesser value (see Buxtorf. Synag. Jud. cap. 4, p. 109): and
Origen” informs us, that “the Jews held, that the circum-
cision performed on the eighth day was that which was
chiefly intended, and that the performing it on any other
day was only allowed in case of sickness.” Hence they
thought it necessary to circumcise a child on the sabbath-day,
though all manner of work was forbidden on that day, rather
than defer circumcision a day beyond the time (John vii.
22), and made it a rule, that’ſ “the rest of the sabbath gives
place to circumcision.” And this opinion, as it agrees with
the text, Gen. xvii. 12, so it seems to have obtained long be-
fore our Saviour's time; for the Septuagint and the Samari-
tan version read thus, “The uncircumcised male, who is not
circumcised, tº haščg r? §ybán, the eighth day, shall be cut off,
he hath broken my covenant,” Gen. xvii. 14.
7 Wer. 8. At& ré ürséxoy rā; ywózew, Xgarot; 'Inarod, For
the eacellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus.] There
hath been a sharp contention about the import of these plain
words ; some contending that the apostle here intends the
knowledge of the person of our Lord, and of his offices,
and of the benefits which he hath purchased for us in his
person, and doth convey to us by his offices: and others
pleading, that it is the knowledge of the gospel of Christ
which is here intended, and the excellency of it which is
here commended; whereas I think there is no real difference
betwixt these two opinions: for we know nothing of the
person and of the offices of Christ, or of the benefits which
he hath purchased for us, and conveys to us by them, but by
the revelation of the gospel, and so the excellency of his
person and offices, and of that gospel which reveals them to
us, must be in effect the same ; nor would the knowledge of
the gospel be so excellent, were it not for the revelation of
the dignity of his person and of his offices, and of the bene-
fits we receive from them.
8 Wer. 9. Tºy #x QEoiſ Sixatoodyny, The righteousness of
God..] That the righteousness of God, in Paul's style, doth
always signify the righteousness by faith in Christ Jesus
dying for us, see note on Rom. i. 17. And hence it is evi-
dent, that the apostle cannot here speak of the righteousness
* Aéyovat 33 of 'lověaſol rāy afty wrahºzepov regiroºy shal rºw
ºponyovſzány, rāy 3i tº rotaúrny is ºrigiztários. Contra Cel-
sum, lib. v. p. 263.
+ Buxt. cap. 16, p. 366.
* CHAPTER III.
775
10 That I may know him (to be the Messiah, and
the Saviour of the world, which knowledge is necessary
to life eternal, John xvii. 3. 1 Cor. ii. 2), and the
* power of his resurrection, and the *fellowship
of his sufferings, being made conformable to his
death; * -
11 If by (these, or) any (other) means, I might at-
tain to the resurrection of the dead, (promised by him
to all his faithful servants and sufferers.
12 * For I can) not (look upon myself) as though I
had already attained (or caught hold of the prize of
my high calling, ver. 14, the resurrection of the dead,
already attained (i.e. as far as we have attained to
ver. 11), or were already perfect (i.e. crowned with it);
but I follow after (or pursue it), if that I may appre-
hend (or reach) that (prize) for (the obtaining of)
which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
when I fled from him, he caught hold on me, converted
wne to the faith, that believing in him I might obtain life
everlasting, 1 Tim. i. 15, 16, si kai, if that, or that
also : sep note on 1 Tim. v. 10.)
13 Brethren, I count not myself to have appre-
hended (i.e. caught hold of the prize): but this one
which are behind, and reaching forth to those things
which are before,
14 I press towards the mark (the goal) for the (ob-
taining the) prize of the high calling of God in Christ
Jesus.
(For
15 Let us therefore, as many as be * perfect (or
thoroughly instructed in our Christian duty) be thus
minded (as I have told you I am, i.e. so as to believe
the circumcision of the spirit, not that of the flesh, and
the righteousness which is of God by faith, are the
things especially to be regarded for the obtaining of this
prize) ; and if in anything ye be otherwise minded
(imagining the Judaical performances may also com-
mend you to God), God shall (in due time) reveal even
this unto you (i.e. he will convince you of the no me-
cessity of these things in order to his favour).
16 Nevertheless (in the meantime), whereto we have
the knowledge of it), let us walk by the same rule,
(viz. that circumcision availeth nothing, but a new crea-
ture, Gal. vi. 15, 16), let us mind the same thing.
17 Brethren, be (ye) followers together of me (in
this matter, who have renounced all my Jewish privi-
leges), and mark them (for your patterns) who walk
so, as ye have us for an example (of the spiritual cir-
cumcision, and of minding the prize of our high call-
ing).
thing I do, forgetting (not looking after) those things |
18 For many (zealots for the law so) walk, of whom
I have told you...often, and now tell you even weeping,
that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ:
19 °Whose end is destruction, whose god is their
belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind
earthly things. -
of Christ imputed to us: for, (1.) he does not oppose to
his own righteousness, which is of the law, the righteousness
of Christ imputed to him, but his own faith in Christ “im-
puted unto him for righteousness,” Rom. iv. 5. (2.) He speaks
of his faith in Christ dying and shedding his blood for him ;
and therefore not of his active obedience, constituting us righ-
teous as Christ was, but of his passive obedience, procuring
for us justification, or the remission of sins.
* Ver. 10. Kal rºw 89,ap.tv, &c. The power of his resur-
rection.] i. e. The power exercised in his resurrection, “by
which we are begotten to a lively hope of an inheritance in-
corruptible,” (1 Pet. i. 3, 4), and are assured of our own
resurrection (2 Cor. iv. 14. Col. ii. 12), this being that know-
ledge he so earnestly requests for his Ephesians (i. 19, 20),
and also the power of it, to assure us of our justification
through faith in him (Rom. iv. 24, 25), and of our freedom
from condemnation (Rom. viii. 34).
* Thy Koivoviav, &c. The fellowship of his sufferings.]
By being conformed to his death : (1.) spiritually, by dying
unto sin; as knowing that “if we be (thus) conformed to him
in the likeness of his death, we shall be like unto him in his
resurrection,” and shall live with him (Rom. vi. 5.8). And (2.)
by Suffering and taking up the cross for his sake; as know-
ing that “if we (thus) suffer with him, we shall be also glori-
fied with him” (Rom. viii. 17.2 Tim. ii. 11, 12. 1 Pet. iv. 13).
* Ver. 12–14. 'Q; it; 366&so; rā ºrávra Aéyst.] He in
these verses makes a continual allusion to the race run in the
Olympian games, where he that ran was still flººrgoosey Ex-
Tetºvoº, “upon the stretch, and pressing forwards,” without
looking back to those whom he had left behind ; and pur-
suing the goal, that first coming to it, he might catch hold of
the prize, and so be crowned with it. And two things are
here noted by the fathers, worthy of our observation:
(1.) That if this great apostle, who had suffered so many
things, and was “in deaths often,” and who had laboured so
abundantly, odºro, #946;et treet rig &vaa-ráaew; #xeivnº, “was
not yet confident of a blessed resurrection, but only striving,
if so be he might attain unto it:” such as we must have less
ground of confidence.
(2.) What continual diligence and labour this pursuit re-
quires ; for you know, saith Chrysostom, with what great
stretch the pursuer runs : he looks upon no man, he throws
out of the way everything that might hinder him ; he em-
ploys his body, eye, strength, soul, and mind, upon the work,
Wrgī; #rsgow ºv obºv dežv, red; 33 to 86&6=toy ºzóvoy, “ looking to
nothing else, but only to the prize.” -
* Ver. 15. Téxstol, Perfect.] That to be perfect, is to be
Sufficiently instructed in the true grounds and principles of
Christian faith, hath been shown, note on 1 Cor. ii. 6, and
on Matt. xix. 21, and by comparing this passage with the
discourse of the same apostle in his fifth and sixth chapters
to the Galatians, we may learn what it is, tº airò arrotxsty
xávov, to “walk by the same rule:” for as there he sharply
inveighs against the Galatians, for hearkening to the teach-
ers of the necessity of circumcision; so here he warns his
Philippians to beware of them and their doctrine, from ver.
2 to 7, as there he opposeth to circumcision the cross of
Christ, in which alone he gloried, Gal. vi. 14, so here he
opposeth to it “the fellowship of his sufferings,” ver. 8, 9,
as there he says, he is persuaded of his Galatians, that ovčáv
#AAo ‘ppovha'ova-ty, “they will be no otherwise minded,” Gal. v.
10; so here he exhorts his Philippians, rotiro peovstv, to
“mind the same thing,” ver. 16, as there he teaches them
by his own example, not to yield to those who urged on them
circumcision, Gal. ii. 14.20, so here he exhorts the Philip-
pians to “walk” in this case, “as they had him for an ex-
ample,” ver. 17 ; which example he had laid before them,
ver, 4.9, and as there he promised mercy and peace, tº
wavów roºrg croixào'ova-w, “to them that walked by the rule,”
or canon, he had laid them down, Gal. vi. 15, 16, So here he
admonisheth the Philippians, tº airó aroixéïv Kavért, to
“walk by the same rule:” this rule must therefore be that
which he there lays down, that “in Christ Jesus neither cir-
cumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new
creature.” Those who are fully persuaded of this, he styles
“the perfect,” requiring of them a life exactly conformed to
this rule, from others only as far as they had attained to the
knowledge of it, informing them that the time was at hand,
when God, by destroying the Jewish temple, and dissolving
the Jewish church and economy, would farther reveal this
truth to them, and convince them of the vanity of these
Judaical performances.
* Ver. 19. *ay ré réxoc, Whose end is destruction.] That
the description here given of these men agrees well with the
manners of the Gnostics, cannot be denied ; but yet that the
apostle speaketh not of them, but of the Jews, most ancient
and modern commentators do assert: and there seems rea-
son to prefer this latter exposition (1.) because he saith, he
had told his Philippians often of these men: now, ver, l, he
informs them, that he then writ to them of the same things
which he had before spoken to them by word of mouth, Viz.
that they should beware of those Jews whom he there styles
“dogs,” “evil-workers,” “the concision.” (2.) He opposes
his own example, who had renounced all his Jewish privi-
leges, and the example of those who “worship God in the
Spirit,” and “rejoiced in Christ Jesus,” and “had no confi-
776
PHILIPPIANs
20 (Imitate us, I say,) for "our conversation (or
our city) is in heaven, from whence also we look for
the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ :
21 Who shall change "our vile body (now subject
dence in the flesh,” ver. 3. 17, to the example of these men.
And, (3.) the description he gives of them is agreeable to
what he elsewhere saith of the same Jews. For,
First, They were “enemies to the cross of Christ ;” that
being not only a stumbling-block to the unbelieving Jews
(1 Cor. i. 23), but being also overthrown by them who
preached up the necessity of circumcision and of legal ob-
servations to salvation : from hence, saith the apostle, it fol-
lows, that “Christ is dead in vain,” Gal. ii. 21, and that
then, “the scandal of the cross is ceased,” Gal. v. 10, and
that “Christ would profit them nothing, who were upon this
account circumcised,” Gal. v. 2, and that they were “fallen
from grace,” ver, 4. And from the apostle's discourse in the
beginning of this chapter, it appears, saith Esthius, that he
here speaketh of these men. -
Secondly, That their end was to be destruction, the apos-
tle teachefth in these words, “Such are false apostles, deceit-
ful workers, whose end shall be according to their works,”
2 Cor. xi. 13. 15. And this he speaks of them who were
Hebrews and Israelites, ver. 22, as also here, ver. 4. .
Thirdly, That their “god was their belly,” i. e. that they
chiefly had regard to that, as we learn from the same apos-
tle, saying, “These serve not the Lord, but their own bel-
lies;” which, saith Theodoret, he speaks of the evil defend-
ers of the law (see note on Rom. xvi. 18), and that they
were yaareiaaeyo., “slow bellies,” or luxurious people (Tit.
i. 12, see note there): and that they devoured those they
perverted (2 Cor. xi. 20). Their “glory was in their shame;”
that is, say the ancient fathers, in the circumcision of the
shameful member: say others, in those evil works (ver. 2)
which ought to be the matter of their shame, they being
such as “blasphemed the name of God among the gentiles,”
Rom. ii. 24, they “minded earthly things,” “counting gain
godliness,” 1 Tim. vi. 5. Tit. i. 11.
* Ver. 20. Høy yag rà roxirtuga #y obfavotº, Our conver-
sation is in heaven.] So Philo” represents God's priests and
prophets; for having said of men, of ºiy yńs, of 83 oigayº,
“Some are of the earth, some of heaven,” he adds, that of
the latter sort are priests and prophets, who transcending all
Sensual things would not be called xocºcotroxirat, “citizens of
* Lib. de Gigant, p. 227, E.
to corruption, passions, and sorrows), that it may be
fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to
the working whereby he is able even to subdue all
things unto himself.
the world ;” but translating themselves into the intellectual
world, dwell there, #yypaspévºrs; 35946 toy 3a'akºśray ièsºv
Troxltsiz, “being enrolled in the polity of incorporeal and in-
corruptible beings.” They, saith the apostle, “mind earthly
things,” and so are zoo pºoroxtºral, “men who have this world
for their city;” nos autem civitatem coelum habemus; “but
we have heaven for our city” (as Budaeus renders the words),
as living in expectation of “a city whose builder and maker
is God,” Heb. xi. 10. .
* Ver. 21. Tó arāpaa rā; ramsiyºorso; hºw&v, Our vile body.]
“The body of our humiliation;” that is, saith Methodius,
our body which rarelvoira &nd a $4xparoc, “is humbled by
the fall, and become mortal.”—“That body,” saith Irenaeus,”
“which is humbled by falling into the earth, and which shall
be transformed from a mortal and corruptible, into an im-
mortal and incorruptible body.”
Note here, (1.) what a value is put upon the resurrection
and redemption of the body from corruption, as if it were
the chief thing which Christians waited for, and expected
from our Saviour at his coming (Rom. viii. 23).
(2.) Note, the divine power is Christ, to whom is here
ascribed that resurrection, which is frequently made an indi-
cation of the Godhead, it being “God who raiseth from the
dead” (Rom. iv. 17. Acts xxvi. 6), and which is ascribed to
the exceeding greatness and to the energy of his mighty
power (Eph. i. 19), and yet is here ascribed to the energy of
Christ. And,
(3.) Note the pious observation of the fathers, that their
folly can never be sufficiently lamented, who deprive them-
selves of such a glorious resurrection. So CEcumenius and
Theophylact.
Note, (4.) That Philo + and the Platonists so call these
bodies, &; ratrºivory #74yopra riſ Juxi, because these earthly
tabernacles do “humble and depress the soul.” See also
the reading of the text defended, Examen Millii, ibid.
* Quid est humilitatis corpus manifestum est, quéd est
corpus, quéd est caro, quðd et humiliatur cadens in terram ;
transfiguratio autem ejus, quoniam clim sit mortalis et cor-
ruptibilis, immortalis sitet incorruptibilis. Lib. v. cap. 13.
+ Quis Rerum Divinarum Haeres. p. 405, C.
CHAPTER IV.
1 THEREFORE, my brethren dearly beloved and
longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the
jord, my dearly beloved, (as those who do eapect his
coming to confer these blessings on you, 1 Cor. xv. 58,
or, so stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath
made you free, as I have taught you, Gal. v. 1).
2 I beseech Euodias, and beseech Syntyche, that
they be of the same mind * in (the concerns of the
Lord.
3 And I entreat thee also, true *yoke-fellow, help
those women who laboured with me in the (promotion
of the) gospel, with Clemens also, and others my fel-
low-labourers, "whose names are written in the book
of life.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV.
* Ver. 2. Tà air ºpwº. To mind the same thing.) Here,
is not to be of the same judgment in all things; for no man
can become of the same judgment with another by entreaty,
but only by conviction: the exhortation therefore is, (1.) ió
have the same love to one another (ii. 2), with the same soul
and spirit to promote the gospel of Christ (i. 27), to walk
by the same rule, as far as they have attained to the know-
ledge of it (iii. 16, 17).
* Ver, 3.2%uys, Yoke-fellow.] That this yoke-fellow
cannot be Paul's wife, is certain; because he declares him-
self an unmarried man, 1 Cor. vii. 7, i. e. either a virgin or
a widower. Secondly, Because a woman cannot be styled
yvärts, but yºngia cºvys’ it is unlikely he should mean Épa-
phroditus, he being not then at Philippi, but with him at
Rome (ver. 11): it may be therefore one of the rulers
of the church, whom he saluted in the front of this epis-
tle.
* "Ey 8(3x2 &%, Whose names are written in the book of
life.] This is a Judaical phrase, viz. “They are written for
life,” Isa. iv. 3 (see the Targum there); and “They shall
not be written in the book of eternal life, which is written
for the just of the house of Israel,” Targum in Ezek. xiii.
'9; and it doth not signify the absolute election of any to
eternal life, but only their present right to that inheritance,
by virtue of the obedience of faith (Rev. xx. 15. xxi. 7).
For (1.) the apostle declares of all the Jews to whom he
writ, that they were-come to the general assembly of the
firstborn, who “were written in heaven,” Heb. xii. 23, and
yet he in the following verse saith to them, “See that ye re-
fuse not him that speaketh.” (2.) Christ threateneth to
some that he would “blot their names out of the book of
life,” Rev. xxii. 19, and promiseth to him that over-
CHAPTER IV.
777
. 4 Rejoice in the Lord alway; and again I say, Re-
joice.
5 Let “your moderation be known unto all men :
(for) the * Lord is at hand.
cometh, that he would “not blot his name out of the book
of life,” Rev. iii. 5; and God himself saith to Moses, “Who-
soever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of the
book which I have written,” Exod. xxxii. 32, 33, that
is, “out of the book of the just,” saith the Targum of
Jonathan.
The Apostolical Constitutions say,” we come to be written
in this book ºff has rigº evolº wai arověš, “by our good affec-
tion and industry.” Basil,tº that “as men are written in
this book, when they are converted from vice to virtue ; so
may they be blotted out of it, when they backslide from vir-
tue to vice,” according to the saying of the psalmist, Ps.
lxix. 28, “Let them be blotted out of the book of the liv-
ing and not written with the righteous;” that is, saith Ains-
worth, “Let them be cut off from being any longer thy peo-
ple, or registered in the writing of the house of Israel.” And,
saith Jerome,t “They were written in the book of God, who
in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes, legem fortissimè defen-
derant, firmly continued in the law, and they were blotted
out of it, qui legis praevaricatores extiterant, who were de-
Serters of it.”
* Ver. 5. To imitaxic, Your moderation.] Your meekness
and patience under all your trials: “Be ye patient,” saith
James, “for the coming of the Lord is at hand,” v. 8 (see
Heb. x. 36, 37). This is almost the constant sense of the
Creek word in the Septuagint, where it answers to pri and
hºp, and signifies to be gracious and propitious, 1 Sam. xii.
22. Ezra ix. 4. Ps. lxxxv. 4, §roinºra; eiç hºwąc war& Trāaray
itrisixtiá, aw, “Thou hast dealt with us according to all thy
goodness, and thy great mercy.” So Song of the Three
Children, ver. 18;-* Let us torture the just man, that we
may know, rºy inteinstay airoij, his meekness,” Wisd. ii. 19;
“Thou judgest, #y Émisixeiz, with mildness,” xii. 18; “He
will yield to your desires, intetxà, Kai pixay88&moc, favourably
and kindly,” 2 Macc. ix. 27. So the Syriac and Arabic, who
render it mansuetudo vestra. So Phavorinus, Évisixãº, treatic,
trapá rà sixesy, rà intoxwesſy; and yet that ºr firieix㺠is well
rendered “moderation,” is certain; for, Émisixsta is rendered
by Phavorinus, ºrpiórnº, “moderation,” #misixà, by Suidas
and Phavorinus, werpia; firot avºrea's, “moderately,” or
“in measure ;” inteix}; and #misix}; by Hesychius and Suidas,
£48-rºtoc, that is “moderate,” and in the same Suidas, Érisixóc
Khasa Sai, is “to live moderately,” that is, temperately; and
#"risix㺠yeyeá$Sai, is “to be written moderately,” without
bitterness or passion.
Now because this moderation is much talked of, but
neither rightly understood nor duly practised, I shall en-
deavour to show what is the proper import of the word, and
what are the proper objects of it. And, g
First, Moderation is not derived from the word medium,
but from modus; and that is from the Hebrew, madad, he
measured; or middah, a rule, or measure; and in the Greek
is styled, ºrgárnº, from ºrgov, a measure ; whence it is
evident, that moderation, properly so called, and in the
moral sense of the word, belongs only to things in which
We are subject to a vicious excess, or to act beyond that
rule, or measure, which scripture or religion doth pre-
scribe for the due regulation of our actions and passions;
and it respects, first and principally, the government of
our passions; whence the due government of them is by
philosophers styled gergiotra Seia, “the moderation of our
passions.” Now they are either our concupiscible passions,
that is passions of desire, and then the moderation re-
quired of us must consist in such a government or re-
straint of our affections and desires, that in our love,
desire of, or our delight in, anything, we never do exceed
the worth or excellency of the object, or of the end we do
pursue ; or,
Sccondly, Our angry passions, which render us averse
from things or persons, or displeased with them, and then
we moderate these passions, when,
(1.) We have no aversion from, or hatred to, or displea-
* Lib. viii. cap. 1. +. In Isa. iv. 3. tom. ii. p. 123.
(*
j. On Dan. xii. 5.
sure against, those things, which have no real evil in them,
and so can be no proper objects of our aversation, or dis-
pleasure ; or, (2.) when we are not more displeased at, or
grieved for, anything, than reason, or the laws of Christianity
permit us so to be ; for then we can never exceed the mea-
sure of that aversation and displeasure, which reason and
Christianity allow, and so we never should offend in the ex-
ertion of our angry passions. And with respect to this, the
wise man saith, “He that is slow to anger is better than the
mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit, than he that taketh a
city.” (3.) This moderation must be extended to the effects
of these passions; (1.) in the tongue, by evil speeches;
whence the good man is said to “moderate his words with
discretion,” Ps. cxii. 5. (2.) In his actions proceeding from
those appetites, as in our pursuit of temporal good things;
and in our strife and contentions about them. And, (3.) in
the effects of our angry passions, that is, in our deport-
ment to, and our punishment of, offenders. Now, hence it
follows,
First, That moderation can have only place in things
which are not always evil in themselves, but become so by
exceeding that rule and measure which is prescribed for the
due management of them. This word must therefore be
abused, and falsely used, when it is applied to things which
are always evil in themselves, in what degree soever they
are done. They therefore abuse this word, who talk of
whoring moderately, or being moderately wicked ; for
what we neither ought to be, or do at all, can never be
done moderately, or without exceeding the rule we ought to
walk by.
Secondly, Hence it is demonstratively evident, that mo–
deration is always a virtue, it being always virtuous to re-
strain the excesses of our passions and appetites, and the ex-
orbitances of our angry passions, and to regulate our words
and actions according to the rule and measure by which we
ought to act.
Thirdly, Hence observe, that they who render the word
#mrieixeia, here used, meekness and patience, mildness or gen-
tleness, mean the same thing as they who render it modera-
tion; for meekness, gentleness, mildness, is only the due
moderation of our angry passions, in respect to those injuries
and provocations which we meet with in this world. And
patience is that virtue which teacheth us to suffer any
worldly evil without murmuring, discontent, or discomposing
our spirits, and results evidently from a due moderation of
our affections to these things ; and this seems clearly to be
the import of the word in this text: for, saith the apostle,
ver. 4, though you are sufferers with me for the sake of
Christ, yet “rejoice always;” and, ver, 6, whºsgºváts, “Be
not anxious about any temporal concerns,” or events ; let
not either your care for them, or fear of losing them, dis-
tract your spirits, but “let your moderation,” as to these
things, “be known unto all men,” ver. 5, “for the Lord is
at hand,” to protect, preserve, support you, and to reward
your patience and resignation, as to these affairs. ->
Fourthly, And whereas, by a late author, this moderation
of the passions, and of our concerns about things, suitably to
their nature, is commended highly ; but, saith he, “the
moderation pleaded for by many hath no affinity with this
virtue:” in this he is exceedingly mistaken, for all the mo-
deration that hath, or can be pleaded for by men of sense
and reason, is only this, that men would be concerned for
things suitably to their natures; that as for things indifferent
and mutable, they would be indifferent in their concerns
about them; neither quarrelling with the church established,
nor refusing communion with her, because she doth enjoin
them ; nor being so stiff in the retaining of them, as not to
suffer mutable things to be changed by the same power by
which they were at first appointed, when the wisdom of our
governors shall think this fit for the good of the church,
which is the moderation of the church of England ;” and
that men would set such a true value upon peace, union, and
charity, which are great Christian virtues, and very beneficial
--
* Rubr. of Cerem. º
778
PHILIPPIANS.
6 Be careful (anariously solicitous) for nothing; but
in everything by prayer and supplication (Gr. depre-
cation), with thanksgiving, let your requests be made
known (i. e. presented) unto God. #
7 And “the peace of God, which passeth all under-
standing, shall keep your hearts and minds (stedfast)
in Christ Jesus.
8 * Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true,
whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are
just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things
to the church, as to let indifferent and circumstantial rites
give place to those more necessary things, when these
governors, the properjudges in that case, think there is ground
of hope, that they may be promoted by a little yielding in
those things which do not commend us to God, or by a
change of some doubtful, and even innocent expressions, into
expressions which remove the doubt, and minister no occa-
sion of offence to the weak.
This I conceive is the true import of the word modera-
tion, when it refers to actions and passions, words and cen-
Sures, subject to a vicious excess.
Sometimes the adjective moderate, or adverb moderately,
hath respect to measures either of things dry or liquid ; and
then it is not a measure of thiugs moral, or as they are
capable of being good or evil; but as they are more or less,
great or small, high' or low, long or short, or of a middle
nature betwixt both ; and in this sense, a man is said to be
moderately learned, wise, or rich ; and hence you may per-
ceive, the fallacy they put upon us, who say moderation is
not always a virtue, because it is no virtue to be moderately
learned, or wise; this being that which logicians call
fºráðsaic się &Aao yśvoc, or “a transition from one meaning
of the word to another,” which always makes the syllogism
to consist of four terms, and therefore the conclusion false:
for whensoever moderation is required, or commendable,
there the excess is always vicious and blameworthy;
whereas it is rather commendable, and an ornament of the
mind, to be more than moderately wise and learned, and no
disparagement to be more than moderately rich. '.
* Q Kºto; #yyúc, The Lord is at hand.]. “So the apostles
thought,” saith Grotius upon the place; tacitly insinuating
that they were mistaken in this matter: but this exposition
reflecting very injuriously upon the authority of the apostles,
and the Spirit by which they spake; and that of the fathers,
**piak ºn friarn, “The day of judgment is at hand,” being
found by experience false, we of necessity must have re.
course to some other exposition of their words, when they so
often tell the Christians to whom they write, that “the Lord
is at hand;” that he “stands even at the door,” James v. 9,
that “the coming of the Lord draweth nigh,” ver. 8, that
“the end of all things is at hand,” 1 Pet. iv. 7, that “the
day of the Lord is near,” Heb. x. 25, that “it is but a little
While, and #xéatros, he that is coming will come, and will
not tarry :” I say, we must of necessity, for exposition of
these places, have recourse to some other advent of our
Lord: for it is by no means to be granted, that the apostles
were mistaken in their apprehensions of this matter, and
that they confidently asserted, that the great day of judgment
was then at hand; when after sixteen hundred years it is
yet far off the destruction of antichrist, the calling of the
Jews, and the millennium, succeeding these great epochas,
being to precede that day. For this bold conjecture shakes
the foundations of the Christian faith; it imputes not only
fallibility, but actual falsehood, to the writers of these epis-
tles, and makes them guilty of falsehood in the promises of.
the New Testament, and in the motives which they used, to
encourage believers to a Christian patience under the pres-
sures they endured, and renders them deceivers of their
hopes. Let it be therefore noted, • . . . . . .
First, That these expressions are chiefly used in the
catholic epistles, and the Epistle to the Hebrews; that is, in
the epistles directed to the Jewish churches, who were no
strangers to these phrases, and who were well acquainted
with a tremendous advent of the Lord to punish the rebel-
lions and infidelity of that nation: so, for instance, Joel
ii. 1; “All the inhabitants of the land (of Judah) shall be
confounded, biort répearly hºàpa Kupiou &rt #yyūc, because the
day of the Lord is at hand, a day of darkness and gloomi-
ness; a day of clouds and of thick darkness.” And, wer. 11,
“The day of the Lord is great and very terrible; who can
abide it?” Ashd, ver. 31, “The sun shall be turned into
darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and ter-
rible day of the Lord come;” Zech. xiv. 1, 2, “Behold, the
day of the Lord cometh, and I will gather all nations
against Jerusalem to battle;” Mal. iii. 2, “Who may abide
in the day of his coming, and who shall stand when he ap-
peareth P” And iv. 1, “Behold the day cometh that shall
burn as an oven.”
Secondly, There is also frequent mention of this time and
day in the New Testament, when the Lord would come to
destroy the unbelieving Jews, and also of the nearness of
that time; for the Baptist calls them to repentance from
this very motive, that “the axe was then laid to the root of
the tree,” Matt. iii. 10, that “one was coming whose fan
was in his hand,” wer. 12. Our Saviour spends a whole
chapter in speaking, regi #1éga; Taürns, “ of that day,”
Matt. xxiv. 36, and “ of the coming of the Son of man” to
the destruction of that nation, ver. 27. 37, “of the coming
of the Lord,” ver. 42, of the age in which he would thus
come, ver. 34, of the signs when his coming was, #yyúc,
“near at hand, xa, in Ságaic, and at the door” (which are
the very words, both of Paul and James); when there
would be a réAok, “an end of all things” belonging to the
Jewish temple and constitution, ver. 14. Now to this com-
ing of the Lord, foretold by his own self in the very expres-
sions of the prophets, and in the words used here by the
apostles, in their writings to the Jewish converts, we may
very well refer the words forecited, and if there be any other
of like nature.
And, the fitness of these exhortations to meekness and
patience, on the account of the nearness of this day, and the
advent of the Lord to punish the unbelieving Jews, will be
apparent from this consideration, that they were the chief
persecutors of those of their own nation who embraced the
Christian faith (Rom. xv. 31. 1 Thess. ii. 14), and they also
sent out their messengers to other nations, to represent the
Christians to them as the worst of men, and to excite them
to join with them in the persecution of them, as Justin
Martyr doth inform us; and therefore it must be very ac-
ceptable to the poor persecuted Christian Jews, to hear that
these enemies of the cross of Christ, these instigators of the
heathen to persecute them, should, by the coming of the
Lord to destroy their church and nation, be disabled from
doing them any farther mischief; and also, that those de-
ceitful workers of the same nation, who troubled the churches
with preaching the necessity of circumcision, and the obser-
vation of the law of Moses, should not be able long to instil
those doctrines, their church and temple being to be shortly
º and they themselves being no longer able to observe
the law.
* Ver. 7. Eighyn Geod, The peace of God..] As àyárn Osoſ;
and Xàpi; Ogot, do generally signify the love and favour of
God to us, so eighyn Osoti, “the peace of God,” most naturally
imports the peace and reconciliation which we have with
God through faith in Christ; for “being justified by faith,
we have peace with God:” hence is the gospel, which pro-
claims this pardon and justification to believers, styled “the
'gospel of peace,” Eph. vi. 15, “the preaching peace by
Jesus Christ,” Acts x. 30. Eph. ii. 17, “who is our peace,”
ver, 14, and in the preface to all the epistles, the apostle
wisheth to the Christians, Xágw kai siężyny, “grace and peace
through God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ:” and
this peace is styled, eithyn Juxic, “the peace of the soul,”
Hag. ii. 9. So that the sense of these words seemeth to be
this ; The sense and experience of the divine favour, and the
inward peace and security which arise from it, shall be suffi-
cient to keep you stedfast in the faith of Christ. He pro-
miseth not deliverance from calamities, but inward peace
and tranquillity of mind under them, and that as the
: of constant prayer, and a sense of the divine favour to
them.
7 Ver. 8]. Hence two things may be noted: (1) That
there are things naturally honest, just, lovely, and praise-
worthy. (2). That there is no virtue, nothing praise-
PREFACE TO
COLOSSIANS. 779
are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if
there be any virtue, if there be any (thing) praise
(-worthy), think on these things (to do them).
9 Those things which you have both learned, and
received, and heard (from me), and seen in me, do :
and the God of peace (the giver of internal peace)
shall be with you.
10 But “I rejoiced (ixápmy 38, for this cause I re-
joiced) in the Lord greatly, that now at the last your
care of me (i. e. to supply my wants) hath flourished
again; * wherein you were also careful, but you
lacked opportunity.
ll Not that I speak (this) in respect of (any desire
in me, that you, or others, should supply my) wants:
for I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith
to be content.
12 I know both how to be abased, and I know how
to abound: everywhere, and in all things, I am in-
structed both to be full and to be hungry, both to
abound and to suffer need.
13 * I can do all (these, and other) things (required
by Christianity) through Christ that strengthens me.
14 (But) notwithstanding (this my proficiency) ye
have well done, that ye did (thus) communicate with
(me in) my affliction.
15 Now, ye Philippians, know also (for your ho-
nour), that in the beginning of (my preaching) the
gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church
communicated with me, as concerning giving and re-
ceiving, but you only, (i. e. I have received supplies
from no other church but yours. i i
16 You indeed kindly did it :) for even (when I was)
in Thessalonica ye sent once and again to (supply) my
necessities.
17 (And of this I remind you) not that I desire a
(farther) gift (for my own benefit) ; but (because) I
desire fruit that may abound to your account (in the
day of the Lord, who will not then forget your labour
of love, in ministering to his saints, Heb. vi. 10.
18 I say, not that I desire more :) for I have (re-
ceived) all (that can be needful for me), and abound:
I am full, having received of Epaphroditus the things
which were sent from you, (which are) an odour of a
.." smell, * a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to
od.
19 But (and) my God shall supply all your need,
according to his riches in glory (i. e. his glorious
riches) by Christ Jesus (i.e. he shall return you a
supply of your spiritual wants, for your charity to me
in temporals).
20 Now unto God and (i. e. who is) our Father be
glory for ever and ever. Amen.
21 Salute every saint in Christ Jesus. The bre-
thren which are with me greet you.
22 All the saints salute you, chiefly they that are of
Caesar’s household.
23 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with
you all. Amen.
worthy, but what falls under the compass of this general
precept.
* Wer. 10. I rejoiced in the Lord.] i.e. In your liberality,
not as a thing tending only to supply my wants, but as a
thing highly acceptable to the Lord (ver. 8), and as a fruit
of your affection to him, which he will reward (ver. 17).
* "Ey & #460Vstre, hwapsto SE 33, Of which thing you were still
mindful, but you wanted ability.] Oix etxers iv xegariv, oë
#v 34 Sovia Åre, “You had it not in your hands, you were not
in a condition to help me;” so Theodoret, Chrysostom, Theo-
phylact, though OEcumenius and Phavorinus render it, with
our translation, kapāw oëx etxºte, “You lacked opportunity.”
* Ver. 13.] Hence the fathers observe three things: (1.)
That the art of contentment requires much learning, exer-
\
cise, and meditation. (2.) That it is as difficult to learn
how to be full, as to be hungry; abundance having destroyed
more than penury, and exposed them to more permicious
lusts. (3.) That our proficience in this, or any other virtue,
is to be ascribed not to ourselves, but to the divinelassistance.
* Ver. 18. 'orºzºv füo:3iaç, A sacrifice acceptable.] There
were two altars, saith Dr. Hammond, in the temple of the
Jews, the altar of ‘incense within the temple, and that of
sacrifice without in the court: on these two were offered all
things that were offered to God, and under these two heads,
an odour of incense and a sacrifice, are works of charity here
represented, as being the prime things now under the gospel
to obtain God's favour and acceptation.
THE
EPISTLE To THE colossIANs,
WITH AN NOTATIONS.
PREFACE.
THAT St. Paul writ this Epistle to the Colossians when he
had not yet seen them, is the opinion of most of the ancient
scholiasts: this is confessed even by Theodoret, though he
saith this doth not follow from the words cited to confirm
this opinion, but the contrary. The words are these : “I
would have you know what great solicitude I have for you,
and for them of Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen
my face in the flesh,” Col. ii. 1, which he renders thus; “Not
for you only, and for them of Laodicea, but also for them
that have not seen my face in the flesh:” but the connective
particle being not 3xxx, or &AA&, wai, but also, but only kai,
and, seems to favour our translation, and the opinion of the
ancients.” He adds, that the apostle went from Phrygia, of
which Colosse was the metropolis; whence he collects he
must have preached there : but this will not follow ; since
the first time he only went through Phrygia en passant, Acts
xvi. 6, and the second time, xviii. 23, he only stayed to con-
firm the brethren already converted ; but that he came to
Colosse, is not said. The arguments offered to prove he had
not seen them seem stronger, as appears not only from the
words now cited, but from other expressions in the same
epistle ; for he intimates, i. 4, that he had only “heard of
their faith in Christ;” and, ver. 7, that they had learned the
* Chrysost. CEcum. Theoph. Oùx Éapax8, ºfty airroic, his
quos in carne minimè vidit. Ambros.
780
coLossIANs.
faith not from him, but Epaphras, whom he styles, “to them
a faithful minister of Jesus Christ.”
Note also, that this epistle was writ at the same time with
that to the Philippians, and so A. D. 62.
As for the occasion of it, Theodoret * informs us, that it
was writ against those Jewish Christians who endeavoured
to impose the observation of the law upon the gentile con-
verts, as is apparent from his caution to them, to beware of
them who “spoiled them after the rudiments of the world,”
ii. 8, and that because they were “circumcised in Christ,”
ver. 11, and he had “blotted out the hand-writing of ordi-
nances which was against them,” ver. 14, and from the infe-
rence thence made, “Let no man judge you therefore in
* "H 33 iné0sort; rº, #7ta-roxic aºrty airá rivé, röy Iověaíoy
grewrizrevkórow £ntrárnazy, Kai rageazedaway rońrov; puxarreir
ºrot, yāpºov rà repitrá.
meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holiday, or of the new
moons, or of the sabbath-days ; which are a shadow,” ver.
16, 17. The rest say that it was written against them who
sowed among them Jewish and heathenish doctrines;” and
in particular against them who endeavoured to bring in the
worship of angels ;h of the Gnostics, here mentioned by Es-
thius, they have not one word to say.
* IIaparnghasis ºlxoy roAA&ç, wai Iovia;x&c, xai ‘EXAnvixác.
Chrys. Too; Koxocarasſ; #305Aoyré rive; &marão at aroqiaºwaa'iy
‘EX\nvixotº war& rā; sig Xgia-roy triatew;, x&i regi rāy #y vépző
880px4'roy, Kai regitokºç. CEcum. - -
+ IIoympáv ri 36) wa aireſ; fiveroxirečero' Goyºro yāe, où 31& rod
violi, 3xx& 8' &yyáxov trgovaxšāvat ris Osº, &romov oiéºwevo; rêv
vićy roi; 9eoſ #y #axárot; zapoſ; payåval, Širov yi #y rñ Traxata,
orávra. 3,' &yyśaoy #yÉvoy'ro. Theoph.
CHAPTER I.
AUL, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of
God, and Timotheus our brother,
2 *To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ
which are at Colosse (writeth thus) ; Grace be unto
you, and peace, from God our Father, and the Lord
Jesus Christ.
3 We give thanks to God * and (who is) the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you,
4 Since *we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus,
and of the love which ye have to all the saints;
(which love is still the fruit of a true faith, 1 Cor. xiii.
2. Gal. v. 6.
5. We give thanks, I say,) for the hope (of an eter-
mal inheritance, I Pet. i. 3), which is laid up for you
in heaven, whereof ye heard before (from Epaphras)
. the word of the truth of the gospel (preached by
him);
6. Which (gospel) is come to you, as it is (also heard
of) “in all the world; and bringeth forth fruit (in
them), as it doth also in you, since the day ye (first)
heard of it, and knew (Étréyvars, acknowledged) the
grace (and favour) of God (to you) in truth (and sin-
cerity):
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I.
* Wer. 2. To the saints.] See note on 1 Cor. i. 1. Note
also, that the Holy Ghost is mentioned in these places, be-
cause he is the fountain of this grace, and by him God the
Father and the Son dwell in us (John xiv. 23); so that
praying for this grace is praying for the communion of the
Holy Ghost.
* Ver. 3. Eixagºrrobºx=y, We give thanks.] From this
and the ninth verse note, that the good shepherd should
not only feed his flock, but pray continually for them, and
give thanks for the spiritual blessings conferred on them.
Kai.] As the Hebrew hath oft the import of id est in
the Old Testament (see Noldius, p. 280. 27); so Matt. xxiii.
5, “Thy King cometh, sitting upon an ass, kai trčAoy, i.e. a
colt, the foal of an ass” (see Matt. xi. 2. 7. Luke xix. 30.
35. John xii. 14, 15): and frequently it signifies nempē, td.
wit: So, “That mountain, phºns to wit. Lebanon,” Deut.
iii. 25; so Judg. vi. 25. 2 Sam. xx. 14. Jer. xxi. 7 So John
xii. 23, “We stone thee for blasphemy, was ºri, to wit, be
cause thou, being a man, makest thyself God;” Rom. xv. 6,
“That with one mouth ye may glorify God, xa, raripa,
who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ;” so Gal. i. 4.
Phil. iv. 20. Col. ii. 2. James vii. 3.9. As therefore God,
who is “ the God of Israel,” was the characteristic of the
true God to the Jewish nation; so God, “who is the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ,” is the characteristic of the same
God to the Christians, who worship him under that title, as
being “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” and in him,
“our Father,” we being the sons of God through faith in him,
and deriving all our blessings from the Father through him.
7 As ye (have) also learned of Epaphras our dear
fellow-servant, who is for you a faithful minister of
Christ;
8 Who also declared to us your love (to me) in the
Spirit (your spiritual and affectionate love to me,
wrought in you by that Spirit whose fruit is love).
9 For this cause we also, since the day we heard of
it (i. e. this your affection to us), do not cease to pray
for you, and to desire (of God) that ye might be filled
with the knowledge of his will (advancing) * in all (the
gifts of) wisdom and spiritual understanding.
10 That (having thus attained to the knowledge of
the things of God) ye might walk worthy "of the
Lord unto all pleasing (i.e. so as to please him in all
things), being fruitful in every good work, and in-
creasing (still more) in the knowledge of God;
11 (That knowing the hope of your calling, and the
riches of the glory of the inheritance of the saints,
Eph. i. 19. Rom. xv. 13, ye may be) strengthened
with all might, according to his glorious power, unto
all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness; (Eph.
iii. 16, i. e. that through the Spirit of glory and power,
1 Pet. iv. 14. 2 Tim. i. 7, given to you, you may be
* Ver. 4. 'Azoſa ayres, Hearing.] From this verse, and
from ii. 1, it is evident that Paul did not in person preach
to the Colossians, and indeed that he never had seen them,
they being converted by Epaphras (i. 7. 23), and perhaps
also by the means of Timothy, who therefore is mentioned in
the beginning of this epistle, as saluting them together with
Paul
* Wer. 6. 'ey Travri ră 26apºº, In all the world..] And
“which is preached to every creature under heaven,” ver. 23.
This, by a usual hyperbole, is to be understood of the most
noted parts of the world, from which the rest might hear of
it. In which sense Cyrus saith, that God had given him
“all the kingdoms of the earth,” Ezra i. 2, and God, saith
Jeremiah, will call for a sword upon “all the inhabitants of
the earth,” xxv. 29, i.e. of the whole kingdom of Babylon;
“and the slain of the Lord shall be from one end of the
earth to the other, over all the kingdoms of the world,” ver.
26, and the Romans, Asiatics, Egyptians, &c. are styled,
“devout men of every nation under heaven,” Acts i. 5.
* Ver. 9. 'Ev rázº a.o.biz, In all wisdom.] Among the spi-
ritual gifts vouchsafed for the edification of the church, are
reckoned “the word of wisdom and of knowledge,” 1 Cor.
xii. 8, whereby they were enabled, “through the Spirit, to
know the things which are given them of God,” l Cor. ii. 12,
and to “compare spiritual things with spiritual,” ver. 13.
For the abundance of these gifts vouchsafed to the churches,
he sometimes gives thanks, as 1 Cor. i. 4, 5. 7. Eph. i. 3,
and for the increase of them he sometimes prays, as here,
and Eph. i. 17. -
* Ver. 10. IIagºratºral bºx3; &#iog rod Kugiov, &c. That
you may walk worthy of the Lord, to all well-pleasing.]
, CHAPTER I.
781
enabled constantly to suffer all afflictions you endure
for the sake of Christ, and of the glory he hath pro-
mised, with patience and joy). &
12 Giving thanks to the Father, " who hath (thus
prepared and) made us meet to be partakers of the
inheritance of the saints in light (for which we suffer,
2 Thess. i. 5).
13 Who hath delivered us from the "power of dark-
mess, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his
dear Son (or the Son of his love):
14 * In whom we have redemption through his
* º the forgiveness of (our) sins (see note on
. i. 7):
P. * Who is the image (and representation to us) of
the invisible God,” the first-born (or Lord) of every
creature :
Note here the end of all our Christian knowledge, viz. a con-
versation fruitful in good works, and a life acceptable and
well-pleasing to God.
7 Wer. 12. ‘Izavdarayri hºzá; si; rºy ºzsgi?a roi, Kahgow rāv
dyioy #y bari, Who has made us meet to be partakers of the
inheritance of the saints in light.] . The other reading, viz.
waxéray'rt, “who hath called you,” for iway&aayrı, “who hath
made you meet,” is contrary to all the old versions, the Sy-
riac, Arabic, and Vulgar, and all the Greek scholiasts; and
therefore not to be admitted as a various lection, but only as
the mistake of some copyist. Note also, that here is an
allusion to the inheritance of the Jews in Canaan, styled
“the land of their inheritance ;" for it was divided into so
many geºsc, or places measured out by line, to be possessed
by the several tribes, excepting that of Levi, and then by
lot assigned to every respective tribe (Josh. xiii.), according
to God's commandment, Numb. xxvi. 55. xxxiii. 54, and
that division which thus came to any of them by lot, was his
passic ºxigou, “the portion which by lot befell him ;” but,
saith the apostle, We are made meet, not for an earthly in-
heritance, as that was in Canaan, but for that heavenly por-
tion God hath allotted us in heaven, the region of light and
happiness, we being already translated into the kingdom of
his Son Christ, become his subjects, and so under his care
and conduct and protection, ruled by his word, which is “the
word of life;” and by his Spirit, the earnest of this inherit-
ance, and shall hereafter be advanced by him into his hea-
venly kingdom.
* Ver. 13. "Ex rā, śćouria; roi; a.kórowº, The power of dark-
mess.] That “darkness” signifies the state of heathen igno-
rance, see note on Rom. xii. 2. The power of it, is that
power which Satan, the prince of darkness, had over the
heathen world, to keep them in idolatry and brutish lusts:
(Eph. ii. 2): hence the apostle saith, he was sent unto the
gentiles, “to turn them from darkness to light, and from
the power of Satan unto God,” Acts xxvi. 17 (see Luke
xxii. 53).
* Ver. 14. Tºy &roxſºrporty 8:3 roi; aſaaroc aircü.] That
these words do indeed belong to the text is evident, not only
from Theodoret, CEcumenius, Iren. lib. v. cap. 2, p. 395,
and the Arabic, but from Paul himself, Eph, i. 7.
* Ver. 15. Elköy roſ, erot, The image of the invisible God.]
The Socinians contend that Christ is here styled the image
of the invisible God, because he, by his gospel, hath made
known the will of God unto us: in this sense, say they, he is
styled the image of God, 2 Cor. iv. 3, and in this sense he
saith to Philip, “He that hath seen me, hath seen the Fa-
ther.” Schlictingius notes, that he is called the image of God,
now that he is in heaven, and so not according to anything
appertaining to him which is invisible, but according to some-
thing by which he may be seen and known, i.e. saith he, as
he hath made himself known to us in the gospel.
But the more matural import of the phrase seems to be
this, that Christ is “the image of God,” as making him, who
is invisible in his essence, conspicuous to us by the divine
works he wrought, they being such as plainly showed that
in him “dwelt the fulness of the Godhead bodily ;” for an
invisible God can only be seen by his effects of power, wis-
dom, and goodness, by which, saith the apostle, “from the
creation of the world, the invisible things of God, to wit, his
power and Godhead, have been made known by the things
that are made,” Rom. i. 20. He therefore who, in the works
both of the old and new creation, hath given us such clear
declarations of the divine power, wisdom, and goodness, is
upon this account as much an image of God as anything can
be. To this sense the image of God here seems necessarily
restrained by the connective particle &rt, He is the image of
God, “for by him all things were created.” Moreover, that
this place is parallel to that in the Epistle to the Hebrews,
the words sufficiently declare: here he is “the image of God,”
there “the brightness of his glory, and the express image of
his person :” here is the first-born, or Lord of every crea-
ture ; there, “the heir of all things:” here it is said, that
“all things were created by him;” there, that he “made the
world:” here, that “by him all things do consist ;” and
there, that “he supporteth all things by the word of his
power:” now that there he is styled, “the image of God's
glory,” and “the character of his person,” by reason of that
divine power, wisdom, and majesty, which shined forth in his
actions, Schlictingius is forced to confess. It is not therefore
to be doubted, that he is here styled “the image of God”
in the same sense ; and it is highly probable that he is
called the image of the invisible God, as appearing to the
patriarchs, and representing to them that God, who lives “in
light inaccessible, to which no mortal eye can approach,”
according to these frequent descants of the Ante-Nicene
fathers,” that “God the Father being invisible, one whom
no man hath seen, or can see, he appeareth to the patriarchs
by his Son:” and that in this sense Christ saith to Philip,
“He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father,” he himself
intimates, by adding, that “the Father, abiding in him, did
the works” he performed, John xiv. 9—ll, and that they
ought to believe “he was in the Father, and the Father in
him, for the works' sake.” And in the Epistle to the Corin-
thians, he is plainly styled “the image of God,” for the like
reason, viz. because that God, “who at first created light out
of darkness, had shined upon the gentiles, to make known to
them the glory of God, in the person of Jesus Christ.” Now
this glory of God is, ch. iii., those miraculous gifts of the
Holy Ghost, by which the gospel was confirmed, and, iv. 7,
# tree86xi rā, śvápago; roi; Geoû," the excellency of the power
of God.” 3.
* IIgorótokoç ºrdanc wrizewº, The first-born of every crea-
ture.] Since, say the Socinians, the first-born is of the order
and number of those things of which he is the first-born ;
Christ therefore being here styled “the first-born of every
creature,” must be in the order and of the number of crea-
tures. But this inference is neither consistent with their
own principles, nor with the words of the apostle. Not with
their own principles: for, in what rank of creatures will they
place Christ P if among the old, then they must allow him
an existence before the beginning of the world, which yet
they peremptorily deny ; if among the new, they must con-
fess he had a nature which wanted to be renewed, changed,
and reformed; that in him, as well as in us, though in him
before us, all “old things passed away, and all things became
new;" since otherwise he cannot be of the order and number
of them who underwent this change.
Secondly, This opinion cannot consist with the words of
the apostle, who styles Christ “the first-born of every crea-
ture, because by him all things were created,” & Hari Trgºtá-
roxo; Tráong wrizeag, àrt #y airój aria &n rà Trávra. Now he,
who is therefore the first-born of the whole creation, because
he created all things, cannot himself be any part of the crea-
tion, either in heaven or earth, or be numbered amongst his
creatures; but only be so called, because he was ºrpo Trávrov,
“before all things:” so Top 2N is ºrgarðroño; #y& # av, 2 Sam.
xix.43, “I am before thee.” (2.) Christ, saith our excellent
primate, is here styled 3 ºrgarðroxoc, the first-born, as being
the Lord ºf all things. For, first, it is reasonable to conceive,
that 3 mgorórowo; Tráon; ºria’soc, “the first-born of every crea-
ture,” should be the same in sense with that of the same
apostle in the parallel place, where he is styled, 3 x^ngovápºe;
Trávrov, “heir of all things.” Now thus it will signify in this
* Iren, lib. iv. cap. 37, p. 372. Wide cap. 26. Tertull, adv,
Prax. cap. 16. Novatian, cap. 26. Euseb. Demonst. Evan.
gel, lib, i, cap. 5, p. 11, D.
782
COLOSSIANS.
16 For *by him (who is the first-born of every crea-
ture) were all things created, that are in heaven, and
that are in earth, visible (the sun, moon, and stars,.)
and invisible (the whole host of angels), whether they
be (named) thrones, or dominions, principalities, or
sense, according to that of Justinian, “To act as an heir is
to act as lord; for the ancients used the word heir for a
lord,” Pro haerede se gerere, est pro domino gerere; veteres
enim haeredes pro dominis appellabant (Instit. lib. ii. tit.
19, §. 6).
In & sense also is the word primogenitus used in the
scriptures; for because the dominion and principality an-
ciently followed the primogeniture, according to those words,
“He gave the dominion to Joram, ºr cºro; 3 ºrgarðroxo, be-
cause he was the first-born,” 2 Chron. xxi. 5, it came in com-
mon use to signify that dominion. So of David, saith God,
“I will give him to be mon, ºrgarðroxov, the first-born, high
above the kings of the earth;”—“I will give him rāv Barºšov
&márºw, röy #overlay, power over all kings,” saith Aquila;”
“I will set him &vºratoy rôy 8aaixãoy ric yºg, the supreme
over the kings of the earth ;” so Symmachus. No, saith Mr.
Clerc, “this doth not signify a lord over other kings, but a
most excellent and glorious king.” But for this we shall not
acquiesce in his bare word against the opinion of all the
ancient commentators on the place, seeing the foregoing
words, wer. 26, “I will set his hand in the sea, and his right
hand in the river,” are equivalent to these ;-‘‘I will give
him power over the kings of the Philistines,” on the one
hand (see 2 Sam. viii. 12), and over the Syrians on the
other (ver. 6); “He shall have,” saith the Chaldee, nºw,
“his empire over the kings of the earth;”—“I will elevate
him over them,” saith the Syriac; and so accordingly we
find he did ; exalting him over the Syrians, who were tri-
butaries to him (2 Sam. viii. 6), “and over all the kings,”
which were servants to Hadarezer (2 Sam. x. 19); and this
was necessary to be done, to render him a fit type of that
“Son of David,” who was to be “King of kings, and Lord
of lords.” And thus he is also ºrporároxo; #x rāv vengåy, “the
first-born from the dead” (ver. 18), as being “Lord over the
dead,” since “for this cause he died, and rose again, ºva ×vel-
Edan, that he might be Lord over the dead, and over the
living ” (Rom. xvi. 9), and so might be iv Trägiy ºrportówy,
primas tenens, imperium habens in omnibus, “pre-eminent
in all things.” Since then the first-born is naturally the
heir, and so the lord of the family, and therefore the word
heir amongst the ancients did signify lord; seeing Paul, who
here styles him “the first-born,” doth in a place parallel to
this, style him “the heir of all things,” why may we not con-
ceive the person of whom David was a type, may be also
here styled “the first-born,” as being Prince over, and high
above, all creatures, they being all the work of his hands?
for so the reason follows.
* Ver. 16. 'Ev airā, śwrio Sn rà Trávºra èy roi; otpayoffs, wał
t& #7 rā; yńc, All things were created by him, that are in
heaven, and that are in the earth.] The gloss of Grotius, i.
and the Socinians,j runs thus: 'That “to Christ is here
ascribed, not the creation of the old world and all things
that are in it, but only the creation, that is, the renovation
of all things under the gospel-state, or the reformation of
mankind by Jesus Christ,” and the gospel preached to them;
and.the reconciliation of angels to men. But this interpre-
tation is so forced and remote from the most usual sense of
the words, and it is so flat and mean to say, that “Jesus
Christ was before every new creature;” that is to Bay, before
the renovation made by himself, or rather by his apostles
after his exaltation ; and to prove this by that very renova-
tion, that even Mr. Clerc is forced to reject it as evidently
false, which it will certainly appear to be from these con-
siderations:
* Wide Theodor. in locum.
+ Rectius est #xticón interpretari, ordinata sunt, novum
quendam statum sunt consecuta, angeli hominibus, homines
inter se reconciliati sunt sub Christo. Grotius.
†: Quia ex Christi exaltatione, et divino quod accepit im-
perio, consecuta est hac angelorum hominumque reformatio,
ac renovatio, per illum et in illo facta esse dicitur, seu illi
creati, id est, renovati dicuntur. Crell. in loc.
powers: all things were created by him (as the cause),
and for him (as the end of their creation):
17 And he is before all things (as to his being), and
by him all things consist.
18 And he is the head of the body, the church
First, That the apostle speaks here of the creation of such
things as are not capable of this moral creation, viz. the
creation ºrávrov rā, śpatów ini rā; yż, “ of all things visible
upon earth.” Now the rà épară, Rom. i. 20, and r& 8xamé-
pasya, Heb. xi. 31, i. e. “the things which are made and
seen,” comprise the whole visible creation, all things with-
out life, metals, stones, elements, all vegetables, and all
beasts; and did the gospel come to make a moral renova-
tion among these ? did Christ and his apostles preach to
stones and trees? (2.) Under “all things in heaven,” and
“all things invisible,” must be comprised all the good angels,
which are therefore elsewhere styled xvpiórnºrsº, 36xai, ka?
#oucial, Eph. i. 21. iii. 10. 1 Pet. iii. 22. Now they cannot
be proper subjects of this new creation, or moral renovation;
for of this new creation the scripture never speaks, but in re-
lation to an old, which was to be abolished, changed, and
done away by it; for in them who are made xavi, wriziº,
“a new creation, all old things are passed away, and all
things are become new” in them, 2 Cor. v. 17. They “put
off the old man, and put on the new, which is created after
God in righteousness and holiness,” Eph. iv. 22. 24. Col. iii.
9, 10. Now it is manifest that nothing of all this can agree
to the good angels, and much less to the evil angels, who are
still creatures, and therefore not to be excluded from expres-
sions so general as these are.
Secondly, The words in this sense were far from being
true when the apostle spake them ; for a very small remnant
of the Jews were then converted to the Christian faith, and
of the gentiles few, in comparison of those multitudes which
afterward embraced the faith ; and yet the apostle plainly
speaks of a creation wholly past already, using the aorist in
these words, #y airá šariasm rà Trávra, “By him have all
things been created;” and the perfect tense in these words,
3; aſſroi, ºrávra #xºria rat, “By him all things were created.”
Thirdly, Though the Socinians may be able to produce
some few instances where the words xriori; and wričely are to
be taken in a moral sense, yet cannot they show one instance
where the creation of “all things in heaven and in earth,
visible and invisible,” is ever used in a moral sense, or con-
cerning any other creation than that of which Moses speaks,
saying, “Thus the heavens and the earth were made, and all
the host of them,” Gen. i. 2.
Fourthly, The apostle afterward begins his discourse of
this moral creation or reconciliation of the world to God by
Christ, and the renovation of his church, in these words, ver.
18–21, “And he is the head of the body of the church, &c.
For it pleased the Father by him to reconcile all things
to himself, whether they be things in earth, or things in
heaven. And you that were sometimes alienated, and ene-
mies in your minds by wicked works, yet now hath he recon-
ciled in the body of his flesh by death, to present you holy
and unblameable, and unreprovable in his sight.” Now
these things being thus connected by the particle wai, to what
he had before said of the creation of all things by Christ,
demonstratively show that he was not then speaking of that
renovation which he begins to speak of in the following
words.
Fifthly, This exposition of this place touching a true and
proper creation of all things by Jesus Christ, is by the fathers,”
from the beginning, laid down as “a rule, to which the ortho-
dox keeping close, might easily show that the heretics, who
* Cúm teneamus autem nos regulam veritatis, id est, quia
sit unus Deus omnipotens, qui omnia condidit per Werbum
suum, nam omnia per ipsum facta sunt, et sine ipso factum
est nihil, ex omnibus autem nihil subtractum est, sed omnia
per ipsum fecit pater, sive visibilia, sive invisibilia, sive sen-
sibilia, sive intelligibilia, sive temporalia propter quandam
dispositionem, sive aeterna, et ea omnia non per angelos
sed per Werbum et Spiritum suum omnia faciens, et dis-
ponens, et gubermans, et omnibus esse praestans hanc
ergö tenentes regulam, licet valdé varia et multa dicant, facile
eos a veritate deviàsse arguimus. Iren, lib. i. cap. 19.
CHAPTER I.
783
(Gr. of the church, as to government and gracious in-
fluences) : , who is the beginning (of the Christian
church), the first-born "from the dead; that in all
things he might have the pre-eminence.
19 “For it pleased the Father that in him should
all fulness (of divine power) dwell (all fulness of power
to create, redeem, preserve, and raise the church, which
is his body) :
20 And, having made peace through the blood of
his cross, by him to * reconcile all things to himself,
(Gr. and by him to make all things friendly in him,
ºnaking peace betwixt them by the blood of his cross);
by him, I say (did he thus reconcile all things), whe-
ther they be things in earth, or things in heaven.
21 And you (gentiles), that were sometimes alien-
ated (from the life of God, Eph. iv. 18) and enemies
in your mind (to him) by wicked works, yet now hath
he reconciled to the Father).
22 In the body of his flesh through death, to pre-
sent you (to the Father) holy, and unblameable, and
unreprovable, in his sight (Eph. i. 4. v. 7.
23 “As you will be, ) if you continue in the faith
grounded and settled (in it), and be not moved away
(by the floods of affliction, or by the blasts of persecu-
tion, which may come upon you, Matt. vii. 24, 25) from
the hope of the gospel (i. e. the hope laid up for you
in heaven, ver. 5), which you have heard (of from
Epaphras, viz. the hope), which was preached to every
creature under heaven (i. e. gentile as well as Jew) :
whereof I Paul am made a minister.
24 Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and
fill up that which is behind of the "afflictions of
Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the
church : -
... 25 Whereof I am made a minister, according to the
dispensation of God which is given to me for you
º , to fulfil (trampâgat, fully to preach) the word
of God;
26 Even the mystery (of the calling of the gentiles
to the same hopes and privileges with the believing Jews,
Eph. iii. 3–6), which hath been hid from (past) ages
and from (former) generations (ver. 5), but now is
held the world was created by angels, deviated from the
truth.” Now this was the heresy of Simon Magus" and
Cerinthus, as Irenaeus there informs us.
* Ver. 18, TIgorároko; in rāv ve-gāy, The first-born from
the dead.] Eic yap &Sávarów re zai épôagröy ºwhy cºmra, yśyová
rtyo; # 3váo racic, ražy rod carigo; 'Incoſ, Xºta rot, “For none
besides our Saviour ever yet rose to an immortal and incor-
ruptible life” (Author. Quaest. Resp. ad Orthod. qu. 85).
See the following note. -
* Ver. 19.] For explication of these words it is to..be
noted, That the great end of our Saviour's sufferings was to
rescue our bodies, condemned for sin unto death, from that
mortality, and to bestow on all, whom God shall give him,
eternal life, by raising of their bodies to a state of incorrup-
tion ; for, “because the children were partakers of flesh and
blood,” and thereby subject to mortality, “he also took part
of the same, that through death he might destroy him that
had the power of death, that is, the devii ; and might deliver
them who, through the fear of death, were all their lifetime
subject to bondage” (Heb. ii. 14, 15).
That therefore the church, which is his body, is represented
as “the church of the first-born, enrolled in the heavens,”
Heb. xii. 23, a church against which “the gates of hades,” or
of death, “shall not prevail” to hinder their enjoyment of
this resurrection to a life of happiness; they are the sons of
God, and therefore “children of the resurrection,” Luke
xxi. 36; therefore “heirs of God, joint-heirs with Christ,”
who shall be glorified with him, Rom. viii. 17, “shall be de-
livered from the bondage of corruption, into the glorious
liberty of the sons of God,” ver. 21, shall have “the adop-
tion, to wit, the redemption of the body,” ver. 23; and they
are also represented as persons foreordained to be conformed
to the image of Christ, by having their “vile bodies changed
into the likeness of Christ's glorious body,” ver. 29.
Note, Secondly, That to this end was Christ raised, that
he, “the first-born from the dead,” might raise up his whole
body from the dead, he being raised from the dead as “the
first-fruits of them that slept,” 1 Cor. xv. 20; for “to this
end Christ both died and rose again, that he might be Lord
both of the dead and of the living,” Rom. xiv. 9, and God
hath therefore exalted him, that “at the name (i. e. the
power) of Jesus, every knee should bow, of things in heaven,
in the earth, and under the earth,” Phil. ii. 10; that is, the
bodies of the dead; for by this argument, and from these
very words, the apostle proves the resurrection, and a future
judgment, Rom, xiv. 10–12. He is therefore so “the first-
born of the dead,” as to be the Lord of them, according to
our former interpretation of the word “first-born,” and as to
have power to “raise them up who sleep in him, and bring
them with him,” l Thess. iv. 14, to “give etermal life unto
them, and raise them up at the last day,” John v. 28, 29.
xvii. 2. And thus hath he the pre-eminence in all things,
* A quibus et mundum hunc factum dicit. Cap. 20, de
Cerinth. cap. 25, V. lib. ii. cap. 9.
being Lord of all creatures dead and living, and giving both
their first and their new being to them, and rendering his
members conformable to his glorious image, that so they may
be joint-heirs with him in glory : and this is the constant
doctrine of Irenaeus,” who informs us, that “Christ died,
that he might be the first-born from the dead, and the prince
of life. That the death of this just man gave him the prin-
cipality of things under the earth, he having before the prin-
cipality in heavenly things; that they who denied the resur-
rection of the flesh, contradicted the salvation of that for
which the whole dispensation of the Son of God was de-
signed; that he died, that exiled man might be delivered
from condemnation, and might return without fear to his in-
heritance.”h e
* Wer. 20. 'Atrokaraxxážai, To reconcile.] This word,
say Hesychius, Suidas, and Phavorinus, signifies pixonoińa'at,
“to make friends,” or “to reduce persons to their former
amity.” This by the fathers, t is thus explained, That whilst
man continued in his obedience to God, angels and men
were in a perfect friendship; but when men became disobe-
dient to their sovereign Lord, the angels became averse to
them, because their Lord was dishonoured by them. But
God being reconciled to us by the death of his Son, they also
became friends and ministering spirits to us, and we became
of the same church and body with them, under the same
head Christ Jesus (Heb. xii. 22); and so “all things in
heaven and earth were gathered into one Christ,” Eph.
i. 10.
* Ver. 23.] Note, hence it follows, that they who have
true faith, and just ground of hope, may fall away from
them.
17 Wer. 24. Tày SXi Lexy rod Xplºroij, The afflictions of
Christ.] Christ having told us that what was done to his
members is done to him, Matt. xxv. 40.45, the afflictions of
his members are styled “the persecutions and afflictions of
Christ,” Acts ix. 4, 5. Now the Jews speak much of the
afflictions of Christ and his disciples, comprehending both
* Usque ad mortem pervenit ut sit primogenitus ex mor-
tuis, ipse primatum tenens in omnibus, princeps vitae, prior
omnium, et praecedens omnes. Lib. ii. cap. 39.
ºf Verbum caro factum est, ut quemadmodiim in coelis
principatum habuit Verbum Dei, sic et in terrà haberet prin-
cipatum, quoniam homo justus, qui peccatum non fecit,
principatum autem habeat eorum quae Sunt sub terrá, ipse
primogenitus mortuorum factus. Lib. iv. cap. 37. Quaecun-
queenim cum gravitate summâ dixerunt haeretici, in ultimum
ad hoc deveniunt, ut blasphement fabricatorem, et contra-
dicant saluti plasmatis Dei, quod quidem est caro, propter
quam omnem dispositionem fecisse filium Dei multis modis
ostendimus. Lib. iv. praefat. Ipse moriens ut exiliatus
homo exiret de condemnatione, et reverteretur intrepidè ad
suam hareditatem. Ibid. cap. 19.
f 'Atreate{{ovro yā; #43; wai rāv čyyáñoy oi 35uo 3:3 tº
58;t&ea Sai roy airāy 35-mórny bar3 rôy &y3;&Tay. Theod.
784,
COLOSSIANS.
made manifest (by the apostles and prophets) to his
saints:
27 To whom God would make known what is the
riches of the glory of this mystery among the gen.
tiles (Eph. iii. 8, 9); which is Christ (preached to, and
received) in (i.e. among) you, (as) the hope of glory:
28 Whom we preach, warning every man, and
teaching every man in all (spiritual) wisdom; that
(so) we may present every man perfect (i. e. fully in-
structed, see note on Eph. iv. 13) in Christ Jesus:
29 Whereunto (sic 6, for which thing) I also labour,
(earnestly) striving according to his working, who
worketh in me mightily (i. e. according to the mighty
power of God assisting me to confirm the doctrine of
Christ, by signs, and miracles, and mighty deeds, Rom.
xv. 19).
under the name of n-wn ban, ““the afflictions of the Mes-
siah,” dividing them into three parts, of which, say they, the
fathers and, the preceding generation suffered one part ;
another part was suffered by the generation of destruction,
or the Jews destroyed by Titus; and a third by the genera-
tion of the Messiah, or by his disciples. Of these afflictions
* Midrash Tehillim, in Psal. ii. 7, et Sanhedrin, cap. 10.
Wide Buxtorf. Lex. Talm. p. 700. -
of Christ, I, Saith the apostle, have already had a share, and
I go on to fill up the residue of these my sufferings in the
flesh, which I am to bear in the discharge of my ministry,
for the benefit of his church. And suitable to this interpre-
tation is that of Lyramus on the place, Passiones Christi du-
plicitër accipiumtur, unomodo pro illis' quas sustinuit in cor-
pore proprio, et sic nihil ibi restat ad implendum; alio modo
quas in finem usque seculi patietur in corpore mystico, et sic
restant multaruun passionum reliquiae adimplendae.
CHAPTER II.
1 (I say, I labour, &ywvičápsvog, striving to make
every man perfect in Christ Jesus :) for I would that
ye knew what great conflict (#Aikov &yāva, what con-
tention in prayer, iv. 2) I have for you, and for them
at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my
face in the flesh;
2 (Praying) that their hearts might be comforted,
being knit together in (mutual) love, and (that they
may advance) unto all riches of full assurance of un-
derstanding, ‘to the acknowledgment of the "mystery
of God, and (i. e.) of the Father, and of Christ;
3 * In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom
and knowledge.
4 And this I say, lest any man should beguile you
with enticing words (see note on ver. 8).
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II.
* Ver. 2. Ei, Émiywoo’iy, for iv in lywoosi, In the knowledge.]
See note on i. 20.
* Tot; ºvarrngiou roi, Geoiſ, The mystery of God, even the
Father, and of Christ.] i. e. The dispensation of the divine
grace of God, in offering salvation to the gentiles by Christ,
and conferring on them, equally with the Jews, the blessings
of the gospel. This is the mystery which, saith he, “in the
former ages was hid, but now is manifested to the saints, to
whom God would make known what was the riches of the
glory of this mystery among the gentiles, which is Christ
(preached) among you (as) the hope of glory,” ver. 26, 27.
“This,” saith he, “is the mystery, which from the beginning
hath been hid in God,” Eph. iii. 9, “the mystery of God and
of Christ,” ver, 3–5, “That the gentiles should be fellow-
heirs (with the believing Jews) and of the same body, and
partakers (with them) of his promises in Christ by the gos-
pel,” yer. 6 (see also Rom. xvi. 25, 26. Col. iv. 3). And
that the gentiles might have a perfect knowledge of this
mystery, and of the riches of divine grace, and love to them
in it, is the apostle's prayer, Eph. iii. 16–19. But whereas
Crellius and Schlictingius here note, that the particle wal,
“and,” added to the word “Christ,” distinguishes him as
well from God as from the Father: it doth no such matter,
but only distinguisheth the mystery of the Father, sending his
Son into, the world to be a Saviour to the gentiles, from the
mystery of Christ, procuring this salvation for them by his
blood. “The ecclesiastical tradition,” saith Irenaeus,”
“teaches us to believe in God the Father omnipotent, who
made heaven and earth, and in one Jesus Christ the Son of
God, incarnate for our salvation, our Lord, God, Saviour,
pyrº N. t
* Thy sic #va Gºsëy ratéga Travroxgåroga ºriarty, was el; #ya
* ** g *g ** * * &
Xgiarov 'Inzoöy, a 3v vičy roi; Oscă răy capno,0ávra, träg r?; hºwer#2a:
y g * † & sº s * tºº
corn:a:-iya X3;a tº Inzag Tº Kvěiº, Kai Os; hºwsy, xai Bazasſ
*s * * 4. º -
—irãv 73vv Kápºn. I.ib. i. cap. 2.
5 For though I be absent (from you) in the flesh,
yet am I (present) with you in the spirit (by which I
discern your affairs, as Elisha did his servant, 2 Kings
v. 26, see 1 Cor. v. 3), joying and beholding (behold-
ing with joy) “your order, and the stedfastness of your
faith in Christ.
6 As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the
Lord (by the teaching of Epaphras, i. 7), so walk
(stedfastly) in him :
7 Rooted and built up in him, and established in
the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein
with thanksgiving (to him who called you to it).
8 Beware lest any man spoil you (or make a prey of
you) through (heathem) "philosophy and vain deceit,
(leading you) after the traditions of men, (or) after
and King.” And so these words may be construed, “the
mystery of both the Father and Christ” (see note on i. 3).
* Ver. 3. ‘Ey 3, In whom.] Some make these words relate
to the mystery mentioned in the foregoing verse: but it
seems rather to respect the person of Christ as Mediator, the
knowledge of whom, saith the apostle, hath an excellency
beyond all other knowledge (Phil. iii. 8). For y á regist-
pañ3rºrs, “In whom ye are circumcised,” ver, 11 of this chap-
ter, and iv. 3, “In whom ye are risen again,” ver, 12, plainly
relate to Christ's person and his performances as Mediator ;
and the whole following chapter speaketh of him, and of the
benefits we have received, #y airs, by him. The apostle also
doth apply this to him, by saying, ver. 8, “As you have re-
ceived the Lord Jesus Christ, so walk in him :” and by
warning us against the deceit of vain philosophy, because
“in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead.” But yet
seeing these hid treasures of Christ's wisdom are revealed to
us by his gospel only, and thence alone we obtain all our
knowledge of him as Mediator, and of all the offices he sus-
tains as such, there seemeth to be no great difference be-
twixt referring this to his person, and referring it to his doc-
trine. -
* Ver, 5. Tºv rášty igów, Your order.] As, to “walk dis-
orderly,” in the apostle's style, is not to walk according to
the traditions they had received from the apostles, or
preachers of the gospel (2 Thess. iii. 6), so their order may
import their compliance with them in manners, discipline,
and union.
* Ver. 8. At& pixocoqiaº, By philosophy, &c.] What is
the ºriSavox.oyia, the “enticing speech,” ver, 4, and the “phi-
losophy and vain deceit,” which the apostle warns them
against, is not so easy to determine. Some good interpreters
refer what follows in this chapter to the heresy of Simon
Magus, and the Gnostics, to which many passages in this
chapter may be well applied. Others refer them to the Jew-
ish doctors, who had then mixed the philosophy of the
heathens with their ceremonial worship, and had thence
CHAPTER II.
785
the rudiments of the world, (the Jewish rudiments and
traditions Gal. iv. 3,) and not after (the doctrine of)
Christ.
9 (Of which philosophy you can have no need;) for
in him dwelleth “all the fulness of the Godhead
bodily. -
10 And ye are complete in him (as to all savinº
knowledge and virtue, I Cor. i. 30), who is " the head of
all principality and power (Eph. i. 20).
II. In whoma also ye are circumcised with the cir-
cumcision made without hands (as that of the Jews is,
but consisting) in “putting off the body of the sins of
learned to allegorize it; and others divide the matter be-
twixt Jew and gentile. And that the Jewish doctors are
very much concerned in this chapter, we learn from ver, 14
to 16, and “the rudiments of the world,” relate to the legal
observations, as being common to them with the gentile
world (see note on Gal. iv. 8). “The commandments of
men,” or their traditions, may also have respect to them who
were the zealous assertors of them (Matt. xv. Acts xxi. 21).
And indeed this verse seems to be the key to, or the founda-
tion of, all that follows in this chapter, ranking the discourse
of the apostle under these two heads, viz. cautions against
the seductions of the Jews, zealous for the observation of
their rites and ceremonies; and against the seductions of
heathens by their “vain philosophy,” dressed up by them
anew, both as to its doctrines and morals, and set off with the
most specious pretences, styled here TriSavoxoyia, “enticing
speech.”
* Ver. 9. IIay rā traffgoegaz rā; Seárnroº, All the fulness of
the Godhead..] This fulness, according to the Gnostics, was
made up of their thirty acons. The heathens, besides the
Supreme God, owned many other local gods, presiding over
nations, and so made up the plenitude of the Godhead of
them all, as of so many partial deities. Against such
opinions the apostle here asserts, that “the whole fulness of
the Godhead dwelt” in Christ, and that “bodily,” i. e. in his
body, as its temple: and, say the fathers, as the soul dwell-
eth in the body ; say others, bodily, that is, essentially. The
apostle doth not roundly say that Christ is God, but expresses
his divine nature thus, partly to represent to the Jews the
divinity of Christ, with allusion to the God of Israel dwelling
in the temple; partly to oppose him to the ºrahçopea of the
Gnostics, and to the partial deities of the heathens. Here
therefore it is to be observed,
First, That the apostle doth not here say that the divinity
is assistant to Christ, but that the fulness of it doth xaroixsſy,
“reside in him;” which is never said in scripture of any other
person, but of him alone, who having styled his body a
“temple,” John ii. 19. 21, “the fulness of the Deity” may
be properly said to dwell in him bodily, as it dwelt symboli-
cally in the ark. -
Note, Secondly, That Christ is not here said to be “filled
with the fulness of God,” as the church is, by reason of the
gifts with which she was replenished, and the doctrine she
had received from God, Eph. i. 23, but “the whole fulness
of the Godhead” is here said to reside in him. Now Setórn;
and rô Seſoy do never signify the gifts of God, or the doctrine
of the gospel, but the divine mature only ; nor can the will
or revelation of God be said to “dwell bodily” in any per-
son. I conclude, therefore, that * “the body born of the
virgin, receiving the whole fulness of the Godhead bodily,
was immutably united to the divinity, and deified ; which
made the same person, Jesus Christ, both God and man.”
7 Ver. 10. Keq axi, ºráan; 36x6c Rai #0wziaç, The head of all
principality and power.] Epiphanius informs us," that Simon
Magus devised some names of principalities and powers, say-
ing, that “none could be saved, who learned not the sacred
discipline, and how to offer his sacrifice to the Father of all
things, by these principalities and powers.” In opposition
to these things, say some, the apostle asserts that Christ
created all these principalities and powers (i. 15), and was
* Tö #x rā; Trag&#vov cºca xopæay träy rô raigopºg rh, Seárnto;
capºatizºc, tº Geórnºr &rge wro; #yoral, wai refleotroigtai, où
* r * * g * * .ºg 3. *g * &
3:42ty o auto; OEóg itc.; #ySpotro: Inactſ; Xptatáç. Conc. Antioch.
ad Paul. Samos, tom. i. p. 848. Porró legunt a wºatia;;
patres Graeci omnes, et de Latinis Hilarius, August. plures-
que alii. Grab. in Iren. p. 18.
y Af * * 3 * t f 3. *:: * > tºº
† Ovéºwata 86 riva 6 air}; in orišarai épx?y re Rai #ovat:y
——£ch ºxo; 3: 392~3at a dºsa-Sai riya, si pah Ti &y ºwą$ot
taſtny Thy Ava rayolyſay, wai rā; totaúra; 0wzia; Tô ºratei Tây
eſ * * sº g - ** g ... • s e
3Nov 3& rāy &#xiv toºtay Rai #0wa tºy ºrgoz pégély. Haer. xxi.
§. 4, p. 58.
the Head and Lord of them, and so in him, without their
assistance, the Colossians were complete, and fully instructed
to Salvation.
Or else these things may be referred to Cerinthus and his
followers. For,
First, He lived in the apostle's times, and was a great op-
poser of the truth of the gospel, and particularly an enemy
to Paul,” because he contended it was not necessary for the
Jews, nor lawful for the gentiles, to observe the law of
Moses, for which Cerinthus was a zealot. And he, Saith the
same Epiphanius,t “reproved Peter for going in to the uncir-
cumcised, and raised the tumult in Antioch about circum-
cision.” -
Secondly, He lived long in Egypt,i and was instructed in
philosophical sciences, and from thence went and set up his
sect in Asia the Less, and Syria, say Theodoret and Epipha-
nius. Being therefore skilled in philosophy, and setting
up his heresy in Asia Minor, where Colosse was, he may well
be here reflected on by St. Paul, especially if we consider
how much his opinions agreed with those which are here cen-
sured by him. For,
Thirdly, He was zealous for circumcision, and other obser-
vances of the law of Moses, and so concerned in what is here
said, ºver. 11. 14—17. (2.) He said, “The world was
made by angels, or inferior virtues, and not by the Supreme
God; and that he himself received his doctrine by the reve-
lation of angels.” (3.) He held Jesus to be born of Joseph
and Mary, as other men, and Christ to have “descended
upon him, and at his passion to have returned to his
pleroma.”
And John refuted him, saith Irenaeus, “by establishing
the principle of one God omnipotent, who made all things
visible and invisible by his Word;” which is the very thing
the apostle in this chapter doth assert.
* Ver, 11. Tº &rex8teel, &c. The putting off the body of
the sins of the flesh.] Thus Philo informs us," that circum.
cision imports “the cutting off our sinful pleasures and pas-
sions, and our impious opinions” (see Rom. ii. 28, 29; and
the reading of the text defended, Examen Millii).
* Töv 33 IIa ºxov 398total 31& rô Đº weišea.0a ºn 7sgºrgºň
Haer. xxviii. Ş. 4, 5, 8.
+ oëro; 3% tary ei, röy ºr rôy &roatáxov rºy raçaxy #pya-
cap, Évoy, 3rt of regi 'Idzogcy yeye&#aa'iy Big Tày 'Ayrtoxalay #7tta-
rox#y otroc trapexive regi roš IIárgov &yeašávro, si, Iagovº axºº.
rx raßSn Tây in Tregºroºs, Aéyoy &rt sic?"Se gig &ngoºvatiay
#xoytaç. Haer. xxviii. lxii. § 2.
† ośto; #y Aiyên tº tragiarov 8tarpi-pa; xpévoy, Kai rā; pixo~6-
‘pow; traičev}=\; #717tnºśc, to repºy six riv 'Agiay £izero. Har.
Fab, lib. ii. cap. 3.
§ 'Eyáveto 3' otºro, ö KägySo, #y tº "Acid 8targí9&v, kāzāra
rot ºngºygwaroº rºy &ex}y 787'otnºśvoc. Haer. xxviii.
| Cerinthiani à Cerintho mundum ab angelis factum esse
dicentes, et carne circumcidi oportere, atque alia hujusmodi
legis praecepta observare. August. de Haer. cap. 8, Epiph.
Haer. xxviii. S. l. .
'Axx& zai Kügly00, § 3; 37.0xaxás! soy &; iro 3rogróñou ºvá-
Aov yeypapºzávoy rmgaroxoyia; hºw, &c &’ &yyáxay airó 388=1y.
pºvac, javčºvo, #TEta &yet. Caius apud Euseb. Hist. Eccl.
lib. iii. cap. 22.
Illi dicunt alterum quidem fabricatorem mundi, alium
autem patrem Domini, et alium quidem fabricatoris filium,
alterum veró de superioribus Christum, quem et impassibilem
perseverasse descendentem in Jesum filium fabricatoris, et
iterüm revolásse in suum pleroma, et eam conditionem quae
est secundum nos non à primo Deo factam, Sed a virtute ali-
quá valdé deorsåm subjectà et abscissà ab eorum communi-
catione, quae sunt invisibilia et innominabilia. Iren, lib. i.
cap. 25, lib. iii. cap. 11, p. 257.
‘ſ “ott T3 aregºršºvecréat #30;&v, Rai ºraśāy ºrávrov wropºv,
xai 86%x, &vateeriy &redo; #w paizei. De Migrat. Abr. p. 315,
A, B. De Circumcis, p. 626.
3 E
786
COLOSSIANS.
the flesh (which is done) by the (spiritual) circum-
cision of Christ, (and so ye need not any legal rites, to
make you complete Christians.
12 We being) buried with him in baptism, (the out-
ward symbol of our spiritual circumcision, and so dead
unto sin, Rom. vi. 2–4) wherein also you are risen
with him (to newness of life, Rom. vi. 4, and to the
expectation of a future life through him, ver. , 8,)
through the faith of the operation of God, who raised
him from the dead (by which faith we believe that he
will raise us also from the dead, Eph. i. 19, 20. 1 Thess.
iv. 14. 1 Pet. i. 3). -
13 And you (gentiles), being dead (before) in your
| sins and (by reason of) the "uncircumcision of you!
flesh, hath he (God, ver. 12) quickened together with
him (by his Spirit), having forgiven you (through
jaith) all (your former) trespasses; -
14 (And) blotting out the "hand-writing of (legal)
ordinances that was against us, which was contrary
to us and (doing this so that he took it out of the
way, mailing it to his cross;
i5 And having spoiled ” principalities and powers,
he made a show of them openly (thus despoiled of
their authority), triumphing over them *in it (i. e.
by virtue of the same cross). -
16 Let no man therefore judge (or condemn) you in
The apostle here plainly discourseth against those heretics,
or false apostles, who laboured to introduce the necessity of
circumcision. Now that Cerinthus was one who pleaded
for the necessity of it, Epiphanius, St. Austin, and others,
do inform us; but that Simon Magus did so, I find not in
church history. The Apostolical Constitutions” speak of
some false apostles, who held it necessary rspitápºverðal woºzi-
Fºoc, “to circumcise men according to the law ;” but then
they are distinguished from the impure heresy of Simon
Magus, who was so far from contending for the observation
of the law and prophets, that he taught his followers, våga,
wai 7popārat; &# Xpā-0at, “not to regard them, ; ºn?; $6tt-
rely, not to fear the threats of the law,” as being not the
law of God, &AA’ &gto-tegā; 3vváºzso;, “but of some evil
power,” saith Theodoret; and declaring, saith Epiphanius, Š
that “whosoever believed the Old Testament incurred
death.” Note, &
Secondly, That the apostle speaking here of the circum-
cision made without hands, and of the circumcision made
in baptism, and consisting in the putting off the sins of the
flesh, cannot, by the circumcision of Christ, mean his own
personal circumcision which was made with hands, but that
which he hath instituted in the room of it, viz. baptism.
Note,
Thirdly, That baptism therefore is a rite of initiation to
Christians, as circumcision was fo the Jews; for, by virtue
of our spiritual circumcision in baptism, he proves we have
no need of the outward circumcision to be a type of the
purity obtained by baptism.
Fourthly, Hence I infer, that baptism is Christ's ordi-
nance for infants of believing parents, as circumcision was
of old for the infants of the Jews; for if it had been other-
wise, and infants under Christianity had not been received
by any federal rite into covenant with God, the objection of
the necessity of circumcision as to them would have still
held, they entering into covenant by no other rite, and so
remaining strangers from the church, and as much aliens
from the adoption, the covenant, and promises, as the gen-
tiles were ; which sure the Jews would have objected, iſ
truly they could have done it, to the reproach of Christianity.
That institution therefore must, for the comfort and satisfac-
tion of their parents, afford some way of sanctifying these
infants, or of admitting them among the number of God’s
children, which being confessedly no other than that of
baptism, it must be supposed to allow that to them, that by
it, in the phrase of Irenaeus, infantes et parvuli renas-
cantur in Deum, “infants and little children may be re-
generated.”
* Ver. 13. Kai rā &x606varia. Tä, wagxog, And the uncir-
cumcision of the flesh.] By the defect of circumcision, they
being, saith the parallel place, on that account without
Christ, being “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and
strangers from the covenant of promise,” Eph. ii. 11, 12.
* Ver. 14. Xelçáypatov roſ. 36, warly, The hand-writing of
ordinances.] Aérºa is a rescript or ordinance concerning
anything, a royal or imperial decree (Dan. ii. 13. iii. 10. 12.
29. vi. 8. 10. 13. 15. 26. Luke ii. 1. Acts xvii. 7). Hence
ritual prescriptions are called 36 yaara, Ezek. xx. 26. “The
hand-writing of ordinances,” in the parallel epistle, Eph. ii.
15, is “the law of commandments, #y 3áygaari, in ritual ordi-
* Lib. vi. cap. 10. + Ibid.
: Haer. Fab. lib. i. cap. l. Ś Haer. xxi. Ş.
| Lib. ii. cap. 39.
4.
nances,” or the ceremonial law ; and it is said here to be
against and contrary to the gentiles, as being “a middle
wall of partition,” hindering them from coming to God, and
putting an enmity betwixt them and God's people (ver. 14,
15), which Christ hath taken away by abolishing and dis-
solving the obligation of it, and admitting the gentiles “fel-
low-heirs of the same promises” and blessings with the Jews
without it; or it is contrary to us, as being the ministration
of death and condemnation (2 Cor. iii. 7.9). -
* Wer. 15. Tà, 36x3; xai #0waiia;..] The principalities
and powers here mentioned, are the powers of wickedness,
the spirits of Satan, who is styled # #ovcia toû axárovº, “the
power of darkness,” Luke xxiii. 53, and “ of the air,” Eph.
ii. 2; 3 &exay, “the prince of the world,” John xii. 31. xiv.
30; whose emissaries are “the principalities and powers, the
rulers of the darkness of this world, the spiritual wicked-
nesses in high places,” against which we wrestle, Eph. vi.
12. These powers Christ destroyed by his cross, because,
as the apostle saith, “through death he destroyed him that
had the powers of death, that is, the devil ; and delivered
them who, through the fear of death, were all their lives
subject to bondage,” Heb. ii. 14, 15. Moreover, the heathen
lay under two great infelicities; (1.) That they were “aliens
from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the
covenant of promise, and without God in the world.” The
remedy which divine wisdom found out, and our Lord's
salutary passion effected, with respect to this, is discoursed
of in the preceding verse. (2.) That they were subject to
the power and delusions of evil and apostate spirits, “walk-
ing according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit
that now worketh in the children of disobedience.” These
principalities and powers Christ despoiled on the cross, by
the name of a crucified Jesus, and by the very sign of the
cross, casting out the prince of the world from his dominions,
temples, and oracles, and from those human bodies he pos-
sessed ; and so openly convincing the heathens, that the
deities they so long had worshipped, were evil spirits, and,
by the miracles wrought in his name, drawing them from
their heathen worship to him. And this exposition is con-
firmed from these words, “He made a show of them openly,”
which plainly seemeth to refer to this conquest over them.
Moreover, it may be noted, that Simon and Cerinthus held,
eivät rôy aiºva &ré àexãw roºray xai #overt&y rºc waxia; xarea-
asva-pašvoy, “that the world was made by these evil spirits,”
and men were subject to the power of them; “and were
per eum et Helenam suam ex illis angelicis potestatibus
liberandos,” to be delivered by Simon and his Helen from
them.” This, saith the apostle, our Lord hath fully done
upon the cross, and so we need no assistance of Simon or
Cerinthus to perform this work; and much less need we the
assistance of those demons which the heathens worshipped as
good angels, who had the government of the inferior world
committed to them, Christ having triumphed over them,
and wholly spoiled them of that power. And from these
heathen deities he passes on again to the rudiments of the
Jews, making that inference from what had been discoursed
from ver, l l to the 14th, which we see in the following
Wel'SeS.
* 'Ey airá, In it..] It is certain that Origeni and others of
the ancients read, Éy ºv, “on the wood;” so did the Arabic
* Iren. lib. i. cap. 20. Tert. de Angelis, cap. 34. Theod
Haer, Fab. lib. i. cap. 1.
| + Hom. in Matt, p. 282,288,289, in Joh. p. 144.
CHAPTER II.
787
(not observing a distinction in) meat, or in drink, or in
respect of (your neglect of) a (Jewish) holiday, or of
the new moons, or of the sabbath-days (observed by
them):
17 Which are (all only)* a shadow of things to
come, but the body (and substance of those shadows) is
of Christ (and ethibited by him).
18 “Let no man beguile you of (damnify you as
toy your reward ” in a voluntary humility (Gr. pleas-
ing himself in, or ºffecting humility), and (upon that
version; others read, iv Havrò, “in himself;” but seeing that
reading, as St. Jerome testifies, is only in the Latin copies,
and since Chrysostom, Theodoret, CEcumenius, Theophylact,
read as we and most copies do, without taking notice of any
other reading, we may rely securely on it.
* Ver. 17. xxia rāv &exAávrov, A shadow of things to
come.] Dr. Spencer well observes, that there is no necessity
from these words, of asserting that these, and all the ritual
constitutions of the law of Moses, shadowed forth some
Christian mystery; but only that they were but as mere
shadows, compared to that solid and substantial truth Christ
by his gospel hath discovered to us, as Josephus, speaking of
Archelaus, who exercised the kingly power without the title
of it, saith, ſixes ºraçã rod &sdºrérou akiav airmarépcevo; Cacºsiac,
~7, herao'ev Havré, to orâua, “He came to request of Caesar
the shadow of that kingdom, the body of which he had
usurped or snatched to himself before” (De Bello Jud. lib.
ii. cap. 4, p. 777).
Note, Secondly, That iv wipei Hoerfic, is well rendered “in
respect,” or “on account of a feast;” as when the apostle
saith, “That which was made glorious was not glorious, iv
Kafeet rotºrº, in this respect,” 2 Cor. iii. 10, and, “I have sent
the brethren, lest our boasting of you should be found vain,
•rotºrº ºftest, in this respect,” ix. 3; and when Peter saith,
“If any man suffer as a Christian, let him glorify God, by
roºrº ºfteel, on this account.” So 2 Macc. xv. 18, “The
care they took for their wives and children, was iv #rroy,
fººt, of no account with them, their chief care being for the
temple.” Now hence, to make out the argument against the
Sabbatarians, note, -
First, That the hand-writing of ordinances here mentioned
respecteth ceremonial ordinances; for of them only it can
be truly said, they were “against us,” and were “contrary
to us;” they were blotted out, and “nailed to the cross” of
Christ, and were “shadows of,” or in respect of “things to
come.” -
Secondly, That when it is said, Let no man judge you
in respect of those things,” the meaning is, Let no man cen-
sure or condemn the Christian for not observing these new
moons, feasts, or sabbaths.
Thirdly, That the apostle here by “sabbaths" does not
mean the first and last days of the great Jewish feasts, which
were by them observed as sabbaths; or the sabbath of the
seventh year, or of the year of jubilee: but only, or chiefly,
the weekly sabbaths of the Jews. -
First, Because the apostle having said before, “Let no
man condemn you’’ for not observing the Jewish festivals,
or any part of them, cannot rationally be supposed in the
words following to condemn only the same thing.
Secondly, In the New Testament the word “sabbath,” or
“Sabbaths,” is used above sixty times, and in fifty-six of
those places it doth unquestionably signify the Jewish weekly
sabbaths, and in the other the whole week. Since, then, the
“Sabbath" in the New Testament is never used for the first
or last days of the Jewish feasts, but is there ordinarily
used for their weekly sabbath, we ought in reason to con-
clude, it here imports that seventh-day sabbath which it
doth usually import in other places; and not those solemn
days of the Jewish feasts, those jubilees, or seven years'
sabbaths, which it doth never elsewhere signify in the New
Testament,
Thirdly, Wherever the word “sabbath” is mentioned in the
Old Testament, in conjunction with new moons, or Jewish
feasts, it doth import the seventh-day sabbath distinctly
from all others; as will appear from the perusal of all the
places where these things are jointly mentioned, as 2 Kings
iv. 23. Isa. i. 13. lxvi. 23. Lam. ii. 6. Ezek. xlv. 17. xlvi.
1. Hos. ii. 2. Amos viii. 4. Being then here mentioned with
new moons and Jewish feasts, it is reasonable to conceive it
signifies the seventh-day sabbath.
Fourthly, The sabbath-day in the Old Testament is often
contradistinguished to all other solemn feasts, and more par-
A
ticularly to new moons and anniversary feasts; and there-
fore, being here mentioned with them, we may presume it
cannot signify them, or any portion of them, but rather that
it doth import that Jewish sabbath which in other places is
put in opposition to them, as 1 Chron. xxiii. 31. 2 Chron.
ii. 4. xxxi. 3. Neh. x. 32, 33. Seeing then the word “sab-
bath,” wherever it is used in conjunction with new moons or
feasts, in scripture, still signifies the Jewish weekly sabbath,
we cannot doubt, but, in conjunction with them here, it sig-
nifies the same thing. Seeing the word is often put in op-
position to new moons and solemn feasts, indefinitely taken,
what reason have we to conceive, that in this place it should
be taken for any part or portion of them 2 Hence then I
argue thus:
No man ought to condemn the Christian for not observing
the Jewish sabbath, because Christ hath “blotted out the
hand-writing of ceremonial ordinances which was against
them ;” wherefore the Jewish sabbath being a ceremonial
ordinance, therefore it is blotted out ; therefore the Christian
is not obliged to observe it. Again, that which is joined
with meats and drinks, and with new moons, which are
things confessedly ceremonial, no difference at all being ob-
served by the apostle, as to their being named hand-writings.
things cancelled, shadows, and the like, that must be cere-
monial. I,astly, That which is a shadow of, or in respect of
things to come, of which Christ by his advent exhibited the
body, that must be ceremonial, that must be cancelled and
abolished by Christ, and then the Jewish Sabbath must
be so.
* Ver. 18. Karaggagevāra, Let no man beguile you of
gour reward.] So Suidas, waganoyićrw, “Let no man put a
cheat upon you.” So Phavorinus, #7, nésa’Éto, “Let no man
damage you” (Chrysostom and Theophylact). -
Karaßgagsägiv.] This word signifies to give the prize to one,
when the victory was obtained by the other; so Chrysostom,
Theodoret, Theophylact; accordingly Suidas” saith, This is
the thing which the apostle means by the word, and because,
by this unjust sentence, the person to whom it is due is de-
prived of his reward, hence it comes to bear that sense; and
so the whole is by Stephanus rendered, Nemo vos debito bra-
bio fraudet; which, as it justifies our translation, so it shows
the damage Christians will sustain by thus worshipping an-
gels, even the loss of that crown of glory, which Christ hath
purchased for his faithful subjects.
* @#Nov #y rarewoºgoorſyn, Pleasing himself in his hu-
mility.] Or, affecting it, and so not addressing to God imme-
diately, but by angels; for so the word Séasty answers to the
Hebrew Yen, which imports pleasing or delighting ourselves
in anything. So l Sam. xviii. 12, Biaf iv goi 38aa Asús, “The
king is pleased with thee;” 2 Sam. xv. 26, “If he say, oùx
#Séxnca #y arol, I am not pleased with thee;” Matt. xx. 26,
27, , by Séxh #y buſy, “Who among you affects to be great or
first ;” and, xxvii. 43, “Let him deliver him, si Geast awry,
if he delighteth in him.” As for the persons here referred
to, note,
First, That the Greek commentators affirm generally, that
the apostle doth through this whole epistle oppose himself to
some false Christians, who held 3sſy avyáyeaSat #43, 7:3; toy
Traºréea 3:3 rāy &yioy &yyáNov, “that we ought to address to
the Father by the holy angels.” But then some of them
add, that the pretence of humility was this,t, “that it was
too much for us to come to God immediately by Christ, this
being above our infirmity.” But this, though it agrees well
with the humility here mentioned, it seems not to accord
either with the principles of Simon Magus, who held himself
to be both the Father and the Son ; or of Cerinthus, who
* Toj žxxov 3, ovićop.ávov tº 3xxoy a repayºffaëat Xève à
&méa toxo; karaggageſsoróat.
+ "Heráy rive; of x:yovre; od 387 hºwſ., 8:3 row Xºtºrcu ºrgoo, 4-
yeaSat (OE) &Axë 32 rāv ĀyyáAoy, insive yet ºff.6v šarty #45;
Chrysost. Photius, CEcum. Theoph. in locum. E
3 E 2
788
COLOSSIANS.
account) worshipping of angels, * intruding (or
searching) into those things (by the strength of
his natural reason) which he hath not seen, (being)
held Christ was only a man, born after the common way
of generation, and so could not exalt him thus above the
angels; and much less doth it accord with the sentiments of
the heathens. CEcumenius saith, the apostle speaketh here
of them who did, ‘rā; woºzikā; trapatnºha'el; ‘rā elayrexia,
#Tripwiyyúsiy, “mix legal observances with the gospel ;” and
Theophylact, that he speaks regi rāv 'lovèat£oºvov, “ of the
Judaizers.” And Theodoretº explains this more fully thus:
“They who were zealous for the law, persuaded men to wor-
ship angels, because, say they, the law was given by them:
this they advised men to do, pretending humility, and saying,
that the God of all things was invisible, and inaccessible, and
incomprehensible, and that it was fit we should procure the
divine favour by means of angels.” Now if this be so, this
passage cannot well agree to Simon Magus and his followers;
for though they worshipped angels, as Irenaeus, Tertullian, ;
Epiphanius,S Theodoret|| note, and held that their proarche
or propator, was so inaccessible and incomprehensible; yet
did they not seem to worship God by angels, but rather to
perform their magical operations by invoking them. He also,
and his followers, as hath been shown, were enemies to the
law, and so could not introduce the worship of good angels
upon this account, that the law was given by them.
But then as for Cerinthus, and other false apostles of
the Jews, they owned Christ Jesus as the Messiah, and
yet were stiff assertors of the obligations of the law ; and
they by their philosophy had introduced the worship of an-
gels, after the heathen manner. For Epiphanius informs us
of Cerinthus, that he said," “The law and the prophets came
from the angels; and that he who gave the law was one of the
angels that made the world.” They had imbibed the philo-
sophy of Plato,” which saith, “The demons are of a middle
nature betwixt gods and mortals; that they brought our
prayers and offerings to them, and their commands to us, and
were to be worshipped and invoked upon that account:”
that God had no immediate commerce with men, but all
his converse with us was by the mediation of these de-
mons. And suitably to this philosophy we find the angel,
Tobit xii. 12. 15, saying that he was “one of the seven an-
gels of Trºca'aya pégovel r&; trºoa euxi.; rôy &ytoy, who offered up
the prayers of the saints:” and that when Tobit and Sara
prayed, he “brought the memorial of their prayer before
the Holy One.” And Philo, fºr in several places declares,
that as the philosophers said of their demons and heroes, so
Moses “introduces the angels, ºrpeggewoºvac, doing the office
of ambassadors, zal Sayye), Noüara; rāºrg Tragi, rot, hyºgaśvo; roſ;
innzáoi; &yašš, wai rā, 8aaixeſ ºv eioriy Vºrázool Xésia;, and be-
ing messengers of good things from God to his subjects, and
* Oi rô vépző avynyogoûvre; kai roë; &yyáNov; a £88w ańrdſ;
stormyogoûvro, 3rd roštovº Méyovre; 3e3árğat rôy vöpkov, toiro roivuy
avy=800xEvoy #2.Éivot yivea Sat, rarelyopgoo’ūyn 3#Sev xexempºvo zai
Aéycyte, &c, &égaro; 3 rāv Āay G)=3;, &vépiztá, rs, kai äya-
zaráºntro; argo-hast 8:3 rày &yyáxoy rºy Seiay sººtysiay ºrgay-
paragüecóat. In locum. •,
* Simonianæ disciplinae magia angelis inserviens. Tertull.
de Praescript. cap. 33, p. 214.
!: Iren. lib. i. cap. 23, lib. ii. cap. 57.
§ Epiphan. Haer. xxi. $.4.
| Theodoret, Haer. Fab. lib. i. cap. 5, p. 12. "Ax4enro;
&veátzviaa’roc, 3xaráànttoº. Iren. lib. i. p. 10, 12, 14.
* @4-ze: 33 outo: röv Vágoy Rai ºrpoºjra, ºr 3)); awy 3e3%a-Sai
xai rºw 3E30%dra véºoy £va sīva rāv ćyyáñoy rºy Kárºoy retroin-'
wärºv. Haer. xxviii. Ş. 1. p. 110.
** II&V yºg ºrd 3&tºvtov werdà èart roi; Geoff re zai 6/mºroi,
&v$3%trol; ra arapi, Seáv, rāv Kºšy ºrd; 38%atic Rai 603 faç, ºrów 3:
ºrd; Éritáčeiç.
at £2.Éyvvrai, 3xx3 bid roºrov wazá #2+w jºxia, ka? # 34xexto;
8:0% "rºg áyść"rovº. Ibid. Aaikova; tº; #panysia; atrio,
etxº rºw £4.4%a X8E3v Xáply rfic stºp.ou Baropsiac. Epin.
p. 1010, 1011.
++ Lib. de Plant. No. p. 168. Wide insignem hác de re
legum in Platonis Symposio, apud Stob. Eclog. Phys. p.
24, 25
> < 2.
Hierocles in Carm. Pythag. p. 9, 18.
#ºnvivoy Kai StatropSºoy Bedſ; rà rag äySgºrov, xa,
Conviv. p. 1194, A, B. QE3; 3: Kai &yôporo,
vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind (as if he were
able by it to know the nature and the offices of an-
gels).
carrying back to God their needs.” In his book of the Gi-
ants" he styles them “ambassadors of good communica-
tions of men to God, and of God again to men.” And in
his book de Somniis, he represents them as “the ears and
eyes of the great King, seeing and hearing all things, for,”
saith he, “they bring the commands of the Father to his
children, and the needs of the children to the Father : not
that God needs their ministry, but that it is very needful and
beneficial for us frail men to have such mediators, as being
unable, not only to receive God’s chastisements, but even his
very benefits, should he immediately confer them on us by
himself.” If Cerinthus had imbibed this philosophy, which
had then obtained among the Jews, and was so well known
in the world, that one so much instructed in it, as Theodoret
saith he was, could not well be ignorant of it, here is a suffi-
cient foundation for his introducing the worship of those an-
gels which gave the law, under pretence of humility; Philot
declaring, that when the law was first given, “the people de-
sired it might be so, and requested of God these mediators;
saying, Speak thou to us, and let not God speak to us, lest
we die.”
*"A wº, #&axey Bºgartówy, Intruding into those things he
hath not seen.] So read all the Greek and Latin copies now
extant; Esthius. Now this did the philosophers, and those
Christians which embraced their sentiments, in all their in-
ducements to worship these angels and inferior spirits; as,
W. g.
First, In their pretence thatš “the divine mature could
not immediately be conversed with, but that all the inter-
course betwixt God and men was by the intermediation of
these demons; it being a debasing of the divine nature, to
think we could converse with him without their interven-
tion.”
Secondly, In saying that they were to be worshipped,
xáply rā; sūqºzov Starogeiaç, “for their laudable intercession;
and, 31& rā; eiseyeziaç, for the benefits of common life we re-
ceive from them.”
Thirdly, As having from the supreme Deity their power
and authority, and presiding over us, Kará rà%ty i kacroc
itáx$n, “according to the order appointed to them ;” and
being therefore worshipped, Seio vépző kai Seig. 8ov»he et, “by
the divine law and counsel ;” and only, saith Celsus, as he
will have them to be honoured (Plato in Phaedro, p. 264.
Celsus apud Orig.
lib. viii. p. 381). -
Fourthly, Because, by worshipping these ministers of
his, we do a thing, piaoy #xeivy, “grateful to him,” saith
Celsus.'ſ Now in all these things they did manifestly #28a–
reſſelv, “intrude into things” of which they neither had,
nor could have, any knowledge from the light of nature.
And so do also the Romanists, in saying that Saints and an-
gels see all things, or perceive our prayers, by seeing him who
seeth all things; that they are worshipped by the divine law
and counsel; and that by invoking them we do a thing
grateful to him : it being certain that nothing of this na-
ture can be proved from scripture, or from primitive tradition.
Moreover, Theodoret and CEcumenius here observe, that
this worship of angels continued long in Pisidia, Phrygia,
and Laodicea, near to Colosse, where they had” sixtágia rot.
* P. 222, F.
+ Kai yºg ºrd; roi; ºratº; #mixexeſo'et, roſ; $4%zoic, Mai ºrd,
røy in yºvoy Xgsia; tā ratpi Stayyáx\ovci, p. 455,456.
f oğ A48oyre; ivyolay #8shºp, #y Troré rivo: röy ºrwy Aéyovreć,
Máxngov #4%, kai º Aaasiro ºrgö; hºw&c & ©eñº, twº dºrcóávowev.
Ibid. -
§ Töv Osby airy watapuyvö, äv$gotriyai, Xpeia; of ºeſºeral ric
a spawórnºroº, ow8å rmgái Tô &£ioga adrö tä; 3perfic. Plutarch. de
Orac. Defect. p. 414. Oi 3atgåvow yázog ºwn &roxeirayre;
&yertºix-ra tº rāv Šećv wai &y68%troy rotata i, xał & avváxxaata.
rºw £ºnysurizhy &; TIAéroy #Aeyev, Kai Biaxovikāv čvaſgövre; pºw-
P. 416, E. f -
| Euseb. Praep. Evang, lib. v. cap. 3, p. 128, D
* Ibid. p. 381, 382.
** (Ecum. apud. Høschel. Not, in Orig. p. 233.
CHAPTER II.
89
19 And (so),” not holding the head (Christ), from
which all the body *by joints and bands having
nourishment ministered, and (being) knit together,
increaseth with the increase of God.
20 Wherefore if ye (by your profession) be dead
with Christ from the * rudiments of the world (which
he hath nailed to his cross, and took out of the way,
ver. 4) why, as though living (yet) in (conformity to)
the world,” are ye subject to (the) ordinances (and
decrees of men P
21 Such as these are,) * Touch not (what is offered
to an idol ; or, touch not a woman, 1 Cor. vii. 1),
* taste not (forbidden meats), * handle not (an unclear,
thing), -
22 *Which all are to perish with the using (or
tend to corruption by the using or abusing them), after
the doctrines and commandments of men.
23 Which (are),” things that have indeed a show
of wisdom in will-worship, and humility (ver. 8), and
neglecting the body (ver 21); (and) not in (giving y
any honour (to it) to the satisfying of the flesh.
âylov Mixxâx, “oratories of St. Michael, the captain of the
Lord's host,” as he is called, Josh. v. 14; which leads us
to the very rise of this worship, both among Jews and
Christians. For the Jews generally held, that he who is
styled “the captain of the Lord's host,” was the angel Mi-
chael (see note on Heb. ii. 5). And his office, saith Origen,”
is, mortalium preces, supplicationesque curare, “to present
the prayers of men;” and in the book of the Pastor we read,
saith he, that Christians, #4, a rö ºria rečew tºr: roi Mixaºx yi-
vovirat, “as soon as they believe, are under the government
of Michael.”—“The good messenger,” saith Hermas,” “be-
ing Michael, qui populi hujus habet potestatem, et gubernat
eos, who hath the government over his people.” Whence by
Nicephorus,t he is styled, 3 rā; Xºlottayëy triareoc pogog,
“the president or overseer of the Christian faith.”
” Wer. 19. Kai ou Kgarðy rºy ºpaxiv, And not holding the
head.] Hence it appeareth, First, That the apostle here
speaks, of such persons as had embraced Christianity, own-
ing Christ Jesus to be the head of the church, and being by
profession “dead with Christ from the rudiments of the
world,” ver. 20. . .
Secondly, That the fault they were guilty of, was not the
worshipping angels, as mediators of redemption, but of inter-
cession only; i.e. as mediators to bring us to God, and to pre-
sent our prayers to him, as appears from the foregoing note.
Thirdly, That Jesus Christ is represented in the holy
scripture as he by whom we have, rºoraywyāy ºrgö; rêy Gºv,
“access to God” in prayer with confidence (Eph. ii. 18. iii.
12. Heb. x, 19–22); and so having access to him.by prayer,
through any other mediator of intercession, must be intrench-
ing on the office of the head of the church, and so not hold-
ing the head: and that the practice of the church of Rome
in praying to angels is here condemned, I have fully proved.
in a discourse of the idolatry of the church of Rome, ch. xi.
* 'Emixoenyoſºvoy, By joints and bands having mourish-
ment ministered.] i. e. From which head communicating the
gifts of the Spirit to his mystical, as the head doth its spi-
rits to the natural body, the whole body of Christians (duly
compacted together, by the assistance which every part of it
gives to the whole; some sustaining the office of inferior
heads, some of an eye, some of a hand or foot, 1 Cor. xii.
15–17), increaseth in that love which proceedeth from the
God of love, which he requires and approves, and which
tends to his glory, and is therefore styled “the increase of
God;” as that righteousness which he approves, and accepts
of, is styled “the righteousness of God,” Rom. i. 17. 2
Cor. v. 21. Phil. iii. 9. Jam. i. 20 (see the note on Eph. iv.
15, 16).
19 %. 20. 'Atrö täy a roixstow roi, 2.Éagov, From the rudi-
ments of the world..] That these rudiments signify the Mo-
saical institutions, as being, for matter, mostly the same with
the rites used by the heathens, is proved by the note on Gal.
iv. 3. And this is also evident from the argument here used
to restrain the Colossians from being still in bondage to them,
viz. that they are blotted out, cancelled, and done away by
the death of Christ, to which we profess to be conformed
(ver. 14). To “live in the world,” is to live after the pre-
scripts of the men of the world, by whom these rites were
used.
* Aoyºcarićea:0s; Are ye subject to ordinances 21 Aoygati-
Čecóat is to make rules and constitutions concerning these
things. . Thus of the feast of dedication of the temple purged
from defilement, #80ypºrta'aw &Erč, Kolyai Trgoatáyºatoº, “they
ordained by a common statute and decree, that every year
those days should be kept” (2 Macc. x. 8). So when Judas
had slain Nicanor, #80)/(xãriaray Trávre; ºzer. Koivot; Jinqiaºza-
roc, “they ordained all with a common decree, in no case to
let that day pass without solemnity” (xv. 36, see Esth. iii. 9.
3 Esdr. vi. 34). And so that may be rendered here, “Why,
as living yet in conformity to the world, are ye subject to the
decrees and constitutions about them P’” Such as are,
* Ver. 21. Mā 4-lº, Touch not..] This may refer either to
what is mentioned by Paul, as the aphorism of some philo-
sophers or heretics, “It is good for a man, º żºrrêa Sat, not
to touch a woman :” or it may be referred to things Suffo-
cated, or dead of themselves, or offered to idols ; which, as
Clemens of Alexandria saith,” the Jews were not allowed to
touch. . . .
* Mn33 yeſan, Taste not..] This, doubtless, refers to meats
and drinks, either flesh and wine, which some of the philo-
sophers, particularly the Pythagoreans, would not taste of
And some false apostles, inentioned by the Apostolical Con-
stitutions,’ forbade marriage, and “required men to abstain
from flesh and wine ; representing marriage, and the pro-
creation of children, and the eating of flesh, as things abomi.
luable.” - - -
* Mn3: Siynç, Handle not] Any thing which may pollute
you by touching it, or being offered to idols.
* Ver. 22. “A ic-ri ºrávra sic p3ogăy rā āºroxphael, All
which things perish in the wsing.] The word p3%ga is used
often by Peter speaking of such men, not for a natural, but
a moral corruption, as when he saith, they were partakers
of the divine mature, “who have escaped tây p$oëy, the
pollution which is in the world through lust,” 2 Pet. i. 4,
and that “they, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken
and destroyed, speak evil of the things they understand not,
and shall perish, #y tº p306% airów, in their own corruption,”
2 Pet. ii. 12, and ver. 19, “Whilst they promise them liberty,
they themselves are the servants, rā; p$ofäç, of corruption.”
And so the meaning of these words may be, That when
these things are observed in compliance with the commands
and doctrines of men, as things necessary, they corrupt men
who use them thus. But I prefer the other sense, which
saith, that these meats perish in the using, according to that
aphorism of the civil law, “We use those things which re-
main after the use of them ;” his verö abutimur, quae nobis
utentibus pereunt. -
25 Wer. 23. “Arivá čari Aéyov wiy Éxovira rā; copia;, Which
things have a show of wisdom.] These words plainly refer
to the former verses ; #687,066 marksia, “will-worship,” to the
Séxoy #y Spnazeig. rāy 37%aoy, “pleasing themselves in the
worshipping of angels;” and so it must be as bad as that ;
the “show of humility,” to the doing this from a pretence of
humility, ver, 18, the “neglecting of the body, and making
no provisions for it, to the satisfying of the flesh,” to the ab-
stinence from flesh, wine, and women, and from things of
fered to idols.
It remains only to consider who were the persons here in-
tended. That they were not the Gnostics, or followers of
Simon Magus, is evident : “For they,” saith Irenasus, Š
* *ny yáp Bºxsy %irreg Sai, ºráxiv xenºvks toūrwy rà. 8vnal-
peaſa, rātā sièaxóvra, rātā ārom envyºva, où Y&E roštov
Jaſey Sékºtº. Paedag. lib. ii. cap. 1, p. 149.
+ Kai of ºy airøy 3, agia, 3134akova'i, Kai Kºsºv &rºxv, xat
oivov, 88s avºri, Aéyovre; sivai, Kai Traibov yÉvsaw, wai Cºop.4tay
&EráAnsſ w. Const. Apol. lib. vi., cap. 10.
: Cicero, Top. c. 8. Pandect, lib, vii. tit. 5.
* Inspi 'Aéxãy, lib. i. cap. 8, in Matt. ed. Huet. p. 361, D.
+ Lib, iii. sim, 8, §. 3. : Hist. lib. vii, cap. 50. .
av * * r - º w * • A
§ Taï', rig a'apko; hôoyaſ; katc.2332; $ovXEdova's;, xa: X49&t
790
COLOSSIANS.
“were men who indulged to the flesh, and who privily cor.
rupted the women whom they taught; they were carefully
to meditate upon the mystery of wedlock, and upon that ac-
count enticed other men's wives to themselves.” And Epi-
phanius adds, * that “they participated of all manner of
flesh : that they indulged to drunkenness and venery, execrat-
ing them who were used to fastings.” They therefore could
not be the men who neglected the body, by abstaining from
meats, and made no provision for the flesh. They therefore
Seem to me to have been partly the Essenes, and partly the
Pythagorean philosophers. For, -
First, Of the Essenes, Josephus saith, that obti yager&;
sia'éyoyºtai, &c. ºf “they neither would have wives nor ser-
wants:” as thinking servitude an injury to our common na-
ture, or tending to injustice; and marriage, to sedition. And
again, yáºzov (wèv, Ütro-lia trap' aircís, t “They contemn mar-
riage, not because they would have marriage taken away, or
the succession of mankind to cease; but to avoid the in-
temperance of women, and because they think none of them
can keep their faith to one.” Philo says, $ “They have wo-
men with them, but they are only such as are ynpalai, old
Women, or, rapëvoi rºy &yveſay, virgins as to their chastity,
not out of necessity, but, 32 &#xoy was ºréSoy copiaç, from their
Zeal to, and desire of, wisdom.” He adds, a trojvrat 3Å moxv-
tºxic ou?iv, &AN& #grow streaſ; Kal & low &xi;, &c. || “They eat
nothing that is delicate, having only mean bread, and salt
for their meat; and if they be delicate, hyssop for their
sauce, and river-water for their drink. They use no wine
in their feasts, oivo, ºfty yag &#porávnº párezakov, for wine (say
they) is the incentive to madness.” He goes on, rpártº,
*ašapà Tây ivaitaay, “Their table is pure from all things that
have blood in them, or from the flesh of living creatures; for
such things (say they) irritate concupiscence.” And of this
abstinence from certain meats they are so tenacious, saith
Josephus,” that “they will rather endure all sorts of tor-
ments, # $4×oat ri rāy &avyāşov, than eat anything they
were not accustomed to eat.” Moreover, there were some
things they must not touch, as oil; ++ “for anxi}a twoxap,84-
wavºw tº fixatov, they look on oil as a defilement; so that if
any of them be unwillingly anointed with it, he must wash
it off from his body. The younger amongst them must not
touch the elders, if &rts si Jato say airów Łºsivov; &moxoſsa Sai,
*ašázsé &xxopów autºpičovraz, and if they touched them,
the elders washed themselves as if they had touched an alien.”
They were such strict observers of the sabbath, that they
would provide no meat for themselves, nor go to stool on
Tāº ?: 3aakopºva; it' airãy yuvaixa; 8tapósitoyºs. Iren. lib.i.
cap, 1, p. 28, A. At& Traytº: rpárov 8sſy abroń, &ei ră ră, a v-
Yuyaº ºrāy waráploy. Ibid. Taira; &m'āyºga, àrográcay-
tec tºia; Yakastë, hyhoray'ro. Ibid.
* Kai Trávröy getaxa.ºggyoval ºps&y
Aášovreć, Kai karagöyrs; ºr:y yna Ts'orra.
$. 4, 5, 9. *
ºf Antiq, lib. xviii. cap. 2, p. 618, A, B.
# De Bell. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 12, p. 785.
§ De Vità Contemp. p. 695, F.
| P. 692, B. “I P. 696, D.
** De. Bell. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 12, p. 787, F.
++ P. 785, C. ºf P. 77
xai Taf, ºftbat; ºxo-
Epiph. Haer. xxvi.
that day.
They had also * rā rāv dyyáAwy Śrópeara, “cer-
tain names of angels which they held in veneration;” and
also proper Sāyaara, “opinions or decrees, which they swore
never to deliver to others, otherwise than as they had re-
ceived them.” And thus they dogmatized. And, lastly, all
this was the effect rā; arsei pºoroºpia; jewº, “ of their passion
for philosophy,” of which Philo + so often speaks in his de-
scription of them. So great reason is there to conceive they
may be concerned in this chapter.
Secondly, These things being introduced as the rudiments
of the world, and living according to these 34ppaara, “pre-
scriptions,” being living as in the world, I chiefly incline to
refer these things to the abstinence from touching and tasting
flesh and wine, and handling women, and from all the objects
which gratify the senses, the taste, the eye, the touch, taught
by the followers of Pythagoras and Empedocles; and de-
fended with such variety of learning by Porphyry, the very
title of whose book is, De Abstinentiá ab Esſi Animalium,
“Of abstinence from eating the flesh of any living creature.”
This he founds upon this principle, that ré Öy war& roy voiv,;
“to live the intellectual life, and to enjoy the contemplation
of the most perfect Being, it is necessary we should abstract
our minds, as much as is possible, from all sensual objects;”
from the pleasures which arise, 31& yióa'sog, “from the taste,”
particularly of wine; and from the touch : for, saith he, & pai,
“the sensual objects which we touch are not only awkwarova’at
rºy Juxxy, such as transform the soul into the body, but also
such as stir up swarms of lusts and passions in it.” Hence
he infers, that all these things are, rà alo 3:33, “filthy and
polluting, and such as hinder rà, Juxic Ka8a;&y Évêºyelay, the
pure operations of the soul ;” therefore, he that would live
the intellectual life, must abstain § “not only from the use
of women, but from all sensual things, they being such as do
defile the soul.” Moreover, what the āpostle speaks of the
deceit of philosophy, exactly agrees with the sentiments of
those men. Doth he say, that it is war& rºy rapáðoa'iy dy986-
roy ; i. e. “according to the tradition of men P” this absti-
mence is styled by Porphyry, l yáo; &ypaqo, ka? 08:or, “a di-
vine, but unwritten law.” Doth he say of them, 80yºatićov-
rat, “They make decrees and ordinances?” this opinion is by
Porphyry'ſ styled 36),a raxaidy wai Beof; piaoy, “an ancient de-
cree, and acceptable to the gods;” and, rö 3.08%unyov, “a
constitution,” or a thing defined. Doth the apostle style it
#08woSenaksia, “will-worship P” it is also by Heraclides Pon-
ticus** styled 3sizièatºwowia, “superstition;” and said by Por-
phyry especially, to be done on the account of wisdom, and
the subduing of the body: so full an agreement is there be-
twixt this philosophy, and that which the apostle hath here
said concerning it. -
* P. 786, F, G,
+ De Wità Contemp. p. 695, F.698, D.
:: Oix #etty #xxwº ruxsſy roſ. rexelou º Trºoanxa Sávra wiy, et
Xph pāyat, tº Osó, &#8Aw88wra 3; #x o'cºaroº, xa, röy Bià roſto
rñº Juxā; #8vºraşsöy. Lib. i. Ş. 57.
§ Aiazgā y&g Trávra is; wbá; ya rºy rară votiv Čay, xai rāv-
‘roy #95&técy, Ka84 wie rêvãºpgoëlaiov. Lib. i. §. 41. Aid wa)
rā āqºobizia ºtalvºi, P. 173, 174, et lib. i. p. 44, Š. 52.
| Lib. i. Ş. 28. "I Lib. i. §. 3. ** Lib,i. Ş. 6.
CHAPTER III.
1 If ye then be risen with Christ (through faith,
ii. 12, and by newness of life, Rom. vi. 4, 5), "seek
those things which are above, where Christ (now
jº from the dead) sitteth on the right hand of
OC1.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III.
* Ver. 1, 2, Tă ăyo &nteſts, ver. 1, ºpověſts, ver. 2..] These
phrases seem to import (1.) that we should put the highest
estimate and value on things above. (2.) That we should
have them fixed on our spirits, and familiarly occurring to
our thoughts, by fervent meditations and serious reflections
on them. (3.) That we should have our wills inclined to
them, and our affections possessed with frequent love, and
2 Set your affection on things above, not on things
on the earth.
3 For ye are dead (to sin, Rom. vi. 6–8, and to the
world, Gal. vi. 14, and from the rudiments of it, ii. 20),
* and your (future) life is hid with Christ in God.
passionate desires of them ; for pºwffy is, saith Phavorinus,
Aoyićeo Sat, wał Byfluºsſa.0ai, a réºyev ka? &mośxaasai. (4.) That
we should employ our faculties and members in pursuit of
them with diligence and constancy; for £ntsiy is miti, curare,
summo studio quaerere, as ºntº "rotia at in Demosthenes,
&nrā, Āq saic Sai, nitor auferre, Plutarch, ºnrºy & Troxvirray-
fºoveſv, Schol. Aristoph. p. 289.
* Ver, 3. ‘H £º ºy iv tº 91..] i. e. Your true life,
CHAPTER III. 791
4 * When Christ, who is (the author and purchaser
of our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with
him in glory.
5 * Mortify therefore (in order to the enjoyment of
this life with God) your members that are upon the
earth (i.e. your earthly carnal members) ; fornication,
uncleanness, inordinate affection, "evil concupiscence,
and "covetousness, which is idolatry:
6 For which things' sake (done by them) the wrath
of God, cometh upon (men, as being) the children of
disobedience (or upon those who obey not the commands
of God, to abstain from them).
7 "In the which you (of Colosse) also walked some-
times, when ye lived in them.
which consists in fruition of God, and which you shall live
for ever with him, is hid with Christ, who is now removed
from your sight, and placed at the right hand of God ; for
“it doth not yet appear what we shall be,” 1 John iii. 2.
* Wer, 4.] Note, hence we learn that Christians are not
to expect to reign with Christ on earth a thousand years,
because they are not to mind or seek, rà étri yic, “the things
upon earth,” but only “those above, where Christ sitteth at
the right hand of God:” whereas, were this life on earth a
blessing and reward, which God had promised to them for
their sufferings, they might mind it, and set their affection
on it; as also from all those places where the hope, reward,
inheritance of Christians, is said to be reserved in the heavens
for them : for, as CEcumenius notes, si èy otgayoſ, h ºngovoaia
favºn; # 2:18tośrn; &moxarárragic, “if our inheritance be in
heaven, the supposed millennium on earth must be but a
fable.” “Great is your reward in heaven,” saith Christ to
the Christian sufferer, Matt. v. 12. Lukeix. 23, “Your hope
is laid up for you in heaven,” Col. i. 5 (see 1 Pet. i. 4).
* Ver. 5. Nexpºrate oëv, Mortify therefore your earthly
members.] There being in us naturally “the old man,” ver.
9. Eph. iv. 22, and “the body of sin ;” the inordinate affec-
tions and lustings of it are styled the members of that body ;
partly, because they exert themselves by the members of the
natural body; and partly, because, as the members of the
body are employed to fulfil and accoomplish the desires of
the natural body, so these affections are employed to gratify
the desires of the body of sin : these members are styled
“earthly members,” because they respect only earthly things,
they fix our hearts upon, and employ our minds about them ;
to mortify them is to resist and to suppress their motions,
that we do not obey them, or gratify them in their inordi-
nate desires and affections, but carefully shun all the occa-
sions of sin, and use those means which tend to the subduing
of it. And this exhortation being directed to believers,
shows that as they are, by profession and by baptismal obli-
gation, dead to sin, so have they continual need to proceed
in the practice of this duty, that they be not overcome by
the deceitfulness of sin, by their fleshly lusts, which tend to
fornication and uncleanness, their desires of worldly honours
and vain glory, which are evil concupiscences, and by the
inordinate love of the word, which is styled “covetousness.”
* 'Eriðvøia tax), Evil concupiscence.] If hence it follows
that all concupiscence is evil, then from 8taxoylapºoi waxoi,
mentioned Mark iii. 21, it follows, that all thoughts and
reasonings are evil: and from jºixiat waxai, mentioned l Cor.
xv. 33, it also follows, that all our conversation with one
another must be evil: so certain is it, that this place doth
not prove that all concupiscence is evil. And to be sure the
very first motions of concupiscence, which arise naturally in
the sensual appetite, and prevent our reason and deliberation,
cannot be here intended, because the apostle reckons this
concupiscence among those members of the body which
must be mortified, which the first motions of the body can
never be.
Secondly, Because he adds, that “because of these things
cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience:”
now these first motions, if suppressed, and not consented to
when they arise, can never render us “children of disobedi-
ence,” and much less subject to the wrath of God. And if
Satan hath the power to inject such motions, or raise such
ideas in the brain, if they be our sins, though not consented
to, it must be in his power to make us sin, whether we will
8 But now also put off all these (following vices :
viz.) anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy (i. e. evil-speak-
ing), “filthy communication (or reproachful words,
which arise from wrath), out of your mouth.
9 (And) "lie not one to another, seeing ye have put
º, the old man with his deeds (see note on Eph. iv.
22);
10 And have put on the new man, which is renewed
in "knowledge (or by the acknowledgment of the truth,
Eph. iv. 22), after the image of him that created him
(in righteousness and holiness of truth, Eph. iv. 24).
11 Where (or under which economy) there is neither
(respect had to any man, as being) Greek nor Jew, (of
the) circumcision nor uncircumcision, (as being) bar-
or no. From all which considerations, it seems necessary to
understand this of deliberate fleshly lustings indulged to, and
not restrained by us.
* "Hºri; a riv EiðoxoMargela, Covetousness, which is idolatry.]
Because, as heathens place their confidence in idols, even
so the avaricious man doth place his confidence in gold and
silver, which are the matter of their idols ; he chiefly doth
pursue them, and for their sakes only doth other matters.
And that such actions do partake of the true nature of idola-
try, reason as well as scripture will evince ; for reason shows
that love, hope, trust, obedience, are parts of that internal
worship which we owe to God in the most excellent degrees,
and which he more regards than building temples, or erect-
ing altars, the bending of the knee or body, or any act of
outward worship ; and therefore in those acts doth more
especially consist God's worship ; wherefore he that confers
them upon any creature in that degree, or in those actions
in which they only ought to be ascribed to God, must be as
truly an idolater, as he that payeth to a creature any out-
ward act of religious and divine worship ; and as the covet-
ous person, though he doth not indeed believe his ridhes or
his money to be a god, yet by so loving, and so trusting in
them, as God only ought to be loved and trusted in, he is as
truly guilty of idolatry as if he so believed. . So, though the
Roman catholics do not believe their saints and angels
to be God, yet by addressing to them even montal prayers,”
and giving them the inward worship of the soul, which, as
Austin F well observes, “the catholic church always reserved
to God,” they are as guilty of idolatry, as if they did believe
them to be gods, since thereby they ascribe to them the
knowledge of the heart, and of the inward motions of the
soul, which only do belong to God.
7 Ver, 7.] The Colossians dwelling in Phrygia celebrated
the sacra of Bacchus, and of the mother of the gods, called
therefore Phrygia Mater, and doubtless complied with all
the luxury of Asia Minor, of which they were a part.
8 Ver. 8. Atax80xoyiav, Filthy communication.] This is
usually referred to obscene and impure words; but Hesy-
chius, Phavorinus, and J. Pollux, lib. ii, cap, 4, have in-
formed us, that the word signifies “reproachful words,” such
as tend to put a man to shame; and to this sense the words
preceding make it most proper to refer it, “wrath, anger,
malice,” or evil machinations of the heart, being the inward
dispositions which render us disaffected to, and prone to do
evil to others; railing and opprobrious speeches, which tend
to render our brother infamous to others, being the usual
effects of these evil dispositions. &
9 Ver. 9. J Hence it appears, that to be addicted to lying
is an evidence that we have not yet put off the old man.
10 Wer. 10. Ei, wriywoºty, In knowledge] . The Christian
faith being “the knowledge of the truth which is after godli-
ness,” Tit. i. 1, it being that by which “we escape the pol-
lutions of the world through lust,” 2 Pet. ii. 20, and “recover
* Qui dicit stultum esse (sanctis) in coelo regnantibus
voce vel mente supplicare, Anathema sit. Concil. Trid.
sess. 25.
+ Diviné et singularitër in ecclesia catholica traditur, nul-
lam creaturam colendam esse animae (libentitis enim loquor
his verbis, quibus hæc mihi insinuata Sunt) sed insum tail-
tummodó rerum, quae sunt omnium, creatorem. De Quantit-
Anima, cap. 34.
# Strabo, lib, x, p. 469—47 l.
792
COLOSSIANS.
barian, Scythian, bond nor free: but (his belonging
to) Christ is all, and in all.
12 Put on therefore, as (becometh new creatures,
and) * the elect of God (or persons chosen to be his
church and people), holy and beloved (of him), bowels
of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness,
long-suffering; -
13 Forbearing one another, and forgiving one an-
other, if any man have (ground of) quarrel against
any; even as Christ (freely) forgave you (the greatest
sins out of mere grace and mercy), so also do ye (to
others).
14 And above all these things put on charity, which
is the bond of perfectness, (i. e. the most perfect bond
of union among Christians, Eph. iv. 15, 16, the end,
and the perfection of the commandments, 1 Tim. i. 5,
that which fulfils the rest, Rom. xiii. 8. Gal. v. 14,
and that which renders us perfect, and unblameable in
holiness before God, 1 Thess. ii. 12, 13).
15 And let the peace of God rule (or be the um-
pire) in your hearts, to which you are called in one
out of the snare of Satan,” 2 Tim. ii. 25, 26 ; that by which
we have “all things given us which appertain to life and
godliness,” 2 Pet. i. 3, and that, saith the apostle here, by
which we are enabled to “walk worthy of the Lord unto
all wellpleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and in-
creasing in them,” as we increase, eiç triyyazıy roš Osov, “ in
the knowledge of God:” the being “renewed in this know-
ledge,” may well import our being “renewed in righteousness
and true holiness,” as the apostle speaks, Eph. iv. 24; espe-
cially if we consider, that whilst the judgment still continues
to “approve the things which are most excellent,” the will
still chooses, and the inferior faculties will be employed in
prosecution of them.
* Ver. 12. ‘s); #xxexºrci rod Oscº, As the elect of God.]
That the apostle speaks not here of any absolute election
of some particular persons to eternal life, but of their being
chosen out of the heathen world to be his church and peo-
ple, is evident, because he speaks to the church in general ;
and yet to these elect he promiseth the blessings of Chris-
tianity, only if they “continue in the faith rooted and
grounded, and be not moved away from the hope of the
gospel,” i. 23. ii. 2.4. 18, expressing his care and fear, lest
they should “be deceived, and robbed of their rewards.”
* Ver. 15. Bgagevira, Rule.] Meatrevéra, Svyāa 60, saith
Phavorinus; i. e. Let that peaceable disposition which God
requires from all Christians be the umpire and director to
compose all differences among you, for peace hath God for
its author. He hath called us to it, he hath made us all one
body, and nothing is more unseemly or pernicious, than
that the members should be at discord with each other. In
Josephus" it signifies, “Let him have the chief place :” thus
of Jehoshaphat he saith, he did 8pağsſely, #mazi icos, “excel,
as being equal to them all.”
* Ver. 16. ‘o Aáyo; roi, Kata-row, The word of Christ.] The
word dictated by the Holy Spirit is therefore the word of
Christ (1 Pet. i. 11), as proceeding both from the Father and
the Son. .
* "Ey Xàetti, Singing with grace.] That is, say some in-
terpreters, Xapiévrwg, Inn, so as that their hymns may be
grateful to others, and be received by them with spiritual
delight ; which is, say they, the import of the phrase, Eph.
iv. 29. Col. iv. 6, but this seems rather to depend on others
than ourselves. Say others, he exhorts them to sing with
a grateful mind, full of the sense of divine goodness, in
which sense x&gt; rô Qeº is often used (see l Cor. xv. 27,
2 Cor. ii. 14): but according to the ancients,’t he exhorts
them, &rd Xagiarº aro; #38w “to sing by the gifts given them
by the Holy Ghost,” of which one is the word of wisdom ;
aud this exposition is confirmed by the parallel place, Eph.
v. 18, 19, “Be ye filled with the Spirit, speaking to one
* Arch. lib. ix. cap. l.
& * g º *
+ Kai tº QE3 23 wai wargi Etxagteriay 3i' airrot &vaorépºrew,
* * •
Tö 3' vio; Tºpogáyezóz wºrö
|
g; 31& Tây &yyáxcy. Theod.
3,923 trov;, xvi Kö, ä, äyyä2.2°, CEcuin.
body, (by being all made members of one body, Eph. iv.
4), * and be ye thankful (unto him that hath called
gyou to peace, 1 Cor. vii. 15). •
16 °Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in
all wisdom, (so that you may be employed in your as-
semblies, by virtue of this gift of wisdom, in) teaching
and admonishing one another in psalms, and hymns,
and spiritual songs, * singing with grace in your
hearts to the Lord.
17 And whatsoever you do in word or deed, do all
in * the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to
God and (or, who is) * the Father by him.
18 Wives, submit yourselves (or be subject) to your
own husbands (in the offices belonging to that relation),
as it is fit (for them to do that are) in the Lord (that
the name of the Lord may not be blasphemed, by your
pretending a Christian liberty from the observances of
the duty of a wife, Tit. ii. 5, but that, by your greater
exactness in it, you may commend Christianity to others,
1 Pet. iii. 5, or, in obedience to the Lord, requiring this
submission, Eph. vi. 6).
another in psalms aud hymns and spiritual songs.” Now
these gifts being chiefly exercised in their assemblies, where
especially they did späxxely rāj IIvačgart, “sing in the Spirit,”
1 Cor. xiv. 15, 16, and every one had his psalm, and his
313 axi, “doctrine,” ver. 26, I conceive these spiritual songs,
in which they were to teach and to admonish one another,
may refer chiefly to their assemblies, then managed by their
prophets, in which they met together for that end. So Pliny
doth inform us, that the Christians used to meet together
on a certain day, carmengue, Christo quasi Deo dicere se-
cum invicem, “and sing a hymn to Christ as God,” lib. x.
ep. 97. -
15 Ver. 17. 'ey véuari Espíov, In the name of the Lord.]
To do all in the name of the Lord, is, First, To have respect
in all things to his will, as knowing we are obliged to live to
him (2 Cor. v. 14), to the honour of his name and doctrine.
Secondly, To be desirous that our actions may be well-
pleasing to him (2 Cor. v. 8, 9). Thirdly, To expect accept-
ance of our actions, prayers (John xiv. 13–16), and
praises, through him (Heb. xiii. 15), and a recompence of
them hereafter (Eph. vi. 8, here, ver. 25). And, saith Chry-
sostom,” #mri wavroy ºrgårspoy airó; sixág, Evoc, ‘‘Praying to him
before we begin our work.” -
16 marpi & aircü, To the Father by him.] “It is the man-
ner of the scriptures,” saith Bishop Davenant, “to refer our
prayers and praises to the person of the Father, because he
is the fountain of the Deity ;” add, and because they are to
| find acceptance through the intercession of, and the present-
ing of them by, the Son (Rev. viii. 3, 4). Our prayers must
be offered to the Father in his name (John xvi. 23), and
yet the blessing asked is to be given by him (John
xv. 16); that the Father may be glorified in the Son
(John xiv. 13, 14). Our praises must be offered up to the
Father in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ (Eph. v. 20),
by him we must “offer the sacrifice of praise to God con-
tinually” (Heb. xiii. 15), these spiritual sacrifices being
“acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. ii. 4).
And yet it is very frequent in these epistles to pray as well
to our Lord Jesus Christ as to God the Father (see note on
Rom. x. 13); and in the Revelation, to give praise and
glory to him (iv. 9. 11. v. 12, 13): but it is especially to be
noted, that all the Greek interpreters here observe, that this
is spoken against the worship of angels or demons, which
the philosophers, and especially the Platonists, had intro-
; duced, as thinking them the persons who carried up all our
prayers and praises to God, and conveyed down all his
blessings to us. -
Do all, Év Šváºzari Kupiov, in the name of the Lord.] It is
well worth the observation, that all the ancient commenta-
tors on this epistle do frequently inform us, that it was writ-
| ten to “prevent the worship of angels,” and to fix Christians
to the worship of Jesus Christ only. Hilary’s preface to
!
!
|
|
* In Col. hom. ix.
CHAPTER III.
'793
19 Husbands, "love your wives, and be not *bit-
, ter against them (in the asperity of words, or the se-
verity of your actions, to the alienation of your affec-
tions from them.)
20 Children, obey your parents in all (lawful)
things: for this is well pleasing to the Lord (and in
all things to which the power of the parent reaches :
for if he commands him not to marry, when he cannot
contain, or to marry one he cannot love, he eaceeds his
paternal authority).
21 Fathers (whose names speak clemency and kind-
wess), provoke not your children to anger (irritate
them not with sourness and hard usage, immoderate or
wndeserved stripes), lest they be discouraged (i. e. de-
spair of pleasing you).
22 * Servants, obey in all (lawful) things (those
who are) your masters according to the flesh; not
only (as those who do business) with eye-service, as
(being) men-pleasers; but in singleness of heart, (as
persons) fearing God (see the reason of this precept,
mote on ver. 25).
23 And whatsoever you do, do it heartily, as unto
the Lord, and not unto men, (having respect to his
glory and his recompence. See the notes on Eph. vi.
from ver. 1 to ver, 9.)
24 * Knowing that of the Lord you shall receive
the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord
Christ.
25 But he (of you) that doeth wrong (to his mas-
ter) shall receive (of the Lord punishment) for the
wrong which he hath done : and (kai, for) there is no
* respect of persons with him.
this epistle saith, it is an exhortation to the Colossians, ne
alicui praeter Christum aliquam esse spen) putarent, “to
place no hope in any other but in Christ.” Chrysostom notes
on the first verse of the first chapter, that the disease of the
Colossians being this, that 31' 3), šxov ºrpoo &yeaša Čovro rô
Osº, “they thought they were to come to God by angels,”
the apostle endeavours to correct this distemper, by telling
them that what he said in this epistle to them was according
to the will of God: and CEcumenius brings in the apostle
speaking thus ; “Know, therefore, that it is according to the
will of God: ind violi tºwā; Trgoa dye-Sai, that you should
come to him by his Son ;” and then, Tràg &’ &yyśxov trgoora-
ywyńy Elyai Ümeixhqars; “How is it that you think you should
come to him by angels?” And again, “This is the will of
the Father, 3; vioſ ºrporáyearðat airs row; 3v32&trov;, xa, º,
Br’ &yyáAwy, that men should have access to him by the Son,
and not by angels.” The same words he repeats on ver.
16, and on ii. 3. Chrysostom notes, that by saying that
“ all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid in
him,” he teaches Trávra. 3,' airoi; aireſy, “to ask all things
by Christ:” CEcumenius, that “the mystery of the Father
and the Son is this, rà rºw ºrgoorayayāy, rāy ºrgör räy raréga 31&
toū viot, yūsa Sat, zai of 31& rāy &yíoy &yyáAov, that the intro-
duction to the Father should be by the Son, and not by the
holy angels.” Theodoret upon this verse saith thus, irst3%
y&p #xeſºot roë; 37-yéxcv; a #88w #zéasvoy, airó; rā āyavario,
Traceyyvá šare zai tow; Aáyou; kai Tà #ya woºgical rà avnºj
ºrcü Asamrérov Xpia toû, xzi tº QE3 83 was traºrpi rºy sixa-
etariay 3' aircü &varégºirely, “Because they (who perverted
the Colossians) persuaded them to worship angels, he enjoins
the contrary, that they should adorn their words and deeds
with the commemoration of the Lord Christ, and send up
thanksgiving to God the Father by him, tº 3’ &yyáAay, and
not by angels.”
commands us to do all things according to God, ºwn row;
&yyáňov; insiaayayêſy, and not to introduce the angels,” adds
that “the devil, envying our honour, rà Tây &yyáxov inet-
&#yaye, hath introduced the worship of angels ;” and con-
cludes thus, “Be he an angel, an archangel, or a cherubim,
endure it not, Trei oběš airoi of Saigoye; wara&#oviral, &xx&
xai &mocrgia ovras, for neither will they receive but reject it
when they see their Lord dishonoured ; #y& as āripuna'a ka?
firov, #x} x&xel, Kai ai &tipzáćet; airy, I have honoured thee,
and said, Call upon me, and thou dishonourest me.”
*7 Ver. 19. `Ayaträts, Love your wives.] Delighting in
their conversation (Prov, v. 18, 19), desiring to promote
their welfare both temporal and eternal ; for this is surely
comprehended in loving her as we do ourselves (Eph. v.
33), providing for her all things necessary to the happiness
and comfort of her life; for this is loving her as Christ did
love his church (ver. 25). This, say the very heathens, is
the property of a *sincere affection in the general, and there-
* Tô pºsſy #ari 800xec-Sai rive 3 of rat āyaB& #xeſvov #v=xa,
&NA3 tº aircü, wał rà war& 8&vauly 7paxtºv Bival rońroy.
Arist. Rhetor. lib. ii. cap. 8.
Chrysostom here having said that “he
fore much more of that affection which we are to bear to our
own flesh and body, as the wife is to be esteemed (Eph. v.
28, 29). -
18 º ** Trixgaived SE ºrgög abrèc, And be not bitter against
them.] For, as Ambrose saith, Non es dominus, ..sed mari-
tus ; non ancillam sortitus es, sed uxorem ; gubernatorem
voluit te esse Deus sexãs inferioris, non tyrannum, Hexam.
v. 7. Hence they who sacrificed to Juno Nuptialis, saith
Plutarch,” “did separate the gall from the sacrifice, and
throw it away, signifying, ºr ºwn&#"rors 357, X6×my ºwnčá čeyºv
yáºzº Trapsiyat, that there should be no bitterness or wrath
betwixt those that were married.”
* Wer. 22. Servants, obey, &c.] In omnibus ad quae jus
domini quod in servum habet, extenditur, et in quibus do-
minus carnis Domino spiritàs contrarius non est. Hieron.
Kará ºrávra, and warā cagºa, iv. 2, #y ºxaptatiº, wer. 3,
rot Aéyou, wer. 10, 6 cºvyatype&Noré, wov, are all defended
from the censure of Dr. Mills, that they are additions to the
text ; see Examen Millii.
* Ver. 24.] Note, “We are,” saith Schlictingius, a Soci-
nian, “to serve Christ as our heavenly Lord, which,” saith
he,” “comprehends faith in him, obedience in him, and wor-
ship and adoration of him, the giving him the honour which
agrees to him, and invocation of him.” Now, saith Christ,
“Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt
thou serve,” Matt. iv. 10, and God alone is worthy of reli-
gious invocation from all Christians, as being only omni-
scient, omnipresent, and the searcher of all hearts; Christ
therefore must be truly God. Moreover, the apostle reckons
it part of the idolatry of the heathens that they served or
paid religious worship “to them which by nature were no
gods,” Gal. iv. 8. The Socinians therefore either must con-
fess Christ is by nature, as well as by office, God ; or else
acknowledge that they are guilty of idolatry, in giving this
religious worship to him. -
* Ver. 25. IIgororokmºbia, Respect of persons.] Christ, in
judging men at the last day, will have no respect to the
quality or external condition of any man's person ; but whe-
ther he be bond or free, he shall receive recompence “for
the good that he hath done” in obedience to him ; whether
he be master or servant, he shall be punished “for the wrong
that he doth” in those relations. It being certain from the
second chapter, that the Judaizers were got into the church
of Colosse ; and that many of them denied that the
Jews ought to be servants to any ; and the Essenes
judging all servitude unlawful (see note on 1 Pet. ii. 15.
1 Tim. vi. 1, 2), this might be the reason why here, and
Titus ii., the apostle is so large in charging this duty upon
Servants.
* Praecepta Conjugalia, p. 141.
+ Quod servitium et fidem in ipsum, et obedientiam, et
cultum, adorationem, honorem ei convenientom, et invoca-
tionem complectitur.
794,
CHAPTER IV.
1 MASTERs, give unto your servants that which is
"just and equal; knowing that you also have a Mas-
ter in heaven (who, with what measure you mete to
5thers, will mete to you again, Matt. vii. 2, and deal
with you his servants, as you deal with yours).
2 Continue (instant) in prayer, and watch in
the same (ypnyopoãvrsc, being vigilant in it) with
thanksgiving (for the mercies you have already re-
ceived);
3 Withal *praying also for us, that God would
open to us a door of utterance, (by enabling us) to
speak (with freedom) the mystery of Christ, for which
I º also (now) in bonds (see note on Eph. vi. 19,
2O).
4 That I may make it manifest, as I ought to
speak (it).
5 Walk, in wisdom (or discretion) towards them
that are without (the church, i. e. the heathens, 1
Thess. iv. 12), redeeming the time, (i. e. endeavouring
to avoid, as much as you are able, by careful circum-
spection and inoffensive carriage, the dangers you may
be earposed to from them. See the note on Eph. v. 15.)
6 Let your speech be always "with grace (mild and
courteous), seasoned with salt (wise and discreet), that
ye may know how ye ought to answer every man, (so
as conduceth to the credit of Christianity, 1 Pet. iii.
15, and to your own safety in these evil times, Eph. v.
16, 17.
7 And as for what concerns me,) all my state shall
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV.
1 Ver. 1. To 3ixatov, What is just and equal.] Hence it is
evident, that justice is to be observed towards servants, and
that there be offices of humanity and charity due to them :
as, (1.) that we do not look upon them as vile persons, but
as partakers of the same grace and nature with us, and so
not only servants, but as brethren, Philem. 16. (2.) That
we do not always punish all their miscarriages, but sometimes
do remit the punishments which in anger we threatened to
inflict, Eph. vi. 9. (3.) That we do not make them serve
with rigour; oi kararévéſ; airey #y tº ºxsw, “Thou shalt
not oppress, afflict, or wear him out with labour, but shalt
fear the Lord,” Lev. xxv. 43. (4.) That we permit them to
plead their cause, and to defend their right; provided they
do it with humility, not contradicting or speaking against the
commands of their masters, Tit. ii. 9. “If I did despise the
cause of my man-servant, or maid-servant, when they con-
tended with me; what then shall I do when God riseth up 2
and when he visiteth, what shall I answer him P” Job xxxi.
13, 14. (5.) That to well-deserving servants we give some-
thing even above their wages; and after a long and profit-
able service, we do not suffer them to go empty from us:
“When thou sendest him out from thee, thou shalt not let
him go away empty; thou shalt furnish him liberally out of
thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy wine-press ;
of that wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed thee, thou
shalt give unto him,” Deut. xv. 13, 14. These things the
Lord commanded under the Old Testament, because their
servants were his servants also, redeemed by him out of
Egypt (Lev. xxv. 15. Deut. xv. 15); and therefore they
seem as strongly to oblige under that economy where we
are all the servants of Christ, our common Lord, and
redeemed by his precious blood (Eph. vi. 6. 1 Cor. vii.
22, 23).
2 %. 3. TIgorevXägevoi Trºgi #4&v, Praying for us...] That
this apostle, who so passionately writes to Christians, desiring
that they would “strive together with him in their prayers
to God,” Rom. xv. 30, 31; “that they would always with
all perseverance pray for him ;” that they would “continue
in prayer, that God would open to him a door of utterance
to speak the mystery of Christ” (Eph. vi. 16, 19. Col. iv. 2,
4. ; declare to you, who is a beloved brother,
and faithful minister and fellow-servant in the (work
of the) Lord.
8 Whom I have sent unto you for the same pur-
pose, that he might know your state, and comfort
your hearts (under your pressures;
9 And) with (him. I have sent) * Onesimus, a faith-
ful and beloved brother, who is one of you (being ser-
vant to Philemon, a chief man in Colosse). They
shall make known unto you all things that are done
here (at Rome).
10 Aristarchus my fellow-prisoner saluteth you,
and *Marcus, sister’s son to Barnabas, concerning
whom (i. e. which Marcus) you received commands,
if he come to you (to) receive him (kindly);
11 And Jesus, who is called Justus (Acts xviii.
5–7), who are of the circumcision. These " only (of
the Jews) are my fellow-workers to (the promotion of)
the kingdom of God, which have been a comfort to
IIle.
12 °Epaphras, who is one of you (a citizen of Co-
losse, see ver. 9), a servant of Christ, saluteth you,
always labouring fervently for you in prayers, that ye
may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.
13 For I bear him record, that he hath a great
zeal for you, and for them that are in Laodicea, and
them in Hierapolis (two other cities of Phrygia).
14 Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas, greet
you.
i
3), and that he might be “delivered from unreasonable and
wicked men” (1 Thess. v. 25. 2 Thess. iii. 1, 2), should
never pray to the Virgin Mary, and to angels, or to Saints
departed, for any of these things, is an evidence that he ap-
proved not of those prayers. *
* Ver. 6. 'Evžápºrt, With grace..] i. e. “With sweetness
and courteousness,” saith Theodoret, “that it may be accept-
able to the hearers;” ºva atrol); xexagiroptèvov; #yá£otto,
“that it may render you gracious to and favoured by them;”
so Theophylact. “Seasoned with salt;” salt is the symbol
of wisdom, and in this sense the word is used, Matt. W. 13.
Mark ix. 15. “Have,” saith Theodoret, a dysaw Trygvºcatiºv,
“spiritual wisdom, that ye may know,” &c.
* Ver. 7. Tuxiwá;..] That this epistle was written at the
same time with that to the Ephesians, is pleaded from this,
that it was sent by the same person Tychicus, with the very
same words contained in this and the following verse, Eph.
vi. 21, 22.
* Ver, 9. Onesimus.] Of whom Jerome saith, “We read,
that of a servant he was made a deacon.”
* Ver. 10. Máexo~..] It seems evident hence, that Paul's
displeasure against him, mentioned Acts xv. 38, lasted not
long; for he desires Timothy to bring him with him, as be-
ing “profitable to him for the ministry,” 2 Tim. iv. 11,
and styles him his “fellow-labourer,” Philem. 24.
7 Ver, 11. These only are my fellow-workers in the (pro-
motion of the) kingdom of God which have been a comfort to
me..] Hence it is evident, that either St. Peter was not at
Rome when St. Paul was, or that he was no comfort to him,
no promoter of the kingdom of God with him: which sure
is no compliment to St. Peter.
8 Wer. 12. Eraq pā;..] That Epaphras was about this time
prisoner at Rome, is concluded very probably from Philem.23,
where he is styled by Paul his “fellow-prisoner;” for that the
Epistle to Philemon and this were written at the same time,
may be conjectured, by the naming Timothy at the begin-
ning, and all the same persons, save only Justus, viz. Epa-
phras, Marcus, Aristarchus, Demas, Lucas, at the end of both
* Legimus Onesimum, inter Pauli renatum vincula, diaco-
num esse coepisse à servo. Contra Error. Joh. Hieros.
PREFACE TO THESSALONIANs.
795
i5 Salute the brethren which are in Laodicea, and
Nymphas, * and the church which is in his house
(i.e. his Christian household).
16 And when this epistle is read amongst you,
cause that it may be read also in the church of the
Laodiceans; and (see) that ye likewise read "the
epistle from Laodicea.
17 And say to *Archippus, Take heed to the mi-
nistry which thou hast received in the Lord, that
thou fulfil it.
18 The salutation (written) by the hand of me
Paul (is in token that this is my epistle, 2 Thess. iii.
17). Remember my (being in) bonds (so as to pray
for my deliverance, ver. 3, and to prepare for patient
jº, by my ea ample). Grace be with you.
II].6 Il. -
cf them ; but that he was bishop of Colosse, is not said by
any of the Greek commentators on the place: he might have
this zeal for them mentioned in these two verses, either as
being one of them (ver. 12), or as being employed in preach-
ing the gospel to them.
* Ver. 15. The church which is in his house..] i. e. His
Christian household ; for all the brethren are mentioned be-
fore. So Theodoret, CEcumenius, Chrysostom, and Theo-
phylact, note, that, row olnov rávra tria row; sixsw, &c're wal
inxAnariav Kaxeta Sat, “he had made his whole family Chris-
tians, so as to be called a church.” &
* Wer. 16. Kal rºw in Aao?ixeiaç, And that from Laodicea.]
Some say, that the epistle here mentioned, as from Lao-
dicea, was the First Epistle of Paul to Timothy, because the
postscript saith it was written from Laodicea ; but that sub-
scription is easily confuted, both from this consideration, that
the First Epistle to Timothy was written two or three years
after this (see the preface to it); and from this very epistle,
in which the apostle mentions them of Laodicea among
those who had not seen his face in the flesh, ii. 1. Chrysos-
tom, Theodoret, CEcumenius, and Theophylact, understood
by it some epistle writ by them of Laodicea to Paul; but the
apostle doth not say, Read the epistle sent from me to Lao-
dicea; nor doth he mention one word of such an epistle sent
from them to him here, or elsewhere; nor is it to be doubted
but he would have answered their epistle, had they sent any,
as he did that which the church of Corinth sent to him.
Others understand this of an epistle sent by Paul to them
which is now lost ; but all the ancients are not only silent in
this matter, but some of them expressly do explode this
imagination, observing, that the apostle proposes to their
reading, not riv rºc Aachixsſac, axx& rày in Aao?txsia;
yga piſtoray, “an epistle writ to the Laodiceans, but only from
Laodicea, to be sent to Colosse.” I therefore acquiesce in
their opinion, who understand this of the Epistle to the
Ephesians, sent, by the admonition of Paul, from Ephesus,
the metropolis, of Laodicea, subject to it ; as the epistles to
the church of Corinth belonged to all the churches of
Achaia, 2 Cor. i. 1. For Tertullian” witnesseth, that this
Epistle to the Ephesians was, by Marcion, styled the Epis-
tle to the Laodiceans; and the place which Marcion cites in
Epiphanius,t as from the Epistle to the Laodiceans, is in
the Epistle to the Ephesians, iv. 5, 6, viz. “There is one
Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all,
who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” More-
over, the Epistle to the Colossians, as I have shown, and as
Theodoret notes, was writ soon after that to the Ephesians,
and sent to them both by the hands of Tychicus; and there
is a great resemblance observable betwixt them, both in the
doctrines and exhortations, and in the very expressions: so
that it is not to be wondered, that the apostle would have
that epistle also read to the Colossians, to let them see, that
he writ the same doctrine, and gave the same instructions,
to other churches of the saints.
* Ver. 17. 'Aéxitºry, Archippus.] That this Archippus
should be then bishop of Colosse, as Jerome, on the Epis-
tle to Philemon, thinks; and that Paul should not write
one word, or send one salutation to him, but send to the
people of Colosse to admonish him of his duty, is not very
credible in itself, nor do the ancients testify that he bore that
character.
* Praeterea hic de alià epistolà quam nos ad Ephesios
praescriptam habemus, haeretici veró ad Laodicenos. Adv.
Marcion, lib. v. cap. 11. p. 476, et cap. 17, p. 481. Eccle-
siae veritate epistolam istam ad Ephesios habemus emissam,
sed Marcion ei titulum interpolare jussit.
+ IIgoríðuro 8: #y rà ièiº, 3roaroxixà waxovºyº, wai rā;
xaxovºvnº Trºc Aao?ixsta", iſ; Kügloº, ºwia triatic, &c. Epiph.
Haer. xlii. p. 374, B.
THE
FIRST EPISTLE TO THE THESSALONIANS,
WITH ANNOTATIONS.
PREFACE.
That Paul laid the foundation of the gospel among the
Thessalonians,” Avrixtyávrov (civ 'lověaioſy, “the Jews contra-
dicting, and openly contending against it,” we learn from the
history of the Acts; and this church consisting, as CEcume-
nius+ notes, “partly of Jews, and partly of gentiles,” they
were persecuted both by the unbelieving Jews and gentiles.;
the Jews exciting the gentiles to this persecution (Acts xvii.
5). The apostle therefore writes to confirm them in the
faith, and to prevent their being shaken by these persecu-
* Theodoret in Acts xvii. 5. * >
+ "Ha'aw ‘Exxnyikai zai Iovieſkai ixºnºrial, in cap, i. V. I.
tions: informing them that it was nothing strange they
should thus suffer from those Jews, who had “killed the
Lord Jesus, and had persecuted both the apostles ana
their own prophets:” or that they should suffer from their
own countrymen, as the Jews in Judea did from theirs
ii. 14). • *
( * concerning this epistle, the first note of the
fathers is this ; ; “Thessalonica was the metropolis of
Macedonia, whence we may certainly conclude that Philippi
was not so.”
This epistle must be written after the council held at
Jerusalem, A.D. 49. From thence Paul goes to Antioch,
* @szcznovix}, weare's civ rāv Maxibovia;.
796
I. THESSALONIANS.
Acts xv. 30 ; stays there some considerable time, ver. 35 ;
from thence goes through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the
brethren, ver. 41; thence to Derbe and Lystra, xvi. 1,
through Phrygia and Galatia, ver, 6 ; then to Troas, ver. 8,
to Samothracia and Neapolis, ver. l l ; and so to Philippi,
ver. 12; then to Amphipolis and Apollonia, and so to Thes-
salonica, xviii. 1, there planting the gospel: thence they are
expelled by the Jews and gentiles, and go to Berea, ver, 10;
thence to Athens, ver, 15 ; and from thence to Corinth,
xviii. 1, where Timotheus coming to him, and giving him a
comfortable account of their faith and constancy, he writes
this epistle to them, iii. 6. Whence it appears that it
could not be written in less time than a year or two
after that council; and that the inscription of it running thus,
* Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, to the church of the
Thessalonians,” it must be written after their return to him;
and so not from Athens, as the subscription hath it, but
from Corinth, Acts xviii. l. 5, A.D. 51 or 52 ; for it was
written after he had been “separated from them but a little
while,” ii. 17.
CHAPTER. I.
1 (I) PAUL, (the apostle of Jesus Christ), and Sil-
vanus, and Timotheus (my fellow-labourers, write) * to
the church of the Thessalonians (established) in (the
knowledge and worship of) “God the Father and the
Lord Jesus Christ; (wishing) grace (may) be to you,
and peace, from God our Father, and (from) the
Lord Jesus Christ.
2 (And advertising you, that) we give thanks to
God always for you all, making mention of you in
our prayers; e
3 * Remembering without ceasing your work of
faith and labour of love, and patience of hope in our
Lord Jesus Christ, (ver. 10, when we appear) in the
sight of God and (even) our Father;
4 (And) knowing, brethren beloved (by your pro-
ſº in these Christian virtues), “your election of
od.
5 For our gospel came not to you in the word only,
but also in (the) power (of miracles), and in (or with)
the (distributions of) the Holy Ghost, and in much
assurance (or full conviction both to you of the truth
of our doctrine, and to us, that God had chosen you to
be his church and people) ; as you know what manner
of men we were among you for your sake (or how we
were enabled by these things to give full proof of our
ministry). *
6 And ye became followers of us, and of the Lord
(in your sufferings for his sake), having received the
word in much affliction, (Acts xvii. 5, and yet) * with
joy of the Holy Ghost:
7 So that ye were examples (of faith and patience)
to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia.
8 For from you sounded out the word of the Lord
not only in Macedonia and Achaia (and so they could
not be ignorant of your good works), but also in every
place (the fame of) your faith to God-ward is spread
abroad (or hath gone forth) ; so that we need not to
speak anything (to others of the grace of God given us
towards you, Eph. iii. 3. Col. i. 25).
9 * For they themselves show of us what manner
of entering in we had unto you (i. e. with what power
and assistance of the Holy Ghost we preached the
gospel to you, ver, 5), and how (thereupon) ye turned
to God from idols to serve the living and true God,
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I.
* Ver. 1. Tº #xxxnai, Osa’a axovixéov, To the church of the
Thessalonians.] “He names not the presbyters and deacons,”
saith Grotius, “because the church was newly planted, and
had not received its full form :” and yet in his note on those
words, v. 12, “I entreat you, brethren, know them that
labour among you, and are over you in the Lord,” he saith,
oi Kortāyres, “the labourers are the princes of the assembly,
called bishops ; of Trgoſztáºzevci, they that are over you, are
the presbyters ;” but against this, see the note there.
* 'Atri Oedj ºratpac, From God the Father, ver. 1, and in
the sight of God and our Father, ver. 3..] The Spirit of God
vouchsafed under the gospel, enables us to cry “Abba,
Father,” i. e. to come to God with the assurance of his
fatherly affection to us, as being now the sons of God through
faith in Jesus Christ ; on which account is God “our
Father,” or the Father of us Christians (Eph. iii. 15), so
º mentioned for their consolation in those times of
peril. *
* Ver. 3. 'A8ta\sim rol, ºxymptovsſovreć, Remembering without
ceasing.] i. e. As often as we appear before God our Father,
thankfully remembering your faith, fruitful in good works;
your love to the Saints making you laborious to promote
their good, and your hope in the Lord Jesus (ver. 10), ren-
dering you patient in all tribulations for his sake, wer. 17
(see note there).
Your labour of love and patience.] OEcumenius here
notes, that it is the property of true love, r3 orávºra öråp roº
#yarnºśvov ºráozew, “to suffer all things for the sake of the
beloved.”
* Wer. 4. Tºy #xxoyńy tºwāv, Your election of God..] The
gospel came to some in word only, i. e. they heard the sound
of it, but did not believe and obey it, and so “the word did
not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that
heard it,” Heb. iv. 2, and these were only ºxºrol, “called,”
but not fixxExtol, “chosen,” Matt. xxii. 14. To others, the
preaching of the apostles was attended with a greater power
of miracles, and extraordinary effusions of the Holy Ghost,
prevailing on many to embrace it as the word of God ; so
that from hence the apostles had a full assurance, that it was
the good pleasure of God to gather a church of believers, and
faithful people there; and these were called the elect, #xxoyń
OBoö, “the election of God,” “the election of grace,” i. e.
men chosen to be partakers of the blessings of the gospel,
and to be God's peculiar church and people. For the apos-
tle doth not here speak of any absolute election of the whole
church of the Thessalonians to eternal life, because he could
have no certain knowledge of it; or if he had, he could not
have been under any just grounds of fear, as we find he was,
“lest by some means the tempter should have tempted them,
and his labour be in vain among them " (iii. 5). Moreover,
the reason of his knowledge here assigned, viz. the miracles
and gifts of the Holy Ghost, with which his preaching was
attended, gave him a certain knowledge that God designed
to gather there a church of Christians ; but it was no certain
indication of their election to eternal life, seeing the apostle
informs us, that they who had “tasted of these powers of
the world to come,” and received these gifts of the Holy
Ghost, might “fall away,” so as not to be “renewed to re-
pentance” (Heb. vi. 4–6), and many of the converted Jews
actually did so afterward.
* Wer. 6. Mer& xagãº, &c. With joy of the Holy Ghost.]
In the foregoing verse he lays before them the outward tes-
timonies of the truth of Christianity from the miracles
wrought, and the gifts of the Holy Ghost exercised among
them : here he appeals also to the inward testimonies they
had received of it, even a strong spiritual joy wrought in
them by the Holy Ghost, under the sharpest sufferings, ac-
cording to those words of Peter, “If ye suffer for the sake
of righteousness, and be reproached for Christ's sake, happy
are ye, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you "
(1 Pet. iv. 14). r
* Ver. 9..] These words, saith Theodoret,” instruct us
*4 *g sº * * w
* of y&g rà viº; avykgivov, &Ax& roi; our oùat 680::, rºw Syra
* * * g g * * * * * 2
Qey, Gay &vra, wai & Nºw?y, airºv trgozmyśpºva's.
CHAPTER II.
797
10 And to wait for (the coming of) his Son from
heaven (to be glorified in his saints, 2 Thess. i. 10),
whom he (hath already) raised from the dead, even
Jesus, who (by his death hath) delivered us from the
wrath to come.
how to expound our Saviour's words, “This is life eternal, so styled, in opposition not to Jesus Christ, but to idols
to know thee the only true God,” teaching us that he is only
CHAPTER II.
1 (We need not, I say, speak anything farther of the
effectual working of God with us in our entrance in unto
you :) for yourselves, brethren, know our entrance in
unto you, that it was not "in vain (i. e. not without
demonstration of divine assistance, i. 5). -
2. But (we had such assurance of God’s call to preach
to you, that) even after that we had suffered before,
and were shamefully entreated, as ye know, at Philippi
(Acts xvi. 23), we were (still) iºd in (the strength of)
our God to speak unto you the gospel of God, (though
this we did) with much contention (and opposition from
the unbelieving. Jews, Acts xvii. 5). -
3 For our exhortation (made to you to embrace the
gospel) was not of deceit, nor of uncleanness, nor in
guile (as are the eahortations of the philosophers among
you, and the deceitful workers of the Jewish nation,
who endeavour to corrupt you) :
4 But as we were allowed (Gr. have been approved)
of God (as persons fit) to be put in trust with the gos-
pel, even so we speak (the truth sincerely); not as
pleasing men, but (as º ourselves to that) God
who trieth our hearts (Gal. i. 10).
5 For neither at any time used we “flattering words,
as ye know, nor a cloak of covetousness; God is wit-
ness (2 Cor. ii. 17). -
6 Nor of men sought we glory (or high estimation),
neither of you, nor yet of others (provisions), when
we might (not only with a fair pretence, but with just
reason) have been (thus) * burdensome, as (being) the
apostles of Christ. w - -
7 (I say we sought not high esteem, or rich pro-
visions :) but we were “gentle (meek and unburden-
some) among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her
children, (bearing herself the burden of them, and
giving them her milk, as we dispense to you the sincere
milk of the word freely :
8 And) so being affectionately desirous of you (-r
good), we were willing to have imparted to you, not
the gospel of God only, but also our "own souls (i. e.
to have spent our lives in your service,) because ye were
dear unto us.
9 (And of this affection you cannot well be igno-
rant :)" for ye remember, brethren, our labour and
travail: for labouring night and day, because we would
not be chargeable to any of you, we preached to you
(freely) the gospel of God. -
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II.
1 Wer. 1. Ot, keyń, Not vain.] I grant that the apostle
doth not intend to signify by this phrase, only that his word
was not ineffectual among them, but also to declare the rea-
son why it was not so ; to wit, because it wanted not a de-
monstration of divine authority and power to confirm them
in the faith that heard it, and those that preached it in their
expectations of success, and their assurance that the Thessa-
lonians were by God designed to receive the faith ; as it
would have been had it come to them in word only, and not
“in power, and the Holy Ghost, and much assurance.” For
the word “vain,” when it is applied to God’s message, sig-
mifies the not accomplishing the great ends for which it was
designed ; so Isa. lv. 11, “The word that goeth out of my
mouth shall not return to me in vain, but it shall accomplish
that which I please, and it shall prosper in the things where-
to I sent it:” and, Jer. viii. 8, “How do ye say, We are
wise, and the law of the Lord is with us? Lo, certainly in
vain made he it ; the pen of the scribes is in vain:” and,
Jer. ii. 33, “In vain have I smitten your children, they have
received no correction.” “Our entrance therefore to you was
not in vain;” that is, it was, not without such divine assist-
ance as was sufficient to work conviction in you, and to em-
brace the truth to you. *
* Ver. 5. 'Ev Aéyò, KoMaxsia;,] Here signifies “in flattering
words,” or words that are flattery, as Aéyo; &xoñº, ver. 13, is
“ the word heard ;” Aáyo; &Anşeiac, “the word which is the
truth,” 2 Cor. vi. 7. Col. i. 5, and ºrgépact; Trasovažiaç, is “a
pretence to gratify their covetousness:” for that the apostles
never were under a defamation or accusation of these things,
neither could the Thessalonians know, nor was it a thing
proper to call God to witness to ; but that no such guilt
could truly be charged upon them, the Thessalonians might
know, and that they inwardly designed no such thing God
i. could be witness, as being alone the searcher of the
eart. - -
* Ver. 6. "Ew 34pgs ºval, Be burdensome.] This seems not
to refer to the censures of the church, but to the apostles
living at the charge of their converts ; for he saith, ver, 9,
that he and his companions “laboured night and day, Trgº,
rô º żºrigapirat, that they might burden none of them.”
So 2 Cor. xi. 9, “Other churches supplied my wants, so that
in all things I have kept myself, 38agi, unburdensome to
you:” and 1 Tim. v. 16, “If any man or woman that be-
lieveth have widows, let them relieve them, xai º 8ageſa-flow
# #xxxnaria, and let not the church be burdened with them.”
When we might have been burdensome.] Here Theophy-
lact cries out, 3agai rā, ºrpoSvºia; xai rā; inég roi; º oxay-
3axia-at riva crow8%, “Oh the study and sedulity of the apos-
tle, not to scandalize any person l’—And the descant of
Esthius upon the words is this, We accommodated ourselves to
you in all things, neque jus nostrum, neque imperium ur-
gentes,ut vestram promoveamus salutem, “forbearing our own
right to promote your happiness.” . And if the apostles
forbore to exercise their own power, that they might not be
burdensome to the weak Thessalonians, how much more
would they have done it to prevent their ruin P º
4 Ver. 7. "Hºrtoi, Meek.] If the various lection noted by
Theodoret, CEcumenius, and Theophylact, who here read
váriot, “children,” were the original, the sense would ruif
thus: “But, we, O children, were among you as a nurse
that cherisheth her children’’ (see ver. 11). And that
Origen read so is certain from his commentary on Matthew,
p. 372, 375.
* Ver. 8. Tà; Havròy Jux&c, Our own souls.] i. e. Our
own lives ; as when Christ is said to give rºy Juxºy abros,
“his life a ransom for many,” Matt. xx. 28, to “lay down,
rºy Juxºv aircă, his life for his sheep,” John x. 11.15. 17.
xv. 13. 1 John iii. 16 ; and when we are bid to “lay down,
T&; Jux3;, our lives for the brethren,” 1 John iii. 16, or said
to lose or gain, rºy Juxºv, “our life,” Luke ix. 24. John xii.
15 (see Acts xx. 10. Rom. xi. 3. xvi. 4. 2 Cor. xii. 15.
Phil. ii. 13. 1 Pet. iv. 19). -
* Ver. 9..] It is the opinion of Dr. Hammond, that the
apostle here, from the third to the fourth verse, refers to the
Gnostics, and clears himself from the vile arts they used, and
ill designs they had in promoting their delusions. But this
epistle being writ, saith the same reverend person, about the
year 50, and whilst Simon Magus was yet living, it cannot
be proved that these Gnostics were then in being, much less
that they ever were at Thessalonica.
798
I. THESSALONIANS.
10 Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily
(towards God) and justly and unblameably we behaved
ourselves (whilst we conversed) among you that believe:
11 As (and likewise) you know "how we exhorted
and comforted and charged every one of you, as a
father doth his children, (Gr. how we loved every one
of you as a father doth his children, erhorting you to
the performance of your duty, comforting you under
your tribulations, and testifying)
12 That ye would (ought to) walk "worthy of God
who hath called you to his kingdom and glory.
13 For this cause also (or, and for this thing) thank
we God without ceasing, because when you received
the word of God which you heard from us, ye
received it not as the word of men (speaking from their
own human wisdom), but as it is in truth, the word of
God," which effectually worketh also in you that be-
lieve (the fruits of Christian patience).
14 For ye, brethren, (in this) became followers of
the churches of God which in Judea are in Christ
We read in scripture of some teachers of the law, who
“gave heed to fables,” 1 Tim. i. 4. 7, and who “counted gain
godliness,” vi. 5; of some Jews who were “deceitful work-
ers,” 2 Cor. xi. 13. 22. 1 Cor. iv. 2, and had their rayoveyial,
“subtleties,” 2 Cor. xi. 3; and who were given to unclean-
ness, Rom. ii. 22, and taught unclean doctrines, 1 Cor. iii.
16, 17. vi. 13. 19. 2 Cor. xii. 21 (see the note there): and
it is likely the apostle might in these words respect those
deceivers.
Or we may refer these things to the philosophers of those
times, who did avaayayev, “make a prey of men by philoso-
phy and vain deceit,” Col. ii. 8 ; who were, saith the poet in
Athenæus,” pºstpaxieżatrárai, “deceivers of young men, and
Božovaraiéaopot, desirous of vain-glory,” whose business it
was Xapiroyawazsiv, “to speak to please men,”f who taught
only “for stipends,” or #yoAa3ia; #v=xey, as Diodorus Siculus:
saith of the Grecian philosophers; and rai, Kará ràw pyoxa-
8íay zégèov; aroxx&two, “philosophized,” saith Plato,S “out
of love of gain ;” and who are everywhere represented as
“given to impurity," and exercising the vilest practices
with those they taught their vain philosophy. Whence they
were sometimes banished from the places of their abodes,
saith Athenaeus," &; &laq.8stovts; roi; yíovº, “as corrupters
of the youth,” and did ºvvikä, öv, “lead the lives of cynics.”
And Plato” himself confesseth, That one reason why they
were so generally decried, was this, that most of them were
Trapwºrávnpot, “the worst of men.” -
7 Wer. 11, 12. Oiśate &; Éva Fuaa roy tºy, &c trarăp rázya
Havrot "ragawaxobvre; twäc, You know how we eahorted, and
comforted, and charged every one of you, as a father does
his children.] Here our translation puts the wagºrupoğuevo,
“persuading,” testifying, or charging, which begins the
twelfth verse, before the beginning of the eleventh, which is
qn unusual transposition, and changes the participles into
verbs, which, though it be usual, cannot here be admitted,
because of the twäç following trapaxaxoivºrs,' I think there-
fore it is better to own an ellipsis or deficiency of the word
#bºratº, or hyarhaagey, or #84x-pager, from ver. 7, of
which ellipsis we find many instances; v. g. there is an
ellipsis of the verb iroisi, Rom. viii. 3, of ixºrićers, Eph. i.
13 (see 1 Cor. iv. 15. Gal. ii. 7. 2 Thess. ii. 7, 1 John ii.
19. Matt. Xx. 23). , And then the words may be thus trans-
lated, “Ye know how I loved every one of you, as a father
doth his children,” exhorting and comforting you (ver. 12),
and charging you. -
* Ver, 12. 'Agioſ; rod Osoſ, Worthy of God..] i. e. That
you would walk, (1.) so as is best pleasing to him: (2.) as
becomes them who are called to enjoy a glorious kingdom:
* Lib. iv. p. 162.
: Hist. lib. ii. p. 115, 116.
§ Men. p. 422. Phaed. p. 1245, 1246.
| Plutarch de Lib. Educ. p. 11.
"I Lib. xiii. p. 610, 61 l. lib. iv. p. 162.
* De Repub. lib. vi. p. 675, B.
+ P, 165.
Jesus: for ye also have suffered (patiently) like things
of your own countrymen, even as they have of the
Jews (their countrymen).
15 Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and (before
him) their own prophets, and have (since) persecuted
us (his apostles); and they please not God, and are
* contrary to all men (who are not of their own nation
or religion : .
16 And this they show in) forbidding us to speak to
the gentiles that they might be saved (by the preach-
ing of the gospel , * to fill up their sins always (i. e.
which they are given up to do, to fill up the measure of
their sins, which, being thus disposed, and thus deserted
by God, they will do) : for (the) wrath (of God) is come
upon them to the uttermost.
17 But we, brethren, being (by their impatient
malice) taken from you for a short time (Acts xviii. 5.
10, and this) in presence (only), not in heart, en-
deavoured the more abundantly to see your face
(again) with great desire.
** -
(3.) as most conduceth to his glory: and, (4.) so as to re-
semble his imitable perfections in your conversation.
* Ver. 13. “Oc ēveryºfrat, Which effectually worketh in
you..] For, saith Theodoret, trºopnrikā, Kal atrol x&piro; 3ro-
Xańa'avºrs;, xai Trgofºrsvov, xai yacáza'at; #xáNow, xai Saúzara
#Trevéxovy rapièoża: “They, partaking of the prophetical grace,
both prophesied, and spake with tongues, and did great
miracles ;” for to those who in those times embraced the
gospel, were granted x&piapara xał Śwspyhºara, “the gifts
and operations of the Holy Ghost,” 1 Cor. xii. 6. 10–12.
Eph. iii. 20. So that as Satan was trystºwa #ysºyotºv, “a spirit
working in the children of disobedience,” Eph. ii. 2, and
they that were possessed by him were styled #yseyevkašvot ; so
they who had the afflatus of the Holy Spirit found him
effectually working in them (James v. 16). And as the an-
tichrists, or adversaries of the truth, wrought “ lying won-
ders, xar' #yÉeystav roi, zaravāc, according to the deceitful
working of Satan,” in and by them (2 Thess. ii. 9. 11), so
had the Christians, from the Holy Spirit, their #vegyhaara
8vváºzgov, “miraculous operations,” by which they were en-
abled to confirm their faith: and these spiritual gifts were to
them strong confirmations of the faith, the seals, and earnest
of the blessings promised ; and that which did enable them
not only to suffer patiently, but also to “rejoice in tribula-
tions,” Rom. v. 3–5. 1 Thess. i. 6. 2 Tim. i. 7, 8. 1 Pet.
iv. 14.
* Ver. 15. Contrary to all men.] Thus Tacitus” saith
of them, Apud ipsos fides obstinata, misericordia in promptă,
sed adversis omnes alios hostile odium : “They have great
fidelity and kindness towards men of their own nation, but
as great hatred to all others.” But that which the apostle
chiefly here respects, was their fond imagination, that God
would grant no salvation to the gentiles upon any other
terms than their being circumcised, and obedient to the law
of Moses (Acts xv. 1), on which account they became ene-
mies to the gospel, and the preachers of it: because they
offered salvation to the gentiles, through faith in Christ,
without observation of the law (Rom. xi. 28. Gal. iv. 16).
Hence also note, that none are greater enemies to the good
of mankind, than they who do obstruct the preaching and
the propagating of the gospel through the world.
* Ver. 16. 'Avarrangārat, To fill up the measure of their
sins.] Our Lord hath said to them, “Fill ye up the mea-
sure of your fathers,” by adding to the murder of the pro-
phets the murder of me, and of those prophets and wise
men I shall send to you (Matt. xxiii. 32—35), “that
upon you of this generation may come all the blood shed
from Abel to this present time” (Luke xi. 49.51). This
prediction, saith the apostle, is now fulfilled ; and they, by
fulfilling it, have filled up the measure of their sins; and
God’s wrath is so incensed against them, that it will now de-
stroy their church and nation, ei; réxoc, “to the uttermost;”
so that it shall not be now as formerly, when they were
sometimes in bondage, and again in freedom from their ene-
* Hist, lib. v. p. 616.
CHAPTER III.
799
18 Wherefore we would have come unto you, even
I Paul, once and again; but “Satan (by his minis-
ters still) hindered us.
19 For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of re-
joicing 2 are not even ye (Gr. ) obvi kai Üpsic, will it
not among others be you also when we stand) in the
presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming :
20 For ye are (even at present) our glory and joy.
*
mies; sometimes were captives, and then returned again,
after seventy years, to their own land: found God for awhile
angry, and anon reconciled to them : but this wrath shall
now remain upon them to the uttermost, “till the times of
the gentiles are come in " (Luke xxi. 24, see note on Rom.
xi.25), or sic réxoc, “till they be consumed ;” so the phrase
is used often in the Old Testament, as sic ráxo; 3ro8ávokesv,
“Shall be consumed without dying,” Numb. xvii. 13; “They
fell by the sword, sl: réxoc, till they were consumed,” Josh.
viii. 24, “Slaying them, eiç réAoc, till they wore consumed;"
and x, 30; i.e. God's wrath hath begun to fall upon them ;
and they will still continue under it till they are consumed
by it.
* Ver. 18. “o zaravār, Satan.] Hence note, that they
who obstruct the progress of the gospel, and persecute the
promoters of it, are the ministers of Satan, and therefore
bear his name (see iii. 5, 2 Cor. xi. 15. Rev. ii. 10).
CHAPTER III.
1 WHEREFoRE, when we could no longer forbear,
(unkâri grkyovreg, no longer enduring to want the cer-
tain knowledge of your affairs, though we had given
commandment to Timothy to come quickly to us to
Athens, Acts xvii. 15, yet, as for me and Silas,) we
thought it good to be left at Athens alone; (rather
than to continue ignorant of the state of your faith,
ver, 5.)
2 And (therefore) sent Timotheus, our brother (in
Christ, Philem. 16. Heb. xiii. 23) and (the) minister
of God, and our fellow-labourer in (advancing) the
gospel of Christ, to "stablish you (in), and to comfort
you concerning your faith:
3 That (so) no man should (might) be moved (from
his stedfastness in the faith) by these afflictions (and
not you especially) : for yourselves know (from us)
that we (Christians) are appointed thereunto; (for
hereunto are we called, 1 Pet. ii. 21.)
4 For verily, when we were with you, we told you
before (it came to pass) that we should suffer tribula-
tion; even as it (shortly after) came to pass (Acts
xvii. 5–10), and ye know (it did so).
5 For this cause, when I could no longer forbear,
I sent (kºiyā; pinkért oréyov širspapa, I also, not bearing
|º the uncertainty of your affairs, have sent) to
know (the stedfastness of) your faith, lest by some
means the “tempter (may) have tempted you, and (so)
our labour (among you should) be in vain.
6 But now when Timotheus came from you to us,
and brought us good tidings of your faith and charity,
and (in particular) that you have (still) good remem-
brance of us always, desiring greatly to see us, as we
also (do to see) you;
7 Therefore (öld rońro, by this), brethren, we were
comforted over you (Ép' tipiv, concerning you, or in
gow), in all our affliction and distress by (reason of)
your (constancy in the) faith:
L ºo: * now we live (joyfully) if ye stand fast in the
OTOl. t
9 * For what (sufficient) thanks can we render to
God again for you, for all the joy wherewith we joy
for your sakes"before our God; -
10 Night and day (also) praying exceedingly that
we might see your face, and might perfect that which
is (yet) lacking in your faith (by reason of our very
small stay with you, Acts xvii. 1. 10).
11 * Now God himself and (or, who is) our Father,
and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way unto you.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III.
* Wer. 2. x+spížat tºxic, To establish you] In it, by con-
sideration of that miraculous power and those gifts of the
Holy Ghost which accompanied our preaching, and your
receiving of it (1 Thess. i. 5, 6), and which are still exercised
among you (v. 19, 20), to comfort you concerning it ; by
consideration of the joys of the Holy Ghost, which you have
found already under your afflictions (i. 6); by the salvation
you are to obtain by Christ, the life you shall for ever live
with him in glory (iv. 17, 18. v. 9–11), the eternal rest
you shall have when the Lord Jesus Christ shall come to be
“glorified in his saints;” and of which your constancy in the
faith under these sufferings will make you to be “accounted
worthy,” 2 Thess. i. 5–7. 10.
* Ver. 5. “o repáðoy.] Here note, First, That the persecu-
tions of the saints are ascribed to Satan the tempter, who
by his ministers endeavours to hinder the progress of the
gospel (ii. 18), and by their persecutions to terrify men,
and seduce them from the profession of it (see Rev. ii. 10).
Secondly, That reigáčew here doth signify, not barely to
tempt, but to succeed in his temptation; for otherwise the
labour of the apostle could not be rendered vain among them
(see note on Gal. vi. 1).
Thirdly, Note, that it is hence evident, that the apostle
did not think them secure (by the election of them, men-
tioned i. 4), from falling so as that his labour might have
peen in vain among them.
Fourthly, Note, from Esthius, that a faithful person, truly
justified, may so fall from the faith as that it shall become
in vain to him.
* Ver. 8. Nüy &ey, Now we live..] Ziy, saith Suidas, “is
to live, ºxerê revipric Kai Troxvreasia;, with delight and magni-
ficence;” according to that of Horace, Vivendum hodiè,
which is the frequent import of the Hebrew word nºn, as in
that wish, “Let the king live,” 1 Sam. x. 24. 1 Kings i. 25.
2 Kings xi. 12; i.e. let him have a prosperous and happy
reign : and in the words of the psalmist, xvi. 11, “Thou
wilt show me the way of life; in thy presence is, fulness of
joy:” xxxiv. 13, “He that would live, i.e. see good days:”
so xxii. 26. xxxviii. 19. Eccles. vi. 8. vii. 12 ; “Our masters
teach,” saith Maimonides,” “that the just are called living,
even in their death : the wicked, dead while they live; be-
cause the first are happy in their death; the second, misera-
ble in their life.”
* Ver, 9.] Esthius observes from the ninth verse, that
both the apostle's joy and their faith and constancy were the
gift of God; nam gratiarum actio non est nisi de beneficiis
acceptis. He might also have observed with others, the ex-
cellent pattern the apostle here gives to all the bishops and
pastors of the church, to be continually solicitous to know of
the welfare of their flock, incessantly praying for it, blessing
God daily for it, and looking upon it as the very felicity of
their own lives.
* Ver. 11.] Here the note of Schlictingius runs thus:
“You see that our Lord Jesus takes care of our affairs and
actions, and therefore we deservedly invoke him in our ne-
cessities ;” as the apostle again doth, ver. 12. But since
this invocation of him by all Christians in all places must
suppose him omniscient, omnipresent, and the searcher of
the heart; and these are the properties of God alone ; it also
must suppose him to be truly God.
* More Nevoch. lib. i. cap. 43.
800
I. THESSALONIANS.
12 “And the Lord make you to increase and abound
in love one towards another, and " towards all men,
even as we do (abound in love) towards you:
13 * To the end he may establish your hearts un-
* Ver. 12. ‘Tºwa; 3; 3 Kūgio; trasovácal wał meetcareta-at.]
These are optative aorists, which signify transitively, wä-
ragarixãº, say the grammarians; and therefore are well
rendered by our translation, “The Lord make you to in-
crease, and make you to abound” (see note on 2 Cor. ix. 8.
Ecclus. xlv. 5). .
7 And towards all men.] “This,” saith Theophylact,” “is
the character of divine love, to comprehend all; whereas hu-
man love hath respect to one man, and not to another.”
* Wer. 13. 'Apºkºrºrovº, That he may stablish your hearts
ass-
* Toºro y&p ràc war& ©sèy 3,árnº tºoy, r3 ºrávra; regiºračxso-
3 * * * * sº * * & y ſº 3 * g *
8at #3v 3; roy Seiya (wiy, rôy ºstya 3’ oë, kar’ &vègoroy # pixia.
blameable in holiness before God, even our Father
(roi 6soi, kat IIarpèg juāv, our God and Father), at
the (glorious) coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with
all his saints. gº
* 1–-
wnblameable in holiness.] Hence note, that a general and
abounding charity to all men, being that by which we be-
come most like to God, and that which tends to cover our
own sins (1 Pet. iv. 8), especially if it be charity to the
souls of men (James v. 20), tends to “stablish our hearts
unblameable before God in love,” and to procure our ac-
ceptance with him at the great day of our accounts (Matt.
xxv. 35, 36).
Note also, that to stablish our hearts unblameable at
Christ's coming, is so to confirm us in holy living, that we
may be found unblameable by him at that day (see note on
1 Cor. i. 8. 1 Thess. v. 23. 2 Pet. iii. 14).
CHAPTER IV.
1 FURTHERMORE, then, we beseech you, brethren,
and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as you have
received of us (directions) how ye ought to walk and
to please God, so you would abound more and more
(in your care to conform yourselves to them. .
2 In which thing you need no farther instructions :)
for ye know what (holy) commandments we gave you
* by the Lord Jesus.
3 For (we have already told you, that) this is the
will of God, even your sanctification, (and this sancti-
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV.
* Ver. 2. At& rot Kvetov, By the Lord..] Note hence, that
the instructions and commandments which the apostles gave
to the churches, are to be looked upon as the commandments
of the Lord, and as the will of God; they being dictated by
his Spirit (ver. 8), and delivered by his authority who said,
“He that heareth you heareth me; and he that heareth
me heareth him that sent me”. (Luke x. 16).
* Ver, 4, 5.] Here note (1.) That these instructions were
very necessary for the Thessalonians, ixiſ yåg rxeſarn 3raža,
xai äxaSapata, for “there was all manner of disorder and im:
purity,” saith Socrates.” . And Athenaeus+ informs us, tºy
toūtov rpvphy, that “their luxury invited the Persians into
Greece:” that it was their custom in their banquets to bring
in their f" wenches, dancing naked,” and afterward “they
enjoyed them at their pleasure.”
Secondly, Note also, that having mentioned formication,
ver, 3, he seems, ver, 4 and 5, to advance to other heathen-
ish lusts, desiring them to keep their vessels in sanctification
and honour: (1.) By preserving their bodies from unmatural
Justs, which are by the apostle styled ráSn 3riºia, “ dis-
honourable passions;” and their matrimonial bed from de-
filement, by the use of other women (Heb. xiii. 4). Accord-
ingly, these things in scripture are expressed by ignominy
and vileness; in the Septuagint, by rà &axºga, “things in-
decorous and dishonourable;” which word the apostle applies
to unnatural lusts, Rom, i. 26; and in the language of the
Targum and the rabbins, they are styled Rybp, “ignominy
and vileness.” Thus Shechem is said to have wrought robº,
Baith the Chaldee; tā āaxnºv, the Septuagint; i. e. “igno.
miny in Israel,” by knowing Dinah. This is the name the
Chaldee gives to the adultery committed by the men of
Benjamin upon the Levite's concubine, Judg. xix. 24, the
incest committed by Amnon on his sister Tamar, 2 Sam.
xiii. 1,2; and in the rabbinical language,S “to abuse boys,”
Tºpin, is to use them to the satisfying of unnatural lusts.
* Ver. 5. Kağáree rà #8wn, Even as the gentiles.] Among
* Apud Plat.
* Lib. xiv. p. 663; vid. eundem, lib. xii. p. 527.
f Lib. xiii. p. 607, lib. vi. p. 206.
& Buxtorf. in voce bp, p. 2035.
fication requires) that ye should abstain from formica-
tion:
4 * (And) that every one of you should know how
(much it is your duty) to possess his (body, which is the)
vessel (of the Holy Spirit) in sanctification and in
honour (i. e. free from those lusts which are ará$n dirt-
piac, Rom. i. 26, dishonourable passions) ;
5 Not in the lust of concupiscence, *even as the
gentiles (do) which know not God:
6 That “no man go beyond (the bounds of matri-
whom these lusts abounded, and by whom they were al-
lowed. For whoredom was esteemed no crime; * they
taught, tº wrávro; ragù ré kaśānow rotºro yivea Sai. Their
oratori speaks thus; Si quis est qui etiam meretriciis amor-
ibus interdictum juventuti putet—abhorret non modó ab
hujus seculi licentia, verúm etiam a majorum consuetudine
atque concessis. Quandó enim hoc non factum est? quandó
reprehensum ? quandé non permissum 2 quandó denique
fuit, ut quod licet, non liceret P Epictetust advises them
who cannot abstain, to use it only, &; yopºpºv ša'ri, “as the
laws allowed it.” Now that, saith Plato," was rāy #AEvēśgov
yvyatkāv kh gºv, “not to meddle with free-women, but only
libertines and servants, and those that sold themselves to it.”
And Demosthenesſ declares of all the Grecians thus: rāg
wiy Taiga, hēoyā, śvska Éxop, sy, rā; 38 Traxxak&; rā; zaš'
hºxáezv zraxxaksiac, rā; 33 yuvaſka; roi; ºratēoroisſo-Sai Yºnaiac.
The rà Trag& púaw réxpanºa, as Plato styles it, obtained in
Greece without blame, saith Bardesanes;"| amongst the
Grecians and many barbarians, saith Plato; ** amongst the
Cretians and Lacedemonians, saith the same Plato. How
prone the Romans, and other nations were to it, Plautus,
Petronius Arbiter, Aristophanes, and Athenaeus, tº suffi-
ciently inform us, as also that it was the sin of the philoso-
phers especially.
* Ver. 6. Mă înégéaively zai ºrxeovizºreſy, Not to go beyond
or defraud..] It is the opinion of all the Greek scholiasts,
that this verse contains a prohibition of adultery, ºras ove;iay
#yratºa rºy &oixstay ináxede. “By the word "rasovsåſa, he de-
notes adultery,” say Theodoret and Theophylact. God
hath put bounds to this appetite, say CEcumenius and The-
ophylact, by tying us to one wife, &re # 7pt; Érégay pºićic,
Trapá8avi Ti; kai ºrxāove:la Éativ, “so that to be familiar with
one another is excess and covetousness;” and when this is
* Orig. in Celsum, p. 177.
:: Cap. 47.
§ Conv p. 1180; de Leg. lib. viii. p. 914, A, B.
| Orat. contra Neraeam, apud Athen. p. 573.
‘ſ Apud Euseb. Praeparat. Evang. lib. vi. cap. 10, p.
276, B.
** De Leg. lib. viii. p. 913, D. ibid, p. 910, D, E, lib, i.
p. 776, E.
++ Athenæus, lib. xiii. p. 605.
+ Orat. pro Coelio.
CHAPTER IV.
801
mony), or defraud his brother in any matter (Gr. or ||
eaceed towards his brother in this matter) : because
the Lord is the avenger of all suchy as we have also
forewarned you, and testified.
7 (He is, I say, the avenger of all such Christians,
as acting oppositely to their holy calling ; ) for God
hath not called us (Christians) unto uncleanness, but
unto holiness.
8 He therefore that despiseth (this command), de-
spiseth not man (only), but God, who hath also given
* to us his Holy Spirit.
9. (This I thought necessary to say, to warn you
against that uncleanness which so reigneth in the hea-
then world, and to which you so strongly were addicted,
whilst you were without the knowledge of God in the
world :) but as touching brotherly love, ye need not
that I write (so fully) to you; for ye yourselves are
* taught of God to love one another.
done to another man's wife, it is to accede to the injury of
his brother, . And as Jerome” hath observed, the words pre-
ceding, which speak of “abstaining from fornication, and
keeping our vessels in Sanctification and honour, and not in
the lusts of concupiscence;” and the words following, which
give this reason of the precept, that “God hath not called
us to uncleanness, but to holiness,” seem also plainly to en-
force this sense, which the Greek, in the judgment of the
forecited fathers, will bear: for,
1. The words tree84ively and Érićaively bear this sense in
other authors. Thus Philo,'t speaking of unnatural lusts
committed by men, saith &vöge; Syrs; &#saw #713aivovari.
And Plutarchit saith-of the Egyptians, that “they call that
land which Nile ascends, mixing and engendering with it,
the body of Isis.” And when Nile is thus, inse&axåy kai
Trasováras, “filling and ascending, they call this the joining
of Osiris with Nephthe.” So the Hebrew word Rhin, from
which 83 and 8%w, and from them 8aſyo, is derived, hath
this signification, as Josh. xxiii. 12, “If you contract affinity
with the heathens, pn-, pnxin, and go in unto them; si
#triyakia; trothants, kai avywarapºtyfire attoic, “If you marry
and mix with them,” saith the Septuagint, “the Lord will not
drive them out.” And in the Mishna, nrir by an is, “he
that revealeth the nakedness of his sister,” and may be ren-
dered insp;8&ivoy rºy & Sexºv attoº.
2. The word ºrasovićia bears the same sense in that verse
in which Venus promises to him that finds and brings her
Cupid to her, “not a bare kiss, but something more,” say-
ing oi yukºvºy ºrd piaaſcă to ££ys, kai Tââoy Éetc. And SocratesS
tells Callicles, pleading for those pleasures, that men ought
not to be širtºvºia; 3xoxãarovº, “ of unbounded lusts; at 3:
ºratovºlay of 88ſy &rasſy, but thou,” saith he, “thinkest that a
man may exceed in these matters.” And in the scholiast of
Aristophanes, these are put as words equivalent, Öregºraiety,
tºrsé8aively, trasováčev.
And whereas against this interpretation it is objected,
that the words following, viz. “in any matter,” being gene-
ral, will not admit of this restrained sense :
I answer, that in the Greek the words are iv rá; m:4yºati,
and may be rendered, “in this matter,” or “in the matter;”
viz. forementioned ; or absolutely, in the matter ; for so it
plainly signifies in these words, 2 Cor. vii. 11, “You have
approved yourselves clear #y tº ºrgáyºati, in this matter:”
And it being observed by Phavorinus and Suidas," that the
* Diligentér observa, quia ad castitatem nos provocans,
et volens uxoribus tantúm esse contentos, dixerit, Ne quis
supergrediatur, et circumscribat negotio fratrem suum, id
est, ne suam conjugen derelinquens, alterius polluere queat
uxorem. . In Eph. iv. 19.
+ De Abrahamo, p. 285, B.
g -> t
†: "Izºo; a`āºza yiv #xoval wał woºzićovow oi răzav, 3xx' ºr 3
Ngāo; #triðaivet a tree&aſov wai wiyväg, evo;-—rojro ºxićw 'oci- |
zºic ºrgö, Nä4 Sny waxoJaw. De Isiride et Osir. p. 366, A, B.
Ita étréaively, Aristoph. Bárðax. p. 211.
§ Apud Platon. Gregor. p. 346, C, D,
| 'EzkAna. p. 757. -
* II:4ykaro; ini rā wax& Xpāyra, tº Ašša, of Traxatoi. Phav.
10 And indeed ye do it to all the brethren which
are in all Macedonia: but we beseech you, brethren,
that ye increase more and more (in this Christian vir-
tue) ; -
11, And that ye study to be quiet, and " to do your
own business (not meddling with other men's matters)
and to work with your own hands, as we commanded
yoil;
12 That (so) ye may walk honestly (süoxmuávoc,
decently, and in good behaviour) towards them that are
without, and that ye may have *lack of nothing.
13 But (especially) I would not have you to be ig-
norant, brethren, concerning (the state of) them that
are asleep, that ye sorrow not (for them), * even as
others (other gentiles do) which have no hope (of a re-
surrection of the body).
14. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again
(as the first-fruits of them that slept, 1 Cor. xv. 20),
word ºrgāyaa is used by the ancients in an evil sense ; and
the Apostolical Constitutions complaining that the younger
widows marrying again, under pretence that they" could
not contain, were “engaged in an evil matter;” and by
CEcumenius being glossed thus, iv rā Āzićet' I hope I have
sufficiently vindicated this interpretation of Dr. Hammond
and the ancients, from the exceptions of Mr. Le Clerc.
"Ev rá 734%art, In, this matter.] So it plainly signifies in
those words, 2 Cor. vii. 11, “You have approved yourselves
clear #y tº ºrg4yºcari, in this matter.”
* Ver. 8. Eic hºàº, To us...] To us apostles, to enable us
to give you these commandments; and to us Christians, to
render us the temples of the Holy Ghost, which temples we
corrupt by our uncleanness (1 Cor. iii. 15, 16. vi. 15–17.
xi. 19. 2 Cor. vi. 16).
* Ver. 9. Geoštěaxtoi, Taught of God..] By this new
commandment, “that we love one another,” 1 John iii. 11.
23. iv. 21. Matt. xxii. 39. Osočíðaxtol yèg hºweſ; tepā āyroc
ygápºpwara ºraçã roi; viot, roi, Geoû wat?stop.svoi, saith Clemens
of Alexandria, “We are taught by God, having the holy
Scriptures ; and by the example of that God, who loved us,
and gave his Son for us” (Eph. v. 2). “Hence they who
are taught of God are said to hear his commands, and learn
by his example (John vi. 45).
7 Ver. 11. Tà têta, To do your own business.] I follow
here the sense of Dr. Hammond, and other interpreters;
though the following words, “to work with your own hands,”
seem to lead to the doing their own business themselves,
and not to leave all to slaves and servants, as the idle and
luxurious of old were wont to do (see Athenaeus, lib. xii.).
* Ver. 12. Kał &nčevº, Xpstav Exnts, And that ye may have
lack of nothing.] i. e. From the heathem. So the Greek
scholiasts: for, say they, if Christians, seeing a Christian beg
when he is able to live by his work, are scandalized, how
much more will heathens be so 2 And indeed, this was one
objection of the heathens against Christians, that they were:
infructuosi in negotiis “useless creatures.” The apostle
therefore doth exhort them so to provide for their necessi-
ties by their honest labour, that they may not need the help
of infidels, and never may be forced by their wants to ask it
of them.
* Ver. 13. Kašē; of Aotºroi, As do others.] Though many
heathens believed the immortality of the soul, none of them
had any expectation of the resurrection of the body. This
the philosophers, who styled the body “the prison of the
soul,” and thought it the great hinderance of knowledge and
of virtue, represented as a very despicable thing, rö a q682a
pºtapºv, xai &mán ruzzov #4, a xai 3309arov. So Celsus;S “It is
vile,” saith he, “abominable, and impossible; a wox#xov ii
#xtric, a hope fitter for worms than men.” And he confutes
the possibility of it, not only from the repugnancy of the
thing to nature, but also from the vileness of it, declaring
* M%trote trečqaast roi; º; 8%was 6a Agatsiy rā; &xpºſic, Émi
8èvrapoyakaiav, #x000a at #y ºrgáygwart yévoy rat #y ºrgávtzar,
&rgstreſ ax:3&zt. Lib. iii. cap. 2.
+ Strom. i. p. 318, L, D.
Ś Apud Orig. p. 240.
# Tertul. Apol. cap. 42.
3 F
802
I. THESSALONIANs.
even so (are we to believe, that) * them also which
sleep in Jesus will God bring with him (when he comes
to judge the world, and reward all his faithful ser-
wants). -
15 For this we say unto you, (not from ourselves,
but) by the word of the Lord, that "we who are (then)
alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall
not prevent them which are asleep (so as to receive
our happy change, before their resurrection).
16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven
with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, *, and
with the trump of God: and (then) the dead in Christ
shall rise first :
17 Then we which are alive, and remain (on the
earth), shall be caught up together with them in the
clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we
ever be * with the Lord.
18 Wherefore comfort one another (concerning your
deceased friends) with these words.
God therefore cannot do it,” “because as he will not do
what is against nature, so he cannot do what is vile.” Plo-
tinus saith, that such a resurrection would only be āváatariº
tic &AAoy tryov, “a resurrection to another sleep.” And all
the other heathens held it a thing impossible, and without
example, and therefore made it a matter of their sport ; it
being, saith Origen, ºvartågtoy yºdºxeyov tºr; 73v &ria roy (see
Justin. M. Apol. 2, p. 57, C, D. Theophilus ad Autol. 1. p.
77. De Minuc. p. 11. Arnob. lib. ii. p. 51. Lact. lib. vii. cap.
22).
1° Wer. 14. Toi, zolpºnsºrra; 8:3 roi; 'Inaoſ, Those that sleep
in, or through Jesus.] That the martyrs are not here ex-
cluded is certain; but I see no reason to grant that this ex-
pression should peculiarly respect them. All the Greek
scholiasts interpret the words generally: Chrysostom and
Theophylact say, that they who sleep in Jesus are “the
faithful,” in general; CEcumenius, “those that sleep in the
faith of Jesus.” The apostle, treating of this subject, calls
all the dead, toi, koign0ávra, Év tº Xetariº, “those that sleep
in Christ,” 1 Cor. xv. 18, and the context here requires this
sense; for the apostle speaks, ver. 13, of them that sleep
in general, and of the hope of the resurrection in general.
And when Christ comes to judgment, he will not bring the
martyrs only, but all the faithful with him. See ver, 15,
J6, where the same persons are “the dead with Christ.”
* Ver. 15. “Hººf, of Øvre, We who are alive..] It is well
observed by the Greek scholiasts, that the apostle speaks
these words, oùx #Tri Tzü Havroſ agoa dºcu, &XA' #Tri rºy zar’
#xsivoy rºw zaiety ºrepiórrow 3,9;&toy, “not of himself, but of the
Christians that were to remain alive at the day of judgment:”
so Chrysostom, Theodoret,. CEcumenius, and Theophylact;
for he well knew he was not personally to live till the resur-
rection; yea, he himself expected a resurrection, saying to
the Corinthians, “He that raised up the Lord Jesus, shall
raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you,” 2
Cor. iv. 14; he laboured that he “might attain to the resur-
rection of the dead,” Phil. iii. 11. Yet there are some
divines who, from this and some other places in the epistles,
conceive that the apostles sometimes thought and declared
to other Christians, that they themselves might live until the
resurrection; and that Paul afterward changed this opinion,
and admonished the Thessalonians of it, 2 Thess. ii. This I
conceive to be a dangerous mistake, and highly prejudicial to
the Christian faith, and the authority of the apostles; for if
the churches of Christ had once received this doctrine from
them, and afterward had understood, even from their own
confession, that it was a mistake, this would have naturally
led them to conceive that they might have been mistaken
also in any other doctrine contained in their epistles, and to
Suspect the certainty and truth of all that was contained in
them. And this the apostle seemeth to insinuate in these
words, 2 Thess. ii. 1, 2, “I beseech you, brethren, that you
be not soon shaken in mind, or troubled, either by word or
letter, as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand :” for
these words seem plainly to import, that in the apostle's own
Judgment, the belief that the apostles had taught by word or
by epistle this doctrine, would tend to the unsettling of their
minds in the faith.
* 'Axx' oºrt ye rà aiazza & Os?; Siva:ral oº rà 7262 pºziv
305Agra. Ibid.
But that Paul taught no such doctrine in any of his Epis-
tles to the Thessalonians, will be exceeding evident,
First, From the following words in that chapter: for
there, saith he, ver. 3, “Let no man deceive you by any
means;” declaring them deceivers who either taught this
doctrine, or imposed it on them as spoken or indited by
them : there also having said, in opposition to that vain
imagination, that day was not to come till there was “a fall-
ing away first, and the man of sin was revealed,” he adds,
“Remember you not that when I was yet with you, I told
you these things 2" (ver. 5.) He therefore had taught them
the contrary before he had indited either of these epistles, .
and therefore in them cannot rationally be supposed to con-
tradict himself.
Secondly, From the very words used for proof of this
opinion ; for they are introduced with this solemnity, “This
we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we that are
alive :” in which words he most plainly voucheth the au-
thority of Christ Jesus for the truth of what he saith; and
therefore, if he were mistaken, either our Lord himself must
err with him, or the apostle must vouch Christ’s word and
his authority, when Christ had spoken no such word, and
given him no authority to speak this doctrine in his name :
both which assertions overthrow the certainty and truth of
all Paul's epistles. Now hence it follows, that the apostle
could not deliver this assertion in any other of his epistles;
for all the learned do agree in this, that these epistles to the
Thessalonians were the first epistles Paul Wrote ; whence it
must follow, that he could not deliver, in his following writ-
ings, to that church or any other churches, that doctrine
which he had so industriously before confuted, and declared
very dangerous, in his epistle to the church of Thessalonica.
The truth seems therefore to be this: That as our Lord
had told them, it was not for them to know the times and
seasons (Acts i. 7), so were they left still in the dark touch-
ing the time of the general judgment; and therefore they
continually speak of it as a day that was to come upon men
“as a thief in the night,” ipsis insciis, as here, v. 1. They,
perhaps, did not know when it might happen; and so they
say nothing at any time dogmatically, but only iyêotégrals,
and disjunctly, “If we shall be found clothed, and not
naked;” and here, v. 10, “Whether we sleep or wake.”
Nor are these sayings to be taken personally, as meant of
the apostles, but rather as spoken by them in the person of
Christians in the general, some of which would be then sur-
viving. See a discourse at the end of 2 Thessalonians, by
way of inquiry, whether the apostles, in their writings,
spake as conceiving the day of judgment might be in their
days, &c.
12 Ver. 16. Kai #y cáxtriyya Osoſ, And in the trump of God.]
Pious here, and fit to be regarded, is the note of Theodoret,
That if the loud sound of the trumpet, when the law was
given from mount Sinai, was so dreadful to the Jews, that
they said to Moses, “Let not the Lord speak to us, lest we
die.” how terrible must be the sound of this trumpet,
which calls all men to the final judgment 1 .
13 Ver. 17. xi, Kvetº, With the Lord.] From which words
it may be probably collected, that even the souls of the
faithful were not ever with the Lord, or in his celestial pre-
sence, before the resurrection.
803
CHAPTER V.
1 * BUT of the (eract) times and (critical) seasons,
brethren (when the coming of the Lord shall happen),
you have no need that I should write unto you.
2 For (you) yourselves know perfectly (from what
I taught when present with you) that the day of the
Lord so cometh as a thief in the night (of the time of
whose coming the master of the house can have no
certain knowledge, Matt. xxiv. 42, 43. xxv. 13. Mark
xiii. 33. Luke xii. 39, 40. xxi. 36). f
3 * For when they (they of the Jewish nation then,
and the wicked at the great day of wrath) shall say,
Peace and safety (expecting no such thing as wrath and
indgment), then sudden destruction cometh upon
them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they
shall not escape (it).
4 But ye, brethren, are not (as formerly) in (a state
of) darkness, that that day should overtake you as a
thief (or come upon you uneapected, or unprepared
or it).
f 5 Ye are all (by virtue of your faith, and knowledge,
and your profession of Christianity,) the children of
light (as having the light, and believing in it, John xii.
36. Eph. v. 8), and the children of the day (of grace
Rom. xiii. 12, 13, and of salvation, 2 Cor. vi. 2), we
are not of the night, nor of darkness (as the Jewish
nation at present is, upon whom the darkness is come,
John xii. 35, and who are cast into utter darkness, see
note on Matt. viii. 12, and as the heathen always were :
see note on Rom. xiii. 12).
6. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others (securely
in their sins, without eaſpecting judgment, or preparing
for it, Matt. xxviii. 38. Luke xvii. 26. 30), but let us
watch and be sober (that that day do not come upon us
wnawares, nor finding us overcharged with surfeiting
and drunkenness, Luke xxi. 34. 36, this being only
proper to them who are of the night).
7 For they that sleep, sleep in the night; and they
that are drunken “are drunken in the night.
8 But let us who are (children) of the day be sober
(and vigilant, 1 Pet. iv. 7. v. 8), putting on the “breast-
plate of faith and love (that firm assurance of faith,
which will not suffer us to doubt of the divine assist-
ance, and that love which casts out fear of anything
we may suffer for the cause of Christ) ; and for a
helmet (to your head), the hope of salvation.
9. (Which hope of salvation we Christians have) for
God hath not appointed us unto wrath (as he hath
done the heathen world, who are children of wrath,
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. W.
* Ver. 1, 2.] That all this, to the twelfth verse, doth evi-
dently belong only to the destruction of the persecuting
Jews and Gnostics, at the time of Christ's coming to destroy
the Jewish church and nation, is confidently asserted by a
reverend and learned commentator on this place ; but is not
once hinted by the ancients, who all interpret these words,
wegi rā; koiyā; avy reasiac, “of Christ's general advent.” Not
do his arguments prove his assertion.
Arg. 1. First, Whereas he saith, hºwāga Xplºroſ, “The day
of Christ (here mentioned) is, without question, the same
which is so often called the coming of Christ for the de-
stroying of the enemies of Christianity.”
Ans. It is certain that this “day of Christ,” in the epis-
tles, doth almost generally signify the day of our Lord's
coming to the final judgment, as in the following words:
“He shall confirm you unto the end, that you may be blame-
less in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ,” 1 Cor. i. 8; “That
the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ,”
1 Cor. v. 5; “You are our rejoicing in the day of the Lord Je-
sus,” 2 Cor. i. 14; “He that hath begun a good work in you,
shall perfect it to the day of the Lord Jesus,” Phil. i. 6;
“That ye may be sincere and blameless until the day of Jesus
Christ,” ver. 10; “That I may rejoice in the day of Christ,”
Phil. ii. 16 (see 2 Tim. i. 12. 18. iv. 8). -
Arg. 2. Secondly, Whereas he adds that “this cannot be-
long to the last coming of Christ to judgment, because the
apostle had made that the subject of his former discourse
(ch. iv.), and enters upon this as a distinct matter with a
megi 3s,” &c.
Ans. It is granted, That the time when this judgment
shall be, is a distinct matter from the judgment itself; which
is all that this argument proves.
Arg. 3. Thirdly, Whereas he argues thus, “From the
end of this discourse, which is to comfort the Christians
which are under persecution, and give them patience and
constancy; for which this was a fit consideration, That this
judgment of God would come suddenly, and when it was
least expected, and so would surprise them if they were not
watchful; all which belonged peculiarly to this doom upon
the Jews, and not to the general judgment, which those who
then lived were not concerned in :”
Ans. First, It is certain that the apostle, both in this
epistle, iv. 18, and in his other epistle, ch. i., doth com-
fort his Thessalonians under their persecutions, from the con-
sideration of Christ's coming to reward them at the day of
judgment.
Secondly, It is also certain, that Christ and his apostles
exhort Christians to be watchful that they may not be “sur-
prised at the day of judgment.” So doth Christ, Matt. xxv.
13. Luke xii. 35.40, so doth Paul, 2 Cor. v. 9, 10, so doth
St. Peter, 2 Pet. iii. 11, 12. 14, as being that which all men,
who must die, and after that be judged “according to what
they have done in the flesh,” must be as well concerned to
prepare for, by watchfulness, as if it were to come while they
were living; and upon this account it is that the apostle, in
this chapter, ver. 23, and in the forecited places, prays so oft
that Christians “may be confirmed, and kept blameless to
the day of the Lord Jesus.”
Let it be then observed, that the apostle had spoken, i.
10, of their “waiting for the coming of the Lord from hea-
ven,” iii. 13, of his “coming with all his saints,” iv. 16, of
his “coming with the voice of the archangel, and of the
trump of God.” He had also hinted, ii. 10, that the unbe-
lieving Jews were, by their opposition to the gospel preached
to the gentiles, and by their persecutions of them who had
embraced it, filling up the measure of their sins, and draw-
ing down that day of wrath upon them, which is mentioned
Matt. xxiv. I therefore shall descant on these words, as re-
lating to both these days of judgment.
* Ver. 3..] Josephus * informs us, that when the tumults,
foretold by our Saviour, were begun, the Jews were expecting
a nºweto. ÉXEvêspiac, “signs from God of their liberty;” and that
“after all the clear signs God hath given them of their ap-
proaching ruin, and when it was even accomplished, they
were confidently expecting, rºy &rd Osoſ; 30%9stay, the divine
aid:” and, which is more remarkable, that the promise of a
Messiah, which their sacred books declared was to come,
xará ràv Katºv #zeïvoy, “about that time,”f was rê štrápay abrouc
Azéxia-ra ºrgög ºréasºoy, “that which chiefly incited them to the
War. *
* Ver. 7..] Note, Oh, the sad dissoluteness of the manners
of the Christians of our age, who frequently are guilty of
that drunkenness in the day time, which heathens only
practised in the night ! -
* Ver. 8. Qögawa, The breastplate of the faith, &c.] This
metaphor, relating to our Christian warfare, is taken from
soldiers, who anciently watched or kept sentinel in their ar-
* De Bell. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 22, p. 796.
+ Lib. vii, cap. 30, p. 960. + Cap. 61, p. 961, F.
- 3 F 2
8()4,
I. THESSALONIANS.
*
wrath fitted for destruction, Rom. ix. 22, and upon
whom wrath is coming to the end, 1 Thess. ii. 16), but
to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,
10 Who died for us, that, whether we “wake or
sleep (i. e. whether he come in the night, and so finding
us taking our natural rest, or in the day, when we are
waking), we may live together with him (when he
comes). - . * * -
11 Wherefore comfort yourselves together (with
this hope), and "edify one another, even as also you do.
12 And we beseech you, brethren, to know (and
reserence) them which labour among you, and " are
over you in the Lord, and admonish you;
13 And to esteem them very highly in love for
their work’s sake. And beat peace among yourselves.
14 Now (Tapakaxoiſiev č, and) we exhort you,
meur, having especially their helmet and breastplate on ; for,
as Livy “ hotes, scuto prae se erecto stabant galeati, “they
stood with their shield before them, and their helmet on
their heads.” Whence he says of Paulus AEmilius, that
milites novo more scutum in vigiliam ferre vetuit; “after a
new manner he forbade the soldiers to wear their shield when
they watched.” Now the head and heart being the two
chief fountains of life and sensation, the preserving them
safe is, in effect, the preserving of the whole man. #
* Ver. 10. Eirs yanyogājasy, eſts zašešºop.ey.] That is, say
some, “whether we live or die.” And true it is that Chris-
tians dying, are said to “fall asleep.” So I Cor. xi. 30,
gotºvtzi izzwoi, “Some are fallen asleep :” xv. 51, ºrávrac
fºy oi noºn&ncéºześa, “We shall not all sleep.” So here, iv.
13, “I would not have you ignorant, wagi rāy zewoſznº.évov,
concerning them that are fallen asleep,” and, ver. 14, roi;
wo-pºivras, “Them that sleep in Jesus will God bring with
him :” but because in all these places the Greek word is ne-
ver Rašče, but always kotagopal, I prefer the exposition of
the paraphrase.
But them, that the “hope of salvation,” ver. 8, the regi-
wroſna is owtzgias, “the obtainment of salvation by Christ Je-
Sus,” ver, 9, the “living with him,” “rer. 10, should refer
chiefly to the purchase of deliverance from Jewish persecu-
tions, and the enjoyment of this present life, I can by no
means grant ; for the Christian's hope is, “the hope of the
glory of God,” Rom. v. 3, “the hope of the redemption of
the body from corruption,” viii. 23, 24, “the hope which is
laid up for us in heaven,” Gol. i. 5, “the hope of glory,” ver.
27, “a blessed hope,” Tit. ii. 13, “the hope of eternal life,”
lll. I. -
The Salvation purchased for us by Christ's death, is not
deliverance from persecutions; for “all that will live godly
in Christ Jesus must suffer persecutions,” 2 Tim. iii. 13. In
these we are to be “conformed to his death,” Rom. viii. 17.
2 Tim. ii. 12, “he having suffered; leaving us an example,
that we should follow his steps,” 1 Pet. ii. 21.
And to “live with Christ,” is to live in a state of glory
with him, and be conformed to his resurrection, Rom. vi. 8.
2 Tim. ii. 12. Col. iii. 3, 4, 1 Pet. iv. 13, and this is the com-
fort which the apostle had given them, iv. 18, and to which
he now proceeds.
* Ver, 11. Oikoławārs sic rāv Āya, Edify yourselves into one
body.) By your mutual love to one another, as being mem-
bers of the same body (Eph. iv. 16), and by your strict
junion, and peaceable conversation with one another, which
is the edification of one of us unto another, commanded,
Rom. xiv. 9 (see note on Rom. xv.2). -
” Wer, 12. Kai Tºofarapºvov; bºy, That the persons here
mentioned as labouring among them, as being over them, in
the plural, should be the bishops of the metropolis of Thes-
salonica, seems very improbable; there being scarcely any
ordinary fixed officers then placed in the church, anno Christi
49 or 51, when this epistle was written: and therefore the
learned Mr. Dodwell," notwithstanding these words, saith,
quðd nulla sit rectorum mentio in utrāvis Epistolà ad Thes:
Lib. xiv. -
ºf Lib. de Jure Laic. Sacerdotali, cap, 3, 18, p. 232.
Eph. ii. 3, and the unbelieving Jews, who are vessels of -
brethren, warn them that are unruly (as walking not
according to the doctrine they have received from us,
2 Thess. iii. 6. 14), comfort the feeble-minded (who
are of a wounded spirit under afflictions, 6\tyó'puzor,
Prov. xviii. 14, that are of a fearful spirit under them,
Isa. xxxv. 4, of a grieved spirit, Isa. liv. 6, whose
spirit fails under them, Isa. lvii. 16, whose hands hang
down, and whose knees are feeble, Heb. xii. 12), Sup-
port the weak (in faith, who are soon scandalized, and
apt to perish by it, Rom xiv. 1, 2. 21. 1 Cor. viii. 7. 9
—12), be patient towards all men.
15 See that mone render evil for evil unto any man
(whatever the provocation may be, Rom. xii. 27), but
ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves
and to all men, (even them that hate you, Matt. v. 44.)
16 °Rejoice evermore. . . .
17 Pray "without ceasing.
solonicenses; “that there is no mention of any fixed rulers
in either of the Epistles to the Thessalonians.” And (1.)
we find no notice taken of them in the front of these epistles,
as there is of the bishops and deacons, Phil. i. 1 ; no salu-
tation of them in the close of these epistles, the words of
salutation being only these, “Salute all the brethren with a
holy kiss.” (2.) We find no directions given to them in par-
ticular (but only to the brethren in general) touching such
matters as must have related to their office only, or chiefly,
had they been settled rulers in the church. The charge in
the very next verse runs thus: “We exhort you, brethren,
warn them that are unruly, comfort the feeble-minded, sup-
port the weak.” In the Second Epistle, iii. 6, thus: “We
command, you, brethren, in the name of our Elord Jesus
Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that
walks disorderly, and not according to the tradition which ye
received from us:” and, ver, 13, 14, “And ye, brethren,
if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that
man, and have no company with him, that he may beashamed;
yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as
a brother;” and, lastly, to these brethren the adjuration is
here directed, yer, 27, “charging them by the Lord, that this
epistle be read to all the holy brethren.” It is therefore to
be noted, that the apostles, prophets, preachers, evangelists,
who were all extraordinary officers, are reckoned among those
whom God had settled in the church, 1 Cor. xii. 12, and
Christ ascending up on high, had given for the edification of
his body, Eph. iv. 11, 12. Some of these prophets and
teachers were in most churches, as at Antioch, Acts xiii. 1,
and officiated in them, ver. 3, at Rome, xii. 6, 7, at Corinth,
1 Cor. xiv., at Galatia, see note on vi. 1. Some of them were
itinerants, sent by the apostles, or prophets, to teach other
churches, and by the Holy Spirit separated to that work,
Acts xiii. 2–4, exhorting and confirming the Christians
where they came, as being prophets authorized so to do,
Acts xvi. 32, and travelling up and down for the converting
and establishing of the gentiles, 3 John 7, 8 (see note on 1
Cor. xii. 28). Of one of these two kinds of prophets, and
teachers, and spiritual men, the apostle may here be under-
stood.
Know them who labour among you, and are over you in
the Lord.] Here saith Theophylact, “If you honour them.
who preside over you in temporal affairs, how much more
should you respect them who do it in spiritual things, who
regenerate you in baptism, pray for you, visit you in sick-
ness, and minister physic to your souls.”
* Ver. 16. IIávtore Xaigera.] Thus kºv etc trapaap, obs, xày
eiç Aşrag #pºrécnºrs, GEcumenius; “ Though you fall into
manifold temptations and afflictions” (James i. 2), and be
brought into a very low condition in this world ; yet “rejoice
in the Lord always” (Phil. iv.;4), “rejoice in the hope of
the glory of God” (Rom. v. 6), and of that great reward
you shall receive for all your sufferings (Matt. v. 11, 12.
Heb. x. 34), and in the spiritual fruits they work in you
(Rom. v. 4. James i. 3).
* Ver, 17. Abia afizawa, Without ceasing.] To give, once
for all, the true sense of those injunctions, so frequent in the
scripture, to “pray, and give thanks always,” and “without
ceasing ;” observe, * . . . . * *
. . . . . . ; T
sº f.
CHAPTER V.
805
... r
18 "In everything give thanks : for this is the will
of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
19 "Quench not the Spirit.
20 * Despise not prophesyings. .
*
21 *Prove all things (by the spirit of discretion |
which is in the church, and the consonancy of their pre-
First, That these phrases do, in the mildest sense, import,
that these should be the employment of every day, our morn-
ing and evening sacrifice; that so beginning and ending the
day with them, we may be, in the scripture language, said to
do them “always.” Thus Luke tells us, xxiv. 53, that the
apostles “were continually in the temple, 8taqraytöc, praising
God;” that is, they were, kað’ hºcépav, “ daily in the temple,”
Acts i. 46, 47, resorting thither at the third hour of the
morning, and at the ninth of the evening sacrifice (Acts iii.
1). The sacrifice which was appointed to be thus offered
daily at morning and evening, is in the Hebrew, Trynn, “the
continual sacrifice,” Dam. viii. 11, and accordingly is render-
ed by the Septuagint, à Svaria 8taravrás. Thus the mincha,
which the high-priest offered every day, half of it in the
morning, and half in the evening, is styled by them, # Svaria
3ramavrác, “the continual sacrifice,” Lev. vi. 20. The burnt-
offering which was offered, without intermission, twice a day,
is, in the Hebrew, Tºnn ºy ; and in the LXX., Šxonaſtopwa.
‘rā 8taravros, “the continual sacrifice,” Numb. xxviii. 24.
31. And in allusion to it, the author to the Hebrews saith
of our high-priest, “By him let us offer up the sacrifice of
praise to God continually.” This therefore is the prime im-
port of the phrase. . * -
Secondly, These phrases do import, that we should be
employed in the performance of these duties, as Providence
doth minister occasion for them. In this sense is the word
“always” used twice, when our Lord saith, “I was always
in the temple, whither the Jews always resort,” John xviii.
20; for neither did the Jews always resort unto the temple,
but only at the hours of prayer; nor did Christ always teach
in it, but only when he went up to Jerusalem. And thus
the Holy Ghost, in scripture, leads us to expound these
phrases, enjoining us to “abound always in every good
work,” 2 Cor. ix. 8, and elsewhere, to “do good, &; watgöv
#xopºv, as we have occasion,” Gal. vi. 10. So, to “pray
always,” Luke xviii. 1, is to pray v Tavri Kaić, “in every
season,” xxi. 36. And, to “pray without ceasing,” here, is
to pray, Św travti xatéº, “in every opportunity,” Eph. vi.
18. So 1 Macc. xii. 11, hºws; obv #y travri Katgå &8taxeira wº,
“We at all times, without ceasing, both in our feasts and
other convenient days, do remember you in the sacrifices
which we offer;” i. e. we do it as oft as we have occasion to
offer sacrifice. *
Thirdly, In reference to our prayers particularly, it im-
ports, that we should not grow faint and weary, when Pro-
vidence seems for a season to defer the blessing we implore
(Luke xviii. 1), but should still trºocºcêvely, “abide in sup-
plication,” 1 Tim. v. 5, and āypurveſy, “watch unto it with
all perseverance,” Eph. vi. 18. -
* Ver. 18. 'Ev travri, In everything.] For sparing and
preventing, for common and extraordinary, general and spe-
cial, past and present, temporal and spiritual mercies; not
only for prosperous and grateful, but also for afflicting pro-
vidences, for chastisements, and seasonable corrections;
Trávra, y&é ºrgög rö avkºpágoy Trois; 6 Os3;, x:y #257; 3) voodºwev
aúrð ‘rā; oizovoaiaº, “for God designs them all for our good,
though we at present see not how they tend unto it.”
* Ver. 19. Quench not the Spirit..] Touréatt Xápicº, a £ch
w * & * gº *g
expéâza are Kai ka'adsts, rā ātrogrgépszºat wai kº Šćy A&Asſy,
CEcumen. i. e. “Hinder not the gifts of the Spirit, by turn-
ing away from them that have them, and not suffering them
to speak.” These gifts were quenched by strife, emulation,
schisms, and contention about them (1 Cor. iii. l. 3): (2.)
By a disorderly use of them, not to the edification of the
church, but to vain ostentation, confusion in the church,
and the scandal of heathens (1 Cor. xiv.), by ä neglect to
exercise them: “Forbid not to speak with tongues” (1 Cor.
xv. 39). '
* Ver. 20. Despise not prophesyings.] IIgopázsi rāv Jev-
Borgoºnrāv, Kai tow; 3Aněsí; ºn rvoy, CEcumenius. Some of
these false prophets had crept into the church at Thessa-'
tended prophecies and interpretations with what we
have delivered to you; and then) hold fast that which
is good. - . . .
22 (Andy “abstain from all appearance of evil.
23 And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly ;
and I pray God (that) your "whole spirit, and soul,
lonica, as is hinted in those words, “Be not troubled by
(them, who pretend a revelation from the) Spirit, as if the
day of Christ were at hand” (2 Thess. ii. 2), which made
them less.regardful of what was delivered by men pretending
to this gift; and made it necessary for John to say, “Believe
not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they be of God:
for many false prophets are gone out into the world” (1 John
iv. 1). And to prevent the mischief the Thessalonians might
receive from them, the apostle here adds, “Try all things,”
&c. ver. 21. - - - -
19 Wer. 21. Azzº&srs, Try.] Note, That the apostle doth
not here bid the guides of the church try all things, and the
people hold fast that which they delivered to them; but gives
an injunction common to all Christians, “having their senses
exercised to discern betwixt good and evil ;” to all who are
obliged to hold fast that which is good, and not to believe
false prophets; which is a strong argument for the perspicuity
and the sufficiency of holy scripture for this work, and
against the necessity of a living judge: for he that must try
all things, must also try the doctrine of this living judge ;
and therefore till he hath made this trial, must not admit his
doctrine as an article of Christian faith ; for these words
plainly teach that what we must hold fast, must first be tried.
* Hearers,” saith Basil, “who are instructed in the scrip-
tures, ought to try the things spoken by their teachers, zai tº
ºy a ſpºoya raï, yeapaſ; 34%gasat, rà. 88 3xxérpta #84x?siv,
and receive those doctrines which are consonant, and reject
those which are alien from the holy Scriptures ; because
St. Paul hath said, Try all things; hold fast that which is
good.” See Clem. Alex. Strom. i. p. 354. Strom. vi. p. 655.
Orig. in Joh. tom. xix. ed. Huet. p. 268, and, Hom. 2 in
Ezek. f. 135, G. Jerome in Ep. ad Eph, lib. iii, cap. 5, p.
101. Cyril of Alex. in Joh. lib. iv. p. 374, 407, and lib. i.
adv. Nestor. p. 2.
14 Wer. 22. 'Ar. ray+3; sºove roynéoù, From all kinds or
sorts of evil..] So the Syriac doth render these words. So
Chrysostom and Theophylact upon this place. So Basil and
Leontius, cited by Dr. Hammond, who descant thus upon
the words: “Fly not from this or that only, but from every
sin.” Or, secondly, if the apostle here exhorts us to abstain
from “all appearance of evil;” his meaning cannot be this,
that we should abstain from what appears evil to others: it
being, in many cases, impossible to know what appears so,
and impracticable to act by such a rule; because it would
destroy our Christian liberty in things indifferent, and create
in our minds continual perplexities, there being scarcely
anything which may not appear evil, to some or other of
those numerous sects which swarm among us; he therefore
only must enjoin us to abstain from that which, after trial,
seems evil to ourselves, and is judged by us so to be ; for
the apostle makes these two things, the “holding that which
is good,” and the “abstaining from all appearance of evil,”
the consequent of trying all things. Now we try all things,
that, after trial, we may hold that which seemeth to us good,
and abstain from that which seemeth to us evil, not to ab-
stain from that which seemeth so to others only.
is Wer. 23. ‘oxéxxngoy tºy ré ryeſſag, zai h ºvyi, Kai ré
agga, Your whole spirit, and soul, and body..] Here the
apostle justifies the ancient and true philosophy, that man
is, as Nemesius styles him, relp,sº in ºracic, “a compound
of three differing parts.” This was the doctrine of the
Pythagoreans, as we learn from Jamblichus,” who, having
told us that man consists of soul and body, adds that “the
soul consists of two parts; one endued with reason, and ope
without reason.” This also was the philosophy of the Pla-
tonists, as we learn from Nemesius, F. Sallust, and Laertius,
* Wuxi,
33, T3 paſſy %y fixoy Aáyov, tº 33 otz #x2y. Protrept.
p. 34, 35. -
* & º -
+ kai # pºv &Xoyo, roſ, orogarikoi; #tre'ral Trá6erty" # 35
* * *
Aoyiz’ gi-Sºzeż;, xxl țayrazia; &pxºva'a -to 33 cºp, atc;
806 PREFACE TO
and body, be preserved blameless to the coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ.
24 * Faithful is he who calleth you (to this holiness),
who also will do (his part towards) it.
25 Brethren, pray for us (see note on Col. iv. 4).
who inform us, that “there is in man a soul irrational, which
follows the affections of the body; and a mind, which useth
the body as its instrument, and fights against it.” This also
was the doctrine of the stoics; whence Antoninus saith, the
three constituent parts of man are, a 3pxa, Juxº, voic, “the
body, Soul, and mind.” Irenaeus,” and Clemens-F of Alex-
andria, and Origen, say the same. Mr. Le Clerc here is
very positive, that “this philosophy is false,” and that “there
is nothing in man but his body, and his reasonable soul.”
But he saith nothing to sustain this confidence against those
two excellent philosophers, Gassendus,S and Dr. Willis,
who have established this philosophy beyond all reasonable
contradiction. Nor can the conflict betwixt the mind and
spirit, and the flesh, mentioned Rom. viii. from ver, 14 to
the 25th, and Gal. v. 16, 17, be explained ; nor can any
man tell what the tº 38%izèv, or ruling principle in us, is to
govern, without admitting this inferior soul as the fountain
of our sensual appetites, or even tell us what it is to die;
unless it be to make this inferior soul, which consists in the
motion of the animal spirits, and the sensitive appetites they
produce in us, to cease to act, or move, as formerly. He
will have buxº here to signify life, as indeed it doth in other
places; but never where constituent parts of a man are
enumerated as here they are; and seeing the spirit and the
body are unquestionably the constituent parts of a man, it
is reasonable to conceive, that the Juxº mentioned here
must be so also, especially since it is divided from the spirit
and the body by the particle wal. Moreover, by following
the motions of this brutish appetite, is a man styled Juxº,
“the animal man,” and by being animated and informed by
fºrk ºyou kara pºoveſ De Diis, &c. cap. 8. D. Laert. lib.
iii. p. 219.
* Perfectus homo constat carne, animo, et spiritſ, Iren.
lib. V. cap. 9, p. 446, et lib. ii. cap. 62.
+ Oi Kºśv rás gº 3i, Kai lux'), zai trysºga. Strom. iii.
p. 454.
# "o &ºtaro; aviarnxs, a cºwaroº, wał Juxi, zai ºrvet-
wato;. Orig. Philoc. p. 8.
$ Phys. lib. ix. cap. 11, Ş. 3.
|| De Animă Brut. cap. 7.
26 Greet all the brethren with a holy kiss.
27 " I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be
read to all the holy brethren.
28 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with
you. Amen.
this luxã, is the body called a 3pwa. Juxiaºw, “an animal
body,” 1 Cor. xv. 44, 45; and by conveying of this lux},
or inferior soul, to his posterity, is the first Adam said to be
made eig Juxºv Čºoray, to convey this animal life to his pos-
terity; though this at last may be only a strife about words,
the animal spirits being included in the body.
* Ver. 24. IIIa rö: 3 xaxây tºº, Faithful is he that calleth
gow.] Who therefore will not be wanting in what is requisite
on his part towards it ; I say his part, for if the fidelity of
God required that he would sanctify and preserve us blame-
less to the end, without our care and industry, or should
work in us absolutely and certainly that care, and the apos-
tle believed this, how could he fear lest the Thessalonians
should be so overcome by Satan's temptations, as that his
labour with them might have been in vain (1 Thess. iii. 5),
this being in effect to fear that God might be unfaithful to
his promise ? -
*7 Wer. 27. ‘Opxićw tºwgº, I adjure you by the Lord.] In
judicial oaths the custom among the Jews was, not for the
person who came under the obligation of an oath to pro-
nounce the words of swearing with his own mouth, but an
oath was exacted from him by the magistrate or superior,
and so he became bound to answer upon oath, “by hearing
the voice of adjuration,” polyhy jºkizºoij, so the Septuagint,
Lev. v. 1. So Gen. l. 16, “Our father, &gxias, made us
swear before he died;” Josh. vi. 26, &phia’sy Incrojº Hwayºríow
Kvpiov, “Joshua adjured them, saying, Cursed is the man
before the Lord, that riseth up and buildeth Jericho ;” I
Sam. xiv. 24, “Saul had adjured the people, gziarz, &psia's
rºw Xay, saying, Cursed be the man that eateth any food;”
that is, he charged the people with an oath: 1 Kings xxii.
16, roadzic ixeira, ca ; “How oft shall I adjure thee º’” So
in the New Testament, the high-priest saith to Christ, gzića,
a's war& roi; Osci, Kºvros, “I adjure thee by the living God.”
Now hence two things are evident ; (1.) That Paul did not
judge all judicial oaths unlawful, for then he would not have
laid this oath upon his Thessalonians. (2.) That Christ did
not forbid judicial, but only voluntary oaths, because it was
not in the power of the Jews, to whom he spake, to avoid
judicial oaths, nor would he then have answered to the
adjuration of the high-priest.
THE
SECONB) FPHSTLE TO
THE THESSALONIANS.
WITH ANNOTATIONS.
P. R. E. F. A. C. E.
HAVING offered a new interpretation of the second chapter
of this epistle, which treateth of “the man of sin,” com-
monly called “antichrist,” there mentioned, I shall here
give the reasons why I could not acquiesce in any of the
expositions already given either by protestants or papists,
tund answer some objections against the exposition I have
put upon the words of the apostle in that chapter. And,
Š. 1. First, Whereas Mr. Obadiah Walker hath taken a
great deal of pains to apply all that the apostle saith to
Mahomet and his followers, that vain conceit will be demon-
stratively confuted from the following considerations:
1. That the apostle here exhorts the Thessalonians “not
to be shaken in mind, or troubled, either by spirit, or by
letter, or by word, as from us (the apostles), as if the day of
the Lord were at hand,” ver. 2. Now what day doth the
apostle mean? Surely that day when “the Lord shall con-
sume the wicked one by the breath of his mouth, and by
the brightness of his coming,” ver. 8. Now sure it is, that
Mahomet came not till five hundred and sixty-seven years
after the writing this epistle, viz. A.D. 608, nor is our Lord
yet come to “consume him with the breath of his mouth,”
nor know we when he will do so. How therefore could it
be, that they, who were foretold so punctually of the apos-
tasy which should introduce “the man of sin,” and what
yet hindered the revelation of him in his season, as the
II. THESSALONIANS.
807
Thessalonians were (ver. 5, 6), should think the day of the
Lord's coming to destroy Mahomet and his followers was at
hand 2 or that they should be led into this apprehension
by any word, epistle, or revelation, made, spoken, or written,
by the apostles or prophetic men concerning him. Could
they then know from the mouth of Paul, that this man of
sin was one Mahomet, who was not to appear till five hun-
dred and sixty-seven years after his speaking of him ; and
when he did appear, was to continue above a thousand years
before the coming of our Lord to consume him, and yet by
any of his words be induced to conceive “the day of the
Lord was at hand 2*
Moreover, If the coming of our Lord here mentioned,
was to consume the beast, or Roman antichrist, seeing this
beast was to arise out of the ruins of the Roman empire,
and if Paul had told them anything from Daniel of this
matter, he must have let them know that this was so; and
also that this antichrist, when risen out of the ruins of that
empire, was to continue for “a time and times, and half a
time,” that is, twelve hundred and sixty years before the
coming of our Saviour to destroy him. It is as difficult to
conceive how, after this, the Thessalonians could think
Christ's coming to consume the beast could be then instant
when this epistle was indited.
§ 2. Arg. 2. I argue, Secondly, against this opinion, from
those words, “Remember ye not that when I was with you,
I told you of these things?” ver, 5–7. That is, I told you
of the apostasy that was to precede the man of sin; how
he should “exalt himself above all that is called God,” &c.
and what it was that hindered his being revealed in his sea-
son : now can any one believe that the apostle, who was
not with the Thessalonians, long enough to “perfect what
was lacking in their faith” (1 Thess. iii. 10), should yet em-
ploy his time in telling them a long story of the apostasy of
the Arians and Nestorians, saith Mr. Walker, and of one
Mahomet, who should thus exalt himself, and what then hin-
dered his being revealed? Could he say that very “mystery
of iniquity,” this Mahomet was to bring into the world, then
wrought, only because there were some heretics, already
come, who “ confessed not that Jesus Christ was come in the
flesh,” though Mahomet confessed this very freely 2 As well
may it be said, that the mystery of quakerism was wrought
in the second and third centuries, because some heretics of
those times taught doctrines like those they now profess.
And since it is equally improbable the apostle, in that
little time, should speak to them of the apostasy of the
church of Rome from the faith, and how the bishop of
Rome should lord it over Christian emperors, and over the
laws of God and Christ, and “wear out the Saints of the
Most High” for twelve hundred and sixty years; and is still
more improbable, that he should say all this then to them,
and here again bring the same thing to their remembrance,
and yet that not the least intimation of anything of this na-
ture should appear in any Christian writers on this subject
for six following centuries: since, I say, this is so, this argu-
ment must be of equal strength against those who conceive the
papal antichrist should primarily and chiefly be intended here.
§. Arg. 3. Thirdly, I argue against this opinion from those
words, “And then shall that wicked one be revealed, whom
the Lord shall consume with the breath of his mouth,” &c.
ver, 8. For hence it seems plain this wicked one was to
be destroyed by the coming of our Lord soon after the time
of his revelation, and not above a thousand years after ; as
both the opinion of those papists, who say that he is Ma-
homet, and of those protestants, who say that he is the pope
and his clergy, must make the interval betwixt his revelation
and destruction be ; for the same thing that hindered his
revelation, hindered the coming of our Lord to destroy
him thus revealed ; and these two things seem to be thus
connected: The day of the Lord will not come, till there
come first an apostasy, and by that a revelation of the man
of sin ; when therefore this apostasy, and this revelation of
the man of sin happens, then will Christ come to consume
him. And otherwise the Christians of after ages might
have been subject, from the apostle's words, to a like mistake
to that here mentioned, seeing, to tell them they had no
reason yet to expect this day of the Lord, because it was
not to come till the man of sin was revealed; and to add,
when that which hindered the revelation of him in his sea-
son was once taken away, then should he also be revealed
whom the Lord should consume with the brightness of his
coming, must fairly lead them to expect this day soon af.
ter his revelation, and not after he had been thus revealed
above a thousand years.
Š. 4. Those arguments are such as equally confute the
opinion of those protestants, who conceive the apostle pri-
marily to characterize the pope and his clergy, and of those
who apply these words to Mahomet. .
Arg. 4. But, Fourtlily, I argue against them, who suppos
Mahomet to be the man here intended, from these words of
the apostle, that the coming of this wicked one shall be
“according to the working of Satan in all power, signs, and
lying wonders,” ver, 9; for the words 8wépceiç, angzeſa, régara,
“powers, signs, and wonders,” are never used in scrip-
ture for any wonderful things done by God upon men, or
any ecstasies or conferences of angels with them, but always
for outward signs done by men upon other things or persons:
such as were the healing of the sick and lame, the casting
out of devils, the raising of the dead (see note on Heb.
ii. 4). Now Mahomet everywhere professeth that he came
not with any such miracles, and therefore he could not be
the person here designed: for his opposers demanded of him
Such miracles, saying, “Moses and Jesus, according to thy
own doctrine, wrought miracles to prove their mission from
God; and therefore if thou be a prophet, and greater than
any that were ever sent before thee, as thou boastest thyself
to be, do thou the like miracles to manifest it to us; do thou
make the dead to rise, the dumb to speak, the deaf to hear
&c., and then we will believe in thy word.” This objection.
saith Dr. Prideaux,” he endeavoured to evade by several an-
swers: “one while he tells them, he is only a man sent to
preach to them the rewards of paradise, and the punish-
ments of hell: at another time, that their predecessors con-
temned the miracles of Salch and the other prophets, and that
for this reason God would work no more among them : and
a while after, that those whom God had ordained to believe,
should believe without miracles; and those whom he had not
ordained to believe, should not be convinced, though all
these miracles should be wrought in their sight, which they
required. But this not satisfying, as being a plain confes-
sion that he wanted that power of miracles which all other
prophets had to prove their mission, several of those that
were his followers departed from him. Having therefore
got the sword into his hand, and an army to back his cause.
his doctrine then was, that God had sent Moses and Jesus
with miracles, and yet men would not be obedient to their
word; and therefore he had now sent him, in the last place,
without miracles, to force them by the power of the Sword
to do his will.
“However (says he) it is not to be denied, that there are
several miracles reckoned up which Mahomet is said to have.
wrought ; as that he did cleave the moon in two ; that the
trees went forth to meet him; and that the stones saluted
him;” which are the miracles here mentioned by Mr. Walker.
But then he adds, that “they who relate them are only such
as are reckoned among their fabulous and legendary writers;
their learned doctors renounce them all, as doth Mahomet
himself, who in several places of his Alcoran owns that he
wrought no miracles.” *
§. 5. Against the opinion of Grotius, that Caius Caligula
was the man of sin, it is superfluous to say much, it being
grounded upon an error in chronology, that St. Paul writ
this epistle, A. D. 40, when Caius appeared; whereas it is
certain, from 1 Thess. i. 5, that Paul had been at Thessa-
lonica before this epistle was writ; for Paul went up to Je-
rusalem, say the best chronologers, A. D. 49, and it is evident
that then he had not been at Thessalonica, and so had writ
no epistle to them, it being writ after “his entrance in to
them,” ver, 9, after he had “spoken to them the gospel of
God,” ii. 2, after he had been “taken from them a short
time,” ver, 17. Now that he had not been at Thessalonica
before his going up to the council at Jerusalem, appears from
the history of the Acts, which saith, that after this council
he went to Antioch, xv. 30, then through Syria and Cilicia,
ver. 41, then to Derbe and Lystra, xvi. 1, 2, then through
Phrygia, Galatia, and Mysia, and so to Troas, wer. 6–8
* Life of Mahomet; p. 30–32.
808
PREFACE To
then to Samothracia, Neapolis, and Philippi, ver. 11, 12,
and having passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, he
came to Thessalonica, xvii. 1. He therefore coming only
thither eight years after the death of Caius, and not writing
this epistle till after he had left them, could not then write of
Caius, as “the man of sin” to be yet revealed.
Ş. 6. I pass on to the interpretation of Dr. Hammond,
which is this:
1. “That the man of sin, the son of perdition, was Simon
Magus, together with his followers the Gnostics, designed for
destruction (Paraph. on ver. 3). #
2. “That Simon Magus setting himself at the head of
them, Christ should destroy him by extraordinary means, as
the preaching and the miracles of St. Peter; and the Gnos-
tics that adhered to him, at the destruction of the unbelieving
Jews (Paraph. on ver. 8).
3. “That the falling away first, must be a great departure
or defection from the faith to the heresy of the Gnostics, or
the Christians breaking off their compliance with the im-
penitent Jews, leaving them as obdurate, and departing
avowedly to the gentiles (Paraph. on ver, 3). .
4. “That which withholdeth, and he that letteth, was the
apostles not giving over preaching to the Jews, as hopeless
and refractory, and going to the gentiles (Paraph, on ver.
6); and the Christians walking warily, and doing nothing con-
trary to the Mosaical law.
5. “That the mystery already working was this sort of
men already formed into a sect under their ringleaders Simon
and Carpocrates” (Paraph. on ver. 7). *
Now against this opinion I argue,
First, From “the day of the Lord” here mentioned, ver.
1, 2; for that indeed doth often signify in scripture the day of
the Lord's coming to the destruction of the temple, city, and
nation, of the Jews; which, saith the reverend Dr. Ham-
mond, is the true import of the phrase here; but it never
signifies his coming to destroy Simon Magus. Moreover, it
is plain from the eighth verse that this coming of the Lord
is to destroy “the man of sin,” he being to be destroyed “by
the brightness of his coming;” how then can this day be the
time appointed for the destruction of Simon Magus, who
perished some years before Christ's coming to the destruction
of Jerusalem 2 for, according to Walesius,” Eusebius, and
Symeon Metaphrastes, Simon perished in the reign of Clau-
dius; he coming then to Rome, and St. Peter then also com-
ing after him, to detect his frauds; whence he well argues,
that “it is not probable he should long there insult over
the Christian faith, St. Peter being then présent to op-
pose him.” Now if this be true, he perished at the least
sixteen years before the dastruction of Jerusalem, and Christ
came to destroy him within four years after the writing
this epistle. If he perished, as others will have it, in the
fourth of Nero, he must die twelve years before Christ came
to destroy Jerusalem ; or if he continued till the twelfth
of Nero, opposing Christianity twelve years at Rome,
under the very nose of the two chief apostles, which is not
very probable, yet must he die four years before Christ's com-
ing to the destruction of Jerusalem, and therefore could not
be destroyed, “by the brightness of his coming.”
Must we then refer this only to the destruction of his fol-
lowers the Gnostics 2 That they were then in being, I could
never yet see proved, and much less that any of them perished
at the destruction of Jerusalem. I know the doctor cites Eu-
sebius, £ as saying, that the Gnostics “in a moment were ut-
terly extinct;” whereas it is manifest, Eusebius says this not
of the Gnostics, but the Nicolaitans; nor could he say it of
them, who flourished chiefly in the second century; whence
it is styled, sæculum Gnosticum : moreover, it is a plain flaw
in this, or any like interpretation, to make the head of any
* Eusebium secutus Symeon Metaphrastes Simonis interi-
tum Claudii temporibus accidisse scribit. Not. in Euseb. lib.
ii. cap. 15. -
+ Ego Eusebii sententiam veriorem esse puto; clim enim
constet ex Justino (Apol. ii. p. 69, E. et p. 91, B. et Irenaeo,
lib. i. cap. 20) Simonem Sub Claudio Roman venisse, et
fraudulenta edidisse miracula, climgue etiam constet Petrum
ejusdem Claudii temporibus Roman se contulisse, ad Simonis
fraudes confutandas, verisimile non est Simonem tamditi,
praesente et adstante Petro, insultâsse fidei Christianæ.
3. Lib. iii. cap. 29.
perfractis. Arnoh. p. 50.
party, with his followers, to be the “man of sin” to he con-
sumed by the coming of our Lord; and yet to make the anti,
signanus perish before his coming, and his followers only at it.
Add to this, that the whole foundation of this opinion
depends upon the tale of Simon Magus's* flying in the air
at Rome, and his falling down and breaking his bones at the
prayer of St. Peter; which is a thing not only uncertain,
but, in the judgment of many learned persons, absolutely
false. Cotelerius, a Romanist, is forced, Étréxsw, to suspend
his judgment about it: First, By reason of the original of the
story, which, Saith he, had its rise, é libris apocryphis et
pseudepigraphis,f “from apocryphal and spurious authors.”
Secondly, By reason of the great discrepancy to be found
among them, in their relations of divers circumstances of this
story: some of them saying, that Simon Magus made him.
self “wings to fly;”S some, that he was “held up by two
devils ;”| others, that he made himself “a chariot,”" or as-
cended in a fiery chariot, drawn by four horses; and all say
that he did this “by magic.”
Again, they differ equally as to the effects this fall had
upon this magician; some saying that he died by it, and
was seen dead upon the spot,” that it dashed out his
brains, ºf broke his whole body, ºf yea, broke it into four
parts: §§ others, that Peter prayed he might not die, and so
he only broke his thigh, say some ;|| or his hands and feet,
as others. - -
Some tell us, this was done in the reign of Claudius; and
others, that it was done in the reign of Nero ; some, that it
was done by Peter"I"ſ only ; others, that it was done by
Peter and Paul "“ some, that it was done by prayer;"|ff.
and others, that they added fasting to their prayer: so little.
agreement is there amongst them in any circumstance of this
action. And,
Thirdly, The story may deserve to be suspected, by reason
of the silence of all the ancients of the three first centuries,
who speak much of his being at Rome, and of his being
honoured with a statue there ; but say nothing of his flight
or fall, by virtue of the prayers of Peter, though they had
just occasion to speak of it, had they believed the story.
For Justin Martyr, ºff in his Apology, speaks twice of this
statue ; and desires the emperor and senate, that, learning
* Haec fabula á scriptoribus ecclesiasticis passim inculca-
tur. Heraldus ad Arnob. lib. ii. p. 50.
+ Widerant enim currum Simonis Magi. et quadrigas
igneas, Petri ore difflatas, et nominato Christo evanuisse: vi-
derant, inquam, fidentem diis falsis, et ab eisdem metuenti-
bus proditum, pondere praecipitatum suo, cruribus jacuisse
Tum illustris illa adversus Si-
monem Petri ac Pauli congressio fuit, qui cum magicis arti-
bus, ut se deum probaret, duobus suffultus daemoniis evolás-
set, orationibus apostolorum fugatis daemonibus, delapsus in
terram, populo inspectante, disruptus est. Sulp. lib. ii. cap.
41. Petrus Simonem alta coeli magico volatā petentem,
dissolutà carminum potestate, dejecit et stravit.
# Constit. Apost. lib. vi. cap. 9. Abdias Hist. lib. i. cap.
15. Hegesip. de Bello Jud. lib. iii. cap. 2. Autor Actorum
Petri et Pauli. * -
§ Hegesippus, Abdias, Patres vi. Syn. Act. 18.
|| Merewpia-Seiç brå 3alpºvoy tºrrato &grégºrio; sk &#ga.
Const. Apost. 'Ear’ xàºzavo; 8atºvoy #r' époc ps:04évou
Cyril. Cat. vi. p. 54, A. Sulpitius.
* Arnobius. Magicis artibus volare cocpit. August. tom.
x. serm. 2, de Petro et Paulo Apostolis. - -
** Nexpy eiðū; &ráčeňay. Cyril. Hieros. ibid.
++ In caput collapsus cerebro viam dispersit.
Thess. lib. iv. cap. 1.
fit zuvrpigei; &may ré 307tnyov oriºga. Metaphrast.
§§ TÉacaga ºften yevéſzewoº. Act. Petri et Pauli apud Co-
tel. Not. in lib. vi. Const. Apost. p. 269. -
|| ‘Płżayra Be, º, Savarāoral, &Axi, a wrpilat—avyrgiºstal
+3 irzºy, wai rāy wroëāv row; rapzoic. Const. Apost.
*I'ſ Arnobius. Constit. Apost. S. Ambros. S. Austin.
*** Sulpitius Sev. Cyrillus Hieros. Pridiè cum ejusdem
urbis ecclesia jejunaverit. August. Ep. ad Casul.
+++ A12 rā; ºrpoo evyā;. Cyril. Hieros. &c.
††† Tây re isgåy a ſyzantov, was rêy 3:p.ow roy #2.Éripey ºuvini-
yväp.oyz, raûrn; hºw a #: āśćasz's traga Nagaſy airočºv ty' et rig
iv 34, 35' at:::1, 3,33%a- «ats;zázyz, a 3x105s waſy, ºr
Nicet.
II. THESSALONIANS.
809
the truth, they would abolish that statue ; but he saith not
one word of this illustrious combat, which was so admirable
a conviction of his fraud. Clemens of Alexandria” saith,
that Simon heard Peter preach a little while, but addeth
not one word of what he suffered by Peter's prayers. Ter-
tulliani having noted, that after the coming of the gospel
magicians were always punished, speaks only of Simon Ma-
gus as ejected out of the church; though he observes, that
Elymas was struck blind: and that in the Acts of the Apos-
tles,t he received a just sentence, and worthy of himself,
from the apostle Peter, but addeth not one word of what he
suffered from Peter at Rome. Origen S proves, that there
was oběay Seſov, “nothing divine " in Simon, from the nature
of his doctrine, which made “idolatry a thing indifferent ;”
and from the success of it, it being in his time almost ex-
tinct, and that he perished with his silver; but adds not a
hint of his perishing by the prayers of the apostles, which was
the strongest proof against his pretensions that he was “the
power of God.” Eusebius || declares, how the devil raised
up Simon as the great adversary to the apostles, and how
the divine grace, by their appearance and presence, extin-
guished that flame; and how the providence of God sent
Peter after him to Rome, in the days of Claudius, to set
himself against him ; and how he prevailed, by causing the
light of the gospel to shine there; but gives not the least
hint of his being thus overcome, or thrown down, by the
prayers of Peter. The bishops of Rome, who, saith Cotele-
rius, sua tacere non solent, “use not to be silent in matters
relating to themselves,” say nothing of it. Nor is it credible,
saith Hornius," scriptores Romanos tam memorabilem rem
praeterituros fuisse; “that all the Roman writers of those
times, Suetonius, Tacitus, Pliny, &c. should pass over so
memorable a thing in silence;” especially if Simon was so
honoured by Claudius, and beloved by Nero, as some authors
of this story say he was. It seems inconsistent, saith Wale-
sius, with that other story, of Simon's being honoured at
Rome “as a god, by the emperor, senate, and the people,
and the continuance of his statue there in Justin Martyr's
days;” which sure it would not have done, had he been so
remarkably defeated or destroyed before their eyes. And,
lastly, Austin” freely owns, that “at Rome this story was
by most people deemed false.” And is such a tale fit to be
laid as the foundation of the interpretation of this chapter 2
§. 7. Arg. 2. This opinion may also be confuted from
those words, “This day shall not come, unless there be an
apostasy first, and the man of sin be revealed.” For,
1. It is intolerable to think that act, which was so neces-
sary for the promotion of the gospel among the gentiles, viz.
the not imposing on them circumcision and the Jewish yoke,
and the ceasing to preach in the synagogues of the Jews, was
the apostasy intended by the apostle in these words. The
zealots among the Jews might say of Paul, “Thou teachest
apostasy from the law of Moses;” for afterward the Ebion-
Tradyny 4 vyev 8vynSã, ka? roy &vögtávra, si 800xEase, zašaighants.
P. 19, B, C.
* Me6' y zigzoy, im' àxiyoy angúa's owrog rod IIÉrpov, Ürikova-Ev.
Strom. vii. p. 764, D. -
+ Post evangelium musquam invenies magos nisi planè
punitos. Simon Magus jam fidelis—maledictus ab apostolis
de fide ejectus est: alter Magus qui cum Sergio Paulo, quo-
niam iisdem adversatur apostolis, luminum amissione mulc-
tatus est. De [dol. cap. 9.
: Ex quibus est primus Simon Magus, qui in Actis Apo-
stolorum, condignam meruit ab apostolo Petro justamgue
sententiam. De Praescript. adv. Haer. cap. 46.
§ Kai à èvépygia: #426-rügna'ev, 3rt oë3āv Betov 3 zipcoy ºv.
i. contra Celsum, p. 45. Ovčapcot, yā; rā; oizovºyn: Žipovº-
avoi. Lib. vi. p. 282. Atóweg zuova röy Máyoy abrèv, &yayo-
petſovra 30waſaw Ogot, irºwsy %wa rā āgyvetº airoij, Big BaeSpoy zai
&rºsław Żexagnxéval. Com. in Johan. p. 36, D.
|| Qatregài Đcáyaw &vritraxov ráv Óscareciow rot conthpo; hºw
àmoatówy—tºo; 8' oëv h 6sſa wal fºregovgávio; x&gt; roſ, airoi;
avyaipoºn 8taxóvoic, 8t’ tripaysia; airāv kai Tragovoria; āyāºrto-
(*#yn, rot Troynkoº tºy piadya ; Táxo; eagávvv, &c. Hist. Eccl.
lib. cap. 2, 14. *
"I Not. in Sulpitium, p. 369.
** Est quidem hac opinio plurimorum, quamvis eam per-
hibeant esse falsam plerique Romani. Ep. 36, ad C
p. 387.
Lib.
ites rejected all his epistles,” &mdarátny &roxaxoſyrs; airröy
rod vigou,” calling him an apostate from the law;” but that
Paul himself, speaking to the gentiles, should call this his
own practice an apostasy, is incredible.
Moreover, what advantage would it do them in this
matter, to tell them of an apostasy, which had happened be-
fore their conversion (Acts xiii. 46), “Lo, we turn unto the
gentiles, for so hath the Lord commanded us,” and hap-
pened again about the time of writing this epistle (Acts xix.
9); and finally, saith the doctor, was completed when Paul
came to Rome, about five or seven years after, at the most P
Might not the coming of the Lord be at hand, though an
apostasy, so near to be completed, were to go before it?
(see James v. 8, 9. 1 Pet. iv. 7.)
2. As for the apostasy of a considerable part of Christians
to the abominable impiety of the Gnostics, I have all along,
in the interpretation of these epistles, considered that, and
find no reason to assert it, nor anything that favours it, till
we come to 2 Pet. ii. 20, 21. It is true, indeed, as Justin
Martyr; and Eusebius testify, that most of the Samaritans
worshipped Simon “as the chief god ; but Šaiyo y ºxois #8-
verty, few in other nations,” say they, “did it;’ but that one
single person fell off from Christianity to him, they say not.
Eusebius+ is express, that, “neither the heresy of Simon
Magus, nor of others, had any prevalency in the times of the
apostles.” The great apostasy, which, after the writing this
epistle, first appeared, and against which the catholic epistles
of James, Peter, and John, and especially the epistle to the
Hebrews, were written, was that of the converted Jews to
Judaism again: and to this Dr. Lightfoot probably refers the
apostasy here mentioned ; our Lord having foretold, that the
devil, once cast out of them by the gospel, should return to
them with seven more evil spirits than himself; and con-
cluding that parable with those words, “So shall, it be with
this present generation,” Matt. xii. 43–45. Which opinion
is well consistent with my interpretation ofthis chapter, and may
be embraced by them who like not my notion of this apostasy.
Secondly, This man of sin was yet to be revealed, ver. 3,
and there was yet a season to come, in which he was to be
revealed, ver, 6.8; whereas, by the confession of Dr. Ham-
mond, Simon Magus was revealed as an opposer of Christ,
and an Čvºrinaxoc, or “antagonist" to the apostles long before:
for he saith, thatš “being denied the power of working mira-
cles, which he would have bought of the apostles, soon after
he set up, and opposed himself against Christ; and accord-
ingly is here called, 3 &ytixsiaeyoº, the adversary, or he that
opposeth himself.” Now the time when he would have
bought of them this power of working of miracles was A.D.
35; that is, fourteen years before Paul wrote this epistle : if
then soon after he set up, and opposed himself against Christ,
he must discover himself soon after the year 35, and So
before the writing this epistle. He adds in the same note,
“that Simon Magus came to Rome in the beginning of Clau-
dius's reign, and there did such miracles by the help of the .
devils, that he was taken for a god, and accordingly had a
statue erected to him, with this inscription, Simoni Deo
Sancto.” Eusebius there adds, that the devil had set him up
as the great and equal antagonist of the divine apostles.
Jeromeſ also saith, that “in the second year of Claudius,
Peter came to Rome to oppose him.” He, therefore,
who was then set up as the great adversary of the apostles,
and as such opposed by them, in the second year of Claudius,
that is, A.D. 42, must be discovered then, that is, mine years
before the writing this epistle. Eusebius there adds, that
the flame he had there raised, by the appearance and pre-
sence of the apostles, i.e. of Peter, as the words following
show, ; Táxo; #38éwo, “was soon extinguished ;” which seems
to prove, that Simon Magus's opposition to Christ was not
only discovered, but even extinguished with his person bo:
fore the writing this epistle. And indeed Irenaeus, and
almost all the ancients agree in this with Dr. Hammond,
* Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 27.
+ Just. Mart. Ap. ii. p. 69, E.
£ at 3% o're xiaovo;, otre àxxov rod tây Tàre puárrow avy-
xgårnºg ri, xar' attoo; #xeivov; 3702 roxixov; ūtréatn Xgévov;.
Hist. Eccl. lib. ii. cap. 14.
§ Note E. *
| Tà èevrépe KXavčíov štet, eig tº #47 oxspaña al Xiºxya rºw
Tā ‘P44; #zzatai. In Petro.
810
PREFACE TO
that Simon Magus, having suffered this repulse from Peter
at Samaria, “began to search still more into the depths of
magic, that he might be more able to contend with the apos-
tles,” and that by this means he astonished many, was
honoured by Claudius with a statue, and glorified by many
as a god. “He soon returned,” saith Theodoret,” “to his
former arts.” Now, can we think that a man who designed
to be reckoned £2.Éya; tıç, “some great one,” and to seem
glorious in the world, should pursue that design, by hiding,
and not discovering himself about fifteen years ? 's
In a word, it cannot reasonably be thought that almost all
Samaria should worship him ; that he should be honoured
in the days of Claudius as a god at Rome, by the emperor,
the senate, and the people ; and that the devil should set
him up as the great adversary of the apostles, long before
this time ; and that the season of his being revealed should
be yet to come. - /
§. 8. Arg. 3. Thirdly, I argue against this opinion from
these words, “He sitteth in the temple of God,” ver. 4; for
whether we interpret this of the temple of Jerusalem, or of
the church of God, which are all the interpretations known
to the ancient fathers, or applied by them to these words, it
is certain that neither Simon Magus, nor his followers, sat in
any of them. The doctor: therefore is forced to say, this
agrees to Simon, as being worshipped at Samaria, in those
places which had been set apart to the worship of the true
God, they worshipping him there, Svºiápact ka? Suziatº, kai
croy?aſ, “with all sorts of sacrifices.” But would Paul style
the Samaritan temple, had it been then standing, as it was
not, “the temple of God?” Would he have done this, after
our Lord's declaration made against them, that they “wor-
shipped they knew not what?” The truth is, that the tem-
ple built upon their holy mountain was long before destroyed
by Hyrcanus; and that which Herod built them, they
regarded not, as standing not upon that mountain. Where
therefore was the temple in which they offered all kind of
sacrifices to this magician 2 Indeed, the doctor useth too
much artifice, in thus connecting these things ; for that al-
most all the Samaritans did worship Simon Magus as the
first or principal god, Eusebius doth say from Justin Martyr,
Hist. Eccl. ii. 13; but that they then worshipped him with
any kind of sacrifices, he doth not say ; but only, that some
of his followers, “who pretended to embrace the Christian
* religion”; (which Simon Magus then professedly opposed),
“fell back to the worship of demons, and had got images of
iº and Helen, which they thus worshipped with sacri-
ces.”
Ş. 9. Arg. 4. “Remember you not,” saith the apostle,
“that I told you of these things?” . Now is it probable that,
in the short time he stayed with them, he should tell them
how Simon Magus sat in the temple of God, and that Christ's
coming was to destroy him ; and that so soon as Paul should
leave off preaching in the Jewish synagogues, Simon Magus
and his followers would be revealed? Credat Judaeus
apella. “For the mystery of iniquity doth already work,”
ver. 7, that is, saith Dr. Hammond, this sort of men are al-
ready formed into a sect, under their ringleaders, Simon and
Carpocrates. Wonderful that Carpocrates, who, say
Clemens of Alexandria, Eusebius, and Theodoret, appeared
only in the time of Hadrian, that is, A. D. 107, at the soonest,
should be the ringleader of a sect at the writing of this
* Cupidids intendit contendere adversis apostolos, uti et
ipse gloriosus videretur esse, et universam magiam adhuc
ºmpliès inscrutans, ita ut in stuporem cogeret multos homi-
num, quippe clim esset sub Claudio Caesare, à quo etiam
statuš honoratus esse dicitur propter magiam ; hic igitur à
multis quasi deus glorificatus est. Lib. i. cap. 20.
+ Elºi, izéïvo; ºrpès rêy reorisay travijaše waxorexylaw. Her.
Fab. lib. i. cap. 1.
it Note E and G. - -
$ Xétartayºv pixo~oplay troxplyāºwevoi, he wiv £30%ay &rax-
^4tria-Sat Tregi rā, śana &eirièatuoyia;, otºy #Troy aſ Sic in-
^afagävovirat, waratrín row-e āzri ypa pās, kal sizáva; abroſ re roº
Xiaoyoº, Mai rā; ‘Exsync buwiáºzart tº, Kai Suaſai;, xa, a royèaſ;
rotºrov, Benazsósty intxelpotºrs;. Ibid. -
| 'Abetºve: gaaixedovros. Theod. Haer. Fab. lib. i. cap. 6.
IIEpi tow; "A&playºf roß &acºw; xpévovº. Clem. Strom vii.
p. 764. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib, iv, cap. 7.
epistle ; that is, at least fifty-six years before he began his
heresy.
It follows, ver. 8, “And then shall that wicked one be re-
vealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his
mouth,” &c. “That is,” saith Dr. Hammond, “then immedi-
ately shall ye see the sect of the Gnostics show itself, join
with, and stir up the Jews, and bring heavy persecutions
upon the Christians; and having this opportunity to calum-
niate them to the Jews, behave themselves as their professed
opposers. And Simon Magus shall set himself forth in the
head of them, whom, as a professed enemy of Christ, Christ
shall destroy, by extraordinary means, by the preaching and
miracles of Peter; and for all the apostatizing Gnostics that
adhere to him, they shall be involved in the destruction of
the unbelieving Jews, with whom they have joined against
the Christians.” In which long paraphrase there is nothing
certain, and nothing which can be confirmed, either from
scripture or antiquity. That there were then any Gnostics
in being ; that they ever then did, or were in a capacity to
persecute the Christians; that any single person of them
perished, at the fatal time of the destruction of the unbeliev-
ing Jews, I never yet saw proved. That Simon Magus
should set himself at the head of these Gnostics, or of any
other of his followers, who was extinct before they bore that
name, it is not credible. That his followers, who pretended
that Simon himself was the chief or principal god ; who wor-
shipped him, and the very images of Simon and Helena, with
all kind of sacrifices; who held, “the law and prophets were
not to be regarded,” should ingratiate themselves, and join
with the Jews, is still more incredible. And, lastly, that
Simon Magus perished by the miracles of Peter, I have
shown to be improbable. And this I think sufficient to be
offered against this interpretation.
§. 10. I should proceed to those considerations which
seem to lie against that opinion, which holds that the apos-
tle primarily intends the papal antichrist; but I have already
done this, both in this preface, and in the following annota-
tions; and therefore shall at present only add, that this
“man of sin” is to sit “in the temple of God,” and probably
to do it then when the apostle writ: for he gives it as a
character, by which the Thessalonians, to whom he writ,
might know him, and then he could be no other than the
Jewish doctors. Moreover, this “temple of God” must
either be the temple of God, properly so called, which was
destroyed by Titus, A. D. 70, and then again, “the man of
sin,” who was to sit in it, must denote the same persons ; or,
as some of the most ancient fathers, Irenaeus,” Hippolytus,”
Cyril, t and Ambrose,$ thought, either the ruins of that tem-
ple, or another to be built by antichrist in behalf of the Jews;
and then, as it is not reasonable to think the apostle would
absolutely style that “the temple of God,” which had never
been so, and which was only built. by one who “magnified
himself against,” and openly blasphemed the true God ; so is
it more unreasonable to think the pope and his clergy should
sit in it. They therefore who think that they are here espe-
cially intended, embrace the sentiments of the fathers of the
fifth and the following centuries, viz. of Chrysostom, Theo-
doret, Austin, and Jerome, that by “the temple of God,” we
are to understand the Christian church. But this interpre-
tation is liable to this objection, that it is not reasonable to
conceive the Holy Spirit, without any mark of distinction.
would give that name to the apostate church, in which “the
beast” and “the false prophet” did preside, she being by the
same Spirit, when he speaks more unquestionably of her, still
represented as “spiritual Sodom and Egypt, mystical Baby-
* In templo Dei sedebit, seducens eos qui adorant eum,
quasi sit Christus. Lib. v. p. 475. º
+ Templum construet Hierosolymis, quod confestim exci-
tatum tradet Judaeis. P. 27, 33.
f TIcicy &pa vaš, ; Tôy karaNExup.évoy rāv 'Iověaiov pnzi.
Catech. 15, p. 164, 165. -
§ Ergö sedebit in templo interiori Judaeorum, qui Christum
negant. In Luc. xxi.
| Nay 33 Osoſ, rā, śwºxmaria; #x&AErty. Theod. TX; ray-
taxoi, Baxxnaria;. Chrys. e
Hierosolymis ut quidam putant, vel in ecclesia, quod verius
arbitramur. Hieron. ad Algas, qu. 11, f. 60. D. August.
de Civ. Dei, lib. xx. cap. 19.
II. THESSALONIANS.
811
lon,” and “the mother of fornications and abominations,”
Rev. xi. 8. xvii. 5. Hence Bellarmine” makes this infer-
ence from the interpretation of the protestants, that, if it be
true, the Roman church, in which the pope presides, must
be the church of God. To this our writers answer, that this
name was given to the church of Rome because she once
was so. But when was that ? Was it not before “the man
of sin” sat in her, and exalted himself above God and
Christ P and can he properly be said to sit in the church of
God, who, whilst he sitteth in it, is not “the man of sin,”
nor does those things which belong to him ; and when he is
“the man of sin,” sitteth no longer in the church of God, but
in “spiritual Egypt,” the oppressor of God's people, in
“mystical Babylon,” the mother of idolatry, and the great
enemy of the church of God, and in the “synagogue of
Satan P”
But that I may not wholly differ from my brethren in this
matter, I grant these words may, in a secondary sense, be
attributed to the papal antichrist, or man of sin, and may be
signally fulfilled in him, in the destruction of him by “the
spirit of Christ's mouth,” he being the successor to the apos-
tate Jewish church, to whom these characters agree, as well
as to her; and therefore in the annotations I have still given
a place to this interpretation also.
. §. 11. Lastly, As for the objections which may be raised
against the sense which I have put upon these words, I shall
answer most of them in the annotations, therefore shall only
give a more full answer to these two ; viz.
Obj. l. That all the fathers and ancient interpreters seem
not only silent as to this import of these words, but generally
seem to refer the rà waréxov, that which withheld this reve-
lation of the man of sin, to the Roman empire.
Ans. To this I answer, (1.) That this objection may be
retorted upon all the other opinions with equal strength ; for
what is there said by any of the fathers or ecclesiastical
writers for six hundred years, whence it may be concluded
that either Mahomet or the pope of Rome was the “man of
sin” here mentioned 2 What hint hath any commentator,
Greek or Latin, in his notes upon this chapter, for a thou-
Sand years given, that the pope and his clergy were the per-
sons here intended ?
If it be here replied, that they do consequentially over-
throw this opinion, by making the Roman empire to be the
to Karéxov, “that which withheld ;” I answer, that they more
fully overthrow the opinion, which saith the papal govern-
ment is antichrist, or the man of sin.
1. By Saying that antichristi was coming, and at hand,
long before the appearance of “the little horn,” which sprung
up only from the ruins of the Roman empire, which hap-
pened A. D. 475.
2. By teaching, so generally as they did, that antichrist,
being once revealed, was to continue not twelve hundred
and sixty years, but only “three years and a half” (see note
on ver. 8).
3. That he was to be of the Jewish extract one tº of the
tribe of Dan,” who was also to be circumcised. And,
4. That he should be an enemy to $ idolatry and image-
worship, as Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Cyrillus Hieros. St.
Chrysostom, and Theodoret, say.
In a word, they generally held, as I have shown, note on
ver. 10, that antichrist was to come with signs and wonders
* Lib. iii. de R. Pont. cap. 13.
+ Antichristo jam instante. Tertul. de Fugā, &c. Anti-
christi tempus infestum appropinquare nunc coepit. Cyprian.
Exhort. ad Martyr. Scire debetis, et pro certo tenere, let
credere antichristi tempus appropinquâsse. Ep. 58, p. 120,
59, p. 139, Et de Judā Euseb.
"O; Mai Tây SevX\oup, Évny roi; &vrixgirrov aragovalay ºn réré
ºnataſety Gero. Hist. Eccl. lib. vi. cap. 7.
# Hieremias tribum ex quá veniet, manifestavit, dicens ex
Dan. Iren. lib. v. cap. 30. Hippol. p. 24, 25. Ambros. de
Benedict. Patriarch. cap. 7. Aug. tom. iv. qu. 22, in Jos. p.
295. Prosper. Dimid. Temp. cap. 9. Theodor. in Gen. qu.
l 10, p. 75.
§ Idola quidem seponens. Iren. lib. v. cap. 25. Idolo-
latriam non admittet. Hippolyt. p. 33. Mixxes &Sey ra.
slºwna Kºtasſy 3 &vrixétaroc, p. 164. Chrysost. in 2. Thess. ii.
4. Theod, ibid. et Com, in Dan. xi. 30.
Epistle (2 Thess. i. 1).
to deceive the Jews, that they might be punished for their
infidelity. All which things must be manifestly inconsistent
with the common notion, that the pope's hierarchy must be
the man of sin here primarily intended by St. Paul.
Thirdly, I answer, that though the fathers do not express-
ly say the Jewish nation was “the man of sin,” which the
apostle here intended; yet many of them have said those
things on which this our interpretation doth depend ; as,
v. g. that this man of sin was to be of Jewish extract, that he
was to sit in the temple of Jerusalem, and that he was to
come chiefly to deceive the unbelieving Jews, that so they
might be punished for their infidelity. And,
Lastly, As to the rà waréxov, or rather 3 xaréxov, “he that
letteth,” I only in this differ from them, that whereas they
refer this to the Roman empire, I do refer it to a Roman
emperor ; and as some of them held that Nero" was this
antichrist, and man of sin, and others, that he was Domitian;f
so do I hold that Claudius, the predecessor of that Nero, was
the person that withheld.
§. 12. Obj. 2. It farther is objected, That the Jews were
long before revealed to be the great opposers of Christianity,
and the scribes and pharisees had long sat in the temple of
God ; wherefore the revelation of the man of sin, being only
to take place for some considerable time after the writing of
this epistle, the Jewish nation cannot be reasonably deemed
“the man of sin.”
Ams. I shall answer this objection in the paraphrase, by
showing that these are the descriptions of the man of sin, by
which the Thessalonians and others might then know him ;
and that they were all spoken in the present tense, showing
what he already did, and that he was yet more fully to be
revealed, either by his actual apostasy from the Roman
government, which happened in the twelfth of Nero, or by
the great apostasy of the believers of that nation from the
faith.
Secondly, I add, That the Jewish nation not only had a
great opinion of their dearness to the God of heaven, but
were also looked upon by their proselytes, and others, as
God’s peculiar and beloved people ; and therefore such a
change of providence as made it appear to all men, they
were become “the generation of his wrath,” must also be a
revelation of them as the greatest of sinners. And since this
came upon them after they had rejected our Messiah, and
crucified the Lord of life, it must be a discovery that they
became “sons of perdition” upon this account ; and in this
sense the removing that which letted, must make way for
the revelation of that “wicked one, whom the Lord would
consume with the breath of his mouth.” As then the
Roman church, though she is thought by us to be the anti-
christ here spoken of, and the beast mentioned in the Reve-
lation, is yet, by many other Christian churches in the west,
thought to be the true catholic church of Christ, and her
bishop to be the vicar of Christ, the successor of Peter, and
the head of the universal church, and so will only be revealed
to them to be what we now deem her, when she shall “go
into destruction” and be destroyed “by the Sword of Christ,
and by the breath of his mouth ;” so was the church of Jeru-
salem then only fully revealed to Jew and gentile, and to the
Judaizing Christians, to be not what they did erroneously
think her, but what the apostle here doth represent her,
when our Lord did thus “consume her by the breath of his
mouth,” and God so signally demonstrated she was a “Ves-
sel of his wrath fitted for destruction.” See the parallel be-
twixt the Jewish and the papal antichrist, &c. as at large
set forth after the annotations on 2 Thessalonians.
§. 13. This epistle seems to have been written soon after
the First, and, as Bishop Pearson probably conjectures, in
the same year, Silvanus and Timotheus being still with him
when he writ it, as they were at the writing of the First
Now Paul staid at Corinth only
“a year and six months” (Acts xviii. 11), and there he had
preached a considerable time every sabbath-day before they
came to him (Acts xviii. 45), and so before he writ his First
* Opinione multorum receptum est insum antichristum
venturum. Sulp. Hist. S. lib. ii. cap. 10. tº a ºn tº ſº
+ Multi nostrorum putant, ob savitie acturpitudinis mag-
nitudinem, Domitianum Neronem antichristum fore. Hieron.
in Dan. xi, f. 267, M.
812
II. THESSALONIANS.
Epistle, it being written after that Timothy was come to him | Priscilla and Aquila (Acts xvii. 18); so that the interval he-
(1 Thess. iii. 6), and they seem to be gone from him before
he left Corinth to go to Syria, for then he had only with him
twixt these two epistles could not be above a year.
CHAPTER I.
1 PAUL, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, (write) to
the church of the Thessalonians (established) in (the
kingdom and worship of) God the Father, and the
Lord Jesus Christ:
2 (Wishing) 'grace to you, and peace from God
our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
3 We are bound to thank God always for you,
brethren, as it is meet (for us to do), because that
your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of
every one of you all towards each other aboundeth :
4 So that we ourselves glory in you (or boast of
you) in the churches of God for your patience, and
(for your) faith (which produceth this patience) in all
3. persecutions and tribulations which you en-
Ulre :
5 Which (dispensation of divine wisdom appointing
you to suffer, 1 Thess. iii. 3, and permitting others thus
to persecute you) is a manifest token of the * righteous
judgment of God, (these sufferings befalling you) that
you may be accounted worthy of the (celestial) king-
dom of God, for which ye also suffer (and so are in
assurance of a day when God will thus reward you) :
6 * Seeing it is a righteous thing with (that). God
(to whom belongeth recompence, Rom. xii. 19, and who
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I.
* Ver. 2. Grace and peace from God the Father, xat
kvešov inzwiſ Xºlºroff, and our Lord Jesus Christ.] Because
he saith not by our Lord, but, “and our Lord Jesus Christ:”
hence Theodoret pleads for an equality in power, and by
consequence in essence of the Father and the Son.
* Ver, 5. Tº bºaia; ºffizia:, Of the righteous judgment of
God, &c.], “This place,” saith Esthius,” “proves against the
heretics, that life eternal is not so to be ascribed to the grace
of God, as not to be attributed also to the worth and merits -
of men, proceeding from the grace of God.”
But the true import of these words will be sufficiently
contained in these following particulars: .
First, That the justice of God obligeth him to recompense
the obedience and sufferings of his faithful servants, either in
this or in the world to come ; since, were it otherwise, we
could have no sufficient motive to perseverance in obedience
to him, or suffering for his sake; and therefore this by the
apostle is laid as the foundation of all the service which we
pay unto him, even the firm belief that “God is, and that he
is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him,” Heb. xi. 6.
Secondly, That since God doth not, and, according to the
nature of the thing, he cannot, recompense them in this life,
who suffer all calamities and losses they can endure here, and
even death itself for his sake, his justice will oblige him to
do it in the next. Hence the apostle saith of himself and
all his fellow sufferers, “If in this life only we have hope in
Christ, we are of all men the most miserable,” 1 Cor. xv. 19;
and puts the question thus, “If the dead rise not at all—why
stand we in jeopardy every hour?” ver. 29, 30. But,
Thirdly, That this reward should be for kind so excellent,
as is the beatific vision, the being “heirs of God, joint-heirs
with Christ,” the being “like to him in glory,” and for dura-
tion should be eternal, can never be on the account of that
strict justice which “rendereth to every one his due,” seeing
there can be no proportion betwixt a finite action of passion
and an infinite reward; and therefore the same apostle who
* Monstrat hic locus contra haereticos, vitam acterinam,
qute in regno Dei intelligitur, non ita gratite Dei tribuendam
esse, ut non etiam dignitati, et meritis hominum a gratiá Dei
profectis, retribuatur. -
will avenge his elect, that cry unto him day and night,
Luke xviii. 7,) to recompense tribulation to them that
trouble you; -
7 And to you who are troubled (as we are) rest
with us, (which rest we both completely shall enjoy)
when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven
(attended) with his mighty angels, (as he shall be at
the last day, 1 Thess. iv. 16, when he will come to give
every one according to his works, Matt. xvi. 27. Mark
viii. 38, and gather all the nations of the world before
him, Matt. xxv. 32. Jude 14, 15.
8 When he shall come, I say,) in flaming fire, taking
vengeance on them (among the heathens) who know
not God, and (of those Jews and gentiles) who (having
heard) obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ :
9 Who shall be punished with everlasting destruc-
tion from the presence of the Lord, (from whose bliss-
ful presence they shall for ever be eaccluded, Matt. xxv.
41. 46,) and (shall find that destruction inflicted on
them) * by the glory of his power; (that beiny the time
when God will make known his power on the vessels of
wrath fitted for destruction, Rom. i. 23.
10 And it is also a righteous thing with him, then to
recompense to you eternal rest) when he shall come to
saith here, 3%to Sãvat #43;, we for these sufferings “are ac.
counted worthy of this kingdom,” doth elsewhere positively
declare “the sufferings of this present life, oùx &#ia, not wor-
thy of the glory which shall hereafter be revealed,” Rom.
viii. 18. Nor can the grace of God, vouchsafed to enable us
thus to perseverance in sufferings, enhance the merit of those
sufferings, or make the reward in justice due unto us; since,
“if it be of grace” that we thus suffer, “then it is not of
debt” that we are thus rewarded ; God being not in strict
justice obliged to reward his own free gifts and graces he con-
fers upon us. But, -
Fourthly, Even this eternal recompence being promised to
those who suffer for the sake of Christ, by him who hath
said, “Be thou faithful to the death, and I will give thee a
crown of life,” Rev. ii. 10, and propounded as the chief en-
couragement thus to endure with patience to the end, Matt.
v. 12, it may be said, by virtue of that promise, to be in jus-
tice due to them who do thus suffer for it, it being a part of
justice to perform onr promises, and be faithful to our words.
This therefore is a faithful saying, “If we suffer with him, if
we endure, we shall live and reign with him,” 2 Tim. ii. 11,
12, and we may rest assured, that “God the rightedus judge
will give this crown of righteousness to us at that day,” 2
Tim. iv. 8, that, being approved, “we shall receive that crown
of life which the Lord hath promised to them that love him,”
James i. 12. But then God being not obliged in strict jus-
tice to promise so great a recompence, he cannot be said to
confer it, ex dignitate, merito, aut aequalitate rei, “by reason
of the dignity or worth of these our sufferings,” or because
the reward is only equal to the merit of them, but only, ex
justitia pacti, becausé his promise hath made it just and
equal for him so to do.
* Ver. 6. Eire; 3izatov, Seeing it is a righteous thing.]
Here the Greek scholiasts note eitsp is put for instree or trel-
85758, that is, siquidem for quandoquidem, as it is, Rom. viii.
9, and so the Hebrew ER oftentimes signifies (see Nold. de
Partic. Heb. p. 88): and therefore, say they, it is not a par-
ticle 3,44480xia; &AX& 888atózewº, “ of doubting, but of con-
firmation.”
* Ver, 9.] This phrase, xai &r rā; 3%m; +5; taxáo; airoij,
“ and from the glory of his power,” is taken from Isa. ii.
19, 21.
[See the Appendix to this chapter at the end of this
epistle.] -
CHAPTER II.
... 813
be glorified in (his dealings with) his saints, and to be
admired (for his great lovey'in (and by) all them that
believe (and particularly by you), because our testi-
mony among you was believed in that day.
ll. Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our
God would count you worthy (détéon Tijg RAffaewc,
would make you worthy, ver. 5,) of this calling (to his
kingdom and glory), and fulfil all the good pleasure of
his goodness (in you), and the work of faith with
power :
12 That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may
be glorified in you (by your continuance in your faith),
and ye in him (or by him), according to the grace of
our God, and the Lord Jesus Christ (by which you
are enabled to continue in the faith, and fulfil the good
pleasure of his will). -
CHAPTER II.
1 Now we beseech you, brethren, by (or, concern-
inſ) "the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by
our gathering together to him (mentioned Matt. xxiv.
31),
2 That ye be not soon shaken in mind (diró roß
vočc, from the sentence you formerly received from me),
or be troubled, neither by spirit (i. e. by any pretended
wevelation), nor by word (spoken by us, and by others
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II.
* Ver. 1. ‘Yºrée rā; Tragovaria; ro; Kvitov, By the coming of
the Lord.] That ütrêp, with a genitive case, signifies de, or
circa, about, or concerning, cannot be doubted. It is ren-
dered “concerning,” Rom. ix. 27 (see 2 Cor. xii. 5. 8). It
is thrice rendered of, in the same import as 2 Cor. i. 7,
“Our hope, in Ép tºy, of you is certain;” viii. 23, “Whe-
ther any inquire, brée Tirov, of Titus;” and, ver. 24, “Our
boasting, titrée bºy, concerning you ;” Phil. i. 7, “It is
meet for me to think thus, trip Trávrov tººv, of you all.”
Hence Phavorinus saith it is used, goix; rā tragi (see 2 Cor.
vii. 5. ix. 3). -
The coming of Christ is, by the reverend Dr. Hammond,
referred to Christ's coming to destroy the unbelieving Jews,
and throw down their temple, and their worship which de-
pended on it. This is the tragovºia roš viot, roi; 3,8párov,
“the coming” of Christ, or “of the Son of man,” so often
mentioned in our Lord's prediction of the destruction of Je-
rusalem, and of the temple, Matt. xxiv. 3. 27.37. 39. This
is most certainly the import of the phrase in James twice,
when he exhorts the brethren to “be patient, Éog rà, aragov-
aia; rot Kvěřov, till the coming of the Lord;” adding, that
this trapova ia rot Kvpiov, “ coming of our Lord was at hand,
and the Judge stood before the door,” James v. 7–9.
As for the phrase, “our gathering together to him,” it
seems parallel to the words of Christ, Matt. xxiv. 31, #wicuy-
4$ova row: #AAEkrow, aircü, “His angels shall then gather his
elect.” And to apply it to the Thessalonians, let it be
noted, that they were partly converts of the Jews and prose-
lytes. For the converts made by Paul’s preaching to them,
were of the believing Jews and “the devout Greeks,” Acts
xvii. 4, who, in expectation of our Lord's prediction, as well
as from their observation of the Jewish festivals, might be
inclined to go up to Jerusalem. . Moreover, till the writing
of this epistle, if not long after, even till the destruction of
Jerusalem, the Jewish converts kept up their synagogue
worship ; and many proselytes and other Christians did not
scruple to assemble with them; the Jewish converts thought
themselves obliged to do it, they being all “zealous of the
law,” Acts xxi. 20; and many of the gentile Christians com-
plied with it at Corinth, Galatia, and Philippi; but after the
destruction of Jerusalem there was an end of this synagogue
worship, the day having revealed that God was no longer
pleased with it, and then they met together still as churches
of Christ, and this might be their firwavvayoyā ºrgā; airby,
“the gathering together to him,” here spoken of.
But yet, considering that this tragovoia, or coming of
Christ, in the former cpistle, is used four times with relation
to Christ's coming at the day of judgment, viz. ii. 19. iii. 13.
iv. 15. v. 23, it may be thought more reasonable to refer
this passage to the same advent, and paraphrase it thus; “I
heseech you, brethren, by (the blessing you expect at) the
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and at our gathering to-
gether to him.”
misunderstood, 2 Pet. iii. 15, 16), nor by letter as from
us, (i.e. by anything contained in our former epistle,
iv. 15. v. 2, or rather in those words, ii. 16, Wrath is
come upon them, sig réAog, to the uttermost, so) as (to
conceive) that the day of Christ “is at hand.
3 Let no man deceive you (by these pretences) by
any means: for that day shall not come, except there
come “a falling away first (of the Jews from the Ro-
* Ver. 2. 'Evêarnkey, Is, or hath been, instant.] To con-
ceive that signal day of the destruction of their enemies the
Jews, and the deliverance of the Christians, mentioned Joel
ii. 31, 32. Mal. iv. 1, 2, come, and find themselves deceived
in that conception, might cause great trouble to them, and
even shake their stedfastness in the faith.
* Ver. 3. 'Atrozzaria ºrgåroy, A falling away first.] The
rebellion of the Jews against the Chaldeans was always
styled “apostasy,” and the Jews, upon that account, “apos-
tates.” So Jerusalem is represented as Tráxi; &moºráriº, “a
city that rebelled against kings;” and in which &mda-ráceiç
Živoviral, “rebellions were found,” Ezra iy. 12. 15. 19. Thus,
Ezra iii. 2, 18. 22, they are styled 'Iověaiot &morrárai, “re-
bellious Jews;” and, ver. 27, it is said, that they were given
to rebellion and war (see Neh. ii. 19. vi. 6. 1 Macc. xiii. 16.
2 Macc. v. 11). And, in like manner, their revolt from the
Roman government is by Josephus generally expressed by
the same word:* “Coming from Rome,” saith he, “in the
time of Nero, when Felix was procurator of Judea, I found
then the beginnings of innovations, Kai Troxxotº imi rā ‘Pa-
Awaíov &roarázsi ºya peovodvºrac, and many much addicted
to apostasy from the Roman government.” “One Justus,”t
Saith he, “provoked the people, 5% &mocrasiay, to rebellion;
but John, the son of Levi, seeing some of them, 8:3 rhy
&moa raciaw thy &ré Popaiov &#ya peovodvºraç, prone to apos-
tasy from the Roman government, endeavoured to keep them
to their duty.”
But if any like not this notion of apostasy, they may un-
derstand these words of the great apostasy of the Jews, fore-
told by Christ, Matt. xxiv. 11, 12, and which happened not
only in Judea and Palestine, but throughout Asia, 2 Tim.
i. 15, and in all other places where they had embraced the
gospel. Of which apostasy, note,
First, That when the apostle wrote this epistle, it was yet
to come ; for though “the mystery of iniquity was already
working,” in the seductions of the false aposties and deceit-
ful workers of the Jewish nation, endeavouring to corrupt
the minds of the gentile converts “from the simplicity that
was in Christ” (2 Cor. xi. 3), and to bring them into bondage
to the Jewish law (Gal. ii. 4), and so deprive them of that
“liberty wherewith Christ had made them free;” yet the
greater defection of the Jewish converts to their old Ju-
daism seems to have had its rise about ten years after the
writing of this epistle. For it is certain, that, A.D. 6;
when the apostlé wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews, it was
begun already, and many of the Jewish converts then were
in great danger of falling back unto perdition, as appears
from the vehement admonitions and exhortations of the
apostle to them, to “beware lest there should be in any of
them an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living
God;” and to “exhort one another daily to this stedfast-
ness,” as knowing we are only “partakers of Christ, if we
hold the beginning of our confidence firm to the end,” iii-
* De Vita suá, p. 990, E. + P. 1001, B.
814
II. THESSALONIANS.
12–14, to “labour to enter into that rest” Christ had pre-
pared for them, “lest any man fall, after the same example
of unbelief,” iv. 11; “not to forsake the assembling of them-
selves together, as the manner of some was,” x. 25, nor to
“cast away their confidence,” ver. 35; to “lift up the hands
which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight
paths for their feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of
the way,” and to “look diligently lest any man fall from
the grace of God,” xii. 12, 13. 15. As also from the repre-
sentation of the dreadful state of all who should apostatize
after this manner, that it was “impossible to renew them
to repentance,” vi. 46, that they were “nigh to cursing ;”
and “ their end was to be burned,” wer. 8; that there was “no
more sacrifice for their sin, but a fearful looking-for of de-
struction, and fiery indignation,” x. 26, 27, and “vengeance
from the living God,” ver. 30, 31; that it would certainly be
a “falling back to perdition,” ver. 38, 39; that there would
be no escaping for them who “turned away from him who
spake to them from heaven,” xii. 25. The same we learn
from the like exhortations of James, to joy and patience
under their afflictions, i. 1–12. v. 7–12, of Peter, 1 Pet.
iii. 14, 15. iv. 12–19. v. 8–10, and from John's frequent
exhortation, to hold to that which they had received from
the beginning, and to continue “walking in the truth.”
Now the occasions of this great apostasy seem to have been
these three.
First, Their zeal for the observation of the law, which
they conceived to be of eternal obligation, especially to the
Jews, to whom particularly it was given; and for the cove-
nant of circumcision, which they esteemed highly merito-
rious (see note on Rom. ii. 13), that which made them
perfect, gave them life, and delivered them from hell, ac-
cording to these sayings of theirs,” “He that is circumcised
is perfect: he that is circumcised shall not go to Gehinnom :
and I said unto thee, in thy blood, Live (Ezek. xvi. 6);
this is the blood of the circumcision.” This they endeavoured
to impose upon the gentile converts: and all the myriads
of Jewish converts were all “ zealous” for the observation of
it by the Jews, and looked upon it as downright apostasy
for them to “forsake Moses,” and “not to circumcise their
children, and walk according to their customs” received
from Moses, or from their traditions, & worrazíay 818&azei;
&nd Mozéac, Acts xxi. 21. And this seems to be the reason
why Paul, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, discourseth so
Iargely of the “necessity of the change of the law;” viz.
that by establishing that truth he might put a stop to the
apostasy occasioned by their contrary persuasion.
Secondly, Their beloved dream of a temporal kingdom to
be erected by their Messiah at his coming, the halcyon days
that were then expected by them, and the dominion they
should then have over the nations, who were not, according
to their sentiments, to come in to the Messiah, otherwise
than as their slaves or servants. How deeply this imagina-
tion was fixed even in the hearts of Christ's apostles, we
learn, as from many other things, so especially from their
question to him after his resurrection : “Lord, wilt thou at
this time restore the kingdom unto Israel?” Acts i. 7.
And because our Lord gave this answer to it, viz. “It is not
for you to know the times and seasons, which the Father
hath put in his own hands; but ye shall receive power, the
THoly Spirit coming upon you, and ye shall be my witnesses
in Jerusalem, and all Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends
of the earth,” ver. 7, 8. They were prone to think, that, at
least, after the apostles had done this, they might expect our
Lord should come “in the clouds of heaven,” to set up this
kingdom; they therefore believed in him rather as a temporal
than a spiritual king; they owned him rather as a true pro-
phet, to persuade them to be righteous, than as a Saviour, to
procure to them remission of sins, and a new covenant es-
tablished in his blood. Hence Origen, speaking of those
words of Christ, “If I say the truth, why do you not be-
lieve P” which, he conceives, were spoken to those Jews
which believed; he saith, “They might be said to believe in
one sense, and not to believe in another.” So, v. g. “They
that believe in Jesus Christ crucified in the days of Pontius
Pilate, but believe him not to be born of the Virgin Mary
(i. e. the Ebionites), believe in him, and do not believe in
& Targum in Gen. xvii. 18.
\
*
him.” And again, “They who believe in Jesus, who did
in Judea the signs and wonders which were written of him,”.
but believe him not to be the Son of that God who made
heaven and earth, believe in him, and believe not in him ;”
and this relateth to others of the Jews. And hence it seems
to be, that the apostle is so large in treating of the sacerdotal
office of our Lord, and of the new covenant established in
his blood. Moreover, the Jews were generally possessed
with this opinion, that “about that time their Messiah should
set up this temporal kingdom;”; and they generally expect-
ed, not a Messiah to suffer for their sins, of whom they seem
then to have had no notion, John xii. 34, but a great king
to “subdue their enemies under them.” And this was their
great stumbling-block, that § our Jesus appeared not to be
such a one; and this was the great thing that animated
them to the war. When therefore the gospel had been
preached to the world, and there was no appearance of
Christ's coming in the clouds to be their king, and their de-
liverer, but rather to destroy their temple and their nation,
they began to fall off from him, as not answering their expec-
tation, or the predictions of their prophets, and to give ear
to their false prophets, saying to them, “Lo, here is Christ,
and there is Christ,” according to our Lord's prediction,
Matt. xxiv. 22, and promising freedom and deliverance, saith
Josephus, to as many as should follow them.
And, Lastly, The great cause of this apostasy, of which the
Scriptures take a more special notice, was the grievous per-
secutions they suffered in all places from their fellow Jews,
and from those heathens they had instigated against them.
This, by Paul, is styled “a great fight of afflictions,” against
which he desires them to arm themselves by faith and pa-
tience, and the consideration of the coming of their Lord,
and by the example of that “cloud of witnesses,” which
they had set before them (Heb. x. 11, 12) By Peter it is
styled, the “fiery trial, which was come to try them,” 1 Pet.
iv. 12, and by which they were “in heaviness, through mani-
fold tribulations,” 1 Pet. i. 6; and against which James en-
deavours to strengthen them, by the consideration of the
blessed fruits, and glorious recompence, their patience under
them would produce, ch. i., and of the presence of their
Lord, who would shortly come to rescue them, and give a
happy issue of them, ch. v. By reason of which persecutions
Some began to use great compliances with the Jews, to avoid
their rage; others, to fall away from the Christian faith,
hoping perhaps that they might still obtain Salvation in that
religion in which they expected to find it before they em-
braced Christianity.
Others, who refer this to the church of Rome, understand
by this apostasy, a falling away from the doctrine, and the
true worship of God and Christ, by idolatry in the worship
of a consecrated wafer, of angels, saints, images, and relics;
on which account that church is represented under the cha-
* of tria-reſovºrs; ºwiv sig röv firi IIoyriov III?&rov 'I'...roy a rav-
pow#voy #y ºf Icubatº, º Triatedoyte, 35 sic tºy yeyevnºvoy in
Tā; Magia; Tā; tragóšvou, otrol six rºw airröy ºria reſouri, Kai oi
art-raúzva'i. Wide Euseb. lib. iii. cap. 24. Orig. contra Cel-
sum, lib. v. p. 272. -
+ Kai Tráxty of Triat'sſov’rec wiy eig röy ºrotha'avºra èv rà 'Iověai.
tà &yayeyzapºp, Éva répata Kai anºwefa Inzai, º, ºria reſovº's; 38
E: **w 'incoiſy, vićy roi, Troiſſa ayroº row owpavºv, Kai tºy yºv, E!; rôy
attöv ºria rečovzi, kai ou Triztetſovoi. Tom. ii. in Joh. p. 322,
A, B.
f Tö 33 #mrågay attobº (24xiaºra ºrpèc rôy 7éasºoy #v Xéna'a?:,
&; war& Kaipúy #xiàoy &Trø tº X&ga; ºriº airów &gåst rā; ołxcupaś-
ynç. Joseph. de Bell. Jud. lib. vii. cap. 31.
§ "Q & Sewire, agtai hºzá; ai yºaq’ai, Kai rotatºral Évêcºoy Kai
Az#yaw &yagiyev rew ºraçã row Traxato: röy hºwe;&v &; viðváv$6%trou
Trapaxapagávoyra rºw aid viov 8aatasiay, &ayzáčovcıy. Tryph. ad
Just. p. 249, B.
"oray tº pay; kai ty&#2; yívywrat' rārs yoa.0%atrol 3, §ott
©ari. P. 336, C.
oën fir xºeia #13; &moñoyño agsat ºrgö, r3 asyówevoy wºrd roº
'IovXaizu, &ri paſſyay, Itai 8vvártny, zal Tráanç rºcyā;, xai Trávrov
raw isvöv, wat creatotríðoy Kiſetov, parly of ºrpoºfital iſ a rºw
s p e - © tº pey
irºnpºhoravra. Orig. contra Celsum, lib. ii. p. 78.
| Tà ornasſa rā, corngiac, wai rºy &rd rot Qeot 3059 stay.
De Bell. Jud. lib. vii. cap. 30, p. 960, ct lib. ii. cap, 23.
CHAPTER II.
815
man empire, or from the faith), and (by that means) the
*man of sin be revealed, (who is) the * son of perdition;
racters of “spiritual Egypt,” of “mystical Babylon,” and
“ the mother of formication,” Rev. xi. 8. xvii. 5.
* ‘O &ySgoro; rā, św.agriac, The man of sin..] If you read
here, 3 &v%ano; 3vogtag, “The man of disobedience,” who
will not submit to law and government, as do the manuscripts
of Stephanus and Lincoln, nothing can more exactly agree
to the Jewish nation, which, in the times of Josephus," had
this character, that it was #6vo; 3varāzzrow xai 8va tre:03; qūces
reč, row; 8arixáaç, “a nation naturally averse from subjec-
tion to kings.” If we retain the common reading, no nation
under heaven more deserved to be styled “the man of sin,”
than did the Jewish nation, after the spirit of slumber and
blindness was come upon them (Rom. xi. 8), for the rejec-
tion of the promised Messiah. Their own Josephus saith,
“It is impossible to recount severally the particulars of their
wickedness; but in the general it may be said, that never
any city suffered such calamities, ºwits yºvsåy # aiāyo; yeyová-
was waxia; yovºwaripay, nor was ever any generation, since the
memory of man, more fruitful in iniquity.”
fully proved, note on Rom. ii. 1. Then therefore more
especially was this “man of sin” revealed to be so. This
character doth also very well agree to the beast mentioned
in the Revelation, which being spiritual Sodom and Egypt
(Rev. xi. 8), the mother of fornications, and the abomina-
tions of the earth (xvii. 5), may very well deserve the title
of “the man of sin.”
Obj. If it be here objected against the application of this
character to the Jewish nation, that “the man of sin” seems
to relate to some single person, and therefore cannot be in-
terpreted of a whole nation, especially if they act not under
some head or other : -
Ans. I answer, That I have for this the authority of the
prophet cited here, ver. 8, who saith, “He shall smite the
land (Chald. the sinners of the land) with the word of
his mouth, and with the breath of his lips; vuºn nip",
&yeast &asºn, he shall consume the wicked one ;” which
wicked one, whether we understand it with the fathers of
antichrist, or with the Jews of Armillus, i. e. the Romans,
or with the protestants of the papal polity, under the name
of one, must comprehend all his associates and followers,
though they be many nations. Thus also doth the prophet
Isaiah introduce God speaking to all the inhabitants of
Jerusalem and Judah : “And now nun, inhabiter of Jeru-
rusalem wºrn, wał &ySgorro; rot; 'Ioſła, and man of Judah,”
v. 3; and ver. 7, wai &všeoroc, “The man of Judah is my
pleasant plant.” And Jeremiah speaks in the person of the
whole Jewish nation, saying, “I am the man that have seen
affliction,” Lam, iii. 1, and so on to ver, 22. So in the
parable, Matt. xxii. 11, our Saviour represents the Jewish
nation, from whom the kingdom of God was to be taken
away, and who were to be cast out into outer darkness, ver.
13, by the man who had not on his wedding-garment. So
the “two witnesses,” Rev. xi. 3, and the “woman clothed
with the sun,” Rev. xii. 1, represent the whole body of true
Christians; and the beast, xiii. 1, “the woman arrayed in
purple and scarlet,” xvii. 4, and “the great whore,” xix. 2,
include all the members of the Roman church. And there-
fore it is evident, that this objection of a single person seems
equally to lie against all the other hypotheses. And as
they had their heads in which they were united, so had the
Jewish nation their high-priest and Sanhedrin, their rulers
of the people, their scribes and pharisees, the heads of this
i. of sin, as the pope and his clergy are the head of the
east.
*"o við; rā, śwoxsiac, The son of perdition.] This also
perfectly agrees to the Jews, not only because Christ was to
“smite them with the breath of his mouth '' (see note on
ver. 8), and to “smite the land with a curse,” Mal. iv. 6,
but because they are set forth as “vessels of wrath fitted,
si; &mdºxetar, for destruction,” Rom. ix. 22, as men “ap-
pointed to wrath,” 1 Thess. v. 9, to “sudden destruction,”
ver. 4, as men whose end is 37%Asiav, “destruction,” Phil.
* De Bello Jud, lib. ii. cap. 8, p. 782, F.
See this more
4 Who "opposeth (himself now to the Christian
church), and exalteth himself above all that is called
iii. 19. Note also, that this agrees exactly to the great
whore, who is to go, si; &n ºastav, “into destruction,” Rev.
xvii. 8. 1 1. - -
* Ver. 4. ‘O &vrikstºwevoc, Who opposeth himself.] This
word in the Old Testament represents the adversaries of
God and his church. So Isa. lxvi. 6, “The voice of the
Lord rendering recompence, reſ: äyrixstºwāvol;, to his ene-
mies.” And Esth. ix. 2, “They who sought the hurt of the
Jews" are oi &yrizeipºvo roſ; 'Iověaiotç. And in like manner
in the New Testament à évrikeipzivos, is in the general the
adversary of Christ, and of Christianity; as in those words,
“Give no occasion, tº &ytizeipzávº, to the adversary to blas-
pheme” (1 Tim. v. 14). In particular the Jews, as they
were oi &vrinsipaavo Tá Xgarð, “the adversaries of Christ”
(Luke xiii. 17); so, in our Lord's discourse on the destruc-
tion of Jerusalem, they are styled the adversaries of the
apostles, in these words, “I will give you a mouth and wis-
dom, which oi &vriksikzewo iºdiv, your adversaries shall not be
able to resist, or gainsay ” (Luke xxi. 15). They are the
&vriksik.svot ºroxxoi, of which Paul speaks, saying, “A great
door and effectual is opened to me in Ephesus, and there be
many adversaries” (1 Cor. xvi. 9); as you may learn from
Acts xix. 9, where we find them speaking evil of the way
of Christianity before the multitude, and Paul separating
from them upon that account ; and in those words of Paul
to the Philippians, i. 58, “In nothing be ye terrified by (the
malice and persecution of) your adversaries, itro róváytixel-
&#voy, which malice and persecution is to them #vºsté, étro-
Neia;, an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation”
(see 2 Thess. i. 5). And with good reason is this name
given to them especially, they being the men “who killed
the Lord Jesus, and persecuted his apostles ; who pleased
not God, and were adversaries to all men ; forbidding the
apostles to preach to the gentiles, that they might be saved”
(2 Thess. ii. 15, 16). When they began to preach the word
of life, the high-priest, “the captain of the temple, and the
sadducees” (Acts iv. 1), and the whole order of the priest-
hood (ver. 6), styled, to avvæploy, “the Sanhedrin” (ver. 15),
command them “not to speak at all in the name of Jesus”
(ver. 18), on which account these rulers are said to be
“assembled against the Lord, and against his Christ” (ver.
26). And the answer of the apostles to them is, That God
was rather to be obeyed than man. After this, the high-
priest and all his associates place the apostles, by 73 avve?giº,
“in the sanhedrin '' (Acts v. 17. 27), calling them to an ac-
count for disobeying their commands; and having received
this answer from the apostles, that “ God must be obeyed
rather than man,” they beat them in the Sanhedrin, and
again command them “not to speak in the name of Jesus”
(ver. 40, 41). Soon after we find Stephen brought before
the scribes and elders, ei, ºrd avyżógiov, “into the Sanhedrin "
(vi. 12), and the high-priest (vii. 1), and they who sat #v rá
ove?piº, “in the Sanhedrin,” having examined him, and the
witnesses against him, “they stoned Stephen * (ver. 59),
which death could only be inflicted on him by the Sanhe-
drin. After this Saul receives “letters from the high-priest”
(ix. 1), and “from all the elders” (xxii. 5), to bind all
Christians he could find in any of their synagogues, and
bring them to Jerusalem (Acts ix. 2. 14). Yea, in the
second, or, as Bishop Pearson saith, in the fourth year of
Nero, the high-priest, zai Šacy to avyêgtoy, and the whole
Sanhedrin meet (Acts xxii. 30), and Paul is brought before
them (xxiii. 1). By all which passages, as we see how they
are still showing themselves adversaries to Christ and his
disciples; so we learn the falsehood of that Jewish story,
that forty years before the destruction of Jerusalem, the
Jewish Sanhedrin removed from thence to Joppa ; which,
saith Mr. Selden,” as I have never read any such thing in
the ancients, so it may be confuted from the life of Jose-
phus. It was this sanhedrin that admitted that public prayer
against the Christians called pºpn non-i, “the cursing of
the heretics.” They therefore called Jesus accursed, 1 Cor.
• Seld. de Syn. Iib. ii. cap. 15, p. 629. Non jusmoji
quid apud veteres legi, p. 745.
816
II. THESSALONIANS.
God," or that is worshipped (Gr. ) asgagna, or wor-
shipped) ; so that he, as God, *.sitteth in the temple of
God, showing himself that he is God. ~~
5 Remember ye not, that when I was yet with you,
*I told you (of) these things (viz. of the man of sin to
be revealed, and of these characters of him) *
xii. 2; and so, as Justin Martyr" saith, they dishonoured
Christ as much as they could, xarag&Evotiv Taſk avyaywyaſ;
tºy rº; ricºrsſovrac. Évri răy Xetary, “cursing in their syna-
gogues those that believe in him.” Thus did they “crucify
afresh the Son of God, and put him to an open shame ;”
yea, saith the same Justin, F &vè;a; Éxxâxtob; &nd ‘Isgovo axºp.
#xx=#áusyoi rére #sºré, Jars si; ºrázav rºy yºv, “they sent
chosen men from Jerusalem throughout the whole earth,
representing the Christian faith as an atheistical heresy.”
Now this could be done only by the sanhedrin. It was,
lastly, by the high-priest and his sanhedrin assembled at
Jerusalem, that f James the brother of our Lord, with
some other Christians, was condemned to be stoned for blas-
phemy against the law. "Yea, when the war was begun,
affairs seem still to be ordered by the high-priest and Sanhe-
drin : for it was after the flight of Cestius Gallus from Jeru-
salem, that Josephus' was made governor of Galilee, and
thence he writes, tº cuve5:iº rów ‘Isgoroxvºrów, “to the
sanhedrin of Jerusalem " for instruction. And Ananias'ſ
the high-priest acknowledges that they had engaged in the
war against the Romans only for their liberty. So that
things seem to have been managed to that time by the high-
priest and Sanhedrin, who appearing thus upon all occasions
with the utmost rage against Christ and Christians, might
well be deemed not only &yrixsipzévot, “their adversaries,”
but antichrists. But then the Roman antichrist being also
to “wear out the saints of the Most High,” Dan. vii. 25,
and “cast down some of the host of heaven,” Dan. viii. 10,
the beast being to slay the witnesses, Rev. xi. 7, to “make
war with the saints, and overcome them,” xiii. 7, and even
to be “drunk with the blood of the saints, and of the mar-
tyrs of Jesus,” xvii. 6. xviii. 24, she doubtless must em-
phatically deserve this title.
7 "roregatépcevo; #wi träy rô Asyśwevov Gºy, cré8araa,
JEvalteth himself above all that is called God, or is worship-
ped.] The word Aeyáſzewoc, “called,” shows the apostle here
speaks of magistrates, who are “called gods” in scripture,
Ps. lxxxii. 6, and particularly of the Tºoman emperor, whose
title was cºsgaarā;, “Augustus,” and who are here signified
by cigaokwa, as God is by the word QE3. ...And how the
Jews “exalted themselves against everything that is called
God,” or the magistracy, we may observe, saith Dr. Light-
foot, in such passages as these, 2 Pet. ii. 10, “They despise
government;” Jude 8, “They despise dominion, and speak
evil of dignities:” and in their own stories to endless exam-
ples. How they stood affected to them, we may learn from
the question they put to our Saviour, “Shall we pay tribute
to Caesar or not ?” Matt. xxii. 17; for had he answered No,
they then thought they should have ground to represent
him as an enemy to Caesar; if Yea, to represent him to the
people as a betrayer of his country’s liberty and freedom,”
Tây #7titiºnaiy otºy &xxo &vºringū; 8ovāsīay Émiºpsy Aéyovreć,
“they looking on this tribute-money as a sign of slavery:”
and from their Talmudical saying, “We have no king but
God :” and from their imagination, that it was a wicked
thingth ºst, röv Oey pégely 8wnrow; 3Eaºré rac, “to own any
mortal governor under God” (see note on 1 Pet. ii. 16).
And that the pope and his church have thus exalted them-
selves above kings and emperors, church history and their
own canon law will not suffer us to doubt (see Downham de
Antichristo, lib. iv. cap. 2, 3).
* Dial. cum Tryph. p. 234, et p. 323, C.
+ P. 234, D. -
# ‘O "Avavoc wagićst avy£83toy «gºrčy, xa, makayayêy et; air;
vöv 388x3 by Invoiſ rot. Afyopºvov Xetarot, Kai riva; Érégov;, &;
tragayokºno avroy watmyogíay Troincapsevoº, "ragé8ozs Asva Snaroº-
wovº. Joseph. Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 8, p. 698, B.
§ De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 32.
| De Vitā suá, p. 1003, B.
‘ſ Tiya 3’ ow #xei rgătag ty, où rºy HXEvSseſay. De Bello Jud.
lib. iv. cap. 13, p. 874.
* Joseph. Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 1.
++ De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 12, 32
*"oats airby eig röy way Osoſ, &c OFöv xaÉirai, So that he
sitteth in the temple of God as God, showing himself that he
is God..] Only the Jewish sanhedrin, their priests, high-
priests, and doctors, or expounders of the law, sat in the
temple of God, then properly so called, and there the high-
priest and the sanhedrin took upon them the power of judg-
ing in capital causes. Thus they stoned Stephen ; thus also
they stoned James the brother of our Lord, and others with
him ; and Paul persecuted the Christians even to death by
their authority (Acts xxii. 4, 5); and thus “they sat in the
temple of God as gods.” The scribes and pharisees also
showed themselves “as God,” by setting up their traditions
above the commandments of God, pretending to dispense
with them, and, by so doing, saith our Saviour, 3xvéoù9,
épéyat, 36ereſy, “to lay aside, reject, and to make void, tho
commandments of God” (Matt. xv. 16. Mark vii. 8–10
13), to establish their traditions. And, secondly, by pre-
ferring them to, and requiring greater reverence to be given
to their traditions and their doctrines, than to the written
word of God ; saying that “the words of the scribes are
more amiable than the words of the law, and more weighty;
that a prophet was not to be believed without a sign or a
miracle, but they were to be believed without them ;” with
other blasphemous sayings, cited by Dr. Lightfoot" on Matt.
xv. 2, and by Dr. Pocock, who shows that they held their
vows so sacred, that they were obliged to violate the laws . .
of God to keep them, and that in such cases they could not
observe God's precepts without great sin. And thirdly, this
they did by taking to themselves the titles of “guide” and
“father,” which, in our Saviour's interpretation, belonged only.
to God and Christ, Matt. xxiii. 8–10 (see the note there).
And, fourthly, as being by their own confession Seáſzaxoi,
“fighters against God,” by their opposition to the apostles
commissionated by God (Acts v. 39. xxiii. 9). Here then
let it be noted,
First, That these are the descriptions of “the man of sin,”
by which the Thessalonians might then know him, and they
run all in the present tense, showing what he already did :
and therefore it is no objection against my interpretation of
these words, that the sanhedrin, the scribes and pharisees,
had long sat in the temple of God, and done the things here
attributed to “the man of sin.”
Secondly, Let it be noted, that it is prophesied, Dan. xi.
35, 36, that “a king shall do according to his will, and shall
exalt himself, and shall magnify himself above every god;”
and that this, by Jerome and Theodoret upon the place, is
interpreted concerning antichrist. And that the pope of
Rome hath manifestly not only thus “exalted himself above
all that is called god,” by usurping a power over kings and
emperors, as in the former note ; but also shown himself
in the church “as God,” by claiming that infallibility which
is the property of God, and by dispensing with his laws, and
also by equalling himself to Christ, who is God (see Down-
ham de Antichristo, lib. iv. cap. 5): and therefore, according
to the sentiments of all those fathers, who by “the temple’’
do understand the church of God, he hath by these things
shown himself “that he is God.”
‘oc Qey.] I doubt not, saith Dr. Mills, that these words
are added to the text, they being wanting in Irenaeus, lib. v.
cap. 25, in Origen, contra Celsum, p. 89, 307, in Cyril
Hieros. p. 161, in the Vulgar, and Cod. Alex.; which, if true,
would be a great advantage to my hypothesis; but they
being owned by all the Greek scholiasts, the Syriac and
Arabic versions, by Cyril. Alex., Glaph. in Gen. p. 178, and
by Theodoret, Haer. Fab. lib. v. cap. 23, I dare not depend
upon his confidence.
* Ver. 5. Taita #xeyoy baſſy, I told you of these things.]
These are the words which seem to me to settle my inter-
pretation of this chapter : for of the Jews, and their op-
posing of themselves to the doctrine of Christianity, and the
professors of it, he told them in his first epistie (ii. 15, 16);
and when he was with them, the persecutions that both he
* P. 415.
CHAPTER II.
817
6 And, now ye know "what withholdeth that he
might be revealed * in his time.
7 For the * mystery of iniquity doth already work
(?. e. the Jews are already making some efforts towards
and they suffered from them (Acts xvii. 15, 16) gave him a
just occasion to speak both of their opposition to the gospel,
and of the deliverance they shortly might expect from such
enraged persecutors; this being hinted for the encourage-
ment of Christians, in most of his epistles: but that he
should tell them anything of Mahomet or of the papal
antichrist, who were not then in being, or to be known then
to the Thessalonians by any of the characters here men-
tioned, is not so easy to conceive. Though since the charac-
ters here referred to are partly to be found, Dan. xi. 35, 36,
and that place by the ancients" is thought to relate to anti-
christ, and to be here referred to by St. Paul, this is by some
expositors thought to refer to something the apostle might
have taught them from the prophet Daniel, touching anti-
christ (see the Preface, Ş. 1–3).
* Ver. 6. Kai yüy ri zaréxoy of ars, And now ye know what
withholdeth.] Or rather, “And ye know what now with-
holdeth ;” and according to this sense of the words, that
which hindered the full revelation of this man of sin, must
be in being, and actually withholding, when this epistle was
indited. Some of the fathers'ſ have conjectured, that the
ºrè waréxoy, or that which hindered, was “the gifts of the
Holy Spirit" then given to believers, and exercised in the
assemblies of Christians; but they more generally do refer
this to the Roman empire,t saying, that the apostle here
teacheth, that “till that be taken away, antichrist shall not
come.” “This,” say they, “the apostle here expresseth so
covertly and obscurely, Ś that he might not incense the
Roman emperors against the Christians;” as he must have
done, had he openly and boldly said, “Antichrist shall not
come until the Roman empire be destroyed” (see note on
1 Pet. v. 13). What I conceive to be the Tä karżyty, see
note on the verse following.
* 'Ev rá šavroſ, ratgå, in his season.] i. e. In the time
prefixed for the false Christs and antichrists to come, Matt.
xxiv. 5. 24, in “the last hour” of the Jewish church and
2conomy, according to these words of St. John (1 John ii.
18), “Little children, it is the last hour, and as ye have
heard (from Christ) that antichrist.shall come, so now are
there many antichrists, by which ye may know that this is
the last hour.”
They, who refer this to the papal antichrist, say that this
season relates to the tempus statutum, “the time prefixed"
(Dan. xi. 35); for antichrist, saith he, shall prosper “till
the indignation be accomplished,” or till God's indignation
against the Jewish nation ceaseth : and to the “time, times,
and half a time,” mentioned Dan. vii. 25; during which time
“ the little horn’’ was to “wear out the saints of the Most
High ;” and to the twelve hundred and sixty days in which
the beast should triumph, and “the witnesses should be
clothed in sackcloth,” Rev. xi. 3, or to the “time, times, and
half a time,” mentioned Rev. xii. 6. 14.
* Ver. 7. Tà yāp kevoºrhetoy ºn ivseyeſºral àrogiac, For the
"mystery of imiquity doth already work.] That is, the Jews
have already imbibed their pernicious principles, that it is
not lawful to pay tribute to Caesar, or to be subject to any
other government under God : they have already made
Some seditious attempts, not only in Babylon, but in Judea,
* Ab hôc loco Judaei dici de antichristo putant—quod
quidem et nos de antichristo intelligimus. Hieron. in locum,
et Theodoret.
+ Tiyā; rô zaréxov rºy ‘Popwatºy fivānaav Čaaixelay, rivé, 3:
Thy xágºy rot TIvetºzaroc. oi (wèy rot IIyellºwato; rºw x&gtv paciv, oi
85 rºw Poºgizºv, ci, #ywys (24 Mara rišegal. Theod. Chry-
SOSt.
# Nisi, inquit, fuerit Romanum in perium ante desolatum,
et antichristus praecesserit, Christus non veniet. Hieron. Ep.
ad Algas. Q. 11, f. 60. Post defectum regni Romani appa-
riturum antichristum,_dicit Ambros. in jocum. Ita Chrysost.
CEcum. Theoph. in locum. Severianus apud CEcum. Iren.
lib. v. cap. 26.
§ Si enim aperté et audactèr dixisset, Non veniet anti-
christus nisi priès Romanum deleatur imperium, justa causa
persecutionis in Orientem tunc ecclesiam consurgere videba-
tur. Hieron, ibid. Chrysost. in locum.
under Theudas Gaulonites ;” and also have been incited
farther to do so by one Dortus, and his associates, who per-
suaded the multitude, Bºri rā ‘Popwatey &rográcsi, “to revolt
from the Romans.” Josephus also doth inform us,f that
before that time there were many tumults in Judea, kai aux-
woë, 3adºsław & katº, &yáreiºs, and that “the time prevailed
with many to usurp the kingdom.” This mystery was also
working by the false apostles and deceitful workers of the
Jews, causing some of the gentile Christians to warp from
the simplicity of the faith to the Jewish rites, to mix Ju-
daism with Christianity, and so to “turn from him that
called them to another gospel.” The fathers, Theodoret
only excepted, say this mystery of iniquity was already
working, “ in Nero, the forerunner of antichrist,”; and the
calamities he brought upon the Christians; on which account
Some of them taught that he was antichrist; and others,
that he was to be raised again to be so : but this is an ex-
travagancy sufficiently confuted from this one observation,
that these words were written in the reign of Claudius,
whereas the persecution of the Christians happened only
twelve years after, in the reign of Nero. Others, who say this
mystery was working in the false prophets then in being, till
they can show us any false prophets then in being, which
were not of the Jewish nation, do not contradict, but estab-
lish our assertion. And, lastly, others, though they do
zealously contend against Dr. Hammond, that Simon Magus
could not be the “man of sin” here mentioned, yet say, it
is probable he was the “mystery of iniquity” then working,
and the forerunner of antichrist, because he did “set up
himself as the supreme God, brought in the invocation of
angels, and the worship of images, and taught idolatry to be
a thing indifferent, and was the father,” as the beast is styled
the mother “of abominations :” but thus they seem to me
to build up again what they had so industriously pulled
down : for it is highly reasonable to conceive “the mystery
of iniquity” then working, should be that very mystcry
which after was to be completed by a more full appearance
of the “man of sin,” as will appear from the connexion of
the words, “Remember ye not, that when I was with you, I
told you these things?” (who was the man of sin to be re-
vealed, and what were his characters, yer. 3, 4, and what it
was that hindered at present the revealing of him) “for the
mystery of iniquity is already working” (i. e. he is doing
that covertly, which when he is revealed he will do more
openly); “only he that hinders (his full, appearance) will do
so, till he be taken away; and then shall this wicked one be
revealed.” Who sees not now, that all those interpretations
must be false, which make the “mystery of iniquity " to be
one person, or one kind of persons; and the “man of sin,”
or antichrist, another; as they must do, who make the
“mystery of iniquity " to be Simon Magus, or the false
prophets or heretics in being when this epistle was indited ;
and the “man of sin,” the pope of Rome and his clergy 2
This “mystery of iniquity,” saith Dr. Lightfoot, cannot be
understood but of the Jewish nation. And so it is explained,
again and again, by John, saying, “This is the last hour;
and as you have heard that antichrist cometh, so now are
there many antichrists, by which we know this is the last
hour,” 1 John ii. 18; and ch. iv.; “Every spirit that con-
fesseth not Jesus Christ, who is come in the flesh, is not of
God; and this is the spirit of antichrist; this is the deceiver,
and the antichrist,” ch. ii. 7. Here, therefore, is a plain ac-
* Joseph. Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 5, p. 692.
+ De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 6. -
† Multis malis quibus Nero impurissimus Caesarum
mundum premit, antichristi parturitur adveritus, et quod ille
operatus est posteå, in isto ex parte completur. Hieron. Ep.
ad Algas, ibid. Mysterium iniquitatis à Nerone inceptum
est, qui zelo idolorum apostolos interfecit, &c. Ambros
Négawa, ivrajóa pnaiv, &avel tºrov čvra row dyrºxgiarov. Chrys
(Ecum. Theoph. Dignus extitit qui persecutionem in Chris-
tianos primus inciperet, nescio an et postremus expleret.
Siquidem opinione multorum receptum sit, ipsum antichris-
tum venturum. Sulpitius de Nerone, lib. ii. cap. !",
3
818
II. THESSALONIANS.
this apostasy) : only he “who now letteth will let (or,
only there is that withholdeth as yet, and will continue
so to do), “until he (or it) be taken out of the way.
8 And then shall ” that wicked one be * revealed,
count of the working of the “mystery of iniquity” in the
false Christs and prophets of the Jewish nation, who also
were the great incendiaries to, and agents in, the apostasy
3f that nation from the Roman government (see note on,
ver. 10).
* 'o waréxov, He that letteth.J Quis nisi Romanus status?
“Who but the Roman state?” saith Tertullian:* so many
of the fathers, as hath been noted on the foregoing verse;
and whereas it may be objected against this sense, that it
seems plainly from the word á xarexoy, that he must be a
person, rather than a state; they who are of this opinion
answer, he is here spoken of as one single person, though
the government consisted of a succession of emperors, be-
cause one of them reigned only at a time, and the govern-
ment was dissolved, by taking away the last governor. My
conjecture is this, “He who now letteth,” i. e. the emperor
Claudius, “will let till he be taken away ;” i. e. he will
hinder the Jews from breaking out into an open rebellion in
his time, they being so signally and particularly obliged by
him, that they cannot for shame think of revolting from his
government ; for he had made two edicts in their favour,
the one concerning the Alexandrian Jews, to this effect, F
“That the just Jows should suffer nothing, because of the
madness of Caius, who would be worshipped as a god, and
that they should have liberty to observe their own laws and
customs.” And that other edict, in which he gives them
“liberty over his whole empire, without molestation, to ob-
serve their own laws and customs;” declaring that he did it,
“because he judged them worthy of that favour for their
affection and fidelity to the Roman government.”
After his death, the affairs of the Jews, saith Josephus,
became worse and worse, not only by reasons yońrov & Sp4-
"raw ci rév 3xxov hºrároy, “ of those magicians who deceived
the people,” and of those thieves who stirred them up to
the war against the Romans, ºwn?āy imaxoſew aircí; xáyovraz,
“persuading them not to he subject to them ;” but because
Nero, in his third year, sends a letter to Portius Festus,
governor of Judea, by which the Jews are deprived of their
ironoxirsia, “equal share of government” in Caesarea ;
whence, saith Josephus, was the rise of all our calamities,
the Jews persisting still in sedition, ºxéxg 3% rºy ºréasºoy
###slav, “till they broke out into the war.” In the seventh
of Nero, Albinus succeeds Festus, then dead, who, saith
Josephus, was 3 &áxia ra. Avºcatvāºevo; rºw xºgay," “one who
exceedingly wasted the country,” and laid the seeds of their
future captivity. In the tenth of Nero, Gessius Florus suc-
ceeds him, who ** Trox\ºv čváràngs waxºv 'lověaiovº, “brought
many calamities upon the Jews,” saith Josephus; which
having tragically represented, he concludes thus, “What
shall I say more? Têy y&g ºrg?; Poºzaiov; ºréas, cow 8 tarayay-
xáza; #43; &#aa-3at Ox&poc, for it was this Florus who com-
pelled us to the war against the Romans, which began in
the twelfth of Nero.”
* “Ew; #4 ºzov Žávnrat, Till he be taken away.] i. e. Say
some, till the Roman government be taken away; as it was
by the exile of Augustulus, A.D. 476 ; say I, till Claudius
be taken away, as he was by poison, saith Suetonius ; for,
as tolli de medio, among the Latins, so in the Greek, #2 &écrow
»āyāa śat, imports, one to be taken away by death, and oft-
times by a violent death ; so #ayaxårat āz pºčarov rā, ºra-
pºp,80xii; is “to destroy them out of the middle of the camp,”
till they were consumed : so of Korah and his company it
* De Resur. Carnis, cap. 24.
ºf Boixogai unºy 31& rāy Taſov trapagoogºvºy rºw 3.xalov rá
Tou?aſoy #8wéi tragaretroxévar, $vXázaszóa, 33 airdſ, ºrgársey
bikaidºara, #4,#youz roſ, Iow?aiov #6szt. Joseph. Antiq. lib.
xix. cap. 4, p. 678.
, # Kanº, & Éxitº, wai 'loviaſº, row; #y travri Tà ép’ hºcã;
xézºº tº Trárpia £9m &vezrixwºrw; ºpw84a rely &XX& zai
airovº, trip &y trapezºhôny, 3%ious ºgiva; 33 rºy ºrpś, ‘Popcatov;
Triºrly, wai piñíay. Joseph. ibid.
§ Joseph. Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 6, p. 690.
T Ibid. cap. 7, p. 696, 697.
| Ibid.
* Lib. ii. cap. 24.
whom the Lord shall” consume with the spirit (or
breath) of his mouth, and shall ” destroy-with the
brightness of his coming:
9 Even him, whose coming is after the working of
is said, & traºxoyro fix pºorov rā; a vyayoyńs, “They were destroyed
from the midst of the congregation,” Numb. xvi. 33. Thus
of the righteous, saith the prophet, figrat fix **śrov, “He is
taken away,” he rests in his grave, Isa. lvii. 2; so Jeremiah,
£ips fix **śrov, “The Lord hath taken away all my mighty
men from the midst of me,” Lam. i. 15. And so God saith
of the false prophet, Ezek. xiv. 8, 9, #266, airów, 34&vià
airy #4 ºrov 'rcü Aaoû Awov, “I will cast him off from the
midst of my people.” - -
* Ver. 8. “o &yogog, The wicked;] Who will not be sub-
ject to the laws to which their forefathers, from the time of
Pompey, have submitted.
* 'Amrozaxv$Shaerat, Shall be revealed;] Either by his
actual apostasy from the Roman government, or by the great
apostasy of the believers of that nation ; of which, see note
on ver. 3. - *
17 "Oy & Kügloº &vaxdºrst rāj ryeſſp. art roi; a révaro; airoij,
Whom the Lord shall consume by the spirit of his mouth.]
That the apostle here refers to Isaiah x. 4, appears by his
using the very words of that prophet, which run thus: “He
shall smite the land with the rod of his mouth, and with the
breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked one.” Now what
is the land there is well expounded by Malachi in these
words (iv. 6), “Lest he smite the earth with a curse.”
Where both the JJebrew and the Greek use the same words.
Now in Malachi it is evident, and confessed, that by “the
earth,” the land of Judea must be meant, as it is usually in
the book of Psalms, Ps. xvi. 3. xxv. 13. xxxvii. 3. 9. 11.22.
29. 34 ; seeing to them alone the prophet was then sent to
prophesy: it is therefore reasonable to conceive, that the
same phrase should have the same import in the prophet
Isaiah ; to smite this land “with the breath (or spirit), of
his mouth,” is, to “smite in his wrath and indignation.” So,
Job iv. 9, “By the blast of God, by the breath of his nos-
trils, (3trö ºryeºgaro; jºyā; atroij, or, of his anger,) are they
consumed;” and to “consume with his fiery indignation.”
Thus “Tophet is ordained of old, the pile thereof is fire and
much wood ; the breath of the Lord, (3%zo; Kugiov, the in-
dignation of the Lord,) {like a stream of brimstone, doth
kindle it.” So Ps. xviii. 8, “A smoke ascended in his
anger, and fire out of his mouth devoured.” And, wer. 15,
“At thy rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of thy
nostrils,” &Trê špºrvejaswº trysipzato, Spyſ; a ov, “by the breath
of the wind of thine anger.” This therefore again answers to
the words of Malachi, iv. 1, “Behold, the day cometh that
shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, and all that do
wickedly, shall be as stubble ; and the day that cometh shall
burn them up:” and to that of the Baptist, Matt. iii. 10,
“And now the axe is laid to the root of the trees; every tree
therefore that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be hewn
down, and cast into the fire:” which also evidently belongs
to the Jewish nation, which said, “We have Abraham for
our father,” ver. 9, and to whom alone the Baptist is there
speaking; and again, ver. 12, he saith of Christ, “His fan
is in his hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his floor—and
burn the chaff with unquenchable fire:” plainly alluding to
the words of Malachi, that “all the wicked shall be as chaff,
or stubble.” This being so, “the earth” to be “smitten
with the rod of his mouth,” must be “the people,” or “in-
habitants of the land ;” or, as the Chaldee, “the sinners of
the earth,” the unbelievers and wicked of Judea, to be con-
sumed by that indignation and fire of the Lord, Mal. iv. 1.
So saith Procopius on the place, “Doth the Lord threaten to
Judea, ār; aſ war' airoij Tragotvig, for her contumely against
him 2 saying, Thy house is left unto thee desolate; and
#yxaraxei pºetza Trox#20 xał Trvgi Sarayå'rai, being left deso-
late, is consumed by sword and fire.” -
That these words may have a more full completion in the
destruction of “the beast,” or “mystical Babylon,” which is
also to be “slain by the sword” proceeding from the mouth of
Christ, and destroyed by “the fierceness of his wrath,” and,
with “the false prophets,” to be “cast alive into the lake of
fire and brimstone,” I deny not: but that this.should be the
primary intent of the words of Isaiah, and that he should be
º
-
8] $3
CHAPTER II.
10 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness
Satan with "all power and signs, and lying wonders,
in them that perish, * because they received not the
love of the truth that they might be saved.
there prophesying of the destruction of the church of Rome,
seems to me a rabbinical gloss, not much to be insisted on,
especially since the apostle, Rom. xv. 12, applies the tenth
verse of this chapter to the first calling of the gentiles.
* Kai Karatyńast tº ripaveig rā; tragov.ria, atroſ, And e
| and false Christs, who should deceive many,” Matt. xxiv. ll,
shall consume with the brightness of his coming.] The day
of the Lord's coming to destroy Jerusalem, is styled by Joel,
ii. 31, #wipa: Kugiov h fºsygan kai iwi pavic, “the great and
bright day of the Lord :” and, Mal. iv. 5, “Behold, I send
you Elias the prophet” (i. e. the Baptist, in the spirit and
power of Elias, Luke i. 17), rely #A9sſy Thy hateay roi, Kveto.
Thy &#yákºv zai äriqawi, “before the coming of the great and
bright day of the Lord.” And that our Lord's coming in
his day, after he had suffered, and been rejected of that age,
or generation, in which he suffered, should be “as lightning
shining from one end of the heaven to the other,” he ex-
pressly tells his disciples, Luke xvii. 24. And when this
#ºrt{éysia xai trapova'id, “brightness and appearance of the
Son of man” was to happen, he sufficiently instructs them
in these words, “As the lightning, paiveral, shineth from the
east to the west, oùrw; Écrat was # ragova (a roi; vici, roſ,
&w88%trov, so shall the coming of the Son of man be, Śwou
yág, for wheresoever the carcase is, there shall the eagles be
gathered together,” Luke xvii. 24. 37; which sensibly applies
this matter to the destruction of the Jews by the Roman
army, whose ensign was the eagle. This therefore is a far-
ther confirmation of our exposition.
Lastly, Observe the connexion of these verses ; there is a
tº xaréxoy viv, something, or person, “that withholdeth now;”
and, 3 karéxov &ett, “he that now withholdeth, will do so,
until he be taken away, kai täre, and then shall the wicked
one be revealed, whom the Lord shall destroy.” Now would
not any one here think, that if the Roman government were
that which withheld, antichrist should presently be re-
Vealed, and appear to the world to be so (as all the fathers,”
who were of that opinion, held), soon after the dissolution of
that government, according to those words of Jerome, Qui
tenebat de medio fit, et non intelligimus antichristum
appropinquare ; quem Dominus Jesus Christus interficiet
spiritú oris Sui P. “He that withheld is taken away ; and do
we not understand that antichrist is at hand?”. And again,
would not any one hence be prone to think, that the Lord
should be as quick to consume him, when he was revealed,
as all the fathers; thought, allowing but “three years and a
half”, for the whole reign of antichrist, and declaring, that
they had this not from apocryphal writings,S but from the
holy Scriptures? and were it otherwise, those Christians
which saw the dissolution of the Roman empire, A.D. 476,
might lie under the same doubts as did the Thessalonians
here, touching “the man of sin;” for then they saw no Ro-
man antichrist appearing, nor that “mystery of iniquity” yet
working; for the pope and clergy of Rome were then ortho-
dox, free from “exalting themselves above all that is called
God,” or from “wearing out the saints” with persecution,
till some hundred years after. And if, after his appearing
thus, he were to continue twelve hundred and sixty years
before our Saviour's coming to destroy him, as he must do,
according to that hypothesis; might not the Christians be
tempted, in that long interval, to say, “Where is the promise
of his coming?” This therefore seems to lie as a strong
* "Etxera, 3 &vrixesoro: &ray wango,0&aw oi kaipoi rºy
Pokaſaw 8aaºsiac. Cyril. Catech. 15, p. 163. Ambros. et
Chrysost. in 2 Thess. ii. Hieron. q. 11, ad Algas. August. de
Civ. D. lib. xx. cap. 19. -
+ Epist. ad Geront, f 33, L, H.
# Usque ad tempus temporum et dimidium tempus, hoc
est triennium et sex menses, in quibus veniens regnabit super
terram. Iren. lib. Y. cap. 25. Dimidium hebdomada, hoc
est, tres annos cum dimidio regnabit antichristus super ter-
ram ; post auferetur regnum illius et gloria. Hippol. de
Consum. Mundi, p. 36. -
§ Bacºtto": 3; 3 àwrixºtºro; reia wai #9tan #Tn ºva, ciw
ić &roxgå$ow Aiyoºy, 3Å in roº Aayina. Cyril. Hieros.
Catech. 15, p. 163, 165. Hieron, et Theodoret, in Dan.
cap. vii. 25. August. de Civ. lib. xx. 23.
who set up for a prophet.
bar against that, as the primary sense and meaning of
these words.
* Ver. 9. Ev ráan 8vyapas, Ka: anaelolc, With all power
and signs.] This our Lord foretold, that before his advent
to destroy Jerusalem, there should appear “false prophets,
who should “show signs and wonders, to deceive, if it were
possible, the very elect,” wer. 24. Now that these “false
prophets,” ver, 11. 24, were the same, we learn from Luke,
who sums both up in one, xxi. 8, and, from the work of
both, which was to “deceive many.” That they were all to
appear in the same age in which his disciples, to whom he
spake these words, lived, is also evident from Christ's cau-
tion to them, in respect of both ; “See to it, lest any man
deceive you,” Matt. xxiv. 4; “See to it: behold, I have
foretold you all things,” Mark xiii. 23. Matt. xxiv. 26. It
cannot then be doubted, but that there were such persons as
are here mentioned, which then arose among the Jews. Such
were the Jews of whom Paul speaks, comparing them to
Jannes and Jambres, the celebrated magicians of Egypt,
because of their resistance of the truth of the gospel, as
those magicians resisted Moses, and whom he styles, Troyngo:
&vóporo wai yánts;, “wicked men and jugglers,” 2 Tim. iii.
8. 13, or those who did strange things by the invocation of
devils, as the word imports, say Phavorinus and Suidas. The
magicians were men of the same art and tricks. Now to
these Josephus doth ascribe the beginning of the apostasy from
the Roman government, and by them, he informs us, that it
was carried on to the last: the affairs of the Jews, saith he,
became worse daily, by reason* yoñtoy 3,683 aroy of roy &Aoy
ñtrátov, “ of those impostors who deceived the people,” of
which he immediately gives an instance in the Egyptian,
He adds, that in the beginning
of the reign of Nero, “impostors and deceivers, under a
pretence of divine impulse, endeavouring innovations and
changes, made the people mad, and let them into the wilder-
ness, promising there to them signs of liberty from God :”
and that: yònte: "rox\otic etc. &márracºw #vilyov, “the impostors
prevailed with many to revolt.” And even when their tem-
ple was in flames, he saith, there were many prophets' who
encouraged them to expect rºw &nd Osoſ; 30%0slay, “help from
God,” and that they gave credit to them. Accordingly of
the dragon it is said, that “the unclean spirits which went
out of his mouth, were the spirits of devils, working mira-
cles,” Rev. xvi. 13, 14; that “the false prophet wrought
signs before the beast,” Rev. xix. 20; and that the beas;
“wrought great signs, so as to make fire descend from hea-
ven,” Rev. xiii. 13; and that by these things they did Trxayáy,
“deceive the inhabitants of the earth,” Rev. xiii. 13. 19, 20.
xx. 10. Of which miracles done by the members of the
Roman church, to establish their idolatry and superstition,
see Downham de Antichristo, lib. vi. cap. 1.
* Ver. 10. Thy &yámmy Tä, äxn&eta; otz àé%avro, They re-
ceived not the love of the truth.] From these words some
conceive that antichrist, or “the man of sin,” must in pro-
fession be a Christian ; because he is said “not to receive
the love of the truth” only. But all the fathers, and many
others say, “not to receive the love of the truth,” is, “not
to receive the truth which is worthy to be loved,” and which
would have taught them charity to those they persecuted, it
being the same with “not believing the truth,” ver. 12. And
this emphatically belonged to those unbelieving Jews to
whom Paul speaks thus, “It was necessary that the word
of God should be first spoken to you : but since you thrust
| it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life,
lo, we turn to the gentiles” (Acts xiii. 46); and to whom he
* Antiq. xx. cap. 6.
+ IIAáyot &y8poroi, Kal &matsäves, trgoa 2:#aari Setacaoiſ, vºw-
regiºgoi, Kai pºstaffoxã; weaypºatsvåg, ºvoi, Baiaoyāy tº TX;60s,
ăvéaſsiéov, Kai Trgoňyov ei: #engxiay, &; ineſ. Toš Oect 3sićayro;
airoi; a.mpºsia #NEvôsgiac. De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 23.
3: Ibid. p. 797. § Lib. vii. cap. 30, 31.
| Töy &yármy tº; &AWSBia; Tô; Xplºry Aéyèſ. Chrysost.
Theod. CEcum. Theoph. Spiritum Dei. Hieron. Ep. ad
Algas. Qu, ll. -
3 G 2
820
II. THESSALONIANS.
*
11 And for this cause * God shall send (among)
them strong delusions, (which will have this effect
tipon them) that they should (shall) believe a lie;
12 That they all might be damned (Gr. judged and
condemned), who believed not the truth, (the gospel
preached to them, see note on Rom. ii. 8,) but had
pleasure in unfighteousness (or, falsehood, see note
on 1 Cor. xiii. 6).
13 But we are bound to give thanks always to God
for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God
hath from the beginning (of our preaching to you,
shown, 1 Thess. i. 4, 5, that he had) chosen you to
salvation through sanctification of the Spirit (which
gives the earnest of it, and makes us meet for it), and
belief of the truth (which promiseth it):
14 *Whereunto (i. e. to which faith and sanctifi-
cation) he hath called you by (the preaching of our
gospel, * to the obtaining of the glory (Gr. to the glo-
rious salvation) of our Lord Jesus Christ.
15 Therefore, brethren, stand fast (in the faith),
and *hold the traditions which you have been taught,
whether by word (ver. 5, 6) or (by this) our epis-
tle. -
16 Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God,
even our Father (through him), who hath loved us,
and hath given us everlasting consolation and good
hope through grace,
17 Comfort your hearts, and establish you in every
good word and work. * , ,
applieth that of the prophet, “Behold, ye despisers, and
perish ; for I will work a work in your days, which ye will
in no wise believe,” ver. 41 (see Acts xxviii. 27. Heb. iv. 2.
12. l Pet. ii. 7, 8), and all the fathers which speak of anti-
christ, and “the man of sin,” not one of them excepted, de-
clare, that this and the two following verses belong to the
unbelieving Jews,” that “he is thus to come with signs and
wonders to déceive them ;” and that “they who would not
receive Christ, confirming his doctrine with true miracles,
shall be deceived by the lying miracles of antichrist.” And
if this be so, that these things are intended of the unbelieving
Jews, they can agree in the primary import of them to them
only. -
* Wer. 11. IIÉpºpé & G)=3;, God shall send..] As he sent a
lying spirit into the mouths of Ahab's prophets (1 Kings
xvii. 21, 22), by permitting the evil spirit to go forth for
that end ; or as he is said to deceive his people (Jer. iv. 10),
because he suffered them to be deceived by false prophets
(Jer. vi. 14). And as he deceived the false prophets, by
giving them up unto a spirit of delusion (Ezek. xiv. 9), this
must be the true interpretation of all such passages as these;
for, . -
First, God cannot secretly inspire into us any evil, or in-
fuse any evil principle into our hearts; for evil can never
proceed immediately from him who hath an absolute and
entire freedom from it; were it his offspring, it must cease to
bear that name, his works being all very good, and “wrought
in righteousness.” Nor, -
Secondly, Can he incline, excite, encourage, or entice to
sin: for then he must excite men to perform “the abomina-
ble thing which his soul hates,” to do that which is infinitely
displeasing to him, and must incline them secretly to that
which he openly deters all persons from ; and then he can-
not truly be offended with such persons, he cannot punish
them for their iniquities: or else he must be angry with
them because they do obey his motions, and sentence them
to endless misery because they do comply with his own in-
clinations. Nor,
Thirdly, Can he necessitate any man to sin : for then he
must by force compel them to it, and then the action done
by virtue of that force cannot be theirs, but God’s ; nor
would our consciences condemn us for sin, were we assured
we could not help it. -
* Ver. 14. Ei, 3.] Here Beza notes, that many copies
read sic ºv, which agrees with Trio'rly, ver. 13, and that many
Latin copies accord with them. But it is common for this
pronoun to vary in gender from the noun to which it relates;
so extin. Ašov, oils, Rom. ix. 23, 24, rewvia (cow oils, Gal. iv.
19 (see Phil. ii. 15. Col. ii. 19. Philem. 10.2 John I).
* Apud eos omnes signa edet et horrenda miracula
ad seducendos Sui similes impios. Hippol. p. 32, 34. Iren.
lib. v. Cap. 25. Facit ha-c omnia propter Judaeos, ut qui
noluerunt caritatem recipere veritatis. Hieron. Ep. ad
Algas, q. 11. August. tom. ix. tr. 29, p. 246, C.
'lověaiovc row: #Asperºvov trgoo &oxæytaç &rarrávra. Cyril.
Hieros. Catech. 15, p. 163, B. 164, D. 'Iověaiov, p.4x12 ra.
Theod. Chrys. CEcumen. Theoph. in locum.
Ad quem fugiet vidua oblita Dei, i. e. terrena Jerusalem,
Iren. lib. v. cap. 25. Cúm autem alius venerit in nomine
meo, illum recipietis, alium dicens antichristum. Ibid.
|
* Eig regiºroimaty 86%mº, To the glorious life or salvation.]
That reptºroisſy is to save alive, see note on Eph. i. 14, and
orsetºroin-i, is nºn “life,” 2 Chron. xiv. 13, “They fell down,
&ars ºw; ºval #y attoſ; "regitroëna'iy, so that there was no life in
them ;” Mal. iii. 17, “The day which I make eiç reptºroinºriv,”
LXX. - f -
* Ver. 15. Kgaretºrs rāg ragašáreiº, Hold the traditions
which ye have been taught.] This pissage proves not in the
least, that, in the judgment of Paul, there were any tradi-
tions wholly extrascriptural ; that is, such as were neither
then committed, nor after to be committed to writing, by
himself or any other inspired person ; but only, that he
himself had not writ all things to them by epistle, being
absent, but had preached many things to them being
present. - -
Now that the word which Paul preached orally was after
written by Luke, his amanuensis and companion, we learn
from the tradition of the church of Christ, recorded by
Irenaeus” and Eusebius. - e
Secondly, All that the apostle here exhorts the Thessalo-
nians to do, is to retain the traditions they had immediately
received from the mouth of an apostle, and which he per-
sonally had delivered to them ; which traditions, when we
know them to be such, there is no doubt but they ought
with all reverence to be received: when therefore the
church of Rome hath proved that the traditions she obtrudes
upon us were immediately received from the mouth of an
apostle, then, and not till then, will this text-oblige us to
receive them. -
Thirdly, This text is so far from being an argument for
receiving doctrinal traditions, nowhere writ in Scripture,
upon the sole authority of the church of Rome, or even of
the church catholic, that it is rather a demonstration that
she is no sure preserver of them, she having actually lost
those very traditions touching the “man of sin,” which are
mentioned in this chapter, and particularly referred to in
this text; “I told you these things when I was with you,”
ver. 8, and “Now ye know what letteth ; wherefore stand
fast, holding the traditions” touching his coming, which when
I was with you I delivered by words, and now hint to you
by epistle, and which, as it appeareth by this epistle and
his exhortation, were of great moment to be known. Now,
hath this tradition been preserved by the Roman, or by
the catholic church P or must she not confess with An-
selm,” and their own Esthius on the place, “Truly the
Thessalonians knew what letted, but we know it not * So
that the tradition which the church received from the apos-
tles, touching this matter, is wholly lost ; how therefore can
she be relied on as a sure preserver, and a true teacher of
traditions, which hath confessedly lost one of great mo-
ment, deposited with the Thessalonians, and the primitive
church 2 -
* Lucas autem sectator Pauli, quðd ab illo praedicabatur
evangelium, in libro condidit. Iren. lib. iii. cap. 1. Aović,
§ 3x3x0080; IIaşov, tº in Éxtivov xngvarázavoy evayyáalow iv 8:8-
Xiaº waréSero. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. v. Cap. 8.
+ Nos nescimus quod illi sciebant. Anselm. Nowerint
utique Thessalonicenses, at nos nescimus. Esth.
821
CHAPTER III,
1 FINALLY (rb Aoi Tôv, furthermore, I entreat you),
brethren, (to) pray for us (apostles and ministers of
the gospel), that the word of the Lord (preached by
ws) may have free course, (rpáxy, may run to) and be
glorified (among other gentiles), even as (it hath been)
with (or among) you:
2 And (pray also) that we may be delivered from
unreasonable and wicked men, (such as the unbelieving
Jews, the great opposers of our preaching to the gen-
tiles, are, 1 Thess. ii. 15, 16,) *for all men have not
faith.
3 But (though men may prove unfaithful) the Lord
is (always) faithful (to his promises), who (therefore)
shall (or, will do all things requisite on his part, to)
establish you, and keep you from evil.
4 And (therefore) we have confidence in the Lord
touching you, that ye (through his assistance) both do ||
(at present) and will (still) do the things which we (by
his authority) command you. -
5 And (that we may not be mistaken in this confi-
dence, we pray that) the Lord (would) direct your
hearts into the love of God, (which will constrain you
to this obedience, 2 Cor. v. 14, and from which nothing
shall separate you, Rom. viii. 35. 39), and into the
* patient waiting for (of) Christ (mentioned 1 Thess. i.
10. 2 Thess. i. 10. Phil. iii. 20). |
6 Now we (being thus confident of your obedience) |
command you, brethren, in the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every
brother that walketh disorderly, and not after “the
tradition which he hath received of (i. e. from)
llS.
7 For you yourselves know hôw you ought to fol-
low us: for “we behaved not ourselves disorderly
among you;
8 Neither did we eat any man’s bread for nought;
but wrought with labour and travail (weariness and
toil) might and day, that we might not be chargeable
to any of you :
9 Not because we have not power (to live of the
gospel, for the labourer is worthy of his hire, Luke x.
7, and so hath the Lord appointed, that they that preach
the gospel should live of the gospel, 1 Cor. ix. 14), but
to make ourselves an ensample unto you to follow us,
(in this our industry; for if we, who might lawfully
live upon other men’s labours, choose rather to work
ſº, our own living, how much more ought ye to do
SO :
10 And this we have formerly taught,) for even
when we were with you, this we commanded you, that
if any (being able) would not work, neither should he
eat. -
II (And of this we have cause to remind you :) for
*we hear that there are some who walk among you
disorderly, working not at all, but are busy-bodies
(meddling with that which belongs not to them).
12 Now them that are such we command and ex-
hort (by the authority and in the name of) the Lord
Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and (so)
eat their own bread.
13 (Thus I hear it is with them :) but ye, brethren,
* be not weary of well-doing (let not their ea ample
nake you neglect your industry).
14 And if any man (among you) obey not our word
by this epistle (in which we erhort and command them
thus to work), *note that man, and have no company
with him, that he may be ashamed.
15 Yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish
him as a brother.
16 Now the "Lord of peace himself give you peace
always by all means. The Lord be with you all.
17 The salutation of (me) Paul with mine own
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III.
* Ver. 2..] Note, It is well known, and hath been often
observed, that the unbelieving Jews were in all places bitter
enemies to the preachers of the gospel, and sent their emis-
saries into all places to incite the governors against them,
and therefore, as here, so Rom. Xv. 31, the apostle entreats
Christians to contend with him in prayer, that he might be
delivered from the unbelievers in Judea ; whereas Simon
Magus and his followers were a despicable crew at the writ-
ing of this epistle, and could have no power to persecute
the apostles or preachers of the gospel on this account: and
therefore Eusebius" informs us, that his heresy prevailed
little in the apostles' days, and that his power was presently
extinguished with his person. -
* For all men have not faith..] Here, saith Theodoret,
Geoû yā; ºtoy waxãw, hºw&v 33 tº reiða-Sat, “It is of God to call
us, but of men to obey his call. Whence Christ saith (Luke
ix. 23), If any man will come after me, où yag &váyºn 3,4-
Keral, &AA& ywººny &nteſ, for he compels no man.”
* Ver. 5. Or, eig irogovåy roi, Xgiaroſ, Into the patience of
Christ.] i. e. Into an imitation of his patience, in suffering
“the contradiction of sinners against himself,” that ye may
“run with patience the race which is set before you, looking
unto Jesus,” &c. (Heb. xii. 1, 2). -
* Ver. 6. Kará rày trap4800 w.] The tradition here men-
tioned is, say Chrysostom, Theodoret, CEcumenius, and
Theopylact, the tradition which he delivered 33 rāvāpywy,
“by his works,” in which he was an example to them of
industry; and therefore he adds, at ver. 7, -
* Ver, 7. Own tax rāgapasy, We behaved not ourselves dis-
* ‘H tºw roš zipcovo; &vićn Kai wagexeſ wa civ tá čver:
taraxšavro Šćvapaiº. Hist, Eccl. lib. ii, cap. 15; vide cap. 14.
orderly.] That is, saith Theophylact, “We were not idle;”
for God having ordered man to labour, and fitted him with
members for that end, he that will not do so, #x\{\otºrs rhy
ºrឺv, “deserts the order” in which God hath placed him ;
and so the apostle expounds himself, ver, 11.
* Ver, 11. Mn3iv #yačak.évov;, &AX& regiseya Çoºvov;..] Not
working at all, but being busy-bodies, or, but being employed
about vain things: so treetsºyášegºat, ºrpártely tº regio'az,
Hesych. Phavorinus. So Ecclus. iii. 23, Év roſ; treetcardſ; rāy
#yov arov whº regispyášov, Inanem Vanamgue operam me sus-
picias, “Be not employed in vain things.”
7 Wer. 13.] Note, The fathers interpret these words thus,
Let not their sloth hinder your charity, in giving them what
is necessary to preserve life : but this exposition suits not
with ver. 10.
8 Wer. 14. xn&eioja še.] Most interpreters say, that the
apostle, ver. 6, and here, requires the church-governors to
use the censures of the church upon these disorderly walkers:
but I have shown it to be highly probable, that when this
epistle was writ, there were no such governors settled in this
church (see note on 1 Thess. v. 12).
Secondly, These exhortations plainly are directed to alſ
the brethren in general ; if therefore they relate to excom-
munication, and such like censures, it will hence follow,
that the power of the keys belongs to all the brethren in
general. - - -
Thirdly, The apostle exhorts them still to own them as
Christian brethren, which they at present are not, who by
excommunication are excluded from the church in the society
of Christians.
9 Wer. 16. ‘o Kºptos, The Lord.] Both here, and ii. 16, the
apostle prays to the Lord Jesus Christ, for peace, which, in
the Hebrew phrase, imports all happiness; and for estab-f
lishment “in every good word and work,” which is a strong
822
A DISCOURSE ON THE
hand, which is “ the token in every epistle (that it
comes from me); so I write.
argument for his divinity, especially considering that every
good work derives from God.
* Ver. 17. “o at anºsſow Év ráan iarizrox#, Which is the
token in every epistle.] Hence Grotius concludes, that this
must be the first of his epistles; for, had he, saith he, writ
any epistle before, this admonition had been needless. I
should rather think that this supposes he had writ some
epistle before, because he saith not this shall be, but this is
the sign in every epistle. And this is evident, almost to a
demonstration, from these words, ii. 2, “Be not troubled by
epistle as from us, as if the day of the Lord were at hand”
(see the note there); and from these words, ver. 15, “Hold
to answer.
18 The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you all.
Amen.
the traditions you have (formerly) received, whether by
word, or our epistle.” To which words Grotius hath nothing
Add to this the note of the learned Mr. Dod-
well,” cited in the margin.
* Ex quo intelligimus, salutationem in epistolis apostoli
propriá ejus manā subscribi solitan : eamque notam in om-
nibus ejus epistolis (excipias forsan eam quae ad Galatas
propriá manti integralsit scripta, cap. vi. 11), adhibitam, ut
proinde quae illá notà carerent, commentitiae haberentur.
Dissert. Cypr. ii. in Epist. 4.
A DISCOURSE
BY WAY OF APPENDIX TO THE FIRST CHAPTER ;
SHOWING,
That the endless miseries or torments of the wicked are well
, consistent both with the justice and the goodness of God.
THE apostle in this chapter seems plainly to assert, That
wicked persons “shall be punished with everlasting destruc-
tion,” and also to resolve this punishment into the Sixato-
xgicia, or just judgment of God.
Whereas it is pretended that “it is contrary to the jus-
tice of God, to punish temporary crimes with eternal punish-
ments, because justice always observes a proportion be-
tween offences and punishments; but between temporary
sins and etermal punishments there is no proportion. And
if it be hard to reconcile this with divine justice, it will be
much more so, to show how it comports with that great good-
mess we suppose to be in God;”
They who assert the etermity of future torments inflicted
on the wicked, abiding in a state of misery, attempt by se-
veral ways to answer this objection. I shall begin with those
answers which to me seem not satisfactory, and briefly show
the reasons why I think they are not so; and them return that
answer which I think fully clears the justice and the good-
ness of God in this dispensation, from the strength of this
objection. And, $.
Ş. 1. First, Some make out the proportion thus, That
“because sin is infinite in respect of the object against which
it is committed, therefore it deserves an infinite punishment:
now because a finite creature cannot suffer a punishment,
which is infinite as to intension; therefore he suffers that
which is infinite as to pretension or duration.”
But to this it is replied, That if all sins be for this reason
infinite as to demerit, then the demerit of all sins must ne-
cessarily be equal, and so there must be equal reason for the
pardon of all sins; for the demerit of no sin can be more
than infinite. Secondly, Hence it will follow, that God can-
not “render unto every man according as his works shall be;”
because, though they commit innumerable sins, he can only
lay upon them the punishment due to one only; because he
º lay upon them a punishment which is more than in-
nite.
Š. 2. Secondly, Others say, That “if wicked men lived
for ever in this world, they would sin for ever, and therefore
they deserve to be punished for ever.” But,
1. Who can be certain of this, since, whilst we live in this
World, we are in a state of trial, and so may be in a possi-
bility of repenting and growing better 2
2. God hath expressly declared, that men should be
judged hereafter, not according to what they would have
done, had they lived longer, but according to what they ac-
tually have done in this present life, according to their
“works done in the body;” and so he hath sufficiently de-
clared, he doth not punish them for what they would have
done, had they lived longer; but for what they actually had
done whilst they lived. . So that this answer recoils thus;
Wicked men, by God's declaration, are only to be punished
for what they did whilst they lived here; now they did not
live here for ever in a state of sin: therefore they are not to
live for ever hereafter in a state of punishment.
Ş. 3. Thirdly, Others say, That “God having set before
the sinner life and death; and having so expressly forewarned
him this would be the certain consequence of his iniquity,
he cannot charge God with injustice, in allotting to him the
portion which he chose, and would incur, after all admoni-
tions to the contrary.”
But though this may be sufficient to stop the sinner's
mouth, it will do little to stop the mouth of infidels; because
it seemeth not to answer the objection arising from the
disproportion between the fault and the punishment: for
it renders not the fault less finite, or the punishment less in-
finite; and so it doth not render it less inconsistent with
divine equity and goodness to threaten so to punish fi-
nite crimes, and execute that punishment upon the sinner.
§. 4. A very great and learned person hath attempted a
solution to this objection from these considerations:
First, That “the measure of penalties is not to be taken
from any strict proportion betwixt crimes and punishments,
but from one great end and design of government, which is,
to secure the observation of wholesome and necessary laws;
and consequently whatever penalties are proper and necessary
to this end are not unjust. -
Secondly, “That whosoever considers how ineffectual the
threatening, even of eternal torments, is to the greatest part
of sinners, will soon be satisfied that a less penalty than that
of eternal suffering would, to the far greatest part of man-
kind, have been, in all probability, of little or no force; and
that if anything more terrible could have been threatened to
the workers of iniquity, it had not been unreasonable ; be-
cause it would all have been little enough to deter men effec-
tually from sin.” But then he adds,
Thirdly, “That after all, he that threateneth hath still the
power of execution in his own hands: for there is this re-
markable difference betwixt promises and threatenings, that
he who promiseth passeth over a right to another, and there-
by stands obliged to him, in justice and faithfulness, to make
good his promise: but in threatenings it is quite otherwise;
he that threatens keeps the right of punishing in his own
hand, and is not obliged to execute what he hath threatened,
any farther than the reasons and ends of government do re-
quire; and that he may, without any injury to the party
threatened, remit and abate as much as he pleaseth of the
punishment that he hath threatened ; and because in so do-
ing he is not worse, but better than his word, nobody can
find fault or complain of any wrong or injustice thereby
done him.
“Nor is this any impeachment of God's truth and faith-
fulness, any more than it is esteemed among men a piece of
falsehood, not to do what they have threatened.”
But here, with submission to better judgments, I conceive
are many things propounded which are not exactly true, or
reach not the objection; since that relates not to God's
threats of punishment, but to his execution of the threatened
punishment.
And, First, When it is said, that “what proportion ought to
be appointed betwixt crimes and penalties, is not so properly
a consideration of justice as of prudence in the lawgiver;”
and thence inferred, that “whatever the disproportion man
ENDLESS TORMENTS OF THE WICKED.
823
be between temporary sins and eternal punishments, justice
cannot be said to be concerned in it.”
It is owned, that by the sanctions annexed to his laws, the
lawgiver designs the preservation of his laws from being vio-
lated; which is an effect of prudence, but still of prudence
tempered with equity, not unregardless of it, since it cannot
be prudence to threaten what I know I cannot justly exe-
cute : for this, in human laws, doth null the penalty; and
could it be supposed in divine, would even frustrate the end
of all God’s threats, since every body would rest assured that
a just God would never execute them. -
But, Secondly, The execution of the threatened judgment,
which is the only thing against which the objection lies, is
certainly an act of distributive justice, and is so represented
in the holy scriptures, when it said to be done “according to
our works,” and “according as our works shall be,” Rom.
ii. 16. 2 Cor. v. 10. Rev. xxii. 12. Matt. xvi. 27; and when
it is declared to be 8tzatokgºria, “the just judgment of God;”
and 8tuatov trag& rā Qaş, “just with God, to render this ven-
geance to those who obey not the gospel,” which consists in
their “everlasting destruction,” 2 Thess. i. 6.8, 9. So that
though prudence was properly concerned in promulging the
penalty, because it is prudence which directs us to choose the
means most proper to the end we aim at; yet seeing the pri-
mary end of the lawgiver, i. e. the preventing the trangress-
ing of his law, is wholly lost, and entirely defeated, before
this punishment comes to be executed, justice alone can be
concerned in the execution of it; and if the continuance of
the sinner under misery for ever be the execution of the
threatened punishment, justice alone can be concerned in the
subjection of the sinner to that punishment: so far is it from
being true, that if prudence be requisite for the proportion-
ing penalties to crimes, justice cannot be concerned in the
disproportion that may be between them, and much less that
it cannot be concerned in executing a penalty which bears so
great a disproportion to the crime.
I confess also, that in human governments prudence may
fitly be called in to deliberate, not whether it be lawful, but
whether it be expedient to execute the threatened penalty;
as when the government is feeble, and the multitude or
power of offenders may render it hazardous to do justice on
them; but nothing of this mature can happen in theocracy,
where there can neither be a want of wisdom in appointing,
or equity in proportionating, the penalty to the offences, and
much less want of power to execute what in his equity and
wisdom he saw fit to threaten.
Secondly, When it is said, that “a less penalty than eter-
fial sufferings would not have been sufficient to deter men
from sin; and therefore it could not be unreasonable, but
rathe, suitable to divine prudence, to threaten eternal mise-
T1CS -
I am not willing to admit that God should threaten what
he knows he cannot with consistence to his justice or his
goodness execute; this being, in effect, to threaten in this
wise, “If you will do to me what you in justice ought not
to do, I will execute upon you what I in justice ought not
to do to you.” It is also to insinuate that an all-wise God
could not so well provide for human government, or carry
on his great designs, without abusing men's credulity, and
Scaring them with dreadful expectations of what he never
did intend to execute. Lastly, this seemeth even to insi-
nuate, that prudence in God may act without regard to equity
and goodness, and even be separated from them ; as it must
be, in appointing, and even proportionating, those penalties
to crimes which it is not consistent with his equity or good-
mess to inflict. *
Thirdly, When it is added, that “God is not obliged to
execute what he hath threatened, any farther than the rea-
sons and the ends of government do require;” and that “he
may, without any injury to the party threatened, remit and
abate as much as he pleaseth of the punishment that he hath
threatened, and that without any impeachment of his truth
and faithfulness:”
This I allow of in the case of temporal punishments in
this world, designed not for excision, but the amendment of
the sinner; because there may be a just ground for the re-
mission of such threatened penalties, even the repentance
and reformation of the sinner, by which the primary end of
all God's threats, in some good measure, is obtained : and
also because these threats, in what expressions soever they
are made, if they be only threats, are still conditional; the
meaning of them being only this, I will inflict this judg-
ment, if you repent not of your evil ways: “For at what
instant I shall speak,” saith God, “against a nation, and
concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to de-
stroy it; if that nation, against which I have pronounced
these things, turn from their evil ways, I will repent me of
the evil which I thought to do unto them” (Jer. xviii. 7, 8).
And again, “When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man,
thou shalt surely die; if he do not turn from his way he
shall die in his iniquity. Say therefore to them, As I live,
saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of him
that dieth, but that the wicked turn from his way and live;
wherefore, turn yourselves, and live ye” (Ezek. xviii. 32.
xxxiii. 8, 9.11). Thirdly, Because God threateneth judg-
ments, not that he takes any pleasure in his punishments,
but rather to awaken and reform the sinnner: when, there-
fore, by his comminations, he hath wrought this good effect
upon him, it is not to be wondered that he doth not proceed
to execute that judgment which hath already done its work
by being threatened. And all this well comports, not only
with divine justice, but also with his immutability and truth,
because this reformation and repentance change the subject
of the threat ; the change in every instance of this nature
being not in God, but man. Thus, v. g. we cannot charge
God with mutability, because he doth not execute the
threatened judgment on repenting Nineveh; because it was
impenitent, and not repenting Nineveh, he threatened: nor
with injustice, because it was only her impenitence which
rendered her the proper object of vindictive justice.
But then this notion seems to be stretched too far, when
it is extended to God’s threats of future and eternal punish-
ments to be inflicted upon those who die in an impenitent
and unreformed estate. For, *
First, In all these cases, the evil threatened hath entirely
lost its first and salutary end upon them, and therefore must
be threatened to such persons to no end, or else to show the
justice of God in punishing these “vessels of his wrath,”
thus “fitted for destruction.” Thus, v. g. when Christ Saith,
“Except ye repent, ye shall all perish” (Luke xiii. 3. 5),
that “in the day of wrath, and revelation of his righteous
judgment,” God will “give to every one according to his
works; to them that obey not the truth, but obey unrighte-
ousness, indignation and wrath” (Rom. ii. 5–8); “to them
that obey not the gospel, everlasting destruction ;” these
threats are plainly made to those who die in their im-
penitence and disobedience, by that God “who will judge
every man according to his works;” declaring, that in the
day of the revelation of his wrath and righteous judgment
they shall perish everlastingly; because, “through the hard-
mess and impenitency of their hearts, they have treasured up
wrath against the day of wrath,” and rendered themselves
“vessels of his wrath fitted for destruction.” Can it be rea-
sonably said then, because God does them no injury if he do
not execute his wrath upon them, that though they do not
repent, they may not perish P that indignation and wrath
may not be the portion of the disobedient? and that this
righteous Judge may not give to them according to their
works? May we not rather say unto them, as doth this very
person in another place,” “If thou continuest impenitent,
however he may defer the execution of temporal evils, his
truth and veracity is concerned to inflict eternal punishments.
upon thee P” -
Secondly, God's threats of everlasting miseries have for
their object the impenitent, and therefore do exclude the
supposition of any change in them, which may induce God
to remit or to abate the threatened judgment: if then this pu-
nishment may be remitted to them, either in part or in
whole, it must be either by a change in God, or by a secret
intention in him not to inflict what he thus threateneth.
That there was in God no such secret intention, this learned
person thus declares, by saying,” “When God did threaten,
he spake what he did really purpose and intend, if something
did not intervene to prevent the judgment threatened.”
And indeed, these threats declaring what a righteous God
* Sermon on the Truth of God, vol. vi. p. 361. -
+ Sermon on the Unchangeableness of God, vol. vi. p. 110.
S24
A DISCOURSE ON THE
will do, and what they who are finally impenitent and diso-
bedient shall suffer, such a secret will must plainly be re-
pugnant to his revealed will, and therefore must suppose in
God two contrary wills. Moreover, to say that such a secret
intention may be in God, notwithstanding these declarations
to the contrary, is in great measure to enervate even the pri-
mary intention of these threats, viz. the deterring the sinner,
by the greatness and duration of them, from a continuance
in his sin; for this intention, if it may be in God, it follows,
that it may be his will not to inflict what he hath threatened
to the sinner: now so much hopes as you give the impeni-
tent sinner, that he may escape eternal punishment, so much
encouragement you give him to continue still in his im-
penitence. Now “the belief of the threatenings of God,
in their utmost extent, is of so great moment to a good life,
and so great a discouragement to sin,” saith this reverend per-
son,t “that if men were once set free from the fear and be-
lief of this, the most powerful restraint from sin would be
taken away.”
That this cannot be expected, by reason of any change in
God, this excellent person thus declares and evinceth :*
“Let but the sinner consider what God is, and his un-
changeable nature must needs terrify him; he is a holy God,
who therefore “hateth all the workers of iniquity;” a just
God, who “will by no means clear the guilty,” nor let the
sinner go unpunished. He is also omnipotent, and able to
execute the vengeance threatened against sinners. And,
which gives a sad accent to all this, he that is thus holy,
and just, and powerful, continues ever the same; he will ne-
wer cease to hate iniquity, and to be an implacable enemy
to all impenitent sinners-Let, then, all obstinate sinners
hear this, and tremble; you cannot be more obstinately bent
to continue in your ways, than God is peremptorily resolved
to make you miserable; if you be determined on a sinful
course, God is also determined how he will deal with you;
that “he will not spare, but that ‘ his anger and jealousy
shall smoke against you;’ and, that “all the curses which
are written in this book shall light upon you.’ He hath
sworn in his wrath, that unbelieving and impenitent sinners
‘shall not enter into his rest;’ and for the greater assurance
of the thing, and that we may not think that there is any
condition implied in these threatenings, he hath confirmed
them by an oath, that by this “immutable sign, in which it
is impossible for God to lie,' sinners might have strong ter-
rors, and not be able to fly to any hopes of refuge.”
Thirdly, Either God may injustice inflict upon the wicked
these punishments which he hath threatened, or else it is
unjust in God to execute upon them the judgment written;
i. e. the punishment which he hath threatened to them in
the word of truth. If it be said, it is unjust in God to
execute them on the sinner dying in his impenitence, either
we cannot be obliged to believe that word in which these
threats are contained; or else an obligation must lie upon us
to believe that God will act unjustly. If, to avoid this, it be
said, these threats do not discover certainly what God will do,
but only what the sinner doth deserve to suffer, read them
once more, and you will find, that they expressly say of those
who shall be at the great day condemned, that “they shall
go away into eternal punishment,” Matt. xxv. 46, that they
“shall be punished with eternal destruction from the pre-
sence of the Lord,” 2 Thess. i. 8, and that they “shall be
°, tormented day and night for ever and ever,” Rev. xiv. 10, 11.
xx. 10.
Moreover, when our Saviour argues thus, to induce men
to cut off their offending hands, and pluck out their offend-
ing eyes, “It is better to enter into life halt and maimed,
than to be cast into eternal fire (or into hell), where the
worm dieth not, and where the fire is not quenched,” Matt.
xviii. 8, 9, doth he not sufficiently inform us, there is an ab-
solute necessity of doing the one, or suffering the other?
When he saith, “He that blasphemeth against the Holy
Ghost shall never be forgiven in this, or in the world to
come, but shall be obnoxious to eternal judgment,” Matt.
xii. 32. Mark iii. 29, doth he not insinuate, that he who me-
yer is forgiven, must be for ever subject to this judgment 2
It is therefore certain, that our judge hath expressly taught
* I bid p. 4. + Ibid. p. 112–115.
us, not only that the impenitent sinner doth deserve, but that
he shall actually suffer, “the worm that never dies, the fire
that shall not be quenched.”
If God in justice may inflict upon the wicked these pu-
nishments which he hath threatened, then the objection can-
not need this answer; yea, what can move him not to inflict
what he, by threatening, hath engaged his truth to do 2
What, I say, can move him not to do it, but an act of
mercy exercised to them, of whom the scripture saith,
“They shall have judgment without mercy P” James ii. 13.
What, but remission of that sin, which, saith the scripture,
“shall never be remitted P’’ What, but mercy in the day of
wrath and judgment P What, but remission exercised to the
impenitent, without any interest in the blood of our redemp-
tion ? To which imaginations I conceive the scripture gives
but little countenance.
Nor are we to conclude, that the non-execution of these
threats lays no impeachment on God's truth and faithfulness;
because it is not esteemed, among men, a piece of falsehood,
not to do what they have threatened. For men may rea-
sonably be moved to remit their threatenings; because they
oft are made in passion, or may exceed the rules of justice:
but these are things not incident to an all-perfect God; or,
because the person threatened repents, begs pardon, and re-
turns unto his duty, which the damned cannot be supposed
to do. * - *
Š. 5. It is farther said, in answer to this objection, that
macula peccati est aeterna, “the stain of them who die in
their impenitence will be perpetual;” and he that dies thus
filthy, will be “filthy still;” now it seems equitable that, is
qui nunquam desinit esse malus, nunquam desineret esse
miser, “he who never ceases to be wicked, should never
cease to be miserable.” Now this, rightly explained, affords
a clear and satisfactory answer to the objection, as showing
that the sinner becomes for ever miserable, not by any posi-
tive act of God inflicting everlasting stripes upon him, or
loading him perpetually with fresh torments, but wholly from
his own sin, which renders him incapable of the enjoyment
of a holy God, and so perpetually excluded from his blissful
presence; which, to a soul that is immortal, and can never
die, must be the source of everlasting torment, and from
the natural workings of its faculties, will necessarily subject
it to the worm that never dies.
I own, and really believe, that positive torments, such as
the schools call poena sensus, shall be inflicted on the body;
but then I have insinuated my present notion of them to be
this :
First, That these positive torments on the body are not
to begin until the raising of the body, when Christ “shall
come in flaming fire, to take vengeance on them who would
not obey his gospel; the world that now is, being reserved to
(be set on) fire, for the day of judgment, and perdition of
ungodly men.” At which time, I conceive, the righteous
shall be snatched up “into the air, and be for ever with
the Lord” (1 Thess. iv. 17), and the wicked shall be left
to the devouring flames. See for this, the note on 2 Pet.
iii. 7.
Secondly, I also do conjecture, that this fire may be called
“eternal;” not that the bodies of the wicked shall be for
ever burning in it, and never be consumed by it, since this
cannot be done without a constant miracle; but because it
shall so entirely consume their bodies, as that they never
shall subsist again, but shall perish, and be destroyed for ever
by it. In which sense “Sodom and Gomorrah were set forth
for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire” (see
the note on Jude, wer. 7). And if so, this punishment be-
ing only temporary, the objection doth not lie against it;
God being no more obliged, either in justice or in goodness,
to snatch the wicked out of these flames, when they thus
kindle on them, than he was to snatch the wicked of the old
world out of that deluge which overwhelmed them. These
I call my conjectures, or my private sentiments. But then
I add, as certain matter of my faith,
First, That the soul, even from the time of its separation
from the body, in its impenitency, shall find itself in such a
dismal state, as shall then fill it with perpetual horror, and
dreadful expectation of the punishment which God hath
threatened to the wicked. And thus it shall be like those
devils which “believe and tremble” (James ii. 19), as know.
ENDLESS TORMENTS OF THE WICKED.
825
ing that there is reserved for them “a time of torment”
(Matt. viii. 29).
Secondly, That when the final sentence shall be passed
upon the wicked, and they shall be for ever separated from
the presence of the Lord, their soul shall be perpetually
subject to the height of misery, or to that worm which never
dies; and that this misery will be the natural and the per-
petual result of such separation.
To explain this, let it be considered,
1. That there is scarce anything in which the heathen
moralists so universally accord, as in this fixed rule, ºwn
kaşağ Kašagoû #mrówrea Sat of Sepairy ºf “that an impure
soul can have no commerce with a pure God;’ and that “it
is not congruous to his nature to admit such soul into his
presence.” And this assertion is built upon a sure and in-
contestable foundation: for seeing God is absolute in holi-
ness, he cannot but retain the greatest hatred to, and ab-
horrence of, all actions and persons that are unrighteous and
impure; and since his nature is immutable, his holiness un-
changeable, he must for ever hate, with a most perfect hatred,
whatsoever is unholy and impure; and therefore to suppose
an interruption of his hatred of evil-doers, is to imagine he
can cease to be a pure and holy God. Consider,
2. That the soul of a wicked man being immortal must
abide for ever, if it be not annihilated ; and that God nei-
ther is obliged to annihilate it, nor hath he anywhere de-
clared that he will do so.
I say, he is not obliged to annihilate the souls of wicked
men, for then it must be so on this account, because he is
obliged to put them out of that misery which they have
brought upon themselves by their own folly and rebellions;
and if so, since this must certainly be an act, not of strict
justice, but of grace and favour, God must be bound to
show an act of grace and favour towards men, purely because
they have provoked and rebelled against him, i.e. because
they have done that which renders them the proper objects
of his hatred and his indignation; and be obliged to save
men from that misery, which by their stubborn disobedience
to all his calls and admonitions, his exhortations, and all the
gracious methods his providence had used to preserve them
from it, they wilfully have brought upon themselves. Whereas
indeed “the riches of his goodness” being designed to “lead
men to repentance,” or to encourage them in the ways of
holiness and piety, hath only for its proper object such as
are capable of being made the better by it; it cannot there-
fore be the goodness and mercy of a God, to show kindness
to persons obstinately and incorrigibly wicked; because it
cannot be the goodness and mercy of a Being infinitely just
and holy. For seeing all the divine perfections must agree
together, that cannot be a divine perfection, which contra-
dicts any other perfection.
The original of our mistakes in matters of this nature
seems to arise from our own imperfection, which naturally
leads us to consider of the divine attributes apart, and as it
were in separation from each other, and, by so doing, to frame
such wide and large notions of the one, as to exclude the
other: whereas indeed they ought to be considered as really
they are in God himself, i. e. goodness and mercy joined
with infinite holiness and justice ; and as it is the goodness
and mercy of a lawgiver, governor, and righteous judge,
which never regularly can be exercised without some pros-
pect of reclaiming, or doing good unto the object of it.
And thus it is well consistent with the prayer of David,
“Be not thou merciful to them that offend of malicious wick-
edness,” Ps. lix. 5.
§. 6. I add, that God hath not declared in scripture that
he will annihilate the souls of wicked men, or that this is
the punishment which he designeth to inflict upon them.
This is generally said to be the doctrine of the Socinians,
though Crellius * expressly says, Animas impiorum Deum
post judicium annihilaturum nec scriptura asserit, necrati
evincit; that “neither reason doth evince, nor scripture as-
sert, it will be so.” And, -
Obj. 1. It is certain that this follows not from any of those
places of the Old Testament in which the dead are said to
be no more, or not to be : as, v. g. “Let the sinners be
consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more,”
* Solut. Problem. tom. iv. p. 533.
Ps. civ. 35. “Our fathers have sinned, and are not,” Lam.
v. 7. “I have made Esau bare—his seed is spoiled, and
he is not,” Jer. xlix. 10, see x. 20. xxxv. 15.
For (l.) if any of these places speak of annihilation, they
must speak of such a one as was then past already, and so is
inconsistent with the future judgment of those persons; be-
cause it is not said they shall not be, but they are not ; they
therefore cannot refer to any future annihilation at the day
of judgment.
(2.) Then must the righteous be annihilated as well as the
wicked ; for of righteous Enoch it is said, “He walked be-
fore God, and was not,” Gen. v. 24; of Joseph, “One is not,”
Gen. xlii. 13; and David prays thus for himself, “O spare
me a little, that I may recover my strength, before I go hence
and be not,” Ps. xxxix. 13. It is therefore evident these
places only were intended to import, those persons were not
“in the land of the living.” -
Obj. 2. But it is objected, that the wicked after the resur-
rection shall be punished with “the second death:” where-
fore they cannot in any proper sense be said to live, and to
subsist, and to have sense of pain, this being not consistent
with a state of death.
Ans. I answer (1.) That this second death cannot consist
in the annihilation of the wicked, or in their exemption
from all sense of punishment, because it is promised, that
“he who overconneth shall not be hurt by the sécond death”
(Rev. ii. 1 l), whence it is manifest, that they who die this
second death shall be hurt by it; but were it to the wicked,
condemned to an eternal separation from God, and from all
hopes of happiness, a conclusion of their being, and of all
sense of misery, it would be no more hurtful, but highly be-
neficial to them, as being a conclusion of that life which they
must otherwise have spent in endless misery. And therefore
even Hierocles represents this as the choice of wicked men,
by saying in his commentary on the verses of Pythagoras, p.
164, où 80éxeral y&t à waxåc &0&ya', oy siva, räy airwi. Juxāy, Wa
ºwn introAévn rºwgoûzavoc, “The wicked man would not have
his soul to be immortal, that he might not abide under
punishment.” Moreover, those very torments which the
damned suffer, are declared to be the second death ; and
wicked men are therefore said to die the second death, be-
cause they do endure eternal torments: for “the fearful and
unbelievers, &c. shall have their part in that lake of fire and
brimstone, which is the second death,” Rev. xxi. 8. This
death, then, when it is threatened as the final punishment
of the wicked, cannot import a state of non-existence, or in-
sensibility, but only an unhappy miserable state, a separation
of the soul from him who is the fountain of our life and all
our comforts; an absolute exclusion from that felicity which
only renders life a blessing ; and a life of infelicity and
misery. To make this still more evident, -
Consider, (2.) That this is a Jewish phrase used often by
and borrowed from the ancient Hebrews, with whom it doth
import the punishment of damned persons in the life to come.
So, Deut. xxxiii. 6, “Let Reuben live, and not die the
second death,” saith the Targum of Onkelos ; i. e. “Let
him not die the death, which the wicked die in the age to
come,” saith the Targum of B. Uziel : “Let him not die
the second death, which the wicked die in the age to come,”
saith the Jerusalem Targum. Now that the death of the
wicked, in the age to come, did really subject them to eternal
torments, the Jews still thought, as is apparent not only from
the plain testimony of Josephus,” who saith, the pharisees
assigned to the wicked Bigypsy &#8toy, “an eternal prison,” in
which they were to be tormented, 373iº rºwgiº, ºf “with
eternal punishment;” and from Philo, f who saith, that
“some conceive death to be the last of punishments, whereas
it scarcely deserveth to be named the beginning of them, see-
ing the punishment reserved for the wicked person is, Öy &ro-
Byhakov'ra &ei kai agámoy riya Sávaroy troºvery &réxévroy, to live
for ever in a dying state, and suffer such a death as hath no
end ;” but also from the apocryphal books, which say, what-
arovrat #y aid Sha'el Hoc aiãvoç, “They shall feel them, and weep
for ever,” Judith xvi. 17. So again, Isa. xxii. 14, “This sin
shall not be forgiven till the second death ;” that is, saith
* Antiq. lib. xviii, cap. 2.
+ De Bell. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 12, p. 788, F.
† De Praem. et Poenis, p. 713, D.
826
A DISCOURSE ON THE
Kimchi, “till the soul dieth in the world to come.” And,
lv. 5, 6.15, of the same persons it is said, “God will kill
them with the second death ; and he will deliver them up to
the punishment of hell, where the fire burneth all the day.”
Obj. 3. It farther is objected, That eternal life is said to
be peculiar to the saints in bliss, whereas unto the wicked it
is threatened that “they shall not see life,” John iii. 36.
Ans. To this I answer, that “life,” in scripture, when it
is mentioned as the end of our faith, and the reward of our
obedience, is not intended only to signify our permanence in
being, but to assure us of our advancement to a state of hap-
piness, and is equivalent to everlasting life. So to the law-
yer asking, “What good thing shall I do that I may inherit
eternal life?” our Saviour answers, “Do this, and thou shalt
live,” Luke x. 25. 28. So Christ saith, “He that eateth me
shall live by me,” John vi. 57, i.e. he shall live for ever, ver.
58; “I came that my sheep might have life,” John x. 10;
“I give unto them life eternal,” ver. 28. And that this is
the life denied to the wicked, John iii. 36, is evident from
the preceding words of the same verse, “He that believeth
on the Son hath everlasting life, but he that believeth not
the Son shall not see life.” This is a phrase so known, and
this use of it is so frequent, saith Maimonides, that hence
our masters say, “The just are styled living in their death,
because they then are happy.” And that the phrase, “not
to see life,” cannot import the state of non-existence, or in-
sensibility, is evident, because it is said of them who do not
see life, that “the wrath of God abideth on them ;” they
therefore must abide under a sense of it.
Obj. 4. Lastly, it is objected, that the wicked are in scrip-
ture said to “perish utterly,” 2 Pet. ii. 12, and to be “pun-
ished with everlasting destruction :” now these expressions
seem to signify a deprivation of all sense and being.
Ans. But nothing is more common, both in Greek and
Latin; and in other languages, than to say, when we con-
ceive our future life is likely to be miserable, 5xxvºws, perii,
“I am undone, I perish.” See the note of Taubman *
upon these words of Plautus, Qui per virtutem periit, is non
interit.
That only in this moral sense the damned are in scripture
said to perish, viz. by having all their hopes of future happi-
ness destroyed, and being sentenced to those torments, which
are exceedingly more heavy than the loss of being, is evident
first, from the scripture, which informs us, that to cast the
soul and body into hell-fire is to destroy them ; as is appar-
ent from these two expressions, “Fear him who can destroy
both soul and body in hell-fire,” Matt. x. 28; “who after he
hath killed hath power to cast into hell,” saith Luke, xii.
5, that is, into that place “where the worm dieth not, and
where the fire is not quenched.” Moreover, the devils put
the question to our Saviour thus, #x$8; &woxécat #438, “Art
thou come to destroy us before the time 2" Luke iv. 34, and
yet that “to destroy” is only 8aa’aviaat, “to torment” them, is
evident from the same question recited by Matthew thus,
“Art thou come to torment us before the time P” viii. 29.
And had the devils thought, that at Christ's coming they
might have been reduced into the state of non-existence, or
insensibility, they could have had no reason to dread, or de-
precate so vehemently that perdition, which would so long
ago have freed them from that horror which they still
endure.
Moreover, this opinion is so far from being contained in
the holy Scripture, that it is plainly contrary to many things
contained in it: for, (1.) the scripture plainly intimates,
some in the other world shall suffer more, some less; for “it
shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day
of judgment” than for Capernaum, Matt. xi. 21. 25; that
some shall be beaten with fewer, some with many stripes,
Luke xii. 47, 48, some shall receive “greater damnation”
than others, Matt. xxiii., 14. But if annihilation only be the
second death, the punishment and perdition threatened to
sinners in the other world, they must all suffer equally; be-
cause if there be no degrees of annihilation, or not being,
then all will equally not be, or lose their being, and nothing
by annihilation can lose more. (2.) It is said of the wicked
that they shall be cast into the place “where their worm
dieth not ;” of them that shall not see life, that “the wrath of
+-
* Cap. act. iii. s. 3, ver, 32.
God abideth on them;” of them that are cast into utter dark-
ness, that “there is weeping and wailing.” Now that of the
schools is absolutely true, that non entis nullae sunt affectiones,
“that which is not, cannot be in misery;” that which abides
not cannot abide under the wrath of God ; that which so dieth
as to cease to be, cannot be subject to a worm that dieth not,
whatever be the import of that phrase. Consider,
§. 7. Secondly, That we have two passions of the soul,
which are still conversant about good present and to come;
viz. desire of the good we want, and joy in that which we at
present have. When therefore we are in a state in which
we cannot possibly enjoy the good we above all things want
and naturally desire, we must for ever lie under the torment
of dissatisfaction and despair; and when we fall into that
state in which we can enjoy no comfortable or real good, we
never can have any joy. Again, we have two other passions,
which are employed about a present or a future evil, fear that
it may befall us, and grief when it hath actually taken hold
upon us. It therefore being natural to all men to desire to
be freed from an afflictive evil, when they lie under it with-
out all hopes or prospects of any end of, or deliverance from,
the worst of evils, they must be swallowed up of grief; and
when their guilt hath rendered them still obnoxious to the
divine displeasure, they must be subject to eternal fears.
Consider,
Thirdly, That the proper action of the soul is thought,
and that whilst she continues, she must be conscious to her-
self of her own actions ; when then the soul hath nothing
comfortable to employ its thoughts upon, but an eternal
scene of misery, to which her wilful sin and folly have ever-
lastingly confined her, to be the doleful subject of her con-
tinual reflections, when she hath nothing to divert her from
these rueful thoughts, she must become an endless torment
to herself. Now from these three considerations it will de-
monstrably follow, that the soul, which in this life hath not
been purged from the dominion or the guilt of sin, and
therefore is excluded from a state of happiness, and from en-
joyment of that God in whom its happiness consists, must
be for ever miserable.
For, it must be perpetually tormented with the thoughts
of its eternal separation from God's blissful presence, and
its exclusion from the state of happiness which saints made
perfect do enjoy. Now, as a heathen, Plutarch,” puts the
question, “Must it not be very sad to be deprived of the hope
of everlasting blessings, and to beexcluded from the completest
happiness P” Were the damned obnoxious to no other
punishments besides this loss, even this would beget in them
such a worm of conscience, as would perpetually subject
them to the worst of miseries ; as will be evident, if we con-
sider, *
First, That the earnest and impetuous desire, which is in
all men, to be happy, is rooted in their very nature, and
therefore must continue as long as they retain that nature;
and yet it is impossible that this desire should in the least
be gratified, when we are once condemned to an eternal sepa-
ration from the place and object of our happiness, there be-
ing no hope that they should ever see his face, who at the
coming of their Judge shall be “punished with everlasting
destruction from thé presence of the Lord.” Now the wise
man tells us, that even “hope deferred makes the heart sick”
(Prov. xiii. 12). Hope therefore irrecoverably disappointed
must create in it an access of torment. A wicked Cain ac-
counted it an insupportable calamity to be excluded from
God's gracious presence here on earth ; “My punishment”
(saith he) “is greater than I am able to bear ; for from thy
face shall I be hid” (Gen. iv. 13. 14). How dreadful there-
fore must that sentence be, which doth eternally exclude us
from his blissful presence, and force us to a continual despair
of that which we most ardently desire P For as it is one great
ingredient of our future happiness, that it is that which can
never be lost, so must it be a signal aggravation of our
future misery, and loss of happiness, to know it is irre-
parable.
Secondly, This loss will be enhanced from the great change
the other world will make in our condition. The terrors of
* II&c ošk &viaçãw aiwyſºv &ya.0āv #xarièc; a regsfºrsal, wał rºw
ãºorármy sièzikovíay 3rotaxeſ, ; L. Non posse suavitér, &c.
P, 1006, D.
ENDLESS TORMENTS OF THE WICKED,
827
an awakened and guilty conscience, even in this life, are very
grievous ; but here we may be able to mitigate the gripings
of it by the society of others, or by the pleasures of the world;
we may deceive it with false opinions, and flatter it with false
hopes and promises of reformation and amendment ; but
when we are passed hence into another world, our vain
imaginations will be all confuted, our hopes of reformation
will be at an end, and we shall be eternally deprived of all
those enjoyments in which we once placed our happiness,
and shall have nothing to divert us from our saddest thoughts:
now, what condition can be more deplorable than this, viz.
to be deprived of all those comforts in which we placed our
former happiness, and find it utterly impossible to purchase
the least glimpse of real happiness, or to divert our thoughts
from a continual remorse for our irreparable loss?
For, Thirdly, The sinner's memory reflecting on this pun-
ishment of loss, will create fresh and never-ceasing torments
to him. It will torment him to remember what an inesti-
mable blessing he hath lost, in losing the enjoyment of that
God, who is the chiefest good, and of that happiness, which
passeth understanding ; for the greater still we apprehend
the good to be, the greater will the trouble we endure be,
when we have wholly lost the hopes of its enjoyment. Again,
it will add still to the torment of the sinner, to consider that
he hath exchanged this exceeding and eternal weight of glory
for things of no intrinsic value and duration ; that for the
pleasures of a moment, which are now turned into sadness,
he should forego those pleasures which are at God’s right
hand for ever ; that for a little fading earth, which he soon
left behind him, he should deprive himself of an “inheritance
incorruptible, reserved in the heavens for him.” It will also
torment him to consider in what a fair capacity he was once
placed of being happy ; what frequent calls and invitations
he hath had to be for ever so ; what importunity the God
of heaven used to bring him thither ; and with what stiffness
he resisted all these gracious motions. These, and such-like
considerations, will fill the miserable soul with constant mat-
ter of most sad reflections. “Now,” saith the heathem orator*
“Suppose a person subject to the extremest miseries which
can be incident to soul and body, without all hope of the
alleviation of this misery, or expectation of any future good,
what can be imagined farther to complete his misery 2"
And now to answer the objection, by removing the foun-
dation of it: hence it is easy to demonstrate, that all these
evils, which the soul suffers after death, may rather be
esteemed the necessary consequents, as Irenaeus+ hath ob-
served, than positive and formal punishments of sin by an
immediate hand of God. For being destitute of all good
things, “they are,” saith Irenazus, “in all toyment, toº oeoſ,
tº Trºonymºrizā; ºft x^{o}rcº, #7czºvſký; 3; insivng tº, wox4-
geo's 31& rê šarsgåasat ºrávrov rāy &yaššv, God not internally
tormenting them, but their torment following upon the de-
privation of all good; and likewise because the good things
proceeding from God are eternal and without end, therefore
the want of them is an eternal and endless punishment.”
Mercurius Trismegistus f.saithin like manner, that 32.82% Juxº
Faivet #7; rā; i3ía; otzia; tºp Éavrā, Koxaćoºfyn, “the soul of the
Wicked man continues in its proper essence, being tormented |
from itself.” Apollodorus adds, that 38two, siya; tā woxaarā-
fia 31& rod Aoylakoi, zai rā; ºvñºzng rāv 888wºvoy rā; wox4-
gets #xovrov, “the unjust are punished from their own reason-
ings, and their punishment results from the remembrance
of what they had done in this life: and when the remem-
brance of these things ceaseth, Rai # wixaat; tā; ºvyā; réirav-
**, the punishment of the soul ceaseth.” For instance,
That souls departed are deprived of the love of God, are ob:
jects of his wrath, and, are excluded from his presence, hap-
peneth not merely because they are souls separated from the
body; for pious souls, after their separation, are entirely
exempted from these evils ; but this ariseth from the natural
purity and holiness of God, which renders it incongruous to
* Statue aliquem confectum tantis animi corporisque do-
loribus, quanti in hominem cadere maximi possunt, nullā spe
proposità fore levius aliquandó, nullā praeterità, nec praesenti,
nee expectata voluptate, quid, eo miserius dici aut fingi po.
test ? Torquat apud Cic. de Finibus, lib. i, n. 33.
+ Lib. v. cap. 7. - -
# Apud Stob, Eclog. Phys. 129–131.
him to admit such souls into his presence, and the defilement
and impurity which these unhappy souls lie under, and by
which they are rendered unable to converse with the God of
holiness. The worm of conscience, the desperation, the
direful expectations which follow from this sense of loss, and
the divine displeasure, are also the natural results of the
Soul's separation in an impure and unsanctified condition,
and therefore being “filthy still.” Moreover, it being natu-
ral to all men, say the very heathens,” “to give good things
to them they love, and in whom they delight, and to inflict
evil things on those to whom they stand affected contrariwise,”
how can it be, but that the soul, thus conscious of those
abominable things which the Lord hates, and which most
justly have incensed this righteous Judge, should live under
most dreadful expectations of his wrath? Now, true is that
of the tragedian, Poenas dat qui expectat, qui autem meruit
expectat; he suffers, whose conscience tells him he deserves,
and therefore cannot but expect to suffer. Lastly, That he
is thus to be eternally a torment to himself, ariseth from the
immortality of the soul, which cannot cease to be, without
an immediate dissolution from the hand of God; and whilst
it doth continue, cannot cease to be desirous of that happi-
ness from which it will for ever be excluded, or cease to be
tormented with the thoughts of that stupendous folly which
did subject it to this heavy doom. -
And now what a poor comfort is it to the sinner, to laugh
at what is said touching hell-fire, and a lake of brimstone, as
unphilosophical ; and say, that these are things improper to
torment a spiritual soul, if undeniably it may be subject to the
loss of all that is desirable to make it happy, to endless grief,
to remediless remorse, and dreadful expectations of the wrath
of God, and a perpetual despair of being ever freed from
these tormenting evils, which, as the heathen hath observed,
are ºrvº zai gºou 888aiórega, “more violent and insupport-
able than any punishment by fire and sword.” What if the
fire, in which the bodies of the wicked are to be tormented,
should not be kindled till our Saviour “come in flaming fire
to take vengeance on them 2" What comfort will this yield
the sinner, if, from the day of its departure from the body,
his soul will be obnoxious to this greater misery P What,
lastly, if that fire of the dammed, in which their bodies are to
be tormented, should only be eternal, in that sense in which
Jude informs us, that “Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities
round about them, have been set forth for an example, suf-
fering the vengeance of eternal fire ;” if this amazing torment
of the soul, which, in propriety of speech, is only capable of
feeling torment, will be eternal, in the highest and most in-
tensive import of that word 2
If it be still objected, That it seems not consistent with
divine goodness, to have främed man so, as that he should
be miserable from himself; this, at one blow, cuts off both
heaven and hell: for it is to find fault with God, and repre-
sent him as less good, for making any beings capable of vice
and virtue. For all our virtue, in a state of trial, consists in
choosing well, when we had freedom, and some temptations
to do otherwise; and all our vice, in choosing to do ill, when
we had laws directing us to avoid the evil, and to choose the
good, and had the highest motive so to do : to say, then, a
good God could not create a creature capable of vice and vir-
tue, is in effect to say, it is inconsistent with divine goodness
to create such creatures as should be subject unto govern-
ment; since government supposes laws, and laws must be
attended with the sanction of rewards and punishments.
Here then again the mistake lies in separating the divine
goodness from his holiness and justice ; whereas justice and
holiness are as essential to the notion of a God as goodness:
for it is impossible that justice should belong to the idea of
God, if it were irreconcilable with the divine goodness to
make such creatures as may deserve well or ill; i. e. to be
rewarded or punished. And seeing the holiness of God ren-
ders it necessary for him to retain the greatest hatred to, and
abhorrence of, incorrigible sinners, if it be inconsistent with
divine goodness to make any creature which may deserve to
be the object of his hatred, goodness and holiness cannot both
belong to the idea of God. *
* IIáyte, yāp oil, ºfty &y pixãº, kai ois &y Xaigo'at, rotoffroic
8.8% at ~ āyaśā, mgè; ot: 3; #yavrio; #xova', tà Hayria, Pythag.
apud Jamblic, cap. 48, p. 89.
828
If, lastly, it be still inquired, why divine goodness and
mercy doth not leave condemned sinners in a capacity of
that repentance and reformation, which might, after a season,
fit them for the enjoyment of himself, and thereby put a
happy end to all their misery P
I answer, That both the Christians and heathens do ac-
cord in this, that these eternal punishments shall only be
inflicted,” in rob; Karaxapagayogaśvov; #y rā āvāra, waxia, “on
those that are incurably wicked:” and they who shall here-
after be found thus confirmed in wickedness are by the hea-
thens-F given up to torments without end. Yea, Celsus:
dogmatically says, that “they judge rightly who say, The
just shall be happy ; of 33 &8two ºráp.may aiovio.; xazoſ; avyżoy-
ºral, but the unjust shall be always subject to eternal evils.”
And this was the opinion of the heathens as well as of the
Christians, and that no man ought ever to depart from it.
Now that which haply may render their state incurable may
be, - -
1. That their day of grace is past and turned into a day
of wrath ; their time of trial and probation is expired, and
they are come to the time of retribution. For, as the
Christians teach, that a man cannot be truly good and holy
without the assistance of the Holy Spirit; so did the hea-
thensS teach, that there was an absolute need of a divine
afflatus, or good assisting genius, to preserve them from sin,
and to advance them to a virtuous life. Now, why is it un-
just with God to say, his “Spirit shall not always strive *
with them who have so long resisted all his motions, and
hardened their hearts against him P whom all the riches of
his goodness could not lead to repentance, or preserve from
“treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath?” Either the
day of grace must never end, or there must be a time when
they that are filthy will “be filthy still.”
Moreover, To assert, it is unjust with God, or inconsistent
with his goodness, to “appoint a day in which he will judge
the world in righteousness, and render to men according to
their works;” as it seems plainly to border on a contradiction
in the terms, so it cuts off all future judgment; it being cer-
tain, God neither will nor can do what is inconsistent with
his goodness to do ; and according to this hypothesis, he
must never pass the final and decretory sentence upon wicked
Y)) ell.
2. The place and company to which the damned shall be
Sentenced, seem to render them incapable of growing better;
for when they are once given up to the tormentor, and kept
in chains of darkness, what expectation can there be they
should grow better under this enemy of God and goodness 2
and yet that this is one ingredient of their future state, is not
the sentiment of Jews and Christians only from the holy
scripture, but also of the heathens from the tradition they
had received, as is evident both| from their own words, and
from their Adrastia, Nemesis, Alastores, their furies, hurtful
demons, and their evil geniuses.
3. The alteration of their condition and their state, seems
to exclude all place for reformation, and for the exercise of
piety and virtue. For the sentence of condemnation and ex-
clusion from God's blissful presence being passed upon them,
they have no hope of being happy, or of escaping the misery
to which they are exposed; and so can have no motive to be
better, nor can they be in a capacity to love that God from
whom they can expect no good. There also seems to be no
place for virtue in a future state ; no room for temperance,
where there is no capacity of enjoying meats or drinks, or
any pleasures of the flesh; no place for justice, where there
is no meum and tuum ; no possibility to kill or maim, or be
* Orig. contra Cels. p. 403.
*
‘i Oi 3’ &V rā, śaxara &8whº wori, xai 313 rotajra. 38twñºzara
g * s
&viato; yśvoviral, #x rodroy rā ºraçaºsiygara yiyveral, wai of rol
attoi wiv cinér Švivayºral, &rs áviarol Świrsº,
357, 358. -
: Apud Orig. lib. viii. p. 409.
§ Oü83 yag &AAá; rig ºvynósin wrpś, rö 8sióra roy abroë, ka?
wvgºratoy ris civia; &Ya?gapºsſy, ei º tº rotatºrº &aiwow, hyłºwoyº
Xehzairo. Jaimb. Protrept. p. 1 1. see the note on Rom. ii. 15.
| Tây &pagtnºśroy Beow; ºfty hºw own #6vrov #xxáſzºrew, 3ai-
fºoz. 33 koxazortzci's avya"rrávrov, Sallust. de Diis, &c. cap. 14.
Koxášovrai 83 rcă a dºparo; #rasota at two batºvoy raparrápasyai,
18.
Plat. Georg. p.
*
WHETHER THE APOSTLES SPAKE OF THE DAY
cruel to another, when none can be defamed to their preju-
dice, and hurt in their concerns: lastly, no place for charity,
where there is either none that can want anything, or none
that can receive advantage by us.
A DISCOURSE
By way of INQUIRY,
Whether the apostles, in their writings, spake as conceiving
the day of judgment might be in their days; and accord-
ingly suited their phrases and exhortations.
I HAVE shown in the note upon I Thess. iv. 15, and in an
additional note on 2 Cor. v. 1. 9, that the apostles of our
Lord neither did nor could use any expressions importing
“that the day of judgment might happen in their days,” or
in that age in which they lived: but Mr. Whiston, in his
excellent essay on the Revelation of St. John, hath very
largely endeavoured to prove the contrary; I shall therefore
impartially consider what he hath offered for the support of
his two corollaries, and shallendeavour to show the weakness
of his arguments, and the pernicious consequences of his as-
sertion, and then shall leave the reader to judge of this im-
portant point, and where the fatal mistake lies. Now his
first assertion is, that “Our Saviour himself, as man, whilst he
was on earth at least, did not know the duration of the days
of the Messiah, nor the time of the rise and the duration of
antichrist, which was included in it.” Now in this proposition
I have no concern, and so shall not be long either in answer-
ing what he alleges for, or in the confirmation of it. I there-
fore grant that our Saviour, whilst he acted as a prophet, or
a revealer of his Father's will, whilst he was here on earth,
did not by the revelation of the Spirit know the day or hour
of the day of judgment ; but I deny that hence it follows,
that he did not know the age in which it was to happen, or
what great occurrences or previous mutations were to happen
that day. (2). I grant, that he that was the “Lamb slain,”
was therefore “worthy to open the sealed book;” but I deny
that hence it follows, that he was not able to know the con-
tents of it before. (3.) I grant that to the question of his
disciples, “Wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom unto
Israel?” our Saviour answers, “It is not for you to know
the times and the seasons, which the Father hath put in his
own power” (Acts i. 6, 7); but I deny that hence it fol-
lows, that he “in whom were hid all the treasures of wisdom
and knowledge” (Col. ii. 3) did not know them. When
Mr. Whiston proves all or any of these consequences, he will
have something to support his corollary; but till this be done,
it must pass for an assertion which hath no foundation in the
holy scripture. Let us now see what just ground he had to
own, “that this is a strange assertion.” And surely it must
be exceeding strange to any considering person, that he in
whom “dwelt the fulness of the Godhead,” and in whom
were “hid all the treasures of wisdom,” should be thought
ignorant, whether his own kingdom, to which he was ad-
vanced, should continue only for a few or for some thousand
years; that he should be ignorant of the reign of his own
saints a thousand years, and of the time when all the pro-
phecies of the Old Testament, concerning the glorious con-
version of the Jews, should happen ; that Daniel should so
plainly say, that in the time of the fourth monarchy, “the
God of heaven should set up a kingdom which should never
be destroyed, but should consume all other kingdoms, and
should last for ever (ii. 44), an everlasting kingdom that
should not pass away ;” and yet our great Prophet, who was
“the wisdom of the Father,” and the very king who was to
rule over this kingdom for ever, should be so ignorant of the
import of these prophecies relating to his own kingdom, as
not to know it was to last one quarter of the duration of
some of the other kingdoms, but might be, for anything he
knew to the contrary, resumius aetatis, only the business of
one age. Lastly, Is it not very strange, that these masters
of revelations should be able so punctually to declare to us
the very year of the fall of the Roman empire; the time of
the rise of the little horn, and the period of his duration ;
OF JUDGMENT TO BE IN THEIR DAYS.
829
and the true import of the words of that prophet, “a time,
and times, and half a time;” and yet our blessed Lord should
be so much an ignoramus as to the true import and extent
of that whole prophecy, as to imagine, that it might be ful-
filled in the very first century; and that what they knew
imports one thousand two hundred and sixty years, he should
imagine might only signify three years and a half? And so
much for the first corollary. - -
Secondly, He positively asserts,” Christ's apostles seem to
have really imagined, “that the great day of judgment
might not be very long deferred beyond the destruction of
Jerusalem, which was to be in that age (A.D. 70), and ac-
cordingly to have suited their phrases and exhortations.”
Now against this corollary I argue as before, that either
these inspired apostles knew and understood the import and
meaning of the prophecy of Daniel, concerning the “king-
dom to be given to the saints,” the fall of the Roman empire,
the rise of antichrist ; or, “the little horn,” “the time,
times, and half a time,” of his duration, and the millennium
that was to follow ; and also of the prophecies of the Old
Testament, concerning “ the blindness of the Jews,” and the
time of their general conversion ; or they did not, but were
ignorant of all these things. If they did know these things,
it is certain that either they must think that these things
were to happen after the day of judgment; or that they
could not think that the day of judgment might happen in
that age, or while they lived. If they knew not these things,
which were spoken for their instruction, by their own pro-
phets, how came these men to be so positive and certain of
all these things, of which inspired apostles, “led by the
Spirit into all truth,” should know little or nothing? That
the apostles should be ignorant of that exact time of the day
of judgment, which divine wisdom still conceals from all
men, and never made the matter either of revelation or pre-
diction, I very heartily believe ; but that they should be so
ignorant of all the famous epochas, foretold by their own
prophets, concerning the state of Christ's church, and their
own nation ; that they should not know whether the Roman
empire was to fall in their own days, or in the fifth century;
whether antichrist was to come in their days, or only was to
arise after that fall ; whether being come he was to continue
only three years and a half, or to last one thousand two hun-
dred and sixty years; or whether Daniel’s “time, times, and
half a time,” did signify the one or the other period ; whether
the mystery of the glorious conversion of the Jews, “when
deliverance should come to them out of Sion, and so all Israel
shall be saved;” and the “new heaven and new earth " they
expected, according to God’s promise, was to be expected in
their days, or about one thousand seven hundred years after
their decease; whether the kingdom, which was to “be given
to the people of the saints of the Most High,” and the millen-
nium promised, was to begin and end in their days, or to
commence and end so long after, according to the time as-
signed for these epochas by these more knowing men; these,
I confess, are things I cannot easily believe.
In particular, who can imagine, that Paul should say to
the first persons to whom he wrote any epistle, That the
day of judgment should not come till that which letted, i. e.
the Roman empire, was taken away, and that then the man
of sin was to be revealed, and was only to be consumed by
the coming of our Lord to judgment ; that he should endea-
Your to remove their scruple, touching the nearness of his
coming, by remembering them, that when he was with them,
he told them these things; and yet should tell them, the very
next year, that this day might happen whilst he was alive?
for if indeed he told them truly when these things were to
happen, it was impossible that he should tell them the day
of judgment might happen in his days or age; but if he told
them, that they might expect that all these things should
happen in his days or age ; that being, as experience shows,
manifestly false, why doth he, by the direction of the Holy
Ghost, conclude that discourse thus? “Wherefore, brethren,
Stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have received,
whether by our word or our epistle,” ver. 15. Again, who can
think that the same apostle should tell the Christians of this
time, that “the Spirit had said expressly, that in the latter
times some should depart from the faith, giving heed to de-
• Corol. ii. p. 130. + 2 Thess. ii.
ceivers, and to doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypo-
crisy; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from
meats,” 1 Tim. iv., &c. i. e. that he should, as Mr. Mede
saith, “use these words (‘the latter times') as a mark to in-
form them, to whom he wrote, when these things should
come to pass;” and, as he adds, that “the Holy Ghost had
marked out these times in Daniel, by the time of the fall of
the Roman empire, and the rise and duration bf the little
horn ;” and yet that Paul himself, in express contradiction
to this declaration of the Holy Ghost, should teach that the
day of judgment might happen in his time. Could Peter
arm the believing Jews against the scoffers at the promise,
or prediction of the day of judgment, by bidding them “re-
member the words of the holy prophets, Esaias and Daniel,’
says Mr. Mede," who prophesied of things not yet come to
pass, and yet tell the same persons, that God was then ready
to judge the quick and the dead?’ſ Could he say dogmati-
cally, in Mr. Whiston's sense, “The end of all things is at
hand;”f and yet soon after tell the same persons, as Mr.
Whiston Š saith he did, that the day of judgment might,
through the long-suffering of God, be prolonged for a thou-
sand years, without any impeachment of his veracity ?
And whereas he absolutely denies, “that the apostles,
who thus conceived of the day of judgment, and accordingly
suited their phrases and exhortations, were herein properly
deceived, or that they ever preached or declared, as from
God, that the day of judgment was to be in that age ; or that
they were deceived.in any part of their doctrine, or that they
preached false doctrine ;” I, on the contrary, undertake to
prove, that if the places, produced by Mr. Whiston, bear the
sense which he hath put upon them, all these things must
follow with the clearest evidence. And,
First, I say, That on this supposition they must have
preached false doctrine ; for if, when Paul Saith to the be-
lieving Jews, “ Christ hath appeared in the consummation
of ages,” Heb. ix. 26, this signifies his positive assertion, that
he appeared “but a little time before the day of judgment,”
as Mr. Whiston doth interpret his words; if, again, when he
says dogmatically, “Yet a little while, and he that shall
come will come, and will not tarry,” he saith this of the day
of judgment, must he not preach false doctrine, in saying so
dogmatically, he would come in a little time, and would not
tarry, when in truth he was to tarry migh two thousand
years, and Paul knew nothing to the contrary, but he might
do so P -
Moreover, James, Peter, and John, according to this hy-
pothesis, must have taught false doctrine. For doth not
James say dogmatically, “The coming of the Lord draweth
nigh, and the Judge standeth at the door;” and if he saith
these things of the day of judgment, must he not speak what
experience shows to be notoriously false P. When he adds,
ver. 5, that God was “ready to judge the quick and the
dead,” if he meant, as Mr. Whiston saith he did, “that he
was then ready to begin the fatal judgment,” must he not
speak the plainest falsehood? When John saith as dog-
matically, “Little children, this is the last hour,” and that,
by the coming of the many antichrists, who are now upon
the stage, “you may know this is the last hour,” he meant
“this is the time of the last judgment,” did he not manifestly
teach false doctrine P
Secondly, They must delude their hearers, and all those
Christians to whom they wrote, and all those Christians who
were obliged to believe their writings, with false hopes, false
motives and encouragements to the performance of their
duty. For instance; when Paul exhorts the Romans to
“awake out of sleep, eiðire; rāv katºy, knowing the season,
that now is their salvation nearer than when they believed;”ft
when he advises them to “put off the works of darkness, and
to put on the armour of light,” because “the night was, far
spent and the day was at hand; here are not only two
assertions notoriously false, if, according to Mr. Whiston,
these passages relate to the nearness of the day of judgment,
but also two motives to Christian duties, both grounded on
these false assertions. When he exhorts his Philippians to
+ 1 Pet. iv. 5.
j: 1 Pet. iv. 7. § P, 134. || Heb. x. 37.
* James v. 8, 9. ** 'l John ii. 18. iv. 3.
* ++ Rom. iii. 11, 12.
* 2 Pet. iii. 2
830
moderation because “the Lord is at hand,” if he meant
this of the day of judgment, there is another motive to a
Christian duty grounded upon a false assertion. When he
exhorts the believing Jews to patient suffering, because after
a little while Christ will come, and would not tarry, he again,
according to this supposition, endeavours to support them
under their afflictions by false hopes. When James, v. 8, 9,
saith to the same Jews, “Be patient: stablish your hearts;
for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Speak not evil
one of another, brethren, that ye be mot condemned ; behold,
the Judge standeth at the door:” and when Peter saith,
“The end of all things is at hand; be ye therefore sober, and
watch unto prayer:” if all these passages spake of the day
of judgment as near at hand, and “even at the door,” must
not all these motives to patience, to forbear evil speaking, to
sobriety, to vigilance in prayer, be built upon false grounds?
When John exhorts them not to love the world, “because the
world passeth away, and they knew it was the last hour ;"+
if these words relate to the day of judgment, he must build
his exhortation upon a manifest falsehood, it being impossi-
ble that either he or they should know what was not true.
Moreover, they speak of these things as both known to
themselves, and visible to those to whom they write, by
certain tokens, as when John saith, “Now there are many
antichrists, by which we know this is the last hour;" when
Paul Saith to the Romans, that “now is the hour to awake
out of sleep,” and to the Jews, “exhort one another, and
this so much the more, &ro, 3Åárers #yyićovaray tºy #&#3ay, as
you see the day approaching,” Heb. x. 25. Since it is cer-
tain they could not know that to be true which by experience
we know to be false, or see that day was then near, or ap-
proaching, which is not yet come, how impossible is it that
these things should relate to their knowledge of the day of
judgment 2
Lastly, The apostle Paul, discoursing of the desire that
the Christians had to be “clothed upon” with their celestial
bodies, saith expressly, 2 Cor. v. 5, “He that hath wrought
in us this very thing is God, who hath also given us the ear-
nest of his Holy Spirit;” and 1 Thess. iv. 15, he speaks thus,
“This I say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we who
are alive shall not prevent them that are asleep.” Now if
these things relate, as Mr. Whiston thinks they do, to the
coming of the day of judgment whilst the apostles were
alive, must not the apostle deliver that as a truth taught by
“the word of Christ,” and a desire erected in them by God
himself, which experience shows to have been a great mistake
and manifestly false 2 and sure these things must be suffi-
cient to impair the credit of these apostles in other matters.
I therefore heartily wish that learned, good, and ingenious
men would be more careful to avoid those things which do
so plainly shock the very foundations of Christianity, and
strengthen the hands of those who question the authority of
these sacred books.
And having thus vindicated my notes upon these two
places, I have done also that which shows my arguments,
to prove that the pope and church of Rome could not be
the primary subject of Paul's discourse in 2 Thess. ii., were
not grounded, as Mr. Whiston thinks, on a mistake, but on
those solid grounds, which I believe he never will be able to
evert, and therefore wisely waved.
But though he was not pleased to consider my arguments,
I can assure him, that in the very place I had considered
and even answered his, before he produced them ; for in-
deed the excellently good man is so intent upon what he
conceiveth to be right, that, as it plainly appears from this,
and the discourse on Matt. xxiv., he is not at leisure to con-
sider what is said against him.
He begins with a bare citation of the apostle's words, and
then adds, “This description is so lively and clear, that I
look upon it so far from needing any large paraphrase itself,
that it serves well for a paraphrase to all the other pro-
phecies hereto relating, viz. the little horn, and the second
beast :” where he manifestly begs the question, supposing
that it manifestly relates to those other prophecies, one of
which was not then in being, and neither of them rightly
understood, Saith Mr. Whiston, by the apostle ; he thinking
* Phil iv. 5.
+ 1 John ii. 16. 18.
† P. 453.
WHETHER THE APOSTLES SPAKE OF THE DAY
that the day of judgment might happen in his time, that the
fall of the empire might be then, and that the “time, times
and half a time,” might only signify three years and a half ;
whereas I verily believe that Paul's discourse had no rela-
tion at all to them, unless it be by way of accommodation :
and desire him to be so merciful to such blind creatures as I
am, as to let us see by any good proof that there is any affi-
nity betwixt them, save in this one thing, that the man of
sin is to be destroyed with the spirit, and the beast with the
sword of Christ's mouth, but with this difference, that the
man of sin, saith Mr. Whiston, is only to be destroyed by
his coming at the day of judgment, and the beast above a
thousand years before; the millennium of the saints, the con-
version of the Jews, the fulness of the gentiles, and the
war with the saints, being all to precede the day of
judgment. -
I know that our revelation-men call the apocalyptical
beast, “antichrist,” but that the scripture doth, or ever in-
tended so to do, I find no reason to believe, but rather reason
to believe the contrary ; for,
First, An antichrist, or a false Christ, in the scripture
sense, is one who sets up himself for a true Christ, saying
to others, “Lo, here is Christ ;" he is “another, who shall
come in his own name,” and be received by the Jews (John
v. 43); the antichrists of John were such as “denied that
Jesus was the Christ,” 1 John ii. 22, or “that Christ was
come in the flesh,” I Jonn iv. 3. 2 John, ver. 7: and that
the church of Rome either was John's antichrist, or con-
cerned in John's description of him, no ancient commenta-
tor ever said.
Secondly, The false Christs and antichrists belonged only
to the first age of Christianity ; the false Christs mentioned
by our Lord, Matt. xxiv. 24, and who should come in his
name, saying, #y& Biºt, “I am Christ,” Mark xiii. 6. Luke
xxi. 8, were to come before the destruction of Jerusalem ;
and, as John saith, they heard that he was to come in the
last hour, so, saith he, from his being “now in the world,”
you may “know that it is the last hour,” 1 John ii. 18. iv.
3. Let then that be granted which no authority affirms,
and therefore none of us can know, that this epistle was
written after the destruction of Jerusalem : why may not
the words of John refer to the then present age, and the
false Christs among the Jews and Samaritans, since he doth
not say that the last hour is near, or is yet to come, but
that it was already come, and represents this as a thing
known to them by the antichrists that were “then in the
world P” That he cannot be interpreted of the day of
judgment, hath been fully manifested; and of any antichrists
that were yet to come, of which these come already were
the forerunners, he saith not one word: and so there is no
reason to imagine that any such thing was intended by
him.
Thirdly, The church-history assures us, that Simon Ma-
gus, Dositheus, Barchochebas, and others among the Jews,
were such as answered these descriptions ; but of any anti-
christ that was to be amongst the Christians of the church
of Rome, neither the scripture nor antiquity for many ages
give us any intimation. .
He adds, that” I “allow the agreement of this description
to the great antichrist mentioned in the Revelation;” whereas
indeed I do not allow that any antichrist at all is mentioned
in the Revelation, but only say, that “in a secondary sense
this may be attributed, i. e. accommodated, to him who is
commonly called the papal antichrist, and may be signally
fulfilled in him, in the destruction of him by the spirit of
Christ's mouth ;” and this I say, not from any conviction of
the thing, but only that I may not wholly differ from my
brethren in this matter; giving in my annotations first what
I think is the true sense and intendment of the apostle's
words, and then the sense which protestants put upon the
words, and introducing it thus, “Others who refer this to the
church of Rome,” I proceed to show that the arguments
brought against my exposition were answered in the ex-
position.
Arg. 1. “What need of all this solicitude of Paul to free
himself from the scandal of having affirmed, that the de-
struction of Jerusalem was at hand, when the greatest part
* P. 254.
OF JUDGMENT TO BE IN THEIR DAYS.
83]
within which our Saviour expressly had asserted that de-
struction was to come, was already past 2' -
Ans. Paul expressly says, his solicitude was to prevent
the trouble of the Thessalonians on the imagination that
the day of the Lord āyāornxs, “was,” or “had been instant,”
for which solicitude he had good reason ; for, saith the note
there, to conceive that signal day of the destruction of their
enemies the Jews, and the deliverance of the Christians,
mentioned Joel ii. 31, 32. Mal. iv. 1, 2, come ; and find
themselves deceived in that conception, might cause great
troubles to them, and even shake the stedfastness of their
faith.” To which add, .
Secondly, That the Judaizing Christians, who could
hardly think of “wrath coming to the uttermost” on this
once beloved people, might persuade the Thessalonians that
the slaughter threatened to them was already executed, by
the great desolation made of them in Egypt by Flaccus, in
the time of Caius, of which Philo” speaks, and the great
slaughter made of them at the same time, in Mesopotamia,
Babylon, Syria, and Seleucia, which, saith Josephus, F was
‘pévos Toxx0, xał Śrāoroc oix iorogość..svo; Trećrepov, “a greater de-
struction than ever was before recorded of them.”
Arg. 2. “How absurd is it to interpret the tragovºia, or
Solemn ‘coming of Christ,’ in the former epistle, nay in
this epistle, and in the first verse of this very chapter, of his
coming to judgment at the last day, and yet in the eighth
verse to interpret it of his coming to destroy the Jews only,
especially when no example can be shown, that ever St.
Paul uses that word in that acceptation ?” *
Ans. To this imputation of absurdity the answer is re-
turned (note on ver. 1) in these words: “The coming of
Christ is by the reverend Dr. Hammond referred to Christ's
coming to destroy the unbelieving Jews ; this is the ragov-
cía, ‘coming of the Son of man,” so often mentioned in our
Lord's prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem and of
the temple, Matt. xxiv. 3.27. Luke xvii. 24.” This is most
certainly the import of this phrase in St. James twice, when
he exhorts the brethren to be “patient, Éw; ric trapova'iac toi.
Květov, till the coming of the Lord,” adding, that this raeov-
aia, “ coming, was at hand,” v. 7, 8. And to his saying
that I “interpret the first verse of the coming of our Lord
to judgment,” and therefore do absurdly interpret the eighth
verse of his coming to destroy the wicked Jews, I have
answered in the note on the eighth, by showing that the
words there are taken from Isaiah xi, 4, and that they ne-
cesssarily refer to the smiting of the land of Judea, and
therefore cannot be referred to Christ's coming to judge all
men at the last day; to which I do not find that any good in-
terpreter refers these words.
Arg. 3. “How comes the apostle to inform the Thessalo-
nians, who were almost all gentiles, of the destruction of
Jerusalem in Judea at a thousand miles’ distance, which
was of little more consequence to them than the destruction
of any other church or city in a remote country P”
Ans. To the ignorance and mistake on which this argu-
ment is wholly founded, he hath had one answer in the note
Cn ver, l, in which words let it be noted, “That the church
of the Thessalonians were partly converts of the Jews and
proselytes; for the converts made by Paul preaching to
them were of the Jews and the devout Greeks (Acts xvii.4),
who, in expectation of our Lord’s prediction, and their ‘re-
demption’ by it ‘drawing nigh’ (Luke xxi. 28), might long
for the execution of it.” +
Secondly, Had he mentioned the destruction of the
wicked Jews, “by the spirit of Christ's mouth,” as the apos-
tle doth, there would have been no appearance of any
strength in that argument, to which a farther answer is given
(note on ver. 5), in these words: “Of the Jews, and their
opposing themselves to the doctrine of Christianity, and the
professors of it, the apostle had told them in his First Epistle,
ii. 15, 16, and when he was with them, the persecutions
that both he and they suffered from them (Acts xvii. 15,
16), gave him a just occasion to speak both of their opposi-
tion to the gospel, and of the deliverance they shortly might
expect from such enraged persecutors, who not only fell
severely on the converted Jews throughout all their dis-
*-*–
* Contr. Flac.
f Antiq. lib. xviii, cap, 12.
persions, but, as Justin Martyr * assures us, stirred up the
heathen governors in all places where Christians were, to do
the like, and sent chosen men from Jerusalem for that very
end.” Nor was the slaughter of them in those “days or
vengeance” confined to Judea, but, as I have fully proved
from Josephus, they suffered the like calamities in the re-
motest places from it. Though therefore the Thessalonians
might be less concerned for the destruction of the city or
temple of Jerusalem, they might be very much concerned
that these men should be disabled from executing any
more their rage upon them, or against the church of
Christ.
Arg. 4. “Lastly, How comes the church of the Thessalo-
nians to be in such a consternation and disturbance, Sposia -
Sat, at the supposal that Jerusalem should be destroyed,
since therein none but the unbelieving Jews and the anemies
of Christ were to perish P” -
Ans. How came you to fall into this imagination 2 Their
trouble, saith the text, being only this, that they conceived
the apostle had spoken of the destruction of the wicked
and persecuting Jews as instant, whereas by sad experience
they found that they lay still as much as ever under such
rage and cruel persecution of these men (1 Thess. ii. 15),
that the apostle was afraid lest these temptations should
have rendered his labour vain among them (iii. 5).
Secondly, The opinion having obtained among the Jews
that the destruction of their temple, and the destruction of
the old world, should be contemporary, this might be among
the believing Jews a farther reason of their trouble. And
this should be more considerable to him who earnestly con-
tends that the apostles spake, in all their epistles, as men
who believed the day of judgment might happen soon after
the destruction of Jerusalem. -
In the following words he attempts to answer an objection
thus: “If it be still wondered at that St. Paul should here
say, that “the mystery of iniquity doth already work:' I
say it is not strange, that he that knew that the great
man of sin was to corrupt and spoil the purity of the
Christian religion, and turn the mystery of godliness into
a mystery of iniquity, and who found already the begin-
nings of such mischiefs creeping into the church, and that
in some of the same points which antichrist was to cor-
rupt, looks upon such beginning of antichristianism as pre-
ludes and forerunners of that grand corruption to come
afterward.”
But this evasion is fully confuted, in the note on ver. 7,
by this argument: “It is highly reasonable to conceive, that
‘the mystery of iniquity” already working should be that
very mystery which after was to be completed by the moreº
full appearance of ‘the man of sin,” as will be evident from
the connexion of the words, “Remember ye not, that when
I was with you, I told you these things P’ (viz. who was the
man of sin to be revealed, what were the characters of him,
and what it was that did at present hinder him from a full
revelation of himself, ver. 3, 4;) for ‘the mystery of iniquity
is already working, i. e. he is doing that covertly, which,
when he is revealed, he will do more openly ; only ‘he that
hinders (his full appearance) will do so till he be taken
away, and then shall this wicked one be revealed, whom the
Lord shall destroy with the spirit of his mouth ; whence it
seems clear, that the man of sin, then covertly working his
mystery, and only hindered from appearing openly by some-
thing that then letted, must be that man of sin, who after
was to be revealed, and then destroyed ‘by the spirit of
Christ's mouth,” All those interpretations therefore must
be false, which make the mystery of iniquity to be one per-
son, or one kind of persons, and ‘the man of sin,” or ‘anti-
christ,’ another, as they must do who make the mystery of
iniquity to belong to Simon Magus, the false prophets, or
heretics, in being when this epistle was indited, and the
man of sin to be the pope and his clergy.” In a word, dolo-
sus versatur in generalibus; till Mr. Whiston can name
some false prophets, or false apostles, or corrupters of the
gospel, by turning it into a “mystery of iniquity,” in being
when this epistle was indited, who were not of Jewish ex-
tract, or appeared not then amongst them ; and in what
* Dial cum Tryph. p. 234, 235.
+ Pref to the Ep. of St. James, § 5. . ...<
* * * * *
* *
832
particulars of that pernicious influence they conspired with
the present church of Rome (which neither yet hath been,
nor I think can be done to satisfaction), it is evident he hath
said nothing which hath the least appearance of an answer
to the objection he himself hath started.
A PARALLEL
BETWIXT
The Jewish and the Papal Antichrist, in their apostasy from,
and corruption of, the doctrine delivered to them.
HAVING given my conjecture, that the Jewish church,
with their rulers, were the antichrist mentioned by Paul,
I proceed to show how their apostasy, when they were
thus deserted by God, resembled and ran parallel to the
apostasy of the Roman church, when she began in like
manner to apostatize from and to corrupt the Christian
faith.
And here it cannot be expected that I should draw the
parallel betwixt them, in those doctrines which never were
nor could be owned by the unbelieving Jews, viz. in the
doctrines of transubstantiation, the adoration of the host,
the sacrifice of the mass, communion in one kind, and the
number of the Christian sacraments; but yet in most of
their other doctrines, it is very easy to discern it.
First, In the doctrine of infallibility, the mother of incor-
rigible errors.
For, First, As Roman catholics assert the infallibility of
councils, which they are pleased to call general councils,
and plead for a living and infallible judge of controversies :
so the Jews looked upon the judgment of their great sanhe-
drin, and the concurring suffrage of their rulers and phari-
sees, as free from error, and not to be gainsaid by any of the
people. Their way of arguing, John vii. 38, seems plainly
to insinuate, that they thought themselves the only fit and
proper judges of the true sense and meaning of the law;
that the people were wholly to be guided by them ; and
that they who would not submit to their judgment were de-
ceived, and would be accursed for their obstinacy in things
in which they neither had, nor could have, any certain know-
ledge without their guidance and assistance; for thus they
speak to those officers whom they had sent to apprehend
onr Saviour: “Are ye also deceived 2 Have any of the ru-
ºlers, or of the pharisees, believed on him P But this people
which knoweth not the law (and yet will take upon them to
dissent from their judgment) are accursed ;” which is the
very language of the church of Rome in her anathemas.
They were the supreme judges, and the keepers of oral tra-
ditions; and the fear that, when the Sanhedrin was dissolved,
these traditions might be lost, produced the Mishna, or
the second law, commonly called by them, “the oral law,”
or the law given to Moses by word of mouth, as they gather
from Exod. xxxiv. 27. They also took upon them to be
authentic interpreters of the written law; and that by virtue
of these traditions, given, say some of them, to this end.
Now this, as the excellent Mr. Chillingworth% observes, is
indeed to make men “apostates from God, and to dethrone
him from his dominion over men's consciences, and to set
up themselves;” and why else doth our Saviour charge
these men with “making void the commandments of God,”
not in one only, but in many cases, “by their traditions,”+
and in opposition to these teachers of traditions, as received
from their forefathers, require them to “call no man father
upon earth,” because “one only was their Father” in that
sense, in which the Jewish doctors claimed that title, even
“their Father which was in heaven:" and that he had great
reason to speak thus, we learn from the Jewish canon cited
by Dr. Pocock, f, vota cadere in res mandati, “that vows
reach even to things commanded, or take place as well in
things commanded by the law, as in things indifferent ; and
that a man may be so bound by them, as that he cannot,
without great sin, do what God had by his law required to
be done ; so that if he made a vow which laid him upon a
* Preface, sect. 10. + Mark vii. 9. †: Miscell. p. 45.
A PARALLEL BETWIXT THE JEWISH
| necessity to violate God’s law, that he might observe it, the
vow must stand, and the law be abrogated.” -
Secondly, The like infallibility they ascribe to the words
of their rabbins, wise men, and scribes. Thus R. Isaac
Abuhaf" saith, that “to all things which their rabbins have
taught in their homilies, the same faith is to be given as to
the law of Moses.” In the Talmud; they say, that “all
their words are the word of the living God ;” and that:
“the righteous nation that keepeth the truth (mentioned
Isa. xxvi. 2), are they who receive all their wise men have
said for undoubted truth, and say Amen to it:”$ and that
when two of them differ in their opinions, neither of them
is to be condemned, “for the words of them both are the
words of the living God.” That they are || “to attend
more to the words of the scribes than to the words of the
law ; and that they are more amiable than the words of the
prophets; the prophets being obliged to work a miracle,
that they might be credited ; whereas they were to be be-
lieved without a miracle, it being said (Deut. xvii. 10), Thou
shalt, observe to do according to all that they shall teach
thee” (see of this more in Buxtorf's Recensio Operis
Talmudici, from p. 221 to 228). Maimonides'ſ saith, “If
a thousand prophets, who were equal to Elias and Elisha,
bring one interpretation; and a thousand and one wise men
bring a contrary to it, they must incline to the most ; and
be obliged rather to act according to the sentence of their
wise men, than that of the thousand prophets.” In his ex-
plication of the thirteenth treatise of the sanhedrin, he
distributes men who interpreted the sayings of their wise
men into three ranks: first, those who thought their sayings
were figurative and tropological ; secondly, those who said
their words were to be interpreted according to the letter, as
thinking, sapientes in omnibus indubitatae veritatis in dictis
Suis,” “the wise men were of undoubted truth in all their
sayings;” thirdly, those who allude the words of the wise
men, judging themselves more wise, and saying, that'ſ f" they
were deceived ;” these he pronounces fools, and accursed,
for saying these things of those great men of whose wisdom
they were well assured. Josephus: says, that “they who
were of the sect of the pharisees, Éroyra tº hyºoyº followed
their guidance, and thought it necessary to observe and con-
tend for everything their guide commanded. The saddu-
cees,” saith he, “held it a virtue to contend ºrgö; row; 313aczá-
Aov; copſac, against the teachers of wisdom, but they yielded
such honour, roſ; fixixia; ºrgoňkova'i, to their ancestors, that
they durst not be so bold as to gainsay anything that they
had introduced as fit to be observed.” Here we have, in
express words, the teachers, guides, and fathers mentioned
by Our Lord, Matt. xxiii. 8, 9, and all of them represented
as persons whose doctrines none ought to doubt of, and whose
sayings none should gainsay. This then was the authority
the Jews of those times lodged in their fathers, teachers, rab-
bies, their scribes and pharisees, who “ sat in Moses' chair,”
and gloried in the name of “Rabbi, Rabbi,” Matt. xxiii. 7.
And this usurped authority is the very thing our Saviour
forbids, as prejudicial to his office, in these words, Matt.
xxviii. 8, “Be not ye called Rabbi, for one is, upºv & 3840-
xaxor, your teacher, even Christ;” and ver. 10, “Be not ye
called xaSnynºrai, guides, for one is your guide, even Christ.”
And therefore it is observable, that though the apostles had
an express commission from Christ to teach all nations all
that he had commanded, and a promise, that in the execu-
tion of this office the Holy Spirit should “bring these things
to their remembrance,” and so were infallible revealers of the
mind and the commandments of Christ, which the church of
Rome neither doth nor can pretend to, without falling un-
der Paul's anathema for preaching “another gospel;” yet
none of them pretended or ever attempted to be interpreters
of the words of Christ, or infallible judges of the true sense
of what he had already taught or commanded; which is the
thing the Romanists now challenge to themselves, and which
the Jewish doctors did pretend to be, with respect to the
mind of God, revealed in the scriptures of the Old Testa-
* Buxt. Synag. + Lib. iii. p. 69.
: Ibid. p. 70. § P. 71. | P. 72.
*|| Pref. in Seder Zeraim, edit. Pocock, p. 32.
* Ibid. p. 144. ++ P. 146, 147
†† Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 2.
AND THE PAPAL ANTICHRIST.
833
ment. And indeed this claim of the church of Rome to be
the infallible judges, interpreters of the laws, doctrines, and
commands of Christ, must give them power without control
to alter any of the laws of Christ, and under pretence of in-
terpreting to overthrow them, and so to dethrone Christ
from his dominion over men's consciences, and instead of
Christ, set up themselves: for he that requires that all his
interpretations of the laws of Christ should be obeyed as the
true mind of Christ, seem they to the understandings of
many myriads never so dissonant or discordant from it, re-
quires indeed that his interpretations should be received as
Christ's laws, and that all men should obey rather what he,
than what they think Christ hath taught them; and whosoever
is firmly prepared in his mind to believe and obey all such
interpretations without judging them, though to his own
judgment they seem most unreasonable, whatsoever he may
pretend, he makes both the law and the law-maker stales,
and obeys only the interpreter; for seeing the true sense of
the law is indeed the law, he must be to me the only giver
of the law, who alone gives me the true sense of it. Thus,
if any person should pretend he would submit to the laws of
the king of England, but should resolve to obey them only
in that sense, whatsoever it were, which the French king
should put upon them, I presume every understanding man
would say, that he obeyed only the French king, not the
king of England.
§ 2. Secondly, Whereas the Trent council, in her fourth
session, determines that “besides the written word con-
tained in the canon of the New Testament, there were also
oral traditions, concerning both faith and manners, received
by the apostles from the mouth of Christ, or dictated to
them by the Holy Spirit, and preserved in the church
catholic by a continual succession, which therefore they
received pari pietatis affectſ, with the same pious affection
as the holy scriptures of the New Testament:” in all this
they plainly copied from the apostatizing Jewish church.
Or,
1. As the Romanists plead, that their traditions are of a
divine original, as being derived partly from the mouth of
Christ, partly from his inspired apostles; so do the Jews ex-
pressly teach, that their “oral law came from the mouth of
God,” + and that “God delivered it to Moses on mount
Sinai with the written law, and that he received it by divine
revelation.” + -
2. As the Romanists say, that their unwritten traditions
were preserved, and handed down to this present age, by the
“catholic church in a continual succession;” so the Jews
say their traditions were “deposited with the whole congre-
gation, the great Sanhedrin, and the high-priest;” and give
us the very names of the eminent persons through whose
hands their traditions came down to their days (Voisin,
Proem. Pug. Fid. A p. 10 ad p. 16).
3. As the Romanists affirm,3: that the scriptures are im-
perfect and obscure without their traditions, and conse-
quently make their traditions necessary to the expounding
of the scriptures; so also do the Jews say, that the Ś “ oral
law is the foundation of the written law,” and that “they
cannot come to the knowledge of the scriptures, unless they
insist on the words of their wise men of blessed memory;
that the written law cannot be expounded without the oral;
that they cannot be established upon the written law without
the oral, which is the explication of it; that it is rather the
oral than the written law, which is the foundation of all their
religion, there being no demonstration to be taken from the
written law, because tradition explains the secret of it” (Cod.
Jur. Chagiga, t. x. 1).
4. As the Trent council deciares concerning the unwritten
traditions, “that they are to be received and reverenced with
the same pious affection as the holy scriptures ;” so must the
Jews do in consequence of that opinion, which makes them
both to proceed immediately from the same divine authority,
and both derived to them by the same means ; for, say they,
* Cartw. Mellif lib. iv. cap. 5, p. 3070.
+ Buxtorf. Synag. Jud. cap. 3.
: Bell. de Verbo Dei, lib. iv. cap. 5, §. Nunc ut. et Ş. 7.
$ Aben Ezra Praef. in Pentateuchum. R. Becha, lib. Hak-
kemah. Altare Aureum, cap. 5. Buxtorf. Synag. Jud, cap. 3,
p. 63.
“..As we have received the written word, so have we received
the oral law, ninxm in, from the fathers:” hence, like good Ro-
man catholics, they are “more exceedingly zealous for the
traditions of their fathers,” than for the law itself, Gal. i. 14:
they accuse all that walk not according to the customs of
their fathers, as persons who forsook the law of Moses, Acts
xxi. 21 ; and it was esteemed a great crime to do anything
against the custom of their fathers, or the traditions of the
elders, Matt. xv. 2. Acts xxviii. 17.
5. As the Jews call them bºx-lp “scripturists,” and pºp,
“heretics,” who reject their oral traditions; so do the Ro-
manists style us heretics and scriptuarii for rejecting their
supposed apostolical and ecclesiastical traditions (Pratedlus
Elencho, lib. xvii. cap. 16). And as the D-Rºp were, saith
Manasseh ben Israel, * exclusi communione Israelitarum,
“excluded from the communion of Israel;” so do the Ro-
manists exclude us from their communion upon the same
account.
Š. 3. Thirdly, As the church of Rome + hath received
many apocryphal books as canonical scripture, pronouncing
an anathema on all who deny them so to be ; so did her
apostatizing sister also receive many such books, as of equal
strength and authority with the scriptures. As, -
1. The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan ; for their Tal-
mudical doctors declare, that Jonathan received his Targum,
or exposition of the prophets, from the mouth of Haggai,
Zachary, and Malachi, three prophets, and keepers of the
oral traditions belonging to the consistory of Ezra ; and so
they make them equal to the writings of these three prophets.
Moreover, they say, that “if any other person, interpreting
any verse of scripture in the Chaldaic tongue, add anything
to it, he blasphemes; because he may do this contrary to
the mind of the author:” but then they add, that Onkelos
and Jonathan “did not offend in any of their additions, be-
cause they did this always according to the mind of the au-
thor” (so Buxtorf, in voce targum). Hence Raymundus :
Saith, that this translation of Onkelos, tantam inter Judaeos
autoritatem obtinet, “is of so great authority among the
Jews, that none of them dares presume to contradict it.”
And Paulus Burgensis $ saith, that the Chaldaic transla-
tion among them tantae autoritatis est sicut textus, “is of
equal authority with the text" (see N. Lyranus, in Isa. cap.
viii.). Such j
2. Is their Mishna, or fardle of traditions, collected by
R. Jehudah Hakkadosh “the Holy,” or R. Jehudah Han-
nisi “the Prince,” anno Christi 150 ; which, saith Buxtorf.]
is publicly received by all the Jews, both in the Holy Land
and in Babylon, as an authentic body of their law : hence,
as we have shown before, they call it a “secondary law re-
ceived from the mouth of God,” and prefer it much before
the written law, comparing the text only to water," but these
traditions to wine: and the school of Elias used to say,
“ that whosoever learned the traditions of the Mishna might
be assured he should have eternal life.”
3. The Talmud, which contains the explications of their
doctors upon the Mishna, is of such veneration among them
that they place the Talmud, or Gemara, which by way of
eminence they call the Talmud, “among the books given by
tradition from the mouth of God” (see Cartwright's Mellif.
lib. iv. cap. 5, p. 30, 70); saying that “nothing is superior
to the most holy Talmud ; and that by reading in the scrip-
tures they can get little profit; more by reading in the
Mishna, but by reading in the Talmud most of all :” with
many other things of a like nature, collected by Buxtorf,
Synag. Jud. cap. 3, Recensio Operis Talmudici, p. 225,
226, et Lex. Talmud. in voce talmud, p. 2475.
§. 4. Fourthly, As the church of Rome pretends to be
the catholic church, out of whose communion there is no
salvation, requiring all men to own her faith, and to “receive
her mark,” Rev. xiii. 16 ; so also did the apostatizing church
of the Jews: for when the gospel was first preached, they
thought that the salvation promised by it belonged to them
alone, and therefore “forbade” the apostles “to preach to
the gentiles that they might be saved” (1 Thess. ii.16). They
also earnestly contended, thatunless they who believed in Jesus
+ Concil. Trid. sess. 4.
§ In Gen. iv.
T Ibid. p. 233.
* Conciliator, p. 177.
f Pug. Fid, par. ii. cap. 4, §. 2.
| Bibl. Rab. p. 230, 232.
3 H
834,
A PARALLEL, &c.
would be circumcised and “keep the law " and so receive
the mark of, and became proselytes to, their religion, “they
could not be saved” (Acts xv. 1. 24). Evel. those Chris-
tians who were dispersed into other parts by the persecution
of their fellow Jews, preached the word only to the Jews of
their own language (Acts xi. 19), and to the Hellenistic
Jews (ver. 20); and the rest of them thought it a great sin
in Peter to “go in to the uncircumcised and converse with
them,” though this was only done to convert them to the
Christian faith (Acts. xi. 3), and it was matter of great ad-
miration to them, that God should “grant repentance to
salvation to the gentiles” (ver. 18). So deeply was this
Jewish principle then rooted even in the first converts of
that nation to the Christian faith.
$. 5. Fifthly, As the church of Rome hath introduced
the religious worship of Saints and angels; so also did the
apostatizing church of the Jews: for they had imbibed the
philosophy of the Platonists, who taught,” “that demons
were of a middle nature betwixt gods and mortals; that they
brought our prayers and offerings to the gods, and their com-
mands to us, and that it was very fit, sixaſ; riºgy, to honour
them with our prayers upon these accounts:” and that “God
had no immediate commerce with men, but all his converse
with them was by the mediation of those demons.” And
suitably to his philosophy we find the angel saying, Tobit xii.
12. 15, that he was one of the seven angels, oi reorºšpova's rê;
Tºpca’svXà; Tāv &ylov, who offered up the prayers of the saints,
and that when Tobit and Sarah prayed, he “brought the me-
morial of their prayers before the Holy One.” And Philo
in several places declares, that as the philosophers said of
their demons and heroes, so Moses “introduces the angels as
messengers of good things from God to his subjects, and car-
rying back their needs, not that God needs their ministry, but
that it is very needful and beneficial for us frail men to have
such mediators” (see the full proof of this in the note on
Col. ii. 18). Accordingly Theodoret on that place saith,
“They who were zealous for the law persuaded men, row: áy-
yexous c'è8ely, to worship angels, because the law, say they,
was given by them. And this they persuaded men to do out
of humility, saying, that the God of all things was invisible,
and inaccessible, and incomprehensible, and that it was fit
we should procure the divine favour by the means of the an-
gels.” Hence Clemens Alexandrinus + brings in Peter for-
bidding Christians “to worship God as the Jews did, be-
cause, pretending that they only knew God, they indeed did
not know him, as worshipping angels and archangels.”
In their office for the dead, saith Voisin, f “they pray
thus, Ye fathers of the world, who sleep in Hebron, open to
him the gates of the garden of Eden, and say, Let him come
in peace.” And again, “Ye angels of peace, come forth to
meet him, and unlock for him the gates of the garden of
Eden, and say, Let him come in peace” (Theolog. Judaic.
lib. i. cap. 1, p. 80, 81).
$. 6. Sixthly, As the church of Rome gives an inferior
kind of veneration to images, and by some mice distinctions
eludes the prohibition of the second commandment ; so do
the apostate Jews, by the same arts, declaring “ that he who
Worships an idol, taking it for God, is guilty, but if not, he is
free ;” and the gloss there adds, “that if he adore God in it,
* Plato, Epin. 1010, 1011.
t Kai yap #xfivot ºvoy oiáſzewo roy Oey yiyºaksiy, obº inſcray-
Tai Aarpedovre; 3) Yáñous wai àexayyánovc. Strom. vi.
f P. 635, D.
it is no crime, for his heart is towards God.” And again,
“If a Jew see a statue, such as useth to be set up for a king,
if he adore it not under the notion of an idol, but in honour
to the king, it is nothing.” And this corrupt notion pre-
vailed upon the Corinthians to eat freely “in the idol’s tem-
ple’” of their sacrifices, as thinking they did not offend, be-
cause they did not own the idol to be God (see for this
Dr. Lightfoot on 1 Cor. viii. 10):
Š. 7. Seventhly, The apostatizing Jews do so plainly
symbolize with the Romanists in the doctrine of purgatory
and prayers for the dead, that Bellarmine confirms those doc-
trines from the practice of the Jews recorded in the book of
Maccabees, lib. ii. cap. xii. 39, 46, from Tobit iv. 18, and
from their other writings, Bellarm. de Purgatorio, lib. ii.
cap. 3. $, Hinc etiam, S. Secundus, et cap. 11, Ş. Tertia
ratio.
And indeed the parallel is very clear, for as the papists
pray for the souls of the dead, that they may be delivered
from the pains of purgatory, and go thence to heaven ; so
do the Jews in their liturgy pray “for the souls of their
friends, and kindred, grandfathers, and grandmothers, that
they may be admitted to the rest of the righteous in the gar-
den of Eden” (see Dr. Lightfoot, vol. i. p. 1017, 1018).
As the papists say, those souls they pray for go to purgatory,
“in order to their purgation from some defilements they
have contracted in this world, and afterward to heaven ;” so
the Jews say, that anima gehennae igne purgatur, ut pura
evadat et candida, “the soul is purged with hell-fire, that it
might be made pure and white, and then put into the hands
of the angel Michael, who offers up the souls of the just”
(Voisin, Theolog. Jud. lib. i. cap. 1, p. 78). As the papists
give so much money to have so many masses said for the de-
liverance of souls out of purgatory; so the Jews vow “to
give alms, that they may be conveyed into the garden of
Eden ;” and the priest pronounces a blessing upon him “who
hath vowed so many alms for the souls of the dead” (see
these prayers and benedictions in Lightf. ibid.). And in re-
lation to this opinion, the son of Sirach seems to say, vii.
33, “A gift hath grace in the sight of every man living, and
for the dead detain it not.”
§, 8. Eighthly, As the papists hope to be helped, both
living and dead, by the merits of the saints, and especially
by the martyrs; so the Jews pray, that God would show
kindness to them, “for the sake of all those who are slain
and massacred for his sake, and went through fire and water,
for the hallowing of his name” (Lightf.ibid.). They thought,
in the time of the Maccabees, that the death of their good
men, or martyrs, might be an expiation for their sin. This
being among them a received rule, that a mověaio; rot pačxov
Aürgov, “the good man is the redemption of the wicked;”
and hence Josephus + brings in Eleazar praying thus to God,
“Be thou gracious to thy nation, being satisfied with the pun-
ishment I suffer for them; make my blood an expiation for
them, wał &vri sluxãy airāv x488 rºy #Awhy Juxāv, and accept my
life instead of theirs.” Hence have we frequent mention of
merita patrum, “the merits of the fathers,” in their books,
and of the merits of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; from which
they did expect great things, even deliverance from hell, say-
ing, that “hell-fire hath no power over the sinners of Israel;
because Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob descend thither to fetch
them thence.” Pocock, Miscellan. p. 172, 227.
* Philo, de Sacr. Cain, p. 118, D.
+ L. de Maccab. p. 1050, C.
THE
FIRST EPISTLE TO TIMOTHY,
WITH ANNOTATIONS.
PREFACE.
THAT this epistle was written after Paul's departure from
Ephesus to Macedonia, some gather from these words,
“When I went into Macedonia, I besought thee to abide at
Ephesus,” i. 3. And that it was written when he was in
expectation of returning shortly thither, they conclude from
these words; “I write to thee, hoping to come unto thee
quickly,” iii. 14. It therefore, say they, must be writ before
he came to Melitus, Acts xx. 17. For then he, sending for
the bishops of Ephesus thither, speaks thus to them: “And
now I know, that all you, among whom I have gone preach-
ing the kingdom of God, shall see my face no more,” ver. 25.
For then he must have laid aside all thoughts of returning
any more to Ephesus. It therefore must, say they, be
written while he was in Macedonia, or thereabouts; and so,
A.D. 55, and the first of Nero. So Dr. Lightfoot.
Bishop Pearson grants, that it was written after Paul was
gone into Macedonia; but then he adds, that it was writ after
his enlargement from his bonds at Rome, A.D. 65. That it
could not be writ at any time of Paul's going to Macedonia,
before his journey to Jerusalem, he proves, because before
that time Paul could not have exhorted him to “abide at
Ephesus ;” for the first time he went to Macedonia, by the
direction of the Holy Ghost, Acts xvi. 9, 10, he had not seen
Ephesus, for he came not thither till a long time after, Acts
xix. l. The second time he came to Macedonia was after
the tumult which forced him to leave Ephesus, Acts xx. 1,
when he could not exhort him to abide at Ephesus, for he
had sent him thence to Macedonia at that very time when
that tumult began, Acts xix. 22, 23. This argument, I con-
fess, is not very strong; it being plain, from his First Epistle
writ to Corinth, while he was at Ephesus, 1 Cor. xvi. 8. 10,
11, that he expected then his return to him: but then it ap-
pears, that Timothy was with him when he went first from
Macedonia to Achaia, and at Corinth writ his Epistle to the
Romans, xvi. 21; and also when he returned from Achaia to
Macedonia, for then he accompanied him from Achaia to
Macedonia, and so to Asia, and so he abode not then at
Ephesus, Acts xx. 4. Now from thence Paul goes to Jeru-
Salem, and from thence bound to Rome, and so he could not
after go to Macedonia till he was set at liberty. This there-
fore, Saith he, was done afterward, in the tenth year of Nero,
A.D. 65, and soon after he writ this epistle to him.
And whereas against this it is objected, that in this epistle
he speaks twice of his coming to Ephesus, saying, “I write
unto thee, hoping to come to thee shortly,” iii. 14, and “Till
I come, give thy diligence to reading,” iv. 13, whereas before
his going up to Jerusalem he had expressly said to them of
Ephesus, “I know that all you shall see my face no more;”
whence it is gathered, that this epistle must be writ before
that time.
To this I answer, that Paul saith plainly in this epistle,
that he proposed to come to him; but he saith not, that he
purposed to come to him to Ephesus. If you reply, that in
this epistle he commands him to stay at Ephesus, and so
must be supposed to speak of coming thither to him, i. 3:
this, I confess, is true, according to our version, which adds
unto the words, “so do:” but if you read the words thus,
“As I exhorted thee to abide (some time) at Ephesus, when
I went into Macedonia, (so I did it) that thou mightest ad-
monish some to teach no other doctrine;” it will be left un-
certain, whether he were at Ephesus at the inditing this
epistle; for then, having done the work for which he was bid
to stay at Ephesus, he might go on to other places, doing the
work of an evangelist, and settling ordinary church-governors,
bishops, presbyters, and deacons, where they were wanting,
and doing all the other things mentioned in this epistle, as
things to be performed in the church of God. For,
Tirst, It is certain, that when the Second Epistle was writ
to Timothy, he was not at Ephesus, as I have there proved,
note on iv. 12. He therefore might have been gone thence
also at the writing of this epistle, to settle the affairs of other
churches.
Secondly, It is certain, that this First Epistle was writ to
him, that, in Paul's absence he might know “how to deport
himself in the church of God,” especially in reference to the
prescriptions here laid down, iii. 15. Now there was little
need that he should stay there, to do the great work pre-
scribed in this epistle, touching bishops and deacons, they
being settled among them by Paul himself before he left
Ephesus; and they heing after, in his journey to Jerusalem,
summoned to Miletus, and taught how to demean themselves
in the respective provinces committed to their trust ; it is
therefore highly probable, that these directions were given
him, in reference to other churches to which this evangelist
was to travel, and in some of which he might then be. If
this conjecture may take place, the difficulty is. fully an-
swered ; if not, I must confess myself unable to return any
satisfactory answer to it, and so leave the reader to his
choice, whether he will follow the opinion of Dr. Lightfoot
or Bishop Pearson, in this matter.
But though there be a great difference as to the time of
writing this epistle, the ancient commentators all agree in
this, “That St. Timothy” was left at Ephesus, to preserve
that church from the endeavours of the Judaizing Christians
to introduce circumcision, and the observance of the law,
and to amuse them with their Talmudical fables, and with
their genealogies from Abraham and the patriarchs.” A
reverend person saith, “It is evident, the Gnostics were now
scattered in Asia, and so characterized by the apostle, ch.
iv. and vi., and there distinctly specified, under the title of
Jevāśvvºwo; ywójoric, ‘Science falsely so called, ver. 20; they
being the men who assumed to themselves the names of
“Gnostics,” or knowing men.” And it must be confessed,
that Theodorett accords with him in this matter, saying,
“That the apostle styles the pretended knowledge of
the Gnostics, ‘science falsely so called.’” And Chry-
* Obsecrat episcopus coepiscopum suum, ne pateretur
Judaeosalitër populum quam ab apostolo tradebatur docere,
ne oblectarentur fabulis quas narrare consueti sunt Judaei de
generatione Suarum originum, de Abraham, et de circumci-
sione, et his quae posteå tradita sunt à Moyse. Ambros. in
locum. 'Ev'rai 64 rive; haray # 'Iovčaiwy Jevđatróa toxoi Bouxáſzsvot
Tráxty #tri rôy yāºoy #Axew roi, ºria row:—Foºtá ša riv #TEpoètbaa-
zańsſy. Chrysostom. in cap. i. 3.
oi # 'lovèaſov weria revzóra, Éri tº yºdºrst ti, ºraxaia, 312-
6āzng ºáya ppovoivres, Čntãºzara &rta toſ, Šá ššvāy ºrstriarsv-
xári ºrpoo psgow, #x£yxely ºw#y at row; &; &#xvitov; rôy 9sioy Aoylov
ºrstºweyol, pvX&rrely 3: Tây yokºziv Troxltsiav trapartíðsly intºxet-
goivºrs. CEcum. et Theoph. proleg, in locum.
+ Taúrny sixáros, J.Evēdivvº.oy #záxfore Yvāorly. Theod.
-
3 H 2
836
I. TIMOTHY.
sostom" saith, “Perhaps this was spoken by reason of some
who were then called Gnostics.” And Theophylact + says,
“I think the apostle speaks this concerning some then called
Gnostics.” But yet there lies this strong objection against
this exposition of this phrase, or the ascribing of it to the
Gnostics, that, according to all the accounts we receive from
the ancients, these Gnostics were not then in being, at least
under that name ; for whether, with Irenaeus, we derive
their original from Valentinus, or Carpocrates; or, with
Clemens Alexandrinus, from Epiphanes the author of the
sect of the Carpocratians; or, as Jerome saith, from Basili-
des; $ it is evident, and confessed by all these authors, that
* Táxa rotiro ºnal 3;ári rivá, Āavroë; #xáAovy rôrs ya'a rikoúc.
Chrys.
+ Oivat 3Å raira Aéysty ry &réairexcy regi rāy rôte Asyopwévoy
Two arrixów.
f See the note on cháp. vi. 20.
§ Mortuus est autem Basilides, ā quo Gnostici, tempori-
bus Hadriani. Hieron. in voce Agrippa. Bactasiºn; aigeat-
46xn; "Axićayºpsi; &#' oſ of Tywartzoi. Euseb. Chr. A.D. 134.
Valentinus venit Roman sub Hygino, increvit sub Pio, et
prorogavit tempus usque ad Anicetum. Iren. lib. iv. cap. 4.
Euseb. Eccl. Hist. lib. iv. cap. 11, et Chron. ad An. Christi
all these, and even Menander, whom Irenaeus sometime
makes the father of the Gnostics, were long after the writing
of this epistle. Whereas the Judaizing Christians were,
saith Theodoret, wiya ppovoivre; inl ri yidae, “great boasters
of their knowledge of the law ;” and yet, that their pretended
knowledge was false knowledge, we learn from those words
of the apostle, that these teachers of the law, “knew not
what they said, or whereof they affirmed,” l Tim. i. 7.
Hence is their doctrine styled ºxaratoxoyſa, “vain-talking,”
ver. 6, and here xEvoq'avia, “empty babbling;” as also, 2 Tim.
ii. 16, &yota, “foolishness,” 2 Tim. iii. 9, and they are said to
be ºxaratoxoyot, “vain-talkers,” Tit. i. 10, “men puffed up,
and knowing nothing, but doting about questions, and strife
of words,” 1 Tim. vi. 4 (see the note on vi. 20). So that I
can see no objection against that opinion which refers this
phrase to those Judaizers whom the apostle elsewhere styleth
“false apostles and deceitful workers.”
[See the preface to the Epistle to Titus.]
141, de Carpocrate et Epiphane Theodoretus haic habet,
'A38tavot 33 kai circl 8aa Astovto; rā; Troynéâ; ałęasic ixgåtvyay.
Haer. Fab. lib. i. cap, de Menandro. Wide Dodwel. dis. iv.
in Iren. Sect. 10, p. 308.
CHAPTER I.
1 PAUL, an "apostle of Jesus Christ by the *.com-
mandment (kar’ #Trurayſ) v, according to the appoint-
ment) of God our Saviour (who called me to this office
by his grace, Gal. i. 15), and (by the appointment of
the) Lord Jesus Christ, who is our hope (of glory,
Col. i. 27),
2 Unto Timothy, "my own son in the faith, (do I
wish) grace, mercy, and peace, from God our Father
and (from) Jesus Christ our Lord.
3 (Declaring, that) as I besought thee to abide still
at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia (so I did it
to this end), that thou mightest charge some (Judaizers
there) that they teach no other doctrine (than that
which is according to godliness, vi. 2).
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I.
* Ver. 1. 'Atréa-roxor, An apostle, &c.] Thus he writes to
Timothy and Titus, not to assert his apostolical authority to
them who doubted not of it, but for their sakes over whom
they were to preside, that they might not despise what they
did and enjoined by so great authority.
* Kar' trirayiv Ogot a wripo; hºw xał Kvetov, &c.] Some
construe these words thus, “According to the commandment
of Jesus Christ, who is God our Saviour;” but the words rº;
#xtrêo; hºw, “our hope,” must be construed with the words
“Jesus Christ:” and this sufficiently confutes that version,
which, as none of the ancients followed, so it is not supported
by the word “Saviour.” added to “God,” that epithet being
twice applied to God the Father in this epistle, viz., ii. 3. iv.
10, and twice in the Epistle to Titus, viz. i. 3. ii. 10. More-
over, some ancient copies read ro; ºrarpèc, “of God our
Father.”
* Ver. 2. Tynaig réaye iv triars, My own son in the faith.]
This phrase compared with 1 Cor. iv. 14, 15, seems plainly
to import, that Timothy was converted to the Christian faith
by Paul ; as also he seems to intimate when he saith, he
“served with him in the gospel, as a son with the father,”
Phil. ii. 22; and again calls him his “beloved Son,” 2 Tim.
i, 2. Nor find I anything in scripture to the contrary; for
though it is said that he had learned the scriptures of the
Old Testament from his youth, 2 Tim. iii. 15; yet is that
true also of Paul, when yet he was no convert to the Chris-
tian faith, but a zealous persecutor of it. And though he
was a disciple when Paul circumcised him, and took him
with him from Lystra (Acts xvi. 1), that hinders not but
that he might be made so by Paul himself.
* Wer. 4. MäAAoy h oixoyoºtay Ogot, tºy #y Triatsi, Rather than
godly edifying, which is in faith..] Here first the gramma-
rians note, that comparative particles, and especially this of
4 Neither give heed (or incline) to (Jewish) fables
and endless genealogies, which minister questions (or
disquisitions into pedigrees), “rather than godly edify-
ing, which is in faith : so do.
5 Now (for) the "end of the commandment is
charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience,
and of faith unfeigned :
6 From which (commandment) some having swerved
have turned aside unto vain jangling (vain discourses
of Talmudical fables and endless genealogies);
7 *Desiring to be teachers of the law; (and yet) un-
derstanding neither what they say (of it), nor whereof
they affirm (i. e. neither the sense, scope, or true mean-
ing of that law of which they speak, nor having any
AwāXAov, “rather,” are often in sense negative, as Luke xviii.
14, “He went to his house justified, ; #xsivo, rather than the
other ;” i. e. the publican, and not the pharisee; 1 Pet. iii.
17, “It is better to suffer for well-doing, than for evil-doing;”
John iii. 19, “Men loved £433Aoy ré axéro; # ºpæc, darkness
rather than light ;” 2 Tim. iii. 4, pixhöoyo; Azáxxov h pix60sot,
i. e. “lovers of pleasure, and not of God” (see John xii. 43.
Heb. xi. 25). The edification in the faith here mentioned,
is styled the edification of God, because it hath God for its
object and its end, as tending to the true knowledge and
right worship of God; it is efficiently from him (on which
account justification by faith is styled “the righteousness of
God”), and tendeth highly to his glory.
* Wer. 5. To réx0; rig wagayys).faç, The scope of the com-
mandment.] This some refer to the law, which, saith the
apostle, “is fulfilled by love,” Rom. xiii. 10; but áyyexia,
J John iii. 11, Tragayyania, 1 Thess. iv. 2, and ver, 18 of this
chapter, and Étrayyexia, being in the epistles always used of
the gospel, and the latter word spoken of it in opposition to
the law, which saith the apostle was not # #trayyexiac, “of
promise " (Rom. iv. 13. Gal. iii. 18), I rather think it here
refers unto the gospel, or to that dispensation, in which nothing
availeth but faith working by love (Gal. v. 6), and which
requires fervent and unfeigned love out of a pure heart,
from all that do obey the truth (1 Pet. i. 22).
* Wer. 7. O#xovire; sival vog,0818&axaxoi, Desiring to be
teachers of the law.] That those persons were not Gnostics,
but #: 'Iověatoy, “the Jews,” is manifest, say the Greek com-
mentators, from these words: for the Gnostics were the
greatest adversaries of the law and the prophets ; and even
rejecters of that God who gave the one and inspired the other.
Simon Magus taught, that the prophets* “received their
* Prophetas autem à mundi fabricatoribus angelis inspira-
tos, dixisse prophetias; quapropter nec ulterius curarent eos
CHAPTER I.
837
certainty of the traditions of which they talk so conft-
dently).
8 But (though they are thus ignorant) we know that
the law (in itself) is good, "if a man use it lawfully;
(not as a means of justification, but as a restraint from
sin, Gal. iii. 19, and as a schoolmaster to bring him to
Christ, the end of the law, Gal. iii. 24. Rom. x. 4).
9 Knowing this, that "the law is not made for a
righteous man (to condemn, or work wrath to him,
Rom. iv. 15, as failing in the strict observance of it),
but for (restraining and condemning) "the lawless and
disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for un-
holy and profane, for murderers of fathers and mur-
derers of mothers, for manslayers,
10 For whoremongers, for them that defile them-
selves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for
perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that
is contrary to sound doctrine; -
11 (That is the doctrine which is) according to the
glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was com-
mitted to my trust.
12. And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath
enabled me (by the assistance of the Spirit and power
of wisdom, who of myself was insufficient for this work,
2 Cor. iii. 5, 6), "for that he accounted me (one that
would be) faithful (in the discharge of it), putting me
(therefore) into the ministry; -
I3 (Me, I say,) who was before (this gracious cally
a blasphemer (of Christ, Acts xxvi. 11) and a perse-
cutor (of his servants, Acts viii. 3) and injurious (to
prophecies only from angels,” and that therefore “they that
believed in him, and his Selene, should not regard them;’
Saturninus, that “Christ came to destroy the God of the
Jews;* which God Simon himself denied, saith the Pseud-
Ignatius.t. They taught men “not to use the law and the
prophets,”f nor to fear their threats. Now they who held
and taught these things must be the greatest adversaries to,
and not the teachers of, the law.
Hence it follows, first, that the fables and the genealogies,
mentioned ver, 4, and the vain janglings, ver. 6, cannot
relate to the aeons of the Gnostics, which seem not then to be
hatched; but that the apostle rather here respects, as Theo-
doret observes, råy Ioviaixºy #ºnysia, Tây tºr' airāv waxoup,ávny
3evrégociv, “the vain traditions, or Talmudical fables, of the
Jews,” as the apostle explains himself, when he instructs
Titus to teach the Cretans, ºch areocáxely Ioviaïkoſ; ºols,
“not to give heed to the Jewish fables of men,” who turn
from the truth (i. 14), especially those traditions and fables
they had received of a Messiah ben Joseph that was to suf.
fer, and a Messiah ben David that was to triumph gloriously
and abide for ever (John xii. 34), if that distinction was so
ancient ; and of the golden days they were to have at the
coming of this Messiah, of which Tryphoin his dialogue with
Justin speaks, p. 249, B, saying, that their prophets taught
them, Évêošov wai Kwéyav čvapºvery—ºraçaxapagáyovra rºw aidºvoy
Baciàelay, “to expect a great and glorious Messiah, who should
have an endless kingdom ;” and, p. 306, 307, of the halcyon
days they should enjoy in Jerusalem, rebuilt at his coming.
The endless genealogies are, say the fathers, yeweaxoyiac rā;
# 'A8paša zai Aa3i:3, “their genealogies from Abraham and
David,” which they were concerned for, that they might know
they came from the promised seed, or their title to the
privileges belonging to the children of Abraham ; or that
they might have the preference: for those of the tribe of
Judah and of the family of David were held more honour-
able than those of other tribes (see Campeg. Vitringa, de
Syn. Vet. lib. iii. cap. 71, p. 871). They were, saith Dr.
Lightfoot, the long and intricate pedigrees they stood upon
to prove themselves priests and Levites; for, as Josephus Ş
notes, they thought themselves obliged to be very exact in
that affair, and therefore “had genealogies of them preserved
two thousand years.” To these we may add the genealogy
and pedigree of their traditions, which they derived from
Joshua in a long line of succession to their times. That
they were genealogies belonging to the Jews, we learn from
Tit. iii. 9, where they are joined with “strifes about the law.”
7 Wer. 8. "Eéy rig air㺠vopaipºoj; xºrai, If a man use it
hi qui in eum, et in Selenen ejus spem habeant. Lib. i. cap.
10. -
* Advenisse Christum ad destructionem Judaeorum Dei.
Cap. 22.
+ 'Apygīral 3: röy Qey rot, Vágov, wai rāy ºrpoºnråv.
Philadelph. sect. 6.
f: Néaº Kai trgo phrat; ºn Xéârşat.
cap. 20. Mn38 pgirrely Tày véºwy rā; &m'Eixáç.
Haer. Fab, lib. i. cap. 1.
§ Tºv tragi rā; &vaypa pā, Tripºstay. Lib. i. contra Ap. p.
1036, A. Tewkwhetov 33 ºwāyiqrov 'ric &xg18sia;, of y&g 3px;peſ;
of trap' hºv čtrö 8taxºxiov trav čvop, acroi traße; in Traºrpá, etcy
#y âyaypa paſs. Ibid. D.
Ep, ad
Constit. Apost. lib. vi.
Theodoret.
lawfully,) That is, saith Theodoret, #&v tic 3xoxovš aircü
ºró, axéwº, “if he complieth with the scope of it, which is to
bring him to Christ.” -
* Ver. 9. Aikatº yégo; oë Keïtal.] i. e. “The law was not
made to condemn the just man; for against such there is
no law” condemning them (Gal. v. 23), ávrikstral 33, but
“it lies against the lawless,” to condemn them.
* 'Ayāzoic, &c.] From this enumeration of offenders against
the law, we learn that the apostle is here speaking of the
moral law contained in the ten commandments ; for the sins
here mentioned respect them; “the ungodly" being sinners
against the first commandment; the épºagroñol, “sinners”
(as that word signifies the idolatrous gentiles, Gal. ii. 15) the
transgressors of the second, the perjured persons of the third,
the unholy and profane of the fourth, the murderers of fa-
thers and mothers of the fifth, the manslayers of the sixth,
the fornicators and defilers of themselves with mankind of
the seventh, menstealers of the eighth, liars of the ninth ; as
also from the following words, “If there be any other thing
contrary to the sound doctrine of the gospel.” Note,
Thirdly, That fornication is here reckoned among sins
committed against the law of nature, or the moral law ; as it
is also Rom. i. 29, and among the manifest “works of the
flesh ’’ (Gal. v. 19), yea, among the things “for which the
wrath of God comes upon the children of disobedience,” or
unbelief, that is, the heathens (Eph. v. 5, 6), for which
men are to be excluded from the kingdom of God (1 Cor.
vi. 10. Rev. xxii. 15), and to be cast into “the lake of fire
and brimstone” (Rev. xxi. 8); whence it is to be wondered
that this sin should be so generally committed by some, and
pleaded for by others, who are called Christians.
1° Wer. 12. “ort ºria révºs hyácato, He accounted me faith-
ful..] Paul was “a vessel of election” to bear Christ's name
before the gentiles (Acts ix. 15); in order thereunto he was
by him to be filled with the Holy Ghost (ver. 17), and so
enabled to perform this work with “the power of signs and
wonders, and of the Spirit of God” (Rom. xv.19). Christ
also appeared to him for this very end, Trºoxegića Sat, “to
constitute him first,” and set him apart, as it were, by laying
hands upon him, to make him a minister and witness of
what he had seen and heard (Acts xxvi. 16. xxii. 14, 15),
and accordingly he sent him to the gentiles (Acts xxvi. 17),
and thus he put him into the ministry. Christ did this be-
cause “he accounted him one that would be faithful” in the
discharge of his duty (1 Cor. iv. 2. vii. 25); i.e. such a one
who, by the consideration of so great a mercy and abundant
grace, vouchsafed to one so unworthy, would patiently suffer
for (Acts ix. 16), and labour more abundantly in propaga-
tion of the gospel, when thus assisted by the grace and Spirit
of Christ (1 Cor. xv. 10). Whence it is observed by the
fathers here, that * “there was not only something of God,
but also something of himself, for which he was chosen to
this ministry; and that he so magnifies the grace of God, as
not to invalidate man's free-will.”
* Asiavvciv 3ri 88ſ rag” hºw glasvex55vaí riva, où y&t 34pirac
©sic trixáystal riváç. OEcum. "Oga träg zai tº airoi; ºrišnot,
wai ré roß Osoſ, r3 ºrxéow vigov 'r; rod Osoti ºreovolz, to 35 airrod
avrtéAXov, Trºy 3roy ań AvºſvaaSal rô alôtéovatº—xáply #x2,
&c. Toijro roğ Geoû, stra Tráxy rā ai, row, ºr ºria rév ºf hyhcaro.
| Chrysostom.
838
I. TIMOTHY.
them): but I obtained mercy (from him), because "I
did it (not against knowledge, for I verily thought I
ought to do many things against the name of Jesus, Acts
xxvi. 9, but) ignorantly in unbelief. -
14 And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abun-
dant (in its power to enable me to promote the faith,
Rom. xv. 19) with (through that) * faith and love
which is in Christ Jesus.
15. This (therefore) is a faithful saying, and worthy
of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the
world “to save sinners; of whom “I am (the) chief
(and so a great ea ample of the truth).
16 Howbeit for this cause (even) I (the chief of sin-
ners) obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ
might show forth all long-suffering, for a pattern (of
it) to them which should hereafter believe on him to
life everlasting. -
17 Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible,
the only wise God, be honour and glory, for ever and,
ever. Amen.
18 This charge (of remaining some time at Ephesus,
jor the benefit of the churches there, ver, 3) I commit
unto thee, son Timothy, *according to the prophecies
that went before of thee, that thou (encouraged and
calcited) by them “mightest war a good warfare;
(even that of faith, vi. 12, fighting and suffering as a
good soldier of Jesus Christ, 2 Tim. ii. 3).
19 Holding faith, and a good conscience; which
(last) some having put away, concerning faith have
made shipwreck:
20 Of whom is Hymenaeus (2 Tim. ii. 17) and Alex-
ander (2 Tim. iv. 14); " whom I have delivered unto
Satan (for the destruction of the flesh, 1 Cor. v. 5), that
they (by what they suffer) may learn not to blaspheme
(or speak evil of the faith). -
*Wer. 13."or 3, vožvizcoinca #y &riatiº, I did it ignorantly.]
Being an unbeliever, as he might be by reason of those many
prejudices the learned Jews and zealous assertors of their
traditions laboured under. For to this Peter doth ascribe
their crucifixion of our Lord, saying, “I know you did it,
xar 3 yroiay, through ignorance ’’ (Acts iii. 17), and Paul
saying they did it, rotroy 3, vokray'rs;, “not knowing him "
(Acts xiii. 27. 1 Cor. ii. 8), and Christ himself, when he prays
thus, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do”
(Luke xxiii. 34), giving the same reason of his prayer for
their forgiveness, as Paul here doth of his own actual forgive-
liess ; so that it is needless to endeavour, as some do, to
wrest these words to another sense.
* Ver. 14. Marx triotswº wai &yárnº, Through faith and
love..] Love constraining him to labour more abundantly
(2 Cor. v. 14), and his strong faith enabling him to do it in
the power of “signs and wonders, and of the Holy Ghost"
(Rom. xv. 19).
Merå tria reac, With faith..] Or, per fidem, “through
faith,” or by faith: so Paul and Barnabas declared what
things God had done, wer' airröy, “by them,” Acts xiv. 27.
xv. 4, which is, ver. 12, 3,' airāy.
* Ver, 15. Agaeroxois dºzai, To save sinners.] Hence
divines have well observed, that if man had not sinned Christ
had not come into the world.
* Eſat #yd, I am..] He saith not, “I was,” but “I am ;”
because even when sin is pardoned, we ought to have the
prospect of it still before our eyes, to keep us humble and
sensible of the grace of God to us.
Ver, 17. Mávº d'opé Osij.] Dr. Mills seems very averse from
the word coºpó, admitting it neither here nor Jude 25; but
see it defended in both places, Examen Millii in locum.
* Ver, 18. Kará rà, Trgoaycéra, Éiri aré reoparsiac, Accord-
ing to the foregoing prophecies concerning thee..] So iv. 14,
“Neglect not, tº x&gtºwa, the gift of the Holy Ghost which
was given thee, 81& Trpoºntsiac, according to the prophecy.”
I have shown (note on 1 Cor. xii. 10) that among the gifts of
prophecy and discerning of spirits, this was one, to foretell
and choose out persons meet to do God service in the minis-
try. Hence Paul charges the bishops of Ephesus to feed the
flock, “over which the Holy Ghost had made them over-
seers,” or bishops, Acts xx. 28. And Clemens Romanus
saith, the apostles “chose bishops and deacons, with full
assurance of the Holy Ghost, ºrgáyyway sixmººrs; rºstay (Ep.
ad Cor. $.42, 44), having a perfect knowledge of them, and
making trial of them by the Spirit.” So was it in the case
of Timothy, say all the Greek scholiasts on the place.
Chrysostom” saith, he was “chosen by prophecy, that is, by
the Spirit of God;" Theodoret,' that “he received imposi-
tion of hands, not by man's calling, but by divine revelation;”
CEcumenius, £ that “by the revelation of the Spirit, he was
* T iary darò rºofnveia;, &nd IIveſgaro; #yiov, Chrysost.
in locum.
+ Ob y&t &ySgorrivnº retúxnka; xxhaswº, 3ÅA3 war& Seiaw
&roxáAvºw rºy XBipotovíay #8sižo Theod.
: Katë, yā; IIvaufeato; 3roxáAvskiy wai hēśn mapá roš IIav-
׺v, Kai regift|Ah9m, xaſ Hiriakoro; #xsigorovhön. CEcum.
both chosen by Paul to be a disciple, and was circumcised,
and ordained a bishop ;” and Theophylact affirms the same.
Being thus designed and notified by the spirit of prophecy,
they were, by prayer and imposition of hands, consecrated to
their office. Thus, when the Spirit in the prophets had said,
“Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work of the minis-
try to which I have called them” (Acts xiii. 2–4), “they
prayed, and laid their hands upon them, and sent them
away ;” and they are said to be “sent forth by the Holy
Ghost.” And with this imposition of hands they, who had
them not before, received Xapiapata, gifts answerable to
their calling. Thus Paul charges Timothy to stir up Xágicº a
Osos, “the gift of God that was in him, by the laying on of
his hands,” 2 Tim. i. 6. And Irenaeus saith, lib. iv. cap. 33,
that “the bishops who succeeded the apostles, with their
succession into their bishoprics, received a certain Xàbia wa
of truth, according to the good pleasure of the Father” (see
note on 1 Cor. ii. 16. xii. 10). Vain therefore are they who,
pretending to an internal call of the Spirit, which they can-
not prove to others, think imposition of hands, and conse-
cration to the work of the ministry, unnecessary to the per-
formance of the ministerial office.
* “Iya argarein rāy waxy arearslay, That thou mayest war
a good warfare.] i. e. Perform the office of an evangelist
well (2 Tim. iv. 5), so as to be “a good minister of Jesus
Christ” (1 Tim. iv. 6). Thus in the Old Testament, the
Levite that entered upon the service of the tabernacle of the
congregation, is, in the Hebrew, one that enters “into the
host,” Numb. iv. 3. 23. 30.35. 39. 43. viii. 24, and goes
Nix Naxº, “to war the warfare,” i.e. “to serve the service,”
saith the Chaldee ; and so the following words explain it :
and to be superannuated, and so to cease from the work, is
to “return from the warfare,” viii. 25. Thus also in the
New Testament, the Christian minister is “a soldier of Jesus
Christ,” 2 Tim. ii. 3, a rearsvépcevoc, “a warrior,” ver, 4. He
hath “the weapons of his warfare,” 2 Cor. x. 4; and ought
to have his wages, because “no man goeth to warfare at his
own charge,” 1 Cor. ix. 7.
*7 Ver. 20. Ot, trapé8wka rā; zarayå, Whom I have delivered
to Satan.] I have shown (note on 1 Cor. v. 5), that the an-
cients say, this phrase signified that some disease was to be
inflicted on them by Satan. Thus Theodoret, Chrysostom,
and CEcumenius, here say of these men,” that, “being sepa-
rated from the church, they were cruelly chastised by the ad-
versary, falling into diseases and grievous afflictions, and
other damages and calamities;” and this, in the foremen-
tioned place, is argued, from the ends of this delivery to
Satan, viz. “for the destruction of the flesh; that they might
learn not to blaspheme” that doctrine which could so severely
punish them that did so. Note also, that Hymenaeus and
Alexander “made shipwreck of the faith,” not by renounc-
ing Christianity, for “what have I to do,” saith the apostle,
* Tú yāp #xxxnataariwoi cºvaro, Xalpicóivres, wał rā; Seia;
xáetro; yupºvo,3évºrsº, Triºpolic trap. rot; 3vap.svoj: ###x2yro &āori-
yac, zai város, Kai washgaari XaAEroſ; tragawiaſtovtåg, x2}
Čnatak, Kai avºpogaſ; #tégai;. Theod.
CHAP TER II.
839
“to judge them that are without P” (1 Cor. v. 12) but by denying the resurrection of the body, as Hymenaeus did (2
maintaining such doctrines as overthrew the faith, i.e. by Tim. ii. 18).
CHAPTER II.
l I ExHoRT therefore, (in pursuance of the design
of Christ’s coming to save sinners, i. 15, and here, ver.
3, 4) that, first of all (Gr. first, that) *supplications,
prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made
for all men;
2 (Particularly) *for kings, and for all that are in
authority; that we (under their government) may lead
a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and ho-
nesty.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II.
* Ver. 1. Aghasic, Trgovevº, #y'reiſſets, Supplications, pray-
ers, intercessions.] Asha'el; are deprecations for the par-
don of sin, and the averting divine judgments: treco-ev-
X2c, prayers for the obtaining of all spiritual and temporal
blessings ; and in this we have the suffrage of the Greek
scholiasts and lexicographers: but as for the word Évrećeiç,
they almost unanimously say it is a complaint or accusation
made to God, against those who deal injuriously with them,
and a desire that he would avenge their injuries; to which
I cannot think the apostle would so passionately exhort
them. Nor is the word capable of this sense, when the
apostle Saith, iv. 5, “The creature is sanctified to us, 31& #y-
rešćewº, by prayer.”
I therefore prefer the other import of the word mentioned
in Phavorinus, that it is wrapázamotº Urá rivo: Trgovayoºzåyn Osº
7rsei cornpiac trigov, “an address presented to God for the
salvation of others.” And by this rule were the devotions
of the church continually directed: for, saith the author of
the book De Vocatione Gentium,” “The devotion of all the
priests and all the faithful doth so unanimously observe this
rule of prayer, that there is no part of the world in which
the Christian people do not put up such prayers as these,
praying not only for the saints, but for infidels, idolaters, the
enemies of the cross, and the persecutors of Christ's mem-
bers, for Jews, heretics, and schismatics.” But then, as
these addresses had a particular respect to men in these cir-
cumstances, so the other must have respect to men in gene-
ral; all these addresses being to be made, not only for our-
selves, but for all men.
* Ver. 2. ‘ºrtrip Barºšov, &c. For kings, and all that are
in authority.] So the Jews prayed, and offered sacrifices
for the Persian kings, F and the welfare of their government,
Ezra vi. 10. Thus Jeremiah sends to them in their capti-
vity, “to pray for the peace of the city whither God had
caused them to be carried captive,” xxix. 7. And the Jews
in Babylon send to those in Judea, to pray for the life of
Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon, and for the life of Baltha-
zar his son, “that their days may be upon the earth as the
days of heaven,” Baruch i. 11. When they came under the
government of the kings of Egypt, Eleazar, their high-priest,
writes to Ptolemy thus: “We continually offer sacrifice
* Quam legem supplicationis, ita omnium Sacerdotum, et
omnium fidelium devotio concorditër tenet, ut nulla pars
mundi sit in quâhujusmodi orationes non celebrentur à po-
pulis Christianis; supplicat ergö ubique ecclesia Deo, non
solam pro sanctis, et in Christo jam regeneratis, Sed etiam
pro omnibus infidelibus et inimicis crucis Christi, pro omni-
bus idolorum cultoribus, pro omnibus qui Christum in mem-
bris ipsius prosequuntur, pro Judaeis, quorum caecitati lumen
evangelii non refulget, pro hareticis et schismaticis, qui ab
unitate fidei et charitatis alieni Sunt. Lib. i. cap. 4.
‘ ‘ºrarie Baº wai IIegaºy Eixãºwevo rò Osó. Darius apud Jo-
Selºh. Antiq. lib. xi. cap. 4.
: “Yorêp aroj wal ºff, 388x4% coij, xa, röv rázvoy, zai pixoy
ºrgoanyáyoagy Guaiac, zal rà raiso, sixà, wolfiraro yeyão 6aſ got
r& kara voiv, wai ºvºax6ival arou Tày Sacixelay #y sighyn, Jos.
Antiq. lib. xii. cap. 2, p. 392. TຠBuria; Štriºsiavuoy &; trip
rod 3actxào; ºxeyov 7:02 pā;ew tº QE3. Ibid. cap. 17.
r
3 For this (prayer for them, and for all men) is good
and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;
4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come
(Gr. who wills that all men should be saved, and come)
to the knowledge of the truth.
5 For there is one God, (who is the God of the gen-
tiles, as well as of the Jews, Rom. ii. 29, 30, the Crea-
tor, Eph. iii. 9, the Father, Matt. ii. 10, the Lord, Acts
xvii. 24, the Saviour of all men, iv. 10) and *one
for thee, thy sister, thy children, and friends ; and the peo-
ple pray for thy happy success in all things, and for the
peaceable state of thy kingdom.” And so when they were
under the Seleucidae. And, lastly, when they came under
the Roman government,” this was their constant practice,
till they began that rebellion under which their city, country,
religion, and nation, were destroyed. This being, saith Jo-
sephus, the cause of the war, that the seditious did Svaiav
roi. Kaicago; &mośirrev, “reject the sacrifice offered for Cae-
sar,” though the priests and nobles earnestly entreated them
º, traga)\einrely ºr inié rāv #ysºčvov #Soc, “not to desert the
custom concerning their rulers which always had obtained
among them.”
And that the Christians, following their examples, thus
prayed continually, from the beginning, for their kings, we
learn from Polycarp, Justin Martyr,S Tertullian, Cy-
prian," Origen,** Lactantius, H and from all the ancient
liturgies. And this it became them to do, that the heathen
emperors, finding them thus solicitous for the welfare and
prosperity of their government, might permit them quietly
and peaceably to enjoy their religion.
* Wer. 5. Msa'itnç, Mediator.] That is, saith Suidas, signwo-
orotöc, “a peace-maker.” This, say the Socinians, is not ne-
cessary, that a mediator should appease or reconcile parties
at variance ; but only that he should deliver the mind of
one to the other, and strike a covenant or league betwixt
them, as in the case of Moses, Gal. iii. 9. To this I an-
swer; -
First, That though this be not necessarily contained in the
signification of the word, yet it is evidently implied in that
which is annexed to our Mediator, wherever he is mentioned
in the New Testament, viz. here and in the Epistle to the
Hebrews; for he is “such a mediator” as “gave himself a
ransom to God for us,” ver, 6, and there he is “a mediator
of the new covenant of his blood,” the covenant made by
intervention of his death, sic &woxörgwarty, “for redemption
of the transgressions of the former covenant,” ix. 15. viii.6.
xii. 24. e
Secondly, This seemeth to have been the Jewish notion,
both of “a mediator” in the general, and of our Mediator,
or the divine Logos, in particular. Thus Philo Saith, if that
* Iſsel tºy Kairago; zai roſ. Shºov táv Pop, aiov is rā; hºwāga
6ösly ºpacaw. Joseph. de Bell. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 17, &c. 30
per totum.
+ Ey Kaleń ºvarnpio, ºftwynta Cariño's troxxâxis, Kai étria-
tov dyroº. CEcumen.
Orate pro regibus et potestatibus et principibus. Polyc.
O
§ P, 52, 395.
| Apol. cap. 30–32.
* Ad Proconsulem.
* Contra Celsum, lib. viii. p. 427.
++ In fine Theoph. ad Autol. p. 76. , Dionys. Alexand.
apud Euseb. Hist. Eccles, lib. vii. cap. 11, p. 258. Const.
Apost. lib. ii. cap. 57. * * * *
fit Tă şi &exayyáxº wai reso Curérº Aéy? sapia, #aigstoy #8w-
wev’ārā Āa yewāra, marip, Wa pºsságios arêcº yºváºw 8taxelyn
+cº remonzáros, $ 3' airs; inárn, ºfty at tº Syntou knºwiyovros
3s reë; #4 Saeroy, w;s-Évrº, 33 to hypºvº; Trºº tº bºrhºooy
•+-
--
Š. 1
840
H. TIMOTHY.
Mediator betwixt God and man, the man Christ
Jesus;
6 Who gave himself (up to death, as) “a ransom
* for all (men), to be testified in due time (Gr. for a
testimony in due time of God’s love to all, Tit. iii.
4).
7 Whereunto (i. e. for the accomplishment of which
will of God) I am ordained (appointed of Christ) a
preacher, and an apostle, "(I speak the truthin Christ,
and lie not,) a teacher of the gentiles in faith, and
verity.
8 I will therefore that men pray every where, lift-
“the Father of all things hath granted to his most ancient
Word an excellent gift, viz. that, standing in the confines of
both, he should put a difference betwixt the maker and the
thing made, as being an intercessor for mortal man to the
immortal God, and an ambassador from the king to his sub-
jects; in which gift he rejoiceth, saying, Kºy& Biarázsly &y&
ºfferoy Kveiou wai tºwāv, “And I stood betwixt God and you,
being neither unbegotten as God, oùrs yeynrēc &; #zeſ, nor
made as we are, but a middle of the extremes, and a pledge
to both; to the Creator, engaging that all mankind shall not
corrupt itself and apostatize, choosing disorder before order;
to the creature, that he may have good hope that the mer-
ciful God will not wholly overlook his own work; for I de-
nounce rà signysia, ‘peaceable things to the creature from
the God of peace.’” And speaking of their high-priest,
who was a type of Christ, he saith,” “The law will have
him raised above human nature, and coming near to the di-
vine; and, if I may say the truth, a middle betwixt both,
that men may atone to God by a mediator, and God may
reach forth and distribute his favours to men by a certain
minister.” And again,” “It was necessary that he who per-
forms the office of a priest to the Father of a world, should
have for his advocate his Son most perfect in virtue, to ob-
tain the pardon of sins, and the participation of the greatest
blessings.” So that here it is made the office of a mediator,
to procure peace to the creature from God, to make atone-
ment to God, and to be an advocate to obtain the pardon of
sins ; and if Christ, our mediator and advocate with the Fa-
ther, was, by virtue of his office, to do this, surely it must be
part of his office to appease and reconcile God to us.
* Ver. 6. 'Avºriavtsov in 36 ºrávrov, A. ransom for all ;] And
Matt. xx. 28, Aérpoy &yri aroxxây, “a ransom in the stead of
many.” Hence then it is evident beyond contradiction, that
our Lord Jesus suffered in our stead. For when the scrip-
ture Saith, où Ahºga Se Airga rept Jux; trag& roi; povešo avtos,
“Ye shall admit no satisfaction for the life of a murderer
who is worthy of death,” Numb. xxxv. 31, 32, “but he
shall surely be put to death; for, où #twaa-Sha'etat # yń &nt
Toč aſkwaroc, the land cannot be cleansed or expiated from
the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that
shed it:” is not this the plain import of these words,--that
no price shall be admitted instead of his life? Again, when
Ahab passed this judgment on the disguised prophet, Éarai
h Juxh cov &vri rā; Juxā; airoij, “Thy life shall go for his
life whom thou hast let go,” 1 Kings xx. 39, 40, and when
the prophet thus returns upon him, “Thus saith the Lord,
Because thou hast let go out of thy hand a man whom I
have appointed to utter destruction, xał żorra, Juxh a ov čvri
rñº Juxā; airoij, therefore thy life shall go for his life:” and
when Jehu saith to the men appointed to slay the priests of
Baal, “If any of them escape, he that letteth him go, h luxh
airoi; &vti rā; Juxh; aircü, his life shall be for his life that
escapeth of them,” 2 Kings x. 24, do not all these expres-
sions plainly signify, Thou shalt die instead of him 2 When
therefore Christ elsewhere declares, that he would “give his
flesh for the life of the world ;” that he “gave his life a ran-
som for many,” “a ransom for all ;" must he not signify by
these expressions that he would give up his life to the death,
oùre 37'svåto, &c & OEs &y, oºrs yawn-ré, &c hºsí;, &AX& aftaro; rāv
spxov čez potégots &ngetov. Lib. Quis Rerum Divin. Haeres,
p. 397, G. 398, A.
* Boöxeral yèg abrów & Vágs; pºsićovo, ºp.orgác Ša púaso,
xati, &vSporov, Šyyvrápa ºrpoaiovva rāg 6sſac, ºxe66;tov, et 8st rº
&Anşā; Aéyev, 3p, poſ, iva èlá widow rivā; 3,800rol ºfty txàozor-
Tai 96-w, Os3g 33 rā; xàpira; #ySpéroi; twoëtaxévy twi x86 pasyo,
3:47, wai xoeny?. Lib. ii. de Monarch. p. 369, E.
† Awaywaſowyā; %y rôy isºgºvoy roi, Koop, of rarel, ragaºry
xeña Sal reasioráto thy &gstºv vić, ºrpèc re &ºvecretav čezagºrn-
Awarov, wai xoenyia; &#Soywrátov &yaśāy. De Wità Mosis, lib.
iii. p. 521, B.
instead of them who had deserved death P which sure he
could not do, but he must suffer in their stead. Moreover,
by the Jewish law, the first-born of every beast was to die ;
or, to rescue him from it, the owner was to pay, Aéreov &vri
Juxic, “a price to redeem his life,” Numb. xviii. 15, and
the pushing ox, provided the owner did not pay, to Atrºoy ric
Juxic airoij, “a price or ransom for his life,” Exod. xxi. 31.
Every Israelite was also to bring in yearly his half-shekel,
Nürgov 'ri, Juxic airoi; ifixáoraasai trepi rāy Juxãy tºy, “to
be the ransom of his life, that he die not” (Exod. xxx. 12.
15, 16); and this money was appointed to buy the daily
Sacrifice which was to expiate or make atonement for their
lives. Moreover, among the Jews it was a received opinion,
that a Trovºaio; roi; ºatſNov Ağrpov, “the good man was the re-
demption of the wicked” (Philo de Sacrif. Cain, p. 111, D.):
and hence Josephus” brings in Eleazar praying thus to God,
“Be thou gracious to thy nation, being satisfied with the
punishment I suffer for them : make my blood an expiation
for them, xai avti luxāv airāv Ā48s rāv #why Juxºv, and take
my life instead of theirs” (see the note on Matt. xx. 28).
When therefore, in allusion to these things, it is said Christ
gave himself, &vrixvirgov, or Aðrgoy &vri woxxây, “a ransom for
many,” can we put any other sense upon these words than
this, that he gave his life instead of ours, to expiate and
atone for those lives which we, by sin, had forfeited 2
* ‘Yºrêp wavºrov, For all.] These verses contain several
convincing arguments that God wills the Salvation of all men
in particular, and that Christ thus died for all. For,
First, The apostle here enjoins us to pray for all men,
because “God will have all men to be saved.” Now it is
unquestionably the Christian's duty, and was the constant
practice of the church, to pray for all men in particular ;
and therefore the reason here assigned of this duty must
reach to all men in particular.
Secondly, The apostle reasons thus: “God will have all
men to be saved,” because he is the God of all, the common
Father, Creator, Governor, and Preserver of all men: now
thus he is the God of all men in particular ; and so this ar-
gument must show he would have all men in particular be
saved. For, as the apostle argues for God’s readiness to
justify the gentiles by faith as freely as the Jews, by asking,
“Is he the God of the Jews only 9 Is he not also of the
gentiles P” Rom, iii. 20, and answering that there is no dif-
ference betwixt them, “the same God being rich unto all
that call upon him,” Rom. x. 12; so may we argue in this
case by a like inquiry, Is he the God of a small remnant of
the Jews and gentiles only 2 Is he not the God and Saviour
of them all 2 (iv. 10.)
Thirdly, He would “have all men to be saved,” saith the
apostle ; “for there is one mediator betwixt God and man,
the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all.”
Now if the argument from one God was, as we have proved,
designed to show he was the God of all men in particular,
the argument from this one Mediator must also prove Christ
the mediator of all men in particular. Hence he is here
emphatically styled “the man Christ Jesus,” to intimate
unto us, that having taken upon him the nature common to
us all, to fit him for this office, he must design it for the good
of all who were partakers of that nature ; for, as he was a
man, he surely was endued with the best of human affec-
tions, universal charity, which would excite him to promote
the welfare of all: as he was a man, he was subject to the
common law of humanity, which obliges us to endeavour the
common benefit of men (see the note on iv. 10).
*Ver, 7. AxºSelav Aiyo, I speak the truth in Christ.]
This oath or vehement affirmation could not be necessary to
confirm Timothy in the belief of this matter. But this
epistle being sent to Ephesus, or some other place where
there were many Jews, who either denied that Salvation was
* Lib. de Mac. p. 1090, C.
CHAPTER II.
84]
ing up 7 holy hands, "without wrath and * doubt-i
Ing.
9 In like manner also, (I will) that (Christian) wo-
men adorn themselves in modest apparel, with "shame-
facedness and sobriety; not (setting out themselves)
with broidered hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array;
10 But (with that ornament) which (best) becometh
women professing godliness, (that is) with good
works.
11 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjec-
tion (to the better sea).
12 But (for) “I suffer not a woman to teach (pub-
to be preached to the gentiles, or only on the terms of being
also circumcised, which this apostle did so stoutly oppose, it
might be necessary for their sakes.
7 Ver. 8. ‘Oatov, Yefeat, Holy hands.] It is certain that it
was the custom of the heathens to wash sometimes their
heads, sometimes thier whole bodies, but generally their
hands, before they came to their temples to pay their homage
to their gods. And to this purpose they had their xsevigia,
or x=18&vin rea, basins, or lavers, placed before the temples,
which they were to use before they sacrificed ; it being
thought so great a crime to come to the gods with hands un-
washed, illotis manibus libare, that it is” proverbial with
them to signify, by that phrase, those who come irreverently
and unprepared to their service, say Diogenianus and St.
Gregory ; and to come reverently to the gods is,' ºregišawd-
£zeyov, 3rośvskáºzeyov, & movis! &#xeyov, &ztoftwävoy ºrgocriéval, to come
cleansed and washed; and therefore holy. As for the Jews,
the learned Dr. Pocock saith that this is a law among them,
that “every one must wash his hands when he arises from
his bed, that he may be pure when he offers up his prayers
to God,” not thinking any man ºnto (ºrioc, Prov. xxii. 11)
“pure,” till he hath washed his hands. This they were to
do, say their rabbins, “lest God, seeing his creature defiled,
should be angry;” and because prayer succeeded to those
sacrifices, which were not to be touched by the priest till he
had washed his hands (Exod. xxx. 27, 28). This they looked
upon as a part of sanctification, and therefore pray thus,
* Blessed be thou, O Lord God, how"p ºnwr, who hast sanc-
tified us by thy precepts, and commandest us to wash our
hands.” This washing was to signify three things:
First, That the hands should be innocent and pure from
all blood and cruelty, injustice and bribery, all filthiness and
impurity, before we come to this sacred Majesty, as David
saith, “I will wash my hands in innocency, and so will I
compass thine altar,” Ps. xxvi. 6, and Philo, of the Es-
senes,f that they lifted up pure hands to heaven ; that is,
hands, xaSapal Amºzárov, xal in oiºsºciaç Trgopáorea; rāv et;
Trogiopºv waivéºwevat, “pure from gifts, and stained with no
unjust gain;” and so, saith he, must the person who lays his
hand upon his offering be able to say, Š aſ xeſpec attai otºrs
3&gov in 33ixotº #Aa£oy, “These hands have received no gift
to do injustice, are not polluted with innocent blood; they
have maimed, wounded, done violence to no man; they have
been employed in no culpable action, but have ministered to
all good and profitable things.”
Secondly, That our hearts should much more be purified
from all lusts and filthiness of spirit, pride, hatred, malice,
covetousness, &c.; so “clean hands” and “a pure heart,” in
the psalmist, go together, Ps. xxiv. 4; “He that offers sa-
crifices,” saith Philoſ, “must be xaSapā; a dºzart wał Juxº,
pure in body from whatsoever defileth that; and in soul from
all evil passions and vices: for it is folly to think we may
not come to the temple till we have washed the body, and
yet may pray and offer sacrifice with a spotted and defiled
mind.”
Thirdly, That we be purified from all worldly and distract-
ing thoughts, that the mind may be at leisure to attend purely
to heavenly things, that we may bring to God, Saith Philo,"|
rºy Juxºy roi rāv airóña Boy Kai airón rā, śyzou trayrexià, int-
zov'pta Señoray, “a soul eased of all the weight of the senses
and sensible objects.” These are the things which the apos-
tle here enjoins, when he commands us to lift up holy hands;
not that we should wash them with water, which Tertullian”
reckons among things vacuaº observationis, of vain observa-
tion, superstitious, and rather curious and affected than rea-
* Wide Erasm. Adag. chil. i. cent. ix. p. 246.
+ Pol. lib. i. c. sect. 24.
† De Wità Contemplat, p. 695.
§ De Vict. p. 649. || De Vict, Offer. ab Init.
* De Wità Contemplat. p. 691, B. ** De Orat. cap. 12.
sonable devotion, when introduced by some Christians, from
the heathen or the Jewish practice, as a preface to prayer.
*Xopic, čeyñº, Without wrath.]. As being contrary to
that charity and forgiveness, and that sedateness of spirit,
we ought to have when we address to God in prayer, and
being the forerunner of that cruelty which defiles the hand.
* Kai Biaxoylakoğ, And dowbting.] I find not that the
Greek ever bears the sense of doubting, but always imports,
in the New Testament, either inward reasonings, or tumul.
tuating thoughts; 8taxoylakoi royneoi, “evil thoughts” in the
heart, Matt. xv. 19, Mark vii. 21. James ii. 4, 3iaxoylapºol
Kapòićy, “the thoughts of men's hearts,” Luke ii. 35. ix.46;
8taxoyigadi airāv, “their thoughts,” Luke v. 22. vi. 8, or
their imaginations, Rom i. 21. Luke xxiv. 38, or conten-
tion and disceptation among them, Luke ix. 46, or inward
murmurings, Phil. ii. 14; all which are plainly opposite to
that peace, concord, and sedateness of spirit we should bring
to our devotions, and are apt to distract us in them, especi-
ally “evil imaginations.”
The scripture itself seems to direct us to the prime sense
of this word: for what is 8taxoytopoi, Luke ix. 47, is #Swº-
astº, “inward thoughts” and “reasonings,” Matt. ix. 4; and
this sense the word will bear in all places where we render it
either “doubting” or “disputing.” So Phil. ii. 14, “Do all
things without murmuring,” wał 8taxoylagöv, and inward rea-
sonings, whether you should continue in the faith or not ;
or why such commands should be laid upon you; and here,
without inward thoughts or resentments of the injuries done
to you. Theodoret here interprets it agreeably to the mat-
ter, in hand, 449180xia; xogic, “without hesitation, firmly
believing thou shalt receive what thou askest ;” and of this,
saith Theophylact, thou mayest be assured, if thou still
askest according to his will ; if thou askest, ºwn&#y &yážtoy rº,
Baaixão", “nothing unworthy of God,” but all things spiri-
tual, and askest these things without wrath and hesitation,
or a mind wavering betwixt hope and fear.
1° Wer. 9. Marā aiboiſ; xa: a wºod dynº, With shamefacedness
and sobriety, or chastity.] It seems impossible to fix a cer-
tain rule for the attire of women of all states and conditions,
at all times and in all places; but from what the apostle
saith here, and 1 Pet. iii. 3 (see the note there), it seems
evident, first, that regiºraokai rāv retxày Éraiginai, all attire
which suspected women used, either to provoke lust in others,
or to show any inclination to it in themselves; and all attire
which hath any tendency to anything of this nature, or to
raise a suspicion of it, must be here forbidden, as being con-
trary to the modesty and chaste behaviour of a godly matron:
and, secondly, all attire which, by the richness and costliness,
of it, shows any pride, or vanity of spirit, or an ambition to
excel others: and, thirdly, all great concernment, care, and
study to appear in such attire, as if it were indeed our truest
ornament, and that which made us truly to excel, and be
more honourable than others: this vanity and pride, this.
esteem of and concern for these things, being not well con-
sistent with sobriety, and much less with the profession of
true godliness. And here it is worthy to be noted by the
women, first, that this precept ought not to be slighted by
them, as of little moment, seeing it is so carefully inculcated
by the two chief apostles of the Jew and gentile, Peter and
Paul; and the contrary is represented as a practice opposite
to godliness. Secondly, Let them especially mark the cha-
racter here given of a Christian woman, viz. that she is one
who doth not only profess and declare, that she serves and
worships God, but also doth Érayyáx\ew, “show forth god-
liness in her life and conversation.” And, Thirdly, Let the
men note hence that of Esthius, That if it be so unbecoming
a Christian woman, to be thus concerned in adorning and
tricking up her body, it must be much more unbecoming a
Christian man to put on such attire, which makes him truly
to deserve the name of fop.
* Wer. 12. Cún štrºvgåtrol, &c. I suffer not a woman to
842
I. TIMOTHY.
icly), or to usurp the authority over the man (to
whom she was subjected by God’s precept, Gen. iii. 16),
but (I command her rather) to be in silence.
13 For Adam was first formed, (and) then Eve,
(after him, and out of him, to denote subjection to him;
and for him, to show she was to serve him, 1 Cor. xi. 8).
14 **And Adam was not (immediately) deceived (by
the serpent as Eve was), but the woman being deceived
was (first) in the transgression.
15 Notwithstanding she (i. e. the female ser) shali
be saved in *child-bearing (3d rskvoyoviac, through
child-bearing; i. e. they shall go through the sorrow
threatened to her sea for that sin with safety), if they
continue in faith (i. e. trusting in God) and charity (to
others, especially in the like condition,) and holiness
(Gr. in sanctification, i. e. in chastity of manners, and
freedom from uncleanness), with sobriety (św owppoojvy,
in temperance, or freedom from excess).
teach.] i. e. Publicly, 1 Cor. xiv. 34, 35 (see the note there).
They may privately instruct, as Priscilla did Apollos, Acts
xviii. 26, and as a believing wife may instruct her unbe-
lieving husband, when he requires a reason of her faith ;
but then she must not challenge any authority to do this,
this being to usurp an authority not due unto her.
* Ver, 14. Oix hºrarăşn, He was not deceived.] i. e. By
the serpent, who never attempted him, but was only seduced
by the woman: she therefore was both guilty of her own
and of her husband's sins.
* Wer. 15. At& rā; rexyoyoviac, In child-bearing.] That is,
Some say, by bearing the Messiah, the promised seed; but
there is no instance that can be produced, where this phrase
is used in this sense. Say others, by education of her chil-
dren ; but neither is there any instance of this signification
of the word ; nor is it fit that her salvation should depend
on the faith, and charity, and holiness of her children, these
being things not in her power to produce in them. And (3.)
what then shall become of barren women, and those that
live and die virgins 2 To establish therefore the sense given
in the text, let it be noted,
First, That this enallage numerl. or change of the number,
in words that comprehend all of the same kind, is very com-
mon both in the Old and New Testament, and in profane
authors: So Gen. xxxiii. 13, Morientur totus grex ; Gen. xli.
57, Universa terra venerunt ; “The whole land came into
Egypt;” Psal. cxl. 8, “Grant not the desires of the wicked,
further not his wicked devices, lest they exalt themselves;”
Proy. ii. 12, 13, “The evil man—who leave the paths of up-
rightness” (see Numb. x. 3. 1 Kings i. 40. 1 Chron. x. 6.
Ezra X. 12. Ps. lxviii. 11. Esd. xxv. 3. xxxiv. 10. Mark iii.
7, 8); and here, v. 4, xiipa-(zaySavāroa ay, “If any widow—
let them learn.” Note,
Secondly, That the preposition 33 doth not always signify
a means or a condition, but sometimes a term to be passed
through ; as when it is said, 33 ºroMA&W 8xisleay, “Through
many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God,”
Acts xiv. 22 ; “He shall be saved 31& Trupe;, as one passing
through the fire,” 1 Cor. iii. 15 ; “Let us behave ourselves
as the ministers of God, passing inoffensively, 34& ºn; kai
&ritaiaº, 8t; Sva pnºzia; wai sãºnºiac, through honour and dis-
honour, through good and evil report,” 2 Cor. vi. 8 ; in
which sense we are said ambulare per viam, per plateam.
But against the interpretation given in the paraphrase, it is
objected, that the following words, “If they continue in the
faith,” &c. cannot be mentioned here as a condition of their
safe deliverance in child-bed, since that deliverance is com-
mon to the believer and the pagan, the charitable and tem-
perate, and the uncharitable and intemperate, the chaste
and the unchaste women.
Ans. Now to this I answer, That this objection seems to
be of no force against the sense here given: for though
health, riches, a good name, and other temporal blessings,
be common to the pagan and believer, to the good and bad,
that hinders not but godliness may “have the promise of
this life ;” as health, riches, a good name, and other outward
blessings, are promised to those that fear God; it being Buf-
ficient to make good this promise, that God is pleased some-
times to vouchsafe this safe deliverance from the dangers of
child-birth to women, by virtue of their trust in God, their
charity to others, especially in the like condition, their tem-
perance, sobriety, and chastity, as to the observation of the
matrimonial vow ; and that others may sometimes miscarry
through the want or neglect of these duties. In a word,
seeing it cannot be denied that these things are likely to en-
gage God's providence to be with them in that needful hour,
and the neglect of them may provoke him to abandon
others, they must be deemed fit matter of a tempora.
promise.
CHAPTER III.
1 * THIS is a true saying, If a man desire the office
of a bishop, he desireth a good work (i. e. a work that
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III.
* Ver. 1.] Note, concerning the import of the word “bi-
shop” here, I find three different opinions among the an-
cients ; viz. that of Theodoret, that “the apostle here calls
the presbyter* bishop,” which he thus proves; “because,
atter the rules prescribed concerning bishops, he descends to
those concerning deacons, omitting presbyters; because,”
saith he, “anciently the same persons were styled presbyters
and bishops, the name apostles being then given to them
who are now called bishops; but in process of time, they
left the name of apostles to them who were apostles indeed,
and gave this name of bishop peculiarly to them who an-
ciently were styled apostles. And though,” saith he,
“ these rules are given to the presbyters by name, it is clear
that they more eminently belonged to hishops, &re 3; wai
&#39;0, wiranaxávra, rºs, as being of a higher dignity.”
* 'Erizzorov 3; #wraúða röy ºrgsagársgow Aéyer agră y&e roic
#nizzorizob; Várzov, row, roſ; 8taxávot; trºochzovra, ye&#51, row;
"rºsa Suripovº rotaxiwáv, rows atrol), yā; #x4xovy rors orgscºvré-
£ovº' was #Tiakówovº, row: 3; vºv waxovºivov; #wickémouc &ndaréxov;
&väge' or rot 3: xfévov ºrpoiávros, r3 pºiy rā; &moerox#; 3Woºza roſ;
&Anşā; &mográxot; xaráxiºrcy, rºw 3: rºi; #rickara; Tręczny?gſay
voſ, r*Aat waxovſzávor; &rcatinois ÉtréSeray. In locum.
*
! 3: Staxóyov #Tizzotroy &3%vatoy sºat,
And this opinion, if true, is a full confutation of the presby-
terian hypothesis; for it declares, that there were three dis-
tinct orders from the beginning of the church, apostles or
bishops, presbyters, and deacons ; and that the bishops were
of a higher dignity than the presbyters.
Secondly, The second opinion is that of Epiphanius,
that” “the apostles could not order all things at one time,
there being then a necessity of presbyters and deacons, by
both which ecclesiastical matters were to be administered ;
they placed no bishops there, where they found no persons
worthy of that office; in other places, where they found
persons worthy of it, but by reason of the paucity of con-
verts found scarce any fit to be presbyters, they constituted
only bishops and deacons. And this account,” saith he, “is
taken, 8a0uráraic icºropiaiº, from the most ancient histories of
the church ;” I suppose from the known passage of Clemens
* ob y&p ºrávra sūSüç #3vyń0ncay of 3róa'roxoi warza’rifa'al'
orged 8vrégov yºg #yivero Xgsta, Kai Staxévov, 33 yńe rāy 300 roë-
row rā, śxxxnariaa’rix& 8ávayrat rangoûa-6at. "orov 33 oix siphôn
si; &#to; #wiczowic, #xeivey 5 rāmroç xwei; #7taxówrov' &mov 33 y É-
yoys Xesſa, kai ha-av člot into work, xarea ráSnaray &mi-wrot,
ºrxh9ov; 33 ºw? §yros, oùx. Eigh9scay Év attoſ; ºrps-Bórspot waveata-
Sāyat, zai hexº~$ncay Émi răzará rànow ºval intoxároſ. "Aviv
Epiphan. Haer. lxxv. §. 5.
CHAPTER III.
843.
*
is honourable in itself, and so requires such dispositions
and qualifications in the person who desireth it, as may
render him worthy of that honour).
2 A bishop then must be “blameless (i. e. free from
just ground of blame), the * husband of one wife (i. e.
not guilty of polygamy, or of divorcing one woman and
marrying another, as many of the Jews and Greeks
then were), vigilant (in his functions), sober (govern-
ing his passions), of good behaviour (in words, in ha-
bit, or in aspect), “given to hospitality (or the enter-
tainment of strangers), apt to teach (not so much for
his eloquence, as for his skill in divine things, and
knowledge of what is fitting to be taught. So Theo-
doret.) -
3 Not given to (much) wine (ver. 8), no striker, nor
greedy of filthy lucre, but * patient; not a brawler (or
contentious person), not “covetous ;
4 One that ruleth well (in) his own house, having
his children in (due) subjection, (and behaving himself
in it) with all gravity;
5 (For if a man know not how to rule (well in) his
own house, how shall he (be able to) take care of the
church of God?) (which is a larger family, and so re-
quires greater skill in government :) .
6 7.Not a novice (in religion), lest, being lifted up
with pride (#c rāg trposépiac, by reason of his high ad-
vancement) he fall “into the condemnation of the
devil. .
7 Moreover, he must have a good report of them
that are without (i. e. the unbelieving Jew or gentile,
with whom he formerly conversed); lest he fall into.
reproach (from them) and (into) the "snare of the
devil. -
8 Likewise must the deacons be grave, not double-
tongued, (not fraudulent and deceitful, Chrysostom :
not saying one thing to one, another to another, Theo-
Romanus to this effect. And this also yields a full confu-
tation of the presbyterian hypothesis; for it declares, that it
was the design of the apostles to institute three several or-
ders in the church, viz. bishops, presbyters, and deacons;
and where this was not done, it was only through want of
persons fit to complete these orders, and only during that
defect ; and this being writ in answer to AErius's heresy,
that “a bishop differed not from a presbyter, they being
both one order, dignity, and honour,” shows that opinion
was then counted not only false and novel, but heretical.
Thirdly, The third opinion is that of Chrysostom,i (Ecu-
menius, and Hilary the deacon, on the place,$ that “the
apostle includes presbyters under the name of bishops, be-
cause there is no great difference between them, they being
appointed, as well as bishops, to teach, and to preside over
the church ; and being only inferior to the bishops, as to
the power of ordination, which belongs alone to bishops, and
not to presbyters.” Now even according to this opinion;
the bishop is above the presbyter, and all ordinations which
are not performed by the bishop are irregular, and performed
by them who have no power to ordain.
* Ver. 2. 'Averianºraroc, Blameless.] For “the life of a
bishop,” saith Chrysostom, “should shine so bright, and be
so free from spot, that others may not only behold it, but
live by his example *
* Mić; yuvaix}; &yºpa, The husband of one wife.] For “the
Jews and Greeks,” saith Theodoret, * “were wont to be
married to two or three wives together.” The apostle, there-
fore, doth not say this to depreciate second marriages, which
he elsewhere allows () Cor. vii. 8. 39), and from which it
may not be in a man's power to abstain : “If then a man,
rāv trporápay £4828&v, Štáčº avv8'ſ) n, rejecting his former wife,
be joined to another, he deserveth blame ; but if death have
disjoined him from his former, and nature, urging, doth ne-
cessitate him to take another, it is otherwise.” Considering
these and other things, I approve of this interpretation of
some of the ancients, which is also mentioned by Jerome, H
and by Chrysostom, declaring, that the apostle doth not here
oblige the bishop to be married, but only corrects the im-
moderateness of some; because among the Jews it was
lawful both to marry twice, Kai Büo #xely wară ravröy yuvaſzak,
“and to have two wives together;” and it was more common
with them to divorce one, and take another. And whereas
* Ti čarly #7tickoros ºrgèg reed'éâtegow ; otöv Šlaxxárts, otro:
toūrou ºia yát écºr, réis, Kai Azia. ‘pnai rºwh, Kai £y &#ioga.
+ "A Tripi iwiakórow sing, raûra kai resagurăgoi; 38.6+rst rà
y&é Xºlpotovía Azówn tºrsp;388hzaai, Kai rotºrº ºvoy 3ozoic, arxed-
vskreiy row; ºr:eo-Gutégovg. Chrysost. in locum.
£ ‘Opºolog yag wai atrol isºčic ré stat, Kai 3.8aa waxiay start
Trewia revºcêvot. CEcumen.
§ Post episcopum tamen diaconatus ordinationem subje-
cit ; quare 2 nisi quia episcopi et presbyteri una ordinatio
est, utergue enim Sacerdos est, sed episcopus primus est.
Hilar. in locum.
| IIáAat y&é Biºetzav wai “Exxnve; wai 'lovèaſo, Kai 3%
wai retri was wasior yvyaté Vázq, yāzov war& Tourév avoikāy.
* Com. in Tit, i.
against this interpretation it is objected, that the apostle re-
quires also, that the widow should be “the wife of one
husband ;” whereas it never was permitted, among any but
barbarians, for women to have more than one husband at
once ; this objection hath some strength against the inter-
preting that passage of polygamy, but none against that
Interpretation which relates to marriage after dismission of .
the former husband; the law allowing this in Greece, and
the practice having made it common among the Romans,
and not unusual among the Jews (see note on v. 9). Ori-
gen “seems plainly to insinuate, that this law, in the strict
sense, seems harsh and unreasonable, since he that hath a
wife might lose her in his youth, and so have need of a
second ; and this law allowed the bishop to enjoy his first
wife even to old age, a 6' 3rs ºftā yukºva &evow eig &yweiay, xat
coqºozåvny, “though he never exercised himself to chastity
and continence:” and therefore he thinks fit to interpret
these words by analogy to the bill of divorce, plainly de-
claring against the church of Rome, that neither bishop,
priest, nor deacon, of whom there he speaks, were either by
scripture, or the laws of the church, restrained from co-
habiting with their wives, after their promotion to those or-
ders. See the confirmation of our exposition in Suicerus,
vocibus 3-yapaia and 3iyapºog.
* @*#Evoy, Given to hospitality.] Not in in our common
sense, of keeping a good table, or an open house, for all
comers ; but, row; troënºcotyraç iToºexéºgyov, “an entertainer
of strangers,” as the fathers say, that the word pixóżewog sig-
nifies.
Ver. 3. Mº ataxpoxegºñ.] These words, saith Dr. Mills,
crept into the text from Tit. i. 7, whereas they are found in
Chrysostom, and CEcumenius, Cod. Alex. and Basil, tom.
ii. p. 416, 417 ; and are fully confirmed from the words
following, 8taxávov, ºraúrw; ºn aiazpoxsºeic, and from Tit.
i. 7, where Paul treats of the same subject.
* 'Eºreux?, Patient or gentle;] i. e. Saith Theodoret, in
reference to offences committed against himself; for it is no
part of meekness or patience, when others are injured, to
overlook the injury. -
" 'Aqixágyupov, Nor covetous, or a lover of money..] Theo-
doret here notes, that the apostle doth not say he must be
&xºrhºova, “one who possesseth none ;” for a man may pos-
sess these things, and yet distribute them as he ought, so as
not to be a slave to them, but a lord over them.
7 Wer. 6. Mä vsågvrov, Not a novice.] This, say Chrysos-
tom and Theodoret, is not spoken with respect to age ; for
Timothy himself, to whom he writes, was a youth (iv. 12),
but in respect to his knowledge of the faith.
* Eig ºpſºa roi; 31a86×ov.] That the devil fell by pride,
Theodoret here notes: but yet both he and Chrysostom say
that by “condemnation” here, the apostle means not his sin,
but his punishment for it.
* Ver. 7. Kai Trayièa 3iagáAov, And the snare of the devil.]
i. e. Saith Theodoret, lest, being tempted by Satan, he re-
lapse into his former sins ; or lest, being reproached by
*smº
* A. in Matt. ed. Huet, tom. i. p. 362, 363
844
I. TIMOTHY.
doret:) not given to much wine, not greedy of filthy
lucre (i.e. of lucre gained by sordid and filthy arts);
9 Holding the mystery of the faith in a pure con-
science; (i. e. in a life so pure that conscience may not
smite him ; for when a good conscience is once put
away, the loss of faith will follow, i. 19).
10 "And let these also first be proved (by the ea:-
amination of the soundness of their faith, and the
purity of their former lives); and then let them (be
admitted to) use the office of a deacon, being (thus)
found blameless.
ll. Even so must their "wives be (yuvaikac Ógai-
rwg, the women in like manner must be) grave, not
slanderers, sober, faithful in all things.
12 Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife
those he is set over, for his former life, Satan tempt him to
apostasy, v. 15.
* Ver. 10. Kai cºro 30x1,...ačía Sagay mºrov, And let these
be first proved.] These words wai otºrot, show that this trial
belonged also to the higher orders; and so it seems to have
been from the beginning, where the Holy Ghost did not im-
mediately interpose in designation of the person. The em-
peror Severus takes notice of it,” as of “a practice observed
both by the Jews and Christians, in order to the ordination
of their priests, and fit to be intimated in choosing a rector,
or procurator of the provinces subject to the Roman govern-
ment.” The epistles of Cyprian ºf make frequent mention
of this practice observed in the church, in imitation of the
Jews. “This,” saith he, “was observed in the Acts of the
Apostles in the ordination both of bishops, priests, and
deacons: and therefore this,” saith he, “is derived from a
divine and apostolical tradition, observed almost throughout
all provinces, that the bishops of that province where the
bishop is to be placed, should come thither and choose the
bishop, the people being present who were acquainted with
his life and conversation.”
* Ver. 11. Tuvaſka; &raúrac, The women also, i. e.
That are admitted to be deaconesses, Tit. ii. 3 ; regi rāv rà
&#iolºa rā; 8taxovia, #x00aoy Xéyès, Chrysostom, Theodoret.
* Ver, 13. Bašºv Raº, A good degree..] It being the
custom to choose presbyters out of the deacons, and bishops
out of the presbyters; and therefore, at his ordination, they
prayed, that he, using the office of a deacon unblameably,
might: ºsſovo; &#w8%a Bašpact, “be held worthy of a
higher degree.”
* Tañānaśay, Boldness, or freedom.] The deacons some-
times preached and converted men to the faith, as Stephen
and Philip ; and this they could more freely and more
“ Ubi aliquos voluisset vel rectores provinciis dare, vel
procuratores, id est, rationales ordinare, nomina eorum pro-
ponebat, hortans populum, ut si quis quid haberet criminis,
probaret manifestis rebus.--Dicebatgue grave esse quum id
Christiani et Judaei facerent in praedicandis sacerdotibus,
qui ordinandi sunt, non fieri in provinciarum rectoribus,
quibus, et, fortunae hominum committerentur, et capita.
Lamprid. in Vitā Severi, cap. 45. -
+ Coram omni synagogă jubet Deus constitui sacerdotem,
id est, instruit et ostendit ordinationes sacerdotales non misi
sub populi assistentis conscientia fieri oportere ; ut plebe
praesente, vel detegantur malorum crimina, vel bonorum
merita prædicentur, et sit ordinatio justa et legitima, quae
omnium suffragio et judicio fuerit ordinata—Quod posteå,
secundim divina magisteria, observatur in Actis Apostolo-
IUlOOl Nec hoc in episcoporum tantüm, et sacerdotum
ordinibus, observâsse apostolos animadvertimus, de quo et
ipso in Actis eorum scriptum est Propter quod diligentër
de traditione diviná, et apostolică observatione, servandum
est et tenendum, quod apud nos quoque, et ferè per provin-
cias universas tenetur, ut ad ordinationes rité celebrandas,
ad eam plebem cui praepositus ordinatur, episcopi ejusdem
provincia proximi quique conveniant, et episcopus delegatur,
plebe praesente, quae singulorum vitam plenissimè novit, et
uniuscujusque actum de ejus conversatione perspexit. Ed,
Ox. ep. 67, §. 2, p. 172.
# Const. Apost. lib. viii, cap. 18.
(see ver. 2), ruling their children and their own
houses well.
13 For they that have used the office of a deacon
well (i. e. according to these rules, do by so doing)
purchase to themselves **a good degree (or higher of
fice in the church), and great “boldness in (preaching)
the faith (which is) in Christ Jesus.
14 These things write I (now) unto thee, hoping to
come to thee shortly, (and furnish thee with other in-
structions, iv. 13).
15 “But if I tarry long (they will be the more need-
ful), that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to be-
have thyself in the house of God, which is the church
of the living God, * the pillar and ground of the
truth.
successfully perform, when they lived suitably to the qualif.
cations of their function, and to the rules of the gospel they
professed and taught.
14 Ver. 15. "Exy 3; 3328dvo, But if I tarry long.] Here
Theodoret well notes, that neither the holy prophets, nor
apostles, knew all things, the grace of the Spirit dictating.
to them only the things which were expedient ; as appears
from these expressions, “hoping to come shortly,” and,
“but if I tary.”
15 x-rºo; wai #882top, a rāg &Anşsiac, The pillar and the
ground of truth.] Here, say the Romanists, the church is
styled “the pillar and the ground of truth,” surely from her
teachers being so ; they being elsewhere styled “pillars,”
Gal. ii. 9, and “foundations,” Eph. ii. 20. Now, say they,
may not all securely rely in their faith on the pillar of truth 2
May they not securely ground their faith upon the ground
of truth P The church therefore being the pillar, and the
ground of truth, we may, without fear of ever erring, rely
upon her. &
Ans. 1. Whereas the objection represents it as certain that
the church is here styled “the pillar and the ground of
truth,” in respect of its teachers, the text seems clearly to
intimate the contrary: for whether we supply the sense of
the words thus, trº; 337 (as), “How thou oughtest;” or with
Theophylact, rā; 3:f toy imickorov, “How a bishop ought to
behave himself in the house of God, which is the church,”
it is evident, that the church,” here mentioned, is put in op-
position to the bishop of it, and is, according to Theodoret
on the place, a ſaxoyo; rāy ºria revèvrov, “the collection of be-
lievers :” and therefore not the church representative, which
is only a ſaxoyo; tāv Ārtaxórov, “an assembly of bishops,”
according to the doctrine of the church of Rome; and there-
fore the infallibility of the church representative can never
be concluded from these words, which so expressly do relate
to the whole system of believers, in distinction from their
bishops. **
Ans. 2. The church here is “the church of the living
God;” not as it comprehends the major part of her visible
members, but only as it comprehends the true and living
members of Christ's body, they being only “the church of
the living God;” so that we must first know who they are,
before we can be guided by them. Now, because this is
impossible to be known with any assurance, it is impossible
that we should be obliged to rely on their judgment in de-
ciding what is truth.
Ans. 3. There is nothing more common, in the language
of the writers of the church, than to style any eminent father
of the church, or assertor of her faith, “the pillar and the
ground of faith.” This title is by Basil + given to Musonius
bishop of Caesarea,to Athanasius, and to the orthodox bishops
banished for the truth ; by Nazianzen,f to Basil, to Atha-
nasius, and to Eusebius, bishop of Samosata ; by Lanfranc
and Rupertus Tuitiensis, it is given to Austin; and yet sure
they were far from thinking that any of these single fathers
were infällible. Whence it must follow, that, according to
the judgment of the church, this phrase did not import in-
fallibility. -
* See Const. Apost. lib. iii, cap. 15.
+ Epist. 62, 67, 70,349.
† Orat. 19, 2], 23, 29.
CHAPTER III.
845
16 And without controversy (or, confessedly) great
is the mystery of godliness : (consisting in these arti-
cles,) "God was manifest in the flesh, justified in
(or by) the Spirit, seen of angels, preached to the
gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into
glory.
Ans. 4. The church cannot here be styled “the pillar and
the ground of truth,” as being the foundation on which truth
is built, and which giveth it authority ; truth being, saith
Chrysostom, * rā, śºkanoia; wai aráxo~ wał #38&ioga, “the
pillar and the grº und of the church,” which is, saith the
apostle, “built on the foundation of the apostles and the
prophets,” Eph. ii. 19, 20. She therefore is the church of
Christ, because she holds the truth ; as is demonstrative from
this, that purely ceasing to do so, her members cease to be
the members of the church : she therefore cannot, by me,
be known to be the church, until I know she holds the truth,
and doth not cease to make profession of it: and when I
first know this, what need have I of her infallible direction
to find out the truth? She therefore may be rather said to be
“the pillar and the ground of truth,” because it is essential
to her being, to maintain and teach all necessary truths;
and because her living members do and will maintain them,
when concealed, denied, or misrepresented by hypocritical
professors: and because she doth preserve and own those
oracles in which the saving truth of Christ is fully and per-
spicuously maintained ; and doth baptize her children into
that symbol, which was always held to be a perfect summary
of Christian faith.
Lastly, The church of that age might be well said to be
“ the pillar and the ground of truth,” because then the
apostles presided in it, who were the pillars and foundations
of the Christian faith, according to the scriptures and the
ancient fathers: thus Theodorett styles Peter and John,
toil; a rēxov; Tā; &AnSeiaç, “the pillars of truth " and CEcu-
menius, f aráňovº rā; triarsw;, i.e. “the pillars of the faith.”
Then also did the apostles and evangelists deliver, and the
church receive, those scriptures which were to be the
standard of the Christian faith, and which were written, saith
Irenaeus, “by the will of God, to be hereafter, columna et
fundamentum fidei nostrae, the pillar and foundation of our
faith :” and which are, saith Athanasius, rā, ºrigrew;
hºw 4) ºveal xai #eirºzara, “the anchors and stabiliments of
our faith.” Then did her members confirm the Christian
faith by miracles, which, by St. Hilary'ſ upon this place,
are styled, “the confirmation of this truth ;" and by their
sufferings for it: on which account the martyrs are peculiarly
styled by the fathers “the steady pillars and the grounds of
Christians.” Now seeing none of these reasons can be ap-
plied to the present church, it will not follow, that she can,
in like manner, claim this title.
* Ver, 16. Oñº payegºn, God was manifested in the
Jiesh.] Here Grotius saith, Suspectam nobis hanc lectionem
faciunt interpretes veteres, Latinus, Syrus, Arabs, et Am-
brosius, qui omnes legunt 3 ipavee&n, i. e. “The Latin,
Syriac, Arabic versions, and Ambrose, all read, ‘The mys.
tery which was revealed in the flesh ;’ which gives us reason
to suspect the other reading, viz. ‘God manifested in the
flesh.' But, (1.) this is a great mistake as to the Arabic ver-
sion, for that reads thus, Quðd Deus, “That God was mani-
fested in the flesh;" and so doth the Syriac, according to the
version of Tremellius: in the Polyglot it runs thus, Magnum
est arcanum justitiae quod justificatus est carne ; which can-
not refer to mystery, but must refer to God or Christ: and
though the Vulgar Latin, and the commentator under the
name of Ambrose, read, Quod manifestum est in carne; yet
he adds, agreeably to the opinion of the Latins, that this
nystery is Christus in carne, “Christ manifested in the flesh,
but concealed in the Spirit,” or, as to his Godhead (see Dr.
* In locum. + Orat. de Provid. tom. iv. p. 441.
: In Gal. ii. 9. § Lib. iii. cap. 1. || Tom. ii. p. 61.
W Firmamentum veritatis hujus sunt signa et prodigia.
Pearson's Windication of this place against Grotius, Creed,
p. 128). In a word, the reading which our translation
follows is owned by all the Greek scholiasts, Chrysostom,
Theodoret, CEcumenius, and Theophylact, and is found in .
all the manuscripts, excepting that of Clermont and Lincoln
College, and the phrases here used do make it necessary to
expound the words, not of the gospel, but of Christ, the
subject of it. For,
l. That exposition, which refers these words unto the
gospel, puts such a strained sense on some of these expres-
sions, of which we meet with no example in the whole New
Testament: for where doth “manifestation in the flesh "
signify the manifestation of a thing by weak and mortal
men P and where is the gospel said to be manifested in the
flesh P where doth &vexhib$n signify the exaltation of the
gospel? or where is it said, that the gospel was received into
glory P -
2. It turns many of those expressions into a metaphorical
Sense, which are literally true of Christ; for, according to
this exposition, “flesh" signifies weak men ; to be “justi-
fied,” to be owned and approved; to be “seen,” is to be
known or revealed; to be “taken up,” is to be exalted in
the minds of men.
3. This strained exposition reduces three of these articles
into one; it being, in effect, the same, to be “believed on in
the world,” by reason of those glorious miracles by which it
was confirmed; and to be owned and approved, by reason
of the operations of the Holy Spirit, which did assist the
preachers of it; and, by that approbation, gloriously exalted
in the minds of men.
These are the inconveniences which attend that exposi-
tion ; whereas the other interpretation, which refers this
mystery to Christ, affords a very plain and literal exposition
of the words, confirmed by parallel expressions frequent in
the holy scripture. For,
l. “The Word,” saith John, “was made flesh, and dwelt
among us (John i. 14), and we have seen his glory ;” #4ays-
£390, “He was manifested,” 1 John iii. 5. 8; iv. 2, “and
came in the flesh, who was the Son of God ;” “He who was
in the form of God, and thought it no robbery to be equal
with God, was found in the likeness of a man,” Phil. ii. 6,
7; “He that was God, blessed for evermore, was also of the
seed of David, according to the flesh,” Rom. ix. 5.
2. He was “justified by the Spirit,” as doing those mira-
cles on earth, by which he justified his mission against all
the accusations of the Jews, by the Spirit of God, Matt. xii.
28, being “declared to be the Son of God with power, by
the Spirit of holiness,” Rom i. 3, 4, by sending that Spirit
after his ascension into heaven, Acts ii. 32, which he had
promised to his disciples upon earth, and by which the world
was convinced, ºrigi Sixaloa Syng, “ of his righteousness,” John
xvi. 10.
3. He was “seen of angels,” who at his entrance into the
world did worship him, Heb, i. 6; who celebrated his birth,
and gave notice of it to the world, Luke ii. 9. 13; who
ministered to him in the desert, Matt. iv. 11, and in his
agonies, Luke xxii. 43. xxiv. 4; who were present at his
resurrection, and attended him at his ascension into heaven,
Acts i. 10.
4. The whole history of the gospel shows, that he was
“preached to the gentiles,” and “believed on in the world.”
5. And, lastly, he was “received up into heaven;" &ve-
$#ero, äyheºn, êvexh4 Sn, “He was taken, he was carried up
into heaven, and sat at the right hand of Majesty in glory,”
Matt. xvi. 19. Luke xxiv. 51. Acts i. 2. 11. And sure so
plain, so full, and literal an exposition of these articles, de-
serves to be preferred before the strained and metaphorical
interpretations of Grotius, Erasmus, and the Socinians.
846
CHAPTER IV.
1 Now (but though the mystery of godliness be
so fully confirmed), the Spirit (in the scripture)
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP, IV.
* Ver: 1. To II, stºa fintãº, Aéys, The Spirit saith evpressly.]
Hence Mr. Mede concludes, That the apostle must refer to
some prophecy of these things recorded in the scriptures;
for though the Spirit in the apostles advertised them of
many things, viz. “The Spirit said to Peter, Behold three
men seek thee,” Acts x. 19 ; “The Spirit said, Separate me
Barnabas and Saul, for-the work of the ministry,” Acts xiii.
2 (see Acts xvi. 6. xxi. 11); yet he did this only, #y Seáºzart,
“in a vision,” Acts x. 19, or by secret inspirations (and so
not intãº, “expressly”). But to this the fathers answer,
That the word finrös here signifies only pavsgög, capó,
“clearly and perspicuously;” to which it may be added,
that in those times of prophecy, when the prophets had the
government of the churches, and spake still in the public
assemblies, it might reasonably be said, “The Spirit speak-
eth expressly,” what they taught expressly in the church.
And whereas hence he infers, that this prophecy must be
found somewhere in the Old Testament, the reverend Dr.
Hammond thinks that unnecessary, this apostasy being fore-
told by our Prophet, who had the Spirit without measure,
saying, Matt. xxiv. 11, 12, “Then many shall be scandalized,
and many false prophets shall arise, zai ºrnavácovai, and shall
deceive many; and because iniquity shall abound, the love
of many shall wax cold.” I confess, Mr. Mede seems to
have found this prophecy, Dan. xi. 36–39. But to omit
all other objections against his interpretation of the words,
I can by no means think that Daniel, so well acquainted
with the import of “strange gods,” both in the law and
the prophets, should give that infamous name, nº nibs,
“a strange god,” to our blessed Saviour; or that he should
at the same time prophesy, that antichrist should acknow-
ledge and increase Christ with honour, and yet divest Christ
of his glory and honour, by setting up mahuzzim in oppo-
sition to his offices. But considering that this epistle, ac-
cording to Bishop Pearson, was writ in the eleventh of Nero,
A.D. 64, why may we not refer this prediction, either to the
a postasy, finrås, “expressly” mentioned 2 Thess. ii. 3. 9, or
to the predictions of the apostles mentioned by Jude, ver.
17–19 P -
* "Eyüarégol; Katººſ, In the latter times.] The Jewish doc-
tors lay this down as a rule, that wherever we find this phrase,
tº nºnrish, “in the latter days,” we are to understand it
of the age and times of the Messiah : so, Gen. xlix. 1, “Ga-
ther yourselves together,” saith Jacob to his sons, “that I
may tell you what will befall you, in ex4+oy rºy hasgºw, in
the last times, i.e. the days when “the sceptre shall depart
from Judah, and Shilóh (the Messiah) shall come;” Numb.
xxiv. 14, “Come,” saith Balaam, “and I will tell thee what
shall befall thy people #7' #axarov táv Husey, in the latter
days,” i. e. when “the Star comes out of Jacob, and the
Sceptre ariseth out of Israel;” i. e. “when the Messiah
comes,” saith the Targum of Onkelos, on ver. 17 ; Isa. ii. 2.
“In the last days the mountain of the Lord shall be csta-
blished on the top of the mountains, and all nations shall
flow into it:” “In the times of the Messiah,” say R. Salo-
mon, and other Jews. Jer. xxiii. 20, “In the latter days
ye shall understand this;” “In the days of the Messiah.”
Targum on ver. 5; Dan. ii. 28, “There is a God of heaven
who maketh known to the king what shall come to pass,”
in Baxárov táv Hºsºv, from his times, till the kingdom of
the Messiah be set up, wer. 44; see also x. 14; Hosea iii. 5,
“Afterward they shall return, and shall seek the Lord, and
David their king” (Targ. “Messiah their king, the Son of
David”), “in the latter days;” Micah iv. 1, 7. In the last
days shall the mountain of the Lord be established upon the
top of the mountains:” where Dr. Pocock saith, that “ by
‘the last days’ are meant, the days or times of the Messiah
or Christ, is agreed on by some Jews and most Christians.”
speaketh expressly, that “in the latter times "some
shall depart from the faith (once embraced by them),
And wherever we meet with this phrase in the New Testa-
ment, it manifestly refers to the beginnings of Christianity,
and signifies the last times of the Jewish state or economy,
concurring with the times of the Messiah, and the erecting
of his kingdom, by calling the gentiles, and settling a Chris-
tian church, to succeed that of the Jews. Thus, when the
Holy Ghost fell down on the apostles and disciples, “This
is that,” saith Peter, “which was spoken of by the prophet
Joel, saying, In the last days I will pour my Spirit upon
all flesh,” Acts ii. 17; so, Heb. i. 1, “God, who of old
spake to our fathers by the prophets, it iszárov táv xiàoy,
in these last days hath spoken to us by bis Son,” i. e.
by him who, saith Peter, was “foreordained from the be-
ginning of the world, but was manifested, iw' taxárov táv
Xzóvoy, in the last times;” where the times of Christ's
manifestation to the world, and of his preaching to the Jews,
are manifestly styled “the last times.” So, James v. 3,
“You have treasured up your gold and silver, as fire, which
shall eat your flesh, i, iexérat; ºak, in the last days;"
2 Pet. iii. 3, “This know ye, it’ & 24tov táv Høegåy, in the
last times there shall come mockers,” &c., and that they
were then come, we learn from ver. 5, “This they are igno-
rant of;” and Jude, ver, 17, 18, “Remember the words
spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that
they said unto you, that iv is xárº X;%, in the last time
there should be mockers, walking after their own lusts:”
and that they were then come, is evident from the following
words, “These are they who separate themselves,” &c. ver.
19. And, 1 John ii. 18, “Little children, iexãrn &pg irri,
it is now the last hour, and, as you have heard, that anti-
christ shall (then) come, so now are there many antichrists,
whereby, you may know that this is the last hour; so
2 Tim. iii. 1, 2, “This know, that in the last days, iv iºxá-
ºral; hateau;, there shall be perilous times, for men shall be
lovers of themselves ;” and that those times, or days, and
persons, were then come, is evident from his exhortation to
“turn away” from them, ver. 5, and his character of them,
ver. 6, #x roºrov, “Of these are they that creep into houses,”
&c. And that the “last times” here mentioned were already
come, we learn from his admonition to Timothy, to “put
the brethren in mind of thcse things,” ver, 4. Here, then '.
is another defect in Mr. Mede's ingenious interpretation o:
these words, that he hath not made it out that “the last times’
are to be extended beyond the first century, or the age of
the apostles. Mr. Mede saith, “These words are not a nar-
ration of things present, but a prediction of what shall betide
the Christian faith in aftertimes.” I answer, they are in-
deed a narrative of what the Spirit had foretold should hap-
pen “in the latter times,” by an apostasy from the faith :
but the determination of the time when what was thus fore,
told should be accomplished, depends on the fixed import of .
“ the latter times:” for these “last times,” saith Mr. Mede,
being mentioned as the indication when this apostasy should
take place, must therefore be sufficient to determine the
time of this apostasy: and so they plainly do, according to
my interpretation. But if, with others, you refer these “last
times” to the whole times of antichrist, they began not till
above four hundred years after the writing of this epistle ;
and why then is the apostle so concerned that Timothy the,
should “put the brethren in remembrance of these things?
ver, 6, and they contain twelve hundred and sixty years;
and so cannot inform us in what period, or precise portion
of that time, this apostasy should have its rise.
* 'Aroorºcorrat rivec rā, ºriatex, Some shall depart from
the faith..] Here seems another defect of Mr. Mede's hypo:
thesis, that he makes these words to signify only a partial
declining from the faith, and that again only virtual and con-
sequential, by setting up doctrines opposite to or inconsistent
with it, though not owned to be so by them that embrace
them; whereas apostasy from the faith seems plainly to im-
CHAPTER IV.
847
| men), having their consciences seared with a hot iron,
“giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of
devils;
2 Speaking lies in "hypocrisy (Gr. Šv Útrokptost
pºvěoxöy ov, through the hypocrisy of liars, and of
port a falling off from it wholly, or at least an actual and
professed renouncing of some essential part of it.
* TIgoa'Éxpyre; ºrvetºzart ºrxāvol;, xat Stěaa waxial; 3alp.ovíoy,
Giving heed to seducing spirits, and to doctrines of devils.]
These words, by all the ancient commentators, seem to be
taken actively for those doctrines which are introduced by men
led by the suggestions of Satan and of evil spirits ; these
doctrines being, saith Theodoret, Éxsivoy ºvāºara, “the pro-
ductions of those evil spirits;” and they who went them are,
saith Chrysostom, of it’ #xsivoy vegyoſaswo, “men acted by
them.” The false prophets and false apostles, saith the au-
thor of the interpolated Epistle to the Philadelphians, had
Aao"račvoy ºrvetºza (S. 5), “a spirit that deceived the people;”
they preached &mdrºy wai ºrxávny, “deceit and error,” and
had dwelling in them, Töv Spázov'ra roy &mocrátov, “the apos-
tate dragon.” These false prophets had, saith John, wysſua
rā, ºrxávnº, “a spirit of error;” as the apostles had IIvetºza
~5: 3AnSeiar, “the Spirit of truth,” 1 John iv. l. 6. So far
it is from being true, that the word spirit signifies doctrines,
and not those “deluding spirits” which taught them; yet be-
cause “the prince of devils,” Matt. ix. 34, “the spirit of the
devil,” Luke iv. 33. Rev. xvi. 14, the “sacrifice,” the “ta-
ble,” the “cup of devils,” I Cor. x. 20, 21, the “habitation
of devils,” Rev. xviii. 2, are phrases where 8aigºvia, “ devils,”
are still taken objectively, I admit that sense also here; and
then the apostasy, procured by “the spirits of deceit,” is that
of the Judaizers, relapsing from the profession of the Chris-
tian faith, through those false Christs and false prophets, of
which our Saviour foretold they should “deceive many,”
Matt. xxiv. 11. 24; whereas they, who apostatized by falling
back to heathenism, are they who give heed to the doctrines
of demons: for dii gentium daemonia, “the gods of the hea-
thens are demons.” -
* Ver. 2. ‘Eyütroxgia's lºvěoxáyov, Through the hypocrisy
of false speakers.] Ev pro 8:3, through, is very common; so
#2 Tráan 3réºrn 33iniac, “Through all deceivableness of un-
righteousness,” 2 Thess, ii. 9, 10 (see Mark ix. 29. Luke i.
17. Acts xvii. 31. Rom. xii. 21. Tit. i. 9. 2 Pet. iii. 1),
xeKaurnpizzºvoy rºw a veiènºv, “ of seared consciences,” i. e.
of consciences, which have lost the sense of good or evil, and
no longer do their office: for this expression, saith Theo-
doret, signifies, tºy #zzárnv attày &voxynalay, “the extreme
stupor of their consciences;” for the member seared, weapo-
Sei, Tây reorépay alcºnaw, 3ro84xxes, “being mortified, hath
lost its former sensation.” -
* Ver. 3. Koxvávrov yaºiv, 3réxed-Sat 8pop,4twy, For-
bidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats.]
It is here to be noted from Theophylact, that in construing
these words, oùx psiAgic ätrö wowoº A&6=ty rô woxvávrov &xx'
#ošev ºrporðsſyai rô a vºz80UAEüoytov & réxicºat 6pouároy, “we
must not repeat the word ‘forbidding,” but add, in lieu of it,
‘counselling to abstain from meats:’” so all the ancients
have interpreted these words of Clemens Alexdrinus,” when
he saith, où woxvréow ) apºléºv, où paiv xpso paysty, “We must
not forbid to marry, nor yet to eat flesh.” The apostle,
saith Tertullian, notes them who wholly forbade marriage,
and interdicted meats. And Epiphanius saith,; This of the
apostle is fulfilled in the Cataphrygae and other heretics, for
most of them, rod yawsfy xoxãovaty, 3réxed-Sat 8pop.4toy ºra-
payyáNAova'iy, “forbid marriage, and command to abstain
from meats.” This, in effect, is the interpretation of all the
ancient commentators on the place, who give us the same
sense of the words as do the fathers cited; and of all the
translations, which, though they do not add the word
commanding, yet they add a copulative, and change the
infinitive into a participle, thus, Prohibentes mubere, et
abstinentes à cibis, Syriac; Prohibentes matrimonium, et
* Strom. lib. iii. p. 462.
† Notat apostolus eos qui in totum nubere prohibebant,
qui et de cibis interdicebant quos Deus condidit. De Monog.
cap. 15. -
† Haer. xlviii. p. 410, sect. 8.
(i.e. of corrupt and profligated consciences :
3 Of men) "forbidding (those whom they have se-
duced) to marry, and (commanding them) to abstain
amoventes cibos, Arabic. And Bochart gives us instances
of the like nature from the Old Testament, viz. Gen. xxxi.
40, “By the heat of the day was I burnt, and by the frost
of the night (obrigescebam) I waxed stiff with cold;” Ps.
cxxi. 6, “The sun shall not burn thee by day, nor the moon
(refrigerate thee) by night:” so Luke xiii. 9, “If it bring
forth fruit (it shall stand), if not, thou shalt cut it down.”
That all these things happened in the apostle's times, and
many of them were to happen before the destruction of Je-
rusalem, is evident; that there was to be a great apostasy
before that time, carried on by prophets and false Christs,
our Lord expressly had foretold; and that in great measure
it had obtained, especially among the Jews, we learn from
the Epistle to the Hebrews, writ purposely to put a stop to it;
that the great promoters of it were “deceitful workers, false
apostles,” and that they carried on that work in hypocrisy,
esteeming gain godliness, this apostle doth often inform us
(see 2 Cor. ii. 17. xi. 13–15); that they were men whose
minds and consciences were defiled, see Tit. i. 15; that their
doctrine was this, “It is good for a man not to touch a wo-
man,” 1 Cor. vii. 1; their vain philosophy this, “Taste not”
(forbidden meats), “handle not” (an unclean thing), see
Col. ii. 21. It remains only to consider, who they should
be : that they could not be the Gnostics, the followers of
Simon Magus, I have proved against Dr. Hammond, note
on Col. ii. 21. Moreover, according to his exposition, they
were to appear before the destruction of Jerusalem; for he
interprets these words, “The Spirit speaketh expressly” of
our Lord's prediction, Matt. xxiv. Now there were no such
heretics among the Gnostics until the second century. Sa-
turninus, saith Theodoret,” “was the first who named matri-
mony the doctrine of devils, and taught men to abstain from
living creatures.” Now this Saturninus was before Ba-
silides,' who by Jerome, is often called “the father of the
Gnostics;” whereas that these men were in the apostle's
times, we learn, saith Tertullian,S from the apostles them-
selves. I have noted on 1 Cor. vii. 1, and on Col. ii. 21
conjectured, that they were the Essenes among the Jews;
and that with them agreed the magicians and idolaters
among the heathens, we learn from Clemens of Alexandria,
who speaking of those heretics, who said “the resurrection
had passed on them already, kai 31& rotºro 36erotia's rêy yáºzov,
and therefore rejected matrimony,” he saith this was not pe-
culiar to these Memandrians, “but they who worshipped
idols did also abstain from meats and venery; and the magi-
cians, who worshipped angels and demons, did also carefully
abstain from wine, from living creatures, and from venery.”
And if Saturninus, who succeeded Menander, who flou-
rished in the time of Domitian and Trajan, did in this, as
in most other things, rà air& Tº Meyávögº Jºsvěoxoyńa'at,
“agree in sentiments with Menander,” as Eusebius'ſ saith
he did, the apostle may reasonably be conceived to include:
him : for Epiphanius saith of him in the very words of Ire-
naus,” that it “he affirmed that to marry, and beget chil-
* Töv 33 yágoy cºro; ºrpäto: roi; 3,286xov 3rdaa-zaxłay &vá&aa's,
yogoşers; 38 xal pºlixoy &réxecóat. Haer. Fab. lib. i. cap. 3.
+ Mortuus est autem Basilides, ā quo Gnostici in Alexan-
drià, temporibus Hadriani in Agrippå.
f Barlºsiºn; aigerićexn; "Ax=&av?psû, & p' of of yoarikoi.
Euseb. Chr. ad An. 134. A quo Gnostici. Hieron.
§ Quae sub apostolis fuisse ab ipsis apostolis discimus. De
Praescr. cap. 33, 34.
| "Axx' oi xai ră ştºwaa cagáveyoi 3pop, &roy re &ºa wał
ãºobicioy &réxoyºtal &p.áàgt ölä ºpov'rí30; ioti Mai roſ;
Awāyou; oiyou rs #205 xai épºlº Yoy wai épé08-iwy &#x2-624,
Natpetovziy &yyáxot;, xat Saipaoa iv. Strom. iii. p. 446, B, C.
"| Hist. Eccl. lib. iv. cap. 7. -
** Nubere et generare à Satana dicunt esse, multi autem
ex is Sunt qui ab eo et ab animalibus abstinent, per fictam
hujitsmodi continentiam Seducentes multos. Iren. lib. i.
cap. 22. r
++ T3 yap, ety 3: Kai rā yewāv
2 * * ºf p g
#x row Sarayå birápx?ty Asyst,
848
I. TIMOTHY.
from meats, which God hath created to be received
with thanksgiving of them that believe and know the
truth (i. e. who are instructed aright in their Christian
liberty; for though nothing be unclean of itself, yet to
him who through weakness esteemeth anything unclean,
to him it is unclean, Rom. xiv. 14).
4 For every creature of God is good (for food), and
nothing (is) to be refused (as polluted), if it be (Gr.
being) received with thanksgiving. -
5 For it is "sanctified by the word of God, (giving
us commission to eat of all things, Gen. ix. 2, 3, or by
the gospel, taking off the difference betwixt things clean
and unclean, Rom. xiv. 14,) and (by) prayer (for a
blessing on it, and thanksgiving for it).
6 If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these
things (to preserve them from these impostors), thou
shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up
in the words of faith and of good doctrine, whereunto
thou hast attained (or, which thou hast followed hither-
to J.
7 But refuse (avoid) profane and old wives’ fables,
(such as the Jewish doctors tell, i. 4.6. Tit. i. 14. iii. 9,)
and exercise thyself rather (in those things which tend,
not as they do, to endless questions, and law-strifes,
and the perversion of the faith, but) unto ungodliness.
8 For *bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness
is profitable to all things, having the promise of the
life that now is, and of that which is to come.
9 This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all accep
tation (a truth most worthy to be relied on, viz. that
godliness hath the promise of that life which is to
come).
dren, was from Satan, and that hence many of them ab-
stained from living creatures; and by this feigned continence
seduced many to their heresy.” And this is the more
likely, because it is noted of this Menander, that he pro-
ceeded eig &xpoy rā; p.ayiaç, “to the height of that magic,”
which was attended with that abstinence, Iren, lib. i. cap.
21. Euseb. H. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 26. It is no objection
against this interpretation, that the Essenes mentioned by
Philo and Josephus were not Christians, and so could not
“depart from the faith:” for who can prove that none of
them embraced the faith of Christ, or that they could not do
it, and yet retain their old sentiments concerning meats and
marriage 2 It may be also true, that the Menandrians were
not yet formed into a sect when this epistle was indited ;
but that affects not my interpretation, since it is certain
from 1 Cor. viii. 1. Col. ii. 16 (see the notes there), that
their doctrines obtained before ; and that the persons here
intended must be Judaizers, is fairly gathered from ver. 7,
and from these words, “Commanding to abstain from meats,
which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of
them that believe and know the truth;?” for those last words
show, that these persons were such as had no faith, or
knowledge of that Christian truth, that “every creature of
God was good (for food), and nothing was to be refused,” as
polluted or unclean, ver. 4. Add to this, that Dr. Light-
foot, note on Acts xv. 20, quotes this passage from Bava
Bathra, fol. 602, viz. that “when the temple was destroyed
the second time, the pharisees (i.e. separatists) were greatly
rhultiplied in Israel, who taught that it was not lawful to eat
flesh, or to drink wine,” and a little after say, “It is but
just that we should ordain among ourselves not to marry
wives, nor beget children.:” and if these pharisees then es-
poused these tenets, they may be the persons here noted by
the apostle. Thus I have given my own opinion concerning
the true and primary import of these words. Others, I
know, conceive that they refer to the apostasy of the church
of Rome, and therefore descant on them thus:
Wer. 1. “But (in opposition to this mystery of godliness,
mentioned iii. 15, 16, there is another mystery of iniquity,
of which) the Spirit speaketh expressly (Dan. xi. 36–39,
saying), that in the latter times some shall depart from the
faith, giving heed to erroneous spirits and doctrines of de-
vils.”
Wer. 1. ‘Evila régotº, In the latter days.] That is, in the
times of antichrist, 1 John ii. 18. Dan. ii. 44 (see Hos. iii. 5.
Micah iv. 1).
'Atro-rho ov'rai rā; Trio reac, Some shall depart from the
faith..] Idolatry being represented in the Old Testament as
apostasy from the law of Moses, and the God of Israel, the
like idolatry in the church of Rome may well be counted an
apostasy from the Christian faith.
IIporáxovires ºrvsö...act ºraúvoic, Giving heed to seducing
spirits.] i. e. Men acted by seducing spirits: for trysdaara
doth often signify the impulses or afflatuses of good or evil
spirits; of good, so 1 Cor. xiv. 12, “You are zealous, Trygv-
£24voy, of spiritual gifts,” or afflatuses, and so throughout the
chapter ; of evil spirits, as 1 John iv. 1, “Believe not every
#Bev xa; of Tratiovº airów #4 pixoy &Tréxoviral, Širo; 31& ric
orgoa troint; 8798w troxtreia; abrów riva #mayáywyrat E3: rhy
airy &rArmy. Haer. xxiii. Ş. 2.
spirit, but try the spirits.” Accordingly, the coming of the
man of sin is to be kar’ #vépystav roi, 2arayå, “according to
the energy of Satan, with all lying wonders ” (2 Thess. ii.
9): so was the idolatrous worship of the gentiles promoted,
say Tertullian,” Eusebius, and Chrysostom: ; so also was
the worship of saints promoted in the church of Rome (see
Mr. Mede, lib. iii. cap. 3, 4).
Kai 3.8aa waxia; 3alp.oyiov, And to doctrines of devils;] i. e.
To the heathen theology concerning demons, or giving heed
to the doctrine concerning the worship of dead men, or
departed saints, brought in by their pretended apparitions
and wonders wrought at their tombs after death, which were
indeed, if at all done, wrought by the illusions of devils.
Wer. 2. ‘Ey Štroxgiast, Which apostasy shall be promoted.]
By the hypocrisy of liars, which have their conscience Seared.
Through the hypocrisy, &c.] Hence it is argued, that
they, who thus promote and carry on this apostasy, must
not be open deserters, but hypocritical professors of that
faith, from which they by their actions virtually depart.
Wer. 3. Koſºvávrov yaºsiv, Forbidding to marry..] “(And
the men I speak of may be discerned by these marks, that
they are) of those who forbid to marry, and command to
abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received
with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the
truth:” as is done in the Roman church to monks and nuns,
(see Mr. Mede, lib. iii. cap. 7), and to the clergy; and that,
Saith pope Siricius, quoniam qui in carne sunt, Deo placere
non possunt, “because they that are in the flesh cannot
please God.”
'Atréxsa Sat 820,44toy, To abstain from meats.] That this
is done in the Roman church, by a law obliging some orders
of monks to abstain from all flesh, see Mr. Mede, ibid.: and
this may well be reckoned as a character of apostasy from
the Christian faith, because it seems to be a reducing of them
back from their Christian liberty, to a conformity to the
legal rites.
7 Wer. 5. ‘Aylägeral, It is sanctified.] So the Jews from
these words, Ps. cxxxiv. 2, “Lift up your hands (vip,
ad sanctitatem), and bless the Lord,” gather, that the bene-
diction is the sanctification of the , meat, and that it is not
lawful to eat of it till it be thus sanctified (Buxt, Syn. Jud.
cap. 12, p. 241).
* Ver. 8. Xaptatixi yuuyavſa, Bodily evercise.] The apos-
tle in the former verse exhorted Timothy, yupayáðely, to
exercise himself unto godliness, as the athletics did, in the
Olympic games, exercise themselves for their combats;
adding here, that their exercises, though they were very hard
and difficult, tended little to profit, they striving for mastery
only that they might obtain “a corruptible crown,” l Cor.
ix. 25; whereas that piety, in which he did advise him to
exercise himself, was “profitable for all things;” or, because
Philo makes mention rāy avyºzºv révoy, “ of the continual
labours” of the Essenes, and Josephus, of their keyaqiaº,
or “exercises morning and evening,” he perhaps may oppose
unto them this exercise of piety. -
— = **
* Apol. cap. 21. + Praef. Evang, lib. v. cap 2
:: Orat. contra Judaiz. tom. vi. p. 375.
§ De Vità Cont. p. 692, B.
| De Bello Jud. p. 785, 786.
CHAPTER IV.
S49
10 For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach,
because we trust in the living God, "who is the Savi-
our of all men, especially of those that believe.
11. These things command (Gr. eaſhort) and teach
(men to believe).
12 Let no man (have occasion to) despise "thy
youth, (or thy function, by reason of its) but be thou
an example of (and to) believers, in word (of doctrine),
in (gravity of conversation, in charity (to all), in
(fervency of) spirit, in faith, in purity (of life).
13 "Till I come (to thee), give attendance to read-
ing (the holy scriptures, whence thou mayest learn to
teach others), to exhortation (to what they ought to do,
and to avoid), to doctrine (teaching them what to believe).
* Ver. 10. "O; for carrºp träyraw 3,086Toy, Who is the Sa-
viour of all men.] The author of the book De Vocatione
Gentium expounds this very well, telling us, that “by saying
(lib. ii. cap. 3]), “He is the Saviour of all men,” he con-
firms the general goodness of God towards all men; and by
adding, ‘especially of them that believe,’ he shows, there is
one part of mankind, which, through the benefit of divinely-
inspired faith, is, by special benefits, advanced to the highest
and eternal felicity.” He is the Saviour of all men, (1.)
Leaving none of them without some testimonies of his good-
ness (Acts xiv. 17), sufficient to engage and direct them so
to seek the Lord, that they may find him (Acts xvii. 27),
lib. ii. 5, Nulli nationi hominum bonitatis suae dona Sub-
traxit, saith the same author. (2.) Showing to them so
much of himself, i.e. of his eternal power and godhead, as
might render them inexcusable, in that they “did not glorify
him as God, neither were they thankful” (Rom. i. 20, 21);
and writing in their hearts the law of nature, which enabled
them by nature to do the things of the law, and made their
consciences accuse them, when they neglected so to do ;
(Rom. ii. 14, 15), they knowing so far the righteousness of
God, that “they who did those things” which were contrary
to the law of nature, “were worthy of death" (Rom. i. 32):
for, adhibita est semper universis hominibus quaedam supernae
mensura doctrinae, quae etsi Occultioris, parciorisque gratiae
fuit, suffecit tamen quibusdam ad remedium, omnibus ad
testimonium. (3.) Accepting everywhere him that worked
righteousness, of what nation soever he might be (Acts x.
35), and accounting him as circumcised who kept the righ-
teousness of the law (Rom. ii. 26): and, lastly, rewarding
the good deeds of all that diligently sought him (Heb. xi. 6).
Mr. Clerc understands this salvation of deliverance from
temporal, dangers, in which sense it is also true; but that
cannot be the entire sense of the apostle, who had said be-
fore, ver. 8, that “godliness had the promise of this life, and
that which is to come,” i.e. both of temporal and eternal
Salvation ; and adds, ver, 9, “This is a faithful saying, and
worthy of all acceptation;” i. e. that not temporal only but
eternal blessings are to be expected from him, and that there-
fore they, the apostles, laboured and suffered reproach, “be.
cause they trusted in the living God, who is the Saviour of
all men ;” whereas, doubtless, they did this, not only with
respect to temporal, but especially to eternal salvation (2
Cor. iv. 17).
* Ver. 12. Tºy veárnºra, Thy youth.] The presbyters were
generally in those times aged, as their name imports; but
Timothy, because the gift of prophecy had pointed him out
for that work (ver. 14), and because the gifts of the Spirit
had rendered him fit, was made an evangelist in his younger
age, and therefore the apostle doth exhort him to make up
in the excellency of his doctrine, and the gravity of his con-
Versation, what was wanting in his age.
* Ver. 13.] Here, First, It is well noted by the fathers,
and by Esthius, that if Timothy, who had spiritual gifts, was
yet, by Paul, commanded to be thus diligent in reading the
Scriptures, that in his exhortations he might profit others,
then much more should other bishops and ministers be so,
quos omnes Paulus in Timotheo instruit; then also should
they not depend upon extemporary effusions, without attend-
ance unto reading.
Secondly, That the illumination or gifts of the Holy Spirit
should not hinder our diligence in reading and studying what
we are to exhort others to, and instruct them in : for, Saith
*
14 Neglect not (to stir up) the gift that is in thee,
(see note on 2 Tim. i. 6) which was given thee by
prophecy (according to the foregoing prophecies con-
cerning thee, see note on 1 Tim. i. 18) * with the lay-
| ing on of the hands of the presbytery.
15 Meditate on these things (which thou readest in
the holy scriptures, and in which thou instructest others,
ver. 15), give thyself wholly to them (to eahortation
and doctrine, ver. 13) that (so thou mayest perform
them with such readiness and ea actness, that) thy pro-
fiting may appear unto all.
16 °Take heed to thyself (that thou livest eacempla–
rily, ver, 12) and to thy doctrine (that it be sound and
edifying, ver. 6); continue in them (in the emercises
Theodoret, it becomes us to bring our labour, Kai otºro Aaº-
8ávew riv xáply roš IIvečwaroº, “and so to receive the grace of
the Spirit.” -
* Ver. 14. Men's Barišádiz, rºw Xelçãy Trpºrðursgiou, Wilh
the imposition of the hands of the presbytery.] The Xàptopaz,
or spiritual gift here mentioned, is expressly said to be given,
31& rā, śriščarew; rāv xeigów (wov, by the laying on of the
hands of Paul, 2 Tim. i. 6 ; the giving of the spiritual gifts
seeming to be peculiar to this or some other act of an apostle,
Acts viii. 17. xix. 6. But other seniors, or presbyters, as
Ireneaeus, lib. iv. cap. 43, calls them, qui cum episcopatus
successione charisma veritatis certum acceperunt, “who
with their succession received the certain charisma of truth,”
might and did lay on their hands together with him. This
ceremony of imposition of hands in ordination is confirmed
from the practice of the apostles and apostolical men, thus
ordaining deacons, Acts vi. 6, pastors, or teachers of the
word, Acts xiii. 3, elders, whether bishops or presbyters, in
every city, Acts xiv. 23, and evangelists, here. And this
practice they certainly derived from the Jews, who created
governors of criminal causes, or ruling elders, and masters,
doctors, and rabbins, to be teachers of the law ; i. e. to labour
in the word and doctrine, by that imposition of hands which
they called Hºpp, as Moses did to Joshua, Numb. xxvii. 18,
Deut. xxxiv. 9, and as Maimonides” saith he did, when he
assumed the Seventy to assist him ; and as the first-bornt
“laid their hands upon the Levites,” Numb. viii. 10, who
were chosen to serve in their stead, and so consccrated them
to God in their name. And this way of consecration, by
imposition of hands, say they, came down from Joshua, f “by
a perpetual succession to their rabbins.” Though therefore
I scarce find any footsteps of it in the first century, or second,
yet Cyprian, in the third, speaks of it as that which, de tra-
ditione divină et apostolică observatione servandum est et
tenendum, “was to be observed and held from divine tradi-
tion, and apostolical observation, in the collation of the epi-
scopal office,” and as that which they $ practised in the
ordination of Sabinus to that office. Eusebius Saith, Origen
also was thus advanced to the presbytery by the bishops of
Caesarea: and the Apostolical Constitutions give us this as
an ordinance of John the apostle," who, doubtless, when he
returned from Patmos to Ephesus, regulating the churches,
and constituting bishops, did it according to the rites of the
Jews, and practice of the other apostles; whence I conclude,
this is no accidental but a necessary rite of the due ordination
of bishops, presbyters, and deacons.
13 Ver, 16. 'Etiºsys iy abroſ...] See the defence of these
words, Examen Millii.
* Sanhed. cap. 4. + See Chaskumi on the place.
j: Morin. de Sacr. Ordin. par. iii. ex. 7, §. 3.
§ Quod et apud vos factum videmus in Sabini college
nostri ordinatione, ut de universae fraternitatis suffragio, et
de episcoporum qui in praesentiã convenerant judicio, episco-
patus ei deferretur, et manus ei in locum Basilidis imponere-
tur. Ed. Ox. ep. 67, p. 172.
| ‘O 'Qglyávnº Trésa'8vreetov xsigośsaiav iy Katarapeig tre?: táv
+jēs triaxánov &vaxapagávei. Hist. Eccl. lib. vi., cap. 23.
T "orov way friguárov, watarrhaw, §rov 3; 3xas wºmata:
&éºéroy. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. vi. cap. 23, p. 92. Tºg-
gårepoy Xsigoroväy, & iria wors, rºw xiiga iwi ris Kipawi ºr rés
airá. Const. Apost. lib. viii. cap. 16. Wide De Diaconis,
cap. 17. - - - -
3 I
850
I. TIMOTHY.
mentioned ver. 12, 13): for in doing this thou shalt them that hear thee (by engaging them to perform
both save thyself (by doing faithfully thy duty), and theirs).
CHAPTER V.
1 'REBUKE not *an elder (with severity), but en-
treat him as a father; and the younger men as
brethren (in respect of thy youth, iv. 12). -
2 *The elder women as mothers; the younger as
sisters, (being careful to converse with them, when ne-
cessity requires it,) with all purity (with gravity in your
words and countenance, observance of your eyes and
heart, at times and places which can minister no suspi-
cion of undue behaviour towards them).
3 *Honour widows that are "widows indeed.
4 But if any widow have children or nephews, "let
them (i. e. those children or grand-children) learn first
(or chiefly) to show piety at home (i. e. to their own
Jamily or household), and to requite their parents (who
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. W.
* Ver. 1. Mā Śrºx#nc. Rebuke not..] The word signifies
to chastise, or rebuke with severity, and sometimes with
stripes.
.* Hººvrípº, An elder.] In the judgment of Chrysostom,
. Theodoret, CEcumenius, and Theophylact, the “elder” here
signifies, où röy isgéa, 3xx& rāy yeyngakāra, “not a priest, but
a grave ancient man,” such being, in all ages and nations,
styled, fathers; and this sense the distinction here, of ages
and of sexes, seems to plead for.
* Ver, 2. IIgszávrépas, The elder women.] “The widows
of the church,” saith Dr. Hammond, very improbably ;
they being mentioned particularly in the sequel of the
ehapter. -
* Ver, 3. Tiwa, Honour.] i. e. Yield them reverence
and alimony ; for that provision for them is included in this
“honour,” is evident from ver, 4 and 8. Thus, not to give
Parents what is needful for them, is to transgress the precept
which commands us to “honour our father and our mother,”
Mark vii. 10–12. So Acts xxviii. 10, roxxaſ; 'rip.af,
****ay hºàº, “They honoured us with many honours,
§ving us, tº "rºs rāy Xesſay, such things as were necessary.”
Henge, in the Jerusalem Targum,” Honorare, estviaticum
Providere ; “To honour is to make provision for any per-
son:” so here, “Honour widows;” that is, saith Theophy-
lact, rà évaykaia xophys, “provide them necessaries” (see
note on Mark vii. 10).
* Tês vra, Xàga;, That are widows indeed.] Answering
that name, by being xngoûoat, “desolate,” and destitute of
any other to relieve them, and being also exemplarily pious
(ver. 5). “Widows,” saith Cotelerius, hath divers signifi-
§ations ; it signifies, (1.) Any woman that survives her hus-
band, (2) Poor women, who, after the death of their hus.
bands, need the alms of the church (as here). (3.) Such
as consecrated themselves to God, professing perpetual
Widowhood (ver. 5). (4.) Such as were chose into the
ecclesiastical ministry, or made deaconesses (ver, 9). That
there should be any Asirassivo, or persons that were always
Yºginº, Called, tº raeśvovº, rā, Āsyoºva, Xàpac, widows;
though the passage of Ignatius, according to Vossius's read-
.g., seems to make for it; yet, according to the reading of
Bishop Usher (étiqatsiyev; Małºga;), it makes against it ;
and Virgo vidua, “a virgin widow,” that is admitted to the
degree of a deaconess, is, in Tertullian's language, a mira-
Sle or monster in the church. It is certain, such a one could
be none of the apostle's widows here; for he Supposeth his
widows may have children, ver, 4, and expressly forbids
any to be chosen into the number of widows, that hath not ||
nourished or brought up children, ver. 9, 16; and it is not
reasonable to conceive the church of Smyrna should so
* In Deut. xv. 14.
t Ne tale nunc miraculum, me dixerim monstrum, in
ecclesia denotaretur virgo vidua. De Virgin. Weland, cap. 9.
have bred them up, ver. 10); for that is good and ac-
ceptable before God (and then, if they be able, eatend
their charity to others).
5 Now she that is a widow indeed, and "desolate
(being left quite alone, without any children to relieve
her), *trusteth in God, and continuethin supplications
and prayers night and day.
6 But "she that liveth in pleasure (licentiously) is
dead (to God), whilst she (thus) liveth (and so is not
to be respected as a vital member of the church, or
nourished by her). …”
7 And these things give in charge, that they (i. e.
the widows) may be blameless.
8 But if any (having ability) provide not for his own
soon transgress against this rule of the apostle, or that this
famous martyr should approve such a violation of the apos-
tle's precept. .
Note also, That the reading of Bishop Usher is con-
firmed from the like words, # tragºvog, kai # Xīga, found in
the Apostolical Constitutions, lib. iii. cap. 6.
* Ver. 4. May&avítwo ay reºrov 'ry 13toy divor siſasásſy, Let
them learn first to show piety at home.] The apostle here
speaks of the care the children should take to nourish their
parents, which are widows, ºrpºrov, before they suffer them
to be burdensome to the church, as it is evident from ver.
16, which saith, “If any man or woman have widows (be-
longing to their families), let them relieve them, and let not
the church be charged with them ;” and also from the fol-
lowing words here, “and to requite their parents,” which
only can belong unto the children, and was always reckoned
an act of piety towards them,” “as, after God, the authors
of our being ;” whence anciently they were so reverenced,
saith Simplicius,” “as to be called gods.”
7 Wer. 5. Msgrovokzávn, Solitary.] So Philo saith, the
widow of the priest, which hath no children, must return to :
her father's house, as āvěgē; kai traßwy Éenºwoc, občekiay #xovara.
wara puyºv, “having no other réfuge, when destitute of hus-
band and children, but her father ;” but if she have sons, or
daughters, it is necessary that the mother should be placed
with her children, vici zai Svyarégs; rº; rot yewhaayro: oikia;
$y'rec,+ “for sons and daughters, being of the house of their
parents, draw the mother to it :” whence also we learn,
what it is to “show pity to their own house,” ver. 4, viz. to
do it to their parents.
* "HATrixsy Émi rév Oey, Trusteth in God..] i. e. Having no
other helper, she reposeth herself on him alone, committing
herself to him, by constant prayer, for his help. This is
Cotelerius's third kind of widows, compared, by the author
of the Apostolical Constitutions, lib. iii. cap. 1, to the widow
of Sarepta, and to Anna the daughter of Phanuel, mentioned
Luke ii. 36, who does not oblige herself, by vow or promise,
So to do, but only remains single, 33 goy #xova'a, Ynesia; “as
having the gift of widowhood.” So Jerome describes these
widows in these words, Honora viduas, quae verê vidual sunt,
hoc est, quae omni suorum auxilio destitutae sunt, quae ma-
nibus suis laborare non possunt, quas paupertas debilitat,
a tasque conficit, quibus Deus spes est, et omne opus oratio
(Ep. ad Gerontiam).
.” Wer. 6. "H 3; a mara A&ca, She that liveth in pleasure.]
This word properly signifies to feed deliciously, and drink
choice liquors; ºff yarr; &#y ºwn, “to live only for the
•y . . . º º
* Xen ovy Harikweatſ-Sat aravroſo; abroº, 3ri atrio; hºwſy, war&
y 3
tºº º A.
|ety, rot, sivat yśyove, xzi Śri 31& rāg #wep, exeia; airoi, Kai
avºrabaſa: #reáºmpasy.
f oi & #r. Traxaioregoi roaoûroy row, yāvgac Éa p$noray, &c. wai
9soic airoic guilaat Kaasſy. Simpl. in Epict. cap. 37, p. 178,
179. .
f Lib. ii. de Mon. p. 641, in fine.
CHAPTER V.
85]:
(kindred), and especially for those of his own house,
he hath (in works) denied the faith, and is "worse
than an infidel.
9 *Let not a widow be taken into the number (of
widows to be maintained by the church), under *three-
score years old, having been the wife "of one man
(not one that hath divorced herself from one husband,
and married again,
10 Being also) well reported of for good works; “if
(si, that) she hath brought up children, if (that) she
hath lodged strangers, if she hath washed the saints’
feet, if she hath relieved the afflicted, if she hath dili-
gently followed every good work. -
11 But the younger widows refuse: for when they
have begun to *wax wanton against (or, grow weary
of) Christ, they will marry; -
belly,” saith Chrysostom. So Ezek. xvi. 49, “This was the
sin of thy sister Sodom, in pride, in fulness of bread, Kai iv
stºnviº Éamarákov, and in abundance, she and her daughters
rioted ;” Amos vi. 4, “They lie upon beds of ivory, wai
warazºrara Năvºrsº, and, abounding with superfluities, they eat
lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the
stall :'' and because such eating and drinking provoke to
carnal pleasures, it is joined with them ; as when the apostle
saith, “Ye have lived in pleasure and been wanton,” Gr.
to trara aña are, James v. 5. Such a woman “is dead while
she liveth,” according to that of the Jews,” “The just in
their death are styled living ; the wicked, whilst they live,
are styled dead” (Maimonides).
19 Wer. 8. "Early &ria-row Xsigov, He is worse than an in-
fidel.] For they put this among the first and most indisso-
luble principles of nature, requiring us, ºrgåra 8:ow: ripºv,
&erímsvra rowiak, F “first to honour the gods and then our
parents;” placing among the things in which they are to be
honoured, xenºwärov xoenyiay zai adºpºaro; inpeciay, “the
making provision for them, and serving them with our
bodies.” So Aristotlet saith, “We must rather make provi-
sion for them than for ourselves, and yield them, rigºv
raSámeg 080ſ, honour, as they do unto the gods.” Plu-
tarchS saith, that “all men, though some may think other-
wise, say, that nature, and the law of nature, require, that
parents should have the highest honour next the gods; that
men can do nothing more acceptable to the gods, than by
readily heaping favours upon their parents, and that nothing
is a greater evidence of atheism or impiety, than to despise
them.” Some here are guilty of a great mistake, scraping
together great fortunes, and hearding them up for their chil-
dren, with a scandalous neglect of that charity to their
Christian brethren, which alone can sanctify those enjoy-
ments to them, and enable them to “lay up a good founda-
tion against the time to come ;” pleading these words to
justify, or to excuse, their sordid parsimony, and want of
charity, that “he that provideth not for his own household,
hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel;” whereas
these words plainly respect the provision which children
should make for their parents, and not that which parents
should make for their children,
See the defence of the text, ver. 16 and 19, Examen
Millii, ibid. *
* Ver. 9. Xàga karaxeyāa śa pºi, Let not a widow be taken
into the number.] The apostle now comes to speak of such
widows as were not only to be maintained by the church
(for they were doubtless to receive her alms, if really they
were poor, without these qualifications), but of such as were
to be admitted into the number of deaconesses, whose office
it was to instruct the younger women, to attend the women
when sick and in labour, and to assist at the baptism of the
female sex.
* M: #Narrow ###xovira, Nol less than sixty years old.] It
is the mistake of Zonaras, Balsamon, and Blastares, to think
to reconcile this with the fifteenth canon of the council of
Chalcedon, and the fourteenth of Trullo, by saying, That wi-
dows might only be admitted deaconesses at sixty, but virgins
at forty. This last was done in after-ages, and after that
Apostolical Constitution, which, agreeably to Paul, saith, lib.
* More Nev. lib. i. cap. 14. *
+ Hieroc. in haec verba Pythag. roſ, rs yoveſ; ripa.
# De Mor, lib. ix. cap. 2. - -
... IIávre; Aéyova, yoºv, & yovejo's ripºv puerò, 0sovº wºrny
wai &eyi-ray its pºortz, 3 re rºy pºorly a 3&ov váºzo; 3ré8wks' xat
own Harw ºrt &vègoro añaxov nexatiºvoy 980ſ, pâaw, § roxstºw
airów, wai apopstart, Traxalat; in via; 3aveta'6sica; Xágºra;
stºv㺠wal ºrgoňápºog #xtívoy're; oil 3' a 3 aráxty pºsića y áriëstä;
30;ov yiyove rā; aregi yovsic 3xyweia; kai wangºsiac, De Fra-
termo Amore, p. 479, E, F,
iii. cap. 1, Xfiga; 33 ×asia rāºre º żAarrow itāv Āhaoyºta,.
“Let not the widows be constituted under sixty years;”
and they who first began to alter the time, did at last take
away the office.
* Teyovvia Śvē; āyāpā; yovº, Being the wife of one husband.]
i. e. One who had not divorced herself from one, and mar-
ried another husband ; for otherwise, the younger widows,
whom Paul bids to marry, could never be admitted deacon-
esses, though they had all the other qualifications. That
such divorces were then common on the wife's side both
among Jews and gentiles, we learn, concerning the Romans,
from the complaint of Seneca,” that “none in his time
blushed at it, their noble women marrying that they might
divorce themselves, and there being scarce any marriages
without divorces.” Cicero'ſ complains of many things of
this kind, which happened in his time. Plutarch; men-
tions it as a thing common, and customarily done by any
women that were jealous ; and the law among the Athenians;
allowed it : instances we have of it in Justin Martyrſ and
Tertullian." And that this also was frequent in the practice
of the Jews, and allowed by their rabbins, see note on 1 Cor.
vii. 11... I confess that univira, the wife of one husband, in
Livy, lib. x. cap. 23, is one, quae uni viro nupta fuisset, ad
quem virgo deducta sit, who from her virginity had been
married only to one man; and that univira sacerdos bears
the same sense in Trebellius Pollio, c. de Tito, p. 795, and
that this monogamy was counted honourable, even among
the heathens; and they who were content with it, wore pu-
dicitiae coronam, “the crown of chastity” (Val. Max. lib. ii.
cap. 1); whereas they who proceeded to a second marriage,
Sacerdotio arcebantur, “were thought unworthy of the priest-
hood,” as Servius notes upon those words of Virgil (Æn. iv.
19), Huic uniforsan potui succumbere culpae: and the
flamines, among the Romans, were to be the “husbands of
one wife,” and the flaminicae, the “wives of one husband”
(Rhodig. Lect. Antiq. lib. xxviii. cap. 22). That therefore
the Sacred ministers in the church of Christ might be nothing
inferior to those of heathens, the apostle may require that,
in this sense, the bishop should be the “husband of one wife,”
and the deaconess the “wife of one husband.”
* Ver. 10. Ei rekworpāquarev, If she hath brought up chil-
dren.] That si signifies that, as well as if, see Inote on Acts
xxvi. 23, El Traśnrö, ä Xgiates, si Trgåro;, &c., “That Christ
hath suffered,” and “that he was the first that rose from the
dead;” and that so it should be rendered here, the word
Awaérvgovgåyn, “testified,” seems to require : for a testimony
of the good works of others is, that they have done such and
Such laudable actions. t
* Wer. 11. “oray warazºrpnviároot roi; Xºta roi, When they
* . Desinit esse probri loco commune maledictum. Num-
quid jam ulla repudio erubescit, postguam illustres quaedam
ac mobiles foeminae non consulum numero sed maritorum an-
nos computant, et exeunt matrimonii causã, nubunt repu-
dii 2 Tamdia istud timebatur, quamdid rarum erat; quia
veró nulla sine divortio acta Sunt, quod Saepē audiebant, id
facere didicerunt. De Benef lib. iii. cap. 16. 42
+ Paula, Valeria, soror Triarii, divortium sine causã, quo.
die vir à provincià venturus erat, fecit, nuptura est D. Bruto.
multa in hoc genere incredibilia, te absente, acciderunt,
Cic. Epist. Famil. lib. viii. ep. 7. f -
f Twº rolvvy 31& KnAotuwiay &réAgislaw yºpovaa, De Prae-
cept. Conjug. p. 144, A. - $
$’E38tºro rā, śwoxeislew; ye&ºwara tragã tº &#xoviri 63-Sai, £4%
3, #1-#gay, &AA’ abrºv trapodaray, &c oſy trapñy rotiro ºrgážovo a zará.
tºy váºzov, loquens de uxore Alcibiadis. Plut de Alcib. p. 195,
| Ubi mulier Christiana viro ºrd Aeyázévoy wrap' tºy stroſ-
Bioy Soča'a, #xºgia ºn. Apol, i, p. 42, B. . *
ſ Repudium veró in foeminis jam et votum est quasima-
| trimonii fructus.
Apol. cap. 16.
3 I 2
S52
I. TIMOTHY.
12 Having damnation, because they have cast off
their first faith.
13 And withal they learn to be idle, wandering
about from house to house; and not only idle, but
tattlers and busy-bodies, speaking things which they
ought not.
14 I will therefore that the younger women (rather)
marry, bear children, guide the house, (and so) give
none occasion to the adversary (of Christianity) to
speak reproachfully (of it.
15 The necessity of which precept is too great, ) for
some (of these young widows) are already *turned
aside after Satan.
16 If any man or woman that believeth have widows
(belonging to their family), let them relieve them, and
let not the church be charged (with them); that (being
have waved wanton against Christ.] That is, say Chrysos-
tom and CEcumenius, &ray &xxia Sãow, “when they have cast
off or fastidiously refused and rejected Christ ; &ray xana-
Baaxeva Śāoriv, when they have contemned, and made light
of him; when they do Bagéo; pågely, xał &rozºrgy rā; hytaç,
bear Christ's yoke grievously, and cast off his reins:” so
Hesychius and Phavorinus. So that this phrase signifies to
cast off Christ and Christianity. and, as the apostle after-
ward explains it, #xtpéreadai, “to turn from him after
Satan,” or to fall off from him to heathenism or Judaism ;
and then, mgármy ºria rºy &Sereſy, “to violate their first
faith,” cannot be to violate the promise made, when chosen
into the order of widows, not to marry, but their faith given
unto Christ at baptism; the other, if any such promise were
then made, being not their first, but second faith. So
Chrysostom and CEcumenius expound it, from those words
of the apostle to the Corinthians; “I have espoused you to
one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin
sunto Christ.”
* Wer. 15. 'Ełergárnºray &mia a roi, zarayå, Have turned
aside after Sutan.] The converting men to the Christian
faith, being the turning men “from the power of Satan unto
God” (Acts xxvi. 18); the “rescuing men from the snare
of the devil, who were taken captive by him at his will”
(2 Tim. ii. 26), and who “walked according to the prince of
the power of the air” (Eph. ii. 2); the casting off the faith
may well be styled, the “turning aside after Satan.”
” Wer. 17. Attrañº rºº, Double honour.] That is, rºc
#AEvêspiov reºpic, “ of a liberal maintenance” out of the pub-
lic stock; it signifies, Saith Chrysostom, rºw rāv Āyayzatay
Žopnyia, “provision of things necessary,” as is evident from
the reason following, ver, 18, “The labourer is worthy of his
hire.” §
* Máxiora of Korišvre; #y Aéyò wał Bºazzaxia, Especially
those who labour in the word and doctrine.] of reszóðrspot,
the elders among the Jews were of two sorts: first, such as
governed in the synagogue ; and, secondly, such as minis-
tered in reading and expounding their scriptures and tradi-
tions, and from them pronouncing what did bind or loose,
or what was forbidden, and what was lawful to be done:#
for when, partly by their captivity, and partly through in-
crease and traffic, they were dispersed in considerable bodies
through divers regions of the world, it was necessary they
should have governors or magistrates to keep them in their
duty, and judge of criminal causes, and also rabbins to teach
them the law, and the traditions of their fathers, the first
were ordained, ad judicandum, sed non ad docendum de
licitis et vetitis, “to judge and govern, but not to teach ;”
the second, ad docendum, Sedmon adjudicandum, “to teach,
but not to judge or govern:” and these the apostle here de-
clares to be the most honourable, and worthy of the chiefest
reward: accordingly the apostle, reckoning up the offices
God had appointed in the church, places “teachers” before
“governments,” 1 Cor. xii. 28.
* Ver. 18. Ašye, yā; # yeagh, For the scripture saith.]
The former words, “Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that
treadeth out the corn,” being expressly found in Deut. xxv.
* Morin. de Ordin. par. iii. exer. 7, cap. 4. Buxt. in voce,
Tºpp.
free from that charge) it may (the better be able to) re-
lieve them that are widows indeed, (that is, are wholly
destitute of help, ver. 5).
17, Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy
of "double honour (i.e. of a more liberal maintenance),
| "especially those who labour in the word and doc-
trine.
18 °For the scripture saith, Thou shalt not muz-
zle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, The la-
| bourer is worthy of his reward.
19 °Against an elder receive not an accusation,
but before (itri, upon the testimony of) two or three
WitneSSeS.
20 *Them that sin rebuke before all, that others
also may fear.
21 I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus.
4, and the latter, expressly in the Gospel of Luke, x. 7, and
with a little variation, Matt. x. 10, and in no other place in
scripture (for in Lev. xix. 13, and Deut. xxiv. 14, there is
nothing to this purpose), it follows, that Paul must here,
reckon the Gospel of Luke among the holy scriptures; from
which such doctrines, as he is now teaching, may be infallibly
confirmed. Note,
Secondly, That the apostle, both here and 1 Cor. ix. 9,
proves this from what was written in the law of Moses, ap-
plying in both places that which primarily must belong to the
Jewish priesthood, to the preachers of the gospel; and hence
allowing us to argue for the maintenance of the latter, by
analogy to what was appointed for the former ; as the apostle
himself doth in this very case, in these words, “Do you not
know, that they who minister about (legally) holy things,
eat of the things of the temple ; and that they which wait at
the altar, are partakers with the altar P” i. e. are fed and
liberally maintained, by the portions God allowed them of
what was offered at his altar ; “even so hath the Lord
Christ appointed, that they who preach the gospel should
live of the gospel,” I Cor. ix. 14. Whence note,
Thirdly, That this is a standing ordinance of Christ, to
continue as long as the preaching of the gospel doth, built.
upon reasons of equal obligations at all times; the labourer
being always worthy of his hire; the shepherd to eat of the
milk of the flock, and he that soweth spirituals, to reap car-
nals, 1 Cor. ii. 7. 10, 11. Note,
Fourthly, From whom this reward is to be received ; from
them amongst whom these pastors labour, to whom they sow
spiritual things, and who are taught by them : for, “Let
him,” saith the apostle, “who is taught in the word commu-
nicate to him that teacheth in all good things,” Gal. vi. 6.
So that he is to have a supply of all things needful for the
discharge of his function here, double honour, i. e. a liberal
maintenance. Note, -
Fifthly, That as the command of being charitable to the
poor, gives just occasion to those laws which are made in all
communities to oblige men, according to their abilities, to
distribute to the necessities of the poor; because, otherwise,
the general rules of scripture would not be obeyed, nor the
poor provided for ; so the standing ordinance of Christ and
his apostles, concerning the “double honour” due to them
who “labour in the word and doctrine,” and the “commu-
nicating to them in all good things,” justifies these laws
which ascertain what shall be communicated to them ; since
otherwise, it is much to be feared, the general rules of scrip-
ture concerning this matter would not be obeyed, nor the
clergy sufficiently provided for.
* Ver. 19. Katz resa Buréezv.] The “elder” here seems
to relate not to one who was such by age, but by office, be-
cause the apostle was before speaking, ver. 17, of “elders
which rule well,” or “laboured in the word and doctrine:”
and whereas the law had taken care that no man should be
condemned, but “by the mouth of two or three witnesses,”
the apostle, knowing how much the church would suffer by
the rash accusations of her governors, bishops, and presby-
ters, seems to rise higher, not suffering an accusation to be
admitted against them, without the like number of wit-
IleSSCS.
* Ver. 20. Toi); #4agrávoyrac, i. e. Them that sin]
CHAPTER WI.
853.
Christ (whom thou servest, and by whose authority thou
actest in this ministry), and * the elect angels (who are
inspectors and observers of what is done in the churches,
I Cor. xi. 10) that thou observe these things without
preferring one before another (out of favour to their
persons), doing nothing by partiality.
22 * Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be
partakers of other men's sins: keep thyself pure (from
them).
23 * Drink no longer water (only), but use a little
wine (together with it), for thy stomach’s sake and
(for) thine often infirmities.
24 (And, to preserve thee from mistake, or rash pro-
ceeding, either in ordinations, ver. 22, or in rebuking
Grievously and scandalously, and are convinced of their
offences before two or three witnesses, were to be rebuked,
saith Theodoret, travrov ragávrov, “in the presence of all ;”
such public censures being, according to the custom of the
church, done by the presidents or rulers of the church, bré
mºstăvoy, “before and with the consent of all,” as Tertullian"
saith (see note on 2 Cor. ii. 6).
* Wer. 21. And our Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect an-
gels.] He joins the angels with Jesus Christ, saith Theodoret,
oëx 3; gorizovº, &AN’ &; 305Move, “not as equal in honour,
but as servants to him,” and those who are to attend him at
the great day of judgment.
* Ver. 22. xiiga, raxia; an?svi ämirësi, Lay hands sud-
denly on no man.] This, saith the reverend Dr. Hammond,
belongs to “the laying on of the bishop's hand in absolving
penitents:” saith the reverend Bishop of Worcester, to “the
laying of hands on bishops, priests, and deacons;” (1.)
Because Paul had not mentioned laying on of hands in re-
lation to penitents in this epistle, but he had done it with
respect to ordination, and that in Timothy's own case, iv.
14. (2.) Because the apostle, in this epistle, gives no rules
concerning the qualifications of penitents, saying nothing
what penitents were to be reconciled, and after what time,
and under what conditions they were to have hands laid on
them, in token of reconciliation ; nor is there a concurrent
evidence of such a practice so early in the church ; but he
had given rules touching bishops and deacons, and their
qualifications; and therefore we have more cause to apply it
according to the chief intention and design of this epistle.
(3.) Because the great use of laying on of hands, in the New
Testament, is for the setting persons' apart for the discharge
of a sacred office ; so it was in the first institution of deacons,
Acts vi. 6, and of Paul and Barnºbas to a particular charge,
Acts xiii. 2, 3. . This was an ancient ceremony among the
Jews, in the solemn designation of persons to sacred offices,
Numb. xxvii. 18. 23. Deut. xxxiv. 9, either to be rulers or
teachers in their synagogues; and from thence it was
brought into the church, in the solemn designation of persons
to the ministry. And, (4.) if these words do not relate to
ordination, Paul would have given Timothy no particular
direction about that which was one main part of his office;
wherefore, as he left Titus at Crete, to “ordain elders in
every city;” so, doubtless, Timothy had the same commis-
sion, which yet is nowhere intimated but in these words.
And, according to this sense, the following words are
capable of a very good meaning, thus ; Be not partaker of
the sins of them, who rashly, and without due qualifications,
rush upon sacred offices; for by want of due examina-
* Summum futuri judicii praejudicium est, si quisita de-
liquerit ut a communione orationis, et conventùs, et omnis
sancti commercii relegetur; praesident probati quique seni-
ores. Tertul. Apol. cap. 39.
tempers.”
the scandalous offender, consider, that) some men's
sins are open (and discernible) beforehand (i.e. before
any witnesses are come in against them); going before
to (or, for) judgment (or, to bring the censures of the
church upon them); and (in ) some men they follow
after (i. e. their evil dispositions appear afterward).
25 ° Likewise also the good works of some are
manifest beforehand (and so less eaſamination is need-
ful concerning them); and they that (i. e. whose works)
are otherwise cannot be (long) hid (their vices will, by
information of others they converse with, or by temp.
tation, and their own evil inclinations, be at last dis-
covered).
tion, and trial of them, thou wilt become partaker of their
uilt. \
* Ver. 23.] So Justin Martyr” saith, that wine is to be
used “for the help of the body, and the cure of inward dis-
And Plato'ſ saith it was given for the health
and strength of the body. The Essenes abstained wholly
from wine (see note on Col. ii. 21), but the Gnostics #
freely used it, when they went to the heathen feasts, an
otherwise. º
* Ver. 25.] I find three expositions of these words: the
first is that of Basil and Austin, which refers them to the
judgment of God, thus: The good and evil works of some
men are so manifest, that they may be discerned of all mem
before the day of judgment, and so, in discerning them, thou
canst not err; but if they be latent here, and so escape thy
examination and censure, they will be manifested at the
great day of their accounts.
2. Others, referring this to the censures of the church,
the imitigaía, mentioned ver. 20, make the sense run thus:
Some men's sins are so open and notorious, as to bring
them under the censures of the church, by way of precedent
merit; others appear more criminal after the censures
passed upon them, and so less fit to be absolved ; and some
men's reformation, or good works, are so manifest after
censure, as to evidence they deserve absolution ; and if
they continue evil, or do but few good works, that also will
be in time discernible: so that thou mayest know who are
fit to be absolved, who not. But against this exposition
there lies this objection, That no man should incur the cen-
sures of the church, but by way of precedent merit; and so
no man's evil works, for which he is to be censured, should
follow after that act of discipline: and, secondly, the last
clause of the last verse seems, by the antithesis, to refer not
to evil, but to good works, though done as the works of
charity ought to be, so as not to be observed by men.
3. The ancient Greek expositors, with Grotius, refer these
words to ordination, thus: When I said, “Lay hands sud-
denly on no man,” I spake not of men whose good or bad
works are manifest beforehand; for they, without farther
discussion or examination, may be admitted, or are to be
rejected: but of those whose vices or good works are latent;
for they, after examination and inquiry, cannot be long hid :
and so, if thou be not hasty in ‘laying on of hands, thou
timely mayest discover them ; or if by this means thou canst
not do it, thou wilt not be partaker with the sinner, as
having done as much as was in thy power to discover them.
* BonSeia; xágw rot a dºzaroº, wai Stå rºy rāy Évrä; 6spareíay.
Ep. ad Zen. p. 512, A.
+ x&garo; 33 sty,sia;, xai to xvo; #yska.
800, D.
† Iren. lib. i. p. 26, D. Epiph. Haer. xxvi. §. 5.
Be Leg. p.
CHAPTER VI.
1 LET as many servants as are under the yoke (of tending to dissolve those civil obligations, but rather
bondage to the heathens) count their own masters wor- honoured in all estates of men, as tending to make them
thy of all (due) honour, that the name of God and his
doctrine be not blasphemed, (or evil spoken of, as
better in their several relations, Tit. ii. 10, and more
subject even to hard and froward masters, 1 Pet. ii. 18).
I. TIMOTHY.
: 2 And they that have believing masters, let them
not despise them, because they are (advanced to be )
brethren (and so equal to them in Christ) ; but rather
(let them) do them service, because they are faithful
(of the household of faith), and beloved (of God),
* partakers of the benefit. These things teach and ex-
hort.
- 3 If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to
wholesome words, *even the words of our Lord Jesus
Christ, (Matt. xx. 27, He that would be first among
you, let him be your servant : or, servant of all, Mark
i.44,) and to the doctrine which is according to god-
ess ;
4 He is proud (Gr. puffed up), knowing nothing,
but doating (sick) about questions and strife of words,
whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmises,
5 Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds,
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VI.
. . * Ver. 2. of ric siegyezia; &vrixapagavágºvoi..] These words,
being not connected to the preceding by xai, and the article
of showing that they relate not to the predicate, but to the
subject, will be best rendered thus ; “Because they who
partake of the benefit of the service are faithful and be-
loved;” and therefore more worthy of their service, the more
they are honoured of God, and of the number of them whom
We stand bound to serve in love.
That the Gnostics taught any such doctrine, that Christian
servants were not obliged to obey their heathen or their
Christian masters, there is not the least hint in any of the
commentators on this place, or in any of the fathers, who
have given us the largest account of their doctrines: I find,
in the epistle of Ignatius to Polycarp, these words,” “De-
spise not men and maid-servants, nor let them be puffed up ;
but let them serve the more for the glory of God, that they
may obtain a better liberty ; let them not covet to be free
from their masters:” but neither doth the martyr, nor any
of his commentators, intimate that this relates to any doc-
trine of the Gnostics ; and considering how much he endea-
voured to imitate Paul, we may more probably conjecture it
hath relation to this very place : moreover, though I have
given you the words as Dr. Hammond translates them, yet
I think the true meaning of these words, ań śpáracay &rd
rol; Koivot; #AEvºseotja Sat, is this, “Let them not be importa-
mate to be delivered, and made free by the church, or by
her common stock 5” for rö koiyāy signifies “the community;”
and so, r3 xotvy rā, śxxânciaç, in Eusebius, is “the commu-
mity, or body of the church;” and also in Lucian, where
he speaks of the Christians; and r& koiyā in Aristophanes,
Demosthenes, and Lucian, signifies the common stock: now
it is evident from Justin Martyr and Tertullian, that the
common stock of Christians was employed to buy their
brethren out of bonds and servitude (see note on 1 Cor. vii.
23, and Lucian, de Pereg. ed. Gr. p. 594, 595),
But that many of the Jews were of this opinion, and
might be apt to introduce it into Christianity, we find just
reason to believe: for they thought themselves privileged,
by their relation to God, from being the servants of men :
Some of them, saith Josephus, thought it a wicked thing,
&gt; tºy Osoy pipely 6wntow; Sea-trárac, “to own, besides God,
any mortal lords or masters.” Their rabbins thought it un-
becoming any Jew to be a bond-slave to a heathen or idola-
ter; for that was, say they, to be servi servorum, “servants
of Servants,” which the servants of the Lord must not be.
(see Dr. Lightfoot on 1 Cor. vii. 23). -
* Ver. 3. Aóyot; roſ, rot Kvetov hºw, The words of our
Lord Jesus.] This phrase being often used of the very words
which Christ spake, as Matt. xxvi. 75. Acts x. 16. 20.35, I
thought fit to refer it to those words which might most like-
* Aoûxovº zai Soſaac Kºji baſeen páyst, &AA& 2n33 airoi pucioğr-
Swaav, 3xx& Ei, 3%ay Ogot, ºrxāoy 8-uxswäracay, ya west-rroyo, ixed-
6ssia; 373 080i réxaaty: ºch ägårogay &or; roi, zowº fixevèspoſa-
Bai. §. 4. See Coteler. in locum.
+ Hist. Eccl. lib. ii. cap. 1. ‘Tºrnescia; ºvexa rº, Kowdſ.
# Christiani mittebant Peregrino &trö tot zo:voú. Lucian.
and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is god-
liness : *from such withdraw thyself.
6 But (whatsoever they esteem so, we know that) god-
liness, with (that) * contentment (which attends it), is
great gain.
7 (I say, with contentment, which it becometh us to
have ; ) for we brought nothing into this world, and it
is certain we can carry nothing out (of it).
8 And having (#xovreg ö, having therefore) food
and raiment, let us be therewith content.
9 But (for) they "that will be rich fall into tempta-
tion and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful
lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.
10 For the love of money is the root of all evil:
which while some coveted after, they have erred from
the i. and pierced themselves through with many
SWOTCIS,
ly be aimed at by the apostle ; though seeing they also may
refer to the doctrine of Christ, preached by the apostle, this
phrase being so used, Acts xix. 10, and the doctrine of the
Lord very often, 1 Thess. i. 8. 2 Thess. iii. 1, in this sense it
affords this useful observation, That the words written by
Paul in these epistles are the words of the Lord Jesus.
* Ver. 5. 'Aqila raco &nd rôy rototºrov, From such withdraw
thyself.] From these words it is plain that the apostle
speaketh here of persons then in being ; that they were
Jews, seems evident from the foregoing note, showing, that
they were in this matter, Érspoëlèáakaxoi, “men that taught
otherwise;” that these vowoë18&a waxoi were men knowing no-
thing, or not knowing what they said, or whereof they affirm-
ed, see 1 Tim. i. 9, that they did #v=goëlèao waxeſ, “teach
otherwise” than the doctrine which is after godliness, ver. 3;
that they had their fables which ministered Čnthaeig, “ques-
tions,” ver. 4; that they had their ºwgºratoxoytaç, “vain
wranglings” about words, ver. 6; that they had their “fool-
ish questions, which begat strifes and contentions about the
law,” see Tit. iii. 9; that they of the circumcision were “vain
talkers, teaching things which they ought not for filthy lu-
cre's sake,” see Tit. i. 10, 11, and so “accounted gain for
godliness;” that their minds and “consciences were defiled”
and perverted, see Tit. i. 14 ; that they “turned aside from
the faith to vain janglings,” see 1 Tim. i. 6; how they were
puffed up, see note on 2 Tim. iii. 4. See the defence of
these words, Examen Millii in locum.
* Ver. 6. Airágxeia, Contentment.] This the apostle well
explains by being satisfied iv oi, sipet, “in the condition we
are in,” Phil. iv. 4, and aroſ; "ragoúa'iy, “with the things we
have at present,” with “food and raiment,” ver. 8, i. e.
“with those things which are needful for this present life,”
Matt. vi. 31, 32, in opposition to anxiety, distrust, or mur-
muring ; and it is never separable from true piety, but is
the natural result of that love to, and that value the good
man hath for God, and the things of God ; that trust he
hath in God, and the entire resignation of his will, in all af-
fairs, to the conduct of his providence.
* Wer. 9. Oi govXéaeyo. TrAourºſy, They that will be rich,J
i. e. On whom the love of money so prevails, that they are
resolved they will be rich, if by any means they can compass
wealth, are in the ready way to yield to any lust which will
gratify their greedy humours; unbeyºr Xenºzariapºy cºvytsºv-
ro; alaxpoff an?’ &viagoû pe:86, Eyot, “abstaining,” saith Plu-
tarch” “from nothing that is base or impious that tends to
enrich them :” whence the ancients, agreeably to the apostle
here, avaritiam omnia vitia habere putabant, “ thought covet-
ousness to comprehend all vices;” as A. Gellius, lib. xi.
cap. 2, from Cato, and Cicero, n. 45, in his oration, pro
Roscio Amerino, have observed: it also causeth us to make
“shipwreck of faith, and a good conscience,” and whatsoever
else is sacred, when they cannot be held without the loss of
that wealth we so love and admire: whence Cicero notes,t
nullum esse officium tam sanctum atque solenne, quod non
avaritia comminuere, atque violare soleat; “that there is no
duty so holy or solemn which covetousness is not wont to
impair and violate.”
*
* IIs; bºxorkour, p. 524. Pro P. Quinto, n. 13.
CHAPTER VI.
855
11. But thou (thou therefore), O man of God, flee
these things; and follow after righteousness, "godli-
mess, faith, love, patience, meekness.
12 "Fight the good fight of faith, (and so) lay hold
of eternal life, whereunto thou art (both) called, and
(according to that calling) hast professed a good pro-
fession (by enduring persecutions for it) before many
WitneSSes. r
13 I give thee charge in the sight of (that) God,
who quickeneth all things (and therefore is able to
raise them that suffer for him from the dead), and before
Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a
good confession, (confirming truth to the death, John
xviii. 37.)
14 That thou keep this commandment (given to
thee, ver. 11, 12) without spot, unrebukable, * until
the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ:
15 Which (appearance) in his times (or, in the pro-
per season) he shall show (forth), who is the blessed
and only (absolute) Potentate, the * King of kings, and
Lord of lords (who therefore is more to be feared than
all earthly potentates, and will more assuredly punish
those who submit not to his laws and government);
16 Who only hath (of himself) immortality (and
so only can confer it upon others, and only lives for
ever, to reward and punish), dwelling in the light
which no man can approach unto (and live, and so,
whom no man fully can enjoy in this life); whom no
man hath seen, nor can see: to whom (be ascribed )
honour and power everlasting.
17 Charge them that are rich in this world, that
they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain
riches, (the two diseases of rich men ; for the rich man’s
wealth is his strong city, and as a high wall in his own
conceit, Prov. x. 15. xviii. 11, and riches and strength
lift up the heart, Ecclus, xl. 26), but in the living God,
who giveth us richly all things to enjoy (and in whom
therefore we may safely trust) ;
18 "That they do good, that they be rich in good
works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate (to
others of their wealth);
19 Laying up in store for themselves "a good foun-
dation against the time to come, that (when these
things fail) they may lay hold on eternal life.
20 OTimothy, keep that (truth) which is committed
to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and
oppositions of science falsely so called:
21. Which some professing *have erred concerning
the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen.
* Ver. 11. Eva #8stay, ºria riv, &c.] That “godliness,” which
gives contentment, with food and raiment, and what at pre-
sent we enjoy ; that “faith,” which assures us of “a better
and a more enduring substance, reserved in the heavens for
us” (Heb. x. 34); that “justice,” which requires us to in-
jure no man, but to let every man enjoy his own ; that
“love,” or “charity,” which makes us “ready to distribute,
and willing to communicate” of these things to others (ver.
11); that “patience,” which makes us, with tranquillity and
equanimity, submit to a low fortune and adversity; that
“meekness,” which suppresses our wrath and indignation
against them who are injurious to us in temporals, and take
away that which is ours: all these are proper preservatives
against, or indications of a mind free from, covetousness.
7 Wer. 12. 'Ayovićov rôy kaºy &yāva, Fight the good fight.]
These words are plainly agonistical, relating to the Olympic
games, and particularly to that of racing, to which the
apostle doth so oft allude, where the crown being hung up
at the end of the goal, he that came first did #wixaºğävely,
“lay hold of it,” and take it to himself: and because these
games were performed in the presence of many spectators,
the apostle continues the allusion, saying that Timothy had,
in the presence of “many witnesses,” shown his readiness
to suffer for the faith. * *
* Ver. 14. Méxei rā, święaveia; rot Kvpiov hºv, Till the
appearing of our Lord Jewss Christ.] Here, saith Grotius, it
appears, that Paul speaks to Timothy, as one who might
live to the last judgment: but this vain conceit hath been
sufficiently confuted, note on 1 Thess, iv. 15. Nor doth
this exhortation prove it ; it being used, rather than that,
“until death,” saith Theophylact, to mind us of that glo-
rious appearance: and, because, saith Austin,” the day of
our death is, to us, as that day: Tunc enim unicuique ve-
niet dies ille, cum venerit ei dies, uttalis hinc exeat, qualis
judicandus est illo die: in quo enim quemdue invenerit Suus
movissimus dies, in hóc euln comprehendet mundi novissimus
dies. . .
* Ver. 15. “o 8aaixsic, &c. King of kings, and Lord of
lords.] This title the great empires took to themselves: the
king of Babylon is so styled by Daniel, ii. 37; by Jeremiah,
xxvii. 6 : of Persia, Ezra vii. 12 (see Brisson. de Regno
Pers. lib. i. p. 3, 4). And therefore the apostle saith here,
that it truly belongs to God only, and to our Lord Jesus
Christ, Rev. xvii. 14. xix. 16.
19 Wer. 18. That they do good.] See note on Tit. iii. 8.
* Ver. 19. Oswäxtoy waxy, A good foundation.] Töv kº-
Xávrov &yaśāv 37.6×avcıy Sepºxicy kāzānzey &xivntov, “The en-
joyment of gocd things to come, he calls an immoveable
* Epist. 80, ad Hes. p. 350.
foundation,” say the Greek commentators. So the doctrine
of the resurrection is styled “the foundation of God,” 2
Tim. ii. 19 ; and the heavenly Jerusalem, “a city that hath
foundations,” Heb. xi. 10 ; and the “good foundation,”
here, being, in the words following, “eternal life,” confirms
their interpretation. They who think the word Sºpºćato; sig-
nifies here “a treasure,” or an obligation on the part of God
to give them life eternal, mean the same thing, though they
give us no just evidence that the word hath any such signifi-
cation. -
* Ver. 21. IIegi rāy ºriarty maréxnoray, Have erred from
the faith..] These, in all reason, must be the same with the
Tā; ºria’rso, &c'roxha'avteq, “those who erred from the faith ”
(i. 5, 6); and that they were the voº,0818&akaxoi, “the assert-
ors and teachers of the law,” and so the opposites to the Gnos-
tics, who were, saith Irenaeus, legis advesarii, “adversaries
of the law,” the seventh verse demonstrates; as Theodoret”
well observes upon the place: of them it is also certain, that
they pretended, above all men, to be yºyºazov’re; ºrd Séanga,
“skilled in the knowledge of the will of God,” and #x2yre;
rºw &#642 aty rà, yvözewº, “men that had the scheme or form
of knowledge” (Rom. ii. 18–20). They were the great as-
sertors and promoters of the cabbala, or cabbalistical doc-
trine, which was in their account, scientia arcana divinitàs
accepta, + “a secret mystical knowledge of divine things
received from God,” and equal, in their opinion, to the
scriptures, according to their rule, Verba cabbalae aequiparan-
tur verbis legis. And they, doubtless, opposed this their
knowledge of the law, and of these cabbalistical traditions,
to the gospel taught by Paul, which opposed and slighted
them ; and their stiff adherence to them caused them, Garo-
xaſy, “to shoot off from the faith ” of the Messiah, which
was the mark they aimed at : that therefore the levööyogo;
yyāoric, the “falsely-named knowledge,” mentioned here, f
may agree to them as well as to the Gnostics, is manifest
from these things, that it cannot agree to the Gnostics, if
these persons were teachers of the law, as it is very probable
they were (see note on i. 7); and that it cannot be attributed
to Simon Magus, the father of the Gnostics, of whom alone
the apostle can be supposed here to speak, appears from this
—that he cannot properly be said to err concerning the
faith, who was so far from being then of it, that he himself
set up for the Christ, and opposed the profession of the gos-
* “ori was #: 'Iověaiwy otrol %a'ay capā; 3:34cket, ré SáAoyrs;
Elyat vowoëlèáakawol.
+ Buxt. in voce, nºnp.
† Quaestiones Judaeorum qua videntur quaestiones esse
scientiae. Haymo in loc.
856
PREFAC# TO II. TIMOTHY.,
pel with all his might. As for the Gnostics, it is agreed
among the learned, that though they conspired with former
heretics, yet were they not known by that name, nor had
they taken it upon them, till the time of Anicetus bishop
of Rome, and the reign of M. Aurelius Antoninus and L.
Verus, that is, not till the year 129. Hence Dr. Cave makes
them a heresy of the second century. Eusebius says,” that
* Thá'psi 3Å xa: Eienvaſioc avyxéovioral roštoic Kagºraxpúrny Été-
ga; aipéo ete; ric rāy Tywarikāy #wrixxnósion; rarápa. H. Eccl.
Carpocrates, who flourished in the time of Hadrian, gave rise
to the sect of the Gnostics: but Clemens Alexandrinus seems
to affirm, that one Epiphanes, * the author of the sect of the
Carpocratians, gave birth to this name and sect; and if it
were so, it is improbable that the “knowledge falsely so
called,” here mentioned, should have relation to the Gnostics.
lib. iv. cap. 7, p. 120, B. See the note on iv 3. Gnosticos
se vocant de Carpocrate. Iren. Jib. i. cap. 24.
* Kaônyhºrato 33 rā; pºova?ixñc yvdasa's, 34’ of Rai i rāv Kag-
wrokpartayāy aſsed tº. Strom. lib. iii. p. 428, C.
THE
SECOND EPISTLE TO TIMOTHY,
WITH ANNOTATIONS.
P. R. E. F. A. C. E.
THE ancients," from these words of this epistle, “I am
ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.”
iv. 6, do generally conclude this was the last of Paul's
epistles, he being, reb; ºré réxes, “near the end of his life,”
when he writ it. And truly the words of the apostle are
not well capable of any other sense; for he says expressly,
#ön ortrévêoºcat, “I am now offered, and the time of my disso-
lution, #$$orruze, is instant,” ver. 6; “I have finished my
course,” ver. 7, 8, Aoimºy, “from henceforth there is laid up for
me a crown of glory.” Whereas he not only expected to
be delivered from his first bonds, but saith expressly, “I know
that I shall abide and continue with you all, for your further-
ance and joy of faith, that your rejoicing may be more
abundant in Christ Jesus, for my coming to you again,”
Phil. i. 25, 26 (see ii. 24. Philem. 22); yea, he was actually
delivered, and ready to go to Judea, when he writ the Epistle
to the Hebrews, xiii. 23. Secondly, This epistle, saith Bishop
Pearson, was writ from Rome (i. 17), by Paul in bonds (i.
8. ii. 9). Now these bonds could not be his first bonds ; for
then he was in liberă custodia, “in his own hired house, re-
ceiving all that came to him, none forbidding it,” Acts xxviii.
30, 31; yea, his bonds were “known throughout Caesar’s pa-
lace, and to all others,” Phil. i. 13. Here he is in arctā cus-
todia; so that Onesiphorus was forced to “inquire more dili-
gently” after him, that he might find him out, i. 17. Again,
* Chrysostom, Theodoret, CEcumenius, Theophylact, &c.
in his first bonds, saith he, “many of the brethren of the Lord
being encouraged by my bonds, were bold to speak the word
more abundantly without fear,” Phil. i. 14; here, all men for-
sake him, iv. lfi. See a third argument for this opinion, iv. 13,
a fourth, ver. 16, a fifth and sixth, ver. 20; so that I conclude,
with the postcript, that this epistle #ypáºn &md, ‘Pºnç, &rs #x
3surépov tragéorm IIaijao; rô Kairapt Népovi, “was writ from
Rome, when Paul stood the second time before Nero.”
That this epistle was writ to “stir up Timothy to caution,
diligence, and discharge of his office, on occasion of the
creeping heresy of the Gnostics (ii. 17), stolen in among them,
which had much debauched the Asiatics (i. 15), and made
use of magic to oppose the truth of the gospel (iii. 8),” is
said by a reverend and learned person: but there is nothing
in any of the ancient commentators of this nature, which
speak here only of the “heresies arising from the Jewish
doctors,” as that which gave occasion to the writing this
epistle. And, secondly, the places cited by this reverend
person do not prove that the apostle speaketh of the Gnos-
tics : for, i. 15, he only says, “All those that were in Asia
had forsaken him ;” which they might do by cleaving to the
Cerinthians and Ebionites, rather than to the Gnostics (see
the note there). That they who taught “the resurrection
was past already,” were not Gnostics, is proved, note on ii.
17; and that the words, iii. 8, 9, agree not to the Gnostic
heretics, but to the Jewish false teachers, who were also
great magicians, is there shown (see note on 2 Thess. ii. 10).
* Aigéric haray # 'Iow8aſköy 313ackáNov 3pxéºsyal, &rse #y rà
orgotépg. #yÉpys, itria-roxi. Chrysost. Praefat.
CHAPTER. I.
l, PAUL, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of
God,” according to the promise (for declaration of the
promise) of (eternal) *life which is (made to us) in
Christ Jesus.
2 (Writeth) to Timothy, my dearly beloved son:
(wishing to him) grace, mercy, and peace, from God
the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord (by whom all
mercies are derived to us from the Father through the
Spirit).
3 I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I.
* Ver. 1. Kar' strayysºtay.] "Anaté as rºy trayyexSeñoray
aioviov Čohv roſ. &ySgátrol; ºne?at, “That I might declare that
ctornal life which is promised to men:” so Theodoret. So,
Tit. i. 1, “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, warx ºria Tw, for
(the promotion or declaration of) the faith of God's elect :” so
xará ràcav airiay, “for every cause,” Matt. xix. 3; Phil. iv
11, “I speak not was’ tarégnaty, for the want of anything.”
* Zoº; #y Xgiarº, Life which is in Christ Jesus.] Adam
CHAPTER I.
857
*with a pure conscience, that “without ceasing I have
remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day;
4 Greatly désiring to see thee, being mindful of thy
tears (shed when thou departedst from me), that (as
then I was filled with sorrow, so, by seeing thee again)
I may be filled with joy;
5 (I thank God, I say,) when I call to remembrance
the unfeigned faith which is in thee, which dwelt first
in thy grandmother Lois, and (in) thy mother Eunice
(converted to the faith before thee, Acts xvi. 1); and I
am persuaded that (it dwells) in thee also.
6 Wherefore I put thee in remembrance, that thou
"stir up the gift of God, which is in thee" by the put-
ting on of my hands.
7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear (as
under the Mosaical dispensation ; Rom. viii. 15) " but
ſ: ºpinio of power, and of love, and of a sound
II]]|Il Cl. . -
8 Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony
of our Lord (i.e. of giving testimony to the death and
brought the sentence of death upon us all, and the promise
of deliverance from that death is only made to us in and
through Christ Jesus, by virtue of that death he suffered in
our stead.
* Ver. 3. 'Ey Kasapā avystèhost, With a pure conscience.]
So, Acts xxiii. 1, “I have lived in all good conscience to this
day before God;” i. e. a conscience free from insincerity, or
wilful disobedience to the dictates of his mind, or the rule by
which he thought himself obliged to walk: for, as “touching
the righteousness” which was required by the law, he was
“blameless;” and as for his blasphemies against Christ, and
his persecutions of his church, that he did “ignorantly in un-
belief,” 1 Tim. i. 13, thinking he “ought to do many things
against the name of Jesus,” Acts xxvi. 9. But yet he was
not free from sin; for he confesses, that upon this account
he was “the chief of sinners,” 1 Tim. i. 15.
* 'A&áAsimºrov, Without ceasing, day and might.] To pray
morning and evening is to pray continually, or without ceas-
ing: thus Zadok, and his brethren, offered burnt-offerings
before the Lord continually, Statravröc, morning and evening
(1 Chron. xvi. 42, 43, see note on 1 Thess. v. 17, 18).
* Ver. 6. 'Avagorvégiv.] Philo *saith, that “where there
is any spark of true probity, being ventilated, it will shine
and break forth into a flame.” And this is also true, as well
of spiritual gifts as graces; even the gifts of miracles, of
healing, and casting out of devils, were strengthened and in-
creased by prayer (Matt. xvii. 21), and by faith (ver. 20),
and the internal gifts of wisdom and knowledge, by reading
and meditating on the word ; the illumination of the Holy
Spirit coming then upon gifted persons when they were so
employed (1 Cor. xiv. 23–26. 1 Tim. iv. 13.—15). How
they may be extinguished, see Eph. iv. 30. 1 Thess. v. 19.
Thus Pythagoras, saith Jamblichus, purged the souls of the
scholars from ignorance and sensual passions, and then &yeº-
Trügel rô Seſov iv Havrš, cap. 16. -
* At& rā, śtriščarsoº, &c. By the laying on of my hands.]
The presbytery also laid their hands upon him, 1 Tim. iv.
14, but the Xágicºa, or gift here mentioned, being the gift
of the Holy Ghost, was usually conferred by laying on of the
hands of an apostle, Acts viii. 17. xix. 6. Vain therefore is
the inference of Esthius from these places, that ordination is
a sacrament, seeing the grace here mentioned is no ordinary
grace, but an extraordinary gift conferred only in those times
by the hands of an apostle, and now wholly ceased.
7 Ver. 7. IIveſº, a 3vváºzewº, The Spirit of power, Used
Luke xxiv. 19. Acts i. 8, partly to assist us in the preaching
of the gospel, #y 3vvákºsi, “in the power of miracles,” and in the
power of the Spirit of God (Rom. xv. 19), and to render it
effectual to the hearers, it being “the power of God through
faith to their salvation" (Rom. i. 16), and preached by the
apostles “with great power” (Acts iv. 33. 1 Thess. i. 5.
* Mávo, #9 r tºpºgrácſa waxokaya3ia: #4trésop, a raï, Juxºis,
8wip &vaykańy rote fºrtéſzewo, ixxág, Jai. L. de Joseph. p.
442, F. et p. 318, D.
+ De Vitā Pythag, p. 76.
resurrection of Christ, 1 Cor. vi., which were the great
things they chiefly were to testify, Acts i. 8. 22. iv. 33,
v. 32), nor of me (though I am now) his prisoner (for
that testimony); but be thou partaker of the afflictions
of the gospel (Gr. ovykakotráðrigov, suffer thou evil with
the preachers of it) according to the power of God,
(given thee for this end, ver, 7. *
9 Even that God) who hath saved us, (i.e. designed
ws for salvation, 1 Thess. v. 9, see note on Eph. ii. 7,
8) and (in pursuance of that design, hath) called us
with a holy calling, not according to our works, but
according to his own purpose and grace (see note on
Tit. iii. 5, 6), which was gives (i. e. determined to be
given) us in Christ Jesus * before the world began;
10. But is now made manifest by the appearing of
our Saviour, Jesus Christ (the Lord and giver of life),
who (by his death) hath abolished death, and hath
brought (this) "life and immortality to light through
the gospel:
11 Whereupto (sic 3, for which thing) I am appoint-
Col. ii. 9); and partly to enable us to endure afflictions,
for the sake of Christ, rô IIvetºza rā; 3vyápagos, “the Spirit of
power resting upon us” for that end (1 Pet. iv. 14, and
here, ver. 8); and the Spirit of “love to Christ,” which “con-
strains” us to our duty (2 Cor. v. la), and casteth out the
fear of anything we may suffer for the performance of it
(1 John iv. 18); and “of a sound mind,” Gr. coºpéovicºni,
“of wisdom " to discharge that duty, so as either to avoid
dangers (Eph. V. 15, 16. Col. iv. 5), by giving no offence
to the heathens, or else to speak the word with convincing
power (Luke xxi. 15), and to walk so exactly, that they may
be “ashamed to speak evil of us,” or to do evil to us, “who
behold our good conversation in Christ” (1 Pet. iii. 16): all
these were spiritual gifts, not now conferred in ordination, as
Esthius vainly conceives. -
* Ver. 9. Ipê Xévoy aiovioſy, Before any age hath passed.]
The promise that the seed of the woman should break the
serpent's head being made at the beginning of the world, the
promise of that life to which we were to be restored by this
seed, and had lost by the subtlety and malice of the serpent,
is said to be given ºrgö Xzóvoy aioviov, Tit. i. 3 (see the note
there).
Note also, that these words may be connected thus, “Ac-
cording to his purpose before all ages, and the grace given
us in Christ Jesus.” And this import of the words may be
confirmed from the like passages of the apostle, saying, God
hath elected us in him before the foundations of the world
(Eph. i. 4), and promised us eternal life before the world
began (Tit. i. 2).
9 Wer. 10. boria ayro: £oñy, &c. Hath brought life and
immortality to light.] It is to be acknowledged, that the hea-
thens had by tradition, and the light of nature, conceived
some hope of some future good things to be received after
this life was ended; that being absolutely necessary, Saith
the apostle, that they might “come to God,” or do him any
acceptable service: for, “he that cometh to God, must be-
lieve that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that dili-
gently seek him " (Heb. xi. 6). But yet this hope was very
weak and feeble in them, and scarce credited by their philo-
sophers. It is styled by Cicero, Tusc. Q. 1, futurorum quod-
dam augurium seculorum, “a surmise of future ages.” It is,
saith Seneca,” “that which our wise men do promise, but
they do not prove.” Socrates,'t even at his death, speaks
thus: “I hope to go hence to good men, but of that I am
not very confident ; nor doth it become any wise man to be
positive that so it will be. I,” saith he, “must now die, and
yet shall live; but which of us is in the better state (the
* Credebam opinionibus magnorum virorum rem gratis-
simam promittentium, magis quâm probantium. Ep.
102.
+ Kai rojºro (2.Éy ciz &y Trávu 3ifaxugia atºmy. Phaed. p. 48,
B, C. To asy cºw raira ifaxugia aaSat otro, #xeiv, &; #y&
8.Bxhavša, où mºre voiy #x2y+t &vöpi. Ibid. p. 84, F. Owótspot
3; hºw #x2yrat #wi čºvoy w837.p.2, 38m).oy ray-i rºy # tº
Os3. Apol, in fine.
858
II. TIMOTHY.
ed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher of the
gentiles. . .
12 For the which cause also I suffer these things:
nevertheless, (though I suffer thus) I am not ashamed
(of my hope); for I know (in) whom I have believed,
and I am persuaded that he is able to keep "that
living or the dead) God only knows.” Both he and Cebes”
do ingenuously confess, that these things relating to the soul
were disbelieved by the greatest part of mankind.”
Aristotler held, that death was therefore poſspørarov, “the
most terrible,” as putting an end to all things: “neither
good nor evil happening to any man after his death.” Yea,
he says, “It is absurd to say that any man can be happy
after death, since happiness consists in operation.” Hence
Atticust reckons him among those who held that souls
could not remain after their bodies. And Origen $ Saith,
that he did roß regi rā; 4Sayagiac rā; Juxic Aéyou xarnyoºnki-
val, “condemn the doctrine of the soul's immortality.” The
poets Sophocles, Euripides, Astydamas, agree in this, that
&ayor 3' otºy &rrerai yºgoſ, “the dead are sensible of no
grief or evil” (Wide Stob. Serm. 119, p. 602). -
Lipsius || confesseth, that amongst the stoics this was a
controverted point, and was not received by them with any
full consent ; and whosoever reads, will find them still at
their ifs and ands," not knowing whether there were any-
thing after death, si 3% ºwn&#y irri rexeuthaayrı, “ or nothing,”
as Socrates in Phaedo speaks; whether their souls should be
extinguished, or only change their place; whether they were
in a state of sense, or iy &yala Snaia, “without sense ;” whether
soul and body were extinguished together, or not, as Cicero,
Seneca, and others; or else were still at their disjunctives,”
#roi, a 3āoric, &Erázzaziº, fluctuating still betwixt extinction
or translation, a profound sleep, a long peregrination, or an
utter dissolution (see Hyperides, apud Stob. Serm. 124, p.
618).
Caesar ++ declares, that “death removes all our evils and
our torments, as leaving no farther place for joy or fear.”
And Pliny, ºf that “neither soul nor body hath any more
sense after death, than before it was born.”
Cicerošš begins his discourse upon this subject witn a pro-
fession, that he intended to deliver nothing as fixed and cer-
tain, but only as probable, and having some likelihood of
truth. And having reckoned up the different sentiments of
the philosophers about it, he concludes thus, “Which of
these opinions is true, some god must tell us; which is most
like to truth, is a great question.” And when he had con-
* T& 3; wsg! rº, Juxii; Troxxây &aria ríay Trapéxel—roſ;
&v66&mot; roi; woxxoſk. In Phaed. p. 53, A.
+ II#aç yāg, kai otºy Ért rà reflyeºtt Boxsſ otre àya%y, oùrs
xaxév. Moral. lib. iii. cap. 9. "Apá ye kai śarty eißaigov rárs
irºſłay &roðay; ; ; rojvá ye travtex3; &rotroy, &AAo ‘re, zai roſ;
Aśyovaty hºſy #yseysſay riya rºw ebºatſwovíay.
† Apud Euseb. Praep. Evang. lib. xv. cap. 5.’
§ Cont. Celsum, lib. ii. p. 67.
| Phys. Stoic. lib. iii. diss. 11.
"[ Anton. lib. iii. §. 3. Si est aliquis defunctis sensus,
Sen. Consol. ad Polyb. cap. 27. Eph. 63, 71, 76. Val.
Max. lib. iv. cap. 6. Si supremus ille dies non extinctionem,
sed commutationem affert loci. Cic. Tusc. Qu. l. n. 105,
106.
** Anton. lib. iv. 14, vi. 24, vii. 32, x. 7. Aut beatus, aut
nullus. Polyb. apud Sen. Consol. cap. 27. Aut finit, aut
transfert. Seneca, Curbonis mala, cap. 6. Cic. Tusc. Qu. 1,
n. 22. Plut. de Consol. ad Apollon. p. 107, D.
++ Ultrà neque curae, neque gaudio locum esse. Apud
Sallust. in Catilină.
jj: Omnibus à supremä die eadem quae ante primam, nec
magis à morte sensus ullus aut corpori, aut anima, quâm
ante natalem. Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. vii. cap. 55.
§§ Ea quaevis, ut potero, explicabo, nec, tamen quasi
Pythius Apollo, certa ut sint, et fixa, quae dixero ; Sed ut
homunculus unus é multis, probabilia conjectura sequens;
ultrà enim quð progrediar quâm ut verisimilia videam, non
habeo. Tusc. Qu. lib. i. n. 15, 16,
|| Harum sententiarum quae vera est, Deus aliquis vide-
rit; quae verisimillima est, magma quaestio est, n. 20.
which I have committed to him (i. e. my soul and life,
1 Pet. iv. 19) against (or to) that day (of recompence).
13 Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou
hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ
Jesus (i. e. with a firm faith, and true Christian love:
see note on ii. 2).
firmed, as much as he was able, the doctrine of the soul's
immortality, he ingenuously confesses, Catervae veniunt con-
tradicentium, that his “opinion was contradicted, not only
by whole troops of the sect of Epicurus, but also by the
most learned of the other sects.”
Plutarch ºf saith, that if men will be restrained from their
evil courses by fear, they must be kept “under the super-
stition of the dread of hades;” but to them who have cast
off those fears must be propounded, # regi rā ºv$688; ‘rā;
&íðiðrnºro; #xtric, “the fabulous hope of immortality.” And
this, saith he, is one great benefit of philosophy, that it hath
taught us to look upon that death which others fear, &c. &nāāy
Trpè; hºwäç, “as nothing to us.” Now the philosophers them-
selves saw the evil effects that this denial or doubting of these
things would have upon the lives of men; viz.
1. That it would yield a great encouragement to men to
go on in their evil ways: for if death, saith Socrates, in
Phaed. p. 80, A, be the extinction of the whole, or a free-
dom from all evils, £ºwatoy &y at roi; taxoſ, 3roSayota'at, “this
will be good news to the wicked, that they have nothing to
Suffer.”
2. That it tended to discourage men from leading virtu-
ous and pious lives, as cramping all their hopes of happi-
ness: for, as Dionysius Halicarnasseus:t well observes, “If
the soul, when separated from the body, perisheth, it is not
easy to discern how good men can be happy, who receive no
fruit of their virtue here, but often perish by it.”
3. That it very much staggers our patience and persever-
ance in virtue, and our concern for fidelity and equity, when
we must suffer for them in this world: for it is truly said by
Cicero,S that “it is not possible for any one to have that
esteem for faith and equity, as to endure the most dread-
ful punishments to preserve them, unless he be assured
that the things he hath assented to cannot be false” (see
note on Heb. xi. 6). And yet, after all this uncertainty, it is
worthy of our deists to reflect on Plato's inference from his
discourse upon this subject ; viz. that though no wise man
could be positive in these things, yet it became him to do
his utmost to obtain virtue and wisdom, waxy yāé ré àSAoy,
xai h #Atri, KweyáAm, “because great was the hope, and the prize
excellent,” and that it was worthy of them, ziyêvyña'ai, “to
make a trial, though with hazard, as if we did believe them ;
xaxåg yāp 5 xívčwoç, for it is,” saith he, “a noble trial, and
it behoves us to have these things impressed upon our souls.”
As for the immortality the body shall obtain at the resur-
rection, the heathens knew and believed nothing of it: they
laughed at it, and looked upon it as a thing impossible, and
unworthy of God to do, and without any example to con-
vince them that it might be done. Hence then we see the
necessity that this “life and immortality " should be
“brought to light by the gospel ;" and what continual
thanks we owe to the blessed Jesus, who hath, by his death,
not only removed the fear and sting, but even the being of
death, and hath procured a blessed immortality, not only for
the Soul, but for the body also.
* Ver. 12. Thy tragakaraśānny gov, My soul;] Which
persons dying used to commit into the hands of God. So
Josephus, De Bello Jud. lib. iii. p. 852, “The immortal
soul, which hath its original from God, dwells in the body :
* Nescio quomodó doctissimus quisque contemnit. Ibid.
n. 63
+ Non posse suavitër vivi, &c. p. 1104.
f Ei ºr oùv Hºa roſ; a dºza at 8taxeauxávots, xat rô rà, Juxic,
3, ri 8%woré Batty #xtivo avv8taxõerat, oùx olòa Štro; Maxatiovº
itroxá82, roi; tınęy &moxadºraytaç rā; 36eric &yaščy, Bi' airhy
33 raúrny &moxxvgåvov;. Lib. viii. p. 529.
§ Nullo igitur modo fieri potest, ut quisquam tanti asti-
met acquitatem et fidem, ut ejus conservandi causã nullum
supplicium recuset, nisi is rebus assensus sit, quae falsa esse
non possunt. Acad. Quaest. lib, ii. n. 25.
CHAPTER, II.
859
14 “That good thing which was committed to thee
(i. e. the doctrine of the gospel, 1 Tim. vi. 20) keep by
the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us, (and confirms it
to us, 1 John ii. 20. 27).
15 This thou knowest (by messengers from Rome, or
those who travel from thence to Rome), that all they
*which are in Asia be turned away from (Gr. have
forsaken) me; of whom are Phygellus and Hermo-
€IleS.
8 16 The Lord give (i.e. show) mercy to the *house
-* * *-------
now if any one embezzles, or evilly entreats that which is
committed to him by man, he is accounted a wicked and per-
fidious man, si è rig rot a parégov ordaaro; #28&NAst rºw traga-
xaraśāzny rot; 0805, AEAmSévat 3oxeſ rêv 38twoſºvoy; if therefore
any one casts the depositum of God out of his body by self-
murder, can he hope to conceal himself from him that is in-
jured P” And Philo” in like manner saith, that “God hath
given to man a soul, speech, and sense, which he must en-
deavour so to keep, that he who committed them to him may
find no cause to blame him for his custody.” And again, i.
“This is the praise of the wise man, that he keeps the sacred
depositum of the soul, sense, speech, the divine wisdom, and
human understanding, purely, and without deceit, not to him-
self, but only to him who committed them to him.” And
again, lib. De Abr. p. 302, “No wise man,” saith he, “is of
fended that any one calls for Tày trapazaraśāzny, his depositum :
why therefore should he be offended, that God, or nature,
calls for that which they have intrusted with us?” And
Hermes saith, lib. ii. mandat. 2, “They that lie defraud the
Lord, not rendering to him rºy tragawaraśānny ?y Éxa£ov, the
depositum they received from him ; for they received a spirit
free from falsehood; and therefore by lying, #zinvav rºy roi;
Osoſ, trapakaraśākny, they have defiled God's depositum.” The
Jews, f make mention of two depositums of God: the lamp
which is in us, or the soul: and the lamp without us, which
is the law ; or according to Philo,SSEloy tragawa’raśńwn eyiov,
“the depositum of the divine mysteries:” and they introduce
God speaking thus ; “My light or lamp is in thy hand, and
thy lamp, which is thy soul, is in mine ; if thou shalt dili-
gently keep my lamp, I will keep thine ; if thou extinguish-
est mine, I will put out thine.” This depositum they, dying,
did commit into the hands of God ; as you may see Sepher
Tephiloth Lusitanorum.] The apostle seems to have respect
to both these depositums in his Epistles to Timothy ; to the
light of the gospel, when he saith, råy tragawara Sázny páxa£oy,
“Keep that which is committed to thee,” 1 Tim. vi. 20, and
here, ver. 14, to the lamp within us, ver. 13.
* Ver. 15. 'Ev'rº'Aziz, Which are in Asia.] This CEcume-
nius and Theophylact expound thus, of #y tº ‘Aatº, routécºriv,
#4 rºc 'Aviac, “Those of Asia, that either went with him to
Rome, or came to him there, or were found there at his com-
ing, in the time of his distress, forsook all converse with him,
---
• *-- ----------sº
* IIagaxatéSero &# orot airó, Juxºv Aáyov, afa Smarty, quae ita
conservanda Sunt, ut 3 ragakara&#wevoc, ºwn?? #xn rā; trag& arov
‘punaxic airiac flat. Quis Rerum Divinarum Haeres, p. 387, B.
+ Tour" #mrawá; #art roi; a mověalov, röy isgåy &; #xace Tragawa-
ta&#xny Juxic, alo'6%aewº, Aéyou, Seia; avºpia;, &yÉpotrivnº int-
aráanº, kaffaç㺠Xal 380xãº, º Havré, ºvº, 33 rāj weriºrsvkár,
quxá%ayroº. Ibid. p. 389, F, G.
f In. Elle Haddabarim Rabba.
§. De Sacrif. Cain, p. 108, D.
|| Wide Cartw. in locum.
of Onesiphorus (the Ephesian, iv. 19), for he oft re-
freshed me (with his presence and relief) and was not
ashamed of my chain (as the rest of the Asiatics were).
17 But when he was (Gr. being) in Rome, he sought
me out very diligently, and found me.
18 °The Lord (therefore) grant unto him (who
showed such mercy to me) that he may find mercy with
the Lord in that day (of recompence we Christians ea-
pect); and in how many things he ministered to me
at Ephesus, thou knowest very well.
for fear of Nero.” But this exposition seems not consistent
with the words. For, (1.) he saith, oùaç rotto, “This thou
knowest:” now Timothy, being not at Rome, could not well
know what was done there ; and therefore the apostle gives
him an account how all men had deserted him in his first
defence, iv. 16. But then in Asia, or Achaia, he might know
what happened there. (2.) The words &msargéºnoráy 'we,
“have been averse from me,” seem to import a departure
from Paul and his doctrine ; and may be rendered “They
have turned me off.” He having therefore told them long
before, that “after his departure grievous wolves should enter
in, not sparing the flock; and that from themselves should
arise men speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples
after them” (Acts xx. 29, 30); and charging Timothy to
stay some time at Ephesus, to oppose himself to the false
teachers of the Jewish nation, and to exhort the Ephesians
not to give heed to these teachers of the law (1 Tim, i.7), it
seems most proper to refer these words to the rejecting St.
Paul, as an adversary to the law, by the persuasions of the
Cerinthians and Ebionites, who laid this charge against him.
* Ver. 16. "Ovna tºpov olzº, The household of Onesiphorus.]
Onesiphorus seemed to be dead when Paul writ this, Saith
Grotius on the place: and if so, saith Esthius, here is a
strong confirmation of the practice of praying for the saints
deceased. I answer, (1.) That it follows not that Onesipho-
rus was dead, because Paul here mentions, and in the close
of this epistle salutes his family, without mention of him ;
the reason of that being this, because Onesiphorus was not
yet returned from Rome to Ephesus, where his family was ;
but, as Chrysostom, Theodoret, CEcumenius, and Theophy-
lact say, on 2 Tim. iv. 19, was then #y ‘Papºn, “at Rome,”
serving Paul. (2.) The apostle here only prays that he might
“find mercy at the great day” of recompence, as doth our li-
turgy, and all the ancient liturgies, “for deliverance in the
hour of death, and at the day of judgment;” which is per-
fectly exclusive of prayers supposed to be made for souls in
purgatory, which, if they do them any good, must be sup-
posed to do it before that day.
* Ver. 18. Aºn airā ā Kūgto; eigeſ, Exeo; trag& Kugiov. The
Lord grant he may find mercy from the Lord.] Here is a
plain example of the known rule of the grammarians, that
the noun is frequently repeated for the pronoun: so, Gen.
xix. 24, “Jehovah rained fire and brimstone, nin' nºn, Kū-
go; traçã Kvetov, from Jehovah.” So Exod. xxiv. 1–3,
“He,” i. e. Jehovah, ver. 3, “ said to Moses, Ascend” ºr
nºn", i.e. to me. And, 1 Sam. iii. 21, “Jehovah appeared to
Samuel in Shiloh, mm ºntº, by the word of the Lord.” So
Chrysostom, CEcumenius, and Theophylact, say here, routéart,
rag’ Havroi, and that it is the custom of the scriptures so to
speak, they prove from Gen. xix. 24, not fearing the ana-
thema, which the great council of Sirmium, through ignorance
of the Hebrew tongue, pronounced against them who did so
interpret it.
CHAPTER II.
1 THou therefore, my son, (follow not the evample
of those that turn from me, but) be (thou) strong in
(and through) the grace that is (given thee) in Christ
Jesus (see i. 6–8).
2 And the things which thou hast heard of (from)
me, (established) by many witnesses, the same com-
mit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach
others also.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II.
* Ver. 2. “A #xova &c trag #pºoú, The things which thow hast
heard from me..] “That depositum, cap. i. 14, which I com-
mitted to thee, in the public assembly, at thine ordination,
do thou also, in like manner, deposit with other faithful men,
that the truth may be continued in an uninterrupted succes-
‘860
II. TIMOTHY.
3 Thou therefore (assisted by his grace) endure
hardship, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
4 (Not loving this present world, or entangling thy-
self with the affairs of it, ) for no man that warreth
* entangleth himself with (any other of) the affairs of
this life; (but quits all these concerns,) that he may
(be more at leisure to) please him who hath chosen
him to be a soldier.
5 And (it is in this militia, as in the wrestling at
the Olympic games, where) if a man also strive (with
another) for mastery, yet is he not crowned, unless he
strives lawfully, (according to the rules of wrestling,
i. e. whless he wrestle naked, and have put off all the
sion of such persons:” so Mr. Obadiah Walker. “The
things agreed on, and consented to by all the other apostles,
do thou commit to able men, and appoint them as bishops
of the several churches under thee:” So Dr. Hammond.
I think there is no foundation for all this in the text; no in-
timation that these things were taught him at his ordination,
or that they were things agreed on, and consented to by all
the apostles, as if they had met and consulted about a system
of articles of faith and good life, to be held by all that taught
the Christian faith ; or that God chose this way to continue
down the faith, in an uninterrupted succession, from age to
age, of such persons; or, that this was a commission to Ti-
mothy to appoint bishops under him in the several churches
of Asia: for he doth not appoint him as he did Titus, “to
ordain elders in every city” (i. 5), the bishops of Ephesus,
and the adjacent cities, being before not only appointed but
convened by himself (Acts xx. 27, 28): the things which
Timothy had heard “confirmed by many witnesses,” seem
to refer to Christ's death, his resurrection, and ascension,
which were matters of testimony, and contained the prime
doctrines which Paul delivered to the churches, 1 Cor. xv.
3, 4, and which were confirmed by the testimony of Paul,
the twelve apostles, and five hundred brethren, ibid. ver. 5–
8. Luke xxiv. 50–52; or to the mystery of godliness, men-
tioned 1 Tim. iii. 16, and testified in every part of it by men
and angels. I grant also that the apostle seems to refer to
Soune form of doctrine delivered to them who received the
Christian faith, when he speaks of “the mystery of faith,”
and “the mystery of godliness,” 1 Tim. iii. 9. 15, 16, of
“the first principles of the oracles of God,” Heb. v. 12, and
of “the principles of the doctrine of Christ,” vi. 1–4, enu-
merating them in the Epistle to the Hebrews; there being a
faith once, and at once delivered to the saints, Jude 3, in
which they were to “stand fast,” and for which they were
to “contend” (Phil. i. 27): and that there was also a magaza-
raşºwn, or depositum of Christian doctrine delivered to them
who were to preach and instruct others in the faith ; and
which he commands Timothy, to keep, 1 Tim. vi. 20, 21,
as being entrusted with it, in opposition to those who had
erred from the faith, which he calls “the form of sound words
which he had been taught,” and which he was to keep, “in
faith and love of the truth” (2Tim. i. 13); and “that good
thing committed to him” (ver. 14), which he was to “keep
by the Holy Ghost,” the Spirit which leadeth into all truth,
the unction which taught them all things belonging to their
office (1 John ii. 20, 27), the things in which he was to “con-
tinue, knowing of whom he had learned them” (2 Tim. iii.
14). I lastly grant, that all the fathers, from Irenaeus down-
wards, speak of such a symbol of faith delivered to the church
by the apostles and their disciples, which the church received
from them, and distributed to her sons, being the one and
the same faith which the church retained throughout the
world, than which they believed neither less nor more, and
which, for substance, was the same with the Apostles' Creed.
This I have * elsewhere largely proved, and thence demon-
strated the falsehood of the whole doctrine of the church of
Rome, and of her new creed, delivered as necessary to be
believed unto salvation: and if Obadiah Walker means no
more, I shall not contend with him.
* Ver. 4. 'Epwºrxézerai raí, toº 8íov Trpaygateiaiº, Entan-
gleth himself with the affairs of this world..] The apostle
* Treatise of Tradit. par. ii. ch. 7, 8.
laurel.
clothes which might hinder him in wrestling, or give an-
other advantage to take hold of him. -
6 Nor let it discourage thee, that thou dost not re-
ceive thy wages presently, as other soldiers do : for)
the husbandman that laboureth first (Gr. first labour-
ing) must be (afterward) partaker of the fruits (of
his labour).
7 Consider what I say; and the “Lord give thee
understanding in all things (belonging to thy duty).
8 (And, to fortify thee under thy sufferings,) * re-
member that Jesus Christ, "of the seed of David,
(after all his sufferings) was raised from the dead, ac-
cording to (the testimony of) my gospel:
here, by two plain similitudes, requires Timothy, as a good
soldier and bishop of the church of Christ, and an evangelist,
not to engage himself in any temporal affairs or secular
negotiations; of which the first is taken from the compari-
son of a soldier, who was, by the Roman laws,” armis, non
privatis negotiis occupari: “to be employed wholly at his
arms, and not in any private business.” The second is taken
from the similitude of wrestlers,' who did not strive accord-
ing to the laws, unless they wrestled maked, and put off all
their garments, and therefore could not win the crown of
Hence is that inquiry of St. Basil, ti, a reqayof Trote
röy an?: 3ro8&oyra treč, roy &ytimaxcy; “Who crowns him who
comes not naked to his adversary?” And those words of
Chrysostom, “If thou art a wrestler, thou must come naked
to the combat; thou must put off the affairs of this life, and
be made a wrestler; divest thyself of worldly cares, for it is
the time of conflict.” Hence the Apostolical Canons declare,
can. iv., those bishops, priests, or deacons, ought to be deposed,
who do accºuvè; pgovtiba; &va»ap,8ávely, “immerse themselves
in worldly affairs.” Cyprian $ represents it as a thing wor-
thy of the divine judgments, that bishops, contemning the
office, “become proctors for secular affairs.” And this prac-
tice was condemned by the general council of Chalcedon, ||
can. ii. 12, and by a council of Carthage, as repugnant to
these words of the apostle; and by the council of Sardica,
can. viii. And even before Cyprian was bishop, this was
established in “I Africa by council, from this very text, “No
man that warreth, entangleth himself with the affairs of this
life.”
* Ver. 7. Aºn.] Other manuscripts read, 3&ore: yòg, “For
the Lord will give thee understanding,” &c. And 3&n is oft
put for 3%asi. So Gen. xxvii. 28, 2&n got & ©tic, “The Lord
shall give thee of the dew of heaven.” -
* Ver. 8. Mynºyevs, Remember.] To maintain this against
the unbelieving Jews, that Jesus Christ, the promised Mes-
siah, of the seed of David, not of Joseph, was raised from
the dead, according to the gospel that I preach, 1 Cor. xv.
5 Of the seed of David.] It is certain that the Jews, be-
fore our Saviour's time, thought the Messiah, the Son of
David, was not to die; and therefore, when Christ had told
them he was to be “lifted up,” they answer, “We have
heard, out of the law, that the Messiah abideth for ever ;
* Militares viros civiles curas arripere prohibemus. Col.
lib. xii. 12. Tit. 39, 9, 13, 15, 16. Ambros. Offic. lib. i.
cap. 36.
+ See Faber’s Agonist. lib. i. cap. 3, p. 118, 119.
† TIgö; row; 3) ºva; ; 3.9%tm; &mośćgtai Kai yukavoural zai
&; 36xntal ºrgö; too; 3)&ya; 3roëvrčºcesa st 39xnºr"; e.,
yvºváy are eiç &våva gia.Ex9sſy 38ſ, &ro8%ravra. 8wrix& Trºéyºcara,
xa: yáyoyag &0\nt; yūzyazov areavrov rày Biotixów pºcytºwy,
wäxn, yée Hatiy i zapá;. 'Avºglavºr. 3, tom. vi. p. 475, 476.
§ De Lapsis, ed. Oxon. p. 123.
| 'opeixoval yáp &traffaëla, sic tà yeygap, ºvov, ovºi, orga-
revågsvo; rā Qaā #47xézet Havrºy ºrgáyºaa. Kookikoſ. Can.
16.
"I Cúm jampridem in concilio episcoporum statutum sit,
ne quis de clericis, et Dei ministris, tutorem vel curatorem
testamento suo constituat, quandô singuli divino Sacerdotio
honorati, et in clerico ministerio constituti, non nisi altari, et
sacrificiis deservire, et precibus atque orationibus vacare
debeant : scriptum est enim, Nemo militans obligat Se mo-
lestiis secularibus, &c. Ed. Oxon. ep. 1.
CHAPTER II.
86)
, 9 °Wherein (for which gospel) 1 suffer trouble
(from the Jews, Acts xxv. 19. 26, and vi. 7, and
others), as an evil-doer, even unto bonds; but
(though I am bound) the word of God (which I
preagh) is not bound, (but hath its free course.
10 And) therefore (for this cause) I endure all
(these) things (cheerfully), " for the elect’s sakes (Col.
i. 24), that they (being confirmed by my example in
suffering, 2 Cor. i. 6. xiv. 15) may also obtain the
salvation which is (tendered) in (and through) Christ
Jesus, with eternal glory. *
ll. It is a faithful saying (that by Christ Jesus we
shall obtain this salvation) ; for if we be dead (Gr.
have died) with him (in baptism, by dying unto sin,)
we shall also live with him (in conformity to his re-
surrection, Rom. vi. 8).
12 If we suffer (as he did), we shall also reign with
him; (but) if (through persecutions) we deny him, he
also will deny us (Matt. x. 33):
and how sayest thou, that he must be lifted up?” (John
xii. 34.) And when first he tells his disciples of it, Peter
began to rebuke him, with an absit, “This shall not be unto
thee" (Matt. xvi. 22). When he tells them again of it,
“They understood not the word,” saith Mark ix. 32; “It
was hid from them that they perceived it not,” saith Luke
ix. 45. And again, “They understood none of these things,
and this saying was hid from them ; neither knew they the
things which were spoken " (xviii. 34). Surely Christ's
words were plain, “They shall put him to death ;” but they
knew not how to reconcile them with their received doc-
trine, that he was to “abide for ever" (John xii. 34); and
therefore, because Isaiah speaks so plainly of a Messiah, who
was to suffer death, they invented, afterward,” a distinction
betwixt “Messiah of the tribe of Ephraim,” the son of Jo-
seph, who was to die, and “Messiah of the tribe of Judah,”
the Son of David, who was to reign, and conquer, and never
die. This distinction is to be found in their Talmud, in the
Targum upon the Canticles, iv. 5. vii. 3, in Bereschith Rabba,
in Gen. xlix. 14, in R. Solomon, and. Kimchi on Zech. xii.
10. Now if this invention obtained in the times of Paul, he
might here have respect unto it; if not, because in the dia-
logue of Justin with Trypho we read nothing of it, their
notion, that the Messiah “of the seed of David’’ could not
die, must be confuted by his resurrection from the dead.
. Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised
jrom the dead..] Theodoret here observes, that Simon Ma-
gust began to broach his heresies about this time; and he
and all his followers denied that Christ had taken flesh upon
him, saying, that his incarnation, or anthropism, was only in
appearance, or ēv payraai, ; and, in opposition to this heresy,
he is here styled Jesus Christ “of the seed of David;” and
because from that heresy it must follow, that he could not
truly die or suffer in the flesh, and so could not be truly
raised from the dead ; therefore the apostle bids Timothy
remember, that he was raised from the dead, who was of the
Seed of Abraham, according to the promise.
* Ver, 9. 'Ev č, Pro 3' ot, cujus causã, more Hebræo,
Grotius. So, Matt. vi. 7, “They think to be heard, #y rà
Toxvaoyia, for their much speaking.” So, 3Åakºto; Év Kupið,
“A prisoner for the Lord;” Heb. xi. 2, #y raórn, “For this
the elders received a good report.” See Nold. Concord. p.
158: see in the LXX. Gen. xxxi. 4l. 2 Sam. xxiv. 24. 1
Kings x. 28. Lam. i. 1 1. v. 4. Hos. xii. 12, 13. Amos viii. 6.
see here, ver, 10.
7 Wer. 10. At& row: #xxextovº, For the elect's sake;] i. e.
For the sake of Christians, who are all yévo; #xxswºrdy, “a
chosen generation ” (see the note on 1 Pet. ii. 9), and who
may be confirmed in the faith, by the example of my patient
sufferings, and continuing in it may obtain that salvation to
which they are called. Vain therefore are these following
notes of Esthius; first, that there is a certain election of God,
which hath infallibly chosen us to Salvation: unless he means
this of a conditional election, God having infallibly determined
to save them who “make their calling and election sure,”
* In Maseechel Succa, dist. 5.
+ Vid. Theod. Haer. Fab. lib. i. cap. 1.
, 13. If we believe not (these promises of salvation to
his faithful sufferers), yet he abideth faithful: he
cannot deny (what he) himself (hath promised).
14 Of these things put them in remembrance (in
the churches of Christj, charging them before the
Lord that they "strive not about words (which tend)
to no profit, (but rather) to the subverting of the
hearers.
15 Study to show thyself approved unto God, a
Workman that needeth not to be ashamed, "rightly
dividing the word of truth.
16 But shun profane and vain babblings: for they
will increase to more ungodliness (rendering men more
and more profane).
17 And their word will eat as doth a canker (or,
gangrene, infecting the whole body); of whom (i.e. of
the number of which profane talkers) are "Hymenaeus
and Philetus; -
18 Who concerning the truth have erred, saying
by perseverance in good works (2 Pet. i. 10). Secondly,
that as Paul suffered those things only for the elect, so
Christ died only for them; for, “he tasted death for every
man,” Heb. i. 9; “he died for all,” 1 Tim. ii. 6; “not
for our sins only, but for the sins of the whole world,” 1 John
ii. 2; “for them that perish,” Rom. xiv. 15. Thirdly, that
neither Christ did, nor ought we to do, anything that the
reprobates may obtain salvation: which is horribly false;
Christ's preaching to the unbelieving Jews being intended
for their salvation, John iii. 17. xii. 47, and v. 34.40. For
the blinded Jews the apostle prays and labours that they
might be saved, Rom. ix. l. l I. 14. - -
* Ver, 14. Mi Aoyopºaxsſy, That they strive not about words.]
Here we learn, First, What are the things which ought not to
be matters of contention among Christians: (1). Such things
in which we differ from each other rather in words than
sense ; mean the same thing, but differ only in the expressing:
of our sentiments: which rule observed would put an end
to many of our controversies. (2). Such things as tend to
little or no profit, either as to edification in the faith, or edi-
fying of the body in love (Eph. iv. 16, see note on 1 Tim. i.
4. vi. 3. Tit. iii. 9), or, by knowing which, we may be the
more learned, but not the better Christians. Again, Hence
we learn why we should not contend about such things, viz.
because they tend to beget strife and contentions (ver. 23. 1
Tim. i. 4), which divide Christians into parties, and dissolve
or obstruct Christian charity. (2.) Because they tend to the
disturbance of the hearers, they not knowing to which party
to adhere ; and also to their subversion, causing them to
doubt of the truth of that faith about which the contending
parties cannot agree.
* Ver, 15. 'opSorcºvira rºy Xéyoy, Rightly dividing, or
handling, the word of truth.] This word 3:3oroºzáiv is a sa-
crificial word, relating to the right dividing of the sacrifice
which was to be laid upon the altar, by cutting off and lay-
ing aside those parts which were not to be offered, and
severing them from those that were: and to this sense Chry-
sostom, CEcumenius, and Theophylact, refer the word here,
saying, that he requires Timothy to separate from the
preaching of the word all noxious and idle questions, ºrávºra
‘rā ºregittà, all superfluous things, and give his hearers only
“the sincere milk of the word:” and this sense agrees well
with the preceding and the following words. Others think it
refers to the cutting out a straight path to walk in ; and so
it is an admonition, saith Theodoret, to keep close to the
truth of the gospel, in all his exhortations, rô Rayév táv Šešov
Xáyov šarēºvos, “following the canon of the holy Scriptures.”
* Ver. 17. 'ºrºvaloc, &c. Hymenaeus and Philetus.] That
these two were Gnostic teachers, none of the ancients do
insinuate ; nor did the Gnostics teach, that “the resurrection
was past already,” but that the flesh was not fit to rise, and
that it was incapable of salvation and of incorruption. So
Irenaeus" often doth inform us, by saying, they deny the Sal-
vation of the flesh, denying it to be capable of incorruption ;
--
* Carnis salutem negant, dicentes non eam esse capacem
incorruptibilitatis. Lib. v. cap. 2.
862
II. TIMOTHY.
that the resurrection is past already; and (by that
doctrine) overthrow the faith of some.
19 Nevertheless *the foundation of God (the hope
and promise of the resurrection) standeth sure, *having
this (as the) seal (of it), *The Lord knoweth them
that are his. And (therefore), Let every one “that
nameth the name of Christ depart "from iniquity.
20 (And be not disturbed, that such heretics as these
arise out of the members of the church ;) but (38, for) in
a great house (such as the church is) there are not only
vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and of
earth; and some (viz. those vessels of gold and of sil-
ver, representing the orthodox Christian, 1 Cor. iii. 12,
are, sic rupińv,) to honour, and some (viz. those of wood
and earth, representing the heterodoal) to (uses of) dis-
honour.
21 If a man therefore purge himself from those
and with him agree Pseud-Ignatius,” the Apostolical Consti-
tutions, and others. Valentinus, who flourished only A.D.
145, and so could not be touched at in these words, was of
the same opinion, say all the ancients. So that Tertullian
must either be mistaken, when, speaking of them, who held
the resurrection was past already, he adds, Id de se Valen-
tiniani adseverant, or means this, not of Valentinus himself,
whom he there numbers with those, qui resurrectionem
carnis infringunt, “who deny the resurrection of the flesh,”
but of some of his followers. But then Irenaeus: informs
us, that this was part of the heresy of Menander, who taught
resurrectionem per id quod est in eum baptisma accipere
ejus discipulos; “that his disciples obtained the resurrection
by his baptism, and so could die no more, but were to perse-
were immortal.” Justin Martyr Š also saith, he persuaded
his disciples, &; tº &roSyńakotey, “that they should not die.”
He taught, saith Timothy, priest of Constantinople, that
“they who received his baptism should be immortal, &; ºft-
Keri &troSwho keiv, and should never die.” Now he was con-
temporary to Simon Magus, and so might be also with Paul
(see note on 1 Cor. xv. 12.44, and Euseb. Hist. Eccles, lib.
iii., cap. 26. Tertul. de Animã, cap. 50).
.." War. 19. Geºšxto: roi, Geoff, The foundation of God.]
The fundamental doctrine of the resurrection to life eternal
is so styled, in these words, “Let us not lay again, röy Beºčxiov,
the foundation of the resurrection of the dead,” Heb. vi. 1,
2. This is the “faithful saying,” mentioned ver. 11, which
he exhorts Timothy to bring to their remembrance, ver, 14,
and by denying which, saith he, the Christian faith is over.
turned, ver. 18. But notwithstanding all the vain babblings
of Hymenaeus and Philetus, “this foundation,” saith the
apostle, “standeth sure.”
* Tây a psayièa raúrny, Having this seal.] Sealing seems
always mentioned in the New Testament for confirmation
and assurance; as when the apostle saith, “The seal of my
apostleship are you in the Lord,” 1 Cor. ix. 2, i.e. the effects
I have wrought upon you, and the gifts of the Spirit im-
parted to you, prove the truth of my apostleship: and when
he tells his converts, that by the Spirit they were “sealed up
to the day of redemption,” 2 Cor. i. 22. v. 5. Iph. i. 13. iv.
30, and were established in the truth of the gospel: the gifts
of the Spirit they had already received, according to Christ's
* Docent évéarazy Tigreſsiv. Apost. Const. lib. vi. cap.
10. Wide cap. 26. De Simone et Cleobio. Docent non
esse futuram corporis resurrectionem. Epist. Corinth. ad
D. Paulum ; Usher Not. in Epist. ad Tral. p. 29. "ort #
ºpé abº ºx reſperai. Pseud-Ignat. Ep. ad Tars. S. 2. ad
Smyrn. S. 7. -
T. Vaniigitur qui à Valentino sunt dogmatizantes uti ex-
cludent salutem carnis. Iren. lib. v. cap. 4. Epiph. Haer.
xxxi. p. 171, D. Obšây yāp röy in rā, ºxic #Triśxeral corn-
£iº". Theodoret. Har. Fab. lib. i. cap. 7, p. 206. August.
adv. Haer, cap. 11, Carnis resurrectionem negat. of 22em;
*iy &rayogºſovow &váaraaiy. Damasc. de Haer sect. 3, presb.
1. "ANNo cºwa iyeſse-Sai ryevaatiköy, zal oùxī rotºro. Timoth.
Presb. Ep. apud Coteler, tom. iii. p. 381.
# Et ultrà morinon posse, sed perseverare non senescentes,
et immortales. Iren. lib. i. cap. 21.
$ Apud Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. iii, cap. 26.
| Apud Cotel. tom. iii. p. 38
386.
(false doctrines, and the teachers of them), he shall be
a vessel unto honour, “ sanctified, and meet for the
master’s use (serviceable to Christ, the master of the
family), and prepared unto every good work.
22 (Avoid these, therefore, and)” flee also youthful
lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace,
with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
23 But (the) foolish and unlearned questions (of
the Jews, see note on 1 Tim. iv. 7. Tit. iii. 9) avoid,
knowing that they do gender strifes.
24 And (for) the servant of the Lord must not
strive; but be gentle to all men, apt to teach, patient,
25 In meekness instructing those that oppose them-
selves (to the gospel); if God *peradventure will give
them repentance to the acknowledgment of the truth
(they contend now against) ;
26 And that they may recover themselves (or awake).
promise, being a confirmation of that glorious redemption he
had farther promised.
* "Eyyo, Kūgio; row; Syra; aircº, The Lord knoweth who
are his.] i. e. He owns and approves those he hath commis-
sioned to reveal his mind to others: for this expression
is taken from Numb. xvi. 5, where Korah, Dathan, and
Abiram, rise up against Moses and Aaron, declaring they
took too much upon them, in pretending the one to be their
prophet, and the mouth of God to them, the other to be the
high-priest, whom God had consecrated to his peculiar ser-
vice above all others of the tribe of Levi. Now to this im-
putation Moses replies, according to the Septuagint, #yvo, 3
Os3; roi; ºv'ra; airroſ, “God knoweth who are his,” and by
him separated to his service, and will maintain their cause
and calling against all opposers; as in that instance he did
in a wonderful manner, causing the earth to open, and
Swallow them up : so also will God own us his apostles
against Hymenaeus and Philetus, and all that set up against
us and our doctrine. As therefore Moses said then to the
Israelites, “Depart you from the tents of those men, ka?
&Tréztnzay, and they departed;” so say I now to all Christians,
Let them depart from this impiety, i. e. from these pernicious
doctrines, which increase to ungodliness, and cause men to
make shipwreck of faith and a good conscience.
* That nameth the name of Christ.] i. e. That professeth
to own him, or to be his disciple : so Isa. xxvi. 33, rā āyogā.
cov čvokášousy, “We have no other God but thee, we name
thy name” (see Isa. xliii. 7. lxiii. 19. Ps. lxxx. 19. Gen. iv.
26. 2 Chron. xii. 13).
* 'Ar' 38triaç.] Justum pro vero, et injustum pro falso,
frequentes tam nos quam Attici ponimus, saith Priscian :
“Both Greeks and Latins frequently use the word injustice
to denote falsehood” (see note on 1 Cor. xiii. 6), so that
these words may thus be rendered, “Let every one that
names the name of Christ depart from falsehood;" i.e. let
him preserve himself from the pernicious errors of these
apostates from the truth.
* Ver. 21. ‘Hytagºvoy, Sanctified.] The vessels of the
Sanctuary were consecrated to the service of God, and were
also, saith the apostle, purified by the sprinkling of the blood
upon them (Heb. ix. 21). And so are Christians sprinkled
by the blood of Jesus from their sins, and consecrated by
baptism to his service, and so made meet for the service of God
(see the reading of the text justified, Examen Millii, in locum).
” Wer. 22.] Note, that hence it follows, that we must
maintain peace with, and therefore must not separate from our
communion, any person who serves Christ with a pure heart.
* Ver. 25. Mârors, If peradventurg.] This word in the
Septuagint answers to the Hebrew particle ºnx, si fortè or
fortassé. So, Gen. iii. 25. xxiv. 5.39, whºrots of ºrogeia stat
# yvyń, “Perhaps the woman will not come with me;” xxvii.
12, ºfttrore Jºaºhan, “Perhaps my father will handle me;”
Achirors 3xwángzá šarty, “Perhaps it is an error,” Gen. xliii. 12;
1 Kings xviii. 27, ańrrors xzmaarićet, h ºchrote caseſ?st, “If
perhaps hebe busy, or perhaps sleepeth” (see also Job i. 5.
Luke iii. 15). So Philo,” &xx& ahrote 3 Aéyst rotojºrây a riv,
“Perhaps that which he saith is to this effect;” and again,
fºrore ºv rāv roſ, ravré, oigayoff regiºopäy, 3 tróvoay sigáyet
—ºrrors 3: Kaş’ $ºrégay #x30xºv,; “Perhaps he signifies the
* Alleg, lib. ii. p. 52, B.
ºf Cherub. p. 85, G. 86, E.
CHAPTER III.
863
out of the snare of the devil, "who are (now) taken
captive by him at his will (Gr. sic Tô irstvov Şūmua,
to the performance of the will of God; penitents being
turned from the power of Satan unto God, Acts xxvi.
18. Col. i. 13).
circumference of the whole heaven—or perhaps, by another
interpretation, either hemisphere :” and, p. 88, F, whºrors
sixáros, “Perhaps fitly;” p. 110, D, whºrors. 33 rºy airy
airlaw, “Perhaps for this cause;” and De Abrahamo, p.
285, E. -
* Wer. 26. "Ečoyºnºvot in airoi etc ºrd #xsivov Séamºa,
Who are taken captive by him at his will.] Some refer this
to the devil, as being the nearest substantive to the relative
#xeſvoc. But (1.) this seems not agreeable to the use of the
two relatives, which, when they come together, seldom relate
to the same person. (2.) Satan is the nearest substantive
rather in place than in sense, the words being capable of this
construction ; “If peradventure God will give them re-
pentance to do his will, that they who are taken captive by
the devil, may awake out of his snare.” This is the sense
which best accordeth with the work of conversion and re-
pentance, which is a recovering men from the service of Sa-
tan to the service of God (Acts xxvi. 18); a freeing them
from sin, that they may be servants of God (Rom. vi. 17);
a delivering men from the power of darkness, and trans-
lating them into the kingdom of his Son (Col. i. 13).
CHAPTER III.
1 THIS know also, that in the last days (of the Jew-
ish economy, and the erecting of Christ’s kingdom, see
note on 1 Tim. iv. 1) perilous times shall come.
2 * For men shall be lovers of their ownselves
(i. e. their own temporal pleasures and profits), cove-
tous, boasters, proud, blasphemers (evil speakers),
disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy (or pro-
Jane),
3 Without natural affection, truce-breakers, false
accusers, incontinent, fierce (or cruel), despisers of
those that are good,
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III.
* Ver. 2. "Ecoviral yèg of āySgwrot.] That the apostle here
speaks of such persons as were in being when this epistle was
indited, is evident from his command to Timothy, to “turn
away” from them, and from the description of them.
That they were not the Gnostics, or the followers of Simon
Magus, seems apparent; first, because Simon Magus could
not make the times perilous by any opposition he could
make to Christianity, he being a despicable and beggarly ma-
gician, of whose.power or endeavour to persecute the Chris-
tians, I remember not one word in church history applicable
to the times of this epistle; but that the Jews were zealous
persecutors of them, not only in Judea, but through all parts
of the world where they were dispersed, both scripture and
Justin Martyr fully testify; and the supposed combination
betwixt the Jews and Gnostics is not only groundless, but
incredible: for what accord could there be betwixt him who
set up for a god, yea, for a father over all, and them who
were zealous for the true God, and hated idolatry with a
perfect hatred 2 or between them who had the highest vene-
ration for the law and the prophets, and him who taught
they were not at all to be regarded ? Secondly, because
the Jews had “a form of knowledge” (Rom. ii. 20), and
“a zeal for God” (Rom. ix. 1), and a settled form of wor-
shipping the true God ; they were great zealots for the
observation of the Sabbath, and all the sacrifices and institu-
tions required by the law of Moses; and served God fre-
quently day and night (Acts xxvi. 7), and so they had “a
form of godliness,” though not worshipping God in the spirit
(Phil. iii. 3); but only with these carnal ordinances “they
denied the power thereof:” but what form of godliness do
we find in Simon Magus and his followers in the times of
the apostles? what profession of Christianity could he make,
who set himself to oppose the apostles, and the doctrines
which they taught P See a third argument against this ex-
position, ver, 9.
'But that these characters agree to the Jews, and particu-
larly to the Judaizing Christians, and false teachers, is evi-
dent from scripture and church history, and from the writings
of Josephus: for, Rom. i. 29–31, we have mention of |
gentiles that were “covetous, proud, boasters, disobedient
to parents, without natural affection, truce-breakers, unclean,
unthankful;” and, ii. 21, the Jewis condemned as doing the
same things; and, ver, 22. 24, as guilty of adultery and
4 Traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures
more than lovers of God; *.
5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the
power thereof: from such turn away.
6 For of this sort are they which * creep into houses,
and lead captive silly women laden with sin, led away
with divers lusts, * º
7 Ever learning (of new teachers), and never able
to come to the knowledge of the truth.
8 Now as * Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses
(when working his miracles in Egypt before Pharaoh),
blasphemy. They were blasphemers and false accusers of
the apostles, as if they walked after the flesh (2 Cor. x. 2),
contradicting and blaspheming Christianity (Acts xiii. 45);
they represented it to all the world, when it was first preached,
as an atheistical sect, * and were the authors of all the
vile stories which the heathens objected against it: and in
despising of the apostles and Christians, they were despisers
of those that were good. They were great lovers and ad-
mirers of themselves, proud, boasters, and high-minded, boast-
ing of God as their Father, and of their knowledge of the
law (Rom. ii. 17. 23), magnifying themselves above others
(see note on 2 Cor. xi. 12. 20), glorying in their circumcision
(ver. 18), and in their being of the seed of Abraham (ver.
22. Phil. iii. 5), and exalting themselves upon these accounts
above the gentiles, whom they styled dogs, and sons of the
earth, and uncircumcised ; whilst they were the noble, the
“sons of God,” and his beloved people. They were 3,480A9,
“contentious, and obeyed not the truth” (Rom. ii. 8. Phil.
i. 15, 16); they were covetous, perverting others “for filthy
lucre's sake” (Tit. i. 11), “counting gain godliness” (1 Tim.
vi. 5), “minding earthly things” (Phil. iii. 10); they were
fierce, heady, cruel in their persecutions of the Christians
(1 Thess. ii. 15, 16); they were traitors and truce-breakers
in their revoltings from the Roman government: they were
disobedient to their parents in their corban (Matt. xv. 5),
and without natural affection, not in that only, but in their
persecutions of Christians of their own family and blood
(Luke xxi. 16): they were unholy and incontinent, defiled,
and abominable (Tit. i. 14, 15), in their adulteries, and
continual divorces; lovers of pleasure, making “ their belly
their god” (Phil. iii. 19), feasting luxuriously on their sab-
baths, and given to drunkenness in their feasts of Purim (see
the reading, ver. 3, justified, Examen Millii, ibid.).
* Ver. 6..] That these perverters of men from the truth
and creepers into houses, were of the circumcision, and ad-
dicted to Jewish fables, see Tit. i. 10, 11. 14. -
* Ver. 8. Jannes and Jambres.] Though we have no
imention of the names of these magicians in the Old Testa-
ment, yet were their names celebrated both among the hea-
* "Avēpa; #xxextob; 373 ‘Iegovo axºp, #xas:42.Évor ºte #earéº-
* aw tag a x- ºw *
share si; ºráray rºw yºv, x£yovre; afésaw 30soy Xétariayåv Trºpnvéval,
x&tax#yovre; raûra &wsp wa3’ hºw of 3/woodvºrs; hºwäç träyrs;
Méyovariv. Justin Martyr. Dial. cum Tryph. p. 234, E.
235, A.
864.
II. TIMOTHY. .**
so do these also resist the truth : (being) men of cor-
rupt minds, “reprobate concerning the faith (Tit. i.
14–16).
9 But "they shall proceed no farther (Gr. not much
farther); for their folly shall be manifest to all men,
as theirs also was (i. e. the folly of Jannes and
Jambres).
10 But (be not troubled at such times or persons,
having in me good eagerience of the power and readiness
of God to deliver them who suffer for his sake, for)
* thou hast fully known my doctrine, (my) manner of
life, (my) purpose (to adhere to Christ, seeking his
glory, not my own, and to promote his gospel to the ut-
most, my) faith, long-suffering (2 Cor. vi. 6), charity
(1 Cor. viii. 13. ix. 22. 2 Cor. xi. 29, my) patience,
11 (The) persecutions, afflictions, which came unto
me at Antioch (Acts xiii. 50), at Iconium (xiv. 2), at
Lystra (where I was stoned, ver. 19), what persecutions
I endured (from the Jews); but out of them all the
Lord delivered me.
12 Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus
shall suffer persecution (especially in such perilous
times ; and at all times, either openly or secretly, from
the hatred and malice of wicked men, or from their taunts
and calumnies, which are styled persecutions, Gal. iv.
29, nor is it to be eaſpected that it should be otherwise).
13 But (§§, for) evil men and "seducers (impostors)
will (till the wrath of God takes hold upon them) wax
worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.
14 But continue thou in the things which thou hast
learned (from me), and hast been assured of, knowing
of whom thou hast learned them;
15 And that *from a child thou hast known the
holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise to
salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
16 °All scripture is given by inspiration of God,
thens, as Pliny” and Numenius+ inform us, who represent
them as Egyptians skilled in the art of magic ; and in the
Jewish writings, who do not only say that they were princi-
pes praestigiatorum, “the chief of the magicians;” but also
that they were the two sons of Balaam. Origen; informs
us, that there was a book writ by them, bearing this title,
Jannes et Mambres liber.
* 'A36xigoi rest rºy ºria riy, Reprobate concerning the faith.]
So they are styled in scripture, who, through their resistance
of, and contentions against, the truth, are unworthy to have
the faith made known to them, or indisposed to receive it.
Thus the heathens, who, “when they knew God, did not
glorify him as God, neither were thankful” (Rom. i. 22.25),
are therefore delivered up eiç vočy 386xtºw, “to a reprobate
mind:” and they here who resist the truth, being “men of
corrupt mind,” are therefore “reprobate concerning the
faith” (see note on 2 Cor. xiii. 5).
Ver. 9. Oi Trgozákovariv, They shall proceed no farther.]
This agrees well with the Jewish false doctors, who were
soon disabled from carrying on their false doctrines, by the
destruction of Jerusalem; but not so well with the Gnostic
heretics, who spread themselves wide in the second century.
The fancy of a reverend person, that Paul here prophesies,
that as Jannes and Jambres perished in the Red sea, so
should Simon Magus at Rome, falling down headlong, when
he was flying in the air, perish at the prayers of Peter and
Paul, is in every part of it uncertain. For,
First, Though the Jews tell us Jannes and Jambres were
with Pharaoh at the Red sea, they say not that they pe-
rished there, but say they rode with Balaam to meet Balak,
and lived to the making of the golden calf, and then perished
(Targ. Jon. in Numb. xxii. 22).
Secondly, I have shown in the preface to the Epistle to
the Thessalonians, $. 6, that the story of Simon Magus's
flying in the air in a fiery chariot, and being thrown down
by the prayers of those two apostles, in the sight of the peo-
ple at Rome, is of no credit among learned men.
* Ver. 10. IIapnxoxotónzac, Thou hast fully known.] IIaea-
x0x006sſy, relatum ad animum, est ovviévet, saith Constantine.
So the Greek commentators thought it here signified, ren-
dering it clºaç, a spºënka; 3x3-8%, “Thou hast known, thou
hast learnt exactly,” as the word imports, Luke i. 4. The
primary sense of it, “Thou hast followed, or resembled me,
in my persecutions,” may also be applied to Timothy, who
was in bonds at Rome also, Heb. xiii. 23 (see the note on
1 Tim. vi. 12).
7 Ver. 13. Kai yánºrsº, Impostors.] That the impostors
among the Jews continued till the very time of the destruc-
tion of Jerusalem, more and more deceiving the people, and
that the whole nation of the unbelieving Jews grew then to
* Hist. Nat, lib. xxx. cap. 1.
+ Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evang, lib. ix. cap. 8.
† Buxt. Lex. Talm. col. 945, 946. Targ. Jon. in Ex. i.
15. Wii. l. l.
§ Sicut Jannes et Jambres restiterunt Moisi non inveni-
tur in publicis scripturis, sed in libro Secreto qui suprascribi-
tur Jannes et Mambres liber. Tract. 35 in Matth.
the highest pitch of wickedness, Josephus fully testifies (see
notes on Rom. ii. 2. 2 Thess. ii. 10).
8 Wer. 15. From a child thou hast learned the scriptures.].
. Note here, the care of the Jews to teach their children the
scriptures even from their childhood: from five years old,
say the Talmudists, we put our children to read the Bible.
Josephusk informs us, that their children “learning their
laws, 373 rº, ºrpºrn; eWSū; airóña’soc, from the first dawnings
of sense and reason in them,” had them engraven in their
souls: which, as it condemns the practice of the church of
Rome, in withholding those sacred oracles from old and
young, so also it does reprehend the generality of Christians,
who are more concerned to teach their children things un-
necessary, or, at the best, things only needful for this present
life, than to instruct them in that word of God, “which is
able to make them wise to Salvation.”
9 Wer. 16. TI30 a yeaqº, All scripture.] Here note,
First, That the scriptures of the Old Testament, not of
the New, must be the scriptures here intended, they only
being the scriptures which Timothy had known from a
youth ; that is, before the scriptures of the New Testament
were written ; and so he could not speak of the scriptures,
as interpreted by them who were then guides of the church,
viz. the Jewish sanhedrin, or the scribes and pharisees ; see-
ing they so interpreted them, as to make void the command-
ments of God, and to deny our Saviour to be the promised
Messiah.
Secondly, Observe, that the apostle doth not say, that
these scriptures were of themselves sufficient to make Tim-
othy wise to salvation ; but only, that with “faith in Christ
Jesus” they were sufficient for that end. Now faith in Christ
Jesus doth only signify a firm belief that Jesus was the
Christ, the true Messiah, the Son of God, the Saviour of the
world ; as is evident from these words, “This is the victory
over the world, even our faith,” l John v. 4, i.e. our belief
that “Jesus is the Son of God,” ver. 5 (see the preface to
the Epistle to the Galatians, Š. 2). Hence then I argue for
the perfection of the scriptures thus: If the scriptures of the
Old Testament were sufficient to make a man wise unto sal-
vation, provided only that he believed that “Jesus was the
Christ;” the scriptures of the Old and the New Testament
must much more be so, because the scriptures of the New
Testament must needs more plainly and fully contain the
faith and duty of all Christians, than the scriptures of the
Old only can be supposed to do. w
Obj. But, saith Esthius, “If the scriptures of the Old
Testament were sufficient to make men wise unto Salvation,
then there is no need of the gospels, or of the epistles, of
the New Testament.”
Ans. I answer, Yes: there was need of them, both to be-
get in men, and to confirm this faith in Christ, they being
written “that we might believe, and believing might have
life through his name * (John xx. 31); and also to give the
Christians of succeeding ages a more full, plain, and perspi-
cuous knowledge of those things, which were not so fully
and plainly, to the capacity of the meanest, to be learnt in
* Contra Apion. lib. ii. p. 1072, E.
CHAPTER IV.
865
and is (Gr. being inspired by God, is also) profitable
for doctrine (to teach us what we are to believe), for re-
proof (or conviction of error), for correction (and re-
formation of vice, and) for instruction in (the way of)
righteousness:
17 That the man of God (or teacher of it) may be
perfect, (both as to his own practice and his teaching
others, and so) thoroughly furnished (not to this or
that only, but) to all good works (belonging to his
office). *
the Old Testament. Thus, though the five books of Moses
sufficiently contained the whole Jewish law, it follows not
that the historical and prophetical books, or the hagiographa,
were superfluous.
. Thirdly, Observe, that the apostle saith, these scriptures
were therefore able to make Timothy, a Christian bishop,
“wise to salvation,” because they were “profitable for doc-
trine,” to teach the Christian all that he was to believe, rgº;
#Asyxov, “for the correction” of every error in the faith, “for
the conviction” of every vice which they were obliged to es-
chew, and for their “instruction in" every way of “right-
eousness;” even so profitable for these ends, as “to make
the man of God perfect;” i. e. wanting in nothing he ought
to practise or believe himself or teach others, for the edifica-
tion of a Christian into “a perfect man in Christ Jesus,” and
to make him “thoroughly furnished to every good work.”
So Chrysostom, Theodoret, CEcumenius, and Theophylact,
upon the place. -
False therefore here is the note of Esthius, That the
scriptures are here said to be profitable, but not sufficient to
to these ends ; vain is his subterfuge, that the apostle, by
“every good work,” understands only singula generum,
“every kind of good works,” but not “every good work of
that kind,” i. e. every work of faith and instruction in
righteousness: for if these good works be requisite “to make
the man of God perfect, and thoroughly furnished” for his
office, they must be here included; if they be not, they must
be needless in order to the discharge of it.
CHAPTER IV.
1 I chARGE thee therefore before God (the Father),
and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick
and the dead 'at his appearing and his kingdom;
2 * Preach the word; be instant (in that work) in
season (and) out of season (publicly and privately, by
day and night, in times of peace and of danger) ; re-
prove (#Asyśov, repel false teachers), rebuke (evil livers),
exhort with all long-suffering (though they long seem
not to regard thy eahortations) and doctrine (i. e. all
manner of instructions. -
3 Thus it becomes thee to be instant now, ) for the
time will (shortly) come when they will not endure
sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they
heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
4 And they shall turn away their ears from the
truth, and shall be turned unto *fables.
5 But watch thou in all things (whieh respect thy
office), endure affliction (patiently), do the work of an
evangelist (see the note on Eph. iv. 11), make full
proof of (Gr. fulfil) thy ministry.
6 For I am now ready to be offered (Gr. I am
already poured out), and the time of my departure (or
dissolution) is at hand. (See the Preface.)
7 (But be it so, this is my comfort, that) I have
fought a good fight (suffering hardship as a good sol-
dier of Jesus Christ), I have finished (or run) my .
course, I have kept the faith:
8 (So that) henceforth (I may be confident) there is
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV.
* Ver. 1. Kará rày intºâvetay atroſ, zai rāv 8actasiay airoij,
At his appearance, and his kingdom.j “This appearance,”
saith Mr. Mede, “is the appearance of Christ, the word ini-
‘páveia always importing Christ's advent, who, after the re-
surrection, and the judgment of the quick and dead, must
give up his mediatory kingdom to the Father ; it therefore
must signify some other kingdom, proper to Christ's second
coming ; and what can that be, but the kingdom of the mil-
lennium ?” But,
First, This appearance of Christ is his glorious appearance,
when we shall receive “the blessed hope,” i. e. the eternal
happiness we hope for, Tit. ii. 13, when “we shall appear
with him in glory,” Col. iii. 4, when we shall be “made like
unto him, and see him as he is,” 1 John iii. 2; which can-
not be expected till after this supposed millennium. It is
the same with “the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ from
heaven,” 2. Thess. i. 7, his “glorious revelation,” l Pet. iv.
13, and with his tragovoria, second “coming” which is, “a
coming with all his saints,” 2 Thess. iii. 13, “a coming of
our Lord from heaven,” 1 Thess. iv. 15, 16. Now Mr.
Mede himself confesses, That he dares not so much as ima-
gine, that the presence of Christ in the millenary kingdom
would be visible upon earth: for the kingdom of Christ,
saith he, p. 603, ever hath, and shall be regnum coelorum,
“a kingdom, whose throne and kingly residence is in hea-
ven.” And, thirdly, at this appearance, and his kingdom,
Saith the apostle, he shall judge the quick and the dead ;
not the dead only, but the quick and the dead ; not some
of them only, but all of them without exception. Now the
judgment of the dead, is to be after the conclusion of the
Supposed millennium, Rev. xx. 12.
Secondly, Though Christ will, after the judgment of the
quick and dead is completed, give up his mediatory king-
dom; yet, since that very judgment consists in retribution
of his final punishments upon his enemies, and crowning
of his loyal subjects with eternal glory, which are the two
chief acts of kingly government, and the very end for which
all power was committed to him (John xvii. 2), it very pro-
perly is styled his “kingdom:” and though he shall then de-
liver up this kingdom, as it is a kingdom, which respects the
rewarding of his servants, and the punishment of his enemies,
when the first shall be crowned with eternal glory, and the
last doomed to endless punishments; yet shall he still
continue to be “ King of saints,” highly exalted above
them in honour and dignity, and honoured still by them
with religious respect and veneration.
* Ver. 2. Khºvšov, Preach, &c.] In Timotheo omnes pas-
tores officii sui commonitos esse voluit Spiritus Sanctus,
Esthius.
Eüxaigoc, *.xi &xaigo'º, In season, and out of season.] That
is, saith Chrysostom, not only when thou art in the church,
but also in thine house ; not only in times of peace and
safety, but also when thou art in prison ; not only in time of
health, but even when thou art about to die.
9 Wer. 4. 'Etri row; ºtôouç, To fables.] To the fabulous
divinity of the Gnostics, and made up of gentilism and Juda-
ism, say some ; but it doth not appear that the fabulous
divinity of the Gnostics, mentioned by Irenaeus, was then
hatched : it is far more probable, that he here speaks of the
Jewish doctors, and their fabulous traditions ; for in his
First Epistle he saith, he left Timothy at Ephesus, that he
might charge some among them not to teach other doctrines,
“nor to give heed to fables and endless genealogies,” 1 Tim.
i. 3, 4, which, as it relates to the genealogies of the Jews,
touching their tribes, their relation to the house of David,
and their traditionary men (see the note there); so, ver. 7,
the apostle plainly tells us, they were “teachers of the law;”
which Simon and his followers said was not to be regarded.
And in his Epistle to Titus, he sends a like exhortation to
him, to preserve the Cretians from giving heed to Jewish
fables (Tit. i. 14), and “doctrines of men that turn from
the truth ;” which the Gnostics, who never sincerely em-
3 K
866
II. TIMOTHY.
laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the
Lord (Jesus), the righteous judge, shall give me “at
that day : and not to me only, but to all them also
that love (Gr. have loved) his appearing (and shown
that love by patient suffering for his sake).
9 Do thy diligence to come to me shortly :
braced the truth, could not do ; and to avoid “foolish ques-
tions, and genealogies, and contentions, zai º żxa; woºzizé,
and quarrels about the law,” as being unprofitable and vain
iii. 9). § *
( * Ver, 8. 'Ev weivn rº hºcãº, At that day.] The council of
Florence hath defined. “That pure and cleansed souls, when
they quit the body, are presently received into heaven, and
there have a clear vision of the holy Trinity.” And the
Trent council, sess. 25, hath laid this as the foundation of
the invocation of Saints departed, that they do now, cum
Christo regnare, et aeternå felicitate in coelo frui; “reign
with Christ, and enjoy eternal felicity in heaven.” But in
this they seem to deviate from scripture and the primitive
antiquity: I say, from scripture ; for,
First, Charity is represented by Paul as the most ex-
cellent of Christian virtues, and therefore that which will
obtain the highest recompence ; and yet the motive by
- which our Lord excites us to perform it runneth thus, “Thou
shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just” (Luke
xiv. 14). -
Secondly, To those who suffer death and persecution for
the name of Christ, our Lord hath promised “a great reward
in heaven” (Matt. v. 12), but this reward will only be con-
ferred upon them “at the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ
from heaven with his mighty angels” (2 Thess. i. 7). “The
trial of their faith shall be found to praise, glory, and honour,
iv 3roxazºle, at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. i. 17).
Then they, who communicate with him in sufferings, shall
rejoice with him, Éy rā āºroza A&Jet, “at the revelation of his
glory” (1 Pet. iv. 13); till then, the souls of them who were
slain for the word of God are represented as “under the
altar,” Rev. vi. 9.
Thirdly, To those who “feed the flock of Christ,” a great
reward is promised, even a never-fading “crown of glory ;”
but it is to be received then only, “when the great Shepherd
doth appear” (1 Pet. v. 4). A reward is to be rendered to
the servants of God, the saints, and prophets; but it is to be
rendered, “when the time comes that the dead shall be
judged” (Rev. xi. 18). The apostles are to have their man-
sions in heaven with Christ, but not till he comes again
from heaven : for then, saith he, “I will receive you to my-
self; that where I am, you may be also” (John xiv. 2, 3).
Fourthly, The retribution “to every man according to his
Works” is also to be made at the same time ; for “the Son
of man will come in the glory of his Father, with his holy
angels; and then will he render to every man according to his
works” (Matt. xvi. 27) : “At the end of the world shall the
righteous shine as the sun, in the kingdom of their Father”
(Matt. xiii. 40. 43): this shall be done, “in the day when
God shall judge the secrets of men's hearts” (Rom. ii. 15),
and, when we shall “appear before the judgment-seat of
Christ” (2 Cor. v. 12. Rev. xxii. 10).
Fifthly, Hence, in the scripture, the time of recompence
and the time of judgment are represented as the same; as
in these words, “The time is come that the dead shall be
judged, and that thou shouldest give rewards to thy servants
the prophets, and to the saints” (Rev. xi. 18). The time of
glory, and of the apparition of our Lord ; as in these words,
“When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall you
appear with him in glory” (Col. iii. 4). The time of Christ's
appearance, and of our salvation ; for, “he shall appear a
second time without sin unto salvation” (Heb. ix. 28). The
time of his appearing, and of our beatific vision ; for, “when
he doth appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as
he is” (1 John iii. 2).
Sixthly, Hence Christians are so often said to expect
“ the adoption of the sons of God, viz. the redemption of
the body” from corruption (Rom. viii. 23); to “expect the
revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. i. 7); to “ex-
pect the Son of God from heaven” (1 Thess. i. 10); to “ex-
pect the blessed hope and glorious appearance of the great
God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Tit. ii. 14); to “hope
for the grace that shall be given them at the revelation of our
Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. i. 13).
Now let it be observed, That the body, compared to the
Soul, is the vilest and least considerable part of man ; and
therefore, the hope, the glory, the reward, inheritance, adop-
tion, bliss, and happiness, reserved to the time of the resur-
rection, cannot respect the body only. Moreover, the apostle
Saith of the incestuous person, that his body was “delivered
up to Satan, for the destruction of the flesh, that his soul
might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (1 Cor. v. 5),
which shows, that the complete salvation of the soul is then
to be expected.
As for the judgment of primitive antiquity in this matter,
it may be learned from these considerations:
First, That they ascribe this opinion of the soul's imme-
diate ascent to heaven, and its enjoyment of God's imme-
diate presence after death, to the heretics of those times;
representing it as proper to the followers of Valentinus,
Basilides, and Marcion; and, after them, as a part of the
heresy of the Manichees. Thus Justin Martyr, speaking of
those who were called Christians, but blasphemed the God
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saith. in his Dialogue with
Trypho, p. 307, 354, “They denied the resurrection, and
held, #4, a tº 37069.haksiy rā; buxā; airøy &vaxapºgávea Sai sic
Těv otpayåy, that as soon as they died, their souls were received
into heaven. ” Irenaeus Saith in like manner,” that “the
heretics despised the formation of God,” i. e. the body formed
by him, “and not receiving (the doctrine of) the salvation
of the flesh, simul atque mortui fuerint, dicunt se supergredi
coelos et demiurgum, et ire ad matrem vel ad eum qui ipsis
affingitur patrem, say, that as soon as they are dead, they
ascend above the heavens, and go to him whom they call
their Father.” And having said, that “our Lord's soul
went not to heaven, but continued in the place of the dead
till the resurrection ;” he saith, “This is sufficient to con-
found these men, qui dicunt interiorem hominem ipsorum
derelinquentem, hoc corpus in super-coelestem ascendere lo-
cum, who say, that their inward man, leaving the body here,
ascends to the super-celestial mansions.” And then he gives
the orthodox opinion thus;: “It is manifest, that the souls
of the disciples of our Lord shall go into the invisible place
appointed for them by God, expecting the resurrection ; and
then receiving their bodies, and rising with them, as our
Lord did, shall come into the presence of God.” Tertullian,
having produced the same instance of the death of Christ,
and the continuance of his soul apud inferos, till the resur-
rection of the body, positively concludes, that, nulli patet
coelum, terrà adhuc salvã, cum transactione enim mundi re-
serabuntur regna coelorum ; “heaven is open to none whilst
the earth remains ; the kingdom of heaven being only to be
opened at the dissolution of the world.” And in his fourth
book against Marcion, he saith,S “The bosom of Abraham,
which is higher than the inferi, but not so high as heaven, is
that which gives refreshment to the souls of the just, till the
consummation of all things produces the resurrection of all,
with a full reward.”
The Manichees, who also denied the resurrection of the
body, contended, that good souls had their whole reward im-
mediately after death ; because Christ promised to the thief,
that he should be that day with him in paradise. To which
objection Chrysostom answers, by concession, that the thiet
was indeed admitted to paradise; but then he adds, that
paradise was not the same with heaven, paſſ, yāg raûrá ša ri tº:
&yaśā, 375g & QE3; hºw #7nayyáXXarat, “for it contains not the
good things which God hath promised to us;” and then con-
* Adv. Haer. lib. v. cap. 31, p. 491.
+ Manifestum est, quia discipulorum ejus animae abibunt
in invisibilem locum definitum eis à Deo, et ibi usque ad
resurrectionem commorabuntur, sustinentes resurrectionem,
post recipientes corpora, et perfectè resurgentes, hoc est cor-
poralitèr, quemadmodum et Dominus resurrexit, sic venient
ad conspectum Dei. Ibid.
: De Animã, cap. 55.
§ Simum dico Abrahae, etsi non coelestem, superiorem ta-
men inferis, interim refrigerium praebiturum animabus justo-
rum, donec consummatio rerum resurrectionem omnium
plenitudine mercedis expugnat, cap. 34.
CHAPTER IV.
867
10 For Demas hath forsaken me, “having loved
this present world (i. e. the safety of his life), and is
departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus
to Dalmatia (these two not deserting St. Paul, as I)e-
mas did, but going thither for the promotion of the gos-
pel).
11 Only "Luke is with me. Take Mark, and bring
him with thee: for "he is profitable for the ministry
(Mark therefore was not then in Egypt).
12 (I say, only Luke is with me, ) and (Gr. for)
Tychicus have I sent to *Ephesus.
13 * The cloak that * I left at Troas with Carpus,
* when thou comest, bring with thee, and the books,
but especially the parchments.
14 Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil :
the Lord (shall) * reward him according to his works :
15 Of whom be thou aware also ; for he hath
greatly withstood our words.
16 °At my first answer no man stood with me, but
all men (of my acquaintance at Rome) forsook me : I
pray God that it may not be laid to their charge.
17 Notwithstanding the Lord (Jesus) * stood with
cludes, that if God promised “the kingdom of heaven,” and
only brought the thief into paradise, où3éro &ríðwkey airó
rā āyaśā, “he hath not yet given to him the good things
promised.”
2. That they expressly teach, that the souls of good men
remain till the day of judgment in a certain place, extra
coelum beatorum, “out of heaven,” expecting the day of judg-
ment and retribution. Thus Justin Martyr" saith, that no
souls die; but, ràc ºy tºy size&v #y xggitrovi rive X&pg, ſwävely,
Tā; 3' 38tzov, Kai Troyng&; iv xeigov, röy rā; Keio'sø; #x38xoºva;
XF:voy, that “the souls of good men remain in a better place,
the souls of bad men in a worse, expecting the day of judg-
ment.” Irenaeus+ gives us the tradition of the church
touching this matter, thus ; “The presbyters, who were the
disciples of the apostles, say, Those that were translated,
were carried into paradise; for that place is prepared for just
men, and such as have the Spirit, and there they remain till
the consummation, expecting, or beginning immortality;”
azd that there shall be “new heavens and new earth ;” and
then, ci pºv Karašto Sévre; rā; #y oveavä, 8targiðī; #xstors
Xw3%zovcıy, “they that are worthy of the celestial mansions
shall go thither.” Tertullian, ; having cited those words of
the apostle, “And the God of peace sanctify you throughout,
in body, soul, and spirit, and keep you unblameable to the
coming of the Lord” (1 Thess. v. 23), saith thus, Habes om-
mem substantiam hominis saluti destinatam, necalio tempore
quam in adventù Domini, qui clavis est resurrectionis;
“Here you see the whole substance of man designed for sal-
wation, nor at any other time but the appearance of our
Lord, who is the key of the resurrection.” There is a place,
saith Novatian, qué piorum animae impiorumque ducuntur,
futuri judicii praejudicia sentientes, “whither the souls of
good and wicked men are carried, having some foretastes of
their future judgment.” And Caius, a presbyter of the
church of Rome, saith, that just souls being celebrated by the
angels placed over them, & yovrat ei: Xozíoy porsivºy #y 3 of 3r'
ãpx; bizaioi Troxlrejoyrat, “are led by them into a place of
light, called the bosom of Abraham, where the just
from the beginning have been ; where they are delighted
with the vision of the just fathers, expecting, rºw tºgrá.
Tºto xogloy 37&nzva'iy, zai aloviny &vagiolay #y obtavā, after
this place, their rest and everlasting habitation in hea-
ven.” Let no man think, saith Lactantius," animas post
mortem protinús judicari, “that souls are forthwith judged
after death ; they are all held in one common custody, till
thè time may come that the great Judge shall make a trial
of their merits” (see Dall, de Poen. et Satisf lib. v. cap. 3–6).
* Ver. 10. "Ayatrăgag röy viv aiiva, Having loved this present
world.] He doth not say, that Demas had forsaken the
Christian religion, or that he betook himself to his own secu-
lar affairs, forsaking his attendance on the service of God in
the church, or preferred the things of this life before those
of a future ; but, as the ancients do expound the words, he
left the apostle in this time of danger, consulting the safety
of his own life ; for 3 vºv aidºv, in the scripture phrase, still
signifies “this present life:” so, oi nºoúato, #y rá včy aiºvi are
* Dial, cum Tryph. p. 223.
+ Quapropter dicunt presbyteri qui sunt apostolorum dis-
Cipuli, eos qui translati sunt illic translatos esse ; justis enim
hominibus, et Spiritum habentibus, praeparatus est paradisus
—Et ibi manere eos, qui translati sunt, usque ad consum-
imationem, coauspicantés incorruptelam, Lib. v. cap. 5.
# De Resur. Carn. cap. 47. § De Trin. cap. 1.
| Apud Hoeschel. Not. in Phot. p. 10. --
* De Wit. Beat, lib. vii. cap. 2), p. 717.
“those that are rich in this life” (1 Tim. vi. 17). “To live
soberly, righteously, and godly,” #y tº vöy ałów, is to do it in
“this present life” (see Mark x. 30. 1 Tim. iv. 8). He
seems therefore only to say of him here, what he says of
others, ver. 16, “In my first apology mo man stood by me,
but all left mé.”
* Ver. 11. Luke.] Hence it appears that Luke must be
alive at the twelfth or thirteenth of Nero, when this epistle
was indited.
7 Eüxpnaro; et; Buzzaviay, He is profitable for the ministry.]
i. e. For the work of an evangelist (ver. 5). As Peter, being
shortly to put off his tabernacle, was the more diligent in
giving instruction to the churches of the Jews (2 Pet. i. 13,
14), so was Paul, now in bonds, in sending his messengers to
the churches of the gentiles (ver. 10. 12).
* Ver. 12. To Ephesus.) Hence it is evident, that Timothy,
at the writing of this epistle, was not at Ephesus ; for if so,
why should the apostle advertise him, that he had sent Ty-
chicus thither ? -
* Ver. 13. Ty peaffyny, The cloak..] Or rather, “the roll:”
for $5Aówn, saith Phavorinus, is sixntágoy pºp,862.90y, “a parch-
ment rolled up ; peašyn stantov toºzágoy (, áºz86avoy, a folded
vellum or parchment:” and Hesychius saith the same.
* “oy &réxitroy #y Tºwá8. Which I left at Troas.] Not wher:
he went from Troas to Assos, in his journey to Jerusalem ;
for then, saith Bishop Pearson, he could have no cause to
leave anything of moment with him, having so many that
accompanied him in that journey (Acts xx. 4, 6), and a ship
still attending on them (ver. 13): but in his travels, after he
was set at liberty, and had left Rome.
* 'Eexãº, evoc, Coming,| Probably from thence ; for he
does not bid him send thither for them, or go thither to fetch
them : whence it follows, that Timothy was then at Troas,
when this epistle was directed to him.
* Ver. 14. 'Amroë&n.] The king's manuscript reads &mośćast,
“will or shall reward him.” And all the ancients note, that
this is not an imprecation, but ºrgáñānai; Trgéºrovca 3v3;i &ro-
cºrów, “a prediction becoming an apostle.” So Pseudo-
Justin, Qu. et Resp. 125. So Chrysostom, Theodoret,
CEcumenius, Theophylact, on the place. Who this Alex-
ander was, or where he lived, is uncertain ; as also whether
he were a Christian, but zealous for the Jewish rites, as he
must be, if he were the Alexander delivered up to Satan
(1 Tim. i. 20), or a heathen, zealous, as Demetrius was, for
his trade, and on that account opposing the apostle.
* Ver. 16. ’Ey tº ºrpiórn &ov &roxoyiz, In my first apology.]
If the date of this epistle, contended for in the preface, stand
good, this could not be his first defence of the gospel, of
which he speaks, Phil. i. 17. For after that, he was set at
liberty ; whereas after this, he is still a prisoner (i. 8. ii. 9).
Moreover, Timothy was then with him at Rome, as appears
from the salutations then sent to the churches of Philippi
(i. 1) and Colosse (i. 1), from Paul and Timothy ; yea, he
was a prisoner there, even after that Paul was set at liberty,
and so needed not to be taught how things went with the
apostle then. He therefore calls this his “first apology,” or
defence, because, after he had made it, he was still kept in
bonds (i. 8. ii. 9), and so reserved for another hearing. He
escaped then, say Chrysostom * and CEcumenius: “but
when he instructed Nero's butler or cupbearer in the faith,
he was cut off.”
* Ver. 17. IIagéarn, Stood by me] In a vision, to comfort
* IIotay 33 ºrzºny àwoxoyſay Aéyst; tragéatn #8m rò Nágoyi
wal 3:#pvyev. čarště, 3i tºy oivoxázy abrº, karážngs, röre attà,
37réteazy. Chrysost.
3 K 2
368
PREFACE TO
me, and strengthened me; that by me (thus standing
ºup in defence of the gospel) the preaching (of it, might
be fully known (Gr. fulfilled), and that all the gentiles
might hear (my defence of it) ; and I was (then) de-
livered out of the * mouth of the lion. -
18 And the Lord * shall (will) deliver me from
every evil work, and will preserve me to his heavenly
kingdom: to whom (therefore) be glory for ever and
ever. Amen.
19 Salute Prisca and Aquila, and the household of
Onesiphorus. (See note on Acts xviii. 18).
20 " Erastus abode at Corinth : but Trophimus
have I left at Miletum sick.
21 Do thy diligence to come before winter. Eubu-
lus greeteth thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and
Claudia, and all the brethren.
22. The Lord Jesus Christ be with thy spirit. Grace
be with you. Amen.

and support me; as, Acts xviii. 9; so #widºr&; is used Acts
xxiii. 11, and trapéarn, Acts xxvii. 23 ; or to “give me mouth
and wisdom,” according to his promise, Luke xii. 12. xxi.
14, 15.
* 'Ex arégaro; Aëoy'roº, From the mouth of the lion ;] i. e.
Of Nero, or of Helius Caesareanus. So when Tiberius"
died, Marsyas said to Agrippa, réðynxsy & Aéov, “The lion is
dead.” And so speaks Esther, touching Artaxerxes, “Put
a word in my mouth, #ydºriov rod Ašovros, before the lion”
(Esth. xiv. 13).
* Ver. 18. Kai #32 ºral pºs, And will deliver me..] If he
will deliver him, saith Chrysostom, why saith he, “I am now
offered 2° Mark therefore his words, he saith not, He will
again deliver me out of the mouth of the lion; but only,
that “he will preserve me from every evil work, and to his
heavenly kingdom.”
* Wer. 20.] That Paul was in bonds when he writ this
* Joseph. Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 8.
epistle, and at Rome, he himself saith, i. 8. 17. Now this
verse affords two arguments, to prove he could not be then
in his first bonds: first, from these words, “Erastus abode at
Corinth :” when was it? when Paul went from Corinth to go to
Jerusalem P then Timothy accompanied him, at least as far
as Asia, and so needed not to be told that, from Rome, so
long after: it therefore must refer to the time when, saith
the reverend Bishop Pearson, Paul went from Nicopolis to
Corinth, A. D. 65, and the twelfth of Nero. Secondly, .
From these words, “Trophimus have I left at Miletum
sick :” now this cannot relate to the time when Paul went
to Miletus, near Ephesus (Acts xx. 17); for as Timothy was
then with him (Acts xx. 4. 15), so was not Trophimus then
left at Miletum, but carried up thence with Paul to Jerusa-
lem (Acts. xxi. 29); nor did Paul ever return thither (Acts
xx. 25): he must be therefore left at Miletus in Crete, where
Paul was, saith Bishop Pearson, after his first bonds, A. D.
64, Ner. 10.
THE
EPISTLE TO TITUS,
WITH ANNOTATIONS.
PREFACE.
§ 1. THAT Paul was at Crete, we learn from these words
of this Epistle to Titus, “I left thee in Crete :” when he
went thither is uncertain. Dr. Lightfoot conjectures that he
touched there when he went from Macedonia to Greece, Acts
xx. 2. “ For,” saith he, “if we consider that after their
parting at Ephesus, when Titus was sent to Corinth with his
first epistle to them, they never met till Titus cometh up to
him, when he was come from Ephesus to Macedonia, 2 Cor.
vii. 5, 6 ; we may thence learn, that in that first journey to
Macedonia, he left him not at Crete, because Titus and he
were not yet met again after their parting at Ephesus ; and
yet, at his second return thither, he had not only left him
there, but writes to him to come thence to Nicopolis, bor-
dering on Macedonia, iii. 12, so that this epistle must be
writ in his return, or at his coming thither, A. D. 55; and
not from Nicopolis, as the postscript dates it ; for he saith
not, I have determined to winter #wraúða, here, but #xeſ,
there ; which shows he was not yet come thither.”
§. 2. But that it could not be written at that time, the
learned Bishop Pearson proves, not only from the silence of
Luke in that very chapter, where he so particularly enume-
rates all Paul's journeys, after he came from Ephesus, till
his arrival at Jerusalem, without the least mention of his
being at Crete; but saith expressly, that Stex839, “passing
through those parts (viz. of Macedonia), and exhorting them
with many words, he came to Achaia,” representing him still
in transità, and as passing immediately from Macedonia to
Greece, not going from Macedonia farther beyond it than was
to it, and then returning back to Greece, as he must have
done had he gone from Macedonia to Crete, and so to Achaia.
Secondly, This opinion he more demonstratively confutes
from these words, iii. 12, “When I send to thee Artemas,
or Tychicus, make haste to come unto me to Nicopolis, for
I have determined there to winter:” for, besides that Arte-
mas, before his going to Jerusalem, seems not to have joined
Paul, and Tychicus then was part of his retinue, there is
not any mention of Paul’s going to Nicopolis, in the whole
history of his journey to Jerusalem; nor is it possible he should
then determine to winter at Nicopolis, who being at Philippi
in the days of unleavened bread, made all the haste he could
to be at Jerusalem before pentecost, Acts xx. 6. 16 (sec
more to this purpose, Dissert. 1, de Success. Prim. Roma,
Episc. cap. 9, §. 7). He therefore places Paul's journey to
Crete after his freedom from his bonds at Rome, A. D. 63,
and the tenth of Nero, and saith, that this epistle was writ-
ten the year following: that it was writ after his freedom
from the bonds in which he was from his going to Jerusa-
lem till his freedom at Rome, he gathers from this note of
Chrysostom * and Theophylact, That the apostle seemeth
* Aokci at 33 ºcci x86voi sīval ºscot rives, kai iv 38sig Tiaiſac,
gés, raûra' otºy yā; ºrigi welfazºv ºnzi. Proem.
TITUS.
869
to have been then at ease, as making no mention in it of his
bonds, or his temptations, as he doth in his Epistle to the
Ephesians, iii. 1. iv. 1, to the Philippians i. 7. 13, 14, to the
Colossians, iv. 18, to Philemon, ver, 1.9 ; and in his Second
Epistle to Timothy, i. 8. ii. 9. That after his freedom he
determined to go to Philippi in Macedonia, he himself inti-
mates, Phil. i. 26. ii. 24. “And this,” saith Bishop Pearson,
“he did in the twelfth of Nero, in which year he wrote
this epistle.” And that he writ it a little after he had been
at Crete, may be gathered from those words, 2 Tim. iv. 20,
“Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick ;” which cannot be
understood of Miletus near Ephesus, mentioned Acts xx.
17, for from thence he carried him to Jerusalem, Acts xxi.
29, never returning thither, Acts xx. 25. He must be there-
fore left sick at Miletus in Crete, mentioned by Homer,”
and by Strabo. F -
Ş. 3. It is the opinion of all the ancient commentators
upon this epistle, that Titus was left in Crete, not only to
ordain bishops in every city, and deacons to minister to them,
but also to rebuke sharply, and with authority, unruly walk-
ers; and this epistle was writ to him, say the ancients,f “to
make him watchful over, and to oppose himself against the
Jews and Judaizers in that island,” as many passages in this
epistle do sufficiently demonstrate.
§. 4. But the great controversy concerning this, and the
Epistle to Timothy, is, whether Timothy and Titus were
indeed made bishops, the one of Ephesus and the Proconsu-
lar Asia, the other of Crete, having authority to make, ka?
roaoûtoy intoxánow kpia-ty, Ś “and jurisdiction over so many
bishops as were in those precincts.” Now of this matter, I
confess I can find nothing in any writer of the first three
centuries, nor any intimation that they bore that name: but
this defect is abundantly supplied by the concurrent suffrage
of the fourth and fifth centuries. For, *
First, As for Timothy, he is styled bishop of Ephesus by
Eusebius, and that with respect to former histories; and
the same he saith of Titus. And the council of Chalcedon'ſ
reckons from Timothy to their time twenty-seven bishops.
The anonymous author of his life,” in Photius, makes him
bishop of the metropolis of Ephesus, with seven assistants;
and either he, or Photius, say that he was constitued bishop
by Paul; and the Apostolical Constitutions say the same, Fºr
as do also Jerome, if and all the ancient commentators on his
epistles. -
Secondly, That Titus had rºy ºzov 3x3xxºpov, “the whole
island” of Crete committed to his care, is testified not only
by Eusebius, but also by Jerome in his Catalogue, by Am- |
brose, Chrysostom, Theodoret, CEcumenius in the preface to
this epistle, to omit many others cited by Dr. Cave in the
Life of Titus, p. 58, 59. Now to pass my judgment in this
CaSe:
First, I assert, that if by saying Timothy and Titus were
“bishops,” the one of Ephesus, the other of Crete, we un-
derstand that they took upon them those churches or dio-
ceses, as their fixed and peculiar charge, in which they were
to preside for the term of life, I believe that Timothy and
Titus were not thus bishops: for,
First, Both Timothy and Titus were evangelists, and there-
* Aſtroy, Miantáv re, aráxes; it wateraža ac. Iliad. B.
+ Strabo, lib. xiv. p. 634.
£ 'Azroteiveral kai ºrpèg Tow; 'Iow?aiovº ºria rox#. Chrysost.
Theod. CEcumenius. IICAA&v Švrov Exsſiarixspoëvroy trºopéret
toū Vázov &ratºv rob: Aaobº, was&y & IIai,xo, ye&#el, wai świtt-
* 3: ÉvréNastal airó roſ. &vrixáyovzi ră îylaiyoſen oria rel,
(44Xiara 33 roſ; Éx weeitop.fic. CEcum. Theoph. Hi sunt de
circumcisione Judaei, qui tune temporis nascentem Christi
ecclesiam subvertere nitebantur, et introducere praecepta
legalia. Hieron. in cap. i. ver, 10.
§ Chrysost. Praefat.
| Tºw80sé, ye why Tā; #y 'Epía” trapotzia; iotopeſ rat ºrpåro;
‘rāv Āziakotröv sixnxéval, &c xai Tiro; rāv Émi Kºńrn; #zzamatāy.
Eccl. Hist. lib. iii, cap. 4. -
"I Act. 11, tom. iv. col. 600.
** Kai air㺠3i' Havrot, Émºrè a-varapávrov tria-kāºrov, rā; 'Eq's-
*ow évrixaºğāystal ºntporéaso;--tr; roi; ºtyáxov IIaşxov,
wai Xsigorovefrai rā; 'Eºsa-loy ºntporáxed; triazotros, zal HySpo-
vſ. era. Phot. Bibl. Num. 254, p. 1403.
tº Lib. vii. cap. 46. j: V crbo Timotheus.
fore were to do the work of an evangelist: now the work of
an evangelist, Saith Eusebius,” was this, “to lay the founda-
tions of the faith in barbarous nations, to constitute them
pastors, and having committed to them the cultivating of
those new plantations, they passed on to other countries and
nations.”
Secondly, As for Titus, he was only left at Crete to “or-
dain elders in every city, and to set in order the things that
were wanting;” having therefore done that work, he had
done all that was assigned him in that station : and there-
fore Paul sends for him the very next year to Nicopolis, Tit.
iii. 12. And so, according to Bishop Pearson's chronology,
he was left at Crete only A. D. 64, and sent for thence A. D.
65, and returned thither, as the ancients conjecture, after the
death of Paul : for they say: he died in the ninety-fourth
year of his age, and was buried in Crete.
As for Timothy, Paul Saith he exhorted him to abide at
Ephesus when he went into Macedonia: now, as he writes
to the church of Philippi in Macedonia A. D. 62, and the
ninth of Nero, that he hoped to be shortly with them, Phil.
i. 25, 26. ii. 24; so, saith Bishop Pearson, he went thither
A. D. 64, and the eleventh of Nero, and writ his First
Epistle to him, A. D. 65. Two years after this he sends for
him to Rome, 2 Tim. iv. 9. 21 ; and there he continued, as
the ancients conjecture, till the martyrdom of St. Paul;
after which time he must, as they suppose, return to Ephe-
sus: for they tell us, that in the reign of Domitian he was
martyred in that city, and lay buried there. But since we
read not anything in scripture of their return to either of
these places afterward, and the authorities on which his re-
turn dependeth are not very ancient, we cannot much rely
upon them. -
Prop. 2. But if by “bishops” we only understand persons
who had authority to ordain, and to govern the clergy of
their province, and to exercise acts of discipline and censure
over more than one single congregation, I believe both Ti-
mothy and Titus had this episcopal jurisdiction, and so
might properly be styled “bishops.”
First, That the jurisdiction of Titus extended to all the
Christians in the whole island of Crete, is apparent from .
these words, “For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou
mightest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain
elders in every city,” Tit. i. 5. Hence is he said to have
received “the episcopal care, röy $ºri Kºrn; #xxxnatºv, of the
churches in Crete,” and to have the whole island committed
to him.
And if the church at Ephesus, committed to the care of
Timothy, did not exceed the compass of one particular con-
gregation, Paul had very little success in the great pains he
took “ for three whole years to teach them publicly, and
from house to house, exhorting every one of them night and
day,” Acts xx. 30, 31. Whereas Paul himself informs us,
that at Ephesus “a great door, and effectual, was opened to
him,” 1 Cor. xvi. 8, 9; Luke, that “all that dwelt in Asia
heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and gentiles;” .
that “the word of God prevailed and grew mightily, and that
fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was
magnified,” Acts xix. 10. 17. 20. But that which puts this
matter beyond doubt, is the observation of the learned Bi-
shop Stillingfleet, that the elders Paul sends for to Miletus
were all of Ephesus, and to them he commits not only the
church of Ephesus, but all the flock over which the Holy
Ghost had made them overseers, i.e. all that had been con-
verted in Asia through his means, during his abode there
three years. Irenaeus, indeed, saith he summoned them
“from the neighbouring cities,” as well as Ephesus: “ but,”
saith he, “Paul was in so great haste, that he would not so
much as go to Ephesus, nor send any whither but to that
city ; and yet those to whom he committed the whole flock,
then in Asia, came from Ephesus to Miletus:” which makes
it probable that there Paul had raised a nursery for the
churches thereabout; as Clement observes the apostles were
* otrol 33 Sep, exiov; tº; Trio rew; #tri život; ºria'i réºroic aird
ºwóvov KaraBaxxâasyot, Troipºva; re zabiatávre; Érégovº, Toºrot; re
airoſ; #yxeipićovire; rāv táv 35tio; Eia ax6ávrov yeagyiav, itégaç
airoi trčxiv x&gaç re zai #0/m (wethio'ay.
+ Sophronius apud Hieron. in Tito.
Isidor. de Vita et
Obità. S.S. p. 542. *
870
PREFACE TO
wont to do in fruitful soils, with a prospect of such churches
as were to be formed, röy ºweXAávrov ºria rečew, “ of those that
should after believe :” and the same Clement observing that
they did this, Boxpºka'avºre; tº IIveşaati, “making trial of
them by their spiritual gifts,” he very probably conjectures
that the twelve persons who, “when he laid his hands upon
them, received the Holy Ghost, and spake with tongues, and
prophesied,” Acts xix. 6, 7, being thus qualified in an ex-
traordinary manner to be teachers of others, might be in the
number of those elders whom Paul charges to “take heed to
themselves, and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost
had made them overseers,” ver. 28.
As to the jurisdiction belonging to them in their several
districts, it is also manifest concerning Timothy, that he was
set over the house of God, 1 Tim. iii. 14, 15; that in that
house he was to ordain, and to lay hands on the elders to be
chosen to that office, v. 22; to choose such to the episcopal
office, or to the office of elders, who were duly qualified for
that work, iii. 2. 7; to admit and consecrate others to the
office of deacons, ver, 8; to take widows into the number of
deaconesses, under such qualifications, and to refuse others,
v. 9. 11; to receive accusations against the elders, v. 19;
and to rebuke them, ver. 20. Which plainly shows there
was a right of judging and censuring offenders in Timothy,
by virtue of his office. He had power also to order the
maintenance of the elders, ver. 17; to take care that the
public offices of divine worship were performed regularly, ii.
1, 8; to “charge others not to teach any other doctrine”
than what they had received, i. 3; to “command and teach
with authority,” v. 11; and not to suffer others to “despise
his authority,” ver. 12. And all these things seem plainly
to belong to the trust committed to him, vi. 20.
And as for Titus, it is certain he was left in Crete by Paul,
“to set in order the things which were wanting,” i. 5; and,
in order to this end, to inspect the qualifications of them
who were to be admitted to the episcopal office, ver, 17;
atid so “to ordain elders in every city.” "And he was also
to admonish and reject heretics, iii. 10.
Now I confess that these two instances, absolutely taken,
afford us no convincing arguments for a settled diocesan
episcopacy, because there is nothing which proves they did
or were to exercise these acts of government rather as bi-
shops than evangelists; for it is certain that the order of
evangelists was superior to that of governments, and so in-
cluded an authority to do those acts of government which
belonged to bishops. Accordingly, in those places where
these evangelists preached they did, rotºziva, Kaštarával,”
“constitute pastors,” and then went on to preach in other
places. Yet these things evidently follow hence:
1. That such superiority over other pastors cannot be con-
trary to the gospel rule; or that the nature of church govern-
ment doth not imply an equality among the governors of it:
and that the apostles, if they pleased, might have fixed per-
Sons in any other churches, to exercise these acts of ecclesi-
astical authority and jurisdiction, as well as Paul placed
these two persons, the one at Ephesus, the other at Crete,
for these ends. -
2. That it is not repugnant to the constitutions of churches
in the apostolical times, for men to have jurisdiction over
more than one particular congregation; for such a power
Titus had over all Crete, and Timothy over many eiders:
which, had it been contrary to the nature of church-govern-
ment, would not have been permitted, and much less or-
dained, by St. Paul, in any of the churches planted by him.
3. Hence also it appears, that the apostolical power of
governing churches and ordaining elders in them, was not so
limited to the persons of the apostles but that it might be
communicated to others, whom the apostles would entrust
With it; and therefore might be continued in the church after
their decease: and if it be granted that such an apostolical
Power of governing churches might be committed to others,
and was actually so, by the apostles; it remains only to in-
quire, whether, upon their remove or departure, they did
entrust any persons in such a manner as, it is certain from
scripture, Paul did Timothy, as to the churches of Asia: of
which we shall discourse hereafter.
4. From these words, “The things which thou hast heard
*--
* Euseb, Eccles. Hist, lib. iii. cap. 37.
from me, confirmed by many witnesses, commit thou to faith-
ful men, who shall be able to teach others also;” it may be
fairly argued that the apostle here appoints Timothy” to
constitute a succession of men vested with ecclesiastical au-
thority, to teach them, and command others to observe them.
And from those words to Titus, “I left thee in Crete, to or-
dain elders, xará ràxiv, & #yd cot 3:2 ražákºny, in every city, as
I ordered thee,” Tit. i. 5; “for a bishop must be blameless,
as the steward of God,” wer. 7, it is also fairly gathered that
a succession of bishops was to be constituted in every city,
as persons that were to take care of the church of God there,
1 Tim. iii. 5. And my conjecture is, that Paul, after his
liberty from his first bonds, having travelled into Spain and
Judea, and from thence to Macedonia, began to settle this
church-government in all the churches where they before
were wanting ; that so, after his death, they might be all pro-
vided with them : that upon this account Titus was sent by
him to Crete, i. 5, and afterward to Dalmatia, 2 Tim. iv. 11,
and that the First Epistle to Timothy was not writ to him to
require him to stay at Ephesus, where bishops had been set-
tled long before, but to instruct him “how to behave himself
in the church of God” in general, iii. 15; doing the office of
an evangelist, by ordaining church-governors where he found
them wanting, and ordering other matters, as he saw thern
needful, in any of those places to which he resorted. But
then, if we take in the suffrage of antiquity, and consult
them who were nearest to the fountain of church-govern-
ment, we shall find still greater reason to believe that it was
314taši; &mozºroxix), “an apostolical ordinance,” to appoint
bishops with the chief jurisdiction over cities : for we find
plainly, by the forementioned instances, that the apostles
had this power in themselves, and did convey it to some
others; but whether they did this universally, and with a
design to continue this order, being an inquiry about matter
of fact, must be proved by the best means we can use in a
matter of fact of so great antiquity. Now there can be no
stronger proof of such a matter of fact, than the general
sense and concurrent practice of the Christian church in the
ages next succeeding the appstles. And this general sense
of the Christian church may be demonstrated, -
1. From undoubted testimonies affording a clear evidence
of this succession in the most conspicuous churches. And
as for the undoubted testimonies of this succession in the
most conspicuous churches, “I shall first appeal,” saith the
learned Bishop of Worcester, “to Irenaeus and Tertullian,
as least liable to exception.” The former not only mentions
a succession of persons to the apostles, but he saith, “The
apostles committed the care of the churches to them, and
left them to succeed in their places:” which implies, that as
the apostles had themselves the care of ministering to the
church, and the power of governing and presiding over it, so
they committed it to the bishops whom they chose to suc-
ceed them. Tertullian not only mentions them in general
who succeeded the apostles, but particularly instances in
Polycarp, placed by John at Smyrna, and Clemens, by
Peter at Rome; and then adds, that “the other churches
had bishops placed in then like to these :” so that what au-
thority Clemens had at Rome, and Polycarp at Smyrna,
that, Tertullian affirms, the bishops had in other churches.
* IIIa roi; 3,683troic, hyovy, Święzóroic zai trpsa-3Urégoi;, cº,
Fºxey & Tºw80so; xeiporovéïv. Photius apud CEcumen. AñAoy
3rt regi részévršwy wai iwiakówov abrá, 3arárrstat. Theoph.
+ Habemus annumerare eos qui ab apostolis instituti sunt
episcopi in ecclesiis, et successores eorum usque ad nos, qui-
bus etiam ipsas ecclesias committebant, quos et successores
relinquebant, suum ipsorum locum magisterii tradentes. Lib.
iii. cap. 3. Lino episcopatum administrandae ecclesia tra-
debant. Ibid.
f Evolvant ordinem episcoporum suorum (haeretici), ita
per successiones ab initio decurrentem, ut primus ille episco-
pus aliquem ex apostolis, vel apostolicis viris, qui tamen cum
apostolis perseveraverit, habuerit auctorem, et antecessorem;
hóc enim modo ecclesiae apostolicae census suos deferunt, sic-
ut Smyrnaeorum ecclesia Polycarpum ab Joanne conloca-
tum refert, sicut Romanorum Clementem à Petro ordinatum
itidem : perinde utique et cæterae exhibent, quos ab aposto-
lis in episcopatum constitutos apostolici seminis traduces
habeant. Ig Praescript. Haeret. cap. 32.
TITUS.
871
Now Irenaeus saith that Linus and Clemens had the episco-
pal power of governing the church: and as for Polycarp, he,
even by the Jews" and gentiles, was styled, 3 rā; 'Acia; 3-
3áczaxoc, “the master, or teacher, of Asia ;” by Jerome, i.
Tráan; rā; 'Aria; &#xnyès, “the governor of all Asia;” and
by Ignatius, f ºv8Egvárnº, “the governor of the church of
Smyrna.”
Add to this, these words of Mr. Dodwell, to those who
denied the presidency of bishops over the church in those
ages: “What can they say to the angels in the Revelation?
What, to the testimony of Irenaeus, concerning Polycarp 2
What, to the testimony of Clemens Alexandrinus, who
mentions bishops among other officers of the church, settled
by John P. What, to the testimony of Hegesippus, who
makes the kinsmen of our Saviour, hyńaaa-Sat rāy #zzAnartów,
‘to have been governors of the churches, from Domitian's
time to that of Trajan P’ What to those who mention
James'ſ as made bishop of Jerusalem by the apostles them.
selves 2 What, of the seven Polycrates mentions as bishops
in his own see before himself? Nay, what, to all those ca-
talogues of bishops succeeding in the four patriarchal sees,
particularly the fifteen in Jerusalem, from James, to the de-
struction of the Jews under Hadrian 2 Nay, what, to the
succession of all the apostolical sees, to which the fathers of
the second century do so solemnly appeal, to prove their
own doctrine apostolical, in opposition to the contrary pre-
tences of the heretics 2 Can they think them all to have been
either wilful forgeries, or general mistakes, in a matter of fact,
so near their own time, without so much as any likely ground
in history 2 How will they then assure us, that they were
not mistaken, in delivering to us the books of the apostles,
which were not more notorious to them than their govern-
ment.”
2. This general sense of the church may be demonstrated,
from the unreasonableness of the supposition, that the form
of government, left to the churches by the apostles, should
be so quickly changed, as they suppose, who do conceive
that the apostles left no governors superior to presbyters, or
pastors of one congregation, in the church : for it is clearly
proved, by the learned bishop of Chester, that the writers of
the Second century distinctly mentioned the several orders of
bishops, and their inferior presbyters in the same church;
and thereby give us reason to conclude, that disparity was
settled in that age, and therefore it is very improbable it
should be otherwise in the preceding age of the apostles: for
that, in the frame and subtance of the established govern-
ment of the church, a thing always in use and practice, there
should be so sudden a change, so universal a corruption, in so
short a time; and that all Christians, all the degraded clergy,
without the least degree of opposition that we meet with, or we
read of, should conspire in, or consent to this innovation and
corruption, is a thing morally impossible: for, as Tertullianº
argues in a like case, “What all Christian churches did so
* De Martyr. Polycarp. §. 12.
+ Catal.
: Epist. ad Polycarp. S. 2.
§ "Otrov Pºy #7taxówou; wargarhawy, apud Euseb. lib. iii.
cap. 23, p. 92.
| Apud Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 20.
*I Euseb. Eccl. Hist, lib. v. cap. 24, p. 192.
** Variasse debuerat error doctrinae ecclesiarum, quod au-
early agree in practising uniformly, came not by error, but
by tradition.” The improbability of this sudden and general
innovation will be farther evident, if we consider,
1. The subjects of this constitution, viz. the persons ap-
pointed by the apostles, or apostolical men, to govern and
preside in every church; they being constant objects of every
person’s common sense, seen in every assembly, employed
in every ecclesiastical affair, public or private, in which
Christians, sick or well, living or dying, were concerned.
Now in a matter of this kind, which was the daily object of
the senses of all Christians, we cannot easily conceive how
they could possibly mistake, and not perceive that such a
change was made, if really it was done.
Again, We shall be more convinced, that this was not per-
formed by conspiracy, or by a joint consent of Christians, to
make this alteration in that form of government which the
apostles had established, if we consider,
1. The general agreement of all churches in this matter;
since not one single church can be produced, in which this
government did not obtain. For how can we imagine, that,
in a time when no general council could meet to appoint
it, and when there were no Christian princes to set it forward
on a political account ; and when, by reason of the heat of
persecution, and the distance of Christian churches, there
was so little commerce and intercourse between them, from
the churches of Armenia and Persia in the east, to those of
Spain in the west; from the African churches in the south,
to our British churches in the north; this constitution should
universally be received, and submitted to, if it had not been
established by the apostles, or the first founders of those
churches 2
2. If we consider how much it did concern all churches,
that such an innovation should not obtain amongst them,
and tamely be submitted to ; for all the people were obliged
to know their governors, to which they were by scripture
obliged to submit, and so they could not yield to this inno-
vation, without the greatest danger to their souls: the pres-
byters, if they had by the apostles been advanced to the
highest power, would not so weakly have submitted to an
authority usurped over them ; but either out of a just zeal
to assert their freedom, or out of indignation at the inso-
lence of the usurping bishops, or out of that unwillingness
to submit and obey, which is natural to all men, would have
asserted their equality.
3. This will be farther evident, if we consider, that even
the persons then exalted could have no motive or temptation
to accept of this advancement: for men do not easily de-
sire a change, but upon prospect of some ease or temporal
advantage; much less when they perceive the change is like
to add to their trouble, and increase their danger. Now
this was really the case of the first Christian bishops, they
being still exposed to the sharpest fury of their persecutors,
and commonly begun with first, when any storm was raised
against the church : their labours also were very great ; for
the care of the flock lay on them, and they were unwearied
in the dischargé of the pastoral care. Can we then reason-
ably think, that they could be so fond of so much toil and
peril, as to violate the institution of the blessed Jesus or his
apostles to obtain it 2
tem apud omnes unum est, non est erratum, sed traditum,
De Praescript, cap. 28.
CHAPTER I.
1 PAUL, ‘a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus
Christ, *according to (kará, for the promotion of) the
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I.
1 Wer. 1. AoûNo. Oscă, A servant of God.] He writes, not
this to confirm his authority to Titus, who doubted not at
all of it ; but to confirm it to others with whom he did con-
verse, or to whom this epistle might come; it being of use
not only to direct Titus then, but all bishops and rulers of the
church for ever.
* Kara wirriw, For the promotion of the faith of God's
faith of God’s elect, and the acknowledging of “the
truth which is after godliness;
elect.] i. e. The faith of Christians in the general, they being
all yivo; #xNewry, “an elect generation,” 1 Pet. ii. 9, and
Paul being an apostle in reference to them all, to them to
whom he was “a savour of death,” as well as to them to
whom he was “a savour of life,” 2 Cor. ii. 16.
3 Tāq war starāgstay &AmSelag, The truth which is after
godliness.] The “mystery of godliness,” 1 Tim. iii. 16, the .
“ doctrine which is after godliness,” 1 Tim. vi. 3. This 'is
therefore only necessary to be believed, so far as that belief
872
TITUS.
2 * In (it', with that) hope of etermal life, which
God, that cannot lie, (hath) promised before the world
began (i. e. from the beginning of ages) ;
3 But hath in due time manifested (#pavépwo's 68
raipoic iótouc, and hath, in its proper season, manifested
this) his word (of promise) through preaching (of it
to the gentiles), which (office) is committed to me ac-
cording to the command of God our Saviour;
4 (I, Paul, write this) to (thee, O) Titus, mine own
son after the common faith; (wishing to thee) grace,
mercy, and peace, from God the Father and (from)
the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour.
5 (Advertising thee, that) for this catase left I thee
in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things
that (as yet) are wanting, and ordain "elders in every
city, as I had appointed thee: -
6 If any be blameless, "the husband of one wife
(neither guilty of polygamy, nor married again after
is necessary to a holy life. To confirm this inference, let
these following arguments be considered:
First, That which “hath the promise of this life, and that
which is to come,” must be sufficient to secure us of the
enjoyment of the life to come ; but godliness, saith the
apostle, “hath the promise of this life, and that which is to
come,” 1 Tim. iv. 18. Ergo, again, that which hath con-
tentment is great gain, and must sure avail us to Salvation,
seeing, without salvation, we can gain nothing which is truly
good; but “godliness with contentment is great gain,” 1
'Tim. vi. 6. Ergo,
Secondly, Hſ this be the great end, for which # Xágic rot.
QEcſ # corràpioc, “the saving grace of God hath appeared to
us, viz. To teach us that, denying all ungodliness, and
worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godlily,
in this present world;” and if, by doing so, we may “expect
the blessed hope and glorious appearance of our Lord” with
comfort, then must this holiness administer to us an as-
surance of our future happiness. Now all this is the express
saying of Paul, Tit. ii. 11, 12. 14. Ergo,
Thirdly, By what we do entirely attain the end for which
our Saviour died, or suffered on the cross, by that we must
attain assurance of the benefits of his death and passion,
viz. remission of sins, justification, and salvation ; but this
we do, by “dying to sin and living unto righteousness;” that
is, by being holy in our lives and conversations: for “Christ
bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead
to sin, might live to righteousness,” 1 Pet. ii. 24. And to as
many as are thus conformed to his death, by dying unto sin,
he hath promised that they “shall be conformed to him in
likeness of his resurrection,” Rom. viii. 1 1. Faith therefore
can be no farther necessary, than it is requisite to engage us
“to die unto sin, and to live to righteousness.”
Fourthly, This will be farther evident even from the na-
ture of true holiness; for seeing that consisteth in a partici-
pation of the divine nature, 2 Pet. i. 4, in “putting on the
new man, which is created after God in righteousness and
true holiness,” Eph. iv. 24, in being “holy in all manner of
eonversation, as he that has called us is holy,” 1 Pet. i. 15,
it plainly follows, either that they who live to God, who are
like him in holiness, who have the image of God instamped
upon them, and who are “made partakers of the divine na-
ture,” may notwithstanding, perish everlastingly, or that true
holiness may render us secure of happiness.
Fifthly, It seems evident, that a good and a wise God
cannot reveal things only to stuff our heads with notions,
when they have no influence upon our hearts to make us
better: since, then, to disbelieve them would be pernicious,
and yet the believing them would do us no good, and a wise
God must require this faith to no end, his design in requiring
us to believe in Jesus Christ being this, “that believing we
may have life through his name,” John xx. 31, and the very
“end of our faith ” is “the salvation of our souls,” 1 Pet. i.
9, he therefore can require us to believe nothing but what
hath a real tendency to the obtainment of that life, and that
salvation, which is the end of our whole faith.
. * Ver, 2, 3..] Note, By comparing these two verses with
those words in Timothy, “He hath saved us, and called us
with a holy calling; not according to our works, but according
to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ
Jesus, ºrgö x86voy ałoriov, before the world began ; but is now
made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Christ, who
hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality
to light through the gospel ; whereunto I am appointed a
' preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher of the gentiles,”
2 Tim. i. 9–1 l ; I say from these words compared together,
it may be inferred, *
First, That the promise of eternal life, mentioned in both
places, is the promise of calling those gentiles, to whom Paul
was an apostle, to that faith which had the promise of eter-
nal life annexed to it: for this promise God is said to
have performed, by Paul's preaching this word of life to the
gentiles.
Secondly, That this hope of eternal life was not made
manifest till the appearing of our Saviour, and the preaching
of the gospel to the world ; he having “brought life and im-
mortality to light by the gospel,” 2 Tim. i. 10, and mani-
fested the hope of it by the preaching of the word of
faith. -
Thirdly, Seeing no such promise could be made to men,
no such grace given to them, before there were any men in
the world, these words, ºrpè 2:pévoy aioviov, cannot properly
be rendered “before the world began ;” but, as Chrysostom,
Theodoret, and CEcumenius, render them, &vo,0sy # 3pxic,
“ of old time,” or “from the beginning:” so, the revelation
of the calling of the gentiles is styled, “The revelation of the
mystery, xpévot, aioviot, a salynºśvov, kept secret from men
since the world began,” Rom. xvi. 25, but now manifested
by the scriptures of the prophets. This promise therefore
was contained in the writings of the prophets, and either
must relate to the promise made to Adam immediately after
the fall, that “the seed of the woman should break the ser-
pent's head,” which was a promise made from the beginning,
and red Xpávoy aiovioly, before any of the three ages of the
world were passed ; or, to the promise made to Abraham,
that “in his seed should all the families of the earth be
blessed,” which was a promise made a long time ago, and be-
fore the first age of the world expired. So Zacharias speaks
of the promise of the Messias, made 31& rāv &n' aiāvoc ºrpopn-
rāv, “by the holy prophets from the beginning,” Luke i. 70.
And Jerusalem is mentioned as an apostatizing city, 34’ hºw#-
pov aiãvo; “from the days of old,” Ezra iv. 15. 19, and, an”
ałóvos, “of old,” Esd. ii. 23. 26. If it refer to the promise
or declaration made to Adam, that “the seed of the woman
should bruise the serpent's head,” that must be a declaration
that the Messiah should exempt us from that mortality the
serpent had brought upon the seed of Adam, and conse-
quently a promise that he should procure for us a happy
resurrection to eternal life : if we refer it to the promise made
to Abraham, “In thee shall all the families of the earth be
blessed,” we, by that blessing, being made the adopted “sons
of God, and heirs according to the promise,” Gal. iii. 29,
must have a title by it to the “redemption of our bodies,”
and must become sons of the resurrection to eternal life, and
by it receiving the promise of that Spirit, which is the earnest
of that inheritance, Gal. iii. 14, must thereby be assured
of it.
* Ver. 5. Iſesagurépovc.] Hence it appears, that at the first
conversion of the Cretians to the faith, they had no bishops
or presbyters set over them, but had all their church-offices
performed by men assisted by that Holy Spirit, which God
shed on them abundantly, through faith in Christ (iii. 6),
though out of these, bishops and deacons usually were
chosen : but then it is observable, that things were then
wanting: or, that this was a deficiency in that church.
* Ver. 6. Múc yuvaix㺠&yºp, The husband of one wife.]
Here Chrysostom, GEcumenius, and Theophylact, have well
observed, against the heretics and papists, that marriage is so
honourable, that any clergyman may ascend to the episcopal
throne with it, &c'rs pair' airro; Kai iwi roy #ylov Spévoy 36Vaasai
āyagaively, Chrysost. Theoph. : yea, that he may do the office
of a bishop, and retain the nuptial bed, &c &vyawāyou kai wºrd:
74pcov. Triakotric mgovosiv Tryog. CEcumenius.
To show the antiquity of that interpretation of those words,
“the husband of one wife,” which I incline to, Jerome saith,
that, quidam de hôc loco ita sentiunt; Judaicae, inquiunt,
CHAPTER. I.
873
divorce from his former wife; see note on 1 Tim. iii.
2) having faithful children, not accused of riot, or
unruly. 2.
7 "For a bishop must be blameless, as (being) the
steward of God; not self-willed, not soon angry, not
given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre;
8 *But a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men
ſor things.), sober (or prudent), just, holy, temperate;
9 Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been
taught (kará ràv Štěaxi}v, according to the doctrine of
Christ and his apostles), that he may be able by sound
doctrine "both to exhort (both to admonish, or instruct
in sound doctrine,) and to convince the gain-sayer.
10 For there are many unruly " and vain talkers
consuetudinis fuit vel binas uxores habere, vel plures,
quod etiam in veteri lege de Abraham, et Jacob, legi-
mus ; et hoc nunc volunt esse praeceptum, ne is qui epis-
copus est eligendus, uno tempore duas paritér habeat uxores.
He also seems to show his dislike of the other opinion, in
these words, Multi superstitiosiès magis quam verias, etiam
eos, qui clim gentiles fuerint, et unam uxorem habuerint,
qua amissã, post baptismum Christi alteram duxerint, putant
in Sacerdotio non eligendos.
* Ver, 7. 'Aviykantoy stral, (I left thee in Crete to ordain
elders; if any be blameless; ) for a bishop must be blame-
less.] Hence, say the Greek and Latin commentators, it is
manifest that the same person is called a presbyter in the
fifth, and a bishop in the seventh verse, kai ivºrsſøew 35Aoy &;
Tois Trêsa flurégous Étriaxótrov, &váºzaćov, sipnx&g yag wa karazºrſ-
&#, Karā ºrów weea flutápovº, Érhyays, 85 yap imizkoroy &véynxn-
ºrov Eiyat #y #xác tº 33 ºréas, obz śmia zámov;, &xx& Tresa 3vrégov;
#30; siva Trás-ove, Theodoret. “When he had said, I left
thee in Crete, that thou mightest ordain presbyters in every
city,” postea intulit ; Oportet enim episcopum sine crimine
esse, tanquam Dei dispensatorem ; idem estergö presbyter
qui episcopus: he after makes this inference, For a bishop
must be blameless: the bishop therefore and presbyter are
here the same.” The reverend and learned Bishop Pearson
proves, from Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Origen,
that in their judgment, the apostle speaks of presbyters pro-
perly so called; as doth also Theodoret, from this argument,
That the apostle requires presbyters in the plural to be or:
dained in every city, whereas there was to be only one single
bishop in a city. But I find no answer to the argument, that
the same person is a presbyter in the fifth, who is a bishop
in the seventh verse ; and therefore I still incline to the
opinion of Chrysostom, Theodoret, Jerome, GEcumenius, and
Theophylact, that the names were then common.
4 bishop must be blameless.) Jerome, understanding this
of presbyters, speaks to the bishops thus; Audiant episcopi,
qui habent constituendi presbyteros per urbes singulas potes.
tatem, sub quali lege ecclesiasticae constitutionis ordo tenea-
tur: and then proceeds thus ; At nunc cernimus plurimos
hanc rem beneficium facere, ut non quarant eos qui possunt
ecclesiae plus prodesse et in ecclesiá erigere columnas: sed
quos Vel ipsi amant, vel quorum obsequiis sunt deliniti, vel
pro quibus majorum quisquam rogaverit, et ut deteriora
taceam, qui ut clerici fierent, muneribus impetrarunt.
* Ver. 8, pºéevov, A lover of hospitality.] Not in the
modern sense of keeping hospitality, that is, a great table for
persons of quality to come to ; but, say Chrysostom and
Theophylact, rà aircü roſ; £ávoic rºoftºvo, was roi; becºyotº,
“one so far from filthy lucre, that he spends what he has
upon the stranger and the poor.” 23:5pova of rºy whº revrºy
fºrty ivraj9a, 3xx& rév tášov, Keatoivra, “He saith sober,
i. e. not one that is much in fasting, but an exact governor
of his passions, his tongue, hands, and eyes.”
* Ver. 9. IIapaxaxeſy..] i. e. Novšereſy, Theoph. See Rom.
xii. 8. To 8: p.4xtata xagazrnpišov rôy imirnorov, tº 3,342 new
is riv, “The chief character of a bishop is tº 3,822 waxinºv, his
ability to teach,” say Chrysostom and Theophylact.
* Ver. 10. Maratoxáyºt, Vain talkers.] That the Jews
were waratoxáyot, “vain talkers,” and Érepoèt?azzaxoëvre,
“teachers of things which they ought not,” we learn, l Tim.
i. 3, 4, 6, and that they were desirous of filthy lucre, robbing
* IIieron. in locum.
(in Crete) and deceivers (of men’s minds), "especially
those of the circumcision: *-
ll Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert
whole houses, teaching things which they ought not
(to teach), for filthy lucre's sake.
12 One of themselves (even Epimenides) * a pro-
phet of their own, said, The Cretians are always liars,
evil beasts, * slow bellies (i. e. gluttons).
13 This witness is true (of them who inhabit Crete,
whether natives or Jews). Wherefore * rebuke them
sharply (ÉAsyxe airočg &trorópºwg, convince them power-
fully), that they be sound in the faith;
14 Not giving heed "to Jewish fables, and com-
mandments of men, who turn from the faith.
and devouring those they taught, see 2 Cor. xi. 20. Of the
covetousness of the pharisees, the great sticklers for the
necessity of circumcision, and of the observation of the law
of Moses, by all Christians (Acts xv. 5), our Saviour gives
us a large account, Matt. xxiii. 14. 25. Luke xvi. 14. Their
mouths must be stopped, not with force, but with conviction
(ver. 2), by such strength of conviction, say the fathers, as
will not suffer them to speak anything by way of answer, or
gainsaying the truth.
* Máxia-ra 33 of fix "repirogiº, Especially they of the cir-
cumcision.] He doth not say, Especially those gentiles or
Samaritans, who are advocates for the observation of the
Jewish law, but of #x regtropaic, “they of the circumcision,”
which, throughout the New Testament, signifies the Jews,
men of that nation and religion : so Acts x. 45, “And oi św.
Tregºroºzåc, the Jews which came with Peter were amazed,
when they saw the gift of the Holy Ghost poured out upon
the gentiles ;” Acts xi. 2, of Éx trºpºrowſic, “The Jews con-
tended with Peter, saying, Thou wentest in to men uncir-
cumcised, and didst eat with them ’” (see Rom. iv. 12. xv.
8. Gal. ii. 7–9. Eph. ii. 11. Col. iv. 11). Moreover, the
Gnostics and Simonians were so far from being advocates for
the observation of the Jewish law, that it was one part of
their doctrine,” viaº Kai trºophraic ºxéâa Sat, that “no man
should observe the law or the prophets” (see note on 1 Tim.
i. 7): they therefore cannot be the men here intended.
* Ver, 12. IIzophºrns, A prophet of their own.] Theodoret
expressly says, this poet was Callimachus; CEcumenius and
Theophylact cite the words of Callimachus, and so doth
Chrysostom, though he confesses the poet was Epimenides.
Callimachus it could not be, for he was no Cretian, but a
Cyrenian, nor hath he this whole verse, but only the begin-
ning of it, Kºńrs, āei Leijo-rat, which, saith Jerome, he bor-
rowed from Epimenides; who by Plato it is styled áyip
Seño; by Diodorus Siculus, i. 3 SeáAoyoc, “the divine;” by
Diogenes Laertius, $80%ixáaratos, and yywartz&Taroc, “one
skilled in divination ;” by Cicero, futura praesentiens, et
vaticinans per furorem, “one that foretold things future by
ecstasy ;” by Plutarch," orogº; ºrigi rā, śīa, “a wise man
concerning divine things;” by Apuleius,” fatidicus, “a
soothsayer;” by Maximus Tyrius, fºr 3siv3; r. Seſa, “one
skilled in divine things ;” by Dion Prusiensis, and the apos-
tle here, “one of their prophets.” *
* Tao-pºwaćyā;..] "Atrana toº, Sudias. Tarrºwatyoi, 3×ga-
reſs, &rAmarot, Troxv+áyot, Hesych. Taatºpºagyia &xgacia ºrepi
rºy reophy, Clem. Al. Paed. lib. ii. cap. 1, p. 146, C. Wide
Jul. Pollux, lib. ii. cap. 4, p. 109, 37, cap. 111, 26
* Ver. 13. "Exey Ys attoo; 3rorópºwg, Rebuke them sharply.]
If these words relate to the Cretians deceived by the Jews,
as the verse following seems to hint, they are fitly translated,
“Rebuke them sharply.” To be “sound in faith,” is, say
CEcumenius and Theophylact, to retain it so as it was de-
livered by the apostles, without adding anything to it from
Judaism or gentilism, and especially without adding to it the
necessity of observing the Jewish law or rites by the
gentiles.
* Ver. 14. 'Ioviaixaſ, wºoi..] By “Jewish fables,” some
—-me
* Const. Apost. lib. vi. cap. 8, 10.
+ De Leg. lib. i. p. 780, E.
: Lib. v. p. 239.
| De Divin. lib. i.
* * };"|grid. Jj]), ii.
§ Lib. i. p. 29, 30.
"| In Solone.
+H Dissert. 22, p. 3]3.
- - 5
874
TITUS.
15 (For, whatsoever they may say or think, concern-
ing unclean meats, persons, or things, ) to *the pure
(the gentile, whose heart is purified by faith,) all things
are pure (in their use); but unto them that (though
they count themselves the only pure persons) are defiled
and unbelieving is nothing (truly) pure; but even their
here understand the Gnostics' cabbalistical interpretations of
the Old Testament: but (1.) if we look into Irenaeus, we
shall find their senseless interpretations chiefly related to the
New Testament. Their thirty aeons they gathered from the
thirty years our Saviour spent in silence, before he preached,
and from the parable of those who wrought in the vineyard,
and from Paul; from whom he shows, lib. i. cap. 1, p. 16,
18, they gathered most of their wild fancies, and so they
must, in time, be after the writing of his epistles. (2.) It
does not appear that the cabbalistical Jews had any such
interpretations as favoured the mad doctrines of the Gnostics.
The fathers therefore generally interpret these words of the
vain traditions of the Jews, especially concerning meats, and
other things, to be abstained from, as unclean, which our
Lord also styles “the doctrines of men,” Matt. xv. 9 ; and
of the teachers of them, Paul, in his Epistle to Timothy,
Saith, that “they were turned from the faith,” 1 Tim. i. 5, 6.
†. this, Saith CEcumenius, is evident from the ensuing
WOTC.S.
* Ver. 15. To the clean all things are clean.] Here, saith
Jerome, considerandum ne ista tractantes, occasionem illi
haeresi demus, quae juxta Apocalypsin, et ibsum quoque
apostolum Paulum scribentem ad Corinthios, putant, de
idolothytis esse vescendum, quia omnia munda Sunt mundis.
*7 Wer. 16.] It is the opinion of all the ancient commen-
tators upon the place, that the apostle speaks this ad-
mind and conscience is defiled (and by that their actions).
16 "They profess that they know God (above
others, Rom. ii. 17) but in works they (practically]
deny him, being abominable (now, to him, of whom
they were once beloved), and disobedient, and to every
good work reprobate.
versiis Judaeos, “against the Jews,” nor is there anything
º: in these two verses which may not be applied to them.
for,
First, We have observed already how the scripture gives
those very names to the unbelieving Jews, which they were
wont to give unto the gentiles, styling them “dogs,” Phil.
iii. 2, as they styled the gentiles; and “vessels of wrath,”
Rom. ix. 22. 1 Thess. ii. 16, who thought themselves
the only vessels of mercy;” and here (ver. 15) “defiled,”
who counted themselves the only “pure servants of God,”
Neh. ii. 20.
Secondly, Of their profession “to know God, when in
works they deny him,” the apostle gives a large account,
Rom. ii. from ver, 17 to ver, 25; and again, ch, iii, from
ver. 10 to ver. 19. That they were “abominable” in the
sight of God, our Lord not only saith of the pharisees, Luke
xvi. 15 ; but Paul of the Jews in general, declaring that
they “pleased not God;” yea, they were so displeasing
to him, that “wrath was come upon them to the utter-
most,” 1 Thess. ii. 15, 16. Of their disobedience to the law,
we read in the forecited places of the Romans, and of their
“evil works,” Phil. iii. 2. 2 Cor. xi. 13. 15. And, lastly,
that a defiled mind and conscience polluted all their actions,
even those that were done according to the will and the
command of God, see Isa. i. 11. 16. lxvi. 3. Jer. vi. 20.
Amos v. 21, 22.
CHAPTER II.
1 BUT (howsoever they live and teach) speak thou
the things which become sound doctrine:
2 (To wit, ) that the aged men be sober, grave,
temperate, sound in faith, (sincere) in charity, and
(constant in) patience.
3 The * aged women likewise, that they be in beha-
viour (in habit and gesture) as becometh holiness, not
false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of
good things (of piety, charity, chastity, to those with
whom they do converse) ;
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II.
* Ver. 2. IIgea 86 raç, The aged..] See the note on Philem.
9. So the word signifies in all the other places of the New Tes-
tament where it is found ; so #y& yáč stat regarðūrng, “I am
aged,” saith Zacharias, Luke i. 18, and IIaijño; Trésa’85 ru; is
“Paul the aged,” Philem. 9. And in this sense the true
St. Jerome, and all the Greek commentators on the place,
expound it. The reverend Dr. Hammond thinks it here
signifies “church officers,” and in particular the deacons,
mentioned in Timothy, after the bishops, l Tim. iii. But of
five qualifications there required of the deacons (ver. 8), the
apostle here mentions only one, that of gravity ; nor is it
necessary that these resagürat should be church officers, be-
cause the apostle here enumerates their qualifications: for,
as Jerome on the place observes, he reckons up the qualifi-
cations of the younger women, ver. 4, 5, and of the younger
men, ver. 6, and of the servants, ver. 9, 10. But hence
it will not follow that they were church officers: nor,
secondly, because Titus was sent to ordain such ; for we find
not that he was sent to ordain any but presbyters or
bishops, ii. 5.7; though doubtless he did ordain deacons to
attend them. *
* Ver. 3. IIesagurišag.] That “the aged women” here
imports the deaconesses of the church, some of the commen-
tators say was the opinion of some ancients; and indeed they
were so necessary, (1.) for the baptism of women, when that
4 * That they may teach the young women to be
sober, to love their husbands, to love their chil-
dren,
5 To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good,
obedient to their own husbands, “that the word of
God be not blasphemed (by reason of their crimes).
6 Young men likewise exhort to be sober-minded
(Gr. owppovčiv, to govern not only their concupiscible,
but their irascible passions).
7 In all things showing thyself a pattern of good
was performed by dipping, as in the apostle's days it was;
and (2.) for the converting some young women to, and the
instructing others in, the faith they had already owned
(which aged women, though not permitted to “speak in the
church,” might do in private houses, without scandal; but the
apostles, and a young Timothy, could scarcely do without
suspicion); that for these reasons I doubt not but this office
obtained in the first preaching of the gospel.
* Ver. 4. "Iya aroppovićwas rä; véag, That they may teach
or admonish the young women.] Stephanus renders the
words thus, “That they may teach them by chastisement;”
but women, who had husbands and children, as these in the
next verse are supposed to have, were not to be chastised by
others. Observe then, that young men and women become
wise by hearkening to the admonitions and instructions of
persons aged and experienced in the practice of it, and they
who were set over the youth and the young women for this
end were called by the Greeks coºpgoya rāges, that is, “direc-
tors of their manners,” because they admonished them how
to behave themselves in their stations: hence croſºpoviarăç is
by Hesychius rendered yovšernº, “an admonisher,” and in
Julius Pollux, co-pgovićev is youšereſy, “to admonish,” and
colºgovºrºs is the same with youşezia, “admonition,” lib. iii.
cap. 17, p. 153, lib. xli. &c.
* Ver. 5. That the word of God be not blasphemed.] For,
say Theodoret and Theophylact, when wives leave their hus-
bands, or servants their masters, trºopáds, ris stat6siac,
$.
CHAPTER II.
875
works: in doctrine showing uncorruptedness, gravity,
º sincerity,
8 * Sound speech, that cannot be condemned ; that
he that is of the contrary part (whether Jew or gentile)
may be ashamed (of his opposition to you), having no
evil thing to say of you.
9 Exhort servants to be obedient to their own mas-
ters, and to please them well in all (lawful) things;
not answering again;
10 Not purloining (or filching from their masters),
“from a pretence of religion, they cause men to speak evil
of the gospel.”
* Ver. 7. 'A$Sagariav, Sincerity] This word is not to be
found in Chrysostom, Theophylact, nor in many copies; but
it is in Theodoret, CEcumenius, Cod. Alex. Arab.
* Ver, 8.] The doctrine to be preached must be pure, and
free from all corrupt mixtures; it must be entire, so as to
want nothing necessary to be known; it must be such as
is tytºc, wholesome and beneficial to the hearer; it must be
delivered with gravity and with care, that there be nothing
spoken which may be subject to reprehension.
teacheth it must in his conversation practise suitable to
what he teacheth, lest his own heart should inwardly con-
demn him, and he should be condemned both by God and
man from his own mouth.
7 Wer. 9. Mā āytiXéyovreć, Not answering again..] Not
murmuring against their commanders, or contradicting them,
but only with submission pleading their own cause ; for that
even nature doth allow.
* Ver. 12.] The first thing Christianity requires of them,
who would enjoy this saving grace, is to deny all practical
ungodliness, by carefully abstaining from all idolatry, super-
stition, and false worship, and to discard all those princi-
ples which tend to cherish in us a profane and irreligious
conversation, viz. all principles of atheism and infidelity, all
denial of providence, and of a future recompence ; for as all
our false worship will render our whole service vain, and
our pretended piety a provocation, so these pernicious prin-
ciples will render our religion none at all : for how can he
be seriously employed in religious actions who questions the
very object of religion, denies the motives to it, and reckons
it “a vain thing to serve the Lord.”
Secondly, To deny all worldly lusts; i. e. all inordinate
affections to the enjoyments of this present world, as know-
ing that the friendship of this world is enmity to God; all
“the pollutions which are in the world through lust” (2 Pet.
ii. 20); “walking not in riot and drunkenness, in banquetings
and revelling, in lasciviousness and uncleanness, in strife and
envy ; but putting on the Lord Jesus Christ, and making no
provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.” (Rom. xiii.
13, 14. 1 Pet. iv. 2, 3).
Thirdly, To live soberly, in the due moderation of all our
appetites, the exact government of all our passions, and in
the regular exercise of our affections and desires ; i. e. we
must so far restrain our angry passions, that they do never
indecently boil up within us, or break forth into opprobrious
words or rancorous expressions, or proceed to malicious and
spiteful actions; and that we never do exert them, but
upon occasion of something that is truly evil and displeasing
to God, or when it may be for the benefit of others: we
must so moderate our affections to, and our desires of, all
worldly things, as to sit down contented with our present
portion, not being anxiously solicitous about them, not pur-
suing them by unlawful means, not much cast down when
we lose them, nor much delighted with them when we do
enjoy them ; but living still as men whose conversation is in
heaven, and whose hearts are chiefly set on things above.
We must so temper our desires of applause and reputation
in this world, as only to pursue it by exact regards to what
is virtuous and praiseworthy, and for virtuous ends, the
doing good to others; never endeavouring to obtain or to
preserve it by any sinister attempts, sinful compliances,
or by neglect of duty. We must so regulate the cravings
of the throat, and the gratifications of the palate, as not
to eat or drink to the impairing of our health or reason,
to the inflaming of our lusts or passions, or to the rendering
ourselves unfit for the performance of that duty which we
And he that
but showing all good fidelity; that they may adorn
the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things (belong-
ing to their station).
11 For the grace of God that bringeth salvation
hath appeared to all men (as well servants as masters,
Syed, to men of all nations), -
12 *Teaching us that, denying (all) ungodliness
and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously,
and godly, in this present world;
13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious
owe to God. We must be so moderate in reference to
the pleasures of the world, that all the pleasures in which
we do allow ourselves may be still höoyal &as raft.éanto, “such
as call for no repentance ;” we must pursue them with such
indifference, as that we can freely deny ourselves in the en-
joyment of them, when the concernments of God's glory,
or the welfare of our own or other men's souls is prejudiced
by them ; preferring still the pleasures of religion much
above them.
Fourthly, We must live righteously, i. e. in all the offices
of exact truth and justice betwixt man and man, being true
in our words, exact to the performance of our promises,
doing no injury to any in his good name, estate, or person,
much less in the concernments of his soul, but dealing still
with others as we would be dealt with.
We must live 31%aios, charitably ; preserving an un-
feigned goodwill, an affectionate kindness to, and having a
sincere concernment for, the good of all men ; and this affec-
tion must restrain us not only from biting them with the
tongue, suspecting evil of them, or doing evil to them ; but
must engage us to hope well, and believe well of them,
where we know nothing to the contrary ; to rejoice in their
prosperity, to be ready to promote it, to sympathize with
them in their afflictions; and, as far as we are able, to sup-
ply their wants, relieve their miseries, and contribute to the
ease and comfort of their lives; and more especially to la-
bour to prevent their ruin, and further the eternal interests
of their precious souls; to conceal the evil that we know of
others, where no necessity, i. e. no duty to ourselves, our
brother, or the public, requires us to divulge it ; to chdure
all things, without returning evil for evil; to be long-suffer-
ing, and bear with patience the infirmities of others: that,
lastly, upon any reasonable submission, any fair acknow-
ledgment of the offence, any desire of reconciliation, we be
easy to be entreated, and ready to forgive : in a word, that
in all cases of the same kind, we prefer the public before our
private interest.
Fifthly, To teach us to live godlily; (1.) By keeping up
a high esteem, an admiration of God in our minds, acknow-
ledging his excellences, by our repairing to, and our con-
tinual dependence on, his wisdom, power, and goodness, in
our addresses to the throne of grace ; by ascribing all the
mercies we enjoy to his sole, free, and undeserved goodness,
and therefore highly esteeming them, paying the tribute of
our praises, and suitable returns of duty for them, and by
performing that public and external homage to the Author
of them, which may best testify to others the inward venera-
tion we have for him. (2.) By yielding a firm assent to all
his revelations, depending on his all-sufficiency and good-
iness, to order all things for us to the best, and hoping in his
mercy for preservation from, or support under, and a good
issue from, the troubles of this present life, and a supply of
all those blessings which he sees needful for us, or most con-
ducing to our good. (3.) By valuing him as our chief and
all-sufficient good, the only proper object of our happiness,
and upon that account preferring him before whatever stands
in competition with him ; having none in heaven but him,
and none on earth that we desire in comparison with
him ; doing all things to his glory, and for the promo-
tion of his honour, and being zealous to remove whatso-
ever doth obstruct or oppose it. (4.) By being in the
fear of the Lord all the day long, and herein exercising our-
selves to have always consciences void of offence towards
God, so that we never wilfully do anything which argues a
contempt of him, or is a provocation to the pure eyes of his
glory. (5.) By acquainting ourselves with his sacred will,
that we may do it ; esteeming all his commandments, con-
876
TITUS.
appearance of * the great God and our Saviour Jesus
Christ; -
14 Who gave himself forus, that he might "redeem
us from all iniquity, and (so might) purify to himself
"a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
15 These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke
(the opposers of this doctrine) with all authority. Let
no man despise thee (but use the censures of the church,
and deliver up to Satan, those Jews who gainsay this
doctrine).
cerning all things, to be right; yielding a cheerful, constant,
and sincere obedience to them, labouring to walk before
him in all well-pleasing; and when we are convinced that
we have deviated from his good and holy laws, returning
by a speedy and sincere repentance and reformation of
our evil ways. (6.) By an humble submission to his
chastisements, and a contented acquiescence in all the dis-
pensations of his providence, and an entire resignation of
ourselves and our concernments to the pleasure of his good
and holy will.
Thus Philo doth inform us, That he that would be truly
virtuous, must, in the first place, &etavaarsdely ro; adºaroº,
“become an exile from the enjoyments of the body, so far as
not to be enslaved, Érišvaiaic kai hēovaſc, to the importunate
desires of worldly things, or to the pleasures of the world,
obts pêot; otre Ağraic, nor to the fears of losing them ; nor
to excess of grief, that he doth not enjoy them, that, being
thus prepared, he must govern his whole life by these three
rules or canons, tº pixoSãº, Kai pixapirº, Kai pixay83&ng,
the love of God, the love of virtue, and the love of man”
(Lib. Quðd omnis probus liber, p. 676, C).
* Ver, 13. Toff ºyáAov 9:05, The great God.] Here it
deserveth to be noted, that it is highly probable, that Jesus
Christ is here styled “the great God;’ first, because in the
original the article is prefixed only before the great God,
and therefore seems to require this construction, “the ap-
pearance of Jesus Christ the great God, and our Saviour.”
Secondly, because, as God the Father is not said properly to
appear, so the word Émiºpáysia never occurs in the New Testa-
ment, but when it is applied to Jesus Christ, and to some
coming of his ; the places in which it is to be found being
only these, 2 Thess. ii. 8. 1 Tim. vi. 14. 2 Tim. i. 10. iv. l.
8. Thirdly, because Christ is emphatically styled “our
hope,” “the hope of glory,” Col. i. 23. 1 Tim. i. 1. And
lastly, because not only all the ancient commentators on
the place do so interpret this text, but the Ante-Nicene fa-
thers also; Hippolytus,” speaking of the “appearance of our
* De Antichrist. § 64.
God and Saviour Jesus Christ ;” and Clemens of Alexandria”
proving Christ to be both God and man, our creator, and
the author of all our good things, from these very words of
Paul (Vid. Tract. de Vera Christi Deitate, p. 44, 45).
1° Wer. 14. "Iya Avreća oral, &c. That he might redeem
and purify.] The words Aurpāoral and Kasapiaat, here used,
being sacrificial; the first signifying redemption, by paying a
price, here said to be, the “giving himself;” the second, to
purify from the guilt of sin, by an atonement offered for it
(Heb. ix. 22. 1 John i. 7.9); I conceive the import of them
to be this, That Christ our Saviour gave himself a ransom
for us to redeem us from the guilt and punishment of our
sins; that being, by this atonement, thus purified and recon-
ciled to God, we might become, as the Jews were before, “a
peculiar people” to him, and upon that account “ zealous of
good works.”
* Aady regioſatov, A peculiar people..] So nºnp is rendered
by the Septuagint, Exod. xix. 5, “You shall be to me, Aa3;
"regioja toº, a peculiar people above all people;” Deut. vii. 6,
“Jehovah thy God hath chosen thee to be unto him, Aady
aregtoſa toy, a peculiar people above all the people of the earth:”
so, xiv. 2. xxvi. 18. This, by the Chaldee, is always ren-
dered, “a beloved people.” This title belonged to all Israel
in general, Ps. cxxxv. 4, “Jehovah hath chosen Jacob for
himself, and Israel for his peculiar people.” As therefore
all Israel, being sanctified to the Lord, became to him-ape-
culiar treasure, and a beloved people, above all other nations
or religions in the world; so are now all Christians, God
having “purified their hearts by faith” (Acts. xv. 9). Se-
condly, As then salvation was of the Jews (John iv. 22),
and belonged to others, only by being proselytes so far as to
own their God, or their religion; so now that salvation which
is promised in the gospel, and which consists in life eternal,
is promised only to them who own the God and Saviour of
the Christians, or embrace their religion: for “this is the tes-
timony that God hath given us eternal life; and that life is
in his Son. He that häth the Son hath life; he that hath
not the Son hath not life” (1 John v. 11, 12).
Admon. ad G ent. p. 5, 6.
CHAPTER III.
1 PUT them in mind to be subject to principalities
and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to (Gr.
jor) every good work,
2 To speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers (Gr.
no fighters), but gentle, showing all "meekness to all
men (with whom they do converse).
3 * For we * ourselves also were sometimes foolish,
disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and plea-
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III.
1 Wer. 1. 'Aéxaſ; xai Éovcial; ‘rotázarea-9at, To be subject
to principalities.]. Besides the turbulent spirit of the Jews
then in Crete, Suidas” hath left upon record concerning them,
that the Cretians, fearing they should suffer punishment from
their superiors, stirred up the people, “exhorting them to
maintain the liberty which they always had enjoyed.” By
which we see how needful this instruction was.
. . Wer. 2. 'Etrieixeia, Merkness.] This is that virtue which
inclines us to be easy and merciful to offenders, kind in inter-
preting the actions of others, and yielding, in matters of our
own concern, for peace' sake; and we “show all meekness,”
not by being never severe (for severity, at some times, towards
Some persons, is necessary), but by being mild in all cases,
in which the circumstances of time, place, and persons, will
admit of it. -
* Ver, 3. "Hºw yée Trors, For we ourselves were some-
* Oi 8: Kgºre; pogoëtzewo: º, ºr rºo’eta; Túxoziv, &vácelow ra.
z - 2. * - a z
*A*ēn, "raganºvts; # alăyo; trapa?:%2.Éyny ixºvšegia, SiaºvX4+-
a fly. Voce 'Ayāzelow.
times.] That these were the vices that reigned in the heathen
world, see Rom. i. 26. 31. xiii. 13. Col. iii. 5. 8. That the
Cretians were prone to disobedience, we have proved from
Suidas: that they were foolish, and deceived, is evident
from their multitude of false gods, mentioned by Diodorus
Siculus, lib. v., and their vain imagination, in thinking that
their gods were mortal, with which Callimachus charges
them. The lusts and pleasures they served were unnatural
lusts, say CEcumenius and Theophylact: of which the Athe-
nian, in Plato, speaketh thus to Clinias of Crete;” “Of un-
natural lusts your cities are chiefly guilty; for, taking up
your laws from Jupiter, and retaining the fable of his Gany-
mede they committed this unnaturallust in imitation of their
Jupiter.”
* Kai hºgſ, We ourselves.] I cannot think, as Jerome
* Kai roſtov rā; tºgrápa, wréxes; wedºra; &y airišto
Trávre; 3; 3% Kºntāv roy Tsºi Tayvºn Kºoy warmyogoûºgy, & Ao-
yon minorévrov roſtov, #weið, trag& Aièc aircí; of Vágot rewarev-
£ºvoi îcay yeyovšval, rotºrov rôy ºšov trgoats0skéval, ºva #7éºweval
rā Qº.zapiršyta wai raûtny rāy #80yńy. Plato de Leg, lib. i.
p, 776, D.
CHAPTER II. I.
877
sures, living in malice and envy, hateful (to) and
hating one another. (See i. 10–12).
4 *But after that the kindness and love of God our
Saviour towards man appeared,
5 Not by works of righteousness which we have
done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the
washing of regeneration (in baptism), and (by the) re-
newing of the Holy Ghost (given then to the bap-
tized);
6 Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus
Christ our Saviour;
7 That being (thus) justified by his (free) grace,
we should be made heirs according to the hope of
eternal life.
8 This is a faithful saying, and these things I will
that thou affirm constantly, that they who have be-
lieved in God might be careful" to maintain good
works. These things are good and profitable unto
IIICI1, -
9 " But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies,
and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they
are unprofitable and vain.
10 * A man that is a heretic after the first and
second admonition reject;
doth, that Paul here condemns himself as one formerly guilty
of all these vices; for then he could not have said, that “he
had lived,” before his conversion, “in all good conscience to-
wards God” (Acts xxiii. 1); that he had “served God, from
his progenitors, with a pure conscience” (2 Tim. i. 3), and
that, “as to the righteousness which was by the law, he was
blameless” (Phil. iii. 6). Nor is anything more common
with Paul, than to speak thus, in the person of those to
whom he writes (see the note on Eph. ii. 3).
* Ver. 4–7.3 For the explication of these four verses, let
it be observed ;
First, That the apostle, in the very next verse, Saith,
“This is a faithful saying; and of this I will that thou affirm
constantly, that they who have believed in God should be
careful to maintain good works:” and, as he saith, that “we
are justified by grace;” so doth he teach us, that this grace
hath appeared for this very end, to “teach us, denying un-
godliness and worldly lusts, to live righteously, soberly, and
godly, in this present world, looking for this blessed hope;”
clearly insinuating, that without living godly, righteously, and
soberly, we cannot reasonably hope for happiness at our
Lord's second coming. Wherefore these words could never
be intended to excuse Christians from a necessity of being
holy, in order to their being happy.
Secondly, That the apostle only saith, “We are not saved
by works of righteousness which we have done,” before faith,
before the laver of regeneration; but doth not in the least
exclude the works of righteousness they should hereafter do
by virtue of the new nature given to them, and the renewing
of the Holy Ghost, from being conditions of their future hap-
piness; and therefore hence it doth not follow, as Esthius
suggests, that God hath predestinated us to salvation of his
mere mercy, without any respect to our works; but only,
that he hath thus freely called any nation to the knowledge
of that faith, that will, in the end, bring salvation to them
that obey the prescripts of it.
Thirdly, That when the apostle saith, “By his mercy he
saved us;” his meaning is, that by his free mercy he brought
us from a state of wrath and condemnation, into the way of
salvation; in which if we walk, and continue, we shall as-
suredly obtain salvation (see note on Eph. ii. 8,9).
Fourthly, Some, by “the laver of regeneration,” under-
stand that inward renovation which cleanseth the soul, as
washing doth the body; but that the apostle, by “the laver
of regeneration,” understands that baptism by which Chris-
tians, coming then from heathenism, engaged to renounce
idolatry, the works of the flesh and of the world, and dedi-
cated themselves to the service of the sacred Trinity, and
testified their faith in Christ, cannot reasonably be doubted,
if we consider,
First, How expressly our Saviour saith, we must be born
again of water and of the Holy Ghost, that we may “en-
ter into the kingdom of God” (John iii. 5): how he com-
missionated his apostles to “make disciples in all nations, by
baptizing them” (Matt. xxviii. 16); and how, from the begin-
ning, the word Traxty yewsaia, “regeneration,” used here, was
used to denote baptism, as Justin Martyr,” Irenaeus,'i and
Clement of Alexandria, ; do inform us.
Secondly, That the same apostle elsewhere ascribes this
virtue to baptism, saying that Christ doth “purify and
cleanse his body, by the washing of water” (Eph. v. 26);
* Justin. M. Ap. ii. p.-93, 94.
+ Tren. lib. i. cap. 18. lib. ii. cap. 39. lib. iii. cap. 19.
# Clem. Alex. Paed. lib. i. cap. 6, p. 93. At” Jºa toº ka?
Aoûn'gov ºrg?!yysyFaiac. Theoph, lib. ii. p. 95, 13.
and that Peter saith, that “baptism now saves us” (1 Pet.
iii. 21); and that baptism, at the first, was still attended with
the vouchsafement of the Holy Ghost, here joined unto this
“laver of regeneration” (John iii. 5): so that all Christians
are said to be baptized into one Spirit (1 Cor. xii. 13), which
is here said to be plentifully poured out upon believers.
Thirdly, That being justified by faith, we become “the
sons of God “ (John i. 12), and being sons of God, are “heirs
of glory” (Rom. viii. 17), and “sons of the resurrection;” or
such as, if we do continue in the faith, and our baptismal
covenant, shall enjoy a happy resurrection (Luke xx. 36,
see note upon that place, and upon Rom. viii. 17).
* Wer. 8. Kaxåy figyov ºrgota raoréal, To maintain good works.]
That is, say some, to employ themselves in honest trades and
professions: but all the ancient commentators, on this and
the fourteenth verse, interpret these words of alms-deeds or
charity, to supply the necessary wants of orphans, widows,
&c. And they are followed by the learned Dr. Barrow, who
observes, “That as in every kind, that which is most excel-
lent doth commonly assume the name of the whole kind ;
so are these works of charity, by way of excellency, styled
‘good works;’” thus Dorcas was “full of good works;
i. e. of alms-deeds which she did " Acts ix. 36 ; “See
you abound in every good work;” i. e. in all cha-
ritable offices,” 2 Cor. ix. 8 ; “Let a widow be well reported
of for good works,” 1 Tim. v. 10, i. e. for “bringing up chil-
dren, lodging strangers, washing the saints' feet, relieving the
afflicted, and following every good work;” “Charge them
who are rich in this world, that they be rich in good works,”
1 Tim. vi. 18 (see Heb. x. 24). And this sense may be
confirmed, first, from the phrase itself; for it is not key&-
Kearéal rà wax& #ya, but rºofaraağa, waxóv Beyoy. Now apoſ-
a rac{\al signifies to excel and outstrip others in good works;
which, as to works of charity, is certainly the Christian's
duty, and was the thing by which the primitive ages gained
great credit to Christianity: but it is not the Christian's duty
to labour more than others at their trades or callings.
Secondly, from the reason here assigned, why they must ex-
cel in good works; because they were not only profitable,
but ×ax&, “creditable,” in the sight of men, as are such
works of charity more conspicuously than labouring in our
professions; and ver, 15, “that they be not unfruitful;” i. e.
saith Dr. Hammond, that they may have to give to others:
these acts of charity being styled, “fruit abounding to their
account,” Phil. iv. 17, “good fruits,” James iii. 17, “the
fruits of righteousness,” ver. 18.
7 Wer. 9..] See note on 1 Tim. i. 4; and note here, and
from that place, this excellent rule ; That disputes about
matters which only serve to beget strife and contention, but
tend little to edification in the faith, or to the edifying of the
body in love (Eph. iv. 16), or the promoting that doctrine
which is after godliness (1 Tim. vi. 3), are vain talking and
unprofitable disputes.
* Ver. 10.] Hence we may learn who is a heretic, in the
apostle's sense.
(1.) He is one who ##arearrat, “is perverted from the
true faith;” holding some doctrine or opinion which sub-
verteth the foundation of it (2 Tim. ii. 18. 1 Tim, i. 19, 20).
(2.) He is attoxaráxpiroz, a man “condemned by his own
conscience,” and who, in what he doth maintain or practise,
sins against his own convictions: for, (1.) the apostle Saith
not to Titus, Do thou convince or inform him of his error,
but, Do thou admonish him of his fault ; which shows the
crime lay not in his head, or his mistaken judgment, for that
can never be corrected by admonition, but only by instruc-
tion ; but that it lay in the irregularity of his affections, and
- /
*
S78
TITUS.
11 Knowing that he who is such is subverted, and
sinneth, being condemned of himself.
12 When I shall send Artemas unto thee, or Ty-
chicus (to supply thy absence, say the ancients), be
diligent to come unto me to "Nicopolis: for I have
determined there to winter.
13 Bring Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their
journey diligently, (and see) that nothing be wanting
to them.
14 And let ours (i. e. Christians) also learn to main-
tain good works for necessary uses, that they be not
unfruitful (see note on ver. 8).
15 All that are with me salute thee. Greet them that
love usin(and for) thefaith. Gracebewithyouall. Amen.
the perverseness of his will: and, (2.) because otherwise
he could not “condemn himself” by maintaining his heresy;
for no man who acts according to his judgment, how erro-
neous soever it may be, is self-condemned in that action.
Obj. 1. Against this exposition it is objected, First, That
he who oppugns a doctrine, which he knows to be true, is
indeed perverse, but he is no heretic.
Ans. 1. Yes, he is properly a heretic, according to St.
Austin, because he follows or starts a new opinion, not from
regard to truth, but to vain-glory, or temporal advantage:
whence, saith he, Errare possum, haereticus esse nolo; “I
may err, but I will not be a heretic;” placing heresy not in
the judgment, but in the will.
2. He is so also, according to the proper import of the
word, because he properly doth choose to be of his opinion:
whereas the judgment of the erroneous person doth oblige
him to hold his error, it being not in our power to be-
lieve otherwise than our mind and judgment doth inform
us; so that, in this case, we do not properly aigetićsty, choose
what opinion we will hold. And, 3. he is most properly a
heretic in the scripture sense; which still ascribeth to such
men something relating, not to the error of their judgments,
but to the perverseness of their wills, or the corruption of
their affections; as, that they designed not to “serve the
JLord, but their own bellies” (Rom. xvi. 18); that they
“turned away from the truth, supposing that gain was godli-
mess” (1 Tim. vi. 5); that they “taught things which they
ought not, for filthy lucre's sake” (Tit. i. 11); that “through
covetousness, with feigned words, they made merchandise of
them whom they deceived” (2 Pet. ii. 3. 14); “having
hearts exercised with covetous practices;” and that they
“went greedily after the error of Balaam for reward” (Jude
ll. Matt. xxiv. 11. 1 John iv. l. 2 Cor. xi. 13. 2 Pet. ii. 1.
1 Tim. iv. 2).
Hence they are often styled “false prophets, false Christs,
false apostles, false teachers, deceitful workers, transforming
themselves into the apostles of Christ;” men who insinuated
their doctrines, iv in oxgio-El Jevđoxáyov, “by hypocritical false-
hoods,” who preached up the necessity of circumcision, “not
that they themselves observed the law,” or thought it neces-
sary so to do, “but that they might avoid persecution"
(Gal. vi. 12, 13); that they were men risen up among Chris-
tians, “speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after
them ’” (Acts xx. 30); “wolves in sheep's clothing” (Matt.
vii. 15), men that “went out from them, when indeed they
were not of them" (1 John ii. 19).
Obj. 2. Secondly, It is objected, That there be few who
oppose the truth wittingly, and they are only known to God,
not to the church ; which therefore cannot admonish, avoid,
or excommunicate them. He therefore must be self-con-
demned, not because he maintains what himself thinks to be
false, but because he inflicts upon himself that punishment
and condemnation which the bishop and church useth to do
upon malefactors, by separating himself from the communion
of the faithful.
Ans. To this I answer, (1.) That I do not find that the
word airokaráxetto; bears any other sense but this ; viz.
“one condemned by his own mind, or inward sentence;”
tºp' Havreij, xai rāg oikeia; aveiðhorew; xaraxeivépcevoy, saith
CEcumenius. (2.) Nor is it true that heretics did always
cut themselves off from the church ; for then what need was
there of their excommunication ? The scripture shows the
contrary, declaring, that these false teachers, that brought in
damnable doctrines, were #y igſy, lurking among Christians
(2 Pet. ii. l. l John ii. 19. 2 Pet. ii. 13. Jude 12. 19); yea,
saith the apostle, “there must be heresies, iv taſy, among
you,” I Cor. xi. 9; they kept their love-feasts with them, till
for fear of persecution they departed from them (Gal. vi. 12).
They were inwardly “wolves,” but “in sheep's clothing,”
streocrorrhaavºrs; #y airdſ, “making a fair show among them.”
Moreover, what need was there of avoiding men already
separated, and gone out from them 2 or to what end should
the apostle give them any admonitions, or excommunicate
them, who had already excluded themselves from the church's
communion ? This exposition therefore agrees not with the
words of the apostle.
And whereas it is said, such heretics are only known to
God ; I hope they might be known also to Titus, the only
person here bid either to admonish or avoid them, especially
if we consider, that to him belonged, in those times, 31&nglaig
Trysvgåroy, “the discerning of spirits.” Moreover, the church
of those times, in which the apostles were still preaching,
could easily know whether the doctrines which others taught.
in opposition to them, were indeed doctrines received from
the apostles, or not ; if they were not, they who taught them
must know they received no such doctrine from them, and
so must be self-condemned in teaching it, as received from
them, or as the faith once delivered to the saints; and they
who heard them must know they wilfully opposed the
doctrine of those apostles, who had confirmed the faith with
such authentic testimonies as their opposers could not ques-
tion. Moreover, they being then bid to “try the spirits,
whether they were of God” (1 John iv. 1), and the gift of
discerning spirits being then given to the prophets, who
managed the church affairs, they might then very well be
able to judge of these deceivers and false teachers.
Merå øſay zai Sevrépay yovšearíay.] See this reading confirmed
by full authority, and the mistakes of Dr. Mills discovered,
Examen Millii in locum.
* Ver. 12.] These words made the author of the post-
script date this epistle from Nicopolis of Macedonia, whereas
they rather prove the contrary; for he saith not, I have
determined to winter here, but there, which shows he was
not yet come thither.
879
THE EPISTLE TO PHILEMON,
WITH AN NO TATION S.
PREFACE.
SoME have thought this epistle was not worthy to be
ranked among the epistles of Paul, as being writ upon an
occasion of no great moment: but it contains instructions
sufficient for so short an epistle; as, v. g.
First, That no Christian, though of the meanest sort, is to
be contemned: that Christianity makes the vilest servant
both profitable and worthy to be highly loved and honoured
by persons in the highest dignity; Onesimus being by the
apostle styled his “ son,” and his “bowels.”
Secondly, That Christianity doth not impair the power of
masters over their servants, or give any authority to them
who convert them to use them as their servants, without
leave granted from their masters.
Thirdly, That servants ought to make satisfaction for any
wrong or injury they have done to their masters.
Fourthly, That there is an affection due from the master
to a profitable servant.
“Who then,” say the Greek interpreters,” “would refusa
to number an epistle so profitable, with the rest?”
The Apostolical Constitutions + have made this Philemon
bishop of Colosse, and Jerome seems to incline to that
opinion ; but Hilary f the deacon saith expressly, that “he
was of no ecclesiastical dignity, but one of the laity.” Theo-
doret, CEcumenius, and Theophylact, seem also of the same
Opinion.
This epistle was writ in the same year with that to the
Philippians, viz. the eighth of Nero, A.D. 62, when Paul
expected to be delivered from his bonds, ver, 22.
* Ti; yotiv a riv 3 &tražićy raúrny rai, Aoiraſ, avyapışarī,
Tozaiºrn; &#8Asſa; yíaoua aw; Praefat. GEcum. Chrysost. Theoph.
+ Końoratov 33 pºigov. Lib. vii. cap. 46.
f Philemon nullā erat ecclesiastica ordinationis præditus
dignitate, sed vir laudabilis, unus ex plebe. In locum.
1 I, PAUL, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timo-
thy, our brother, (write) to Philemon our dearly be-
loved, and *fellow-labourer.
2 And to our * beloved Apphia, and Archippus
° our fellow-soldier, and * to the church in thy house:
3 (And I wish) grace to you, and peace, from "God
our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
4 I thank my God, making mention of thee always
in my prayers (or, I thank my God always when I
mention thee in my prayers),
5 Hearing * of thy love and faith, which (faith)
thou hast towards the Lord Jesus, and (love) towards
all saints;
ANNOTATIONS.
* Ver. 1. Kai orvegy; hºw&y, Our fellow-labourer.] Hence
Chrysostom conjectures, that he must be one of the clergy:
but this is no good argument, seeing Christians in general,
that promoted the interests of Christianity, and even women,
are by the apostle styled avyseyoi, his “fellow-labourers.”
For the first, see 3 John, ver. 8, for the second, Rom. xvi. 3.
* Ver. 2. 'Artiz tº 3/arnt;..] He salutes also Apphia the
wife of Philemon; as CEcumenius and Theophylact conjec-
ture, and Theodoret positively asserts, and that very probably,
she being here ranked before Archippus: and this he doth,
that he might obtain her good will also in behalf of One-
simus. -
* xva Teard, rn, Our fellow-soldier.] So also he calls
Epaphroditus fellow-prisoner with him at Rome, Phil. ii. 23,
25, either because they suffered with him as good soldiers
of Jesus Christ (2 Tim. ii. 23), or, as Jerome” saith, be-
cause, being ministers with him in the work of the gospel
(Phil. ii. 25. Col. iv. 17), they were more particularly en-
gaged in fighting the good fight of faith (see note on 1 Tim.
i. 18
4 º r; xar’ oizów arov #xxxnariº, And to the church in thy
house..] He calls his house a church, saith Theodoret, &;
sia'sésſº, Aap.ºrpwoºvn, “as being illustrious for the piety of
all its members” (see note on 1 Cor. xvi. 19).
* Commilitoni quëd in eodem certamine belloque supera-
Verit. Hieron. in locum.
6 (And my prayer is,) that "the communication of
thy faith (or, thy liberality to the saints, which is the
fruit of thy faith,) may become effectual (to bring
others to it) by the acknowledgment of every good
thing which is in you in Christ Jesus, (or, may become
effectual to the acknowledgment of thy good works by
other Christians who have such instances of thy charity.
7 And I have reason thus to give thanks to God for
thee,) for we have great joy and consolation in thy
love (to the saints), because (hereby) the bowels of the
saints (yearning for relief) are refreshed by thee,
brother.
8 Wherefore, though I might be much bold, (or,
* Ver. 3. Atro Q500 ºratpot, Kai Kugiov ‘Inaoſ, Xptoroij,
From God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ.] Ex quo
ostenditur unam filii patrisque esse naturam, cum id potest
filius praestare quod pater, et dicitur id pater praestare quod
filius. Hieronymus in locum.
* Ver. 5. Tºv &yármy wał rºy triarty, Thy love and faith.]
Here the apostle useth the figure synthesis; for “faith is to
be referred to Christ, and love to the Saints;” according to
those words of the same apostle, “We give thanks for you,
since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love
which you have to all the saints,” Col. i. 4. So Matt. xii.
22, “The blind and dumb both spake and saw;” i. e. the
blind saw, and the dumb spake: 1 Cor. vi. 11, “But ye are
sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Je-
sus, and by the Spirit of our God;” i.e. ye are sanctified by
the Spirit, and justified by the name of Jesus. And so
Theodoret interprets these words. Hence therefore papists
vainly gather, that we may place our faith in Saints de-
parted; for even their own Esthius declares,” that, “in the
ecclesiastical phrase, to believe in any one, is a profession of
divinity.”
It is also farther to be noted from these words, That we
ought to render thanks to God, not only for the blessings
vouchsafed to ourselves, but to others also (Rom. i. 8. 1 Cor.
i. 4. Eph. i. 16).
7 Wer. 6. ‘H xolyovia, The communication.] Kolyaviay ºria-
--- -------- - -------
* Credere in aliquem, ecclesiastică phrasi è scripturis de-
sumptă, professio divinitatis est. Esth, in locum.
880
PHILEMON.
having great power) in Christ to enjoin thee that which
is convenient,
9 Yet for love’s sake I rather beseech thee (or, I
rather beseech thee for love's sake), being such a one
as Paul (the apostle of Christ) * the aged (and upon
that account worthy of reverence), and now also a pri-
soner of Jesus Christ (and thereforeworthy of respect,
Gal. vi. 17. Eph. iv. 1. Col. iv. 18).
10 I beseech thee (I say) for my son Onesimus,
whom I have begotten (i.e. converted to the faith,
when I was) in my bonds:
ll Who in times past was to thee (an) * unprofit-
able (servant, ver. 18. 19), but now (if received, will
be) profitable to thee and (if sent back) to me:
12 Whom I have sent again (unto thee, he being in
duty thine, and not to be employed by others, or de-
tained without thy leave); thou therefore receive him,
(him, I say,) that is mine own bowels (he being as dear
to me as if he had proceeded from mine own bowels):
13 Whom I would (willingly) have retained with
me, that "in thy stead he might have ministered to
me, (being) in the bonds of the gospel:
14 But without thy mind would I do nothing (of
this nature); that thy benefit (or, the advantage I re-
ceive from him who is thy servant) should not be (on
thy part) * as it were (a matter) of necessity (because
thou couldest not have him returned to thee), but will-
ingly (by thy own grant).
15 For perhaps he therefore departed (from thee)
for a season, *that thou shouldest receive him again
for ever, (i. e. to serve thee during life;
16 That thou shouldest receive him, I say,) not now
as a servant (only), but above a servant, (as being also
in Christ) a brother “beloved, especially (or, parti-
cularly) to me, but how much more to thee, both in
the flesh, and in the Lord? (i. e. as being of thy family,
and of thy faith.)
17. If thou count me therefore a partner (in thy
friendship), receive him as myself.
18 If he hath wronged thee (in any thing), or oweth
thee aught, put that on my account;
19 I Paul have written it with my own hand, ſand
so have entered into a solemn obligation, that) I will re-
pay it : albeit I do not say unto thee (i. e. I insist
wpon it) how thou owest to me (by whom thou wast
converted) even thy ownself (or, the well-being of thy
soul) besides.
20 *Yea, brother, (Gr. vai, I pray thee therefore)
let me (for thy compliance with me in this matter) have
joy of thee in the Lord : * refresh my bowels in the
Lord.
21 Having confidence in thy obedience I wrote
(thus) to thee, knowing thou wilt also do more than I
SaV.
% But withal prepare me also a lodging (wherefore
prepare me a lodging also): for I trust that “through
your prayers I shall be given to you.
23 There salute thee Epaphras, my fellow-prisoner
in Christ Jesus;
24 Marcus, Aristarchus, Demas, Lucas, my fellow-,
labourers. .
25 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with
your spirit. Amen.
ºrsaw: rºw #xsnºwocivny waxeſ, &; 31& Iroxxii; Tria rew; yevokéyny"
Theodoret, CEcumenius, and Theophylact expound these
words thus, “I pray that the faith in Christ, which thou hast
common with us, may be operative in thee, to make thee
know how to perform every good work.”
* Ver, 9. IIpsagörn:, The aged.] This epistle being writ,
at the farthest, but twenty-eight years from his conversion,
when he is styled weavia., “a young man” (Acts vii. 58), it
is inquired, How he could be now resa'63rnç, “Paul the
aged?”
I answer, That both the words, weaviakoç, “young,” and
wrºsa'90tmº, “aged,” are of that large signification, as is suffi-
cient to remove this seeming difficulty. Phavorinus,” from
Hippocrates, saith, a man is styled yeavizzoc, “a young man,”
till twenty-eight, and ºrgso:3&rnç, “aged,” from forty-nine to
fifty-six; making but twenty-one years’ difference betwixt
them : elsewhere he saith, that old age begins, 37' firãy
###xovira iwáa, “from sixty-nine years;” but then he saith, a
man is, vsayizzog, “young from twenty-three, Éw; #ráv rea'a-a-
páxoyra évôs, till forty-one years;” making the difference be-
tween them twenty-eight years. Varro, in Coelius Rhodi-
ginus, lib. xxix. cap. 21, says, a man is juvenis “young,”
till forty-five and aged at sixty. And thus Paul, according
to the computation of Chrysostom, might be a young man
of thirty-five years at his conversion, an old man at the
writing this epistle, as being then sixty-three, and suffering
martyrdom in the fourteenth year of Nero.
* Ver. 11. "Axºnaro;..] Not only an unprofitable, but an
injurious servant, having not only run away from his master,
but purloined some of his goods, and spent what he had thus
purloined : for had it not been thus, saith Jerome, the
apostle needed not to have stipulated for satisfaction of the
injury (ver. 18, 19).
* Ver. 13. “Yorèe coğ, In thy stead..] A ministry seems
* In vocibus, raï, yeaviorwoc, et argergårnç.
t"Oc (Érn) rpiáxoyra Trévrs #30&nture rā Kveig war& Trácing
wreoSvºciaç, Texto ac Bà roy trèg t?: eia sésia; 386 cow &veraúcaro
& ###xovira öztő. Orat. de Petro et Paulo, tom. v. p. 994,
lin. 28.
3. Nec sponsor fieret rei ablatae, nisi esset id quod ablatum
filerat dissipatum.
due from all that are able, towards those that suffer, and aro
in bonds for Christ's sake ; and when it is not performed,
there seems to be a lack of service due to them, especially
to the ambassadors of Christ (Phil. ii. 30).
* Ver. 14. 'Og war' &váyxny, As of necessity.] Here again,
freedom of will is put in opposition to necessity (see note
on 2 Cor. ix. 7): according to those words of Seneca, De
Benef. lib. ii. cap. 4, Si vis scire an velim, effice ut possim
nolle.
** Ver. 15. "Iya aid voy airby &máxnç, That thow mightest
have him during life.] Aovasúa'el airó ei; aiºva, “He shall
serve him during life,” Exod. xxi. 6; Éarat arol oixárnº sic
aiºva, “ He shall be thy servant whilst he lives,” Deut. xv.
17; kaBhaerau eic aiºva, “He shall abide for ever there,” 1
Sam. i. 22; that is, Éw; hºw#a; Savárov aircü, “till the day
of his death,” ver. 11, “all the days of his life,” ver, 28.
18 Wer. 16. ’Ayawn-ry, Beloved.] Note here, that love is
due even to bond-servants from their masters, when they are
useful and profitable to them; for where advantage is re-
ceived from the labours of another, there love is due.
14 Wer. 20. Nai.] As the Hebrew R) is verbum obsecrandi,
“a word of entreating;” so is the Greek yai very frequently
(see note on Matt. xv. 27).
* Mov tº a wrxāyxya, Refresh my bowels.] Either meaning
Onesiumus, whom he calls his “bowels,” ver, 12, or rather
himself, whose bowels would be refreshed by Philemon's re-
ceiving Onesimus kindly, for the Lord's sake.
* Ver. 22. Ată răy rºozeuxāy tºy, By your prayers.]
The apostle knew the efficacy of the prayers of the church,
for preservation of Christ's eminent servants from impen-
dent dangers; as in the case of Peter, Acts xii., and there-
fore, in most of his epistles, he doth most earnestly entreat
them, that he might be enabled to preach the gospel with
freedom and success (Eph. vi. 19. Col. iv. 3. 2 Thess. iii. 1),
and for deliverance from the malice of his persecutors (Rom.
xv. 30, 31. 2 Thess. iii. 2); or else express his confidence
that their prayers will be effectual to that end, as here,
and 2 Cor. i. 10, 11. iv. 14, 15. Phil. i. 19. And had he
thus conceived of prayers directed to angels and departed
saints, why, doth he not afford one instance of them in all
his epistles 2
THE
EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS,
WITH AN NOTATIONS.
DREFACE.
*
By way of preface to this excellent epistle, I shall inquire,
1. Concerning the author of it. -
2. Touching the canonical authority of this epistle.
3. Concerning the language in which it was originally
written.
4. To whom it was indited and sent, and when.
5. Concerning the occasion and design of writing this
epistle. And,
1. That Paul was the author of this epistle, I prove,
First, From these words of Peter, “As our dear brother
Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, hath written
unto you, as in all his epistles,” 2 Pet. iii. 15, 16 ; whence
it is evident, (1.) that the apostle Paul had writ to them to
whom Peter was then writing; i. e. to the believing Jews in
general, 2 Pet. i. 1, to those of the dispersion, mentioned 1
Pet. i. 1; (2.) that he writ to them some certain letter, dis-
tinct from all his other epistolary writings; as appears from
those words, “as also in all his epistles,” i.e. his other epis-
tles. Since then none of the ancients say that this epistle
was lost, it must be that which bears the name of the Epistle
to the Hebrews.
Obj. To this it is answered, That the epistle intended by
Peter may be that written to the Romans, in which he
speaketh to the Jews by name, ii. 17; and in which is an
exhortation found, to “count the long-suffering of God Sal-
vation,” or that which “leadeth to repentance,” ver, 4.
Ans. But, (1.) that which is written there, is plainly writ-
ten to the unbelieving Jews, and concerns them only :
whereas Peter writes to the “brethren,” iii. 12, the “be-
loved,” ver, 1.14, 17, to them “who had received like precious
faith,” i. 1; he therefore could not mean the Jews of whom
Paul speaks in the Epistle to the Romans: nor, (2) can
that epistle be properly said to be writ to the dispersed Jews,
it being writ to those at Rome only, i. 7, and chiefly to the
gentiles there, i. 13. xi. 13. xv. 15, 16. (3.) The words, ii.
4, are not an exhortation to “count the long-suffering of
God salvation ;” but a reproof for despising this long-suffer-
ing ; whereas, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, ch. x, he
commends their patience under sufferings, and assures them
it would find salvation ; and that if they lived by faith, the
Lord would come and would not tarry.
Arg. 2. A second argument to prove Paul the author of
this epistle, is taken from these words, “Know ye that our
brother Timothy is set at liberty; with whom, if he come
shortly, I will see you : they of Italy salute you,” xiii. 23,
24; and from those also, “Pray for us;” and, “Do this
now the rather, that I may be restored to you the Sooner,”
ver. 18, 19. For, first, it is customary with Paul, when he
writes to others, to call Timothy his “brother:” so, “Paul
the apostle of Jesus Christ, and Timothy our brother,” 2
Cor. i. 1; and again, Col. i. 1, in the same words; “We
sent Timothy our brother,” 1 Thess. iii. 2; and, “Paul a
prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy our brother,” Philem.
ver. ). This Timothy was a prisoner at Rome in the se-
venth year of Nero ; and set at liberty the eighth, saith Dr.
Lightfoot, Harm. p. 139, 140, of which here the author of this
epistle gives notice, and saith, he would come with him to
them; i. e. to the Jews in Judea, to whom I shall prove,
anon, that this epistle was indited. Now Timothy, we know,
was still the companion of Paul. Lastly, he desires them to
pray for him, which is frequently done by Paul in most of
his epistles, viz. in that directed to the Romans, Rom. xv.
30 ; to the Ephesians, Eph. vi. 19; to the Philippians, Phil.
i. 19; to the Colossians, Col. iv. 3; and to the Thessalo-
nians, 2 Thess. iii. l ; and is never done in any of the ca-
tholic epistles. “Pray for me,” saith he, “that I may be
restored to you the sooner.” Now Paul was sent bound
from Judea to Rome, and therefore his return from Rome
to Judea was properly a restoring of him to them. And
that he was thus restored to them, we learn from Chrysos-
tom,” declaring, that being at liberty, he went to Spain,
thence to Judea, and so back to Rome.
Arg, 3. That this epistle was written or composed by
Paul, may yet more strongly be concluded from the author-
ity of the ancients ; for that they did deliver this as the
epistle of Paul, and that they were not rash in so doing, we
learn from the words of Origen. Now among these an-
cients we may reckon,
1. Clemens Romanus, the companion of and co-worker
with Paul, who, as Eusebius; and Jeromeş note, “bath
many notions which are in this epistle, and used many ex-
pressions, word for word, taken thence:” which show this
epistle not to be new, and to be duly reckoned among the
writings of this apostle.
2. Irenaeus, in the second century, by whom this epis-
tle is supposed to be cited as a book written by the Spirit,
Adv. Haer. lib. iii. cap. 6. But not to insist on that, as being
uncertain,
3. Clemens Alexandrinus || cites those words of Paul,
“Without faith it is impossible to please God,” Heb. xi. 6 ;
adding that “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the
evidence of things not seen,” ibid. ver. 1, war, rºy Sºſoy
&Tréa toxov, “according to the divine apostle.” And again he
saith," 3 Seño; &méa toxos, “The divine apostle fears not to
say, Remember the former days, in which ye, being enlight-
ened, suffered a great fight of affliction,” Heb. x. 32; and
so he cites him on to the end of that chapter; then gives the
substance of the eleventh chapter, and the exhortation in the
beginning of the twelfth, ver. 1, 2. And that this divine
apostle was Paul, we are assured from these words,” rei zai
IIaixo, ºrdſ: 'E862ſo; yºpoy toſs &yazáparrowcly si; vágoy #2
Trio reo: “Paul also writing to the Hebrews, relapsing from
faith unto the law, saith, Ye have need that one teach you
again which be the first principles of the oracles of God, and
are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong
meat,” Heb. v. 12.
4. In the third century, Origen-fi citing the very words
* Aſokºv civity, Śwoinosy #y ‘Pāºn 3e3epwévoc, sīra & petrón, sīra,
sic rāg Xayavia: #A02V, ei, Iovoaiay #3n &rs Kai Iověaiovº ºs, xat
Társ waxy #A0sy eig Pºzny. Chrys. Praefat. See Theophyl.
ibid.
+ Ey +1; oiſy ixzxnaria fixes raúrny iris-rox#y, 3: TIa&x v attà
stºok pagital, wai étrº toºto oi y& Eixã of &pxato &vège; & IIaş-
Now airy tragače?&zaai. Ap. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. vi. cap.
25, p. 227, C, D.
f 'Ey; tº; are?; ‘E6;&ious troXX& vohºzara Trapaésic, #3m 33
wai airbasáel intoſ; raw #4 atric Xºna.ázavo; a`aşāzrata tragir.
ºrnariv, 3rt tº všov Uráºze tº a dyyeafººd. "O6sy sizáros #3%ay
aúró roſ: Aoiroſ; #yzataxex8%at yºkºzac's roß &oa réxov. Hist.
Eccl. lib. iii, cap. 38. See Epist. Clem. ad Corinth. §. 12,
17, 36, 43.
§ Catal. Scrip. Eccl. | Strom. ii. p. 362, B,
* Strom. iv. p. 514, C, D. 515, A, B.
** Strom. vi. p. 645, D. # Adv. Celsum, lib. iii. p. 143.
3 L
** : * ~,
*
882
now mentioned, and the following words, ver, 13, “For
every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of un-
righteousness ;” he saith, “He that writ this was the same
Paul who said to the Corinthians, I have fed you with milk,
and not with meat,” &c. 1 Cor. iii. 2. In his Philocalia"
he saith, “The apostle Paul, who said to the Corinthians,
These things happened in a figure, and they were written for
us, on whom the ends of the ages are come (1 Cor. x. 11),
doth also, in another epistle, use these words, relating to the
tabernacle, Thou shalt make all things according to the pat-
tern shown thee in the mount” (Heb. viii. 5); and that the
apostle who said, “Jerusalem which is above is free, and
is the mother of us all,” Gal. iv. 26, said also in another
epistle, “Ye are come to mount Sion, the city of the living
God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels,”
&c. Heb. xii. 22, 23. In his Exhortation to Martyrdom, :
he hath these words, pnot ºrov š IIaſaok, “Paul, speaking
somewhere to them who suffered from the beginning, and ex-
horting them to suffer patiently the trials which afterward
fell upon them for the word, saith, Call to remembrance the
former days in which ye, being enlightened, suffered a great
fight of afflictions—Cast not away therefore your confidence,
which hath great recompence of reward; for ye have need
of patience,” Heb. x. 32–36. And in his answer to Africanus,
having cited these words from this epistle, “They were
stoned, they were sawn asunder, they were slain with the
sword,” Heb. xi. 37, he saith, “If any person being pressed
with these words should fall into the opinion of them who
reject this epistle as none of Paul's, he would use other
words, to demonstrate to him that it was the epistle of Paul.”
He also adds, that “the sentences contained in it are ad-
mirable, and no whit inferior to the writings of the apostles;
as he who diligently reads them must confess.”
In a word, when this epistle was denied by the Arians in
the fourth century, because they were not able to resist the
conviction it affords us of our Lord’s divinity, Theodoretſ
saith, “They ought at least to revere the length of time in
which the children of the church have read this epistle in
the churches, viz. as long as they have read the apostolic
writings: or, if this be not sufficient to persuade them, they
should nearken to Eusebius,” of whom they boast, as of the
patron of their doctrine ; for he confesses this was Paul's
epistle, and he declares that all the ancients had this opinion
Of it.”
That they of Rome, and other Latins, did, for awhile, re-
ject this epistle, will not much weaken this tradition, if we
consider,
First, That this epistle was not writ to them, but to
the Hebrews, who, as Eusebius++ testifies, “delighted much
in it.” .
Secondly, That it was rejected by them, not that they
had anything to say against it, but because they could not
answer the arguments which the Novatian schismatics among
them produced from the sixth and tenth chapters of this
epistle, against receiving lapsed penitents into the church,
whence, as Philastrius informs us, they rejected it, as think-
ing it was depraved by heretics: or
Thirdly, Because it wants its name, which he concealed,
not as Jerome conjectures, 3.3 p3évoy, “to avoid the offence
of those who liked not his person,” by reason of his doctrine
* Philocal. p. 10.
ºf Philoc. p. 17. et adv. Celsum, lib. vii. p. 351.
f Philoc. p. 209, 210.
§ Tây 36eroëvroy rºy, irratoxy &; ot. IIaşxº yeypapºyny,
ºrgö, äv &AAoy Xévoy ºat' ièíay x6%asy si; 3 arêiº roi sãa.
IIaſſaou rºy #7tta-rox#y. P. 232.
| "Ori tº voňwara rā, śtriotoxii; Savºča-tá čart, was of 383-
tepa rºw &zoa toxixáv čezoNoyevºyoy ypapºray, zal roºro &v
avºia at fivat &amóš; Trä, ö Tréorèxoy rā āvayyázsi tº 3aroºroxtºff.
Apud Euseb. lib. vi. cap. 23, p. 227, C. d d
* "E85 yaf airroës roš xzévov yºv aišia-0%al rà &#zoc, #: o3
vā; tºy & wearoxxây yeapºétov, at roi, egoš agrixaxoy #xxxn-
oiaſ, # #xtivov wai rā; argo; ‘E8gaiouc imar0X% rºy & påNElay zag-
Troſvrat. . Praef. in Epist. ad Hebr.
** Kai row; waxatov; 3 may ra; raúrny trip; air; #ºnorey #axn-
x£val rºy 36%ay. Praef. ibid.
*t it ºtara E%ałow of roy Xgºry aragašežáksyo Xaigovci.
Hist, Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 25, p. 97.
PREFACE TO THE HEBREWS.
concerning the non-observation of their law; for it is evident,
from his desire of their prayers, and from his intimation that
he designed shortly to be with them, that he must be well
known unto them; but, as Theodoret observes, “because he
was made an apostle, not of the circumcision, but of the
gentiles.”
Lastly, The difference in style some mention, is so nice a
thing, and may happen upon so many accounts, that it de-
serves not to be looked on as an argument of any force,
against plain testimonies of the ancients, that Paul was the
author of this work.
2. That this epistle was written and directed to the Jews
dwelling in Judea and Palestine, is the opinion of the an-
cients,” though not so as to exclude the believing Jews of
the dispersion. This may be argued from the endorsement
of it, “To the Hebrews,” rather than “To the Jews.” It
cannot be imagined but that he sends it to be delivered at a
certain place, within some reasonable compass, seeing the
bearer of it, whoever he was, could not deliver it to all the
Jews dispersed through the whole world ; and because he
directs them to pray, that he “might be restored to them,”
and promiseth to come and see them. The title therefore,
“To the Hebrews,” must determine the place, and point out
the Jews that dwelt in Judea, or the land of Israel ; and
this sense doth the Holy Ghost put upon the title, “the
Hebrews,” when it is said, “There was a murmuring of the
Hellenists against the Hebrews,” Acts vi. 1; by the Hellen-
ists meaning the Jews that dwelt in foreign countries among
the Greeks; and by the Hebrews, those that dwelt in Ju-
dea. So again, 2 Cor. xi. 22, “Are they Hebrews 2 so am
I. Are they Israelites P so am I.” And, Phil. iii. 5, “Of
the stock of Israel, a Hebrew of the Hebrews ;” i. e. a He-
brew not only by descent, as were all of the stock of Israel,
but by language, which some of them had lost; and by habi-
tation in the holy land, and not among the uncircumcised
gentiles, he being bred up at the feet of Gamaliel. And so
it is most proper to understand the inscription of this epis-
tle, namely, that Paul directs and sends it to the believing
Jews of Judea, which he styles his own nation, Acts xxiv.
17. For though he, doubtless, did intend it also for the
benefit of the believing Jews dispersed, yet might he send it
first and chiefly to those in Judea, the principal seat of the
circumcision ; from whence it might, in time, diffuse itself
through the whole circumference of the circumcision.
3. But helice it cannot reasonably be concluded, that
this epistle was writ in Hebrew, or in Syriac: for the Gos-
pel of John, and his First Epistle, the catholic epistles of
James, Peter, and Jude, were also written to the Jews, and
yet were writ in Greek, that being a tongue so well known
to the Jews, that they call it the vulgar tongue ; therefore in
all the discourses of the Jews with the Roman governors,
who understood the Greek tongue, we never read, either in
scripture or Josephus, that the Jews spake to them, or they
unto the Jews, by an interpreter; nor is there any of the
ancients, who pretends to have seen any Hebrew copy of this
epistle. That it was writ in Greek appears not only from
the passages of scripture so often cited in it from the Sep-
tuagint, even where they differ from the Hebrew, i. 6. iii.
8–10. viii. 8, 9.x. 5. 37, 38; but also from vii. 2, where we
read thus, ºrpårow ºfty #eºnysuápasyo; 8aaixei'; 3:4atorſync, “First
being interpreted King of Righteousness, and afterward King
of Salem, which is, King of Peace:” for both the word Mel-
chisedec and King of Salem, being in the first verse, should
have been there interpreted, had this been, the addition of
the interpreter ; for so we find it is throughout the New
Testament, where the interpretation immediately follows the
Hebrew word or phrase, as Mark v. 41, “Talitha, cumi;
which is, by interpretation, Daughter, arise ;” “Golgotha,
which is, by interpretation, The place of a skull,” Mark xv.
22. So Matt. xxvii. 46. Mark xv. 34. John i. 38, “Rabbi,
which is, being interpreted, Master;” and, ver. 41, “ Mes-
siah, which is, being interpreted, The Christ.” So ix. 7.
xix. 37. Acts iv. 36. ix. 36. xiii. 8. Whereas here the word
Melchisedec is in the beginning of the first verse, and the
supposed addition of the interpreter is added where the
word is not; so “King of Salem” is in the first verse not in-
* IIoj 33
IIaxata rivn.
oùa w świat{xxE ; #xoi Šoxeſ #y ‘Iseocoxſºcoic ºat
Chrys. et Theodoret. Praeſat.
CHAPTER I."
883
terpreted, and when it is repeated, then comes the interpre-
tation ; which plainly shows, that it is not made to give the
sense, but the mystery contained in the words, viz. that
Christ was “our peace,” Eph. ii. 14, and “his sceptre was a
sceptre of righteousness,” i. 8. * º
4. As for the time when this epistle was indited, (1.) it
seems evident, that it was written after that to the Colos-
sians and to Philemon; for there he is Paul the prisoner, here
he is set at liberty, and hoping to come quickly to them to
whom he writes: those epistles therefore being writ in the
sixty-second year of Christ, and the eighth of Nero, this must
at least be written in the following year. Again, in the
Epistle to the Colossians, we have mention of Timothy, but
nothing of his bonds; here we have mention both of his im-
prisonment and his ensuing liberty, which may well cast
this epistle into the ninth of Nero, where it is placed by
Bishop Pearson.
5. To speak a little of the occasion of it: I have shown,
in the preface to the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians,
and in the preface to the Epistle of James, that it was writ-
ten chiefly to prevent that epidemical apostasy from Christ
to Moses, which the believing Jews were then too prone to.
But we learn also from the matter of the epistle, that it was
written to prove that Jesus was the Son of God: now in
what sense this chiefly was denied by the Jews, we learn
from the Gospel of John, where, when our Lord had said,
“My Father worketh hitherto, and I work,” John v. 17,
the Jews seek to kill him, because ratépa, ºtoy #Aeye ‘rāv
Osov, “he said God was his own Father, making himself
equal to God,” ver. 18. And again, “We stone thee,” say
they, “for blasphemy, because thou, being a man, makest
thyself God,” John x. 33. What was this blasphemy of
which they thus accuse him 2 It was only this, that he said,
“I am the Son of God,” ver. 36. It is therefore plain, they
judged it the same thing to say he was “the Son of God,”
and to say that “he was God ;” whence we may rationally
conclude, it was also in this sense that the apostle here as-
serts, and doth endeavour to confirm this truth.
And, Lastly, This epistle being written to persons now
relapsing from Christ to Moses, and to the law given, said
they, by angels ; this seems to be the reason why the apostle
is so large in showing that Christ was greater than the
angels, a greater lawgiver than Moses, a greater priest than
Aaron, ańd that the Levitical priesthood, covenant, and law,
were to give place to Christ our great high-priest, to his new
law of liberty, and that new covenant he had established
upon better promises.
CHAPTER I.
I GoD, who at sundry times and *in divers man-
ners spake in times past unto the fathers by the pro-
phets, † º
2 Hath in these last days (the times of the Mes-
sial, see note on 2 Tim. iii. 1) spoken unto us by
his Son, whom he hath appointed (£&nks, constituted)
*heir of all things, “by whom also he made the
worlds;
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I.
* Ver. 1. IIoxvøegãº, At sundry times.] Before the flood
by Enoch, Jude 14, and by Noah, 2 Pet. ii. 5; after the
flood by Abraham the prophet, Gen. xx. 7, who gave to
his “children and household after him” the commandments
of the Lord, Gen. xviii. 19. By Jacob, “prophesying to his
sons of things to come in the last days,” Gen. xlix. 1. By
Moses, during their abode in the wilderness. By Deborah,
Samuel, and other prophets, in the time of the judges, Judg.
vi. 8. By Nathan in the time of David and Solomon. By
Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, in the time of the kings.
By Daniel, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, in and after the
captivity.
* IIcNurgårwg, In, divers manners.] In a cloud, fire, a still
breath ; by visions, dreams, a voice from heaven, and by
the Holy Spirit speaking in the prophets, 2 Pet. i. 21.
* Ver. 2. KAngovágoy Trávray, Heir of all things;] As it
were by succession to his Father, who now “judgeth no man,
but hath given all judgment to his Son,” John v. 22. Heb.
iii. 6. We cannot desire a fairer comment on these words,
than that of the Socinians on the place,” “That Christ is
made heir of all things in heaven and earth, yea, of heaven
and earth itself; that he is heir and Lord of all angels, and
of all men living and dead, Rom. xiv. 8, 9. That he is ab-
solutely the heir of all things, and hath the highest empire
and dominion over all angels and men ; by which words is
signified the highest excellency and divinity, and, as it were,
the unity of Christ with God, though with diversity,” in that
he is his Son and heir, and received this dominion from
another. And I believe it is as impossible to understand
how a man should have this empire over all things in heaven
and earth, and over death itself, and yet be a mere man, as
it is to understand any mystery of the sacred Trinity. The
word “heir” doth also signify “Lord of all things” (see the
note on Col. i. 15).
* At' oº wai roic aidiya; tıroinaey, By whom also he made the
* Christus solus omnium planè rerum hareditate gaudet,
et summo in omnes, tam angelos, quam homines, imperio
ac dominatfi pollet Licet autem istis verbis significata
sit summa Christi praestantia, ac divinitas, ac veluti cum
Deo unitas, tamen simul significata etiam Christi à Deo di-
versitas. Crell, in loc.
worlds.] That is, saith Grotius, propter quem, “for whom he
made them,” according to the doctrine of the rabbins, that
“the world was made for the Messiah.” But this exposi-
tion is contrary to the rule of all grammarians,” that rô 313, §rs
£ºy a wrázaretal yeytºń, weritsiay, Śre 33 airtating, airíay &nxoi,
“that the preposition 313, when it is joined with a genitive
case, signifies the means by which, and the final cause only
when it is joined with an accusative case.” It is contrary to
the exposition of all the Greek fathers, who unanimously
say, rotiro ènxwrix}, rā; Seárnºrog, “This shows the divinity of
Christ.” It is also without example in the New Testament,
for 8t& ràc 86%m; roi trave?, Rom. vi. 4, which is the only
place he cites, signifies “by the glory” or power “of the
Father,” by which Christ was raised from the dead (Eph. i.
19. Col. ii. 12). The Socinians by “the worlds” here un-
derstand the new creation, or the church begun by Christ's
ministry upon earth, begotten and renewed by the evangeli-
cal dispensation. But neither can this exposition stand :
for (1.) though Christ be styled, in some of the Greek ver-
sions, rathé roi; paſſaxoyro: ałºwoc, Isa. ix. 6, “the Father of
the age to come,” yet of aiãvec, absolutely put, doth never
signify the church or evangelical state ; nor doth the scrip-
ture ever speak of “the world to come” in the plural, but in
the singular number only, preserving the phrase Ninn bºy,
as they received it from the Jews. (2.) Were this the im-
port of the words, the worlds might as well have been said to
have been created or made by Christ's apostles, they being
the great converters of the world ; or, at least, this being
done by them, assisted by the power of Christ, after he had
been thus made “heir of all things,” it must have properly
been said that Christ made the worlds by his apostles, which
yet the Holy Ghost never thinks fit to intimate. Moreover,
whereas this making of the world by Jesus Christ is done by
his prophetic office, i.e. his speaking to us in the last days,
the apostle had mentioned this already, and makes a plain
gradation from it to his kingly office, in saying he was con-
stituted “Lord of all things,” not speaking of making the
world by way of consecution, thus, zai 3i'où, “and by whom,”
but, by way of farther gradation, 3’ oš zai, “by whom also.” he
made the world ; as if he should have said, Nor is it to be won-
dered that he should be constituted Lord of the whole world,
seeing he made the whole. And that the apostle here doth
* Phavorinus.
3 L 2
884.
|HEBREWS.
3 Who being the “brightness of his glory, and the
“express image of his person (or, character of his suð.
speak, not of the reforming of the new, but of the forming
of the old world, he himself sufficiently instructs us, by Say-
ing in this same epistle, “By faith we understand, xarnería-
Sat rob; aiºvaç §hº art Oscú, that the worlds were formed by
the word of God,” xi. 3. For that by toº, aiºva; we are to
understand the material world, the Socinian commentators
grant, and the parallel place in Peter doth enforce, when he
saith that “the heavens were of old, and the earth, ść iſèaroc
avyscráza tº roi; Q105 Aéyò, consisting out of water by the
Word of God,” 2 Pet. iii. 5, and this “world” is mentioned
in both places in the plural number, agreeably to the phrase
and doctrine of the Jews,” who speak of Dºpºny, i. e. “the
worlds,” in the plural, and divide them into Tin Bºy, or
75wn pºly, i.e. “this inferior and habitable world,” called
by Peter, à tête wirgoº, “the then world,” which perished
by water, ver, 6, and “the nºbyn Bºy, superior world,”
that is, the heavens. And it is no improbable conjecture,
that when Peter saith, “The heavens and earth consisted by
the Word of God,” and Paul, that “by faith we learn that
the worlds were framed, ‘Pigati Osoſ, by the Word of God,”
they mean this substantial world, of which the apostle is
here speaking ; for the word nint seems plainly to be used
in this sense, when we read in the Targum of Jerusalem, on
Gen. xxviii. 11, Hºn. Hīn-, “For his Word,” i. e. the
Word of God, “desired to speak with Jacob ;” and in that
of Jonathan, Rhº-i, “The Word would speak with him ;”
which in Bereschith Rabba, §. 68, runs thus, “God would
speak with him :” and the word ‘Piga seems also to be
either used in this sense, or applied to the Aśyo;, often by
Philo; + as when he saith that “Moses was translated, 31&
‘Phºwato; rot Airtov, 3’ oš zai a ſatra, zárºo; #3mºtoveyºro, by
the Word of the First Cause, by which the world was made;”
and that God “made both ºf the heavens and the earth by
a Word, by his most illustrious and resplendent Aéyo;.”
And to be sure, Philo was of the same opinion with Paul,
that the Word made and fashioned the world; whence he
so often mentions the divine Word Ś “adorning all things,”
“the Word of God that maketh the world,” “the Word by
which the world is fashioned and made, and by which, as his
organ, God gave being to it;" and saith, in words like those
of the apostle, || that “God possesseth all things, using that
Word as the dispenser of his gifts, by which also he made
the world.” And this was also the doctrine of all the pri-
mitive fathers from the beginning, as well as of all the com-
mentators on this text. Barnabas'ſ declares that he is “the
Lord of the world, the maker of the sun, the person by
whom and to whom are all things.” “He is,” saith J. Mar-
tyr,” “the Word by which the heaven, the earth, and every
creature was made, by whom God at the beginning made
and ordained all things, viz. the heavens and the earth, and
by whom he will renew them.” This Irenaeus++ delivers as
* Buxt. voce tºy.
+ De Sacrif Abel. p. 102, C. D.
† Tô y& Tregiºavea rátº kai tº avysztáró, flavrot Aéyò'Pā-
£cari à Os3; &#xpárğa totă. Alleg. lib. i. p. 33, G.
§ Töv 6sſov Aáyov rew raira 31&nocºzha'avºra. De Opif. p. 3,
F. &ect Aéyov ºn zooſºtrototyra, p. 4, C. At ot, 3 xàºzo;
xareaksvágºn. De Cherub. p. 100, B. ‘ot wasárep pyávº
X;&uevo, #xozºzomoist. All. 2, p. 60. Tày Kárpov #3mºtočynae.
De Profugis, p. 362, F.
| At' of a ſpºra; ; 262 wo; #3%toveyºro. Lib. ii. de Monar.
º 636, B. A6% zºo; ūanār; 30gsøy, & Kai Töv Kárºoy
eigyáðero. Lib. Quðd Deus sit immutab. p. 235, G.
‘ſ Orbis terrarum Dominus. Antiq. Vers. §. 5. "Hxtoy #-
70y Xºpæy airoij tºrápxovira. Ab. init. et S. 12.
** Abbāv ĀvrajSa rēy roi; Osoſ; vogáási Affyov, 3, 25 oleavā;, xat
yā, Kai # ºráza iyâveto wriziº. Cohort. ad Griec, p. 16, B. "ore
Tºy &px?iv 8 at 70; Tāvta #xtize zai ixázance. Apol. i. p. 44.
ośro, yā; a riv-45 & Kai rāv otpavy was tºy yºv, Kai 3" of §
"rath; &#xxei Kaivougyºv, Dial. cum Tryph. p. 340, D.
++ Cúm autem teneamus nos regulam veritatis, id est, quia
sit unus Deus omnipotens, qui omnia condidit per Verbum
Suum, et aptavit et fecit, ex eo quod non erat, ad hoc ut sint
omnia, quemadmodiim Scriptura dicit, Ps. xxxii. 9. John i.
3. Col. i. 16. Hanc ergö tementes regulam, licet valdé
883rºtočpyntat.
the rule of faith contained in the scripture, “which they
who hold to may easily prove that the heretics had deviated
from the truth.” He adds, that “the barbarians who held
the ancient tradition did believe in one God, the maker of
heaven and earth, and of all things therein, by Jesus Christ
the Son of God;” and this doctrine he repeats almost a
hundred times elsewhere. “Our doctrine,” saith Athenago-
ras,” “ celebrates one God, the creator of all things, who
made all things by Jesus Christ, from whom and by whom
all things were made.” “God,” saith Theophilus,” “made
all things by him, and he is called the beginning, because
he is the principle and ruler of all things made by him.”
He adds, that “by this principle God made the heavens:
that God said to him, Let us make man ; he being his Word,
by which he made all things.” “Him,” saith Tatian, “we
know to have been the author of the world, for that which
was begotten in the beginning, gave beginning to the things
made: he made man the image of his immortality, and be-
fore man he made the angels.” “We rational creatures,”
saith Clement of Alexandria,S “are the work of God the
Word; for he was and is the divine principle of all things,
by whom all things were made, and who, as the framer of all
things in the beginning, gave also life to us; by whom are all
things; who made man; our God and Maker, the cause of
the creation.” In the third century we learn the same
from Origen, Tertullian,"| Novatian,” Cyprian,ti and
others cited by the learned Dr. Bull. So that in these two
verses there be visible these gradations; one, from Christ's
prophetic office to his kingly office, conferred on him as
“heir of all things;” the other, from his kingly office to the
foundation of it, laid in his divine nature, and in the work
of the creation ; it being, say Irenaeus and the ancient fa-
thers, fit that he should reform and govern the world, by
whom it was formed, that he should give new life to man
who gave him his being and first breath.
* Ver. 3. 'Araúyaaga t}; 36% nç, i. e. The resplendence or
shining forth of his glory..] This metaphor, some of the
fathers think, is taken from the sun, whence Justin Martyr:
saith he proceedeth from the Father, as rà roi; ºtov pås,
“the light of the sun, without division or separation, from
him.” Others, with him, Tragašeiyº aro; xágºy, “for exam-
varia et multa dicunt (haeretici), facilè eos deviàsse à veritate
arguimus. Lib. i. cap. 19. Cui ordinationi assentiunt mul-
tae gentes barbarorum veterem traditionem diligentër
custodientes, et credentes in unum Deum fabricatorem coeli,
et terrae, et omnium quae in eis sunt, per Jesum Christum
filium Dei. Lib. iii. cap. 4; vide lib. ii. cap. 2, lib. iii. cap.
8, 10, 11, p. 257, 259, lib. iv. praef. cap. 37, p. 369, 370,
&c. lib. v. cap. 15, 18.
* “O Aéyo; hºwāy #ya. Qey àys: röy rotºs toº wayrö; Trointy——
Trávra. 33 31& rod rag' atto; Aázov rewroinzóra, p. 5, C. 'E:
airrot, yā; ital 3i' airot, Távta #yévero, p. 10, C.
+ Kai & airo; ré Trávra "retroinzey, oùro; Aéyºral 'Apy?, ºrt
&éxst Kai zupieſel Trávrov rāv 3i'airo; 3e3nºzovºynºvoy, Ad Au-
tol. ii. p. 88, C. At& Tā; "Atx% yeysvia Sai tºy oëfavoy, p. 92,
B. Tº avrò Aáyº zai tº £avrot coºpia, p. 96, D. "O Ağyo;
airoi; 3i' of rà Trávra. Tremoſuke, p. 100, A.
† Tojtov tºº. By toº ºap, ou rºy &#xhy & Aáyo; #y &#x; yawn-
Sei; &vtsyāºwna's rºw xas' #&#; Troimatv, attö; £avrò rāv Āny &n-
ºtovºyńaag, p. 145, B, C. Eixãva rā; 30avaria; &v62070, ætroin-
Crgy zai ºrgö tº 73v 3v33&y Karaakevä, äyyäxov 3mºtovºyā;
yi. Etat, p. 146, B, C.
$ Toº Osot Aéyou ri. Acytkä Tºdak, arº, #9sſ;––3px; 6:ſa
rāv távrov #v re zai is riv. Adm. p. 5, C, D. ‘at ‘rā ºrávra.
Aáyag & 22i +? Kāv Šv čex; war: roi, TX4a at Tra-
pazžºv & Smºtovpyā;, p. 6, B. At’ 8v rà Trávra, p. 69, A.
‘O 3nºoveyha'a, tºy &yśéotrow, Paed. lib. i. cap. 2, p. 81, B.
"Ori Oed, wał &nwicveyor, cap. 11, p. 133, A. ‘O mºtovºyiac
airio;. Strom. v. 553, A
| Origen. contra Celsum, lib. ii. p. 63. lib. vi. p. 308,
3.17.
* Tertul, adv. Marcion. lib. v. cap. 10. adv. Hermog.
45. adv. Praxeam, cap. 19.
** Novat. cap. 13, M. H. Cyprian. Test. lib. ii, cap. 1
ºf Dial. cum Tryph. p. 358, B.
CHAPTER I.
885
ple's sake,” say,” “He proceedeth, &; 3rd rvgö, ävarvečatwa
truga, as fire is kindled from fire, without the diminution of
the fire that kindles it,” or as ārś 3233; 33%, “as one torch is
lighted from another,” which is the metaphor of Tatian, p.
145; which metaphors they have borrowed from Philo,";
who, speaking of the Spirit in Moses, derived upon the se-
venty elders, cautions us not to understand this to be done,
xará & Tronotrºw, kai 314&Evžºv, “by abscission, or disjunction,
&Ax’ oia yśvout' &y &ré Trup?c, but as light from fire, at which
if you light a thousand torches, it is not diminished.” Ac-
cordingly the Nicene council style him “Light of light,”
and hence they argue his consubstantiality with the Father,
who produces not another essence, or substance in the Son,
but communicates the same essence to him. The like notions
the Jews seem to have had of their Aáyog, or “Wisdom,”
which is with them the same : for the book of Wisdom saith
of her, that she is 3récia 7% ray Travroxgårogo; 3%m; sixingt-
whº, wai àwaſyaapa potè; &#8tov, an efflux of the sincere glory
of the Almighty, and the splendour of eternal light” (vii. 25,
26). And Philof saith of the Aéyoc, that he is rà roſ, &cgá-
wou kai pºeyia Tov Qezú Tregºpsyyárraroy Kai Treziavyécºratov påg,
“ the most illustrious and splendid light of the invisible and
highest God.” And this the Jews might better understand,
if it were taken, as probably it was, from the glory that con-
ducted them out of Egypt, and led them through the wilder-
ness, and dwelt among them, first in the ark and tabernacle,
and afterward in the temple. For it is observable,
First, That this 36%a, “glory,” or Shechinah, so often
mentioned in the Old Testament, and in the writings of the
Jews, was not the cloud itself, that being only the cover of
it, but the light, fire, or splendour that issued from it. So
Exod. xxiv. 16, “And the glory of the Lord dwelt upon
mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it (viz. the glory of the
Lord) six days; and the sight of the glory of the Lord (when
it broke out of the cloud after six days) was as burning fire.
on the top of the mount, in the sight of the people of Is-
rael.” And, Exod. xl. 34, “Then a cloud covered the tent
of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the ta-
bernacle.” And, ver, 35, “Moses was not able to enter
into the tent of the congregation, because the cloud abode
thereon, and the glory of the Lord filled the house.”
1 Kings viii. 10, 11, “When the priests were come out of
the holy place the cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that
the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud;
for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord.”
Ezek. x. 4, “And the house was filled with the cloud, and
the court was full of the brightness of the glory of the Lord.”
Note,
Secondly, That this glory is styled “the glory of the
Lord,” not as being itself a divine thing, or a ray of divinity,
but as being the symbol of God's glorious presence and abode
where it appeared and resided. Thus the cloud, which con-
sisteth of a dark part to cover the fire, or light, and a bright
side by the appearance of the light, is called “the cloud of
Jehovah,” Exod. iv. 38. Numb. x. 34, because God was
gloriously present in it; or, as Rabbi Moses ben Nachman,
on Exod. xl. 34, saith, Eyn Tinn Þw Than 3, “ because
the glory dwelt in the midst of it;” whence God said, “Lo,
I come to thee in a thick cloud,” Exod. xix. 9; “I will ap-
pear in the cloud upon the mercy-seat,” Lev. xvi. 2; “He
Spake to Moses out of the cloud,” Numb. vii. 89. And
when he went to receive his commands, it is said, “And
Moses drew near to the thick darkness, where God was,”
Exod. xx. 21. And, lastly, God is said to “go before them
by day in a pillar of a cloud, and by night in the pillar of
fire,” Exod. xiii. 21. Numb. xiv. 14.
Again, The ark in which this glory dwelt between the
cherubims, is called." Tap, “the glory of the Lord,” i.e.
of that glorious Majesty who dwelt in it; whence the God
of Israel is often styled “the God that sitteth between the
cherubims;” because here, say the Jews,8 he fixed his resi-
dence and presence, notwithstanding that he fills heaven
and earth, and his majesty is in heaven, and in all the earth.
*-i-----.
* 'Q; 93; &r; true&;. Athen. p. 27. Justin, ibid. D, E, et
p. 284, C. p. 145.
+ Lib. de Gigant. p. 223, F.
# De Somn. p. 448, D.
§ Buxt. IIist. Arcae, p. 100. •+ 9
And when the ark was to be taken up and carried any whi-
ther, they sang thus, “Arise, Jehovah, and let thine enemies
be scattered,” Numb. x. 35. Ps. lxviii. 2; and when it rested,
thus, “Give rest, Jehovah, to the many thousands of Israel;”
not styling the ark “Jehovah,” but “the glorious Majesty
that dwelt in it,” or “him, and the ark of his strength,”
Ps. cxxxii. 8, where also it may be noted, that the Targums
of Jerusalem and Jonathan read thus, “Rise up, O Word
of the Lord,” and, “Return, O Word of the Lord.” And,
Ps, xxiv., when the ark was brought from the house of Obed-
edom, and settled in mount Sion, and placed in the holy of
holies, they sang thus, “Lift up your heads, O ye gates, that
the King of glory may come in;” i.e. “the Lord of hosts,”
who dwelt in the ark.
Accordingly our Lörd Jesus, after his ascension, appeared
still in or with the glory of the Lord. When he was trans-
figured on mount Tabor, he was in this splendour, Matt.
xvii. 2, styled by Peter, keyaxo~periº 36%a, “the magnificent
glory,” 2 Pet. i. 17; so he appeared to Stephen, who “ saw
the glory of the Lord, and Jesus standing at the right hand
of God,” Acts vii. 55; so to Saul, when “a light brighter
than the sun shone round about him, and he heard a voice
out of it, saying to him, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest,”
Acts ix. 5. xxvi. 13; he being & Køgto; Tā; 36%mc, “the Lord
of glory,” l Cor. ii. 8 (see Rev. i. 14, 15. ii. 18. xviii. 1.
xix. 12); and because of God's residence in this glory, the
word “glory” doth often signify God himself, as when we
read of “the throne” and “the house of Glory,” i.e. of the
glorious God. So Rabbi Joseph Abbo;” “It is the manner
of the scripture to call the visible glory and splendour of the
divine Majesty by the name of God.” So Ps. cwi. 20,
“They turned their Glory into the similitude of a calf:”
Jer. ii. 12, “My people have changed their Glory for that
which doth not profit;” and so the fathers seem to take the
word “glory” here for “ the divine Glory.” Note,
Thirdly, That from this glory, when God did any won-
drous works of power, mercy, and judgment, there is said
to be an emanation or shining forth of glory; as when “fire
went forth from the glory of the Lord to consume their sa-
crifices,” in token of his favourable acceptance of them : so
Lev. ix. 23, 24, “The glory of the Lord appeared, and
there came a fire out from before the Lord, and consumed
upon the altar the burnt-offering and the fat:” so 2 Chron.
vii. 1–3; accordingly they begged his favour in these words,
“Thou that dwellest between the cherubims, shine forth,”
Ps. lxxx. 1 (see Ps. l. 2. Deut. xxxiii. 2). And to con-
Sume transgressors, viz. Nadab and Abihu, Lev. x. 2, and
“the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense,”
Numb. xvi. 35 (see Exod. xiv. 24, 25). And in like man-
ner may the Son be said to be ätraúyaap, a rāg 36%ms, “an
emanation or shining forth from the glory of the Father;”
as being before all things, prolatus à patre sive generatus,
“begotten or brought forth by the Father,” saith Irenaeus,
lib. ii. cap. 48, 4, 28; being always in him, “but rôy UAizów
£up, Trávrov ièša kai Évéºysia ºyat argosºv, coming forth before
all things, to be the idea and active power of all material
beings:” so Athenagoras, p. 10, “The Word, whom the
Father begat, ižegºvឺwevo; ºr:} ºrávrov sending him forth be-
fore all things, who was always in God, and became Aāyog
orgo popuzic, when he would create the world.” So Theophi-
lus. “Whom he made ºrporněžv, to leap from him,” say
Justin Martyr; and Tatian. “He being in him before all
ages; ºrpoºy & Aéyo; 3mºvpyia;, the Word coming forth,
which is the cause of the creation, ºrpoysvynäsic, 3 o' tº Tráy-
Ta, and fore-begotten, by which all things were made,” saith .
Clemens Alexandrinus. “The Word brought forth by the
Father, and by that prolation generated, and therefore the
Son of God,” saith Tertullian.|
* Kai Xapawtºp rº; in oatársaſ; airoij, The impression, or
representation of his subsistence.] The phrase signifies, saith
Theodoret, that he subsists by himself, zai #y favºró 3sixyval
tovº ratpuzo); Xapax'rºpa;, “ and in himself represents the
characters of his Father.” Xagaztig, saith Phavorinus, is
* Ibid. p. 7.
+ Ad. Autol. lib. ii. p. 88, B. p. 100, A.
† Just. Dial. p. 359, B, et. Tat. p. 145, B.
§ Clem. Alex. Strom. v. p. 553 B. Strom. vi. p. 644, A.
| Tertul. Apol. cap. 21.
886
HEBREWS.
stance), and "upholding all things by the word of his
power, “when he had (Gr. having) by himself purged
Siarán watc. &nxočara rºy itéaraq-w, “a form or draught mani-
festing the substance whence it was taken.” “Yºréataziº,
saith he, “is the substance with the properties;” olaia ºf 7&
råy i8top, &roy, or ouvègogº rów Tregi #xáarov iótoºtov, “a
concourse of all the properties of any being;” so that “the
character of his subsistence” here is, according to him, “a
draught manifesting or exhibiting the substance and proper-
ties of God.” According to the Greek commentators on the
place, it is the same with our Lord’s being “in the form of
God,” before he took our nature on him (Phil. ii. 6). Ac-
cordingly, Wisdom is, by the author of the book that bears
that name, styled Écorrpoy &xnxiāorov rāg roß Osoſ, #v=&ysiac,
xai six2y rā, śyašárnto; airrot, “the unspotted mirror of the
power or activity of God, and the image of his goodness,”
vii. 26. The Aáyo; is, saith Philo,” &#810; Eixãy abroń, “the
eternal image of God. The image of God,' 3i' ot, cºra; &
kóago; #3mºtovºyfºro, by which the whole world was made.”
And of the angel, which God sent before Israel, in whom
God's name was, Exod. xxiii. 21, the Jews say he was,
nº ºxºn, i.e. “the angel of his face;” because, saith Rabbi
Moses Cerundensis, t God's face, or glory, might be seen in
him, or be exactly represented by him : yea, the government
of the whole world was committed to him, and God had
made him Lord over his whole house, and had made all
things subject to him. Now these things so exactly agree
with what the apostle here ascribes to Christ, that I could not
think them unworthy to be noted here.
7 bágoy re tº Trávta rā āgatt Tä, övyápagoſ; aircă, And
holding all things by the word of his power.] The Hebrew
word Ruy) is sometimes rendered pégo, Sustineo ; as when
it is said of Moses, Numb. xi. 14. 17, “I cannot pégéiv,
sustain, or bear, all this people.” And, Deut. i. 9. 12, “How
can I alone, pègely tºy kémoy, bear the labour of all this peo-
ple P” And, of Christ, that pégs, “he bears the burden of
our sin,” Isa. liii. 4. Sometimes it signifies to govern ;
whence Rºv) is sometimes rendered 8aa lºgic, “a king;” Gen.
xxiii. 6, sometimes àpxay, “a prince,” as it is rendered above
sixty times ; sometimes &#xnyès, in the same sense, Numb.
xiii. 3. xvi. 2, and sometimes hyoſagyog, “a governor,” Josh.
xiii. 22.2 Chron. v. 1; and the Greek påpely signifies not only
to sustain, but also, suo arbitrată moderari, “to govern at
his will:” now which of these two senses you put upon the
words it is not much material, since it is equally the effect of
a divine power to sustain and govern all things; whence this
is, by the Jews, made the description of God himself, that
he is a God, Rºn ºnb,S “sustaining all things,” the heavens,
the earth, and the abyss, and bearing all people, nº-nº mºn,
‘‘ by the Spirit of his Word.” Accordingly, of the Aoyoc,
Philoſ often saith, that he is rhôaxtºxo; xzi avéegyhºrn; aráy.
Tov, “he that sits at the helm, and governs all things:” that
he isºl & avyázov xai Stolzāv rà irávra, “he that containeth
and dispenseth all things:” that God, as a king and shep-
herd, rules according to law and right, and placing over us
“his first begotten Son,” 5; tº #riºstav rºc ispá, raûrnç
&yān; 67% tº tasyáxov Çarixão, traºx2, 8taššxeral, who, as the
pro-rex of the great King, takes care of the sacred flock.”
It remains yet to be inquired, whether these things are
spoken of our Lord, as acting here on earth, or purely of
the divine nature he had before the world was made. The
Socinians, and some others, think all this relates to our Sa-
viour, as acting here on earth, that he was the splendour of
his Father's glory; because “God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, hath shined into our hearts, to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of
Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. iv. 6): on which account the apostle
Saith, “We have seen his glory, the glory as of the only-be-
gotten Son of God” (John i. 14): that he was the character
of his substance, or his attributes, as he was “the image of
the invisible God” (Col. i. 15), in which his power, wisdom,
holiness, love, and mercy, shined forth conspicuously : that
* De Confus. Ling. p. 267, B.
+ De Monarch. p. 363, B
§ Targ.in 2 Chron. ii. 6.
* De Vità Mos. p. 521,
†: Masius in Jos. v. 14.
| De Cherub. p. 88, D.
B. ** De Agricult. p. 152, B.
our sins, sat down on the right hand of tile Majesty
on high;
he did pigetv, praestare, perform all things by the word of his
power; as he made the winds and seas calm, rebuked dis-
eases, and cast out devils by his word. And Mr. Clerc is po-
sitive that it must be the human nature which this sacred
writer spake of, that the Jews might understand what he said
was true: “for that alone is visible; and nothing but what
is such can be called the image or brightness of anything
among men.” On the other hand, it is certain that all the
fathers were of another mind; that when Philo and the an-
cient Jews spake thus of Wisdom, the Logos, the Angel of
God’s face, they understood all that they said of the Logos
and Wisdom subsisting long before our Saviour's incarnation,
and so thought this Logos the splendour and image of the
Father, when he was not visible among men, as the apostle
saith he was, when he was taken from them into heaven. It
is certain also, that the preceding words, “By whom also he
made the worlds,” cannot be spoken of Christ incarnate; and
the words, “Upholding all things by the Word of his
power,” seem to import the same with that expression of the
apostle, Col. i. 17, “By him all things consist.” Moreover,
could these things be attributed to our Lord Christ as acting
in the flesh, yet have I proved, note on Col. i. 15, that they
must be ascribed to a divine nature residing in him, or to
“God manifested in the flesh;” and so, what Mr. Clerc says
“must be the human nature,”—must (say I) be the divine
nature.
* At' favroſ was agºzały ºrotna &ggyo, rāy & wagrów, When he
had by himself purged our sins.] i. e. When he had made
himself an expiatory sacrifice, to purge us from the guilt and
punishment of our transgressions. To confirm this, let it be
noted, -
First, That this was the opinion of all nations, that their
expiatory sacrifices were designed to take away the guilt of
sin, and make atonement for it to an offended Majesty. For
why are they still said, &yvićety, kaðagićew, purgare, lustrare,
“to purge, and to make clean,” but from their supposed vir-
tue to purify them from the guilt of sin P and because sin is
often represented in the law of Moses, and in the prophets,
under the metaphors of uncleanness, filthiness, defilement,
and pollution ; therefore their sacrifices also are still repre-
sented as cleansing them from the guilt and the defilement
of sin, and so making the pollution to pass from them.
Hence the blood which made the atonement is styled, aiza.
xaflagtapºoij, “the blood of cleansing,” or purgation. So
Exod. xxx. 10, “And Aaron shall make an atonement upon
the horns of the incense-offering once a year, &Trô roi, aſ waroc
wadaptop,05 ×ašapist aird, with the blood of the sin-offering
shall he make atonement upon it.” And the sacrifice of.
fered for sin is said to be offered waćapirat, “to purify” thern
from it by an atonement: so, Lev. ix. 15, “And he brought
the people's offering, and took the goat which was the sin-
offering and slew it, wai #x204ptorey airy, and offered it for
sin.” And, Lev. xvi. 30, in the great day of atonement, “the
priest shall make an atonement for you, xaşagical iºdic,
to cleanse you, that you may be clean from all your sins
before the Lord, Kai zašapta-Shaere, and you shall be cleansed.”
So Job is said wasagić siv, “to cleanse” his sons from their
supposed sins by a burnt-offering, i. 5; and so he inquires,
vii. 21, “Why dost thou not make xaSagiarºv rác &aaeria:
prov;” i. e. Why dost thou not forgive my sins P Since
therefore it is very reasonable to conceive that the word
wabagićew, used in an epistle written to the Jews touching the
expiatory sacrifice of Christ, is used in the sense in which
they always took it, when applied in the Old Testament to
sacrifices, which made atonement for their sins; it follows,
that when the apostle here saith, Christ made zaffagicºy, “a
purgation of our sins by himself;” and when he adds, that
whereas the blood of the legal sacrifices did expiate eiç rºy
Tā; a`agzā; Kağaçörnºra, “to the purification of the flesh, the
blood of Christ, zašagist, shall much more expiate to the
purification of the conscience from the guilt of sin,” ix. 13;
when he proceeds to say, that whereas “under the law al-
most all things #y aïkari was apićeral, were purified by blood,
and without shedding of blood there was no remission,” ver.
22, 23; and thence argues, that “the heavenly things must
be purged with better sacrifices;” he, in these cases, must
CHAPTER I.
887
4 Being made (Gr. being) so much better than the
angels (and superior to them by this evaltation to the
right hand of Majesty), as he hath by inheritance ob-
tained * a more excellent name (title and authority)
than they. -
5 For to which of the angels said he at any time
(as he did to Christ), "Thou art my Son, this day
have I begotten thee? and again (to Solomon the son
of David, what did more eminently belong to this Son
and Lord of David), * I will be to him a Father, and
speak of the blood of Christ as making atonement for our
sins, by purging away the guilt of them, and averting the pu-
nishment due to us for them (see the reading vindicated,
Examen Millii). *
* Ver. 4. Ala#02%recoy voga, A more earcellent name.] i. e.
Not only title, but authority and superior excellency. So
Phil. ii. 9, “God hath highly exalted him, and given him
#yoga ºr imâp Trāv Švowa, a name above every name,” i. e. the
highest dignity and power, “that at the name of Jesus every
knee should bow;" i. e. that all creatures in heaven or earth,
or under it, should own his power and dominion, ver. 10.
Eph. i. 21, “He hath set him at his right hand, above all
principality, power, might, and dominion, Kai Travré, évézaroc,
and every name.” In both these senses Christ hath a more
excellent name, viz, the name of his “only Son” (ver. 5),
the name of God (ver. 8), and a more excellent authority
and dignity, viz. that of “sitting at the right hand of Majesty”
(ver. 13), and “ruling all things by the word of his power;”
and this excellency he hath upon a better foundation, as be-
ing the maker of the world,” &c. (ver. 2, 3).
* Wer. 5. Yiá; aou et at, Thow art my son.] R. Solomon*
here saith, “Our masters have interpreted all that is written
in this psalm of the king Messiah.” And Saadias Gaon't
doth, from these very words, prove the dominion and king-
dom of the Messiah, because it is here said, “I have set thee
my King, upon the holy hill of Sion; I will declare the
command, Jehovah hath said unto me, Thou art my Son,”
&c.; which also is apparent from the following words, “I will
give the heathen for thine inheritance,” &c. (ver. 8), and
from the exhortation to all kings to submit to him. And
that this was the ancient and received exposition of these
words, confirmed by the Holy Ghost, we learn from this apos-
tle, who disputing with the Jews touching our Saviour's re-
surrection, when all power in heaven and earth was given to
him, Matt. xxviii. 18, he proves it from these very words,
Acts xiii. 33. And again, speaking of his priesthood, which
he was to exercise in heaven after his resurrection and ascen-
sion, he proves it to the same Jews from the same words,
Heb. v. 5.
*"Ezoº, at airá big ratéga, I will be to him a Father, &c.]
These words are cited from 2 Sam. vii. 14, and they do pro-
mise to Solomon, the type of Christ, a kingdom to be esta-
blished for ever, ver, 13. 16, and so to Christ the antitype,
and eminently “the Son of God,” an everlasting kingdom
and º (see the Judgment of the Jewish Church,
p. 61). , -
Note also, That though the angels be sometimes in scrip-
ture, called “the sons of God,” Job i. 6. ii. 1. xxxviii. 7,
God never said to any of them, “I will be to him a Father,”
to protect him in his kingdom; much less, “Thou art my
Son, this day have I begotten thee,” to a kingdom ; and so
these passages, in the true-and full extent of them, cannot
agree to any of the angels.
* Ver. 6. IIgorzvyna &roa'aw airrö Trávºrs; &yyaxo Geoč, Let
all the angels of God worship him.] It is generally thought
these words are cited from Ps. xcvii. 7, where in the Sep-
tuagint we have words very like them, viz. Teocavyńa'are airó,
Trávre; #yyaxoi attoiſ, “Worship him, all his angels;” in the
Hebrew it is indeed EğribR 52, “all ye elohim; ” but
Aben Ezra's note is, that some think bºxºn on bºmbs bo,
“the word elohim always denotes the angels:” and Kimchi
Saith,; the Hebrews did expound this psalm “ of what was
to come to pass in the days of the Messiah.” In the Sep-
—r
* In Dan. vii. 13. H. Wide Cart. Mell. Hebr. lib. ii. cap. 5.
j. Pug. Fid. p. 133.
he shall be to me a Son : (2 Sam. vii. 14. 1 Chron,
xxii. 10.) -
6 And again, when he bringeth in (áraw ös TáAv,
and when he brings again) the first-begotten (from the
dead, Col. i. 18) into the world, he saith, And *let all
the angels of God worship him (establishing thus his
dominion over them, and their subjection to him, and
also the divine excellence of him who was thus to be
worshipped by the highest of created beings).
7 And (moreover, speaking) * of the angels, he (i. e.
tuagint it is styled a psalm of David, &re à yń airò waffia raro,
“when the land was established to him,” or when he was
made master of all those countries which God designed to be
the inheritance of Israel, and therefore may very probably
be referred to the Son of David at his resurrection, or his
coming again into the world, that being the time when “all
power in heaven and earth was given to him,” when he was
solemnly inaugurated, and instated in his spiritual and hea-
venly kingdom, and “ the government was upon his shoul-
ders,” and “he sat down on the right hand of the Majesty
on high,” ver, 3.
But it is observable, that these words are expressly to be
found, Deut. xxxii. 43, as here they are cited : and it is cer-
tain from Paul, that God there speaks of the times when the
Messiah was to be preached unto the gentiles; for “that the
gentiles should glorify God for his mercy,” he proves from
these words of the same verse, “Rejoice, ye gentiles, with
his people,” Rom. xv. 9, 10. Accordingly, the Jews ex-
pound many of the words of Moses here recorded. Thus
Jonathan on ver. 39, saith thus, “When the Word of the
Lord shall reveal himself to redeem his people, he shall say
to all people, See, I am he that am, and have been, and
shall be (see Heb. xiii. 8); I by my Word kill and make
alive; I smite the people Israel, and I will heal them in the
end of the days.” On ver. 40, the Targum of Jerusalem
saith thus, “I live ºnly on by my Word for ever;” that of
Jonathan, “I have prepared in the heavens, nºw nºn, the
house of my Majesty;” that is, saith R. Solomon, nºw opp
“the place of my Majesty;” expressions often used by Philo”
to signify the Aoyoc, as when he saith, oikoy #xety rôy Éavrov
Aśyov, “God hath his house, viz. his own Word,” and that t
§ 6;fo: Aáyo;, “the divine Word in his place ;” and upon ver.
43, Jonathan ben Uziel paraphraseth thus, “He with his
Word will expiate for the land, and for his people,” viz. as
the high-priest did on the great day of expiation. The
other words, “He will render vengeance to his enemies, and
make his arrow drunk with the blood of the slain,” are fit
expressions of Christ's exercise of his kingly government over
his enemies, by which he was to “break them with a rod of
iron, and dash them in pieces as a potter's vessel” (Ps. ii.
9). The import of these words therefore may be this, When
God was to introduce his first-born again into the world by
the resurrection, and give him power and dominion over all
things in heaven and earth, he said, Let all the angels of
God worship him, and own him as their Lord and Maker.
Dr. Owen saith, this cannot be applied to the resurrection,
because Christ did not leave the world, or go out of it at his
death ; but to this it may be answered, that “going hence ’’
(Ps. xxix. 13), and “going out of the world” (1 Cor. v. 10),
are common expressions to signify death. And, secondly,
God being said to “beget" Christ, when he raised him from
the dead (Ps. ii. 7. Acts xiii. 33. Heb. v. 5), and gave him
power over all things in heaven and earth, i.e. over all the
world, this may be fitly called a second introduction of him
into the world. Thirdly, whereas he saith, that these words,
Treockwäcal airó, &c. cannot be taken from Deut. xxxii. 43,
because there are no such words in the original, and it is
absurd to think the apostle should cite that from the scrip-
ture as the word and testimony of God, which indeed is not
in it, nor was ever spoken by God, for this and for two other
reasons offered by the reverend Dr. Hammond, note on Ps.
xcvii. 7, I think it more reasonable to conceive these words
were taken from the psalms.
1° Wer. 7. IIpê; row, ayyáxouc.] The psalmist speaking, Ps.
* De Migr. Abr. ab initio.
+ De Somn. p. 447, C.
888
HEBREWS.
David, only) saith, (He is that God) who maketh his
angels spirits (or winds), and his ministers a flame of
fire; (giving them no higher titles than those of his mes-
sengers and ministers, and showing their efficacy and
swiftness in doing his commandments, and hearkening to
the voice of his words, by comparing them to the winds
and fire, Ps. cxxiii. 20, 21.) -
8 But (speaking) to (of) the Son, he (i. e. David,
moved by the Holy Ghost,) saith, Thy throne, O God,
is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the
sceptre of thy kingdom (Ps. xlv. 7).
9 Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity;
therefore * God, even thy God, hath anointed thee
with the oil of gladness (i.e. advanced thee in eminence
and dignity) above thy fellows (styling him, in these
words, God, and an eternal king ; ascribing to him a
throne and kingdom, and a righteous government, to re-
civ. 4, not to, but of, the angels, it is necessºry to translate
these words as our version doth, “Of the angels he saith ;”
and as the Hebrew 5x, so the Greek Trºöc, is oft of the same
import with de and Tripi. He spake this parable ºpe; airoi;,
“concerning them,” Luke xix. 20. Mark xii. 12; ºrgö; 33 rºy
*Iagaña, “But of Israel he saith,” Rom. x. 21 ; ºrgö, Öy, “Of
whom we speak.” Heb. iv. 13. So Neh. ii. 18, “He
spake to you of the good hand of God upon him, Kai Trgo,
row; Aáyov, roi; 8aartwäwz, and of the words of the king.” Of
the particle ºn, see Noldius, p. 458. -
* Ver. 9. “o Gsä;, & OE6; cov, God, even thy God..] For
Christ is God of God, according to the Nicene symbol.
Hence do the primitive fathers thus distinguish betwixt him
and the Father ; that “God the Father is that God above
whom there is no other God ;” whereas “Christ is God of
God;’ and as to that, “inferior to God the Father:” so
Justin Martyr * and Irenaeus. That this psalm was spoken
of the Messiah, is evident from the Targum on the place,
which saith, “Because thou, O king Messiah, hast loved jus-
tice,” &c. And on ver. 3, “Thy fairness, O king Messiah,
exceeds the sons of men.” To this purpose, see Rabbi Solo-
mon and Aben Ezra on this psalm.
* Ver. 10.] That this psalm hath relation to the times of
the Messiah, we learn from the Chaldee paraphrast, which
saith on ver. 16, “Zion is builded by the Word of the Lord :”
and from the creation of a new people to praise the Lord,
ver, 18, which the Jews themselves expounded of “the
World to come,” or the state of the church under the Mes-
siah ; and, thirdly, from the calling of the gentiles, men-
tioned ver, 15, “So the heathens shall fear the name of the
Lord ; and all the kings of the earth thy glory:” and, ver. 22,
“When the people are gathered together, and the kingdoms
to serve the Lord” (see the Judgment of the Jewish Church,
p. 38). That these things are here spoken of, and applied
to Christ, is also evident, (1.) from the connective particle kai,
which knits this to the former citation, and makes it to run
thus: “Of the Son it is said, Thy throne, O God, is for ever,
xai, and of him it is also said, Thou, Lord, in the beginning
hast laid the foundations of the earth.” (2.) From the
Scope of the apostle, which, both before and after, is to bring
testimonies to prove the excellency of the Messiah, and the
truth of what he had asserted of him (ver. 2, 3), and there-
fore he must pursue the same design here. And, (3.) from
the concession of the Socinians upon the place, that the
latter words, which speak of the destruction of the heavens
and the earth, belong to Christ. Now these words, “They
shall perish, but thou remainest,” are plainly spoken of the
same person who “founded the earth in the beginning;” and
therefore must equally belong to Christ. But here it is
objected:
Obj. That if the author of this epistle had indeed believed
that Christ was the creator of the world, to what purpose
* "Earl Rai Aéyeral Qsé;, xai Kūgio; #rego; twig röy Troinºv
‘rāv ŠAoy—brèg ºy Os3; &Axo; otz katiy. Just. Mart. Dial. cum
Tryph. p. 275. Et p. 276, Os3; Éregá, Bart rot rā ºrávra trol-
haravro, Osoſ,—jmep y &Axo; otz śati OEóg. Et p. 284, Oey
inngaroëvra ră înée Śy otz Hari. Invoco te, Domine Deus,
qui es solus et verus Deus, super quem alius Deus non cst,
lib, iii. Lib. vi. Ubi filium stepiùs Deum vocat.
ward his righteous servants, whom he loves, and to
punish his obdurate enemies, whose iniquities render
them hateful to him. So that these words again prove
both his divine nature, and his evaltation to the govern-
ment of the whole world).
10 And (that also by him he made the heavens, is
testified in these words spoken of him), “Thou, Lord,
in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth:
and the heavens are the works of thy hands.
11 They shall perish; but thou remainest: and
they shall all wax old as doth a garment;
12 And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and
they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy
years shall not fail (Ps. cii.).
13 But (yea) to which of the angels said he at any
time (as he did to Christ, Ps. cx. 1), "Sit thou on my
right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool :
doth he spend so much time to prove him more excellent
than the angels? For who can doubt that the Creator is
more excellent than his creatures?
Ans. First, He doth not absolutely go about to prove him
more excellent than the angels, but comparatively, so far
more excellent as the titles given him in scripture showed
that he exceeded them; and that was as much as the Crea-
tor doth exceed his creatures.
Secondly, I have shown, note on the second and third
verses, that the apostle had asserted, not only Christ's dig-
nity, as “heir of all things,” and so succeeding in his Father's
kingdom, but also that he was therefore “Lord of all things,”
because “he made the world,” and therefore was obliged, in
his testimonies, to prove both these things; as he doth in
most of the testimonies produced.
Thirdly, As there were then divers heretics, who ascribed
the creation of this visible world to angels, and not to Christ ;
so also were there divers Jews, who held that they were
God's ministers, or a vºyot, “coworkers, in the creation of
the world;” and that God said to them, “Let us make man,”
Gen. i. 26. Now against these Jews and heretics, the apos- .
tle very appositely proves, that the creation of the world
was not to be ascribed to those angels, who, they say, “gave
the law,” ii. 2; but to that Jesus from whom we have
received the gospel. Of the sayings of the Jews, concerning
the assistance of the angels in framing man, see note on ii.
5, and Maimonides, More Nevochim, par. ii. cap. 6. Of
Simon Magus, Irenaeus doth inform us, lib. i. cap. 20, that
he held, that his Ennoia produced angelos et potestates à
quibus et mundum hunc factum esse dixit, “angels and
powers by whom the world was made;” that Menander also
held, mundum factum ab angelis, “that the world was made
by angels,” lib. i. cap. 21. lib. ii. cap. 9; that Cerinthus held
that “the world was made by some separate virtues, in-
ferior to God,” lib. ii. cap. 22, 23; and that “the world
was not made by Christ,” but that “he rather came
ad dissolvenda omnia opera ejus Dei qui mundum fecit, to
dissolve all the works of that God who made the world:”
and, lastly, Xplºré, épºoyaveſ; &yyáxovº avvirpoſłaßxão Sat, “that
the angels were of the same rank with Christ, and produced
together with him.” All which vain fancies gave just occa-
sion to the apostle to assert, that Christ was thus superior to
the angels, and the creator both of them and of the world.
Accordingly, the Targum of Jerusalem gives this description
of the Word of the Lord, that “it is he who said to the
world, Be, and it was ; and who will say unto it, Be, and it
shall be.” Which words the Targum of Ben Uziel (in
Exod. iii. 14) applies to the Lord himself.
16 Ver. 13. Kášov in 88%tāv kov, Sit thou on my right hand.]
That these words were spoken of the Messiah, appears (1.)
from the two Targuins on this psalm, both declaring, that
this was spoken nºn-p: “in or to his Word.” That is, saith
R. Saadias Gaon, on I)an. vii. 13, “the Messiah, our righ-
teousness;” as it is written, Psal. cx. 1, “The Lord said to
my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand.” R. Moses Haddar-
son says (Beresch. Rabba, in Gen., xviii. 1), “Hereafter
God will cause the Messiah to sit on his right hand ; as it is
said (Psal. cx. 1), The Lord said unto, my Lord,”’ &c.
Midrash Tchillim, on Ps. ii. 7, saith, “The affairs of the
Mcssiah are set forth in the hagiographa in these words (Ps.
CHAPTER II.
889.
14 Are they not all (declared, Ps. ciii. 20, 21, civ. 4,
to be) ministering spirits, sent forth (not for govern-
ment and dominion, but) to minister for them who
A
cx.), The Lord said.” And again, R. Joden on Ps. xviii. 35,
in the name of R. Chija, said, that “in the age of the Mes-
siah, the blessed God will set the king Messiah on his right
hand; as it is written, The Lord said to my Lord.” And
though on this psalm he expounds the words, first of Abra-
ham, whom they introduce complaining that God has placed
his Son on his right hand, and him only on his left ; yet
presently follow these words, “And so he saith to the Mes-
siah.” And R. Obadiah not only saith, “The Psalmist
composed this psalm of the Messiah, “but adds what illustrates
ver. 14, that “God farther said, Thou shalt sit on my right
hand, and the ministering angels on my left” (see more in
(being sons by adoption) shall be (also) "heirs of cal-
vation ?
Cartw. Mellificium, p. 2969). And since our blessed Saviour
confounded the scribes and pharisees with this inquiry, How
the Messiah could be the son of David, since David here “in
spirit calls him Lord?” Matt. xxii. 42, it is evident this was
then the received exposition of these words.
” Wer. 14. Méxxovira; ºneovasſy cornelay, Who shall be
heirs of salvation.] i. e. By right of sonship ; for “if sons,
then heirs,” Rom. viii. 17; “If a Son, then xxmpové zo: Qeoû,
an heir of God through Christ,” Gal. iv. 7; “Heirs according
to the promise,” Gal. iii. 29; “For to as many as believed
he gave power to be the sons of God,” John i. 12.
CHAPTER II.
1 THEREFORE we (knowing the excellency of the per-
son speaking now to us in the gospel above all other
prophets, and above those angels which were employed
in delivering the law of Moses) ought to give the more
£arnest heed to the things which we have heard (from
the Son of God), 'lest at any time we should let them
slip (out of our memory).
2 For if the word “spoken by angels (from Sinai)
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II.
* Ver. 1. Mā trore tragašvāºwev.] Touréart, &# #wrforwºey,
“Lest we fall off from them.”
lact, and Phavorinus, which sense agrees well with the scope
of this epistle: but the sense given by our translation is
also very good and proper; for in this sense ragašjusty is used
in those words of Solomon; “My son, tº ragašvāc, rhenzow
8èºw 80UAW, be not forgetful of, but keep in mind, or lay
up in thy heart, my counsel,” Prov. iii. 21. So the wise
man interprets himself, in the beginning of that chapter:
“My son, forget not my precepts, but let thy heart keep my
words,” ver, 1. So Origen,” speaking of the festivals of the
church, the Lord's-day, Easter, pentecost, saith, “The com-
mon people had need of those sensible admonitions, or me-
morials of the blessings then celebrated, iva º ºréasov traga;-
fivñ, that they may not entirely slip out of their memories:”
and this translation and interpretation is confirmed from the
word 34.5xeiv, ver, 3, which signifies “to be unmindful of ’’
this great salvation.
* Ver, 2. 'O 31' 3xx{\ow AaºnSei. Xäyoc, The word spoken
by angels.] Maimonides saith expressly, Non invenies Deum
ullum opus fecisse, nisi per manum alicujus angeli; “God
doth no work but by the hand of some angel.” To confirm
this he cites that passage of their wise men, that “God does
nothing without consulting before the family above.” And
that in Bereschith Rabba, f “Wheresoever it is said inscrip-
ture, Tinº, And Jehovah did this or that, ibi intelligitur ipse
et domus judicii ejus, there we must understand, that all things
are done by him, mediantibus angelis, by the mediation of
angels.”. Josephus Ş saith, “The law was given, roß Osoſ,
8taxi yogaśvov trº; airoi; ºregi rāv ºrgantéov, by God declaring to
them what they ought to do:” and yet he introduces Herod,
proving that legates, or ambassadors, were sacred from this,
that || “the Jews had received the choicest of their laws from
God by angels,” i.e. by messengers, or legates, as that name
imports. Philo'ſ is express, that God spake the law, 3,' at-
Tojºwóvov, où agoaxena'éºwevoc &AAó, “by himself, using no other;”
but yet, saith the same Philo, ** he did this, wºxeſca; #xy
&éparov iv &#1 &ngioveynSāyat, “commanding an invisible sound
to be formed in the air.” And to whom could this command
be directed, but to some of the angels then attending on him 2
He therefore seems only to mean, that the decalogue was ad-
ministered by God himself speaking to the people, and not
* In Cels. lib. viii. p. 393.
+ More Nevoch. lib. ii. cap. 6, p. 206.
: P. 203. § Antiq. lib. iii, cap. 4, p. 78, F.
| Høv 33 tº záxiata rāy Soyº.4 roy, zai Tà joiárata rāv iv
toſs vécois 3' &yyáAoy wagã toč Osoti aaSávrov. Antiq. lib. xv.
cap. 8, p. 522, B.
* Lib. dellecal. p. 576.
** P. 577, lin. penult.
So CEcumenius, Theophy-
by Moses the mediator betwixt God and them, as the residue
of his laws were. For in his book De Somniis, he observes
that the holy Scripture speaks of those dreams, as, Seámsºn-
rot, “sent from God, which proceed, 31& rāv troporây abrol,
wai &raśāy &yyáNov, from his ministers and attendants the an-
gels,” p. 461. He adds, that these messengers are employed
in bringing rà; rot ratgå; ŠtrixExeóasic roi; #xyáyotº, “the com-
mands of the Father to his sons:” and that this is done, be-
cause we cannot bear his immediate chastisements, nor yet
his excellent benefits, p. 455, F. -
As for the fathers, they seem universally to conspire in
this doctrine, that the apostle speaks here, and Gal. iii. 19,
Tregi rāy Siakovna'akºvoy rà Aéyò &yyáAov, “ of the angels mi-
nistering to the delivery of the law.” So Origen; * so Chry-
sostom on this place; Theodoret on Gal. iii. 19, CEcumenius,
and Theophylact. Origen,’t speaking of Jerusalem, saith,
“The angels have now deserted her, who before were always
helpful to her; 3,' &v 8tstáyn wai 3 Māorso, v6ºzoc, by whom also
the law of Moses was ordained;" it being, saith the apostle,
“ordained by angels.” The same is the opinion of Jerome
on Gal. iii. 19.
And though Jehovah speaks to Moses in and from mount
Sinai, and from him the Jews received the law; yet that he
used the ministry of angels in the dispensing of it, is evident
from many passages of the New Testament. For, -
First, Stephen speaketh thus unto the Jews, “You have
received the law, eiç 3iarayå; (xará 3-arayåc, CEcumenius)
äyyäxwy, by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it”
(Acts vii. 53). Now when he was aggravating their guilt,
in violating this law, from the consideration of the dignity of
the persons who were by God employed in giving it to them,
he would not have omitted the Son of God, or the Aéyoç,
the principal actor, and spoken of these inferior ministering
spirits, could he both truly, and according to the then present
notion of the Jews, have said it was the Aéyoc, who by his
Father was employed in giving the law. For though most
of the fathers say, the Adyog, or “the Son of God,” appeared
to Moses and the patriarchs, and others under the Old Tes-
tament, theyj; all agree in this, that he appeared then as
&AA03, one that sustained another person; or, as the legate,
the ambassador; or, as ūrovºyoc, i. e. the minister of God
the Father, as also Philo still saith,
Secondly, When the apostle Paul affirms, after Stephen,
that the law was, 8taraysic 3’ &yyáxay, “administered by an-
gels” (Gal. iii. 19), he cannot reasonably be supposed to mean
* In Matt. ed. p. 454, E.
+ Hom. xiii. in Jer, ed. Huet. p. 129, D.
f Tàj #y roi; oigayoſ; in nestāv, Just. Martyr. Dial. p. 279,
A, D, p. 280, B. 283, A, B. 284, A. 293,299, 311. Et pas-
sim Philo, "Ayye Moç trangèrn, rod Qant Aéyoc, De Nom. Mut.
p. 819, C. Alleg. lib. ii. p. 60, C. "Opyarov Osoſ, p. 100, B.
890
HEBREWS.
was stedfast (and by God’s dealing with the Jews con-
firmed), and every (wilful) transgression and disobedi-
ence (of it) received a just recompence of reward (the
atonements of the law being only for sins of ignorance
and error, v. 2, and cutting off being the punishment for
wilful sins, as being acts of rebellion against God their
governor) ; - -
3 How shallwe escape (the divine wrath), if we (Chris-
tians) neglect "so great salvation; which at the first
began to be spoken by the Lord (Christ himself), and
(after) was “confirmed to us by them that heard him ;
4 God also bearing them witness both with signs
and wonders (as he did to Moses delivering the law to
the Jews), and * with divers miracles, and gifts (or dis-
only, that it was delivered, inter angelos, between angels; or,
by God attended with his angels. For, (1.) as by is the pro-
per import of the word 313, so it is very rarely, if at all, that
it is rendered, inter, between, or among : it is so rendered, in-
deed, by our translators, 2 Tim. ii. 2, but with the note in
the margin, by, to show they thought it might there bear
that sense, as it doth, thus ; “The things which thou hast
neard from me (and which have been confirmed), 31& Troxxây
wagtúkoy, by many witnesses, commit to faithful men.” (2.)
Seeing here the word spoken, 3’ &yyáxov, being put in oppo-
sition to the word spoken, 31& Xºtaroš, “by Christ,” shows
that 33 retains its proper sense, and must be rendered, “by
angels;” why should we put another sense on the same par-
ticle used, Gal. iii. 19, by the same apostle, with respect to
the same subject?
Thirdly, That the word spoken “by angels”here, respects
the law in general, and not only the threatenings made by
the prophets, to whom the Aáyo; sent his angels, to bring
back the people of Israel from their wickedness, is also evi-
dent from these words: for (1.) “the word spoken by an-
gels” here seems to be the same with the word “adminis-
tered by angels,” Acts vii. 53. Gal. iii. 19. Now that was the
law, say both Stephen and Paul. (2.) It was 3 Aéyo; 8%-
£atoº, “the word made firm,” by the miracles done by Moses
to establish it, as was the gospel by more glorious miracles:
the miracles done by Moses being only a nºsta Kai régara,
“signs and wonders:” whereas the gospel was confirmed also
“by divers powers, and distributions of the Holy Ghost,”
ver. 4. (3.) As the apostle saith here, “Every transgression
of this word received a just recompence of reward ;” so he
saith, x. 28, “He that despised Moses's law, died without
mercy;” where the argument being in sense the same, demon-
strates that “the word spoken” here must be the law of Mo-
ses. (4.) We are properly said to transgress, and disobey a
law; but as for threatenings, though we may disregard, we
are not properly said to transgress them. In fine, I can an-
swer the argument of Schlictingius on the place, “That
God, in person, could not give the law from mount Sinai;
since, were it given by God himself, it must, on that account
be preferred before the gospel;” by saying, The comparison
is here made only betwixt God speaking to the Jews by the
ministry of angels, and the same God speaking to us “by
his Son,” which supposes God the Father to be the supreme
author both of the law and the gospel; asserting only, that
his ambassadors, or ministers, in the one, were much inferior
to his ambassador, and his great Prophet, by whom the other
was revealed : but I am not able to resist the evidence of his
Second argument, that “the opposition put between the word
spoken by angels* to them, and the gospel delivered to us
by the Son of God, will not permit us to own, that the law
was given to the Jews by the same Son of God, seeing that
supposition wholly destroys the force of the apostle's argu-
ment in this place.” But then I do not think that any angel
was so employed in the delivery of the law, as to take upon
him the person of God; or, that any creature said, “I am
the Lord thy God,” &c. but only, that the divine Majesty,
there present with his “thousands of angels” (Deut. xxxiii.
2. Ps. lxviii. 17), made some of them his ministers to form
the voice, by which he said, “I am the Lord thy God,” &c.
And it may probably be conjectured, that wherever there is
mention of an “angel” and “Jehovah” together, or any wor-
ship or excellency specified which is proper to God, there
* Nam silex per Dei filium, quomodó divus autor per an-
gelos eam traditam fuisse affirmare, et häc in parte eam evan-
gelio, quðd hoc per Dei filium et Dominum ipsum annuncia-
tum sit, opponere, eoque nomine evangelio postponere potuit,
sinon minis lex quâm evangelium ipsum Dei filium, et nec-
dum in statà humiliationis constitutum, latorem et praedicato-
rem habuit 2
was an appearance of the Shechinah, or divine Majesty, con-
junct with the angel. Dr. Lightfoot, in his note on Acts
vii. 53, and in his sermon on the text, solves this objection,
by saying, that by “angels” there, and here, and Gal. iii.
19, we are not to understand angels, properly so called, but
God's messengers; i. e. the prophets and teachers who are
styled “angels,” Mal. ii. 7. iii. 1. But this seems a very
forced exposition of these words: for (1.) after Stephen had
said (Acts vii. 53), that the Jews had slain those prophets,
which had told them of the coming of that Just One, he
adds this farther aggravation of their guilt (ver. 53), that they
had “received the law by the disposition of angels, and had
not kept it,” plainly distinguishing these angels from the
prophets. Paul also saith, “The law was given by angels in
(or through, or by) the hand of a mediator,” that is, of their
great prophet Moses, plainly again distinguishing those angels
from that prophet; when therefore the same Paul saith, the
law was spoken not by an angel, to wit, Moses, but by “an-
gels,” in the plural number, it is most reasonable to inter-
pret his words to the same sense, especially considering
his inference from these words (ver. 5), “For God hath not
subjected to angels the world to come, of which we now
speak.” -
* Wer. 3. Thaixaºrn; cornpiac, So great salvation.] That
under the dispensation of the gospel, the deliverance of the
faithful from persecutions, at or after the destruction of Je-
rusalem, should here be represented as that “great salvation
which began to be spoken by the Lord,” was testified to by
the apostles, and even by God himself, by so great miracles,
is incredible. No, sure, our Saviour “brought life and im-
mortality to light by the gospel,” 2 Tim. ii. 11; his apostles
testified to us “eternal life,” l John i. 2; and “ this is the
testimony of God” himself, “that he hath given us eternal
life, and that life is in his Son,” 1 John v. 11 (see note on
iv. 3). -
* 'E888atiºn si, hºwäç, Was confirmed to us, Jews; not
to us apostles, by whom it was confirmed. Vain therefore
is the argument taken from these words, to prove Paul was
not the author of this epistle ; because the gospel was not
confirmed to him by them that heard Christ, he receiving it
by immediate revelation from him (Gal. i. 12). And usual is
it with Paul, in this and other epistles, to say “We ;” when
not he himself, but only they he speaks to, or of, must be
understood. So vi. 1, “Let us go on to perfection” (see x.
25. xii. 1. Rom. iii. 5. 7. 1 Cor. x. 8, 9. 2 Cor. vii. 1. Eph.
ii. 3. 1 Thess. iv. 15. Tit. iii. 3).
* Wer. 4. IIcºſaac Buyápºsal, With divers miracles.] “Be-
cause,” saith Theodoret, “the law was confirmed by mira-
cles, the apostle thought it necessary to show the gospel was
in this superior to it,” as it was in these two respects:
1. That the apostles and disciples of our Lord abounded
in these miraculous dispensations which confirmed the gos-
pel, as well as Christ himself. -
2. That Moses chiefly wrought cºmpºſa Kai régata, “signs
and wonders ;” whereas the 3vváſzewº, “powers and distribu-
tions of the Holy Ghost,” here mentioned, were the proper
confirmations of the gospel dispensation. For here are four
things mentioned, which will admit of a distinct considera-
tion ; the first and second are, a mºſa Kai régata, “signs and
wonders,” which refer to portentous actions done in the
heavens, as when the sun stood still ; in the earth, as when
it opened to swallow up Dathan and Abiram ; in the air, as
when it was turned into darkness ; in the waters, as when
they were turned into blood: and these were often wrought by
Moses and others under the Old Testament, and still are
styled a nºweta kai régara. So Exod. vii. 2, TrAmSvyā ºró anºeſ,
ºwov ×ai régara, “I will multiply my signs and wonders in
the land of Egypt.” And again, ver. 9. Deut. iv. 32, “He
took his people out of that nation, Éy a musioi, Kai Tépart, by
signs and wonders:” showing, cºmpºsta Kai régata &#7:4xº,
CHAPTER II.
891
tributions) of the Holy Ghost, (performed) according
to his own will. *
“signs and great wonders upon Pharaoh, and all his house,”
vi. 22. vii. 19. xi. 3. xxvi. 8. xxix. 3: “And there arose not
a prophet like unto Moses, #y Trāat roi; anºeiot; wai régaa'iy, in
all the signs and wonders which God sent him to do in the
land of Egypt,” Deut. xxxiv. 11 (see Neh. ix. 10. Ps.
cxxxiv. 9. Jer. xxxii. 42). Thus Nabuchodonosor declares,
a masſa ka; ripara, “the signs and wonders which the most
high God had shown him,” Dan. iv. 2. And Darius saith
of him, vi. 27, roleſ anºeia xal régara iv rá, oùpayº wai śrl
ºric yºg, “He doth signs and wonders in the heavens, and on
the earth.”
Moreover, a mºſa and 8wápºsi; are used in the New Testa-
ment, with relation to the miracles wrought by the apostles
upon others, in casting out devils, making the blind to see,
and the lame to walk, and healing all manner of diseases;
now none of these things were done by Moses, and very
rarely by any of the prophets. And, lastly, as for the dis-
tributions of the Holy Ghost, consisting in the internal gifts
of wisdom, knowledge, faith, the gift of tongues, and the in-
terpretation of them; these were peculiar to the latter days,
that is, the times of the Messiah.
* Ver. 5.] For explication of these
served, •
1. That both the scriptures, the Jewish records, and the
primitive fathers, do represent the state preceding our Lord's
advent, and his advancement to the right hand of Majesty
in the heavens, as a state subject to angels, or in which God
dealt with them by the ministry of his angels; this of the
Jews hath partly been confirmed already, by showing, that
their law was “the word spoken by angels.” That they were
brought out of Egypt by the ministry of an angel, Moses
himself declares, in his message to the king of Edom,
“When we cried to the Lord, he heard our voice, and sent
an angel, and has brought us forth out of the land of Egypt,”
Numb. xx. 16. This angel, saith the Targum of Jonathan,
was “a ministering angel.” Nor is it to be thought the
king of Edom, who had no notion of the Logos, could un-
derstand him otherwise. And hence the note of Paulus
Fagius runs thus: Omnis Israelitici populi salus et ductio
per angelos administrata est, “The whole conduct and pre-
servation of the people of Israel was administered by an-
gels.” That they were led through the wilderness by an
angel, and that an angel drove out the inhabitants of the
words, let it be ob-
land of Canaan before them, we learn from these words of
God himself, “Behold, I send an angel before thee, to keep
thee in the way, and bring thee into the land I have pre-
pared for thee,” Exod. xxiii. 20.
Greek, hyoſºvá; cov, “as thy guide and captain.” And,
ver. 23, “My angel shall go before thee, and bring thee to
the Amorites and Hittites, &c. and I will cut them off.”
Now that here he speaks of “a ministering angel,” may be
argued from these words, “My name is in him,” that is, as
the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan well expound the
phrase, “His word is in my name ;” by him I do declare
my will and pleasure. So Maimon. in More Nevoch. par.
i. cap. 64, “Some think this angel was the eternal Son of
God; but this I am afraid to assert,” saith the Bishop of
Ely, “because it seems dangerous to me to call him simply
an angel, i. e. a minister or messenger, without any such
addition as that in Mal. iii. 3, The angel of the covenant;
for so he was at his incarnation, of which he there speaks,
before which I dare not ascribe to him such ministerial
works as these, of bringing the children of Israel out of
Egypt, and going before them to lead them in the way to
Canaan: this was properly the work of an angel, to whom
Moses ascribed it.” But though we thus understand it, this
excludes not the presence of God himself, but rather proves
it; for this angel was sent from the Shechinah, or majestic
presence of God which was in the cloud, and is therefore
styled “the angel of his presence,” Isa. lxiii. 9; because,
Saith the Targum, he was an angel sent mixip in, “from
before him,” or, “from before his face:” and thus it was
true, which the Lord said to Moses, “My presence shall go
with thee (Exod. xxxiii. 14) in the cloud, and my angel
shall go before thee” (Exod. xxiii. 23), as being sent from
“He shall go,” saith the
5 : For unto the angels hath he not put in subjec-
tion " the world to come, whereof we speak (but unto
before me, to conduct thee. And again, Exod. xxxiii. 2,
“I will send an angel before thee, and will drive out the
Canaanite, the Amorite, &c. for I will not go up in the
midst of thee, for thou art a stiffnecked people, lest I con-
sume thee in the way.” He therefore who was to be sent
could not be God himself, or the divine Logos equal to him,
for then he would have had the same reason to consume
them for their disobedience.
Accordingly we find Masius
on Josh. v. 13, confessing that the Jews generally thought
this was the angel Michael. And partly from them, and
partly from Daniel, who styles him “Michael their prince,”
x. 21 ; “And Michael the prince which standeth for the
children of thy people,” xii. 1, it seems to be, that many
Christian fathers” and ancient commentators have so ex-
pressly said, that “God over all placed over them the angel
Michael, as Daniel hath taught us; and God also promised
Moses, he would send an angel with his people.” And both
Theodoret and Jerome, in their comments on Dan. xi. 21,
say, that Michael, est archangelus cui creditus est populus
Judaeorum, “is that archangel to whom was committed the
care of the people of the Jews.” And the author of the
Recognitions, speaking of God’s dividing the nations to an-
gels, adds," that “the government of the Jews themselves,
and the disposal of their affairs, were by God committed to
an archangel.” Certain it is from the scripture, that the
law, which was the foundation of the Judaical church-state,
was given by the disposition of angels, Acts vii. 53. Gal. iii.
19 ; whence the apostle here styles it “the law spoken by
angels,” ver. 2. They being therefore so far interested in
the promulgation of the law, as that it was given to the
Jews by their ministry (though they did this in the name
and by the authority of God), the Mosaical church-state
was so far put in subjection to them.
Now if this supposition be admitted, and “the world to
come,” according to the Jewish import of that phrase, be
taken for the gospel state, then the apostle's argument runs
thus: You have greater reason to take heed to the things
taught by Christ under the gospel dispensation, than had the
Jews to take heed to the things taught by the Mosaical dis-
pensation: for “unto the angels God hath not subjected the
gospel-state,” but unto Christ; i. e. to him who is more
able to reward his obedient servants, and bring them into the
celestial Canaan, and more able to consume and punish
them, who do neglect the great salvation tendered in this
dispensation. e
As to the gentile world, the doctrine of the Jews, in rela-
tion to them, is evident from these words of the Septuagint,
“When the Almighty divided the nations, he set the borders
of them, kat' 3619,43, 3)) {\aſy Geoû, according to the number
of the angels of God,” Deut. xxxii. 8: “That is,” saith
R. Menachem, “he placed seventy angels over the seventy
nations.” For, saith 'the son of Sirach, #xácro, #Sysi karáq-
ºrmaev hyoſagyov, “In the division of the nations of the whole
earth, he set a ruler over every people,” Ecclus. xvii. 17.
Accordingly in Daniel we find mention of the prince of
Persia, and of Greece, i.e. of the angels which presided over
those places. Eusebius'ſ doth frequently inform us, that
“all the nations of the earth were formerly, by lot, divided to
many angels:” and this was the doctrine of Justin Martyr,S
* Kai yüp row MixañA airoſ; iréarnarev 3 rāv ŠAwy 988c, wał
roºro #23; 3 ºakápio; #3tºaše Aavºx, kal rô Đceyéxº 33 Moſcà
ūrāzzeto ovºvák, Jew row &yy:Aoy rà Xaş. Theod. in Gal. iii.
ºf Univerö, qui in archangelis erat maximus, sorte data
est dispositio eorum, qui prae caeteris omnibus excelsi Dei
cultum et Scientiam receperant. Recog. lib. ii. S. 42, p.
428. -
# Air㺠ºn Aoirév 3 orwrhº xal largă, råy #Awy xareſ rey etc
âySgºrov, Trávra rā ini yº, #6, m ro argé reggy Tragiogrw &yyáxoic
xexampopºva, Úré rºy oizziay inofláAAoy #ovoriaç. Euseb. De-
mon. Evang, lib. iv. cap. 10, p. 162, 1). 163, A.
§ ‘O ©E3; rév távra zárºoy ºrotharac, riv (, św rāv čvšpºrary,
Kai rāv two row oigavov ºrévotay 377 fºots, oil, éºri roſtoic rafts,
wapëokey. Just. Martyr, Apol. i. p. 44.
892
HEBREWS.
Christ, now crowned with honour and glory, ver, 9, to
whom all power both in heaven and earth is given).
6 * But one in a certain place (viz. David, Ps. viii.
4) testified, saying, Lord, what is man, that thou art
of Irenaeus,” Athenagoras,' and the two Clements.: So
that, in the judgment of the Jews, and of the primitive
fathers, all the whole heathen world were subject to the
government of angels.
And then the argument of the apostle is to this effect:
That now the world of believers, gathered from the heathens,
is put under Christ's immediate power, and subject not to
angels, but to him who will come in flaming fire to execute
vengeance upon all that obey not his gospel; and that there-
fore it concerns them to give more diligent heed to the
words spoken by him, and not to neglect that great Salva-
tion which he tenders.
7 Oizoupwévny rºy ºzéAAovaray, The world to cqme.] This I
conceive imports primarily the Christian state ; and in order
to the government of that, the whole world subjected to
Christ, from the time of his resurrection and ascension
(“when he sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on
high,” and had “all power in heaven and earth committed
to him :” for when God brought him, by his resurrection,
sic oikovºzévºy, “into the earth,” he said, “Let all the angels
of God worship him ;” i.e. let them all bow, and be subject
to his authority, i. 6), to the time when he shall abolish
death, the last enemy of his subjects, and put the crown
upon their heads, and condemn all his enemies to endless
punishments, and so give up his mediatory kingdom to the
Father (1 Cor. xv. 28). And this I gather from the follow-
ing proof of this subjection of the world to Christ, taken
from Ps. viii.; for the apostle plainly doth insinuate, that it
is begun already, in that Jesus is already “crowned with
glory and honour,” ver, 9, and he as plainly testifies, that it
must continue till the day of judgment, and only will be
then completed, by saying that “he must reign till all his
enemies be put under his feet,” 1 Cor. xv. 25; and proving
this, from those words of the psalmist, “For he hath put all
things under his feet,” ver. 27. So then the argument runs
thus: How shall they escape, who neglect that great salva-
tion, tendered by him who hath all the world, and all things
in it, so subject to him, as to continue so, till he hath put
all his enemies under his feet.
It may be also noted, that when this world to come doth
respect only the Christian state, from the resurrection of
Christ to the final judgment, then it is styled Ran Bºy
the age to come ; which is the frequent import of the
world to come, in the Jewish writers; and in this sense is
Christ styled, & Traºrºg (cãºxovro; ałóvoc, “the Father of the
world to come,” Isa. ix. 6; and the gifts vouchsafed to be-
lievers, and exercised by them in the first ages of the
church, are styled, in this epistle, 8vvápast; ºftAxorro; aiāvoc,
“the powers of the world to come :” but when it also doth
include that earth in which they dwell, and in which they
are to continue to the day of judgment, then is it styled
oixovºwn ºxxovza, “the world to come,” after the other
four kingdoms, which are styled oizovº.{vn, “the earth,” and
are said, to “ have dominion over all the earth.” Thus, of
the kingdom of Assyria and Babylon, Daniel Saith to Ne-
buchadnezzar that “God had made him lord of all things,”
and settled his kingdom “wherever the sons of men dwell,”
Dan. ii. 37, 38. And this kingdom is, by Isaiah, often
styled oizoukºvn, and the fall of it is represented as “the de-
solation of the whole earth.” Thus, in his vision against
* Et quandó divisit Altissimus gentes, statuit terminos gen-
tium secundum numerum angelorum Dei; populum autem
qui credit Deo, jam non esse sub angelorum potestate, sed
sub Domini. Iren, lib. iii. cap. 12, p. 266. Wid. Feuar-
dentium in locum. -
+ ‘Hyèg táv &yyáxoy a darzai, rö Osó firi Trgovoiz yśyove roſ;
in" airoi; 8taxexocºmºzévoic. Athenag. Legat. p. 27, C.
3: Eial yèg ovv8tayevna Évoi trgo-ráže Băiº te xał &exaig
* w 3. 2 ºr * r---! e * Af
ãyyºxoi war& #8wn, &AN # twegic Kugiov # 86%a tria revévrov.
Clem. Al. Strom. vii. p. 702, C, D. Est enim uniuscujus-
que gentis angelus, cui credita gentis ipsius dispensatio à
Deo. Clem. R. Recog. lib. ii. §. 42. -
(so) mindful of him * or the son of man, that thou
(so) visitest him :
7 Thou madest him (but) a little lower than the
angels; “thou crownedst him with glory and honour,
Babylon, he saith, “The Lord cometh, karaºp9=fºal ºrãoray
rºy oizoup.ávny, to lay waste the whole earth,” ver. 6; “Be-
hold, the day of the Lord comes cruel, and with fierce anger,
Seiya tºy cikovºvny pnºwow, to lay the land (of Babylon) deso-
late,” xiii. 9; and, ver, 11, Évrexodºxal tº oikovºvn 6×n xaxx,
“I will pronounce evil to the whole earth” (see also xiv.
26); Cyrus the king of Persia speaks thus: “The Lord
hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth,” Ezra i. 2;
and he is styled, rā; oizoup, #yn; ; Kūčios, “The Lord of the
earth,” Esd. ii. 3. And Artaxerxes, in his epistle for the
destruction of the Jews, writes thus ; “Being lord over
many nations, wai Tržan; Émixgathaa, oixovačvnç, and having
dominion over all the world,” &c. Esth. xiii. 2. 4.
As for the third, that is, the Grecian monarchy, the pro-
phet Daniel saith expressly of it, “It shall bear rule over all
the earth,” Dan. ii. 39. Accordingly, Alexander is cele-
brated, in all historians and poets which speak of him, as the
conqueror of the world ; when he came to Babylon, ambas-
sadors were sent to him, #3 &trác M, axe??v rā; oixovačvn,
“from almost the whole world,” saith Diodorus Siculus, Hist.
lib. xvii. p. 579, and when he died, this inscription was writ
upon his tomb, yāy in Épºoi réºstgat, “I have put the earth
under me.” And, lastly, as for the Roman monarchy, as it
was styled by the poets, rap, 6azińsia, “the universal king-
dom;” and by the historians, orbis terrarum, “the world ;”
so is it in the scripture represented as the government, Trázn;
ºrſ: oikovºvnº, “ of the whole earth,” Luke ii. l ; for, Saith
Dionysius Halicarnasseus,” # 'Papakºv rámi: átárn; wiv čexst
+5; yº, on tº &véagará; irriv, 3xx' in 3,624 mov xaroixàºral,
“Rome presides over the whole habitable earth.”. Now this
kingdom of Christ being prophesied of by Daniel, as that
which was to be set up “after these kingdoms” which bore
that name, and to break in pieces all other kingdoms, is
therefore styled hoinovºwn ºxova, “the kingdom of the
world to come:” and if (as we may probably conjecture from
“the angel of the prince of Persia,” and “the angel of the
prince of Greece,” Dan. x. 13, 20) angels were by God ap-
pointed to preside over those monarchies, then hence ariseth
another reason why the apostle might say, “Unto the angels
hath he not subjected the world to come, of which we
speak.”
8 Ver. 6, &c.] Here note, first, that though these words
of the psalmist may be allowed, in their first and obvious
sense, to relate to the first Adam, created after God in his
similitude and likeness, with respect to his dominion ; yet
doth not this hinder that they be expounded in the mystical
sense, of Christ the second Adam ; for the Jews acknowledge
that the first Adam was a type of the second Adam, that is,
of Christ, who is by them styled, nºnxn DTRn, “the last,”
or “second Adam.” Moreover, “the mystery of Adam is,
say they, “the mystery of the Messiah;” and the man created
the sixth day signifies the Messiah. For thus they speak; †
“Our redemption is signified by the six days of the creation,
especially by the sixth, in which man was created;” by whom
we are not to understand the nations of the world, but
Nin bin Tip nºwn TD, “the mystery of man is the mystery
of the Messiah ;” as it is said, Dan. vii. 13, “He came like
to the Son of man.” And this lays a foundation for the in-
ference of the apostle, that what was spoken of man in general,
and more particularly related to the first Adam, was only
punctually fulfilled in the second Adam taking the nature of
man on him : for, saith he, we see it not in any measure ful-
filled in any other man ; but as for Christ, we do already see
it actually fulfilled, as to the first cause of it, he being now
“crowned with glory and honour;” and so, as all things are
already subject to his feet, as far as the present necessities of
the church require (Eph. i. 22), so will they completely and
actually be so, when “death, the last enemy, shall be de-
stroyed” (1 Cor. xv. 25—27). -
* Ver. 7. Kai zaréarnaag abrèv štri rā Āeye, röy XEpºv gov.]
* Wid. Lipsium de Magn. Rom. lib. i. cap. 3.
+ Tzeron. Hanimor. sect. Bereschith.
CHAPTER II,
893
and didst set him over the works of thine hands
(Ps. viii.).
8 Thou hast put all things (and so the world to
come) in subjection under his feet. For in (saying)
that he (hath) put all (things) in subjection under
him, (it is manifest that) he left nothing (besides him-
self, 1 Cor. xv. 27) that is not put under him. But
now (as for Adam and his posterity, of whom these
things were primarily spoken) we see not yet all things
put under him : -
9 But we see Jesus (the second Adam), who was
made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering
of death, that he by the grace of God might taste
death for every man, (already "crowned with glory
and honour (and therefore know that all things are,
and shall be subjected to him. -
10 To this Jesus, I say, who by the grace of God
tasted * death for every man :) for it became him for
whom are (were) all things, and by whom are (were)
all things (ordered), in (his design of) bringing many
sons to glory, to (effect this, by) make (ing) the Captain
of their salvation *perfect through sufferings (re-
Asúgat, to consecrate him to that work, by suffer-
ings). -
These words are wanting in CEcumenius, Theophylact, and
some MSS., but they are in Chrysostom, Theodoret, and all
the ancient versions.
* Ver. 9. Aážn kai tº a reqayop, #voy, Crowned with
glory and honour.] That these words are, in construction, to
follow the ensuing words, that “he by the grace of God might
taste death for every man,” see note on vii. 20; but the
apostle puts these words last, as being to discourse of our
Lord's sufferings for us. -
* Ver. 10. He, xágirl Geof, by the grace of God tasted
death.] Origen,* in his commentary upon the Gospel of St.
John, twice saith, that some copies read xopic Geoff, “without
God;” so read the Syriac, and Ambrose, lib. ii. de Fide ad
Gratian, cap. 4, and Vigilius Tapsensis, lib. ii. p. 17, 20.
And this reading either confutes the Patropassians, or con-
firms the doctrine of Irenaeus, that Christ suffered havyāºoyºto;
rot Aéyov, “the divine nature being quiescent,” and not ex-
erting its energy to strengthen him against, or deliver him
from, these sufferings; it making its impressions upon the
human nature, saith Grotius, not always, but pro temporum
ratione. Note also, that to “taste death” is a Jewish phrase,
signifying to die, as when they say “The first Adam was
worthy not to taste of death.”
"Ergers Yap.] Conveniens hoc fuit Dei sapientiae, saith
Grotius: He thought fit to do this, saith Dr. Hammond;
first, because thus the same nature suffered which had sin-
ned, and therefore purged us from the guilt we in that nature
had contracted, and so dissolved that death to which we be-
came subject by the sin of Adam. This is the reason of
Christ's sufferings, which all the primitive fathers do suggest,
and on which they especially insist, assigning this reason of
our Lord's death, Íva rö Gynry hºày kağaçtaff, “that our ob-
noxiousness to death might be expiated:” so Ignatius." He
died, saith Justin Martyr, f for mankind, 3 &rd roi; 'A33,
iTö 84warov, Kai Tračvºy rāy roi; 3980; $757rtózsi, “which, from
Adam, became subject to death, and the deceit of the ser-
pent.” Irenaeus saith,; that “as mankind, by, man over-
come, was obnoxious to death, sic enim per hominem victo-
rem ascendamus in vitam, so by a man conquering death we
may rise to life:” and as death prevailed against us by man, sic
iterüm nos adversis mortem per hominem accipiamus pal-
mam, “so we may prevail against it by man ;” that as in the
animal Adam we all died, so in the spiritual we might all be
made alive. And Athanasius, in his Oration of the Incarna-
tion, is very copious on this subject ; declaring, that Christ
“took our nature on him, ºráxty tº póaerºv et; 349apaia,
ëveykºv, to reduce again our corruptible to incorruption :”
that our Lord seeing mankind lost by death exercising the
dominion of corruption over them, and seeing the punish-
ment threatened to our transgression, 8taxéarcücay rºw xaš'
hºw&v p006&y," “prevailing over us to corruption; and seeing
the whole race of men subject to death, he, in compassion to
them,” wał rày Savárov xgårnaiy otz śvāyzac, and not enduring
this dominion of death, that what he created might not
perish, took a body to himself, not alien from ours; and be-
cause we were all subject to corruption, Fi &vri Trávrov airó
* P. 38, 360. + Apud Theod. Dial. 1.
† Just. Mart. Dial. cum Tryph. p. 316, A.
§ Iren, lib. v. cap. 21, 23. lib. iii. cap. 20, 31, et passim.
| Athan. Orat. Incarn. p. 60, O65v eixárol; Éxaſ's arāp.a.
(vºtöv, “a kai & 64vato; iv airó Aotºrov #a parta Silva èvynóñ, kai
vi xar' sixáva tráxty &raxatvia.0%aw &v860,701, p. 66, C.
T Ibid. C. ** Ibid. D. ++ P. 61, A.
Savároſ Trapabºobs, delivering it to the death for us all, he
offered it to the Father, that, as it were, all men dying in
him, the law of the corruption of mankind might be dissolved,
and he might translate them again to incorruption : and
this,” saith he, * “is the first cause of his incarnation.”
Hence many of them say,+ that “the handwriting which
was blotted out by the death of Christ, was the threat made
to Adam, In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt
die.” Here then is one reason why the death or “blood of
bulls or goats could not take away sin;” viz. they did not
partake of the same nature that had sinned, and therefore
could not in that nature dissolve the debt we had contracted,
and so translate us to incorruption. Secondly, it became
him thus to suffer, because these sufferings fitted him to be a
merciful high-priest to them that suffer as he did, and also to
be a faithful high-priest, “to make atonement for our sins”
(ver. 17). Observe here, that the apostle does not say,
Christ's sufferings were absolutely necessary to satisfy divine
justice; that infinite mercy could not pardon sin, without a
Satisfaction made to justice ; and that infinite wisdom could
contrive no other way for the atonement of our sins : but,
that divine wisdom saw it fit that Christ should suffer for the
ends forementioned. And why then may not others be per-
mitted to think and speak with the apostle, without adding
that which the apostle, in all this long and excellent dis-
course, concerning the ends, the reason, and necessity of our
Saviour's sufferings, thought not once fit to mention ?
* Texeiða at 3:3. Traffnºw&roy, To sanctify, to consecrate, and
dedicate him to that work, by his sufferings.] That this is the
true import of these words will appear, first, from the like
words used by this apostle, v. 8–10, “Though he were a
son, yet learned he obedience by the things that he suffered;
and being made perfect (rºxetw8sic), (i.e. being consecrated
to his priestly office,) he became the author of eternal salva-
tion to all that obey him, being called of him a high-priest
after the order of Melchisedec.” And again, vii. 27, 28,
“The law maketh them high-priests which have infirmity ;
but the word of the oath, which is after the law, maketh the
Son so, Big Tày atava terexstok, Évoy, who is consecrated a high-
priest for evermore.” Secondly, from the collation made
betwixt the call of Aaron to his priesthood, and of Christ to
his : fºr as Aaron took not this honour to himself, but was
“called of God” to it ; so Christ “glorified not himself to be
a high-priest,” but was constituted so by him who said,
“Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.”
Now the consecration of Aaron and the legal priests is con-
tinually expressed by this word ; for what is in the Hebrew,
“Thou shalt fill the hands of Aaron and his sons,” and is by
us translated, “Thou shalt consecrate them,” is by the Sep-
tuagint thus rendered, reast&ast; 'Aagºy rā; xeſ;a; aircii
&ytázat attoºs. So Numb. iii. 3, #t=Asíocay Tâ; XEſpaç attày
isgareſsiv, “They consecrated them to the priesthood.” Ac-
cordingly, the priest consecrated is, in the Greek, 6 reté-
Xstop, #voº, Lev. xxi. 10; the day of his consecration is #&#ea
rā; rexeida soc, Lev. viii. 33; the sacrifice then offered for sin
is 6varia rs3\etºa soc' the burnt-offering, 320x2%top, a Texeida sojº,
ver. 28 ; the ram offered is x813; textido-soº, ver, 22 ; the
flesh of consecration, r3 xpéa; rig Texeiða-Boº, Exod. xxix. 34.
Dy these sufferings he became “a high-priest for ever, after
the order of Melchisedec,” and “the author of salvation to
all that obey him :” because appearing with this sacrifice
before God in heaven for ever, “ne is able to save for ever
them that come unto God by him.” -
* P. 68, B. + Chrys. CEcum. Theod, in Col. iii. 14.
894,
HEBREWS.
11 For *both he (our priest) who sanctifieth (i. e.
by his oblation purgeth us from sin) and they who are
sanctified (or purged from it) are all of one (original
and nature) : for which cause he is not ashamed to
call them brethren,
12 Saying, * (Ps. xxii. 22) I will declare thy name
unto (among) my brethren, in the midst of the church
(or congregation) will I sing praise to thee.
13 And again, (Isa. viii. 17) *I will put my trust
in him. And again, (ver. 18) Behold I and the
children which God hath given me.
14 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of
flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of
the same; that through (the) death (they had deserved,
and he suffered in their stead) he might destroy (evacu-
ate and frustrate) him *who had the power of death,
that is, the devil; *
15 And (might) deliver them (from the sting of it),
who " through fear of (the) death (threatened to the
posterity of Adam, without any promise of a resurrec-
tion) were all their lifetime subject unto bondage.
16 For verily he “took not on him the nature of
* Ver. 11. "O &yiáčov, He that sanctifies, &c.] I have
shown, note on ix. 13, that the word &yiášeiv, in this epistle,
is used in the sacrificial sense, or with relation to the expia-
tion of sin: in the Old Testament, when it respecteth Sacri-
fices, it sometimes signifies to devote, consecrate, and offer
them to God. So Lev. xxii. 3, “The holy things which the
children of Israel hallow to the Lord,” &c. &y &yiázoo’iy,
“which they shall offer to the Lord :” for, Numb. xviii. 9,
these holy things are thus enumerated ; “Every heave-offer-
ing (ver. 8), every meat-offering, every sin-offering, every
trespass-offering ;” Deut. xv. 19, “All the firstlings of thy
flock, thou shalt sanctify to the Lord thy God,” #ytáasic rà
Kupið. For if they were clean, they were to be offered to
God, and their blood was to be sprinkled on the altar, and
their fat burnt for an offering made by fire (Numb. xviii. 19):
but if they were unclean, où Sãasic airé ré, Kupið, “Thou
shalt not sacrifice them to the Lord,” saith the text, Deut.
xv. 21, and l Chron. xxiii. 13. Aaron was separated, “that
he might sanctify the most holy things,” roi; &ytaashvat, i. e.
that he might offer them in sacrifice, “and to burn incense,”
for he was separated to execute the priesthood (Exod. xxviii.
1); and that was to be performed by offering gifts and sacri-
fices for sin (Heb. v. 1); and in this sense our Saviour saith,
trip airāv &yiášo #xavrov, Wa &rty hytarpºšvo, #y &\nSeig. “For
their sakes I sanctify myself,” i. e. I offer myself a piacular
victim, that they may be sanctified in the truth (John xvii.
19); i. e. that they may be consecrated to their office, or
set apart for my service : for as Aaron and his sons were hal-
lowed, and set apart for God’s service by a sacrifice, to ex-
piate them from their sins ; and this was done, &yuáðsly
abrovº &re isgareiſely, “to sanctify them to the priesthood”
(Exod. xxix. 1. 14. 21), as well as by the holy anointing
(Exod. xxx. 30, 31. xl. 10): so Christ's apostles were sanc-
tified, and set apart to their office, not only by the unction
of the Holy Ghost, but also by that piacular victim Christ
offered for their sins: and accordingly, in these words, “he
that sanctifies” is Christ that offers himself, that he might
Sanctify, &yiášew, i. e. purge them from their sins by his own
blood (Heb. xiii. 12); and “they that are sanctified,” are
they that by this blood are purged from their sins, and so are
fitted to draw nigh to God, and made “a royal priesthood to
show forth his praises, and offer up spiritual sacrifices accept-
able to God, through Jesus Christ.” -
Secondly, The word doth also signify, to purge, purify,
and make clean, by sacrifice, both in the scripture and pro-
fane authors. Thus of the altar it is said, “He shall sprin-
kle the blood upon it with his fingers seven times, and he
shall cleanse it, and hallow it, zašapist abrè wai &ytča's aird,
from the uncleanness of the children of Israel,” Lev. xvi. 19.
So Exod. xxix. 33, “And they shall eat those things ºn ºwn
tria, iv of hytāa śnzay iv attoſ, by which,” or “for whom, the
atonement was made, to consecrate, wał &ylázat airoic, and
to Sanctify them ;” and, ver. 36, “Thou shalt cleanse the
altar, Yºy Thºn, Év tº &yiášstv as #7P airó, when thou hast
made an atonement for it.” In profane authors, to purge
by sacrifices, from guilt or uncleanness, is sometimes &yiáćew,
sometimes &yvićely; and the sacrifices that did this are styled,
&yºta'rix&, “sacrifices of purgation.” According to this sense
9f the word, “he that sanctifieth,” is he that purgeth; and
“they that are sanctified” are they who are purged from the
guilt of sin.
* Ver. 12.] Ps. xxii. 22. This psalm being interpreted
by the Jews themselves, concerning the Messiah, the apos-
tle might well apply this passage of it to him.
* Ver. 13. I will put my trust in him ; and again, I and
the children which God hath given me.] These two citations
being from the same place, Isa. viii. 17, make but one proof,
that “he who sanctifies, and they who were sanctified,” have
the same nature; showing, that he who said, “I will put
my trust in him,” called them whom God had given him,
his “children,” or “offspring,” and so declared them to be
of the same nature or original with him. Now that these
words were anciently adapted to Christ, we learn from the
words of Simeon, who applies the words following to him,
Luke ii. 4, and from the Jews, who expound the words,
“He shall be a stumbling-stone, and a rock of offence,”
of our Saviour, Pug. Fid. par. ii. cap. 5, §. 2; to whom
they are applied by Paul, Rom. ix. 33, and by Peter, 1
Pet. ii. 7. Dr. Owen here contends, that the words #y&
ão-opsai remotóð; #y airó, are not taken from Isa. viii. 17, where
they are almost expressly found, but from Ps. xviii. 3,
in Piprix, Arió, in airby, where they are not found; because,
saith he, were both these citations taken from the same place,
the apostle would not have said, xai Tráxiv, “ and again,”
this being an evidence that he cites another place. To
which the answer is, that he doth so, citing the first words
from ver. 17, and the second from ver. 18.
1° Wer. 14. Karapyhan rô agáro; #x2yra rod flavátov, That
had the power of death.] That by seducing Adam to eat of
the forbidden fruit, the devil, whom the Jews called Sam-
mael, had power to accuse men, and to demand that they
might die according to the threat pronounced against them,
is the constant opinion of the Jews. “Our wise men say,”
it is a tradition, that Satan, the adversary, the angel of death,
descendeth and seduceth, ascendeth and accuseth, receives
power, and takes away the soul or life.” Hence they say of
him, that “he causeth death to the whole world.”
Karagysty ray 8,480xov, is to frustrate and bring to nought
his design of subjecting all men to the power of death, and
keeping them under the dominion of it, and render it of no
effect (Rom. iii. 3, 21. iv. 14. 1 Cor. i. 28. ii. 6. vi. 13. xiii.
8. 10, 11. xv. 24. 26. 2 Cor. iii. 7. 11. 13, 14. Gal. iii. 17. v.
11.2 Thess. ii. 8). And thus Christ is said, karaºysīy Sava-
rèy, “to abolish death,” 2 Tim. i. 10. That therefore we
are still subject to death, is, say the fathers, not that we are
now punished with it; but out of mercy, that sin might not
be immortal in us, the time of our resurrection being that
in which death shall be totally abolished (1 Cor. xv. 26).
17 Wer. 15. 6632 Savátov, Through fear of death..] That
the whole heathen world was subject to this fear, and that it
was the king of terrors to them, see note on Rom. viii. 2.
From this fear we are delivered at present, by our deliver-
ance from that guilt of sin, which alone makes it truly ter-
rible (1 Cor. xv. 55, 56), and by the promise of a glorious
resurrection, when “death shall be swallowed up in victory”
(ver. 54).
* Wer. 16. Our #wixaa/24veral.] This word, say the glos-
saries, signifies, manum injicere, “to lay hold upon,” manā
prehendere, “to hold with the hand ;” so Ecclus. iv. 1 1,
“Wisdom, śarīxapagáveral, layeth hold of them that seek
her;” Susan. ver. 36. 40, “The man we could not hold,
being too strong for us; raiºrn; 33 #71×akºſławózewo, but lay-
ing hold of her, we asked her,” &c. And so, in the Sep-
tuagint, it signifies almost continually ; #7, Ná8ov, “Take
hold of his tail,” Exod, iv. 4 (see Kircher, in the words,
ins, pin, wºn). But then, that he thus laid hold of fallen
man, and of the seed of Abraham, by taking of the human
nature from one derived from the stock of Abraham, that in
that nature he might suffer death for the propitiation of those
* Maim. Duct lib. iii. cap. 22, p. 398.
+ Buxt. in voce Sammael.
CHAPTER III.
895
' (oí, triXapſ3áveral, he laid not hold of, he helped not the
fallen) angels; but he took on him (Gr. he laid hold
of) "the seed of Abraham.
17 Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be
made like to (these) his brethren, that he might be a
merciful (high-priest to them, whder all their sufferings,)
and (a) faithful high-priest (ewactly performing his
priestly office) in things pertaining to God, (so as) to
make reconciliation * for the sins of the people.
18 For in that he himself hath (actually) suffered
* being tempted, he is (become) *able (and willing) to
succour them who (at any time) are tempted (i. e. ea-
posed to sufferings).
sins which rendered them so obnoxious to death, is extremely
evident, both from the words preceding, and from the words
following: for, ver. 14, we read thus, “Because therefore the
children were partakers of flesh and blood, he also did par-
take of the same flesh and blood, or mortal nature, that
through (his) death he might destroy him that had the power
of death, for (saith he) he took hold of the seed of Abra-
ham,” i.e. by partaking of the same nature with them (ver.
14). And again, he took hold on the seed of Abraham, to
rescue them from that death they feared, by his own death
(ver. 17), 89ey & psixt, “wherefore he ought in all things (be-
16nging to their nature) to be made like to his brethren,”
that, as their high-priest, he might make an atonement for
the sins of the people, by his sacrifice made on the cross; iv
& y&e Trétroysey, “for in that he suffered,” &c. (ver. 18).
* The seed of Abraham.] The note of the best commen-
tators here is this, that the apostle, writing to the Jews,
thought it sufficient to mention only the mercies designed
by the Messiah for the Jews. And true it is, that they con-
fined the seed of Abraham to themselves; but the apostle
reckons all believers as the seed of Abraham, Rom. iv. 12.
16, 17. Gal. iii. 14. 29, though Christ is here said to have
taken upon him the seed of Abraham, because he derived his
flesh from his posterity.
* Ver. 17. Ei, rà ixáozga Sai rā; &#x26tiac roi, Aaoû, To
make atonement for the sins of the people..] i. e. ixárksa Sai
röy Qey aregi &ºagriðy, “to make atonement to God for their
sins.” So in Porphyry,” &coastaircrew ràc rāv troXXày &ºap-
riac, “to propitiate for the sins of many,” is, in the same
place &mopºeixia asiv rô Qeiðy, “to propitiate the Deity” for
them. This sense the words require : for Christ is here
said to “be a faithful high-priest, rā ºrpäç rºy Gedv sic ro
ináaksa flat, in things pertaining to God, that he might make
atonement,” surely, to him. This reconciliation, therefore,
must respect God. Again, this phrase, when it respects the
Jewish sacrifices, hath still relation to the guilt of sin to be
expiated and taken away by them; and every sin-offering of-
fered by the priest, is said to be offered by him, ixázkea-6al
orset &p, apria; aſſråy, “to make atonement for their sins”
(Lev. iv. 35. v. 6. 10. xiii. 44. Ezek. xliv. 27). And of the
piacular victim it is still said, zai śćixéa stat treet airów 3 isgºwº,
* De Abstinentia, &c. lib. iv. $.5, p. 148.
wai ép;3%agtai advoř; # 4xagtia, “The priest shall make atone-
ment for them, and the sin shall be forgiven” (Lev. iv. 20.
31. v. 6. 10. 13. 18. xii. 7, 8. xiv. 18, 19. 29. 31. xv. 30.
xix. 22. Numb. vi. 11, 15. 28). The apostle, therefore,
here speaking to the Jews, in the phrase always used by
them, of such sacrifices as suffered in their stead, to ex-
piate the guilt of their sin, must be supposed to teach
them that the like was done for them by our Saviour's
sacrifice.
* Ver. 18. IIaigao Sek, Being tempted:] i. e. Exposed to
agonies and sufferings; for releas Sāyat, in the epistles, signi-
fies to be exposed to such afflictions, as subject us to great
temptations to desist from our duty and obedience; as when
the apostle saith, “No temptation hath befallen you, but
what is 3,62&trivo:, supportable by man; for the Lord is faith-
ful, who will not suffer you, ºrsigao Säval, to be tempted above
what you are able (or, exposed to sufferings beyond your
strength), but will, with the temptation, make a way (so far)
to escape, that you may be able to bear it” (1 Cor. x. 13).
So the apostle, finding his Thessalonians, #y raï, Sxis!eat,
in great afflictions from their persecutors, sends to know
their faith, ºfttro; #weigaa’ev tºº; 5 weigáðoy, “lest the tempter
might have prevailed on them,” by reason of these tribula-
tions, to desert it (1 Thess. iii. 5); Rev. ii. 10, “Fear none
of those things which thou shalt suffer: Behold, Satan shall
cast some of you into prison, iva Treigaa.0%rs, that you may
be tempted,” i.e. be tried by temptations (see James i. 2. 12.
1 Pet. i. 6. 2 Pet. ii. 9. Rev. iii. 10). So here, our Saviour,
tried by these agonies, which he suffered in the hour of dark-
ness, when the tempter fell upon him with all his fury, is be-
come experimentally able to succour us under those sufferings
which render obedience so hard to flesh and blood.
** Atwatai, He is able.] He hath 33rapety avºrabnºrix}y, a
power joined with a sympathy towards us, and a propen-
sity to succour us. So Rom. xi. 23, “They shall be graffed
in, 8vvarèc yáz Écriv 5 Os36, for God is able:” and, xiv. 4,
“The weak shall stand, 8vvarā; yā6, for God is able to make
him stand.” Thus to encourage us to charity, the apostle
Saith, 8vvarā; ; Osłº, “God is able to make all grace abound
towards us” (2 Cor. ix. 8); “I know whom I have believed,
and I am persuaded or 8vyaté, éart, that he is able to keep
that which I have committed to him to that day” (2 Tim.
i. 12).
CHAPTER III.
1 WHEREFORE, holy brethren, partakers of the hea-
venly calling (i. e. the calling to celestial blessings),
consider the apostle and high-priest of our profession,
Christ Jesus (who, as our apostle, taught these things;
and, as our high-priest, suffered, to obtain these bless-
ings for us, and confirm them to us);
2 * Who was faithful to “ him that appointed him
(to be an apostle and high-priest), as also (it is said of)
*-
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III.
* Wer. 2. IIlary fivta, Who was faithful, &c.] i. e. As
Moses faithfully discharged all that the Lord commanded
him to say or do for the church of Israel ; so Christ was
faithful in the discharge of his prophetic office, doing and
speaking as the Father had given commandment, John xii.
49, 50. xiv. 10, and in his priestly office, in laying down his
life for the sheep, according to the commandment he had
received from the Father, John x. 18, and doing all things
requisite to make atonement for the sins of the people, ii. 17.
I know, indeed, the critics say, Inn) and triarð; signify one
Moses (that he) was faithful in all his house (i. e. in
all the house of God, Numb. xii. 7).
3 For this man (this Jesus) was counted worthy of
(or, dignified with) more glory than Moses, inasmuch
as he * who hath builded (Gr. 6 karaokavágag, who
orders, or governs) the house hath more honour than
the house (of which Moses only was a part).
4 For every house is builded (karaoksváčeral, or-
established in his office ; as in those words, ºria Tó; 2aºzov*A
si; ºrpoºrny rā Kugio, “Samuel was established a prophet to
the Lord :” but this criticism is here needless ; and the
word tria-rác, ii. 17, bearing not this sense, I choose rather to
follow the ordinary import of the word.
* Tº trotheravr, airby, To him that appointed him.] So the
word signifies, 1 Sam. xii. 6, “God is witness, à Troikaag, who
appointed,” or chose Moses and Aaron (see wer. 8). -
* Ver, 3. ‘o karaoksváraçl Is he that orders, and governs,
and provides, or prepares all things. So Phavorinus, Kara-
a kevä32, Kareptional, #aptádizai, ordino, guberno, moderor.
And thus, rāy Troxlºrslay zai Tráxeſ; zarzakºvac ºval, in Plato,
896
HEBREWS.
dered.And governed) by some man; but “he that built (§
karaoksvágac, that orders and governs) all things is God.
5 And Moses verily was faithful in (the administra-
tion of) all (things wh) his house, (but this he was only)
* as a servant, for a testimony of those things which
were to be spoken after (by God to them);
6 But Christ as a son (is placed) over his own
house (i.e. he enters upon the government of it, as an
heir and successor to the rights of his Father; the
Father now judging no man, but having committed all
judgment to his Son, John v. 22); whose house we
(Christians) are (and shall continue to be), if we hold
fast the "confidence and 7 the rejoicing of the hope
firm to the end. |
7 Wherefore, as the "Holy Ghost saith (by David,
Ps. xcv. 8), "To-day if you will hear his voice,
8 Harden not your hearts, as (your forefathers did)
in the (time of) provocation, in the day of temptation
in the wilderness: (hence learn, that it was in their
power to prevent the hardness of their hearts :)
9 * When (where) your fathers * tempted me (i. e.
doubted of my presence with them, saying, Is the Lord
among us, or not * Exod. xvii. 7. Numb. xiv. 11. 21),
* proved me, and saw my works “forty years.
epist. 11, is to “ have cities and polities well ordered.” So
Wisd. ix. 2, “Thou in thy wisdom, karacksvárag ävègorov,
hast ordered man to have dominion over thy creatures.”
Thus Philo, de Cherub. p. 100, saith, “God is the cause of
the world, & ot; yíyowev, by which it was made, and the Affyo;
3i'où rarsakevärsn, Logos, the cause by which it was ordered,”
or put into that frame and order in which it is. The words
preceding, #iorat, “he was dignified with more honour,”
seem plainly to refer to Christ's regal office, by which all
power in heaven and earth was given to him, and he was
made “head over things for his church,” which is his body,
and in which he dwells, as in his house (Eph. ii. 21, 22).
And this to me seems to establish this sense of the word.
* Wer. 4. ‘O 3è karazzaváaraç rà, Trøyra & G).5%, . He that
built all things is God..] The apostle, say the Socinians on
the place, proves Christum tantô praestantiorem esse Mose,
quantò Deus priestantiorest suo populo, qui Dei domus est;
idque merità ; “that Christ is as much more excellent than
Moses, as God is raore excellent than his own people ; and
this he had just cause to say.” And if so, Christ must be
properly and truly God; for nothing else can so far excel
Moses, the chiefest of that people, as God himself excels
them. By this interpretation therefore they do not avoid,
but confirm the argument for our Saviour's Deity, from this
text. The argument seems plainly to run thus, He that
governs all things is God; but Christ, as pater-familias,
father of his family, governs all things in his house, that is,
the church dispersed throughout all the world ; and hath, in
order thereunto, all judgment, and all power in heaven and
earth, committed to him : he therefore must be God; that
is, the exercise of his kingly office shows, that he must be
God as well as man. Thus Philo (de Victim. Offer. p. 661,
C), often saith of that power, kaš' #y &vāºrrai rāv ŠAoy rô
xgårog, “to which the government of all things is committed,”
that obn āvšedítroy ºvov, &AA& xai Sexy at Osos, ºftya; tā Śarly,
Byro: kai taxupèc, zai wearaíðr, “he is a God not only of men,
but angels, a great being, who truly doth exist, both strong
and mighty.”
* Ver. 5. ‘o: Sepátrov, As a servant.] The government
of Israel was a theocracy, where God gave all the laws and
precepts; and Moses, only as his servant and minister, told
them what things God thought fit to command them : but
the government of the Christian church is entirely committed
to our Lord Jesus, and he, as Supreme head, and Lord of
all things, governs both it, and all things in earth and hea-
ven for the good of it ; and therefore, if he be not truly God,
God doth not now govern the world as formerly, but hath
given up the administration of it to a creature.
Whose house we are ;] Christ living in our hearts by faith,
Gal. ii. 20. Eph. iii. 17 ; abiding in us by his Spirit, John
xiv. 23. Rom. viii. 9—ll ; and dwelling in our bodies, and
in the body of the church, as in his temple, 1 Cor iii. 16, 17.
vi. 17. 2 Cor. vi. 15, 16. Eph. ii. 20–22. iv. lé.
* Ver. 6. IIaşna‘iay, The confidence.] Or, the free profes-
sion of the faith : for raśānaia is a liberty of freedom of
speaking ; as when it is said of Christ, that he spake, #y Traft-
#noria, “freely,” Mark viii. 32. John vii. 13. 18. 20, and of
his apostles, that they spake, ºxera traśāngiac, “with all free-
dom and courage,” Acts ii. 29. iv. 13. 29. 31. xxviii. 31.
2 Cor. iii. 12. vii. 14. Eph. vi. 19. Phil. i. 20. 1 Tim. iii. 13.
Heb. iv. 6. So Phavorinus, traśāna-tášopwai, AEUSegoatokº.
7. Kaúzmaa rā; Éxtrêo:, The rejoicing of hope.] i. e. The
hope which causes us to rejoice, in expectation of the glory
of God, Rom. v. 2. 2 Cor. i. 14. Gal. vi. 4, “If we hold
this firm unto the end ;” which supposes that they who
were partakers of this heavenly calling, and had at present
this cause of rejoicing, might not “hold it firm unto the
end,” but might fall off from it, ver, 14, might “depart from
the living God,” ver, 11. iv. 11. Yea, the apostle, in this
epistle, plainly doth suppose, that they who had “tasted of
the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy
Ghost, &c. might fall away,” vi. 4–6 ; that “the just who
live by faith,” might “draw back into perdition,” x. 38, 39 ;
that they might “fall from the grace of God,” xii. 15. See
the reading of the text justified, Examen Millii hic.
* Wer. 7. Tà IIveſ act rô &yoy, The Holy Ghost saith.]
Hence it appears, that David writ his psalms by the afflatus
or inspiration of the Holy Ghost (see note on Matt.
xxiii. 43). - -
* Xàºzēgoy, To-day.] At present ; for “now is the day of
salvation,” 2 Cor. vi. 2; the present time being only ours.
“We must do God’s commandments to-day,” say the Jews,
from Deut. vii. 11, “and receive the reward to-morrow. We
must repent to-day, lest we die to-morrow, before we have
repented * (see Cartw. in locum). And again, “If Israel
would repent but one day, the Messiah would come ;” and
this they prove from these words of the psalmist, hypwn Ex
hºpin, “When you hear his voice,” speaking in the prophets;
or, as the Targum, Hºnpºpo DR, “When you hear him
speaking by the Word,” proceeding from the Father, “har-
den not your hearts.” That this is the frequent sense of the
particle BR, see Noldius, p. 89, §. 31 ; and it is also the
sense of the Greek #39. So #&y eſtrn, “When he said thus,”
Gen. xiii. 8 ; ;&y £ex$32 ty, “When the daughters of Shiloh
come forth,” Jud. xxi. 21; #&y zotºwn33, “When I lie down,”
I Sam. xi. 12; #&v trampo Sãat, “When thy days be fulfilled,”
1 Kings xiii. 31; #3, #709&vo, “When I die,” Job vii. 4;
#3v wash, “When thou sittest;" ièy zašešºk, “When thou
liest down,” Prov. iii. 24, 25; āy ºropsûn, “When thou go-
est;" #y refixnc, “When thou runnest,” Prov. iv. 12. See
also in the New Testament, #&y tºbošč, “When I shall be
lifted up,” John xii. 32; #&y ropevº, “When I shall go,”
John xiv. 3. xvi. 7 ; #y paveedºm, “When he shall appear,”
1 John iii. 2. These words are therefore to be extended to
the whole time of their hearing God speaking to them by his
prophets, and especially to the time of God's speaking to
them by his Son, who was to bring them into a better rest
than that of Canaan, into which Joshua led them.
10 Ver. 9. When, oº, “where.” So the Hebrew ºwn
is rendered, Numb. xxii. 26. Deut. viii. 15. Ps. lxxxiv. 3.
Eccles. viii. 10. So Numb. xx. 13, “These are the waters
of contention, ºwn, where the children of Israel contended.”
* 'Ezrsigacáv ºs, Tempted me.] That to tempt God, in the
scripture phrase, is always to distrust his power or goodness,
after sufficient demonstrations given of it, see note on Matt.
iv. 7. And note here, that the apostle Saith, they tempted
Christ (1 Cor. x.9), which shows, that these words may
truly be applied to him.
12 E3oxiwaday, Proved me.] The Hebrew word, which is
here rendered “proved me,” is, Mal. iii, 16, rendered by the
Greek ávrša'a'ncay, “they resisted ” God; and by the Chal-
dee, the Syriac, and by our version, they who “tempted ”
God ; that is, saith Dr. Pocock, who went about to try and
prove him whether he could or would punish sinners, and to
provoke ºrd dare him to do his worst to execute his judg-
ments, if he were a God of judgment: and then to “see his
works forty years,” must be, to see his judgments executed
upon them forty years.
* Tsarepáxovira firm, Forty years..] If this be the right
CHAL’TER III.
897 -
10 Wherefore I was grieved with that generation,
and said, They do always err in their hearis (not with
the heart believing, ver. 11), and they have not known
my Ways, (i. e. not hearkened to me, to walk in them,
ver. 22). -
11 So I sware in my wrath (ver. 21), “They shall
not enter (Gr. If they shall enter) into my rest (i. e.
into the land where they were to rest from their
wars).
12 Take heed (therefore), brethren, lest there be in
any of you (as there was in them) an evil heart of un-
belief, “in departing from the "living God.
13. But exhort one another (to stedfastness in the
faith) daily, while it is called To-day, (before the night
cometh upon you, John xii. 35) "lest any of you be
hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
14 For we are made partakers of (the blessings pur-
chased by) Christ, if we hold the *beginning of our
confidence stedfast to the end;
15. While it is said, (Gr. Ev rá, Aéysg9a, In that it
is said,) To-day if you will hear his voice, harden not
your hearts, as in the provocation. (You may discern
the mischief of unbelief, and hardness of heart, and the
necessity of the eahortation tendered, ver. 12, 13.)
16 For "some, when they had heard, did provoke:
howbeit, not all that came out of Egypt (not Caleb and
Joshua) by Moses.
17 But (and) with whom was he grieved forty
years 2 was it not with them that had sinned (by un-
belief), whose carcases fell in the wilderness 2
18 And to whom sware he that they should not
enter into his rest, but to them that believed not *
19 ° So we see (Kai (3\étropsy, We see therefore)
that they could not enter in, because of unbelief.
connexion of the words, then, to see God's works forty years,
must be, to see his punishments so long upon them, as he
plainly threatened they should, saying, “You shall bear
your iniquities forty years,” Numb. xiv. 33, and that so visi-
bly, that all the nations should discern his judgments on them:
for, “Surely as I live,” saith he, “all the earth shall be filled
with the glory of God,” ver. 21. But if, according to the
reading of the Hebrew and the Septuagint, the forty years
should be added to the following verse, thus, “Wherefore I
was angry with that generation forty years,” as the apostle
doth intimate by that inquiry, ver. 17, “With whom was he
angry forty years?” then the "Nº Bl, and zai sīšov, will be
best rendered, “though they saw my work,” as B. signifies,
Noldius, p. 220, and wai, Luke xviii. 7. John xvi. 32. Acts
vii. 5. According as God speaks to them, Numb. xiv. 22,
“For all these men which have seen my glory, and my signs
which I did in Egypt and the wilderness, and yet have
tempted me these ten times, and have not hearkened to my
yoice, surely they shall not see the land.” And ver, li,
“How long will it be ere they believe me, after all the
Signs,” &c. -
* Ver, 11. Inns ER, Ei sia exsta'owtai, If they shall enter.]
i. e. Let me not be God, or, Let me not be true, if they en-
ter. This is a form of swearing very frequent in the Old
Testament. So Deut i. 35, “The Lord was wroth, and
Swore, saying, ei ºperat, rhº =x, If any of these men shall
See that good land of promise " (Ps. xcv. 11): so l Sam iii. 14,
nºn RN, si èºaq Sha'arat, “If the iniquity of the house of
Eli shall be purged with sacrifices;” Ps. lxxxix. 35, “Once
have I sworn by holiness, anx Ex, el Jeffcoaat, if I fail
David :'' Ps. cxxxii. 1–4, “Lord, remember David, how he
SWare ; Rh8 ER, ei Ela'easiſcopal, If I go into my tabernacle ;
Tºys BR, si èvaghaogai, If I climb up into my bed; nk =x,
st 3&aw, if I give sleep to my eyes.” So Mark viii. 12,
“Verily, I say unto you, el 30Shaera tº yeye; raórn engeſoy
(Let me not be true), if a sign be given to this generation;”
where Christ himself swears, and therefore cannot be sup-
posed absolutely to forbid all swearing, Matt. v. 34.
* Ver, 12. Ev rá áirogºrºval, In departing.] The Jews
that tempted God, Numb. xiv., are said, 3rogrâvat, “to de-
part "from the land of Canaan, ver. 31, “They said one to
another, Come, let us make a captain, zai &rogrgé! wasy, and
let us turn back into Egypt,” ver. 4; and are said, où Tia-
tidely, “not to believe” God, ver, 11.
* The living God:] So styled, to show that he is always
able to punish unbelievers. Note also, that as he who believ-
eth in Christ, believeth in God the Father also (John xii.
44); so he that deserts him, doth also desert the Father,
who sent him, and makes him a liar (1 John v. 9, 10):
º *. ; that denies the Son hath not the Father” (1 John
lll. 23).
*7 Ver. 13. “Iva º oxxnew8; tıç, Lest any man be har-
dened.] To be hardened, in the New Testament, imports in-
fidelity, and want of faith. Thus Christ upbraids to his dis-
ciples their unbelief, xal axxngoxagèiay, “ and hardness of
heart,” that they believed not, Mark xvi. 14. And the Jews
that believed not are said to be “hardened,” Acts xix. 9, .
and so it will be evident that here it signifies, to him that
compares ver, 15 with ver. 19.
* Ver. 14. Tºy &exhv tworrázeo, The beginning of their
hope.] That hope to which we have “fled for refuge,” vi. 18 ;
that hope which causeth us to rejoice, ver. 6; faith being,
ixiričoºivov trio ragic, “the firm expectation of things hoped
for,” ch. xi. (see the note there).
* Ver. 16. Twā; y&é àxoča'avºre; trage mixtavay; &xx' of Trávreć,
&c.] I would render these words thus ; “For who are they,
that, hearing, did provoke 2 Were they not all that came
forth out of Egypt?” For riyê; signifies as well who as some.
So Acts xix. 15, rive; a ré; “Who are ye?” Rev. vii. 13,
tive; Eaſ; “Who are they that are clothed with white robes?”
Isa. lx. 8, river of 38; “Who are these ?” So Heb. i. 5, riºt
yáp; “For to whom of the angels said he ” And here ver.
18, rive 3; ; “To whom did he swear 2” So Josephus, ch.
xvii. of his Maccabees, rive; oix Saúzaaay rob; tā. Śsia; youz-
Sea-ſac &SAntá; ; rive; otº #eraćynaray; “Who did not ad-
mire P Who were not astonished at the champions of the
divine law 2° And the answer to this inquiry must be this,
“Were they a few P Yea, were they not all 2’ &c. as if it
had been oix; ºrávre; ; It is also evident, that oi, and oix are
often interrogatives, as 1 Cor. xii. 15. John vii. 42, see Nol-
dius, p. 487. And if the Greek will bear this construction,
it answers best, (1.) to the story, as it is represented, Numb.
xiv.: for, notwithstanding the exception made, ver, 38, of
Joshua and Caleb, it is said, ver. 19, that Trâa a # cºvyayoyā,
“all the congregation, Kai Trávteq, and all the children of
Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron ;” that Trâca #
avyayayi, “all the congregation spake of stoning Joshua and
Caleb,” ver, 10 ; and Trávºrs; oi &vèges, “all men,” ver. 22, are
the oi ragožūyayreº, “provokers,” ver. 23, the avyayayi Troyng&,
“evil congregation,” and “the murmurers,” ver, 27. 35.
Josh. v. 6. And (2.) it agrees best with the following verses,
which are plainly interrogatives and answers, “With whom
was he grieved? was it not with them P To whom sware
he 2 was it not to them that believed not ?” And, lastly,
with the close of the argument, which saith generally, “They
could not enter in.”
* Ver. 19.] Kat here signifies idcircó, therefore ; as the
Hebrew , often does (see Noldius, p. 279): so Josh xxiii.
11, zai ºvXáčers, “Take good heed therefore;” Ps, ii. 10,
zai vöy ºrówsre, “Be wise now therefore” (see Ps. vii. 7.
© º º
xviii. 42).
898
CHAPTER IV.
1 LET us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left
us of entering into his rest (in the celestial Canaan, as
to them in the terrestrial), any of you should ‘seem to
come short of it (i.e. should fail of it).
2 For unto us was (Gr. is) the gospel preached, *as
well as (Gr. as it was also) to them, (they being oi trpó-
repov siayyektaššursc, the first to whom it was preached,
or formerly evangelized, ver. 6) but the word preached
(Gr. heard) did not profit them, not being mixed with
faith in them that heard it. (That is, we have now the
glad tidings, and gospel-promise of a future rest : as
they also had in types: their rest in Canaan being a
type of their future rest with God in the heavenly
Canaan). -
3 For we which have believed do enter into rest, as
(may be gathered from what} he said, As I have sworn
in my wrath, if they shall enter * into my rest : al-
though the works were finished from the foundation
of the world. (Gr. Kairo róv ºpywy dirò karađoxic
toū kóopov yewvmīāvrov, and indeed, or for, see Budaeus
and Stephanus; this phrase, my rest, relates to the
works done by God from the foundation of the world.
This sense seems certain from the reasons following.)
4 For he (Moses) spake in a certain place (Gen. ii.
1) of the seventh day (from the beginning of God’s
work of creation, saying) on this wise, And God did
rest the seventh day from all his works.
5 And in this place (he, i.e. God saith) again (long
after), If they shall enter into my rest, (i. e. If they
shall have a rest from their labours and travels, resem-
bling º of mine from the creation of the world, see
Ver. 10). -
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. lv.
* Wer. 1. Aoki ri; bºreenwéval, Should seem to come short.]
That the word úa regnkāyat, signifies to fail of, or fall from,
anything, see note on xii. 13; and that Boxáo is oft an exple-
tive, all critics do acknowledge: so, whº 86%urex #yely, “Say
not,” Matt. iii. 9; of 3oxoivre; &#xsw, “They who rule,”
Mark x. 42 ; 3 80xeſ Éxety, “That which he hath,” Luke viii.
18. Matt. xxv. 29; $ 3oxöv ša réval, “He" that standeth,” 1
Cor. x. 12. (see the note on 1 Cor. vii. 40).
* Ver. 2. Kašárreg Kºzárot, As well as they..] This, by some
is referred to their hearing of the law, as in the paraphrase ;
by others, as probably, to the gospel blessings then typified
to them : for the apostle informs us, that “they all did eat
the same spiritual meat, and drank the same spiritual drink;
for they drank of the rock that followed them, and that
rock was Christ” (1 Cor. x. 3, 4). This sounds flat to them
only who are averse to this doctrine, that the blessings of
the gospel were typified to the Jews; but is confirmed from
ver. 6.
* Ver. 3. Eic rºw xarárava'iy (wov, Into my rest.] Upon the
true interpretation of these words here, and ver. 1; xarátrav-
arty airrod, depends the true sense of this chapter. Now some
refer this to that deliverance from their persecutors, and the
peaceable days of professing the gospel, the Christians in
Judea and elsewhere should enjoy after the destruction of
Jerusalem : but to this I can by no means assent ; for (1.)
the bearing of the cross, the suffering persecution, being so
often hinted as the portion of “all that will live godly,” I
cannot believe that a promise of deliverance from them
should be so often represented by the Holy Ghost, as the
great gospel blessing promised to believers, the stayyexia,
the evangelical promise made to Christians by God, that
they should enter into his rest, ver. 1, the “ sabbatism re-
maining for the people of God,” ver. 9, the rest which they
should “strive to enter into,” ver. 11, and “be afraid lest
they should fail of,” ver. 1. (2.) I know of no such happy.
change of the affairs of Christians in all other parts of the
world, that the apostle should here, and almost in all his
other epistles, speak of it, as this interpretation maketh him
to do, as one of the greatest blessings of Christianity; nor
were there any such halcyon days enjoyed by Christians
after the desolation of Jerusalem, This will be evident from
Christ's message to the Asiatic churches, after the times of
Domitian ; for there he speaks to the angel of the church of
Smyrna, “Fear none of those things which thou art about
to suffer: behold, Satan is about to cast some of you into
prison, that ye may be tried ten days. Be thou faithful to
the death, and I will give thee a crown of life,” Rev. ii. 10.
To the church of Pergamos thus: “I know thy works, and
where thou dwellest, where is the throne of Satan ; and thou
holdest my name, and hast not denied the faith in the days
in which Antipas my faithful martyr suffered, who was
slain among you where Satan dwells,” ver. 13. To the
church of Philadelphia thus: “Because thou hast kept the
word of my patience, I will also keep thee from the hour of
temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try
them that dwell upon the earth,” iii. 10. This argument
a reverend person endeavours to evade, by saying, that
John writ his Revelation in the ninth year of Claudius.
But, first, this is contrary to the testimony of all antiquity,
excepting only the single testimony of Epiphanius; which
also is fully answered by Dr. More ; for it is generally
agreed, that he writ his Revelation in, or after he came from
, the isle of Patmos, as may be proved from i. 9–11. Now
all the ancients say, that John was banished thither by Do-
mitian ; and writ his Revelation about that time. So Ire-
naus” speaks expressly, saying, “If the name of antichrist
had been to be divulged, it would have been mentioned by
him who saw the revelation ; for it was not seen long ago,
but almost in our age, at the end of the reign of Domitian :”
which passage cannot be understood of the name only of:
the beast, but of the whole revelation ; as is evident, (1.)
because Eusebius, who cites this passage, must understand
him so : for he saith, that “he returned from his exile in
this island, usra rºy Aopºriavo; textury (ch. xxiii.), after
the death of Domitian ;” and so he must have writ his Reve-
lation while he lived. And (2) because “the name of the
beast” is not said to be revealed to the evangelist, but only
“the number of his name.” And (3.) the words wai rāy
àtrokáAvskiy Hogazáro; even force this sense ; for they are pro-
perly rendered “who saw also the revelation,” distinguishing
the revelation from the name. And, lastly, a name cannot
properly be said to be seen, nor doth John ever use any
such expression about it ; but a revelation may be properly
said to be seen, and John often saith he saw them. Again,
in this persecution of Domitian, saith Eusebius,t waréxei
Máyoc, “the tradition runs, that John the evangelist was ban-
ished to the isle of Patmos, for the testimony he gave to the
divine Word.” And in his Chroniconſt he adds, that under
him the apostle John, “being banished into the isle of Pat-
mos, Évºa rāv ĀmoxáAvºw #&paxey, & 3naoſ Eignvaſoc, there saw
his revelation, as Irenaeus testifies ;" which both confirms
the tradition, and gives the true sense of the words of Ire-
naeus, cited by him. So also Jeromeş saith, that “John
being banished into the isle of Patmos, in the fourteenth
year of Domitian, scripsit Apocalypsin, composed the book
of the Revelation.” So almost all the Greek and Latin wri-
ters, Saith Huet. in Orig. Com. p. 72. Wid. Oros. lib. vii. cap.
10, 11. Martyr. Timoth. apud Phot. Cod. 254, p. 1403. lib.
i. Aret. in Apoc. i. 9. Secondly, it is certain, from the se-
cond text here cited, that Antipas had suffered martyrdom
before the writing of these epistles to the churches. Now
that Antipas suffered martyrdom under Domitian, the old
2 * * *
* At fixelvov &y ####$n roſ, wai rºy &roxáxvilly Hogawóroc' oběš
yā; algæ woxxoi Xévov opášn, äxx& a′X′słęy #wi rā; hºweréga; ye-
vsåg, ºrpèg tº réxei rā; Aoºtrayot &px?c. Apud Euseb. Hist.
Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 18.
ºf Tä, Big Beſoy A$yov #v=xey (wagºrugia; IIárºoy oixsſy wara&txaz
Şāva rāy wºrow. Ibid. cap. 8.
f Ad An. 14 Dom. $ Werbo Johannes.
CHAPTER IV.
899
*
6 Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must time (of their continuance in the rest of Canaan); as it
enter therein (to the rest of God spoken of in these
words), and they to whom it was first preached (oi
trpórspov stayyeXtašávrsc, they who had the gospel first
preached to them, concerning this rest of God,) entered
not in (to it) because of unbelief:
7 * Again, he (God) limiteth a certain day, saying
in (these words of) David, To-day, after so long a
Roman martyrology assures us, and Dr. Hammond on the
place confesses; it is therefore evident, that John, speaking
of this martyrdom, which happened in the days of Domitian,
as a thing past, must write the Revelation in or after the
reign of Domitian. This the doctor saw, and therefore in-
terprets these words, “Thou hast not denied my faith, Ital
#y rai, #4,#aic, even in those days (of fiery trial) in which
Antipas, 378wrávón, was or hath been slain:” thus, “The time
is approaching wherein Antipas I foresce will be cruelly
martyred ;” that is, if this was written in the ninth of Clau-
dius, and Antipas slain the tenth of Domitian, I foresee he
will be slain forty years hence ; which descant, to speak in
his own words, “is too vain to be seriously considered.”
Lastly, the Christians had no such halcyon days for any con-
siderable time after the destruction of Jerusalem; for Jeru-
salem was destroyed anno Christi 70; and the second per-
secution began under Domitian, anno Domini 96. They
had therefore only rest for twenty years, and then comes the
second persecution, in which many Christians” were exiled,
and some suffered martyrdom ; for “even heathen writers,”
saith Eusebius,” “mention rôy 8wypºy kai rā #y airó; Acapri-
gia, the persecutions and the martyrdoms of our men.”
And in his Chronicon he saith, that “Brutus, in his history,
affirms, that Troxxoi Xploriavºw #xaprágnoray war& Aouitavy,
many Christians suffered martyrdom under Domitian.” Ten
years after the end of this persecution, comes on a third
persecution under Trajan, in which, saith Eusebius, “so
great and heavy was the persecution, in most places, that
Pliny, one of the celebrated presidents of the provinces,
heing moved with the multitude of the martyrs, writ to the
emperor concerning the multitude of the martyrs that
had suffered ; and received this answer from him, That they
should not be inquired after, but only punished as they fell
into their hands.” And thatš though hereupon the open
persecutions ceased, yet in divers provinces they continued,
and exercised many of the Christians with divers kinds of
martyrdom.”
In the seventeenth year of Trajan, the Jews in Mesopo-
tamia rebel, and many myriads of them perish. In the
second of Hadrian they rebel again, and overcome. In the
seventeenth of Hadrian, Barchochebas set himself up for
their Messiah, “and drew an infinite multitude of Jews after
him.” Now all these, and especially the last, were severe
persecutors of the Christians of those places. For Justin
Martyr || oft informs us, that “even after the destruction of
Jerusalem, they retained still the same hatred to the Chris-
tians, and cut them off wherever they had power and oppor-
tunity;” and in the days of Barchochebas “put those Chris-
tians to exquisite torments, who would not deny Christ.”
And could these be the times of quiet and safety to the
Christians, from their persecutors? and of prosperous and
peaceable days for the public worship and service of God?
* Mer& TrAsi-ray Érégow wal oxa&ſay.
+ Hist. Fccl. lib. iii. cap. 18.
# Toa'oùré, ys why by tragiotri rémoir à wač’ hºw iretáSn 3
3royºc, &; TIA%toy Xekotīvāoy Éiri rā ºrxāše rāvaaerûgov wºn-
6ávra. Bazºfi Kováza, rift roß rºw, rºw variº tº rºws.,
3.
avaignkeyov
... § 2; x2, &yev 7:0%ayżv 8toyºy pºsewoi); xar' imagxiay #.
éirrezsat, Tràgious re rów Tria rāv 8taqāsoic ivayović's réal wagtv-
£iotç, Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 33.
|| Ex8pow; hºwā; wai Trox#xious hyºvrai, #20io; tºy &yaipoğy-
ºrs; xzi x0x4&oºre; hºwic, jačray ºvoviral.—Kai yag Bapxox#8a;
-Xetariavov; ºvov; Elº rigogia; *evåg, si ºw: ágyoſºro’Inarody rôy
Xºta rāv Kai 6Aaa pnºoſev, Éxéaevey &ráyea-6at. Apol. ii. p. 72,
E. Dial. p. 234, Kai yüy, &c, B, C, p. 335, D. 'AAA3 zai hag,
Kwia site Ral poveters ào'àxi; &y Aá8nts #ovalay, p. 363, D.
is (there) said, To-day, if you will hear his voice, har-.
den not your hearts, &c. (speaking not of the rest of
Canaan, of which they were possessed in the days of
Joshua, as he saith to the Reubenites and Gadites:
And now the Lord hath given rest unto your brethren,
as he promised them, Josh. xxii. 4). -
8 * For if Jesus (i. e. Joshua) had given them (a)
- - - - - - - - -- - - - - - ---
Is this the #trayyāia, “ gospel-promise of a rest and sab-
batism to the people of God?” the reward, which it is just
with God to render them for all their sufferings for his sake?
(2 Thess. i. 7; see Dr. Hammond on that place.) an
To come then to the true import of this phrase, let it be
noted, that there is a double rest mentioned in this and the
former chapters; viz.
1. The rest promised to the Jews in the land of Canaan,
iii. 11. And this, Saith the apostle, could not be the rest of
God; for “if Joshua had given them (such) rest, David
could not have spoken of another day,” ver. 8. Why not?
saith Mr. Clerc. Answer, Because then, by entering into
that, they would have already entered into the rest of God.
2. A rest, after the example of God, “ceasing from his
labours,” when he had finished the creation, which is the
rest of the blessed that die in the Lord, ºva &yaraja'ovrat #x
rāv Károv abrów, “that they may rest from their labours,”
Rev. xiv. 13. And that this is the rest which the apostle
now begins to speak of, is evident from these words, wer. 10,
“He that is entered into rest, he hath also ceased from his
own works, as God did from his ;” for what can we under-
stand by resting from his own works, but as the fathers * do
interpret it, råy 8toykºv, rôy repaakºv, röy S.Aishāoy, “from
his persecutions, temptations, and afflictions,” to which he is
obnoxious in this present world P. The phrase seems plainly
to be taken from Isa. lvii. 1; where it is said of the “righteous
taken away from the evil to come, They shall enter into
peace, they shall rest in their beds.” Of this rest, that of
Canaan, and the sabbatism there observed, were a type, as
the Jews themselves inform us; and therefore it seems rea-
sonable to interpret these words agreeably to that sense.
* Ver. 7..] Here Mr. Clerc speaks thus; “I say again,
There is no mention in the psalmist of any future rest:”
which, if true, there is no sense in the apostle's words, nor
any strength in his argument, for it doth evidently run thus,
There must be a rest to the people of God, besides, i.e. suc-
, ceeding, that which Joshua procured them in the land of
w
Canaan ; because the psalmist, so long after their rest in
Canaan, makes mention of a future rest: so the apostle.
“There is no mention in the psalmist of a future rest,” saith
Mr. Le Clerc. He had spoken in one place of “the rest of
God,” saith the apostle, ver, 4. And he speaks again, Év
rotºrº, “in this place” of the psalmist, of this rest, ver. 5,
into which unbelievers not entering, in this passage of David,
he again, riya ógićst jºgay, “sets or defines a certain day,”
by saying to them, who lived so long after these unbelievers
miscarried, “To-day if you will hear his voice” (and so
enjoy this rest), iii. 18, 19, “harden not your hearts;”
speaking there of a rest not already enjoyed, but hereafter to
be enjoyed by them, and so not of the rest procured to them
by Joshua : si yap, “For if Joshua had given then the rest
called the rest of God,” David would not have here” spoken
of another day of rest;” but having done so, äpa, certó, utique,
“we conclude, there remains yet a rest to be enjoyed by the
people of God.” -
* Ver. 8. El yèg 'Inactic, For if Joshua..] For explication
of the apostle's argument here let it be noted, that all the
Greek commentators on this place concur in this, that the
apostle speaketh of a threefold rest.
First, Of the rest of God, mentioned Gen. ii. 2, in these
words, “And God rested on the seventh day from all his
works that he had done.” Which rest, say the ancients,
was “the symbol of the rest of the just from all their labours.”
So Irenaeus'ſ saith, “The seventh day, which was sanctified,
* Chrysost. Theod. CEcum. Theoph.
ºf Haec sunt in regni temporibus, hoc est, in septimă die
quae est Sanctificata, in quâ requievit Deus ab omnibus operi-
3 M 2
900
- HEBREWS.
rest (like to that of God), then would he not (i. e. God,
by David) afterward have spoken of another day (of
rest, after their rest in Canaan),
9 There remaineth therefore (yet) a (more glorious
and complete) "rest to the people of God.
10 For he that is (thus) entered into his rest, he
also hath ceased from his own works (i. e. from the
labours and travails of this life, Rev. xiv. 13), as God
(after he had finished the creation) did from his.
11 Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest ||
(which yet remaineth for the people of God), lest any
and in which God rested from all his works, is the true sab.
bath of the just, in which they shall do no earthly labour:”
and Origen + saith, that “Celsus understood not the mystery
of the seventh day, and the rest of God, in which all that
had done their work in six, and had left nothing undone
which belonged to them, should feast with God, ascending to
the vision of him, and in that to the general festivity of the
just and blessed.” And again, +“If we farther inquire which
are the true sabbaths, we shall find that the observation of
the true sabbath reaches beyond the world; the true Sabbath,
in which God will rest from all his works, being the world
to come then when all grief, sorrow, and sighing, shall fly
away, and God shall be all in all.”
Secondly, Of the rest of the Jews in Canaan : which is the
rest God sware the murmuring and unbelieving Jews should
not enjoy, perhaps as well in the spiritual sense as in the
natural. For the Jews themselves represent their sin, as
that in which they made bold, f 'lºvěoAoyiay Karaxeively rà
Ong, “to charge God with a lie.” And the Jerusalem Tar-
gum saith, Ś God threatened to remember it in the day of
judgment. In Midrash Tillim an evil tongue is said to be
worse than idolatry; and this is proved from what these
rebels spake against God, TT ºn, “the sentence of judgment
being passed upon them for their evil words,” Numb. xiv. 28.
Now idolatry is still reckoned by them a sin exclusive from
the heavenly Canaan; “They shall not enter into the rest
of the house of my sanctuary,” saith the Chaldee, on Ps.
xcv. 11. However, those Jews who entered into Canaan,
when they were to have rest from all their enemies round
about, so as to dwell safely (Deut. xii. 9, 10), did so far
disobey the voice of the Lord, that he said he would not
drive their enemies out from before them, but would leave
them to be “as thorns in their sides, and pricks in their eyes,
to vex them in the land where they dwelt,” Judg. ii. 2, 3.
Josh. xxiii. 13. Numb. xxxiii. 55; so that the Jews them-
selves expected a farther completion of that promise, in the
times of the Messiah, as we learn from those words of Zecha-
rias the father of the Baptist, “Blessed be the God of Israel;
who hath visited and redeemed his people, and hath raised
up a mighty Salvation for us in the house of his servant
David ; as he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which
have been since the world began : that we should be saved
from our enemies, and from the hands of all that hate us:
that we being delivered out of the hands of our enemies,
might serve him without fear,” Luke i. 68–71. 74. And
hence the apostle here concludes, that Joshua gave them not
the rest emphatically styled “the rest of God,” as resembling
his rest from all his works, when he had finished the world;
and so there must be yet another rest remaining to the peo-
ple of God, as it follows, ver, 9.
bus qua fecit, quae est verum justorum sabbatum, in quâ non
facient omne terrenum opus. Lib. v. cap. 33. -
* ob yºg oſhi ris à roſaa88árov, wai rā, wararaſasa, Osoſ,
#4;ta, iv.; $ográzwa w śaa rā Qaşoi ºrávra rā #ya £avròy raſ,
# *ščak retroinºriº, Hai 33 ºr unbºy tragaxexoriya rºw ar-
8aaXávtov, &vaßaivovreć iai rāy Seogíay, gai rºy #y air; rày Sixafoy
xi ºakagiov travāyvely. Lib. vi. p. 317.
+ Si altitis repetamus quae sint vera sabbata, ultra hunc
mundum est veri Sabbati observatio—Erit ergö verum sab-
batum, in quo requiescet Deus ab omnibus operibus suis,
seculum futurum ; tunc clim aufugiet dolor, et tristitia,
et gemitus, et erit omnia et in omnibus Deus. Hom. 23, in
Num. f. 136, A. See Clem. Alex. Strom. vi. p. 682, 683.
Barnab. Ep. §. 15, et Coteler, ibid.
# Joseph. Ant, lib. iii, cap. 13. § In Ps. xxxix. 2.
man fall (Gr. that we may not fall from it) after the
same example of unbelief (by our infidelity, as they
did). -
12 "For the word of God (mentioned ver. 1, 2) is
quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged
sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul
and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a dis-
cerner (or censurer) of the thoughts and intents of the
heart.
13 Neither is there any creature which is not mani-
fest in his sight (whose word this is) ; but all things
* Ver, 9. A rest, daggariaak.] The apostle, by thus
changing the word āyātravatº, “rest,” into “Sabbatism,” and
by comparing of this “ sabbatism" with “the rest of God.”
on the sabbath, or seventh day, clearly leads us to the
interpretation of all the ancient Christians, that our glorious
and complete rest hereafter with God, is that of which God's
resting on the seventh day was a symbol ; and to the spiritual
sabbath, of which the Jewish doctors speak so generally, as
the great thing signified by their sabbath; as when they say,”
“The sabbath was given to be Rinn bºnyn by Roxy", 38ſyſza,
a sign, or exemplar, of the world to come.”, “The sabbath-
day, what is it # A figure of the land of the living, to wit,
of the world or age to come, the age of Souls, the age of con-
solations.” Thus in their descants upon Ps. xcii., which
bears this title both in the Hebrew and the Greek, “A Song,
nawn phº, si, Tāv #4,#ay roi; oaf'8árov, upon the Sabbath-
day,” they say,f “This is the age to come, nav bºw, which
is all sabbath.” The psalmist, saith R. Solomon Jarchi, in
locum, “speaks of the business of the world to come, which
is all sabbath.” “A psalm upon the sabbath-day,” saith R.
Eliezer, cap. 19, p. 42, “that is, upon the day which is all
sabbath, and rest, in the life of the world to come.” And
again, cap. 18, p. 41, “The blessed Lord created seven
worlds (i. e. ages), but one of them is all sabbath, and rest
in life eternal:” where he refers t their common opinion,
that the world should continue six thousand years, and then
a perpetual sabbath should begin, typified by God's resting
the seventh day, and blessing it. So Bereschith Rabba ;
“If we expound the seventh day of the seventh thousand
years, which is the world to come, the exposition is, And he
blessed ; because that in the seventh thousand all Rouls shall
be bound in the bundle of life; for there shall be there the
augmentation of the Holy Ghost, wherein we shall delight
ourselves. And so our rabbins, of blessed memory, have
said in their commentaries, God blessed the seventh day, the
Holy Ghost blessed the world to come, which beginneth in
the seventh thousand of years.” Philoš is very copious in
this allegory, who, disputing against those who, having
learned that the written laws were oriºgona vonröy ºrgayº,4tov,
“symbols of intellectual things,” did upon that account
neglect them, saith, that “though the seventh day was a
document of the power of God, and of the rest of the crea-
ture, yet was not the outward rest to be cast off.” And
again, “It is fitly said, 3i'imovoiây, by allegories, or figurative
expressions, The sabbaths of the land shall be meat for you,”
Lev. xxv. 6. “For rest || in God producing the greatest
good, peace, secure from war, is only that which nourisheth,
and is to be enjoyed with pleasure.” And a third time,
“This is ‘I the reason of the seventh day, or the Septenary ;
i. e. of the soul resting in God, and performing no more
mortal works.” º
7 Ver. 12. ‘o affyo; Toi, Geoff, The word of God..] The
apostle seems not to speak here of the essential Word of God,
the second person of the Trinity: (1) Because Paul, in all
* Buxt. F]or. 299. + Zohar, in Gen. fol. 5, col. 2.
# Midrash Tillim, in v. 15. g
§ M% yixe ôrt # #38&n 8vvápago; aiy rā; #mri ré &yávntov,
3rpaºla; ºri, reel tº yeynty 3:3ayuá čar, rà iwi airff woºods-
th9árra Aſopºty. De Migr. Abr. p. 314, E. 31.5, A. M
| Tºpſøy y&e wai &moxavalry ºvov h v Qiā āvárquºis, tº
aftytarov. 3)affy, tripirolºra rāy &réasºoy eighyny. Lib. de
Profug. p. 371, I).
, , - r w g wº
"I Airn 3 # karáaragic arty #830px480; &ya"ravo!, Éwn; Éy 95%
Juxi, zal treet wº, rºw Synrów #yov ir, rovovºwns. Lib.
Quðd Deus sit Immut. p. 230, F.
CHAPTER V.
901
are naked and open to the eyes of him "with whom we
have to do (Gr. to whom we must give an account, and
so there is no hope these unbelievers should escape his
judgments).
14 Seeing then that we have a great high-priest
(merciful and faithful, to make reconciliation for our
sins, ii. 17) that is passed into the heavens, (to appear
for ever there to make intercession, and to prepare this
resting-place for us, John xiv. 2, even) Jesus the Son of
God, let us hold fast our profession (without wavering).
15 For we have not a high-priest who cannot be
his writings, never applies this phrase to our Lord Christ, it
being peculiar to John. (2.) The apostle must have very
abruptly spoken here of him, under this metaphor, of whom
nothing went before, but very appositely of the gospel, to
which these attributes do well agree : for, (1.) the word is
quick and vital, not only promising life to the obedient, but
threatening death to the disobedient, from the living God,
who can quickly execute it, iii. 12. (2.) It is powerful,
being “the power of God for the destruction of strong holds,
and everything that exalts itself against the knowledge of
God,” 2 Cor. x. 4.7. (3.) It is “sharper than a two-edged
sword, and piercing even to the dividing asunder of the soul
and spirit, the joints and the marrow :” slaying Amanias and
Sapphira, and delivering up others to Satan, “for the destruc-
tion of the flesh,” 1 Cor. v. 5. 1 Tim. i. 20. It is, (4.) “A
discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart,” there
being then “a gift of discerning spirits,” attending the
preachers qf it, by which they judged and discerned of them;
and so “the secrets of their hearts were made manifest,” 1
Cor. xiv. 24, 25. And, which makes this extremely perti-
ment to the present exhortation, all this was very visible in
the instance of the unbelievers here mentioned, to terrify the
Jews from falling by the same example of unbelief. For,
(1.) the word of threatening was so quick upon those spies,
who “brought up the evil report upon the land,” that they
died immediately by the hand of God, or “by the plague
before the Lord,” Numb. xiv. 37. And as for the rest of
the unbelievers, “they were consumed,” saith Moses, “by
God’s anger, and by his wrath were troubled : they were
carried away as with a flood ; they vanished as a dream, or
as the morning grass, which in the evening is cut down, and
withereth’’ (Ps. xc. 5, 6). And thus they found the weight
of that threat, yyárete rêv Svºy rā, śay; £205, “Ye shall
know the vehemency of my wrath,” Numb. xiv. 34. They
were also thus punished for the evil intentions of their hearts;
for, saith Stephen, “In their hearts they turned back into
Egypt,” Acts vii. 30; so that, by “the word of God,” I am
inclined to understand his threats denounced against unbe-
lievers, Numb. xiv. Ps. xcv. 11. It also may deserve to
be noted, that Philo, lib. de Cherub. p. 86, G, ascribes most
of these epithets to the Aéyo;, saying, “The flaming sword
was a symbol of the Word, especially of the First Cause,
&vkivára row yūp Kai Seçºwy Ś Aáyoc, for his Word is quick and
fervent.” And again, “God,” saith he,” “whetting his
sword, the dissector of all things, divides the inform essence
of all things, and cuts them in the middle.”
* Ver. 13. IIgö; by hºſy & Näyoc, To whom we must render
an account.] So Matt. xii. 36, “Of every idle word that
men shall speak, &ro8&aroval Aáyov, they shall give an account
in the day of judgment ;” Matt. xviii. 23, “The kingdom of
heaven is like to a certain king, who would, cºvyā;at Xàyoy,
make up an account with his servants;” Luke xvi. 2, 4tró80;
Xáyov, “Give up an account of thy stewardship ;” Rom. xiv.
+ ° * y w w w º w * º z
O GE6; 4xovna apºsvog tåy roºfta rāy orvpatrávrov, airov Añyov,
8tageſ dºxogqoy zai &motov rāv ŠNoy oia'tay. Lib. quis Rer.
Divin. Haeres, p. 391, A.
touched with the sense of our infirmities; but (one
who) was in all points tempted (i. e. erposed to suffer-
ings) like as we are, yet (and this) without sin (to de-
serve the least of them : see note on ii. 18).
16 Let us therefore (depending on his power, his
intercession for, and sympathy with us) come boldly
° to the throne of grace, (this iMagrãptov, or mercy-
seat, Rom. iii. 25,) that we may obtain mercy (in the
pardon of our sins), and find grace (or favour) to (a
suitable) help in time of need (Gr. sic sūkaipov (30%9étav,
for seasonable help in all our sufferings for his sake).
12, “Every one, Aéyoy 3%ast rāj Osº, shall give an account of
himself to God;” Phil. iv. 17, “I desire fruit that may
abound, Big Ašvoy bºy, to your account ;” Heb. xiii. 17, &;
Aáyov &mobºrovtek, “As they that must give an account ;” 1
Pet. iii. 15, “Being always ready to give to every one that
asks you, Aáyoy, an account of the hope that is in you ;” and,
iv. 5, oi &ro8&zoval Aéyov, “Who shall give an account to him
that is ready to judge the quick and dead.”
* Ver. 16. To the throne of God..] The Jews say, God
hath a double throne, one of judgment, and the other of
mercy : and when he beholds the world obnoxious to con-
demnation he rises from his throne of judgment, and places
himself on that of mercy. This throne of mercy is our
blessed Jesus, styled by this apostle, ixaathgow, the true
“propitiatory,” or “mercy-seat:” by this high-priest and in-
tercessor must we come unto God, “he being able to save to
the utmost them that come unto God by him,” vii. 25.
Note also, That some great men think, the rest and sab-
batism, discoursed of, ch. iii. iv., refers to the millennium,
or the time of the conversion of the Jewish nation, and the
new heavens and new earth, then promised ; but I am not
able to assent to that opinion, for this reason, that the apos-
tle writes to the believing Jews of the present age, warning
them, that “there be not in them an evil heart of unbelief in
departing from the living God,” and exhorting them to con-
tinue unto the end in faith, iii. 13, 14, that so they might
“not fail of this rest” of God; and to “fear lest, a promise
being made of entering into this rest, any of them should fall
short of it,” iv. 1, 2. And again, ver. 11, “Let us give dili-
gence to enter into this rest, that we fall not by the same ex-
ample of unbelief.” Now these exhortations could not pro-
perly be directed to the believing Jews of that age, concern-
ing the millennium, or the glorious times which were to hap-
pen at the conversion of the Jewish nation, they being to die
one thousand seven hundred years before that conversion,
which is not yet accomplished, and before those glorious days,
which are not yet come ; for what advantage, in reference to
that, could they receive by this diligence, who were to die so
long before it happened, and being once in heaven or para-
dise, could neither expect nor desire to come down thence to
be partakers of any enjoyments, or better company here on
earth P But these exhortations are very properly directed .
to them, to take care they fail not of their rest in the celes-
tial Canaan, typified by their rest in the earthly Canaan, the
time when they should rest with God, saith Origen, “ascend-
ing to the vision of him, the rest of souls in the land of the
living, the rest in the life and the world to come, and in life
eternal” (see note on ver, 8.10); seeing these blessings only
can belong to, and at the time of retribution will only be
conferred upon, them who use this diligence. And hitherto
the apostle seems plainly to refer it, when he speaks of “so
great salvation,” ii. 3, of “bringing many sons to glory,”ver.
10, of their being partakers, xxhazo, Toupaviov, “ of a heavenly
calling,” iii. 1, the hope and confidence of which he exhorts
them to “hold fast unto the end,” ver, 6, and then immedi-
ately begins his discourse of this rest. -
CHAPTER V .
[LET us come forth, saith he, to God’s throne of
grace with freedom, as having there such a high-priest
in whom are all things by way of excellency to be
found, for which the Levitical priesthood was ordained,
and repaired to ; as having,
1 A better priesthood, viz. after the order of Mel-
chisedec, ch. vii.
2 A better consecration to it, viz. by an oath.
3. A better tabernacle in which he ministers.
4 A better sacrifice offered there.
902
HEBREWS.
5 A better covenant established in his blood.]
1 For every high-priest taken from among men is
ordained for (the service of) men in things "per-
taining to (the worship and propitiation of) God,
that he may offer both * gifts and sacrifices for
SlDS :
2 (And he is one) who can have compassion *on the
ignorant, and on them that are out of (Gr. err from)
the way (offering willingly and interceding affection-
ately on their behalf) ; for that he himself also is com-
passed with (the like) infirmity.
3 And by reason hereof (of which infirmities) he
ought (by God’s command, and from the nature of the
thing), as for the people, so also “for himself, to offer
(sacrifices) for sins.
4 And * no man taketh this honour to himself, but
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. W.
* Wer. 1. Tà ºrgè; roy Os3y, In things pertaining to God.]
“To procure and perform those things which relate to the
worship and the propitiation of the Deity.” So Crellius.
* A&á rs kai Svatar, Gifts and sacrifices.] Both these
may relate to sacrifices for sin ; for not only peace-offerings,
but gifts of any kind are called ºnlin-pm, 8&ga, Matt. v. 23, and
Hirº is by the seventy interpreters often rendered Svaiz,
Gen. iv. 3. 5. Exod. xxix. 41. xxx. 9. xl. 26. Levit. and
Numbers, centies.
* Wer. 2. Toí; &ywooja-i Kai TrAavagázoic.] He refers to the
sins which go under the names of HRton and own : for the
word Thxton belongs properly to the thing, in doing which we
err from the way ; and an expiatory sacrifice was therefore
required from him that did so, because he knew lawn Runw
Thin, “that he had erred and gone from the way:” but byk
was a sin committed out of ignorance of the command of
God: so Abarbanel. For sins committed #xovariac, “wit-
tingly,” and “with a high hand,” or from a will set in oppo-
sition to the law of God, there was no sacrifice appointed by
the law : and to this the apostle alludes, x. 26, saying,
“To them that sin wilfully there remains no more sacrifice
for sin.”
* Ver. 3. IIagº Havrot, For himself.] Here Grotius notes,
that this being spoken generally of every priest taken from
among men, Christ also must have offered for himself a sa-
crifice for sin ; i. e. that he might be delivered from those
sorrows, which were the punishment of sin, and were inflicted
on him upon occasion of our sins. But in this he seems
guilty of great and manifold mistakes; for, (1.) the apostle
plainly speaks of the sinful infirmities of these priests, who
therefore were to offer for their own sin, vii. 27, whereas of
Christ he declares, that though he was “in all other things
made like to us, yet Xopi; &#xagriac, without sin,” iv. 15, that
“he offered himself to God a lamb without spot,” ix. 14, that
being thus “holy, free from evil, undefiled, and separate
from sinners, he needed not (upon a day), as those high-
priests, to offer up sacrifice first for his own sins, and then for
the people's,” vii. 26. xxvii. 2. He was not nor could he,
after he became our surety, be delivered from those sorrows,
which were the punishment of our sins, he being, as our ex-
piatory sacrifice, not only on occasion of our sins, but in our
stead, to bear the punishment of our iniquity.
* Ver, 4. Kai oix avrò riº, No man.] i. e. According to
the law, say most interpreters; but I see no necessity of this
limitation, it being true that no man can promise to himself
God will accept his offerings, who hath no commission from
God to make such offerings; whence doth arise a good argu-
ment, to show that sacrifices are of divine, and not of human
institution only.
* Ver. 5. This day.] I have shown, note on ii. 10, that
Christ was by his death consecrated to his priesthood;
whence it must follow, that he could not exercise his sacer-
dotal function till after death: and this the apostle showeth
here, by saying, he was made a high-priest by the Father,
saying, “Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee:”
for that this relates unto the resurrection of our Lord, is evi-
dent, because we find the same apostle proving his resurrec-
tion from these words, Acts xiii. 33, which he could not
he (only enjoys it) who is called of God, as was Aaron
(and his posterity.
5 And) so also (was it with our Lord) Christ, (for
he) glorified not himself to be made a high-priest; but
he (appointed him to be so) who said unto him, Thou
art my Son, “to-day have I begotten thee.
6 As he saith also (of him) in another place, Thou
art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec
(as being raised up to appear for ever in the heavens,
and there officiate as a priest for us):
7 Who in the days of his (continuance in the) flesh,
when he had offered up (Gr. offering up) prayers and
supplications, with strong crying and tears, to him
that was able to save him from death, and was (Gr.
being) "heard *in that he feared; (and being heard so
far as to obtain deliverance from his fears, which he
have done, had they not been intended as a prediction of his
resurrection. .
7 Wer. 7. Ela'akovo-Selç, He was heard.] i. e. Delivered
from his fear. So the word doth and must signify, when it
relates to prayer for deliverance from evils. So Ps. xxii. 21,
arāzāv Āze, “Save me from the mouth of the lion, xai &ré
xegárov (wovoxagºray, and hear me from the horns of the uni-
corns;” Ps, xxxiv. 6, “This poor man cried, wai sia fixova's
alºroij, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his
troubles;” and, ver. 4, “I sought the Lord, Kai etchzovae,
and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears;” Ps.
lv. 2, 3, “Attend unto me, kai sia &xovarów pºs, and hear.me,
&rd payºc ix3600, wai &md SAislew; &#xapraxoiſ, from the voice
of the enemy, and from the vexation of the wicked ;” and,
yer. 16, “I cried to the Lord, and the Lord starákova'É ºov,
heard me ;” ver. 18, “He delivered my life,. &rd tây #yyićy-
toy pºol, from those that drew nigh to me ;” Ecclus. li. 10, 11,
Elainzoáa Sn # 3 nati; &ov, “My prayer was heard, for thou
savedst me from destruction” (see Ps. xxxi. 7).
* 'Atrá ràc sūAa3siac, From his fear.] Some would have
this rendered so, “He was heard by reason of his reverence
of God;” but it is truly rendered, “from his fear:” and so
the word continually signifies, both in the Old and the New
Testament, and when it is used, as it very often is, by Philo.
So Josh. xxii. 24, Évgway sixa£eia; #Troja’apºsv rodro, “We did
this out of fear;” and, Wisd. xvii. 8, katayáNaa-row sixá88tay
āyāorovy, “They were affected with a ridiculous fear ;” Heb.
xii. 28, “Let us serve God acceptably, wer' aiboiſ; xai Eixa-
8sias, with reverence and godly fear;” Acts xxiii. 10, Eixafln-
Ssic 5 xixiaºxoc, “The captain fearing ;” Heb. xi. 7, “Noah,
sixa 8mósic, fearing, prepared an ark:” so Josephus Saith of
the king, Esther's husband, that he “held forth his sceptre,
Eixageiac airy &roxévy, delivering her from her fear :” and
in the Septuagint, eúAaBeta-6ai &trö reordºrov Kugiov, is to “fear
before God,” Exod. iii. 6. Jer. v. 22. Hab. ii. 20. Zeph. i. 7.
iii. 13. Zech. ii. 13 ; and sixaggiºréal &md ºrgoor&mov airoij, is to
“fear before man,” or be afraid of men, 1. Sam. xviii. 15.
Job xix. 29. Isa. lvii. 11. Jer. xxii. 25. Ecclus, vii. 7. This
sense also the particle àºrè doth require, which rarely doth
import the meritorious cause. His prayers and tears also do
express the greatness of his fears; and, lastly, the scope of
the apostle requires this sense, he being here representing
our Lord as one of like passions with us, that he might show
he was “a merciful high-priest.” This fear he became sub-
ject to, say Grotius and the fathers, because the divinity for
a season as it were withdrew its influenees from the human
nature, Kai yüp rºw &v662, trórnºra rotºro Trašāīy # Osórn; ovexº-
£nce, “for the Deity permitted the humanity thus to suffer,”
Saith Theodoret. And this doubtless all those fathers in-
tended, who followed that reading, ii. 9, that “he tasted
death for every man,” xogi, Osoſ, for that this was no depra-
vation of the Nestorians, as CEcumenius and Theophylact
fancied, is evident from this, that his words are thus cited by
Origen,” and by Ambrose, who lived before Nestorius.
* Xopl; wai Ogot in fig travrö; #ysúcaro Savárov, Stree Év rai
xstral rig ºrgès ‘Eſpaiovº &vrtygápot, Xápºrt Geoû. Orig. Com.
in Joh. ed. Huet. tom. ii. p. 38, D.
+ Ut sine Deo pro omnibus gustaret mortem. De Fide
ad Grat. lib. ii. cap. 4. Theodoret in locum.
CHAPTER VI.
903
did by an angel sent to strengthen him, Luke xxii. plained, not from the nature of the things themselves,
43). -
8 Though he were a Son, yet "learned he (the diffi-
culty of) obedience (to death) by the things which he
suffered (i.e. by the agonies and terrors which he suf-
fered at the apprehension and approach of the death he
was to suffer, and so was the more fitted to be to us a
compassionate high-priest under our sufferings for his
sake) ; -
9 And being (by these sufferings) "made perfect
(rexela S'sic, consecrated to his priesthood), he became
the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey
him 3 - - -
10 (Being) called (or, constituted) of God a high-
priest after the order of Melchisedec (i. e. for ever).
11 Of whom (i. e. whose priesthood) we have many
things to say, and (those) "hard to be uttered, (or ea:-
but) seeing (#trei, because) ye are dull of hearing.
12 For when for the time (ye have professed the
faith) ye ought to (have been able to) be teachers (of
it to others), ye have need that one teach you again
which be the *first principles of the oracles of God;
and are become such as have need of milk (the food
of babes), and not of strong meat (the food of men).
13 For every one that useth milk is (as yet) unskil-
ful in the word of righteousness: for he is (but) a babe
(in Christ, 1 Cor. iii. 2. xiv. 20. Gal. iv. 19. Eph.
iv. 14).
14 But strong meat belongeth to them (only)*who
are of full age (i. e. perfect men), even (to) those who
by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern
both good and evil. -
* Ver. 8. "Ep.a6sy & p &v Émaés rºy itazov, He learned obe-
dience, from or by the things that he suffered.] These words
I have expounded thus: “He learned (the difficulty of) obe-
dience (to the death) by the things that he suffered.” But
I conceive they may be also rendered and expounded thus:
ver. 7, “He was heard and delivered from his fears,” to wit,
from those fears which threw him into an agony in the gar-
den, and against which an angel was sent from heaven to
comfort him ; ver. 8, wain'sé &y viðs, “Though being a Son
(even the proper Son of God), he taught us obedience by
the things that he suffered,” or by the death he suffered in
obedience to the will and commandment of his Father
(John x. 18): for as the Hebrew Toº signifies both to learn
and to teach, and is by the Septuagint above twenty times
rendered 3,840 xeiv, “to teach;” and as the word learn in our
language signifies also to teach, as in these words of the old
translation, Ps. cxix. 66, “O learn me understanding and
knowledge:” so also, saith Eustathius,” the word wav64yo
is pºéan Aśćic, a word that signifies both to teach and to be
taught, and is so used by the authors that lived after Homer's
time, and by the sophisters.
19 Wer. 9. Texeloésic, Made perfect.] That this word is
here taken in the motion of consecration, may appear, Saith
the reverend Dr. Hammond, by the words following ; as the
application of it, “being pronounced or declared a high-
priest,” which belongs to Christ after his resurrection, and
not before, that being the time when he entered into his hea-
venly tabernacle, living there for ever to appear before God,
and exercise that function in his presence for us; and so he
became a high-priest for ever. g
* Ver. 11. Avºstºyevros, Hard to be uttered.] See here
what are Paul's 8wayánta, “things hard to be understood”
(2 Pet. iii. 16); viz. those things which were not so in them-
selves, or through the difficulty of the matter revealed, but
through the imbecility and weakness of them to whom they
were spoken. -
** Ver. 12. x+otxsta rā, śćx; rāy Aoytoy roi; Geoû, The first
principles of the oracles of God..] It is the descant of all the
ancient commentators on this place,” that by these “first
* “oorwep 3:3aev of ºvov ºr #3184x6n, &AN& xai to #3ièaÉey, otºro,
xzi ré pray84wev ćpºpo raira &nxoſ, in Homer, ed Rom. p.
1561, lib. xli., et rursăs, otºro Rai tº fºavšávely aftaro's fixes, &c
& Not rô ºa,6áva, y04.4%ara Trag& Toſ, a cºpia rais. Ibid. p. 1883,
lib. xlv.
+ x'roixsta rā; 3px; rôy Aoyiov rod Osoſ, rob; Tarsivorščov;
ūnēg ºrcü Xpia-toi, Aéyov, ÉxãAEas. Toſ; yag panºátra rºy wiativ
principles” the apostle understands “the humanity of Christ,
because the preachers of the gospel spake of that only to
them who were not yet perfect in the faith:” and yet this
seemeth neither to be true nor safe ; not true, because the
apostle had in the first and second chapters of this epistle, as
all these commentators teach, spoken to those rude Jews of
the deity of Christ, and because he mentions not Christ's
human nature among the principles of the doctrines of Christ,
reckoned up vi. 1, 2; not safe, because it seems to intimate
that Christians might be taught the faith before they had the
knowledge of the divinity of Christ, and consequently that
this was no necessary part of the Christian faith.
Note, Secondly, That hence we may fairly guess who were,
in the Epistles to Timothy, the teachers of the law who
“neither understood what they said, nor whereof they af.
firmed,” 1 Tim. i. 7; and the Éregoëtbáorzańot, “the false
teachers, who were proud, knowing nothing, but doting about
questions and strifes of words, men of corrupt minds, and
destitute of the truth,” vi. 3–5, and who were always learn-
ing and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth,”
2 Tim. iii. 7 ; viz. Inot the Gnostics, but in all likelihood the
Jewish false teachers, and such as were perverted by them.
Note, Thirdly, That this seems not to be spoken of all the
Jews, but only of the greatest part of them ; that therefore
which is spoken of the deity of Christ, the Melchisedecian
priesthood, the virtue of Christ's priesthood, belonged to the
more perfect, who were not to be debarred of the knowledge
of these things by reason of the imbecility of their brethren.
* Ver. 14. Texeloy 33.] See the sense of the word “per-
fect,” note on 1 Cor. ii. 6. This metaphor seems to be
taken from the digestion of the stomach : that which is light
of digestion, and needs not much concoction, as solid food
and strong meat do, being here represented by the name of
milk; and so in reference to the judgment, that which can
easily be learned, and apprehended aright, and in which we
are in no great danger of mistaking, as are the first principles
of religion, mentioned ch. vi., is compared to “milk;” but
that we cannot easily discern, and about which we are sub-
ject to mistakes and wrong conceptions, as the things men-
tioned in the former note were to the Jews, is called “strong
meat.”
#axnzári réxelay, rà repl rā; &ySgorrávnro; Trgozépegow pºva ric
&Anósia; oi whºvke;. Ita Theodoret. Chrysost. CEcum. Theo-
phylact. in locum. Thy ºfty Kai äySgºrriyov trapova'iay roi, Kvglow
Iren. lib. iv. cap. 75. -
CHAPTER VI.
1 THEREFORE, leaving the principles of the doc- them to you), "let us go on unto perfection (i. e. to the
trine of Christ (though your small proficiency in them | doctrines which will render you perfect men in the
makes it seem almost necessary to discourse anew of knowledge of Christ); not laying again the founda-
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VI.
perfect signifies to be fully instructed in the principies of
! Wer. 1. 'Emi rºy rexelárnºra, To perfection.] That to be Christian faith, see note on 1 Cor. ii. 6.
904
HEBREWS.
tion of (Christianity in the doctrines of) repentance
from dead works (i. e. from works deserving death,
Rom vi. 23. viii. 13), and of faith towards God,
2 (And) of the *.doctrine of baptisms (that of water
and of the Spirit, by which they that repent and be-
lieve are initiated into the church of Christ), and * of
laying on of hands (after baptism, for the receiving of
the Holy Ghost), and of the resurrection of the dead,
and * of eternal judgment (the great motives to en-
gage all Christians herein to eaercise themselves, to
have always consciences void of offence towards God
and towards all men, Acts xxiv, 15, 16).
* Wer. 2. Barriagãy 313&xi;, The doctrine of baptisms.]
He speaks not of the baptism of John and of Christ, for the
baptism of John was preparatory to repentance and faith in
Christ; nor of the baptism of martyrdom, that being not
ordinarily known to the Jews by that name; but of the
double baptism, of which the Baptist spake in these words,
“I baptize you with water, but there is one who cometh
after me, he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and
with fire” (Matt. iii. 11); and of which our Saviour speaks
to Nicodemus, saying, “Except a man be born again of
water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of
God” (John iii. 5); for this in order follows the doctrine of
repentance, and faith in God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
* 'Etribérsé, re xeigăy, Imposition of hands.] Imposition
of hands was used in ordination, healing of the sick, and ab-
solution of penitents; but this imposition of hands was not
common to all Christians, nor joined with baptism ; nor was
it to be reckoned among the principles or initiatory doctrines
of the Christian faith. It remains therefore that we under-
stand this of the imposition of the apostles' hands, used after
baptism, for the receiving of the Holy Ghost, mentioned Acts
viii. 17, “Then laid they their hands on them, and they re-
ceived the Holy Ghost” (see xix. 6).
* Kał Keitzaro, aioviov, Of eternal judgment.] Hence inter-
preters observe that the doctrine of Origen, touching the
period of the torments of the damned, is here condemned :
and indeed the primitive fathers, not Origen himself excepted,
taught the contrary. “If we do not the will of Christ,”
saith Clemens Romanus,” otößy hºà, Jagtai rā; aioviov wox4-
a soc, “nothing will deliver us from eternal punishment.”
“The black way” in Barnabasi is 53% roi; Savárov ałoviev ºs-
tà rºwgiac, “the way of eternal death with punishment.”
“The punishment of the damned,” saith Justin Martyr, f
“is zóaaat, Kai Tipºopia by aioviº, ºrvéi (záNazic &mépayro;, xáxact;
aiovio, trugèg aiwyíov 8tzn), endless punishment and torment in
eternal fire:” in Theophylact; it is zóNazi; alºvioc, aid vio; tı-
£copia, “eternal punishment.” Irenaeus, in his symbol of
faith, makes this one article, that row, &c. 8887; wai &ötzovº sic
rô aidºylov ºrig Trépºlm, “Christ would send the ungodly and
unjust into everlasting fire.” .
Tertullian'ſ declares, omnes homines aut cruciatui desti-
nari aut refrigerio, utroque Sempiterno, “that all men are
appointed to eternal torments or refreshments. And if any
man,” saith he, “thinks the wicked are to be consumed,
and not punished, let him remember, ignem gehennae aeter-
mum praedicari in poenam aeternam, that hell-fire is styled
eternal, because designed for eternal punishment;” and thence
concludes “their substance will remain for ever, whose pu-
nishment doth so.” Cyprian” saith, Servantur cum cor-
poribus suis animae infinitis cruciatibus ad dolorem ; that
“the souls of the wicked are kept with their bodies, to be
grieved with endless torments.” Tormentis nec modus ul-
lus aut terminus, “There is no measure nor end of their tor-
ments,” saith Minutius.* Lastly, Origenff reckons this
among the doctrines defined by the church, that “every soul,
when it goes out of this world, shall either enjoy the inhe-
ritance of eternal life and bliss, if its deeds have rendered it
* Frag. Ep. 2. + Sect. 20.
3: Ap. i. p. 41, 46. Ap. ii. p. 57, 64, 71, 87.
$ Ad Autol. p. 79.
| Lib. i. cap. 2. lib. ii. cap. 6. lib. iii. cap. 4.
"I De Test. Animae, cap. 4, et de Resur. Carnis, cap. 35.
* Ep. iii. lib. de Laude Mart. et libr. contr. Demetr.
++ P. 39. †† Proem. TIEgi 'Aºxºv.
3 “And this will we do, if God permit.
4 (I say, let us not attempt wholly to lay again the
foundation of Christianity ;) for it is impossible for
those who were once “enlightened (in baptism), and
" have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made par-
takers of the Holy Ghost (sent down from heaven, and
conferred on them by the imposition of hands), -
5 And have "tasted the good word of God (preach-
ed among them with such variety of tongues, and con-
firmed by so many miracles), and (have seen and felt)
* the powers of the world to come,
6 If they shall fall away (from Christianity,
fit for life, sive igni aeterno ac suppliciis mancipanda est,
or is to be delivered up to eternal fire and punishment,
if its sins have deserved that state.”
* Wer. 3. Kal rotºro ºrothoropºv, And this will we do, &c.]
This verse by Grotius and Dr. Hammond is thus interpreted;
We purpose some other time to instruct you farther in these
rudiments of Christianity, if you do not in the meantime fall
from the Christian faith (ii. 1.3); “If there be not in you
an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God”
(iii. 12); “If you fall not after the same example of unbelief
which your forefathers gave” (iv. 11).
Others put this verse in a parenthesis, and make it relate:
to these words, ver. 1, “Let us go on unto perfection,” or to
the higher doctrines of Christianity, as God willing we now
intend to do. So Acts xviii. 21, “God willing I will return
unto you. I will come to you speedily if God will,” 1 Cor.
iv. 19. And this interpretation I like best.
* Ver, 4. barrio 64, rac, Enlightened.] That baptism from
the beginning was called portraig, “illumination,” we learn
from the concurrent testimonies of Justin Martyr," Ire-
naeus, and Clemens Alexandrinus,” which makes it very
probable that this phrase obtained from the beginning of
Christianity, and so this answers to the doctrine of baptisms,
ver. 2.
7 Tevarapévov; re rà, 3ogsä, ti, Émoupaviou, And have tasted
of the heavenly gift.] i. e. The Holy Ghost sent down from
heaven, styled by our Saviour, thy 8weeky rut. Geoû, “the gift
of God,” John iv. 10. Thus our Saviour, discoursing of
baptism by water and the Holy Ghost, and of regeneration,
&yo,6ey, “from above,” by virtue of this Spirit, saith, he dis-
coursed Trºpi răy Éroveaviov, “ of heayenly things,” John iii.
12, and they, who were sealed with the Spirit of promise,
Eph. i. 13, are said to be blessed with spiritual blessings, #y
roſ; Étroveaviotç, “in heavenly things;” and this gift was im-
parted by imposition of hands, Acts viii. 17. xix. 6.
*Ver. 5. Kai waxy yewrap, fivov; Osoſ; Fäwa, And have tasted
the good word of God..] i. e. And have been acquainted with
the gospel, which affords the promise of remission of sins,
and of justification here, and of a resurrection to eternal
life hereafter (ver. 2). So the promise of bringing the
children of Israel into the land of Canaan is styled hain
nuon, figua waxby, “a good word,” Josh. xxi. 45. xxiii. 15;
the word of God for bringing his people out of captivity is
styled nun nin-1, “my good word,” Jer. xxix. 10; the words
of consolation, which the angel spake to Jerusalem, are
Bºnilo Bºnn-1, #4ara wax&, “good words,” Zech. i. 13; the
promise made to God's people of remission of sins, and
peace and truth in the days of the Messiah, is innon ninth,
“a good word;” and the prophet speaking of the Messiah
saith, “My heart meditateth a good word,” and hat, Aáyov
&yaôy, Ps. xlv. 1. This word they saw confirmed by the
gift of tongues and prophecy, vouchsafed to the first preach-
ers of it, and daily experimented in their assemblies (1 Cor.
xiv.), and so they could not but be convinced of the truth
of it.
* Avváget, re Azéaxoviro; ałºwoc, The powers of the world to
come.] The world to come doth, in the language of the pro-
phets and of the Jewish doctors, signify the times of the
Messiah, who, in the prophet Isaiah, is called, & Travšč
* Kaxeſ rat 3Å rotto ºr Aðrgoy boria ºr, dic qorto-pašvoy rhy
8;&volay rāy Tajra (wav6ayávrov. Justin. Dial. ii. p. 94.
+ Kaxeſ rat, 33 troXXaXá; rà égyov routo x48tzºwa wa; p3-
rigga, Kai réasiow, kai Aovrºv. Clem. Alex. Pied, lib. i. cap. 6,
lib. ix. A.
CHAPTER WI.
905
* to renew them again to repentance; seeing they
(by so doing) crucify to themselves (or by themselves)
the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open
shame.
7 For (as) the earth which drinketh in the rain
which cometh oft (from heaven) upon it, and (so)
brings forth herbs meet for them by whom it is
dressed, receiveth (farther) blessing from God, (so is
it with them who become fruitful under the dew and
showers of divine grace :) *
8 But that (earth) which (being thus dressed and
watered) beareth (only) thorns and briars is "re-
jected, and nigh unto cursing ; whose end is to be
urned.
9 But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of
you, and things that accompany salvation, though we
thus speak (to warn you of the danger of falling off
from the Christian faith).
10 For (if ye be not wanting to yourselves) God is
not unrighteous to forget "your work (of faith) and
(your) labour of love, which you have shown towards
| his name, in that you have ministered to the (necessi-
ties of the) saints, and (yet) do minister (to them).
ll And we desire (#Tru6vpoijuav če, we desire there-
fore) that every one of you do show the same dili-
gence (which hitherto ye have done), to the (intent
that ye may retain a) full assurance of hope to the end;
12 *That ye be not slothful (Gr. may not be sloth-
ful), but followers of them who through faith and
patience inherit (ed) the promises.
13 For when God (upon his faith in offering his
son Isaac) made a promise to Abraham, * because he
could swear by no (one) greater, he sware by himself,
14 Saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and
multiplying I will multiply thee.
15 And so" ( accordingly , after he had patiently
endured, he obtained the * promise (of a seed multi-
plied greatly to him, Gen. xxii. 17. -
16 God confirming his faith in the promises made to
him after the manner of men :) for men verily swear
by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to
them an * end of all strife (or contradiction).
pºxxoviroc alăvoc, “the Father of the world to come” (see
note on ii. 5). “The powers,” therefore, “of the world to
come,” according to the scripture idiotism, must be the ex-
ternal operations of the Holy Ghost, viz. the gifts of faith, of
healing, of casting out devils, Évseyńºwara 3vyáſzewy, 1 Cor. xii.
8, 9, “the working of miracles, ’’ or “the operations of
powers.” Or, secondly, this fourth particular may answer to
the day of judgment, which is the fourth thing mentioned,
ver. 2, as the three former seem to do to the three other
things there mentioned, and then “the powers of the world
to come” may signify the powerful persuasions the doctrine
of a future judgment administers to repentance and a new
life (Acts xvii. 30, 31. 2 Cor. v. 10, 11); though of this
Import of the phrase I find no example.
* Ver, 6. 'Abūvatoy roſtov; TráAly &yaxatvičew bic werávotay,
It is impossible to renew these to repentance.] For these be-
ing all the means, internal and external, by which God gave
testimony to the truth of Christian faith, and the prophetic
office and glorious resurrection of our Lord ; they, saith the
apostle, who, after a full experience of them, do of their own
accord renounce that faith, cannot be renewed to repent-
ance, because they have already resisted all that evidence
which God saw fit to give men of the truth of that faith and
of this Messiah ; and so they become guilty of that sin
against the Holy Ghost, which, saith our Saviour, shall ne-
ver be forgiven (Matt. xii. 32).
But then the tragawea'évºrsº, “men that thus fall away,”
are not those who lapse in the times of persecution, and much
less those who, through the temptations of the flesh, may
sometimes fall into great sins, for to such the apostle grants
place for repentance, 2 Cor. xii. 21 ; and one cf these he
delivers to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, “that the
spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus,” 1 Cor.
v. 5; exhorting his Corinthians, upon his repentance, to re-
ceive him into their communion, 2 Cor. ii. 7, 8; but such as
after these experiences of the truth of the Christian faith,
have voluntarily renounced it, relapsing either to heathenism
or Judaism; for they are such as “apostatize from the living
God,” iii. 12, such as “fall through unbelief,” iv. 11, such
as “hold not the profession of the faith,” x. 23, such as
“draw back from the faith,” ver, 38.
Secondly, This will be farther evident from the description
of these persons, they being here said &vacravºody Havroſ,
“by themselves to crucify Christ afresh,” and Tragašety-
Awarićely, “to put him to an open shame,” as one that de-
served the punishment which the Jews inflicted on him, and
being apostate Jews, to crucify Christ again.
* Ver. 8. 'A36xpaoº, Rejected.] It is rejected of the hus-
bandman, who will spend no more labour upon it, but leave it
to be scorched by the heat, and so to be like the heath, which
is the emblem of the cursed man, Jer. xvii. 5, 6 ; or like the
barren fig-tree which the Lord cursed, saying, “Never fruit
grow on thee more,” Matt. xxi. 19. Accordingly, they on
whom the showers of divine grace fall down from heaven, if
they bring forth no good fruit, shall be 3834%, ot, “ rejected”
by God, continue under the curse of the law, and their end
shall be destruction.
12 Ver, 10. Toi, pyov jºy, Your work.] This seems to be
the #yoy riºr reac, “work of faith,” mentioned 1 Thess. i. 3.
2 Thess. i. 11, and joined with 3 x6tro; rā, śyárnº, “the la-
bour of love,” as here; and which is styled #yzy &yaščy, “the
good work,” Phil. i. 6. Rom. ii. 7 (see note on that verse),
the following exhortation being this, That they would con-
tinue in the faith to the end, and be imitators of them “who
through faith and patience did inherit the promises.”
18 Ver. 12. "Iya º yoópoi, That ye be not slothful.] i. e.
God being so engaged on his part to let nothing be wanting
which is requisite to enable you to persevere, and so to en-
joy the fruits of your faith in the salvation of your souls, see
that ye be not slothful, nor faint-hearted, but still continuing
the same Christian diligence to the end, that so ye may at
last enjoy the blessings promised by this gospel, and live in
an assured hope of them, as your father Abraham did.
14 Wer. 13. 'Emei war' otºsyö, six: pºsićovo, #43-ai, Because he
could swear by no greater.] So Philo, ögå; y&P ºr oil kaš
#+épov čºváel 3 oak, ośy yap airoi; Aggirroy, 3AX& xas' Havrot,
“Thou seest that God sweareth not by another, for there is
nothing better than he, but by himself” (Leg. Alleg. lib. ii.
p. 75, D.) - -
He swears, 3, £avroſſ, by himself.] It may perhaps not
be unworthy of our observation, that where God saith in the
Old Testament, “I swear by myself;” the Jerusalem Tar-
gum renders.this frequently non-, “by my Word,” as Exod.
xvii. 16. Deut. i. 1. xxxii. 22. 26.
15 Wer. 15. Th; irayyexia;, The promise.] This cannot be
understood of Isaac the promised seed, he being not only
born, but offered, when God made this promise to Abraham;
nor can it be said that he inherited the promise because he
saw it afar off, that being a sign he did not yet inherit it; or
that he did this in his posterity, for the apostle Saith, he him-
self inherited the promises: which is exactly true of the
words cited here by the apostle, “Surely, blessing I will
bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee;” for the
book of Genesis assures us, this promise was exactly fulfilled
in his life: for the Lord blessed him in all things (Gen. xxiv.
1). He had a numerous seed by his wife Keturah (Gen.
xxv.), to whom he gave gifts (ver. 6). From Ishmael arose
twelve sons, which were princes of their tribes (ver. 13. 16).
He lived fifteen years after the birth of Jacob and Esau by
Rebekah, of whom the oracle declared, that “there were two
nations in her womb :” for Isaac was sixty years old when
they were born to him (yer. 23.26); he himself was born
when Abraham was a hundred years old (Gen. xxi. 5);
Abraham was a hundred and seventy-five years old when he
died (Gen. xxv. 7); he therefore lived fifteen years after the
birth of Jacob and Esau, and ninety years after the birth of
Ishmael; and so lived to see this promise verified to
him.
16 Ver, 16, 'Avriko) as ºrigaº, An end of contradiction.
906
HEBREWS.
17 Wherein (#v (;, in which thing accordingly) God,
(being) willing more abundantly to show (not only to
Abraham, but also) to the heirs of promise the im-
mutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath;
ll That by two immutable things in which it was
impossible for God to lie (viz. his promise and his
oath), we might have a strong consolation, who have
fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before
us: (who, to escape the wrath impendent on the unbe-
lieving Jews here and hereafter, have fled to the hope
of glory set before us in Christ Jesus, the lively hope of
Diodorus Siculus" informs us, that the Egyptians styled an
oath, tweyiarmy triarty, “the greatest confirmation.” It is,
saith Dionysius Halicarnassensis, texturaia wirtuº, “the last
or utmost assurance.” It is, in the language of Procopius,
ūztarov, xa, xup&raroy triarsø; tº kai 3MnSeia; Švéxvčov, “the
last and firmest pledge of faith and truth.” That the apos-
tle here speaks of promissory oaths, is evident from the oc-
casion of this discourse, viz. his promise made to Abra-
ham. Now these oaths being equally conducing to this
! sº
* T3 ivyota&z=ya rāy ºrpayºrov Šexø 8taxpivstat, wai tº
#3:3ala 68%atoš'rai, kai Tà &miata Aap,0&yet triarty. Philo de
Somn. p. 441, 442.
an inheritance incorruptible, to which we are begotten
by Christ Jesus, 1 Pet. i. 3). -
19 Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul,
both sure and stedfast (in all the storms and billows of
the world), and which " entereth into that within (Gr.
the inward part of) the veil;
20 Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even
Jesus, (who is) made a high-priest for ever after the
order of Melchisedec (and so one that can never die,
or miscarry in his office, but lives for ever, there to ap-
pear in the presence of God for us, vii. 24, 25).
good end in all ages, we have just reason to believe that
Christianity allows of them for these ends.
*7 Wer. 19. Ei, rà icºtsgow ºrcü warametázaaroc, Which en-
tereth into the veil..] Which, being the hope of the heavenly
mansions typified by the sanctum sanctorum, within the veil,
carries our expectation thither : the Jews had the highest ex-
pectations from the service of the high-priest entering into
the holy of holies; if on the day of expiation he came out
alive, “there was great joy, for then they thought they were
accepted.” How then may we rejoice in contemplation of
that heavenly sanctuary !
* Gemar. tit. Joma.
CHAPTER VII.
1 (Which order, sure, was very excellent, and there-
fore fit to represent the priesthood of the holy Jesus,
the King of saints, and Prince of peace 9 for this Mel-
chisedec, *king of Salem, priest of the most high
God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VII.
* Ver. 1. Bao-Agüç zaxia, King of Salem.] They seem
mistaken who think this Salem was the same with Jerusa-
lem; for it is plain from this very place, Gen. xiv. 15–17,
that Salem was in the way which led from the valley of Da-
mascus unto Sodom. Jerome" also saith that he learned,
ab eruditissimis gentis illius, “from the most learned of the
Jews, that Salem was not Jerusalem, but a town near Scy-
thopolis,” which till then was called Salem : and it retained
its name in our Saviour's days, as appears by the evangelist
saying that “John baptized near Salem,” John iii. 23. Now
of this Melchisedec, king of Salem, let it be noted,
First, That he must be a man, not an angel, not the Holy
Spirit: ſor (1.) “every high-priest,” saith the apostle, “is
taken from among men,” V. l. (2.) The scripture still
speaks of him as a man, describing him by his proper name,
his kingly dignity, and the city where he dwelt, and by his
personal actions, proper to a man, his bringing forth bread
and wine, and his receiving the tithes of the spoils. And,
(3.) from these words, “Consider, anxiko; cºroº, what an
eminent person this Melchisedec was, to whom Abraham
gave the tenth of the spoils;” things, surely, which neither
angels nor the Holy Spirit would receive, nor was it neces-
sary to prove their dignity. Accordingly, Josephus saith
expressly that “he was a king of the city of Salem;” and
Philo, ; that “he was a king, and not a tyrant.”
Secondly, He could not be Sem, as the Jews vainly ima-
gine, for the apostle Saith here expressly, that Melchisedec
was not yeweaxoyoſºvo; # airøy, i.e. “one who had his pe-
digree or descent from them,” which is not true of Sem :
nor could he be said to be “without father or mother,”
whose genealogy is evident from Adam, Gen. v. 32. x. 1,
and who was the son of Noah. Nor was Sem's priesthood,
if he had any, of a different order from Levi's, who was “in
his loins,” as well as Levi was “in the loins of Abraham;”
and therefore it could not be said that “Levi paid him tithes
in the loins of Abraham,” but it would be as true that he
wº-
* Ep. ad Evagrium, tom. iii. f. 14, C.
+ Antiq, lib. i. i. Cap. 11, lib. ii. de Legis Alleg. p. 57.
—-
of the (four) kings (mentioned Gen. xiv. 9), and
blessed him (ver. 18);
2 To whom Abraham also gave a tenth part of all
(the spoils taken by him); first being by interpreta-
tion (of the word Melchisedec), king of righteousness,
received tithes in the loins of Sem : for, according to this
interpretation, he was in the loins both of him that received
tithes, and of him that paid them; which destroys the whole
argument of the apostle here. Moreover, there is no visible
cause why Moses should call Sem, whom he so often men-
tions, by any other name than his own, by which he doth so
oft make mention of him ; nor is it likely that Sem reigned
in the land of Canaan, which now was in the possession of
his brother's son; nor could Abraham be said to “Sojourn
there as in a strange country,” if his noble ancestor Sem
had been king there. -
Thirdly, Much less could he be the eternal Aéyoc, or the
Son of God himself; for as he only was a priest according
to his human nature, i. e. that nature in which he was infe-
rior to God, and which he had not yet assumed, and was
then constituted a high-priest, when God said to him at his
resurrection, “This day have I begotten thee,” v. 5; so
could he not be a high-priest after his own order, or made
like unto himself. But Melchisedec was in this like unto
him, that he was both “a priest of the most high God,” and
a “king” also in that country, those two offices being an-
ciently in the same person; whence the Hebrew InB, “a
priest,” is by the Targum often rendered Ran, “a prince;”
See Gen. xli. 45. Exod. ii. 16. iii. 1. 2 Sam. viii. 18. xx. 26.
1 Kings iv. 6. Job xii. 19; and on those words, Ps. cx. 4,
“Thou art a priest for ever;” “Thou shalt be a great prince
for ever,” is the descant of the Jewish Targum. -
Note also, that here again Mr. Le Clerc is insufferable,
when he says, “Because the allegorical writers of the Jews
at that time accommodated innumerable places to the Mes-
siah, not relying upon any grammatical interpretation, but a
certain old custom of explaining the scripture after this man-
ner; and because they interpreted Ps. cx. of the Messiah,
the Sacred writer makes use of that interpretation to his pur-
pose; and because they acknowledged the Messiah ought to
be like Melchisedec, he reasons against them from their own
concessions, not against other men, who might have denied
what he affirmed: otherwise, if the thing be considered in
itself, no strongor grammatical argument can be drawn against
others from that history; and therefore such things are not
too much to be urged now, because that way of explaining
* -
CHAPTER VII.
907
and after that also (styled) king of Salem, which (by
interpretation) is, king of peace; (and being)
3 * Without father, (or) without mother (of any
priestly order), without descent (from any of the pedi-
gree of Abraham, ver. 7) *having neither beginning
of days (from which his priestly office was to com-
mence), nor end of life (in which it terminated); but,
(being) “made like unto the Son (a son) of God,
abideth a priest continually. -
4 Now consider how great this man (Gr. he) was,
unto whom even the patriarch Abraham gave "the
tenth of the spoils (which anciently were given to
kings and priests, as belonging to God, whom they
served or represented). -
5 And verily they that are of the sons of Levi, who
receive (i. e. they indeed of the sons of Levi receiving)
the office of the priesthood, have a commandment to
take tithes of the people according to the law, that is,
of their brethren, though they come out of the loins
of Abraham (i. e. they receive tithes only by virtue
of the law, and that from them only who come out of
the loins of Abraham, as well as they, Numb. xviii.
21. 26).
6 But he "whose descent is not counted from them
scripture is grown out of use:” that is, the apostle proceeds
all along upon weak grounds, and urges arguments that in
themselves depend on falsehoods, only because some silly
Jews had said the same thing before him.
in profane Celsus,” this vile reflection on the sacred penmen,
that “they produce things unknown, fanatical, uncertain,
and which no wise man thinks to be of any strength ;” but
I am sorry to find a Christian writer thus exposing them to
the contempt and scorn of anti-scripturists. “Christ is a
priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec,” saith the
apostle, vi. 20. So indeed you tell us, out of the idle tales
and “allegorical interpretations of some brain-sick Jews,”
saith Mr. Le Clerc; but without all ground. “It is ºrieta-
orárepov wará8% ov, exceeding manifest,” saith the apostle,
“that another priest should arise after the order of Melchise-
dec,” vii. 15. It is no such thing, saith Mr. Le Clerc ; this
follows only from the vain concessions of the Jews: “ano-
ther man may deny what you thus confidently affirm.” “It
is exceeding manifest,” saith the apostle, “for the scripture
testifies this, by saying, Thou art a priest for ever after the
order of Melchisedec,” ver. 17. And God hath confirmed
this by an oath, in these words, “The Lord sware and will
not repent, Thou art a priest for ever.” You make use of
a rabbinical interpretation, saith Mr. Le Clerc, and call that
falsely a scripture testimony; “but another may deny what
you thus assume, for no strong or grammatical argument can
be drawn from these words.”
* Ver. 3. 'Atrárole, &c. Without father, without mother
&c.] It being certain that these things cannot be properly
spoken of a man, it is necessary to interpret them as I have
done in the paraphrase; and to this interpretation the apostle
leads, by styling him, &yevsaxáyntoy, “without pedigree,” as
being ºysviáñoyoſºsyo; # airøy, “not of the genealogy of
the people of Abraham.”
* Märs &#xy hºspāv, Kºhts ºwā; réAo; #xoy, Having neither
beginning of days nor end of life.] Though I have placed
another exposition of these words in the paraphrase, I con-
demn not the ordinary sense which interpreters put upon
these words, viz. That in scripture there is nothing said of
the beginning or end of his life; for so Philo saith of Cain,
“Perhaps the sign that Cain should not be killed was this,
rö ºn?irot's évageSãval, that he should never be taken away
by death, oběš yixe Sávarrow airoi; 31& récnç rāg yogoşearia; 33.3%-
Aoxey, for Moses hath said nothing of his death” (L. Quod
“deter. p. 145, C.).
* 'Apokoto'ºzévo, 3Å rà vić rod Ogoj, But made like to the
(a) son of God..] All the interpreters I have met with refer
this to Christ, of whom Melchisedec was a type, he being the
antitype, as being emphatically “a Ring of righteousness,”
and “a Prince of peace,” without earthly father, as to his
divinity; without mother, as being not of the genealogy of
the Aaronical priesthood ; “without beginning of days” as to
his divine nature, “and without end of life” as to his priest-
hood. But the apostle is mothere speaking of Melchisedec's
likeness to Christ, but of Christ's likeness to him, as being
“a priest after the order of Melchisedec :” mor do these
things well suit with our Lord Christ, who, as to his human
nature, was not “without mother,” nor, as to his priesthood,
“without beginning of days,” Luke iii. 23. I therefore
rather think, that as in all the former characters, so here the
apostle speaks of Melchisedec, and saith, he was, in this,
* "Ayyavara, Kai Trápoto-rea, wai Trávra &&nx2, &y re ºv yºga
où883; &y voiv xoy ei-tſy Sºvatºro, Čaraq; yā; ital tº fan}=y. Orig.
lib. vii. p. 333.
I read, indeed,
“like to a son of God,” or to one of the angels, who are im-
mortal, and never cease to be: for it is certain, that the
angels are often styled “the sons of God:” so Job i. 6,
p'nºx ºn, “the sons of God,” are, in the Septuagint, #yyexot
roß Oscº. So also ii. 1. xxxviii. 7. Ps. xxix. 1. Chal. So
Dan. iii. 25, “The vision of the fourth is like við ‘rod Osow, a
son of God,” i. e. an angel of God: for so it follows, ver. 28,
“He sent his angel, and delivered them.” It is the observa-
tion of the book of Wisdom, ii. 3, that “man was made im-
mortal, and to be an image of God’s eternity;” and at their
resurrection, saith Luke, “they shall die no more, but shall
be like unto the angels, zai viol gia's roi, Ogoj, and are the sons
of God, being sons of the resurrection ;” and our viościa, or
“sonship,” is by this apostle made to consist in “the re-
demption of the body from corruption” (see note on Rom.
viii. 23). Melchisedec therefore being here represented as
one who had no end of his life ; and upon that account, one
who “abides a priest for ever,” is in this said to be like to
“a son of God;” whence, ver, 8, the apostle opposes him to
priests that die, saying, “There he received tithes, of whom it
is testified that he liveth,” viz. Ps. cx. 4.
* Ver. 4. Aerºrny rôy 3xgoświay, The tenth of the spoils.]
Tà &ngoŠivia, saith Phavorinus, are, rà Tây Trox#4oy, “the
spoils of war;” they are, saith Hesychius and Suidas, ai
Xaqºwy 37tagxai, “the first-fruits of the prey;” or, as Jose-
phus” saith, Šekárn rā; Asia;, “the tenths of what was gotten
by war;” it being a very ancient custom to give partly to
the gods, and partly to kings, the tenths or first-fruits of these
spoils: and so Melchisedec might here receive them both as
a king and as a priest. That they were given to the gods,
we learn from those words of Arrian, “We ought, in hunt-
ing, to begin from the gods, and to present to them the first-
fruits of what we have taken, où pºiſov h iv táviº ºrºškov
&ºp2Swiz, no less than in a victory in war, the chief of the
spoils.” Thus did the Athenians, saith Herodotus, who,
Tºv agrew tºy ex4+ny àyènzay, “consecrated the tenth of
their prize to the gods.” Diodorus Siculus saith, all the
Greeks did it ; and Josephus saith, that Joshua preserved
the gold and silver of the inhabitants of Jericho to be
&ragºy #aigeroy rā Qºſī, “excellent first-fruits to God of
their spoils” (Antiq. lib. v. cap. 1, p. 136). See this as to
both parts largely proved by Dr. Spencer.S And evident it
is, that Abraham here paid not the tithes of all he had, but
only the tenths of the spoils: (1) Because he had nothing
else there, the remainder of his estate being at Mamre.
(2.) The manner of paying tithes being not this, that a man
shall pay the tenth of all he hath, but only that he pay “the
tenth of his increase;” and that not whenever he meets the
priest, but at the time of harvest only, or when he receives
from God's hands the increase of it: it cannot then be
thought reasonable, that Abraham should give to Melchise-
dec the tithes of any other spoils than those he had now
reaped by way of harvest.
6 Ver. 6. "o 33 tº yewsaxoyoſºvo; # airów, Whose descent,
&c.] Thus Philoll saith, that ispáz Éavroſ Teroinºv 6 9sic
oëw eyov airoi; ºrgoëtaturdaac, “God made him his priest,
having not mentioned any work that he did before :" and
elsewhere he saith that “he received airowaśń Kai ºrº-
8tsawrey isgorºvny, a priesthood taught and learned by him-
Self.”
+ Lib. v. cap. 77.
* Antiq. lib. i. cap. 11, p. 18.
q p p § Lib. iii. 10, sect. 1,2.
: Iſist. lib. ix. p. 543.
| Lib. ii. Alleg. p. 57, E.
908
HEBREWS.
(being no kin to Abraham) received tithes of Abraham
(himself), and blessed him who had the promises
(that in him should all the families of the earth be
blessed).
7 And without all contradiction (in all solemn bene-
dictions, ea officio, ) the less is blessed of the better
(and so he that blessed Abraham must be greater than
he was).
8 And here (under the Levitical priesthood) men
that die receive tithes; but there (in the instance of
Melchisedec) " he (received them), of whom it is wit-
nessed (Ps. cx. 4) that he liveth.
9 And * as I may so say, (the family of) Levi also,
who receiveth tithes, paid tithes in Abraham.
10. For he was yet in the loins of his father (Abra-
ham), when Melchisedec met him.
11 If therefore * perfection (i. e. full expiation of
sins) were (to be obtained) by the Levitical priesthood,
(as it must have been, had it come by the law, ver. 18,
19) for "under (Gr. about) it the people received the
law, what farther need was there that another priest
should arise (as the psalmist saith) after the order of
Melchisedec, and not be (rather) called (a priest)
after the order of Aaron 2
12 (And yet you see this need there was ;) for the
priesthood being changed (i. e. translated from the
order of Aaron to that of Melchisedec), there is made
of necessity a change also of the law (concerning
priesthood, ver. 14, or touching priests to be repaired
to for eaſpiation. -
13 And this change is signified by these words, Thou
art a priest for ever after tha order of Melchisedec :)
for he (i. e. Christ) of whom these things (words) are
spoken pertaineth to another tribe (than that of Levi),
of which (tribe) no man gave attendance at the altar.
14 For it is evident that our Lord (to whom these
words belong) sprang out of (the tribe of) Judah; of
º tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priest-
hood. :
15 And it is yet far more evident: (by saying,)
* for that (Gr. ei, that) after the similitude of Melchi-
sedec (not of Aaron, ver. 11) there ariseth another
priest,
16 Who is made (a priest), not after the law of a
carnal commandment (relating to men that are flesh
and blood, and so infirm, and subject to mortality ; for
all flesh is grass, Isa. xl. 6, and therefore must be suc-
ceeded by others), but after the power of an endless
(or indissoluble) life.
| 17 For (thus) he testifieth, (by saying,) Thou art
a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.
18 (I say, not after the law of a carnal command-
ment,) for there is verily (in these words) a disannul-
ling of the commandment going before (the preceding
commandment concerning the Levitical priesthood and
sacrifices), *for the weakness (of it as to justifica-
7 Ver. 8. He.] They seem to be mistaken who think this
only belongs to Christ, and not at all to Melchisedec : the
contrary is manifest, (1.) from the particle kai, which shows
that the apostle is still speaking of the same person, i. e.
Melchisedec ; and from the three following verses, which all
speak of him : nor is here more said of him than ver. 3,
where it is affirmed, he had “neither beginning of days nor
end of life.” And by the opposition betwixt the Aaronical
priests as dying, and him as living, and by the word Awaérv-
gotºvoº, which respects a testimony of this thing, it is evi-
dent that the apostle infers this from the words of the
psalmist, “Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Mel-
chisedec.”
* Ver, 9... ‘as firo; Birsiv) Is not here to speak briefly, and,
as in a word ; but &; &y eitrº ris, “as a man may say,” or, Wa.
otro, siro, “that I may so say ” because, saith Theophylact,
it was räxpanºa, “a harsh figure ;” “for in such a manner,”
saith Quintilian,” “we use to mollify harsh expressions:”
which is enough to guard us against the inference which some
make from these words, that “in like manner” we may be |
said to have sinned in Adam, as being in the loins of Adam
when he sinned. Which may be granted rpárov riva, “in a
manner,” because we derived from him that death which
was the punishment of his sin, as coming from the loins of
one mortal, and deriving from him a nature subject to that
sin which deserveth death ; and more cannot be inferred
from these words, because the apostle here says no more of
Levi, but that he, “in a manner,” paid tithes in Abraham.
(2.) Because by the like argument it may be proved, that
Jesus Christ himself, as man, paid tithes to Melchisedec, for
he also was in the loins of Abraham when Melchisedec met
him, and consequently that he was also inferior to Melchise-
dec; which perhaps was the very reason why the apostle
thus mollifies his words, and is so careful to let us know he
useth here a form of speech which is not proper and exact,
and such as ought not to be pressed too far. And therefore
(3) the subject-matter fairly shows the difference: for tithes
are paid out of such things as are, the fathers’ goods, and so
would have descended, by the laws of nature and nations, to
their posterity, had they not been thus given to another; but
good and evil actions are merely personal, and therefore,
though the effects of both may, and often do, descend unto
* Et si quid periculosius finxisse videmur, quibus-
dam remediis praemuniendum est, Ut ita dicam, Si licet
dicere, Quodammodó, lib. viii. 3. Twº ºrgáirov. OEcum.
hic.
posterity, the good actions of the parents bringing temporal
blessings on their offspring, and their evil actions subjecting
them to temporal calamities and diseases; yet their merit or
demerit cannot be properly derived or propagated to their
posterity : for as no man is a good man, in the account of
God, purely because his father, or some of his progenitors,
were so ; so neither is any man properly a sinner, or evil in
the sight of God, merely because his parents were so before
he was born.
* Ver. 11. Texeloſaic, Perfection.] That this word, relating
to priests and oblations, signifies expiation and purification,
see note on x. 1.
* 'Em' air; yet & Aaic veyokośćrnto, For about that the
people received the law.] i. e. The law appointed that the
people, under all their defilements which needed any expia-
tion and purgation, should repair to the Levitical priests: or,
Under the priesthood, the people received the law concern-
ing sacrifices ; the priesthood being first instituted, and then
the laws concerning sacrifices and expiation.
Kai oi nati, rឺv 'Aagöy Néyeaðai.] The words are in all the
Greek scholia, Vulgate, Syriac, Arabic, and yet are by Dr.
Mills rejected as a marginal note, upon the sole authority of
the Ethiopic (see Examen Millii): so viii. 4, röy isgéoy is re-
jected upon the authority of the Vulgar and three MSS.
though it be in all the Greek scholiasts, the Syriac, and
Arabic: so ix. 22, ºx#8oy is wanting only in the Syriac and
Ethiopic, and yet rejected by the doctor: so & ©Eöc, x. 9, is
rejected upon the sole authority of the Ethiopic, against the
authority of the Greek commentators and all the other ver-
sions: and, xiii. 21, he rejects #yyo, upon the sole authority of
the Vulgar (see Exam. Millii). . .
* Ver. 15. Ei, For that..] The particle si often signifies
quðd, that, in scripture, as doth the Hebrew Dr. So Acts
xxvi. 8, “Why should it be thought impossible, ei Osic vs-
kpot; #ysiest, that God should raise the dead?” And ver. 23,
si raśnrö; 3 Xgicrèc, si ºrgâro;, &c., “That Christ hath suf-
fered, and that he is the first that rose from the dead.” So
Jer. ii. 28, “Where are thy gods, si &yaatharovrat, that they
may arise and save thee?” (see 1 Tim. v. 10. 2 Chron. vi.
18.
d Wer. 18. Ată ră airfic &c.6evåg, For the weakness of it.]
“For what the law could not do,” i. e. that deliverance from
death, that justification to life, it could not give, #y 3 ha Sáve:
31& cragxic, “in that it was weak through the flesh,” rendering
us subject to the transgression of it, and so to death by the
sentence of it, Christ, by his sacrifice for sin, did (Rom.
viii. 3).
CHAPTER VII.
909
º:J, and * unprofitableness of it (as to the eaſoiation
of sin).
19 For (thus) * the law made nothing perfect, but
the bringing in "of a better hope did; by *which
we draw nigh to God.
20 " And (by so much is Jesus made the mediator
of a better covenant), inasmuch as (his priesthood, by
virtue of which he became this mediator, was ) not
without an oath (as was that of the tribe of
Levi):
21 (For those priests were made (such) without an
oath; but this with an oath by him that said unto
him (Ps. cx. 4), The Lord sware and will not repent,
Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchi-
sedec :) (Now where no oath intervenes, God may
change his institution, but not after his oath.
22 I say,) by so much was Jesus made a surety of
3. * testament (established upon better promises,
viii. 6).
23 And (to proceed in the comparison) they truly
were many priests (successively), because they were
not suffered to continue by reason of death :
24 But this man (Gr. but he, i. e. Jesus, ver. 22),
because he continueth (for) ever, hath an unchange-
able (high) priesthood (which passeth not away, and
so admits of no succession to it).
25 Wherefore he is able also to save them to the
uttermost (Gr. for ever) that come unto God by him,
seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them,
(and by that intercession to become the propitiation
for their sins for ever, l John ii. 2.
26 And thus was he a high-priest suited to our con-
dition :) for such a high-priest became us (sinners),
who is holy, (i.e. consecrated to his office, and so ho-
liness to the Lord, Exod. xxviii. 36) * harmless
(äkakoç, free from evil in himself), undefiled (by the
impurities of others), separate from sinners (and so
not liable to any deftlement by dwelling among them),
and (therefore) made higher than the heavens, (he
being ascended far above the heavens, Eph. iv. 10, and
passed through the heavens, Heb. iv. 14, into the pre-
sence of God, there to appear for ever for us ;
27 And so one) who needeth not daily, as those
high-priests (under the law did), to offer up sacrifice,
first for his own sins (which he, being free from evil,
ver. 26, could not do), and then for (the sins of) the
* T &yotºxic, The unprofitableness] Of the law, here
mentioned, must not be taken absolutely, for that the apos-
tle denies, declaring in his answer to that question, “What
advantage then hath the Jew” above the gentile? or, ri; #
& pixela ; “What is the profit of the circumcision P" that it
is “much every way” (Rom. iii. 1, 2); and reckoning among
their advantages, the giving of the law (Rom. ix. 4), and
showing the uses of it, and the reason which moved God to
give it (Rom. vii. 8. Gal. iii. 19. 24). But the precepts of
the ceremonial law were 3a Seyā kai ºrray & arrotxsta, “weak
and beggarly elements,” compared to those of the gospel
(Gal. iv. 9), and wholly unprofitable as to justification, or
the absolution of the sinner, or transgressor of it, from the
guilt of sin, as the apostle testifies in these words, Rom. iii.
9, “What then are we (Jews) better than they (the gentiles)?
oi Távºrac, not altogether; for we have before proved (touch-
ing) both Jews (ch. ii.) and gentiles (ch. i.), that they
are all under sin (and so both equally stand in need of justi-
fication by faith).”
* Ver. 19. Oiśāy y&é #TEAetoasy 8 v6ºzoc, For the law made
nothing perfect.] Nor is it to be wondered, that the law, of
which the Levitical priesthood was the chiefest part, and that
only which concerned the expiation of sin, should be thus
disannulled, since it was thus weak and unprofitable as to
the absolution of the sinner from the guilt of sin, and could
not, by its sacrifices, TEAEiðarat, procure an absolution as to
conscience, to those that came unto God by them, from the
guilt of sin (x. 1, 2). They could not make “the worship-
pers” of God by them “perfect, as appertaining to con-
science” (ix. 9); i. e. So as to have no more conscience of
the guilt of sin. This made it necessary that they should
give place to the introduction of a better hope.
* Eareta-ayoyā ºpefrtovo; #xtríðog, The introduction of a
better hope :] i. e. The introduction of that sacrifice, which
gives a better hope; a hope of entering, not into an earthly
tabernacle, which was all the Jewish sacrifices could procure,
“the way of entering into the holy of holies being not yet
made manifest,” ix. 8, but of “entering within the veil,” vi.
19 ; the “hope of good things to come, by a better and more
perfect tabernacle,” ix. 11 ; the hope, not of an annual, but
of an eternal redemption (ver, 12); not of an inheritance to
be continued for a little time in the land of Canaan, but of
an “eternal inheritance” (ver. 15); “Christ being entered,”
not into an earthly tabernacle, as the Aaronical priests did,
which was the figure of the true, “but into heaven itself,
there to appear in the presence of God for us” (ix. 24), and
So procuring to us “freedom to enter into the holiest by the
plood of Jesus.”
* Ai’?, #yyićoºzev rá ess, By which we draw migh to God:]
Having our consciences purged from dead works, by the
blood of Christ, to serve the living God (ix. 14), and having
through him “freedom to come unto him with full assurance
2f faith” (x. 22), and by which “we are made, #yyū;, nigh
to God through the blood of Jesus” (Eph. ii. 13), and have
“access unto the Father” (ver. 18).
*7 Ver. 20. Kai x29' &oy.—xará rocoörov.] Here is plainly
the figure called arêyxvariº, or avºraoxi, verborum, that which
is put last being to be construed first, as is manifest from the
3 *ś, “but he,” relating to the “Mediator of the better cove-
nant,” in the following verse. So Mark xiv. 23, 24, “And
taking the cup, he gave thanks, and gave it to them, and they
all drank of it ; and he said unto them, This is the blood of
the new testament,” &c. For it is manifest from Matt.
xxvi. 27, 28, that Christ first said, “This is my blood of the
new testament,” before they drank of it. And so those
words, ver. 23, “And they all drank of it,” must in con-
struction follow those of ver. 24, “This is the blood of the
new testament :” so Rev. xx. 12, “And I saw the dead,
small and great, standing before the throne of God, and they
were judged,” &c.; and ver. 13, “And the sea gave up her
dead, and death and hades gave up their dead, and they were
judged according to their works:” and yet it is certain, that
the sea and hades must give up their dead, before they could
stand before the throne of God, or be judged. So Heb. ii. 1,
“We see Jesus made a little lower than the angels, for the
suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour, that he,
by the grace of God, might taste death for every man;" i. e.
for the suffering of death, that so by the grace of God he
might taste death for every man, crowned with glory and
honour.
18 Wer. 26. "Axazoc, Harmless.] "Akano;, &mávneoc' the word
imports “one free from sin; so Chrysostom and Theophy-
Jact ; and this place, saith Philo,” must be the property of
a true high-priest, for 3 ºrgö, äx#88tay 36xºgeiº, xai º ºbºvº-
vvº.o. 32.Étoxo; &#xagºrnºcéraw #art, “he that truly, and not
improperly, bears that name, is free from sin;” and of him
that was to enter once a year into the holy of holies, he
saith, “He must be, 3×áxxnpoc wai Travrºic, regi Kanbév, whº #.
ya, º, økºv, &rA&; xseaſvoy Trášos, '3xx' 33riº xai r^{\psi wai.
Távra reasiorátº askémºśvo, pèret, entire, perfect in all things,
not tainted at all with any passion, great or small, but of a
nature sound, whole, and every way perfect.” Kexoplakºvo,
&md rºw &aagroxöy, “separate from sinners.” . This must
signify something different from #xaxes, “free from evil,”
and undefiled by sin. And what can that be, besides what
I have hinted in the paraphrase ? Now to clear up this, let
it be noted, that though the holy of holies was the place into
which none entered but the high-priest, and he only “once
a year,” after a sin-offering had been first offered for him,
yet God commands that an atonement should be made “for
the holy place, because of the uncleanness of the children of
Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins”
(Lev. xvi. 16); i.e. because it was seated among an unclean
* De Victimis, p. 652, E.
+ Lib. de Temul. p. 202, D.
*
910
HEBREWS
people: * for this (last) he did once, when he offered
up himself. !
28 For the law maketh men high-priests which
have infirmity, (subjecting them to sin, and by that to
mortality, whence they have need to offer, as well for
themselves as for the people, ver. 27) but the word of
the oath, which was since the law (as being in the
psalms written, after it), maketh the Son (our high-
priest), who is consecrated (to this office) for evermore
(he being not subject to those infirmities which brought
mortality upon others).
people, it needed an atonement. That therefore our high-
priest might be every way clean and undefiled, he was to be
not only free from sin, but also “separate from sinners,” as
the high priest” was seven days before the expiation, and
when he made the expiation (Lev. xvi. 17).
* Wer. 27. Toğro y&é #moina’sy #$4traž, For this he did once
for all.] Grotius and the Socinians contend, That Christ is
here said to have offered up himself “for his own sins;” but
then by sins, they say, is improperly signified his natural in-
firmities and sufferings. But where hath the word sin any
such import? It is indeed sometimes applied to impurities,
* See Seld. de Syn, lib. iii, cap. 11, et Codex Joma, cap. 1.
not moral, but only legal; as in the case of menstruous
women, Lev. xii. 8. xv. 13, and to leprosies sent by the
hand of God, for the punishment of sin, Lev. xiv. 30, but
never to anything which by the law of Moses was accounted
no defilement. And how improper is it to make the same
words, used but once, signify properly sin, when respecting
the people, and only sufferings, with respect to Christ P
Moreover, how did he offer up himself for his own sufferings 2
Did he suffer, that he might not suffer P or, that he might
not be obnoxious to them 2 The interpretation therefore of
all the ancient commentators, which I have given in the
paraphrase, ought to stand, in opposition to this vain inven-
tion.
CHAPTER VIII.
1 Now (for) of the things which we have spoken,
this is the sum; (i. e. To give you a summary of the
things spoken in the former chapters, touching our high-
priest, Christ Jesus ; or, But the chief of the things
spoken is this, That) we have (in him) such a high-
priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of
the Majesty in the heavens, (there to officiate for us ;
2 And who is therefore) a minister of the (heavenly)
sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord
pitched, and not man, (for by the Word of the Lord
were the heavens made, Ps. xxxii. *
3. A high-priest, I say, of the heavenly sanctuary,
and therefore one who must have something to offer in
that sanctuary :) for every high-priest is ordained to
offer gifts and sacrifices (in that sanctuary in which he
executes that office); wherefore it is of necessity that
this man (the high-priest in heaven) have somewhat to
offer (there.
4 I say there, and not on earth :) for if he were on
earth, he should not be a priest, (or, had he been (still)
on earth, he had not been a priest at all,) seeing that
there are (other) priests that (are appointed to) offer
gifts according to the law;
5 *Who serve to the example and shadow of hea-
venly things (or, in that holy place and tabernacle
which is an eaſample and shadow of the heavenly), as
(we learn from what) Moses was admonished of God,
when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See,
saith he (Exod. xxv. 40), that thou make all things
according to the pattern shown thee in the mount.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VIII.
* Ver. 2, "Hy innºsy & Kūčios, The sanctuary which the Lord
pitched and not man.] That is, of heaven itself. For, first,
+3 ºxicy, in this epistle, being put absolutely, oft signifies
“ the heavenly Sanctuary,” the holy mansion in which the
divine Majesty resides gloriously, in opposition to the #ytoy
xo~&tköy “earthly holy,” mentioned ix. l. And “ the true
tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man,” is the
heavenly tabernacle, set in opposition to the xeteorointoy, or
that of Moses, “which was made with hands,” and styled
by the Chaldee paraphrast, “the sanctuary above,” in which
the angels, sing God's praises, Ps. xxix. 9. So, ix. 11,
“Christ being come a high-priest of good things to come, by
a greater and more perfect tabernacle, où Xeteorothrow, not
made with hands, that is to say, not of this building, but by
his own blood he entered once into the holy place” (##4traž
sis rê šyta, “once for all into the holy places”); x. 19.
“Having freedom of access into the holy place, and having
a high-priest over the house of God;” and, ix. 23, 24, “ ſt
was necessary that the examples of the things in the heavens
should be purified with these, but the heavenly things them-
selves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ entered
not into the holy places made with hands, el: Xsigotrofºra
&xia, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself,
to appear now in the presence of God for us.” And this is
5uitable to the old notions of the Jews, who oft declare, that
the chief intention of making the tabernacle, and other
things, was, That they might be a book of wisdom to in-
struct them in the things above, which they respected; and
that when Moses made one tabernacle on earth, another was
made by the angels in heaven (Buxt. Hist. Arcae, p. 83, 84).
It was also their opinion, that the second part of the taber-
nacle was made to be an image of the visible world; and
“the holy of holies to be a resemblance, mundi Supercoºlestis,
of the celestial world.” So Philo” often calls the tabernacle
of the Jews, ºr xsigotroinvoy, and says, it was “a shadow or
resemblance, rot 3pxerútrov, of the archetypal or original in
heaven.” Moses, says he, “framed tâ 3pxárvºra, the arche-
typal plan of the tabernacle ; Bezaleel only, rà airów Łętºwº-
gara, the resemblance of things:” and this he proves by the
apostle's argument, used ver. 5. For Moses, saith he, “used
God for his guide, who said to him, See thou make all things
according to the pattern shown thee in the mount. Beza-
leel,” saith he,” “signifies one, by a xiaº; "rotów, employed in
making shadows; whereas Moses was employed, not to
frame the shadows, but, &exerútrov; púrgic attà; rôy Trpayº &-
roy, the archetypal natures of the things themselves.”f
Elsewhere he distinguisheth betwixt the rà égºp, Eva #x tic
à-lózou ka? pSapri; &ngioveyněšyta tang, “visible things of the
tabernacle, made of inanimate and corruptible matter, and r&
&ágara kai rā vonºr& Seoughºara, the invisible and intellectual
ideas, of which the other were the images.”$ The first he
calls, isgöy Xsigotrointov, “the sanctuary made with hands, of
which Moses had the incorporeal ideas.” And Josephus
saith, that “the second part of the tabernacle signified that
earth in which men conversed, but the third part was appro-
priated to God, heaven being inaccessible to men;” which
seems to be the very thing the apostle intendeth by those
words, “The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into
the holiest of all was not yet manifested, whilst the first
tabernacle was yet standing,” Heb. ix. 8.
* Wer. 5. “Yaroëstypart kai azığ, To the easample and sha.
* Legis Alleg. lib. ii. p. 61, B.
+ D. de Plan. Noa, p. 170, B.
f Lib. de Temul. p. 202, A, B.
§ Lib. de Vità Mos. p. 515, 516.
| Tºy Sirgi'rny yápºwegiãygaxle rà Osó;8:3 rô Kai rºy cipayśy dye-
arigaroy Elyaſ &y83%roic. Antiq. Judaic. lib. iii. cap. 8, p. 86, G.
CHAPTER VIII.
911.
(For calling it, Ö rātroc, a type or pattern, he shows
that it was only a resemblance of the things in heaven,
and not the heavenly things themselves, ix. 23.)
6 But now he (Christ) hath obtained a more excel-
lent ministry (viz. that of officiating in the heavenly
sanctuary), by how much also (Gr. 30.4 kai, inasmuch
as also) he is the mediator of a better covenant, which
was established upon "better promises. -
7 (A better covenant, I say :) for if that first cove-
nant (made by Moses with the Jews) had been * fault-
less (so that God should have found no cause of blam-
dow.] These words, saith Mr. Le Clerc, “can by no means
signify a prefiguration of something future,” for heaven was
a great while before the tabernacle and temple. But this
argument is of no force; for though heaven be older than
the tabernacle, yet that considered as a place in which the
Jews then worshipped, and enjoyed communion with God,
might be a type of that place in which they were hereafter
to worship and enjoy him.
The argument of the apostle is to this effect: Christ could
not be a priest on earth, because he could have there no
tabernacle in which to offer sacrifice ; the only place God
had appointed upon earth to offer sacrifice in, being the Mo-
saical tabernacle, and the temple, in which no other sacri-
fices could be offered but those appointed by the law ; no
oblation made, or to be made, but by the Levitical priest-
hood. Moreover, this tabernacle being the shadow of the
heavenly one, that must succeed it as the substance ; there-
fore the oblation to be made by this high-priest after the or-
der of Melchisedec, must be made in that tabernacle which
was to succeed and follow this, as being the substance of
that shadow. So CEcumenius here, “Had he not died, and
been received up into heaven, oùx &y ºviepºłº, he had not been
a priest.” *
* Ver. 6. Better promises.] Those of the law being only
temporal promises, relating to blessings to be conferred upon
them in the land of Canaan ; this covenant had the promise
of an eternal inheritance, to be conferred upon them in the
celestial Canaan, ix. 15. These spiritual promises were in-
deed made to the fathers also of old, before the law, whence
they are said by faith to look for a better country, that is, a
heavenly, and to have expected “a city that hath founda-
tions, whose builder and maker is God,” Heb. xi. 10. 16.
But then these promises of a Saviour, and of such salvation
by him, were not made in and by the law, but long before
it (Rom. iv. 13. Gal. iii. 15. 17), as they must be, if made
to them who lived and died long before it. Under the law
also they had spiritual promises, and types of the Messiah in
it, who was the promised seed, in whom all these promises
were made, and by whom they were purchased ; but then
they had not these promises by the law, nor these blessings
by the Levitical priesthood, but by the virtue of the Lamb
slain from the beginning.
* Ver, 7. "Apasarros, If the first covenant had been fault-
Jess :] That is, say the fathers, si èašarrow; #roist, “if it
could have made them blameless that were under it.” So
Theodoret, Chrysostom, CEcumenius, Theophylact; and so
the words following do force us to interpret this clause: for
the apostle and the prophet plainly charge the breach of the
old covenant upon the Jews themselves, blaming them for
it, ver, 9. I know some interpreters render the words asa-
‘péºévo; airoi; Náyet, “Blaming it, he saith to them ;” but
the observation of the ancient fathers is this, oùn sºrs (weapá-
&Evos airfi, 3xx& Kºsºpéº evo; atroſs, “He said not, Blaming it,
but, Blaming them ;” and the words following, “Because
they continued not in that covenant,” do justify that expo-
Šition.
Obj. But you will say, How doth it follow that the cove-
nant was faulty, because the Jews continued not in it, any
more than that the new covenant is also faulty, because many
Christians do not observe the conditions of it? I answer,
That the word “faulty” doth not here signify sinful in itself,
for so this apostle denies it to be faulty, Rom. vii. 7, but
only imperfect and defective as to the great end of the cove-
nant, “Do this, and live,” it being a law “that could not
give life" (Gal iii. 21), and as to preserving those that were
under it from offending, and so becoming blameworthy, and
ing them who lived under it), then should no place have
been sought for (the introduction of) the second.
8 (But so it was not ; ) for, finding fault with them
(for the breach of it), he (i. e. the prophet) saith, Be-
hold, the days come (saith the Lord), when I will
make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and
with the house of Judah :
9 Not according to the covenant that I made with
their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they
continued not in (the observance of) my covenant, and
obnoxious before God (Rom. iii. 29). This being premised,
I say, two things show, that the prophet and the apostle so
lay the fault on them, as plainly to insinuate, there was also
an imperfection and deficiency in the law they were under,
which ministered occasión to it; first, because he lays the
blame not on some refractory persons only, but on the whole
house of Israel and Judah. Now where all, good and bad,
come under blame, there must be some imperfection and de-
ſect in the law, with reference to the two great ends afore-
mentioned. Secondly, because, for the prevention of this
blame, God, by his prophet, doth not call them to a more
exact observance of that law and covenant, but promiseth a
new covenant ; plainly insinuating thereby, that there was
need of a new and better covenant, to prevent their trans-
gression, and render them fit objects of his grace and favour
for the future. Accordingly this weakness of the law is by
Paul resolved, partly into such causes as respect the offen-
ders, and partly into such as respect the law itself: into such
as respect the offenders, as ver. 9, “the weakness of the
flesh,” which made them unable to perform that exact obe-
dience the law required, and so it became unable to justify
them ; “for this the law could not do, in that it was weak
through the flesh” (Rom. viii. 3), and their carnal inclina-
tions, which made them averse to the spiritual precepts of
the law (Rom. vii. 14). And this the new covenant reme-
died, by requiring, not perfect, but only sincere obedience, as
the condition of those blessings which it promiseth, and giv-
ing the assistance of the Holy Spirit to perform that obe-
dience. For, to come to the imperfections of the law itself,
compared with this new covenant ;
First, The first is this, that the law required exact obedi-
ence, but gave no inward spiritual assistance for the perform-
ance of that duty. Hence the apostle puts this difference
betwixt the law and the gospel, that the first is only “the
ministration of the letter,” the second is “the ministration
of the Spirit” (2 Cor. iii.): that under the law, the Jews
served God “in the oldness of the letter ;” whereas under
the gospel, we serve him “in the newness of the Spirit”
(Rom. vii. 6): that then the inclinations and desires of the
things forbidden by the law, “wrought in our members to
bring forth fruit unto death ;” whereas, “if we, through
the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the flesh, we shall live”
(Rom. viii. 13): then, “the good which they would, they
did not” (Rom. vii. 19); but now, “the righteousness of
the law is fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but
after the Spirit” (Rom. viii. 4).
Secondly, The law not only made all that were subject to
it obnoxious to condemnation for the guilt of sin, but also
was unable to remove that guilt, and clear the conscience
from the sense and terror of it. It could not justify us,
saith the apostle ; “for by the deeds of the law shall no flesh
be justified” (Rom. iii. 23. Gal. ii. 16), i. e. it could not
absolve us from condemnation on the account of sin : it
“could not, by the sacrifices it offered daily, take away the
guilt of sins” (Heb. x. 4. 11), and so could not make the
worshipper perfect as pertaining to conscience (Heb. ix. 9);
whereas, by virtue of the blood of Christ, a full remission of
them was procured, so that God would remember them no
more (Heb. x. 17, 18), and so the conscience was by it puri-
fied from dead works (Heb. ix. 14). -
Thirdly, The law, considered not as moral, that being the
law common to all mankind, but as purely Mosaical, con-
tained in it only ceremonial precepts, which had no real or
intrinsic goodness in them to commend them to our prac-
tice : whence, by the apostle, it is said to consist of outward
and “carnal ordinances, imposed on them only till the time
912
HEBREWS.
I (therefore) * regarded them not, saith the Lord (Jer.
xxxi. 31–33).
10 (I say, not according to that covenant :) for this
is the covenant that I will make with the house of Is-
rael; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my
laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts;
and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me
a people:
of reformation” (Heb. ix. 10), and to contain only “the ele-
ments of the world” (Gal. iv. 3), “weak and beggarly ele-
ments” (ver. 9), whereas the new covenant is a law written
in the heart (ver. 12).
Lastly, As the Mosaical law had no inward goodness to
commend it, so also was it wanting in the promise of those
spiritual and etermal blessings, which are the sovereign mo-
tives to obedience, and to purification of ourselves from all
filthiness of flesh and spirit; whereas, by virtue of the death
of Christ, “a promise of an eternal inheritance is procured
for us” (Heb. ix. 15), and “an entrance into the holy of
holies through the blood of Jesus” (x. 19). On which ac-
count the apostle saith, “The law made nothing perfect, but
the bringing in of a better hope did” (Heb. vii. 19).
* Ver. 9. And I regarded them not..] Kāyā; hºw#xnara air&v.
So the Septuagint, and from them the apostle ; whereas the
Hebrew runs Da nºvn ºx” “And,” or “Though I was a
husband to them :” but the learned Dr. Pocock hath shown,
that the Hebrew by-, not only signifies in the Arabic, to
govern, and be a husband, but also to refuse, despise, and
nauseate. And so it well accords with the words of the
Septuagint. 4.
* Ver. 13.] For explication of this new covenant, let it
be considered,
First, That it is expressly promised to be made with the
whole house of Israel, with them to whom the old covenant
was made, with them who were brought out of the land of
Egypt ; it therefore is not a promise made to, or a covenant
Imade with, some few elect and chosen people out of Israel
and Judah, but with those who “abode not” in their former
covenant, and so were “not regarded” by God. Now hence
it is manifest,
That this can be no promise of absolute election, or
vouchsafing irresistible grace to any of the Jews, because then
the whole nation of the Jews must have been converted.
(2.) Because this is a promise of something to be done “in
the last times,” or in the times of the Messiah, whereas God
hath at all times his elect, and doth at all times vouchsafe
them his effectual grace. (3.) Because this is here called a
covenant, which implies two parties covenanting, or stipu-
lating; the one obedience, and the other blessings on the
performance of it; whereas an absolute promise permits of
no conditions. (4.) The elect always persisted in their
covenant with God, and were always regarded by him; they
always were his people, and he always was their God; this
therefore can be no new covenant with them.
Secondly, This being a promise of a new covenant, of
which new covenant Christ is declared here to be the medi-
ator through his blood, it cannot properly be said to be ful-
filled, in the complete import of it, before our Saviour's
sufferings, and the preaching of justification through faith in
his blood. Nor seems it to have been yet accomplished in
the extent and the full meaning of it, as it will be, when
the blindness of the Jews shall be removed," “and so all
Israel shall be saved” (Rom. xi. 25, 26): “for this is God's
covenant with them, when he shall take away their sins”
(ver. 28); which though he did make good at the first
preaching of the gospel to as many as believed in Jesus;
yet, since that was the time of the falling and casting off
the generality of that nation, “a remnant” only being
then preserved from Judaical blindness, I believe there
will be a time, when this, and other like promises made to
them in the Old Testament, shall have a more complete
accomplishment. But to proceed to the proper import of
the words ;
First, I conceive that the phrase, “I will put my laws
into their minds, and write them on their hearts,” imports
that he would clearly and conspicuously make known his
will to them, and by his Holy Spirit make such a deep im-
11 And they shall not (have need to) teach every
man his neighbour, and every man his brother, say-
ing, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the
least to the greatest.
12 (I say, I will be their God ) for I will be merci-
ful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their
iniquities will I remember no more.
13 In that he saith, "A new covenant, he hath made
pression of it on their spirits, and so continually bring it to
their remembrance, that it should be as powerful upon
them, and as present to them, as if it were writ upon their
hearts. For these two metaphors, both in the scripture and
the Jewish writers, chiefly signify two things;
1. A clear and perspicuous revelation of the mind and
will of God, so that we need not be at much pains to search
it out: as in these words, “The commandment which I
command thee this day, is not hidden from thee, neither
is it far from thee: the word is near unto thee, in thy mouth,
wai #y rf wagèiº, a ov, and in thy heart, and in thy hands,
that thou shouldest do it. See, I have set before thee life
and death” (Deut. xxx. 11, 14, 15). And so, saith the
apostle, is it with “that word of faith which we preach ;” it
is nigh to the Christian in his mouth to confess, and in his
heart to believe it (Rom. x. 8, 9). And the law written in
the hearts of heathens, is the law so plainly taught them,
that their own consciences do inwardly condemn them when
they do transgress it (Rom. ii. 15). This also is apparent
from the consequent effect of writing this law in the Chris-
tian hearts, and “putting it in their inward parts;” viz.
“that they shall have no need to teach every one his neigh-
bour, saying, Know the Lord : for they shall all know him
from the least to the greatest.” This law therefore must be
plaim to the capacities of, and easy to be perceived by, them
all: and to this interpretation the fathers" give a generał
Consent.
2. An efficacious impression of them on the Soul, and
on the memory, so that we do not let them slip out of
our minds. So Deut. vi. 6, “These words which I com-
mand thee this day shall be in thy heart ;” “They shall be
nºn-5 mb by ºn no, writ upon the table of thy heart,”
saith Jonathan ben Uziel ; “and thou shalt talk of them
when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by
the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest
up” (ver, 7); “They shall be iw zap2i, wai lux; wov, in thy
heart and soul,” saith the Septuagint. As the expression is,
Deut. xi. 18, by which expressions he requires ºwn &modºrºval
rév w8wov &ºr; rºc wagèia; airów, “that the law should not de-
part from their hearts” (2 Macc. ii. 3): so, Prov. vii. 1, “My
son, forget not my law, but let thy heart keep my com-
mandments;” ver. 3, “Write them upon the table of thy
heart.” And again, vii. 1, “My son, keep my words, and
lay up my commandments with thee: bind them upon thy
finger, write them upon the table of thy heart,” ver, 3. So
the Targum on Cant. viii. 9 saith, God will remember them
for the sake of the law which is written, Rh97 nº by,
“upon the table of the heart of his children.” And, Jer.
xvii. 1, the sin of Judah is said to be “written on the table
of their hearts;” as if the memory of it, and affection to it,
could never be obliterated. And the Targum on Job xxx.
4, saith, “They who let the law slip Innin', nº by, from the
table of their hearts, bnrning coals shall be their meat.” So
frequent is this phrase in this sense, both in the scripture
and the Jewish writers. Accordingly, Clemens gives this
commendation of the Corinthians, that “the commandments
of the Lord, Éiri rā trađwn rig wagºia; airów Łyśy;arro, were
written upon the tables of their hearts.”
Secondly, That the words in which this new covenant is
framed, Jer. xxxi. 33–35, may have a more exact and full
completion, at the second calling of the Jewish nation, this
apostle seems to intimate, Rom. xi. 27; but that they also
were fulfilled by the first advent of our Lord, can only be
denied by them who think, with Mr. Le Clerc, that the apos-
tle argues upon unsound foundations: for he most clearly
* St. Jerom. in Jer. xxxi. 31. Chrysost, on Rom. x. 8.
Theod. in loc. Cyril. Alex. Com. in Joh. lib. xii. p. 1071.
Chrysost, in Heb. hom. 14, tom. iv. p. 509.
V. CHAPTER IX.
913
(a declaration that) the first (is) old. Now that which
decayeth and waxeth old "is ready to vanish away.
saith, (1.) That the old covenant was only to continue till
the new covenant, in which God promised to “be merciful
to their iniquities,” took place ; and also, that this new cove-
nant was established “in the blood of Jesus, the mediator of
a better covenant,” ver, 6, and proves that Christ had by his
sufferings perfectly procured the remission of the sins of them
that were sanctified, or cleansed from the guilt of sin, by
faith in his blood, by the words of this new covenant, x. 14–
17. (2.) He says, that the old covenant, there mentioned,
was to “vanish away” at the coming of this new covenant,
ver. 13, and thereby intimates, that this new covenant, men-
tioned Jer. xxx. 33, began to take place, even from the abo-
lition of the old covenant, consisting in ordinances which
were only to continue “till the time of reformation” (Heb.
ix. 11), and which were taken away by the death of Christ.
This therefore seems to be one of those places which prove
there will be a double completion of the promises and pre-
dictions combined in the Old, and perhaps in the New Tes-
tament, and thereby show they may admit of a double sense,
the one relating to the first, ithe other to the second coming
of our Lord. .
7 'Eyyū; &#aviorgot, Is ready to vanish away.] Though
the Judaical sacrifices, which signified the death of Christ,
after his death, ceased to be obliging, and their discrimi-
nation from all Qther nations on the account of circum-
cision, and thº'distinction of meats, ceased, as Paul
often testifies ; yet these words seem to intimate, that
the church, state, and polity of the Jews was not to come
to its full period, till the destruction of the temple and city
of Jerusalem,
CHAPTER IX.
I (The apostle had declared, viii. 5, that the taberna-
cle had only a shadow of heavenly things ; this he
now proceeds to show in the following words :) Then
verily the first covenant had (sixs pièv oſſy ºrptºrm
a knºwn, the first tabernacle therefore had) also ordi-
nances of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary (in
which that worship and these ordinances were per-
formed).
2 For there was a tabernacle made; the first (Gr.
ckmvri yāp kareaksvägs") iſ trpárm, for a first tabernacle
was preparéd), wherein was the candlestick, and the
table, and the shew-bread; which (first tabernacle) is
* called the Sanctuary (or, holy).
3 And after the second veil, the (other) tabernacle
(was prepared, ver. 2.6), which is called the Holiest
of all; -
4 Which had (for its use) the * golden censer (used
only on the day of eaſpiation), and the ark of the cove-
nant overlaid round about with gold, “in which was
the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron’s rod that
budded (Numb. xvii. 10. Exod. xvi. 33, 34), and the
tables of the covenant (1 Kings viii. 9);
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IX.
* Ver. 1. ‘H Treºrn 31&$#xn, The first covenant.] Some of
the ancients, as Chrysostom, read only h aſpºrn, but none of
them read 312&#wn, but many of them cºnvil, as Theodoret
and CEcumenius; and this I believe to be the true reading:
for it is well observed by the fathers, who do, and who do not
read the word a knyà, that the apostle having before proved
from the enallage of the priest and priesthood, and of the
former covenant, that an end was put unto the Jewish con-
stitutions, proceeds now to prove the same from the conside-
ration of that tabernacle which was “a shadow of good
things to come.” Secondly, because the thread or the con-
texture of the apostle's argument seems plainly to require
this reading: for the tabernacle, consisting of two parts, an
outward house called “the holy place,” and an inward house
called “ the holy of holies;” the apostle here calleth the
outward house “the first tabernacle,” and discourses of it as
such, ver, i, 2.; and then, wer. 3, proceeds to the “holy of
holies,” or “the second tabernacle,” saying, “The first or
outward tabernacle had a worldly sanctuary,” in which the
rites of the Jewish worship were performed ; for a first ta-
bernacle was prepared by Moses, containing such and such
things; and then a second, containing other things: now this
first tabernacle is called “a worldly tabernacle,” because, as
both the Jews and fathers say, it was designed to represent
this lower world; the earth and the sea, saith Josephus.*
It was xào.g.ov rod aid Sntoi, a ſw8oNow, “a symbol of the sensi-
tive world,” saith Clemens Alexandrinus} (see Dr. Spencer,
De Legibus Hebr. p. 188).
The Sizatépeara Na+geta; are the constitutions, or the rites
and rules of worship prescribed to be used in the service of
the tabernacle; 8tzaidºara, rovréati, a £280xa, Seagovº, Vogo-
Šsaias, “ordinances, that is, symbols, constitutions, laws.”
So Chrysostom, CEcumenius, Theophylact.
* Ver. 2. "Hºrt; Aéyeral àyiz, Which is called the Sanctuary.]
Or, as other copies read, #ric Aáygrat āyīa, “which is called
holy.” Vain therefore is the argument of Mr. Le Clerc,
that the writer of this epistle did not well understand He-
brew, and therefore eannot be thought to have been St. Paul,
but rather some Grecian; to wit, because he calls the sanc-
-s
* Antiq. lib. iii. cap. 8. + Strom. v. p. 562, B.
tuary only #yta, “holies;” whereas, according to the constant
usage of the Hebrew, he should have called it #yta rāv &yiwy,
“holy of holies.” For (1.) all this depends on an uncertain
accent; read but áyia, and there is no foundation for this ar-
gument ; seeing, then, the apostle speaks not of the sanc-
tuary, but of the first tabernacle, which was only called
“holy.” And so Chrysostom, CEcumenius, and Theophy-
lact read; and Theodoret observes that the tabernacle was
divided into two parts by the veil, the one was called “holy,”
the other “the holy of holies,” and that h ºregºrn sºmey, &c.
ºrgâc rà &yta rāv &ytov, the apostle calls this the first taber-
nacle, to distinguish it from the sanctuary ; as it is evi-
dent he doth from the verse following, which demonstrates
that &yia is the true reading in this verse. (2.) It depends
upon a false criticism, for wipm ºn, 1 Kings viii. 8, signifies
ex adyto, or “from the most holy place,” where the ark was,
as appears from 2 Chron. v. 8 (see Dr. Lightfoot's Treatise
of the Temple, ch. 15, sect.4) -
* Ver. 4. Xeva'oùv Švatarígtoy, The golden censer.] Of this
golden censer the Jews inform us, that it was only used on
the great day of expiation, when the high-priest entered into
“the holy of holies; ” and that on other days they of
fered incense in a silver censer. So Maimonides and Abar-
banel (see Buxt. Hist. Arcae, p. 76).
* 'Ew #, In which, &c.] Of the ark the scripture saith ex-
pressly, that there was “nothing in it but the tables of the
covenant,” 1 Kings viii. 9. 2 Chron. v. 10; whereas “the
pot of manna and Aaron's rod * are here said to be also in
it. To solve this difficulty, some interpreters say, that as,
ver. 2, the apostle tells us what was in the first tabernacle,
viz. the candlestick, the table, and the shew-bread; so here
he seems to tell us, not what was strictly in the ark, but in
the holy of holies, saying, it had for its use “the golden cen-
ser; and the ark, and in it the tables of the covenant ; the
pot of manna and Aaron's rod :” but the words “Over it
were the cherubims,” relating not to the holy of holies, but
to the ark, confute that exposition.
Others say, that the pot of manna and Aaron's rod are
said to be in the ark, as being placed in the receptacles or
the ark, or the coffers in the side of it, mentioned Deut. xxxi.
26. 1 Sam. vi. 8. Hence they are said to be laid up, not in
but “before the ark of the testimony,” Exod. xvi. 34.
Numb. xvii. 10, or “with the ark,” as n, which answers to
3 N
914 -
HEBREWS.
5 And over it (the ark, were) the “cherubims of
glory shadowing the mercy-seat ; of which we cannot
now speak particularly (so as to give the mystical sig-
nification of them).
6 Now when these things were thus ordained (or,
things being thus prepared), the priest went always
3. the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of
OCl.
7 But into the second went the high-priest alone
* once every year (i.e. one day only in the year, and
then) not without blood, which he offered for himself
(first), and (then) for the "errors of (Gr. sins of ig-
norance committed by) the people:
8 The Holy Ghost (by whose afflatus Moses was di-
rected to prepare the tabernacle) this signifying (by this
admission of the high-priest alone, and that but once rs
Syear, and that then only when all the people were gone
out of the tabernacle of the congregation), that "the
way into the (true) holiest of all was not yet made
manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet stand-
Ing:
9 Which was a figure for the time then present
(#ric "trapagoNº sic Töv kalpêv rôv čvsarmkóra, which
figure continues till this present time, viz. in the like
service performed in the temple), in which were
(ºrpoopépovrau, are) offered both gifts and sacrifices,
that could not (uſ) 3vvápsval, which sacrifice cannot)
make him who did the service (i. e. who brings these
gifts and offerings)” perfect, as pertaining to the con-
science;
#y, here signifies, viz. cum, ad, propè, juxta (see Noldius de
Partic. p. 144, 145). So y Tagaśy is “near Gibeon,” Josh.
x. 10, and #y Kašta Singig, “near Kirjath-jearim,” Judg. xviii.
(Bochart. Hieroz. lib. ii. cap. 50, p. 590). And this expo-
sition solves the difficulty, and agrees fully with the tradition
of the Jews; for that there were such capsulas to the ark
for this use is owned, saith Buxtorf,” both by the Talmud
of Jerusalem and Babylon. Maimonides saith,'! There was
a stone in the west part of the holy of holies, on which the
ark was placed, and “before it the pot of manna, and the
rod of Aaron.” Moses Mikkotsi says the same, and Abar-
banel adds, that “our interpreters write, that this place
does not deny that the pot of manna and the rod of Aaron
were kept there for the children of Israel, as it is said in a
certain tradition of our rabbins.”
* Ver. 5. Cherubims of glory..] So called, because “the
glory of the Lord ” dwelt between the cherubims, and shimed
forth from them; Ps. lxxx. 1, “Thou that dwellest between
the cherubims, shine forth :” and they being emblems of the
angelical nature, were also emblems of the divine presence,
before which the angels stood continually.
* Ver. 7. "Atraž roi; ivtavroſſ, Once every year.] The
priest entered into the holy of holies on the great day of ex-
piation four times, to offer incense (Lev. xvi. 12), to offer
the blood of the goat (ver. 15), and to make an atonement
for himself, (ver. 17), which makes it necessary to paraphrase
the words as I have done.
7 Kai rāv roi, Aaoſ; 3) vonºzárºv, And for the ignorance of
the people.]. It is certain that the law allowed of sacrifices for
sins committed not out of mere ignorance ; i.e. for lying and
false swearing (Lev. vi. l. 6). We therefore must either say
with Watablus and Munster in locum, that sins committed
through the violence of our passions and affections are called
sins of ignorance, and so they stand opposed to sins of pre-
sumption (Numb. xv. 27, 28. 30), or that the sins of the
people are here so styled because they are mostly such.
* Ver. 8. Thy rºy &yloy 53°W, The way into the holy of
holies, i. e. Into the heavens, was not yet revealed nor
opened. Thus did the Jews themselves interpret this sym-
bol, saying, that” “the adytum, à roi; isg:Worly #y 38atoy, which
was inaccessible to the priests, repesented the heaven where
God dwelt.” This interpretation all the ancient commenta-
tors give us of this place, viz. Chrysostom, Theodoret, CEcu-
menius, Theophylact, saying, These things were so prepared,
that they might learn, ori ră ăyta rāy &yiwy, touréatty, à otpa-
yöc, Éri Écrivá8atoº, that is, “that heaven, represented by the
holy of holies, was as yet inaccessible,” for Christ first entered
into heaven, Kai 8arév hºſy rotirov &réphys, “and so rendered
it accessible to us:” and therefore, as the apostle saith here,
fahtra tre+avegözbat rºy rºy &yioly $33, “The way into this
holy of holies was not yet manifested,” so he saith in the
next chapter, that we Christians have rºy eſcošov rāy &ylov #y
Tº aſſaari Inooú, “an entrance into heaven by the blood of
Jesus,” and 3339 ºrpázqarov, “a new way which he hath made
new through his flesh ;” i.e. our forerunner being thus en-
tered into heaven with his blood to appear before God, and
so to prepare these mansions for us, the way of our entrance
into heaven is now made manifest. And this the ancients
* Hist. Arca, p. 72. T + Ibid. cap. 5, p. 69, 70.
£ In i Reg. viii. 9. § Jos. Antiq. lib. iii, cap. 8.
say was signified by the rending of the veil, at our Lord's
death ; viz. rā ā8ata sivat Aottröy 3a rà, röy oigavoy &yotyńo so.6.x,
that heaven, before inaccessible, was now opened, and a way
was made into the true holy of holies (Chrysostom, Hom.
lxxxviii. in Matt. p. 541); and the hope of Christians being
now to “enter within the veil,” because our forerunner is
gone before (Heb. vi. 19, 20), seems to intimate the same
thing.
* Ver. 9. "Hºrt; ragafloxi, sic rāy wagöy rêv #yearnkóra, wag' ºv,
&c.] Here the Vulgar and CEcumenius read waff ºv, which,
saith Dr. Mills, is the true reading, adding, that karū avygièn-
civ, accessit aliunde, has been added to the text. The second
opposes the Ethiopic, which is a version of no credit, to the
Syriac, Arabic, Vulgar, all the Greek scholiasts, and Cyrillus
Alexandrinus, who all own the reading of the text: which
liberty, if it be allowed, the scripture must be a very uncer-
tain and precarious rule. In the first, the reading of the text
is approved by Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact, Cyril of
Alexandria, de Ador. Sp. p. 357, and by all the eastern
versions. The other reading indeed gives a very good sense
thus, Which tabernacle was a figure of the present time, ac-
cording to which figure, gifts and sacrifices were offered ;-
but since the reading of the text, which runs thus, Which
figure continues to this present time, in which, by the Jews,
are still offered gifts and sacrifices, bears the same sense,
and is supported by better authority, what reason can be
given why it should be changed 2 -
* Texasócal war; ovygiènaiv, To perfect according to the
conscience.] The best account of this phrase, relating to
what the law and its sacrifices could not do, may be learned
from what the new covenant, and the blood of Christ, in
which it was established, is said to do. First, then, that
blood, offered in the presence of God, is said to take away sins
Eic to 3invexãº, so as that there shall be no return of them upon
the conscience ; no need of any more oblation for the sins of
such a person ; there being in him no more consciousness cf
guilt, after his justification by faith in the blood of Jesus;
“for where remission of sins is, there is no more offering for
sins,” because the tenor of the new covenant runs thus,
“Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more”
(x. 17, 18). Hence the apostle argues thus, “That the law,
with those sacrifices which were offered every year, could
not gig to 3invexã; renetiaat, perfect for ever them that come
to God with them, because, (if they could have done that,)
the worshippers once purged by them would have had no
more conscience of sins” (Heb. x. 1, 2); i. e. they would
not have been still conscious of the guilt of sin, and so could
have no need yearly to repeat the same sacrifices. And of our
Saviour's sacrifice he speaketh thus, “That by one offering,
rsrexeiwxey Big to 3invexi;, he hath perfected for ever them that
are sanctified,” i. e. are purged by it from the guilt of sir.
(Heb. x. 14). Wherefore, to “perfect according to the con.
science,” is so fully to expiate from the guilt of sin, that it
shall no more be remembered by God, and we shall have no
more conscience of the guilt of it. Now the consequents of
of this full remission are these two, (1.) A coming unto God
with freedom and full assurance of acceptance with him.
This the apostle frequently ascribes unto the death of Christ,
who “suffered for our sins that he might bring us to God’”
(1 Pet. iii. 18), saying, “By him " who hath reconciled us
to God by the cross, “we have freedom and access with con-
CHAPTER IX.
915
10 (As being conversant) only in meats and drinks,
(to be abstained from by these worshippers, Lev. x.9),
and divers washings, (to be then used by the priests
officiating, Exod. xxix. 4, by the Levites, Numb. viii.
7, and by the people defiled, Lev. xv. 8, before they
might enter into the temple), and (in othery carnal
ordinances, (which only sanctified to the purifying of
the flesh, ver, 13, and were therefore) imposed on them
(only) * until the time of reformation (of all things,
by this new high-priest. These carnal ordinances in-
clude all the sacrifices and other services performed in
the tabernacle.)
11 But Christ being come (yevågsvoc, made) a
high-priest (not of present temporal blessings in the
land of Canaan, but) of good things to come, (not by
the service of the tabernacle made with hands, ver. 23,
but) by (a service performed in) a greater and more
perfect “tabernacle, not made with hands; that is to
say, not of this building; (i. e. the building of this
worldly sanctuary, ver. 1.)
12 Neither (yet to be procured as the Mosaical
blessings were) by the blood of goats and calves, but
by his own blood; he (to procure those good things
for us) entered in (not as the high-priest did yearly
into the earthly tabernacle, but, Égarag,) once (for all)
into the (heavenly) holy place (with his blood), having
obtained (for us by it, not an annual, but any “eternal
redemption.
13 For if the blood of bulls and goats, and the
ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean (Numb. ix.
2.4), * sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh (from
ceremonial deftlements, and so procures a free admission
to the service of the tabernacle) :
14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who
(being sanctified) through the "eternal Spirit * offered
himself (as a lamb) without spot to God (John i. 29.
fidence to the Father, by faith in him " (Eph. ii. 16. 18. iii.
12); and upon that account exhorts us to “come to him in full
assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil
conscience" (Heb. x. 22). (2.) A right of entrance into
heaven. This, saith the apostle, could not be obtained by the
service of the tabernacle (ver. 8), but only by the death of
Christ, by which the way into the holy of holies is laid open
(x.19, 20), eternal redemption is obtained for us (ix. 12),
and we receive the promise of an eternal inheritance; and so
it consequently signifies to have a full assurance of acceptance
with God here, and of happiness with him hereafter.
Which could not perfect according to the conscience.] To
clear up what has been said upon this verse, let it be noted,
that God declares the tenor of the new covenant should run
thus: “I will be merciful to their iniquities, and remember
their sins no more.” Whence observe,
First, That there was no such promise or condition made
under"the old covenant, that requiring for every new sin of
ignorance a new oblation; whereas sins of ignorance and in-
firmity being not contrary to the sincerity of our obedience,
they do not violate the new covenant, and so are pardoned
by virtue of the blood of the new covenant, shed #4&traž,
“once for all, for the remission of sins:” for if we thus sin,
Saith the apostle John, “we have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation
for our sins,” 1 John ii. 2; “and if we walk in the light as
he is in the light, the blood of Christ cleanseth us from all
sin,” 1 John i. 7. -
Secondly, Observe, that the legal sacrifices served only for
the purification of the flesh from ceremonial defilements, and
restored to them only a right to the benefits of the Mosaical
covenant, viz. life and prosperity in the land of Canaan, but
did not so far purify the conscience, as to procure them an
admittance into the heavenly Canaan, which, if they had en-
tirely cleansed them from the guilt and the defilement of sin,
they would have done; and hence the apostle says, the way
into the holy of holies was not opened, whilst the first taber-
nacle was standing (ver. 8, see the note there).
* Ver. 10. Méxet Ratpot, 8tegSéator, Till the time of the
reformation.] That is, as the next verse expounds it, till the
coming of Christ, the Messiah of the Jews, when they them-
selves expected a “reformation of the law,” saying, that
“the law which was learned in that age was vanity, in re-
spect of the law of the age to come ;” that is, saith the
gloss on Eccles. xi. 8, nºwn buy innin ºb, “in respect of the
law of the Messiah ;” and that “then the law will be re-
newed.” For our doctors, saith the author of Sephir Ikka-
rim,'t declare, that “all Israel shall receive a second law
from the mouth of God immediately, as formerly;” and this
they all prove, as the apostle doth, ch. viii., from Jer. xxxi.
31—33.
* Ver. 11.] That the tabernacle here mentioned is not the
body of Christ, but heaven itself, see note on viii. 2. -
* Ver. 12. Aioviov Airporary, Eternal redemption.] Here
it is evident, (1.) that this our high-priest had procured for
* Pug. Fid. par. iii. dist. 3, cap. 11, p. 608, 611.
+ Voisin, ibid. p. 123. -
us a perfect and perpetual expiation from the guilt of sin ;
and this Schlictingius on the place fully grants. (2.) That
this Aëtpaatz, or “redemption,” was procured by the blood
of Christ, we having &roxãrpoorly, “redemption through his
blood, even the remission of sin” (Eph. i. 7). That there-
fore was the Nürgov, or “price ’’ paid, to procure this redemp-
tion. That this &n oxõrewart; rapagácsov, “redemption from
transgressions” was made Savárov yewoºzévov, “by the death
of Christ,” suffering as a piacular victim for us, there being
no other way of procuring this remission under the law (ver.
22), and so no other known to, or heard of by, the Jews.
And, lastly, that suffering thus, he must also suffer in our
stead, as all piacular victims did. Whence he is said “to
give his life, Aſtºoy &vri troXX&v, a ransom for many,” Matt.
xx. 28, &vrixurgoy Umråp rāyrov, “a ransom for all,” 1 Tim. ii.
5 (see the note there). -
* Ver. 13. ‘Ay:43 it ºrpè; rāv rā; caprès was agórnºra, Sanc-
tifies to the purifying of the flesh.] It is truly observed by
the reverend Dr. Hammond, that to “sanctify to the purify-
ing of flesh,” is to make legally clean, i.e. so as that they
might come into the congregation again, it being the sanctifi-
cation rāv ×exotvogašvoy, “ of the unclean ;” but still in a me-
taphorical signification, as cleansing signifies expiation, and
obtaining pardon of sin ; and when this is done by a sacri-
fice, &yiáðsly signifies to ea piate, and cleanse from guilt by
virtue of it. In which sense it is used throughout this epis-
tle, and that agreeably to the import of it, when it relates to
sacrifices in the Old Testament. So x. 10, hytaakāvol #2 ºv,
“We are sanctified ;” i. e. are purged from the guilt of sin
“by the body,” or, as other copies read, “by the blood of
Christ, offered once for all.” And, ver. 15, “By one offering
he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified;" i.e. hath
entirely purged them who by this offering are cleansed from
the guilt of sin: “he being offered once, ei: tú troXA&v & Evey-
xeſy rā; &#xapriac, to bear, or take away, the sins of many, and
si; 38%tna y áºzaeriaç, for the putting away sin by the sacrifice
of himself,” ix. 26, 27 ; and, wer. 29, where it is styled “the
blood of the covenant, #y 3 hyt4a Sn, by which he,” who now
counted it as common, “was sanctified,” or cleansed from
the guilt of sin ; it being the blood shed for the remission of
sin, the blood of that new covenant which said, “I will be
merciful to their impieties, and their sins and their transgres-
sions will I remember no more,” ver. 17, 18; so, xiii. 12.
“Therefore Jesus, that he might sanctify the people by his
own blood, suffered without the camp :” where both the blood
sanctifying, and regi & captiac, “the sacrifice, for sin,” ver.
11, to which it answers, show that Christ sanctified the peo-
ple by the oblation of himself as a sin-offering, to cleanse
them from the guilt of sin (see note on the Heb. ii. 11).
* Ver. 14. At& IIveſºzaro, aioviov.] The Vulgar, Chrysos-
tom, and Cyril. Alex. de R. Fide, p. 73, read &ytov, but
Theodoret, CEcumenius, Theophylact, Athanas. Ep. ad
Serap. p. 18(, Ambros. de Sp. S. cap. 8, Cod. Alex. Syr.
Arab. read as the text.
* “Eawry reogáveyzey, Offered himself without spot to God.]
In heaven, saith Dr. Hammond : for that oblation, saith
Grotius, must be here understood, which answers to the legal
oblation made in the holy of holies, which Noblation of
3 N 2
916
HEBREWS.
1 Pet. i. 19), " purges your conscience from dead
works (i. e. from works deserving death, Rom. vi. 23,
that so you may be admitted) * to serve the living God
(in his church here, and in his heavenly sanctuary here-
after, x. 19—21)?
15 °And for this cause (ölä roijro, or, by his blood)
he is (become) the mediator of the new testament (in
which he promises to be merciful to our iniquities), that
by means of (his) death, * for the redemption of the
transgressions that were (committed by us) under the
first testament (and not by that fully eaſpiated), they
which are called (to be God’s church and people) might
receive * the promise of (an) eternal inheritance.
16 (I say, by means of his death,) for where a testa-
ment is (that is unchangeable), there must also of ne-
cessity be the death * of the testator.
17 For a testament is of force (only) after men are
Christ upon the cross doth not, but his oblation in the hea-
vens. Against this interpretation some object, that Christ
presenting himself with his blood in the heavens, is never
styled an oblation; but that is a plain mistake (see note on
viii. 3, 4), and of evil consequence: for if Christ had no ob-
lation to offer in heaven, he could not be a high-priest there,
since every high-priest must have something to offer in that
sanctuary, in which he exercises his priestly office. But yet
it being said, not that he offered up his blood, but that reocá-
vsykey Éavröy, “he offered up himself,” which he did upon the
cross (Eph. v. 2. Heb. ix. 25. 28), and the ºrpor:pogă, or ob-
lation of the sacrifice, being properly the giving it up to the
death, or to be a piacular victim in the sinner's stead, these
words may very well be thus interpreted, Who, through the
Holy Spirit, by which he was sanctified from the very womb,
offered himself a piacular yictim without spot to God. But
then the blood of Christ here mentioned, as “purging the
conscience from dead works,” must be his blood presented
before God in the heavenly sanctuary ; for the apostle had
spoken before, ver. 7, of the blood brought into the holy of
holies by the Aaronical high-priest, and declared that it
could not perfectly expiate the conscience from the guilt of
sin, ver, 10 ; and therefore here the analogy requires that he
should speak of the blood of Christ, brought by our high-
priest into the heavenly sanctuary. Moreover, he had said
before, that he entered with his blood into the holy of holies,
ver. 12, and therefore, ver. 14, must be still speaking of the
effect or influence of this blood, there presented for us. -
* KaSagie: röy avysièma'iy &rd vexe3v #yov, Purge the con-
science from dead works.] Tö zašagićew, here, as the com-
parison clearly shows, being in sense the same with &yiáðey
in the verse preceding, must signify the cleansing of the con-
science Inot from the inclination to sin, by the Holy Spirit,
but from the guilt of sin, by the blood shed for the remission
of it. And, secondly, this is the constant sense of the word
xasagićew in the Old Testament, when joined with &rö
ãº, aprºw. So Lev. xiv. 19, “The priest shall make an
atonement for him that is to be cleansed from his unclean-
ness,” #éixáa Etat 3 isgºw; treet roč zašagićow#vov 3rd rā;
ãºzagria; abroſ. And, xvi. 30, “The priest shall make an
atonement for you to cleanse you, zašapízai tº 3; 373 Tracây
Tºy &ºaftºv bºy, from all your sins” (so Josh. xxii. 17. Ps.
li. 3. Jer. xxxiii. 8. Ezek. xxiv. 13). Hence then it fol-
lows, that the dead works, from which their conscience was
to be thus cleansed, must signify works which deserved death
by the tenor of the old covenant.
* Aargeſsly Qeó &vrt, To serve the living God..] God, be-
ing a holy God, can enter into covenant with none, or admit
them into his service, whilst they lie under the guilt of sin
unpardoned, and so have not found grace in his sight. Noah
found grace in the eyes of God, and with him he established
his covenant, Gen. vi. 8. 18. Abraham believes in God,
and “this was counted to him for righteousness ;” and then
the Lord makes a covenant with him by sacrifice, Gen. xv.
10. 18. So Exod. xxiv. 6, the Jews offer burnt-offerings, and
sacrifice peace-offerings to the Lord, and the blood is
8prinkled upon all the people, and then he enters into cove-
mant with them, Hence the apostle saith, “Let us draw
nigh to God with full assurance of faith, having our hearts
dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the
testator liveth (and so hath power to revoke his testa-
7ment).
18 Whereupon (39sv, whence it is that) neither the
first testament (made with the Jews, Exod. xxiv. 8),
was dedicated without blood (which blood showed the
death of the sacrifice was necessary to make that testa-
Tnent).
19 For when Moses had spoken every precept to
all the people according to the law (given at mount
Sinai), he took the *blood of calves and of goats,
with water (miaced with the blood to keep it from con-
gealing), and (with ) scarlet wool, and hyssop, (the
wool to receive and imbibe the blood, and the hyssop to
sprinkle it, Exod. xii. 22. Lev. xiv. 49, 50. Ps. li. 7),
and sprinkled (the blood) both (upon) the book (of
the covenant), and (upon) all the people,
sprinkled from an evil (or condemning) conscience,” Heb.
x. 22.
* Ver. 15. At& roſto, May either relate to the end of
Christ's mediatory office, and so be rendered “for this end,”
or, “for this cause;” or to the means, by which that new
covenant, of which he is the mediator, was established, and
then it will be best rendered, “by this blood ;” his blood
being styled “the blood of the new covenant,” Matt. xxvi.
28. Mark xiv. 24, and the covenant being styled “the new
covenant in his blood,” Luke xxii. 20. 1 Cor. xi. 25.
* Eic àmoxiſºrgoziv Tây ini rā ºrpäth 3iaShan tragačáreov,
For the redemption of sins under the first covenant.) Paul's
design, in the Epistles to the Romans and the Galatians, is
to show, that the law could not justify any man, i. e. that it
could not procure his absolution from the guilt of sin, but
rather left all guilty before God; and his design in this epis-
tle is to show, that the Sacrifices offered, under the law,
could never take away sin (x. 4). And hence ariseth the
necessity that Christ should shed his blood for the redemp-
tion, i. e. for the remission of sins committed under the old
covenant, before we could be capable of entering into the
new, or have a right to the blessings of it.
21 Tºy #mrayyáxiay, The promise of an eternal inheritance.]
The immediate promise of the new covenant, established in
the blood of Christ, is “remission of sins” (x. 17); but then
this being an “eternal redemption” from them (ver. 12),
and such as “perfects for ever them that are sanctified”
(x. 14), upon it necessarily follows the promise of an eternal
inheritance, there being nothing to exclude us from it,
but the guilt of sin. Hence is there a close connexion be-
twixt Christ's overcoming death, and “bringing life and
immortality to light ;” and this emphatically is styled the
promise of the gospel, Tit. i. 2. 1 John i. 2. v. 11.
* Wer. 16. ’Aváyxn pégea Sai, There must be..] “There
must be produced,” saith Dr. Hammond, as the word pâtely
signifies, John xviii. 28. Acts xxv. 7 ; “There must inter-
vene ;” so Schmidius and Budaeus.
* Ver. 19. To aiwa rāy wéaxoy, &c. The blood of calves
and goats.] There seems no need of the conjecture of
Bishop Usher and others, that besides the burnt-offerings
and peace-offerings mentioned by Moses, Exod. xxiv. 5,
there were then offered sin-offerings, the holocausts them-
selves being expiatory sacrifices; as is evident from these
words, Lev. i. 4, “He shall put his hand on the head of the
burnt-offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make an
atonement for him.” Now the Jewish” doctors tell us, that
this imposition of hands was always joined with confession
of sins over the sacrifice, which confession still concluded
with a prayer, that the sacrifice might be an expiation for
them. And the phrase, “It shall be accepted, Éixázaasa,
arsei abroi, to make an atonement for him,” used here, and
Lev. xiv. 20, concerning holocausts, is as much as ever is
said of expiatory sacrifices. (2.) This may be farther urged
from the word +55, used concerning holocausts, Lev. i. 3 ;
that being the word used to import expiation for sin ; or:
which account the Syriac version saith, that the burnt-offer-
ing was designed, ad placationem obtinendam a Deo, “to
* Joh. in Lev. vi. 7
CHAPTER IX.
917
20 Saying, This is the blood of the * testament
which God hath enjoined to you.
21 Moreover he * sprinkled likewise with blood
both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry.
appease God;” and the Chaldee” paraphrast, that the
burnt-offering came ad expiandum pro cogitationibus cordis,
“to expiate for the thoughts of the heart.” And it was the
general opinion of the Jews, saith Dr. Outram,:# that some
kind of sins were expiated by holocausts. And, (3.) all the
sacrifices of living creatures, before the law, were holocausts;
and yet it is certain that many of them were offered to ap-
pease God, and expiate for sin. Thus Noah, after the flood,
offered burnt-offerings, Gen. viii.20; and yet Josephus, Antiq.
lib. i. cap. 4, hath informed us, that he offered a sacrifice to
atone God, and appease his displeasure. The sacrifices
which Job offered for his children were burnt-offerings,
yet were they also offerings for sin, Job i. 5; the reason
of their oblation being assigned, “It may be that my sons
have sinned.” The oblation which God commanded his
friends to make, was a burnt-offering, Job xliii. 7, and
yet it was offered to appease God's wrath, and prevailed,
with the prayer of Job, Aësiv rºy & wagºríay aircíº, “to procure
absolution from their sin.” Nevertheless, because Jose-
phus, speaking of this matter, mentions the blood, röy
xºtów a payávrov, “ of the rams slain,” as the apostle doth
töv rpáyov, “the blood of the goats ;” hence it seems
necessary to allow these also were slain then, either as
sin-offerings, or as burnt-offerings, as they are allowed to be,
Lev. i. 2, 3. 10.
* Ver. 40. Atashan, Covenant, or testament.] “This dis-
course,” saith Mr. Le Clerc, “is to be looked upon merely
as the play of an Hellenistical writer; who, because he saw
that 8tašāzm was used for that covenant whereof Christ is
the mediator, and signified also a testament, and Christ was
dead, thence deduced consectaries which are true indeed,
considered in themselves, but here rely upon weak principles,
rather to set off his discourse according to the custom of that
age, than to convert the Jews to the faith by the force of
reasoning.” Thus is the great apostle of the gentiles turned
into a Jewish rabbin, setting off his discourse by weak rea-
sonings, because it was customary for the Jews to do so.
“Our word and preaching is,” saith the apostle, “not in the
words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit,”
1 Cor. ii. 4. “By your leave,” saith Mr. Le Clerc, “you
Sometimes speak not in the words of man's wisdom, but of
Jewish folly, talking plainly like an allegorical Philo, mak-
ing often such accommodations of scripture, and such conse-
quences deduced from them, in which no regard at all is
had to grammar.” “We speak the wisdom of God,” saith
the apostle. “No,” saith Mr. Le Clerc, “your discourse is
to be looked upon merely as the play of an Hellenistical
writer.” “We speak,” saith the apostle, “the things which
God hath revealed unto us by his Spirit, and have received
this Spirit, that we may know the things which are freely
given us of God; which things we speak not in words taught
by human wisdom, but in words taught us by the Holy
Ghost.” “No,” saith Mr. Le Clerc, “even in things relating
to the new covenant, established in the blood of Christ, your
discourse relies upon weak principles, and is no better than
playing with the ambiguity of words, and deducing conse-
quences without any regard to grammar. For, true it is
indeed, that a testament is ratified by the death of the testa-
tor, and Christ is dead, but Christ was not the mediator of a
testament; for testaments do not want mediators: and if it
should be granted that he was, he could not be thought at
once a mediator and a testator, by whose death alone a tes-
tament was confirmed. The testator here is God the Father,
whose heirs men are in conjunction with Christ, but God the
Father can in no sense be said to die.” Thus Mr. Clerc
confutes the author, and yet says, he does not lessen the
authority of this epistle, though others think he plainly
overthrows it ; but, God be thanked, he does it still without
just ground. For,
First, It is plainly false that God can be the testator here;
and that for his own reason, because “God the Father can
in no sense be said to die:” for a testator must have his tes-
* Ibid. p. 111, §. 7. |
+ De Sacrif lib. i. cap. 15, §. 8–10.
tament, and where there is a valid testament, “there,” saith
the apostle, “must of necessity be the death of the testator.”
“A testament,” saith Mr. Clerc, “being ratified by the death
of the testator.”
Secondly, I grant that Christ was not the mediator of a
testament, but then he was the mediator of a covenant ;
which, as it was sealed with and confirmed by his blood, pro-
curing for us such blessings as he by his will designed for,
and declared should be conferred upon, believers, “through
faith in his blood,” became also a testament. Thus when
he said, “For their sakes, &yiáčo £cauty (John xvii. 19,
i. e.) I will offer myself as a piacular victim, that they
might be sanctified,” or truly purged from their sins ; he
adds,” as his last will and testament, “Father, I will that
those whom thou hast given me be with me where I am.”
So here he is become “a high-priest of good things to come,”
purchasing eternal redemption for us by his blood. And,
ver. 15, he became the mediator of that new covenant, in
which God promised to “be merciful to our transgressions,
and to remember our sins no more ;” procuring the remission
of them by the intervention of his death, “that we that be-
lieve in him might receive the promise of an eternal inherit-
ance,” which he died to entitle us to, and confer upon us;
whence it is styled “the purchased possession.” This there-
fore was his will and testament, that they for whom he died
“should live through him,” and this testament could not be
confirmed but by his death: he therefore was at once the
mediator, in whom the new covenant, promising to us re-
mission of sins, was made; and the testator, by whose death
the testament, that they who believed in him “should have
eternal life,” was ratified.
Moreover, what if, after all, here should be nothing said
of a testator, but only of a mediator of such a covenant as
was to be ratified in the blood of Jesus? This sure would
confound all that Mr. Le Clerc here offers; and yet I think,
with submission to better judgments, that even this may be
maintained against him.
For though there be here mention, ver, 16, 17, roi; 8taše-
Awāvov, yet it is not necessary that word should signify a tes-
tator properly so called, but only a promiser, and one that
confirms his promise with his own blood. For Šiatºnki,
in Phavorinus, is jºric-Xyojºat, avyriègºat, “I promise, I
covenant,” and 8taríð2002. 31a8%xºv is very properly, in pro-
fane authors, “to enter into covenant;” and so the phrase
8taśńcopal 3a Shany, and 8téSero Saôňany, it is constantly used
in the Old Testament; and therefore the participle 346;&e-
yoc, derived from the same verb, must commonly have the
same signification here, in which it is still used by the Sep-
tuagint, and which it always bears in the New Testament.
Thus, Acts iii. 25, “You are the children, 8ta&#xn; h; 8.36sto,
of the covenant which God made to our fathers;” Luke xxii."
29, tºya, 8taríðspeal taſy, “And I appoint to you a kingdom,
wa8&; 8:0sºro, as my Father hath appointed me:” so here,
viii. 10. x. 16, afºrm # 3.29%an v 8tasha'op'al, “This is the
covenant which I will make with the house of Israel.” And
because covenants were usually made, victimas cadendo,
“by sacrifices,” and established in blood, as both the Hebrew
nºn-i, the Latin foºdus, and the Greek a "royā, whence the
word spondeo is derived, show ; and the phrases, #42
ršºvsky, foºdus ferire, and percutere ; accordingly it was in
the new covenant established in the blood of Jesus. Hence
the apostle speaks thus of this covenant, and the appointer,
disposer, or the maker of it :
Ver, i5. That by virtue of this blood he is “become the
mediator of a better covenant.” p
Ver. 16. “For where there is a covenant (0avárov yewoºwow,
made by death, or ratified by the blood of him that makes it,
ver. 15), there of necessity must intervene the death, toº
8tašegévov, of him that makes the covenant (or promise).
Ver. 17. “For a covenant (of this mature) is only from
(iri vexedi;) in the death of them who make it (as other
_----...---------- - - - - - ---------" "-" -: * * *-
tº ſº gº * * f 6: th ** w f >
* "Atxa yoğy rā; war& Xºtativ Sta&#xn; 65×2 ºver ºrov #yº Bíºw!
wai atrol Śart. Theoph. in locum.
+ See Kircher's Conc. vol. i. p. 2139.
918
HEBREWS.
22 And * almost all things are by the law purged
(purifted) with blood; and without shedding of blood
is no remission.
23 It was therefore necessary (by virtue of the
Mosaic institution) that the patterns of things "in the
heavens should be purified with these (sacrifices) ;
but the heavenly things themselves (our bodies to be
received into heaven are to be purified) with better sa-
crifices than these.
24 (I say, the heavenly things themselves,) for Christ
is not entered into the holy places (of the tabernacle)
made with hands, which are the figures of the true
(holy place); but into heaven itself, now to appear in
the presence of God (and so prepare and consecrate
those mansions) for us.
covenants were ratified by the death of the sacrifices used at
the making of them), and is of no force whilst (§ 3iaššºsyoc)
the maker of the covenant lives.
Wer. 18. “Whence (i. e. because, without shedding of
blood there is no remission ; so it was also im) the first cove-
nant (for it) was not dedicated without blood.”
To this sense the contexture of the apostle's argument
doth plainly lead ; for, ch. viii., he introduceth the pro-
mise of a new covenant, in which God engageth to “be mer-
ciful to our iniquities, and to remember our sins no more”
(ver. 12), and so, by removing our guilt, make us fit to be
partakers of “an eternal inheritance.” This “remission of
sins,” saith he, could not be purchased by the gifts and sa-
crifices under the law, for “they could not fully purge the
conscience from the guilt of sin” (ix. 9), but Christ, “by his
own blood, hath purchased eternal redemption for us” (ver.
12), and by this blood “he is become the mediator of a bet-
ter covenant;” he having suffered death “for the remission
of sins committed under the old covenant, that we might re-
ceive the promise of an eternal inheritance” (ver. 15).
And this death was necessary for him to suffer, for the ob.
taining of these ends ; for “where there is such a covenant,
there is a necessity that the death of him who ratifies this
covenant with his blood should intervene.” For such a
covenant is only ratified upon the death of them by whom
it is made, and is of no force, whilst he lives that makes the
covenant, because this “remission of sins is not to be pro-
cured without shedding of blood:” which was a thing so ab-
solutely necessary under the law, that “neither was the first
covenant dedicated or established without blood.”
Now if this be so, here is no “playing with the ambiguity
of the word 3iaSãxn,” nor any intimation of a Hellenist, but
rather of a Hebrew, using the word in the sense which both
the Hebrew nºn- usually bears, and in which 32.9%xn answers
to it in the Septuagint: and so there was no just occasion
for the dangerous reflections which Mr. Le Clerc hath made
on this discourse of the apostle.
* Ver. 21. ‘E}}ázrics, &c.] Of this “sprinkling of the ta-
bernacle and all the vessels,” we read nothing in the place
of Exodus forecited, or in any other part of the law ; but
Josephus saith,” that Moses did Össariſti, Tây cºnvºy, xa, rà
oriei *** **śn waite, wai rā aſ war rāy raûgay wai weißy cºpa-
Yèvrov, “consecrate for God's service the tabernacle, and all
the vessels of it, anointing them with oil, and with the blood
of bulls and rams.” ,”
** Ver. 22. Almost all things.] He saith, “almost "be-
cause some things, which could-abide the fire, were purified
by the fire, Numb. xxxi. 23, and others by water, Lev.
xvi. 28.
* Ver. 23. Aürà è rā, śrove&via, The heavenly things.]
For explication of these words, let it be observed, First,
That the apostle here speaketh all along, not of purification
of persons, but of things of the tabernacle, and of the vessels
of it, ver. 21, of the rà rāvra, “all other things” which were
to be purified ; of the troëslywata rāy by oleayoſº, “the pat-
terms of things in heaven,” ver. 23, that is, “the tabernacle
and the utensils of it,” viii. 5. “The heavenly things them-
selves,” opposed to them, cannot therefore signify men in
general, viz. the church triumphant or militant, or, in parti-
cular, our souls or consciences, but the heavenly place,
* Antiq. lib. iii, cap. 9, p. 89, B.
25 (It was not necessary, I say, that he should enter
with his blood, as the high-priest did into the earthly ta-
bernacle,) nor yet that he should offer himself often,
as the high-priest (did, who) entereth into the holy
place every year with (the) blood of others (to make an
annual atonement for the guilt of sin) ;
26 For then must he often have suffered “since
the foundation of the world (his offering himself be-
fore God with his blood being the consequence of his
sufferings) ; but now once * in the end of the world
(śti ovvre Msig Tāv aid vov, in the end of the ages) hath
he appeared to put away (the guilt of) sin, by the Sa-
crifice of himself.
27 And (in this the death of Christ resembles that
of all other men ; for) as it is appointed unto all men
styled, ver. 24, “heaven itself,” the place into which Christ
entered, in which he appears before God, the place of which
the tabernacle made with hands was a figure.
Secondly, Observe, that by God's appointment an atone-
ment was to be made for the holy place, by the blood of a
sin-offering sprinkled upon and before the mercy-seat seven
times, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel,
and because of their transgressions and their sins (Lev. xvi.
16). Now these could not defile that holy place into which
they never entered, but yet they rendered them and their
services unworthy to appear, and to be tendered before it, as
they still did, worshipping towards or before this footstool of
the divine Majesty. An atonement was also to be made for
the tabernacle of the congregation, in which God dwelt
among them, because of their uncleanness, which rendered
them unworthy to come into that tabernacle where he was
present ; whence it is observable, that no man was permitted
to be in the tabernacle till the atonement was made for it ;
so that the purification of the holy of holies was only the
preparing of it to be still a mercy-seat, to which they might
repair with their prayers, praises, and adorations, and from
which God might graciously shine forth upon them, when
purified by this atonement from the defilements of their sins.
And the purification of the tabernacle was only to prepare it
to be a place in which they might present their persons be-
fore God, thus cleansed by this atonement from the guilt of
Slll.
And in like manner was heaven itself to be prepared or
purified for us, by our Lord's entrance into it with his own
atonement, or propitiatory sacrifice ; First, That our prayers
and praises might ascend up thither, and be accepted at
God's mercy-seat, as being offered to God by out high-priest,
and rendered acceptable by the atonement he had made for
the pollutions cleaving to them. Hence is he represented
as having a golden censer, and much incense to offer, with
the prayers of all saints, Rev. viii. 3, 4. Secondly, That our
persons might be admitted into this heavenly tabernacle, as
being cleansed by his blood from those defilements which
they had contracted. Accordingly, our Lord tells his disci-
ples, “In my Father's house are many mansions; I go to
prepare a place for you,” John xiv. 2, 3. And here he is
said to purify and prepare these heavenly mansions for us,
by entering into heaven, there to appear with his blood of
sprinkling in the presence of God for us.
* Ver. 26. ’Arö 'tarađox% xiapov, From the foundation of
the world..] This phrase is used six times elsewhere in the
New Testament, viz. Matt. xiii. 35. xxv. 34. Luke xi. 50.
Rev. xiii. 8. xvii. 8, and in this epistle, iv. 3, “God’s works
were finished from the foundation of the world.” . And in
all these places it manifestly signifies, “from the beginning
of the world” (see Ps. lxxviii. 2. Matt. xiii. 35); and there-
fore must in reason bear the same import in this text ; and
then it proves, against Crellius, that the sufferings of Christ
had respect to all preceding generations: for if his sufferings
had not respected the sins of the whole world, where is the
necessity, upon the supposition here made, of the reiteration
of his sacrifice, that he should have suffered from the begin-
ning of the world 2
* 'Eri tº avy'rexeig rāy aiºvov, At the end of the world.]
Dangerous here is the note of Grotius, that Paul, in id pro-
pendebat, ut crederet de propinquo imminere mundi ruinam.
See this confuted, note on 1 Thess. iv. 15. And that rà
CHAPTER X.
919
once to die, but after this (comes) the judgment (when
they shall die no more):
28 So Christ was (Gr. being ) once offered to bear
the sins of many; and unto them that look for him
| shall he appear (Gr. shall appear to them that look for
him) the second time * without (any more sacrifice
for) sin unto salvation (i. e. for their salvation).
réxm and # ouvréAsia rāy aidºvoy signifies, not the end of the
world, but the last of the three celebrated ages of the world,
see note on 1 Cor. x. 11.
* Xogic & captiac, Without a sin-offering.] See note on 2
Cor. v. 20.
CHAPTER X.
(The legal high-priest, I say, went yearly into the
holy of holies, ix. 25, as it was necessary for him to do
in that imperfect dispensation).
1 For the law having (only) a "shadow of good
things to come, and *not the very image of the things
(themselves), can “never with those sacrifices, which
they (who officiated under it) offered year by year con-
tinually, make the comers thereunto perfect (i. e. ab-
solved from the guilt of sin for ever) :
2 For “then would they have ceased to be offered
because that the worshippers once purged (by them
sic ré Öumvskég, for ever) would have no more consci-
ence of sins (i. e. would not have been after conscious
of the guilt of sin).
3 But (so far are they from procuring this perpetual
remission, or freeing those that offered them, from be-
ing any more conscious of sin, that) in those sacrifices
there is a remembrance again made of sins every year
(viz. in the great day of expiation ; whereas, where
there is full remission of sins, there is no remembrance
of them any more, and so no more offering for sin need-
ful, ver. 16, 17.
4 They could not, I say, eaſpiate for ever, or clear
them from all conscience of sin :) for it is impossible
that the blood of bulls and goats * should take away
sins (for ever, so that no farther sacrifice should be
heedful to that end). -
5. Wherefore, when he (the Lamb of God, that
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. X.
* Ver. 1. 2xtày rāv &exxávrov &yaśāv, A shadow of good
things to come.] i. e. Of those good things to come, of which
Christ is the high-priest ; their tabernacle being only a sha-
dow or figure of that celestial tabernacle, into which he, as
“our forerunner, hath already entered” (ix. ll); the purga-
tion they obtained by their sacrifices, “from the defilements
of the flesh,” of “the purifications of our consciences from
dead works” (ver. 13, 14); their annual redemption, of the
“eternal redemption” obtained by Christ (ver. 12); their
freedom of entrance, being cleansed by their sacrifices, into
the tabernacle of the congregation, of our “freedom to enter
into the holy of holies.”
* Oix airiv rºw Bizova röy ºrgayºray, Not the very image
of things.] The apostie here distinguishing betwixt “the
things” and “the image” of them, I think the word “image”
cannot properly be rendered substance: but we under the
gospel do enjoy such lively representations of the good things
to come, as are both assurances, and foretastes, and begin-
mings of them, the earnests of our future glory, in the enjoy-
ment of the Holy Spirit, who is the earnest of it (Eph. i. 14);
and by whom we are changed “into the image” of our glori-
ous Lord (2 Cor. iii. 18); the image of our enjoyment of
God, and dwelling for ever with him, by being made “a ha-
bitation of God through the Spirit” (Eph. ii. 22); the image
of our entrance into his presence, in that “freedom of access
we have already to the Father” through Christ (Eph. ii. 18.
iii. 12); the image of our final absolution, in that justifica-
tion which is attended with that “peace of God which pass-
eth all understanding.” And this sufficiently answers the
objection of Esthius against this sense, viz. That a more ex-
press signification of these future good things would not more
efficaciously avail towards the exhibition of them : for such
an image of them as also is an earnest, foretaste, assurance,
and an inchoation of them, is sufficient to “make the comers
to God perfect” for ever, as far as we are capable of being so
in this life ; as being fully assured of the entire pardon of our
past sins, so as that they shall not be remembered any more,
and of the enjoyment of those future blessings, of which we
have received already the earnest, first-fruits, and assurance.
* Eic to 3invexi; otéétrots ºwarai rob; Trgoosexogévov; reasióa'at,
Could never make the comers to them perfect for ever.] All
interpreters allow a rúyxuaic, or trajection of the words in
this verse. Now this, which I make in the translation, seems
to be confirmed by the effect of our Lord’s sacrifice opposed
to these ; for that, saith the apostle, rereasioxey sic tº 3.nvexic,
“ hath perfected for ever them that were sanctified,” i. e.
hath cleansed them for ever from the guilt of sin (ver. 14).
That therefore which he here denies to the legal sacrifices,
must be also this, that they could reasiózat eig ºr 3rivskär,
“expiate sins for ever;” or so as that they who were once
purged by them, should have no more conscience of sin
(ver. 2); and to this sense the following argument inclines.
The words rs2\Biotiv and texeißzai have two significations;
the one is agonistical, and then it signifies to reward and
crown, as in those words, “That they without us, whirexelo-
Şāori, might not be made perfect,” i.e. be crowned, or have
their full reward, Heb. xi. 40 (see the note there): the other
is sacrificial ; for when it is joined with sacrifices, or hath re-
lation to them, it signifies, āyīāćely, xa, xašapićašas, “to
sanctify and purge from the guilt of sin.” Whence Texeiðgei;
is rendered by Hesychius and Phavorinus &ytáreiº. So the
sin-offering, by which Aaron and his sons were sanctified,
and set apart for the priesthood, is styled, Sveia Texeiðasoº,
Exod. xxix. 34; and the sacrifice by which the temple was
sanctified, or purged from its defilements, is styled, Svata
rexelºrsør, 2 Macc. ii. 9, and therefore what is here, “can-
not make perfect,” is, ver. 4, “cannot à paipeſy %aptiac, take
away sins;” and, ver. 2, xašapićaša, is to purge from the
conscience of sin (see ix. 9. 12. 14).
And, lastly, the word rºozséxop.ávov; here, seems not to
signify, the comers to it, i.e. the law, but the comers to God
for pardon by these legal sacrifices; for the word in this
whole epistle still relates to coming to God, as the phrase is
expressly, vii. 25. xi. 6, the “coming to the throne of grace,”
iv. 16 ; and in this chapter, ver. 2, Trfoa spx6%.8&a, “Let us
come (to God) with a true heart.”
4 Ver. 2. ‘Emei oba ºw traúravro reorgegåøsvat, For then
they would not have ceased to be offered.] Some, leaving out
the obz, translate the words thus, “For then sure they would
have ceased to be offered ;” but the oiz is found in Chrysos-
tom, Theodoret, CEcumenius, Theophylact, and the Alexan-
drian, manuscript, and therefore ought not to be omitted:
others, with the Arabic version, read the words interroga-
tively, “For then would they not have ceased to be offered?”
which gives a very good sense. But yet there seems to be
another sense of them very agreeable to the context ; viz.
“For then they would not have ceased,” or “been taken
away,” to give place to another sacrifice for sin, as the apos.
tle proves they were, from ver, 5.9.
5. Ver. 4. 'Aqateeſy &gaeriac, To take away sins,] Is not,
as Grotius here notes, efficere me ultrà peccetur, “to make
us sin no more;” for that is not the effect of Christ's blood,
but, as far as in this imperfect state we are enabled so to do,
of his sanctifying Spirit. Moreover, the apostle speaks, ver.
1, of expiation of the conscience from the guilt of sin, of ex-
piation by the legal sacrifices, which did not inwardly sanc-
926)
HEBREWS.
taketh away the sins of the world)" cometh into the
world, he (in the psalmist) saith, Sacrifice and of-
fêring thou wouldest not, but "a body hast thou pre-
pared (for) me: (i. e. thou wouldest not have them to
continue after my coming into the world to offer myself
a sacrifice for the sins of the world, they being only to
continue till the time of reformation, ix. 10, and here,
ver, 9.)
6 In burnt-offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast
had no pleasure :
7 Then said I, Lo, I come, (as) * in the volume (or,
tify, of purgation by the oblation of them, ver. 2, from that
sin of which there was “a yearly remembrance” in the obla-
tion of those sacrifices “to make atonement” for them, ver.
3 ; and therefore the 380yaroy yåg, which connects this verse
with the former, and shows that to be impossible to be
effected, which he had said before was not effected by those
sacrifices, must confine this phrase to the taking away the
guilt of sin, by * expiation and atonement for them ; not to
the removal of the power and dominion of them, by internal
Sanctification. And so & paipeiv 3pxapriay always signifies,
either to take away sin by a mere act of grace, absolving from
the punishment due to it (as when Nathan said to David,
&péân i Këgio; rà éºéptnº arov, “The Lord hath taken away
thy sin; thou shalt not die,” 2 Sam. xii. 13, and the seraph
to Isaiah, “This hath touched thy lips, kai 3 peas; rāg
&#xagºria; orov, and he will take away thy sins,” Isa. vi. 7 ;
and, Isa. xxvii. 9, “By this, & patesSharevai &yoyºta. 'Iax38,
shall the iniquity of Jacob be forgiven; and this is the bless-
his sin ;” and when God saith to Joshua, ièob &@henwa rà,
ãvo&iac cov, “Behold, I have taken away thy sins,” Zech. iii.
4); or, when this phrase hath relation to a sacrifice, to take
it away by that ; as when it is said, Lev. x. 17, “Wherefore
have ye not eaten the sin-offering in the holy place, seeing
it is most holy, and God hath given it you, tº 34%xnre rºy
㺠aºrtay rā; a vyayoyās, kai śiñárno Še treet airāyāyavri Kvetov,
that you might bear (away) the iniquity of the congregation,
to * an atonement for them before the Lord?” (see ver.
11. -
* Ver. 5. Eia sexãºwevo; sic rāv kärpov, Coming into the
world..] The Socinian gloss here, de ingressá Christi in mun-
dum futurum, i.e. “of Christ's going out of this world into
the next,” or into heaven, is so absurd, that it needs no re-
futation; his “coming into the world,” in the scripture
phrase, being his descending from heaven to be with us;
John xvi. 28, “I came down from the Father, and came into
the World;” and his going hence into heaven being styled,
his leaving of the world, John xiii. 1. xvi. 28. xvii. li. And
though the phrase of “entering into the world” may some-
times in John import Christ's entering on his prophetic office,
or his appearing publicly in the world, as 3 exíasyo, is,
“that Prophet which was to come into the world;" yet the
connexion of it here with the time when a body was prepared
for him, will not suffer us to doubt, that it importeth here
his assumption of the human nature, and his being born into
the World in it. And so this phrase is used, when Christ is
styled “the true Light, that enlighteneth every man that
cometh into the world,” John i. 9. For though the gram-
matical construction doth not hinder but that exiºsvoy sic
tºy ºzºoy, may be construed with “Light” thus, “Which
coming into the world enlighteneth every man;” yet
Bºy Ixh 95, “all that come into the world,” being the con-
stant phrase by which the Jews express all men living, as
Dr. Lightfoot on the place observes; and the jews
themselves, speaking of God himself after this manner,
Eby YRE '95 hkhp Tinn, tº Thou art he that illuminates
every man that comes into the world ;” this is a plain con-
firmation of our translation of these words. -
* 23%a xarnprio'o wot, A body hast thou prepared, or framed,
for ºne..] The words in the Hebrew are, 5 nº bois,
“My ears hast thou bored,” in plain allusion to the cere-
mony used to a slave that would not have his liberty, but
* See Grot. de Satisf contra Soc. cap. 10.
‘F Wejikra Rab, sect. 31. .
roll) of the book it is written of me, to do (roi trouſ-
oat, that I should do) thy will, O God (i.e. to offer
7my body a sacrifice for sin, according to thy will).
8 Above when he said, (āvūrspov \#ywy, when he,
à. e. Christ had said before, Ps. xl. 6), Sacrifice, and
offering, and burnt-offerings, and offering for sin,
thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein
gºw of the sacrifices) ; which are offered by the
aW ; -
9 Then said he (afterward, ver. 7), Lo, I come to
do thy will, O God. (And thus) he taketh away the
would continue in his obedience to his master, and would not
go free (Exod. xxi. 6. Deut. xv. 17). And seeing this was
done out of love to his master, the boring of his ear seems
not to be commanded as a note of infamy, but as a solemn
devoting of him to his master's service ; though were it used
as a mark of servitude, it answers still exactly to our Saviour,
who “took upon him,” saith the apostle, ºogºphy 30%aov, “the
form of a servant,” or of a slave, and “became obedient to
the death” for us, when he might have been free from it, out
of love to his Father and us his children (Heb. ii. 14). And
because he only could appear in this form, and performed
this obedience in the body he assumed for this purpose, the
seventy interpreters, perhaps by the internal motion of the
Holy Spirit, translated the phrase thus, “A body hast thou
prepared (or framed) for me:” for that the apostle did not
change the translation of the Septuagint, but find it thus, his
words declare, when he saith, “He taketh away the first,”
* -- – tº . . . . . . f. * , ºr * * * viz. Sacrifice, and offering, according to the law, “that he
ing, ğray & páxogai rºy & wagºriav airoij, when I shall take away
might establish the latter,” i. e. the oblation of his body, or
his obedience to the death in his body thus prepared for him.
So read Theodoret, Austin, Euthymius, Chrysostom, Apolli-
narius, and Ambrosius ; so read the Arabic and Ethiopic
versions; and they who read otherwise, may be supposed to
have followed not the Greek, but the Hebrew. And this
reading the apostle approves and follows, as the true meaning
of the Hebrew phrase, and that which so fitly doth express
our Saviour's oblation of himself (as that sacrifice which was
to put an end to those which only were the types and sha-
dows of it), and his giving up himself, entirely a servant, to
do the will of God; on which account, slaves and servants,
who were altogether at the beck and will of their lords, were
both by Jews and heathens called a dºzara, “bodies.” Thus
Raguel gave to Tobias half his goods, a dºzara, xa, xthyn, ka?
&gyūploy, “servants, and cattle, and money,” Tobit x. 10.
The sale of the captive Jews, by Nicanor, is in the Greek
thus, &yopia’ad; 'Iověafºv capºrov, 2 Macc. viii. 11. Joseph.
Antiq. Jud. lib. xii. cap. 2, p. 390, F. So all the servants
of the men of Sichem are, Trávra rā a 6%ara abrów, Gen.
xxxiv. 29. And cºara is by our translation rendered
“slaves,” Rev. xviii. 13. So Aristotle, Strabo, Demosthenes,
and Julius Pollux, usé the word (see Constantine).
I do not find that the ancient Jews interpreted these words
of Christ in express terms; but they say enough to justify
the apostle's argument from this text. For hence they con-
clude, that “God had no principal regard to sacrifices, and
that obedience and praise were better than sacrifice;” and
that f “a farther salvation was to be expected, even the
Salvation of God,” Ps. 1. 23. Isà. xlv. 17, which was nywn
Dºnºv, “an eternal salvation;” or, in the language of the
apostle here, “ salvation, ei, rö Travtexãº, for ever,” Heb. vii.
25, eiç rô Sinyszé;, x. 14.
* Ver. 7. In the volume of the book it is written of me,
that I should come to do thy will.] It being there written,
that the Messiah was to “make his life an offering for sin,”
Isa. liii. 10, and by that to “cause these offerings and sacri-
fices to cease,” Dan. ix. 27; therefore he is said to go to his
cross, “as it was written of him,” Matt. xxvi. 24; and the
rulers of the Jews are said to have “fulfilled the scriptures”
in condemning him, and to have “done that which was
written of him,” Acts xiii. 27, 29 (see Luke xxiv. 44. 46).
* Ver. 10.] Though perhaps the article of should be left
out, it being not read by Chrysostom and Theodoret, or by
* Maim. More Nev. par. iii. cap. 32.
ºf Pug. Fid. par. iii. dist. 3, cap. 12, § 14.
CHAPTER X.
921
first (the legal sacrifices), that he may establish the se-
cond; (the oblation of his body, ver, 10.)
10 * By the which "will we are sanctified through
the offering (Gr. 61& rijc trpoo popäç, who are sanctified
by the offering) of the body of Jesus Christ (Āpàtra;)
once for all, (not as the legal sacrifices, once every
Syear, ix. 25, 26.)
ll And every priest (according to the law) standeth
(Gr. stood) daily ministering and offering oftentimes
the same sacrifices, which can never take away (the
guilt of) sins :
12 But this man (Christ Jesus) after he had offered
one sacrifice for sins (by which the guilt of them hath
been fully taken away, Heb. i. 3, is) "for ever sat
down on the right hand of God; (and so is placed
over all his works, according to Ps. viii. 6.)
13 From henceforth expecting till his enemies be
made his footstool (till the devil, antichrist, death, the
wages of sin, and the last enemy, be abolished, 1 Cor.
xv. 15, and so the following words of the psalmist,
Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet, be
fully accomplished).
14 For by (this) one offering (of himself to the death
for us) he hath *perfected for ever (i.e. completely
the Syriac version ; yet, because it is in the Alexandrian
copy, in CEcumenius, Theophylact, the Arabic version, and
in many manuscript copies, I thought fit to give it a place in
the paraphrase, and then it is easy to perceive that hytágºeşa
must be repeated, to complete the sense. -
* 'By 6 08Xàºzart, By the which will.] Christ had said in
the psalmist, that his Father would not have the sacrifices
and oblations of the law continued, but that his will was,
that he should once for all suffer for the sin of man; by the
execution of which will, performed by Christ's oblation of
his body for us, we are sanctified: where &yiáðsiv, or &yić-
Čsa Sat, doth not signify to be freed from the power and do-
minion of sin, but from the guilt of it; as is proved, note on
ix. 13: and this is farther proved, from the means of this
sanctification, viz. the oblation of Christ's body, that being
offered as a piacular victim, to purge us from the guilt of
sin, and from the condemnation due unto us for it: nor doth
the apostle here understand the oblation of Christ's body in
the heavens for us, that being properly his intercession, but
the oblation of his body on the cross, and his sufferings
(Heb. ii. 10, 11. xiii. 12). And, lastly, this being effected
by the oblation of Christ's body, páraž, “once for all;” as
it restrains the word to his oblation on the cross, which was
but once performed, and is past (whereas his appearance in
the heavens for us is still present and perpetual), so doth it
perfectly overthrow the pretended sacrifice of the mass : for,
if “by this one oblation he hath perfected for ever them
that are sanctified,” what efficacy can there be in this vain
repetition of it? may, must it not import, that remission of
sins is not fully obtained for us by our Lord's sacrifice on
the cross? for, saith the apostle, “where remission of these
is, there is no more offering for sin” (ver. 18). Y
* Ver. 12. Ei, tº 3invaxis, For ever.] By comparing this
with ver. 14, “By one offering he hath perfected, si; ºr 3invexic,
for ever them that are sanctified,” and with ver, l, where it
is denied that the legal sacrifices could, rs2\sióa'at ei; +3 &nvexic,
“expiate sins for ever;” and from the stress the apostle
here (ver 10), and elsewhere, lays upon this rºorºozā Āqāraž,
“oblation once for all,”—I imagine that these words may be
better rendered thus, “This man, after he had offered one
sacrifice for sin for ever, is sat down.”
* Ver. 14.] That thraxstokey si; ºr 3 ºvski, is to “expiate
sin for ever,” see note on ver l; and that the apostle here
speaks of them who are sanctified by this expiation, hath
been observed, note on ix. 13; as is apparent from the testi-
mony of the Holy Ghost produced here to confirm this, viz.
º “God would remember their sins no more ” (ver.
A question ariseth from ver. 4 and 11, Upon what ground
is it here asserted, that the legal sacrifices could never take
away sin P and wherein lies the difference, in point of expia-
tion, between the sacrifices of the law and the oblation of the
body of Christ, that one could purge the conscience from the
Sense of guilt, and take away sin for ever, and the other
could not? “If all must be resolved into divine appointment
and divine acceptation, how is it ‘impossible that the blood
of bulls and goats should take away sin 2' Was it not pos-
sible that God might have appointed and accepted of the
life of a beast, instead of that of the greatest maleſactor, who
thereby might be freed, not only from a temporal, but like-
wise from the obligation to eternal death 2" Now in answer
to this question, I conceive, that divine acceptation must
neither wholly be excluded, nor wholly be assigned, as the
cause that the oblation of our Saviour's body was thus avail-
able for that expiation of the guilt of sin, which could not
me obtained by the legal sacrifices.
And, First, I say, divine acceptation must not, yea, can-
not wholly be excluded ; for that would render the oblation
of our Lord's body, of what virtue soever it might be in itself,
wholly unable to procure the pardon of our sin, and exclude
all true remission and forgiveness of sin. For,
The punishment of another, being not the thing threatened
or required, but only the death of the offender, can be of no
avail to free the criminal from punishment, though he, that
is the substitute, be never so able or so well inclined to suffer
it; unless the governor, or he to whom the execution of the
law belongs, be willing to accept of his vicarious punishment;
and whensoever he is pleased, and sees just cause to do so,
it is an act of grace and favour to the criminal, and a remis-
sion of his personal obligation to bear the punishment he had
deserved. In punishments inflicted on the criminal, it is
true, that so far as he suffers what the law exacts, so far doth
he dissolve the obligation to further punishment, and so far
must his punishment be inconsistent with remission ; for as
far as any man is punished, he is not forgiven. But by ad-
mission of another to sufferin our stead, we areas much forgiven
as we could be, did he not sufferin our stead, because we are as
much exempted from suffering any punishment on the account
of our offences; and how can we be more forgiven, than we
are by such an act as removes from us the whole punishment
as much as if we had never offended 2 the vicarious punish-
ment is indeed the motive and the procuring cause of this
forgiveness, as it renders it consistent with the governor's
honour, and with the ends of government, to grant it ; but it
takes off nothing from the freedom of the pardon.
Secondly, I add, That divine acceptation must not be
assigned as the only cause that the oblation of our Saviour's
body was thus available for the expiation of the guilt of sin;
for then no reason can be given why he might not have
accepted of the blood of bulls and goats, and much more the
sufferings of any ordinary man, for the procuring our exemp-
tion from the guilt of sin ; whereas two reasons have been
already offered in the note on ii. 14, why the blood of bulls
and goats could never take away sin; viz. first, because they
were not of the same nature and original with man, who
sinned, and so could not dissolve the debt his nature had
contracted. Secondly, they never could procure for us a
resurrection, and so they could not free us from that eternal
death our sins deserved ; nor could any mortal man do it,
because he never could have power to raise his own body :
only that Jesus who had “power to lay down his life, and
take it up again * who “ hath life in himself,” and who can
make “the dead hear the voice of the Son of man, and live,”
can do this. Indeed, they could do nothing of that which
was requisite, saith this epistle, and the whole scripture, for
that end. But the great reason why the blood of bulls and
goats could never take away sins, is this, that they could
never answer the great ends of punishment, and thereby
render it consistent with the honour of the governor, and
with the ends of government, to admit the substitution of
them in our stead. Now the ends which wise men do
assign to punishments, are these :
First, IIagáàgiyua, That they who suffer may be exem-
plary to others, and may, by what they suffer, deter others
from the commission of the like offences; by letting them,
in their example, know what they must suffer, when the
guilt of their own sins is laid upon them.
Secondly, Nov68-ia, That the offender may learn wisdom,
by the rod : that the remembrance of what was suffered for
it might prevent the repetition of his sin ; and that he may
be fitted to embrace that counsel of our Saviour, “Sin no
more, lest a worse thing come unon ſhoe.”
922
HEBREWS.
expiated the sins of) them that are sanctified (through
faith in his blood, procuring the remission of sins, Acts
xxvi. 18.)
15 Whereof (and gf this) the Holy Ghost also
. a witness to us: for after that he had said be-
Ore,
16 This is the covenant that I will make with them
Thirdly, Tºogia, The vindication of the prince's honour,
and the preservation of the laws he hath established from
contempt. Now to apply this to our purpose, I say,
1. That by the obedience of our Lord Christ unto the
death in our stead, these ends of punishment are very sig-
mally obtained, and that with more advantage to God's glory
than if the punishment of our offences had been inflicted
upon us ; and so God, by it, may be truly said to have
been satisfied, seeing that justice, which consists in punishing
for the transgression of a law, is truly satisfied, when all those
ends, for which the punishment of the offender could be de-
sired, are obtained.
2. I add, That none of these ends could be at all obtained
by the suffering of bulls and goats, and not comparatively
by the sufferings of any mortal man whatsoever. And,
First, God, by this dispensation, hath given us the best
and most effectual example to deter us from sin: for three
things only can be requisite to this end, viz. that the punish-
ment of sin be insupportable, when we suffer it ; inevitable,
when we, by our rebellions, have made ourselves the vessels
of God's wrath; and that we have a lively sense and deep
impression of all this upon our spirits. Now,
The example of our Saviour's sufferings shows how insup-
portable the punishment will be, which justice will inflict
upon the sinner; for if the apprehension of it produced such
agonies and consternations in the soul of Christ, that God
saw need to send an angel to support him under them, how
must the sinner sink under that burden, when it is laid upon
his shoulders if he, who was the well-beloved Son of God,
found it so dreadful to lie under the burden for some hours ;
to lie exposed for ever to it, must be far more intolerable:
if the consideration of God's paternal love, and of the glorious
issues of his sufferings, was scarce sufficient to support our
Lord under the terrors of that cup ; what will support the
sinner, when he shall know himself to be the everlasting ob-
ject of God's wrath ! ad
This example also shows, that impenitent sinners cannot
escape this wrath of God, since he inflicted so great a punish-
ment on the beloved of his soul, when he became our Surety.
For if on this account “God spared not his only Son,” we
may be sure he will not spare his stubborn enemies. With
what strong cries, and with what earnestness, did our Lord
pray to be delivered from this cup 2 and yet, when he had
“made his soul, an offering for sin,” thus did it “please the
Lord to bruise him.” If then his ears were shut against the
Gries of his beloved Son, how can they be opened to the
howlings of rebellious sinners? if God was pleased to lay so
great a load on him who was but sponsor for our sins, their
punishment cannot be milder who commit them. And,
Lastly, This example gives us the most lively sense and
deep impression of these things, as being the most sensible
demonstration of God’s indignation against sin, which is .
recorded in the sacred writings. To find God drowning the
whole world, and raining fire and brimstone on Sodom and
Gomorrha for sin ; to see the darling objects of his love, the
Jewish. nation, become for above seventeen hundred years
the objects of his sorest wrath, are instances sufficient to
deter men from sin: but then to see God mix a cup so bitter,
so full of gall and wormwood, for his own innocent and well-
beloved Son, and make him drink it off, only because he
undertook to be our surety; to see him lifted up upon the
cross, the earth trembling under him, as if unable to bear his
weight, the heavens darkened over him, as if shut against his
cry, and all this because our sins did meet upon him, is a
sure and eminent demonstration of God's indignation against
81 Il.
Secondly, Whereas inevitable ruin must have followed,
upon the execution of the deserved punishment on the of.
fender's person, God, by this method, hath taken a most ex-
cellent way for reformation of the sinner, which was the se-
| after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws
into their hearts, and in (or, upon) their minds will I
write them; (Jer. xxxi. 33,)
17 (He adds, as a farther promise, or part of the
new covenant,) And their sins and iniquities will I re-
member no more.
18 Now where (such a) remission of these is (as
cond end of punishment: for what can be a more effectual
motive to abstain from sin, than this example, which so
clearly represents the greatness of the provocation in the
greatness of the punishment, and shows it is impossible that
guilty persons should avoid the stroke of God's vindictive
justice, or bear the weight of his almighty arm P
Thirdly, God, by this dispensation, hath sufficiently con-
sulted the preservation of his honour, and secured the reve-
rence and observation of his laws; which was the third great
end of punishment. For,
God, by declaring thus, he would not pardon our offences,
without this satisfaction made for the violation of his law,
hath fully vindicated his institutions from contempt; seeing,
by this example, he hath let all men know, that though he
be a God of great long-suffering and mercy, he “will by no
means clear the sinner,” or suffer sin to go unpunished.
Again, God, by this dispensation, hath vindicated his ho-
nour more than if he had destroyed the sinner; having more
evidently shown his hatred of, and great displeasure against
sin, by punishing it so severely in his only Son, when he be-
came our surety: for the greater the inducement is to remit
the punishment of sin, the greater must be his hatred who
inflicts it ; that therefore this consideration, that he who
suffered was his well-beloved Son, would not induce him to
remit the punishment, must be the highest demonstration of
his most perfect hatred of all iniquity.
But that none of those ends could be at all obtained by
the substitution of a bull, or goat, or ram, to suffer in our
stead, must be extremely evident, this being a substitution
very supportable, especially by the rich, who very freely
spend much more upon the satisfaction of their lusts, and
who would therefore gladly buy a freedom to commit them
at so small expense. This then would be so far from tending
to reform the sinner, that it would rather be a great encou-
ragement to him to continue in his evil courses, when he
thus knew the damage would be very little to him ; this
also could not tend to the honour of the lawgiver, but rather
would tempt men to conceive that his displeasure against
sin could not be great, since he required so little to repair
his honour; and that he was not much concerned for any
satisfaction for the violations of his law, when such slight
matters were by him thought sufficient expiations for them.
Moreover, the oblations of any ordinary man could not
procure this expiation for us: (1.) Because he could only
suffer that punishment he had deserved by his own sins:
now evident it is, no satisfaction can be made by me for
others, by suffering that which justice doth require me to
suffer for my own offences. (2.) Because he could not over-
come death, he never could raise up himself from the grave,
and so could not procure that redemption from it to another,
which he could not obtain for his own self. Nor (3.) is it
visible how he can serve the ends of justice, or of government,
by doing so, more than the criminal himself would do by his
own sufferings. For, (1.) what great indication would it be
of divine hatred to sin, that he required only the death of a
mortal man, to expiate the sins of the whole world 2 Or, (2)
what discouragement could this afford to sinners from con-
tinuing in their evil courses, or what great dread of divine
vengeance 2 for if, as it was conjectured by most nations,
the death of a malefactor might be sufficient for this purpose,
what nation could ever want such expiations for their sins”
or, if it were to be a good man, seeing they bore so great love
to mankind in general, and to their country in particular,
some of them would still be ready to offer their own lives
for preservation of their nation: or how, by this, would God
consult either the honour of his government, or secure the
reverence and observation of his laws, by thus requiring only
one criminal to suffer less than he himself deserved, to make
atonement for the continual violations of his sacred laws by
a whole nation, or even the whole race of men 2
CHAPTER X.
923
cuts off the remembrance of them any more), there is
* no more (need of) of offering for sin (see ver.
2, 3).
19 Having therefore, brethren, boldness (or, liberty,
see note on iii. 6) to enter into the holiest by the
blood of Jesus (from which the Jews were typically
debarred, the way into the holiest being not then re-
vealed, ix. 8),
20 By a new * and “living way, which he hath
consecrated (or, made new) for us, through the veil,
that is to say, (through) his flesh (offered for our sins
wpon the cross) ;
21 And having (such) * a high-priest over the house
of God (i. e. the church, iii. 6. 1 Tim. iii. 15, or,
over the house not made with hands, in which God
dwells, viii. 1, 2, ix. 1. 11); .
22 Let us (who are of this house, iii. 6, and for
whom this freedom is procured by this high-priest)
draw near (to God) with a true (upright) heart in full
assurance of faith, (that our services shall be accepted
now, and our persons hereafter admitted into his pre-
sence, as) having * our hearts sprinkled (by the blood
of Jesus) from (the accusations of) an evil conscience,
and our bodies washed with pure water (viz. the laver
of regeneration).
23 Let us hold fast the profession of our faith (Gr.
the hope we profess) without wavering; (or, being
noved from the hope of our calling, Col. ii. 23, that
hope which causeth us to rejoice, iii. 6, which entereth
within the veil, vii. 27), for he is faithful who hath pro-
mised (this entrance into it) ;
24 And let us consider one another (as members of
the same body) to provoke (one another) to love and
good works : (or, works of charity ; see note on Tit.
iii. 8.)
25 Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves to-
gether, (not drawing back from Christianity to Juda-
ism, ver. 26. 38), as the manner of some is ; (who,
for fear of persecution from the Jews, return to the wor-
ship of the synagogue, ver. 32. 36), but exhorting one
another (to perseverance in the faith); and (that) so
much the more, as you see * the day (of vengeance
* Ver. 18. Oix #rt rºocºpoea, &c. No more offering for sin.]
From these and many other passages of this epistle, the sa-
crifice of the mass, declared by the Trent council (sess. xxii.
can. 2, 3) to be “a true and proper propitiatory sacrifice
for sin,” is utterly overthrown. For, (1.) from these words
of the apostle, “It was not needful that he should offer him-
self often, for then must he have often suffered,” ix. 24–26,
it is very evident, that Christ cannot offer himself but he
must suffer: since then they dare not say that Christ suffers
in the mass, neither can they say that Christ offers himself
there. (2.) From those words, “Without shedding of blood
there is no remission,” ix. 22, it follows either that the sacri-
fice of the mass must be a bloody sacrifice, and so Christ's
blood must be as often shed as he is offered in the mass, or
else that it obtaineth no remission of sin. (3.) This follows
from these words, “By one oblation he hath perfected,” (i. e.
hath perfected and fully expiated, and that) “for ever, them
that are sanctified ;” for what necessity of what virtue can
there be in, doing that again, which is perfectly and fully
done already, and that for ever ? And, lastly, where remis-
sion of sins is so obtained by Christ's own oblation, that
God will “remember them no more,” there is, saith the
apostle, “no more need of offering for sin;” but by the
blood of Christ, the blood of the new testament, such remis-
sion is obtained, saith the same apostle, ix. 15, 17. Ergo, &c.
* Ver. 20. ‘obby ºrpio parov, A new way.] The way into
the highest heaven being before &garoº, “impassable,” saith
Josephus (see note on ix. 8); there being no entrance for
us into that place, till our forerunner had entered into it, vii.
20; till he had purified and prepared it for us by his better
sacrifice, ix. 23. John xiv. 2. This was the doctrine of all
the primitive Christians, that Christ, by his death, opened
this veil for the just that were, from Adam," &ronexxeirºzivci,
excluded from those blissful regions : + that Sièaya's peay-
fºv táv š aião, º axia Sávra, “he rent open the enclosure
which from the beginning had not been laid open.” Hence,
Tertullian: saith, the patriarchs were Dominicae resurrec-
tionis appeudices, “the appendants of our Lord’s resurrec-
tion;” and therefore, as zai ixovire, is here to be repeated
from ver. 19, so the preposition 313, “through,” seems here
not to denote the means, or the condition of entrance into
the holy of holies, but rather the term to be passed through;
as if he should have said, “We have a new way of entrance
through the veil, now rent;” which, before it was so, hin-
dered our entrance into that place; that is, through the
flesh or body of Christ broken upon the cross, and so let-
ting out that blood which procures that entrance, as the
º the high-priest carried with him procured his entrance,
lx. 7.
* Kai &ray, And living way :] That is, Čoloroiodoray,
“that we might live through him,” 1 John iv. 9.
* Cyril. Hieros. cat. 4, p. 27. •
i Thad. apud Euseb. Hist. Eccl. Jib. i. cap. 13, p. 35.
# De Anim. cap. 55. See Petav, de Incar. tom. ii. lib.
Kiii, cap. 16–18.
“leading to and giving life,” saith Grotius. He dying for us,
Thus the
“bread of life,” John vi., and the “word of life,” Acts v. 20.
Phil. ii. 16, is the bread and word giving life, in opposition
to the dead shadows of the law, saith Dr. Hammond, or the
sacrifices prescribed by it, all whose virtue was in their
death ; we being “reconciled by the death of Christ,” but
“saved by his life" (Rom. v. 10) ; our access to these
mansions being obtained by this “forerunner, made higher
than the heavens” (vii. 26), “made a priest there, after the
power of an endless life” (ver, 16), and “therefore able to
save us to the uttermost, because he lives for ever, there to
make intercession for us” (ver. 25). &
* Ver. 21. A high-priest.] i. e. A high-priest so merciful
and able to help us when tempted, and so faithful in the
performance of his office (ii. 14).
*7 Ver. 22. 'Eſſawrie ºvoi răç was?ia;, &c. Having our
hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, &c.] Here is a mani-
fest allusion to the things requisite to procure to a defiled Jew
admittance to God's sacred presence in the temple or the ta-
bernacle. The Jewish maxim saith, that “the very root and
essence of the sacrifice was sprinkling of blood;” and therefore,
on the great day of expiation, the blood of the bullock for
the sin-offering, and the goat for the sin-offering, which was
brought in to make atonement in the holy place for the peo-
ple, was sprinkled before the mercy-seat seven times (Lev.
xvi. 14, 15. 27), and so they were made clean from all their
sins before the Lord (ver. 30), and admitted again into the
tabernacle of the congregation, from which they were exclu-
ded till this sprinkling was performed (ver. 17). , Again,
when the Israelites were in a great fear, that by coming near
the tabernacle they should be consumed, saying, “Behold,
we die, we perish: whosoever cometh anything near unto
the tabernacle of the Lord, shall die” (Numb. xvii. 12, 13);
God appoints the water made of the ashes of the red heifer,
to cleanse them from those legal impurities, which rendered
them unfit to come into his tabernacle, and made it dan-
gerous for them to approach unto it, styling it on that ac-
count a “purification from sin '' (ver. 9); and this water
was to be sprinkled on the unclean, and he was to wash his
clothes, and bathe himself in water, and being thus purified,
might come into the sanctuary (ver. 19, 20): this sprink.
ling of the blood and water, “ sanctifying to the purifying of
the flesh” (Heb. ix. 13), “Let us therefore,” saith the
apostle, “who have (not our flesh only, but) our consciences
purified from the guilt of sin, by the sprinkling (not of the
blood of bulls and goats, but) of the blood of Christ, and
have our high-priest still presenting this blood before the
mercy-seat, and who have our bodies washed with the pure
water of baptism, the laver of regeneration (as the clothes
and bodies of the unclean were with fountain-water), draw
near to God” with greater freedom than they could.
18 Ver, 25. ‘Hººv, The day approaching..] i. e. The day
of the Lord's coming to destroy the unbelieving Jews, and
to execute his vengeance on them, for rejecting and crucifying
924
HEBREWS.
wpon the unbelieving and apostatizing Jews) approach-
ing.
26 °For if we sin wilfully (by renouncing and fall-
ing off from Christianity) after that we have received
the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more
sacrifice for sin, (oik Årt, there is not yet left any other
sacrifice, besides that which you reject, to purge you
jrom the guilt of sin , and therefore nothing can remain
jor such apostates) -
27. But a certain fearful looking for of judgment
and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adver-
saries (of Christ the Son of God, ver. 29.
28 And of this you may be assured, from what be-
Jell those who revolted from the law of Moses ; for) he
that despised Moses's law died without mercy under
(the testimony of) two or three witnesses (of that apos-
tasy, Numb. xv. 30, 31. Deut. xxvii. 2. 7).
29 Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye
(then), shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden
under foot the Son of God (using him with the greatest
contempt), and hath accounted the blood of the (new)
covenant, ”wherewith he was sanctified (or, purged,
..from the guilt of his sins, ii. 11. ix. 13. xiii. 12), an
unholy thing (such as pollutes, rather than purges, as
being the blood of a malefactor), and hath done
| despite to the Spirit of grace (by refusing to own hin
as the Spirit of God; yea, rejecting him as a lying
spirit, and his gifts and miracles as illusions) *
30 For we know him that hath said (i. e. who in-
troduceth God thus speaking), Vengeance belongeth to
me, I will recompense, * saith the Lord (Deut. xxxii.
35). And * again (in the same place, ver. 36, saith of
him), The Lord shall judge his people.
31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the
living God, (who ever lives to punish those who revolt
from him ; see iii. 12.)
32 But call to remembrance ('Avapupivāokso.38 38,
Remember therefore) the former days, in which, after
ye were illuminated (i.e. baptized into the Christian
faith, vi. 4), you endured (courageously) a great fight
(Gr. conflict) of afflictions; (for a great persecution
then befell the church which was at Jerusulem, Acts viii.
2. 1 Thess. ii. 14.)
33 Partly, while you were made a gazing-stock (or
spectacle) both by reproaches and afflictions; and
partly, while ye became companions of them that were
so used (Acts v. 41, the apostles, especially Paul and
Barnabas, Acts xiv. 5. 19, 20. xvii. 10. 14, 15).
34 For ye had compassion of me in *my bonds
(Acts xx. 23. xxi. 4. 11—13), and took joyfully the
their Messiah, styled by Luke, “the days of vengeance,”
xxi. 22 ; hºwāga rā; elaºow airoij, “the day of the Lord's
coming, which who can bear P’’ saith the prophet, Mal. iii.
2; hºw#a zaiopºwn &; xxigayoc, “the day burning like an oven;”
haëga h iExopºvn, “the day coming that shall so burn up
them that do wickedly, as not to leave them root or branch;”
hºzápa Kveiou #yyičovca, “the day of the Lord drawing near,
when all the inhabitants of the land shall tremble,” Joel ii.
1 ; &#yáxn h hºga Kvpiov wai étripayās, “the great and terrible
day of the Lord,” ver, 11. 31; hºwāga aircü, “the day of the
Son of man.” That this is the meaning of the place, will
appear from the scope of the apostle, which is to terrify them
he writes to, by the consideration of that dreadful day of
vengeance thréatened to the unbelieving Jews, not only by
our Lord, but their own prophets, and now near at hand;
as it follows from ver. 26 to 32.
* Ver. 26. "Ekovaio; yag #paprayávray hºv, For if we sin.
wilfully..] That these words do not concern every sin com-
mitted knowingly against the laws of Christ, but only such
as do consist in apostatizing from the faith after we have re-
ceived the knowledge of it, and rejecting him as our prophet
and lawgiver, will appear, (1.) from the parallel place, vi. 4
—6; for they who there “cannot be renewed unto repen-
tance,” are they who “fall away” from the faith, after they
have been “enlightened,”&c.; which plainly answers to these
words here, “They who sin wilfully, after they have received
the knowledge of the truth.” They are there said to “cru-
cify afresh the Lord of life, and to put him to an open shame;”
yea, to “fall away” after “they have tasted of the heavenly
gift, and have been made partakers of the Holy Ghost;”
which always answers to the “trampling under foot the Son
of God,” and the “doing despite to the Spirit of grace.”
(2.) From the instances produced out of the Old Testament :
for the argument used, ver. 28, from the comparison of “him
who despised Moses’ law,” and therefore was to “die with-
out mercy, under the hand of two or three witnesses,” Deut.
xvii. 6, plainly concerns them only who transgressed God's
covenant, by “going and serving other gods,” ver. 2, 3.
And as for those who sinned “voluntarily,” or “with a high
hand,” under the law, and so were to be “cut off,” and have
no sacrifice allowed to expiate their sin (Numb. xv. 30, 31),
they were such as “blasphemed” or “reproached the Lord,” |
i.e. revolted from, and would not own him as their governor;
they “despised the word of the Lord ;” they made the cove-
mant given in Sinai void, by contemning the authority by
which it was enjoined, as the Hebrew signifies, and so they
were indeed apostates from God. (3.) From the preceding
exhortation, ver. 25, not to fall off from the assemblies of
Christians; and the following, not to “cast away their con-
fidence,” ver, 35, not to “draw back” from the faith, ver.
38; it being “better not to have known the way of right-
eousness, than, having known it, to depart from the holy
commandment delivered to them,” 2 Pet. ii. 21 ; and, lastly,
from the expressions used, ver. 29, which can agree to none
besides apostates from the Christian faith : for, to “tread
the Son of God under foot,” must surely signify the ex-
tremest contempt that can be cast upon him; to “count the
blood of the covenant” (by which we are purified) itself, not-
vöv, “unclean,” and polluting, can be only done by him who
looks on Christ, not as the Saviour of the world by it, but
as one who deserved to suffer what from the Jews he did :
and to “do despite to the Spirit of grace,” cannot well sig-
nify less than that which our Lord styles the “sin against
the Holy Ghost,” which men cannot commit, and in their
hearts continue Christians.
* Ver. 29. 'Ey 6 hytào'àn, By which he was sanctified.]
That this refers not to Christ sanctifying himself, or offering
himself as a piacular victim for us (John xvii. 19), but to
him who “ counted this blood an unholy thing,” seems clear,
first, from the constant usage of this phrase in this epistle,
where “he that is sanctified” is he “that is purged from the
guilt of sin,” ii. 11; and in this very chapter, where it is
said, ver, 10, that we are #yiacºvot, “ sanctified by the ob-
lation of the body [or, the blood] of Christ;” and, ver. 14,
that “ by one oblation he hath perfected for ever rows &yta-
Čowéyovº, them that are sanctified.” Secondly, from the
phrase, “the blood of the [new] covenant,” i. e. of that co-
venant in which God promises to “be merciful to our ini-
quities, and remember our sins no more,” viii. 12. x. 17.
Thirdly, because, though Christ is said to “sanctify himself.”
yet is he never said to be sanctified, but only &yiáðsly roy Aay,
“to sanctify the people by his own blood,” xiii. 12 (see the
reading justified, Examen Millii).
* Ver. 30. Saith the Lord, Aéyet Kugio..] These words are
not to be found in many manuscripts; they are not in the
Vulgar, Syriac, or Ethiopic version; not in the original, or
in the Septuagint; and therefore seem to have crept in here
from Rom. xii. 19; where, instead of cºaº.ey yāp Töv eitrévra,
“We know him that speaketh, we find, yśyparral yèp, “For
it is written;” which reading Chrysostom here hath, and
without these words the sense runs better.
** And again :] Not Ps. cxxxv. 14; the words there being
taken from Deut. xxxii. 36, but in the same place, or in the
following verse. So ii. 13, “I will put my trust in him,”
Isa. viii. 17, wai TráAly, “And again (ver. 18), Behold, I and
the children which God hath given me.”
* Ver. 34. Toſ; 3Bapºoſ, wov, My-bonds.] Were this cer-
tainly the true reading, it would fairly prove Paul the au-
thor of this epistle; but the other reading, roſ. 88akaoſ; avy-
strašicate, “You had compassion of them that were bound ’’
CHAPTER X.
925
spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves (by the
testimony of that Spirit who is the earnest of our fu-
ture inheritance, Eph. i. 14. iv. 30), that you have in
heaven a better and an enduring substance.
35 Cast not away therefore your confidence (trab-
§moriav, your freedom in profession of the faith), which
hath great recompence of reward, (for with the mouth
confession is made unto salvation, Rom. x. 10.)
36 For ye have need of patience, that after ye have
done the will of God (i.e. have suffered aecording to
his will, 1 Pet. iv. 19), ye might receive * the promise
(reward). -
37 For (the vision of Habakkuk, respecting the com-
ing of Christ, and eahorting you to wait for him, said
is more likely to be the true reading, for so read the Alex-
andrian and two other manuscripts, the Syriac, the Vulgar
Latin, and Chrysostom.
Twóakov’re; #x8w #y Éavroſ, ºgeitºrova trapév #y oigayoſº, wai
ºvoviray.] Note that Origen, in his book de Martyrio, omits
the words #y Éavroſs, that Clement of Alexandria” reads #w'
Havtouc, that some read instead of it tºº, and that all the
ancient versions follow this reading. Note also, that all the
Greek fathers read Év oigavois, which two various readings
make the Greek run clear and smooth (see Examen Millii
in locum).
* Ver. 36. Thy wayygatay, The promise.] That is prima-
rily “the recompence of reward,” mentioned ver. 35. So,
xi. 39, Étrayyexia, “the promise,” is the same with “the re-
compence of reward,” wer. 26, the “things not seen,” but
“hoped for,” which are the objects of our faith, ver. 1. But
then this epistle being directed to the believing Jews, who
had both from their prophets and from our Lord a promise,
that “in the great terrible day of the Lord, whosoever should
call upon the name of the Lord should be saved,” Joel ii.
32, and that the ebayyāniówevot oil; Köpic; trºoaxéxxntal, i. e.
“they whom the Lord hath called by his gospel should be
delivered,” ibid.; that when the day was to come that
“burned like an oven,” then was “the Sun of righteousness
to rise on them that feared him, with healing on his wings,”
Mal. iv. 1, 2; that “he who endured to the end shall be
saved,” Matt. xxiv. 13; and to whom it was said, Hab. ii. 3,
4, “The vision is, Tynnº Ty, yet for a time” then, now “for
a very little time;” tºráºzsivoy airów, “With patience wait for
him [the Messiah, say the Jews], for he that cometh will
come, and will not tarry:” “Wait for him,” say the Jews, i.
Tow Papp, “to receive your reward.” Christ also having
taught them by a parable that God would come, iv ráxei,
“speedily to avenge his elect who cried unto him (under
persecutions) day and night” (Luke xviii.), I believe that
the receiving this promise verified to them, which tended so
exceedingly to confirm their faith, might be here intended,
especially if we consider that the apostle could not properly
affirm of our Lord's coming to judgment, that it was airpov
to'oy ºzov, “a very very little while, and he would come, and
would not tarry.”
* Ver. 37. 'o pxéaevo..] This is the peculiar title given
to the Messiah by the Jews, as we learn from the Baptist's
question to him, at el 3 exãasvoc; “Art thou he that should
come, or look we for another ?” (Matt. xi. 3) and from the
hosannas of the Jews, sung to him in these words, “Blessed
be, 6 #xéºzevox, he that cometh in the name of the Lord”
(Matt. xxi. 9). And the Jews do not only interpret this
passage of him, but also encourage themselves to wait for
him by this very argument of the apostle, how bipº, “that
they may receive their reward,” for “blessed,” say they, f
“are all that hope in him” (Isa. xxx. 18).
* Strom. iv. p. 514.
+ See Pug. Fid. p. 212, 742.
# Ibid. p. 212, 354, 742.
then, Yet for a time, as I do now,) yet a little while,
* and he that shall come (Gr. 6 #pyápsvoc, he that com-
eth now to reward your patience) will come, and will
not tarry. * !
38 (It also adds these words of comfort to the faith-
ful, and terror to the revolter, Eaſpect him now, Aikatoc
88, for) the just shall live by (his) faith: but “if any.
man draw back (kai čáv Útrogreſ\) rat, and if he draw
back from it), my soul (saith God) shall have no plea-
sure in him. *
39 But we (I hope, vi. 9) are not of them that draw
back to perdition; but of them that believe to the
saving of the soul.
26 Wer. 38. “Yºroa relantat, If any man draw back.] The
reverend Dr. Hammond hath shown from Phavorinus, and
from Acts xx. 20, 21. Gal. ii. 12, that this word signifies to
draw back, refuse, and fly from a thing; and so the object of
it being here faith, must signify his flying from and drawing
back from the faith, or refusing still to profess it; and, as it
follows, must be his “drawing back unto perdition;” and
because this is done usually from fear of persecution, hence
it is joined with fear; Gal. ii. 12, Peter itéattaxey Havrov,
“withdrew himself, fearing the circumcision;” and sometimes
is put to signify fear: so Deut. i. 17, £4% in oatsian Trčáramov
3,664mov, “You shall not be afraid of the face of man;”
and because men's cowardly fears make them to hide, dis-
semble, and play the hypocrite, hence it is reckoned by Ju-
lius Pollux,” among the words which signify to conceal and
hide ; and by Hesychius and Suidas is rendered, ütroſſgive rat,
Soxie's rai, “He plays the hypocrite, and deals deceitfully;”
all which, in things which do respect our God and our reli-
gion, are permicious to the soul; especially if we consider
that “he that draws back” stands opposed, ver, 39, to “ him
that believeth,” and therefore is an unbeliever; and, ver, 38,
to “him that liveth by his faith,” and therefore can have
none, or only a dead faith : and, lastly, that God here so-
lemnly declares, his “soul shall have no pleasure in him,”
and then he must still lie under his sad displeasure.
Note, Secondly, That śāv 8; in or relanraº refers plainly to
“the just man,” the man who “lives by his faith;” and in
the prophet, to him that is with faith and patience to wait
for the accomplishment of the vision ; and, ver. 39, the bºro-
arsºxáſzewo, “the drawer back” stands opposed to him that
“believeth to the salvation of the soul.” The words do
therefore plainly suppose, that “the just man” who “liveth
by (that) faith,” in which, if he persisted, he would “save
his soul,” may “draw back unto perdition.” And this is
also evident from the ensuing words, “My soul shall take
no pleasure in him,” for they do plainly intimate that God
took pleasure in him before his drawing back; for otherwise
this threat would signify nothing, the Lord taking pleasure
in no man but in just men only, and such as “live by
faith.” -
Note, Thirdly, That #3, 3i may be rendered not hypothe-
tically, “And if,” but câm veró semet subtraxerit, “But
when he shall draw back ;” which I have shown to be the
common import of the Greek áy, note iii. 15. But if we
read them hypothetically, the supposition cannot be of a
thing impossible ; for then God must be supposed to speak
thus. If the just man do that which I know is impossible
for him to do, and which I am obliged by promise to pre-
serve him from doing, my soul shall have no pleasure in
him ; which is to make God seriously to threaten men for
such a sin, of which they are not capable, and of which they
are engaged to believe they are not capable, if they believe
the doctrine of perseverance, and so to threaten them to
none effect.
* Lib. vi. cap. 53, p. 323, lin. 41.
926
CHAPTER XI.
1 Now (the) faith (by which the just man lives, x.
: 38) is the "substance (or, the firm empectation) of
things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen
(i.e. by which we are confirmed in the truth of them).
2 For by it the elders (i. e. the fathers before and
since the flood) obtained a good report (or, testimony
jrom God, left on record in the holy scriptures).
3 Through (that) faith (which is the evidence of
things not seen) we understand that the worlds (the
lower, middle, and superior worlds, see note on i. 2)
were framed “by the word of God; so that (the)
things (of them) which are seen were not made of
things which do (did then) appear (but, #x rāv dopd-
rov, of things not then visible, Gen. i. 2).
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XI.
* Ver. 1. “Yoréorari, ràv ixºrićoºvov.] The word úróa'ra-
cric, in the Old Testament answers either to the Hebrew mºn,
which signifies ea:pectation, as Ruth i. 12, Écºtt &otimécºragic;
“Have I any expectation of a husband P” Ezek. xix. 5,
&mdºxgro imócracic atric, “Her expectation was lost:” or to
the word nºnhn, which is of the same import, as Ps. xxxix.
7, h triotacic prov trapá coi ioti, “My expectation is from
thee,” Ps. lxxxix. 47. It also bears the same sense in the
New Testament, signifying there a confidence of expectation,
as 2 Cor. ix. 4, “Lest we should be ashamed, #y rà in oatáael
raúrn rāc wavyńa solº, in this confidence of boasting:”
and, xi. 17, “That which I speak, I speak not after the
Lord, but as it were foolishly, iv tº broatáast raúrn rā;
xavy:horewº, in this confidence of boasting :” and in this
epistle, iii. 14, “We are made partakers of Christ, if we
hold, tºy &exây Tຠtnográrews, the beginning of our confi-
dence firm to the end.” And this import of the word accords
best with the instances of this faith that follow, they being
such as generally consisted in the expectation of some future
good, which, saith the apostle, they have not yet received
completely, ver. 39. Hence it is that I render the words
thus, “Faith is the confidence, or firm expectation, of things
hoped for.” -
* Ver, 3. ‘Pngatt Qsoč, By the word of God..] That is, as
the comparing this with i. 3 shows, by the word of the divine
Aóyoc. So Philo, speaking of the framing of the heaven and
earth, saith, rå y&f regiºayed Tátº kai anxauyscráta, śavrot,
Aáyº, hºwatt & ©eå; 3px;pérºpa Troisi, “God hath made them
both by his illustrious and splendid Logos, with a word ”
(Leg. Alleg. lib. i. p. 33, G). And of Moses he saith, that
dying, he did not, #xxeirev, “cease to be, nor was he gathered
to the most,” as others, &AA& 813 hºarog rod Airiou &aravior-
Tarai, ºr ot. Rai é a jºira; négºo; #3mºtoveysſºro, “but he was
translated by the word, or command, of that Cause by which
the whole world was made " (L. de Sacrif. Abel et Cain, p.
102, C.) Now, whether this flºwa be the word of the Father
speaking to the Son or Logos, or the word of the Aéyoc, saying,
“Let them be made, and they were made,” it is hence evi-
dent that this Logos must be a person, and not an attribute
(see the note on Heb. i. 3).
* Ver., 4. IIasiona Bucíay, A more excellent sacrifice.]
Philo, in his discourse on this subject, De Sacr. Cain et Abel,
p. 107, makes the defect of Cain's sacrifice to consist in
two things; first, that he did not offer it soon enough, but
HaeS’ #4 #pag, “after certain days:” secondly, that he did not
offer the first-fruits of the earth, as did Abel of the first-fruits
of his sheep, but only of the fruits; but there is no ground
for either of these things in the text, which seems to intimate,
that they both offered at the same time ; nor doth it say
that Cain offered not of the first-fruits of the earth. The
apostle here plainly discovers, that the thing which gave the
preference to Abel's sacrifice above that of Cain's was his
faith, viz. that “faith ” which is “the substance of things
hoped for,” or his expectation, or persuasion, that God
would certainly reward those who diligently endeavour to
please him in this or in the other world. Accordingly the
4 By faith Abel offered to God "a more excellent
sacrifice than (that of) Cain, by which (faith) he ob-
tained witness (i. e. a testimony from God) that he
was righteous (or, accepted by him), “God testifying
(his acceptance) of his gifts: and by it he being dead
yet speaketh (i. e. declareth by his faith, that God is a
rewarder of the righteous, though they die).
5 By (virtue of this) faith (that God would reward
those that serve him, though in this world he might not
do it, ) Enoch was translated that he should not see
death ; and * was not found (on earth), because God
had translated him (from it): for before his transla-
tion he had this testimony (from God, Gen. v. 22.
24), that he pleased God.
Targum of Jerusalem, and Jonathan ben Uziel, upon the
place, declare, that “Cain denied that there would be any
future judgment or reward hereafter to the just, and that
Abel did maintain the contrary, that there should be a future
recompence for the righteous:” and this he, being dead, yet
preaches by his faith ; for this faith, which God so signally
approved of, and confirmed with so great a testimony, he
will not suffer to go unrewarded, as he must do in one so
quickly slain, because God thus preferred his sacrifice before
his brother's, if he did not reward him in the other world.
And therefore Philo says, that “seeming to die, as to this
corruptible life, Čn thy &#6agrov, Kai rºy in Osó ºwhy stºaiaova,
he lived the incorruptible and blessed life in God” (L. Quod
deter. &c. p. 127, C, D.) To say, as do the fathers, “He yet
speaketh, because he is still celebrated in the world,” is to
say nothing proper to Abel, that being also true of all the
other patriarchs; and to refer this to the cry of his blood for
vengeance, is to refer to that which seemeth not to be the
commendation of his faith, by which the apostle here declares
he speaketh.
*Magrupºviroz, Godlestified upon his gifts.] That is, saith The-
odotion, êvémpmas, “he caused fire to descend from heaven, and
consume his sacrifice,” and thereby testified his acceptance of
it: so he discovered his acceptance of the sacrifice of Abraham,
Gen. xv. 17, and of the sacrifices of Aaron, Lev. ix. 24, of Gi-
deon, Judg. vi. 21, of David, 1 Chron. xxi. 26, of Solomon, 2
Chron. vii. 1, and of Elijah, 1 Kings xviii. 38. And accord-
ingly the prayer of the Israelites for their king runs thus,
“The Lord remember all thy offerings, and turn to ashes
thy burnt sacrifice,” Ps. xx. 3. To this agrees the interpre-
tation of R. Solomon and Aben Ezra, among the Jews; of
CEcumenius and Theophylact on the place: and Jerome *
confirms it by this inquiry, “Whence could Cain know that
God accepted the sacrifice of Abel, and rejected his, if the
interpretation of Theodotion was not true P”
* Ver. 5. Oix sizio we'ro, &c. Was not found on earth, be-
cause God had translated him.] God killed him not, saith
Onkelos: and this we may sufficiently learn from the story,
Gen. v.; for of all the rest mentioned in that chapter, it is
said they “died ;” but of him this is not said, but only that
“he was not, because God took him,” ºr ºxgrášnºv airów &
©eåg, “because God translated him,” saith the Septuagint,
the book of Wisdom, and the son of Sirach (Wisd. iv. 10.
Ecclus. xiv. 44). Moreover, it is said of Noah and of Abra-
ham, that they “walked with God,” Gen. vi. 9. xvii. 1; but
it is not said that they “were not, because God took them;”
this phrase must therefore import something which happened
not to them : many of the Hebrew doctors say, that he was
taken into heaven, or into paradise; “He was taken into
heaven by the Word of the Lord,” saith the Targum of
Jonathan; “He was translated into paradise,” say the Arabic
and Ethiopic versions; “God showed him the tree of life,”
say R. Menachem, and Zohar, in 2 Kings ii. 1; “He trans-
lated him into paradise,” say Kimchi and Menasseh ben
Israel." Hence Munster on the place speaks thus, Asserunt
nostri hunc Enoch cum corpore et animà translatum esse in
* Trad. Heb. sup. Gen. tom. iii. p. 70, lit. K.
+ 1)e Fragil. Human. § 12
* CHAPTER XI.
927
6 *But without (this) faith it is impossible to
please him: for he that cometh to God (in a way of
duty) must believe that he is, and that he is a re-
warder of them that diligently seek (to please) him.
(To believe that he is, relates to that faith which is the
evidence of things not seen ; for God is invisible: to
believe that he is a rewarder, to that faith which is the
eaſpectation of things hoped for.)
7 By faith Noah being warmed by God of things
not seen as yet (i.e. of a future deluge), moved with
fear (of what God threatened), prepared an ark to the
saving of his house (from that deluge) ; by the which
he condemned the (old) world (which would not be-
lieve his prediction of this deluge), and became " heir
of the righteousness which is by faith.
8 By faith (in God’s promise) Abraham, when he
was called to go out into a place which he should
after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went
out, not knowing whither he went, (no, not so much
as what the land of promise was ; God’s first command
unto him being only this, Get thee into a land which I
shall show thee, Gen. xii. 1.) -
9 By faith (Gen. xii. 7. 13. 15) he sojourned in the
land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in
tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him
of the same promise (it being renewed to Isaac, Gen.
xxvi. 3, and to Jacob, Gen. xxviii. 13).
10 °For (God having said unto him, I am thy
shield, and thy reward shall be exceeding great, Gen.
xv. 1) he looked for a city which hath foundations (a
heavenly one, ver, 16, which cannot be shaken, Heb.
xii. 28) whose builder and maker is God, (it being
not a building made with hands, as those on earth, but
eternal in the heavens, 2 Cor. v. 1. Heb. ix. II).
11. By faith also Sarah herself (who at first believed
not, Gen., xviii. 12, after that the Lord had renewed
the promise to her, saying, At the time appointed I will
Teturn unto thee, according to the time of life, and
Sarah shall have a son, ver. 14) received strength to
conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she
was past (the ordinary) age (of bearing children), be-
cause she judged him faithful who had promised.
12 Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as
good as dead (his body being dead, and the womb of
Sarah dead, as to the procreation of children, Rom. iv.
19), so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as
paradisum. To be translated, saith Philo,” is garoixiay arret-
Aao Sai rºy &r; Syntoi giov ºrpèc row &Sávarov, “to go from this
mortal to an immortal life.” The same was the opinion of
the ancient fathers, of Irenaeus,' and of Pseudo-Justin,t
who saith, that “they who rose with Christ are with Enoch
and Elias, Év tº tragaºsia º, in paradise.” See others cited
for this opinion by Feuardentius upon Irenaeus. Note, lastly,
that this translation into paradise was the fruit of his faith,
that faith which was “the expectation of things hoped for,”
and that God would reward his diligence in seeking him:
for since he by this faith “obtained this testimony, that he
pleased God,” God could not take him hence in displeasure,
but out of favour to him.
* Ver. 6..] In this sixth verse we have the heathen’s
creed, that “God is, and that he is the rewarder of them that
diligently seek him;” without which the apostle declares,
(1.) That it was impossible for them to please God, and so
God must either have laid upon them no obligations to please
him, or required what he knew to be impossible, or given
them sufficient means to know this. (2). That they could
have no sufficient motives to serve him, or to come unto him
in expectation of his blessing upon them that did so, and
therefore the heathens embraced this as a principle of natural
religion, that “God could not suffer it to go ill with good
men, either in life or death,” but would be sure to take care
of and provide good things for them. Thus Socrates; re-
quests his judges to receive this as a certain truth, that “a
good man, living or dying, can be subject to no evil, because
the gods never neglect his affairs;” and this is recommended
by Cicero, and by Jamblichus," as the great principle which
philosophy suggests as an encouragement to virtue; that “if
We believe that nothing is concealed from God, we must be-
lieve that which happens to the friend of God, happens for
the best ; and that what seeming evils happen to him, will
do him good, in this or in the other life. For he can never
be neglected by the gods who is desirous to be a virtuous and
good man, and as like to God as he is able; but regi roi; 33t-
xov rávarría toûrow 3: Biavaſa Sai, of the wicked and unjust
man we are to believe just the contrary.” And this again
Jamblichus ** delivers us as a great principle of philosophy,
that “if we believe there is a God, who is Lord of all things,
We must own that whatsoever is good and honest must be
asked of him, for all men give good things to them they love
and rejoice in, and the contrary to them to whom they are
disaffected, and therefore much more will the gods do so.”
Another principle, also founded in the nature of man, and
.* De Nom. Mut. p. 812, B.
+ Lib. iv. cap. 30, lib. v. cap. 5. f Resp. ad qu. 85.
§ Apol. p. 31, D, et de Rep. cap. 10, p. 760.
| Tusc. Qu. 1, § 82. "I Protrept, cap. 13, p. 84.
** De Vitā Pythag. cap. 18, p. 80.
laid down by them as the foundation of all religion, was this,
That if piety were not advantageous to them, no man would
embrace it, it being natural to all men to pursue their advan-
tage, and to decline the contrary. So Arrian," upon Epic-
tetus, lays down this for an axiom, that “if piety and profit
did not go together, piety would be preserved in none; the
reason is, because nothing is so matural to us as to affect and
pursue our own advantage: so that if you place what is
holy and just in that which profits, you preserve them; but
if you separate what is honest from what is advantageous,
you destroy what is just and honest, as being weighed down
by profit.” Simplicius adds, that “where is profit, there
we place our piety ;” and thence infers, that “we cannot love,
honour, and worship the Peity, whatsoever reasons may be
alleged for so doing, if we conceive him hurtful, and not pro-
fitable to us, because every living creature flies what is hurt-
ful, and the causes of it, and affects and follows what is pro-
fitable:” and this they learned from their master Epictetus, Š
who lays the foundation of all religion upon this principle,
that “where profit is, there is piety:” and he, perhaps, from
Plato, who lays it down for an axiom, that rô ºy & piatºoy
waxy, rô 3; 3x26sgöv aiazgöy, “what was good was profitable,
what evil hurtful.”
7 Ver. 7. KAnčová wo;, &c. Heir of the righteousness.]
i. e. Of the happiness promised to them who are justified by
faith, or to persons who by faith had an hereditary right to
it, viz. not only to the temporal salvation the ark afforded,
but to that spiritual and celestial which the ark typified
(1 Pet. iii. 21). For “being justified through faith, we are
made heirs through hope of eternal life,” Tit. iii. 7, “heirs
of salvation,” Heb. i. 14, “heirs of the kingdom,” Jamesii. 5
(see note on Gal. iii. 29, and on Heb. i. 14).
* Ver, 10. Thy eaceeding great reward.] Thus the Jeru-
* Asſ rö advoxcy Exeivov ºspºvija Sai, Sr. #&v tº #y tº airó fi
sia’sgic zai avºw pépoy, où 36Varai a 29;val ºrd Eize.8ā; #y rive lib.
- * - 2 * re > p e •ve x tº f
i. cap. 27, p. 53. IIay &oy oièevi otºrag &reiotai &; tº ičić,
avºpégovti. Otºy y&g ciro pixeſ, wēpvksy & rô abroſ oup.-
‘pégow
+ At& rotºro &y ały iv tavrš ri; 3% tº avºpégow, kai rā Satov
& * p aw
wai Tô waxy cºstal raira Trávra-—"Av 3’ &AAaxoi, rö
ove, pēpov, &XXaxºi 35 air rô Sixatov, oxeral raijta wavra xata-
£apoſºgya bro rot cºup, págoytos' lib. ii. cap. 22, p. 243, et lib.
iii. cap. 3, p. 269.
th * w y 3 * * v 2 (3? 6: 6 Oğ
f “Omov yag rô a upºpov, Éxeſ wai rā Bilasgèg riéu 88a. Otºrs
airtov yogićovra, waxów airy Tiggy pixeſy % aséew 30, arov.
IIºv yag &ow rà faiv 8xa£egà, kai rā ciria airów, $80/81 re xat
º * * \
#xtgärstat, rà. 88 &$#Nip, a kai rā airia airāv květsia'i re, zai
Savºče. In Epictet. p. 80.
*é t 2 ad &
§ Tä, wegi roi; 6solic stors&sia; to 8, §rt to kvpt&ratov #xeſvá
w •w ºf º ºt
#arty, ŚpSã; bºrox#4st; tragi airāv Āxsw, &; &roy xa; bioikoúrra,
* * * g
t& 8×a waxâj, Kai Sinaios, &c, "orov yag tº avºw págoy, Éxeſ xat
* * w º Y ºn
to starsgå;. Enchir. cap. 8, 38.
928
HEBREWS.
the sand which is by the sea-shore innumerable (ac-
cording to God’s promise, Gen. xv. 5. xxii. 17).
i3 These all (forementioned that died, or all these
patriarchs) died in faith, not having received the
promises, but having seen them afar off, and were
persuaded of them, and embraced them (as certain),
and confessed that they (themselves) were (only)
strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
14 (I say, they died in faith, or in firm expectation,
not only of these temporal, but of spiritual and heavenly
promises :) for they that say such things (viz. that
they, even in the land of promise, are pilgrims and
strangers,) declare plainly that they seek a country
(where they may rest and dwell, when this their pil-
grimage on earth is ended).
15 And truly if they had been (only) mindful of
that country from whence they came out, they might
have had opportunity to have returned (to it, i. e.
from Canaan and Egypt, to Ur of the Chaldeans).
16 But now (by this professing themselves strangers
and pilgrims upon earth, they declared that) they "de-
sire a better country, that is (not one on earth, where
they profess they are but strangers, but) a heavenly:
wherefore (the) * God (of heaven) is not ashamed to
be called their God (and to own them as his sons and
children) ; for he prepared for them a (heavenly)
city. -
# By faith (in God’s power, ver. 19) Abraham,
when he was tried, *offered up Isaac (laying him
wpon the wood, which was upon the altar, Gen. xxii.
Salem Targum, and that of Jonathan, interpret this phrase,
“Fear not, the reward of thy work shall be great in the
world to come.”—“So ought we,” saith Theophylact, “to
look tº things above, and make no great account of those on
earth.”
Wer. 12. Kai rajra.] Some manuscripts read rotºrov, but
all the Greek scholiasts read kai raºra, being, according to
the custom of the Greek language, used by way of amplifi-
cation, and signifying iddue, and is well rendered by our
translation, “and that.”
* Ver. 13. Tä, ärayyexiac, The promises.] Here note, (1.)
that these words wał reta-Sèvres, “And were persuaded,” are
neither to be found in the ancient version, nor the Greek.
commentators. (2.) That the promises here mentioned, as
not received by these patriarchs, cannot be temporal pro-
mises: for otrol Trávreć, “all these,” as it cannot be referred
to the whole Jewish offspring, since many of them, as the
apostle has observed, iii. 18, 19. iv. 2. 6. 11, “died in unbe-
lief;” so neither to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob only: for
(1.) they are not all that died in faith; and, (2.) the same is
said of all in general, ver. 39, oùro Trávºrsk, “These all died in
faith, not having received the promise.” Now we find no
temporal promise made to Abel and to Enoch ; and that
temporal promise which God made to Noah, he fulfilled.
(2.) The text saith, “They embraced them, confessing they
were strangers and pilgrims upon earth;” whence the apostle
makes this inference, that “they sought another country,
that is, a heavenly ;” which makes it necessary to conceive,
that the promises here mentioned, as not received, were, as
CEcumenius saith, rà oðpávia, “heavenly promises,” ºri, rept
tº; Baat?,éia; rāv oigayāy, Kai rā, śvaarāorewº, “the promise of
the kingdom of heaven and the resurrection,” saith Theophy-
lact. Thºs Philo” saith, of war& Movahy aroqoi ºrávre; sicä-
yovrat Tragolnośyres, “All the wise men are introduced by
Moses as strangers, their souls coming from heaven to travel
here on earth,” and that they desire to return thither ; trar-
flºa Awāy tºy oupávtov iv & Troxirsſov’rai, Živoy 3: röy regiyeroy iv š
Tragºzma'av yogaśćova'at, “ looking upon heaven as the city where
they dwell, and the earth in which they travel, as their place
of pilgrimage.” And again, ºráza wiy Juxº copoi wareíða
Aziv otpavy, yāv 33 ºvny #aaxe, “The soul of every wise man
looks on heaven as his country, the earth as the place of his
pilgrimage” (De Agric. p. 153). So did Abraham, saying,
“I am a stranger and a sojourner with you,” Gen. xxiii. 4.
And Jacob, calling the time he lived here, “the years of his
pilgrimage,” Gen. xlvii. 9. So David, saying, “I am a
stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were,”
Ps. xxxix. 13. The same he speaks of the whole Jewish
nation, saying, 1 Chron. xxix. 15, “We are strangers before
thee, and Sojourners, as were all our fathers.” And this he
learned out of the law, where God speaks thus to them, Lev.
xxv. 23, “The land is mine, for yeare strangers and sojourners
with me, ivay’rior pºov, saith the Septuagint. Accordingly,
the philosophers taught, that to die was to go into our coun-
try, ºrgö, rāy wareíða rºw 3.xnswāv Šey #ASopaey, “to the true
country whence we came " (Simpl. in Epict. p. 77).
* Ver, 16. Kpfirroyo: &#yovrai, They desire a better country.]
The ancient Jews declare, that “the earthly Canaan was a
type of the spiritual Canaan, and the promise of living in it
* De Confus. Ling. p. 259, 260.
for ever, was a parable representing their future happiness
in the world to come.” It is written,” “All Israelites have
their portion in the world to come, as it is said, And thy
people shall be all just, they shall inherit the land for ever,”
Isa. lx. 21. “This land,” saith Maimonides,” “is a para-
ble, as if he should say, The land of the living; and that is
the world to come.” And R. Menachem on Gen. xii.
refers it to “the land which is above, watered with waters
which are above.” If they received this parabolical inter-
pretation from the patriarchs, here is the reason of their
faith, and expectation of this better country. Vain here is
the interpretation of Mr. Le Clerc, both upon the tenth and
sixteenth verses; for, (1.) a city which has foundations is,
saith he, Jerusalem ; whereas, in Abraham's time there was
no such city that he could expect; nor was that “a city
which could not be shaken,” Heb. xii. 28, it having been
long since destroyed; nor was it “a city whose builder and
maker was God,” but man. Again, he expected a better
country, that is, a heavenly, “ i.e. the land of Canaan, which
was an antitype of heaven:” so Mr. Le Clerc, in flat contra-
diction to the apostle, saying, the country they expected
“was not that from whence they came out,” ver. 14, 15 ;
i. e. was not Canaan, but “a heavenly country;” and he
adds, “God had provided for them a city,” not Jerusalem,
sure, but “a heavenly city.”
* Oüx #malaxóvgrat, God is not ashamed to be called their
God.j i. e. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. To be
their God and their Father is the same thing. Thus, Jer.
xxxi. 1, “I will be the God of all the families of Israel,”
wer. 9, is thus varied, “I am a Father to Israel.” “I will
be their God, and they shall be my people,” 2 Cor. vi. 16,
is, ver. 18, “I will be a Father to you, and you shall be my
sons and my daughters.” To be sons of God, is to be “heirs
of God,” Rom. viii. 17, to be “sons of the resurrection,”
Iuke xx. 36, to “inherit all things,” Rev. xx. 7. And the
vioSeria, or “adoption * promised by God, is “the redemp-
tion of the body" from corruption (see note on Matt. xxii.
31, 32, and on Rom. xviii. 17. 23): and this is the reason
why God, taking upon himself the title of their God and
Father, answers this title, by “preparing for them a
city.” -
* Wer. 17. IIgoreyhvoxey, &c. He offered up Isaac.] So
speaks the New Testament twice, here and James ii. 21.
So the Jews constantly ; Philof informs us, that though the
fact was not perfected, “yet it was preserved in the minds
of the readers, and mentioned in the sacred volumes, as a
thing entirely and absolutely done.” And to this day they
pray, $ “That God would be gracious to them for the merit
of the sacrifice of Isaac,” according to the prayer which both
the Targum of Jerusalem and Jonathan mention on Gen.
xxii. 14, as made by Abraham ; to this effect, viz. “I beseech
thee, O God, by thy mercies, that when the sons of Isaac
shall offer to thee in the time of their necessity, thou wilt be
mindful of this binding of Isaac.” Hence have they framed
* Talm. Bab. in Sanhed. c. Chelek.
+ Treat. of Repent. cap. 3, sect. 5.
f oxówango, wai TrayTexh; ot, ºvov #y rat; i.egaſ; 8:3xotº, &AA&
kai #y raï, rºw &vaylvøakówrov 8tavoiat; &váyparro; a rºitevra.
De Ab. p. 293. - i
§ Wide Clem. Tom. Ep. ad Corinth. § 10.
CHAPTER XI.
9:29
9), and he that had received the promises (of a nume-
rous seed to issue from him) offered up his only-be-
gotten son,
18 (Even him) of whom it was said (by God), That
in Isaac shall thy seed be called: f
19 Accounting that God was able to raise him up,
even from the dead; from whence also he received
him in a figure (i. e. from his own dead body, and the
dead womb of Sarah, Rom. iv. 19). -
20 By faith (or, a firm eaſpectation that God would
imake good his benediction) Isaac *blessed Jacob
and Esau concerning things to come (Gen. xxvii.).
21 By (the like) faith Jacob, when he was dying,
blessed both the sons of Joseph; * and worshipped
(God, leaning) upon the top of his staff (by which he
was supported from falling).
22. By faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of
the departing of the children of Israel (out of Egypt,
saying, God will surely visit you, and bring you out of
this land, Gen. 1. 24), and gave commandment con-
cerning his bones (that they should be carried with
this story,” “That when the knife touched the throat of
Isaac, his soul departed, and that when God said, Lay not
thy hand upon the lad, it returned, and so he, being dead,
revived.” And truly Abraham, having done all that be-
longed to him to do towards this offering his son, and being
fully resolved to have gone through the work, had not God's
call restrained him, may well be said, in the divine construc-
tion, to have actually done it ; and to this some refer Abra-
ham's receiving Isaac “from the dead in a figure,” he being
thus snatched from the jaws of death, and restored to him
when he expected nothing but his death.
* Ver. 20. Eöxäynasy rôy 'Iax38, He blessed Jacob.] It
may be inquired how he could bless Jacob by faith, when
he knew not that it was Jacob. To this I answer, that to
the blessing him by faith, it was not necessary he should
know him to be the person he intended thus to bless, but
only that he should feel the divine afflatus, or the Spirit of
prophecy upon him when he blessed him; that being sufficient
to confirm him, that his benediction should be established by
that God before whom he blessed him, and who guided his
lips and his heart in it: and though we have translated it as
a prayer, it mostly runs in the future tense, and may
wholly be translated as a prophecy, and so it must be uttered
in faith. And whereas it is objected farther, that Isaac
thought he was blessing Esau; now so to bless him as to
make him lord over his brother (ver. 29), could not be
spoken in faith, because the oracle had before declared to
Rebekah, “that the elder should serve the younger:” I an-
swer, first, that this rather is an argument against the truth
of his benediction, than the faith of it; it rather proves that
Isaac should not thus have blessed Esau, than that he be-
lieved not what he said: but indeed it proves neither, for
Isaac might feel such a strong aſſlatus upon him, as might
convince him that his benediction was derived from the gift
of prophecy, and so would certainly be accomplished, whom-
Soever it concerned. Secondly, the learned Bishop of Ely
on ver. 4 answers, that either Rebekah had not acquainted
Isaac with the oracle, or it seems he did not understand it as
Rebekah did.
* Ver. 21. Kai reoreºvnasy, And worshipped] God, for
the assurance he had of being buried in the land of promise,
which he desired out of faith in the promise God had made
to him, Gen. xxviii. 13.
* Ver. 23. 'Aarstow, A comely child.] He was, saith Ste-
phen, 3rreſ, rā Qeº, “ of a very excellent beauty,” Acts vii.
20, 20pºp; Seſos, “ of a divine form,” saith Josephus;: “ of
an angelical form,” say the Jews.j. He was, Saith Justin,
one, quem formae pulchritudo commendabat, renowned for
his beauty. Josephus also adds, that an Egyptian scribe,
to whose predictions they gave great credit, had foretold one
* Pirk. Eliez. cap. 31, p. 74. &
+ Antiq. lib. ii. cap. 5. † Pirk. Eliez. cap. 48.
§ Tô ºy ‘E8patoy yáyo; Tā; wag' Aiyvation; &yáyxn; 37.0%ffa's.
Antiq. lib. ii, cap. 5.
them when they returned to Canaan, ver. 25, which was
an evidence of his faith in the promise of God).
23 By (the) faith (of his parents, that God would
send them a deliverer,) Moses, when he was born, was
hid three months of his parents, because they saw he
was “a proper (Gr. comely) child (and therefore
hoped he might be that deliverer God had promised);
and (therefore) they were not (so) afraid of the king’s
commandment (as to deliver him up to be slain). -
24 * By faith (in God’s promise of a deliverance
out of Egypt,.) Moses, when he was come to years (of
discretion), refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s
daughter;
25 Choosing rather (by his owning himself to be one
of them) to suffer affliction with the people of God,
than to enjoy (in Pharaoh’s court) the pleasure of sin
for a season;
26 Esteeming the * reproach of Christ greater
riches than the treasures of Egypt: for he had re-
spect unto the * recompence of the reward.
27 By faith he forsook Egypt, "not fearing the
should be born of Israel, “who, if he came to age, should
grievously afflict the Egyptians, and bring out the Israelites
from among them; and that God had by a vision declared to
Amram, that this child, to be born to him, should deliver the
Israelites out of Egypt;” which, if true, gives a farther
ground of their faith.
* Ver. 24.] Josephus informs us, that when Pharaoh had
put the crown upon his head, adopting him as the son of his
daughter, to be his successor, “he let the crown fall to the
ground, and stamped upon it with his feet.” But the words
&#ya, ysváºzewo, being the very words used Exod. ii. 11, where
it is said, “It came to pass, that when Moses was grown, he
went out unto his brethren;” the apostle doubtless had rela-
tion to them, and interpreted his going out unto them to be
his owning himself to be one of them. “It came into his
heart,” saith Stephen, “to visit his brethren” (Acts vii. 23);
i. e. to join himself to the afflicted Jews.
” Wer. 26. Tày Systèiaºy, The reproach of Christ.] The
seed of Abraham, even before they went down to Egypt,
are styled “the christs of God;” Ps. cw. 15, º żºłna-Se rºy
Xºta rāv wov, “Touch not my christs.” And the prophet
Habakkuk, speaking of God’s judgments upon Pharaoh, and
God’s deliverance of them from him, saith, ść;ASE; si; a wºrn-
play A205 orov rod cºcai tºy xeta rév arov, “Thou wentest forth
for the salvation of thy people, to preserve thy christ” (Hab.
iii. 13): so that “the reproach of Christ” may be the re-
proach of the people of God (ver. 15). Moreover, the re-
proach which he and they suffered was for their faith in the
promised seed, and that was Christ (Gal. iii. 16); on which
account it might be truly styled “the reproach of Christ,” as
the afflictions of the apostle are styled “the afflictions of
Christ,” Col. i. 24, and he himself “the prisoner of Christ,”
Eph. iii. 1, as being the reproach he suffered for his faith in
the promised seed, which was Christ.
Photius here saith, “The reproach of Moses may be called
the reproach of Christ, as being such as Christ suffered,” dioc
& Xgia Tăç #raše, in which sense we are bid to “go forth to
him without the camp, bearing his reproach,” xiii. 13. Be-
twixt this and the following verse some Latin copies insert
these words, Fide magnus factus Moses occidit AEgyptium,
considerans dolorem suorum, which Dr. Mills thinks genuine,
though they are neither owned by any of the versions, nor
any of the Greek commentators.
* Ei, rºw uta:Satrošćatay, The recompence of reward]
Here mentioned could not be temporal, for Moses came not
into the land of Canaan, nor could he expect any greater
blessing in that land than he might have had in Egypt. He
therefore must have respect to some spiritual and heavenly
recompence. -
* Ver, 27. M% $ognŠsic, Not fearing.] It is expressly said
that Moses, when he fled from the face of Pharaoh, “fear
ed,” Exod. ii. 14; and it is farther evident from these words
of God to him, “Go, return into Egypt, for all the men are
dead that sought thy life,” iv. 19. And therefore they who
refer this to that flight say, “He did not fear his yº. SQ
w 3
930
HEBREWS.
wrath of the king (when he pursued after him, Exod.
xiv. 13) for he endured, as seeing him (present with
them) who is invisible (and therefore said unto the
people, ver. 30, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the
salvation of God, Exod. xiv. 14).
28 Through faith (in God’s promise, that upon see-
ing the blood of the paschal lamb upon the upper door-
posts, and the two side-posts of the houses of the Is-
raelites, he would pass over them, when he slew the
first-born of the Egyptians, Exod. xii. 13.23) he kept
the passover, and (observed) the sprinkling of (the)
blood (of it , and this he did) lest he that destroyed
the first-born (see note on 1 Cor. x. 10) should touch
them.
29 By faith they passed "through the Red sea as
by dry land: which the Egyptians assaying to do
were drowned. - -
30 By faith (in God’s promise, Josh. vi. 5) the
walls of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed
about seven days.
31 * By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with
them that helieved not, (which faith she testified)
when she had received the spies with peace.
32 And what shall I more say? for the time would
fail me (should I proceed) to tell of Gideon (who,
through faith overthrew the Midianites, Judg. vii.), and
of Barak (who slew the Canaanites, Judg. iv.), and of
Samson (who vealed the Philistines), and of Jephthae,
(who slew the Ammonites, Judg. xi., and) of David
also, and Samuel, and the prophets:
33 Who through faith subdued kingdoms (as
Joshua and David did), wrought righteousness (as
Abraham, Gen. xv. 6, Phinehas, Ps. cwi. 30, or turned
the people from idolatry into the way of righteousness,
as Samuel, 1 Sam. xii., Elijah, I Kings xviii. 39), ob-
tained promises (as Abraham and David), stopped
the mouths of lions (as Daniel),
34 Quenched the violence of fire (as the three
children, Dan. iii. 17), escaped the edge of the sword
(as David did the sword of Goliath, 1 Sam. xvii. 46,
47, and of Saul : the Jews, the sword of Haman,
Esth. iv. 14, Elijah, the sword of Ahaziah, 2 Kings i.
15), out of weakness were made strong (as Gideon
with his three hundred men, Judg. vii. 15, Samson,
Judg. xvi. 28, Jehoshaphat, 2 Chron. xx. 12, Jona-
than, 1 Sam. xiv. 12, Job and Hezekiah, 2 Kings xix.),
waxed valiant in fight (as Joshua, Gideon, David),
turned to flight the armies of the aliens (the Macca-
bees).
35 Women received their dead raised to life again
(the widow of Zarephath, 1 Kings vii. 20, the Shunam-
mite, 2 Kings iv. 36), and others were tortured (Elea-
zar, 2 Macc. vi. 28), not accepting a deliverance (ver.
26. 30); that they might obtain a better resurrection
(2 Macc. vii. 9. 11. 14. 23.29. 36).
36 And others had trial of cruel mockings (2 Macc.
vii. 7. 10), and scourgings (paariyotºpe wou, 2 Macc.
vi. 30. vii. 1. 37), yea, moreover of bonds and impri-
sonment (as Joseph, Samson, Jeremiah) :
37 They were stoned (as Zechariah, 2 Chron.
xxiv. 21), they were sawn asunder (gèuara Avual-
vápsvot, Isaiah, by Manasseh : see Buxt. Lex. p.
1360), *were tempted (or, štrupda.Smaav, they were
scorched and fried, 2 Macc. vii. 5), were slain with the
sword (1 Macc. ii. 38): they wandered about in
sheep-skins and goat-skins; (Elijah, 1 Kings xiii. 19.
2 Kings ii. 8. 14) being destitute, (as Elijah when fed
by crows, 1 Kings xvii. 4,) afflicted, tormented ; (Gr.
evilly entreated, 1 Kings xix. 10.
38 And though they were men) of whom the world
was not worthy; (yet) they wandered in deserts (1
Macc. ii. 29), and in mountains (ver, 28), and in dens
and caves of the earth (2 Macc. vi. 11).
39 And these all, having obtained a good report
as to distrust the providence of God in working a deliverance
to his people by his hand; ” but his unwillingness, when God
commanded him to go back to Egypt, confutes this gloss.
Others say he feared not the wrath of the king, when he said
unto him, “Take heed to thyself, see my face no more ; for
in that day thou seest my face thou shalt die,” Exod. x. 28.
But then he had not forsaken Egypt, and when he went from
it, he did so by the command of Pharaoh, Exod. xii. 31, and
so needed not to fear him. Against the exposition given in
the paraphrase it is objected, that it agrees not with the Order
of the words, because the passover, mentioned ver. 28, was
kept in Egypt. But this objection will be of little force, if
we consider that other things are mentioned in this chapter
out of the order in which they were performed; thus, ver. 32,
Gideon is mentioned before Barak, and Samson before Jeph-
thah, as also ver. 33–36.
* Ver. 29. Through the Red sea.] That this they truly
did, see note on 1 Cor. x. 1.
* Wer. 31.] She testified her faith, not only by preserving
thus the spies, but by saying to them, “I know that the
Lord hath given you this land,” Josh. ii. 9; and again, “The
Lord your God he is God in heaven above, and of earth be-
neath,” wer. 11. - -
* Ver. 37. 'Etraigár&nday.] That this is not the right read-
ing, may easily be gathered from this one consideration, that
after two such great punishments as stoning and being sawn
asunder, it is very improper to introduce their “being
tempted,” which signifies no certain kind of punishment at
all, and is included in all the other punishments here men-
tioned. Some therefore read Érvgåo'Snaray, some #wrvpdoºn-
cav, some #78%a Snoray, all signifying, “They were burnt;”
which reading agrees well with the story of the Maccabees,
where they bring Eleazar and the young men äri rô ºrig wa-
+a+Aéyovre; abroic, “to the fire, and burnt their flesh:” so
that Josephus (from cap. 6 to cap. 12) saith, they were, &;
#Tr: Trupº ºcerarxngarićašvot si; &#Sagariay, “as one might
say, translated in the fire to incorruption.” But yet I pre-
fer the opinion of those who think this was an error arising
#x &rroyga piaç, “from writing the same word twice,” or ra-
ther that some who knew not what imgia Sºncay meant, writ
for it śirsigáo.3 malay, and so in time they came to be both
written; because the Syriac hath not "reigár&nday. Euse-
bius” cites Paul's words thus, Éxišća ºncay, Érgia Snaray, #y
‘pówº ºaxalgaç &aréSavoy. Tertullian'ſ paraphrases them
thus, Hieremias lapidatur, Esaias secatur, Zacharias inter
altare et aedem trucidatur. Clement: of Alexandria reads
thus, #Aišća Snaray, ºreigár&nday, #y pávº, &c., which gives just
ground to conjecture that some ignorant writer put in Espár-
Snaray for #Trgia Snaraw. This fault is very visible in the tran-
scriber of Origen; $ for in his fourth homily of Jeremy we
read in the Greek, trgia Snaray, #7reigác &nday, but in the old
translation there is only secti occisione gladii occubuerunt.
And in the fifteenth homily, &AAoy #A908&nday, &AAoy Éric Sn-
oray, &AAoy #máxtsiyay, which shows that Origen did not own the
word ārśipáo Snoray. And though we find the word again in his
homilies" on Matthew, yet whosoever reads the place will find
that Origen takes no notice of it, but proceeds)immediately
from #mpic Smaay to #y páza, waxaiga, 37áSayoy, saying, the word
#ºrpia Snaray refers to Isaias, and the words #y pów Azaxaipaç
ãºréSavoy to Zacharias. In the fourth dialogue against Mar-
cion, p. 125, he proves that the prophets were not phan-
toms, but men consisting of flesh and blood, because 3 wiy
#arpia Sn a agº, ö 33 ÉxtSáz&n, xa, of Aotºroi śv pávo (waxaigaç
&réSavoy, “one of them was sawn asunder, another was
stoned, and the rest were killed by the sword :” and in his
Exhortation to Martyrdom, p. 232, he adds, “The writer of
the Epistle to the Hebrews saith, #xišáa.Smaray, Éirgía Snaray, iv
‘pávo, ºaxaipaç &réSavoy, They were stoned, they were sawn
asunder, they were slain with the sword.” From all which
places it is evident, that impia Snaray was the reading followed
by the ancients.
* Praep. Ev. lib. xii, cap. x. p. 583. ºf Scorp. cap. 8.
† Strom. iv. p. 515, A.
§ Ed. Huet, tom. i. p. 141, D.
| P. 147. * Tom. i. p. 225.
CHAPTER XII.
931
through faith, uaprupm0évrsc, having obtained a testi-
mony from God, or from his word, that they pleased
him through faith, notwithstanding) * received not the
promise (of a heavenly country, ver. 13. 16, not the re-
compence of reward, ver. 26, not the better resurrec-
tion, ver. 35).
*
* Ver. 39. Oix #xogirayro tºy imayyaxiay (or, as some co-
pies read, rā, śrayyexia;), Received not the promises.] These
words being the same with those in ver. 13 of this chapter,
“All these died in faith, º Aa36vre; trayyexiac, not having
received the promises,” it is reasonable to interpret them to
the same sense, viz. of their not having received the heavenly
kingdom and blessed resurrection they expected. And so
the whole current of this epistle will force us to interpret
them: for it is the promise of “entering into rest” after we
have “ceased from our labour” here on earth (iv. 1. 10),
“the promise of an eternal inheritance” (ix. 15), the pro-
mise we are to receive after we have “patiently done the
will of God” (x. 36).
* Ver. 40. Kgºrºrów ri trºpi hºwäy, Some better thing con-
cerning us...} viz. Our hope of entering into the veil, by
reason of our forerunner entering in thither first (vi. 19, 20):
we having a high-priest “higher than the heavens” (vii. 26),
“set on the throne of majesty in the heavens” (viii. 1), who
by his death hath procured, that “they which are called
might receive the promise of an eternal inheritance” (ix. 15),
and who hath, by his entrance into this holy place with his
blood, “purified and prepared these holy places for us,” (ver.
23, 24; the way into which was “not opened before,” ver.
.8), and given us “freedom of entrance into the holiest
through the blood of Jesus, by this new way which he hath
consecrated through his flesh” (x. 20); we being therefore
“come to mount Sion, the city of the living God, to the
heavenly Jerusalem, and to the spirits of just men made
perfect” (xii. 22).
*"Iva º Xogi; hºw reastw8&ai, That they without us may
not be made perfect.] This all the fathers interpret of their
receiving their crowns or their rewards hereafter. Thus of
Abel and Noah Chrysostom saith, “That they might not be
crowned before us, Éva &gto's Trägi "rāy a teqāvoy waspöv, God
hath appointed one time of coronation for them all.” Otºč-
waſ róv are pávoy #7%Navaay, “They have not yet obtained
their crowns,” saith Theodoret, “God expecting still those
that are to combat, that he may proclaim them victors alto-
gether.” Origen having cited this place, saith thus:* “You
* Wides ergö quia exspectat adhuc Abraham, ut quae per-
40 God having provided (Gr. foreseen) * some bet-
ter things for us (and so deferring the completion of
that promise till we also should be made partakers of
ât), * that (so) they withott us should not be made
perfect.
see that Abraham yet expects to obtain perfection, yea,
Isaac and Jacob, and all the prophets expect us, that with
us they may obtain perfect bliss.” Yea, he says the same,
not only of all the Saints of the New Testament, but even of
the blessed apostles, saying,” “Even the apostles have not
received their joy, but wait that I might be partaker with
them; nor do the Saints departed obtain the full reward of
their good actions.” Nor did the primitive fathers mean
this only of their bodies, but also of their souls, which they
conceived not to be exalted to the highest heavens; saying,
that they had not yet received their full reward, yea, that
they were not to expect it till the day of judgment (see
note on 2 Tim. iv. 8). And therefore I cannot but wonder to
hear a very learned person, in his note on this place, saying,
“It will be acknowledged by all, that then,” i.e. at our
Saviour's resurrection, “the patriarchs received this promise,
or that the sufferers here mentioned then received it;” espe-
cially when the apostle here saith, “They were tortured,
not accepting a deliverance, that they might obtain a better
resurrection,” which surely they have not yet obtained: and
I more admire that this should by him be interpreted of
“deliverance from their persecutors, and rest from persecu-
tions;” for is this promise fulfilled to Christians ? To them,
who, “if they will live godly, must suffer persecutions,”
and “through many tribulations enter into the kingdom of
Gol 2" And do they who were thus tortured find this per-
fection “with us?” Or had they any other rest or freedom
from them, than what death gave them 2 Surely the expo-
sition of all the ancient fathers is much to be preferred be-
fore this new and singular invention, as also before the new
doctrine of the Florentine council, “That the souls of Saints
departed do already behold the face of God in heaven.”
fecta sunt consequatur, exspectat et Isaac et Jacob, et om-
nes prophetae exspectant mos, ut nobiscum perfectam beati-
tudinem capiant. In Lev. hom. vii. f. 71, D.
* Nondum enim receperunt latitiam Suam ne apostoli
quidem, sedet ipsi exspectant ut et ego laetitiae eorum parti-
ceps fiam; neque enim decedentes hinc sancti continuð in-
tegra meritorum suorum praemia consequuntur, Sed exspec-
tant etiam nos licet morantes. Ibid.
CHAPTER XII.
1 WHEREFoRE, seeing we also are compassed about
with so great a ‘cloud (i. e. a multitude) of witnesses,
let us (who are to run a Christian race) lay aside every
weight (of worldly cares and affections) and the * sin
which doth so easily beset (and circumvent) us (and so
hinders our feet from making a due progress in it), and
let us run with patience the race that is set before us.
2 * Looking unto Jesus, (who, by his prophetic office,
was) the author, and (and by his regal office, will be
the) finisher of our faith; who for the “joy that was
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XII.
* Ver. 1. Népoc, A cloud, For a multitude, is a phrase
used by Homer, who calls a multitude of footmen, vä90;
Trećv, which Virgil" thus translates, Insequitur nimbus
peditum : this cloud of witnesses therefore contains all
the worthies mentioned in the former chapter, who by
their words and actions have testified how much the ob-
jects of their faith were valued before all worldly things,
and how equitable it was to “endure afflictions, not ac-
cepting a deliverance, that they might obtain a better resur-
rection.
* Thy streeto-ra-row &gapºriay, The sin that easily besets us.]
The apostle being here speaking of the Christian's race, this
phrase is best interpreted with relation to it, and so it must
respect the sin which cleaves to our affections, which are the
* Aºn. vii. ver. 793, and note in Georg, lib. iv. wer. 20.
*-*** * * * * * *** - 4
feet of the soul, like a long garment wrapt about us, and so
hinders the running of our Christian race ; for it is either our
affection to, and our desire of, what we ought not to desire
or affect at all, or which we ought not comparatively to
affect or desire, which gives the rise and prevalence of all
temptations to sin, º self-denial so exceeding diffi-
cult: he therefore requires us to put off this sin as racers
did their garments, running naked, that without hindrance
we may run our Christian race.
* Ver. 2. 'Apogāyres, &c. Looking to Jesus,) As an exam-
ple of patience under sufferings, fit to be imitated by his dis-
ciples, and as one gloriously recompensed in his human
nature for the sufferings he sustained in it, and as one who
will give to us the same happy repose after our sufferings ;
he having, as the author of our faith, promised, and being
able, as the finisher of our faith, to confer that glorious re-
compence (x. 35, 36).
4 'Ayrī Tā; argoxeipzéºn; airò X&pi;, For the joy º before
3 O 2
932
HEBREWS.
set before him (as a reward of his sufferings) endured
6 For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and
the cross, despising the shame (of it) and (therefore) || scourgeth every son whom he receiveth (into that re-
is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 For consider him who (being so emcellent a person,
and so dear to God, yet) endured (patiently) such con-
tradiction of sinners against himself (such blasphemies
against his doctrine, such calumnies against his person,
such malicious and unwearied attempts against his life),
* lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds (under the
conflict of afflictions ye endure.
4 For which fainting ye have no such cause as this
Captain of salvation, and this cloud of witnesses had :
jºor) "ye have not resisted unto blood (as they did),
striving against sin.
5 And (by your proneness to grow weary, and even
Jaint under the combat, ) you (seem to) have forgotten
the exhortation which speaketh to you as to children
(thus), My son, " despise not thou (be not slothful and
dispirited under) the chastening of the Lord, nor faint
when thou art rebuked of him (Prov. iii. 11, 12):
him.] That &yri is used for the final cause, appears from
these examples in the New Testament; “He gave himself
a ransom &vri aroxxây, for many,” Matt. xx. 28 ; “Render
not evil, &yri kazoº, for evil,” Rom. xii. 17 ; “Her hair is
given, äyri regiðoxalov, for a covering,” 1 Cor. xi. 15 ; &vri
rotºrov, “For this cause shall a man leave father andmother;”
and here, ver. 16, &yti 8pdºorso; patác, “For one morsel of
bread he sold his birthright” (see 1 Thess. v. 15. 1 Pet. iii.
9). Note also, that the apostle goes on in his agonistical
terms, and having spoken, ver. 1, of the trºokstºwevo; hºw
ây&y, “race before us” to run, he here speaks in the same
language, of the joy set before our Saviour in his race; that
is, of the 8pa£eſov, the “prize” or crown placed in his view
for his encouragement to run to it ; it being the custom in
those games" “to hang the crown at the end of the goal,
that he who came first to it might snatch it, or lay hold of
it:” “the joy set before him” must therefore be the prospect
of that majesty and glory, power and dominion, he in his
human nature was to be invested with, as the reward of
these his sufferings; “he for the suffering of death being
crowned with majesty and, honour” (Heb. ii. 9); “God
having therefore highly exalted him, and given him a name
above every name” (Phil. ii. 9); and thus we have just
cause to look upon him as an example of faith and patience,
and of God's especial favour to them that suffer for his
and faint in your minds.) These also are two agonistical
terms ; the one signifies to be weary, as in those words of
C. Marcius, vizdīvroy oix art ºrd képzyev, “Conquerors must
not be weary, and so give over the fight;" the other, to faint
and be dispirited, so that we can run or fight no longer:
and because in those combats they fought $2002 ráðny,
“standing upright,” and xeſea; #x'reiyovreć, “stretching out
their hands,” therefore the apostle exhorts them, in their
spiritual combat, to “stretch out the hands that hang down,
and āyogdoſy, to erect their feeble knees,” ver. 12 (Faber.
Agon. lib. i. cap. 8).
* Ver. 4. 'Avrayayićwsyot ºcéxet; aſ waroc, Ye have not re-
sisted wnto blood.] This is another agonistical expression
belonging to the pugiles, who were oft besmeared with
blood, and sometimes died under the blows they received
from the clubs of their adversary (Faber. Agon. lib. i.
cap. 7).
7 Ver. 5. Mº ºxydget.] 'oxyogºſy is, say Phavorinus and
Hesychius, &exeſy, a Svºsīy, “to be unregardful of, to be
slothful;” Šxiyogoº, FairgéJuxor, “to be crest-fallen ;” &ya-
Trior rew, animo concidere, “to faint, and be dispirited.” Tö
Ávariately, xvgio; #ri Juxºv ša riv, stoy 36Vasſy ixtyogºſy.
Athen. Deip. lib. i. p. 23, B.
* Ver. 7. God dealeth with us as with sons.] Here the
* He did, saith Plutarch, ka9exeſ, rāy a réfavov ºgspºãºzsvoy.
IIegi pixotraouting, p. 523. And “I run,” saith the apostle,
irswrewépcevo; #mri rô 8:ageſoy, Phil. iii. 14.
+ Plutarch in Vita C. Marc. p. 218,
lation).
7 If ye (then) endure chastening, “God dealeth
with you as (a father) with (his) sons; for what son is
there whom the father chasteneth not (for his of
fences) 8
8 * But if ye be without (such) chastisements,
whereof all (sons) are partakers, then are ye (treated
as) bastards (whom the reputed parent disregards) and
not (as) sons (whom he loves, ver. 6).
9 Furthermore, si èë, and if) we have had fathers
of our flesh which corrected us, and (yet) we gave
them reverence (and honour, in eaſpectation of the long
life promised to them that do so, Exod. xx. 12), shall
we not much rather be in subjection to the "Father
of (our) spirits (who gives and who recalls our spirits
at pleasure), and (so) live (everlastingly).?
10. For they verily "for a few days chastened us af-
ter their own pleasure (Gr. as seemed best to them) :
note of Chrysostom is this, That from those things,
whence men usually conclude they are deserted by God,
the apostle shows, that God demonstrates his fatherly affec-
tion to them. .
* Ver. 8.] Hence the Jews speak thus, “Woe to the man
who goeth out of the world without tribulation” (Buxt. Lex.
p. 1528).
10 ;: 9. Tº rarel tăy rveyºrov, To the Father of spi-
rits.] This phrase is not here put to signify the author of
our new spiritual birth ; for spiritual graces and dispositions
are never called "ryeſſaara, “spirits” in scripture; nor is the
Holy Spirit, who produceth them, ever mentioned in the
plural, when they are spoken of. It is plainly a Hebrew
phrase, used twice by Moses when he speaks thus to God, “O
God of the spirits of all flesh” (Numb. xvi. 22); and again,
“Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man
over the congregation” (Numb. xxvii. 16); and he is so
styled, both as the Creator of them, or that God who “form-
eth the spirit of man within him” (Zech. xii. 1), and the
preserver and governor of them ; “The God in whose hand
is the soul of all living, and the spirit of all flesh of man”
(Job xii. 10), and into whose hands they do “return” at
death (Eccles. xii. 7), according to that old tradition of the
heathens, preserved in Epicharmus,” that man dying,
&r;A9ey 36ew $2.98 maxiv, yā paſſy si; yāv, trysip, a 3’ &vo, “re-
turns from whence he came, his earthly part to the earth, his
spirit upwards:” and the tradition of the Hebrews, that in
the time of our dissolution+ “God comes and takes away his
part, and leaves the part of our father and mother,” styled
here, “the fathers of the flesh.” Josephus saith,; that at
the formation of Adam, “God made man out of the earth,
and sent him a soul and spirit.” Philo saith,S that “his
body was indeed made of earth, shaped into human form,
but his soul was only derived from the Maker and Governor
of all things;” and this was signified by these words, “He
breathed into him the breath of life:” so that though ac-
cording to his visible part he was mortal, as to his invisible
he was immortal: hence saith the Targum of Jonathan, on
Numb. xvi. 22. xxvii. 16, “It is God that putteth the
spirit of the soul in the bodies of all men :” and the Targum
of Jerusalem, “It is God who ruleth over the souls of all
flesh” (see Pug. Fid. p. 401).
* Wer. 10. II:3, 3Aiya; hºw#pac, For a few days] Seems not
here to refer to the days of children's minority, for that
makes nothing to the purpose of the apostle's argument ;
and the motive to suffer divine chastisements, used by the
* Plutarch de Consol. ad Apol. 110, A.
+ Midrash Cohel. in cap. 5, ver. 11.
: Kai Trysºp, a #yńxey airò wał Juxiv.
2, p. 5.
§ Tây 8: Juxāy &n' otºsyā; yeyvntoſ, r3 arapárav, &AN' #x roº
ºrargöz wai #ygºvo; rāy &rávrov. T., yāg five piano ev, obºv
Antiq. lib. i. cap.
º * * aw º * º 3. *
£regow %y ºrvejaz 0:ſoy &ard rā; waxatiac, kai sãaipºoyo; #xelyn;
ºpádrew: áTroikiay rºw #7048s avaixápasyov, Lib. de Mundi Opificio,
p. 23, C, D.
CHAPTER XII.
933
but he (our heavenly Father, doth it) for our (own)
profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.
11 (Nor let it discourage you that these afflictions
seem grievous to the flesh, råga Śē,) for no chastening
for the present seemeth joyous, but grievous (to it):
nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruits
of righteousness to them that are *exercised thereby
(i. e. those fruits of righteousness which end in peace).
12 Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down
(as if wearied with, and giving over the combat), and
(strengthen) the feeble knees (which seem unable to
stand firm, and run on this race with patience; see note
on ver. 3,)
13 And (so) make (trotiigars, ye will make) *straight
paths for your feet (to walk in), lest that which is lame
be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed,
(Gr. iva piº, that that which is lame may not be turned
out of the way, but rather may be healed.
14 And in order thereunto) “follow peace with all
men, and holiness, without which no man shall see
the Lord :
15 Looking diligently lest any man *fail of the
grace (Gr. jorepāv diró, fall from the grace) of God;
lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you,
and thereby many be defiled;
16 Lest there be any fornicator, or profane"person
(among you, such) as (was) Esau, who for one morsel
of meat sold his "birthright.
17 For ye know how that afterward, when he would
have inherited the blessing (he had lost), he was re-
jected (by his father, saying of Jacob, I have blessed
him, and he shall be blessed) ; for he found no place of
repentance (no change of the blessing pronounced by his
jather), " though he sought it carefully with tears,
(crying with an eaceeding great and bitter cry, Gen.
xxvii. 34.)
18 For ye (believing Jews) are not come (as your
forefathers, when they entered into the old covenant
with God,) unto *the mount that might be touched
(and so you might die, Exod. xix. 12), and that burned
with fire (Gr. to the burning fire, Deut. v. 23), nor to
the blackness, and darkness, (caused by the cloud,
styled vépéAm yvopédièc, Exod. xix. 16), and (to the)
tempest (of thunder and lightning, Deut. v. 22).
19 And the sound of a (the) trumpet (eaceeding
loud, which made the people tremble, Exod. xix. 16),
scripture, is, not that they are long, but that they are but
“for a very little while,” Heb. x. 7, “momentary,” 2 Cor.
iv. 17, 3Aiyoy &gti, “but for a little,” l Pet. i. 6; nor is xará
rö 8ozºv airčić, “after their pleasure,” but “as it seemed
good to them.” This therefore seems to be the meaning of
the words, That earthly parents chastise their children, aim-
ing at that which seems best for them in this present life,
consisting of few days, or for their temporal good in this life:
but God doth it for their spiritual and eternal benefit, to
make them here “partakers of his holiness,” and so fit them
for “the peaceable fruits of righteousness” hereafter.
* Ver. 11.] The word yeyvayaakºvok, used here, shows
that this phrase is agonistical, and taken from the exercises
performed by them naked in the Olympic games, where one
of the crowns given to the victors being a répayo; #Aaiyā,
“of olive,” the symbol of peace ; hence Faber conceives the
Christian's crown is here represented by “the peaceable fruits
of righteousness.”
* Ver. 13. Troxiē; Sp03, Straight paths.] i. e. Make
straight paths in the way of Christianity, not stepping out of
it to avoid persecution ; that they who are already lame
and feeble, may not be moved, by your example, to go
out of it, but rather, by your constancy in it, may be
confirmed.
* Ver. 14.] Be of a pure and peaceable conversation
towards all with whom you do converse ; for as this is ne-
cessary in order to your living with God, so willittend much
to prevent the persecutions of men.
* Ver. 15.] That baregnkšval is the same with 34 io-raağat,
“to depart from the grace of God, which brings salvation ;”
or, to depart from the faith, and by so doing fall short of
the promised rest, Heb. iv. 1, the words of the apostle, and
his scope, which is to preserve the Jews from backsliding
from Christianity to Judaism, and the following exhortation,
not to “refuse him that speaketh now,” ver. 25, and Éxely
‘rāv xáply, “to retain and hold fast the grace of God,” ver.
28, sufficiently show. But this is still more clear from the
words of Deut. xxix. 18, whence this whole verse is taken,
which runs thus ; ań ri; #atty #y tºy rivec à èlayoid ###x-
Xiyev &nd Kugiov, “Lest there be among you any man or wo-
man whose heart turneth away from the Lord our God, to
go and serve the gods of the nations, ºwh rig Earty #y taſy #ića
ăwo páovza iv x0xff Kai Triztig, lest there should be among you
a root springing with gall and wormwood ;” which makes it
probable that the true reading here should be, not #voxx;
but Év xox;' though it be certain, that the word Évoxxão, sig-
nifies to create trouble to ourselves or others, as Dan. vi. 21.
Esth. ii. 22. 29, and in those words of Antoninus, lib. vii.
Ş. 16, r3 hysºcovizèv air? oix avrò ivoxx; ; “Doth not the
mind create trouble to itself?” See the full consent of the
ancients to the word ivoxxi, which is here rejected by Dr.
Mills, Examen Millii in locum.
* Ver, 16. Iſºx rorogla, The birthright] Which Esau sold
contained these privileges: (1) a double portion of his
father's goods, Deut. xxi. 17 ; (2) power and dominion
over the younger; for he succeeded in the government of
the family, or kingdom: “Reuben, thou art my first-born,
the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power,”
Gen. xlix. 3.; “The kingdom gave he to Jehoram, because
he was the first-born,” 2 Chron. xxi. 3. This Isaac gave to
Jacob in these words, “Be thou a master to thy brethren,
and let thy mother's sons bow down to thee,” Gen. xxvii.
29. (3.) The honour of priesthood, in their own family at
least : so, Exod. xxiv. 5, “He sent the young men” (Chald.
“the first-born”) “ of the sons of Israel, and they offered
burnt-offerings, and sacrificed sacrifices to Jehovah.” After-
ward the Levites were taken into the service of God, in-
stead of all the first-born among the “children of Israel.”
Numb. iii. 41, consecrated before to God, Exod. xxii. 29.
Numb. viii. 17. Gen. xxv. 29. This birthright Esau sold,
when he was faint, #4xeirov, and this shows how proper this
instance is to preserve them from being “wearied and faint-
ing in their minds.”
The Targum of Ben Uziel saith, that he was made faint
by committing idolatry, shedding innocent blood, and going
in to a damsel betrothed, that day; and this shows him a
fornicator, both in the spiritual and carnal sense, and a pro-
fane person. And, lastly, Mercer saith, Primogenituram
haereditatem coelestem adumbrăsse; “that the primogeniture
was a type of their celestial inheritance:” which also seems
to be hinted by the paraphrases on the place ; for that of
Uziel Saith, “He denied the life of the world to come and
contemned his birthright:” and the Targum of Jerusalem,
that “he contemned his birthright and despised his part in
the life to come, and denied the resurrection ;” and Chry-
sostom here styles him &xpar㺠wai Trvivºcatixx &reggox&.
And as this shows his profaneness, so also doth it show the
appositeness of his example to the apostle's purpose.
” Wer. 17. ‘Ex{ntha'a, ºst& Baxgåøy airhy, Though he
sought it carefully with tears..] Though these words, thus
expounded, do not immediately prove that true repentance
may find no acceptance with God (that which Esau sought
with tears, being not his own repentance, but the blessing
which Isaac gave to Jacob, and would not repent of, Gen.
xxvii. 33), yet are they designed to insinuate, that men may
so despise the blessings of Christianity, as to be after thought
unworthy to enjoy them ; that by their apostasy they may
fall so entirely from God, as that he will not be prevailed on
to restore them to their lost and despised privileges, upon
their tears and fastings; as is apparent in the case of the
Jews, who have large times of penance and humiliation, but
are not to this day restored to the grace and favour of God,
and to the privilege of being his peculiar people, and first-
born, as once they were.
* Ver. 18. Nºnnaqoºyo get, To the mountain that might
be touched.] And therefore was corporeal and terrene, and
934
HEBREWS.
and the (great) voice of words; which (was so ter- heavenly Jerusalem; (not to thousands of angels at-
fible, that) they that heard (it) entreated that the tending on God, as at mount Sinai, Ps. lxviii. 17, but)
word should not be spoken to them any more (lest
they died for it, Exod. xx. 19. Deut. v. 25. xviii. 16).
20 (For they could not endure * that which was
commanded (that severe cautionary command which
Tuns thus), And if so much as a beast touch the
* it shall be stoned, ºr thrust through with a
dart :
21 And so terrible was the sight, that *Moses said,
I exceedingly fear and quake :)
22 But ye are come (under the gospel dispensation,
to things of a more eacellent nature, not apt to terrify
and discourage, but create joy and comfort to you : not
as then to mount Sinai, but) * to mount Sion, (whence
Ayou eaſpect all your spiritual blessings : not to the ter-
Testrial Jerusalem, which is in bondage with her children,
Gal. iv. 25, but) to the city of the living God, *the
to an * innumerable company of angels (ministering
to them who shall be heirs of salvation, Heb. i. 14.
23 And) to the general assembly, and church (not
of the Jews, and of the first-born registered amongst
them, Numb. i. 16, but) * of the first-born, who are
written in heaven, "and to God (now declared to be)
the judge of all (Acts xvii. 30, 31), * and to the spirits
of just men made perfect, (who have run their race,
and are to be crowned at the great day, 2 Tim. iv. 8).
24 And to Jesus the mediator (not of the old cove-
nant, which promised only the land of Canaan, but) of
the new covenant (established in his blood, by which
we receive the promise of an eternal inheritance, Heb.
ix. 15), and to the *"blood of sprinkling, * which
speaketh better things than that of Abel.
25 * See (therefore) that ye * refuse not him that
by being touched after the prohibition (Exod. xix. 12)
would procure present death: but you are come to the spiri-
tual and heavenly Zion, which will certainly give life to all
that belong to it.
* Ver. 20. To Slaa’re axégsvoy) Atarréaxogai signifies to
command with vehemence, or severity, Matt. xvi. 20. Mark
v. 43. viii. 15.
* Ver. 21. Moûrº, sîrsy, Moses said.] This, interpreters
think, Paul received by tradition of his ancestors, though no
footsteps of this tradition have been found among them.
But doubtless the apostle had respect to Deut. ix., where,
ver. 15, Moses sees the mount “burning up to heaven,” and
ver. 19, saith #6086, eigel, “I exceedingly fear.”
* Ver. 22. ztów Śgsi, To mount Zion.] All the good things
blessings, and comforts, which God will give to Israel, are
only out of Zion, say the Jews, Vajikra Rabba, §. 24, Mid-
rash Tillim ad Ps. xiv. Hence came their strength, Ps. cx.
2, and help, Ps. xx. 2, blessings, Ps. cxxviii. 5, life, Ps.
cxxxiii. 3, and Salvation, Ps, xiv. 7.
* Ispova axiº. #7 oupaviº, To the heavenly Jerusalem,)
“Which is the mother of us all,” Gal. iv. 26 ; where “our
city is,” Phil. iii. 20. This the rabbins call “the Jerusalem
of the age to come, to be built in the days of the Messiah ;”
saying also, that “the inferior Jerusalem is a figure of that
which is above” (see note on Gal. iv. 26). And it is here
styled “the heavenly Jerusalem;’ not that heaven is prima-
rily intended by it, and not the church of Christ on earth ;
but propter originem et finem, as having its rise from heaven,
and as leading to it ; on which account the gospel-state is
styled oft “the kingdom of heaven.”
* Mveláaly &yyáñoy, To myriads of angels.] The glorious
citizens of heaven who attend at the throne of God, to whom
weare united, they being made “one with us, in Christ” (Eph.
i. 10), and to whom we are reconciled by him (Col. i. 20).
* Ver. 23. IIgororózoy, Of the first-born :] i. e. Of the
apostles, who received the first-fruits of the Spirit (Rom. viii.
23), and of the churches which received first the Christian
faith (Eph. i. 12), “whose names are written in heaven,”
i. e. who are enrolled among the citizens of the new and
heavenly Jerusalem, or among the just, for whom the king-
dom is prepared. “In this rejoice,” saith Christ, “that your
names are written in heaven,” Luke x. 20. Thus, Exod.
xxxii. 32, Moses, by the Targum, is introduced speaking thus,
“I know thou hast writ my name in the book of the just :”
and of the false prophets, the Targum on Ezek. xiii. 9 saith,
“They shall not be written in the book of eternal life, which
is written for the just of the house of Israel ;” and into this
kingdom they only are to enter, whose “names are” thus
“enrolled in the book of life” (Rev. xxi. 27).
* Kat ºper; Osó, And to God the judge of all.] Who will
adjudge the crown of glory to those who have “fought the
good fight of faith” (2 Tim. iv. 8), who “run this race with
patience” (1 Cor. ix. 24, 25), and will give them “the
kingdom prepared for them” (Matt. xxv. 34. Luke xii. 32).
* And to the spirits of just men, rereasio'ºvov, made per-
fect.] This word here cannot well signify them who are
crowned in the agonistical sense ; because the apostle, in the
former chapter, had asserted of those witnesses which died
in faith, that they had “not yet received the promise,” and
were not to be crowned before us Christians; and saith, that
he himself expected to receive his “crown” only “at the
great day” (2 Tim. iv. 8). But it signifies either that they
had fulfilled their course, and so rested from their labours
and conflicts, as Chrysostom here saith, and so have nothing
more to do but to receive their crown: or, in the other sense
of the word, Texeioão Sai, “to be made perfect” in holiness,
or to be perfectly purged from all guilt of sin, and so fit to
be admitted to this kingdom: in which sense the apostle
here denies that there was any reneioſaic, or “perfect expi-
ation” made by the Levitical priesthood; “the law making
nothing perfect” (Heb. vii. 11. 16): and that the offerings
prescribed by it could not, rexelözai, “make perfect the
worshipper, as to his conscience” (Heb. ix. 9); that they
could not rºstěcal gig ºrd 8mvæxic, “perfect him for ever,” so
as that he should need no farther expiation for sin (Heb. x.
1); and that Christ, “by one offering, retexsioxsy sic ré &n-
yekës, had perfectly expiated for ever them that were sancti-
fied” (ver. 14). And accordingly the Targum upon l Chron.
xxi. 15, saith, “God saw the house of his sanctuary which
is above the heavens, where the souls of the just are ;” and
hence it is evident, that the Souls of just men are not re-
duced by death to a state of insensibility; for can a soul
that reasons, and perceiveth good things, be made perfect by
perceiving nothing at all? Can a spirit, which here enjoyed
the pleasures of a good conscience, of a life of faith, and of
communion with God, and the comforts of the Holy Ghost,
be advanced to perfection by a total deprivation of all those
satisfactions and enjoyments 2
* Ver. 24. Aftwart fayriapºoij, The blood of sprinkling.]
Not that of bulls and goats, with which Moses sprinkled the
people, when they entered into the old covenant (Exod. xxiv.
8), and the tabernacle, and the vessels of the ministry, to
sanctify them for the Levitical service ; but the blood of
Christ, by which the heavenly places are purified and pre-
pared for us (ix. 23, 24), and by which we have entrance
into the holiest (x. 19, 20): whereas the blood sprinkled
seven times, for their purification under the old testament,
was sprinkled before the veil, because the priests could not
enter with it within the veil.
* Koeira-oya Aaxoivri rag& ty, or, ºraçã rôy 'Agâx, Which
speaketh better things than that of Abel.] Than the blood
of Abel ; not because that called for vengeance, this for
mercy ; but than the blood of the sacrifice of Abel offered
by faith, by which God testified his acceptance, and by
which he, being dead, yet speaks (Heb. xi. 4); that pro-
curing acceptance for himself alone ; this, for all believers:
that, speaking only for him, and declaring him righteous;
this, interceding to God, for the justification of all men,
through faith in his blood.
* Ver. 25. Xenºzaričoyra, Him that speaketh.] This word,
both in the Old and New Testament, signifies speaking as
from God, or words proceeding from him (see Jer. xxv. 30.
xxvi. 3. xxix. 23. xxx. 2. xxxvi. 4. Matt. ii. 22. Luke ii.
26. Acts x. 22. Rom. xi. 4. Heb. viii. 5, xi. 7). So 2 Macc.
ii. 4, xenºzartºod yeynāśviro; airó, “The prophet being
warned of God, commanded that the ark should go with him.”
*
. .
- CHAPTER XIII.
935.
speaketh (now by his Son to you). For if they escaped [.
not (God’s severe judgments) who refused him that
spake on earth (by Moses), much more shall not we es-
cape, if we turn away from him that speaketh (by his
Son coming down, and by his Spirit sent down) from
heaven (1 Pet. i. 12). -
26 * Whose voice then shook the earth (when the
law was given, Exod. xix. 18. Ps. lxviii. 8), but now
(under this dispensation) he hath promised (yet a far-
ther shaking), saying, *Yet once more (at the making
my new covenant) * I shake not the earth only, but
also heaven (Hag. ii. 7, 8). -
* M: Tragatºriana Še, Refuse not..] As they did, saith
Theodoret, “desiring, àyri roi; OEoſ, röy Mooría Aa3sty, instead
of God to have Moses;” by saying, “Speak thou to us, and
let not God speak to us” (Exod xxix. 19): “ desiring not God
but an angel,” saith Philo on these words, De Somniis, p.
455, E (see npte on Col. ii. 19).
* Ver. 26. Ot, h povă, Whose voice.] He speaks here not
of the voice of Christ, but of the God of Israel, who, at his
appearance on Sinai, “shook the earth;” of his voice who
made the promise, that Christ, “the Desire of all nations,
should come.” Nor can the apostle, or the prophets, speak
of Christ's second coming, to give new heavens and new
earth, by the conversion of the Jewish nation : for, first, this
shaking was to be the forerunner of the coming of the Desire
of all nations, or contemporary with it; now he was to come
to “fill that very house” then built “with glory,” and to
make the glory of it greater than the glory of that house
built by Solomon. The prophet must therefore speak of a
shaking antecedent to the destruction of the temple: and
therefore the apostle, speaking of the very thing promised in
the words of the prophet Haggai, must also speak of the first
advent of our Lord. Secondly, the prophet speaks of a
shaking which was to happen “after a little time” (Hag. ii.
7), and therefore not of an advent of our Saviour, after two
thousand years expired, yet to come. And, thirdly, the
apostle says plainly, that Christians had then “received this
kingdom, which could not be shaken” to give place to
another ; and upon that grounds his exhortation to them, to
retain or hold fast the grace received (ver. 28): which shows,
it was not a kingdom yet to come after one thousand seven
hundred years ; but that which, throughout the gospel, is
styled “the kingdom of God,” and “ of heaven,” and is said
to be then come unto them, Matt. xii. 28.
* "Ett flºraž, Yet once more.] The word “yet” signifies,
that there was yet to be another shaking, for the introduction
of another covenant, and consequently for the abolishing
the first ; and the word “once” only that there should be
no more shaking, after the introduction of the second co-
Venant. -
* "Eyð ceio, &c., I shake not the earth only, but the
heavens.] Hag. ii. 7. The ancient Jews speak of this place
thus; “I will give a short glory to the Israelites, and after-
ward shall the Messiah come,” Talm. Tr. Sanhed. cap. 11.
Expounding this place of the coming of the Messiah, they
add, that “as the first tabernacle and temple were built and
destroyed, so was the second temple, but the Messiah should
build a temple, and God had built a tabernacle and temple
in the heavens, which should never be destroyed,” Pug. Fid.
p. 304, 309.
Now this shaking of the heaven and earth, being to be ac-
complished at the coming of the Messiah, or, “the Desire of
all nations,” cannot signify the removal and subversion of
the material heavens and earth, they being not thus shaken
at Christ's coming: but this is a metaphor frequently used
in the prophets, to signify the subversion of a state and king-
27 And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the re-
moving of those things that are shaken as of things
that are made, that those things which cannot be
shaken may remain.
28 Wherefore we receiving (the promise of) a king-
dom that cannot be moved, (or shaken, or give place to
another,) *let us have (or retain that) grace, whereby
(alone) we may serve God acceptably, with reverence
and godly fear: . -
29 For our God is (to the disobedient and rebellious
among us, as he was to them, Deut. iv. 24. ix. 3), * a
consuming fire.
dom, and of the government which obtains amongst them ;
as when the prophet, speaking of the destruction of Babylon,
saith, “I will make the heavens shake, and the earth shall
be removed out of its place,” Isa. xiii. 13. And of the de-
struction of the Jews by the Assyrians, he useth these very
words, “The earth shall be moved, and the heavens shaken,”
Joel ii. 10 (see Judg. v. 4. Ps. lxxvii. 18. Isa. xxiv. 19, 20).
Thus, at our Lord's coming to destroy Jerusalem, say some
interpreters; to destroy antichrist, as others think ; “the
powers of heaven shall be shaken” (Matt. xxiv. 30. Mark
xiii. 25. Luke xxi. 26), which import of this phrase being not
understood by Esthius, he, without cause, rejecteth this in-
terpretation of the word.
Secondly, This shaking, being “for the removal of things
which were shaken,” and they being not the material earth,
must signify the things which were then introduced with the
shaking of the earth, i. e. the covenant made, and the wor-
ship and tabernacle, and other materials then appointed to
be made with hands for God's service; which, as the apostle,
throughout this whole epistle, contends, were to be abolished,
and to continue only until the time of reformation (ix. 10),
and then to give place to that new covenant and dispensa-
tion, which procured for us an eternal redemption, and an
entrance, “not into the holy places made with hands, but
into heaven itself.”
34 Ver. 28. "Exoggy xágy.] It is the observation of critics
here, and elsewhere, that #xeiv, to have, is often put for waré-
xsw, to retain, or hold fast : so fixely triºtiv ºg áyašāy
Gwystyna-ty, is “to hold faith and a good conscience,” 1 Tim. i.
19; #xely rà avatāploy riſ, ºria rewº, “to hold the mystery of
faith; jirorđºrway #xsw, “to hold fast the form of sound
words,” 2 Tim. i. 13. Xágic, throughout the whole New Tes-
tament, doth signify the favour and the grace of God, so
freely tendered to us in the gospel (see note on 2 Cor. vi. 1):
so that the import of those words seems to be this ; Let us
continue stedfast in that faith and dispensation delivered in
the gospel, as being that alone which renders both our per-
sons and our services acceptable to God; let us not “fall
from the grace of God” (ver. 15); let us not “cast off our
confidence” (x. 35); “let us hold fast the profession of our
hope without wavering” (ver. 23), continuing to serve God
with a holy reverence. -
* Ver. 29. IIijº zaravaxia wov, A consuming fire.] To con-
sume thine enemies, if thou obey him, and to “bring them
down before thy face” (Deut. ix. 3); but to consume thee,
if thou forget the covenant thou hast made with him (Deut.
iv. 24). This hath relation to the Shechinah, or glorious
presence of God, “the sight of which was like devouring fire”
(Exod. xxiv. 17), and from which went out fire to consume .
Nadab and Abihu (Lev. x. 2), and those two hundred and
fifty persons who burned incense (Numb. xvi. 35), and of
whom the psalmist speaketh in these words, “A fire burned
in their congregations, the flame burnt up the wicked” (Ps.
cvi. 18),
CHAPTER XIII.
1 LET brotherly love continue.
by some (viz. Abraham, Gen. xvii. and Lot, Gen. xix.)
2 Be not forgetful to entertain strangers; for there- have entertained angels unawares. -
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIII.
fa-
commentators here, that all the three persons which appeared
* Ver. 2. 'AyyáAov, Angels.] It follows not hence, say the to Abraham were created angels; for one of them being
Yy {/ , Say
936
HEBREWS.
3 Remember them that are in bonds, as (affection-
ately as if you were) bound with them; and them that
suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body
(and so as being subject to the like afflictions).
4 * Marriage is honourable in all (persons) and (so
is) the bed undefiled: but (or, wherefore) whoremon-
gers and adulterers * God will judge (i. e. adjudge to
condemnation).
5 * Let your conversation be without covetousness;
and be content with such things as ye have (at pre-
sent): for he hath said (Deut. xxxi. 6. Josh. i. 5), I
will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
6 So that we may boldly say (as the psalmist doth,
Ps. lvi. 4), The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear
what man shall do unto me.
7 Remember them which have the rule over you
styled, by Abraham, “the Judge of all the earth,” Gen.
xviii. 24, “Jehovah,” ver, 22, and Abraham praying to him
with so great humility, “Oh ! let not the Lord be angry, and
I will speak unto him, who am but dust and ashes,” ver. 27.
31, it seems more proper with the ancients to conceive, he at
least should be “the Son of God, the Angel of the covenant;”
for the Word of God, saith Justin Martyr,” wai &yyexo;
* * *
Kaºrai, kai QE3;, xał Köztec, xai äväp, ka? &v6eoroc, ‘A8ea&º.
wai Izaax paytic. Yet since, in the opinion of the Jews, they
were three angels (as Ainsworth and Cartwright note upon
the place, the apostle, writing to them, saith no more of
them), I rather think, with the reverend Bishop of Ely, that
it may be granted, that the three that appeared to Abraham
were created angels; but then they appeared only as the re-
tinue of the Shechinah, or divine Majesty, styled “ the Lord,”
Ver. 1. 13. For after the same men, who came in, and did
eat with Abraham, and rose from the table, were departed
(ver. 16. 22), Abraham stands yet “before the Lord,” that
is, before the divine Majesty who appeared to him, ver. 1,
and styles him “the Judge of the whole earth.” And this
agrees well with the opinion of the Jews, who, as they ac-
knowledge that the three men whom Abraham entertained
Were created angels, so also do they own that there was then
a separate appearance, or divine Majesty, which talked with
Abraham. And this takes off the observation of Crellius,
and others, on this place, that the name “Jehovah” is given
to angels ; for according to this interpretation, the name
Jehovah is not given to any of the three angels which were
entertained by Abraham, but only to the Shechinah, or divine
Majesty, which appeared with them, and spake to Abraham,
from ver, 10 to 17, and to whom, after the departure of
these three, one into heaven, and two to Sodom, Abraham
still speaks to the end of that chapter.
* Ver; 4. Tiatos é yéºos, Marriage is honourable.] It is
not worth disputing, whether these words should be rendered
as a precept, thus, “Let honourable marriage, and the bed
undefiled, obtain among all;” or, as our version renders them,
by Way of assertion. The observation of the ancients upon
the place is this, that “marriage is honourable in all persons, i.
old and young, and in all things.” -
* Kºvić 9ths, God will judge;] i. e. Karakewiſ, “He will
condemn” them; so, John iii. 16, “God sent not his son
into the world, Wa wºn tº affaecoy, that he might condemn the
world ;” “He that resisteth, shall receive to himself; wºxa,
punishment,” or “condemnation,” Rom. xiii. 2; so Matt.
xxiii. 14.1 Cor. xi. 29. 1 Tim. iii. 6. Jude 4. Mark iii. 29,
luke xxiii. 40 ; roºro, ºgivayres, by “condemning” Christ,
they fulfilled the voice of the prophets, Acts xiii. 37. That
the apostle here should give these cautions against the
Gnostics amongst the Jews, is said without ground, for no
man can prove that any Gnostics had been then among
them ; but they had then the sect of the Nicolaitans; among
them, mentioned Rev. ii. 6. 15, who did 3/aishy #xºropyeſsy,
“fornicate without shame, holding whoredom and adultery
* Dial. cum Tryph. p. 282.
t Mā āv rºſs rºoflighwoºt ºv, ivº roſ, viol, ovº, 3xx'i, ºrgaw.
Theophy où v tºre aiy rā ºftes, riºto, #y rigº. 3; ot, ºxx'
$20; 3: 8Aov rázi rgévroic riºto. CEcum.
# Euseb. Hist, Eccl., lib. iii, cap. 29, Iren. lib, i. cap. 27.
(Gr. Be mindful of your governors, or guides), who have
spoken to you the word of God: whose faith follow,
considering the end (or close) of their conversation :
(with what constancy and perseverance they continued
in the faith, and sealed it with their blood, in hopes of
that crown of glory Christ had promised to them that
were faithful to the death.
8 Buen that) Jesus Christ (who, both as to his doc-
trine, and his promises, is 9 the same "yesterday, and
to-day, and for ever. -
9 Be not carried about with divers and "strange
doctrines (i. e. doctrines diverse from them, and new,
fi. e. not taught by those guides who spake to you the
word of God, ver, 7), For it is a good thing that "the
heart be established (i.e. comforted and strengthened)
* with grace (i. e. the sense of the divine favour, and
to be things indifferent.” Moreover, Justin Martyr saith,"
that wherever they travelled, they multiplied to themselves
wives, §váºzart yáºzov, “under pretence of marriage” (see note
on Rom. ii. 22). On which account there was ground suffi-
cient for this exhortation. Note hence, that whoredom is a
mortal sin. -
* Ver. 5.] Hence we learn, First, That we are then “cove-
tously minded,” when we are not content with the things
we enjoy at present, but are impatiently desirous of having
II]. Ore.
Secondly, That what God promises to any of his servants,
may, in like circumstances, be applied to them all ; for this
promise, which the apostle here makes and applies to all good
Christians, was particularly made to Joshua, i. 5.
* Ver, 8.] i. e. Through all times and ages: for, as Philoh
observes, Tºpºgh; yag & Xévo; #4 ºn agean?všátor, wał #yearãroc,
wai &#xxoyroc, “Time consists of three parts, the past, present,
and to come, and these three signify, 3rayta rāy ałóva, all
time,” or the whole compass of it: so that, as the same doc-
trine of Christianity must always be professed by all Chris-
tians, so the same Jesus is always ready to assist and reward
the sincere professors of it.
That the apostle speaks here, not of their hiving but dead
guides, will appear, partly from his exhortation to remember
them, the living guides being the objects, not of their memory,
but sense; partly from the phrase #A&Anaray, “who have
spoken,” which intimates, they had now left off speaking ;
and partly from the #320 ic, “the close,” or period of their
conversation here on earth, they are exhorted to look back
unto; their living bishops they are commanded to obey (ver.
17), their dead bishops to remember (ver. 7): for I think,
saith Origen on Matthew (ed. Huet...tom. i. p. 420), he who
is styled by Christ, 3 hyoſºvog, “a guide,” Luke xxii. 26, is,
6 xaxočkasyo; #y raſ; fixxxnziat; Étriºxotroc, “he who is called in
the churches a bishop.”
* Ver. 9. At3axaſ; #yatº, I render, “new doctrines,” and
therefore strange to the ears of them that hear them first ; so
#va Satºwāvia are “new demons,” Acts xvii. 18; and the apos-
tle saith, they were not to look upon their fiery trial, &; Éyov
tº trapaſaiyovreć, “as if some new thing had happened to
them,” 1 Pet. iv. 12.
7 Beflatočaša rāv kaeslav, That the heart is established,J Is
a Hebrew phrase, signifying to comfort, strengthen, and re-
fresh the heart. So, Gen. xviii. 5, “I will fetch a morsel of
bread, DD-9 hºlyph, and comfort your hearts;” Judg. xix. 5.
8, a rhpia.oy wagötav orov, “Comfort thy heart with a morsel of
bread ;" of which the psalmist saith, that Ragötay &yègºrov
otneſſes, “it strengthéns man's heart,” Ps. civ. 15; whence it
is often styled a rhetypºa &gtov, Ps. cw. 16. Ezek. iv. 16. v. 16.
xiv. 13, “the staff of bread.”
* The “grace” here mentioned is, say the ancients, # tº:
Žáčiro; 313&zzaxia, “the doctrine of the gospel,” or of the
grace of God tendered in it. The “meats” here mentioned
are the meats eaten in the Jewish festivals, new moons, and
Sabbaths, Col. ii. 16, or their peace-offerings and oblations,
styled 88%gara, “meats,” Heb. ix. 10; which feasts some
Jewish zealots would have observed with the Christian festi-
* Dial. p. 371, B.
+ De Sacrif, Abel et Cain, p. 106, C.
CHAPTER XIII.
937
the grace brought to us by the gospel); and not with have no continuing city, but we seek one to come
meats (eaten at the Jewish festivals, and their peace- | (even the city of the living God, xii. 22).
offerings), which have not profited (to the purifying of
the conscience from guilt, Heb. ix. 9) them that have
been occupied therein. i
10 We (Christians) have (a sacrifice upon) "an
altar (that of the cross), of which they have no right
to eat (or to partake) who serve the tabernacle, (i. e.
cleave still to the worship appointed for the Jewish ta-
bernacle. -
ll. The truth of this they may learn from their own
institutions concerning sacrifices :) for the bodies of
those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanc-
tuary * for (a) sin (offering) are (by the law of Moses
not to be eaten, but ) burnt without the camp (Exod.
xxix. 14. Lev. iv. 21. vi. 30. xvi. 27).
12 Wherefore Jesus also, (our sin-offering, the per-
son typified by theirs offered on the great day of eaſpia-
tion, Lev. xvi.,) that he might sanctify the people with
his own blood (carried into the heavenly sanctuary),
* suffered without the gate. (He therefore thus an-
swering the type of that sin-offering, of which neither
priest nor people were to eat, they who still do adhere
to the legal institutions, are by that law eacluded from
partaking of this sacrifice.)
13 Let us go forth therefore to him without the
camp (the terrestial Jerusalem, the Jewish church and
service), * bearing his reproach.
14 For here we (especially, who are thus persecuted.)
vals, viz. their passover and pentecost (1 Cor. xi.), and in the
same riotous manner (ver. 21). And these sacrifices, or
peace-offerings, they would have still retained, perhaps as
being not sacrifices for sin, but freewill-offerings, and only
Sacrifices of praise. So that the import of these words is
this ; It is good the soul, or heart, be established, refreshed,
and comforted, not with meats eaten in the Jewish festivals,
or at their eucharistical oblations, which profit or avail
nothing to the peace and quiet of the conscience, but with the
divine favour, and that gospel grace by which justification
and remission of sins is obtained through the blood of Jesus;
of which they cannot be partakers who still cleave to the
legal observations. -
* Ver. 10. Overlaathploy, An altar.] That the “altar” here,
signifies the sacrifice offered upon the altar, is plain from
this, that of this altar they were to eat. So they that eat of
the Jewish sacrifices are said to be, zolyovci Švatacºrpiow,
“partakers of the altar,” 1 Cor. x. 18, i.e. of the things
offered at the altar; and then it must import the body of our
Lord offered and broken on the cross: by partaking of the
memorials of which body, we testify our communion with
Christ and his church (ibid. ver. 16, 17); and of this, saith
the apostle, they have no right to partake who adhere still to
the Mosaical oblations.
* Ver, 11. IIcel &agria;..] That mept &gapºria; signifies
º: Sacrifice for sin,” or “a sin-offering,” see note on 2 Cor.
ult.
* Ver. 12. Without the gate.] That sin-offering which
was carried without the camp, whilst they were in the wil-
derness, when the temple was seated at Jerusalem, was car-
ried “without the gate” of the city (Maimon. de Rat. Sacrif.
Faciend. cap. 7, §. 4. Ainsw. in Lev. vi. 30). And this is
the reason of the variation of the phrase here.
* Ver. 13. Toiyvy #sex&séa.] Some quarrel with the apos-
tle for beginning a sentence with rolvvy, which it is confessed
that the best Grecians rarely do ; but this, saith Stephanus,
is not without example; and Vigerus notes, Toivuy initio
quidem periodi ponitur, sed tamen vocem sequi, that is, “it
is sometimes first in position, but it is not so in construc-
tion.” -
His reproach..] i. e. His cross and sufferings, which the
persecuting Jews inflict upon his followers, as they did upon
him, “persecuting them even to strange cities” (Acts xxvi.
1 l), and “from city to city.”
* Ver, 15. Ovciay ałosz;, The sacrifice of praise.] The
15 By him therefore (our high-priest) let us offer
the (Christian) *sacrifice of praise to God continually,
that is, (in the language of the prophet, Hosea xiv. 2,)
* the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name.
16 But (and for the other Christian sacrifices, those
of alms,) to do good and communicate forget not : for
with such sacrifices God is (still) well pleased.
17 Obey them that have * the rule over you, (your
bishops and pastors, ver. 24,) and submit yourselves
(to their godly admonitions) : for they watch for your
souls, as they that must give an account (to God for
them): that they may do it * with joy (in the presence
of Christ, that they have gained you to him, and built
gou up in the faith, 1 Thess. ii. 19), and not with grief
(that they could not prevail upon you to live suitably to
their instructions); for that is unprofitable for you
(and pernicious to you).
18 Pray for us (for our freedom and success in
preaching the gospel, Eph. vi. 19. Col. iv. 3, and our
deliverance from the enemies of our faith, 1 Thess. iii.
1, 2), for we trust we have a good conscience, in * all
things (being) willing to live honestly.
19 But I beseech you the rather to do this (now),
that I may be restored to you the sooner.
20 “Now the God of peace, that brought again
from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of
the sheep, through (with) the blood of the everlasting
Jews say that, in seculo futuro, “in the age to come”
(which often signifies the age of the Messiah), “all oblations
shall cease, but the oblation of thanksgiving, which shall
never cease,” and that praise is more acceptable to God than
all sacrifices ; which they prove from those words of the
psalmist, “I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices, because
they were not always before me: offer unto God thanks-
giving,” Ps. 1. 23, “He that offereth praise, honoureth me.”
And the Greek commentators observe, that the sacrifices
God now requires, are unbloody sacrifices, to wit, those o-
praise and thanksgiving, and imitation of Christ. So Chry-
sostom and CEcumenius.
* Kagtry Xerxéoy, The calves of our lips.] Hos. xiv. 2. So
the Jews themselves interpret these words, “What shall we
render for the calves of our lips 2” Dr. Pocock notes, That
Kaprès is here taken for xágºrapaa, which in the Septuagint
signifies “a holocaust,” which being usually of young bul-
locks, corresponds to “the calves of our lips” in Hebrew.
So in the Song of the Three Children, gapºrão at #mi arov, is to
“sacrifice before thce,” ver, 14.
* Ver. 17. Toí; #youp,āvol; tºy.] IIEpi intºx#Troy Aéys, “He
speaks of bishops,” say Chrysostom, CEcumenius, and Theo-
phylact. Clemens Romanus: places them before the pres-
byters, saying, roi; vigot; Geoû #trogeószºłe, wrotazzówsyot roſ;
#youp,évot, jºy, wai rºw tºy washkova'aw 3"royágovre; toſ; "rag'
taſy Trºszóvrápotº, “’Ye walked in the laws of God, being sub-
ject to your guides or rulers, and giving convenient honour to
your presbyters or elders.”
* Metà Xaeā;, With joy:] That is, say others, that they
may go on with their work joyfully, which they can only ex-
ecute with trouble and sadness, when they find you refrac-
tory to their admonitions; but these words, “That they may
do it,” seem plainly to relate to the account they must give
up hereafter to God. -
17 Ver. 18. 'Ew rāz.] In all times, circumstances, things,
and places. Here is the true test of an upright conscience,
that in all times, things, and cases, it renders us industrious
to walk exactly according to the rules of righteousness.
The want of this some of the Jews might suspect in the
apostle, as not being concerned for the observation of the
law.
18 Ver. 20.] These words seem to express all the three
offices of our great Mediator, which are the foundations of al.
wr
* Pug. Fid. par, iii. d. 3, cap. 12, §. 14—17.
+ Ibid. S. 20. : Epist. ad fºom. §. 1
938
HEBREWS.
covenant (to be offered by him in the heavenly sanc-
tuary), •
21 * Make you perfect in every good work to do
his will, *working in you (by his grace given to, and
his Spirit residing in you,) that which is well pleasing
in his sight, through Jesus Christ; * to whom be
glory for ever. Amen.
22 And I beseech you, brethren, suffer the word of
exhortation (to perseverance with patience in the Chris-
our prayers and praises directed to God, and of all the bless-
ings we receive or expect from him ; his prophetic office, in
that he is styled “the great Shepherd of the sheep;” his
priestly office, in that he is said to be “brought again from
the dead with the blood of the everlasting covenant ;” and
his kingly office, in that he is styled “our Lord Jesus.”
* Ver. 21. Karagria at twäz, Make you perfect.] Here is
the duty of every good Christian, to be “ready for every
good work” (Tit. iii. 1), “doing the will of God from the
heart” (Eph. vi. 6).
* IIotºv iv tºy, Working in you, &c.] Here is the power
by which we are enabled so to do, and the motive to the per-
formance of our duty, viz. the grace of God teaching us,
“denying all ungodliness and worldly lusts, to live righte-
ously, soberly, and godly, in this present world ;” and “the
expectation of the blessed hope and glorious appearance of
our Lord,” to reward our services (Tit. ii. 11—13). The
love of God the Father, in giving up his Son to the death for
us; and of Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, “that he
might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify to himself a
peculiar people zealous of good works” (ver. 14), and who
“died for all, that they who live might not henceforth live
unto themselves, but unto him that died for them” (2 Cor.
v. 15). And, lastly, the inward assistances of the Holy
Spirit, bringing these things to our remembrance, exciting us
to the performance of our duty, strengthening us against our
temptations, and comforting and supporting us under our
sufferings. -
IIotöv #y ipºv rô siépearoy #yörtov airoij, Working in you that
which is well pleasing in his sight.] That God doth some
way work in us every good work, and whatsoever is well
pleasing in his sight, can be denied by none who understand
the scriptures; and one would think it should be as little the
subject of dispute, whether God works these things as a vomit
or a purge works in us by physical and irresistible operations,
or whether he works on reasonable creatures by offering rea-
sons to persuade them, and upon men endowed with a will,
to make them willing, as all men do, by propounding motives
and encouragements of a prevailing nature, to engage them
to choose the good and refuse the evil; of which I have said
so much in the treatise of grace, annexed to 2 Cor. vi. 1, that
I shall say nothing more at present, but that it is unaccount-
able how actions should be good, unless we consent to them,
or how they should be ours, unless we choose and do them.
This text is therefore vainly urged to prove, that we are
purely passive in the work of our conversion, and that we
neither do nor can do anything towards it:
First, Because God evidently speaks this to them who
were already true believers, and converts to the Christian
faith, and wanted only to be “made perfect in every good
work.” Secondly, Because he exhorts all Christians to
“work out their salvation with fear and trembling;” upon
this very account, that “it is God that worketh in them both
to will and to do” (Phil. ii. 13). For if God so worketh in
tian faith) : for I have written a letter to you (of this
subject) in (as) few words (as the importance of the
matter and my affection to you would permit).
23 Know ye that our brother Timothy (see the
preface) is set at liberty; with whom, if he comes
(hither again) shortly, I will (God willing) see you.
24 Salute all them that have the * rule over you,
and all the saints. They of Italy salute you.
25 Grace be with you all. Amen.
us, that we do not co-operate with him, why are we com-
manded to “work out our salvation ?” For can we act where
we are purely passive P Or can that be a reason why we
ourselves should act, that another will effectually do this very
thing without our co-operation ? Is it not rather a reason
why we should not work at all ; since this work will be cer-
tainly performed without.us 2 See more to this effect in the
note on Phil. ii. 10. Note also, that the word watapriorat,
which begins this verse, signifies “fully to instruct,” as in
those words, Luke vi. 40, “The disciple is not above his mas-
ter, warnerickwávo, 33 ºrãº, but he that is fully instructed is as
his master;” 1 Cor. i. 10, hºrs 33 xarnetto ºvot, “Be ye per-
fectly instructed in the same mind and judgment,” Eph. iv.
12. God hath appointed apostles, prophets, and evangelists,
pastors, and teachers, ºrph; roy Karapricºy rôy &ylov, “for the
full instruction of the saints, till we all come to the unity of
the faith, and knowledge of the Son of God,” ver. 13. So
the Glossa Graeco-Latina, karaºtićo, struo, instrud, watnetta-
Awāvo;, constructus, instructus ; and in this sense this may be
reasonably deemed a prayer, that God would fully instruct
the believing Jews in every good work requisite to be done
in obedience to his will, and so would work in them that
which was well pleasing in his sight, we being thus “trans-
formed by the renewing of our mind, sic rô Sokºzášev, that we
may approve (and so be inclined to do) the good, siópearov,
well pleasing, and perfect will of God” (Rom. xii. 2).
** at # 36%a si; row, aiāva; rāy aidyay, To whom be glory
for ever, Amen.] Here Schlictingius saith, that he who is a
Christian cannot be ignorant, that “glory for ever and ever”
is to be ascribed to Christ, as well as to the Father, as it is
Rev. v. 12, 13. 2 Pet. iii. 18. And how then can he be ig-
norant that Christ is to be owned as the true God? This
being the doxology ascribed in the New Testament to him,
“ of whom, and by whom, and to whom, are all things,” Rom.
xi. 36; to God the Father, Gal. i. 5; to thre omnipotent
God, Eph. iii. 20. 24; to him “who dwelleth in light inac-
cessible,” 2 Tim. iv. 15, 16 ; to “the God of all grace,” I
Pet. v. 10, 11 ; to “the only wise God our Saviour,” Jude
25. In Clemens,” it is frequently ascribed, rö Osó Trayto-
x párogi, “to Almighty God, to whom be glory for ever and
ever, Amen,” as a character peculiarly belonging to him.
And in the Jerusalem Targum,' this is the frequent appen-
dix to the mention of the great God, “Let his name be
blessed (i. e. glorified) for ever and ever, Annen :” so that
both in the opinion of Jews and Christians this was a doxo-
logy proper to the true God.
** Ver. 24. Toi); hyovkºvov;, &c. That have the rule over
gyou..] Hence it seems evident, that this epistle was not sent
to the bishops or rulers of the church, but to the whole
church, or to the laity.
* Sect. 33, 38,43, 45, 50.
+ In Gen. xlix. 2. Exod. xv. 18. Deut, iii. 2. vi. 4.
THE
GENERAL EPISTLE OF ST. JAMES,
WITH ANNOTATIONS.
GENERAL PREFACE TO THE SEVEN CATHO-
LIC EPISTLES.
Of these Epistles in the general, I have only this to note,
That from the fourth century they have both obtained the
name of Catholic Epistles, and also have been ranked in the
same order in which they now stand in our bibles, viz. by
the council of Laodicea,” by Cyril of Jerusalem,' by Atha-
nasius, £ and Greg. Nazianzen ; Ś by Amphilochius, and by
others.
Only it is not easy to assign the reason why they in a
particular manner were so called ; it could not be, because
they were, passim receptae ab omnibus et ubique, “generally
received by all:” for we learn from the testimonies of Ori-
gen," Eusebius,” Amphilochius, fºr and St. Jerome, if that
the ancients doubted of four of the seven, or five of them.
CEcumenius and others say, they were so styled, because
they were written, not to one nation, as were generally those
of Paul, &AA3 wasóNou roi; ºrigºroſ, irot 'tovëaiot, roſ; y rā Bia-
cºroº, “but generally to the faithful, or to the Jews of the
dispersion :” which last expression seems to hint the true
reason of the name, viz. because, excepting the two brief
Epistles of John, they were written to the Jews dispersed
throughout the world. Which, though it be true also of the
Epistle to the Hebrews, yet hath that no inscription, and
for a long time was also questioned; nor was it written to
the dispersed Jews, but to the inhabitants of Judea, ch. xiii.,
and upon these accounts might not come into the number.
PREFACE TO JAMES.
-º-º-º-º-
§. 1. THAT the author of this epistle was an apostle, hath
been proved, note on ver, l, whence it must follow, that he
could not be James, the son of Zebedee, because that James
was slain by Herod, A. D. 44, twenty-eight years before the
destruction of Jerusalem, which yet was nigh at hand, and
even at the door, when this epistle was indited; see note on
v. 8, 9. Nor could he be James the Just, bishop of Jeru-
salem, for he was no apostle, if he was not the same person
with James the Less. It seemeth therefore that he was
* 'Etta roxgi Ka8oNikai Éaſtë, oùros, Iaxó80U (zia, IIárgov 360,
'Ioãwou ºrgsſc, 'Ioëa ºxia. Concil. Laod. can. 59.
* * & -
+ II??: Totºvot, 33 xai rā; #wrtā 'Iax6éov, Kai IIárgov, 'Iowayvov,
wai 'Ioëa was oxix㺠#7tarcNáç. Cyril. Hier. Catech. iv. p. 38.
† 'Ewizzoxai KaBoxiwai waxočgewat rāv &roaróxoy Érræ, otºrwg,
'Iazó8ov (cia, IIárgov 33 300, fºra Ioláyyov 'rgeſ;, xai &er& ragra,
'Iolºa ºwia. Festiv. Ep.
§ 'ETrrë 33 was oxiwai, &y Iaxó8ov (wiz. In Jamb. apud Bals.
Aüo 8: IIárgov, reeſ; 3’’Iwāvyov ráxiv. p. 1082. Wide ibid.
| Amp. 'Ioča 3’ Batty #886pºn, Tāora; Éxsic. p. 1084. -
"I Apud Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. vi. cap. 25, p. 297. Tot-
aira wai rā war& 'Iákoğoy, où h redirn rāv čvogašoºvoy was oxi-
xöv eſyat Aéyeral’ taréoy 33 &; voštúeral pºv' oil aroxxoi yoily rºy
Taxatzy airfi, #xynºvevaav, &; oë tº AEyogāync 'loſſ?a giãº
xz airā, clan; ‘rāy wrix Asyoºyoy zašoxizāy Éiria toxöy. Hist.
Eccl., lib. ii. cap. 23, de Petri Ep. Sec.
** Wide Hist. Eccl. lib. iii, cap. 3, et de Joannis Secundá
et Tertià, cap. 24, p. 96.
++ Amphiloch, ibid. j Hieron. Catal.
James the son of Alpheus, apostle and brother of our Lord,
styled James the Less, in distinction from James the son of
Zebedee, styled the Greater, by reason of his age. For that
the James mentioned by Paul, Gal. i. 19, was an apostle in
the strict acceptation of the word, is evident from this, that
having spoken of Peter, who doubtless was an apostle in
that sense, he adds, “Others of the apostles saw I none,
save James the Lord's brother ;” and, ii. 6, he reckons him,
with Peter and John, among the cºrſaci, or “the chief pil-
lars” of the church ; and to me he seems to be the same
with James the bishop of Jerusalem. For,
First, Of this James the bishop of Jerusalem, who was
styled the Just, Jerome” saith, that “he was the son of
Mary, the sister of the mother of our Lord, of whom John
makes mention,” xix. 25, where she is styled “the wife of
Cleophas” or “Alpheus;” and by Mark, xv. 40, “the mo-
ther of James the Less.”
Secondly, It seems highly probable, that the James men-
tioned in Acts xv. was strictly an apostle ; for Paul and
Barnabas were sent up to “the apostles and elders,” ver. 2;
they were received by the apostles and elders, ver. 4; “the
apostles and elders were gathered together,” to decide the
question touching the circumcision of the gentiles, ver. 6.
The first person that speaks to it is Peter the apostle, the
second James, who having determined the question, “it
seemed good to the apostles and brethren to send letters to
the churches,” ver. 22; and these they send with this inscrip-
tion, “The apostles, elders, and brethren.” In all which
places it is evident, that the word “apostles” must be taken
in the proper sense, they being still distinguished from all
the elders or bishops which were not apostles: nor can it be
thought reasonable that James here should be ranked
amongst the elders, or the inferior sort of the clergy ; it re-
mains then that he was in the strict sense an apostle. There
being therefore no other of that name then living, but “James
the son of Alpheus,” who also was the brother of our Lord,
i.e. his mother's sister's son (i.e. his cousin), he in all like-
lihood must be the bishop of Jerusalem.
Thirdly, The story of three that were called James, viz.
James the Great, James the Less, and James, bishop of Je-
rusalem, is, saith Dr. Cave,” “a great mistake, and built up-
| on a sandy bottom :” “For besides that the Scripture men-
tions no more than two of this name, and both apostles,
nothing can be plainer than that James the apostle, whom
Paul calls the brother of our Lord, was the same that pre-
sided among the apostles, and determined in the synod at
Jerusalem. Nor do either Clemens Alexandrinus; or Eu-
Sebius out of him, mention any more than two, St. James,
put to death by Herod, and St. James the Just, bishop of
Jerusalem, whom they expressly affirm to be the same with
n
* Jacobus qui appellatur frater Domini cognomento Jus-
tus, et nonnulli existimant, Josephi ex alià uxore ; ut autem
mihi videtur, Mariae sororis matris Domini, cujus Joannes in
libro suo meminit, filius, post passionem Domini ab apostolis
Hierosolymorum episcopus ordinatus, unam tantūm Scripsit
epistolam, qua de septem catholicis est. Verbo Jacobus.
+ Life of James the Less, p. 144.
f Año 33 yeyāyaariy’Iáxw82, ei, 3 Aizaio; 6 xará rot wreguyiou
6xn&eiç. “Erepo; 3: 3 xaparogenösic, airoi; 3: Aikatov xa; 3
TIaijao; ºwnpºcysſel yºpov, #tegov 33 rāy dwoo'réNow own siðoy st
£ch 'I&xoGow tºy 388xp?y rot Kvetov. Clem. apud Euseb lip. ii.
cap. 1, p. 38.
940 PREFACE
TO JAMEs.
him whom St. Paul calls ‘the brother of our Lord.” Once
indeed Eusebius makes our St. James one of the seventy,
though elsewhere quoting a place of Clemens of Alexandria,”
he numbers him with the chief of the apostles, and expressly
distinguishes him from the seventy disciples.” And though
Jerome, when he represents the opinion of others, styles
him the thirteenth apostle, yet elsewhere, when speaking his
own sense, he sufficiently proves that there were but two,
James: the son of Zebedee, and the other the son of Al-
pheus, the one surnamed “the Greater,” the other “the
Less;” and he frequently styles the author of this epistle,
writ to the twelve tribes, “James the apostle :” besides,
saith he, the main support of the other opinion is built upon
the authority of Clemens' Recognitions, a book, in doubtful
cases, of no esteem and value. -
Š. 2. And having thus shown, that James the apostle, and
brother of our Lord, was the author of this epistle, we can-
not reasonably doubt the authority of it: especially if we
consider that it is cited by Clemens Romanus, Š four several
times by Ignatius, in his genuine Epistle to the Ephe-
sians, and by Origem," in his thirteenth homily upon Gen-
esis. Eusebius” # saith, it was “known to most, and pub-
licly read in most Christian churchēs;” Jerome, fºr that in
process of time it obtained authority. Esthiusti: notes, that
“they who before doubted of it, in the fourth century em-
braced the opinion of them who received it, and that from
thence no church, no ecclesiastical writer, is found who ever
doubted of it; but, on the contrary, all the catalogues of the
books of holy scripture, published by general or provincial
councils, Roman bishops, or other orthodox writers, number
it among the canonical scriptures; quae probatio ad certam
fidem faciendam cuique catholico sufficere debet ; which
proof must give sufficient certainty of it to any catholic.”
As for the seeming contradiction of this epistle to the doc-
trine of Paul, in the matter of justification by faith, see it
sufficiently cleared in the close of the annotations on the
second chapter.
Š. 3. Fourthly, That this epistle was directed to “the
twelve tribes which were scattered abroad,” the words of this
epistle show ; but whether “the twelve tribes "import only
those of them which returned into Judea, or those of them
also who were carried away by the Assyrians, and never re-
turned to their own nation, so as to make any more a dis-
tinct people, or a body politic under their own governors, is
uncertain : that God had absolutely determined that the ten
tribes should never more return to such a state, the prophet
Hosea in many places doth inform us; as when God by him
Saith, “I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel,
but I will utterly take them away,” i. 6 ; that they should
be among the gentiles as “a vessel wherein is no pleasure,”
viii. 8 ; and they should not “dwell in the Lord's land,” ix.
3. And again, “I will drive them out of my house, I will
love them no more: my God will cast them away, because
they did not hearken to him, and they shall be wanderers
among the nations,” ver. 15. 17.
And yet that God designed not to exclude them from the
blessings promised in the days of the Messiah, or from being
called into the church of Christ, is as evident from many ex-
pressions, and gracious promises of God, recorded in that
prophet, concerning the same tribes of Israel ; as, v. g. that
“the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of
the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered: and it
shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto
them, Ye are not my people; there it shall be said unto them,
Ye are the sons of the living God,” i. 10, &c. And again,
“I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth
thee unto me in righteousness and judgment, and in loving-
kindness, and in mercies; I will even betroth thee unto me
in faithfulness, and thou shalt know the Lord,” ii. 19, 20 ;
“I will have mercy on her which hath not obtained mercy;
* Hist. Eccl. lib. i. Cap. 12, p. 31. lib. ii. cap. 1, p. 38.
+ Comment on Es. 17, f. 60. -
† Adv. Helvid. f. 8, B, C.
§ Ep. Epiph. ad Joh. Hieros. f. 57, in lib. lviii. C. Ady.
Pelag. lib. i. f. 96. cap. 2, f. 101, E. 103, C.
| Sect. 10, 12, 17, 30. • *| Sect. 5.
** Lib. ii. cap. 22, lib. iii. cap. 25.
++ Verb. Jacob, †† Esthius in Epist. Jacob.
| and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art
my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God,” ver. 23.
And again, “Afterward shall the children of Israel return,
and seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and shall
fear the Lord, and his goodness, in the latter days,” iii. 5
(see xiv. 4, 8). Now these prophecies being not to be fui,
filled upon them, by bringing them into their own land; it
seemeth reasonable to conceive, they might be fulfilled by
calling them to embrace the gospel; and that by doing so
were those words fulfilled, “I will call them my people, who
were not my people,” not only towards the gentiles, Rom.
ix. 24–26, but also towards those Israelites of whom they
primarily were spoken, 1 Pet. ii. 10. And to this the inscription
seems to lead us, it being rai, 333exa puxaſ, raï, by tº 3iao-
Toéâ, “to the twelve tribes, to those who are in the dispersion.”
That the places whither these ten tribes were carried by the
Assyrians were well known to the other Jews, see proved by
Dr. Lightfoot ; that in Mesopotamia, Media, and Babylon,
where they were placed, the Jews abounded in a very great
measure, Josephus’ testifies. They had there three famous
universities, Neerda, Sorana, and Pombeditha. We theréfore
have great reason to believe the gospel was then preached
among them by the apostles of the circumcision. See the
preface to the First Epistle of John.
There is one farther observation taken notice of by Gro-
tius and Dr. Hammond, That some part of this epistle
seems to be directed, not only to believers, but even to the
unbelieving Jews, especially the first six verses of the fifth
chapter, where he saith, “Ye have killed the Just, and he doth
not resist you ;” which cannot well agree to the converted
Jews, to whom he seems to turn his speech, in these follow-
ing words, “Be patient, therefore, brethren,” ver. 7: yea,
the whole third and fourth chapters may be equally directed
to both ; the name of brethren suiting to both, when used by
a Jew writing to them, Rom. ix. 2.
Ş. 4. As for the occasion of this epistle, it seemeth to be
written upon two accounts:
First, To correct the pernicious errors both in doctrine
and manners, which had crept into the theology of the Jews,
and had an evil influence on their practice. See note on ii.
ll, and ver. 14, to the end of the chapter.
Secondly, To comfort and establish the sincere believers,
under the pressures which they then suffered, or were shortly
to expect, from the unbelieving Jews, or their false brethren.
Where note,
That though the Jews, from the beginning of the apostles’
preaching, were still incensed against the Christians; yet see-
ing Christianity, whilst they continued preaching to the Jews,
did not spread much among other nations, and since the Jews
were under restraints in the time of Caius, who had no good
affection to them, they could not proceed far in showing
their hatred to the Christian faith. What persecutions there-
fore happened in those early times, concerned only the
churches of Judea, or thereabouts, or spent themselves on
the chief leaders and assertors of the Christian faith, Stephen,
James, Peter, and Paul, or on the churches converted from
the Jewish synagogues, and reached no farther than the
places where they were converted ; and though they were
begun by instigation of the Jews, yet were they chiefly man-
aged by the heathen powers, or by their own countrymen.
For about the thirty-ninth year of Christ, “then had the
churches peace throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria,”
Acts ix. 31 ; and so they seem to have continued till after
the council of Jerusalem, the churches being then “estab-
lished in the faith, and increasing in number daily,” Acts xvi.
5. Yea, when Paul comes to Rome, he receives all that
came unto him for two whole years, “preaching the kingdom
of God, and teaching the things which concerned the Lord
Jesus Christ with all confidence, no man forbidding him,”
Acts xxviii. 30, 31. So that at least till the fourth or fifth
year of Nero, the gospel was freely preached at Rome, with-
out any contradiction either of the Romans or the Jews: but
then, in his sixth year, afflicti suppliciis Christiani, “the
Christians were subjected to punishment by him,” saith
Suetonius ºf “and it seems very probable,” saith Dr. Light-
foot, “that even then Nero had by some act or edict sup-
* Antiq, lib. xviii. cap. 16.
+ In Neron, cap. 16.
PREFACE TO JAMES.
941
pressed Christianity, not only at Rome, but also at Judea ;”
as he gathers from that clause in Tacitus, Repressaque in
praesens exitiabilis superstitio, rurstis erumpebat, non modó
per Judaeam, originem ejus malised per urbem etiam ; which
shows, that before the persecution began, in the tenth of
Nero, of which Tacitus there speaks, Christianity had been
by him suppressed, not at Rome only, but Judea. Here
then some place Peter's Trégoat; ºrgö; ºregarpºv, “burning for
trial,” which forwarded the defection which was so general
in the churches of the Jews that had received the gospel, they
falling to Moses again, or joining the adhesion to the law
with the profession of the gospel, that so they might retain their
liberty, the religion of the Jews not being at all suppressed
by him, and that they might escape the rage of the Jews ;
who doubtless, by his example, would be induced to express
that hatred they had still borne against the Christians. The
same Nero, in his tenth year, renews this persecution of the
Christians; “and this he did,” saith Orosius,” “not only at
Rome, but by his edict, through all the provinces of his em-
pire;” and this encouraged the Jews everywhere to show
their utmost rage against all those of their religion, whether
Jews or proselytes, who had embraced the faith of Christ
sincerely ; and the more they drew nigh to their final deso-
lation, the more did Satan enhance their fury against those
Christians whom he found the fatal enemies and overthrow-
ers of his kingdom.
§. 5. Note, Lastly, That whereas Mr. Le Clerc saith, note
on v. 3, “that St. James doth not speak here to the Jews who
had embraced the faith in Palestine, but to those who were
scattered abrad,” seeing he speaks to the whole twelve tribes,
I doubt not but these of Palestine must be included ; but
when he adds, that those “Jews only who lived in Palestine,
and the neighbouring countries, and had risen up in arms
against the Romans, were destroyed by them,” suggesting
that the Jews, dispersed through the other parts of the Ro-
man empire, received no harm—this is a great mistake ; for
these being the days of vengeance upon the unbelievers of
that nation, God's severe judgments reached them everywhere,
as we may fully learn from the rueful account Josephusf
gives us of their calamities throughout all their dispersions:
for, saith he, “when the Romans had no enemies left in
Judea, the danger reached, "rox\oſ, Kai rāy &rarráro waroixoſy-
raw, to many of them living the remotest from it ; for many
of them perished at Alexandria, and Cyrene, and in other
cities of Egypt, and throughout all Syria.” And Eleazar,
in Josephus, f having reckoned up many places where they
were cruelly slaughtered, concludes thus, Azaxgåy &y ºn vöy
ièia Aéyew, “It would be too long to speak of all these places
in particular.”
We know from Tacitus,S and others, that the Jews were a
mation generally hated by all about them, and by those
among whom they lived, partly because they used, ritus con-
trarios caeteris mortalibus, “rites contrary to all other nations,”
and spake and thought contemptuously of their deities and
worship ; partly because they bore advers's omnes alios hos-
tile odium, “the greatest hatred to men of other nations,” and
showed the greatest contempt of them, calling them dogs, and
thinking it unlawful to converse with them, and a pollution
even to touch them. All nations, therefore, where they lived,
must upon all occasions be ready to rise up against them, as
we may learn from the slaughter of them in Caesarea, Da-
mascus, Scythopolis, and throughout all the cities of Syria,
* Nam primus Romae Christianos suppliciis et mortibus
affecit, ac per omnes provincias pari persecutione excruciari
imperavit. Lib. vii. cap. 7.
+ Lib. vii. cap. 36, p. 995, A. lib. xxxvii. cap. 38, p.,
996.
† Cap. 34, p. 992. § Hist. lib. v. ab initio.
| De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 30, p. 813, 814. cap. 41,
p. 822.
about the beginning of the war, of which Josephus gives us
the account. When therefore the Romans were very much
incensed against them, because when other nations had sub-
mitted to their empire, soli Judaei non cessissent, they dared
to rebel, must they not be sure to suffer in every province
where they dwelt, not only from the Roman governors, but
also from those people in every nation who bore so great
hatred to them 2 And hence Eusebius * informs us, that
“they did thus suffer in all other places.”
Secondly, Josephus; doth confess, that the Jews in Judea
did expect, #way to träg Eüq64tny ºpvXoy hºſy averagShoea:-
Sai, “that all of their own nation, even beyond Euphrates,
should be assistant to them in this war;” and doubtless they
were not wholly disappointed in their expectation ; for in
their war commenced under Hadrian, Dion f expressly says,
that “the Jews out of all nations came to their help.” We
therefore reasonably may conceive, this also was so in the
former war under Vespasian and Titus, and then we cannot
doubt that who shared in the war must also bear a share in
the calamities it brought upon that nation, in those days of
vengeance, which befell them for their infidelity, and the re-
jection of the true Messiah, of which the Jews who lived in
other nations were as guilty as those who lived in Judea.
Š. 6. And hence also I return an answer to an objection
which I foresee may be made against my interpretation of
some passages in the fourth and fifth chapters of this epistle,
viz. that I restrain them to what was done to and by the
Jews in Judea; whereas this epistle is written “to the twelve
tribes which were scattered abroad,” ver. 1.
For, First, As all the Jews of the dispersion were under the
government of the Sanhedrin, and after, of the patriarch of
the Jews residing in Judea, and obeyed his pleasure; so
many, both Jews and proselytes, went up out of all nations
to their feasts: when the Holy Ghost fell down on the apos-
tles at the day of pentecost, we find them there, Acts ii., and
when Jerusalem was besieged, at their paschal feast, Š and
so, even upon that account, they must be somewhat con-
cerned in what was done and suffered in Judea ; and if they
sided with them in that war, as I have shown it probable
. did, they must be more concerned in these matters.
ut,
Secondly, Josephus tells us, that they had wars about the
same time, in many places of their dispersion, with the gen-
tiles; that when the Alexandrians, in the reign of Nero, had
impeached three of their brethren as enemies and spies,
#Sn rāy ºr 'Iověaixãy in rºw &pºuyay, “all the Jews there rose
up to their aid;” and that Tiberius Alexander, the governor
of the city, commanded the Roman legions to slay them, xat
ºr&; xráceiç air&y 3iagráðsly, xai rā; oixia; xara paśysiv, “and
to seize upon their goods, and burn their houses ;” which
they did, killing fifty thousand of them on the spot: that
the Jews invading the cities and villages of Syria, the Syrians
fell upon them in all their cities, and were especially moved
thereunto by covetousness, rā; y&p oëciaç rā, śyaps&#yrov
&883, 8thpºraćov, “for they fell boldly upon the substance of
the slain:” and in these, and all the other places mentioned by
Josephus, the Jews were as forward to take up arms against
the gentiles, as they were to suppress the Jews. Here
then is a sufficient account of their “wars and tumults,”
mentioned ch. iv., and of their “riches being corrupted,” and
their “flesh eaten by fire,” ch. v.
3 r a
* Karā Trávra révoy 3x2 tº #8wei awejón
lib. iii. cap. 5.
+ Prooem. de Bello Jud.
f Kai of &mayºraxoſ, yā; 'Iověafot avygraéâtroyto, zal avyńecay,
xa; troXX& Max3 eic Popwatov; rà &#y Aá982, r3 3: Kai paysgås,
#v=3aizyvºro. In Wità Adrian. p. 263.
§ Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. iii, cap. 5.
| De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 36.
Hist. Eccl.
waxá.
94.2
t CHAPTER. I.
1 * JAMES, a servant of God (the Father) and of the
Lord Jesus Christ, (sendeth) * to the twelve tribes
which are "scattered abroad, greeting,
2 My brethren, count it (matter, not of sorrow, but
of) all joy when (through the divine permission) ye
fall “into divers temptations (i. e. afflictions from the
world).
3 Knowing this, that (this outward trouble, sent
jor)" the trial of your faith (by the help of God’s over-
ruling grace, and the aid of his Holy Spirit then espe-
cially residing on you, I Pet. iv. 14), worketh (in you)
patience.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I.
* Wer. I. 'Iáx.230¢, James.] That this was James an
apostle, is confirmed from the testimony of Eusebius,” who
declares of that James to whom the ancients ascribed this
epistle, that “he was the brother of the Lord.” The same
we learn from the Syriac, Arabic, Vulgar, and Ethiopic ver-
sions, by all which he is styled “James the apostle.”
* Tai, 8%3Exa puxaſ, To the twelve tribes.] That some of
the ten tribes remained in, and some of them returned to,
the land of Israel, we are assured from the cities of Manas-
seh, and Ephraim, and Simeon, even to Naphtali, purged by
Josiah from their idols (2 Chron. xxxiv. 6, 7); as also from
the money sent in to repair the house of the Lord from
Manasseh, Ephraim, and the remnant of Israel (ver. 9),
from the mention made of the children of Israel, that were
come again out of their captivity (Esd. vi. 21), and the sin-
offering made by Ezra, at the dedication of the temple, of
twelve goats, “according to the number of the tribes of
Israel” (v. 17), and from these following words, viii. 25,
“The children of those which had been carried away, which
were come out of the captivity, offered twelve goats for a
sin-offering:” and, lastly, from the mention of the twelve
tribes by the apostle Paul, who “instantly served God day
and night” (Acts xxvi. 7).
* 'Ew ºf 3iao Tropff, Which are scattered abroad.] That the
Jews were dispersed throughout the world, we learn from
the words of Agrippa, in his oration to them, who tells
them, that + “there was not a nation upon earth where some
part of them were not seated ;” and that if they of Judea
should rebel, all of them that resided in other places would
be destroyed, and every city would be filled with the blood
of them : from the words of Strabo, cited by Josephus,t
that “it was not easy to find an eminent place in the whole
world where the Jews did not reside ;” from Philo,S in his
oration against Flaccus, where he makes mention, rāy ºray'ra-
3:60sy ric oizoup.ávn; 'Iovězíov, “ of the Jews dispersed through-
out all the world:” additig, that one region could not con-
tain the Jews, but || “they dwelt in most of the flourishing
cities of Asia, and in Europe, in the islands, and in the con-
tinents, not much less in number than the inhabitants;” and
introducing Agrippa" interceding to Caius for them, as in-
habiting in the most celebrated parts of Africa, Asia, and
Europe. And even Cicero, ** in his oration for another
Flaccus, declares, that the gold which the Jews sent to their
* Eccl. Hist. lib. ii, cap. 23. S
+ oil yáp arty ºri rii, oizovºyn; 3%aoc, 3 gº fºotbav instégav
#xay, oi, ºrayrak, woxtºnzávrov tºy vexa, xarac{4}ovaty of
3:44,080i., Jos. de B. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 20, p. 808, G.
f Kai răzov own Bar, $23io; suggſy ºr olzova #ync, 3; of waga-
3é8:ºral rotiro +3 piñoy, Antiq. lib. xiv. cap. 12.
§ P. 752, F.
| T3; ratſataç was stºalkovsztára, röy iv Eipºwn was 'Aala,
*274 tº whº ovº, xai hºrsicov; #xyśwoyrat. Ibid. E. Káxural yèe
évé te rā; harsigou; zai väcov; &márag, à, rāyaī09Eyðv pañ Trox\6
rwi boxeſy #Aatroſa-Sai. Ad Caium, p. 791, F.
*I Ibid. p. 798, C.
** Câm aurum Judaeorum nomine quotannis ex Italia, et.
ex omnibus vestris provinciis exportarisoleret.
Orat. 24, n.
52, p. 367.
..ºf
4 But (and) let patience have her perfect work (in
you), that “ye may be perfect and entire, wanting no-
thing (to make you perfect in Christ Jesus, and entire
as to all Christian graces.
5 Ei Öğ, And) if any of you lack wisdom (how to
emercise and preserve this patience, under the various
temptations he may be subject to) let him ask (it) of
(that) God, who giveth unto all men liberally (whatso-
eves he sees needful for us), and upbraideth (us) not
(for want of this wisdom) ; and (if he duly ask) " it
shall be given him. s
6 But (then) let him (take care to) "ask in faith, no-
temple at Jernsalem, “ was sent from Italy, and all the other
provinces of the Roman empire.”
*, Ver. 2. IIaigaokºoſ, Trotwixotº, Into divers temptations.]
Temptations, saith CEcumenius, are of two kinds; (1.) Such
as lead to sin, which “the lusts of the flesh” and “the love
of riches” produce in us (1 Tim. vi. 9), against which our
Lord instructs us to pray that we enter not into them ; and
of these the apostle begins to discourse, ver. 13. Or (2.)
such as are sent for the trial of our constancy and sincerity
in the faith; and to our patience and perseverance under
these is promised a great reward in heaven ; and of these
the apostle speaketh here, and ver. 12 (see Luke xxii. 28.
Heb. iv. 15). -
* Ver. 3. To Boxigelow tºy, The trial of your faith, Being
attended with these assistances, and consolations of the
Holy Ghost, and these firm hopes of a most glorious re-
ward of all our sufferings, tends naturally to make us bear
them patiently (as the apostle speaketh here). But then
it is as true, that ütrogovi warseyáčeral rºy Soxtºy (Rom.
v. 4), i. e. “this patience worketh the trial ;” and by that,
in good Christians, the experience of their sincerity and
constancy in the faith : and therefore it concerns them not
to faint under these tribulations.
* Ver. 4. TéNetot kai čašwangot, That you may be perfect
and entire.] For where there is the perfect work of patience
there must be a strong faith as the foundation of it, a steady
virtue, or Christian fortitude, enabling us thus to sustain these
fiery trials; an exact knowledge of our duty, to bear these
afflictions with a meek and quiet spirit, with forgiveness of,
love to, and prayer for, them that persecute us, which in-
cludes the height of charity under the highest provocations:
a great love to God, for whose sake we suffer, and strong af.
fection to his service; a greater fear of his displeasure, than
of the wrath of man; an entire trust and dependence on
him, and a full resignation to his will of providence, in which
consists the life of godliness; an exact temperance, as to
the honours, pleasures, and temporal concernments of this
life we lose by these our sufferings, and a true charity to
our Christian brethren, for whose example and encourage-
ment we do thus suffer. Now these are all the graces which
the apostle Peter doth require to make us fruitful and per-
fect Christians (2 Pet. i. 5–8).
7 Wer. 5. AoShastal, It shall be given.] Hence it appears,
that this wisdom depends not on our own skill or strength ;
nor can it be obtained without divine asistance.
* Ver. 6–8. Atreiro)—ºv Blaxplvág, Evoq –&# 3iºuxo;..]
Who is the &vie 3iºuxor, zai Staxelyāºyos, “the double-minded
and the wavering man,” we may learn from Hermas,” who
informs us, that “visions and revelations are, 31& rol); Sispá-
Xovº, for the double-minded,” that is for tº: 8taxoyičovávov;
#y raï, Kaebial; airów, et àga Hari Taira hobº Harty, “them who
reason in their hearts. whether these things will be or not.”
And again, F Credite Deo, qui estis dubii, “Believe in God,
you that are doubtful, for he can do all things. Woe to
the doubtful, who have heard these things, and contemned
them. And again, f: “They that doubt of God, they are the
* Lib. i. vis. 3, §.4. + Vis. 4, §. 2. '
•+s
t v * 3. –X \ t tº 3 t ºf $ nº
, i.oixà: *a*4,wis, is twº, ºri saw i 3iºuxoi was viº-
#y 3Aw; átritv7%vovarty taſy airmøðroy airžy.
CHAPTER I.
943
thing wavering. For he that wavereth (in the time of
temptation) is like a wave of the sea driven with the
wind and tossed (to and fro by every temptation).
7 For let not (uſ) yap, let not then) that man think
that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. -
8 (For) a double-minded man is unstable in all his
ways, (and therefore cannot pray in faith, as he that
would be heard must do. -
9 And if temptations be matter of the Christian’s
joy,) let the brother of "low degree (impoverished by
them) rejoice (still) in that he is exalted (to be rich in
faith, and an heir of the kingdom of God, ii. 5. Lukevi.
20
10 But (let) the rich * rich (rejoice) in that he is
made low : because as the flower of the grass he shall
pass away (Gr. for as the flower of the grass he shall
pass away, when it is scorched with the sun).
11 For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning
heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof
falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth:
so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.
12 Blessed is the man that (thus) endureth tempta-
tion (for the sake of Christ) ; for when he is tried
(Gr. 66xpog Yevópsvoc, being approved), he shall re-
ceive the crown of life, which the Lord hath pro-
mised to them that love him, (i.e. being, by his pa-
tient enduring of these afflictions for the sake of Christ,
approved as one that loves him more than the world, he
shall receive the reward promised to them that do so.
double-minded, who shall receive none of their requests.”
See the whole mandate to the same effect. And from that
of Barnabas," touching him that walketh in the way of light
that ot tº 31 Juxham, “he will not be doubtful whether a thing
will be so, or not.” From the like precept of the Apºstolical
Constitutions, F &# yivov 8i-puzoc, “Be not doubtful in thy
prayer whether thy petition will be heard, or not:” and from
Clement, f with whom oi 3ispuxot, “the doubtful” are of Stará-
Čovre; regi rā; rot, Geoû 8vyáſzewº, “the distrusters of the power
of God.” This faith therefore relates to prayer, and is a firm
belief that God will afford to his sincere servants, under all
their sufferings for his sake, such aid as will enable them to
bear them with true Christian patience (1 Cor.x. 13),and such
wisdom as will direct them to improve these sufferings to his
glory, and their good. He that doubts of this will be now
hoping, and anon desponding, apt to quit his dependence on
God, and lean on his own wisdom, and ready to cast off that
religion which subjects him to these temptations from which
he expects no good issue: and therefore, wanting that faith
in God which he has here made the condition of an accepta-
ble prayer, &c., he cannot hope to obtain anything of him.
* Ver. 9. ‘O rarelvic, The man of low degree,) In the
Old Testament, is the poor and afflicted man. So y is, in
in the Septuagint, ºréync, rarelyā;, “the poor, the afflicted,”
nºy, Trevic, ratsiyogic, “poverty or lowness of state.” And
º sense here is confirmed from the opposition of the rich
to him.
* Ver. 10. ‘O mixotorioc, The rich.] “Let God,” saith Phi-
lo,š “be the matter of thy chief joy, not riches, honour,
strength, or beauty, these being gapatyńasya ºrgárov rivá trºy
ăvºa at 8:3aios, things which wither before they are fully
grown up.” Let then the Christian consider, that the things
he loseth for the sake of Christ, are only things of such a fad-
ing nature ; whereas he doth secure, by his perseverance,
an everlasting treasure reserved for him in the heavens; and
then he may rejoice in his humiliation. Note also an ellip-
sis of the verb Kauxárğa, “let him rejoice,” ver. 10, to be
taken from ver, 9; so, John xv. 4. 1 Cor. iv. 15. Gal. ii. 7.
Eph. i. 12.
* Ver. 14.] Note here, that the desires, or lustings of the
sensual appetite, put us only under a state of temptation,
not of actual sin : they are indeed the root of sin, but so is
* Sect. 19. i Lib. vii. cap. 11.
it Ep. ad Cor. §. 11.
§ De Victim. Offerent. p. 661, E, F.
13 As for the other sorts of temptations unto sin,;
let no man say when he is (thus) tempted, I am
tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with
evil, neither tempteth he any man (to it):
14 *But every man is tempted, when he is drawn
away by his own lust, and enticed (Gr. being drawn
and enticed by his own lust).
15 Then when lust hath conceived (i.e. obtained
any consent to, or approbation and good-liking to the
desire of the sensual appetite), it bringeth forth (and
engageth the soul in) sin: and sin, when it is finished
(in the deliberate outward action, or such endeavours to
perform and eaecute it, as want nothing on the part of
the will to the completion of it, and much more when by
a customary practice it becomes habitual), * bringeth
forth death (the wages of sin).
16 Do not err, my beloved brethren (by ascribing
your sin, or your temptations to it, unto God).
17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from
above, and cometh down from the Father of lights
(i. e. the light of nature and of grace), with whom is
no variableness, neither shadow of turning, (from
good to evil; he therefore never will deny those gifts to
them that duly ask him, nor will he ever be wanting in
his grace and favour to them that love him, and much
less will he tempt any one to depart from him.
18 For) of his own will begat he us (Jews) * by
the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-
fruits of his (new) creatures (we therefore have little
temptation to sin, and the suggestions of Satan ; but they
are not our sins, till we consent to them : they are not a
transgression of the law, for there is no law given to the sem-
sual appetite alone, but to the whole man, who cannot hin-
der sensual appetites from arising in him before he perceives
them; but he can restrain the will from consenting to them
as soon as he perceives them; and can refuse to admit of
them, or suffer them to make stay in, or gain upon his
mind, to contemplate them with delight, or assent to them :
and this being all he can do, must be all he is obliged by
the law to do. There be many scriptures urged against this
opinion in the Synopsis, but they are too impertinent to be
insisted on.
12 Wer. 15. "Arrowſe; Sávarov, Bringeth forth death :] i. e.
Not only deserveth death, for so doth the consent of the will;
but it renders us obnoxious to death, and will end in it,
without repentance. Hence therefore note, that not only
the soul hardened in sin, and given up to the frequent prac-
tice of the same sin, is guilty of mortal sin, but every delibe-
rate sinful action done against the convictions and checks of
conscience, till by repentance it is retracted, puts us under
that state, as being a breach of the gospel-covenant of sincere
and impartial obedience, a departing of the heart from God,
and a wilful and presumptuous sin; and therefore David
after his adultery and murder prays, that God would “create
in him a clean heart, and renew in him the right spirit.”
Though therefore God in mercy may and will deal with such
men, not according to their particular failures, but according
to the general tenor of their lives; yet can they claim no
covenant right to such a favour, till they have thoroughly re-
pented of such wilful sins, and returned to the sincere per-
formance of their duty. &
18 Ver. 18. Aéyò 3xn&siac, By the word of truth.] Here is
a plain evidence, that the word of God is the ordinary IIleanS
of our regeneration, it being “the word preached,’ the word
we are to hear (ver. 19.22), and to “receive with meekness,
by which the new birth is by God wrought in us, and which
saith the apostle, is able to save the soul. And it is surely
a great disparagement to the word of God, to think that his
persuasions, admonitions, exhortations, and threats, should
be all insufficient to prevail with us to turn from our sinful
courses, and to turn to him; when all men who do use these
methods towards their children, servants, friends, or rela-
tions, do it in hopes they shall be successful by these means:
only this is not so to be understood, as to exclude the bless-
ing and co-operation of God with the word preached, or the
94.4
JAMES.
cause to think he will do anything to destroy that life,
or deny us anything which he sees necessary to preserve
that life, which he so freely gave).
19 Wherefore, my beloved brethren (being regene-
rated by this word of truth), let every man be swift to
hear (it), “slow to speak (ver. 26, or be a teacher of
it, iii. 1), * slow to wrath (or contention about it):
20 For the wrath of man worketh not the righte-
ousness of God (i. e. tends not to beget or to improve
that faith by which we are righteous before God, but
father to hinder it in ourselves and others).
21 Wherefore, lay apart all filthiness (all evil
lustings, ver, 14), and superfluity of naughtiness, (all
the distempers of your tongue, and of your angry pas-
sions, ver. 19,) and receive with meekness the "in-
grafted word which (being thus received) is able to
save your souls. -
22 But (that it may have this effect upon you) be ye
doers of the words, and not hearers only, deceiving
your ownselves (by thinking that sufficient to procure
favour with God).
23 °7 For if any (man) be a hearer of the word
assistance of his Holy Spirit, setting it home upon our hearts;
provided this be not by way of physical but moral operation,
by that illumination of the understanding from the word,
which produceth that renovation in the spirit of the mind,
by which we are enabled to discern and to approve “the
good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God” (Rom. xii. 2.
Eph. iv. 23), to “discern what is acceptable to the Lord”
(Eph. v. 10), to “understand what the will of the Lord is”
(ver. 17), the things that are most excellent. And if the
word of God be a perfect rule, able to make us wise unto
salvation, and furnish us for every good work, sure the good
Spirit may, by his suggestion of the truths delivered in it, by
“bringing them to our remembrance,” and “opening our
understanding to perceive the scriptures,” remove that dark-
ness which is in our minds, either by natural corruption, or
by the mists which Satan casts upon them ; whence the apos-
tle doth inform us, 2 Cor. iv. 3, 4, that if the gospel be hid-
den from any to whom it is preached, it is “because the god
of this world hath blinded the conceptions of their minds,
that the light of the glorious gospel should not shine into
them.” And, secondly, by making deep impressions on the
mind, of the advantages and rewards promised to our con-
version, and sincere obedience, and the tremendous evils
threatened to the disobedient ; and bringing these things oft
to our remembrance, which, in the scripture phrase, is “put-
ting these laws in our minds, and writing them upon our
hearts, that we may not depart from him,” Heb. viii. 10 (see
note on that place). For what reason can be given, why the
Spirit of wisdom, having enlightened the eyes of our under-
standing, to “know what is the hope of our calling, and the
glorious riches of the inheritance of the saints” (Eph. i. 18),
and these things being as firmly believed, and made thus
present to our minds, should not have greater prevalence
upon our wills to obedience, than any temporal concerns to
yield obedience to the laws of sin P It is certain Satan can
tempt us no other way, than by suggesting some temporal
allurements and advantages, or some temporal losses and
affrightments to us. Since then the scripture doth assure
us, “this is our victory over the world, even our faith” (1
John v. 4), even that faith which is “the firm expectation
of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb.
xi. 1), why should not these objects of our faith, presented
to us, and impressed on us by the Holy Spirit, be more
powerful to baffle all the temptations of sin, Satan, and the
world 2 If beyond this there be some physical and irresist-
ible operation on God's part, requisite to make men know
the things which belong to their peace, and knowing, to
choose the good, and refuse the evil, this being not wrought
in them who are not “born anew ;” why is the want of this
new birth, and this spiritual renovation, so oft imputed to
men's want of consideration, and of laying to heart the things
propounded to them ; their not “inclining their ear to wis-
dom,” and “applying their heart to understanding ;” their
“hatred of knowledge,” their “rejecting the counsel of God,”
and “not choosing the fear of the Lord P” (Prov. i. 24, 25.
29, 30.) Why is it said, that they continue thus unreformed,
because “they would have none of God’s counsel, but
despised all his reproofs;” because “they would not frame
, their doings to turn Junto the Lord 2" To omit innumerable
expressions of the like import, see note on Rom. x. 17. 1
Pet. i. 23.
* Ver. 19. Bpa3b; sic rà Xax%rat, Slow to speak.] It was
the imputation which the heathens cast upon the Christians,
that they were in publico muti, not being inclined palām
loqui, “to speak openly” of their religion : and this is con-
fessed by Christians” to be true of the laity, who were not
* IHaec nostra sapientia, quam tanquam stultitiam deri-
55.
by office engaged to preach it to the world, that it was not
their custom to assert and defend their religion publicly, but
only to give an answer to them who required a reason of the
hope that was in them : and in this sense good commenta-
tors do expound these words, viz. as an admonition to be
slow to speak of divine things, and much more to be teach-
ers of them ; but in the usual sense it agrees with that of
Bias; * girst ré réxv Aaxeſv, *} &#xactſ, we'rávoia yā; 3x0xov-
SEſ, “Be averse from rash speaking, lest thou offend, for
thou wilt repent of it;” as Swºod kpateſy, “to curb our angry
passions,” agrees with the following words, “Be slow to
Wrath.”
iº Braşi); el; pyºv, Slow to wrath.] This was an admonition
needful for the Jewish zealots, who were # #319siaç, “ of con-
tentious spirits” (see note on Rom. ii. 8); filled with wrath
against the teachers of Christianity, and especially against
those who denied the necessity of circumcising the gentiles,
or requiring them to observe the law of Moses (Acts xiii. 45.
xvii. 5): “they compelling all men to be circumcised, if
they would abide with them ; and looking upon this as a
thing of absolute necessity,” without which nothing else
would satisfy them.
Now these disnutes naturally tended to obstruct that faith,
by which men were justified, and not by circumcision, or the
works of the law, and which in the epistles of Paul is still
styled “the righteousness of God” (see note on Rom. i. 17).
(2.) They were very prone to set up for teachers of the law,
though they understood not aright those things of which they
spake (1 Tim. i. 7. Rom. ii. 18); and this might give occa-
sion to the other admonition here, to be “slow to speak,”
and iii. 1 : they also were incontinent, and very prone to
Iustings and to fornications (see note on Rom. ii. 22.2 Tim.
iii. 5. Heb. xii. 16); and therefore fitly are admonished to
“lay aside all filthiness, and superfluity of naughtiness.”
16 Wer. 21. Tºy #24v'roy Xàyov, The ingrafted word,J Saith
CEcumenius, is that principle of reason by which we are en-
abled to discern good from evil ; but of that the apostle
would not say, that it “is able to save our souls.” But the
apostles, or preachers of the Christian faith, being said, pu-
reſsiv, “to plant the word” among their hearers (1 Cor. iii.
6–8), “the ingrafted word” seems to be the word planted
in the heart of believers by the ministers of Christ, which
Barnabas styles, rºy #24 vtov Šogs&v rà, 33ayfi, attoiſ, “the
ingrafted gift of his doctrine” (§. 9, p. 6). So they who
made the Jews understand the law read to them, are said,
#24vatoiſy %&a rºy &váyyacıy, “to imprint upon them the
knowledge or remembrance of what they read,” Esd. ix. 48.
Against this sense it is objected, that the word thus
planted in us is not properly Aáyo; Épºq’vros, but #&@vtsvščic'
but since vépao; Épºq’vro; is “the law planted” in the heart by
God, I think this criticism not sufficient to destroy the Sense
of the words here given, especially if we consider that “all
filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness” must be first laid
aside, that we may be fitted to receive with meekness this
Aáyo; #xpuro, “ingrafted word;” which shows it cannot im-
port anything which is by nature always in us.
17 Ver. 23.] That many of the Jews had conceived an
opinion, that even the study and knowledge of the law
would procure them a reward in heaven, see note on Rom.
ii. 13.
dent, quia non defendere hanc publicë, atque asserere nos
solemus, &c. Lact. lib. vii. cap. 26.
* Apud Stob. Serm. p. 461, 47.
+ Toºrovc repºrápºversal rôy'Izvēaiov čvayzaćyrov, A. § Nov-
aw siva, trag' at-roic. Vita Joseph. p. 1007, B. Et Antiq.
Jud. Jib. ii. cap. 2, p. 685, B.
CHAPTER II.
945
(only), and not a doer (of it), he is like unto a man
beholding his (own) natural face (which he was born
with) in a glass : .
24 For he beholdeth himself, and goeth (presently) his
way, and straightway forgets what manner of man he was.
25 But whoso looketh into the perfect law of li-
berty, (i. e. the gospel, which gives the spirit of liberty,
and freedom from the power of sin and death, and from
the spirit of bondage, Rom. viii. 2. 15. 2 Cor. iii. 17),
and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful
hearer, but a doer of the word, this man shall be
blessed in his deed.
* Ver, 26. ’Atrarāy, &c. Deceiving his own heart.] That
the unbelieving Jews had a zeal for God, the apostle bears
them record, Rom. x. 2, but then that zeal wrought so great
a bitterness of spirit in them, that in those very synagogues,
in which they met to bless God, they imprecated a curse
upon the Christians, created anew after his image (iii. 10);
“I being zealous for God, as all you are this day,” saith
Paul, “persecuted this way unto the death,” Acts xxii. 3,
4; and in thus doing, they thought “they did God service,”
John xvi. 2. “The zealots among them,” saith their own
Josephus,” “who gave themselves that name, from their
zeal to what was good, committed all manner of wickedness,
and accounted the worst of evils good:” and yet Eleazar,"f
the ringleader of them, represents them as “persons who had
cause to hope they should be by God preserved, as having
not offended against him, and being guilty of no fault, and
being teachers of others.” That the believing Jews, who
* Tö rāv Čn^wrāy wanóávrov yévo; Trāv waxia; #67 oy #8&t-
Awña'ayro ×atrol rºy trºoanyogiav auroſ; 373 rāv Āmr’ &ya $6
Čn Novºwávay Haráðscay rå øya ra rāv waków &ya83 vowićovtes.
De Bell. Jud. lib. vii. cap. 30, p. 986, D, E.
+ Høgſ; 3’ &ga kai ºvoi rod wavrö; 'Iověaiov yávovº, #xtrica-
(wey treetéasadai rāy #AEv6ºpiav puxážavreć, Šo-weg &vapwégºrn'rol
wfī; Gºw yºváaevoi, kai ºnbºat㺠we'radºxávres, oi Kai row: #AAov;
#3:34%apasy. Lib. vii. cap. 34, p. 990, B.
25 If any man among you seem to be religious,
and bridleth not his tongue, (from bitter zeal, conten-
tions, and imprecations, iii. 10. 14), * but deceiveth
(Gr. deceiving) his own heart (thinks his zeal for God
will bear him out in all this), that man’s religion is
vain (iii. 14, 15.)
27 Pure religion and undefiled before God, and
(i. e. who is) the Father is (visible in) this (that it en-
gages the Christian) * to visit the fatherless and wi-
dows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted
from the world.
urged upon the gentiles the necessity of circumcision, had a
zeal for God, we learn from Gal. iv. 17, 18 : yet that they
had the spirit of contention and envy (Phil. i. 15, 16), and
were deceitful workers, the apostle doth inform us: So that
neither of them were truly religious ; and to those latter the
apostle seems chiefly to speak in these words, “If ye have
bitter zeal and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not
against the truth,” &c.
* Ver. 27. 'Eriorwärrea:021, To visit the fatherless and
widows.] It is very true, that Ignatius” saith of some who
maintained opinions contrary to the grace of God come
unto us, that “they had no regard to charity, to the widow,
and to the orphan, to the oppressed, to those that were in
bonds, to the hungry and thirsty:” but then, as it is not ma-
nifest from his words that these were the Gnostics, nothing
hinders, but what the apostle here speaks of may be also
true of the Jews, who, as Josephus notes,' were great ene-
imies one to another, and wanted mercy most of all, or to
those zealots who spared none who would not be of their
opinion, and their bitter zeal. *
* IIsei &yárnº ob ºxes attoic, oil wagi Yipaç, où 733i ºpávov,
où meet 0x130pxévov, où megi 388=ºvov, h ºrebi Asauºzévov, où regi
"rsiváivºros, 3-pºwtoº. Epist. ad Smyrn. Sect. 6.
+ De Bell, Jud. lib. v. cap. 22.
CHAPTER II.
l My brethren, have mot” the faith of our Lord Jesus
2 For if there come * into your assemblies (or con-
sistories for judicature) a man with a gold ring, in
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II.
* Ver. 1. Tºv Triarty to; Kvpiov hºców’Inaroi, Xºta rod tâ; 3%mº,
The faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory..] This
version seems obnoxious to this exception, that the pronoun
#pºv will not suffer the word “Lord” to be joined with
“glory ;” therefore that which renders the words thus,
“The faith of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ,” or,
“Hold not the glorious faith of the Lord Jesus Christ with
respect of persons,” seems to be the better version, and more
agreeable to the design of the apostle, as giving the best rea-
son against the accepting persons on the account of their
riches, or their gay attire ; because their faith hath clothed
them with a greater and more valuable glory, which renders
them more honourable than any riches or gay clothing could
do. For this faith, saith the apostle, is “ the ministration
of glory,” and by it “we all beholding the glory of the Lord,
are changed into the same image from glory to glory, as by
the Spirit of the Lord,” 2 Cor. iii. 3. 18 (see the note there):
and whom God hath justified by faith, “he hath also glori-
fied,” by giving them this Spirit of glory, Rom. viii. 30 (see
the note there).
* "Ey reorotroAn-liaic, With respect of persons.] IIpora-
troºn-lia is the respect of persons in judgment, not purely
according to the merits of the case, but according to exter-
mal respects, which relate not to it. As for instance, the
dread of any man's power, or the fear of what he may do to
us, if we judge against him. So, Lev. xix. 14, “Thou shalt
not honour the person of the great, or respect the person
of the poor; in justice shalt thou judge thy neighbour.”
And, Deut. i. 17, “Ye shall not respect persons in judg-
*--º-º-º-º:
ment, ye shall hear alike the small and the great ; ye shall
not be afraid of the face of man, for the judgment is the
Lord’s.” Or, (2) the poverty of any man, which renders
him less able to suffer the punishment of his injustice;
“Thou shalt not respect a poor man in his cause” (Exod.
xxiii. 3). (3.) It is the respecting persons in judgment, by
reason of any gift, or hope of gain, by favouring any cause ;
“Thou shalt not wrest judgment, thou shalt not respect per-
sons, neither take a gift” (Deut. xvi. 19). Or, (4.) by rea-
son of relation, affinity, friendship, or affection. In spiritual
or evangelical matters, it is to have regard to men, in refer-
ence to things, which render them neither better nor worse,
more or less acceptable in the sight of God. As for in-
stance, to regard them, (1.) in respect to their nation, and
their offspring ; “Of a truth I perceive that God is no re-
specter of persons; but in every nation he that feareth him,
and worketh righteousness, is accepted of him” (Acts. x. 3]):
he will have no respect to nations, or external professions, in
his future recompences (Rom. ii. 6. 10). Or, (2.) with
regard to their condition, as being masters, or servants :
hence masters are bid to deal with their servants, as “know-
ing they have a Master in heaven, with whom is no respect
of persons” (Eph. vi. 9); and servants to be just to their
masters ; because “he that is unjust shall receive for the
wrong that he hath done, and there is no respect of persons
with God” (Col. iii. 25. 1 Pet. i. 17). Or, (3) to their
quality; for “God accepteth not the persons of princes, nor
regardeth the rich more than the poor ; for they are all the
works of his hands” (Job xxxiv. 19). And this is the thing
here censured.
* Wer. 2. Ei, tºy a vyayayêy, Into your *]. That
3
94.6
JAMES.
goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in
vile raiment;
3 And ye have respect unto him that weareth the
gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a
good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or
sit here under my footstool:
4 *Are ye not then partial in yourselves 2 (Do you
not both put a difference among yourselves on these ac-
counts,) and (also) are become "judges of evil thoughts
(in thinking that the rich is to be preferred in judgment,
and the poor despised, ver. 6, on these accounts) P
5 Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God
chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs
of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that
love him (and are they fit to be despised by you, who
are so highly honoured and enriched by him) P
6 But (so it is, that) ye have despised the poor, (and
had a partial respect to the rich : and yet) do not
(these) rich men oppress you, and draw you before the
judgment-seats (on the account of your Christian pro-
fession)?
7 Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by
which ye are called 2
8 If (in this mattery you fulfil the royal law (which
is), according to "the scripture (saying) Thou shalt
here the apostle speaketh of consistories for civil judicatures,
is argued, (1.) from the accepting of persons, mentioned ver.
l, which in the Old Testament and the New, as often as it is
applied to men, respecteth human judicatures. (2.) From
the “footstool,” mentioned ver. 3, which obtained a place
in their judicial consistories, and which was proper to princes
on their thrones, and judges on their tribunals. (3.) From
the “judges,” mentioned ver, 4, and the x8trägta, or “judg-
ment-seats,” ver, 6. (4.) From the “law” violated by this
respect of persons, ver. 8, 9; and, lastly, from the canon of
the Jews, by which it is provided, “that when the rich and
poor have a suit together in their consistories, either both
must sit, or both stand, to avoid all marks of partiality” (R.
Levi Barcinon, lib. cxlii. Juris Hebraici).
Yet, because the Jewish Christians then had no distinct
churches of their own, much less any with such distinct seats
for men of rank, or such ºrporozašeščiai, “chief places” as
the Jews had (Matt. xxiii. 6), both in Judea, Alexandria,
and other places (Campeg. Vitringa de Synag. Wet. lib. i.
cap. 9); but rather assembled still in the Jewish synagogues,
where there was a lºt nºn, or house of judgment, where the
head of the synagogue, and the seniors that assisted him,
sat to give judgment on offenders, and where they were
brought before them, and scourged for their offences (Matt.
x. 17. xxiii. 34. Acts xxii. 19. xxvi. 11, see the notes
there), the assembly here mentioned might be a Jewish
Synagogue. Moreover, the Jews, living among the gentiles,
retained still a jurisdiction over men of their own nation and
religion, even as to matrimonial and pecuniary, as well as
religious causes, and so the Jewish Christians might be drawn
before their judgment-seats on those accounts (ver. 6): this
being long after forbidden by a law of Honorius and Theo-
sº (Theod. Cod. 16, tit. 8, leg. 22, vid. not. Gothofr. p.
240).
* Wer. 4. Kai oë 8textišnºrs v Havroſ'; ;] “Do ye not put a
difference or discrimination among yourselves” on those ac-
counts which are alien from the cause 9 That this is the
frequent sense of the word &akgwāzewo, and 8taxfivea Sat, see
Acts xv. 9, where cièv 8téxptys is rendered, “He put no
difference betwixt us and them.” And Jude 22, where we
read thus, “Of some have compassion, 8taxçiyágºyot, making
a difference” (see note on Rom. xiv. 23).
* Kętrai 8taxoylapººy Troyngöy, Judges of evil thoughts.]
i. e. Who pass judgment from your own evil thoughts, as
judging the rich worthy of respect in judgment, for his gor-
geous attire and outward appearance, and the poor fit to be
despised for his outward meanness.
* Ver. 8. Néaoy 8aaixix:y, The royal law.] Not so much
because it is the law of Christ, our king, it being a law of
the Old Testament, as because it is the law which, of all
laws which concern our neighbour, is most excellent, and
love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well (for then ye
not be guilty of this respect of persons; for you would
not be despised, because you are poor, or have a rich
ºnan preferred before you in judgment):
9 But if ye have (such) respect to persons (as to
honour the rich and despise the poor, in judicial causes),
ye commit sin, and are convinced of (or, by) the law
(now mentioned) as transgressors (of God’s law in the
general : this law comprehending all the duties of the
second table ; Rom. xiii. 9. Matt. xxii. 39).
10 For whosoever shallkeep the whole law (in other
matters), and yet (knowingly) offend in one point, he is
guilty of all.
Il For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said
also, Do not kill. . Now if thou commit no adultery,
yet if thou kill, thou art become " a transgressor of
the law (of love, mentioned ver. 8, which comprehends
all the duties of the second table, in which here the apos-
tle instanceth).
12 So (therefore) speak ye, and so do, as they that
(know they) shall be judged "by the law of liberty.
13 "For he shall have judgment without mercy,
who hath shown no mercy (and so hath highly
thwarted the great law of love) ; and mercy rejoiceth
against (or triumpheth over) iudgment, (i. e. enables the
which governs and moderates other laws, especially the
ceremonial and positive laws, which are to give place to
that of charity and mercy. Moreover, the Jews themselves
so interpret this law, as to forbid the contempt of our
brother, as you may see in Dr. Cartwright's Mellificium on
this place.
7 Wer. 11. IIaga Bárn: vá wou. A transgressor of the law.]
Or, because the authority of the lawgiver is as much despised
by the breaking any one of his laws, as by the violation of
them all ; and he that by it will not be restrained from the
violation of it in one point, under the like temptations, will
do it in another.
Note farther, that these words seem to be directly levelled
against that loose doctrine of the Jewish doctors, mentioned
by Dr. Pocock,” “that God gave so many commandments to
them, that by doing any of them they might be saved.” So
Kimchi expounds these words of Hosea, “Takeaway iniquity,
and rip", and receive good;” i. e. saith he, “Receive in
lieu of them any good, myn Tivºx, any commandment that
we have done.” It was a vulgar rule among them, Saith
Dr. Smith," that men should “single out some one com-
mandment of God's law, and therein especially exercise
themselves, that so they might make God their friend by
that, lest in others they should too much displease him.”
And he cites from them this rule, “He that observes any
one precept, it shall be well with him, and his days shall be
prolonged, and he shall possess the earth.” And this pre-
cept was with them usually that of the sabbath, of sacrifices,
or of tithes, for these they looked upon as the great com-
mandments of the law, not those of mercy and judgment,
which in our Saviour's account were so.
8 Wer. 12. Aix véºzov #xsw886ta;, By the law) of liberty.]
By that law of love, which makes all men our neighbours,
and frees us from those restraints which the ceremonial law
and the traditions of the Jewish doctors lay upon them, of
confining their love, and freedom of converse, to those that
were of their own nation, or were circumcised. The Jews
had great need of these instructions; for as they held it un-
lawful to converse with “publicans and sinners” (Luke xv.
1, 2), though it were to instruct them in the way of life: so
much more “to come to, or converse with, one of another
nation” (Acts x. 28): yea, they would not suffer them to
be among them who would not be circumcised (Wid. Joseph.
in Vitā suá, p. 1007, B).
* Ver. 13.] Of this mercy the Jews were so unmindful,
that Josephus' having said, “they violated the laws of na-
ture, and polluted the Divinity with their injustice toward
* In Hosea xiv. 2, p. 774, + P. 354.
f P. 300. § De Bell. Jud. lib, v, cap. 22, p. 886.
CHAPTER II.
94.7

merciful man to rejoice, as being free from the judg-
ment of condemnation from that God, who to the mer-
ciful will show himself merciful, Ps. xviii. 27.
14 And let not any Jew or Christian think his faith
sufficient to justify and save him, without these works of
charity and mercy , for) what doth it profit, my bre-
thren, though a man say he hath faith (in God, ver.
19, or in Christ), and hath not works (to evidence his
jaith) ; can (such a naked, fruitless) faith save him
15 If a brother or a sister be naked, and destitute
of daily food,
16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace,
be you warmed and filled (wishing only that they may
be so), notwithstanding ye give them not those things
which be needful for (the clothing or feeding) the body;
what doth it profit (them to hear your kind wishes)?
17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead
fruitless and lifeless as these words) being alone
(without works showing the truth of it).
... 18 "Yea, a man may say (to such a solifidian),
Thou hast (in thy pretensions) faith, and I have (real)
works: show me thy faith (of which thou boastest)
without thy works (which thou canst never do ; since
faith being seated in the heart can only be discovered by
its effects), and I will show thee my faith by my
works (as the cause is demonstrated by the effect).
19 Thou (being a Jew) believest that there is one
God; thou (in that) doest well, (but doest no more than
the very devils: for) the devils also believe, and
tremble (and if thou hast no better faith than they,
* Gigantes contremiscunt, Targ. in Job xxvi. 4.
men,” he adds, “that no good affection was so entirely lost
among them, &; #x20;, as that of mercy.”
* Ver. 18.] The Greek in most copies runs thus, 85%,
fºot rºy Triatiy a ow #4 ray Épycy cov, Kºyd, 38%0 cot #x rāy Éeywy
fºov riv riotiv (wov, i. e. “Show me thy faith by thy works,
and I will show thee by my works my faith ;” i. e. Show me,
by the proper fruits of it, the faith of which thou boastest,
and I, by the same effects, will show I have that faith also,
though I boast not of it. But it is farther to be observed,
that Éx rāv #yov cou is left out in CEcumenius, and one
Greek copy ; and, (2.) that the Alexandrian MSS. and
those perused by Curcellaeus, read Xagic rāy Epyov cou,
“without thy works:” so did the Vulgar, the Syriac, and the
Ethiopic versions; and so the following words, ver. 20,
“Know, O vain man, that faith, X2:iº Beyov, without works
is dead,” seems to require; and this reading our transla-
tion follows.
* Ver. 21. ‘Aysváyza;, &c. When he offered his son Isaac.]
This being a greater act of faith than that by which he was
at first justified ; for that was only faith in God's promise,
that he would raise up seed from his dead body, and the
dead womb of Sarah (Rom. iv. 20). This was a belief, that
he would raise up this very seed, consumed to ashes, from
the dead ; and therefore by this work was “his faith made
perfect,” i. e. advanced to the greatest height ; there being no
more noble act of faith, than this of the resurrection of the
dead consumed to ashes, and none by which we give more
glory to God (see Ecclus. xliv. 20).
* Ver. 23. 'Exoyiz$n airó el; Sizatoa ºvny, Was accounted to
him for righteousness.] That is, it engaged God to own him
as a truly religious person, or one that did sincerely fear
him, by saying, “Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing
thou hast not withheld thy only son from me” (Gen. xxii.
15); or as one who upon trial had been found faithful: so
Matthias, “Was not Abraham found faithful in temptation,
and that was accounted to him for righteousness 2" (1 Macc.
ii. 52) and also to deal with him as a righteous person, so
as to renew the covenant made with him, and to establish it
with an oath (Gen. xxii. 16–18), and to give him the high
title, not only of his servant, but his friend (2 Chron. xx. 7.
Isa. xli. 8).
* Ver. 25. 'Pax6 # répyn, Rahab the harlot.] That Ra-
hab had a strong faith in God, the apostle testifies, by say-
thou hast the same reason to tremble which they
have).
20 But wilt thou know, O vain man (who boastest
of a faith destitute of works), that faith without works
is dead, (and so unable to justify and save thee P see it
in the ea'ample of that very Abraham, in thy relation
to whom thou so confidest.)
21 (For) was not Abraham (whom we style) our fa-
ther justified by works (proceeding from his faith),
* when he had offered his son Isaac upon the altar,
(counting that God was able to raise him from the dead?
Heb. xi. 17. 19.)
22 Seest thou how (Gr. Thou seest (by this example)
that) faith wrought with his works (to produce them),
and by works was faith made perfect (in him) P
23 And the scripture was (again) fulfilled which
saith, Abraham believed God, and it (viz. that faith
which produced these works) * was imputed to him for
righteousness: and (upon that account) he was called
the Friend of God.
24 Ye see then how that by works (proceeding
from faith) a man is justified, and not by faith only
(alone without them).
25 Likewise also, was not *Rahab the harlot jus-
tified by works (proceeding from her faith) when she
had received the messengers, and had sent them out
another way ? |
26 (And so it must be in all other persons who would
be saved, they must show their faith by their works :)
* for as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith
without works is dead also (and therefore cannot save
us, or give life unto us).
ſº
ing, “By faith Rahab the harlot perished not with those that
believed not, receiving the spies in peace” (Heb. xi. 31);
and this she showed, by saying, “The Lord your God he
is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath” (Josh. ii. 11);
and this she testified, by being so industrious to preserve the
messengers, and to do all things agreed on betwixt them and
her, for her safety.
* Ver. 26.] There have been many ways invented how to
reconcile these words of James with the apostle Paul, as-
serting; that “a man is justified by faith, without the deeds
of the law,” Itom. iii. 28. As,
First, That when Paul saith, “We are justified by faith,
without the works of the law ;” and that “to him that work-
eth not, but believeth, faith is imputed unto him for righte-
ousness” (Rom. iv. 5), or “to justification:” justification,
there ascribed to faith alone, imports only our absolution
from condemnation, by reason of our past offences com-
mitted before faith, and our reconciliation to God, by the
pardon, or not imputing them to believers. It consists,
saith the apostle, “in the remission of sins that are past,”
Rom. iii. 25. It is, saith Peter, “the purgation of us from
our old sins,” 2 Pet. i. 9. It is effected by the death of
Christ, procuring “redemption for sins committed under the
old covenant” (Heb. ix. 15). This is apparent from the
chief argument the apostle useth to prove the necessity, that
both Jew and gentile should be justified freely by his grace,
and not by the works of the law ; because they were “all
under sin,” all become “guilty before God,” all having
“sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. iii. 9.
xix. 23). Whereas, saith he, “being justified by faith, we
have peace with God, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God”
(Rom.v. 1, 2); therefore, chapter the third, he must be speak-
ing of the condition of Jew and gentile before faith. So again,
when the apostle saith, “The scripture hath concluded all
under sin, that the promise (of justification) by (the) faith
of Jesus Christ, might be given to them that believe (in
him),” Gal. iii. 22–24; “Wherefore the law was (then)
our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that we might be jus-
tified by faith (in him);” ver, 25, “But now, after that
faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster (i. e.
under the pedagogy of the law),” ver, 26, “For ye are all
the children of God, through faith in Christ Jesus ;” he
plainly insinuates, that we cannot be justified by º Works
3 P 2
948
JAMES,
of the law ; because the law leads us to Christ for justifica-
tion, and ceaseth, now the way of justification by faith in
Christ is made known. And again, “We are justified by
grace, not of works: for we are his workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus to good works” (Eph. ii. 8–10): where the
argument seems plainly to run thus ; We cannot be justified
by works preceding faith, because we do no good works,
till by faith we are interested in Christ Jesus: whereas
James speaks plainly of those works which follow faith, are
wrought by it, and are the fruits of it, and of their necessity,
in order to our continuance in a state of justification and
freedom from our final condemnation.
Secondly, That Paul excludes from justification, only
those works which are opposed to justification by an act of
grace, and make it to be of debt, and so give occasion to our
glorying in our being righteous in the sight of God, purely
by reason of our works, as in these words, “If it be of
grace, it is no more of works, otherwise grace is no more
grace; but if it be of works, then it is no more of grace,
otherwise work is no more work” (Rom. xi. 6). And
again, “To him that worketh, the reward is reckoned, not
of grace, but of debt; but to him that worketh not, but be-
lieveth, faith is accounted unto him for righteousness”
(Rom. iv. 4, 5). And again, “Where then is glorying? it
is excluded. By what law 2 by that of works? No; but by
the law of faith” (Rom. iii. 27). Whereas James requires
only those works to our salvation, and our continuance in a
state of justification, which proceed from, and are accepted
through grace, and so can never render our justification of
debt, or give us a just ground of boasting.
Thirdly, That Paul is arguing against the Jews, who
sought for justification by virtue of the law of Moses, and
sought it not by faith (Rom. ix. 32), nor ever conceived that
sufficient for that end, declaring against that way of justifi-
cation, because it would confine the blessing of Abraham to
the circumcision only (Rom. iv. 9), and because the law of
Moses was four hundred and thirty years after the promise
made to Abraham; speaking of that law which said, “Do
this, and live” (Gal. iii. 17); which was “our schoolmaster,
to bring us to Christ,” and which was then to cease, as to
the obligation of it: whereas James speaks of justification
by works performed under the covenant of grace, and as
conditions even of that new covenant. Now I except not
against any of these ways of reconciling these two apostles
in their discourse upon this subject; but then I also think
we may add this other to them.
Fourthly, That Paul plainly speaks to Christians only,
concerning their justification from their past offences by
faith in the blood of Jesus; but James speaks as well to the
unbelieving as believing Jews, touching faith in God, such
as Abraham had when he believed God’s promise (ver. 23),
and such as Rahab the harlot had (ver. 25), saying, “Thou
believest there is one God” (ver. 19), without the least men-
tion of faith in Christ; and who, perhaps, thought it suffi-
cient to keep them in the favour of God, and render them
his friends, that they had cast off all idolatry, and owned
the true God ; proving this not to be sufficient to procure
the divine favour, unless by the obedience of their lives
they glorified him as God, since otherwise they only did in
| words profess to own him, but in works deny him, being
disobedient.
CHAPTER III.
1 MY brethren, "be not many masters (i. e. Suðdo-
| great (in bulk), and are driven with fierce winds, yet
raxo, teachers of the law), knowing that (thereby we are they turned about with a very small helm, whither.
shall receive the greater condemnation (for our offences soever the governor (or pilot of the ship) listeth.
against that law we teach to others.
2 And this we ought the rather to beware of:) for
in manythings we offend all (against the law, and more
especially in that member that we employ in teaching of
others: for) if any man offend not in word, the same
is “a perfect man, and able also to bridle (curb and
direct the motions of) the whole body.
3 (I use the metaphor of a bridle as apposite in this
case ; for) behold, we put bits (or bridles) in the
horses' mouths, that they may obey us, and (with
those bits) we turn about their whole bodies, (even so,
if we by any means can bridle, and thereby govern the
tongue, by the like means we may govern the whole
*man.) .
4 Behold also the ships, which though they be so
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III.
* Ver 1. Mº Troxxoi 384-xaxoi yivsass, Be not "many teach-
eſs.] The Jews had, not only in Judea, but in their several
dispersions, their tºnin, or “doctors of the law,” who being
created doctors, masters, or rabbins, by imposition of hands,
were authorized to teach the law to others. This office the
Jews much affected, Šixoyrs; sival voºdoštěčaxaxoi, “affecting
to be teachers of the law” (1 Tim. i. 7), and being confi.
dent of their abilities to be “guides to the blind, a fight to
them that sat in darkness, instructors of the foolish, and,
3.34akaAoi whºrlov, teachers of babes” (Rom. ii. 19, 20). And
such especially were the zealots among them. Whence
Eleazar * the chief of them saith, “They had especial rea-
§on to expect a share in the divine favour, as being blame-
less as to the observation of the law, and also teachers of it
to others.” This affectation of that office, the apostle here
* “Gºrse ávagáern roi ºrgā; rôy Osy yeyáaevol, was &m?gºtá;
****Xºvºsº, of agi rows fºov; 3.84%akºv. Apud J oseph. de
Bello Jud. lib, vii, cap. 34, p. 990, Č.
| 5 Even so (is it with) the tongue (as with this bit
and helm ; it) is a little member, * and boasteth great
things, (kai uéya\avyst, but it mightily eaſalts itself by
its great performances.) Behold, how great a matter
(how much wood) a little fire kindleth !
6 “And the tongue is (as) a fire, a world of ini-
quity (is kindled by it); so is the tongue amongst our
members (as fire among wood), that it defileth (Gr.
spotting or blackening) the whole body, and setteth
(Gr. inflaming or setting) on fire the course of nature
(or the succession of men in the world) ; and it is set
on fire of hell, (Gr. being set on fire by hell.
7 And it resembles fire in this also, that when it hath
once got the mastery it cannot easily be subdued and
eatinguished ; ) for every kind of beasts, and of birds,
warns them to avoid, as that which would expose then to
greater condemnation, for their offences against that law
they taught to others, and so confessed they knew them-
selves.
* Ver. 2. TéAsso; &yºp, A perfect man, Is a person fully
instructed in his duty (see note on 1 Cor. ii. 6).
* Ver. 5. Kał pasyaxauxº, And boasteth great things.] This
word signifies not only to vaunt of, but also to do great
things; ºftya Aa $gyáćeral tax& wai xazà, “It works great
good and evil,” saith CEcumenius : Magnificatrix est, “It is
a doer of great things,” so Faber; it answers to the Hebrew
yºy, which signifies to be valid, and move itself violently, to
be haughty, and exalt itself (Ps. ix. 19. Ezek. xvi. 50. Zeph.
iii. 11. Ecclus. xlviii. 18). And this signification, both the
text, and the resemblance of the tongue to fire, seem plainly
(to require see Examen Millii). *
* Ver. 6. ‘H yazova ºrie, The tongue is a fire.] The com-
parison of the tongue to fire, first blackening, and then
wasting the whole world (or wood), is taken from the
scripture, and from the sayings of the Hebrew doctors:
“The froward man bringeth destruction, in his mouth there
is a burning fire,” Prov. xvi. 27. And yer. 28, Aaºzºrriga
CHAPTER III
949
and of serpents, and things in the sea, is tamed, and
hath been tamed "by mankind:
8 But the tongue (of others) can no man tame; it
is an unruly evil, (and, like the serpents, mentioned
ver. 7,) full of deadly poison.
9 Therewith bless we God, even the Father (of us
all) ; and therewith “curse we men, which are made
* after the similitude of God (and upon that account
are to be reverenced by us). b
10 Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and
cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to
be : (for)
11 Doth a fountain send forth at the same place
sweet water and bitter?
12 Can the fig-tree, my brethren, bear olive-berries,
or a vine, figs (surely no : even) so no fountain can
both yield salt water and fresh (and if nature pro-
duceth no such contrary fruits, much less should grace
produce things so extremely opposite as our blessing and |
cursing).
13 Who (then) is “a wise man and endued with
knowledge among you (to which you are great pre-
tenders), let him show out of a good conversation his
works with meekness of wisdom (or the works of wis-
dom with meekness ; i.e. let him, by his charity and
33xov ºrvpasſet xanoſ, “He kindles a firebrand of deceit to the
wicked.” “As the matter of fire, xará rày tany ºrvpd, ac-
cording to the wood of the fire, so it burneth ; and the
stronger they are that contend, the more they will be in-
flamed,” Ecclus. xxviii. 10. “A hasty contention kindleth
a fire, the fire burning kindles great heaps,” saith Ben Syra;
which is thus explained, “As a little fire consumes great
heaps of wood, so nothing more wastes the World than an
evil tongue.”
Note, Secondly, If the original was as our translation
hath it, “A world of iniquity,” something must be added to
it to make the sense complete, as I have done in the para-
phrase, or as the Ethiopic, “A world of iniquity is contained
in it.” But the Syriac reads thus, “And the wicked world
is as the wood ;” and this makes both the Sense and the
similitude run clear.
* Ver. 7. Tº párai rā āySgorrivn, By mankind, Is the He-
brew phrase for man, as āv$gotriyn xt{zig is “a man,” 1 Pet.
ii. 13. ->
* Ver. 9. Karagºześa, Curse we men.] This the unbe-
lieving Jews did towards the Christians, cursing and ana-
thematizing them in their synagogues; as Justin Martyr”
often testifieth to the face of Trypho the Jew.
7 KaS’ jºcotoaw Ogoj, After the similitude of God..] From
this ninth verse it appears, that man lost not the image of
God by the fall, and thence it is probable that it consists not
primarily in holiness, but in dominion (Gen. i. 26).
* Ver, 13. 'Earlorrhºov #y hºv, A wise man among you...]
..That the Jews were great pretenders to knowledge, see Rom.
ii. 18. That they gloried in the title of Dºorſ or “wise
men,” see note on 1 Cor. i. 20. iii. 18. Hence their divines
are still nnnn non, “wise men as to the truth,” saith
Buxtorf.
9 Wer. 14. Zºoy trixpy wai śpišstay, Bitter envy and strife.]
The unbelieving Jews are represented still as of #% #SBiaº,
“men of contention, who obeyed not the truth” (Rom. ii.
8): men who were filled with bitter zeal against the preach-
ers of the gospel (Acts xiii. 45. xvii. 5), and very “mad
against them.” And some of them who owned the gospel,
did yet preach Christ, # #e3eias, “out of contention,” and
envy against Paul (Phil. i. 15), and the effects of their dis.
putes were, saith the apostle, pšávo, Kai gº, “envy and strife”
i Tim. vi. 4, #sic wał záxa woºtzai, “contentions and fight-
ings about the law:” and where they were mixed with the
converted gentiles, we find especial cautions against strife
and enry, as at Rome, Rom. xiii. 13; against “provoking
- gº * - * 2 \
* Karagºpaevol #y raï, a vyayoya'ſ; ūgāy row; widºredoytaç ºr.
- * - - tº º an 3.
tºy Xeta rāy. Dial. cum Tryph. p. 234, B. Aircº tº #4 ºvov,
wai rāv tic insivoy aria revévroy Katapāa śE. P. 323, B: see p.
335, J.). p. 363, C.
* towards his brethren, show forth his wis-
0m).
14 But if ye have "bitter envying and strife in your
hearts, glory not (of your wisdom) and lie not against
the truth (in pretending to be wise as to it).
15 This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is
earthly (from the love of earthly things), sensual,
(proceeding from the lust of the flesh, among which
strife and envy are reckoned, Gal. v. 20,) devilish,
(coming from Satan, the promoter of strife and envy,
and from pride and ambition, by which he fell, 1 Tim.
iii. 6.)
16 For where envying and strife is (as the root),
there is "confusion and every evil work (as the
fruit).
17 But the wisdom which is from above is first pure
(from sensuality and earthly-mindedness, ver. 15),
then peaceable, (and) gentle (in opposition to conten-
tion, ver. 14), easy to be entreated (or persuaded, in
opposition to the inflewibility of the Jews), *full of
mercy and good fruits, (wanting in them, ver. 13,)
* without partiality, and * without hypocrisy (of which
things the Jews were highly guilty).
18 And the “the fruit of righteousness is sown
in peace of (for, or to) them that make peace.
one another, and envying one another,” Gal. v. 26 ; against
doing things “ through strife and vain glory,” Phil. ii. 3, or
complaints of the abounding of these vices, 1 Cor. i. 11. iii.
3, see especially, 2 Cor. xii. 20. -
* Ver. 16. ’Akarazºracia, Confusion.]. i. e. Tumult, sedi-
tion, and disturbance of peace and order ; for contention
naturally tends to fighting, and envy to the destruction of
him we hate. ©Soveters wai KnAoûre, “Ye are envious and zea-
lous against one another,” iv. 2; and then it follows, wäxicºe
ital froxfºre, “Ye fight and war.”
* Ver. 17. Meari, Aéovº, Full of mercy.] Which, saith Jo-
sephus,” “ of all good passions, was most of all lost among
the Jews.”
* 'Abiángiros, Without partiality.] Or, as the word sig.
nifies, without putting a difference betwixt men of their own
and other nations, as the Jews did, accounting all other na-
tions dogs, unclean, not fit to be conversed with , and deal-
ing with them accordingly, for as Tacitus + hath observed of
them, Apud ipsos fides obstinata, misericordia in promptſ,
adversis omnes alios hostile odium ; i. e. “They would be
merciful to men of their own religion and country, but hated
all mankind besides:” confining brotherly love to men of
their own nation, as we learn from our Saviour's parable of
the good Samaritan. When they broke into sects and
parties, they had the same hatred to those of their own na-
tion who would not think and do as they did. The zealots,
and those that were for war, set themselves against, and even
threatened death to them who were for peace, looking upon
them as no better than heathens, saith Josephus: whereas
true Christian wisdom requires us to live peaceably with,
and to do good to all.
* 'Avviróxpirog, And without hypocrisy.] For which our Sa-
viour so severely inveighs against the scribes and pharisees,
the leaders of the Jews.
* Wer. 18. Kafºrd; rā; 3izatoo-ſync, The fruit of righteous-
mess, i. e. The reward of the righteousness to them, who
make it their business to live peaceably themselves, and in-
cline others to it, is here sown happily and quietly, by the
preachers of the gospel of peace declaring it to the world,
and shall hereafter assuredly be reaped by them. Or thus,
These fruits of righteousness, now sown by the Christian
endued with this heavenly wisdom, will yield a plentiful and
happy crop to them who are promoters of peace.
* obšây otroc &rox&Xs, Xenary ará62; #y taſ, téré avºpogaſc
&c ºxsoc. De Bell. Jud. lib. iv. cap. 22, p. 885, G.
+ Hist. lib. v. ed. Lips. p. 616.
j: "Hy 33 rày gºvtov roſ Trox#zov Téâ; row: #wiévºwcôyra; rºc
siężyn, āeº XaXerº. De Bell. Jud. lib, iv, cap. 10, p. 871.
Wid, p. 797, C, D.
950
CHAPTER IV.
1 FROM "whence come wars and fightings among
you (Jews) 8 come they not hence, even of your lusts
(or pleasures) that war in your members (against the
soul? 1 Pet. ii. 11.)
2 * Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to
have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye
have not, because ye ask not.
3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss,
that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that
* the friendship of the world (which stands in compe-
tition with, and indisposeth you to believe and obey
God’s will) is enmity with God (and so idolatry, which
in the language of scripture is adultery)* whosoever
therefore will be (thus) a friend of the world is the
enemy of God (having renounced him to have mainmon
for his Lord, Matt. vi. 24).
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. Iv.
1 Wer. 1. II:0sy tréasºol ; Whence come wars ?] This
epistle seems to have been writ about the eighth year of
Nero, and the sixty-second of Christ, the year before the
death of James; before which time the Jews had great wars
and fightings, not only with their neighbours (see note on
Matt. xxiv. 6), but even among themselves in every city
and family, saith Josephus ;” not only in Judea, but in
Alexandria, Syria, and many other places (see the preface,
§. 5, 6).
2 º 2. 'Entóvºrs, &c. Ye lust, &c.] For explication of
these words we are to note, that the Jews were then vehe-
mently lusting after two things:
First, Liberty and freedom from tribute ; which was, say
they, the token of subjection. Josephus saith, + they were
“continually clamouring to have the tributes took away,”
and that upon this very account; and # that “the zealots,
the band of thieves, and their magicians, were still pressing
the people to fight for their liberty from the Roman yoke.”
Secondly, Dominion over other nations ; for having got
this fancy into their heads, that their Messiahş was to be a
temporal prince, who should enable them to lord it over the
heathens, they were zealous to have these pretended pro-
phecies accomplished ; and || “the hopes of it encouraged
them to fight.” Whence we may paraphrase on these two
verses thus ; “Ye lust (for liberty and dominion), and ye
have it not ; ye (in pursuit and desire of them) kill, and
{yet) ye cannot obtain (them), because ye ask not (whe-
ther that be according to the will of God which ye so greedily
desire). Ye ask these things, and receive them not, be-
cause ye ask amiss, that ye may consume them upon your
lusts ; (viz. that having this liberty and empire, ye may pos-
sess the good things of this world ye lust after, and may lord
it over the heathem world.)”
* Ver. 4. Qixia toû Aérºov, #xSpa toû 98% tary, The friend-
* Exivetro y Éxázrn ºrósi ragax}, xa, Tráñsºo; #24.6xio; 3roy
ºrs 373 "Popcatov čvár, Egy, si; &AA#Aov; Tā; XEiga; 37%arpe pov
wai arāz; ºfty y Travraxoſ. De Bell. Jud. lib. iv. Cap.
10, p. 871. Wide Reliqua.
+ 'Avalasſy Tà ršam. De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 1. Thy re
ăzorianow obºv &xxo # 3yrikºv; 3ovasiay impétely Atycvre.
Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 1. Wide de Bello Jud.
# of 73: yárs. 42. Anzºrgixo; a uvaxšávre; troAAoûc eig &wā-
ataa'iy Éväyov, xai ºrpès #NEv6Epiav trapezgórov, Šávarovázurikºv’re;
Toſº aſsifleexotic rā ‘Poºzaiov #yepaoviz. Lib. ii. cap. 23, p.
797, C. -
3. $’orºiyay, wai 8vyácarny, wał Trázn; tº; yºr, wai Trávray rºy
#Syâv, xal at parotrážov xúztáv party of Trpoºral gival ºry #wièn-
£zharavra. * Jud. apud. Orig, contra Cels, lib. ii. p. 78.
y | Tº 3: ináenz airº, gáAizºa tº rêvºrósgow, ºy Xenow};
&ºp;80xo~ āºcoſo. #y roi; iegº; Etºnºvo, ye&ºp.ac.iv, &; ºr: ry
xaſgºw #2.Évoy 37% tº x&ge; tıç attày &gºsi rā; otzovºyne.
Joseph. de Bell. Jud. lib. vii. cap. 31, p. 961, F. Wide lib.
i. p. 705, D. Tryph. apud. Just p. 243.
5 * Do you think that the scripture saith (Gr.
speaks) in vain (against this worldly-mindedness), The
spirit that dwelleth in us (Christians) lusteth (he) to
envy (as yours doth 8 ver. 2. Is he not rather the Spi-
rit of love and goodness, engaging us to love all men,
and especially our Christian brethren P 1 Pet. i. 22.)
6 But (so far is he from this envy, that where he
dwells) "he giveth more grace (or favour); wherefore
he (or it, the scripture) saith, God resisteth the proud,
but giveth grace (or showeth favour) to the humble
(Prov. iii. 34).
7 (Be ye then humble, and) submit yourselves there-
fore to (that) God (who giveth grace to the humble).
Resist the devil, (the author of those wars, envyings,
and lustings which are among you,) and (then) he will
fly from you.
8 *Draw nigh to God (by prayer, humiliation, re-
| ship of this world is enmity to God..] This, one mentioned
here by GEcumenius explains thus ; Kárºoy Évratºa. Trāa'av
Thy Wixºy &Toxaxeſ, “He here styles the whole sensual life,
the world, &; ºnzága rāg $60636, § 6 pºstagxeſ, a reſºov čxi-
yºgo; #xei rāv Beiov, kai in egorrixás, as being the mother of
corruption, which he that is hasty to enjoy overlooks and
despiseth divine things.” (See the text defended here, Ex-
amen Millii.)
* Ver., 5. "H 3oxeirs &rt xevåg i yeaçã Aéyet ; Or do ye
think that the scripture saith in vain 3 &c.] They who make
this whole verse one sentence, are obliged to show where the
scripture hath these words, “The spirit that dwelleth in us
lusteth to envy ;” which no interpreter hath yet successfully
attempted. But in this exposition given in the paraphrase,
which makes the whole to consist of two questions, this is
needless. Now in favour of this exposition, let it be noted,
First, That nothing is more ordinary than for particles
to be repeated from the precedent member. So Ps. ix. 19,
“The needy shall not always be forgotten, the expectation
of the poor shall (not) perish for ever” (see Ps, xxxviii. 1.
xliv. 19. 1 Sam. ii. 3. Job xxx. 25. xxxi. 20. Prov. xxv. 27.
xxx. 3). So Ex, if, Ps. cxxxix. 8. Prov. vi. 1. ix. 12 (see
Glassius de Ellipsi Partic. lib. iv. tr. 2, observ. 10, p. 721).
So here the particle à may be repeated thus, “Or, doth the
spirit that is in you lust to envy P" though the sense be full
only by reading the words by way of interrogation. Note,
Secondly, That “not to speak in vain,” is not to do it
without cause or just reason, as Ezek. vi. 10. And God, or
the Scripture, is said to “speak in vain” to them who at-
tend not to, or receive no benefit by, his words, Jer. viii. 8.
So then the sense runs thus, Doth the scripture speak with-
out cause against this worldly-mindedness 2 Would it not
have you attend to, and receive advantage by, what it saith
against it 2
* Ver. 6. Msićoya 33 818wai xáely, But he giveth more
grace.] That in and x&gt; throughout the scripture signifies
favour, and good will, see note on 2 Cor. vi. 1. And this
sense the opposition here requires; God being displeased
with, and opposing himself to, the proud, but showing fa-
vour to the humble, and causing them to find favour among
men (Prov. iii. 34). What Mons. Le Clerc here saith,
“That in those times the Jews used to produce, as out of
scripture, not only the sense of places without regarding the
words, but also a Jewish tradition, or interpretation of
scripture, and so we are not to look for what is here said, in
the Old Testament,” is intolerable: for is it fit to make an
apostle, giving us those scriptures which are to be our rule
of faith, speak thus, Do you think the scripture speaks in
vain, what it speaks not at all? and to call a Jewish tra-
dition the scripture ? -
"...Ver, 8. 'Eyyirats tº Osº, Draw migh to God..] The way
of drawing nigh to God being now, under the gospel dispen-
sation, through faith in Christ, and in his blood shed for the
Propitiation of our sins, we being “made nigh to him through
the blood of Christ” (Eph. ii. 13), and through the intro-
' duction of that better hope, by which #yyi£opa sy tº QEg, “we
CHAPTER IV.
951
pentance, and obedience), and he will draw migh to you
(in mercy). "Cleanse your hands (from rapine and
injustice), ye sinners: and purify your hearts (from
the love of the world), ye double-minded (whose hearts
are divided betwixt God and mammon).
9 Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your
laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to
* heaviness.
10 Humble yourselves (therefore) in the sight of
the Lord (and under his mighty hand that is upon you,
1 Pet. v. 6), and he shall lift you up (that he may ea-
alt you, v Kaipú, in that season of his visitation, as he
did then his faithful servants, by a wonderful deli-
verance, according to his promise, see note on Matt.
xxiv. 31).
11 *Speak not evil one of (or against) another,
brethren. He that speaketh evil of (or against) his
brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the
law, and "judgeth the law (or speaketh against the
law, as being evil or imperfect, in that it doth not com-
mand or condemn those things which thou dost com-
ºmand or condemn): but if thou (take upon thee to)
judge the law, thou art not (in thy behaviour as) a
doer of the law, but a judge (of it.
draw nigh to God” (Heb. vii. 19); it being Christ alone by
whom we have an introduction to the Father through faith
in him (Eph. ii. 18. iii. 12); and who “ hath suffered for us,
that he might bring us to God’ (1 Pet. iii. 18): this may
be looked on as an exhortation to the épcaptaxoi, the wºn-
believing Jews, to believe in Christ, and to the 3i Juxoi, the
wavering Jews (see note on i. 8), to cleave stedfastly to the
faith.
* KaSagia are Xstpac, Cleanse your hands.] That the hands
of the Jews, and especially of the zealots among them, were
“full of blood and rapine,” we learn from Josephus,” who
makes very often sad complaints of the murders and rapines
committed by them (see v. 4. 6); and so this exhortation
must be very properly directed to them. True also is the
note of Esthius here, Porró si jubentur homines emundare
manus, et purificare corda, nec jubetur quid impossibile:
consequens est eos posse haec praestare.
. . * Ver. 9. Eig zará pátov, Into heaviness.] For now the day
of vengeance upon the unbelieving and backsliding Jews
approacheth (Luke xxi. 22). Now the coming of the Lord
to execute vengeance on them draweth near (v. 8), when
& £ * shall come upon them to the uttermost” (2 Thess.
ii. 16).
* Ver, 11. Mā karaxaxeſºre, Speak not evil.] For explica-
tion of these words, let it be noted, that the great exception
which both the unbelieving Jews and the Judaizing Chris-
tians among them had against the believing gentiles, was
this, that f “they observed not their feasts or sabbaths, and
that they were not circumcised,” whence they concluded
they differed little from the heathens. This was the thing
for which the Christian fathers t did contend against them;
viz. that the ancient patriarchs of old were acceptable to
God, and consequently the Christians, and especially the
converted gentiles, might be acceptable to God without the
observation of these feasts and sabbaths, or of circumcision.
Hence the apostle is so concerned that they should not
judge one another “on the account of days or meats” (Rom.
* TI680 88 horay &pirayā; #varxfigoroi, zai Tây Tàovatoy of toy
#pewa, póvo; rs &věpáv wai yuvaikºv tºpsi; #waićovºro, ºxe6' aſ Aaro;
83 tº avanśvra karátrivoy, &c. De Bell. Jud. lib. v. cap. 34,
p. 897, C.
‘F 'Exetvo 33 &topoiſºv (, áAtara, ei bºxeſ, Eğrefleſ, Aéyovreć,
wał roy &AAoy oiéºwevot 8ta påpew, war' oběšw airów &moxetired 98,
otöä 8taxNágoers &nd rôy #6vöy roy tº Érspov 8toy, #y rā ºchre rà,
#ogrä; ºre ra a 433a'ra angeſv, *.hts Tºv regitopºv #xely.
Tryph. apud Just. p. 227.
: II:3 roi; 'A322&p, oùk ºy Xpeſa reptºroºzåg, où33 ºrpo Mošováo;
a'a?8aricºcu Kai £oprāy wai Trgoo pogºv. Just. M. p. 240, D.
241, B. 245, J3, Iren, lib. iv, cap, 30. Tertul. adv. Jud.
cap. 2. -
12. Whereas indeed) there is (oilly) one lawgiver,
who is able to save and to destroy: who (therefore)
art thou that judgest another ?
13 Go to now, ye that (presume to) say, To-day, or
to-morrow we will go into such a city, and continue
there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain (as if both
life and the advantages of life depended wholly on
| yourselves, and not at all on divine providence):
14 Whereas ye (who speak with such confidence of
the future) know not what shall be on the morrow.
For what is your life : it is even (as) a vapour, that
appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
15 (Thus ye are wont to speak :) for that (Gr.
whereas) ye ought to say, "If the Lord will, we shall
live, and do this, or that.
16 ° But now ye rejoice in your boastings (of the
future): all such rejoicing is evil, (as being an assum-
ing to yourselves what belongs to God only, and so an
evidence that you do not subject your own will to the
will of God: for since this life is so short and uncer-
tain, and thereby teaches you to think humbly, and speak
modestly, and with due dependence on the divine provi-
dence, with respect both to your lives and future ac-
tions : you by thus pleasing yourselves in these vain
xiv. 4. 6). Hence he inveighs against the Galatians, as be-
ing brought in bondage by the Judaizers, to the observation
of circumcision (v. 5), and of “days, months, times, and
years” (iv. 10); and warns his Colossians not to be induced
to follow those rudiments of the world, as being circumcised
in Christ (Col. ii. 11); and saith “Let no man judge you
in respect of feasts, or new moons, or of the sabbaths” (ver.
16): so that the argument of the apostle here seems to run
thus, Let no man speak against his Christian brethren the
gentiles, for not observing these things; for the law itself
requiring these things, not of the gentiles that even dwelt
among them, but only of the Jews, he that speaks against
them, and judgeth them for the non-observation of these
things, he in effect speaks against and judgeth that law as
deficient, which required not these things. And thou who
takest upon thee to say they cannot be saved (Acts xv. 1),
and so judgest them to destruction, without the observation of
them, thou even takest upon thee the office of the great
Lawgiver, who alone is able to save and to destroy, and who
by not requiring those things of the gentiles, shows he will
save them without them, and not destroy them for neglect of
them. So the Targum on Ezek. xiii. 18 brings in God
speaking to the false prophets thus, “Can you kill or make
alive the souls of my people 2" Others indeed refer this to
the law of Christian love, but that is still styled “the law of
Christ,” Gal. vi. 2, or “the law of liberty,” ii. 12; but never
absolutely “the law,” as here ; and therefore I prefer the
former interpretation. *
19 Keiysi Vázov, Judgeth the law.] That is, saith CEcumenius,
waraxeist, zaraqºoyſ, “he condemns and despiseth the law,
forbidding him to condemn and to speak evil of his brother,
and so will not be a doer of it, où yáp tº xaraqpová, 7&6
&vášeral in airy grº &#y; for how will a man be induced to
live by that law which he despiseth P’’ -
in Wer. 15. 'Eaw & Kögto: SEAhan, If the Lord will.] It was
a rule of Ben Syra (Buxt. Flor. p. 4), “Let no man, say
he will do anything, unless he first say, lt the Lord will:”
who also adds, that “one died before night, for refusing to
add this.” And when Alcibiades had said to Socrates, “I
will do so, if you will,” Socrates" tells him he ought to have
said, #4, 5 Oei Sáxh, “If God will.” Not that we are ob-
liged always to say thus (Rom. xv.28), but only still to own
our dependence on divine providence (ver. 17). Fºrt.”,
“To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, it is
sin:” so Menander saith, sinSix wo: paiyāral 3ºxovºwn ºrd vosſy
asy %a 3:1, gº tvNárreg Sat 3’ & 88ſ, “It is manifest folly
to know what we ought to do, and not to do it” (Apud.
Stob. serm. 4, p. 53).
12 Wer. 16. Něy 33 kavyāoše v Taſ; &Azºwysiaſ; tºy' ºrºza
* I']at. Alcib. 1, in fine.
*** **-
952
JAMES.
boastings, and talking as if you were immortal, and in-
dependent upon providence, are guilty of an evil ea'alta-
tion, and vain boasting.)
17 Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and
doeth it not, to him it is sin. (If after my admonition
to avoid this and other crimes, you continue in them,
ye will be inexcusably guilty of sin, John xv. 22, and the
xaſy naic, &c.] These words I would render thus, “But now
ye vaunt yourselves in your boastings; all such vaunting is
guilt of it will abide upon you, John ix. 41, as it will
also in all other things done against knowledge, and
the convictions of your conscience : for in such things
the heart departs from and rebels against the Lord;
he that thus sins, despiseth the word of the Lord,
and reproacheth him that spake it, Numb. xv. 30,
31.)
evil :” i. e. Ye boast how much ye will gain, and then what
brave men ye will be.
CHAPTER V.
1 * Go to now, ye rich men (of the Jewish nation,
ge will have cause to)'weep and howl for the miseries
that shall come (Gr. are coming) upon you.
2 Your riches are corrupted (or, are as things putre-
jied by being kept too long), and your garments (are
become) moth-eaten (they being laid up in your ward-
Tobes, and not used to clothe your naked brother, shall
be as useless to you as if they were devoured by the
noth).
3 Your gold and silver is cankered (or eaten out
with rust) ; and the rust of them shall be a witness
against you (of your covetous and worldly minds),
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. W.
* Ver. 1. "Aye vºy, Go to now.] This is only a form of
transition (iv. 13), and converting of speech to any person;
as if he should have said, And now to speak to you that
are rich, I call upon you to weep, &c.
That this prediction was exactly fulfilled by the slaughter
and spoiling of the rich Jews throughout Galilee and Judea,
Josephusk will not suffer us to doubt: for he informs us,
that “the zealots spared none but those who were rarelyo.
8:3 ruxy, poor and low in fortune;” and that they were so
insatiably rapacious, that they searched all the houses of the
rich, killing the men, and abusing the women : and that it
also was fulfilled touching those of the dispersion, see the
preface, Ş. 5, 6.
* Ver. 3. It shall eat your flesh as fire, #y #axárat; hºwā-
patº, in the last days.] As the rust eats into the gold and
silver, so shall your flesh and substance be eaten up as with
fire, as if you had treasured up fire in the midst of it. For,
First, This is a frequent metaphor among the prophets,
who often speak of the fire eating up the wicked, and de-
vouring their flesh; “Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven
in the time of thy wrath, Kai kara páystal airob; Trüe, and
the fire shall eat them up,” Ps. xxi. 9; “The light of Israel
shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame, and it shall
burn, xai páystal, and eat up his thorns and briers in one
day, xa, xata páyeral &Trô juxā; #wº gaºkºv, and it shall eat
up from the soul to the flesh,” Isa. x. 16, 17; Triº roi; Évay-
‘riov; #887 at, “The fire shall eat up the adversaries,” xxvii.
11 : “Behold, the name of the Lord cometh forth from far,
burning with anger, Kai # 56); roš Svºoß & Trúg #8Eval, and
the anger of his fury shall eat as the fire,” xxx. 11; “Be-
hold, I will make my word in thy mouth fire, and this peo-
ple wood, Kai kara páygrai airovº, and it shall eat them up,”
Jer. v. 14; “They .# go out from one fire, zai Trip abroö;
xata páyerat, and another fire shall eat them up,” Ezek. xv.
7; “I will bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, and the
fire, xata páygrai re, shall eat thee up,” see Amos v. 6.
Secondly, This was punctually fulfilled in the destruction
of that nation by their own seditions and the Roman wars:
for, amongst the sicarii and the zealots, the ringleaders of all
their seditions, it was a crime enough to be rich; and their
insatiable avarice induced them still to make, tàw traovatov
of toy #sway, “a search into the houses of the rich.” For
them to remain among these tyrants was destruction; “for
by false accusations they were slain as deserters,”: for their
* De Bell, Jud, lib.w.. cap. 20, 34, lib. iv. cap. 19.
# Tot; ye pºly girégoi;, xai Tô (wévery rº, &rd Ngay froy ſº
*and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have
heaped treasure together for the last days (Gr. It
shall eat your flesh as fire, ye have treasured it up for
the last days).
4 Behold, the “hire of the labourers which have
reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back
by fraud, crieth : and the cries of them that have
reaped (and are thus defrauded of their wages by you)
are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.
5 *Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and
been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in
(or for) “a day of slaughter.
substance. Yea, both their substance and their flesh were
devoured by the flames,” which burnt up the city and the
temple, “and so consumed both their dead bodies, and their
substance, and their wardrobes;” and that which remained
became a prey to the army of the Romans. See the like
done in their dispersions, preface, Š. 6.
* Ver 4. ‘o ºta Séc, The hire.] The precept in the law
touching this matter running thus, “Thou shalt not defraud
thy neighbour—the wages of him that is hired shall not abide
with thee all night until the morning,” Lev. xix. 13, this
keeping of it back is truly styled fraud and oppression; and
all sins of that mature cry to heaven for vengeance on the
fraudulent oppressor. So “the cry” of the Israelites under
their oppression in the land of Egypt, “came up” to God,
Exod. ii. 23. iii. 7; “The cry of the afflicted widow and the
fatherless,” Exod. xxii. 27; “The cry of the poor and the
afflicted,” Job xxxiv. 28. Ps. ix. 12; “The cry of him that
wants his pledge to cover him,” Exod. xxii. 27; and the
cry of him whose wages is kept back. “Thou shalt not op-
press a hired servant that is poor and needy; at his day thou
shalt give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon
it—lest he cry against thee to the Lord, and it be a sin unto
thee,” Deut. xxiv. 14, 15.
* Ver. 5. 'Erev pha-are kai ÉcºrataAhzare, Ye have lived in
pleasure, and been wanton.] The first word, Brévºſia are, say
critics, refers to their luxurious eating; the second, #77rata-
Whaars, to their carnal lustings and lasciviousness (1 Tim. v.
6. Ezek. xvi. 49), both which were vices the Jews then were
very subject to, eating and drinking to excess in their feasts
(see note on 1 Cor. xi. 21); and were, saith Tacitus,’h pro-
jectissima ad libidimen gens, “a nation very prone to
lust.” -
* As for a day of slaughter.] i. e. As the sacrifices, which
are first fattened and then slaughtered, saith the Chaldee
paraphrase on those words, “The enemies of the Lord shall
be as the fat of lambs,” Ps. xxxvii. 20 (see Examen Millii).
-
z
esſºró ri; 31& rºy of clay. De Bell.
orgo pá-Et y&p airrok, oxia; &yn
Jud. lib. vi. cap. 27, F. Oi św &#1%paari Kai Traoûtº, ºrgö; row;
ºvpávov; 3 whyovro, rotºroy oi kºv štrºflovač; levågſ; ºrixaxoſºevot
Stépêeigov.ro, of 33 &; ºrpoštěoisy ‘Pogaiot; rºy tréaly. Ibid. p. 931,
932, F.
* "Ezatov 33 xzi ré ya&#vXázta #y of, ºreigoy fºy Xenºzárov
*C. Wy ** 2 * ** * ºn f t * 1, 2 º
w85&o;, &reſpot 8’ $23%ts; wai &AX& x81/2.5.xta" cºvys’Nºvri 3' giveſy,
wā; 'lověaiov ša EG&pevro Traoûrog ávaazevacºvoy izgi rāy of Kay
Tây Einägov. Lib. vii. cap. 29, p. 959, G. Wide cap. 32, p. 962,
B. cap. 37, p. 964, F. cap. 46, p. 969, B. cap. 34, p. 990, E.
ºf Hist, lib. v. ab initio.
CHAPTER V.
953
6 Ye have condemned “and killed the just ; and
he doth not resist you.
7 Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming
of our Lord (to avenge you of these murderers). Be-
hold, the "husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit
of the earth, and hath long patience for it, till he re-
ceive the early and latter rain (the first to make the
corn sown swell and grow up, the latter to make the
ear plump before harvest).
8 Beye also patient; stáblish your hearts (in ea-
pectation of this advent); for *the coming of the
Lord draweth nigh.
9 * Grudge not (Gr. groan not) one against another,
brethren (as men impatient, and desiring vengeance,
wse to do), lest ye be condemned (as wanting in that
patience, which ought to have its perfect work in you ;
and in that Christian charity, which requires you to
pray for mercy, and not to cry for vengeance on your
enemies) : behold the Judge (who will plead your
cause against your persecuting brethren) standeth be-
fore the door. - -
10 Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have
spoken (to you Jews) in the name of the Lord, for an
example of suffering afflictions, and of patience (i. e.
of patient suffering ; for they had eaſperience of cruel
mockings, and of death, and yet they suffered these
things patiently).
11 Behold, we count them happy that endure (af-
flictions for righteousness’ sake, and for the trial of
their faith, Matt. v. 12. 1 Pet. iv. 14). Ye have heard
of the "patience of Job, and have seen (i.e. known)
the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful,
and of tender mercy (as then he was to him a de-
liverer, and a rewarder of his patience, so will he be to
Ow).
12 “But above all things, my brethren, swear not,
meither by heaven, nor by the earth, nor by any other
oath : but let your yea be yea; and your may, may
* Ver, 6. 'Egovečears, Ye have killed, &c.] Here CEcume-
nius Saith, ēvavrifth-roº; rà i poveša are 3inatoy Émi roy Xetary
&vaq’Égetat, “This is undoubtedly to be referred to Christ,
who is emphatically styled the Just One,” Acts iii. 14. vii.
52. xxii. 14. So Justin Martyr,” &m'szt'sivate rêv 3ixatov,
“Ye have killed the Just One, and before him the prophets.”
But against this interpretation it is objected by Esthius, (1.)
That the apostle here speaks by way of distinction to the
rich, who dragged the Christians before the tribunals; where-
as the death of Christ is imputed to the princes and rulers of
the Jews, and to the people in general, Acts iii. 14. vii. 52.
xiii. 27, 28. (2.) It is said in the present tense, “And he
doth not resist you;” whereas, had this been spoken of Christ,
it should have been said, “He did not resist you :” and
therefore QEcumenius doth acknowledge this is to be extended
also to all those just men, Stephen, and others who suffered
in like manner from the Jews, according to our Lord's pre-
diction, Matt. xxiv. 9, and Paul's confession, that before his
conversion he “persecuted this way unto the death,” Acts
xxii. 4. Hence this passage is connected to the ensuing
words directed to the Christians in general, by this particle,
“ therefore.”
7 Ver. 7. The husbandman waiteth, &c.] So the Targum
of Jonathan on 2 Sam. xxiii. 4 compareth those who ex-
pect “the years of consolation” to the husbandman, who in
a year of drought waiteth for rain upon the earth (see the
text defended, Examen Millii).
* Wer. 8. ‘H Tragovoria roi, Kupiov #yyika, The coming of the
Lord is at hand.] He speaks, saith CEcumenius, “ of the
coming of the Romans to captivate the Jews, which he calls
The coming of our Lord;” as John does, ch. xxi. xxii. And
this exposition is confirmed, (1.) from the constant use of
the like phrase, #yyū; hºwāga Kučíov, “The day of the Lord is
at hand,” Isa. xiii. 6. Ezek. xxx. 3. Joel i. 15. ii. l. iii. 14.
Obad. ver. 15. Zeph. i. 7. 14. From the evils which he
saith are coming on the rich, ver. 1, and which then especi-
ally came upon them. (2.) From his saying, This coming
“is at hand,” and “The Judge standeth at the door” (ver. 9),
or in Peter's phrase, r3 réxo; hytas, “The end is at hand”
(1 Pet. iv. 7), which answers exactly to the words of Christ,
touching the destruction of Jerusalem, “Then shall ºr ré-
xor, the end come” (Matt. xxiv. 14); “It is near, iwi Ságatº,
even at the door” (ver. 33); “Her desolation, #yyize, draw-
eth nigh” (Luke xxi. 20, see note on Phil. iv. 5). And this
was a true ground for patience, and answers the objection of
Esthius against this exposition.
* Ver. 9. Mi, a rev4&srs, Groan not.] These groanings in
the scripture have a voice and cry; and God is said to hear
them. Thus “the children of Israel groaned, by reason of
their hard bondage, wargarévažav and their cry came up to
God” (Exod. ii. 23): and the Spirit is said to intercede in
*—
* Dial. cum Tryph. p. 234.
‘l Aéyet bä rºy Popwaizāv Āq 0}ov, Kai rºy tºro roſtoy aixº axo-
f * ** ^e f
aiav, Tây'Ioviaiwy, ºy Kai Tragoya ſay taxeſ roi, Kugiov'Iwāvyng. Cap.
V, 22,
Christ's suffering members, “with groans unuttered” (Rom.
viii. 26). Thus David prays that God would “hear the
voice of his groanings,” and “the groaning of the prisoners”
(Ps. cii. 5. 20). These groanings, when they are only the
natural issues of an afflicted soul, move God to pity (Judg.
ii. 18), and to remember us in mercy (Exod. vi. 5); but
when they are the fruits of impatience under troubles, and a
desire of revenge upon our enemies, they tend to our con-
demnation ; and the persecuting Jews, being of the same
stock with the converted Jews, their groaning against them
is styled “groaning against one another.”
It is the observation of Justin,” that the converts among
the gentiles were not only more than those among the Jews
and the Samaritans, but also that they were better Christians,
and more truly so; for these Jewish converts were still lea-
vened with an expectation of a temporal kingdom, and of
liberty from the Roman yoke, and the dominion over all
heathen governors. Whence the apostles do so frequently
enjoin them to be “subject to the higher powers” (Rom.
xiii. 1), to be “subject to principalities and powers” (Tit.
iii. 1), to be “subject to every human ordinance,” and “not
use the liberty to which they were called as a cloak of ma-
liciousness” (1 Pet. ii. 13. 16). Now these, as Dr. Hammond
well observes, lived intermixed with the unconverted Jews
and zealots, who were still grudging and contending against
all that would not stand up for liberty and fight for this tem-
poral kingdom, “accounting them no better than the very
heathens,”; on that account : and these may be the grudgers
here intended.
10 Ver. 11. The patience of Job.] Hence may we very
probably conclude, that what is written in the book of Job
is truly a history of what happened to him : and not, as some
conceive, a parable or fiction of a thing not truly done: for
feigned things contain no serious motives to, nor just exam-
ples of, patience. (2.) We find this holy man numbered
with Noah and Daniel, as persons very prevalent in prayer,
Ezek. xiv. 14. 20. As therefore Noah and Daniel were per-
sons truly prevalent in their supplications, Gen. viii. 21. Dan.
ix. 23, so also Job must be, as he is represented, xliii. 8. J0.
il Ver. 12. Mº, pºvčáte, Swear not..] i. e. Let not your
afflictions move you to use rash oaths, as men are wont to do
when much provoked. That rash oaths only are forbidden
here, and Matt. v. 34, see the note there: the oaths here
forbidden being such as our impatience under sufferings and
our unbridled passions do produce; or else the oaths forbid-
den here may be illusive oaths, viz. such as the Jews were
free to use, because they thought they did not bind (see note
on Matt. ix. 34), and so were free to make, to purchase their
deliverance.
* IIxeloſa; zał &xi;0earépov; rāv Čač 'Iow?aiov zai Xzºapéow
Xetariayoi, sières. Apol. ii. p. 88, B. z h
+ ox:yy&p 3xxo‘pºoy atrov; ; parkov 344 feely, ºrw, 3×ewā;
+3, regiºãxºrov 'lověaiot; fixevéegiav trgotºvovº, kai bouneſay gi-
esſ-gai rāy bro 'Pogaiot; 3Woºoºoynxótas, Joseph. de Bello
Jud, lib, vii, cap. 30, p. 985, F.
954
JAMES.
(i.e. let your actions be agreeable to your words, see
note on 2 Cor. i. 17); *lest ye fall into condemnation.
13 Is any man among you afflicted 2 let him pray
(to God to alleviate and sanctify his affliction). Is any
merry let him sing psalms (of praise to that God,
who hath given him this cheerfulness of ºriº,
14 Is any (man) sick among you? “let him call
for the elders of the church; and let them pray over
him, “anointing him with oil in the name of the
Lord : f
15 "And the prayer of faith shall save the sick,
and the Lord (in answer to this prayer of faith) shall
raise him up; and if he "hath committed (such) sins
(as brought this sickness on him), they shall be for-
given him (upon this prayer of faith).
16 Confess (therefore) your faults one to another,
*"Iva º bră »giaw ºréants, That ye fall not into condemna-
tion.] Some copies read eig iméxptaw, “into hypocrisy :” but,
(1.) this reading is not found in many copies. (2.) The
apostle, yer. 9, puts them in mind of “the Judge standing
at the door,” requiring them not to “grudge against one an-
other, lest they be condemned” by him; it is therefore far
more probable he speaketh also here of condemnation by
the judge. (3.) To be false to the oath of God is perjury
in the proper sense, for which God threatens he “will not
hold the offender guiltless,” but is not properly hypocrisy.
If therefore this had been the meaning of James, Swear
not, lest you be tempted to the violation of your oaths; he
should have called that perjury, not hypocrisy.
* Ver. 14. IIgoozaxstrárğa row; Trºsa-3vrépovº rā, śxxxnariac,
The elders of the church.] That it was the office of the
presbyters, āºria zárved 8at ºráyra; 30.6eyeſ, “to visit all the
sick,” we learn from the Epistle of Polycarp, ad Philip.
Š. 6. But that these presbyters should be bishops properly so
called, as some conceive, seems not very probable; for then
it must not only be the office of the bishop personally to
visit the sick, but the duty of every sick person to send to
him, and to no other. Yea, there must be more than one
bishop in the church of which the sick man is a member,
and he must be obliged to send to more; for the text runs
wholly in the plural, “Let him call for the elders of the
church, zai Trgozsvárğazav, and let them” (not one of them)
“pray over him;” and therefore the sick man must be'
obliged, by this text, to call for more than one of them,
where more were to be had, as we know there were in the
primitive constitution of the church.
* Anointing him with oil.] This was agreeable to the
practice of the Jews,” who anointed the sick, pro more,
customarily, saith their tradition: hence, though our Lord
only commissionated his disciples to “heal the sick,” Matt.
x. 8. Luke ix. 2, yet Mark informs us that they added their
usual ceremonies in doing this, for they “anointed many
that were sick with oil, and healed them” (Mark vi. 13);
and James, speaking to the elders of the Jews, bids them
use this unction “in the name of the Lord,” as doubtless
the apostles did; as in casting out of devils, Luke x. 17, so
in healing the sick, Acts iii. 16. iv. 10. 30, and this addition
made the cure miraculous.
*Ver, 15. ‘H sixà Tâ; riorsør, And the prayer of faith
shall save the sick.] Among the Xapio Azara, or the miracu-
lous and extraordinary gifts, vouchsafed at first to the preach-
ers of the gospel, and to the rulers or elders of the churches,
was “the gift of faith,” as in these words, “To another is
given faith by the same Spirit,” 1 Cor. xii. 9, i.e. by a strong
impulse of the Spirit, fully persuading them that God would
enable them to do this or that. This seems to be that faith
which is styled Triºri; Geof, “the faith of God,” to which
even the removing of mountains, or the performing things
most difficult and extraordinary, is promised, Mark xi. 22,
23. Matt. xxi. 21, and of which the apostle speaks, saying,
“If I had all faith so as to remove mountains,” I Cor. xiii.
2; and by which they healed the sick, “even by faith in his
name,” Acts iii. 16 : and therefore this is here promised,
that where the prayer of the elders was attended with such
a faith, it should still be successful for the healing of the sick,
or the raising him up again from the bed of sickness; for
a &ast, “will save,” is #yséeſ, “he will raise him up.”
* And if he hath committed sins.] i.e. Such sins for
which God was pleased to inflict this bodily disease upon
him, as he did on the members of the church of Corinth, for
their disorderly celebrating the Lord's supper; “for which
cause,” saith the apostle, “many are weak and sickly among
you” (1 Cor. xi. 30), they being thus “chastened of the
* Sce Light, in Matt. vi. 17.
Lord” (ver. 32); and where the sickness is by way of chas-
tisement, the healing it is a testimony of God's forgiveness of
it. Hence, “Thy sins be forgiven,” is our Lord's usual
expression when he healed the sick (Matt. ix. 2. 6, 7; see the
note there), according to those words of the prophet Isaiah,
“The inhabitants shall not say they are sick, the people shall
be forgiven their iniquity” (xxxiii. 24). Hence it is evident
that here is no foundation for the sacrament of extreme unc-
tion, called by the Romish church “the sacrament of the
dying,” and administered for the purgation of their sins when
they seem past hopes of recovery; for how can they gather a
Sacrament of extreme unction from an unction that is not
extreme, or a perpetual ordinance from an action that was
extraordinary and miraculous, and is long since ceased ? how
can they prove a sacrament that is proper to dying persons,
from a rite used only upon persons who were not to die, but
to be raised up from sickness P or promise to him forgiveness
of his sins, to whom they cannot promise that recovery which
was the token of it? Moreover, the things already observed
afford us a sufficient answer to the objections of Esthius
against our exposition, which are these :
Obj. 1. First, That the grace of miracles extended not to
spiritual effects, as the forgiveness of sins, but to temporal.
Ans. This is said in flat contradiction to our Lord, who
doth so often preface his miraculous cures of the sick with
this expression, “Thy sins are forgiven thee.” Matt. ix. 2.
Nor was this forgiveness so much a spiritual effect as tempo-
ral, it being only the remission of a temporal punishment of
sin, viz. sickness inflicted for it.
Obj. 2. Had the apostle spoke of miraculous cures, he
would only have advised them to call those who had the gift
of healing, whether presbyters or not; not the presbyters,
and them only.
Ans. He reasonably adviseth to call them, and them only,
to pray over the sick, who were by office appointed for that
work, and doth here only tell them what they might expect
from it, when that miraculous faith was raised in them which
often, in those times of miracles, accompanied their prayers.
Obj. 3. The apostle speaks of a sick Christian brother to
be anointed by a faithful presbyter, whereas the use of mi-
racles was chiefly for converting infidels: and hence this unc-
tion was not used towards Trophimus, left at Miletum sick
(2 Tim. iv. 20), or to Epaphroditus sick near unto death
(Phil. ii. 27).
Ans. If it were not used by Paul to them, and especially
to Epaphroditus, it is certain that he knew nothing of this
Sacrament. (2.) Esthius has no cause to assert that of mi-
racles in general, which the apostle saith only of the gift of.
tongues, that they were only for unbelievers; the gift of
healing, for aught he knows to the contrary, might be still
exercised upon believers, but only under the conduct of the
Spirit raising up this miraculous faith, which assured them
of it in respect to some, and not to others, as he saw fit (see
note on Phil. ii. 27).
Obj. 4. That had the apostle intended miraculous healing,
oil had not been prescribed; Christ having said they should
“lay their hands on the sick” only, Mark xvi. 18.
Ans. One ceremony excludes not the other; moreover,
laying on of hands is there prescribed in preaching to the
gentiles, anointing with oil here to the Jews, as being cus-
tomary in case of sickness. -
Obj. 5. All the other things delivered in this epistle be-
long to the Christians of all ages; this therefore must do so
too.
Ans. As if this hindered the apostles, as they had occa-
sion, to give rules touching the spiritual gifts proper to their
own times; that, when they spake of other matters not to
cease, their precepts reach unto all times. Peter, in his fol-
lowing cpistle, hath one direction concerning those spiritual
PREFACE TO I. PETER.
955
and Bray ºne for another, that ye may be healed.
The "effectual fervent (Gr. the inspired) prayer of a
righteous man availeth much.
17 Elias was a man subject to like passions as we
are, and he º earnestly that it might not rain:
and it rained not on the earth by the space of * three
years and six months.
18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave
rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.
19 Brethren, if any of you do err from the faith,
and one convert him;
20 Let him know, that he who converteth the sin-
ner from the error of his way shall save a soul from
death, and "shall hide a multitude of sins.
gifts, 1 Pet. iv. 10, 11, though the other precepts contained
in that epistle do concern all ages. -
” Wer. 16. Aéna tº #vskyovºvn, The inspired prayer.] As
they who were inwardly acted by an evil spirit were styled
#v=eyoſºvoi, so they that were acted by the Holy Spirit, and
inwardly moved by his impulses, were also #86).očºvoi, in the
good sense; and therefore it seems most proper to apply
these words, not to the prayer of every righteous person, but
to the prayer offered by such an extraordinary impulse: not
only from the force of this expression, but, (2) from the
same thing here mentioned as the subject of this prayer, that
our sick brother may be healed, which was to be done by
the prayer of faith (ver. 15). (3.) From the example of
Elias, for his prayer was the prayer of faith in the sense now
mentioned; for he absolutely foretold, and confirmed it with
an oath, that there “should be no rain those years, but ac-
cording to his word,” l Kings xvii. 1. And his prayer for
rain was upon God's promise to “send rain upon the earth,”
xviii. 1. -
* Ver. 17. Three years and six months.] So Luke iv. 35.
When therefore it is said, that “Elijah came to Ahab the
third year, and the Lord said, I will send rain upon the
earth;” note, that Elias tarried before a year at the brook
ICerith, and then in the middle of the third year came to
Ahab. -
19 Wer. 20. Shall hide, &c.] This seemeth to be meant,
not of the sins of the person thus converted (for the saving
of his soul includes the remission of his sins), but of the
sins of him that converts him; i.e. this charitable work shall
be so pleasing to God, as to prevail with him to cover many
of his own sins. *
THE FIRST
EPISTLE GENERAL OF ST. PETER,
WITH ANNOTATIONS.
P. R. E. F. A C E.
CoxcrºRNING this epistle, allowed by the church of all ages
to be the genuine work of the apostle Peter, it may be in-
quired, 1. When p 2. Whence? 3. To whom 2 4. On what
account, it was written ? And,
Quest. 1. First, Whereas it is ordinarily affirmed by the
Romanists, that this epistle was written in the forty-fourth
year of Christ; as that opinion seems to have been taken up
iy them in favour of their avowed tenet, that Peter was
twenty-five years in that see; and therefore, he dying in the
year of our Lord 69, must have come thither in the year
44; so is it easily confuted, both from this epistle, and by
many other cogent arguments. -
1. From these words of this epistle, iv. 8, r3 réxo; Trávrov
#yyize, “The end of all things is at hand:” that is, Saith Dr.
Hammond, who also follows this opinion, “The great and
fatal destruction to the obdurate Jews, so often spoken of by
Christ and his apostles, is now near at hand.” Which could
not have been said in the forty-fourth year of Christ, that is,
about twenty-six years before it happened; seeing the apostle
Paul, in his Second Epistle to the Thessalonians (writ, saith
the reverend Dr. Hammond, A. D. 51), warneth the Thes-
salonians “not to be shaken by any word or epistle, as com-
ing from" the apostles, which intimated that “the coming of
the Lord was at hand;” and so he must have contradicted
Peter, had he delivered this positively seven years before.
(2) The apostle James hath the like expressions, saying, h
rašovcia roš Kvetov #yyize, “The coming of the Lord draw-
eth near,” v. 8, “Behold the Judge stands ºrph Tāv Svºy, be-
fore the door.” Whence Dr. Hammond and Dr. Lightfoot
well conclude, that this epistle could not be written long be-
fore the death of James, which happened in the year 63.
And this argument concludes as strongly for this epistle's
being indited after the same time. Add to this, that these
expressions, réA06, # ºragovcia toû Kugiou #yyixe, “The end, the
coming of the Lord is at hand,” and, Trpá rày Sugºv, “before
the door,” are plainly taken from our Saviour's words, in
his prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem; where also
the time is fixed by two remarkable characters: (1.) “When
you shall see Jerusalem compassed about with armies, then
know ye, 3rt #yyizey Éehºwat; airiç, that her desolation draw-
eth near,” Luke xxi. 20: that is, Saith Dr. Hammond,
“When you see Jerusalem besieged by the Romans, then
know the destruction of the city is near.” Now this hap-
pened not at all till the twelfth of Nero, and the sixty-sixth
year of our Lord, when Cestius” besieged Jerusalem : it
happened not, say the best interpreters, according to the
words of the evangelist, till the year 68, when Vespasian
coming thither, his army't compassed the city round about.
“These,” saith Luke, “are the days of vengeance, when all
things which are written shall be fulfilled,” ver, 22; and
“ then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds,”
ver, 27. Again, our Lord having foretold all the signs of
his coming, kai rā; avy reasiac, and of the end of the Jewish
age, adds, “When you shall see all these things come to
pass, then know that this desolation, #yyā; a rºw ºri śpaiº, is
nigh, even at the door,” Matt. xxiv. 33. Mark xiii. 29,
clearly showing that phrase importeth still a nearer approach
of that great desolation.
Secondly, That Peter was not at Rome, nor departed
from Judea, till a long time after the forty-fourth year of
Christ, is so evident from the history of the Acts, and the
* Joseph. de Bello Jud. lib. ii, cap. 39.
+ Eſeygy greatlá rayTax%ay tºw réaly trečišxovca, Ibid.
lib. v. cap. 28, p. 693, B.
956
PREFACE TO I. PETER.
epistles of Paul, that he that runs may read it. For, that
J.uke, in a history designed especially to record the acts of
Peter and Paul, should omit a matter of such vast moment
and importance to the whole Christian world, happening
within that very time in which he speaketh of Peter: that,
saying of him, xii. 17, ‘‘ He departed, and went to another
place ;” he should not say, as Bellarmine and Baronius, that
place was Rome, but, in flat contradiction to them, that “he
went down from Judea to Caesarea, and there abode;” ver.
19; that he should tell us how Aquila and Priscilla came
from Italy, because Claudius had commanded that all the
Jews should depart from Rome; but should not tell us, as
they do, that Peter came thence to Jerusalem on the same
account, and therefore was found present at the council of
Jerusalem about six years after; but speak of him there, as
if he never had left Jerusalem: that in this council he should
urge, against the necessity of imposing circumcision on the
gentiles, only the example of Cornelius and his kinsmen,
converted and not circumcised; and say not one word of the
church of Rome, the seat of all spiritual power and infalli-
bility, and to which all other churches were to veil, and do
homage, converted by him in like manner, and free also from
the yoke of circumcision: nay, that he should not mention
that ever he was there, in a history continued till the fifth of
Nero, though he mentions his travels to, his preaching and
abode at, several other places: these, sure, are things suffi-
cient to convince all unprejudiced persons, that Peter was
not then at Rome. -
Thirdly, The same may strongly be concluded from the
epistles of Paul. For about the year 57, saith Bishop Pear-
son, he writ his Epistle to the Romans, in which he spends
the greatest part of one chapter in saluting particular persons
that were there: but yet we find no salutation to Peter, who,
had he been then at Rome, would doubtless have been men-
tioned in the first place; and yet, in so large an epistle, he
neither is directly nor indirectly taken notice of Moreover,
Paul himself, in the beginning, intimates his earnest desire
to come thither, that he might “impart unto them some spi-
ritual gifts, to the end they might be established” in the
faith ; for which there could be no apparent cause, had the
apostle Peter been there so long before him. Paul himself
soon after comes to Rome ; which, when the brethren heard
of, they “came to meet him, as far as Appii Forum,” Acts
xxviii. 15; but not a word of Peter either coming or sending
to him. When he is come, he goes not to sojourn with, or
so much as to salute Peter (which sure he would have done,
if he had been there), but dwells in his own hired house.
Being come, he calls the chief of the Jews together, who
desire to hear of him what he thought of the sect of the
Christians, they knowing this only of it, that “it was every
where spoken against,” ver. 22. What then had Peter, the
apostle of the circumcision, been doing all this while among
them 2 And how unlikely is it that there should be then,
as Dr. Hammond * saith, a church consisting much of the
Jews residing there P And how reflecting on the supposed
labours of Peter, among the Jews there, are the following
words, ver. 26–28, that “because they would not hear, or
be converted, he would not leave them to St. Peter, but turn
unto the gentiles,” who would hear? After his coming to
Rome, he writes epistles to several churches, to the Ephe-
sians, Philippians, Colossians, and one to Philemon; in
which two last we have sent from Rome the salutation of
Aristarchus, Marcus, Justus, Epaphras, Luke, and Demas,
Col. iv. 10. 14. Philem. wer. 23, 24, but not a word from
Peter. In that to the Colossians, he tells them, he had no
other helpers, or fellow-workers, unto the kingdom of God,
among the Jews, which had been a comfort to him, but Aris-
tarchus, Marcus, and Justus, iv. 10, 11, which evidently ex-
cludes Peter. In his Epistle to Timothy, he saith, that at
* Preface to the Fpistle to the Romans.
iii. 16–18.
| his first answer to Rome, “all men forsook him,” 2 Tim. iv.
16, which we can hardly believe, had Peter been there. He
adds, that “only Luke was with him ;” that Crescens wag
gone to this place, Titus to that, and Tychicus was left at
another. Strange therefore it is, that if Peter was then gone
from Rome, Paul should take no notice of it. Was he a
person so inconsiderable, as not to deserve to be remembered?
Or was he gone upon a sleeveless errand, not worthy of the
notice of Paul ? Or was he not rather one who, being not
at Rome, could give Paul no reason to take notice of him,
when he writ from thence? But this subject is so fully
handled, and the hypothesis of Baronius so learnedly con-
futed by Dr. Cave,” that it is superfluous to insist longer on
this subject.
Quest. 2. To the second inquiry, Whence this epistle was
indited P I have returned a sufficient answer in the note
upon these words, v. 13, “The church which is at Babylon
saluteth you ;” by showing that by Babylon Rome is to be
understood; whence this epistle must be therefore written:
and then it must be written after the persecution in the
tenth of Nero, at which time neither Paul nor Peter was at
Rome. -
Quest. 3. That it was written to the Jews dispersed
through Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia (Minor), and
Bithynia, the inscription+ shows; but that it must be also
written either to the gentiles proselyted to the Jewish reli-
gion, of whom see the note on 1 Pet. i. 1, or to the converts
of the twelve tribes scattered among the heathens, and there
serving their gods, according to the threat denounced upon
them, Deut. xxviii. 36. 64, that they “should serve other
gods, which neither they nor their fathers had known,” seems
evident from these words, that they were “delivered from
their vain conversation, delivered to them from their fathers,”
i. 18 (see the note there): that “in times past they were not
the people, but now are the people of God: that they had
not obtained mercy, but now had obtained mercy,” ii. 10;
which words were spoken of the ten tribes, Hos. i. 10. ii. 23.
and that the time past might suffice them to have done the
will of the gentiles, when they “walked in lasciviousness,
lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable
idolatries,” iv. 3.
To imagine that the apostle is here speaking of “the dis-
persion,” mentioned Acts viii. 1, is to speak what is very
improbable, they being dispersed only into the countries of
Judea and Samaria, saith the text there: nor is it said that
any travelled farther than Phoenice, Cyprus, and Antioch,
xi. 19. Nor is it likely that many of them travelled so far,
for the churches of Judea and Samaria having peace soon
after this dispersion, Acts iz. 31, that any of them went to
all or any of the places here mentioned by Peter, we have
no reason to imagine ; but that there was long before a great
dispersion of the Jews throughout these parts of Asia, see
the note on James i. 1.
Lastly, Upon what account this epistle was written, we
may best learn from the epistle itself; which informs us,
first, that it was written to encourage them to persevere, and
to continue constant under these “manifold temptations,” i.
6, those “fiery trials,” iv. 12, and “persecutions,” ii. 3–5,
they were then subject to. Secondly, to preserve them from
being oncerned in the Jewish wars, or bearing any part in
that rebellion against Caesar and his officers, which was then
beginning among the Jews, ch, ii. from ver, 12 to 23, and
And, thirdly, to engage them to lead a Christian
conversation, that so they might bring over others to the
Christian faith, ii. 12. iii. 1, and might stop the mouths of
those who spake against them as evil-doers,” iii. 16.
* In the Life of St. Peter. -
+ Whence by Tertullian in Scorp. and by St. Cyprian, lib.
iii. Test. Š. 39, it is styled Epistola Petri ad Ponticos,
95.7
CHAPTER I.
1 PETER, an apostle of Jesus Christ, (writeth) to the
‘strangers * scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia,
Cappadocia, Asia (Minor), and Bithynia. . .
2 (That is, to those of them who are) *elect “ac-
cording to the foreknowledge of God the Father,
* through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience,
and (to the) * sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ:
(wishing that) grace to you, and peace (may) be mul-
tiplied. -
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Je-
sus Christ, " who according to his abundant mercy
hath begotten us again unto a "lively (Gr. living)
hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the
ead.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I.
* Ver. 1. IIaperiêhºotº, To the strangers.] He writes es-
pecially to the dispersion of the Jews, to whom the word
“strangers,” or foreigners, here chiefly doth belong; but not to
them only, for he speaks to them also who in time past had
“walked according to the will of the gentiles, in abominable
idolatries” (iv. 3), and of them who “formerly were not the
people of God, and had not found mercy:” we therefore are
to understand, that among them were many devout Greeks,
and proselytes of the gentiles, converted with them to the
Christian faith. Thus, when Paul and Barnabas preached
in the synagogue of the Jews at Iconium, “a great multitude
both of Jews and Greeks believed” (Acts xiv. 1); and Paul
preaching at Ephesus, and thereabouts, two years, prevailed
So, “that all that dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord
'Jesus, both Jews and Greeks" (Acts xix. 10. see xvii. 4.
12. xviii. 4). In the Acts of the Apostles, we read of pro-
selytes of all nations. They were reckoned, in the days of
David and Solomon, one hundred and fifty-three thousand
six hundred persons (2 Chron. ii. 17). In the days of
Artaxerxes, we are told, that Troxxoi rāv #Syöv replerégºvoy'ro,
xai Iovčáčoy, “many of the heathens were circumcised, and
turned Jews” (Esth. viii. 17). And so it was also in the
succeeding ages; for Josephus" informs us, that after the
times of Antiochus Epiphanes, “the Jews, in Antioch and
other places, always converting to their worship a great
many Greeks, made them, as it were, a part of themselves:”
and at Damascus, he saith, “They would have destroyed
the Jews among them, but that they feared their own wives,
who all, except some few, were converts to the religion of
the Jews.” -
* Atao ºrogăç, Of the dispersion,] i. e. Dispersed through
Pontus, &c. The apostle speaks not of the dispersion made
by the persecution, mentioned Acts viii. 1; for that scattered
the Christians only through Judea and Samaria (ibid.): nor
were they afterward dispersed farther, by the malice of the
Jews, but went themselves to preach the word, not in Asia,
but in the parts of Syria, in Phoenice, Cyprus, and Antioch
(Acts xi. 19). Of their dispersion thence into Asia we read
not one word ; but that there were great dispersions before
of the Jews through the places here mentioned, from the
time of the captivity under Shalmaneser, we learn from
Agrippa's f address to Caius, where he informs him, that
“they possessed most parts of Asia, to the utmost borders
of Bithynia and Pontus.”
* Ver. 2. ‘Exxexroſ., Elect.] i. e. To the converted Jews,
styled “the elect,” Matt. xxiv. 22 (see the note on ii. 9).
So also CEcumenius interprets these words, “to the elect,”
that is, roſ; 340,etºwāvol; #x rôy &AN&y #97&v givat Azºv regtoſatov,
“to them that are separated from other nations, to be his
holy and peculiar people.” - ,
* Karā ºrgáyyariv, According to the foreknowledge of God,)
Discovered in the prophetical writings, which foretold of
these blessings to be conveyed to them by the Messiah, who
also is said to be foreknown before the foundation of the
world ; i. e. prophesied of from the beginning (Gen. iii. 15),
but manifested in the last times for them (ver. 20).
* 'Asi Trgorayåøsyut rat; Senaksiat; troxi traß00; "Exxâyov,
xixeiyovº, reºrg riyi, ºcotpay airāy Troino'ay. De Bell. Jud. lib.
vii. P. 973, B. -
& f * ... ? - ? t p ~ 9 es ºf * g
+ 'Aráora; tray 3Aiyay innya #ya: rj 'lovèaiah 6:waxeſ. Lib.
ii. cap. 41, p. 822, B.
f IIoxx& rā; 'Agia; &xpt Bišuvia; kai tºy rot IIávrov &vX2V.
Philo, Legat ad Caium. p. 798, C.
* 'Ew &yiaopº, Through sanctification of the Spirit, The
great principle of all true obedience : so, ver. 22, “Having
Sanctified your souls, or lives, to the obedience of the truth
through the Spirit. s'
* Kał favrºpºv, And sprinkling of the blood of Jesus.] By
way of obsignation of that covenant, by which we are en-
gaged to that obedience: for so it was in the delivery of the
old law ; for upon the reading of that covenant in the au-
dience of all the people, and upon their professing, “All that
the Lord hath said, we will do, and be obedient,” Moses
took the blood, and sprinkled it upon the people, and said,
“Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord hath
made with you concerning all these words,” Exod. xxiv. 7,
8 (so Dr. Hammond). Or to that sprinkling of the blood
of Jesus Christ which “cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John
i.7); i. e. from all the sinful imperfections which cleave to
our obedience, and by which the full pardon of our past sins
is procured, and we obtain an entrance into the holy of
holies (Heb. x. 19, 20), and which procures for us, not only
acceptance upon earth, but “an inheritance in heaven"
(Heb. ix. 15. xii. 24); whence this blood is styled aſſad.
flavricº, “the blood of sprinkling,” Heb. xii. 24. And of
Christ it is said, “He shall sprinkle many nations,” Isa, lii.
15.
7 Ver. 3. ‘o QE3 was rarip, The Cod and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ.] Here, saith Schlictingius, as formerly
the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, distinguished the one
true God from any other ; so now this phrase distinguisheth
him who is called his “God and Father,” from Jesus Christ.
But yet the primitive fathers" thought otherwise ; for they
stiffly maintained, against the Gnostics, who held there was
another God above the God of Abraham, &c. or the God of
the Jews, that “he was the God and Father of all,” supra
quem non est alius; and yet, that Jesus Christ was God, as
being “in the Father from all eternity, and receiving the
divine nature from him.” -
* Ei, #xtríða Čoray, To a living hope.] Either a hope that
giveth life, as tºop &v, “living water,” John iv. 10, 11. 14;
3 #pro. 3 Öy, “the living bread which came down from hea-
ven; of which if a man eat, he shall live for ever,” John vi.
51. vii. 38; Aáyia &vra, “the living oracles,” Acts vii. 38,
which if a man observe, saith Moses, “he shall live by them,”
Lev. xviii. 4; 333¢ &ara, “a living way,” Heb. x. 20, as lead-
ing to life eternal ; and Čoft, rºyal, “living fountains of wa-
ters,” Rev. vii. 17; for “by hope we are saved,” Rom. viii.
24: or a hope that makes us active and lively, joyful and
comfortable in our lives, “ rejoicing in hope of the glory of
God,” Rom. v. 2; in which sense it is said of the word of
God, that it is Čy zai #yeeyºº, “living and active,” Heb. iv. 12;
of the members of Christ's spiritual house that they are xiàot
Čvºrs;, i. e. “living stones,” 1 Pet. ii. 5; and we are bid to
offer our bodies, Svariav Čºray, “a living sacrifice,” Rom. xii.
1. Hence it seems to follow, that the Jews before had not
this “lively hope” which our Lord's resurrection minis-
, terS.
* Justin. M. de Angelo Domini Mosi apparente, Käptov
aërëv Švra wai esby a nºwayei. Ty airy Aéye āv ka? bià trºv
rāv xexeya way tºrneºroïvra rā trie zárºoy Qeff, triº 3' ºr
p * f * rºw O º
oùx floºri, anpaivet. Dial. cum Tryph. p. 284, A. et p. 275,
D. “o yżg x&tarā, wai Os?, wał Kūčios, p. 251, D. 287, B. 354,
A. 335, B. Solus et verus Deus, super quem alius non est,
Iren. lib. iii, cap. 6. Neminem alium Deum vel Dominum
vocaverunt apostoli, nisi, solum Deum verum patrem et
Verbum ejus, qui in omnibus principatum ejus habet, lib. iii.
cap. 16. -
958
I. PETER.
4 (We being begotten by his resurrection, as the first-
fruits of ours, 1 Cor. xv. 20. 23), to (the hope of) an
inheritance incorruptible, and * undefiled, and that
fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you (be-
lievers), -
5 *Who are kept by the power of God through
faith * unto (the) salvation ready to be revealed in the
last time.
6 Wherein (i.e. on the account of which) you greatly
rejoice, though now for a season, *(if nged be) ye
are in heaviness through manifold temptations:
7 That the trial of your faith, being (which is)
much more precious (and advantageous to you) than
(the trial) of gold that perisheth, though it be *tried
by fire (or, though upon trial it endure the fire), might
* Ver. 4. 'Agatavroy, Undefiled.] The land, in which men
who are sinners dwell on earth, is said to be defiled by their
sins, Lev. xviii. 28. Numb. v. 3. xxxv. 34. Deut. xxi. 23.
Isa. xxiv. 5. Jer. ii. 7. xvi. 18; heaven, into which no un-
clean thing can enter, being the only inheritance undefiled.
CEcumenius hence observes, first, that this therefore was not
such a hope as that which was contained in the law of Moses,
#vić Švnri, Synroſ; #mayyáxeral Syntº, “a dying hope, which
promised dying things to mortal men:” secondly, that if this
inheritance be in heaven, ºv$33m; # Xixioštn; &trokatá-raciç,
“the opinion of the millenaries must be fabulous.”
* Ver. 5. 'Ev Šváºgi Ogoj peoveovačvov; 31& ºria reac, Who
are kept by the power of God through faith..] Not that all
who have true faith are kept by the power of God, so as that
they shall certainly continue in the faith; but that they shall
be thus preserved, “if they continue in the faith, rooted and
settled, and are not removed from the hope of the gospel”
(Col. i. 23): “if they hold the beginning of their confidence
firm unto the end" (Heb. iii. 4). This place therefore only
proves, first, that all who are preserved to salvation are pre-
served by God, but not that all true believers will be certainly
so kept. Secondly, this place proves only, that they who
are thus preserved, are kept through faith, i.e. “if they hold
the beginning of their confidence firm to the end?” (Heb. v.
14). For this faith, thus continued in them, will render
them victorious over the world (1 John v. 4). It will enable
them to “resist the devil” so effectually, that “he shall fly
from them ’’ (1 Pet. v. 9), and to “quench all the fiery darts
of Satan " (Eph. vi. 16), and to “suffer death, not accepting
a deliverance, that they may obtain a better resurrection.”
But this place does not prove that all, who are once true
believers, shall certainly continue in the faith, and never
make shipwreck of the faith, as did Hymenaeus and Alexan-
der (1 Tim. i. 19); never have their faith overturned, as
some had, 2 Tim. ii. 10, never “draw back to perdition,” as
the apostle supposeth some might do, Heb. x. 38, 39.
* Eig corneizy śroipºny &rokaxv+Sāvat #y Katgā āo x&rº, The
salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.] i. e. Say
some, the deliverance ready to be vouchsafed to the Chris-
tians, at the destruction of the church and polity of Jerusa-
lem ; this being the salvation then ready to be revealed. But
this seems not very probable: first, because in this salvation
Christians are said to “rejoice greatly,” or, to “exult for
joy.” (ver. 6); which it becomes not them to do for temporal,
but for spiritual blessings. Secondly, because it is the salva-
tion, not of our bodies, but our souls, even that salvation
which is “the end of our faith,” ver. 9 (see the note there).
To the argument produced for the other sense from the
words,
I answer, First, That though “the last times” and “days,”
in the plural, do mostly signify the times of the gospel dis-
pensation, concurring with the last times of the Jewish state;
yet “the last time,” or “day,” in the singular, often signifies
the time of the resurrection, or the last judgment, especially
when it is joined with the resurrection of the body, mentioned
here, ver. 3. So, John vi. 39, “I will raise him up, #y tº
#axárn #2.É62, in the last day” (see ver. 40.44, 45); xi. 24,
“I know that he shall rise in the last day;” and, xii. 48,
The word that I have spoken shall judge him in the last
lay.”
Secondly, As there is mention of a double revelation of
be found to your praise, honour, and glory, at the ap-
pearance of Jesus Christ (in glory):
8 * Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom,
though now ye see him not, yet (Gr. not now seeing, but,
ºns, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of
glory:
9 Receiving the end of your faith, "even the sal-
vation of (your) souls.
10 Of which salvation the prophets have inquired
and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace
that should come unto you; (i.e. of the grace to be
brought unto us at the revelation of Jesus Christ, ver.
13. Matt. xiii. 17.)
11 * Searching what, or what manner of time the
"Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify (or,
Jesus Christ ; one, when he appeared as a prophet to the
world, styled usually pavépalaig, “the manifestation of Jesus
Christ ;” another at the day of judgment, styled &moxáxvºic,
“the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ,” 1 Cor. i. 7; “the
revelation of Jesus Christ from heaven,” 2. Thess. i. 7 ; his
“glorious revelation,” 1 Pet. iv. 13; and here emphatically,
“ the revelation of Christ,” ver. 7. 13; so is there a double
revelation of the salvation promised in the gospel; one by
the preaching of the gospel, which “brought life and salva-
tion to light,” 2 Tim. i. 10, and a farther revelation of it to
be made hereafter, “when Christ who is our life shall appear,”
Col. iii. 3, 4, 1 John iii. 2; styled, “the glory ready to be
revealed, when the great Shepherd shall appear,” 1 Pet. v.
4; “the glory ready to be revealed at the redemption of our
bodies,” Rom. viii. 18. 23; to which this passage may refer.
** Ver. 6. El 3áoy iari, If need be..] This is great conso-
lation under all the afflictions of God's servants, that they
then only shall befall them, when God sees them needful for
the promotion of his glory, or for the furtherance of our sal-
vation ; as when they tend to make us partakers of his holi-
ness, and to work in us the comfortable fruits of righteous-
ness (Heb. xii. 10, 11), or “work for us an exceeding and
eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor. iv. 17), by conforming us
to him in sufferings, to whom we shall be like in glory (i
Pet. iv. 13. Rom. viii. 17. 2 Tim. ii. 11).
* Ver. 7. At& ºrvº, 3oxigaço wivov.] Proved to be genuine
by the fire it endures; as your faith is, by patiently endur-
ing fiery trials (see note on iv. 12).
14 Ver. 8. “oy oin si36ts;..] If this reading be true, it is most
proper to translate the words thus, “Whom having not
known ;” if Ży oth ièévºrsº, as other copies have it, and all the
versions do translate it, be the true reading, then our trans-
lation is right.
15 Wer. 9. xornplay Juxºv.] “The preservation of your
lives ;” so Dr. Hammond. But there is no bºy in the Greek,
to answer to the word “your,” in the English ; and the sal-
vation of lives seems not so properly assigned as the end of
our faith, as the salvation of souls; as we may learn also from:
the following words:
16 Ver, 11. Eig riva º Totov Kasp?y, What, or what manner
of time.] The particle eiç is oft redundant (see Nold. p. 66,
67, 464). Or it may be here rendered de, “ of what time?”
as 2 Cor. xii. 6, “Let no man think, eiç Épº, of me more
than he ought to think;” Eph. v. 32, “I speak, gig Xºlor:y,
wai sã, rºy #xxxnatay, of Christ and the church ;” Acts ii. 25,
“BXavid spake Big airröy, of him.” So Acts xxv. 20. Heb. vii.
14, ei, ºy quxºv, “Of which tribe.” They testified of his suf-
ferings, saith CEcumenius, in those words of Isaiah, “He was
led as a sheep to the slaughter.”
17 T3 #y airroſ, IIvetºza Xgia row, The Spirit of Christ which
was in them.] That is, say the Socinians, the Spirit in them,
which spake of Christ as the word of life and salvation, is the
word which speaks of life and of salvation. But in this sense
he might as well have been styled the spirit of antichrist or
the false prophets, because he also spake of them. All the
ancients agree in the other sense, That Christ” spake by his
* Egºrvetºevol wºrö Th; Xáguro, airoi; ºró IIvetºzari &; 3134-
axaxov abröy ºrgocrešákov. Ign. Ep, ad Magnes. Š. 8, 9. Spiritus
prophetarum, riveñºza, Kuglov. Barnab. §. 9. 'Ar. rot wiyoºyºtes
airov, 6siou Aéyou. Just. M. Apol. i. p. 49, A. Apol. ii. p.
CHAPTER I.
959
to what time he did relate), when he testified before-
hand * the sufferings of Christ (in himself and his
members), and the glories that should follow (them,
Dam. ix. 24).
12 To whom it was revealed, that not unto them-
selves, but unto us they did minister the (same) things
which are now reported (or have been declared) to you
by them who have preached the gospel to you “with
the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven: which things
the * angels desire to lookinto.
13 * Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be
sober (Gr. vigilant), and hope to the end for the grace
that is to be brought (Gr. that is brought) to you at
(by) the revelation of Jesus Christ (who hath brought
life and immortality to light by the gospel, 2 Tim. i.
10).
14 As (it becometh) obedient children, not fashion-
ing yourselves according to the former lusts (ye prac-
tised) in your ignorance:
15 But as he (God the Father, ver. 17), who hath
called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of con-
versation;
16 Because it is written (thus), Be ye holy; for
* I (the Lord your God) am holy (Lev. xi. 44.
xix. 2).
17 *And if ye call upon the Father, who without
respect of persons judgeth according to every man’s
works, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear
(of condemnation from this impartial Judge at that
day):
18 Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not re-
deemed with corruptible things, (such) as (are) silver
and gold (such as the Jews brought up to Jerusalem to
buy their offerings), *from (the demerit of) your vain
conversation received by tradition from your fathers;
19 But with the precious blood of Christ (who was
delivered up to death for you), as * a lamb without
blemish, and without spot:
Spirit in the prophets, “they being inspired with his grace,
and taught by his Spirit, their words proceeded from the
divine word moving them, and by him they prophesied ; he
spake in Isaiah, in Elias, and in the mouth of the prophets.”
So the fathers.
* T3 sic Xºta röy Traśńºara, The sufferings of Christ.]
Not only in himself, but in his members, and the glories
which should be after, as well to them, as to their Saviour
(Rom. viii. 18. 2 Tim. ii. 11, 12. 1 Pet. iv. 13), as appears
from i. 13, where this glory is styled, “the grace to be brought
to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
* Ver. 12. Ev IIvetºzart áyiw, By the Holy Spirit sent
down from heaven.] Hence it is evident, that the apostles, in
all those writings in which they declared the gospel of Christ,
were Seátrysvarot, “men assisted by the Holy Ghost ;” and
that they, in preaching and inditing the gospel, were acted
by the same Spirit who moved formerly the prophets (see
the general preface). - -
* IIagazúbal, Angels desire to look into.] And shall holy
prophets be so desirous to know the time when these things
should happen, and holy angels so diligent to look into these
glorious revelations; and shall we, to whom, and for whose
happiness, this gospel was revealed, neglect not only to ob-
tain, but even to know this great salvation ? Some refer
this to Dan. viii. 13.
* Ver. 13.] Note, that from this and the foregoing verse,
we have several arguments to prove these things relate not
to the temporal deliverance of Christians from the persecu-
tion of the Jews, but to their deliverance from the guilt of
sin by the blood of Christ (ver. 19), and that eternal deliver-
ance which is the object of the Christian's hope. For, (1.)
that cannot properly be styled “the grace which is to comé
to us by the revelation of Jesus Christ,” that being “the
grace which brings, salvation,” Tit. ii. 11. 13. (2.) That
was not the thing which they, who preached the gospel, did
âyayyāºfty hºv, “declare unto us;” but, as John informs us,
they did, &vayyáxxâly ºwy aikvlov, “show unto us eternal
life,” 1 John i. 2. (3.) They could not be the things the
angels did desire to look into. (4.) The motive to perse-
Verance to the end, is not a temporal deliverance from the
Jews, but a spiritual and eternal deliverance (Rom. viii. 18.
2 Cor. iv. 17. Heb. x. 35, 36).
* Ver. 16. Eyð #yiá; Eiºl.] The holiness of God, in
Scripture, hath respect to a double object, viz. sin ; and so it
doth import his perfect freedom from, his hatred of, and op-
position to, all impiety. (1.) His entire freedom from all
impurity ; for “God is light,” saith the apostle, “and in him
is no darkness at all,” 1 John i. 5; “He is a just God, and
without iniquity,” Deut. xxxii. 4; a God “ of purer eyes than
to behold evil,” Hab. i. 13, i.e. without the greatest detesta-
76, D. Airó; iv. 'Haai, ; Kögto: abré, Év 'Hxia, #y a rāgar Trgo-
$nröy abrós. Clem. Al. Adm. ad Gent. p. 7, B, et Strom.
vi. p. 642, B. Theoph. ad Autol, lib. ii. p. 88. Iren. lib. iv.
p. 29, Hippol. de Antichristo, S. 2. Tertul, adv. Marcion.
, ii, cap. 27, adv. Prax. cap. 16.
tion. (2.) His perfect hatred of it; whence he is said to
loathe, detest, and to abhor it, and the workers of it ; and it
is styled, “the abominable thing which his soul hateth,” Jer.
xliv. 4. And since God's nature is immutable, his holiness
unchangeable, he must for ever hate, with a most perfect
hatred, whatsoever is unholy and impure; and to suppose
an interruption in his hatred of evil-doers, is to suppose he
can cease to be a pure and holy God. And, (3.) from this
hatred naturally flows a just assurance of his opposition to
all impiety and unholiness, that he “by no means will clear
the guilty,” Exod. xxxiv. 7, or “let the sinner always go un-
punished,” Nahum i. 3. And this seems to be the import
of the holiness of God we are here called to imitate, hecause
it stands in opposition to “the former lusts of their igno-
rance:” or, (2.) God’s holiness respects such persons as are
by consecration, or by resemblance of him, holy ; and so it
intimates his great affection to them, and concernment for
them.
* Ver. 17. "Argoa orox#Trro;..] i. e. Without difference of
nations, whether Jew or gentile, or without respect had to
any man's progenitors, in the great day of his account (Acts
x. 34, 35. Rom. ii. 58: see note on James ii. 1).
* Ver. 18. 'Ex rā; p.araia; tºy &vaa’reopää, From your
vain conversation.] Two expressions in this chapter seem to
intimate, that the apostle speaks here, not only to the native
Jews, but also to the converted gentiles. (1.) His exhorta-
tion to them, “not to fashion themselves according to their
former lusts, #y tº dyvoig bºy, in their ignorance;” which
phrase, in the New Testament, hath still relation to the times
of ignorance in which the gentiles lay, before the preaching
of the gospel to them. So, Acts xvii. 30, row; 2:gávov; rā;
3yvoias, “The times of ignorance God winked at;” Eph. iv.
18, “Being darkened in your mind, 31& rày 3, volay, by the
ignorance that is in you.” (2.) This of their conversation,
“received by tradition from their forefathers:” for though
the scribes and pharisees had delivered traditions to the peo-
ple, which rendered the worship of God vain (Matt. xv. 9);
yet a “vain conversation received by tradition from their
forefathers,” seems rather to respect the conversation of the
heathens, &yaa reoph being the word by which “the conversa-
tion of the gentiles” is designed, Eph. ii. 3. iv. 22. 2 Pet. ii.
7. 18; and &rata, here added to it, determining the “con-
versation” to the worship of “vain” gods (Acts xiv. 15. Eph.
iv. 17). Their plea for their religion and vain worship being
also this, that they “received it from their fathers,” saying,
that” they “were not to be moved, by any persuasions, from
the religion which they had ºf received from their forefathers.”
But yet I confess, these things may relate to the gentile pro-
selytes among the Jews, which were very numerous (see
note on ver. 1). -
* Ver., 19. 'Q; áºvci, 34&ov, A. lamb without blemish.]
Christ being perfect, and without spot or sin, was typified by
the lamb offered daily for their sins; and that lamb being
bought with the half shekel every one gave for the buying
* Plato Tim. p. 1053, E.
+ Cic. de Nat. Deor. lib. iii. n. 3, 6.
sºme
960
I. PETER.
20 Who verily was “foreordained (Gr. foreknown,
i. e. designed as the Messiah), before the foundation of
the world, but was manifested in these last times for
you (r. sakes), -
21 * Who by (faith in) him (thus risen) do believe
in God, that raised up him from the dead, that your
faith and hope (of a blessed resurrection) might be in
OCl.
22 Seeing ye have purified your soulsin (by) obey.
ing the truth through the Spirit (by whom ye are ena-
bled to perform this obedience) to unfeigned love
of the brethren (which is one part of that obedience),
see that ye love (Gr. ye shall love) one another with a
pure heart fervently:
23 Being born again, not of corruptible seed (as is
that from which ye had your first nativity, whence ye
also who are thus begotten are corruptible),” but of in-
corruptible, (as being born again) * by the word of
God, which liveth and abideth for ever.
24 For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man
as the flower of grass. (As then) the grass withereth
and the flower of it falleth away (so will it be with our
body of flesh):
25 But the word of the Lord (saith the prophet,
Isa. xl. 8), endureth for ever (in itself, as being of
eternal truth ; and in its effects upon us, as mourishing
us to life eternal). And this is the word which by the
gospel is preached to you.
of the daily sacrifice (Exod, xxx. 12. 15, 16, and which was
therefore styled pºlºn F55, “the money of expiations,” and
was sent up to Jerusalem from every city of Judea, and all
the provinces where the Jews lived, in silver and gold), the
apostle may here allude to this, when he saith, “Ye were
Inot redeemed with silver and gold, by which the daily sacri-
fice was bought, which made atónement for your souls, but
with the precious blood of Jesus, who shed his blood for your
redemption from that death which by your sins ye had con-
tracted.” Others refer this to the paschal lamb, by the
sprinkling of whose blood they were delivered from destruc-
tion, when the first-born of the Egyptians perished (Exod.
xii. 11. 17). Both these lambs were to be ākyo? &#xopcot,
“perfect, and without spot,” that they might be accepted
(Exod. xii. 5. Lev. xxii. 21. Numb. xxviii. 3. 9. 11. 19, &c.).
** Ver. 20. IIgosyvoroºzévov, Foreknown.] The Jews say,
that * “when God created the world, he held forth his
hand under the throne of glory, and created the soul of the
Messiah and his company, and said to him, Wilt thou heal
and redeem my sons, after six thousand years? He an-
swered, Yes. God said to him, If so, wilt thou bear chas-
tisements, to expiate their iniquity, according to what is
written (Isa. liii. 4), Surely, he bore our griefs? He an-
Swered, I will endure them with joy.” And to this repre-
sentation of this covenant made with the Messiah, “before
the creation of the world,” it may be the apostle here refers
(see the note on Eph. i. 4). In the style of Philo, he is
ãºlo, Aéyoc, “the eternal Word, the first-born, and the most
ancient Son of the Father, by whom all the species were
framed.” This therefore is according to the received opinion
of the Jews.
* Ver. 21. IIIa rečovra, ei, Gºv, By him do believe in God.]
Here the Socinians object thus; He by whom we believe in
God, is not that God in whom we believe ; for the means of
faith can never be the object of it : but Christ is he by whom
we believe in God; ergo, Christ is not God. To this I an-
swer, That Christ, according to the nature which died for us,
and which was raised from the dead, is he by whom we be-
lieve in God; i.e. own him to be able to raise us also from
* Cartw. Mellif, lib. i. p. 2974, 2975.
+ De Plant. Noe, p. 169, D. Toírov ºfty yag resa'84tarov
vièv ć rāv Švrov &vítsiºs rathe, dy Érégoó, wbarráyoyoy &véſzaas'
was 6 yewnSeiç, Azºolºwevo, rā; rod warpèc 38ovº, w83; trapa?sty-
Faarº &#xãrvºra insivov 8xiway #466%u sièm. De Confus. Ling.
p. 258, A, B.
the dead; and according to the same nature we acknowledge
him not to be God: but that hinders not his being God, ac-
cording to that mature by which he had power to (and did
actually) raise himself from the dead (John x. 18. ii. 19).
But still they object, That “by him, we believe in him
that raised him from the dead, that our faith and hope might
be in God, to wit, the Father ;” faith therefore and hope in
Christ, is not faith and hope in God. Ans. First, it only
follows hence, that it is not faith and hope in God the Fa-
ther ; but, secondly, the apostle here saith, that by believing
in him who raised up Christ from the dead, “we believe in
God,” because we believe in that divine power which can
raise us also from the dead: since therefore the holy scrip-
ture expressly and frequently asserts, that we shall be raised
up from the dead, “by the voice of the Son of God” (John
v. 25. 28), and that because “as the Father hath life in him-
self,” and so is able to give life to the dead ; so hath he given
to the Son to have life in himself (ver. 26): seeing Christ
often saith of him that believeth in him, “I will raise him
up at the last day” (John vi. 39, 40.44, 45), for “I am the
resurrection and the life” (John xi. 24, 25): since the apos-
tle saith, he hath “dominion over the dead, and over the
living” (Rom. xiv. 9), that “by him all men shall be made
alive” (1 Cor. xv. 22), and that “he will change our vile
bodies into the likeness of his glorious body, according to the
mighty power whereby he is able to subdue all things to him-
self;”—it rather follows hence, that our faith and hope in
Christ, thus raising us from the dead, as his Father did him,
is faith and hope in God.
* Ver. 23. ‘AXX& 3pSáprov, Being born again of incor-
ruptible seed.] Here is a farther evidence, that the word of
God is the ordinary means of our new birth : for it is rô
#aa ré stayyextrôāv, “the word preached” (not any inward
word infused), which is here styled, that “incorruptible seed”
from which this new birth is derived.
* At& Xàyov Čyro; Osoſ, The living word of God..] This
epithet is ascribed to the word of God, Heb. iv. 12; and
that this is not spoken of the living God, is evident; because
in the Greek it is not 3:3 Aáyou Osoſ &vrog, but Kºvroc Q820, i.e.
not “by the word of the living God,” but “by the living
word of God.” Secondly, that it is to be understood of the
word preached, is clear ; because the epithet, “ living,” and
“abiding for ever,” agrees to the same thing. Now the apos-
tle saith, it is “the word preached” that “abideth for ever;”
and so the prophet Isaiah had said before him, xl. 8, rô 35
t ºf * * ºr *w A * w * *
Émpºa tou Ogou hºw&y ºvel Eic roy aiºva
CHAPTER II.
1 WHEREFoRE, laying aside all malice, and all love, and obstructive of the word of truth, by which we
guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil-speak- are born again),
ing (vices to which the Jewish nation was then very
2. As new-born babes, desire the ' sincere milk of
prome, and for which they are severely tawed by their the word, that (as ye were begotten, i. 23, so) ye may
own Josephus, see the parallel place, James i. 21, and grow thereby (unto a perfect man in Christ Jesus,
which are contrary to the great Christian command of Eph. iv. 13).
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II.
* Ver. 2. Tº Acyth?y yáña.] The milk which rational crea-
tures feed on. So Aoyixi, Aatºsia is the service performed by
men of reason, Rom. xii. 1. It seems to be the same in
sense with “the ingrafted word,” James i. 21.
CHAPTER II.
961
3 If so be (strep, since) ye have tasted that the
lord is gracious, (as having pardoned them who cru-
cified him, and procured the favour of God to them.
That śitrep signifies since, see note on Eph. iii. 2).
4 To whom coming, as to a living stone, * disal-
lowed (Gr. rejected) indeed of men, but chosen of
God, and precious,
5 Ye also, as "lively (Gr. living) stones, are built
up a spiritual house, (and are) a “holy priesthood, to
offer up "spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by
Jesus Christ.
6 Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture
(Isa. xxviii. 16), "Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cor-
mer-stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on
him shall not be confounded (Gr. ashamed). (And it
is also written in the same scripture, Behold, I lay in
Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, Isa.
viii. 14, 15. Rom. ix. 33.) -
7 To you therefore that believe he is precious (Gr.
* rui), belongs the honour of being thus built upon the
corner-stone to a spiritual house); but to them which
be disobedient (belongs what is written, Ps. cxviii. 22)
the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is
made the head of the corner.
8 And (also what is written, Isa. viii. 14, 15) a
stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence (or,
falling), even to them who stumbled at the word,
being disobedient ; "whereunto also they were ap-
pointed. *- .-
9 But ye (who are built upon him) are * a chosen
* Ver. 4. 'Atroëowtºwaakºvov, Disallowed, or rejected, of
men.] i. e. Of the Jewish sanhedrin, the “builders” men.
tioned Ps. cxviii. 22. S. So R. Solomon Jarchi on those words
of Micah, v. 2, “Out of thee shall come a governor that shall
rule my people Israel;” i.e. “the Messiah, the Son of
David, shall come from thee; as it is written (Ps. cxviii.22),
The stone which the builders refused, is become the head-
stone in the corner.” And so our Lord expounds these
words to the high-priests, scribes, and pharisees, Matt. xxi.
42. 45. Luke xx. 17. 19. So Peter, “full of the Holy
Ghost,” Acts iv. 11.
* Ver. 5. 'Qc Aišot Øvres, A living stone, ver. 4. Living
stones.] The Christian church being not a building made up
of materials without life, as was the temple of Jerusalem ;
but a spiritual building, consisting of the members of Christ's
body, living by the Spirit communicated from Christ their
head, and the fountain of life, to them (Eph. iv. 16. Col. ii.
19); he who communicates this life to them is therefore
styled “a living stone ;” and they who receive it from him,
are also styled “living stones:” and being by this Spirit thus
fitly put together, compacted, and edified into one building
(Rom. xiv. 19. 1 Thess. v. ll), are said to be “built up a
spiritual house.”
* ‘Iséâtsvºa &ylov, A holy priesthood.] The legal sacrifices
were to be offered by the priests alone, and only in the tem-
ple: accordingly the Christian church is here represented as
God's temple ; the praises they offer up to God in their as-
semblies are styled “spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God
through Jesus Christ,” Heb. xiii. 15 ; the persons who offer
them, “a holy priesthood” (see ver. 9).
* IIvevºwarix&; Burias, Spiritual sacrifices.] Thus Philo”
having said, agreeably to the psalmist, that God delights not
in hecatombs, “since the whole world is his, and he can
want nothing,” adds, that men, rºw &gia-rmy &váyova, Svaiav
tºvolc rôy Eiseyárny zai corºpa yepatov’reº, “then offer the best
sacrifice, when they honour their Benefactor and Saviour
with hymns:” he adds, that “the altar for burnt-offerings
was made of stone, and placed in the court before the taber-
nacle, but the altar of incense of gold was in the holy place
within the veil:” whence he infers, that “as much as gold is
better than stone, and the holy place more sacred than the
court, rocoſºrº kgsivrov # 31& rāv štriðvøtwºëvov sixagaria rā;
*ić, röy ivaigºwy, so much is the thanksgiving offered up with
incense better than that of sacrifices.” And, lastly, he saith,
that “the fire always burning on the altar, was rā a-dºz8oNow
rā; sixagºtia; a symbol of thanksgiving.” And this thanks-
giving, sent up to God with the oblation of bread and wine
in the eucharist, in commemoration of our Saviour's passion,
and with prayer for our acceptance through his beloved, is
by the primitive Christians styled their “spiritual sacrifice,”
and that “pure incense,” which, according to the prophet
Malachi, i. 11, the gentiles were to offer to God throughout
the world (see the text defended, Examen Millii).
* Ver. 6..] That both these stones relate to the Messiah, see
Voisin on Rom. ix. 33, and Pug. Fid. par. iii. cap. 5, §. 2,
p. 274.
Ver. 7. Ai}oyºy &mºoziaaaay of oizcłogoſyrt;, otro; #yāyā0m sic
wifaxåv yavia..] See these words vindicated against Grotius
*-----—
* De Vict. Offer. p. 657, F.
+ P. 698, B, F.
and Dr. Mills, Examen Millii, as also the reading of the text,
iii. 5. 16
7 Ver. 8. Ei, 3 kai tíšnzay, Whereunto also they were ap-
pointed.] That is, Saith the reverend Dr. Hammond, they
that disobey the gospel, that stand out obstinately against it,
were appointed by God to stumble and fall at that stone, i. e.
to be bruised, and ruined by that means, to be destroyed
among the crucifiers of the Messiah, and condemned with
them hereafter ; it being just with God, that they who will
not reform, and amend, at the preaching of the gospel, and
so receive the benefit by it, should, for their obstimacy, be
condemned, and so the worse for it; Christ being “set for
the falling” as well as “the rising of many in Israel” (Luke
ii. 34), and the gospel being “a savour of death to them that
perish” (2 Cor. ii. 15, 16), and they being those whom, #3: To
§ 9e3, ei; 38Yºv, “God hath appointed for wrath” (1 Thess. v.
6 ). And to be sure it cannot signify, that God absolutely
ordained the unbelieving Jews sig & Tsūsay, “to disobedience;”
for then this disobedience would be a compliance with the
divine ordinance or will, and so could not deserve the name
of disobedience: nor could this disobedience be objected to
them as their crime, unless compliance with his ordinance
and will be so, and it be a fault to be such as God by his im-
mutable counsel and decree hath ordained we should be ; or
it should render men criminal, and obnoxious to punishment,
that they have not made void God's absolute decree, or done
what that made it impossible for them to do. Wherefore
this passage cannot signify, that the unbelieving Jews were
appointed to disobedience; but only, that being disobedient
to the gospel so clearly revealed, and by so many miracles
and distributions of the Holy Ghost confirmed, they were
appointed, as the punishment of that disobedience, to fall and
perish : for so the Hebrew buyi), and the Greek ºrpárkoºpa,
and axévèaxov, import, viz. the ruin and fall of them who
stumble at this stone ; as hath been proved on Rom. xiv. 13
(see Prov. xvi. 19. Isa. viii. 14, 15. Jer. vi. 21. Ezek. iii.
20. xxi. 15. Zech. xii. 3. Matt. xxi. 41. Luke xx. 18). So
CEcumenius” on this place. Or, secondly, the words may be
thus construed, “To them who are disobedient,” and through
that disobedience stumble at the word, this other character
of the stone belongs, of “a stone of stumbling; whereunto
those stones were put, one for honour to the believer, the
other for a stone of stumbling to the unbeliever and disobe-
dient :” for to both these stones the apostle Paul, Rom. ix.
33, and Peter here, do put this preface, “Behold, I lay in
Zion a stone.” And this agrees with that of Simeon, “Be-
hold, this child is placed for the fall and rising of many in
Israel” (Luke ii. 34). .
Ver. 9..] The titles here given to the Christians are the
same which formerly were given to the whole Jewish nation,
and are accordingly to be interpreted :
* Távo, #xxExtoy, A chosen or elected nation.] Not only the
righteous and obedient persons among them, but the whold
nation of the Jews, are styled “the elect of God,” through-
out the Old Testament: thus, Deut. iv. 37, “Because he
loved thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, therefore
* oběspala y&p airia &moxsia; tragã tº Trávra; 3,98&nov;
6áxoviro; a`aşāvat 8626sſerai, &AA& roſ; Éavrov, a Kečn zatm?rnkóaw
āpyā;, xzi à & Teiºsia #rnxoxoiſºno's Kai Tragezweiſacay śavrob; six
Şy rážy iríðncay.
3 Q.
962
I. PETER. *
generation, a "royal priesthood, “a holy nation,” a
peculiar people; that ye should show forth *the
praises of him who hath called you out of darkness
into his marvellous light:
11
10 *Who in times past were not a people, but are
now the people of God; who had not obtained mercy,
but now have obtained mercy.
11 Dearly beloved, I beseech you “as strangers
###xÉÉaro ºr a Trégºza airãy pºst' airroic tº 3¢, he chose you
their seed after them, and brought you out of Egypt by his
mighty power.” Where it is evident, that their whole seed,
“even all that came out of Egypt,” were the elect ; Deut.
vii. 6, 7, “Jehovah thy God hath chosen thee to be a pecu-
liar people to himself, above all people that are on the face
of the earth. The Lord did not set his love upon you, be-
cause ye were more in number than any people ; but because
the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath
which he had sworn to your fathers, hath he brought you out
with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of
bondmen.” Where it is evident, first, that their being chosen,
before other nations, to be God’s “peculiar people,” is their
election. Secondly, that all that were brought out of Egypt
were thus beloved, and thus elected. Thirdly, that to these
elect, and chosen people, God only promiseth to “keep
covenant and mercy,” provided they would love him and
obey him ; and that he threateneth to destroy them, and to
“repay them to their face,” if they neglect so to do. In the
tenth chapter, ver, 14–16, he speaks thus, “The Lord had a
delight in thy fathers, to love them, xał Śexéaro, and he
elected you their seed after them above all people; circum-
cise therefore the foreskin of your hearts, and be no more
stiffnecked.” Where again evident it is, that the whole seed
of Abraham, by Isaac, even the “stiffnecked” of them, were
“the beloved” and “elect of God.” Ch. xiv., he saith to
all to whom the following precepts did belong, and therefore
doubtless to all Israel, “Thou art a holy people to the Lord
thy God, zai c's #8Aéaro & Kºgio, and the Lord hath chosen
thee out to be a peculiar people above all nations.”
And with this notion of the words, accords the constant use
of the same phrase in all the prophets and sacred writers of
the Old Testament: thus Solomon saith, 1 Kings iii. 8,
“Thy servant is in the midst of thy people, Św #8Ašćal, which
thou hast elected ; a great people that cannot be numbered,
nor counted for multitude.” In the book of Psalms, the
Jews in general are styled “the seed of Israel his servant,
the children of Jacob, whewrot attoº, his elect,” Ps. cw. 6.
43. cxxxv. 4; there doth he say, rôy 'Iax36 Havrò ##EAéato
& Köpioc, “The Lord hath chosen Jacob to himself, and Israel
for his own inheritance,” Ps. cwi. 5; there doth he tell us,
that “the Lord brought forth his people with joy, zai rob;
#4xextoic airoij, and his elect with gladness;” there he de-
sires of God, Xenarórnta rāy #AAEzrāy, “the good of his elect,
to rejoice in the gladness of his nation:” so that throughout
the Psalms, God’s “servants,” his “people” his “nation,”
his “inheritance,” and his “elect,” are the same persons.
In the evangelical prophet we read, God speaking of
Jacob, ºy #swegápany, “whom I have elected, and Israel whom
I have loved,” Isa. xli. 8, 9, and to whom he speaks thus,
“Thou art my child, whom I have chosen,” xliii. 20, 21.
There God declares, “He will make waters in the wilderness,
and rivers in the deserts, rotical rô yévo; tıou rô #xxextrêv, to
give drink to my chosen generation, my people whom I have
chosen to show forth my praise,” xlv. 4. There we read of
“Jacob my servant,” and “Israel mine elect,” lxv. 6, and of
a mountain which his “elect shall inherit, and in which his
servants shall dwell.”
In the prophet Jeremy we find God is displeased with
them who said, “The two families Era Hin inn ºwn,
whom the Lord had chosen, he hath even cast them off.”
Jer. xxxiii. 24. The prophet speaks of the day “when the
Lord chose Israel, and lifted up his hand to the seed of the
house of Jacob,” Ezek. xx. 5. The prophet Zechariah
styles God, “the Lord who hath chosen Jerusalem,” Zech.
iii. 2. And Daniel speaks of a time when of taxexro: ağrot,
“ his elect should not be able to stand before their enemies,”
Dan. xi. 15.
And to carry on this phrase even to the times of the New
Testament ; in the book of Esther, we are told of a time in
which rà yévo; #xxEwry, “the chosen generation should have
perished,” Esth. xvi. 21, i. e. in which the wicked Haman
designed to cut off the Jews. In the book of Ecclesiasticus
we are informed, that “Joshua was made great, ir, carnpia.
#xxextäy atroń, for saving the elect of God, and taking ven-
geance on their enemies that rose up against them (Ecclus.
xlvi. 1), that he might set Israel in their inheritance.”
Thus have I traced this phrase throughout the whole ſºld
Testament, and shown, that it belongs not to particular per-
sons, but to the whole Jewish church and people in the
general; to the bad as well as to the good among them ; to
them to whom God threateneth the worst of evils, as well as
to them to whom he promised the greatest blessings.
When in the New Testament this phrase is applied to the
, Jews, it plainly signifies as many of them as were converted
to the Christian faith ; though afterward too many of them
fell off from it, or brought not forth those fruits of righteous-
ness which Christianity required ; and is applied to them all
in general, and without distinction. And it is highly reason-
able to conceive it should be so; for the apostle writing to
that nation; who had been still accustomed to this notion of
the word, and were all styled “the elect,” they must be sup-
posed to use the words of the Old Testament in that sense in
which they always understood them : that the apostle doth
here so use the word, is evident from this consideration, that
the “holy nation,” the “peculiar people,” the “royal priest-
hood,” joined with it, are expressions belonging primarily to
that nation, and from them derived to the Christians.
Secondly, that this epistle is writ to “the elect,” that is, the
“strangers of the dispersions of Pontus, Galatia, Cappado-
cia, Asia, and Bithynia,” they all being styled “the elect,”
i.e. such as professed Christianity, and so were visible mem-
bers of the church of Christ ; whereas too many of them
were not so, according to that meaning of the word elect,
which makes it to import men absolutely designed for eter-
nal happiness, as this and the Second Epistle may inform
us. Thirdly, that the Second Epistle, sent to the same per-
sons, writes only “to them who had obtained like precious
faith with us;” and so informs us, that the “faithful” and
“elect ’’ are in Peter's phrase the same. And that this is
the notion of the word in all the other places of the New
Testament, see proved in the notes upon them ; and that it
is applied to whole churches, and scarce ever to any indivi-
dual person, in that sense in which it hath been so generally
used by some late divines.
* Baoixstoy isgårsvaa, A royal priesthood.] Exod. xix. 6,
“A kingdom of priests:” “Kings and priests,” saith the
Chaldee. And so John declares, that Christ hath “made us .
kings and priests to God,” Rev. i. 6. v. 10, kings to “reign
with him,” xx. 6, and priests to “offer up unto him our spiri-
tual sacrifices” (see here, ver. 5).
* "ESvo; #ytov, A holy nation.] i. e. A people separated
to God from all other nations, and from their idolatry, or
false and antiquated worship, to serve him in an acceptable
manner: on which account all Christian churches, being
called out of the world, and dedicated to the service of God
by Jesus Christ, are, in the prefaces to Paul's epistles, styled
“saints” (see note on 1 Cor. i. 2).
* Aa3; ei, Treptºroſnow, A peculiar people..] A treasure, as
the word Tiblo signifies, a people in covenant with God, and
so become his peculium, whom he will be careful to protect
and preserve, and to whom belong his peculiar favours and
privileges. -
* Tä, äger&c, His praises;] Or, glory: Hºnn is so ren-
dered by the Septuagint, Isa. xlii. 8, “I will not give my
glory to another, où83 rā; 368té; bºov, nor my praise to gra-
ven images;” and ver. 12, “Let them give glory to the
Lord ; ºrå; &pgrèg airrot &vayyexodori, let them show forth his
praises in the islands:” and, xliii. 21, he styles Israel “my
elect ;’ as here, “my peculiar people, rā, śperá; pºov 8inyeſa-
Sai, to show forth my praise" (see also lxiii. 7. Hab. iii. 3.
Zech. vi. 13. Esth. xiv. 10).
* Ver. 10. Oi Trots of Aa34, Who in times past were not
a people.] These words plainly relate to God's dealing with
the ten tribes of Israel, when he had given them a bill of
divorce (Jer. iii. 8), and sent his prophet Hosea to say unto
them, “Ye are not my people, neither will I be your God.”
(Hos. i. 6. 9). And again, “I will no more have mercy on
CHAPTER II.
963
and * pilgrims, (to) abstain from fleshly lusts, which
* war against the soul; -
12 Having your conversation honest (Gr. honour-
able) among the gentiles: that, whereas they "speak
against you as evil-doers, they may by your good
works, which they shall behold, (be induced to) glo-
rify God "in the day of visitation.
13 Submit yourselves (Gr. be ye subject therefore)
to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whe-
ther it be to the king; as supreme;
14 Or unto governors, as to them who are sent
*by him for the punishment of evil-doers, and for the
praise of them that do well. .
15 For so is the will of God (concerning you) that
(so) with well-doing ye may put to silence the igno-
rance of foolish men: (i.e. of those gentiles, which, es-
timating you by the turbulent Jews, are apt to represent
$/ou as #0wog 6voapkröv cai Övorst6&g pàost ºrpèg točg
(3agu)\éac, a people naturally averse from subjection to
kings, Jos. de Bell. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 8, p. 782, F.)
16 ° As free (men), and (but) not using your liberty
for a cloak of maliciousness (as the Jews do), but as
(those who are) the servants of God (and so, for con-
science towards him, are subject to his ordinance).
the house of Israel, but will utterly cast them away :” and
indeed, God having so expressly said, that “the children of
Judah and Israel should be gathered together, and appoint
themselves one head,” that he would “have mercy upon her
who had not obtained mercy, and would say to them who were
not his people, Thou art my people” (Hos. i. 11. ii. 23), and
that they should say, “Thou art my God,” and that “the house
of Judah should walk with the house of Israel;” I doubt not but
that there was a considerable return of the ten tribes, or at least
a considerable conversion of them in the places where they
were: and though they, being mixed with the heathens, did
many of them “serve their gods,” as he threatened they
should, Deut. xxviii. 36.64, and so may be also said to be
“called from darkness to this marvellous light;” yet since
the apostle Paul applies this passage to the gentiles (Rom.
ix. 25), I doubt not but that, in my mystical sense, it must
relate to them also.
.* Ver. 11. ‘O; Tragoizovº, As strangers and pilgrims.]
They whose “citizenship is in heaven,” and whose “names
are written in heaven” (Phil. iii. 20. Heb. xii. 23), must
be “pilgrims and strangers upon earth’” (see note on Heb.
xi. 13).
* xrgarejowtai, War against the soul..] For whereas the
natural motion of that spiritual being is towards spiritual and
heavenly things, “these lusts,” saith CEcumenius, “draw
down and captivate the soul to sensual and worldly things:”
as therefore strangers and pilgrims are not wont to be affected
much with the objects which they see in their travels; so
neither should we who profess to be pilgrims in this world,
be much affected with sensual objects.
* Ver, 12. Kara Naxojaly ipºv, Speak evil of you as of
evil-doers.] Here CEcumenius gives this relation from Ire-
naeus, bishop of Lyons, concerning the martyrs Sanctus and
Blandina ; “That the heathens apprehending the servants
of some Christians, and compelling them to declare what
evil they knew of them, those servants having heard from
the Christians that the holy Sacrament was the body and blood
of Christ, and thinking that it was, rà èvri, verily and sub-
stantially, his flesh and blood, related this to the inquirers,
and they thinking, &; airéxpnºa, that this was done in very
deed by Christians, told this to other heathens, and compelled
the martyrs Sanctus and Blandina, by torments, to confess
it ; to which Blandina answered, How can they be guilty of
such things, who by exercise (i. e. through temperance) per-
mit not themselves to enjoy lawful flesh?”
17 'Ew hºw#62 into work, In the day of visitation.] That is,
when they afflict and persecute you : so intoxotri, and hºwāga.
into worſ, often signify in the Septuagint ; Isa. x. 3, “What
will ye do, iv tº hºpg rā, świakorås, in the day of visitation,
when your affliction shall come from far ;” Jer. vi. 15, #y
xaſpº tria-Kotrºg, “In the time of their visitation they shall
perish :” and again, x. 15. Wisd. iii. 7, #y kaić, Širiakotriº, “In
17 Honour (therefore) all men (even heathens).
Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king
(who then was Nero, the worst of kings, and the perse-
cutor of Christians). *
18 ° Servants (also) be subject to your masters with
all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to
the froward. *
19 For this is “ thankworthy, if a man for con-
* towards God endure grief, suffering wrong-
ully. . * *
20 * For what (ground of) glory is it (to you), if
when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it
patiently but if, when ye do well, and (yet) suffer
{..." ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with
OCl.
21 (And it is also suitable to your profession :) for
even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also
(whose followers ye profess to be) suffered for us, leav-
ing us an example (both of well-doing and patient suf-
fering), that ye should follow his steps:
22 (For he was one) who did no sin, neither was
guile found in his mouth (and so he could not suffer
for evil-doing :
23 And also one) who, when he was reviled, reviled
the time of their visitation they shall shine ;” Ecclus. ii. 14,
“Woe to them who have lost patience, what will they do,
3ray into kärtnrat ā Kūgios, when the Lord visits P’’ and xviii.
20, “Before the judgment examine thyself, xa, #y 624 triazo-
tric, and in the hour of visitation thou shalt find propi-
tiation.”
* Ver. 14. At agrº, By him.] That is, by God, saith
Esthius, because these governors were not always sent by
Caesar for these good ends ; but it is sufficient that this was
the general end of punishment, &c., and therefore they, in
charity, must be supposed to be sent by kings and emperors
for those ends.
19 Ver. 16. ‘n, ixeſ}=pci, As free, &c.] That the Gnos-
tics pretended to any such liberty as exempted them from
subjection to superiors, I find not in church history : but,
that the Jews, to whom Peter writes, and especially the zea-
lots among them, were notorious for this doctrine, and were
practising it at the writing of this epistle, is evident: for,
First, They held themselves obliged to own” “God alone
as their only Lord and Governor, in opposition to Caesar,
and all kings which were not of their own nation,” and did
not govern them by their own laws, or his immediate ap-
pointment.
Secondly, They, many of them, rebelled against the Ro-
mans, and against the governors sent by them, upon this
very pretence, that “they were a free people, and ought to
preserve their liberty:” and thus they “used their liberty
for a cloak of maliciousness.”
29 Wer. 18. of oizárai, Servants, be subject.] This also
was a lesson needful for the Jews, because the Essenes
against them, say Philo and Josephus, thought it “against
the law of nature to be servants to any ;” and their rabbins.
allowed not “a Jew to be a servant to a heathen * (see note
on 1 Tim. vi. l. 2).
21 Ver. 19. Toiro y&g Xágic.] This will procure the divine
favour and reward. So what is, Troia (pºv x&gt; ; “What
thank have ye?” Luke vi. 32, 33, is, riva aizº, ixºte ;
“What reward have ye?” Matt. v. 46 ; and in the follow-
ing verse this phrase is rendered, “This is acceptable.”
* Ver. 20.] Note, First, From comparing this and the
preceding verse, that to suffer (ver. 19), and to take our
* Märs ‘Powaiolº, ºre &Axe, riv; SovXeſsiv, h QE3. Mévos yèg
abrè; 3xnsh; art was 3ízato, 3,086 row 3Earátnº. Eleazar apud
Joseph. lib. vii. cap. 34, p. 989, G. "Ezreiðoy rā; #Nevşegia's
3yrigoisſa'9ai, Kai Pop, aiovº ºfty ºn?iv xpeirtovº Havröy iroxap-
Čávew, Os3y 33 ºvov #ystoffat Sea-rárny. Cap. 37, p. 995, B.
Wide D, E, F, et Not. in 2 Thess. ii. 4. -
+ IIeš. Asvöselay itszpátovy, 6&vatov tritºrs; tº reiða:-
xcija'i rā ‘Popwatov #yegovia. Ib. lib. ii. cap. 23, p, 797, C, D.
Wid. lib. ii. cap. 28, p. 804, E. lib. iii. cap. 25, p. 851, F.
lib. iv. cap. 13, p. 874, C. lib. vii, cap. 30, p. º F.
3 Q 2
964
I. PETER.
not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but
committed himself to him that judgeth righteously
(and so was an eaſample of perfect patience):
24 Who (was not only to us an ea ample of suffering,
but) his own self “bare our sins in his own body on
the tree, that we, being dead to sin, should live unto
righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.
25 * For ye were as sheep going astray (from) :
but are now returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of
your souls. -
sufferings patiently (ver. 20), in the scripture import, is the
same thing. *
Secondly, That to do that which is truly acceptable to
God, is also matter of our glory (see note on 1 Cor. ix. 6.
Jer, ix. 24, Rom. ii. 7. 10).
* Ver. 24. 'Awāysykey, Bare our sins.] If these words be
rendered, “He bare our sins,” it is certain that an innocent
person can only bear them by bearing the punishment due
to them : and that this is the proper import of these words,
t&; &#xagtia; hºw dyńveykey, is evident both from the prophet's
exposition of them, when he saith of the same person, airãº
&ºwaftia; Troxxây &yńveyze, “He bare the sins of many ” (Isa.
liii. 12), and expounds this thus, 81& rā; &vokia; airāv rags?60n,
“He was delivered up to death for their iniquities ;” and
from the usual import of the phrase in the Old Testament ;
as, when we read in the book of Leviticus, vii. 18, “He that
eateth of the peace-offering in the third day, it shall not be
favourably accepted, rºy &aaériav Ahslerat, he shall bear his
iniquity.”
thy heart, thou shalt in any wise rebuke him, zai oi, Añº
3' airey & zaštíay, and not bear sin for him " (Lev. xix. 17):
and in the book of Numbers thus, “Your children shall
wander in the wilderness forty years, wai &voia ovari rāy ºrogystav
tºy, and shall bear your whoredoms”—“Ye shall bear
iniquitics forty years” (Numb. xiv. 33, 34): when we hear
the prophet Jeremy complaining, “Our fathers have sin-
ned, and are not, r3 &vo&#zara aúrów iréaxopºv, and we
have borne their iniquities” (Lam. v. 7): when we hear
God saying to Ezekiel, “Lie thou upon thy left side, and
lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it; according to
the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon it, Ah-ºn rā;
&ötkia; autów, thou shalt bear their iniquities” (Ezek. iv. 4.—
6): when it is farther said, “The soul that sinneth it shall
die ; the son of A# Jatai, shall not bear the iniquity of the
father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son ’’
(Ezek. xxviii. 20): when we read so often in the law of
Moses, that such persons have been guilty,” “and shall bear
their iniquity, they shall die for it ;” and find so many cau-
tions there given to the Jews, that they offend not in such
a kind,+ “that they bear not iniquity and die;” or, lest they
bear iniquity and die: in all these places, neither the Socini-
ans, nor any other persons, do fancy any other import of
these words, but that by bearing of iniquity and sin is meant
bearing the punishment of sin ; and in these latter places,
being punished with death for it. When therefore the same
Jews found it foretold of their Messiah, by their own pro-
phet, that he should “bear the sins of many,” what could
they understand by these expressions, but that he was to
buffer the punishment, and bear upon him the burden of
their sins 2 When the apostle informs those very Jews who
were so well acquainted with the import of this phrase, that
“Christ was once offered, or given up to death, to bear the
sins of many ;” and when Peter, writing to the same Jews,
informs them that “he bare our sins in his own body on the
type,” how can we think otherwise, than that they both ap-
prehended, and the blessed apostle did design to teach them,
that he suffered this death as the punishment of their iniqui-
ties 3 Let Mr. Le Clerc continue, if he please, to be confi-
dent that “it is not so much the expiation of sins, as the
mortification of them, that is here signified,” whilst we poor
mortals rather think our sins must be mortified in us than on
a tree, and in our own bodies than in Christ's, or in the suf-
ferings of his body; and that it is not very good sense to say,
He mortified our sins, that we might die unto them.
* Ver. 25.] These and the former words are taken from
* Thy-&gaeriay XàJerai. Lev. v. 1. vii. 18. xxiv. 15. Numb.
ix. 13. Ezek. xxiii. 49. ‘Agapriay zoºlotyrai. Lev. xx. 17.
'Agºpriay &roizoyrat, ver. 19, 20.
t "Iya º Xáſ?or 3' air, & wagtiay wai &rdóżywort. Lev. xxii.
J. Kai oi, Akºlºzss 3' attà épz-gºiaz, 'a paſſ 37.264/nts. Numb.
xviii. 22, 23.
And again, “Thou shalt not hate thy brother in
Isa. liii. 7, where the words are, “We as sheep have gone
astray, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
Hence are both Jews and gentiles represented as “lostsheep,”
and Christ as the “good Shepherd” who goes after them,
and brings them home upon his shoulders (see Isa. xl., 11.
Ezek. xxxiv. 23). Here then is a farther confutation of the
Socinian * gloss upon the former verse, viz. that “Christ
took away our sins by his own body crucified upon the cross,
procuring our absolution from them by his sufferings ; not
that he underwent the punishment of our transgressions, but
because his voluntary death prevailed with God to give him
power to absolve his servants at the last, and to reward them
with eternal glory.” For were this the whole import of the
words, why is it added, in plain allusion to those emphati-
cal words of the prophet Isaiah, “He bare our sins, the
chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his stripes
we are healed 2* Why is it so emphatically noted, that he
who “did no sin” (ver. 22), yet “bare our sins P” Doth not
this lead us to this sense, that he thus suffered not for his
own, but for our sins P Why is he said to “take away our
sins in his own body ?” Doth not that seem to intimate, that
the punishment of our sins was laid upon his body ? Why
is he said to do this “upon the tree ?” Must not that inti-
mate, that what he did to take away our sins was done upon
the cross 2 especially if we consider, that the cross was the
altar upon which he suffered, and that in lºssly, àweveyzáv #7:
rö 69ataarhetov, “to carry up upon the altar,” is the usual
phrase for offering the sin-offering or the burnt-offering upon
the altar. And so the import of this whole sentence seems
to be this ; He bare, or took away, our sins in his own body
offered upon the altar for us. Moreover, if this be chiefly
done after Christ's resurrection, and the great day of recom:
pence, and only by Christ's death, as it prevailed with God
to give him power then to absolve us from our sins, why
doth the author to the Hebrews make such a plain distinc-
tion betwixt Christ's bearing our sins, and his second coming
to give a final absolution from them, saying (Heb. ix. 27.
29), “Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and
to them that look for him he will appear a second time, Xo-
gic &gaeriac, without a sacrifice, for sin, unto salvation.”
Crellius allows that x&pi; ágapria; signifies “without a sin-
offering;” and doth it not hence follow, that his first coming
to bear our sins was his coming with a sin-offering for
them P Since then the sin-offering still suffered in the sinner's
stead, and bare the punishment of his iniquity, it follows,
that he who came to be a sin-offering for us, must come to
suffer in our stead, and bear the punishment of our ini-
quities.
Lastly, Admit the words may be translated thus, “He took
away our sins,” it is most reasonable so to interpret them as
this phrase is used in scripture, when it is applied to the
same purpose ; now when it is there used of “taking away
sin” by a sacrifice offered up to God for sin, it always hath
relation to an atonement made by the sacrifice for that ini-
quity; and that sin-offering is said to “bear away the ini-
quity,” by taking it upon himself. So when it is said that
the sin-offering is given, Wa & péants rāv &pagriay tº avyaya-
yñº, kal #24aaa-Se repl airrāv #vayri Kuplov, “to take away the
iniquity of the congregation,” it is there said to do it, “by
making an atonement for them before the Lord,” Lev. x.
17. So it is said of the scapegoat, that “he shall bear
away all their iniquities;” but then he must be presented
before the Lord, rod Éixácacsai äm' aircü, “to make atone-
* Neque enim Christus perpessionibus suis iram Dei in
nos conceptam exsatiavit, aut debitanostra propriéloquendo
exsolvit ; sed tanta sua et tam grata Deo obedientia, et Sibi
coelestem gloriam, et suis omnibus peccatorum remissionem,
regnicoelestis hacreditate conjunctam, Dei beneficio compara-
divit. Schlictingius in locum.
+ Lev. iii. 5. II. 17. iv. 10.26. vi. 10, 15. viii. 17. Numb,
v. 25, 26.
CHAPTER III.
965
inent with,” or “upon him,” Lev. xvi. 1 ; i. e. Aaron must
“confess their iniquities upon his head, and he shall bear
upon him all their iniquities, Ahshirai'i p' #avrá rà; &aağriac
aúrów, he shall take their iniquities upon himself, and shall
bear them away into the wilderness.” So, Deut. xxi. 9,
“Thou shalt take away innocent blood from among you;”
but this is to be done by making an atonement for the inno-
cent blood shed. When therefore it is said, that “Christ
was manifested to take away sin,” 1 John iii. 5, and that he
“took away our sins in his own body,” and was offered to
“ take away the sins of many ” Heb. ix. 28, is it not reason-
able to suppose he did this by taking the punishment of
them upon himself, and making an atonement for them be-
fore God P especially if we consider that he is speaking to
those Jews to whom these phrases were familiar.
CHAPTER III.
1 And to proceed to the other relations, of man and
wife :) likewise, ye wives, bein subjection to your own
husbands; that, if any (be such as) obey not the word,
they also without the word (i. e. without attending to
the other demonstrations of the truth of it), may be
won (to the faith) by the conversation of the wives;
2 Whilst they behold your chaste conversation
coupled with fear :
3 Whose adorning, let it not be that outward adorn-
ing of "plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold
(chains), or of putting on of (gorgeous) apparel;
4 But let it be (that of) the hidden man of the
heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the orna-
ment of a meek and quiet spirit, which in the sight of
God is of great price.
5 For after this manner in the old time the holy
women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves
(with chastity and subjection), being in subjection to
their own husbands;
6 Even as Sarah obeyed Abraham (in token of that
subjection), calling him lord: whose daughters ye are
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III.
* Ver. 2. Tºy #v pá89 &ywhy &vaa-rgothy tºy, Your chaste
conversation in fear.] i. e. That they observing that the
fear and reverence of that God you serve, produceth in you
all due subjection and obedience to them, great chastity, and
freedom from all suspicion of lust, great meekness and quiet-
mess of spirit in the family, sobriety in your apparel, and
care of their concerns, you may by these things commend
to them, not only your own persons, but that faith which
produces in you these good fruits.
*Ver. 3. 'Extraoxi, reixºv, Not the outward adorning,
&c.] These, in the words of Clemens of Alexandria, 4 are +3
#ratºtköy wax^3rizºna, “the ornaments of whores;” and such
as demonstrate, rö coßagöv, Hai Sgurriköy, Kai 38803iatºrov,
“their arrogance, softness, and lasciviousness ; the plaiting
of the hair was,” saith he,'t “a sign of corrupt women, wai
yā; ai tripitraokai Teixáv raipukai and they that use them,”
he saith, “were Étapixຠzoo'ºoča evoi, attired like whores.”
And in his third book, and fourth chapter, he saith, at Xpwro-
$ogºta'al yuvaikes, “The women that wear gold, plait their
hair, paint their faces, have not the image of God in the in-
ward man, but, in lieu of it, a fornicating and adulterous
soul.” The Apostolical Constitutions; also forbid women to
wear röy irºrºsuusyny Łasira ti, &rármy, “exquisite garments,
or garments fitted to deceive, or gold rings upon their fingers,
3rt ratta Trávra Éraigia ºff texºple irápxes, because all these
things are signs of whoredom.” And as for the “wearing of
gold,” Jamblichus,S in the life of Pythagoras, saith, ºr yºv-
cºy #NEvşâgay ºwn?sºciay possiv, ºvov 33 tag #Taigaº, “that no free
women wore gold, but whores only.” The precious apparel is
the thing which all the comedians mention as the attire which
such women sought after, and gloried in. These things
therefore, when they are used as such marks of distinction,
are absolutely forbid chaste women: but when they cease to
be so, they may be worn by Christian women, provided they
do it without pride, or much concern about them ; and still
remembering that gravity in apparel is still more honourable
* Paedag. lib, ii, cap. 12.
† Lib. i. cap. 3, 8.
+ Lib. iii, cap. 11, p. 248.
§ Lib, i, cap, 31, p. 165.
as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any
amazement (i. e. and be not moved by your fears to
deny the truth, as she was, Špoſłł,0m yáp, for she was
afraid, Gen. xviii. 15).
7 * Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them accord-
ing to (the) knowledge (of your Christian duty, which
requires you to love and cleave to your wives, forsaking
all others, and to render them due benevolence), giving
honour (or conjugal affection) to the wife, as to the
weaker vessel (and so less able to contain, and more
liable to temptations), and as being heirs together of
the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered
(as they must be if ye refuse to cohabit with them).
8 Finally, be all of one mind (minding the same
things), having compassion one of another (under all
gour afflictions), love as brethren, be pitiful, be courte-
ous (these being the effects of love) ;
9. Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing
(things contrary to love, as showing rancour in the
heart and tongue); but contrariwise blessing ; know-
ing that ye are thereunto called (i. e. for this very end),
and becoming Christian matrons, and that the ornaments of
the mind, which are not subject to corruption, are much to
be preferred before them.
* Ver. 7. Oi &yège; protoc, Likewise, ye husbands.] I am
very uncertain what is the true sense of these words. The
reverend Dr. Hammond interprets them thus, “Let the hus-
bands in like manner live conjugally with their wives, as
Christianity requires of them ; giving them maintenance, as
persons less able to provide for themselves, and considering
that they are by God's appointment co-partners with them
of the good things of this life; that so they may not be dis-
turbed in their prayers by their distractions and solicitudes
for this world.” Which interpretation I should acquiesce
in, could I find that the phrase avyxxngovápºol Šoš; or Čáznº,
“Being heirs together of the grace of life,” was ever used
only with respect to the good things of this present life ;
or that inzórreg-Sai rāg ºrporevzā; signified only “to be dis-
tracted in prayers,” and not rather to have them only
hindered.
Others interpret them thus: Let the husbands live with
their wives as Christianity requires, not irritating or provok-
ing them (Col. iv. 19), not despising their company ; but
giving honour to them as most needing it, and as considering
that they are equal to them in respect of spirituals; and
that by your discontents, displeasure against and separation
from one another, your prayers be not hindered.
Others, as in the paraphrase, refer this to conjugal rela-
tion, and to conjugal duties ; as all the ancients, who have
spoken of these words, interpret them. GEcumenius saith,
he thinks they are to be interpreted, Étri rāg yaºzikji, Xgha-Ezº,
of the conjugal use of one another ; and the word avvcızsºv
seems to plead for this sense as being so used by the Sep-
tuagint, Gen. xx. 3. Deut. xxiv. l. xxv. 5. Isa. lxii. 5. Esd.
i. 8. 70. 84. 92; but then I find not that the word righ
beareth any such sense. Only to this it may be answered,
that Origen” seems to point the words thus: “Let the hus-
band dwell with the wife according to knowledge, as being
more infirm, giving honour to them, also, as being heirs of
the grace of life.” And seeing a waxšo signifies to marry, or
* “Or, 38: tów #y?pa evoixeſ ºf juvaixi, &; &a:0sysztáew crºſſa
& Troyāºoyra tºy. Hom, xxiv. in Matt. tom. i. p. 355.
966
I. PETER. -
that you should inherit a blessing (and so by blessing
others, will imitate your gracious God, and show how
willing ye are the same mercies may be conferred on
others). -
10 For he that will love life (i. e. who is desirous of
a quiet, pleasant life), and (would) see good (i. e.
prosperous) days, let him refrain his tongue from evil
(speaking, so that men may refrain from speaking evil
of him again), and his lips that they speak no guile:
Il Let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek
peace, and ensue it (that so men may be disposed to
speak uprightly, and do good to you, and live peaceably
with you, and you may live under the protection of
divine providence). -
12 For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous
(to protect them from evil), and his ears are open to
their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them
that do evil (to return it upon their own heads),
13 And (this deportment doth also naturally tend to
preserve you from evil, for) who is he that will (be so
*Innatural and ungrateful as to) harm you, if ye befol-
lowers of that which is good (and obliging to them)?
14 But if (it should so happen, that notwithstanding)
contract matrimony, the words may be thus paraphrased :
Likewise, ye men, be ye joined in marriage with the women,
as ye find them endued with the knowledge of Christianity,
they being the weaker vessels, and so more subject without
this knowledge to miscarry: giving preference in your choice
to such as be heirs together with you of the grace of life,
that, through difference in religion, your prayers be not
cut off.
* Ver. 14. Toy páčov airāy a pogrºñre, Fear not their
fear.] These, and the following words, “Sanctify the Lord
God in your hearts,” are plainly taken from Isa. viii. 12,
and they are there an exhortation not to fear the Assyrians,
nor to be dismayed, as those Jews were, who out of fear
were desirous to confederate with them ; and so accordingly
they must here signify, that Christians were not so to dread
those by whom they suffered for the sake of righteousness,
nor any that out of fear conspired with them to avoid per
secution, as too many of the Jews did (Gal. vi. 12, 13), as
to do anything contrary to the fear of God, or unbecoming
their profession. -
* Ver. 15. Kºtov &yiázars, But sanctify the Lord God in
tour hearts.] This phrase in scripture seems to import
these things.:
First, That we should always have upon our spirits such
3 holy fear and reverence of God, as will prevail upon us to
dread more his displeasure than anything which we can suf.
fer from the hand of man (Matt. xx. 28), and so enable us
to stick close to our duty, and to endeavour to secure his
favour, whatsoever we may suffer for so doing. So, Isa. vii.
13, 13, “Fear not their fear, but sanctify the Lord of hosts
himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your
dread:” so, xxix. 23, “They shall sanctify the Holy One of
Jacob, and shall fear the God of Israel.”
Secondly, To “sanctify the Lord God in our hearts,” is
from the heart to own and to believe the truth of all that
God delivers by his word and promise: as when God saith
to Moses and Aaron, “Because ye believed me not, to Sanc-
tify me in the eyes of the children of: Israel, therefore ye
shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have
given, them” (Numb. xx. 12). Hence the apostle, having
told the Christians, he writeth to them of the engagements
God had made, that “his eyes should be over the righteous,
and his ears open to their prayers,” and minded them of
“the hope that was in them,” requires them thus to “sanc-
tify the Lord God in their hearts.” g
Thirdly, This phrase imports a firm belief of his almighty
Pºwer, which makes him able to protect his people against
all their enemies, and an affiance in his goodness and espe-
cial providence towards them: “Sanctify the Lord God in
Your hearts, and he shall be for a sanctuary,” Isa. viii. 13.
So Ezekiel, xxxvi. 22–24. -
, Fourthly. To “sanctify the Lord,” is to acknowledge and
believe his justice, and that he is a God who will be sure to
ye (should) suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are
ye (iv. 14); and (therefore) ‘be not afraid of their
terror (i.e. of what they threaten), neither be ye trou-
bled (for what they can inflict upon you) ;
15 But "sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and
be ‘ready always to give an "answer (or account) to
every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that
is in you with meekness and fear:
16 Having (or retaining) a good conscience; that,
whereas they speak evil of you, as of evil-doers (and
consequently represent your faith as instigating you
to evil practices) they may be ashamed (of such ac-
cusations), that falsely accuse your good conversation
in (the faith of) Christ.
17 (This care of retaining a good conscience is ne-
cessary, that ye may have comfort in your sufferings,
and be conformed to Christ by them :) for it is better,
if the will of God be so (and he sees fit to permit it),
that ye suffer for well-doing, than for evil-doing.
18 For Christ also hath once 7 suffered for sins, the
*just for the unjust, "that he might bring us to God,
§ put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the
pirit:
execute his judgments on the wicked, and more especially
upon the persecutors of his people. So when he executed
his judgments on Nadab and Abihu, Moses declares, “This
is the thing the Lord had spoken, I will be sanctified in
those that come nigh to me.” So Numb. xx. 13, “This is
the water of Meribah, because the children of Israel con-
tended with the Lord, and he was sanctified in them.;” “by
punishing their rebellion,” saith the Targum. So God de-
clares he would be sanctified upon Sidon, which had been to
the house of Israel “a pricking brier, and a grieving thorn”
(Ezek. xxviii. 24), and upon Gog, the great enemy of Israel
(xxxviii. 3). So the rabbins say, that “when God doth
judgment, he sanctifies himself before his creatures;” ac-
cording to these words of the prophet Isaiah, “The Lord of
hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and God that is holy
shall be sanctified in righteousness” (v. 16).
* IIgo; &moxoyiav.] This apology for “the hope that was in
them,” seems rather such as should be made by works than
words; against them who accuse the professors of it as evil-
doers, rather than against them who only doubt of the truth
of it.
7 Wer. 18. IIagº &gapºrt&v #mass, Hath suffered for sins.]
Here note, that Christ is not only said to suffer for us, but
to “suffer for our sins.” Now was ever any man said to
suffer for his own sins, who did not suffer the punishment of
his iniquity ? Why therefore should our Lord be said to
“suffer for sins,” if he did not some way suffer the punish-
ment of our iniquity P Again, is not the sin-offering in the
Old Testament styled above sixty times, r3 regi čºwaeriac,
and r3 rept &gaertów, “the offering for sin P". When there-
fore the oblation of our Lord is also called, rö Tragi & wagtiac,
“an offering for sin,” Rom. viii. 3, when he is said to suffer
Tragi &gapričy, “for sins,” 2 Cor. v. 21, what could the Jews,
to whom the apostle writes, conceive to be the proper import
of these words, but that he suffered to make atonement for
their sins, as did all their sin-offerings, by suffering in their
stead the punishment of their iniquity? (see the notes on
Rom. viii. 3. 2 Cor. v. 21.)
* Aizaio; itàp 38tway, The just for the unjust.] That is,
saith Schlictingius,” “that the unjust might not suffer death,
nor bear the punishment of their iniquities; for the victim
suffers lest the guilty should be punished.”
* “Iva ºrpoo`ayáyn, That he might bring us to God..] This
phrase, in all other places of the New Testament, where it
is used with respect to Christ, imports his procuring to us
freedom of access to God, who by our sins were formerly ex-
cluded from him, and banished from his gracious presence.
“By him we have,” saith the apostle Paul, reocrayoyāy ºrgöc
röv Travápa, “admission to the Father;” by him we do obtain
* Ne injusti paterentur mortem aeternam, et suorum pec-
catorum poenas darent: victima enim patitur ne reus pu-
niatur.
CHAPTER III.
967
19 By which (Spirit) also he went and preached
"to the spirits in prison; - & &
20 Which sometimes were disobedient, when once
the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noe,
while the ark was preparing, wherein few, that is,
eight souls were saved by water.
21. The like figure whereunto (Gr. the antitype of
Traśna (aw etc rºw ºrgorayayāy, “a freedom of access to God
with confidence” (Eph. ii. 18. iii. 12). This is obtained,
saith the same apostle, by virtue of his blood ; “for we who
sometimes were afar off, are by the blood of Christ brought
migh unto him:” we are brought migh unto him, saith Peter
here, by his suffering for our sins. Must not then we, who
were excluded and banished from him by our sins, be
brought nigh and reconciled to him by the blood of Christ
and by his sufferings for us on the cross 2
19 Wer. 19. Tot; #y puxaxi ºrvetºzazi, To the spirits in pri:
son.] Or, as other copies read, ITVečaati, by which Spirit
going, he preached to those in prison. For explication of
which words, note, e g
First, That by those “in prison” we may understand the
gentile world in bondage and captivity to sin and Satan, and
held in the chains of their own lusts, and in the bonds of
their iniquity. For by this phrase the evangelical prophet
doth thrice express the preaching of the gospel by our Lord
Jesus Christ: as in those words, “I gave thee for a cove-
nant to the people, for a light to the gentiles, to open the
blind eyes, to bring, #2 Beckwäy 8888&#vovº, Kai ść oixov puxaxis,
the prisoners out of prison, and them that sit in darkness out
of the prison-house,” Isa. xlii. 7. And again, “I will give
thee for a light to the gentiles, that thou mayest be my sal-
vation to the ends of the earth, that thou mayest Say, roi; Év
3Ezºoſ, ižáx$gre, to the prisoners, Go forth,” xlix. 9. And
a third time, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to pro-
claim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison
to those that are bound,” lxi. 1, 2. To this effect are all
these places interpreted by Jerome, Theodoret, and Proco-
pius, upon Isaiah ; viz. of those gentiles who were “bound
in the chain of their sins,” and captivated by Satan. Ac-
cordingly Lactantius, having cited the words extant, xlii, 7,
saith, Cüm igitur nos anteå tanquam caeci, et tanquam car-
cere stultitiae inclusi, sederemus in tenebris, ignorantes Deum
et veritatem, illuminati ab eo Sumus, quinos testamento Suo
adoptavit, et liberatos malis vinculis, atque in lucem sapien-
tiae productos, in haereditatem regni coelestis ascivit (Lib. iv.
cap. 20). Accordingly Philo" doth often represent men
brought in bondage to their lusts & #y Beapºorneiº Kašeteyºff-
wny Luxāy #xovireº, “as persons whose souls are shut up in a
prison-house;” and those who have overcome their lusts and
sinful pleasures,' &ctrip # sipwrā; reocºvšároy, was 8erºoſ,
oi, Hºrse-piyyovro Šta pegåvov, “as persons who are come out of
prison, and have put off their chains:” adding, that God
promised liberty to the souls that seek to him for it, où (co-
vow Aſatz 3scºw Rai #030y #x rº, Tregiºgovéovºzévn; Eiextä; "rapez-
axågewoc, “not only affording them freedom from their
bonds, and an exit from the prison in which they were kept ;
but giving them provisions for their journey, and safe con-
duct.” -
Now the antediluvians, who lived about the time of Noah,
were iv puxaxiſ, “in prison,” upon a double account: (1) by
reason of their bondage to sin: for then “all flesh had cor-
rupted their way,” their “wickedness was great upon the
earth,” and “every imagination of their heart was to do evil,
and that continually ” (Gen. vi. 5, 6. 13): and, (2.) they
were in prison, or #y puxaxi, as having from God received the
sentence of destruction, if they repented not within a hun-
dred and twenty years, according to these words, “My Spi-
rit shall not always strive with man, for that he is flesh : yet
his days shall be a hundred and twenty years” (Gen. vi. 3):
i.e. so long will I expect his reformation before I bring the
flood upon them. Thus “the long-suffering of God waited
for them in the days of Noah,” expecting their repentance,
and keeping them, as it were, “in prison” for the day of
* Quis Rer. Div. Haer. p. 387, E.
+ Quéd omnis prob. liber. p. 672, A.
t Quis Rer. Div. Haer. p. 405, F
which ark is that) baptism (which) doth also now save
us, not (merely as it is) the putting away of the filth
of the flesh, but (as it is) the * answer (or stipulation)
of a good conscience towards God (and this salvation
it works for us), by (virtue of) *the resurrection of
Jesus Christ :
22 Who is (Gr. being) gone into heaven, and is on
slaughter, if they did not repent. During this time, and be-
fore, God sent unto them his prophets, denouncing by his
Spirit his judgments against the wicked; for to them “Enoch,
the seventh prophet from Adam, prophesied, saying, The
Lord cometh with his thousands of angels to do judgment
against all, and to reprove all the ungodly concerning all
their ungodly works which they had wickedly committed,
and concerning all their hard speeches which ungodly sin-
ners had spoken against him” (Jude 14, 15). And he sent
also Noah to them, “a preacher of righteousness” (1 Pet. ii.
5), who, by preparing an ark before them for his own pre-
servation, in obedience to the oracle delivered to him, con-
demned the old world (Heb. xi. 7). Thus did Christ by
his Spirit preach to them in the days of Noah : and there-
fore the antediluvian age is even by the Jews styled “the
age of the Holy Ghost ;” according to those words, “My
Spirit shall not always strive with man ;’ that is, say Ains-
worth and the Bishop of Ely, My Spirit in my prophets,
Enoch and Noah, shall not be always chiding and reproving,
and thereby endeavouring to bring men to repentance, but
shall proceed to punish them. Now this punishment being
the drowning of the old world, their spirits have been ever
since kept in prison, or reserved in chains of darkness, to
the judgment of the great day: for by the consent of the
Jewish nation,” “the generation of the old world have no
portion in the world to come, neither shall they stand up in
judgment ; for it is said, My Spirit shall not always judge
with man.” The phrase “My Spirit,” saith Dr. Fuller, “is
never used of any other but the Spirit of God, and therefore
must here be interpreted of the same Spirit.”
Now from that time to our Saviour's advent, God sent no
prophet to the whole heathen world, no person with commis-
sion to preach to all nations, or teach the gospel to every
creature, but “suffered them to walk in their own ways”
(Acts xiv. 16), whence they are said to have been disobe-
dient only once of old time, “in the days of Noah.”
19 Wer. 19. By which he preached to the spirits in prison.]
Hence Mr. Dodwell concludes, that our Saviour after his
death did, in the interval betwixt that and his resurrection,
preach to the separated souls in hades ; but to this the
reverend Bishop Pearson answers:
First, That those words cannot prove this assertion, un-
less it were certain, that by the word spirit we were to
understand the soul of Christ, whereas indeed the spirit by
which he is said to preach, was not the Soul of Christ, but
that Spirit by which he was quickened ; as is evident from
the connexion of the words thus, “He was quickened by that
Spirit, i, 3, by which he went and preached to the spirits in
prison,” that is, by the eternal Spirit of God, who is the au-
thor of the resurrection.
Secondly, He adds, that the persons to whom he preached
by the Spirit, were only such as were “disobedient in the
days of Noah, while the ark was preparing” (Yer. 20); i.e.
those who were disobedient before the flood, as were the
antediluvians, all that time that the long-sufferance of God
waited on them, and consequently so long as God gave them
time for repentance, which was one hundred and twenty
years, striving then with them for that end by his Spirit in the
prophets Enoch and Noah, but adding that his Spirit should
not “always strive with them :” in vain then, saith he, are
we taught to understand Peter of the promulgation of the
gospel to the Jews or gentiles then in had es, since the words
so evidently relate to the long-suffering of God to men, then
living in the days of Noah. e
li ºver. 21. Ense&rnºa, The answer of a good conscience.]
Therefore, say the anabaptists, baptism cannot be salutary
to those infants who cannot make this answer of a good con-
science. To this I answer, that Paul also saith, that “the
– Sa edr. p. 10, halech. 8.
968
I. PETER.
the right hand of God (there interceding for us, and
invested with all power to give eternal life to those
whom God hath given him, and who is able to save us to
the uttermost who come unto God by him, Heb. vii. 25);
angels, and authorities, and powers, being made sub-
ject to him (who therefore will use the good angels as
ministering spirits sent forth to minister to them who
gre heirs of salvation, Heb. i. 14, and will pre-
serve them from those authorities, and powers, and evil
spirits, which oppose and persecute them, and seek their
ruin).
true circumcision before God is not the outward circumcision
of the flesh, but the internal circumcision of the heart and
spirit” (Rom. ii. 29). But will any one hence argue, that the
Jewish infants, for want of this, were not to be admitted
into covenant with God by circumcision ? And yet the ar-
gument is plainly parallel : “the answer of a good con-
science” is required, that the baptism may be salutary ;
therefore they only are to be baptized who can make this
answer: and the inward circumcision of the heart is required
as the only acceptable circumcision in the sight of God;
therefore they only are to be circumcised who have this in-
ward circumcision of the heart. The Jews did not admit
proselytes to circumcision without this answer of a good con-
science; but yet they admitted their infants without any
such thing: why therefore may we not allow the Christian
church, in the administration of baptism, to observe the
same custom in admitting the children of their proselytes
to baptism, as they admitted them both to circumcision and
baptism. - -
* At’ &yaaráorew; ‘Incoiſ Xgia toû, By the resurrection of .
Jesus Christ, “Who died for our sins, and rose again for
our justification” (Rom. iv. 25), “and hath by his resurrec-
tion begotten us to a lively hope of an inheritance incorrupti-
ble” (1 Pet. i. 3, 4), is risen as the first-fruits of them that
sleep (1 Cor. xv. 20), and so hath assured us, that they who
are Christ's shall also be raised by him to eternal life (ver.
23. 2 Cor. iv. 14. 1 Thess. iv. 14), and who, being risen, is
now in heaven promoting our salvation (ver. 22), and pre-
paring mansions for us (John xiv. 2).
CHAPTER IV.
I For ASMUCH then Christ hath suffered for us in
the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind
(or resolution to be conformed to him in his sufferings,
as being buried with him in baptism, Rom. vi. 4, and
so planted together with him in the likeness of his death,
ver. 5, the old man being crucified with him, that the
body of sin might be abolished, that henceforth we
might not serve sim) : for he that hath suffered in the
flesh hath ceased from sin;
2 (Insomuch) that he no longer should live the rest
of his time in the flesh, (in obedience) to the lusts of
men (ignorant of the truth, 1 Pet. i. 14), but to the
will of God (Rom. vi. 10, ll).
3 For the time past of our life may suffice us to
have wrought the will of the gentiles, when we
walked in lasciviousness, (fleshly) lusts, excess of
wine, revellings, banquetings, and 'abominable idola-
tries: -
4. Wherein they think it strange (Gr. wonder) that
you run not with them to the same excess of riot,
speaking evil of you :
5 Who shall give (an) account (of these sins against
nature), to him that is ready to judge the quick and
the dead.
6 For, for this cause was the gospel preached also
* to them that are dead (i. e. to the gentile world, dead
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV.
* Ver. 3. ‘A6sºirot, sièoxoxargelaic, Abominable idolatries:]
i. e. In idolatries joined with divers abominations (i. e. with
drunkenness, uncleanness, unnatural cruelties to their own
children, homicide).
Note here, that this is an evidence, that this epistle was
directed not only to the Jewish nation, but to the gentile
COnvertS. -
* Ver. 6..] For explication of these words, note,
First, That of vexeci, “the dead,” in scripture, doth often
signify, not those who in a natural sense are dead by disso-
lution of the soul and body, but those who are spiritually so,
as being alienated from the life of God, and dead in tres-
passes and sins; as when the apostle saith, the widow “that
liveth in pleasure, is dead while she liveth,” l Tim. v. 6;
and Christ unto the church of Sardis, “Thou hast a name to
live, and art dead,” Rev. iii. 1; and when he speaks to one
of his disciples thus, “ Follow thou me, and let the dead
bury their dead,” Matt. viii. 22. This is a phrase so com-
mon with the Jews, that, as Maimonides" informs us, they
proverbially say, Impii etiam Viventes vocantur mortui, “The
wicked are dead even while they are alive:” for he, saith
Philo, “who lives a life of sin, rāśynxs toy stºaigova, is dead,
as to a life of happiness ;” his soul is dead, and even buried
in his lusts and passions. And because the whole gentile
world lay more especially under these most unhappy circum-
stances, whence the apostle styles them “sinners of the gen-
tiles,” Gal. ii. 15, it was proverbially said by the Jewish
doctors, Populi terrarum, i. e. ethnici non viyunt, “The hea-
thens do not live ;" and they in scripture are more peculiarly
intended by that phrase. Hence the apostle saith to the
Ephesians and Colossians (Eph. ii. 1. Col. ii. 13), that they
* More Nevoch. lib. i. -
+ Leg. Alleg. lib. i. p. 45, Quod deter, pot. p. 127.
# * * *
were vskºoi roſ; Gºgºthº.azi, “dead in trespasses and sins;”
and brings in God thus speaking to the gentiles, “Awake,
thou that sleepest, arise from the dead, and Christ shall give
thee life,” Eph. v. 14. 4.
Secondly, The ends for which this gospel was revealed to
these gentiles, thus spiritually dead, and buried in sensuality,
were these :
1. “Iva ×gišâat xar' &yśćtrov; cagxi, That they might con-
demn, might strive against, might mortify those sensual de-
sires, and carnal appetites, which they had indulged whilst
they lived, xat' àySgátrovº, “as natural men,” wanting the
knowledge of God’s will, and the assistance of his grace and
Spirit. This I conceive to be the genuine import of the
Greek: for, (1.) the word “flesh” being here set in opposi-
tion to the “Spirit” not of man, but God, or at the least to
the renewed spirit of man, cannot be reasonably thought to
signify that fleshly body which we bear about us, but rather
that sinful flesh, which lusts against the Spirit (Gal. v. 17),
that “ law of our members, which wars against the law of
our minds” (Rom. vii. 23), that pºévnº, a rāg capkö;, or
“fleshly wisdom,” which is “not subject to the law of God”
(Rom. viii. 7).
This being so, x819;val ºri cagxi, cannot be truly rendered,
to be condemned, judged, and punished in the flesh, that is,
the body, but to strive with, to mortify, and subdue the
flesh, with its affections and lusts; which is the common im-
port of the word xºSãyal, both in the Septuagint and the
New Testament: so, Job ix. 3, #&y 805xºrai agišāvai airãº,
“If he will contend with God, he cannot answer him one of
a thousand ;” and, xiii. 19, rig Harty & zºna ågsvog, “Who is
he that contendeth with me?” Isa. xliii. 26, “Put me in
remembrance, zai Agiºsy, and let us plead together;” l. 8,
“He is near that justifieth me, ri; ; *çiyêpesvåg pºol, who is he
that contendeth with me?” lxvi. 16, #y tº rupi x8.9%aera, 3
Kūpio;, “By fire will the Lord plead with all flesh ;” Hos. ii.
22, “Fiºra ºrgè; Tºy pºrré;a tºy, apíšnte, “Plead with your
CHAPTER IV.
969
in trespasses and sins), that they might be judged
(might judge, condemn, and oppose their former life,
led) according to men (not enlightened by the gospel)
in the flesh, but (and might) live according to God in
the spirit.
7 But the “end of all things (belonging to Jewish
state, mentioned Matt. xxiv. 6. Mark xiii. 7. Luke xxi.
9), is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto
rayer, (according to our Lord’s advice in that case,
uke xxi. 34. 36.)
8 And above all have fervent charity among your-
selves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins,
(which ye may have been guilty of in the time of your
enmity to Christ and his servants; or those manifold
infirmities ye may have committed, in building hay and
stubble on the foundation, to your great hazard, 1 Cor.
xiii. 12. 15. Or, it covers the sins of others, prevent-
ing them by patience, not taking notice of them when
committed, and concealing them from others: to this
sense the words of the wise man lead, Prov. x. 12.)
9 Use hospitality one to another without grudging
(or murmuring that you bestow your charity on them
who are not of your nation, or are not circumcised, and
obedient to the law, as yethink yourselves obliged to be.)
10 As every man hath received “the gift (of the
mother, plead :'' and, Micah vi. 1, “Arise, x&nts ºrgā; rà
$gn, contend against the mountains:” So also, Matt. v. 40,
SáAoyri arol ketsäval, is, “to him that will contend with thee;”
and, Jude 9, rô 3iagáNº. 8taxplváſzewoº is, “contending with the
devil” (see also Judg. xxi. 22. Jer. ii. 9). And this, I think,
is sufficient to justify the rendering these words actively,
without referring to Glassius's Canon (lib. iii. tr. 3, can. 24),
that verbs passive sometimes signify actively.
Note, thirdly, that the phrase kar’ &ySporov, in the New
Testament, doth always signify to live, speak, or act, after
the manner of mere natural men, not yet acquainted with
the mind of God, or not assisted by his Spirit: as in those
passages of the apostle Paul, “Speak I these things, war’
āyºgaſtroy, according to the dictates of mere human wisdom 2
Saith not the law the same also 2° (1 Cor. ix. 8.) “My
doctrine is not, kar’ &v$627 ov, the product of man's wisdom,
But I received it from the revelation of Christ Jesus” (Gal.
i. 11); war' &vščwtroy Aéyo, “I speak what men would” from
the mere strength of reason argue (Rom. iii. 5). And
again, kar' #yôpotroy Aëyo, “I speak what is acknowledged
among men,” that a man's testament is accounted sacred,
and no man addeth to it, or taketh from it (Gal. iii. 15).
“If I have ſought with beasts at Ephesus, xar’ &vščovoy,
after the heathen manner, what advantageth it me, if the
dead rise not 2" (1 Cor. xv. 32.) And, lastly, “Whereas
there are contentions among you, are ye not carnal, and
walk, xar' &Searoy, as natural men” (1 Cor. iii. 3), not as
men acted by the Spirit 2
So that x813 fival xar' &ySão Toy aragxi, is, “to condemn their
former life led as natural men,” or as mere heathens in the
flesh, or to strive against that flesh which they indulged
in their heathen state ; and to “live unto God in the
Spirit,” which is the second end for which the gospel was
preached unto the gentiles, is, by the assistance of the Holy
Spirit, to live according to the will and the example of a
holy God. -
To this interpretation of this text the context plainly
seems to lead; for the apostle's argument runs thus: “Christ
having suffered for us in the flesh,” it doth become us also,
in a spiritual sense, to suffer in the flesh, by the mortifica-
tion of our fleshly lusts; that though we still live in the
flesh, we “may not henceforth live unto the lusts of men,
put to the will of God” (ver. 2). I say, the Christian must
no longer live “after the will of the gentiles in lasciviousness,
lusts,” &c. (ver. 3), for which things heathens will be obnox-
ious to God's just displeasure at the great day of their ac-
counts; 'since “for this cause the gospel hath been preached
unto them,” that they, might be engaged by it to condemn
and strive against that fleshly conversation, in which they
lived formerly, according to the lusts of men, not yet ac-
quainted with the mind of God, and might henceforth live
according to God in the Spirit.
Spirit), even so (let him) minister the same one to an-
other, as (becomes) good stewards of the manifold
grace of God (to do).
11 If any man speak (i. e. teach), let him speak as
(he is instructed from) the oracles of God; if any
man minister (as a deacon), let him do it as of the
ability that God giveth; that God in all things may
be glorified through Jesus Christ; to whom be praise
and dominion (ascribed) for ever and ever. Amen.
12 Beloved, think it not strange concerning the
fiery trial which is (come) to try you (Gr. wonder not
at the burning that is among you, and is befallen you
for trial) as though some strange (and unea pected)
thing (had) happened to you: (this being only that which
was foretold by us, 1 Thess. iii. 4, to which ye were
appointed, and to which ye were called, 1 Pet. ii. 21.)
13 But rejoice (in it rather), inasmuch as ye are
(thus made) * partakers of (sufferings resembling)
Christ's sufferings; that (so) when his glory shall be
revealed, ye may, (resembling him then in glory, as ye
do now in sufferings, Rom. viii. 17. 2 Tim. ii. 11, &c.)
be glad also with exceeding joy. .
14 (And) if (it so happen, that) ye be reproached
for the name of Christ, happy are ye (in such suffer-
ings) ; for the "Spirit of glory, and of God, rests
For this cause was the gospel preached to them that are
dead, that they, being judged according to ment in the flesh,
might live unto God in the Spirit..] That this text can have
no relation to the preaching of the apostles to the dead gen-
tiles in hades is evident:
Because the apostle saith this whilst Paul, John, and
himself were living, and speaks of it as a thing already past,
saying, günyyexicºn, “The gospel hath been preached to
them,” not that it shall be preached to them when dead.
* Wer. 7. Tº réxo; #yyixe, The end of all things is at
hand.] This phrase, and the advice upon it, so exactly
parallel to what our Lord had spoken, will not suffer us, to
doubt that the apostle is here speaking, not of the end of
the world, or of all things in general, which was not them,
and seems not yet to be at hand, but only of the end of the
Jewish church and state, mentioned in the inquiry of the
apostles, thus, “Tell us when Trávra raira, all these things
shall be finished 2" (Mark xiii. 14.) And in our Saviour's
answer, thus, “This generation shall not pass away, Św: &v
Trávra yāyntal, till all things be fulfilled,” Luke xxi. 32 ; that
is, Trávra raira, “all these things,” Matt. xxiv. 34. Mark
xiii. 30. And it is the observation of interpreters upon these
words, roi; ºrāori yéyoya rā ºrávra, “I became all things to all
men,” 1 Cor. ix. 22, and, Trávra pºol #Earty, “All things are
lawful for me,” x. 23, that the word Trávra must be restrained
to the subject-matter.
* Ver. 10. Xàpicºa, The gift.] That “the gift” should
here signify wealth, I cannot think, for though x&gt; some-
times bears that sense, yet Xápiaºza is never used to signify
wealth, but hath always relation to the spiritual gifts vouch-
safed then to the church of Christ. (2.) Because the
“speaking as the oracles of God” seems plainly to be the
same with “prophesying according to the analogy of faith,”
mentioned Rom. xii. 6, and the “ministering” here, with
the Siakovia there, both which are mentioned as “spiritual
gifts according to the grace given to them ;” see note there,
and on the “helps,” mentioned l Cor. xii. 27.
* Wer. 13. Toí; rod Xpta-rot TraShºwart, Are partakers of
Christ's sufferings.] Because he looks upon the sufferings
of his members as his own (Acts ix. 4. Col. i. 14).
* Wer. 14. IIveſºa rā; 36% nº, The Spirit of glory;] (Or, as
some copies read, rā; 36%m; x&i 8vyāpasa”, “ of glory and
power,”) is doubtless that Holy Spirit which attended the
preaching of the glorious gospel, and made it to be “the
ministration of the Spirit, #y 36%m, in glory;” and by partaking
of which Spirit we Christians are said to be “transformed
from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord,” 2 Cor. iii.
8, 9. 18; and who is also styled IIvetºza buyáºzsoc, “the
Spirit of might,” 2 Tim. i. 7; and being promised and given
to those who suffered for Christ's sake, to “abide with them
for ever,” as their Comforter, and to “help their infirmities”
(Rom. viii. 26, 2 Tim. i. 7, 8), must make them happy suf-
970
I. PETER.
upon you: (so that though) on their part (who are un-
believers) he (i. e. Christ) is evil spoken of, but (Gr.
get) on your part he is glorified.
15 But let (especial care be taken that) none of you
suffer 7 as a murderer, or a thief, or as an evil-doer, or
as a busy-body in other men’s matters.
16 Yet if any man suffer as a Christian (i.e. only
on that account), let him not be ashamed; but let him
*glorify God on this behalf.
17 For the time is come that judgment must (ac-
cording to our Lord’s prediction, Matt. xxiv. 21, 22.
Mark Xiii. 13. Luke xxi. 16, 17), begin at the house
of God: and if it first begin at us (believing Jews),
what will be the * end of them that obey not the gos-
pel of God? º
12 And if (some of) the righteous scarcely be saved
(i. e. preserved from this burning, ver, 12, being saved,
yet so as by fire, 1 Cor. iii. 15), where shall the un-
godly and sinner appear (in safety from these dreadful
judgments which are coming on the Jewish nation,
Prov. xi. 31) : - -
19 Wherefore (seeing the sufferings of Christians
then will be so little, in comparison of those which shall
befall the unbelievers, ver. 17, 18, seeing the Spirit of
glory and power shall support and comfort them under
these sufferings, ver. 14, and Christ hath promised
them protection in that dreadful day, and said, He that
endureth to the end, shall be saved, Matt. xxiv. 12, 13),
let them that suffer according to the will of God
commit the keeping of their souls (i. e. their lives)
to him in well-doing, as to a faithful Creator (who, be-
ing their Creator, must be able to deliver them : and
being faithful, will not suffer them to be tempted above
what they are able, 1 Cor. x. 13).
ferers; and being also that Spirit by which they were en-
abled to work many miracles, and endued with extraordinary
gifts, Christ must be glorified by him, as he foretold he
should, John xvi. 14.
Karx wiv airou, Baarºmaefºrat, war& 83 ipsac Božá{stat.]
Injecta haec videntur, Millius, Proleg. p. 67, col. 2. See,
for the defence of them, Examen Millii.
7 Wer. 15. ‘s, bowsic, As a murderer, &c.] Whoever
... reads Josephus, will find there was the greatest reason to
give these cautions to the Jewish nation, which then prodigi-
ously abounded with thieves, who were continually employed
in murdering not only heathens, but their own brethren ;
were xanoroioi, or, as some copies read, waxovºyoi, to such a
high degree, that he saith, “They practise all manner of in-
justice and wickedness that was ever thought of or com-
mitted;” and &AActgloeºria wordt, men who would have the
government of other men's consciences, and overrule their
actions, especially the zealots. -
* Ver. 16. A0%aćro rºy QBoy, Let him glorify God..] i. e.
Let him give glory to God, who enables him thus patiently
to suffer for his sake, or, let him be so careful to behave
himself under his sufferings, that he may glorify God by
them, in the day of visitation (ii. 12), which day is now
at hand.
* Ver 17. Tà réxos, The end.] Foretold by Christ, of the
unbelieving Jews (see note on ver, 7).
CHAPTER V.
1 THE * elders which are among you I exhort, who
am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. W.
* Wer. l. IIgE-8vrégous roi; #y jºy, The elders that are
among you..] That is, the bishops, saith Dr. Hammond, here,
and wheresoever the word occurs in the New Testament ;
for the order of presbyters was not yet in being, but only
afterward appointed by John : for that the apostle is here
speaking of elders, not by age, but office, appeareth by his
exhortation directed to them, to “feed the flock” committed
to their charge (ver. 2). But this motion seems not well
consistent with what others have discoursed upon this sub-
ject ; for,
First, They who make the bishop, priest, or elder, and
deacon, to be appointed, as answering to the high-priest,
the priests, and Levites, must suppose that all these three
orders were at first appointed, especially in the church of
Jerusalem, as being derived from their platform. And so
must all those learned men, who say the church was mo-
delled after the manner of the Jewish synagogue ; for as to
that, the parallel must run between the chief of the syna-
gogue, the elders, and their ministerial officers, and the
bishops, priests, or elders, and the deacons: and if the
middle order had been wanting so long as is supposed, the
government of the church would not have been formed after
that platform ; which, as Epiphanius” and the Jews inform
us, had these several offices in it. The same may be said of
those who make the elders or presbyters to be answerable to
the seventy, appointed by Christ as inferior officers under
the apostles, and make this an argument of an inequality
º bishops and presbyters, established in the church of
Shrist.
Secondly, Hence it must necessarily follow, that not only
in the times, but even in the writings of the apostles, the
names of the presbyters and bishops were so far confounded,
that' a presbyter, in their style, did always signify one that
gº 2 & *@
* 'Aéxiouvayoºyāv, Kai Trper8Urápacy, za; 'A&avitºv rāy Tag'
autoſ; Staxáyºv. Hier. xxx. $. 11.
Christ, and also (shall be) " a partaker of the glory
which shall be revealed:
was properly a bishop; which yet the learned Bishop Pear-
son* seems not to allow.
Thirdly, This seems to make the work and office of a
bishop too great to be discharged by a single person, espe-
cially in such great churches as that of Jerusalem, where
there were many myriads of believing Jews (Acts xxi. 20).
For it was his office, saith that reverend person, to be the
teacher of the whole flock committed to him: Acts xx. 28,
“Ye that are bishops of the several churches of Asia, look
to the churches committed to your trust, to rule and order
all the faithful Christians under you ;” so the paraphrase,
See the paraphrase and note on Heb. xiii. 7. 17, where he
saith, that “to teach, exhort, and confirm and impose hands
were all the bishop's office in Judea.” He was to exercise
the whole discipline of the church, by “hearing all the ec-
clesiastical causes, inflicting censures, and receiving peni-
tents” (see the paraphrase and note on Titus iii. 10); he
was to take the principal care of the poor, “to receive, and
distribute to them the church's stock ;” so here : the Supreme
trust and charge of that, saith he, “being always reserved
to the apostles and bishops of the church” (note on 1 Cor.
xii. 28); he was to visit the sick, and pray with them ; that
being, saith he, “one branch of the office of bishops” (note
on James v. 14): and how one bishop could perform all
this to a church consisting of many myriads of persons, it is
not easy to conceive. I therefore think it better to admit
of the ordinary acceptation of the word presbyter here; that
is, to think they also may be included in the term.
* Koivov; 8%mc, And also a partaker of the glory which
shall be revealed.] i. e. Saith one, present at the discourse,
concerning the glory that should be consequent to his death,
the remarkable destruction of his crucifiers, and the deliver-
ance of his faithful disciples. But, first, it is certain, that
the scripture mentions nothing of any such discourse: , but
only that Moses and Elias then “spake of his decease which
* Wind. lib. ii. cap. 12.
&
CHAPTER. V.
971
2 Feed the flock of God which is among you, tak-
ing (upon you), the oversight thereof, *not by con-
straint, but willingly; “not for filthy lucre, but of a
ready mind;
3 *Neither as being lords over God’s heritage, but
being ensamples to the flock.
4 And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye
shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away
(and so receive a full and better reward of your labours,
than others aim at). .
5 Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto
the elder (or aged). Yea, all of you be subject one
to another (i.e. be as ready to do kind offices to others,
as if ye were subject to them, see note on Phil. ii. 3),
and * be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the
proud, and giveth grace unto the humble.
6 * Humble yourselves therefore, under the mighty
hand of God (now coming upon you, iv. 17), that he
may exalt you in due time:
7 Casting all your care upon him, (and committing
yourselves to the conduct of his all-wise providence, iv.
19,) for he careth for you.
8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary
the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking
whom he may devour: (and by his persecutions tempt
to an apostasy from the faith, 1 Thess. iii. 5. Rev. ii. 10.)
9 Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that
the same afflictions (which ye now endure) are accom-
plished in your (Christian) brethren that are in the
world (see James iv. 7). -
10 But (and) the God of all grace, who hath called
us to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye
have suffered awhile, make you perfect (in patience),
stablish, strengthen, settle you.
11 To him be glory and dominion for ever and
ever. Amen. -
12 By Silvanus, a faithful brother unto you, ("as I
suppose,) I have written briefly, exhorting, and testi-
fying that this is the true grace of God in which ye
(now) stand.
13 The church that is at (Rome, figuratively called)
* Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you;
and so doth Marcus my son (i. e. who as a son
with his father hath served me in the gospel, Phil. ii.22).
14 Greet ye one another with a kiss of charity.
Peace be with all that are in Christ Jesus. Amen.
he was to accomplish at Jerusalem” (Luke ix. 31). And
though Peter was then present, he heard not a word of that
discourse; being then fast asleep (ver. 32). This glory there-
fore is doubtless the glory which we shall enjoy at the re-
surrection, or the redemption of our bodies from corruption
(Rom. viii. 18. 23); styled the “glory of God,” Rom. v.
2 ; the glory we shall enjoy when Christ appears, Col. iii. 4,
when “our vile bodies shall be made like unto Christ's glo-
rious body,” Phil. iii. 21, and shall be “raised up in glory,”
1 Cor. xv. 43 ; “eternal glory,” l Pet. v. 10; this being
that we shall enjoy at the revelation of Christ Jesus, wer. 4.
i. 7. 13. iv. 13. Of this Peter was partaker then in the pro-
mise, and in the earnest of it, the first-fruits of the Spirit.
* Wer. 2. Not by constraint, but willingly ; £4% &vaykaatö;
&xx' #zova.io..] Not as it were constrained to it by the dread
of what ye may suffer, the woe impendent if ye do not per-
form this office ; but voluntarily, and as a free-will-offering
to that God who hath loved you so much, and from a ready
mind to serve the interests of souls; as in those words of
Paul, &váyºn, “A necessity is laid upon me, and woe unto
me, if I preach not the gospel; but if, Éxièy, willingly I do
this, I have a reward” (i Cor. ix. 16, 17).
* Mn3ā ai,xgonsp?&, Not for filthy lucre.] As did the false
apostles and Judaizers, “teaching things they ought not, for
filthy lucre's sake,” Tit. i. 11 ; “thinking gain godliness,”
1 Tim. vi. 5. -
* Wer. 3. Mn3? &; zarazugleiſov’re; rāv xXhºwy, Not as lords
over God's heritage :] Or, as it might be rendered, “ of the
possessions of the church.” It was the custom then of many
to sell their heritages, and give the money to the governors
and bishops of the ehurch, to be distributed to the use of
poor Christians; and these inheritances and moneys were
styled xxiigot, both the scriptures and the best Greek authors
using it for a patrimony or heritage obtained by lot, as the
inheritance of the Jews was (Josh. xii. 8); whence the word
xxico; is so often used in this sense through the books of
Joshua and Judges. And so the bishops, to whose hands it
was committed, are here required not to act as if they were
lords, but only as stewards of it; and so as to be examples
(to others) of freedom from avarice, and diligence in reliev-
ing the poor, sick, and needy. But seeing what is here xxiipo;,
is in the same sentence styled ré wroiavtov, the flock of God,
the common interpretation of the word for heritage seems
to be established by this latter word. ©
* Ver. 5. "Eyzoº.8%aaa-6s, Be ye clothed with humility.] The
word hath two significations; it signifies a frock put over
the rest of our clothes, and so imports, that this humility
should be visible in us, above all other Christian virtues, in
our whole conversation, our words, and actions. Secondly,
it signifies a belt which girds about our garments, and so im-
ports we should tie it fast unto us, and have those conside-
rations always fixed upon our spirits, which may still keep
us in an humble frame of soul.
7 Ver, 6. Tameiyo.6nts.] i. e. Submit with patience to the
chastisements sent by his powerful hand upon you; that be-
ing truly sensible of the divine displeasure, being afflicted,
and mourning for those sins which brought these evils down
upon you, and turning unto him that Smites you, he may
draw nigh to you, and in due season work for you a deliver-
ance from this afflicted state. See this in the place parallel
to this, James iv. 7. 10.
* Ver. 12. ‘o; yogića, As I suppose.] From these and
many like expressions used in the epistles of the apostles it
is evident, that the divine afflatus, by which the Holy Ghost
assisted them to write, did not dictate the very words, but,
only presided over them to preserve them from error in writ-
ing, seeing the Holy Ghost could not say, “As I suppose ;”
nor could Peter have used this phrase, if the divine illumi-
nation had influenced and instructed him in this matter.
* Ver. 13. ‘H #y Baguxāyt, The church in Babylon.] That
Babylon is figuratively here put for Rome, is an opinion so
early delivered by Papias,” and which afterward so gene-
rally obtained (as we learn from Eusebius. Jerome," and
CEcumenius, on this place), that I subscribe to the note at
the end of this epistle, that #ypá$n ätrö 'Pºp'nc, “it was writ-
ten from Rome,” styled also Babylon by the author:f of the
Revelation, ch. xvii. xviii. For the apostle must, at the
writing of it, be at Rome, figuratively, or at Some city pro-
perly called Babylon : now, as it is uncertain whether Peter
ever was at Babylon in Chaldea, or in Egypt, and improba-
ble that he ever made any considerable stay there; so is it
very improbable he should do it so near his end. At Rome
and Antioch, where he confessedly resided, church history is
copious in giving an account of his successors in those sees:
but who can show anything of this nature, with reference to
either of these Babylons P As to the reason why Rome is
covertly thus represented by the name of Babylon, I cannot
think, with CEcumenius, it was so styled 31& rê štrºpayác,
“ because advanced to as great eminency” as Babylon ever
had been ; for then why should Peter have disguised the
matter 2 I rather think it was so styled, either because it did
resemble that city in its idolatries, and opposition to the
church of God ; or because it was to be destroyed for ever,
as the prophets had foretold of Babylon ; which, though
the primitive ChristiansS did believe, it was their wisdoin to
conceal. Thus Jeromell saith, that the prophet Jeremiah
covertly spake of Babylon, under the name of Sesach, that
* Apud Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. ii. cap. 15.
+ Verbo Marcus, et in Isaiam, cap 47, F. 77, B.
# Ea quae dicuntur Apoc. xviii. de Babylone quae est apud
Romanos, intelligenda sunt juxta veterum ecclesia doctorum
sententiam. Andr. Caesar in Apoc. cap. 55.
§ Sic et Babylon apud Johannem Romae urbis figuram
portat ; proinde et magna et regno superba et suorum de-
bellatricis. Ter. contra Judaeos, cap. 9, p. 193, ct contrº
Marcion. lib. iii. cap 13.
| In Jerem, p. 145, A.
972
PREFACE TO II. PETER.
he might not incense the Babylonians against him, who be-
sieged Jerusalem ; and that the apostle speaks of the Roman
empire under the name of r3 xarážov, “that which letteth,”
that he might not provoke them to persecute the Christians
for speaking of the Roman empire, which was by them es-
teemed imperium sine fine,” or eternal.
* Dempst. p. 8.
THE SE COND
EPISTLE GENERAL OF ST. PETER,
WITH ANNOTATIONS.
PREFACE.
THAT this epistle also was written by the apostle Peter,
is evident beyond all exception: (1.) From the inscription of
it, in which the writer styles himself, “Simon Peter a servant
and apostle of Jesus Christ;” there being no other apostle
of that name. Moreover, of this apostle it is particularly
noted in the scripture that he was Xipzov & AEyüpºevo; IIÉrgoº,
“Simon called Peter;” Matt. iv. 18 and x. 2, Xiaow 5
#mixaxoJºeyo; IIirpoº, “Simon which was surnamed Peter,”
Acts x. 18. xi. 13. He is styled Simon Peter once by Luke,
v. 8, and by John the evangelist seventeen times, i. 41. vi.
8. 68. xiii. 6.. 9. 24. 36. xviii. 10. 15. 25. xx. 2. 6. xxi. 2,
3. 7. 11. 15. Whereas Simeon bishop of Jerusalem, to
whom Grotius ascribes the writing of this epistle, was neither
Peter, nor apostle. (2.) From a concurrence of circum-
stances in it relating to Peter and no other: as, First, When
he says, he “shortly must put off this tabernacle, even as
our Lord Jesus Christ had shown him,” i. 14. This well
agrees to Simon Peter, to whom our Lord signified “what
death he should die,” John xxi. 18, 19. And that this death
should befall him before his coming to the destruction of Je-
rusalem, ver. 22, which was then at hand when Peter writ
this, see note on 1 Pet. iv. 7. Secondly, He adds, that he
was “with him in the holy mount,” when our Lord Jesus
was transfigured, and was an “eye witness of his majesty,”
and heard these words, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I
am well-pleased,” 2 Pet. i. 16–18; which he could hear
only then, no such words being spoken John xii. 28, to
which Grotius would refer this passage. Now at our Lord's
transfiguration, besides Peter, were only present the two
sons of Zebedee, James and John, neither of which was ever
thought to be the author of this epistle. Thirdly, This also
may be gathered from these words, iii. 1, 2, “This second
epistle, beloved, I write unto you ; in which I stir up your
sincere minds, by way of remembrance: that ye may be
mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy
prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of
the Lord and Saviour.” Whence it is manifest, First, That
this epistle was writ by an apostle, and therefore not by Si-
meon bishop of Jerusalem. Secondly, That this was writ
by an apostle, who had before directed an epistle to the
same persons. Now though some of the ancients doubted
whether this Second Epistle were canonical ; yet they all
owned,” that it bore his name and was ascribed to him, and
never, that we find, was ascribed to any other apostle : we
therefore have just reason to conclude, according to the title
of it, that it was also the epistle of Simon Peter the apostle
of our Lord, to whom both these epistles expressly are
ascribed by Origen ;i who also adds, that “Paul is called
* Ty 3: $spokwávry aizoö 3Evrégav. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib.
iii. cap. 3. ‘AAA& rà &#v Švoº, ačákºva IIárpov. Ibid.
+ Petrus duabus epistolarum suarum personat tubis.
liom. vii. in Josh. f. 156. Two IIártov roß & worróxcu yeygap.-
his brother, by Peter the apostle,” which he is only in this
epistle. Being therefore written by an apostle assisted by
“ the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven,” 1 Pet. i. 12, we
cannot doubt of the authority of this epistle: for whereas
Grotius, to avoid the strength of this argument, imagines
that this chapter contains a Second Epistle ; and that the
First Epistle referred to, ended at the close of the sécond
chapter of that which is now called the Second Epistle; he
not only doth this without all authority of any ancient ver-
sions or authors to countenance his opinion, but against the
frame and the contexture of epistles, which usually begin
with an inscription, which is not to be found in the third
chapter. ‘. •
As for the time when this epistle was indited, I lay down
this as certain, against Grotius, from what hath been dis-
coursed already, that it could not be written after the de-
struction of Jerusalem : for Peter here saith, that he was
“shortly to put off this tabernacle,” or, to die; whereas, he
was actually dead in the fourteenth year of Nero, that is,
three years before the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. .
But that it was written but a little before his death, may
justly be concluded from this declaration, that he knew,
either by revelation or by our Lord's discourse, that the time
of his death was “suddenly to follow,” or was nigh at hand.
Of the persons to whom it was written, we are assured
also from these words, “This second epistle, beloved, I write
unto you;” they being a demonstration that it was written
to the very same persons to whom the first had been directed,
viz. to the converted Jews, dispersed through Pontus, Gala-
tia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, l Pet. i. 1.
And, lastly, as for the occasion of his writing, that plainly
seems to have been double. (l.) To arm the Jews converted,
against the fiery trial which was then come upon them; and
against that apostasy from the faith, that “turning away
from the holy commandment,” ii. 21, that “falling from
their own stedfastness,” iii. 17, to which they of that nation
were so prone. And evident it is, that the chief design of
the Epistle to the Hebrews was to put a stop to it; and
many passages in all the catholic epistles, not excepting the
Second and Third Epistles of John, are evidently writ for the
same purpose ; and to warn them of, and to preserve them
from, the destructive doctrines of those Jewish solifidians,
who held it unnecessary to “add unto their faith, virtue.”
(2.) To arm them against those impure Nicolaitans and
Simonians, who “turned the grace of God into lasciviousness:”
of whom see the notes on the second chapter. And (3.)
Against those scoffers at the promise of Christ's coming, as
it were a promise which never would be verified.
But then I am constrained to dissent from the opinion of
the reverend and judicious Dr. Hammond and Dr. Lightfoot,
{r
o
pºvov ºstă răy copiay, pnaiv, rºw 3:30pxávny rô 388x36; p.au IIavaš,
(2 Pet. iii. 15), Contra Marcion. p. 58. Wide Firmilianum
apud Cyprian, ep. 75, ed. Ox. p. 220, et Concil. Laod. can.
59. t -
* Textyń śary, 2 Pet. i. 14.
who conceive, that the apostle doth not discourse of our
lord's coming to the general judgment, in his third chapter,
but only of his coming to execute his judgments on the Jews,
by the destruction of Jerusalem. For not to insist upon
this consideration, that this opinion is wholly new, and con-
trary to the judgment of all the ancients who own this epis-
tle, and have occasion to make mention of these words, they
all agreeing in this, (with CEcumenius) that the apostle
speaketh, ētri avtexeſ... roſ, atóvog, “ of the end of the world ;”
it is extremely evident, - *
1. From these very words, iii. 7, “But the heavens and
earth which now are, by the same word are kept in store,
reserved to fire against the day of judgment, and perdition of
ungodly men;” and, ver. 10, “But the day of the Lord will
come as a thief in the night, in the which the heavens shall
pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt
with fervent heat ; the earth also, and the works that are
therein, shall be burnt up.” To interpret all these words
only of the destruction of Jerusalem, is to turn them into
metaphor and allegory ; whereas Peter plainly says, that as
the old world was destroyed by water, so shall the world
that now is be destroyed by fire. “Here then,” as one says
truly, “is no room for allegories, or allegorical expositions;
for, as the heavens and earth were destroyed by water, so are
they to be destroyed by fire: and if in the first place you
understand the natural material world, you must also under-
stand it in the second ; they are both allegories, or neither.”
2. Were the apostle speaking of the destruction of Jeru-
salem, which happened thirty-seven years after the death of
Christ, and was, according to our Lord's prediction, to fall
out whilst some of them whom he spake to were yet living,
what need was there of saying, “One day with the Lord is
as a thousand years,” &c., when he was speaking, it seems,
of that which he knew was to happen before four years were
expired P And, lastly, the solemn exhortation, “Seeing then
all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons
ought we to be, in all holy conversations and godlinesses,
looking for and hastening to the coming of our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ, that we may be found of him without
spot and blameless?”—this, I say, sounds too high for the
destruction of Jerusalem, in which they of Pontus and
Galatia could not be much concerned ; but it is an exhorta-
tion very proper for those who had the lively idea of the
conflagration of the world, and the tremendous “judgment
and perdition of ungodly men,” then set before them.
There is, I confess, a middle opinion betwixt both these,
which interprets the words of Peter, in the third chapter, of
the judgment of the great whore, or the antichristian church,
mentioned Rev. xvii. 1; after which is to follow the new
973
heaven and new earth, promised to the Jews, and to be
accomplished in the calling of them to the Christian faith,
and the flowing in of all nations to them. Concerning which,
note,
First, That the judgment, according to the predictions
both of the prophets in the Old and of John in the New
Testament, is to be executed upon her by fire. So Dan. vii.
11, “The beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and
given to the burning flame:” and, ver. 26, “The judgment
shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume
and to destroy it to the end.” Accordingly, in the judgment
of the whore, “She shall be utterly burnt with fire; for strong
is the Lord that judgeth her,” Rev. xviii. 8–10.
Note, Secondly, That it is usual with the prophets to
represent God's judgments on the enemies of his church and
people, by the tragical expressions of “burning up the earth,”
“dissolving the heavens.” Thus of the destruction of Baby-
lon, which name was writ upon the forehead of the great
whore, God speaks thus: “Behold, the day of the Lord
cometh, cruel, and with fierce wrath, to lay the land deso-
late: for the stars of heaven and the constellations shall not
give their light: and the sun shall be darkened in his going
forth, and the moon shall not give her light: and I will
make the heavens to shake (or, move away), and the earth
shall remove out of its place,” Isa. xiii. 9, 10. 13. The
indignation of the Lord against the Idumeans is represented
in these dreadful words:* “The mountains shall be melted
with their blood, and all the host of heaven shall be dissolved,
and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll, and all
their host shall fall down as a leaf falleth from the vine, and
as a falling fig from the fig-tree.” Of the destruction of
Sennacherib and his people, God speaketh thus: “The hea-
vens shall vanish away like smoke; the earth shall wax old
like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like
manner,” Isa. li. 6 (see Deut. xxxii. 22. Jer. iv. 23, 24. Joel
ii. 30. iii. 15). IIere then we see all the expressions used
in the third chapter of Peter used also by the prophets, when
they speak of the desolation of a nation and people, and
especially of the enemies of the church: which is sufficient
to evince that the apostle, being himself a Jew, and writing
to those Jews who were accustomed to these expressions,
might thus set forth the great destruction of the beast, men-
tioned Rev. xvii. xviii., and by the “new heavens and new
earth,” that glorious state of the church, which was to ensue
by the conversion of the Jewish nation, and the flowing in
of all nations to them.
* Taxhoroyºral ºrāoral ai 8vyākatic ray oveavär, xal traora ºrgaria
airāy &rośāsūrst. Isa. xxxiv. 3, 4.
CHAPTER I.
l SIMON Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus
Christ, (writing) to them that have obtained like pre-
cious faith with us * through the righteousness of God
(by faith, Rom. i. 17), and (the sufferings of) our Sa-
viour Jesus Christ:
2 (Wisheth that) grace, and peace, (may) be multi-
plied to you through the knowledge of God, and of
Jesus (Christ) our Lord,
3 According as (it hath been with us already, for)
his divine power hath given to us all things that per-
tain to life and godliness (or, to the life of godliness),
through the knowledge of him that hath called us to
(Gr. by) “glory and virtue:
4 * Whereby are given to us exceeding great
and precious promises: that by these ye might
be “partakers of the divine nature, having escaped
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I.
* Ver. 1. ‘Ev 3ixaloa ºwn rod Osoſ, By the righteousness of
God..] That this phrase signifies our justification through
faith in the death and sufferings of Christ, the meritorious
cause of it, see the note on Rom. i. 17. Or, since the He-
brew word HpTx in the Old, and the Greek 3 watorſyn, both
in the Old and New Testament, do often signify kindness
and mercy, it may here also bear that sense.
* Ver. 3. At& 36%m; wał żgerät, By glory and virtue..] i. e.
Who hath called us with a glorious calling, as being attended
with the glorious effusion of the Holy Ghost; by reason of
which the revelation of the gospel is said to be iv 86%m, or
313 &ng, “in” or “with glory” (2 Cor. iii. 7. 11); and
showed his power, might, and virtue, by the miraculous
operations with which it was confirmed. For though Mr.
Le Clerc is positive, that àper; nowhere signifies 36Vagic,
“power;" yet in Hesychius we read thus, &pstà, 3sia 3&apai;,
“virtue, i. e. divine power, h wati, Tráñezoy 36vapaiº, strength
for war, fortitude, dexterity in wrestling.”
* Ver. 4. At ºv, By which..] If the reading of other
manuscripts, 3,' y, obtain, the sense runs plain and easy,
thus, By whom, thus calling you, are given great and precious
promises, Christ having brought life and immortality to light
(2 Tim. i. 10), and established the new covenant in better
promises (Heb. viii. 6). But if we retain the common read
ing 8. §v, “by which " the sense seems to run thus ; By
which two, the effusion of the Holy Ghost upon us, as the
earnest of them, and his miraculous operations, as the con-
firmation of them and of that gospel which contains them,
974
II. PETER.
the corruption which is in the world through
lust.
5 * And besides this (Gr. Kat airó roëro, And for
this cause), giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue
(or courage in the profession of it, and sincerity in the
practice of those things this faith requires); and to
virtue (an ea'act) knowledge (of your duty) ;
6 And to knowledge temperance (in carefully ab-
staining from those sensual affections and disorderly
passions which obstruct the performance of your duty) ;
and to temperance patience (under all the sufferings
which may affright you from it); and to patience
godliness (that fear of God which will restrain you
from sin ; that love of him which will constrain you to
Ayour duty ; that conformity of will which will cause
gour mind to approve of, your heart to affect and choose,
what is according to his will, and your whole man to
be eaſercising itself to godliness) ;
7 And to godliness brotherly kindness (i. e. fervent
love to Christians, as being children of our heavenly
Father, and fellow-members of Christ’s body) ; and to
brotherly kindness charity (to all men, as proceeding
jrom the same stock, having the same nature, and being
subject to the same necessities).
8 For if these things be in you, and abound, they
make you that ye shall neither be "barren (Gr. sloth-
ful) nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Je-
sus Christ.
9 But (on the other hand) he that lacketh these
things is "blind, and cannot see far off, and hath for-
gotten that he was purged from his old sins (by that
are given to us great and precious promises ; or rather, By
which God, and our Lord Jesus Christ, mentioned ver. 1 and
ver. 3, are given great and precious promises, they being the
promises made by God the Father (2 Cor. vii. 1), and by
the Son (1 John ii. 25), and confirmed to us in and through
Christ Jesus (2 Cor. i. 20, 21).
* Osia; pārew: kovovoi, Partakers of the divine nature.]
Both Philo" and Josephus represent them who had the gift
of prophecy as having rºy Juxāv Šešćova'ay, “a soul inspired
by the Deity,” and, by the Holy Spirit dwelling in them,
made divine. Thus Josephust saith of one Papius, renowned
for his wisdom and foreknowledge of things to come, that he
did, Seia; pºstao Xnxéval púato's, “partake of the divine nature.”
* Ver. 5. Kai air rotiro, And for this cause.] Or, as other
manuscripts read, wai airoi, “So ye.” Esthius here probably
conjectures, that the sense hitherto is pendent, thus: As ye
have received from the gift of God all things necessary to
life and godliness, so do ye add, or, for this cause add, to your
faith virtue, &c.
* Ver. 8. Otx 36)obº, Ye will not be slothful, Or negli-
gent, in the concerns of God's glory and your soul's welfare;
for sloth proceeds from want of faith, or courage, or love:
nor unfruitful, i.e. unprofitable to others; for that proceeds
from want of brotherly kindness, or charity.
7 Ver. 9. TwºMá; Éari, He is blind.] For want of know-
ledge, and blinded by his passions and sensual affections, and
cannot see to the end and design of Christianity, and the
rewards of faith and patience ; nor considers he the obliga-
tions which lie upon him to depart from iniquity. The word
Azvoráðoy following, is by our translators rendered “one that
cannot see afar off;" agreeably to these words of Aristotle,
“They are said, ºvoiráðsiv, who from their birth are, rā ºfty
#yyū; 8x8"roy're;, r& 3) # &roatárew; oix igàvºrs, men who can
only see things near, not those that are remote ;” and it is
ordinary to say, that such a one is blind, as being compara-
tively so, and to many things: and to this sense the follow-
ing words, “They cannot look back to their purgation of
old,” seem to lead; though the great Bochart saith, the word
here signifies “to close the eyes against the light” (Hieroz.
lib. i. cap. 4, p. 31, 32). .
* Ver. 10. BE3atay tºxv ºffew roºf-Sai, To make your
calling and election sure.] Many manuscripts, and many
of the ancients, add, 2.3 rāy waxåy pyay, “by good works:” |
and this the text seems to require; for it immediately fol-
* Phil. de Mut. Nom. p. 824.
+ Contra Apion. p. 1052.
baptism in which he, being washed from the guilt of
them, engaged to die to sin, Rom. vi. 4).
10 Wherefore (being called to this faith) the rather,
brethren, give diligence (Gr. give the more diſigence by
practising these things) "to make your calling and
election sure (i. e. to secure to yourselves the blessings
of Christianity, to which God hath called you, and for
which end he hath chosen you to be his people) : for if
ye do these things, ye shall never fall (or, miscarry
eternally):
ll For so an entrance shall be ministered to you
abundantly "into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ. -
12 Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you al-
ways "in remembrance of these things, though ye
know them (before) and be established in the present
truth (viz. that the practice of these Christian virtues
is necessary to the making your calling and election
sure, and to your entrance into Christ’s heavenly king-
dom).
13 Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this ta-
bernacle (of the body), to stir you up (to the perform-
ance of your duty) by putting you (still) in remem-
brance (of these things).
14 Knowing that shortly I must put off this my
tabernacle (by martyrdom), even as our Lord Jesus
Christ " hath shown me (John xxi. 20).
15 Moreover, I will endeavour (by leaving these
epistles, designed for that end,) that ye may be able
after my decease * to have these things always in re-
membrance.
–3–
lows, “If ye do these things, ye shall never fall;” plainly
declaring, that the making of their calling and election sure
depended on the doing those works of virtue, temperance,
patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and charity (mentioned
before), and so was only a conditional election, upon their
perseverance in a life of holiness. And from the following
words, “He that doth these things shall never fall,” it plainly
seems to follow, that even the elect, by their neglect to do
these things, may fail of an entrance into this heavenly
kingdom.
* Ver. 11. Eig rºw aid viov 8aaixeiay, Into the everlasting king-
dom.] As £oº aid vio; is “everlasting life,” Luke x. 25, aid-
vio; wºngovopaia, “an everlasting inheritance,” Heb. ix. 15,
aid viot a knyai, “everlasting tabernacles,” Luke xvi. 9, oikia.
aiºvioc, “an everlasting house,” 2 Cor. v. 1, 36%a alºvioc,
“everlasting glory,” 2 Tim. ii. 10, cornpia aid vios, “everlast-
ing salvation,” Heb. v. 2; so aid vio; 3aorixeia is doubtless the
“everlasting kingdom " prepared for Christ's faithful ser-
vants, and not his vindictive kingdom over the Jews ; nor
yet the kingdom of Saints, mentioned by Daniel, as never to
give place to any other kingdom, they to whom the apostle
writ being to die long before the coming of that kingdom.
19 Wer. 13. 'Ey Utropºvhael, In remembrance.] For could
we be established in the belief of heavenly things, and have
them still in remembrance, we should not flag in the per-
formance of our duty. Moreover, from these verses, and
from ch. iii., it seems reasonable to conceive, that they, who
were so concerned to write those things the Christians had
“already heard,” and in which they were “established,”
would not neglect to write whatever else was necessary to be
known to Salvation. -
* Ver. 14. 'E3%Awaé wol, Hath shown me..] Declaring to
him, in a vision, Say Hegesippus * and Ambrose,' that he
must go again to Rome, to be crucified. Thus Polycarp,f
in a vision, saw his pillow, or nightcap, burning with fire, a
little before he was consumed by the flames: and Cyprian,
by a vision, was admonished of his death, and of the kind of
martyrdom he was to suffer (Pontius in Wità Cypr. ed. Ox.
* Wer. 15. Thy roſtoy ºwhºwny roleſa Sat, To make a remem-
brance of these things.] Peter therefore was not of the
* Hegesip. de Excid. Hieros. lib. iii. cap. 2.
+ Ambros. Ep. 33.
: IIeorsuxáaeyo; #y 3rracia yśyovs, waſ stêey reoaks páxasov
airoi; ind ºrvº, Karazzºwevoy. Martyr. §. 5.
CHAPTER I.
975
16 For we have not followed cunningly devised fa-
bles, when we made known to you the power (given
to our Lord Christ over all flesh, that he might give
eternal life to them that believe, John xvii. 2), and
(the) coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (to crown
them with glory), but were eye-witnesses of his ma-
iestw.
J # For he received from God the Father honour
and glory, when there came such a voice to him from
the “excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom
I am well pleased.
18 And this voice which came from heaven we
heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.
19 We have also “a more sure word of prophecy;
whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as to a light
that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and
the * day-star arise in your hearts;
20 Knowing this first (as the foundation of all you
opinion, that oral tradition was a better way than writing, to
preserve the memory of these things; and that without
writing they might be able so to do. Accordingly Ignatius,”
advising the churches to stand fast in the traditions of the
apostles, thought it necessary, “for the greater security, to
commit them to writing.” For, saith Origen," “that which
is delivered only by mouth, quickly vanisheth, as having no
certainty.” -
* Ver. 17. 'ºrrö täç asya Norestroč; 8%mº, From the magni-
ficent glory.] Some considering, that in all the three evan-
gelists, the transfiguration of our Lord is mentioned, after he
had spoken of the coming of the Son of man in glory, or in
the giory of the Father, think this transfiguration was an
image of that glorious kingdom he was to erect at the calling
of the Jews ; and that Peter here refers to this, when he
saith, “We made known to you the power and coming (or
the illustrious coming) of our Lord Jesus Christ;” whence
Moses and Elias are here seen with him in glory, and, ac-
cording to Some manuscripts, are said to speak of the 36%a,
i. e. “his glory,” which was to be hereafter in Jerusalem.
But that glory being not yet come, to what purpose should
the apostle write to them of that age, to give all diligence to
obtain an entrance into that kingdom ? Or why doth he so
generally promise an entrance into it, to them who were to
die so long before, and were not at all, unless they died
martyrs, to enter into it? Nor was it to be an everlasting,
but only a millenary kingdom. Wherefore, for explication
of the words, observe, concerning the transfiguration of our
Lord, First, That when he was transfigured, “his face did shine
as the Sun, and his garments were splendent” (Matt. xvii.
2). And this, Saith Nazianzen, God did, ‘rā ºw{xxoy ºvatayw-
yāy, “showing what he was to be hereafter,” and as an
introduction to that glory in which he was to shine “at the
right hand of Majesty in the heavens:” for, to “shine as the
sun,” is a phrase expressing something belonging to celestial
Majesty, Matt. xiii. 43; the white and splendid garments
being also proper to kings and the royal ministers of the
heavenly court, Rev. iii. 4. And hence, when Christ is
represented as “the first-born from the dead,” and “the
prince of the kings of the earth,” to whom power and glory
belonged, he appears in splendour, as the sun shining in his
power, Rev. i. 14, 15. And this is the majesty of Christ, of
which Peter, James, and John, were eye-witnesses on the
mount.
Secondly, Of the testimony given to him, observe, (1.) that
it was, “This is my beloved Son ;” i. e. This is he who is
“heir of all things,” Heb. i. 2, and is “sat down at the right
hand of Majesty and glory,” ver. 3. And therefore this is
made a proof of our Lord's resurrection and exaltation to
the highest glory, that the Father said to him, “Thou.art my
Son, this day have I begotten thee" (Acts xiii. 33. Heb. i.
5. v. 5). This is he to whom the Father hath “given to have
life himself” (John v. 26), and so to raise the dead (ver. 24),
and “give eternal life” to them (John xvii. 1, 2). Now all
this being comprehended in this testimony, shows the truth
of what Peter said he had declared to them. Note, (2) that
this voice was given “from the magnificent glory,” or bright
cloud, which then appeared, and was the constant symbol of
the divine presence (see note on Phil. ii. 6); and so assured
them, this testimony was given by the God of truth. Note,
(3.) that this testimony is delivered in the very words spoken
of that Prophet which should come after Moses, viz. “A
Prophet will the Lord your God raise unto you, like to me,
* “Yºrie érºtasia; Kai iyypépoi; #8, aaptveodgewa 3arvircía-
Bai &raykaſov hyeſto. Apud Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. iii, cap. 35.
+ Tà yā; 37:449; Neyāp.sva raiſerai wer' atyay obn Yoyra
ãºrółstów. Dial, contra Marcion. p. 50.
to bim shall ye hearken” (Deut. xviii. 15); and so assured
them, that this “beloved Son" was that prophet of whom
Moses spake. Note (lastly), that these words were directed,
not to Christ, but to those that attended him, and bade then.
observe, that God the Father here owned him as his “only
Son,” “in whom he is well pleased,” and as the only pro-
phet whom they ought to hearken to.
* Ver. 19. Beflatérepov toy trºopnºrtzöy Aáyov, A more sure
word of prophecy.] This is spoken in comparison of the
apostle's testimony of what he heard; which to the Jews was
not so certain and convincing, as was the record of their own
prophets: whence the apostles, both in disputing with the un-
believing Jews, and writing to the believers among them, con-
firm their doctrines from the writings of the Old Testament.
* Kai pola pégo; &varsian, &c. And the day-star arise in
gour hearts.] Some, considering that Balaam prophesies
of the Messiah, as a “star" that was to “come out of Jacob;”
by which star, say the three Targums, Bereschith Rabba, R.
Moses Haddarson, and R. Isaac, is meant the Messiah,
“compared to a star, because of the splendour of his dominion
and kingdom,” and who is styled by John, 6 &tip Aapº aſp?c,
§ 3680twäc, “the bright and morning star ” (Rev. xxii. 16),
refer this to Christ's second coming to convert the Jews, and
set up the kingdom of the saints (Dan. vii. 27), saying, that
theapostle compares the intermediate time, in which antichrist
was to reign, to the night and darkness, according as the
scripture useth to express the times of ignorance and idolatry
(Eph. v. 8. 1 Thess. v. 4, see note on Rom. xiii. 12), and
the time of Christ's advent to call all Israel, and to bring in
with them “the fulness of the gentiles,” to the light dissipat-
ing that darkness; and doth here bid the Jewish nation to
attend to the prophecies in the Old Testament, touching this
glorious time, till it should be accomplished upon them.
But the apostle writes not here to the unbelieving Jews, who
are to be the only subjects of that calling, but “to them who
had obtained like precious faith " with him. Moreover, that
the time from writing this epistle to the conversion of the
Jews, which is not yet accomplished, should be accounted as
darkness, or a time in which the light, or day, appeared not,
seems not suitable to that expression of Paul, “The night is
far spent, and the day is at hand” (see note on Rom. xiii.
12): nor could he bid those of that age to expect, till that
day-star should arise in their hearts, which to this very day
is not yet risen. It therefore seems plain to me from these
words, though Dr. Hammond and others would interpret
them to another sense, that the apostle speaketh this con-
cerning some other light that was to enlighten and affect
their hearts, and give them full assurance, that our Jesus was
the Son of God, the Prophet God had sent into the world.
Now this was done by the internal gifts and illuminations of
the Holy Spirit vouchsafed to believers; by which, saith the
apostle Paul, “the testimony of Christ,” or which the apos-
tles gave of him, #3e3a130n by taſy, “was confirmed in * or
“upon them " (1 Cor. i. 6), by which God did 888aicſy hºà:
arby ºptiy Big Xplorry, “confirm both the apostles and those that
believed, in the faith of Christ" (2 Cor. i. 21, 22. v. 5). So
that the import of the words seems to be this ; Till ye your-
selves have those prophetic gifts, by which ye may be able,
from what ye find in yourselves, to know by the Spirit, that
“Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” (1 Cor. xii. 13), and
have “the unction of the Holy Ghost,” by which ye know
all things (1 John ii. 27), and have also the scriptures of the
New Testament committed to you, which contain a more
perfect light (Rom. xiii. 14), and are indited also by “the
Holy Spirit sent down from heaven " (I Pet. i. 12). Like
to this is that expression of Philo,” “What reason is in us,
* L. Quis Rer. Div. Haeres, p. 404, F.
976
II. PETER.
learn from the prophetic writings), " that no prophecy
of the scripture is of any private interpretation (Gr.
of their own incitation, motion, or the suggestion of
their own private spirits):
21 For prophecy came not in old time by the will
of man; but holy men of God spake as they were
moved by the Holy Ghost.
that is the sun in the world, irst8% ‘pala pope; #xárezo;, both
being unto us a phosphorous; the sun giveth light to our
senses, and reason intellectual rays to our conceptions: and
when pā, śtrixáºrst rô 6sſov, the divine light shines upon us,
that of our reason sets ; and when that sets, this ariseth, rå
8è aſpoºn'rixó, yśvet pixel rotºro avºgaively, and so it was with
the prophets.”
* Ver. 20. 'Ibia; Štrixárew; ot, yiveral, No prophecy is of
private interpretation.] i. e. Prophecy comes not from the
próphet's own suggestions, but from the inspiration of the
Holy Ghost. That this is the true sense of these words,
appears, (1.) from the apostle's own interpretation ; for,
not to be of the prophet's own incitation or suggestion (ver.
20), is, “not to come by the will of man” (ver. 21), i. e.
not by human reason, “but by the will of God” (John i.
13). (2.) From the use of the phrase ; for inlavoriç, ac-
cording to Phavorinus and Suidas, is #030¢, “accession, or
incitation, or insult;” and the word ièia, added to it, must,
therefore signify, that “prophecy is not of private impulse
or incitation:” whence the expression, used by the true pro-
phets, is generally this, in ſix6ey im' Hºwe, “The Spirit came
upon me” (Numb. xxiv. 2. 1 Sam. x. 10. 2 Chron. xv. 1.
xxiv. 20), and, (3.) from the nature of the thing itself, and
the constant opinion of the Jews about it; which was, as
Philo saith * that “a prophet speaketh nothing of himself,
but he is the organ of God in what he speaks, God speaking
in and by him.” Whence, to “speak of himself,” or, “ of
his own heart or mind,” is always made the sign of a false
prophet, whom God had not sent (Numb. xvi. 28. xxii. 18.
xxiv. 13. Jer. xxiii. 16. 26. Ezek. xxiii. 17). Ridiculous
therefore, and full of ignorance, is the inference of Esthius
hence, that the reformed, and their pastors, must not inter-
pret the scriptures according to their own sense or judgments,
which surely they may do, as well as he, or any other Rom-
ish commentator, who have nothing but their own private
sense for many interpretations of the scriptures they disco.urse
upon.
* IIgoºrn; xai i8tov oběšy &moºséyyetal, &AAórgia 3: Trávra.
t º * * g º º
in nxoëvro; #régov. Quis Rer. Div. Haeres, p. 404, C. "Opya-
voy Osoſ; Harry ºxotiv, x20uáºzavoy, xai tranrréasvoy 30°4'ro; tºr' at-
roi. D. ‘Eppenwei), yā; Hariv 3 trºophºrn; Évè06ey brmyoiſyro; tā
Aextéa roi, Osotſ. De Prem. et Poen. p. 711, E.
CHAPTER II.
I BUT there were false prophets also among the
people (in the former ages of the Jewish church), even
as there shall be (hereafter) "false teachers * among
you, who privately shall bring in * damnable heresies,
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II.
* Ver. l. Yºu?08.84a waxoi, False teachers.] Concerning
the persons chiefly concerned in this chapter, and in the pa.
rallel Epistle of Jude, I find three opinions;
1. That of Dr. Lightfoot, who thinks these chapters speak
chiefly of the Jews, i.e. of the false teachers of that nation.
The second is,
2. That of the ancients, who say expressly, àexºral iv-
rºsy ric Karā Tây Nixoxañrow aipéreoc, “He begins to speak
of the heresy of the Nicolaitans.” So OEcumenius. The
third is, -
3. That of the reverend and learned Dr. Hammond, and
of the ancients also; that the apostles speak these things
touching the Gnostics. And this opinion seems not much to
differ from the second. For the ancient fathers say, The
Gnostics sprang from the Nicolaitans, and borrowed from
them all their filthiness and lasciviousness.” Moreover, the
apostle Peter speaketh plainly of the “false teachers” which
were to be hereafter; for, ver, 1–3, he speaks still in the
future tense ; though both Jude in his Epistle, and Peter in
the following words, do plainly intimate, that some of them
were come already : so that in the exposition of this chap-
ter, arid the Epistle of Jude, we have reason to take in
those heretics, who appeared after the writing these epistles.
Nevertheless, because the false apostles, and false teach-
ers of the Jewish nation, and the Nicolaitans, were certainly
then come, and we have express and frequent mention of
them in the epistles of Paul, and in the Revelation of
John, and because Peter speaks of them in the plural num-
ber; therefore I shall apply the words to all of them, giv-
ing the preference to them, in the exposition of these words,
who are expressly mentioned in the holy scriptures.
* 'Ew tºy irov.ral Jew80334akaAoi, There shall be false
teachers among you..] The apostle, writing to the Jews,
Seems by these words to intimate, that these “false teach-
ers” should be among the Jewish converts, especially, as be-
* Kai ivrijbey &#xovira, c. rā; pºvěoyſaou wa-Ew; waxâj, rà
y º e * * * *
xãakº iwi pāra Sai, Epiph. Haer. xxv. S. 2. 'F& aircü of Asyá.
$4;wo yywarikoi. Timoth. et Damasc.
(i. e. doctrines tending to the destruction of them that
hold them, and) even “denying the Lord that bought
them, and (shall) bring upon themselves * Swift de-
struction.
ing either Jews by birth, or proselytes to that religion, as
was Nicolas of Antioch (Acts vi. 5). But then their enter-
ing in among the Jewish converts (Jude 4), and being among
them “in their feasts of charity” (ver. 12), their “leaving
the right way” (2 Pet. ii. 15), and their “returning with
the dog to the vomit,” make it probable that they once pro-
fessed the Christian faith ; though afterward they revolted
from it, or introduced such doctrines of perdition as funda-
mentally destroyed the faith which they professed.
* Aipšaret; &moxeiac, Damnable heresies.] Such as tended
to the present destruction and future damnation of them
who taught, and who believed them. Thus the doctrine of
the false apostles, among the Jews, tended to the pervert-
ing of souls (Acts xv. 24), to make Christ die in vain (Gal.
ii. 21), and their faith to profit them nothing (Gal. v. 2), and
“Christ become of none effect” unto them ; they being by
them “fallen from grace” (ver. 4) and become “enemies to
the cross of Christ” (Phil. iii. 18).
The heresy of the Nicolaitans is styled by Epiphanius,”
a heresy which did, Havrotic kai rob; Tretëop, #vov; &moxxögly,
“destroy them that taught, and them that believed it :” yea,
Christ himself declares his hatred of it, Rev. ii. 15. And the
same all the fathers say of the Gnostic heresy.
* Töy 3,0640 avra airoij, Beatrówny àpvočºvoi, Denying the
Lord that bought them.] Christ being never styled Secrétn:
in the New Testament, and Jude distinguishing this 3scrárnº,
or “Master,” from our Lord, it seems most reasonable to in-
terpret this of God the Father, who is said to have bought
the Jéws: “Is he not thy Father who hath bought thee 3”
Deut. xxii. 5; and the Christians: “Ye are bought with a
price, therefore glorify God with your souls and bodies, which
are his,” 1 Cor. vi. 20. Hence also it is truly observed by
Esthius, that Christ died for them that perish, and bring de-
struction upon themselves.
* Taxwhv 3rºxelay, Shall bring upon themselves swift de-
struction.] That the apostatizing Jews did this, the scripture
everywhereinforms us, and the apostles frequently warn them
of it. Paul doth it throughout the Epistle to the llebrews,
elsewhere speaking of them as men “whose end is destrut-
* Haer. xxv. $.4, p. 79.
CHAPTER II.
977
2 *And many shall follow their pernicious ways:
by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil
spoken of.
3 And through " covetousness shall they with
feigned words make merchandise ºf you : *whose
judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and
their damnation slumbereth not.
4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned,
tion,” Phil. iii. 19, on whom should come “swift destruc-
tion,” 1 Thess. v. 3; they being “appointed for wrath,”
ver, 9; James as of men “fattened for a day of slaughter,”
v. 5, and that “suddenly” to come upon them, their “Judge
standing at the door,” ver, 9. Christ also threatens to them
that held the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, that he would
“come against them swiftly, and fight against them with the
sword of his mouth,” Rev. ii. 16; i.e. he would destroy
them, Rev. xix. 15. 21. Accordingly church history informs
us, that they were extinct, * Aéyou Sätroy, in a very little
time.
But I find nothing of any such remarkable or swift de-
struction which befell the Gnostics, in church history; not
one word that any of them perished at the destruction of
Jerusalem by the Roman army, though doubtless their ini-
quities would find them out. We rather read in the church
history, that they were never persecuted by the heathen em-
perors; this being the observation of the fathers, that the
Simonians, F and the Menandrians, “were never persecuted
by the heathens, their fury being only poured out upcn the
Christians.” Nor could it probably be otherwise, seeing
they made the doctrine of the cross no part of their religion;
but held it lawful ț to deny the faith in times of persecution,
to avoid suffering for it, and counting idolatry, in such cases,
a thing indifferent; whence, saith Origen, “they were never
persecuted at all.”
* Ver. 2. Kai Troxxol, And many shall follow, &c.] That
the Judaizers much infested the Christian church, and per-
verted many in the churches of Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus,
and Crete, we learn from Paul's epistles; and that by reason
of the Jewish zealots, who “despised dominions, and
spake evil of dignities,” the “way of truth was evil spoken
of,” from 1 Pet. ii. 12. Indeed the heathens seem to have
made little or no distinction betwixt the Jews and the Chris-
tians that sprang from them; but imputed all the disturb-
ances they made to Christ, or to the Christians. Hence
Suetonius Ş Saith of Claudius, that Judaeos, impulsore
Chresto assidué tumultuantes, Româ expulit; “he expelled
the Jews from Rome, as being frequently tumultuous, through
the instigation of Christ.” Of the Nicolaitans, Epiphanius]
saith, that “great was the deceit which they brought upon
mankind.” And Clemens Alexandrinus'ſ professeth to
write against them and the Gnostics, “to remove the scandal
which they, by their doctrines, might bring upon Christi-
anity:” as Justin Martyrºs also hints. Yea, Clemens adds, ºf
that from these men, who taught, that women should be
common, arose the greatest blasphemy against the name of
Christ, or Christians.”
Moreover, it is to be noted, that instead of &moxetaic, many
copies read &a saysłaic, “their lascivious ways:” which read-
ing may be confirmed from Jude, who begins his description
of the same persons thus, “They turn the grace of God, si;
ČašMysław, into lasciviousness.” . And this character agrees in
some measure to the “false teachers” among the Jews, who
* Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 29.
+ of ou ºvov oëk #3.6x3naray tºp' bºy, 3XX& Kai rºzºv xatn-
£60mgay. Xiaoya wiv, &c. ANA& 3rd &# 31&novtat, ºwn?; po-
Večoviral tºp' (pºv, x:y 313 rà. 88/pºata #7tta rāţ-effa. Justin M.
Apol. p. 67, 70.
† Xiaow re 3 ×apºapstic——ütrip row; ºrxeſova; brayāyāa śal
röy Tree: roi; Bayárov xívčvyov regisſae rāv 228mtöv, #vºta popeſ, at-
toū; 8.84%a; orgh; rºy Biêoxoxarpetav, &AA’ odºš tºy &#xºv 24xovia-
vol ins@ovX500mcay. Orig. contra Cels. lib. vi. p. 282.
§ Sueton. in Claud. cap. 25.
| Kai roº &n A&; # 33 rā; tºwn, a rºw yogān rā yśve
rāy &vše&Twy ŚwięovXà. Haer. xxv. §. 3.
* Mitoivvy intoSuázavoi rā āyoga roi, Xgia-row, Kai rāv #y #9, Raw
ãxpated rátov &woxacºré regov Čioëvres, 8xacºpmp.lav rá čvářzari
mºtorgēśa Sov. Strom. iii. ab initio.
** IIáyrs; ol 373 rotºroy jeºpaevol Xgattayoi KaNoüyrat. Just.
Mart. p. 70.
* º aw • aw
ºff Koivā; Elva räç yuvaſzag ääoſaly, #3 ºv # preyſa’rn xará to: ,
* xenºatokaiaatres. Ep. ad Magnes, Š. 9.
Strom. iii. p. 428, B
vºcato; ###&n 8xagºnºzía.
taught fornication and uncleanness (see note on 1 Cor. vi.
13. Eph. v. 6); practised, tà neurrà rā; alaxiſync, “the hid-
den things of shame,” 2 Cor. iv. 2; and “gloried in their
shame,” Phil. iii. 19; and whose “exhortation was, # 3xa-
Sagariaç, of uncleanness,” 1 Thess. ii. 3; and many of whost.
followers were guilty of “uncleanness, fornication, Kai ào'ex.
2siaç, and lasciviousness,” 2 Cor. xii. 21. But this is more
emphatically the character of the Nicolaitans, and of the
Gnostics, the successors of them : for they were, saith CEcu-
menius, arsei Kºśv 3éyºcaro, &a=6&rarot, regi 33 8ſow &a=xyéo-
rarot, “most ungodly in their principles, and most lascivious
in their lives.” Refert complexus, et permixtīones execta-
biles, obscoenosque conjunctus, et quaedam exipsis adhuc tur-
piora, saith Tertullian;” “yea, things so exceedingly filthy,
that we blush to mention them, and therefore pass them by.”
IIáv3.nº.oy & peo8'rmy xoivoviay (4 votikky &vayogadova'iy, saith Cle-
menst of Alexandria. Täv airzgovºyſay #4a roſ; Hanois Émi-
rexely rotic auroſ. p.a.Srrà, #8íðažev, saith Damascen.j: Hence
Pseud-Ignatius' styles them ākašágroug Nixoxaíras, im-
mundissimos Nicolaitas, amatores libidinis; Austin, sectam
turpissimam : for, saith Timotheus, obºis Tāy &NAwy aige-
a taºx3v paiveral otroc airio; Tráanç (388xvºrſi; Kai pºva späç Kal
&#rov ºrpážso, 3:34akaxos, “amongst all the masters of he-
resy, none taught such filthy and abominable actions.” -
7 Ver, 3. 'Ew arxtoys;ia, Through covetousness.] If Tafoysłia.
should here and ver, 14 signify adultery, as 1 Thess. iv. 6,
it seems to do (see note there), and as Dr. Hammond thinks
it doth here, there will be no difficulty in applying this to
the Nicolaitans, as well as to the Gnostics and false teachers
among the Jews; the note on the second verse showing that
this emphatically belonged to them, and gave the rise to that
impure sect. But because they are accused, ver, 15, of
“following the way of Balaam, who loved the wages of un-
righteousness,” and by Jude, ver. 11, of “running greedily
after the error of Balaam for reward,” I think it better to
admit of that sense which our translation giveth of the word,
and then to apply it at once to the false teachers among the
Jews, and to the Nicolaitans: it seems highly probable,
from the sixth, eighth, and the tenth chapters of the First
Epistle to the Corinthians, that the apostle is there discours-
ing against the Nicolaitans. Now of these false teachers he
said, that they “devoured” the Corinthians, 2 Cor. xi. 20.
Paul, in his Second Epistle to Timothy, iii. 6, speaks of a
sort of men who “crept into houses, leading captive silly
women laden with sins, and led away with divers lusts;” a
character which perfectly agrees to the Nicolaitans: and
speaking to Titus of the same persons, he saith (i. 10, 11),
“They subverted whole houses, teaching things which they
ought not, for filthy lucre's sake.” Irenaeus'ſ informs us of
the Valentinians, that “they would not impart their myste-
ries to all, but to them only who were able to pay great sums
for them :” whence the Pseud-Ignatius” styles them, “co-
vetous of what belongs to others, and violent lovers of riches.”
8 oi, to agiga fixiraxat oëz àeyeſ, Whose judgment now of a
long time lingereth not..] Jude, in the parallel place, yer. 4,
saying they were men, of Trása, rgoyeypapºévol, is Tºro rô
Agiza, “ of old assigned to this condemnation,” viz. by the
prophecy of Enoch (see the note there); I think these
words may be best rendered thus, “To whom the judgment
pronounced of old lingereth not,” it being a swift destruc-
tion, which the false teachers among the Jews and the Nico-
laitans brought upon themselves (see note on ver. 1 of this
chapter). Note also, that “their damnation” is in the Greek
“their destruction.”
* Praescript. cap. 47. + Strom. iii. p. 436.
it Coteler. tom. i. p. 286. § Ep. ad Tral. Š. 1}.
| Apud Cotel. tom. iii. p. 381. -
* “A was sixároic Soxoffa'i ºol fºº #irayra; 6%New Éy $aysgå 3840-
xsw, &AA’ ºvov; #xsivov; robº Kai Pºyáàous *iºcès irāg rnxi-
zoároy ºvernpiov taxeſ, 8vyapávows. Lib. i. Cap: i. p. 20.
** Tºy yoyalway 400ptſ, zai rāv 3xxorgioſ invièvºntai, ka?
3 R.
978,
II. PETER.
but cast them down "to hell, and delivered them to
* Ver, 4. Taprapºrac, Casting them down to hell.] Tarta-
rus, Saith Phavorinus, is 3hp 576) aloc, wai &y#xioc, “the subter-
restrial air, where the sun comes not.” It signifies also,
saith Suidas, riv Trºpi rā vēpn rātroy, “the place in the clouds,”
or “in the air :” hence régrapoy higésvta, and £34 ov hagfisyra,
in Homer, to intimate that Tartarus was “the dark air:”
as Crates in Stephanus saith, 3 ºn; itéystä; Hari rémo; a wore:-
vös, “Hades is a dark place under the earth;” saith Por-
phyry, “where souls are tormented, iv 3xgatºvº axiºra, in
utter darkness” (Apud Stob. Eccl. Ph. p. 133). These
angels being therefore placed in the bright regions of the
heavenly light, and being now confined to the dark air
(whence Satan is called “the prince of the power of the
air”), are said to be cast down into Tartarus: and this suits
with the opinion both of the heathens and the Jews, who
held that “the air was full of spirits or demons” (see note
on Eph. ii. 2); but chiefly of the ancient fathers, according
to those words of Jerome, in his comment on that passage of
Paul, “against spiritual wickedness, iv roſ, moveavior, in
cCelestibus;” that is, saith he, “in the air :* for this is the
opinion of all the doctors, That the air, which divides be-
tween the earth and heaven, is full of contrary powers.” He
is styled “the prince of the power of the air,” saith CEcu-
menius,t “because he is the prince of the evil spirits that
are in the air;” “not as having dominion,” saith Theophy-
lact, “but only his habitation there.” That this was the
opinion of most of the ancients, see Petavius de Angelis, lib.
iii, cap. 4. Now hence it follows, that though the devil and
his angels are at present for ever banished from the divine
presence, and so do suffer the punishment of loss now of the
beatific vision; though they are, in the language of Tertul-
lian, prædamnati ad judicii diem, “condemned beforehand.
to the tremendous day;” praedestinati supplicio sempiterno,
“foreordained to eternal punishment,” saith Austin; reser.
wati in diem judicii, “reserved to the day of judgment,”
saith Origen, and Peter here; or “kept in chains of dark-
ness to that day,” saith Jude; and knowing and believing
this, they cannot choose but “tremble,” and be filled with
present horror, yet is the doctrine of Rupertus; highly
probable, that “at present they are not suffering in the in-
fernal flames, but have their residence in the dark air;
Whence, at the day of judgment, they shall be precipitated
into the fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”
First, Because this seems to have been the opinion of all
antiquity, for five whole centuries together, as appears not
only from their common doctrine mentioned before, that they
at present had their habitation in the air, but also from their
express words, who spake still in the future of their infernal
punishments, saying, as Justin Martyr, that “they should
be punished with eternal fire; for that they are now banished
by the name of Jesus, is an indication of their future pu-
nishment in everlasting fire.” This he confesseth, ºra,
tº 7:4%at tºy Qsé, “ that God hath not yet done;” but
yet he saith, “Christ hath foretold that he and his angels
shall be cast into the fire, and everlastingly tormented there.”
And Tatianus saith of them,” “The Lord of all things suf.
* Hec autem omnium doctorum opinio est, quðd aeriste,
quis Cºlum et terram medius dividens, inane appellatur, ple-
nus sit contrariis fortitudinibus.
+ Tw iyaipio, kai Tornºw rººroº, röy tº 3igo; dexºra,
*** * * *xºra oi yº &#9; āºxera, 3xxx was.
f", *, Tºy &isiov zroyngöv wysvaarov. In locum. 'Axx' &;
#y auté Ég, pixoxwºodyta.
# Et nunc quidem in hunc aerem illum esse dejectum, et
omnes satellites ejus, quos ačreas catervas dicinus, passim in
scripturis habemus—futurum estautem utin infernum in-
feriorem videntibus cunctis praecipitetur in ignem aeternum
qui paratus est ei ét angelis ejus. Com. in Gen. xvii. 5
§ 0.3% &#ay káºzov kai tºoglav kogirov.ru, i, aiovio, Trve?
#ykºladávre. Ei y&p tº rāv Āv63&ray 33 roſ; &ázaro; ‘Incº
xerº #77&rat, 8:3ayº ari Kai rā, waxxojanº airdſ; ty Trvg:
ałowº kºčašac. Apol. i. p. 46, D. Wide p. 45, E.
| "Oy & ré trip reºpóñaga Sat wers tº airs; a rºariäç zo-
Nagónzoºivov; a y áriëayroy aidya 7:08:ºvevasy 3 xgiará.
Apol. ii. p. 71, B.
e * *s ºr º
" 'O 3: tów ŚNov 3satrórn; ivrºvºy ańroic stars &#x31; &y &
chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
fers them to expatiate, or insult, till the time of the dissolu-
tion of the world, and till the Judge comes.” Tertullian
saith,” that “their desperate condition, on the account of
their being condemned before, receives some comfort from
the delay of their punishment.” Minucius Felix saith, i.
that “he foreknowing, trembles at the punishment appointed
for him, and those that worship him.” Lactantius, f that
“at the time of judgment, this prince, with his ministers,
will be laid hold on, and condemned to punishment.”
Secondly, This must be the doctrine of those fathers who
held, that the devil kmew not that he should be certainly
condemned till our Lord's advent, and therefore durst not
before blaspheme God; which was the doctrine of Justin
Martyr, Eusebius, Š Irenaeus, and Epiphanius;"|, or, as
CEcumenius” interprets them, “He did not know it ma-
nifestly, as being only obscurely hinted by the prophets;
but when Christ coming, declared manifestly that everlasting
fire was prepared for him and his angels, he ceased not to
practise his wiles against his saints:” and this doctrine they
founded on the following scriptures, viz.
First, That question which these devils put to Christ,
“Art thou come to torment us before the time 2" concluding
hence, that “not this present age, but the future, was the
time when these evil spirits were to be punished;” as Ori-
gen saith twice.* “They thought,” saith Jerome, adjudi-
candos se venisse, “that Christ was to come to judge them :”
Saith Chrysostom, obº ávagávely rāv Katºv rā; Koxão"Eog, “that
he would not stay till the time of punishment,” i.e. the day
of judgment. Hence Maldonate, upon the place, admires
at the great consent of the ancients in this opinion.
This, Secondly, they gathered from those words of Christ,
“Depart, ye wicked, into the fire prepared for the devil and
his angels.” Whence they concluded, with St. Bernard, if
that “the sentence against them was determined, but was
not yet passed upon them;” and that jam diabolo ignis pa-
ratus, etsi nondum ille praecipitatus in ignem, “the fire was
indeed prepared for the devil, but he was not yet cast into
it;” concluding that was only to be done “at the end of the
world, at the day of the great judgment, or in the world to
come.”$$
xárºwo; ºréea; Aagaw &vaxw85, kai & 3ixaotic ragayáyºral, p.
151, D.
* Desperata conditio eorum ex praedamnatione solatium
reputat fruendae interim malignitatis ex poenae morã. Apol.
cap. 27.
+ Destinatam enim sibi cum suis cultoribus poenam prae-
scius perhorrescit. P. 39. t
† Sed et dominus illorum cum ministris suis comprehen-
detur, ad poenamgue damnabitur, cum quo paritēr omnis
turba impiorum pro suis facinoribus perpetuo igni cremabitur
in aeternum. Lib. vii. cap. 26, p. 729.
§ Kaº: , ‘Iovatio; #4 n, ºr ºrgē (, èy rā; rot Kvpiov 'ragovoria;
où8áTrote #76xpandey & Xarayåg 8xacºma;a at roy Q'sév, &rs ºwn?é-
Tro, siè3; airoi; thy Karáxglo-Iv. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. iv.
cap. 18.
| Iren. lib. v. cap. 26. * Epiph. Haer. xxxix. n. 8.
** @nciv 'Iovarivo;, &c. &; 381480x0; tree rā; roi, Kupiov mapov-
oia; oix #8s. Thayāc, ciro rā, śavroſ rigo.gia; rºy Advauly rāy
Seſov trºopntãy aivtypºatw8ā; raúrny &layogºva &vrov. 'Ev oi; };
toū Kveiou Trafayevo, #vov, xa, 31480x0 a.a.pā; &mokeſa Sat, ka?
firotºfia 6at rô alôvoy trip, kai roſ; 37%xoic aircü #xovaev, où
Traúgral roſ; Triatoſ, tričovasúsiv. In 1 Pet. v. 8.
++ Diabolus in hóc seculo neque corripitur, pro peccato,
neque flagellatur, omnia namdue ei servata sunt in futurum,
unde et ipse sciens sibi illud statutum tempus esse poenarum
dicebat ad Salvatorem, Quid venisti ante tempus torquere
nos? Hom. 8 in Exod. f. 44, H. Non vult Deus daemonum
genus ante tempus damnare. Sciunt enim et ipsi daemones,
quia tempus eorum praesens hoc seculum continet. Prop-
terea denique et Dominum rogabant, ut non torqueret eos
ante tempus. Hom. 13 in Numer. f. 116, J.
3: Serm. de Trans. S. Malachiae.
§§ Sunt reservati in diem judicii. Orig. Indigni sunt qui
in praesenti seculo corripiantur, sed in futuro recipient quº
merentur. Hom. 8 in Ex, ibid. Dominus in die judicii,
quasi in uno fasce paritér colligatos, mittet in lacum inferni.
CHAPTER II.
979
5 **And spared not the old world, but saved (only)
Noe, "the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness,
º in the flood upon the world of the un-
go } ; …
6 And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha
into ashes, condemned them with an overthrow,
making them an example to those that after should
live ungodly (see note on Jude 7); -
7 And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy
conversation of the wicked :
8 (For that righteous man dwelling among them,
But, Thirdly, This they chiefly concluded from these
words of Peter * and Jude, that they were “referred unto
the day of judgment to be punished.” Nor is it easy to
conceive a more natural consequence than this;–they are
reserved unto the day of judgment to be punished, therefore
they are not yet punished with the fire prepared for the devil
and his angels.
And, Lastly, This they gathered from the Revelation of
John (to which the frequent sayings of Austin do refer), F who
often saith that “the old serpent the devil” shall be “cast
into the lake of fire and brimstone, at the day of judgment.”
Since, then, to torment the devils at our Saviour's advent,
was to torment them “befóre the time” of torment ; seeing
our Saviour, when he shall pass the final sentence, will only
amand the wicked to the fire “prepared for,” not actually
tormenting then, “the devil and his angels;” seeing they
only are “reserved in chains of darkness, to the day of judg-
ment, to be punished :” and so the sentence, and the execu-
tion of it, is no more passed upon them, than upon the pri-
soner that is kept in chains for the assizes: seeing the devil
is only said to be then + “cast into the lake of fire and brim-
stone,” when the Judge “sat upon the throne,” and “all
men were judged according to their works;” there seems suf-
ficient reason to assert, that the devils shall not be tormented
in the infernal flames, until the day of judgment: and if not
they, then much less wicked men.
* Ver. 5. Oix iºsia aro, And spared not the old world.]
This instance agrees very exactly to those Nicolaitans and
Gnostics, who had corrupted their ways; as they of the old
world did, by taking to them what women they pleased to
enjoy, as far as appears, without any solemnity of matrimony
(Gen. vi. 2.4); for it is only said, that “the sons of God
went in unto the daughters of men:” hence are these giants
said to be of #writtov’re; of 3iaiol, “violent men,” who by force
invaded them : and also by idolatry (see Ainsworth on Gen.
iv. 26). - -
1} *. The eighth person,) One would think, from
Adam ; whereas indeed he rather was the tenth from Adam
(Gen. v.), and so it is the eighth of them that were saved
from the deluge (1 Pet. iii. 8). So Plutarch saith of Pelo-
pidas, that he came, si; oikiay 8w8ázaroº, “unto his house with
eleven more :” and Polybius of Dionesidorus, that ºrgiro;
àneyāśaro, “he swam out with two more :” so here, Noah was
saved, with seven persons; so celebrated in history, that the
hill where the ark rested is called, “the hill of the eighth,”
or Themanim ; and a village by it bears the same name (see
Dr. Hammond on the place).
** Ver. 9. Ofºe, The Lord knoweth.] God's knowledge
here includes his power and his will: so Ps. i., “Whatsoever
the righteous doth, it shall prosper; for the Lord knoweth
Hieron. in cap. xxv. Esaiae. In fine corporeo igne cruciandi.
Greg. Servantur in judicium puniendi. Fulg. apud Petav.
tom. iii. lib. iii. cap. 4.
* Mirüm quanto consensu plerique veteres auctores do-
cuerint daemones ante diem judicii non torqueri, quod Pe-
trus scribat (2 Pet. ii. 4). Si angelis peccantibus non peper-
cit, &c., et Judas (ver. 6). Si angeli qui non servarunt
suum principatum. Maldonat. in Matt. viii. 29. Wide Au-
gust lib. xxi. cap. 27, &c. de Civ. Dei.
+ Sicut etiam desertores angeli, licet secundum modum
quendam mortuisunt peccando, quia fontem vitae deseruerant,
qui Deus est in secundam mortem post ultimum praeci-
pitabuntur judicium. De Civ. Dei, lib. xiii. cap. 24, p. 746,
C. Wide eundem, lib. xxi. cap. 23.
† Rev. xx. 10. 15.
in seeing and hearing (of them), vexed his righteous
soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds:)
9 (Then may we rest assured, that) * the Lord
knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation
(as he did Noah and Lot), and to reserve the unjust
* unto the day of judgment to be punished :
10 But chiefly them *who walk after the flesh, in
the lusts of uncleanness, and * despise government.
Presumptuous are they, self-willed, they are not
afraid to speak evil of dignities.
11 Whereas angels, which are greater in power
the way of the righteous” (ver. 6), i.e. he is able and willing
to make it prosper ; Matt. vi. 31, “Take no thought what ye
shall eat or drink, or wherewithal ye shall be clothed ; for
your heavenly Father knoweth ye have need of all these
things” (ver. 32).
* Ei, hºw Égay ºpia'ews, To the day of judgment, to be pu-
nished.] Note, that this is signally the time when the un-
godly shall be punished : secondly, that the evils which
wicked men suffer in this life, will not exempt them from
future punishments in the world to come ; even Sodom and
Gomorrha must then suffer (Matt. x. 15. xi. 22).
* Ver. 10. 'orizo a.agº, Who walk after the flesh.] See
note on ver. 2. - -
* Kai xuetárnºro; Karaqpovoivraº, And despise government.]
The mote of Esthius on the place is this ; That “we read not
in church history, that the Gnostics despised governments,
but rather flattered them.” What Dr. Hammond saith, of
their teaching Christians to despise all authority of magis-
trates, or masters, is not proved by him ; for he attempts
Inot to prove, that they were kvºiárnto; karaºgovoivºrsº, “de-
spisers of government:” and his attempt to prove, that “they
taught Christian servants to despise their masters,” from 1
Tim. vi. 2, hath been considered already. Nor do I find
anything of this nature charged upon the Nicolaitans. But
then it may be noted, that kupićrnºrs; x&i 36%at, “dominions
and glories,” in the New Testament, do often signify the an-
gelical powers; as when Christ is said to be exalted, üreğávo
ºrácing kupićrnºroº, “above all dominion,” Eph. i. 21 ; and
when xvpiórnºrs; are mentioned among “the invisible things
of the creation,” Col. i. 16. Accordingly some of the fathers”
refer this to the angelical powers; and this they do, with
great probability: for (1.) the apostle Peter here asserts,
that they blasphemed, #y oi, 3) vooja’i, “in things of which
they had no knowledge:” Jude, that they “blasphemed
things that they knew not;” which very well agrees with
their bold assertions touching the angels; in which they did,
as Paul saith, & º żógazew #28ateſov, “intrude into those
things they had not seen” (Col. ii. 18); but cannot so well
be applied to civil dignities, of which these heretics must
have sufficient knowledge. (2.) The apostle adds, that
whereas these men did not tremble to blaspheme these dig-
mities, the holy angels, où pagoval war' airãw 8×áo pnºoy Keiziv,
“durst not use railing or blasphemous words against them.”
Now they whom Michael, and his good angels, durst not
blaspheme, were, saith.Jude, “the devil and his angels,” who
were in scripture styled “the principalities, and powers, and
rulers of the darkness of this world” (Eph. vi. 12): and
therefore they whom these heretics blasphemed, must also be
angelical dignities.
But against this it is objected, That we read not in church
history, that the heresy of the Gnostics had anything in it of
particular opposition or defiance to the angels; but, on the
contrary, the aeons, noting the angels, make up a great part
of their divinity. Ans. This seems a great mistake ; for both
Irenaeus+ and Epiphaniusf aver, that when they practised
their most vile impurities, they invoked some of the angels,
to whom they did ascribe that work, saying, when they per-
formed it, 3 Seiya &yyixe, karaxpºgai cov ré figyov, # 35ive
#ovcia, cow rºy ºrgāśly, “O angel, I am doing thy work, I am
employed in thy service;” which sure must be, to blaspheme
these dignities.
* Aéa, 33 ºro, rà: Seia; pnai Suyákºsic # Kai rā; #xxxnaiaa-
rix&; &#x4s. (Ecum.
+ Iren. lib. l. cap. 35.
† Epiph. Haer. xviii. Ş. 2.
3 R 2
980
II. PETER.
and might (than evil spirits), bring not railing accusa-
tions against them before the Lord (see note on
Jude 9). \
12 *But these, as natural brute beasts (Gr. as ir-
rational, natural living creatures, rather than men),
made to be taken and destroyed (or, to raven and de-
stroy), speak evil of the things they understand not
(i. e. of the angelical powers whom they blaspheme,
ver. 10); and shall utterly perishin their own corrup-
tion;
13 And shall receive (Gr. receiving, by this de-
Moreover, it is evident, that the Nicolaitans did also hor-
ribly blaspheme them. For (1.) “they made the angels to
be the offspring of an obscene and filthy aeon,” as both Ter-
tullian” and Epiphanius+ inform us. (2.) They add, that
the mother appears in a beautiful form to princes, and ex-
tracts their seed from them with pleasure, that she may re-
collect her power, or virtue, dispersed among many: and
from this hypothesis, saith Epiphanius,t “Nicolas brought
the mystery of his filthiness into the world:” they doing all
their villanies, I suppose, in imitation of her.
* Wer. 12.] This verse, in Jude, runs thus: “But these
speak evil of the things they know not ; but what they know
naturally, as brute-beasts, in these things they corrupt them-
selves,” ver. 10. And therefore to make this verse parallel
to it, it seems necessary to make the construction run thus;
oörol 33, “But these blasphemers of dignities, #y oi; 3, wooija,
8xacºmºcodytes, blaspheming in things of which they have no
knowledge, shall perish in their own corruption ; as do the
natural brute-beasts, made to be taken and destroyed,” to
whom they are, in this practice, of making all women com-
mon, like ; and whose example they plead, in favour of
their common whoredoms, especially the followers of Carpo-
crates, $ and his son Epiphanes, “making the marriage of
one a violation of the community ordained by God, and ex-
emplified in other living creatures.”
*7 Ver. 13. Thy iv #&#pº revºy, Riot in the day.] This is
exactly true of the Nicolaitans;|| who practised their impu-
rities “day and night ;” and held, that “if a man were not
lascivious every day, he could not be saved.”
* Sporting themselves in their own deceils.] i. e. In those
practices which were the effects of their deceitful principles.
So that there seems no need of reading &yáraic, “their love-
feasts;” for they were the feasts of the church, not of the
heretics. - -
* Zwevoxoſºvoi, When they feast with you..] Of these
feasts, see note on Jude, ver. 12. And also Irenaeus's say-
ing of Marcus, and other heretics, that sióSaariv šmi roſ;
* AEones refert quosdam, turpitudinis natos, et complexus,
et permixtiones execrabiles, obscoenosque conjunctus, natos
praeterea daemones, et deos et spiritus septem. De Praesc.
cap. 47. - -
+ "rategov 33 ºwerå arávraç roërov, Teoge6xº~Sai pnari riya
'aiozºv aiºva, ºsprix}at 3Å rotirov rā ºré, Kai ix rotºrov roſ,
ałóvoc row aiazpoº rig witgaç yeyoyāyat Geoč, re zai row: áyyáAovº,
wai Baiaovac, Kai Érrà rvedaara, Epiph. Haer. xxv. §. 5.
if Matrem viventium. Iren. lib. i. cap. 24. Taütºw 3:
(paa'iy) &si paived 6a, roſ: 3pxova'iv iv eigogºpia rivi, wai &roavagy
rô 3r' airó, a tráčºva & #8oyā; wai ixx&geoc, Wa 350ey rºw airfic
3āvakaly, rày Big Biaºpégov; cºrapefray, ač81; wáAly &vakogićh, ka?
otºrw; in rotatºrm; inoflárew; ºr riſ, airrot aiazºoxoyia; avºrhetov
+& Kárºwº iwetºveyze. Epiph. Haer. xxv. §. 2.
§ Carpocrates Aſſye rºy 3inatorávny roi; Geoff wolyovíay riva sīval
Azer' icórn roc, cujus exemplum dat #y roſ. &Aóyotº, in genere
bothm, Suám, ovium, et reliquorum omnium. Clem. Alex.
Strom. iii. p. 428, C, D, et p. 429, A. Atzatoa tºwn yip #y
autoſ; paiyeral # Kotvárnº, Baretta war& zotyárnºra arávºra jºccio;
xató yévoc arreiferai' a weipova's 3: Kai yawāja w św' frnç Koivoviay
iºré 3inatorſyn; Épºq’vrováxovireº. Ibid. Ei (wiav čvápºevo, #xéro,
8vagávow wowoyāy &Trávrov, & wet ärſſºvs rà Aoirá rày &ww.
Ibid. D. -
| Tunc Nicolaus, die noctuque nuptias faciens obscoenas,
et auditu quoque erubescendos coitus somniavit. Hieron.
adv. Lucif. f. 53, A, Y. Air㺠yāg x&i ºrgoňgćaro tº Aéysty,
&rt #39 &# rig wag' #zácºrny hºàgay Nayyeºn, Koń, ſº 3&acóat
fºréxely rā; aioviov. Rpiph. Haer. xxv, Š. 1.
struction, ver. 12) the reward of unrighteousness, as
they that count it pleasure to ” riot in the day-time.
Spots they are and blemishes, * sporting themselves
with their own deceivings, whilst "they feast with
you ; º
14 Having eyes full of adultery, that cannot cease
from sin; beguiling unstable souls: a heart they
have exercised with * covetous practices; cursed
children ; -
15 *Which have forsaken the right way, and are
gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of
8stºryol; rot wańpov diroi ºrávrove traišew, “they are always accus-
tomed, in those suppers which they make, by lot to play;”
or, as the Latin hath it, sortibus ludere, “to play by lot :” I
suppose, what women they should commit lewdness with, or
who should provide the supper ; which being ended, there
followed, as Justin Martyr" hints, “the putting out of the
candle, and their promiscuous lusts:” he speaking thus of
the Marcionites ; and Clemens Alexandrinus,'F of the Carpo-
cratians.
* Ver. 14. Covetous practices.] See note on ver, 3.
* Ver. 15.] This in Jude runs thus; rā ºrxávn roſ. Baxagº,
gia Sot, if exºnaray, “They ran forth into the error of the re-
ward of Balaam,” i. e. the error which the children of Israel
committed, through the counsel which Balaam give to Balak.
To explain this, let it be noted ;
First, That Balaam not only went with the princes of
Balak, but also had the reward of his divination ; for it is
expressly said, Deut. xxiii. 4. Neh. xiii. 2, that “the Am-
monites and Moabites hired Balaam.” Note,
Secondly, That Balaam, for his reward, gave counsel to
Balak to entice the children of Israel to idolatry and forni-
cation: this is hinted in those words, “Come therefore, I
will advertise thee” (Numb. xxiv. 14), i. e. what to do to
this people now, and what they will do to thee in the latter
days: so the Chaldee paraphrast upon the place ; “I will
counsel thee what thou shalt do to this people, that thou
mayest make them to sin:” so the Jerusalem Targum. This
counsel, saith Josephus, was, “that Balaam told Balak, upon
his departure, that the only way to prevail upon this people
would be to draw them into sin; and to that purpose he
counselled him to tempt them with their beautiful women :
these were first to entice the Israelites with their beauty and
compliant conversation, and when they had entangled their
affections they were to consent to their embraces, upon con-
dition that the Israelites would forsake their own law, and
worship the god of the Moabites” (Joseph. Antiq. lib. iv. cap.
6), Note,
Thirdly, That this counsel made them “err in the matter
of Peor;” and so not only to commit fornication with the
women of Midian (1 Cor. x. 8), but also to commit idolatry.
Now this Baal-peor, saith Jerome, and other critics, was
Priapus, who was worshipped by showing of their shame ;
to which these words of the prophet Hosea may refer, “They
set up altars to Baal-peor, and separated themselves to that
shame” (ix. 10); and those of Jeremiah, “Ye have set up
altars to shame, even altars to burn incense to Baal” (Jer.
xi. 13). And then, as #exášnday, “they were dispersed,”
or ran about àfter the Midianitish women, answers to the
practice of those men who “crept into houses, leading cap-
tive silly women;” so “the matter of Baal-peor” answers
exactly to the execrable villanies these men committed cum
membris pudoris.
Moreover, this passage seems to confirm that exposition,
which refers what is here spoken to the Nicolaitans. For
John speaks thus to the church of Pergamus, “I have a few
things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold
the doctrine of Balaam; who, as he taught Balak to cast a
stumbling-block before the children of Israel, to eat things
* Tà 360 pnºa fixeſya Auxvia; ºfty &yarponºv, wai rā, śyaíºny
&#etc. Ap. ii. p. 70, B, C.
+ Totºrov, paariv eig rà. 8stºrya &6poićopºvov; &věpa; fºod zai
yvyaſaas, as tº 85 woesa ºva; ivºrºna ºn tº avºrgian, tº karºtº-
Xīvoy airán ºr troºvikºv rađºrny Sikatoa ºvny, Śwro8&v Troinagºvov;
$3; tº roº A&yov regregorii, wiyyvača, Širo, #9: Noisy, ai, £oãoly”.
Strom. lib. iii. p. 430, C, D.


\
981
CHAPTER II.
Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness (and
to obtain them, counselled Balak to entice God’s peo-
ple to commit fornication with the Midianites, Numb.
xxxi., 16, Bakadu roi; Bógop' that is, saith Grotius, of
the city of Bosor, as Pethor his city, Numb. xxii. 5,
is called); :
16. But was rebuked for his iniquity; gor) the
dumb ass speaking with man’s voice forbade the
madness of the * prophet.
17 These are wells (Gr. fountains) without water,
clouds that are carried with a tempest (unprofitable
jor any good, as fountains without water ; and perni-
cious as tempests, which blast and root out all before
them); to whom the mist (Gr. the blackness) of dark-
ness is reserved for ever.
18 For when they speak great “swelling words of
vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh,
through much wantonness (or, to lasciviousness),
those who were clean escaped from them that live in
€ITOr.
19 Whilst they promise them “liberty, they them-
selves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a
man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bond-
age.
20 * For if after they have escaped the pollutions
of the world, through the knowledge of the Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein,
and overcome, the latter end is worse with them
than the beginning.
21 For it had been better for them, not to have
known the way of righteousness, than, after they
have known it, to turn from the holy commandment
delivered unto them (because they sin by apostasy
against the light received, and with ingratitude to the
Author of it).
22 But it is happened to them according to the true
proverb, *The dog is turned to his own vomit again;
and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the
IIll Iſe.
sacrificed to idols, and to commit fornication ; so hast thou
also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which I
hate.” Now the church history informs us, this was the doc-
trine of the Nicolaitans, that “it was lawful to eat things
offered to idols, and to commit fornication;” as Irenaeus,
Austin, and others teach.
* Ver. 16. The prophet.] That Balaam was indeed a pro-
phet of God, and well acquainted with his revelations, the
history in the book of Numbers will not suffer us to doubt:
for those words, “I cannot go beyond the commandment of
my God, to do good or evil” (Numb. xxii. 18), show he was
not unacquainted with the true God (see also, xxiv. 4);
though after, through a covetous desire of gain, he used en-
chantments. “The madness of the prophet” appeared in
this, that hearing the ass speak, which argued the miraculous
assistance of God enabling him so to do, he goes on in his
mad fury, and saith he would kill him.
* Tây rod Trpophrou ºraçaºgovíay, The madness of the pro-
phet.] The Jerusalem Targum and Ben Uziel on Numb.
xxii. 30, introduce the ass speaking thus to Balaam, “Woe
to thee, Balaam, thou art Rny"; hºpn, mente captus, i. e.
mad.”
* Ver. 18. 'Tripoyka, Swelling words of vanity.] This
did the heretics many ways (ver. 9), by their barbarous
names, quibus terrebant auditores, “by which they affrighted
their hearers,” say Austint and Epiphanius, t and imposed
upon them by those vile words; or by those proud words,
that they are the Spiritual, the perfect, the seed of the elec-
tion, men who have perfect knowledge of God (see note on
Jude 19); that they have grace, àrà rā; &#vov wai äyovoaga-
arou ovćvyiac, “from the ineffable and not-to-be-named con-
jugation,” and Ś “therefore ought to be always meditating
the mystery of conjugation ;” and that || “he that being in
the world, does not love a woman, so as to enjoy her, is not
of the truth ;” and that “except a man be lascivious every
day, he cannot enjoy eternal life;” and that they “being iſ
spiritual, cannot receive corruption by any evil actions they
do, or be hurt by any material actions, so as to lose their
* Turpissima secta in quâ placet usus indifferens foemina-
rum : hi mec ab iis, quae idolis immolantur, cibos suos sepa-
rant. De Haer. cap. 5. Iren. lib, i. cap. 28.
+ Haer. v. †: Epiph. Haer. xxv. §. 3.
§ Ad zai ix. Travrö; ºrgárov 83% airov, &ei ră ră, ovćvyiac
pºetày ºvarſigloy.—Iren. lib. i. p. 28, ed. Ox. 31.
| "O; &y xào'ag, yevéºévoc yvyaika oix #4 iana’sy %are airy
wearnSāvat, oùx #arty # 3Anščiac, Kai oi Xoſéña's Big &xi;Selay.
lbid.
"I Të Trygvuarixòy 6% overly oi abrol ºvat 380yarov p$ogåy wara-
&#aasai, xºv &moiat; ovykarayévoviral argááeat xzi airoi;
Aśyova, kāv #v Štroiat; tºtkaſ; ºrpášeat zarayåvoyrat, ºwn&#v aircüç
aragagačwrea Sat, ºwn?ā ātrośćaxey rºy TVevºwarikºv Wróaractiv.
Ibid. p. 26.
spiritual substance.” In opposition to which vain boasts,
these apostles so expressly say, “They shall perish in their
corruption.”
Toi); Śwrog 3704 vyāyraç.] See this reading defended, Exa-
men Millii in locum.
* Wer. 19. 'EXEvšegiay, They promise them liberty.] They
promised them a double liberty: first, a liberty to do any-
thing they pleased, without fear : secondly, a liberty from
the eye and hand of their Judge ; as we learn from the
borégoyka, “swelling words of vanity,” cited by Irenaeus" from
them, which are a full comment on ver, 18. -
* Wer. 20.] From ver. 18. 20. 21, it seemeth to be
strongly argued, that they who were once truly faithful, may
totally and finally fall away. For, first, that the persons
here mentioned were once truly faithfūſ, seems evident from
this, first, that they had once 3vrwº, “truly,” and entirely
“escaped from them that live in error" (ver. 18), being not
then “entangled with,” nor “overcome by, the pollutions
which are in the world, through lust,” but having escaped
them “through the knowledge of Christ Jesus:” that they
“turned from the holy commandment” in which they for-
merly had walked: that they were once washed from that
“mire” to which they returned (ver. 22). All which can-
not be truly said of hypocritical professors, who are “still in
the gall of bitterness, and the bond of iniquity.”
That these men after fell away totally and finally, we learn
from these expressions, that they “were again allured to
wantonness,” that they were “again entangled and over-
come by the pollutions which were in the world, through
lust,” and therefore “brought in bondage;” that they “turned
from the holy commandment delivered to them ;” yea, “ with
the dog to the vomit, and the washed sow to the wallow-
ing in the mire:” and this so far, as that “it had been better
for them not to have known the way of righteousness.”
* Ver, 22. Küoy interp{\pac, The dog is turned to his
vomit, &c.] These two proverbs, of which the first is taken
from Prov. xxvi. 11, and the second is common among the
writers de Re Rustică (see Schotii Adag. Sacra, in locum),
are very expressive of the folly of those men who return to
those vices they had formerly renounced ; and therefore the
fathers apply them to Julian, returning to that heathenism
he had renounced in his baptism.: so Nazianzen. Orat.
Stel. 1.
* Tuvaizágua aroxx& 3:49eigay, Texeiovº Havtov; &vayogºſovreć,
&; an?syā; Svyatºvovićico.6%ai rā ºsyá6s, Tâ; Yvºzio; abröv,
an?’ &y IIaşxov, an?’ &v IIárpov stric, ºwn?' &xxov tíva rö, ä"rozºré-
Xay, 3xx& mixeia, arávrov #yvozéval, zaïté Azážešo; Tās Yvºzsos tº
&#tov Švyākasa', wävov; karaire"rroxéval, fival ºre attoo; #y tºle
in is rāgay Sºvaaiv, 33 ×ai ixev6#2; wavra "rgéoasty, Pºnºva
$63, #xoyrac, 33 yxe rºy &roxárezaw &ngarátov, Kai éopátov;
yivta'éal tº xerºff. Lib. i. cap. 9, p. 72.


982 * -
CHAPTER III.
1 THE second epistle, beloved, I now write unto
you; in (both) which I stir up your *pure minds by
way of remembrance:
2 *That ye may be mindful of the words which
were spoken before by the holy prophets (of the Old
Testament, Enoch, Jude 14, and Daniel, xii. 2, touch-
ing the judgment of ungodly men), and of the command-
ment of us the apostles of our Lord and Saviour (or,
of the commandment of the apostles of our Lord and
Saviour, as St. Jude, ver. 17, that is, to eaſpect patiently
and with unshaken faith that day, Heb. x. 23. 35. 39,
James i. 6. v. 7. 11. 1 Pet. i. 13. iv. 1).
3 Knowing this first, that (according to their pre-
dictions) there shall come in the last days * scoffers,
walking after their own lusts,
4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming
(to judge the world, and raise his faithful servants from
the dead) 2 for “since the fathers (to whom these pro-
mises were made) fell asleep, all things continue as
(they were) from the beginning of the creation.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III.
* Ver. 1. Thy sixtaglyń 31&votay tºy, Your sincere minds.]
A sincere desire to know, and regard to the truth, being once
seated in the mind and heart, we shall readily embrace and
firmly stand in the truth delivered to us.
* Ver. 2..] That these words should relate to that nota-
ble destruction of the unbelieving Jews, foretold by Christ,
seems not very probable ; since the believers are instructed
to be mindful of these commands, that they might be
armed against the “scoffers,” mentioned ver. 3, who said,
“Where is the promise of his coming P” Now that the thing
questioned by them was not our Lord's coming to the de-
struction of the Jews, but to the judgment of the world, is
evident ; it being styled emphatically, hºwāga xpireos, “the
day of judgment, and perdition of ungodly men,” ver, 7.
10–12.
* Ver. 3..] Since both Peter, and, as Jude tells us, the
rest of the apostles, were so careful to mind those to whom
they writ, or preached, of these scoffers, we may conjecture
that these scoffers were then come ; though in respect of the
prophecies concerning them, they were yet to come ; whence
Jude saith of them, “These are they that separate them-
selves,” &c. ver. 18, 19. *
'Eºtraſztat, Scoffers.] Jude seems to teach us, that these
“scoffers ” were the heretics mentioned in the former chap-
ter, viz. the Simonians, who, being Samaritans, held still
their old heresy," that “there should be no resurrection of
the flesh ;” and therefore walked after their own lusts: for
those of whom, saith he, I have treated, and am speaking,
are they of whom the apostles did forewarn you, ver. 17, 18.
* Ver. 4. 'A4' ×, viz. #&#pac.] “For from the day that
the fathers,” to whom this promise of a resurrection, and a
heavenly country, Heb. xi. 16, is supposed to be made, and
who had foretold this judgment to come upon the wicked,
Jude 14, “ have slept,” we see no such thing verified to
them ; nothing answering their predictions, but “all things
continue as they were.” That 34’ #; should signify except
that, I find no instance or example.
* Ver. 5. Azvāāve yap abrows.] That is, that consider not
God’s power in making the world, which must enable him
also to destroy it, if he please ; and that by his word the
earth was separated from the waters which covered it, and
gathered into its channels, so that the dry land, which we
call earth, appeared ; and that by these very waters, descend-
ing partly from the heavens, and partly from the great deep
(Gen. vii. 11), the earth was again overwhelmed, for the sin
† 3. A º * ag 2 . . / * 2 º e -
Hyvöngay pziv vexedy čváataa'iy wai &mirrojat. Epiph. lib.
1. p. 22. Haer. Samar. Valentiniani etiam Aéyova'i º eiya,
wuxgåy &yázraviv. Just. Mart, p. 207, 253.
#ignorant of (Gr.
dréjàorant), that by the
word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth
standing out of the water (viz. dry land) and in the
water (viz. that part of it which is covered with the sea):
6 Whereby the world that then was, being over-
flowed with water, perished:
7 But the heavens and earth which now are, by the
same word are kept in store, (being) reserved unto fire
against “the day of judgment, and perdition of un-
godly men (who, as the antediluvians have been pun-
ished by water destroying the world then, shall be
punished with fire destroying it again).
8 But (for farther answer to this question), beloved,
be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with
the Lord as a "thousand years, and a thousand years
as one day.
9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise as
some men count slackness (concluding thence, that he
hath changed his purpose, or will not perform it); but
- ------
of the antediluvians (eight persons being only preserved); so
'that those wicked men, which then lived, perished in their
wickedness ; and so the prophecy of Enoch was remarkably
fulfilled upon them. -
* Ver. 7. Eig hºcépay ºpia soc, To the day of judgment.]
From these words it seems to follow, first, that the day of
judgment and perdition of ungodly men, and the conflagra-
tion of the world, must be contemporary ; and that therefore
“new heavens and new earth,” in the literal sense, must
vainly be expected before the final judgment of ungodly
men. Secondly, that the ungodly are not to be judged, or
punished by fire, before the conflagration of the world: “for
the heaven and earth that now are,” are to be burnt up with
that very fire by which the ungodly are to be destroyed, they
being left in the midst of those flames, whilst the godly,
being snatched up into the air above the reach of them,
“shall be for ever with the Lord ” (1 Thess. iv. 16); for
the wicked are “reserved unto the day of judgment, to be
punished” (2 Pet. ii. 9); that fire in which they are to be
tormented and destroyed is reserved unto the same day
(Matt. xxv. 4). 46); the fallen angels, for whom the fire is
prepared in which the wicked shall be punished, are reserved
to that day (2 Pet. ii. 4. Jude 6); and, lastly, Sodom and
Gomorrah, who perished by fire and brimstone, are set forth
&; 35 ypca, “as an example * of that punishment the wicked
shall suffer at that great day of retribution (2 Pet. ii. 5.
Jude 7): they are not therefore to be cast into the lake of
fire and brimstone, before that day. Moreover, that the
world was to be dissolved by fire, was the opinion of Anax-
imander, Anaxiphanes, Anaxagoras, Archelaus, Diogenes,
and Leucippus (Apud Stob. Eclog. Phys. p. 44).
7 Ver. 8. Xixia firm, A thousand years.] That is, though
God defer his coming to this judgment a thousand years or
more, we must not think this long; for in respect of him
whose duration is eternal, and so who eyer lives to make
good his promises and threats, a thousand years are as one
day. In like manner, Zosimus,” in his history, produces a
prediction from the sibyls, or from one Phaellon, and then
adds, “Let none think that this prophecy was of some other
thing, because it was fulfilled, ºcera x86vov, oùx 3×iyovº, a long
time after ; Trá, yāp xpévo; Tā QE3 8paxic &si TE 8vri, xat
#aropºvº, for all time is short to that God who ever is, and
ever will be.” Mr. Mede indeed saith, that these words
cannot be thus interpreted, because the question is not, whe-
ther the time in which they expected the coming of the
Lord, were long in respect of God, but only in respect of us,
and so he would have the words interpreted thus, “The day
of judgment spoken of shall be a thousand years.” But (1.)
the text saith not, “One day shall be a thousand years,”
* Lib. ii. ed. Steph 1581, p. 67.

CHAPTER III.
983
is (in this) long-suffering to us-ward, ° not (being)
willing that any should perish, but that all should
come to repentance.
10. But (though it be thus deferred for a time, yet)
the day of the Lord ºil come as a thief in a night
ti. e. suddenly and uſiºectedly to them, Luke xxi. 34.
1 Thess. v. 2, 3), in the which the heavens shall pass
away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt
with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that
are therein shall be burnt up.
11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dis-
but “as a thousand years,” and that again not absolutely,
but only ºraçã Kugiº, “with respect to God.” (2.) Here is
no question mentioned touching the length of time, either
with respect to God, or us, but only touching the truth of
God’s promise (ver. 4): and to this the interpretation well
agrees, that God's promise may be true, and in his time ful-
filled, though he, who ever lives to make it good, should de-
fer it a thousand years. And, (3.) that this respects God's
promise, and not the length of the day of judgment, is evi-
dent from the ensuing words.
* Wer. 9. Mö 80UAówayā; riva; &mdāāa śal, Not being willing
that any should perish.] Note here, that when it is said, God
“would have all men come to repentance,” it is certain that
this will refers to all to whom the preaching of the gospel is
vouchsafed, to all to whom in “the times of ignorance God
winked at, for now he commandeth them all everywhere to
repent” (Acts xvii. 30). When therefore it is said, he is '
“not willing any one should perish,” he must be supposed
to mean, he would have none to whom the gospel is vouch-
safed, to perish. Wain therefore here are the descants of
Esthius upon this place ; as V. g.
First, When he says, “God would have none to perish,
because he gives to all some general means of conversion to
God, though they be not sufficient for that end without these
special aids he will not give them.” For certain it is, that
he who wills not the means necessary to bring them to re-
pentance, wills not that they should come to repentance:
and he that determines to withhold the means, which being
withheld they must perish, wills they should perish.
Secondly, When he restrains this to “the elect,” saying,
“God is not willing any of them should perish ;" for the
words are too general to admit of this restriction, for they
run thus, first, he “would have all to come to repentance ;”
he “would not that they should perish.” Secondly, he is
here speaking of “the day of judgment, and perdition of un-
godly men,” and gives this reason why it is deferred, viz.
because God is long-suffering, and would not any man should
perish. He therefore must in reason be supposed to speak
of God’s long-suffering in the general.
Thirdly, When he adds, “He would not any man should
perish, because he excites good men to pray they may re-
pent, and so not perish.” For if this prayer be according to
the will of God, then must it also be his will they should not
perish ; if it be not, they cannot thus pray in faith or with
expectance to be heard, because they know, according to his
doctrine, they do not pray according to his will: nor can God
excite them thus to pray.
* Wer. 12. II:00-80xãvta, Kai cºreč8oyraç rāv tragovoriay, And
hastening to the coming.] Though ºrgö, here may be taken
from the foregoing words, yet a rewºo hath sometimes an
accusative case like this without it. As when Thucy-
dides saith, cºredºw rºy hyspºviay, “I hasten to the go-
vernment ;" and Pindar,” gº 3iov &Sávarov a treče, i. e. tri
8íoy &0&yarov.
1° xrotxsta 8; wavrotºsya, And the elements being burnt,
shall be dissolved.] That the elements cannot be here taken
in the common sense, Mr. Mede proves well, because one of
them is that fire which shall consume these elements ; but,
that they signify the planets, he proves from the testimonies
of Justin Martyr, Theophilus of Antioch, ; of Poly-
solved (by fire designed to punish the ungodly), what
manner of persons ought ye to be in all hºly conversa-
tion and godliness 2 -
12 Looking for "and hasting to (prepare for) the
coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens be-
ing on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements” shall
melt with fervent heat.
13 Nevertheless, " according to his promise, we
look for (kauvoog & otpavoic trooqêoköpisv, we also do
eapect) new heavens and a new earth, * in which
dwelleth righteousness.
crates,” and other ancient fathers. So #vépygia arouxetov is the
influence of the stars, Wisd. vii. 18, and a rotxào. #7 ovgåvia, the
celestial signs or constellations, as Walesius proves (in his
notes upon these words of Polycrates bishop of Ephesus, i.
xará rày 'Aaſay exeyāany croixà Kekoiantat, “In Asia great
lights are extinct,”) out of Liogenes, Laertius, and Epipha-
nius: and since the planetary bodies are found to be as much
earth as that we tread on, and borrow all their light from
the irradiations of the sun, I think there is no need of those
criticisms which turn trapexeijo-owral, “They shall pass away,”
into “They shall be changed,” and zavzoºp, Eva Avôňa ovarat,
“They shall be dissolved being burnt,” into “They shall be
refined ;” whereas, if they be refined as silver is by fire, they
must be dissolved as that is. Nor see I any reason why we
should prefer either an unusual or metaphorical, before the
proper import of these words.
* Ver. 13. Kará rà èráyyexpºa aircü, According to his pro-
mise.] This cannot relate, as I have proved, to John's dis-
course of these new heavens, &c. for this farther reason, That
he speaks of them only as in a vision, not by way of promise;
it remains therefore, that the new heavens and new earth pro-
mised by Isaiah, be the thing here referred to. Now these
new heavens and new earth are manifestly promised to the
Jewish nation, to whom also the apostle here writes: nor
can they possibly admit of any other sense, or be primarily
accomplished upon any other people: for God having said
by his prophet, “Behold, I create new heavens and a new
earth,” immediately adds, “Be ye (Jews) glad, and rejoice
for ever in what I do create ; for behold, I create Jerusa-
lem a rejoicing, and her people a joy; and I will rejoice in
Jerusalem, and joy in my people.” Now sure this new
heaven and earth promised to the Jews must be created be-
fore the conflagration of the world, that is, before the Jews
be burnt to ashes, they being not likely to be converted
afterward. John indeed speaks of his “new heaven and
earth,” after he had mentioned the day of judgment ; but
that he doth this by a prolepsis, is evident from this consi-
deration, that after his whole discourse of these “new hea-
vens and earth,” the new Jerusalem coming down from
heaven, and of the bride, and of the Lamb's wife, i. e. the
Jews converted then to Christ, follow these words, “Behold,
I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to render to
every one according to his works,” xxii. 13; which words
contain a repetition of what was said, xx. 13, to show that
what was mentioned there was not to be accomplished
till after the appearance of the “new heavens and the new
earth.”
* Kaiyot, oùgavolº, New heavens and new earth.] That
this cannot refer to the millennium, supposed to be pro-
mised in the Revelation of John, appears, not only be-
cause this epistle was writ before the Revelation, which,
saith Irenaeus, was seen, ad finem Domitiani imperii, “about
the end of the reign of Domitian,” whereas Peter suffered
martyrdom in the reign of Nero ; but also, (1.) because the
millennium of John is peculiar to the martyrs, and those
who have suffered for the cause of Christ ; the “new heavens
and earth,” here mentioned, are the common expectation of
all Christians, who upon this account are admonished to be
“found of him without spot, and unblameable, in peace”
(ver. 14). (2.) I grant, that the apostle is here speaking
* Pyth. 3, ver, 1. -
+ “o Ogg, rà oigávia croixsta eig atºnaty wagºrčv wai & ºv
&EragoN&; zoo whata;. Justin M. Ap. i. p. 44, A.
£ IIgoyèvía rega yśyovey tº puté, zai tā azápºata rāy
aroixstow. Theoph. lib. ii. p. 94, B. Lex non Solūm vetat
eiðxot; ºrpockweiv, &AA& xai atoixsiotº, #Aio, Kai o'Exhyn, Kai roic
Aotºroſ, &cºrgotc. Ibid. p. 110, D, et lib. i. p. 72, A.
* “Hxto; wai arexhvn wai & répe: a roixsta aútow Elaiv. Wide ib. C.
+ Apud Euseb. H. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 31.
† Lib. v. cap. 30.

984,
II, PETER.
ver. 32. See the preface to the epistle to the Hebrews). i
16 “As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of
14 Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ”ye look for
such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him
in peace, without spot, and blameless.
15 And account that the long-suffering of our
Lord is (designed for the ) salvation (of you Jews) ;
even as our beloved brother Paul also according to
the (spirit of) wisdom given unto him hath written
unto you (in these words, Rom. ii. 4, Despisest thou
the riches of his goodness and long-suffering, not know-
ing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance P
And more especially in these, And so all Israel shall be
saved, &c. Rom. xi. 26. For God hath concluded
them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all,
these things; ” in which are some things hard to be
understood, which they that are unlearned and un-
stable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to
their own destruction. gº
17 Ye therefore, beloved, “seeing ye know these
things before, beware lest ye also, being led away
with the error of the-(se) wicked (scoffers), fall from
your own stedfastness.
18 But (rather) * grow in grace, and in the know-
ledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To
him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.
of the destruction, not only of the sublunary heavens and
earth” (ver. 12) by fire: but this concession is so far from
doing any service to the hypothesis of the millennium of
John, that it doth perfectly destroy it: for this conflagration
of the world is contemporary with : the day of judgment,
and perdition of ungodly men:” and by that very fire
which consumes the world, are they to perish (see note on
ver. 7). So doth the scripture constantly express the
punishment of the wicked, saying, that “at the end of the
world the angels shall cast them into a furnace of fire”
(Matt. xiii. 28), and that Christ shall “come in flaming fire
to take vengeance” on them (2 Thess. i. 7, 8). Whereas
the millennium of John must be at an end before that day:
for after he had spoken of “the first resurrection,” and the
conclusion of one thousand years, in which they were to
reign who were then raised, and of the insurrection of Gog
and Magog against them : I say, after the conclusion of
those years, doth he introduce One “sitting on a great
white throne, and the dead both small and great stand-
ing before him, and being judged out of those things which
were written in the book, according to their works” (Rev.
xx. 13, 14).
I also grant, that after the apostle had spoken of the con-
flagration of the world, he hath these words, “We also do
expect new heavens and new earth;” but then I add, that
these words are not to be rendered thus, “Nevertheless,
after this violent dissolution of the world, we expect new
heavens and new earth,” which are to succeed them : but
rather, as Dr. More renders them, “But before this confla-
gration we expect them;” or rather, “But besides this con-
flagration, we expect new heavens and new earth.” As if
the apostle should have said, 'I hitherto have answered
this question of these scoffers, by showing what substantial
mutations have been, and will be, brought upon the world
by the word of the Lord, and his coming to judge his peo-
ple: this also I think fit to add in answer to them, That
we Christians expect the coming of our Lord to make such a
moral change in the affairs of the church, as will amount to
the new creation of heaven and earth, promised to the Jews
(Isa. lxv. 16–18): so that these scoffers have no cause to
doubt of our Lord's coming in behalf of his faithful ser-
vants, since he will come to raise his church, by his calling
the Jewish nation to the faith, and so to such a glorious
State. *,
Nor is it to be wondered that the apostle should speak of
these two things together, in answer to that question,
“Where is the promise of his coming P” seeing the Jews
thought them connected, expecting these “new heavens and
new earth,” at the coming of the Messiah, and his coming
“at the end of the world ;” according to that question of the
disciples to our Lord, “When is the time of thy coming, and
of the end of the world 2’’ Matt. xxiv. 3. “In the end of
Jews a world full of joy and exultation; so that their hea-
ven and earth shall be as it were new, as it is said, Isa. lxv.
17” (see this more fully in Mr. Mede, p. 535–537).
* Ver. 14. Taijira Trºodºox&vres, Earpecting these things.]
These words, directed to the Jews then living, seem to
prove, that in some inferior sense this promise of the new
heavens, &c. was to be made good in their times: for why
should he exhort them to this diligence, on the account of
what should only happen one thousand seven hundred
years after they were dead 2 for he plainly speaks to them
to whom Paul had written, ver. 16, and therefore to the
Jews at that present age.
* Wer. 16. ‘og wał #y Tráca.1; rat; #Trio'roxaſ, As also in
all his epistles.] I do not think it necessary so to under-
stand these words, as if the apostle were said to have spoken
in all his epistles, that “the long-suffering of God was de-
signed for their salvation ;” for I do not find anything of that
nature in many of them: he speaks indeed generally of Christ's
coming to judgment in them, but that seems not pertinent
to the text, I therefore give the sense of the words thus:
As also, according to the same wisdom, he hath written
in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, of
which I am now discoursing, that is, of the day of the
Lord's coming, and of the preparation we should make
for it.
is 'Ew oi, In which.] This cannot relate to the epistles
of Paul, because the words being of the neutet gender, can-
not agree with Érictoxai, “epistles,” which is of the femi-
nine; but to those things of which Peter had been discours-
ing in this chapter, and which were so wrested by the ul-
learned and unstable, that some of them thought, long before
the writing of this epistle, that the day of the Lord was in-
stant (2 Thess. ii. 2), and so became unstable in the faith
(ver. I5). Some said, “the resurrection was past already,
and thereby overthrew the faith of some” (2 Tim. ii. 18);
some, wanting patience to expect it longer, left the assem-
blies of Christians (Heb. x. 18), and some questioned whe-
ther this promise would be made good at all, as here, ver.
thing absurd,” they holding that it was “incapable of salva-
tion;” and the resurrection of the same body being by
some looked on as a thing impossible; and these seem to be
the 3vayánºra here mentioned.
16 Ver. 18. Ašáyers #y xágurt, Grow in grace.] That
grace signifies generally, in the New Testament, the favour
of God to us, see note on 2 Cor. vi. 1. -
* Carnis salutem negant, et regenerationem ejus Sper-
nunt, dicentes non eam esse capacem incorruptibilitatis.
Iren, lib. v. Cap. 2.
the world,” saith R. Saadias Gaon, “there shall be to the
4. 9, the resurrection of the flesh being by some thought “a,
98.5
THE FIRST
EPISTLE GENERAL OF ST. JOHN,
WITH ANNOTATIONS.
PREFACE.
CoNCERNING the author of this epistle, all ages have
agreed that it was John, the apostle of our Lord and Saviour.
As for the time when it was written, some (both ancient
and modern) writers think his epistles to be the last of his
works, and therefore to have been written in the last years of
Domitian. But Dr. Hammond hath very well observed,
that this epistle must have been written some time before
the great destruction which befell the Jews: (1.) Because
he speaks of the last hour as now at hand; which that it
must be understood of the last times of the Jewish state,
See note on ii. 18. (2.) Because he speaks of the anti-
christ, ii. 18, and the false prophets, iv. 1, which were
then among them, or come into the world; such as Christ
tells us were to be the immediate forerunners of that de-
struction, Matt. xxiv. 24, declaring, that they went out from
them of Judea, ver, 19. (3.) It being written by an
apostle of the circumcision, it is not doubted but it was writ-
ten to the Jews; but that it was an Epistle to the Parthians,
as Austin,” Posidonius in his Index, and Idacius, contra
Verim. a ver; as I know nothing can be said against it, but
that it only is asserted by authors of a later date: so, if
Parthia be taken for the whole empire, as it was enlarged by
the Arsacidae, it is a farther proof, not only that this epistle
was written to the Jews, who, saith Josephus, f abounded
in Babylon and Mesopotamia, and had there three famous
universities, one of them at Neerda, mentioned by Josephus;
but also, that many of the ten tribes were then converted,
they being seated in Mesopotamia and Media: for the text
Saith, that “they were carried away into Assyria, and placed
in Halah and Habor, by the river Gozan, and in the cities of
the Medes,” 2 Kings xvii. 6. xviii. 11. Now all these places,
saith the learned Bochart, are to be found thereabouts;
and therefore John, being an apostle of the circumcision,
may well be supposed to have written to them, though per-
haps he was never there; as Paul writ some of his epistles
to churches he had never seen.
Whence it was written, neither scripture nor anything
in antiquity that I have met with, gives any ground for a
conjecture.
The occasion of it seems to be, (1.) To arm those Jewish
converts against those loose and pernicious doctrines which
had obtained among the Jews, viz. that solifidian doctrine
of being righteous by a faith that is not fruitful in good
works, or without doing righteousness, 1 John ii. 29. iii. 7. 10,
being children of the light, without walking in the light; fa-
vourites of God without obedience to his laws, or love to
his servants. (2.) Against the madness of their zealots,
abounding everywhere among them, who thought their zeal for
God and for his laws would atone for their hatred and mur-
der of their brethren, and for all the other sins, which, saith
Josephus, they did so greedily commit (see note on Rom. ii.
* Qu. Evang, lib. ii. cap. 39.
+ Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 16.
# In Assyria vel Mediae parte illi vicina reperjuntur loca,
quorum Sacra historia meminit: Chaluch est Ptolemaei Calu-
chcna ad aquilonem Assyriac, Chabor est ejusdem Ptolemaei
mons Chaboras inter Mediam et Assyriam, à quo monte ad
Caspium mare cuntibus, medio forté spatio, occurrit Gauza.
nia urbs, Geogr. S. lib. iii, cap, 14, p. 220
|
1. 24. James i. 26). And, (3.) to preserve them stedfast in
the truth, which they had “heard from the beginning,”
against those deceivers, antichrists, and false prophets, which
were then among them, ii. 19. 26. iv. 1–3, and to continue
them stedfast in the belief that “Jesus was the Christ the
Son of God,” v. 1.
And here, because that question hath made so great a noise
of late, “Whether salvation or perdition depends upon be-
lieving or rejecting this one proposition, That Jesus was the
Messiah,” as, saith the author of the Reasonableness of
Christianity, p. 43, adding, p. 47, that “all that was to be
believed for justification, was no more but this single propo-
sition, that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ, or the Messiah;”
I shall endeavour briefly to state and explain this matter,
and so give farther light to those words of this epistle, iv.
2. 15. v. 1.5, which seem to say the same thing.
Whereas then this author challenges all the systematical
divines, p. 192, “to show that there was any other doctrine,
upon their assent to which, or disbelief of it, men were pro-
nounced believers or unbelievers, and accordingly received
into the church of Christ as members of his body, as far as
mere believing could make them So, or else kept out of it :”
this I shall undertake to show,
First, From the express words of Christ, who requires of
all his disciples, in order to their admission into the church
by baptism, faith in “the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,”
Matt. xxviii. 19, saying, “He that believeth (this) and is
baptized, shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be
damned,” Mark xvi. 16, he adds with an asseveration,
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of
the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you,”
John vi. 53; clearly declaring the necessity of faith in his
body given, and his blood shed, for the remission of sins, to
justification and salvation ; we being “justified by his blood,”
and “through faith in his blood,” Rom. iii. 25. v. 9.
Secondly, From the plain declaration of Paul, who,
among the first things he preached to the Corinthians, as
things by the belief of which they should be saved, men-
tions three articles ; first of all, that “Christ died for our
sins, according to the scriptures,” 1 Cor. xv. 1–4. (2.) That
“he was buried.” And, (3.) that “herose from the dead.” In
the same chapter he plainly asserts the necessity of believing
the resurrection of the body, ver. 19. 32. Among the foun-
dations and first principles of the doctrine of Christ, from
which all Christians were to go on to perfection, he reckons
“the doctrines of repentance, of faith towards God, of bap-
tism, of laying on of hands (for the receiving of the Holy
Ghost), of the resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judg-
ment,” Heb. vi. 1, 2. These therefore were then necessary
to be believed by all Christians. The doctrine of the suffi-
ciency of faith in Christ's death for jnstification without the
works of the law, is by the same apostle declared to be so
necessary, that he saith of them who gainsaid it, “ Christ
is become of no effect to you; ye are fallen from grace,” Gal,
v. 2. 4. se
Moreover, it will be easy to account for the practice of
our Lord and his apostles, who insist so much and lay so
great stress upon this one article, if we consider who they
preached to, and how much was contained in, or necessarily
depended upon, the cordial belief of this one article.
I'irst, then, Our Lord and his apostles, whilst he was on
earth, preached only to the Jews, Matt. x. 6, that is, to them
to whom “pertained the adoption, the glory, the covenants,
the giving of the law, the service of God, and the plomises,”
º
986
PREFACE TO I. JOHN.
Rom. ix. 4, and to whom “were committed the oracles of
God,” Rom. iii. 2; i. e. those scriptures which were “able to
make them wise to salvation, with faith in Christ Jesus,”
2 Tim. iii. 5, i.e. if they, to the belief of them, added faith in
Christ, they teaching them the knowledge of the true God and
the way in which he would be worshipped, and showing them
“what was good, and what the Lord required of them.”
They also were writ by, and made frequent mention of, the
Spirit of God, of the new covenant God would establish
with them, “ of the sufferings of Christ, and of the glory
that should follow,” l Pet. i. 11, of his prophetical, priestly,
and his kingly office, of an Emanuel that should be born to
them, whose “name should be called Wonderful, Counsellor,
the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of
peace,” Isa. vii. 1. 14. ix. 6. It is not therefore to be won-
dered, that whilst our Saviour was on earth, he only called
them to repentance, and faith in the promised Messiah.
Moreover, Paul's sermon, Acts xiii., was preached to the
“children of the stock of Abraham,” ver. 26; and yet he
preached to them not only that Jesus was the Christ, but
also that “he died, and rose again,” and that “remission of
sins was to be obtained through his name;” and that “ by
him all that believed were to be justified from all those
things from which they could not be justified by the law
of Moses,” ver. 38, 39. And though we find him once dis-
puting in the school of one Tyrannus, we seldom find him
preach anywhere but in a Jewish synagogue. Others also
preached to the same persons; for “they that were dispersed
upon the persecution of Stephen preached to the Jews only,”
Acts. xi. 19.
We have, in the whole Acts of the Apostles, mention only
of four persons who were not Jews by birth, to whom the
gospel was thus preached; one of these was the eunuch,
who was before a worshipper of God, as is probably con-
jectured, of the Jews' religion; and therefore “came up to
Jerusalem to worship.” Paul preacheth to Lydia in a
Jewish synagogue, Acts xvi. 13, 14, and she was also one
that worshipped God, and so in all probability of the Jews'
religion. The centurion to whom Peter preached, was “one
that feared God, wrought righteousness, was much in prayer
and alms ;” and yet Peter, before his baptism, preaches to
him, and his friends, of “the word that God sent to the
children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ ;” de-
claring how he was “anointed by God with the Holy
Ghost, healed all that were oppressed of the devil, suffered
and rose again,” that he was “made Lord of all things,”
that he was “ordained of God to be the Judge of the
quick and the dead,” and that “through his name who-
soever believed in him should receive remission of sins,”
Acts x. 36.43. The only heathen family, that Paul ad-
mits to baptism, is the jailor's; and he first preaches to
them “the word of the Lord,” Acts xvi. 32; i.e. say even
the Socinians, he summarily expounded to them * who this
Jesus, this Son of God, was, what miracles he did, how he
was crucified by the Jews, raised up again by God, taken up
into heaven, made Lord of all things;” what promises he
had made, what precepts be enjoined. I know this author
saith, that preaching the word was only preaching that Jesus
was the Messiah : but the scriptures cited by him do not
say so : for the word, mentioned Acts x. 37, is the whole
word which God sent to the children of Israel, preaching
peace by Jesus Christ. It is the word of the gospel, Acts
xv. 7. It contains the whole ministry of the gospel, Acts
vi. 4. All the counsel of God being “the word of his grace,
which was able to build them up, and give them an inheritance
among them who were sanctified through faith in Christ,”
Acts xx. 27, 32. It cannot therefore be concluded, from
the preaching of our Lord or his apostles, that they thought
nothing more was necessary to be believed by Christians
saving this one article, that “Jesus was the Christ.”
Secondly, The belief of this proposition, that “Christ is
* Woltzog. in locum.
the Messiah, and the Son of God,” may well be represented
as the chief initiating article of Christian faith; because
where it is heartily professed, it carries with it a profession
of believing all Christ's sayings, and of obeying all his pre-
cepts: and where it cordially is embraced, it produceth
both his faith and practice. That “Jesus is the Christ,” as
it is the principal article of pure faith, the most peculiar
doctrine of our religion, as it stands opposed to that of Ju-
daism ; so it doth virtually comprehend all other doctrines
of moment in it, regarding either faith or practice. For to
believe him to be the Christ, is to believe him to be “a
Prophet sent from God, to teach the way of life unto us,”
John. iii. 3, even “that Prophet which was to come into the
world.” Hence Christ applies these words to himself, “The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath appointed
me to preach the gospel,” &c. Luke iv. 18. Now sure we
are obliged to embrace as truth whatsoever was taught by
such a Prophet, and to obey all his precepts upon pain of
destruction; for “whosoever will not hear this Prophet,
shall be destroyed from the people,” Acts iii. 23.
Again, To believe him to be the Christ, is to believe
him to be the Son of God, according to that profession of
Peter, “Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God,” Matt.
xvi. 16, and the inquiry of the high-priest, “Art thou the
Christ, the Son of God?” Matt. xxvi. 63. Now this lays
an obligation upon us to hear, that is, obey him ; according
to those words of God, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I
am well pleased ; hear him,” Matt. xvii. 5. It is also to
believe him to be our Lord and ſing, according to those
words of the angel, “To you is born a Saviour, who is
Christ the Lord,” Luke ii. 11, and of Nathaniel, “Rabbi,
thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel.” Now
this relation calls for obedience: “for why,” saith our Sa-
viour, “call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I
say?” Luke vi. 46, and that on penalty of ruin from him,
when he shall say, “Bring these mine enemies, who would
not I should reign over them, and slay them before me,”
Luke xix. 27. It was also Jesus who was called Christ,
even that Jesus who was to “save his people from their
sins,” and “a Saviour to give repentance and remission of
sins,” Matt. i. 21. Now upon such a King, and such a Sa-
viour, we may securely rely for the obtainment of all the
blessings and rewards which he hath promised to the obe-
dient. Hence we may learn, that it was highly reasonable
that the apostles should begin their preaching with proving
and persuading this doctrine ; that they should give such
great commendations, annex such excellent privileges, offer
such high rewards, to the hearty belief of such a comprehen-
sive article, and should admit them to baptism who pro-
fessed it; since “by that baptism, (saith this author, p. 196,
197,) they owned themselves the subjects of this Jesus whom
they believed to be their Messiah (i.e. the Prophet sent
from God to teach them), and received him for their Lord
and King ; and this was the solemn visible act whereby
they who believed him to be the Messiah, received him as
their King, and professed obedience to him, and so were ad-
mitted as subjects into his kingdom.” For as every one
who was circumcised, “became a debtor to obey the whole
. 2 ë
law” of Moses, Gal. v. 3, and therefore to believe it; so
every person baptized, being of age, doth by that very bap-
tism profess to believe all the doctrines, and obey the pre-
cepts, of the holy Jesus, in whose name he is baptized. And
therefore, though John here says, “He that confesseth that
Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in
God,” iv. 15, and, “Every one that believeth that Jesus is
the Christ, is born of God,” v. 1, yet he requires of the same
persons, in order to the same ends, that they should walk in
the truth of the gospel, in conformity to the example of
Christ, and to the love of God, and in obedience to his
commands; and adds, that “he that is born of God sinneth
not, neither can sin;” clearly insinuating, that this proposi-
tion, when cordially embraced, will produce a faith and prac-
tice answerable to it in our lives.
98
d
CHAPTER I.
1 THAT which was "from the beginning (of the
gospel dispensation, that) which we have heard, which
*we have seen (i. e. discerned as clearly as if we had
seen it) with our eyes, (that) which we have looked
W. and our hands have (as it were) handled, of the
ord of life, (declare we to you ;
2 Nor have ye the least reason to suspect our testi-
mony, either of this life, or the author and procurer of
it J for the life (we speak of) was manifested (in the
author and the promise of it), and we have seen (or
known), and bear witness (to it), and show unto you
* that eternal life which was with the Father, and was
manifested unto us; -
3 That which we have seen and heard (of this
Word of life) declare we to you, that ye also may have
“fellowship with us (in the same life); and truly our
fellowship is "with the Father, and with his Son Jesus
Christ.
4 And these things write we unto you, that your
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I.
* Ver. 1. “o #y 3r’ &exic..] This I here render, “From the
beginning” of the gospel dispensation ; because I find that
is the constant import of the phrase in this epistle, and else-
where, where it relates to what Christians had heard and
seen, as here. In this sense is, “That which ye have heard,
ãºr 36x36, from the beginning,” used six times by our apos-
tle in these epistles; viz. First Epistle, ii. 7. 24, twice, iii.
11 ; Second Epistle, ver, 6. So, “The commandment which
we have received, &r' épxic, from the beginning,” First Epis-
tle, ii. 7, Second Epistle, ver. 5, doth necessarily import its
being Christ's new commandment of love. So, 37° 36xic
airón rat, are “those who from the beginning of Christ's
preaching were witnesses of what he said and did,” Luke i.
2. And in this sense Christ saith to his disciples, “Ye have
been with me, 3r' 3px?c, from the beginning,” John xv.
27.
**o #opáxapaev, Which we have seen.] That is, in the
scripture phrase, said to be “seen” and “ looked upon,”
which is as truly known and discerned by us, as if we had
seen it. So the Jews are said to do the things which they
have “seen with their Father,” John viii. 38, and to have
“seen the end of the Lord's dealing with Job,” James v.
ll. So we are said to “see God,” or not to see him, 1 John
iii. 6, Third Epistle, ver. 11 ; to “see the life” here, ver, 2.
So also Jºaqāy, when applied to spiritual things, is not to
touch with the hand, but to apprehend with the mind, Acts
xvii. 27. I confess, all these things are more properly true
of the “Word made flesh;” of whom the apostles declared
what they had heard from him, and seen of him, who “ saw
his glory,” John i. 14, and what one of them had touched.
But then the Aévoc agreeing only to the divine nature, a
metaphorical sense must be allowed, in seeing and handling
that.
* Ver. 2. Tºv čºv rºy aid viov, #tic #y ºrgès rêv raréga, That
eternal life which was with the Father.] Thus of our eternal
life, the apostle saith, it is “hid with Christ in God,” Col.
iii. 3, and of the evangelical dispensation, that before the re-
velation of it by Christ and his apostles, it was “a mystery
hid in God,” Eph. iii. 9. But this also may be applied to
the divine Aéyoc, styled by this apostle, “Life etermal;” v.
20; who was “in the bosom of the Father, and was mani-
fested to us,” John i. 18. Yet two things seem to favour
the first interpretation.
First, That the phrase here used, being not #y &px; ºv, He
subsisted in the beginning of all things; but only, 3r' ééxic
#v, “He was from the beginning, " this phrase excludes not
his creation, as the other seems to do ; and, as I have ob-
served, it chiefly is applied, by this apostle, to the beginning
of the gospel dispensation. -
Secondly, That though 5 Aáyo; and 'oh, absolutely put,
are spoken of Christ, yet & Näyo; rā; Kojić, is never used con-
joy may be full (i. e. that believing this eternal life, ye
may rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory
1 Pet. i. 8, 9. For which cause ye must carefully at-
tend to another message he hath sent by us ;)
5 This then (and this) is the message which we
have heard of him (i. e. from God by Jesus Christ),
and declare unto you, that God is light (a pure and
spotless Spirit), and in him is no darkness at all;
(nothing of impurity or iniquity in his commands which
are all holy, Rom. vii. 12, or in his actions, as in the
heathen deities, he being holy in all his works. \
6 And therefore) if we say that we have fellowship
with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not
(speak) the truth:
7 But if we walk in the light, "as he is in the light
(endeavouring to be holy, as he is holy), we have "fel-
lowship one with another, and the “blood of Jesus
Christ his Son cleanseth us from all (those) sins
(which might obstruct our communion with this holy
cerning the person of Christ, but is expressly used of that
word by which eternal life is manifested ; as when we are
bid to “hold fast, Aéyoy &oñº, the word of life,” Phil. ii. 16,
and when the apostles are bid to teach, rå høata rā, Końs,
“the words of this life,” Acts v. 20 (see Acts xiii. 16).
* Ver. 3. Koivoviay (wes' hºv, Fellowship with us...] It doth
not follow hence, as Esthius imagines, that no man can have
fellowship with God, who hath not fellowship with the
church (though that be doubtless true of fellowship with the
invisible church, united to Christ by the Spirit, and so made
a habitation of God through the Spirit, and of fellowship in
doctrine, and communion with the church of the apostles):
for, as “like precious faith with us” is only such faith as we
have, 2 Pet. ii. 1, so here, “fellowship with us,” is only
such fellowship as we have.
* Merå ro; ratp%, With the Father.] We being “heirs of
God, joint-heirs with Christ,” Rom. viii. 17, and being united
to, and having communion with, the Father and the Son,
by the Spirit of both dwelling in us, John xiv. 21. 23. Eph.
ii. 21, 22. Rom. viii. 9. 11. and he being to us the earnest of
this life, 2 Cor. i. 22. v. 5. Eph. i. 13, 14, who “ seals us up
to the day of redemption,” Eph. iv. 30.
* Ver. 7. 'Q', airá, iary #y rð ‘port, As he is in the light.]
That this metaphor of “light” relates not to the knowledge
or the felicity, but to the purity of the divine nature, appears,
(1.) from the injunction, to “walk in the light, as he is in
the light;” for we are not anywhere bid to resemble God in
knowledge or in happiness, but we are commanded to “be
holy as he is holy.” (2.) From the darkness set in opposi-
tion to it ; which doth not refer so much to the ignorance of
men, as to the vices they practised in a state of ignorance
(see note on Rom. xiii. 12). -
7 Kowaviav #xogey wer’ &xxâxov, We have communion one
with another.] Some manuscripts read, zer' aircü, “with
him ;” which either is the true reading, or gives the true
sense of the other reading: i. e. We have communion with
God, and he with us; as is evident from ver. 6. Moreover,
the apostle had said nothing before of our communion with
one another, but only of our “fellowship with God,” ver.
6, “with the Father and the Son,” ver. 3, which makes it
reasonable to refer the words to that communion, of which
the apostle so often speaketh in this epistle (see ii. 5, 6. 24.
iii. 24. iv. 13). Notwithstanding, it is true, that then we
have communion with one another, by virtue of that Holy
Spirit which enlightens us, and enables us to walk in the
light.
g To aiwa xpiatoſ, The blood of Christ cleanseth us from
all sin.] This cannot well relate to that effect of the blood
of Christ, which we call “justification by faith in his blood,”
or the remission of our past sins, by virtue of our faith in
Christ dying for us; for that follows immediately upon our
faith, and cannot require that a habit of purity, or of walk-
ing in the light, should precede it: it therefore secmeth to
988
I. JOHN.
God, and our attainment of the life thus manifested
to us. d -
8 And of this eaſpiation we have all need, for) "if we
say that we have no sin (to be thus cleansed from), we
deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us: (for in
many things we offend all, James iii. 2, and therefore
are required to pray daily for the remission of our sins,
and have even after our regeneration need of this advo-
cate for the propitiation of our sins, ii. 1, 2. See
1 Kings viii. 46. Eccles. vii. 21.
9 But) if we confess (these) our sins, he (who hath
made this new covenant in the blood of Christ that he
refer to those sinful infirmities and defects, which, in this
State of imperfection, cleave to our best actions, and even
good men are still subject to, and which do not deprive us of
the divine favour, or of an entrance into that new Jerusalem,
“into which nothing enters that is polluted or unclean;”
because in this new covenant of grace, established in the
death of Christ, his blood doth cleanse all faithful and sin-
cere Christians from the guilt of them
The blood of Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.]
Here note, that these words confute the quakers, who hold
that those who are in the light, are guilty of no sin: for were
this so, they could be cleansed from none by the blood of
Jesus (see the text defended, Examen Millii).
* Ver, 8–10.] The question is, of whom the apostle
speaketh here, whether of sincere Christians, after their
conversion to the Christian faith, or only of them consi-
dered before they entered on that state. That John here
speaks only of the latter, is argued from these considera-
tions: ©
1. That the apostle doth plainly teach the contrary to the
first exposition, by saying, “He that is born of God, sinneth
not,” iii. 9. v. 18. But to this I shall return an answer in
the comment on those places.
2., That these words run in the preterperfect tense, “If we
Say, oix #4a6thwager, we have not sinned :'' whereas some
single acts of lesser sins they were then still subject to, to
whom he speaks.
Ans. True; and therefore he adviseth them to confess
them, that they might obtain forgiveness of them: now
will be merciful to our iniquities, Heb. viii. 8) is faith-
ful (to his promise), and just to forgive us our sins
(upon the satisfaction made to his justice by the death
of Christ), and to cleanse us from all unrighteous-
IlêSS. ...}
10 (But) if we (continue to) say that we have not
sinned (and therefore do not need this eaſpiation through
the blood of Christ), we make him a liar, (who hath
declared, both in the Old and New Testament, that all
have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God, Rom.
i. 23,) and his word is not in us.
confessing of them must be after they have been commit-
ted.
3. Because this phrase, &p, agriay Éxsw, “to have sin,” is
still used of such sins as will condemn us at the last, John
ix. 41. xv. 22. 24. xix. 11.
Ans. The text cited from xix. l l is impertinent : the
other two may be taken absolutely, as to the matter spoken
of: i. e. they had been guilty of no sin of infidelity, if Christ
had not come to them, or if he had not proved his mission
(xv. 22. 24), or if he had wanted means to discern the truth
(ix. 41); nor would their sin of infidelity have been con-
demning, had they confessed it, and forsaken it.
Since then the apostle was speaking (ver. 7), of them who
“walked in the light,” who had “communion with God,”
and who were “cleansed from the guilt of sin ;” and (ver. 8)
goes on to add, “If we say we have no sin ;” it seems more
probable, that he speaks there at least of the same persons.
Note also, that some of the Jews” professed to be āyap, 36-
ºrnto trº, Osºy, Kai panºeºtá, Pºetaryāvres, supply & zapriaç,
“free from all sins and offences against God ;” and of such
may the last verse be interpreted. They varying in this
from the doctrine of other Jews: for Maimonidesh truly
saith, Nullus homo dari potest quinon peccet, vel ignorantèr
in dogmate et sententia aliquà amplectendà, aut qualitate
eligenda qua, non eligenda est, vel ob irae aliorumque affec-
tuum vehementiam et praedominationem. -
* Jos. de Bello Jud. lib. vii. p. 990, B.
* More Nevoch. lib. iii, cap. 36, p. 443.
CHAPTER II.
1 My little children, these things (concerning the
necessity of walking in the light, and putting off the
deeds of darkness, ) write I unto you, that ye sin not
(i. e. that ye live not in any course of sin). And 'if
any man (through the infirmity of the flesh be overtaken
with a) sin, we (Christians) have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, (the Just One, in
whom was no sin, 1 Pet. iii. 18.)
2 And * he is the propitiation for our sins: and not
for ours only, but *also for the sins of the whole world.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II.
* Ver. 1. ‘Eäy ric &aftern, And if any man sin.] Though
this is not to be interpreted of sins of infirmity only; yet
since the apostle is here speaking of his “little children,”
whose past sins were already “forgiven them, for his name's
sake” (ver. 12. 16), and the apostle would not encourage
them in wilful or habitual sins, I think, as it relates to them
it chiefly is to be referred to those sins of ignorance, weak-
ness, and,infirmity, which will be pardoned by the tenor of
the new covenant, through Christ's intercession.
* Ver. 2. Ixa.a.p.6s art Trºpi rāv &p, apriðy hºv, He is the
propitiation for our sins.] In the Old Testament, the sin-
offering which made atonement for a trespass, that it might
be forgiven, is called, xzio; Waggotſ, “the ram of atonement,”
Lev. vi. 6, 7. Numb. v. 8 ; and that which in the law is
‘péésly, or ngoo &yely rô regi & wagºriac, “to bring an offering for
sin,” is in Ezekiel, Trgoorºpépew iMacºv, “to bring an atone-
ment,” or propitiation (Ezek. xliv. 27). When therefore it
is said here of Jesus Christ, that he is inacºy, “the propitia-
tion for our sins ;” and, iv. 10, that God sent him into the
world, to be, ixaa/zy, “the propitiation for our sins;” have
we not reason to conclude, he was so our propitiation, as
were all the sin-offerings of the Jews for them, viz. by suffer.
ing in our stead, to make atonement for our sins, and so to
render God propitious to us, in the forgiveness of them P
Moreover, why is he styled “Jesus Christ the just,” or
“righteous,” who made propitiation for our sins, if he intend-
ed not to intimate, that the just suffered instead of the un-
just, to make an atonement for their sins 2 To this Crellius
replies, that 3ixato; should be rendered, not “the just,” but
“the faithful.”
Ans. This is to say, it must here signify, not what it or-
dinarily and truly signifies, but what it both improperly and
rarely signifies ; and when it is ascribed to Christ, as here it
is, it never signifies: for it is ascribed to him elsewhere ten
times in the New Testament, Matt. xxvii. 24. Luke xxiii.
47. Acts iii. 14. vii. 52. xxii. 14. 2 Tim. iv. 8. 1 Pet. iii. 18.
Rev. xvi. 5; and in those places it doth always signify that
just or righteous person ; yea, in this very chapter, and the
next, it is twice spoken of him, first in these words, ver. 29,
“If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one
that doeth righteousness is born of him ;” and, iii. 7, “He
that doeth righteousness, is righteous, even as he is right-
eous:” where it is evident, that it retains its proper sense.
Why, therefore, in the place contested, should it import
that which, when it is applied to Christ, it never signifies 2
Obj. And whereas Crellius objects, That the apostle
CHAPTER II.
989
3 “And hereby (Gr. in this) we do know that we .
know (Gr. have known) him (truly and acceptably), if
we keep his commandments.
4 He that saith, I (have) know (n) him, and keep-
eth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is
not in him, (he is a false pretender to the knowledge of
God; for such persons do in words profess to know
God, but in works they deny him, being disobedient,
Tit. i. 16. They likewise know not Jesus Christ accord-
ing to the truth, iv. 21.)
5 But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the
* love of Goſperfected: hereby know we that we are
in him. -
6 * He that saith he abideth in him (in Christ by
the Spirit) ought himself also so to walk, even as he
walked.
7 Brethren, I write "no new commandment unto
you (when I thus call upon you to walk in the light, as
he is in the light, or to walk as Christ walked), but an
an old commandment which ye had from the begin-
speaks of Christ here, as of our advocate in heaven, where
he doth not satisfy God, or suffer any punishment on our
account.:
Ans. I answer, That seeing Christ there intercedes, by
virtue of his blood shed to satisfy for our offences, and of
the death he suffered as the punishment of our iniquities,
the parallel runs clearly thus: That as the sacrifices of the
Old Testament were slain, and the blood shed, before it was
brought to the mercy-seat, and yet the high-priest made
atonement with it, when, at his entrance into the holy place,
he offered up that blood to God, in his peculiar presence;
so, though our Lord was slain, and shed his blood on earth,
yet may he make atonement in the presence of God with it,
by virtue of the sufferings he endured when his blood was shed.
* IIsgi àou roi, ziarzov, For the sins of the whole world.]
i. e. Of all men in general. For when he saith, “He is the
propitiation for our sins,” sure he intends this comfort to all
them to whom he speaks, and means not, that Christ was
the propitiation for some of their sins only ; for this would
have left them all in doubt, whether this advocate, and this
propitiation did belong to them, but would have comforted
none of them. When then he adds, “He is the propitiation
not for our sins only, but for the sins of the whole world,”
he in like manner must extend this phrase to all men in the
world.
Again, when he saith, “He is the propitiation for our sins,”
he doth not mean, that he was so sufficiently, but not in-
tentionally : for what comfort would that afford them, that
his death was sufficient to procure the pardon of their sins,
had God designed it for that end, unless they also knew that
he intended it for their propitiation ? When therefore he
proceeds to say, “And not for ours only, but for the sins of
the whole world,” he must mean also, that he was the pro-
pitiation for their sins, not only sufficiently, but also in his
gracious intention. And indeed, otherwise, it might as pro-
perly have been said of the fallen angels, or the whole host
of devils, he is the propitiation for their sins, as for the sins
of those who are not elected; seeing, had God, designed it
for that end, Christ's death, by reason of its intrinsic value,
might have been sufficient to procure atonement for the sins
of fallen angels. Lastly, the import of these words cannot
be only this, He died, or is the propitiation, for the sins of
the elect throughout the world. For (1 J “the whole world,”
in scripture, never signifies the elect only, in opposition to
the wicked in the whole world; but in this very epistle, and
in these words, “We know that we are of God, and that
the whole world lies in wickedness” (v. 19), plainly signi-
fies the wicked of the world, in opposition to the faithful
Christians. (2) Would it not be strange, and alien from
the mind of scripture, to say, The whole world is elected to
salvation ; the whole world shall be justified by Christ, and
sanctified by his Spirit dwelling in them, and obtain a happy
resurrecticn 2 and yet all this must be true of the whole
world of the elect. Why therefore are none of these things
equally affirmed of the whole world, as well as that Christ
died, and is the propitiation, for the sins of the whole world,
if they be words of equal latitude and truth P. These argu-
sments are as strong against the exposition of others, who
say, The apostle means, not only for the sins of the Jews,
but also of the gentiles.
If we sin we have an advocate with the Father, and he
is the propitiation for our sins.] Moreover, this being spoken
by this apostle to his “little children,” whose past “sins
were already forgiven” (ver. 12), must relate to their future
sins, to which they might be afterward obnoxious, and there-
fore must suppose them still subject to sins of infirmity.
* Ver, 3.] It is a rule in divinity, that verba notitiae de-
notant affectum, adde et effectum : i. e. “that when the
knowledge of God, or Christ, is put absolutely, it signifies
a knowledge which is fruitful in love ; and obedience, as
the effect of that love and knowledge.” Whence they who
disobey him are still, in scripture, said “not to know God,”
1 Sam. ii. 12. Hos. v. 14. Jer. ii. 8. ix. 3. Tit. i. 16, and
here, ver. 4; and they that do what is acceptable and de-
lightful to him, are said to “know” him, Jer. xxii. 15, 16.
xxiv. 7. xxxi. 33, 34. Hos. ii. 19, 20. John x. 4. Eph.
iii. 19.
Moreover, it is observable, that many of the Jews had
an apprehension, that their knowledge and belief of the
true God would be sufficient for their justification and ac-
ceptance with him : whence they are represented as “boast-
ing in God, and in the knowledge of his will,” Rom. ii. 17,
18, and expecting justification on this account, that they
“believed there was one God,” James ii. 19 ; and this might
cause the apostle to be so diligent in teaching them, That
the true knowledge of God consisted in keeping his com-
mandments. -
* Wer. 5. ‘H &yárn roi; Geoff, The love of God perfected.]
“The love of God” here may signify either God's love to
us ; as when it is said, “Who shall separate us from the
love of God which is (shown to us) in Christ Jesus?” Rom.
viii. 39, and that “the love of God is shed abroad in our
hearts, through the Spirit that he hath given us,” Rom. v.
5 (see Jude 21); and then this love is “perfected” in us, by
that assurance the Holy Spirit giveth of it, and that humble
confidence we have of it, “because we keep his command
ments” (iii. 21, 22); so the apostle seems to interpret this
perfection in love, iv. 16–18; or, secondly, this love may
signify, our love to God and Christ ; as when Christ up-
braids the pharisees with the want of the love of God
(Luke xi. 42), and saith to the Jews, “I know that ye have
not the love of God in you” (John v. 42); and when Christ
saith, “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them,
he it is that loveth me ; and he that loveth me shall be loved
of my Father” (John xiv. 21); and (ver. 23), “If any
man love me, he will keep my word : and my Father will
love him, and we will come to him, and take up our abode
with him ;” and this “love is perfected in us, by keep-
ing his commandments ;” because that shows, we are fully
instructed in the nature of that love, which is in one sense
of perfection (see note on 1 Cor. ii. 6); and it engages us
to the sincere performance of our whole duty to God, which
is another sense of the word perfection: and hereby we
know that we are in him, even by his Spirit, by which God
abideth in us (iii. 24), and who sheds abroad the sense o
the divine love in our hearts. -
Note also, that hence we may pass, a certain estimate of
necessary and fundamental doctrines; for if they be such
as are necessary to the love of God to us, or to that love of
ours to him, which consists in keeping his commandments,
they are doctrines truly necessary to salvation : if not, they
cannot be so ; because we may truly love God, and abide
in his love, without the knowledge of them,
• Wer. 6..] For seeing we abide in God the Father and
the Son, only by the communion of the Spirit (iii. 24. iv. 13),
whence “he that is in Christ is one spirit with him” (1 Cor.
vi. 17), and “he that hath not the Spirit of Christ, is none of
his” (Rom. viii. 9), we that are animated with the same
spirit that was in Christ, as we are enabled, so also are we
thereby engaged to walk after his example, or to “walk in
the light as he is in the light” (i. 7). -
7 Wer. 7 oëx āyroxhy wayśy, No new commandment.] Most
interpreters conceive, this relates to the commandment of
Christian love, that being the commandment which they are
990
I. JOHN.
ning (of Christ's preaching, John iii. 21. viii. 12. xii.
35, see note on i. 1). The old commandment is the
word which ye have heard from the begiºning.
8 * Again, a new commandment I write unto you,
which thing is true in hilm (who is the author of it :
for no such light ever came into the world before, and
no such love was manifested to the world before, J and
in you (who before were darkness, but are now light in
the Lord, Eph. v. 8, children of the light and of the
day, 1 Thess. v. 5, and to whom not long ago the light
appeared, 2 Cor. iv. 6, and who are taught of God to
love one another, 1 Thess. iv. 9), because (by your late
receiving the gospel), the (former) darkness (ye were
in) is past, and the true light now shineth (in and upon
3you : wherefore the night of ignorance and darkness
being far spent, and the day being nigh at hand, and
shining more and more upon you, ye are obliged to put
off the works of darkness, and put on the armour of
light, Rom. xiii. 12).-Or thus ; Again (being now to
speak to you of Christian love), a new commandment
I write unto you, which thing is true in him (for thus
he speaks, A new commandment I give unto you, that ye
love one another, as I have loved you, John xiii. 34,)
and in you : because (it shows) the darkness (you
were in whilst Jews. bearing affection only to them of
gour own nation and religion) is past, and the true
light (of the gospel) now shineth (upon you).
9 He that saith he is in the light (that he lives
under the influences of the light of the gospel, and
walks accordingly to it), and (yet) hateth his brother
(wishing ill to him, and, from that disaffection doing ill
offices to him), is (whatsoever he professes to the con-
trary) in darkness until now. (But)
10 He that loveth his brother (as Christ loved us,
being willing to do him all kind offices which he is able,
from love to God, and as a fellow-member of Christ's
body, J abideth in the light, and there is "no occasion
of stumbling (Gr. no scandal) in him.
11 But he that hateth his brother "is in darkness,
and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither
(the way leads in which) he goeth, because that dark-
mess hath blinded his eyes (John xii. 35).
12 * I write unto you, little children, because your
sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake.
13 I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known
him that is from the beginning. I write unto you,
young men, because ye have overcome the wicked
one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have
known the Father.
14 I have written unto you, fathers, because ye
have known him that is from the beginning. I have
written unto you, young men, because ye are strong,
and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have
overcome the wicked one. *
15 Love not the world (i. e. neither the men of the
world, who will not own you, but hate and persecute
Jou, iii. 1. 13, and who live in wickedness, v.19; love
them not, so as to be conformed to their manners, Rom.
xii. 2), neither the things that are in the world, (the
pleasures, honours, or enjoyments of it, so as to cleave
to them, Matt. vi. 24, or to be unwilling to part with them
for Christ’s sake, and to secure the favour of God, Matt.
xix. 28). If any man (thus) loveth the world the love
of the Father is not in him (for seeing God is to be
loved above all, he loves him not at all truly, who cleaves
to any other thing in opposition to him, or hazards his
favour to secure it).
16 For all that is in (vogue or esteem with the men
of) the world, the lust of the flesh (all voluptuous en-
joyments which tend to sensuality and intemperance,
* - . . . . .
said to have “heard from the beginning” (iii. 11), and said
to be, on that account, “no new commandment” (Eph. ii.
5), and yet being styled by Christ, “a new commandment”
(John xiii. 34). Nor are the arguments of Episcopius
against this exposition cogent : for whereas,
Obj. 1. He objects, That these words seem to be spoken,
to remove the thought of some, that he was propounding a
new doctrine which they had not learned ; whereas no man
who was acquainted with the law of Moses, or even with
that of nature, could think the law of charity was new :
Ans. I answer, It is not the law of charity in general,
which our Lord and his apostles style a new commandment ;
but that of loving one another, as he had loved us (John
xiii. 34, 35). And this might justly be looked on as a new
commandment ; it being a commandment of “laying down
our lives for the brethren” (iii. 16), and therefore a com-
mandment not contained in the law of nature, nor in that
of Moses.
Obj. 2. Whereas he adds, That these words, “I write
unto you,” seem to respect not anything that was to follow,
but which was said before ; and to contain this sense, When
I write this to you, I write nothing new;
Ans. I answer, That it may be so ; for having told us,
that “he that saith he abideth in Christ, ought also to walk
as he walked,” he may well be conceived to have an especial
eye to the great example of love Christ showed to mankind
both in his life and death. Yet his exposition given in the
paraphrase seems also very probable, by reason of the fol-
lowing words, “Because the darkness is past, and the true
light now shineth;” and therefore I shall have respect to
both.
* Ver, 8.] The ceremonials of the law are sometimes
called a “shadow,” but never “darkness;” and though the
lexandrian manuscripts read cºxià, “a shadow,” yet, be-
cause all other copies read a koria, “darkness,” and the fol-
lowing words, ver. 9. 11, show that this is the true reading,
and because it is so easy, in short writing, to mistake crºoria
for oxià, the interpretation of these words, which depends
upon that reading, cannot be relied on.
* Wer. 10. Xzáyèaxoy #y air; otz fºrty, i. e. There is no-
thing at which he will fall, or stumble.] So Ps. cxix. 156,
“Great peace have they that love thy law, Kai otº #arly at-
roſ; axávèaxoy, and they have no stumbling-block.” The
labour of love they must undergo ; the evils they may be
exposed to will not hinder them from doing the duty they
owe to God, and their brother, for his sake; but they go
on securely and cheerfully in it ; for “perfect love casts out
fear” (iv. 18).
* Ver. 11. ‘Ey +; a kotia iari, Is in darkness.] i. e. He
lives in great ignorance of his duty, and of the way to life,
as not guiding his actions by that light of the gospel which
hath appeared unto him.
* Wer. 12–14.] Note, that these words may either relate
to the foregoing ; and then they are to be interpreted as
motives to walk in the light, and as Christ walked, and in
particular to walk in Christian love, thus ; “I have written
to you, children,” touching this love, and walking in the
light, and after Christ's example, “because your sins have
been forgiven, for his name's sake;” and so, in gratitude to
him who hath procured the pardon of them, you “ought to
walk as he walked,” and to love the brethren : ye also have
“known the Father, and had experience of his love to you,
and therefore stand obliged to intimate his love to you, and
to “walk in the light,” that you may still have fellowship
with him.
“I have written to you, fathers, because ye have known
him who was from the beginning ” i. e. Christ Jesus, and so
know how to walk by his example, and to imitate his obedi-
ence to the Father, and his love to mankind.
“I have written to you, young men, because ye are strong,”
by virtue of the word of God abiding in you ; and by the
sword of the Spirit, and shield of faith, have been enabled
successfully to combat and overcome that wicked one, who
tempts you to the deeds of darkness, and to hatred of the
brethren (iii. 10).
If they relate to the words following, they must be an ex-
hortation to the little children to take off their affections from
the world, and place them upon God and Christ, on the ac-
count of the love and mercy shown to them by God the
Father through Christ. To the fathers so to do, because
CHAPTER II.
991
and making provision for the flesh), and the lust of the
eyes (the desire of gold, silver, stately houses, rich fur-
niture, fair gardens, which tend to gratify the eye), and
the pride Óf life (the desire of places of dignity, high
titles, all the honour, glory, and splendour of the world,
which tends to gratify our pride), is not of the Father
(they are not desires ea cited by him, nor is it according
to his will, that we should set our hearts upon them),
but is (the desire) of (the men of) the world (whose
chief concern is to gratify these sensual appetites).
17 And the world passeth away, and the (things
which minister to the) lusts thereof; but he that doeth
the will of God abideth for ever.
18 Little children, it is the last time (or hour of the
Jewish economy); and as ye have heard that * anti-
christ shall (shortly) come, (so) even now are there
many antichrists (i.e. opposers of Christ, and deniers
of him to be the Christ, ver. 22); whereby we (may)
know that it is the last time.
19 "They went out from us (Christians of Judea,
Acts xv. 1, and from us the apostles, Acts xv. 24), but
they were not of us (but were false brethren, Gal. ii.
4, and false apostles, 2 Cor. xi. 13): for if they had
been of us, (conspiring with us the apostles and true
churches of Christ, in the doctrine and truth of the
gospel,) they would no doubt have (Gr. uspuéviikstaav
div, they might have still) continued with us (preaching
that doctrine which we teach) : but (they went out from
ws), that they might be made manifest * that they were
not all (Gr. that they all were not) of us.
20 But ye have an unction * from the Holy One,
*and ye know all things (ye to whom I write ; which
shows, he speaks not of the Christians of all ages in
general, but of them in particular).
21 I have not written to you because ye know not
the truth (i. e. to instruct you as persons ignorant of
it), but because ye know it, and that no lie (uttered
by these antichrists and false prophets) is of (or hath
any communion with) the truth (of the gospel).
22 Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is
the Christ : (i. e. who so emphatically deserves that
title, seeing) he is antichrist (by way of eminence),
*" who denieth the Father and the Son.
23 (And let not the Jewish antichrists pretend, this
they have known Christ, how dead he was to the world,
and how he despised the pleasures, honours, and enjoyments
of it. To the young men so to do, because they had over-
come the wicked one, all whose temptations arise from some
allurements or affrightments of the world. Or, lastly, the
words may be extended to all he saith to them in this whole
epistle; and then both expositions may take place.
* Ver. 18. “o &vrixétaros, Antichrist cometh:..] To wit,
then in “the last hour.” And this being represented, as
the character by which they might “know that the last hour
was now come,” it is manifest, that “the last hour” cannot
signify the end of the world, or include the times of the last
Judgment; but must be restrained to the last times of the
Jewish state, which only then were instant, or at hand.
Secondly, The 3 &ytiXétaroc, “antichrist " then in being,
if it refer to any nation, must be the nation of the unbe-
lieving Jews, persecuting and opposing Christianity with their
whole might, and denying Jesus to be the Christ, or pro-
mised Messiah ; and then the many antichrists here men-
tioned may be the false prophets, and deceitful workers,
who transformed themselves into the apostles of Christ (2
Cor. xi. 13–15), who “preached Christ not sincerely, but
out of contention” (Phil. i. 15), who “ as Jannes and Jam-
bres withstood Moses, so also did resist the truth” (2 Tim. iii.
8), who were “men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the
truth” (1 Tim. vi. 5).
* Wer. 19.'E; hºw ###Ašov, They went out from us] Of
Judea. For some carex86vre; 373 rā; 'lověata;, “going out
from Judea, taught the brethren, That except they were
circumcised after the manner of Moses, they could not be
saved” (Acts xv. 1); and from the apostles; for so they
speak, “We have heard, that rive; # #4& #ex$ávºrsº, some
going out from us, have troubled you with words perverting
your souls, saying, That ye ought to be circumcised, and to
keep the law” (ver. 24). The persons who taught the doc-
trines are styled Jew848Expo, “false brethren,” Gal. ii. 4,
shevëawáa toxoi, “false apostles, deceitful workers, ministers of
Satan,” 2 Cor. xi. 13. 15, “dogs, evil workers, the con-
cision,” Phil. iii. 2: their doctrine tended to the subversion
of souls, Acts xv. 24, to the corrupting and turning the
minds of men from the simplicity of Christ, 2 Cor. xi. 3,
to hinder the truth of the gospel from continuing with them,
Gal ii. 5, to make Christ die in vain, ver. 21, to cause Chris-
tians to fall from grace, so that Christ should profit them
nothing, Gal. v. 2.4. So that they were false prophets, false
apostles, and antichrists, in the worst of senses; and by go-
ing out from the apostles and churches of Judea, to preach
this destructive doctrine to the gentiles, which both the whole
church of Judea, and the apostles assembled for that pur-
pose, flatly disowned and censured, it sufficiently appeared
that all the preachers of these doctrines, so opposite to
Christianity, and destructive of it, were not of them. These
therefore, doubtless, were some of those many antichrists
which the apostle speaks of here, as writing to the Jews;
and they also divided, and separated themselves from the
church, and became heretics under the name of Cerinthians,
Nazarenes, and Ebionites. Cerinthusk spread his heresy in
Asia, the province of John, saith Theodoret, and was ºf con-
temporary with the apostles: whence the church f desired
him to write against Cerinthus and the Ebionites: and Johns
left the bath, because Cerinthus the enemy of truth was in
it. Moreover these words, “They were not of us,” cannot
be interpreted of the elect, but of the church in general ;
for, from them they went out, and with them might have
remained ; not from the elect, who are not visible, nor could
they have remained with the church of the elect, who were
never of them. Secondly, their going out from them for a
season, was no certain argument they were not of the elect ;
since it is confessed, they may fall totally, though not finally.
* “Or, oùn Eici Trávres, That they all were not of us...] So
ver. 21, Träy spºo; oix, “No lie is of the truth;” oùx &y icºn
râca a 49%, “No flesh shall be saved,” Matt. xxiv. 22, oi,
3twata,0%~£ral Trâca d'épá, “No flesh shall be justified,” Rom.
iii. 20 (see Gen. iv. 15. Ps. cxliii. 2. Luke i. 37. Hab. ii. 9).
* Ver. 20. "Azrö rod ‘Aylov, From the Holy One, i. e.
From Jesus Christ, emphatically so called, Acts iii. 14. Rev.
iii. 7. But then that unction is the Holy Spirit, which he
hath given to them that believe: for he being “anointed
with the oil of gladness above his fellows” (Ps. xlv. 7),
“anointed by God with the Holy Ghost” (Acts x. 38), this
grace is given to Christians, “according to the measure of
the gift of Christ” (Eph. iv. 7), and “we all beholding, as
in a glass, the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same
likeness, as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. iii. 18, see the
note there).
* Kai otºare trévra, And ye know: all things.] Belonging
to the saving truths of the gospel, he being promised to teach
them all things (John xiv. 26), and to lead them into all
truth (John xvi. 13), so CEcumenius;|| “You have received
in baptism the unction of the Holy Spirit, who leads you
into all truth.”
17 Wer. 22. 'Agvodgewog röy ºrarápa, That denieth the Father
* Eig rºw 'Aqiav Āqāzero. Theodoret. Haer. Fab, lib. ii.
cap. 3.
+ Kai Khºty&ow 83 paariv, 'Izáyyou roi; wavevºpºv, roi ré Beſoy
ovyygá paytoc Evayyáxtoy, its wegióvroz, rà rā; oikeia; aigázsoc
Trapaa weipas à évia. Ibid. cap. 1.
† IIgorgatrèvra iwi rāy yyogizov. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib.
vi. cap. 14. Rogatus ab Asiae episcopis, adversus Cerinthum
aliosque haereticos, et maximè tunc Ebionitarum dogma
consurgens, qui asserunt Christum ante Mariam non fuisse,
compulsus est divinam ejus nativitatem, edicere. Hieron. in
Johan.
§ bºyowsy, ºwn Kai ré Baxaysłow outwºrécº, Évêov wro; Knsiv$ou
rot, rº, 3Ånésia; #x320iſ. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. iv. cap. 14.
| 'Ex48ers 31& rod &yíov Barriagaro; ºr xeirºz rô isgåy, xat
313 roërou ºr eiç tria-aw &Añóstay ºnvoy tº fig Óefoy IIvsöpsa.
992
I. JOHN.
belongs not to them who know the Father: for) whoso-
ever denieth the Son (of God), the same hath not (the
true knowledge of) the Father. -
24 Let that (doctrine) therefore abide in you, which
ye have heard from the beginning (preached to you :
for) if that which ye have heard from the beginning
shall remain (and bring forth its due fruits) in you, ye
shall continue in the Son, and in the Father, (united
to them by the Spirit, who also will instruct you in the
saving knowledge of them both, John xiv. 23. vi. 56.)
25_*And this is the promise which he hath pro-
mised us (who thus remain in him), even eternal life.
26 These things have I written concerning them
that deceive you (i. e. who endeavour so to do).
27 * But (this not out of absolute necessity, as if
through ignorance ye could not otherwise be preserved
from their seductions, ver. 2, for) the anointing which
ye have received of him (who is your head) abideth in
(or among) you, and (so) ye need not that any man
or, Hath not the Father.] To “deny the Father,” here, is
not, to deny him to be the true God, as the heathens did;
but, (1.) to deny the truth of his testimony: for, “He that
believeth not in the testimony which God hath given to his
Son, hath made him a liar” (v. 10); whereas, “he that re-
ceives his testimony, hath set to his seal that God is true”
(John iii. 33). (2.) To deny the doctrine of the Father, or
that doctrine which proceedeth from him; for, “he whom
God hath sent, speaketh the words of God” (John iii. 34).
Whence it is evident, that he who denieth the Son, cannot
thus retain the true knowledge of the Father, because “no
man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son who
is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (John
i. 18). He only hath done it ; for “no man knoweth the
Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal
him” (Matt. xi. 27). By him only can we come acceptably
to the Father, so as to have life ; for, he is “the way, the
truth, and the life” (John xiv. 6); and by him only are we
taught how to worship the Father “in spirit and in truth”
(John iv. 23, 24). , Hence Christ so often tells the Jews, they
therefore wanted the true knowledge of the Father, because
they knew not him, saying, “Ye neither know me, nor my
Father; if ye had known me, ye should have known the
Father also” (John viii. 19. xiv. 7): and “These things will
they do unto you, because they have not known the Father,
nor me” (John xvi. 3).
Wer. 23.] See Examen Millii.
* Wer. 25.] For the fruit of the Spirit is life (Rom. viii.
6. 11. 13. 16, 17. Gal. vi. 8), and he is given as the earnest
of our future inheritance, to “seal us up to the day of re-
demption” (2 Cor. i. 22. v. 5. Eph. i. 13, 14. iv. 30), and
this life he hath often promised to us, John v. 25, 26. 29.
wi. 27. 29. 33.39, 40.47. 50, 51. 54.57, 58.
* Ver, 27. Kai üºsſº, Vos quod attinet, And as for you.]
So Isa. lix. 21, “And I,” i. e. As for me, this is my cove-
nant, ” lxi. 18, JR, ºys, “As for me” (see 1 Chron.
xxviii. 2).
The Quakers and other sectaries hence argue against the
necessity of the ministerial function, or any teachers of the
word, it being here said, “You need not that any teach you,”
&c. And others say, this seems to make all scripture, and
(should) teach you; but as the same anointing (i. e.
Spirit of wisdom and knowledge) teacheth you all things
(necessary), and (for it) is truth, and is no lie, and
even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.
28 And now (kai viv, now therefore), little children,
abide in him (in the profession and practice of what
he hath taught you); that when he shall appear, we
may have confidence (of the life promised to them that
do so, ver. 25), and (may) not be ashamed before him
(Gr. may not be put to shame by him, or, go ashamed
jrom him,) at his coming (to judgment, iv. 17, as being
judged by him unworthy of this life : as we shall not be,
if we be found doing righteousness : for,)
29 If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that
every one that doeth righteousness is born of him; (as
being born again of the Spirit derived from him, and
so become a son of God, and an heir of life, Rom. viii.
14. 17, and by this Spirit sealed up unto the day of re-
demption, Eph. iv. 30.) .
-*------
all that the apostle writ to them, needless.
to this objection, I say,
First, That it must be granted, that in those times of the
effusion of the Spirit, and his miraculous gifts upon believers,
this unction wits promised to teach them all things necessary
who had then no other rule of knowing what was so, but by
the teaching of the apostles and prophets then among
them, acted by this Spirit, and teaching in their assem-
blies, and doing other public offices by this afflatus, and
by the Spirit of wisdom and instruction then imparted to
them; and hereby they were enabled to distinguish betwixt
pretenders to the Spirit, and those who were really acted by
him (see note on iv. 1–3), and to know they dwelt in Christ,
“because he had thus (given) them of his Spirit” (John iii.
24. iv. 13), which things do certainly imply, that they who
then had the Spirit, could certainly know they had it, and
make an argument of it to try the doctrines and spirits of
others, and much more in themselves ; but now these sensi-
ble indications and extraordinary gifts of the Spirit are long
since ceased, and therefore now they are to be directed by
those writings which were indited for their perpetual use, by
men assisted with that Spirit, who led them into all truth :
and surely, if in those times, when the gifts of the Spirit
were so generally vouchsafed, they were yet taught by apos-
tles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and doctors, assisted by
the Spirit for that work; it is reasonable to believe that, now
these gifts are ceased, believers should be instructed by pas-
tors and doctors, assisted by the scriptures indited by these
spiritual men. And therefore, -
Secondly, It is observable, that the apostle doth not here
absolutely say, they need not any one should teach them,
but only that they “need not any one should teach them but
as this unction taught them.” Now the apostles having this
unction in the highest measure, these words cannot exclude
their teachings, or render them unnecessary, but rather must
confirm them as a standing rule to all posterity. Till then
these sectaries can show that they have still such an imme-
diate and extraordinary afflatus of the Holy Spirit, as was
then vouchsafed to the primitive Christians, they cannot
hence conclude the outward ministry of the word, by pas-
tors and doctors set apart for that work, to be unnecessary
But for answer
CHAPTER III.
1 BEHold, what manner of love the Father hath
bestowed upon us, that we should be called ‘the sons
of God: therefore the world knoweth us not (i. e.
doth not acknowledge and affect us Christians), because
it knew him not. (The heathens being wholly ignorant
of the true God, and the Jews not knowing him accord-
ing to his will, John viii. 55. xv. 21. xvi. 3, and as he
had discovered himself to them by his Son, 1 John ii.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III.
* Ver. l. Tákya Osoſ, The sons of God..] The Jews were
styled the children and the sons of God, because they owned
him as their God and Father, and entered into covenant to
Serve him, and so became a holy people to the Lord, and he
had chosen them to be his people (Deut. x:y. 1). So “we
all are sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal. iii.
26. John i. 12). The land in which they dwelt is styled
“the Lord's land,” Hos. ix. 3; and they, as being his “first-
born " (Exod. iv. 22), have it given them for an inhe-
ritance; but we, as being in a more spiritual sense the
sons of God, are “heirs of God, joint-heirs with Christ,”
as being those that shall reign with him in his heavenly
CHAPTER III.
993
23. And this may comfort you against the persecu-
tions of the world, that it is their want of that saving
knowledge of the true God, which ministers so great
advantage to you, which causes them to disaffect
Ou.)
3/ 2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it
doth not appear what we shall be (made farther par-
takers of, as the complete import of that title) : but
(this) we know, that, “when he shall appear, we shall
be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
3 And every man that hath this hope in him (of see-
ing him in glory), doth purify himself, even “as he is
pure, (in whom was no sin, ver, 5.)
4 * Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also
the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.
5 And ye know that he (i. e. Christ, ver. 8), was
manifested to take away our sins, (not only by suffer-
kingdom (Rom. viii. 17, see the note there). They in that
land enjoyed the majestic presence of that God who dwelt
among them; and therefore, saith he, “the land is mine”
(Lev. xxv. 23); we, as his sons shall be admitted to his ce-
lestial presence, where “we shall see him as he is” (ver. 2).
The enjoyment of that land was unto them a type of the
heavenly Canaan, which the faithful among them were to en-
joy; and therefore they are represented as “strangers and
sojourners with him in it:” whence the apostle tells them,
that “there remained yet a rest for the people of God” (Heb.
iv. 9), and the patriarchs are said to have confessed that
“they were strangers and pilgrims upon earth,” and thereby
to declare that “they desired (and sought) a better country,
that is, a heavenly;” and that upon this account God called
himself “their God,” viz. “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob,” because “he had prepared for them a city” (Heb.
xi. 13. 16). Now because they in their own persons could
not enjoy this heavenly country without a resurrection, hence
the evangelist informs us, that they were the “sons of God,
Tā; &yearázew; viol Śwrec, as being sons of the resurrection ;”
the redemption of their bodies from corruption, and the éva-
£iolats, reviviscence of that which once died and saw corrup-
tion, being the consequent of this vio9scia, adoption, or
Sonship of God's children; hence therefore doth our Saviour
firmly prove the resurrection from those words, “I am the
God of Abraham,” &c. (Matt. xxii. 32. Luke xx. 36, 37).
And thus you see how great is the love of God in owning us
as his sons; and have also a just comment on the following
words. -
* Ver. 2. 'E&y payspośń, When he doth appear.] Note here,
1. That as the Hebrew word DR, so the conjunction #&y,
signifies as well when (or, postguam, after that), as if. So,
Judg. vi. 3, #&y Éa are gay, “When Israel sowed ;” 1 Sam. i.
22, #&y &royaxantico, “When I have weaned him ;” Prov.
iii. 24, Häy Kaşā, śāv x29eſºng, “When thou liest down thou
shalt not be afraid :” so Judg. xxi. 21. Ps. cxxxviii. 7. Prov.
iv. 12 (see Nold. Partic. p. 87. 89), so, John xii. 32, #39
tºpoSã, “When I am lifted up;” xiii. 20, #3v réºlo, “When
I send ;” xiv. 3, #39 ºrogevSã, “When I go away.” Note,
2. That this is spoken of Christ, seems evident, (1) from
the word payspoºj, which is used of Christ, ver. 5, and agrees
properly to him alone; and (2.) from the phrase “We shall
be like him,” viz. “who shall change our vile bodies into the
likeness of his glorious body” (Phil. iii. 21), and cause us to
“bear the image of the Lord from heaven,” by being raised
with glorious and incorruptible bodies (1 Cor. xv. 47.49).
And from the words, “We shall see him as he is,” i. e. in
glory; this being his prayer, that “they whom God had
given him, might be with him, and behold his glory” (John
xvii. 24).
* Ver. 3. Kašč, Hvěřyoc, As he is pure.] For he being ma-
nifested to take away our sins (ver. 5), and to destroy the
works of the devil in us (ver. 8), they who expect to be
made like to him hereafter, must be so here in purity and
righteousness. But then let it be noted,
First, That this imitation doth not require our likeness to
him we are to imitate, in the manner or inward principle of
his actions; but only in the quality, and, as far as human
frailty will permit us, in the measure of them : for instance,
it is as necessary for God to be absolutely perfect in holiness
ing to remove the guilt of our past sins ; but also to
purify us from the power and dominion of it, that
henceforth we might not serve sin, Rom. vi. 6, that
duapriac &royevöpsyot, being freed from sin, we might
live unto righteousness, 1 Pet. ii. 24,) and in him is no
sin (and so our likeness to him must consist in ceasing
from it). .
6 Whosoever (therefore), abideth in him sinneth
not : *whosoever (thus) sinneth hath not seen him,
neither known him (as the truth is in Jesus, Eph.
iv. 21).
7 Little children, let no man deceive you (with pre-
tensions, that faith without works of righteousness will
make you righteous before God; for only).he that
doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he (i. e.
Christ) is righteous (by doing the will of his Father,
John xv. 10).
and goodness, as to be God ; and yet we must be “holy as
he is holy,” and “perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect.”
And it is generally asserted in the schools, that the obedience
and perfect holiness of Christ did necessarily result from the
most intimate union of the divine and human nature, and
from that grace of unction which he received without mea-
Sure; whereas our holiness and obedience must be acts of
choice, and so our holiness and virtue will proceed, not from
an inward principle, which doth necessitate us to be good,
but from the choice of our own wills; and yet we must
“walk as he walked,” and must “purify ourselves as he
is pure.”
Secondly, This imitation doth not require an absolute
equality, or full proportion of our actions to the example set
before us, this being not consistent with the frailty of our hu-
man nature. For the example here is that of the holy Je-
sus, “in whom was no sin,” and who performed perfect
obedience to the whole law of God; whereas “in many things
we offend all,” and our obedience will be still imperfect in
this life. When therefore we are commanded to be holy and
perfect as God is, to walk as Christ walked, and to purify
ourselves as he is pure, it is sicut similitudinis, non a quali-
tatis ; i. e. the word as binds us not to equal them in holi-
ness and perfection, but to bear such a likeness to them in
these perfections as may discover that we truly aim at being
holy in all manner of conversation, and heartily endeavour
to continue so, through the whole tenor of our lives.
Vain then is that objection of the Socinians, That were
Christ truly God, we could not possibly expect, nor therefore
would it be our duty, to imitate him; for seeing the example
of God himself is made the matter of our imitation, the ar-
gument must equally conclude against the Deity of God the
Father. In a word, a likeness to him as far as human
frailty will permit, may be our duty, though he should be
God: a perfect likeness to him who did no sin, could never
be our duty, though he were but man.
* Ver. 4. ‘O Trotów rºy &p, agríay, He that committeth sin;]
i. e. Who lives in the commission of it, lives in an opposi-
tion to the law of God; for he is “ of the devil,” ver. 8, he
is “not born of God,” ver, 9; which could not be truly said
of him that is guilty of any one sin, or violation of God's
holy law. .
* Ver. 6. Whosoever sinneth, oix #&gaxey abry, où3; #ywo-
asy airév, hath not seen him, neither known him.] To “know
God,” in the sense of this apostle, is to know him as he is
revealed by Jesus Christ, and represented to the world by
him. Hence Christ saith, “If ye have known me, ye have
known the Father also’ (John xiv. 7); and denies that the
Jews knew God, “ because they knew not him” (John viii.
19. xv. 21. xvi. 3). “To see God,” is to see his will, love,
and goodness, as it is revealed by Jesus Christ; and thus
saith Christ, “ He that hath seen me hath seen the Father”
(xii. 45. xiv. 9); because he is only known to them, to whom
Christ Jesus doth reveal him (Matt. xi. 27. Luke x. 28.
John i. 18. vi. 46). And in this sense all that the apostle
saith in this epistle of seeing and knowing God is true, viz.
that he who knoweth God, as he is revealed by Jesus Christ,
“keepeth his commandments,” ii. 3, 4, he “loves his bro-
ther,” iv. 7, 8, he that is of the world, “knows not God,”
iii. 1, nor “he that committeth sin.” as here. S
3 S
994,
I. JOHN.
8 * He that committeth sin is of the devil: for the
devil (thus) sinneth from the beginning. For this pur-
pose the Son of God was manifested (to the world),
that he might destroy the works of the devil.
9 Whosoever is born 7 of God doth not commit sin:
for his seed (the word of God, Matt. xiii. 1 Pet. i. 23),
remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is
born of God.
10 In this the children of God are manifest, and
* Ver. 8, 9. "O rotáv rºy & wagºríav, He that committeth sin.]
i. e. He that lives or goes on in any way of sin. That this
is the true import of this phrase in the writings of this apos-
tle, will appear (1.) from the same phrase used in his gospel,
ºrác & Troiây Tày & wagºríay, “Whosoever committeth sin is the
servant of sin” (John viii. 34). Now to be the servant of
sin, is plainly to continue and to live in it (Rom. vi. 1, 2);
to “yield obedience to it in the lustings of it” (ver. 12); for
then “sin reigns in our mortal bodies” (ibid.), and we are
slaves and subjects to it; then doth it, xvgºsly, “lord it over
us,” and we are 30tſaou eig irakoły, “servants to yield obe-
dience to it” (ver. 14. 16). Though the conscience may
boggle at it, our reason may condemn it, our will be some-
what averse to it, so that in obeying it we “do the evil we
would not ;” yet if pººrwaxévre; hºrrºwesa, “we are so en-
tangled as to be overcome by it,” we are servants to corrup-
tion ; “for of what a man is overcome, to that is he brought
in bondage” (2 Pet. ii. 19, 20). If “the law of our mem-
bers lead us captive to the law of sin” (Rom. vii. 23), so that
“We yield our members instruments of unrighteousness to
sin,” we so commit sin as to be the servants of sin : and
“he that is born of God, cannot (thus) sin,” because by that
new birth he is “made free from (the service of) sin” (John
viii. 36), and become “a servant to righteousness” (Rom. vi.
18): he hath that seed within him which alienates his mind
and his affections from sin, and that Spirit which causes him
to mortify the deeds of the flesh (Rom. viii. 13), to die to sin,
and to live to God (Rom. vi. 10).
(2.) From those words, “neither can sin,” for so he doth
not do it, as he cannot do it. Now that doth not import
a good man cannot be overtaken with a fault (Gal. vi. 1).
No, even those “little children” whose “sins are forgiven,”
and who have “known the Father,” may and will be ob-
noxious still to some infirmities, and wandering out of the
way (ii. 1). They may “sin not unto death,” and therefore
may have still the spiritual life remaining in them (v. 16—
18). But the true import of that phrase is this,* That he
hath such an inward frame of heart, such a disposition of
spirit, as renders sin exceeding odious and hateful to him ;
so that he cannot entertain the thoughts of doing it, or a
temptation to commit it, without the utmost detestation, and
the greatest horror, and so can very rarely, and only through
surprise, or want of due deliberation, or through such violent
temptations as prevent or hinder his consideration, be ob-
noxious to sin ; and when he comes to consider of such an
action, is presently condemning himself for it, bitterly re-
penting of it, and for the future watching most carefully
against it. Thus, they that are evil “cannot speak good
things” (Matt. xii. 34); “a good tree cannot bring forth
bad fruit” (Matt. xvii. 18); “the world cannot hate those
that are of it” (John vii. 7). The Jews could not hear
Christ's word (John viii. 43); “could not believe” (John
xii. 39). The world “could not receive” the Spirit (John
xiv. 17), “They that are in the flesh cannot please God”
(Rom. viii. 7, 8), “The natural man cannot know the things
of God” (1 Cor. ii. 14). The church of Ephesus “could
not bear the wicked” (Rev. ii. 2).
(3.) From the phrase, “He that committeth sin is of the
devil;” for it is not he who committeth one or more sins of
Infirmity, for so did Christ's disciples while they were with
him; nor he who committeth one great sin through the
power of a strong temptation, of which he bitterly repents,
* Ita de Catone Minore Welleius Paterculus. Homo vir-
tuti simillimus, et per omnia ingenio diis quam hominibus
propior, qui nunquam rectè fecitut facere videretur, sed quia
alitër facere non poterat. Hist. R. lib. ii. cap. 34. Omni-
bus humanis vitiis immunis. Ibid.
the children of the devil; whosoever * doeth not
righteousness is not of God, neither (is) he (so) that
loveth not his brother (and so both these are children
of the devil).
ll. For this is the message which ye have heard
from the beginning (or, from the first preaching of the
gospel), that we should love another, (from a pure
heart fervently, 1 Pet. i. 23, and as Christ hath loved
ws, John xv. 12.
and from which he returns to his obedience; for thus did
David and Peter, who yet were not then the children of the
devil; but they who comply with the lusts of Satan, and who
“will do” them (John viii. 44).
The other interpretations which are given of these words,
seem either vain and impertinent, or false and dangerous.
And, -
1. Wain is that sense which some put on these words,
“He that is born of God, non debet peccare, ought not to
sin,” or, that it is absurd for him to sin; for the apostle
speaks not of what he ought not to do, but of what he doth
not. Such is that also of those fathers, who interpret this
of him who is perfectly born of God, by a Traxtyyevsaria, or
“a resurrection from the dead ;” for the apostle speaks not
of what he shall not do hereafter, but of what he doth not do
at present.
2. False seems to be the sense which Origen, Jerome, and
Ambrose, put upon the words, that “he that is born of God
sinneth not, quamdid renatus est, whilst he is born of God,”
because he ceaseth to be a child of God when he sins; for
this is not only confuted by the examples of David and
Peter, whose faith under that great miscarriage failed not
(Luke xxii. 32), but by the words of the apostle, “Little
children, if we sin we have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our
sins” (ii. 1), who yet is only the advocate for the sons of
God. For the same reason I cannot assent to that ex-
position which saith, “A child of God cannot be guilty of
any great or deliberate crime,” as Tertullian de Pudicitiã,
cap. 19.
3. Dangerous is the exposition of Bernard,” that “they
who are born of God sin not, quia etiamsi peccata illis neuti-
quam imputentur, because their sins will never be imputed
to them :” and of those who think it sufficient to say, “He
sins not without great reluctancy, or not willingly, the evil
that he doeth being that which he would not do ;” for the
will of that man, who, after some contest in his soul, yields
to the commission of sin, is more strongly inclined to sin
than to the avoiding of it, and so is not renewed. Nor doth
the apostle say, He that is born of God sins not willingly,
or without reluctance ; but absolutely, “He doth not com-
mit sin.”
I conclude this note with that of our judicious Gataker,
“He that is born of God sinneth not :” that is, Vitam a
peccato immunem quantùm potest sibi proponit, nec peccato
unquam sponte dat operam ; si aliquandô praeter animi pro-
positum deliquerit, non in eodem persistit, sed errore agnito,
ad institutum vitae pristinum quamprimūm quantámgue
potest, festinús revertitur. ,
7 Ver. 9. ‘Ex 9soi, Of God..] By the Spirit and the Word
(John iii. 6. 8. James i. 18. 1 Pet. i. 23); that is, he is pre-
served from, and hath his heart framed into a hatred and
loathing of, sin: (1.) From the word of God treasured up in
his heart, demonstrating to him the vileness of sin, that he
may hate it ; the danger of it, that he may fly from it ; “I
have hid thy word, in my heart, that I might not sin against
thee” (Ps. cxix. 11); and by attending to it as his rule,
and taking heed to his ways according to his word (ibid.
ver, 9). (2.) By the Holy Spirit abiding in him, as a new
principle of life lusting against the flesh, so that we cannot
do the things which that would have us do (Gal. v. 16, 17).
* Ver. 10. “O Aw; ºrotów Śikatoaºy, That doeth not righteous-
mess.] That is, he that doth not (from a heart studious of
conformity to him who is righteous, ver. 7, and in obedience
to his law, commanding us to live righteously,) exercise him-
self in sincere endeavours of walking righteously through the
* In Septuag. serm. l.
CHAPTER III.
995
12 And if we be not the children of the devil, but of
God, we shall) not (be) as Cain, who was "of that
wicked one, and (therefore) slew his brother. And
wherefore slew he him (viz.) Because his own
works were evil, and his brother’s righteous, (as
God himself testifieth by respecting the offering not of
Cain, but of Abel; and this begat in him that hatred
which concluded in his brother’s death.
13 And) marvel not, my brethren, if (in like man-
ner) the world (the seed of Cain, who are also of that
wicked one, John viii. 44. 1 John v. 19) hate you
(i. e. if they persecute and kill the just, as being con-
demners of their actions, and alien from their ways
and manners, in affection, aim, desires, and therefore
hated by them, John xv. 19, for whatsoever they may
do to destroy this life). -
14 We know that we have passed from death to life
(i. e. that we have obtained a right to escape death eter-
mal, and enjoy everlasting life, John v. 24), because
we love the brethren (in deed and truth, ver. 18, for
this is a sign that we are translated from darkness to
light, ii. 10, and so are the children of the light : yea,
that we are born of God, iv. 7, and therefore are
children and heirs of God, Rom. viii. 17). He that
loveth not his brother, abidethin (the state, and under
the sentence of) death, (he is still in that darkness of
sin and ignorance, ii. 11, which will end in eternal
death.
15 For) whosoever hateth his brother is (in the dis-
position of his heart, and the construction of God’s
daw, J a murderer, (Matt. v. 21, 22), and ye know that
no murderer (being so great and wilful a violator of the
moral law) hath eternal life abiding in him; (he there-
fore must be obnoarious to death eternal, till with holy
David, by a deep and long repentance, he is delivered
from * : as in the case of David, 2 Sam.
xll. 13.
16 Hereby perceive we the love of God (to us), be-
cause he (who was his beloved Son, at his command,
John X. 18) laid down his life for us (i. e. for our sal-
vation, and the propitiation of our sins); and we (also)
ought (in imitation of this example) to lay down our
lives (i. e. eaſpose them to the death) for (the salvation
of) the brethren (going on in the prosecution of our
duty, to win them to life eternal, though with the haz-
ard, and even the loss, of this temporal life).
17 But (if love requires us to part even with life for
them, then) whoso hath this world’s goods, and seeth
his brother have need (of some of them), and (yet)
shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him (not
being moved out of compassion to his indigence to give
him what he hath to spare), how dwelleth the love of
God in him :
18 My little children, let us not love in word,
neither in tongue (only, James ii. 15), but in deed and
in truth (in true affection of heart, I Pet. i. 22, and sin-
cerity of action, Rom. xii. 9, by love serving one an-
other, Gal. v. 13, not pitying only, but relieving them
according to their wants, and our ability to supply
them). *
19 And hereby we (may) know that "we are of
the truth, and shall ” assure our hearts before him.
20 * For if our heart (the inward witness of our
thoughts and actions) condemn us (of want of sin-
cerity, and obedience to the truth of the gospel), God is
greater than our heart, (both in holiness to condemn)
and (in knowledge to perceive the evil of them, for he,
knoweth all things. - -
21 (Whereas, ) beloved, if our heart (after a diligent
search of it, and a comparing of our actions with the
law of liberty, ) condemn us not (of insincerity in our
obedience), than have *we (humble) confidence to-
wards God (in our addresses).
22 And whatsoever we ask (according to his will,
John v. 14), we receive of him, because we keep his
commandments and do those things which are pleas-
ing in his sight. -
23 And this is his commandment, That we should
believe on the name of his Soñjesus Christ, and love
one another as he gave us commandment. -
24 And he that keepeth his commandments dwell-
eth in him (i. e. in God), and he (God) in him. And
hereby we know that he abideth in us, by (the effica
cious gifts of) “the Spirit which he hath given us.
general course of his life, is not a child of God ; because he
only is born of God, and hath the divine nature in him, who
thus doeth righteousness (1 John ii. 29). And he who doth
mot in truth, and in actions demonstrating the sincerity of
his affection to his brother (ver. 18), show his love to him, he
hath no true love to God (iv. 21), and so is not born of God,
nor can he be the child of God, since he obeys not his com-
mandments (v. 1).
* Ver. 12. ‘Ex roß roympoſſ, Of that wicked one..] The Jews
say that Cain was begot of the seed of the devil; this the
apostle mystically expounded, saying of Cain as our Saviour
doth of the Jews in general (John viii. 44), that “they were
of their father the devil, who was a murderer from the be-
ginning,” because they did his work, being maliciously bent
upon the murder of our Lord. -
1° Wer. 19. 'Ex rà, &Anşsia; Hakºv, We are of the truth.]
i. e. We are rightly acquainted with, and truly live accord-
ing to, the rules delivered in that gospel which is emphati-
cally styled “the truth” (see note on Rom. ii. 8). This is
the truth so often mentioned in these epistles, 1 John i. 6.8.
ii. 4. 21. iv. 6, Second Epistle, ver. 1–4, First Epistle, iii.
3, 4.8. 12, and in the Gospel, i. 14. 17. iii. 21. iv. 23, 24. v.
33. viii. 32. xvii. 17. xviii. 37.
* Ka? ºrsicozey rac wagºia, #4&y, And shall persuade our
hearts;] viz. That we are so in the sight of God.
* Wer. 20. “ort #&y, For if our hearts condemn us, ºr
pºsićaw.] Some are inclined to read, Éri pºsićay, “God is yet
greater than our hearts;” and others to make it an expletive,
or to approve of those few copies where it is wanting: but
seeing it is retained in most copies, and is translated by the
Arabic profect3, this I believe to be the true import of it
here; and to confirm this import, let it be noted, that the
Hebrew ºn, which in its primary import signifieth for, and i
by the Septuagint rendered 3rt, doth also signify certé, ana
is by our translation often rendered “surely,” or “ certainly.’
So, Gen. xliii. 10, “For if we had not lingered, #3, #y, Surely
we had returned twicer;” Exod. iii. 11, 3rt, “Surely I will be
with thee;” iv. 25, 3rt, “Surely a bloody husband art thou;”
Numb. xxii. 23, ºv, “Surely I had slain thee;” Judg. vi. 16,
kai, “Surely I will be with thee;” Ruth i. 10, “Surely we
will return with thee;” 1 Kings i. 13, §rt, “Surely Solomon
shall reign after me ;” Joshii. 24, §rt, “Truly the Lord hath
delivered the land into our hands;” Ps. lxxvii. 12, §rt,
“Surely I will remember thy works of old ; czii. 6, §rt,
“Surely he shall not be removed for ever” (see Job xxviii.
1. Isa. vii. 9, see Examen Millii here, ver, 16. V. 10. 12).
18 Ver. 21. IIaşna‘iay ixopsy ºrgă, röy 9:39, We have conft-
dence with God.j “When is it,” saith Philo,” “that a ser-
vant may use, traffnaiav Trpèc rôy 8sarátny, confidence towards
his lord? Is it not then, gray #3 ºnzár, aiv šauroi; ºr
awsº, when he is not conscious of doing any evil against
him P” *
14 Ver. 24. 'ex roº IIveſºzaroc, By the Spirit..] So the word
“Spirit” is taken in the words following (iv. 1), and so was he
given in those times to them that believed (Acts v. 32).
* L. Quis Rer. Div. Haeres, ab initio.
996
CHAPTER IV.
1 BELovED, 'believe not every (pretender to the)
6 * We are of God; (deriving our faith and doctrine
Spirit (of God), but try the spirits whether they be of |from that Jesus who was a Prophet sent from God, and
God (or not) : because many false prophets are gone
out into the world.
2 (And, for your direction in this trial, ) hereby
know ye the Spirit of God (from that of error):
Every spirit (i. e. person pretending to the Spirit of
God, or of prophecy,) which confesseth that Jesus
Christ (Gr. Jesus Christ which) is come in the flesh is
of God:
3 And every (pretender to the) Spirit which confess-
eth not that Jesus Christ (Jesus Christ which) is come.
in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of
antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should
come ; and even now already is it in the world.
4 Ye (to whom he hath given this Spirit, iii. 24) are
of God, little children, and *have overcome them
(these antichrists and false prophets) : because greater
is he (the Spirit) that is in you, than he (the spirit)
which is in the world.
5 They (these antichrists and false prophets) * are
of the world: (setting up to be temporal princes, and
to give the Jews dominion over the heathen world, and)
therefore speak they of the world (i.e. of that tempo-
Tal dominion over the heathens, which the carnal Jews
eapect, when their Messiah doth appear), and the world
(he that is worldlyminded) heareth them.
delivered his doctrine in his name: as therefore he said
to the Jews then, so we his disciples say now, ) he that
knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God hear-
eth not us (John viii. 47. vi. 45). Hereby know we
the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error (see mote on
ver, 1–3).
7 Beloved, let us (who are of God, ver. 6) love
one another: for love is of God (the fruit of his
good Spirit in us, Gal. v. 22. 1 Pet. i. 22); and every
one that loveth is born of God, (by the Spirit, John
iii. 5), and (this resemblance he hath to him, in love to
mankind in general, and to those he hath so highly loved
in particular, ver. 9, 10, shows that he, knoweth God
(aright, because he keepeth his commandments, ii. 3, 4).
8. He that loveth not (his brother) knoweth not (Gr.
hath not known) God (aright) ; for "God is (the God
of) love.
9 In this was manifested (the greatness of) the love
of God towards us, because that God sent his only-
begotten Son into the world, (and freely gave him º
to the death, Rom. viii. 33,) that we might live through
him. -
10 * Herein is (the demonstration of his) love, not
that we loved God, but that he loved us (first, ver.
19), and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV.
* Wer. 1, 2.] The Jews being then generally in expecta-
tion of their Messiah, were divided into two parts; a rem-
nant who believed that he was come already, and that our
Jesus was the very person promised under that character ;
and a more prevailing part of them who rejected him and
looked for another. Now among these appeared many who
took upon them to be the Messiah, or the prophet promised
by Moses, “like unto him,” saying, “Lo, Christ is here, and
lo, he is there” (see the note on Matt. xxiv. 24. 26); and
these declaring themselves prophets, must also pretend to the
Spirit of prophecy, and do this as Josephus saith they did,
Trgogyftºkari Betaaºot, “under the pretence of a divine affia-
tus.” These, Saith the apostle here, are antichrists; i. e.
pretenders falsely to be Christ, in opposition to him who was
truly so : nor could they belong to him, or truly confess him,
who was “the Word made flesh.” Now the strength of this
argument depends on these considerations, that the effusion
of the Spirit, promised in the times of the Messiah, could
only belong to them who owned and believed in the true
Messiah; this being made one character of the true Messiah,
that he should baptize them who believed in him with the
Holy Ghost (Matt. iii. 11). This promise of the Father, as
the Holy Ghost is styled, was to be sent by Christ (Luke
xxiv. 49) to his disciples (John xvi. 7. xv. 26), to be sent in
his name (John xiv. 26); and when he came, his office was
to enable those who received him to testify of Christ, that he
was indeed risen from the dead, and was the Christ (John
xv. 26. Acts i. 8. v. 32), and to “convince the world of sin,”
because they believed not in him (John xvi. 9). The con-
dition of receiving him was faith in Christ (John vii. 37. Acts
ii. 38, 39); and by his assistance did his disciples prove that
Jesus Christ, who appeared to the Jews in the flesh, and was
crucified among them, was the Christ. He therefore who
was made partaker of the Xagirºara of the Holy Ghost,
must be one who believed in that Jesus who suffered in the
flesh for us; and therefore they who denied this, could not
be assisted by that Spirit who was only sent by him, and
given to believers: whence the apostle saith, that “no man
speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus anathema,” as
these false prophets, who owned him not, must do (1 Cor.
xii. 3), and that “no man could say that Jesus was the
Christ, but by the Holy Ghost:” that is, he could not con-
fess and testify to the world this truth, but by the assistance
of the Holy Ghost, promised and given to believers for that
end (see ver. 6. 13–15).
Note therefore, that the apostle is not here speaking of the
trial of doctrines, but of spirits, not of the faith necessary to
be believed to salvation, but only of the faith necessary to
the reception of the Holy Ghost, that unction which would
teach them all things (1 John ii. 27).
* Ver. 4. Kai vevizhwars, And have overcome.] The doc-
trine which you preach and confirm by these gifts, and dis-
tributions of the Holy Ghost, hath mightily prevailed over
all the opposition which the unbelieving Jews, and their
false prophets, and false apostles, make against it ; because
the spirit which acts in them is only able to work by them
régata. Jeff3ou;, “false, counterfeit, and lying wonders;”
whereas the Spirit that is in you, enables you to confirm the
truth with real “miracles, and signs, and divers distributions
of the Holy Ghost,” by which God beareth witness to the
truth of that doctrine which you preach (Heb. ii. 4. Rom.
xv. 19. 1 Thess. i. 5).
* Ver. 5.] That the hopes of dominion over the heathens,
encouraged some of them to set up for the Messiah, and
others to fight, see the testimonies of Josephus, note on James
iv. 1–3. And on this account they rejected the true Mes-
siah, because his kingdom was not of this world.
* Ver. 6..] When the Romish prelates have once proved
they are of God, as the apostle did, it will be time to con-
sider the inference of Esthius from this place, That he that
is of God must hear their prelates and their church, and
come to them to be resolved of any doubt.
* Ver. 8. “o Os3; áyárn, God is love.] The apostle by these
words intends not to express what God is in his essence, or
to say, as the schools do, that he is love essentially, and love
causalitèr, as being the cause ; or objective, as being the
object of his love; but that he is so demonstrative, and
#ysgyntwºº, showing great philanthropy to men in all his
dealings with them, or his dispensations towards them, as
appears from the two following verses.
* Ver, 10. "Ew roºro, a riy # 374trn, Herein is love..] Here
the apostle most lively doth express the freedom and the
greatness of the love of God ; the freedom of it, in that “he
loved us first,” when there was nothing in us to deserve or
move affection but our misery; but many things which both
deserved, and might have moved him to the execution of his
CHAPTER IV. *
997
sins (which deserved death, and so to fit us for eternal
life).
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to
love one another.
12 (And say not, that it is enough that ye love God
again, though ye love not your brother, ver, 20, for) no
man hath seen God at any time, (as we daily see and
converse with our brother; and therefore if we love
not him whom we have seen, how can we love God whom
we have not seen 8 ver. 20, but) if we love one another
(after his eaſample, though we see him not, we may be
sure that) God dwelleth in us (by his Spirit), and
(that) his love 7 is perfected in us. -
13 Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he
in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit (who by
his powerful energies proves whose Spirit he is).
14, And (by the Spirit given to us according to his
promise) we have seen (i. e. perceived) and do testify,
that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the
world (see note on ver. 3).
15 °Whosoever (believeth this our testimony) shall
(from his heart believe, Rom. x. 9. 19, and) confess
that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him,
and he in God (by the Spirit of adoption). -
16 And we (by this Spirit) have known and be-
lieved the love that God hath (shown) to us (in sending
his Son to be the Saviour of the world, ver. 10, 11. 14).
‘ God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth
in God, and God in him (ver. 7).
17 Herein is our love made perfect (i. e. exactly
corresponding to the divine pattern and command, note
on Ver. 12, so) that we (who thus love) may have bold-
ness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are
We in this world, (conforming ourselves to the pattern
of God’s affection to mankind, and walking as Christ
walked, ii. 6.)
18 °There is no fear (of failing at that day) in love
(thus perfect); but perfect love casteth out fear; be-
cause (that) fear (which takes away this boldness) hath
torment (in its torments the mind with dreadful expec-
tations, and) he that (thus) feareth is not made perfect
in love. . . y
19 "We love him (and testify this love to him by
loving our brother for his sake, after his eaſample, and
in obedience to his command), because he first loved
llS. -
20 *If any man say, I love God, and (yet) hateth.
“his brother, he is a liar : for he that loveth not his
brother whom he hath seen, how can he
whom he hath not seen -
21 And ſhe moreover shows, by his disobedience to
the command of God, the want of true affection to
him ; for) this commandment have we from him,
That he who loveth God love his brother also.
love God
wrath, we being “enemies to God by wicked works:” the
greatness of it, first, in the person sending, the great God of
heaven, who “humbles himself even to behold what is done
in heaven and earth;” oh, therefore, “what is man that he
should be thus mindful of him P” Secondly, the person
sent, röy tºovoyevº, “his only-begotten,” rôy ºtoy vičy, “his pro-
per Son” (Rom. viii. 32): for if to call God trarápa Picy, “his
proper Father,” was to make himself “equal to God” (John
v. 18), the Father himself by calling him his “proper Son,”
must equally exalt him. Hence even Episcopius here de-
clares him to be so called, because essentiam Suam fi patre
per veram generationem accepisset, “he had received his
essence from the Father by a true generation:” for it is cer-
tain that the apostle is here extolling the love of God to the
highest pitch, and therefore must use this phrase, “the only-
begotten Son of God,” in the sublimest sense in which that
word is used in scripture. Thirdly, the place whither he
was sent, into that world which “lay in wickedness.”
Fourthly, the errand for which he was sent ; (1.) to “give
up himself a sacrifice for the propitiation of our sins” (see
note on ii. 2); (2) to procure to us, who were dead in tres-
passes and sins, eternal life. - -
7 Wer. 12. Terexeiokºśyn, His love is perfected in vs.] He
then loves us entirely, according to those words of Christ,
“If any man keep my words, my Father will love him, and
we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.”
(John xiv. 23); or, then is our love to him entire, because
then we love him so as to keep his commandments (ii. 5),
and so as to follow that example of love which he hath set
us; and “as he is, so are we in the world” (ver. 17).
* Wer. 15.] For “to as many as received him, gave he
power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe
on his name” (John i. 12); and “because we are sons, God
hath sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba
Father” (Gal. iv. 6). Only let it be noted, that this hearty
confession must be attended with a readiness to believe all
that this Son of God hath taught us in his Father's name,
for, “if he say the truth, why do we not believe him P” (John
viii. 46) and a firm purpose to obey his commandments, for
“why call we him Lord, Lord, and do not the things that he
saith?” (Luke vi. 46.)
* Ver. 18. Qö80; otz Hart, There is no fear in love..] Christ
having so expressly promised a “Come ye blessed” to the
charitable person (Matt. xxv. 34–36), and the apostle re-
commending it as the most excellent of Christian graces (1
Cor. xiii. 13), and “the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. xiii. 8.
12), when this love is made perfect in us, it may well give
boldness, and cast out fear of condemnation in the day of
judgment. -
Others expound the words thus: “There is no fear of
what we may lose or suffer in (perfect) love (of our bro-
ther), but (such) love casteth out (this) fear, for fear (of
what we may lose or suffer) hath torment in it: (and there-
fore) he that thus feareth, is not made perfect in love (to
him).” - *
* Ver. 19.] That is, whosoever thus loves God, and shows
it by loving thus his brother, can challenge nothing on that
account as due from God ; it being God’s preventing love to
him, which gave the rise to all the love he bears to God, or
to his brother for his sake. If therefore any person be con-
strained by this love to that obedience which testifies the sin-
cerity of his affection to God, or to imitate his love to us by
fervent love to the brethren, it is the divine philanthropy
which hath excited this affection in him. Or, if &yar&ev
be the subjunctive mood, the sense runs thus: Let the great
love of God to us, mentioned ver. 9, 10, provoke us to re-
turns of love to him, and to our brethren for his sake; since
we do hypocritically pretend to love him, if we do not show
it by fervent charity towards his children, and our bre-
thren. º
Il Ver. 20.] That is, if what we have more opportunity to
do, and can perform with less difficulty, we do not do, how
shall we perform what is more difficult P. Now we have our
Christian brethren still in our view, they are the object of our
senses, we daily converse with them ; and their wants and
miseries being the object of our senses, must naturally move
compassion in us; and so it is less difficult to express our
love to them, than to that God whom we have not seen, and
who is only present to our minds by raised meditations,
which do not naturally occur to us, and which we cannot
long continue and so is more difficult than the love of our
brother. -
.--
998
CHAPTER V.
1 WHosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ
is born of God: and every one that loveth him that
pegat loveth him also that is begotten of him, (as
being by his new birth partaker of the divine nature,
and created anew after the image of God, Eph. iv. 24.
Col. iii. 10.
2 And this note is reciprocal ; for) by this we
know that we love the children of God, when we love
God, and keep his commandments (when our affec-
tion to God prevails upon us to do to them all acts of
charity he hath required, and by his eaſample recom-
mended to us, 1 J . iii. 11. 23. iv. 21).
3 For this is (the genuine test of) the love of God,
that we keep his commandments: and his command-
ments (to the true lover of him) * are not grievous.
4-For whosoever is born of God overcometh the
world (his affections are taken off from it, and set upon
his God; and so it cannot be grievous to him to part
with it, or suffer the loss of any worldly good, to se-
cure the divine favour); and this is the victory which
overcometh the world, even our faith (to wit, that
faith which is the substance of things hoped for, the
evidence of things not seen, Heb. xi. 1, which gives us
the assurance of a better and a more enduring substance,
and so makes us take joyfully the spoiling of our goods,
Heb. x. 34, and patiently endure those light afflictions
which are but for a season, as knowing they work for
ws an eaceeding and eternal weight of glory, 2 Cor.
iv. 7). -
5 wº is he that overcometh the world, but he
that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God 2 (And so
the author of eternal salvation to all that obey him ;
for hence we know that we have eternal life, v. 11—13).
6 This is he “that came by (or, with the testimony
of) water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not *by
water only, but by water * and blood. And it is "the
Spirit that beareth witness (and on his testimony we
may rely), because the Spirit is truth.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. V.
* Ver. 1. ‘Ex Osoſ; yeyśwntal, Is born of God..] The Jews
gloried in this title, that they were “the children of God,”
and had him for their Father (John viii. 41, 42.45), they
being called his sons, Deut. xiv. l. xxxii. 19. Ps. lxxii. 15,
and his first-born, Exod. iv. 22. The apostle therefore here
informs them, that this relation would stand them in no
stead, unless they were “born again cf water and of the Spirit”
(John iii. 5), or baptized into the name of Christ, and, by
that faith, had “power to become the sons of God” (John i.
12), and also loved those Christians which were born of him ;
which the unbelieving Jews, aid the false teachers among
them, were so far from doing, that they everywhere persecuted
the true believers (see note on iii. 1).
* Wer. 3. Bageſat oix sia'iy, Are not grievows.] Because his
will is conformed to the will of God, and so he only doth
what he would do, and his affections are chiefly placed upon
him, and so he is then doing what he chooseth and delighteth
in ; and it cannot be grievous to be employed as we would,
and as we do delight to be.
* Ver, 6. That came.] viz. In the name of God, Matt.
xxi. 9; in his Father's name, John v. 43 (see Matt, xi. 3.
John i. 9. 15. Matt. xxi. 9).
*A* tºaroº, By water.] i. e. With the testimony of water,
or the testimony given to him by St. John at his baptism;
for when John was baptizing, he testified of him, saying,
“This is he that cometh after me, who was before me” (John
i. 27, 28). He also declared, that he came baptizing, for
this very end, “that he might be made manifest to Israel.”
(ver. 31); and testified, saying, “I saw the Spirit descending
from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him, and I knew
him not : but he that sent me to baptize with water, the
same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit
descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which bap-
tizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw, and bare record,
That this is the Son of God” (ver. 32–34). Hence is he
| styled, “a man sent from God, who came for a witness, to
bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might
believe” (ver, 6–8). Hence do John's disciples say to
him, “He to whom thou bearest witness, baptizeth,” John
iii. 26. And Christ himself appealeth to his testimony, John
v. 32, 33. Now this testimony could not be rejected by
them, “for all men held John as a prophet ;” nor durst the
pharisees themselves deny that his testimony was from hea-
ven (Matt. xxi. 25, 26).
* Kai afºa roc, And blood.] For he died in testimony of
the truth, and came into the world for this end, “that he
might bear witness to the truth” (John xviii. 37): whence
he is said to “witness before Pontius Pilate a good confession,”
viz., that he was the Son of God, or the Messiah, the King
of the Jews (1 Tim. vi. 13): this he also testified to the high-
Priest (Matt. xxvi. 63, 64); and for this testimony was he
condemned as worthy of death (ver. 66): for this they mock
him at his sufferings, that “he said, he was the Son of God”
(Matt. xxvii. 43. Mark xv. 32), and at his death he com-
mends his spirit to God, as his Father (Luke xxiii. 36.46).
The miracles which attended his crucifixion were so great,
that they forced the Jews, the centurion, and those that were
with him, to confess, “Truly this was the Son of God”
(Matt. xxvii. 54), and the whole multitude to “smite their
breasts" (Luke xxiii. 48). In a word, the Spirit which
assisted the Baptist, proclaimed him, “the Lamb of God,
who taketh away the sins of the world " (John i. 29), and
that supposeth, he was to offer up himself unto the death,
for the propitiation of their sins: yea, he himself doth fre-
quently declare, that he was to be slain (Matt. xvi. 21); to
be “delivered into the hands of men, and killed” (Matt. xvii.
22, 23), to be “condemned to death" (Matt. xx. 18, 19),
and to “rise again the third day;” that he was to be “lifted
up” upon the cross (John iii. 14), and that being thus lifted
up, he would “draw all men to him” (John xii. 32). Now
what impostor would lay this as the foundation of the truth
of all his sayings, and all the hopes of any blessings which
were to be expected from him, that he should be crucified,
and die an ignominious and painful death P Or what could
tempt him thus to die, who had no hopes to rise again, if he
were not the true Messiah, or the Son of God 2 How was
it possible he should be raised from the dead, but by the
mighty power of God? And is it reasonable to imagine,
that the God of truth should thus exert the greatness of his
power, in confirmation of a lie? that he should work so great
a miracle, in favour of a vile impostor falsely usurping his
name? or give such large credentials to one who falsely
did pretend to be a prophet sent from God, and to be ho-
noured as his Son by all men? -
* Kai IIvsjø& Hari, &c. And it is the Spirit that beareth
witness.] Here it is to be noted, that the “witness,” in this
verse, is only styled vô IIvetºza, viz. that Spirit which enabled
Christ to heal diseases, cast out devils, raise the dead, and
work all sorts of miracles, for confirmation of his mission :
but in the seventh verse he is styled, rö #ytov IIvetºza, “the
Holy Ghost ;” which doth distinctly signify the inward gifts,
by which the understanding is enlightened, and is enabled to
perform things which by nature it could not do, without.
the immediate workings of the Holy Ghost; as, V. g. the
gifts of wisdom, knowledge, faith, prophecy, discerning of
spirits, the gift of tongues, and the interpretation of them.
That there is ground for this distinction, will appear from
these considerations.
1. Because our Saviour, whilst he was on earth, gave to
his apostles, and the seventy disciples, power to “heal the
sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils"
(Matt. x. 8. Luke x.9), and yet the evangelist John informs
us, that “the Holy Ghost was not yet, because that Jesus
was not glorified ” (John vii. 39). Our Saviour also tells his
CHAPTER V.
999
7 (The law judges that sufficiently proved, which is
confirmed by two or three witnesses, Deut. xix. 15.
That Jesus is the Son of God, ver. 5, is thus proved,
by witnesses from heaven, and on earth :) for 7 there
are three that bear record (to this truth) in (and
from) heaven, the * Father, the * Word, and the
* Holy Ghost, and these three are one (as in testi-
7mony, so in essence). .
8 And there are three that bear witness on earth,
the Spirit. and the water, and the blood: and these
three * agree in one. -
9 *If we receive the witness of men (in these
disciples, that the Holy Ghost would not come, till he
departed (John xvi. 7), and Peter, that our Lord “being
exalted to the right hand of God, received the promise of the
Holy Ghost” (Acts ii. 33). The Holy Ghost must therefore
signify something distinct from the power of working miracles.
2. The prophecy of Joel, which by Peter is mentioned as
the promise on which the giving of the Holy Ghost was
founded, is only a promise of visions, dreams, and prophe-
cies, but not of miracles; and the gifts of the Spirit, men-
tioned by the prophet Isaiah, are only those of wisdom, know-
ledge, understanding, counsel, courage, piety, and of the fear
of the Lord ; no mention being made there of signs and
wonders.
3. Because, throughout the history of the Acts of the
Apostles, where Luke hath occasion to mention the miracles
which the apostles and primitive professors did, he always
uses these words, régata, a nºſa, 8vyčºgic, “wonders, signs,
and powers:” but where he speaks of persons prophesying
or speaking with tongues, he doth as constantly ascribe this
to the Holy Ghost descending on them.
And, lastly, Where the scripture mentions these things
together, it puts a manifest distinction betwixt signs and
wonders, and the gifts and distributions of the Holy Ghost.
Thus God, saith the apostle, bare witness to the doctrine
which they preached, “by signs and wonders, and divers mira-
cles, wai IIveşºatos &yiou ºwegiaºzoic, and distributions of the
Holy Ghost” Heb. ii. 4 (see Rom. xv. 19. Gal. iii. 5).
The Spirit, therefore, bare witness to Christ on earth by
the enabling him to do so many mighty works in confirma-
tion of his mission, to heal all manner of diseases, sick-
nesses, and maladies, to command the wind and seas to be
obedient to him, to cast out devils, and to raise the dead,
and by assisting his apostles and disciples to do these things
in his name: for that not only his disciples, but even our
Lord himself, did cast out devils by the Spirit of God, he
himself expressly testifies, Matt. xii. 28, and saith, moreover,
that in him was fulfilled that of Isaiah, “The Spirit of the
Lord is upon me, wherefore he hath anointed me to preach
the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken
in heart, to preach deliverance to the captives (to sin and
Satan), and to give sight to the blind ’’ (Luke iv. 18. 20).
Hence Peter speaks thus to Cornelius and his friends, “You
know how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy
Ghost and with power, who went about doing good, and
healed all that were oppressed of the devil” (Acts x. 38).
And to these works thus wrought by the assistance of the
Spirit of God, our Lord doth frequently appeal, as to a sure
testimony that God had sent him: for, “The works,” saith
he, “that I do in my Father's name, bear witness of me:”
(John x. 24. v. 36), yea, they showed that “the Father was
in him, and he in the Father” (John x, 37,38. xiv. 10, II).
7 Wer. 7. Tetſ; siaty of ºzaervºody're; #y rô otpavč, There are
three that bear witness in heaven, &c.], I shall say nothing
of the dispute, whether this verse be genuine or not, seeing
the learned Dr. Mills treats so copiously on that subject, in
his edition of the New Testament. I only note, that the
places cited from Tertullian and Cyprian agree not exactly
with the words of John ; seeing they speak de Patre, Filio,
et Spirità Sancto, not of “the Father, the Word, and the
Holy Ghost.” The objections of Schlictingius against this
verse are these: -
Obj. 1. That this verse, though it be introduced with 3rt,
“for” hath no coherence with the former verse.
Ans. It coheres well with it, thus: The witness of the
Spirit ought in this matter to be received, because he is the
Spirit of truth, sent from the Father, and the Son; for in
the testimony of the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven is
contained the witness of the Father, and the Son also: so
that we may truly say, “There be three that bear witness.”
Obj. 2. But if so, the testimony of the Father is included
in the testimony of the Holy Ghost.
-------- . . . . .
Ans. True: and by this these three witnesses become one-
in testimony ; and yet they differ, as the person sending and
the person sent. - -
Obj. 3. The Aáyo;, or “Word,” is the Son of God; and
therefore, to say he testifies of the Son of God, is to make
him testify of himself.
Ans. It is confessed, that the same person is both the Aáyoc,
and the Son of God ; but the thing testified, is not, that
Christ was the Aáyoc, or the Son of God, by eternal genera-
tion, or by his miraculous conception ; but that he was the
Christ, the promised Messiah, and in that sense the Son of
God: and to this the divine nature might give testimony.
* "o trarăg, The Father] Testified this at his baptism, by
a voice from heaven, saying, “This is my beloved Son,” &c.
(Matt. iii. 17), and at his transfiguration, saying again, “This
is my beloved Son, hear him " (Matt. xvii. 5, 6, see note on
2 Pet. i. 14—16); and chiefly, by sending of the Holy Ghost,
which he had promised in the times of the Messiah, and who
is therefore styled, “the promise of the Father” (Lukexxiv.
49. Acts i. 4),
* “O Aéyoc, The Word.] Not only by appearing to Stephen
(Acts vii. 56), and saying to Saul, “I am Jesus, whom thou
persecutest " (Acts ix. 5), but chiefly by shedding the Spirit
on the apostles and other believers, according to his promise;
for, “he being exalted to the right hand of God, and receiving
from the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, hath,”
saith Peter, “shed forth this which you now see and hear:
wherefore, let all the house of Israel know, that Godºhath
made this Jesus Lord and Christ” (Acts ii. 33. 36).
* Tö #yoy IIºwa, The Holy Ghost.] The “power from
on high" they were to be “endued with ” (Luke xxiv. 49),
by falling down from heaven upon his disciples; whence
“they were filled with the Holy Ghost, and spake with
tongues,” to men of all nations, “the wonderful things of
God.” Till his descent upon them, they were not to stir
from Jerusalem, as being not fitted for their work (Acts i. 4),
but when he was once given to them that believed, they
proved and bare witness, that “God exalted Jesus to his
right hand, to be a Prince and a Saviour” (Acts v. 31, 32).
And this our Lord, by his omniscience, foretold that he should
testify of him (John xv. 26), yea, that at his coming he
should “convince the world of sin, because they believed
not in him ; of (his) righteousness, because he was gone to
the Father; and of judgment, because the prince of this
world was judged,” and cast out of his kingdom by him
(John xvi. 9–11, and xii. 31.)
'And thus it is easy to discern how these three are one in
testimony, because both the Father and the Son give in their
testimony by the Holy Ghost: but then if these be three
witnesses properly so called, they must be three persons;
and more especially the Holy Ghost, by whom the other
persons do bear witness, must be so; and if his testimony be
also the testimony of God the Father, and the Word, he
must be one in essence with them : for if the Spirit be a
creature, how can his testimony be formally the testimony
of God P as it is styled, ver. 9. 13. .*
* Ver. 8. Et; fly siziv, Agree in this one..] If by £y sizi,
ver. 7, were meant no more than eiç #y sial, here, why did
the apostle change the words, since these three also are one
in testimony, as that imports this only, that they confirm
this fundamental truth, that “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of
God?” especially if we consider what is insinuated, ver. 6,
that of these three, the Spirit only beareth witness properly;
the other, by some action of the Spirit attending them,
and by the testimony of others of it; the water, by the Spi-
rit descending on Christ whilst he was in the water, and the
Baptist's testimony, that by this sign God had declared to
him, that he was the Christ; the blood, as it assures us, that
he who shed it died for the truth.
12 Ver. 9. Ei rºy gagrugia, Tây 3v3;%trov Aap,8árogev, If we
rcceive the witness of men.] This is not so to be interpreted,
1000
I. JOHN
cases), the witness of God is greater (of more validity
and certainty, than that of men ; he being neither lia-
ble to ignorance nor falsehood; and if his testimony be
of such force, we must believe that Jesus is the Christ):
for this is the witness of God, which he hath testified
of his Son.
10 He that believeth on the Son of God hath the
witness in himself (as having in himself that Spirit of
God which gives this testimony to Christ) ; he that
believeth not (this testimony of) God hath made him
a liar; because he believeth not the record which
God gave of his Son.
11 And this is the (subject of this) record, that
God hath given to us (Christians the promise of)
eternal life, and this life is in his Son, (he being the
hope of glory, Col. i. 27, this life being hid with Christ
in God, Col. iii. 4, and he being our life, ibid., he being
the author and procurer of it, and having power to con-
fer it on us, John xvii. 2.)
12 He that hath the Son hath life: and he that
hath not the Son of God hath not life: (for we are
all the children of God, through faith in Jesus Christ,
Gal. iii. 26, and if children, then heirs, Rom. viii. 17.)
13 These things have I written to you that be-
lieve on the name of the Son of God; that ye may
know that ye have (by promise, a right to, and, by the
Spirit, an earnest of) eternal life, that ye may (more
firmly) believe in the name of the Son of God.
14 And this is the (farther) confidence that we have
in (and through) him, that, if we ask anything (of
God, iii. 21, 22) according to his will, he heareth us;
(according to Christ’s promise, John xiv. 13–15. vii.
16. xvi. 23, 24.) -
15 And if we know that he heareth us, whatever
as if the three witnesses on earth related only to the testi-
mony of men; and the three from heaven, only to the tes-
timony of God; and so that the apostle intended here to
signify, we had greater reason to believe the witnesses in
heaven, than those on earth: for, (1.) the testimony of the
Spirit and of the Holy Ghost are of equal certainty and va-
lidity ; and, (2) John Baptist being “sent from God” (John
i. 6), and his baptism being “from heaven,” and not “of
men” (Matt. xxi. 25), was also, in effect, the testimony of
God. The import therefore of these words is rather this :
lf the testimony of two or three men be thought sufficient to
give credit to any matter in all courts of judicature, surely
the testimony of that God (ver. 8), who cannot lie or de-
ceive us, must be of greater force and strength to produce
faith in us.
Ver, 13. "Iva ºre ºr 'ow #xers aidinov, Rai wa Triateſnts.]
Here the Codex Alexandrinus reads thus, 3ri Koły fixers aid-
voy oi tria-reſoyts; so also read the Vulgate and the Syriac ;
the Arabic thus, Haec scripsi volis, O qui creditis in nomen
filii Dei, ut sciatis quod vitam habetis asternam quamditi
creditis in nomen filii Dei. CEcumenius, iva ºria rečnte &3ia-
a-ráxºrog kai éſzógº Triarsi.
* Ver. 16. ‘Apºgéria Trºc Sávarrow, A sin unto death.] Note
here, that the phrase, “He shall give him life,” cannot rea-
sonably be interpreted of eternal life, for that depends not on
the prayers of other men ; nor can they be certain that their
intercession shall prevail for it, since it belongs only to them
who truly repent and reform their lives. (2.) Because the
person to be prayed for, is one that hath “not sinned unto
death ;” i. e. hath not committed a sin which renders him
obnoxious to death eternal. (3.) They who interpret this
phrase, “a sin unto death,” of a sin on which eternal death
will certainly follow, by the decree of God, (1.) make the
duty here enjoined impracticable ; for who can know when
his brother's sin is thus to death, or not ? who is acquainted
with any such decree of God 2 (2.) They make the differ-
ence betwixt a sin unto death, and not to death, to consist,
not in the nature of the sins themselves, but in the decree
by God passed upon the sinner. (3.) They make the apos-
tle say, He dares not encourage them to pray for the salva-
tion of them who are at present in a state of death and con-
we (thus) ask, we know that we have the petitions
that we desired of him (iii. 22). -
16 If any man see his (sick) brother sin a sin
which is not * unto death (i. e. for which God hath
not peremptorily threatened, and required that he should
die for it, as he did to them that were guilty of murder,
Gen. ix. 5, 6. Numb. xxxv. 30, 31, and for idolatry,
Deut. xvii. 2–5), he shall ask (of God restoration of
his life and health), and he shall give him life for them
that sin not (thus) unto death. There is a sin unto
death (of which God hath denounced, That he that doeth
it, shall die for it) : I do not say, that he shall pray
for it (i. e. for deliverance of the person guilty of it
from death). -
17 All unrighteousness is sin ; and there is a sin
(of unrighteousness against our brother, which is) not
unto death (the law requiring, not that the guilty-per-
son should die for it, but only, that he should bring his
offering, and make reparation for it). -
18 We know that whosoever is born of God sin-
neth not (thus, iii. 15), but he that is begotten of God
keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him
not (see note on iii. 9):
19 And we know that we are (begotten) of God,
and (that) the whole world lieth (still) “in wicked-
IlêSS.
20 And we know that the Son of God is come, and
hath given us an understanding, that we may know
him that is (the) true (God), and we are in him that
is true, (even, or, to wit, ) in his Son Jesus Christ.
*This is the true God, and (in him is) eternal life.
21 (Having therefore this knowledge of the true
God,) little children, keep "yourselves from idols (or,
false gods). Amen. - -
demnation, which is against the tenor of the scriptures (see
Rom. x. 1). The words, “If a man see his brother sin a
sin not unto death,” seem like unto those of Paul, “If he
see him overtaken with a fault” (Gal. vi. 1), i. e. with an act
of injustice against his brother, to awaken him out of which
sin, God hath inflicted sickness on him, as he did on the Co-
| rinthians (1 Cor. xi. 30). The words, “Let him ask, and
he shall give him life,” seem parallel to those of James, “The
prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise
him up” (see the note on James v. 15). If this interpreta-
tion will not stand good, consider, that after all the miracles
and distributions of the Holy Ghost, vouchsafed in confirma-
tion of the gospel, too many of the Jews apostatized from
the profession of it, relapsing to their former Judaism : and
this apostasy may here be termed, the “sin unto death ;” it
being also that which our Saviour represents as the sin
against the Holy Ghost, which should not be forgiven (Matt.
xii. 32). And they who commit it, being men, saith the
apostle, whom “it is impossible to renew unto repentance”
(Heb. vi. 4–6), and to whom there remaineth nothing but
“fearful looking for of judgment” (Heb. x. 26, 27), the
apostle might well add, “I do not say, that you shall pray
for them.”
14 Ver. 19. 'Ey +& Troyneð..] In Satan, who worketh in the
children of disobedience (Eph. iii. 2), and leads them cap-
tive at his will (2 Tim. ii. 26); whence, by faith in Christ,
we are said to be translated “from the power of darkness”
(Col. i. 13), “from the power of Satan” (Acts xxvi. 18).
and “recovered from the snare of the devil.”
15 Wer. 20. oërác irriv 3 &xi;Sw8, Oedº, He is the true God.]
That this is not spoken of Christ, the Socinians endeavour to
prove, because the article is here added to the word Osłº,
* God;” which is never, say they, done when Christ is called
God. But this is manifestly false ; for Thomas saith ex-
pressly of him, à Kūgā; ºzov, wai & Osó; pºov, “My Lord and
my God” (John xx. 28); and the apostie, 3 &y in ºrávra,
Os3g, “Who is God over all, blessed for ever” (Rom. ix. 5).
We prove that this is spoken of Christ;
1. Because the demonstrative pronoun otro; most appo-
sitely relates to that which immediately went before; now
this is Jesus Christ the Son of God.
PREFACE TO II. JOHN.
1001
To this the Socinians" answer, That this is not always so ;
these relatives often referring to what is more remote : and
so this otro, may refer to the true God going before. To
this we reply; -
1. That when this happens to be so, the necessity of re-
ferring it to what is more remote, is evident from the text,
and necessary from the nature of the thing ; as when it is
said, Acts iv. 11, cºrog, “This is the stone set at nought by
you builders,” this cannot be referred to the man that was
made whole, ver. 10, and Acts vii. 19, oùroc, “He dealt sub-
tly with our nation ;” this cannot refer to Joseph, but to
the king of Egypt: so also, Acts x. 5, 6.2 Thess. ii. 9. 2
John 7: but here is no necessity of referring the pronoun:
to anything more renote, but on supposition that Christ is
not truly God.
2. This never happens when the pronoun relates to any-
thing that is spoken of professedly, but only when the near-
est antecedent is only mentioned accidentally, and by the
by. So Eph. ii. 7, “Many deceivers are gone out into the
world, who confess not that Jesus is the Christ ; oºroº, he is
a deceiver, and an antichrist ;” where the pronoun refers
not to Christ, because he is there mentioned only by acci-
dent, as being the object of the error of those seducers; and
so it is in all the other places cited. But here the apostle is
professedly speaking of Christ, through the whole verse; and
of the Father, only as we, by Christ, are taught to know him.
And, -
3. To refer this to “the true God” going before, makes the
apostle guilty of a tautology, by saying, The true God, he is
the true God.
* See Cl. Ars Critic, par. ii. cap. 9, p. 121.
god to whom it was offered.
4. Of the same person it is said, “He is the true God,
and eternal life.” Now “eternal life” is in this very chap.
ter thrice ascribed to the Son, as the author of it, ver, 11, 12,
13. He is styled Čoh, “life,” John i. 4. v. 26. xiv. 6. xvii.
2 : “our life,” Col. iii. 4. Christ is here also styled, 5 &An-
Givās, “the true;” as also, Rev. iii. 7. xix. 11. And other-
wise, the Greek should have been 3asy, “that we may,” or
“might be,” to answer to yiyojakotasy, “that we might know;”
and not arºv, “we are,” in the true.
* Ver, 21. 'Arré rāv eiè&Xoy, From the idols,J Or false
gods of the heathens, among whom you live : so, 1 Thess, i.
9, “They turned 3rd rāv siècºxaly, from idols, to the true and
living God:” thus, “An idol is nothing in the world,” i. e.
no true god, because “there is but one true God,” 2 Cor.
viii. 4. Thus, to eat things offered to idols, cruvetâharst roi; st-
86×ov, “with conscience of the idol,” is to eat it with appre-
hension that there was somewhat of power or virtue in that
Nevertheless, because these
false gods were still represented by, and worshipped in, their
images,” and they were thought necessary to the worship of
their deities; therefore the apostle useth here the word
“idols,” and equally forbids that way of worshipping the
true God.
* Ut eos possimus corām et cominūs intueri, affari de
proximo, et cum praesentibus quodammodó venerationum
colloquia miscere; sub axe enim nudo, et sub athereo teg-
mine invocati nihil audiunt, &c. Ethnicus apud Arnob. lib.
vi. p. 192. Ab idolis, id est, ab ipsa effigie eorum. Tertul
lian. de Cor. Mill, cap. 10.
THE SECOND
EPISTLE GENERAL OF ST. JOHN,
WITH ANNOTATIONS.
PREFACE.
THAT John the apostle was the author of the First Epis-
tle, is confessed by all the ancients ; and that the same per-
son was the author of this epistle, is evident from the exact
agreement of almost every word of this with the former, ex-
cept the preface and conclusion. For, º
First, These words in the fifth verse, “I write no new
commandment to you, but that which you have had from
the beginning, That ye love one another ;” are the same
with those, 1 Ep. ii. 8, 10. iii. 10. º
Secondly, These words in the sixth verse, “This is loye,
That we walk after his commandments, ’’ are the same with
1 Ep. v. 3, and the following words are in the sense the same
with iv. 21.
Thirdly, These words in the seventh verse, “For many
deceivers are gone out into the world, who confess not that
Jesus Christ is come in the flesh: he is a deceiver, and an
antichrist ;" are in sense the same with 1 John ii. 18, 19. 26.
iv. 1–3.
Fourthly, These words, ver. 9, “He that transgresseth,
and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God: he
that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, hath the Father and
the Son ;” are in sense the same with 1 John ii. 24.
Fifthly, These words, ver. 12, “That your joy may be
full:” are expressly found, 1 John i, 4.
Moreover, the arguments which Grotius advances to the
contrary, as magna argumenta, are of no force against, but
rather may be used as confirmations of, this assertion, That
John the apostle was the author of this epistle. For where-
as it is objected, that Eusebius puts this, and the following
Epistle, among the “doubtful epistles,” leaving it uncertain
whether they were written by the apostle, or by John, pres-
byter of Ephesus, to whom they were ascribed, saith Jerome;
it is to be noted from Eusebius, that though by some they
were doubted of, “yet were they known to many of the an-
cients:”* yea, this Second Epistle is cited twice by Irenadus,
as the genuine epistle of John the apostle and disciple of our
Lord, declaring, that “they who denied that Jesus Christ
was come in the flesh, weret seducers and antichrists,” ver.
7, 8, and “they who bid the heretic God speed, are par-
takers of his evil deeds;”; which are the words found, ver, 10.
* Tây 3: ávrixeyogºvoy, yyagiºcoy 3: #woc roi; ºroaxoſ-—
à èvop.aſop, #yn 3Evrépa, wai réirm ‘Iwavyov. Hist. Eccl. lib. iii.
cap. 25. - º
+ Joannes, discipulus Christi, in prædictà epistolà fugere
eos praecepit, dicens, Multi seductores exierunt in hunc mun-
dum, quinon confitentur Jesum Christum in carne venisse ;
hic est seductor, et antichristus; widete eos, ne perdatis quod
operati estis. Lib. iii. cap. 18, p. 278.
£ 10&wn; &# 3 rot Kvetov wasnth; irársive rºw xatablºny airãº,
ºn?= xaipeiv airoſ; tºp’ hºw A$25262. Covanésic, 3 yā; aflyov al-
Tois, pngi, Xaigsly, zowaveſ toſ, pyot; air&v roſ, rowsecſ. Lib
i. cap. 13, p. 94, A.
1002
II. JOHN.
And, in the council of Carthage, held A. D. 256, Aure-
lius" cites the tenth verse, as the words of John the apostle
of the Lord.
Clement of Alexandria'ſ makes mention of “the larger
Epistle of John;” which supposeth he had writ one or more
shorter.
And Epiphanius saith,; that “the Alogi, who rejected
his Gospel and Revelation, would perhaps reject his epistles
also.” So that we have here the testimony both of the east
* Joannes apostolus in epistolà suá posuit dicens, Si quis
ad vos venit et doctrinam Christi non habet, nolite eum in
domum vestram admittere, et Ave ei ne dixeritis. Apud
Cypr. p. 242.
+ baiyeral 3; wai'iwávyn; iv tº pºsićovi äriºroxi, rā; a poeā;
rāv &ºaertów #43.3%axov, #y rotºroic, 'Eáy 'ri, iën rêv 388xpêy attoiſ
&p, agrávovira & wagºriay pº Treº 64, arov. Strom. ii. p. 389.
# Táxa 3ā wai rā, śarta toxic, avy:#8ovat yºp Kai aſſrai rā
stayyexiº xai ră ăwoxaºlsi. Haer. li. §. 24.
*
1 THE elder to the * elect lady and her children,
whom I love in the truth; and not only I, but also all
that have known the truth:
2 For the truth’s sake, which dwelleth in us, and
shall be with us * for ever:
3 Grace be with you, mercy, and peacé, from God
the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son
of the Father, in truth and love (or, the true and be-
loved Son of the Father). g
4 I rejoiced greatly that I found (those) of thy chil-
dren walking “in the truth, as we have received a
commandment from the Father.
5 And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I
wrote a new commandment, but that which we had
ANNOTATIONS.
* Ver. 1. Tſega-35"spoº, The elder.] That the apostie should
in this epistle conceal his name, as in the former he had
done, is so far from being an argument to conclude he was
not the author of it, that it proves rather the contrary; he
being, as it is observed by Dr. Hammond, the only apostle
that affected to conceal his name, and who, in his gospel,
scarce ever speaks of himself without some circumlocution.
That he should call himself “elder,” and not apostle, as
Peter also doth, is no more an argument against the apostle-
ship of the one than of the other.
name of honour and dignity belonging to the chief of their
tribes, agrees very well with the office of apostles, set over
the twelve tribes of the house of Israel. But if this epistle
was written before the destruction of Jerusalem, as is pro-
bably collected from that caution given in it, ver. 7, 8, to
beware of “the deceivers that were gone out into the world,”
that they might not “lose the things which they had
wrought;” the apostle could not then be so aged when he
writ it as he is generally thought to have been, though he
might be then seventy years old, and therefore aged (see
note on Philem. 9).
*"Exxsºrſ xveig, To the elect lady..] That the apostle
wrote this epistle to a single person, who was of honourable
descent, and therefore styled “lady,” will not follow from
the mention of her children, ver. 4, seeing that phrase is
used both of the members of the Jewish and of the Chris-
tian church (Isa. liv. l. Gal. iv. 25. 27, 28. 31) : not from
the words, “I hope to come to you, and speak mouth to
mouth;” for so Paul did to the church of Jerusalem, when
he declared to them what things God had wrought by him
and Barnabas (Acts xv. 4): and so might John do to that,
or any other church. It seems rather, from the words, “I
have many things to write to you,” and from “the children
of the elect sister,” mentioned ver. 12, 13, that it should be
some Christian church : and then I think there is great rea-
son to conjecture it must not be that of Ephesus, but some
Jewish church, and most probably that of Jerusalem, the
mother of all churches. For, -
The word “elder,” being a
and of the west, concerning the true author of this epistle,
that it was John, the apostle and disciple of our Lord; which
sure must be proof sufficient against a bare doubt, or the si-
lence of some men about this matter, of which Origen” .
speaks. The other arguments of Grotius are so fully an-
swered by Dr. Hammond, in his preface to this epistle, that
it is superfluous to say anything upon that subject.
As for the name “catholic,” that also seems to be given
to this and the following epistle; not as being written to all
in general, some of the ancients conceiving this was written
only to one family, as was the other to one person, but, as
Cotelerius'ſ notes, because they were admitted by many
churches, and read as catholic epistles.
* Concedamus et secundam et tertiam, #wei oë w8wre; qa-
ai y/notiovº filva, raûraç. Orig. apud Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. vi.
cap. 25, p. 227. *
+ Not. in Epist. Barnab. p. 6
g
* * * *
from the beginning (of the gospel), that we love one
another (see note on 1 John ii. 7).
6 And this is love, that we walk after his command-
ment (v. 3): and this is the commandment, That, as
ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in
it (ii. 24, i. e. We should continue walking according to
the truth of the gospel, which it concerns us now espe-
cially to be careful of).
7 For many deceivers are gone out into the world,
who confess not that Jesus Christ "is come in the
flesh (or Jesus Christ coming in the flesh). This is a
deceiver and an antichrist (see note on ii. 18. 22. iv.
1–3). -
8 Look to yourselves, that we lose not the things
1. All the other epistles, excepting that one to Gaius,
which pass under the name of “catholic,” were written to
the Jews, and so this probably must be so.
2. As other churches are styled avvæxxexºrai, “elected to-
gether with her,” 1 Pet. v. 13, so is the church of the Jews
styled throughout the Old Testament “the elect;” and the
converts of them in the New, “the elect,” Matt. xxiv. 22,
and “the election,” Rom. xi. 5. 7.
3. The phrase, “The word that ye have heard, the truth
you have received, &m' 3px?ic, from the beginning,” seems
most properly to agree to them, to whom it was necessary
that the word of God should be first preached (Acts xiii.
'41).
- ł This church being that church from which the word
came out to all other churches, who all received of her spi-
ritual things, she may on that account, by the apostle of the
circumcision, be well styled kveta, as being the lady and
mother of all other churches: and so we find that anciently,
both she and her bishops were at first preferred before other
bishops and churches; whence the emperor Justinus,” in
his epistle to pope Hormisda, saith that “all churches fa-
vour the church of Jerusalem, as being the mother of all
churches.” But yet, if this epistle was written after the
destruction of Jerusalem, this interpretation cannot stand.
* Ver. 2. Eig röy atóva, For ever.] This seems to assert
the perpetuity and indefectibility of the church of God; for
where the truth of the gospel is for ever, there must be a
church for ever. -
* Ver. 4. 'Ew &Anógla, In the truth.] i.e. In the doctrine of
Christ, as the Father hath commanded, saying, “This is my
beloved Son, hear him” (Matt. xvii. 5). .
* Ver. 7. "Eexápasyov šw capki, Coming in the flesh.] It ap-
pears from the epistle of Ignatius to the church of Smyrna,
that there were then heretics, or rather infidels,' who denied
* Ad ecclesiam Hierosolymitanam praecipué omnes favo-
rem impendunt, quasi matri Christiani nominis. Wide Cote-
ler. Not. in lib. ii. Recogn. p. 338, 339.
+ Oix &rree &mirrot rive; Aéyoval rô Boxety airey weafoyßéval,
§ 2. Mº tºokoyāy airy gagwoºpépov. §. 5. Wide §. 4, 7.
III. JOHN.
1003
amat we have wrought, but that we may receive "a full
reward.
9 Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the
doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that "abideth |
in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and
the Son.
10 If there come any one unto you, and bring not
this doctrine, receive him not into your house, néither
bid him God speed (i.e. have no familiarity with him,
and wish him no success in his enterprises) :
11 For he that biddeth him "God speed is partaker
that Jesus Christ had taken upon him true flesh, saying, he
only had the appearance of it, and suffered only in appear-
ance: and these are thought to be the followers of Simon
Magus, who, taking upon him to be Christ, said that he*
“appeared in Judea as a man, not being so, and seemed to
suffer, when he did not so.” Saturninus, one of his fol-
lowers, taught that “Christ only appeared as a man, and
Suffered in appearance only.” But the apostle could not
here put in this caution against him, because he was not yet
in being when this epistle was indited. According to the
other rendering of the words, “Denying Jesus Christ, who
is come in the flesh,” they will signify the same as denying
him to be the Messiah, and so respect the unbelieving Jews,
and be designed to establish them to whom he wrote against
that apostasy which was then among the Jewish converts.
* Ver. 8. Maščy rañpn, That we lose not a full re-
ward.] Hence it follows, that it is not only lawful, but is
the duty of a Christian, to serve God, with respect to the
recompence of reward. (2.) That they who once “walked
in the truth, as they had received a commandment” (ver. 4),
* Kał pavāyat #y 'Iověaig &c &v6pwrov, paſſ 3rra &v%atroy, wal
Traśīv, #xiata we'roySára. Theod. Haer. Fab. lib. i. cap. 1.
+ Putative visum hominum. Iren, lib. i. cap. 22. 'Evazā-
*art &ySpºrov šanxvšíval kai i864 (wóvn, rà rāyra & #y ré 3oxeſ,
"retroinkéval. Epiph. Haer. xxxii. §. 1.
of his evil deeds (as showing friendship to him that
does them, and wishing well to them ; for by this he
shows he is willing he should succeed in them).
12 Having many things to write unto you, I would
not write (them) with paper and ink (as I do this epis-
tle); but I trust (#Atriča, yap for I hope, say some
copies,) to come unto you, and speak face to face, that
your joy may be full.
13 The children of thy elect sister greet thee. Amen.
(See note on ver. 1.) -
had Christian charity (ver. 5), even that love which enabled
them to walk according to God's commandment (ver. 6),
might “lose those things which they had wrought.”
7 Ver. 9. "O ºvov #v rñ 8,323.j, He that abideth in the
doctrine of Christ.] These words being in sense the same
with those we find 1 John ii. 22–24, seem to show that
“the doctrine of Christ” here mentioned is this fundamental
doctrine, that “Jesus is the Christ :” and then the “not
abiding in it” must be the apostatizing from it to Judaism;
which Paul and the apostles of the circumcision so much
laboured to prevent.
* Ver, 11. Xaigely airs wh Aéyers, Bid him not God speed.]
This precept seems to be taken from the Jews, who were
forbid to say "nvn, “God speed,” to a man that was excom-
municated, or was doing any evil action. Hence it is for-
bidden by their canons”, to say “God speed” to a man that
is ploughing on the sabbath-day. They also are forbid to
come within four cubits of a heretic, or of a person excom-
municated; and much more to admit him into their houses.
But yet this doth not forbid us to show humanity towards
a distressed heretic (seeing he ceaseth not to be of the num-
ber of those whom we should pity and pray for); but only
is a prohibition from doing anything which imports a con-
Sent to, or approbation of, his evil actions.
* Light. Harm. p. 153.
THE THIRD
EPISTLE GENERAL OF ST. JOHN,
WITH ANNOTATIONS.
P. R. E. F. A. C. E.
THAT this epistle was written by the author of the First
and Second, and therefore by John the apostle, appears by
the agreement of them in words and phrases. For,
First, “The elder,” ver, l; “I rejoiced greatly, that thou
walkest in the truth,” ver. 3; “He that doeth good is of
God; he that doeth evil hath not seen God;” are the usual
phrases of the First and Second Epistles.
Secondly, Those words, “I have no greater joy than to
hear that my children walk in the truth,” are in sense the
same with the fourth verse of the Second Epistle. The
thirteenth and fourteenth verses are in words the same with
the twelfth verse of that epistle.
Thirdly, Those words, ver. 12, “And we bear witness,
and ye know that our witness is true,” do characterize this
apostle: for as they are words of confirmation, importing
an apostolical authority, so are they twice used by this
apostle, John xix. 35. xxi. 24, and by him only.
1 THE elder to the beloved ‘Gaius, whom I love in
the truth (i. e. with sincerity). -
2 Beloved, I wish above all (things) that thou may-
est prosper, and be in health (trºpi trävrov, in all things
ANNOTATIONS.
* Ver. 1. Gaius.] This Gaius, who is here commended
for his charity to, and entertainment of, both the brethren
and strangers (ver. 5), and especially of those who went out
from the church of Jerusalem to preach the gospel among
the gentiles, and who had given “testimony of his love be-
fore the church,” seems to be Gaius of Corinth, styled by
Paul, “Gaius, my host, and of the whole church,” Rom.
xvi. 23; where there is intimation of his charity to the bre-
thren and to himself, given by Paul to those at Rome; and
so a testimony of it from one of them who “went out to
preach the gospel among the gentiles, taking nothing of
them.” And indeed Paul and Barnabas went out upon this
1004
III. JOHN.
temporal), even as thy soul prospereth (in all things
spiritual).
3 For I rejoiced greatly when the brethren, came
rout of Judea) and testified of the truth of the gospel
that is in thee, even as thou walkest in the truth (con-
firming their testimony by thy conversation).
4 I have no greater joy, “than to hear that my chil-
dren walk in (the) truth.
5 Beloved, thou doest faithfully (as becomes a faith-
ful Christian) whatsoever thou doest to the brethren,
and to strangers (whom thou receivest into thy house,
Rom. xvi. 23).
6 Who have borne witness of thy charity before the
church : *whom if thou bring forward on their jour-
ney after a godly sort (i. e. with such charity and care,
as become one who considers that he performs these
things, not to men only, but to God and Christ, whose
ministers they are), thou shalt do well.
7 Because that “for his name’s sake, they went
forth (to preach the gospel, Acts xv. 26), taking no-
thing of the gentiles (to whom they preached the gos-
pel without charge, l Cor. ix. 18).
8 We therefore ought to receive such, that we
(Christians who do not preach it) might (yet) be fellow-
helpers to the truth (by helping them that do so).
9 * I wrote to the church: but Diotrephes, who
speak face to face.
loveth to have the pre-eminence among them, receiv-
eth us not.
10 Wherefore, if I come, "I will remember his
deeds which he doeth, prating against us (me and the
other apostles, who thought not fit to lay the burden of
circumcision on the believing gentiles, J with malicious
words: and not content therewith, neither doth he
himself receive the brethren, and (but) forbiddeth
them that would, and casteth them out of the church
(as the Jews did the uncircumcised out of their society:
see note on James ii. 12).
ll Beloved, follow not that which is evil (after the
example of Diotrephes), but that which is good (as
Demetrius doth : for) he that doth evil hath not seen
God (1 John iii. 6. 10).
12 Demetrius hath (a) good report of all men, and
of the truth itself; yea, and we also bear record (of
him); and ye know that our record is true (John xix.
35. xxi. 14). -
13 I had many things (which it would be profitable)
: write, but I will not with ink and pen write unto
thee : - -
14 But I trust I shall shortly see thee, and we shall
Peace be to thee. Our friends
salute thee. Greet the friends by name.
errand, first from Antioch, by the direction of the Spirit
(Acts xiii. 4), then from Jerusalem, being sent by that church
to Antioch (Acts xv. 30); and they went out, ité, évézaro,
airoij, “for the name of Christ” (ver. 26), “taking nothing
of the gentiles” (1 Cor. ix. 5, 6). So did also Titus and
Timothy, and all that were sent by Paul to Achaia (2 Cor.
xii. 17, 18): so did they at Thessalonica (1 Thess. ii. 9);
and so did none of the rest of the apostles, or brethren of
the Lord (1 Cor. ix. 5, 6): so that we have no ground from
scripture to refer this to any other. And whereas it is said
that Gaius of Corinth was the convert of Paul, 1 Cor. i. 14;
whereas this Gaius is here styled one of John's children, and
so must be supposed to have been the convert of John : to
this it may be answered, that John calls all to whom he
writes his “children,” 1 John ii. 1. 12. 18, 28. iii. 7. 18. v.
21, and so the word “children” signifies with him no more
than the words “Christian brethren;” and the “elders” and
“fathers” being oft of the same import, he styling himself
an “elder,” may well call them he writes to, “children.”
* Wer. 4. “Iva &xoão, Than to hear.] This construction of
the conjunction iva, saith Betuleius, is sufficient to show that
this is the epistle of John, it being almost peculiar to him to
use this conjunction for 3rs, or §ray, or ; Va' as, John xv. 8,
“In this is my Father glorified, iva, when you bring forth
much fruit:” and ver, 13, “Greater love than this hath no
man, i.e. va, than that a man lay down his life for the bre-
thren,” xvi. 2; “The time will come, ſºa, when they will put
you out of the synagogues:” and, ver. 32, “The hour co-
º when you shall be scattered” (see note on 1 John
1W. 1 ſ ). \
* Ver. 6. Oñº ºrgorépz-La: čío, roi, Geof, Whom if you
bring forward, as is worthy of God..] i. e. As it is fit to
receive the ministers of God: so to receive Phebe, 3%ioç rºw
&yiwy, is to receive her “as becometh Christians” to receive
the Saints (Rom. xvi. 2). The word ºrgotrip, pas is the word
still used concerning them who are to be sent forward in
preaching the gospel, or in their travels concerning the affairs
of the church (see Acts xv. 3. xx. 38. xxi. 5. Rom. xv. 24.
1 Cor. xvi. 6. 11. 2 Cor. i. 16. Tit. iii. 13). -
* Ver. 7. “rmèn yù; #yáparo; aircü ##x009, For his name's
sake they went forth.] That is, saith one, “they were ex-
pelled, or cast out;” referring this to the Christians, who, by
the persecution of the unbelieving Jews, were driven from
Jerusalem (Acts viii. 1). But, first, the word £5ASov,
“they went forth,” is only used in the forcible sense, when
mention is made of devils going forth from those they pos-
Bessed at Christ's command, and never of any Christians
expelled from any place for the profession of Christianity.
Secondly, The apostle speaks manifestly here of those who
went out as the apostles and ministers of Christ to preach to
the gentiles; whereas they of the dispersion, mentioned Acts
viii. 1, went out to avoid persecutions, and preached to the
Jews only, not thinking it lawful to converse with, or preach
to, the gentiles (Acts. xi. 19).
* Ver, 9. "Eyea-la, I wrote.] “I had written,” so the
Vulgar: “I would have writ,” so the Syriac: the Hebrews
often use the praeteritum for the plusquam-perfectum : and
Wossius observes of the aorist, that it is so called because it
is used sometimes for the perfect, sometimes for the preter-
perfect tense ; and then Éyea-la may be rendered “I had
written” (see examples of this nature, note on 1 Cor. v. 9).
The apostle then seems here to obviate an objection, why
he writes to Gaius, a single person, and not to the whole
church; declaring that he would have writ to the church, but
then Diotrephes and his party would have hindered the effect
of his writing. Now who this Diotrephes was is wholly un-
certain : I see no ground for the conjecture of Grotius, that
he was a gentile convert, who would not admit those Jews
who, professing Christianity, still observed the rites of the
law, into the Christian assemblies. Esthius, on the con-
trary, conjectures, that he was one of those Jewish zealots,
who held it necessary that even the gentile converts should
be circumcised and observe the law, and rejected those who
had declared for the contrary, as we know from Paul, and
the council at Jerusalem, John had done : and that there
were men in Corinth and Galatia, who upon this account
opposed the apostles, we learn from those epistles; but read
not of any gentile converts who would not receive the weak
Jews, or be hospitable to them, on the account of their ob-
servance of the law, much less of any of them who opposed
themselves to the apostles on this account. Moreover, the
subject of the apostle's writing being to exhort Christians to
receive them who had gone out to preach the gospel among
the gentiles, “taking nothing” of them; and all that did so,
as far as we know anything of them, being against these im-
positions, the apostle could not fear they should not be
received, because observers of the law; but, on the contrary,
because they were “dead to the law.” w
* Wer. 10. "Yoropayhaw, I will remember his works.] Pri-
vate offences against ourselves must be forgiven and forgot-
ten; but when the offence, etc rºy triarriviparółow pipei, is an
impediment to the faith, and very prejudicial to the church,
it is to be opposed, and openly reproved.
1005
TII.E.
GENERAL EPISTLE OF ST. JUDE,
- witH ANNOTATIONs.
P. R. E. F. A. C. E.
HAVING proved, note on ver. 1, that Jude the apostle was
the author of this epistle, I have nothing more to add, by
way of preface to it, but the words of the learned Dr. Light-
foot, which are these :
“As the Second Epistle of St. Peter and this of Jude are
very near akin in style, matter, and subject, so it is fairly
conjecturable that they were not far removed in time, speak-
ing both of wicked ones, and wickedness, at the same height
and ripeness. It may be Jude stands up in the charge of
his brother James among the circumcision of Judea, and
directs his epistle to all those who were “sanctified and pre-
served’ in those apostatizing times, as his brother had done
to all the twelve tribes in general.
“In citing the story of Michael the archangel contending
with the devil about the body of Moses, wer. 9, he doth but
the same that St. Paul doth, in naming Jannes and Jam-
bres, 2 Tim. iii. 8, namely, allege a story which was current
and owned among that nation, though there was no such
thing in Scripture; and so he argueth with them from their
own authors and concessions: for among the Talmudists
there seems to be something like the relics of such a matter;
viz. of Michael and the angel of death disputing or discours-
ing about fetching away the soul of Moses.
“His alleging the prophecy of Enoch is an arguing of the
very like nature, as reciting and referring to some known and
common tradition that they had among them. To this pur-
pose, the book Sepher Jesher, a Hebrew writer, speaketh of
Enoch after such a tenor ; and in both these he useth their
own testimonies against themselves, as if he should have said
at large, These men speak evil of dignities; whereas they
have, and own a story for current, that even Michael the
archangel did not speak evil of the devil, when he was striv-
ing with him about the body of Moses; and whereas they
show and own a prophecy of Enoch, of God coming to judg-
ment, these are the very men to whom this matter is to be
applied.” Which words give a sufficient answer to the only
objection made against the authority of this book; viz. that
it cites apocryphal writings.
1 JUDE, the servant of Jesus Christ, and "brother
of James, to them that are sanctified by God the
Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called (Gr.
to the called, who have been sanctified by God the
Father, and preserved in (the faith of) Jesus Christ):
2 Mercy unto you, and peace, and love be mul-
tiplied. -
3 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write
ANNOTATIONS.
* Wer. 1. 'A&Exp3; 'Iax320U, The brother of James.] This
characteristic is sufficient to assure us, this epistle can belong
only to Jude the apostle (distinguished from Judas Iscariot
by this title, that he was “Judas the brother of James,”
Luke vi. 16), and to confirm the title given to this epistle by
the ancients, “The General Epistle of Jude the apostle:”
this being a plain demonstration of the point, Grotius will
have these words, “the brother of James,” to be an addi-
tion of some transcriber ; but this being said without any
proof, lays the whole scripture uncertain, since every man
may say, if that will be sufficient without proof, that what
he dislikes is the addition of Some transcriber. Tertullianº
is positive that Enoch, apud Judam apostolum testimonium
possidet, “hath the testimony of Jude the apostle to con-
firm his prophecy;” and among the apostles of Christ,
Origent reckons Peter, the writer of two epistles, and
James and Jude. That in this epistle he doth not
style himself an apostle, can be no argument to conclude
he was not an apostle; since the same argument will
prove, that James and John, and even Paul, were no
apostles.
* Ver, 3. Tº #wać magałośsion ºrie rst, The faith once de-
livered to the saints.] Here, Saith Esthius, the apostle in-
* De Hab. Mul. lib. i. cap. 13.
+ Hom. vii. in Josh, f. 156.
unto you of the common salvation, it was needful
for me (Gr. I thought it necessary) to write unto
you, and exhort you, that you should earnestly con-
tend for * the faith which was once delivered to the
Saints.
4 For there are certain men crept in unawares (Gr.
for certain men have entered, viz. into the church), who
were of old * ordained to this condemnation, ungodly
sinuates that which the fathers teach ; viz. that nothing can
be added to the faith, because it was delivered all at once
as a depositum, so to be kept that nothing ought to be added
to it, or taken from it. Whence it is evident to a demon-
stration, that the new articles added by the Trent council
to the Apostles' Creed, can be no articles of the Christian
faith, as being not delivered by Christ, or his apostles, to the
world, nor known to the Christians for many ages after their
decease.
* Ver. 4. TIgoyeygapºyo sic roºro tº kgf/ca, Before or-
dained to this condemnation.] Gr. “Of whom it was before
written, that this should be their condemnation:” for, that
this cannot be meant of any divine ordination, or appoint-
ment of them to eternal condemnation, is evident, first, be-
cause it cannot be thought, without horror, that God doth
thus ordain men to perdition before they had any being.
Secondly, the word ºpiºca here relates not unto sin, but
punishment, the fruit of sin: so, Mark xii. 40, “They shall
receive, regiacárstoy ºftwa, greater punishment;” “Thinkest
thou this, O man, that thou shalt avoid, rö Kºſºa tº 9:09,
the judgment (or punishment) of God?” . Now God or-
daineth none to punishment but sinners and ungodly men,
as these persons here are styled. And, thirdly, these were
men of whom it was before written, or prophesied, that they
should be condemned for their wickedness: for, wer. 14,
“Enoch recephreve's prophesied before to (or of) these men,
saying, That God would come roño'ai ºff-w, to do judgment
upon all, and to reprove all the ungodly among them ;" and
1006
JUDE.
men, “turning the grace of God into lasciviousness,
and denying the only * Lord God, and our Lord Jesus
Christ. -
5 I will therefore put you in remembrance, thoug
you once "knew this, how that the Lord having
saved the people (of Israel, of whom you are a part)
out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed "them
that believed not.
6 And the angels "which kept not their first estate,
in the parallel place of Peter (2 Pet. ii. 3), their punish-
ment is styled rú wéſºza #xtraxai, “the punishment long ago
denounced” against them ; viz. that they should be “re-
served unto the day of judgment to be punished” (ver. 9),
that they should “perish in their corruption” (ver. 12),
they being the men to whom “the blackness of darkness
was reserved for ever” (ver. 13). And this is the very thing
that both Peter, from ver. 4 to 13, and Jude, from this verse
to ver. 16, set themselves to prove: and this also is the import
of the word ºrgosygá$n, Rom. xv. 4, §ara Trposypépn, “Whatso-
ever things were before written, were written for our instruc-
tion;” and Gal. iii. 1 (see the note there). “He speaks this
of them,” saith CEcumenius,” “because Peter and Paul had
before spoken of them, that in the last time there should
come such deceivers ; and before them Christ himself, say-
ing, Many shall come in my name, and deceive many.”
And against this interpretation of CEcumenius and Dr.
Hammond, there lies only this objection, that the judgment
mentioned by Christ find his apostles, not long before, can-
not so properly be called ketºa rā Āzaraxai, “the judgment
long ago denounced ;” nor could these ungodly men be
styled oi TráMai Trgoysygapºpºvot, “the men prophesied of old,”
on that account, so well as if this be referred to the pro-
phecy of Enoch, Jude 14, or to the words spoken before by
the holy prophets, 2 Pet. iii. 2. For Éxiraxai and Tráxat
joined with ºrpoysygapºzávo, ibid., seem plainly to import
Some ancient time in which this judgment was denounced
against these ungodly men.
* Mstartóżytec, Turning the grace of God into lascivious-
mess.] This agrees exactly with the lewd doctrines of the
Nicolaitans, mentioned note on 2 Pet. ii., and as exactly
' with the doctrine of Simon Magus, that “they who believed
in him and his Helena might freely do what they listed,
secundum enim ipsius gratiam Salvari, sed non secundim
operas justas, men being to be saved by his grace, and not
by works” (Iren. lib. i. cap. 29. Theodoret. Haer. Fab, lib.
i. cap. 1). ---
* Kai rāv (wévoy Bearárny Qey, wai Kūptov hºw 'Indoſy Xplorady
&evočwevoi..] These words may be thus rendered, “And deny-
ing Jesus Christ our only master, God and Lord.” And
that they ought to be thus rendered, is argued, (1.) because
one article only is put before all these words, 3Earórnº, Os3;,
Kęptor, which shows they all belong to the same person. (2.)
Because the person who is here 85a trárn; ©sèc, the only
“master, God,” is by Peter, 2 Pet. ii. 1, styled rôy
&yopázavra airroës Asaºrárnv, “the Lord that bought them:”
now it is Christ who bought us with the price of his own
blood. To the first of these arguments Grotius and Wolt-
zogenius answer, That it is common in scripture to affix one
and the same article to divers persons, and in particular to
God the Father, and to Christ : as, v. g. “No fornicator, or
unclean person, shall have any inheritance in the kingdom,
aroſ, Xeta toû kai Osotſ, of Christ and of God,” Eph. v. 5; “I
charge thee, Évºrity roi; Osoſ, zai Kvetov’Incoſ xploroú, before
God and the Lord Jesus Christ,” 1 Tim. v. 21, which,
2 Tim. iv. 1, is rod Osoſ; Kai roi, Kugiov' and 2 Pet. i. 2, “In
the knowledge, rod Osoſ; xał Inzoſ, Kveiou hºw&v, of God, and
our Lord Jesus Christ” (see 1 Tim. vi. 13). To the second
argument it may be answered, That in scripture, not only
Christ, but the Father, is said to have bought and purchased
us, Act. xx. 28. 1 Cor. vi. 20, and that he is the person in-
tended by Peter, see the note there. And seeing the word
3Formárnº is never elsewhere ascribed to Christ, I think our
* IIpoysygazprévov; airoi; Aéyet, 3rt xał IIárpo: wa. IIaïao,
weet airãy signkav, 3rt #y Harxároic kalºof; Asāorov'ral ºrxāvol
ºratoirot, kai ared rotºrov ofro, 3 Xplorëz, páczov, Troxxol
#xstarovrat #7; rā āyāpaart #46, Kai woMAzū; 7xayhoroval.
4 qºzºal #3:3a£ay.
but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in ever-
lasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of
the great day. -
7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities
about them in like manner, giving themselves over to
"fornication, and going after strange (Gr. other) flesh,
are "set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance
of eternal fire. -
8 Likewise also "these filthy dreamers defile the
version, wis: en puts the comma after God, is without just
exception. Note also, that Simon Magus denied both
the God of Israel and Jesus Christ, declaring, that he
himself was that” “infinite Power, which appeared to the
Samaritans as the Father, and to the Jews as the Son of
God ;” and so he and his followers denied both the Father
and the Son. - -
* Ver. 5. Ełłóra, tº 3¢ &raž rotºro.] The Jews knowing
the destruction which God brought upon the unbelieving
Jews in the wilderness, as well when Jude writ, as before,
it seemeth not so proper to say to them, “You knew this
once,” as to say, “You knew it before,” which seems to be
the import of the word & traš, wer. 3, and in those words of
Samson, Judg. xvi. 21, #exeſcopal &; &ma£, “I will go forth
as before,” and, xx. 31, “The Benjamites began to Smite
them, &; #maž Kai &raž, saying, They flee before us, &c rô
Tréâroy, as before.” Or, secondly, it may be rendered fully,
plainly, or certainly, for to #7ać, saith Phavorinus, is put
Gyrº roi, Hyroc, 888atoº, “for verily and firmly ;” and Suidas
saith it is used &yºri toº 3.6×ov &Modºxsgåc, “for entirely and
fully,” and so it answers to the Hebrew nrix, or Trix, which
signifies truly, or certainly, and is rendered by the Septua-
gint, &taff.
7 Točg º Trio reſa ayrac, Them that believed not ;] i. e.
Saith Grotius, “Those that obeyed not, for such show they
believed not at all, or not aright.” But this note is need-
less here ; for the scripture expressly saith, they perished
in the wilderness, “because they believed not in God, but
tempted,” i. e. distrusted, “ him, ten times,” Numb. xiv. 22.
Ps, cvi. 24, and Paul, “We see then they could not enter
in because of unbelief,” Heb. iii. 18, 19. Heb. iv. 2.
8 Wer. 6. Mâ rugha-ayya; thy Havròy 3px?y, Not keeping their
original estate, 3AA& 3roximávra, rö tätoy oixnrhetov, but leaving
their proper habitation.] That which we are to enjoy for ever,
is in the style of scripture called, rö tätov, “our own,” that
which is proper to us; that which we are to leave to others,
r; 3xxârguy, as in those words, “If you have been unfaithful
in that which is another man's, who will give you that which
is your own P” (Luke xvi. 12.) . These angels being there-
fore primarily designed to live for ever in the highest hea-
vens, the regions of light and bliss, they are here styled
“their proper habitation” (see note on 2 Pet. ii. 4).
9 Wer. 7. Tiy Sºcotov roſtoic rpátroy #xtrepvedaaaat, Fornicating
then, and going after the flesh in like manner, As these do
now. Of both these crimes the Nicolaitans were notoriously
guilty: for, first, they held that matrimony was a mere hu-
man institution, that obliged no man's conscience; and so did
indiscreté vivere, “live without making any difference” be-
twixt one woman and another. And, Secondly, they prac-
tised unnatural lusts, and Sodomitical copulations, as may
be proved from the testimonies of Irenaeus, Clement of
Alexandria, the Constitutions of the Apostles, Epiphanius,
and others.
19 neéxeyrai Seiyaa, ºrvº, aioviou?ikºv brēxova'ai, Are set
forth for an ea'ample, suffering the vengeance of eternal
jire.] That this is spoken not of the cities themselves, but
of the inhabitants which dwelt in them, i.e. of them, who
had “given themselves over to fornication, and gone after
flesh,” is evident; but yet I conceive they are said to “suffer
the vengeance of eternal fire,” not because their souls are at
* Justin M. Apol. ii. p. 69. Iren, lib. i. cap. 20. The-
odoret. Haer. Fab. lib. i. cap. 1.
+ Docuerunt àvatºmy #xwoºveſity wai ragaxgåo'0ai rā cagº.
Const. Apost. lib. vi. cap. 10, p. 237. Extroºvičova w śvaiºn,
of rºy afterw airrot, astiávrac. Stroma. p. 436, vide reliqua.
'Ew anoxvuićia yuraizāv Kai #y aiazgowoſzic dynxéa tot; āyaargé-
Epiph. Haer. xxv. S. 1, 2.
JUDE.
1007
flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of digni-
ties.
9 Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with
the devil, (he disputed “about the body of Moses,)
durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but
said, The Lord rebuke thee.
present punished in hell-fire, but because they and their
cities perished by that fire from heaven, which brought a
perpetual and irreparable destruction on them and their
cities: for, first, we have proved, note on 2 Pet. ii. 6. iii. 7,
that even the devils themselves are not tormented at present
in that infernal fire, but only will be cast into it at the day
of judgment ; and therefore neither do the wicked Sodom-
ites yet suffer in those flames. Secondly, I would admonish
you, Saith the apostle, though you once knew this, that
Sodom and Gomorrah thus suffered the vengeance of eternal
fire. Now from the history of Genesis, and the writings of
the prophets, they might know that these cities, and the in-
habitants of them, were overthrown, sic atºva, “with a per-
petual desolation” (Zeph. ii. 9); but they could not know
from thence that their souls were afterward cast into hell-
fire. Thirdly, rô 8sſypºa, “an example,” is to be taken
from something visible to, or knowable by, all who were to
be terrified by it, especially when it is 8sſypºa ºrgozsiaevoy,
“an example manifested,” and proposed : now such was
not the punishment of their souls in hell-fire, but nothing
was more known and celebrated among authors, sacred and
profane, Jewish, Christian, and heathen writers, than ré rip
xaragáciow Tri TIsvraºréaeoc, “the fire that fell down upon
Pentapolis,” or the five cities of Sodom, they being mentioned
still in scripture as “the cities which God overthrew with a
perpetual desolation ;” in the apocryphal writings, “the
waste land that yet smoketh, and the plants bearing fruit
that never come to ripeness,” being, saith the book of Wis-
dom, ºxaprágtov rāq Troyngiaç, “a testimony of their wicked-
ness” (Wisd. x. 7), and of the divine vengeance on them for
it. The author of the history of the Maccabees saith, that
“God destroying them by fire and brimstone” (Macc. iii. 2.
5), Tragá88typca roſ; Émiyivowāvol; zaréarnasy, “left them an
example to the ages to come.” Philo Saith,” that “the cin-
ders, brimstone, and smoke, and the obscure flame as it
were of a fire burning, yet appearing about Syria, are memo-
rials of the perpetual evils which happened to them.” Jose-
phus adds, F that the things which are said of Sodom, ixel
Triotiv 3rd rā, ś-lea”, “are confirmed by ocular inspection,
there being yet visible some relics of the fire coming down
from heaven, and the shadows of the five cities.” This re-
gion, say Clemens Romanus, and other Christian writers,
“being condemned by fire and brimstone, made it apparent
that God reserves the wicked for punishment and stripes.”
Even heathen writersš do confess that it was traditionally
received, “ that formerly there were fruitful fields, and large
cities, which were afterward consumed by thunder and
lightning.” And, fourthly, this sense may be farther con-
firmed from the parallel place of Peter, who saith that God,
reducing the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes, con-
demned the inhabitants of them by that overthrow, pro-
posing them for an example of his vindictive justice upon
them who afterward should live ungodly : where plainly the
répéook, the reduction of those cities with their inhabitants
into ashes, or the burning them by fire and brimstone falling
down from heaven, is mentioned as the thing which placed
them as an example of God's vengeance on the ungodly to
all future ages ; nor could anything be a more fit example of
it: for since Peter hath informed us, that “the heavens and
the earth that now are, are reserved to fire against the day
* Kat ºxp; rot; vily ºwnºsſa roš avººsénzáros &Aéx'rov ráSov:
**wura, katē 2vºia geiria, &c. lib. ii. de Vita Mos. p.
512, D.
t "Eart yºv #7, Agislava rot; 08:00 ºrvgög, Kai rāyrs ºfty aréxsoy
ièsſy axiás. De Bell. Jud. lib. v. cap. 27.
it II:63m?cy——3rt row; # regon Aveſ; eiç káxazy ka? aixiaºy
Tišnet, Epist. i. S. 11. Just. M. Apol. ii. p. 88. Tertul.
Apol. cap. 40. Chrysost. in Ep. l ad Thessal. hom. 8.
MapTw:#aaré fºot tºsí; oi row: révov; Hapaxárez, &c.
$ Haud procul inde campi, quos ferunt olim uberes, ful-
minum ictſ arsisse ; posted igne coelesti flagrasse. Tac.
Hist. 5, p. 618. De coelo tactum testatur humus nigra et
in cinerem soluta, Solin. cap. 6. Wid. Strab. lib. xvi. p.
764. Diod. Sicul, lib. xix. p. 724.
of judgment, and destruction of nngodly men, when the
earth and the works that are therein shall be burnt up,”
what could be a more exact emblem of that day, “when
God will come in flaming fire to take vengeance on the
wicked,” and leave them burning with the earth for ever,
than was this burning of the cities and the inhabitants of
Sodom, by fire and brimstone falling down from heaven P
Nor is there anything more common and familiar in scrip-
ture, than to represent a thorough and irreparable vastation,
whose effects and signs should be still remaining, by the
word aidºvioc, which we here render “eternal :” “I will set
thee, Big Egmºoy aid viov, in places desolate of old,” Ezek. xxvi.
20: “I will destroy thee, and thou shalt be no more, sic
rºw aiºva, for ever,” ver, 21 ; “I will make thee ignatay
aid viov, a perpetual desolation, and thy cities shall be built
no more,” xxxv. 9 (see also Ezek. xxxvi. 2. Isa. lviii. 12);
“They have caused them to stumble in their ways, to make
their land desolate, and a tºtypca ałęviov, a perpetual hiss-
ing,” Jer. xviii. 15, 16 ; “I will bring you, ävsišiak, by aidºvoy,
an everlasting reproach and a perpetual shame, which shall
not be forgotten,” Jer. xxiii. 40. xxv. 9; “I will make the
land of the Chaldeans a perpetual desolation, Sharopaat a brow;
sic 3.4 aviaºy aid vow, they shall sleep, Úrvoy aidylov, a perpetual
sleep,” Jer. li. 39. And this especially is threatened, where
the destruction of a nation or people is likened to the over-
throw of Sodom and Gomorrah ; thus, “Babylon shall be
as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah ; ci żarown-
6%astal si; rôy ałówcz Xgåvoy, it shall never be inhabited,” Isa.
xiii. 19, 20, and again, Jer. l. 40. The like is said of Edom,
Jer. xlix. 17, 18, and of Moab, “Surely Moab shall be as
Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Gomorrah, hºpayigºyn
eiç row aiºva, a perpetual desolation,” Zeph. ii. 9.
Ver. 7, 8.] The grammatical exposition of these words
seems to be thus: Even as, &; zai, and as Sodom and Go-
morrah, and the other cities who were like to them in forni-
cation and unnatural lusts, were exemplarily punished ;
&oiw; ºv'rol zai of cūrot invirvia&ºevot, so likewise do these
filthy dreamers act, defiling the flesh as they did : and as the
men of Sodom contemned the good angels, which came to
Lot's house, and spake evil of them ; so do these men con-
temn and blaspheme the good angels, who are styled 36%at
wai xuétárntec, Eph. i. 21. Col. i. 16, and therefore shall also
perish as they did (ver, 11).
* Oi #yomyiaćašvoi, These fillhy dreamers.] These dream-
ers of dreams, or vain imaginations: for I find not that the
word #vurviášo, bears any impure sense, as āysipºrro, some-
times doth. The apostle therefore seems to refer to the de-
lirious fancies of their filthy aeons, Prunice and Calacauth,
which gave the rise to all the filthiness the Nicolaitans com-
mitted, and after them the Gnostics and the Carpocratians
(see the note on 2 Pet. ii. 11). And therefore Clement of
Alexandria” saith of these Nicolaitans, and their successors
the Gnostics, and the Carpocratians, that Jude “speaks of
them in these words prophetically,” the Nicolaitans being
only then in being, and the Gnostics and Carpocratians suc-
ceeding them.
* Ver. 9. TIEgi roi, Moja šw; a dºg aroc, About the body of
Moses.] That the body of the Jews, and their service,
should be here called the body of Moses, and that these
words are to be referred to Zech. iii. 1, seems not very pro-
bable, seeing in that prophet there is no mention of Mi-
chael, or of the body, or the death of Moses: nor doth
Onias speak of the body of Moses, 2 Macc. xv. 12, but regi
Travrö; 'Iověaiwy ava rāgator, “of the whole Jewish nation.”
Moreover, that Moses was not buried by the Jews, we learn
from the scripture, which saith, “No man knoweth of his
sepulchre unto this day,” Deut. xxxiv. 6, and therefore
Philo Saith, he was buried xsta'iy ot, Syntai, 3xx' àSayároic
Buyáksaw, not by men, but angels: that there was an alterca-
tion betwixt Michael the archangel, and Sammael the prince
* 'Etri rotºrov claal zai rāv čºolow aipázsoy reopmtix&c
'100%ay #y rā tria-roxii signxivat, ‘Okolow; ºvros Kai otºroi iwania-
Čápwevoi. Strom. lib. iii. p. 425.
+ De Wità Mosis, lib. iii. p. 538, D,
1008
JUDE.
10 But these speak evil of “those things which
they know not : but what they know naturally, as
brute beasts, in those things they corrupt them-
selves.
11 Woe unto them 1 for they have gone **in the
way of Cain, and run greedily after of Balaam for re-
ward, and perished "'n the gainsaying of Core.
12 These are * spots in your "feasts of charity,
when they feast with you, feeding themselves without
fear (of intemperance, or eating things offered to
idols) : * clouds they are without water, carried about
of winds: *trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit,
twice dead, plucked up by the roots,
13 *Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their
own shame; * wandering stars, to whom is reserved
the blackness of darkness for ever.
14 And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, * pro-
phesied of (Gr. to) these sayings, Behold, the Lord
cometh *with ten thousand of his saints,
15 To execute judgment upon all, and to convince
all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodl
deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of
their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spo-
ken against him.
16 These are *murmurers, complainers, walking
after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh
*great swelling words, having men’s persons in ad-
miration * because of advantage.
of devils, about the body of Moses, we learn from the tradi-
tions of the Jews;" and it is most probable it was not only
that his sepulchre might be unknown, lest the Jews, who
were prone to idolatry, should worship him ; but about the
ascent of it into heaven, he being taken away as Enoch and
Elias were, and not dying the common death of all men
(which Satan contended he ought to do, 31& Töv to:
Aiyvirtſºv pivov, “for killing the Egyptian”), but disappear-
ing only. Hence the Jews say, Ascendit ad ministrandum
Excelso, that “he ascended to minister to the Lord.” And
Philo saith,; “God brought him tranaíoy Havroſ, near to him-
self, saying to him, Stand with me,” and that “by the Word
of God, ºcerayla'rarat, he was translated,” whence he was
present with Elias at the transfiguration of our Lord. But
see the note on Matt. xvii. 3.
* Ver, 10. The things they know not..] See note on 2 Pet.
ii. 12.
* Ver, 11. ‘Ey + 38; roi, Káiv, In the way of Cain..] Se-
ducing their brethren, as he did, to their destruction, ; kai
awsgºwcôayojvºre; Tôy 8wáºzei 388x40V &toxrïvvvciv, By : roſ,
carépºcaro; text Tºpogic, ºveyzey &y st; 3iov. CEcumenins.
After the error of Balaam.] See the note on 2 Pet. ii. 15.
** Tº &vrixoyia roš Křeč, And perished in the gainsaying
of Core.] i. e. Saith Grotius, shall certainly perish in it:
for as he, so they, being unworthy, usurp 318da'xaxixõy, the
dignity of teachers: being, saith Peter, Jevđoëlèáoza Aoi,
“false teachers” (2 Pet. ii. 1), pretending to be inspired
prophets, when indeed they are #yvºrytaçáºsyol, “dreamers” of
vain dreams: and to be apostles, when they are only false
apostles.
* Ver. 12. 2mA488c, Spots.] Xtrixa; Trérea ris, “The word
signifies a rock,” saith Phavorinus. They are hollow stones
or rocks in the Sea, against which ships split, say the Lexi-
cons ; a trixáēs; rot; ºrxéourly $xéSétot &mgoršox#twº inty.svá-
Kasyat, “rocks which are pernicious to navigators, who fall
upon them unawares ;” to which these persons are com-
pared, because àváxtric row waxy, “they bring an unexpected
mischief” upon them that feast with them.
*7 EV raï, &yá"rats, In their feasts of charity.] I see no
necessity of referring this to the Christians' love-feasts, cele-
brated after the holy sacrament. It is observed by Dr.
Lightfoot, note on 1 Cor. x. 16, that in the evening of the
sabbath the Jews had their xoivovia, or “communion,” when
the inhabitants of the same city met together in a common
place to eat together; and that they had near to their syna-
gogues their Žeyobéxia, or places where strangers were enter-
tained at the public charge, and where they had their
dormitory; these surely were more likely places for such
persons to come to, and play their pranks in, than the love-
feasts of the Christians.
* Nepāa śvv860ſ, Clouds without water, carried about with
the wind.] Such clouds, Saith CEcumenius, refresh no places
with their showers, for they have no water in them, but they
blacken and darken the places over which they hang : even
so these men distil the waters of life upon none, but
blacken them with their filthy practices, being moved to
them by the impulse of Satan, as these clouds are moved by
the winds.
* @Sivoropy&, Trees without fruit, twice dead..] i. e. Saith
CEcumenius, by casting their fruit and their leaves too,
* Wide lib. de Morte Mosis, p. 16], et seq.
+ (Ecum. in locum.
: De Sadr. Abel et Cain, p. 102, C.
which gave a beauty to them : and something like this,
saith he, happens to these men, who twice dic, casting off
their fruit, 31& rāg cºrsºoqayia;, and putting away the
beauty of a sober conversation ; whence they are rooted up
out of the garden of the church.
* Wer. 13. Kiſaara &ypta, Raging waves of the sea.] To
which, saith he, they are likened for the instability of their
life, Kai in rā; sū8taxárov aiazpärntoc' roaoûto, yā; 3 mp3; &
Tragetkāa śno av, & pe?, Tây zvºzároly.
* 'Arrége; ºrwayāta, Wandering stars..] The Jews, saith
Grotius, were wont to call them who took upon them to be
teachers, “stars ;'' so the apostle calls these false teachers
“wandering stars;” because they kept not their station, but
wandered from the truth, having no true light in them.
* Ver. 14. IIgosphºreuze, Prophesied.] From these words
we learn, that Enoch was a prophet, which he showed even
in the name he gave to his son Methuselah, by the spirit of
prophecy, which signifies, saith Bochartus,” that when he is
dead shall ensue an inundation of waters ; whence that of
Stephanus concerning Enoch or Hannock, #360n 3: Xpnogº;
3rt rotºrov reasurhaavros Trávºrs; Staq Saghaoyºral, “There was an
oracle given out, that when he was dead all men should be
destroyed.”
TIgosphºreva's roſtolº, He before prophesied to them.] This
is said very appositely, the prophecy of Enoch being directed
to them who, in like manner, had corrupted their ways by
carnality or fornication (Gen. vi. 2), and by idolatry (iv. 26).
* "Ev pºvetâzıy &yiatº, With his ten thousand saints.] i. e.
With his glorious attendance of myriads of angels; so called
Heb. xii. 22. So was he present at mount Sinai when he
delivered the law; whence the psalmist saith, “The chariot
of God is myriads of angels:” so the Chaldee ; “And the
Lord is among them as in Sinai,” Ps. lxviii. 18. So, Deut.
xxxii. 2, “The Lord cometh from Sinai with his myriads of
holy ones:” “with myriads of holy angels,” say the Tal-
mud of Jerusalem, and Jonathan; and Zech. xiv. 5, “The
Lord my God shall come, and all his holy ones with him,”
i. e. and all his guards of angels; those who attend him sit-
ting on his throne (Dan. vii. 10), or coming to execute judg-
ment (Matt. xvi. 27. xxv. 31. 2 Thess. i. 7).
* Ver, 16. Murmurers and complainers.] I find nothing
of this nature applicable to the Nicolaitans and Gnostics in
church history ; only the apostle having said, “Be not idola-
ters nor fornicators,” with respect to them, 1 Cor. x. 7, 8,
adds, “Neither be ye murmurers,” ver, 10. And the Pseud-
Ignatius calls them avaoqāytaç, malos calumniatores, Ep. ad
Tral. §. 11. But the Jews, of whom the Nicolaitans were a
part, were notorious for their complaints against that provi-
dence, which seemed to neglect, and deal so hardly with such
zealots for God as they were, as you may see in Joseph. de
Bell. Jud. lib. vii. cap. 34, p. 990, B.
* ‘Yºrépoyka, Great swelling words.] This Dr. Hammond
refers to Simon Magus, exalting himself above all that is
called God ; but itégoyka being only proud swelling words,
called by Peter in the parallel place bráčoyxa Azaratórntor,
“swelling words of vanity, by which they allured, through
the lusts of the flesh, to lasciviousness, those who were clean
escaped from them that live in error” (2 Pet. ii. 18); I think
it may more probably refer to the words relating to their lusts
mentioned in the note upon that place.
* 'Ops) Eiaº Xágiv, Because of advantage.] See note on
2 Pet. ii. 3. 14.
*----> *
* I'hāleg. lib. ii. cap. l.
JUDE.
1009
17 But, beloved, remember ye the words which
were spoken before (by) the apostles of our Lord
Christ;
18 How that they told you there should be mockers
in the last time, who should walk after their own un-
godly lusts (see note on 2 Pet. iii. 2, 3).
19 These be they "who separate themselves, sen-
sual, having not the Spirit.
20 But ye, beloved, building up yourselves in your
most holy faith, praying in * the Holy Ghost,
21 * Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking
for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eter-
nal life.
22 And of some have compassion: * making a dif-
ference (betwirt the beguilers through subtlety, and the
beguiled through simplicity): - -
23. And others save with fear, pulling them out of
* * hating even the garment spotted by the
CSI).
24 Now unto him that is able (and willing to do his
part, see note on Rom. xiv. 4,) to keep you from fall-
ing, and to present you faultless before the presence
of his glory with exceeding joy,
25 To the only wise God (who alone is infinite in
wisdom, and hath wisdom from himself, and who is)
our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and
power (ascribed), both now and ever. Amen.
* Wer. 19. Oi &ro8topićovre; Havrovº, Separating them-
selves.] Of the Jewish zealots we read, that they separated
and withdrew from all who were not circumcised (Acts xi.
3. Gal. ii. 12): but of the Nicolaitans and Gnostics we read
no such thing, but rather that they assembled with the Chris-
tians or Jews in their feasts of love (ver. 12. 2 Pet. ii. 13).
'Atroëiopićea Sat therefore, as it respects them, may rather sig-
nify that they distinguished themselves from others as more
perfect, and as pārāi Trygvºwartzoi, “by nature spiritual,”
styling all other Christians juxtºoi, “animal men ;” which
perhaps made the apostle return this character upon them, as
being truly sensual persons.
* Ver. 20. 'Ev IIveſ...att &yiv, In the Holy Ghost.] The
Holy Ghost, in the New Testament, always signifies some
afflatus, or xágicºa, of the Spirit; and seeing the person of
the Holy Ghost cannot here well be understood, it seems to
follow, that the apostle here speaketh of that gift of prayer,
which by the Holy Ghost was conferred upon them in their
public assemblies and Christian exercises, where they prayed
by the Spirit (1 Cor. xiv. 15), and spake to one another
“in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs,” being filled
with the Spirit (Eph. v. 18, 19. Col. iii. 16); and so this pas-
* Seipsos tryºupwarikoi; &ySgºrous, ci rºy reasiay yyājaw #x0yrs;
misgi Ogoj, xai rāg &xagº. Yvytkow; tra rā, śaxanaiac tºwa;
A#yovri. Iren. lib. i. p. 26, C. ‘Eavrov, 33 in Egvºoja’i reasiov;
ãºrokaxºſytes, was a rippsara innoyi. P.28. B.
sage is interpreted by CEcumenius” and Dr. Hammond.
* Ver. 21. ‘Eavrov, anção are, Keep yourselves, &c.]
Hence it is evident, that we are not so kept by the power of
God, but that something must be done on our parts, to pre-
serve ourselves in the divine favour. And also, that men
once in this state may neglect to keep themselves in the love
of God.
*Ver. 22. Ataxgwépcevoi, Making, or putting, a difference.]
Discerning which of them are to be treated with this mercy,
which of them with sharp reproof. That this is the true sense
of the word 8 axévéſzewo, see Rote on Rom. xiv. 23. CEcu-
menius, and some manuscripts, read not Éxeeſts, “Of some
have compassion,” but #xÉyxºte, “Some reprove,” putting
a difference betwixt them who are to be rejected, and them
who only are to be reproved. -
* Ver. 23. 'Eatrixopºvoy Xºrºva, Hating even the garment.]
To hate and fly the garments spotted with the flesh, is only
to hate every thing that doth defile, though in the least de-
gree, for so the leprous and unclean garment did. This text
can therefore yield no argument against the use of our cere-
monies, till it be proved there is some defilement or impurity
in the use of them.
*...* For Dr. Whitby's Treatise on the true Millennium
&c., see the end of Lowman's Paraphrase on the Revelation
of St. John.
* *
* Touréatri, war& rºy roß &yſov IIvetºzaro; 318doxaxiay, rà,
#avröy 3080iasic #y raig ºrgoo Evžaſ; tºy Troioſºsyot.
END OF DR. WHITBY’s COMMENTARY ON THE Gospels AND EPISTLES.
A
P A R A P
H R As E
ON THE
REVELATION
OF ST. JOHN,
WITH ANNOTATIONS.
BY MOSES
L () WMIA N.
-
“Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things that are written
therein: for the time is at hand.”—Rev. i. 3.
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
SIR JOSEPH J E KY LL.
MASTER OF THE ROLLS.
I BEG leave to present to your Honour an attempt
to give some light to the book of the Revelation, in
order to make it more generally useful than we can
hope it will be, while neglected, as too dark and diffi-
cult to be understood.
An honest endeavour of doing service to the public,
will, I am persuaded, always meet with your counte.
mance, who have the public good so much at heart.
I shall esteem it a great happiness, if the execution of
this design shall appear any way worthy your Ho-
nour’s approbation and patronage.
Whatever difficulty there may be, in some particu-
lar representation or expression in these prophecies,
the chief intention of them seems sufficiently plain.
as it is without question of great use.
Warnings and cautions against prevailing corrup-
tions; exhortations and encouragements to faithful-
mess and constancy in the cause of truth and righ-
teousness, of virtue and piety, which abound in these
prophecies, are lessons of great importance in them-
selves, and, experience shows, are proper for every
age.
These prophecies describe a melancholy state of
long and prevailing corruption; but it is the business
of prophecy to foretell things as they shall really be,
how afflictive soever; and when future times show an
exact conformity between the prophetic description
and the real state of the world and Christianity, for a
series of many hundred years, and in a great variety
of circumstances, beyond all reach of guess, it will
greatly confirm the evidence of the Christian religion,
and in particular the inspiration of this author, one
of its principal witnesses.
An accomplishment of prophecies to our own times,
assures the accomplishment of what remains. Every
new accomplishment gives a new attestation to the cre.
dit and authority of Christianity, a new support to the
faithfulness and constancy of good men, and a strong
consolation, that though a long and gloomy state of
corruption is foretold, yet the same spirit of prophecy
has assured us, that the cause of truth and righteous-
ness shall be maintained during the most powerful
prevalency of error and corruption, and that it shall
finally and surely triumph over them in the end.
The all-wise providence of God is used to fulfil
these promises, by raising up persons at several times,
though few in number, who shall espouse the cause
of truth and virtue, and exert themselves in the pro-
tection of it.
When persons in eminent stations, of distinguished
abilities and influence, shall act steadily from a disin-
terested and wise concern for the good of the public,
from principles of sincere piety, from unbiassed af-
fections for truth and virtue, and with unshaken con-
stancy in defence of impartial civil and religious li-
berty, we are directed by these prophecies to consi-
der them as raised by God, the guardians of truth
and virtue, and set up by his providence to prevent
the total suppression of them, through the prevalency
of error and iniquity. , - e
Such persons will be the delight of the wise and
the good, as they are the happiness of mankind. Vir-
tues so amiable will force applause, how much soever
a greatness of mind, satisfied with virtue as its own
reward, may choose to decline it.
But I consider my duty to your Honour, and will
not gratify my own desires, however pleasing to my-
self, in what may be disagreeable to you; especially
as I am sure great and public virtues can never be
unknown, though never pointed out to observation.
I shall, therefore, only beg leave to express the
great pleasure I have in this opportunity of giving a
public testimony of that highesteem and respect, with
which I am,
Your Honour’s
Most faithful, and most humble servant,
MOSES LOWMAN.
3 T 2
1012
PREFACE TO
PREFACE.
THE book of the Revelation, notwithstanding the pains
and application of many persons of great ability and learn-
ing to explain it, seems yet, to the generality of Christians,
very dark and obscure : many look upon it as a sealed book
still, never to be explained to any certainty or satisfaction.
No wonder, then, they account it lost labour to read or study
what they can never hope to understand.
A great critic (Scaliger) was pleased to say, Calvin was
wise, because he did not write upon the Revelation. And
another, who has written with great reputation on the other
books of the New Testament (Dr. Whitby”), confesses he
did not do it, for want of wisdom; that is, as he says, because
“I neither have sufficient reading nor judgment to discern the
intendment of the prophecies contained in that book.”
However, the book of the Revelation is, for very good
reasons, received as one of the sacred books of the New Tes-
tament ; the reasons for which are to be seen in many all-
thors, and are represented, with great evidence and strength,
by Sir Isaac Newton, who observes, he does not find any
book of the New Testament so strongly attested, or com-
mented upon so early, as this.
Mr. Lardner has collected, with great care and faithful-
ness, the testimonies of the most early Christian writers to
the books of the New Testament, in a late excellent treatise
of the Credibility of the Gospel History. I shall just men-
tion the testimony of the most eminent, to the authority of
this book as a part of the holy scripture. w
Tertullian wrote about the year of Christ 200, and so
somewhat above a hundred years after the time in which
John writ the Revelation. He observes,t “John, in his
Apocalypse, is commanded to correct those who eat things
Sacrificed to idols, and commit fornication.” And again,
“We have churches, disciples of John; for though Marcion
rejects his Revelation, the succession of bishops, traced to
the original, will assure us that John is the author of it.”
It is no wonder that Marcion should reject the Revelation,
who rejected all the Old Testament, and of the New received
only the Gospel of St. Luke, and ten epistles of Paul, which
also he had corrupted and altered.
Somewhat before this, Clement of Alexandria, quotes
these revelations as John's: “As John says in the Revela-
tion.” And he refers to them as the words of an apostle, or
having the authority of apostolical writings.
Yet earlier, Theophilus of Antioch, in a book of his
against the heresy of Hermogenes, makes use of testimonies
from John's Apocalypse.
We have another witness of great character still nearer
the times of John : Irenaeus writ about A. D. 178, within
seventy or eighty years of him. He expressly ascribes the
Revelation to John, the disciple of the Lord. His testi-
mony to this book, as Mr. Lardner observes," “is so strong
and full, that considering the age of Irenaeus, it seems to put
it beyond all question, that it is the work of St. John the
apostle and evangelist.”
Still nearer the times of John, Mileto, bishop of Sardis,**
one of the seven churches, writ a book on the Revelation of
John. Some think it was an entire commentary; however
that be, it will show he esteemed it a book of canonical au-
thority.
Justin Martyr, a person of eminent name, about the year
of Christ 140, and so about fifty or sixty years after the
writing this book, expressly calls it a prophecy, and ascribes
it to John the apostle; it “A man from among us,” says he,
“by name John, one of the apostles of Christ, in the revela-
tion made to him, has prophesied.” In fine,
The church, nearest the times of writing this book, re-
ceived it with so full a consent, that in a very few years, as
Dr. Mills; observes, it was acknowledged and placed in the
* Preface to his Treatise on the Millennium.
+ Observations on the Apocalypse, p. 246.
f Lardner's Credibility of Gospel History, vol. ii. p. 621.
§ Ib. p. 514. | Ib. Vol. i. p. 424. "[ Ib. p. 382.
** Ib. p. 329. {:} Ib, 28l.
f: Prolegom, No. 163.
number of apostolical writings, not only by the cruicnes of
Asia, but by the neighbour churches of Syria and Samaria,
| by the more distant churches of Africa and Egypt, by Rome,
and the other churches of Europe. Such reasons there are to
receive this as one of the books of the holy scriptures of the
New Testament, that hardly any one book has more early,
full, or authentic attestation given to it. -
Now all who thus receive it must acknowledge that it
proceeds from a Spirit of prophecy; and that Spirit itself de-
clares, i. 3, “Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear
the words of this prophecy, and keep those things that are
written therein.” -
If we suppose this of the book of Revelation, as we must,
if we own it to be a book of holy Scripture, we must acknow-
ledge also, that how dark soever the words of this prophecy
may be, they are yet sufficiently intelligible to be greatly
useful. -
Obscurity of prophecy from the nature and design of pro-
phecy.]—Yet, considering the nature and design of prophecy,
the style and manner of expression used in it, we are not
to expect prophecies should be as easily understood, as doc-
trines or precepts delivered in easy expression, plain argu-
ment, and the common familiar forms of speech. The
nature and intention of prophecy was not to gratify our curi-
osity, to know future events, or, as it were, to tell the
fortunes of the church and world, but to answer wise and
good ends, to confirm our patience and constancy, to encou-
rage our hope and trust in God, in assurance of his protec-
tion of the cause of truth and righteousness, that is, of
true religion. The design of prophecy is to answer these
good ends, when we might be tempted to forsake true
religion, by the power of prevailing error and reigning cor-
ruption; or when we might be greatly dejected, and despair
of success, where opposition to true religion is so powerful
and violent, as hardly to leave a reasonable prospect of bear-
ing up against it. In such a state of things, which often has
happened, it has been the use of prophecy, to keep up the
hcarts of good men with lively and affecting representations
of the majesty, the power, and the goodness of God, of God's
care to protect the cause of true religion, of the sure power
of his providence to order all things in the world, and future
course of things; the providence of God being absolute over
the greatest empires and most powerful kings, to raise them
up or to cast them down, to direct them to fulfil his will,
and appoint them to accomplish whatever he designs, for
the safety of his people. And, finally, the design of pro-
phecy is to represent these things in such a manner as shall
fix our attention, and confirm our faith in the truth of God's
promises, and his faithfulness surely to accomplish his word
in all things.
When such events of future time are foretold, as shall in
their accomplishment confirm these sentiments of God, his
goodness, power, and faithfulness, and in such strong and
lively representations as shall engage the attention, and make
deep impressions on the mind, they answer a very wise and
useful design ; and in a good sense, they are then of greater
use than plainer precepts of constancy and perseverance, or
plain promises of encouragement and reward, in more easy
words and expressions.
There is then a manifest advantage to the intention of
prophecy, in the manner and style of foretelling things to
come ; from whence, however, it must come to pass, that
prophetic writings will be somewhat more difficult to be un-
derstood than others; and yet they are sufficiently plain to
raise those sentiments of God, and his providence, and ex-
cite that faithfulness and constancy in true religion, they
were designed for. - -
The prophecies of the Revelation of the same wse with
the prophecies of the Old Testament.]—Such was one great
use of the prophecies of the Old Testament. They often
spoke of the times of the Messiah's first appearance in the
world, in a manner very suitable to encourage the faith and
constancy of good men, in the several states of the Jewish
church and nation.
They taught the church, that God would maintain his
true religion, and protect his true worshippers, till the pro-
mised Messiah should come: but these prophecies were
delivered in a manner not so casy to be understood, as the
precepts, exhortations, and reproofs, in the writings of the
REVELATION.
1013
same prophets. . However, they were still plain enough to
encourage the faith and patience of the church at those
times, and particular enough to determine the person of the
Messiah when he should appear, and to distinguish him suf.
ficiently from every other person of the world, that should
make pretensions to his character as the Christ. The ends
of ancient prophecy, as a very eminent and learned inter-
preter of several prophets has observed,” were these: “God
still seeking their good, he sends his prophets to reprove
them, and exhort them to repentance ; and, for comfort of
the godly among them, to give them the assurance of the
coming of the promised Messsiah in his due time, to set all
things right for their good.”
In the first ages of Christianity, as well as in aftertimes,
good men were apt to be greatly discouraged with an afflic-
tive state of the church, and powerful opposition to religion ;
they hardly knew how to reconcile' such a state of provi-
dence with what they hoped for in the kingdom of the Mes-
siab, so kind and powerful a protector of his church.,
It easy to see how much such thoughts might disturb their
minds ; they had a promise of Christ's second coming, as
the Jewish church had of his first appearance, but they were
liable to many afflictive providences, as the former church
was till the time of his appearance. It was wise and pro-
per, by a prophecy in the Christian church, to support the
minds of good men under these afflictions, with assurance
of Christ's second coming, in its due time, and of the watch-
ful providence of God over the cause of true religion in the
mean time. Thus the prophecies of this book are to us
in the Christian church, of the like use, that the prophecies
of Christ's first appearance were to the ancient church.
Obscurity of those prophecies from interpreters.]—Though
some obscurity arises from the nature and style of pro-
phetical writings, yet, to speak freely, I conceive the ob-
Scurity of this book is not so much owing to anything in the
book itself, as to the methods taken by several to explain
it, and that nothing has really so much darkened it as the
common attempts made to interpret it.
Some have been so over-curious to find some mystery in
every word and every thing, that the plain and direct mean-
ing of the Spirit of prophecy has been overlooked or removed
out of sight ; the pure imagination of interpreters, often
Very pretty and ingenious, but very foreign to the purpose
of the prophecy, has frequently lost or set aside the true
meaning of it.
Qthers, having formed a scheme of prophecy to themselves,
and fixed in their own opinions the events that were to acº
complish the several parts of it, contrive how to force all
things to their scheme ; which not perfectly agreeing with
the design and order of the book itself, the interpretation
must necessarily be attended with such intricacy in the order
of the prophecy and such different and opposite application
of the several parts of it, as must make it very dark, if not
altogether unintelligible. And yet, where men of great
name lead the way, they seldom fail of having many fol-
lowers; and the more men are engaged in supporting an
imagination, or arbitrary scheme, without foundation from
the prophecy itself, the more they lose sight of the real
meaning and true intention of it.
It is a very judicious observation of Mr. Calvin, concern-
ing the interpretation of prophecy, “Although the vision be
obscure, the design of it is not uncertain ; and, if we will
be content with moderate understanding, there is nothing so
intricate, but we may understand the sum of the prophecy;
but, the curiosity of interpreters has done mischief, who,
while they criticise upon every syllable, childishly trifle in
many things. Nothing therefore is righter, than to attend
carefully to the design of the prophet, to regard the circum-
stances of the time, and to follow an analogy between the
signs and the things signified by them.” If to this we add
such events in history, as sufficiently answer the predictions
of prophecy, we have as much certainty as I think was de-
signed by the prophecy; I am sure, as much as is sufficient to
edification.
It is on this plan I propose to consider the prophecies of
this book, to be content with a moderate understanding of
* Pocock on Malachi i. 1.
+ Calvin. Annot, on Zechariah i. 7, 8.
the design of the prophecy and of the things revealed in it ;
to take my scheme of the prophecy entirely from the book
itself; to explain the meaning of the prophetic expressions,
by a plain account of their use in the preceding prophets, from
whom most of them are taken, and to verify the predic-
tions by such known events in history as may fairly and
without force be applied to them.
This prophecy is a proper prediction of things future.]—
The author of this book himself declares, that it is a proper
prophecy, or prediction of things future and to come, as well
as a description of the present state and condition of the
churches, i. 19, “Write the things which thou hast seen, and
the things which are, and the things which shall be here-
after:” and iv. 1, John “heard a voice, which said, Come
up hither, and I will show thee the things that must be
hereafter.”
Some of these predictions related to things not far off the
time of the vision and prophecy, and which were soon to be
accomplished: “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God .
gave unto him, to show unto his servants things which must
shortly come to pass,” i. 1 ; and “Blessed is he that read-
eth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and
keep those things which are written therein : for the time is
at hand,” i, 3.
What period of future time this prophecy regards.]—Yet,
as this revelation is designed also to show things that “must
be hereafter,” it will be of great help to the interpretation
of it, to understand what period of time this prophecy re-
gards. The book itself seems plainly to design a much
longer period than many learned men have assigned it.
Some have supposed such expressions as these, “Which
must shortly come to pass,” and “The time is at hand,”
and the like, point out a very short period ; so that the
whole prophecy should be accomplished in a few years after
the vision. These expressions will indeed show the ac-
complishment of the things foretold in this prophecy was
soon to begin; but, I think, they can determine nothing at
all concerning the time when it was to end, especially against
full evidence in the same book of prophecy, that the period
is much longer, and reaches from the time of the vision to
the day of judgment. º
To omit inore general reasons which yet have their de-
gree of probability: in particular, the perpetual use of pro-
phecy to the church in all ages, the wisdom and goodness
of providing such support to the faith and constancy of the
church, in every state of affliction, which seems to be the
design, and therefore the true key, of the whole Revelation,
makes it probable, that the spirit of prophecy did not de-
sign this support for the church in a few of the first ages of
Christianity only, but that it designed the same consolation
and support for every after age; that the faithfulness and
power of God would, in all times, verify these truths; that
though the church and true religion should be opposed, af.
flicted, and oppressed, yet it should be preserved and pro-
tected, and prove in the end victorious. It is well observed
of the scriptures in general, agreeable to the notions and ex-
pectations naturally founded on the divine perfections, “God
did from the beginning make, and has all along continued
to his church, or true worshippers, a promise, that truth and
virtue shall finally prevail, shall prevail over the spirit of
error and wickedness, of delusion and disobedience.” How
natural it is then to suppose, when a revelation is given to
encourage the constancy of good men, in times of affliction,
that it should reveal the protection of Providence, and as-
sure a wise care of the cause of truth and religion in every
age, that it should not be confined to a small proportion of
that time, in which the church would have the same trials,
and stand in need of the same encouragements.
But there are two evidences in the prophecy itself which,
as I apprehend, are so full to the point, that they are suffi-
cient to determine it.
First, The duration of the period of this prophecy is, in
some places, marked out as well by numbers of years, as by
prophetic descriptions. The time of the beast, for instance,
is thus described: “And power was given unto him to con-
tinue forty-two months,” xiii. 5. It is observed of the
woman persecuted by the dragon, “And to the woman were
* Dr. Clarke, Connexion of Prophecy, p. 8.
1014
PREFACE TO
given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the
wilderness, unto her place, where she is nourished for a time,
times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent,” xii. 14.
The time in which the witnesses were to prophesy, clothed
in Sackcloth, is in like manner described: “And I will give
power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a
thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sack-
cloth,” xi. 3. -
This various computation of the same time, and so agree-
able to the manner of expressing time in prophecy, suffi-
ciently, I think, determines the duration of this period to
one thousand two hundred and sixty years, which is itself a
much longer continuance than these interpreters will allow
to the accomplishment of the whole prophecy, who confine
it to the most early times of the church, because it is said,
... “The time is at hand.” And it is farther to be observed,
that this period, to which the prophecy assigns a duration
of one thousand two hundred and sixty years, is not to com-
mence from the time of the vision, but after a long series of
prophecy had been previously fulfilled ; for the order of the
prophecies of this book are thus represented: first, six seals
are opened, to each of which a proper prophecy belongs,
ch. vi. ; upon opening the seventh seal, seven angels have
Seven trumpets given to them ; six of these angels sound
their trumpets, to each of which also belongs a distinct pro-
phecy, viii. ix. ; so that this period of one thousand two
hundred and sixty years is the third period of prophecy;
and after two former periods have had their accomplishment,
this must considerably lengthen the time to which the whole
book of Revelation refers. *
I am sensible, that prophetic numbers do not always
express a determinate duration or space of time, any more
than they always express a certain number. Prophecy, I
acknowledge, uses numbers sometimes, as other expressions,
in a figurative meaning, as symbols and hieroglyphics. Thus
the number seven sometimes does not denote the precise
number of seven, but figuratively denotes perfection, or a
full and complete number; and the number ten sometimes
does not mean precisely ten in number, but many in general,
or a considerable number, and frequency of action, or doing
the same thing several times; as the use of those expres:
sions in scripture plainly shows, and of which I have given
Some instances in the notes.
Yet, the variety of computing the same duration, by days
months, and times, and this in manifest allusion to the pro-
phecies of Daniel, who..thus reckons the time of the Mes-
siah's first appearance, and means a determinate number of
years, will hardly admit of any other meaning as the inten-
tion of the prophecy in that place, which I hope the reader
will find fully proved in the annotations.
Secondly, This observation will be farther greatly con-
firmed, by considering how expressly the prophecy itself
declares, that it reaches to the last times, and in which the
mystery of God, or several dispensations of prophecy to-
Wards the church, should be fully accomplished. An “angel
lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth
for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that
therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are,
and the sea, and the things that are therein, that there should
he time no longer: but in the days of the voice of the
seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of
God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants
the prophets,” x. 5–7; or rather, as it should have been
translated to the true sense of the original, “In the day
ºf the voice of the seventh angel, when it shall sound,
&ray ºn aax"rićew, and the mystery of God shall be
finished,” Kai reaea ºff tº avºrheroy roſ, Geoſ. That is, “In
the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when it shall
sound, and the mystery of God shall be finished ;" or “In
the times and period assigned for the sounding of the seventh
angel, time shall be no more, and the mystery of God shall
be finished.” As if the angel had said, Though the time is
not yet come, when the church’s trial by afflictions shall
cease, yet the time of fulfilling that prophecy shall not long
be delayed ; then the happy state of the church shall begin.
which shall finish the mystery of God. So that this period
of Prophecy will conclude with finishing the mystery of God,
or dispensations of providence towards the church.
It is farther to be observed, that the prophecy itself
places at the conclusion of it the general resurrection and
judgment. “And I saw the dead,” says John, “small and
great, stand before God: and the books were opened, and
another book was opened, which is the book of life; and
the dead were judged out of those things that were written
in the books, according to their works; and the sea gave up
the dead which were in it, and death and hell delivered up
the dead which were in them; they were judged every man ac-
cording to their works, and death and hell were castinto the
lake of fire; this is the second death,” xx. 12, &c. A series
of prophecies, which reaches to the resurrection and last judg-
ment, seems plainly designed to reach to the end of all time.
Order of the several prophecies, and several periods.]—
The book itself seems also to show farther very plainly, the
order of the several prophecies, according to their several
periods, as well as the whole duration, from the time of the
vision, to the finishing the whole mystery of God's provi-
dence towards the church,
There is a general distribution of these prophecies, into
the things “which are,” and the things “which shall be
hereafter,” i. 19, & Biaº wai &#xxEl yivsa-Sat peer& raira. "“The
things which are” seem to refer to the then present state of
the seven churches ; which description, with the warnings,
encouragements, and exhortations proper to it, is contained
in epistles delivered to each of the churches, in the second
and third chapters.
The fourth chapter reveals a new state of things, in a new
vision : a voice said unto John, “Come up hither, and I will
show thee the things that must be hereafter,” iv. 1, § 38; yºvá-
a Sal ºcer& raûra. I will reveal unto thee, what shall come
to pass in aftertimes, and in successive order, after the things
revealed in the foregoing part of the prophecy shall be ful-
filled.
These prophecies are again distributed into several periods
plainly distinguished from each other, and manifestly suc-
cessive to each other. -
One of these periods is distinguished by the opening of
a book, sealed with seven seals; and at the opening of each
seal, representing in a figure some event proper to each seal ;
and ends with sealing of the servants of God to the number
of one hundred and forty-four thousand, ch. vi. vii.
Another period begins upon the opening of the seventh
seal. This period is distinguished by giving seven trumpets
to the seven angels that stand before God, viii. 1, 2. Six of
these trumpets are sounded in their order, as the seals were
opened in the foregoing period, and each of them hath
particular events proper to each, ch. viii. ix. This period
ends with a new vision; an angel gives St. John a little
book: he is ordered to measure the temple, and the seventh
angel sounds, ch. x.
There is a third period, called, “the days of the voice of
the seventh angel, when he shall sound.” This period is re-
presented as a time wherein the mystery of God shall be
finished, at the end of which there shall be a new and very
different state of things. It is to be a time in which the
church shall long struggle with great afflictions and persecu-
tions; yet, at the end of it, the dragon, the old Serpent,
which is the devil and Satan, shall be bound for a thousand
years, that he may deceive the nations no more, till the thou-
sand years shall be fulfilled, though after that he will be
loosed again for a little season.
This period seems to be described by several representa-
tions; by measuring the temple, and giving part of it to be
trodden under foot by the gentiles, by two witnesses pro-
phesying in sackcloth, by a woman escaping into a wilder-
ness, and by the rising of a monstrous wild beast. The
events proper to the period, are represented by seven vials
full of God’s wrath poured out on the earth.
The duration of this period is exactly the same in the se-
veral representations; the gentiles are to tread the holy city
under foot forty and two months, xi. 2. The witnesses are
to prophesy in sackcloth a thousand two hundred and three-
score days, ver. 3. The woman which fled into the wilder-
ness hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed
her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days, xii.
6. And power was given unto the beast to continue forty
and two months, xiii. 5.
These periods of prophecy successive to each other.]—
As the book itself thus distinguishes these prophecies from
REVELATION.
1015
each other, so it seems plainly to show they are successive
to each other. They seem ranked into such order, as to
make this observation obvious and necessary, that they are
not intended to describe contemporary events, but such
events as should follow one another in order, as the periods
themselves are represented to succeed each other. So that
there is no ground, I conceive, to consider the prophecies
which belong to these periods as synchronisms; on the con-
trary, each of these prophecies seems fixed to that particular
period of time to which it belongs; which periods are mani-
festly represented, not as contemporary, but as an order and
Series of successive times and events.
The order of succession in these three periods is very
particular, as their distinction from each other is very mani-
fest. - *
As the first period is distinguished by seven seals, the
second period by seven trumpets, and the third by seven vi-
als, so the Seven angels received the seven golden vials, after
six of the trumpets had been sounded. The six trumpets
were sounded, viii. 9, the seventh angel began to sound, ix.
15, but the angels received not the seven golden vials, till in
the days of the voice of the seventh trumpet, when the
power and authority of the beast were established, and men
had received the mark of the beast, and worshipped his
image; for the plague of the first vial fell upon them, xvi.
2. So that this period of the vials commenced after the
period of the trumpets was over, and the events prophesied
in it were fulfilled. ... *
The period of the trumpets, in like manner, plainly fol-
lows the period of the seals. It is expressly said, when he
had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for
half an hour: “And I saw the seven angels which stood
before God, and to them were given seven trumpets,” viii.
1, 2.
This natural order will, I conceive, free us from that in-
tricacy and difficulty which a supposition of synchronisms,
and contemporary events in the different periods, have occa-
sioned in the interpretation of this book: and it may greatly
help us, in applying historical events to the several prophe-
cies, to look only at such as fall within the time to which
the period belongs.
The book itself will, moreover, I conceive, sufficiently de-
termine the proper time to which each period belongs, and
show to what period of history the period of prophecy refers.
If the duration of each period can, in general, be very nearly
determined, so that the beginning and ending of it can be
reasonably fixed to any near time, the order and succession
of the periods will point out the contemporary times of his-
tory; and if the events of history shall sufficiently answer
the descriptions of prophecy, it will make our application
of them more satisfactory, and give greater weight to such
interpretation.
The proper time of each period sufficiently determined.]
—The book itself seems plainly to make the general key of
the whole revelation, the particular key of each period ; so .
that one and the same wise and useful design is the general
design of the whole, and the particular design of every part
of it. So far is this book from being loose, uncertain, and
immethodical, that it keeps always one and the same useful
design in view, and carries it through every particular in the
most exact order.
The general design of this prophecy is to support the
minds of faithful Christians, under all afflictions on account
of religion, to teach them, that however true religion should
be opposed, however they might suffer fer the Christian faith
and worship, they might assure themselves of God’s care
and protection. Though God did not design to place his
church in such a state of outward power and prosperity, as
to be free from afflictions and persecution (which therefore.
they were not vainly to promise themselves, and weakly to
expect), yet they might promise themselves, and expect,
that God would preserve the true religion, by the care of his
providence, from being borne down by any power of opposi-
tion ; that he would often severely punish the enemies of
true religion, and make known his judgments upon them, as
heretofore on Egypt and Babylon; that he would give often
to the faithful and constant, deliverance out of their dangers,
success and victory over their enemies ; that he would often
raise up eminent and powerful persons, who shall defend
i
and encourage the Christian faith and worship, and that in
the end truth and righteousness shall prevail over all opposi-
tion from error and unrighteousness, and the patience and
constancy of the faithful shall be finally crowned with a
state of complete peace, perfection, and happiness.
These were great encouragements, and consolations of
very great use to the church at all times. It was not fit to
dissemble the true state of providence with respect to the
church ; for the state of the Christian church, whatever some
might promise themselves, would often be afflictive ; yet it
was very fit to remind good men, in strong representations,
of their encouragement and support, that God would main-
tain the cause of truth against all opposition, often give evi-
dent marks of a divine protection, for the safety of the
church, and in the punishment of its enemies.
“The church persecuted, afterward victorious, and in a
peaceful state, is certainly the true key of the Revelation,”
says a very learned interpreter.”
This general key of the whole Revelation seems also the
proper key of each particular period; the whole prophecy,
after many intermediate dangers in a state of opposition and
trouble, ends in the happiness of the holy city, “the new
Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven.” In like
manner, each particular period describes a state of danger,
opposition, and trouble, and ends in a state of peace, safety,
and happiness.
Thus the first period of the seals enumerates great trou-
bles and afflictions, but ends with sealing the servants of God
in their foreheads, which was to be a time of peace and safety
to the church: “And I saw another angel ascending from
the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried
with a loud voice, to the four angels to whom it was given to
hurt the earth and the sea, saying, Hurt not the earth, nei-
ther the Sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants
of our God in their foreheads,” vii. 2, 3. .
The second period in order, which is the period of the
trumpets, describes also several heavy and severe judgments
on the sounding of the several trumpets; so that an angel,
flying through the midst of heaven, said with a loud voice,
“Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabitants of the earth,” viii. 13;
and yet, upon the sounding of the seventh angel, which be-
gins the third period, there were great voices in heaven, say-
ing, “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms
of our Lord, and of his Christ,” xi. 15.
The day of the voice of the seventh angel, which is the
third period, describes again a time of trouble and affliction;
the dragon persecutes the woman, xii. 13 ; the persecution
of the beast is of long continuance, for power was given him
to continue forty-two months, xiii. 5; seven vials full of the
Wrath of God are poured out, attended with grievous plagues,
yet in the end Babylon is destroyed, the old dragon bound,
and they who had not worshipped the beast live and reign
with Christ a thousand years, xx. 3.
It is an obvious remark, that each of these periods are
represented by the same number of seven ; there are seven
seals in the first period, seven trumpets in the second, and
seven vials in the third. Seven is a sacred number in the
Jewish church, and in the rotation both of days and years
is made a time of religion and rest. It is not therefore an
unfit emblem, that the church, after a time of labour and
trouble, shall enjoy a time wherein it may serve God in
peace and rest. However that be, and whether the Spirit of
prophecy designed such an allusion or no, it is plain, that
this scheme of the different periods, as well as of the whole
book, mentions a time of affliction and trial, which shall end
in a time of safety, liberty, and peace.
This observation, I conceive, will go a great way to fix the
general duration of these three periods, and sufficiently de-
termine, to a near time, the beginning and ending of each.
As each must have, in its period, some remarkable opposi-
tion to the Christian church, a trial of its faith and patience, ,
by some great dangers and afflictions; so it must end in
some remarkable deliverance out of those troubles, and some
favourable providence to the church, for its safety, peace,
and liberty, in the profession of the Christian faith and reli-
IOI).
g To what historical period each period of prophecy be-
* Calmet's Preface to the Revelation,
1016
PREFACE TO
longs.] At the time of these visions, John was in banishment
for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ;
and the church was under persecution so long as the empire
continued heathen. Severe persecutions were almost per-
petually renewed: a little before the times of Constantime
they were so severe, that they seemed to threaten the utter
destruction of all who could not be forced to renounce the
Christian faith, and fall in with the idolatrous worship
established in the empire. The last persecution under Dio-
clesian destroyed incredible numbers, so that the persecutors
boasted, they had effaced the name and superstition of the
Christians, and had restored and propagated the worship of
the gods: yet the divine providence, after several great re-
volutions, made way for the authority of Constantime the
Great, who put an end to a long persecution of ten years,
gave freedom to the churches, and finally, when, upon the
death of Licinius, he obtained the sole authority, he gave all
protection and countenance to the Christian church, and all
assistance to promote the Christian faith and worship ; so
that the same power which before persecuted, now protected
the Christian faith.
Time of the first period.] The first period of prophecy
then seems naturally to point out this period of history, which
in general answers it with great propriety and exactness, and
will, I think, direct us to look for the fulfilling the several
parts of it, in some of the events of providence, between the
time of the vision, and about the year of Christ 323, when
the opposition of the idolatrous power of Rome gave way to
the protection and favour of Christian emperors.
Time of the second period.] It was not long the church
enjoyed this peace: the Roman empire, in a short time,
began to lose its power, and became unable to protect the
peace and liberty of the church ; a swarm of idolatrous
nations from the northern countries, under several names,
broke in upon the Roman empire, and divided the western
empire into several separate and independent governments,
or kingdoms ; so that the Christian faith and worship were
in as much danger from the idolatry of the northern nations,
who had divided the Roman empire among themselves, as
they were before in danger from the idolatry of the Roman
empire itself. It pleased God, also, to permit that impostor
Mahomet, and his successors, to gain so much ground, and
spread that imposture so far, and so fast, that it seemed to
threaten the ruin of the Christian name and religion in the
east : yet the idolatrous northern nations were soon them-
selves brought to the Christian religion, and to use all their
power and authority to protect and promote it. And though
the Saracens made great inroads for some time, yet was their
progress stopped both in the east and west. Charles
Martel,” by a memorable battle (A. D. 734), in which some
authors account three hundred and seventy thousand slain,
preserved the western parts of the Roman empire from their
future incursions, and enabled the Christians in Spain to
maintain themselves against them, and even oppose them
with such power, as finally drove them quite out of their
kingdom. And the Christian religion remained in all those
places which the northern nations had formed into kingdoms
out of the Roman empire.
Here is now a period of history very naturally applicable
to this second period of prophecy; it contains a very me-
morable time of danger, and as memorable a deliverance in
the establishment of the peace and liberty of the Christian
church, and seems sufficiently to point out the time of this
period, from about the year of Christ 323 to about 750. In
which compass of time, therefore, we seem directed to look
for the accomplishment of the several particular predictions
contained in this period.
Time of the third period.] The third period seems also
determined to a near time both of its beginning and ending,
by the prophecy itself.
The duration of this period is sufficiently determined by
the time of the beast, the time of the woman's being in the
wilderness, the time wherein the holy city should be trodden
under foot; these times are variously expressed, but plainly
in such manner as to express the same duration. It is said
to be for forty-two months, xi. 2. xiii. 5, for a time, times,
and half a time, xii. 14. And these ways of numbering
* Mariana's History of Spairi, p. 105.
tº 5
seem explained by another: the time of the witnesses pro-
phesying in sackcloth is mentioned to be a thousand two
hundred and threescore days, xi. 3. And again, the time of
the woman in the wilderness, where she hath a place pre-
pared of God for her, is expressed by the same number, that
they should feed her a thousand two hundred and threescore
days.
The difficulty, then, of assigning the historical time of this
period seems to lie chiefly in this . At what time this thou-
sand two hundred and threescore prophetical days, or years,
are to begin ; or, which will be the same, at what period in
history we are to begin the power of the beast, the flying of
the woman into the wilderness, and treading the holy city
under foot: for these are the calamities of this period, as the
happiness with which it closes is the destruction of the beast,
the binding of Satan, and the peaceful state of the church
for a thousand years, till Satan shall be loosed again for a
little season, xx. 3.
Our chief inquiry then will be, When was this power given
unto the beast, which was to continue for forty-two months?
Let us see whether the prophecy itself doth not sufficiently
point out this time to us.
The emblem of a beast, according to the use of it in scrip-
ture prophecy, denotes an empire or government, as the four
empires denoted by the beasts in Daniel's vision sufficiently
show.
In explaining the mystery of the beast, and the woman
which carrieth her, the angel expressly declares, “And the
woman which thou sawest is that great city which reigneth
over the kings of the earth,” xvii. 18. This seems suffici-
ently to direct our consideration of the beast as an empire or
government, and that of the city of Rome, or Roman do-
minion. It seems farther confirmed by the description of
the beast, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his
horns ten crowns, xiii. 1. We have these expressions yet
farther explained ; “The seven heads,” says the angel, “are
seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth. And they
are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is
not yet come ; and when he cometh, he must continue a
short space,” xvii. 9, 10: again, ver. 12, “And the ten horns
which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no
kingdom as yet ; but receive power as kings one hour with
the beast :” or, shall reign at the same time and period with
the beast: as, in the following words, “And these have one
mind,” means, they have the same design and intention.
The prophecy, then, seems to represent the beast as one
empire, though in several different forms of government in
succession, five of which were fallen or passed at the time of
the vision ; one is, says the angel, or was the present form
of government at that time; and the form of Roman govern-
ment, at the time of the vision, was to be sure the imperial,
which is therefore to be accounted the sixth. The next, or
seventh form of government, was not yet come ; and when
it came, it was to continue but a short space. It follows,
“And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth,
and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.” The mean-
ing of which remarkable expression is, I conceive, to this
purpose: After the sixth head, or form of Roman govern-
ment, which was then in being, there shall be another form
of government, which on some accounts may be called a
seventh , and, in that reckoning, the beast spoken of would
be the eighth head, or form of government: yet, on some
other accounts, that seventh could hardly be called a proper
form of Roman government ; so that in that reckoning, the
beast spoken of might be accounted one of the seven, and so
next in succession, in the proper government of Rome, to the
sixth, or imperial form of government. This form of
government is moreover to be set up in the same time or
period with the ten kings or kingdoms, erected in the Roman
empire, and by their assistance, giving their power to the
beast, ver. 13.
From these considerations, we have a period in history suf-
ficiently marked out for this period of prophecy.
Besides the order of the periods, this being the third, and
not therefore to begin till the two former are finished, it can-
not begin till the northern nations, who brake in upon and
divided the empire, had established their respective king-
doms, and were converted to Christianity, and gave their
protection to the profession of it; nor till the imperial
REVELATION.
1017
government was passed away, as the five preceding forms of
government had before it; nor yet till another form of
government, which in some sense might be called a seventh,
though not strictly and properly, was also passed, to make
way for this form of government in Rome, which on some
accounts might be reckoned the eighth, and yet, for other
reasons, was to be numbered among the seven. To this, I
think, we may yet add another mark of this period, in which
the beast is described ; “The beast which was, and is not,
and yet is,” ver, 8. Or, as John saw in the vision of this
beast, xiii. 3. “I saw,” says he, “one of his heads, as it were,
wounded to death, and his deadly wound was healed, and all
the world wondered after the beast.” And again, speaking
of the second beast, he observes, ver, 12, “And he exerciseth
all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the
earth, and them that dwell therein, to worship the first beast,
whose deadly wound was healed.” These descriptions seem
plainly to represent the Roman government, or emnire, of
which this beast is the symbol, as once in a state cf great
authority and power, afterward as having very much, almost
quite, lost that power ; yet, in the end, recovering its power,
and reviving its authority again: as one wounded unto death,
but whose deadly wound was healed again, even tº the won-
der and astonishment of the world.
This seems to describe to us a time, when Rome, once the
mistress of the world, who reigned over the kings of the earth,
should lose her power either altogether, or so far as to pre-
serve but a very faint resemblance of it: yet afterward, not-
withstanding such loss of power, it should recover to a very
great degree of power and authority again.
. Here are a great many circumstances, which must concur
in a period of time which can answer, with any propriety,
this description of prophecy ; and where so many circum-
stances really concur in history, it is a very great evidence,
such period of time is intended by the prophecy; and it is
a great confirmation of the truth and authority of the pro-
phecy itself, that predictions of a time, to be distinguished by
So great a variety of circumstances and important events,
should be so exactly accomplished.
Now, the Roman history represents the state of the Roman
empire, after the invasion of the northern nations, most agree-
able to the description of this prophecy.
"After the northern nations had entirely subdued the power
of the Roman empire, they settled themselves in the several
parts of it, and erected several sovereign and independent
dominions in France, Spain, Britain, and Italy itself.
The Goths possessed themselves of the best part of Italy,”
especially about Rome, and took at last the city of Rome,
A. D. 476. Odoacer, king of the Heruli, obliged Momyllus,
who was also called Augustulus, to abdicate the empire. He
possessed himself of the government of Rome and Italy, but
without the title of emperor of Rome, or any other title
taken from Rome, or making the city of Rome the seat of
his empire or residence. He was styled king of Italy, and
Ravenna became under Theodoric and his successors, after
i. defeat of Odoacer, the seat of the Gothic kingdom of
taly.
But, after some time, Justinian grew powerful in the
eastern empire, or empire of the Greeks; and, after many
victories in other parts, sends his victorious armies into Italy,
under the command of the great generals Belisarius and
Narses. They broke the power of the Gothic kingdom in
Italy, and recovered the greatest part of Italy to the obedi-
ence of the emperors of Constantinople. The Greek em-
perors administered their government of Italy by deputies or
lieutenants, who were styled dukes of Italy, as a very emi-
ment historian remarks, F. Exactis autem Gothis, expulsor
ipse, victorque Narses, ā Justiniano imperatore summae
rerum praepositus, titulo ducis Italiae sumpto, Italiam, per
hos provinciarum praefectos, pro suo arbitrio, adminis-
trabat. -
But in a short time, the Longohards, or Lombards, in-
vaded Italy, about the year of Christ 568.j: They make a
very swift progress, insomuch that, in the third year of their
invasion, they proclaim Alboin king of Italy;S and, in effect,
made themselves masters of all Italy, except Rome and
Ravenna. At this time, though Rome was in the obedience
of the eastern or Greek empire, yet still Rome was not the
seat of the government ; the chief governor resided at Ra-
venna, with the title of exarch of Ravenna ; and imperial
Rome, once the mistress of the world, was fallen into the
low condition of a small duchy, subject to the exarchate.
These exarchs continued, and with them this low condition
of Rome, about one hundred and eighty-five years, from
Longinus, who was made first exarch, A. D. 568, to Euty-
chius, the last exarch,” when Aistulphus, king of the Lom-
bards, took Ravenna, A. D. 752.
This conquest of Ravenna by the Lombards had very
great consequences; it at first gave Aistulphus an occasion
of claiming Rome, as a part and parcel of the exarchate,
which he had now annexed to his kingdom of Italy: for so
he sets forth his title and pretensions to Rome, as part of his
dominions: Quðd cūm ipse exarchatum Ravennatem teneret,
ex antiquo instituto, se tanquam exarchum, Romanis quoque
imperare, gºſuum esse, interpretabatur."
Aistulphus, to make good his claim upon the Romans re-
fusing tribute, enters their territory, and prepares to besiege
their city. The pope, alarmed, you may be sure, with so
near danger, immediately sends to Pepin of France, to pray
his protection and assistance. The popes had lately very
much obliged Pepin, in confirming the deposition of Chil-
deric, the last of the first race of the French kings, to make
way for Pepin and his family to the crown. Pepin had
many reasons to protect the pope against the growing power
of the Lombards in Italy: he first then endeavours by am-
bassadors to persuade the Lombards from committing hostili-
ties against the city of Rome, and leave the pope in quiet ;
but persuasions not prevailing, he enters Italy with an army,
beats Aistulphus, forces him to a treaty, in which he obliges
him not only to renounce his claim and pretensions to Rome,
as part of the exarchate he had conquered, but, moreover, to
surrender the whole exarchate to the pope, and gave the
temporal government of Rome, and the exarchate, for ever,
to the pope and his successors, as the patrimony of St. Peter.
But the next year, Pepin being returned into France,
Aistulphus, who could not think of performing so disadvan-
tageous a treaty, again enters the Roman territory, and pre-
pares for the siege of the city: Pepin returns into Italy with
a powerful force; Aistulphus raises the siege of Rome, is
himself besieged by Pepin, and finally forced to confirm and
execute his treaty, and make over the whole exarchate to
the church of Rome, or to St. Peter and his successors, for
ever. Thus Pepin wrested the exarchate from the hands of
the Lombards, Š refused to restore it to the eastern empire,
but confirmed it to St. Peter and his successors: the keys of
the several cities belonging to the exarchate, together with
the grant or charter, being with much solemnity laid on the
altar of St. Peter, A.D. 756.
Thus Rome, which had lost the imperial government, A.D.
476, and had rather the show and appearance of a new form
of government, than a real and proper government, under
the Greek emperors, and their exarchs of Ravenna, for about
one hundred and eighty-five years, obtained a perfectly new
form of government, when it became the patrimony of St.
Peter, and which has been the only form of government in
Tome ever since.
The power of Rome seemed quite extinguished, and the
Roman authority and dominion received a deadly wound,
when the Goths put an end to the empire ; imperial Rome
was then brought so low, that no ground of rational hope
was left, it should ever recover its power and authority
again ; and yet, after so many years, it revived once more,
this deadly wound was healed, and it has continued a very
long time : one of the most extraordinary forms of govern-
ment the world ever saw.
This new form of government was raised and conveyed to
the popes, as successors of St. Peter, by one of the principal
kingdoms founded by the northern nations, on the ruins of
the Roman empire ; and this authority and dominion of the
popes have been preserved to them all along, by the help
* Sigonius de Occident. Imperio, p. 251, 258.
+ Sigonius, de Regno Italiae, p. 3. -
# Ib. p. 8. § Petasius, Rat, Temp. p. 371.
* Ib. p. 374. e
+ Sigonius de Regno Italiac, p. 76.
† Ib. p. 80. Mezeray's I list, of France, vol. i. p. 216.
t
1018
PREFACE TO
and assistance of the several kingdoms erected in like manner.
In this history we may also see, on some accounts, an
eighth form of Roman government ; or, as it may on other
accounts be called, a seventh, according as the exarchate of
Ravenna shall be accounted or not accounted a proper
form of Roman government. s. This, though it can but
improperly be called a form of Roman government, yet
was the only government, from the destruction of the impe-
rial power, A.D. 476, to the establishment of the temporal
power of Rome in the papacy, A.D. 756, that is, for very
near the space of three hundred years.
It is farther worthy of observation, that the bare ecclesi-
astical Supremacy of the pope, how great soever under an-
other civil government of Rome, would never have been a
proper government of Rome; but the power of the supre-
macy itself would have been bounded by it, and hindered
from establishing an ecclesiastical monarchy. It is therefore
very justly observed by one well skilled in history and poli-
tics,” “Though the church was never so abounding in riches,
and in great numbers of ecclesiastics, yet it was absolutely
necessary, that the pope, if he intended to establish an eccle-
siastical monarchy, should not be in any way dependent on
any temporal prince, but that he should reside in a place
which was free from all subjection to any civil power but
himself, that he always should be possessed of such an estate
as might be sufficient to maintain his grandeur, and not be
liable to be taken away from him on any pretence whatso-
ever; where also his adherents might find a safe retreat,
whenever they should be pursued by the civil power.”
In this period of time, then, which begins the last form of
Roman government, and which perfected the papal supre-
macy and spiritual monarchy, by a considerable independent
temporal dominion, we have a very proper and natural agree-
ment of history, with the description of this prophecy. This
may, I think, direct us to a surer method of fixing the date
of it, than uncertain inquiries, when the papal supremacy,
was established ; for I conceive the prophecy rather points
out the temporal power of the pope, as the last form of the
government of Rome, which was also what principally estab-
lished his supremacy, and perfected the project of spiritual
monarchy.
Period 4.]—When this period shall have continued forty-
two months, a time, times, and half a time, a thousand two
hundred and threescore days, according to the style of pro-
phecy, “the beast shall be destroyed, the dragon, that old
Serpent, which is the devil, and Satan, shall be bound a thou-
a fourth remarkable period.
Period 5.]—Yet when these thousand years shall be ex-
pired, Satan, shall again be loosed out of his prison for a
short time: this will make a fifth period, xx. 7.
This shall, for once more, occasion a new attempt of error
and wickedness against truth and righteousness; but this
attempt shall end in the final ruin of all the enemies of reli-
gion: fire shall come down from God out of heaven, to
devour them ; and the devil, the deceiver, shall be cast into
the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false
prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night, for ever
and ever, xx. 9, 10.
Period 6.]—Upon this the prophecy represents, as the
conclusion of all things, the general judgment, the second
death and punishment of the wicked.
Period 7.]—The happiness of the righteous and faithful
servants of God and Christ, in a state of glorious immortality,
make a seventh period, in an endless sabbath.
This order of the prophecies is, I think, intelligible and
natural ; and, I believe, more agreeable to the important
facts in history, than other systems: and yet it is the truth
of history which alone can show us, what has been the pro-
vidence of God towards the church and world, from the
time of this vision of St. John to our own days.
It is certain, such a plan of prophecy, and order of history,
will well answer the useful designs of prophecy in general:
to prepare the church to expect opposition and sufferings in
this present world ; to support good men under all their trials
of faith and patience; to give encouragement to perseverance
in the true religion, whatever dangers may attend it; to
*-* = * *
, k Puffendorff, of the
Spiritual Monarchy of Rome, s. 19.
assure the attention of Providence, and the protection of
God to his own cause, that no opposition shall finally prevail
against it ; that the judgments of God shall punish the ene-
mies of true religion; that their opposition to truth and
righteousness shall surely end in their own destruction ;
when the faithful perseverance of true Christians shall be:
crowned with a glorious state of immortal life and happiness.
If, by explaining this book of Revelation upon this plan,
we shall find these intentions answered, and these truths
verified in history, and confirmed by experience, we shall
attain what is worth aiming at, to make this book appear
more intelligible, certain, and useful, than it is commonly
thought to be. For which reason, as many good persons
have not given that attention to it they ought, they miss that
encouragement, hope, and improvement, they might receive
from it, and, I think, with some greater advantages than
from a plainer manner of delivering even the same truths in
other books of the holy scriptures: for almost every thing
that is sublime, lively, and moving in the law and the pro-
phets, receives new force in the strong representations, figures,
images, and expressions, of this book.
The great truths concerning the majesty of God, the wis-
dom and care of his providence, the dignity, authority, and
power of Christ, the protection of the church, the restraint
and punishment of their enemies, and the final happiness of
all who shall faithfully persevere in the true Christian faith
and worship, are here delivered in such awful manner, such
animated expressions, and such striking representations, as
must greatly warm the spirits of good Christians. A regard
to this book of Revelation, as a prediction of events by a
Spirit of prophecy, which therefore will surely come to pass,
and which cannot fail of their accomplishment, serves very
wisely and powerfully to guard against the fears of men, by
a full assurance of hope in God. It will animate every one,
who looks upon the promises and threatenings of this book
as a sure prediction of what shall come to pass, to resist
every temptation of error and wickedness, with faithfulness,
constancy, and zeal. The lake of fire and brimstone, and
the terrors of the second death, the portion of the fearful and
unbelieving, the glory and happiness of the holy Jerusalem,
and a right to the tree of life, the portion of all the faithful,
are represented in so strong and lively images, as are fit to
fix the attention, and make way to the heart and affections,
and engage them with zeal to follow the wise directions of
understanding and judgment: and an exact conformity be-
tween these prophetic descriptions, and the real state of the
church and world, for a long series of some hundred years,
continually gives new evidence to the truth of the Christian
revelation, and to the authority of the books of the New
Testament; it greatly confirms our faith in the promises,
and thereby gives them their full force and influence upon us.
As this seems to be the improvement the Holy Spirit of
prophecy designed in this book of Revelation, let us con-
sider whether a religious attention to these designs will not
enable us to make this very useful improvement of it. There
is reason to hope it may : for it is one prophecy of this book,
“Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of
this prophecy, and keep those things that are written therein,”
i. 3.
Objections considered.]—Yet notwithstanding these rea-
sons, to recommend to us the study and improvement of
these revelations, it may be proper briefly to take notice of
some common objections which too often prejudice the minds
of many against them.
Uncertainty of application.]—I have already observed,
what I hope is sufficient to answer the charge of obscurity
from the style of prophecy; but the objection goes farther
than to the obscurity of expression. This book of Revela-
tion represents, some say, a great many persons and events,
times and things, which men know not how to apply with
any sufficient certainty. Hence we find so much difference
between interpreters, and the same prophecy applied to a
great variety of events; times often fixed, and often mistaken ;
that it should seem a point of plain wisdom not to be over-
busy in such uncertain applications.
It will ever be a point of wisdom not to be over-
busy, or over-confident in anything, especially in fixing
periods of time, or determining seasons, which it may be are
not to be determined, it may be are not fit to be known.
º REVELATION.
1019
It is a maxim of greater wisdom than it is usually thought,
“Seek not to know what should not be revealed.” Such
are many future events. The precise time of our Saviour's
coming to judgment was not revealed, because not fit to be
revealed: the uncertainty of his appearance was of greater
service to preserve a care of religion, than the revelation of it
would have been ; for the uncertainty itself gives many use-
ful exhortations: “Watch, for ye know not at what hour the
Son of man cometh.” Suppose, then, some of the events
described in this prophecy should be of doubtful application;
suppose the precise time of the downfal of the beast, the
slaying and resurrection of the witnesses, and the beginning
of the thousand years' happy state of the church, should not
so be determined, but it would admit of different calculations,
may it not be wise, and therefore fit, it should be so 2 The
certainty of those events in a proper time, though that time
should not be precisely determined, will answer the greater
ends of useful instruction; and if therevelation should go no
farther than this, it would yet be a revelation of great benefit
and advantage, as the certainty of the day of judgment in its
proper time surely is, though “of that day and hour knoweth
no man.” -
Besides, there is another wise reason, why the persons
and events described in this prophecy should be express
enough for the purposes of religious improvement, for the
patience, hope, encouragement, and constancy, of the church,
and yet remain with some uncertainty as to a particular ap-
plication. It was no way fit, for instance, that the several
woes and plagues prophesied to befal the Roman state and
empire, should stand so plain in a book of Christian revela-
tion, that every one could apply them to particular empe-
rors, or any present administration of government. It was
not fit, for instance, that Trajan, Hadrian, Severus, or Dio-
clesian, should be so described, as that all men should pre-
sently perceive they were personally pointed out. This
might have rendered the sacred books of the Christian reli-
gion suspected as treasonable libels against the peace, the
power, and the very being of the Roman empire. The per-
secutors of Christianity might have made this a plausible
pretence to justify their greatest severities against the Chris-
tians, as enemies to the peace and government, as well as to
the religion, of the empire. These are therefore uncertain-
ties not to be complained of, because they are wisely fit and
proper.
Yet still the great descriptions of God and Christ, of their
care and power; the description of the old dragon, and his
opposition to the chureh ; the dangers and afflictions of the
church, from idolatrous persecuting enemies; the duty of
the church in the hour of danger and temptation ; the secu-
rity of the church by divine protection ; the sure victory
and final happiness of the church in the end, which are the
things of chief design and principal use: these are all ex-
press enough, and none of these are either of doubtful or un-
certain application. And even as to the other particulars,
“he that hath an ear to hear,” that will carefully and mo-
destly endeavour to find out the meaning of these prophecies,
may, I think, attain to a good and useful degree of under-
standing, in “what the Spirit saith unto the churches;” and
may find the several particular events of these prophecies of
as certain application, as it is convenient such prophecies
should be. ,
Danger of enthusiasm.]—There is moreover another pre-
judice against the careful study of this book. Some think,
or at least pretend to think, that a regard to prophecies and
predictions, and especially to the prophecies of this book,
may have dangerous consequences. It may, as they say
they fear, be an encouragement to enthusiasm, and become
an occasion of great disorders in the world, which sure it is
wisdom carefully to watch against.
Enthusiasm, it is true, often has, and may again produce
very mischievous effects. The church, at the time of this
prophecy, saw one of the most memorable and fatal instan-
ces, in the rebellion of the Jews; and the destruction of
their temple, city, and nation, which followed upon it. But
though enthusiasm may abuse the best and most innocent
principles in the world, or at pleasure make what principles
it pleases, and move men by unhallowed means to promote
the holy kingdom of Jesus, as we have too many instances
of it; yet sure I am, there is no encouragement to it in any
part of the Christian religion, or in any part of these pro-
phecies. Here are no directions, or the least encouragement
given to.the church, or Christians, as saints, but to patience
and perseverance, in the faith and hope of the gospel, from
the protection of God: no encouragement of sedition or mu-
tiny, of violence or injustice, no, not to their greatest ene-
mies, or in their greatest dangers. The true means and
methods of their safety will be found of a quite different
nature. The time and way of the church's deliverance is
every where represented, as appointed and directed only by
the orders of God and Christ. Angels are every where re-
presented as the appointed ministers to execute these orders;
angels are to sound the trumpets of God's judgments, and to
pour out the vials of God’s wrath; so that the whole repre-
sentation seems as if designed to teach Christians, they were
to be watchful against all manner of rash and mutinous at-
tempts of their own, and not run into rebellion upon any
pretence of religion, as the Jews did, and met their ruin in
it. They are directed to wait the time God has appointed
for their deliverance; hoping that God will, by his own
hand of providence, execute his designs of their protection
and deliverance, in the most fitting time, and in the fittest
manner, and by the most proper means: so that, except the
wisdom and prudence of their own conduct, which is the
duty of all men at all times, and is the farthest thing in the
world from enthusiasm, either in life or religion, the church
has no other directions in these prophecies, but to “stand
still, and see the salvation of God.” The whole scheme of
this prophecy then, is so far from being an encouragement to
enthusiasm, that it is a wise preservative against it ; for the
general doctrine of the whole book is this, that the patience
of the Saints is the way to their victory.
Upon the whole, in these interpretations we are not to
expect demonstrations, or such proofs as shall be liable to no
manner of objections, or that some weak and warm heads
may not wrest these prophecies as they do the other scrip-
tures, and may do any principles whatsoever, to extravagant
designs and actions: it should be sufficient to satisfy us, if
we find a proper and likely sense of the prophetic expres-
sions and descriptions, suited to the manifest wise design of
the whole prophecy; and if these interpretations are sup-
ported by an application of events in history, that are justly
applicable both to the prophetic descriptions, and to the se-
ries and order of the prophecies; if they are events worthy
a spirit of prophecy to reveal, and agreeable to the spirit and
intention of this prophecy in particular, we may, without
exposing ourselves to the charge of being over-credulous,
reasonably rest satisfied with them.
Then, we may represent these prophecies to ourselves
in that noble and useful view in which a great author has
placed them (Bossuet, Explic. of the Revelation, Pref.):
“In the Gospel of St. John we read the life of Christ on
earth : a man conversing with men, humble, poor, weak,
and suffering, we behold a sacrifice ready to be offered, and
a man appointed to sorrows and death ; but in the Revela-
tion of St. John, we have the gospel of Christ now raised
from the dead. He speaks and acts as having conquered the
grave, and triumphed over death and hell, as entered into
the place of his glory ; angels, principalities, and powers,
being made subject unto him, and exercising the Supreme
universal power he has received from the Father over all
things in heaven and earth, as our Saviour, for the protec-
tion of his church, and for the sure happiness of his faithful
servants in the end *
g
1020
scHEME AND ORDER OF THE PROPHECIES IN THE BOOK OF REVELATION.
- A.D. A.D
CHAP. I. VER. 19. º stantine the Great, who put a period to the per-
INTRODUCTION, A prophetic vision in the isle of -- secution of Rome heathen tº e s tº s & © tº º is e a s a s e s e a :-
Patmos, representing Christ, his care of the chur- CEIAP. VII & O
ches, promising a revelation, with cautions and
exhortations suitable to the then present state of
the church, and to the future state of the church
in after-ages, to encourage patience and constan-
cy in the faith
CHAP. II. -
FIRST PART of REVELATION, relating to the things
that are, or the then state of the church :
Seven Epistles. Seven Epistles to the seven princi-
pal churches in Asia, describing their present
state, with cautions and exhortations suitable to
it. -
CHAP. III.
SECOND PART OF REVELATION, relating to the things
that shall be hereafter, or to the state of the
church in the ages to come, after the time of the
vision, with cautions and exhortations suitable to
it. -
CHAP. IV.
Scene of the visions. The throne of God, the consis-
95
Interval between the first and second periods, repre-
sents an angel sealing one hundred and forty-
four thousand with the seal of the living God;
signifying great numbers forsaking the idolatrous
worship of the heathen Roman empire, and em-
bracing the profession of Christianity.
VER, 9.
Chorus of the heavenly church blessing God for his
salvation. One of the elders shows unto St. John
the happiness of those who were faithful and con-
stant to true religion, in the great trial of so grie-
vous persecution. -
CHAP. VIII.
Second period reveals the state of the church and pro-
vidence in the times following the reign of Con- .
stantine, during the invasion of the empire by the
northern nations ; the rise and first progeess of
the Mahometan imposture, till the stop put to it
in the western empire, which reaches from about
tory above, and heavenly church, representing the year 337 to the year 750 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337--
God's power, majesty, authority, providence, and Seven angels receive seven trumpets to Sound. 750
Seven Trumpets.
sure event of all his purposes.
1. First trumpet represents hail and fire mingled
A sealed book, containing a revelation of the state
of the church in after-ages, given to the Lamb to
open, or to Jesus Christ to reveal, for the goo
of the church, by St. John: ,
- CELAP. W.
Chorus of angels and saints; or, the whole heavenly
church sings a psalm of praise to the Lamb.
CHAP. VI.
The Revelation begins by opening the sealed book,
which describes the future state of the church in
seven successive periods.
SEVEN PERIoDs. - -
First period, showing the state of the church under
the heathen Roman emperors, from about the
year 95, to about the year 323. The seals of the
book opened in order
Seven Seals.
1. First seal represents a white horse, the rider
with a crown, going forth to conquer ; signifying
the kingdom of Christ, or Christian religion, pre-
vailing against the opposition of Jews and hea-
then.
2. Second seal represents a red horse, power given
to the rider to take peace from the earth ; signi-
fying the first memorable judgment on the per-
secutors of Christianity, in the destruction of the
Jews under Trajan and Hadrian . . . . . . . . . .
3. Third seal represents a black horse, the rider
with a balance to measure corn; signifying great
scarcity of provision, near to famine, in the time
e e º e is a s • * * * * ~ * a s sº e e e
4
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the rider Death ; signifying a great mortality and
pestilence, wherewith the empire was punished
in the reigns of Maximin and Valerian.........
under the altar, their reward and deliverance in
a short time ; signifying the severe persecu-
tion in the reign of Dioclesian, with an encou-
323
100--
138--
193
193--
5. Fifth seal represents the souls of the martyrs 270
95--
with blood, cast on the earth ; signifying great
storms of war to fall on the empire, and the blood
that was shed in the reigns of the Constantine
family, and their successors, till things were set-
tled under Theodosius . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 337--
2. Second trumpet represents a mountain burning 379
with fire, cast into the sea, whereby it became
blood ; signifying the invasion of Italy by the
northern nations, and taking the city of Rome by
Alaric , 379–-
a s e s tº sº e º e a s e < * c e e s a s 6 e. e. e. e s e e e e
3. Third trumpet represents a burning star falling 412
upon the rivers, which became bitter; signifying
the ravages in Italy, putting an end to the Roman
empire, and founding a kingdom of Goths in
Italy itself 412--
• a s tº e s a s a s e e º e º e º e º 'º º " s e e s e e s a
4. Fourth trumpet represents a third part of the 493
sun and moon darkened ; signifying, the wars in
Italy between Justinian's generals and the Goths,
whereby the exarchate of Ravenna was erected,
and all the remaining power and authority of
Rome quite suppressed . . . . . . . . . e e º e e º e º e º & 493--
568
CHAP. IX.
5. Fifth trumpet represents the bottomless pit open- 568
ed, and locusts coming out of it; signifying, the
rise of the Mahommedan religion and empire, and
the great progress of both, till a stop was put to
them by a contention for the succession ...... 568–
6. Sixth trumpet represents four angels loosed, 675
which were bound in the river Euphrates; signi-
fying, the reunion of the divided Saracen power,
the invasion of Europe by them, and threatening
the conquest of it, till defeated by Charles Mar-
635–
Third period of the vials reveals the state of the 750
church and providence, in the times of the last
head of Roman government, represented by the
beast, for one thousand two hundred and sixty
years, to its final overthrow, from about the year
ragement to constancy, suitable to such times of 756, to about the year 2016 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 756-
difficulty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... * * * * * * * * ~ e s e º s 27 0-- - 2016
6. Sixth seal represents earthquakes, sun darkened,304 CHAP. X.
stars falling from heaven ; signifying great com-
motions in the empire, from Maximian to Con-
An angel, or Nuntius, brings a little book, the re-
mainder of the sealed book opened by the Lamb,
PROPHECIES IN THE REVELATION.
1021
. . A.D. - -
and gives it to St. John to eat; signifying, a farther
revelation of what was to follow in order of time,
to the end of the world.
CHAP. XI,
Three general descriptions of this period:
1. First general description represents the temple
measured: part given to the gentiles ; two wit-
nesses prophesy in sackcloth one thousand two
hundred and sixty days ; signifying, the corrupt
State of the church, and the constancy of some
faithful witnesses to the truth, though under se-
were persecutions during this whole period.
- CHAP. XII,
2. Second general description represents a woman
forced to fly into the wilderness for safety ; and
protected there one thousand two hundred and
sixty days; signifying, the persecution and preser-
vation of the church during the same period.
CEIAP. XIII.
3. Third general description represents a monstrous .
wild beast rising out of the sea, with seven heads,
ten horns, as many crowns, and titles of blas-
phemy, who was to continue forty and two months;
signifying, that new Roman power, which should
use its authority to promote idolatrous worship,
and to persecute all who would not submit to it,
and should be supported by another power like
unto its own form and constitution, during the
same period.
CHAP. XIV.
Chorus of the heavenly church celebrates in a hymn
the happiness of those who remain faithful and
constant.
CHAP. XV.
Nuntius, an angel, comes down from heaven to de-
clare the certain and severe judgment of the en-
emies of truth and pure religion, in this period.
Seven angels receive seven cups full of the wrath of
God; signifying, that the enemies of truth and
pure religion in this period, shall be severely pun-
ished in the course of it, as well as they shall be
utterly destroyed in the end. , ºr
CHAP. XVI.
The oracle gives order to the seven angels, to pour out
their vials or cups.
Seven Vials.
First vial poured on the earth; a grievous sore on
the worshippers of the beast, signifying the great
commotions throughout the whole empire, under
the family of Charles the Great, by which that
family becomes extinct, and by which both the
empire and crown of France are transferred to
other families . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......
the blood of a dead man; signifying, the great
bloodshed of the holy war, to recover Jerusalem
from the Saracens. . . . .
3. Third vial poured on the rivers
they become blood; signifying, the bloody civil
wars between the Guelphs and Gibellines, the
papal and imperial factions, when the popes were
driven out of Italy into France
& e º is tº * * * * g º & a e e 120
830–
2. Second vial poured on the Sea, it becomes as 988
lſ)40–
1 190
0–
4. Fourth vial poured on the sun, which has power 1371
given it to scorch men; signifying, the long wars
in Italy, Germany, France, and Spain, occa-
sioned by a long schism in the papacy. Turks
take Constantinople, and put an end to the eas-
tern empire. Pestilential diseases occasioned by
intemperate heat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . e
1378–
5. Fifth vial poured on the seat of the beast, or his 1530
throne; signifying, the Reformation, and the con-
y
6
A.D.,
firmation of it by the principal states of Europe,
notwithstanding all opposition from the pope, and
in opposition to the papal authority . . . . . . . . . 1560--
. Sixth vial poured on the river Euphrates, makes 1650
way for the kings of the east. This seems, in the
order of the prophecies, to be yet future; but may
likely mean some invasion of the pope's domi- 1670--
nions from its eastern boundary, or the Adriatic 1850
7. Seventh vial poured on the air, the seat of Sa-
tan's empire, describes the utter ruin of this per-
secuting idolatrous Roman government, or mys-
tical Babylon, at the end of this period. . . . . . 1850-
2016
CHAP. XVII.
Nuntius, an angel interpreter, more fully explains the
character of this idolatrous persecuting power,
which should corrupt the church, and persecute
the faithful during this period.
CHAP. XVIII,
Another angel sent from heaven, to confirm the utter
and lasting destruction of this mystical Babylon,
as a punishment for her idolatrous corruption and
persecution. -
CHAP. XIX.
Chorus of the heavenly church sings the praise of God,
for his righteous judgments.
A vision of Christ, leading an army out of heaven,
strongly represents the certain accomplishment of
this prophecy.
CHAP, XX.
Fourth period. An angel sent from heaven to shut up
Satan in the bottomless pit, as in a secure prison,
for one thousand years, during which time there
will be a happy state of the church, in purity,
peace, and prosperity.
VER. 7.
Fifth period. After the thousand years of the church's
prosperity shall be expired, Satan will be loosed
again for a little season, a new attempt will be
made to revive the corruptions of the church, and
a spirit of persecution, which shallend in the final
destruction of Satan's power, and of all the ene-
mies of pure and true religion.
VER. 11.
Sixth period. The general resurrection and final judg-
ment; the everlasting destruction of the Wicked.
CHAP. XXI.
The seventh period concludes the whole prophecy, in
the vision of new heavens, and a new earth, repre-
senting, in strong images, the extent, security,
riches, and grandeur of the heavenly Jerusalem;
signifying, the consummate happiness of the hea-
venly state.
CHAP. XXII.
Thus, the prophecies of this revelation issue in an
elernal SABBATH : The sure reward of all who
shall be found fuithful and constant in the true
neligion of Jesus Christ.
The CoNCLUSION confirms the truth and certainty of
these prophecies, warns against corrupting them,
exhorts to hope the accomplishment of them ; a
useful spirit and temper, to give good men conso-
lation in all their present afflictions, and to pre-
serve them from the corruptions of religion, how
prevailing soever in their own times; which is
CHAP. XXII. VER. 6.
The useful moral and principal doctrine of these
prophecies.
1022
CHAPTER I.
SECTION I.
1 THE Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave
unto him, to show unto his servant things which
must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified
it by his angel to his servant John:
2 Who bare record of the word of God, and of the
testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he
SaW. -
3 Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the
words of this prophecy, and keep those things which
are written therein: for the time is at hand.
Wer. (1.) This book contains a discovery or revelation of
many secrets, which Christ made known concerning the pre-
sent and future state of his church in this world; and which
the divine wisdom directed should be made known, by a re-
velation from himself, to his faithful servants; containing an
account of many things that should shortly begin to be ac-
complished, and which he revealed by his "angel to his ser-
vant John, in the following visions. (2.) Which revelations
John has faithfully recorded, as they were revealed to him
by Christ, even as he faithfully testified what he had seen of
Christ's actions on earth. And what follows is a true and
faithful relation of what he saw in his prophetic visions.
(3.) And they are of such use to the faithful Christian, that
he will be truly blessed, who shall so read and attend to the
words of this prophecy, as to follow the counsels and instruc-
tions contained in it, who shall persevere in the faith, wor-
ship, and patience, of the gospel; for they are of immediate
and constant use, as they will very soon begin to be accom-
plished, and will be punctually fulfilled in their order to the
end of time.
4 John to the seven churches which are in Asia:
Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and
which was, and which is to come; and from the seven
Spirits which are before his throne; -
5 And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful Wit-
ness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the
Prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that
loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own
blood,
6 And hath made us kings and priests unto God
and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for |
ever and ever. Amen.
(4.) I John, therefore, who saw these visions, and record
them for the benefit of the church, salute the seven churches
which are in Asia, to whom I more immediately direct this
revelation, wishing them all manner of spiritual happiness,
from the eternal God, and from his * Holy Spirit; (5.) And
from Jesus Christ our Saviour and Lord, who is a faithful
great glory.”
Witness, whom God raised from the dead, the first-fruits of
our resurrection, and thereby gave us full evidence and rea-
sonable assurance of our own resurrection from the dead,
and has made him supreme head over all persons, of what
authority, dignity, or power soever, to whom we have the
greatest obligation, as he has so loved us, as to wash us from
our sins in his own blood, (6.) and has sanctified us to the
service of God, consecrating us as his church, a kingdom of
priests, to honour God and his Father, and to give us the
privilege of a near approach unto him, with assurance of
acceptance and favour: to him let the churches ascribe glory
and dominion, for ever and ever. Amen.
7 Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye
shall see him, and they also which pierced him : and
all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him.
Even so, Amen.
8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the
ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and
which is to come, the Almighty.
(7.) This prophecy, which I now record, you may observe,
is agreeable to former prophecies, concerning the power and
majesty of Christ's kingdom ; Daniel prophesied of his
coming with the angels of the host of heaven;" "and Zecha-
riah, that “they shall look upon him whom they have
pierced, and mourn;”F and our Saviour himself, t that “all
the tribes of the earth shall mourn; for they shall see the
Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and
Such manifestations then of his glory and
power, the Christian church had all reason to believe and hope
for. (8.) And we have the more reason to heed, and give
credit to these predictions of prophecy, because they are, in
effect, promises of the supreme Governor of the world; who
is ever the same unchangeable being, able to accomplish all
his purposes from the first beginning of time to the last con-
summation of all things.
SECTION II.
9 I JoHN, who also am your brother, and compan-
ion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience
of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos,
for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus
Christ. - -
10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard
behind me a great voice, like the sound of a trumpet.
11 Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and
the last; and, What thou seest, write in a book, and
send it to the seven churches, which are in Asia; un-
to Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos,
and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis and Philadelphia,
and unto Laodicea.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I.
CoNTENTs.-This chapter is an introduction, or preface, to
the prophecies contained in this book. It represents
the first vision John saw ; the manner in which this reve-
lation was made to him ; and gives, in very lively figures,
a view of the majesty, glory, and power of our Lord Jesus
Christ, now in his exalted state : it teaches Christ's care
of his church, now he is sat down at the right hand of
God, in very beautiful and strong expressions, taken chiefly
from the ancient prophets; very proper to confirm the
faith and patience of good Christians, and encourage their
perseverance, under all their afflictions and fears: the
principal doctrine and design of the whole book.
* Wer. 1. By his angel.] In the style of prophecy, from
whence the expressions of this book are chiefly taken,
every thing is called an angel, that notifies a message from
God, or executes the will of God. A prophetic dream is an
angel ; the pillar of fire that went before the Israelites, is
called God’s angel. The winds and flames of fire are an-
gels to us, when used by God as voices to teach us, or rods
to punish us: so that God is properly said to reveal by his
angel, what he makes known, either by voice, by dream, by
vision, or any other manner of true prophetic revelation.
* Ver. 5. From his Holy Spirit..] The Holy Spirit, I
think, is meant by the seven spirits which are before the
throne. Seven, in the language of prophecy, often expresses
perfection, and may better be understood of the most per-
fect Spirit of God, the author of all spiritual blessings, than
of seven angels, as a more matural interpretation of the ex-
pression in prophecy, as well as much more agreeable to
the manner of the gospel-blessing, from Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost. -
* Ver. 7. Angels of the host of heaven.] Rabbi Saadias
Gaon observes the clouds of heaven, they are the angels of
the host of heaven ; this is the great magnificence and
power, which God shall give unto the Messiah. (Wide
Pearson on the Creed, art. 7, p. 293, and Bishop Chandler's
Defence of Christianity, p. 130.) -
* Dan. vii. 13. ‘f Zech. xii. 10. . Matt. xxiv. 30.
CHAPTER I.
1023
12 And I turned to see the voice that spake with
me. And, being turned, I saw seven golden candle-
sticks. t
(9.) Know then the time and occasion of these revelations
I received from Christ, were thus: I who am a fellow-suf.
ferer with you, on account of the gospel of Christ, was in
banishment in the isle of Patmos, for my faithful adherence
to the religion of Jesus Christ, and the truth of his gospel.
(10.) There, on the day distinguished in the Christian church
by the name of the Lord's day, on which the church is used
to assemble for religious worship, the spirit of prophecy came
upon me, in like manner as upon the ancient prophets; and
the first thing I perceived, was a voice, strong and loud as
the sound of a trumpet, and, attending to it, I heard this
voice from heaven, or oracle of God, distinctly saying unto
me, (11.) I am Alpha and Omega, I begin, and I finish all
things, from the creation of the world, to the end of time,
and the consummation of ages; regard the revelations thou
shalt receive, as coming from me ; write them down to pre-
serve them for the use and benefit of the church, and send
them in particular to the seven churches which are in Asia,
who are concerned in the present use of them. (12.) This
voice of the oracle called me to great attention, and made
me turn to see whence this voice might proceed ; then the
spirit of prophecy continued the revelation in a prophetic
vision, “for I saw as before my eyes the following representa-
tion: I saw seven golden candlesticks, or a lamp made of
pure gold, having seven branches, like to the lamp in the
holy place in the temple.*
13 And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one
like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment
down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a
golden girdle.
(13.) And as the priests, when they dressed the lamps,
stood in the midst, to light the middle and largest of the
branches first ; so I beheld a person in the midst of this
lamp, as if trimming the branches, not in the appearance of
an angel, but in an appearance of human shape as a man;
he was dressed in the rich habit peculiar to the high-priest ;
he wore the robe of the ephod, girt with the curious girdle,
of gold, blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine-worked
linen.f -
14 His head and his hairs were white like wool,
as white as Snow ; and his eyes were as a flame of
fire; -
15 And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they
burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of
many waters.
(14.) The appearance of his person was also very glorious,
somewhat like the appearance of the Ancient of days, in
Taniel..t The upper part of his body, his head. and hair,
were exceeding white, and of "great lustre; his eyes had
a piercing brightness, (15.) and the lower parts shone like
the finest amber, or a refined and polished metal, and his
voice was strong and full, like the Sound of the sea, or some
very great water.
* Ver. 12. In a prophetic vision.] The Jews accounted
all degrees of prophecy were included in dreams and visions;
In istis autem duabus partibus, somnio inquam et visione,
continentur omnes prophetiae gradus (Maimonides, More
Nev. par. ii., cap. 26, p. 293); but yet the Jews were wont
to make a vision superior to a dream ; (vide Smith's Se-
lect Discourses of Prophecy, p. 175) so that this book is
represented as the highest degree of prophetic revelation.
* Ver. 14. Of great lustre.] So Asukjº, which we trans-
late “white,” properly signifies.
I saw a great white throne ;” that is, a throne with a glor-
ious lustre, AEvºy (candidum) hic intellige splendidum
cum majestate. (Grot. in loc.)
This being an appearance of the Shechinah, is to be con-
sidered as that always was, a representation of the divine
presence, majesty, and glory ; therefore the glory in which
* Exod. xxv. 31 + Exod. xxxix. 5. f Dan, vii. 9.
Thus, Rev. xx. 11, “And
16 And he had in his right hand seven stars; and
out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword;
and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his
strength. -
(16.) I perceived farther, that this venerable person held
in his right hand, as it were, seven stars, and a sharp two-
edged sword seemed to go out of his mouth, and his whole
appearance was as glorious as if I had beheld the full lustre
of the Sun at noon-day, when shining in its greatest bright-
Il CSS,
17 And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead.
And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me,
Fear not; I am the first and the last:
I8 I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold,
I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of
hell and of death.
19 Write the things which thou hast seen, and the
º which are, and the things which shall be here-
after ;
20 The mystery of the seven stars which thou saw-
est in my right hand, and the seven golden candle-
sticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven
churches; and the seven candlesticks which thou
sawest are the seven churches.
(17.) The sight of such a person, with so majestic ap-
pearance, struck me with great awe; insomuch, that, like a
man in a swoon, I lost my senses for a time, but he raised
me up, by laying his right hand upon me, and encouraging
me, as the angel did Daniel ; * and said unto me, Be not
afraid, for though you may observe something in this vision
of the majesty, power, and authority of my everlasting
kingdom ; (18.) yet observe also, this vision represents the
High-priest and Saviour of the church, who died to redeem
it unto God, and consecrate it a peculiar people, and who
now ever lives to protect and bless it.; and who has all
authority and power in this life, and in the separate state of
departed souls, after this life, to save it for evermore. This
I confirm as a certain truth. (19.) Therefore lay aside
your fear, and attend to the design of this vision ; write
down, and keep on record, what this vision reveals concern-
ing the state of the church, of my power, and care of it,
which are things of great concern to the church, and regard
partly the present state of the church, and partly the se-
veral states of the church in future "times. (20.) To begin
then to explain the meaning of this vision, observe what is
to be understood by the mystical representation of the seven
stars, and the seven golden candlesticks, or branches of the
lamp: the stars are intended to signify the angels, pastors,
or bishops of the churches; and the candlesticks to signify
the churches themselves, consecrated to the service of God,
following the instructions of their faithful bishops, in purity
of doctrine, worship, and manners, shining as lights in the
world, and honouring their profession of my gospel, and re-
ligion, before men.
the Shechinah appeared in ancient prophecy, is very pro-
perly applicable to it.
* Ver. 19.] This distinction of things relating to the pre-
sent state of the church, and of things relating to the future
state of the church in aftertimes, may direct to one observa-
tion concerning this prophecy; That this first vision should
seem to relate to the present state of the church; the fol-
lowing visions, to the future state of the church ; which, I
think, makes it more probable, to understand the epistles to
the churches, as relating to the present state of the church
in the days of the apostle, than to understand them as pro-
phetic representations of the successive states of the church,
to the end of time; but I enter not into the opinions of
learned men on that question, proposing to set the prophe-
cies of this book in a plainer light if I can ; not to make
them darker, by new disputes, than they were before.
* Dan, x. 10.
1024
CHAPTER II.
SECTION III.
1 UNTo the angel of the church of Ephesus write;
These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in
his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven
golden candlesticks; *
2 I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy pati-
ence, and how thou canst not bear them which are
evil: *and thou hast tried them which say they are
apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars :
3 And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my
name’s sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted.”
4 Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, be-
cause thou hast left thy first love. -
(1.) As the churches in Asia now labour under many
discouragements and great trials of their faith and patience,
write to them, as in my name, these directions and instruc-
tions proper for their warming and encouragement; declare,
as from the Holy Spirit of revelation, my care of them, and
power to protect them. In particular, write after this man-
ner to the church of Ephesus ; Though I am in heaven, yet
I am concerned for the protection of my religion on earth, I
will protect my ministers, who are careful to enlighten the
church with the knowledge of truth and righteousness, of
peace and happiness, according to the revelation of my gos-
pel; and I will give all encouragement to the churches, and
assistance, proper to answer their character as lights of the
world, to adorn the Christian religion by purity of doctrine,
worship, and manners. (2.) And let the church of Ephesus
farther know, in this solemn manner, that in my observation
of its behaviour, I take a particular notice of what deserves
commendation ; that it is careful to preserve good works ;
that it is diligent and zealous in the duties of religion; that
it has shown a patience and constancy, as well as diligence
and faithfulness, and expressed them in a very proper man-
ner; not bearing those evil persons who would have cor-
rupted the purity of the church with wickedness of life, and,
examining the doctrines of such who would have imposed
their errors on the pretence of apostolical authority, pre-
served the purity of faith and doctrine, as well as of life and
manners. (3.) Let them know, I observe, that these things
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II.
CoNTENTS.–In this and the following chapter, we have the
prophecies which concerned the then present church, or
“the things which are:” (i. 19) by which the state of the
seven churches in Asia, at the time of the vision, seems
to be described, in what was commendable, and deserved
encouragement ; in what was faulty, and called for re-
proof and reformation. This part of the prophecy is de-
signed to show the constant care of Christ over the church,
both in the punishment of apostasy, and in the blessings
of faithfulness and constancy. Each of these epistles is
then to be considered as proper directions and encourage-
ments, cautions and warnings, in every state of the church,
where there are like commendable things to be praised
and encouraged, or like faults and miscarriages to be re-
proved and amended ; and it will represent the state of
the church in every age, as, in every period of time, there
will be some like things to be commended, and to be
blamed. This is a representation of the state of the
church, most proper to the design of the prophecy, to en-
courage faithfulness, patience, and perseverance, under all
the discouragements the church might meet with. Chris-
tians were not to be discouraged on the one hand, because
all things in the churches were not as they ought to be ;
nor yet, on the other hand, were they to neglect or over-
look any miscarriage or imperfection, on pretence that
the church in this world cannot arrive at perfection. They
were to amend what was faulty, to improve what was im-
perfect, and to remain constant in the purity of Christian
faith, worship, and manners, when the protection of
commendable in the church of Ephesus, are very eminent ;
they have borne great afflictions, they have long had patience,
and, from a right principle of affection to my name and
gospel, in which they have been very constant, as well as
diligent, have not fainted under any difficulties or opposition.
(4.) However, there are some things in the behaviour of
this church that deserve reproof and censure, notwithstand-
ing all that is commendable in it.
Tell them in my name, You have suffered your former
affection to abate and cool ; your affections for the institu-
tions of the gospel, your charity for each other as brethren,
and members of the true church of the living God, are not
so warm and lively as once they were.
5 Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen,
and repent, and do thy first works; or else I will
come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candle-
stick out of his place except thou repent.
6 But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of
the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.*
7. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit
saith to the churches: To him that overcometh will I
give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of
the paradise of God.
(5.) Take notice then of this declension of thy love, as a
miscarriage that calls for repentance and reformation; this
can only consist in regaining your former warmth of affec-
tion, so as to excite you to your former eminent acts of
love and charity ; if you neglect this warning and advice, if
you will not repent and do your first works, I will soon
punish your negligence and disobedience, by depriving you
of those privileges of the true church, for which you are ,
losing your esteem and, affection. (6.) Yet still there is
this encouraging in you, that though your love and affection
are cooler than they were, yet you highly disapprove and
warmly condemn the idolatrous liberties and unclean prac-
tices of the Nicolaitans, which I also highly disapprove and
condemn. (7.) Let him therefore who is disposed to re-
ceive useful instruction, attentively consider what the Spirit
of wisdom and prophecy reveals to the church, and let him
be encouraged to faithfulness, perseverance, and constancy,
in the Christian religion, being assured, that whosoever shall
Christ their Saviour promises them victory in the end,
and to crown that victory with the glorious reward of
eternal life.
! Wer. 1. Walking in the midst of the golden candlesticks,
Is an expression taken from the office of the priests in dress-
ing the lamps, which was to keep them always burning before
the Lord. I conceive, therefore, “walking” here may be de-
signed to signify, not only a care to observe and know the
true state of the churches; but mereovér, to assist and pro-
mote their improvement in religion, or to assist the churches
in their proper character, as consecrated to the service of
God, that they may shine as lights in the world, in the midst
of a crooked and perverse nation (Phil. ii. 15).
* Ver. 2..] This observation of the commendable behaviour
of the church of Ephesus, seems to direct us to observe how
acceptable in the sight of God the care of the primitive
churches was, to preserve purity by proper discipline, and a
zeal against wickedness, as inconsistent with the profession
of the gospel, as Mr. Waple well observes on the place.
8 Ver. 3..] This third verse, as Mr. Waple observes, being
much a repetition of what was said in the foregoing verse,
seems to intimate that the sufferings, the diligence, and the
patience of this church, were very eminent and remarkable,
for so a repetition of the same thing sometimes signifies in
scripture language. *
* Ver. 6..] However antiquity differs concerning the origi-
mal of the sect of Nicolaitans, it sufficiently agrees as to the
libertine principles and impure practices they taught, used,
and defended; insomuch that they allowed lewdness and
adulteries, as well as idolatrous sacrifices, by placing them
CHAPTER II.
1025
fight this good fight so as to overcome the enemies of truth
and righteousness, so as not to be turned back from the holy
commandment, by the temptation of an evil world, shall
enjoy a state of full perſection and happiness in eternal life,
as the first parents of human race would have continued in
the happiness of their paradisaical state, if they had not lost
the privilege of the tree of life, being overcome by the temp-
tation of eating the forbidden fruit.
8 And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna
write; These things saith the first and the last, which
was dead and is alive:
(8.) Write also another epistle to the church in Smyrna,
and give it to understand these things, as a revelation from
a most powerful and affectionate Saviour, from him who was
before all things, and of whose kingdom and power there
shall be no end : As my obedience to death showed how
one dearly beloved of God might be afflicted in this life ;
and as my death has obtained eternal redemption for my
people, and the new covenant confirmed by it has called
them to the hope of everlasting salvation, so I am also
raised from the dead, and live for ever, and have entered
into the glory, the reward of my sufferings, which may greatly
encourage and support all who shall be partakers with me,
in suffering for righteousness' sake, that they shall also be
partakers with me in glory.
9 I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty,
(but thou art rich,) and I know the blasphemy of
them which say they are Jews, but are not, but are
the synagogue of Satan.
10 Fear none of those things which thou shalt suf-
fer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into
prison, that ye may be tried : and ye shall have tribu-
lation *ten days; be thou faithful unto death, and I
will give thee a crown of life. - -
(9.) Let them know, I am not unacquainted with their true
state and condition ; I know their painful diligence in the
good works of religion, and the many troubles they meet
with on account of it; and, in particular, their low and
poor condition, as to the riches of this world; though they
have reason to account themselves rich, as they abound in
good works, and enjoy the favour of God, with the hopes of
the true religion ; let them farther understand, I am sensible
of the opposition they meet with, from a party which boasts
in the privileges of the true church, but whose pretences
are false and blasphemous ; who are so far from being the
true church of God, that they are a synagogue of Satan, by
promoting error, Superstition, and wickedness, the very
things wherein the kingdom of Satan consists, (10.) Direct
them, that they fear none of these sufferings, which such
evil persons may inflict upon them ; though God, for the
trial of their faith and patience, may permit them to be cast
into prison, and they may have great trouble for some con-
siderable time, yet exhort them to be faithful even unto
death, if their trial should reach to the danger of their lives,
as well as of their liberty ; assuring them, that their faith-
fulness shall finally be rewarded, with a crown of infinitely
more value than the corruptible crowns men have in so high
esteem here, even with a state of perfection, happiness, and
glory, for ever.
11 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit
saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall
not be hurt of the second death.
(11.) Let then every man attentively consider, what the
Spirit of wisdom and revelation hereby teaches the church,
and be encouraged to faithfulness and constancy, in the
profession and practice of true Christianity : for whoever
among things indifferent, and pleaded in justification of their
own liberty in the use of both. And thus it seems to be
explained in this very chapter (ver. 14), “Teaching to eat
things sacrificed to idols, and to commit fornication.”
* Ver. 10. Ten days, I conceive, is not to be understood
literally; a short time of affliction indeed! hardly agreeable
to a description of that tribulation this prophecy seems to
prepare the church for. In scripture language, “ten times”
are many times, Gen. xxxi. 7. 41; “ten women” are many
women, Lev. xxvi. 26; “ten sons” are many sons, 1 Sain. i. 1
shall thus overcome the temptations of the world, shall not
be hurt by the death of his soul in the world to come ; but
shall be delivered from the punishment of the wicked and
faithless, when they shall be doomed to everlasting de-
struction.
12 And to the angel of the church in Pergamos
write; These things saith he which hath the sharp
sword with two edges;
(12.) Send also an epistle to the bishop of the church in
Pergamos ; let them know these instructions and admoni-
tions come from their Saviour; who, though he has a con-
stant care of the churches, and their ministers, yet was re-
presented in the vision you saw (i. 16), with a sharp sword
going out of his mouth, to acquaint them, the power of the
sword is an essential right of my government; that I shall
be as ready to punish apostates and enemies of my kingdom
as I am ready to protect and bless my people, in their per-
Severance and constancy, according to those rules I have
Settled, and declared in my word.
13 I know thy works, and where thou dwellest,
even where Satan’s seat is ; and thou holdest fast my
name, and hast not denied my faith, even in those
days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who
was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth.
(13). Let them know, I consider what is commendable
in them, every circumstance that makes their patience and
constancy more eminent; I consider their good works, and
I consider also, the temptations of the place where they
live, where the powers of darkness and coruption have a
numerous and powerful party. Yet, in this time of severe
trial, when the evil spirit of persecution prevailed to put a
faithful servant of my gospel to death in their city, so great
was the power of Satan among them ; yet they could not
be prevailed upon to deny my name and religion.
14 But I have a few things against thee, because
thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam,
who taught Balac to cast a stumbling-block before
the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols,
and to commit fornication.
15 So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine
of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate.
(14.) Notwithstanding this exemplary constancy, let thern
also understand there are some things that deserve reproof,
and require reformation ; they have some among them who
have fallen into the prevailing corruptions. As the wicked
advice of Balaam prevailed upon the children of Israel to
commit fornication with the daughters of Moab, and so to
join with them in their idolatry ; which trespass was punish-
ed by a plague among the congregation of the Lord :* so
there are some in the church of Pergamos, who give into
the corruption of eating things sacrificed to idols, and allow
themselves to commit fornication. (15.) There are some who
go so far as to justify those miscarriages, by receiving the
principles of the Nicolaitans, which I greatly disapprove, as
most inconsistent with the purity of the Christian faith and
religion, as revealed and taught in my gospel.
16 Repent ; or else I will come unto thee quickly,
and will fight against them with the “sword of my
mouth.
(16.) Charge them therefore to repent of these miscar-
riages, and to return to the Christian purity of doctrine and
manners, by a thorough reformation: otherwise, as these
sins were punished, in former examples, by a plague, I also
will very soon punish them in such manner as shall show my
high displeasure at so great miscarriages in my church.
8; “ten men” are many men, Ecclus. vii. 9; and in com-
mon speech, ten significs many; as Mr. Daubuz has ob-
served in several passages of Plautus (Symbolical Dict. p.
96).
} Ver. 16. I will fight against them with the sword of my
mouth.) Is, I think, an allusion to the sword, one of the
ensigns of magistracy and government, to express the jus
gladii, or the power of the sword, in the execution of justice
* Numb. xxv. 1, 2. xxxi. 16.
3 U
1026
REVELATION.
Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcom-
eth will I give to eat of the hidden manna, " and will
give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name
written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiv-
eth it.
(l7.) Let all who are disposed to receive useful instruc-
tion, carefully attend to these encouragements and warnings
given by the Spirit of prophecy. He who, from these en-
couragements, shall overcome the temptations of the world,
shall receive an abundant reward ; I will bestow upon him
all the rewards meant by the spiritual manna, the true
bread of God, which came down from heaven ;* and I will
give him a stone, with an inscription on it, not as a ticket or
warrant, to receive such small rewards as are usually given
to those who obtain a victory in the public games, or assem-
blies; but such as shall be a warrant to receive so great a
reward, that none can rightly comprehend the value of, but
such who shall be possessed of it, and know, in experience,
how great privileges, grace, favour, and happiness, it entitles
them to, in the inheritance of the new Jerusalem. *
18 And unto the angel of the church in Thyatira,
write ; These things saith the Son of God, who hath
his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet are like
fine brass; -
(18.) Write also to the bishop and church of Thyatira,
as from me, who, though I was a man, by my natural descent
from the family of David, yet am also truly the Son of God,
and was declared to be so by the power of the Spirit, who
discern all the secrets of men's hearts, how concealed soever
they may be, whose ways will be found glorious in purity
and upright judgment, who exercise loving-kindness, judg-
ment, and righteousness, in the earth.i. -
19 I know thy works, and charity, and service, and
faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last
to be more than the first.
(19.) I observe and commend thy good behaviour in
many things ; all thy good works are remembered by me,
which are done in my service, out of love to me, my name,
and my gospel ; as I approve thy faith, patience, and con-
stancy in times of temptation and affliction, so I am pleased
to find your affection and zeal in my service improving, that,
after a long time of patience, your faith, affection, and con-
stancy, appear more eminent than at the first.
20 Notwithstanding I have a few things against
thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which
calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce
my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things
sacrificed unto idols.
21 And I gave her space to repent of her fornica-
tion; and she repented not. -
22 Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them
that commit adultery with her into great tribulation,
except they repent of their deeds.
23 And I will kill her children with death; and all
the churches-shall know that I am he which search-
eth the reins and hearts : and will give unto every one
of you according to your works.
24 But unto you I say, and unto the rest in Thya-
tira, as many as have not this doctrine, and which
have not known the depths of Satan (as they speak),
I will put upon you none other burden :
25 But that which you have already hold fast till I
COLT6.
17 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the
(20) Yet, observe, there are some things in your conduct
I take notice of which deserve blame, and call for reforma-
tion ; you give too much allowance and countenance to
some evil persons, who, like that wicked woman Jezebel,
who defiled Israel with her idolatrous and lewd practices, set
themselves to teach, and, on wicked pretences to prophecy
and revelation, to seduce my servants to commit fornication,
and to eat things sacrificed to idols, both which are contrary
to the truth and purity of the doctrine and worship of my
gospel. (21.) Though I have given these persons a long
time to consider the evil of their behaviour, and to reform
it, yet they are so corrupt in their minds, that they still re-
main impenitent and obstinate, and give no signs or hopes
of amendment. (22.) Know, then, I will take a time
severely to punish these persons for their evil principles and
wicked practices ; and this punishment shall reach all who
are partakers with them in their wickedness, as well as
themselves; instead of ease and pleasure, they sliall have
sorrow and tribulation ; and this threatening shall be ac-
complished, as surely as the punishment was, which the pro-
phet Elijah denounced in the name of the Lord against
Jezebel,” except they repent of their evil deeds, and forsake
them. (23.) Let them know, the punishment of the false
teachers, and their followers, shall be so great, and so re-
markable, that the churches shall observe a divine power in
it, and learn to respect and honour the administration of
my government ; who, as I know the secrets of men's
hearts, and most concealed principles of action, so “I ex-
ercise judgment in giving to every man according to his
works.” (24.) But, as many have kept themselves from
these evil doctrines, which the deceiving spirits have been so
industrious to propagate ; and which, though they boast in
them as deep knowledge and wisdom, are indeed the deep
arts of deceit and error in the kingdom of Satan, to bring in
all sort of corruption, by teaching to account things unlaw-
ful and sinful, as indifferent and innocent : ]et all who have
kept themselves from these pollutions be assured, my gospel
shall impose no new burden upon them, nor lay any new
restraints, as these false teachers would insinuate ; but only
confirm the laws of truth, righteousness, and goodness to
make them free from sin, the truest and most valuable
freedom and liberty. (25.) Let them be careful to hold
fast to the end the doctrines and precepts they have already
received from my gospel, as necessary to true religion, and
to please God ; and no other things that can affect their real
liberty shall be imposed upon them.
26 And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works
unto the end, to him will I give power over the
nations:
27 (And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as
the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers :)
even as I received of my Father.
28 And I will give him the morning-star.
29 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit
saith unto the churches.
(26.) To encourage them farther in their faithful con-
stancy, acquaint them in my name, if they overcome these
temptations, and keep the faith and holy commandment of
my gospel, so as to persevere unto the end in truth and
righteousness, I will make good the promise made to the
church in prophecy, that it shall prevail against the Super-
stition of the heathen world, whether maintained by the
heathen nations themselves, or introduced by others into the
Christian church. (27.) For truth and righteousness shall
prevail against error and wickedness; the church shall have
a power, by my protection, like that I received from my
Father; however obstinate any may be in opposition to
and punishments. But as the word of God is the measure
by which he proceeds in punishment and protection, this
being the declaration of his mind and will, the power of the
Sword, in the execution of justice, is ever to be considered as
used agreeably to such measures as the word of God has
declared, according to the promises and threatenings con-
* John vi. + Jer. ix. 24.
tained in his revelation, or the word that goeth out of his
mouth.
7 Ver. 17. The hidden manna] May refer to the words of
Christ, John vi. 51, “I am the living bread which cometh
down from heaven : if any man eat of this bread, he shall
live for ever.” A much greater instance of God's favour
and grace, than feeding the Israelites with manna from heaven.
* I Kings xxi. 23. + Ps, ii. 8, 9.
CHAPTER III.
1027
truth and purity, my power shall break their obstimacy, and
give success to a faithful defence of my gospel against all the
idolatrous and immoral principles of the heathen nations. *
(28.) I will yet farther reward the constancy of my faithful
servants; I will give them so clear understanding in the pri-
vileges, promises, and blessings of my gospel, as if “a day-
star arose in their hearts;” they shall see with great clear-
ness, as by a bright light, the great encouragement and
certainty of their reward, and rejoice in hope that the end
of their warfare shall be victory, and their victóry shall be
crowned with a glorious reward; for they themselves shall
“shine as the brightness of the firmament, and as stars, for
ever and ever.” (29.) Let every one who is disposed to
receive useful instruction attend to these directions, which
the Spirit of revelation and prophecy designs to teach the
churches.
* Ver. 27.] The kingdom of Christ, and his power over
the nations, signify the success of his gospel, and of the true
religion revealed and instituted by him, in opposition to the
* 2 Pet. i. 19. |
errors, idolatry, and wickedness, which had corrupted the
heathen world -
* Dan. xii. 3.
CHAPTER III.
1 AND unto the angel of the church in Sardis write;
These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits
of God, and the seven stars; I know thy works, that
thou livest, and art dead.
2 Be watchful, and strengthen the things that re-
main, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy
works perfect before God.
(1.) Write also an epistle to the bishop of the church in
Sardis, to let the church know, as from me, who have all
spiritual gifts in my power and disposal, and the bishops and
pastors of the churches under my care and protection, that
I know their behaviour and their state; I know, that though
they make a fair profession of the Christian faith, yet that
they have very much lost the life and influence of true reli-
gion; though they keep up a reputation among men, they
imave lost it in the sight of God, who regards the heart and
inward temper. (2.) Exhort them, therefore, that they
carefully watch over themselves; and, in especial manner, to
confirm those good principles and dispositions, which are
grown so weak as to be near extinguished: for even the
good things which still in part remain among them are very
defective, and want much of that perfection which true re-
ligion and my gospel require, to make them acceptable in
the sight of God. -
3 Remember therefore how thou hast received and
heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou
shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and
º shalt not know what hour I will come upon
thee.
4 Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which
have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk
with me in white : for they are worthy.
5 He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in
white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out
of the book of life, but I will confess his name before
my Father, and before his angels.
6. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit
saith unto the churches. -
(3.) Direct them, that they seriously call to remembrance
what doctrines they received when my gospel was first deli-
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III.
* Ver. 4.] White or shining garments were marks of fa-
vour and honour; under the law, they were the garments of
the priests, and worn in the courts of princes. Thus Pha-
raoh honoured Joseph, by arraying him in vestures of fine
linen, as well as putting a gold chain about his neck (Gen.
xli. 42). A white garment is also an emblem of purity, and
therefore interpreted in this prophecy (Rev. xix. 8), of the
righteousness of Saints, as well as a mark of honour: whence
we see the propriety of this emblem, of white or shining gar-
ments, to express the peculiar honour and favour God would
show to them who remained constant and faithful in the
purity of the Christian faith, worship, and life.
* Ver. 5.] This book of life, is an allusion to some hook
or register, in which person's names were enrolled, and by
vered unto them, that they may closely adhere to the rule
of faith, worship, and life, they were then taught; when they
compare their present temper and actions with the purity of
that rule, let them observe wherein they have departed from
it, that they may be concerned for their miscarriage, and sin-
cerely careful to amend it : for if they disregard this direc-
tion, they are to expect some sudden and unforeseen judg-
ment, which shall come upon them at unawares, as a thief
is used to surprise a house in the night. (4.) But let them
also know, for their encouragement, though this is the bad
state of the greater part of their church, it is not of all; there
are a few who have preserved themselves from the common
corruption, who have kept their purity, and acted truly
agreeable to their Christian profession; let them know I
account them worthy of great honour and happiness, and I
will confer distinguishing marks of honour and favour upon
them. * (5.) Let them understand that this honour and
favour shall be shown to every one who, by perseverance in
faith and purity, shall overcome the temptations of this evil
world; his name shall remain secure in the register of those
who are entitled to the promise of eternal life: * I will my-
self own them to be my disciples, and acknowledge them
true members of my church, in the presence of my Father
and his holy angels at the day of final judgment, which shall
confirm to them the inheritance of everlasting glory and
happiness. (6.) And let every one who is sincerely con-
cerned to improve by these useful instructions, carefully
meditate on these directions which the Spirit of prophecy
here sends to the churches.
7 And to the angel in the church in Philadelphia
write ; These things saith he that is holy, he that is
true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth,
and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man
openeth;
8 I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee
an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast
a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not
denied my name.
(7.) Write likewise to the church of Philadelphia, as from
me, who am that Holy One whom the Father hath anointed
with the Holy Ghost and with power to the holy office of
which they had a claim to certain privileges. I think it is
not material, whether it refer to the registers in which the
genealogies of the 'priests were kept, in which, if a man was
not registered, he was rejected, as not belonging to the fa-
mily of priests; or whether it refer to the common registers,
in which the names of free citizens were used to be enrolled,
and by which they were to prove their right to the privileges
of free citizens ; for either will sufficiently explain the mean-
ing of the expression : and they who are written in the
Lamb's book of life, as it is called, Rev. xxi. 27, are some-
times represented as priests, sometimes as fellow-citizens
with the saints, and heirs of the kingdom of heaven. Th:
general meaning is, They shall have a sure evidence on re-
cord, of their right to all the privileges and blessings of the
true Christian church, included in the promise of eternal
life.
w;
3 U 2
1028
REVELATION.
mediator between God and men, whose doctrines and pro-
mises are all true and faithful, who have received all power
and authority in my spiritual kingdom, as the promised Son
of David : so that none can exclude from the privileges of
the kingdom of heaven those whom I shall receive into
them; and none can bestow them upon those to whom I
shall, by my word and judgment agreeable to it, deny them.
(8.) Let them understand I know their state and condition;
I have given them a great opportunity of propagating my
gospel, and of improving themselves in holiness and com-
fort, the true blessings of it, nor shall it be taken from
them : but as they have been faithful to my religion, though
in a weak state of worldly power, greatness, and riches, *
and have not given up my authority, or the obligation of
my doctrines, to any of the prevailing corruptions;—
9 Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of
Satan (which say they are Jews, and are not, but do
lie); behold, I will make them to come and worship
before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee.
10 Because thou hast kept the word of my patience,
. I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation,
which shall come upon all the world, to try them that
dwell upon the earth.
(9.) I will therefore powerfully protect them against all
those evil persons who boast themselves to be the true peo-
ple and church of God; but, by promoting the cause of error
and wickedness, prove themselves by sure marks to be in
the party of Satan : insomuch, that I will make those very
persons, by whom they are now opposed and despised, to
submit themselves to them, and honour them, as convinced
that I favour them with particular marks of my affection;
and I will cause them, as disciples, to sit down at their feet,
to learn the truth from their instructions. * (10.) And en-
courage them with this hope, that as they have hitherto
faithfully followed my directions to patience and constancy
in their present trials, I will give them farther gracious as-
sistance to persevere in greater temptations and more gene-
ral trials. When Christians everywhere shall have the
sincerity of their faith and their constancy put to a new
trial, theirs shall be approved and found sincere, even at
that time when many shall fall from their constancy, and
forfeit the blessings of true religion. *
11 Behold, I come quickly: hold fast that which
thou hast, that no man take thy crown.
(11.) Exhort them to continue in their good state and
constancy, whatever trials they may still meet with, for they
will shortly meet with other trials ; let them be careful, lest
by yielding to any new temptations, they lose their hope, and
their reward at last.
12 Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the
temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and
I will write upon him the "name of my God, and the
name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem,
which cometh down from heaven from my God; and
I will write upon him my new name. *
(12.) I'or he that endureth to the end, and so shall over-
come, has a glorious reward prepared for him : he shall have
a high degree of honour in the presence of God, which he
shall securely enjoy, without fear of losing it: he shall enjoy
the glory of God, in the true heavenly church; and he shall
be made a partaker of my own glory, in the perfection and
full happiness of the heavenly state.
13 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit
saith unto the churches.
(13.) Let every one who is desirous to learn the useful
instruction of this encouragement to patience and perse-
verance, diligently attend to what the Spirit of prophecy
teaches the churches, and directs them to observe in this
epistle.
14 And unto the angel of the church of the Laodi-
ceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faith-
§. and true Witness, the beginning of the creation of
od;
15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold
nor hot: " I would thou wert cold or hot.
(14.) Finally, direct also an epistle to the bishop of the
church of the Laodiceans, as from their Saviour, whose cha-
racter is the truth itself, whose word may be fully relied upon
in all things, and what he bears witness to is faithful and
true, and shall surely be performed, and who is able to ac-
complish every thing he promises, as he was the author of
the whole creation, and has supreme dominion over every
creature. (15.) Acquaint them, I know their temper, how
indifferent they are in the cause of religion ; they make
some pretences to it, but with no sincere or affectionate zeal.
16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither
cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased
with goods, and have need of nothing ; and knowest
not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor,
and blind, and naked:
18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the
fire, that thou mayest be rich ; and white raiment,
that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of
thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes
with eye-salve, that thou mayest see.
19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be
zealous therefore, and repent.
(16.) Let them know from me, such indifference in reli-
gion is highly disagreeable to me, as lukewarm water to the
stomach; and if they continue in this bad state, I shall
surely reject and cast them off, as the stomach rejects what
* Ver, 8.] “By “strength" here cannot be understood,”
says Mr. Waple, on the place, “inward and spiritual strength,
or zeal and courage to propagate the truth ; for that was
great in them, and they have a high character and commen-
dation given them for it by our Saviour: it means, that out-
ward human strength, in which the might of the world con-
sists, 1 Cor. i. 27.” It seems a commendation of their zeal
and courage, that, without countenance and protection, and
in an afflicted condition, they should yet show so much faith-
fulness and constancy.
* Ver, 9..] Some interpreters understand this expression,
“to worship before thy feet,” to denote submission and re-
spect, instead of opposition and contempt; others, that it is
an allusion to the Jewish custom, of disciples sitting at the
feet of their teachers, to hear their instructions: I thought
it therefore not improper to mention both in the paraphrase.
* Ver. 10.] This hour of temptation, which shall come
upon all the world, seems to relate to the persecution under
Trajan; which was greater and more extensive than the pre-
ceding persecutions, either under Nero or Domitian.
* Ver. 12. I will write upon him the name of my God,
&c.] Is an allusion to inscriptions usual on pillars, which
Sometimes expressed the privileges granted to cities; some-
times the names of benefactors, in memory of privileges
granted: the general meaning is, to show the great privileges
and happiness of the faithful members of the church, in the
constant favour of God. Thus the happiness of the church
is expressed in ancient prophecy, “The name of the city from
that day shall be, The Lord is there,” Ezek. xlviii. 35 ;
“And they shall call them, The holy people, The redeemed
of the Lord,” Isa. lxii. 12. This promise may well signify,
that they who are faithful to God and Christ, to the end of
this life, shall enjoy all the happiness of the church, in the
heavenly state of perfection and glory. How great an en-
couragement to preserve the purity of Christian faith and
worship, against all corruption, and to promote a reforma-
tion, wherever it is corrupted
7 Wer. 15.] “I would thou wert cold or hot,” may be un-
derstood as an expression of great dislike, not as a proper
wish or expression of what men really desire ; though, on
some accounts, even no profession of religion is preferable to
an insincere and unaffecting profession of religion. This dis-
honours the profession of religion, which the other does not ;
and men are more likely to be brought to a sense of religion,
when yet they have none, than when they satisfy themselvcs
with a form of religion, without the power; which seems to
be the temper Christ condemns in this church.
CHAPTER IV.
1029
is greatly disagreeable to it. (17.) Show them their present
duty, now they are so much mistaken in themselves; now
they imagine themselves to be in so good a state as to want
nothing; acquaint them, that indeed they are in want of all
things truly good. They are in a wretched and miserable
state, as they are poor in the fruits of righteousness, ignorant
of the true perfection of religion, destitute of the righteous-
ness which is of God by faith to forgive and cover their sins,
and of the image of God to adorn their souls. (18.) Exhort
them, that they be more zealous and careful to obtain the
true riches, that they may be rich before God in good works,
that the righteousness of God by faith may cover their sins,
and the sanctification of his Spirit adorn their souls ; and, by
a true understanding in the nature and perfection of religion,
they may see what they are to hope for, and to aim at.
(19.) Then they will understand the wisdom of Providence,
even in their afflictions and trials ; they will then observe a
kind design in them, and improve them as a wholesome dis-
cipline of warning, correction, and amendment.
20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any
man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in
to him, and sup with him, and he with me.
21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with
me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set
down with my Father in his throne.
(20.) Direct them to consider this present warning, as a
proper opportunity of improvement; which, if they shall
mind, and faithfully comply with, as my church and people
ought to do, they shall enjoy the comfort and blessing of my
presence and favour; then their reward shall be great in the
end. (21.) For he that shall overcome his temptations,
shall as surely have all his sufferings rewarded, by a portion
in the happiness and glory of my kingdom, as my sufferings
have been rewarded, according to God’s promise, with
supreme dominion, and universal authority over all things in
heaven and in earth. .*
22 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the
Spirit saith unto the churches.
(22.) And let every one who is well disposed to know his
duty and his happiness, carefully mind, and faithfully attend
to, these instructions, which by the Spirit of revelation and
prophecy I send unto the churches.
CHAPTER IV.
SECTION IV.
1 AFTER this, I looked, and, behold, a door was
opened in heaven ; and the first voice which I heard
was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which
said, Come up hither, and I will show thee things
which must be hereafter.
2 And immediately I was in the Spirit: and be-
hold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat upon
the throne.*
(1.) After I had seen the foregoing vision, and writ down
the directions I was ordered to send to the seven churches,
a new vision was represented to me, of another kind ; I
perceived a part of the heavens opened, through which, as
through a door, I could behold what was done therein : and
the first thing I perceived, was a strong and loud voice, like
the sound of a trumpet.” This voice called upon me, say-
'ing, Come up hither, and the orders and decrees of Provi-
dence in after-times shall be revealed unto thee. (2.) Im-
mediately upon this, the Spirit of prophecy came upon me,
and I had the following prophetic vision, strongly and dis-
tinctly represented to me, as before mine eyes.” This vision
I saw was like that of Ezekiel, when he saw the appearance
of the likeness of the glory of the Lord ; for I beheld, as if a
throne was set up, and placed in heaven, and I beheld a
person as sitting upon the throne.”
3 And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper
and a “sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round
about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.
4 And round about the throne were four-and-twenty
seats: and upon the seats I saw four-and-twenty elders
sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on
their heads crowns of gold.
(3.) The person who appeared to sit on the throne, made
a very majestic and glorious appearance, with a lustre that
may be expressed to common conception, by the precious
stones which the greatest princes of the world were wont to
use as their ornaments, when they appeared in their highest
grandeur and magnificence. There was moreover, in this re-
presentation, a rainbow of a very beautiful colour, round
about the throne ; so that I beheld a representation, ex-
pressive of God’s glory, majesty, authority, power, and faith-
fulness to his covenant and promise. (4.) Round about
this throne, on every side, at some distance from it, were
placed seats for twenty-four persons, and twenty-four elders,
or persons appearing with the habits and dignity of magis-
trates and chief ministers, were seated upon them, so as to
encompass the throne ; they wore white and shining gar-
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV.
CoNTENTS.–The former vision which John saw, contained in
the foregoing chapters, represented the state of the church,
as I apprehend, at the time of the vision, or, in the words
of the oracle, “the things that are” (i. 19), and gave suit-
able directions to the churches, to encourage their faith
nd patience, and exhort their constancy and perseverance.
Now John records a second vision, in which the oracle re-
"realed to him “the things which shall be hereafter”
(i. 19), or the things which were to come to pass, in suc-
cessive order, from the time of the vision till the mystery
of God should be finished. In order to raise the greater
attention of the church, and to represent the certain event,
and great concern, of the things revealed in this vision,
God himself is represented as seated on his heavenly
throne, in the midst of his angels and saints, and the whole
general assembly of the heavenly church ; in which the
glorious majesty and almighty power of God, his faithful-
ness to his covenant and promise, in the care of his
churches, and favour to them, are described in very lively
and beautiful images; together with the high regard the
churches ought always to have for the counsels, designs,
* Ezek, i.
and orders of Providence, declared and published in so
solemn manner, in the general assembly of heaven, or, in
the language of the Jewish doctors, in the consistory above,
as Maimonides expresses it,” Non facit Deus quicquam,
donec illud intuitus fueritin familia superiori; or, in another
expression, Ipse et domus judicii ejus; as if it was an order.
or decree published and registered in the supreme consis-
tory of heaven. A very proper and useful preface to the
several revelations of the following visions.
1 Ver, 1.] This may probably allude to the custom of the
Jewish church, that upon opening the gates of the temple,
the priests sounded their trumpets, to call the Levites and
stationary-men to their attendance.
* Ver. 2..] We have before observed, that a vision was ac-
counted the highest and most perfect kind of prophetic reve-
lation, on i. 12.
* This representation of the throne of God is very agree-
able to several descriptions of the ancient prophets, as Isa.
vi. 1–3. Ezek, i. 26. x. 1. Dam. vii. 9.
* Ver. 3..] Many interpreters have observed a mystical
meaning in the colours and properties of the precious stones
here mentioned ; thus in the jasper, which Grotius supposes
* More Nevochim, par. ii, lib. vi. p. 200, 201.
1030
REVELATION.
ments, proper to persons of high dignity and honour ; and
is persons of chief distinction in the courts of the greatest
princes: they wore also crowns or coronets of gold upon their
heads.
5 And out of the throme proceeded lightnings, and
thunders, and voices: and there were seven lamps of
fire burning before the throne, which are the seven
Spirits of God.
(5.) From the throne itself, there came flashings of a
bright flame, which darted round about like lightning ; and
it was attended with such loud sounds as very much resem-
bled the noise of thunder, as it was usual in the divine ap-
pearances to represent the awful majesty of the one true God,
the King of Israel.” And as in the holy place in the tem-
ple, there were seven lamps continually burning before the
presence, so here I saw, as the likeness of seven lamps burn-
ing before the throne of God, to signify the seven Spirits of
God, with what purity, constancy, and zeal, the spirits of just
men made perfect serve God in the general assembly of the
heavenly church.”
6 And before the throne there was a sea of glass”
like unto crystal; and in the midst of the throne, and
round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes
before and behind. -
(6.) And as there was in the temple a large vessel, or
laver of brass, called a sea, from the great quantity of water
it held for the use of the priests, in the time of their service,
that they might wash themselves, and be clean, and not die,
for ministering before God under any pollution: so here I
also beheld a vessel, much more glorious than the brazen
Sea; for it was made of transparent crystal, of great bright-
a diamond, he finds an emblem of the invincible power of
God: Mr. Daubuz, who considers it only as a stone of a
white and bright-shining colour, looks upon it as a symbol of
good-will and favour. Thus, the sardine stone, which is of
a red colour, with some signifies the active power of God;
with others, it is a symbol of anger and displeasure in God,
and therefore of destruction; to teach men, if they obey his
oracle, he will show them the brightness of his countenance;
but if they despise it, he will at last show them the redness
of it, or his fiery anger, in their destruction. And thus the
beautiful green of the emerald is supposed to signify great
good-will and favour: but as it does not appear to me, that
the prophetic representation intended such mystical mean-
ings, in the colour of the stones, I shall choose to omit them;
especially, as all who have a mind to know them, may find
them in almost every exposition. [“We may observe, I
think, concerning the prophetic style of scripture, what the
abbot Fleury has justly remarked concerning the poetical:—
We are not to imagine each word and circumstance has a
particular application ; the whole figure generally tends to
one point only, or directly means but one thing: the rest is
added, not to make a part of the comparison, but to paint
more lively the thing from whence the comparison is taken.”
Calmet, Dissert. vol. i. p. 113.] But the rainbow we have
reason to consider as a representation of God's faithfulness
to his covenant and promise, as God himself had appointed
it a token of his covenant; and promised, that “when the
bow shall be seen in the cloud, I will remember the cove-
mant that is between me and you” (Gen. ix. 13–15).
* Ver, 5.] There is an observable difference in the several
descriptions of the throne of God, in the prophets, that it
may be very proper to take notice of it: the glory, or She-
chinah, in the temple, is represented as under the wings of
the cherubim ; for “the cherubim spread forth their two
Wings over the place of the ark, and the cherubim covered
the ark” (1 Kings viii. 6, 7). In Isaiah's vision, the glory
of the Lord is represented, as “sitting on a throne, and above
it stood the Seraphim” (Isa. vi. 1, 2); that is, above the
place on which the throne was set, as attending ministers to
him that sat upon the throne. In another vision, there is
“the likeness of a firmament over the heads of the living
creatures” (Ezek. i. 22), whom the prophet elsewhere calls
“the cherubim” (Ezek. x. 20); or the cherubim were repre-
* 1 kings vii. 23. Exod. xxx. 18, &c.
ness and beauty.7 And I saw moreover, in the middle of
each side of the throne, in the whole circuit round about,
four living creatures,” or cherubim of Ezekiel, which he saw
in his vision ; they appeared full of eyes, mot only before but
behind, so that they had a direct and full view every way of
all things round about them.
7 And the first beast was like a lion, and the second
beast was like a calf,” and the third beast had a face
as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying
eagle,
(7.) These living creatures had the same likeness and ap-
pearance of the cherubim in former visions: for the first of
these living creatures had a countenance or face as a lion,
the Second as a calf, the third as a man, and the fourth was
in appearance like a flying eagle; to express the strength,
firmness, and constancy, the understanding and good-will, and
the ready activity, with which they serve God.
8 And the four beasts had each of them six wings
about him; and they were full of eyes within ; and
they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy,
Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to
COIſle.
(8.) These living creatures were moreover represented as
in Isaiah's vision of the seraphim ; they had each of them
six wings, which they used in part to express their reverence,
covering their faces and feet, in part to show readiness and
expedition in performing the orders and commands of God;
and every day and night they join in the adoration and wor-
ship of God, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty,
who ever wast, and for ever wilt be, the one true God, the
everlasting Lord, and supreme Governor of all beings.”
sented, as bearing up a crystal vault or seat, on which the
throne of Jehovah was placed over their heads, and which
they supported with their wings. This different description
will be explained by an easy observation, that the Shechinah,
or glory of the God of Israel, is represented in the temple,
as the presence of a king in his palace; his throne is sup-
posed seated in an apartment of state, and the cherubim are
So placed, as to form a sort of canopy of state, under which
he sits. In the vision of Isaiah, Jehovah is represented as
sitting on his throine, or bed of justice, held in open court, in
the porch, or at the gate of his palace; then the cherubim
appear as attending ministers of the court, to receive and ex-
ecute the orders of it. In the vision of Ezekiel, Jehovah is
represented as going forth in solemn procession, and having
his throne, or chair of state, borne up on the wings of che-
rubim, as the great kings of the east were used to be borne
on the shoulders of their servants.
* The seven lamps, or candlesticks, are emblems of the
church, and the Seven Spirits of God, of the all-perfect gifts
and graces of the Holy Ghost. I have joined both senses
together in the paraphrase, so as to unite both meanings into
one ; and to express what seems to be the principal inten-
tion of the figurative expressions, with what purity and per-
fection God is served by those who are wholly sanctified, and
made perfect, in all grace and holiness, in the heavenly
State.
7 Wer. 6..] Several interpreters understand this crystal sea
to be an emblem of the known rite of receiving converts into
the Christian church by baptism, of the purity that sacra-
ment signifies, and of the blood of Christ, by which they are
washed and cleansed from their sins. To be sure, it has an
allusion to that purity that is required in all persons, who
have the honour and happiness of a near approach to the
presence and throne of God.
* “Four living creatures:” so they are interpreted, Ezek.
i., and so they should have been translated here ; “four
beasts” is a very improper expression, and may much darken
the meaning of the vision.
* Ver. 8.] Mr. Mede, and many who follow him, suppose
this description of the living creatures to be taken from the
standards of the camp of Israel: supposing the standard of
Judah was a lion on the east side of the camp ; the standard
of Ephraim an ox on the west side ; the standard of £euben,
* Ezck, i. 1 (). ºf Isa vi. 2, 3.
CHAPTER V.
103!
9 And when those beasts give glory, and honour,
and thanks, to him that sat on the throne, who liveth
for ever and ever, º
10 The four-and-twenty elders fall down before
him that sat on the throne, and worshipped him that
liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before
the throne, saying, >
ll Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and
honour, and power: for thou hast created all things,
and for thy pleasure they are and were created.
(9.) And when the cherubim, the representatives of the
angels, who were nearest the throne, began their adoration
and praise of God by a solemn thanksgiving, saying, Glory,
honour, and thanks, be to the living and eternal God, who
sits upon the throne ; (10.) they were immediately answered
by the twenty-four elders, who were round about the throne,
at some farther distance; who, rising from their seats, and
taking off their coronets, in the most humble posture of
adoration, prostrated themselves before the throne, and wor-
shipped the eternal living God who sat upon it; and joined
in a doxology, saying, (11.) Thou, O Jehovah, art most wor-
thy to receive the joint adoration of angels and saints, ascrib-
ing all glory, honour, and power, unto thee: for thou art the
Supreme God of all, who hast created all things; to whose
will and power they all owe their beings at first, and by
whom they all still continue to be what they are.
a man on the south side ; and the standard of Dan, an eagle
on the north side ; and that these ensigns or standards figu-
ratively expressed the strength and power of a lion, the con-
stant labour and usefulness of an ox, the reason and prudence
of a man, the quick sight and activity of an eagle: so that
this represented the Christian church and priesthcod, and
expressed the several qualities of courage, labour, prudence,
and activity, with which the Christian church and ministry
were to maintain the honour of God, and cause of true reli-
gion in the world. But however ingenious and plausible
this conjecture appears at the first sight, many learned per-
sons, who have exactly considered it, find it has very little
evidence or proof to support it. There is no mention of any
such standards in Moses or the whole scriptures, in Josephus
or Philo, or in any ancient writer, who can give any weight
or authority to it. The reasons with which Aben Ezra en-
deavours to support it, are so weak in the opinion of the
learned Bochart, that he has not scrupled to call them ridi-
culous: Sed hoc commento putidius mihil est (Hieroz. lib. iii.
cap. 5, S. 8). There are, moreover, many reasons which
make it highly improbable the Jews should use such stand-
ards in their camp, it being the unanimous opinion of the
Jews, that images, as military standards, were contrary to
their law, which forbade the making of images. And it is
very unlikely, that when that people had suffered so much
for making a golden calf, Moses should immediately make
not only the image of a calf, but several other images, as en-
signs or military standards, for a people so prone to idolatry;
as the learned Witsius has more largely observed, AEgyptia-
corum, lib. ii. cap. 13. These living creatures seem much
more likely to be taken from the cherubim, in the visions of
Isaiah and Ezekiel, and in the most holy place, which are
plainly designed as a representation of the angels, which are
ever represented in scripture as attendant on the Shechinah,
or glory of God, according to the psalmist, Ps. lxviii. 17,
“The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands.
of angels; the Lord is among them, as on Sinai, in the holy
place.” The great use of angels in this vision, and their
great number, so that John heard the voice of many angels
round about the throne (v. 11), make it probable, that as the
twenty-four elders are placed about the throne, as represen-
tatives of the Jewish and Christian churches, now united into
one, so the four living creatures, or cherubim, are alike re-
presentatives of the angels, who are round the throne of God,
and minister to him. And so, according to a great author,
the form of the cherubim expresses the great understanding
and power of the angels; Cherubim summam, secundim
Deum, scientiam et potentiam angelorum indicasse (Spencer,
de Leg. Hebræ. lib. iii, cap. 5, dissert. 5, p. 253).
And this will also give a plain reason, which otherwise
is not so easy to account for, why these living creatures, or
cherubim, are nearer the throne than the twenty-four elders,
and why they begin the worship of God before them ; and it
may also show, how proper this representation was of the
cherubim, in the holy place, to show they are only to be
considered as the servants and ministers of the one true God,
and how improper to be made ensigns or standards, lest the
people should esteem them as gods going before them, as
they did account of the golden calf.
CHAPTER. V.
1 AND I saw in the right hand of him that sat on
the throne a book written within, and on the backside
sealed with seven seals.
(l). I farther beheld in my vision, and perceived, that the
person who sat with such glorious majesty on the throne, in
the midst of the cherubim and elders, the representatives of
Saints and angels, held in his right hand a roll of writing,
but so rolled up, that what was written therein could not be
read ; nor could the volume itself be unrolled, to read it, it
being sealed without, or on the backside, with seven seals,
figuratively expressing, that the counsels of God, to be exe-
cuted in their appointed time, though registered, as it were,
and recorded, were yet, for the present, hid from the know-
ledge of all ; as none can tell what is contained in a writing
closely sealed up."
2 And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. W.
* Ver, 1.] This roll was not written on the backside, as
well as within, as our translation seems to represent it, and
as some interpreters have understood it: but, as Grotius has
observed,” there ought to be a stop after the word “within ''
(£aw857), and it should be read, “Written within, and scaled
on the backside,” or, “on the backside sealed.” Ita hoc
* * * *-* *-m-s
* In loc.
loud voice, Who is worthy to open the book, and to
loose the seals thereof *
(2.) And I beheld in my vision, an angel of chief power,
as attendant of the heavenly court; making proclamation
with a strong audible voice, Is any being able and fit to
reveal, and make known, the counsels of God, registered in
this book, and to bring them into execution ?
3 And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither un-
der the earth, was able to open the book, neither to
look thereon.
(3.) And no being throughout the whole creation, neither
of angels, nor saints in heaven, nor of men alive, nor of any
departed souls, was able or sufficient to reveal these counsels
of God, and to accomplish them ; there was not one able to
attain a clear understanding and knowledge of them for
distinguendum, ut diximus; non enim dicit librum “intiis
et exträ scriptum,” sed “intiis scriptum, exträ signatum.”
And this much better agrees with the design of sealing the
book so carefully, according to the interpretation of a sealed
book, by the prophet Isaiah, “And the vision of all is become
to you, as the words of a book that is sealed, which men
deliver to one that is learned; saying, Read this, I pray thee:
and he saith, I cannot, for it is sealed ” (Isa. xxix. 11).
And though there is a passage in the prophet Ezekiel, that
speaks of a roll, or book written within and without (Ezek.
103
REVELATION.
themselves: so that the contents of this sealed book were
known to no person whatsoever.”
4 And I wept much, because no man was found
worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look
thereon.
5 And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not :
oehold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah,” the Root of
David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose
the seven seals thereof.
(4.) This gave me a great concern, insomuch that it
melted me into tears, being greatly affected with the thought,
that no being whatsoever was to be found able to understand,
reveal, and accomplish the counsels of God, fearing they
would still remain concealed from the church. (5.) But I
was soon relieved of my fears, and comforted by the voice of
one of the elders, who bade me refrain from weeping: for
though none was yet found able to reveal and execute these
purposes of God, in the course of future providence, yet
there is one person described in ancient prophecy, as the
Lion of the tribe of Judah, and the Root of David, God's
anointed King and Saviour, the true Messiah, who has ob-
tained power, and is sufficiently able, to reveal those counsels
of God to the church, and assure their accomplishment, by
bringing them into execution.*
6 And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne
and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders,
stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns
and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God
sent forth into all the earth.
(6.) Upon this, I observed in my vision a new representa-
tion, as of a Lamb that had been slain a sacrifice, standing
just before the throne; and nearer, as within the circles of
the cherubim and elders, than either of them ; this Lamb
was not only represented as a sacrifice, but with seven horns
and eyes, to express, figuratively, all-perfect power, wisdom,
, and goodness, whereby he was able to reveal the will of
God, and direct all things, with respect to the world and
church, according to it; and to accomplish all God's designs
of providence and grace.”
7 And he came and took the book out
hand of him that sat upon the throne.
(7.) Being greatly comforted with this part of my pro-
phetic vision, my hopes were farther raised, when I saw this
person, so fully qualified to reveal and execute the purposes
of God, actually undertake the performance of it: for I far-
the right
ii. 9, 10), it is to be observed, that roll was delivered open
to the prophet, and spread before him, and not sealed at all;
but the case is very different in a book or roll so firmly
sealed as this: so that it was not to be read by any, as
appears by what follows.
* Ver. 3..] “No person whatsoever,” is the true meaning
of the original, ci&eig: “man” is not in the original.
* Ver. 5.] We may here observe, how expressly John
confirms the application of these prophecies of Moses and
Isaiah to Jesus, as the Christ and true Messiah.
* Ver. 6..] Horns are symbols of power and strength.
Thus the psalmist calls Jehovah his “strength, and the horn
of his salvation” (xviii. 2). They also signify a king, or
monarch, a kingdom, or monarchy. Thus, in Zechariah,
“The horns which scattered Judah” (i. 19. 21), are the
kings or kingdoms of the hcathen, who led the Jews into
captivity at several times, and prevailed against the kingdoms
of Judah and Israel. Eyes are a proper representation of
observation, knowledge, understanding, and wisdom, and
express fitly a wise direction and administration of
government. Thus, Moses speaks of the knowledge and
wise direction of Hobab, “Leave us not, I pray thee; foras-
much as thou knowest how we are to encamp in the wilder-
ness, and thou mayest be to us instead of eyes” (Numb. x.
31). “The seven Spirits of God,” we have already observed
(on i. 4), signify the most perfect Spirit, the author and
giver of all spiritual blessings: so that this description of
Christ represents him invested, as Mediator, with all autho-
rity, power, wisdom, and grace, able to reveal and execute
* Gen. xlix. 9, 10. Isa. xi. 1. 10.
| ther saw in my vision, this Lamb of God draw near, and
receive the sealed book out of the right hand of the person
sitting on the throne.
8 And when he had * taken the book, the four
beasts and four-and-twenty elders fell down before
the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and
golden, vials full of odours, which are the prayers of
saints.
9 And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art
worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof:
for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us unto God
by thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and
people, and nation;
10 And hast made us unto our God kings and
priests: and we shall reign on the earth.
11, And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many
angels round about the throne, and the beasts, and
the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand
times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands;
12 Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb
that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wis-
dom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and bless-
Ing. -
(8.) No sooner had Christ received the book, and taken
upon himself to reveal and execute the will of God contained
in it, for the gracious protection of the church, and restraint
of its enemies, but the whole consistory above, and heavenly
church, joined in a solemn act of praise and adoration to the
Lamb. I beheld the cherubim, in conjunction with, the
elders, prostrate themselves before him ; each of them had
harps, and golden censers with incense, fit representations of
the prayers of the church, and expressive of the most solemn
worship ; as thus the priests and Levites in the temple were
used to worship the God, of Israel." (9.) They joined in
praising the Lamb with a hymn, of a new composition, ex-
pressive of his peculiar honour, and their peculiar engage-
ments; saying, Worthy art thou, O Lamb of God, to under-
take the revelation and the accomplishment of the designs of
God’s providence towards the world, and of his grace towards
the church : for thou wast slain a sacrifice of propitiation, to
take away the sins of the world, and by thy blood hast re-
deemed many unto God, not only of the Jews, but of all
nations of the earth; (10.) and hast made thy church a king-
dom of priests unto God, consecrated to his service, and ho-
moured with a near approach to his presence, to offer up
the whole will of God, concerning the church and the world.
* Ver. 8.] Some interpreters understand the delivering
of this book into the hands of Christ as an act of inaugura-
tion, or investiture into his regal power and authority; and
that many of the expressions here used, are taken from the
ceremonies of solemn investitures, in which, Mr. Daubuz
observes, there are instances of several sorts of investiture by
a book: but however ingenious this conjecture may be, it is
supported, I think, only on a supposition, that the date of
this vision begins at the ascension: and so with a solemn
inauguration of Christ into his kingdom. But as this
supposition does not so well agree with the time of the
vision, when St. John was banished to Patmos, I only just
mention it, and leave it to the reader's judgment.
" Harps were a principal part of the temple-music ; vials
were also of common use in the temple-service: they were
not like small bottles, which we now call vials ; but were
like cups on a plate, in allusion to the censers of gold, in
which the priest offered incense in the temple.” These
censers were a sort of cups, which, because of the heat of the
fire burning the incense, were often put upon a plate or
saucer. The common custom of drinking tea, and other
hot liquors, out of a tea-cup and saucer, will show the form
of these censers. To offer incense to God, or before his
presence, in the temple, was an act of honour and religious
worship, peculiar to the priest's office; and the prayers of
the church are often compared to it. Thus the psalmist,
“Let my prayer be set before thee as incense” (cxli. 2). So
that these expressions well represent the whole heavenly
* Rcland, de Spolis Templi IIicrosolymitani, p. 105.
CHAPTER VI.
1033
prayers, acceptable and well-pleasing in his sight; and
therefore we may assure ourselves, from such grace and
power, that thy kingdom and church shall be protected from
the world, and finally prevail over it.7 (11.) When the
cherubim and elders had thus expressed their adoration of
the Lamb, in singing this new hymn to his praise, the whole
assembly and congregation of heaven joined together with
them ; a number of angels, not to be expressed, united their
voices with the cherubim and elders; (12.) saying, Worthy
is the Lamb of God, who was slain, to redeem us unto God
by his blood; to receive from his church an acknowledgment
of his great power, and riches of grace, of his wisdom and
strength ; to whom we ought to ascribe all honour and glory,
with all the devotion of a grateful and thankful mind.
13 And every creature which is in heaven, and on
the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the
sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing,
and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that
sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever
and ever.
(13.) I farther heard this act of praise, on so solemn an
occasion, carried throughout every part of the creation, like
the whole congregation of Israel, joining with the priests and
Levites, in their worship: for every creature, with one voice,
said, Let us ascribe all blessing, honour, glory, and power,
to him that sitteth on the throme, and to the Lamb of God,
our Saviour, for ever and ever.
14 And the four beasts said, Amen. And the four-
and-twenty elders fell down and worshipped him that
liveth for ever and ever.
(14.) This solemn act of worship, I perceived, was con-
cluded by the cherubim, saying, Amen; and the twenty-
four elders falling down, and prostrating themselves before
the true God, who liveth and reigneth from everlasting to
everlasting.”
church of angels and saints, offering a very high act of reli-
gious worship and adoration unto Christ.
7 Wer. 10.] Christ and his church reign on earth, when
the truth and purity of the Christian religion prevail against
the opposition and corruptions of the world: it is thus only
the kingdom of Christ, which is not of this world, is set up
in it, and the spiritual powers of his throne established;
which lays no claims to any coercive powers of outward
force, inconsistent with a dominion, which alone consists in
willing submission and voluntary obedience.
* Ver. 14.] It was the custom, in the temple-worship, for
the singers to make pauses. In every psalm, say the Tal-
mudists, the music made three intermissions; at these in-
termissions the trumpets sounded and the people worshipped
(vid. Lightfoot, Temple-Service, cap. 7).
CHAPTER VI.
SECTION W.
FIRST PERIOD–OF THE SEALS.
1 AND I saw when the Lamb opened one of the
seals, and I heard, as it were the voice of thunder, one
of the four beasts saying, Come and see.
(1.) After I had beheld the sealed book delivered into
the hands of the Lamb of God, that he might reveal the or-
ders of God's providence contained in it, for the consolation
and encouragement of the church, I farther beheld in my
vision that he proceeded to open the seals of the book in
order; and when he had opened one of the seals, I heard
one of the four cherubim, who were near the throne, call
upon me with an audible voice, and strong as if it had been
the sound of thunder, and he said unto me, Come up nearer
unto the book, that you may see what appears in it, now it
is opened. *
2 And I saw, and behold a white horse; and he
that sat on him had a bow ; and a crown was given
unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to con-
quer.
(2.) I immediately obeyed the voice, and looking into
that part of the book or roll that was unfolded, upon open-
ing the seal, I saw a sort of hieroglyphic figure, with a
motto. The picture was after this manner: there was
drawn the figure of a person, sitting on a white horse, who
had a bow in his hand, and a crown given unto him ; so
that he appeared as a prince riding in solemn procession,
with his ensigns of state, as princes and generals were used
to march, when setting out on some great expedition. He
had a bow, an ensign of war; a crown, an ensign of com-
mand and victory; and he rode on a white horse, a symbol
of joy and iumph. And, agreeable to this meaning, there
was this motto, “Go forth conquering, and to conquer ; ” a
promise of success, victory, and triumph (see the history
of the first seal at the end of this chapter).
3 And when he had opened the second seal, I heard
the second beast say, Come and see.
(3.) I farther saw, in my prophetic vision, when the
Lamb opened the second seal, and so unfolded another
part of the roll, or book, that what was contained in that
part of the roll lay open to sight. Then the second of the
cherubim called upon me, as the first had done before, say-
ing, Come near the book, and look upon this description,
which is designed to represent the state of the church and
world, in the following period of providence.
4 And there went out another horse that was red;
and power was given to him that sat thereon to take
peace from the earth, and that they should kill one
another: and there was given unto him a great
sword. - -
(4.) And when I came near, and saw what was containca
in that part of the roll, I perceived a description, as in a
picture, or on a medal, of another horse, as in the foregoing
representation, but of a different colour: for this horse was
not white, but red, or of a bloody colour, "a figure of great
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VI.
CoNTENTS.—John had seen, in the former part of his vision,
a representation of the majesty, glory, power, and supreme
authority of God ; and the sealed book, in which was
contained the orders of divine Providence towards the
church and the world, delivered to Christ, the Lamb of
God, to open and reveal it, for the encouragement of the
church to patience and faithfulness; together with the
adoration of the church on this solemn occasion. Now
this revelation of Christ begins with a prophetic repre-
sentation of the future state of the church and world,
so far as the wisdom and goodness of God thought fit
to make it known, for the consolation of his faithful
people. & -
. This chapter contains the first period of prophecy, and a
description of the state of the church, under the hea-
then Roman empire, from the time of the date of the
prophecy to about the year of Christ 323, as I have
endeavoured to show in the preface. Each of the
prophetical descriptions is, in part, some figurative or
hieroglyphical picture and motto; or some represen-
tation, in the style and figurative expressions of an-
cient prophecy, describing some particular dispensation
of providence, proper and peculiar to the several success-
ive states of the church and empire, during the space of
time contained in this period: in which, therefore, we
may hope to find both a wise and kind intention, in mak-
ing known these dispensations of providence to the church,
and a useful and profitable meaning of this first period of
prophetical revelation. -
1 Ver, 4.] When the Moabites saw the waters red by the
shining of the sun upon them, they said, “This is blood:"
1034.
REVELATION.
slaughter, by means of the person sitting on him ; which
the motto, or legend, explained accordingly ; “To take peace
from the earth, and that they should kill one another.” This
meaning of the representation was farther confirmed, by
another figure of a great sword, put into the hands of the
rider, signifying such a state of providence, as that the ene-
mies of the Christian faith should fall upon and destroy each
other, and execute upon themselves, with their own hands,
the judgments of God, which were due to their opposition
to the truth, and their persecution of righteousness (see
the history of the second seal at the end of this chapter).
5 And when he had opened the third seal, I heard
the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld,
and lo a black horse; and he that sat upon him had
a pair of balances in his hands.
(5.) I farther observed in my vision, that the Lamb
opened the third seal ; and I heard the third of the cheru-
bim calling upon me, to come and see what was contained
in that part of the roll now opened to sight. And looking
upon it, I perceived another figurative representation ; for I
beheld the picture of a person riding upon a horse, of a dif-
ferent colour from both the former. The horse on which
this rider sat was of a black colour, expressive of a time of
mourning and affliction; * and the person that sat on him
had a pair of balances in his hand, but not as a common re-
presentation of exact justice and righteous judgment, but to
weigh corn and the necessaries of life, to signify great want
and scarcity, and to threaten the world with famine, the
next judgment of God to the sword.” &
6 And I heard a voice in the midst of the four
beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three
measures of barley for a penny; and see that thou
hurt not the oil and the wine.
(6.) This meaning of the representation was confirmed
by a voice from the cherubim, saying, In the times of this
prophecy, the price of a measure of wheat shall be a penny,
and three measures of barley shall cost the same price; the
whole wages of a man's labour for a day shall only purchase
so much corn as is a usual daily allowance : so that all he
can get must be laid out on the very necessaries of life,
without any provision of other conveniences for himself or
family, and a scarcity of oil and wine will make exactness
in their measures very necessary also * (see the history of
the third seal at the end of this chapter).
7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard
the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse; and his
name that sat on him was Death, and hell followed
with him ; and power was given unto them over the
fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, with
º, and with death, and with the beasts of the
field.
(7.) I farther beheld in my vision, as the Lamb went on
to open the seals, that he unfolded that part of the roll
which was fastened by the fourth seal, and the last of the
four cherubim, which were about the throne, called upon
me, to observe what appeared upon the opening of it. (8.)
I then beheld another figurative representation. I saw, as
in a picture, a horse of a different colour from the three for-
mer: this was a pale horse, an emblem of mortality and
death.” And the person who sat upon this horse had the
name of Death given unto him ; and to show that this was
intended, not of any figurative death, but of a proper death
of the body, a figure representing the grave, or hell, was
made his attendant; " and the meaning of this figurative
description (see the history of the fourth seal at the end of
this chapter) was explained by a motto, or inscription, “Let
them kill the fourth part of the carth,” intimating, they
should destroy a very considerable part of the heathen Ro-
man empire, by the several judgments of God, the sword,
famine, pestilence, and wild beasts.7
9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw
under the altar the souls of them that were slain for
the word of God, and for the testimony which they
held :
(9.) Upon opening the fifth seal, I beheld something new
in my vision ; I saw a great number of persons, who had
been slain in the several persecutions of the church, who
had persevered in the worship of the true God, according to
the gospel of Christ,” lying at the foot of the golden altar of
incense ; * intimating, that their constancy unto the death
so naturally is the red colour a representation of blood (2
Kings iii. 22, 23). -
* Ver, 5.] Black, in ancient prophecy, is an emblem of
affliction ; and, in particular, an affliction occasioned by
famine : thus, in the expressions of Jeremiah, Lam. v. 10,
“Our skin was black like an oven, because of the terrible
famine.”
* Thus famine is expressed by the prophet Ezekiel, iv. 16,
17, “Moreover, he said unto me, Son of man, behold, I will
break the staff of bread in Jerusalem : and they shall eat
bread by weight, and with care ; and they shall drink water
by measure, and with astonishment: that they may want
bread and water, and be astonished one with another, and
consume away for their iniquity.”
* Ver. 6..] The measure of wheat is a chonix, and the
price a Roman denarius, or penny ; of which Grotius'k ob-
serves, the Roman penny was the daily wages of a work-
man, and a choenix the allowance of corn for his daily pro-
vision: so that a penny for a measure of wheat, will in ge-
neral appear a very excessive price; since corn, for one day's
provision, would cost a whole day's wages. In another way
of computation, if we reckon the measure of the chonix to
be about a quart English, and the IRoman penny, or dena-
rius, to be about eight-pence English, the nearest a common
computation of both, and there is no need here of more ex-
actness, corn at that price will be above twenty shillings an
English bushel; which, when the common wages of man's
labour was but eight-pence a day, showed a very great scarcity
of corn, next to a famine.
* Ver. 8.] Pale is a usual epithet of death; Pallidam mor-
tem, dicunt poetae, says Grotius.
* It is not unlikely, that the figures representing death,
-ms-
* In loc.
+ This is giving great advantage in the computation ; for
he chanix is not full a pint and half.
and the grave, might have their names expressed by some
motto, or inscription ; it was a thing so well known in the
medals of those times, to write the names Pietas, Felicitas,
Virtus, &c. under the figures designed to represent them.
7 These are called the four sore judgments of God, in the
ancient style of prophecy. Thus the prophet Ezekiel (xiv.
21), “For thus saith the Lord God; How much more when
I send my four sore judgments upon Jerusalem, the sword,
and the famine, and the noisome beast, and the pestilence,
to cut off from it man and beast 2° Or, as the same pro-
phet expresses those judgments of God, which none should
escape (xxxiii. 27), “Say thou thus unto them, Thus saith
the Lord God; As I live, surely they that are in the wastes
shall fall by the sword, and him that is in the open field
will I give to the beasts to be devoured, and they that be in
the forts and in the caves shall die of the pestilence.” The
meaning of which prophetic threatening is plain, that the
judgments of God were to be so great, and so aniversal, that
men should be able to find no place of security against
them, but some one judgment or other should meet them
everywhere. *
8 Wer. 9..] The word of God, and the testimory which they
held, is a description of faithful Christians, who persevered
in the Christian faith and worship, notwithstanding all
the difficulties of persecution. They are called, “the rem-
nant which keep the commandment of God, and have the
testimony of Jesus Christ,” Rev. xii. 17. They are also de-
scribed, as “the souls of them that were beheaded for the
witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had
not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had re-
ceived his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands,” Rey.
xx. 4.
* Many suppose the expression, “under the altar,” does
allude to the ceremony of pouring out the blood, at the
bottom or foot of the altar; but IDF. Hammond on the place
has very justly observed, I think, that “this altar in St.
CHAPTER VI.
1035
was an offering well received, and acceptable in the sight of |
God. wa
10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How
long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge
and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the
earth
(10.) And I heard these martyrs of Jesus expressing
their faith in the promises of Christ, for whose religion they
had suffered, by saying with united voices, O Lord God,
thou art righteous in all thy ways, and faithful to all thy
promises: now thy church has suffered a long time, and thy
kingdom has been greatly oppressed by the kingdom of Sa-
tan ; when will it please thee to make way for the glorious
state of thy kingdom, and peaceful state of thy church, by
breaking the power of Satan, and of the idolatrous persecu-
tors of it P
11 And white robes were given unto every one of
them; and it was said unto them, that they should
rest yet for a little season, until their fellow-servants
also, and their brethren that should be killed, as they
were, should be fulfilled.
(11.) I farther beheld, that hereupon, unto each of these
persons was given a white shining garment, a robe expressive
of the favour and acceptance of God, and a mark of appro-
bation, honour, and dignity.” But, with respect to the judg-
ments of God, which were to make way for the deliverance
and peaceful state of the church, they were directed to wait
a little longer ; for though many had been slain already for
the testimony of Jesus, yet there were other of their bre-
thren, who should bear a like honourable testimony to the
Christian faith and religion: however, this remaining time of
trial should be short, for a little season only, when the testi-
mony of the faithful martyrs of Christ should be completed;
and then God, according to their prayers, would make way
for a peaceful and prosperous state of the church (see the
history of the fifth seal at the end of this chapter).
John's vision, was not the altar of sacrifice in the court of
the temple, but the altar of incense which was in the holy
place; the whole scene of this vision being the Sanctuary
within the veil, where the altar of incense stood, the altar of
burnt-offering standing without in the court.” The blood of
the martyrs is not compared with the blood of propitiatory
sacrifices, but with the offering of incense on the golden al-
tar; which offering was accompanied with the prayers of the
congregation, to recommend them to God, according to the
observation of a very learned author;” Cüm enim suffinenta
Sacra ita populi preces adumbrarent, ut sacerdos altera Deo
adolens, alteras etiam rità symbolico illi commendare, &c.
A fit emblem of God's gracious acceptance of the constancy
and perseverance of the faithful.
* Ver. 11.] When persons were approved, upon trial of
their fitness for the priest's office, they were clothed with
white garments, the proper habit of the priests: and rich.
garments, which it was usual for princes to send as presents,
according to the customs of the eastern nations, were public
marks of the prince's favour, and that he designed to confer
honour on the persons to whom he presented them. This
representation secms much to favour the immediate happi-
ness of departed Saints, and hardly to consist with that un-
comfortable opinion, the insensible state of departed souls till
after the resurrection. -
* Ver. 14.] Great public calamities are described in the
prophets, says a very celebrated author, F as if the order of
nature was overturned, the earth quakes, the Sun and moon
are darkened, and the stars fall from heaven. This observa-
tion will give a plain and just sense to this part of prophetic
description. There is no need with some to understand these
expressions of real earthquakes and eclipses, the prophetic
style plainly shows they are figurative expressions, describ-
ing great calamities and changes, which the judgments of
God would bring upon the earth. The prophet Joel, de-
scribing, in the beautiful images of prophetic style, a famine
to be occasioned by a great number of locusts, which were
* Outram, de Sacrificiis, lib. i. cap. 8, sect. 11.
‘i Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, on the place.
12 And I beheld when he had opened the sixth
Seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the
Sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon
became as blood;
(12.) I farther beheld in my vision, when the Lamb pro-
ceeded to open the sixth seal, there was represented to me
a view of great disorder and confusion, of such changes and
alterations, as if the world was about to be dissolved, and
the order of nature to be set aside ; for it seemed as if the
earth was shaken with violent conyulsions, as by a universal
earthquake ; that the sun shined not with its usual lustre,
but looked black and dark, as in a total eclipse ; that the
moon, instead of appearing with its usual brightness in the
heavens, looked of a dusky red colour, as blood.
13 And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even
as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is
shaken of a mighty wind.
(13.) Even the stars also seemed to disappear out of their
places in the heavens, and like meteors to fall down upon the
earth, or as blasted fruit is blown down from the trees upon
the ground by a violent storm.
14 And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is
rolled together: and every mountain and island were
moved out of their places.
(14.) Yet farther it was represented to me in my vision,
as if the order of heaven and earth was to be totally changed,
so as not to be restored again. The alterations were so great, as
if the heavens were no longer spread over the earth, but rolled
up together as a roll of parchment, and the mountains and
islands, the most secure from the danger of earthquakes, as
having the firmest foundations, were not only shaken, but
quite thrown down and destroyed, so as never to be restored
again; to signify, "according to the expressions of ancient
prophecy, such a downfall of the empire and power of Rome
heathen, as should never be recovered; but the power of these
idolatrous enemies of the Christian faith should cease and
to devour the whole fruits of the earth, thus expresses it
(ii. 10), “The earth shall quake before them, the heavens
shall tremble, the sun and moon shall be dark, and the stars
shall withdraw their shining.” The prophet Isaiah, prophe-
sying of a great destruction of God's enemies, for their oppo-
sition to his church, which he calls “the day of the Lord's
vengeance,” and “the year of recompences for the contro-
versy of Zion,” xxxiv. 8, thus describes it, ver. 4, “And
all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens
shall be rolled together as a scroll, and all their host shall
fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling
fig from the fig-tree.” The general meaning of which ex-
pressions is explained in the following verse, ver, 5, “For my
sword shall be bathed in heaven; behold, it shall come down
upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse, to judg-
ment.” In like manner the same prophet thus expresses the
judgments of God in the punishment of sinners, xiii. 10,
* For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall
not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going
forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to Shine.”
The meaning of which is thus explained in the next words,
ver, 11, “I will punish the world for their evil, and the
wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of
the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the
terrible.” The prophet Ezekiel uses the same images, to
express the downfall of oppressive empires and power, . Thus
in the prophecy of the destruction of the empire of Egypt
by the empire of Babylon, Ezek. xxxii. 7, 8, “And when I
shall put thee out, I will cover the heaven, and make the
stars thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the
moon shall not give her light. All the bright lights of hea-
ven will I make dark over thee, and set darkness upon thy
land, saith the Lord God.” As the prophecy contained in
this revelation relates to the heathen Roman empire, and
their punishment as persecutors of the true religion and
Christian faith, there is a plain general meaning of these ex-
pressions, applicable to those calamities and judgments, by .
which that persecuting power was to be destroyed.
It is farther observed by many interpreters, that chief and
principal persons, such as princes and rulers, arc figuratively
REVELATION.
be no more, as the power of the Assyrians and Babylonians,
the ancient enemies of God's people, was destroyed, and |
never recovered.
15 And the kings of the earth, and the great men,
and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the
mighty men, and every bondman, and every freeman,
hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the
mountains. - - -
16 And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on
us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on
the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb :
(15.) And so great was the punishment of these enemies
of the Christian faith, that it reached persons of all ranks,
states, and conditions, and filled their hearts everywhere with
great apprehensions and fears; so that even those who had
the highest authority, and governed the world as kings, such
expressed by sun, moon, and stars. It is an ingenious ób-
servation of Mr. Daubuz,” “That by the sun may be more
particularly meant the heathen emperors; by the moon, the
powers next to the supreme ; by the stars, the less principal
ruling powers of the idolatrous Roman empire; and farther,
that by heavens may be meant the whole superior state of
the Roman pagan world, civil and religious; and, finally, that
by mountains and islands may be meant the strength and
riches throughout Rome and its provinces, especially the
idolatrous temples, with their treasures and revenues.” These
are ingenious conjectures, but I think not so plain and sure,
as the general meaning fixed by the unquestionable usc of
these images in the former prophets.
** Ver. 15.] Thus the prophet Isaiah describes the fears
of idolaters, and their apprehensions of the judgments of
God, ii. 19, “And they shall go into the holes of the rocks,
* Explanation of seal sixth.
as were invested with great power, such as had grown very
rich, persons in command and authority, or famous for
strength or valour, persons of every condition, whether bond
or free, endeavoured to find out some hidden place of safety
and retreat, if possible, to conceal themselves, that these
judgments might not reach them.” (16.) Nay, they were
so concerned and dispirited, that they were rather desirous
to be buried under the rocks and mountains, than so exposed
to such terrible judgments, from the anger and power of the
great Lord of the world, whose religion they had long op-
posed and persecuted.” -
17 For the great day of his wrath is come; and
who shall be able to stand 2 -
(17.) Now the appointed time of his great wrath is come;
they are made sensible, no room is left them either for de-
fence or escape (see the history of the sixth seal at the end of
the annotations). : -
and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the Lord, and for
the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly
the earth.” -
* Ver. 16.] These expressions seem to be taken from the
prophet Hosea, who thus describes the consternation of those
who had fallen off to idolatry in Israel, when their idolatrous
places of worship should be destroyed, and they should be pun-
ished for their apostasy, x. 8, “The high places of Aven, the
sin of Israel, shall be destroyed: the thorn and the thistle
shall come up on their altars; and they shall say to the
mountains, Cover us; and to the hills, Fall on us:” that
is, according to a very learned interpreter,” such calamities
shall befall them, as shall make their lives tedious to them,
and worse than any kind of death; so that they shall wish
to die, rather than live as they do. -
ºš .
---
* Pocock on the place.
HISTORY OF THE SEALS.
First seal.—The person who seems here represented, is
Jesus Christ, who had received a kingdom from the Father,
which was to rule all nations; concerning whose kingdom it
was foretold, that, all opposition notwithstanding, it should
be preserved, and prevail; so that finally, all enemies to it
should be subdued, and “the kingdoms of this world should
become the kingdom of God, and of his Christ.” These
figurative representations of authority, government, success,
and triumph, may be properly applied to the Christian reli-
gion, or kingdom of God and his Christ, now beginning to .
spread far and wide; and to comfort the faithful in Christ
Jesus; that however, the Jews on the one hand, or the hea-
then Roman empire on the other hand, greatly opposed and
persecuted them, yet they should see the punishment of their
enemies, both Jewish and heathen, and the cause of Chris-
tianity prevail over both, in a proper and appointed time.
These expressions, and the interpretation of them, may re-
ceive some light from the style of the psalmist, Ps, xlv. 3,
&c., “Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty, with
thy glory and thy majesty. And in thy majesty ride pros-
perously, because of truth and meekness and righteousness;
and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things. Thine
arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's enemies; whereby
the people fall under thee. Thy throne, O God, is for ever:
the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre.” We have
farther reason for the application of this prophecy to Christ,
and the success of his kingdom, from an after-passage in this
Revelation, xix. 11, &c., “And I saw heaven opened, and
behold, a white horse, and he that sat upon him was called
Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and
make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head
were many crowns, and he had a name written which no
man knew but himself. And he was clothed with a vesture
dipped in blood, and his name is called, THE WoRD of
Gop.” And again, xvii. 14, “These” (the kings that gave
their power and strength to the beast) “shall make war with
the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them : for he is
Lord of lords, and King of kings, and they that are with
him are called, and chosen, and faithful.” Thus, with great
propriety to the order and design of this Revelation, the dig-
nity and power of Christ, the protection and success of his
gospel, is the first part of prophecy, for the consolation of the
faithful, as it is the chief end and design of this book.
Second seal.—According to the order we have observed in
these prophecies, the several parts of each period being suc-
cessive to each other, as well as the periods themselves, the
events in history to answer this prediction are to begin in the
first period of the heathen Roman empire, and nearest to
the time of the vision ; and then this prophecy will fitly re-
fer to the mutual slaughters of the Jews and heathen, the
common enemies of the Christian faith, and persecutors of
the Christian religion; thus taking peace from the earth, and
killing one another. If this vision, as some learned men
have thought, was in the time of Nero's persecution, and so
before the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, the dreadful
slaughter of the Jewish nation in that war may be described
by it ; in which, according to some,” one million five hun-
dred thousand, according to others, two millions of Jews
were slain, besides the Romans slain by the Jews. But if
this vision was in the time of Domitian's persecution, as
is the most common and likely opinion, it will refer to
some event in history, after the destruction of Jerusalem;
for that slaughter being passed, can hardly be supposed
the meaning of a prophecy, or prediction of a judgment to
come. Now the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian will suffi-
ciently verify this representation. In the latter end of the
reign of Trajan, the Jews rebelled in Egypt and Cyprus,
and are reported to have put to death, with great marks of
cruelty, four hundred and sixty thousand men; yet the Jews
were everywhere subdued, and prodigious numbers slain by
* Usher, Annal. 688.
+ Xiphilin, ex Dione, Trajanus.
*

CHAPTER WI.
1037
the Romans. Eusebius” remarks on this part of history,
that “the doctrine and church of our Saviour daily in-
creased ; but the calamities of the Jews were aggravated
with new miseries.”
Not long after, in the reign of Hadrian, the Jews were led
into a new sedition, headed by one who pretended to be
the Messiah, who was called Bar Chocab, or “Son of the
Star;” because he gave out, he was the Star foretold by
Balaam. The whole Jewish nation rose against the Ro-
man government, and for some time did great mischiefs
to the Romans; but at last they were entirely cut off by the
Romans, though with great loss to themselves. In these
wars, besides what was lost on the Roman side, the Jews had
a thousand cities and fortresses destroyed, with a slaughter
of above five hundred and eighty thousand men.' Thus the
persecutors of the Christian faith and church perish by, each
other's hands. The Romans, by their idolatrous worship of
Jupiter Capitolinus, provoke the Jews to rebellion, and the
Jews are destroyed following a false Messiah, as their leader,
when at the same time they rejected the true Messiah, and
persecuted his followers; and they fall by the hands of a
heathen nation, which had joined with them in opposition to
the Christian faith and profession : so that even the temporal
evils the church was permitted to suffer by the persecution
of its enemies, were not so great and dreadful as the cala-
mities and judgments the providence of God permitted the
persecutors themselves to bring upon each other, by their
own hands: so that the faithful had no reason to complain,
as if their afflictions were peculiar to themselves, or greater
than what their enemies were corrected with. This period
of history was about forty years after the vision.
Third seal.—According to the order of prophecy we have
observed in this book, the events in history, to answer this
prediction, are to be found in the next part of this period
of the heathen Roman empire, or after the reigns of Trajan
and Hadrian; now Antoninus Pius succeeded Hadrian, A. D.
138. Antoninus the philosopher, partly with Verus, and
partly alone, and after them Commodus, governed the Ro-
man empire, till within a few months of the reign of Severus,
who began his empire, A. D. 193, a space of above fifty
years.
Let us then see what the history of those times affords us,
agreeable to this prophetical description.
scription itself plainly expresses a great scarcity of provi-
sion; and though it does not foretell such a scarcity of pro-
vision as should amount to a famine, when no bread at all
was to be had, which scarce ever happened in so many
countries at once, as were subject to the Roman empire; yet
it foretells that bread, the staff of life, should be so scarce
as to be sold at an excessive price, so as to be a very heavy
judgment on the greater part of mankind, who have their
bread to get by their daily labour.
The fourth general persecution was within this period, near
sixty years after the third general persecution by Trajan,
A. D. 107. For Antoninus the philosopher, notwithstand-
ing his other good qualities, had a strong superstition and
zeal for the heathen religion, and began a new persecution
against the Christians, about the year 165.
The state of the empire, under the reigns of this Antonine
family, does properly and exactly answer this prophetic de-
scription.
But it will be proper to observe previously, that Mr. Mede,
and after him, Mr. Waple, and ofmers, seem to have been
led into a great mistake, in their interpretation of this pre-
diction, by a conjecture without reasonable foundation.
The third beast, or living creature, according to Mr.
Mede'st supposition of the standards of the camp of Israel,
stood to the south ; and therefore showeth, as he observes,
“this seal beginneth at the coming of an emperor, from that
quarter, viz. Septimius Severus, an African, an emperor out
of the south.”
But as there seems to be little foundation for supporting a
prediction, from the bare situation of the beast, east, west,
north, and south, if they had really been taken from the
standards of the camp of Israel, there is yet less foundation
for that supposition, as it is very uncertain, and indeed very
* Hist. Eccl. lib. iv. cap. 2.
+ Xiphilin, ex Dione, Hadrianus.
i. On vi. 5.
I think the de-
improbable, the camp of Israel had any such standards from
whence they are supposed to be taken, as we have observed
more at large, on iv. 8. There was no need therefore for
Mr. Mede to reject the common interpretation, so natural
and proper, because the event was not answerable in the reign
of Severus, since it was on no good foundation he fixed it to
the reign of Severus : for if the beasts were not taken from
the standards of the camp, or if they did not answer the
situation of the standards, east, west, north, and south ; or,
finally, if standing to the south did not, in the intention of
the prophecy, confine the time to the reign of an emperor
born in Afrca, there is no sufficient reason to confine this pro-
phecy to the reign of Severus.
It is, on the contrary, for considerable reasons, directed to
that part of the period of the heathen Roman empire, next
after the preceding prophecy, which referred to the reigns of
Trajan and Hadrian; and therefore may well be looked for
in the reigns of the Antonine family: let us, them, see whe-
ther, in those times, history does not take motice of famine,
and scarcity of provisions, as worthy the honour of a charac-
ter in Mr. Mede's expression. - - -
The testimony of Tertullian,” who lived in those times,
is very plain, and allowed by Mr. Mede; he mentions un-
seasonable weather, and bad harvests, the judgments of God,
for persecuting the Christians. Doleamus necesse est, quðd
irulla civitas impunè latura sit sanguinis nostri effusionem.—
Areae ipsorum non fuerunt, messes enim Suas non egerunt ;
caeterüm et imbre anni practeriti quod commeruit genus hu-
manum, apparuit cataclysmum Scilicet.
But, says Mr. Mede, if the harvest failed in Africa some
time, when Hilarianus was president, which he saith it did,
it follows not therefore that this was general through the
Roman empire, or in the age of Severus: whether it was
in the age of Severus, is nothing material, but Africa was the
granary of Italy, and a failure of harvest there must occasion
a scarcity of provision in great part of the Roman empire: be-
sides, it is observable, that Tertullian speaks of such a scarcity,
as was felt in every city, and that the rains that occasioned
it were so great, as to threaten the world with a second flood.
But let us consider what the historians take notice of, with
respect to a scarcity of provisions in Italy, and Rome itself,
under the reign of the Antonines. -
Aurelius Victor, in the reign of Antoninus Pius, observes,
that the scarcity of provisions occasioned such a tumult in
Rome, that the common people attempted to stone him,
which he chose rather to suppress by fair means, than by se-
verity. F Usque ed autem mitis fuit, ut câm ob inopias
frumentariae suspicionem, lapidibus à plebe Romană per-
stringeretur, maluerit ratione exposità placare, quam ulcisci
seditionem. -
Julius Capitolinust farther takes notice, that Antoninus
Pius was fain to supply the scarcity of wine, oil, and corn,
out of his own treasury ; and that famine was one of the
evils with which the empire was afflicted in his reign. Wini,
olei, et tritici penuriam, per aerarii Sui damna emendo et
gratis populo dando, sedavit.—Adversa ejus temporibus hacc
provenerunt, fames de quá diximus, &c.
In the reign of his successor, Antoninus the philosopher,
we have a like account of scarcity of provision, to a famine;
Mr. Echards has thus expressed it: “The birth of this
prince (Commodus) was signalized by many deplorable dis-
asters, particularly the river Tiber, by an inundation, over-
whelmed a considerable part of Rome, bore along with it a
multitude of people and cattle, ruined all the country, and
caused an extreme famine; this inundation was seconded by
earthquakes, burning of cities, and a general infection of the
air, which immediately produced an infinite number of in-
sects, who wasted all that the floods had spared.” This ac-
count is taken, I suppose, from Capitolinus and Victor; for
Julius Capitolinus thus mentions these calamities: Dabat
se Marcus totum philosophiae, amorem civium affectans; sed
interpellavit istam felicitatem securitatemque imperatoris,
prima Tiberis inundatio, quae gravissima fuit; quae res et
* Tertullianus ad Scapulam, cap. 3, p. m. 92.
+ Aurel. Vict, p. m. 446.
+ Jul. Capitol. Antoninus Pius, cap. 8.
§ Rom. Hist. vol. ii. p. 3.15.
i Julius Capitol. Anton. Philos. cap. 8.
1038
REVELATION.
multa urbis acdificia vexavit, et plurimum animalium
teremit, et famen gravissimam peperit. f
Aurelius Victor thus:* Terrae motus, non sine interità
civitatum, inundationes fluminum, Jues crebrae, locustarum
species, agris infesta prorsås, ut propè nihil, quo summis
angoribus atteri mortales solent, dici seu cogitari queat, quod
mon illo imperante saevierit.
In the next reign, of Commodus, Xiphilin+ observes from
Dio, there was such scarcity of provisions, that the people
of Rome rose, and actually killed Cleander, the emperor's
favourite, in the sedition.
*nopia rei frumentariae, eamque Dionysius Papyrius praefec-
†us annonae fecisset majorem, ut populus Romanus culpam
in Cleandrum propter furta quae faciebat, conficeret, habe-
retdue odio, eumque, id quod accidit, interficeret. -
This scarcity of provisions, in every reign of the Anto-
nines, continued to the empire of Severus, who heartily set
himself to remedy so great an evil, and made it the great
care of his life: which plainly shows, it was a very pressing
evil; and that, through frequent wars, bad harvests, and a
mismanagement of the public stores, scarcity of provisions
was a distinguishing judgment of those times. So AElius
Spartian observes, in the life of Severus, Rei frumen-
tariae quâm minimam receperat, ita consuluit, ut exce-
dens ipse vità, Septem annorum canonem populo Romano
relinqueret.
And thus also the reign of Severus appears a proper end
to the judgment of this prediction. . * -
Fourth seal.-The period of history, which in order of
time answers to this period of prophecy, is the state of the
Roman empire, after Severus, which begins about the year
211. In this time the persecution of the church was very
severe : so that our ecclesiastical historians reckon four of
the general persecutions, in the space of less than thirty
years, under the reign of Maximin, Decius, Gallus and Wo-
lusian, and Valerian.
In this period of time, the several sore judgments of God
were united, in the punishment of a persecuting empire, the
sword, famine, and pestilence. The sword and famine,
which were judgments of the foregoing seals, are continued
in this, and the pestilence is added to them. The pestilence
seems to be made the more distinguishing judgment of this
seal. The name of the person sitting on the pale horse was
Death, § which is the proper expression in the scripture lan-
guage for the plague, as the prophet Jeremiah used the word
nin, “death,” for the plague; and the LXX. render ha-1,
“ pestilence,” by Sévaroy, “death.” Accordingly, we find
all these judgments, in a very remarkable manner, in this
art of history.
The state of the empire was very much disturbed both by
foreign wars and intestine troubles; very few of the em-
perors but met with a violent death ; so that besides thirty
persons, who all pretended to the empire at once, there were
twenty acknowledged emperors in the space of sixty years,
from Caracalla, A.D. 211, to Aurelian, 270.
tine divisions gave great heart and strength to the enemies
of the Roman empire, and great advantages to the Persians,
and northern nations, against it; so that Valerian, in whose
reign the persecution was very violent, was taken prisoner
by Sapores (or Sha Pur), king of Persia, kept captive by
him, and treated with great severity to his death. Famine
and scarcity of provisions are the usual effects of war, espe-
cially of civil wars. The spoil of armies, the fears of the
country, and the want of hands for husbandry, hardly fail
of producing scarcity, near to famine; especially when un-
seasonable weather shall also spoil the fruits of the earth.
Mr. Mede observes, from Dionysius of Alexandria, and
Cyprian, that both war and famine were the judgment of
these times.
“After these things,” says Dionysius, speaking of the perse-
cution of Decius, “war and famine came upon us.”| Cyprian,"
in his Apology for the Christians, to Demetrius, proconsul of
in-
Africa, takes notice of the more frequent wars and famines
* Aurel. Vict. p. m. 446.
+ Xiphilin, ex Dione, Commodus, 575.
†: Cap. 8. § Vid. Grot. on. Matt. xxiv. 7.
| Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. vii. cap. 22.
* Cypriani ad Demetrianum, p. m. 278.
Nam clim esset forté magna
These intes-.
of those times, that they were falsely charged upon the
Christians; Sed enim clim dicat plurimos conqueri, quðd
belia crebritis surgant, quðd lues, quëd fames Sæviant,
quðdque imbres et pluvias serena longa suspendant, nobis
imputari, tacere ultrà non oportet. It is remarkable that
Cyprian, in the same Apology, expressly declares his judg-
ment, that these great calamities were according to former
predictions, and brought upon the world, not because the
Christians rejected the idolatrous Roman worship, but be-
cause the Romans rejected the worship of the true God.
Quðd autem crebritis bella continuant, quðd sterilitas et
ſames sollicitudinem cumulant, quéd Stevientibus morbis
valetudo frangitur, quëd humanum genus luis populatione
vastatur, et hoc scias esse praedictum.—Non enim, sicut
tua falsa querimonia et imperitia, veritatis ignara, jactat et
clamitat, ista accidunt, quéd dii vestri à nobis non colantur,”
sed quëd a vobis non colatur Deus.” And, finally, he
makes this the consolation of the Christians in their suf-
ferings, Certi et fidentes, quëd inultum non remaneat
quodcunque perpetimur ; quantóque major fuerit persecu-
tionis injuria, tantô et justior fiat, et gravior, pro persecu-
tione, vindicta.-- -
Pestilence seems designed the judgment of this predic-
tion ; Mr. Mede observes, f from Zonaras and Lipsius, that a
pestilence, arising from Ethiopia, went through all the pro-
vinces of Rome, and for fifteen years together incredibly
wasted them. Neither did I ever read of a greater plague
(saith an eminent man in our age), for that space of time
or land. This pestilence is mentioned by Zonaras, in the
reign of Gallus and Volusian, about the year 25l. § The
words of Zonaras are so agreeable to the prophetic descrip-
tion, that it may be useful to insert them —“He (Gallus)
was very severe to the Christians, many being put to death
by a persecution, not less grievous than that of Decius ; un-
der him, the Persians renewed their motions, and settled in
Armenia; an almost innumerable company of Scythians fell
upon Italy, and ravaged Macedonia, Thessaly, and
Greece; a part of them, from the Palus Mayotis, broke
through the Bosphorus into the Euxine sea, and laid waste
many provinces; and many other nations rose against the
Romans. Moreover, a plague then infested the provinces,
which, beginning in Ethiopia, spread itself almost through
the whole east and west, destroyed the inhabitants of many
cities, and continued for fifteen years.” Zosimus, ºf a hea-
then historian, takes notice of the same calamity : “While
war raged in every part, a pestilence spread through all
towns and villages, and destroyed the remainder of man-
kind ; that so great a destruction of men had not hitherto
ever happened in former times.” I shall only add the short
character of Eutropius, of the times of these emperors,
Gallus and Volusian ; he observes, their reigns were only
memorable for pestilence and grievous distempers: Solà
pestilentia, et morbis, atque aegritudinibus, notus corum
principatus fuit **
Fifth seal.—The period of history which in order of time
answers to this period of prophecy, is the state of the
church and Roman empire, after the reign of Aurelian,
about the year of Christ 275, which we have endeavoured to
show was the period of the foregoing seal.
This period is marked in the prophetic description, by a
time of severe sufferings, in which many gave up their lives,
in honourable testimony to the Christian faith and religion ;
but it is also described but as a short time before their suf-
ferings should end, and the church should enjoy a state of
peace and prosperity, in a quiet and free profession of the
Christian faith and worship. This seal then naturally leads
us to consider the state of the church and empire, in thereigns
of Dioclesian and Maximian.
JDioclesian began his reign about the year 284, which he
appointed the beginning of a new civil era ; but which the
Christians, on account of the heavy and grievous persecution
in his reign, were used to call “the era of the martyrs:”
* Ib. 279. + Ib. 282.
f Jos. Mede, of the fourth seal. § Lipsius.
| Joan. Zonar. Annal. tom. ii. Imper. Galli et Volu-
siani, p. m. 109.
‘ſ Zosimi Hist. Novae, lib. i. p. 24.
* Eutropius, lib. ix. .
CHAPTER VI.
1039
this was indeed the last, but the most extensive and furious
of all the persecutions. We have a large account of it from
Eusebius and Lactantius, who were themselves witnesses of
it. It may however be sufficient to represent it in the words
of Mr. Echard,” who has well abridged the larger accounts:
“As this was the last persecution, so it was the most severe
of all others, like the last efforts of an expiring enemy, who
uses his utmost power and strength to give a parting blow.
It were endless, and almost incredible, to enumerate the
variety of sufferers and torments ; it is sufficient to observe
in this place, that they were scoursed to death, had their
flesh torn off with pincers, and mangled with broken pots,
were cast to lions, tigers, and other wild beasts, weze burned,
beheaded, crucified, thrown into the sea, torn in pieces by
the distorted boughs of trees, roasted by gentle fires, and
holes made in their bodies for melted lead to be poured
into their bowels. This persecution lasted ten years un-
der Dioclesian, and some of his successors ; and the in-
credible number of Christians that suffered death and
punishment, made them conclude, that they had completed
their work; and in an ancient inscription they tell the
world, that they had effaced the name and superstition of
the Christians, and had restored and propagated the worship
of the gods. But they were so much deceived, that this has-
tened the destruction of paganism, and shortly after, Christi-
anity became victorious, and triumphant over all the powers
and artifices of mankind.” Thus exactly does this period of
history answer the description of prophecy, in a state of very
great sufferings ; but which, for the consolation of the faith-
ful, was very near its end.
Siwth seal.-The period of history, which in order of time
answers to this part of prophecy, is after the heavy persecu-
tion of Dioclesian. It was to be but a short time àfter, in
the expression of the prophecy, “a little season,” when there
should be a very great change and alteration in the
heathen Roman empire, attended with great calamities
brought on the persecutors of truth and righteousness ;
even such as should break in pieces their oppressive
power. - -
And the next state of the Roman empire will fully answer
this description. • -
Dioclesian and Maximian resigned the empire, and retired
to private life, being both forced to it by Galerius, as Lactan-
tius very particularly relates it." Upon the death of Con-
stantius, and the accession of his son Constantine to his
part of the empire, Maxentius got himself declared em-
peror at Rome; Galerius, to suppress this rebellion, per-
Suades Maximian to resume the empire, which he does ;
but, in a short time, has the mortification of being deposed ;
and soon after, for attempting the life of Constantine,:
is forced to put an end to his own life, by an ignominious
death. -
Galerius was smitten with a very loathsome and incura-
ble distemper, attended with such insupportable torments,
that he often endeavoured to kill himself, and caused some
of his physicians to be slain, because their medicines proved
ineffectual : he at last began to think of the Christians; he
put an end to their persecution by a public edict, in which
he in particular requires their prayers for his recovery,
Unde juxta hanc indulgentiam nostram, debebunt Deum
suum orare pre salute nostrá, et reipublicae ac Suá.S. Yet
soon after this public acknowledgment in favour of Chris-
tianity, he died of his loathsome distemper, about the year
31 l.
Constantine, who became a great favourer of the Chris-
tians, marches against Maxentius, who opposes him with a
great army of one hundred and seventy thousand foot, and
eighteen thousand horse ; after a fierce and bloody battle,
Maxentius was defeated by Constantine.]
tory, Constantine, who had secured by it the whole empire
of the west, gives free liberty for the open profession of the
Christian religion.
It the east, Maximin revoked the liberties granted the
* Rom. Hist. vol. ii. p. 533.
+ Lactant. de Mort. Pers. cap. 18. -
: Ib. cap. 29, 30. Ś Ib. cap. 34.
| Echard, Rom. Hist. 547. -
|Upon this vic-
Christians, makes war with Licinius ; but being defeated,
with great slaughter of his numerous army, puts many
heathen priests and soothsayers' to death, as cheats. Not
long after,” as he was endeavouring to try the event of a
second battle, he was struck with a violent distemper, with
intolerable pains and torments all over his body ; he wasted
to nothing, became quite blind, and died raging and in
despair; confessing upon his death-bed, that all this was
but a just punishment upon him, for his spiteful and viru-
lent proceedings against Christ and his religion. Lactantius
has these remarkable words, Cúm jam terrá marique perter-
reretur, nec ullum supererat refugium, angore animi ac metà
confugit ad mortem, quasi ad remedium malorum, quae
Deus in caput ejus ingessit.: And so, taking poison, he
died in that miserable manner.
Constantine in the west, and Licinius in the east, remained
now sole emperors; Licinius severely persecuted the Chris-
tians in his part of the empire ; a war breaks out between
the two emperors; Licinius, notwithstanding a stout resist-
ance, was overthrown, and forced to fly : but soon a second
war began, which was carried on with greater fury than ever;
Licinius is again defeated in a general battle, $ in which, it
is reported, one hundred thousand men were slain. He is.
taken prisoner ; and though his life was then spared, yet,
upon new attempts against the life of Constantine, he is:
put to death, and with him ended all the heathen power of
Rome. -
A little after this, Constantine removes the seat of the em-
pire from Rome to Constantinople, forms a new model of
the Roman government and empire, puts the administration
of the government into the hands of four principal officers,
called “praetorian praefects,” abolishes all the power of pa-
ganism, and establishes the Christian religion throughout the
empire.
Thus, by great and frequent calamities, in which so many
emperors had their share one after another, this wonderful
change was wrought in the heathen Roman empire: their
power to oppress and persecute the Christian religion fell,
like the Assyrian and Babylonian persecutors, never to rise
any more. *
This part of history is so easily applicable to the prophetic
description, that I shall only represent it in the words of Mr.
Daubuz: “From this account it appears, that the pagan
Roman emperors were deprived of their government, and
came to miserable ends:—that the pagan Roman Caesars
fell in battle, or were put to death :—that the religion of the
idolaters received a mortal wound, all the colleges of pontifi-
ces, augurs, vestals, in a word, all the pagan priests and reli-
gious officers throughout the empire, being brought under
the power and dominion of a Christian prince :—that many
of the pagan officers, civil and military, were displaced, and
Christians put in their room ;-that there was a thorough
change in the government, and that paganism lessened by
degrees, till it. entirely disappeared:—that the greatest of
the persecutors acknowledged and confessed the justness
and cause of God’s judgments:—and, lastly, that upon this
change, all the idolaters, upon account of their horrid cruel-
ties and barbarities against the Christians, could not but be
in daily expectation of the severest punishments.” -
To this I shall add but one remark, That this part of his-
tory is very proper to the general design of the whole Reve-
lation, to support the patience, and encourage the perseve-
rance, of the church, in such an instance of God's power
and faithfulness in the protection of the Christian 'religion,
and punishment of its enemies. We see, in this period, dur-
ing the persecution of Rome heathem, the church in a state
of trial and suffering, yet preserved and protected, and finally
obtaining a state of peace and safety, when all the power
of their persecutors was totally destroyed by God's overrul-
ing providence. This history verifies the general truth of all
the prophecies, and the particular predictions of each of
them severally. A strong encouragement to the patience
and constancy of the true church
* Ib. 550. + [hid.
f Lactant. de Mort. Pers. cap. 49.
§ Zosimus, lib. ii. p. 100.
| Daubuz, Explanat. of Seal Sixth, 258.
1040
ministers."
four chief points from whence the winds are used to blow,
to restrain them from blowing with violence on any part of
the world: to show, God designed in his providence to put
CHAPTER VII.
SECTION VI.
INTERYAL BETWEEN THE FIRST AND SECOND PERIODs.
1 AND after these things I saw four angels stand-
ing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four
winds of the earth, that the winds should not blow
on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.
(1.) Now after my former visions, which represented the
providence of God towards the church and world, to the
downfall of the heathen Roman empire, the state of the
church and world next to follow, was also represented to me
in another prophetic vision ; in which I beheld four angels,
representing the government of providence, as directed by
God's will and command, and executed by his messengers or
Those angels were represented as placed at the
a stop to the tumults and commotions that had before so
much disturbed the world, and to give the church and world
a time of peace and rest” for a season.
2 And I saw another angel ascending from the
east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried
with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was
given to hurt the earth and the sea,
(2.) I farther beheld in my vision, another angel, as as-
cending from the eastern point of the heavens, who appeared
with the seal of God in his hand, as sent on some particular
message ; this angel, as he came on, made proclamation
with a loud voice, that the commotions and disorders of the
world should cease for a time ;-
3 Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor
the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God
in their foreheads.
(3.) That a state of peace and quiet should continue
until he had sealed the servants of God, till many should
receive the distinguishing mark or seal of the Christian
church, the sign and testimonial of their Christian pro-
fession, and consecration to the service of God, and of
God's peculiar favour to them, as his church and peculiar
people.” w
4 And I heard the number of them which wero
sealed; and there were sealed a hundred and forty
and four thousand, of all the tribes of the children of
Israel. . -
(4.) And the number of those who were thus sealed, and
consecrated to God, as his church and peculiar people, was
very great ; a number that figuratively expressed many per-
Sons of all people and nations, professing the Christian faith,
and serving God in the worship of the Christian church, now
the true Israel of God, it being the square number of twelve,
multiplied by a thousand.*
5 Of the tribe of Juda were sealed twelve thou.
sand. Of the tribe of Reuben were sealed twelve
thousand. Of the tribe of Gad were sealed twelve
thousand.
6 Of the tribe of Aser were sealed twelve thousand.
Of the tribe of Nephthalim were sealed twelve thou-
sand. Of the tribe of Manasses were sealed twelve
thousand.
7 Of the tribe of Simeon were sealed twelve thou–
sand. Of the tribe of Levi were sealed twelve thou-
sand. Of the tribe of Issachar were sealed twelve
thousand.
8 Of the tribe of Zabulon were sealed twelve thou-
sand. Of the tribe of Joseph were sealed twelve
thousand. Of the tribe of Benjamin were sealed
twelve thousand.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VII.
CoNTENTS.–The former chapter concluded the first period,
and the sufferings of the church under the persecution of
the heathen Roman empire. The second period of pro-
phecy begins with the opening of the seventh seal, and is
contained in the events which attend the sounding of the
trumpets; an account of which we have in the eighth and
ninth chapters. In this chapter, I conceive, we have an
account of a little pause, or interval, to describe the state
of things, for a short time, between the two periods. After
these things, that is, after the prophetic vision that repre-
sented the first period, John saw, in other visions, what is
related in this chapter. This seems a representation of a
state of peace and quiet throughout the earth, especially
in the Roman empire, and of the great number of persons
in every nation, which came into the profession of Chris-
tianity; of the encouraging protection that was given to
the Christian church, of thankful acknowledgments for
the goodness and power of God and Christ, by the whole
church, in such eminent instances of favour and protec-
tion ; and, finally, of the happy state of all the faithful
confessors and martyrs, who, after a short time of tribu-
lation, for the faith of Christ, and constancy in his reli-
gion, have attained to a state of everlasting rest, in
happiness and glory. -
Thus wisely does this part of prophecy promote the prin-
cipal design of the whole, to encourage the faith and
patience, the hope and constancy of the church, under
all opposition and sufferings. It seems designed to show,
with the certainty of prophetic revelation, that as God
directs all things in the world by his providence, so he
will direct them to serve the designs of his goodness to
the church ; and that the great revolutions of the world
shall often be in favour of true religion, and for its
protection ; and to assure the faithful, that all they
suffer for the sake of truth and righteousness, shall soon
be rewarded with a state of peace, honour, and happi-
In eSS,
* Ver, 1.] An angel, in prophetic style, expresses every-
thing that brings a message from God, or executes the will
of God, as, a prophetic dream, a pillar of fire, &c. (see note
on i. 1). -
* Winds are emblems of commotions, and very properly,
as they are the natural causes of storms. Thus this figura-
; tive expression is used, and explained by the prophet Jere-
miah, xlix. 36, 37, “And upon Elam will I bring the four
winds from the four quarters of heaven, and will scatter
them towards all those winds; and there shall be no nation
whither the outcast of Elam shall not come. For I will
cause Elam to be dismayed before their enemies, and before
them that seek their life: and I will bring evil upon them,
even my fierce anger, saith the Lord ; and I will send my
sword after them, till I have consumed them.” To hold the
winds, that they should not blow, is a very proper prophetic
emblem of a state of peace and tranquillity. -
* Ver. 3..] Sealing has several intentions in the style of
prophecy, which may be seen in Mr. Daubuz's Symbolical
Dictionary ; as, preservation and security, secrecy, confirma-
tion, and authority. But, I conceive, the principal mean-
ing here is to denote propriety, in allusion to the custom of
sealing things, that it might be known to whom they belong.
Now, as the sacraments of circumcision under the law, and
baptism under the gospel, were used as public marks of con-
secration to God, as his peculiar people, and of God's favour
to his church, as his peculium, this expression, of “sealing
the servants of God,” may well be understood, I think, of a
great addition to the numbers of the Christian church by
baptism; or receiving the seal of the Christian religion, the
mark of God's peculium.
* Ver, 4.] This single passage, says the Bishop of Meaux,
sº
CHAPTER VII.
1041
(5–8.) This great number of people, which professed the
faith and worship of the Christian church, were in proportion
out of every place and nation, as if a proportional number
had been sealed out of every one of the tribes, into which
the children of Israel had been divided, according to the
number of their patriarchs, as if now all the nations of the
earth who were to be blessed in the Christian church had
succeeded in their room, as the true Israel of God ; for it
was represented to me in my vision, as if twelve thousand
were sealed in the tribe of Judah, as many in the tribe
of Reuben, and a like number in every one of the other
tribes.
9 After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude,
which no man could number, of all nations, and kin-
dreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the
throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white
robes, and palms in their hands;
(9.) After I had beheld this happy and prosperous state
of the church, at the end of so many and grievous afflictions,
I saw, in my prophetic vision, the whole church of heaven,
joining in a solemn act of praise. The song of praise began
with the united voices of an innumerable company of
persons of all nations and countries, who were clothed in
white garments, marks of piety, honour, and dignity ; and
they had palm-branches in their hands, emblems of joy and
victory ;- -
10 And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation
to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto
the Lamb. -
(10.) And they said with a loud voice, Salvation be as-
cribed unto our God, the supreme and sovereign Lord of all,
who sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb of God,
who has all power to protect and save his faithful ser-
vants.” - -
11 And all the angels stood round about the
throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and
fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped
God, - t
(11.) Then the angels of God, who stood round about the
throne, and the twenty-four elders, with the four living crea.
tures or cherubim, prostrated themselves before the throne
of God, joining in the same act of worship and thanksgiving
with the saints. -
12 Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wis-
dom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and
might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen.
(12.) For they said, Amen, to their hymn of praise; and
added, Let all, with a sincere and devout heart, ascribe ulto
God, blessing, glory, wisdom, thanksgiving, honour, power,
and might, for ever and ever, Amen.
13 And one of the elders answered, saying unto
me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes :
and whence came they -
(13.) To give me a more exact information concerning
these persons who were clothed in the white robes of purity,
honour, and dignity, one of the elders led me on by a ques-
tion, to ask of him a fuller account of them.
14 And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And
he said to me, These are they which came out of
great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and
made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
(14.) Whereupon he gave me this account of them : These
persons whom you behold appearing in this state of honour
and happiness, were very lately in a state of great afflictions
and suffering for the sake of their faith and constancy; but
having kept the faith, they have received the blessings Christ
obtained by his blood, for his church and faithful people ;
they are now cleansed from all impurity, adormed with all
perfection, and advanced to this state of glory and happiness
in which you see them. I
15 Therefore are they before the throne of God,
and serve him day and night in his temple: and he
that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.
(15.) They are counted worthy to appear in the imme-
diate presence of God, even here before his throne, and have
obtained the honour and happiness of a constant attendance
upon God; and, like his angels, cease not day or night to
praise him : and the presence of God will be an everlasting
Spring of happiness and joy to them.
16 They shall, hunger no more, neither thirst any
more ; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any
heat.
(16.) They shall no more be subject to any of their for-
mer troubles or afflictions. None of the natural or common
evils of the world below shall reach them any more.
17 For the Lamb, which is in the midst of the
throne, shall feed them, and shall lead them unto
living fountains of waters : and God shall wipe away
all tears from their eyes.
(17.) For it shall be the care of the Lamb of God to bless
them, who has all power to make them completely happy.
He shall bless them with perpetual everlasting joys ; and
every sorrow, with every cause of sorrow, shall be fully taken
away for ever."
may show the mistake of those who always expect the num-
hers in the Revelation to be precise and exact : for is it to
be supposed, that there should be in each tribe twelve thou-
sand elect, neither more nor less, to make up the total sum
of one hundred forty and four thousand 2 It is not by such
trifles, and low sense, the divine oracles are to be explained:
we are to observe, in the numbers of the Revelation, a cer-
tain figurative proportion, which the Holy Ghost designs to
point out to observation. As there were twelve patriarchs,
and twelve apostles, twelve becomes a sacred number in the
synagogue, and in the Christian church. This number of
twelve first multiplied into itself, and then by a thousand,
makes one hundred forty and four thousand. The bishop
observes,” in the solid proportion of this square number, the
unchangeableness of the truth of God and his promises: per-
naps it may mean the beauty and stability of the Christian
:hurch, keeping to the apostolical purity of faith and wor-
; hip. -
#ver. 10.] This vision, especially when compared with
the former in the fourth and fifth chapters, is to be under-
stood, I conceive, of the church in heaven; as heaven seems
to be the proper scene of the vision, so the innumerable
company of saints with whom the angels join in the follow-
ing words, in the presence of God and the Lamb, is most
naturally to be understood, I think, of those who, having
--
* In loc.
been faithful unto death, had received the crown of immor-
tal life, in the state of heavenly happiness. And I question,
whether the praises of the church on earth will answer the
prophetic description, or the intention of the prophetic Spi-
rit, in the great encouragement it designed to give to faith-
fulness and constancy. I think, to understand it of the
heavenly church, is a natural sense of the expressions, a
sense proper to the design of the prophecy, as it represents
the faithful martyrs and confessors, once so great sufferers on
earth, now blessed saints in heaven.
* Ver. 17.] Interpreters are not agreed in the proper
meaning of this description. Some understand it of the
peaceful and prosperous state of the church on earth. In
some cases, very strong expressions of prophetic style, are to
be softened to a sense that will agree to a happy state of
the church in this world. Others, who observe the force of
these expressions, and how much they agree with the de-
scription of the new heavens and new earth, ch. xxi., under-
stand it of the happy state of the church for one thousand
years, which they also suppose a resurrection-state of the
martyrs. I shall only observe, that as the time of the thou-
sand years is, according to the order of this prophecy, very.
distant, I think, from the time to which this part of it refers,
I can by no means suppose the Spirit of prophecy designed
this description should be applied to the state of the millen-
nium. And though the description may be softened to such
a sense, as may represent the peaceful and prosperous state
3 X
1042
REVELATION.
of the church under Constantine, yet, I think, the sense
given in the paraphrase is more agreeable to the expressions
of this description, and to the design of the prophecy; which,
when united together, are the surest rules of interpretation:
to follow. - -
CHAPTER VIII. - g
SECTION VII.
SECONE) PERIOD-OF TFIE TRUMPETS.
I AND when he had opened the seventh seal, there
was silence in heaven about the space of half an
hour. -- e
(1.) After the space of time allowed for sealing the ser-
vants of God, and a great addition was made to the Chris-
tian church, which greatly lessened the power, and weakened
the opposition of idolatry to Christianity, I had a farther
revelation in my prophetic vision, to show what would be the
state of the church and world, after so great a change in fa-
vour of the Christian faith and religion. I observed, that
now the Lamb opened the seventh and last seal ; and here-
upon it was represented to me, as if there had been a state
of silence in heaven for about half an hour, like the silence in
the temple-worship, when the whole congregation was at
private prayer and devotion." º
2 And I saw the seven angels which stood before
God; and to them were given seven trumpets.
(2.) I farther beheld, in my vision, seven chief angels
standing before the throne of God, as attendants to receive
his orders, and to execute them, after the manner of the
great princes of the east, who were used to be so attended by
the princes and chief officers of their court. And I beheld
also in my vision, that seven trumpets were given to these
seven chief angels, to each of them one.
3 And another angel came and stood at the altar,
having a golden censer; and there was given unto him
much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers
*
|
of all saints upon the golden altar which was before
the throne. -
(3.) Then I saw another angel, like the priest chosen to
offer incense, by lot, standing at the golden altar, having a
golden censer, and much incense,” to offer with the prayers
of the saints, who were at their private devotions in silence:
this incense the angel offered at the golden altar, which was
before the throne, there being in this representation of the
heavenly presence no veil, and so no distinction between the
holy and most holy place.
4 And the smoke of the incense, which came with
the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out
of the angel’s hands. |
(4.) And I perceived the smoke of the incense, which the
angel offered with the prayers of the saints, who were at
their private devotions, ascended up before God. A testi-
mony of God’s gracious acceptance of their worship, and of
the continuance of God’s protection and blessing to his
faithful worshippers.
5 And the angel took the censer, and filled it with
fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth : and there
were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an
earthquake. -
(5.) I farther beheld in my vision, that the angel who had
offered the incense took his censer ; and going down from
the golden altar to the altar of burnt-offering, he filled it
with burning coals, and cast them down upon the earth :
and immediately thereupon, there arose a terrible storm,
with great noise, thundering, lightning, and earthquake, re-
presenting new commotions in the world, and some great
calamities by the righteous judgment of God.”
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VIII.
CoNTENTs.-This chapter opens the second period of this
prophecy, which begins upon opening of the seventh seal,
and is distinguished by the sounding of seven trumpets.
This period of the trumpets contains a prophetic descrip-
tion of the state of the world and church, for a consider-
able space of time after the empire became Christian, dur-
ing the continuance of the empire in the successors of
Constantine. It describes the great devastation of the
Roman empire, by the several nations that broke in upon
it, and finally put an end to it. It describes a time of
great calamity, a state of new trials. It shows the church
what it was to expect in new dangers, and opposition,
after it should be delivered from the persecution of the
heathen Roman government. And when the Christian
religion should have the protection of the laws, and the
favour of the emperors, the church would still have great
need of caution, watchfulness, patience, and constancy ;
and there would be still this encouragement to faithful-
Žess and perseverance, that though the opposition in this
period of time would be very great, yet neither should
this prevail against the cause of truth and righteousness ;
the Christian faith and religion should be preserved, and
in the end triumph over this opposition, as it had before
over the former opposition, from the heathen emperors of
Rome. And thus fully answers the general design and
use of the prophecy, to direct and encourage the constan-
cy of the Christian church in faith and patience, whatever
opposition it may meet with from the world.
1 Wer. 1.] Most interpreters agree, this silence in heaven
for half an hour, is an allusion to the manner of the temple-
worship, that while the priest offered incense in the holy
place, the whole people prayed without in silence, or
privately to themselves (Luke i. 10). On the day of expia-
tion, the whole service was performed by the high-priest ;
to which particular service Sir Isaac Newton” has observed
an allusion : “The custom was, on other days, to take fire
from the great altar in a silver censer; but on this day (of
expiation), for the high-priest to take fire from the great
altar, in a golden censer; and when he was come down from
the great altar, he takes incense from one of the priests, who
brought it to him, and went with it to the golden altar; and
while he offered the incense, the people prayed without in
silence: which is the silence in heaven for half an hour.”
It is true on the day of expiation, the high-priest did all
the service himself; he used a golden censer, and took his
hands full of incense: yet it may be a question, whether the
mention of a golden censer, and much incense, may not
refer to the great glory and perfection of the heavenly
worship, as well as the peculiar service of the high-priest.
On this supposition, a golden censer and much incense, will
not require the hands of a high-priest ; for the offering of
incense was usually assigned, by lot, to any one of the
priests of the course: and this, I think, will be found more
agreeable to the following parts of the prophetic description.
* Ver. 3..] These censers were the same with the vials
full of odours, mentioned v. 8: the offering incense on the
golden altar, seems to determine this allusion to the con-
stant offering of incense in the temple, and not to the Ser-
vice peculiar to the high-priest on the day of expiation ;
and fully shows the propriety of this vision, in not represent-
ing the high-priest—which, in this prophetic vision, would
have been the Lamb—as personally officiating in this act of
worship. - -
* Wer. 5.] These voices, thunderings, lightning, and
earthquake, seem to me to mean something very different
from “an allusion to the voice of the high-priest reading
the law to the people, and other voices, and thunderings
from the trumpets and temple music, at the sacrifices and
* On Apoc. p. 264.
CHAPTER VIII.
1043
6 And the seven angels which had the seven
trumpets prepared themselves to sound.
(6.) This part of the vision having prepared my attention
to observe what should be revealed at each angel’s sounding
of his trumpet, as before upon opening the seals, in order, I
perceived the seven angels preparing to sound their trum-
pets.
7 The first angel sounded, and there followed hail
and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon
the earth: and the third part of the trees was burnt
up, and all green grass was burnt up.
(7.) The first angel soon sounded his trumpet: upon
which there followed a great storm of hail, and even of fire
mingled with blood; which burned up and destroyed a
great part of the trees, and green grass of this earth. A
Troper representation of great commotions and disorders
in the world, attended with great bloodshed, and destruc-
tion of many of the several ranks and conditions of men”
(see the history of the first trumpet at the end of this
chapter). - - -
8 And the second angel sounded, and as it were a
great mountain burning with fire was cast into the
sea; and the third part of the sea became blood;
(8.) I then perceived the second angel sounded his trum:
pet ; and I beheld, as if a great mountain, all on fire, had
been cast into the sea; by which a very considerable part of
the waters of the sea was turned into blood.
9 And the third part of the creatures which were
in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of
the ships was destroyed. -
(9.) And a very great part both of the creatures which
live in the sea, and the ships that pass on it for business or
defence, was destroyed in great numbers. A proper figu-
rative representation of a farther judgment, which should
reach the capital city of the empire, and many of the pro-
vinces ; destroying their power and riches, dismembering
them from the empire, and depriving it of all future Sup-
port and assistance from them" (see the history of the
second trumpet at the end of this chapter).
10 And the third angel sounded, and there fell a
lightnings from the fire of the altar.” Nor can I conceive
that the voices, thunder, lightning, and earthquake, con-
sequent upon the angel’s casting fire into the earth, show,
“that during the offering of the incense, or at least imme-
diately upon it, the voice of God was heard, his word was
preached, and the gospel was spread to the enlightening of
man.” These expressions much rather denote some great
judgment on the earth, or Roman empire. Thunders and
lightnings, when they proceed from the throne of God (Rev.
iv. 5), are fit representations of God’s glorious and awful
majesty; but when fire comes down from heaven upon the
earth, it expresses some judgment of God on the world, as
in this prophecy, xx. 9, “A fire came down from God out
of heaven, and devoured them :” and in like manner, when
great Babylon “came in remembrance before God, to give
unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath ;”
xvi. 19, “there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings,
and a great earthquake.” This being mentioned previous
to the sounding of the trumpets, I think it may be under-
stood as a general description of the many calamities of this
period, notwithstanding the seeming secure prosperity of the
Christian church. y
* Wer. 7..] A thunder-storm and tempest, that throws
down all before it, is a fit metaphor to express the calami-
ties of war, from civil disturbances or foreign invasion,
which often, like a hurricane, lay all things waste, as far as
they reach. In the language of prophecy, this is a usual
representation ; so the prophet Isaiah expresses the inva-
slon of Israel by Shalmaneser king of Assyria: “Behold
the Lord hath a mighty and strong one, which as a tempest
of hail and a destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters
overflowing, shall cast down to the earth with the hand”
KIsa. xxviii. 2), And the same prophet in general thus ex-
presses the judgments of God ; “Thou shalt be visited of
the Lord of hosts, with thunder, and with earthquake, and
great noise, with storm and tempest, and the flame of de-
vouring fire” (Isa. xxix. 6); meaning likely the invasion of
Sennacherib. The prophet Ezekiel expresses the judgments
of God on the prophets who deceived the people, saying
Peace, where there is no peace : “Therefore thus saith the
Lord God ; I will even rend it with a stormy wind in my
fury, and there shall be an overflowing shower in mine anger,
and great hailstones in my fury to destroy it” (xiii. 13).
It is likely here is also an allusion to one of the plagues
of Egypt, which was a destroying storm or tempest: “For
the Lord sent thunder and hail, and the fire ran along upon
the ground, and the hail smote, throughout all the land of
Egypt, all that was in the field, and brake every tree of the
field” (Exod. ix. 23).
It is a just observation of Sir Isaac Newton, that “ in
the prophetic language, tempests, winds, or the motions of
clouds, are put for wars; thunder, or the voice of a cloud,
for the voice of a multitude ; and storms of thunder, light-
ning, hail, and overflowing rain, for a tempest of war, de-
scending from the heavens, and clouds politic. In like
manners the earth, animals, and vegetables, are put for the
people of several nations and conditions. Trees, and green
grass, express the beauty and fruitfulness of a land ; and
when the earth is an emblem of nations and dominions,
may signify persons of higher rank and of common con-
dition.”
“Trees here,” says Mr. Waple,'" according to the pro-
phetic scheme of speech, signify the great ones; and grass,
by the like analogy, signifies common people ; or, as Mr.
Mede, “From the amalogy it is easily gathered, that green
grass is taken for the common people, when, as here, it is
joined with trees.” -
whether it was the intention of the prophetic style to be
so particular, I take not upon me to determine ; but it
seems plain, it is designed to express some great calamities
brought on the empire, when it is represented as a storm
that destroyed not only the green grass, which is more
easily blasted, but which destroyed also a great part of the
trees, which are supposed more likely to withstand the yio-
lence of a storm ; and it seems to point out these calamities
as the effect of wars and bloodshed throughout the Roman
empire, in the beginning of this period. . . ."
5 Ver, 9.] In the style of prophecy, a mountain signifies
a kingdom and the strength of it, its metropolis, or Ca ital
city. Thus the prophet Jeremiah foretells the downfall of
Babylon, li. 25, “Behold I am against thee, O destroying
mountain, saith the Lord, which destroyest all the earth;
and I will stretch out mine hand upon thee, and roll thee
down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain.”
The prophet himself explains the literal meaning of these
figurative expressions, ver. 27, “Set ye up a standard in the
land, blow the trumpet among the nations, prepare the na-
tions against her, call together against her the kingdoms of
Ararat, Mimni, and Ashchenaz.” The plain meaning of the
figure of a burnt mountain, seems also taught by the prophet
ver. 30, &c., “They have burnt her dwelling places ; her
bars aré broken. Öne post shall run to meet another, and
one messenger to meet another, to show the king of Babylon
that his city is taken at one end, and that the passages, are
stopped, and the reeds they have burnt with fire, and the
men of war are affrighted.” The general meaning of this
prophecy is farther thus explained, ver, 58, “Thus saith the
Lord God of hosts; The broad walls of Babylon shall be
utterly broken, and her high gates shall be burnt. With fire ;
and the people shall labour in vain, and the folk in the fire,
and they shall be weary.” All efforts to preserve their city
and empire, says Mr. Lowth on the place, shall be as in-
significant, as if men wrought in the fire, which immediately
destroys all the fruit of their labours : or, as the words may
be better translated, “And the people shall labour for a
* Sir Isaac Newton, 265.
† P, 18
+ Daubuz, 274.
thing of nought, and the folks shall weary themselves for that
* Ibid. p. 19. + In loc.
† On the Revelation, p. 85.
3 X 2
104.4
REVELATION.
great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp,
and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon
the fountains of waters;
(10.) And I farther perceived in my vision, that the third
angel sounded his trumpet; upon which I beheld a repre-
sentation as of a large star, all on fire, which, like a flaming
torch, fell down from heaven upon a great part of the rivers,
and fountains of waters.
11 And the name of the star is called Wormwood:
and the third part of the waters became wormwood;
and many men died of the waters, because they were
made bitter.
(11.) Upon which, as if wormwood had been mixed with
the waters, it made them so bitter, they were no longer
wholesome to drink ; but, like waters infected, they occa-
sioned the death of many people. Denoting a farther judg-
ment on the Roman empire, on the capital and seat of the
empire ; signifying a thorough desolation and downfall, not
only weakening it, by dismembering its provinces, but put-
ting an end to all power and authority of the government it-
self" (see the history of the third trumpet at the end of
this chapter).
12 And the fourth angel sounded, and the third
which shall be fuel for the fire;” i. e. they shall not be able
to preserve their city, but it shall be taken, and become a
prey to the flames.
Great disorders and commotions, especially when king-
doms are moved by hostile invasions, are expressed in the
prophetic style, by carrying or casting mountains into the
midst of the sea. “Therefore we will not fear though the
earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into
the midst of the sea” (Ps. xlvi. 2).
The Sea, in the Hebrew language, is any collection of
waters, as Mr. Daubuz “ observes. Now as waters are
expressly made a symbol of people in this prophecy, xvii.
15, “And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest,
where the whore sitteth, are people, and multitudes, and na-
tions and tongues,” the sea may well represent the collec-
tion of many people and nations into one politic body or
empire ; and when a sea is considered as an empire, or a
collection of people into one body politic, the living crea-
tures in that sea will be the people, or nations, whose union
constitutes this empire. And the prophet Ezekiel, by a
like figure, describes the destruction of the inhabitants of
Egypt, by the death of all the fish of the rivers, xxix. 3,
&c., “Thus Saith the Lord God; Behold I am against thee,
Pharaoh king of Egypt.—I will cause the fish of thy
rivers to stick unto thy scales. I will leave thee thrown
on the wilderness, thee and all the fish of thy rivers.” These
expressions seem explained by the prophet to this meaning:
“Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Behold I will bring a
sword upon thee, and cut off man and beast out of thee.”
Ships, from their use in trade, are a proper representation
of the riches of a people; and as they are of use in war,
especially to the maritime nations, they are proper emblems
of strength and power. As ships were of both uses in the
Roman empire, they may well be understood both of the
riches and power of the Roman empire.
Thus we have a description, in this part of the second
period of prophecy, of a judgment to come on the empire,
in which the capital should suffer much, many provinces
should be dismembered, as well as invaded, and the springs
of power and riches in the empire should be very much di-
minished. Let us consider how the next period of history
agrees with the description of prophecy.
* Ver., 11.] Stars, in prophetic style, are figurative re-
presentations of many, things ; among others, they signify
kings, or kingdoms, eminent persons of great authority and
power. Thus, in the prophecy of Balaam, Numb. xxiv.
17, “There shall come a star out of Jacob, and a sceptre
shall rise out of Israel.” Thus the power of the horm of
the he goat, prevailing over other powers, is represented in
Dan, viii. 10, “And it waxed great, even to the host of
heaven ; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars
part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the
moon, and the third part of the stars; so that the
third part of them was darkened, and the day shone
not for a third part of it, and the might likewise.
(12.) I moreover beheld in my vision, when the fourth
angel sounded his trumpet; and thé events which were to
follow upon it were represented by a very great and gloomy
darkness ; as if a thick cloud had so darkened the air, that
neither the light of the Sun, moon, or stars, could be per-
ceived through it ; so far was it from the brightness of a
clear day, that there was not so much as the brightness of
a clear night, but all around was cloudy and dark. A fit
representation, to express the last desolation of the imperial
eity, which God's righteous judgments had doomed (as Ba-
bylon heretofore) to a loss of all power, and of all authority?
(see the history of the fourth trumpet at the end of this
chapter).
13 And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through
the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe,
woe, woe, to the inhabitants of the earth, by reason of
the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels,
which are yet to sound.
(13.) After this, I farther perceived in my vision, that an
to the ground, and stamped upon them.” The downfall of
the kingdom of Babylon is represented by a like figurative
expression, the fall of Lucifer, or the morning-star, Isa. xiv.
12, “How art thou fallen, O Lucifer, son of the morning !
how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken
the nations !” The most matural interpretation of this symbol
seems to be this: That as the rising of a star denotes the
rise of some new power or authority, so the fall of a star
from heaven signifies the fall of some kingdom or empire.
Rivers and fountains of waters may be considered as
the source and spring of waters, which, running in a com-
mon channel, make a sea. And then, as a sea, or collection
of waters, denotes a collection of many people into one
government, the rivers and fountains of waters may repre-
sent the seat of the empire or people, which have enlarged
their dominion, by reducing other nations into provinces ; so
that, in this sense, rivers and fountains of waters may denote
the original country or seat of the empire, in distinction
from the provinces.
Rivers, and fountains of waters to supply them, may also
be considered as necessaries to the support of life. Drying
up rivers and fountains of waters expresses a scarcity of
things necessary : thus when Hosea prophesies that Samaria
shall become desolate, he thus expresses it: “Though he be
fruitful among his brethren, an east wind shall come, the
wind of the Lord shall come up from the wilderness, and his
spring shall become dry, and his fountain shall be dried up :
he shall spoil the treasure of all pleasant vessels” (xiii. 15).
And thus the prophet Isaiah describes the destruction of
Egypt, xix. 5, “And the waters shall fail from the sea, and
the river shall be wasted and dried up.”
And, finally, there seems an allusion in this description to
one of the plagues of Egypt. “And Moses and Aaron did
so, as the Lord commanded ; and he lifted up the rod, and
smote the waters that were in the river, in the sight of Pha-
raoh, and in the sight of his servants; and all the waters that
were in the river were turned into blood. And the fish that
was in the river died; and the river stank, and the Egyptians
could not drink of the water of the river; and there was
blood throughout all the land of Egypt” (Exod. vii. 20, 21).
Here, then, we have a prophecy which aptly expresses a
judgment to come on the seat of the Roman empire, which
should destroy the power of it in its spring and fountain,
and cut off all its necessary supports; as when rivers and
fountains, so necessary to life, are infected, and become ra-
ther deadly than fit for use. -
7 Ver, 12.] Darkening, smiting, or setting of the sun,
moon, and stars, says Sir Isaac Newton,” are put for the
Setting of a kingdom, or the desolation thereof, proportional
to the darkness. And when darkness is opposed to light,
Mr. Daubuz observes,f as light is a symbol of joy and safety
* Symbol. Dict.
* Par. i. p. 18. + Symbol. Dict. 76.
CHAPTER VIII.
1045
angel flew, as it were, through the midst of heaven, and
proclaimed, for the information of all, with an audible voice,
Though the judgments signified by the four trumpets which
have already sounded are very great and formidable, yet
; greater judgments still remain to be inflicted on the earth, in
the events that are to follow upon sounding the three trum-
pets that yet remain.”
so darkness is a symbol of misery and adversity. According
to the style of the prophet Jeremiah, “Give glory to the
Lord your God, before he cause darkness, and before your
feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and while ye look
for light, he turn it into the shadow of death, and make it
gross darkness” (xiii. 16). The darkness of the sun, moon,
and stars, is likewise observed to denote a general deficiency
in government, as the prophet describes a day of severe judg-
ment: “For the stars of heaven and the constellations
thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened
in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to
shine. And I will punish the world for their evil, and the
wicked for their iniquity; I will cause the arrogancy of the
proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the ter-
rible” (Isa. xiii. 10, 1]). And thus the prophet Ezekiel
describes the destruction of the kingdom of Egypt, xxxii. 7,
8, “And when I will put thee out,” or, as in the margin,
“extinguish thee,” quite deprive thee of all authority and
power, “I will cover the heaven; and make the stars thereof
dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall
not give her light. All the bright lights of heaven will I
make dark over thee, and set darkness upon thy land, saith
the Lord God.” As this is the meaning of these figurative
cxpressions in general, it is also a good rule of interpreta-
tion to apply the particular meaning of such descriptions,
according to the subject, to the order and scene of action
then referred to, and intended to be represented by such
descriptions.” In this view, considering that the subject,
order, and scene of action are the downfall of the Roman
* Daubuz, Prelim. Disc. rule 1.
empire, and of the power and authority of Rome, the im-
perial city, it will very fitly and properly represent an en-
tire extinguishing of all authority and power in Rome,
once the seat of empire; putting out or extinguishing, in
the language of Ezekiel, the splendour of authority and
power, as well as taking away the full exercise of it. Not
only the brightness of the day, and light of the sun, but
the fainter light of the night and moon, nay, even the
little glimmering light of the stars, shall be put out.
* Ver. 13.] Several interpreters suppose this part of the
vision a representation of some faithful witnesses against
the superstition, idolatry, and growing corruptions of those
times. So Mr. Daubuz observes, preaching against errors
is prophesying against them; and by that bringing down
the judgments of God upon the impenitent, he supposes
the dreadfulness of the woes of the three trumpets is pro-
claimed to the corrupt members of the church ; because,
as they were endued by the divine revelation with more
knowledge than before, being all Christians by name, they
therefore deserve to suffer more for their crimes than plain
heathens, such as were chiefly concerned in the former
judgments. The greater guilt of a corrupt church is in-
deed a good reason for severe punishment, and will justify
the ways of Providence in these heavy judgments on the
empire, now Christian, yet going fast into corruption of
doctrine and manners, and even to incorporate the hea-
then superstition and idolatry into the Christian worship;
but whether this part of the vision means any more than
to raise attention to the following events, which were to
be very calamitous and extensive, I shall leave to the judg-
ment of the reader.
HISTORY OF THE TRUMPETS.
First trumpet-Let us briefly consider how this prophe-
tic representation was verified in correspondent history.
The former period put an end to the persecution of hea-
then Rome, by the empire of Constantine the Great, a
Christian prince, and protector of the Christian religion,
about the year 323. Then was a time of peace and rest to
the empire, as well as the church ; which answers well to
the time appointed for sealing the servants of God in their
foreheads: but this is represented as a short time ; and the
angels soon prepared themselves to sound, when there would
be new commotions to disturb the peace of the empire and
church. -
If we look into the history of the times which immedi-
ately followed this great revolution of the Roman empire
under Constantine, from heathen to Christian, we shall find
it thus: Constantine came to the whole power of the empire
about 323, and continued possessed of that power about fif.
teen years, to the year 337.
During all this time the empire had a state of tranquility
unknown for many years: there were no civil disorders;
and though the Goths made some incursions into Moesia, the
most distant parts of the Roman dominions, they were soon
driven back into their own country. The profession of
Christianity was greatly encouraged, the converts to it from
idolatry were innumerable; so that the face of religion was
in a very short time quite changed throughou the Roman
empire. Thus the providence of God, notwithstanding all
opposition, brought the Christian church into a state of great
Security and prosperity.
But on the death of Constantine the state of things soon
altered again. He was succeeded by his three sons in dif.
ferent parts of his empire; by Constantine in Gaul, Constans
in Italy, and Constantius in Asia and the east. Constan-
tius, in a short time, sacrificed his father's near relations to
his jealousy of power:* differences arose between Constan-
* Zosimus, lib. ii. 217.
tine and Constans; Constans surprised his brother Constan-
: time, and put him to death. In a little time after, Constans
; himself is put to death by Magnentius, who assumed the
empire. At the same time Constantius, in the east, was
hard pressed by the Persians; but apprehending greater
danger from Magmentius, marches against him : the war be-
tween them was very fierce and bloody; insomuch that Vic-
tor” observes, it almost ruined the whole strength of the
Roman empire: Hóc tempore Constantius cum Magnentio
apud Mursiam dimicavit; in quo bello penê nunquam am-
pliès Romanae consumptae sunt vires, totiusque imperii for-
tunae pessumdatae. -
A little after this bloody intestine war, all the Roman pro-
vinces were invaded at once, from the eastern to the Western
limits, # by the Franks, Almans, Saxons, Quades, Sarma-
tians, and Persians; so that, according to Eutropius, f cum
multa oppida barbari expugnâssent, alia obsiderent, ubique
foeda vastitas esset, Romanumque imperium non dubiá jam
calamitate nutaret.
It is a very remarkable part of this history, that this storm
of wars fell so heavy on the great men of the empire, and in
particular on the family of Constantine, though so likely to
continue in so many of his own children and near relations;
and yet, in twenty-four years after his death, these commo-
tions put an end to his posterity, in the death of his three
sons; and in three years more extinguished his family, by
the death of Julian, in a battle against the Persians.
The following reigns of Jovian, Valentinian, Valens, and
Gratian, to the time that Gratian nominated Theodosius to
the empire, are one continued series of trouble, by the inva-
sion of the several provinces of the empire, and bloody
battles in defence of them, for about the space of sixteen
years, from the year 363 to 379. , Claudian has well ex-
pressed the misery of those times to his son Honorius:$
* Aurel. Victor, p. m. 465. * * *
+ Zosimus, lib. iii. 137. Eutropius, lib. x. p. m. 617
§ Claudianus de iv. Consul. Honor. p. 123
1046
REVELATION.
Omnibus afflictis, et vel labentibus ictſ,
Vel propè casuris, unus tot funera contra
Restitit, extinxitQue faces, agrisque colonos
Reddidit, et leti rapuit de faucibus urbes.
Nulla relicta foret Romani nominis umbra,
Ni pater ille tuus jamjam ruitura subisset
Pondera, &c.
These great calamities, which in so short a time befell the
Toman empire, now Christian, and in particular the family
of Constantine, by whom the great change in favour of Chris-
tianity was brought about, was a new and great trial of the
faith, constancy, and patience of the church. As it became
the wisdom and justice of divine Providence to punish the
wickedness of the world, which caused the disorders of those
times, the wisdom and goodness of Christ chose to forewarn
the church of it, that it might learn to justify the ways of
Providence, and not to faint under the discipline of afflic-
tion, when the great misimprovement of the best religion
had made it both proper and useful; and when likely such
afflictions, so soon after their great deliverance from the
opposition of Rome heathen, would be very unexpected,
and the more discouraging.
Second trumpet.—The former period of history was from
the death of Constantine the Great to the reign of Theodo-
sius; who for some time preserved the empire from inva-
sion, and left it to his sons, Arcadius and Honorius, A. D.
395.
The youth and weakness of these princes, the intrigues
and ambition of the chief ministers and governors of the
eastern and western parts of the empire, the jealousies and
contentions between Stilicho and Ruffinus, so weakened the
empire, that it soon became a prey to the northern nations.
Sigonius,” who has given us an accurate history of these
later times of the Roman empire, observes, that the empire
itself began to shake on the death of Theodosius: Theodo-
sio exempto, simul etiam robur ac dignitas ipsius titubare
imperii coepit. The chief men of the empire, to serve their
private ambitions, excited Alaric, at the head of the Goths,
to invade Greece; Alaric enters Greece, the straits of Ther-
mopylae being purposely left open to him; he lays waste the
whole country, destroys the cities, puts to death all the
males grown up to age, and gives all the women and children,
with the whole riches of the country, in plunder to his army,
according to Zosimus.'"
The year 400, or five years after the death of Theodosius,
is marked out as one of the most memorable and calamitous
that had ever befallen the empire. Annus hic, says Sigo-
mius, a Christo nato quadringentesimus, omnium, quos oc-
cidens widit, maxime memorandus extitit Neque
enim ullum sive bellicae calamitatis, sive barbarica, feritatis,
sive vesanae cujusdam libidinis, excogitari exemplum po-
tuit, quod mon in ipsas provincias, civitates, agros, homines-
que passim cum maximä atrocitate sit editum. Five years
after, A.D. 405, Rhadagaise entered Italy with an army of
two hundred thousand men; and though he was defeated by
Stilicho, yet he had ravaged the country before his defeat
with such success, that the heathen Romans publicly de-
clared Rome was given up to destruction because it had for-
saken the worship of the heathen gods; and that the only
way to restore the Roman fortunes, was to restore the an-
cient Roman religion, or idolatry, as Sigonius Š observes.
In the latter end of the year 406, the Alans, Vandals, and
other barbarous people, passed the Rhine, and made the
most furious irruption into Gaul, that had yet been known;
passed into Spain, and from thence over into Africa ; so that
the maritime provinces became a prey to them, the riches
and naval power of the empire were much diminished, and
almost quite ruined.
But the heaviest calamity fell upon the capital, and city
of Rome itself: for Alaric enters Italy in the year 409, and
after wasting all the country round about, oblata omnia
oppida populans, ac miserabili strage vastans, says Sigonius,
at length laid siege to Rome, which was then afflicted both
with famine and a pestilential distemper.|| The city was
* De Occident. Trap. p. 155. F. Zosimi Hist. lib. v. 293.
† De Ocident. Imp. p. 161. § Occident. Imp. lib. x. 169.
| Zosimus, lib. v. 353.
rius, about the year 425.
forced to save itself from this danger, by all its riches, and
purchased a peace of Alaric on very hard conditions. He
raises the siege for awhile, but soon returns; is received
into the city, and makes Attalus the governor of Rome em-
peror. Soon after he deposes Attalus, and makes peace with
Honorius, on condition he should be acknowledged his asso-
ciate, and have Gaul given to him and to his army. Foedus
his conditionibus est percussum, ut Alaricus socius Honorii
esset, atque in Galliá sedes sibi suisque locaret." However,
not satisfied with Honorius, and his performance of the con-
ditions agreed between them, he continues the siege of Rome,
and at last takes it, and gives the plunder of it to his sol-
diers, which also occasioned its being set on fire; so that
Sigonius+ represents it, on all those accounts, as a very
great and memorable calamity. Insignis fuit calanitas, et
rerum humanarum contemplatione memorabilis, quéd urbs
quae de omnibus gentibus triumphaverat, tam facilé à bar-
bara et adventitia gente, capta, spoliata, atque combusta sit.
This calamity of the capital city of the empire was fol-
lowed by the spoil of the greatest part of all Italy in like
manner; in which the Christian bishops, and their churches,
were principal sufferers. Alaricus, urbe capta et spoliata,
egressus, animum inde adulteriorem populandam, vastan-
damgue Italiam contulit: itaque Latium, Campaniam, Apu-
liam, Calabriam, ita cum toto exercità peragravit, ut locum
nullum intactum a vexatione ac direptione reliquerit. Atque
imprimis, quasi Romană victoriá efferatus, in ecclesias, Sa-
cerdotes, episcoposque, extorquendi auri gratiá, debaccha-
tus, simul omnia humana divinaque jura polluerit.f
It is worthy observation, that this great calamity which
befell the Roman empire, both in Italy and in the capital
itself, much increased the prejudice of the heathen Romans
against the Christian religion ; as if Rome had suffered
greater calamities now it was Christian, than while it was
heathen. A fit period of history, and becoming the Spirit
of prophecy to reveal to the church, to confirm the faith and
patience of the church, in such a state of providence, with a
full persuasion of the justice and wisdom of it; and that still
the cause of true religion should be supported even under
so great calamities as these ; but with an admonition, that
the justice and wisdom of God would punish the sins of
Christians, as well as of heathens ; and that the outward
profession of the best religion, should not be a protection
against those judgments they had deserved by their iniqui-
ties; for God, the righteous governor of the world, is no re-
specter of persons: “Shall I not visit for these things? saith
the Lord ; and shall not my soul be avenged on such a na-
tion as this?” says God to his own church of Israel (Jer. V.
6–9), when “their transgressions were many, and their
backslidings increased.” -
Third trumpet.—The last period of history, correspondent
to the foregoing prophecy, ended in the peace which Italy
and Rome enjoyed, after the taking of Rome by Alaric, and
dismembering many of the provinces of the empire, when
Athaulphus left Italy, and went to settle in Gaul. The em-
peror Honorius returned joyfully to Rome, to the great Sa-
tisfaction of the city, in the year 412. Honorius, Roman
repetiit, ac lactus, tanquam exonerată aliquandó, tandem
incumbentium Gothorum mole Italiá, secunda vicennalia
ludorum apparată magnifico edidit, populo Romano, post
diuturnas tenebras lucem se tandem aliquam otii ac liberta-
tis aspicere, gratulante.}
Yet, though Rome and Italy recovered themselves into a
pretty good state of peace and liberty, many of the pro-
vinces were quite dismembered from the empire. The Goths,
Burgundians, Franks, Wandals, &c., possessed themselves of
the better parts of France and Spain.
Valentinian, son of Placidia, succeeded his uncle Hono-
In his time began those new in-
vasions of the empire, which put an end to the imperial dig-
nity and power of Rome, and founded a new kingdom in
Italy itself.
In the year 427, Genseric, with an army of eight thou
sand Vandals, seized on Africa, and founded a kingdom there.
The Romans had given up the defence of Britain, so that
* Sigon. Occ. Imp. lib. x. 180.
+ Idem, p. 182.
§ Idem, lib, xi, 185.
# Idem, lib. xi. 183.
CHAPTER VIII.
104.7
the Britons were fain to call in the Saxons to their aid, in
the year 449.” Attila, though soundly beat at Chalons, in
the year 451, so that one hundred and seventy thousand, or,
according to some, three hundred thousand, fell in the battle;
yet, the next year, he marches with another numerous army
into Italy, and destroys all before him. Jam omnia quae
intra. Apenninum et Alpes erant, fugă, populatione, cade,
servitute, incendio, et desperatione repleta erant ; mullaque
mali facies aberat, nefaria per omnes ordines, sexus, et aetates,
barbarorum avaritiã, crudelitate, ac licentia pervagante.ºf
Rome and Italy were scarce freed from these troubles,
when new evils succeeded.
Genseric is invited from Africa to revenge the murder of
Valentinian: he lands in Italy in the year 455, marches di-
rectly to Rome, takes the city, and plunders it, carries away
all the public and private riches, makes an incredible number
of the citizens captives, and takes the empress Eudoxia (who
had desired his assistance to revenge the death of Valenti-
nian), together with her daughters along with her, into
Africa.
The name of the Roman empire continued for a few years
longer, as in a dying condition, under several successors, till
the year 476. Odoacer, drawing together an army of the se-
veral nations in Germany, enters Italy by the Trentin, Sub-
dues the whole country, takes the city of Rome, and in it
the emperor Momyllus, or Augustulus, whom he deposes,
and takes to himself the title of king of Italy.j: Thus
Italy, and Rome itself, became the possession of the con-
querors ; and the Roman name, power, and empire, were
from that time extinct. Atque his quidem variis atque an-
cipitibus rerum temporumque successibus, Roma, jam quar-
tum, post Christi annum jam quadringentesimum, capta,
Italiaque à barbaris firmo tandem possideri imperio, coepta
est. § - -
Odoacer did not indeed continue his kingdom long; for The-
odoric, at the head of the Goths in Illyricum, attacked
Odoacer's new-founded kingdom in Italy ; and, according
to Paulus Diaconus, so fully with the consent of Zeno,
then emperor of the east, that he made a grant of Italy to
Theodoric. Italiam ei per pragmaticam tribuens, sacri etiam
velaminis dono confirmavit. Theodoric engages Odoacer,
overcomes him, and puts him to death ; and so founded
the Gothic kingdom of Italy, which continued many years
under his successors, till it was subdued by Narses for the
emperor Justinian, A.D. 553. -
Yius Rome itself, and ltaly, the seat. of the empire, ac-
cording to the prophetic description, became a prey to the
barbarous nations, and followed the fate of the provinces.
However, even under the Gothic kingdom, Rome, though
it lost the supreme authority of empire, was permitted to
retain some appearance of its ancient form of government
and magistracy. Theodoric made Ravenna the seat of his
kingdom ; yet Rome retained its senate and consuls, and
the image of its former government. Jam veró nullum Ro-
manum institutum mutavit ; siquidem et senatum, et con-
Sules, patricios, praefectos praetorii, praefectum urbis—cate-
rosque qui fuerunt in imperio, magistratus retinuit."[
Fourth trumpet.—This figurative representation will very
properly express the following period of history, and the
true state of the city of Rome, once the imperial city, and
mistress of the world.
We have seen, in the former parts of this period, the loss
of the imperial authority, when Theodoric founded the Go-
thic kingdom of Italy, and made Rome subject to it, A. D.
* Petavii Rot. Tem. lib. vi. cap. 18.
+ Sigon. Occ. Imp. lib. xiii. 225.
+ Paul. Diac. lib. xvi. Jornandes de Reg. Success. lib. i.
§ Sigon. Occ. Imp. 251. | Lib. xvi.
* Sigon. Occ. Imp. 265.
493. But it was observed, that he then left to the city
of Rome some appearance and splendour of its ancient
government, in a senate, consuls, and other magistrates.
Now, in the reign of Justinian, emperor of the east, this
new kingdom of Italy is overthrown, and new and great
calamities befall that miserable country. Gothorum in Ita-
lià imperium concidit, atque ipsa Italia omnis atrocissimarum
calamitatum exempla persensit.
In the course of this war, Belisarius, the imperial general,
takes Rome, A. D. 536. The next year, Vitiges, king of
the Goths, besieges it with an army of one hundred and
fifty thousand men. In this long siege, which continued
above a year, the Romans were afflicted both with famine
and pestilence, and suffered extremely, though at length the
Goths were fain to raise the siege. Totilas, king of the
Goths, afterward takes Rome, A. D. 546; it is retaken by
Belisarius the next year, and again taken by Totilas about
two years after.
During this war, which lasted for twenty years, Rome
was besieged and taken five times: the city and whole coun-
try suffered all the evils of war in every place; and the
event was, to reduce Rome to the lowest and meanest con-
dition, in the loss of all authority and power, being made en-
tirely subject to the exarchate of Ravenna.
For Narses, having quite subdued the Gothic kingdom of
Italy for the emperor of the east, was constituted governor
of the whole country, with the title of Duke of Italy,” and
all the governors of the several cities were only inferior of
ficers under him. -
A little after the exarchate of Ravenna was established
by the emperor Justin II., Longinus is sent into Italy: he
appoints a new form of government: the seat of govern-
ment was from that time fixed at Ravenna, and every city
of Italy entirely subjected to the exarch, both in things civil
and military. Is (Longinus, says Sigonius,) primūm Ra-
vennae, non Romae, praefecturae sedem posuit; nec seducem
sed exarchum Italiae, quemadmodiim et Africa exarchus erat,
vocavit : et provinciarum consularibus, correctoribus, praesi-
dibusque sublatis, singulis civitatibus singulos duces impo-
suit, ac varios eis ad reddenda jura judices assignavit."
Thus Rome lost all her dignity and authority, her senate
and consuls, and was put upon a level with all the lesser ei-
ties and towns of Italy, and became also a small duchy of
the exarchate. Parem itaque faciens urbem Roman aliis
Italiae vel urbibus vel oppidis, hâc una in re illam honoravit,
quðd impositum tunc magistratum praesidem appellavit, sed
qui successerunt appellati Sunt duces : ut posteå per multos
annos, sic Romanus appelloretur ducatus, sicut Narniensis
Spoletanusque est dictus; neque post Basilium, qui cum
Narsete consul fuit, vel consules Roma habuit, vel Senatum
legitimé coactum, Sed a duce, Graeculo homine, quem exar-
chus ex Ravennä mittebat, res Romana per multa tempora
administrata est.j:
This was a new form of government, altogether unknown
before ; and though it might be called, in some sense, a form
of Roman government, as the exarchs of Ravenna were
lieutenants for the Roman emperors of Constantinople, yet
it was such a form of government, by which Rome seemed
to have received a mortal wound: for that imperial city was
deprived by it of all authority and power, and seemed to
have lost all hopes of ever recovering them again, when it
was made a small duchy, entirely subject to another city,
where the emperors, lieutenants, or exarchs, had fixed the
seat of their residence and government of Italy; and this,
by the appointment and constitution of the emperors of the
east, in virtue of their claim to the sole authority of the
Roman empire.
---
* Sigonius de Reg. Italias, 3. + Ib. p. 5.
+ Blondus, Decad. Primae, lib. viii. p. 102.
104.8
CHAPTER IX.
1 AND the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star (3.) I farther perceived this smoke out of the bottomless
fall from * heaven unto the earth, and to him was
given the key of the “bottomless pit.
(1.) On the sounding of the fifth angel which followed, I
saw in my vision a star fallen from heaven, or an angel come
down from thence, to whom was given the key of the abyss,
or bottomless gulf; which fitly expressed a commission from
God, to permit Satan, at the head of the kingdom of dark-
ness, to infest the world with some new and great temptation,
as if Satan, at the head of his apostate angels, was let loose
to disturb the earth, and deceive the nations of it.
2 And he opened the bottomless pit; and there
arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great
furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by
reason of the smoke of the pit.
(2.) And I beheld in my vision, that the angel who had
the key of the bottomless pit opened it, and immediately
there seemed to break out of the pit a very thick and dark
smoke, as if it had been the smoke of a burning fürnace ;
and the smoke was so thick, that it intercepted the light of
the sun, and made the whole air dark round about. A very
proper representation of great errors, darkening the under-
standing, obscuring the truth, and attended with violence
and destruction.”
3 And there came out of the smoke locusts upon
the earth: and unto them was given power, as the
scorpions of the earth have power.
pit brought locusts along with it, and scattered them over
the earth; and they had power given unto them, not unlike
the matural power of Scorpions, to do harm. A proper simi-
litude to express a great multitude of people, marching with
great speed and swiftness, to plunder and destroy their
neighbours.” ... • * *
4 And it was commanded them that they should
not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green
thing, neither any tree; but only those men who have
not the seal of God on their foreheads.
(4.) I observed one thing very peculiar to these locusts,
and different from what was to be expected from the natural .
locusts: they had an express direction, not to prey upon or
destroy the grass, trees, and fruits of the earth, as natural
locusts are used to do ; but, as persons compared to locusts,
for multitude, and swiftness to spoil, they were to hurt men,
and yet to hurt only such as had not the seal of God on their
foreheads. Which may properly mean, that these locusts
are to be understood, figuratively, for a great number of
spoilers; as if Satan, at the head of the powers of darkness,
was leading on a great company, both to corrupt and ravage
the world: yet, in this extraordinary judgment of God on a
corrupt church, he would take care to preserve the interest
of true religion and Christianity among a faithful people.
He would protect them in such manner, that they should
preserve their religion, and the profession of it, notwith-
standing the great difficulties those enemies to Christianity
should bring upon them.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IX.
* Wer. 1. A star fallen from heaven.] Stars, in the lan-
guage of prophecy, signify angels. The angels of the hea-
venly host, as well as the angels or bishops of the churches,
seem to be called stars in scripture; as when, at the creation,
“the morning-stars sang together, and all the sons of God
shouted for joy,” Job xxxviii. 7. In like manner, when
this abyss, or bottomless pit, is shut up, it is represented in
this prophecy to be done by “an angel coming down from
heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit.” These ex-
pressions are so nearly the same, as well as upon the same
subject, that they may well be taken in the same sense, and
so used to explain each other. It is a general expression of
the Jews, concerning the works of God, that he sends an
angel to do them : so that Maimonides” observes, Non enim
invenies Deum ullum opus fecisse, nisi per manus alicujus
angeli. And Hermas, who lived very near the time of
this revelation, and seems to have designed, in several pas-
sages, to imitate it, speaks of the angel, appointed over the
beasts, appearing for his preservation; Misit Dominus angelum
suum, qui est super bestias, et obturavit os ejus, ne te dila-
niaret.
This expression then, “a star fallen from heaven,” or, “an
angel come down from heaven, with a key to open the bot-
tomless pit,” seems naturally to mean the permission of di-
vine providence of these evil and calamitous events, which
are described to follow upon opening the bottomless pit,
which could not have happened but by the permission of the
divine providence, and according to the wise and holy orders
of the divine government: for the providence of God could
as Surely have prevented the temptations of Satan, and the
powers of darkness, as if Satan and his angels had been fast
locked up, and secured in a safe prison; so that he sends an
angel, his messenger, with the key of the bottomless pit, to
open their prison, and permit them to go out, to teach, that
they can only act so far as they have leave and permission,
and can always be restrained and shut up again, at the good-
will and pleasure of the supreme Governor of the world.
* The abyss, or bottomless pit, is explained in the pro-
* More Nevoch, par. ii. cap. 6.
F Hermae Pastor, lib. i. vis, 4, s. 2.
phecy itself, to be that place where the devil and Satan are
shut up, that they should not deceive the nations (Tev. xx.
1–3). The abyss seems also to be used in the like sense,
when the devi's besought Christ, that he “would not com-
mand them to go out into the deep ; ” in the original, “into
the abyss,” or bottomless pit (sic tºy & Guo'a ov). The learned
Grotius's observes, that this abyss, or bottomless pit, is the
same with what Peter calls bell, or Tartarus : “For if God
spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to
hell, a gigaſ; (6400 rºgraçòaac, and delivered them into chains
of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment " (2 Pet. ii. 4).
Now this prison of Satan, and of his angels, by a right-
eous judgment of God, is permitted to be opened, for the
just punishment of apostate churches, who would not repent
of their evil works. We may then say, with an eminent in-
terpreter, “Behold something more terrible than what we
have hitherto seen hell opens, and the devil appears, fol-
lowed by an army, of a stranger figure than St. John has
anywhere described.” And we may observe from others,
that this great temptation of the faithful was to be with the
united force of false doctrine and persecution. “Hell does
not open of itself,” as the Bishop of Meaux observes ; “it
is always some false doctor that opens it; by which means
Satan is loosed to deceive the nations.”
* Ver. 2..] As a great smoke hinders the sight, so do errors
the understanding. He keeps to the allegory, says Grotius,
for smoke takes from us the sight of the stars; smoke, espe-
cially when proceeding from a fierce fire, is also a represen-
tation of devastation. Thus, when Abraham beheld the
destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. xix. 28), “ Lo,
the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of the fur-
nace.” The great displeasure of God is represented by the
same figurative expressions of smoke and fire. “Then the
earth shook and trembled ; the foundations also of the hills
moved and were shaken, because he was wroth. There
went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his
º devoured : coals were kindled by it’” (Ps. xviii.
, 8).
* Ver. 3..] Locusts and grasshoppers are expressly made to
signify both the multitude of the eastern nations invading
Israel, and the swift progress and destruction they made :
* On Luke viii. 31. Bishop of Meaux on the place.
CHAPTER IX.
1049
5. And to them it was given that they should not
kill them, but that they should be tormented five
months; and their torment was as the torment of a
scorpion, when he striketh a man.
(5.) And I farther perceived, they did not receive a com-
mission to take away men's lives, when they invaded and
spoiled them ; they were to torment them for a space of
time, for five months: and their torment was resembled to
the pains and uneasiness which men feel, when they are bit
by a scorpion. - -
6 And in those days shall men seek death, and
shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death
... shall flee from them. - *
(6.) Yet, though they had not a commission to take
away men's lives, they should make their lives so uneasy
and miserable to them, that they would rather choose death
than life, and desire to die rather than remain in their
misery."
7 And the shapes of the locusts were like unto
horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were
as it were crowns of gold, and their faces were as the
faces of men.
Judg. vi. 5, “For they came with their cattle and their
tents, and they came as grasshoppers for multitude, for both
they and their camels were without number: and they en-
tered into the land to destroy it.” And thus also the locusts,
in the prophet Joel, i. 6, are represented ; “For a nation is
come upon my land, strong, and without number.” The
same word in the original, tººls, is, in the one place, trans-
lated “grasshopper,” in the other, “locust.”
* Wer. 6..] The time in which these locusts were to tor-
ment men, seems an allusion to the time in which natural
locusts are used to do harm, and after which they die. They
are hatched, as Bochart observes, about the spring, and die
at the latter end of summer ; so that they do not live above
five months. So that learned interpreter* of scripture un-
derstands the expressions at the fifth and tenth verses: Ita
quðd, versä quinto et decem, nocent hominibus per quinque
menses, videtur ided dici, quia locustae verè matae, sub finem
a statis obeunt ; mec supra quinque menses vivere solent.
The time of five months may likely mean, that the inva-
sions of this people meant by the locusts should be, after
the manner of the locusts, during the summer months. This
seems a more natural meaning than a certain number of
prophetic years, during which space of time their power
should continue, as some interpreters have thought. If any
have the curiosity to see an interpretation of these five
months, for one hundred and fifty years, at the proportion
of thirty days to a month, he may find it in Mr. Daubuz
and Waple, or in Mr. Mede. He may see another inter-
pretation for three hundred years, because the five months
are twice mentioned at the fifth and tenth verses ; but as I
see no reason for such interpretation, so I perceive no cer-
tainty in the application.
The torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man, is
great and very painful, according to the learned Bochart.
He observes, from Dioscorides, Cúm quis à scorpione mor-
sus est, locus quamprimūm inflammari incipit, durusque
esse et ruber, et vehementi dolore affectus. Inflammation
and violent pain are fit similitudes to express great uneasi-
ness and torment. The same learned author farther ob-
serves, that scorpions, as locusts, hurt only during the sum-
mer months. Nec frustră est, quéd mysticis locustis, quae
scorpionum caudas habent, non datur potestas nocendi ho-
minibus, nisi per menses quinque: quippe ut locustae, ita
neg Scorpiones, diutius nocent, nam per frigora torpent, nec
quidquam ex is est periculi. Tertullianus, “Familiare
periculi tempus aestas.”f
* Ver. 7..] Joel, speaking of the natural locusts, observes,
“The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses,
and as horsemen so shall they run * (ii. 4). This represen-
tation of their swift motion, is supposed by some to be an al-
* Bochart. Hieroz. lib. iv. cap. 8.
+ Ib, lib. iv. cap. 29, v. 3, p. 640.
j. Ib, lib. iv, cap. 20.
(7.) The appearance of these locusts was such, as in part
resembled the locusts described in the ancient prophets; but
in part differed from those descriptions, as well as from the
description of natural locusts. They were like unto horses
prepared for battle; but they seemed to have a sort of golden
coronets on their heads, and to appear with the countenance
and visage of men." *
8 And they had hair as the hair of women, and
their teeth were as the teeth of lions.
(8.) Yet, with a manly countenance, they dressed their
head and hair in an effeminate manner; and were as ready
for rapine, and intent upon it, as if they had teeth hard and
strong to devour, as the teeth of lions.7
9 And they had breast-plates, as it were breast-
plates of iron; and the sound of their wings was
as the sound of chariots of many horses running to
battle.
(9.) As they were thus fitted to destroy, they were also
well defended against opposition, as if they were armed with
iron breast-plates; and they invaded their enemies with a
great noise, as if many chariots and horses were rushing into
battle.
lusion to the form of their heads, as the head of a locust
naturally resembles the head of a horse. Locustae, says
Bochart,” ab Italis vocantur cavalette ; hinc Albertus, lib.
xxvi., Caput habent figură equi. And Theodoret, on this
passage of Joel, Si quis locustae caput diligentër consideret,
persimilem equo inveniet. It is, to be sure, a beautiful repre-
sentation of the swiftness and expedition with which an
army, consisting principally of horsemen, invade and ravage
a country.
Some interpreters+ understand these crowns of gold they
wore on their heads, to represent the victories of this people,
by faces as the faces of men, that they had seemingly rea-
sonable and plausible pretences for their invasions. Others
understand it a description of the proper habit of this peo-
ple, that they should wear ornaments on their heads, like
crowns or mitres. “The mitre of the high-priest was called
by the ancient Greeks, tiara, cidaris, and sometimes diadema;
they were a sort of linen turban, commonly white : and
such were the diadems of kings, which Ammianus calls
fasciolam candidam, regiae majestatis insigne.”; This linen
covering of the head, with the plate of gold, in which ‘‘Ho-
liness to the Lord ” was inscribed, is called the holy crown :
so that a turban, with a gold ornament, in the language of
the scripture, is a crown of gold (Lev. viii. 9).
7 Ver, 8.] By “hair, as the hair of women,” some under-
stand, that their pretences should be insinuating and de-
ceitful ; but it seems rather to refer to some effeminacy in
their dress, by which this people should be distinguished,
probably such an appearance as Mr. Daubuz has described
from Pliny, Ś Arabes mitrati degunt, aut intonso crine, barba
eraditur praeterquam in superiore labro. So that the Ara-
bians, though they affected to wear great moustaches, yet
wore long hair, tressed and plaited after the manner of wo-
men; and hereby, says Mr. Daubuz, is set forth, together
with this their custom, their effeminacy and lust, to which
they were extremely addicted. Servius, on Virg. Æn. lib.
ix. ver. 616, “Et habent redimicula mitra,” Pilea virorum
Sunt, mitrae foeminarum. Alii mitras meretricum
esse voluerunt. -
“Teeth, like the teeth of lions,” is a description of locusts
in the prophet Joel, “Whose teeth are the teeth of a lion,
and he hath the cheek-teeth of a great lion ” (Joel i. 6), to
express great rapaciousness, and how easily they destroy all
before them.
* Ver, 9.] It is observed of the locusts, in Joel ii. 8,
“When they fall upon the sword, they shall not be
wounded.” And it is observable, says Mr. Daubuz, that
the matural locust hath about its body a pretty hard shell,
of the colour of iron. Armavit matura cutem, says Clau-
* Ib. lib. iv. cap. 4. † Waple on the place.
† Patrick on Exod, xxviii. 37.
§ Plin. Nat. Hist, lib, vi, cap. 28.
1050
REVELATION.
10 And they had tails like unto scorpions, and
there were stings in their tails; and their power was
to hurt men five months. .
(10.) They had moreover this peculiar in their form, that
they had tails as scorpions, and in them stings, by which
they were able to do great hurt and mischief in the places
which they invaded ; and thus, though locusts, they were
able to torment as scorpions do.”
11 And they had a king over them, which is the
angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the He-
brew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue
hath his name Apollyon. -
(11.) Though the natural locusts have no king,” yet
these figurative locusts have one, who is the angel of the
bottomless pit, that evil spirit, the prince of the power of
darkness, who, from the constant evils he is designing and
doing in the world, is called the Destroyer.
12 One woe is past; and, behold, there come two
woes more hereafter.
(12.) Such woful judgments the church is to expect, when
the righteous providence of God shall give permission to the
destroyer to punish the sins of men; and even when this
woe shall be passed, the church is to expect yet farther woes,
when the sixth and seventh angels shall sound their trum-
pets (see the history of the fifth trumpet at the end of
this chapter).
13 And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a
voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is
before God,
dian ; so that herein the symbol of the breast-plate is ex-
actly suited to the natural locust. The prophet Joel, ii. 5,
also describes the locusts, “Like the noise of chariots on the
tops of mountains shall they leap or, as a strong
people set in battle array; ” to express the terror and con-
sternation they shall occasion by their invasions.
* Ver. 10.] Whether these tails, and stings as scorpions,
were designed to express, that these people should spread
the poison of error and delusion where they come, or only
to express the great pain and uneasiness their invasions
should occasion, I leave to the judgment of the reader.
* Ver. 11.] It is an observation of Agur, “The locusts
have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands"
(Prov. xxx. 27).
* Ver. 13.] In this prophecy, as well as in other pas-
Sages of Scripture, especially the prophetical, the several pro-
vidences of God are represented by the ministration of an-
gels, whom God sends as his messengers, to execute his will.
It may be here understood, as a publication of the purpose
and design of Providence, from the horns of the altar of in-
cense ; so that no intercession should prevent it.
* Ver. 15.] It has been a question, why these angels
are represented as four. Some interpreters have supposed
the number four relates either to four princes, or four prin-
cipalities. Hence some suppose the four angels to be one
of the Turkish princes and his three sons, as Mr. Daubuz.
Mr. Mede takes them to be the tetrarchy, or four govern-
ments of the Turks in Asia, Aleppo, Damascus, and An-
tioch ; or, according to Sir Isaac Newton,” the four king-
doms of the Turks seated upon Euphrates: that of Armenia
Major, seated at Miyapharekin, Megarkin, or Martyropolis;
that of Mesopotamia, seated at Mosul; that of all Syria,
seated at Aleppo; and that of Cappadocia, seated at Ico-
nium. But as these governments were not erected till the
death of Melech Shah, who died A. C. 1092, they far out-
run the date of the present period, even by some hundreds
of years...}
Nor does there appear any necessity to understand the
four angels, either of four princes, or of four governments;
for the number four, as Mr. Daubuz 1. observes, is often a
number denoting a universality of the matters comprised, as
in Jer. xlix. 36, the “four winds” signify all the winds ; in
Isa. xi. 12, “the four corners of the earth,” denote all the
parts of the earth ; and in Ezek. vii. 2, “the four corners
* P. 306. + P. 307, † Symb. Dict. Voc. Numb.
(13.) I farther perceived in my vision, when the sixth
angel sounded his trumpet, a voice, as coming from the
golden altar which stood before the presence of God, as in
the temple, or from the altar of incense, the place of prayer
and intercession ; where the angel having a golden censer
offered incense with the prayers of all saints (viii. 3), to
express that no intercession should avail to prevent any
longer the execution of the following woes. A just punish
ment of the world, for sins unrepented of, and of the church
for great corruptions unreformed.”
14 Saying to the sixth angel which had the trum-
pet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the
great river Euphrates.
(14.) This voice from the altar of incense was directed to
the sixth angel, who had just sounded his trumpet, com-
manding him to set the four angels at liberty, who, for the
present, were restrained in and about the eastern parts ; that,
their restraint being taken off, they may again execute the
judgments of God, by invading the several parts of it.
15 And the four angels were loosed, which were
prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a
year, for to slay the third part of men.
(15.) Accordingly, the restraint was taken off from the
four destroying angels, and they were permitted to afflict
the inhabitants of the earth for a determined time ; their
restraint was taken off but for a season, as if the very time
was ascertained by years, days, months, and even hours, in
which they have a permission to punish the world, by taking
away the lives of a considerable number of the inhabitants
thereof.” -
of the land,” signify all parts of the land of Judea: and
therefore, with Philo,” four is a number of universality in
nature. It should seem then a very natural interpretation
of the four angels, to understand them of the whole power
of these destroyers, gathered together from the four corners,
or every quarter of the land they dwelt in ; and spreading
themselves towards the four winds, or the several parts of
the earth, without restraint.
The time here spoken of, an hour, a day, a month, and a
year, may also be understood in general for a limited time
and season, as in this prophecy the ten kings are said to
receive power, as kings, one hour with the beast, or at the
same, and during the same time (Rev. xvii. 12).
Mr. Daubuz'ſ seems to have expressed the general mean-
ing of these words very well; the aforesaid angels were pre-
pared by God, for a year, month, day, and hour ; namely,
so as to be ready, upon any occasion of warning, to put this
great event in execution : So that there Scems no necessity
of making this time three hundred and ninety-one prophetic
days, denoting so many years. It rather seems to signify,
that these incursions of the destroyer should be under a limi-
tation, and like the inroads of an enemy, who in a short
time are beaten back, or, at a set time, usually retire of
themselves.
Some ºf understand the third part of men, as a symboli-
cal character of the Roman empire, as the Roman empire
has been computed to be one-third part of the earth. And
a very learned person Š supposes, that the trumpets princi-
pally, if not solely, regard Europe, the famous rô rpírov, or
“third part" of the world, known in the days of the vision.
But, I conceive, this expression is chiefly designed to sig-
nify many, or a very considerable part; as in the fore-
going parts of the vision (ch. viii.), the “third part “
of trees was burnt up ; the “third part " of the sea be-
came blood ; the “third part " of the creatures died; a
star from heaven fell upon a “third part” of the rivers; and
a “third part" of the waters became wormwood ; a “third
part” of the sun was smitten ; and “the day shone not for a
third part of it:” and afterward, “the tail of the dragon
drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them
to the earth’’ (xii. 4). A third part therefore seems most
plainly and naturally to mean a considerable part of the
* De Vità Mosis, lib. iii. p. m. 519.
+ In loc. p. 327. f Waple on viii. 7.
§ Whiston on the Rev. p. 154.
CHAPTER IX.
1051
.16 And the number of the army of the horsemen
were two hundred thousand thousand; and I heard
the number of them. - -
(16.) I soon perceived in my vision a farther explication
of these four destroying angels, let loose for a determined
time, to slay a great part of the inhabitants of the earth ; for
there appeared a most numerous army of horsemen, too
many to be expressed, almost, in plain numbers, being two
hundred thousand thousand.”
17 And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and
them that sat on them, having breast-plates of fire,
and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the
horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their
mouths issued fire, and smoke, and brimstone.
(17.) As these armies of invaders were represented very
numerous, so both horses and riders appeared very terrible;
the horsemen appeared in bright and shining armour, having
breastplates as of fire, jacinth, and brimstone, which appeared
like a mixture of fire and smoke ; and the horses they rode
upon had a terrible appearance, as well as their riders: for
their heads looked fierce as lions, and they seemed to
cast fire and smoke out of their mouths.”
18 By these three was the third part of men killed,
by the fire, and the smoke, and the brimstone, which
issued out of their mouths.
(18.) And by these terrible armies, a great part of the
people whose countries they invaded was killed and slain;
so that the miserable inhabitants of those places suffered all
the evils of slaughter and bloodshed, as well as of rapine
and spoil.
19 For their power is in their mouth, and in their
tails: for their tails were like unto serpents, and had
heads, and with them they do hurt.
(19.) And the power of these formidable armies to do
hurt was so great, that they were likened to those serpents
of which naturalists speak, with two heads, one at each end
of their body, capable therefore of doing harm, both with
their mouths and tails: so that not only was their front
terrible when they marched, but they did great mischief also
in their rear, and wherever they left parties behind them, in
the countries they had overrun.”
20 And the rest of the men which were not killed
by these plagues yet repented not of the works of
their hands, that they should not worship devils, and
idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and
of wood : which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk:
(20.) Yet, notwithstanding these severe judgments upon
the world, for the corruption of true religion, they who
escaped them were not reformed by them; they still went on
to corrupt the purity of religious worship, with downright
idolatrous practices, as well as they gave themselves up to all
unrighteousness and wickedness: for they worshipped devils,
or demons; they made angels, and the souls of departed
men, as well as the images of the Saints, the object of their
prayers and adoration.
21 Neither repented they of their murders, nor of
their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their
thefts.
(21.) In such a general corrupt state of religious worship
they continued, as might be expected, impenitent and un-
reformed in the iniquities of common life: so that all the
abominable iniquities of the heathen world were found
among them; such as deceit, injustice, uncleanness and de-
bauchery, poisonings, and open murders. Just reasons why
they were visited with so awful judgments, and why they
were given up to the farther punishment of that dreadful
woe that follows under the next and last trumpet” (see
the history of the sixth trumpet at the end of the annota-
tions).
y
whole; and “to destroy a third part of men,” will then sig-
mify, that the destroying armies, represented by the four
angels, now loosed from the river Euphrates, which had
been one of the great boundaries of the kingdom of the
Jews, and was then of the Roman empire, should take away
the lives of a great number of persons, whose countries they
should, on this permission, invade. w
* Ver. 16..] The number in the original is “myriads of
myriads,” which I suppose is to be understood of many my-
riads; as when we say, thousands of thousands, to express
many thousands, or a company almost innumerable. We
can hardly conceive this number was intended to be the real
muster of any army whatsoever, which never was known to
consist of any thing like two hundred millions of horsemen.
It seems then to mean, that the armies of these destroyers
should be principally horsemen ; and that their numbers
should be so great, that the report of them should be hardly
credible.
* Ver. 17.] The colour of fire is red, of hyacinth blue,
and of brimstone yellow : these are the colours of fire and
smoke mingled together. The learned Dr. Hammond ob-
serves,” these three colours may be used (as in prophetic
style it is ordinary) to express a terrible appearance, which
is commonly represented by a flaming fire. It is not indeed
impossible, as the same learned interpreter observes with
Grotius, that by fire, smoke, and brimstone, may be meant
fire-balls, or darts, with something burning at the end of
them, called falarica, engines of known use, especially in
sieges ; but there is no sufficient reason, l think, to make it
more than conjecture. There is still less reason, I conceive,
to make these expressions signify cannon and gunpowder,
the use of which was absolutely unknown, some hundreds of
years after the time this prophecy was to be fulfilled, in the
* In loc.
successive order of the prophecies of this book. Besides, it
is to be observed, this is a description of the breast-plates of
the horsemen, not only of their weapons or engines of war;
and seems therefore to describe properly the terror of their
appearance when marching to war.
* Ver. 19.] The power in the mouth and in the tails, as
serpents, is plainly an allusion to those serpents which are
supposed to have two heads, one at each end of their body,
as Pliny describes the amphisbaena ; * Geminum caput am-
phisbaenae, hoc est ad caput, et ad caudam, tanquam parum
esset uno ore fundi venenum. A proper representation of a
furious and terrible invasion.
Whether it be farther meant by these expressions, ac-
cording to several learned interpreters, that they did not
only do mischief by their conquests, but also by false doc-
trines; that they should not only pull down the states, and
destroy the people they invaded, but that they should also
plant a false religion in the places they conquered, I shall
leave entirely to the judgment of the reader. w
1° Ver. 21.] I have rendered the original word pappaxsºv,
“poisoning,” rather than sorceries, or witchcrafts. Herein
I have followed the learned Grotius, In eadem domo, alii
alios veneno necabant. This wicked practice of poisoning
grew general, especially in Italy, and, according to historians,
in the church of Rome itself; but the reader is at liberty to
prefer the other sense given by interpreters, and to under-
stand by it witchcrafts, sorceries, charms, exorcisms, and
pretended miracles, by which men are often seduced to ido-
latry, and kept in idolatrous practices: or we may under-
stand, with a learned author, F “the numberless artificial
methods of making men very religious, without any virtùe,”
to be what the scripture calls sorceries.
* Plinii Hist. Nat. lib. viii. cap. 23.
+ Clarke's Sermons, vol. vi. p. 352.
1052
REVELATION.
HISTORY OF THE TRUMPETS.
Fifth trumpet.—The foregoing prophecies of this period
have brought us, by various steps, to an entire subversion of
the western empire, when Rome lost all its authority and
power, was no longer a seat of government, but a petty
duchy governed by an officer appointed by the exarch of
Ravenna, and serving under him ; who, as the emperor's
lieutenant, had the chief command through all his domin-
ions in Italy. This exarchate began, according to Sigonius,
A. D. 566, according to Petavius, A. D. 568.
The present prophecy describes a very remarkable judg-
ment, which should follow in the course of providence. It
is marked by peculiar circumstances of woe and afflictions,
as if Satan, at the head of the powers of darkness, had broke
the prison of the bottomless pit, and was come abroad into
the world, to spread all the evils of ignorance, error, deceit,
violence, spoil, and slavery, among men.
There are many circumstances in this description, pecu-
liar and distinguishing marks of this judgment: the ignor-
ance and error they should propagate, their number and
hardiness, the customs, habits, and manners of this people,
and of their invasions, the mighty progress they should
make, and their different treatment of Christians and idola-
ters, are sufficient to point out this memorable event of pro-
vidence to our observation. This new trial of the faith and
patience of the saints, and new judgment of God upon such
Christians themselves, as corrupted the purity of Christian
faith, worship, and manners, was worthy the Spirit of pro-
phecy to reveal; and the protection of the church, so as to
preserve the Christian faith and religion, in a time of so great
danger, was a very wise and useful encouragement to the
faith and constancy of the church, which is the general and
immediate intention of all the revelations of this prophecy.
The next scene of providence, which greatly surprised
the whole world, as well as the Christian church, was the
rise of Mohammed, and a more wonderful progress of a new
religion, and a new empire, than the world had ever Seen
before.
About the year of Christ 606, Mahomet” (as his name is
usually writ) began to pretend to revelation, and converse
with the angel Gabriel, in a solitary cave near Mecca, in
Arabia. In the year 608, which was the fortieth of his age,
he began to take to himself the style of “the apostle of
God ; ” and to propagate his imposture, he pretended not
to deliver a new religion, but to revive the old religion God
first gave to Adam ::i and, by many other specious pretences
of receiving his revelations from the angel Gabriel, he gained
several proselytes. Yet the people of Mecca, where he
lived, were so averse to his imposture, that they resolved to
strike at the root, and prevent the spreading of farther mis-
chief, by cutting him off who was the chief author of it ;f
so that he was forced to fly from Mecca to Medina, then
called Yathreb. This was in the year 622, from which
flight of Mahomet, the Hegira, or computation of time
among the Mahometans, begins.
From this time he tells his disciples, his religion was not
to be propagated by disputing, but by fighting.S
Accordingly, the next year, 623, he fell upon the traders
of Mecca, though guarded by one thousand men, and beat
them ;|| and spent the rest of the year in robbing, plunder-
ing, and destroying, all those who would not come in to him,
and embrace his religion."[
The next year, he continued the same course, and fought
a battle with a larger number of his opposers, in which he
was overborne, and himself grievously wounded. To pre-
vent the ill effect this disgrace might have on the minds of
his followers, he taught them, that the time of life being de-
termined by God, they who should be slain in battle died
no sooner than they must otherwise have done; and as they
died fighting for the faith, they gained the crown of martyr-
dom, and the rewards of paradise.**
* Prideaux's Life of Mahomet, p. 12.
+ Ib. p. 16. : Ib. p. 62.
§ Ib. p. 77. | Ib. p. 78
T Ib. p. 86. * Ib. p. 88.
In the year 627 * he was attacked by an army of ten
thousand men, from which danger he very dexterously ex-
tricated himself; and, the same year, was inaugurated in
the supreme authority, and made head in all things civil and
religious.*. -
In the year 629 Mahomet had an army of ten thousand
men ; ; so that he very soon brought most parts of Arabia
into his power.
In the year 630 he turned his arms towards Syria. In
631 all the Arabs came in and submitted to him ; and in
the following year he himself died, being sixty-three years
of age, according to the Arabian account, which make only
sixty-one of ours; $ so that Mahomet, in the space of
twenty-three years, founded a new religion, and a new em-
pire, throughout the large country of Arabia, a country
bigger than Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Great Britain,
and Ireland, together: which, as Dr. Prideaux observes,
“God has permitted, in his all-wise providence, to continue
a scourge unto us Christians, who having received so holy
and so excellent a religion, through his mercy unto us in
Christ Jesus our Lord, will not yet conform ourselves to live
worthy of it.”
This new government and religion were in some danger,
on the death of its founder, by a competition for the succes-
sion ; but Abubeker, who succeeded, soon suppressed se-
veral rebellions, and in particular subdued Moseilam, who
pretended himself a prophet, in opposition to Mahomet ;
and having settled his affairs pretty well at home, thinks of
putting in execution Mahomet's commission, of fighting for
the religion of God." He therefore sends armies into
Babylon and Syria, and summons his forces together, by
this remarkable letter:
“In the name of the most merciful God, Abubeker, &c.
to the rest of the true believers, health and happiness, and
the mercy and blessing of God, be upon you. I praise the
most high God, and I pray for his prophet Mahomet.** This
is to acquaint you, that I intend to send the true believers
into Syria, to take it out of the hands of the infidels; and I
would have you to know, that fighting for religion is an act
of obedience to God.” * -
In this short reign, which was but two years and a few
months, the Saracens made a great progress, beat the army
of the Greek emperor, and slew, according to their own ac-
count, fifty thousand men, took Damascus, and entered far
into Syria ()mar, who immediately succeeded Abubeker,
reigned ten years and a half, drove all the Jews and Chris-
tians out of Arabia ; subdued Syria, Egypt, and other parts
of Africa, besides the greatest part of Persia; took the city
of Jerusalem ; and in the battle of Yermouk, as Abu Obei-
dah, the general, wrote to the caliph, if they killed one hun-
dred and fifty thousand, and took forty thousand prisoners;
and adds, “As to those that fled into the deserts and moun-
tains, we have destroyed them all, and stopped all the roads
and passages; and God has made us masters of their coun-
try, and wealth, and children.”
Othman continued the Saracen conquests; the whole
Persian empire fell into the hands, in the year of the He-
gira 31, A. D. 651, and Syria, with Egypt, were brought
into full subjection. But,
Upon the death of Othman, the quarrel about the suc-
cession put a considerable stop to the Saracen arms. This
seems to make the death of Othman a proper period to the
first progress of the Mahometan empire and religion, and a
proper end of that part of history that is correspondent to
this part of prophecy.
To this account of the rise of the Mahometan religion and
empire, it may be proper to subjoin some remarks on the
customs of this people, the manner of their making war,
and invading their neighbours.
* Ib. p. 94. + Ib. p. 97.
: Ib. p. 104. § Ib. p. 115.
|| Ockley, Hist. Saracens, vol. i. p. 10, 17, 20.
* Al Koran, cap. 4, p. 70. cap. 9, p. 149, &c.
** Ockley, ib. p. 22.
++ Abul Pharajii, Hist. Dynast. p. 90, 110.
:: Ockley, Hist. Sarac. vol. i. p. 241,242.
-
CHAPTER IX.
1053
It was observed from Pliny, that the Arabians wore a
sort of turbans, or mitres, on their heads; that they dressed
and twisted their hair in a particular manner, so that one
party of the Saracens was distinguished by it from another.
“It is remarkable,” says Ockley,” “the sect of Ali have not
only a turban after a different fashion, but they also twist
their hair after a manner quite different from the rest of the
Mussulmans.”
They used also the custom of wearing beards: + Ebn
Hannif, Ali's governor of Basora, had his hair cut off, and
his beard spoiled, in contempt. Ubi clim Ebn Haniffum
ipsi ab Hali praefectum prehendissent, crinibus avulsis et
barbă depilatà demiserunt. At least, according to Pliny,
they left some hair, like moustaches, on their upper lip :
so exactly did their dress answer the description of crowns,
faces of men, and hair as the hair of women.
The care of the Arabians about their horses, and the ex-
cellency of their breed, are taken notice of by all who men-
tion them.
It is well known, the manner of invading their neighbours
was by Sudden incursions during the summer months ; re-
tiring again, and dispersing themselves to their own homes,
during the winter ; and gathering together the next spring
for a new summer's invasion.
According to the military laws and constitutions of the
Mahometans,t war was forbid during the sacred months,
which were the two first and the two last : Aggredi bello
hostes Suos omni tempore fas esse pronunciavit (Moham-
med), exceptis quatuor mensibus anni, duobus primis, et
postremis; qui propterea sacri appellantur.
A sufficient number is appointed by the same constitu-
tions,S to be sent out yearly, as may make the Mahometans
equal or superior to the enemy: Istiusmodi copiarum educ-
tio singulis annis ad minimum semel fieri debet.
Their military laws make also a great difference between
those people they call Harbi, and the People of a Book.
The Harbi were either atheists and persons of no religion,
or idolaters, who did not worship the true God, according to
any book of revelation ; these were not tolerated in the
Mahometan law, but they were to be prosecuted with war,
till they embraced the religion of Mahomet. But the Peo-
ple of the Book were such as worshipped God, according to
some book of revelation, as the Jews and Christians ; these
were to be prosecuted with war till they embrace Maho-
metanism, or agree to pay a tribute : but then they were to
be left in peace, and in the quiet use of their own religion,
even where the Mahometan authority was fully settled.|
Thus the very laws of Mahomet made provision not to kill
those who professed the worship of the true God, but only to
torment them by their invasions, and making them tributaries.
It was moreover a common injunction to spare, as much
as possible, the countries they invaded : “Destroy not
palm-trees,” says Abubeker to Yesid, “nor burn any fields of
corn ; cut down no fruit-trees, do no mischief to cattle, only
such as ye kill to eat.” “I
Yet the military laws adjudged so many persons to cap-
tivity, and the condition of the women in particular was so
deplorable, being so much in the power of persons who gave
the greatest liberty to their lusts, that though their lives
were spared, many were like to prefer death itself to the
hard condition to which they were reduced.
Upon the whole, the sudden invasion of the Saracens, the
Swift and almost incredible progress of their arms, many cir-
cumstances peculiar to this people, and their invasions,
which sufficiently distinguish them from all the invasions
of the northern nations, very properly answer the prophetic
description of these locusts out of the bottomless pit.
Sixth trumpet.—The period of history which corresponds
with this period of prophecy, is determined by the succes-
sive order of prophecies and events to the times soon fol-
lowing the former history, which described the rise and
amazing progress of the Saracen empire and Mahometan re-
ligion; which, like locusts out of a bottomless pit, spread
* Hist. Sarac. vol. ii. p. 87.
+ Abul Pharajii Hist. Dynast. p. 118. -
†: Al Koran, cap. 2, p. 22. cap. 9, p. 82. Reland, Dissert.
de Jure Militari Mohammedanorum, p. 5.
§ Ib. p. 10. | [b. p. 14. | Ockley, vol. i. p. 25.
themselves in a very short time over a great part of the
world. I shall not therefore take notice of Mr. Mede's ap-
plication of this prophecy to the rise and progress of the
Turks, or Ottoman empire founded by them ; though Mr.
Mede's great learning and reputation have caused many
others to follow him, yet the rise of the Ottoman empire is
so low, that it is by far too great a step from A. D. 655, in
which the former prophecy ended : for Othman, the founder
of the empire, died in the year of the Hegira, 727, A. D.
1326.” This time will farther also fall far into the time of
the next period of prophecy. These considerations make
such application, I think, inconsistent with the order of the
book itself, which it seems plainly to mark out to us in suc-
cessive periods.
Let us see, then, whether the history of the Saracen em-
pire, in the times that soon followed after the foregoing
prophetic description of the rise of it, does not answer this
description, and is not most likely designed by it.
One considerable mark of this period, is loosing the four
angels which were bound in the great river Euphrates
(ver. 14), signifying, that the providence of God had, for .
some time preceding this period, laid a restraint upon these
furious invaders of their neighbours, and the progress of
their imposture. -
Accordingly we find, that upon the death of Othman,
about the year 655, there were great contentions concerning
the succession ºf Ali, Moawiah, Telha, and Zobier (or
Azzobier), had each of them a considerable party to advance
them to the caliphate, or succession in the Saracen empire.
These pretensions occasioned several quarrels, which put a
stop to the foreign conquests of the Saracens, and ended in
the almost entire ruin of Ali's family, and therein of Maho-
met's own ; for Ali had married Mahomet's daughter.
At the death of Othman, Moawiah was governor of Syria,
and Amrou of Egypt.: Ali, at the first, obtained a com-
plete victory over Telha and Zobeir, two of his competitors;
yet Moawiah and Amrou resolved to stand it out to the
last against Ali. These contentions occasioned the deaths
of so many persons, that at last three men, zealous for the
Saracen affairs, agreed to kill all the three pretenders to the
caliphate : one of them struck Moawiah in the reins, but the
wound proved not mortal:ll another of them, mistaking for
Amrou a person whom Amrou, being indisposed, had ap- .
pointed to supply his place that day in the mosque, killed
him dead on the spot ; and going to execution, said, without
any concern, “I designed Amrou, but God designed ano-
ther.” “I The third of these conspirators had better success
in the execution of his design against Ali ; for he gave him
a mortal wound in the head, as soon as he came into the
mosque, of which he died in a few days.” The contention
did not end with the death of Ali ; it continued a long time
between his family and the family of Moawiah : Hasan,
Ali's eldest son, was forced to abdicate in favour of Moa-
wiah ; ++ Hosein, Ali's second son, with several of his
family, was killed in the field : yet still many disturbances
were occasioned by the friends of Ali's family, and the
enemies of Moawiah's. Almochter, pretending to avenge the
death of Hosein, it is made caliph by his party, A.D. 685:
he pursued all who had a hand in the death of Hosein, and
destroyed them with variety of deaths: he never pardoned
any of those who declared themselves enemies of the pro-
phet, nor those whom he could believe to have dipped their
hands in Hosein's blood, or that of his relations;S$ so that
it is said, that he killed near fifty thousand men of those peo-
ple, without reckoning those who were slain in the battles
which he fought.
These intestine divisions and quarrels bound up the Sara-
cens from their usual invasions and incursions, llll and kept
them about the river Euphrates, near which most of their
battles between each other were fought. Moawiah found it
necessary to make a peace with Constantinus Pogonatus,
emperor of Constantinople, and even agreed to pay him a
* Petavii Rat. Temp. par. i. lib. ix.
+ Ockley, Hist. Sarac. vol. ii.
it Ib. p. 43–47. § Ib. p. 72. || Ib. p. 73. "IIb. p. 74.
* Ib. p. 77. H Ib. p. 95...ft Ib. p. 301. §§ Ib. p. 315.
| Zonaras, Annal. tom. iii. Bizari Rerum Persicarum.
Hist, p. 168. Abul Pharajii Hist. Dynast. p. 12
1054
REVELATION.
considerable tribute; and Abdolmelic, one of his successors,
was obliged to make a like peace, on promise of paying tri-
bute to Justinian II. the Greek emperor.
Thus were the destroying angels bound up for about
fifty years, during the reigns of Ali, Moawiah the first, Ye-
sid, Moawiah the second, Merwan, and Abdolmelic, caliphs of
the Saracens.
But them, these destroying angels were loosed again ; the
divine providence took off the restraint of the Saracen in-
vasions. Walid united the power of the Saracen empire,
and invaded the western parts of Europe with such nume-
rous armies, and swift successes, as threatened the loss of
all Europe, and even to extinguish the Christian name and
religion. -
The Saracens passed over into Spain, A.D. 713. The
next year, they obtained a complete victory over a nume-
rous army of the Spaniards; they who speak the least, say it
was an army of one hundred thousand fighting men: what
number was killed, was not known ; “I suppose,” says our
historian,” “they were so many, it was hard to count them :”
for this only battle robbed Spain of all its glory, and in it
perished the renowned name of the Goths. After this bat-
tle, the Saracens divided their forces, and soon overran the
whole country; so that in three or four years, they were
possessed of all Spain, except a few inaccessible places in
the mountains, and which the Saracens slighted. The misery
of this invasion, so agreeable to the prophetic description, is
so well expressed by the historian, F that I shall give it in
his own words: “Certain it is, Spain was now in a deplor-
able condition, almost all brought under the dominion of
the Moors ; there was no sort of misery but the Christians
endured ; women were ravished from their husbands, chil-
dren from their parents, and all they possessed taken from
them, without any redress to be hoped for. The country
yielded not its usual product, both in regard of the unsea-
sonableness of the weather, and for want of labourers ; the
churches were profaned and burnt; dead bodies lay about
the streets and highways, and nothing was to be seen or
heard, but sighs and tears; nor was there any calamity but
what Spain groaned under, God permitting the innocent to
suffer with the guilty, to punish the horrid wickedness of
those times.”
But the Saracens did not confine their ravages to Spain ;
they soon passed the Pyrenean mountains into France, Af.
ter many ravages in several parts of the country, they came
to a decisive battle with Charles Martel, in which Abdirach-
man was killed, with his numerous army. This victory se-
cured the state of Christianity, which would likely have been
the prey of those barbarous invaders, if they had then gained
a victory over the French, and possessed themselves of their
country, which was then the only rampart of Christianity, as
a judicious historian observes. The infidels, as another his-
torian observes, advanced as to a certain victory; whereupon
* Mariana, Hist. Spain, lib. vi. cap. 9.
+ Ib. lib. vi. cap. 10.
f Mezeray, Hist. France, vol. i. p. 193.
twenty-one after the conquest of Spain.
ensued one of the bloodiest battles, and most obstinate fights,
that has been seen in the world : of the Moors, there were
four hundred thousand, with their wives and children, as de-
signing to dwell in France. The slaughter was incre-
dible; three hundred and seventy thousand Moors were
killed, and among them their general. This fortunate battle,
was fought, says Mariana,” in the year of our Lord 734,
It put a full stop
to the farther progress of the Saracen armies in Europe, and
gave courage and strength to the remaining Christians in
Spain; so that in time they drove the Saracens quite out of
their country also.
There is another part of this prophetic description which
deserves particular notice, and which seems to point out this
period of history for the accomplishment of it: the rest of
the men who were not killed by these plagues, yet repented
not of their idolatry ; the worship of saints and images,
which so nearly resembled the heathen idolatry, had made
great advances about this time. Leo Isaurus, emperor of
the east, was much concerned at it; it gave great offence to
the Mahometans, and often provoked them to persecute the
Christians as idolaters. In the east, Leo Isaurus, and his
son Constantinus Copronymus,'t at this very time endea-
voured to put a stop to these idolatrous customs of wor-
shipping images; and in order to prevent it, ordered all
images to be taken out of the churches: but these endea-
vours to preserve the church from idolatry, and remove this
just prejadice against the Christian worship, were warmly
opposed by the bishops of Rome. The emperor Leo had
sent his orders into Italy, A. D. 726, to remove images out
of the churches there : the then pope of Rome, Gregory II.,
confirmed the worship of images by a synod, and rejected
the order of the emperor, with severe reproaches on himself;
and finally, according to Baronius's own account, he excom-
municated the emperor, and on that pretence, forbade all
payment of taxes to him in Italy, and freed the people from
all manner of obedience to him, as their prince. Tandem
et anathematis poenam, ita quoque Baronius, eoque praetextfi
interdictum, quo tributa Italica sisteret, et obedientiam
omnem, tam civilem quam ecclesiasticam, toto occidente,
deinceps exhiberi Graeco imperatori prohiberet.j: w
This defence of the idolatrous worship of images was so
obstinate, that at length it prevailed to a solemn confirma-
tion of it, by the authority of councils, both in the east and
west; so far were they from repenting of their abominations.
And this brings us to the end of the second period of pro-
phecy, and within a very few years of the beginning of the
third period, in the temporal power of the popes of Rome;
which was, in some sense, the seventh, or, in another sense,
the eighth head of Roman government, as we have before
observed, to which the following visions of this Revelation
relate.
* Hist. Spain, lib. vii. cap. 2.
+ Spanhemii Hist. Eccl. secul. viii. cap. 7, p. 1304.
f Ib. and Mezeray, Hist. France, vol. i. p. 198.
§ Preface.
CHAPTER X.
* SECTION VIII. -
INTERVAL BETWEEN THE SECOND AND THIRD PERIODS.
l AND I saw another mighty angel come down
from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow
was upon his head, and his face was as it were the
sun, and his feet as pillars of fire.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. X.
CoNTENTS.– The foregoing chapters have given us a prophe-
tic description of the two first periods, or of the state of
the world and church under the persecution of Rome
heathen; of the troubles occasioned by the invasions of
the northern nations, which broke the power of the Ro-
man empire, and divided it into several new governments;
and finally, of the rise and progress of the Mahometan
(1.) After my former vision, related in the foregoing part
of this prophecy, I beheld another vision, introductory to a
farther revelation concerning the state of the church and
world; for I beheld a mighty angel coming down from hea-
ven : he appeared as clothed with a cloud; a mark of great
power and majesty: a rainbow, the symbol of God's cove-
nant and mercy, was on or round his head; and his appear-
religion and empire, which caused so many evils through-
out the greatest part of the world, both in the eastern and
western empires. --
This tenth chapter seems to be an interval between the se-
cond and third periods, in which the scene of the vision
alters, preparation is made for a new prophecy, represent-
ing a new state of the world and church for a new period
of “forty-two months,” “a time, times, and half a time,”
or “twelve hundred and sixty days,” being “ the days of
CHAPTER X.
105.5
'•
ance was very glorious, for his face shone with a lustre like
the brightness of the sun, and his feet with a splendour as if
they had been a flame, or pillars of fire. *
2 And he had in his hand a little book open : and
he set his right foot on the sea, and his left foot on the
earth,
(2.) And the angel whom I beheld coming down from
heaven, held a little book, or roll, open in his hand, the re-
maining part of the sealed book, or roll, which the Lamb
had opened ; and when he was come down to our globe, he
stood upon it, having one foot on the sea, and the other on
the earth, the chief parts of which it consists; the prophe-
cies yet to be revealed out of the little book, or roll, relating
to the greater part of the inhabitants of the world.”
3 And cried with a loud voice, as when a lion
roareth: and when he had cried, seven thunders
uttered their voices.
(3.) This mighty angel, standing on the earth and sea,
made proclamation with a voice, loud, strong, and awful, as
the roar of a lion. Upon which I heard several distinct
voices, as from the clouds of heaven, and loud as thunder.
4 And when the seven thunders had uttered their
voices, I was about to write : and I heard a voice
from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things
which the seven thunders uttered, and write them
not.
the voice of the seventh angel, when the mystery of God
shall be finished.” -
The scene of vision is represented different from the forego-
ing; it is not now before the throne of God in heaven, as
in the fourth chapter, but on earth, as the first scene, ch. i.
For John saw “an angel come down from heaven” ver.
1); “the angel stood on the sea and on the earth, and he
lifted up his hand to heaven” (ver. 5), when “he sware
that time should be no longer” (ver. 6). -
This introduction to the third period represents “an angel
coming down from heaven, with a little book open in his
hand.” A voice from heaven directs John to “take the
little book from the angel, and to eat it up;” because he
was still to continue his prophecy, and to reveal many
things contained in it: for he was to “prophesy again,
before,” or “concerning, many people, and nations, and
tongues, and kings” (ver. 11). Or he was to represent,
in new prophetic descriptions, the state of the church and
world in the period or times that should successively fol-
low the former times, of which he had already prophe-
sied, and which was to contain a prophecy, as is afterward
declared, for the space of twelve hundred and sixty pro-
phetical days. The meaning of which will be best ex-
plained by a paraphrase upon the representations them-
selves.
i Ver, 1.] To come in the clouds, or with the clouds of
heaven, is, among the Jews, a known symbol of divine power
and majesty.” It may refer to the expression of the psalm-
ist, “Thou art very great; thou art clothed with honour and
majesty; thou coverest thyself with light as with a garment”
(Ps. civ. 1, 2): alluding to the bright and shining cloud in
which the divine presence was used to appear. Grotius
observes a like notion among the heathen, that they repre-
sented their deities appearing covered with a cloud :
Tandem venias, precamur,
Nube candentes humeros amictus
Augur Apollo. F
A rainbow, by its natural properties, as a gentle rain while
the sun shines, was a proper emblem of God's covenant
with mankind after the flood, and fit to be made a sign that
God is always mindful of his covenant and promise. The
brightness and splendour of the sun and of fire were also
proper figures to express the majesty of a divine appear-
ance.[.
* Ver. 2..] It is an observation of a great author,5 that
* Annot, on i. 7.
+: Annot. on i. 7.
+ Horat. Carm. lib. i. od. 2.
§ Sir I. Newton, p. 269.
|
(4.) As I was about to write down what was spoke from
the seven thunders, I was forbid by another voice from hea-
ven, saying unto me, Do not write down what the voices
from the seven thunders have uttered, that they may not be
publicly revealed in this prophecy.”
5 And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea
and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven,
6 And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever,
who created heaven, and the things that therein are,
and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the
sea, and the things which are therein, that there should
be time no longer:
7 But in the days of the voice of the seventh an-
gel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God
should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants
the prophets.
(5.) But though I was not allowed to reveal what the
seven thunders had uttered, yet the angel proceeded to give
a farther revelation of the providence of God towards the
world, and his church in general; and to confirm the truth
and certainty of his revelation, he took his oath in the most
solemn manner: for, lifting up his hand to heaven, (6.) he
sware by the eternal God, the Creator of all things, that the
time of the glorious state of the church, though sure to be
accomplished according to God's promise in its due time,
* should not be as yet ; (7.) but in the next period, or in the
days of the voice of the seventh angel, who was yet to sound,
this description of an angel coming down from heaven is in
the form in which Christ appeared at the beginning of this
prophecy; and it may farther direct us to understand this
mighty angel of Christ, that he appeared having a little
book opened in his hand. The same illustrious interpreter
judiciously remarks, that “this little book is the same that he
had newly opened; for he received but one book from him
that sat upon the throne, and he alone was worthy to open
it.” It does not seem to be another book, as some have
thought, but the remainder of the same book, or roll, which
the Lamb took out of the right hand of him that sat on the
throne (v. 7). It may be called “a little book,” or roll,
being only the remainder of what had been opened or re-
vealed already, the seventh and last seal, and so the whole
book had been opened before (ch. viii.). This seems the
plainest and easiest account of the little book, as well as
most agreeable to the order of the prophecies, this contain-
ing what was to happen “in the days of the voice of the
seventh angel, when he shall sound” (ver. 7). Earth and
sea are, in scripture language, a description of our world, or
this terraqueous globe, as the heavens and earth are a de-
scription of the universe in general, or the whole visible cre-
ation; and so the inhabitants of the earth and sea seem in
this prophecy to mean the inhabitants of this world: “Woe
unto the inhabitants of the earth and sea l for the devil is
come down unto you” (xii. 12); that is, when the dragon
was cast down unto the earth.
By “the earth,” the Jews understood, as Sir Isaac New-
ton observes (p. 276), the great continent of all Asia and
Africa, to which they had access by land; and by “the isles
of the sea,” they understood the places to which they sailed
by sea, or the several parts of Europe: and hence, in this
prophecy, the earth and sea are put, he observes, for the
nations of the Greek and Latin empires: in this sense, the
angel, putting his right foot on the sea, and his left foot on
the earth, will represent him standing with one foot on Asia,
and another on Europe; to signify the prophecies he was to
reveal would relate to both the empires of the east and west:
but I think the former sense the more natural.
* Ver, 4.] When a voice from heaven commanded the
apostle not to reveal what was spoken by these voices, it
would be ridiculous to go about to explain it. It is suffi-
cierit to observe, it was not proper to remain on record a
public revelation to the church in general, however proper
it was to be revealed to the apostle in particular, which
might be for many wise reasons; though for what particular
reasons must be as unknown to us as the revelation itself is.
* Ver. 6..] That “time should be no longer,” does not
mean that time itself should be no more; in the original,
xzéyo, oùx Fatal in, is literally, “The time shall not be yet.”
1056
REVELATION.
the mystery of God, in his providence towards the church,
should be perfected; and then, as he had promised in the
prophetic oracles, the glorious state of the church should be
no longer deferred. *
8 And the voice which I heard from heaven spake
unto me again, and said, Go and take the little book
which is open in the hand of the angel which stand-
eth upon the sea and the earth. -
(8.) I was then directed by another voice from,heaven to
go up to the angel who stood upon the sea and the earth,
and receive from him the little book which he held open in
his hand.
9 And I went unto the angel, and said unto him,
Give me the little book. And he said unto me, Take
it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter,
but it shall be in thymouth sweet as honey.
(9.) Ithereupon did as the voice from heaven commanded
me, and desired the angel to give me the little book, which
he did, saying unto me; Take this little book, consider it
carefully, and digest it well in thy mind; and thou shalt
Some understand it, that the time of fulfilling the prophecy
should be no longer delayed; or, as Grotius on the place,
Non did erit quin arcanum Dei impleatur: but I think both
the intention of the prophecy, and the more ºr meaning
of the expression, better agree with Mr. Daubuz's interpre-
tation :* “The angel in the vision declares upon oath, that
the glorious state of the church shall not be as yet; but
that, however, it would not be long to it: for in the days of
the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall sound (that is,
in the period of prophecy to which the remainder of the
book yet unrevealed relates, under the seventh trumpet),
the mystery of God shall be perfected, as he had declared
to his prophets.” This was a consolation proper to the ge.
neral design of the prophecy, as there was but one period of
time yet remaining, viz. during the voice of the seventh and
last angel; and then the accomplishment of the promises, in
the happy and glorious state of the church, should be ac-
complished and fulfilled; without any farther delay. This
* On the place.
}
find, in the events it shall reveal unto thee, an occasion for
comfort and joy, for grief and sorrow.
10 And I took the little book out of the angel’s
hand, and ate it up ; and it was in my mouth sweet
as honey; and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was
bitter. *
(10.) I accordingly took the little book out of the angel's
hand, and deeply meditated on the contents of it; and
found it to contain in part things of great consolation, and
in part things that gave me great concern and sorrow.
11 And he said unto me, Thou must prophesy
again before many people, and nations, and tongues,
and kings.
(11.) And the angel from whom I had received the little
book, acquainted me that I was to consider the prophecies
contained in it were not intended only for my private in-
struction and meditation; they were prophecies which con-
cerned the public, many nations, and people, which I was
to publish in farther revelations, for the public use and bene-
fit of the church. "
was however attended with a most useful caution, that the
church is to prepare, in this period, for new trials of faith
and patience, though in the end the mystery of God shall
be finished or perfected.
* Ver. 11.] “To eat,” says Mr. Waple, “signifies to me-
ditate and to digest divine truths.” “Thy words were
found,” says the prophet (Jer. xv. 16), “ and I did eat
them ; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of
mine heart.” Our blessed Saviour uses the same metapho-
rical expression, when he speaks of himself as “the bread
of life,” in many passages of the sixth chapter of John.
As this prophecy was to reveal the providences of God during
the period of the seventh angel, in which, as there was a re-
velation of great opposition to true religion, and persecution
of the faithful professors of it, so was there also a revelation
of divine protection during the time of trial, and of a sure
accomplishment of the promised glorious and happy state of
the church in the end. The meditation of such a state of
providence might well occasion a mixture of joy and grief
in the apostle's mind, as it is like to do in the minds of all
who so understand it and consider it.
CHAPTER XI.
THE THIRD PERIOD.
SECTION IX.
RIRST DESCRIPTION OF THE THIRD PERIOD.
1 AND there was given me a reed like unto a rod :
and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XI.
CoNTENTS.–We are now come, in this eleventh chapter and
the following, to the third and longest period of this pro-
phecy, distinguished by the seven vials, as the former were
by seven trumpets and seven seals. As this is a period
much longer than either of the foregoing, it seems to have
a more full and copious description; and the state of it is
represented by several prophetic images, as by measuring
the temple; by the prophecy of two witnesses; by the
vision of a woman flying into the wilderness; and the re-
presentation of one wild beast rising out of the sea, and of
another coming up out of the earth.
So that here are two distinct representations of the state of
the church during this period, and another representation
of the persecuting power from whence this afflicted state
of the church should proceed; and in the end of this, as
in each period, here is a representation of the church's
deliverance out of its afflicted state. And, in particular,
the afflictions of the church are to end with this period,
in the most happy and glorious state of peace and pros-
*
t
temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship
therein.
(1.) After this, I beheld in the visions of prophecy, a
new representation of the future providence of God towards
the church and world ; for there was a measuring rod put
perity, of truth, purity, and protection; and not to be
succeeded in a very short time by a new period of troubles
and afflictions, to try the faith and patience of the Saints,
as the former were.
It appears that the representation of the two witnesses, of
the woman in the wilderness, and of the beast, are several
representations of the same time or period, in different
views. The time for the witnesses to prophesy in sack-
cloth is a thousand two hundred and threescore days (xi.
3). The woman is nourished in her place in the wil
derness for a time, and times, and half a time (xii. 14),
or three years and a half, equal to twelve hundred and
sixty days, according to the ancient year of three hun-
dred and sixty days. And so the prophecy itself inter-
prets it, xii. 6, “And the woman fled into the wilderness
where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should
feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore
days.” It is farther observed concerning the period cf
the beast, that “power was given to him to continue
forty and two months,” a time equal to “three years and
a half,” or “twelve hundred and sixty days.” They are
CHAPTER XI. 1057
into my hand, with which I was directed to measure the
temple, and the court wherein the altar stood, in which the
priests worshipped God, and performed the duties of their
office, and into which such as offered private sacrifices for
themselves were admitted. A proper representation of the
º: worship of God, and of such as were true worshippers
Of Illin, --
2. But the court which is without the temple leave
out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the gen-
| tiles; and the holy city shall they tread under foot
forty and two months.
(2.) But as to the other court of the temple, the place .
where the Israelites were used to assemble when they come
up to the temple to worship, I was directed not to measure
it, for this reason, that it should become common and pro-
fane, being permitted to be used and possessed by gentiles.
A fit representation of great corruption in the common and
usual worship of God, by heathen doctrines and idolatrous
therefore to be looked upon as different descriptions of
the same period, for the more distinct explication of the
prophecy, and greater certainty of its true meaning.
But before we enter upon the particular meaning of each
representation, it may be proper to observe something as
to the proper time of this period, as to its beginning and
continuance.
As interpreters, for very different reasons, have fallen into
very different accounts of both, it has occasioned no little
uncertainty and disorder in the different interpretations
given of it. -
The papists are very unwilling protestants should find any
of the corruptions of the Roman church in this prophecy;
they have therefore used all their art and learning to
finish all the prophecies in this book in much less time
than twelve hundred and sixty years, in the downfall of
Rome heathen, when the empire became Christian, under
Constantine, A. D. 323. They must therefore make the
time of this period no more than twelve hundred and
sixty natural days, or three common years and a half.
And in this the Bishop of Meaux* greatly triumphs over
the protestant interpreters, that they should make a year
not to signify one year, but three hundred and sixty years.
There are also some learned interpreters among protestants
themselves, who think the whole prophecy reaches but to
a small period of time. Grotius, and after him Dr.
Hammond, in support of that opinion, make the duration
of this period much less than twelve hundred and sixty
years: for to understand the twelve hundred and sixty
days, according to the style of prophecy, for so many
years, is inconsistent with their favourite schemes, and
must quite overthrow them.
But it appears, I conceived from many reasons, that the
opinion which assigns a short time to the whole prophecy
is without all foundation, and expressly contrary to the
intent of the prophecy, which is to extend to the day of
judgment.
It is also a considerable circumstance to strengthen the in-
terpretation of days by years, that as it is agreeable to the
style of prophecy, it is most agreeable to the plan of this
prophecy. It is a good rule of Grotius,S that the cir-
cumstances of the subject ought to direct how we are to
understand an expression : vox hebdomadis generalis est,
et tam de annis quâm de diebus rebusque aliis accipi po-
test; quomodó autem accipienda sit, docere nos debet loci
cujusque materia. Let us then see how justly preferable
the prophetic interpretation of a day for a year is in this
lace.
º agreeable to the ancient style of scripture, in the days
of Moses, Numb. xiv. 34, “After the number of the days
in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day
for a year, shall you bear your iniquities, even forty years.”
The punishment of the people was to be as many years
as the days of their transgression; so that “each day for
a year” seems an allusion to some known method of
counting, in which days were answered by years.
The prophetic style of Ezekiel farther confirms it : Ezek.
iv. 6, the prophet is directed to “lie on his right side,
and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days.”
This is explained to signify, according to the style of pro-
phecy, so many years: “I have appointed thee each day
for a year,” or, as in the margin, “a day for a year, a
day for a year.” So that in this figurative interpretation,
each day, in the prophetic representation, is to be an-
swered by a year in the historical event.
* Advertisement, p. 357. + On Rev. ii. 10.
ºf Wid. Preface. - § On Rev. ii. 10.
In the prophecy of Daniel, this manner of prophetic ex-
pression is used again; Dan. ix. 24, “Seventy weeks are
determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to
finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, and to
make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlast-
ing righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy,
and to anoint the Most Holy.” All who consider this a
prophecy relating to the Messiah, for which there are
abundant and unanswerable reasons, must consider the
seventy weeks as so many times seven years, not as so
many weeks of natural days.
It is a criticism below such great men as Grotius and the
Bishop of Meaux, that because hebdomas signifies a num-
ber of seven, it may signify seven of any thing, according to
the circumstance of the place; and therefore a week (heb-
domas), which is so called because it contains seven days,
may signify seven years. A week primarily signifies seven
days, and properly nothing but seven days: a week (heb-
domas) never did signify seven years, and only can do so
as the figurative expression of prophecy puts a day to sig-
nify a year.
The particular circumstances of this prophecy add a farther
strength to this interpretation, that the twelve hundred
and sixty days are to be understood of so many years
The order of the prophecies of this book shows, that these
twelve hundred and sixty days contain the whole time of
the third period; or all the time wherein the witnesses
prophesy, the woman is in the wilderness, and the beast
has power given unto him : that is, all the time of the
last state of the church's sufferings, to that glorious state
of the church, when Satan shall be shut up in the bot-
tomless pit for a thousand years. In this period the
seven vials of God's wrath are to be poured out, and all
the historical events that relate to them accomplished;
this period is to last till the mystery of God shall be
finished. These events are too many, and the times in
which they are to be accomplished too long, to be com-
prised within three years and a half, or twelve hundred
and sixty natural days. -
The order of the periods shows this third is not to begin
until the two former are passed; until the nations which
had destroyed the Roman empire had divided it among
themselves; till the imperial government of Rome was
passed away,” as the preceding forms of government were
before it; till another form of government should be es-
tablished in Rome, which, on some accounts, should be
called the seventh, and on other accounts the eighth form
of government; when Rome, once the powerful mistress
of the world, after she had lost her dominion, and seemed
to lose it without hope of recovery, should be restored to
power and empire again, which was to continue during
the twelve hundred and sixty days of this period, and
then to be utterly overthrown, and never to rise again.
Now, as a great variety of concurring circumstances shows
the beginning of this period, about the year 756, when
the popes were invested with the temporal dominion of
Rome, in which only time the several descriptions of this
period do all exactly agree, the twelve hundred and sixty
days of this prophecy are to last so long as this power is
to continue : which seems evidently to show that we are
not to understand twelve hundred and sixty natural days
the time of this period, but so many prophetic days, in
which a day is given for a year.
It being necessary to premise so much concerning the pro-
phetic account of time in this period, I shall only farther
* Wid. Preface. .
3 Y
1058
REVELATION.
modes of worship: which state of corruption, ‘I was in-
formed, was to continue for the space of forty-two prophetic
months, or twelve hundred and sixty years."
3 And I will give power to my two witnesses, and
they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and
threescore days clothed in sackcloth.
(3.) Yet in this prevailing state of corruption, God will
raise up witnesses to the truth, who shall sufficiently testify
against the prevailing false doctrines and idolatrous worship,
and denounce the judgments of God against the apostasy.
These witnesses, like the prophets of old, shall prophesy in
garments of mourning, and meet with great oppression; yet
they shall persevere with an immovable Christian courage
to assert the truth, and oppose the corruptions of this period,
during its whole continuance.”
4 These are the two olive-trees, and the two can-
dlesticks standing before the God of the earth.
(4.) This small church of faithful worshippers, who refuse
to comply with the more general corruptions of faith and
worship, shall be constantly supported and encouraged in the
profession of true religion; faithful instructors shall excite
them to constancy and perseverance, and they shall glorify
God by a constant testimony of truth; as if a lamp was kept
always burning, by a continual supply of oil from a living
, observe, that we have three distinct representations of it
in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth chapters.
The first, by the figure of measuring the temple, and pro-
phesying of the two witnesses.
The second, by the figure of the woman in the wilderness.
And, -
The third, by the power and persecution of the beast.
I proceed to explain each of these, as they are severally re-
presented, in their order.
* Ver. 2..] A measuring rod was a sort of pole about ten
feet long, made of a kind of reed, which was both strong and
light, such as was commonly used in measuring buildings
and lands. Lightfoot * observes, “that (besides the priests
who ministered in the court where the altar stood) persons
offering a sacrifice came into the court of the altar to present
their sacrifice before God, and lay their hands upon it.”
This representation seems to be taken from the prophet
‘Ezekiel's vision (ch. xl.) in which he beheld a person with
a measuring rod, taking the dimensions of the buildings of a
temple ; showing the prophet, in vision, the model or plan
of a new temple, to encourage the Jews to faithfulness in
their religion, with the hopes of seeing the temple and true
worship of God restored again. The temple and temple-
worship was a proper figure of Christ's church, and of the
spiritual worship instituted by him. It was, therefore, very
proper to represent the state of the Christian church by like
figures. What is peculiar in this, and wherein it differs from
Ezekiel’s representation, is the direction to measure only the
temple and inner court, where the altar stood, but to exclude
the other court. This signifies plainly enough, that, in this
period of the church, but a small part should be preserved
in purity; that there would be some sincere and faithful
worshippers, but they would be few in comparison with a
greater and more numerous part of the church, which should
be corrupted with the doctrines of heathenism, and corrupt
the worship of God with idolatrous customs; as if the out-
ward courts had been given up to the gentiles to profane,
while the few faithful worshippers of God, who adhere to the
faith and worship taught in the word of God, shall be con-
fined, as it were, within the inner court.
One general representation of this period, then, is after
this manner: God will preserve a church in purity of faith
and worship, but it will consist only of a small number,
when, at the same time, the greater part of the church shall
fall into great corruptions; in particular, they shall corrupt
the Christian faith and worship with many false doctrines
and practices, taken from heathen superstition and idol-
atry.
* Wer. 3..] This representation shows in general; that as
God raised up prophets in the ancient church, to witness
* Temple Service, chap. 1
olive-tree, constantly feeding it with oil, that it may never
go out.” -
5 And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth
out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and
if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner
be killed.
(5.) Moreover, the judgments these witnesses to the truth
shall denounce against such persons as reject their testimony,
and persecute them for their sincere and faithful warnings,
shall as surely be executed, as the judgments denounced by
the former prophets were; God will assuredly punish those
who reject and despise their warnings, with many great and
severe judgments.” -
6 These have power to shut heaven, that it rain
not in the days of their prophecy: and have power
over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the
earth with all plagues, as often as they will.
(6.) God will vindicate the honour of these witnesses, and
the truth of their festimony, by as great and remarkable
judgments in their times, as in the times of any of the
ancient prophets; as when, for instance, Elijah prayed, and
it rained not on the earth ; or, as when Moses turned the
waters of Egypt into blood. God will surely avenge their
cause as his own, and punish their enemies with all those
against the idolatrous corruptions of religion, and denounce
the judgments of God against those who were guilty of them,
So it should be in this corrupt state of the Christian church.
It is a sufficient reason, why these witnesses are said to be
two, as two was the legal number of witnesses, and as, in the
times of the ancient prophets, on greater occasions, two
were usually joined together, as Moses and Aaron in Egypt;
Elijah and Elisha, in the apostasy of the ten tribes; Zerub-
babel and Joshua, after the Babylonish captivity. As this
testimony of the witnesses is to be of equal duration with
the apostasy itself, it cannot well be meant of any two par-
ticular persons; nor is there, I conceive, any reason to under-
stand it of any two particular churches, or bodies of men, in per-
petual succession. It sufficiently answers the prophetic de-
scription, if there be, during the time of the apostasy, a suffi-
cient, though small number, who, like Elias and Elisha, shall
testify and declare against the idolatrous customs and prac-
tices of their times.
Calmet justly observes, “These witnesses do not mean two
particular persons, but all the martyrs in general.” The
name of “prophesying” here signifies persons full of the Spirit
of God, preaching God's word, and bearing witness to the truth.
* Ver. 4.] This representation of the candlesticks and
olive-trees seems taken from the prophecy of Zechariah
(ch. iv.) in which Zerubbabel and Joshua are represented
by two olive-trees on each side of the candlestick, which
empty oil through two golden pipes out of themselves (ver.
11, 12), to express, that Joshua and Zerubbabel should be
protected by divine Providence, to go through all the diffi-
culties which lay in the way of finishing the temple, and
re-establishing the Jewish state, not indeed by human force
and power, but by God’s protection, and his all-powerful
providence; “not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,
saith the Lord of hosts.” -
* Ver. 5.] When Ahaziah sent companies to seize on the
prophet Elijah, “fire came down from heaven, and consumed
them ’’ (2 Kings i. 10). And God threatens those who re-
jected the warnings of the prophet Jeremiah (Jer. v. 12.
14), “They have belied the Lord, and said, It is not he ;
neither shall evils come upon us; neither shall we see Sword
nor famine.--Wherefore, thus saith the Lord God of
hosts, Because ye speak these words, behold, I will make
my words in thy mouth fire, and this people wood, and it
shall devour them.” That is, God would certainly bring on
Judah and Israel, all those judgments with which he had
appointed to punish them for their obstinate apostasy. The
certainty of these judgments is well expressed in these words,
“And if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner
be killed.” The enemies of truth and righteousness shall
have no power to protect themselves against the judgments
of God, or find any means to escape, when God decrees their
punishment. -
CHAPTER XI.
I059
plagues, which, according to his direction, they shall denounce
against them.” -
7 And when they shall have finished their testi-
mony, the beast that ascendeth otit of the bottomless
pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome
them, and kill them. .
(7.) Notwithstanding, during the time these witnesses
shall faithfully bear their testimony to the truth, and against
the corruption of the Christian faith and worship, that per-
secuting power, which, according to a following representa-
tion, is to arise in this period, out of the bottomless pit, shall
continually oppose these witnesses, and so far prevail, as to
inflict many evils, even to death itself, upon them."
8 And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of
the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and
Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.
(8.) And these faithful witnesses shall be treated with
such cruel severity by their persecutors, that they shall be
denied the common decency of burial. Such persecuting
powers may well be compared to Sodom or Egypt, for
pride, wickedness, and cruelty, to those who put Christ him-
self to death, for bearing testimony to the truth: yet, in all
their distress, they may comfort themselves, that they suffer
with Christ, and for his cause, and from persons whose idol-
atry and cruelty make them as Sodom or Egypt.”
9 And they of the people, and kindred, and
tongues, and nations, shall see their dead bodies
three days and a half, and shall not suffer their dead
bodies to be put in graves.
(9.) The corruption in the days of this period shall be so
very great, that the people in general, in all places, shall be
violently prejudiced against these faithful witnesses; insomuch
that they shall, with great inhumanity, deny them the de-
cencies of burial, and express the fierceness of their displea-
sure and wrath, by all methods of public disgrace.”
10 And they that dwell upon the earth shall
rejoice over them, and send gifts one to another; be-
cause these two prophets tormented them that dwell
on the earth.
(10.) And the inhabitants of the earth shall greatly rejoice
in this persecution; they shall express it by sending gifts to
one another, as a testimony of mutual congratulation, on
occasions of public joy. For now they hope to be delivered
from the trouble and uneasiness, occasioned by the reproofs
of these prophets, and the judgments they threatened them
with, on account of their corruptions.”
11 And after three days and a half the Spirit
of life from God entered into them, and they stood
up on their feet; and great fear fell upon them who
saw them.
(11.) Yet, notwithstanding the cruelty of these persecu-
tors prevailed, while the beast was paymitted to make war
with the Saints, and to overcome them, it shall be however
but for a limited time; then the power of God shall be mani-
fested, in a remarkable manner, for their deliverance: as if
dead bodies were raised to life, and made to stand up on
their feet, those faithful witnesses shall, with surprising suc-
cess, maintain and propagate the true worship of God, to the
great terror and amazement of their persecutors.”
12 And they heard a great voice from heaven say-
Ing unto them, Come up hither : And they ascended
up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld
them. -
(12.) As these witnesses were represented raised from the
dead, in conformity to the resurrection of Christ; so farther,
in imitation of his ascension into heaven, they are repre-
* Ver. 6..] What God does, according to his word by his
prophets, is, according to the style of prophecy, said to be
done by them. “Behold,” says God to the prophet Jere-
miah, i. 9, 10, “I have put my words in thy mouth. See,
I have set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to
root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw
down, to build and to plant.” In the prophet Hosea, “There-
fore have I hewed them by the prophets; I have slain them
by the words of my mouth,” are observed by interpreters to
be equivalent expressions (Hosea vi. 5). Thus, when God
brings those judgments upon the world, which he directed
his prophets to declare in his name, they may be said, in the
style of prophecy, to Smite the earth with plagues, as they
will ; because God will accomplish what, according to his
word, they shall denounce against the opposers and corrupters
of true religion. -
* Ver, 7.] What we render, “When they shall have
finished their testimony,” Mr. Daubuz renders, “While they
shall perform their testimony.” The original may mean the
time of their testimony, as well as the end of it; &ray rexé.
aroat, as, gray tragašić waiv Šºć;, “When they deliver you up "
(Matt. x. 19). And rexéo signifies to perfect and complete
a thing, as well as to end or finish it: so Christ, upon account
of his sufferings, is said to be “made perfect through suffer-
ings” (Heb. ii. 10). The most probable sense appears to be,
that the witnesses are to meet with opposition and persecu-
tion, during the whole of this period; as the woman was to
be in the wilderness, and the beast was to have power, twelve
hundred and sixty days, so the witnesses were to prophesy,
and to be persecuted, during the same time. They are not
single persons, but a perpetual collective body of men, or a
succession of witnesses, against the errors and false worship
introduced into the church.
7 Ver, 8.] “The great city,” is that city which “reigneth
over the kings of the earth” (Rev. xvii. 18), or Rome, the
empress of the world. “Streets” of the great city, are its
public places throughout its dominions; for the great city is
not considered so much in its buildings, as a seat of empire.
‘It is Rome, and the Roman empire, says the Bishop of
Meaux; and, taking the great city for Rome, and its empire,
he adds, “It is literally true, that Jesus Christ was crucified
there, even by the Roman power.” And it is moreover true
that the same Rome which crucified Christ in person, cruci-
fied him also every day in his members. The general mean-
ing of this passage is well expressed by Mr. Daubuz; “The
dead bodies of the witnesses shall lie throughout the extent,
in the most conspicuous places, or the chief and principal
parts of the antichristian jurisdiction.” ,
* Ver. 9..] The time in which the people shall show this
inhumanity to the witnesses, is said to be three days and a
half, which is not to be understood literally for so many
matural days only. “Can any man believe,” says Mr. Mede,
“that the small space of three days and a half is sufficient
either for spreading the fame of the death of the witnesses,
or for sending the messengers with gifts to and fro among the
nations?”—“Yet the expression,” says Mr. Daubuz, “is
very suitable to the decorum of the symbol of a dead body,
that will keep no longer unburied without corruption.”
There seems, I think, an allusion in the three days and a
half, to the time of our Saviour's lying in the grave. Such
was the humanity of the times in which Christ suffered, that
they permitted his friends to lay his body in the grave; but
such shall be the inhumanity of these persecutors, as to
deny the rites of burial. Why the time is signified by three
days and a half, we shall see farther on ver, 11. -
* Ver. 10.] The prophets, who reproved the corruption of
their times, were used to be accounted disturbers of the pub-
lic peace, and were often an uneasiness to persons, who,
however corrupt they were, could not bear reproof. Thus,
when Ahab saw Elijah, he said unto him, “Art thou, he
that troubleth Israel?” The prophets, who preach against
the errors of the world, are treated as public enemies, seditious
persons, and even as the cause of those public calamities,
which they foretell as the punishment of a perverse genera-
tion. -
10 Ver. II.] A day sometimes signifies a season, or un-
determined portion of time: “The day of temptation in the
wilderness” was forty years (Heb. iii. 8, 9). Day and year
are sometimes joined together, for season and time in gene-
ral: Isa...Kxxiv. 8, “For it is the day of the Lord's ven-
geance, and the year of recompence for the controversy of
Žion.” So dies is used with elegance, by the best authors,
for time in general: Opinionum commento delet dies.
It is a good rule to judge what portion of º may be
3 2
1060
REVELATION.
sented as ascending in a public manner, in the presence and
to the great confusion of their enemies, who shall behold
them, after all their oppression, exalted by the glorious power
of God, to a state of great honour and influence, as well as of
security and peace." -
13 And, the same hour was there a great earth-
quake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the
earthquake were slain of men seven thousand; and
the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the
God of heaven.
(13.) This great power of the witnesses, and prevalency
of their doctrines, shall however be attended with great com-
motions in the world, with great and signal calamities inflicted
on that great city, which had for so long time opposed the
truth, and oppressed the faithful. A very considerable part of
its power shall be taken away, and many persons shall be cut
offin her defence, and many others shall be affrighted with the
judgments of God, and made sensible of the wickedness of
oppressing truth and righteousness, and shall glorify the true.
God, by forsaking their idolatry, and assisting the cause of
pure and true religion.”
14 The second woe is
woe cometh quickly.
(14.) Let not, however, any person imagine, that the
church shall be free, in this third period, from opposition and
persecution, and trials of their faith and patience, any more
than in the two former periods; for a third woe is to follow
upon the second, to try them that dwell upon the earth.”
15 And the seventh angel sounded; and there
past; and, behold, the third
were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms.
of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord,
and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and
€Ver. Q - e
(15.) I then perceived in my vision, that the seventh
angel sounded his trumpet, upon which proclamation was
made with a loud voice in heaven, declaring, that the king-
dom of God, and his Christ, the true Christian religion,
should triumph over all opposition, and flourish with great
success and prosperity throughout all the future ages of time.
16 And the four and twenty elders, which sat be-
fore God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and
worshipped God,
(16.) And the twenty-four elders, whom I saw in my
first vision, representing the true church of God, as sitting on
seats placed round about the throne of God, arose from their
seats, and prostrated themselves before God, to worship him.
17 Saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Al-
mighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; be-
cause thou hast taken unto thee thy great power, and
hast reigned.
(17.) And they worshipped God by a solemn act of praise,
saying, We give thanks unto thee, O Jehovah the Almighty,
and everlasting God, that it has pleased thee to show thy-
self superior to all the opposition of the world; that thou art
able to protect, and, according to thy promise, to exalt thy
faithful servants in the end. - -
18. And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is
come, and the time of the dead that they should be
designed by such indeterminate expressions, to consider what
is necessary or proportional to the season spoken of. In
this place, as Mr. Waple observes, it seems to be necessary
that “three days and a half” should be brought to comport
with three times and a half, twelve hundred and sixty days,
and forty-two months. Thus the time of the witnesses' suf.
fering will be in proportion to the time of their prophecy,
which is to be a time of persecution. It will agree with the
other representations of the same state of the church, by the
woman in the wilderness, and the season of the beast, or time
of his persecuting power, which relate to the same period,
and help to explain it.
. * Verk 12.] To be exalted to heaven, or cast down to hell,
signifies, in scripture language, the happy state of those who
enjoy the blessings of true religion, or the miserable condition
of those who are deprived of them for despising them. Thus
our Saviour speaks concerning Capernaum : “And thou,
Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought
down unto hell” (Matt. xi. 23). The destruction of Satan's
power by the kingdom of God, or the success of true religion
by the gospel, against the idolatry and wickedness of the
World, is expressed in the same figure, Luke x. 18, “I beheld
Satan as lightning fall from heaven.”’’ The pride of Babylon
is, in like manner, described by the prophet Isaiah, xiv. 13,
“For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into hea.
ven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.” The
fall of that haughty persecuting empire is described in the
same figurative language, ver. 12, “How art thou fallen from
heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning !” In this sense, the
ascension of the witnesses into heaven, will mean the great
success of the doctrines of pure religion taught by them, and
the mighty efficacy with which they shall prevail, in the
reformation of the church from idolatrous and superstitious
corruptions.
* Ver. 13.] Interpreters are much divided, as to the
tenth part of the city which fell by the earthquake, whether
it denotes Rome under the papacy, as Mr. Mede supposes
Rome at present to be just the tenth part of ancient Rome;
or, whether it means some notable part of the ten kingdoms
into which the Roman empire was divided in this period;
or suppose, with some, the kingdom of France, or, with
others, the fall of the Greek church and empire of Constan-
tinople, under the power of a Mahometan government, or
whether it may not mean the whole papal jurisdiction, be-
cause it is represented in prophecy under the figurative ex-
pressions of “ten toes,” “ten horns,” “ten kings.”
This diversity of opinion had its rise, it may be, from an
endeavour to fix too particular a sense on a general expres-
sion. We have already observed (ii. 10), that the numbers
ten and seven are figurative numbers, denoting multitude,
frequency, and perfection. A deliverance out of the many
troubles of life, is expressed in the book of Job, by being
delivered out of “seven troubles” (v. 19). The seven Spirits
of God figuratively express the perfect grace of God's Holy
Spirit; the number ten, in like manner, is used to denote
many or often. Jacob complained, that Laban had “changed
his wages ten times,” or very often (Gen. xxxi. 7). When
Elkanah said to his wife (1 Sam. i. 8), “Am not I better to
thee than ten sons?” the plain meaning is, than many sons.
In like manner, Solomon observes of wisdom (Eccles. vii. 19),
“Wisdom strengtheneth the wise more than ten mighty men
which are in the city;” or, than several mighty men. These
instances, more of which may be seen in Mr. Daubuz,” are
sufficient to show that the numbers seven and ten may be
understood of many, or a sufficient number of anything.
The tenth part of the city falling by an earthquake, may
then be understood very properly of some considerable part
of the empire, the city being considered as the seat of empire
and government; it may signify the downfall of some con-
siderable supporters of the beast's persecuting power. The
slaughter of seven thousand men may, in like interpretation,
mean, such as shall continue to support and assist the anti-
christian power of this period, in opposition to the kingdom.
of God and Christ, to the cause of truth and righteousness.
There seems to be a propriety, in these more general ex
pressions, in a general representation of this period, the more
particular account being reserved for the after parts of the
vision: so that this part of the prophecy seems to show, that
jndgment shall come on the persecutors of the true church,
in full proportion to their iniquities, when the faithful wit-
nesses to the truth shall be eminently protected, and their
cause shall wonderfully prevail.
* Wer. 14.] We have the mention of three woes, ix. 12,
“One woe is past, and, behold, there come two woes more
hereafter.” This first woe was under the sounding of the
fifth angel, when the bottomless pit was opened, with the
rise of Mahomet's power and imposture; the second woe
is reasonably understood to be during the sounding of the
sixth angel, when the four angels were loosed to slay the
third part of men (Rev. ix. 13–15), when the Saracens were
*s
* Symbol. Dict, v. Number.
CHAPTER XII.
1061.
judged, and that thou shouldest give reward to thy
servants the prophets, and to the saints, and to them
that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest
destroy them which destroy the earth.
(18.) For though the nations of the earth have, with great
fury, persecuted the true religion, now the day of thy wrath
is come, to punish them in righteousness, and to vindicate
the cause of thy servants, who have been faithful unto
death : the time is come to finish the mystery of thy provi-
dence towards the churches, and to give the reward promised
to prophets, and confessors, and all true Christian worshippers,
of every kind and degree : and to destroy them at the last,
who, for so long time, by their false doctrine and persecu-
º corrupted and destroyed the greater part of the
world. -
permitted to endanger the whole western empire, and the
Christian name and profession everywhere ; the third woe,
which was soon to follow the second, will begin its proper
order, in the day of the voice of the seventh angel. It may
be proper to observe, the woes are designed to represent an
afflicted state of the church, rather than calamitous times to
the inhabitants of the world in general: so that we are, I
think, to consider it as a useful prophetic warning, that this
third and last period would call for as much caution and
constancy as either of the former. They who will faithfully
adhere to the purity of true religion, must expect to find
opposition, and meet with woe.
* Ver. 18.j Kpivey, judicare, saepe est vindicare, itaque
Dºw, quod estatively, vel?ixáðsiv, judicare, per ix3xãv, vindicare
vertitur, as Grotius” observes. So that, to judge, or try the
cause of the dead, or of the martyrs for the truth of the
Christian religion, may very naturally be understood to
* In loc.
19 And the temple of God was opened in heaven,
and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testa-
ment: and there were lightnings, and voices, and
thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.
(19.) Upon this, I beheld the temple of God in heaven
opened, so that I could see the ark of the covenant, the
mercy-seat, and place of God's presence, for it was not hid
behind a veil; representing not only a state of peace and
liberty for the church, the place of worship being opened,
but also that, in this state of the church, the true worship of
God will be used in great perfection. This happy state of
the church shall be attended with great and heavy judgments
on the enemies of true religion ; a storm of vengeance shall
come down from heaven on their heads, terrible as when,
earthquakes are joined to thunder and lightning.”
mean, a vindication of their cause, by some eminent act of
providence in favour of it ; as to windicate, is a proper sense
of judging; and, I think, more proper to the order and
intention of the prophecy, than to understand it of the
general judgment, which, according to the order of these
prophecies, is not to be till after the prosperous state of the
church, in which Satan is to be bound for a thousand years.
1° Wer. 19.] Grotius thinks, that the lightnings and
thunderings belong to the next chapter, and refer to a new
prophecy; but we may observe, the end of this period is
described in the same manner, xvi. 18–21. These voices,
thunders, lightnings, and great hail, are interpreted expressly
of an exceeding great plague, so that men, blasphemed on,
account of it. This is called, giving unto Babylon “the cup
of the wine of the fierceness of God's wrath;” to express the
great calamities and desolation with which God, at the end
of this period, will punish the obstinate persecutors of his
pure worship and true religion, and publicly vindicate the
righteous cause of his faithful martyrs.
CHAPTER XII.
SECTION X.
SECOND DESCRIPTION OF THE THIRD PERIOD.
1 AND there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a
woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her
feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars :
(1.) I beheld, in a second vision, another representation
of this period : there appeared in heaven the figure of a
woman, in the most glorious manner imaginable : she
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XII.
CoNTENTS.—We come now to a second representation of the
same third period of prophecy, that is, the state of the
church and world in the days of the voice of the seventh
angel; or, while the woman who fled into her place in the
wilderness was nourished there for a time, times, and half
a time, or three years and a half, equal to forty-two
months, which are equal to twelve hundred and sixty pro-
phetical days, the exact time in which the witnesses were
to prophesy. As the former representation showed, that
true religion should be preserved among a few faithful
confessors, though in a constant state of severe persecution,
so this represents the state of the church, under the figure
of a woman, persecuted so as to fly into desert places to
hide herself; yet preserved and fed there, notwithstand-
; all endeavours of a furious serpent, ready to destroy
el'.
This plainly describes an afflicted and persecuted state of the
church in general, during this period; in which false and
idolatrous worship shall be in great power, and the faith-
ful profession of the true religion shall expose men to great
danger: that, however, still the true worshippers of God
shall be preserved, though in an obscure state, and be
enabled, notwithstanding all opposition, to keep and main-
tain the truth unto the end.
* Ver, 1.] It was a well-known custom, at the time of this
seemed to be surrounded with sun-beams, as with a glory;
to stand upon the moon, and to have a crown upon her
head, in which twelve stars were set as so many diamonds,
an image that strongly expressed a state of great dignity and
honour.” …?
2 And she being with child, cried, travailing in
birth, and pained to be delivered.
(2.) This woman was farther represented to me in the
vision, as a fruitful mother, ready to be delivered of a child,
prophecy, to represent the several virtues and public societies
by the figure of a woman in some peculiar dress, many of
which are to be seen in the Roman coins ; in particular
Salus, the emblem of security and protection, is represented
as a woman standing upon a globe, to represent the safety
and security of the world under the emperor's care, as in a
coin of Hadrian's : Globum pede calcans, significans, se im-
perante, orbi salutem publicam datam.* The consecration
of the Roman emperors is expressed in their coins by a moon
and stars, as in two of Faustina, to express a degree of glory
superior to any on earth.i.
Never was any image more expressive of honour and dig-
mity than this in the vision. To stand in the midst of a glory
made by the beams of the sun; and upon the moon, as,
above the low condition of this sublunary world: to wear a
crown set with the stars of heaven, as jewels, is something.
more sublime than anything whereby antiquity has repre-
sented their societies, their virtues, or their deities.
The reader may farther observe in this representation, if
he please, with Mr. Daubuz, that the sun may signify
Christ ; the moon, the Holy Ghost ; and the twelve stars,
the twelve apostles. Or, he may understand it with Mr.
Mede, of the church shining round about, by the faith of
Christ, the Sun of righteousness, treading under foot the
rudiments of the world, whether Jewish shadows or gentile
* August. de Num. p. 30.
+ Biaei Numismata, tab. 49, 23, 24.
1062
REVELATION.
and to bless the world with a fair and numerous poste-
rity.”
3. And there appeared another wonder in heaven;
and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads
and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.
(3.) Besides the figure of the woman, I beheld a repre-
sentation of another nature: there appeared a great red
dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and a crown on
each of his heads, to show there was a fierce and powerful
enemy of the church, intent to make use of all its power, if
possible, to destroy it.
4 And his tail drew the third part of the stars of
heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dra-
gon stood before the woman which was to be delivered,
for to devour her child so soon as it was born.
(4.) The power of this dragon was represented so great,
that he seemed, by his tail, to strike a great number of the
stars out of their places in the heavens, and throw them
down on the earth : he seemed to watch the woman with
great attention, whom he perceived ready to be delivered,
with manifest marks of a design to destroy the child, so soon
as it should be born. A fit figure to express the great power
of Satan, and his kingdom, their constant opposition to truth,
and unwearied endeavours to stop the progress and success
of the gospel.” 4
5 And she brought forth a man child, who was to
rule all nations with a rod of iron, and her child was
caught up unto God, and to his throne.
(5.) However, the woman ready to be delivered brought
forth a man child, to intimate, that the Christian church
should be continued by a constant succession of converts,
notwithstanding all opposition. Thus Christ's kingdom
should prevail over all enemies, and break all opposition, as
the ancient oracles prophesied concerning him, that he
should “rule all nations as with a sceptre of iron.” As soon
as this child was born, I beheld it caught up to God and his
throne, to intimate God's care and protection of the true
Christian church, and the safety of the church in God's pro-
tection.*
6 And the woman fled into the wilderness, where
she hath a place prepared of God, that they should
. her there a thousand two hundred and threescore
ays.
(6.) I perceived also, that the woman was preserved as
superstitions, and glorious with the ensigns of the apostolical
offspring. Or, he may consider, with Mr. Waple, that the
apostolical doctrine is the chief ornament, crown, and glory
of the church.
But, however he shall choose one or other of these more
particular allusions, this will remain a sure general meaning,
—that the blessings of true religion, in the revelation of Jesus
Christ, as taught by his apostles, that is, of the true Christian
religion, deserve the highest esteem and honour, however
they may be despised by the world.
* Ver, 2.] The metaphor of a mother, blessed with a fair
posterity, is very proper to represent the public happiness,
by an increase both of numbers and strength. It is an easy
figure to consider the church as a mother, and the converts
to truth and righteousness, the true worshippers of God, as
her children. The expressions which represent her as a
woman in travail, may principally mean her fruitfulness, and
denote the number of converts to true religion, rather than
the afflictions of the church on account of her profession.
The happiness of the empire in the fruitfulness of the impe-
rial family, is often expressed in coins, Foecunditas Augustae,
seculi felicitas.
* Ver. 4.] The devil is often represented in scripture as a
dragon, and the old serpent ; and the prophecy itself so ex-
plains it, ver. 9, “And the great dragon was cast out, that
old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the
whole world.” He seems represented by a great, and red,
or bloody-coloured dragon, to describe both his power and
cruelty in opposing true religion. The seven heads and
crowns, and ten horns, is a description so exactly agreeable
to the description of the beast, in the thirteenth and seven-
well as the child she brought forth; but it was by flying into
a wilderness, where she found a place provided for her re-
treat, and where she was taken care of, by the protection of
divine Providence, during the time of this period: to inti-
mate, the condition of the church would be difficult and dan-
gerous in these times, like the Israelites, when they wandered
in the wilderness ; or, as Elijah, when he fled from the per-
secution of Ahab: yet a divine protection should preserve
it, as the Israelites were fed with manna, and Elijah by
Iſal WellS. - *
7 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his
angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon
fought and his angels.
(7.) This state of the Christian church was farther repre-
sented by a battle in the air, between Michael and his angels
on the one side, and the dragon, or the devil, and his party,
on the other.
8 And prevailed not; neither was their place found
any more in heaven.
(8.) In the conclusion of which, the dragon and his party
were so far from obtaining a victory, that they were totally
defeated, and driven out of the field of battle.
9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old ser-
pent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the
whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his
angels were cast out with him. -
(9.) Thus the dragon, or old serpent, which in the scrip-
tures means the Devil, and Satan, who had deceived the
world into error, idolatry, and wickedness, was cast down,
together with his party and followers: to intimate, that there
should be a smart contention between faithful Christians,
and the maintainers of error, idolatry, and wickedness, which
should at the last end in a complete victory over the enemies
of true religion.” - -
10 And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven,
Now is come salvation, and strength, and the king-
dom of our God, and the power of his Christ : for the
accuser of the brethren is cast down, which accused
them before God day and night.
(10.) I perceived this blessing of the church was acknow-
ledged in a public act of praise and thanksgiving unto God,
who had thus manifested his power in the deliverance of his
people, and the advancement of his own spiritual kingdom,
by the profession and practice of Christianity. For now
teenth chapters, that it may, I think, be justly understood
as a limitation of the opposition here meant, to the times of
the beast, or to that time when the Roman power was repre-
sented by ten horns, as well as by seven heads and crowns ;
or not before ten kingdoms were erected by the nations
which broke in upon the Roman empire, and divided it into
many independent governments; that is, properly, during
the time of this third period.
* Ver. 5.J Grotius supposes, I think with great probability,
that these expressions, “And her child was caught up unto
God and his throne,” are an allusion to the preservation of
Joash, in the time of Athaliah's usurpation, when she put to
death all the rest of the royal family (2 Kings xi. 2, 3);
“Jehosheba took Joash the son of Ahaziah, and stole him
from among the king's sons which were slain. And he
was hid in the house of the Lord six years.” He was kept
safe in one of the chambers of the temple, till he was
brought out by Jehoiada the high-priest, and restored to the
kingdom of David. Thus the true worshippers of God
shall not all be destroyed by the enemies of religion ; some,
like Joash, shall be kept safe, as if in heaven, the true tem-
ple, till they shall appear publicly with victory over their
€IleInleS.
* Ver. 9..] Many interpreters understand this victory over
Satan, in which he is represented cast down from heaven
with his angels, to be intended of the heathen power of
Rome; so that idolatry had lost the advantage of the civil
establishment throughout the Roman empire. In this period,
the temporal power of Rome, as we shall hereafter see, was
to be in the hands of one, who styles himself, “The head of
the Christian church.” It was a great victory over Satan
CHAPTER XII
I ()63
Satan had lost the opportunity of accusing Christians as
guilty of impiety, for refusing to conform to the religion of
the empire and idolatrous worship of the gods of Rome, or
censuring their zeal for the true Christian religion as insin-
cere; asserting, that they would soon renounce the profession
of it, if they were to suffer on account of it.”
11 And they overcame him by the blood of the
Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they
loved not their lives unto the death. -
(ll.) The patience, faith, and perseverance of the church,
were sufficient to show Satan a false accuser, and obtained
a great advantage for them ; as they were an eminent proof,
that they preferred the cause of true religion to every thing
else : and as their Saviour confirmed his doctrine with his
blood, they were ready to confirm their testimony, by con-
stancy unto death, according to the grace and spirit which
the church should receive from Christ their Lord. .
12 Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell
in them. Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and
the seaſ for the devil is come down unto you, having
great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a
short time.
(12.) Let therefore angels and saints, and the whole
church rejoice, and be thankfully sensible what salvation
Christ has obtained for his people, and shall assuredly bestow
upon them. Yet let all the inhabitants of the earth consider,
that this victory over Satan notwithstanding, his power is not
yet quite destroyed, he will still be able to do great mischief,
and will attempt it with the more wrath, as the time of his
opposition is much shortened.
13 And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto
the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought
forth the man child.
(13.) The devil will show his wrath upon this great loss of
his power, now the profession of Christianity so universally
prevails against heathen idolatry, so long supported by the
power of the empire; he will still find out new ways to per-
secute the true church, and those who are careful to preserve
the purity of true religion.
14 And to the woman were given two wings of a
great eagle, that she might fly into her place, where
she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time,
from the face of the serpent.
(14.) However, the true church, represented by the wo-
man, appeared to be assisted against the wrath of the devil;
eagles’ wings were given unto her, that she might escape into
a place of retirement and safety, which was provided for her
during the time of this period.”
15 And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as
a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to
be carried away of the flood.
(15.) The devil, as the inveterate enemy of true religion,
attempted, if possible, to prevent the escape of the church,
into a place of safety, though in a secret retirement ; he cast
out, as it were, a flood of waters, to destroy her, before she
should be able to reach the wilderness.”
16 And the earth helped the woman, and the earth.
opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which
the dragon cast out of his mouth.
(16.) But this danger of the church shall be prevented, by
a remarkable protection of divine Providence, raising several
of the inhabitants of the earth to help the escape of the
faithful worshippers, as if the earth had been commanded to
open itself and receive the flood, that it might not overtake
them who were flying from it.”
17 And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and
went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which
keep the commandments of God, and have the testi-
mony of Jesus Christ.
(17.) It was moreover represented to me, that though this
providential assistance of the church favoured its escape, it
rather increased the rage of Satan: he continued with fresh
fury, and in all possible methods, to excite and carry on the
persecution of the true worshippers of God, according to the
purity of the gospel, and revelation of Jesus Christ ; who
would not submit to the idolatrous doctrines and corrupt
worship introduced into the church in this period.
and his power, when Christianity had fully prevailed over
heathenism in the empire; and we may add, it was also a
considerable victory over Satan, when an effectual stop was
put to the Mahometan imposture in these western parts:
though, as we shall observe in the following parts of this re-
presentation, the devil, notwithstanding this diminution of
his power, is still to retain sufficient to do great mischief
within this period, and will use it with much wrath, against
the true worshippers of God and his faithful servants. -
* Wer. 10.] “These expressions,” says Mr. Waple, “are
taken from Job and Zechariah, where the scriptures, speak-
ing after the manner of men, represent Satan as accusing
good and pious men before God. This he does,"by aggra-
vating their faults and imperfections, and by exciting wicked
men to raise false accusations against them, as was notori-
ously done against the primitive Christians.” Mr. Daubuz
observes, “The accuser, according to the custom of the east-
ern nations, and in some cases by the law of Moses, was ap-
pointed to be the executioner (Deut. xiii. 9): so that when
the church is no longer in danger of persecution for the pro-
fession of Christianity, Satan is said to be thrown down, as
having lost the power of accusing and executing such as
make open profession of it.”
7 Wer. 14.] To “bear on eagles' wings,” is an allusion to
the strength and swiftness of an eagle's flight, and does well
express the readiness and power with which God does often
deliver his church out of its dangers ; but whether the two
wings of an eagle are here put to signify the eastern and
western parts of the Roman empire, of which an eagle is the
armorial ensign, I shall leave to the reader's judgment.
* Ver. 15.] Floods and inundations often come so sud-
denly, and with such violence, as to drown or carry away all
things within their reach, and give no time for an escape.
They are a proper figure to express some great and sudden
danger. Nahum thus describes the judgments of God, which
shall utterly destroy his enemies (i. 8), “ But with an over-
flowing flood, he will make an utter end of the place thereof.”
So that by this similitude, we may well understand some
quick and smart attempt of the enemies of true religion, to
cut off all hope of safety for the true worshippers of God,
even in retirement. -
9 Wer. 16. And the earth helped the woman.] The figure
in general is a natural representation of stopping the course
of a flood, by receiving it into some great opening or gap in
the earth ; and earth, taken in its most natural interpreta-.
tion, for our habitable world, and the inhabitants of it, will
fully answer the meaning of the figurative expression. Thus,
the general meaning will be to this purpose: The providence
of God will raise up some persons, who shall aid and assist
true Christians, notwithstanding the violence of persecution.
I do not perceive there is need of a more particular applica-
tion of the word “earth,” to the corrupt part of the church,
and that it became master of its conquerors ; the barbarous
nations at length receiving the manners, religion, and the
very name of Romans.
it seems more agreeable to the design of the prophecy,
and of this representation, to understand it of assistance from
some persons of power and authority in the world, giving
protection to the witnesses, against the growing corruptions
of these times, not permitting the decrees and edicts for
establishing idolatrous doctrines and worship to be immedi-
ately executed, or so suddenly as to suppress all opposition,
and not give time for a sufficient number of confessors to
stand up in the cause of truth, and continue to maintain it.
The historical events, answering this prophetical description,
which we shall afterward see, will, I hope, more clearly ex-
plain it.
1064.
CHAPTER XIII.
SECTION XI.
THIRD DESCRIPTION OF THE THIRD PERIOD.
1 AND I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw
a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and
ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon
his heads the name of blasphemy.
(1.) After the two foregoing visions, I beheld a third, far-
ther to explain them : I seemed standing by the sea-side,
when I perceived a wild beast rising out of the sea, of a very
remarkable form. It had seven heads and ten horns, with
a crown on each horn, and a blasphemous inscription on each
of his heads, to denote a new form of government, that was
to be erected in the city of Rome, by the great commotions
of the world, after the imperial power had been destroyed,
and the empire should be divided into ten distinct and inde-
pendent kingdoms or sovereignties."
2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leo-
pard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his
mouth as the mouth of a lion; and the dragon gave
him power, and his seat, and great authority.”
(2.) The form of this wild beast, which I saw in my vi-
Sion, was made up of some likeness to the several beasts of
prey, the leopard, the bear, and the lion; the persecuting
empire, in Daniel's vision, being represented by these beasts,
famous for strength and rapaciousness, in seizing and devour-
ing their prey. They were a proper figure to signify the rise
of a new empire, powerful, tyrannical, and cruel: and that
the old serpent, the devil, who had hitherto persecuted the
true worshippers of God, by the several great monarchies of
the world, would engage this new power, advanced in the
seat of the last of these monarchies, the Roman empire, to
use that power in the persecution of true religion, as the pre-
ceding tyrannies had done before it.”
3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIII.
CoNTENTs.-In this chapter we have a farther account of
the state of the church and world, in this third period.
The representation of the wild beasts in this vision, refers
to the same times with the two former visions, of the wit-
nesses prophesying in sackcloth, and the woman flying
into the wilderness. Power is given unto the beast to
continue, or to make war, and prevail forty-two months
(ver. 5). *
This vision gives a more distinct account of the manner and
means by which the true church and worshippers of God
should be persecuted, and so greatly oppressed, as is re-
presented by the woman's flying into the wilderness, and
slaying the witnesses. So that this representation, in con-
junction with the two former, will afford us a sufficient
description of the state of providence, and the church,
with the useful lessons of caution, patience, and faithful-
ness, in times of great corruption and great danger, which
are the principal intentions of the Spirit of prophecy, in
the whole of these revelations. 4
* Ver. 1.] A “beast,” &ngiov, signifies a wild savage beast.
In the prophecies of Daniel, beasts are known symbols of
the monarchies represented in his visions (ch. vii.). In the
after parts of this prophecy, it is expressly interpreted by an
angel to mean a king, kingly authority, or government;
“And there are seven kings, five are fallen, and one is, and
the other is not yet come ; and when he cometh, he must
continue a short space. And the beast that was, and is not,
even he is the eighth (king or government), and is of the
seven, and goeth into perdition” (xvii. 10, 11). The horns
are, by the same angel, interpreted to mean kings, or king-
doms (ver. 12). “And the ten horns which thou sawest are
(or, signify) ten kings, which have received no kingdom as
yet (at the time of the vision); but receive power as kings
one hour with the beast :” Paiaw &gay, in the same season or
time with the beast.
The rising of the beast, then, will signify, the rise of some
new dominion or government; the rising of a wild beast,
Smetov, the rise of a tyrannical government ; and rising out
of the Sea, that it should owe its original to the commotions
of the people: so “waters” are interpreted by the same
angel, ver. 15. In the visions of Daniel, the four great
beasts, the symbols of the four great monarchies, are repre-
sented rising out of the sea in a storm : “I saw in my vision
by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove
upon the great sea, and four great beasts came up from the
sea” (Dan. vii. 2, 3).
“Seven heads” are interpreted by the angel to signify
seven mountains, and seven kings (xvii. 9, 10). Hence, we
may sufficiently understand, that by this beast was meant a
Roman government, different from that in being at the time
of the vision, and which was to arise after the impérial go-
vernment should be passed away, as five other forms of go-
vernment had passed before it. That some form of govern-
ment in the city of Rome is signified by it, seems very
evident; for the seven heads are, in one figurative meaning,
interpreted to signify seven mountains ; and it is expressly
called, “the great city, which reigneth over the kings of the
earth,” xvii. 18. Urbs septicollis, orbis caput, and, orbis
terrarum domina, are sufficient descriptions of Rome in Ro-
man authors, and as well understood as if Rome itself had
been expressly mamed. Upon the heads of this beast were
names or inscriptions of blasphemy. This government is
elsewhere described as a mystical Babylon, full of names of
blasphemy, xvii. 3—5, to signify, that it should establish and
propagate idolatrous doctrines and worship ; for, as idolatry .
is a reproachful contempt of the one true God, worshipping
and serving the creature more than the Creator, it is called
blasphemy in the style of the prophecy. The idolatry of
the Jews is called, “burning incense upon the mountains,
and blaspheming upon the hills,” Isa. lxv. 7; so the pro-
phet Ezekiel, xx. 27, “In this your fathers have blas-
phemed me ;” that is, by offering their sacrifices on high
places, and in groves, according to the rites of the heathen
idolaters.
This beast had also ten horms, and upon his horns ten
crowns, or each of his horns was crowned. According to the
interpretation of the angel, xvii. 12, “The ten horns which
thou sawest are (or, signify) ten kingdoms which have re-
ceived no kingdom as yet, but receive power one hour (or,
in the same hour, at the same time,) with the beast.”
This state of Roman government, then, as it was to be a
new form of government, it was also to be contemporary
with ten kings or kingdoms, which were to be so many dis-
tinct governments, at the same time and in the same period
with it. But neither of them was to receive his power till
the king or form of government then in being, that is, the
imperial, should pass away, and another was come, which
was to continue a short space.
These several descriptions together, all which must be
united in the kingdom of the beast, seem plainly enough to
denote a new form of Roman government, after the impe-
rial government should cease, and after the exarchate of
Ravenna should be suppressed, when the Roman empire
should be divided into ten distinct governments or king-
doms ; which can be no other than the government of Rome
in the hands of the popes.
* Ver, 2.] “From hence it appears,” says Mr. Waple,
“that this was the fourth or Roman monarchy (in one form
of it), because it is made up of the three former, whose peo-
ple and nations it conquered, and out of whose ruins it grew;
and because it had all the qualities of subtlety and cruelty
which are thought to be signified by these beasts.” It is ob-
served by Mr. Daubuz, that the powers constituting the
beast carried on the same design against true religion, though
in another form, as the dragon did, when the empire was
* Dan. vii. 4–6.
CHAPTER XIII.
1065
unto death; and his deadly wound was healed: and I (5.) The manner in which the beast exercised the power
all the world wondered after the beast.
(3.) I perceived also, that one of the seven heads of this
beast appeared to have received such a wound as seemed to
be mortal ; but this mortal wound was healed up, though
the scar remained as a mark of it. This cure was so remark-
able, as occasioned wonder and astonishment in all who be-
held it. To signify, that this new power arose in the Roman
empire, after that empire had received such a blow in one of
its heads, or forms of government, as left no human probable
prospect that Rome should ever rise to power and empire
any more; and it would be greatly to the astonishment of
the world, to see the power of Rome revive again, in the new
form of government represented by the beast.”
4 And they worshipped the dragon which gave
power unto the beast : and they worshipped the beast,
saying, Who is like unto the beast who is able to
make war with him
(4.) The world was generally seduced to comply with the
idolatrous practices the old serpent, the devil, introduced
anew, by means of this new-erected power in Rome, the
greater part of the world acknowledged this authority, and
submitted to it without opposition, as thinking it would be in
vain to withstand it.” - -
5 And there was given unto him a mouth speaking
great things and blasphemies; and power was given
unto him to continue forty and two months.
he had received was thus represented, that he greatly magni-
fied himself above others, and claimed unlimited powers and
authority to enforce what he required ; and the time where-
in the beast was permitted to establish idolatry, was the same
with the term of the church's state of persecution, repre-
sented by the witnesses, and the woman flying into the wil-
derness, or forty-two months, equal to twelve hundred and
sixty prophetical days, or so many years.” .
6 And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against
God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and
them that dwell in heaven.
(6.) And this new-erected government of Rome used the
authority it had attained, in making and publishing constitu-
tions for the establishment of idolatry, in contempt of God
and his true worship, and by all methods of oppression and
persecution forcing the church to comply with them, and
yield obedience unto them."
7 And it was given unto him to make war with the
saints, and overcome them; and power was given
him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
(7.) The power of this new Roman government became
so great by divine permission, that it prevailed against the
worshippers of God, either to force them to a compliance
with the corruptions established by its authority, or to per-
secute them for their constancy ; and this oppressive power
was extended far and wide over many nations and people.
pagan.
power rising up in the Roman state, mighty and terrible,
directed by the perpetual enemy of true religion, to perse-
cute the faithful worshippers of God. The general meaning
of this part of the vision is well expressed by Mr. Mede:
“I saw, saith John, the type of the last state of the Roman
empire, wherein, governing under the seventh head, it should
be divided into ten kingdoms ; and yet, even as he had done
under his former heads, he should blaspheme the only true
God, by the worship of idols.” May we not here observe,
that the prophecy speaks of the civil power of Rome P why
should we then search after it in an ecclesiastical supre-
macy P
* Ver. 3..] The seven heads being interpreted by the angel
to signify seven kings, or forms of government, may well di-
rect us to understand this deadly wound of one of these
heads to be the destruction of one of those forms of govern-
ment, in such manner as to threaten the utter overthrow of
all power in Rome, as in Babylon; so that it should never
rise to be the seat of empire again : therefore, they that
dwell on the earth shall wonder, when they behold “the
peast that was, and is not, and yet is" (Rev. xvii. 8). The
most natural interpretation of which expressions seems to be,
that the world beheld with great wonder, a city once so
powerful quite destroyed, for some time ceasing to be an
empire, and deprived of all authority, yet rising again to em-
pire, and regaining a great authority, in a very surprising
manner. It seems also plain, by comparing this description
with the seventeenth chapter, that the head which was mor-
tally wounded, was the sixth head or form of government,
at the time of the vision ; “Five of the seven kings are fal-
len,” says the angel to John, ver, 10, “and one is, and the
other is not yet come.” The form of government in being
at the time of the vision was the imperial ; and after the
imperial government ceased in Augustulus, Rome was no
seat of government during the exarchate of Ravenna, and
had no human prospect of being the seat of empire again,
till this new power arose, when the exarchate was given to
the popes, and Rome became the seat of their government,
and has continued so ever since. It seems also intended
by the angel's interpretation, that we should consider the
city of Rome, as marked out in this prophecy for the seat of
government, to prevent mistakes, that we should not under-
stand this prophecy of an empire or government, in any
other place than the city of Rome, though it should take
the name and style of the Roman empire, as the Greek em-
perors, and the emperors of Germany, have severally done.
This may give us a good reason, why the city of Rome,
in this prophecy, is described by its natural situation,
The description itself naturally expresses a new
as well as by its government, and why seven heads are
interpreted to mean seven mountains, as well as seven
kings.
*ver. 4.] “They did freely yield themselves in obedience
to the beast,” says Mr. Mede, “as to one who so far excelled
in power, that none was able to make resistance.” “The
admirers of the beast,” says Mr. Daubuz, “ look upon him
as superior to all other powers, and therefore obey his com-
mands in committing idolatry ; and, in doing this, worship
also the beast. For to commit idolatry, through fear of any
power, makes that power his god, because master of his
conscience: as to worship the beast, in the eastern style,
was to be subject to it, so to be subject to it, in its idola-
trous constitutions, or exercising the great authority and
power which it had received from the dragon, may be said to
worship the dragon in worshipping the beast, and yielding.
obedience to its idolatrous constitutions.”
* Ver, 5.] The “mouth speaking great things,” seems to
be taken from the description of the little horn in Daniel's
vision, vii. 8, and is explained, ver. 11, by “the voice of the
great words which the horn spake :” and yet farther, xi. 36,
by the description of a king, who “shall do according to his
will, and shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above
every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the
God of gods:” this mouth, speaking great things, may then
well signify claims of unlimited authority, a proud and se-
vere execution of tyrannical power. “We may here note,”
says Mr. Daubuz, “that to speak great things and blasphe-
mies, are put together, as the one signifies tyranny, and the
other idolatry; if we join both together, they will signify to
establish idolatry by tyranny ;” or, according to Mr. Mede,
he exercised his power in two things, in blasphemy against
God, and persecution of the saints. Power was given to
him (the beast) to continue (in the margin, “to make war"),
in the original, #ovoia Troiâzai' this seems well explained by
a power to do what he pleased; meaning either an authority
to make what constitutions he should think fit, or power to
put those constitutions into execution, by punishing every
one who should refuse obedience to them.”
* Ver. 6..] Any acts of idolatrous worship may well be ex-
pressed by blaspheming God and his name, as they deny to
the true God his distinguishing honour, and give it to crea-
tures, whether to images, saints, or angels. The church, as
it is called “the temple of God,” the place of God's pre-
sence, is properly also called his “tabernacle.” “They that
dwell in heaven,” are understood by Grotius of all saints, all
Christians, whose conversation is in heaven. This form of
* Clarke, Connexion of Prophecy, p. 44.
1066
REVELATION.
8 And all that dwell on the earth shall worship
him, whose names are not written in the book of life
, of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
(8.) Insomuch, that all the inhabitants of the earth, where
this new power reached, were prevailed upon to receive his
idolatrous constitutions, and yield obedience to his tyranni-
cal authority ; such true and faithful servants of God only
excepted, who were enrolled in the registers as heirs of eter-
nal life, according to the promises of Christ's gospel, who,
from the beginning, was the true propitiation and mediator
of acceptance and blessing.”
9 If any man have an ear, let him hear.
(9.) And now let every good Christian, who is desirous
to preserve himself in an hour of temptation, and preserve
the hopes of eternal life, attentively consider the cautions,
warnings, consolation, and encouragement, of this pro-
phecy.
10 He that leadeth into captivity shall go into cap-
tivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed
with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith
of the saints.
(10.) For every one may be assured, that God, the right-
eous governor and judge of the world, will finally render to
every man according to his works, and punish the enemies
of his church in due time, with a punishment equal to their
tyranny and persecution. This consideration may support
the patience and faith of the saints: they shall triumph in
the end over all their enemies, God shall vindicate their
cause, and maintain his own honour, in the punishment of
their oppressors.
11 And I beheld another beast coming up out of
the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he
spake as a dragon. -
(11.) I farther beheld in my visions another appearance,
as of a second wild beast, rising out of the earth, which had
two horns, like the horns of a lamb, but his voice was like
that of a dragon, to represent another persecuting govern-
ment, exercising its authority with a show of meekness and
charity, but carrying on the opposition of the devil, the old
serpent, to pure religion, and promoting idolatry by persecu-
tion. -
12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast
before him, and causeth the earth and them that dwell
therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound
was healed.
(12.) And this second persecuting power had all the
powers of the first or new-revived form of Roman govern-
ment, and used its authority to spread the power of this new
Roman government beyond the bounds of its own proper
dominion, so as to oblige the several nations to yield obe-
dience to the new authority revived in the city of Rome,
after it had been so long deprived of all authority, and
seemed to have lost all hope of recovering it.”
13 And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh
expression seems to be taken from the prophet Daniel, viii.
10, where it is said of the little horn which came up out of
one of the four horns of the he-goat, or one of the princes
which arose in one of the four kingdoms into which the em-
pire of Alexander the Great was divided, that it “waxed
great even unto the host of heaven, and it cast down some
of the host, and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon
them.” On these expressions, Mr. Lowth seems justly to
observe, that as the faithful are heirs of the kingdom of hea-
ven, so the names and titles of the heavenly church are
Sometimes given to that on earth ; the Christian church is
called, “the Jerusalem which is above,” Gal. iv. 26, and the
governors of it are styled “angels,” Rev. i. 20. In like
Imanner, the host of heaven means here the Jewish church :
“they which dwell in heaven,” especially when mentioned
with.* the tabernacle of God,” may be understood, accord-
ing to the prophetic language, of the true church, and wor-
shippers of God. Then to blaspheme them that dwell in
heaven, will signify the contempt and injurious manner with
which this new government of Rome shall treat the true
worshippers of God, as well as God himself, and his name.
But as many interpreters of great judgment and learning,
Mede, Waple, Daubuz, &c., give another sense of “the taber-
nacle of God,” and “them that dwell in heaven,” it will be
fit to set it before the reader. By the tabernacle of God,
they understand the body of Christ, which is blasphemed by
the doctrine of transubstantiation, and the idolatrous prac-
tices consequent thereupon, adoring the bread, instead of
Christ the tabernacle of God, and blaspheming the heavenly
inhabitants, the angels and saints in heaven, by giving them
worship and adoration ; and, as Mr. Mede adds, disgracing
the blessed spirits with contumelious and wicked fables and
miracles. Which of these the reader will prefer, must be
left to his own judgment ; the former seems to me the more
probable, as well as the more matural and easy interpreta-
tion.
7 Ver, 8.] Perseverance in the faith of the gospel, and
true worship of God, in this great hour of temptation, which
would deceive all but the elect, is very usefully represented
as the character of those whose names are registered in the
Lamb's book of life : to show, that they who endure to the
end shall be saved ; and that the salvation of God, through
Christ, belongs to none but those who shall persevere. A
powerful motive and encouragement to constancy, the great
design of the whole revelation ; and which is therefore most
properly kept in view, in every part of it. We have already
observed, “to write names in the book of life,” is an allu-
sion either to the registers in which the families of the
priests, or freemen of cities, were used to be entered upon
record (iii. 5). -
8 Ver. 12.] Interpreters differ very much as to the true
intention of this prophetic description, and what is meant by
this second beast coming up out of the earth.
With some” it signifies philosophy, and, in particular, the
Pythagorean, a great support of the Roman idolatry, with
its pompous speculations and pretences to divination and
miracles.
Others suppose it means some one or more sorcerers, or
magicians, who were heathen, and made use of by the devil,
to support and advance heathonism and idolatry ; so that
an author of great name+ concludes, it is most reasonable to
interpret this second beast of Apollonius Tyanaus, who is
reported to have done such feats and miracles, as are com-
pared by Hierocles to the miracles of Christ, and preferred
before them. *
Others; understand this second beast of the pope with
his clergy: they observe, “The pope himself, and alone,
though he may be termed a false prophet, yet he maketh
not up the beast, except his clergy be joined with him ;
since the beast doth signify a company of men, composed
of a certain order of members, like as a beast hath, not one
man alone.”
Mr. Whiston's notion seems much the same with this of
Mr. Mede: he understands the second beast, of the rise of
antichrist, strictly so called, the pope of Rome, and his sub-
ordinate hierarchy. -
Mr. Waple|| observes, “As by the former beast, the pa-
pacy, as monarchic and imperial, was fitly represented ; so,
in this type, there seems to be a representation of the apos-
tate hierarchy, or of the whole body of the ecclesiastics, as
antichristian ; and a body politic (signified by a beast in
prophecy), under two co-ordinate powers or horns, by which
the hierarchy of the eastern and western parts of the empire,
before the pope came to be a horn, or to have his anti-
christian supremacy, is very fitly typified.”
Mr. Daubuz supposes “the former wild beast consisted of .
the antichristian civil powers, which were to be in the Ro-
man empire during the second period of the church, and
that the Christian ecclesiastic powers, in the said empire,
during the said space of time, are the beast which is here
intended ; and therefore, that the two horns are the succes-
sive lines of the bishops of Rome and Constantinople, having
under them the whole body of the corrupted clergy, as the
former beast had that of the laity ; both these bishops hav-
ing pretended to be universal bishops of the church.”
'Finally, The illustrious Sir Isaac Newton'ſ observes,
“The second beast which rose up out of the earth was the
+ Dr. Hammond.
* Meaux, Grotius. -
| I’. 288. * P. 283.
:: Mede. § P. 242.
CHAPTER XIII.
I067
fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight
of men.
(13.). This persecuting power shall also promote idola-
trous worship by pretended miracles, as if, with Elijah, they
church of the Greek empire: for it had two horns like those
of a lamb, and therefore was a church, and it spake as the
dragon, and therefore was of his religion ; and it came out of
the earth, and by consequence in his kingdom.”
To take off somewhat of the uncertainty so great a variety
of opinions is apt to occasion, let us attend more closely
to the prophetic description itself: it will, I apprehend, less-
en the number of opinions, to show some of them inconsis-
tent with plain and obvious circumstances of the prophetic
description. -
It is an observation of consequence, that the vision of
this second wild beast, arising out of the earth, was after the
vision of the first beast which rose out of the sea, and can-
not signify any power to arise in the Roman empire-before
that time.
This second beast, moreover, exercised the power of the
first beast before him, as a sort of lieutenant or deputy to
him ; in particular, to bring all persons, where his power
reached, to receive the authority of the first beast, “to wor-
ship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed,” says
the prophecy expressly. So that this description is in-
consistent with any power opposite to the authority of the
first beast, as well as it is with any power that rose up
before it.
It seems also very probable, that this second beast, what-
ever is meant by it, had a power and authority very like the
power and authority of the first beast, and very nearly re-
sembling it : “He exerciseth all the power of the first beast,”
ižovoiav roi; ºrgdºrov $ngiov Träday Troteſ.
cise of the whole power ; so that of what nature or kind
the authority and power of the first beast were, the au-
thority and power of the second beast were of the same
kind. Hence this description will be also inconsistent with
any supposition that makes the authority and power of the
second beast contrary to, or different from, the power of the
first.
We have already observed, from many concurring cir-
cumstances, that the first beast did not arise till the impe-
rial government had passed away ; till Rome seemed to
have lost irrecoverably the seat of empire; till the Roman
empire was divided into ten kingdoms: till the city of Rome
should receive a new form of government, and become a
seat of empire again; till a government should be erected
in the city of Rome, in the days of the voice of the seventh
angel, which was to persecute the Saints one thousand two
hundred and sixty years. All these considerations deter-
mine the rise of the first beast out of the sea to be, when the
exarchate of Ravenna was given to the papacy, when Rome
was made the seat of the pope's temporal dominion, and the
last form of Roman government began, which has lasted
ever since to this day.
We fully know in history what this power of the papacy
is : the popes claim Supreme authority, as heads of the
church in things religious, and they have civil authority, as
sovereign princes, in their own dominion, which is expres-
sively called, “the patrimony of St. Peter.” -
This plain account of the prophetic description, will much
Messen, I think, the variety of opinions before mentioned’;
not to remark, that the philosophy, or magic, of Apollonius
Tyanaeus, is no form of government, which is the true mean-
ing of beasts and horns, in the language of the prophets. It
may be sufficient to show, that the philosophy of the bishop
of Meaux, that the magic and miracles of Apollonius Tya-
naeus, with the learned Grotius and Dr. Hammond, are ab-
solutely inconsistent with the time of this period, wherein
the first beast rose up out of the sea, which yet was before
the time when this second beast rose up out of the earth ;
neither will the prophetic description, for the same reason,
agree with Mr. Waple's opinion, that this second beast
means the hierarchy of the eastern and western parts of the
empire, before the pope came to be a horn, or to have his
antichristian supremacy. The same reason holds against
Mr. Daubuz's opinion, that the first beast consisted of the
antichristian civil powers; and the second beast of the anti-
christian ecclesiastical powers, especially as he understands
He had the exer-
it, that, from the times of Leo, there was in the church a
double ecclesiastical monarchy of two bishops Oecumenical,
who pretended to have all the power of the Lamb. For
this dispute between the two sees of Rome and Constantino-
ple was long before the city of Rome became the seat of
empire in the papacy ; nor can a contest for power between
the two metropolitans of the eastern and western empire, be
well understood of the power of the second beast, which was
to exercise all the power of the first beast ; not to weaken
or suppress it, but to promote the power of the first beast,
and to force all persons to submit themselves to it. And
this observation is also a considerable difficulty in Sir Isaac
Newton's opinion, that this second beast was the church of
the Greek empire. We may observe, that to place the rise
of the two beasts, at the division of the empire between
Gratian and Theodosius, A. D. 379," greatly antedates the
true time of the last form of Roman government, and throws
back the third period very far into the second, contrary to
the order of the prophecy. It is farther to be observed, that
the Greek church was so far from using its power and au-
thority, to force all persons to submit to the papacy, that it
was used in continual opposition to the authority of the Ro-
man church; it not only denied the pope's Supremacy, but
separated also, with great warmth, from its communion: and
the Roman church is so far from esteeming the Greek church
as a friend, that it treats it as an apostate church, in a state
of schism and rebellion.
Finally, Mr. Mede's opinion, that the second beast is the
pope with his clergy, has many difficulties attending it.
The first beast is represented as distinct from the second,
and from the ten kings or kingdoms, though they give their
power and strength to the beast ; and therefore cannot well
be the whole state of the ten kingdoms growing up again
into one Roman commonwealth, united with the pope as
high-priest. Besides, if the power of the pope in Rome
be the first beast, the same papal power can hardly be in-
tended, with very little alteration, by the second beast. It
must, in all likelihood, signify some distinct persecuting
power, of like nature and kind with the first, supporting and
advancing the authority of the first. Perhaps it may be
said, these observations, by lessening the uncertainty
occasioned by so many different interpretations, may make
the matter worse, and leave no certain interpretation,
at all.
I hope not. Let us see, then, whether we cannot find out
what will answer this prophetic description in all its circum-
Stances.
We are then to find out a power, which is to arise after
the first beast, in which a supremacy in spirituals was
united with the authority of a temporal prince, in the popes.
We are, moreover, to find out a power, like that of the
papal government, which is to execute all the power of the
first beast ; which seems to express a like power, in which
civil and religious authority shall be united.
We are also to find out such a power, as shall be used to
support and advance the authority of the popes, and force
obedience to it.
We need not look far in history, I think, to find a power
that fully answers all these characters.
We have seen at large in the preface, how Pepin of
France gave the exarchate of Ravenna to the church of
Rome: this was the rise of the first beast, in the temporal
dominion of the popes over Rome, and the countries that
compose the state of the church, as St. Peter's patrimony.
A little after this time, the emperor Charles the Great,
and his successors, endowed several churches in their states
with large temporal estates, to which were annexed the
jurisdictions and royalties which, in those times, were used to
belong to the most honourable tenures, such as earldoms,
duchies, and principalities ; whereby they had a temporal
authority added to their spiritual, very nearly resembling
that of the church of Rome, in virtue of St. Peter's pa-
trimony.
Sir I. Newton, p. 252.
‘1068
REVELATION,
could cause fire to come down from heaven,* at whose
prayer fire from heaven burned the sacrifice, and consumed
those whom Ahaziah sent to seize him.”
14 And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by
means of those miracles which he had power to do
in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell
on the earth, that they should make an image to the
beast which had the wound by a sword, and did live.
(14.) The advantages these pretended miracles had ob-
tained over a great part of the world, by their credulity
and superstition, were artfully improved to deceive them
yet farther, so far as to persuade them to deify the pope,
or erect an idol to his honour ; so that they were taught it
was their duty to pay a religious obedience, in all things,
to his authority and orders, as to God himself and his
word.
15 And he had power to give life unto the image
of the beast, that the image of the beast should both
speak, and cause that as many as would not worship
the image of the beast should be killed.
(15.) This image whereby the pope was deified, is not
to be understood of a lifeless and dumb idol ; but, like
those statues of the heathen gods, which gave forth ora-
cles, as if animated by an indwelling spirit: so the orders
and constitutions of the pope were published to the world
by the subordinate clergy, as oracles, obliging all nations to
a religious obedience, and supporting their authority with
all their power, treating all men as worthy of death, who
should refuse an entire submission to them in any par-
ticular.
16 And he caused all, both small and great, rich
"These powers went on still increasing, till, in some short
process of time, especially in the Germanic empire, they
became to be real principalities. Several bishops of Ger-
many have been, for many centuries, in the rank, and have
enjoyed the full powers and authority of sovereign princes ;
some have attained the highest dignity, and chief adminis-
tration of the empire, as electors, in all things equal, in some
things superior, in dignity and authority, to the other princes
of the empire, not excepting such electors of the empire as
are kings. This has been long the fixed and settled consti-
tution of that principal government of Europe, which now
uses the style of “the sacred Roman empire.”
It is easy to see how nearly this authority resembles the
powers of the papacy, or first beast ; and it is easy to ob-
serve, in the constant course of history, that this authority
has been used all along, to cause the earth, and them that
dwell therein, to worship the first beast, or to obey his com-
mands in all things. By this it is, that popes have had the
power, as well as the insolence, to tread on the necks of
kings and emperors. And it has been the great support of
the idolatrous worship of that church, against all the power-
ful and promising attempts of reformation.
It is a just remark of Bishop Burnet.f. that this appeared
so early as the days of Charles the Great himself. “He
had raised the church so high, and given it such dominions,
and had, by so many repeated laws, established their juris-
diction and temporalities, that it was not perhaps in his
power, chiefly in his old age, when the vigour and heat of
his spirits had failed, to rectify what was amiss.”
To this, I think, all the other parts of this prophetic de-
scription will agree, as we shall more fully see hereafter.
Nor does it much differ from the opinions of Mr. Mede,
Waple, Whiston, and Daubuz. It supposes this description
to mean the same body of men, the clergy, subordinate to
the pope, promoting his power and authority; it only takes
in a point of view, and period of time, more agreeable to
the order and circumstances of the prophetic description.
* Ver. 13.] The idolatry of the church of Rome has
been greatly supported by a pretence to miracles, though
the most of them have plain marks of falsehood and im-
* I Kings xviii. 37, 38.
+ 2 Kings i. 10. 12.
f Rights of Princes, p. 135.
and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their
hand, or in their foreheads:
(16.) The obligation of this entire submission and obe-
dience to the papal decrees was carried so high, that every
person, of whatever rank or condition, was to make some
public acknowledgment of it, as servants were used to be
marked by their masters, or as persons consecrated to some
heathen deity were used to mark themselves with some fi-
gure, as a badge, denoting the deity to whom they were
consecrated.
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that
had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the num-
ber of his name.
(17.) It was made so penal, for any to omit this profes-
sion of obedience to the papal constitutions, that no man
was permitted to buy or sell, but was deprived of all com-
merce with men, and civil privileges of life, if he did not,
some way or other, make this profession.”
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understand-
ing count the number of the beast: for it is the num-
ber of a man; and his number is Six hundred three-
score and six.
(18.) It will be a considerable point of knowledge, in this
mystical description, to find out, by a given number, the
name of this beast, so as to know when this idolatrous tyran-
nical power shall arise ; and from thence know what power
is meant by this prophetical representation. Now there is
a certain number, which, in a way of reckoning usual among
º will teach it ; that number is six hundred and sixty-
Slx.
posture; yet the Roman church is so fond of a pretence to
miracles, that it has made it one of the marks of the true
church, and has persuaded the credulous, ignorant, and
Superstitious, to believe it, who are always the larger number
of mankind.
* Ver. 17.] Many learned men have thought these ex-
pressions relate to the manner in which Ptolemy Philopater
persecuted the Jews ; “He forbade any to enter into his
palace, who did not sacrifice to the gods he worshipped :
whereby he excluded the Jews all access to him, either for
the suing to him for justice, or the obtaining of his protec-
tion in what case soever they should stand in need of it.”
He ordered by another decree, “That all of the Jewish na-
tion that lived in Alexandria should be degraded from the
first rank of citizens, of which they had always hitherto
been from the first founding of the city, and be enrolled in
the third lank, among the common people of Egypt; that
all of theid should come thus to be enrolled, and at the time
of their enrolment have the mark of an ivy-leaf, the badge
of the god Bacchus, by a hot iron impressed upon them ;
and that all those who should refuse to be thus enrolled, and.
be stigmatized with the said mark, should be made slaves;
and that if any of them should stand out against this decree
he should be put to death.” Thus the history is related by
Dr. Prideaux, * from the third book of the Maccabees.
* Ver, 18.] The number six hundred and sixty-six is
given as a number by which the name of the beast may be
found out. The number is designed to have some sort of
secrecy in it. The number itself is the same in all the
places of units, tens, and hundreds, 666. This some have
observed as a part of the mystery; but they should have
observed, that though this is true in the English way of
numeration, the original does not use three figures, but three
different letters of the Greek alphabet, x : 5. Prophetic
numbers will often require some skill in calculation ; to find
out, for instance, when days are to be taken for years, or
º what time any particular calculation is to take its
ate.
In the application of this number, some wisdom will be
required ; perhaps it will principally lie in finding out after
what manner the calculation is to be made. The exhorta-
tion, “Let him that hath understanding count the number
of the beast,” seems to intimate, that if men hit on the right
* Connex. par. ii. lib. ii., B. C. 216.
CHAPTER XIII.
1069
way of counting or calculating, they will find the meaning
of it; for “it is the number of a man,” a way in which
men are used to number, says Mr. Waple, as the “measure
of a man,” is a measure in use among men (Rev. xxi. 17):
and “to write with a man's pen,” is to write with such a
pen, and with such characters as are in use among men (Isa.
viii. 1).
i. great authority of Irenaeus, who wrote so near the
time, within less than a hundred years of the Revelation
itself, and whose master Polycarp was a disciple of St. John,
gave great weight to his opinion. Many have taken his
manner of counting for granted, that it must be some name,
the letters of which will make the number six hundred and
sixty-six. And many have been satisfied in the name he
proposes to answer this number, which is the Greek word
Attºrf typº.
There had been more reason to follow Irenaeus, had Ire-
naeus himself been fully satisfied in his own interpretation.
It is justly observed by the Bishop of Meaux,” that
Irenaeus does not propose his opinion with any authority as
an interpretation coming from John, but as a conjecture of
his own. Farther, Irenaeus mentions two other names as
answering this number, besides Lateinos ; Euanthas and
Teitam. He expressly adds, that he is not positive in that
matter; and gives this reason for it, if it had been necessary
to know the name exactly, John would himself have re-
vealed it more clearly. Nec asseverantes pronunciabimus,
hoc eum nomen habiturum, scientes quonian, si oporteret
manifesté praesenti tempore praeconari nomen ejus, peripsum
utique editum fuisset, qui et Apocalypsim viderat, neque
enim ante multum temporis visum est, sed pené sub nostro
seculo, ad finem Domitiani imperii.” Thus expressly does
Irenaeus+ himself declare, that he delivers his opinion only
as a conjecture of his own, and that he knew no particular
interpretation of it from John.
This number has been found out in so many other names,
that this way of reckoning may seem at least very uncer-
tain. The Bishop of Meaux finds the number six hundred
and sixty-six, in the words DIoCLES AVGVSTVs; Grotius
in the word OYATIIox, Ulpius, the name of Trajan; Mr.
Daubuz finds it in the Hebrew word nºn, or Roman ; and
besides many other names F. Feuardentius + mentions, in
his annotations on this passage of Irenaeus, he finds, the
number six hundred and sixty six, in the name of Martin
Lauter, which, he says, was the original way of spelling the
name of Luther. He farther finds the same number in the
word MoAMETIs, as he chooses to spell the name of Moham-
med. Many more instances may be seen in Calmet.S
Every one may be sensible, with Irenaeus, there is much
uncertainty in this way of reckoning ; it is with him, suspi-
cari et divinare nomina, quandô multa nomina inveniri pos-
sunt, habentia praedictum numerum. And this makes him
so cautious, not to appear positive in delivering his own
opinion.
Many learned persons have thought, that this way of
counting the number of the beast, is not the true secret of
calculation. They observe another method of calculation
used in this prophecy. One hundred and forty-four thou-
sand is the mystical number of Christ's kingdom, or the true
church. It is agreed by interpreters, this number is a square
number, raised from twelve as the root ; for twelve, multi-
plied by itself, gives one hundred and forty-four. Twelve
is a remarkable number in the Christian church, on account
of the twelve apostles, on whose doctrines the faith and
worship of the church is built: as it was a remarkable num-
ber in the Jewish church, on account of the twelve patri-
archs, heads of the twelve tribes of Israel; and as the
twenty-four elders seem to be these two numbers added
together, Mr. Potter, therefore, and many who follow him,
think this number of the beast ought to be calculated in
* Pref. p. 58.
+ Irenaeus, adv. Haereses, lib. v. cap. 30.
† Feuardentii Annot. in Iren. p. m. 486.
§ Diss, sur l'Antichrist, vol. i. p. 763. | Irenaeus, ib.
like manner. They observe, this number of the kingdom
of antichrist is to be raised from the number twenty-five,
which is not an exact square root, but gives six hundred and
twenty-five, near enough to six-hundred and sixty-six, which
is not a precise square number. They farther observe,
that twenty-five is a very remarkable number in the anti-
christian Roman state, describing the papacy in many of
its most essential parts, the particulars of which may
be seen at large in Mr. Potter's discourse, and in other
authors from him. But this way of calculation is not with-
out its difficulties and uncertainty, any more than the former.
May there not be another method of calculation, more
natural and easy than either of the forementioned P A num-
ber that shall show the time of his becoming the beast, to
use Mr. Waple's words 2 The learned Grotius seems to
have had such a method of counting this number in his
view, when he explains the words of the prophecy by the
time when idolatry shall revive, and recover strength : Qui
Sapit, notet tempus idololatriae, animos et vires resumentis ;
ubi id evenerit, apparebit Christi praescientia. -
The number six hundred and sixty-six may then be a
number, which, counted from a given period in prophecy,
may very nearly point out the time when this wild beast
shall arise, or when the forty-two months are to begin ; in
which period, power was given him to make war with the
Saints, and to overcome them. Thus, the years in Daniel
were to be computed “from the going forth of the com-
mandment” (Dan. ix. 25), and the time of the coming of
the Messiah was to be learned from that calculation.
If we thus compute the number six hundred and sixty-
six, from the time of this prophetic vision, we shall find it
falls in exactly enough with the time wherein the papacy re-
ceived the temporal power, and became the beast, or was
constituted the last government of Rome, which is a prin-
cipal character of the beast in this prophecy.
The new government of Rome was erected A. D. 756:
taking the general received opinion, that the time of this Re-
velation was about A. D. 94, counting six hundred and sixty-
Six years from that date, will be A. D. 760, within four years
of the time wherein the beast is supposed to rise. And this
small difference will be easily accounted for, either by allow-
ing some small uncertainty as to the time of vision, or some
small variation from the precise year, for the sake of making
the number just six hundred and sixty-six, which has more
of the air of a prophetical number than six hundred and
sixty-two. Possibly this number may reach four years be-
yond the investiture, to take in the full and actual posses-
sion of what was granted to the church, as St. Peter's
patrimony.
This way of counting is sufficiently certain to determine
who the beast is, as it points out the time when he was to
receive his power, with such certainty, that it cannot be mis-
taken; with as much certainty as Daniel's weeks pointed out
the time of the coming of the Messiah.
And it is a considerable part of knowledge in this pro-
phecy, and would have prevented many mistakes, into which
many good and learned men have fallen, with respect to the
time when the power of the beast was to begin, and by con-
sequence when it was to end, to have observed, that this
number was to be a period of years, from the time of the vi-
sion, before which the beast was not to receive his power;
and that from the end of that period, he was to continue one
thousand two hundred and sixty years. -
Nor ought this method of calculation to be set aside, as
new and singular; Grotius, we have already seen, seems to
have had it in his thoughts. The very learned and industri-
ous Calmet takes notice of this way of computation ex-
pressly, that some have thought the number of the beast
does not signify the cipher of the beast, but the time when
he was to appear. Que le nombre de 666 ne marquait pas
ici le chiffre de la bête, mais le tems auquel elle devait
paraître.*
* Calmet, Annot. in loc.
1070
REVELATION.
SECTION XII.
HISTORY OF THE THIRD PERIOD.
The three foregoing chapters, xi. xii., xiii., are a prophetic
description of the third period: they represent the state of
providence, and the church, in so many views, in which so
many particulars are to concur, that if they shall be found
to answer exactly, in time and circumstances, to real his-
torical facts, it will add great weight to the prophecy, to
the directions, exhortations, and encouragements, designed
by it, to faithfulness and constancy in the Christian faith and
worship, to patience in persecution, to hope and trust in the
care and power of God, who will assuredly make good all his
promises, and encourage us to consider all the prophecies of
this book as such.
The prophetic description of this period is the largest and
most particular of any, and points out the time when it is to
begin and when it is to end with greater exactness. The
state of the church in this period is agreeable, in general, to
the representation of the church in the foregoing periods; a
state of danger and persecution, from the enemies of truth
and righteousness, under the influence of Satan, endeavour-
ing to deceive the world, and to corrupt it by idolatrous
doctrines and worship.
It is represented as a state wherein the number of faithful
confessors shall be few, yet enough to bear testimony to the
truth, and preserve it, though they shall be persecuted unto
death for their testimony, which yet shall continue twelve
hundred and sixty years, in spite of all endeavours to sup-
press it; and, in that space of time, the providence of God
shall often appear to vindicate their cause, by severe and
heavy judgments on their enemies: and this afflicted state of
the church shall end at the last, in victory, peace, and hap-
piness.
The church is farther represented in this period in a state
of danger, like the Israelites in the wilderness, or like the
prophet Elijah in the persecution of Ahab; that it will have
no safety but in places of secresy and retirement ; or, as
David was forced to fly for refuge to the wilderness, from the
persecution of Saul, so the woman flies into the wilderness
from the dragon, who was ready to devour her. In this re-
tirement, the church shall be preserved; so that no attempts
of error to corrupt it, or of persecution to destroy it, shall
prevail against it.
riod is most particular, in the account it gives of the means
by which the church, in this period, shall be brought into
such danger, and the faithful confessors of truth be so op-
pressed and persecuted. -
It describes therefore in this period the rise of a new
idolatrous and persecuting power; it describes it by so many
and so particular circumstances, as distinctly show the time
when it is to arise, the place where it is to have its seat of
empire, the manner in which it shall use its authority, and
how long it shall continue; and these are, on many accounts,
So uncommon and extraordinary, that nothing but a true
Spirit of prophecy could foresee or foretell: for it repre-
sents this new idolatrous persecuting power in these re-
markable particulars.
It is a new government or dominion, arising out of the com-
motions occasioned by the invasion of the Roman empire.
It was a new government to arise after the imperial go-
vernment had ceased, and Rome had been under another
form of goverment, which was to continue for a short time.
It was a new government to arise, after the Roman em-
pire was cantoned and divided into several distinct kingdoms,
or into ten independent royalties and dominions. It was a
dominion, to be erected in the city of Rome, so as to make
the city founded on seven hills, and once mistress of the
world, a seat of empire again in this new government. It
was to be a new dominion arising in Rome, at a time when
all human views represented the power of Rome so totally
subverted, as not to allow any hope of its recovery.
It was to be a government resembling the former Roman
empire, in propagating idolatrous doctrines and worship, in
opposing the truth, and oppressing all who should make pro-
fession of it. -
But the prophetic description of this pe- |
The power and authority of this new Roman government.
were to be supported and extended by another power like
unto it in nature and kind, by pretended miracles and
wonders, and by outward force, obliging all people to sub-
mit to the authority of this new erected empire in the city
of Rome. This new dominion is to continue the persecution
of the true church for the space of twelve hundred and sixty
years. -
And it is a goverment which they, who have wisdom in
the calculation of numbers, according to the usage of scrip-
ture prophecy, may find out by the number 666.
These severaſ particulars appear in the description itself,
as we have seen in the foregoing explanation of it.
Are there then any real historical facts, that answer to all
these various and circumstantial descriptions of prophecy P
If there are, they will greatly confirm the truth of the Reve-
lation, and should awaken our attention to the design and
meaning of it. -
The two former periods ended two states of danger to the
Christian church; the first, from the opposition of the hea-
then Roman emperors, by the conversion of Constantine,
about A. D. 322. The second danger was from the heathen
northern nations who invaded the Roman empire, but who
were converted to Christianity themselves, and received it in
their several dominions; and from a greater danger, by the
surprising progress of the Mahometans, from which this
western part of the world was delivered, by that memorable
battle in which Charles Martel defeated their numerous
army, and slew three hundred and fifty thousand of them,
A. D. 734.
About this time, several of the characters of the first
beast which rose out of sea exactly fall in together.
This is a period of time, when the imperial government of
Rome entirely passed away. Momyllus, or Augustulus, the
last of the Roman emperors, was deposed, and the kingdom
of the Goths was established in Italy; the exarchate of Ra-
venna had taken from Rome all show of authority, and
Rome had been governed, for some time, as a small duchy,
in all things subject to it, as a parcel of the exarchate.
This seemed a mortal wound to the city of Rome; so that
when the exarchate was conquered by the Lombards, A. D.
752, Aistulphus claimed Rome, as belonging to the exar-
chate. -
At this time, the Roman empire was cantoned out,” and
divided into many separate and independent kingdoms; so
that the ten kingdoms, in the prophetic description, were
ready to support this new dominion of Rome with their
power. -
About this time, the exarchate of Ravenna, which, for
some years, kept up a show of Roman government in Italy,
under the lieutenants of the Greek empire, was subdued by
the kingdom of the Lombards, and that form of government
was never revived again. -
These very remarkable circumstances, which were all to
fall in together at this time, appear to agree very well with
the known truth of history. -
And if we calculate the number 666 from the year 94,
the time of the vision, it falls in with the time in which the
order of the prophecies directs us to place the beginning of
this period. -
. But let us proceed, and farther consider some extraor-
dinary events, which happened at the same time, and which
answer to the most particular circumstances of the prophetic
description,
We find in history, that the exarchate of Ravenna was
conquered by Aistulphus king of the Lombards, A. D. 752.
Upon this conquest, he claims Rome as a part of it, marches
to besiege the city; and Rome, which had been so long in
subjection to the exarchate, was, in all human probability,
like to remain in subjection to the kingdom of the Lom-
bards: nor was there any reasonable prospect of defending
itself, or preserving its own liberty, much less of rising to
empire and dominion.
* Wid. Preface,
CHAPTER XIII.
107]
But the pope, who had lately obliged Pepin of France,”
flies to him for protection.
Pepin undertakes to support the pope, enters Italy, forces
Aistulphus not only to quit all claim to the city of Rome,
but to give up the exarchate of Ravenna to Rome ; which,
after some contest, was solemnly ratified, A. D. 756.
Thus Rome acquired a new state and dominion in this
new patrimony of St. Peter, of which Rome became the
seat and capital; and thus, contrary to all expectation, a new
form of Roman government arose, which has continued now
for near a thousand years: so that this new unexpected go-
vernment of Rome has already continued longer than any
preceding form of government whatever, and has continued
in this extraordinary form of government, without any alter-
ation, when the several kingdoms of Europe, especially the
several states of Italy, have often changed their masters,
and altered the very forms and constitutions of their govern-
ment. s,
That this new Roman government has proved a perse-
cuting power, promoting idolatrous doctrines and worship,
will appear, with the plainest evidence, from history.
About this time, superstition was running fast into idola-
try; the worship of images, the most common act of hea-
then idolatry, though expressly forbid by the second com-
mandment, began to be received among Christians. The
emperor Leo endeavoured to put a stop to it in the eastern
empire; he appointed, by an edict in the year 730, to take
all images out of the churches, and burnt them, says Du-
pin ::f an author whom I the rather choose to use in this
historical account, because of his religion as a papist, that
his testimony may be freer from all suspicion.
His son Constantine Copronymus followed his father's ex-
ample, called a council at Constantinople, A. D. 754, of
three hundred and thirty-eight bishops, who made a decree
against the worship of images. This council, says Dupin,
was not received in the church of Rome, but the emperor
ordered his decree to be executed in all parts of the east.
When Irene became mistress of the eastern empire, she
resolved upon a new council at Nice, to which she invited
pope Adrian, about the year 787. The pope's legates had
the first place ; Tarasius, patriarch of Constantinople, the
second ; and the deputies of the bishops of the east, the
third.
the worship of images. The council proceeded to decree,
that the images of Jesus Christ, the holy Virgin, angels,
and saints, were to be placed in churches, to renew their
memory, and express the veneration men have for them;
and to salute, honour, and worship them, but not with that
adoration which is peculiar to the divine nature.:
Thus ready and zealous were the popes to promote the
worship of images: as soon as the acts of the council were
brought to Rome, the pope sent extracts of them to France;
Charles, then king of France, caused the extracts to be exa-
mined by the bishops of his kingdom ; they composed a
treatise, which was published in the name of Charles the
Great, against the decision of the council at Nice ; Charles
sent this treatise to Rome, and presented it to pope Adrian
by Engilbert; but the pope returned an answer, in which he
maintained the decrees of the council of Nice.
The authority of the pope could not however carry his
point in France, at that time : a council was held at Frank-
fort, in the year 794, in which the worship of images was
debated, and the council condemned all sort of adoration or
worship of images. France and Germany continued long to
follow this council of Frankfort, in opposition to the council
of Nice, and authority of the pope.| g
It may be of use to remark this opposition to the worship
of images, at the beginning of it, for two reasons; the one,
to show that it was all along supported by the authority of
the pope, and at length established by their power. The
other, to show in this memorable instance, that “the earth
helped the woman;” the western princes opposed themselves
to the pope's authority, gave time and opportunity to the
f
The letters of pope Adrian were read, approving of :
church to confirm the faithful worshippers of God, against
this dangerous idolatry, which has been so much increased
since, and so fully established by the popes in the councils of
Lateran and Trent. , .
The council of Lateran confirmed the doctrine of transub-
stantiation, after it had been long contested and opposed in
the church. Verum Christi corpus et sanguis, in Sacramento
altaris, sub speciebus panis et vini veracitér continentur,
transubstantiatis, pane in corpus, et vino in Sanguinem, po-
testate diviná.”
This doctrine being thus settled, the proper adoration of
the sacrament of the altar was an easy consequence. The
council of Trent therefore, over and above the adoration of
images and invocation of saints, expressly requires the same
adoration of the consecrated elements, as are due to the su-
preme God himself. Nullus itaque dubitanda locus relin-
quitur, quin omnes Christi fideles, pro more in catholică
ecclesiá Semper recepto, latriae cultum, qui vero Deo debetur,
huic sanctissimo Sacramento in veneratione exhibeant.——
Nam illum eundem Deum, praesentem in eo adesse credimus,
quem pater asternus introducensin orbem terrarum, dicit, Et
adorent eum omnes angeli Dei.i.
Innumerable instances of history will farther show, how
far this new Roman power has supported idolatry by perse-
cution; which is a principal part of the prophetic descrip-
tion. They have not only practised persecution on many
occasions, but they have given it the solemn sanction of ge-
neral councils. By the council of Lateran, all are declared
heretics who oppose their decisions, which they call, “the
holy, orthodox, and catholic faith;” of which the doctrine of
transubstantiation and the worship of the bread and wine
were declared a part. They excommunicate and anathe-
matize all whom they have thus made heretics. Thus con-
demned, they are given over to the secular powers to be
punished: and all the civil powers are obliged to take an oath,
on pain of ecclesiastical censures, that they will endeavour
to exterminate all who are declared heretics by the church,
out of their dominions; and if any civil power shall refuse
to do so, after admonition, it shall be certified by the pope,
who shall declare all his subjects absolved from their alle-
giance ; and declare, it is free for any catholic to seize his
dominions, and exterminate the heretics, to preserve it in the
purity of the truth. Si verö dominus temporalis, requisitus
et monitus ab ecclesia, forsan Suam purgare neglexerit ab
hâc haretică foeditate, per metropolitanum et comprovinciales
episcopos excommunicationis Vinculo innodetur, et si satis-
facere contempserit intra annum, significetur hoc summo
pontifici, ut ex tunc, ipse vassallos ab ejus fidelitate de-
nunciat absolutos, et terram exponat catholicis occupan-
dam; qui eam, exterminatis haereticis, sine ulla contradictione
possideant, et in fidei puritate conservent:
We have a remarkable instance how this decree has been
executed, in the case of the Count of Toulouse, for not sup-
pressing the Albigenses in his dominions: an army of cross-
bearers was raised against him by the pope's means: it
consisted, according to Mezeray, Ś of five hundred thousand
persons (though, he supposes, not all soldiers), among which
were five or six bishops. They took the town of Beziers,
and put all to the sword, to the number of sixty thousand
persons; pursuing the war with like cruelty and fury in many
other places. And Montfort, the general of this holy war,
was rewarded with the greatest part of the Count of Tou-
louse's dominions; having deposed him, as a favourer of here-
tics, he was, for his good service, declared lord of all the
countries he had conquered.
Immediately after this famous decree of a general council
for persecution, and as a comment upon it, the inquisition
began:| Dominic was made first inquisitor by pope Inno-
cent III. This “holy office,” in the style of the Roman
court, has improved the methods of persecution far beyond
what was known in the days of ancient Babylon and Rome,
and has long been the most dreadful and barbarous tribunal
the world ever saw, for all ensnaring arts of injustice in
* Vid. Prof.
+ Hist. de l'Eglise, viii. siècle, vol. ii. p. 540.
: Ibid. p. 547.
§ Ibid. p. 548.
| Ibid. p. 550.
* Concil. Lateran. can. i. de Fide Catholică.
+ Concil. Trident. Sect. xiii. cap. 5.
f Concil. Lateran. can. iii. de Haereticis.
§ Hist. de France, ad an. 1209.
| Limborch, Hist. Inquisit. lib, i. cap. 11.
1072
REVELATION. .
persecution, all inhuman severity and cruelty in punishment;
as is evidently proved at large, in Limborch's History of the
Inquisition. -
To show, in one instance more, how exactly this persecut-
ing power answers every particular of the prophetic descrip-
tion, I shall just mention the bull of pope Martin W. which
directs the persecution of the followers of Wickliffe, John
Huss, and Jerome of Prague. “We will and command, that,
by this our authority apostolical, ye exhort and admonish all
the professors of the catholic faith, as emperors, kings, dukes,
princes, &c. that they expel out of their kingdoms, provinces,
cities, towns, &c. all and all manner of heretics, according to
the effect and tenor of the council of Lateran. That they
suffer none such within their shires or circuits, to preach, or
to keep either house or family, either yet to use any handi-
craft or occupation, or other trades of merchandize, or else
to solace themselves any ways, or frequent the company of
Christian men. And furthermore, if such public and known
heretics shall chance to die (although not so denounced by
the church), yet in this so great a crime, let him and them
want Christian burial. The residue let the foresaid tem-
poral lords, &c. take amongst them, with condign deaths,
without any delay to punish.” They are enjoined to pun-
ish heretics with condign death ; that is, they were to com-
mit them to the flames, and burn them.
It is moreover to be observed, as a farther agreement with
the prophetical description, that this tyrannical power, sup-
porting idolatrous doctrines and worship by persecution, was
greatly assisted by another like power, in which, as in the
papacy, both spiritual and temporal authority were united.
Many bishops, especially the bishops of Germany, had
large temporal dominions bestowed upon them, in which
they have regal and sovereign authority; they receive ho-
mage, and an oath of fealty, from their subjects; they have
the supreme power of the sword, both in the punishment of
their subjects, and in making war; they coin money, levy
taxes, make treaties with the other states of the empire, and
with foreign princes; and have all the rights of sovereignty,
in as full manner as any of the secular electors or princes of
the empire.
A very great part of Germany is thus in the hands of ec-
clesiastical persons, with temporal jurisdiction. It has been
observed, that in about seventy years, from A. D. 936 to
1002, the three Othos, who succeeded each other in the en-
pire, gave two-thirds of the estates of Germany to ecclesi-
astics; as Heiss,' a Roman catholic historian, informs us,
On remarque même, que son grandpère, son père, et lui,
ont donné aux ecclesiastiques les deux tiers des biens d’Al-
lemagne. - - º
These ecclesiastical princes of Germany, notwithstanding
their temporal sovereignty, have great dependence on the
popes; they are obliged to send immediately to Rome, for a
confirmation of their elections; and to omit it, is a reason
sufficient for the popes to set aside their election as defective;
and to take care of the church, or present to it, in case they
should find their elections uncanonical.f
Besides their dependence upon the popes, their interests
were so mutually linked together, that they supported them
as one common interest with all their joint powers. It would
be tedious to enter into a detail of particular instances; I
shall only mention one, in the warm contest between the
popes and emperors, about investitures.
Hildebrand, a man of business and intrigue, of a bold and
pushing temper, was chosen pope about A. D. 1073, by the
name of Gregory VII. He resolved to wrest out of the
hands of the emperors the investiture of bishops, a power
they had long been possessed of, to nominate the bishops in
their dominions, and put them into the possession of their
bishoprics and estates. The pope resolved to take this
power from the emperors, as a thing unjust and sacrilegious;
but the true motive, as Mezeray; honestly observes, was a
design upon the empire of Italy, and to subject all princes
to the power of the papacy. Son vrai motif Était le desir
de l'empire d’Italie, et d'asservir tous les princes sous la
puissance pontificale. -
* Fox, Acts and Monuments, vol. i. p. 738.
+ Hist. de l'Empire, lib. ii. cap. 5, an. 1002.
: Heiss, lib. v. cap. 2. § Hist. de France, A. D. 1095.
The quarrel between the pope and Henry IV., then em-
peror, ran so high, that the pope excommunicated and de-
posed him ; and procured Rodolf, duke of Burgundy and
Swevia, to be chosen emperor in his place. Many of the
ecclesiastical princes, with Sigifrid, archhishop of Mentz, at
the head of them, abjured Henry, took up arms against him,
and vowed perpetual enmity. Thus an historian of great
reputation:* Atque hi omnes quos memoravimus, ad Saxones
sine cunctatione, desertà Caesaris optimatumque causā, defi-
ciunt. Ad praetextum mutatae voluntatis religionem obten-
dunt, Henricum communi concilio abjurant, se perpetud ejus
fore hostes, quoad vita suppetet, jurejurando sanciunt ; pos-
teå arma capessunt, Caesari insidiantur ; ejus rebus studentes
oppugnant ; insontes, et qui neutri parti favebant, qui fidem
regi servabant, rebellare recusabant, pacem et otium bello
praeferebant, armis se commiscere abnuebant, Simoniaci,
Nicolaitae, haeretici appellabantur, proscribuntur, in scelera-
torum numero habentur, aris, sacris, convivio, colloquio, sup-
pliciis, a conspectii conjuratorum arcentur. So zealous were
they to cause all, both small and great, to submit to the de-
crees and authority of the pope.
After the death of Rodolf, the legate of the pope, then
Pascal II., excommunicates the emperor again ; upon which
the diet deposed the emperor, and chose his son Henry
(whom they had prevailed upon to rebel against his own father,
and assist in dethroning him) for emperor in his room. The
archbishops of Mentz and Cologne were deputed, with the
bishop of Worms, to take the crown and imperial ornaments
from the emperor ; which they executed accordingly. Sigo-
nius himself, a very zealous papist, thus reports it: Henri-
cum mox, Moguntinus, Coloniensis, et Wormaciensis, antis-
tites, ā conventù missi, adierunt, eumque nomine omnium
imperatoria insignia sibi reddere imperárunt, quibus filium
ejus induerent. Then alleging some crimes against the church,
in his appointment of bishops, said to be committed by him,
they added, Ob has res, pontifici et principibus Germaniae
placuit, tenon piorum communione solum, sed regni posses-
sione etiam, deturbare.j:
Henry V. having thus usurped his father's empire, was
very careful at first to please the court of Rome, and favour
the ecclesiastical states in all things; but, in some time, con-
sidering that the papal party only made use of him for their
own ends, resolved to stand up for the honour and authority
of the empire. The quarrel grew warm between him and
pope Pascal. The emperor enters Rome, takes the pope
prisoner, with several cardinals. The pope, in this distress,
consents to yield the investitures, in great measure, to the
emperor; and together with the sixteen cardinals, confirmed
it by oath on the evangelists. The pope kept up appear-
ances outwardly, but secretly managed by his legates to
break his engagements. Hereupon, the better part of the
ecclesiastical princes of the empire would not receive the
agreement. Albert, who had been the emperor's chancellor,
and whom he had lately made archbishop of Mentz, moved
by the pope's legates, who everywhere stirred up the bishops
to arms against the emperor, as a person excommunicated,
carried on such intrigues in the following diets of the empire,
that they decreed, the pope had a right to revoke his agree-
ment in a council.]]
The pope accordingly assembled a council at Lateran,
A. D. 1112, which burned the agreement between the pope
and emperor, and excommunicated the emperor. Upon
which the archbishops, bishops, prelates, and chapters, re-
solved to maintain themselves, in disposing their vacant be-
nefices, by their own election, without any regard to the
emperor. T Albert, or Adelbert, archbishop of Mentz,
formed a powerful league against the emperor. Haec au-
tem ubi trans Alpes perlata sunt (the decrees of the Late-
ran council) archiepiscopus Viennensis grave in Henricum
anathema explicuit, et Moguntinus, cum quibusdam prin-
cipibus, apertam contra eundem conjurationem inivit. **
* Aventini Annal, lib. v. p. 455.
+ Heiss, Hist. de l'Empire, A.D. 1106.
f Sigon. de Regno Italiae, p. 238. § Ibid. p. 243.
| Heiss, lib. ii. cap. 40, A. D. 1112.
Aſ Ibid.
** Sigonius, de Regno Italiae, p. 250. Aventin. lib, vi.
p. 489.
º
CHAPTER XIII.
1073
The infidelity of the archbishop of Mentz, against his
former master and benefactor (as Heiss * himself, a Roman
catholic, observes), was carried on under pretence of the
interest of the church, and was supported by the intrigues of
Rome; and proceeded so far, that armies on both sides took ||
the field, and were near an engagement: when, to avoid the
effusion of blood, and mischiefs of civil war, the emperor
was forced to submit to the decision of another council at
Rome. This council was held at Lateran, A. D. 1122, and,
as was to be expected from such a method of deciding a
question between the emperor and pope, it was decided for
the pope, in favour of the ecclesiastical elections, and against
the emperor's right of nomination and investiture.
Thus the great contested point was gained by the popes;
in obtaining which, the ecclesiastical princes of the empire
exercised the power of the ecclesiastical prince of Rome
before him; and “caused the earth, and them that dwell
therein, to worship him,” and submit themselves to his au-
thority. -
There are two other considerable parts of the prophetical
description, the historical accomplishment of which we are
also to inquire after.
woman flying into the wilderness.
Several learned persons have shown, at large, a continual
succession of faithful witnesses to the truth of the Christian
faith, and who have borne testimony against the usurped
authority of the popes, their idolatrous doctrines and
worship, which are the main points of the antichristian
apostasy.
A very great part of the church, from the beginning, op-
posed the worship of images: the council of Frankfort
solemnly declared against all manner of adoration. On
condamna toute sorte d'adoration, ou de culte des images.”
In every after age, some persons appeared in opposition
to the idolatrous principles and practices countenanced in
the church of Rome, and against the tyrannical persecuting
power used in support of them. .
In the following age, between the years 800 and 900,
Claude Clement, bishop of Turin, a disciple of Felix Urgel,
opposed not only the worship of images, but all religious
use of them. And though Jonas, bishop of Orleans, and
others, wrote against Claude, as carrying the point too far,
yet, as Dupin + observes, they disallowed all worship of
images.
In the same age, about A. D. 931, Paschase taught the
real presence in the sacrament, a doctrine that soon became
the foundation of another idolatrous practice, in the wor-
ship of the consecrated bread and wine. No sooner was
this doctrine published, but many found fault with it ; par-
ticularly Ratramme, a monk of Corbie, wrote a book on
purpose against it. John Scott, being also consulted by the
emperor Charles the Bald, opposed the explication of Pas-
chase ; and, Dupin § allows, advanced propositions con-
trary to the doctrine of the church, concerning the real pre-
sence. Their opposition was not only to some expressions
of Paschase, as the church of Rome would persuade, but to
the doctrine itself, as it is received and taught in the church
of Rome.
In the next age, the tenth, there remained many disciples
of Claude of Turin, who, in the parts about Piedmont es-
pecially, preserved and maintained his doctrine against the
worship of saints and images: || or, as Aurelius Rorencus, a
Piedmontese historian, observes, from the times of Claude
of Turin, that heresy continued throughout the ninth and
tenth ages.
There were many also in the same age who adhered to
the doctrines of Ratramne, against the real presence, in the
English church, as well as others. Odo, archbishop of Can-
terbury, about the year 934, found many who questioned it ;
so that he was fain to eure their infidelity by miracles; for
according to the tale, he actually changed the bread into
flesh, and the wine into blood, and then turned them back
again to their proper forms. Plurimos, de veritate Dominici
corporis dubitantes, ita roboravit, ut panem altaris versum in
carnem, vinum calicis in Sanguinem propalām ostenderet, et
* A.D. i 120. Dupin, Hist. de l'Eglise, vol. ii. p. 548.
†: Vol. iii. p. 6. - . § Vol. ii. p. 50
|| Spanheim, I list, Eccles. p. 1472.
• P.
51.
3. g
They are the two witnesses, and the
denuo in genuinam speciem retorta, usui humano conduci-
bilia faceret. * -
I mention this instance the rather, as it is not only a proof
that the doctrine of the real presence was opposed, but as
it also shows what use was made of pretended miracles, to
deceive men'; as it is one part of the prophetical descrip-
tion, that the world should be deceived by such miracles “to
worship the beast.” St. Dunstan, his successor, took the
same course of deceiving the world ; he was, in particular,
famous for taking the devil by the nose, with a hot pair of
tongs; a crucifix is said to have made a speech in favour of
his zeal against the married clergy. Such mighty wonders
as these had a great influence on men's minds, in those days
of darkness and superstition. .
And it may not be amiss to observe, once for all, that
these miracle-stories are of such consequence in the Roman
church,+ that they are expressly made one of the marks of
the true church. But to return : &
In the next age, the eleventh, besides the many who ad-
hered to the doctrines of Claude of Turin, Ratramme, and
Scott ; ; Berenger, favoured by Bishop Bruno, publicly
opposed the real presence, and had many disciples. He was
| excommunicated, and his writings condemned, together with
Scott's book, in a council held at Paris, about the year
1050 ; and the doctrine of Berenger was condemned as he-
retical. The council decreed the author of that heresy, and
his followers, should be obliged to retract it, or be prosecuted
to death.Ş
How far soever Berenger might be prevailed upon by
force to soften the doctrines he published, which is usually
represented by papists as retracting them; Dupin + acknow-
ledges, that if he did really change his opinion, it could
not be but a little before his death ; that his doctrines occa-
sioned a considerable controversy in his life, and many of
his disciples continued firm to it after his death.
In like manner, in the following twelfth age, Dupin'ſ ob-
serves in general, “There were many heretics (as he calls
them), in many places, who openly attacked the sacraments
of the church, and despised her most holy ceremonies ; that
the severity with which they who were taken were punished,
did not hinder the sect from increasing: that their doctrines
spread through all the kingdom of France; many heretics
appeared, whose chief view was to dissuade men from com-
munion with the church in its sacraments, and to overturn
its hierarchy, order, and discipline.” *
To omit particular persons, historians place in this age
the Vaudois and Albigeois: the one so called from Peter
Waldo, a merchant of Lyons ; the other, from the city of
Albi, in the diocese of Toulouse, to which a great number
retired for safety from persecution.
These Waldenses and Albigenses grew numerous and
powerful in the following thirteenth age. Pope Innbcent
III. set himself to put a stop to them ; he not only ap-
pointed his legates to preach against them, but excited the
secular princes and the common people to destroy them. He
published a crusade against them, which occasioned a long
war between Montfort, general of the cross-bearers, and the
count of Toulouse, in which much blood was spilt, and
many lives sacrificed to the support of the pope's authority,
and in defence of idolatrous doctrines and worship. ...
In the next age, the fourteenth, the Vaudois continued
in great numbers, and their opinions spread in almost every
country : John Wickliffe, a man of great reputation in the
university of Oxford, began in England to oppose the power
and authority of the pope, as well as the real presence, and
several particular corruptions of the Roman doctrines and
worship. “He left many writings,” says Dupin,” “to support
his doctrines, and many disciples, who continued to teach
his errors.” Wickliffe was supported during his life by many
great men; but they who followed his doctrines after his
death were very severely persecuted. This occasioned the
spreading of his opinions in Bohemia ; for some of his writ-
* Wilhelmus Malmsbur. de Gest. Pontif. p. 114.
+ Bellarmin. tom, ii. lib. iv. cap. 14.
it Dupin, H. E. vol. iii. p. 146.
§ Ibid. p. 148
| Ibid. p. 151.
** Ibid. p. 457–481.
* Ibid. p. 231.
3 Z
1074.
REVELATION.
ings were carried thither by one of his disciples, Peter
Payn; so that, in a little time, the doctrine of Wickliffe
corrupted, says Dupin,” many members of the university of
Prague. It is also likely, that some of the Vaudois, who
were in many parts of Germany, had also reached Bohemia,
and had spread their doctrines there, at the same time that
Wickliffe taught them in England.
In the next age, the fifteenth, John Huss, a man of great
consideration in the university of Prague, and with him
Jerome of Prague, opposed the condemnation of Wickliffe's
writings. John Huss continued both to preach and write
against the pope, and the corrupt usages of that church, till
both were condemned by the council of Constance, and put
to death.
Their death greatly moved the Bohemians; many of the
nobles of Bohemia and Moravia entered into a league, not
to receive the decrees of the council of Constance, and to
defend the memory of John Huss and Jerome of Prague.
These were called, “the Bohemian brethren.” They were
divided into Calixtins and Taborites; the Calixtins, more
strictly following the opinion of John Huss, principally op-
posed the corruption of the church of Rome in denying the
cup in the sacrament to the laity. The Taborites received
the common principles of the Vaudois and Wickliffe ; de-
nied the doctrine of transubstantiation, the pope's authority,
and most of the corruptions of the church of Rome.
The next age, the sixteenth, brings us to the time of the
protestant Reformation, by Luther, Calvin, and others; the
history of which, and its opposition to the church of Rome,
are so well known, that we need not enter into particulars.
Thus we see how the providence of God raised up wit-
nesses to the truth in every age, who appeared in a public
manner to testify against the general corruption of the
church, its idolatrous doctrines and worship, and its perse-
cuting power, notwithstanding all the arts and cruelties
used to oppress them. -
It may be proper to add a few remarks to this short ac-
count of these faithful witnesses, concerning the doctrines
they maintained, and concerning the number of those who
thus gave testimony to the truth.
Concerning the doctrines they maintained, it is evident,
that Claude of Turin, and his followers in Piedmont, in the
ninth and tenth ages, were express against all worship of
images, one point with which the idolatrous corruption of the
Roman worship began, and in which it still very much
consists; and these idolatrous corruptions seem to be what
the witnesses were chiefly to prophesy against. Now Claude
of Turin believed, says Dupin,' as the Iconoclasts, “that
images ought to be removed out of the churches. In defence
of which doctrine, he opposed the authority of a council, and
of the pope, who confirmed it, and commanded that images
should be everywhere received.”
The doctrines of Ratramne, Scott, and Berenger opposed
the doctrine of the real presence, as soon as it appeared ;
which soon became another occasion of idolatrous worship :
for the council of Trent, as we before observed, decreed the
same worship to the consecrated bread, as is given to the true
God himself. **-
In this opposition to the doctrine of transubstantiation,
the authority of the pope was directly concerned, as well as
the truth of the question ; for both councils and popes had
made use of their authority in it.
Berenger was excommunicated by pope Leo IX.j: in a
council, condemned by the councils of Verceil and Paris,
and again by pope Victor II. : yet, in answer to pope Alex-
ander II., who wrote to him to renounce his error, instead
of obeying, says Dupin,S he boldly acquainted him, he would
do nothing; and remained in his opinions with obstimacy.
It is worth remark, that this Alexander was predecessor to
the notorious Hildebrand, who, when pope, by the name of
Gregory VII., carried the authority of the popes to the
highest pitch, and used it in the most tyrannical manner:
yet this Hildebrand himself treated Berenger with great
mildness, when he had prevailed upon him to make a con-
fession, in words of ambiguous and doubtful meaning (often
* Dupin, vol. iii. p. 484.
+ Ibid. p. 6.
§ P. J.50 # Ibid. p. 147.
the case of subscriptions), though there was so much reason
to believe he had not altered his opinion. This seems to
show, as Mr. Basnage” justly observes, “that they had
a great regard for Berenger ; that his doctrine made great
progress; and that the Roman church itself was greatly
divided about it.”
When we come to the times of the Vaudois and Albigeois,
we met with a great deal of unfair management, to misrepre-
sent them and their opinions. They are charged by some
popish authors, more especially by the Bishop of Meaux,
with holding the doctrines of the Manichees.
It is not to be dissembled, says Basnage," that in the
many parties who opposed the errors and usurped authority
of the popes, there were some Manicheans out of Bulgaria,
who, when driven from thence, spread themselves in Italy,
and the northern provinces of France; but these are in jus-
tice to be distinguished from the Waldenses and Albigenses,
and not confounded with them, as the learned Basmage has
fully proved against the Bishop of Meaux.
Dupin plainly distinguishes the Manichees from the Wau-
dois, and assures us they were much worse heretics. “There
arose,” says he, “at the same time, many particular sects of
heretics worse than the Vaudois, who revived the ancient
errors of the Manichees.” But he observes of the Vaudois,j.
that “they greatly increased in the thirteenth age, notwith-
standing the inquisition, and spread themselves into Arragon,
and the valleys of Piedmont, where they continued still hold-
ing the same doctrines, till they united, in the year 1536,
with CEcolampadius, and the other sacramentaries.”
The judicious French historian, speaking of the Several
sects of those times, observes, it would require a volume to
mention all the sects, their several names and opinions,
which were alike in some points, and different in others ; but
I think, says he,S “they may be reduced to two, viz. the
Albigeois and Vaudois; and that these had very near the
same opinions with those whom we now call Calvinists.”
He farther observes, speaking of the heretics in the pro-
vince of Languedoc, that “there were two sorts; the one
ignorant, given to dissolute manners, with very gross and
foul errors; and these were a sort of Manichees: the other,
more knowing, less irregular, and very far from such foul
actions, held almost the same opinions with the Calvinists,
and were properly Henricians and Vaudois.”
De Serres, iſ another French historian, though he warmly
condemns the Albigeois for their separation from the church
of Rome, yet acknowledges, “he hath seen the reasons of
their separation in a very ancient manuscript, and that they
were perfectly agreeable to those which Wicklife and Luther
renewed ; that they would not own the authority of the
pope, nor acknowledge him to be universal bishop ; that
they rejected images, purgatory, the merit of works, indul-
gences, pilgrimages, vows, celibacy of the clergy, invocation
of saints, and trading with sacred things.”
A contemporary historian, Puy Laurens, has observed
concerning these Vaudois, that “they disputed with great
subtlety against the Manicheans. And, by many of their
ancient writings, it appears they asserted Rome to be Baby-
lon ; that the mass was a pure human invention ; that the
prayers of the living are unprofitable for the dead ; that the
invocation of saints is criminal, and the adoration of bread,
idolatry:” as may be seen at large in Mr. Basnage's excel-
lent History of the Religion of the Reformed Churches. As
to the doctrines taught by Wickliffe in England, we may
take them from one of our own historians,” a great enemy to
Wickliffe and his opinions, which he censures as erroneous,
heretical, absurd, and contrary to the catholic faith. But he
informs us they were such as these : “That the Sacrament is
not the true body of Christ, but its figure ; that the Roman
church is not the head of all churches more than any other
church, nor was greater authority given by Christ to Peter
than to any other apostle ; that the pope of Rome has no
more power of the keys than any other priest ; that the gos-
* Hist. de la Religion des Eglises Reformées, vol. i. p.
178.
+ Ibid. p. 251. : Vol. iii. p. 316.
§ Mezeray, tom. ii. p. 656. | Ibid. p. 577.
“I Hist. in Basnage Hist. vol. i. p. 235.
** Tho. Walsingham, Hist. Angl. p. 191.
CHAPTER XIV.
1075
pel is a sufficient rule for every Christian in this life. These
were the doctrines his followers publicly professed and
taught.”
Concerning the number of these faithful witnesses, who
thus testified against the corruptions of popery, it appears to
have been very considerable, although all methods of oppres-
sion and persecution were used to destroy them. We have
seen them arise in every age of the church, and appear in
almost every place in Italy, France, Spain, England, Ger-
many, and Bohemia. They were so many who protested
against the corruptions of popery, that their persecutors were
fain to raise numerous armies against them. The many
thousands which perished by these armies, and the inquisi-
tion, are a full evidence that they were in themselves a great
number, and that they persevered with a surprising constancy
in their testimony against the corruptions of the Roman
communion, though they were persecuted to death with great
cruelty, and after death treated with great inhumanity.
So exactly does the general state of the church and world
answer the description of prophecy, in a great variety of
events, and for a long time together. We have already seen
the prophetical description verified; in the history of near a
thousand years, in so long a continuance of a tyrannical
power, corrupting the faith and worship of the church, and
persecuting the professors of the pure Christian faith and
worship ; who yet have continued, during all this time, faith-
ful witnesses against these corruptions; who have constantly
persevered in their testimony, though under the most cruel
sufferings on account of it. f
And what but a Spirit of prophecy could have drawn, so
long beforehand, a description of so many concurrent events,
so very unlikely to happen, and which were to continue for so
long a time; and yet so exactly agreeable to historical truth,
and the general state of the church and world, for a thousand
years together, and yet which was not to begin till near seven
hundred years after the prophecy was published? These
are strong marks of a real Spirit of prophecy in these reve-
lations, which should greatly recommend them to us, and
persuade our serious attention to “what the Spirit saith unto
the churches.”
CHAPTER XIV.
SECTION XIII.
1 AND I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the
mount Sion, and with him a hundred forty and four
thousand, having his Father’s name written in their
foreheads. -
(1.) After the very melancholy representation I beheld in
the foregoing visions, of the state of the church and world, I
saw a more comfortable and encouraging vision, in another
figurative description of the state of the church. It was re-
presented to me, as if a Lamb (which signified Christ in for-
mer visions) was standing on mount Sion, the place on which
the temple stood, and therefore an emblem of the church ;”
and having with him the symbolical number of a hundred
and forty-four thousand, which before had represented the
true church apostolical, consisting of faithful worshippers,
who had the seal of God, the Father of Christ, represented
by the Lamb, a mark of their consecration to God, and that
they were owned of God as his chosen and favoured people."
2 And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIV.
CoNTENTS.–The description of the melancholy state of the
church and world, during this period, in the foregoing
chapters, might be apt somewhat to discourage good
Christians and the faithful worshippers of God; for though
God, by a Spirit of prophecy, had before revealed this suf.
fering state to the church, and so it was represented, as what
divine providence thought fit to permit, and what was
therefore reconcilable to the goodness and power of the
great Governor of the world; yet it was a very useful
design of these revelations, to subjoin proper principles
of consolation and encouragement to such a melancholy
representation of temptation, danger, and suffering.
This seems the intention of this fourteenth chapter, in which
the scene of the prophetical vision is changed from earth
to heaven, from a view of the church under the persecu-
tion of the beast, to a view of the church in the presence
of the Lamb ; delivered from the state of corruption and
oppression, so much to be expected from this evil world,
and arrived at a state of complete and perfect religion and
happiness in the heavenly church. -
This vision then represents the sure destruction of the ene-
mies of truth and righteousness in the end, however they
may prevail for a time ; it shows the very great reward of
the faithful, and dreadful punishment of the apostate, who
shall fall from the faith and purity of Christian worship, in
the day of trial. Thus, this part of the prophecy unites
the strongest principles of warning, caution, encourage-
ment, and hope, than which nothing could be more proper
* Heb. xii. 22, 23.
many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder:
and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their
harps:
(2.) I observed farther in my vision, how this glorious hea-
venly church was employed; for I heard the sound of a
voice as from heaven, strong as the roaring of the sea, and
loud as thunder, but musical and harmonious, as if a great
number of voices were joined in full concert, with Symphonies
of musical instruments, as in the solemn worship of the
temple.”
3 And they sung as it were a new song before the
throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders :
and no man could learn that song but the hundred
and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed
from the earth. -
(3.) For they were engaged in a solemn act of worship
before the throne of God, his most immediate presence, in
company with those living creatures which represented the
angels of God, and with the four-and-twenty elders, who
signified the patriarchs and apostles,” as representatives of
or useful for the church, in such a state of providence ; or,
to the general design of the whole prophecy, which is to
exhort and encourage the constancy and patience of the
saints, in all their trials. When we consider this chapter
in this view, it will show a more easy, natural, and proper
connexion between this vision and the foregoing, than is
usually observed ; and make the whole plan and design
appear more regular and exact than it is usually thought
to be.
1 Ver, 1.] Most of these expressions will be found ex-
plained in the notes on vii. 10. This seems farther to con-
firm what we there observed, that we are rather to under-
stand these praises of the heavenly church, than of the
church on earth. The plan of these prophecies often intro-
duces the church in heaven as a chorus, with great propriety
and elegance, as a noble and moving part of the drama.
The church in heaven making suitable reflections on the
events foretold in these prophecies, greatly serves to raise
the attention of good Christians, and teach the high concern
they have in them. How wisely is the church on earth in-
structed, animated, and encouraged, by the Sentiments, tem-
per, and devotion, of the church in heaven, in its most per-
fect state of glory and happiness!
Some copies read, “Having his name (the name of the
Lamb) and his Father's name written on their foreheads.
The sense will be much the same, which way soever Wo
read it. e -
2 Ver, 2.] These expressions are a plain allusion to the
strength and harmony of the temple music, where so great
* Rev. iv. 4. 6.
3 Z 2
1076
REVELATION.
the Jewish and Christian churches, now united into one.
The psalm of praise they sung was of a new composition;
the full knowledge and understanding of which was peculiar
to those persons who had been truly consecrated to God, and
had been delivered from the corruptions so generally prevail-
ing in the world.
4 These are they which were not defiled with wo-
men; for they are virgins. These are they which
follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were
redeemed from among men, being the first-fruits unto
God and the Lamb.
(4.) These persons were such as persevered in purity, not
defiling themselves with any of those idolatrous corruptions,
which are so properly called fornication and adultery in the
ancient prophets. They did not forsake Christ and his true
religion, to join in the service or worship of any idol. They
were fixed in a constant purpose of following the directions
of Christ, and the institutions of his gospel, in whatever they
taught, though contrary to the principles and practices in
fashion, though they were exposed to trouble and persecu-
tion on account of it. As the first-born and first-fruits under
the law were holy and consecrated to God, so were these
persons redeemed from the rest of mankind, freed from the
antichristian corruptions of the church, to serve God accord-
ing to the truth of the Christian religion, faith, and worship.
5 And in their mouth was found no guile: for they
are without fault before the throne of God.
(5.) They were such as worshipped God in sincerity and
truth ; they were upright and honest in their profession, to
hear and obey the voice of the Lord their God, not teach-
ing the commandments of men for doctrines of divine au-
thority, or by false traditions making the commandments of
God of no effect. They are accepted of God, however cen-
sured or condemned by the world, and declared, by the su-
preme Judge of all, members of his true church, which is a
glorious church, holy, and without blemish.
6 And I saw another angel fly in the midst of hea-
ven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them
that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and
kindred, and tongue, and people.
(6.) As a farther motive to Christian patience and con-
stancy, this vision of the happy State of faithful Christians
was followed by another. I perceived an angel flying
through the air, as a messenger of some important news
from the upper to the lower world. This was to publish to
all people the unchangeable constitution of the Christian
religion, which should remain always the same, in the truth
of its doctrines, the certainty of its rewards and punishments,
to everlasting ages. • * - g
7 Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give
glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come :
and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and
the sea, and the fountains of the waters.
(7.) For the angel declared with a strong voice, to com-
mand attention, that God would surely inflict a severe punish-
ment on all manner of antichristian idolaters; the hour o,
his judgment should as certainly come as it was foretold. It
greatly therefore concerned all to fear God, and give glory
to him only ; for this is the worship due to the Creator of
all things, the only supreme Lord and Governor of the whole
World.” -
8 And there followed another angel, saying, Baby-
lon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she
made all nations drink of the wine of her fornication.
(8.) This more general sentence of judgment against
idolatrous corruptions of the Christian faith and worship, was
applied more particularly to the antichristian corruptions of
this period ; for the former angel was followed in the vision
by a second, who very distinctly proclaimed, that Babylon
was to be destroyed, that great city Rome, which had abused
her latter as well as former power, in maintaining and pro-
pagating idolatrous doctrines and worship.
9 And the third angel followed them, saying with a
loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his
image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his
hand,
(9.) These two angels were followed in the vision by a
third, to show the great importance, of the message, and of
attention to it. This third angel declared the great danger
of complying with the prevailing corruptions of those times;
and denounced a severe judgment against all persons who
should submit to this antichristian power, or any ways pro-
fess obedience to it, by any public act of acknowledgment or
homage.
10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath
of God, which is poured out without mixture into the
cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented
with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy
angels, and in the presence of the Lamb :
11 And the smoke of their torment ascended up
before God for ever and ever: and they have no rest
day nor night, who worship the beast and his image,
and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.
(10.) For he declared every such person liable to the
most severe punishment, to the most fearful plagues of divine
vengeance, without hope of any mercy to soften or allay
them ; the wrath of God shall be as a cup of poison, com-
posed of the strongest ingredients, without any mixture to
weaken it: the deadly effects of which no antidotes can pre-
vent. Such shall be the wrath of God, that even death itself
shall not free them from it, but their torment shall be great,
as if they suffered the pains of the fiercest fire ; and they
shall suffer this punishment, to their greater shame and con-
fusion, in the presence of Christ and his holy angels.
(11.) And their torments shall be endless, as well as most
severe ; the fire that torments them shall never be extin-
guished, and the smoke of it, which shall ascend up for ever
and ever, shall show it everlasting. Nor shall they have any
time of respite or ease ; neither day nor night shall bring
them any relief; their torments shall never cease, or their
pains be lessened for ever.”
a number of voices and instruments were used, in singing
psalms and praises to God in their most solemn acts of
worship. -
* Ver. 7..] In the style of prophecy, to show the certainty
cf the prediction, things to be after accomplished are repre-
sented as already done. This shows the propriety and ele-
gance of the expression, that an angel should say, “The hour
of judgment is come,” so long before the accomplishment, as
another angel, to foretell the future downfall of Babylon, fol-
lowed, saying, “Babylon is fallen, is fallen.” The record of
this prophecy by John, is a constant preaching of the ever-
lasting constitution of the gospel to men; whether it means
any particular opposition to the corruptions of the church in
this period, as several learned men have thought, whether it
intimates by whom such opposition shall be made, wherein
they much differ, I shall leave altogether to the reader's
choice. The certainty of the revelation thus solemnly deli-
vered by an angel, seems to me the chief, if not the only,
-design of the prophecy.
* Ver, 11.] We have already seen, that to worship the
beast and his image, to receive his mark, in the forehead or
in the hand, mean a submission to the authority of this wild
beast, the persecuting power revived in the last government
of Rome, and so manifestly used to establish the idolatrous
doctrines and worship of the Roman church. The wine of
the wrath of God, and the cup of his indignation, are expres-
sions taken from the language of the prophets. The portion
assigned by the providence of God to men, is called the “por-
tion of their cup.” It was not only customary to treat friends
with a cup of wine, as a mark of affection, but to execute
also the sentence of death on offenders, by making them
drink a cup of wine in which some strong poison had been
infused. Such was the noted execution of Socrates, by a cup
of poison. The scriptures mention “a cup of blessing and
consolation,” and “a cup of trembling and astonishment.”
God speaks to the prophet Jeremiah, of “the wine-cup of
his fury, which he was to cause the nations to drink,” Jer.
xxv. 15, and ver. 18, this is explained by making them, “a
desolation, an astonishment, a hissing, and a curse.” Gro-
tius seems to give a just account of the expression “without
CHAPTER XIV.
1077
12 Here is the patience of the saints: here are they
º: keep the commandments of God, and the faith
OI s] CSUIS.
(12.) In this the patience of the saints shall be manifested
and perfected ; herein their perseverance will consist, that
notwithstanding all the evils of persecution, they continue
constant in obedience to the commands of God, as the rule
of their religion, and stedfastly maintain the truths of
Christ's revelation, the rule of their faith and worship, in
opposition to all doctrines and worship contrary to it, by
what authority soever they shall be imposed on the church.
13. And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto
me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the
Lord from henceforth; Yea, saith the Spirit, that they
may rest from their labours; and their works do foſ-
low them.
(13.) As a farther encouragement of faithfulness and con-
stancy, I was directed by a particular voice from heaven, to
declare the unspeakable blessing of all such who shall be
faithful ; as they die in the faith, they die in the favour of
God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Spirit of revelation
assures them, not only of an end to all their afflictions in a
short time, but that all their patience and faithfulness, in the
hour of temptation and persecution, shall be rewarded glori-
ously in a state of perfect and unmixed happiness.5
14 And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and
upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, hav-
ing on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a
sharp sickle.
(14.) The sure execution of the judgments denounced
against the corrupters of the Christian religion, was farther
confirmed by another vision. Christ himself was represented
sitting upon a bright cloud, which was spread under him, as
a seat of judgment. He appeared as a man, or like the Son
of man, in the visions of Daniel,” with a golden crown on his
head, the ensign of royalty and sovereign power; and, to ex-
press the meaning and design of his appearance to judgment,
he bore in his hand a sharp sickle, wherewith men are used
to cut down or to reap corn.
mixture,” xixegaakāvov čkgárov, to intimate, that the poison-
ous ingredients were infused in pure unmixed wine, to take
a stronger tincture, and become a more deadly potion. The
judgment itself may well be understood of all the heaviest
evils we feel in the present life, or fear after it, without ces-
sation, and without end. A most useful warning, in an hour
of so dangerous temptation ; a most powerful encouragement
to undergo any sufferings in the cause of truth, when all who
betray it, or forsake it, are sure to suffer so much more than
any can suffer for their faithfulness and constancy in the de-
fence of it.
* Ver. 13.] Some interpreters understand “dying in the
Lord,” to signify being put to death for constancy in the
true religion. Others think, to “die in the Lord,” may
mean more generally to die in the faith and obedience of
the gospel of Christ, as the Bishop of Meaux: Quimeurent
dans le Seigneur, c'est en général tous les saints, et en par-
ticulier les Saints martyrs, qui meurent pour l'amour de
lui.
The expression “from henceforth,”āmatri, may admit of
different interpretations; it will well mean, that as they who
die in the Lord have, from that time, finished their state of
temptation and affliction, and from thenceforth “rest from
their labours,” in like manner “their works follow them ;”
and from that time they receive their reward.
Mr. Daubuz's observation seems natural and just : “The
blessedness promised consists in their being happy in their
Separate intermediate state, and in their having at the re-
Surrection their full reward.”
Every one will see, how great this encouragement is to
patience and perseverance, the great intention and principal
doctrine of all these prophecies.
* Ver. 16..] The opinions of interpreters differ very much
as to the meaning of this part of the vision. Many seem
very wide of the purpose. “Harvest” may sometimes be
15 And another angel came out of the temple,
crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud,
Thrust in thy sickle, and reap : for the time is come
for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.
(15.) Soon after, I beheld an angel come out of heaven,
the true temple and most glorious seat of God’s presence;
he came to bring order, or give the word, as from God,
when the execution of his judgments should begin ; and
Spake with a very strong voice to him that sat on the bright
cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap; the appointed time of
judgment is come, the world is ripe for it, let it be no longer
delayed, but immediately executed.
16 And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his
sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped.
(16.) Whereupon the order of God was immediately
executed ; the inhabitants of the earth were cut off as corn
is cut down with a sickle, at the appointed time of har-
vest." -
17. And another angel came out of the temple
which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle.
(17.) I farther beheld in my vision, another angel coming
out of the true temple, which is in heaven ; he also ap-
peared with a sharp sickle in his hands, to assist in this
execution, and finish the destruction of the enemies of true
religion. e -
18 And another angel came out from the altar,
which had power over fire; and cried with a loud
voice to him that had the sharp sickle, Thrust in thy
sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of
the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe.
(18.) And another angel came out from the altar, on
which the fire was used to burn continually ; he was sent to
bring orders to the angel that had the sharp sickle, which
he delivered in a loud voice, Saying, Begin to put in execu-
tion the righteous judgments of God on this wicked genera-
tion. The time of God's vengeance, his appointed time, is
fully come, and the iniquities of the inhabitants of the earth
have made them fully ripe for destruction.”
taken in a good sense, in some places of scripture, and may
mean God's bringing or gathering together his people; or
in particular, gathering together the Saints departed in Christ.
But as these expressions are plainly taken from the prophet
Joel, iii. 13, “Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe:
come, get ye down ; for the press is full, the fats overflow ;
for their wickedness is great,” the harvest and vintage are
expressive of judgment. “The harvest is ripe,” means the
same thing as their wickedness is great, or their iniquity is
fully ripe. This sense gives a proper and easy connexion
to the several parts of this vision with each other. Accord-
ing to the Bishop of Meaux, “After the denunciation of
the judgment of God, behold the execution.” The general
ideas of a harvest and vintage, express the vengeance of
God on the enemies of his people. The person who ex-
ecutes this vengeance is Jesus Christ, who himself comes to
execute this judgment upon his enemies: so that we' may
here also observe, it is not an angel, as elsewhere, but the
Son of man, Jesus Christ himself, who strikes this blow,
who has the chief and principal hand in it, though angels
are also sent to accompany him, and assist in the execution ;
to show, that this stroke of vengeance on Rome is with all
the force of a divine hand. It is executed on orders brought
by angel from the temple, or presence of God, “out of the
temple which is in heaven” (ver. 17). This may well mean
that there is an appointed time, when the judgment of God
shall come on his enemies, as there is in the course of
natural providence, a time appointed for the season of har-,
vest. The one shall as surely come in its appointed time as
the other.
7 Ver. 18.] The “angel who had power over fire,” is ar.
allusion, according to Mr. Daubuz, to the office of that
priest who was appointed by lot, in the temple-service, to
take care of the fire upon the altar, and who was therefore
called “the priest over the fire.” Grotius, more simply,
* Dan. vii. 13,
* Maimon. More Nevoch. p. 282,
1078
REVELATION.
19 And the angel thrust in his sickle into the
earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it
into the great wine-press of the wrath of God.
(19.) Immediately upon this order, the angel began to cut
down those wicked persons, whose iniquities had made them
ripe for destruction, and delivered them over to divine ven-
geance, which should press them hard with grievous afflic-
tions, as grapes are pressed in a wine-press.
20 And the wine-press was trodden without the
“Having the office of God's vengeance;” Habens potesta-
tem supra ignem, habens ministerium irae divinae. Accord-
.ing to the theology of the Jewish doctors, omnis virtus vel
facultas, quam praefecit Deus alicui rei, vocatur angelus illi
rei praefectus. •
* Ver. 20.] To tread a wine-press, is a prophetic descrip-
tion of destruction. The expressions of the prophet Isaiah,
lxiii. 3, “I have trodden the wine-press alone, and of the
people there was none with me,” are thus explained by the
prophet himself, “I will tread them in mine anger, and
trample them in my fury ; and their blood shall be sprinkled
upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment.” The
images in this vision are very strong and expressive ; the
largest wine-presses were used to be in some places out of
the city. This is “the great wine-press of the wrath of
God;” and seems to intimate the great numbers that shall
be involved in this general destruction. The great quantity
of blood mentioned in the vision, is a strong image repre-
senting some great slaughter of the enemies of God and true
religion; but what particular judgment this prophecy de-
scribes, is not well agreed by interpreters. The order of
these prophecies, and the series of this part of them, will
not, I think, allow us to understand it of any judgment on
Rome heathen, or indeed of any judgment before the time of
the third period, in which the beast arose ; for before that
time none worshipped the beast, or his image, or received
his mark, but these are the persons to whom this prophecy
plainly relates.
Nor does there seem sufficient reason to understand the
harvest of the reformation begun by Luther,” whereby the
good corn was separated from the earth, or protestants from
the idolatry of the Roman church : for the harvest, as well
as the vintage, is designed to express an approaching
day of great wrath. Nor did the state of Europe, during
city, and blood came out of the wine-press, even unto
the horse-bridles, by the space of a thousand and six
hundred furlongs.
(20.) The destruction of those enemies of God and true
religion, the supporters and favourers of that tyrannical
idolatrous power, which had so long and so cruelly perse-
cuted the saints, was great beyond expression; as if their
blood had been shed in such quantity, that it covered the
earth for many miles, and yet was so deep, as to reach up to
a horse's breast.*
-*
the reign of Queen Anne,” so exactly answer, I think,
to all the characters of this prediction, as some have ob-
served.
The order of these prophecies, and the more natural con-
nexion of this part of them with the rest, direct, as I ap-
prehend, with more propriety, to understand it of the great
judgment to be inflicted at the end of this period, on the
beast and his followers. It will then mean that great judg-
ment which is more particularly and fully explained in the
eighteenth and nineteenth chapters, and which is to make
way for the happy state of the church, prophesied of in the
twentieth chapter.
This judgment then seems still to be future. It will be
prudent therefore to leave the time of its accomplishment
more fully to explain it. In the mean time, we may have,
however, as much encouragement to patience and perse-
verance, as awful warnings against apostasy, and yielding
to the common corruptions of the age, as if all circumstances
of the judgments foretold had been more particularly re-
vealed. We know, in the strong and lively images of the
general description, that this judgment will as certainly come
as the appointed time of harvest ; that in the appointed
time it shall be executed by a hand which no power can
resist, and from which none can escape; that in this day of
judgment, God's wrath, and the destruction of his enemies,
will be so great and terrible, that the boldest images can
hardly represent to our imagination what the enemies of
true religion shall feel them to be in reality.
Mr. Waple observes upon this chapter, that a certain
order of voices is plainly represented, which being also seven
in number, and distinctly reckoned up, may very well be
accounted the seven thunders, opened into loud and distinct
voices. It is fit the reader should be acquainted with this con-
jecture, and then that it should be left to his own judgment.
* Daubuz, p. 449.
* Daubuz, p. 456.
CHAPTER XV.
SECTION XIV.
1 AND I saw another sign in heaven, great and
marvellous, seven angels having the seven last
plagues: for in them is filled up the wrath of God.
(1.) I beheld another wonderful vision, which the Spirit
of prophecy represented to me, as in heaven ; seven angels
appeared, agreeable to the number by whom God executed
his judgments in the former periods, who were appointed
for the execution of God’s last judgments, on the enemies
of the Christian church, in which the wrath of God was to
be finished, in the full and final destruction of his anti-
christian enemies.
2 And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with
fire; and them that had gotten the victory over the
beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and
over the number of his name, stand on the sea of
glass, having the harps of God.
(2.) I moreover saw, as in my former vision of the di-
vine presence,” that there was a large crystal vessel like
the molten sea, in the temple, but far more glorious. It
seemed more shining and lively than bare crystal, having
the lustre of a red or fiery colour intermixed with it ; round
about the crystal vessel stood those happy servants of God,
who, by their faith and patience, had preserved themselves
from the antichristian apostasy ; who had not acknow-
ledged the authority of the beast, by an act of submission.
They had, as in the temple-service, harps in their hands,
to accompany their psalms of praise with symphonies of
music.”
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP, XV.
CoNTENTS.–The prophecy proceeds, in this and the follow-
ing chapters, to open farther the appointed punishment of
Rome, for her oppression of the truth, and persecution of
the saints. This chapter represents the solemn manner
in which preparation is made for the execution of these
judgments, as the next describes the actual execution of
them. The happy state of God's faithful servants, and
the joyful thanksgivings with which they celebrate the
goodness of God in the protection of their cause, are very
elegantly represented, to encourage their constancy and
perseverance,
i Ver. 2..] Interpreters are not agreed what is meant by
this “sea of glass, mingled with fire.” It is supposed by
* Chap. iv. 6.
CHAPTER XV.
1079
3 And they sing the song of Moses the servant of
God, and the song of the fº. saying, Great and
marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just
and true are thy ways, thou King of Saints.
(3.) These happy saints, who had obtained the victory by
their patience and constancy, were employed in a grateful
acknowledgment of the goodness of God, from a joyful
sense of their former deliverance and present happiness, as
the Israelites sang the praises of God for their deliverance
at the Red sea, in a hymn composed by Moses: so these
Saints, having obtained a greater deliverance and Salvation
by Christ, sang a psalm of praise, of the same spirit with
that of Moses, but in a style suited to their deliverance and
salvation by Christ; saying, Thy works, O Lord God Al-
mighty, are most great and wonderful ; thy ways, as the
King of Saints, are most righteous and faithful.
4 Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy
name for thou only art holy; for all nations shall
come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are
made manifest. -
(4.) What abundant reasons have all people, from what
thou hast done for us, to worship thee as God, and give
honour to thy name, as glorious in holiness; so that none
among the gods is like unto thee . All nations shall ac-
knowledge thee the one true God, by worshipping before
thee ; being convinced, by thy judgments, that in the great-
ness of thine excellency, thou hast overthrown them that
rose up against thee; that thou art the strength of thy peo-
ple, and their salvation.”
5 And after that I looked, and, behold, the temple
of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was
opened. -
(5.) When this hymn of praise was ended, the last judg-
ments of God were farther represented to me in vision. I
beheld, as if the most holy place, or inmost part of the
temple, the seat of God's glory and of the oracle, was
some" to signify the pure state of the church, and the fiery
indignation to be poured out of the vials; or to denote a
multitude of saints, whose state is to be like a “sea of glass”
a pure and holy life in a very unsettled condition, while
they also endure the fire of persecution ; or it is supposed
to denote, that God, the searcher of hearts, finds them pure
as crystal, and warmed with the love of God, ; as love is
compared to fire, or a holy people, perfectly pure, and in-
flamed with the love of God. It is also supposed, that it
is an allusion to the deliverance of the Israelites from the
hands of the Egyptians, when they had passed the Red
sea; whereby is signified the preservation and security of
the saints, during the pouring out of the vials upon the
wicked. But as the scene of this vision is in heaven, and
as the vision represents the happy state of those faithful
servants of God, who had overcome the corruptions of the
world, it does not seem so natural a description of their
state in this life; it has a more easy allusion to the sea,
or large vessel of water in the temple: but this being a
crystal vessel, shining with rays of a lively red, as if fire
or some bright light shone through it, it may well represent
the more perfect purity and active zeal of the heavenly
church ; and how much more glorious every thing is in the
state of the church above, than the faint and typical repre-
sentations of it were in the material temple.
* Ver. 4.] The Bishop of Meaux justly observes, the
Song of praise, after the passage of the Red Sea, agrees per-
fectly well to the martyrs, after they had shed their blood,
or to those who were passed through a state of persecution
to a state of rest and happiness; that, by the song of Moses
and the Lamb, we may understand two psalms of praise, or
one and the same psalm, composed in imitation of the song
of Moses.
In fact, most of the expressions of this psalm, though not
in the very same words, yet, in their plain sense and mean-
Ing, seem to be taken from the song of Moses, of which it is
a sort of Christian abridgment.
* Waple.
j. Grotius, Meaux.
ºf Daubuz.
§ Waple, Daubuz,
opened, as when the high-priest went into the holy of
holies.” -
6 And the seven angels came out of the temple,
having the seven plagues, clothed in pure and white
linen, and having their breasts girded with golden
girdles.
(6.) And I beheld seven angels appointed to execute
these judgments, coming out from the most holy place, as
having received their instructions from the oracle of God
himself. They appeared in habits like those the high-priest
wore when he went into the most holy place, and consulted
the oracle.
7 And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven
angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God,
who liveth for ever and ever.
(7.) When these angels, having received their commis-
sion, came out of the most holy place, the contents of their
commission were revealed in the following prophetic re-
presentation: One of the four living creatures, represen-
tatives of the angels, gave to each of them a vial or cup,
not with incense in it, as in the temple worship, but each
of them was filled with ingredients of deadly qualities, by
which were signified the wrath of God; who, as he is the
everlasting God, is ever able to judge and to punish his
enemies according to their works.
8 And the temple was filled with smoke from the
glory of God, and from his power ; and no man was
able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of
the seven angels were fulfilled.
(8.) Hereupon I farther beheld, as if the cloud of glory,
the symbol of God’s presence and power, filled the whole
temple, as when the presence of God entered the tabernacle
of Moses, so that it was not to be approached till the judg-
ments of God should be finished, to express that the glory
of God’s justice, power, and truth, was highly concerned
to see these judgments duly and fully executed."
* Wer. 5.] “The temple of the tabernacle of the testi-
mony,” seems plainly to be meant of the most holy place.
The whole tabernacle was called, “the tabernacle of the
congregation which is without the veil, which is before the
testimony,” Exod. xxvii. 21. It is also called, “the taber-
nacle of witness,” Acts vii. 44. In this tabernacle, there
was the sanctuary, or holy place, without the veil, and ano-
ther room within the veil, called the most holy place, in
which was the visible testimony of God's presence, and seat
of the oracle, between the cherubim over the mercy-seat
(Exod. xxv.22).
This prophetic representation seems intended to show
these judgments of God, threatened, in these prophecies, to
be inflicted on the enemies of truth and righteousness, were
surely to be accomplished in their appointed time, as the
oracle of God was a sure declaration of his will. It is pro-
nounced as a decree from the throne of the great Lord and
Sovereign of the whole creation, which he will certainly put
into execution. -
* Ver. 8.] The cloud of glory was the visible manifesta-
tion of God’s presence in the tabernacle and temple ; it ex-
pressed the presence of God, for protection and for judg-
ment. The glory was a sign of protection, at erecting the
tabernacle, and at the dedication of the temple: but in the
judgment of Korah, the glory of the Lord appeared unto all
the congregation, when he and his companions were swal-
lowed up by the earth (Numb. xvi. 19). In like manner,
when the congregation of the children of Israel murmured
against Moses and Aaron (ver. 42), and were gathered to-
gether against them, they looked towards the tabernacle of
the congregation, and behold the cloud covered it, and the
glory of the Lord appeared. This was the forerunner of
judgment : for immediately Moses directs Aaron to go
quickly and make atonement, because “wrath is gone out
from the Lord, and the plague is begun " (ver. 46). So pro-
per is this emblem of smoke from the glory of God, or from
the cloud of glory, to express the execution of judgment, as
well as to be a sign of favour. Both proceed from the
power of God, and in both he is glorious.
1080
CHAPTER XVI.
SECTION XV.
1 AND I heard a great voice out of the temple say-
ing to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out
the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.
(1.) All things being thus prepared, the angels having re-
ceived their instructions from the oracle, and their vials full
of the wrath of God from one of the cherubim, I heard the
voice of the oracle give the word of command to the angels,
to pour out their cups in their order ; for the inhabitants of
the earth were ripe for those judgments which the justice of
God had appointed for their punishment. .
2 And the first went, and poured out his vial upon
the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore
upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and
upon them which worshipped his image.
(2.) The first angel immediately obeyed the voice of the
oracle, and poured out his cup upon the earth. This was
followed with a grievous plague upon those who had fallen
in with the corruption of the Christian faith and worship,
or were assisting in the persecution of the faithful witnesses
against the prevailing corruptions. They were themselves
punished with great afflictions, as if a noisome and painful
ulcer had broken out on their bodies (see the history of the
first vial at the end of this chapter).
3 And the second angel poured out his vial upon
the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man :
and every living soul died in the sea.
(3.) After the judgments of God signified by pouring out
the first cup on the earth, the second angel obeyed the com-
mand of the oracle, and poured out his cup on the sea.
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVI.
CoNTENTS:-This following chapter contains the judgments
themselves signified by the seven vials full of the wrath
of God; and gives us a prophetic representation of each
of them in their order; and are an exact description of
the greater and more eminent judgments of God on the
inhabitants of the earth, for their enmity to true religion,
and persecution of the Saints, during this third and last
period.
* Ver, 3.] “Earth and sea,” in scripture language, are
a description of our habitable world, as “heavens and earth”
are of the universe in general; as we have observed in the
note on x. 2. As by “earth” in the former vial, we un-
derstood the countries, with their inhabitants, subject to the
new western empire erected in this period, and owning the
authority of the beast; so the sea will best be understood
of the same persons, under a different figurative description.
The difference between the expressions of earth and sea may
yery probably mean, that the former judgments were chiefly
inflicted on the inhabitants residing in the inland provinces
of the Western empire; but that the judgments of this vial
are chiefly inflicted on such of the subjects of this empire as
went out by sea to foreign countries, and aboard fleets, es-
pecially on the Mediterranean sea, which is used to be styled
in scripture “the sea,” and “the great sea.”
The sea becoming “as the blood of a dead man,” so that
“every living soul died in the sea,” are descriptions which
seem to be taken from the description of the plagues of
Egypt; by one of which (Exod. vii. 20,21), “all the waters
were turned into blood, so that all the fish that was in the
river died, and there was blood throughout all the land of
Egypt.” -
The general meaning of these figurative expressions seems
to point out some yery great mortality or slaughter, so that
imany persons shall perish in some undertaking, or lose their
lives in some expedition, chiefly carried on by sea. Mr.
Daubuſ, observes, from an expression in the prophet Daniel,
vii. 2, that “the four winds of the heavensstrove upon the
great sea,” that hereby is meant a comprehension of several
Upon which the waters of the sea became as congealed
blood, so that no creature could live in the sea, but died ;
to represent another great judgment, the effect of the wrath
of God upon the promoters of the great apostasy, and per-
secutors of God's faithful servants and witnesses" (see the
history of the second vial at the end of this chapter).
4 And the third angel poured out his vial upon
the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became
blood.
(4.) After this I beheld the third angel poured out his
cup full of the wrath of God, in its order. This cup was
poured on the rivers and fountains of waters, so that they
were changed into blood. An emblem of great bloodshed,
the righteous punishment of those antichristian powers, for
shedding the innocent blood of God’s faithful servants.”
5 And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou
art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shall
be, because thou hast judged thus.
(5.) The angel who ministered in the execution of this
judgment of God on the kingdom of the beast, acknow-
ledged the righteousness of God, and began his praise, say-
ing, How does thy righteousness appear in thy ways of pro-
vidence, O God, who art unchangeable in thy perfections,
and constant in thy righteous administration of government,
throughout all ages How manifest hast thou made it to
them who will attentively consider thy ways, by this judg-
ment on the kingdom of the beast !
6 For they have shed the blood of saints and pro-
phets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for
they are worthy. .
(6.) They have, with a cruel execution of tyrannical op-
kings or kingdoms in a state of war, fighting against each
other to enlarge their dominions.” He applies this inter-
pretation to our present prophecy. This vial has its effect
in war, the sea being a symbol of a multitude in war. He
adds, “It must be such a war, that all the corrupted church
must be concerned therein; and it must also be on a reli-
gious account: the corrupted Christians must, as it were,
bring it upon themselves: and that the men concerned in
the wars predicted should die therein.”
* Ver. 4.] It is observable, there is a great conformity be-
tween these three first vials and the three first trumpets,
ch. viii., especially as to the parts of the world on which
these judgments were to come. In the first trumpet, hail
and fire, mingled with blood, were cast upon the earth; at
the sound of the second trumpet, a burning mountain of fire
was cast into the sea, and the third part of the sea became
blood; when the third angel sounded, a burning star fell
from heaven upon the third part of the rivers and fountains
of waters. Here the plagues of the first vial, in like man-
ner, fall upon the earth ; of the second vial, upon the sea;
and of this third vial, upon the rivers and fountains of
waters.
We have seen the general meaning of “rivers and foun-
tains of waters,” according to the style of prophecy, in the
note on viii. 10. It may be sufficient just to mention here,
that as the countries belonging to any state are divided into
earth, sea, and rivers, so this distribution of the kingdom of
the beast is an intimation, according to the figurative style
of prophecy, that every part of that kingdom should, in
proper time and order, receive the punishment due to its
apostasy and wickedness.
Dr. Hammond observes, that there is no reason to fix
any new critical notion singly to either of these expressions,
but to take them altogether for what was meant by the
lard : as when God is described, xiv. 7, as the Creator of hea-
ven and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of water, the
latter three are set to denote what is elsewhere ordinarily
called the earth, and no more, in opposition to heaven, that
is, this inferior terrestrial globe, and all in it. According to
* Symb. Dict. Sea.
|
h CHAPTER XVI.
1081
pressive power, shed the blood of thy saints and prophets;
and now thou hast inflicted on them the punishment they
have so justly deserved, and given them blood to drink by
a great effusion of their own.”
7 And I heard another out of the altar say, Even
so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy
judgments.
(7.) This praise of God was continued by another angel,
who stood by the altar, in the presence, to express the con-
sent of the heavenly church, to praise the Lord God Al-
mighty, and to celebrate his justice and faithfulness in
punishing the enemies of truth and righteousness, and the
persecutors of his faithful servants (see the history of the
third vial at the end of this chapter).
8 And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon
the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch
men with fire.
(8.) I farther beheld in my vision, the fourth angel
obeyed the voice of the oracle ; he poured out his cup full
of the wrath of God upon the sun, whereby the heat of it
was so violently increased, that, like a burning season, it
gave great uneasiness and pain to the inhabitants of the
earth.
9 And men were scorched with great heat, and
blasphemed the name of God, which had power over
these plagues: and they repented not to give him
glory. w
(9.) They were greatly afflicted, as in those violent heats,
which are used to burn up the fruits of the earth, to produce
scarcity and famine, with an unhealthful air, dangerous dis-
tempers, great ſaintness, and pains. Yet these judgments
of God, one after another, made no impression on their hearts,
they were still hardened in wickedness; they even blas-
phemed the name of God, who thus justly punished them,
instead of repenting of those sins which had deserved these
judgments, and so justly brought them upon them (see the
history of the fourth vial at the end of this chapter).
10 And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon
this meaning of the expressions, these plagues will chiefly
denote some judgments to be inflicted on the kingdom of
the beast, and the more considerable parts of it. It is a
judicious observation in general, that we should carefully
avoid carrying any figurative expression of prophecy too far,
which has often lost the true meaning in the end.
Probable reasons are however alleged for a more particu-
lar application of these expressions. “Rivers and fountains
of waters” may not unfitly signify the original countries, or
seats of empire, in distinction from the provinces, as foun-
tains are the original of rivers, which run in one common
collection of waters into the Sea; and as waters are neces-
sary for life, so, when they are infected and become deadly,
they are an emblem of such judgments as should cut off the
very supports of life. Finally, the waters becoming blood,
so that God gave them blood to drink, because they shed
the blood of his saints and prophets, seems farther to show,
that this judgment was to consist in much bloodshed and
slaughter; as they persecuted the martyrs by shedding their
blood, they should suffer in like manner, and their blood
should be shed by each other's hands, according to the ex-
pressions of this prophecy, xiii. 10, “He that killeth with
the sword, must be killed with the sword;” or, in the words
of the author of the Wisdom of Solomon, concerning the pun-
ishment of Egypt, “That they might know that wherewithal
a man sinneth, by the same also shall he be punished” (xi. 16).
*Ver, 6.] The remark of the Bishop of Meaux on these
words deserves to be taken notice of: “They have their
bellyfull of blood, of which they are so greedy, especially in
civil wars, where each one seems to drink the blood of his
fellow-citizens.”
*Wer. 12.] The antichristian kingdom of the beast is de-
scribed all along in expressions taken from the ancient pro-
phets. It has, therefore, in prophetic style, its barrier,
called Euphrates, in allusion to that river so memorable in
the history of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires, and so
often represented in scripture as the frontier and boundary of
|
the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of
darkness, and they gnawed their tongues for pain.
(10.) I farther beheld in my vision, that the fifth angel
poured out his cup in his order; in which period the wrath
of God was more remarkably to affect the seat, or throne
and kingdom, of the beast. The extent, authority, and
power of his antichristian empire were to be greatly ob-
scured, and the influence of his government much dimin-
ished ; so that they bit their tongues for vexation, as persons
full of anguish and rage.
11 And blasphemed the God of heaven because of
their pains and their sores, and repented not of their
deeds.
(11.) Yet still these judgments had no effect to reform
these enemies to the truth and purity of the Christian faith
and religion ; they rather blasphemed the supreme Governor
of the world, by accusing his providence, on account of the
evils which came upon them, but had no thoughts of re-
pentance for those evil actions, the true reason why they
were punished (see the history of the fifth vial at the end
of this chapter).
12 And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon
the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was
dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might
be prepared.
(12.) The sixth angel poured out his cup also, in his
order, immediately after the foregoing. The punishment
figuratively represented by it, was drying up the river Eu-
phrates, so famous as a boundary against the invasions of
the eastern nations, that they might have an easy passage
to invade their neighbours; signifying, a way should be pre-
pared for the enemies of this antichristian kingdom to break
in upon it.*
13 And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come
out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the
mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false
prophet.
(13.) I farther saw, in my prophetic vision, another figu-
the holy land; great rivers, such as was Euphrates, being
usually both boundaries and barriers: so that to dry up a
river, or the waters of it, that the kings on the other side
may pass over it, is a very natural figure to express the inva-
sion of one kingdom by another, and that the usual boun-
dary or barrier is not sufficient to prevent an invasion, or to
keep the nations on each side within their own bounds.
“The kings of the east,” in the language of scripture,
were such as reigned to the eastward of Judea, or on the
east side of the river Euphrates. These were, in their order,
the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian, who all were to
pass the river Euphrates when they invaded Judea. So
that the expression of drying up the water of the river, that
the way of the kings of the east might be prepared, will very
properly signify such kingdoms or empires as shall border
on the kingdom of the beast, especially to the east, or to the
eastward of the boundaries and barrier of his dominions.
Some interpreters consider this expression as a more par-
ticular allusion to the memorable taking of Babylon by Cy-
rus: for Cyrus took the city by might, having first dried up
the stream of the river Euphrates, which ran through the
city, by turning the channel into a lake, according to the
account given both by Herodotus and Xenophon, as well as
by the scriptures, as Dr. Prideaux observes.”
The Turks are originally an eastern people; their domi-
nions are the eastern boundaries of the pope's territories,
especially as Naples and Sicily are accounted fiefs of the
Roman see. They may then be intended by the kings of
the east, and the river Euphrates may signify the Adriatic
sea, or gulf of Venice, which is the eastern boundary of the
pope's dominions, even of the exarchate of Ravenna, which
is most properly the patrimony of St. Peter, in the style of
the Roman court. As this sixth vial or cup is to be an-
swered by some historical event, after the preceding weaken-
ing of the papal power by the protestant reformation, it
* Connex. par. i. lib. ii. B. C. 539.
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REVELATION.
rative representation, as if the dragon, or emblem of the
devil, and the beast, the emblem of this antichristian power,
and the false prophet, the emblem of those who, by false
doctrines and all the arts of deceit, endeavoured to support
and propagate these antichristian corruptions, sent forth
unclean spirits resembling frogs; each of them one."
14 For they are the spirits of devils, working mira-
cles, which go forth to the kings of the earth and of
the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that
great day of God Almighty.
(14.) These three unclean spirits were a representation
of persons who had the bad qualities of demons or devils,
fully possessed with their bad temper, and engaged to op-
pose the truth and power of religion, by all the deceitful
arts of error and false reasoning, by imposing upon the weak
and credulous, by pretences to wondrous and miraculous
works. These were employed to use all their evil arts and
wicked policy, to excite the princes and great men of the
world to unite more firmly against truth and righteousness,
the cause of God and religion, and to make a new effort to
establish error and corruption.
15 Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that
watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk
naked, and they see his shame.
(15.) When it was thus foretold that these evil agents
would manage with great art and address in support of their
bad cause, the Spirit of wisdom added a useful caution,
that the faithfūl servants of God should use great care to
preserve themselves from being deceived; they should re-
seems probable this prophecy is not yet accomplished; I
shall not therefore attempt to apply any particular history
to it, but shall leave a fuller explication of it to future times,
and shall only make these general remarks upon it.
First, That it seems to intend some farther judgment on
the pope's kingdom, and most likely by some invasion of
his dominions; as it is pouring out a vial or cup full of the
Wrath of God, it must, I think, be understood of some pun-
ishment inflicted on the beast's kingdom, as all the former
vials were; and as it is preparing a way for the kings of the
east, it most likely means some punishment to be inflicted
by an invasion from some empire or kingdom on its eastern
boundary. -
Secondly, This judgment most probably means some de-
scent of the Turks, who are now the eastern neighbours of
Italy, and may some time or other have an opportunity, as
they always have an inclination, to break in upon a country
that lies so near, and is so inviting; or if any other nation
should become the eastern neighbour of Italy, even the em-
pire itself might not spare the Roman territories, the better
to support its own pretensions and claims on the other
kingdoms and states of that fine country. But this I pro-
pose only as a probable conjecture.
Yet I may observe, that I apprehend the order and series
of those prophecies will not admit the interpretation of
some authors, who understand it of the conquest of the
eastern empire, by the taking of Constantinople. This would
greatly confound the periods, and throw the prophecies out
of all order. This period must, according to the series of the
vials, fall in, I think, within some time between the years
1700 and 1900.
Besides, the conquest of the eastern empire will not, as
I apprehend, answer a particular judgment on the papal
power and kingdom, which seems to be the plain and direct
intention of the prophecy itself; so that, without saying
what in particular, we may probably conjecture, it will be
some future judgment on the papal power, by some future
invasion of the pope's dominions from the east. Though it
is proper to acquaint the reader farther, that some learned
men understand a figurative Euphrates, some obstacles that
stopped the princes of Europe from attacking directly the
church-empire, especially in its ecclesiastical capacities ;
that this Euphrates will be dried up, or these obstacles re-
moved, when the terror formerly arising from the bulls,
edicts, and censures of Rome shall be shaken off, and the
neighbouring princes and states shall attack the popes them-
selves, if they shall either excite their subjects to rebellion,
0% disturb them in their government: or even, if they shall
member the warning of Christ their Lord, that his coming
would be with surprise, as when thieves come unexpectedly
in the night. Let all then who would faithfully persevere
watch over themselves, to maintain their purity and inte-
grity, lest, when Christ shall come, they be exposed to shame
and disgrace, without any covering for their sin and folly.
16. And he gathered them together into a place
called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.
(16.) For Satan, by these evil seducing spirits, shall ga-
ther many of all ranks of men into a place where they shall
be destroyed, which may therefore, in the style of prophecy,
be called the mountain of Mageddo, famous in the history
of God’s people for several memorable slaughters, and which
became a proverbial expression for a place of destruction
and mourning."
17 And the seventh angel poured out his vial into
the air; and there came a great voice out of the tem-
ple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done.
(17.) Upon this great and last effort of the antichristian
powers to support the throne of the beast, the seventh angel,
who had the last cup, full of the wrath of God to pour out,
poured it into the air, the seat of Satan's empire, and his
residence. The meaning of this judgment was explained by
the oracle, for a voice from the throne of the temple in hea-
ven declared, It is done, the mystery of God is finished;
and this last cup of God’s wrath has fully finished God's
judgments on the persecutors of his church, in their final
destruction. 7 -
refuse what their powerful neighbours require and demand
of them, of which we have some eminent instances in the
chief Roman catholic powers, Spain and Portugal them-
selves not excepted.
* Ver. 13.] This is the first time in which “the false pro-
phet” is mentioned. It is observable, he is always men-
tioned together with the devil and beast, as one of the three
principal enemies of pure religion; he is referred to as a
known character taken notice of before ; he is represented
as one who wrought miracles before the beast (xix. 20).
Now, in the description of the enemies of true religion
(ch. xiii.), we have express mention of three chiefs: the
devil; the first beast that rose out of the earth; the second
beast, that rose out of the Sea: this second beast was to “do
great wonders, to cause them that dwell on the earth to
worship the first beast.” This agrees so exactly with the
character of the false prophet here, that I think we may
consider it as a different title of the second beast : for the
meaning of which, see notes on xiii. 12.
* Wer. 16.] Mageddo, or Megiddo, was a city belonging
to Manasseh, out of which they could not drive the Ca-
naanites, when the kings of Canaan fought by the waters of
Megiddo (Judg. v. 19). It was also famous for the defeat
of Ahaziah and Joram, by Jehu, when both the kings of
Judah and Israel were slain (2 Kings ix. 27). It was after-
ward memorable for the death of king Josiah, slain by
Pharaoh-necho, king of Egypt (2 Kings xxiii. 29). So
that the “mourning in the valley of Megiddo,” is used as a
proverbial expression by the prophet Zechariah, for a great
mourning (xii. 11, 12).
Whoever the three unclean spirits are, whether, as Mr.
Daubuz has hinted, the monks, the religious knights, and
the secular clergy, of the Roman church, or, more at large,
all who warmly engage in support of this antichristian throne
and kingdom; they yet seem plainly to intimate some
powerful league for confederacy, by which the principal
popish powers shall be engaged with all their forces in some
war, in which they shall be totally overthrown, and which
shall end in their final destruction, as seems to be more fully
expressed in the description of the seventh vial, or last cup.
So that we may conjecture, the fulfilling of this part of the
prophecy is reserved for the times near the end of this
period ; the more full explication of which ought, as I ap-
prehend, to be referred to those times themselves.
7 Ver. 17.] Satan is represented in scripture, the god of
this world, the chief director and agent of all the corruption
in it, and is called “the prince of the power of the air,”
Eph. ii. 2. So that “pouring the vial into the air,” is a
CHAPT ER, XVI.
1083
18 And there were voices, and thunders, and
lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as
was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an
earthquake, and so great.
(18.) When the voice of the oracle had pronounced, It
is finished, the air on which the vial was poured appeared
in violent commotions; there followed thunders and light-
nings, as if nature was in convulsions; there was such an
earthquake as had never been before since God had placed
man on the earth to inhabit it; to represent the very great
and terrible commotions of the world, when God should ap-
pear in so remarkable a manner, to destroy the powers of
the prince of the air, with his associated antichristian powers
of the earth. -
19 And the great city was divided into three parts,
and the cities of the nations fell; and great Babylon
came in remembrance before God, to give unto her
the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.
(19.) The effects of this tempest and earthquake reached
the several cities of the antichristian nations, and the great
imperial city itself. It quite threw down several cities to
the ground, and split the city of Rome in several parts; to
represent that this judgment should punish mystical Baby-
lon with very great and exemplary severity.
20 And every island fled away, and the mountains
were not found. {
(20.) This punishment was so general on all the anti-
christian powers, that it reached every place, nor could men
find protection against it anywhere; it was like a hurricane,
that reached islands and mountains, and utterly destroyed
them, as well as it threw down cities and towns in valleys,
and on the land. -
21 And there fell upon men a great hail out of
heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and
men blasphemed God because of the plague of the
hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great.
(21.) Yet farther to show how terrible this judgment
should be, besides the representation of thunder, lightning,
and an earthquake, by which cities and towns were thrown
down and destroyed, there fell a great hail, with stones of so
extraordinary weight, as were sufficient to kill all who fled
into the open fields for safety; to represent that this severe
and heavy judgment was general everywhere; that none were
able in any place to escape their share in the punishment:
yet even these judgments could not overcome the obstinacy
of the enemies of truth and righteousness. The anguish of
their minds on account of these plagues made them more
uneasy and discontented; they blasphemously censured
God’s government of the world, which at once served to
aggravate their guilt, and illustrate the justice of God, in
the severity of his righteous judgments upon them.”
proper expression to point out the very seat and foundation
of Satan's power and authority, as god of this world, whereby
he worketh in the children of disobedience. Satan is per-
haps called “the prince of the power of the air,” to signify
that his power is only in this lower world, or, in the language
of scripture, over things done under the sum, where there
are so many children of disobedience, whom he may work
up to serve his evil purposes. And this representation
seems to intend, that when this last vial shall be poured
out, Satan shall be bound up ; his power shall be so re-
strained, that he shall no longer be able to prevail, either to
corrupt the truth of the Christian religion, or persecute the
faithful professors of it.
* Ver. 21.] The fulfilling of this part of the prophecy is,
according to the order and series, at so great distance, that
we can only guess at the historical events which are to an-
swer them, and even such conjectures will likely be very un-
certain too: yet as these prophecies are designed for the
benefit of the church in every age, to encourage patience
and faithfulness, from hope in God's promises of protection
and deliverance, we learn in general this useful and certain
truth, that the remaining efforts of the antichristian
powers against the truth and purity of the Christian faith
and religion, whatever they may be, shall as surely be pu-
nished in the times yet to come, as we have seen they were
punished in the times already past. And farther, we may
well be satisfied, that this plague, which will fall in with the
times of the last period, at the end of it, suppose, from about
the year 1900 to about the year 2016, shall quite destroy
the tyrannical and persecuting power of the antichristian
kingdom, and make way for the next period, the pure and
happy state of the Christian church, which, in the order of
these prophecies, is to follow upon the downfall of mystical
Babylon, when the dragon, which is the devil and Satan,
shall be bound and shut up in the bottomless pit (Rev. xx.
2, 3). This may then be looked upon as a sure word of
prophecy, that this antichristian power must and shall cer-
tainly fall in God's appointed time, though all the powers
of wickedness unite all their strength, and collect all their
force together to defend it; the last vial shall have assure an
effect as all the former vials have already had. This
should encourage the faith and patience of all saints, exhort
them to “be stedfast and unmoveable, always to abound in
the work of the Lord ; for his counsel shall stand for ever,
and the thoughts of his heart unto all generations.”
HISTORY OF THE WIALS.
First vial,—This plague of the first vial, or cup, seems to
be an allusion to one of the plagues of Egypt, when Moses
and Aaron took up ashes of the furnace, and sprinkled it up
towards heaven, and it became “a boil breaking forth
with blains upon man and beast” (Exod. ix. 10); or to the
afflictions of Job, when Satan, by God's permission, smote
him “with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his
crown” (Job ii. 7).
Painful and noisome distempers of the body are very
proper emblems of an afflictive condition of life ; hence,
for “every man to know his own sore and his own grief,”
are expressions of the same meaning in the language of
scripture (2 Chron. vi. 29).
Such general interpretations of these plagues would give
'us a very useful sense of this part of prophecy, if we were
to understand no more of it than this—That the justice of
God will, by a series of events in providence, to the end of
the world, punish the enemies, of true religion, and those
who persecute his faithful servants. This would be an en-
couragement to faith and patience ; a reasonable warning
not to be partakers in such guilt, lest we also be partakers
of such punishments, even though we should be of the same
opinion with an eminent author:* “As to the vials, though
they do plainly reach in a series to the end of the world, I
am not satisfied with any exposition I have yet met with
concerning their precise time or contents.”
The plan of these prophecies, the order of the periods,
the successive series of events, may, however, I conceive,
give a farther light to the general expressions, and furnish
us with particular facts in providence, important in them-
selves, and properly applicable to the several prophetical
descriptions; such as may show, that the historical events
of this period are as agreeable to the revelation of prophecy
as any of the former.
It is true, as the same ingenious author observes, “mo-
desty and sobriety are in all things commendable ; and in
nothing more, than in the explication of these sacred mys-
teries.” I shall endeavour, therefore, with the modesty due
to such inquiries, to mention such events in history as I
think applicable both to the description and order of the
prophecies; leaving it to the judgment of the readers, to
give them what degree of evidence they shall think they de-
* Burnet, Theory, lib. iii. cap. 5.
1084.
REVELATION.
serve: only premising this observation—there is a general
use to be made of a more general meaning, for the encou-
ragement of faith and patience, and to warn us against fall-
ing in with the great apostasy of this period, though we
should not be satisfied with the precise time or contents of
each particular judgment signified by the several vials in
their order.
These vials, full of the wrath of God, seem plainly deter-
mined as to their time, to this third period; and this renders
all expositions of them improbable, which refer them to any
part of history before the period itself begins. This one con-
sideration may set aside many of the expositions which
learned men have given us of them : they are to be poured
out upon those who had the mark of the beast, and who
worshipped his image ; they are therefore to be considered
belonging to the times in which the beast reigns, and are to
be looked for in the times after the popes were invested
with the temporal power of Rome, which is evidently the
last form of Roman government, and has now continued to
be so for near a thousand years to our times.
It seems farther a very natural rule of interpretation, to
consider the vials in successive order, describing the events
of providence, at proper intervals, one after another, during
the twelve hundred and sixty years in which this third pe.
riod of prophecy is to continue ; so that the last plague is
to end with the downfall of this mystical Babylon. Let us
then see, whether, following this guide, we may not find out
something concerning the times and contents of these vials,
which may give us reasonable satisfaction.
This plague of the first vial will then be the first in
order, and in time; this will direct us, I think, to look for
it in the times next to the rise of the beast ; and, for its
contents, in the first remarkable punishment on the sup-
porters of this antichristian power.
We have aiready seen, that the pope received the tem-
poral power of Rome, together with the exarchate of Ra-
venna, as the patrimony of St. Peter, about the year 756,
by the assistance of Pepin, king of France.
Charles the Great, son of Pepin, was proclaimed em-
peror by the pope's means, A. D. 800. This prince carried
the French monarchy to a very large extent, having France,
Germany, and Italy within the bounds of his dominion ;
in quality of emperor, he confirmed the grant of the exar-
chate to the popes, and enlarged the donation of his father
Pepin.” ©
Charles the Great, like another Constantine, seemed to
have laid the foundation of a great and prosperous empire
for his family, and a state of great outward prosperity for
the church.
But it appeared, in a very few years, that notwithstanding
all the care of Charles the Great, and his son Lewis, sur-
named the Pious, that all sorts of corruption gained ground,
and continually prevailed both in church and state. The
worship of saints and images, the doctrine of purgatory, and
masses for the dead, the doctrine of the real presence, and
adoration of the consecrated bread, the perfection and merit
of a monastic life, the superstitious and idolatrous worship
founded on these doctrines, became the sum of religion. The
state of the church in these times is not unfairly represented
by a very learned historian. Nimis increvithāc seculo per
civiles et bellicas calamitates, indulgentiamdue principum,
vitio cleri, ambitione pontificum, desidia monarchorum,
foeda corruptio et vere antichristiana, in doctrina, cultà,
moribus, regimine. -
The doctrine of the pope's Supremacy and power over the
whole church was in particular carried to a great height ;
great indeed, as represented by the Roman writers; in par-
ticular, that the imperial dignity was conferred, and the
translation made of the empire from the Greeks to the
French, by the proper authority of the Roman bishops; so
that cardinal Baronius observes, that the title of the west-
ern empire was taken from the Greeks, by the pope's
authority, for heresy: Jacuisse absdue possessore titulum
occidentalis imperii, a Graecis ob hareses, auctoritate poil:
tificia, sublatum. This authority is asserted to be seated
in the pope, and, by divine right, in him primarily : Ex
* Heis, Hist. de l'Empire, vol. i. p. 51.
* Spanheim, Hist. Eccl. secul. ix. cap. 5, p. 1343.
Lothario, cujus rei non unum documentum est.-
insità ipsi Romano pontifici, concessà divinitàs, auctoritate,
ex potestate quae in ipso primarió resideat. Hence the
whole power of the emperors is said to be wholly from the
grace of God, and of the apostolic see: Igitur Dei, et
apostolicae sedis gratià, totum hoc esse, quod consecuti Sunt
occidentalis orbis imperatores.* More may be seen to the
same purpose in the learned Spanheim.
It would be too long to mention the intrigues by which
the popes endeavoured to weaken the imperial power, and
render the emperors odious and contemptible, as a noted
French historian ºf observes. “Pope Gregory IV. had a
great hand in the troubles of the emperor Lewis the Pious,
gave secret encouragement to his sons, in their unnatural re-
bellion, and to Ebbo archbishop of Rheims, and the bishops
of France, when they actually deposed him at Compeign,
A. D. 833.” f Fovisse eum (Gregorium papam) nefario
studio, rebellionem filiorum Ludovici, in optimum ac muni-
ficum in Romanam ecclesiam principem, demerendo Sibi
Nec
dubium est, quin clām a pontifice inducti fuerint episcopi
Gallicani, principibus Ebbone Rhemensi, et Agobardo Lug-
dunensi, quum deposuère imperatorem, apud Compendium
dioecesios Suessionensis, anno 833.S This was so fully
known, that many of the clergy of France publicly charged
pope Gregory with it. Quare idem Gregorius pontifex à
Franciae melioribus episcopis accusatus est, quéd immemor
esset pastoralis officii, moderationis, jurisjurandi facti im-
peratori. Dupin || gives very near the same account with
Spanheim.
A little after this, pope John VIII. assumed the autho-
rity of giving the empire to Charles the Bald of France, in
prejudice to the rights of Lewis of Germany, the elder
branch. Mortuo Ludovico imperatore, in praejudicium
Ludovici Germanorum regis, fratris natü majoris, ad imperii
Romani sceptra provehit, ac coronam imponit, interpretatus
sincerum beneficium, et jus apostolicae sedis." “His holi-
ness,” says a popish historian,” “with the other prelates,
judging they had more to get by Charles than Lewis, gave
him the preference, and crowned him emperor on Christmas-
day, anno 875.” But Charles, as the same historian observes,
obtained this favour of the pope, at the expense of the rights
of his imperial crown and sovereign dignity; insomuch that,
of a superior, which he was before, he became a sort of vas-
sal. He also gave up many of the rights of the Gallican
church, and promised by oath to protect the pope against all
persons. Fºr p
These ambitious views and growing power of the bishops
of Rome,tt greatly weakened the government and authority
of that family, to which it owed its greatness and support.
It proved a painful sore, and incurable ulcer, and was in
great measure the cause of those many evils, which for so
long a time afflicted the inhabitants of the earth, during the
quarrels and contests between the successors of Charles the
Great, which ended at last in their ruin, carried the crown of
France to Hugh Capet, and transferred the kingdom to
another family, and the imperial dignity to the Germans,
another nation and people ; and in these evils, Italy and
Rome itself had their share, according to the righteous judg-
ments of God.
The sons of Lewis the Pious, among whom his empire was
divided, could no more agree among themselves after their
father's death, than they could with him while he was living:
their differences were only to be decided by the sword. The
battle of Fontenay, A. D. 841, was obstinate and bloody ; a
hundred thousand men were slain in battle: a blow that so
weakened the family of Charles the Great, that it could
never after recover itself. Depuis le commencement de la
monarchie Française jusqu'à cetemps que j'écris, says a ce-
lebrated French historian,S$ il me s'est point repandu tant de
sang Francais en quelque journée que clait été ; il y perit
* Spanheim, ibid. p. 1348.
+ Mezeray, vol. i. p. 292. -
f Spanheim, ib. p. 1354. § Ibid. p. 1355.
| Dupin, Hist. de l'Eglise, vol. iii. p. 9.
"I Spanheim, ib. p. 1359.
§. ** Heiss, Hist. de l'Empire, vol. i. p. 91.
++ Ibid. p. 92. †: Mezeray, vol. i. p. 347.
§§ Ibid. vol. i. p. 314. §
CHAPTER XVI.
1085
cent mille hommes, horrible plaie, et que affoiblit si fort la
maison Carlienne, qu’elle ne s'en put jamais remettre.
Caedes miserabilis facta, says another historian,” omnis
prope nobilitas Francica caesa, pertinaci inter se certamine.
The emperor Charles, surnamed Le Gros, reunited most
of the dominions of Charles the Great; he inherited Ger-
many from his father, and upon the death of his cousin
Lewis, succeeded him in the empire of Italy and kingdom
of France. He was crowned emperor by the pope, A. D.
880, and received king of France A. D. 884, the French
passing over Charles the Simple, as too young for govern-
ment: but this prince was soon forsaken by his subjects,
who chose in his room Arnold, his brother's natural son,
about A. D. 887. The defection was so general, that he was
reduced to great misery and want; insomuch, that he had
not a servant to attend him, nor a penny to buy him bread;
only Luitprand bishop of Mentz had any pity for him, and
at last kept him from starving. En sorte, says Mezeray,+
qu'il ne lui resta pas un valet pour le servir, ni un seul
denier pour vivre,iln'y eut que Luitperd evéque de Mayence,
qui en eut pitié et lui donna å manger.
At the death of this Charles Le Gros, the family of
Charles the Great was reduced to two princes, Arnold na-
tural son of Carloman, and Charles surnamed the Simple ;
but there were several persons of great power descended
from some of the daughters of Charles the Great, t as Eudes
earl of Paris and duke of France, Berenger duke of Friuli,
and Guy duke of Spoleto in Italy. France chose Eudes
for their king ; this occasioned continual wars between him
and Charles the Simple, till the death of Eudes, A. D. 898.
But the differences between Berenger and Guy in Italy were
much longer, and afflicted all Italy with great calamities, in
which Rome itself could not avoid a considerable share. Hi
summam Sibi rerum haud malo consilio asciscere mixi, intes-
tinis populorum discordiis Italiam perturbārunt, ac seipsos
prorsås una cum ecclesiá perdiderunt : ea tempora in rem-
publicam inferentes, quibus nulla alia tetriora ac foediora
fuisse, vel principum nequitiá, vel populorum insaniá, in tota
antiquitate inveniuntur.S
It is to be observed, that as the popes had themselves a
very great hand in exciting these troubles, so they had a
great share in them too. Major pars, licet Berengarii causa
justior esset, pontificis credo auctoritate impulsa, ad Widonem
se contulit. || -
The quarrel soon spread itself into the Roman church.
The parties of pope Formosus and Sergius raged against each
other with uncommon fury ; insomuch, that pope Stephen
caused the dead body of Formosus to be dug out of its grave,
and after condemnation to be thrown into the river Tiber;
made all his acts null and void, and took care to make an
emperor of his own party. Lambertum veró regem Italiae,
factionis suae partes, exemplo patris, foventem, inunxit im-
peratorem."
It would be endless to mention all the calamities these
civil contentions brought upon Italy, for near fourscore
years, till pope John XII., A. D. 960, implored the assist-
ance of Otho the Great, emperor of Germany, pro Christianae
religionis, atque Italiae salutis amore.” Who accordingly
came, and put an end to the troubles of Italy; in acknow.
ledgment of which service, he received the imperial crown
from the pope, A. D. 962. *
The forementioned calamities were great in themselves,
and were also an occasion of many others: for these civil
contentions had greatly weakened the western empire, so
that the Normans were able to invade and ravage several
parts of it ; especially in France, where at last they forced
a settlement, and erected a powerful dominion in Normandy,
so called after their own name. The mischiefs these Norman
invasions caused in France, are not to be mentioned, says
Mezeray,++ without horror. Their desire of plunder brought
them into the richest provinces, the false zeal for their reli-
gion (they were then heathens) made them cruel and bloody,
especially to churchmen. From sea to sea there was not a
* AEmilius de Rebus Gestis Francorum, p. 82.
+ Mezeray, vol. i. p. 370. f Ibid. vol. i. p. 371.
§ Sigonius de Regno ltaliae, lib. vi. p. 139.
| Ibid. p. 140. ‘I Ibid. p. 144.
** Ibid. p. 166. ++ Vol. i. p. 310.
monastery that did not feel their rage, nor a town that was
not ransomed, pillaged, or burnt, twice or three times;
which, says our historian, made it sufficiently evident, it was
one of God's terrible plagues.
On the other hand, the Saracens ravaged Italy, fixed
themselves at Tarento, made excursions to the very gates of
Rome, and carried off the riches of the churches without the
gates of the city. Saraceni praedae libidine stimulati, ex
Africa classem Romanis littoribus intulerunt, et procursă ad
urbem facto, opimas apostolorum Petri et Pauli suburbanas.
basilicas, nemine vim propulsante, diripuerunt, ac pretiosis
omnibus earum ornamentis ablatis, ipsas etiam basilicae
Vaticanae valvas argenteas asportărunt.”
About the same time the Hungarians, then a barbarous
and brutal people, broke in upon the German dominions,
and plundered Bavaria, Swabia. Franconia, and Saxony.
They afterward marched into Italy, routed Berenger, cut his
army to pieces, and often renewed their incursions, to the
great terror and ruin of the inhabitants of those countries
which they invaded. -
This was the calamitous state of the western empire for
above a hundred years from the death of Lewis the Pious,
A. D. 840, to the settlement of the German empire in Otho
the Great, A. D. 962; and well agrees to the prophetic de-
scription, to the time and order of the prophecies, with re-
spect to each other. By “the earth,” in the prophetic style
of these revelations, is meant the Roman empire, or the
countries, with their inhabitants, subject to its dominion.
The calamities of these times, as they are related in history,
may very properly be called a noisome and grievous sºe,
£Axo~ waxy zai ºrovney, “a painful malignant ulcer.” . The
order of the prophecies shows what state of the empire is
meant, that state of it which falls in with the beginning of
the reign of the beast, or of the third period of one thousand
two hundred and sixty years. It may therefore sufficiently,
I think, point out to us on what earth this first vial was to
be poured, on whom this plague was to fall, what was the
time, and what were the contents of this vial.
Second vial.—Let us follow our guide in the order and
series of prophecy and history, and see whether there are
not some very memorable events in the series of providence,
which are very properly applicable to this prophetical de-
scription. º º
The pouring out of the first cup, foretelling the judgments
of God on the successors of Charles the Great, and the new-
founded dominion of the papacy, principally occasioned by
the pope's ambition and intrigues, has brought us down tº the
latter end of the tenth century. Then the empire was fixed
in Germany by Otho the Great, and the kingdom of France
passed into the third race, the family of Capet, in which it
still remains, about A. D. 987. º
Let us observe what was the next memorable part of his–
tory, after these great revolutions in the western empire, and
in the nations which owned the authority of the Roman
popes; the order and series of the prophecies direct us to
look there, as the proper time wherein to find the contents
of the second vial. * *
From A. D. 1000 to 1100 the corruptions of true religion
were greatly increased. A prodigious superstition spread
everywhere during the eleventh century, not only among
the lower sort and common people, but among persons of
the first rank, even emperors and princes themselves; pre-
tended miracles, apparitions of departed souls, dreadful tales
of the pains of purgatory, improved the people's superstition,
and enriched the church.j: -
The whole of religion was placed in penances, masses, lega-
cies to redeem souls from purgatory, pilgrimages; especially
to the holy sepulchre at Jerusalem, which ended at last in
the holy war.S - -
This gave a fair occasion to the popes to carry on their
ambitious designs, and enlarge their authority in things tem.
poral as well as spiritual; the antichristian power began now
to exalt itself above all that is called God, and to claim a
power of choosing and deposing emperors, and to deprive
princes of all civil rights by excommunication. Hildebrand
was pope, by the name of Gregory VII., A. D. 1073; he ex-
* Sigonius, ib. p. 120,
† Spanheim, p. 1510.
+ Mezeray, vol. i. p. 384
§ Ibid. p. 1518.
1086
REVELATION.
pressly claimed the authority of sovereign judge over all, of
deposing emperors, and absolving subjects from their alle-
giance. He actually used this power towards the emperor
Henry IV. and other princes of Europe. In the year 1076,
he held a council at Rome, of one hundred and ten bishops,
who, after mature debate, concluded,” the pope had reason
to deprive the emperor of his crown, and absolve the princes
and members of the empire from their oaths. This resolution
the pope put in execution, excommunicated the emperor and
all his adherents.
Farther, in the year 1080, he renewed his excommunica-
tion against the emperor, declares he had forfeited the
kingdoms of Germany and Italy, and all royal dignity, for-
bid all Christians to obey him, gives the kingdom of Germany
; Rodolf, exhorting all the princes to take arms against
im.**
What troubles, what unnatural rebellions, what bloody
wars, this most extravagant claim of power occasioned, the
historians of those times relate at large; they are such as in
themselves might be esteemed justly a terrible judgment for
this antichristian apostasy. -
This pope Gregory had other differences with almost all
the other Christian princes; he threatened to excommunicate
Philip the First, king of France, and usurped a full authority
over the bishops and ecclesiastical affairs of France, by his
legates; and, in a word, he did all that he could to become
the only sovereign monarch of the universe: Enfin, il fit son
possible, pour se faire declarer le seul monarque souverain
de tout l'univers.j: Besides all these flames which the ambi-
tion of the popes kindled in the western empire itself, it was
the occasion of another most remarkable judgment, which
fell grievously on the zealous abettors of superstition and
supporters of the papal authority. -
Pope Urban II., the next but one to this Hildebrand,
continued the quarrel with the emperor, who supported Cle-
ment, formerly called Guibert, as pope against him.S
Pope Urban went into France, A.D. 1096, and held a
council at Clermont; he proposed, with great earnestness, to
raise an army, which should march into the holy land, to
recover Jerusalem and the sepulchre out of the hands of
Mahometans. Sacram Hierosolymorum expeditionem, in-
credibili sententiarum gravitate, verborum copiá, atque animi
ardore suasit.]]
It is incredible what effect so romantic a project had on
the minds of a Superstitious people; they received it for the
manifest will of God, and fell in with the pope's proposal
with wonderful zeal. Postguam autem peroravit, universi
quiaderant, divino quasi Spirità concitati, bellum pro sepul-
cro Christi recuperando ingentibus studiis animorum jusse-
runt, atque in eo apertam se Dei voluntatem sequi velle,
altissimis clamoribus responderunt."
The pope, to encourage their constancy in such a resolu-
tion, promises free indulgence for their sins, to take them
into the church's protection, both for their persons and for-
tunes. Gratias ago Deo maximas, said the pope, quëd vos
tantă animorum consensione atque alacritate arma pro Christo
redemptore vestro suscepturos esse ostenditis; neque tam
repentina in tam diversis gentibus conspiratio, sine gravissi-
mo ipsius esse impulså potest. Nos autem ut studia vestra,
quoad possumus, adjuvemus, misericordiá Dei, et beatorum
Petri et Pauli auctoritate confisi, omnibus qui ad hoc bellum
prodierint, omnia pro delictis suis piacula relaxamus, eosque
sub ecclesia tutelam, et beatorum Petri et Pauli clientelam,
tanquam veræ obedientiae filios, suscipimus, et ab omnibus
vexationibus corporum fortunarumque tutos esse statuimus.**
We here evidently see what hand the pope had in this
enthusiastical expedition ; but we should observe, there was
something deeper than superstition or enthusiasm in this
project of the popes, which caused so much effusion of
Christian blood. “These crusades and voyages beyond sea,”
says a judicious historian of the Roman communion, “oc-
casioned the ruin of many great men, and a multitude of
common people; but the popes and kings had great advan-
* Heiss, vol. i. p. 170.
+ Dupin, Hist. de l'Eglise, vol. iii. p. 176.
f Ibid. p. 177. § Ibid. p. 182.
| Sigonius, lib. ix. p. 234. * Ibid.
** Ibid. -
tages from it, to render them absolute. These (the popes)
because they took the authority of commanding these expe-
ditions, of which they were the head; they had the persons
and estates of those who took the cross in their protection.
It made the use of indulgences and dispensations more com-
mon than before; their legates had the management of the
alms and legacies which were given for these wars; and it
moreover gave the popes a pretence to raise the tenth on the
clergy.” In effect, no policy could have so well served the
| pope's ambition, nor any means be better suited to render
his authority supreme and absolute.
We have an immediate instance of the truth of these
observations. Clement, who disputed the papacy with Ur-
ban, had possessed himself of Rome, but Urban, by the help
of those who had listed themselves for this holy war, as-
saulted Rome, and took it, and forced Clement to retire.
Eo ardore, says Sigonius, quo bellum contra Saracenos Sua-
serat, arma paravit, ac propriis multorum, quos ad sacram
expeditionem accenderat, auxiliis usus, urbem oppugnavit. ‘t
An incredible number of persons soon prepared themselves
for this holy war. Pope Urban travelled through Italy to
raise money; the people listed themselves so fast in this
spiritual militia, that the countries seemed to be deserted,
and all the coasts and havens filled with people setting out
on their voyage to Asia. Ex toto occidente, principes, po-
pulique aded frequentes ierunt, ut crederes, vulgó urbes ab
incolis deseri, agrosque incultos, Solosque deseri; Urbanus
Calabriam, Apuliam, et Siciliam, quas Normanni amici tum
ecclesiae obtinebant, lustravit, atque ingentem pecuniae sum-
mam in commoda ecclesiae, profundendam confecit: cruce
signati, diversis itineribus, terrà marique, ita ut omnes oras
portusque complerent, trajecerunt.: -
This first expedition is computed to consist of more than
three hundred thousand men.S They met with some suc-
cess at first. Godfrey of Bouillon, their general, had the
honour of receiving the title of King of Jerusalem, having
taken it A.D. 1099, yet their victories were so bloody,
that in a very short time there remained no more than five
thousand horse and fifteen thousand foot of that numerous
all'In W.
Yet the fire of enthusiasm still spread through the west;
another crusade was raised A. D. 1100. This again con-
sisted of above three hundred thousand more. In this ex-
pedition my author'ſ observes, that not only several great
princes, but moreover many prelates, and even many great
ladies, resolved to undertake the voyage. Et plusieurs pre-
lats, et quantité des dames illustres woulurent faire ce voyage.
Thus, in about four years, six hundred thousand men
were sent to perish, through the ambitious views of the popes.
These expeditions continued for many years, with an incre-
dible effusion of blood. According to some authors, there
perished above two millions of these enthusiasts: others ob-
serve, there were hardly any men left in the west, and
almost no persons seen, but either infants or widows.
In fine, about the year 1190, the emperor Frederic, our
king Richard, Philip Augustus of France, and others, made
another fruitless and inglorious expedition; and, after the loss
of the greatest part of their armies, were forced to leave what
had been so long contended for, with so much bloodshed, in
the hands of the Mahometans.
This is a very remarkable part of history; it falls in ex-
actly with the order and series of the prophecies, and is so
memorable a judgment on the supporters of the papal apos-
tasy, that I shall leave it to the reader's judgment, whether
it does not give light to the time and contents of this second
vial.
Third vial,—We have supposed the judgment of the fore-
going vial, or cup, to have been the crusade or holy war, by
which the ambition of the popes, and gross superstition of
the people, had involved a great part of the church and em-
pire in many grievous calamities, and many hundred thousand
lives were sacrificed to a wild enthusiasm.
The judgments signified by this third vial, or cup, then,
according to the order of the prophecies, will be the next
remarkable judgment upon the followers of the beast, which,
º: Mezeray, Hist. de France, vol. i. p. 510, ib. p. 664.
+ Sigonius, p. 235. 3: Ibid. p. 235. § Mezeray, p. 5]2.
| Ibid. p. 513. “I Ibid. p. 514.
zº
CHAPTER XVI.
1087
according to the order of time, must be about A.D. 1200, for
a proportional number of the twelve hundred and sixty
years of this period. The contents of this vial, or nature of
the judgments signified by it, is shedding of blood, in recom-
pence for the blood of the saints shed by authority of the
beast. This judgment is chiefly to fall on those parts of the
western empire, which were the original seat of the beast's
residence and dominion.—Let us then inquire, whether we
have not historical events in this period of time, which very
properly answer to the prophetical descriptions, and suffi-
ciently verify the truth of this prediction.
We may observe, that the persecuting power of popery
was fully established, and raged with greatest fury, during
this period of time. It was in this time they were most emi-
. y distinguished for shedding the blood of Saints and pro-
pnets. -
The Albigenses became numerous and powerful;” they
were spread through Languedoc, Provence, Dauphiné, and
Arragon; they were protected by persons in power, in par-
ticular by Raymond count of Toulouse. Pope Innocent
III. sent his legates to suppress them, about A. D. 1198.
He gave them commission not only to preach against the
Albigenses, but to excite princes and people to exterminate
them by a crusade, in which he endeavoured to engage
Philip Augustus, then king of France, and the great princes
and lords of his kingdom.
Besides all former methods of proceedings against heretics,
which one would have thought were severe enough, this pope
Innocent III. found out, and established, the new method of
the inquisition.'i Father Dominic was made inquisitor about
A. D. 1216. When he received his authority from the pope,
he declared that he was resolved to defend the doctrines of
the faith, meaning the corruptions of the Roman church,
with the utmost vigour; and that if the spiritual and ecclesi-
astical arms were not sufficient for this end, it was his fixed
purpose to call in princes to take arms against heretics, that
the very memory of them might be destroyed.
Thus, all the severe and bloody methods of persecution
were set on foot ; a vast army of cross-bearers was raised:
Mezeray+ says, they were not less than five hundred thousand.
They besieged Beziers, took it, and put about sixty thousand
to the Sword, and proceeded with great cruelty, till they had
ruined the count of Toulouse, and given his estate to
Montfort, general of the crusade, as a reward for his services.
The severest methods of persecution were established by
the famous council of Lateran.S The poor Albigenses were
everywhere a sacrifice to the merciless rage of their enemies.
The chief zeal of the church, in those times, consisted in
putting those they called heretics to death in the most cruel
manner they could invent. Thus they made themselves
worthy of the judgment, that God should “give them blood
to drink.”
And we shall find this part of the prophecy as fully veri-
fied in the events of providence as the former.
There had been great contests between the emperors and
popes for a long time about investitures, or the right of pre-
senting to bishoprics and ecclesiastical preferments. The
emperors claimed this right, as belonging to their regale, a
royalty belonging to the crown; on the other hand, the popes
claimed it, as an unquestionable part of the pontifical au-
thority. This contention had occasioned great confusion
and disturbance at various times; parties were formed on
cach side, distinguished by the names of Guelphs and Ghi-
bellines: the Guelphs were the papal party, the Ghibellines
the imperial.
The emperor Frederic II. was excommunicated A. D.
1227, for not going in person to the holy war.|| This so
angered the emperor, that he endeavoured every way to
mortify the pope. He engaged several of the powerful no-
blemen of Rome against him ; so that the pope was forced
to leave Rome, and retire to Perugia. The Guelph and
Ghibelline faction strove in every place to raise their own
* Dupin, Hist. de l'Eglise, vol. iii. p. 318.
+ Limborch, Hist. Inquisit. cap. 10, p. 61.
f Vol. ii. p. 219.
§ Concil. Lateran. can. iii.
Inquisitionibus.
| Heiss, IHist. de l'Empire, vol. i. p. 270.
de Haereticis, can. iii. de
party,” and to ruin the other; so that almost all the cities
in Italy were in civil wars, and the blood of the citizens, in
almost every place, shed by their own hands.
However, the emperor embarked the next year for the
holy land, but soon found the pope had sent him into Syria
that he might make war against him the better in Italy.
He therefore returned, recovered the places taken from him
by the pope, ravaged all the pope's dominions even to the
gates of Rome. In the year 1237 he beat the army of the
league formed against him, after a furious and bloody battle,
and put the general and other chief officers to death by the
hands of the common hangman. The animosities of the two
parties, the Guelphs and Ghibellines, were so outrageous,
that not only the several cities of Italy were divided, but
parti houses and families, so that they gave no quarter
to each er.
The death of the emperor Frederic II., A. D. 1250, left
the empire in great confusion. Many pretended to the im-
perial dignity. These contests were sensibly felt in Italy;
such cities as held of the empire, either formed themselves
into commonwealths, or were governed by princes of their
own. Pope Urban, jealous of the power of Manfred, who
had possessed himself of the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily,
and to recover the power of the Guelph party, which was
almost ruined, made an offer of the kingdoms of Naples and
Sicily to Charles earl of Anjou, brother to Lewis king of
France, on condition he would bring sufficient forces into
Italy, to support the almost ruined party of the Guelphs.;
Charles accepts the pope's offer, was crowned by Clement
IV. on condition to hold those kingdoms of the holy See, by
homage, fealty, and an annual rent. His army was joined
by the Guelphs, defeated Manfred's army, and so got into
possession of both the Sicilies. Upon this, Conradin duke
of Suabia, son of the emperor Conrad, and last of the family,
was encouraged to enter Italy by the Ghibellines, who were
not able to endure the power of the Guelphs, so greatly
strengthened by the protection of Charles. Both sides came
to a battle, in which Conradin was beaten and taken prisoner,
with Frederic of Austria who accompanied him, and both
had their heads cut off: so that the two great families of
Suabia and Austria became extinct, A. D. 1268. This dis-
honourable execution was by the pope's advice, who near
his death gave it for a maxim, “The life of Conradin is the
death of Charles;” Conradi vita, Caroli mors ; Caroli vita,
Cº. mors.S
odolf of Hapsburg, afterward emperor, who, by
transferring these inheritances into his own family, raised
the grandeur of the present house of Austria, could not
be persuaded to meddle with the affairs of Italy; so
that the government of most cities fell into several hands,
just as the contending parties could prevail over each
other. -
The contest, upon the death of Rodolf, between his
son Albert of Austria and Adolph of Nassau, kept the
affairs of Italy in pretty much the same state. The feuds
between the Guelphs and Ghibellines continued and in-
creased : Jamais les deux partis des Guelphs et des Ghibel-
lines me förent si acharnés l'un contre l'autre, qu'ils etaient
alors.| ‘.
Pope Boniface VIII. persecuted the Ghibellines and
the cardinals Colonna with great severity." This more
inflamed the parties against each other ; so that the pope
was taken prisoner by the Ghibellines, the grief of which is
supposed to have hastened his end: Dolore animi confectus
periit.**
Pope Clement V., a little time after, consulted his own
safety, and retired with the cardinals into France, where
the court of Rome continued for above Seventy years,
in a sort of banishment from their own country and
dominions; in all which time, the Guelphs and Ghibel-
lines made war on each other, and Rome was in the great-
est confusion. -
The emperor Henry VII. resolved to assert the rights
of the empire in Italy. Pope Gregory, on the other
* Heiss, Hist. de l'Empire, vol. i. p. 274.
+ Ibid. p. 274.
: Ibid. p. 291.
| Platina, Bonifac. VIII. p. 23]
t
§ Ibid. p. 297. || Ibid. p. 324.
. ** Ibid. p. 233.
1088
REVELATION
hand, by secret practices, raised a powerful league against
him. He engaged the king of Naples, the cities of Flo-
rence, Sienna, Lucca, Cremona, Padua, and others, to op-
pose him. The city of Rome was in great distraction.
The Colonnas, at the head of the Ghibellines, seized on the
Lateran, the amphitheatre, and other principal places of
the city. -
John, brother of the king of Naples, at the head of the
Guelphs,” possessed himself of the capitol, castle of St.
Angelo, the mole of Adrian, and the Vatican. Platina has
represented the disorders of these bloody civil wars, as if
the Italians were in every place thirsting after each other's
blood, without any bounds to their mutual rage and
cruelty. Intestina mala quotidiè, cum magna hominuin
caede, in unaquaque civitate, in quovis parvo etiam cas-
tello, committebantur ; ca-debantur cives, necabantur Senes,
aliidebantur infantes, mec ullus crudelitatis modus inerat.
Benedict XII., in order to make as many friends as he
could, and keep up an interest in Italy against the emperor,
published an edict, whereby he confirmed to all persons, who
had seized on the governments of Lombardy, that they
should have a just title by that grant to what they had
usurped. Fece un decreto, che tutti i tiranni di Lombardia
possedessero le terre, che se havevano usurpate, con giusto
titulo. F
Platina farther observes, he pretended a right to make
such grants, because, during the vacancy of the empire, all
the power of it resides in the pope, who is the only vicar on
earth of Jesus Christ, the supreme King. Suo jure (ut ipse
dicebat) tribuit, quéd vacante imperio, omnis ejus potestas
in pontificem recidat, Jesu Christi, supremi regis, unicum in
terris vicarium.:
The emperor, on the other hand, not to be outdone by
the pope in liberality, presented all who had seized on
any part of the estate of the pope or church, with a title
to possess them as their own, by virtue of the imperial
authority.S
Thus were the parties spirited up against each other.
The contest continued for above a hundred years, spread
itself throughout all Italy; so that there was not a city,
scarce a village or a family, in which they did not shed
each other's blood in this furious contention. It would be
endless to mention particulars; I shall only take notice of
one, the massacre in Sicily, usually called, “the Sicilian
Vespers,” A. D. 1282. Pope Nicholas had the chief Yºund
in the plot, and managed the principal parts of it, though
it did not break out till after his death, as Mezeray ex-
pressly declares. The French were murdered throughout
the whole island ; they massacred them at the very altars ;
they ripped up the women with child, and dashed out the
children's brains against the stones: eight thousand were
murdered in two hours, and they spared the life but of one
single person.
When we see in history such bloody contentions, for so
long a time, occasioned by the popes' ambition, to wrest the
civil authority of the emperors out of their hands, and seize
on it for themselves, we have evident proof of this righteous
judgment of God, that he gave them blood to drink, as they
had shed the blood of his saints.
We see their ambition proved as bloody and destructive
to themselves, as to those whom they persecuted for their
faithfulness in the cause of truth and righteousness. Here
is a remarkable concurrence of persecution on the one hand,
and of punishment, by civil contentions and bloodshed, on
the other ; which are the distinguishing marks of this vial or
cup, as the time exactly answers to the series and order of
the prophecies.
Fourth vial,—We may still observe a near resemblance
between the prophecies of the vials and trumpets; on sound-
ing the fourth trumpet, a third part of the sun was smitten ;
this fourth angel pours out his vial upon the sun ; there is
however this difference, that on sounding the fourth trumpet
the sun was darkened, and the day shone not—on pouring
* Heiss, p. 325.
+ Machiavel, Hist. Fioren. lib. i. p. 30.
† Platina, Vita Benedict. XII. § Machiavel, p. 16.
| Mezeray, vol. i. p. 674.
out the fourth vial, the heat of the sun is so increased, as to
become intolerable and painful. º -
The sun, says an illustrious interpreter,” is put, in Sacred
prophecy, for the whole species and race of kings, in the "
kingdom or kingdoms of the world politic, shining with regal
power and glory. “Darkening, smiting, or setting of the
sun, is put for the ceasing of a kingdom, or for the desolil-
tion thereof, proportional to the darkness: and the scorch-
ing heat of the sun, for vexatious wars, persecutions, and
troubles, inflicted by the king.”h " . .
Gréat troubles are often expressed in scripture, by burn-
ing the inhabitants of the earth. “Therefore hath the curse.
devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate;
therefore are the inhabitants of the earth burned, and few
men left” (Isa. xxiv. 6). The elegance and propriety of
the expression, to “scorch men with the heat of the sun,”
was well understood by the inhabitants of the hot eastern
countries, who well knew what great mischiefs hot and
burning seasons often occasioned. Our Saviour, when he
had used the same figure of a scorching sun in the parable
of the sower, Matt. xiii, 6–21, interprets it himself of tri-
bulation and persecution. -
I think it is not material to inquire, what particular
effects of a scorching sun are the precise meaning of this
prophecy; whether, for instance, famine, on burning up the
fruits of the earth, or pestilential distempers, the effects of
unwholesome seasons; or, more generally, some great and
painful affliction, as the prophet explains a like expression,
“In the city is left desolation, and the gate is smitten with
destruction” (Isa. xxiv. 12).
We may understand this “scorching men with fire, so that
they were scorched with great heat,” as a prediction, that
the judgments of God should reach his enemies in every
place; for the host of heaven and seasons of the year should
fight against them, and smite them with destruction, so that
they should find no room to escape.
Let us then see whether, in the times which fall in with
this vial according to the order of the prophecies, we shall
not meet with such historical facts as will fully verify this
prediction. º
The time answering to the foregoing vial brought us down
to about the year 1371, when the factions were so well
quieted in Italy, that the popes returned to Rome, from
their banishment at Avignon in France. As, in the style of
prophecy,t the sun is put for the whole species or race of
kings, in the kingdom or kingdoms of the world politic, so
the popes, as heads of this political state restored to the seat
of their empire, will be most naturally meant by this figura-
tive representation of the sun ; so that the power given to
the sun to scorch men with fire, will most probably mean
some great and grievous evils brought upon the inhabitants
of the earth, by their hot and burning passions of ambition,
envy, and covetousness, the causes of many mischievous
disorders.
Upon the death of pope Gregory XI., which happened
soon after his return to Rome, there followed a great schism,
which was the most memorable event, and of greatest con-
sequence, in the history of those times, L'histoire du schisme
des papes est le plus considerable événement de ce siècle,
says the learned Dupin, Ş
The citizens of Rome, in order to fix the residence of the
popes among themselves for the future, warmly pressed the
choice of a Roman, at least of an Italian ; there were but
four Italian cardinals among the sixteen then at Rome, the
other twelve were Ultramontanes; so there was little ex-
pectation of a plurality of votes in favour of an Italian.
However, the multitude continually cried out, they would
have a Roman pope, and threatened the French cardinals to
cut them in pieces, if they did not choose a Roman, at least
an Italian.|| At length the people broke into the conclave,
and seized the cardinals, continually demanding a Roman
pope. Some of the cardinals' domestics having said to them,
“Have you not the cardinal of St. Peter P” immediately,
as if he had been duly elected, they clothed him in the pon-
tifical robes, placed him on the altar, and proceeded to
* Sir I. Newton on Dan. lib. ii. p. 17.
# ID. p. 18. f Ib. p. 17.
§ Hist, vol. iii. p. 401. | Ibid. p. 403.
CHAPTER XVI. *
1089
adoration, notwithstanding his own declaration, that he was
not pope: yet the next day he caused himself to be pro-
claimed pope, by the name of Urban VI. The cardinals
then publicly owned him, yet privately writ to the king of
France, and other Christian princes, that it was a void and
null election, which they did not intend should be acknow-
ledged. -
Urban, trusting likely to his party at Rome, behaved
with great pride and insolence, and very much disobliged
the cardinals. They retired from Rome to Fundi; there
they chose another pope. The better to reconcile the dif-
ference between the French and Italians, they chose a Ger-
man, Robert, cardinal of Geneva, who took the name of
Clement WII. -
Thus a schism began, which continued many years, and
divided the several kingdoms and states of Europe; some
supporting the cause of Urban, others the interests of
Clement, who left Italy, and placed his residence at Avi-
gnon.” Urban left his seat vacant by death, A. D. 1389.
The Italian cardinals proceeded to a new election, and
chose Boniface IX., a Neapolitan. In like manner, upon
the death of pope Clement, A. D. 1394, at Avignon, the
cardinals of that party proceeded to another election,
and chose Peter Luna, of Arragon, who was named
Benedict. Many attempts were made to heal this breach,
but all to no purpose ; a renunciation or cession of both
the popes was proposed, but that suited the ambition of
neither. f
The Romans, after the death of Boniface IX., chose In-
nocent VII., and after him Gregory XII., his successors.
The mischiefs of these contentions were at last thought to
want the remedy of a general council. A general council
was held at Pisa, A. D. 1409. The council deposed both
popes, Gregory and Benedict, and chose a new pope, who
took the name of Alexander W.
One would have thought this decision should have ended
the dispute ; here was the determination of a general
council, in which there were twenty-two cardinals, twelve
archbishops, sixty-seven bishops in person, eighty-five depu-
ties, a great number of abbots, proctors of orders, and chap-
ters, with sixty-seven ambassadors of kings or sovereign
princes: and yet both the popes found means to support
themselves, and keep up a party ; the one chiefly in Italy,
the other principally in Spain. Alexander W., chosen by the
council of Pisa, was received as pope by the greater part of
the nations. Upon his death, John XXIII. was chosen in
his place.
There were now three successors to St. Peter, in three lines
of succession; at the same time. John XXIII. appointed
a general council to be held at Constance, A. D. 1414. This
council pressed him to resign, and declared he ought to do
so, as well as Gregory and Benedict. F John did all he
could to avoid this ungrateful proposal, but finding he could
not gain his point in the council, he retired from it. The
council notwithstanding continued, and cited John to appear.
Upon his refusal, they declared him suspended from all go-
vernment spiritual and temporal; and, at last, by a decisive
sentence, deposed him. Gregory renounced the papacy, and
was confirmed a cardinal ; but Benedict continuing to op-
pose the council, was declared contumacious, a schismatic,
and deposed.
The next business was to choose a pope, to whom all
would submit, now the former were deposed. The council
unanimously chose Martin, anno 1417. This seemed to put
an end to a long schism, and to restore the peace of the
church. But it soon appeared, the ambition of the popes
was restless, and a continual source of disorders and mis-
chievous contentions.
Pope Eugene IV., who succeeded Martin V., was greatly
displeased with the council of Basil, for maintaining the
authority of councils to reform the church both in head and
members. Therefore, A. D. 1432, he published an order to
dissolve it. The council could not prevail upon the pope to
revoke the decree, yet continued to sit notwithstanding.j:
They cited the pope to appear before them; he was forced
at last to revoke the dissolution, to allow and approve the
continuation, with all that had been done by the council in
that time ; and the decree of the council of Constance was
renewed, for the confirmation of the authority of general
councils. +.
Yet still new differences arose: the pope translated the
council from Basil to Ferrara, and opened a council there,
Jan. 10, 1438. Yet many bishops continued still at Basil,
and proceeded so far as to depose pope Eugene, and chose
another pope, who was called Felix V.
Thus the schism was renewed by two popes, each at the
head of a council#—Pope Eugene presiding in the council
of Florence, to which place he had translated the council
from Ferrara ; and pope Felix presiding in the council of
Basil; and at the same time Germany proposed to call a
third general council, to examine the rights of the other two.
This schism continued to the death of Eugene, anno 1447,
Felix then resigning all his pretensions to Nicholas W., his
Sul CCGSSOr. #
From this time (though the schism was ended) the popes
were more taken up with the wars of Italy, enterprises
against the Turks, aggrandizing their temporal power, and
establishing their own families, than in any care of religion ;
which proved the occasion of great disorders. :
Alexander VI. was one of the worst of men; he dishon-
oured his dignity, says Dupin, by ambition, avarice, cruelty,
and debauchery. According to Mezeray, he was one of the
most impious and vicious of men; and if there was any one
who exceeded him in abominable crimes, it was his own baş-
tard son, Caesar Borgia.j: .
The disorders and calamities occasioned by these contem-
tions, which the ambition, tyranny, and cruelty of the popes
were the sole cause of, appear everywhere in the history of
these times; neighbour princes and nations were divided by
their quarrels, and they set the whole world about them in a
flame, by the fire of their contentions: all the principal
wars and quarrels of this age had their rise from the ambi-
tious projects of the popes.
This was the chief spring of those long and bloody wars
about the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily. Pope Urban, to
revenge himself of Jane queen of Naples,S offered the in-
vestiture of that kingdom to Charles of Durazzo, and per-
suaded him to attempt to dethrone her, though he was greatly
obliged to her, and even designed by her for her successor.
This ungrateful attempt, at the pope's solicitation, made the
queen change her mind, and adopt Lewis duke of Anjou for
her heir. Charles of Durazzo was crowned at Rome, anno
1380, took Naples without resistance, and put queen Jane to
death, together with her husband Otho of Brunswick.
Upon this success of Charles, the duke of Anjou was
somewhat in doubt, whether he should pursue his claim ;
but pope Clement, who had no other way to depose Urban,
nsed all endeavours to press him to it, that it seemed, says
Mezeray, he valued not the ruin of the church, both in tem-
porals and spirituals, if he could but establish himself.
Qu'il semblait qu'il ne lui importait pas de la ruine de
l'église, au temporel et au spirituel, pourvu qu'il pút procurer
son établissement. -
As these wars began, so they were kept alive by the in-
trigues of the popes for above a hundred years, in which
France, Spain, and Germany had their share as well as
Italy.
But these evils, great as they were, were not the only mis-
chiefs the ambition and contentions of the popes caused in
these times.
The council of Constance persecuted John Huss and Je-
rome of Prague with great severity, and a dishonourable
breach of faith ; they were both burned by order of the
council, notwithstanding the emperor's safe conduct. Such
an unjust and perfidious declaration, “that faith was not to
be kept with heretics,” quite enraged the Bohemians. The
emperor Sigismund, who succeeded his brother Wenceslaus
in that kingdom, was fain to use the army he designed
against the Turks to quiet the Bohemians. | The pope
sent a legate to raise a crusade against them. There were
many lesser skirmishes and battles with the Hussite general
Zisca. At length an army of forty thousand horse, and as
* Dupin, vol. iii. p. 406.
+ Ibid. p. 439. # Ibid. p. 443, 449.
\
+ Ibid. p. 454.
| Heiss, vol. i. p. 375.
* Dupin, vol. iii. p. 452.
3. Mezeray. § Ibid.
4 A
1090
REVELATION.
many foot, was sent against them, anno 1431, with the
pope's legate, and many princes of Germany, at the head
of it. This great army was defeated by the Bohemians; and
they were not at last subdued but with great difficulty, and
by reason of differences among themselves, which were raised
and managed by the pope's agents, to weaken and destroy
them.
Nor were these all the fatal consequences of these ambi-
tious contentions of the popes; they caused a schism be-
tween the Greek and Latin churches, and a war between the
Christians of the eastern and western empires, which greatly
weakened the Christian interest against their common ene-
mies, the Mahometan Turks. They kept up continual
quarrels among the Christian princes, which the Turks, who
were watching all opportunities, knew how to improve.
Mahomet made great advances in Europe; and, A. D. 1453,
put an end to the eastern empire, by taking the city of Con-
stantinople, which has continued to be the seat and capital
of the Turkish empire ever since. He soon passed over into
Italy, took Otranto, left a garrison in it; and nothing seems
to have saved Italy from the greatest danger, but the death
of Mahomet, and a dispute between his sons about the suc-
cession; for Mahomet was eagerly bent upon taking old
Rome, as he had already taken new Rome, or Constanti-
nople. But the providence of God cut off his power, and
put an end to all his designs with his life.
If now we consider the events of providence in this pe-
riod, not only in a few particular instances, but in the gene-
raï history and state of the Christian world, in the mischievous
effects which the ambition and contentions of the popes
caused everywhere, do they not very fully and properly an-
swer the prophetic description ?
The many evils caused by the hot and furious zealots for
the pope's ambitious views, were fitly represented by a hot
and intemperate Season, whereby men were scorched with
great heat.
Some interpreters carry the meaning of these expressions
yet farther, and conceive they are to be understood in a
literal sense also, for intemperately hot and burning seasons,
which should destroy the fruits of the earth, occasion famine
and pestilential distempers; and it is certain, in the history
of this period, that the prophecy is fully verified in this mean-
ing too. Not to enter into a particular detail of the mu-
merous instances the history of this period furnishes us with,
there is one so remarkable above others, and which falls out
at a time so proper to close this period, that I think it de-
serves particular notice.
A new kind of disease invaded Germany this year, A. D.
1529, says a very judicious historian: “Men being taken
with a pestilential sweating, either died in twenty-four hours;
or, if they sweated out the poison, they recovered by degrees
their health again : but before any remedy could be found for
it, many thqusands perished. This distemper, in a very
short time, spread itself from the ocean all over Germany;
and with incredible celerity, like a fire, raged far and near.
It is commonly called, the sweating sickness of England ;
for, in the first year of the reign of Henry VII. of England,
which was in the year of our Lord 1486, the same plague
infested that country: and, because there was no remedy
known for such a new distemper, it swept away a vast num-
ber of people. At this time also there was a great scarcity
of corn and wine; so that all the judgments wherewith God,
in his anger, uses to punish an unthankful people, as the
sword, pestilence, and famine, fell upon Germany at one and
the same time.” g -
It appears this was a new distemper, and but lately
known, yet it was not the first time this period or age was
punished with it: “There was a sweating sickness about
eleven years before (A. D. 1517), being of that malignity,
that it killed in the space of three hours; many persons of
quality died of it: it was so mortal among the vulgar sort,
that in Some towns it took away half the people, in others
the third part.”4.
About thirty years before this, viz. the beginning of the
reign of Henry VII., “there reigned in the city, and other
parts of the kingdom, a disease,” says the Lord Bacon, “then
* Sleidan, Hist. Refor. lib. vi. p. 121.
+ Lord Herbert, Hist. Hen. VIII. p. 69.
new, which, of the accidents and manner thereof, they called
the sweating sickness; it was conceived to proceed from a
malignity in the constitution of the air, and infinite persons
died suddenly of it, before the manner of the cure and at-
tendance was known.”
Here we see a new pestilential distemper returning three
times in the space of about forty years, and the last time not
confined to a particular country, but spreading itself through
most parts of Europe.
I cannot leave this part of history, without the account a
French historian gives us of it in his own country; as, I
think, it greatly illustrates the propriety and elegance of the
prophetic description.
“From the end of the year 1528 to the beginning of
the year 1534,” says the historian, “heaven was so angry
with France, that there was a continual disorder of the
seasons, or rather summer alone had taken all their places;
so that for five years there was not two days of frost to-
gether. This intemperate heat enervated nature, if I may
so express it, and made it impotent; it brought nothing to
maturity, the trees blossomed immediately after the fruit,
corn did not increase in the ground for want of water; there
was such a quantity of vermin, as eat up the young shoots;
the harvest did not produce sufficient for the next year's
Seed. This scarcity caused a universal famine ; after which
there appeared a distemper called troussegaland, and then
a furious pestilence; by which three plagues, above a quarter
part of mankind was carried away.”f
Thus literally, as well as in a figurative meaning, there
was power given unto the sun to scorch men in this period.
What little effect these judgments of God had on the
world for their reformation, to abate their enmity to the
truth, or cruelty to the faithful professors of it, we may learn
from the infamous conduct of the council of Constance,
which, in open violation of the public faith, burned John
Huss and Jerome of Prague; and gave a public sanction to
that scandalous doctrine, “that faith is not to be kept with
heretics :” and we shall have yet farther instances of it in
the following periods of prophecy and history.
Fifth vial.—This vial or cup is poured out on “the throne
of the beast; so the word is in the original.” In the scrip-
ture language, throne, kingdom, government, authority, do-
minion, and power, are of like signification: to “translate
the kingdom from the house of Saul, and to set up the throne
of David over Israel,” is to take the authority and power
of government from the one, and give it to the other (2 Sam.
iii. 10); to “establish the throne” is to confirm the kingly
power and authority, as God promised David, “And thine
house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before
thee: thy throne shall be established for ever” (2 Sam. vii.
16). An enlargement of the throne, signifies an increase of
dominion and power, as, when “Solomon was set on the
throne of the kingdom,” the court congratulated David, and
wished prosperity to the new king, in these words, “God
make the name of Solomon better than thy name, and make
his throne greater than thy throne” (1 Kings i. 47).
The throne, then, of the beast, which our translation has
rendered his “seat,” seems plainly to mean, his authority
and power, rather than the city or seat of his residence. For
the prophetic language puts a throne to signify, not the seat
of a kingdom, but its power and authority. And so this
very prophecy explains it ; this angel “poured out his vial
on the seat of the beast, and his kingdom was full of dark-
ness.”
Darkness is an emblem of affliction ; a kingdom full of
darkness will then naturally signify a great diminution of
power and decay of authority; so that the distinguishing
punishment of the beast in this period, that his kingdom
shall be full of darkness, will most properly mean some great
and successful opposition to the papal power and authority,
which shall much weaken and lessen it, and give such un-
easiness to the supporters of it, as shall drive them into a
rage, and make them bite their own tongues, as it were, for
anger and vexation.
Let us see, then, how this prophetic description is an-
* Lord Bacon, Hist. Hen. VII. p. 9.
+ Mezeray, Hist. vol. ii. tom. iv. p. 570.
CHAPTER xvi.
1091
swered by the events of providence, in the times which fall
in with this period of prophecy.
The last vial brought us somewhat beyond the year 1500.
We shall easily perceive the most memorable events of his-
tory which next followed in order of time, were those which
prepared the way for the protestant Reformation, and at last
fixed and settled it in many considerable kingdoms and states
of Europe. -
The power and authority of the popes were attacked with
success; entire nations were cut off from the kingdom of the
beast. A very considerable part of those who had been long
subject to his authority renounced it, and have continued
freed from it to this day: even the nations which still pro-
fess obedience to the pope, have greatly abridged and re-
strained his power. They have learned to oppose his
extravagant claims, and have rendered impracticable any
ambitious views of a supreme unlimited authority in tem-
porals and spirituals, which the popes had often aimed
at, and at some conjunctures had a fair prospect of establish-
Ing. -
The care of a wise and good Providence did not permit
the kingdom of the beast to rise to such a degree of power,
or even by the most cruel exercise of the power it had at-
tained, to suppress altogether the cause of truth and Chris-
tian liberty. The blood of the martyrs, instead of destroying
their cause, helped to promote it ; many were justly dis-
pleased with so cruel usage of good men, pitied them for their
sufferings, and began to have more favourable thoughts of
their opinions. The corruptions of popery grew daily more
visible to the world; the scandalous use pope Leo X. made
of indulgences, to raise money everywhere by them, provoked
Martin Luther to preach against them. This so nearly
touched the power and interest of the pope, that he resolved
to put a stop to all such disputes, so dangerous to his autho-
rity. He solemnly condemns the doctrine of Luther, and
engages the emperor Charles W. to see his bull put in execu-
tion. Luther, under the protection of the elector of Saxony,
not only continued to maintain his first doctrines, but openly
declared himself farther against other corruptions of the
Roman church ; in which he was followed by many princes
and cities of the empire. The doctrines of the Reformation
spread so fast, and were propagated in so many places, that
it was judged necessary to call a general council, as the only
effectual means to put an énd to those differences. So a
council was appointed to meet at Trent, A. D. 1542, which,
after many suspensions and intermissions, ended at last,
A. D. 1563.
This council was so artfully managed by the popes, and
ended so much to their advantage, so fully confirmed their
corruptions, and condemned all doctrines tending to a re-
formation, that it was unanimously rejected by all who main-
tained the necessity of a reformation. Instead of proving an
effectual remedy to restore peace, it greatly exasperated
men's tempers; for, by the decrees passed in the council of
Trent, all hopes of reunion or accommodation were entirely
cut off. . The kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland,
the northern kingdoms of Sweden and Denmark, many states
of the empire and cantons of Switzerland, and great numbers
in France, Hungary, and Bohemia, firmly adhered to the
Reformation, separated from the Roman communion, and
absolutely renounced the papal authority.
The popes, who were accustomed to use other arms be-
sides spiritual, engaged the house of Austria, and several
princes, by all possible means, to suppress the northern
hereby, as they styled the Reformation ; and left no methods
they could think of untried, by which they could hope to
ruin it: so that wars, invasions, assassinations, massacres, are
the principal parts of the history of these times, for above a
hundred years. We need but just mention the many bloody
wars in Germany, in which Charles W. was endeavouring to
destroy the liberties of the empire, with the protestant Re-
formation, the many civil wars in France, the long wars
ces mêmes presentes, que les dits articles
between Spain and the United Provinces, the Spanish inva-
sion of our own kingdom, the massacre of Paris, the powder-
plot in England, the many attempts against the life of queen
Elizabeth, the actual assassinations of Henry III. and Henry
IV., kings of France, and of the prince of Orange, founder
of the Dutch commonwealth ; all which are recited at large
in every history, and recorded as the most memorable events
of those times. .
Yet the same histories also show us, that all these attempts
in aid of the pope's authority failed of success. Several
kingdoms maintained the Reformation against all opposition,
and, by full authority of the Supreme civil powers, annulled
and made void the usurped authority of the popes ; in many
countries where yet the government continued in obedience
to the pope, as supreme head of the church, the free posses-
sion and exercise of the protestant religion was tolerated and
indulged.
At length, after many and great struggles, the chief de-
fenders of the pope's cause were brought to confirm and
ratify the peace and liberty of the protestant states. The
treaties of Westphalia, A. D. 1648, are well called “the
basis of the religious liberty of the empire.” The treaty of
Osnabruck, between the emperor and Sweden (art. v.), and
the treaty of Munster, between the emperor and France (art.
xxxiii.), confirmed the protestant states in their religion, and
quieted them in their possessions in the most solemn and
authentic manner;” and, what deserves observation, notwith-
standing the public and vigorous protestations of the pope to
the contrary. Pope Innocent X. had vehemently opposed
these treaties in their progress, and no sooner were they con-
cluded and ratified, but he solemnly protested against them,
as highly prejudicial to the catholic religion and holy see.
He declared them null and void, and freed all persons from
any obligations to keep them, though they had sworn to the
observation of them. Nous, de nétre propre mouvement, et
de nôtre certaine science, et märe deliberation, et de la ple-
nitude de la puissance ecclesiastique, disons et declarons, par
ont été de
droit, sont, et seront perpetuellement, nuls, vains, invalides,
iniques, injustes, condamnés, reprouvés, frivoles, sans force et
effet, et que personne n'est tenu de les observer, ou aucun
d'eux, encore qu'ils soient fortifiés par un serment.”
The great opposition made by the pope to these treaties,
while they were negociating, gave the contracting powers
reason to apprehend some such protestation at the conclusion
of them. It was therefore inserted in the treaty itself, that
these articles should be observed, any declaration made or to
be made to the contrary notwithstanding. Sans s'arrêter a
la contradiction, ou protestation, fait par qui ce soit, ecclesi-
astique ou seculier, soit au dedans Soit au dehors de l'empire,
en quelque tems que ce puisse être, toutes les quelles oppo-
sitions sont declarées nulles, et de mul effet, en vertu des ces
presentes.: &
It is well known, these treaties of Munster and Osnabruck
have continued an essential part of the constitution of the
empire ever since; they are generally made the basis of all
subsequent treaties, and have very frequently been confirmed
by them.
Thus the Reformation proved a great blow to the autho-
rity of the popes; many nations withdrew altogether from
his obedience, and such as remained to own him head of the
church, yet evidently showed much less regard to his autho-
rity than before ; and, on some greater occasions, plainly
appeared both to oppose it, and treat it with contempt. As
this is a very remarkable event of providence in itself, it
every way answers the prophetic description of this period,
That the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat or
throne of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness.
* Heiss, vol. iv. p. 146, art. v. ib. p. 87, art. xxxiii.
+ Protestation du Pape, ib. p. 236.
i. Traité d’Osnabruck, ib. p. 147.
4. A 2
1092
CHAPTER XVII.
SECTION XVI.
1 AND there came one of the seven angels which
had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto
me, Come hither; I will show thee the judgment of
the great whore that sitteth upon many waters;
(1.) After I had seen in vision the afflicted state of the
church in this last period, and the punishment of its anti-
christian enemies, by many strokes of divine vengeance, one
of the angels appointed to pour out the cups of God’s wrath
called me to him, to explain yet more particularly to me
Some things concerning these judgments, and the characters
of the persons on whom they were to be inflicted, which
should sufficiently mark them out to a careful observer, as
an idolatrous power, ruling over many nations and people.
2. With whom the kings of the earth have com-
mitted fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth
have been made drunk with the wine of her forni-
cation. - -
(2.) With whose idolatrous doctrines and practices the
princes and rulers of the world, together with all sorts of
people of every rank, had been greatly corrupted : so that
they had been prevailed upon by this prostitute to join in
polluting the worship of the Christian church, by abominable
superstition and idolatrous practices.”
3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wil-
derness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet-
coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy; having
Seven heads and ten horns.
(3.) When the angel had thus informed me of the design
of his message, the scene of the prophetic vision was changed
to a wilderness, a place of retirement and secrecy; there I
saw a new vision, a woman appeared riding on a beast,
adorned with scarlet furniture ; its form like that I saw
rising out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, with
many blasphemous inscriptions or titles, to show that this
idolatrous persecuting power was the same antichristian
Roman government, meant by the beast that I saw in a
former vision rise out of the sea.”
4 And the woman was arrayed in purple and
scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious
stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand,
full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication.
(4.) This lewd prostitute, who sat on the beast, was her-
self clothed in the imperial habit, wearing purple and scar-
let robes; she was also very richly adorned with gold and
jewels, to show her high quality and great riches; she had
also a golden cup in her hand, wherewith she intoxicated
persons, and enticed them to join with her in her supersti-
tions and idolatry.”
5 And upon her forehead was a name written,
MYSTERY, BABYLoN THE GREAT, THE MOTHER or
HARLOTS, AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
(5.) This character of an idolatrous persecuting govern-
ment, represented by this woman sitting upon a scarlet-co-
loured beast, appeared manifest by an inscription on her
forehead, to this purpose : This is a mystical or figurative
personage, meaning, under the name and character of Baby-
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVII.
CONTENTs.--The former vision represented a very afflicted
state of the church ; the true worshippers of God, few in
number, driven out from society, flying into a wilderness
and desert places for safety from persecution, prophesying
in sackcloth, in a state of oppression and mourning, often
put to death for their testimony to the truth : yet the
time of this afflicted state is limited to one thousand two
hundred and sixty years, or prophetic days; at the end of
which period, this oppressive persecuting power shall be
destroyed,—purity, truth, and righteousness, which were op-
pressed and persecuted, shall flourish in a state of great
Safety, peace, and happiness.
This is a much longer period of prophecy than either of the
two foregoing. To make the true intention and meaning
of it more clear and evident, one of the angels who poured
out the cups of God's wrath, is sent to St. John as a nun-
tiws, more fully to explain it.
A numtius, angel, or interpreter, was a known part in the
ancient drama. Here an angel is sent to interpret this
part of the prophecy to us; and we may justly look upon
the angel's interpretation as a sure key, which will war-
rant an application of the several representations ; and so
far as an angel from heaven explains it, we may be satis-
fied we have the true meaning of it: so that by the help
of this explication in the prophecy itself, we have a sure
interpretation of some of the more important parts of the
vision, and of such as will make the interpretation of the
rest very likely and probable. -
* Ver. 2..] Idolatry, in the ancient prophecies, is fre-
quently called whoredom and fornication; the prophet Eze-
kiel interprets, being “polluted, after the manner of their
fathers, and committing whoredom after their abominations,”
by “making their sons to pass through the fire, and polluting
themselves with their idols” (xx. 30, 31). The prophet
Isaiah, in like manner, describes the propagation of idolatry
by Tyre, which was spread everywhere with their great
trade and commerce, by these remarkable words, “She shall
commit fornication with all the kingdoms of the world upon
the face of the earth” (xxiii. 17). As it is agreeable to the
prophetic style to represent cities in the figure of women, so
it is to represent idolatrous and superstitious cities by pros-
titutes and harlots; “Seeing thou dost all these things, the
work of an imperious whorish woman,” says the prophet
Ezekiel to Jerusalem (xvi. 30). A fit expression to show
the evil of idolatry and superstition, and how hateful in the
sight of God. This was one distinguishing character of this
antichristian power, which ruled over and corrupted so many
nations and people. - -
* Wer. 3..] We have already seen, in the notes on xiii. 1,
that the monstrous wild creature there described, having
seven heads and ten horns, with titles of blasphemy, and in
which the forms of a leopard, a bear, and a lion were mixed
together, signified the last form of Roman government, con-
temporary with the several new kingdoms erected on the fall
of the Roman empire, after the form of government at the
time of the vision, which was the imperial, should be passed
away. The present representation of the great whore or
prostitute, sitting upon this beast, signifies that the same
state of Roman government is intended, which can be no
other than the idolatrous persecuting power supported by
the papal authority. This the angel-interpreter will show,
I think, with full evidence, in explaining the principal parts
of this figurative representation.
The beast seems to be called scarlet-coloured, because a
scarlet covering, or rich cloth, was thrown over it: might not
that rich horsecloth be embroidered with gold, and have
heads and horns worked upon it, as emblems of power and
authority, with proud mottoes, or titles, amounting to blas-
phemy P -
* Ver. 4.] Purple and scarlet were the colours of the im-
perial habit: the purple in times of peace, and the scarlet
in times of war. It is well known these are the colours
used by the pope and cardinals; so that to be raised to the
purple, or to the scarlet hat, is used to express being made a
cardinal. . The use of jewels, for state and magnificence, is
too well known to be insisted on. The golden cup in her
hand, full of abomination and filthiness of her fornication,
may be an allusion to those philtres, or love-potions, which
prostitutes and lewd women were used to prepare, to inflame
the love of their gallants, but by which they often disturbed
their senses, and made them run mad; or it may refer more
simply to the common effects of drunkenness and debauchery.
Babylon is represented as “a golden cup, that made all the
CHAPTER XVII
1093
lon, a power like that of ancient Babylon, a chief promoter
of idolatry, by whose authority it was propagated among
many nations.” -
6 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood
of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of
Jesus; and when I saw her, I wondered with great
admiration.
(6.) When I perceived how cruel and outrageous this
government was represented, so as to persecute the most
faithful Christians to death, and shed their blood, as if drunk
and mad with rage, it struck me with great wonder and as-
tonishment, that a power, professedly Christian, should be
so intoxicated with pride and cruelty."
7 And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst
thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the wo-
man, and of the beast which carrieth her, which hath
the seven heads and ten horns.
(7.) Then the angel-interpreter, who was sent to explain
this vision to me, more distinctly informed me, that when I
should more fully understand what this persecuting power
was, how it came by its authority, how it abused it, how se-
verely it should be punished for it in the end, my wonder
would be much lessened: I will therefore, says he, give you
a more distinct account of the original wickedness and pun-
ishment of this mystical Babylon.
8 The beast that thou sawest was, and is not ;
and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go
into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall
wonder, whose names are not written in the book of
life from the foundation of the world, when they be-
hold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.
(8.) Know then, and understand, this persecuting power
will be a revived authority in the same city of Rome, which
earth drunken; the nations have drunken of her wine, there-
före the nations are mad” (Jer. li. 7). The disordered senses
and understanding of a drunken man, the natural effects of
a debauch, are a proper figurative representation of a disor-
dered understanding and judgment of men, misled by any
methods of infatuating deceit into idolatry and gross super-
stition. * x
* Ver. 5.] It has been observed by interpreters, that lewd
women were used to have their names written over their
doors, and sometimes on their foreheads; and that criminals
among the Romans had an inscription of their crimes car-
ried before them. In the first sense, as Mr. Daubuz ob-
serves, “this inscription will denote a public profession of
what is signified by it, or a public patronage of idolatrous
doctrines and worship.” In the second sense, it will denote
the crimes for which she is condemned, and was punished
by the foregoing plagues. Mr. Waple thinks “this inscrip-
tion is rather an allusion to the known inscription on the
forehead of the high-priest, Holiness to the Lord; whereby
is intimated, that this idolatrous persecuting government was
an antichristian church, of a temper and spirit quite contrary
to the true worship of the one true God.”
The paraphrase of the Bishop of Meaux on these words
deserves observation. “Babylon is meant by the name of
the whore, and Rome by Babylon. This is the most natural
sense.——We see then why St. John represents Rome in the
name of Babylon, as she had all the characters of Babylon,
an empire full of idols and divinations, and a persecutor of
the Saints, as she was.” Sous le nom de la prostituée c’est
Babylon, et sous le nom de Babylon c'est Rome, c'est le sens
le plus naturel on voit donc pourquoi Saint Jean repre-
sente Rome sous le mom de Babylon, dont elle avait tous les
caractères, dominante comme elle, comme elle pleine d'idoles
et de divinations, et persecutrice des saints, qu’elle tenait
captifs.
* Wer. 6..] It has been observed, I think justly, that the
persecution of Christians, at the time of the vision, was not
likely to have occasioned such astonishment in the apostle;
but he might well greatly wonder, that Rome Christian,
once so famous for purity of faith and patient suffering for
the profession of truth, should become another Babylon for
idolatry and persecution. From hence, protestant interpre-
was once before destroyed by the righteous judgment of God
for persecuting the truth; another persecuting power shall
arise after it, which, by means of false doctrines, and those
hellish principles by which Satan corrupts the world, and
; maintains a power over wicked men, shall greatly prevail;
| a corrupt part of the church, who by their antichristian
| temper and actions show they are not true Christians, shall
| be surprised and pleased with it, and the greater part shall
rejoice in the revival of a power to promote their corrup-
tions, and to persecute all who have conscience and integrity
not to comply with them."
9 And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The
seven heads are seven mountains, on which the wo-
man sitteth.
(9.) Let them who have a mind to understand this pro-
phecy, particularly attend to this key of explaining it, and
it will give them a good degree of knowledge in the meaning
of it; let them lay it down for a maxim, that this persecuting
power is the city of Rome, so well known by its situation on
seven hills. 7
10 And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and
one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he
cometh, he must continue a short space.
(10.) But, said the angel, observe farther, that seven
kings are also signified, to express more distinctly under
what state or form of government this persecuting power
should arise in Rome. Observe then, that out of seven
forms of government, five are already passed; the present
that now is, at the vision, is the sixth; after this there shall
be another, which is not yet come, and when it comes, is to
continue but for a short time. All these are to be passed
in their succession, before that form of Roman government
shall arise which is meant by the beast in this prophecy.
11 And the beast that was, and is not, even he
ters may with reason infer, that this vision does not repre-
sent the persecution of Rome heathen, but of Rome anti-
christian.
* Ver. 8] This description of the beast, that it was, and
is not, and yet is, means, in a plain and easy sense, that this
persecuting power once was, then ceased to be, but after-
ward recovered itself again. Mr. Mede, following good
authority, reads trapéarat, and renders it, “The beast that
was, and is not, and yet is to come, which at length shall
ascend out of the bottomless pit.” The bottomless pit, gulf,
or abyss, is mentioned as the prison of Satan, and his evil
angels; opening the bottomless pit, signifies a permission of
those powers of darkness to deceive and corrupt the minds
of evil-disposed and wicked men with false doctrines and
principles of persecution, through their lusts of ambition and
covetousness (vid. ix. 1).
The expression, “Whose names were not written in the
book of life,” is intended to show, that this revival of a per-
secuting power should be greatly owing to some members of
the church itself, but such who had, lost the spirit and tem-
per of true Christianity, who were led by ambition and
worldly interests, and were ready to fall in with anything
that seemed best to fall in with their inclinations and
views. “The book of life” is an allusion to the registers in
which the names of persons were enrolled to remain upon
record, as members of a corporation, or freemen of a city ;
to be registered in the book of life, is to be registered as true
Christians, who have a right to the promise of eternal *ife
(vid. iii. 5). -
Now this description most exactly agrees with the temporal
power of the papacy, which arose by the means of false doc-
trine, persecution, and assistance of a corrupt part of the
church itself. Thus Rome, after it had lost all authority,
ceased to be a seat of empire, was itself a small duchy,
subject to the exarchate of Ravenna for many years; yet it,
revived again, recovered great power and authority, and has
long continued the seat of the most extraordinary govern-
ment the world ever saw. -
7 Ver, 9.] This interpretation of the angel leaves no room
to doubt, but that the persecuting power here prophesied of
was to be some empire of which the city of Rome was to
be the capital, or seat. Rome was as well known by its
1094,
REVELATION.
is the eighth, and is of the seventh, and goeth into
perdition.
(11.) For the form of government here prophesied of
may on some accounts be reckoned as an eighth, though yet,
for other reasons, it may be accounted as a seventh, and
shall in its due time be as surely destroyed, as the several
forms of government in succession before it were. *
12 And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten
kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but
receive power as kings one hour with the beast.
situation on seven hills, or montes, as by the name of
Rome itself; urbs septicollis was never mistaken for any
other city, Roman authors have so fully determined the
sense of it.
Quae de septem totum circumspicit orbem
Montibus, imperii Roma deúmque locus.”
* Ver. 11.] This part of the angel’s interpretation de-
serves particular attention. It has appeared difficult
to most interpreters ; so that there is great difference
between them as to the precise meaning of the several
expressions.
The whole scheme and order of these prophecies will
by no means admit, that the seven kings should mean
seven emperors, in immediate succession to each other;
for then the text would make the then reigning emperor
the sixth, his immediate successor must be the seventh,
the whole twelve hundred and sixty years of this period,
with all the time of the two foregoing periods, would be
comprised in the single reign of one man, and the whole
prophecy would reach no farther than a very few years after
the vision.
It is to be observed, that, in the style of prophecy, kings
mean kingdoms, or states of government. Daniel interprets
the beast in his prophecy to mean kings, that is, kingdoms,
empires, and distinct governments. “These great beasts,
which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the
earth” (Dan. vii. 17). One of these kings the prophet ex-
plains by a kingdom and distinct government, “The fourth
beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be
diverse from all kingdoms” (ver. 23). The prophecy before
us points out the same interpretation, “The ten kings who
have received no kingdom as yet” (xvii. 12), seem plainly
to mean, not so many particular persons, who reigned in
succession one after another, in the same kingdom or empire,
but so many kingdoms, or distinct states of government,
contemporary with each other, and all of them contemporary
with the empire of the beast.
The angel-interpreter only observes concerning the first
five, that they were fallen or passed away at the time of the
vision, and, as Mr. Waple justly observes, without any dis-
tinct account of them, their time, names, difference, or the
order of their succession among themselves; for which
he gives this good reason, because they were of no farther
use to this prophecy, than to show that the one head then in
being was the sixth of the seven, after five already past.
We have no need, then, to inquire, with great exactness,
what these five forms of government were ; we may con-
tent ourselves with a short account of a very eminent
Roman historian, very near the time of this vision. “Rome,”
he says, “was first governed by kings, then by consuls, by
º: by decemvirs, by military tribunes with consular
authority.”4.
The triumvirates were states of confusion, rather than
forms of government ; and Augustus settled the imperial
government, which was the sixth, the form of government
at the time of the vision, and which long continued under
his successors, to the time of the destruction of the Roman
empire by the northern invasions.
There appears no reason why the imperial government
under Christian emperors should, or even can, be called a
new form of Roman government: for all the powers of go-
yernment were the very same under heathen and Christian
* Ovid. Trist. lib. i. eleg. 4.
Tacitus, Annal, lib, i. cap, I,
(12.) More distinctly to show you the time of the beast
in this prophecy, observe the ten horns, as designed to sig-
nify several distinct kingdoms and governments, none of
which are yet in being at this time of the vision, but which
are to arise in or about the same time with this last form of
Roman government; therefore you are to consider the time
of this persecuting power contemporary with ten other king-
doms, or governments, to be formed hereafter in the domi-
nions of the Roman empire. *
13 These have one mind, and shall give their power
and strength to the beast.
emperors. I cannot therefore apprehend, that Constantine
and his successors, when the empire became Christian, can
be meant by the seventh king, or the kingdom which was
not yet come. It seems to me, that the angel-interpreter
intimates plainly enough, that the seventh form of govern-
ment was not to begin till the imperial power of Rome
should be destroyed, in whose soever hands it should be.
After the imperial power was destroyed, Rome was long
subject to the kingdom of the Goths in Italy. It was reco-
vered out of their hands, and continued for some time,
during the exarchate of Ravenna, under the eastern empire,
governed by a lieutenant, and a duke subject to the
exarch, as we have observed more largely before, on
ch. xiii.
This state of Rome and its government answers well to
the description of the beast, that was, and is not ; and shows
how this last government of the beast may, on some accounts,
be called the seventh, and, for other reasons, the eighth
head of government, as the exarchate of Ravenna was in
some sense a new form of government, and yet hardly so
distinct and proper a form of government, as to be reckoned
a different head.
* Ver. 12.] What we translate “one hour,” Maiay &gay,
ought to have been translated “the same hour” or point of
time, as several learned interpreters have justly observed.
We have the same expression in, the next verse, ºwiay
ywówny, which we have rendered “one mind,” meaning
plainly the same mind. The beast, then, and the ten kings
or kingdoms, are to be contemporary powers, or to reign at
the same time.
Horns are a usual symbol of strength, as the strength of
some of the fiercest beasts lies in their horns. This symbol
of strength and power has been anciently used in the pro-
phets, to signify the power of empire and government.
Thus the prophet Jeremiah, concerning Moab, “The horn of
of Moab is cut off, and his arm is broken, saith the Lord”
(xlviii. 25). The prophet Zechariah saw the kingdoms
that oppressed Judah under the representation of horns:
“Then I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and beheld four
horns. And I said unto the angel that talked with me,
What be these ? and he answered me, These are the horns
which have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem” (i. 18,
19). In the prophecy of Daniel, horns are most expressly
designed to signify the empires of Media, Persia, and
Greece ; “The ram which thou sawest having two horns
are the kingdoms of Media and Persia. And the rough
goat is the king of Greece; and the great horn that is be-
tween his eyes is the first king,” the founder of that empire
(viii. 20, 21). -
There were ten horns in the representation, to denote ten
distinct kingdoms, which should arise in several parts of
the Roman empire, which the northern nations should
canton out among themselves, and erect into new and dis-
tinct kingdoms,
I have before observed, that ten in prophetic language
does not always mean a precise number, but is used as a
certain number for an uncertain, to express in general seve-
ral or many; “ten times” is the same as many times, “ten
women” the same as many women, “ten men” mean seve-
ral men, “ten sons” several sons, as we have observed in
the annotations on Rev. ii. 10.
So that there seems to be no necessity of finding a precise
number of ten different kingdoms, or just so many different
governments, neither more nor less, erected on the ruins of
the Roman empire: in fact, in those times of disorder
and confusion, they were shifting and variable ; but that
CHAPTER XVII.
109.5
(13.) When these kingdoms shall be erected, as all had
the same intention of cantoning out some part of the Ro-
man empire a settlement for themselves, so they shall all
join their authority and power (however they may be divided
in their respective interests and ambition) to support this
antichristian persecution of the faithful servants of Christ.
14 They shall make war with the Lamb, and the
Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords,
and King of kings: and they that are with him are
called, and chosen, and faithful.
(14.) They shall themselves join in this war with Christ
and his church, in persecuting all who should adhere to the
purity of the Christian faith and worship ; but though the
faithful shall suffer much from them, they have this consola-
tion in the same prophecy, that Christ, the King of saints,
shall in due time overcome these powerful conquerors of the
Roman empire: for God has constituted him Lord of lords,
and King of kings; and God will assuredly defend and pro-
tect those whom he has chosen and called to the privileges
of his church, and who are faithful to the cause of God and
religion, against the opposition of the world, how powerful
soever it may be,
15 And he saith unto me, The waters which thou
sawest, where the whore sitteth, are people and mul-
titudes, and nations, and tongues.
(15.) The angel-interpreter farther informed me, that I
was to understand by that part of the vision in which I saw
the whore sitting on many waters, the great extent of that
persecuting power over many nations and people, being sup-
ported by the united force of the several nations that had
settled themselves in the Roman empire.”
16 And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the
several new kingdoms were erected, when the northern
nations divided the empire among themselves, is well known
in history, and evident in the several distinct governments
of Europe at this day.
Several interpreters have reckoned up the number of ten
precisely with the time when, and the place where, they
were erected, from whom every one who pleases may sa-
tisfy his farther curiosity. It may be sufficient here to
mention the account given of them by the illustrious Sir
Isaac Newton.*
1. Kingdom of the Vandals and Alans in Spain and
Africa. -
. The kingdom of the Suevians in Spain.
. The kingdom of the Visigoths.
. The kingdom of the Alans in Gallia.
. The kingdom of the Burgundians.
. The kingdom of the Franks.
. The kingdom of Britain.
. The kingdom of the Huns.
. The kingdom of the Lombards.
10. The kingdom of Ravenna.
Whether we reckon after this manner with our illustrious
author, or in a somewhat different manner with others, yet,
in general, this division of the Roman empire into several
distinct kingdoms, was a memorable event of providence,
and distinguishing mark of this period of prophecy: so that
we may observe with the Bishop of Meaux,−here, without
the necessity of being more particular, is a character very
remarkable, that so many distinct kingdoms should be raised
out of one and the same empire, in Spain, Gaul, Great
Britain, Italy, Pannonia, and elsewhere. This is a charac-
ter sufficient to distinguish this period, especially if we join
to it the other parts of the description.
* Ver, 15.] This observation of the extensive authority
or jurisdiction of the beast, or last government of Rome,
over 80 many other nations and people, as well as the imme-
diate subjects of its own government, is another very consi-
* On Dan. vii.
beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her
desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn
her with fire,
(16.) Yet, for the comfort of the faithful, it is revealed,
that these very nations who will thus support the idolatry
and persecution of the beast for a time, shall at length grow
sensible of her extravagant claims and grievous oppressions,
shall be highly displeased with them and resent them; they
shall not only withdraw their protection from her, but shall
use their power against her; shall strip her of her ornaments
and riches, expose her to shame, and bring her to destruction
by fire and sword, and all the calamities of war. *
17 For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his
will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the
beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.
(17.) For God, the supreme governor of the world, in
whose hands the hearts of kings are, as well as the hearts of
meaner persons, though he permits the kings of the earth
to support the idolatry and persecution of the beast for a
time, yet it is only for a limited time, during the period of
this prophecy; when this word of prophecy shall be finished,
then he will put it into their hearts to fulfil his farther will,
in the destruction of that power which they before sup-
ported. -
18 And the woman which thou sawest is that
great city, which reigneth over the kings of the
earth.
(18.) And finally, to understand this vision, observe tha
the kingdom of the beast is a kingdom in the same grea
city which you now see the empress of the world, which ha
subdued the other empires, and subjected so many kingdom
of the earth to its dominion.”
derable mark of that persecuting power which the Spirit of
prophecy here describes. It strongly points out one cir-
cumstance peculiar to the papal government of Rome, and
wherein it differs from all other governments in the world,
whose jurisdiction and authority are confined within the
bounds of their own dominions; whereas the authority of
this government reaches all the nations settled in the Roman
empire, and all the kingdoms erected by them.
* Ver. 16.] The description of this judgment may receive
light from a passage in the ancient books of Moses. “If,”
says God, “I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take
hold on judgment, I will render vengeance to mine ene-
mies, and will reward them that hate me. I will make mine
arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh ;
} and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives,
from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy. My sword
shall devour flesh” (Deut. xxxii. 41, 42). The original box
properly signifies to eat, and figuratively to devour. In
like manner, the expression of the prophet Jeremiah, xxx.
16, “All that devour thee shall be devoured,” is literally,
“All that eat thee shall be eaten.”
The nations of the earth, supporters of this tyrannical
power, may resent any attempts made by it against their
own authority, as the empire, France, Spain, and Portugal,
have often shown ; and yet they may bewail her, and la-
ment for her, as it is represented they will do, xviii. 9, when
her utter destruction shall take away a main support of their
own superstition and tyranny.
* Wer. 18.] This is so plain a description of Rome, as
must necessarily determine the meaning of this prophecy to
some state or form of government in that city. What state
or form of government it is, the other parts of the descrip-
tion do, I think, sufficiently determine, to the reasonable
satisfaction of all who are willing fairly to inquire into the
true meaning of it: so wonderful agreement in the events of
providence, to the prediction, in which so many things
were to concur, and for so long a time, is a great evi-
dence of the truth of the prophecy, and a great encourage-
ment to faith, patience, and hope in God, the great and
useful-design of it. -
1096
CHAPTER XVIII. $
SECTION XVII.
1 AND after these things I saw another angel come
down from heaven, having great power: and the earth
was lightened with his glory.
(1.) Now after the angel interpreter had so far explained
the meaning of the vision and mystery of the woman, and
of the beast with seven heads and ten horns which carried
her, another angel was sent from heaven, to show the sure
downfall of this antichristian power: to give weight to this
message, it pleased God to send an angel from heaven, as
from his court, to declare his decree, and an angel of high
and superior rank, to show the importance of his commis-
S101l.
2 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, say-
ing, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is be-
come the habitation of devils, and the hold of every
§ spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful
ITOl.
(2.) As the angel drew nearer, he proclaimed the decree
of heaven with an audible voice, saying, Babylon is fallen ;
this mystical Babylon shall as surely perish as ancient Ba-
bylon formerly did, and become an equal example of ruin.
As a city quite destroyed, where there is no more concourse
of men, and which is utterly desolate, it shall be a place of
resort for hateful birds and beasts of prey. ”
3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the
wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth
have committed fornication with her, and the mer-
chants of the earth are waxed rich through the abun-
dance of her delicacies.
(3.) The angel declaring the judgment of Rome, shows
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVIII.
CoNTENTS.–In the former chapter, the angel interpreter, or
muntius, has given us a key to the meaning of the pro-
phecy, which describes this third and most lasting period,
in which the saints were to suffer for their faith and con-
stancy; that they might expect a time of temptation
and suffering ; that they might be more careful to con-
firm their faith and patience, and encourage their perse-
Veran Ce.
This chapter represents another angel sent from heaven, to
reveal the sure judgments of God on these enemies of
the pure Christian religion, to foretell their sure destruc-
tion, and in as eminent a manner as God ever appeared
to punish Babylon or Tyre, the ancient enemies of true
religion. This part of the prophecy is very fit and pro-
per for the general desigº of it, to warn and caution good
Christians against the corruption of the time and age in
which they live ; to give them consolation in all their
sufferings, through hope in the protection of God, of de-
liverance in a proper time, and of a glorious reward in
the end.
* Ver. 1.] The description of this angel, as an angel of
great power, “and the earth was lightened with his glory,”
seems to allude to the vision of Ezekiel, xliii. 2, when he
beheld the glory of the God of Israel; “the earth shined
with his glory,” a bright and shining light usually attended
the appearance of angels ; and likely the splendour of the
appearance was greater, as the angel appearing was more
honourable. Sending an angel of Superior rank, alludes to
the custom of courts in employing persons of dignity, ac-
cording to the weight and importance of the commission they
Were to execute.
* Ver, 2.] These expressions seem to be taken from the
prophet Isaiah, in his prophecy against Babylon, xiii. 19,
&c., “And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of
the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew
at the same time the reason of so heavy and severe punish-
ment, because she had not only been guilty of idolatry her-
self, and with great wrath persecuted the true Christian faith
and worship, but had also corrupted the princes and nations
of the earth, as if she had given them a cup of poisonous
composition, to disturb their understanding, and heat them
into rage and fury; she had prevailed upon them to commit
the same sins of which she was guilty, and to propagate her
corruptions by ambitious views, incitements of luxury, and
prospect of gain.”
4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying,
Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers
of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
(4.) When this angel had declared the punishment of
Rome, a voice from heaven declared what use and im-
provement good Christians were to make of such a revela-
tion ; that they should most carefully keep themselves from
falling in with these general corruptions, and no ways assist
to support and propagate them. They are warned, on the
contrary, with faithfulness, constancy, and zeal, to attempt
a reformation of them, at least among themselves, by an
open and resolute separation. This is their duty and con-
cern ; lest, by aiding or abetting these corruptions, they
partake in that guilt, which will make them liable to all
the plagues and judgments with which they shall be pun-
ished.
5 For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God
hath remembered her iniquities. \
(5.) For they may be assured, the time is coming when
such sins as these, like the notorious sins of wicked nations,
shall be found ripe for judgment; a decree shall be pro-
nounced against them in heaven, and the execution of it
shall visibly show, that God does not forget, as the workers
of iniquity vainly imagine; but will surely remember, in a
Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither
shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation ; neither
shall the Arabian pitch tent there ; neither shall the shep-
herds make their fold there. But wild beasts of the desert
shall lie there ; and their houses shall be full of doleful crea-
tures ; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance
there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their
desolate houses, and dragons in her pleasant places.” What
we render, “and satyrs shall dance there,” the Seventy render,
8&ip,6via demons or devils ; the Hebrew tºnyw signifies some
hairy creature, as a goat. It was a vulgar opinion, as Bo-
chart has shown, that demons, or evil spirits, were used of
old time, to appear in the shape of goats, or in the form of
some hairy creature, and that they were used to have their
haunts in forlorn and desolate places ;" on which ac-
count, this word is sometimes translated “demons,” or devils.
The whole is a strong figurative description of utter de-
struction.
* Ver. 3..] “The Romish clergy,” says Mr. Daubuz, “by
trading in spiritual matters, have gotten vast wealth ; these
are the merchants of the earth, who, by their popish tricks
and trinkets, have gotten a good part of the wealth of the
world into their hands. In short, Rome is a great mart,”
adds our author; “the Romish clergy are the merchants and
factors, the secular inferior clergy, the monks and friars, are
the pedlars and hawkers, which retail the merchandise. As
for the luxury of Rome, procured by this trade, it needs no
proof.”
As the destruction of Rome is here compared to the de-
struction of Tyre, we easily see how proper it was to describe
the sins of Rome, by figures taken from the sins of Tyre.
The profit of the trade created a commerce between that
city, then the chief mart of the world, and all nations: so
that Tyre spread her luxury and superstition far and wide,
through all parts of the world, with her trade. Rome, in like
manner, corrupted distant and remote nations, by rewarding
* Lowth, on Isa. xiii.
CHAPTER XVIII. 1097
proper time, to execute justice and judgment, when none
shall be able to escape.*
6 Reward her even as she rewarded you, and
double unto her double, according to her works: in
the cup which she hath filled fill unto her double.
(6.) Her punishment shall then be equal to her crimes;
she shall not only be punished with a full retaliation for all
the injuries and evils with which she has oppressed the faith-
ful servants of God, but she shall be condemned to double
damages, and suffer whatever the laws of justice have
made the punishment of so great offences.”
7 How much she hath glorified herself, and lived
deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her :
for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no
widow, and shall see no sorrow. -
(7.) When God shall thus arise to punish her, she shall
receive sorrow and torment, in full proportion to her former
pride and luxury, though she greatly rejoice for the present
in her prosperity and glory, as securely settled in her power
and authority, without any prospect of danger, or fear of
losing it.
8 Therefore shall her plagues come in one day,
death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be
utterly burnt with fire: for strong is the Lord God
who judgeth her.
(8.) Yet her pride and security shall hasten her downfall;
it shall be one part of her punishment, and which shall
greatly aggravate her sorrow, that her plagues shall come
upon her at once, in full extremity: all the calamities of
famine, death, and utter destruction, shall at once come
suddenly upon her; all her pride and power shall not be
able to secure her from the justice of God. God, the su-
preme Lord of the whole world, who judgeth her, is mighty
to execute the vengeance he has decreed, with irresistible
power.
9 And the kings of the earth, who have committed
fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall wail
her, and lament for her, when they shall see the
smoke of her burning.
(9.) So that even the kings of the earth, and great powers
of the world, who were formerly in league with her, sup-
ported her in her corruptions, and shared with her in the
pomp and luxury of her prosperous state, shall be able to
afford her no support, no defence, in this day of God's ven-
geance ; they shall be able to do no more than fruitlessly
condole with her, and lament her sad condition, when they
shall behold all these calamities come suddenly upon her.
10 Standing afar off for fear of her torment, say-
ing, Alas, alas ! that great city Babylon, that mighty
city for in one hour is thy judgment come. -
(10.) Instead of being able to help her, they shall them-
Selves be astonished and confounded ; like persons tho-
roughly affrighted, they shall seek to get as far as they can
out of the reach of danger, and only express their astonish-
ment at so great and wonderful a revolution, so little thought
of, so little expected; they shall only say with themselves,
Alas, alas ! what a dreadful judgment is come upon the
world, that so mighty a city should be so suddenly, so
utterly destroyed
11 And the merchants of the earth shall weep and
mourn over her; for no man buyeth her merchandise
any more.
(11.) Her men of business, and skilled in the affairs of
life, who gained so much by her preferments, and by em-
ployments under her, the men of riches and credit in the
several nations which she had corrupted, who were sup-
ported in their pride and luxury by her means, shall not be
able to help in this hour of her distress, any more than the
kings of the earth ; they can only weep and mourn for her
misery, and for their own loss in her destruction, now all
commerce with her shall be utterly cut off, and no man,
by her means, shall attain wealth, credit, or power, any
II) Ore.
12 The merchandise of gold, and silver, and
precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and
purple, and silk, and Scarlet, and thyine-wood, and
all manner of vessels of ivory, and all manner of ves-
sels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron,
and marble. &
(12.) The destruction of Rome shall much resemble the
destruction of ancient Tyre, when her great and extensive
trade, the foundation of her riches, power, and pride, were
totally stopped at once ; when she lost all her merchandise,
which consisted in all sorts of valuable commodities, such
as gold, silver, precious stones, pearls, fine linen, Scarlet, and
thyine-wood, all curious manufactures in ivory, precious
wood, brass, iron, and marble.
13 And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and
frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and
wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chari-
ots, and slaves, and souls of men.
(13.) She shall trade no more in those things which pride
and luxury have set such a value upon, as spices and per-
fumes, wine and oil, the finest flour and corn, nor shall she
trade in beasts and sheep, in horses and chariots, in slaves
and the souls of men."
her votaries with considerable wealth, encouraging their am-
bition and luxury ; and thus, like Tyre of old, made her
corruptions general, and almost universal, .
* Wer. 5.] When sins are ripe for judgment, they are said
to reach unto heaven, or to come up before the face of Jeho-
vah. So the angel sent to punish the sins of Sodom, “We
will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen
great before the face of the Lord (Jehovah), and the Lord
(Jehovah) has sent us to destroy it” (Gen. xix. 13). Thus
the prophet Jonah was sent to cry against Nineveh, “for
their wickedness is come up before me ’’ (Jonah i. 2). James
uses a like expression, “The cries of them which have
reaped, have entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.”
It seems an elegant allusion to the methods of justice in
human courts, when criminals are actually prosecuted, and
their crimes are brought before the court for judgment.
* Ver. 6..] By the laws of the Jewish government, some
offences were punished by retaliation, or inflicting on the
offender, as a punishment, that evil which he had injuriously
done to his neighbour, to his hurt and damage. It was
therefore enacted by the Jewish law, “If men strive, and
any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for
eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot” (Exod. xxi.
23, 24). In other cases of damage, it was enacted, that the
offender should pay double damages.
Thus, in the case of theft, the law requires “the thief shall
restore double" (Exod. xxii. 4); it being just the thief
should suffer for his offence, as well as make full restitution
for the damage he had done. In allusion to these laws of
the Jewish government, the punishment of Rome for her
idolatry and persecution, is represented as inflicting pains
and penalties upon her as an offender, as the laws of justice
direct, where injuries are so highly criminal. .
* Ver. 13.] The several branches of trade here enume-
rated, are taken from the prophecies of Ezekiel, ch. xxvii.,
who thus describes the downfall of Tyre, by the loss of all
the branches of her trade. Tyre was the great mart of the
world, where all things most valued and in highest price were
to be bought and sold, to the great profit of that city, as well
as of the merchants of the several nations who traded with it.
Almost all the expressions in this prophecy are used by
Ezekiel, and seem to be copied from his description ; even
that expression, that “she traded in the souls of men;” ver.
13, “Javan, Tubal, and Meshech, they were thy merchants,
they traded in the persons of men.” In the original, “thy
merchants in the souls of men,” DTN wºn Tºby", oùrot
iveroceſſovré arol #w luxaſ; 39%&nov, Septuagint. The Vulgar
Latin renders it mancipia, or “slaves.” The Bishop of
Meaux supposes, that by slaves are meant persons of servile
condition; by souls of men, or men in general, are meant
free persons: to show, that Rome reduced persons of all
conditions, not only bond but free, into some sort of slavery,
by subjection to their dominion. I think the persons, or
souls of men, in Ezekiel, do naturally mean the merchandise
1098.
REVELATION.
14 And the fruits that thy soul lusteth after are
departed from thee, and all things which were dainty
and goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt
find them no more at all.
(14.) So great shall the misery of Rome appear in this
day of vengeance, that nothing shall be left her in which
she was used to have pleasure and delight ; she shall be
spoiled of all things that served hel former greatness or
luxury, nor shall she ever be able to recover them or make
up the loss of them.
15 The merchants of these things, which were
made rich by her, shall stand afar off, for the fear of
her torment, weeping and wailing,
(15.) Her agents, by whose means she obtained her
wealth, and was able to live in such pomp and luxury, and
who served her with great zeal, as they shared in her riches
and luxury, shall themselves be seized with fear, when they
see her torments ; they shall then forsake her, and fly as
far as they can from her, lest they partake of her punish-
ment, as they were partakers of her guilt ; their joy shall be
turned into weeping and wailing. -
16 And saying, Alas, alas ! that great city, that was
clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and
decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls
(16.) They shall utter their sorrow in bitter complaints,
saying, Alas, alas ! what dreadful calamities have befallen
this mighty city, once so admired and adored, which shone
. all the pride, and with all the pomp, of riches and gran-
eur ! -
17 For in one hour so great riches is come to
nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company
in ships, and Sailors, and as many as trade by sea,
stood aſar off,
(17.) But now is suddenly and expectedly spoiled of all
its great riches, and fallen into the utmost distress of poverty;
so that even the lower people, who used to express great
reverence and zéal for her, who profited themselves in some
inferior offices under her, shall be as useless to her as her
greater and more powerful friends; they shall also forsake
her, and for their own safety shall get as far from her as
they can.
18 And cried, when they saw the smoke of her
burning, saying, What city is like unto this great
city
(18.) When they see her as a city burnt down to the
ground, and her smoke ascending, as it were, from every
part of her ruins ; they shall cry out with astonishment,
Was ever the condition of any city like this, formerly in
greatness and glory, now in sudden ruin and misery 17
19 And they cast dust on their heads, and cried,
weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas ! that great
city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the
sea by reason of her costliness for in one hour is she
made desolate.
of slaves; but when slaves and souls of men are mentioned
both together in this prophecy, may it not point out the ma-
ture of that slavery Rome should require of her servants,
that they should become her slaves in soul as well as body?
At least, it is true in fact, that her slaves lose all religious as
well as civil liberty.
It is plain, in general, this is designed to be a figurative,
and not a literal description ; therefore readers are, I think,
at liberty to apply the figurative expressions to such literal
meanings as will agree to the general and certain intention
of them. But whether each of these wares is designed to
point out some particular gainful corruption of popery,
may very well be questioned. It is sufficient to answer the
general intention of the prophecy, to observe, that Rome
shall be deprived of all her wealth, which she procured by
her management and intrigues, in the several places where
her agents resided, who continually made her returns of
great riches, and plentifully supplied her excessive pride and
luxury.
It is a pretty observation of Mr. Daubuz, “Rome receives
(19.) They shall, as is usual in cases of the deepest
mourning and sorrow, put ashes on their heads, and cry out
with great bitterness of heart, Oh the inexpressible misery
of this great city she who was used to enrich all who had
dealings with her, wherever they were employed in her
service ; such was her interest, power, and wealth, they
were sure to make their fortune by her countenance and
favour: yet is she herself suddenly and unexpectedly made
desolate, unable to help either herself or her friends.
20. Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy
º and prophets; for God hath avenged you
Old IlêI’.
(20.) But, added the angel, though this great event of
divine justice will fill the hearts of many with concern and
grief, it will be to the comfort and joy of sincere faithful
Christians, for whose consolation these revelations are made.
The apostles, prophets, and saints of God, will have reason
to rejoice in so wonderful an instance of God’s protection and
favour; for it is to avenge the cause of his church and
faithful servants, God does so severely punish this perse-
cuting city.
21 And a mighty angel took up a stone like a
great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus
with violence shall that great city Babylon be cast
down, and shall be found no more at all.
21.) Farther, to confirm the irrecoverable ruin of this
persecuting city, another mighty angel appeared in my vi-
sion, who plunged a great stone, like a millstone, into the
sea, and he explained the meaning of his action by these
words: Babylon shall fall, this mystical Babylon shall sink
never to rise again ; as a stone thrown with violence into the
sea sinks to the bottom, and never rises more.
22 And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and
of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at
all in thee; and no craftsman of whatsoever craft he
be, shall be found any more in thee; and the sound
of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee.
(22.) So great and lasting will the ruin of this persecut-
ing city be, that there shall be no more any entertainments
of diversion or pleasure for the rich ; no more employment
for persons skilled in any trade or business; no, not even
for the lowest sort of people, such as were used in the
meanest services, in preparing corn for the daily food of the
inhabitants, and providing the very necessaries of life for
them.
23 And the light of a candle shall shine no more
at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and
of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for
thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for
by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.
(23.) Nor shall the inhabitants of that ruined city be con-
tinued by new marriages, and a succession of families ; no
bridal lamp, or songs, no ceremonies of nuptial joy, shall
ever more be seen or heard in it ; but it shall be quite deso-
late, and without inhabitants, because it has been guilty of
all the luxurious wares mentioned, but she has so infatuated
the world, that she pays nothing for them, but trumpery :
her money are her enchantments and Sorceries ; her mer-
chants—her superior clergy, engross the real wealth of the
world to bring it to her; and her returns and exportations
are paper and bills, drawn upon heaven and hell, never to
be accepted ; however, they pass among the common peo-
ple for payment, as if they were of real value. The mer-
chant, who finds means to get shut of them, takes no care
about their intrinsic value, finding gulls who take them off
his hands for real wealth.”
Whether these wares were designed to signify pardons,
indulgences, dispensations, and the like trifles, with which
Rome purchases gold, silver, and whatever ministers to
pride and luxury, this is a plain and manifest meaning, that
she shall be deprived of all her wealth and luxury at once,
and of all the means by which she was used to procure
them.
7 Wer. 18.] This wailing of the sailors, by whom, in the
allegory of trade, are meant persons inferior to merchants,
CHAPTER XIX.
1099
so much pride, idolatry, and cruelty: sins, that God is used
to punish with exemplary severity, especially when persons
abuse their riches and power, not only to corrupt themselves,
but spread their corruptions everywhere, by their bad exam-
ple and influence. -
24 And in her was found the blood of prophets,
and of Saints, and of all that were slain upon the
earth.
(24.) So great has been her superstition and cruelty, that
seems to be taken from the prophecy of Ezekiel, xxvii. 32,
“And in their wailing they shall take up a lamentation for
thee, and lament over thee, saying, What city is like Tyrus,
like the destroyed in the midst of the sea P”
* Wer. 24.] This description of the desolate state of
Rome seems to be an imitation of some passages in the pro-
phet Jeremiah, concerning the ruin of ancient Babylon.
“And it shall be, when thou hast made an end of reading
this book, that thou shalt bind a stone to it, and cast it into
the midst of Euphrates: and thou shalt say, Thus shall
Babylon sink, and shall not rise, from the evil that I will
bring upon her ” (li. 63, 64). This was strictly true of an-
cient Babylon, which remains a heap of ruins to this day;
the city now called Babylon being built in a different place.
This part of the prophecy seems strongly to intimate, that
Rome shall in like manner be irrecoverably destroyed; a
judgment which as yet has not been inflicted upon it. There
seems also, in these expressions, an allusion to another pas-
she has outdone the severest persecutions; she has wantonly
spilt the blood of thousands, for being faithful to the truth
and purity of the Christian faith and worship ; by approving
the cruelty of former persecutors, she has involved herselfin
their guilt, as she is herself guilty of the innocent blood shed
throughout the earth, subject to her authority, and in virtue
of her canons and decrees: and now having filled up the
measure of her own sins, it is righteous in God, so heavy a
punishment should fall upon her.”
sage of the same prophet: “Moreover I will take from them
the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the
bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the sound of the mill-
stones, and the light of the candle. And this whole land
shall be a desolation, and an astonishment” (xxv. 10, 11).
Music was the entertainment of the rich and great ; trade,
the business of men of middle rank ; preparing bread, and
the necessaries of life, the employment of the lowest people;
marriages, in which lamps and songs were known ceremonies,
are the usual methods of peopling cities, as new births sup-
ply the place of those that die. Now, the desolation of
Rome is described in such manner, as to show, that neither
rich nor poor, neither persons of middle rank nor of the
lowest condition and employments, should be able to live
there any more ; it shall not be repeopled by new marriages,
but for ever remain desolate and uninhabited, either by per-
sons born in it, or resorting to it, on account of any business
or employment whatsoever.
CHAPTER XIX.
SECTION XVIII.
1 AND after these things I heard a great voice of
much people in heaven, saying, Alleluia; Salvation,
and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our
God :
(1.) When I was thus distinctly informed by an angel, of
the total destruction of that persecuting power, which was to
arise in this third period, and continue for so long a time, it
was represented farther, as if the whole church was assem-
bled together; which I heard, as a chorus, with united
voices, begin a hymn of praise to God, saying, Alleluia, let
us ascribe Salvation, glory, honour, and power unto Jehovah,
the only true God, who is our God.
2 For true and righteous are his judgments: for
he hath judged the great whore, which did corrupt
the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the
blood of his servants at her hand.
(2.) For his judgments show him to be just and righteous,
faithful and true; his punishment of Rome, in so exemplary
a manner, for her pride, superstition, idolatry, and persecu-
tion, declares his righteousness ; he has illustriously mani-
fested the truth and faithfulness of his promises, in avenging
the blood of his servants, on her who so cruelly put them to
death for their faith in God, and constancy in his true re-
ligion. -
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIX.
CoNTENTs.-The prophecies relating to this third period con-
cluded with a severe punishment of Rome for her pride,
luxury, superstition, and idolatry, and especially for her
cruel persecution of all who were found faithful to their
duty, in preserving the purity of the Christian doctrines
and worship. When Rome thus fell, as ancient Babylon,
to rise no more, the heavenly church is introduced as a
chorus, or choir, to praise God for his righteous judgments
and faithfulness. This excellent hymn of praise, sung by
the united voices of angels and saints, the whole assembly
of heaven, strongly represents to all Christians, and every
church on earth, what grateful sense they ought to have
of God's faithfulness in their protection, and of his righte-
ous judgments in punishing the persecutors of truth and
religion. -
3 And again they said, Alleluia. And her smoke
rose up for ever and ever.
(3.) And they ended their hymn, saying, Alleluia, let
God, our God, be praised, who in this last judgment has put
an end to the power of persecution for ever. It shall not
henceforth, as formerly, rise up again, to persecute the
Saints; this persecuting city shall lie waste, from generation
to generation, never to be restored."
4 And the four and twenty elders and the four
beasts fell down and worshipped God that sat on the
throne, saying, Amen; Alleluia.
(4.) After the chorus of the general assembly had ended
their hymn, the twenty-four elders, representatives of the
united church, the patriarchs and apostles, and the four
living creatures, the cherubim, who were nearest the throne
of God, prostrated themselves before Jehovah, and concluded
the praises of the heavenly church, saying, Amen, Alleluia,
so let Jehovah, our God, be praised. -
5. And a voice came out of the throne, saying,
Praise our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear
him, both small and great.
(5.) When this hymn was finished, there came a voice
from the throne itself; the oracle pronounced an order to
all persons truly religious, to all the faithful servants of God,
of whatever state or condition they might be, that they
Though, for wise reasons, and for a limited time, God may
permit the righteous and faithful to suffer many things
from the enemies of truth and righteousness; yet the end,
and final event of things, shall surely show God's faithful-
ness in the blessing of his people, and justice in the
punishment of his enemies. A just reason for consolation,
gratitude, and praise.
* Ver. 3..] The expression, “Her smoke rose up for ever
and ever,” seems to be taken from the prophet Isaiah,
where it is explained by the prophet to mean perpetual de-
struction. “It shall not be quenched night nor day; the
smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to ge-
neration it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever
and ever” (Isa. xxxiv. 10).
Mr. Daubuz observes, the two alleluias in this part of the
hymn correspond to the messages of the two angels, one of
1 100
REVELATION.
should heartily join in the praise of God, and exalt his name,
so glorious in righteous judgment, and faithfulness to his
promises.”
6 And I heard as it were the voice of a great mul-
titude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the
voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the
Lord God omnipotent reigneth.
(6.) Upon this voice of the oracle, the whole church, in
obedience to it, began to celebrate the praises of God in
another hymn ; their united voices were strong, as the
sound of innumerable people singing together, that it might
be compared to the noise of the sea, or of thunder. They
began the praise of God, saying, Alleluia, for Jehovah, the
one true God, whose almighty power and supreme dominion
reach all creatures, appears to establish his own kingdom of
truth and righteousness in the world.
7 Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to
him : for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his
wife hath made herself ready. -
(7.) Let it fill the hearts of all who truly fear God, with
gladness and joy, and dispose them to give all honour unto
him, now he has so fully and so gloriously accomplished his
promises; for now the true church of Christ, his faithful dis-
ciples, as his spouse, are appointed and prepared to receive
public and eminent marks of his affection, in a state of hap-
piness and dignity, suitable to their relation to him.”
8 And to her was granted that she should be ar-
rayed in fine linen, clean and white : for the fine
linen is the righteousness of saints.
(8.) As it is usual for bridegrooms at their marriage to
make presents to their brides, of rich ornaments and apparel,
so, at this time, the church of Christ shall be presented with
suitable ornaments ; it shall be adorned with real righteous-
ness and holiness, with a divine nature and godlike temper,
in conformity to. God's own perfections: ornaments more
valuable, and more honourable, than the most costly or
which proclaims the fall, and the other shows its perpetuity.
This repetition may however be accounted for, as corre-
sponding with the hymns of the ancient church, in which we
may observe, that repeating the word alleluia, is used by
the authors as an elegance in the composition.
* Ver, 5.] A voice “from the throne,” is from the glory,
or the oracle; this show the great authority and solemnity with
which this order was published. The praise of God, to which
this oracle directs, seems somewhat different from that of the
foregoing hymn; that hymn was to celebrate the praise of
God, principally on account of his faithfulness and justice,
in the punishment of a persecuting power, which had long
oppressed the faithful servants of Christ. But this, as ap-
pears by the following hymn, in obedience to the direction of
the oracle, is principally to praise God for the happy and
glorious state of the church, consequent upon this punish-
Inent of their enemies; that happy and glorious state of the
church, suppose, wherein it is said to live and reign with
Christ a thousand years, and which is more largely described
in the following chapter. For which great goodness of God,
all good men are prepared, by this solemn thanksgiving, to
express their hearty and grateful acknowledgments.
* Ver, 7.] The ancient prophets describe the favour of
God to his people, by the affection of a bridegroom : “For
as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry
thee; and as a bridegroom rejoices over a bride, so shall thy
God rejoice over thee” (Isa. lxii. 5). The church is repre-
sented in the New Testament, in the same similitude of a
bride: “For I have espoused you to one husband, that I
may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ” (2 Cor, ii. 2).
As marriages were used to be celebrated with great joy, the
marriage of the Lamb with his church is a fit emblem to
show the state of prosperity and happiness to which God
will raise it, after all its sufferings for the sake of truth and
righteousness.
* Ver. 10.] It has been often questioned, how the apostle
should ever think of worshipping an angel, as propér wor-
ship and religious honour are expressly forbid to any crea-
ture, and as idolatry is so great a sin, in account both of the
Jewish and Christian religion; and as this answer of the
honourable habits of the eastern princes, or of the ancient
priests.
9 And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they
who are called to the marriage-supper of the Lamb.
And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of
God. . .
(9.) The angel then directing his speech in particular to
me, bid me take notice of this part of the prophecy, and
write it down as a maxim of great use to the patience and
consolation of the saints, as they may rest satisfied in full
assurance of hope, that all the promises in this prophecy
shall be surely accomplished; for they are the faithful, the
never-failing word of God. r
10 And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he
said unto me, See thou do it not : I am thy fellow-
servant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony
of Jesus. Worship God: for the testimony of Jesus
is the Spirit of prophecy. r
(10.). Upon this kindness and condescension of an angel
conversing with me, I was going to express my thankfulness
and respect, by prostrating myself at his feet ; but he imme-
diately stopped me, and informed me, that in this revelation
he was employed as a servant of God, together with myself,
that I was now to consider him, though an angel, as one of
my brethren, whom God employs in revealing things relating
to Christ and his church. The visions which revealed to me
So many things concerning the future state of the church,
proceed from the same Spirit of prophecy as all true revela-
tion does. Worship not me, then, says the angel, but God,
whose servants we both are in this revelation, and from whom
we have both received the same Spirit of prophecy.”
11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white
horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful
and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and
make war.
angel did not so fully satisfy John himself, that what he of.
fered was sinful, and of itself unlawful, for he offers to do
the same thing again afterward (xxii. 8). Before we answer
this question, we ought, I think, to answer a previous ques-
tion: Whether the apostle did intend any proper religious
honour or worship to the angel at all P The word which we
render “to worship” (ºrporkvāza), is used for civil respects,
as well as for religious honour; it properly means a known
custom of the eastern people, of bowing down to the ground,
and kissing the feet of persons of very superior rank. Thus
Ruth complimented Boaz : “Then she fell on her face, and
bowed herself to the ground” (Ruth ii. 10). Thus Abigail
also complimented David : “She fell before David on her
face, and bowed herself to the ground, and fell at his feet”
(1 Sam. xxv. 23, 24). The apostle then, notwithstanding
anything in the expression, might mean no more than the
most humble act of civil respect ; the original word, mean-
ing in general both civil respect and religious worship, must
be determined to either, by the circumstances of the dis-
course in which it is used. It will be sufficiently distin-
guished, I think, by being referred either to the true God, or
to a creature.
The reason for which the angel forbids this high act of
respect, seems to intimate, that he did not understand it as
an act of religious honour; he mentions nothing of the sin
or danger of idolatry in it ; he only shows it was improper
the apostle should give such respect to him; not by showing
it was unlawful to give such respect to any being whatsoever,
but because he was fellow-servant with the apostle, and of
his brethren the prophets, as it is more clearly expressed,
xxii. 9. As if the angel had said, I have but received the
same Spirit of revelation from God, which you also have.
The testimony of Jesus is the true Spirit of prophecy; in
him the prophecies of the ancient prophets had their accom-
plishment; it is still the true spirit and proper intention of
prophecy, to reveal things relating to Christ and his church.
This is the spirit of prophecy in the vision you have seen;
and if I have now explained any of those revelations to
you, the honour is not due to myself, but to God, from
whom I received it ; let your acknowledgment and thanks
CHAPTER XIX.
1101
(11.) The prophetic visions were continued ; a new scene
was presented before me: the gates of heaven were set wide
open for an army to march out in order. This army was
led by a person riding on a white horse, such as generals
were used to ride on solemn processions. He appeared to
be the person to whom God had given all power, and com-
mitted all judgment, who was to accomplish all the promises
of God in faithfulness, and to execute all his threatenings in
righteousness, for the protection of God's people, and for the
punishment of their enemies.
12 His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his
head were many crowns; and he had a name written,
which no man knew, but he himself.
(12.) He appeared with a noble aspect; his eyes were
gloriously bright and piercing ; his head, to show his
numerous conquests and large empire, was adorned with
many crowns: so great was the dignity and authority con-
ferred upon him, that no person besides himself could fully
comprehend it.”
13 And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in
blood: and his name is called the WoRD OF GOD.
(13.) He was dressed in a robe of deep red, as if it had
been dipped in blood ; to express, that Jesus, who, for his
voluntary obedience unto death, when he shed his own blood,
was highly exalted, and had a name given him which is
above every name, should fulfil this prophecy, in the utter
be therefore given unto him. This I take to be the plainest
account; though the reader should be informed, some learned
interpreters understand this action as symbolical or figu-
rative. “To teach and represent untous, under the person of
the apostle himself,” says Mr. Waple, “that the best men are
very apt to be surprised and drawn by the example of others,
* and by false pretences, into creature-worship; and that such
worship is unlawful, let the pretences be ever so plausible ;
and that the only way to prevent all manner of idolatry,
is to keep to the precept here given, of worshipping God
alone.”*
* Ver. 12.] This expression seems to refer to the many
characters given to Christ in prophecy, which are so great,
that we cannot fully comprehend all that they mean. It
has been probably thought by some interpreters, that this
part of the description refers to the prophecy of Isaiah :
“The government shall be on his shoulders: and his name
shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The
everlasting Father, The Prince of peace. Of the increase of
his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the
throne of David and his kingdom, to order it, and to esta-
blish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even
for ever” (Isa. ix. 6, 7). His person and government are
represented wonderful and incomprehensible.
* Ver. 13.] This title, “The Word of God,” makes it
evident, that the person designed in the vision is the same
person whom John, in his gospel, calls by the same name ;
so that Jesus Christ himself is represented as riding at the
head of an army, to take vengeance of the enemies of his
religion, and faithful servants.
Mr. Daubuzi observes, “That Aéyoc, or word, has three
several significations; it may signify words, actions, and
commands. Christ is the Word of God in all these re-
pects:
“I. He is his Word, because, before his incarnation, and
much more since, he has been the great angel of God, to
bring messages, or the words of God, to men.
“II. He is the Word of God, because he is the great mi-
nister of God, to perform all his works of creation, preser.
vation, and redemption.
“III. As to the word signifying command, Christ is, in
respect of that, two ways the word of God.
“l. As he is the executor of all God's commands.
“2. As he is himself the chief commander, and even now
joined with God sitting upon his throne at his right hand;
the Prince &#xh and 36%ay of the creation, King of kings,
and Lord of lords. This account not only shows,” our au-
thor adds, “why Christ is called the Word of God in general,
but why he is so called in this place.
* Daubuz, Waple. + On the place.
destruction of the enemies of his government: their slaugh-
ter should be then so great, that their blood should, as it
were, be sprinkled on his garments; then he should be cele-
brated under the glorious title of “the Word of God.”
14 And the armies which were in heaven followed
him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white
and clean. -
(14.) The prophetic vision farther represented this gene-
ral followed by the armies of heaven, which marched after
their prince and chief commander in great state ; themselves
richly clothed in splendid habits, wearing the finest linen : to
signify, that now the church should attain a state of peace
and triumph : their faith and patience should be highly re-
warded ; their happiness and joy should be far above what
Rome ever saw in the glory of a triumph."
15 And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that
with it he should smite the nations: and he shall
rule them with a rod of iron : and he treadeth the
* of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty
od.
(15.) The vision farther represented a sharp sword,
coming out, as it were, of the mouth of Christ, to signify,
that he had the full power of the sword; and that now he
was about to use it, in a strict execution of justice on the
enemies of truth and righteousness; that he would chastise
them as with an iron rod, and punish them with the most
- - -
“ I. Being the Word, as he brings messages, and is the
great angel of the covenant, he brings now the greatest er-
rand, the perfection of the covenant in the resurrection, first
of the Saints, and then of all the dead.
“II. Being the word of God, as he is the great minister,
he now comes to perform the most magnificent of God's
works.
“III. As he is the executor of God's commands, and is
to command and rule under the Father, he comes now to be
King of kings, and Lord of lords.”
It is observable, that in the temple, the Shechinah, or
glory, the presence of God in the most holy place, was the
oracle, and the kebla, whence God gave forth his word and
command, and towards which presence all the worship of the
church was addressed. The oracle was called nºn-7 from
nin-1, which is often translated Aéyoc, and “word.” Another
Hebrew word hor, which is rendered Aáy, and “word,” will
properly also signify authority and command, and one vested
with supreme authority and command. Thus amir, or emir, is
a known title of magistracy in the east; and emir al mumw-
nin, is the prince or lord of the true believers, a well-known
title of the successors of Mohammed.* Not only the title
of emir in the east, but of dictator among the Romans, seems
to have come from the same original, as persons whose
word and command had sovereign authority.
As in the temple, the Shechinah, or glory, was the oracle
and mercy-seat, from which oracle God gave his commands
with supreme authority, and at which presence he graciously
received the addresses of his church, may not an allusion to
this very significant and principal part of the Mosaical in-
stitution be one probable reason, why Christ is styled here
“the Word of God 9”
7 Wer. 14.] “The armies of heaven,” in the language of
Scripture, often means the angels of God; which, as minis-
tering spirits, who continually attend on his service, may be
called the armies of heaven, probably in allusion to the cus-
tom of princes, who keep the chief and best of their troops
about their persons, as their guard, and in their capital city,
the place of their residence ; and have their principal and
chief officers attending their courts.
In this vision the faithful Christians, who persevered with
constancy in the day of temptation, seem represented as re-
ceived into heaven, and associated with the angels, into the
hosts or armies of heaven, as well as in the praises of the
heavenly church ; so that these armies of heaven may be
understood not only of the angels of God attending Christ,
but also of such faithful Christians who had received their
crown and reward: they are said to be clothed in fine linen,
* Selden, Titles of Honour, vol. iii. p. 194.
1 102
REVELATION.
severe vengeance of God's wrath, which is, as his power, al-
mighty, and able to punish his enemies with utter and ever-
lasting destruction.”
16 And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a
name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD of Lords.
(16.) Finally, I observed a motto, or inscription, on one
part of his garment which covered his thigh, the place where
the sword was usually worn ; in which inscription he was
styled “King of kings, and Lord of lords:” to signify, that
he was really possessed of a just dominion over all the
princes and kingdoms of the earth ; a dominion which the
eastern monarchs, and after them the Roman empire, un-
justly attempted, a title which with great vanity they as-
sumed to themselves.
17 And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and
he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls
that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather
gºve. together unto the supper of the great
OO! :
(17.) As I beheld this general marching with his army in
order, on this great expedition, the event of it, in the total
overthrow and destruction of his enemies, was declared by
the voice of an angel, who seemed to stand in the sun ; who,
with a very audible voice, invited the birds of prey to the
carcases of the slain, as to a great feast, which the vengeance
of God on his enemies would soon provide for them.
18 That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the
flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and
the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and
the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small
and great.
(18.) In which feast, they should prey upon the dead
bodies of a numerous army ; many persons of the highest
rank and character should remain dead and unburied on the
field of battle ; so that the birds of prey should feast them-
selves on the flesh of kings, great captains, and of mighty
men, as well as on the flesh of common soldiers, and their
horses.”
19 And I saw the beast, and the kings of the
earth, and their armies, gathered together to make
war against him that sat on the horse, and against his
army.
(19.) I beheld also in my vision, another army appear to
oppose Christ, and the army of heaven, which he led : the
beast, which represented the persecuting power of Rome, in
conjunction with the kings of the earth, who aided and sup-
ported that persecuting power, gathered all his force together,
and headed a numerous army: all the enemies of truth and
righteousness combined to oppose a thorough reformation of
their errors, superstition, idolatry, and persecution.
20 And the beast was taken, and with him the false
prophet that wrought miracles before him, with
which he deceived them that had received the mark
of the beast, and them that worshipped his image.
These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning
with brimstone.
(20.) But Christ and his saints obtained a full and entire
victory over them ; a victory so complete, as when the ge-
nerals and all the chief officers are made prisoners of war,
and the rest of the army is cut to pieces in the field of bat-
tle. For the persecuting powers, represented by the beast
and false prophets, the principal persons who had supported
the apostasy by false doctrines, and imposed on the credulous
by pretences to wonders and miracles, were made prisoners,
to suffer a more exemplary punishment by the hands of jus-
tice ; for these were afterward condemned to be burned alive,
and had their sentence executed upon them, being thrown
into a pit of burning brimstone.
21 And the remnant were slain by the sword of
him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded
out of his mouth : and all the fowls were filled with
their flesh.
(21.) As to the rest, the persons of lower and inferior
rank, who had abetted the apostasy, and concurred in op-
posing a reformation, they, like the common soldiers of an
army, fell in the field of battle, and were left there unburied,
as a prey for the fowls of the air to feed on : a very strong
figurative expression of their full and complete destruc-
tion.19
white and clean ; which is just before interpreted to mean
“ the righteousness of the saints.” w
They seem to be the same persons described before, xvii.
14, “And they that are with him are called, and chosen,
and faithful.” So that these armies in heaven, which fol-
lowed their victorious general, seem to include, if not to
mean principally, those Christians who had kept the faith
against all opposition; to express the high honour and hap-
piness to which they are now advanced.
* Ver. 15.] Christ, in the first vision, is represented with
a sharp two-edged sword (Rev. i. 16), to express one of the
principal parts of government, the power of the sword; the
jus gladii including the right of making war and inflicting
punishments.
To “rule with a rod of iron,” is an allusion to an expres-
sion in Ps. ii. 9, in which it was prophesied, concerning the
king whom Jehovah had set “upon his holy hill of Zion,”
that he should as easily break his enemies, and all their op-
position, as a rod of iron could break in pieces an earthen
vessel.
To “tread the wine-press of the fierceness of the wrath
of Almighty God,” is an allusion to a passage in the prophet
Isaiah, lxiii. 3, 4, usually understood of the Messiah : “I
have trodden the wine-press alone; and of the people there
was none with me : for I will tread them in mine anger, and
trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled
on my garments, and I will stain all my raiment. For the
day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my re-
deemed is come.”
* Ver. 18.] This passage is imitated from the prophet
Ezekiel, xxxix. 17, 18, “And thou son of man, thus saith
the Lord God; Speak unto every feathered fowl, and to every
beast of the field. Assemble yourselves, and come ; gather
yourselves on every side to my sacrifice (or slaughter) that
I do sacrifice for you upon the mountains of Israel, that ye
may eat flesh and drink blood. Ye shall eat the flesh of
the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth.
Thus shall ye be filled at my table.” This is a strong
description of a great slaughter and heavy judgment of God,
when he shall come to punish his enemies. So it is ex-
plained by the prophet, ver, 21, “I will set my glory (saith
the Lord God) among the heathen, and all the heathen shall
see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that
I have laid upon them.”
* Ver. 21.] The general meaning of this strong and
beautiful figure is sufficiently plain and intelligible, and suffi-
cient to answer the design of the prophecy, to encourage
constancy, faith, and patience; to give consolation and hope,
under present oppression and persecution, for the sake of our
religion and a good conscience. That the several particulars
of this figurative description have themselves a farther par-
ticular meaning, is not so plain and certain. It is, I think,
a mark of right understanding, in the language of prophecy,
and in the design of prophecy too, to keep to what appears
the design and meaning of the prophecy in general, and
what the whole of it, laid together, points out to us: and
not to suffer a warm imagination to mislead us from the
real intention of the Spirit of prophecy, by following uncer-
tain applications of particular parts of it. Who can say, for
instance, with any certainty, that the flesh to be eaten, and
the birds invited to the feast, have each a particular mystical
sense, or that they really mean anything more than to de-
scribe a great battle, defeat, and slaughter 2
However there are, in most figurative descriptions, some
particular parts of the representation, that seem, with great
probability, designed to point out some chief circumstances
to particular observation.
Thus, in this description, the punishment of the beast
and false prophet, who were taken prisoners, and condemned
to be burned alive, being different from the punishment of
the remnant which were slain by the sword, seems to intimate,
that the chief and principal umaintainers of the apostasy, they
CHAPTER XX.
1 103
who used all their power, and all the wicked arts of deceit,
in opposition to true religion, shall be punished in proportion
to their guilt, and shall suffer in a manner more terrible and
exemplary than others. Burning alive is one of the most
terrible executions; being cast into a lake or pit of fire,
“burning with brimstone,” images in the mind the destruc-
tion of Sodom and Gomorrah, who are recorded as examples
of perpetual destruction, from which they can never possibly
recover themselves.
Thus also, as the beast and false prophet do not mean
private persons, according to this description, but the powers
of bodies politic, in perpetual succession, this very naturally
teaches us to consider their punishment in a double capacity;
or, to use the words of Mr. Daubuz,” “The design here is to
* On the place.
show us, that Christ will not only destroy at last the persons
who at that time shall be in possession of what is signified
by the beast and false prophet, but also utterly extirpate the
succession of the tyranny and false prophecy for ever: so
that the beast and the false prophet are persons in a double
capacity, that is, persons in general, enemies to Christ, and
also in possession of a power which is to be extinguished with
them.”
However, this I think we may take as the undoubted
meaning of the prophecy in general, that now all the powers
of the apostasy shall be destroyed; no opposition shall remain
to hinder that happy state of the church, which is to follow
in the next period, and which the Spirit of prophecy describes
in the following chapter.
*
CHAPTER XX. 1–6.
SECTION XIX.
THE FOURTH PERIOD,
1 AND I saw an angel come down from heaven,
having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain
in his hand. *
(1.) After I had seen, in the former prophetic visions,
the downfall and punishment of the last persecuting power
of Rome, the state of the church which was to follow upon
it was represented in a new vision; for I beheld an angel as
descending from heaven, like one sent on a message from
the throne of God: his commission was expressed by a dou-
ble symbol: he had a key in his hands, which was the key
of the great abyss, or bottomless pit ; and he brought also
with him a great chain, such as prisoners were used to be
bound with to prevent an escape.
2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent,
which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a
thousand years,
(2.) I soon perceived, in my vision, on what errand this
angel was sent ; for he seized on the dragon, the old ser-
pent, by which the devil was signified, the great adversary
of mankind, and enemy of truth and righteousness, the great
seducer of the world into error and wickedness; the angel
arrested him, bound him, and committed him to close custody
for a thousand years. -- -
3 And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut
him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should de-
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XX. 1—6.
CoNTENTS.–This chapter represents a new state of the
church, upon its deliverance from the persecution and cor-
ruption of the third period, or during the reign of the two
beasts, for twelve hundred and sixty prophetic days, or
years. That long state of opposition is to be followed by
a long continuance of peace and prosperity; a i.
is described, which, among other characters, is to last for a
thousand years. The two first periods ended in a deliver-
ance of the church, but those deliverances were of short
continuance, and attended with considerable defects; but
now, after the church shall have passed through this third
trial of faith and patience, it is to attain a state of very
great prosperity, and to remain in it for a very considera-
ble length of time. This is that happy state of the church,
which, from the continuation of it for one thousand years,
is usually called the millennium.
The description we have of it in this chapter is very short,
contained within the first six verses; interpreters have,
however, abundantly supplied what they thought wanting
in the account of prophecy, out of their own invention, it
is to be feared, rather than from sure or well-grounded
principles of judgment. No wonder, then, they differ so
much about the true meaning of a prophecy, in which
ceive the nations no more, till the thousand years
should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed
a little season. . . -
(3.) The angel committed him to close custody in a
strong prison, he locked him fast up in the bottomless pit,
and put a firm seal upon it, that he might not escape, or go
about as before, to deceive the nations. Thus was the
devil to be confined for a thousand years, though, after that
time should be expired, the wise and holy providence of God
should take off this restraint, though it should be but for a
very short space of time."
4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and
judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls
of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus,
and for the word of God, and had not worshipped the
beast, neither his image, neither had received his
mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and
they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
(4.) When the church was thus delivered from the
power of Satan, by his confinement, either to seduce or per-
secute it, the happy state of the church was thus farther
represented: I saw thrones erected, and persons sat on
them, to whom the authority of government and adminis-
tration. of justice were committed, and such persons were
entrusted with it, who had the constancy of martyrs, whom
no fears of death could force into any compliance with the
antichristian apostasy, but who persevered in the profession
of the Christian faith, against all opposition, neither yielding
to the general prevailing corruptions, nor making any ac-
they have mixed so many of their own imaginations; so
that the disputes seem not so much what is the intention
of the Spirit of prophecy, as which of the interpreters has
the finest or the warmest imagination.
Let us then carefully endeavour to distinguish what the
Spirit of prophecy plainly intends, from what uncertain
conjectures or doubtful reasonings may suggest to our
minds, as a more distinct and particular account of it.
* Ver. 3..] The abyss or bottomless pit in which Satan is
to be confined for a thousand years, during this happy state
of the church, is explained on the first and second verses
of the ninth chapter, where an angel is sent to open it,
as here to shut up Satan a close prisoner in it. The shutting
up of Satan in so close a prison as a pit or dungeon under-
ground, so sure a confinement by locking it fast, and putting
a seal upon it, may well be understood to mean, that for
this space of time the devil, who is represented the first in
the apostasy, and principal agent in the opposition to truth,
righteousness, and religion, shall be fully restrained from the
exercise of all influence and power, either to seduce men
into error and wickedness, or to persecute men of conscience,
constancy, and faithfulness.
As the devil is represented the head or ruler of the evil
spirits or angels, a restraint of their rower seems also to be
1104
REVELATION.
knowledgment of subjection to the authority and dominion
of the antichristian power of the beast: such as these the
Spirit of prophecy declared were the persons to reign with
Christ for these thousand years.”
5 But the rest of the dead lived not again until th9
thousand years were finished. This is the first resur-
rection.
(5.) While this happy state of the church shall continue,
the party of the beast, they who were united in opposition
to pure Christianity, and in persecuting Christ's faithful
servants, the remnant who were slain with the sword of him
that sat on the horse (xix. 21) shall not revive, or recover
any part of their former power, but remain altogether unable
to disturb the peace or prosperity of the church, till the
thousand years shall be accomplished. This happy state of
intended, in the imprisonment of their chief or head ; so that
in the general, this seems to be the meaning of the Spirit of
prophecy, in this figurative description, that during all the
time of this period, that is, for a thousand years, “the church
of Christ shall enjoy purity of religion in peace, without any
disturbance from those old enemies of mankind, working in
the children of disobedience.”"
“And this seems to imply,” adds our author, “that all shall
be converted : however, if there be any that remain un-
converted, they will, during the imprisonment of Satan, be
in so small a number, and so feeble in comparison of the
true Christians, that they shall neither dare, nor be able, to
disturb the peace of Christ's kingdom.”f
It is not improbable, that shutting up Satan in the bottom-
less pit or abyss may have a particular regard to a restraint
on the power of Mohammedism, and effectually stop the
prevalency of that imposture, as before opening the bottom-
less pit had a principal regard to the rise and surprising pro-
gress of it (ch. ix.).
* Wer. 4.] This description of the thrones, and of them
that sat on them, is not, I conceive, to be understood, as if
all who are afterward said to live and reign with Christ a
thousand years, were set on these thrones. The expression,
“I saw thrones, and they that sat upon them,” may mean
no more than that some sat on them, how few or how many
soever they might be. Though all are said to “live and
reign with Christ,” that may well be understood of a free
and full enjoyment of the glorious blessings and happiness
of this kingdom of Christ.
The figurative description seems to intimate order and
government in this kingdom of Christ, that some were to
have judgment given unto them, or to be raised to the au-
thority of magistrates in it. This, as all other governments,
was to be made up of governors and governed; and this
authority of magistracy was given to them that sat on the
thrones, whoever they were, who were judged worthy of such
honour and authority in this kingdom of Christ. The ex-
pressions seem to be an allusion to the principal court of
Israel, in which the members of the sanhedrin sat on raised
seats, or thrones, on each hand of the prince, or president of
the assembly. Nor would this representation be improper,
though Christ himself should be supposed sitting on the
principal seat or throne: for Christ himself, speaking to his
apostles, says, “In the regeneration, when the Son of man
shall sit on the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit on twelve
thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matt. xix. 28).
In like manner, this prophecy, “And round about the throne
were four and twenty seats, and upon the seats I saw four-
and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment, and they
had on their heads crowns of gold.” These four-and-twenty
seats are expressly four and twenty thrones, wai xvºxéSey roi,
Sgávov, 8:690ſ sixo~ wał réa'a'apsc.
Thrones, then, as seats of dignity, are to distinguish those
who have the administration of government committed unto
them from the rest of the people, who are to be governed
by them, and can in no propriety be applied to every mem-
ber of the kingdom who lives under the protection, and en-
joys the blessings, of a government.
It is a question of consequence to the true meaning and
right understanding of this prophecy, how we are to under-
stand “the souls of them who were beheaded for the witness
of Jesus,” and who are the persons who “ had not worship-
ped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his
mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands;” or, which is
the same, who are the persons whom the prophecy intends
to represent as enjoying the blessings of that happy state of
the church.
=-
* Daubuz, on the place. + Ibid.
Here interpreters differ widely in their opinion: some
understand this description literally, to mean a real and
proper resurrection of such persons who, in the former states
of persecution, were put to death for their constancy in the
profession of pure Christianity; that is, the martyrs under
the heathen empire, and those who were slain under the
reign of the beast. It is supposed that all these saints and
martyrs shall at this time be really raised from the dead, for
a thousand years before the general resurrection; or, as a
very ingenious author” represents it, “Those who have suf-
fered for the sake of Christ and a good conscience, shall be
raised from the dead a thousand years before the general
resurrection, and reign with Christ in a happy state.”
But there are others, who understand this description in
a figurative sense; they suppose the prophecy intends such
persons as have the true spirit and temper of martyrs, who
have like faith, constancy, and zeal, with those whom no
persecutions could prevail upon to deny the truth, “make
shipwreck of a good conscience,” or criminally comply with
any of the corruptions of their times. ... "
They who are for a literal resurrection of the martyrs, in
order to live and reign with Christ for these thousand years,
principally insist on the direct meaning of the expressions,
“The souls of them that were beheaded for the testimony of
Jesus;”; which they think must mean the martyrs under
the heathen Roman emperors, as beheading was a Roman
punishment, and as the very souls that were beheaded, or
dead, live again in the millennial state. They farther ob-
serve, This is the reward promised to the martyrs, to the
souls who “cry for vengeance under the altar,” and who
“overcome” by death, or by resisting the enemies of Christ
and his religion unto death. They observe, This is agreeable
to the doctrine of Paul, 1 Thess. iv. 16, that “the dead in
Christ shall rise first ;” that is, they who died for Christ's
sake. This interpretation is confirmed, they think, by the
following observation,-that the rest of the dead lived not
again till the thousand years were finished, and therefore
this is properly a first resurrection. This shows, they add,
that the persons mentioned as dead and living, were once
really dead. If they were not, what occasion was there
to compare them with the rest of the dead? by which are
to be understood, all such Christians who are dead, or shall
die, having no title to the first resurrection, as they were
neither actually martyrs nor confessors.
These arguments are farther supported by several con-
jectures, and by an application of some passages of scrip-
ture that are supposed to favour them.
But they who, on the other hand, understand this de-
scription in a figurative sense, observe, that all the expres-
sions will very well bear such an interpretation; that it
will be more agreeable to the style of prophecy, in par-
ticular ſo the style of this book, which everywhere abounds
in figuffitive descriptions; that all these expressions are used
in the ancient prophets in a figurative meaning, and that
there are unanswerable difficulties attending a literal in-
pretation of them.
Dr. Whitby, in a learned and judicious treatise of the
millennium, has considered the whole argument at large,
where the reader may find full satisfaction; I shall only
set before him the sum of those arguments which seem
greatly to confirm the figurative interpretation.
It is observed, in the first place, that all these expres-
sions may very well be understood in a figurative sense.
“The souls of them which were beheaded for the witness
of Jesus,” and which “had not worshipped the beast,”
may easily, according to the manner of prophetic language,
* Burnet's Theory, lib. iv, cap. 4.
+ Waple, Daubuz,
CHAPTER XX.
1105
signify persons of like spirit and temper with them, of like
faith, patience, constancy, and zeal. John the Baptist was
Elias, because he came “in the spirit of Elias.” “This is
Elias,” says our Saviour, “which was for to come,” Matt.
xi. 14. And Luke, speaking of John preparing the way
for the appearance of the Messiah, thus explains it : “And
he shall go before him, in the spirit and power of Elias,”
Luke i. 17. Thus a state of the church in which the spirit
of the ancient martyrs and confessors, and the purity of
those times, shall return, may be described as a church of
martyrs, a church so nearly resembling them in temper,
constancy, and zeal.
It is a very easy and natural figure, as well as very com-
mon in this book of prophecy, to describe persons by the
names of such whose tempers and characters they imitate
and follow. Thus the names of Sodom, Egypt, and Baby-
lon are so often ascribed to Rome, on account she nearly
resembled them in corruption, pride, and cruelty.
The other expressions, of a “resurrection,” of “living
and reigning,” were used before in ancient prophecy, to sig-
nify the restoration of the church from a low and afflicted
state. Thus the prophet Hosea, exhorting to “return unto
the Lord, for he hath torn and he will heal; he hath smit-
tem, and he will bind us up;” he adds, “After two days
will he revive us,” or make us live again, “on the third day
will he raise us up, as from the dead, and we shall live in
his sight” (vi. 1, 2).
In this prophecy, when the two witnesses were slain, and
“their dead bodies lay in the streets of the great city” (Rev.
xi. 7, 8) “the spirit of life from God entered into them, and
they stood on their feet” (ver. 11); or they are represented
under the figure of being raised from the dead.
It is moreover observable, that as all these expressions
may well be understood in a figurative sense, agreeable to
the language of prophecy, so it is more agreeable to under-
stand them so in a book of revelations, delivered throughout
in such a style. Every part of these prophecies is so to be
understood, the book, the seals, the trumpets, the beasts,
the witnesses, the dragon, and old serpent; and why not the
resurrection of the martyrs and confessors?
It is also very material, that these very expressions seem
to be taken from some passages of scripture, in which they
are plainly used in a figurative sense, and must be so inter-
preted. There is a remarkable prophecy of Ezekiel, xxxvii.
3, concerning the restoration of Judah, and her return out
of the captivity: “And he said unto me, Son of man, can
these bones live? and I answered, O Lord God, thou know.
est.” It follows, ver. 5, “Thus saith the Lord God unto
these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you,”
that is, a spirit of life, or living spirit, “and ye shall live.
And so I prophesied, as he commanded me,” says Ezekiel,
ver, 10, “ and the breath,” or spirit of life, “came into them,
and they lived, and stood up upon their feet.” The mean-
ing of these figurative expressions is thus explained, ver, 11,
12, “Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are
(or signify) the whole house of Israel: behold, they say,
Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost : we are cut off
for our parts. Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus
saith the Lord God; Behold, O my people, I will open your
graves, and cause you to come out of your graves, and bring
you into the land of Israel.” Or, I will bring you out of
your captivity, and into the enjoyment of your own country,
liberties, laws, and religion.
It is farther to be observed, “how fully the description of
the conversion of the Jews answers to the millennium of St.
John, who useth the very words by which their prophets had
foretold their glorious conversion,” as Dr. Whitby has shown
at large.”
Now, as this happy state of the church may well be un-
derstood of the fullest accomplishment of the prophecies,
which speak of the conversion of the Jews, and receiving
them again into the church, which Paul calls “life from the
dead,” Rom. xi. 15, this interpretation will be the most easy
and proper, as most agreeable to the sense in which they
were used by the ancient prophecies, upon the like occasion.
Yet farther, a literal and proper resurrection of the mar-
tyrs and confessors, who suffered in the heathen Roman
empire and reign of the beast, is attended with many diffi-
culties, so great as render that interpretation very doubtful
and improbable.
Dr. Whitby” has remarked, that a proper and literal re-
surrection is never, in the whole New Testament, expressed
or represented to us by the living of the soul, but by the
living, raising, and resuscitation of the dead, the raising of
the bodies of the saints, of them that slept in the dust, or in
their graves, or sepulchres.
The same learned authori farther observes, this doctrine
seems not well consistent with the happy state of souls de-
parted—or with the high prerogatives supposed to belong
to the souls of martyrs that this doctrine does not well
agree with the accurate description of the resurrection in the
holy scriptures; for in all those descriptions there is no
mention of a first and second resurrection, or that one of
them is to be a thousand years after the other. They de-
scribe the bodies at the resurrection fit to live in heaven, and
not on this earth; they represent the resurrection to be per-
formed “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye” (1 Cor.
xv. 52). They represent, at that time, “The dead in Christ
shall rise first ;” but then also, “we which are alive, and re-
main, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds,
to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall be ever with the
Lord” (1 Thess, iv. 16, 17). The scriptures speak con-
stantly of the resurrection of all saints, as of a resurrection
not to a temporal life on earth, but to an eternal life in hea-
ven. Nor, finally, does the doctrine of a literal resurrection
well agree, our author observes, with the genius of Christian
faith, or with the nature of Christian hope, or with that free-
dom and temper of spirit it requires from the professors of
Christianity, who are taught not to “set their hearts and
affections on things on earth, but on things above, where
Christ sitteth at the right hand of God” (Col. iii. 1–3).
To these observations of Dr. Whitby, let me add one or
two observations which the prophecy itself seems naturally
to point out to us.
And, first, this prophecy seems to suppose such inhabit-
ants of the earth, during the millennium, as were the inha-
bitants of the earth when the beast was destroyed, or men in
the usual state of natural succession; not persons raised out
of the grave, or fetched from the separate state of departed
Souls.
Here is no intimation that all good and faithful Christians
are to be slain at this time, together with the beast and his
followers, to make room for martyrs, and persons who died
some hundreds of years before, to inhabit the earth in their
room. Besides, they are represented in this state of the
millennium, as liable to be misled by the deceitful arts of
Satan, and the terrors of persecution; for which reason, the
safety and security of the church in this period is repre-
sented by laying a restraint upon Satan, that he should not
deceive the nations, or shutting him up in the bottomless pit,
that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand
years should be fulfilled. The inhabitants of the earth,
then, are supposed in the prophecy capable of being de-
ceived, and in danger of it, if the power of Satan had not
been so fully restrained. The order of the prophecy seems
farther to confirm this observation; for when the thousand
years shall be expired, Satan must after that be loosed for a
little season, and he shall make so bad use of that little time,
as to deceive many; so far deceive them, as to gather a very
great number of them together, to attack the saints and the
beloved city. Must, these new enemies of Christ and his
religion be some of the old persecutors raised from the dead,
or some of the martyrs after their resurrection, seduced by
Satan into his party 2 or must they be, as the prophecy
seems plainly enough to suppose, such a succession of men
as now inhabit the earth?
The prophecy itself gives us occasion to make this far-
ther observation,--that this prophecy places the general
resurrection after these thousand years are expired, after
Satan shall have made a new attempt against truth and
righteousness, and with very great numbers, as the sand of
the sea ; and after they shall be utterly destroyed by fire
coming down from God out of heaven. ... Now the prophecy
describes this resurrection, which is to follow the millennium
* Whitby, Treatise of the true Millennium, ch. ii. Ş. 3.
* Ibid. ch. iii. Ş. 1. + Ibid. ch. iv. §. 1.
.* 4 B
1106
REVELATION.
the church may well be called “life from the dead,” or a
“first resurrection.”
6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first
resurrection: on such the second death hath no
power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ,
and shall reign with him a thousand years.
(6.) In this eminently glorious state of the church, happi-
ness and holiness shall not be separate, as they now often
and defeat of the last attempt of the enemies of truth, as a
general resurrection of all persons, without any exception,
without the least intimation of so considerable a resurrec-
tion, above a thousand years before, as this resurrection of
the martyrs must have been, if meant literally. “I saw
the dead, small and great, stand before God—and the dead
were judged out of those things that were written in the
books, according to their works” (xx. 12). They who were
judged, were the dead then raised to life: then the dead
were all raised, small and great.
It should seem, then, that a literal and proper resurrection
of martyrs, to live on earth a thousand years before the
general resurrection and judgment, is not a necessary sense
of this prophecy, nor so natural and probable a sense, as the
figurative. It should seem, that the literal sense is liable to
many difficulties, and hardly reconcileable to the other de-
scriptions of the same prophecy, and to other passages of
the scriptures.
But the figurative interpretation, viz. that this prophecy
should mean a happy state of the church on earth, well an-
swers the whole design of the prophecy, and appears the
easier and more probable meaning of the words.
The church in peace, free from persecution, and all de-
ceitful arts of Satan and wicked men, enlarged with the con-
version of the Jews and “fulness of the gentiles,” serving
God as a kingdom of priests, in the purity of Christian
worship, and enjoying all the blessings of divine protection
and grace, may well be expressed by “living and reigning
with Christ.”
This short description will, then, allow a liberty to every
one of applying to this happy state of the church whatever
other prophecies he shall find relating to the peaceful and
prosperous state of the church in the last times. If we take
care to apply them in an easy and natural sense, agreeable
to the true meaning of this prophecy, and true nature of the
peace, purity, and happiness of the church, designed by it,
we shall rectify the mistakes, and prevent the dangerous
errors, that some have fallen into, by indulging too far an
unreasonable fancy and ungrounded imagination ; and the
true millennium will be very far from an unreasonable doc-
trine, or a dangerous enthusiasm.
* Ver. 5.] There is mention in this prophecy of two sorts
. of dead persons; those who were slain “by the witness of
Jesus,” and those who were slain “by the sword of him that
sat on the horse.” As here is an account of the death of
faithful Christians by their persecutors, and of their perse-
cutors themselves by Christ, these persecutors are called
“ the remnant,” the rest, of Aoitroſ.
are ; then they shall be joined inseparably together; they
shall be free from all affliction, and from all fears of trouble;
when the wicked shall be condemned to the lake which
burneth with fire and brimstone, the second death shall not
hurt them ; they continuing faithful in the service of God,
to which they are consecrated by the Christian profession,
shall live as priests to God and Christ, and shall reign in a
pure, peaceful, and glorious church-state, under Christ's
protection and favour.”
It is very agreeable to the design and connexion of this
prophecy, to understand “the rest of the dead,” who “lived
not again till the thousand years were finished,” of the rest
or remnant, viz. of those that were slain with the sword of
him that sat on the horse. Thus, the dead church raised
to life, and living and reigning for a thousand years, and the
enemies of the church remaining dead, and not living again
till the thousand years were finished, will exactly agree
in the same figurative meaning. This will be a sense
consistent with the resurrection of the antichristian party
again, for a little season, after the thousand years shall be
finished.
Dr. Hammond, though he refers this prophecy to a very
different period, yet, from the connexion of the words, per-
ceived this was the true meaning of “the rest of the dead.”
Who “the rest of the dead” are is manifest, not all besides
the martyrs, but those formerly named, ver. 4, that is, they
who “worshipped the beast or his image, or received his
mark in their foreheads or hands.”—And therefore these may
well be the rest of the dead here, it being punctually said of
them, xix. 21, of Aoimoi, “The rest were slain ;’ and then,
that they “ lived not again till the thousand years were
finished,” must needs signify, that the church was now, for
that space, free from such heathen persecutors, and puri-
fied from such avowed mixtures of those vile unchristian
practices, which is but the negative part annexed to the
positive preceding: so that, to use the words of Mr. Baxter,
“the rest of the dead, even the subdued pagans (or papists,
say others), were kept as in a state of death, out of power,
till the dragon revived their power again, a thousand years
after.”
* Wer. 6..] To “reign with Christ” may well be under-
stood in a figurative sense, as we are said to be “crucified
with Christ,” and to “live with him ;” or, as Christ himself
is said to “live in us,” Gal. ii. 20. “Happy days of
peace and righteousness, of joy and triumph, of external
prosperity and internal sanctity, when virtue and innocency
shall be in the throne, vice and vicious men out of power
and credit, are prophesied of in scripture, and promised to
the church of God.” Such a kingdom, which shall be a
kingdom of righteousness as well as peace, under a peculiar
divine presence and conduct, may well be called “the king-
dom of God, and of his Christ,” and they may be said to
“reign with him,” who through his favour shall enjoy all
the blessings of that happy state.
* Burnet's Theory, lib. iv. cap. 5.
CHAPTER xx. 7–10.
SECTION XX.
THE FIFTH PERIOD.
7 AND when the thousand years are expired, Satan
shall be loosed out of his prison,
(7.) I was farther informed in my prophetic visions, that
this happy state of the church was not to be perpetual,
like the happiness of the heavenly state : for at the end of
the thousand years, the extraordinary restraint laid upon
the enemies of truth and righteousness should be taken off,
as if Satan was let loose out of his prison, to deceive the
world into error and enmity against the professors of true
religion.
8 And shall go out to deceive the nations which
are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog,
to gather them together to battle: the number of
whom is as the sand of the sea.
(8.) No sooner shall this restraint be taken off, but Satan
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XX. 7–10.
CoNTENTs.-The following verses of this chapter inform us,
that the happy days of the church, prophesied of in the
foregoing vision, will at length have their period, though
they are to continue for a long time, and are not to expire
till after a thousand years : yet, then, there shall be one
attempt more against the purity of religion, and against
the peace and prosperity of the Christian church. tº
Satan is to be released for a little time, or season ; but, in
CHAPTER XX.
1 107
shall again attempt to form and head a party, by seducing
men of weak and evil-disposed minds ; and he shall find
such persons in the several parts of the earth, who, like the
descendants of Gog and Magog, the Scythians and Tartars,
shall gather together in great numbers, in order to invade
and ravage their neighbours, and disturb the peace and hap-
piness of the church.
9 And they went up on the breadth of the earth,
and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the
beloved city: and fire came down from God out of
heaven, and devoured them.
(9.) They shall come, like the barbarous northern nations,
described in foregoing prophecies; they shall make their in-
vasions so suddenly, and with such numbers, that they shall
spread far and wide over the peaceful habitations of the
saints, and besiege them even in their camps, and capital
cities, and threaten to spoil and subdue them. But this at-
tempt shall not be like former invasions of the barbarous
nations, who possessed themselves of the countries they in-
vaded, in right of conquest over the former inhabitants; for
God shall protect his faithful servants, and destroy their
enemies in a very extraordinary manner: God shall send
fire out of heaven to destroy them, as he did the wicked in-
habitants of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. xix. 24), and as he
threatened Gog and Magog in the ancient prophets (Ezek.
xxxix. 1, &c.).
10 And the devil that deceived them was cast into
the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and
the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and
night, for ever and ever. -
(10.) And the devil, the principal and chief leader of this
new apostasy and rebellion against God and the kingdom of
his Son, shall then be punished suitably to the greatness of
his crime. He shall not only be shut up, and put under re-
straint as before ; but now he shall be cast into a lake of fire
and brimstone, where he is to be punished with the beast and
false prophet for ever; his power shall never more revive ;
his anguish and torment shall be endless, without any hope
of relief, to all eternity.
that little season, he shall deceive many, and so far se-
duce them, as to prevail upon them to join with him in
his apostasy. -
This new attempt against truth and righteousness, shall end
in the utter ruin of the enemies of Christ and his religion;
they shall be totally defeated, and their obstinate wicked-
ness punished with everlasting destruction.
This state of the church and world, so different from the
preceding, deserves to be considered as a new period,
which will therefore be the fifth in order. -
This period, though it is represented very short, yet de-
serves particular attention, on account of the circumstance
of the time in which it is placed, between the end of the
thousand years and the final judgment; and also, as it
represents the state and condition of the earth to be much
the same as at present, except an extraordinary restraint
laid on Satan, and the extraordinary purity, peace, and
happiness of the church, arising from a peculiar protec-
tion and blessing of Christ. For we see, no sooner is
Satan loosed, and his restraint taken off, but he finds great
numbers of persons ready to be deceived, and to join in
disturbing the peace, and corrupting the purity of the
church.
The theory of a very learned and ingenious author,”
which supposes the happy state of the church for a thou-
Sand years, cannot be in this present earth, but must be
after a conflagration, when it shall be first destroyed, and
then restored to a paradisãical state, is attended with a
very great, and, as I think, an unanswerable difficulty, from
this state of the world, after the thousand years shall be
finished.
The ingenious authorſ is fain to suppose some persons,
sons of the earth, generated from the slime of the ground
#. the heat of the sun, as brute creatures, he says, were at
rSt.
But as such an original of mankind is, I think, unac-
countable ; so, I hope, the prophecy has no difficulty in it
that stands in need of so strange a solution. For notwith-
standing the general peace and purity of the church, the
many converts to true religion, and the great number of
persons truly religious, and who live up to the principles
and in the practice of pure Christianity, there may be also
some persons of evil-disposed minds, uneasy with the pu-
rity of true religion, easily moved by the passions of envy,
covetousness, and ambition, whenever an opportunity shall
offer to gratify them. The prophecy says nothing to make
this impossible, or improbable ; this circumstance rather
makes it a likely supposition, and certainly much more na-
tural, than to raise a great number of wicked persons from
the dead, or cause them to spring out of the slime of the
earth, to revive a new persecution of the Christian faith and
religion.
The expressions of this prophecy seem to be taken from
the prophet Ezekiel, in the thirty-eighth and thirty-ninth
* Burnet's Theory, lib. iv. cap. 10. + Ibid. p. 149.
chapters. The word of the Lord orders Ezekiel to “set
his face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief
prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him”
(xxxviii. 2). -
Magog was a son of Japheth (Gen. x. 2), from whom the
Scythians are generally supposed to be derived ; the Mo-
gul Tartars, a people of the Scythian race, are still so called
by the Arabian writers, a people who, above all others, have
best preserved the most ancient names, as well as the most
ancient customs. The prophet Ezekiel" joins to Gog and
Magog, “Gomer and all his bands, the house of Togarmah
of the north quarters, and all his bands” (ver. 6). And
(ver. 15), “Thou shalt come from thy place, out of the
north parts, thou, and many people with thee.” This seems
sufficiently to show, that Gog and Magog, with Gomer and
Togarmah of the north quarters, were a northern people,
some of the many nations who were comprehended under
the general name of Scythians. These were people used
to invade their neighbours in great numbers, to spoil their
country, and rob- them of whatever they could lay their
hands on. So the prophet describes them, ver. 13, “Art
thou come to take a spoil? Hast thou gathered thy com-
pany to take a prey 2 to carry away silver and gold, to take
away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil 2’
I shall only add, that the very learned Bochart thinks it
credible, that the names of Russians and Muscovites are
derived from Rhos and Meshech, mentioned in this pro-
phecy of Ezekiel. Credibile est ex wrº, Rhos et Tun, Me-
sech, id est, Rhossis et Moschis, vicinis populis circa Araxim
(de quibus Ezekiel) descendisse Russos et Muscovitas, gen-
tes in Europaea Scythià celeberrimas, quaeque latissimé
patent. F -
The punishment of these spoilers, viz. Gog and Magog
and the bands joined to them, is thus described by the pro-
phet, Ezek. xxxviii. 22, 23, “And I will plead against him
with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him,
and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are
with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire,
and brimstone. Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify
myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations,
and they shall know that I am the Lord. ”
The nations then of Gog and Magog, were a very fit and
proper figurative description of the enemies of true religion,
and of the faithful professors of it, of their neighbours'
peace and prosperity.
It may likewise be here, as Mr. Daubuz observes it is in
many other places, that this event shall agree with the let-
ter, as well as with the figurative expressions. “There may
remain, according to Mr. Pyle, in the farther and more dis-
tant parts of the world, much people still persisting in ig-
norance and gross superstitions.— These rude nations
prompted by envy at the plenty and happiness of the
Christian kingdom, and out of desire of riches, spoil, and
plunder (which is the true spirit of Satan, the father of mis-
* Lowth, on Ezek. xxxviii.
+ Bochart. Phaleg. lib. iii. cap. 13, p. 188.
4 B 2.
1108
REVELATION.
chief), will be permitted to invade the Christian territories
in vast bodies and armies.”
However it be, whether these expressions be only figu-
rative, or whether they contain also something literal, the
substance of the prophecy will be to this purpose: That
after the thousand years of peace and purity, the church
shall once more be disturbed by persons like the barbarous
northern nations, who have often disturbed the peace of the
world by their invasions. But it shall prove a fruitless at-
tempt, and end in their complete and final destruction ; a
day of righteous judgment will come, when true religion,
peace, and happiness, shall be united inseparably, without
any future molestation, or disturbance, for ever
CHAPTER XX. 11–15.
SECTION XXI.
THE SIXTH PERIOD,
11 AND I saw a great white throne, and him that
sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven
fled away; and there was found no place for them.
(11.) I farther beheld in another vision, what was to fol-
low upon this full and complete destruction of the enemies of
Christ and his religion. The general judgment was repre-
sented to me after this manner: I saw in my vision a glo-
rious shining throne erected ; I then beheld a person sitting
on it ; at his appearance, the whole frame and constitu.
tion of the world altered and changed, and quite passed
away ; so that the present heavens and earth were found
no more."
12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand be-
fore God; and the books were opened: and another
book was opened, which is the book of life: and the
dead were judged out of those things which were
written in the books, according to their works.
(12.) Hereupon I beheld in my vision, a general resur-
rection of all the dead ; all ranks and orders of men, the
lowest as well as the greatest, appeared before this judgment-
seat of God, and they were all judged according to the most
impartial rules of justice and equity, as it should appear by
their works, whether they were under the condemnation of
sinners, or entitled to the mercies of God and promises of
eternal life, that they were true and faithful Christians, to
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XX. 11–15.
CoNTENTS.-The course of these prophecies, after many im-
portant visions describing the state of the church and
World in this present life, brings us at last to the great and
final, judgment, when the whole scene and mystery of
providence shall be finished. Then the great doctrine,
which runs through the whole of these prophecies, will be
fully Verified, That truth and righteousness shall surely
prevail in the end against error and all iniquity; eternal
happiness shall be the reward of the faithful, and ever-
lasting destruction the punishment of the wicked. Then
all shall be judged, “every man according to his works.”
This is represented as a sixth period of providence:
after which there will be in the seventh period an ever.
lasting sabbath, a state of eternal rest and happiness
for all the righteous, and of the most perfect worship
; º, in the praises and devotions of the heavenly
CIllll'CIl.
* Ver, 11.] This expression, “The earth and the heavens
fled away, and there was found no place for them,” seems
plainly to intimate such a change and alteration, as will
well agree with Peter's description, that then “all these
things shall be dissolved,” 2 Pet. iii. 11. This dissolution
the same apostle describes more particularly, as to the man-
ner of it : “The heaven shall pass away with a great noise,
and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also
and the works that are therein shall be burned up” (ver.
10). At this “coming of the day of God, the heavens, be:
ing on fire, shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt
with fervent heat "(ver. 12). This great change of the pre-
Bent state of the world, is to make way for “new heavens
and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness” (ver. 13).
Thus, “the heavens and earth shall pass away, and there
shall be found no place for them.” *
whom the salvation of God is promised according to the
gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it;
and death and hell delivered up the dead which were
in them : and they were judged every man according
to their works.
(13.) This judgment was so general, that all the dead,
without exception, were raised again to life, to be judged
according to their works, whether they died in the sea, and
were buried in the waters, or by land, and were buried in
graves; all in the invisible state of the dead were brought
forth to this universal judgment.
14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of
fire. This is the second death. *
(14.) After this resurrection to judgment, there shall be
no more natural death : they who are judged shall not re-
turn to their graves again ; for death and hades shall be de-
stroyed. But there is a second death, the portion of all who
shall be found guilty, and condemned in this day of righteous
judgment.
15 And whosoever was not found written in the
book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
(15.) For as many as shall not then appear, before this
impartial judge, to be true and faithful Christians, and as
such registered in the rolls of the true church of Christ,
shall be punished as the enemies of God's government, and
of true religion; they shall be cast into a lake of fire, and
shall suffer a second death, in a state of everlasting destruc-
tion.” -
* Ver. 12.] This description of “opening the books, and
judging out of the things which were written in the books,
according to their works,” seems an allusion to the methods
of human courts of justice. There are stated laws, or rules
of justice, by which all accused as criminals were to be tried,
and according to which they were to be found guilty or
acquitted. These laws, collected into a body, were called
the codew, or, book of laws; and when any persons were
accused, and found guilty, their actions must appear to be
criminal, as against some of the laws in that book. Now
the plain evidence of the laws of righteousness, the perfect
knowledge God has of all men's actions, the full conviction
of every man’s own conscience, wherein he has transgressed
those laws of righteousness, may sufficiently answer a legal
accusation and proof. The sinner will be convicted by his
works to have transgressed the laws of righteousness,whe-
ther promulgated by the light of reason, or by the authority
of particular revelation.
In human courts of justice, it is allowed to every per-
son to make his defence, and urge what he has to offer,
either to prove himself innocent, or that he is entitled to
favour or pardon.
The book of life seems to allude more particularly to this
plea of the person accused. The book of the Revelation
of Jesus Christ has promised the pardon and forgiveness of
sins, and the gift of eternal life, to all true and faithful
Christians. The faith, the patience, the perseverance of
true Christians will be proved by their works ; these show
them to be true Christians, and therefore that they are en-
titled to the mercies of God, and the promise of eternal
life, according to what is written in the book of life, the
book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which has “brought
life and immortality to light.” º
* Ver 15.] Paul's description may give some light to this
vision of John, 2 Thess. i. 7, &c. “The Lord Jesus shall be
revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire
CHAPTER XXI.
1 109
taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey
not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ ; who shall be
Punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of
the Lord, and from the glory of his power ; when he shall
come to be glorified in his saints, and admired in all them
that believe, in that day.”
CHAPTER XXI.
SECTION XXII.
THE SEVENTH PERIOD.
1 AND I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for
the first heaven and the first earth were passed away;
and there was no more sea.
(1.) After the foregoing visions, in which I beheld a re-
presentation of the state of the church and world, to the
consummation of all things, I had the final happiness of the
true worshippers of God represented to me in a new vision;
in which I beheld a perfectly new state of things: the hea.
ven and earth in which we now live, being quite passed away,
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXI.
CoNTENTS.–We are now come, in the course of these pro-
phecies, to the end, the consummation of all things.
This vision stands in the prophecy after the last attempt
of the enemies of religion had been defeated ; after the
dead, small and great, had appeared before God's judg-
ment-seat, and were judged according to their works;
after all the wicked were doomed to everlasting punish-
ment, and all who were not found written in the book of
life were cast into the lake of fire.
This order of the prophecies seems to point out to us, that
the new heavens and new earth, represented in this vision,
signify that state of unchangeable perfection and hea-
venly happiness to which the true and faithful servants
of the living God shall be advanced, when all their trials
and sufferings in this life shall be ended.
Nothing could be more proper to the useful design of these
revelations, than such a conclusion of them, with so af.
fecting a representation of the final, complete, and ever-
lasting happiness of all the true worshippers of God, and
faithful servants of Jesus. This is a powerful motive to
present patience, a firm foundation of present hope, a
strong encouragement to zeal in the cause of true religion,
and constancy in the uncorrupt faith of Jesus, when such
a reward is set before us, and promised to all who shall
be faithful to the end. -
It is a very ancient observation, which men of closer thought
and better sense have long since made, that happiness is
the reward of virtue in the end. It is a memorable moral
of Euripides,”
Eic réNo, yāº oi kºv ša'6Noi rvyxávovorty 3%toy.
But here is a sure word of prophecy, which beforehand
acquaints us what will be the last period and state of things,
The present world, for a few years, a very few in com-
parison of eternity, will be a state of various sorts of
trials and troubles, of evils caused by wicked men, of evils
wherewith the righteous Governor of the world punishes
their wickedness ; but the unchangeable purpose of God
has appointed another state of things, when the dead shall
be raised, and judged according to their works; all the
faithful servants of God and Christ will enjoy a state of
eternal life, in perfect peace and security, in complete
prosperity and happiness.
It is with great advantage this encouragement is given the
church in such a prophecy. An observation of the faith-
ful and punctual accomplishment of the former parts of
this prophecy, in times past, for several hundreds of years,
serves much to confirm our faith and hope, in as faithful
and punctual performance of what remains.
We may be well assured, that God will reward all the faith-
ful with a state of perfect and endless happiness at the last,
melted with fervent heat, and dissolved in fire; there was a
new heaven and a new earth, in which I perceived one thing
very remarkable, that there was no sea. To signify, there
should be no turbulent, unquiet spirits, to disturb the peace
of that happy state, nor should a tyrannical or persecuting
power ever arise in it.”
2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem,
coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a
bride adorned for her husband.
(2.) The blessedness of this state was farther represented
to me, by the model of a noble city, as a new Jerusalem,
which model seemed to descend leisurely out of heaven, as
however he may permit error and persecution to prevailfor
a time, in this present state of life.
It must be owned, several interpreters of good reputation”
understand the , following vision, a description of the
happy state of the church during the thousand years in .
which it shall reign with Christ; or to describe the full and
complete reformation of the Christian church, during the
last period upon earth. *
As I can see nothing in the prophetic description to confine
it to this meaning, so I apprehend the order of the pro-
phecies, the chief and principal design of them, and the
description itself, greatly favour the judgment of those
learned writers, who understand these last visions of the
future state of happiness in heaven, after the general re-
Surrection and last judgment.
Thus the seventh and last period concludes the whole plan
of providence, and finishes it in an endless sabbatism.
* Ver, 1.] It is not very probable, the Spirit of prophecy
should have a regard to the Theory of a late ingenious
author, who has contrived, that there shall literally be
no more sea in his new earth, after the conflagration:
for however true We may suppose such a circumstance
in theory, it could hardly be intelligible to any who
should read this prophecy, at least till the theory had dis-
covered it.
We perceive all the other parts of this description are
figurative. It is remarkable, that “the beast with seven
heads and ten horns,” the author of all the calamities of the
third long period, “rose out of the sea,” Rev. xiii. 1, and
the same tyrannical oppressive power, under the figure of
the great whore, is described as “sitting on many waters,”
Rev. xvii. 1, and in-scripture, any great collection of waters
is called a “sea;” and these waters are interpreted to sig-
nify “people, multitudes, and nations, and tongues,” who
were seduced to oppose the truth, and persecute the faithful
servants of Christ.
The sea, moreover, when raised into a storm, is a proper
figure to express the rage, passion, and tumult, of unquiet,
evil, and seditious minds. Thus Daniel describes the rise of
the four tyrannical empires: “I saw in my vision by night,
and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove on the great
sea: and four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one
from another” (vii. 2, 3); to denote the commotions of
the world, the unquiet troublesome state of affairs, out of
which new tyrannies and oppressive powers usually have
their rise.
This circumstance, then, in the new heaven and new
earth, that there was “no sea,” is very proper to express in
prophetic language, that in this happy state there will be
no turbulent, unquiet spirits, to be managed by the ambi-
tious; and therefore no fear any beast should again rise
out of the sea. The most judicious Jewish writers under-
* Ion. ad finem.
* Pyle, preface, p. 22.
1110
REVELATION.
it were, and come nearer to me in the air, that I might
observe it more distinctly: I perceived it was set out with
all the splendour used at high festivals, or marriage-solem-
mities.”
3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven, saying,
Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he
will dwell with them, and they shall be his people,
ë. God himself shall be with them, and be their
od. 3. -
(3.) Moreover, a voice from heaven attended my vision,
and explained the meaning of it more particularly; for the
voice from heaven declared, that God would fully accom-
plish all that good to his faithful servants which his taber-
macle signified to them, as the seat of his presence, and
testimony of his favour; he would bless them as his favoured
people, and as their God he would be their shield and
their reward, and bless them with all protection and hap-
plness.
4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their
eyes ; and there shall be no more death, neither sor-
row, nor crying, neither shall there be any more
pain: for the former things are passed away.
(4.) For such shall be the blessed effects of God's pre-
sence with his people, and of his grace and favour to them,
that they shall meet with no more troubles and afflictions, to
draw tears from their eyes, as, in this present life, all do
more or less. They shall no more be subject to death, as
all, without exception, are in this mortal state. Every thing
that can cause pain, or occasion Sorrow, shall be far removed
from this happy state. These were the afflictions of mortal
life, but now death and the invisible state are no more;
all former afflictions are passed away, and shall remain no
longer.”
5 And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I
make all things new. And he said unto me, Write :
for these words are true and faithful.
(5.) The happiness of this state was not only declared
by a voice from heaven; it was solemnly confirmed by the
oracle from the throne : Take notice, God will make a full
change of all things, in the form and state of the world; nor
shall any of its former afflictions remain. Record this de-
claration and promise: they contain nothing but what is
most certainly true, and what in its due time shall be faith-
fully and fully accomplished.
6 And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha
and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give
unto him who is athirst of the fountain of the water
of life freely.
(6.) A.d now shall be the consummation of all things;
all God’s promises shall be accomplished in the full happi-
mess of his servants and saints. God, who will execute all his
purposes from the beginning to the end, will perfect the hap,
piness of those, who have been faithful to his cause. He
will abundantly satisfy their hopes and desires of eternal life;
happiness shall ever flow in upon them, as water ever runs
from a quick spring, or overflowing fountain.
7 He that overcometh shall inherit all things: and
I will be his God, and he shall be my son.
(7.) Let this be an encouragement to faithfulness, con-
stancy, and perseverance; they who shall resist and overcome
the temptations of a corrupt world shall not lose their re-
ward, God himself will be their God, their portion, and their
happiness. He will receive them as his children, confirm
their right, as the sons of God, to inherit all the blessings
and happiness of eternal life.”
8 But the fearful and unbelieving, and the abomi-
nable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sor-
cerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their
part in the lake which burneth with fire and brim-
stone: which is the second death.
(8.) But the case shall be quite otherwise with all the
enemies of true religion, who have either deserted it, or
apostatized from it, or opposed it. The cowardly and dis-
trustful, who either had not faith in God’s promises, or cou-
rage to persevere, on the encouragement of his promises;
all who indulged themselves in abominable vices, who, to
gratify their lusts, were guilty of murders, whoredoms, de-
ceit, idolatry, and lying; all these shall have their portion
with the devil, to whose party they joined themselves, and
shall with him undergo the punishment of the second death,
in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone.
9 And there came unto me one of the seven angels
which had the seven vials full of the seven last
plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither,
and I will show thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife.
(9.) Besides this more general account of the final happi-
ness of the faithful, an angel, as a nuntius, orinterpreter was
sent to give me a more particular description of the glory of
that blessed state. It was one of the seven angels who had the
seven cups full of the last plagues, in the foregoing vision.
He called upon me to come to him, and he would show me
more distinctly the model of the holy city, the new Jeru-
salem, adorned as the bride of the Lamb, on her marriage-
festival.
10 And he carried me away in the spirit to a great
and high mountain, and showed me that great city,
the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from
God, - +
(10.) Then the Spirit of prophecy changed the scene of
my vision : I seemed to stand on a high eminence, from
whence I could distinctly survey the whole model of this
stand “new heavens and new earth” to mean a new state
Df happiness, if which former sorrows and troubles shall be
remembered no more. So Maimonides,” Quod dixi,
Creabo novos coelos, &c, id ita intelligo, quéd vos posi-
turus sum in laetitiam perpetuam, loco luctas, et anxi-
etatis prioris, neque illius luctas prioris memoria sit
II) a DSUlſa.
* Ver, 2.] What John saw coming down from heaven,
seems to have been the plan or model of the new Jerusalem,
which proves nothing where this happy state of the church
is to be enjoyed, much less will it determine it to be on
earth, as some have argued, because it is said to come down
from heaven ; for the model in the vision might well do so,
wherever it was that the church should enjoy the happiness
represented by it. -
Besides, to “come down from heaven,” or from God, in
scripture language, means the divine original of a thing,
or that God is the author of it. The baptism of John was
“from heaven” (Mark xi. 30), because his authority was
from God, and not from men. When the apostle mentions
“the Jerusalem which is above” (Gal. iv. 26), or the super-
* More Nevochim, par. ii. lib. xxix. p. 268.
mal Jerusalem, he seems to mean a state of heavenly origi-
nal and constitution. -
* Ver, 4.] Such a state as is here described, free
from all pain, Sorrow, and death, seems a description
of some better state than what this present life and world
can afford. *
* Ver. 7..] The expression, “He that overcometh shall
inherit all things,” seems to refer to the promises made to
them who overcome, in the epistles to the seven churches,
and very strongly enforces them as motives and encourage-
ment to patience and perseverance. “To him that over-
cometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the
midst of the paradise of God. He that overcometh, shall
not be hurt of the second death. To him that overcometh,
will I give to eat of the hidden manna. To him that over-
cometh, and keepeth my words to the end, to him will I give
power over the nations :” the same shall be “clothed in
white raiment, and I will not blot out his name out of the
book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father,
and before his angels: I will make him a pillar in the tem-
ple of my God, and he shall go no more out.” Finally,
“To him that overcometh, will I grant to sit with me on my
throne, even as I overcame, and am sat down with my
CHAPTER XXI.
1111
heavenly city, which was let down from heaven, a model of
a divine plan and workmanship.”
, 11 Having the glory of God; and her light was
like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper-
stone, clear as crystal;
(11.) The first thing I observed in the model of this holy
city was a most glorious brightness, like the shining light of
the Shechinah, formerly the glory of God in the temple, and
symbol of his gracious presence with men; so that the model
shone as with the lustre of a diamond, to express a surpris-
ing beauty and splendour.
12 And had a wall great and high, and had twelve
gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names writ-
ten thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes
of the children of Israel.
13 On the east, three gates; on the north, three
gates; on the south, three gates; and on the west,
three gates. -
(12, 13.) I perceived also, that this city was walled about
with a very thick and high wall, to express the great safety
and security of the inhabitants, free from all danger or fear
of any attempt or surprise by their enemies. It had twelve
gates, three in each side of the wall, which stood towards the
four points of the heaven, east, west, north, and south; and
at each of the twelve gates stood an angel, as a sentinel or
guard : each of the gates was named after the names of the
twelve tribes, as appeared by an inscription over them, fi-
guratively showing, who had a right to be admitted by the
guard of angels, through the gates into the city, such as had
been faithful members of the true church ; and expressing
also the great honour of that city, where angels were ap-
pointed to do duty as a guard; an honour properly due to
the majesty of God's presence, and to the seat of it.
14 And the wall of the city had twelve founda-
tions, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of
the Lamb.
(14.) The foundations of the city wall were also adorned
with inscriptions of the names of the twelve apostles of Christ,
who had this honour as the founders of the Christian church,
by Christ's immediate commission and authority; figuratively
showing, that they who shall build their faith on the founda-
tion of apostolical doctrine and institutions, have a right to
the blessings of this holy and happy state.
15 And he that talked with me had a golden reed
to measure the city, and the gates thereof, and the
wall thereof.
(15.) And I perceived that the angel interpreter, who
was sent to instruct me more fully in these things, appeared
to have a golden measuring rod, with which he measured the
several parts of this holy city; by which measure was un-
derstood, the greatness and extent of the city, the exact or-
der and just proportion of every part of it: to show figura-
tively, that this city was prepared for a great number of
inhabitants, how small soever the number of faithful Chris-
tians may at any time appear; and that everything relating
to the happiness of that state was prepared with the greatest
order, beauty, and exactness.
16 And the city lieth four-square, and the length
is as large as the breadth. And he measured the
city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs: the
length, and the breadth, and the height of it are
equal.
(16.) Upon measuring, it appeared that the city was an
exact square, of equal length and breadth, and of a very
great extent ; for it appeared, upon measure, to be fifteen
hundred miles in compass, each side three hundred seventy-
five miles long. It was so regularly built, that all the build-
ings were everywhere of the same proportions, of a very
exact and uniform architecture.”
17 And he measured the wall thereof, a hundred
and forty and four cubits, according to the measure
of a man, that is, of the angel.
(17.) Upon measuring the height of the wall, I perceived
it was one hundred forty-four cubits, of the common mea-
sure among men; for it was such a measuring rod, that
the angel made use of in measuring the height of the
wall.7 -
18 And the building of the wall of it was of jas-
per: and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass.
(18.) The walls appeared to be built with umparalleled
strength and magnificence, not of brick or squared stones,
but of some precious stone, as solid, firm, and beautiful as a
jasper; the city was everywhere adorned with pure gold, and
shone with the brightness of crystal.”
19 And the foundations of the wall of the city
were garnished with all manner of precious stones.
The first foundation was jasper; the second, sap-
phire: the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emer-
ald
20 The fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the
seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, a
topaz; the tenth, chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a ja-
cinth; the twelfth, an amethyst.
(19, 20.) The lower parts of the wall of the city were in-
laid quite round, and beautified with a great variety of pre-
cious stones, such as were directed to be set in the high-priest's
breast-plate of judgment, where was the wrim and thummim,
which are interpreted light and perfection ; and were a pro-
Father on his throne.” All these promises seem to be sum-
med up and fulfilled in the inheritance of all things, or the
complete happiness of eternal life.
* Ver. 10.] The paraphrase expresses the sense of “com-
ing down from heaven,” as it is explained, ver. 2.
* Ver. 16.] They seem to have mistaken the proper
meaning of these expressions, who understand the height
of the city, whether of walls or buildings, to be equal to the
length or breadth of it; according to which account, the
houses and walls of a city would be out of all proportion.
How large soever men may conceive the extent of a city,
and of contiguous buildings, houses three hundred seventy-
five miles high are beyond all propriety in the boldest
figures. Some interpreters, to avoid this difficulty, have
taken in the height of the mountain on which the city is
supposed to stand: I say, supposed to stand; for the pro-
phecy nowhere mentions it. John indeed was called up
to a mountain, to view the model of the city; but it is
not said, that the city itself was situated on a mountain :
nor do I conceive what this supposition serves for, except
to make the city a perfect cube, for which I see no reason,
al, ſº Square answering all figurative meaning full out
aS Well.
Grotius” justly observes, this equality belongs to the
sº-º-º-º-
* In loc,
walls and buildings, compared with each other, not with
the length and breadth of the city. Non idem dicit quod
modó, clim quadratam formam explicaret, sedaliud, nempē,
quaquà iret, altitudinem et murorum et aedificiorum fuisse
àequalem.
The numbers themselves are evidently typical: they are
taken from twelve, the number of the apostles, multiplied
by a thousand. As before, the number of the members of
the Christian church was represented by one hundred forty-
four thousand, being one hundred forty-four, the Square
number of twelve, multiplied by a thousand. So that this
manner of numbering will very properly signify a city, of
which faithful Christians are to be the happy citizens, and
settled inhabitants ; a city which shall have incomparably
greater extent, more strength and beauty, than ancient Ba-
bylon, Rome, or any other seat of empire ever known in
this world.
7 Wer. 17.] This seems to be the measure of the height
of the wall, in which we observe the prophecy still keeps
to the mystical number of twelve, multiplied into itself.
The height of the wall is represented about seventy-two
yards high, according to the lesser cubit, or about eighty-
six yards, according to the greater, sufficient to express
great security against all attempts, and any surprise by an
enemy.
* Ver, 18.] I conceive it is the city, and not the gold
11 12
REVELATION.
per emblem to express the happiness of God's church in his
presence, in the blessing of his oracle and protection. The
like ornaments on the foundation of the walls of this city
may well express the perfect glory and happiness of all the
inhabitants of it, from the most glorious presence and protec-
tion of God. º
21 And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every
several gate was of one pearl; and the street of the
city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.
(21.) Never was any city on earth so richly and so glo-
riously adorned ; for every gate of the city was made of one
large entire pearl ; and the public place of assembly in the
city was paved with a rich-stone, shining as crystal, and set
in pure gold.”
22 And I saw no temple therein : for the Lord
God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.
(22.) There was one thing I observed in this new city
very remarkable; there was no temple in it, but the
want of a temple was abundantly made up : for Jeho-
vah, the Almighty God himself, and Jesus Christ the
Lamb, were instead of a temple. They were present in
this city in a much more glorious and perfect manner,
than God was ever present in the temple of the earthly
Jerusalem.”
23 And the city had no need of the sun, neither of
the moon, to shine in it; for the glory of God did
lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.
(23.) Nor had this new Jerusalem any need of the sun
to shine by day, or of the moon by night, to give it light,
as in the present state of this world ; the presence of God
himself and the Lamb did enlighten it always without in-
terruption, as the glory of God did the holy of holies in
the temple.”
24 And the nations of them which are saved shall
walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do
bring their glory and honour into it.
(24.) This glorious city shall be the residence of all who
have believed with the heart unto righteousness, and made
confession with the mouth unto salvation. All true Chris-
tians, out of every nation and people, shall have their por-
tion in this glory, which shall be much greater than the
richest and most powerful princes ever enjoyed ; greater
than if we were to imagine all the princes of the earth col-
lecting all the riches of the world together, to beautify and
adorn one city.” -
25 And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by
day; for there shall be no night there.
(25.) There will be no occasion to shut the gates of this
city at any time ; not by night, for there will be no night ;
the perpetual light of God's glory will make perpetual
day; there will be no danger or fear of any enemy ; the
inhabitants shall ever live in full safety and security,
in an undisturbed possession of all peace, joy, and hap-
piness.
26 And they shall bring the glory and honour of
the nations into it.
(26.) All that can contribute to make this new Jerusalem
honourable and glorious, shall be found in it, as if all that
was rich and precious throughout the world, was brought
into one city, and all centred there.
27 And there shall in no wise enter into it any-
thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abo-
mination, or maketh a lie; but they which are writ-
ten in the Lamb’s book of life.
(27.) Yet let it be carefully observed, though the gates
of this city are always open, they are not open for every
one to enter in ; all who are unworthy of this happiness,
and unmeet for it, will be refused entrance; all impure and
vicious, all idolaters, hypocrites, and liars, all men of false-
hood and deceit, shall find no place in this holy city, ànd
shall have no portion in this happiness; it is a blessedness
peculiar to the saints, and appropriated to them only who
have appeared true and faithful servants of God and Christ,
and as such are registered among the true Christians, who
are to inherit eternal life.
which is represented shining as clear glass, or crystal. Our
copies which read jºcoſa, which agrees with tréat, seems a
truer reading than &otov. It is not so intelligible, how
pure gold should be like crystal, but easy to conceive the
city adorned with crystal set in gold.
* Ver. 21.] Grotius supposes, that the gates of the city
were made of a fine marble, bright and shining as a pearl ;
but may not the prophecy design a very strong figure, and
suppose pearls in all their beauty, large and firm enough
to make the frontispiece of a gate 2 The “street of the city”
seems well understood by Grotius of the forum, or place of
public assembly, which is described as paved either with
squares of gold, and crystals, or with crystal squares set in
gold borders; than which, imagination can conceive nothing
more rich and magnificent.
* Wer. 22.] These expressions of this prophecy seem to
point out to us, that all that was figuratively or spiritually
meant by the temple of God, and his presence with his peo-
ple, which was the great blessing and glory of Jerusalem of
old, shall be fully accomplished, and perfectly answered,
in this new Jerusalem ; there shall be a fulness of joy and
happiness, in this glorious state of the church, from the
presence of the Lord God Almighty, and the Lamb,
Do not these characters describe something more than can
CHAPTER
1 AND he showed me a pure river of water of life,
clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God
and of the Lamb.
(1.) The angel directed me to observe farther in this plan
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXII. 1–5.
CoNTENTS.–The first five verses of this chapter are but a
continuation of this prophetic description of the new Jeru-
be well expected from the best-reformed state of the church
in this world P
* Ver. 23.] This part of the prophetic description seems
to be taken from the Shechinah, or glory of God, in the
several divine appearances. This is represented as a bright
and glorious light ; the holy of holies, the seat of God's pre-
sence in the temple, had no other light than that of the
Shechinah, or the glory, that shone over the mercy-seat,
between the cherubim. How strong is this figurative repre-
sentation, to show, that this happy state of the church shall
be, without comparison, more glorious than any former
state had been 2 The Shechinah, or glory of God's pre-
sence, shall not be shut up or concealed in one part of
temple, but shall be spread through the whole extent of this
spacious city, and every inhabitant shall enjoy the full feli-
city represented by it. -
* Wer. 24.] This part of the description seems to be an
allusion to the passage of the prophet Isaiah, “And the gen-
tiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of
thy rising” (lx. 3). This prophecy raises the idea yet higher,
to show the perfect satisfaction and joy of all persons of
every rank and quality, in this happy state, where every-
thing that can contribute to it shall be collected together,
and severally contribute to complete the public happiness.
XXII. 1–5.
of the new Jerusalem, which I saw in my vision, that a pure
river of water, perfectly fine and clear, perpetually issued
out from the throne of God and the Lamb ; to represent a
constant provision for the comfortable and happy life of all
the inhabitants of this city of God."
salem, and should have been part of the twenty-first
chapter.
* Ver, 1.] It is observed of the city of Babylon, that the
CHAPT16.R XXII.
1113
2 In the midst of the street of it, and on either side
of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare
twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every
month: and the leaves of the tree were for the heal-
ing of the nations.
(2.) As this river of water of life ran through the chief
street in the midst of the city, so there was planted on each
side of the river a beautiful row of trees, not only to serve
for ornament and refreshment, but which, like the tree of
life in paradise, should make the inhabitants immortal. They
yielded a great variety of pleasant fruits, and in such plenty,
that they had ripe fruit every month, and so all the year
round. Even the leaves of these trees had such healing vir-
tues, that they were a sure remedy against all sorts of weak-
ness and indisposition.”
3 And there shall be no more curse : but the
throne of God and the Lamb shall be in it; and
his servants shall serve him :
(3.) So great will be the happiness of the saints, the
faithful in Christ Jesus, that nothing shall break in upon it,
or any ways interrupt it ; nothing shall be done in this holy
city to deserve the displeasure of God: nor therefore shall
they be liable to any afflictions, either as punishments, or a
useful discipline. They shall continually enjoy the favour
and grace of God and Christ, with the blessing and happiness
of their presence; they shall serve God with all the gratitude,
constancy, and affection, so great obligations require of them.”
4 And they shall see his face: and his name shall
be in their foreheads.
(4.) For in that happy state they shall have so full com-
munications of all grace, holiness, and happiness, from God’s
immediate presence, that they shall be made like unto him,
partakers of his perfections and glory; like the high-priest of
old, they shall have “Holiness to the Lord” on their fore-
heads, expressive of their entire devotion to God, and an in-
delible mark of God's favour.”
5 And there shall be no night there; and they
need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the
Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for
ever and ever.
(5.) In this blessed state, there shall be no interruption of
their happiness and joy; there shall be no night, no state of
darkness, between the end of one day and the beginning of
another; their happiness proceeds immediately from God
himself, from his constant and everlasting presence with
them, and favour to them ; so that they shall enjoy the same
unspeakable happiness, without any interruption or diminu-
tion, to all eternity. Thus all the faithful servants of Christ
Jesus shall reign with their God and Saviour for ever and
ever."
river Euphrates was let into it, and ran through it. The first
paradise is represented as watered by a river ; a river that
went out of Eden, or had its course in that country, ran
through the garden to water it (Gen. ii. 10). Ezekiel, in
his prophetic vision of the new city and temple, has a like
representation of waters in great plenty, flowing from the
house or temple: “Behold, waters issued out from under the
threshold of the house eastward. And the waters came
down from under, from the right side of the house, at the
south side of the altar” (Ezek. xlvii. 1). These waters were
in such plenty, that they were deep enough to swim in ; “a
river that could not be passed over” (ver. 5). These waters
were of such excellent virtues, that they gave life to all who
drank of them: “Everything shall live whither the river
cometh” (ver. 9).
Water, as necessary to the support of life, and as it con-
tributes in great cities, especially in the hot eastern coun-
tries, to the ornament of the place, and delight of the inha-
bitants, is a very proper representation of the enjoyment of
all things, both for the support and pleasure of life. “With
God,” says the psalmist, “is the fountain of life; thou shalt
make them drink of the river of thy pleasures.” The figure
of a “river of water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the
throne of God and the Lamb” (Ps. xxxvi. 8, 9), elegantly
expresses the glorious and happy immortality which all
faithful Christians shall enjoy in this state of perfect and
endless happiness. -
* Ver. 2..] Both “the waters of life,” and “the tree of
life,” are emblems of immortality: “They that eat of the
tree of life shall live for ever” (Gen. iii. 22). The trees of
life are so planted, in this description, that all the inhabitants
may come at the fruit of them freely, and without hinder-
ance. They yield their fruits so plentifully, and so con-
stantly, that there can be no want in so large and populous
a city ; and even the leaves have a sovereign virtue against
all sorts of indisposition. How elegantly does this represent
a most happy state of immortal life?
* Ver. 3..] This part of the description of the new Jerusa-
lem seems to point out to us, how much greater the happi-
ness of this state will be, than the happiness of the first pa-
radise was. In this state, the faithful servants of Christ
shall be in no danger of forfeiting their happiness, and losing
paradise, as our first parents did. In this paradisaical state,
they shall be a kingdom of priests unto God for ever. This
seems to describe a state of happiness above the condi-
tion of this world, and only to be enjoyed in the heavenly
State.
* Ver, 4.] To “see the face of God,” and to “stand in his
presence,” says Mr. Daubuz, implies the most perfect hap-
piness, and is a blessing that only comes to the Saints at the
resurrection. It is the highest expression in the language of
scripture, to describe the most perfect happiness of the
heavenly state; by most divines, the beatific vision is appro-
priated to that meaning.
* Ver. 5.] Night and darkness, in the style of prophecy,
signify often trouble and affliction; light, on the contrary,
expresses prosperity and joy. “In thy light,” says the
psalmist, “shall we see light” (xxxvi. 9); or, in the loving-
kindness of God we shall find prosperity and happiness. In
this state of perfect happiness, no trouble, no affliction, shall
be intermixed with their peace and joy; God shall then be
the everlasting happiness of all his saints. How fully, how
gloriously, are all their afflictions, for his sake, rewarded !
What encouragement is this to the faithfulness and patience
of the saints, when, whatever their sufferings may be, they
shall work out for them a “far more exceeding and eternal
weight of glory !” Thus ends the doctrine of these revela-
tions, in the everlasting happiness of all the faithful ; the
mysterious ways of Providence are cleared up ; all things
finally end in an eternal sabbath, in an everlasting state of
peace and perfect happiness, reserved in heaven for all who
shall persevere, against the temptations of the world, in the
love of truth and righteousness.
#
CHAPTER XXII. 6, &c.
SECTION XXIII.
CONCLUSION, OR EPILOGUE.
6 AND he said unto me, These sayings are faithful
and true: and the Lord God of the holy prophets
ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXII. 6, &c.
CoNTENTs.-The prophetic part of this book ends in a per-
fect happiness of the faithful, great above all imagination,
certain as the word of prophecy, and lasting without end.
sent his angel to show to his servants the things
which must shortly be done. *
(6.) After this representation of the blessed state of the
faithful Christians, in everlasting happiness, the angel who
had shown me the plan of the heavenly Jerusalem, con-
A powerful encouragement and persuasive to constancy in
the profession and practice of pure Christianity, whatever
difficulties or dangers might attend it.
What follows, to the end, is the conclusion of the whole
book, or a sort of epilogue, which confirms the truth of
11 14
REVELATION.
firmed to me the truth of these prophecies, and the faithful
performance of all that had been represented to me in my
visions. He assured me, they were not a groundless en-
couragement to Christian constancy and faithfulness; these
promises are not like the deceitful promises of false prophets,
or credulous enthusiasts; the same true God who inspired
the prophets of the ancient church, so punctually to foretell
the circumstances of Christ's first appearance, has sent his
angel to support the faith and patience of the Christian
church by these revelations, which shall soon begin to be ac-
complished, and continue to be fulfilled, in a series of events,
to the end of time. -
7 Behold, I come quickly: blessed is he that keep-
eth the sayings of the prophecy of this book.
(7.) Christ himself testifies to the truth of these promises;
he himself solemnly declares, he will come to accomplish all
these things, which will be soon seen, as the events foretold
will fall out in their order, and in the periods marked out for
them. Blessed then will they be, who shall so attend to the
prophecies of these revelations, as faithfully to follow their
directions, who shall be excited to constancy in pure and un-
defiled religion, by the great encouragements and glorious
rewards they set before them." -
8 And I John saw these things, and heard them.
And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to wor-
ship before the feet of the angel which showed me
these things.
(8.) And I John, who have committed these revelations
to writing, for the constant use of the churches, do solemnly
declare, they are no private fancy or invention of my own,
but what I was an eye and ear-witness to, having really seen
and heard these things in the visions of prophecy, as I have
faithfully related them. And now, my visions appearing to
be at an end, I bowed myself to the ground before the angel
who had shown me these things, to express the great respect
and gratitude I had for the person who had laid me under so
great obligations.
9 Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: for
I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren the pro-
phets, and of them which keep the sayings of this
book. Worship God.
(9.) But the angel hindered me again, as he had done
once before, informing me, that I should not consider him as
the author of these prophetic visions, but as a fellow-servant
of the prophets, and as such employed in the service of God
with them; all the praise of the church should therefore be
given to God alone, who only is to be acknowledged the
author of these revelations, who only gives the Spirit of pro-
phecy for the encouragement and consolation of the faith-
ful.”
10 And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of
the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand.
the prophecies contained in these revelations, shows the
importance and use of them, and is well fitted to leave
them with strong impressions on the hearts of the readers,
to preserve them from compliance with any corruptions of
the Christian faith and worship, and encourage their con-
stancy in the ways of truth and righteousness.
* Ver., 7.] Here Christ himself speaks, says Mr. Waple,
this being a sacred drama, in which, according to the nature
of such representatiºns, several persons are introduced.—
The angel, sent to show these things, declares, in the person
of Christ, says Mr. Daubuz, “Behold, I come quickly.”—
And I (said Christ from the throne) will see them all
accomplished, according to Mr. Pyle. The general meaning
is determinate enough, that these revelations were really
from Christ himself, and that he had undertaken to see them
fulfilled.
It is not improbable, this vision being in heaven, that the
voice of the oracle from the throne might confirm the testi-
mony of the angel. This sense is agreeable to a following
expression (ver. 20), “He which testifieth these things saith,
Surely I come quickly; Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”
* Ver. 9..] The prostration of the apostle, or bowing him-
self to the ground before the angel, has been considered
|
(10.) The angel then gave me a charge not to keep these
revelations private to myself, and concealed from the church:
for the things revealed in them would soon begin to be ac-
complished, and the cautions, directions, exhortations, and
encouragements, contained in them, would be of great use to
give the faithful comfort, hope, and constancy, in the success-
ive times of temptation and trial, that they might learn both
to expect them, and to be prepared for them.
11. He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and
he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that
is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that
is holy, let him be holy still. - -
(11.) The providence of God will indeed permit things to
continue in this world, just as these prophecies represent the
state of them. Men of evil principles and corrupt hearts
will continue in acts of injustice and oppression, and to pro-
mote false religion and wickedness, notwithstanding all the
cautions of religion or judgments of Providence. Yet the
cautions, directions, encouragements, of these prophecies, and
the judgments of Providence foretold in them, will have a
better effect on good minds, to their perseverance in truth,
righteousness, and holiness.” -
12 And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward
is with me, to give every man according as his work
shall be. -
(12.) And let all consider, how these prophecies repre-
sent the promise and faithfulness of Christ, as well as how
they represent the present state of the church and world ;
though the wicked will not be reformed, and the righteous
shall suffer much from the unjust, yet they may depend
upon it, that Christ Jesus will come according to his promise,
as soon, and in such a manner, as these prophecies declare.
Then he shall bring a glorious reward with him, for all his
faithful servants who have endured unto the end; then he
shall inflict a just punishment on the unjust and filthy, ac-
cording to the guilt of their idolatry and persecution.
13 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the
end, the first and the last.
(13.) For whatever the present appearances of things
may be, how much soever error and wickedness may prosper
in this world, and truth and goodness be oppressed, yet such
are the characters of Christ, as assure the final events of
things shall be as he has revealed them in these prophecies.
He is the Lord of the whole creation, by whom all things
began, and by whom all things are to be finished ; so that he
will do all his pleasure through all ages of time, to the con-
summation of all things, and nothing can prevent or hinder
the sure and full accomplishment of his word.
14 Blessed are they that do his commandments,
that they may have right to the tree of life, and may
enter in through the gates into the city.
(14.) How unspeakably great then is the happiness of all
before (xix. 10), where we have more largely observed, that
it may be understood of a high civil respect, short of proper
religious adoration. -
* Wer. 11.] Mr. Daubuz justly observes, that in the pro-
phetical style, whether the thing be uttered in the past or
future, or in the imperative, it is equal. So that to Say,
“He who is unjust, let him be unjust still,” is equal to say-
ing, He that is unjust, will still be so, and will not be re-
claimed, what persuasive reasons soever may be used for his
recovery. -
Mr. Daubuz farther observes, He that wrongeth (or the
unjust) denotes, in a peculiar manner, throughout this pro-
phecy, the persecutor and murderer of the saints; as the
saint that suffers is called 3ixalog, “the just,” because he is
innocent, and will be justified in judgment, by the punish-
ment inflicted on the unjust. “He which is filthy,” seems
principally to denote those who shall be guilty of idolatrous
worship. So that, on the one side, here are the persecutors
and corrupters of pure religion, by idolatrous doctrines and
practices; and, on the other side, the righteous, who keep
their integrity, notwithstanding all they suffer for the sake
of a good conscience; they remain holy, still will continue
separate from the prevailing corruptions of the world, and
undefiled by them.
CHAPTER XXII.
1115
who shall believe the truth of these revelations, as to trust in
the faithful performance of them, who shall be so directed
by them as to persevere in the purity of Christian faith, and
in the practice of undefiled religion, for such have a full
assurance of hope, that they shall inherit eternal life, and
be received into the blessed state of heavenly perfection and
happiness.”
15 For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whore-
mongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whoso-
ever loveth and maketh a lie.
(15.) The blessedness of these faithful Christians will
appear yet the greater, because this hope and happiness are
peculiar to them. The wicked have no right to it, no por-
tion or share in it ; all shall be for ever excluded, who, like
dogs, bite and devour the innocent and righteous, or who
indulge themselves in sins of uncleanness or deceit, who at-
tempt to maintain corruptions of religion by falsehood or
forgery. All these “shall have their part in the lake that
burneth with fire and brimstone,” xxi. 8."
16 I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto
you these things in the churches. I am the root and
offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.
(16.) The Lord Jesus Christ himself finally confirmed
the truth and importance of these revelations, by affirming,
it was he himself who sent his angel, and who caused me to
see the prophetic visions, iff which the future state of the
church and world was represented to me. The same person
who was described in the ancient prophets, as the promised
seed of David, the bright Star out of Jacob, and the Day-
spring from on high, the true Messiah, or God's anointed,
confirmed the truth of all these revelations by his own testi-
mony, therefore all Christians may safely rely upon the
truth of them, and comfortably wait in hope of their faithful
accomplishment.
17 And the Spirit and the bride say, Come, And
let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is
athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the
water of life freely. *
(17.) And now the prophecies of this book reveal truths
of so much use and consequence to sincere Christians, and
true lovers of pure religion ; now these promises are so fully
confirmed by the Spirit of prophecy, and the testimony of
Jesus Christ—the true church of Christ, his spiritual bride,
should greatly rejoice in them, and endeavour to confirm
their faith and constancy by them. For every one who
sincerely desires a portion in these blessings, and will seek
for them, as the pure Christian religion directs, shall be sure
These prophecies then will be of great use, as they shall
contribute to the constancy of the righteous and the holy,
though they should not effect a general reformation in the
world, though men of evil principles and wicked hearts
should still remain persecutors and idolaters.
* Ver. 14.] Some copies read,” “Blessed are they who
wash their garments;” to which some add, “in the blood of
the Lamb.” But the meaning of both expressions returning
at last to much the same thing, the paraphrase will, I think,
sufficiently take in both.
* Ver. 15.] The several works of iniquity here men-
tioned, may be understood more generally of all cruelty,
uncleanness, falsehood, and deceit ; yet they seem more
particularly designed to point out idolatry and persecution:
as an idolatrous corruption of the Christian doctrines and
worship, and a support of those corruptions by fraud and
persécution, are the principal evils these prophecies warn us
of, and are designed to guard us against.
* Ver. 17.] Mr. Pyle has well observed, that, according
to the Hebrew style, which commonly uses a substantive
for an adjective, “the Spirit and the bride,” mean “the
spiritual bride,” or the true church of Christ, as glory and
virtue is “glorious virtue,” kingdom and glory, “a glorious
kingdom.” Yet, as this has not been observed by many
->
* Alexand. Velast. AEthiop. Wul. Lat.
to receive them, and freely, through the riches of God's
grace, as he has promised them."
18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the
Words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall
add unto these things, God shall add unto him the
plagues that are written in this book:
(18.) And now I have faithfully and exactly related what
I saw and heard in these visions of God, let me Solemnly
conjure every person into whose hands these revelations
shall come, that they treat them with the reverence due to
revelations from God; that they venture not to add anything
of their own imagination or invention to them; let them keep
close, as far as they can, to the true meaning and intention
of the prophetic Spirit; for let them be assured, God will
severely punish such impious rashness, by inflicting on them
the curses denounced in these prophecies against deceivers,
and false pretenders to prophecy.
19 And if any man shall take away from the words
of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his
part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city,
and from the things which are written in this book.
(19.) On the other hand, let no man dare to strike any
prophecy out of this book; let no man Set aside or discredit
the authority of any of these revelations, as useless, dangerous,
or unworthy the Spirit of God; let no man endeavour to
pervert their true meaning and intention, to serve any evil
views of his own, to the ease, pleasures, or ambition of life.
Such unworthy treatment of the word of prophecy will justly
forfeit the blessings and happiness with which these prophé-
cies encourage the faithfulness and constancy of sincere
Christians.7
20 He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I
come quickly; Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
(20.) As then Jesus, the author of these prophecies,
assures a certain accomplishment of them in their times and
Seasons, let the whole church join with me in saying, Amen.
Let all faithful Christians, with joyful hope and hearty
desire, continually say, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus, accom-
plish thy promises in their order and finally crown the faith,
patience, and constancy or thy servants with eternal life.”
21 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with
you all. Amen.
(21.) In the meantime, may the favour and blessing of
Jesus Christ our Saviour be with all true Christians; may
his grace support and comfort all who suffer for his name,
and keep them to the glory of his heavenly kingdom. Amen.
interpreters, the reader ought to be informed, that some, by
“ the Spirit and bride,” mean persons endowed with spiritual
gifts; others,” by “the Spirit,” mean the Holy Ghost making
intercession for the saints. But Mr. Pyle's interpretation
seems the most natural, that it expresses the desire and care
of the church, which is the spiritual bride of Christ.
7 Ver. 19.] Some interpreters understand these warnings
as principally designed against all such persons who should
venture at forging revelations in imitation of these, as
there were many such false revelations given out in the first
ages of the church; but others understand it as a direction
to the church, to consider these revelations as the last autho-
ritative prophecy from heaven, and to warn them of the
great danger of infusing into men's minds any other expect-
ations than are agreeable to these visions, or of persuading
men to any behaviour unsuitable to the directions of these
revelations, by any wilful false interpretation of them.
* Ver. 20.] We may here observe, how John uses the
expression, the “coming of Christ.” It seems to have a
more general meaning, to denote any eminent instance of
Christ's power, in the blessings of the church, or punishment
of its enemies, and that the style of scripture does not con-
fine it to any one particular instance—as, his coming to judg-
ment.
* Grotius, Daubuz.
END OF LOWMAN’s COMMENTARY ON THE REVELATION.
a
T R. E. A. T IS E
ON THE
TRUE MILLENNIUM;
SHOWING THAT IT IS NOT A
REIGN OF PERSONs RAISED FROM THE DEAD.
BUT OF
T H E C H U R O H
FLOURISHING GLORIOUSLY FOR A THOUSAND YEARS
AFTER THE CONVERSION OF THE JEWS,
AND
THE FLOWING IN OF ALL NATIONS TO THEM THUS CONVERTED
TO
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH.
BY DANIEL WHITBY, D.D.
PREF ACE.
smº-mm-
SCALIGER was pleased to say, Calvinus Sapuit, quia
non scripsitin Apocalypsin; “ Calvin was wise, because
he did not write upon the Revelation.” I confess, I
do it not for want of wisdom ; that is, because I nei-
ther have sufficient reason nor judgment to discern
the intendment of the prophecies contained in that
book. But yet, conceiving that I have either found out
the true sense of those words, xx. 4, which usually are
alleged as the foundation of the supposed millennium,
or resurrection of the martyrs to reign with Christ on
earth a thousand years; or, at the least, have said
what is sufficient to show, it is not necessary to un-
derstand them in a proper sense; I have comprised
my sentiments of that controversy in the ensuing
treatise, which I submit to the judgment of the
reader.
1118
A TREATISE ON
INTRODUCTION.
mºsºmsºmºmº
HAVING employed some thoughts upon the mystery of the
conversion of the Jewish nation, mentioned by St. Paul,
Rom. ix., and comparing the glorious things he there says of
it, with what the prophets had foretold of the same thing in
very high expressions; I began to compare them with what
was written in the Revelation, concerning the new Jerusa-
lem, the new heavens and new earth, and the bride of the
Lamb made ready for a marriage with him ; and finding that
this bride was thought, by the best commentators, to be the
Jewish church and nation, represented formerly by our
Saviour, as “not having on her wedding-garment,” Matt.
xxii. 12; that the new heavens and the new earth were the
things promised to the Jews ; that the new Jerusalem was
described in the very words of the prophet and Jewish
writers, speaking of that glorious state they expected to-
wards the end of the world ; I was strongly inclined to con-
ceive this glorious conversion, which St. Paul saith shall be,
even to the gentile, Čaº #x vexedºv, “life from the dead”
(Rom. xi. 15), and which is by the prophets frequently re-
presented as the Čocroinciº, &váaracic, i. e. the new birth,
reviviscence, resurrection of their dead church and nation,
by the Messiah, so that à Sàyaro; oiz arrat āri, “death shall
be no more” (Rev. xxi. 4), might be the very resurrection
intended by St. John ; and the flourishing condition and |
union both of the Jewish and the gentile church thus raised
from the dead, and so continuing in peace and plenty, and a
great increase of knowledge and of righteousness, and a re-
turn of the primitive purity of doctrine and of manners,
might be the reign of the Saints on earth a thousand years,
which the apostle mentions: this naturally led me to a dis-
course of the millennium ; which being framed according to
this new hypothesis, I shall now offer it to the consideration
of the learned, in the following, method.
1. I shall state the true millennium of the ancients :
showing how far it was received, and by whom opposed, in
the first four centuries, and what were the particular opi-
nions, which then obtained, concerning the millennium ; and
how far the modern patrons of the millenary state have dis-
carded the received opinion of the ancients who embraced
that doctrine. -
2. I shall show what reason I have to conceive that this
millennium is to begin with the conversion of the Jewish na-
tion ; and doth indeed relate to the most happy state and
flourishing condition the church of Christ shall at that time
enjoy. !
3. I shall attempt to answer all that has been offered to
prove a proper and literal resurrection of the martyrs, and
other Christian sufferers, and saints, to reign on earth a
thousand years ; consider the pretences of them who place
this reign before the conflagration of the world, as most of
the assertors of this doctrine do ; and of the Rev. Dr. Bur-
net, who makes it to begin after the conflagration of the
world. And, *
4. I shall offer some arguments against this doctrine of
the millennium, or of the literal resurrection of the saints
and martyrs, to reign on earth a thousand years.
CHAPTER, I.
Š. I. That the doctrine of the millennium was never gene-
rally received in the church of Christ, is proved, 1. From
the testimony of Justin Martyr and Irenaeus. Ş. II. 2.
Of Eusebius, Origen, and Stephanus Gobarus, and the dis-
'inction which then obtained betwixt the allegorists and
the disciples of the latter. S. III. An answer to the pre-
tended tradition of Papias, mentioned by Irenaeus. Ş. IV.
The millennium of the ancients differed from that which
is now asserted by the most judicious of the modern mil-
lenaries, in five particulars: (1.) The ancients generally
held, that the temple or city of Jerusalem should be new-
built. (2.) That all the just were then to rise, and not
martyrs only. (3.) That Jesus Christ should then reign
on earth. (4.) That they should fare deliciously, and
Jews, and of the Sibylline author (see lib. ii.
enjoy corporal delights. (5.) That they should beget
children: all which things are denied by the modern mil-
lenaries. $. V. The necessity of these doctrines, ac-
cording to the letter of the scriptures, cited for the
millennium, by those ancients who espoused that doc-
trine. S. VI. This error of some of the fathers, as to the
millennium, will not invalidate their authority as to any-
thing delivered by them as eye-witnesses, or which they
deliver as the practice of the church of Christ in their
days.
THE patrons of the millennium do usually say, their doc-
trine was both generally received in the first three centuries,
and was derived by tradition from the apostles ; and that the
first man who opposed it was Dionysius, of Alexandria. In
opposition to this pretence, I shall endeavour to make it
appear ;
I. That this opinion was never generally received in the
church of Christ.
II. That there is no just ground to think it was derived
from the apostles, but rather from a mistake of the words of
the author of the Apocalypse ; or from the notions of the
1W, ).
III. That the new patrons of the millennium differ in
many things of moment from the ancient assertors of it, and
have indeed scarce any suffrage of antiquity for that millen-
nium which they do so stiffly maintain. And,
§. 1. That this opinion was never generally received in
the church of Christ, appears sufficiently from the confes-
sions and very words of the two first assertors of it, whose
writings are still extant, viz. Justin Martyr and Irenaeus. I
begin with Irenaeus, because his words will justify the
ancient reading of the words of Justin Martyr, against the
criticism upon them, or rather the corruption of them, by
Mr. Mede,” and Mr. Daillé. F Irenaeus therefore speaks
thus : “I am not ignorant, that some among us, who be-
lieve, in divers mations, and by various works, and who, be-
lieving, do consent with the just, do yet endeavour, trans-
ferre haec, (Gr. &eta;:gely) to turn these things into
metaphors,” or to carry them from their proper to an
improper sense, as metaphors are wont to do: that this is
the meaning, is evident from these words following, “But if
some have attempted to allegorize these things, they have
not been found in all things consistent with themselves, and
may be convinced from the words themselves.” Again, he
complains, that “the sentiments of some were carried away
by the discourses of the heretics; so that they were ignorant
of the appointment of God, and the mystery of the resur-
rection of the just, and the kingdom.” Here then we may
evidently discern three sorts of men : I. The heretics deny.
ing the resurrection of the flesh, and the millennium. 2.
The exactly orthodox, asserting both the resurrection and
the kingdom of Christ upon earth. 3. The believers who
consented with the just, and yet endeavoured to allegorize
and turn into metaphor all those scriptures he had produced
for a proper reign of Christ, and who had sentiments rather
agreeing with those heretics who denied, than those exactly
orthodox who maintained this reign of Christ on earth.
Now these being almost a translation of the words of Justin
Martyr, they vindicate the reading of all the manuscript
copies of that writer, and exclude the bold criticism of
Daillé and Mr. Mede. “Tell me truly,” says Trypho."
* P. 533, 534.
+ De Poenis Satisf. et Human. lib. v. cap. 7.
+ Lib. v. Cap. 33.
§ Quoniam igitur transferuntur quorundam Sententiae 'ab
haereticis sermonibus, et sunt ignorantes dispositiones Dei,
et mysterium justorum resurrectionis, et regni quod est prin-
cipium incorruptelae, per quod regnum, qui dignifuerint, as-
suescunt capere Deum. Liv. V. cap. 32, p. 495. -
| Etrursăs, quoniam autem quidam ea; his qui putantuº
reclè credidisse, supergrediumtur ordinem promotionis justo-
rum, et modās meditationis ad incorruptelam, ignorant
haereticos sensus in se habentes, &c. cap. 31.
* Eſtre 83 fºot &Améâc, i.p.s.f, &voixobop.nóñyal rôv távrov Isgow-
caxip, roſtoy jøNoyeſte, xzi avax6%agabat row Aaby bºy, xat
stºpgay8%at civ rá Xpia rā, #&a roi; traveláexatº, wai to:
Trpophrai;, xai roſ; 373 rcü flºwstégou yévovº, was tav trgovnaðroy
THE MILLENNIUM.
I 119
“do you [Christians] indeed confess, that Jerusalem shall
be built again, and that your people shall be gathered toge-
ther (there), and rejoice with Christ, together with the pa-
friarchs, and prophets, and those of our nation, or those
who are made proselytes before the coming of your Christ,
or before you expect your Christ shall come (to judgment) P
Or do you only confess this, that thou mayest seem to over-
come us in questions P”
Here you see that Justin Martyr did before, raira
ãºzoNoyety, confess these things, as he doth plainly, p. 243,
where Trypho having put the question thus ; “What I do
you say, that none of us shall have any inheritance in the
holy mount of God P” Justin Martyr replies ; “I say not
so, but that the gentiles who repent, and believe in Christ,
shall inherit (it), with all the patriarchs, and prophets, and
the just which proceed from Jacob:” and therefore he here
answers thus ;* “I have before confessed, that I and many
others are of this mind, that these things shall happen.
But then again, I have intimated to you, that many Chris-
tians of a pure and pious judgment do not own this (I speak
of Christians of a pure and pious judgment); for as for
those who are called Christians, but indeed are atheists, and
ungodly, and heretics, I have told you already, that they
teach things wholly blasphemous, atheistical, and absurd
(and therefore are not to come into the account of Chris-
tians). If therefore you have met with some of them who
blaspheme the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and
deny the resurrection of the dead, that confess not this, you
are not to esteem them Christians (or to take an estimate of
the doctrines of the Christians from them). They indeed
deny the resurrection of the flesh, and the millennium ; but
I, and all Christians, who are exactly and in all things or-
thodox, know there will be a resurrection of the flesh, and
a millennium in Jerusalem, built, adorned, and enlarged.”
Here then, as in Irenaeus, is a plain distinction of three sorts
of men : 1. Of heretics, that were katē Trávra (2xão-ºngot,
entirely blasphemers of the God of Israel, and deniers of
the resurrection of the flesh, and consequently of the mil-
lennium, which supposed this resurrection. 2. Of Chris-
tians who were wara Trávra $600) vöp, oys, “in all things
orthodox,” who owned both the resurrection of the flesh, and
the millennium : and Justin Martyr being of this opinion,
and declaring here, that he thought it a doctrine delivered
by God: it could not be expected that he should affirm of
them, that held it not, that they were of a right opinion in
all things. 3. Of many Christians of a pure and pious
judgment, who did not own this millennium.
Obj. But “where,” saith Mr. Daillé, “had he made
mention before of any such P’” I answer with another ques-
tion, Where had he made mention before of the many who
confessed the millennium, as he here saith he had 2 Mr.
Daillé should have considered, that Justin's memory could
not serve him to write down all he had discoursed with
Trypho, or that he might not think that part of his dis-
course necessary to be afterward committed unto writing';
and then this objection would not have seemed of force
sufficient to have authorized him to change Justin's words
without any consent of copies, into the direct contradictory
words, and for Christians ‘rā, waffaç㺠yydºng, “ of a pure
judgment,” to read, Christians ºwh rāg waſ apā; yºung “ of an
impure judgment;” since such bold criticisms will evacuate
both the sense and force of any testimony.
Ş. II. 2. This is still farther evident from the ancient
writers of the church, who plainly tell us, that this was a
particular opinion of some doctors of the church, and never
was received by all. “It had its rise,” saith Eusebius,
yevo.{voy, wºv #A9sſy tºy rºy Xgicry trºooºoxãre ; Dial. cum ||
Tryph. p. 306.
* Qºzoxáyna’a civ col wai wrpätsgow, 3ri #y& £wev Kai &Axot
woxxoi raira peoyotjºzey, &c. wai révro, #Trio'racióe rotºro ygynoré-
paevoy, Troxxotic 3’ aff, kai rāy rā; ka9apā; zai sic-egoſ, Švºrov
Xplottaway yºung, rotiro (wº yyogićew ša #4awá cot. Dial. cum
Tryph. p. 306.
3.
+ Eys 8è, xai si rivá, eia w ść00) voºdove; war& Trávra. Xela ſtavoi,
3. * 2
wai capköz &váaraaty ysváreo 9at #zia-ráºz88a, xai Xixia Årn #y
Isgowo axip. oixobopºmósian, Kai kozºnósian, wai ºrwarvv8sian,
g & &
p. 307.
“from Papias, a man of slender judgment;” but the anti-
quity of the man prevailed with many of the ecclesiastics to
be of that opinion, particularly with Irenaeus, and if there
were any other of the same judgment with him.” Now he
that confesseth that most of the ecclesiastics were of that
opinion, plainly denies that all were of it. He that particu-
larly speaks of Irenaeus, adding, “if there were any other of
the same judgment,” seems to intimate, they were not
many. Origen, in his Philocalia (cap. 26, p. 99), saith, they
were only rivég, “ some,” that held this doctrine, and that so
clancularly, that it had not yet come to the ears of the hea- .
thens: and in his prolegomena to the Canticles (f. 69, B),
that they were only simpliciores quidam, “some of the
simpler sort” of Christians. Besides, of all the fathers of
the Christian church, none have spoken more severely and
more contemptibly of that doctrine, than Origen, who repre-
sents it as a wicked doctrine, a reproach to Christianity; the
heathen, saith he, having better sentiments than these. He
therefore being then the great doctor of the church, and con-
tinuing in great authority amongst all churchmen for above
a hundred years; his scholars being also the most celebrated
doctors of that age, and one of them, viz. Dionysius Alex-
andrinus, undertaking to confute this doctrine ; and his
Philocalia, where we find these severe sayings, being a collec-
tion of the two great lights of the fourth century, St. Basil
and Gregory the divine ; it cannot be doubted but this opi-
nion then lost ground daily, and was generally decried by
the learned of those centuries. In a word, Stephanus Go-
barus, f in his account of opinions in which the fathers dif.
fered from each other, reckons this as the tenth, “That the
just shall rise first, and live deliciously a thousand years,
eating, drinking, and begetting children: and that there
should be no precedence in the resurrection. no millenary
delight, no marriage then.”
3. This will be more evident, if it be considered, that as
the doctors of the church were then of different opinions, so
were they then distinguished by different names; as they who
denied the millennium, saith Irenaeus, attempted to allego-
rize the places produced by others for it, so had they upon
that account the name of Allegorists ; and therefore Nepos,
a man, saith Eusebius, from Dionysius of Alexandria, other-
wise orthodox, but a writer for the millennium, styled his
book "Exey Yov táv 'AXAnyogic rāv, or, “A Refutation of the
Allegorists” (H. Eccl. lib. vii. cap. 24).
Accordingly, in Origen, they who deny the millennium,
are of apotroXoyoivres r& Trºopnºrthá, “they who interpret the
sayings of the prophets by a trope;” and they who assert it
are styled, solius literae discipuli, “ disciples of the letter of
the scripture only ;” the first, saith he, assert, horum vim
figuraliter intelligi debere, the passages which they produce
from scripture “ought to be figuratively understood ;” the
other, Saith he, understand the scripture, Judaico sensä,
“after the manner of the Jews.” Epiphanius,S speaking of
the millennium asserted by Apollinarius, saith, “There is
indeed a millennium mentioned by St. John ; but the most,
and those pious men, look upon those words as true indeed,
but to be taken in a spiritual sense.”
And here it may deserve to be observed, by the by, That
the primitive fathers derived almost all their considerable
errors from the Jews: viz. that angels had to do with
women, and begat giants of them; that the world was to end
soon after the coming of the Messiah ; that Elias was in per-
son to usher in his second advent, &c.
§. III. 2. As for the pretended tradition from the apostle
John, touching this doctrine, it is only mentioned by
Irenaeus, as received from Papias ; and the words in which
it is delivered are sufficient to demonstrate the incredibility
and the apparent folly of it: for these elders pretend to have
3: * * ** * * * * ey •e 3’ *
ITA;y wai roſ; pºet' atyröy Tr}\eio'roi; Sarol; ‘roy #xxxnariaz-rix2y
rā, śaoia; adrā, śćn; trapairio; yéyoys, rāv ćexatérnºra T' &vègº;
* ey •r º g w wº * A ef
Treo688xmºśvoic, & Tee oby Eipnvaiº, kai gi riº &WAo; rà &ota
‘pgovºy &yawépnvey. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 39.
+ Apud Photium, cod. 232, p. 894.
† IIegi 'A6x39, lib. ii. cap. 12, f. 135, B. col. 1, B. c. -
§ Töv 33 Biéxoy &yayivºdkov'rs; oi ragiaro wai sùxaßeſ, arsei
rów Trysvºcatixòy siłórs;, xai év air; ºryevºcatinâ; #xovira Aap.34-
vovireº, 3Ånôň Rºy Syra, #y 8295tnºr, 33 capnyićépceva remia-rsºxaaw.
Haer. lxxvii. §. 26, p. 1031.
1120
TREATISE ON
heard from St. John these romantic words ; **The days
shall come, in which there shall be wines which shall severally
have ten thousand branches, and every of these branches
shall have ten thousand lesser branches, and every of these
branches shall have ten thousand twigs, and every one of
these twigs shall have ten thousand clusters of grapes, and
in every one of these clusters shall be ten thousand grapes,
and every one of these grapes, being pressed, shall give
twenty-five metretas (that is, according to the mildest com-
putation, two hundred and seventy-five gallons) of wine ;
and when one shall take hold of one of these sacred bunches,
another shall cry out, I am a better bunch, take me, and by
me bless the Lord :” to omit what he says, from the same
tradition, of every grain of wheat, and of apples, seeds, and
herbs. Now can any man be so wholly bereft of sense, as to
imagine this stuff could ever come out of the mouth of an
apostle? No, certainly, he had itſ only from the converted
Jews, in whose writings, some learned persons have informed
me, the words cited by Irenaeus from Papias are yet to be
found. As for Papias, the only voucher of this tradition,
Eusebius informs us, he was a man of a very slender judg-
ment, as the story cited by Irenaeus, from the fourth book of
his discourse, may abundantly convince us, there being
scarcely any things in the most infamous of Romish legends
more fabulous, than, as Eusebius truly saith, his traditional
relations were.
§. IV. 3. That the new patrons of the millennium differ
in many things of moment from the ancients, and have in-
deed scarce any suffrage of antiquity for that millennium
they maintain, will be apparent, from a just representation
of the millennium of the ancients: for,
1. The ancient millenaries generally held, that the temple
or the city of Jerusalem should be rebuilt, and that the land
of Judea should be the habitation of those who were to reign
on earth a thousand years: so Justin Martyr (Dial. cum
Tryph. p. 243, C) tells the Jews, that the believing gentiles
should then dwell, Év rá Šest rā āyīy, “in the holy mount,”
and that they should then acknowledge him (p. 259, E), św
ºrá airá ràng, nºw 'Iseo.orox&ov, “in the same place of Jerusa-
lem,” where they crucified him : he confesses also to Trypho
(p.336, B.307, B), áyotko&openSãval tºy rémoy Ispova axiº, “that
the place of Jerusalem should be built, and that the Saints
should spend a thousand years in Jerusalem, built, adorned,
and augmented,” and that “all Christians entirely orthodox
knew this would be so ; and therefore they all,” (saith he, p.
312, B) “expected råy Xgia-row #y Isgowo axiº payhaea Bai, Christ
to appear in Jerusalem.” “In the times of that kingdom
Jerusalem shall be built,” saith Irenaeus,'i “ and the Jews
shall be restored to the land he gave to their fathers.” “He
(i. e. Christ) shall build the holy city,” saith Lactantius,t
“and there shall be the reign of the just for a thousand
years.” St. Barnaby is very positive, § that “the very tem-
ple which was destroyed by their enemies should be rebuilt
gloriously.” “They feign to themselves,” saith Origen,
“that the terrestrial Jerusalem should be rebuilt with pre-
cious stones, and that the aliens shall be their servants to re-
build it.” Hence Dionysius'ſ of Alexandria, in his book
* Quemadmodim presbyteri meminerunt, qui Joannem
discipulum Domini viderunt, audisse de eo, quemadmodèm
de temporibus illis docebat Dominus, et dicebat, Venient
dies in quibus vineae nascentur singulae decem millia palmi-
tum habentes, et in uno palmite dena millia brachiorum, et
in uno vero palmite dema millia flagellorum, et in unoquoque
flagello dena millia botruum, et in unoquoque botră dena
millia acinorum, et unumquodgue acinum expressum dabit
viginti quinque metretas vini, et cum eorum apprehenderit
aliquis sanctorum botrum, alius clamabit botrus, Ego melior
sum, me sume, per me Domino benedic. Lib. v. cap. 3.
+ Restituet illos in terram quam dedit patribus ipsorum.
Iren. lib. v. cap. 34, 35. Sed in regni temporibus revocata
(l. renovata) terra à Christo et readificata Hierusalem.
† In terrá cum his ipse regnabit, et condet sanctam
civitatem, et erit regnum justorum mille annis. Epit. §. 11,
. 758.
p § Kat airc; oi rāy #x863, innéral àvoixºop.cial airy,
16.
| IIegi 'A6x6 w, lib. ii. cap. 12. -
‘ſ Adversis Irenaeum Dionysius ecclesiae Alexandriae pon-
| writ against them, derides their golden Jerusalem upon
earth, adorned with jewels, and the restoration of the temple.
Whereas, scarce any of our new millenaries dare assert, that
this shall be the place of the habitation of the raised saints,
and one of them makes the whole earth to become a para-
dise for the reception of them.
2. They held this resurrection was not to be confined to
the martyrs only, but that all the just were then to rise, and
reign with Christ: this Justin Martyr confesses touching all
Christian people, all the believing gentiles, and the just pro-
geny of Jacob, in the forecited places. Irenaeus frequently
declares of the just in general, that they shall arise to inherit
the promises. Tertullian affirms,” that some shall rise
Sooner, and some later, but that all the just shall rise within
the time of the millennium. “This millennium,” saith Lac-
tantius," “belongs to all the just which ever were from the
beginning of the world:” whereas the millenaries of this age
do generally, with Dr. Burnet,f Say, “The first resurrection,
and the reign of Christ, seem to be appropriated to the mar-
tyrs” (Rev. xx. 4).
Moreover, the ancients extended this reign, on earth, not
only to the dead, but to the just also, who shall be then alive
at this first resurrection ; this being a necessary consequent
of the former doctrine, that this millennium belongs to all
the just. Thus Irenaeus, Š amongst those who are to enjoy
the millennium, reckons “those whom the Lord shall find
in the flesh, expecting him from heaven, who, having suffered
tribulation, did nevertheless escape the hands of the wicked.”
Then “they that are found living shall not die,” saith Lac-
tantius: || whereas it is inconsistent with the hypothesis of
Dr. Burnet, that any of the just should be then living, since
this millennium only begins after the conflagration of the
world, and the burning of all things that are in it.
3. The ancients generally consent in this, that Jesus
Christ shall then come down from heaven, and be seen on
earth, and reign there with his servants. , Papias, the first
assertor of this doctrine, declares, that “it shall be a reign of
Christ bodily upon earth.” Justin Martyr tells the Jews,
that they should then see him whom they had pierced, and
this in that very place of Jerusalem where they had crucified
him, that both they and Christians should then be gathered
together, and rejoice with him. Victorinus saith,” “This
is that true Sabbath, in quo Christus cum electis suis regna-
turus est, in which Christ is to reign with his elect ;” and
Lactantius Saith expressly, that mille annos inter homines
versabitur, “he shall be conversant with men a thousand
years.” Irenaeus++ seems not so clear as to this matter ;
yet he declares, the just shall reign on earth, increasing by
the vision of Christ; for, saith he, “Christ will be every-
where seen, as men are worthy to see him:” that which
seems most expressly in him to relate to this affair is this;
that discoursing of our Lord's promise, to drink new wine
with his disciples in the kingdom of heaven, he declares, it
tifex elegantem scribit librum, irridens mille annorum fabu-
lam, et auream atque gemmatam in terris Hierusalem,
instaurationem templi, &c. Hieron. Praefat. in lib. xviii.
Com. in Isaiam. .
* Lib. iii. contr. Mar. cap. ult. verba vide infra.
+ Verüm ille clim deleverit injustitiam, ac justos qui à
principio fuerint, ad vitam restauraverit, mille annos inter
homines versabitur, eosque justissimo imperio reget. Lib.
vii. cap. 24, p. 722.
f Book iv. chap. 4, 151, 152.
§ Et illos quos Dominus in carne inveniet expectantes
eum de coelis, et perpessos tribulationem, qui et effugerint
iniqui manus. Lib. v. cap. 35.
| Tum qui erunt in corporibus vivi, non morientur, sed
per eosdem mille annos infinitam multitudinem generabunt,
et erit Soboles eorum sancta. Lib. vii. cap. 24. p. 722.
| Xixiá3a, pna iy, Éray Hasa-flat perä rºy #x vexe3v čváaractiv
oropcarixã; rā; roi, Xgia toû 8aat?,Bia; #wi ravtnoi rā; yńc
tworrma'opºvnº. Apud. Euseb. lib. iii. cap. 39, 112, C.
** De Fabrică Mundi apud D. Doct. Cave, p. 104, Epit.
p. 772.
++ In quá regnabunt justi in terrá crescentes ex visione
Domini. Cap. 35. IIavtaxoi, yā; 3 orothé àgaarbha's rat Ka83;
&étot covrai oi ägårrec, Cap. 36.
†† Neque autem surslim insuper coelesti loco constitutus
THE MILLENNIUM.
1121.
this “cannot be done by him whilst he remains in those
celestial regions.” But Nepos was express in this, that,
* “after this resurrection, the kingdom of Christ was to be
upon earth a thousand years ; and the saints were to reign
with him in pleasures, or faring deliciously there:” and there-
fore Dionysius Saith of him, and the brethren that magnified
his book, that tº they had no sublime or magnificent.
thoughts of the glorious and divine advent of our Lord, or of
our resurrection, and our gathering together, and assimilation
to Christ; but hoped then for little and mortal things, and
such as men now hope for, in the kingdom of God.”
4. They all declare, they shall then fare deliciously, and
shall enjoy the richest wines and most delicious fruits, build
houses, plant vineyards, and eat the fruits of them : thus
Justin Martyr: understands those words of Isaiah, lxv. 21,
of the millennium, viz. “They shall build houses, and in-
habit them ; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the
fruit of them.” And Irenaeus saith,S “They shall have a
table prepared for them by God, who shall feed them with
dainties;” adding, that “the promises he had cited, creaturae :
epulationem significant, do signify the banquets they should
have upon the creature:” hence doth he tell us of the pro-
digious clusters of grapes and ears of corn, the vines and the
earth shall then bring forth. “The earth,” saith Lactan-
tius, “shall open its fertility, and of its own accord produce
fruits plentifully, the rocks of the mountains shall sweat with
honey, wines shall run down with streams, and the rivers
flow with milk.” Of this opinion, doubtless, was Tertullian,
in his book De Spe Fidelium ; and Nepos, who promised,
saith Dionysius of Alexandria, “a thousand years of corpo-
real delights on earth.” Accordingly Gennadius saith, "ll" In
the divine promises, we believe nothing concerning meat
and drink, as Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Lactantius teach
from their author Papias, nor of the reign of a thousand
years with Christ on earth after the resurrection, and the
saints reigning deliciously with him, as Nepos taught.” St.
Austin therefore saith of this opinion,” that “it might be
tolerable, if they mentioned any spiritual delights which the
saints might enjoy by Christ's presence ; but since they
affirm, that they who then rise, shall enjoy carnal and immo-
derate banquets of meat and drink without modesty, these
things can only be believed by carnal men. And because
all this plenty could not be procured and enjoyed, these
houses could not be built, nor these vineyards planted, nor
this wine brought into the fat, nor this corn into the barn,
threshed, ground, and made fit for these new-raised inhabit-
cum Suis potest intelligibibens vitis generationem.
cap. 33. -
* Xixtá3a, §rāv revºřic aroparizā; Éri Tä, ängă, raûrnç
£asa 6a inottéº evoc. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. vii. cap. 24.
+ Oü8š Us!nºw kai weya Aeroy ºppovety, otºrs regi rā, św8%ov wai
&An66, #v% ov rod Kveiou #2&y #art paveta;, oùre rā; hºwsrápac Éx
vexegy &vaa-ráaeo's Kai rāg wºº airby mauvayoºyā; ka Špoiáaeoc.
Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. vii. cap. 24, p. 27 l.
: Dial. cum Tryph. p. 308.
§ Haec sunt in regni temporibus, hoc est, in septimã die,
quae est verum justorum sabbatum, in quâ non facient omne
terrenum opus, sed adjacentem habebunt paratam mensam
à Deo pascentem eos epulis omnibus. Lib. v. cap. 33. 'Ey
ºrn 2010yraetnetº rôy puziköy ºwetaxa w8ávoºgy hôāoy. Apol-
linaris apud Epiph. Haer. lxxvii. p. 1032.
| Cap. 34. Terra verö aperiet foecunditatem suam, et
uberrimas fruges suá sponte generabit: rupes montium melle
Sudabunt, per rivos vina decurrent, et flumina lacte inunda-
bunt. Lib. vii. cap. 24.
"I Non quod ad cibum velad potum pertinet, sicut, Papiá
auctore, Irenaus, Tertulliamus, et Lactantius acquiescunt,
meque post (1... per) mille annos post resurrectionem regnum
Christi in terrá futurum, et sanctos cum illo in deliciis regna-
turos speramus, sicut Nepos docuit, qui primam justorum
resurrectionem, et secundam impiorum confixit. Eccl.
Lib. v.
ants, without hands; the ancients have made provision for
this also, telling us, “that they shall be xvgletoyte; Émi rāg
yńc,” such as lord it upon earth ;” and therefore Irenaeus
saith, + that which was spoken to Jacob, “The nations
shall serve, and princes shall bow down to thee” (Gen.
xxvii. 27, 28), ad tempora regnisine contradictione pertinet,
quandó regnabunt justi surgentes à mortuis, without all con-
tradiction belongs to this millenary kingdom. “ The nations
shall not utterly be destroyed,” saith Lactantius, f “but
some of them shall be left to be triumphed over by the just,
and subjected to perpetual slavery.” “They think,” saith
Origen, § “that aliens shall be given them to be ministers
of their delights, who shall either serve at the plough, or be
their masons and carpenters to build up their fallen city, and
they suppose they shall have of their provisions to eat, and
have dominion over their riches, so that they shall come and
offer to them gold, and frankincense, and precious stones.”
Dr. Burnet must either produce these servile nations, as he
hath done Gog or Magog, out of the mud, or his opinion
§must fall into it, unless he hopes to avoid this, by saying,
that “in this state it will be part of their diversion and en-
tertainment, to learn mechanics,” p. 213.
And because men can hardly do this whole business with-
out beasts, the ancients have made provisions of them also,
subjecting to them not only sheep, and goats, and oxen, or
bulls; but wolves, and bears, and leopards, and lions, “which
with all other animals,”| Saith Irenaeus, “shall be then sub-
ject to man.” And that the doctor may not be at a loss for
production of these beasts, Stephanus Gobarusº informs
him, the doctrine of the ancients was this, “That the just
should rise first, was a by airoſ; Trávra rå &c., and all those
living creatures with them.” - Now the new millenaries, as
they say little of these slaves, and these brute beasts, who
are so necessary for the enjoyment of the universal plenty,
and the goods of fortune prepared in this state; so are they
shy of owning futuras corporis voluptates et luxurias, such
luxuries and bodily pleasures, as Origen saith” the mille-
naries of his time did expect.
For, 5, in their millennium, they were not only to feast
and junket it, but also to beget children. “The virgins,”
saith Irenaeus, it “shall rejoice in the assemblies of the young
men ; and they that are left shall be multiplied upon
earth :” accordingly he speaks of some believers, whom God
had prepared to multiply those who were left upon the earth,
to be under the dominion of the Saints, and minister to this
Jerusalem. “They shall beget an infinite multitude,” saith
Lactantius, it “and their seed shall be holy.” “To their
other luxuries,” saith Origen, §§ “they add, nuptiarum con-
ventiones, et filiorum procreationes etiam post resurrectionem
futuras; the solemnities of marriage, and the procreation of
children, even after the resurrection:” and again, “They
think,” saith he, || “that after the resurrection we shall eat.
* Barnab. §. 6. + Lib. v. cap. 33.
: Gentes veró non extinguentur omnino, sed quidam re-
linquentur in victoriam Dei, ut triumphentur à justis, et sub-
jungentur perpetua servituti. Lact. lib. vii. cap. 24. Wide
Epist. §. 11. sº
§ Quinetiam ministros deliciarum harum dandos sibi
alienigenas putant, quos wel aratores habeant, ºvel structores
parietum, à quibus diruta ipsorum et collapsa civitas ex-
truatur, et arbitrantur quod facultates eorum accipiant ad
edendum, et in divitiis eorum dominentur, ut veniant et
afferant sibi aurum, et thus, et lapides pretiosos. IIept "Agxãv,
lib. ii. cap. 12.
| Oportet subjecta esse omnia animalia homini. Lib. v.
cap. 33. -
* Apud Photium, cod. 232, p. 894.
** IIegi 'Apx?y, lib. ii cap. 12, p. 235, 8, B.
++ Ipsi sunt de quibus ait propheta, “ Et derelicti multipli-
cabuntur in terrà,” et quotguot ex credentibus ad hoc prae-
paravit Deus ad derelictos multiplicandos, in terrà, et sub
Dogmat. cap. 55.
** Sed cūm eos qui tunc resurrexerint, dicunt immodera-
tissimis carnalibus epulis vacaturos, in quibus cibus sit tantus
et potus, ut non Solūm nullam modestiam teneant, sed
modum quoque ipsius incredulitatis excedant, nullo modo
regno sanctorum fieri et ministrari huic Jerusalem. Lib. v.
cap. 35.
†† Qui remanserint, multiplicabuntur super terram. Lib.
v. cap. 34.
§§ IIEg: 'Agxãy, lib. ii. cap. 12.
|| Otto: Kai rā treet yákov yeyeºcáyºt Kai évêpsy ×28
ista possunt, nisi de carnalibus, credi. De Civ. Dei, lib. xx.
Cap. 7. t - *
º - w - - * *
yvyatkay, Tnpovyts; #Tri toº finvºč zai oiépcevoi cºvyovala, hºw?', zai
4 C
Y
1122
TREATISE ON z

and drink corporeal meats, and shall use those conjugal du-
ties by which our prayers are hindered, and which cannot be
performed without some impurity:” and a third time, they
believe,” “that after the resurrection, we shall, according
to the promises of the gospel, eat and drink, and, as some of
them say, beget children; these things,” saith he, “should
they come to the ears of heathens, would lay a great impu-
tation of folly upon Christianity, since many heathens have
better opinions than these are:” so much are they mistaken
who reckon Origen among the patrons of the millennium.
Stephanus Gobarus gives us the opinion of the millenaries
in these words, “The just shall rise first, and for a thou-
Sand years shall fare deliciously, eating, and drinking, and
getting children; and after this shall be the general resurrec-
tion.” Methodius+ is the only person who denies they shall
be thus employed after the resurrection; and with him doubt-
less all our modern millenaries do agree, as knowing this
unworthy to be the matter of a gospel promise.
§. W. Moreover, if we consider the scriptures on which the
ancients grounded this millennium, we shall perceive it neces-
i. that all these doctrines should be maintained by them.
Or,
1. That the temple or city of Jerusalem should be new-
built, and that the land of Judea should be the habitation
of those who are to enjoy this new heaven and earth, can
never be reasonably denied by those who interpret the sayings
of the prophets literally, since they so plainly and so fully
speak of a “mount Sion, to be established upon the top of
the mountains,” Isa. ii. 2. xxvii. 13. lvi. 7, and of God's
promises “to beautify the place of his sanctuary, the house
of his glory, and to make the place of his feet glorious,” lx.
7. 13, and of “all nations flowing in to her,” and being ga-
thered to her, and of all “nations and tongues coming to see
her glory,” lx. 5, and lxvi. 18, when God had brought them
again into their own land.
2. That this resurrection must belong to all faithful Chris-
tians, and that they must all reign with Christ on earth, will fol-
low from the literal interpretation of those words of St. John,S
“Thou hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every
kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation, and hast made
us to be kings and priests to God, and we shall reign on earth”
(Rev. v. 9, 10), for, according to the import of these words,
if, as Dr. Burnet saith, they belong to the first resurrection,
all that have been redeemed by the blood of Christ must
reign on earth This follows also from those words, “I saw
the Souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Je-
Bus, and for the word of God, and (of them) which had not
worshipped the beast, nor his image, and which had not re-
ceived his mark upon their foreheads, nor upon their hands,
and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years”
(Rev. xx. 4): for, “they who worshipped not the beast,”
are all they “whose names were written in the book of life”
(Rev. xiii. 8. xvii. 8). This follows from St. Peter's new
heaven and new earth, if truly interpreted by Dr. Burnet of
this resurrection; “for these,” saith he, “we Christians do
expect, and therefore are concerned to be found of him with-
out spot, and blameless” (2 Pet. iii. 13, 14). This follows
from the words of St. Paul, if they belong to the millen-
mium, as he saith they do ; for they introduce “the whole
rére xshasabat, 3, 3, où3ā azoxáðew ša ri iw rā treeta eux; 3vary,
#y &oxvaº T3, 8vroy zai äxa3agaig rivi rāy Xéopºvoy &pgoët-
a ſolº. Com. in Matt. ed Huet. p. 498.
* Tivic of viral wai (cera rºw &vágraqiy #y rat; ºrporetaic
Brayyeasiat; a Siew #43; &#xxely tº rotá8s 88%ata, Kai rively,
Tivic. xai rexvoyoysív, Taita 33 p64a ayra kai eig roos &nd tây
#3vøy geyáxng sinésia; 3%ay &reyśykarðal rotha's rôy Xetariavic-
Azov, Troxxº Bexariowa 36%ara #xávrov 'rivăy &AXorgíoy rā;
gria reoc. Philocal. cap. 26, p. 99.
+ "ori ºrgárepoy of Sikatoi &vaa-rácovrat, xai aty airoſ; ºrávra.
t& Köz, Rai #7ri xiala Érn revºha.ovart, zai Écôiovteq, xai Trivovireº,
xai rewoivres, Kai pºetà rojvo # 4a60Atxà into thagºrat āyāo raciç.
Apud. Phot. cod. 232, p. 894.
f 'Earoºync yag wai &gt;& rotºrov rew aidya yºc, čváywn Tráca.
Haegôat kai rot; oixàcovraç, oùxert redyn£oºzávouc, wai yap, hoovºraç,
xa: yevna opečvov;, &AA’ &c &yyáNov; 3/28tarrgo póg Év &@9aga'ig rà.
&gto-ra ºrpážovrac. Apud Epiph. Haer. lxiv. §. 32.
§ Xiata #rn ºrotha'ely Éy "Iegovo-axºp, row; rā hºwer#66, Xplor:ró
ºria reča ayra; rºof phrevors ’Iváwn. Just. M. Dial. p. 308.
.
creation groaning to be delivered from the bondage of cor.
ruption, into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God, and al.
that had the first-fruits of the Spirit, groaning for the adop-
tion,” i. e. for the redemption of their bodies from corrup-
tion (Rom. viii. 16. 23).
3. They must bring Christ from heaven to reign on earth,
who contend that this reign is the very time of the “restitution,
of all things” (Acts iii. 21): for the heavens are only to contain
him till that time; and who infer this reign of Christ from
those words, “They that have part in the first resurrection
shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with
him a thousand years;” for if they reign on earth without
him, they do not reign there with him. Moreover, if he con-
tinue still at the right hand of God, with what propriety is
this resurrection called h tragovoia, “the presence,” the ap-
pearance of our Lord, and that from heaven P
4. That in this millennium they must fare deliciously,
drink precious wines, and have those splendid banquetings of
which the fathers often speak, must follow from the applica-
tion of all those passages to this state, which say, “The
meek shall inherit the earth,” that they shall “drink new
wine with Christ in his kingdom,” that they shall receive”
“a hundred-fold increase of goods and lands ;” that there
shall be then a recompence of their alms given, and their
feasts made for the poor; and from all that the prophets
say, of the fruitfulness of the earth, and of the temporal
blessings they shall then enjoy.
5. That the nations shall then serve them, and even build
up Jerusalem for them, cannot be denied by them who li-
terally interpret those words of the prophets, “The sons of
strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall mi-
nister to thee; the sons also of them that afflicted thee shall
come bending unto thee, and they that despised thee shall
bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet: and the na-
tion and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish”
(Isa. lx. 10. 12, 13): “And strangers shall stand and feed
your flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be your plough-
men, and your winedressers; ye shall eat the riches of the
gentiles, and in their glory shall you boast yourselves” (lxi.
5, see also xlix. 22, 23). And, -
6. They shall have wives and children, and, as Irenaeus saith,
“shall be multiplied upon the earth,” must follow from the
literal exposition of our Saviour's promise, that they who
have lost or forsaken wife or children for his sake, “shall re-
ceive a hundred-fold:” for children cannot lawfully be be-
gotten without wives, and the use of the marriage-bed.
And, lastly, whereas the millennium of the reverend Dr.
Burnet is to begin after the conflagration of the world, that
of the ancients is still placed before it ; “We expect it,”
saith Justin Martyr," “before Christ's coming to judgment.”
“After this,” saith Tertullian, f “shall be the destruction of
the world, and the conflagration at the day of judgment,
and we shall be changed in a moment into an angelical sub-
stance.” “God shall after this reign on earth a thousand
years, and renew the world,” saith Lactantius...}
It therefore deserves to be admired, that learned men, with
so much confidence, make use of these testimonies of scrip-
tures, and these authorities of the fathers, to establish their
millennium, and yet so stiffly should deny the consequences
which flow so naturally from those Scriptures, and reject.
what these ancients so generally delivered as a part of that
doctrine. But, to insist no longer on these things, hence I
suppose it evident,
1. That the doctrine of the millennium was not the ge-
* Quae enim sunt in hóc seculo centupla et prandia exhi-
bita, et coenae quae redduntur pauperibus, hac Sunt in regni
temporibus. Iren. lib. v. cap. 33.
+ IIpy #x0sfy roy tºy Xºta rāv trgoorboxãrs. Dial. p. 306.
f Haec est ratio regni terreni, post cujus mille annos, intra
quam atatem includitur sanctorum resurrectio pro meritis.
maturitis vel tardiès resurgentium, tunc et mundi destruc-
tiones, et judicii conflagratione commissà, demutati in atomo
in angelicam substantiam, Scilicet per illud incorruptelae su-
perindumentum transferrentur in coeleste regnum. Contr.
Marcion. lib. iii, cap. ult.
Ś Post ha-c renovabit Deus mundum, et transformabit
justos in figuram angelorum, ut immortalitatis veste donati
! serviant Deo in sempiternum.
Epit, cap. 11, p. 759.
THE MILLENNIUM.
1123
neral doctrine of the primitive church from the times of the
apostles to the Nicene council, as Dr. Burnet has asserted;
for then it could have made no schisms in the church, as
Dionysius” of Alexandria saith it did, declaring how fully
he confuted it, and reconciled the brethren that were con-
tending about it, and prevailed upon Coracius, the author
and ringleader of this doctrine, to own he was convinced of
his error, and promise he would no more embrace, or dis-
course of it to the people.
2. That the old doctrine of the millennium differed in
many material points from that which is asserted by the new
patrons of it.
$. VI. If any man think it not safe to discover so much of
the nakedness of the fathers as I have done in this chapter,
I answer: -
First, That I think it more safe than to let it be confidently
said and believed, that they were all millenaries from the
first to the fourth century, seeing that shakes the foundation
of episcopacy, and the translation of the sabbath to the
Lord's day, and other constitutions derived from the apos-
tles. .
Secondly, I answer, That this mistake of the fathers, in a
matter which they received from the traditions and notions
of the Jews, will not invalidate their authority in anything
delivered by them as witnesses of what they saw with their
own eyes, or declared to have been then the practice of the
church of Christ: nor will it affect their testimony in any
other doctrine which they neither did nor could receive, only
on the authority of the Jewish doctors.
CHAP. II.
§. I. How far I differ from the ancient and modern mille.
naries, and in what I agree with them. The proposition
that the true millennium is only a reign of the converted
Jews, and of the gentiles flowing in to them: Ibid. §. II.
Where it is noted, 1. That all spiritual blessings have been
still conveyed from the Jews to other nations. 2. That
there will be a glorious conversion of the Jews to the
Christian faith. §. III. That the description of this con-
version of the Jews, made by their own prophets and wri-
ters, answers fully to the millennium of St. John, which he
speaks of in the very words of the said prophets. Ş. IV.
The characters which the patrons of the millennium give
of those times, accord exactly with the characters given
by the prophets of the conversion of the Jews. S. W. The
prophets seem to intimate, that this conversion shall be
effected by a full influence of the Holy Ghost upon them.
$. VI. All the passages cited to this effect, from the Jewish
Writers, speak only of the millennium, the resurrection, the
new heavens and earth belonging to the Jewish nation.
HAVING thus given you a just account of the millennium
of the ancients, and of the true extent of that opinion in the
primitive ages of the church, I proceed now to show,
in what things I agree with the assertors of that doctrine,
and how far I find myself constrained, by the force of truth,
to differ from them.
Š. I. I believe, then, that after the fall of antichrist, there
shall be such a glorious state of the church, by the conver-
sion of the Jews to the Christian faith, as shall be to it life
from the dead; that it shall then flourish in peace and plenty,
in righteousness and holiness, and in pious offspring ; that
then shall begin a glorious and undisturbed reign of Christ
over both Jew and gentile, to continue a thousand years dur-
ing the time of Satan's binding; and that, as John the Bap-
tist was Elias, because he came in the spirit and power of
Elias, so shall this be the church of martyrs, and of those
who had not received the mark of the beast, because of
their entire freedom from all the doctrines and practices of
the antichristian church, and because the spirit and pu-
rity of the times of the primitive martyrs shall return. And,
therefore,
1. I agree with the patrons of the millennium in this,
That I believe Satan hath not yet been bound a thousand
... " Lib. V. Cap. 6, p. 173. ‘oº wai oxia gara wai &rograzia;
5Aay iºnºiây yeyevival. Euseb. lib, vii, cap. 24.
years, nor will he be so bound till the calling of the Jews'
and the time of St. John’s millennium.
2. I agree with them in this, That the true millennium
will not begin till the fall of antichrist; nor will the Jews be
converted till that time, the idolatry of the Roman church
being one great obstacle of their conversion. - -
3. I agree both with the modern and the ancient mille-
naries, That then shall be great peace and plenty, and great
measures of knowledge and of righteousness in the whole
church of God. -
I therefore only differ from the ancient millenaries in
these thing;
1. In denying Christ's personal reign upon earth during
this thousand years; and in this both Dr. Burnet and Mr.
Mede expressly have renounced their doctrine.
2. Though I dare not absolutely deny what they all posi-
tively affirm, that the city of Jerusalem shall be then rebuilt,
and the converted Jews shall return to it, because this probably
may be collected from those words of Christ, “Jerusalem shall
be trodden down till the time of the gentiles is come in,” Luke
xxi. 24, and all the prophets seem to declare the Jews shal:
then return to their own land, Jer. xxxi. 38–40; yet do I
confidently deny what Barnabas and others of them do con-
tend for ; viz. that the temple of Jerusalem shall be then
built again : for this is contrary not only to the plain decla-
ration of St. John, who saith, “I saw no temple in this new
Jerusalem,” Rev. xxi. 22, whence I infer, there is to be no
temple in any part of it, but to the whole design of the
Epistle to the Hebrews, which is to show the dissolution of
the temple service, for the weakness and unprofitableness of
it ; for the Jewish tabernacle was only a figure of the true
and “the more perfect tabernacle which the Lord pitched,
and not man ;" the Jewish sanctuary only “a worldly sanc-
tuary, a pattern, and a figure of the heavenly one into which
Christ our high-priest is entered ” (Heb. viii. 2. ix. 2. xi. 23,
24). Now such a temple, such a sanctuary, and such Ser-
vice, cannot be suitable to the most glorious and splendid
times of the Christian church ; and therefore the apostle
saith, “The Lord God omnipotent, and the Lamb, shall be
their temple.” -
3. I differ both from the ancient and the modern millen-
naries, as far as they assert that this shall be a reign of Such
Christians as have suffered under the heathen persecutors, or
by the rage of antichrist; making it only a reign of the con-
verted Jews and of the gentiles then flowing in to them, and
uniting into one church with them. This I believe to be in-
deed the truth of this mistaken doctrine ; and therefore I
shall set myself more fully to explain and to confirm it. Let
it be noted therefore,
§. II. I. That as the Jews were the first nation which
were owned by God as his people, and therefore are styled
“his first-born,” Exod. iv. 22, “Israel his elect,” Isa. liv.
4, “the children of Jacob, his chosen ones,” 1 Chron. xvi.
13. Ps. cw. 6, God having chosen them “to be a peculiar
treasure to himself above all the people of earth,” Exod.
xix. 5. Deut. vii. 6, so all nations of the world have ever
since received the word of God and the true religion from the
Jewish nation, and Jerusalem hath been still the mother of
all other churches. Before the advent of our Lord and Sa-
viour, to them alone, saith the apostle Paul, “belonged the
adoption, the glory, and the covenant, and the giving of the
law, and the service of God, and the promises” (Rom. ix. §:
and none then could be “joined unto the Lord ” (Isa. lvi. 3),
and worship him aright, unless he joined himself to the Jews,
and became a worshipper of the God of Israel, or a member
of that church.
After Christ's coming in the flesh, the gospel was first sent
to them, as being “the children of the kingdom,” Matt. viii.
12; our Lord exercised his ministry only among them, whence
he is styled “the minister of the circumcision,” Rom. xv. 8,
and saith, he was not then sent to any but “only to the lost
sheep of the house of Israel,” Matt. xv. 24. And sending
his apostles, he forbids them, whilst he was on earth, “to go
into the way of the gentiles, or to enter into any city of
Samaria,” Matt. x. 5, but saith to them, “Go rather to the
lost sheep of the house of Israel.” After his ascension, they
were charged to begin their preaching at Jerusalem, Luke
xxiv. 47, as accordingly they did, “preaching the word to
none but the Jews only,” Acts xi. 19. Paul, the apostle of
4 C 2
1124
TREATISE ON
the gentiles, first offers his ministry to them, preaching
Christ in their synagogues, “as his manner was,” Acts ix.
20. xiii. 5. xiv. 1. xvii. 12. 17. xviii. 4, and declaring “it
was necessary that the word of God should be first spoken
to them,” Acts xiii. 46, the gospel being “the power of God
to salvation to every one that believeth, to the Jew first,”
IRom. ii. 10, and that through their fall and rejection of it,
“the gospel came unto the gentiles,” Rom. xi. 28, the halt,
lame, and blind, being called to this feast, because those
guests first bidden refused to come, Luke xiv. 21.
Note also, that notwithstanding the infidelity of many of
them, the first church that ever received the gospel, the
doctrine, the sacraments of the New Testament, was the
Jewish church, Acts ii. 42.47. All the churches of the gen-
tiles received the gospel from them, they being “made par-
takers of their spiritual things,” Rom. xv. 27, and the word of
God coming out from them to other churches, 1 Cor. xvii. 36,
they being all “grafted into their good olive-tree.” Hence,
in the primitive times, the church of Jerusalem had the
pre-eminence of all other churches; to her they went for the
decision of their controversies, Acts xv., and the bishop of
Jerusalem is therefore styled by the ancients, * “the first
bishop, the guide of priests, the top of the heads, the bishop,
and chief of the apostles;” and the church of Jerusalem is
said to be the church, cui omnes favorem impendunt quasi
matri Christiani nominis, “which all favoured as the mother
of Christians.”
After the fall of antichrist, and before the second coming
of our Lord to judgment, the Jews shall be converted, and
become a most famous church again. For this mystery the
apostle hath revealed, “that blindness in part hath happened
to Israel until the fulness of the gentiles be come in, and so
all Israel shall be saved, as it is written º’ in the prophet
Isaiah, lix. 20, “There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer,
and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob ; for this is my
covenant with them, saith the Lord, when I shall take away
their sins.” These words are as a key to the great things
said by Isaiah touching the Jewish nation, and teach us to
interpret them of their glorious conversion to the Christian
faith, and the gathering them “out of every kindred, and
tongue, and nation, and people;” that “at the blowing of
the great trumpet they may come from the land of Assyria
and Egypt, and may worship the Lord in the holy mount in
Jerusalem " (Isa. xxvii. 13), and they may “fear the Lord
from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun *(Isa.
lix. 19). This is that day “when the Lord shall set his
hand nºw, a second time to recover the remnant of his peo-
ple, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather to-
gether the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the
earth” (Isa. xi. 11, 12); when he will so “bring again the
captivity of Jacob, and have mercy on the whole house of
Israel, as to leave none of them any more there, nor hide his
face any more from them.” (Ezek. xxxix. 25. 28, 29); when
he shall so “plant them in their land, that they shall no
more be pulled up out of the land that he hath given them ’’
(Amos ix. 14, 15): so Tobit saith, that “when trampo.0% w
oi, kapo: rod at:voc, the times of the age shall be accomplished,
they shall return from all places of their captivity, and build
up Jerusalem gloriously, and the house of God shall be built
in it gloriously, as the prophets have spoken thereof,” Tobit
xiv. 51. vi. 7. And when they shall be thus converted, and
receive the gospel, then shall salvation be again derived from
them to the gentiles, and they shall be the means of convert-
ing such of them as still remain to be converted ; and shall
draw them to as great purity and zeal, and as great know-
ledge of the truth, as ever the church enjoyed: for, saith
the apostle, “if the fall of them be the riches of the world,
and the diminishing them the riches of the gentiles, how
much more their fulness P” And “if the casting away of
them be the reconciling of the world, what shall be the re-
conciling of them but life from the dead,” to the same world?
Rom. xi. 12. 15. Of this the prophets speak very fully,
saying, “In that day there shall be a root of Jesse which
shall stand for an ensign to the people, and to it shall the
gentiles seek, and his rest shall be glorious,” Isa. xi. 10.
“Behold (saith God), I will then lift up my hands to the
gentiles, and set up my standard to the people, and they
* Cotel. Not. p. 138.
shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be
carried upon their shoulders, and kings shall be thy nursing-
fathers, and queens thy nursing-mothers; they shall bow
down to thee with their faces towards the earth, and lick up
the dust of thy feet,” Isa. xlix. 22, 23. “Behold, thou shalt
call a nation that thou knowest not, and nations that have
not known thee shall run unto thee, because of the Lord thy
God, and for the Holy One of Israel; for he hath glorified
thee,” Isa. lv. 5. “The Lord God that gathereth the outcasts
of Israel saith, Yet will I gather others to him besides those
that are gathered to him,” Ivi. 8. “And the gentiles, shall
come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising:
lift up thine eyes round about, and see ; all they gather
themselves together, they come to thee ; thy sons shall come
from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side; the
abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, the forces
of the gentiles shall come to thee,” lx.3–5. “And the
sons of strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings
shall minister unto thee: therefore thy gates shall be open
continually, they shall not be shut day nor night, that men
may bring unto thee the forces of the gentiles, and that their
kings may be brought: for the nation and kingdom that will
not serve thee shall perish, and shall be utterly wasted,” ver:
10–12. “Thou shalt suck the milk of the gentiles, and
shalt suck the breasts of kings,” ver. 16. “Ye shall be
named the priests of the Lord: men shall call you the
ministers of our God: ye shall eat the riches of the gentiles,
and in their glory shall you boast yourselves,” lxi. 3. “ Th;
gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory,”
ixii. 2. “Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river,
and the glory of the gentiles like a flowing stream,” lxvi. 12.
“I will gather all nations and tongues, and they shall come
and see.my glory,” ver. 18., “And they shäll bring all their
brethren for an offering to the Lord, out of all nations to my
holy mountain Jerusalem ; and I will also take of them for
priests and for Levites, saith the Lord: for as the new heavens
and the new earth which I shall make shall remain before
me, saith the Lord, so shall their seed and their name re.
main,” ver. 20–22. “Many nations,” saith Tobit, “shall
come from far to the name of the Lord God, with gifts in
their hands, even gifts to the King of heaven, when his taber-
nacle shall be built again with joy, and he shall make his
captives joyful in Jerusalem : yea, all nations shall turn and
fear the Lord God truly,” xiii. 10, 11. sº ->
S. III. Nowhere it is easy to observe, how fully this descrip-
tion of the conversion of the Jews, by their prophets, answers
to the millennium of St. John, who useth the very words by
which the prophets had foretold their glorious conversion,
and saith, they shall be then accomplished. And,
1. St. John speaks of a reviviscence of the church of the
primitive martyrs, that suffered “for the testimony of Jesus,
and for the word of God,” Rev. xx. 4 (see ch. iii. Ş. I), and
with them all the just. Now the very words āvāorgºt; and
ićncay, used by St. John, are very frequently used by the
prophets, to express the glorious state of the J ewish church ;
and by St. Paul, to signify the flourishing condition of the
gentiles then. St. John saith, they who enjoy this millen-
nium shall be “priests to God and Christ,” Rev. xx. 6, and
the prophet Isaiah saith of the converted Jews, “ Ye shall
be named the priests of the Lord: men shall call you the
ministers of our God,” lxi. 6, and of the gentiles that come
to them, “I will take of them to be priests and Levites.”
lxvi. 21. This was the very thing proposed to the Jewish
nation when God entered into covenant with them, that they
should be “a kingdom of priests,” Exod. xix. 6. . Bºº!"
ispársvaa, “a kingly priesthood,” saith the Septuaginº.55%
bºn-, i.e. “kings and priests,” saith the Targum. This all
| Christians are already made, saith St. Peter, 1 Pet. ii. 5, and
St. John, Rev. xvi. 5, 10. “We are,” saith Justin Martyr,”
“truly priests to God:” it therefore may be expected men
should be more eminently so in that glorious state of the
church.
2. St. John speaks of a new heaven and a new earth that
he saw, saying, “The former heaven and earth were passed
away,” Rev. xxi. 1, and introduceth our Lord, saying, ** Be-
hold, I make all things new,” ver. 5. And the prophet
* 'Aéxisgarikāy rê šanów?y yévoz, yávo, icºy toº &iſt. Dial.
cum Tryph. p. 334, 6.
THE MILLENNIUM,
1125
Isaiah introduceth God, thus speaking at the conversion of
the Jews, “Behold, I create mew heavens and new earth ;
and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into my
mind,” Isa. lxv. 17. And again, “I have put my word in
thy mouth, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foun-
dations of the earth, and say unto Zion, Thou art my peo-
ple,” li. 16. And, thirdly, in the very words of the author
of the Revelation, “Behold, I make all things new,” xliii.
18, 19. Seeing then these new heavens and new earth must
be contemporary with the conversion of the Jews, sure they
must be before the conflagration of the world, i.e. before the
Jewish nation be consumed to ashes; and therefore can be
only a new heaven and new earth, in that moral sense in
which Maimonides explains the phrase, when he says, “It
signifies, that God will place them in perpetual joy, in lieu
of their former sorrow and anxiety; so that the memory of
their former sorrow shall no more remain.”
I confess there is this peculiarity in St. John's new earth,
that it is said of it, kai fi Sáxaca’a oux Éart; fºrt, “And the sea
is not yet,” because he had all along represented the beast
as ascending out of the abyss, “and sitting upon many
waters,” which were “the peoples, and multitudes, and na-
tions, and tongues, that had submitted to her,” Rev. xvii. 1.
15. Now because the beast was utterly destroyed, and Satan
was bound up for a thousand years, and Gog and Magog
were not to be gathered till then, nor were the armies of the
beast which were slain to rise again till the thousand years
were past. (Rev. xix. 21. xx. 6); therefore the apostle saith,
that in this new earth, “the sea was not yet.”
3. St. John saith, “I heard a great voice from heaven,
saying, The tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell
with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself
with them shall be their God,” Rev. xxi. 3. And Ezekiel,
the other prophet who, by the ancients, is supposed to speak
of the millennium, saith in like manner, “I will make a
covenant of peace with them, and will place them and mul-
tiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them
for evermore ; my tabernacle also shall be with them, and
I will be their God, and they shall be my people,” Ezek.
xxxvii. 26, 27.
4. St. John saith, “God shall wipe away all tears from
their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow,
nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the for-
mer things are passed away, Rev. xxi. 4; so also saith the pro-
phet Isaiah of Jerusalem, that after the former heaven and
earth were passed away, “the voice of weeping shall be no
more heard in her, nor the voice of crying,” 1xv. 19, that
“the Lord will wipe away tears from all faces,” xxv. 8, that
“they shall not hunger, nor thirst, neither shall the heat nor
sun smite them ; for he that hath mercy on them shall lead
them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them,”
×lix. 10, which words exactly answer to those of St. John,
Rev. vii. 16, 17. -
5. St. John saith, “The building of the wall of the city
was of jasper, and the city was of pure gold like unto clear
glass, and the foundations of the wall of the city were gar-
nished with all manner of precious stones,” Rev. xxi. 18,
19, and Isaiah saith, “I will lay thy stones with fair colours,
and thy foundations with sapphires, and I will make thy
windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy
borders of pleasant stones,” liv. 11, 12 ; and Tobit saith,
“Jerusalem shall be built up with sapphires, and emeralds,
and precious stones ; thy walls, and towers, and battlements,
with pure gold ; and the streets of Jerusalem shall be paved
with beryl, carbuncle, and stones of Ophir,” xiii. 16–18.
6. St. John speaks of “the tree of life planted there,”
and of “a pure river of water of life, proceeding out of the
throne of God, and the Lamb,” Rev. xxii. 1, 2. And the
prophet Zachary speaks of “living water going out of Jeru-
Salem,” xiv. 8. And he that passeth under the name of
Esdras Saith, “They shall have the tree of life planted for
an ornament of sweet savour: for unto you” saith he “is
paradise opened, the tree of life is planted,” 2 Esd. ii. 12.
pºp
7, St. John Saith, “There shall be no night there, and
* Quod dixi, Creabo novos coelos, &c. id ita intelligo, quéd
Vos positurus sum in lactitiam perpetuam loco luctas et
anxietatis prioris, neque illius luctſis prioris memoria sit man-
Sura. More Nevoch. par. ii. cap. 29, p. 268.
they need no candle, neither light of the sun,” xxii. 5.
Isaiah saith the same, lx. 19. And the prophet Zechariah
saith, “It shall be one day which shall be known unto the
Lord, not day nor might ; and it shall come to pass, that at
the evening-time it shall be light,” xiv. 7.
Moreover, St. John so represents the scene of things fol-
lowing the fall of antichrist, as plainly to inform us, that he
is speaking of this glorious conversion of the Jewish nation,
and God’s marrying her again whom he had formerly di-
vorced ; for as the church of Christ is represented as “the
Israel of God,” Gal. vi. 16, “the commonwealth of Israel,”
Eph. ii. 12, “the Jerusalem which is above,” Gal. iv. 26,
“the celestial Jerusalem,” Heb. xii. 22, so St. John repre-
sents this new scene of things in the same language, saying,
“I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down
from God out of heaven,” Rev. xxi. 2. And again, “He
showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending
out of heaven from God,” ver, 10. Now that this great.
and holy city, this new Jerusalem, is the Jewish church con-
verted to God, the characters he gives of it will not suffer
us to doubt; for, first, he saith, “The city had no need of
the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it; for the glory of
God did lighten it; and the Lamb is the light thereof.” Rev.
xxi. 23. So Saith God of the conversion of the Jews:
“They shall call thee, The city of the Lord, the Zion of the
Holy One of Israel,” Isa. lx. 14. “Thou shalt call thy
walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise ; the sun shall be no
more thy light by day, neither for brightness shall the moon
give light unto thee ; but the Lord shall be unto thee an
everlasting light, and thy God thy glory,” wer. 18, 19. He
saith, “The gates of this city shall not be shut at all by day,
neither shall there be any night there, and they shall bring
the glory, and honour, tºy, the substance of the nations
unto it,” Rev. xxi. 25, 26. Even as Esaias had said, “Thy
gates shall be open continually, they shall not be shut day
nor night, that men may bring unto thee the wealth of
the gentiles, and that their kings may be brought,” Isa. lx.
ll. Lastly, he saith, “The nations of them that are saved
shall walk in the light of this city, and the kings of the
earth do bring their glory and honour to it,” Rev. xxi. 24,
which I have shown to be the very thing foretold by the
prophets at the conversion of the Jewish nation.
Add to this, that he introduceth this holy city, this new
Jerusalem, “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband,”
Rev. xxi. 2, and saith, “Come hither, I will show thee the
bride, the Lamb's wife,” ver. 9, 10, and then shows the great
city, the holy Jerusalem ; and xix. 7, 8, he saith, he “heard
a voice saying, The marriage of the Lamb is come, and his
wife hath made herself ready ; and to her was granted, that
she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white : for
the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints.” Now thus
have the prophets represented the Jewish church converted
to God: hence is she introduced speaking thus; “I will
greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall be joyful in my
God: for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation.
he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a
bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride
adorneth herself with jewels,” Isa. lxi. 10. And again,
“Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken, neither shall thy
land any more be termed desolate: but thou shalt be called
Heph zibah, and thy land Beulah; for the Lord delighteth
in thee, and thy land shall be married ” lxii. 4, and ver; 5,
“For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons
marry thee; and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the
bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.”
§. IV. Add to this, that all the characters which the pa-
trons of the millennium give of those times, exactly accord
with the characters given by the prophets of the conversion
of the Jews, and are many of them taken from the very
words of the prophets, foretelling those times: for instance,
1. “Indolence and plenty,” saith Dr. Burnet, book iv.
ch. 7, p. 183, “seem to be two ingredients of this happy
state.” Accordingly the prophets everywhere speak, how
“the riches of the gentiles shall then flow in to them,” Isa.
lx. 5. 11, “and they shall eat the riches of the gentiles,”
lxi. 6, that “there shall be then no hunger nor thirst, no
heat nor sun to smite them, no voice of crying or weeping”
(see Isa. xxxv. 10).
2. That it shall be “a time of universal peace, and free-
1126
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dom from war and persecution” (ibid. p. 184); and this he
proves from the words of the prophets declaring, that at that
day, that time when God shall create new heavens and new
earth, “the lamb and the lion shall lie down together, and
the sucking child shall play with the basilisk, and they shall
not hurt in all my holy mountain,” as it is written, Isa. xi.
6–9, and lxv. 25, and saying, that “the nations shall beat
their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into prun-
ing-hooks; nation shall not lift up a sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more,” Isa. ii. 4. Micah iv,
3, as appears also from the promises, that God will then
“make her officers peace,” Isa. lx. 17, “and will extend
peace to her as a river,” lxvi. 12. -
3. That it shall be “a kingdom of righteousness” (ibid.)
Accordingly of this holy city, Jerusalem, it is said, “There
shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and un-
clean," Isa. lii. 1; “A highway shall be there, and it shall
be called the way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass
over it,” xxxv. 8 ; which exactly answers to those words of
St. John, “Into the holy city shall nothing enter that is
polluted or unclean,” Rev. xxi. 27. And again, “Thy
people shall be all righteous,” Isa. lx. 21 (see Zeph. iii. 9.
Zech. xiv. 20. 21),
Moreover this, saith he (p. 185), will be “a state under
a peculiar presence and divine conduct, because the taber-
nacle of God will be with men, and he will dwell with them:”
and this we see was promised at the conversion of the Jew-
ish nation, Ezek. xxxvii. 27.
“The last character,” saith he “that belongs to this state,
or rather to those that enjoy it, is this, that they are kings
and priests unto God ;” and this also we have shown to be
promised to the converted Jews, Isa. lxi. 6. lxv. 20.
I add, That as the ancient fathers generally held that the
time would come when “all Israel shall be saved,” and be
converted to the Christian faith ; so did they as generally
conceive that this should happen at the close of the world,”
and about the time of our Saviour's second coming ; and
most of them speak of it as a branch of the millennium.
So Justin Martyr Says once and again, that + “then the
Jews shall see and shall acknowledge him whom they have
pierced ;” and he confesses to Trypho, “that Jerusalem
shall be rebuilt,” and that §" Christians shall rejoice with
Christ, together with the patriarchs and prophets, and with
the Jews and their proselytes;” i, e. the nations then flow-
ing in to them before the coming of our Lord.” So Irenaeus|
declares, that then “God will restore them to the land
which he had promised, and given to their fathers, and they
shall dwell in it in hope :” and Tertullian'ſ saith, that “he
will then own the circumcision, et Abrahae gentem, clim
ultimo venerit, acceptatione et benedictione dignabitur, and
at his last coming will vouchsafe to accept and bless the seed
of Abraham.” And this is suitable to the ancient opinion
of the Jews,” that, “in the end of the world, there should
be to them a world full of joy and exultation, so that their
heaven and earth should as it were be renewed, according to
the words of Isaiah,” lxv. 17. So the Targum upon those
words of Hosea, “The children of Israel shall seek the
Lord their God, and David their king, and shall fear the
Lord and his goodness in the latter days.”
Ş. W. Nor is it to be wondered that there should be then
such a glorious conversion of them, and such a flowing in of
the nations to them, seeing the prophets seem to intimate
there shall be then a full effusion of the Holy Ghost upon
them, Somewhat resembling that which was vouchsafed to
the first ages of Christianity. So the prophet Isaiah speaks
of the desolation of the city, Éog &y #x0, #3' Up.3, IIvsjøa 34'
is n×où, “until the Spirit be poured upon them from on high,”
Isa. xxxii. 15, which is the very phrase in which our Lord
promiseth the Spirit to his apostles, Luke xxiv. 49. St.
* “In the end of the world,” 2 Esd. ii. 34. vi. 15. 25.
ºf P. 232, D. “ors #mriyydia Eage si; 3, #Easyrrhaa’re.
f P. 249, C.
§ "Aga roſ; traºrétáexas, Kai roi; ºrgophraig, kai roſ, 3rd rod
hºstěpov 2.Évovº, º zai rāy ºrpoonAgroy yºyoºyo y ºrgiy #7.9sſy tºy
röy Xºtary wºod Soxáre. P. 306.
| Lib. v. cap. 34.
* Adv. Marc.lib. v. cap. 9, p. 472, C.
** R. Saadias Gaon, Sepher Iſaemunot.
Paul proves their conversion from those words of the pro-
phet Isaiah, “The Deliverer shall come out of Zion, and
shall turn away iniquity from Jacob:” with which these are
immediately connected, “And this is my covenant with them,
saith the Lord ; My Spirit that is upon thee, and my words
which I have put into thy mouth, shall not depart out of
thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of
the mouth of thy seed's seed, from henceforth for ever,” lix.
20, 21. And again, xliv. 3, “I will pour water upon him
that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground; I will pour
my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing on thy offspring.”
So Ezek. xxxvi. 24, “I will take you from among the
heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will
bring you into your own land.” And ver. 27, “I will put
my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes.”
And xxxix. 28, 29, “I have gathered them unto their own
land, and have left none of them any more there: neither
will I hide my face any more from them, for I have poured
out my Spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord.”
And this seems plainly to be hinted in these words of St
Paul, 2 Cor. iii. 15–17, “Even unto this day, when Mo-
ses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless, when
it shall turn to the Lord the veil shall be taken away ; for
the Lord is (the giver of) that Spirit, (or of 33) where the
Lord is, there is the Spirit: and where the Spirit of the
Lord is, there is liberty,’” from subjection to the law, and
from that veil which hinders them from turning to Christ.
To this Mr. Mede (p. 761, 767) conjectures there shal:
be added a vision of Jesus Christ to them ; for, saith God
by his prophet Zechariah, xii. 10, “I will pour upon the
house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the
Spirit of grace and of supplications, and they shall look
upon him whom they have pierced, and mourn for him.”
And Christ being asked, “What shall be the sign of the end
of the world 2* Matt. xxiv. 3, saith, wer. 30, “Then shall
appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven, and they
shall see all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see
the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power
and great glory.” And he spake to the Jews thus, “Verily I
say unto you, Yet a little while, and you shall not see me
till you say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the
Lord,” Matt. xxiii. 39. -
Or, that according to the ancient and general doctrine
both of Jew and Christian, they shall have an Elias Sent to
instruct them, a deliverer Éveney Xiaoy, “for the sake of Zion,”
as the Septuagint, Isa. lix. 20, for, saith he, “It may be fit
to conceive magnificently of so great a work of God, towards
a people for whom he hath formerly shown so many won-
ders ; especially this being the greatest work of mercy and
wonder that ever he did for them, far beyond the bringing
them forth of Egypt, and leading them in the wilderness.”
And to this he refers these words of Ecclesiasticus ; “Elias
was ordained to turn the hearts of the father to the son,
and to restore, xºVaatha'ai, the tribe of Jacob : Maxáplot of
i8ávré, a s, zai of āyaráael Kaxoganºvo, kai yüp ºceſs ºf Çnaï-
asóa, blessed are they that see, and are adorned with love,
for we shall surely live,” Ecclus. xlviii. 10, 11. Where note,
that their conversion is again represented by a new life,
and by the very word used concerning the Souls of the
martyrs which were slain, Rev. xx. 4.
S. VI. Add to this, that as all the ancient millenaries held,
that this reign on earth should be at Jerusalem,” and that
the Jews converted then should reign together with the
Christians; so all the passages, cited from Jewish writers
concerning the millennium, speak only of the millennium of
the resurrection, the new heavens and new earth the Jewish
nation shall enjoy. This is apparent from those words on
which the Midrash Tehillim founds this millennium, viz.
“Comfort us, according to the days in which thou hast afflict-
ed us,” Ps. xc. 15, in Babylon, in Greece, in Rome: from
the words cited by Galatinus, lib. xii. cap. 1, from R. Eliezer,
cap. 34, “As I live, saith the Lord, I will raise you in the
time to come, in the resurrection of the dead, and I will
gather you, with all Israel, into the land of Israel:” from
those cited from R. Saadias on Dan. vii. 18, “Because the
Jews rebelled against their Lord, their kingdom shall be
taken from them, and given to the four monarchies who
* Justin Martyr, Iren. Tertul. Supra.
THE MILLENNIUM.
1 127
shall possess it in this world, and shall subdue and carry
captive Israel, till the age to come, in which the Messiah
shall reign :” from the Targum on Hos. xiv. 8, “They
shall be gathered from the midst of their captivity;” and
on Ps. i. 4, from the passage quoted by Galatinus, lib. xi.
cap. 1, from the book Beracoth, that “Israel shall no more
make mention of their departure out of Egypt in the age to
come, in the days of the Messiah :” and from the words
cited by Mr. Mede, Luke xxi. 24, “The Jews shall be car-
ried captives into all mations, till the times of the gentiles
be fulfilled, and then they shall see the Son of man coming
in the clouds:” from the words of Tobit, cited by Mr. Mede,
p. 579, “Then the children of Israel shall go into a very
long captivity ; but the blessed God shall remember them,
and gather them from the four corners of the earth.” Ac-
cordingly, Mr. Mede sums up their opinion thus: “They
expect their forefathers, at least such as were just and holy,
should rise in the beginning of the same millennium, and
reign in the land of Israel, with their offspring, under the
Messiah:” and, saith he, “I can hardly believe that all
this smoke of tradition could arise, but from some fire of
truth anciently made known to them.” And this I freely
grant, and do indeed suppose, by asserting a prediction of
such a general call of the Jews, near the close of the world,
as they styled Čovoroisaic, “a reviving,” and “a resurrection”
of them. But how comes this tradition to relate to Chris-
tian martyrs beheaded for the name of Christ, or to be ful-
filled in the resurrection of them only who are chiefly
Christians, not of the Jews, but of the gentiles? Mr. Mede
solves the matter thus, p. 604, “Under the second sort
of these reigners, I would in a particular respect understand
the nation of the Jews then converted to the Christian faith,
who, coming in towards the end of the day, may, above all
others, be said to be those who had not worshipped the beast,
nor his image, nor had received his mark upon their foreheads
or their hands.” And thus will truth prevail at last, but to
the ruin of this literal resurrection : for how can they lite-
rally be said to “live again, and to have a part in the first
resurrection,” who were never slain for the faith ? and who
are not to be converted, say their own prophecies and tra-
ditions, till God createth a new heaven and a new earth, and
much less till the fall of Babylon 2
CHAPTER III.
§. I. This chapter contains an answer to all the arguments
produced from scripture, to prove this literal resurrection
of the martyrs, and this reign of them on earth a thousand
years, viz. 1. To the chief argument for this opinion,
from Rev. xx. 4–6. §. II. To 2 Pet. iii, from ver. 5. 13.
§ III. To Heb. ii. 5, compared with i. 6. §. IV. To Matt.
v. 5, “The meek shall inherit the earth.” S. W. To Rom.
viii. 19, 20, “The creature shall be delivered from the
bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the
sons of God.” $. VI. To Acts iii. 20, 21. “The heavens
must receive him, till the time of the restitution of all
things.” $. VII. To Matt. xix. 27–29, “Ye that have fol-
lowed me in the regeneration shall sit upon twelve thrones.
—And they shall receive a hundred-fold now in this life.”
I PROCEED now to the arguments produced from scripture,
for the doctrine of the millennium; to which I hope to re-
turn a clear and satisfactory answer, beginning with those
words of the Revelation in which all the assertors of this
doctrine place their confidence. And they are these:
Ş. I. Arg. 1. “And I saw thrones, and they sat upon
them, and judgment was given to them; and I saw the
souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus,
and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the
beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon
their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned
with Christ a thousand years.
“But the rest of the dead lived not again till the thousand
years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
“Blessed and holy is he who hath part in the first resur-
rection : on such the second death hath no power; but they
shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with
him a thousand years,” Rev. xx. 4–6.
l. Here, Say they, is mention of a first resurrection, ante-
cedent to the general resurrection of the just, who are not
to live again, till they who first rise have reigned a thousand
years on earth.
2. This resurrection, say they, is proper to those who were
“slain for the testimony of Jesus, and the word of God, and
were not worshippers of the beast.”
3. This resurrection, say they, is not a metaphorical, but
a proper resurrection; for the Souls, i. e. the persons of them
that were slain live again.
4. They do “reign with Christ a thousand years,” and
that reign, say most of them, is to be upon earth; therefore
there is to be a reign of those martyrs who were “slain for
the testimony of Jesus, and the word of God,” upon earth
a thousand years.
Now, in answer to this argument, let it be noted :
Ans. 1. That it is not the bodies, but the souls of them
that are beheaded, who are said to live. Now the word
sºvº, rendered “Soul,” occurs six times in this book, this
place excepted; and in all these places, it signifies either the
Soul in separation or distinction from the body, or the living
soul; for, vi. 9, “the souls under the altar” not only “cry
with a loud voice,” but they are “clothed with white robes,”
ver. 10, 11. Which expressions cannot be well applied to
dead bodies, viii. 9. The ºria/aara #x2yra lux&g are “the
creatures having (animal) souls,” by which they lived, xii.
ll. It plainly signifies their lives, i. e. the souls by which
men live, xvi. 3. It is expressly box” &ca, “the living
soul,” xviii. 13. It signifies the lives of men, or else the
souls of men, which they did hunt for, or devour, as Ezek.
xiii. 18. 20. 22. 25, and ver. 14, Évr:6vºxia rāg Juxº, is the
desire, not of the body, but of the soul: why therefore must
this word be here supposed to signify, not the soul, but that
dead body opposite to it, which alone properly can be said
to rise and live again 2
2. Let it be noted, that a proper and a literal resurrection
is never, in the whole New Testament, expressed or repre-
sented to us by the “living of the soul;” but always by the
living, raising, or the resuscitation of the dead, “the raising
of the bodies of the saints, of them that slept in the dust,”
or “in their graves and sepulchres,” or who were “buried
in the sea,” or “in the earth:” if then the Holy Ghost here
meant a literal and proper resurrection, why doth he so
much vary from the terms he constantly doth use elsewhere,
whenever ke discourseth of such a resurrection, and take up
with the terms so oft applied in scripture to a moral and
metaphorical resurrection, as we shall see hereafter 2
Ans. 2. I grant that here is mention of a first resurrec-
tion, an antecedent to the general and proper resurrection;
but then it plainly is a resurrection in which all that are
“blessed and holy,” and over whom the “second death hath
no power,” have a part, ver. 6; and they are all whose
names are written in the book of life, wer. 14, 15. It is a
resurrection of all who had not worshipped the beast, ver. 4,
and they are all the same persons, Rev. xiii. 8. It is a re-
surrection of those who are made “kings and priests to God
and Christ,” which all good Christians are, 1 Pet. ii. 5, 6,
and therefore not of martyrs only.
Again, it is a resurrection before the day of judgment,
and before the sea, and death, and the grave deliver up their
dead, as the words following intimate, ver. 12, 13, viz. “I
saw the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the
books were opened; and another book, which is the book of
life; and the dead were judged out of those things which
were written in the books, according to their works. And
the sea gave up her dead that were in it: and death and
hades delivered up their dead that were in them : and they
were judged, every man according to his works.” Where
note, that the dead delivered up were all that were “judged
according to their works.” It also is a resurrection before
Christ's coming “to render to every man as his works shall
be;” for this he after promiseth to do, xxii. 12. Whereas,
according to the doctrine of the millennium, Christ had al-
ready given to them whom he had raised to reign with him
on earth, the blessing promised “to him that overcometh,”
Rev. ii. 26, 27. iii.21. v. 10.
3. The rest of the dead, that lived not again until the
thousand years were finished, are not the just, but the syna-
gogue of Satan, Gog and Magog, ver, 8. For St. John, ch.
xix., represents the “King of kings and Lord of lords,
1128
TREATISE ON
with “the armies which were in heaven, making war with
the kings of the earth, and their armies,” and giving “their
flesh to be meat” unto them; in which war “ the beast was
taken, and the false prophet, and cast alive into a lake of
fire,” wer. 20. And then it follows thus, zai oi Aotºroi, “And
the rest of them,” who were gathered together to make war
with this King of kings, “were slain with the sword that
came out of his mouth, and all the fowls were filled with
their flesh,” ver. 21. Now, it being by the pagan emperors
first, and by the beast afterward, that Satan, “the great
dragon, made war with the seed of the woman which kept
the commandments of God, and had the testimony of Jesus
Christ,” Rev. xii. 17, these instruments of Satan being thus
Biain, and overcome by Christ, Satan is bound a thousand
years; i.e. he is so long disabled from persecuting and mo-
lesting the church of Christ: and during this space she is
raised up to her primitive purity, and flourisheth gloriously,
and so is represented as having a resurrection from the dead:
this thousand years being ended, Satan is let loose again, and
gathers again his instruments, i.e. “the nations which are in
the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to battle,
and they compass the camp of the saints,” Rev. xx. 8, 9.
And this is the living of the rest of the dead again after the
thousand years were ended, ver, 5. For it is only, oi Aotºroi,
“the rest” that were slain, xix. 21, that lived again; it is
only those who had no share in the first resurrection, and so
were neither blessed nor holy, ver. 6, nor had their names
written in the book of life; and consequently, those on which
the second death had place, which death they suffered when
“fire came down from heaven and devoured them,” and
they were cast “into the lake of fire with the devil,” ver, 10.
l5.
And that of Aotºroi, “the rest,” xix. 21. xx. 5, should sig-
nify the same persons, cannot seem strange, if we consider
that only four verses intervene betwixt them. And that
they must be the Sáme persons is evident from the connexion
of the words, thus; “The rest of the dead lived not till the
thousand years” of Satan's binding, and the saints’ reign,
were ended, ver. 5. And when those “thousand years were
ended, Satan was loosed, and gathered them together against
that church of Christ which had thus reigned a thousand
years,” ver. 7–10.
And this interpretation of “the rest of the dead” rising
again, gives a clear answer to the objection of Mr. Mede
against the other senses commonly imposed upon these
words, viz. “That it would be a most harsh and violent
interpretation to say, The dead and the living again of the
dead should not be taken in the same sense:” for, ac-
cording to this exposition, they are exactly taken in the
same sense: the dead church living again, in the same
metaphorical sense in which the rest of the dead, the ene-
mies of the church, live again at the end of the thousand
years, when Satan is loosed, and gathers them to battl
against the church.
4. The souls of them who were “slain for the testim
of Jesus, and for the word of God,” are those Christians
who were slain in the time of the ten persecutions; and the
souls of them “who worshipped not the beast,” are those
Christians who chose rather to die, or suffer persecution,
than to be guilty of Romish idolatry: and they are said to
live again, as the beast which had received rºw ºr?.nyńy Savá-
ºrcu, “the wound of death, and one of whose heads was
wounded to death, śćnasy, lived again,” Rev. xiii. 3, 12, viz.
in the succession, of the antichristian beast to him which
exercised the power of the heathen emperors over the earth,
and revived the idolatry of the heathen empire. And as
the two witnesses, when slain, are said to live again, “the
spirit of life from God entering into them,” Rev. xi. 7. 11,
because a succession of men of the same faith, and the
same opposition to the beast, revive and flourish after they
were slain; some here reply, that “this was spoken of the
two churches,” that they were slain, and lived again, not
of the supposita. But why then may not the words of the
St. John be spoken of the church of Jew and gentile, then
reviving, and not of the supposita P Moreover, these two
witnesses are said to be slain, ver. 7, and their “dead bodies
to lie in the streets of the great city,” ver. 18, to be seen
lying there “three days and a haif,” and not to be suffered
to be put into their graves, ver, 9, and “after three days
and a half, the Spirit of God” is said to “enter into them,
to make them stand upon their feet, and live again.” If
therefore nothing of this be spoken of the supposita, why
should those words, “I saw the souls of them who were
beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and they lived again,” be
spoken of the supposita, and not of the churches of the con-
verted Jews and gentiles P. This being the prophetic scheme
by which the scripture still represents the glorious restora-
tion of God’s church and people. For,
l. The restoration of the church is sometimes represented
as a resurrection of it from the dead. So saith the prophet
Isaiah, ēvacrázov'ral of vexeoi, “Thy dead shall arise, and be
raised out of their tombs,” xxvi. 19. So God speaks to the
Jewish nation by Ezekiel, saying, “I will open your graves,
and cause you to come out of your graves, and bring you
into the land of Israel,” Ezek. xxxvii. 13, 14. The pro-
phet Hosea speaks thus; “In three days, ižavaarmaïweóa,
we shall rise up again, and we shall live before him,” Hos.
vi. 2. ' And the apostle, speaking of this very matter, viz.
the conversion of the Jews, saith, “It shall be even to the
gentiles, Koh in vexpāv, as life from the dead,” Rom. xi. 15.
Here then is a resurrection of the church of God, agreeable
to that which our interpretation of this passage of the Reve-
lation doth import: nor is there any more reason to say 'he
words of St. John respect the supposita, and not the
churches, than to sa, the same of many of the places cited.
Moreover, the scripture doth more frequently mention the
restoration of the church, and her return from a low, cap-
tive, and afflicted state, under the metaphor of “a new life,
a life from the dead,” a reviviscence of God’s church and
people. Thus when God moved the Persian kings to let
the Jews return to their own land, he is by Ezra said to give
them £ootroinorw, “a reviviscence,” Ezra ix. 8, 9. The
psalmist, speaking of himself, as the text, or of God’s peo-
ple also, saith the marginal reading, useth these words,
“Thou which hast shown me great and sore troubles, shalt
quicken me (marg. us) again, and shalt bring me up again
(marg. us) from the depth of the earth,” Ps. lxxi. 20. And
the church speaketh thus to God, Koćasic, “Thou wilt
quicken us,” and “we will call upon thy name,” Ps. lxxx.
18. And again, “Thou wilt return, Kai Kożast; hºwäc, and
revive us, and thy people shall rejoice in thee,” Ps. lxxxv.
Zhaoyºral of reówºré; a ov, “Thy dead men shall live,” Isa.
xxvi. 19, say Symmachus and Theodotion. Znagas3a, “We
shall live in his sight,” saith the prophet Hosea, vi. 2, 3, and
xiv. 17. “They shall live with their children, and return
again,” saith the prophet Zachary, x. 8, 9. The son of Si-
rach saith, “At the coming of Elias, Čoff Ómarépceda, we shall
live again, xlviii. 11. But the chief seat of this metaphor
is in the thirty-seventh chapter of Ezekiel, where God is
introduced inquiring of the Jews in Babylon, ei (hasrat,
“Can these bones live P” ver. 3, and promising to put into
them arvsöp.a. Koſic, “the breath of life,” ver. 5, and saying,
“I will put my Spirit into you, Kai Kha'ezée, and ye shall
live;” and bidding the prophet blow upon them, kai ºnzá-
rozav, “that they may live,” ver, 9, and declaring that when
he had done so, “breath entered into them, wai śćna'ay, and
they lived again, and stood upon their feet,” ver. 10; in all
which places, the very word which St. John useth to express
the first resurrection is here used to express the return of
the church from her obscurity and thraldom to a glorious
state. Why therefore may not the word in St. John bear
that sense which it so often bears in the prophetic writings,
and twice in the New Testament,” when spoken of the gen-
tiles? It hence at last appears, that by this interpretation I
put no force upon the words, but do expound them in the
familiar sense in which they are still used upon the like oc-
casion in the prophetic writings.
Now it is generally agreed by those who own the conver-
sion of the Jews, that it is not to commence till after the
destruction of the beast, or the downfall of antichrist, man-
tioned ch. xviii. And therefore in the next chapter ht
begins his discourse upon it saying, xix. 7, “The marriage
of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready;”
i.e. she who was formerly put away, because she was not
* “o 33expá; alou ºrog vskgèg ºv, Kai &yśćnos, Luke xv. 32.
Rom, xi. 15.
THE MILLENNIUM.
1129
prepared" for the bridegroom's coming, was now to be mar-
ried to God again. And, ch. xxi., hereassumes this matter,
and shows the bride, the Lamb's wife, in such a description
as will not suffer us to doubt she is the Jewish nation con-
verted to the Christian faith: for he calls her the holy city,
and the new Jerusalem; and tells us, in the very words of
Isaiah, lx. 3. 10, that the “nations which shall be saved
shall walk in the light of this city.” He calleth her also
the bride to be married to the Lamb; which is the descrip-
tion the prophets make of this converted nation, viz. as “of
a bride adorned with her jewels, and as one that is to be
married to the Lord” (Isa. lxi. 10. lxii. 4, 5). And he
goes on in a continual description of this new Jerusalem, in
the words of the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel, speaking of
the conversion of the Jewish nation. The city also “com-
ing down from heaven,” ver. 10, is the new church of the
converted Jews, said to come down from heaven, according
to the Hebrew phrase; because of that divine wisdom, and
those spiritual gifts and graces, with which she shall be adorn-
ed from heaven: for, as they were wont to say of one who
treated of sublime heavenly things, that he did yºpºp nºy,
“ascend into heaven,”; and speak as one who was admitted
into the divine councils (Deut. xxx. 11, 12. Prov. xxx. 3),
and of those who heard these things, that they were “ex-
alted to heaven” (Matt. xii. 23); so the pouring down of
these gifts and blessings is represented as “the opening of
heaven,” and letting them down upon the earth. Thus
when St. John receives his prophecy, he “sees a door
opened in heaven,” and hears “a voice, saying, Come up
hither, and I will show thee what shall be hereafter,” Rev.
iv. 1. Where note, that the voice he heard then was “as
the voice of a trumpet:” and so the very same voice he
heard when he was “in the Spirit,” Rev. i. 10. The two
witnesses also, when they live again, are “called up into
heaven,” Rev. xi. 11, 12, as being filled with heavenly wis-
dom. And since the spiritual gifts imparted to the church
are said to come “from above, from the Father of lights,”
James i. 7, and they who were made partakers of them, to
have “tasted tâ; 3opsä, äroveaviov, of the heavenly gift;”
seeing the church of Christ “is the Jerusalem which is
from above,” Gal. iv. 25, “the heavenly Jerusalem,” Heb.
xii. 22, it is no wonder that she is represented here as com-
ing down from heaven, when she was, as it were, to have a
“new birth” which is “from above,” John iii. 3,' and to be
adorned with “spiritual blessings in heavenly things in
Christ Jesus,” Eph. i. 3, and to be reduced to her primitive
lustre and purity, for then shall the purity of the church
return, and be as it was in the times of the first martyrs for
the faith; and the gospel shall be professed, without any
antichristian mixture; as they who opposed the beast en-
deavoured to preserve it: and thus shall these martyrs and
opposers of the beast live again. -
A reverend and worthy person, of more than ordinary
skill in matters of this nature, is of opinion, -
First, “That the first resurrection here mentioned, will be
a literal resurrection of them that have lost their lives for
the tastimony of Christ, to enjoy eternal life in heaven a
thousand years before the general resurrection, as the mar-
tyrs of the Old Testament arose with the body of Christ,”
Matt. xxvii. 52. “They shall reign,” saith he, “with Christ,
not on earth, but in heaven, where Christ is, and shall be,
till he come to judgment.”
Secondly, He is of opinion, “that not only the martyrs
shall then rise to heavenly bliss, but that their murderers
shall then also rise to eternal punishment:” which he gathers
from those words of Daniel, xii. 2, “And many of them
that sleep in the dust shall arise, some to everlasting life,
and some to everlasting shame and contempt.” Now,
First, Against the doctrine of the first and second resur-
rection, properly so called, I have offered some arguments
in the annotations on 1 Cor. xv. and ch. iv. §. II. I there-
fore only farther note,
First, That St. Matthew speaks not one word of any mar-
tyrs that arose after Christ's resurrection, but only of the
arising of some Saints that slept, and their going into the holy
city, and appearing unto many; which seems rather to make
* Not Totº, “ready.”
+ Buxtorf, Floril, p. 4.
it probable, they were saints who had lived in the memory
of those to whom they appeared, and were known (see the
note there).
Secondly, St. Matthew doth not say, as St. John doth,
that “many souls lived ;” but, that "roxxâ adjaara, “many
bodies of those that slept arose out of their sepulchres:” his
words must therefore be understood of a proper resurrection
of the bodies of the saints: but it cannot be hence inferred,
that the words of St. John bear the same sense.
Thirdly, St. John doth not say, his martyrs shall reign
with Christ a thousand years “before the general resurrec-
tion,” but only, that “they shall reign with Christ a thou-
sand years ;” which seems an odd expression, when applied
to them who are raised to reign for ever with him ; add to
this, that after the resurrection of St. John's saints to
“reign with Christ a thousand years,” Satan is loosed, and
raises his armies to fight against, and compass about rºw rag-
#480xy rāv Āyāov, “the camp of the saints,” ver. 7–9,
which fairly intimates, that the saints, mentioned ver. 6, as
partakers of the first resurrection, were still on earth, and
not reigning with Christ in heaven.
Lastly, The second part of this opinion seems to contra-
dict many scriptures which expressly teach, that the time of
the punishment of the wicked shall be after the sentence of
absolution hath been passed upon the blessed, Matt. xxv.
41, 46, when all the good have gone into everlasting life,
John v. 28, 29, at the day of judgment, and when we shall
appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, Rom. ii. 8, 9. 16.
2 Cor. v. 10, and that they who have persecuted Christ's
members, shall be punished at “the revelation of Christ
from heaven,” 2. Thess. i. 6.9, at “the conflagration of the
world,” 2 Pet. ii. 9. iii. 7, at “the day of judgment,” Jude
14, 15, “when he cometh in the clouds,” Rev. i. 7, and that
the crown of glory shall be given to the righteous at the
same time (see note on 2 Tim. iv. 8).
Obj. 2. Some refer to this millennium those words of
Christ, Matt. v. 5, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall in-
herit the earth;” saying, that “neither David nor our Sa-
viour could understand this otherwise than of a future state ;
because it is not the meek, but the great ones of the world,
that slice the earth among them, and court-flatterers that
scramble for preferment.”
Ans. But it is evident to a demonstration, that David did
understand this of the present earth, or of the land of Ca-
naan ; for the tenor of this whole thirty-seventh Psalm is
designed to show, that wicked men shall, by God's judgment,
suddenly perish, whilst righteous men lived easily and quiet-
ly in the land of Canaan : so ver. 9, “Evil-doers shall be
cut off: but they that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit
the earth : for yet a little while, and the wicked shall not
be, but the meek shall inherit the earth. They that are
blessed of him shall inherit the earth ; and they that are
cursed of him shall be rooted out.” So ver. 34, “Wait on
the Lord, and keep his way, and he shall exalt thee, rod
wangoyoº.cat rºy yºv, to inherit the earth ; when the wicked
are destroyed, thou shalt see it” (see also ver, 14. 17. 19.
23, 24, 25, 26). It is therefore unadvisedly said, the psal-
mist “could not understand this of the present earth,” and
that upon a plain mistake of the import of the phrase ;
as if inheriting the earth was enjoying a vast fortune, or a
great share of temporal enjoyments here: whereas, the com-
fort of this life, as our Lord teacheth, Luke xii. 15, “con-
sisteth not in the abundance of the things that we possess.”
The phrase rather imports, that meekness is the best way to
procure us a long and peaceable life on earth, Ps. xiv. 12.
14. 1 Pet. iii. 10, and that the meek person shall ordinarily
have the most sure enjoyment of these things, as far as they
are needful: that he shall enjoy them with the greatest
quiet and tranquillity, without the strife, debate, anxiety, and
trouble, which embitter the enjoyment of these things to
others, and with the truest comfort, Satisfaction, and content-
edness of mind. For, as Chrysostom well observes upon
the place, because the Jews had been oft taught this lesson
in the Old Testament, our Saviour addresses himself to them
in the language they had been accustomed to ; this Son of
David repeateth and confirmeth to them the promise made
by David. And this I judge to be the most natural and
truest exposition of these words.
Obj. 3. Our Saviour promises to his disciples and follow-
1130
TREATISE ON
i
ers, that for the losses they should sustain here on his ac-
count, and for the sake of his gospel, they should receive
there a hundred-fold, and sit upon thrones with him, judging
, the tribes of Israel. The words are these: “And Jesus
said unto them, Verily I say unto you, that ye which have
followed me in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall
sit on the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve
thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel,” Matt. xix. 27,
28. These thrones must, in all reason, be the same with the
thrones mentioned, Dan. vii. Rev. xx. 4, and therefore mark
the same time and state; and seeing, in those places, they
plainly signify the millennial state, or the kingdom of Christ
and his saints, they must here signify the same in this pro-
mise of our Saviour to his suffering followers. And as to
the word Traxtyyevsaria, which is here translated “regenera-
tion,” it is well known, that both the Greek philosophers
and Greek fathers use that word for the renovation of the
world, which is to be at or before the millennial state.
Ans. In answer to this argument, I shall not take notice,
that what the argument saith is promised to Christ's disciples
and followers in general, is indeed promised only to his
twelve apostles, to them who had then lost all, “and fol-
lowed him,” Matt. xii. 17, to them who had “continued
with him in his temptations,” Luke xxii. 28. The thrones
here mentioned, therefore, cannot be the thrones spoken of
in Daniel and the Revelation ; for these thrones are peculiar
to the twelve apostles: those in the Revelation are supposed
to belong to all who have a share in the first resurrection :
the apostles sit upon these thrones, only “to judge the
twelve tribes of Israel ;” but they “who sit on the thrones,”
mentioned in the Revelation, are to “rule over the nations,
and judge them,” Rev. ii. 26, 27. iii. 21. v. 10. xx. 4–6.
But, -
Secondly, I grant, the maxiyyevsoria, or “regeneration,”
here mentioned, may be referred to the consummation of the
world, and to the new heavens and earth of which the pro-
phets speak : but then I add, this ºraxtyyevsoria, or “new
birth,” is only that of the church of Christ, that £oomoinaric,
or “new life,” that ºw; fix yeagāv, “ life from the dead,” she
shall receive, when all Israel shall be saved, and the “ful-
ness of the gentiles” shall flow in to them. For,
First, The persons here to be judged, are only the twelve
tribes of Israel : which makes it more than probable that
the whole promise made to the apostles respects their go-
vernment over these tribes, coming in at the close of the
world, after the fall of antichrist; and that not by a resur-
rection of their persons, but by a reviviscence of that spirit
which resided in them, and of that purity and knowledge
which they delivered to the world ; and chiefly by admission
of their gospel to be the standard of their faith, and the di-
rection of their lives.
Secondly, It hath been observed already, that the delivery
of the Jews from their former captivities and miseries, is
always represented as a 'worvinois, “a giving of life, and a
resurrection to the Jews.” And thus may those words of
St. John be primarily referred to them; viz. “I saw thrones,
and they sat upon them, and judgment was given to them.”
(xx. 4): though these things belong not to them only, but
in general “to him that overcometh” (ii. 26, 27. iii. 1).
Seeing then their return from their captivity, is, in the style
of the prophets, usually represented as a raxiyyevsoria, “a
reviving,” or “new life;” why may not the time of their
imost glorious conversion, and collection from all the corners
of the earth, be by our Saviour represented under that
known metaphor P And this conversion of the Jewish na-
tion, being by me placed in St. John's epocha, viz. after the
destruction of the beast, and the death and slaughter of the
armies of them that fought for him, or worshipped his image;
and her converted members being, in my opinion, the very
“bride of the Lamb, which had made herself ready,” and,
after a long divorce, was now married to God again, I com-
ply in this with all the ancient millenaries, and especially
with Justin Martyr,” when he saith, this maxiyyevsala “is
the mystery of all that expect Jesus Christ to appear at
&f - .
* "orsp xai 33 'Haraiov #xigvw.ro 33 wasíovov, #y of wai ré
fava rāgtoy tréaw rā; yevéago, hºv, xai &m N㺠Trávrov, röv Kºta-
röy iv 'Iseova'axºp, payhagaºal ºrpoo`okºv'roy. Dial, cum Tryph.
p. 312, B, et p. 307.
Jerusalem,” spoken of by Isaiah, ch. lxvi., and that “all
Christians entirely orthodox, expect to spend a thousand
years in Jerusalem,” as the prophet Isaiah hath foretold,
saying, “There shall be a new heaven and new earth:” for
as these things are spoken by a prophet of the Jews (one
sent to speak these things to them), so is it beyond dispute,
that they chiefly and immediately concern that nation, and
her rexyoyola, new birth of a numerous offspring, after a long
barrenness (lxvi. 7–9), and her exaltation to a high estate
of excellence and glory ; and that so visible to the gentiles
that all nations and tongues shall see her glory.
As for the following words, urged stiffly by the ancient
and some latter millenaries, viz. “And every one that hath
forsaken house, or brethren, or sister, or father, or mother,
or wife and children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall
receive a hundred-fold now in this time, houses, and brothers,
and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands; and in
the world to come, eternal life:” it is, in my opinion,
First, Very unreasonable to interpret these words of bless-
ings to be conferred on men after the resurrection; for they
that are thought “worthy to be the sons of the resurrection,”
saith our Lord, “neither marry nor are given in marriage,”
Luke xx. 35. Whence therefore should they have these
mothers, and these children, not to add wives, a hundred-
fold P. They are made like to angels at the resurrection ;
and what should such angelic persons do with, what advan-
tage will they reap from, a hundred houses, or a like in-
crease of land, in earth P *
If you reply, that these words of our Saviour relate not
to the first resurrection ; of which this text, which speaks of
wives and children, is to be interpreted, but only to the
second and general resurrection ; I answer, that the words
are general, and therefore must include all that are “sons
of the resurrection.” Moreover, by admitting this double
resurrection, the first, in which they that are raised might
marry, or have wives and children, and the second, in which
they could not, the objection or inquiry of the sadducees is
partly left unanswered ; for this distinction doth suppose a
resurrection, in which the ground of their inquiry might
take place.
Secondly, This wonderful increase is promised, yūy, “at
present,” #y tº Katº, rotºro, “in this time of life,” Mark x.
30. Luke xviii. 28, in opposition to what they shall receive
“in the age to come.” Now the millennium is still placed,
by Dr. Burnet, in the age to come after the conflagration of
the world; this promise therefore cannot refer to his mil-
lennium, nor yet to any other which begins after the resur-
rection of these persons ; for that time can with no propriety
of speech be said to be now ; nor can the blessings then
received, be said, to be received in this life. Moreover, these
blessings are to be received, ºxerê štayºv, “with persecu-
tions;” it being the known observation of critics and gram-
marians,” that ºxetà with a genitive case, signifies “with.”
and denotes, row airāv kaigăy, “the same time;” and only
with an accusative case signifies “after,” and denotes Üa repo-
Xéoviay, “a following time;” so that these persecutions must
be contemporary with the enjoyment of these blessings;
whereas a general peace, and freedom from all persecutions, i.
is made a necessary character of the millennial state.
Lastly, These words afford an argument against the doc-
trine of the millennium ; because, according to them, the
only blessing to be received, #y rà aišvi ré, Éexotzávº, “in the
age to come,” is “life everlasting ;” which blessing is con-
fined to heaven, and not to be enjoyed on the earth, our
“house eternal being in the heavens” (2 Cor. v. 1), and our
“inheritance eternal reserved in the heavens for us :” and
therefore, they to whom the promise is here made, are not
in the world to come to live a thousand years on earth, or
to enjoy the temporal blessings promised here ; because they
are not to be enjoyed in the world to come, but now, in this
present life ; and because the only blessing promised in the
world to come, is not to be enjoyed on earth, but is reserved
in the heavens for us (1 Pet. i. 4).
Obj. 4. St. Peter, in his sermon to the Jews, after our
Saviour's ascension, tells them, that he will come again, and
that there will be then a restitution of all things, such as was
promised by the prophets: “The heavens,” saith he, “must
* Phavorinus. + Dr. Burnet, p. 185.
e-º º sº.
THE MILLENNIUM.
1131
receive him till the time of restitution of all things, which
God hath spoken by the mouth of all his prophets since the
world began ” (Acts iji. 20, 21).
Ans. I answer, That these words cannot be meant of a
restitution of all things to their former state: for sure it is
very improper to say, there will be a restitution of all things
to their former state, “which God hath spoken by the mouth
of all his holy prophets;” for since these things relate to the
forerunner of our Lord, Christ's coming in the flesh, his life,
death, resurrection, and ascension, the preaching of the gos-
pel to the gentiles, the reign of antichrist, the calling of the
Jews, and the coming in of the fulness of the gentiles, these
things may very well be said to be exhibited, performed,
accomplished, and consummated: but I see not with what
propriety or truth they can be said to be restored to their
former states, or be renewed ; and therefore &xg 3.66woy &ro-
warazºráo so; ºrávrov, is, by the Syriac, rendered, “Until the
fulness of the time of all things;” by the Arabic, “Till the
time in which all things shall be perfected,” or “finished; ”
by Tertullian,” Adusque tempora exhibitionis omnium ; by
Irenaeus,'t Usque ad tempus dispositionis omnium, i.e. “Till
the time of the exhibition, or disposal of all things ;” by
CEcumenius, “Till the time that all things do six triga; #x0sív,
come to an end.” And for the confirmation of this import
of the word, we have the suffrage of Hesychius and Phavo-
rinus, that &m oxarártaciç is rexstoriº, “the consummation of
a thing.” Hence then I argue thus against this doctrine :
Since Christ is to continue in heaven till the completion or
consummation of all things, spoken by the holy prophets,
if the millennium were any of them, Christ must continue in
heaven till the consummation of that also, and therefore is
not to come down from heaven to reign on earth till the
millennium be ended ; nor can that be contemporary with
our Lord's second coming, which is from heaven.
The arguments produced in favour of this millennium, from
Rom. viii. 19–21, from 2 Thess. ii. 1, from Heb. i. 6, and
ii. 5, and from 2 Pet. iii. 8–12, are sufficiently answered in
the notes on those places.
CHAPTER IV.
$. I. This chapter contains arguments against the literal
resurrection, and the reign of martyrs upon earth a thou-
sand years. First, From the inconsistency of it with the
happy state of souls departed. §. II. Secondly, From
the accurate description of the resurrection in the holy
scripture, without any mention of a first and second resur-
rection, and with such descriptions of the qualities of the
bodies raised, the efficient cause, of the time, circumstances,
and consequents of it, which suit not with the doctrine of
the millennium.
of it with the genius of the Christian faith, and the nature
of the gospel promises.
HAVING thus shown, that scripture and antiquity afford
no sure foundation for this supposed resurrection of the
saints and martyrs to reign with Christ on earth a thousand
years, I proceed now to show the inconsistence of this doc-
trime with many things delivered in the holy scripture.
§. I. First, This doctrine seems not well consistent with
the happy state of souls departed, recorded in the sacred
writings; for can it rationally be supposed, that those “spirits
of just men made perfect,” which are now with Christ (Heb.
xii. 23), and, being “absent from the body are present with
the Lord ” (2 Cor. v. 8. Phil. i. 23), should leave those
blessed mansions, or quit that happy state, to live on earth
again a thousand years 2 that they who are already “entered
into rest " (Luke xxiii. 43), and who enjoy all the delights
and satisfactions which paradise itself affords, should quit that
station to enjoy peace and plenty upon earth P can they ex-
pect to be more righteous and holy, or to have more divine
and heavenly speculations, or better company, or a more full
fruition of their Lord on earth, than they enjoyed in paradise?
if not, who can imagine that God should thus degrade them
after so long enjoyment of those happy regions, or that they
should voluntarily quit those mansions for any temporal
enjoyments of the body, any meat or drink, or earthly plea-
sures, which they had formerly denied themselves, and were
* De Resur, Carn, cap. 23. B. lib. iii, cap. 12.
Š. III. Thirdly, From the inconsistency
even dead to whilst they lived here; or for any temporary
converse upon that earth in which they only lived as pilgrims
and strangers, still “looking for a better country, that is, a
heavenly 2” (Heb. xi. 13. 16.) And if this change seems
not consistent with the state of happy souls in general, much
less will it comport with those especial privileges and high
prerogatives, supposed by some fathers to belong unto the
Souls of martyrs, viz. that they do instantly receive their
crowns, and are admitted to a fuller vision, and a more inti-
mate enjoyment of the God of heaven; for the higher their
advancement is, the greater must their degradation be, when
they return again to live on earth. So that this doctrine
seems least of all consistent with the state of those Christian
sufferers, who are supposed to be the very persons for whom
it chiefly was designed, and to whom it is chiefly promised.
Secondly, Let us compare the resurrection mentioned by
the holy Scripture, with that supposed by the millenaries, and
we shall easily discern, that no man reasonably can desire
to enjoy the latter who can be made partaker of the former.
They who believe the resurrection promised in scripture,
expect our Lord “from heaven to change their vile bodies
into the likeness of Christ's glorious body” (Phil. iii. 21).
The millenaries expect him to change or to restore them
into such bodies, as shall be still mortal, corruptible bodies;
for else, what need of meat and drink, what pleasure can
they reap from their plenty 2 The first expect “this cor-
ruptible should then put on incorruption, this mortal put on
immortality” (1 Cor. xv. 53). The second, that it should
do this only after a thousand years; for they suppose (book
iv. ch. 9, p. 206), “that nature may be weak,” and they may
be “desirous to be dissolved ” in the millennial state. The
first expect, that their “dishonourable bodies should be
raised in glory" (ver. 43). The second, that they be first
raised with their dishonourable parts. The first, that the
body should be raised “a spiritual and a celestial body,”
bearing “the image of the heavenly Adam ” (ver. 44. 48).
The second, that it be first raised an earthly body, bearing
the image of the earthly Adam. And oh , how inglorious,
how despicable, is the resurrection which these men expect,
compared with the resurrection promised in the holy scrip-
ture How much more happy would the saints and martyrs
be, could they immediately enjoy the scripture resurrection,
than by enjoying that which the millenaries have allotted
to them 2 “And why should any one conceive they should
not do it P Is it because there is a necessity they should
first live on earth a thousand years,” to prepare them for
heaven and eternal glory; ut paulatim assuescant capere
Deum, as Irenaeus+ says, “that they may by degrees enlarge
their capacities, fit and accustom themselves to receive God;’
or, as he says in another place, that “they may become
capable of the glory of the Father,’ that is, capable of bear-
ing the glory and presence of God?” Sure this is not for the
credit of the martyrs, that they should not be fit or capable
to receive God, and enjoy the glory of the Father, without
employing their contemplations and devotions upon earth a
thousand years, when those holy persons, who rise not till
the general resurrection, shall from that time be “for ever
with the Lord ” (1 Thess. iv. 17), and be immediately par-
takers of the beatific vision. Moreover, what is it that
must be thus fitted and capacitated by contemplation to re-
ceive God, and to enjoy this blessed vision? Is it not the
soul? and can she not as well contemplate him under the
altar or the throne, or whilst she doth abide in paradise ? Is
coming down from those celestial regions to this dull earth,
the way to elevate the soul to heaven P Will putting on a
corruptible body, a body needing plenty of earthly things,
and finding pleasure in them, be the way to quicken and
invigorate her heavenly flights and aspirations? Or, is there
no true friendship, f no ingenuous conversation to be had in
paradise, that the soul must descend to earth to enjoy it?
Or, is it necessary as Tertullian š and others || argue, by way
* Dr. Burnet, book iv. ch. 9. + Lib. v. cap. 32.
: Dr. Burnet, p. 293. - -
§ In compensationem eorum quae in seculo vel despexi-
mus, vel amisimus: siquidem et justum, et Deo dignum,
illic exaltare famulos ejus ubi sunt afflicti in nomine ipsius.
Tertull. adv. Marcion. lib. iii. cap. 23, p. 412. , 8
| In quâ enim conditione laboraverunt, sive afflicti sunt
1132
TREATISE ON
of retribution, “that the body which hath suffered, may be
rewarded in like kind;” i. e. that it may be now gratified
with bodily delights, the pleasures of the throat and palate,
fine clothes, and innocent diversions here on earth P As if a
“change of this vile body into the likeness of Christ's glorious
body,” were not a better and far more glorious reward of all
its sufferings. *
Arg. 2. §. II. A second argument against this doctrine, of
a proper resurrection to reign with Christ a thousand years
on earth, is taken from the accurate description of the resur-
rection contained in the holy scripture. For,
First, In all the descriptions the Holy Ghost so largely gives
us of the resurrection, and the future judgment, in the evan-
gelists and the epistles, there is no mention of a first and
second resurrection, or of any prerogative of some saints
above othere in it, or of any precedence of any before others,
as to the resurrection of their bodies; which might have
reasonably been expected, had this doctrine been then re-
ceived, in some of those places where the thing is so largely
and critically discoursed on, as to inform us twice, that the
order of the resurrection shall be this, “that the dead in
Christ shall rise first?” (1 Thess. iv. 16, 17), and then, “we
that are alive shall be changed,” and that Christ is raised “as
the first-fruits,” and that “afterward they that are Christ’s ’’
shall be raised “at his coming:” here, I confess, is mention
made of an order in the resurrection; for it is said, “In
Christ shall all be made alive, every man in his own order,”
1 Cor. xv. 33, but then the order is expressed thus, “Christ
the first-fruits, afterward they that are Christ's. Whereas,
according to the millennial hypothesis, the words should
rather have run thus, “Christ the first-fruits,” then the mar-
tyrs, and a thousand years after the residue of the just : in
the Epistle to the Thessalonians also, there is no order of
the resurrection of the dead mentioned; but of them altoge-
ther, and without distinction, it is said, “Them that sleep in
Christ will God bring with him, and the dead in Christ shall
rise first.” W -
In answer to this argument, we have been told, that “as
the scripture speaks of the resurrection in gross, without
distinguishing first and second, so it speaks of the coming of
our Saviour, without distinction of first and second.” But
this is a great oversight; for the scripture gives express notice
of Christ's coming #4. Sevrégou, “a second time,” for the
salvation of his servants, Heb. ix. 20, and of his “coming
again,” to receive them into those mansions he is gone to
prepare for them, John xiv. 3. There being therefore equal
reason to expect a like distinction betwixt the first and second
resurrection properly so called, the constant silence of the
scriptures, as to that matter, is no small prejudice against that
hypothesis, which doth suppose a first and second resurrec-
tion.
Secondly, The scripture in those places containeth many
things which seem most plainly inconsistent with that doc-
trine ; for either in those places the scripture speaketh only
of the second resurrection exclusively of the first, and then
it is not true which Mr. Mede asserts, that “the day of judg-
ment, and the time of the resurrection, include both the
millennium and the general resurrection;” or, that “the scrip-
ture speaks of the resurrection in the gross, without distin-
guishing betwixt the first and second ;” for, if it speaks only
of the second exclusively of the first, it must speak of it dis-
tinctly from the first, or it must in those places intend to
speak of both conjunctly and without distinction ; and then
what is said in them must be applicable to them both without
distinction. *
Again, The scripture in those places speaketh many things:
first, as to the nature of the resurrection, and the qualities of
the bodies raised. Secondly, as to the efficient cause of the
resurrection, our Lord Jesus. Thirdly, as to the time of the
resurrection. Fourthly, as to the circumstances, and the
immediate consequences of that resurrection, which are by
no means applicable to the first and the particular resurrec-
tion supposed by the millenaries, but only to the general
resurrection, which all Christians own. And,
First, That which the scripture saith of the nature and the
qualifications of the bodies raised, is this, that they shall be
omnibus modis, probati per sufferentiam, justum est in ipsá
recipere eos fructus sufferentiae. Iren, lib. v. cap. 32.
raised “glorious, spiritual, immortal, and incorruptible
bodies;” for then “this corruptible must put on incorrup-
tion, and this mortal must put on immortality" (1 Cor. xv.
42. 49); then shall we bear “ the image of the heavenly
Adam,” or of that Lord from heaven who shall “change our
vile bodies into the likeness of his glorious body” (Phil. iii.
21); then shall we “be clothed upon with our house from
heaven, and death shall be swallowed up in victory” (2 Cor.
v. 1, 4). Now, can a body raised in glory, i. e. in clarity
and in splendour, shining like the sun, and made “like to
Christ's glorious body,” and “like unto the angels,” as they
shall be, saith Christ, who are “thought worthy of the resur-
rection,” have any need of all the plenty which Dr. Burnet
hath prepared for it on earth Pº Can it feed upon or relish
any of the banquets which God, saith Irenaeus, and all the
ancient millenaries, hath prepared for it 2 Can a body raised
in power, i. e. free from all renitency, all pain and lassitude,
continue still, as Dr. Burnet (book iv. ch. 9, p. 206), makes
the bodies of his raised millenaries to do, under such weak-
ness of nature as “will not suffer them to continue long under
strong passions, or intenseness of mind?” Can a spiritual
body, free from grossness and ponderosity, from needing rest,
sleep, clothing, sustenance, receive advantage from that uni-
versal plenty (ch. 7, p. 184, 186), or need those goods of
fortune, that external felicity, that temporal happiness, he
hath provided for it upon earth 2 Can these men, raised
with immortal and incorruptible bodies, which have already
“swallowed up death in victory,” wish to be dissolved, as he
saith they will 2 (p. 206.) Can the devil, when loosed, be
so foolish, as to summon up his armies to fight against and
kill them who are immortal, and can die no more ? Can
Gog and Magog, with all their numerous host, hope to pre-
vail against them, or even dare to assault such shining radiant
bodies as they then will have? In a word, can such bodies
need or receive any farther exaltation to fit them for heaven,
or for their elevation into the clouds, to be for ever with the
Lord? If not, why should they'live a thousand years on
earth after God hath thus fitted and prepared them for their
habitation in the highest heavens 2 I therefore do imagine,
that when the patrons of this millennial resurrection find
themselves thus pressed, they will assign to their new-raised
inhabitants of the earth, a body capable of enjoying the good
things on earth and taking pleasure in those goods of fortune
they have there provided for them, and leave their bodies to
be changed after the millennium, “into the likeness of Christ's
glorious body,” and to suffer then another change into celes-
tial and spiritual bodies, though not another resurrection :
and it seems necessary for them to admit of the forementioned
absurdities, or to admit of this hypothesis; for when the
apostle saith, “The dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we
shall be changed,” their new-raised inhabitants must belong
to the dead, and so be raised incorruptible, and so incapable
of those earthly goods they mentioned, as their reward on
earth; or to the living, and then they must be changed.
And yet the shift is plainly contrary to the account St. Paul
hath given us of the resurrection of the body; for he ex-
pressly saith, that when this corruptible, weak, dishonoura-
ble, earthly body, shall be raised, it shall be raised in incor-
ruption, glory, power, and be a spiritual body ; that to the
natural succeeds the spiritual body, to the earthy the heav-
enly body (1 Cor. xv. 43,44), to the body bearing the image
of the earthy, the body bearing the image of the heavenly
Adam: whereas this shift must infer a body raised not in
glory, or in incorruption, not a spiritual and a heavenly
body, and so make these martyrs twice bear the image of the
earthy Adam, or at least at their resurrection not to bear the
image of the heavenly. Again, they who are then alive, and
shall be changed, saith the apostle, are only those who never
slept in the grave (ver. 51, 52). Now this cannot be true of
martyrs raised from the dead, and so the change here men-
tioned cannot belong to them.
Secondly, This doctrine seems inconsistent with what the
scripture most plainly hath delivered concerning our Lord
Jesus, the efficient cause, as well as the exemplar, of the
resurrection of those that are Christ's ; for he that is the
author of this resurrection, is ; Kūgio; # oiºavoſ, “the Lord
coming down from heaven,” to effect this, 1 Cor. xv. 47, our
.* Dr. Burnet, book iv. ch. 10, p. 217.
THE MILLENNIUM.
1133
Lord descending down &n' obgayoi, from the heavens,”
1 Thess. iv. 16. The time when God shall give to those
that have been persecuted and afflicted, rest with the apos-
tles, who sure will have a share in the first resurrection, is
the time “ of the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ from
heaven,” 2. Thess. i. 7. The time of this 'millennium, say
the patrons of it, is the time of the “restitution of all
things.” Now at that time, saith the apostle Peter, our
Jesus is to be “sent down from the heavens” (Acts iii. 20,
21), they being only to contain him till that time. And one
would think, that if the saints must reign with Christ on
earth a thousand years, he must be with them on the earth:
but this the patrons of the millennium will by no means
own, but look upon it as a great absurdity. For, that
“Christ should leave the right hand of his Father, to come
and pass a thousand years here below, living upon earth in
a heavenly body ; this, I confess,” saith Dr. Burnet,” “is a
thing I never could digest.” And “I dare not imagine,”
saith Mr. Mede,” “ of this presence of Christ in his kingdom,
that it should be a visible converse upon earth; for the
kingdom of Christ ever hath, and shall be regnum coelorum,
a kingdom whose throne and kingly residence is in heaven.”
Here then the scripture account of the resurrection, that it
shall be effected by the Lord Jesus coming down from
heaven, and the millennium of the ancients, is at once re-
jected ; for, as Lactantiust saith, “The Son of God shall.
come, and be conversant among men a thousand years, and
rule them with a righteous empire ; he shall reign with them
upon earth ;’ so was this the avowed doctrine of all the
ancient millenaries: for they not only did assert his reign on
earth, but assigned Jerusalem as the peculiar place of his re-
sidence, whilst he reigned upon it.
Thirdly, This doctrine is still more evidently repugnant to
the time assigned for the resurrection of the just ; for they
are to be raised, saith the apostle, “in a moment, in the
twinkling of an eye, at the last trump (1 Cor. xv. 52); for
the trumpet shall sound, and (then) the dead shall be raised
incorruptible, and we” that are alive, and have not slept,
“shall be changed; for the Lord himself shall descend from
heaven with a shout, and with the voice of the archangel,
and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise
first.” Here we are taught, that the dead in Christ, and so
the martyrs, shall not be raised till our Lord's descent from
heaven ; that then they shall be raised in a moment, in the
twinkling of an eye; that, immediately upon their being
raised, they that are then alive shall be changed. St. Jeromeş
therefore said, with good ground, that the apostle by these
words, cunctam primae et secundae resurrectionis excludit
fabulam, “destroys the fable of the first and second resurrec-
tion ;" by asserting that the resurrection of all that are dead
in Christ, and sleep in him, shall be performed “in a
moment,” and “in the twinkling of an eye, at the sounding
of the last trump,” and “at the shout” or voice “of the last
angel:” which leaves no room for a whole thousand years
betwixt the first and second resurrection, unless the angel
should be supposed to shout, or the trump sound, a thousand
years. “The hour cometh” (saith our Lord, John v. 28)
“when all that are in their tombs shall hear my voice, and
shall come forth.” And sure that must be a long hour which
lasteth a full thousand years. Again, there shall be pious
persons living and unchanged, when all the pious that were
dead are raised ; “for the dead in Christ shall rise first, then
we that are alive shall be changed” (1 Thess. iv. 16, 17), we
that have not yet slept, saith the apostle. Place now the
millennium after the conflagration of the world, and all things
in it, and where will you find these pious men alive, or how
* Book iv. chap. 10.
+ Mr. Mede on some passages of the Revelation, p. 603.
# Filius hominis veniet, et mille annos inter homines ver-
sabitur, eosque justissimo imperio reget. Lib. vii. cap. 24.
In terrá cum his ipse regnabit. Epit. cap. xi. p. 758. De
millenariis in genere tradit Hieronymus, quðd post resurrec-
tionem aiunt in carne Dominum cum Sanctis regnaturum.
In voce Papias. Sanctos cum Christo in terra regnaturos
docuit Nepos. Gennad. cap. 55, Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. vii.
cap. 22.
§ Ep. tom. iii. f. 66, A.
will you preserve them from those flames P Dr. Burmet"
finds a great difficulty, not common to all, as he imagines,
but peculiar to his own invention of a millennium after the
conflagration of the present earth ; viz. “how Gog and
Magog should get into this new earth, the wicked being all
consumed in those flames.” He is not hardy enough to say
that this is the poetic tale of the giants, though he saith
(p. 219) it hath great affinity with it. And therefore he
produces these men, according to the philosophy of Lucre-
tius and Mr. Hobbes (p. 220), “from the slime of the earth,
and the heat of the sun, as brute creatures were at first :”
but whence come these pious men that have not yet slept,
into this new earth, is a fresh difficulty; and to this the doc-
tor hath yet nothing to say, for he either thought not of
them, or was unwilling to take up with the rabbinical notion,
that they had eagles' wings given them to mount up into the
air, whilst the earth was on fire. -
Fourthly, This doctrine seems inconsistent with many cir-
cumstances of the resurrection mentioned in the holy scrip-
ture, for that speaks constantly of the resurrection of all
Saints, as of a resurrection not to a temporal life on earth,
but to an eternal in the heavens. “They shall come forth
out of their tombs to the resurrection of life,” John v. 28. “He
that seeth and believeth in me, he that eateth my flesh, hath
eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day,” vi. 54.
That teacheth us, that when Christ comes again, they shall
be received into the heavenly mansions prepared for them,
John xiv. 2, 3, and xvii. 24, “and shall be with him where
he now is ; that when Christ, who is their life, shall appear,
they shall appear with him in glory,” Col. iii. 14, that “when
he doth appear, they shall be like him, and see him as he
is.” Whereas, according to the hypothesis of the millena-
ries, when Christ appears, and when he comes again, they
who have been his choicest and most faithful servants shall
not immediately be raised to eternal life, but first to that .
life which is but temporal; they shall not be received into
heavenly, but into earthly mansions; they shall not be glo-
rified with him, appear with him in glory, be like him in his
glory, or “see him as he is,” till they have spent a thousand
years on earth to fit them for those blessed mansions, and to
prepare them for this beatific vision. Moreover, it is said of
all the dead in Christ, of all that slept in Jesus, that they
shall be raised first, and that then immediately we “that are
alive shall be snatched up with them in clouds to meet the
Lord in the air, and then we shall be for ever with the
Lord.” Now if this be so, surely we cannot expect afterward
to live on earth a thousand years; for, as Nyssen puts the
question, ri Édºri xésia rā; xáro yń, oi; } &srāgario; Koń śy
#xºria w śarīy ; “What need is there that they should live
below on earth, who hope thus to live in heaven,” and to be
“ever with the Lord?” Especially since these words plainly
seem to speak not of a temporal, but an eternal life with
Christ, not by enjoyment of him upon earth, but by transla-
tion from it to heaven? Again, when the same apostle
saith, “This I say, brethren, that flesh and blood shall not
inherit the kingdom of God, neither shall corruption inherit
incorruption” (1 Cor. xv. 20), and thence concludes, “that
the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be
changed ;” does he not sufficiently insinuate that we shall be
raised not to enjoy an earthly but a heavenly kingdom, and
that our raised bodies, being glorified, shall not consist of
flesh and blood P And what then will they do with all that
plenty, and that great affluence of the goods of fortune,
which the millenaries do so highly value P In a word, the
comfort which the apostle gives the Thessalonians concern-
ing their departed friends,f who had suffered much affliction,
persecution, tribulation, and doubtless many of them death,
for Christ's sake, is only this, that they who remained alive
should not prevent them in the enjoyment of the happiness
promised to the body, but “the dead in Christ should rise
first,” and then the living should be changed ; not this, that
these sufferers for the sake of Christ should rise a thousand
years before the rest to reign with Christ on earth, which yet
is by the millenaries deemed great matter of their consola-
* Book iv. chap. 10, p. 218, 219.
+ Caten. in Mat. v. p. 119.
f 1 Thess. i. 6. ii. 14, 15. iii. 3. 2 Thess. i. 4–7.
1134
TREATISE ON THE MILLENNIUM.
tion, and so was very proper to have been mentioned there,
had it been any article of Christian faith.
Arg. 3. §. III. This reign of"Christians upon earth agrees
not with the genius of Christian faith, or with the nature of
Christian promises, or with that frame and temper of spirit
it requires from the professors of Christianity. For, 4.
1. The Christian is represented as one who is entirely
dead to the world, and to the things of the world; one who
is not to love it, or the things of it, who is to use it as if he
used it not, as one “whose conversation is in heaven” (Phil.
iii. 19), and it is made the character of one who is an enemy
to the cross of Christ, that he minds earthly things; whereas,
if this be a true gospel promise made to Christians for their
consolation and encouragement, under the troubles of this
present world, that they shall, after this life is ended, live
again on earth a life of indolence, and peace, and plenty, in
the enjoyment of the goods of fortune: if this be one great
part of the reward which God hath promised to those that
suffer for his name, sure it becomes them to have their minds
and their affections set upon it, and to live in expectation of
it, and to desire to enjoy these goods of fortune, this peace
and plenty upon earth ; and it would rather be the charac-
ter of those who bear the cross, in prospect of these blessings,
to mind. earthly things. That, saith St. Paul, which makes
the sufferings of this present world so light unto us, is this
consideration, “that we look not at the things which are
seen, but which are not seen,” not at things temporal, but
eternal (2 Cor. iv. 17, 18), even at “a house not made with
hands, eternal in the heavens" (v. 1). Whereas if this be
one of the great and precious promises contained in the gos-
pel, and made for the encouragement of Christians to suffer
for Christ's sake, they must then look not only at things
eternal, but things temporal; or for a temporal house on
earth, as well as one eternal in the heavens, for their sup-
posed reign on earth will be but temporal.
Again, the exhortation of our Lord, in his admirable ser-
mon on the mount, runs thus: “Lay not up for yourselves
treasures upon earth, but lay up treasures in heaven ; for
where your treasure is, there will your hearts be also" (Matt.
vi. 19–21). And again, “Provide yourselves bags that wax
not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not” (Luke
xii. 53, 54). St. Paul exhorts all that are risen with Christ
to “set their hearts and their affections not on things on the
earth, but on things above, where Christ sitteth at the right
hand of God” (Col. iii. 1–3), and that because they are
dead with Christ unto these worldly things, “and their life is
hid with Christ in God;” so that when “Christ, who is their
life, shall appear, they shall appear with him in glory.” And
yet if our Lord Christ, in that very sermon, as the millena-
ries suppose, encouraged them to suffer with patience and
meekness upon this consideration, that they “should inherit
the earth,” and had pronounced them blessed upon this
account, surely they might have suffered upon this very pros-
pect of laying up for themselves treasures upon earth in this
millennium, and might have had their hearts and affections
placed upon them: for wherefore are they bid to lay up
treasures in heaven, and to set their affections on things
above, but because these are the blessings promised as the
reward of Christian piety and patience? If, then, these
blessings to be enjoyed on earth after the resurrection be one
great part of the reward which God hath promised to the
piety and patience of the Christian, what reason can be given
why he should not seek and set his heart upon them also 2
If it be so great a privilege to have a part in the first resur-
rection, to enjoy this indolency, peace, and plenty upon
earth, that the apostle styles them blessed who have a part
in it, should they not seek and set their hearts upon that
very thing in which their happiness consists? And yet the
comfort which our Lord and his apostles do afford those
Christian sufferers, is only this, that “great is their reward in
heaven” (Matt. v. 12, Luke vi. 23); that “when they are
tried, they shall receive a crown of glory” (James i. 12);
and that they “ have in heaven a better and a more enduring
substance” (Heb. x. 34): which as it placeth the reward and
comfort of Christ's suffering members not on earth, but in
the heavens, and so gives us just reason to conclude our
Lord and his apostles knew nothing of this reign on earth, or
thought it no great matter of their consolation ; so did it give
occasion to the ancients to conclude thus,” “If the inherit-
ance of martyrs be in heaven, their reign on earth can be no
better than a fable.” -
Moreover, it is evident that all the ancient patrons of the
millennium held that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the
patriarchs and prophets, were to be sharers with the Chris-
tians in this reign on earth, and that then would the pro-
mised Canaan be made good to them ; whereas the apostles
plainly tell us, that they expected no reward on earth, nor
did they mind that Canaan where they dwelt, but only
waited for a heavenly country: “They confessed,” saith the
apostle, “that they were strangers and pilgrims upon earth,”
that “they were not mindful of that country whence they
came out, but sought a better country, that is, a heavenly”
(Heb. xi. 13. 16). Since, then, these holy patriarchs and
choice friends of God, not only sought not after, but even
disdained any inheritance on earth ; seeing the only country
they did expect and look for was a heavenly country; see-
ing this only was the inheritance God, as their God, provided
for them, and therefore that only which they were to enjoy
at their resurrection, when they completely were to be made
and treated as the sons of God: Surely in vain must Chris-
tians hope for any reign on earth with them, who, professing
themselves pilgrims and strangers in it, declared they were
not mindful of such a babitation in the land of Canaan, and
who are at the resurrection to be made like the angels, and
to enjoy not any earthly, but that heavenly country, which
God hath graciously prepared for them.
In a word, to foretell times of peace and plenty to suc-
ceeding ages, to raise the expectation of a people whose
backs are bowed down, and have been long enslaved and
afflicted, is very suitable to this divine economy; but to pro-
mise plenty, and the goods of fortune, as the reward of Chris-
tian piety and patience, and let them know that if they suffer
for the sake of Christ, he will be sure to raise them up to
plentiful enjoyments of the goods of fortune, this is too mean,
too much beneath the sublime spirit of Christianity, to be
one of her great and precious promises.
* Eł ży cigayoſ, # 8Angoyokaia, ºvºn; # Xixiośrn; &aronatár-
raoruc. CEcum.
E X A M E N
VARIANTIUM LECTIONUM
JOHANNIs MILLII, s. T. P.
IN
NOVUM TESTAMENTUM.
I. Lectionum harum fumdamenta incerta plane esse, et ad lectionem textus hodierni convellendam protinus
inidonea. ■
II. Lectiones variantes quæ sunt monuenti alicujus, aut semsum textus mutent, paucissimas esse, atque in iis
omnibus lectionem textus defendi posse.
Ubi ostenditur
III. Lectiones variantes levioris momenti, quas latius expendimus, tales esse in quibus a lectione recepta
rarissime recedendum est. Y û
IV. Millium in hisce variantibus lectionibus colligendis sæpius arte non ingenua usum esse, falsis citationibus
abundare, et sibimetipsi multoties contradicere.
OPERA ET STUDIO
DANIELIS WHITBY, S.T.P.
IET ECCLESIÆ SARISIBUIRIENSIS PRAECENTORIS.
** Justus videtur qui primus est in causa sua sed venit socius ejus, et investigabit eum."—Prov. xviii. 17.
E x A
M E N
VARIANTIUM LECTIONUM
J O H A N N IS MILLII, S. T. P.
IN
NOVUM TESTAMENTUM.
BENEVOLO LECTORI PRÆFATIO.
PRAEFATION 1S CAPITA.
§. 1. In hac præfatione proponitur, 1. Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ
de regula fidei sententia. §. 2. 2. Ostenditur hanc Ie-
gulamj a Mlillio labefactari, partim multiplicando lec-
tiones variantes sine ratione, sine modo, et contra om-
nium fere codicum, versionum, patrum et scholiorum
autiquorum fidem, in unius Vulgatæ, Copticæ, aut Ethi-
opicè versionis gratiam ; et partim agnoscendo corrup-
télas, interpolatiónesque haud paucas, ab ipsis Ecclesiæ
Christianæ incunabulis, ævoque pene apostolico, sanctis
scripturis accidisse. §. 3, 4. Elucidantur hæc ex ortho-
doxorum de hæreticis querelis, et ex iis quæ ethnicis,
et hæreticorum antesignanis sacrorum codicum fidem
sugillantibus, respondent patres. §. 5. Objectioni ex
verbis Origenis regì tì; ròv aytiy£&$ov òta pogás responsum
datur. §. 6. De Millii prolegomenis notandum, 1. Male
illum asserere patrum haud paucos codices mirum in
modum vitiatos habuisse. 2. Patres diversis exempla-
ribus usos esse, et subinde unius, subinde alterius tex-
tum, prout ferebat animus, usurpasse. 3. Ea de scholiis,
glossisque marginalibus quæ privatorum libros respici-
ùnt, ad codices Græcorum patrum perperam a Millio
applicari, in quorum ecclesiis, fatente eodem Millio,
libri emaculati, integri, et a scholiis fere liberi perman-
serunt; quod etiam testimoniis, et argumentis e patrum
scriptis deductis, confirmatur. §. 7. Denique agitur de
regülis in varia lectione discernenda observandis, et quid
a iiobis in tribus his libris actum sit, ostenditur.
TANDEM aliquando improbo labore pensum hoc arduum
absolvi, de quo pauca diceuda habeo.
1. J)e operis totius momento.
2. De Mlillii prolegominis.
3. De iis quæ in hoc opere a me sunt præstita.
§. 1. Ea est constaus ecclesiæ Anglicanæ, et omnium
evangelicorum, seu protestantium sententia, “ sanctam
scripturam regulam perfectam, satisque perspicuam con-
tinere, ex qua omnes fidei articuli creditu necessarii, 9m-
uesque mofum regulæ ad salutem obtinendam requisitæ,
dignoscantur.” Hanc normam qui destruit, aut huic saluti
obtinendæ minus idoneam reddit, eo ipso fidei nostræ fun-
damentum subruit, et protinus evertit.
Et quanquam id certum esse fateor, non ita diyinam
Providentiam sanctis scripturis invigilasse, ut nulla in eas
menda irrepserint, est tamen rationi consQnum existimare,
eum, qui sänctas scripturas pro sola ecclesiæ regula per
omnia sæcula instituerit, ita huic regulæ prospexisse, ut
fini suo obtinendo nunquam impar esset, aut inhabilis.
Nec enim infinita sapientia consilio suo cadere unquam
potest, nec bonitas summa, nedum justitia exigere ut vitam
suam ad eam Iiormam, sub pœna gravissima, componerent
Christiani, quæ huic officio præstando, ob corruptelas ei
admistas, sit minus idonea.
Est tamen certum hanc fidei nostræ regulam ab iis plane
subverti, qui negant textum originalem adeo purum et in-
corruptum ad mamus nostras pervenisse, ut inde fidei arti-
culos, aut morum regulas ad salutem necessarias, certo et
explorato dignoscamus.
§. 2. Doleo igitur, et moleste fero, tam multa me in Mil-
lii prolegomenis invenisse, quæ hujus fidei normam vel
plane labefactare videantur, vel saltem aliis ansam nimis
speciosam præbeant de ea dubitandi ; aut demum pontifi-
ciorum, aliorumque contra hanc regulam ratiunculis robur
adjiciant et firmamentum.
1. Etenim ipsa variantium lectionum immensa moles
multorum animos suspensos reddit, iisque suspiciones
haud parvas injiciet, parum quid certi ex librisjin omni
commate, immo in omni fere commatis parte variantibus,
expectari posse. Depravationem illam textus Græci, quæ
ejus auctoritatem labefactet, ex magna illa lectionum va-
rietate, quam in exeinplaribus Græcis R. Stephani invenit,
arguit Morinus ; quautos igitur de textu eodem triumpho3
agent pontificii, cum viderint eas lectiones a Millio, per
sex lustra in eo opere sudante, quadruplo auctiores factas,
et demum appendice copiosa locupletatas ?
Id imsuper causæ mostræ haud parum officere existimo,
quod corruptelas, interpolationesque haud paucas, ab ipsis
ecclesiæ Christianæ incunabulis, ævoque pene apostolico
sanctis scripturis accidisse fidenter Millius pronunciet. De
exemplari, quo usus est Clemens Alexandrinus sic loqui-
tur, “ Illud monnihil passum esse ex iucertis notulis mar-
ginalibus, nimirum ab iuitio fere canonis Novi Testamenti
scholiastæ (μετati6£vrac*t& εὐαγγάλμα quos vocat Clemens
noster, Stro. iv. p. 490) ad oras codicum explicatorias
stricturas apposuerunt ; ex his autem, textu ad quem
spectabant, clarioribus scilicet, scribæ, pro arbitrio, alias
atque alias intromiserunt in corpus libri, etiam gemuinæ
lectionis loco, modo obscura ea esset, aut (quod nonnun-
quam) in speciem absurda ; admissæ vero in plurima mox
apographa transierunt, auctoque post a lectoribus glossa-
rum marginalium, adeoque et lectiomum interpolatarum
numero, factum ut posteriores libri fuerint fere prioribus
bac in parte maculatiores. Hujusmodi scbolia aliqua irrep-
serunt in Clementis codicem,” Prol. p. 61, col. 1.
Quorsum hæc tendunt unico exemplo demonstrabo,
, hæreseos Artemonis fautores, qui φιλόν άνθρωττον τόν σο/τῆga.
yiysa-6ai, i. e. Christum merum hominem fuisse, acriter con-
tendebant, affirmabant “ priscos quidem omnes, ipsosque
apostolos ta£ta TragatAnqy£vai, xai δεδιδαχάναι ea quæ ab ipsis
dicuntur et accepisse, et docuisse ad Victoris P. R. tem-
pora, a Zephyrini autem temporibus, qui Victori successit,
qrapaxexapáx6ai τὴν ἀλήθειay, adulteratam fuisse veritatem,”
quibus respondet Anonymus apud* Eusebium, $iv δ' ày
tvxôv τιθανόν τὸ λεγόμενον, εἰ μι} τgötov μèy aytári trtov aùτοῖς
af $£ai ygaqyai, ** Hoc forte credibile videretur, nisi iis
repugnarent primo quidem sanctæ scripturæ, deinde fra-
trum quorundam scripta Victoris ætate superiora, nempe
Justini, Miltiadis, Tatiani, et Clementis.” Si autem
sanctæ scripturæ, prout hic Millius dicit, interpolatæ
fuissent, scribisque, et scholiastis tunc permissum fuisset
pro arbitrio in corpus textus adulterinas lectiones pro genu-
* Hist. Eccl. lib. v. cap. 28.
4 D
] 138
EXAMEN MILLII.
1nis admittere, anonymi hujus adversus hæreticos defensio
rem adhuc dubiam reliquisset. Porro Clemens, in loco
allegato, ne verbum quidem habet de scholiis marginalibus,
aut stricturis ad oram librorum positis, et postea in textum
admissis, sed tantum 7repi τενόν μετατιθέντων τά εὐayy£λιa,
i. e. qui unum pro alio ponentes sententiam evangelicam
'mutabant, v. g. textus hæc verba, δτι σύτοί vio* @άοῦ κλη-
6fiarowtai ; alii sic exprimebant, &ri aítoí Ézovrai réAesot ; alii
sic, &ri aùroû ÉÉovzi τόττον άτου οὐ δέαχθήarovrat, hoc autem ab
haereticis, de quibus ibi loquitur Clemens in scriptis suis,
factum esse nullus dubito, Hæc autem inter variantes
hujusce textus lectiones locum unquam obtinuisse prorsus
nego, nec vel uno testimoriio probavit Millius.
§. 3. Præterea laudabili opera passim in prolegomenis
suis ostendit Mlillius, nihil detrimenti sacros codices ex
hæreticorum corruptelis accepisse. Immo plane asserit,
proleg. p. 75, col. 1, ** Sententiam hanc de adulteratione
sacri textus ab hæreticis in præsidium dogmatum suorum
facta, merum somnium esse, si unius fere Marcionis, ejus-
que sequacium corruptelas excipiamus, e quibus tamen
ne una quidem aliquainvasit in exemplaria Catholicorum.”
Quid vero hinc emolumenti nobis accedit, quidve causæ
nostræ ex eo subsidium, quod hæc ab hæreticis facta non
fuerint, quæ Millius ipse a Catholicis factitata esse non
tantum lubens agnoscit, sed multitoties asserit ? Rem uno
exemplo elucidábo : Objiciunt Marcioni Tertullianus, et
Auctor Dial. contra Mărcion. p. 151, eun loco άνθgωτος,
1 Cor. xv. 47, substituisse Kúptos, quibus in variis lectioni-
bus accedit Millius. At proleg. p. 35, et 139, “ hoc e
Catholicorum libris, in quos irrepserit, Marcionem in suum
Catholicon recepisse” dicit, atque ita Catholicos incu-
sando hæreticum absolvit. Hoc exemplo præmisso audi-
amus quid patres de hæreticorum Bibliis, sacrique codicis
corruptelis pronunciant.
Primo negabant patres hæreticos eosdem habere codices,
easdemve scripturas cum orthodoxis, idque hac potissimum
ratione moti, quod in dogmatum suorum defensionem scrip-
turarum verba corrupissent : Salvianus nempe, quibusdam
dicentibus, * eadem illos legere quæ nos legimus, eosdem
apud illos prophetas Dei, eosdem apostolos, eosdem evan-
gelistas esse,'° ad hunc modum respondet,* ** Quomodo
eadem quæ ab auctoribus quondam malis, et male sunt
interpolata, et male tradita ; ac per lio8 non jam eadem,
quia non possunt penitus dici ipsa, quæ sunt in aliqua sui
parte vitiata—Nos ergo tantum scripturas sanctas plenas,
inviolatas, integras habemus, qui eas vel in fonte suo bibi-
Inus, vel certe de purissimo fonte per ministerium puræ
translationis haurimus.” Sin vero idem sanctis scripturis
quæ apud ortbodoxos receptæ, ét in ecclesiis continuo
lectæ essent, contigisset, quod Millius toties ingeminat, si
patres s. codices, quarto et quinto seculo, mirum in mo-
dum interpolatos in medium attulissent, eosque pro genu-
inis scripturis accepissent, easdem ipsas scripturas quæ
primitus ecclesiæ sunt traditæ, haudquaquam habuisse
fatendum est ; si demum “ interpolationibus, glossematis,
scholiis ad marginem adscriptis” bis millies, ut tradit
Millius, vitiati essent ij, quos nos habemus, codices, idem
utique de nobis judicium feremdum est.
Præterea scripturas incassum ab hæreticis vitiatas esse
monet Epiphanius, atque in ipsorum tantum pernicienl,
quod eæ adhuc in ecclesia orthodoxa salvæ, et integræ re-
servatæ essent ; sic enim Marcionem alloquitur, “ Licet ea
quæ scripta sunt, non ea fide referas, qua salvatore pronun-
ciata sunt,f άλλ' οὐvys a&ζοντaι oi τάτοι ἐν τὸ εὐαγγελία τῆς &yia«
άκκλησίας. Loca tamen in evangeliis sacræ ecclesiæ inte-
gra servantur ; quæ item de evangelio Lucæ detruncasti
pudore te afficiant,£ άτό του άντιyg&φου τοῦ κatà Aovxäy
£ùayy£λίον τὸν τότων εὐgtarzopzéyoy, in exemplari evangelii se-
cundum I.ucam inventa cum fuerint, utque imperatoris
edicta si qui corrumpere et depravare conentur, prolata in
archivis exemplaria fidelissima, insanos illos redarguant,§
¤tœ¢ xaì à7rò τοῦ θασιλικά οίκον, τουτἐστι τῆς άγίας τοῦ Θεοῦ
ixx Anaria; 7rgoorgepápx£vov εὐαγγάλτον, ἐλάγχει τους άφανιστάς τὸν
xzx%v äyôvv&tov μόιεις, ita etiam evangelium prolatum ex
sanctæ Dei ecclesiæ archivis, vestium pulchrarum arrosores
mures detegit. Denique, 7rázmς μόν τόλμης κα\ τονngiac ύττά-
8siya & ἐστι, τά μ£v yeygap4wáva 7rapaxάττειν, & òè μ} ysygapx-
[*£va 7rgoo-tv6ivat, pw&\iorta ἐν τά σύayysXig &x&ra AJræ àvtt e?«
τους aiövac, summæ,” inquit, “ audaciæ, et flagitii est delere
quæ scripta sunt, quæ musquam scripta sunt addere, præ-
sertim in evangelio quod in æternum stabile est.*' Teste
autem Millio, adeo in evangelia bæc grassati sunt scribæ
et librarii, ut sex centum supra mille varias lectiones se
motasse asserat ; immo multoties ait codices seculi quarti,
quo Epiphanius floruit, omnes “ interpolatos, ipsiusque
Epiphanii codicem, maculatum fuisse, ut cæteíi istius
ætatis sequentiumque, adeo omnium, scholiis, insititiisque
vocabulis,” ut frustra esset, cum Epiphanio, ad evangélia
in sancta ecclesia servata, aat exemplaria ejus ætatis pro-
vocare ; immo quod ** ultimæ temeritatis, summique flagi-
tii *' loco ponit Epiphanius, id eo seculo a scribis et librariis
factitatum esse fidenter pronunciat. Vide Proleg. p. 75,
col. 2.
§. 4. Restat ut quæ ab ethnicis et hæreticorum antesig-
manis, contra sacrorum codicum fidem, olim objiciebantür
inspiciamus. Objecit hoc clim Christianis Celsus, ** Fide-
lium quosdam in sanctas scripturas multum sibi ipsis indul-
sisse, iis enim (inquit) usitatum fuit,* τολλάχη μετaχagát-
τειν ἐκ τῆς τgάτης yga¢É¢ rà eùayyéXiov, xai μετatrλάττειν,
variis modis transformare evangelium, et ab eo quod primò
scriptum erat, in aliud transferre.” Eandem calumniam
renovans Faustus Mlanichæus,f “ Multa (inquit) a majori-
bus nostris eloquiis Dei nostri inserta verba sunt, et quæ
nomine insignita ipsius, cum ejus fide non congruant, præ-
sertim quia nec ab ipso bæc sunt, nec ab ejus apostolis
scripta, sed, multo post eorum assumptionem, a nescio
quibus ; et ipsis inter se non concordantibus.” Celso
respondet Origenes protinus negando id unquam a fideli-
bus factum fuisse, aut veri Christiani crimen hoc uspiam
fuisse, viz. μετεχagá£ayrac (φησά) τὸ εὐayy£λιον άλλους οὐκ
¢¤a, h τους άπό Ma£Xiovo;, xai τους άτὸ οὐaA£yTiyov έμαι,
xai τούς à7rò Aovxiâyov, i. e. ** a nemine alio mutatuum evan-
gelinm scio præterquam a Marcionis, Valentimi, et forte a
Luciani discipulis,” qui, monente£ Epipbanio, per omnia
xatà Magχίωya sentiebant. De his autem Marcionis et
aliorum hæreticorum corruptelis, ** ne una quidem,” inquit
Millius, ** invasit in exemplaria Catholicorum,” Prol. p.
75, col. 1, c. 6. Fausto Manichæo respondet Augustinus,
“ Quis tandem tanto furore cæcatur, qui dicat hoc mereri
non potuisse apostolorum ecclesiam, tam fidam, tam nume-
rosam fratrum concordiam, ut eorum scripta fideliter ad
posteros trajicerent, cum eorum cathedras, usque ad præ-
sentes episcopos, certissima successione servarut, cum
hoc qualiumcunque hominum scriptis, sive extra ecclesiam,
sive in ipsa ecclesia, tanta felicitate proveniat.” \ Porro
mullo modo potuisse Manichæos, “ qui jam in manibus es-
sent omnium codices Christianorum * falsare, hoc argu-
mento probat Augustinus, “ quia mox ut facere cœpissetis,
vetustiorum exemplarium veritate convinceremini ; qua
igitur,” inquit, “ causa a vobis corrumpi non possutit,
hac causa a nemine potuerunt: quisquis enim hoc primi-
tus ausus esset, multorum codicum vetustiorum autoritate
confutaretur, maxime quia non una lingua, sed multis
eadem scriptura contineretur.”
At vero liberius multo cum sanctis scripturis agit Mil-
lius. Is enim summo studio, parique arte, bis, mille locos
invenit, in quibus exemplaria, ab ecclesia ad nos trans-
missa, corruptelis obnoxia fuisse, fidens pronunciat, quo-
rum non pauca textui originali ab ipsis ecclesiæ primordiis
inserta esse lubens agnoscit : v. g. annotatis in Matth. iv.
10, ô7riaro» pxov, inquit, MSS. cod. plurimi non agnoscunt,
“ et licet jam olim ab apostolorum fere ævo in exemplari-
bus nonnuliis lectum constet, aliunde tamen assutum
videtur ex Matth. xvi. 23, vel Luc. iv. 8, a scriptore
memori, scioloque, quod in plurimis aliis locis factum vide-
mus.” Ad cap. quinti v. 22, hæc habet, “ tò fixi, videtur
omnino scholion.esse e margine alicujus libri in textum
admissum, vetustum tamen, et quod apostolicorum fere
temporum codices invasit.” Ad v. 27 hæc apud Millium
nota occurrit, .“ τοῖς άεχαίοις, additum videtur ex v. 21,
* De Gubern. Dei, Ed. Oxon. lib. v. p 151, 152.
* Hær. 42, p. 334. £ P. 333. § P. 336, 341.
* Apud Orig. lib. ii. p. 77. + Hær. 43.
i£ Apud August. lib. xxii. contra Faust. cap. 3 et 6. ,
EXAMEN MILLII.
1 139
idque jam olim a primis Christianismi seculis, habent erim
Irémæus, ev Vulgatus.” Multa his similia passim observa-
bit sedulus lector tam in prolegomenis, quam in variis
lectionibus ejusdem Millii. Id denique animadversione,
immo reprebensione dignum existimo, quod eodem judice
“ sciolus lector, adnotator quispiam,” plus millies Qrigi-
nalem textum interpolationibus suis fœdavit, maculayit,
corrupitque ; et quòd prius ** marginale scholion ” fuit,
haud rarius, inquit, “ in textum irrepsit, omnesque codiges
continuo pervasit :' hoc enim fieri minime potuisse sine
summa ecclesiæ Christianæ incuria, et præpositorum, in
quorum manibus essent hi codices, mira oscitantia et so-
cordia, manifestum est; multoque minus hæc scholia ima-
ginaria in omnes codices per totum Christiauum orbem
sparsos, et in alias linguas translatos pervaserint, uisi ex
composito res ageretur. Dum enim hi codices sacri omni-
bus in locis continuo legerentur, et exemplaria origimalia,
aut ex originalibus fideliter conscripta, in manibus fide-
lium quorumcumque, et in ecclesiarum omnium scriniis
conservata essent, nemo sanus existimabit hæc aliter Iiisi
ex mutua eorum conspiratione fieri potuisse. Adeo ut
mihi temperare vix possim quin quæ Fausto Manichæo, de
s. scripturarum corruptelis loquenti, *Augustinusrespondet,
ea Millio regererem, “ Videris id agere ut ommis de medio
scripturarum auferatur autoritas, et suus cuique animus
autor sit quid in quaque scriptura probet, quid improbet ;
id est, ut non autoritate scripturarum, subjiciatur ad fidem,
sed sibi scripturas ipse subjiciat, non ut ideo placet illi
aliquid, quia hoc in sublimi autoritate scriptum legitur,
sed ideo recte scriptum videatur, quia hoc illi placuit.”
§. 5. Objectio. Dicat tamen aliquis nos frustra laborare
cum Epiphanio et Augustino contendentes exemplaria S.
codicum in ecclesiis fidelium pura, atque integra asservata
esse ; is enim ipse Origenes qui ea ab hæreticis solis cor-
rupta fuisse pronunciat, alibi contrarium disertim asserere
videtur his verbis, f τολλ} yéyovEv â rôv àvriygáqyœv 8ta,q)opâ,
είτε άπδ }a6vgiag twàv yga¢Éwv, e?t£ άπό τόκμης τινόν μοχ3ngâ;
+fic 8top%*£»ς τάν ygaqyoμ£νον, είτε xai τάν τὰ ἐavtfic δοκούντa Èv
vfi 8op%αει προστιθάντων, % &$ovgoûvroy, i. e. “ Magna ex-
emplarium existit discrepantia, sive ob quorumdam scrip-
torum socordiam, sive ob audaciam aliorum, perverse quæ
scripta sunt emendantium, sive ob eos qui quæ ipsis viden-
tur in emendatione adjiciunt, aut subducunt.” Hæc qui-
dem Veter. Testamenti exemplaria Græca potissimum re-
spicere ex yerbis immediate sequentibus manifestum est,
v}v μέν ούν ἐν τοῖς άντιygágyotg τῆς τάλαιάς 8ia6%wmg 8iaq) oyiay
©eoù ôôvvoc, £ügop.£v ìåaraa $as, “ Discrepantiæ quæ est in
Vet. Testamenti exemplaribus, Deo dante, remedium adhi-
buimus.” Est tamen ingenue fatendum eundem Originem,
eodem in loco, occasione verborum Christi (ad divitem
profitentem se mandatum illud, ** Diliges proximum sicut
teipsum,” a juventute sua observasse) dicentis, “ Vende
omnia quæ habes," futili plane ratione adductum suspicari
hæc verba, ** Diliges proximum sicut teipsum,” a Servatore
cum non essent dicta, ab aliis 7rgoa-£jiq)6av, i. e. inserta
esse, et in suspicionis istius subsidium bæc verba addu-
cere, xaì si μόν μ}, xaì Tregí äXXo)v τολλων διαφονίa %v 7rgòς άλ-
Amλὰ τὸν άντιy£&$ov άστε πάντα τὰ κωτά Ma^r6aiov μύ συνά8eiv
άλλήλοις, ἐμοίως δό και τά λοιτὰ εὐαγγελιοι, κάν άσεßhg tv% §8o%ey
εῖvat 3 Ü7royoóv àvraú8a 7rgoorejjiq)6av, οὐκ εἰεημάχην άπό τοῦ Σωτή-
gos orgòς τὸν ττλουσίον τ}v áyaTfiagig töv τλησίον άς σεαυτὸν ἐντο-
λήν, i. e. ** Nisi de aliis multis discrepantia esset exempla-
rium inter se, adeo ut omnia quæ a Matthæo sunt dicta non
consonent cæteris evangeliis, et similiter se res haberet in
reliquis evangeliis, forte impius esset qui suspicaretur hæc
verba, Diliges proximum tuum sicut teipsum, a Servatore
erga divitem, cum non sint dicta, a quopiam inserta esse.”
Respondeo primo. Homiliam octavam in Matthæum a
veteri translatione per Merlinum editam, Græcis quæ in
hac sectione de divitis et Christi interloquio occurrunt,
plane respondere, in ea tamen hæc ultima verba quæ ex
Origenis Græcis citavimus, ómnino prætermissa esse, ex
quibus suspicandi ratio oritur ea, quæ jam in Græcis Ori-
genis occurrunt, olim in iis inventa non esse, sed ab aliis ea
postea ejus textui addita fuisse.
Respondeo secundo. Nihil aliud bic adducit Origenes
præter suspiciones iniquas, et minime necessarias. Suspici-
* Lib. xxxii. cap. 19. f Colm, in Matt. p. 381.
ones, inquam, non necessarias ; fatetur enim in eadem
homilia Origenes ita bæc verba intelligi posse, ut nullus
suspicioni suæ sit locus relictus : iniquas dico, nec enim
ad exemplaria Matthæi emendatiora, aliave hic provocat,
sed primo suspicandi hanc causam ducit ex ratione plané
futili et inepta ; nempe quod ei qui boc præceptum,
“ Diliges proximum sicut teipsum,” servasset, non potuit
Cbristus dicere “ Si vis perféctus esse, vende quæ hábes,”
quasi qui sensu Judaico proximum suum, i. e. Judaeum
dilexisset, eo ipso perfectus haberetur. Secundo, ** quod
ipsum locum Marcus et Lucas exponentes, neuter hoc ad-
didit,” quasi in Matthaeo nihil dici potuisset, quod non
pariter eadem verborum plenitudine in Marco^ et Luca
pomeretur. Ex quibus constat nullam prorsus rationem
habuisse Origenem suspicandi hæc verba in Matthaei ex-
emplar inserta fuisse. :
Tertio respondeo. Aiagoyiay τόν άντιγράφων ** discrepan-
tiam exemplarium *' quam in hoc loco Origenes recenset,
non esse discrepantiam exemplarium in eodum textu, ne-
dum in eodem evangelio, sed tantum discrepantiam textus
unius evangelii a verbis alterius evangelii, nec enim dicit
omnia quæ sunt in Matthæo, μη συγάδειν ἐαυτοῖς ** sibimet-
ipsis non consentire,” sed άλλήλοις “ reliquis evangelistis
consona non esse;” neque hoc probat, sive ex aliisTverbis
sive codicibus Matthæi, sed ex eo tantum quod hæc verba
Matthæi apud Marcum et J.ucam desiderantur ; denique
coronidis loco hæc addit, “ Quod in Græcis feci, in exem-
plariis Novi Testamenti hoc ipsum me facere posse sine
periculo non putavi ; tantum suspiciones exponére me de-
bere, rationesque et causas suspiciomum non esse irration.
abile existimavi.” Percurrat jam lector integras duorum
tonìorum in evangelia expositiones, et mecum inveniet eas
totas in evangeliorum inter se διάφωνίαις enumerandis im-
pendi, de commatis cujusdam variante lectione ne verbum
quidem proferre. Id ergo tantum hic dicit Origenes quod
apud patres alios non tantum in confesso est, sed tanquam
indicium sinceritatis evangelistarum in evangeliis suis'con-
scribendis adducitur, et præsertim a Chrysostomo* his
yerbis, τολAaxoù êkaq)ovoùvt£; άλ£yxovrai, ** Saepe discrepantes
inveniuntur evangelistæ, hoc áutem (inquit) maximum
veritatis indicium est, aliter enim rem ex composito se
egisse suspeptam esset, yvwì òè xaì fi 8oxoùaa iv μάπετς ἀa;
8ta povia, nunc autem hæc quæ videtur esse in minutiori-
bus discrepantia omni eos suspicione liberat.”
§. 6. Secundo, de Millii prolegomenis id certum esse
judigo, ubi de lectionibus genuinis agant, ea vitiis, rapep-
£•nysia*, conjecturis, ab omni veritatis specie abhorrentibus,
nimium scatere ; de patrum Græcorum scriptis, de versi-
onibus aliis antiquis, ibi judicium fere continuo ferre Mi]-
lium non prout res exigat, aut veritas exposcat, sed prout
cum veteri illa ltalica versione, quam sibi pro veritatis
norma constituit, conveniant, aut ab ea dissentiant; ** spu-
riis, interpolatis, scholiisque insititiis,” mirum in modum
“ vitiatis codicibus,'' sunt usi, qui ab hac imaginaria ver-
sione fere continuo divorsim abeunt, inter quos Theodore-
tus, et CEcumenius, qui editis præ aliis consentiunt, enm
merantur ; en ergo Millii de iis judicium, Proleg. p. 89,
“ Theodoreto ad manum fuisse recentioris calami exemplar,
et quidem graviter interpolatum,” et (p. 102) “ Interpólati-
9nes CEcumenii, quod omnium fere` codicum, plurimae.”
Chrysostomus, quo in exegeticis nemo laxior, is, inquit
Millius, “ exemplar mactus est ex accuratioribus istius
ævi, genuinam apostolorum scripturam cum alias, tum et
in locis ubi ab ea descitum in excusis nostris, ut plurinum
referens,'' sæpius nimirum quam alii cum Italica §ua versi-
one hallucinatur, et tamen jost exantlatos omnes Millii la.
bores, nulla alia comparuit versio vetus Jtalica, nulla unquam
comparebit, ab ea quam Hieronymus ab infinitis ** mendis,
defectibus, additamentis, et confusionibus,” Simonio teste,
liberavit; de ea quam Millius sibi per somnium creavit, ope.
rosius egimus libro primo, eamque tam multis argumeiìtis
convellendo, integrum pene prolegomenøn opus diruimus.
Id etiam in Millii prolegomenis advertendum est, nempe
male illum colligere ex eo quod Epiphanius, Basilius, alii-
que patres interdum loquuntur 7r£gì àvtiygåøøv äagißεστάτων
seu άδιοe$&των,t ** eos exemplaribus diversis usos fuisse, et
* Præf. in Mat. tom. ii. ed. Sav, p. 3.
f Prol. p. 76, col, 2.
11 40
EXAMEN MILLII.
subinde unius, subinde alterius textum, prout ferebat ani-
mus, usurpasse.” Quis enim exemplaribus iis uteretur,
quæ ipse minus correcta, aut accurata promunciat, cum ei
ad manus essent emendatiora ? id forte fieri potuisset ab
Origene ex tempore perorante, id inter Latinos ab Hiero-
nymo factum esse aliquando contra adversarium pugnante,
ex ejus operibus, et verbis liquet ; ab aliis hoc factum esse
nego. Nec unquam de iis exemplaribus verba faciunt
patres Græci, nisi ubi de lectione vera controversia oritur,
aut inter se variant exemplaria, ex eorum igitur verbis id
tantum constat, quod doctioribus notum est, habuisse eos
ad tempora Tertulliani exemplaria primæva apostolorum
manibus exarata, a tempore Origenis, et Eusebii exempla-
ria accurata, ad quæ, cum opus esset, provocare solebant,
certaque media ex quibus emendatiora a non correctis, ac-
curata ab inaccuratis, ab interpolatis genuina distinguere
potuerutit, quæ quidem omnia non ad confirmanda, sed
potius ad refutanda Millii prolegomena multum valeant.
Est insuper illud ex ipso Millio in Prolegomeuis, p. 33,
col. 1, imprimis observandum, ** Inter codices ecclesiarum
et privatorum hominum hoc fere interfuisse, quod isti,
prout e librariorum manibus exierunt, emaculati, notulisque
marginalibus liberi, fere integri in ecclesiarum tabulariis
remanserint, hi vero ab ipsis, in quorum gratiam fuerant
conscripti, statim fere inter lineas, aut ad marginem, glossis
scboliisque fuerint conspersi, maximopere in id incum-
bentibus s. literarum studiosis ut textum s. quem apüd
se habebant, explicatiorem, suisque usibus magis indies
et magis idoneum redderent.” Ex quibus duo duco poris-
mata.
Primo, ex codicibus vetustissimis occidentalis ecclesiæ,
et præsertim Cant. Clar. Ger. parum subsidii ad lectionem
genuinam dignoscendam expectari posse; ii enim, momente
Simonio, oculari teste, ejusmodi scholiis, glossis, et emen-
dationibus nunc eadem manu, qua libri ipsi, nunc alia con-
scriptis undique referti sunt : cum enim a scribis origina-
lis textus plaue insciis conscripti essent, aliorum manu, qui
Græce sciebant, aut exemplária Latina proprius et àc-
curatius inspexerant, nuné ocius nunc serius fuerant
emendati.
Secundo, id serio animadvertendum est male a Mil]io
hæc, quæ privatorum tantum libros respiciunt, applicari ad
codices Græcorum patrum, in quorum ecclesiis, fatente
i\lillio, libri emaculati, integri, et a scholiis fere liberi, re-
manserint. Et præcipue ad codices episcoporum orienta-
lium, quibus tam ante quam post Origenis, Pierii, Pam-
phili, et Eusebii diligentiam, exemplaria ákpißía tego.
defuisse nemo saiius existimabit; is enim* Eusebius, Ori-
genis, Pierii, Ammonii, et aliorum codicum lectissimorum
usuram cum Iiactus esset, ** inde quinquaginta volumina
Novi Fœderis, ad Constantinum Mi. tränsmisit, ecclesiis
Constantinopoli et alibi agentibus ideo mittenda, quod
enrutn usum ecclesiis maxime necessarium esse intellige-
bat, quæque idcirco ab antiquariis vetustissimis, et ea uicte
scribendi peritissimis, describi fecit.” Alexandriæ etiam in
ecclesia, s. literaruin sede mobilissima, non defuisse lectissi-
ma exemplaria agnoscit MIillius, Prol. p. 71, unde Athaua-
sius Constantis Aug. literis rogatus, transmisit ipsi 7rvxtia
^räv Sei»v yga<pàv, s. scripturarum volumina. Idem Euse-
bius f nos docet plurimos fuisse apostolorum successores.
qui post eorum obitum ** saiutaris regni cœlestis semina
spargeban£ àvà 7rázav εἰς τλάτος τ}ν οίκονμ£νny, per univer-
sum terrarum orbem, munusque evangelistarum obibant
iis qui fidei sermonem nondum audivissent,” et qui præci-
pue hoc in animo habuerunt thv τὸν θείων εὐayy£λίων 7raga8-
8övai yga®fiy, q. d. ** evangeliorum scripturas tradere ;” quæ
si quis animo expenderit, ei haud parum verisimile cense-
bitur hos omnes ecclesiæ antistites libris interpolatis, scho-
liis et marginalibus notis vitiatis, s. scripturæ textum pos-
teris tradidisse, aut omnia exemplaria sæculi istius in quo
fiorebant, utut id Millius ubique pronunciat, interpolata et
vitiata fuisse. Nec enim de iis tam aspere judicare par
est, quibus in promptu esset exemplaria dxg/3ao-tega, adire,
et quibus nec ingenium defuit textum ab his glossematis
et scholiis margiualibus discernendi, nec erga s. scripturas
* Hist. Vitæ Constant. lib. iv. cap. 35, 36.
f Hist. Eccles. lib. iii. cap. 37.
ea reverentia, quæ ipsos ad istam discretionem faciendam
sedulo moveret. •.
Respiciamus titulos illos, quibus s. scripturas adorna-
bant primorum sæculorum patres ; ab iis etenim 3i£λía
$eïa, ** libri deifici, verba divina,” $εῖαι ygaqyai, xai $eá-
Tyευστοι, sæpius dicebantur. An ergo paterentur manus
sive sacrilegas, sive temerariis divina bæc Dei eloquia in-
terpolationibus suis corrumpere, et depravare ? certum est
apud nos, inquit* Josephus, has nostras scripturas divinas
esse, unde a tempore prophetarum, oùte 7rgoo$$ìvai τις οὐδäv,
oῦτε μετa$£ivat τετόλμηκεν, ** nemo ausus est iis addere
quidpiam, aut detrahere:” cum ergo eadem fuerit Christi-
anis erga scripturas s. reverentia, nonne jure merito ex-
pectandum fuisset eos pari diligentia curasse, ne quid hu-
jusmodi, in Novi Fœderis norma et regula contingeret.
Expendamus denique quanto studio providerent, ne eorum
scripta vel a librariis negligentius transcriberentur, vel ab
aliis mutarentur. Priscos enim illos, et sanctissimos ec-
clesiæ antistites, tanquam pulcherrimum exactissimæ in his
rebus diligentiæ exemplum posteris proponensf Eusebius,
dicit primo ** Irenæum adversus eos qui t};v üyij t% ixxxmarias
$eo paây, sinceram ecclesiæ legem adulterabant, varias episto-
las conscripsisse.” Secundo, in finem libri sui de octonario,
sive Valentinianorum Ogdyade, banc eum clausulam adje-
cisse ; ägxkø ore tôv μεταyga J&μ£yov tò ßißXiov τούτο, ** Ad-
juro te qui conscripseris hunc librum, per Dominum
nostrum Jesum Christum—ut conferas quod transcripseris,
et diligenter illud emendes ad exemplar ex quo transcrip-
sisti, atque adjurationem banc similiter describas, et ex-
einplari tuo inseras ;'* qui autem tantam diligentiam adhi-
buerunt in scriptis suis integris conservandis a librariorum
negligentia, et aliorum quorumcunque corruptelis, et de-
pravationibus, eos de sanctis et $εοτνευστοις scripturis in
eadem integritate sanctæ ecclesiæ reservandis non minus
sollicitos fuisse merito existimandum est.
§. 7. Nostra quod attinet, in primo libro satis monstrasse
me puto harum lectionum variaritium fundamenta incerta
esse, et penitus inidonea ex quibus hodierni codices in
dubium vocentur : me tamen me lector hic nimium præsti-
tisse existimet, aut media omnia sustulisse ex quibus de
lectione genuina certum, vel saltem idoneum, in quo acqui-
escat judicium, feratur ; dico, • -
Primo, id certum, et extra dubium esse videatur, ubi
patres in his rebus versati variasse lectionem textus pro-
nunciant, variantem ibi lectionem ante eorum tempora
obtinuisse, de qua non aliter judicium fieri potest, ubi in
neutram partem aliquid pronunciant, quam ex priorum
patrum lectione, versionibus antea conceptis, aut textus
ipsius circumstantiis. Ex. gr. dicit Origenes £ quosdam
Hebr. ii. 9, legisse non prout textus habet Xägttt ©eoù, sed
Xópi, @εοῦ, legionem tamen hodiernam huic præponendam
esse non tantum ex eo constat, quod versiones omnes et
patrum plerique cum ea consentiunt, sed quod de gratia
Dei in eo maijifesta quod filium suum dilectum morti pro
nobis tradidit, s. scripturæ passium loquuntur ; de Christo
“ sine Deo,” sive seposita quasi Deitate, patiente, prorsus
nihil. w
Secundo, ubi patrum multi, nullo refragante, cum ver-
sionibus antiquis, et codicum manuscriptorum majori parte,
in una lectione comveniunt, eam lectionem certo geuuinam
pronuncio ; hic enim locum obtineat illud Tertulliani
“ Quod apud omnes unum invenitur, non est erratum,
sed traditum ;'' cum vero in diversa abeunt, ea lectio,
cæteris paribus, verisimilior censenda est, quæ potiori
autoritati innitatur.
Tertio, in epistolis, in quas extant quatuor Græca scholia
cum totidem versionibus antiquis, ubi Græca scholia cum
versionibus universim in una lectione conspirant, id veræ
lectionis indicium existimo minime respuendum ; hiuc
Millium in eo potissimum culpandum existimo, quod
sexcenties (ut in variarum ejusdem lectionum diligenti
examine próbatum dedimus) ab hisce omnibus, aut fere
omnibus, unius Italicæ, Æthiopicæ, aut Copticæ versionis
gratia, in vera lectione assignanda, deviaverit.
Quarto, ea lectio quæ sensum integrum relinquit, cæteris
;* Lib. primo contra Apion. p. 1087.
f Eccl. Hist. lib. v. cnp. 20.
j Com. in Job. p. 38, et p. 362.
EXAMEN MILLII. .
114 l
pnribus, ei præferenda est quæ sensum mutilum et imper
fectum exhibet, eumve interrumpit ; eique multo magis
quæ sensum penitus corrumpit : nec enim concedendum
est in scriptis $eo7rv£jo-toy virorum vel sensum prorsus
defuisse, vel verba quibus integrum eum exhiberent : ex-
cipiendi sunt hic defectus ex idiomate linguæ profluentes,
ut “ Descendebat in domum suam 8e8ικαιωμένος, η ἐκεῖνος,”
Luc. xviii. 14, aut ex cnntextu facile supplendi, ut 2 Thess.
ii. 7, μόνον ό κ&τάχχν, άρτι (sup. xa6&£=*) £»c âx μάσου yêyntas.
His adde,
Quinto, regulam Waltoni tertiam ; . viz. ** Lectio quae,
cæteris paribus, sensum fundit clariorem, et cum ante-
cedentibus et s. scripturæ analogia magis congruentem,
contrariæ præferenda est.” Antecedentium enim, et con-
sequentium consideratio, et locorum similium collatio ad
veram lectionem eruendam plurimum conducunt. Exemplis
paucis hanc regulam elucidabo. Contendit Millius his
verbis, ô ôè òixaio; ix ττίστεως ἀσstas, Heb. x. 38, addendum
esse μου post τὸ ἐκ ττίστεως, sic enim textum hunc patres
quidam allegant : sic LXX. Interpretes legunt, Hab. ii.
4. Obstat tamen præter Græcorum scholiorum omnium
cum textu consensum, id quod hunc locum idem apostolus,
Rom. i. 17. Gal. iii. 11, eodem prorsus modo allegavit.
Contendit acriter idem Millius, Gal. ii. 5, in his verbis,
όίς οὐδὸ πρὸς &pav £%ouey rj v7roTayji, rò oùôè tollendum esse,
in annotatis ibi ad Millium id perperam dictum esse proba-
vimus, ex antecedentibus, et consequentibus, et integro
apostoli scopo.
Ex operis hujus secundo libro ediscat primo lector, id
quod eaput rei est, textum Novi Fœderis salvum, et satis
integrum ad nos pervenisse, nec potuisse Millium in opere
triginta annorum labore assiduo, industria summa, arteque
pon exigua, et sæpe non ingenua, versatum, variasque
lectiones suo marte, et aliorum adminiculo undique colli-
gentem, ejusdem aù6svtiay convellere, nedum labefactare.
Secundo, varias lectiones quæ morum regulam, aut fidei
articulum vel unicum respiciant, vix ullas esse; quæ sensum
verborum in re momenti alicujus mutent, paucissimas. Hoc
ultro fatetur Millius, Prol. p. 142, col. 2, his verbis. •* In
his codices omnes conveniunt, et si forte locus aliquis qui
summi momenti esse videtur, uni, alteri, seu etiam quam-
plurimis codicibus exciderit (id quod non nisi in uno loco
factum est, quod viderim, nempe 1 Joh. v. 7), idem tamen
quoad sensum alibi inculcatus occurrit, ut proinde neutiquam
inde periclitetur Christiama veritas.” In hoc nobiscum con-
veniunt pontificiorum critici probatissimi. Ita * Dupinius,
“Esse varias lectiones haud paucas ex editione Novi Fœ-
deris Oxoniensi etiam oculis pateat, eas autem omnes parvi
sane mqmenti esse, et ex parte potissima vel librariorum
vitia, vel minutissima Tragogâgata.” Idem agnoscit Si-
monius infra citandus ; sed testimoniis non est opus :
inspiciat aliquis loca omnia a nobis diligenter collecta,
percurrat exempla omnia insigniorum s. scripturæ locorum,
a Morino regte, vel perperam adducta, ex oculari inspec-
tione inveniet ea nec morum regulam ullam, vel fidei
articulum uspiam respicere, nedum labefactare.
Tertio, ex nostra variantium lectionum uberiori discussione
in capitibus ejusdem libri sequentibus, liquido constabit, nec
in minutioribus istis, et pene frivolis, deesse nobis, potissi-
ma saltem ex parte, testimonia, quibus hodierni textus lectio
stabiliatur, quod etiam ultra constabit ex diligenti examine
locorum fere omnium, quos ex Vulgatæ, seu potius Italicæ
versionis autoritate, pro genuinis nobis obtrudit Millius.
Id enim in iis omnibus vel gratis, atque ex mera ipsius
conjectura, dictum esse, et contra majorem testium molem
yrobavimus, vel ipso Millio teste, contra omnem MSS. codi-
tum, et eaecusorum fidem, quo nihil formius dici potuit ad fidem
istarum lectionum minuendam.
IDe tertio libro id tantum dico, brevem esse, at forte,
'pilogi saltem et appendicum gratia, non contemnendum.
OPERlS TOTIUS PARTITIO.
1. Opus D. Millii suis laudibus exornatur, et in quibus
deficiat, aut operis instituto minime satisfecerit, indi-
- - - -ww-»
* Hist. Can. Vet. in N. Test. vol. 2, sect. 5, p. 110.
catur. §. 2. Operis nostri suscepti ratio redditur. §. 3.
In Millii collectaneis. multa inter lectiones variantes
immerito locum obtinere ostenditur. §. 4. Lectiones
variantes ad tria genera reducuntur.
QUAM propositam sibi in magno suo opere rationem habuit
Cl. Millius, eam nemo satis landare potest: In animum
enim suum induxit Novum Testaméntum pristimæ suæ
restituere integritati, fidam ex criticorum arte exhibendo
regulam qua ab emunctioris naris hominibus inter varias
lectiones veræ a falsis discernerentur, atque ex hac statuit
geninam firmare lectionem ** in locis circiter mille,** Ber-
pardi sui judicio, læsam et interpolatam, atque ** atheis
hoc pacto, cæterisque religionis nostræ hostibus cavillandi
occasionem præcidere ; cum e lectionibus ipsis variantibus,
ex quibus omnia id libris nostris. incerta esse arguuiut,
egregie stabilitum viderint s. codicis textum.” – Quod
quidem manus in se susceptum si feliciter absolvisset,
mulli dubium est quin ille “theologorum commodis egregie
inservisset, operamque navasset eöclesiæ Christianæ longe
gratissimam, atque utilissimam.”
§. 1. Quanquam autem eruditus vir, cujus mortem, ut
spero, gloriosa immortalitas consecuta est, de ecclesia
optime sit meritus, dum locos consimiles inter se conpa-
raret (quos si propius inspicias, ex iis fructum haud
parvum recipies), dum ex patrum scriptis lectissimos flores
decerpsit, et aliquoties dum textum annotatis illustrare
conatus fuit, tametsi genuinam lectionem egregie firmarit
omnibus fere in locis in quibus Sociniani, Erasmus,
Grotius, sensum orthodoxum labefactare maximo opere
nisi sunt ; tametsi etiam ad auctoritatem s. codicis stabi-
liemdam permagnum pondus attulerit, nec in hac parte
operis sui peccarit unquam, nisi quod inscriptionem Epis-
tolæ ad Ephesios immerito repudiarit ; quod tamen ad
susceptum operis consilium attinet, a scopo suo plurimum
aberrasse visus est. Tantum enim abest ut fidam regulam
constituerit, unde genuina lectio a spuria dignosceretur, ut
in plerisque incertiores nos plane reliquerit; imo tantum
abest ut atheis silentium imposuerit, ut lectionum varie-
tatem magno cumulo augens, et a seipso dissidens, more
hominum conjecturam modo huc modo illuc ducentium,
hostibus religionis nostræ nova ministrarit arma, pontifi-
ciisque simul novam ansam dederit objiciendi, nihil nos
certi de s. codice habere posse, nisi ex testimonio ecclesiæ,
quod tamen aliis in causis respuimus, et aspernamur.
§. 2. Grave quidem onus in me ante recepi quam aut
de magnitudiue rei, aut de grandi appendice, et prolego-
menis, autoris ipsius magis quam textus menda corrigèn
tibus, aliquid possem suspicari. Pollicebar enim olim,
parum cautus expectatissimum illud opus editum modo
esset me in vivis agente, eo consilio expensurum me esse,
ut multitudo variarum lectionum ad compendiolum, si fieri
posset, redigeretur. Jam vero annos septuaginta natus,
acie etiam oculorum obtusiore facta, rudem meruisse
videar. At cum promisso meo nihil sit mihi sanctius,
aut antiquius, impedimentis hisce omnibus susque deque
habitis, improbo labore libelluma tandem confeci, qui I)eo
gloriam, commodum ecclesiæ, s. textui plus roboris ex-
hibeat, benevolique lectoris exspectationi, ut spero, satis-
faciat.
In prolegomenis et appendice multum discrepat Millius
a collectaneis quæ textui subjiciuntur, secum igitur sæpis-
sime pugnat, et non modo non cohærentia inter sé dicit,
sed maxime disjuncta, atque contraria. Itaque si inter
vivos numeraretur, ipsi forsan non ingratum foret, quod
videret se a seipso vindicatum, suumque maturum judicium
subitis ejusdem cogitationibus anteponi. Quod si falso
aut male allegatorum locorum reum fieri graviter moles-
teque ferret, ego etiam ad illa* tragopáματa proferenda
invistisimus accessi. Cum vero ingens opus suscepisset
quod non nisi junctis, ut ait, plurimorum laboribus confici
potuit, facile credam non ipsi integritatem, sed accuratam
aliis diligentiam defuisse.
§. 3. De instituti mei ratione sciat lector me in primo
libro illius vestigiis acriter institisse: cum enim ingentem
hunc cumulum coacervasset aggregando lectiones variantes
partim patrum Græcorum versionumque orientalium, alia-
* Proleg. p. 154, col. 1.
1 142 EXAMIN
M l LLII.
ruinque vetustate insignium, ex quibus, inquit, eluceant
Græca primævorum collicum e quibus effluxerint, partitn
versionis l talicæ, et patrum Latinorum, qui Italicum in
8criptis suis, ut ait, adhibent, partim quoque MSS. magnæ
et venerandæ antiquitatis, sub iisdem câpitibus quam parum
ei profuit impensus labor, indicavi ; ostendens iusuper
nullam textus corrigendi caüsam fuisse, nisi cum ad unum
omnia, vel saltem major pars eorum inter se convenissent,
quod non ultra viginti locis, idque levioris momenti, um-
quam accidit. Cum ergo totius operis Milliaui hoc sit
fundiumentum, primus liber in eo labefactando totus ver-
sabitur. -
In chartis suis valde laboriosis tantum rerum sylvam
congessit \Iillius, quantam nec enumerare velim ; nec de
singulis judicium ferre, si vellem, possem ; sigillatim enim
cumcta persequi, et aliis molestum, et mibi ad munus
nostrum obeundum baud esset necessarium. Licet etemim
liæ variæ lectiones molis permagnæ fuerint, sunt tamen
dimidia ex parte eo nomine protinus indignæ ; ex reliquis
earum paucæ receptæ lectionis sensum afficiunt, mutantve.
In his tamen levioris momenti expendendis haud parum
laboravi. Et ubi textum interpolatum esse Millius con-
tendit, aut 7ragęp.3λλαεως imcusat, judicium meum inter-
posui, textumque pro modulo meo, vindicavi. Ordinis
autem gratia has quas appellat varias lectiones ad tria
genera reduxi.
Primo, sunt ergo multa quæ inter variantes lectiones
locum tenent, et tamen in numero earum sunt minime
reputanda, nam ut præteream ea quæ de initio, defectu,
sine manuscriptorum in Græca aut Latina lingua scripsit.
Primo non illæ variantes lectiones merito dicendæ sunt,
quæ ex oscitantia, incuria, inscitia, aut ignorantia scriptoris
aut librarii evenerunt : eadem enim opera quæ in Bibliis
Anglicanis mendæ occurrunt typographicæ, pro variis
lectionibus habeantur : vix tamen caput occurrit in quo
non aliquid hujus generis reperias.
Secundo, neque illæ inter variantes lectiones recensendæ
essent quæ a MSS. codicibus fere omnibus, et antiquis
versionibus, plenoque omnium patrum cunsensu dissehfi-
unt, et discrepant ; has enim si admiseris, quænam ullibi
rejiciendæ forent ? Sexcentis autem in locis lectionem
quandam ex fide solius Italicæ, Copticæ, Æthiopicæ, &c.,
genuinam esse asserit, contra omnium codicum, aut fere
omnium fidem, contra versiones omnes, reclamantibus etiam
istis patribus qui locum illum allegarunt ad unum omnibus.
Vide Proleg, a p. 42 ad 48.
Tertio, multo minus pro variis lectionibus habenda
sunt quæ adulterinis evangeliis, aut hæreticorum pravitati
grtum suum debent ; quanta autem profert ille ex evange-
lio N azaræorum, aut Ebionitarum ! quam frequenter nos
monet, hunc vel illum versiculum ab his aut illis hære-
ticis repudiatum * fuisse ! Longa Epiphanii narratio de
locis a Marcione corruptis sparsim huic operi inserta est,
ut Imoles in immensum cresceret. Et demum in prolego-
menis circiter viginti ex depravatis illis archetypum ipsum
fideliter exhibuisse, acriter contendit, p. 36, col. 1.
Est, quarto, valde incongruum patrum glossemata, aut
interpretamenta pro variis lectionibus exhibere ; eadem
enim de causa patrum scrinia compilasse potuit, centies
tamen, imo bis centies, illi in confesso est, boc vel illud
quod a recepta lectione variat, natum fuisse ex interpre-
tamento, ex glossemate, atque ex altera parte sublatum
fuisse aliquid quod offenderit,
Quinto, tollenda sunt denique errata ipsius autoris,
cujus generis copiam non minimam annotata exhibent,
atque ita acervo multum decrescente, onereque sublevato
ad reliqua progredior.
§. 4. Secundo, ex variis lectionibus occurrunt quædam
mnjoris momenti et ponderis utpote quæ aut sensum
verborum adeo mutent ut textum vere alium exhibeant,
aut quæ doctrinam morum normamque vivendi respiciant,
ant quæ ad veritatem confirmandam, nodosve expediendos
felicius inserviant ; has autem modicas (Deo sint gratiæ)
et paucas, excutio diligenter, atque in textu corroborando,
et dilueudo quæ contra adducantur, enitor sedulo, atque
lioc pensum absolvo in libri secundi capite primo.
Supersunt adhuc variantes lectioues innixæ quidem auc-
toritati patrum quorundam, aut versionum, aut mannscrip-
torum cod. venerandæ antiquitatis. Sicut tamen textus sig-
nificationem aut non omnino, aut leviter saltem immutant,
ita textus ipse pari auctoritate, atque exemplarium copia,
plerumque nititur. Quoniam autem hujus generis pede
innumeræ sunt, partitionem quandam earutn feci.
Primo, quæ in quatuor evangeliis, atque Actis Aposto-
lorum continentur, illas in quinque species divisas, in
capite secundo libri secundi edissero.
Secundo, quæ ad epistolas spectant, eas pariter eundem
in modum ad rationem revoco capite insequente.
Tertio, inania et levia, qnae numerum plane superant, ad
capita quædam reduxi, ad singula eorum digitum libro
tertio intendens, et specimen aliquale exbibens. ex quo
studiosus lector de reliquis conjecturam faciat. Porro, in
hujus libri et operis totius epilogo, id paulo diligentius
curavi, ut pontificiis, aliisque religionis Iiostræ hostibus.
solide responderem ; nempe iis qui objiciunt quod vari-
antes tot lectiones textum suspectum reddant, áut saltem
in] dubium adducere videantur, ideoque quod sacra Biblia
nullo modo sufficere valeant, ut nos in iis omnibus quæ
ad salutem creditu factuque necessaria' sunt, erudiant.
CAPITIS PRIMI[ LIBRI PRIMII
A RGUMENTU M,
§. 1. Ex patrum scriptis, aut s. scripturæ allegationibus
non posse certo colligi eos aliter quam hodiernus textus
se habet legisse. Adstruitur primo ex eo, quod sæpe
allegarint s. scripturæ τμήμata, non ex textu inspecto,
sed ex memoria. §. 2. Secundo aliquoties summatim,
et quoad sensum tantum, verborum nulla ratione habita.
§. 3. Tertio, quia nuulta textui sæpe adjiciunt. §. 4.
Quarto, verba multa, im6 periodos, non raro omittunt.
§. 5. Quinto, quia patres iidem qui interdum aliter
cifant, cum editis, in aliis locis, conveniunt. §. 6.
Sexto, quia multas scripturarum 7r££*xo7&c frequenter
congerunt, quæ in diversis locis, quoad sensum, occur-
runt, nec gmtóc alicubi inveniuntur. Hæc omnia ex-
emplis plurimis confirmantur, ibid.
SECTIO PRIMA.
Ut de bis. variis lectionibus rectius judicemus, operae
pretium duxi in earum fontes inquirere, atque utrum
firmum exhibeant lectionis variantis fundamentum sedulo
investigare, quod quidem præstare conabor, Millium xatà
τ68a. sequendo per omnia illa capita, ex quibus has lectiones
se collegisse profitetur. Dico igitur primo sanctos patres
apud scripturam s. alia legisse olim yerba, quam quæ nos
jam legimus ; aut exemplaribus usos fuisse diversis ab iis
quibus nos jam utimur, male colligi ex eo quod e Novo
Foedere passim testimonia citamt, editis nostris parum
congruentia. Est enim criticorum omnium, et speciatim
P. Simonii* judicium, citationibus patrum, raro scilicet
accuratis, non temere credendum esse, nec ad^earum fidem
Græca exemplaria corrigendâ, “ Hoc enim,” inquit Simo-
nius “sine magno s. scripturæ detrimento fieri non potest.”
Grotius etiam vir magni judicii, et emunctæ naris, idem,
vere et libere pronunciat. “ Veteres,” inquit, “ scriptores
sæpe utuntur testimoniis ex scriptura, sed ita ut appareat
codicem ab illis non inspectum.” Quare non est quod eo
nomine suspecta nobis sit recepta lectio. ** Non raro pa-
tribus usitatum,” inquit Heinsius, prolegomenis in Exer-
citationes S., ** ut intenti rebus, sensum potius quam verba
spectent, neque raro prætermittunt aliquid, vel addunt, sed
et voces alias reponant, de memoria ne dicam, cui tribuisse
plusculum nonnunquam videntur. Primo autem quid tum
sibi proprium, aut quasi suum patres esse volunt quam ut
vavro8υναμοῦντα, sive alia quæ idem notant, aut notare
existimant, in adducendis locis, verba, aut vocabula re-
ponant. lidem nonnunquam quod desiderari credunt, ipsi
adjiciunt. Nihil æque usitatum iis quam ut alios, atque
alios conjungant Iocos, sæpe quæ in medio sunt, aut præce-
dunt, prætermittunt : libenter enim dicuntur, coutrahunt,
* Hter. 42.
* Crit. Hist. Text. N. T. cap. 31, p. 151,
EXAMEN MILLII.
I 143
haec autem patrum citationibus contigisse dicit ex eo quod
èx reoxeigov, hoc est e memoria, ex tempore, et inconsulto
codice, eas adducerent.” Horumque omnium exempla in
medium se protulisse ait, “ne quis temere ex iis Graecum
textum emendandum esse existimet.”
Imprimis autem allegasse saepissime patres ruhp.cara
quaedam s. scriptura non e textu, sed ex memoria, quae
licet thesaurus, rerumque custos sit, eas tamen, sine
scripto, verbis semper iisdem reddere non valet, ex-
emplis, et criticorum fide dignorum testimoniis, probatum
dabimus.
Exempli gratia, apud Apologiam Justini M. ed. Oxon, a
sectione 18 ad 24, occurrunt citationes bene longae de-
sumpta ut plurimum ex concione Christi in monte habita,
et ex sermone eius non dissimili apud Lucam cap. Sexto
memorato, sed pleraeque omnes variunt a textu quem
agnoscunt Biblia nostra, Graeci scriptores, et versiones
antiquae. Idcirco D. Grabii in citationes e Matt. v. 28.
xviii. 9, haec est annotatio, Martyri commodum visum fuit
tum hic, tum in sequentibus, non ipsa Christi verba, prout
in sacro evangelii codice extant, exacte omnia recitare,
seu sententiam aliquando eorum imperatoribus ethnicis
tradere.
Cumº Irenacus pharisaeorum quaestionem citet ad hunc
modum, iv roia ºvvápa ei roito rosic; è ovaricº, inquit Grabius,
habent omnes tres evangelista (adde etiam raita, Matt.
xxi. 23. Marc. Xi. 28. Luc. xx. 2) sed Irenaeus, aut Mar-
cosii, ex memoria allegarunt. Cum in eodem capite
Irenaus citet haec verba, Luc. xix. 42, si éyvog Raì orò
a ºpzegov rà reò; eiphvny, ingſ3m 3é orov, teste Grabio, ha c
iterum ex memoria citata esse patet.
Origenes contra Celsum, l. 2, p. 58, et l. 4, p. 193, et
Gal. iv. 21, hac profert, Aéyeré puoi oi rày vó coy &vayivo o uova ec,
textus, oi barò ròy vipcov SéNoytec evai, p. 65, legit º capro
ragaòoùr aiua Sixatov, textus, à 0òoy, Matt xxvii. 4, p. 68,
anpvx84a era rà gùayyiatov rotto iv No rº xio uº, textus, è»
dan ri oiuova vn, Matt. xxiv. 14, p. 71, i?6v reg 6ti ègerveva ev,
textus, aitòv iòn regynxóra, John Xix. 14, pro his, et innu-
meris ejusdem generis hanc apologiam facit Huetius: Ori-
genes nimirum in referendis a scriptura locis tam saepe ab
exemplari recessit, quod inconsultis libris festinatione
impeditus, et memoriae confisus ea recitaret. Not. in
Orig. p. 61, 76, et Origenianorum lib. iii. cap. 1, $. 6,
scripturae testimonia ab eo saepenumero aliter relata re-
peries ac in editionibus concepta sunt quae hodie circum-
feruntur, quod et ex memoriae perfidia aliquando contigit;
par in evangeliorum depromptis ab eo locis discrimen
occurrit; nam praeterquam quod variantes suas lectiones
Novi quoque Testamenti codices habebant, ut hodieque
habent, utebatur ad hac sapenumero Adamantius Evan-
gelio secundum Hebraeos, ut tradit Hieronymus in libro
de scriptoribus ecclesiasticis, cap. iv., atque inde discre-
pantiam illam extitisse conjicio.
Denique de Graecis Irenaci ha cdicit Millius, proleg.
pag. 40, col. 2. Ea maxima ex parte intercidisse, et in eis
quae supersunt, Epiphanius, aliique, quibus ea debemus,
haud semper citarunt loca Nov. Test. ad textum Irenaea-
num, sed nonnunquam ad codices suos posteriores, seu
etiam ex memoria, unde sequitur nihil certe ex iis de
codice Irena i colligi posse. De Latinis Tertulliani haccpro-
nunciat, ibid. p. 49, Millius “In eo citatasunt s. codicis loca
negligentius, ex memoria, contracte, ad sensum, haud sine
levicula aliqua subinde mutatione.” Et in variis suis
lectionibus sappissime monet, ha cet illa a patribus ex
memoria recitata esse.
Unum adhuc restat quod patrum saltem homilias, con-
cionesve eo minus idoneas reddat, ex quibus recepta s.
textus lectio sollicitetur, nempe constata tempore Origenis
homilias eorum, conciones, et sermones, habitos fuisse
abtoo xeòtao riuóg, sive ex tempore, eosque excepisse nota-
rios, qui arte quadam, et celeritate scribendi, non verba
solum insigniora, sed integras periodos exhibuerunt. Hic
igitur errandi duplex causa, primo etenim cum in extem-
poraneis hisce declamationibus exemplaria ipso inspicere
neutiquam potuerint patres, perfrequens necessario fuit.
lapsus eorum memoriae. Secundo, fac in hoc patres rarius
* Lib. i. can 17, p. 87.
errasse, quid tamen verisimilius est, quam in tot minutis
patrum verbis exscribendis crebro lapsos fuisse notarios !
Atque his duabus causis, ut conjicere licet, debetur
magna pars variantium istarum lectionum, quas Millius
industria singulari, mec sine artificio quodam, coacer-
vavit.
l
SECTIO SECU NDA e
UsITATIssIMUM porro est apud patres, praesertim primi se-
culi, allegare commata quaedam s. scriptura juxta sensum
eorum, aut summatim, nulla adhibita ratione ipsorum ver-
borum ; id unum vero imprimis leectorem moneo, ut in
locupletissima hac rerum sylva colligenda, et sub capitibus
suis reponenda, accuratam diligentiam quae taedium pareret,
non expectet ; nec mihi vitio vertat quod in hac rerum
partitione, non omnia inveniat adeo exacte, aut juxta
regularum logicalium normam disposita, ut capiti huic
potius quam alteri instantia quaeque respondeat. His
praelibatis, ad patres ordine procedo. -
Ignatius raro aliquid citat prout jam illud apud evan-
gelia, epistolas, aut ullam ex antiquis versionibus occurrit,
sed quae in mentem itineranti venerunt, additis, subductis,
aut immutatis quibusdam adduxit; v. g. in Epistola ad
Ephesios, sic
S. 2, Scriptum legimus, va iv patº in orayfi i re karmetta a voi
rº, abra voi, ai ri «bri vdian, uaì rò abrò Aiynts révres regì
roi airot, sc. si margini sit fides, ex 1 Cor. i. 10, hic vero
sicut ca? ah , è ipatº a Xiafaara omittit, ita etiam additiv
paig irroray, et repì roi autoi, et transponit rò abrò Aéyn re
arávreg. In Constitutionibus Apost. lib. ii. cap. 44, verba
sic se habent, 6 rog aà i vigiv azio pcara, i re èè èv a 3 a tal
è rwgia a carnotta a voi ti ai ri voi, zai ri atti vapan Karà
riv avgraxìy Sio tv, ubi addita sunt textui verba quibus linea
subducta est. Quid ad hac Millius notat, sc. desse iv
ante ti voi, et ſi atti vaian; de reliquis prorsus silet.
S. 4, In eadem epistola habes payepòy rò èivòpov à7rò roi,
xa eroi ai roi, et in margine Matt. xii. 33, cujus verba sunt,
ix yà e roi, sagroi tò 8évègoy ytv&axera S. 8, ha c reperies, roi,
oro pig; roi a vºn rhtmg; roi Raú%no i rºy Aeyopzévoy ovverov. 1
Cor. i. 20, ubi ut omittit ro: veat peareòs, et roi aio vog Torov,
sic posteriorem clausulam de suo addit. In Epist. ad Rom. S.
5, desumit haec verba ex 1 Cor. iv. 4, à NN où ragà rotto
èsòxaſopea, Textus legit iv roi rº. , In Ep. ad Eccles.
Smyrn. S. 6, legit i xop3, xaggiro, Matt. xix. 12. Textus
vero è ºvvà agvo; xogeiv. Atqui in omnibus his locis nulla
ex Ignatio adhibetur varians lectio.
In Polycarpi Epistola nihil fere occurrit, cui tanquam
stabili fundamento varians lectio innitatur; de verbis Petri
1 Pet. i. 18, actum est alibi: S. 2, hac habet èò à vagoorà-
pasvot tà; da piag, èovAeta are tº Geº iv p66o xaì à An0sia, et in
margine legas, 1 Pet. i. 13, et Ps. ii. 11, quasi hac loca in
unum confudisset Polycarpus, cum revera in neutro hac
verba reperias. Ibidem legimus, può daroèò6vts; taxòv avrì
xaxoi, h Aotòogiay &vrì Ao:òogiac, º ypovSoy avrì ypóySov, h ua ragay
avrì sarápag, postrema addit Polycarpus de suo. Ita Millius
in 1 Pet. iii. 9, S. 5, Traora (pma?) è riſvezia sarà ro; rve patog
a Teateſerai, ex 1 Pet. ii. 12, xatà ric Luxic. Petrus ipse,
S. 8, in citando v. 24 ejusdem capitis, omittit abrò, et pro
Èy rai adºpea ri abtci legit rº iòio o di cari, atque hacc Polycarpi
solius autoritate inter varias Millii lectiones locum obtiment,
sicut etiam ex S. 7, rag & &v paò i coNoyi ròy Inarciv Xptaròy iv
araguì è An Av6éva, àvri (pia ri; èari. Sed CEcumenius et ver-
siones omnes editis congruunt, sc. Träy Tveipza o–iAnAv66 ra
èx roi Geci obu èari, xaì toiró éati rè roi avrxgio rov, vide
locum hunc excussum 1 Joh. iv. 3.
Idem dicendum est de locis a Justino Martyre ex
memoria, ut dixi, citatis, a S. 18 ad S. 26, quae speciatim
jam attingo, v. g. Matt. v. 28, os 2 è g) è ln yvyatki, Just.
Tra; i 6Né roy yvyaina, textus, iºn è coixevo e ri tagòia ragà rº;
Geº, Just. é coixsvasy avròv iv r; tagòie ai rog, text. v. 46, èù»
yàg à yarhaers baac, riva tata Sòy éxete; ouxi zaì oi reNovai tò
abrò rotolari ; ita Matthaeus : ri xavòy roteirs ; uaì yà? oi
rógvo roiro rotolary, Just. cap. vi. 21; èasi a rai xaì xagòia
igay, text. ; Raì i voli, roi dv6p&rov, Just. cap. v. 16; Napoléto
èè ipºv rà tanà eya èp rgo a Sèv rav div6pºrov, iva 3Né royra;
Savtzágozi riv raréea ipºv iva i86vreg èo;à oro ori, text.
S. 21, legit ovòeic à ya03c ei ci puóvog Geò i roria ag rà révra,
Matt. xix. 17. S, 26, e Matt. x. 28 aut Luc. xii. 34 legit,
1144.
EXAMEN MILLII.
pań poésſass roug &yaipºvira;, poésio St 33 rôy past& rô &močayeſ,
Buyákwevoy, &c. ubi textui addumtur verba past& ré &moSaygiv,
§. 48, allegat hac verba tanquam dicto a Judaeis Christo in
cruce suffixo, vºxeois àwayeigaç, fiva &a So Hautów, ubi Grabius
mos refert ad Matt. xxvii. 39, 40, qui versiculi verbis
Martyris parum conveniunt. In Dialogo cum Tryphone,
p. 235, habet hac verba a Luc. xi. 52, “Wae vobis scribis,”
3ri wastëa; #xers. Textus, 3rt #pare thy x\sſèa rā, yyāorsos.
Luc. xii. 50, dicit Christus “Baptismum habeo bap-
tizari,” xai rā; aváxogai Éow, où reAsa Sí, hanc clausulam sic
exhibet Irenaeus, lib. i. cap. 18, p. 89, wal, ºráyv Štreiyoº.cat sic
aúrð, Epiphanius, Haer. Arian. p. 784, xa, ri Séxaſ, ei ºn
#8amºria Sny;
Clemens Alex. ait, Paedag. lib. i. cap. 6, p. 82, cum
Dominus noster baptizatus esset, ecce vox e coelis dicens,
“Hic est filius Ineus dilectus,” #y& a hasgow yeyévynxó are, et
lib. ii. cap. 1, p. 45, allegat verba apostoli, 1 Cor. viii. 6, ad
hunc modum, 3XX& ºvo, Syrac Šarly six hºày 3 QE3; # of r3.
orávra, ubi textus sic, 3AA' hºw ei. Osó; 3 rathe, &c. Hanc
insignem mutationem praeterit Millius ; notat autem omitti
verba sequentia, wai pasſ; eig airy. Ubi Sanctus Judas
scripsit 3Ecºot: áſ?ioic tºr: Käpoy Terhénxey, ibi Clemens habet
in 3 & boy &yetov 3,7&ov, Stro. iii. p. 467; 3 Kūčić; [ºnary] §
yżka, º kagaºro, Kai é º yawhorac, whº yakgiro, quae ut
videtur citare non exevangeliis, sed ex 1 Cor. vii. 27, ita neque
verbis, neque sententiae apostoli satis apte respondent. Stro.
iv. p. 488, sic verba Zacchaei profert, hºwian rāv Útraºxávrov wov
8í8was #xesºzoo’iyny roi; ºr toxois, et deinde addit, #4 of wai à
corr㺠strev, 6 viðg rod &v69&trou #x0&w a #&epoy rā ātroXoxic súpav,
quod multum discrepat a Luc. xix. 8–10. In eadem
pagina haec verba desumit, vel e Matt. xii. 42, vel e Marc.
ix. 41, x2, &c &y 8%mrat #ya rāy ºaflºray roºrov rāy wizgöv,
pºta ºvoºk 3roxéas, quas receptae lectioni parum congruunt.
Eodem libro, p. 529, his verbis, tanquam a Christo dictis
‘pnaiy affigit, #y Troſhan; #xenºoriſyny, ºn?sic yiyalaxito, zal ày
wngreſſºn; &asſºw iva & ©ed, ºvo; yºváczn, 3,926troy 3; otº sic,
ubi certe nihil sibi statuit praeterquam Christi dicta, Matt.
vi. in epitomen redigere. Stro. vi. p. 662, parabolam,
Matt. xiii, 47, 48, sic recitat, Šuoia Harty # 8actxeia rāy
oùgavåy &y683trº arayåyny ais Sáxaca’ay 388xnxóri, wai Éx roörxā0ov;
#axokotov ixºdoy rºy in Aoyāv rāy &pºsivávay rotoup.áo), sensum sic
afferens, non verba Christi; pariter ac Stro. iii. p. 440, ubi
illo teste, Christus ait, Luc. xii. 58, were roi; &vrièixov 328ićay
‘piño; atrot, Treigáðurt WaxMaxºval. Ex his etiis qua dicentur
infra, facile discamus, in judicio quod de patrum citationibus
fecit, longe aut falli, aut prejudiciis abreptum, a veritate
multum aberrasse Millium. Clemens enim, eo teste, in
adducendis N. Test. locis creber est, et cautus raro,
quicquain ingerens, seu etiam praetermittens. Prol. p. 60,
col. 2. -
De Origenis in scripturis citandis licentia, aliquid supra
diximus, locisque in praecedente sectione notatis. Sexcenta
nullo negotio addere possim. Sed ne in is proferendis
mimius sim, pauca ex innumeris depromam, v. g. pro ri
São si ºn 3yhºpón; Luc. xii. 49, Orig. in Exod. ed Huet.
to. i. p. 22, legit, sire 33 fixán. Com. in Matt. p. 463, verba
apud Lucam, cap. xiv. 28, 29, sic repraesentat, ºri, #
ūzāv Bovačkºvo, Trúgvoy oizołowºcal oix; Jinqićst, si èövarat
Säval Sepcéatov Kai #wrexérat, iva ºch Češov.ral of Sewgoivre;
#wraßeir rā ai, Texia avºrs; ubi sensum Christi retinens, in
verbis plurima mutat, haec tamen sic introducit, arse roi,
rototºrov woºziča, AExéxŠal ºrdeyov into roi; a wrºpos ré, Com. in
Matt. p. 307; pro rére avyńxay of peaSnºrai, Matt. xvii. 13,
habet Origenes of avyavagávre; test, p.2Snrai, ibid. p. 489;
ita allegat, 1 Tim. ii. 3, a w8ña's rat 3: 3:3 rà, rezvoyoviaç, #3,
‘rā ºriava &#yn #y triars, immutans welvoort in aeſyn, et simul
addens tº réaya explicandi gratia. Et pro y Troia ragagon;
"ragašáxoºv airrºy; Orig. in Matt, p. 208, legit, #y rivi airly
Tragašox; Sãºgy;
Athanasius in scriptis suis genuinis receptam lectionem
plerumque retinet, et de via raro aliter quam addendo
pauca declimat, #. g. 2 Cor. v. 15, haec reperias, &ri si si.
bºrée ºrávrov & réflavºv, “utique omnes mortui sunt, et pro
omnibus mortuus est,” ºva of Čºvre; oizért Havroſ: Čša'iy, 3ÅA&
rº bºrée air&V &troflavávri was #yepôāyri, at vero illud de ſn-
carn. Verbi, p. 62, sic legit, Śri ei iwāp, &c. iya jasi,
anxiºr Havrcís (f. #4avroſs) {3,4,ey, 3xx& ré ürip had 3ro-
Bayávri àvarrávri Éx. Expów, rô Kupig, hºw 'Incoſ xglová, ubi
de defectu ei, et de posteriori additamento, mentionem
facit Millius, de reliquis variationibus nullam. In secunda
oratione contra Arian. p. 351, rag& roi IIáreº (inquity
*śystal ºr #Treibºv Osó; &y yé yovey &vágaroc, mec tamen ex-
istimabat verba haec finró; in Petri epistolis inveniri, sed
tantum virtute in 1 Pet. iv. 1 contineri. Nam orat. iv.
p. 483, sic suam ipse sententiam aperit. Postguam enim
hac attulisset verba, Xploroi, own ºrašávro; invić #4&y oraçxi,
addit, hoc autem est irov tº pával Q=3; 3W, 3roy #axs cºwa,
xai rotºrº Xºpaevoy 36 yávº, 3,08070; yśyovs 3:’ #236.
Cyrillus Hierosol. sic loquentem introducit Paulum. º'
ićiaragºs, #y& clºa Śri akampéy aci iott ºrgö; ºftyrea Aawrićly,
Catech. 10, p. 90, et Catech. 5, p. 45, pro rmg%'ai c's rhy
ivºrºv, 1 Tim. vi. 14, legit rmgāral raúrny baſic rºy traga.
3słogávny triarty. -
Producit sapissime in scenam Epiphanium, ut lectionis
non tantum varia, sed genuinae, testem idoneum (quod
mon modo ex annotationibus, sed ex prolegomenis, p. 75,
col.2, et p. 76, col. 1, 2, apparet). Fatetur tamen ipse
Millius ibidem ab Epiphanio plerumque negligentius, et
ad sensum allegata esse s. codicis testimonia, quorum
falsa et vera inter se numero non distinguuntur, v. g. in
Anchorato hae depromit, p. 26, e Joh. xii. 35, oùx gave
#y wºri, Wa h haiga y axérel tºwā; xaraxá8, quae a textu, aut
verbis Christi, pro quibus adducuntur, adeo longe discre-
pant, ut licet forte videantur additamentum e 1 Thessal. v.
4, neutiquam tamen dicenda sint legitima explicatio. In
Anacephalasosi, p. 156, sic legit, 1 Cor. xv. 42, r3 yöy corst-
géºvº v šavárº, #yeleoytal #y 33dvaciz. Textus autem i,
$60pſi, v 398apaiº. In Panario, i.e. volumine Adv. Haer.
quitiquies vel sexies legit, Joh. viii. 44, wai 3 rathe airoi;
Jeſſºrs; ºv, viz. p. 279 bis, 295, 297, 676, 677, qua ex lec-
tione originem suam duxit absurda illa quorundam Chris-
tianorum de patre diaboli opinio. Interdum quaedam
Christi aut apostolorum adducit testimonia, quae musquam
sunt gentium. Ita, p. 690, post verba, quibus Christus
alloquitur suos discipulos, “Attendite a fermento phari-
Saeorum quod est hypocrisis,” addit, Rai #y &xxº, Táriº #.āori
‘pixaºyugia, forsan alludens ad Luc. xvi. 14, ubi pharisaei
$ºpyvpot appellantur. Et p. 751, 754, 917, dicit, & Kūčios
sixoyāv touc peaſºnrāz, Épm, Tráree, 30c airdſ; £oy #xely #y hav-
roic' at vero neque haec verba apud s. scripturam occurrunt,
neque perfectio illa divina hominibus communicari potest.
Supervacaneum autem est, post Heinsii labores, plura
hic adducere, cum enim multa hujusmodi in medium pro-
tulerit, orationem sic claudit, “Cujusmodi si singula vel ex
solo hoc adducerem autore, in quo miram ubique licentiam
notavi, quis futurus finis esset?”
Sanctus Basilius, tom. ii. 664, verba Pauli, Eph. iv. 2,
sic exhibet, &vexówevol &AA#xay iv &yáwn Xgiaroſ, non quia
ibi reperisset Xetarot, sed explicationis gratia, vel forte
ex cap. v. 2, Trºgiºratºrs #y dyárn, xaffº, wał & Xplorë, hyā-
Trnasy #paſſic. - *
Cyrillus Alex. recitat verba Luc. xi. 11, sic, 36ts fixen-
£40aºyny, zai i80ſ Trávra içiy stoča arai, De Ador. Sp. p. 272.
Pro Tatra, ye&#Ety, Phil. iii. 1, saepius habet raira Agysty,
in Hos. p. 1, in Amos. p. 285, in Joel, p. 381. Allegat
verba Jacobi c. v. 20, ad hunc modum oréas, Juxāy aircü, in
Min. Proph. p. 494. -
Sanctus Chrysostomus sic Agrippae regis verba profert,
Kiyºvyeósic ºf #y 3xiyº wotho'ai Yºigºriavy, ed Mor. to. i. p. 669,
sed in commentario editis congruit. Sic etiam Christi
verba refert, Luc. xiii. 2, 4, 3oxeira Śri fixeſvol &#xagºtoxo;
#aav wiyoy, ubi recepta lectio habet raga trávra, rob; Taxixai-
ous, trap. Trávra; 3,626trous, vide to. v. p. 74, 75. Haec etiam
Rom. ix. 32, tanquam ipsissima textus verba recitat, 3r
oix #4 wiztios, 3xx' & # #yoy Vázov #9; ana'ay 3izaw8āvai.
Omnia percurrere infinitus esset labor ; ecce autem e
grandioribus exemplis, Matt. xxv. 34–36, sic textum ex-
hibet, Kai Tobº ºfty &mośćsrat &r trevövra airby É9;s pay, wai
3t-lºvira éméricay, Kai £évoy vra avyāyayoy, wai yüavoy $vra reg-
#8axoy, Hai 323Evowra #7saxépayro, xa, iv puxax; #yra Eiðoy,
wai 8&st riv_8ariasiay abroſ., ubi si sensum spectes, nihil
deest; si verba, in omnibus deficiunt.
SECTIO TERTIA.
S1 singula enumerare velim, quae textui de suo adjece-
runt patres Graeci, in molem immensam cresceret oratio :
ut igitur pauca de multis attingam.
EXAMEN MILLII.
1145
Primo hoc in genere Clemens Alexandrinus centies ad
minimum peccat, nec enim fides adhibenda est Millio di-
centi raro ipsum quicquam ingerere. Frustra enim verbis
asseritur quod re ipsa falsi arguatur. Ex. gr. Protrept.
p. 3, Tit. iii. 2 sic recitat, hºwev ºwāy hºv Trors xai hºzsſ,
évônto, non quod rå høey bis ibi legeret, sed vocem rhetorum
more ingeminat. Paedag. lib. i. cap. 4, p. 14, Luc. xx. 34
sic exhibet, #y yag aiſſy roštº pnai (sc. & Xºta rāz) yakºoja’s
Kai ixyapaiºzov'ral, iv & 83 ºve, rö Sãxv roſ. &#swo; 8taxplveral,
év insivº, 33 ouxéri' cap. 5, p. 85, Matt. xix. 13, 14 sic legit,
trºoahveykáy 're airå, pnai, ratēia si; xeteo6satay sixoyiac zoxv-
évray & rāy yogizov, Efrey 3 Inooúc, et post decem lineas,
Matt. xxi. 9 sic, eixoynºvo. 3 #xáaevo; #y viaar Kvelov,
$38, Kai 80%a, Kai alvoc, *.s0' izetnºia; rô Kveig' cap. 6, p. 97,
sic allegat 1 Cor. iii. 11, 3rs any virio; &; whºrio; #36vovy,
Éze:8% sixáſzny tº vogº Ip. p. 88, haec habet, 3 &tréa toxo; #wi-
atéNAoy ºrgès Kopw8íovº, pnaiv, 1 Cor. xi. 2, #pºorápany ya;
#43; Évi ävägi tragóévoy &yºv tragartºrat rô Xgiarº, stre &;
wnºrious, xai &yiovº, mºv &AX& ré pºvº Kugio," ibid. p. 99, his
verbis, 1 Cor. iii. 3, #mrei väg a agaiwoi śate, addit, rà rā;
oraćxà, peoyotyres, #7.00pxodytes, #8&vreć, ČnÅoëvreć, ºnviðrtec,
‘pbovouvre;’ cap. vii. p. 112, haec habet, 3.3 pnaly h yeapi,
(Joh. i. 17) & Váp.os 3& M&aso, #360n, oix; tºr. Mºreo;, &AA&
ūTrô afty row Aéyov, 81& Mórtog 33 roi Segārroyºro; airrot, 3.3 xxi
7:ázzago; #yévero, # 8; &#810; xágic, wai ax#Seia, 83 Inaoſ,
Kęto row #yévero, cap. 9, p. 125, ex Matt. iii. 12, r3 yap irrãoy
iv tá xeipi rai, Kuplov, & 3 wongſveral roß rupº T' &xupcy tº 34 st-
Néºévoy tº rupi. Lib. iii. cap. 12, p. 263, inter apostoli prae-
cepta enumerat hoc, Eph. v. 1, yivso-0s owy ppáviº.com, wai Kwtºn-
Tai 980ſ & rénya 3 yarn rā (ubi ré ºpáviao inter variantes
lectiones locum obtinet, licet omittat vocabulum illud
idem Clem. Stro. iii. p. 431), et post sex lineas sequitur
hoc praeceptum ex v. 28, aut 33, #yarározav ośy 3xxâxov;
oi guys evyºzévol &; rà têa arégara, de quo altum est apud
Millium silentium. Lib. ii. cap. 1, p. 141, 3 Kūgo; Aiye. Yoſy,
Luc. xiv. 13, §ray Troiſic Boxiv, x&AE row; troxois, ép 6
Kºčatara. 3sfºrwow Trointéoy. Cap. ii. p. 156, eizárog owy Ś &réa-ro-
Acº Triaréx^et, º ºsóða wea&s #y oivº, 3 #~~w &raria Troxx}.
Eph. v. 18, ubi variantes lectiones notat Millius, cap. 10,
p. 197, & pnow & IIaiño; (1 Cor. vi. 15) of Xgh répyn;
*śan Troiety rà rod Xpia roß &#x0, oë ºy vey rºy tra63v rôy
airypåy, röy vs&v roi; Geoff Trointíov. Ibid. p. 201, #y rð stay-
Yixia Aéyès (Matt. xi. 8) ièod of iv tá tºarta ºwg #y3%, wai
#v rºotfi 8táyovreć, Šv roſ. 3ao-Agiot; eizi invetoiº. Stro.
i. p. 280, 3 Kępio; ºftwo; yºvázzei row: *axoylapºoic, ex 1 Cor.
iii. 20: p. 289, ei tº Kºh ºrgoa exeral bylaívovcı ağyoic, pnai
(1 Tim. ix. 2), 318aa waxio. 38 riv retépxoral, &c.; p. 296, ex
Col. ii. 8, 8x8 tre+E ºf ric Barai & ovXayayêv &ºr rā; riotso;
ºric sic row Xela têv, 33 rāg pixocoqiaº, p. 313, 'Iověaioi pnet
(1 Cor. i. 22), anºeia airoija'i ºrgö; triotiv, ubi observat Mill.
anºeia esse pro anºeſov, sed de additamento nihil, Stro. iii.
p. 471, sic recitat Gal. ii. 20, & 33 oix + iyê, &; £oy
xará rà; trióvºaiac, Kå 33 by #xoi Xplorë, 31& rà, Tây ivroxæy
Urakoi;, &yvåg, kai (wakagiwº" et Stro. iv. p. 379, “Mihi enim
crucifixus est mundus, et ego mundo,” 8tº 33 33m iv cagº
&v, &; #y oëpay; Troxitev㺠evoc. Wide bina additamenta ad
Eph. iv. 21, 22, Paed. lib. iii. cap. 3, p. 224, addit ad 2
Cor. xiii. 5, p. 225, ad Matt. v. 29, p. 251, ad 1 Pet. i. 17,
p. 258, ad Hebr. xii. 6, Stro. ii. p. 360, ad 2 Cor. v. 12,
Stro. iii. p. 452, ad Luc. xix. 8, Stro. iv. p. 488, ad 1 Cor.
ix. 12, p. 513, ad Matt. xviii. 3, p. 538, ad Luc. viii. 8,
Stro. v. p. 545, ad Joh. x. 16, Stro. vi. p. 668, denique ad
I Cor. viii. 4, p. 695.
Origenes in Celsum, lib. vi. p. 278, sic ait, xai 'Ialáyyn;
Aéyé àrse pā; 3×nów8w potiće, Trévra &v630tow pyºzºvoy ei, Tāv
âânów8w kai wontov záagoy, kai nois; airá, 43, rå käzºo. Lib. ii.
p. 61, sic Christi verba refert, Luc. xxii. 27, Éy& 33 Éysvápany
#y &#cº tºv, oùx &c & #yazeitze,0;, &AA’ &c & Biakoväy. Lib. i.
p. 44, exemplum licentiae quam sibi sumpsit tum in mu-
tando, tum in addendo verba Dei. Sic, inquit, loquitur
Gamaliel, Act. v. 38, #3v # # 3v36&woy # 8ovah affrn, wai à
Aáyor otto: (text. Kai rā āgyov rotºro), xataxv6%a grai' &c. wai
#4Eivøy warexõ0s &roflavávrov, ižy 3; #x Osoſ (text. ei 35 in Osº
#arty) oil 8whaagøe (text. 30yacós) waraxéral rºw rotºrov Štěaa-
waxiay (text. airá).
Athanasius Alex. Hom. in “Omnia mihi tradita,” p.
150, ad verba Matt. cap. xi. 28, addit tanquam Christi
verba, “Wenite ad me omnes reficiam vos, Tragºón
yá; fºo; Wa Kotrºwavra; Šyatraßaw, zai vengo9ávra, Kooroúaw.”
Ad 1 Pet. i. 14, addit cum multis aliis, r3 rā; 3vyáºzew.
Epist. ad Serap. p. 200, Orat. ii. contra Arianos, p. 310,
allegatis Judaeorum verbis sub formula interrogandi, “Cur
tu, homo cum sis, faciste Deum?” addit wai xéysic, hya,
wal 3 ratiº v šakiv., Ibid. p. 314, verba, 1 Tim. iv. 1, sic
recitat, “In novissimis temporibus &roarharovrai rivec rºc
iðia; ºria reaſ; rā, śyaiyodanc,” et p. 303, ràc àying triarsaw, et
p. 367, Joh. iii. 17 sic legit, “Non enim misit Deus filium
suum in mundum ut judicet mundum,” &Ax’ Wa ºrávra.
Avré%antal. Orat. iv. p. 478, his verbis, Rom. xi. 29, 3agra-
Fºnta yūg Tà Xapſoftwara röö Osotſ, subjungit wał h xàpic rºc
xxñagog. Ibid. p. 480, quaestioni, Joh. vi. 42, “Quomodo
ergo dicit quod de coelo descendit” praemittit ar&; x:yet
Trel, 'A3;ačº yevicºat #y& Eigt. Orat. iv. p. 532, adducit
tanquam verba Christi, Joh. xv. 22, el yèg oix #x00,—yūy
8; Trpáqaa'iy oëk iéouaw (supple regi rā, śgaeria; airār) pnot
āknxoáte; ºzou rôy fina&roy 3,' & cornelay wagºrizoyra of pu-
Xào coyºrs;. In sermone de Salut. Adventu Christi, p. 640,
sic recitat 1 Pet. iii. 19 ; #7rogstºn roſ, Hy puxax; xaraxe-
xxsicºzávot; ºrvetºzaa'iy Edayyexicaa Sai rāv čvágraaiy. Ibid. P.
646, legit Joh. xvii. 5, 3%ará, as "rā'reg rà éðið. 3%). Serm.
de Sabbato, et Circumcisione, p. 968, post avy rapiyre; airó
#y 8avriagari addit fic rāv #3ny .
Cyrillus Hierosol. citans 1 Cor. xii. 28, post yśyn yx&carov
addit x&i trčanc àgerä, äray Elºo;. Catech. xviii. p. 222.
Apud Epiphanium saepe Christum audias dicentem, Joh.
v. 23, “Quinon honorificat filium sicut honorificat patrem,
# Spy? roi; Geoû im' abry &#yst.” Ita Panar. p. 377, 884,
977 : p. 516, iisdem verbis subjungit haec, oix #xis ºwhy iv
#avrò. Ad 1 Joh. ii. 22, addit, p. 878, 3 &oxoyöy roy vičy,
xzi rév watéga decoxoyeſ. Addit Philip. ii. 11, xai rāora
y^3rca #op.oxoyham'ral ºri & Kögtoc, id est Xeta-ric, i oix
&NAérgio: Ogoû &v, &AX' sig 8%ay Geoû margãº, p. 972 : p. 880,
1 Cor. ii. 17, pro è gai Naxodºsy legit, #y 6 ×al Xaxojasy, et
deinde, iv & Kai Aarpedopsey, Kai ºrpoaxuvoiſºgy. Post rég
Xsſeå; twov Kai row; Tráða; ºov, Luc. xxiv. 39, addit, p. 1003,
zai row; riºrov, råy #Awy. Et p. 1055, 1 Tim. iv. 1, addit
foovral yèg vexpoſ, Aargeſoyres, at p. 296, et alibi, recitat
eundem versiculum absºlue illo additamento.
Sanctus Basilius his verbis, si, Ge?: 3 Travip, Kai si Köpio,
'Inaoüç Xgia-rác, 3i' at rā ºrávra, addit xa: y IIvrijua #ytoy #y &
tà Trávra. Lib. ii. de Spiritu Sancto, cap. 2, tom. ii. p.
294, et tom. i. Hexam. p. 6, col. i. 16, addit sits Suyápºsiç,
eire &yyáxoy atgartai, Eirs &#xayyáňov Štric racial, forsan in-
terpretamento horum verborum, ‘rā #y roſ; otpaydis, xai tā.
#7? yñº, quae omittit.
Macarius AEgyptius in his additamentis prae caeteris
abundat. Hom. ix. p. 5, 1 Cor. ii. 15, 3 Tysvaa’rix㺠(ºpnai)
yıytórzsi ézaa’roy Tráðay Aaxeſ, Troi floºrnxe zai #y troioic ºrpci,
#aariv. Hom. xii. p. 73, Martham introducit sic Christum
alloquentem, Luc. x. 40, #y& x&payo, sîs troºxê, kai air;
Trapaxa Sáðsrai d'oi. Hom. xiv. p. 75, legit 1 Cor. ix. 10,
wai & Aag.8ávay yuyaſza #wi #xtríð; roi, Hysiſ x^npovákovº. Matt.
xix. 21, his verbis, “Wende quae habes,” addit fairna w rhy
zolvøylay caeztºv, 305AEvaoy tº Osº. Ep. p. 211, addit Gal.
iv. 2, Unrē irorgórow; wai oixovágov; rāv Troyngºy Trevºzárov.
Wide similia ed. Paris. p. 88, 202, 236. -
Theodoretus, Haer. Fab. p. 309, ad 1 Cor. vii. 7, São Xàp
Trávra; 3,93%trov; siva &; Kai #4auty #y #yxpatsiº, ita enim
explicat haec verba in commentario suo. Idem eadem de
causa fecit Chrysostomus, ed. Mor. tom. iii. p. 12 et 385,
et tom. iv. p. 539. Cum vero tantum legimus, Acts xiii.
46, a respáºssa et; ºr: #Syn, Theodoretus in Isa. xi. et orat.
10 adv. Gr. p. 639, legit kaśagoi Hºſ., 373 roß rºy is ºwn
TrogºvačaaSa. Cum editis tamen congruit Comment. in Jer.
p. 170, legendo ièot, arge pépcesa Big Tà #6wn. * *
Denique verbis Christi, Matt. xix. 17, el tº #: @ºc, ad-
jiciunt patres primaevi nunc à toiága, Távº, Just. M. Apol.
2, p. 63, alias 3 rathe wou #y roſ, oigayoſº, Dial. Cum Tryph.
p. 328, Clem. Alex. Paedag. lib, i. cap. 8, p. 118, et Iren,
lib. i. cap. 17, alias simpliciter & Trathe. Orig. Exhort. ad
Martyr. p. 169, Com. in Joh. p. 38, et p. 60, et contra
Cels. lib. v. p. 238.
SECTIO QUARTA.
MultA verba saepe et periodos omittunt patres, aut
saltem contrahunt reclamantibus suis exemplaribus, ex eo
quod forsan quibusdam illa locis superflua widebantur (sicut
1146 EXAMEN
M ILLII.
Millio centies in ore est) vel nihil ad rem facere, vel quod
posita essent in parenthesi, vel quod bis in eadem reposita
periodo, vel propter aliam quamlibet causam. W. g.
Clemens Alex. Paedag. lib. ii. cap. 8, p. 158, legit Matt.
xi. 19, #29sv ć við; roi; 3,983trov, xat Aéyovaty, praeterito
ão Siov, xai ºrivov, sed Stro. iii. p. 448, legit haec verba;
Stro. ii. p. 368, habet hac verba, ºria réoy rfi yºgºff, S.
Matt. xix. 24, Šárrow xàºznxov 81& revorhøaro; Bºyng Sisasá-
agašai, ; Traoûatov pixoa opeiv. lbid. p. 381, sic recitat Matt.
xvii. 20, #&y #xnte triarty &; xáxxoy awátreak, ºxera arha's re rô
âgos. P. 389, 3 yag #Triśvahaac, Höm &epsoixswks, pnotiv. Matt.
v. 28, p. 391, raúra. AEA&Anza tºy (Joh. xv. 11) ºva #
Xapā āº trampoºi, mediis, Év tºº fastyn Kai à Xapá úzów, Stro.
iii. p. 438. IIäç yag & #xagrávoy 365Aé, Éariv, 5 &mérroMoç
Aéyès, nimirum, opinor, ex Rom. vi. 16, ubi sensus fere
idem est, verba tamen diversa. P. 440, sic se habet Luc.
xii. 58, ºft"rors tragašā as xgiri, 3 xpirº; 33 rô wºrsgårn rā;
&pxii; 8tagón”. Stro. iv. p. 480, § Kūčioc y Eijayyexity pnaw
(Marc. x. 29) 3, &y zaraxeisly traºrépa. #yExey giayyexiov,
xzi row vågarác &ov, waxégioc obtoai. Wide etiam Stro. iv.
p. 529, vi. p. 644, 662. Ecce hominem qui Millio judice
raro quicquam praetermittit.
Cyrillus Hieros. Joh. i. 3, omittit 3 yśyovey. Catech. vi.
p. 50, et Luc. ii. 11, a wrºt & Hari, Catech. x. p. 86.
Epiphanius in Anchorato, p. 61, legit Act. xxvii. 37, 3:
3yèoñxovira Juxxi, et p. 83, &c juxai #330pañxovira. Textus
autem at Trâa at luxai 8takóziat #880ſºftwovra ##, numerum Sc.
majorem praetermittit, et in minori a se ipso dissentit. In
Haeresi Manichaeorum, p. 679, parabolam zizaniorum recitat
ex Matt. xiii. a v. 24 ad 31, ubi ut missa faciam minutiora
illa a Millio notata, primo pro ày9837° cºreigoyri waxby a réº-
&a #y tº #ypā; airot, habet äySgóra, oixoësa rörn & Harsips ty
&ygöy attoi waxby a trágºza. Secundo omittit, &va Azéarov rod
airou wai &māAŠey, v. 25, una cum toto versiculo sequenti.
Tertio, v. 27, addit, & 33 pm wai, sc. pro “non,” in quo sensu
nunquam occurrit apud s. scripturam. Quarto, Christum
introducit messoribus dicentem, 3%arate 8scº, xai äroºzá-
Čste rà ºðvia gig zarazańval Trupi &c.;3ártº. In Haer. Catlia-
rorum, p. 494, recitat, Heb. vi. a v. 4 ad 8, ubi deest, v.
7, 370 QEoij, ait Millius, et v. 6, eiç Awaráyotay, et v. 4, YEva'a-
(wévous rā; 30.853; rod Éiroveaviov, Kai agréxov; yewn&#wra; IIyed-
&aro; &yiov, de quibus nihil Millius. ~.
Sanctus Basilius ter repetit verba Christi, Matt. xxviii.
19, ad hunc modum, Trogºvšávre; Barrićere eiç rº wop, a roſ,
Traºréég, viz. lib. i. contra Eunom. p. 714, lib. iii. p. 752, 758,
sed quater cum excusis convenit, legens, ºrogevşâvre; £caën-
Teša are révra rà é9wn Barrićovre; airoi;, &c. viz. tom. i. p.
549, 560, tom. ii. p. 423, 479.
Hoc sacpissime accidit cum eadern verba bis in eadem
periodo reperiuntur. Ita Origenes, hom. 11, in Jer. p.
113, verba Christi sic profert, Matt. x. 34, º yogićers &rt
%xSov Baxeſ, sighvny &AA& Máxatgay, praeterita, posteriori
illo #x$ow 8axeſ, sighyny. Com. in Joh. p. 169, omittit #y
êv㺠aºrt Kveiou, Marc. xi. 10, quia occurrit in fine versiculi
praecedentis. Cyrillus Alex. sic allegat 2 Cor. v. 15, si
ei, inăe ºrávray &rišavey, &ga of Trávºrs, ārśSavoy iya oi
Čºvtek, omisso, xai útrip Trávrov &mášavey quod dictum fuit
prius Thesaur. 278. Et de Ador. Sp. p. 351. Chrysos-
tomus, ed. Mor. tom. iii. p. 10 et 19, citat Luc. vi. 36 sic,
yºveo Se oty oizºriškovec &; 3 trarip tºwāv ć #y roſ; otzavois, ex
Matt. iv. 48. Sic Act. vi. 13, omittit 8Xácºmºza in cominen-
tario Suo quia lectum est, v. 11. Hujus generis exempla
multa occurrunt apud ipsius Commentaria in Psalmos, et
apud Millii prolegomena, et varias lectiones.
Frequenter etiam omittuntur verba quae in parenthesi
collocantur, sic Act. xii. 3, a Chrysostomo omissa Sunt
#aay 33 hºcápat rāy &ćºov. Sic 1 Cor. xv. 3, § 2ai tragéNagoy,
ab Irenaeo, lib. iii, cap. 20, p. 246, a Tertulliano, lib. iii.
contra Marcion. cap. 8, et Hilario P. omittuntur. Quan-
quam ergo agnoscant haec verba versiones, Graecique scho-
liasta ad unum omnes, utpote #&@arixátega, si Millium
tainen audias, Prol. p. 47, col. 2, commentarius est ex v. 1,
et p. 81, col. 1, vox explicatoria de margine est mixta cum
ltalicae genuinis.
Nihiletiam apud patres usitatius quam in citandis scrip-
turis, quae prooemii aut praefationis loco habentur praeter-
mittere. Ita Origenes, regi Eixãº, p. 87, 88, omittit &ºw,
&pañy Aéyo tºxiv, Joh. vi. 53, incipiens ab #&y £45, páynºrs,
et v. 53, Hyd Biat àgro; rā; Kojº, absºlue sim's 33 attºº, et
Chrysostomus, ed. Mor. tom. i. p. 756, in unum con-
fundit Col. iv. 4, Eph. vi. 20, quod tamen in utraque
epistola est, &c ºf £46 Azaña'at, negligit. -
Hoc etiam crebro contingit in clausula periodi, ubi patres
decurtant, et amputant verba quae ad rem suam minime
pertinent. , V. g. Cyrillus Alex. Thes. p. 163, ut probaret
secundam in sancta Trinitate personam meram creaturam
non fuisse, citat Eph. ii. 10, aircü yée Écºlev Troimaa wºrta-
Sèvre; #y Xetaró Ingot, abscissis ºri #yot; 3)ašoſ, utpote ad
argumentum nihil facientibus. Et p. 169, filium non esse
creaturam probat ex 1 Cor. viii. 6, ei, Kūpio; 'Inaº, xeta.rö,
ël’, où ré ºrávra, praetermittens Kai pºsſ, 3 airti, utpote in
prioribus inclusa. Chrysostomus, ed. Morel. tom. iii. p.
41, sic allegat Eph. iv. 13, Kwéxpt Karayrhorolºgy of Trávºrs, etc
ãvöga réxstow sic ºrgoy #Aixiac, praeteritis roi; TAméº, aro; rot,
Xetarot in fine, et duabus pericopis in medio versiculi.
Non raro etion omittunt quae superflua illis videbantur,
presertim cum sint idiotismi Hebraici in usu frequenti
apud LXX. Interpretes. Ita Joh. vi. 2, “Sequebatur eum
multitudo magna, §r $3pov airo; rā anasia & iroist,” aircü,
deest in versionibus antiquis, Chrysost. Cyril. Chron. Alex.
nempe quia superfluum videbatur. Esse tamen pleonas-
mum Hebraicum constat. Wide Buxtorf. Gram. p. 412
Sic 1 Pet. ii. 24, où ré wºoir aircü iáSnts, tº of deest.
Sic Joh. vi. 9, Trai&ágoy fly 688, deest ºy quia tragéAxei. Sic
v. 15, deest ºráxiv MSS. quibusdam et versionibus, Chry-
sostomo, et Nonno : restamen ipsa minime dubia est, si-
quidem subiit in eundem montem Jesus, v. 3. Sic v. 22,
“Navicula alia non erat ibi nisi una si º ży fixeſvo,” ubia
Chrysost. et MSS. aliquibus #4fivo omissum existimat Lucas
Brug. quod in eis 6 quod sequitur, satis significetur. Sic
Joh. vii. 3, “Ut videant discipuli tui tā āpya; cov & Troisie,”
omittunt cov Chrysost. Cyril. Theophyl. ob eandem causam.
Act. iv. 17, &reix: âtreixº~&a=&a, quo idiotismo vehemen-
tiam exprimunt Hebrai. Qui hot, non intelligebant, 37six;
omise unt. Luc. i. 75, Trázac rā; hºw#a; tā; o; #zāv,
Vulg. et Syr, omittunt zºº Cañº, utpote in reliquis inclusum.
Cap. xiv. 18, 3ray xxn&is sic yáºzovº, ité rivo, omisso, qui
enim invocatus fuerit ad coenam, ab aliquo ut voceturne-
cesse est. Cap. xix. 2, 3 &vhe viºart waxoſºvo, Zaxxafoc,
deest taxoſkewog. Hinc ipse Millius agnoscit hoc vel illud
vocabulum crebro omitti ut supervacaneum.
TXenique, contingit nonnunquam, ipsis patribus id indi-
cantibus, quod quidam inter eos dedita opera omiserint
verba aliqua ex vano timore, ne sanae doctrinae obesse, aut
haeretica pravitati patrocinari videantur : sic quonian
quidam sentiebant, fletum, cum singultu, Christi personae
haud bene convenisse, et tamen flewisse eum, cum vide-
ret Hierosolymam, legimus, Luc. xix. 41, et post mortem
Lazari, Job. xi. 35. “Haec loca,” inquit Grotius, “male
olim solicitata ab iis qui Christum nobis stoicum effingere
voluerunt.” Sit autem hoc incertum, utpote quod fidei
unius Epiphanii innitatur, cujus yerba in alium sensum
trahit Grabius, et post illum Millius, quem aegre, me ju-
dice, ferunt. Certo tamen certius est totum illud. Luc.
xxii. 43, 44, ab Orthodoxis quibusdam omissum fuisse, me-
tuentibus ne in malam illud partem haretici interpretaren-
tur, aut quia pusilli videbatur animi in tanta fuisse agonia
Christum formidine mortis, ut sudor ejus esset sicut gutta,
Sanguinis. Hinc Hieronymus, lib. ii. adv. Pelagian, f.
103, lit. F, haec habet, “In quibusdam exemplaribus
[N.B. tam Graecis, quam Latinis, invenitur, scribere
lucam, Apparuit illi angelus de coelo confortans eum, et
factus in agonia, prolixius orabat, et factus est sudor ejus
sicut guttae sanguinis decidentis in terram.” “In quibus-
dam,” inquit, “invenitur,” in multis ergo defuit. Hilarius
de Trin.lib. x. p. 253, in eandem sententiam loquitur his ver-
bis, “Nec same ignorandum a nobis est, et in Graecis et in
Latinis codicibus quamplurimis, vel de adveniente angelo,
vel de sudore sanguinis nil scriptum reperiri.” Epipha-
nius hoc plenius agnoscit, in Anchorato ; cum enim dix-
erit, corpus suum dedit Christus percutientibus, et faciem
Suain non avertit a conspuentibus, addit, p. 36, &AN& wai
#xxava's, Keſrat #y tº ºxerê, Aoûway evayyexia, #y roſ; 38togS&roic
ăvºrtygá‘pots, xa, xixental rà wagºrvpig ó #ylog Eignvaſo; #y rô
wat' Aipša'sov ºrgè; rob; 3oxha's rêv Xgia rºw tre+nvéva, Aéyovraç,
“Sed in Evangelii Lucae exemplaribus non correctis habe-
turquod flevit, eoque testimonio utitur Irenaeus contra eos
qui Christum specie tantum apparuisse dicebant,” p$680%,
ExAMEN MILLII.
114.7
* z * y gººd º
8è ãºrro tê šntów, poénēśvrt;, wai w; voidavre; abroß ré réxog,
* x & º g z
Ma' rú taxupératov, kai yivépcevo; #y &yoyig ºgwars, xał #yévero 5
* * -> * * g w -> w
i83& airoi; &; Seáºz8ot aft, aroc, Rai ##$n &yyexo, Evia Wuoy
* a 7 * * *
aúráv. Wide Millium, Proleg. p. 101, col. 2.
SECTIO QUINTA.
QUINTo, innumera e patribus Graecis deprompta cita-
tiones, in quibus a recepta lectione aliquantulum discedunt,
ud mutandam receptam lectionem eo minus autoritatis ha-
bent, quod iidem alias aliter legunt, et plerumque cum
editis conveniunt. FX. gr.
Clemens Al. Christi verba, Matt. vi. 33, Stro. iv. p. 488,
sic recitat, Čnteſts ºrgårow rāv Baataeſaw rāv oveaväy, zal rºw
3%atovoivny, kai rā "repi 6iow ºrports&#&eta; tºy, Paedag. lib.
ii. cap. 10, p. 198, sic, Čnteſts riv 8aaixeiav roi; Geoû, ka? rà.
ºric rºotbā;, &c., cap. 12, p. 207, Čnºreſts ºrgårov 'riv (3aorixelay
Töy otpayāy wał raira Trávra, ubi in prima et tertia citatione
habet Barºtiay rāv oùgayāv, in secunda, roß Osó juxta tex-
tum, in tertia retinet Trávra raºra, in prima et secunda
mutat in rà regi 8toy, et rà Tâ; Trºopäç. In secunda deest
wrºtoy, in secunda et tertia Bizztoodymy, qua tamen apud pri-
Imam occurrunt. Haec ipsa verba Theodoretus decies ad
minimum repetit editis congruentia, at Comment. in Ps. cii.
reperias, Kai raira Trávra #4 ºrspºrtroi; ºrpoar:6ficeral, hinc autem
constat, immerito a locis ad hunc modum citatis receptam
lectionem solicitari.
Verba Matthaei, cap. xi. 27, sic se habent, “Nemo novit
filium nisi pater, oběš rôy maréga rig triywóaxei Ei kº. 3 vić,”
qua verba cum allegaverit Marcion sic, ovºi, Hyyo, judice
Irenteo, lib. i. cap. 17, p. 88, et lib. iv. cap. 14, legen-
dum fuit oësi, yºaks, ut lectum est a Justino, Dial. p.
326. Is tamen, in Apol. 2, ed. Ox. $. 82, 83, legit of 33;
#yva röy raréga, unde Grabius, notis in Iren. p. 300, ait,
“Mirum autem quod Justinus, Apol. 1, p. 122, verba Christi
citaverit perinde ac haeretici legerunt ;” sed decrescet mi
randi causa si recordemur haec ad eundem modum citata
esse a Clem. Alex. Protrept. p. 8, Paedag. lib. i. cap. 5, p.
89, et Stro. i. p. 355, ab Orig. Com. in Joh. p. 264, 416, et
contra Cels. lib. ii. p. 104, et lib. vii. p. 361. Eusebius
contra Marcel. Ancyr. lib. i. cap. 12, p. 72, habet an&sic
#yvo rày ratéga, ei º 3 við;, &c. 15, p. 76, où8sic oſºe, et in
eadem pagina obºeic riyivázket. Et cap. 16, p. 77, où8sic
#yvo. Et. p. 78, où8sic offs. Sicut etiam Basilius, tom. i.
contra Eunom. p. 714, 770. Similiter Epiphanius in An-
chorato, p. 16, 25, 71, legit odºeic diºe, sed p. 78, otºsi, #yva.
L. de Haeres. p. 466, 532, 613, 766, 891, 943, 977, legit
oßsic oiºs, sed p. 898, oºsic #yyo. Clemens Al. Paedag. lib.
i. cap. 5, p. 88, verba Pauli, Eph. iv. 13, sic refert, a #xpt
×aravráa.opaev of Trávre; eiç rºw #yórnºra rāg ºria'rgog, wai #7riyyaº-
a so, Geoû, ubi, adnotante Millio, deest roi; viod. Sed Stro.
iv. p. 527, diserte dicit, kai rā, śriyyāorso; ro; vio'ſ roi; Geoſ.
Origenes contra Cels. lib. v. p. 273, legit 1 Tim. iv. 2,
*Exavrmpiacºzávow rºy oixelay orvygiènow, quae inter variantes
lectiones locum occupat. Idem tamen, Com. in Matt. p.
357 et 400, legit rºy ièíay cruveiðhow, juxta textum, lib. i.
contra Cels. p. 2, legit Rom. viii. 35, “Quis nos separabit
&md tâ; 3 yárnç roi; Osoſ; ;” sed Com. in Matt. p. 357, 358,
dºré rā; &yárn; rod Xploroú, ut se habet textus. Ibid. p. 40,
sic recitat Matt. xxviii. 13, Einars &re of £429mºrai atroſ,
hºwāv Kotºzoºyoy Vukºc, Éxxesſay airów. Sed Com. in Joh. p.
357, #xSévre; vuxºrº, #xxâxpay attöv, hºw worpºop, #voy. Lib. i.
p. 47, Joh. xviii. 36, vvvi 83 oix arriv #x roi, 26.aſpxov' roãrou #
8aatasia high, sed Com. in Joh. p. 21, Évreſ Sey perinde ac
in textu. Lib. ii. p. 56, legit Act. x. 9, &yÉ8m 5 IIergö, eiç ro
itregàov, Sed Com. in Jer. p. 177, si; to 8%, a ut edit. Ibid.
p. 58, legit Gal. iv. 21, Aéyeré Azot of rāv Vágoy &vayuydiazovteq,
sed Philoc. p. 10, et Com. in Job. p. 428, oi Üzrö rôy väzov
Séaoyre; siva ut ibi apostolus : omittit 1 Cor. viii. 6, xat
hºst; eig airáy. Tib. viii. contra Cels. sc. ibi, p. 381, uncis
hac inclusa sunt, sed reperies illa verba abscue uncis, lib.
iv. p. 179. Orig. contra, Celsum, inquit Millius, legit 2
Thess, ii. 3, &yºgorog āyogia;, p. 98, nempe quia sic scrip-
tum est in margine, sed legit &pagtiaº, lib. vi. p. 307, et
Com. in Matt. p. 347, et in Joh. p. 76. Legit, inquit Mil-
lius, oièa, lib. vi. p. 307 ; at hoc factum est oscitantia libra-
xii. Legit enim of ars, lib. ii. p. 89. Legit quidem ºré wºrst
p. 307, sed Tréºps, p. 90. Legit &navts; p. 307, ubi in
margine adnotantur movem variantes lectiones, sed Com.
iſ Joh. p. 76, Trávris, Com, in Joh.p. 135, legit Joh. vi. 50,
receptam lectionem exhibet, Com. in Hos. p. 12.
§aei eiç aiāva, Sed Com. in Matt. p. 254, Khasrai. In ed-
dem versiculo omittit?v #y& 8%aw, ex more patrum, ubi ea-
dem verba bis occurrunt, sed eadem legit bis rept Eäxic, p.
88. Com. in Joh. p. 164, legit Joh. vi. 55, h oráč wou ar:
&An63; 8pāoric, r3 aipº pºou &xi;S㺠Tráciº, sed Com. in Matt.
4.17, 3Anóð; utrobique. Com. in Matt. p. 291, legit #y r?
8aaixeſ, airoi, zai tº 36%m airoij, sed p. 294, absºlue illo
additamento. Utøue hujusmodi multa intacta praeteream,
Com. in Matt. p. 324, legit Marc. ix. 36, £y rôy traßiov, sed
intra paucas lineas £v rotočarov rai?iov. Matt. xi. 22, legit
āyektórsgow Barai hip.iv, Philoc. p. 109, et Com. in Ex. tom.
i. p. 25, sed Com. in Matt. p. 327, addit #y hºw#& rā; agia’soc.
Cem. in Joh. p. 253, legit Joh. i. 33, oùróg Éarty 3 vić, row
Osoſ, sed commentario eodem, p. 58, 76, 93,133, oùrá, écriv
ă 6aºrrićov IIveſºzart áyiº, juxta textum.
Ad hunc modum sapissime a seipso differt Epiphanius.
W. g. in Hær. Nazar. p. 114, legit Gal. v. 4, of rive; #y vågø
xauxāa śs, cum in Hazr. Cerinth. p. 113, legisset 8tzai-
oša Šs, ut etiam infra, Haeres. Dimar. p. 1032. Anchor.
p. 8, bis legit Joh. v. 31, “Si ego testimonium perhibeo
de meipso,” h (wagºrupia obºv ša riv, Sed Haer. 65, p. 614,
oux Éatty #Anóñº, pariter ac in textu. Anchor. p. 22, legit
1 Cor. xii. 8, § Aéyo; 3.8aa kaniac, et Haer. 69, p. 782, 313ar-
xaxia, sed Anchor. p. 77, legit & Aéyo; yºreog, juxta re-
ceptam lectionem. Anchor. p. 67, legit Tit. ii. 11, Ém's pâwn
# Xágic rod Osoſ; , corºgo; 3.8%axovgo hºwāg, sed p. 74, legit
à Xágic rod Ogot, h carrheto; Trai?eſovora #43', ut textus se
habet. Anchor. p. 75, legit Rom. ix. 20, a ú ri; El 3 &vri-
\Byóſzewo, tº QE3, alibi vero cum textu äyraºrokpwéºwevoc.
Gregorius Nyssenus, hom. vii. in Eccles. p. 444, re-
citat Joh. xiv. 30, #y #pºol sigia xei rāy i3ioy oë8ávº sed alibi
omittit rāy i8toy, hom. i. in Cant. p. 492. Paulo de seipso
fatenti quod blasphemus fuit, et persecutor, et contume-
liosus, addit, zai &#xas, explicans sc. illa verba, Cant. i. 5,
Pºzſvá Biºi, zał zaºji, sed eadem omittit, hom. xiii. p. 669.
Sic tom. i. p. 856, allegat Rom. viii. 29, ºrporórowoc, dyet,
a Troéâc, Éy roi; troXAof, 38Expoſ, sed tom. ii. p. 24 et 213,
additamentum illud non agnoscit.
Cyril. Alex. addit 1 Cor. viii. 7, zai v IIvetºza &ytov Šv ºf
rā ºrávra, de Ador. Spir. p. 185, sed crebro etiam cum
divinam Sancti Spiritus naturam asserebat, versiculum
absdue illa clausula allegat, scil. lib. v. par. ii. p. 117, 169,
in Isaiam, p. 539, de Recta Fide, p. 47. In libro de
Ador. p. 26, sic citat 1 Cor. xii. 3, “Nemo dicit Jesum
anathema nisi in BeEx{=80á8.” Et sic passim alibi, ut in
Thesauro suo, p. 346, et lib. de Recta Fide p. 64, legit
cum textu ovºsis #y IIvsúzart Osoſ, Aaxów. De Ador. Sp. p.
359, legit 1 Cor. ix. 8, º argovšíoy Awāael rô QE3, Sed p.
99, 130, 247, habet røy Boży, sicut textus. P. 404, legit
Jacob. i. 17, mråy 8&gnºz àyaśāv, Kai rāora sixoyia, &vošáv
#art kará rà yeygapºpºvoy sed de Recta Fide, p. 76, Glaph.
in Gen. p. 205, Com. in Amos. p. 315, cum editis congruit.
Lib. ix. contra Julianum, p. 319, D, Petri verbis, Act. x.
14, addit oiº Bia;A6ew eiç atága kov Träy agéa; 8:8;1809, sed
In Hab.
p. 568, recitat Matt. xiii. 52, “Similis est” &ySgáró, traovariº,
et sic alibi: sed Glaph. in Exod. p. 292. Com. in Zech.
p. 745, 781, 3,98&ng oizołecºrárn. Com. in Zech. p. 669,
legit &#xn in Kwéxovº, 1 Cor. xii. 21, sed p. 692, #x &#govº.
Quaestio Christi ad divitem, Matt. xix. 17, sic allegatur,
Thes, p. 310, ri &e Éporá, ºrºgi roi; 3,280; ; sed p. 346,
ti as Asyst; 3)ašćy; Glaph. in Gen. p. 8, citat Joh. vii. 39,
oùtro y&p #v IIvsjøa #ylov, ut jam in impressis : sed p. 145,
habet outro yūg #y IIveſºa, sicut plerique veterum.
SECTIO SEXTA,
OBTINUIT etiam mos iste inter primaevos patres, ut plu-
rimas s. scripturæ portiunculas, diversis temporibus, di-
versis de causis, et a diversis evangelistis memoratas,
tanquam a Christo simul prolatas congererent, iddue iis
sub verbis quae finróg nullibi apud N. Test. occurrunt.
dimens Rom. Ep. 1 ad Cor. §. 48, haec habet, “Re-
cordamini verborum Jesu Domini nostri, stºre yā; oval r&
&yŠećirº #xeiyo), waxy #y airó ei º żyayyāśn, fiva rāy #xxextów
£cov axay&axia’at, kestºrtov v airó repºreéâyat (xãov, Kai xara-
Troyria Şāyat eiç rºy Sáxacoray, Eva rāy Fºxpây (wou akaw8axi-
a'at,” ubi, teste Cotelerio, notis in Ep. Clem. p. 98, multa
testimonia in unum conjungit, nempe Matt, xxvi. 24, Luc.
1148
EXAMEN MILLII.
xvii. 2, Matt. xviii. 6, quod antiquis non. insolens fuit.
Si quis autem inspiceret locos a Cotelerio citatos, inter
Clementem R. et evangelistas permultum interesse dis-
criminis comperiet. Præterea hæc ipsa verba a Clemente
Al. citantur, Stro. iii. p. 472, parvo admodum facto discri-
mine, nempe, pro £va räv μικρόν μου σκayòaxiorat, legit £va
t&v ixXexróv μov 8iaorra£\at. In Dialogo contra Marciom.
§. 1, p. 25, sic legimus, “ Christus ipse in Judam senten-
tiam tulit, dicens, oùai rô ày$g$7τα δι' οὐ δ viός τού άν$εσπου
qraga8i8orai* arvaqyigsi ajrj ei px} ày£wh$m, % y£wm§ävta Azó^g'
άνικά σrgoοτ£$£vai, xaì xataTroytia $íwas ky rj ßã$ει τῆς $a-
λάσσης.” - -
In eadem epistola §. 13, ** Memores sitis,” inquit
Clemens R. “ sermonum l)omini Jesu—oùvog yàp £7r£y,
άλεεῖτε fwa ixes$jre, àqiste, iya â$e$j ίμῖν, άς τοιεῖτε ούτο
qτοιn$íoretat ίμῖν, &; δίδοτε ούτω δο$ hze raiùραῖν, άς κpiwsts cùtg
xgi$fiaetas υμῖν, άς xpno reüsa$$ oῦτως χρma rsv$haretat ip«iy,”
ubi margini inscribit Cotelerius, Luc. vi. 56. Sed sicut
ibi, &ς et oùvovg non extant, ita per totum illud caput nihil
extat quod quibusdam ex his similitudinibus apte respon-
deat. Hanc tamen sententiam paululum immutatam re-
perias in Polycarpi Ep. ad Philip. §. 2da, et in Clemente
Al. Stro. ii. p. 399, mutato tantum ἐλεεῖτα in ἐλεάτε. ldem
Clemens Al. Stro. i. p. 295, tres scripturæ locos in unum
confundit, íwcz pz} τετοι$ότες όμεν ἐν ἐavroîç, àXX' å7rò τά
@sά τὰ ἐγείροντι τούς vexpoùc, ό άπόστολάς φησιν, δς ἐκ τηλι-
uaj rov Sayάτου ἐjúorato fip×áς (2 Cor. i. 9, 10), iva h τίοτις
$μόν μὰ 3 Év σοφία τάy ày3g&7roy, àXX' ἐν δυνάμει τοῦ Θεοῦ
(1 Cor. ii. 5), § yàg ττνευμaτικός àvaxgivet 7rávra, &c. (v. 15).
Origenes in Matthæum, p. 357, 359, et in Joh. p. 402,
Judæos dicit E?anxévat å7r' aùtô de Christo dixisse, alge
&τὸ τ$ς γῖς τοιούτον, στavgoû, a Tavgoû aûtôv, de quibus confer
Act. xxii. 22 cum Luc. xxiii. 18, et Joh. xix. . 15. In
Philoc. p. 2, citat e Matt. vii. 22 hæc, τολλοῖ δgoûari pot—
oῦ τά άγόματί σου άφάγομεν, xai τά άνόματί σου ἐτίομεν, καί
vδ δνόματί σου δaipwówa è%=3áÁopzsv, xaî ãgà aùtoïc, άτοχα-
3είτε άτ' ἐμοῦ οί ἐgyaXägx£vot τ}v áyoμiay. Lib. ii. contra
Cels. p. 88, addit post ἐθέλομεν, xaì òvyáμεΙς τολλάς ἐποτά-
aap.ev, xaì ìpà aùroî; &τι ἐστè ägyâvat åêvxiac. Com. in
Joh. p. 293, iisdem verbis adjicit, oùôÉ7roT£ £yvov υμάς, καί
πὸ οὐκ οίδa 7r6$εγ άστè, conjunctis sic Matt. vii. 22, 23 cum
I.uc. xii. 26, 37, quoad sensum, non quoad verba. Tom.
i. p. 38, sic recitat Luc. xi. 52, “Væ vobis jurisperitis
ότι figare t}v xA£ίδa tís yv&oreoc, aùtoi οὐκ εἰσῆλόετε xai τους
siareexop.£vov; oùx άφίετε εἰσελ$εῖy,” periodum claudens cum
verbis Christi, Matt. xxiii. 13, sed Philoc. p. 8, editis
congruit Sic Com. in Job. p. 30, Christum allegat di-
centem, Job. xv. 1δ, oùxàtt ùpwák A£yo) δούλους, ότι δ δοῦλος
oùx o78£ tt τὸ $£λημα τοῦ κvgiov aùroù (text. τί ττοιεῖ δ κύgio;
aùroù) άλλ' ἐγό υμάς φίλους λόγω (text. ύμᾶς δό εἰpnxa φίλους)
, &rt 8iapx£pa gyàxat£ μετ' ἐμοῦ ἐν πᾶσι τετgazpxoi; uov, quæ
occurrunt Luc. xxii. 21, absque 7rázt. lta Com. in Joh.
p. 413, conjungit Colos. i. 20, ii. 15.
Cyrillus Alex. sic recitat 1 Pet. ii. 5, xai ύμεῖς άς λί$o;
�varec à7roixo^op.£ìa $ε οίκος ττνευμaτικός, addens ex Eph. ii.
21, 22, ek vaòv &ytov, £ig oixnrhptov τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐν Πνεῦμaτι. In
lib. primo de Sancta Trin. ait, “ Cum Christus in forma
Dei esset, formam servi accepit, iya à7roxataXXá%η τά
7ráyra, xatà rò ysygapxpx£vov, sipnyo7roifiara; διὰ τοῦ στaÜgov, τὰ
Év oùgavoî¢, rà re å7rí yííc, μεσιτεύων xaì ày$gê7rotc, 8εόμε$a.
yoùv ύτèg Xgia roü, kara Aλάγητε τὸ Θεδ,” ubi coacervantur
Phil. ii. 6, 7, Colos. i. 20, 1 Tim. ii. 5, 2 Cor. v. 10.
Quod si hoc pro prudentia sua diligentius animadvertisset
Millius, non ita præter modum crevissent variantes istæ
lectiones, quarum trecentæ non aliud sunt quam voces
sacræ scripturæ ab uno evangelista aut apostolo in alterum
a patribus translatæ.
I)enique plurima quæ a patribus primorum seculorum
tanquam e s. scriptura recitantur, desumpta reperias aut
ex aduIterinis evangeliis, aut ex apocryphis : ita de Cle-
mente R. qui post apostolos primus aliquid literis manda-
vit, ingenue fatetur Millius, Proleg. p. 16, col. 2, quod in
Epistola prima ad Corinthios, et posterioris, si quidem
ejus sit, fragmento, nonnulla adducit ex evangeliis, quæ
jàm ante nostram editionem Christianis in usu fuerant,
Inomnulla et e nostris, ut apparet, sed omnino mixtim, et
confuse, ita ut vix, ac ne vix quidem, noris ex verbis
ejus ad quodnam e nostris potissimum respexerit. Paucis
exemplis satis hoc confirmare pos3umus, V. g. -
Clemens R. Ep. 2, §. 4, Christi verba, Matt. vii. 21, ad
hunc modum recitat: “ Non omnis qui dicit Imihi,
Domine, aro/$fia £rai, àAAà o 7roi&v δικαιοσύνην.” Nam £7ray
5 @εός (v. 23, aut I.uc. xiii. 17) äåy $te pwet' ἐμοῦ σνyny-
p.£voi äy τὸ κόλτφ μου, και μα} τοιείτε τάς ίντολάς μον, άτο-
3aAá ìp«3ς, xaì àpà ìpaiv, άττάγετε άττ' ίμου, xaì rà xaS' i£j;.
Sect. quinta, miram quandam Petri responsionem narrat
ad Christi verba: “ Ecce ego mitto vos, sicut oves in
medio luporum, 'A7roxpi$εῖς δὲ δ Πάτgoς a Jtö AÉysi, iàv oîy
8iaatrapâ£ωσι οί λύκοι τà âgvia, Quid si lupi agnos discerpse-
rint? e7r£y 3. 'Inaroìg t$ TIάτgω, ι) φορείσθωσav t& ágyia toùç
λύκους μετά τό άποθανεῖν aùrà, xai ύμεῖς μὰ φοθεῖσθε τούς
άποκτείνοντag ίμάς, καί μηδέν ύμῖν δυνάμάγους ποιεῖν,” &c. Luc.
xii. 4, 5. “ Hæc,” ait Cotelerius, “ deprompsit ex apo-
crypbis.” §. 8, hæc habet, Aíyat yàg 6 Kögto; iy τὸ εὐαγγάλια,
ei, τὸ μικεὸν οὐκ ἐτnghara re, τὸ μάya rvc ίμῦ δασει ; Irenæus
pariter, lib. ii. cap. 64, p. 199, ** Similiter Dominus dixit
ingratis in eum existentibus, ' Si in modico fideles non
fuistis, quod magnum est quis dabit vobis ?'* ubi vide
Grabii conjecturam bæc ex Evangelio ad Ægyptios de-
prompta esse, Sectione duodecima, interrogatus a quodam
Dominus qnando venturum esset regnum ejus, sºrsv, &rav
Éatat τὰ δύο ἐv, xai τὸ ἐω, &ς τὸ ἐσω, τό άparsv μετὰ ττίς $ηλείας,
oῦτε άgor£v, oùτε θήλv. Quod desumptum fuit ex apocryphis,
juxta Cotelerium, juxta Clementem Al. Stro. iii. p. 465, ex
Evaugelio Ægyptiorum. -
Ignatius in Epistola ad ecclesiam Smyrnensem Christum
introducit, qui Petrum, cæterosque qui præsto erant, sic
alloquitur, λάβετε, φηλaq)harats, xaì tòtte &ri oùx sip.i 8aip.6vtov
ázóματον, Luc. xxiv. 39, quod juxta Hieronymum desumi-
tur ex Evangelio Nazarenorum,—juxta Cotelerium ex
apocryphis, juxta Origemein dictum fuit a nullo qui Spi-
ritu Dei inspiratus fuit. Et tamen locum obtinuit, Luc.
xxiv. 39, inter variautes lectiones apud Millium.
In codices Origenianos admissas fuisse fiha sic aliquas ex
Evangelio secundum Hebræos, aliove aliquo apoërypho,
ostendit ipse Millius, Proleg. p. 66. Plura hujusmodi
reperiat lector in Epist. Barnabæ, §. 7, in Just. Ml. Dial.
cum Tryph. p. 267, in Iren. lib. v. cap33. , p. 454, 455,
in Orig. Com. in Matt. p. 308, sed lectorem non tenebo
pluribus. Ponam tandem judicium Mlillii de Epistola
Clementis R. aliorumque ejusque temporis scriptorum,
Proleg. p. 16, col. 2, his verbis editum : “ De qua, ut et
aliis opusculis, sub hoc tempus conscriptis, notandum
quod ex evaugeliis et epistolis nullam umquam pericopen
citant accurate, et ad fidem exemplarium, et cum ad evan-
gelii cujusvis aut epistolæ clausulam aliquam respiciant,
neque libri, ubi extet, neque scriptoris nomen proferunt,
et quidem loci ipsius diserta verba raro admodum propo-
nunt, sed sensum fere, ac sententiam, ex memoria tradunt,
quin et ab apocryphorum testimoniis baud abstineant, sed
ea promiscue cum apostolicis ipsis $εοτνεάστοις, pro re
nata, citent, allegentque.”
CAPUT SECUNDUM.
§. 1. Monstrat lectionem variantem non posse certo colligi
ex codice I.atino, aut versione Latina Græci scriptoris,
aut demum e loco a Latinis patribus citato. Primo,
quoniam quomodocunque se habeat textus archetypus,
mos est interpretum ut ad Vulgati versionem verba ac-
commodent. §. 2. Secundo, quod parum idonei in hac
re sint arbitri patres Latini, nec feliciter de Græcis
criticen exerceant. §.3. Tertio, ex Millii ipsius de
patribus Latinis sententia idem colligitur.
SECTIO PRIMA.
UT variams lectio nascatur e codice Latino, aut ex ver-
sione Græci alicujus patris, aut ex citatione a Latino patre
desumpta, quæ Græco exemplari non congruit, mihi qui-
dem valde importunum, et iniquum, videtur. Hoc enim,
ut cum Hieronymo loquar, nihil aliud est quam coenosos
rivulos adire, ut fons purgetur. Hinc tamen ortum suum
debet fere dimidia pars earum variarum lectionum quæ in
epistolas adnotantur, ubi Latinus interpres Irenæi, Ori-
genis in Romanos, Didymi de Spiritu Sancto, Tertullianus,
EXAMEN MILLII.
l 149
Cyprianus, Ambrosius, Hilarius Diac. Hilarius Pictav.
Augustinus, Pseudo-Hieronymus, sive Pelagius, magnam
voluminis partem implent, quod quam absurdum sit, ex
his rationibus colligere possis.
Primo quod quomodocunque se habeat archetypus, mos
est interpretum ut ad Vulgati Latini arbitrium, et quasi
nutum totos se fingant, et accommodent. Ex. gr. Ori-
genes, Com. in Joh. p. l 15, legit à giov, cagaroè, ric postavoiac,
interpretes e Vulg. “ fructum dignum.”–P. 339, legit Joh.
vii. 39, otro ) àp iv IIvsipaa, Lat. “ Nondum erat Spiritus
datus,” ut Vulg – In Commentario in Rom. Ruffinus in
textu fingendo veterem Vulgatam secutus est, fatente
Millio, ubi verus Origenes eidem contradicit. Cyrillus
Hieros. cat. xii. p. 119, et xvii, p. 195, legit rò yeyvoºpcevov
aytoy, sed Latina vulgati vestigia sequuntur, “Quod nasce-
tur ex te Sanctum.” Gregor. Nyssenus, tom. ii. ed. Paris.
1615, p. 734, legit Rom. i. 32, oi rivec rò èikaio pca Geoti i ri-
7 vóvrec, absque oùn èvinaray, interpres autem “Qui cum jus-
titiam Dei cognovissent, non intellexerunt.” Ita Chrysos-
tomus, hom. 12 ad Pop. Antioch. ed. Mor. tom. i. p. 145,
obu puóroy airà rotolariv, a NAà ua, ovvevòoxolori roic rpáa a ovoi,
Lat. cum Vulg. “Non solum qui ea faciant, sed etiam qui
consentiunt,” &c. Quater habet Chrysos. rotheroy luxgoi,
Matt. x. 42, toties Lat. “Aquae frigidae.” Sanctus Basi-
lius, tom. i. lib. v. contra Eunom. p. 376, et Cyril. Al. de
Recta Fide, p. 66, de Ador. Sp. 494. Hom. Pasc. p. 246,
311, 334, legunt rà 8tà roi o dipca roc, 2 Cor. v. 10, Lat.
semper “ Propria corporis.” Cyril. Al. legit obaro yàp iv
IIveipza 3 ytoy. Lat. “ Spiritus datus.” Luc. ii. 15, legit,
èv av0go moic svòox.a, Hom. in Div. p. 380, Lat. “ Hominibus
bonae voluntatis.” Lac. i. 35, rò ysyydiacevoy aytov, hom. in
Divers. . 383, de Recta Fide, p. 88, Lat. “Quod ex te
nascetur Sanctum.” Matt. vii. 13, o revò èè h rian, H.
Pasch. p. 150, Lat. “Quam angusta porta.” 1 Joh. iv. 3,
mray Trysipaa o poi ovoAoye, Lat. “ Qui solvit Jesum.” 1 Tim.
iii. 16, i Gedc è payego Sn iv o aexì, de Recta Fide, p. 124,
Lat. “ Quod manifestatum est in carne.” Nimirum omni-
bus his locis Vulgati plus valebat auctoritas quam ipsorum
patrum ; sed cum hoc sexcenties apud Latinos interpretes
evemerit, speciatim in commentariis Origenis et Theo-
doreti commemoratio plurium testimoniorum supervacanea
eSt.
SECTIO SECU NDA, dº
Hoc etiam luce clarius fiet, si modo quan parum idonei
in bac re arbitri, et quam infeliciter de Graecis criticen ex-
ercuerint Latini, lector mecum recognoscat. Cum in
Graecis exemplaribus suum tulisset judicium Hilarius
Diac. ait Millius, ita caecus de coloribus. Nihil de codi-
cibus Graecis novit Ambrosiaster, Prol. p. 139, col. 2, nec
iniquum de eo tulit judicium. Is enim Com. in Rom, v, 14,
veram lectionem esse ait, “In eos qui peccaverunt,” absque
negationis particula, scilicet, ex fide cod. Latinorum quos
incorruptos simplicitas temporum servavit. Atqui etiam
illi fluxerunt ex veteribus codicibus Graecis. Quod si
Millium audiamus, codices Graeci hodieque omnes, tem-
pore Augustini omnes, aut pene omnes, etiam Irenaeus, si
interpreti eius credimus, legebant cum negatione, quod
idem de praestantioribus Latinis dicendum, Prol. p. 75,
col. 1. De vero Ambrosio dicit Millius, Prol. p. 78, col.
2, eum pium magis quam doctum fuisse, cum enim Marc.
xiii. 32, sic legimus, “De die autem illo aut hora nemo
scit, neque angeli in coelo, obòè 6 vićc,” Ambrosius de Fide,
lib. v., cap. 8, ha c habet, “Codices Graeci non habent
quod nec filius scit.'” “Certe nulli sunt,” inquit ibi-
dem Millius, “nec opinor unquam fuerunt libri Graeci a
quibus abesset obòè i vićc.” Idem lib. iii. de Spiritu Sancto,
cap. 11, clausulam hanc, Joh. iii. 6, sic exhibet, “Quod
natum est de Spiritu, spiritus est, quia Deus Spiritus est;”
ubi queritur hacc verba eo quod Spiritus Sancti divinitatem
abstruere videantur, ab Arianis sublata esse, et tamen,
judice Millio, Prol. p. 79, col. 1, haud alia erat ha c par-
ticula quae erasa videbatur, quam lectoris cujuspiam scho-
lion. Vide exempla plura a Millio congesta, Prol. p. 78,
col. 2, 79, col. 1. Demique dicente Augustino, Retract.
lib. i. cap. 19, “Codices Graeci Matt. v. 22 non habent sine
causa,” Hieronymoinlocum his verbisadstipulante, “In qui-
busdam codicibus additus sine causa, cacterum in veris
tollitur,” hoc tamen non obstante, P. Simonius vere dicit,
obtinuisse hanc lectionem quae eixi exhibet non modo
apud Syrum, sed etiam apud patres antiquissimos, tam
Graecos quam Latinos ; “ est ergo (inquit)in Vulgato resti-
tuendum, qui in eo omittendo antiquitati repugnat, multis-
que exemplaribus,” Hist. Crit. in N. Test. lib. ii. cap. 32.
l'lura his addere facillimum esset, sed compendio rem
agere consultius visum est, instantias enim passim dabunt
tum Millii prolegomena, tum lectiones variantes.
SECTIO TERTIA.
TERTIO, ita Latinorum plerosque patrum depingit Mil-
lius, ut, se judice, citationes ex iis desumpta exiguam
mereantur fidem.
Agmen ducit Tertullianus, de quo ecce sanum et sub-
tile judicium Millii : “ In eo citata sunt loca s.codicis fere
neglectius ex memoria, contractim, ad sensum, haud sine
levicula aliqua subinde mutatione, ipsisque porro allegatis
ab eo testimoniis immista sunt nonnunquam aliqua a stylo
Vulgati interpretis* diversa, Africanae pg4oreog, et voca-
bula mire barbara. Immo penes se habebat Italicae ex-
emplar haud parum maculatum, certe si quid de cacteris
ejus partibus conjectare liceat ex Evangelii Luca codice
quo usus est in libro quarto contra Marcionem. Denique,
alia (inquit) loca sumpta videntur ex variis versionibus
quae tempestate istaferebantur. Nempe praeter Italicam,
innumeras alias primis seculis (de suo tantum seculo
dictum fuisset) extitisse notat Augustinus.” Et tamen non
tantum de varia lectione Tertullianum, velut testem ido-
neum, producit; sed etiam in prolegomenis saepiuslectionis
quae apud Vulgatumprius obtinebat. Ita,p.105, col.2, “Vulg.
ut apparet ex Tertulliano.” Miror hic quo critico naso
tam accurate discernere potuerit inter tot varias versiones
quid a Vulgato prodierit, aut cur tam fidenter pronuntiarit
virum Graece doctissimum, loca a se citata ex Latinis ver-
sionibus produxisse ; Pamelio etiam contradicente eum
non tam Latinis translatis, quam Graccis codicibus veteribus
Ul SU II) e SS6.
De Cypriano ha c dicit Millius, “Nempe ex citatis ab
ipso N. Test. pericopis abunde constat Italicam (hanc
enim unam in usu ei fuisse ex allatis ab ipso N. Test.
pericopis manifestum est) temporis tractu magis magisque
fuisse interpolatam.” Veruntamen vitiatis hujusmodi
lectionibus non parvo numero praemissis, p. 67, col. 1, 2,
haec habet, “ Restant lectiones quaedam quas ex Africanis
aliisque quibusdam profectas probabile est.” Tria hic
notanda veniunt. Primo criticorum divortium. Quod
enim bic Millio de Italica manifestum est, Simonius mani-
festo falsum pronuntiat in locis infra adducendis. Secundo,
Millium sibimetipsi contradicere, dum ait unam, i. e. so-
lam, Italicam Cypriano in usufuisse, et tamen eundem ex
Africanis aliisque quibusdam versionibus quaedam protu-
lisse. Denique ex codice hoc Cypriani tractu temporis
magis magisque interpolato, non tantum varias lectiones
plus centies exhibet, sed vulgata lectionis Italicae argu-
mentum non semel. -
De Hilario Pictavorum Episcopo mentionem faciens,
Prol. p. 72, nihil ex eo profert nisi lectiones interpolatas,
quasi mec unam genuinam habuisset, h. e. cum versione
Italica sua consentientem. Lucifer Calaritanus, judice
Millio, vitiis misere scatet, nec s. codicis loca integra
producit, Prol. p. 73, col. 2. Testimonia nimirum protulit
ad MS. exemplar unum, idque perperam descriptum,
adornata, unde lectionum ejus interpolatarum catalogum
tantum exhibet. Victorinum Afrum, et Zenonem Vero-
nensem Latina secutos esse nonnullis in locis interpolata
pronuntiat: locum unicum in quo additamentum, Joh. iv.
56, occurrit, genuinum pronuntiat, refragante Simonio,
Graecis scholiis, et versionibus universis. Optati citationes
fere omnes interpolatas fuisse asserit, p. 74, col. 1, 2.
Hilarium Diaconum quod attinet, “Is certe (inquit Mil-
lius) cum scripta sua testimoniis s. codicis passim tessel-
laverit, tum in commentariis in epistolas D. Pauli ex
Italica versionis textu, qualis tum temporis ferebatur,
exhibuit,” Prol. 74, col. 2. Quanquam ergo interpolatas
º Prol, p. 59, col. 1, 2.
1150 EXAMEN MILLII.
ex eo lectiones ibi produxerit, sexcenties tamen Ambrosias-
trum hunc pro veræ lectionis teste idoneo profert, ejus-
que textum ceu genuinæ lectionis Italicæ certissimum
argumentum exhibet. Quam falso, et in causæ suæ præ-
judicium, ex lectionum ejus appendice quam infra dabimus,
judicabit lector. - -
Rorro id ex Millio discimus patres Latinos fere omnes
post ortam Arii hæresin, id semper Arianis objecisse quod
scripturas s. corrumpere, pericopas ex iis eradere, mutilare
solerent, adeo ut eadem nobiscum hæreticos habere biblia
vix agnoscerent. Objiciunt hæc illis Hilarius Pict. Hi-
larius Diaconus, Ambrosius, Salvianus ; quæ omnia, Mil-
lio judice, frustra, et sine causa hæreticis objiciebantur,
cum rari essent qui scripturis temerarias manus intulere.
Vide loca omnia in quibus hoc factum esse clamitant, a
Millio bene vindicata, Prol. p. 78, col. 2, 79, col. 1. Qui
autem de Græcis codicibus tum falso et imperite judica-
bant, qui de Latinis ea sublata esse existimabant quæ alii
ex ipsis s. codici adjiciebant, eorum de lectione genuina
judicium non magni æstimandum esse æquus lector cen-
sebit. -
Sed de his plura dicere eo minus necessarium videtur,
quod sæpius videamus Millium integrum patrum Latinorum
consensum rejicientem. Ex. gr. Gal. iv. 14, pro 7r£gaa A*
pzov, όμᾶν, inquit, legunt Vulg. Clar. Lat. Ger. Lat. Hieron.
Hilarius D. Latini omnes, teste Esthio, quod sane sensum
parit duriusculum ac coactum nimis quam ut probem. 1
Pet. i. 12, sic legimus, sic à È7ri$vpwóziy oi äyy£λοι tragaxùJat,
in quem, inquit Millius, legunt Vulg. et ita fere Latini
codices, reclamantibus Græcis ad umum omnibus, et quidem
Irenæus, cujus Latinæ licet versioni Vulgatæ congruant,
lib. ii. cap. 24, lib. v. cap. 36, advertenti tamen seriem
contextus manifestum est Irenæi Græca fuisse, eic â, quo-
modo quoque se babent Latina ejus, lib. iv. cap. 67.
Plura ejusdem generis occurrunt a nobis observata ammo-
•atis in varias lectiones Millii.
CAPUT TERTIUM.
§. 1. Ostendit ex codicibus MSS. ecclesiæ occidentalis non
posse certo colligi, textum hodiernum corrigendum esse,
primo ex P. Simonii testimonio, ex librariorum igno-
rantia ; et ex erroribus quibus abundabant ipsa exem-
plaria. §. 2. Secundo, ex Millii ipsius sententia.
SĘCTIO PRIMA.
QuANQUAM ultra mille variantium lectionum ex unico
MS. vel binis fortasse, aut tribus depromat MiJlius (atque
illam lectionem genuinam esse asserit quam duo aut tres
agnoscunt codices, reclamantibus reliquis omnibus), non
tamen hinc sequitur quod ad eorum mormam textus corri-
gendus sit. In promptu ratio est, si enim quæ variant
exemplaria sint pauca, certo certius est majorem partem
eorum cum editis congruisse.
Hoc etiam magis constabit ex animadversionibus quibus
in codices quosdam MSS. usus est Simonius, vir sat acris
in his rebus judicii, si Millium audimus ; nam in Critica
N. Test. Historia, parte secunda, cap. 30—32, in codices
quosdam MSS. censoria animadversione utitur ad hunc
modum. Primo, ** Quod, teste Hieronymo, magnus in
codicibus (hisce) error inolevit, dum quod in eadem re
alius evangelista plus dicit, in alio quia minus putaverint,
addiderunt, vel dum eundem sensum alius aliter expressit,
ille qui unum e quatuor primum legerit, ad ejus exemplum
cæteros quoque existimaret emendandos ; unde accidit ut
apud nos mixta sint omnia, et quæ singulis propria sunt,
in aliis inveniantur.” -
Secundo, “ Quod Græci librarii, ut evangeliorum atque
epistolarum voces magis perspicuas redderent, unum
evangelium ex alio, plamum fecerint, et quia multa obscura
videbantur, aut ambigua, verbis clarioribus explicarunt, et
pro inore suo, apostolorum scripta ad puritatem Græci
sermonis revocare studuerint,” atque hanc verissimam esse
causam summo judicio asserit, quamobrem codex Cantabr.
plures suppeditat variantes lectiones quam reliqui omnes
in unum collecti. “ Quicunque enim in Bezæ exemplar
oculis castis inspexerit, haud illum præteribit quod scriba
textum, propter elegantiam Græcæ linguæ, sæpissime cor-
rexerit, et nova, quæ synonyma visa sunt, interserit verba,
ut res involutæ apertiores fierint, et faciles explicatus
haberent. Hanc sibi, tum temporis, licentiam N. T. ape-
riendi causa, sumpserunt scribæ, de vocabulis utrum arche-
typum fideliter exhiberent parum solliciti, modo a sensu
eorum non deflexerint.” -
Tertio, “ Qui hos codices, (inquit Simonius,) ad examen
revocarunt, non aliud sibi statuerunt quam ut clariora
fierent omnia, adeoque a genuina evangelistarum atque
apostolorum lectione multum aberrarunt, paraphrasim ad-
hibendo, intricatiora subducendo, recidendis superfluis,
plurimisque inter se, claritatis gratia, transpositis, atque '
hoc semel monere satis est, absque longa enumeratione
exemplorum, quorum amplam sylvam codex Cant. sub-
ministrat, speciatim in Actis Apostolorum, nam in eccle-
siastica primi seculi historia emendanda plurimum sibi
indulserunt librarii.” Hæc Simonius, qui tamem consolandi
mos, ut ita dicam, causa, hæc subjicit, “ Quamcunque
mutationem passi sint hi codices, et licet apostolorum et
evangelistarum verba non retineant, discrepantiam tamen
in sensu diligentissimus : lector reperiet mullaiu.” Hæ
Simonii observationes planum faciunt quod parvam illi
codices mereantur fidem, nec ad eorum fidem receptam
lectionem emendandam esse. Simonium laudibus suis in
cœlum sustulit Millius, Prol. p. 166, col. 1, ** Vir erat
(inquit) in hac rei biblicæ parte singularis plane eruditionis,
acerrimique, si quis unquam, judicii.” Quod si judicio
illius libenter obsecutus esset, variantes e Cant. Ger. et
Clar. lectiones, parcius deprompsisset, nec volumen suum,
absque causa, in immensam magnitudinem excrevisse
passus fuisset.
Auctoritati enim horum codicum multum detrabitur ex eo
quod exemplaria Græca transcripta sint ab hominibus
Latinæ ecclesiæ, qui nec ipsi exemplaria optima nacti
sunt, nec Græcam linguam optime calluerunt, sed eo
consilio in hoc munere fungendo versati sunt, ut Græci
Vulgati erroribus magis faverent, et patrocinarentur.
“ Quod scribæ fuerint Latini, (inquit Simonius,) constat
quia utraque lingua non modo eundem scriptorem agnoscit,
sed etiam quædam e Latinis literis sunt puræ putae Græcæ, et
quædam e Græcis pariter Latinæ (verius dixisset Gothicæ);
ad summam, errata pene innumera, quæ in Græco codice
occurrunt, satis sunt argumenti exaratum eum fuisse ab
homine istius linguæ prorsus imperito. Nec enim in
orthographia sola, sed etiam in vocabulis ipsis sæpissime
peccatur.” Idem Simonius, p. 147, sic pergit, “Tot menda
in Græca parte codicis Clar. ubique reperies, ut exscriptum
fuisse ab homine iudocto quis non plane sentiat?” Et cap.
32, p. 156, ** In nostris bibliothecis,” inquit ille, ** ex-
emplaria quamplurima Græca extant, quæ, ut e Græcis
exarata, ita apud illos communi quodam in usu erant, atque
hæc quidem inter se discrepant in rebus parvi momenti,
sed mire conveniunt in eo quod longissime distant ab iis
codibus quos Latini exscripserunt.” P. 137, hæc verba
habet notatu dignissima, *' Mihi quidem dubitatoinis nihil
est quin Cardinalis Ximenius Complutensem editionem
paraturus, quamplurimos codices eximiæ vetustatis, et
spectatæ fidei corrogaverit : suspectam tamen habeo illain
aliquando reliquis antelatam esse lectionem, quæ Vulgato
cum interprete maxime concordat. Fieri etiam potest,
(inquit) ut Stephani editio, quam cum Græcis MSS. in
Italia contulit, non paucas in se receperit lectiones ad
Vulgatæ versionis normam expressas. Idem dicendum est
de variis lectionibus sedecim MISS. codicum quas Marchio
Velesius collegit, et quæ editioni nostræ Vulgatæ mirifice
favent.” Hæc quidem adversante et renitente animo con-
fitetur ipse Millius. V. g. Matt. xvii. 2, legimus λευκά άς
¢âς, sed Steph. B. Cant. Vulg. άς χκόν, e Marco, quibus hæc
sequuntur, “IDe varietate hac aliud dicere nequeo,” inquit
Lucas Brugensis, “ quam quod Stephanus B. Latinæ
editioni sæpe consonet, et aliquando potius erroribus ejus
editionis iriolitis, quam germánæ lectioni. Quod idem
omnino dicendum videtur de Cant.” Ita Millius. Sic 1
Pet. ii. 6, textus habet èv rj ) gaqì, MISS, aliqui h ygaq^,
ubi annotatio, ** Vereor ne locus studio sit efformatus, ut in
aliis quibusdam factum, ad versionem Latinam,” inquit
Esthius. Ita 1 Pet. iii 19, post ἐν φυλάκí addit Steph.
EXAMEN MILLII. '
I 151
xataxxa.au£voic, “ ad exemplar fidei non magnæ, quod | ac ne vix obstat codicum omnium consensus," p. 168, col.
existimetur ad codices Latinos essee fformatum,” inquit
Esthius. Vide similes annotationes in Marc. vi. 32. ix.
21. xv. 8, et passim. - •
Hinc liquet causam nullam esse quare recepta lectio
emendetur ad exemplar eorum codicum, quos (primo)
Hieronymus adeo contempsit, ut teste Simonio, necesse
sibi habuerit Latinam ipsam versionem, ad codices, ex
oriente petitos, exigere et reformare. (Secundo) Codicum
qui exarati fuerunt a librariis Græcæ linguæ miserum in
modum ignaris, quique plurima menda non modo in or-
tliographia, sed in ipsis dictionibus contraxerant. (Tertio)
Codicum qui licet inter se conveniant, a Græcæ ecclesiæ
codicibus ita sunt diversi ut vix speciem eorum gerant.
(Quarto) Codicum qui dedita opera immutati fuerunt ut ad
Latinam versionem efformarentur. (Quinto) Codicum qui
vitia retinent, quibus Italica versio scatebat ante castigatio-
nem Hieronymi, ut inquam, editi nostri ad horum codicum
regulam, ac mormam corrigerentur, nemo sanæ mentis
unquam judicabit. - «
Hæc quidem, et præsertim quæ de Cant. Ger. et Clar.
MSS. dicta sunt JDupinio mecum conveuiunt, nam observa-
tionibus suis, in quibus Simonium potissimum consecutus
est, absolutis, hæc infert, “ Et eis observationibus con-
jectura non levi ducor ad suspicandum Græcum textum
horum codicum a librario ad Vulgatam versionem, quam
simul exaravit, accommodatum, vel saltem ex alio exemplari
ad hunc modum efformato desumptum fuisse ; quo dato et
concesso, varietas istorum codicum (ait ille) neutiquam
censenda est tanquam tot variantes lectiones Græci ex-
emplaris, sed solummodo tamquam castigatio, seu potius
depravatio facta ex ista versione, quæ archetypum parum
fideliter repræsentabat.” Hist. de Canone Vet. et N.
Test. vol. ii. p. 106. De antiqua Latinorum versione, qua
occidentales ecclesiæ utebantur, et ad quam hi codices
Græci, Simonio judice, confirmabantur, vide dissertationem
nostram de Vulgato interprete, et Italica translatione, capite
subsequenti.
Coronidis loco notatu non indignum est quod cuin MSS.
codices, quos contulit Millius, sint fere nonaginta, quando-
cumque viginti, vel triginta ad sumLmum, varianti cuidam
lectioni favent, sequitur vel curam et diligentiam in Millio
desiderari, vel plures saltem codices congruere cum editis,
quam ab illis discrepare.
Veniam mibi dabit candidus lector, quod ab aliis hic
testimonia, et rerum confirmationem sumpserim, cum enim
codices ipsos MSS. evolvendi neutiquam mihi facultas data
sit, id feci quod potui. *
* SECTIO SECUNDA,
Hoc etiam fiet multo evidentius ex confessionibus Millii,
et ex exemplis quæ ab illo mutuari possumus. V. g. Matt.
iii. 11, deest καί πrugi 25 MSS. : sed, ut recte idem Mi]]ius
asserit, de recepta lectione minime dubitamdum est. Matt.
iv. 10, 37riaro) pzov retinetur apud MSS. 36, juxta tamen ibi
annotata, MSS. plurimi non agnoscunt, aliumde assutum
videtur, a scriptore memore scioloque. Matt. v. 47, apud
amplius quam triginta cod. MSS. φίλους occurrit, cui tamen
ille lectionem in textu άδελφοῦς merito anteponit. Matt.
xxvii. 42, kai tria raüzop.ev aùtô, MSS, fere quinquaginta
habent ἐπί vel £i3* illo tamen judice, præfixum funt ἐπί vel
sic ex loco male intellecto. Marc. vi. 6, textus habet άτι,
quod et sensus videtur postulare: at omittunt illud plus
quam viginti cod. et septem habent £va' sed άτι, rectius
inquit Grotius, cui Millius astipulari videtur, utut, pro
more suo, sibimetipsi contradicat, Prol. p. 115. 131. Luc.
iii. 2, àpxy£p£a/c agnoscunt triginta MISS., sed ex illius
sententia àpxy£p£ow recte. Lucas enim etiam annum, utpote
semel functum pontificatu, congrue satis vocat âgxjspía.
I.uc. vi. 26. 28, omittunt 7rávreg circiter viginti MSS.;
sed “ omnino legendum arbitror,” inquit ibi Millius, utut a
sententia sua in prolegomenis temere recesserit: Proleg.
p. 126, col. 2.
Præterea tanquam prætor de tribunali sæpius pronunciat
fioc vel illud vocabulum, commentarium, irreptitium, ad-
jectitium esse, quod, eodem fatente, in plerisque omnibus
jam codicibus aut extat, aut occurrit : Prol. p. 133, col. 2.
156, col. 1. 163, col. 2. 165, col. 2. Crebro etiam ait ** vix
2 bis, et ** absque codicum omnium consensu,” p. 154,
col. 2. 155, col. 2. Quinetiam de Italicis genuinis lecti-
onibus, quæ ex ipsius cerebro iri epserunt, et quibus Græcis
Latinæ istæ responderint, acturus, ad hunc modum præ-
fatur. Græca vero bæc cum ob oculos positurum me dico
“ Partem illam hic dumtaxat intelligo, quæ a MSS. nostris
fere omnibus, et excusis discrepat.” Ut vero Be hominem
ostenderet, hanc aut illam germanam et veram lectionem
esse ibi affirmat ex auctoritate unius, aut duorum, aut trium
exemplarium, et aliquando ex plurimorum MSS. codicum
fide : Proleg. a p. 41, ad p. 50.
CAPUT QUARTUM.
§. 1. Versionum fere omnium in una lectione consensus
non est, vel Millio judice, lectionis genuinæ certum
indicium. Speciatim agitur primo de versione Coptica.
§. 2. De versione Æthiopica, et Millii de hac versione
judicio. §. 3. De versione Syriaca, ex Simonii sententia
et ex iis quæ Millius de hac versione promunciat. §. 4.
De versione Arabica, ex qua nullas lectiones variántes
exhibent Millii prolegomena. §. 2, 3, IDe versione
yeteri Vulgata, sive Italica latius agit sectio quiuta,
in qua evincitur primo incerta esse quæ de hac versione
Mlillius certissima ducit, puta eam præ cæteris ad optimos
codices adornatam fuisse. In ea omnia de textu arche-
typo optime et juxta genuinum verborum sensum reddita
fuisse. Et demum versionem veterem Italicam ante
tempora Hieronymi miris modis interpolatam, pristinae
suae integritati restitui posse, et ejus industria restitutam
esse. §. 4. Frustra id Millium aggressum esse ostendi-
tur, primo ex codice Cantab., omnium quos unquam
viderit corruptissimo, aut ex Germ. et Clarom. codicis
ejusdem parte secunda. §. 5. Secundo ex scriptis patrum
Latinorum, qui ante ætatem Hieronymi vixerunt.
SECTIO PRIMA.
VERSIONUM fere omnium in una lectione consensus, et aup.-
τγοία, non est, Millio judice, genuinæ lectionis certum
indicium ; is enim ipse agnoscit Hebr. xii. 7, Vulg. Syr."
Arab. Æthiop. legisse sic 7rºv8eiay vel èv 7rat8eig* editum
tamen, inquit, ei tra*8eiay ijwopw£v£rs, præter exemplaria
plurima, et Græcorum commentarios, affirmant ea quæ
sequuntur versu proximo, εἰ δ§ x»pis äars qraköeiac. Sed
non est hisce immorandum, cum tam in Millii prolego-
menis, quam in nostris ad varias ejus lectiones amnota-
tionibus, sexcenta occurrant loca, in quibus versionibus
omnibus repugnet. .
Superest, ut de versionibus hisce, separatim sumptis,
breviter agamus.
Et primo de versione Coptica, sive Ægyptiaca, hæc habet
Millius, Proleg. p. 152, ** Mirum certum est bibliorum
multilinguium editores de Coptica nihil cogitasse, maxime
cum non tantum profluxerit ex fonte Græco, sed etiam
expressa fuerit ad exemplar optimum, unumque e pri-
mævis, aut certe ex ejusmodi aliquo, ut apparet ex
variantibus ipsius lectionibus.” Vin', lector, scire ra-
tionem cur a Millio hæc versio, quam Waltonus á qrávv
neglectam habuit, has laudes obtinuerit ? Eam exhibet
Simonius his verbis, ** Coptica exemplaria multis in locis
conveniunt cum editione Latina, ubi Græco textui com-
formis non est,'° Crit. Hist. cap. xvi. p. 142. Porro ex
variantibus ejusdem lectionibus, id tantum constat ver-
sionem ipsam haud esse fiocci faciendam ; quod ut lectori
manifestum appareat, præ oculis ejus ponam illam ipsam
variarum lectionum orvXAoyìy, quam nobis hic Millius ex-
hibuit.
Matt. xx. 34, Kai εὐθάως άνάθλεφay aùtôv oi όφθaxpxoi, ad-
jectitium est. -
xxi. 2, Kai εὐgfiaate, tì sìßíoc insertum est, statim. Vulg.
xxv. 16, “Qui quinque talenta acceperat,'' ἐποίησε άλλο πάντα
váAayra, additum est ex superioribus.
Marc. xiii. 11, MEAstáre irreptitium est.
notata. '
Vide hic an-
11 52 g
EXAMEN MILLI I.
s
xiv. 27, 2xavòaAto Sharere è il coi est Matthaei, immo Vulg.
et Hieron. Theoph. Syr. Arab.
Luc. vi. 45, AaAei rò a ripaa al roi, addititium est.
viii. 9, Ezrse&rnaray attòv oi aa9n raì aù roi, Agyoytec, ad-
jectitium est, xviii. 20, crov addititium est.
Xxiii. 23, Karia xvoy ai povaì abrºv raì rav è extegéov, de
margine irrepsit. Agnoscunt Theophylactus, et versiones
orientales omnes.
Act. iii. 13. o Osò; 'Acpaàpa, Gedg 'Iaaàx, xaì Geò; Ianò8,
retento, Ge?, quod in aliis deest.
xv. 17, o rotºv raira, révra irrepsit e margine. Agnos-
cunt Chrysost. CEcumen. Syr. Arab.
xix. 3, Einere rºg abroòc, injectitium est.
Chrysost. CEcum, Syr. Arab. AEthiop.
Xx. 32, IIagati8epcat ipoag, 38ex poì, rº Geº,-'A3s Atoi in-
sertum de margine. Agnoscunt Chrysost. CEcumen. Arab.
AEthiop.
2 Cor. i. 17, Toivo oby 8ovAsvögagyoc. BovAevipasyoc fecit
lector ex 3ovNipasyog. Cum textu legunt Theodoretus, CEcu-
menius, et hanc lectionem firmant verba sequentia, h è
Bouxsiopea sarà aragua govNetopea.
Agnoscunt
SECTIO SECUNI) A e
SECUNDo, de versione AEthiopica en P. Simonii judicium,
viz. “ Versio ha c Romae impressa, et in Bibliis Polyglottis
de novo edita, adeo parum accurata est, ut ampliori con-
sideratione sit protinus indigna,” Hist. Crit. ver. cap. xvii.
p. 145. Ipseº Millius in prolegomenis sententiam suam
de hac versione his verbis indicat: “ In evangeliis plerum-
que satis accurata est, rarius paulo abit a verbis s. textus,
et ubi in paraphrases excurrit, et commentarios, vestigia
haud obscura videris Graecae, quae interpreti ob oculos
fuerat, lectionis. In Actis Apostolorum secus aliquanto se
res habet, laxiora his pleraque, omissa hinc inde varia,
alia perperam, ac praeter sensus Graeci textus reddita, ne
quid dicam de exemplari, quod nacti fuerunt AEthiopes in
nonnullishujus libri locis lacero, et lacunoso: unde factum ut
ne quidem integra ad nos devenerit versio, sed partim mutila
manserit, partim suppleta fuerit hic illic ab his editoribus ex
lingua Graeca et Romana, utloquuntur, hoc est, ex Vulgata
versione, et codicibus Vaticanis Graecis, quos cum Vulgata
Latina consentientes deprehenderant. In epistolis D. Pauli
major paulo adhuc apparet laxitas, et immamis nonnunquam
a litera textus aberratio, interprete verba, qua ob oculos
habebat, adeo non numerante, ut ne ad ipsorum quidem
sensum, seu etiam significationem in locis nonnullis quid-
quam attenderit. Sed neque in epistolis catholicis et
Apocalypsi res multo melior; utcunque enim hic ad literam
Graecam propius fere nonnihil accedatur, in ipsis tamen
haud raro translatoris curam et diligentiam disideramus.”
Hinc toties apud eum occurrunt hac versionis hujus epi-
theta, “turbida, et obscura versio;” quaerelae ha, fº Hinc
omnia turbavit AEthiops.” Et tamen post ha comnia, mirum
dictu, “Codex ille optimus est, et aut unus e primaevis, aut
ad primarium expressus est, et archetypum textum retinet
in locis nonnullis, ubi ab eo cateri abierunt.” En quibus
versionibus originarii textus emendationem Millianam debe-
mus, iis nimirum, ex quibus, aliis judicibus, vix aliud quam
corruptelas expectare fas sit, praesertim cum hanc longam
genuinarum, si Millio fides, lectionum syllogen hoc epilogo
absolvat. f “ Dolendum interea, turbidam hanc, confusam,
et a textus non verbis tantum, sed et sensu nonnunquam
toto coelo aberrantem versionem intercepisse nobis con-
spectum plurimarum lectionum Graeci, ad quem facta erat,
codicis, quas alias notasse licuisset.” Dolendum potius
virum doctum ex hac turbida, confusa, obscura versione,
in qua, evangeliis exceptis, laxiora pleraque, omissa hinc
inde varia, alia perperam, et praeter sensum Graeci textus
reddita, quatuor paginas implevisse lectionibus suis ge-
nuinis, sunt enim omnes quas congessit (paucis tantum
exceptis, quas examini subjicimus) adeo frivola, ineptae,
notatu protinus indigna, ut magno opere in iis colligendis
nihil egisse videatur. Aperiendus est denique fons hujus
sententiae Milliamae, nempe congruentia versionis hujus
cum fictitia illa versione Italica, quam tanquam genuina
* Proleg. p. 121, col. 1. f Prol. p. 154. i P. 125.
lectionis normam, et regulam fidissimam ubique nobis
oggerit. Nimirum agnoscunt versionis hujus editores se
multa, quae in Actis Apostolorum in hac versione deerant,
ex codicibus Latinis, Graecisque cum iis consentientibus
supplevisse, “verendumque est (inquit Ludolphus) ne idem
in cacteris N. Testamenti libris fecerint, quippe Ethiops
meus in multis eos differre aiebat ab exemplaribus MSS.
patriae suae ; ” nec aliud expectandum fuit a versione
Romae concinnata : si enim Romae fueris, non tantum
Romano more vivendum est, sed etiam scribendum.
SECTIO TERTIA,
DE Syriaca versione Millius sententiam suam his verbis
exhibet. “ (Primo) Syriacae quod attinet, haud ea Graecis
suis adeo accurate semper, et velut ad amussim con-
veniunt, ut ex iis intelligi possit, quid legerit interpres.
(Secundo) Quod in nonnullis pro versione exhibeat Syrus
commentarium. (Tertio) Quod in aliis omittat non tantum
textus Graeci partes quasdam minutiores, sed insigniora
quoque vocabula, seu quod ea superflua judicaverit in
versione, aut quod etiam ipsa non intellexerit. (Quarto)
Quod in aliis inserat, addat, mutet varia uberioris sensus,
et claritatis gratia, ut in versione sappius videre est.
(Quinto) Quod in aliis Graeca reddat omnino perperam,
et praeter sententiam loci. (Sexto) Accedunt quae ex
divisione versionis in lectiones addita, seu quovis modo
mutata sunt, ad initia lectionum. Denique, non mirum
esse (ait) si pro temporum istorum apuasia, textus ejus
aliquantulum hinc inde passus est a librario.” Haec omnia
habes, Proleg. p. 128. “ Caetera, inquit, “ forte accurata
erant, et quidem textus, quem exhibebant in plerisque adeo
mirifice cum Graeco vulgari congruebat, ut uterque ex uno
eteodem codice descriptus prima fronte videatur. Collatis
certe his invicem (viz. codicibus Syri et Vulgati) convenisse
hunc cum altero deprehendimus, in lectionibus etiam quae
ab excusis variant sexaginta supra mille, e quibus quadra-
ginta (quadringenta) septuaginta octo genuina sunt.” Huic
Millii sententiae opponimus, (primo) Simoni critici si non
acrioris, aequioris certe judicii testimonium, “ convenire
nempe frequentius hanc Syriacam versionem cum Graecis
exemplaribus, ex quibus Hieronymus Italicam castigavit,
quam cum ipsa versione Italica,” Crit. Hist. ver, cap. Xv. p.
119. Porro ex iis quae Millius annotavit, hac plane
sequuntur. (Secundo) Sexcentis fere locis codicem tam
Syrum quam Vulgatum spurium esse; ea enim versio,
quae in lectionibus in quibus ab excusis variat plus
sexaginta supra mille, 478 tantum genuinas lectiones
habet, in reliquis 582 eam non genuinas habere necesse
est. (Tertio) Ex eo quod versio hac cum Graeco vulgari
adeo mirifice congruit, eam mirum in modum vitiis scatere,
ex iis quae de Graco vulgari ex Simonio notavimus,
liquido constabit, (Quarto) Ex eo quod versio adeo
obscura sit, et a Graeco exemplari eo usque aliena, ut ex
ea intelligi non possit, quid legerit interpres, in quibusdam
pro versione exhibeat commentarium, in aliis omittat
insigniora textus Graeci vocabula, in aliis inserat, mutet,
addat varia, in aliis Graeca reddat perperam, et praeter
sententiam loci, auttanquam superflua in versione rejiciat,
et demum pro temporum istorum duaSia a librariis hinc
inde passus sit, incertum sane relinquitur utrum in iis
locis quos pro genuinis ostentat Millius, idem factum non
fuerit. Contra antiquitatem hujus versionis objicitur,
quod Matt. v. 22, eixi retinet : Matt. vi. 13, ºoºoNoyia» in
fine orationis Dominica, exhibet, et Luc. Xi. tertiam et
quintam ejusdem orationis petitionem ; respondet Millius
in textum ha c postea inserta fuisse, et accidisse versioni
Syriaca, quod Italicae, quod aliis, ut longo temporis tractu
mutatus et correctus fuerit textus ejus ad codices posterio-
rum temporum. Hoc cum ab eo sine teste, adeoque sine
ratione dictum fuerit, quidi mpedit quominus idem a nobis
dicatur in omnibus iis locis, quos pro genuinis nobis ob-
trudit Millius? Nihil certe, misi quod hoc Millii kgna pu-
piro nobis non opus sit, utpote qui lectiones hasce ima-
ginario genuinas, ubi res postulare videbatur, diligenter ex-
cusserimus, easque fere semper nihil minus quam genuinas
deprehenderimus.
EXAMEN MILLII.
1153
SECTIO QU A RT A.
De Versione Arabica.
Ex versione Arabica nullas lectiones genuinas vel inter-
polatas notavit Millius. Quanquam enim, eodem fatente,
ea hinc inde emendatior, et ad pleraque Græciæ exemplaria
comformatior sit, quam Syriaca, eo tamen remotior fuit a
VI illii Italica, eique ut plurimum repugnat. Visum est
ergo illi melius eam missam facere, quam de eadem, quod
verum esse ex annotatis nostris constabit, agnoscere.
“Facile tamen est (teste Simonio) cernere versionem hanc
minime puram esse, sed aliquibus in locis ad Latinæ
versionis normam emendatam fuisse : ” Crit. H. ver. cao.
xviii. p. 158.
SECTIO QUINTA.
De Versione veteri Vulgata, sive Italica.
§. 1. DE versione Italica qualem hic nobis eam ex suo
cerebro confinxit Millius, fusius agendum est. Hoc enim
ipsius commentum penitus destruendo integrum prolego-
mnen»n opus, in quantum lectiones genuinas respicit, cum
illo loco cedere necesse est. Igitur observandum (primo)
quod in eo potissimum se ostentet et immodice se efferat
Millius, quod ex hac 'unica versione loca N.'T. plus du-
centa, quæ solitaria intercedebant absque omni codicum,
patrum, versionum comitatu, et quæ jam a plurimis seculis
interpolata fuerant, originariæ suæ puritati restituerit.
Harum lectionum inter alia longe plura orvXXoy}y satis
prolixam exhibet a pag. proleg. 41 ad 58, in quibus hoc
potissimum notandum venit, quod exempla multa colligens
ex libris fere omnibus totius N. Foederis, hac tamen
præfatione utatur: “ Haec quæ a MSS. codicum fere om-
nium, et impressorum lectione differunt, videntur tamen
genuina.”
Cui id primo respondeo, quod Helvidio Hieron. cap.
primo adv. Helv. t. 4, lit. D, ** Licet tu mira confidentia
haec in Græcis codicibus falsata contendas, quæ non solum
omnes pene Græciæ tractatores in suis voluminibus reli-
querunt, sed nonnulli quoque e Latinis ita ut in Græcis
liabentur assumpserint ; nec (non tamen) necesse est de
exemplarium varietate tractare, cum omne et Veteris et
(Novæ Scripturæ instrumentum in Latinum sermonem
exinde translatum sit, et multo purior manare credenda
sit fontis uhda, quam rivi.”
§. 2. Respondeo secundo, me diligenter locos omnes,
exceptis plane frivolis, expendisse, et vix unum invenisse
vel solitarie incedentem, vel cum exiguo illo quem adjecit
comitatu, qui genuinæ lectionis speciem exhibeat, certümve
indicium, aut ubi pro lectione Græcorum codicum recepta
non sit par ratio, versionum et antiquorum patrum aucto-
ritas vel æqualis, vel multo superior.
Secundo, cum id pro certo atque indubitato sæpius
assumit Millius, Vulgatam Latinam, seu versionem Ita-
licam, ab ipsis propemodum apostolorum temporibus
adornatam fuisse ad codices optimos ** solisquè forte
apostolorum ipsorum authenticis dignitate inferiores ;”
Proleg. p. 162, col. 1 5 “ Eamque ab hodiernis quidem
nostris codicibus nonnunquam recedere, a GræcisTautem
primorum temporum nusquam adeo recedere ut necessario
sit deserenda,” Proleg. p. 138, col. 1, 2—Ut multa alia
ejusdem confideritiæ hic missa faciam, aliud tamen peri-
tissimos Romanæ ecclesiæ criticos de hac versione sensisse
et docuisse, ex eorum verbis et testimoniis luce clarius
patebit. -
Nam primo Dupinius, etiamsi pro pontifice Romano
steterit, Italicam versionem ab origine sua plurimis
forsan maculis inquinatam fuisse, aperte et ingenue
fatetur. “ Primo énim, interpres qui potuit fajli ' ut
Humanus, hallucinatus forte est, et textum male reddidit;
aut secundo, nactus fuit codicem mendosum ; aut tertio,
sui codicis parum fidus anagnostes ; aut quarto, cuIm
5criptum esset ambiguum, et duplicis sensus aut inter-
pretamenti capax, interpres fortasse minus commodam
$ecutus est sententiam, et in dictione aliqua aut idiomate
Hebraico multum aberravit. Quinto, de suo etiam ad-
jecisse potuit plurima, aut claritatis gratia, aut ut unus
evangelista cum altero melius concordaret*' (atque etiam
subtraxisse, et rejecisse quædam tanquam superflua, ut
asserit Millius de Syro). ** Sexto, multa forsan addita-
menta deprompsit ex apocryphis (prout Clemens Rom. in
Ep. ad Corinthios).” Hæc ille de'vetere interprete N. T.
cap. iii. §. 4, p. 109.—Simonius, cap. vi. p. 50, “ Multum
(inquit) debemus sancto Hieronymo, qui Itálicam versionem,
locis pene innumeris mancam et imperfectam, suæ in-
tegritati restituit. Optima Græca exemplaria plerumque
secutus est, præteritisque iis, quæ ad Vulgatam de industria
conformabantur, et multis quæ apud orientales ecclesias
perlegebantur, commodissimum quodque elegit ; atque hinc
est, quod illi cum Græcis scholiastis omnia fere conveniunt. '
Admodum antiqui fuerunt codices, quos mutilos in editis sui
temporis Hieronymus deprehendit, et ab ipsis Christianismi
primordiis originem suám traxerunt. Ünde inducor ad
credendum veterem versionem Latinam a MSS., ad hunc
modum mutilatis, ab initio traductam fuisse, quam tamen
totam rejecisse, aut in novam penitus effinxisse formam,
criticorum ille præstantissimus mequaquam ausus est.”
Adeo in re Biblica peritissimi Simóniüs et Dupinius a
'Millio quam longissime dissentiunt!
§. 3. Secundo, sicut nec ipse Millius diffitetur versionem
istam tractu temporis valde corruptam fuisse, ita res nota
ac manifesta erit ecrebris Simonii confessionibus, qui, cap.
iii. p. 20, ait, “ Omnibus apertum est miserandum fuisse
statum illius ante castigationem Hieronymi ; * et cap.*iv.
p. 24, “ Latinam ecclesiam summo beneficio sibi devinxit
Hieronymus, cum ad optima Græca exemplaria Vulgatam
versionem pessime ab aliis habitam (ut testatur ipse in Ep.
ad Damasum) correxerit;” et cap. vi. p. 50, ** fnnumerös
pene locos, hiantes olim et lacunosos, reduxit ille ad
sanitatem ;” et p. 52, “ Vetustissimi cod. Vulgati multa
vra£5g43s3λημ£va, verbis passim immutatis, retinent, quæ in
editione nostra Hieronymus acri judicio perpendit, et
emendavit, cap. xii. p. 115.” Si Zegerum ipsum audias,
** hæc ipsâ versio multis in iocis noscitur vitiata, mutilata,
et aucta.” Atqui versio in statu isto miserando, utpotè
quæ locis innumeris vitiata, muti}ata, et aucta fuerit, minime
quidem digna fuit, ut præ cæteris palmam ferret, suamque
archetypo puritatem restitueret. “ Hinc est, quod (teste
Simonio) post castigationem Hieronymi de Italica versione
in antiquum statum restituenda nemo unquam vel per
somnium cogitaverit, sed (hac ad Mlillium ablegata pro-
vincia) codices suos ad Hieronymi editionem confórmarunt,
ex omnium confessione optimam et accuratissimam, adeo ut
post aliquos annos vetus Italica versio, cum in extremis
esset, vel sublata penitus fuerit vel sub nomine et titulo
Hieronymianæ versionis delituerit. Hanc enim Cassio-
dorus monachis suis regulam præscripsit, ut codices suos
ad Hieronymianos audacter corrigerent ; '' et cap. vii. p. 59,
“ Non aliud occurrit nomen in vetustissimis, quæ jam
extant, Latinis Bibliis, quam Hieronymi, nec nota aliqua,
qua distingueretur Hieromymiana a vetere ista, quam
occidentales ecclesiæ usurparunt, versione. Haec ergo
quæ olim Vulgata et Italica dicebatur, post Hieronymi in
Novum Testamentum laborés, sensim evanuit, cum enim
Hieronymiama magis quam Italica versio plerisque
arriserit, scrinia, in bibliothecis illius nomine præfixo,
occupavit, ltalica penitus neglecta, quam omnes minus
accuratam esse crediderunt;” et cap. ix. p. 83, ex per-
vetusto codice in bibliotbeca Sancti Germani reposito,
hæc citat verba, “ Hieronymi presbyteri Bethlem secun-
dum Græcum ex emendatissimis libris conlata : * unde
constat, quod ex pervulgata illorum temporum opinione,
Hieronymus integrum Novum Testamentum castigaverit
ex eméndatissiiuis Græcis manuscriptis: “ Nulla tum de
Italica versione mentio facta est ; librarii enim non aliam
quam Hieronymi editionem transcripserunt, quod sæpissime
disertis verbis in fine libri adnotarunt.” Ad hunc modum
illa ipsa versio, quam ad cœlum sustulit Millius, et cujus
beneficio loca Novi Testamenti plus ducenta, a plurimis
seculis interpolata, restituere conatus est originariæ suæ
puritati, illa ipsa, inquam, versio ex judicio et consuetudine
occidentalis ecclesiæ, prætermissa, spreta, et repudiata
fuit. Postremo, cum in ea prope senteritia Millius asse-
cutum se esse ex Latino Irenæo, Tertulliano, Cypriano,
Hilario Diacono, codicibus Cant. Clar. et Ger. quæ in
plerisque N. T. fuerint ipsius Italicœ genuina, et quibus
4
1154
EXAMEN MILLII.
Græcis I.atina ista responderint. Quam commentitia futi-
)isque sit illius sententia, mecum paucis recognoscite.
§. 4. Primo etenim oodicem Cant. ad hanc rem minime
aptum esse, patet ex testimonio tam Millii, quam Simonii.
Ad Murini argumentum, qui trecentis fere in locis ex
codice Cant. confirmatam esse ait Vulgatam ecclesiæ
versionem, respondet Millius (Prol. p. 141, col. 1), ** Ex-
emplar hoc Cantabrigiense omnium quotquot unquam ad
aetatem nostram devenire, interpolatissimum fuisse ; *' et
annotatis in Lucæ caput tertium, “ Omnium quos unquam
viderim, non uno nomine, corruptissimum. Unde et mu-
tata ad hujus generis codices Latina corrupta in plurimis
fuerint necesse est.” Atqui de hoc ipso codice, ait
Simonius, cap. vi. p. 51, “ Græca istius codicis ad
J talicam versionem per omnia respondisse ; unde sequi-
tur ipsam Italicam versionem, omnium quotquot unquam
ad ætatem nostram devenere, interpolatissimam fuisse.”
et p. 52, Codex Cant. a reliquis Græcis exemplaribus et
Vulgatis ita longe “ abe$t, præsertim in Actis Apostolorum,
ut videatur esse codex Iiovus.” Immo, dicente Millio,
annotatis ad Lucæ caput tertium, “ Hujus codicis scriba in
evangeliis finita, pro arbitrio, addere, detrahere, mutare
ausus est, et Lucæ denique evangelium adeo misere
passim interpolavit, ut Monotessaron quoddam fere, magis
quam ipsius Lucæ Evaugelium dixeris.” At vero cum
Clar. et Ger. sint solum ejusdem exemplaris partes
secundte, illos quoque codices a reliquis Græcis et Vul-
gata ad eundem modum discrepasse, rationi haud absonum
est conjicere ; et p. 52, ** Vetustissimi (Lat.) codices
additamentis mendisque innumeris abundant, quæ sustulit
IIieronymus, correxitque ad normam eorum exemplarium,
quæ suo tempore præstantissima habebantur, et quæ cum
nostris propius consentiunt. Inter libros, qui apud Græcos
et orientales ecclesiæ prolegebantur, sunt aliquæ quidem
varietates et discrepantiæ, non tamen ejusdem naturæ cum
variantibus istis lectionibus, quæ in Cant.' et quibusdam
aliis, et Vulgata vetere versione ad eos codices conformata,
facile deprehendas. Constat quidem eos codices temerariam
librariorum manum sæpius fuisse passos, qui multa addi-
derunt claritatis gratia, atque ordinem verborum immuta-
runt, ut oratio fieret concinna, accurata, et polita.” Unde
colligere licet, quam falsas rationes inferat Millius dicendo,
ita Cant. ita Ger. ita Cler. adeo vetus Italica.
§. 5. Secundo, alterum quod jacit fundamentum Millius,
sc. testimonia patrum, qui ante tempora Hieronymi vixerunt,
Simonio judice, parum stabile et firmum est. Nam in Cri-
tica de Versionibus Historia, cap. iii. p. 22, *' Monet nos
Sanctum Cyprianum non ad amussim exhibuisse Vulgatam
editionem sui temporis, sed aliquando ad sensum verborum
respexisse, potius quam ad textum veteris interpretis ; ” et
p. 21, ** Cyprianus et coætanei illius locos s. scripturæ non
ex publica aliqua versione deprompserunt, sed ipsi eos e
re nata interpretati sunt.” Atque iterum, ** Tertullianus et
Cyprianus potestatem sibi permiserunt adeundi fontes, ac
Græcum sermonem pro libitu suo vertendi. Hinc Pame-
lius in vita Tertulliani ait non tam Latinis translatis, quam
Gr. cod. veteribus usum esse auctorem Græce doctissimum,
mnallet nempe ex fontibus bibere, quod aiunt, quam ex
lacunis.” De Cypriano idem dignoscitur ex locupletissimo
indice locorum Nov. Test. in edit. Oxon. collectorum. Ex
his Simonius recte colligit falli Zegerum, qui additamenta
in Lat. MSS., seculo Irenæi aut Cypriani pauciora fuisse,
quam reliquis deinceps seculis existimat. “ Siquidem
major pars antiquissimorum codicum additamentis ac
varietate innumera gaudet, et tantum abest ut nostra Vul-
gati intepretis editio ad Irenæum, Tertullianum, Cyprianum,
aliosque scriptores venerandæ antiquitatis corrigi debeat,
ut tutius foret testimonia eorum ad editos nostros, seu
Græcos seu Latinos, emendare. Hoc quibusdam fo: san
mirum videbitur, (ait ille) et inauditum, sed de rei ipsius
veritate satis liquet ; * et p. 53, ** Haud tutum semper est
ecclesiasticos scriptores, qui antiqui merito audiunt, tan-
quam duces nostros sequi, cum e certis argumentis dignos-
catur codices, quos macti erant Nov. Test. præsertim
Latinos, misere confusos et turbidos fuisse.”
His etiam subjungit, p. 54, “ Scripta Latinorum patrum,
qui Hieronymi versionem ætate præcesserunt, crebram
Imutationem passa esse. Editores enim, qui typis illa
mandari curarunt, citationes eorum ad nostram Vulgatam
sæpius accommodabant, nec melius factum est Hilario
l)iacono, qui ex omnibus Latinis cum vetere 1taIo inter-
prete maxime congruit " Turrianus, cum apostolorum
canonum defensionem susceperit, ** meminisse (se ait) non
ita pridem cum esset Cyprianus Romæ imprimendus,
fuisse qui judicarunt tunc in testimoniis Veteris Scrip-
turæ, quæ sunt omnia apud Cyprianum ex interpretatione
LXX., pro interpretatione LXX. interpretationem Hiero-
nymi, suhstitui debere.” Quid multa ? Teste Dupinio, si
Epistolarum Paulinarum ILatinam versionem in Clarom.
et Germ. codicibus, cum textu in commentariis Ambro-
siastri et Pelagii diligenter conferas, miram ubique discre-
pantiam facile reperies : Hist. 5, et N. T., vol. ii. p. 115.
Quibus ex argumentis in unum collatis satis constat vanum
fuisse Miili inceptum, dum e scriptis patrum veterem
Italicam versionem eruere conatus est, neque illum aut
criticum aut dialecticum bonum egisse, cum in prolego-
menis toties dixit, ** lta Irenæus Lat. ita Tertullianus, aut
denique ita Cyprianus, adeoque vetus Italica.”
CAPUT QUINTUM.
§. 1. Exhibet uberiorem dissertationem de hac versione
ltalica, in qua primo sententia Millii proponitur. §. 2.
Secundo, patres I.atino8 existimasse versionem Italicam
ex Græcis exemplaribus corrigendam fuisse ex testi-
moniis Ambrosii, Hieronymi, Dainasi P. et Augustini
probatur. §. 3 et 4. Unde sequitur primo ex patrum
horum sententia non defuisse tunc Græcos codiges puros
et incorruptos, ex quibus versionis Italicæ orgá^ματὰ
corrigerentur. Secundo, patribus hisce mullam tunc
cognitam fuisse versionem Italicam, ex qua aliorum
Latinorum codicum varietas aut dissonantia tolleretur,
Ibid. Frustra tentasse Millium versionem hanc integri-
tati suæ restituere ex Tertulliamo, Cypriano, Hiiario
I)iac. et Augustino, aut ex codicibus manuscriptis, os-
tenditur.
QuANQuAM ea quæ de hac versione jam diximus, aliis
sufficere videantur, quoniam tamen controversiæ cardo in
hoc potissimum versatur, operæ pretium esse duxi Millii
de hac versione sententiam plenius refutare.
SECTI() PRIMA.
IMAGINARIUM, scilicet hanc versionem* *' adornatam fu-
isse ad optimos codices, solisque forte apostolorum au-
thenticis dignitate inferiores” censet Millius. Immo non
patitur Boisium nostratem supponeref *' ipsam a Græcis
alicubi sic recedere, ut nccessario sit deserenda.” “ Re-
cedit,” inquit, “ nonnunquam ab. hodiernis hisce nostris,
non vero a Graecis primorum temporum.” Et Prol. p.
142, col. 1, hæc habet, ** Veterem Italicam, ceu ad ex-
emplaria primæva compositam, summa veneratione pro-
sequimur,. ejusque vel semesa MSS. fragmenta quælibet
auro cariora, non cara duximus. Optandum equidem foret
ut Hieronymus, ex collatione præstantissimorum, qui ætate
ista comparari poterant, codicum Latinorum, restituere
studuisset Italicam originariæ suæ puritati. Cum autem
ex Græcis suis eam castigare ipsi visum sit, ex animo
certe gaudemus quod in hac re parum sibi permiserit, ac
pauca dumtaxat immutarit ; hoc siquidem pacto manet
etiamnum haud exigua pars Italicæ, textusque adeo pri-
mævi originarii vestigia passim haud obscura videre est,
quæ ex morosiori ejus ad Græcos codices qui tum fere-
bantur confirmatione, pleraque prorsus periissent. Hæc
nostra est de Vulgata versione sententia.”
SECTIO SECUNID A.
OPERÆ pretium esset dignoscere unde hæc versio men-
dis libera, et a Græcis primorum temporum nusquam re-
cedens, adeo comparanda esset, ut pro certo haberetur nos
ipsissimam versionem Italicam, qualis a prima origine
q.
* Proleg. p. 162, col. 2. f P. 138, col. 1, 2.
EXAMEN MILI,II.
I. 11 55
extabat, puram putamque possidere. Mirum certe, faterite*
Millio, quanta jam ab ips6 fere initio licentia textum hujus
versionis interpolarint Latini veteres. Quæro qua certe
et explorata methodo, pura ab his interpolationibus et
integra ad Millii manus pervenisset ? Versionem ] talam
aut Vulgatam continuo ingeminat ; ex hoc rivulo fontes
1psis Græcos purgandos esse existimat ; Clementem. Ori-
genem, Eusebium, Græcos fere omnes coram hoc tribunali
sistit ; quicquid in iis a suo Vulgato dissentit, ingusat
praesp. GAfiare»;, irreptitium, interpolatum esse, aut marginale
scholion fidenter pronunciat ; quicquid eidem consonat
est plane genuinum. Quærimus tandem unde hæc rara
avis perveherit, quibusque machinis e cœlo devoluta ad
Milliüm descenderit, et quibus indiciis, post longum hoc
temporis intervallum, id nobis denuo innotescat ? Ex
Miliio id luce clarius ediscas, cujus ipsissima verba in me-
diuin jam adducam. -
“ Versionem ipsam quod attinet, adeo mire tractu tem-
poris interpolata erat a librariis, aliisque, ut ipsius textum
genuinam haud alias investigare liceat quam partim ex
fragmentis patrum Latiuorum, partim ex MSS. exempla-
ribüs translätionis Italicæ, qualis jam incedebat ante casti-
gationem Hierouymi, adhibita in consilium hodierna Vul-
gata, quæ quantumcumque vitiata, haud exiguam gerte
partém retinet veteris genuinæ. Hujusmodi quidem
monumentorum accurate inter se, et cum textu Græco
(N. B.) commissorum, adminiculo, revocari etiamnum
posse videtur maxima ex parte Itala hæc, qualem eam
dederint primi interpretes.”+
Prodisse apud Latinos innumeras s. scripturæ interpre-
tntiones testis est Augustinus, et inter reliquas unum apud
Afros, quinto jam seculo speciatim Italam dictam, quod
ab Italiâ ad ipsos pervenerit. Quis hodie fidem dabit
versionem Italam primævam, seu Pii Secundi temporibus
dicente Millio, adornatam ex apostolorum autographis,
immn apographis desumptam fuisse ? _ Unde nimirum
habuissent Epistolam ad Hebræos, et Johannis Apoca-
lysin a Romana ecclesiæ nondum agnitas ? Unde Epistolas
Catholicas, quarum aliquæ in dubium ideo vocabantur,
quod earum parcior fuisset mentio in primævis Christian-
ismi seculis? In versione Syriaca, iisdem fere temporibus
adornata, Petri Epistolam Secundam, Johannis Secundam
et Tertiam, Judam, Apocalypsin, Historiam Adulteræ
defuisse agnoscunt eruditi : securos quis nos faciat eas in
versione Italica non pariter defuisse ? Aut quo indicio
certo constabit Italum hunc interpretem liuguæ Hebraicæ
idiomata moresque Judaicos adeo ad unguem calluisse, ut
in iis vertendis nunquam a vero aberraverit? Quis dabit
denique Italam versionem, de qua unus loquitur Augus-
tinus, eam ipsissimam fuisse quæ primo ab Italis concin-
nata fuerit ? Immo post miseram illam corruptelam, quam
multo ante Augustini tempora in hanc versionem irrepsisse
ultro fatetur Millius, quis certiores nos reddet eam in Afro-
rum manus incorruptam pervenisse? Si certum id esset,
quod summa confidentia certissimum promunciat Millius,
Italam hanc olim puram, et autographis apostolicis digni-
tate tantum inferiorem extitisse, mendisque nullis ob-
noxiam, et a qua nunquam necessario recedendum esset';
eamque a bibliothecis Hieronymi ætate salvam et integram
comparari potuisse ; quanta ecclesiæ Latinæ incuria, im-
mo socordia factum est, ut nova Hieronymi emendatio ei
prævaluerit, ita ut, ea insuper habita, Hieronymi versio
Vulgata apud omnes ubique obtineret, et pro authentica
habéretur. Isidoro etenim monente f* Hieronyini editione
generaliter omnes ecclesiæ usquequaque utuntur pro eo
quod veracior sit in sententiis, et clarior in verbis ;'' et
§ Gregorio P. apud Millium eadem his verbis dicente,
** Nova hæc translatio cuncta verius transfudisse perhi-
betur, et credendum est quicquid in ea dicitur.” Cur
demum id eo tempore dictum esset, cum eodem |Gregorio
fatente, sedes apostolica utraque utebatur, se tamen novam
translationem disserente ? Quid tandem dicat Augustinus
audiamus, T* In ipsis (inquit) interpretationibus Itala
* Prol. p. 58, col. 2.
f Lib. de Div. Officiis.
|| Ep. ad Leand. sect. ult.
V De Doct. Cbrist. lib.ii. cap. 15. Vide etiam cap. 11,1?.
+ Prol. p. 41, col. 2.
§ Prol. p. 98, col. 2.
cæteris præferatur, nam est verborum tenacior, cum
perspicuitate sententia.” Ut autem bic .de judicio Au
gustini, Latini hominis in Græcis minime instructi, ta-
ceam, Italam versionem ad aliarum multitudinem com-
paratam, “ verborum præ aliis tenaciorem et in sententiis
magis perspicuam (pronunciat) eam tamen quantumlibet
emendatam Græcis cedere oportere haud dubium est.”
Ait idem Augustinus,* ** lisque potissimum qui apud
ecclesias doctiores et diligentiores reperiuntur, Latinis
quibuslibet emendatis Græci.” inquit, “ adhibeantur, sunt
enim Græcorum auctoritate adhuc emendandi, duabus enim
aliis linguis ad scripturarum divinarum cognitionem
opus est, Hebræa sc. et Græca, ut ad exemplaria præce-
dentia recurratur, si quam dubitationem attulerit Latinorum
interpretum varietas.” En Augustinum mori Mlillio adsti-
pulantem, sed plane adversantem ; lectorem nempe Latinum
titubantem non versioni ltalicæ, sed Græcis exemplaribus
stabiliendum mittit ; immo haud dubium esse ait, Lati-
nam quamlibet versionem, adeoque Italam, Græcis cedere
opertere.
Cum Augustino consentiunt ecclesiæ Latinæ patres ad
unum omnes, qui de his rebus verba fecerunt, unoque ore
asserunt textus Græcos N. Testamenti semper fuisse et
adhuc esse authenticos, ad quos omnes versiones probari
et examinari debent. Constaus hæc erat, juxta Walton-
um, veteris ecclesiæ sententia : Ambrosius f hæc habet,
“ Si quis de Latinorum codicum varietate contendit, quo-
rum aliquos perfidi falsaverunt, Græcos inspiciant codices.”
Et libro de lncar. Dom. Sacramentis ; “Ita,” inquit, “ in
Græcis codicibus invenimus, quorum potior est auctoritas.”
Proximus illi Augustinus; ita loquitur, *' Recte fieri nullo
modo dubitaverim *ut, cum diversum aliqui] in duobus
codicibus invenitur, quandoquidem ad fidem rerum gesta-
rum utrumque non potest esse vel um, ei ljnguæ potius
credatur, unde est in aliam, per interpretes, facta trans-
latio.” “ Hoc ipsum,” inquit ibi Vives, ** Hieronymus
clamat, hoc ipsa dicit ratio, et nullus est saniore judicio
qui repugnet.* Hieronymus epistola ad Suniam et Fre-
teliam rem sic expedit : “ Si quando apud Latinos in N.
Testamento quæstio exorta est, et inter exemplaria varie-
tas, recurrimus ad fontem Græci sermonis quo novum
scriptum est instrumentum.” Idem JEp. ad Licinium hæc
habet, “ Ut veterum ]ibrorum fides de Hebræis volumimi-
bus examinanda est, ita novorum veritas Græci seymonis
normam desiderat :* quæ verba a Gratiano in jus canoni-
cum a pontifice probatum relata sunt, dist. 9, cap. Ut
veterum agmen claudat Damasus Papa, cui sic scribit
Hieronymus, “ Novum opus facere me cogis ex vetere,
ut post exemplaria scripturarum toto orbe dispersa, quasi
quidem arbiter sedeam, et quia inter se variant, quæ sunt
illa quæ cum Græca consentiunt veritate decernam.” Ex
his satis constat quantum veteres fontes prætulerint ver-
sionibus, iis vero qui versiones præferunt dico cum Hiero-
nymo, quibus displicet fontis umda purissima, cœnosos
rivulos bibant. IEx hac aùtem veteris ecclesiæ sententia
duo, coronidis loco, plane concludi videntur.
Primo, non defuisse, horuin patrum ætate, fontes ex
quibus purissima hæc unda biberetur, i. e. non defuisse
Græcos codices puros, et incorruptos, ex quibus Latino-
rum, adeoque ipsius versionis Italicæ orgáXμaτa corrigeren-
tur, quibusque Latina omnia exemplaria cedere oportere
haud dubium tunc esset. Quorsum enim Græcos codices
inspicere, ad *fontem Græci sermonis recurrere, ei linguæ
potissimum credere unde est in aliain facta translatio, et
cum Latina exemplaria varia esse contigerit, quæ sint illa
quæ cum Græca veritate consentiunt decernere, nos toties
monerent, nisi puri hi fontes adeundi, codices hi Græci in-
spiciendi essent, unde decerni potuisset Græca veritas ?
Frustra ergo decies ad minimum in prolegomenis suis as-
serit et contendit Millius, Græca exemplaria misere cor-
rupta et vitiata fuisse, interpretationibus, et scholiis e
margine in textum irrepsentibus undique scatere, fædata,
polluta, nec unum inter Græcos codicem extitisse Italo
suo vetustiorem, qui archetypam apostolorum et evange-
listarum scripturam ipso fidelius expresserit. Hoc enim
* Cap. 45. * Lib. ii. de Sp. Sanctc, cap. t.
f De Civ. D. lib. xv. cap. 18.
4 E 2
1 156
EXAMEN MILLII. .
si pntrum atque ecclesiæ antiquæ judicio ita fuisset, ad
eum certe aliquando, et non ad Græcorum exemplaria, pro
veritate dignoscenda continuo provocassent, meg in hujus-
modi verbä toties irrupissent. Latinorum * codicum viti-
ositatem, quæ ex diversitate librorum omnium comproba-
tur, ad Græcam originem, unde et ipsi translatum esse non
denegant revocandam fére, ex puris fontibus potius quam
ex coenosis rivulis bibendum esse. Et veritatem quæren-
dam esse ad Græcam originem revertendo. •
Secundo, hinc constat patribus hisce nullam tunc cogni-
tam fuisse versionem Italam, aliamve quamlibet, vel in
bibliothecis, ut putat Millius, extantem, vel aliunde COI m-
parandam, ex qua aliorum codicum Latinorum varietas aut
άissonantia, tolli posset, aut N. Testamenti versio Latina
ad integritatem suam restitui. Id liquet ex patrum om-
nium in hac ipsa quæstione alto silentio. Ad Græca ex-
emplaria provocant omnes. Ad ea quoties in Latinis du-
bium aliquod occurrat, recurrendum esse uno ore prgnun-
ciant, Italam quandam versionem Latinis cæteris præferen-
dam esse unus, quod sciam, Augustinus pronunciat, ex ea
reliquas emendandas esse ne unus quidem. Audi Hiero-
nymum clara voce sciscitantem, “Si Latinis f exemplaribus
fides est adhibenda, respondeant quibus? Tot enim sunt
exemplaria pene quot codices : sin autem veritas est quæ-
renda de pluribus, cur non, ad Græcam originem revertentes,
ea quæ vel a vitiosis interpretibus male reddita, yel a
præsumptoribus imperitis emendata pérversius, vel alibra-
jiis dormitantibus aut addita sunt, aut mutata, corrigimus ?
De N. Testamento nunc loquor quod (excepto apostolo
Matthæo) Græcum esse non dubium, hoc certe cum in
nostro sermone discordat, et in diversos rivulorum tra-
mites ducit, uno de fonte quærendum est.'' Latuit ergo
Hieronymum Romæ degentem, et Damaso P. familiarem,
ea quæ Millio, post longum hoc ætatis intervallum com-
pertissima (si fides ei sit adhibenda) fuit versio pura Ita-
lica, ad optimos codices adornata, solisque apostolorum au;
thenticis dignitate forte inferior. Latuit Hieronymi ad-
versarios studiose de illo detrahentes, quod quædam in
evangeliis emendare tentaret, et Latinorum codicum yiti-
ositatem ad Græcam originem revocaret. Latuit denique
Damasum P. id Hieronymo in mandatis dantem, ut “ex
Latinorum exemplaribus variantibus quæ sint illa, non quæ
cum versione Italica, sed cum Græca consentiant veritate,
decerneret.”
SECTIO TERTIA.
Ad Millium jam redeo, qui excussis aliquot ex modo me-
moratis atque antiquissimis codicibus, ut et allegationibus
patrum f vetustissimorum Latinorum, in ea prope fuit
sententia assecutum se esse quæ im plerisque N.Test. logis
fuerunt ipsius Italicæ genuina, et quibus Græcis Latina
ista responderint.
Quæro ex quibus patrum veterum monumentis id con-
secutus sit ; an ex Irenæi Latinis, ad quos in lectionibus
ejus variantibus sæpius nos mittit ? Nihil minus, ipso
enim Millio § monente, paucis in locis, necnon ex con-
textu orationis satis haud assequi possis quænam fuerit co-
dices Irenæi lectio ; et in hac, inquam, interpretatione La-
tima ex adductis per omnem fere paginam locis N. Test.
pro seculo isto haud facile credibilis apparet Italici textus
interpolatio.
An ex Tertulliano ad quem sæpe provocat ? Nec id
quidem ; fatente enim eodem Millio, | “in eo citata sunt
s. codicis loca fere negligentius, ex memoria, contracte, ad
sensum, haud sine levicula aliqua subinde mutatione ; ip-
sisque porro allegatis ab eo testimoniis, immista sunt non-
nunquam aliqua a stylo Vulgati interpretis diversa, Afri-
canæ φgáøtwc, et vocabula mire barbara ; immo penes se
habebat Italicæ“T exemplar haud parum maculatum certe :”
adeo ut-hoc patre uti in scripturis ad originalem Græcum
emnedandis, esset plane otio et opera abuti. -
De Cypriano idem est** Millii judicium, “ ex allatis ab
* Hieron. Ep. ad Marcellam.
£ Prol. p. 41, col. 2.
|| Ibid. p. 49.
** Ibid. p. 67.
f Epist. ad Damasum.
§ Prol. p. 58, col. 2.
Ibid. p. 59.
|
illo N. T. pericopis manifestum esse Italicam tractu tem-
poris magis magisque fuisse interpolatam,” adeo ut in illo
nihil fere notatum videam, nisi lectiones vitiosas, aut ex
Africanis aliisque versionibus profectas.
Denique, aliis Latinis patribus sepositis, in uno Ambro-
siastro, unoque Augustino tandem acquiescit. Hilarius
enim, qui sub Ambrosii titulo diu latuit, Romanus diaco-
nus cum esset, ab eo spes erat versionem Italam, si quæ
] tum purior extitisset, castius et sincerius exhibendam.
Sunt autem de hoc Diacono observanda tria, primo eum
nimirum, * ipso teste, hos commentarios edidisse, cum
ecclesiæ Romanæ rector esset is ipse Damasus, qui Hie-
ronymo invidiosum illud munus imposuerat de T Latinis
codicibus dissidentibus ex Græca veritate decernere, ade-
oque eo ipso tempore quando remedio isto, Damasi saltem
judicio, indigebant Latini codices universi. Secundo, ex
utriusque inspectione pro compertissimo habebit lector vel
Hieronymi Vulgatam vel Hilarii valde corruptam prodiisse,
quod* ex variantibus Hilarii lectionibus ad calcem hujus
operis conjectis, oculari demonstratione constabit. Tertio,
“ Præscribitur nobis (inquit Hilarius) de Græcis codicibus
quasi non ipsi invicem discrepant. Constat autem quos-
dam Latinos, porro olim de veteribus Græcis translatos
codicibus, quos incorruptos simplicitas temporum servavit
et probat.” “Ita,” inquitf Mlillius ** Latinus de Græcis,
cæcus, ut aiunt, de coloribus, nihil de codicibus Græcis
novit Ambrosiaster.” Somnium ejus de Latinis codicibus
incorruptis ipsius Hilarii textus refutabit.
Ad Augustinum jam venio. Is autem Græcam linguam
suis Latinis necessariam pronunciat ; ut ** ad exemplaria
præcedentia recurratur, si quam dubitationem attulerit
Latinorum interpretum infinita varietas;” et quod in Lati-
nis codicibus titubat, Græcis haud dubio cedere oportere
ait, adeoque codices Græcos Italicæ suæ versioni éundem
prætulisse res ipsa loquitur. Adeo.ut si verum id esset,
quod pro vero, contra experientiam, nobis obtruditf Mil-
lius, “ Augustini, nempe, opera portionem bene magnam
versionis Italicæ, qualis in codicibus illius ætatis ferebatur,
exhibuisse,” nihil inde profecerit Millius, partim quod
codices, ante ætatem istam, fatente eodem Millio, misere
interpolati essent ; partim quod ipse Augustinus codices
istos qualescunque fuerint, et Græcis corrigendos esse
asserat. Denique ad Augustinum provocat Millius contra
Augustini ipsius ad Hieronymum verba, quæ ad hunc mo-
dum se habent : § ** Proinde haud parvas Deo agimus
gratias de opere tuo, quod evangelium ex Græco interpre-
tatus es, quia pene in omnibus nulla offensio est, cum
scripturam Græcam contulerimus, unde si quispiam veteri
falsitati (N. B.) • contentiosus fuerit, prolátisT collatisque
codicibus, vel docetur facillime, vel refellitur ; et si qüæ-
dam rarissima merito movent, quis tam durus est qui labori
tam utili non facile ignoscat, cui vicem laudis referre non
sufficit ?” Quibus adjicias Hieronymi his verbis respon-
sum ; ** Si me, ut dicis, in N. Testamenti emendatione
suscipis, exponisque causam cur suscipias, quia plurimi
linguæ Græcæ habentes scientiam, de meo possint opere
judicare, eandem integritatem debueras etiam in Véteri
credere Testamento.” – Hinc verisimile est Dupinium recte
contra Millium dicere ** Augustinum ex instituto versionem
ab Hieronymo reformatam” in operibus, post eam editis,
allegasse.
SECTIO QUARTA.
SUPERSUNT jam codices MSS. iique, si Millio fides, ante
castigationem ab Hieronymo conceptam exarati ; Codices
nempe Cant. Clarom. Germ. qui omnes unum tantum volu-
men N. Testamenti constituunt. “ Hi,” inquit Millius,
“ Italicam versionem qualis existebat ante Hieronymi
teinpora, nobis exhibent :” hoc est Hieronymo | judice,
“ vitiis undique scatentem, iisque adeo multis, ut ea tan-
tum corrigere instituerit quæ sensum videbantur mutare;
reliqua manere passus sit, ut fuerunt,” ne multum a Lati-
næ lectionis consuetudine discreparent. ** Magnus siqui-
dem error in nostris codicibus inolevit (inquit Hierony-
* Com. in Tim. + Prol. p. 139, col. 2.
f Ibid. p. 80, col. 1. § Ep. 10, p. 44.
|| Præfat. ad Damasum. -
EXAMEN MILLII.
1 157
• mus), et apud nos mixta sunt omnia.*. Non alium de hac
controversia judicem desideramus quam Hieronymum,
ocularem codicum tam Græcorum quam Latinorum inspec-
torem. Quid hic Millius ? Hieronymum mendacii incu-
sat, immo coutra constare dicit* ** haud alterius generis
vitia versionem hanc Italam contraxisse, quam quæ cæteri
omnes codices, tractu temporis, incuria, et licentia libra-
riorum. Codices vero Græcos ad quos revertendum cen-
sebat Hieronymus, in multis abiisse a primævis illis e
quibus Latina hæc profluxere. Verbo dicam,” inquit,
“ libri qui hac ætate ferebantur, etiamque præstantissimi
quique, interpolati erant et inixti, ne Origeniani quidem,
et cæteri probatiores, ad quorum fidem ex occasione pro-
vocat Hieronymus, ab assumentis aliisque vitiis vacabant,
soli puri et immaculati erant qui ex autograpbis apostolo-
rum manabant, proximi istis, licet haud ita puri, quos
aliquanto post constitutionem canonis N. Test. describi
contigerit, et ex horum aliqua expressa erat versio Italica,
adeo ut, ad ipsam emendandam ex Græco, consulendi fo-
rent codices, si qui extarent, similes istis ad quorum tex-
tum erat composita. Quod autem bos una cum aliis isto-
rum temporum interpolarint magis magisque librarii ante
seculum Hieronymi, frustra ex temporum posteriorum
Græcis institui ejus in integram restitutionem : cum enim
a lectione quam referebat hæc: versio, abierint haud raro
libri recentiores, certe quo propius in ea recensenda ad hos
acceditur, eo magis Italicam a primogenia sua scriptura
réddes alienam ; nec reformabis ipsam, sed transformabis
in novam nescio quam, a genuina vet ] talica plurimum
discrepantem.” -
Putares, lector, te audire Morinum aliquem, aut Amelo-
tium, pro I.atinis codicibus, tanquam pro aris et focis con-
tendentem, potius quam protestantem, aut ecclesiæ Angl.
filium. Ut autem hic mittam ea quæ hic Millius de ver-
sione primæva Italica tam fidenter asserit esse gratis dicta,
cui unquam persuadebit, Origenis temporibus, hoc est,
dum exemplăria in ecclesiis suis archétypa consulenda
essent, ejusque Pampbili et Pierii opera tam egregie la-
boratum est, ut integre conservarentur, vitiis ita scatuisse,
ut non ex iis, sed Italica nescio qua versione, per Millium
tandem forent emendanda. Aliud certe existimavit Augus-
tinus, qui pro versione Hieronymi Deo haud parvas egit
gratias, eamque eo nomine præcipue suscepit, quod viri
in Græcis versati de ea judicare potuissent ? Quis ferat
Millium tam audacter pronunciantem Græcos codices, e
quibus Hieronymus Latinorum spbalinata emendavit, ante
seculum Hieronymi a librariis adeo magis magisque in-
terpolatos fuisse, et operam in iis consulendis plane inserit
Hieronymus, nec Vulgatam ex eorum collatione emendatam
nobis exbibuerit, sed potius in novam transformatam, et
a genuina veteri Italica, quam sibi per somnium excogita-
vit Millins, plurimum discrepantem ? Denique cum dicitf
** In saniora consilia reversum esse Hieronymum, dum ita
calamo temperavit, ut iis tantum quæ sensum mutare vi-
debantur correctis, reliqua manere pateretur ut fuerant,”
quid aliud agit quam insaniæ Hieronymum arguere, codi-
cum Latinorum sphalmata ex Græca veritate corrigentem,
insaniæ Damasum id munus eidem imponentem, insaniæ
Ambrosium potiorem illius auctoritatem concedentem, in-
saniæ Augustinum de libris Græcis apud ecclesias doctiores
et diligentiores loquentem, e quibus Latini codices corrige-
rentur, iisque Latinos codices cedere oportere pronuncian-
tem ? insanivisse demum universam ecclesiam existimare,
quam in hanc sententiam concessisse monet ö 7rávv Walto-
nus ? Verbo dicam, aut in his tam audacter, et quasi de
tribunali pronunciatis, ipse Millius, aut totus mundus in-
saniit.
Porro in consilium adhibuisse se dicit Millius,£ ** Vul-
gatam hodiernam quæ quantumcunque vitiata, haud exi-
guam certe partem retinet veteris genuinæ.” Frustra, se
judice. *' Jam,” enim inquit, “ quando Latina nostra lon-
go seculorum tractu misere corrupta sunt, vix illi libri
sunt minus probati quam qui maximam præferunt cum
Latinis nostris consonantiam.” Simonius, cujus criticam
* Prol. p. 81, col. 2.
* Ibid. p. 81, col. 2, et p. 82, col.
f Ibid, p. 117, col. 2.
in N. T. merito laudat Millius, id fieri non posse contendit
hoc argumento, quod multa in veteri Vulgata menda intac-
ta reliquerit Hieronymus, ne Latinorum suorum aures of-
fenderet. Ex librò autem mendis quamplurimus adhuc
scatente, et in paucis non semper recte, si Millio* fides,
mutato, nihil certo colligi posse quo vetus Italica ad suam
integritatem restituta esset, nemo no11 videt. -
Horum, inquit Millius,f ** mediorum cum textu Græco
commissorum adminiculo, sive excussis antiquissimis codi-
cibus, et allegationibus vetustissimorum patrum Latinorum,
exactisque iis siugulis ad fontem Græcum, assecutum me
esse confido, quæ in plerisque Nov. Test. locis fuerint ip-
sius Italicæ genuina.”
Juvat hic Millium Millio committere. Hieronymum a
Μillio reprehensum audivimus, quod ad hos fontes, libra-
riorum interpolationbius, ejus ætate magis magisque vitia-
tos, provocaverit. Id Millius post mille et ducentos an-
nos, se felici opera præstitisse existimat, quod frustra
Hieronymus, cum suis interpolatis Græcis aggressus est.
An id Hieronymo accidit codicum Latinorum vetustissimo-
rum,'aut patrum Latinorum inopia ? Mirum contingere
id potuisse Latino Romæ id temporis agenti, cum opus
illud concinnasset, et de scriptis Latinorum patrum usque
ad suam ætatem in catalogo suo judicium proferenti. Id
unum dicendum superest, Hieronymo judicium, vel criti-
cum illum nasum in- genuinis decernendis defuisse, qui
Millio tandem in eadem opera versanti contigit, aut juxta
Augustinum, ** operam omni laude majorem in veteri falsi-
tate corrigenda Hieronymum præstitisse.” Porro si Græci
codices ita, Hieronymi ætate, interpolati fuissent, ut nul-
lum ex iis certum judicium de Latinis codicibus ferre po-
tuerit Hieronymus,t unde est quod Codicem Alexandrinum
inter exemplária Vet. Test. non tantum toto orbe vetustis-
sima, sed et probatissima ponat Millius, “ita ut certe ab
ipsis fere canonis incunabulis,” inquit, “ vix extitisse cen-
seam qui archetypam evangelistarum et apostolorum scrip-
turam fidelius expresserit?” An codicem hunc Hiero-
nynio, qui ad Pierii et Origenis exemplaria in bibliothecæ
Alexandrina conservata toties provocat, ignotum fuisse
existimandum est ? Codicem ex quo versio Æthiopica§
prodit, unum e primævis, aut ad primævum aliquem ex-
pressum esse censet Millius, quo jure videmus. ldem de
versione Coptica || pronunciat, eam mempe ex fonte Græco
profluxisse, exemplari optimo, unoque e primævis, aut
certe ex bujusmodi aliquo descripto. Inter codices Millio
jam notos, ex quibus Novum Testamentum mendis bis
mille purgatum se nobis exhibuisse præ se fert Millius,
Hieronymo in Palæstina versanti, bibliothecæ Alexan-
drinæ scrinia pervestiganti, Autiochiam, Constantinopolin,
variasque Asiæ provincias perlustranti, immo dum in
AEgypto ageret monasteriorum Nitriensium codices evcl-
venti, ne unum quidem ex tot Græcis codicibus primævis
contigisse, ex quo Latinos suos emendaret, quis sanus
judicaverit? -
LIBRI SECUNDI CAPITIS PRIMII
A RGUMENTUM.
Continet vindicationem loeorum quorundam insigniorum,
in quibus lectiones variantes majoris momenti esse vi-
deantur, viz. τὸ εἰκή, Matt. v. 22; 8o3oAoyia, Matt. vi. 13; '
vexgoùς ἐysigere, Matt. x. 8; quæ omnia adjectitia esse con-
tendit Millius. *H £»ς τοῦ τοῦpayoυ ύφ»$εῖara, var. lect. p«)
£ας, Matt. xi. 23; τί με λάγεις άya$6v v. l. τί με ipωτάς πεδί
πού áya6o5, Matt. xix. 17; tô y£vyópx£vov &ytov, v. 1. âx aoû
&yiov, Luc. i. 35; xa$agiap.où aùtà», v. l. aitfi;, Luc. ii. 22 ;
ysyn$%tov rò $£xna & arov — άλλὰ λύarat ìpaa« άτὸ τοῦ τοyngoü,
J.uc. xi. 2. 4; adjectitia hic censet Millius, où ê íy 3 yéyovsv,
Job. i. 3, 4 ; iy αυτά ζω) fiy, v. l. oùôï äv, v. 3, 3 yiyovsv iv
aύτά, &c. v. 4; et rareôsic i% $am; Ti; xap8ia3 Éászt, desuut
Act. viii. 37 ; oùx èyáneay, addit Millius, Rom. i. 32; τά
Kvpiç ôovAaùoyτες, v. l. τά xatpâ, Rom. xii. 11; ta?; xgsiatc τάy
* Ibid. p. 82, col. 1. + Ibid. p. 41, col. 2.
t Ibid. p. 143, col. 2. § Ibid. p. 124, col. 1.
|| P. 152, col. 1.
-
1158 EXAMEN
MILLII.
àyioy κοττατούντες, v. 1. vafc pavetatc, Ibid. v. 13; oî; où8è πεδς
άgav s%ayxsv, v. l. οίς τάς άgay, Gal. ii. 5; ἐπιφαάσει σοι δ
X£tatôc, v. 1. άτιφaύσει σου, et ἐπιφαύσεις τοῦ Xgtatcú, Epb.
v. 14; h τg&tm axmv), v. l. Öta$jxn, Heb. ix. 1.
LECTIONES variantes a MSS. desumptas, quas nec anti-
qui patres, nec Græci commentatores, nec versiones ve-
tustissimæ agnoverunt, jure optimo rejiciendas esse nemo
inficiabitur. Ex iis lectionibus, quâs agnoverunt, quæ-
dam magni momenti sunt, ideoque majorem disquisitionem
postulant, et merentur ; aliæ minoris, aut nullius momenti,
quas accurata consideratione indignas qnis non putat ?
Hac præsertim de causa, quod licet ex patribus non pauci,
2—5, 8, volumini exararint, raro Millius paginam caput
aut librum indicet, ubi variamtes suas lectiones reperire
possimus ; et licet in plurimis patrum editionibus scrip-
turaram, quæ ab iis citantur, occurrant indices, adeo ta-
men manci et imperfecti sunt, ut vix dimidiam partem
earum exhibeant, et in hac dimidia parte ex mendis libra-
riorum miræ sint tenebræ. Nè tamen aliquid notatu dig-
num præteriisse videar, mibi molestum non erit in hanc
rem aliquid temporis et laboris insumere.
1. Variarum lectionum quæ notabiles sunt, primam in-
venies, Matt. v. 22, 7räc ô àpyv%μενος τά άδελφὸ αὐτοῦ εῖxfi,
“ Vox £ix£i,” ait ille, “ videtur omnino scholion esse, e
margine codicis alicujus in textum admissum :” ego qui- *
dem hujusmodi conjecturæ parum faveo, nec in textum
ecclesiis Christianorum publice recitatum insolens aliquod
irrepsisse facile credam, nisi ex causa graviori, quam hic
Joci nullo modo invenio. Vulgatæ enim versioiìi, patri-
busque Latinis, habeo quod opponam, testimonium Jüstini
M. Nec quis mihi merito objiciat, quod vocem eixfi præ-
terierit Justinus* secunda sua apológia his verbis, δς δ' àv
δ£yia 8í, åvoxâç å7Tiy $ic τὸ τύg. Periódus enim ista omnibus
suis numeris non expleta est, atque gazâ aliquis et μωgè
pari jure ac eixfi textu depellat. Idem de lrénæo diceii-
dum est, qui Christi præcepta summatim enumerans ait,f
“ Doininus pro eo quod est non occides, neque irasci qui-
dem præcepit;” sedf tribus aliis locis hunc ipsum textum
proferens, diserte addit, “ sine causa.” Ita Cyprianus, lib.
iii. p. 64, Apost. Constitutiones, lib. ii. cap. 53. Ita Chry-
sostomus, Euthymius, et Theophylactus in locum. Ita
IBasilius MI. tomi. ii. p. 447, Greg. Nyssen. de Beatit. or. 5,
p. 818, et tom. ii. p. 791, Theodoretus, orat. 9, adv. Græ-
cos, p. 621, et in Ps. p. 443, ita Cyrillus Alex. in Zach. p.
768, Chrysostomus, bom. 6 in Divum Pauluin, ed. Sav. tom.
yiii. xai ö XptaTök 7ráÀiy, § 3£yvóg syo; tô å8sxgà aùtoù sixfi oùx
άλλως δεχτόμενος. Et edit. Mor. tom. iii. p. 25, £Ì8ες ray-
3aXó £*££?a, δάγζεσ&ε, και μλ άμagτάνετε, ό άγιζόμενος εἰκ}.
íztt yàg xaì òwai»ς δεγίζεσ$at, et tom. iv. p. 84. Vide ibi
Pr. Ducæum ; et. p. 114 et 116 bis ; et tom. v. p. 345.
Syrus autem et Copt. vocem hanc ita propriam hóc loco
putarunt, ut retinere eam inaluerint quàm interpretari.
Cum vero “ vox sixfi,” ex Miillii sententia, *' mécessario
adhibenda videretur, ad emolliendum sc. quod aliqui durius
dictum putarent ;" ex ea sententia recte`colligimus, quod
vocem illam nemo quidem de industria omiserit; potuit
tamen omitti ex oscitantia librariorum, quod aliis locis ac-
cidisse ipsi sæpissime in confesso est.
2. Ex insignioribus variantium lectionum secunda est,
ea quæ dominicam orationem claudit doxologia, £rt aoû
iatw fi ßaaiXsia; xai h bwapxi;, xai i, 8332 sis roù; Gr&yac, Matt.
vi. 13, “ quam Græcis liturgiis ortum suum debuisse”
Millius multique critici judicant, quoniam sicut non re-
peritur apud Lucam xi. 4, ita nequé apud patres Latinos;
præterea deest apud Græcos, Origen. Cyprian. tertio se-
culo ; Cyrillum Hierosol. Gr. Nyssen. quarto seculo; etiam
ubi dominicam orationem ex pröfesso ihterpretantur : ægre
tamen in animum inducam meum precationi ab ipso Do-
miuo nostro compositæ commentitium aliquod adjecisse
sanctos patres : quod sic hic loci factum esset, cur non
etiam pari temeritate apud Lucam ? Reperies quidem
hanc clausulam in omnibus orientalibus versionibus, e
quibus Syriaca, Waltono judice, apostolorum fere tempori-
bus confecta est, et apud eruditos haud paucos, ait Mil-
�
* P, 63. f Lib. iv. cap. 27.
1
f P. 189, 314, 320. ι
lius,* ** convenit ipsam seculo apostolico proxime sequente
a viris apostolicis fuisse concinnatam ;'' legas eam apud
Chrysostomum, Euthymium, Theophylactum, i. e. apud
omnes Græcos commentatores in locum ; Chrysostomus
explicat eam, et explanat ad hunc modum, raùra yàg
φησιν, σίτά τapá aov, ότι οὐδέ σε ßaatXêa 7r&vto)v, ai%y;ov κεκτη-
μ£yoy xp&voc, xai 7ráyta δυνάμενον ἐaratreg &v $£λης, xaì 86%ay
w£*** &£vov àvaqyaigstov. Isidorus Pelusiota, Ep. lib.iv. ep.
24, dominicam orationem interpretatus est, atque ibi asse-
rit, si recitaret aliquis hæc verba, ότι σοῦ ἐστιν ij 3ao-iAeia,
xaì à êÜvapxic, zaì h 86%a, kata £gov£v 8è toù Träaav δύναμιν waî
83%ay 7rnyáςοντος, fontem interim omnis potestatis et gloriæ
sperneret illum, quicunque sit criminis irremissibilis se
reum facere ; eosque solos eadem verba sincere proferre,
qui ad singula l)ei jussa toto corpore contremiscunt.
Apostolicæ Constitutionesf banc precationem bis exhibent
pariter ac in textu, minime mutilam et decurtatam, eamque
appellant nomine precationis, %v 3 Kögtog iip.jy iy τὸ εὐayy£λίω
δετά%ατο. JDenique cum Lucianus Philopatrim suam ab-
solvens ait, ràv Eùχήν άπό τavpò; âçôápx£vog xaì 'r}v 7roAv&vvpxov
&ό}ν εἰς τ£λος ἐστιθεῖς, illum dominicæ orationis initium, ac
finem perstrinxisse censet Cotelerius. Origenem; in hac
re pa§vi facio, cujus testimonio si fides adhibenda esset,
tum γενn$ito, rò $ëλngâ &ov, &ς ἐν ούga»§, xai άτὸ τῆς γὰς,
item íüarat åøåς å7rò τοῦ ποymgoù,. de Lucæ textu, tamquam
de Joco non suo, tollenda sunt ; temerarium facinus ac
valde periculosum : ad summam, Gr. Nyssen et S. Ambro-
sius hanc clausulam nom (prout innuit Millius) penitus
omiserunt, sed niore Græcarum quarundum liturgiarium
hanc una cum doxologia Filii et Spiritus Sancti simul pro
tulerunt. Gr. Nyssen enim suam dominicæ orationis ex-
plicationem peragit his verbis :§ “ Quin stantes Deum
precemur, Ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a
malo, a quo liberet nos gratia Christi, δτι σύτά η δόναμις,
xaì ì 33%α, άμα τὸ Πατὰ τaι τὸ 'Ayi3) IIv£vatv, wüv xaï åäî,
xc.) eig τους aiäva ; rêv a{&yo)v, άμfiv.'' Ad eundem modum
Pseudo-Ambr. lib. vi. de Sacram. c. ult. l)enique cum
hæc 8o%ολοyia, testibus Drusio et Lightfooto, saltem quoad
sensum, in publicis Judæorum liturgiis obtinuerit, et in
versionibus Syrorum et Arabum, in confiniis gentis Judaicae
degentium, at queadeo ex iis hanc formulam recipientium,
inveniatur, cumque apud patres Græcos invaluerit mos
mentione Patris facta ei adscribere μ£yaAozöynv xaì òó%ay εἰς
aióvag, ägxfiv, vide Clem. R. Epist. ed. Junii, p. 29, et in
fine, verisimile est eam locum hic suum obtinere, potius
quam manu aliena et temeraria huic s. orationi additam
fuisse. •*
3. Matt. vi. 32, inentio facta est de additamento quo-
dam ab Origene et Clemente Alex. haud semel citato; viz.
ai r£r£ Tà μεγάλα, xai τά μικρά υμῖν τεοστε$haretai* xaì
aîr£T£ τὰ ἐτονgávia, zaì rà ê7riy£ta ípaíw 7rgoo-re$$arstat.
“ lta tamen (ait ille) ut tricesimi tertii commatis loco po-
situm haud putem ; sed appositum potius interpretamenti
gratia :'' quod luce clarius fiet ex ipso Clemente, Strom. iv.
p. 488, cum enim Christi verba citasset, �mt£r£ 7rpórov t}v
ßaaiXeiav τὸν οὐρανόν xai τῶν δικαιοτάνην, addit, taíta yàe
pzayáÀa, et deinde sequitur, τὰ δè μικgà, xai 7r£pi ßiov *«5ta.
7rgoarT£$fiareTai ύμΤν.
4. Cap. x. 8, vexgojg iyeigste, “ Probabile est adjectum hoc
aliunde (ait Millius) et quidem ab ipsis pene Christianismi
primordiis (cum id Syrus, Vulg. et Cant legant) quoniam
omittunt MSS. triginta amplius,|| Basilius, Chrysostomus,
Eutbymius, et Theophylactus in locum.” Sed extant hæc
verba apud Hilarium canon. 9, apud Cant. et Alex.
MSS. apud Cyrillum Alex. Is. p. 862, Glaphyr. in Deut.
p. 426, et de Sancta Trinitate, lib. iii. p. 494. Cur autem
omissa fuere ratio probabilis a Millio redditur, nempe,
quod neminem ante Christi resurrectionem ab apostolis
vitæ redditum legimus ; qui maximam hujusce capitis
partem ad secundam missionem Christo demum e mortuis
suscitato respectum habuisse parum animadverterunt ; hac
forsan ex ratione ad illa omittenda facile adduci potuerunt:
cur autem adderentur, ne color quidem, aut prætextus est,
* Proleg. p. 127.
f Lib. iii. cap. 18. lib. vii. cap. 24.
f Not. in Con. Apost. p. 216.
§ Orat. à, tom, i. p. 761. || Tom. ii. p. 462.
EXAMEN MILLII.
] 159
cum novam afferant difficultatem, nulla adhuc mentione
facta de mundatis leprosis pariter ac mortuis suscitatis.
lta cap. xi. 5, χωλοι στεςιτratoÜat, vexgo? iyeipoyrat desunt (ait
ille) in Origene in Joh. sc. p. 103. Sed longe fallitur
opinione ; primam periodi partem agnoscit Origenes, et
alteram absque ulla variante lectione reperies Luc. vii. 22,
ideoque utrum sint Christi verba, in dubium venire non
I)otest. -
5. Cap. xi. 23, και αύ KaTepyaoùpx, fi £»ς τοῦ οὐgayoì ùJ.»-
$εῖα a: μὴ ἐως τοῦ οὐpayoù ÜJo/$fiarn, MISS. quædam, Irenæus,
lib. iv. cap. 70, p. 371. Sed ex annotationibus doctissimi
Grabii constat, quod illa lectio non ipsius Irenæi, sed
solius Latini interpretis sit: “ Nam in nullo (ait Grabius)
Græcorum patrum hunc locum ita allegatum reperio :
Chrysostomus, Theophylactus, Arabica, Syriaca, Persica
vers. textui assentiuntur.”
6. Cap. xix. 17, τί με λάγεις άya$6v ; in annotationibus
Millii Matthæus, inquit Origenes, &ς τεé àya$o5 Éeyov
êgotn$£vtoc τοῦ σωτηρος ἐν τά τί àya&òv ττοιησον ; áváyga<!sy
•ti pae âgorà, trepi του άya$o$ ; ô ôë Mápxoc xai Aovxäg paa?
vèv o oyrjpa signx£vai, rt px£ X£y£ις àya&òv ; Sed Justinus M.
in Dial. cuin Tryph. p. 328, `Irenæus, lib. cap. 17, Ori-
genes contra Celsum, lib. v. p. 238, cum textu congruunt.
De altera hac lectione venerandæ antiquitatis, silentium
est apud Millium, viz. @εός ό ττοιτ}g, vel, 7ratíe á êy oùgayoïç,
vel ratfip p.ov £v τοῖς ούgavoç. Occurrit hæc lectio in Jus-
tino M. p. 328, Clemente Alex. Pædag. p. 118, Origene,
ubi supra, Exhort. ad Mart. p. 160, Comment. in Joh. p.
38, et lib. i. de Principiis, cap. 3. PJacuit forte Millio
hanc lectionem prætermittere, quoniam, Ariana exorta
controversia, vocem Trat}g in evangelio scriptam fuisse
præcise negarunt. Adjecta erat a Marcionitis, inquit
Epiphanius.* Et orthodoxus in primo Dial. de Trin.
(quem monmulli + Athanasii fuisse putant) oùx èigntat (ait)
oÜ8εῖς àya&òς εἰ μ% £f; j 7rat}e, &Aλὰ εἰ μ} £i; § @íc. Vox
quidem Travhg nec apparet jam in nostris MSS., nec agnita
olim fuit a vetustis interpretibus. Cum vero Valentiniani,
Marcionitæ, aliique hæretici hac voce causam suam fulcire
putentur, sanctos patres hoc usurpasse verbum, reclamanti-
bus MSS. suis quis credat? Hinc constat quam parum
fidei et auctoritatis variantes ex iis desumptæ lectiones
Jmereantur.
7. Matt. xxvi. 28, τὸ πεg: TroAAöv ἐχχυνόμεyov, ** Qui
effundetur,” Vulg. ** Futurum se (ait ille) quod futuri loco;
nec enim illis vinum hoc ipse sanguis Christi erat jam
effusus, sed ejusdem mox effundendi symbolum.” Sed
N. B. (1.) quod omnes evangelistæ et apostoli cum de
institutione sacramenti corporis Christi loquantur, dicunt
πό διάμενον, τὸ κλέμενον, Luc. xxii. 19. 1 Cor. xi. 24, et
de sanguine Christi, τὸ ἐκχυνάμεyoy, Mar. xiv. 24. Luc.
xxii. 20, verbum in præsenti tempore usurpantes, quo-
ninm ex hac institutione facta est repræsentatio corporis
Cliristi quod mox frangendum, et sanguinis Christi qui mox
effundendus erat ; per quam illos Domini mortem annun-
ciare oportet, donec veniat. (2.) Quod eadem figura
dicendi de ambobus sacramentis veteris fœderis utitur
sacra scriptura ; de circumcisione emim ante dicit quam
Abraham circumcideretur, ** Hoc est pactum meum, &υτ} %
8ta$fiww, quod observabitis inter me et vos,” Gen. xvii. 10.
Et de agno paschali ante dicitur, πάσχα ἐati Kv&ig, *' Vic-
tima transitus Domini est,” Exod. xii. 27, quam transivit
L)ominus super domos filiorum Israel, percussit autem
omne progenitum in terra Ægypti. Vide annotata mea
in hunc locum. -
8. Marc. i. 2, èv roi; 7rpoqyfitatc, hanc lectionem pro
virili parte jamdudum tubear ; cui defensioni adjunge
testimonium Hieronymi in Matt. iii. f. 8, lit. C. Nos autem
nomen Isaiæ putamus additum scriptorum vitio.
. 9. Marc. xv. 25, * Erat autem Tgitn &ga, tertia hora, et
crucifixerunt eum,” Job. xix. 14, &ga &z£ί ἐκτn. Vide hoc
ävayvtoq)avès, conciliatum in annotatis nostris ad hunc locum.
lectio vgivm ad Johan. librariorum sine dubio est, non
evangelistæ, inquit Millius.
10. Luc. i. 35, 81) y£vv&p.£yov àyioy. Hic loci MSS. om-
nesque versiones, et plurimi e patribus, post y£vyóμενον
addunt ἐκ σου, quam lectionem versio Anglicana probat et
* Hær. xlii. p. 339. * Ath. tom. ii. p. 169.
firmat, dicendo “ quod nascetur ex te;" nec injuria: ad hunc
enim modum legunt Irenæus, lib. iii. cap. 26, Tertullianus
contra Prax. cap. 26, Novatianus de Trin. cap. 19, Ori-
genes, Dial. contra Marcion. p. 121. Eutropio enim pos-
tulante ut ex scripto recitentur verba, recitantur τό y£yy%-
μενον ἐκ σου, hac simul nota adnexa, quod evangelista non
dicit διὰ σου άλλ' ἐκ σού* ad eundem modum autor Quæs.
tionum et Respond. ad Orthod. qu. 46, p. 430, Epiphanius,
Anch. p. 69, Chrysdstomus, ed. Mor. tom. v. p. 476. Quibus
comites adjungit Millius Athanasium, Greg. Thaumatur.
gum, Titum Bost. et Hesychium. Videtur tamen illi
quod hæc lectio orta sit ex interpretamento, Wo. q%aret y£y-
.yópz£vov èx Magiac 7rvat£vSeim. Pace tua dicam, docte' editor,
inter illas quas germanas esse acriter contendis, non una
ex sexcentis pari atque hæc lectio auctoritate innititur. Vide
Proleg. p. 72, col. 1.
11. Luc. ii. 22, ai hμ£pai toù za $agiapxov aù-r&v. Vulg.
et Arab. aùtj;' veram et antiquam lectionem textui con-
venisse ex his Origenis verbis, hom. 14 in Lucam, f. 100,
D, discinus ; ** Si scriptum esset * propter purgationem
ejus,' i. e. Mariæ, nihil quæstionis oriretur, et audacter
diceremus Mariam, quæ homo erat, purgatione indiguisse
post partum ; nunc vero in eo quod ait * dies purgationis
eorum,' non videtur unum significare, sed alterum, sive
plures.” Vide hic Millium textum confirmantem, Pro].
p. 64, col. 2. p. 72, col. 1. p. 80, col. 2. Corrige igitur an-
notata nostra in hunc locum.
12. Luc. xi. 2, y£wm$ítæ rò $£Ampz& aov, ver. 4,
άλλὰ λύσει ημάς άπό τοῦ τονmpoÜ. Utraque petitio,
ait Origenes,* explicans hanc precationem, Trapà Aovxà
a Ea t&rntas. Notat et Augustinusf ** quod evangelista Lu-
cas in oratione dominicn petitiones non septem, sed quin-
que complexus est, . Ostendens ergo Lucas tertiam
petitionem duarum superiorum esse quodammodo repeti-
tionem, magis eam prætermittendo fecit intelligi. * Et libera
nos a malo* iste non posuit, ut intelligeremus ad illud
superius, quod de tentatione dictum est, pertinere.” Aozs?
8í aot (inquit Origenes) 6 Aovhàς διὰ τον, μ) siagy£y«;« fip×ás
εἰς τετpazpzóv, 8vváμει δεδιδax£vat xai τὸ λύσειι ημάς άπὸ τοῦ
7roynpo5. Omittuntur in Vul. et in plerisque exemplarium
Latinorum, ait Maldonatus ; quem tamen habemus ingenue
confitentem, quod extent in omnibus fere MSS. Græcis.
Agnoscunt bas petitiones, et interpretantur, Eutbymius et
Theopbylactus, et singulæ versiones orientales. Origer;i
quos opponam habeo Sanctum Cyprianum, Cyrillum Hieros.
Gr. Nyssenum, Chrysostomum, in quorum commentariis
de insigni hac omissione altum silentium est: Augus-
tino Augustinum oppono, qui in tractatu de verbis Domini
secundum Lucam universas septem petitiones diserte
enumerat ; et S. Ambrosius hanc precationem e I.uca
textui congruentem depromit. Vulgatam minoris facio,
quæ in Luca sic exorditur, “Cum oratis, dicite, Pater,
sanctificetur,” &c. at vel ipse Origenes ait, τοῦ δè Aovxà
oότως, Πat}p %μάν ά ἐν τοῖς ούgayóï;. Unde cogitur Millius
dicere irrepsisse hæc ante tempora Origenis, Prol. p. 44,
col. 1. Postremo etiam quod inter omnia exemplaria
Græca, Millio teste, bina sola his petitionibus careant,
quod si olim defuissent hæ petitiones tum in Græcis tum
in JLatinis MSS., eas tot Græcos librarios dedita opera ad-
jecisse quis sibi unquam persuadere potest? -
13. I.uc. xi. 13, 833-ti IIv£pxo. "Aytoy τοῖς a}τοῦzty aùtôv.
* 'Aya6àv δόμæ, Cant. (et Origemes, ut opinor, qui tamen
bonum illud interpretatur Πνεύμa τῆς v;o6sa iac) * Spiritum
bonum,' Vulg. cum quatuor MSS. * magno consensu
exemplarium ; quibus ego sane magis assentior,' inquit
Erasmus.” Hæc Milliüs. Erasmi autem verba sunt,
“ Græci codices, qui tum aderant, legebant IIygüμα "Ayio*
sed magno con§ehsu reclamantibus exemplaribus Latinis
etiam vetustis.” Cecidit belle quod dixerat Latinis : om-
nia enim exemplaria Græca, Athanasius de Humana Na-
tura Suscepta, p. 607, Tbeophylactus in locum, textui
consentiunt, et explicantes versiculum nonum,—* Quærite
et invenietis;”—€x bis verbis recte colligunt, quod Pater
sit daturus Spiritum Sanctum petentibus. Denique om-
nes orientales versiones reddunt IIy£ίμα "Ayiov, sicut Chry-
sostomus, hom. 1 de Precatione, ed. Mor. tom. i. p. 747.
* ITegi Fùxí;, p, 23. + Encb. ad Laur. p. 116.
1160
EXAMEN MILLII.
14. Joh. i. 3, oč3s #y 3 yéycysy 4, Év airró &oh #v. Tot
hic loci variantes lectiones quot nec ipse Millius enume-
rare potuit. Apud commentatores plena errorum sunt
omnia, adeo inter se invicem, et etiam a subimetipsis dis-
sident, atque discordant, ut quicunque scripta eorum per-
volutabit, nae incertior ille fiat multo quam dudum, . 1.
Quidam ex antiquis legunt, 3 yéycvgv iv air" &an "v, Ita
Clemens Alex. Paedag. lib. ii. cap. 9, p. 186. Origenes
Com. in Joh. p. 63 et 66, +nai yàg xal 3 yéyovsy év aütő
Kaoh 5v. Alios quamplurimos hanc lectionem retinuisse
ex eo colligitur, quod apud illos hujus versiculi clausula
est, #yévsro oč3š šv. Sed Maldonatus ait, “ Non enim quia
haec tantum verba citare solent, continuo putandum est,
ibi eos punctum finitae sententiae posuisse, sed ea tantum
protulisse verba, quae ad probandum id quod agebant satis
erat, quod nos etiam saepe facere solemus.” Certum in-
dicium quod Ambrosius, qui lib. iii. de Fide, cap. 3, fine,
" Ipso factum esse nihil quod factum est,” legendum esse
contendit, vel potius apud plerosque obtinere, ait, ali-
quando non nisi hasc legat verba, “ Omnia per ipsum facta
sunt, et sine ipso factum est nihil,” ut sermone 20 in Ps.
cxviii.* Et quod magis mirum est, Hilarius, qui legendum
esse dicit, “Sine ipso factum est nihil, quod factum est in
ipso;” saepe tamen in eodem libro non nisi haec verba
citat, "Omnia per ipsum facta sunt,” aliquando haec sola,
" Sine ipso fäctum est nihil.” Quod si hic Maldonati
sermo ad Hilarium non exquisite quadraret, certo tamen
certius est quadrasse illum cum omnibus fere Graecis
patribus, qui textum ipsum firmant et corroborant. Altera
autem lectio olim fuit Valentinianorum, Iren. lib. i. p.
39; Arianorum, Ambrosius, lib. iii. de Fide, cap. 3;
Epiphanius, Anchor. p. 80, Eunomianorum et Macedonian-
orum ; unde Chrysostomus in locum, od3# yàg töv Texaíay
arrtyaöv rö cö33 #v šart6naopzsy xarà vous aigerixobc, ixEivot yàg
80vxópx=yot rè IIyEügwa xriatöv Troisi, pariy 3 y#yovsv šv abrő
šov" #: similiter Euthymius et Theoph. Secunda lectio,
quam memoratu vix dignam afferunt Epiphanius et Hila-
rius, cum quibusdam aliis, haec est: “ Nihil factum est
quod factum est in ipso.” Tertia est ipsius textus lectio,
quam apud plerosque obtinuisse merito asserit Ambrosius.
Nam ut silentio transeam supra memoratos, qui primam
lectionem veluti haereticam adjudicarunt, Cyprianus, lib.
ii. contra Jud. §. 2, Hilarius de Trin. lib. i. p. 6, Epistola
ad Antiochenos Ignatio ascripta, p. 298, Epiphanius, Haer.
51, p. 434, Hieronymus in Isa. xliv. et in Amos vi., lec-
tionem in textu retinent; et licet Millius Gr. Nazianzenum
primae lectionis patronum adoptarit, in ea tota quidem re
erravit: cum enim haeretici, qui Spiritum Sanctum crea-
turam esse contendebant, opinionem suam confirmarint ex
eo quod dictum est de Christo, “ Omnia per ipsum facta,”
et per consequentiam Spiritum simul Sanctum ; hanc ob-
jectionem fiocci facio, inquit Nazianzenus,t rávra yāp
5aa yéyovey sign-rat, oëx áraő: 3wayra. Praeterea in hac
lectione conveniunt omnes versiones, et quod germana sit
lectio, colligi potest. 1. Quod vox év postulare videatur,
vel 3 yiyovey, vel saltem röy y=yEvvn/xávoy xagic abroö #yéveto
où3# Év ó yiyovsy, quod “ absque illo factum est ne unum
quidem eorum quae facta sunt.” 2. Si haec lectio retine-
atur, sensus verborum erit perspicuus, alius obscurus, et
explicatu perquam difficilis. Cum autem reduplicatio,
figura dicendi apud Hebraeos usitatissima, latuerit quon-
dam patres, factum est quod alteram lectionem facilius
admiserint, v. g. Isa. xxxix. 4, Trávra rà èv rgő cik* /*ov,
si8orav, xai cöx šativ šv rő oka: *ov, 3 oix ef3orav. lta v.
20 hujus capitis, xa? &&oxéynasy, kai oük hgvúaaro, xai diao-
Aóymorsy. Quid multa ? hoc potius inter varias ejusdem
periodi puncturas, quam inter variantes lectiones annume-
randum est.
15. Act. viii. 37, el riaTgóst: ## #xn: Tő: xapõiac, šžeart.
Desunt haec in Syr. AEthop. MSS. 20: unde pro com-
mate rapaßsßxn/xéve habet hic Millius,t a primis Chris-
tianismi seculis injecto, ut et alia in libro Actorum
Apostolorum haud pauca; legunt siquidem Vulg. (Arab.)
Irenaeus, lib. iii. cap. 12, lib. iv. cap. 40 (unde, notante
Grabio, apparet Irenaeum haec verba in suo codice legisse),
Tertullianus de Bapt. cap. 18, Cyprianus ad Quirin. lib.
W
# ln locuin.
* In v. 4. + Orat. 37, p. 599.
iii. §. 33, CEcumenius in locum, Hieronymus, tomi 1v.
f. 46, lit. I, Augustinus de Fide et Operibus, cap. 9 et
12.–ldem tamen Millius, Prol. p. 40, col. 2, iisdem fere
testimoniis adductus contrarium plane dicit, nempe, "Hunc
versiculum pro injectitio olim a nobis habitum, lectum ab
Irenaeo constat, lib. ii. cap. 12, p. 229, et ad ai6svríav ejus
stabiliendam, haud parum conferunt Vulg. Tertullianus,
Cyprianus.” Nec difficile est rationem assignare vero
proximam, cur aegre a quibusdam sequioris aevi scriptori-
bus haec verba retinerentur; objici nempe ea solent in prae-
judicium disciplinae et reážiac ecclesiasticae in restringendis
tamdiu a baptismo, catechumenis, ac tot iis fidei capita
discenda proponendi more, priusquam ad salutare lavacrum
admitterentur. Constat hoc ex illatis Tertulliani, Hiero-
nymi, Augustini locis, in quibus huic objectioni responsum
quale quale exhibent. Hinc denique praesul doctissimus
hanc Cypriano notam apponit, " Leges ecclesiasticae, quae
cavebant ne Judaei, vel gentiles, aliique indigni praepropere
admissi, Christiano nomini dedecus inurerent, nec debent,
nec possunt gratiae divinae prejudicare.”
16. Rom. i. 32, ofrive: rö Bixaíaaa Toj 9835 iriyyóvts: (öti ci
Tà rotaüta reáorrowrse &#oi 3avárov Flaiv) ob zóvoy avrà areioüaiv,
á*A3 kai avvév8ozójat rói: 7:ágaovat. , Integra haec lectio (ait
Millius) sic se habebat, oírivEg rö 3txaíopaa rov Q8oU #zrt-
yvávrec, cön ivóna.av, őt: oi rà rotaőra 7párgovts: äšto Savárov
Eiciv, cö /*ávoy 3ä oi TrotoUvTs; aètà äxxà xal oi avvEv3oxoövreg Toic
7rgáaa ovat. - Hinc ex una parte sunt Vulg. et Latini patres
qui Vulgata versione usi sunt, Cyprianus, Lucifer Calari-
tanus, Gildas, Hesychius Latine ab Hesychio Salonitano
(inquit Cavius nostras) ad Vulgatam versionem adaptatus,
Ambrosius, Pseudo-Hieronymus, Salvianus, Augustinus ,
atque his palmam defert Millius : ex altera parte sunt non
omnes modo versiones orientales, sed etiam Chrysostomus,
Theodoretus, CEcumenius, Theophylactus in locum, qui
conantur rationem reddere cur avvsv3oxoüai postponatur
7roto5zív, et sic textus lectioni robur addunt. et firma-
mentum. Vide Chrysost. Hom. ed. Mor. tom. i. p. 145.
tom, ii. p. 1023. tom. iii. p. 618, Epiphan, Haer. Orig.
p. 585,, Basil. tom, i. in Isa. p. 160. tom. ii. Mor. p. 45ö,
Reg. Brev. p. 632, Greg. Nyssen. tom. ii. p. 734, et
Theologium Diaconum ubi " suas illum partes trahit
Millius. Quaestio enim erat, ait Isidorus,* Tí šart 78 cö
*óvoy ajtà groo5a1v, àxàà xai alvev8oxoüg: reik rpácaovzi;
respondet Isidorus, oi ** voúzavts: Tö sign/xávoy putant
7répareroi5gSat Tàk Aššst: Tag ärog roxxàk, et legendum
arbitrantur oú zóvcv ob rotoüvTE: abrà, ààxà xal oi o vysv3oxcűvrac,
i. e. cum Millio quidam sentiebant. Mihi autem non
videtur, ait ille, hézagt5z3at iv Toóra Tâ â7rog roxxà 8,8xía,–
et deinde ad recitandam et explicandam textus lectionem
Progreditur. N. B. Quod haec Isidori verba citentur etiam
ab (Ecumenio in locum. Quod ad Clementem Rom. attine,
in binis ad Corinthios Epistolis, scito illum perpaucos Novi
Foederis locosjuxta textum allegassa; adeo ut in parag, 45,
idciroo solum posteriorem versiculi partem ad hunc modum
citasse videatur, quo facilius illam ad precedentia verba
acommodaret, rajta yàg reága orrs: arvynrol rá esa önág-
Xovo iv, xal oi Exóvoy oi arcára ovtsg, &c.
17. Rom. vii. 26, zöxapia rs rgő Qső 3tà ingot xetaroö, v. I.
xág". Té Qső, sic Origenes, Exhort. ad Mart. p. 164,
Cyrillus Alex. contra Anthropomorph. p. 178. Omnia
autem Graecorum scholia textuin referunt, (fallitur enim
Millius cum Theodoretum excipit, qui in commentario
suo alterius cujuscunque lectionis ne suspicionem quidem
affert) et.Sanctus Basilius, tom. i. p. 551. Utraque lectio
idem significat, viz. gratia agenda est Deo. Tertia lectio,
"gratia Dei,” soliVulg.auctoritatiinnititur, ejusque etiam de-
pravata; Hieronymus enim uno loco legit, “Gratias ago Deo,”
ait Esthiusin locum. Vide tamen Millium, Prol.p.65, col. 1.
18. Rom. xi. 6, si èê ěž źgyay oëx šr: #gri xágic, irst r3
#gyev *ü* #7 #ativ igyev. Cum desint haec verba quatuor
MSS. Vulg. et per consequentiam Ambrosio et Latino
Origenis interpreti, proinde subdititia summo consensu
tradunt Erasmus, Zegerus, Esthius, Grotius, et Millius:
genuina autem esse asserunt auctoritate graviores viri,
Photius, CEcumenius, Theophylactus, Syr. Arab. Theo-
doretus, qui his non solum verbis utitur, sed in com-
" Isidor. lib. iv. ep. 60,
EXAMEN MILLII.
1161
mentario observat suo, quod apostolus in eandem sen-
tentiam loquatur, Rom. iv. 4, “ Ei autem qui operatur,
merces non imputatur secundum gratiam, sed secundum
debitum.” His adde Chrysostomum, qui, tom. v. ed.
Morel. p. 718, et citat textus verba et explicat : ő vàg
## #gywv vopauxãv ro35vat pixoysixãv oččäv #xs xotyöv mpöc röv
xágy, öreg o6v xat IIa5x0; alviTróp«Evoc #xsyev, El xápirt, &c. si
3# ## #eyov očx št: #gri xáetc, irrel tö šgyov obx šrt šativ šeyov.
Adeo longe fallitur opinione Millius, cum Chrysostomum ac
Theodoretum haec verba in commentariis suis non attigisse
ndicat.
19. Rom. xii. 11, rg Kuzív 3ovasúovrec, sic legunt e MSS.
pius viginti, omnes versiones, Clemens Alex. Paedag. lib.
iii. cap. 12, Basilius tom. ii. p. 474, omnia Graecorum
scholia, Hieronymus Ep. ad Marcel. tom. ii. fol. 33, lit.
D; cujus haec sunt verba, “ Illi legant, spe gaudentes,
"tempori” servientes ; nos legamus | Domino servientes ;
illis placeat humanus sermo ; nos cum Graecis, i. e. cum
apostolo, qui Graece locutus est, erremus.” “ Latini
omnes, excepto Ambrosio,” inquit Esthius ; qui tamen
non potest non confiteri quod in Graeco dicatur sic habere
" Domino * servientes. A tdue ad hanc lectionem stabi-
liendam non leve momentum affert dictio ipsa Bovxsúsly,
nam Bouxsúsív rg 9s3, Kveia), Xetaro alibi occurrunt in Novo
Foedere; quod si èovasósiv rtg xag3 in toto sacro codice
quaeras, frustra suscipiatur labor. Millius tamen tum hic
tum in proleg. suis, p. 61, 84, 117, 140, “ Facile
crediderim (ait) cum Erasmo ráj kaugó; esse germanam
lectionem.” -
20. Rom. xii. 13, rai: Xeéraig röv áyíwv xolva voivrsc.
Mysíak genuinum, ait Millius locis pluribus. Lectioni
tamen isti nemo favet praeter Latinos patres quarti et
quinti, seculi, postquam celebrandi memorias martyrum,
sepulchraque eorum prava superstitione frequentandi mos
et consuetudo increbuit. Omnia autem Graecorum scholia,
omnes versiones, ne ipsa quidem Vulgata excepta, et
Sanctus Basilius, tom. ii. p. 474, xgeiate retinent. Esthius
Ruffino astipulatur, eamque censet veriorem quae Graeco-
rum erat codicum, " quandoquidem eam (unum Ambro-
siastrum cum Sedulio si demas) concorditer in textu
habent, et exponunt, quotduot tam Latine quam Graece
in hanc epistolam commentatos novimus, nec in ullo,
vel Latino vel Graeco, exemplari, quod hodie extat,
diversa lectio repiriatur,” existimatque non male, istud
lectionis dissidium olim accidisse ex vicinitate Graecarum
vocum xpsiai« et /cvsiaig. Hoc autem mendum simul ac a
librariis factum fuit, cupidis ulnis amplexi sunt e Latinis
isti, qui superstitiosa sollicitudine et zelo sepulchra
martyrum coluerunt, utpote quod consuetudini suae ali-
quibus suspectae, et a multis reprehensae, majorem in
modum patrocinari putarent. Hilarius, in sua ad Con-
stantinum epistola, sic eum alloquitur, “ Apostolus
communicare sanctorum memoriis nos docuit, tu eas
negare coegisti.” Pro eo quod proferunt MSS. libri
plerique et excusi omnes (ait Millius, Prol. p. 17, col. 1)
videtur certe legisse Clemens Rom. in archetypo suo,
Tai: pxvstag röv, &c. et locum hunc interpretatur Clemens.
“ inopum, vel afflictorum Christianorum procul a nobis
degentium memoriam habere *** cixTippzőv, seu ita ut
ipsorum necessitates sublevemus.” In hac Millii sen-
tentia où3iv üyiëg, sed purum ipsius commentum, sine ullo
indicio B. Clementem de his verbis vel per somnium
cogitasse. Sic enim incipit haec sectio, “ Oremus pro
eis qui in aliquod peccatum lapsi sunt, ut detur illis
árusínsla mansuetudo, et humilitas, quo non nobis, sed
voluntati Dei cedant;” et deinde sequuntur verba a
Millio citata, ciroc yāp šatai #ykaporog, kai reAeía # greös röv
Geöv, xai robg áyíov: Ezer oixTigrx3v Favsta, i. e. “sic enim
memoria ipsorum cum commiseratione utilis ipsis et
perfecta erga Deum, et sanctos erit.” Judicent jam
eruditi, utrum hic sit vola vel vestigium sublevationis
inopum vel afflictorum Christianorum procul a nobis
degentium, sive ric konvolvia: Töv àyíov, de quibus, Millius
tam fidenter agit. Judicent etiam utrum aliqua, sit ratio
existimandi Clementem hunc D. Pauli locum in animo
habuisse : rogo denique, ubi facta est apud scriptores
primorum ecclesiae seculorum mentio 75: xoivovíag röv
äyíwv; Tâ« Töv žyia v /*aerúgov favázas moitiv, 75c pxvstag
fxaprúg*v vsxzív, sunt phrases quae apud canonum scriptores
saepius occurrunt. Sanctorum adhuc viventium, rai: *vslate
xoivoverv nusquam. Frustra ergo šx Paysias: factum esse
xpsiak a scriba quodam eruditulo pronunciat Millius hic,
et Prol. p. 46 et 82.
21. 1 Cor. x. 3, 4, rö abrö 8e3e4a–rö abrö Trópua,'deest
rö abrô Alex. AEthiop. inquit Millius. At retinent Graeca
scholia, Vulgata, caeteraeque versiones ad unum omnes,
Irenaeus, lib. iv. cap. 45, p. 347, Origenes in Matt. p. 414,
in Joh. p. 134, contra Celsum, p. 197, in Num. hom. 7,
f. 101, B. Basilius, tom. ii. p. 422, Macarius AEgypt. hom.
4, p. 22, Chrysostomus, ed. Mor. tom. v. p. 196, Cyrillus
Alex. Glaph. in Exod. p. 314, et de Recta Fide, p. 39.
Grave hoc quidem contratransubstantiationem argumentum
ut e manibus nostris extorqueret, summam contulit diligen-
tiam Esthius, non tamen vel unum e Latinis patribus rö
aütö omiserint allegare potuit.
22. 2 Cor. x. 12, oü avvioüaiv. Omittunt Vulg. Clar. Gr.
Lat. Ger. Lat. retinent igitur omnia (praeter Clar.) Graeca
exemplaria et scholia. Ne tamen Vulgata suae aiSsyria
diminuta esset, de Graecis, tanquam grammaticae construc-
tionis insciis, fidenter pronunciat Millius * in hunc mo-
dum : " Graeci, quibus apostoli ista paulo praeruptiora visa
sunt, sumptis autoi, ázvTouc, šavrofe, in tertia persona, sup-
pleverunt orationem istam per marginale scholion, oü avvi-
oba-w, quod irrepsit mox in contextum libri.” En testes
omni exceptione majores, quibus pudore suffundantur
Graeci, Ambrosiastrum qui hic omittit; nos autem, teste
Esthio, contra fidem omnium exemplarium tam Latinorum
quam Graecorum; Pelagium haereticum, seu potius Pseud.
Hieronymi commentarios, nullo judicio (teste Usserio +) a
posteriore aliquo compaginatos; et Luciferum Calaritanum,
cui opponimus D. Augustinum cum Graecis saepius consen-
tientem, scil. Comment. in Psal. xxxiv. cxviii. cxli. l. 22,
contra Faustum cap. 27, et alibi.
23. Gal. ii. 5, of, oč33 mpöc ógay #apasy T3 broray", " Ex-
pungendum porro est, (ait Millius +) rà oùëë, et legendum
" quibus ad horam cessimus subjectione: ” quam tamen
Hieronymus ait solam esse lectionem quorundam Latinorum
codicum, viz. Iren. lib. iii. cap. 13, p. 234, Tertul. contra
Marc, lib. v. cap. 3, Ambrosii, reclamantibus quod fatetur
Graecis. Graeca scholia et singulae vetustissimae versiones,
inter quas Vulgata, textui fidem faciunt, atque illius verita-
tem satis firmant. Sed conjectura augura tur Millius in
ipso codice, quo usus est Vulg. interpres, defuisse negatio-
nem občš, credo quod eam haudquaquam ferre videtur apos-
tolicae dictionis tenor, nedum ipsa rei veritas. Pace autem
illius dicam. 1. Tenor apostolicae dictionis postulat nega-
tionem : sermo enim erat de iis quae acciderunt postquam
ascendisset Hierosolymam Paulus; ubi " neque Titus (ait
ille) qui mecum erat, cum esset gentilis, compulsus est cir-
cumcidi” (nam Millii forsan solius opinio est cessisse tan-
dem Paulunu permittendo ut circumcideretur Titus). Nun-
quam igitur iis Judaeis cessit, qui circumcisionem gentili-
um necessariam ad salutem judicarunt. 2. Noluit Titum
circumcidi, ea potissimum de causa, ut opponeret se falsis
fratribus, qui karsASóvres àrà rög 'Iov3aía: subintroierunt
explorare libertatem quam habuerunt in Christo Jesu, ut
eos in servitutem redigerent; quibus zelotis acriter resis-
tendum esse duxit, ut veritas permaneret apud Galatas, sc.
ut permanerent in libertate a jugo circumcisionis quam illis
dedit evangelium Christi: hinc est quod capite quinto sic
hortatur Galatas, " State, et nolite iterum jugo servitutis
contineri; quoniam si circumcidamini, Christus vobis mi-
hil proderit, evacuati estis a Christo, a gratia excidistis,”
1, 2, 4. Quicquid igitur Morinus et Millius e contra liti-
gent, certo certius est tum ipsam rei veritatem apostolicae
dictionis tenorem postulasse negationem.
24. Gal. ii. 11, 3rs 3s #ASs IIérpog, et v. 14, slroy ráj IIE-reg-
Knpac Kn43, sic Alex. (ait Millíus, Prol.p. 70), aliique
codices, Vulg. Euthalius, sed omnia Graeca scholia et
Arab. textum praeferunt. De altera autem lectione in
textum admissa in excusationem Petri, ut obviam 1rent
blasphemiis Porphyrii, ad hunc modum judicium suum
tulit Hieronymus. " Quibus primo respondendum, Alte-
rius nescio cujus nesc1re nos nomen, nisl ejus qui in evan-
* Prol. p. 48, col. 1.
+ Vide D. Cave, Hlist. Lit. p. 292 + In locum.
.] 162
EXAMEN MILLII.
.gelio, et in aliis Pauli epistolis, et in hac ipsa, modo Ce-
phas, modo Petrus scribitur'; non quod aliud Cephas,
aliud significet Petrus, sed quod, quem nos Latine et
Græce Petrum vocemus, hunc Hebræi et Syri, propter lin-
guæ inter se vicinam, Cepham nuncupent.
argumentum quod oblique de Petro, Johanne, et Jacobo
dicitur huic intelligentiæ repugnare.” Vide Cotelerii
notas in Constit. Apost. p. 99, 100. •
25. 'H τεὸς Ἐφεσίους άτιστολ%. Hanc inscriptionem hic
clanculum, sed ih Prol. p. 9, col. 1, ex professo et palamì
.rejicit. In præfatione mea ad hanc epistolam, locisque
citatis ab eo nd paradoxum suum stabiliendum, argumenta
illius dilui, simulque ostendi, quod ab initio agnita fuerit
tanquain Epistola ad Epbesios, ex testimoniis Ignatii in
principio, Irenæi in medio, Clementis Alex. in fine seculi
secundi, Origenis etiam et Tertulliani dicentis, lib. v. con-
tra Marc. cap. xi. * Epistolam hanc nos ad Ephesios
præscriptam habemus, hæretici vero ad Laodicenos.”
Vide etiam cap. xvii. quibus adde e tertio seculo S. Cypri-
anum, item Paulum ad Ephesios, Test. ad Qnirin. lib. ii.
§. 28, p. 48. lib. iii. §. 7, p. 64. §. 11, p. 66. §. 13, p. 67.
§. 41, p. 77. §. 70, p. 85. §. 72, 73, ibid. 117, p. 90. Illud
ipsum ostendo ex testimoniis in seculo quarto Athamasii,
orat. 3 adv. Ar. 5 8È IIajxoc ἐν τ} τεὸς Ἐφεσίους, p. 416, at-
que iterum p. 446, Epiphanii τής πεδς 'Έφεziovc, Hær. Mar-
cion. p. 147, 372, Greg. Nysseni, qnarì yàg 7rgòς Ἐφεziov;
ypάφον, in Cant. p. 596, διὰ τὸν πεδς Ἐφεσίους λόγων, orat.
prima de Resur. tom. ii. p. 828. Tametsi vero Basilium et
Hieronymum allegat Millius asserentes quod hæc verba
èv 'Eqy£ag, (in quibus cardo controversiæ vertitur) omissa
fuerint quibusdam in exemplaribus, vel decipitur ipse, vel
nos arte quadam fallere conatur. Testimonium Basilii oc-
currit, tom. i. p. 743, ubi se probaturum esse confidit, quod
gentes utpote separatæ a Deo denominentur, μῖ δντες,—
illi autem qui uniuntur Deo, oi övrs;. . Apostolus enim (ait
ille) τοῖς Ἐφεσίοις ἐπιστάλλων, άς γνησlovg hyωμόνοις τὸ δyri 8i'
άττιγγέσεως, άvτac aùtoùç iêtaXöv rovc άνάμεισεν, είτὸν τοῖς άγίοις
' τοῖς οὐσι, και πιστοῖς ἐν Xgvartô 'Imzoù* oùtov yàg oi ττάδ ημάν
7ragaòeòókaart, xaì ìp«£ς ἐν τοῖς 7raXatoîç rôv àytyyp&φ»v εύρήxa-
p.sv. Hæc disserit Basilius * contra Marcionitns, et alios
qui depravarunt scripturas, τὰ μ§y, inquit, τὸν θείων ἐ%ai-
eovrec, rà ôè 7rap£yyga¢âvtsg' et consilium illi fuit firmare ve-
ritatem hujusce lectionis, voî; oîariv èv 'Eqyázg), quam expunx-
erunt Marcionitæ, cum hanc epistolam ad Laodicenos da-
tam contendissent. Atque hanc nimiam de vocc öyrEc sub-
tilitatem exagitat Hieronymus ; “ Quidam (inquit) curio-
sius quam necesse est, putant ex eo quod Moysi dictum sit,
* Qui est misit me,' etium eos qui Ephesi sunt sanctos et fi-
deles, essentiæ vocabulo nuncupatos;” quibus verbis pari-
ter ac præfatione illius docemur, hanc epistolam ad Epbe-
sios scriptam fuisse.
26. Eph. v. 4, ἐπιφσύσει σοι δ Xgtartóc. Ita legunt Græca
scholia, et versiones omnes. Ita Clemens Alex. Protrept.
p. 54, Athanasius, or. quarta contra Arianos, p. 427. Ait
tamen Millius, Prol. p. 48, col. 2, ἐτι φαύσει σου “ lectionem
fuisse, quæ in codicibus Græcorum jam tempore Chrysos-
tomi et Theodoreti extabat.” Verba Chrysostomi sunt hæc,
oi μέν ἐπιφaύσεις φησί τοῦ Xgta voû, oi 8È È7riq)aäa et aot 6 XptaTâc,
paäAAov ôè τούτὸ ἐστι. Theodoretus, xai τούτο μάλιστa tj
άκολου&ία τῶν εἰgnpzéyov τεόσφοgoy. En utrosque lectionem
hanc plane rejicientes ; quibus accedit Hieronymus, cujus
in locum hæc sunt verba, ** Scio me audisse quendam de
hoc loco in ecclesia disputantem, et non ut legimus
#7ri®aόσει σοι δ Xgtartòc, i. e. orietur tibi Christus, sed
Épá^ρετat, i. e. continget te Christus recitantem, sed cum
loci istius interpretatione ac contextu sensus iste non
convenit : * ubi fontem lectionis hujus aperit, nempe
fabulam de Adamo, in loco Calvariæ übi Christus cruci-
fixus est sepulto, et tactu corporis et sanguinis Christi
vivificando. • ,
27. Heb. ix. 1, £íxe oîv xaì à 7rpz%tn cxnyá. Σκην) omittunt
Chrysostomus, Theodoretus, Vulg. et MSS. quamplurima.
Subaudiendum 8ta$fixm monent Chrysostomus et Photius.
“Irrepsit igitur (ait Millius in locum) editum a xnv), ut
videtur, ex proxime sequentibus, in quibus tabernaculi
descriptio.” Sed extat a any) apud Chrysostomum de Die
IDeinde totum :
Natali Domini, ed Mor. tom. v. p. 472, apud Theodoretum,
et CEcumenium. In annotationibus meis in locum probavi
quod hæc sit germana lectio ; quam quidem sequentia
verba, viz. orxmwì yàg xatsax£v&a $m ii 7rg6rm, extra omnem
omnino dubitationem ponunt.
LIBRI SECUNDI CAPUT SECUNDUM
Continet Examen variantium Lectionum in Evangelia
NIatthæi, Marci, Lucæ, Johannis, et in Acta Apos
tolorum.
SECTIO PRIMA.— IN A1 ATTHI AEU MI.
CAP. i. 6. Aaßáò êë ô 3aai\εὐ;.] IDeest ö ßaor, Aεύς, Syr.
Arab. Pers. Habent Hieronymus, Vulg. Theophylactus,
et verba immediate præcedentia, ** Jesse autem genuit” ròv
Aaßïò tòv ßaaiXfia, satis indicant quod vocabulum illud hic
retineri oporteat. •
V. 18. Toù êè 'Inarcù XgiaTo$ % y£vynari; ojtovs %y.] Vulg.
Pers. et Lat. Irenæus omittunt 'Inaroì, quod tamen agnoscunt
Chrysostomus, Theophylactus, Syrus, et Arabs. Inconsulte
igitur ac temere suspicatur Erasmus additum ex consue-
tudine recitationis ecclesiasticæ ; male etiam rejicitur a
N[illio, Prol. p. 40, 42, 103. -. »
Cap. ii. 1. 'Ev figè£aic 'Hp&8ov voù ßaaiXéo);.] Hæc verba
diserte habent Hieronymus, Chrysostomus, Theophylactus,
et venerandæ antiquitatis versiones omnes. Quod si desint
forte illa in quatuor MSS., retinentibus amplius quam
quadraginta, hoc non modo non labefactat lectionem, sed
potius multo plus firmamenti et roboris ei dat. Sed “ sus-
pecta mihi fere sunt 7ragepoßAfia £oc (inquit Mlillius *), quis
verba tam insignia absque omni erroris occasione præter-
miserit?” Quasi scribæ oscitantes nihil hallucinarentur '
Sed ut frigido huic argumento responsum ex Millio demus,
animum adverto, quod contendat is ipse “ insignem illum
locum Johannis de testimonio Patris, Verbi, et Spiritus ex
Græcis ferme omnibus, ex MSS. permultis excidisse ; *
quid istuc igitur tam mirum, si hanc pericopen, parvi
momenti, alteraque multo breviorem, præ incuria ac so-
cordia sua quatuor forsan librarii prætermiserint ? Verba
etiam Job. vi. 56, καθὸς ἐν ἐμοί δ 7ratìp, xàyà êv tö 7raT£i.
'Apx}y, àpxy, A£yo) ύμῦ, ἐάν μ} λάθετε τὸ αάμα τοῦ vic% tοῦ
ày$p&7rov &ς τὸν άgτον τχς ζωῆς, οὐκ ἐχετε ζα}v £v aùrê- verba,
inquam, tam insignia, ac numerosa, neutiquam interpolatis
lectionibus adnumerari vult Millius; sed “ pro genuina
pericope, multis retro seculis omissa, habendo” arbitratur,
Erol. p. 74, col. 1. Vide etiam Append. p. 32.
V. 4. IIa£' aùτάν.] Ita Græca scholia, versionesque. Ita
Hieronymus ; ita etiam, demptis quatuor, codices universi,
et absque his verbis sensus non plenus est. “ Nescio
tamen (ait Millius) an irrepserint Tag' aùtôv jam olim ex
v. 7 hujus cap.” Prol. p. 154, col. 2.
V. 11. Et magi intrantes domum £pov τό τaιδίον.]
Origenes in Matt. p. 374, Chrysostomus, Euthymius.
Theophylactus, MSS. plura, Æthiop. Syr. Arab. Pers.
legunt eï öoy. Hieronymus vero, Vulg. Epiphanius, εὐgov.
Quod si magi Christum oculis adspexerint suis, invenerint
certe illum quem quærebant, et, si invenerint, hoc non
aliter quam videndo illum, et aspiciendo contigit : non in
re igitur, sed in verbo controversia est ; cum vero Herodes
dixerit, ἐπάγ δδ εὐgnte, à7rayyeiXavê p.ot, v. 8, si legas £goy,
extrema primis optime respondebunt.
V. 18.] . Desunt $pijvoc xaì Hieronymo, Justino M. Dial.
p. 304, versionibusque cunctis. Sed adsunt in Jer. xxxi.
15, unde, teste Hieronymo, citantur hæc verba, et cum
Justinus M. diserte dicat Sanctum Spiritum locutum esse
hæc verba διά 'Iepçpxiov οότως, citans illa a propheta, non ab
apostolo, salis magno argumeuto esse debet, quod citationi.
bus illius parum fidei adhibendum sit. Versionibus auteIn,
nempe, crientalibus, quæ textui Græco Hebraicuum, et
I.atinis, quæ Hieronymum prætulerint, facile opponam
Chrysostomum, Theophylactum, et I.XX., qui cum editis
congruunt.
* P. 436.
* Prol. 162 co]. 2.
EXAMEN MILLII.
1 :63
Constit. Apost. lib. iii. cap. 14, Basilius, tom. ii. p. 429
Cap. iii. 8. IIotho are očy wagºrciº &#ov; rā; AEravoia;..] Kaçmºy
āślow, magis probat Millius; nimirum quia codices plurimi,
Lat. Irenaeus, lib. ii. p. 212, Vulg. Arab. Copt. Æthiop. sic
legunt. It's roi; pagizaiovº zai aw88ovkaiovº, inquit Ori-
genes,” Comm. in Joh. p. 119, wrotha'ars, Évºc, zaprèy
#%low rā; pºstavoiac’ ºrpā; 33 row: 8xxov; tragi, Aouzāv ºran-
Buyrikā, wagºroi, 3%ious. Nulla hic in sensu diversitas; con-
stat enim moneri pharisaeos et sadducaeos ut digna veræ
poenitentiae opera facerunt. Lectionem autem in textu
tuentur ac defendunt Syr. Chrysostomus, et Theophylactus
in locum ; Basilius, tom. ii. p. 425, qui citat had verba
nominatim ex Matthaeo in numero plurali; Cyrillus Alex.
qui sic legit in Matthaeo, Comm. in Isa. p. 315, in Mich. p.
408, et Hom. Pasch. 5, p. 43; immo et ipse Origenes, qui
eodem in commentario, p. 115, habet haec verba, orotha are
ow xapºroi, 3%iovº as rayoſas' raíra, yāe two roi, Barriotoſ
siental rapá rà, Maršalº, N. B. ièvro; aroxxotic rāv paeicaiov
xai aa88ovkaiov #exogašvov; ºrpèg tº 8árriaga. Nota etiam
quod tº tragi, Aoukāv, utut citatur a Millio, non est apud
Origenem, qui loco prius dicto forte mysterium quoddam
pro more suo celavit, quod explicatu difficile est.
Cap. iv. 12.] ‘o 'Inaciº deest in duobus MSS. AEthiop.;
sed Graeca scholia, Hieronymus, et antiquae versiones
praeter Æthiop. omnes retinent illud vocabulum ; nec
injuria, absºlue enim illo claudicaret periodus; sed judice
Millio “subintellectum ; "Incoiſ; scriba jam olim in textum
introduxere, ” Proleg. p. 148, col. 2.
Cap. v. 27. 'Efiftºn roſ, &exaiot;..]. Toí; 3pxaíoic, Millio
additum videtur, quanquam Chrysostomus, Theophylactus,
Cyrillus, Alex. in Julian. p. 9, et Theodoretus in Psal. ix.
p. 433, e Graecis; et Lat. Irenaeus lib. iv. cap. 27, p. 314,
Hieronymus, et Vulg. roſ: 3pxaíoic agnoscant. Cum igitur
memo dubitet quin hoc dictum fuerit antiquis, et allegatum
sit a tot patribus, nulla cujuscumque variantis lectionis
mentione facta, currejiciant, causae nihil est.
W. 32. Kai 3; ièv &roNEAvºvny yakhºn fºotXàtal.] Deest
hic pericope in Cant, cod. aliis, teste Augustino, ait Millius.
Sed extat apud versiones omnes, Basilium, tom. ii. p. 494,
Hieronymum, Chrysostomum, Theophylactum, et quod
caput est infra cap. xix. 7, et Luc. xvi. 18, ubi eadem
loquendi se obtulit occasio. -
W. 44. Eixoyºrs roºs zaraçoğvov; iºdic, waxå; troisirs roi;
Exiaoüyra; tºwāg.] “Chrysostomo (quantum ex commentariis
assequor) Copt. Vulg. Fulgentio, Salviano, Hieronymo;”
sic Millius. Sed totam hanc pericopen neque mutilam
neque decurtatam reperias apud Chrysostomum, Theophy-
lactum, atque omnes orientales versiones; et tam Hierony.
mus quain Vulg. legunt, “Benefacite his qui oderunt
vos.”
Cap. vi. 1. IIporáxera rºw #xenzovačvny tºy..] Plerique an-
tiquorum patrum legunt Sixaloa.tvny, inquit Junius, teste
Millio. Ex libris tamen impressis me unus quidem ab illo
coram productus est, neque ego unum aliquem e patribus
adhuc reperire potui qui habeat Bikatov-Čyny. Origenes in
Matt. p. 255, Greg. Nyssen. tom. ii. p. 743, Basilius, tom.
ii. p. 416, Chrysostomus, Theodoretus, et Theophylactus,
retinent #xenºzozówny. “Nec dubito (sic pergit Millius)
quin Matthai TipTx, 3ixatorávny reddiderit hoc loco Graecus
interpres.” Ego vero imprimis nego Matthaei Graeca esse
interpretis, et non ipsius apostoli. Wide dissertationem
nostram de hac quaestione. Secundo, quaero cur idem in-
terpres eodem modo idem vocabulum non reddiderit v. 2
–4, ubi eadem de re agitur ; “Attendite me facialis
#Asnºozåvºy tºy coram hominibus, alioquin mercedem non
habebitis apud patrem vestrum :” per modum illationis se-
quitur v. 2, “Cum ergo facis #xenºoriſyny, ne facias sicut
hypocrita, ut honorificentur ab hominibus.” Dein per
modum consilii, “Te āutem faciente Éxenºordyny, nesciat
sinistra tua quid facit dextra,” v. 3. Quorum ratio sequi-
tur his verbis, v. 4, “Ut sit #xenºordyn tua in abscondito.”
Quis jam non videt #xenºcocºny pro genuina lectione haben-
dam esse ?
V. 4. 'Ew to payspº.] Desunt hac apud Origenem in
Joh. p. 238, Hierony inum, Vulg. Augustinum, qui notat
se in Graecis non invenisse, sed tantum in Latinis aliquot.
Agnoscunt nihilominus Chrysostomus, Theophylactus,
* Lib, ii. cap. 2, sect. 2.
{
Syr. Arab. Pers. Legenda esse constat ex antithesiin pro-
patulo. Ita Maldonatus. + -
V. 21. "orov yág #arty & Smaavgö; ºv, izeſ a ral zai # kap-
Biz tºwāv.] Hic Chrysostomus legit §trov & Sno avgö, äy83%mov,
#xeſ # zagötz airoij. Basilius, tom. i. p. 340, a od pro tºwāv
utrinque, sicut etiam Hieronymus ; et Vulg. parvo admo-
dum discrimine. Sed Theophylactus versionesque orien-
tales ab excusis non dissentiunt; et verba illa, Sºma'avčićere
ūzīy, v. 19, 20, et Sanctus Lucas, qui hac ipsa Christi
verba citat, cap. vi. 34, lectionem textus firmant. Vide
tamen Millii Proleg. p. 42, col. 1.
W. 25. Kai ri rints.] “Desunt hac (inquit Millius)
apud AEthiop. Vulg. Arab. Epiphanium, Basilium, Chry-
sostomum, Euthymium, Hilarium, Hieronymuin.” Habent
autem Theophylactus, Syr. Pers. et pace doctoris, Arabs.
Quod sicum repetantur hac verba, v. 31, recte legamus,
Kºh oùy ºceptºzyńanºrs Aéyoyrs; ºri pāyogey, h ºri Triopsy ; mihi
quidem argumento est etiam hic recte legendum esse, ri
Trºn"re. -
W. 34. Tà Havrž..] Ita Basilius, Moral. tom. ii. p. 451,
et Theophylactus. Chrysostomus vero regi Šavrig, quod in
idem recidit. - -
Cap. vii. 2. Kai ivº ºrgº ºgrgeſte, ávriºrpnóña eral tºy.]
Allegantur hic codices plurimi, Theodoretus, et Theophy-
lactus, qui legunt ºstenóño's rai. Quibus opponere possem
Polycarpi Epistolam ad Philip. §. 2, Clementem Alex.
Strom. ii. p. 399, Origenem, Comm. in Mlatt. p. 335, et in
Joh. p. 396, qui legunt &yrºxergn&nd'état (Origenes autem
in Jer. p. 161 habet (xstprºceral) sicut et Chrysostomus,
ut et Vulg. et Hieronymus, qui habent “remetietur:” sed
hoc atque illud iden valet. .
Cup. viii. 8. Eiri Aflyov, v. l. Xäyº. V. 18. iv tº &eº rei-
wn, v. 1. &rd rā, śpa; insivnº.] Absºlue discrepantia quae sen-
sum afficiat. -
W. 25. Kai mgoex$ávºrs; oi (wasntal autoi...] Desunt of £2&n-
rai aircü apud Hieronymum et codices quºsdam Latinos:
agnoscunt autem. Theophylactus et versiones antiquae
OD] Il eS.
W. 41. 'Atrácreºloy hºà..] Desunt Vulg. Arab. Althiop.
sed Syr. Chrysostomus, et Theophylactus, et Luc. viii. 32,
habent pariter ac in textu ätrörpe-lºv hºcãº.
Cap. ix. 7..] Hieronymus, Vulg. Syr. 4.08%&nday, sed
Theophylactus et Arab. Saúzaravº v. Mar. ii. 12.
V.14. Non veni vocare justos &AA’ &aaga oxº; Fis ºré-
votay.] Millius fidenter asserit si; ºrávotay traductum huc
esse e luca, iddue a primis pene seculis ; Sed cum ra-
tiones expectemus, saepe in earum locum confidentia suc-
cedit: quod Christus enim hac verba protulerit, locuples
testis est Lucas, cap. v. 32. Et primae illius concionis ex-
ordium fuit, “ Poenitentiam agite, appropinquavit enim
regnum coelorum,” Matt. iv. 17. Quare igitur Big Exetévota?
non hic censenda sunt ipsissima Christi verba " . Retinen-
tur apud Barnabam, $.1, apud Justinum M. Apol. ed. Qx.
$. 18, apud Iren. lib. iii. cap. 5, p. 207 (quanquam illius
testimonium in contrariam partem trahat Millius, Prol. p.
38), apud Origenen in Joh. p. 366, apud Chrysostomum
in locum, et ed. Mor. tom. i. p. 348, tom. iv. p. 175, apud
Cyrillum Alex. in Hose. p. 158, in Soph. p. 627, apud Theo-
phylactum et Arabem. Ad pauca ut redeam, cum Christus
vocarit peccatores, illos eum vocasse ad poenitentiam luce
clarius est, ideoque rô si; ºrávotay, si non retineatur, Sal-
tem subaudiendum est.
W. 35. Tà, Tróxei, Táraç.] Sic Hieronymus, Graeci, cate-
rique interpretes omnes. 'Ev rá Aaj omittunt quidem
Hieronymus, versionesque antiquae ; sed agnoscunt illa
Chrysostomus et Theophylactus, et necessario subaudienda
sunt ; cujus enim, praeterquam populi, languores et infir-
mitates curavit Christus -
V. 36. ’Exxixugivoi..] Enervati, debilitati, membra soluti,
languescentes. V. l. #axvA2.Évoi, vexati, disjecti, divulsi.
Sic Hesychius, irºvºivo, Siarks?agaiyo: Biow. Ita sub di-
versis verbis sensus non multum diversus est.
Cap. x. 3. Kai As88aſo. 3 #Tikanósi..] Desunt hac juxta
Millium, apud Vulg. et Hieronymum; agnoscunt Chrysos-
tomus, Theophylactus, orientales versiones omnes; et fa-
tente Mlillio, “Hieronymus alibi lectum ait, ipseque lib.
de Hebraicis nominibus explicat.” Millius, Prol. p. 42,
col. 1, “’laxw80; 3 roi, 'AA$giou kai Gałęaios, et sic Origenes
1164
EXAMEN MILLII.
qui notat Levi, sive Lebbaum, non fuisse numero aposto-
lorum, nisi apud Marcum duntaxat: omnino recte. Asg-
Baioc i irixxm8sìc insertum non aliud est quam scholion
marginale.” E contra Cotelerius in hac verba, Const.
Apost. lib. viii. cap. 25, p. 319, “MarSaio: è uai Aovkas
haec habet, consentiunt antiqui, et recentiores, id recte ex
evangelii comparatione colligentes.” Origenes in praefa-
tione explanationis in Epistolam ad Rom., “Matthaeus in
catalogo apostolorum dicit Jacobus Alphaei et Lebba us;
Marcus, Jacobus Alphaei et Thaddaeus ; Lucas vero ita
posuit, Jacobus et Judas Jacobi. Igitur eundem quem
Matthaeus Lebbaum, Marcus Thaddaeum dixit, Lucas
Judam Jacobi scripsit. Certum est autem evangelistas
non errasse in nominibus apostolorum, sed quia moris erat
binis vel ternis nominibus uti Hebraeos, unius et ejusdem
viri, diversa singuli nominum vocabula posuere.” Hiero-
nymus in locum, “Thaddteus apostolus ab evangelista Luca
Judas Jacobi dicitur, et alibi appellatur Lebbaeus.” “Cre-
dendumque est eum fuisse trinomium :” ad locum Orig. lib.
i contra Cels. p. 48. Vide responsum Cotelerii, not. in
Constit. Apostol. p. 315.
V. 28. Mò poggio 0s.] MSS. Justinus ; sed Chrysosto-
mus, Theophylactus, Luc. xii. 4, habent cum textu può
qogn0ire.
V. 29. Oò reagira inì riv yiv, v. l. sig riv rayi8a.]
Chrysostomus, et interpretamento ; Origenes utroque
modo ; sed Theophylactus et versiones omnes textum se-
quuntur.
V. 42. Mövov ci può garofan.] Deest privoy MSS.
AEthiop. a roAéo et MSS. utrumque legunt cum textu Chry-
sostomus. Theophylactus, Vulg. Syr. Origenes in Matt. p.
346, Basilius, tom. ii. p. 444, Cyrillus Alex. tom. i. p. 356.
Nihilominus rè padvov irrepsit e margine, Proleg. p. 121,
col. 2. Vide etiam Proleg. p. 42, col. 1.
Cap. xi. 2. Aio rav paeSnrºy.] Syr. èià ray, sed Origenes
in Matt. p. 229, Chrysostomus, Theophylactus, Vulg.
Arab. textui consentiunt. Vide tamen Millium pro ètà
contendentem, Proleg. p. 42, col. 1.
V. 5. Xoxoi regiara robot –yskpoì i veigevrat.] “Deest
prima pericope in Origene, ita Millius. Male ; agnoscit
enim eam Comm. in Joh. p. 103. Secunda ibi deest: legit
autem Clemens Al. Paedag. lib. i. cap. 10, p. 129. Utram-
que legunt versiones omnes, Chrysostomus, Theophylactus,
Cyrillus Alexan. de Recta Fide, p. 89, D. Lucas, cap. vii.
22. Vide e contra Millii Proleg. p. 42, col. 1.
V. 21. Obai o oi Bngo aiò4».] Legendum vult Millius uai
Bn0o ai 34, Prol. p. 42; renitentibus Origene in Ex. p. 25,
Chrysostomo, Hieronymo, Theophylacto, et versionibus an-
tiquis universis.
Cap. xii. 8. Kögio: yág èarri xai roi o agga rov.] Quanquam
mai agnoscatur a solo Vulg., cum tamen id reperias apud
Mar. ii. 28, et Luc. vi. 5, et per consequens Christi ipsius
sit; et vocabulum admodum elegans, quod vim plurimam
argumento affert, mihi quidem retinendum videtur.
V. 32. 'Ey roºro rº atavi.] MSS. iv ri viv ai vi, quod
idem est.
V. 35. 'Ex roi, Gya0oi Snc avgoi, ric wap?iac.] Deest ric
uapòiac, Vulg. Syr. Arab. sed adest apud Athanasium tom.
ii. p. 169, Basilium, tom. ii. p. 634, Chrysostomum in lo-
cum, et apud Luc. vi. 45; et verba immediate praecedentia,
“ Ex abundantia rig nag3iac os loquitur,” hanc lectionem
stabiliunt et firmant.
V. 47. Zntoiré; oro Aaxiorat.] Ita Chrysostomus, The-
ophylactus, Syr. Origenes in Matt. p. 238, Vulg. Arab.
AEthiop. “ Zntolivric orf, oro AaAiara, ex v. 46 desumptum
videtur;” ita Millius.* Et sane cum foris starent mater et
fratres quaerentes AaAffarai abrº, v. 46, nil verius dicere
enarrator potuit quam foris stant ºntolivré: oro: AaAiara.
Cap. xiii.. 14. Avan Angoura in abroic.] Theophylactus, et
codices plurimi, habent solummodo abroic. Sed Chrysosto-
mus, versionesque antiquae omnes, vellegunt in vel è, airci,
quod in idem recidit.
V. 27. 'Evra ag &yeg.] Ab aliquot MSS. et unico Epipha-
nio, omissum est orº. Bene autem habet, quod non nobis
narret Millius quo Epiphanii in loco hoc factum sit. Per-
volventi enim eum contra Haer. p. 679, occurrebant mihi
plurimae lectiones insigniter variantes, una cum additamento
* Prol. p. 42, col 1.
in fine, mai grottuagers rà gigana saranavdiya, ro ruº
ão giorri.
V. 35. Atà roi, reo provº 'Haaſov roi, reo phrou.] “Plerique
codices olim, teste Hieronymo ; qui et pro 'Ao à p roi, reo p.
positum dicit vitio librarii;” ita Millius: neutrum autem
hodie legitur vel in Graecis patribus vel in MSS. aut ver-
sionibus. Vide annot. nostras in hunc locum.
V. 51. Aiye è Inacig ovvhuare raira révra.] “ Praemissa
haec sunt lucis causa jam ante Chrysostomi tempora,”
Millius, Prol. p. 42, col. l. At agnoscunt Chrysostomus,
Theophylactus, Syr. Arab. Pers. ; esseque verba hac neces-
sario intelligenda constat ex sequentibus, Néyova tv airº, va?
Köpie.
Cap. xiv. no sì rsytraxtexiaiot.] Sic Chrysostomus, The-
ophylactus, AEthiop. et in annotationibus variantis alicujus
lectionis nulla est mentio. Dicit tamen Millius, Prol. p.
l29, col. 1, “ norsì quod in MSS. plerisque omnibus, Luca
est, non Matthaei.”
V. 33. 'EA86, rec.] Sic Chrysostomus, Theophylactus,
Vulg. Syr. Arab. Pers. Deest tantum AEthiop.; “ est tamen
intrusum uberioris explicationis gratia,” Proleg. p. 161,
col. l.
Cap. xv. 4. Tipza rò, ra riga orov.] “ Deest orov in MSS.
pluribus, Irena o, Chrysostomo ;” ita Millius. Deest qui-
dem apud Lat. Irenaeum pariter, ac apud Vulg. sed Chry-
sostomus deserte ait, ripaa yáe pnori roy ratéga orov, similiter
Origenes in Matt. p. 244, et Theophylactus. Hoc certo
mandatum ad uniuscujusque proprium parentem pertinet,
et seq. Raì può ripahan roy ratéga ai roi, orou retinendum esse
ostendunt.
V. 8. 'Eyyi ei tuoi 6 Naoc oiro: rg a ripuari ai ray, xaì roic
2(giasori pae ripag.] Prol. p. 34, col. 2, et 42, col. l, asserit
Millius genuinam lectionem esse, i Naè; oi roc xei Aso i pae ripag.
Caetera nempe desunt in Cant. Copt. Vulg. Syr. Pers.
AEthiop. ut et apud Esaiam, Cod. Alex. et Marc. Qui-
cumque hic apud LXX. defectus fuit, clam quidem erat
Origene, qui Comm. in Matt. p. 247, loquitur ad hunc mo-
dum : “Propheta lsaias dicit, iv aiTaſ, Aegerty, ivyi; e poi i
Naòc oi ro; iv a réaari ai rair.”
V. 26. obu iari xaxi».] Sic Chrysostomus, Theophylac-
tus, Vulg. Syr. Arab. : est tamen adjectitium xaxor, Prol.
p. 42, col. 2.
V. 30. Ko poòc.] Deest, et v. 3l, deest avXAoù, i vigic, re-
fragante ipso textu utrinque. Nam si rà xo poù, non esset
in v. 30, unde uo poùg AaAoivrac, v. 31. Quod si to xvNAoic
recte ponatur v. 30, idcirco etiam rò avNAoù; i visi; ponendum
est, v. 31. Sed Prol. p. 42, col. 1, interjecta sunt ad absol-
vendam sententiam xv AAoù, i visic. Idem de voce to poic,
Prol. p. 133, col. 2.
Cap. xvi. 3. raroxet raì.] D. Chrysostomo, Vulg. Agnos-
cunt Theophylactus, Syr. Arab. Lucas xii. 56 ; quin igitur
hoc vocabulo usus sit Christus nemo dubitet.
Nota etiam quod in bimis postremis versiculis variantes
lectiones satis refutentur testimonio Origenis, qui cum editis
congruit, Comm. in Matt. p. 290, 291–294.
Cap. xvii. 14.] Tres hic variantes lectiones, sed nullius
momenti, et textum ipsum exhibet Origenes, p. 308, 309.
Ita etiam v. 21–23, Origenes ab impressis ne transversum
quidem digitum discedit, p. 313, 315. Quod autem
è A06vrov abrºv, v. 14, “recte mutatum esse ab Arabe et Vul-
gato in ingºv roc,” ait Millius, Prol. p. 42, col. 1, “ ex his-
toriae circumstantiis manifestum esse; non enim venisse
Christum simul cum discipulis suis ad multitudinem, sed
venisse eum solum, et aliquanto post discipulos quos turba
jam circumfusos, et cum scribis disputantes offendit;” in eo
mirum in modum falli Millium ex historiae circumstantiis
certissimum est ; commate enim decimo interrogant eum
discipuli ex monte cum eo descendentes, “Quid ergo scribac
dicunt quod Eliam oportet primum venire?” et commate
decimo tertio ex Christi ad hano quaestionem responso, “in-
tellexerunt discipuli quod de Johanne Baptista dixisset eis;”
veniebant ergo cum eo hi tres discipuli et cum reliquis dis-
putantes scribas invenit.
V. 21.] Deest versus totus Coll. et AEthiop. “Neque qui-
dem hujus evangelista est, licet hic sedem occupet in omni-
bus propenmodum libris nostris, sed Marci solius, quod
ostendit canon Eusebianus: “Sic Millius in Appendice, p. 7.
Sed reperias illum apud Origenem in Matt. p. 313, apud
Syrum et Arabem interpretem, qui omnes ante vixerunt
EXAMEN MILLII.
1165
quam canon iste conficeretur; agnoscit etiam Hieronymus,
quanquam canonem istum Matthaeo praefixerit, sicut etiam
agnoscunt eundem versiculum Graeca scholia et reliquae ver
SIOI) eS.
W. 23. Kai HavráSna'aw a p38pa.] Desunt haec verba in binis
MSS. Sed retinent illa Origenes in Matt. p. 315, Graeci,
casterique interpretes omnes: et tamen in Prol. p. 165, col.
2, “commentarius est, non textus.”
Cap. xviii. 29.] Omittunt ºrávra codices plurimi: sed
sequitur ex v. 26, quod retinendum sit.
Cap. xix. 19. Kał żyatrávet; rāy Tranciov—] Agnoscunt
hanc periodi partem Graeca scholia, versionesque universim,
et quod contra illam ex Origene affert Millius, valde leve
est ac nugatorium. Nam si quis stricte acciperet ac servaret
mandata secunda tabulae tali modo ac more quali ea Judaei
observarunt, non ille quidem dicendus est praestitisse univer-
Sam legem, quae ad proximum suum pertinet, et multo
minus quae ad Deum. Wide Luc. x. 29, 30. Nota etiam
quod #x yearnró; Azov, v. 20, retinetur apud Graeca scholia
versionesque omnes.
Cap. xx. 15. Our Hºsari ºot trotia at 3 Séxa.] Seq. #y ºrdic
#ºdic, “quod est in nostris commentarius est, non textus.”
Ita Millius cum suo Vulgato, Prol. p. 42, col. 2; repugnan-
tibus reliquis versionibus, Chrysost. Theophyl. et Orig. in
Matt. p. 407.
W. 22. Potestis bibere calicem quem ego bibiturus sum ?
×ai ré Bárriaga, à #y& 9am rićowat 8amºria Şāvat ;] “Posterior
pars commatis (judice Millio) non Matthaei, sed Marci est,”
Sc. ex fide quatuor MSS. Hieronymi, Vulg. Ambrosii, et
Speciatim Origenis in Matt. p. 415, qui postguam dixerat,
30Wacºs trieſ ré Trothetov 3 #y& &#xxo mively, addit &c & Mápxo:
&yśygºps 3 #y& Trivo, kai rā Bártirºza, wai rā, śćic.
Quis autem satis certo scit utrum Origenes Marcum allega-
rit, ratione habita ad posteriorem partem commatis, vel ad
Jewem illam discrepantiam quae intercedit inter 3 ºxxw
Trivity, et à éyò Trivo: sed demus hac Millio. Constat ex
Marco x. 38, 39, periodum hanc Christum protulisse omni-
bus suis numeris expletam; cur non igitur Matthaeus
periodum hanc plenam ac perfectam citasse censendus est?
cum testes ejus rei fidos habeamus Chrysostomum, The-
ophylactum, et Basilium Seleuciensem, hom. 24, p. 134,
vel quonam id, quaso, sacra scripturae dispendio sit, si pos-
tremailla verba apud unicum Marcum reperiantur? Atque
hoc, ut opinor, obviam it sexcentis variantibus lectionibus:
quae enim a diversis memorantur evangelistis, cum ea semel
tantum locutus sit Christus, si ab uno aliquo literis manden-
tur memoria eorum nunquam obliterabitur.
Cap. xxi. 4. Totºro wai &Aoy yéyowev.] Deest &Aoy, Cant. Arab.
AEthiop. Copt. Origene in Joh. p. 161. At agnoscunt ré
5Aoy Chrysostomus, Theophylactus, Vulg. Syr. mec magni,
quod Origenes hic habeat, refert ; nam ibid. p. 174, omittit
v. 5, coiſ post 8aaixsic, et xai post ºrgaš; sed p. 169, et
Comm. in Matt, p. 432, utramque vocem retinet: post
Trčkov omittit vičy, p. 169, quod tamen habet p. 174; omittit
haec verba, v. 8, &AAoi 38 worrow xxášov, &nd tây 3ávègay, xat
Harpåwvoy in ºrn 386. Sic v. 12, rod Osoſ deest Orig. sc.
Comm. in Joh. p. 175, sed commentarius ejus in locum
Matt. p. 439, sic se habet, xai Elaixòev ć 'ina'ot, st; +3 ispáy 'roß
©soj.
W. 19. Krázaase.] Ed. Ox. Polyg. Hic ergo Millius, Prol.
65, col. 1, pro varia lectione, ipsum textum, “possidebitis”
exhibet.
Cap. xxii. 39.] “Diliges proximum tuum &; a saurów’’’ MSS.
Favrév Ita Rom. xiii. 9, Gal. v. 14, “Dicisne hoc 34’ gavrò,
a temetipso P” Joh. xviii. 34, et a savröy, Jac. ii. 8. Wide in
his locis Millium, et nos in Rom. xiii. 9. -
W. 40. 'Ew raúrat; raſ, 8vºv wroxaſ, Šao; 3 véſzoº.] Omit-
tunt ºxo; Syr. codex unus, Copt. et Arab. Habent autem
illud AEthiop. Vulg. Chrysostomus, et Theophylactus, Hila-
rius, et Hieronymus in locum ; Clemens Alex. Paedag. lib.
iii. cap. 12, p. 260, Irenaeus lib. iv. cap. 25, p. 312, Ori-
genes hom. 23 in Matt. f. 42. Atque tamen hanc lectionem
simplicem (sc. absºlue $xo;) ipsius evangelistae fuisse haud-
quaquam dubito, Prol. p. 129, col. 2.
Cap. xxiii. 4. Kai Avagárraxra.] Omiserunt Copt. Syr.
Pers. Vulg. Irenaeus. At agnoscunt Chrysostomus, The-
ophylagtus, Hieronymus, Vulg.
V. 5. Tºv imarian airów.] Desunt Vulg. Æthiop. At
legunt Chrysostomus, Theophylactus, Syr. Arab.
W. 8. El yáp Barry tºwāv ka9aynrhº.] MSS. plurima, Ori-
genes in Joh. p. 5, hom. 10 in Jer. p. 107, et Chrysostomus,
legunt 32.8%a waxoº. Cum vero tum waghynric, tum 3.8%axaxos,
sit interpretatio ejusdem vocis Hebraica, nempe rabbi, exeo
facile intelligitur, verbis illos, non re dissidere.
W. 14. Obai tºy yeapºtzareſ; xal papiaraſot, brokpital.]
“Ista non agnoscunt Origenes et Eusebius; traducta puto e
Marco aut Luca,” inquit Millius, Prol. p. 42. Id autem
agnoscunt Chrysostomus, Theophylactus, et versiones uni-
versim.
W. 19. Mogol kai rv$xoi..] “Mogoi wał praefixum est ex v.
17,” ita Millius Prol. p. 42. Agnoscunt autem. Theophylac-
tus, et versiones orientales omnes.
“Non dubium est quin v. 13 e Marco et Luca huc trans-
miserint librarii,” ait Millius in locum. Quod si fuissent
verum mec additur quidquam, nec subducitur de verbis
Christi: versiculum tamen hunc agnoscunt Chrysostomus,
Theophylactus, Hieronymus, versionesque. Crit. Hist. N. T.
p. 171, ipse illum inveniat apud Graeca exemplaria satis
multa, versu quidem isto et subsequente transposito, sicut in
pluribus Millii MSS. contigit.
W. 26.] Deest in Clemente Alex. Irenaeo, lib. iv. cap. 34,
p. 326. Habent autem illud Chrysostomus, Theophylactus,
versiones antiquae omnes. -
Cap. xxv. 1.] Licet a commate primo usque ad decimu
tertium viginti variantes afferantur lectiones, Sanctus tamen
Basilius, dum hanc parabolam explicat, a textu ne latum
quidem unguem discedit. Nam tametsi, tom. ii. p. 412,
habeat tantum révve, tamen p. 425 habet ai ºrévºrs. -
W. 13. 'Ey # 3 við; roi; 3,934mov pxeral.] “Deest in MSS.
aliquot, nec occurrit apud probatissimos primae aetatis inter-
pretes; ex cap. praecedente Sumitur,” ita Millius hic, sed
inter hac atque illa verba plurimum interest: cum vero
pracesserit, “Vigilate itaque, quia mescitis diem neque ho-
ram,” aliquid hujusmodi addendum est, ne claudicet sensus;
quidni igitur haec ipsa verba P quae agnoscit Theophylactus,
et quae optime respondent illis quae concludunt caput prae-
cedens, viz. si malus servus non vigilet, “veniet Dominus
illius in die qua non sperat, et hora qua ignorat ;” atque
istiusmodi homines, fatuarum ad instar virginum, a nuptiis
clausa janua excludentur. “Vigilate igitur,” &c.
W. 33. Kai arrhosi rā ºfty ºrpá8ara.] Deest Faëv Cant. Syr.
Quod tamen postulant seq. rā Bā āpiºta, satisque firmant
Theophylactus, Vulg. et exemplar Alexandrinum. -
W. 41. Tów hºroigao ºvov, V. l. 3 hºroiºacey 3 rathé Exov.]
Ita Irenaeus, Cyprianus, Augustinus, adde.Justinum M. Dial.
p. 301. Origenes autem in Joh. p. 426, Graeca scholia,
versiones antiquae omnes legunt cum textu.
Cap. xxvi. 1. IIávraç robº Aéyou; roſtovº.] Deest Trávra:
Chrysost. Pers. : habent Theophylactus, Vulg. Arab. Syr.
AEthiop.
W. 3. Ka? of yeapºzarsic.] Desunt haec apud Vulg.
Arab. Hethiop. At retinent Chrysostomus, Theophylactus,
Syr.
%. 42. Toàro r, mothpicy.] Deest ré Trorigiov, Chrysostomo;
legunt Theophylactus, Vulg. Syr. Arab. 'Ar' #pact deest
Vulg. Agnoscunt Theophylactus, Syr. Arab.
W. 44. 'Ex retrov.] Deest in Alex. At illud habent The-
ophylactus, et versiones antiquae universim.
W. 59. Kai oi retagórseo.] Deest in Vulg. sed illud reti-
nent Theophylactus, Syr. Arab.
V. 74. "Hezaro xaraya.08%arićely.] Ita Chrysostomus et
Theophylactus; xaraBeºwarićew, quod habent codices MSS.
in N. T. nusquam occurrit, at genuinum censet Millius,
Prol. p. 109, col. 2.
Cap. xxvii. 14. “oaré Savºzáðsly rêv #ysºčva Xiay.] Ita
Hieronymus, Theophylactus, Vulg. Arab. ait tamen Millius,
“ex Syri solius auctoritate addebat codicum vulgus ex praece-
dentibus, rºy #yspañya,” Prol. p. 129, col. 2.
W. 24. 'Ar. roſ, aſ waroº roſ. 3izaſov.] To roi; 8waiov agnos-
cunt Hieronymus, Theophylactus, versiones omnes: “sed
(ait Millius) insertum in reliquis toº bizaiov, irrepsisse videtur
ex Actis, aliiswe locis,” Prol. p. 133, col. 2.
W. 35. "Iva ºrangw8; rô Đn0áv ×ai rā #fic.] Cum omittatur
haec periodus a Graecis, interpretibusque cunctis, si a Vulg.
et Hieronymo discesseris, simile vero videtur desumptam
eam fuisse ex Joh. xix. 24, utrum vero hic, an illic legenda
sit, eadem sane, qua reliquae Scripturae partes, veneratione a
nobis afficienda est.
1166.
ExAMEN MILLII.
f
V. 37. 'Indºoj; 3 Barixeſ;...] ‘Incoč:
Retinent Theophylactus, Vulg. Syr.
W. 43. Nºv.] Hic agnoscunt Theophylactus, et versiones
omnes, estgue emphaticum in ore Judaeorum.
V. 55. 'Atri ºwaxpá0sy Seopoja’at.] Deest in Vulg. sed ha-
bent Chrysostomus, Theophylactus, Syr. Arab. -
V. 64. Nvºto, J Deest in Chrysostomo, Vulg. Arab. at
illud legunt Theophylactus, et Syr.
Cap. xxviii. 9. 'Q: Så #7rogsäoyºto &m'ayyafaai roſ, ºwa&nraft;
aircü.] Desunt hac apud Chrysostomum, Hieronymum, Au-
gustinum, Vulg. Syr. Agnoscunt tantum Theophylactus et
AEthiop. Saepe hoc contingit cum eadem verba repetuntur;
videntur tamen hic necessario intelligenda.
omittunt MSS. Copt.
SECTIO SECUNDA—IN MARCUM.
CAP. i. 2. Qui praeparabit viam tuam #wrpoc Sáy gov.]
Desunt haec in Ireateo, lib. iii, cap. 11, p. 217, Origene
in Joh. p. 117, Syr. Copt. Pers. ACthiop.; sed agnoscunt illa
Theophylactus, Vulg. Arab. et Origenes in Joh. p. 3, et
citat illa nominatim ex Marco, lib. ii. contra Cel. 60, et si-
quidem Christus diserte ait Baptistam eum esse de quo
scripta est prophetia his ipsis verbis, Matt. xi. 10, de veritate
eorum non est ambigendi locus, licet in autographo ipsius
Marci non inventa fuissent.
Tribus versiculis, sc. 5, 11, et lå, tres sunt variantes lec-
tiones, sed nulla in sensu diversitas. . -
W. 16. IIsºtºratăy 3; vapá rày 6áAaaaay..] Ita Theophylac-
tus, Cod. Alex. Tragáyov, Vulg. Arab. “Fuit ambulando per-
transiens,” sine discrimine. -
W. 42. Eitréºros abroš.] Deest in Cant. Syr. agnoscunt
Theophylactus, Vulg. Cod. Alex. -
W. 44. Mºsvi &ndiv.] Deest ºwn?iv, MSS. Sed habet
Theophylactus. -
V. 45. IIoxxâ.] Deest in Vulg.
lactus. -
Cap. ii. 1. At #488&v.] “Octo, Latini codices aliqui ; citra
non Graecorum modo fidem sed et Latinorum plerumque
omnium ;’ita hic Millius. Sed Proleg. p. 44, ool. 1, “Graca
procul dubio erant 3,' hºspów, et sic evangelista.”
V. 4. Mā Śwá&evot ºrporeyyirat.] Vulg. Trpoo’eyāykat. Theo-
phylactus et reliquae versiones cum textu.
W. 7. Ei º eig & Osó..] Deest eig, Cant. Sed retinet Theo-
phylactus, et reliquae versiones antique omnes.
V. 15. Agaetoxi.j Occurrit in Theophylacto et in ver-
sionibus Polyg, omnibus. “Mihi tamen (inquit Millius)
vehemens est suspicio, ex v. 16 huc traductum esse.” Ap-
pend. p. 12, col. 1. -
V. 18. Oi Tây pagiaraiov.] Theophylact. et versiones omnes:
Vulg. “pharisai.” -
Sed leget Theophy-
W. 20. Eyiºtival, raſ, hºisa;..] Ita Theophylactus, Vulg.
Lucas v. 35, #y Exeivn rā haëéa. Syr. AEthiop. MSS. sine
discrepantia.
W. 22. Ovoº & véog.] Habent à vioc, Theophylactus, Lucas v.
35. Decst in Cant. Vulg. Syr. Verba autem praecedentia
et sequentia lectionem textus genuinam esse indicant.
Cap. iii. 5, Kai äzokarsztášn h X=ip atrojúytkº &; h &Axn.]
Deest byth; MSS. versionibusque : retinet Theophylactus,
occurrit apud Matt. xii. 13, et Luc. vi. 10, interpretes hoc
forte quasi minus necessarium omiserunt ; cum enim manus
arida restituatur, et fiat alteri similis, non potest non esse
vying. .
W. 29. Aioviou xpireoſc.] Codices pauci habent &gapºriac,
seu &pcakthºcator. Vulg. et Cyprianus “delictum,” et exinde
Graeca quædam exemplaria ad Latinos conformata, āºagrias'
sed Syr. Arab. Theophylactus, Graeci patres legunt ºgia eos,
mec talis occurrit dictio qualis aid vio; &#42;tia per totum
- Ji s
W. 32.] Addithic C. Alex. kai 388x3'ai cov' repugnantibus
omnibus versionibus, Hieronymo, Theophylacto, verbisque
immediate praecedentibus, oi 38Expoi, Kai # ºn the aircü
&7éarsatay ºrpā; atráv.
Cap. iv. 4. Tà tre+eiva toû oigavoč.] Deest roi, obtavoſ in
MSS. et versionibus quibusdam : agnoscunt Vulg. et Theo-
phylactus ; et cum aves per Vetus Testamentum saepissime
vocitentur, vel volucres aeris, vel volucres coeli, rot, oùgavoč
videtur subaudiendum ubi non exprimitur: rejicit autem
Mill. Prol. p. 109, col. 2.
V. l 1. Trāyat rô avarā; toy..] Deest yºyal in MSS. sed ha-
*
bent Theophylactus et versiones omnes, eoque dempto sen-
sus deficit ; et tamen medium yöyal Matthaei estaut Luca
Proleg. p. 161, col. 1. Cur non et Marci 2
V. 18. Kai otºroi etcy of ei: tá; 3xávºaç crºreigéº evoi, otºrot
sia’iv.] Deest secundo loco otºroi sia iy apud Theophylactum, et
MSS. nec mirum ; Hebraismum quippe mon intelligebant ;
habent Vulg. Syr. nec deesse videntur apud Arab. “Re-
petitio hac vocum of roi elaſty non est aliena ab Hebraismo,
quod ejus insolitis mutandi causam dedit, idque non uno
modo ; quod hujus lectionis veritatem ostendit ;” ita
Grotius. • , -
W. 20. et v. 8. “Ev ºfty rpiáxcyra, Éy ###xovira, gy #zarov.]
V. l. Éy, £y, ºv, MSS. sed praeter MSS. codices plurimos,
fatente Millio, £y legunt Theophylactus, versiones omnes,
Syr. v. 8, et lectionem hanc comprobat locus parilis Matt.
xii. 8. 23, ubi occurrit par distributium, à ºðy fixary, &c.
W. 24. 'Yºſſy roi; &xošovaty.] Toí; 3xobova'iy, desunt in Vulg.
Arab. sedilla habent Theophylactus et Syr.
W. 31. ‘o, ºftwººl MSS. 23xxo; aut Käuxov, sine discrimine
et sine causa ; &; hic raga 38tygarix}v significationem habet,
“nempe;” ita Schmidius: seu potius est signum dativicasus,
ut 5 apud Hebræos Saepius. -
W. 33. IIoxxat..] Deest in Syr. Pers. Arab. Sed illud ha-
bent Theophylactus et Vulg.
Cap. v. ll. Tige; rà iºn.] W. 1. Trºö; rô jºst, quod in idem
recidit. Ib. MºyáAn decst in Cant. Eph. Copt. Goth.
Pers. sed habent Theophylactus, Vulg. Syr. Arab.
W. 12. IIávre; of 3aigoye;..] Cant. Tà èatºvia, Syr. “Illi
daemones,” quod idem valet ; soli enim damones, qui tune
adfuerunt, hoc a Christo petere potuerunt : denique cum
textu legunt Theophylactus et Arab.
Cap. vi. 11, 'Akºy Aéyo, tºy % ºf Tráxel inslyn.] “Ex
Vulgato, et Ammonii Monotessaro apud Zach. Chrysopoli-
tanum recte notat Zegerus hac Marci non esse, sed ex Mat-
thaso huc transponi quemadmodum et alias alia;” ita Millius
hic. Agnoscunt vero Theophylactus, Syr. Arab. Pers.
AEthiop. “Hac periodus (inquit Betuleius) in omnibus
nostris exemplaribus legitur, exceptistantum duobus, et in
vetustissimo meo apud Matt. x. 15 et Luc. x. 12 occurrit:”
quidni apud Marcum ?
W. 15. "H 39 si rāy ºrgo pn-rāv.] Wide annotata nostra in
hunc locum. -
W. 16. oërá, iarty.] Deest in Vulg. sed habent Theophy-
lactus, et quoad sensum, omnes antiquae versiones.
W. 28. ‘o 33 &ntex0&y J. T. &rs\0&y omittit Vulg.
Theophylactus, et versiones orientales omnes. . . .
V. 33. IIgoñX60y airo's J Deest in MSS. binis, Cant, et
Laud. Sed retinctur apud Theophylactum : atque hasc lectio
non est obscura, sed facilem explicatum habet: Christus, et
discipuli ejus ascendentes in navim abierunt in desertum
locum seorsim ; sed multi viderunt eos abeuntes, et cognove-
runt quo cursum tenebat mavis, itaque pedestres praevemerunt
eos, et accesserunt ad Christum. Clara hic, et perspicua
omnia, neque quicquam mutandi causa levissima est: vult
tamen Millius “ró wai TrgoñA0cy attolic scholion esse, xat
cvyńx60y ºrpèg airy, veram lectionem ;” quam queritur omis-
Habent
Sam fuisse, Proleg. p. 43, et ejus loco, Kai TrpošAšov ºrgöc
airroyº retentam esse.
V. 36. ’Ayogázoa w śavroſ, &etovs' ri yüé páyoziv ºch äxoval.]
Contendit Miłlius, Proleg. p. 45, ‘‘ veram lectionem hanc
esse, &yopádroſaw Havroſ, ri pāyaa iw' reliqua irrepsisse ex cap.
viii. 2 hujus evangelii:” quod prima fronta est parum vero-
simile, praesertim cum textui consentiant Theophylactus,
versiones orientales omnes, et Codex Alex. -
W. 44. Kai Wa’aw of páyovre; row: #prove &asi revraxiazºlol.]
Deest àprovº, sed habent Theophylactus, Syr. et AEthiop.
Deest etiam &rsi in MSS. aliquot, Theophylacto, et versioni-
bus: sed occurrit Luc. ix. 14 et Joh. vi. 10, ex quorum
auctoritate vocem illam, utut parvi momenti, retinendam ta-
men quis non censet 2 Nota etiam quod licet Matt. xiv. 21,
de variantibus lectionibus altum sit silentium illic, tamen
perinde atque hic &as: omittunt versiones omnes.
W. 51. Kai #0aúzaćov.] Irrepsit ex margine, ita Millius,
Proleg. p. 43, ex fide Copt. Agnoscunt autem Codex
Alex. Theophylactus, et versiones orientales universim.
Cap. vii. 2. 'Eºw-payro.] Deest apud solum AEthiop.
Agnoscunt Theophylactus, Vulg. Syr. Arab. id Millio frustra
inficiante. “Importune tamen injecit quispiam in textum,”
Prol. p. 122, col. 1.
EXAMEN MILLII.
1 167
W. 5. 'Avirrot:..] Theophylactus, Syr. ABthiop. xolyatº,
Vulg. Arab. eodem sensu juxta Judaeos.
W. 16. Ef ris fixes &ra 3xoſely, &zovéro.] Suspectum hunc
versum habet Millius trapsp.8xha soc, Proleg. p. 162, col. 1,
repugnante Theophylacto, et versionibus universim.
V. 14. Kai Trgoa waxerápasyo, orávra rºw 3xxov.] Ita Theo-
phylactus, Syr. Arab. Pers. Vulg et AEthiop. addunt ºráxty,
quod probat Millius, Proleg. p. 43.
W. 31. ‘Ex rāv Špiov Tópov wai 2.83 woºl Ita Theophylactus,
Codex Alex. Syr. Pers. “sed 31& X18&vo; #ASE, lectio germana
est,” Millius, Ib. Vulg. Cant. Copt. Arab. AEthiop.
Cap. viii. 2. ‘Hºga; teet; ºrport, #vouri ºol.] i. e. At’ hºcégas,
ita Theophylactus et versions; : hºw#gaç MSS. ad eundem
Sen 8Ulm,
W. 22. Kai Épx?tal.] Jesus nempe, Theophylactus, Syr.
#xera, Vulg. Arab. “Jesus cum discipulis.” -
W. 34. 'Orioral gov #x0=iv.] W. 1. &zoNovštív. Nullo sensus
discrimine. -
Cap. ix. 10. Tiåart to #x venpäv čvaarāvar) Ita Theophy-
lactus, Arab. Vulg. et Syr. “Quid esset cum e mortuis
resurrexerit 2 * perperam haud dubito, nec enim quaerunt
ri gin, sed rí Éari, nec quid post mortem Christiesset futurum,
non existimabant Christum moriturum : vide annotata nostra
ad hunc locum.
W. 13. Kai rā; yśypartal.] Ita Theophylactus et Vulg.
MSS. x&Sºc, vide iterum annotata nostra, *
W., 16. Kai irngºrn's row; yeappeareſ...] Ita Theophylac-
tus, Syr. Arab. Vulg. airtoic male iterum, nec enim turbac,
sed scribae tantum cum is disputabant: vide v. 17.
W. 33. II:3; Havrot, 8taxoyićease.] IIgo; #avrovº, destint in
Vulg. Arab. retinent Theophylactus, Syr. Pers. Æthiop.
estgue necessario intelligendum.
W. 34. 'Ey +; 583.] Ita Theophylactus, et versiones omnes:
et tamen Millius Proleg. p. 143, col. 2, ‘‘Neno non videt
repetita ex proxime praecedenti versiculo ;” immo memo non
videt repeti debuisse.
V. 38. “ori oºz &xoxov65; hºv.] Desunt Vulg. Copt.
bent Theophylactus, Syr. Arab. Pers. Æthiop.
Cap. x. 2. Ka? ºrgoo ex8ávts; oi pagigaſol.] Ita Theophy-
lactus, et versiones omnes; sic vero Millius, Proleg. p. 133,
col. 2, “IIgoa ex86vºrs; ante of pagta afot, quod in nostris jam
omnibus, Matthaei est.” Quaero cur non et Marci P
W. 21. "Apac tºy a ravgév.] Deest Clem. Alex. Vulg.
Augustino : retinent Theophylactus, et versiones orientales."
W. 47. Yiè Aa3iê 'Inaoû.] Deest 'Incoiſ, Syr. Pers. Agnos-
cunt Theophylactus, Vulg. Arab. AEthiop. Luc. xviii. 38.
Cap. xi. 1. Ei, Bh9%ayå.] Deest in Cant. Origene in Matt.
p. 431. Habent autem. Origenes in Joh. p. 169, Theophy-
lactus, orientales versiones omnes: irrepsit tamene margine,
Proleg. p. 43, col. 2. g
V. 10. "H exogaśyn 8aaixela.] Deest hexop, #yn in MSS. 4,
Ha-
sed habent Origenes in Joh. 169, Theophylactus, versiones
omnes. Ib. iv čvágari Kugiov, deest in Origene, ib., et versio-
nibus antiquis. Sed habent Theophylactus, Matt. xxi. 9.
xxiii. 39. Ps. lxx. cxviii. 26. Ib. &aavya, v. l. Eighyn, Origenes,
inquit Millius, ubi mescio ; habet &ravvæ, Com. in Joh. p.
l62, cum Theophylacto, et versionibus omnibus.
W. 29. 'Atrºgišnºré wo.] Deest in MSS. quibusdam : sed
agnoscunt Theophylactus, et versiones omnes.
W. 31. Atari ºv.] Deest oëy in MSS. Pers. Æthiop. sed
habent Theophylactus. Vulg. Syr.
W. 32. "Axx' #3v.] Deest àw in MSS. mult: , ; agnoscunt
Theophylactus, et versiones orientales,
Cap. xii. 4. Aſ8080Aña ayre;..] Deest in Vulg. Arab. reti-
nent Theophylactus et Syr.
W. 27. Own Hariv 3 Oed; vengőy, &AA& Q83; Kºvrov.] Deest
Os3; secundum in Vulg. Arab. Habent Theophylactus, Pers.
AEthiop. optime meo judicio. Origenes, oùx Earty & OEoc, Gaë;
vexgåv, &MX& Čºvroy, Com. in Matt. p. 499, ita Matt. xxii. 32: .
est tamen hic repetendus & Osóc.
Cap. xii. 29. ‘o Os3; hºw&v.] Ita Theophylactus, C. Alex,
Syr. Pers. Deut. vi. 4, GE6; a ov, et Vulg. Arab. Afthiop. :
hºw emendatio est, ex Deut. vi. 4, Prol. p. 122, col. 1.
W. 32, "ori si. 3 Gsäc..] Deest Osó; in MSS. retinent Vulg.
, Arab. et Theophylactus; addit eum etiam Syriaca versio
tanquam necessario intelligendum. Rejicit tamen Millius,
Prol. p. 109, col. 2.
Cap. xiii. 11. Mn3; &#xeräte.] Deest in Vulg. Copt.
AEthiop. Sed habent Theophylactus, Syr. Arab.
W. 14. To findiv in 3 Aayth?, toº trºophºrov.] Desunt have in
MSS. Vulg. Augustino. Habent Theophylactus, Cod. Alex.
versiones orientales omnes: est tamen Matthaei, Proleg. p.
43, col. 2. • . -
V. 18. ‘H puy; tºy..] Deest in Vulg. et MSS. raira,
sed Theophylactus, et versiones orient. textui consentiunt.
W. 33. Ka? ºrpoo'séxfords.] Habent omnes; “mihi tamen
vehementer suspectum est trageºgahaswº,” Millius Proleg. p.
133. Deest Cant.
Cap. xiv. 15. 'Avºysoy, #rotºzov.] Deest Érotºcow in MSS.
Vulg. retinent Theophylactus, et versiones orientales omnes.
W. 19. Kał &AA0; ºchri #yð..] Desunt haec in versionibus ;
sed illa agnoscunt Theophylactus et Origenes Com. in Joh.
W. 22. Aá8sts, páygºre.] Deest páygre in versionibus;
sed habet Theophylactus, “Et sumebant ut comederent.”
W. 27. 'Ey +; wwari raiºrn.] Ita Theophylactus, Vulg. Syr.
Arab. Millius autem Proleg. p. 162, “’Ey rà vukti raûºn,
Matthaei esse vix dubito.”
V. 67. Merå roi Nagagnvoč 'Inaoi..] Ita omnes scholiasta et
versiones. :
W. 70. Kai Aaxiá arov gotášet.] Desunt hac in Vulg.
Copt. sed habent Theophylactus, Syr. Arab, Pers. AEthiop.
frustra ergo sunt qui hoc adjectitium censent.
Cap. xv. 12. “Ov Aéyers 8aaixéa.] Vulg. Cant. 8aaixº,
regmi Judaeorum ; sed Theophylactus et versiones textui
consentiunt. -
V. 16. A5x5; rod trealtopiou’l Ita legendmm inquit Millius,
Proleg. p. 43, fide Vulg. Goth. Pers. At textus # #art ºrial-
r&gtoy, sic et Theophylactus, Syr. Arab.
SECTIO TERTIA—IN LUCAM.
CAP. i. 12. Kai étagáx$n, Kai pá80; Évéracey im' abréy.]
Vana est hic Millii suspicio (App. p. 20), “versum hune
fictum esse a quopiam,” ob similia quae ad Mariam dicuntur
v. 29. Constat hoc ex Chrysostomo, ed. Mor. tom. v. p. 475,
Theophylacto in loeum, et versionibus omnibus excepta
AEthiop., a quibus omnibus hic versus pro genuino habetur ;
constat insuper ex verbis sequentibus ºf pogoû, Zaxapia.
Cap. ii. 14. 'Ew &y82&rot; eiºoxia.] “EU}oxiac (inquit Mil-
lius), Alex. Cant. Vulg. Goth. Sax. Irenaeus Lat. lib. iii.
cap. 11, p. 216 (ubi Grabius, “ Multum vereor ne Graecus
Irenaei textus habuerit svěoxia in nominativo'), Hieronymus,
Ambrosius, Augustinus (quibus adde Cyrillum Hieros. Catech,
12, p. 120), sed codicibus MSS. ferme omnibus consentiunt
Syr. Copt. Arab. Pers. Æthiop. Origenes (in Joh. p. 14,
contra Cels. lib. i. p. 46), abboxia; enim quod legunt Homi-
liis in Lucam interpretis est non Origenis ; Eusebius, Chry-
sostomus (ed. Mor. tom. i. p. 26.1, 385, et tom. iii. p.
1044), Theophylactus, alii (nempe Epiphanius, Haer. Ebion.
p. 154, Constit Apost. lib. vii. cap. 47, p. 327. lib. viii. cap.
13, p. 352, Theodoretus; in Deut. qu. 42, et in Psalmos p.
786), qui rectam lectionem amplectuntur;” ita Millius in
locum. Nihilominus Proleg. p. 64, col. 2, “’Ev čv63&mot;
sū8oxiac, ita legisse Qrigenen constat ex Latinis Hierony-
mianis, hom.13 in Lucam, omnino recte; livöpwrot Bü8oxia;
Hebraismus est, significat homines erga quos Deus se insigni-
ter benevolum ostendit, seu quos peculiari quadam gratia
complectitur, hic autem sensus cum latuerit veteres Graecos,
| factum est jam olim ut in codicibus stºozia; mutaretur in
sūšonia.” Quis teneat semper mutantem Protea vultum ?
W. 33. Kai v 'Iowa ºp.] Vulg. “pater ejus:” sed Theophy-
lactus, Syr. Arab. textui patrocinantur. \
W. 40. "Engavatoiro ºrvetºzart.] “IIvetºzart adjectum est ex
hujus evangelii cap. i. 80,” sic Millius, Prol. p. 44, colº
J. Habent autem. Theophylactus, et versiones orientales
ODnneS.
Cap. iii. 19. Isº Hpoèlá80; ric xvy&txà, pixirtov.] Deest
otAirnov apud Theophylactum, et Vulg.: retinent versiones
orientales omnes, et firmant hanc lectionem loca parallela,
Matt. xiv. 3, et Marc. vi. 17.
W. 21. ‘Eyáygro #y ºrg Barrio Sãval.] Deest Év rá in MSS.
Habet Theophylactus, et versiones omnes legunt “Cum
baptizaretur.” -
Cap. iv. 7. "Eara cov távra.] Ita Matt. iv. 9, Vulg, Syr.
Theophylactus träga, nimirum gloria et potestas de quibus
locutus est, v. 6, in idem recidit. -
W. 8. "Yrays Štrica, gou, Žarayå.] Desunt hac apud MSS.
1 168
ExAMEN MILLII.
Origenem, Ambrosium. Beda notat, et Grotius, * nemimem
Græcorum Theophylacto antiquiorem ista verba hoc loco
agnoscere, et quidem post additum ibi άπίσω μου, quod in
primis et vetustissimis codicibus, teste Origene, locum non,
habebat;” sic'ille. Sed pace utriusque legimus apud Justi-
num Dialect. p. 33], hæc verba, iy τοῖς ἀπομνημονεύμασι τὸν
âaroorrôAov yiyea^rtat, 7rpoar£a8&v aùτά xaì arsigãçov μάχει τοῦ
siyríy aù-r§ argoa xùymzóv μοι, xal άποxplvsaSai aùrrô rêv Xgia rêv,
ù7rayε άπίσω μου, Σατavä* apud Athanasium, orat. I, in Arian.,
HA£y£s &υτόν δ Köpio; iy τὰ λέγειy, Ürays 37rio-o) paov, xatayä* p.
283, C, et or. 3, p. 440, àxoÜorac Ürays ô7riaro, paov, zatavâ, et
or. 4, p. 492, aùtôc gèv yàg ètritiua 8i' iavroü, xavayâ, Aíyov,
ίπays 3rioro» p*ov, xavayä* apud Chrysostomum, Matt. iv. 10,
et Theophylactum in locum : utrum hæc Matthæi solius
fuerint an etiam Lucæ, operæ pretium non est investi-
gare.
V. 18. Ίάoraa-$as roùς συντιτgipapw£vovg thv xa&8iav.] Desunt
hæc verba in duobus MSS. Origene in Joh. p. 12, Copt.
AEthiop. Augustino, Ambrosio. Fidem iis faciunt Irenæus
lib. iv. cap. 40, p, 340, Theodoretus in Isa. lxi. v. ]. LXX.
ib., Vulg. Syr. Arab. Pers. Porro evangelista dicente Chris-
tum aperuisse librum, et locum invenisse ubi hæc verba tam
in Hebræo textu quam in LXX. Interpretibus scripta erant,
multo magis verisimile est Christum hæc ipsissima verba
legi8se, quam alium nescio quem verbis evangelistæ ea adje-
cisse : quod ab Origene omittuntur tanti non est; omittit
enim, pariter cum Irenæo, verba sequentia, ámroorrsixai τούς
τε$pavo paévovç iv άφάσει.
V. 33. "Exow 7rveiaa 8aipzoviov àxa8ägtov, xaì àvixga%s 4owj.]
Vulg. * dæmonium immundum,“ MSS. Φον} μεγάλη omit-
tunt: utrumque agnoscunt autem Theophylactus, Syr. Orige-
nes in Joh. p. 158. Irrepserunt tamen, judice Millio, Prol.
p. 44.
Cap. v. 36. Où avp*®^wí? È7ri3Angaa.] Ita Theophylactus et
versiones omnes : et tamen Prol. p. 184,.col. ], * irrepsit ex
priore parte hujus versiculi.”
Cap. vi. 26. Oöai ύμΤν άrav xax&c ίμάς εττωσιν πάντες.]
Deest hic ύμῖν in Theophylacto ; habent versiones omnes,
sicut et versus præcedentes: 7ráyt£ς deest in MSS. versioni-
busque multis ; occurrit apud Theophylactum, Chrysosto-
Imum, hom. 23 in Gen. ed. Mor. tom. ii. p. 265, 266. tom.
iii. p. 305. tom. iv. p. 575, atque hic ait Millius, “ Omnino
legendum arbitror, addendi causa nulla est, tollendi aliqua :”
et tamen Prol. p. 126, col. 2, * ίμτy et 7ráyrsc irreptitia
sunt.”
V. 34. "Iva à7roA48»at t& fara.] Desunt t& ?ara Cant.
Agnoscunt Theophylactus et versiónes antiquæ universim :
nihilominus Prol. p. 133, col. 2, ** rà Tara interpretamentum
marginale videtur.”
Cap. vii. ll. oi μa6mºra* aùroù ixavof.] Deest ixayoi, Vulg.
Syr. Habent Theophylactus, et Arab. ** Omissum hic primum
ni fallor ex industria ab iis, qui per μa6rtai hic apostolos in-
tellexere, non autem assiduos quosvis Christi sectatores;'' at
Prol. p. 44, col. 1, ** ixavol irrepsisse videtur ex v. 12: certe
discipulos duodecim neutiquam μοιθητάς ixayoυς vocasset hic
evangelista, scriptor imprimis accuratus, qui nusquam voce
ista utitur nisi de magna multitudine ” (quasi non legisset in
eodem de 120 discºpulis, Act. i. 15) ; * hos (inquit), duode-
cim discipulos intelligit D. Lucas, ut colligere est ex Matt.
xi. 1 ; non autem, quod nos olim putavimus, Christi sec-
tatores in genere." Est certe locus Matthæi à7rgoo 8i6vva-oc,
loquitur enim D. Lucas de ingressu Christi in urbem Naim,
de quo apud solum Lucam fit mentio, nec impedit aliquid
quo minus Christus civitates Galilææ et Judæorum pertran-
siens, iisque evangelii doctrinam enuntians, sectatores multos,
quales in Galilæa haud pauci, post se traheret : sed non est
Millio insolitum levi de causa a se divorsum ire.
V. 24. Tàv àyy£λον 'Ioyáwov.] MSS. μa$nroy, discipuli,
nimirum quos misit, erant ipsius nuncii.
V. 28. MeiXov 7rgo®átnc.] Deest in MSS. male: vide v.
26.
V. 46. "HxsiJ£ μου τους πάας.] Desunt μου τούς ττό8ac in
Cant. Ush. 2. Agnoscunt Theophylactus et versiones ; ait
tamen Millius, Prol. p. 156, col. 1, ** Modo extitissent in
Lucæ authentico, nemo sanus prætermiserit.”
Cap. viii. 8. Taûta A£yo)v i%vsi á íxov &ra áxoöeiv, àxovíro.]
Agnoscunt hæc verbaTheophylactus, et versiones antiquæ uni-
versim: et tamen dicente Millio, * in excusis ac MSS. fere
aάjecta sunt ista e Matthæo, aut Marco, e lectionariis, et
Et $unt loco nom suo, ncque enim hic finitur lectio,**
rol. p. 155, col. 2: finitur tamen hic parabola. -
V. 34. 'A7r£λθόντες.] Deest apud MSS. Theophylactum,
versiones:—sed subaudiendum est hoc vocabulum ; qui
.enim pastores factum hoc nunciasse poterant in civitatem et
in villas, nisi paullo ante discessissent a monte, ubi grex
porcorum pascebat ? w
V. 54. 'Ex3aAàv £%» 7ráyrrac.] ** Marci sunt ;'° agnoscunt
autem Theophylactus, Cod. Alex. Syr. Arab. Pers.
Cap. ix. l. Ma$ntâ, a Jroj.] Desunt apud MSS. Theophy-
lactum, et Dial. contra Marcion. p. 58.—-Theophylactus vero
paullo post agnoscit hæc verba, sicut etiam dialogus iste in
margine: Vulg. Arab. Syr. ** duodecadem suam ;'' et cum
oi 8&8sxa essent Christi discipuli, deficientibus illis verbis non
deficit sensus.
V. 3. Márs íáß8ovg.] V. 1. 3488ov, ut Matthæus ;—male.
Marc. vi. 8, præcepit eis ne quid tolerent in viam si μ}, }488ov
μόνον' vide de his iyayrio®áveari annotata nostra ad Matt. x.
10.
V. 10. Πόλεως καλουμάνης BnSarai 83.] Ita Theophylactus et
ύoh. i. 45, e versionibus non paucæ omittunt πόλεως xaAov-
μάνης, άe veritate rei forsan sollicitæ ; nam Chrysostomus in
Orat. contra Gentiles, ed Mor. tom. i. p. 653, Petrum hu-
jus urbis incolam vocat rêv πόλεως άσΗμου πολίτην, μάλλον δ'
où8í tráxeoc, &λλὰ τῆς κἀμης ττίς ἐσχάτης' et teste Josepbo,
Philippus tetrarcha condidit muroque cinxit ty x&am»
BnSarai?àv, tribuens illi τῆς πόλεως άζίωμα, appellans simul
nomen illius Julias, in honorem sc Juliæ Augusti filiæ,
Ant. lib. xviii. cap. 3. -
V. 23. KaS' fip.£pav.] Desunt hæc in MSS. 25, Origenis
Exhort. ad Martyr. p. 173.—Retinent Cyrillus Alex. tom. i.
p. 597, Theophylactus, ed. Rom. 1542, versiones antiquæ
Om In €8.
V. 54. 'o« xai 'HXia; iroiwas.] Hæc omittit Vulg.—Habent
vero (fatente hic Millio) Græca exemplaria fere omnia, Syr.
Arab. Pers. Æthiop. Theophylactus, Chrysostomus de l*oenit.
hom. l, ed Mor. p. 747. Nihilominus “ irrepsisse ex mar-
gine” dicit Millius, Prol. p. 44. - -
Cap. xi. 13. Πνεύμa &yiov.] Vulg. àyaSóv, repugnante
Theophylacto, et versionibus omnibus. -
V. 29. 'Iovà toù Trgogftov.] Ita Theophylactus et versiones
omnes: sed Prol. p. 152, ** roù 7rgo®htov Matthæi esse nom.
est quod dubitemus.”
V. 38. *o 8È 4)agiorafoc i83* i8a£μάatv.] Ita Theophylaetus,
et versiones omnes orientales: Vulg. ip3a ro- 8iaxgiyägaevo; iv
£αυτά γάμειν' άτι οὐx, et hanc lectionem esse germanam pro-
nunciat Millius, Prol. p. 133, col. 2.
V. 44. Tpapxuatifc xai φaptaraîos, ú7rox£vtai.] Desunt hæc in
Vulg. et duobus MSS. addititia videntur, inquit Lucas
IBrugensis, id quod ex sequenti commate satis clare colligi
posse putat Grotius : non esse adjectitia patet ex Theophy-
lacto, Arab. Æthiop. Pers. ex commate 43, oùaî üpaiv Φαει-
oratot, et ex commate 45, άποκg;$εῖς τίς τὸν νομικόν, est enim
voμικὸς ygapxuatrìs (vide annotata nostra in Mar. xii. 28) et
professione pharisæus.
Cap. xii. J4. *H μεgto thv.] Ita Theophylactus et ver-
siones; hoc autem cum Marcione insititium esse vult Millius,
Prol. p. 33, col. 2, p. 44, col. 1.
V. 18. Tà àya$â pzov.] * Sequentia xaì rà àya$â paov ad-
scripta primum ad marginem e versu proxime sequente,
irrepsere mox in contextum, et codices jam universim occu-
pant;” hæc Millius Prol. p. 106, col. 2. Ex mero de Vul-
gato suo somnio, ut liquet.ex his verbis ita simpliciter Lin.
Cant. et Vulg. initio ut videtur. Agnoscunt enim hæc verba
versiones omnes, C. Alex. Basil. tom. ii. p. 452, Euthym-
Theophylact. Hieronymus, postulantque verba sequentia, v.
19, ** Dicam animæ meæ, ἐχεις πολλά άya$â.” denique tripli-
citer peccasse hunc divitem volunt Basilius, Chrysostomus,
alii; (1.) Quod vera bona divitias suas existimavit, (2.)
Quod bona sua, (3.) Quod bona animæ, v. 19.
V. 31. Kai raùra oráyra 7rgoa re6fiat rai ίμῖν.] Deest 7rávra
Tertulliano, Marcioni. Habent Theophylactus et versiones
omnes ; non videtur omittendum, inquit Lucas Brugensis;
et tamen Prol. p. 33, ** medium hoc ςτάvτa Matthæi est.”
V. 38. 'Ev rj τρίτη φυλαwj.] 'Ea7r£pw$ $vAaxii posuit Mar-
cion pro rgtrm, Epiphanius ; et tamen ait Millius ; * Hæc
genuina esse Lucæ non dubito, Epiphanium in errorem, ut
ália non semel, seduxit vitiosum exemplar,'' Prol. p. 88,
col. 2. Seduxit cum eo Basilium, lib. ii. p. 44, Theophy*
EXAMEN MILLII.
1,169
lactum, et versiones universim ; unde quod Marcioni hic
dicit Epiphanius, p. 335, Millio dictum putes, #xâxeyrai
faitaaréka, rob, Belov, Aéyov, #yońrw; trº, rºy tavrot in ovoiây.
*E*reply? puxaxi in evangeliis nusquam occurrit, sed 8evriez,
ºrgirn, retáčrn tantum.
V. 49. Ei ºn 3yńºpón.] Origenes eºrs & #xán, Philoc. p. 106,
et, Hom. in Ex. ed. Huetii, tom. i. p. 22. Cyrillus autem
Hieros. Catech. 17, p. 195, Chrysostomus, ed. Mor. tom. iii.
p. 216, et Theophylactus, textum sequuntur.
Cap. xiii. 21. Eic 3xeſpov orára ºrgia.] Ita Theophylactus,
et versiones omnes; “Ambrosius non legit sata tria, in
Matthaeo (inquit) legitur tribus mensuris.”
W. 35. 'O oiko; bºy #nºwoc.] “Deest enºo; apud MSS.
godices, Euthymium, nec agnoscunt Latini quidam, teste
Grotio ; adjici videtur huc ex Matt. xxiii. 38,” Lucas Brug.
Ex quo loco potius stabilitur; habent enim hic Theophylactus,
et versiones omnes, et ad sensum complendum est vox plane
neces.Sarla. . -
Cap. xiv. 5. Tivo; tºy & 3.0, 8 80ſ...] Millius, Prol. p. 44,
col. 2, “"Oi, Cant. ut liquet ex ejus Latinis, ‘Cujus ex vobis
ovis aut bos,” verum diu est cum originaria ista Graeca per-
ierunt, ex àic factum a posterioribus Gràcis vić; ita quidem
legunt C. Alex. Theophylact. Syr. tandem vero a quopiam
mutatum við; in voc, maxime quod alias in evangelio con-
junctim legantur, cap. xii. 15.” Quod quidem cum factum
fuerit a Christo in priore capite, eademque instantia, satis ex
eo liquet quod isdem asini et bovis exemplis et hic usus sit.
Porro asinum hic legunt Hieronymus, Vulg. Arab. AEthiop.
Beda öic Cant. Solus, patre nullo, versione nulla suffraganti-
bus, immo utrum ipse iſ: legerit necne, vel Millio teste, in-
certum est, is enim notis in hunc locum sic, “Cant. ºrgéga-
row %, prout Christus ipse Matt. xii. 11.”
Cap. xvi. 8."ort peovizo, iroinzev.] “Deest Theophy-
lact. :” ita Millius festinanter; legit enim. Theophylactus.
W. 12. To tº repov.] W. l. rā hºrseoy. Ita Theophylac-
tus, et Origenes, hom. 7, in Jer, ed. Huetii, tom. i. p. 94 ;
sed, versiones omnes editis congruunt: plurimas variantes
lectiones affert ex Dial. contra Marcion. p. 55, 56, quod si in
editione Aldina oram libri inspexisset, plerasque earum
cum textu convenientes reperisse potuit, speciatim v. 22 et
23. Variationes etiam quasdam minutulas profert ex
Clemente Alex. Paedag. lib. ii. cap. 10, p. 199, sed omittit
Millius posteriorem clausulam, 3xx' à &#y #x0x48s to #y #3, #
Traoüato, weréxov toº "rugèc, § 3; &véSaxxsy v záxtrol; roſ, raºré."
qua clausula satis est argumenti quod Clemens Al. se illic
textus verbis astringi noluerit. De Tertulliano, qui solus
legit “Quod meum est,” nihil dico.
Cap. xvii. 10. Adºo. 33.35ſoí Écºley.] Ita Theophylactus,
Vulg. Syr. Arab. et Lat. Origenes, Hom in Jos. f. 163, D.
“Servi supervacui,”. Cyprianus ad Quirin. lib. iii. S. 51, et
ep. 33, Hieronymus, Epist. ad Ctesiph. contra Pelagium, tom.
ii. f. 91, A, Chrysostomus de Poenit. hom. 10, ed. Mor. tom.
i. p. 636, hom. 4 in Gen. tom. ii. p. 39, tom. iii. p. 858,
872, tom. v. p. 378. Desunt tantum in vers. Æthiop. unde
Millius &xpetol, quod jam est in omnibus codicibus, “Wereor
me irrepsite margine,” Prol. p. 124, col. 1.
Cap. xviii. 14. Descendit hic justificatus in domum suam
à éxiào;..] Origenes in Cels. lib. iii. p. 150, legit 5 yag #xswoc, de
qua lectione Erasmus ait, “In plerisque non invenio:” alii
ºrge’ ºvov, quod Grotio placet : Basilius, tom. ii. p. 461, et
Chrysostomus, ed. Mor, tom. i. p. 349, #wsp #xsivo, quod in
omnibus ad idem recidit; mihi prae caeteris placet lectio tex-
tus ut Hellenistico idiomati magis consona, ubi pro tºgxxoy
% multoties occurrit: vide annotata nostra in locum, vide
etiam Phavorinum et alios exempla ex Homero addu-
Centes.
Cap. xix. 25.] Hunc versum agnoscunt Theophylactus,
et versiones universim: “Lubens nisi repugnarent omnes
fere codices pro irreptitio habuerim,” ait Millius, Prol. p. 155.
Cap. xx. 1. At&áakov'ro; abroſ, röy Xav čv rø ispá.] Deest iv
tº isp , Iren.—Habent omnes scholiastes, et versiones, nec
invenio ubi desit apud Irenaeum; codices tantum MSS. ap-
pellat Millius, Prol. p. 162, col. 2, quorum fide irreptitium
esse putat.
V. 19. 'E408hònºray rºy Agów.] Ita Theophylactus et versi-
ones omnes: deest rāv Āay tantum apud codices MSS. et
tamen “‘rāv Āay haud dubie adjectum est ex aliis locis evan-
gelii,” Prol. p. 33, col. 2, frustra Matt. xxi. 46, Mar. xii.
12, legunt rôy 3xxov.
Cap. xxi. 24. "Axpt rango,03-i zapoi #8väy.] Ita Theophy-
lactus et versiones omnes: legendum simpliciter vult Millius
33:21; of trango,030 t, “atgue ita se habuisse arbitror airéypapoy
hujus evangelista: ; qui paullo clarius explicata haec vole-
bant, addebant in margine zago; #6, ºv,” Prol. p. 133, col. 2.
—Wide locum, lector, ut scias quam precaria, quam épéerve.
sint omnia, et pene dixerim absurda, frigida, et jejuna. -
Cap. xxii. 36. Kai é º #xov troºnzároſ ré iºãrtov aircü,
xai äyoparára praxaipav.] MSS. quidam codices habent
Traxha si et &yogaasi' atque ita lectum in multis aetatis suae ex-
emplaribus testatur Basilius: fidem textui faciunt Origenes
Matt. p. 368, Theophylactus, versiones omnes; immo quod,
mireris, ipse Basilius in Asceticis de priori commate haec
habet, 3 #xwy 8axávriov &pára &pi;, otro y&p rà troXX& rāv
&vriypátov #xel’ p. 510, roana &ro wai &yogao &ra cum textu
legit: hoc tantum adjiciens quod ex multis locis constat
xexeiròal rô Trºod rartizöv Biêo; rot Aéyou &yri Trgo purikoú.
Nihil hic verius quam quod a Grotio annotatum est; viz.
imperativum hoc loco in futurum vertisse quosdam, qui of .
fensi erant praecepti sibi non intellecti novitate: âtroNéirat
Azèv inquit Origenes, qui horum verborum sensum non
capiens emit sibi gladium ; et Basilius in modo allatis re-
spondet iis qui haºc pugnare existinabant cum hoc dicto
Christi, “Omnes qui acceperint gladium, gladio peribunt.”
W. 42. Ei 800xei trageveyzeſy ºrd "rothploy rotro &n' #x05.]
MSS. codices legunt Tragex9sſy, Trapayáyxn, tragavāykai, Trap-
aväykn' Origenes et Epiphanius rage?83ral, hoc autem ab iis
factum esse censet Grotius ob hoc loguendi genus, non in-
tellectum est enim Ei Boºst, &c., “Utinam velles auferre.”
Cap. xxiii. 43. Aśyo got a hºspov ºst' #zov Han äy rā traga-
#to w.] Millius hic Origenem citat, qui Com. in Joh. p.
421, quosdam atatis suae memorat adeo perturbatos dicto
hoc (partim quia opinioni eorum de Christi in inferos de-
scensu adversari, partim quia poenitentiam quam quis ferme
moriens ageret, nimium probare visum est) ut Suspicarentur
orgorresticºat ro, stayyexicº.
W. 46. Ei, Xgſpac arov traga.0%aroºcal rô rved, a £zoğ.] Hic
Justinus, Dial. cum Tryph. p. 333, et Origenes in Matthaeum,
p. 422, legunt Tragaríðspeal voce media, alii tragatiºnal “com-
mendo:” textus tamen convenit cum versione LXX. et voce
Hebraica T'PER. Sed parvi res, siquidem, ut notat Grotius,
“futurum hic more Hebræo pro praesenti est.” Sequitur kai
raúra simºv ###myeva ev. Haec agnoscunt C. Al. Theophylact.
versiones universim. Et tamen Millio Suspecta Sunt Trageº-
8xhorsog, Prol. p. 160, col. 2.
Cap. xxiv. 1. Kai rive; aty abraſ...] “Commentarius est,”
Millius, Prol. p. 44. Retinent autem Codex Alex. Theo-
phylactus, Syr. Arab. Pers.
W. 46. Kai otºro, #38.] “Sumpta sunt (inquit Millius ib.)
ex. v. 26.” Agnoscunt tamen Codex Alex. Theophylactus,
Vulg. Syr. Pers.
V. 47. 'Ap;4&Evoy.] Vulg, 32%agávov, “recte” Millius, ibid.
viz. 38%áºzsváy Batai rā Khºvyºza, 33%akºvoy rāv khºvćty tºy
&Troartóxcoy.
V. 52. IIgoaxwho avºrs; abráy.] Ita Theophylactus et versi-
ones omnes: nihilominus Prol. p. 44, col. 2, lector quis-
piam huc traduxit ex Matt. xxviii. 17.
SECTIO QUARTA—IN JOHANNEM.
CAP. i. 16. Kai in roi; manpägaro; atroi..] MSS. Śri et Orige-
nes in Joh. p. 82. Graeca scholia, et versiones omnes textui
consentiunt, contextu id exigente, nec enim rationem had
verba exhibent prioris commatis, sed pergunt in beneficiis
explicandis a Christo provenientibus: et tamen, Prol. p. 87,
col. 1, “pro Šrt notatum ab aliquo wai, quod mox transiit in
contextum.”
W. 18. “o govoyev; vić..] Irenaeus, lib. iv. cap. 37, p. 355,
legit “unigenitus Deus,” et in eodem cap. p. 333, “unige-
nitus filius,” et lib. iii. cap. 11, p. 219, “unigenitus filius
Dei;” Origenes semper 3 govoyevå; ©eñº, sc. Com. in Joh. F.
82, 3 govoyevic við; 68%, p. 94, Kºoyoysyā; yń &V Qº, lib. ii.
33
contra Cels. p. 104, Syr. “unigenitus ille Deus:” antiqua
ergo fuit ha-c lectio facili errore legentium ºrc pro Oc: pa-
tres enim sequentium aetatum, contra Arium militantes, tex-
tum continuo sequuntur. Puta Athanasius, tom. i. p. 270,
Epiphanius, Anchorat. p. 7, Eusebius de Eccles. Theol. lib. i.
cap. 20, §. 7. lib. ii, cap. 23, p. 142, Basilius de Spiritu S.
cap. 6, p. 302. •
4 F
1170
EXAMEN MILLII.
W. 27. “Oc flºweda Sév wou yśyovey.] Ita Graeca scholia, et
versiones omnes; firmante hanc lectionem v. trigesimo et v.
15. Et tamen ex fide Nonni et AEthiop. “irrepsisse viden-
tur ex v. 15, et v. trigesimo,” Prol. p. 87, col. 1.
W. 28. Taira #y Bºğagapā āyāysto.] Hanc lectionem firmant
Epiphanius, Haer. li. p. 434, Origenes in Joh. p. 130, 131,
Theophylactus, Chrysostomus, et Suidas; de quibus vide lu-
culentam Millii annotationem, atque Prol. p. 101, col. 2.
W. 52. 'Ar' àpºrt.] Desunt hac in Vulg. Copt. Agnoscunt
Theophylactus, Chrysostomus, Syr. Arab. Pers.
Cap. ii. 16. Toſ, rāg treeta-rspä; "roxoVai.] Ita Theophylac-
tus, et versiones universim; Cod, Cyprius roxbûyri. “Fac-
tum jam olim videtur plurale ob sequentia &gars, Troteſts,”
Millius, Prol. p. 87, col. 1.
W. 17. Katépayé ºwe.] Theophylactus, Chrysostomus, ver-
siones omnes, p. 70. Inter Ps. lxix. 9. Karaqāyera, inquit
Millius MSS. cod. Origenes in Joh. p. 183. Perfida fide,
legendum ibi katépayá, ob sequentia, oùro yag asſrai #y rô
trºophth, xal oix; xata páygtai, quo non obstante “genuinum
Johannis est karaqpáystät,” Prol. p. 127, col. 1.
W. 19. Aćcare roy way roºrov.] Origenes addit Oect, in Joh.
p. 149; rotºrov autem legit, p. 183, 4, 6. .
Cap. iii. 25. Facta est autem, qua-stio ex discipulis Johan-
nis pºst& 'Iověašov.] Ita Origenes in Joh. p. 151, MSS. cod.
et Chrysostomus, peri, Iow8atov, Theophylactus textu, gerð.
Tou?aſov, Com. Trº; 'Iověafé, riva, plures nempe aderant, unus
quaestionem movebat ventilabatdue.
Cap. iv. 3. 'AtráA6s ºráxiv.] Deest ºráAiy in MSS. aliquot.
Habent Theophylactus, Vulg. Syr. Arab. AEthiop. Cum
vero Christus in Galilaea ante id tempus versatus fuerit, et ex
ea Hierosolymam ascenderit ad celebrandum pascha, recte
dicitur abiisse iterum in Galilaeam.
W. 35. Targãºnvoy.] Origenes in Joh. p. 230, 232, legit
retéâûnyo; sub. x86voc. Chrysostomus et Theophylactus re-
apápanyoy substantive. Wide Budaeum.
Cap. v. 2. 'Etri rii Treo6arix; x0xuaſh964.] T1608arix} xox.
Ita Vulg. Arab. Afthiop. Chrysostomus, Theophylactus,
Theodorus Mopsuest. ac Ammonius in Catena, Hieronymus,
Beda, perperam trahentes ad piscinam quod de urbis porta
dicitur, cujus in S. literis mentio non semel: corrige ergo
annotata nostra in hunc locum, nos enim cum is erravimus.
W. 4.] Agnoscunt hunc versum Graeca scholia et versiones
omnes: C. Alex. Hieronymus, August. tom. viii. in Ps.
lxxxiii. p. 922. “Veruntamen mihi (inquit Millius) vehe-
mens suspicio est irrepisse jam olim Evangelio ad Hebraeos,”
Prol. p. 45.
W. 9. Kai sięw; #yévero byth; $ 3,080"roc.] Agnoscunt etiam
haec Graeca scholia, et versiones omnes. Nihilominus utcun-
que in plerisque al. cod. locum habent, quoniam in Codice
Trit. desunt, “desumpta videntur ex v. 4 hujus cap. quem
voSaúcews suspectum habeo,” Prol. p. 154, col. 2.
V. 16. Kai ičátovy airčv 3roxrsiva.] Desunt haec Vulg.
Habent Graeca scholia, et versiones orientales, et v. 18 firmat
hanc lectionem : “sunt tamen huc traducta ex v. 18,” Prol.
p. 45, col. 1; ita Millius.
W. 27. Keioſiv Troisſy Ör vià, 3,63&mov ša'ri. W. 28. M% 6av-
**śćers roîro.] Theodoretus, orat. 11 adv. Gent. p. 657, haec
verba ita conjungit versu 27, §rt vič, ćySéâtrov šart, º Sav-
£24&ere rotiro. Chrysostomus et Theophylactus vulgatam lec-
tionis distinctionem ceu Pauli Samosatensis commentum im-
probant, et locum hoc glossemate explicant, Azh Savºváðars
ări við; 3v3p3rov ša'ri, wai yºg Rai vić, Ogot, Hati' ita pariter
Syr. Origenes autem in Joh. p. 334, Cyrillus, Augustinus
hic, Vigilius contra Eutych. lib. v. et versiones reliquae om-
nes, legunt cum textu : et hanc lectionem Maldonatus genu-
inam esse probat his verbis: “Si ‘filius hominis est' et cum
sequentibus jungenda essent, non dixisset Christus ‘Quia
filius hominis est nolite mirari,’ perversa et inusitata verbo-
rum collocatione, sed “Nolite mirari quia filius hominis
est, hic enim naturalis est verborum fluxus: praeterea quid
faceret pronomen illud rotºro additum ad finem 2 si enim su-
periora verba ad verbum ‘mirari’ referantur, jam verbum
Suum habebit accusativum, nec alterum poterat admittere.”
Cap. vi. 11. Atéâoxe ºrcſ, ºwa Snraſs, of 8: p.a.Smrai roi; &va-
xerºx#voic.] Ex aliis evangelistis adjecta esse ista, rot; 228m-
'rafs, of 33 p.a.Snºrai, notarunt jam olim, teste Millio, Eras-
mus, Zegerus, Grotius, viz. quia omittuntur a MSS. aliquot,
versionibus, Nonno, et Augustino : sed occurrunt non modo
apud Theophylactum, Sed et apud Matt. xiv. 18, Mar. vi.
41. Luc. ix. 16. Verissimum igitur est Christum distribu-
isse panes discipulis, ut illi ponerent ante discumbentes;
similiter se gessit Christus, cum pavisset quatuor millia ho-
minum, Matt. xv. 36. Mar. viii. 1. Et receptam lectionem
genuinam esse res ipsa indicat; Christum enim Sua ipsius
manu absºlue ulla discipulorum ope, panes et deinceps pis-
ces distribuisse inter quinque millia hominum, totidemque
forsan mulieres et parvulos, incredibile quidem videtur, et
quod fere fieri non potuit.
.W. 14. otré; a riv 3x783; 5 arpophtnç.] Tô 3xnS㺠habent
Graeca scholia, et versiones omnes, veruntamen, dicente Mil-
lio, “interjectum est &An63; ex cap. vii. v. 40,” Prol. p.
133, col. 2.
W. 32. Eixagarhorayto; roi, Kupíov.] Desunt haec in Chry-
sostomo et Syr. Retinent Theophylactus et versiones reli-
quae: “irrepserunt tamen e margine.” Ibid.
W. 39.] Deest trarpá; in MSS. et versionibus aliquot,
Chrysostomo et Cyrillo. At cum pater miserit Christum,
vox illa necessario subaudienda est.
W. 51. zàe: ºy #y& 3&a w.] “Haec verba irrepseree margine
ad supplendam sententiam,” Millius, Prol. p. 45, col. 1.
Agnoscunt autem Chrysostomus, Theophylactus, et versio-
nes universim.
V. 55. ‘H cap; wov &Anşā, ścºr, 88%ats, zai rā ai,xá fou &An-
66, iari trčatc.] MSS. aliquot, Arab. Chrysostomus, Cyrillus,
et Origenes, in Joh. p. 164, legunt &MSãº. Sed Origenes in
Matt.. p. 417, et Gregorius Nyss. hom. 8 in Eccl. p. 457,
legunt &xoSãº, et sic Theophylactus, Vulg. Syr. AEthiop.
Ad finem v. 56, Stephanus et Cant. addunt Kašū; #y Évoi
3 rathp, ziyê, iv tá Targ: 3pºv, 3rºy Aiya, buſy, Ły º X48wre
+3 ºxa roſ, vio'ſ roi; 3,9867rov, &; Tôy &gtoy ris ºwfic, oùx #xers
&#y y attà. “Haec ipsius Johannis verba esse” asserit
Millius in appendice, ex fide sc. Cant; (de quo tamen co-
dice “mirum in modum interpolato” vide judicium Millii,
Prol. p. 132, col. 2.) Agnoscit illa nullus pater, nulla ver-
sio, nullus commentator; atque iis omissis citat hoc caput a
v. 53 ad v. 58 Origenes, arspi Eixãº, p. 88, 89. Nec Chris-
tus per totum hoc caput vocabulum oºza usurpat, nec lo:
quitur de corpore suo sacramentaliter capiendo, ut alibi
fusius ostensum est: nihilominus “restituta” vult Millius,
Prol. p. 74.
W. 58.] T3 agwa, et v. 64, oi º widºrečovreć, agnoscunt
Graeci reliquique interpretes omnes: omittit roi &rroc, v.
69, unicus Vulg. Sed Prol. p. 164, col. 2, “expressum in
margine rà &ávva in omnes mox codices manavit :” et Prol.
p. 88, col. 1, “insertum in posterioribus wh ex priore parte
versiculi:” et Prol. p. 45, col. 1, “roß &yro: adjectum ex
Matthaeo.”
Cap. vii. 1, où y&e #Sexey iv tí 'Iovčaig weeinarsiv.] Ita
Theophylactus, et versiones, codicesque MSS. omnes, nec
enim unum producere potuit Millius qui aliter legerit, ita
Chrysostomus in textu, Comm. autem oil yèg sixty #ovatay.
Nihilo secius dicit Millius “oin #8EXEv insertum est in genui-
nae (glyºv) locum lit congruentius,” Prol. p. 84, col. 1. Mil-
lio mimirum ad novam lectionem in textum introducendam
autor satis est unus, immo satis est nullus.
W. 8. Eyð, oùro àvagaiva.] Hanc lectionem satis stabilivi
in annotatis meis, quibus subjunge (1.) Millius ait own &va-
8aivo ex Chrysostomo, Cyrillo (Cyrillus ille est Clicthovaeus
quidam, homo nuperus) esse legendum; Chrysostomus ta-
men habet (quod Millium parum ingenue id celantem, non
fugit) oix àvagaivo &pri, et deinde addit, Christus non locutus
est zašáraž oix āyagaivo, 3ÅA3 vily, toireart ºwes' tºy, Ego
jam non ascendo, i. e. non vobiscum. (2.) Porphyrius non
calumniatus est Christum de mendacio, sicut Grotius et Mil-
lius opinamtur, sed solummodo condemnavit eum inconstan-
tia et mutationis: Hieronymus adv. Pelag. tom. i. f. 103, G.
W. 21. Kai ºráyrs; Savºwāśsºrs 31& rotºro. 22. Moañc..] Ita
Theophylactus, Sed versiones omnes, et Cyrillus Al. tom.
iii. p. 521, ponunt stigma post Savºzášere. Corrige ergo
annotata mea in hunc locum. Non enim interpunctionem
hanc cum Millio genuinam existimo, Prol. p. 105, col. 2.
W. 26. Mârors &An63; #yvooray of &gxovire; 3rt oërác Šarly &An-
06; 5 xgto-ró;..] MSS. plura, Syr. Copt. Pers. Æthiop. omit-
tunt posterius &An6&c, et sic Origenes in Joh. p. 161, 162.
Retinent autem Chrysostomus, Theophylactus, Cod. Alex.
sensu quidem commodo : “Nunquid certis indiciis cognove-
runt principes quia hic vere est Christus *
W. 35, “Or, hºwgſ; oix sighaogºsy attöv.] Desunt hac apud
*
EXAMEN MILLII.
1171
Chrysostomum et Nonnum. Agnoscunt Theophylactus, et
versiones omnes; suntgue plane necessaria ad complendum
SCI1SUllºn.
W. 45. Kai pagio aiouc.] Ita Graeca scholia, et versiones om-
mes. Nihilominus, Prol. p. 87, col. 1, “xai paptaaiovº, quod
amplius in nostris, vix obstat codicum consensus quo minus
translatum huc putem ex v. 47 hujus capitis.”
Cap. viii. 1–8.] Quod ad historiam de muliere in adulte-
rio deprehensa attinet, vide annotationem Millii, ubi illam,
tuetur ac defendit. Wide etiam P. Simonii,Crit. Hist, N. T.
lib. i. cap. 13.
V. 14. 'Yºsſ, 33 own of are ráðey exogast, was row in 4y2.]
Ita Graeca scholia et versiones omnes.
Ver. 34. Aovaé, Éarty rā, śa agriac.] ‘Agapria; agnoscunt
Graeca scholia, versiones omnes, et Origenes in Matt. p. 317.
“Adjectum esse” censet Millius, Prol. p. 133.
W. 52. Eic rôy aiāya.] Ita Origenes in Joh. p. 336, The-
ophylactus, et versiones universim.
W. 53. Mā ai, weiðoy El row rarpèg hºw&y 'A3eaëp.--Kai oi
ºrgoºrat &rá3avoy.] Ita Origenes in Joh. p. 336, Theophylac-
tus, versiones omnes. Nihilominus dicente Millio, toğ traºrpt;
tºv, Prol. p. 133, Kai oi reopārat & wišavoy, Prol. p. 162, ir-
repserunt ex praecedentibus.
W. 57. IIavrákov'ra #ºn oštro #xeiç.] Recepta est haec lectio
Nonni, Theophylacti, Iraenei, omnium denique exemplari-
um : Chrysostomus tamen legit rezo agáxovira, tom. i. ed.
Mor. p. 364, et in locum #yyū; recoraçákov'ra.
Cap. ix. 8. "ort rupač; hy.] Ita Theophylactus; ºrgorairns,
Chrysostomus, et versiones omnes, parvo discrimine, “men-
dicus” nimirum, quia caecus.
V. 31. Totºrov 3xoſe..] “Addita hac omnino videntur ad
supplendam sententiam,” inquit Millius, Prol. p. 154, col. 2.
Sed agnoscunt haec verba C. Alex. Theophylactus, et versi-
OneS OmneS. -
Cap. x. 8. IIávre; &ot ºrp? #xot hasov.] Deest re; iºdi, Ba-
silio, et Chrysostomo. Verum cum codices plurimi etiam
Cant. Alex. Cypr. ac Clemens Alex. (adde Origenem in
Matt. p. 220, in Joh. p. 41, Hieronymum, lib. ii. adv. Pe-
lag. f. 103, I.) lectionem receptam praeferant, “crediderim
a librariis olim expuncta ista, seu auctoritati prophetarum
adversantia, scilicet, certe Manichaeos ex his verbis collegisse
prophetas non esse missos a Deo, auctor, est Theophylac-
tus:” ita Millius; immo Chrysostomus iigdem respondens
ait haec non de prophetis, sed de Juda et Theuda intelligen-
da esse. -
Cap. xii. 32. IIavra, #Azúaw ºrpè: #zavrév.] Codices MSS.
quidam, Vulg. Irenaeus, Hieronymus, Augustinus, Justus
Urgelit. Gaudentius legunt ºrávra. Origenes autem Com.
in Matt. p. 283, in Joh. p. 412, Chrysostomus, et Theophy-
lactus legunt cum textu. Vid. plures apud Millium, Prol.
p. 66, col. 1. suntgue haec verba de hominibus tantum intel-
ligenda.
V. 42. "Iva pº &arcouváyoyo yávovirat.] Ita Graeca scho-
lia et versiones omnes: omittit Nonnus, carminis forte
gratia. º
Cap. xiii. 19. nº roß yeyíasat.J Legunt hac verba Ori-
genes in Joh. p. 394, 395, 398, Theophylactus, antiquae
versiones universim : non obstante tamen codicum hodierno-
rum suffragio, “inter scholia marginalia omnino posuerim,”
inquit Millius, Prol. p. 160, col. 1.
V. 3]. “ora oiy ###A0s.] Si subjungantur ista verba com-
mati tricesimo, omittendum est obv, quod agnoscunt MSS. et
textus. Quod si, pariterac editio Oxoniensis ac versio An-
glicana, claudas comma illud cum his verbis ºv i yüğ, recte
legas in commate sequenti &re & ###A9s, Aéyès, &c. et sic
Origenes in Joh. p. 410, Vulg, aliique.
Čap. xiv. 30. Kai év #zzi oën Xs, otºv.] Epiphanius, Haer.
Manich. p. 180, § 64, legit oièv rod airoi; supiakei, Grego-
rius Nyss. hom. 7 in Eccles. p. 444, eigia get rāv iºtov oběy.
haec autem aragaºgaarikā, tantum ab is dicta esse videan-
tur; alibi enim Gregor. Nyss. legit cum textu : atque ita
Chrysostomus et Theophylactus, Origenes in Joh. p. 330, et
p. 323, et hom. 21 in Lucam, et versiones omnes: Athana-
sius, tom. i. p. 440, et Basilius, tom. ii. p. 106, legunt obºv
tºtaxes w śwo: inter autem roi, Hysty et toº speakew ob?iv sci-
licet, quod culpari possit, parum est discriminis.
Cap. xv. 11. ‘Ey buſy pºsiºn.] Utrum hic legas # cum versi-
onibus, an ºstvº cum scholiastis, nihil interest.
W. 21. Tauta Trávra.] Graeci, reliquique interpretes, lege-
Athanasius, Cyrillus.
bant vel ºrávra, vel & mayºra : judice tamen Millio, “ aráyra
irrepsite margine,” Prol. p. 162, col. 2.
Cap. xvii. 1. ‘ExhAvšev # &ga.] Ita Origenes in Joh. p. 21,
Graeca scholia, et versiones universim, et tamen Prol. p.
155, col. 2, medium, “fixãAvôsy % &ga videtur aliunde irrep-
sisse ex cap. xii. 23.” - º,
W. 11. Kai rāgnacy atrol); #v čvágart oró ot; #8ozác fºot.j of:
hic legunt Chrysostomus, Theophylactus, Athanas. orat. 4,
contra Arian. p. 470, Haer. 38, p. 279, Vulg. AEthiop. Et
hanc lectionem certam reddunt verba sequentia, v. 12, quae
apud omnes versiones et scholiastas eadem sunt, viz. #y& #~4-
govy gurovs' #y Švágarí cov oil, éðokác &ot #4%aağa. Millius
tamen, Prol. p. 120, col. 1, “ #v čváºzart orov & 3:30xác &ot,
omnino recte; ‘serva eos per momen tuum," sive potestatem
qua dedisti ut eandem inter se, quam nos, habeant unio-
mem.”
W. 12. 'Ev'ró Kárº.] Desunt ha-c in Vulg. Agnoscunt
Græca scholia, et versiones omnes: -et tamen Prol. p. 45,
col. 1, “ iv tº zágºy accessit v. 11.” - -
- Cap. xviii. 29. TIázrošev.] W. l. Trávres, sine discrimine;
ubi enim Judaei ab omni loco conveniunt, conveniunt
OIIllſleS.
W. 23. Ti as 8%gic; J Aataeic, quomodo hic, et in similibus
locis, legendum contendit Nansius in Nonnum ; 3ágo enim,
inquit, est excorio, Saipa caedo, verbero ; ita etiam Suidas.
Est tamen certum rô 8ägery tam apud Sacros scriptores quam
apud profanos, verberandi sensu aliquoties occurrere; ita
Luc. xxii. 63, viri quitenebant velaverunt eum, &#povira;, “in
faciem percutientes ;" &epa Sãpov, “aerem verberans,” l Cor.
ix. 26. Eic ºrgárotrow 350ew, “in faciem caedere;” ita 338scóat
zai 8ágely 3' hºw#2; est “indies verbera dare, et pati,”
Aristoph. Vesp. p. 463. -
Cap. xix. 31. "Hy y&é &sy&am # hºw#2, #xsivov roſ, ca&Bárov.]
MSS. plurima, Cyrillus, Theophylactus, #xelyn, sic editio
Oxon. i. e. “Dies ille Sabbati erat magnus dies,” vel dies
istius Sabbati, utpote triplici ex ratione festus, maximo in
honore habendus fuit. Wide Lightfoot. in locum.
Cap. xx. 29. Dixit ei Jesus quia widisti me Qwº.] Theo-
phylactus, Cyrillus, Augustinus omittunt Owg,3: Origenes
autem legit Com. in Joh. p. 195, et verba praecedentia Aéyès
aúrð ‘Incoiſ; lectionem hanc certam reddunt. -
Cap. xxi. 12. Oü38i, 33 #réNºa rāv (, aSntãy #grácal airów.]
Deest rôy ºwa Śntãy apud Chrysostomum in textu, in Com
mentaric tamen addit oixári yüp rāy airy trafijnoriay six,y,
Agnoscunt Theophylactus, et versiones orientales omnes -
Vulg. “ discumbentium,” quod in idem recidit. Et tamen
Millius, “Commentarii loco fuisse probabile est ré rºy
Azaşna‘āv,” Prol. p. 45 col. 1.
SECTIO QUINTA—IN ACTA APOSTOLORUM.
CAP. i. 16. At& a rāgaroº Aa33.J Desunt ha-c Vulg.
AEthiop. Origeni, Athanasio, Didymo de Spiritu Sancto. Sed
contra habent Vulg. Origenes bis in Acta Apost. ed. Huetii.
to. ii. p. 422, 423, CEcumenius, Chrysostomus in Commenta-
rio, Syr. Arab. In genuinis Athanasii scriptis non invenio
ubi desint. Didymum habemus tantum Latine ad Vulgati
exemplar compositum. -
W. 23. "Earnaay 360.] “Augustinus et Arab. ‘statuit”
numero singulari contra omnium codicum fidem,” inquit
Millius, forte ob Petri praerogativam stabiliendam.
Cap. ii. 3. ‘Exášiai re.] V. l. #xášia &v rs, Cant. Syr. Arab.
Hic autem lectori fraudem facit in
utrisque ; Athanasius enim in hom. de Hum. Nat. Suscepta,
p. 606, legit #xášizé re, in ep. dubia fidei ad Serap. p. 179,
zai ixášiczy" in Cyrillis sine discrimine et solo nomine
citandis latere potuit, sedita res evenit ut in utrisque fallat
Cyrillus enim Hieros. Catech. 17, p. 199, legit kai ixáštasy,
Cyrillus Alex. Glaph. in Gen. p. 45, #xášigé re, quomodo
legunt Chrysostomus et CEcumenius : Vulg, “ sedit,” sc
yxºcoa, aut Trip. -
V, 24. Ağara, rà, 33ivac rot 6avátov.] V. l. aircă. Vulg.
Syr. Arab. Polycarpus, Irenteus; utroque modo Epiphanius;
Chrysostomus et OEcumenius, Sayárov, qua lectio est prorsus
necessaria. Esto enim Christum in infernum descendisse ;
est tamen certissimum nullos illum cruciatus aut dolores ibi
tulisse a quibus solvendus esset.
W. 30. To xari, a 4pxa &yaathagiy Xgia rév.] Desunt hac
Fulg. Syr. A thiop. Irenzeo, lib. iii. cap. 12. Agnosculit
- 4 F 2
1172
EXAMEN MILLII.
Chrysostomus, CEcumenius, Arab. et notante Lorino, nostri
codices omnes ea habent.
V. 31. Oi Kareasip$n h Juxi aircü Big #3ov.] Deest lux}
airoij, Iren. lib. iii, cap. 12, p. 229, Vulg. Syr. C. Alex,
“Insertum (inquit Millius) haud dubito, ex v. 26,” Prol. p.
122, col. 2. Sed agnoscunt hac verba Arab. Chrysost. et
CEcumen. in locum, Origen. in Reg. p. 32, ubi notat in
Psalmis hac legi, Ps. xv. (al. xvi.) 10, et ab apostolis in
Actibus interpretata. -
V. 47. Tº #xxxnaia.] “Irrepsisse e margine,” Millius,
Prol. p. 122, fide Vul. Æthiop. C. Alex. Agnoseunt auten
Chrysostomus, CEcumenius, Syr. Arab.
Cap. iii. 4. Ziv rá 'Iowawn..] Ita Chrysostomus, CEcumenius,
versiones omnes. Nihilominus Prol. p. 163, col. 2, “Wix
impedit summus codicum nostrorum consensus, quo minus
sequens oily tº Iowawn, licet in solo hoc codice, quod sciam,
haud jam extet, e margine irrepsisse censeam.”
W. 12. I?ia ºváºzet, # stat6tiº.] Ita CEcumenius, et
Chrysostomus tam textu quam commentario ; et tamen
Millius, Prol. p. 45, col. 2, “’13tº ºvápast, 5 #ovatiº, habet
Chrysostomus non semel.”
W. 20. Tºv trºoxexnpuyºyoy Xplorév.] MSS. plurima, Syr.
Arab. Chrysostomus, Theophylactus, Tertullianus, Chron.
Alex. legunt ºrgoxeipiaºzávoy. Vulg. et CEcumenius textui
assentiuntur. Inter utramque lectionem parvi interest, qui-
cunque enim a propheta praedictus, et praedicatus fuit
hominibus, idem certe praedestinatus fuit a Deo : verba
autem. Trºoxaráyyetas, v. 18, et rºoxathy/sixay, v.24, receptae
lectioni favere videntur.
W. 22. IIpê; rotic ratépaç.] “Translata huc videntur ex
v. 25,” Millius, p. 144, col. 1. Agnoscunt Chrysostomus,
CEcumenius, C. Alex. Arabs. *
Cap. iv. 12. Kai oil, Early $v 3xxº oiºsvi h a wrngia.] Ita
legunt Chrysostomus et OEcumenius in locum, Cypr. Test.
lib. ii. n. 16, versiones antiquae, Vulg. Syr. Arab.
W. 25. ‘O 3& arégator A&8:3 roi, ratēśg cow simºv.] MSS.
aliquot et Latini patres addunt Év IIveſºzart &yíº Vulg. Syr.
Arab. “Spiritu Sancto,” forte ex Mar. xii. 36. Nam neque
Chrysostomus, aut CEcumenius, neque Arab. Grabioque teste
in Irenäum, p. 226, haec verba textus Actorum Apostolico-
rum agnoscit.
W. 27. Zwhz$noray yag #n’ &anésia;..] MSS. plurima,
Chrysostomus, Cyrillus, Irenaeus, et quidam e Latinis patri-
bus, Vulg. et Syr. addunt iv tº tróxei raûrn, quae omittunt
CEcumenius et Arabs ; neque placent Millio, qui hic
“Chrysostomum, et Vulg. interpolatos esse” dicit, Prol. p.
85, col. 2. Grabius in Irenaeum, p. 226, inquit, “Glossema
est, non ipsius Lucas dictum.”
W. 32. "Hy h kapºta Kal h Juxi, wid.] Cyprianus et bini
codices MSS. addunt zai oix #y #y airoi; 31&ngiori; otºepcia, Sed
Origenes in Matt. p. 382, 383, editis congruit, et ex antiquis
scholiastis atque interpretibus, qui ha-c verba agnoscunt,
hominem arbitror fuisse neminem. -
Dap. v. 15. Kará rà; ºrxateta;..] Deest in AEthiop. Ag-
noscunt Chrysostomus, Vulg. Syr. Arab. Veruntamen Prol.
p. 124, col. I, medium, “xará rà; Traatefaç adnotatoris
cujusdam est, non evangelista.”
W. 34. Totº &roatáxov; #o wrotical.] MSS. duo, Vulg.
Chrysostomus, legunt àvščárovº, “quam lectionem ger-
manam arbitror,” inquit Millius ; at immerito. Nam tametsi
Gamaliel jusserit foras homines secedere, Divus tamen Lucas,
qui eos Christi apostolos esse probe novit, vocabulum illud
recte usurpare potuit; perinde ac CEcumenius, Syr. Arab. et
AEthiop. -
Cap. vi. 8. 2+$4ayo; 8% traflºn; ºria rew..] Millius hic, Prol.
p. 78, col. I, haec habet ; “Xágiro; omnino recte, ita enim
Vulg. Æthiop. Syr. Asterius, Proclus, Euthalius, Chrysos-
tomus:” GEcumenius autem et Arab. immo Chrysostomus
legunt ºria reo; doctorem fefellit in Chrysostomo, forte in
aliis, mos apud scripturas et patres loquendi de fide miracu-
losa rô rñº Xàgiro; $vápart. Lectionem textus mihi firmam
reddunt verba, com. 5, “Elegerunt Stephanum virum
7\heny tria reoc.”
Cap. vii. 37. Kºzio; ; Os3; tºy—airoi; &zoörea.Se..] Desunt
verba notata Arab. et Chrysostomo. Agnoscunt CEcumenius,
Vulg. Syr. AEthiop, evangelista, cap. iii. 22, 23. Millio
tamen judice, “airoi; &zoözta-Se, addita ex Deut. xviii. 15,
sunt verba Mosis, non evangelista,” Prol. p. 110. Quasi
religio esset Judaeo verba Mosis citare proutin textu Hebræo
et LXX. Interpretum inveniebantur.
Cap. viii. 10. Otté, Éarly # 36Vapai; Geoû h asyáAn..] Vulg:
et Irenaeus, lib. i. cap. 20, “Qua vocatur magna:” Chry-
sostomus, CEcumenius, Syr. Arab. legunt cum textu : nec
dicerent Samaritani eo cui fidem adhibebant à waxovºzáyn, sed
# 8vºrw; asyáxn. -
W. 39. IIvsjaa Kupiov #2trao's roy pixtºrtrov.] Hieronymus,
Dial. adver. Lucifer. dicit codices quosdam legisse ſystºwa
#ytoy firsa’ev ini rāv stydäxov, Kai äyyäxo; #prac's rêv bºxtrºrov.
Sed hanc lectionem Chrysostomus, CEcumenius, et versiones
antiquae non agngScunt.
Cap. ix. 5. 2xxngów col ºrgö; Kévréa Nakºrićev v. 6.—Kai à
Kūpio; ºrpā; abrèv.] “Haec in contextum transtulisse librarios
ex Act. xxii. 10, et xxvi. 14,” vult Millius, atque hanc esse
germanam lectionem, #y& stºº 'Inactic by at 34ketc. 3xx' &vá-
atmö, kal, &c. Sed in locis citatis non haec verba aúrox=#s:
reperies; non enim occurrunt régov ×ai 6aº 859, neque riºs
8èast; Troiſſarai; sed solummodo ºri Troiſſa'o, ; praeterea axxngáv
cot ºrgö; xévrpa Aawričuy hic agnoscunt CEcumenius, Vulg.
Arab. AEthiop. quorum auctoritas ad hanc lectionem pro-
bandam valet plurimum.
W. 20. ‘Exhguara's rêy xetary, 3ri dirá, écriv 3 við; rod Osoſ.]
Töv Xgiarov, Chrysost. CEcumen. Arab. ray 'Inarody, C. Alex.
Vulg. Syr. AEthiop. eodem sensu, idem nempe est in ore
apostolorum ×ngöttsty roy Xgiarov, et dicere Jesum quiem prae-
dicabant esse Christum. Hoc sensu Philippus ézágvara’ey rôy
Xºta rāv Samaritanis, Act. viii. 5; et falsi fratres ex invidia
erga Paulum rôy Xptary knºa covarty, Phil. i. 15. Quod
autem addit Millius, Prol. p. 93, col. 2, “Pauli scopo accom-
modatam magis esse vocem 'Inarody, cujus non erat demon-
strare Christum seu Messiam esse Dei filium (id enim.
Judaeis maxime in confesso erat) sed probare Jesum Naza-
renumſ fuisse Dei filium, sive Messiam,” in eo longe fallitur.
“Ego enim (inquit Origenes) cum multis Judaeis, iisque
sapientibus habitis, conflictatus, oběevö; &#x0a #matvojvºro; roy
Aáyov sival rôy vićy roſ, Geoû,” lib. ii. contra Cels. p. 79. Et
clarius adhuc, lib. iv. p. 162, “Illud quoque ignorat Celsus,
Judaeos non admodum hoc asserere Christum illum quem
etiamnum expectant adventurum, Qsy %yra, # 980; vičy, Deum
esse, aut Dei filium.” Hinc Hieronymus in haec verba, Jer.
xvii. 4, “Maledictus qui spem ponit in homine,” maledictos
pronunciat Judaeos qui spem habent in homine Christo, viz.
Suo, quem non filium Dei, sed purum hominem putant esse
venturum, unde Christum blasphemiae reum pronunciant
Judaei, quia dixit se filium Dei esse, Joh. v. 18. x. 34, 35.
W. 31. Ai Kºśy oëy #xxxnariat was’ &n; rā; 'Iověaia;, xat
Taxixaía, wai Xzºatsiac, Eixov Eightny, oikočoºcotºzºvat..] W. l. i.
#xxxnaria, Vul. Syr. AEthiop. Sed Chrysostomus, CEcume-
nius, et Arab. texturm sequuntur, et mentio trium ecclesiarum
sub diversis provinciis agentium firmat hanc lectionem.
Cap. x. 6. Ośro, XaXhas a oi ri are 35ſ Trossºv.] Quod cum
desit in MSS. pluribus, “glossema videtur additum ex Act.
x. 32, et xxii. 10,” Millius hic et Prol. p. 93, col. 1. Pos-
terior locus nihil ad rem facit, et v. 32, repetit tantum quod
hic dictum est, sic etiam cap. xi. 14, quod hanc lectionem
satis firmat; praesertim cum haec verba agnoscunt Chrysos-
tomus, OEcumenius, et Vulg. qui plerumque plus ponderis
apud Millium habet quam codices MSS. universi.
W. 21. Tow; &n'sa-raxaiyov; 373 roi, Kogynxiou ºrgö; airów.]
“Additum nullus dubito ex xi. 11, claritatis gratia,” inquit
Millius hic, nempe quia deest circiter in viginti MSS. et ver-
sionibus, sed (1.) sidesumatur hoc ex cap. xi. 11, cur non
hic etiam addatur &nd Katarageiac, quod occurrit illuc P (2.)
Extat apud exemplar CEcumenii, apud marginem Chrysos-
tomi, atque apud comma 17 hujus capitis ; itaque vero mihi
similius videtur omisisse quosdam hac verba ex eo quod post
row; &yèga; supervacanea ea esse existimarint.
W. 32. "O; ragayevåkasyo; Aaxhas a oi..] “Accessere com-
mentarii loco ex v. 22.” Sed agnoscunt Chrysost. CEcumen.
C. Alex. Syr. Arab.
Cap. xi. 12. Mn3iv 8taxévéſzewoy.] Ita Graeca scholia et ver-
siones omnes; nihilo secius haec Millius, Prol. p. 45, col. 2,
“Sequens ºwn?āv Baxçiyéº evoy nemo sustulerit, huc traductum
est ex cap. x. 20.” Hoc res omnino postulat ut were Petrus
repeteret quae et a Spiritu Sancto dicta esse refert ibi evan-
gelista, suntdue tanti ponderis ad Petrum a crimine ipsi im-
putato vindicandum, ut sine summa &3x5 pig, in hae rerum
gestarum enarratione omitti non potuerint.
V. 6. Ełow tº retpároša rā; yā;, xzi rā Śrgia.] “Omittunt
Syrus et Epiphanius, Haer. Cerinth. p. 112, xzi rā Śngia.”
| Observasse autem debuit Millius omissa pariter ibi esse rà
EXAMEN MILLII.
1173
«rere và roi oleavo; idem tamen Epiphanius disputando con-
tra Ebionitas, p. 146, mentionem facit ric 336vn, ric è xotan,
mayra è, ai ri Sneia re, raì e rhyn, éparerà «ai rerstvà, unde
certum est eum legisse id quod antea omisit.
Cap. xiii. 18. 'Ergoro piena e abroug è ri èphpeo.] “ Ereoro-
piena sv errore scribarum manifestissimo, pro irpo po pieno sv,”
inquit Millius: sed Chrysostomus, CEcumenius, et Vulg. ab
impressis non dissentiunt: è rgoropógnorey vero “a librariis ex
margine translatum fuisse in contextum” probare conatur
Millius his argumentis. (l.) Quia desumpta sunt ista ex
Deut. i. 3l, ubi versio LXX. legit è rpo po pieno sv. Sed
quater citat haec verba Origenes, sc. lib. iv. contra Cel. p.
210, hom. 18 in Jer. ed. Huetii, p. 169, Comm. in Matt. p.
459 et 475 ; et ubique habet è reoro pipnorev. Sic etiam Atha-
nasius, ut in contrariam partem trahatur a Millio ; sic enim
testimonium illius recte allegatur in Hoeschelii notis in
Origenem, tom. i. p. 977, è ri roo oi rov abroòg oi toc psgey &; si
rig rgo pòc rºomro poeharste ròv éavvic viv, “Cum fecerint sibi
Israelita vitulum ex auro conflatilem (ait Athanasius) cum
pane et aqua deficientibus murmuraverint, mores eorum
sustinuit Deus, pariter ac nutrix filiolo suo flenti aut leviter
irascenti adblanditur ; sed cum versa et mutata in pejorem
partem essent omnia, supplicio eos affecit maximo.” Legit
etiam è reoro piena e Codex Vaticanus, teste Huetio. (2.)
“ Moses (inquit Millius) ad fortia quaeque hortatur; quod
facere non potuit ex eo quod Deus eorum mores in eremo
per quadraginta annos sustinuerit.” Respondeo, potuisse
tamen populum hunc ad fortiteragendum incitare ex eo quod
idem Deus pro iis pugnaturus esset, de cujus potentia et
voluntate singulari dubitare, tot conspicuis prodigiis ab eo in
sui gratiam editis tum in AEgypto, tum etiam in Arabiae
desertis, ubi paterna benevolentia eos prosecutus erat, sum-
mum nefas esset ; hoc autem plane est commatis 30 et 31
argumentum.-Pergit Millius dicere, “ Deum eorum mores
per quadraginta anmos in eremo sustinuisse incongruum est,
imprimis, ac fortasse ne verum quidem ; quomodo enim
eorum mores per annos quadraginta in deserto pertulit Deus,
quos omnes praeter unum, et alterum prostravitin deserto?”
Respondeo, (l.) Si Mosi sit fides adhibenda, hac verba dicta
fuerunt ante hanc stragem ; “Tum (enim inquit Moses)
vobis dixi ne terreamini neve timeatis eos (v. 29). Jehova,
Deus noster, qui nobis praeit, is pugnabit pro vobis, pro om-
nibus quae fecit erga vos in oculis vestris in AEgypto (v. 30).
Et quae vidistis in hoc deserto, ubi vos tulit Deus vester
quemadmodum quisque filium suum bajulare solet, per om-
nem viam quam confecistis, donec ad hunc locum per-
veneritis.” Resp. (2.) Argumentum hoc supponere rò rpo-
aropogei, idem hic tantum valere quod “ mores eorum ferre,”
hoc autem negant insignes critici, Gatakerus, Dousaeus,
Boisius. Audi Boisium, “ è reoro pieno ev abroòc èy rii èphpaº,
i. e. ige Raì è84o raorey abroòc &osì rgo pòc ròv vićv tulit labores,
molestias populi hujus. Moses nimirum dixerat, v. 9, “ Non
possum solus nºv ferre hunc populum ; et v. 12, “ Quomodo
solus Nuº ferrem molestiam quam creatis mihi ? et hic “ Je-
hovah Nvi tulit te: in quibus locis Chaldacus utitur voce
map “bajulavit ; seu ergo legas è reotropignaev sive è reo popignaev,
utraque sensu 3ao régery accipienda sunt, ut textui originali
respondeant.” Claudo ha c verbis Boisii; “Porro reoro pogio
multo magis mihi placeat quam rpopopopéo, non modo
euphoniae gratia, sed etiam quia libri plerique omnes in ea
consentiunt lectione.”
V. 19. KaraxNnpo86 rna e abroi, riv yiv.] MSS. plura,
Chrysostomus et CEcumenius, habent ua raxxngoviana ay, et
“sic legendum constat ex Deut. i. 38, ubi LXX., quos se-
quitur Lucas, voce hac utuntur,” ita Millius: sed utram
vocem legas, Grotio judice, nihil refert, nam bri in Piel et
5 nºn in Hiphel modo vertitur tararo.npovopasiy, ut Deut. iii.
28. Josh. xiv, 2, et alibi nangoèorsi, ut Deut. i. 38, apud
Rircherum, sic Josh. Xix. 51, edit. Complut.; et l Macc. iii.
36, xXngoòorev est “terram sorte dividere.”
V. 23. “Hystee tº Iapaºx o oriea 'Ina civ.] Codices plurimi,
CEcumenius, Chrysostomus in Com. Athanasius, tom. i. p.
553, legunt hyays, et quidem o orneiay vitio librarii. Quod
vero hyeipe sit germana lectio, probabilis ratio reddi potest,
viz. quod Tò suscitare semen nunquam vertitur a LXX. âyery
arrieraa, sed semper vaarhasiv a riepca et in loco parallelo,
Act. ii. 30, legitur à vaarharey rèv Xetaróv. Vide cap. iii. 26,
et Luc. i. 69, Kaì i veige gigag a otngiag if y y rº; oinº roi rai-
èòc abrol, et sic se habet Dei promissum. avao rhoro rig Aagiº,
Jer. xxiii. 5. xxx. 9. do
V. 33. Og uaì iv ri la Atzº, rº 8evréeo yéyparrat.] Ev
slaApcº ri “ rgorº genuinam esse lectionem ” acriter con-
tendit Millius, ex auctoritate CEcumenii, Hilarii, et Origenis,
Cat. in Ps.ii. 7, teste cl. Huetio. E contrario notatu dignum
est, quod Tertullianus, contra Marcion. lib. iv. cap. 22, et
Cyprianus, libro i. et Quir. S. 13, habent diserte “Psalmo
secundo,” et Chrysostomus, versionesque omnes, editis con-
gruunt: in Hebraea, Chaldaea, et Graeca lingua atque apud
interpretes orientales hipsalmi in unum neutiquam confun-
duntur. S. Hilarius in Ps. ii. verbis luculentis declarat, quod
regnante Ptolemaeo LXX. senes psalmos in hunc ordinem
redegerint, numerosque affixerunt spirituali et coelesti scientia
psalmorum virtutem intelligentes: ex Spiritu igitur, et man-
dato Dei secundum Hilarium, psalmus hic secundum locum
longe ante obtinuit, dictusque fuit secundus, priusquam Acta
Apostolorum literis a Luca consignata essent ; Hieronymi
testimonium hic allatum, ut subdititium, respuunt critici:
idem autem Hieronymus, cum Hebraice psalmos in lucem
ediderit, hac verba a Luca allegata, sub secundo psalmo col-
locavit: major Origeni ex Catena adhibenda esset fides, nisi
dixisset idem Huetius, sublata est Catenarum fides. Ad
summam. Si psalmi veriyea poi fuerint, cur diceret Athana-
sius haec verba desumpta esse in roi Sevrépov LaNtcoi; ad ar-
gumentum” Millii (mutandi Sevrégo in argºro nulla omnino
causa fuerit, legendi èeuréeo pro rgo ro longe maxima, ne
discederet sc. Lucas a codicibus Hebraicis, ac Graecis Veteris
Testamenti) respondeo, mutandi forte causam fuisse ut
textus conformaretur exemplaribus illis Latinis quae a Beda
et Erasmo memorantur: quid multa? cum ha c locutus sit
Paulus, apud psalterium vel numerorum erat distinctio aliqua,
vel nulla; si nulla fuerit, cur psalmum Paulus aut primum aut
secundum nominat ? Sin autem reliqua, cur non ille Hebraeus
ex Hebrais receptum numerum et ordinem amplecteretur ?
V. 45. 'AvriNéyorreg Rai.] Deest in MSS. quibusdam, ver-
sionibusque: quod tamen agnoscunt Chrysostomus, et CEcu-
menius, atque idcirco solum omitti videtur, quia praecesserat
avriAeyov.
V. 48. 'E36;aaray roy Aiyoy roi Kvetov.] Sic Chrysostomus,
CEcumenius, Vulg. Arab. Sed “ Syr. et AEthiop. tòy Geòy,
recte,” inquit Millius, Prol. p. 129, col. 2.
Cap. xv. 20 et 29. Kai roi rvtuvoi..] IIvix roi omittunt, teste
Millio, Irenaeus, Cyprianus, Tertullianus, Hieronymus, Au-
gustinus, Ambrosius, Eucherius, Latini omnes: caterum
retinent Graeca quae vidimus omnia (excepto uno Cant.) ver-
siones omnes, etiam Vulgata, Origenes, lib. viii. contra Cels,
p. 396, “ patres ac tractores Graeci universim, ut proinde
minime sollicitandum arbitrer:” idém vero Millius, Proleg.
p. 45, col. 2, “Iisdem Latinis patribus cum Paciano et Ful-
gentio in medium prolatis, ha chabet, certe medium xaì rot,
rvixtoi ipsius Luca non est, sed Christianorum veterum,” &c.
Agnoscunt ro rvixtòv, ante Origenem, Clemens Alex. Paedag.
lib. ii. p. 172; post Origenem, Cyrillus Hieros. Catech. 4, p.
34, Cyrillus Alex. tom. i. p. 153 et 575, Constit. Apost. lib.
vi. cap. 12, Epiphanius Haer. Naz. S. 8, p. 124, Concilium
Gangrense, can. 2. Quid ad hac Millius ? “ Nempeista xaì
roi rvix roi, quae ipsius Luca non fuisse supra notavimus, in-
troduxerunt ante Clementis tempora librarii in textum,”
Prol. p. 61, col. 2. Vulgatum cur hic respuit si quaeras,
“addidit ex Graecis suis quartum “suffocati'” sc. Hiero-
nymus, Prol. p. 82, col. l. Et tamen, p. 61, col. 2, “Lege-
bant exemplaria aliqua Italicae versionis ante castigationem
Hieronymi;” fefellit hominem mos Latinorum, immo Grae-
corum, suffocatum sub interdicto sanguinis contineri existi-
mantium, adeoque tria tantum hic prohiberi putantium ; ita
Tertullianus, Apol. cap. 9, “Propterea quoque suffocatis et
morticinis abstinemus, ne quo sanguine contaminemur vel
intra viscera sepulto;” Chrysostomus, hom. 27 in Gen., ri
io ti xpéac è aiuari luxjic, Toir éo ri rviaròy, roi yà e à Aiyon
i luxà rò aiua rvyxáves. Adjiciunt his Irenaeus, lib. ii. cap.
12, Cyprianus ad Quir. lib. ii. cap. l l9, MSS. codices qui-
dam, hac, xaì 5a a àv può SéNooriy éavroic yivsa Sat régotg ai
Troiety. Quae quoniam non agnoscunt Chrysostomus, CEcu-
menius, Vulg. Syr. Arab. mec Clemens Alex., Origenes, nec
Constitutiones Apostolicae, nec patres reliqui ante citati, ea
cum Spencero rejicienda esse, Millio non invito, existino.
* Proleg.
I 174
EXAMEN MILLII.
Wer. 23. Oi resºgºrspot wai of 385*40.] Ita Chrysost. CEcum.
Syr. Arab. ºrpsagórspot 38Expoi, C. Alex. Vulg. Cant.
Barb. 1. -
Cap. xvi. 7. Ka? oëx starsv airrot, rö TIVEdºar] MSS. aliquot,
Vulg. Syr. AEthiop. Cyrillus Alex. addunt 'Imaoſ, sicut etiam
Hieronymus, lib. iii. contra Pelag. cap. 6, qui et hac addit;
“nota (inquit) quod Spiritus Jesus Spiritus Sanctus sit;” et
Cyrillus, Thes. p. 298, similem affert notam. 'Incoiſ vero
additamentum esse primo aspectu dignoscitur; nam licet dic-
, tiones hae IIvetºza Kveiou Xploroij, roi; viot, attoº interdum
usurpentur in N. T., dictio tamen IIvetºza. 'Ina of nunquam
solitaria incedit; Epiphanius, Anchor. p. 72, Chrysostomus,
et OEcumenius cum textu legunt ; alteram lectionem natam
suspicor ex controversia, quae post exorta est de processione
Sancti Spiritus a JFilio. Millio tamen est “genuina lectio,”
Prol, p. 71, col. 1.
W. 14. IIgoa'éxely roſ. XaAovgåvot; ind rot. IIaſaov.] Haec
verba agnoscunt Chrysost. CEcum. C. Alex. versiones omnes,
excepto unico AEthiope : et tamen, Prol. p. 124, col. 2,
“scholion hoc adjecit librarius quispiam in corpus historiae.”
Cap. xvii. 23. “oy cºw &yvoivºrs; Bücsósſºrs, rotºrcy.] Vulg. et
Origenes in Joh. p. 155, legunt 3 et rotºro Chrysostomus,
CEcumenius, et Clem. Alex. Strom. i. p. 314, et Strom. v. p.
588, Syr. Arab. lectionem textus retinent: sensus in utrisque
idem est.
W. 28. Tive; rāy was’ ºptic ºrcinºv.] Deest troinºr&y Irenaeo,
Lat. Augustino, Ambrosio, agnoscunt Clemens Alex. Strom.
i. p. 415, Origenes, Com. in Joh. p. 155, Chrysost. CEcume-
nius: hinc observatio illa frequens Clementis, Origenis, Chry-
sostomi, Paulum prudenter et opportune, profanis verba
facientem, poetarum testimonia laudasse.
Cap. xviii. 5. Xuveixºto ró, trysiºcari & IIaijao;..] V. l. rā
Moyá, Basilius, Theodoretus, Vulg. Syr. AEthiop. “instabat
sermoni:” Sed Chrysost. CEcumenius et Arab. cum excusis
consentiunt ; neque enim recte vertitur a weixºto active
“instabat,” sed passive “tenebatur,” constrictus, coarcta-
tus erat, Matt. iv. 24, Luc. iv. 38, viii. 37, xii. 50, Philip.
i. 23. -
V. 9. "Ew yukti.] Ita Chrysostomus, CEcumenius, Vulg.
Arab. apud Syrum tantum deest ; Millio tamen videtur “a
librario aliquo additum de margine,” Prol. p. 130; col. 1.
V. 10. Eyð sigºt ºri, a oil, Kai.] Desunt haec tantum apud
AEthiop. versionem nullius fidei: “Media tamen haec suspecta
habeo Trageº.8xhaeoc,” inquit Millius, Prol. p. 124.
W. 17. IIávts; oi"Ex\nve;..] Desunt of "EXAnya;, Vulg. unde
Millius, Proleg. p. 144, “Insertum est in nostris perperam:”
agnoscunt autem Chrysostomus, CEcumenius, versiones orien-
tales omnes.
W. 21. As ºf Trávrov, rºy Éogrºw rºw #pxop,ávny Troiſſa at Eic
'Iseova'ax#..] “Haec (inquit Millius) aliunde sunt ex Act. xx.
6. Act. xix. 21.” Habent autem. Chrysostomus, CEcumen.
Syr. Arab.
W. 27. Aix rā; xáguro..] Ita Chrysostomus, CEcum. ver-
siones orientales omnes: desunt hac apud Vulg. Bedam,
Basilium Seleuc. forte quia non existimarunt dona eximia et
divina in humc hominem collata fuisse, qui sciebat tantum
baptisma Johannis.
Cap. xix. 16. Karakveieſca; airów.] Vulg. et codices MSS.
quidam épºq’otégory: cum textu legunt Chrysostomus, CEcu-
menius, Syr. Arab. Sine discrepantia.
Cap. xx. 24. Merê Xapā;..] Desunt hac in MSS. quibus-
dam, Vulg. Syr. Retinent Chrysostomus, OEcum. Arab.
W. 28. Tºv #xxxnariay ºrcü Geoû.] Lectionem hanc probat et
egregie firmat Millius.
Cap. xxi. 7. 'Atrö Túgov.] Ita omnes, excepto Cov. 3, sic
tamen Millius, “à"rö Túpov licet jam in nostris omnibus locum
habent, ex versiculo tertio hujus capitis initio huc traducta
arbitror.” Prol. p. 163, col. 2. e
W. 8. Oi Tregi roy IIaşAoy..] Desunt hac Chrysostomo,
Vulg. Syr. Agnoscunt CEcumenius et Arab. : et res ipsa
postulat ut qui cum Paulo Ptolemaiada conveniebant, inde
cum eo egrederentur.
W. 13. Eig 'Iseova axflºw.] Omittunt haec Basilius, tom. ii.
p. 429, et Cyrillus, tanquam non ad eorum propositum :
agnoscunt Chrysostomus, CEcumenius, et versiones omnes:
et tamen Prol. p. 164, “medium si; 'Iseova &Añºz est insertum
v. 12,” cur non et 132
W. 22. Así tºà00; avvex0sív.] Desunt haec apud Syrum
Solum : agnoscunt Chrysostomus, OEctºmenius, Vulg. Arab.
“Introducta sunt (inquit Millius) ubi ipsa adscripserat scho.
liastes quispiam ex infra dictis v. 27. 30.” Prol. p. 150,
col. 1. • '
Cap. xxii. 12. 'Avig Big E8%; vel sixa£h;,] Chrysostomus,
CEcumenius, Syr. Arab. Haec tamen Millius, “Qui hic mescio
quid deesse putarunt, interserebant alii storegà, ex cap. x. 2,
alii sãxagh; ” Prol. p. 144, col. 2. ..
W. 20. Tà aft, a 2+54&vov rod ºxaprugé, cov.] Ita Graeca
scholia et versiones omnes: deest 27’s pâyou in Codice Alex.:
unde “vix est, ut unius codicis hujus testimonio lectionem
hanc germanam existimem, quis Xts pávov vocabulum tam
insigne praetermiserit P” Prol. p. 124.
W. 21. Kai awsvěoxãv rñ &vaigžo'ei atroč.] Ita Chrysosto-
mus, CEcumenius, Syr. Arab., Vulg. solo renitente ; et tamen
Millius, “explicatoria rā āvaipéo et airoi; alterius loci sunt,
nempe cap. viii. 1.” Ibid. -
W. 29. Kał Śri hvaðröy 3e3ex4;..] Ita omnes excepto AEthiop.
Et tamen Prol. p. 124, col. 2, “Vereor ut hac adjecerit
scholiastes aliquis ad plenitudinem historiae.” -
Cap. xxiii. 9. Si spiritus locutus est ei aut angelus, wh
Sãopºax&pasy.] Illud ºwn Szoºax&By adscriptum putat Eras-
mus ex cap. v. 39: et “quidni (inquit Millius hic) et hoc
scholion adnotatum putemus ad marginem libri a studioso
quopiam, ac cum sensum commodum efficeret, arreptum
mox in contextum a librariis P” Habent tamen haec verba
Chrysostomus et CEcumenius, qui pharisaeos introducit haec
loquentes, abroß &rogrägey, º attoſ; "roxswoëvre; Seáuaxo st-
£585,Ey, et Arab. et sensus is sublatis deficit.
W. 30. “Yºrd røy Iovčaiov—rå treag airy..] Desunt haec
omnia apud Vulg.: agnoscunt Chrysostomus, CEcumenius,
Syr. Arab. Nihilominus, Prol. p. 145, col. 1, “medium birà
Tây Iověaíoy, quod est in editis, irrepsit ex v. 27.”
W. 35. ExéxEva'é te abrów #y rô wealtogio, row ‘Hg68ou puxac-
a total.] Ita Graeca scholia et versiones omnes: et tamen
Millius, Prol, p. 91, col. 2, “Ego quidem totum hoc pro
scholio marginali habeo, quo lector quispiam adauctam
voluit hanc historiam.”
Cap. xxiv. 15. 'Avácraa'iy Kºśxxely £a'szóat vexºv.] Deest
vskgåy in Vulg. Agnoscunt Chrysostomus, CEcumenius, ver-
siones reliquae; at judice Millio, “insertum est in editis clari-
tatis gratia,” Prol. p. 94, col. 1.
V. 16. ’Awgāo xoroy a weiðnaiy fixely—3.arayrë..] Habent
ºr 8tatravrö; Graeca scholia et versiones omnes: et tamen
Millius Prol. p. 110, col. 1, “Mihi fateor 8tarayré, istud
vehementer suspectum est Trapsºha Ewº, irrepsisse videtur e
margine in locum non idoneum.”
W. 18. Tiys; &md ºrii, Azia: 'Iověaiot.] Ita Graeca scholia et
versiones universim vel hoc versu vel initio sequentis; et
tamen “adscripta fuerint ab aliquo ad marginem ex Act.
xxi. 26.37, explicationis causa, irrepsere demum in textum,”
Prol. p. 94, col. 2. -
Cap. xxv. 16. Xapičea-6ai riya &y94otroy Big 3"rdºstav.] Desunt
haec apud quosdam MSS. cod. Athanasium, Basilium, Theo-
doretum: “Adjectum jam olim arbitror interpretamenti gra-
tia:” agnoscunt autem Chrysostomus, CEcumenius, Syr. Arab.
respondentque egregie clamoribus Judaeorum non oportere
eum Vivere amplius, cap. xxiv. 24.
Cap. xxvi. 7, 'Ew inteveig.] Desunt haec tantum in Vulg.
et AEthiop. Nihilominus, Prol. p. 45, col. 2, “commentarius
est, non textus, sed qui Semel admissus, non mirum si in
infinitos postea codices manarit.”
Cap. xxvii. 28. Kai Tráxty 3oxia-avºrs;..] Desunt hac Vulg.
Syr. Habent Chrysostomus, CEcumenius, Arab. Suntdue ne-
cessario intelligenda.
Cap. xxviii. 1. Kai Staa.o.Sávts;..] Desunt Syr. agnoscunt
reliqui omnes: et tamen “lectionarium est ex versu ultimo
capitis praecedentis, non Divi Lucas,” Prol. p. 130, col. 1.
W. 16. "O Ézarávºragxo; aſ apé80xe row; Beckwiov; rø argaro-
78846xx.] “Desunt haec verba (ait Millius) Vulg. Syr.
Chrysostomo, et tribus MSS.” Ergo occurrunt apud reliqua
exemplaria omnia, ut et apud CEcumenium et Arabem ;
“Recte viri docti interpretantur (inquit Grotius) “praefectum
praetorio,” nam a Tiberii temporibus praetorianus miles in
castris habitus, teste Tacito Annal. 4: et sub ejus cura fuisse
reorum custodias multis ejusdem Taciti locis evincitur;” quid
ergo impedit, quo minus haec Lucas referret, Saltem ad indi-
candam singularem gratiam D. Paulo hic concessam P
W. 29.] Agnoscunt hunc versiculum Græci scholiasta, in-
terpretesque omnes, a Syro si discesseris. Prol. tamen p.
EXAMEN
MILLII. I 175
130, col. l, * versiculum hunc injectitium videri supra nota-
vimus, p. 94.”
LIBRI SECUNDI CAPUT TERTIUM
Examem continet variantium lectionum in epistolas D. Pauli,
et in epistolas catholicas.
SECTIO PRIMA.—EPISTOLA AD ROMANOS.
UT ratione, et methodo proposita, procedat susceptum
opus, de variantibus in epistolis lectionibus jam dicendum
est ; et hic jucundum mihi et gratum est, quod exemplaria
nostra ab illis Theodoreti, OEcumemii, Theophylacti raro,
idque in rebus nullius fere momenti dissideant, neque etiam
ab illis Chrysostomi quæ xat' άκgißetay scripta sunt, et non
xarà rò aùtozzáòov ττίς λά%sovc. Interea tamen mihi perquam
molesta fuit frequens illa introductio patrum Latinorum, et
versionum quorundam Græcorum patrum in Latinam lin-
guam ; quæ quidem parum ponderis et auctoritatis habent.
Græcorum quidem testimonia apud Millium parum valent,
mam si illi fides adhibenda sit, exemplaria eorum misere de-
pravata erant, atque ipsius, tamquam CEdipodis, judicio opus
est, ut a textu glossema, a vera lectione interpolatio, seu
scholion marginale, a genuino irreptitium dignoscatur. Errare
autem malumus cum Origene, Athanasio, Basilio, Theodo-
reto, et CEcumenio, quam cum Italis, et sede apostolica,
pene dixeram, vera sentire.
In Græcis patribus pervolvandis quarundam ex epistolis
tota pene capita totidem verbis quot in textu citata interdum
reperimus. Ex. gr. a versu 1 capitis i. ad Rom. ad quam ita
legit Origenes, Com. in Joh. p. 55 et p. 266, ita etiam ab 18
ad 24: similiter Greg. Nyssem, tom. ii. p. 734, Basil. tom. ii.
p. 632, a 28 ad finem capitis. Non leve hoc indicium est,
quod in his locis varians unaquæque lectio nihil aliud sit,
quam textus genuini depravatio. •
Cap. i. 16. Tò £ayy£Xtov Xgtatoj.] Deest Xgiaroj Vulg.
Tertul. Ruffino, Hilario Diac. Syr. Æthiop. Retinent Theo-
doretus, CEcumenius, Theophylactus, et licet a textu Chry-
sostomi exciderit, eum tamen ita legisse constat ex eo quod
mirum illi sit visum apostolum qui alibi dixit, “ Glorior in
cruce Christi,” hic solum dixisse “ Non erubesco εὐαγγέλιον
xgtatoÜ.” Cumque evangelium, de quo loquitur apostolus,
Christi pro certo evangelium fuerit, quidni hanc vocem hic
adhibuisset pariter ac cap. xv. 19. 29, et ad eundem sensum
hic v. 9 ? Ibid. 'Iov8aiv 7rgótov. Tô argêtov agnoscunt Gr.
scholia, C Alex. Hilarius D. et versiones omnes. Et tamen
dicente Millio, ex fide unius Tertulliani, * irrepsit ex aliis
locis hujus epistolæ,** Prol. p. 46, col. 2.
V. 17. 'Ek 7riaTto); άσετaι.] Vulg. Hilarius Diac. aliique
Latini legunt “ vivit.” Sed liquet Irenæum, lib. iv. cap. 37,
p. 365, legisse “ vivit,'° postquam enim hæc allegasset verba,
addit, “ Hoc autem quod justus ex fide vivet, per prophetas
prædictum fuerat.” Ipse Hieronymus, C. Alex. et omnia
Gr. scholia legunt ἀσετaι, Esthius etiam, spreto hic Vulgato
interprete, ait “ rectius in futuro vivet,” sic enim multi iique
meliores habent codices, Græcis etiam Syrisque adstipulanti-
bus; mam et apud prophetam Hab. iii. 4, ipsum futuri tem-
poris verbum habetur. Et LXX. quoque Interpretes futurum
reddiderunt, eademque lectio est in Græcis, Gal. iii. 11, et ad
Heb. x. 38, quibus locis eadem scriptura citatur.
V. 18. T}v άλλθειav Év &8txig xat£χόντων.] Vulg. Hilarius
Diac. Orig. Lat. Pseud-Hieronymus, Latini alii, legunt ** ve-
ritatem Dei,” reclamantibus Græcis omnibus, versionibus
orientalibus, et C. Alex. et vero Origene contr. Cels. lib. vi.
p. 276. Hic autem nobis odiose obtrudit “ Pseud. Hierony-
mum, sive Pelagium, opus, Usserio judice, posterioris ævi,
quod a viro nullius judicii compagimatum fuit,” et tamen
gratum Millio, quia cum Vulgata, quæ ipsi est in deliciis, mul-
toties consentit. $
Cap. ii. l. IIäc § xpivoy.] Ita omnia Gr. scholia, C. Alex.
Vulg. Hilarius Diac. Rufin. Arab. “ Träc tamen (inquit
Millius) explicatoris alicujus esse puto, non apostoli, ita Syr.”
Prol. p. 230, col. 1. Syr. autem ibi legit, “ Omni excu-
satione cares, o homo.”
V. 5. In die iræ xaì à7rok&Xö\μεως άκαιολgtoriac roù @εοῦ.]
Vulg. Hilarius Diac. Iren. lib. iv. cap. 71, p. 375, et Syr.
legunt cum textu. Omnia autem Gr. scholia cum aliis
addunt καί ante òxatoxptaiac* hoc tamen, juxta Grotium, est
tantum ἐν διὰ δυοῖν, quod sensum non mutat:
V. 7. Ka6* irop.oy}v Égyov àya6où.] V. 1. δὲ ἐgyov àya66v,
Theophilus Antioc. ed. Paris. lib. i. p. 79. Millii hic me
miseret ; nam ex septem variantibus lectionibus unicam
hanc in lucem profert, reliquas silentio premit, nempe pro
xατὰ τὰ ἐgycz aùtoù legit Theoph. καί á£iav τὸν μια$öw* post,
áya0où omittit 86%av xai τιμ}y' ante %o}v ai&vtov addit δωgkasta**
et denique χαθάν, εῖpfiynv, âyâ7ravaiy, xai 7r\fi6m àya6öw* pro
vo?, 8È ÉÉ Ép18=tas legit τοῖς δè átria roig, xaì xata Φpovntaîç, ut
reliqua missa faciam. Nec sane constat consilium ei fuisse.
ut certum aliquem locum allegaret, sed potius ut ex uni-
versa scriptura Autolyco statueret ante oculos præmia, quæ
bonis tribuet Deus, et pœnas quibus improbos afficiet. Multæ
ejusmodo variantes lectiones occurrunt, quæ nomen istud
neutiquam merentur: Gr. scholiis omnibus, C. Alex. et Hi- .
lario Diac. hic repugnantibus.
V. 17. '183.] * Ecce tu Judæus cognominaris,” v. 1, si 8è,
** si autem,” Vulg. Hilarius Diac. Clem. Alex. Stro. i. p.
353, Theophyl. Syr. Sed Chrysost. Theodoret. CEcum.
C. Alex. textui adstipulantur ; atque hæc, secundum Eras-
mum, est verior et antiquior lectio; alioquin non satis co-
hæret ordo: ex v. 31 confirmatur ό σὺν διδάσκων, nec enim
-r§ oÜv ei 8è, sed iè apte respondet. -
V. 26. Eig Trsgitos.y Xoyta$%αετaι.] Hic in textu Chry-
sostomus legit τεgiteatrhaetas, et deinde addit oùx είτε λογισ-
$hastat, άλλὰ τga Thaerat, άτεε ἐμφatik&repov %v- aiunt autem
CEcumenius et Theophylactus, σύκ είτε τὴν τεgitopwjv vikã,
άλλὰ εἰς τεgttop.}ν λoysa$haretas, ita enim legunt Theophylac-
tus, Cyril. Alex. to. iii. p. 781, C. Alex. Hilarius Diac. et
omnes versiones quæ textum ab unico Chrysostomo, sibimet-
ipsi parum constanti, abunde vindicant.
Cap. iii. 2. Πgάτον μάν γά£ άτι ίτιστεύ$mzay τὰ λόγια ταῦ
@eo5.] Ita Theodoret. (Ecumen. Theophyl. C. Alex. Hilarius
Diac. versiones omnes. ** Origenis tamen in Catena MSS.
(ait Millius) istud perinde interpTetatur ac si scriptum esset
&rt qrg3tov." Idem innuit Com. in Matth. p. 209, dicendo
hæc erant Xóyta à wpötov 'Iovδαῖοι ἐστιστεύ$maray, et p. 462,
“ Vinea illis credita erat, lex et prophetæ Tgotágoiq pxàv τὰ λaj
èxeivq), primum quidem populo isti, xaì yàg Tgötov £7rtate$$maray
tà Aóyta toú @eo$, iis enim primum commissa sunt eloquia
Dei, δευτεροις 8è tí å7rò τὸν ê$yóv άλλλησία *' sed hinc nom se-
quitur aliquid illum a textu diversum legisse, ut constat ex
his verbis in locum, ** Quid autem multo sit amplius sub-
jungit :” “ Primo, inquit, quia credita sunt illis eloquia Dei,
quamvis enim et gentibus nunc creduntur eloquia Dei, sed
illis, ait, primo sunt credita.” Quod si &£v yàp omittat
Chrysost. id nullius momenti est, exhibent enim ea reliqui
omnes citati.
V. 9. IIpontiaa £px£$a.] Ita Gr. scholia omnia, C. Alex. et.
versiones orientales: quibus posthabitis, ** 7r£om rtaa âpx£$c.
(inquit Millius) alicujus scholiastæ est,” Prol. p. 46, col. 2,
åírigarápxe$a légendum vult cum Vulg. Hilario Diac. Ger.
Clar. •
V. 25. Atà rj; Tria veoyc.] ** Deest Alex. Chry. in Com.”
ita Millius; sed fallitur, Chrysost. ibi id solum dicit, “ addi-
disse apostolum ἐν τά aigati aùtoù, ut sanguis Christi hostiis
Judaicis opponeretur.” Cum textu legunt omnia Gr. scholia
et versiones antiquæ, inter quas Vulg. Orig. Com. in Matt. p.
285, in Joh. p. 22, et in locum. Hanc ergo levem dissimili-
tudinem, ut et Θεού pro Ίησοῦ, commate sequenti, Milliique
judicium hic parvi facio, qui Prol. p. 66, col. l, ait “ Illud
8ià qria t£ovg irrepsisse non dubito.”
Cap. iv, 12. ToT; oùx iw regttoa fic p.6vov.] Theodoret. hic
legit où roïc, sensu eodem ; Chrysost. autem, CEcumenius,
Cyril. Al. Glaph. in Gen. p. 66, et Theophyl. legunt cum
téxtu : ex eo äutem quod in commentario dicit Theophylact.
oÜr», 86? &vayv%vai, xà Tatága τῆς ττερχτομῆς, οὐ τοῖς ix wepi-
πομῆς μόνης, δμοιωμάνοις αὐτ?, non magis sequitur eum in textu
legisse où τοῖς quam μόνης όμαρμενοις. s -
V. 19. o3 karsyánas.] “ Non consideravit corpus suum
emortuum;'° vi l. d. ου, C. Alex. Chrysost. ed. Mor. tom. i.
p. 311, Theodoret. &; xaT£yána£, sed Chrysost. QEcum.
Theophyl. in locum, Basil. to: ii. p. 418, Vulg. Hilarius
Diac. rétinent où. Altera etiam lectio sensum non mutat,
cum unicum hoc significet, quod licet Abraham consideravit
corpus suum mortuum, et emortuam vulvam Saræ, non ta-
men infirmatus sit fide. /
V. 20. o$ $isapien tí átriati*.] Ita legunt omnia Gr.
1176
EXAMEN MILLII.
scholia, Vulg. Hilarius Diac. Syr. Arab. et C. Alex. Est,
tamen, dicente Millio, ex fide AEthiop. rā ātriatiº arreptum
de margine, Piel. p. 124, col. 2.
Cap. v. 1. Eighway #x2kasy..] Agnosco hic omnia Gr. scholia
legisse #xogey, Vulg. Hilarium Diac. et quosdam Latinos
“habeamus :” sed monente, Erasmo, in plerisque Graecorum
codicibus scriptum habetur Exopºv, et sensus hic non patitur
imperandi modum (nisi ixopsy reddas, “retineamus,” quam
significationem obtinet, Hebr. xii. 28, aliisque in locis)
apostolus siquidem loquitur de justificatis per fidem qui
pacem jam habent cum Deo, et subsequentia “per Dominum
nostrum Jesum Christum” eundem sensum plane indicant;
“Justificatis enim ex fide in Christum,” recte dicit apos-
tolus, “pacem habemus per fidem in Christo,” parum recte
autem dixisset, “habeamus” per eum pacem illam, quae iis
a longo jam tempore acquisita fuit. -
W.2. Tº triars...] Deest AEth. MSS. quibusdam, Hilario
D. Sed extant verba haec in omnibus Gr. Scholiis, Vulg. Arab.
Syr. : “est tamen (judice Millio) commentarius importune
satis intrusus in textum,” Prol. p. 46, col. 1.
V. 5. To 30Sévro; hºv.] Ita Gr. scholia, versiones omnes,
C. Alex. Hilarius Diac. : “ct tamen (dicente Millio) roſ
30%vro; hºw assumentum ex fide Vulg. nescio cujus,” Prol.
p. 46, col. 2.
W. 12. “o 9ávaro; 31;\Sev.] ‘o Sáyatc.; hic occurrit vel ante
vel post 35Aşey apud Gr. scholia, et versiones universim, et
C. Alex, ; ex fide tamen Ruffini, et Hilarii Diac. “irrepsit
ex priore parte versiculi,” Prol. p. 46, col. 1.
W. 17. Kai rā; 3ogsäg rā, śikatoatlynç.] Deest rā; 80283;,
Iren. lib. iii. cap. 18, p. 242, Orig. Com. in Joh. p. 334,
August. lib. i. de Bapt. cap. 13: sed, omnes versiones, et
Gr.scholia, C. Alex. et Hilarius Diac. hanc vocem retinent,
quam tametsi Origenes loco dicto omittat, ait tamen p. 338,
clam Judaeos fuit, 3rt of rºw wagºza'síay rā; Xàpiroc, zai rā;
3al683, Aap,8ávoyrs; 8aaixada ovci, 313 roi whº 'Inaou Xgiaroiſ.
Irenaeum et Origenen non legisse, ait Grabius, forte quod hae
dua voces ob recurrentem particulam tăç per negligentiam
scribae omissae essent, Asserit quidem Millius “Origenerm
legisse 8aaixeſ oval,” sed emendatur hac lectio p. 338; et
imarg. 334, adscribitur yºp 8aaixiſcoval, quod in Chrysostomo
etiam potuit reperire Millius, si commentarium illius dili-
gentius excussisset, ubi in clausula iy £off 3a**Eva'oval, usque
adeo in citationibus suis dormitat Millius, sicut etiam Prol.
p. 46, ubi “ rā, śageå; irrepsisse” ait.
Cap. vi. 4. Ată răç 8%m; roß ratgå..] Desunt hac Iren.
lib. iii, cap. 18, Tertul. de Resur. 47. In textu autem re-
tinent omnes cod. MSS. Gr. Scholia, versiones, C. Alex.
Hilarius Diac. : Prol. tamen p. 74, cap. 2, “Big 33%m; rot.
ware?, scholiastas est, non apostoli.”
V. 10. “o y&p &réSavs, rā āºagriº &réSave, et tº &ºcaprig
#&@y.] Orig. in Matt. p. 417 : ita Millius; textum tamen ip-
sum exhibet Origenes, Com. in Joh. p. 11. Hypostigme
postea ad vocem &ºagria, et p. 204, et lib. ii. contra Cels.
p. 102, immo eodem in loco et linea immediate sequenti
rationem affert quare dum loqueretur de remissione peccato-
rum facta per Christi baptisma addidisset hºv, viz. 316tree 3
&ráðave ºff &gatriº hºw, its; airèc &tišave ºff &gapºriº oi roſ
#avroſ., &XX& rà hºwering. Crebras ejusmodi a Millio cita-
tiones, ut res postulat, invitus refero. Porro Prol. p. 124,
col. 2, hac habet, “r; &aaptiz, quod in cateris fere omnibus
(excepta Æthiop,) irrepsisse exhujus cap. v. 2, omnino sus-
picor.” ex suspicionibus tam iniquis tota scriptura fides pe-
riclitatur.
W. 12. Non ergo regnet peccatum in vestro mortali corpore
sic to tranoáely airfi iv taſ; ºriðvøiat; aircí.] Verba sub-
notata desunt Tren. lib. v. cap. 14, p. 421, Tertul. de Resur.
cap. 47. Retinent autem ea Orig. regi Eixãº, p. 79, C.
Alex. Hilarius Diac. Gr. scholia, Versionesque ad unum
omnes; perperam igitur Millius hac veluti commentarium
rejicit, non textum, Prol. p. 46, col. 2. p. 66, col. 1.
W. 16. "Hºroi &p, agria, ei, Sávatoy..] Ei; 84varoy agnoscunt
Gr. scholia, C. Alex. Hilarius Diac. Vulg. Arab. AEthiop. D,
Syr. Clar, “unde adjectum videtur (inquit Millius) an-
titheseos causa,” Prol. p. 46, col. 1. -
W. 23. 'Ey xeterrö 'Inazi ré, Kupite hºy.] Ita Gr. Scholia,
C. Alex. Hilarius D. Vulg. Syr. Arab, ; sed quoniam apud
AEthiop. desunt ha-c, Millio videntur csse veteris cujusdam
adnotatoris: Prol. p. 124, col. 2.
Cap. vii. 2. 'Ayºi 3:3tral viae..] Fatemur Origenem, in
Matt. p. 268, legisse Évri várzº, sed Gr. scholia, et vetusta
versiones, C. Alex. Iłilarius D. lectionem textus sequuntur.
Cap. viii. 1. Tot; ºch karð orépxa regiºnarcici &AA& Mara
IIvetºza.] Desunt hac Dial. contra Marcion. p. 146, Athanas.
Ep. ad Serap. p. 18. Existimo autem verba ista eos missa
fecisse ex more perusitato patrum, qui quicquid instituto
Suo alienum est, silentio transeunt ; prima enim parseorum
occurrit apud omnia Gr. scholia, Hilarium D. et vetustissi-
mas versiones, atque apud Cod. Alex. quocum Athanasius
arch. Al. plerumque conspirat. Postrema pars etiam repe-
ritur apud Theodoretum, CEcum. Theophylactum, et Arab.
Retinendum esse autem constat ex mutua inter severborum
connexione ad hunc modum : “Nihil damnationis est ifs
qui ambulant war& ré IIvetº a 3 yap väg,0; rot IIvsögaro; libe-
ravit me, et omnes qui sunt in Christo Jesu, a lege peccati,
qua ad mortem fuimus damnati.” -
Cap. ix. 10. ‘Pé8szza # #vö; noirmy #xovira. 'Iračz.] “Ex uno
concubitu,” patres Latini aliqui. Haec, et plura hujusmodi
non tam dicenda sunt variantes lectiones, quam Graeci ser-
monis interpretationes. Rectius reddas, “Ex uno Isaac con-
cubitum habens,” i.e. copulationem : xoirn enim hoc Saºpius
significat, Lev. xviii. 20. xxx. 13. Numb. xxxi. 17, 18; vel
“semen habens,” adstipulantibus CEcumenio et Lev. xviii. 23.
Numb. v. 2, 20 : sapissime autem occurrit xoſtm a régaaroº.
V. 18. “oy Séxel axxnpüver.] Agnoscunt rô Sºae; Gr. scholia
omnia, Origenes in Ex. ed. Huet. p. 22, C. Alex. Hilarius
Di. versiones omnes: censet tamen Millius irrepsisse ex
margine explicationis gratia, Prol. p. 156, col. 2.
W. 24. Oic kai #xáxEasy hºàc.] Tº hºwä, habent C. Alex.
Hilarius D. Gr. scholia, et versiones omnes. Male ergo
Erasmus additum censet explicationis gratia.
W. 28. Aéyou yī; avytexãy zai ouvrépzvoy iv \gatorávn, ºrt
Aóyov avy re-rºw{yov trotha-e ā Kūčio; #7ri yº;..] Legendum vult
Millius Aéyoy cºvytsiagºw zai ºuvršºvov trothee & Kügloº, mediis
intermissis; quum vero textus exhibeat ipsissima verba tzºv
LXX. Interpr., approbantibus Chrysostom. CEcum. Theo-
phylacto, Vulg. Arab. Hieron. Hilario Di., ne uno com-
mentatore, in quantum scio, partem adversam defendente,
Millii sententia et lectio respuendae jure optimo videntur.
Cap. x. 1. ‘Yºrie roč 'la gańx.] Chrysost. Vulg. Ruffin.
Hilarius D. legunt airāv, quod idem significat ac rot; 'Izgaºx"
ratione sc. habita ad Israel, de quo mentio cap. ix. 31 :
unde Chrysostomus in Ps. xlviii. ed. Mor. tom. iii. p. 270,
& Tatao; ºregi 'lověatov #36 ºve. Aéyov h \nai; # ºrgö; rºy Qey Tepi
airāv Šarly sic orotnáiav. Sed Theodoretus et OEcumenius
tum in textu, tum in commentario legunt trèg 'Iagahx.
V. 5. Tºv Sixaloa-ºwny rºy in rod vôpov.] Totum illud omittit
AEthiop. : habent autem. Gr. scholia Hilarius D. versiones,
“sed inseruit quispiam,” Prol. p. 141, col. 1. Mirum certe
est, si in libros omnesistos inseruisset.
‘O trotharac air& &v6poºre, &hastal #y airoſ...] “Deest attà
Chrysost:” ita Millius ; sed reperies tam in Chrysostomo
quam in caeteris Gr. scholiis, et in Hilario Di., sicut etiam
#y airroſ, quae desunt in solo Vulgato, iisque Latinis qui Vul-
gati vestigia premunt. Erratur etiam in testimonio Clem.
Al. : non enim verba hujus epistolae citat Stro. ii. p. 281,
sed ille Lev. xviii. 5, ad hunc modum, & Trothara; aut& àv-
Sgorro; &#a's rat #y airoſ; non esse mutandum #w £avroſ: in
#y Éavrº, Suadent Clem. Al. versio rày LXX. omniaque
Graecorum scholia, contra Millium, Prol. p. 129, col. 1.
Cap. xi. 13. Thw 8takoviay (wov 30%430.] Vulg. Ruffin. Hila-
rius Diaconus, videntur legisse 80%áco' sed omnia Gr.
scholia, C. Al. legunt cum textu in praesenti tempore, quod
est ad scopum apostoli accommodatius, Millio incassum
renitente.
W. 21. Māºrw; otº cov ºptiontal.] Non diffitemur Chrysos-
tomum et Theodoreturn legisse peia's rai. Vulg. “parcat.”
Sed CEcumenius, Theophylact, C. Alex. habent psia'n'rai
pro aroğhaerat, v. 26. Vulg. Hilarius, et Arab. legunt “sal-
vus fieret” cosia nºrai' sed Iren. lib. iv. cap. 5, p 278, “sal-
vabitur.” Orig. in Matt. p. 360, in Jer. p. 74, et omnia
Gr. scholia, legunt aroğhantat.
V. 30. "Qa"reg Kai tºsſ;..] Deest kai apud Chrys. et Theo-
phylact. : habent Theodoret. CEcum. C. Alex. Vulg. Syr.
Arab. atque hic zai čºceſs proprie significat voxetiam Anglice,
“even you,” vel “you also.”
W. 32. Conclusit Deus roºc ºrávrac.] Vulg. Ruffinus, Hi-
larius D. Hieron. legunt ºrd Trávra, forte quoniam ita se
habet Gal. iii. 22. Scd Gr. scholia Jegunt roic way rac
EXAMEN
MILLII. 1 I 7
utraque lectio eundem sensum exprimit, hominibus enim
tantum ha-c gratia concessa est.
Cap. xii. 3. Dico enim 32 rà, 3:4piro; rā; 308sian; fºot.]
Ita legunt Gr., scholia omnia, C. Alex. Hilarius D. Vulg.
Syr. Arab. “Sed tamen quia in vers. Æthiopica desunt
verba subnotata, rā; 300elain; &ot adjecta censuerim ex 1
Cor. iii. 10.” Prol. p. 124, col. 2. Porro Millius hic verba
Chrysostomi sic exhibet, oùx store, 3rd rā; aoqiaº, 3rd rā; yop,0-
6earlac, &AAd 31& rā; xàpiro; ©Boij, Chrysost. ut nempe faveret
lectioni AEthiop. et Theophylacti 8tº rā; xáguros Osotſ' verba
tamen Chrysostomi haec sunt, oùx stºrs Aéyo yde tºxiv 8td. rā;
copia; roš Osoſ, 3rd rāg vogoşeciaç roi, Osoſ, &AAd bid tâ; X&et-
roº, ubi @Eoiſ cum apostolo relinquit intelligendum ; non
prout Millius, apposuit.
Cap. xiii. 1, 2.] Omnes variantes lectiones ab A. ad I. re-
futantur a pleno consensu omnium Gr. scholiorum, et Ori-
genis ipsissima textus verba exhibentium ; quamvis enim
Hilarius Diac. et Iren. Lat. legerint, “Omnibus potestatibus
superioribus subditi estote,” Grabius, not. in Iren. lib. v.
cap. 24, haec habet, “Non ab ipsius Irenaei manu, sed inter-
pretis haec lectio profluxissevidetur.” Orig. C. Alex. Au-
gust. tom. x. de Verbis Dom. serm. 6, Syr. Arab. Gr. scholia
omnia legunt rāga. Juxº tºrotagaka S”. (2.) Chrysostomus
(inquit) et CEcum. legunt trè, non &nd rod Osotſ. CEcum.
tamen, Origenes, Theodoret. Theophylact. onnes versiones,
et Latini omnes legunt “a Deo.” Chrysost. cum apostolo,
aliquando 373, aliquando in 3. (3.) Dicit “Origenen Com.
in Rom. omisisse haec verba, ai 33 oia at #ova'iaº ind rod Osoſ;
Terayºzával airly.” Stat contra Orig. contra Cels. lib. viii.
p. 421, ubi postguan citasset hac ipsa verba, continuo addit,
āv Kºšy roiye roi; ºrgö; rºw eiç ‘Pogaiov; #myntizoic, &, Swarov
#y tº ini raeſov, kai raira tº $hºwara Trotziao; #erácapasy.
Extant etiam apud Iren. C. Alex. apud Gr. scholia, et
versiones omnes: nihil igitur est causae, cur adjectum ab
interprete quodam censeret Erasmus. Denique cum dicit
“‘rā āśovaia deesse apud Wul. Hilarium D. August. AEthiop.
Orig.” in Origene fallitur. Retinent etiam Gr. scholia omnia,
Syr. Arab. praeponderant Latinis legentibus, “Qua, autem
sunt, a Deo subordinatae sunt,” libi yox “potestates,” quae
in priori parte commatis agnoscitur, necessario subintelli-
genda est: tamen Prol. p. 134, col. 2, “medium #ovaria;
irrepsit ex priori parte versiculi.”
W. 9. Ob Jevèopcaerughastc.] Deest MSS. plurimis, Hilario
Diac. C. Alex. Theodoreto, Basil. tom. ii. p. 471. Sed
retinent Iren. lib. iv. cap. 26, p. 313, Chrysost. CEcum. Vulg.
Arab. AEthiop. Porro usitatissimum apud patres est in
notissimis rebus, is praesertim, quas verba sequentia (et si
quod aliud mandatum est) satis indicant, mutila quaedam
exhibere, et quasi decurtata. V. g. Orig. in Matt. p. 380,
Clem. Alex. Strom. p. 478, ita hunc textum citant, où
‘povića etc, où actyºasts, oi wałºstº, caetera desunt. Et p. 381,
Origenes allegat unicum hoc od povečasic, wai et rig £réea
#vroxº, et Theodoretus in commentario praetermittit odz Śmi-
Supahagic. *
V. 13. Măzózoic.] Syr. Arab. “non cantu,” quod non est
varians lectio, 'sed explicatio vocis, ita enim Phavorinus et
scholiastes Aristoph. xàºzot, 3a exyń śagara troºvinë, avºc-
groa taxoi ºbai, #xmast; Kará pºšn;' vide apud Aristoph. p.
162, 708, 772, ubi scholiastes observat hos cantus composi-
tos fuisse Big Batºćvow ripahv.
Cap. xiv. 6. Kai é º peovåv rāv hºpay, Kvpio oi peoveſ.]
Parum refert Latinos omnes hac omisisse, cum retineant
Basil. tom. ii. p. 456, et Gr. scholia, vide Prol. p. 125,
col. 1.
W. 9. Eic rotºro y&é Xºta rā; &méSave, zai čváo-rm, xat #véºn-
o'Ev.] 'Avá-rm suspectum habet Esthius occupati loci alieni,
sed immerito ; reperias enim vocem illam apud Iren. lib. ii.
cap. 20, p. 245, Orig. in Joh. p. 126, 317, et contra Cels.
lib. ii. p. 110 ; apud Hilarium D. Gr. Arab. Gr. scholia
omnia, me Chrys. Quidem excepto, apostolus addit vocem,
ivšćna by vel #&nd'Ey, ut respondeat voci Öyrov, et vocenn
itrèays ut respondeat voci wszpāv, atque hinc fortasse fuit
quod has solas explicavit Chrysost. Rejicit tamen hanc
lectionem Mill. Proleg. p. 72, col. 1.
W. 21. "H axw8axičeral, &a Seysſ...] Habent haec Gr.
scholia onnia, Hilarius D. Vulg. Arab. Est tamen, juxta
Millium, hoc scholion marginale, quod scriba aliquis in
corpus epistolae transmisit: Prol. p. 123, col. 1.
V. 22. 'Evárov tº Gesù.] Desunt hac marg. Chrysost,
. Habent Theodoret. CEcum, V ulg. Syr. Arab. Hilarius D.ac.
C. Alex.
Cap. xv. 4. "Ora y&e Trposygáºn.] Hanc lectionem retinent
omnia Gr, scholia, C. Alex. Syr. Arab. et postulat ipsa mens
sensusque apostoli ; loquitur enim de S. Scriptura Wet. Tes-
tamenti: dicente autem Millio, Prol. p. 135, col. 1, “muta-
vit quispiam simplex #ygáºn in Trgosygáºn.”
V. 12. IIáxiv.] Deest Aºth. Chrysost. Habent reliquae
versiones, et scholia, et C. Alex. : et tamen Prol. p. 124, col.
1, medium “ráxiv insertum videtur ex superioribus.”
V. 13. 'Ev rá; mareſsiv.] Desunt haec Clar. Ger.: agnoscunt
Gr. scholia omnia C. Alex. Hilarius D. Vulg. Arab. “Wereor
tamen (ait Millius, Prol. p. 135), ne sit scholion.”
W. 14. "Oti kai atroi (wearoi are rā; 3,2Swoºn;..] Ita Gr.
scholia omnia, Cod. Alex. Hilarius D. Vulg. Syr. : sed quia
xai atrol deesse videntur Arab. AEthiop. “media xai auroi
(inquit Millius, Proleg. p. 135), adscripta puto ad marginem,
indeque irrepsisse in corpus libri.”
V. 19. 'Ev Švvápagº IIyeºkaro; Osoč.] Millius, p. 46, “Oect;
studiosi alicujus est,” sed agnoscunt Gr, scholia omnia, et
versiones orientales.
W. 24. 'Exedo-op, at are?; tızáç.] Desunt ha-c Chrysost. Vulg.
et Latinos qui Vulgatum sequuntur. Explicantur a Theo-
doreto, CEcum. Theophylacto, atque ideo solum omitti
videntur, quia providentia Dei iter illud intervertit. Vide
annotata nostra in locum.
W. 27. Eiºxma'aw yág.] Desunt hapc apud Hilarium, et duo
MSS. Agnoscunt Gr. scholia, Vulg. Syr. Arab. : ait tamen
Millius, “Repetitum omnino fuisse suspicor ex versu prae-
cedente,” Prol. p. 135, col. 1.
V. 29. Toti stayyexiov.] Deest in Clem. Alex. Hilar. Diac.
Cod. Alex.: interpretantur tamen hanc vocem, Gr. scholia,
Syr. Arab. Proleg. p. 60, “Commentarius est, non textus.”
Cap. xvi. 5. 'Atraexh rā; "Aciaç,] W. 1. ‘rā; "Axaizº, recte.
Wide com. nostra in locum.
W. 6. Quae multum laboravit bic hºcãº.] W. 1. ipºic, quam
lectionem ut firmaret, adducit testimonium Chrysost. hic, et
Prol. p. 104, Theophylacti, sed utriusque perperam : etsi
enim Chrysost. in textu legit tº ac, in commentario habet
hºcãº, quam vocem exponit de labore a Maria suscepto re?:
row; &modºróNov; Theophylact. ed. Ox. non modo legit Hºwa;
in textu (sicut etiam Theodoretus et OEcum. Sed etiam
addit, laborasse illam six hºwä, äurozºréxov tranpºca tážty.)
W. 16. ’Aartrášovrai tºwā; ai #xxxnziat.] W. 1. add. Tràgal,
ita Theodoretus, Vulg. et e Latinis plurimi, sc. omnium illo-
rum locorum ecclesiae, i.e. paucas ecclesiae, vel fortasse unica:
rectius ergo omittunt Chrysost. CEcum. Theophylactus.
V. 18. Kai sãoyiaç.] Desunt haec in 4 MSS. Agnoscunt
Gr. Scholia, C. Alex. Hilarius Diac. et versiones omnes:
habet tamen Millius, ºr EVAoyiac pro interpretamento margi-
male rā; xena toxoyiaç, Prol. p. 135, col. 1.
SECTIO SECUNDA—EPISTOLA PRIMA AD CORINTHIGS.
CAP. i. 1. IIaijao; xxn+3,..] Deest xxnarö; in tribus MSS.
Agnoscunt ergo reliqui, pariter ac Gr, scholia, Hilarius Diac.
et versiones antiquae : et licet non nominatim praefigitur
casteris epistolis, hunc tamen quasi proprium locum sibi
vindicat, propterea quod scribit jam ad eos qui de ipsius
apostolatu paululum dubitasse widebantur. Hinc est quod
ipse ad humc modum loquitur de Seipso, “Ego plantavi vos,”
iii. 6, “In Christo Jesu per evangelium ego vos genui,” iv.
15, “Nonne opus meum vos estis in Domino 2'ix. 1. Prae-
terea voce xxnrö; utitur Paulus ad Rom. i. 6, 7. Unde
Millius, Prol. p. 135, “Medium zantò; insertum videtur jam
olim ex primis verbis praecedentis epistolae.”
V. 18. Toí; ºwiv 3rox\vkévot, a wºop.évot, 33 hºv.] Ita
Hilarius Diac. scholia Gr. et versiones omnes, et C. Alex.:
Millio tamen &#y et hºw videntur injectitia, fide nescio cujus.
Vulgati, Prol. p. 46, col. 2.
V. 28. Kai rā ºch äyra.] W. 1. deest wat. Agnoscunt
autem Gr. scholia, et versiones omnes, Orig. Com. in Matt.
p. 258, 374. Contra Cels. lib. iii. p. 140. Quia tamen in
Hilario Diac. deest, “ lectoris alicujus esse videtur, non
apostoli,” Prol. p. 164, col. 2.
Cap. ii. 4. Kai Suyápagoc.] Omittit AEthiop. Agnoscunt
Graeca scholia, et versiones omnes, C. Alex. Hilarius Diac.
Orig. lib. i. contra Cels. p. 5, in Joh. p. 10 et 88, in Matt. p.
354. Millio ergo dicenti, Prol. p. 124, “Adjectum credibile
est,” doest parum.
I 178
EXAMEN MILLII.
V. 13. 'Ev 8i8axrj; IIvsêpxato; &yiov.] Deest &yiov apud
Clem. Al. p. 557, Origenem in Matt. p. 353, 381, et Philoc.
p. 27. Millio ergo adjectum videtur Prol. p. 60. Occurrit
vero apud omnia, Gr. scholia, et constat quod Spiritus quater
in hoc capite vocatur Spiritus Dei, mempe com. 10—12. 14.
Et tametsi dicat Millius defuisse τοῦ Θεού apud Iren. p. 38,
et Clem. Al. p. 557, et Chrysostomum, adeoque addititium
esse, Prol. p. 70, lectoris alicujus esse, non apostoli, p.
46, legas tamen IIy£ga @soù hic in Clem. Al. Stro. i. p.
297, Orig. in Jer. hom. 12, p. 117, in Joh. p. 68, C. Alex.
Hilario Diac. Theodoreto, OEcum. et Theophylacto, Vulg.
Arab. atque adeo frustra rejicitur.
Cap. iii. 3. Kaì òixoaTaaiav.] Deest in 3 MSS. Vulg.
Æthiop. Clem. Al. Stro. v. p. 558, add. Cod. Alex. Orig. in
Cels. lib. iii. p. 140. Unde Millius dicit irrepsisse e margine,
Prol. p. 94, col. 2. Agnoscunt tamen hanc vocem omnia Gr.
scholia, Iren. Gr. lib. iv. cap. -75, p. 379, Basilius tom. ii. p.
395, Syr. et Arab.
- Cap. iv. 14. 's^c rêwv& paov &y&Tntâ vov$et&.] MSS. cod.
quidam, C. Alex. vovθετόν. “ Recte (inquit Grotius) ut cohæ-
reat cum illo &c,” at male, si Hilario D. Gr. scholiis, et versi-
onibus cunctis major sit adhibenda fides.
Cap. y. J. Oùx èv τοῖς ἐθνεσι όνομάζετaι.] Deest άγομάζετaι
in sex MSS. Epiphanio, p. 706, Tertul. de Pud. cap. 14,
Hilario D. cæterisque Latinis, qui Vulgatum præferunt. Ag-
noscunt autem C. Alex. Syr. Arab. omnia Gr. scholia, expli-
cantque fusius tanquam verbum insigne et ἐμφστικατatov.
7ra£' ἐκείνοις οὐ μόνον οὐ τολμάτaι τι τοιαύτο, άλλ' οὐδ' άνομάζετaι.
V. 3. Tòv o5to- rò ro xarseyaorâμενον ἐν δνόματι του Kvpiov,
&c.] Sic codices nonnulli testibus Chrysostomo et CEcumenio,
ύποστύαντες ad vocem xgtatcù, ut intelligatur δ εἰς τὸ δνομd.
τοῦ Xpto-rö £vv8eivac: sed sicut hanc expositionem improbat
Chrysostomus, ita insulsum, et pene ridiculum est dicere ali-
quem aliquid operatum fuisse mali in nomine Domini nostri,
Jesu Christi.
V. 4. xeto vo$.] Deest in Vulg. Æthiop. sed retinetur
apud Græca scholia, Orig. in Jer. p. 119, Syr. Arab.—Prol.
tamen p. 69, col. 2, ** addititium est.”
V. 6. où xaxòv τά xaùxnpua ip×$v.] Ita umo ore omnia Gr.
scholia, et versiones, C. Alex. et Hilarius Diac.: “ Sicut
autem omittunt negationem, et Latini quidam, sic mullus
dubito apostoli ipsius exemplar.” Ita Millius Prol. p. 46,
col. 2, qui, argumento vix rationis speciem habente motus,
hoc ** frigidum ** vocat.
Mixpà ÇÜμη όλον τὸ φύgaga ζυμο?.] V. 1. Φ$siget. Sed 8oAo?
germanam esse lectionem acriter contendit Millius. Reétius
autem Cotelerius de hoc textu sic: “ Certum est antiquissima
exemplaria cum ab interpretibus et patribus tractata, tum
quæ ad nos usque pervenerunt, habuisse aut habere, aut
<p§eipet, aut ένμοί, aut δολαῖ. Irenæus videtur legisse φ$eiges, ait
enim *corrumpit,' lib. iv. cap. 46, sic Vulg. illiusquè fautores
Apostolicæ Constitutiones 8ολο?. Sed adnotatur in margine
Anastasium legisse ένμοί in locum. Lectiones posthac in
usu quotidiano erant vel Φ$eip$i, vel ἀνμοί, ut apparet ex
epistola Michaelis Cerul. ad Petrum Antioch. scripta post-
quam orta fuit controversia inter occidentalem et orientalem
ecclesiam de pane fermentato, viz. ita A&ς ἐ, xaì rò å7roatoA-
xòv èxeivo fintòv ^aa£ávovT£; tô qασκόν, μικρὰ ἀμη όλον τὸ φύgap.a
ζυμοί, ουτως ἐκεῖνο yeygag p.£vov ixovat qy$εἰg£t. Illum
vero �vραδέ jure optimo alteri eum anteposuisse exinde liquet,
quod hæc sit lectio ipsius apostoli Gal. v. 9, atque hic et illic
orientales versiones, C. Alex. et Gr. scholia omnia retinent
'τὸ ἀναστ, ne ulla quidem alterius cujuscunque lectionis men-
tione facta ; præterea hæc lectio inmititur testimonio Hiero-
nymi, quod plus valet quam Latinorum, qui φ$sipet potius
quam δολοί interpretantur. Is* enim non solum in versione
suu utitur voce “ fermentat,” Gal. v. 9, sed etiam addit
“ Male in nostris codicibus habetur corrumpit, et sensum
potius interpres suum quam apostoli verba transtulit.” Non
leve firmamentum lectioni huic addit Buxtorfius, qui apud
* Hebræos de originali corruptione loquens, vetus esse adagium
ait “ fermentum in massa,” sicut enim parum fermenti fer-
mentat ingentem massam, eamque corrumpit, ita concupis-
centia mala totum corrumpit hominem: Floril. Hebr. p. 43.
Notandum denique quod Prol. p. 46, 47, Iren. Tertul. Basil.
M. nempe Lat. tom. ii. p. 631, Hilarius Diac. Lucifer Calarit.
Pelagius, omnes Latini qui legunt **corrumpit” (i. e. φθείρει),
producti sunt tamen ac si certo legissent δολοῖ.
V. 7. 'Ekxa$ãgate oùy.] V. ]. deest ó, in MSS. multis,
Vulg. et Hilario D. Chrysost. CEcum. Agnoscunt autem
Theodoretus et Theophylactus : ita etiam, ait Esthius, quæ-
dam vetustissima, Latina exemplaria plerisque Græcis suffra-
gantibus, illationis omittendæ fuit causa quod sine ea legere-
tur hæc scriptura in s. paschali officio: cæterum optime
quadrat hæc illativa particula.
*^7rêg ip×áv.] '* Explicatio est,” Mill. Prol. p. 72. Agnos-
cunt autem Gr. scholia omnia, Syr. Arab. T)eest in Vulg.
teste Erasmo, reclamantibus libris omnibus nostri3, quibus in
hac parte, ut dicam ingenue, magis accedo.
V. 8. 'AAX' ἐν άέόμοις εἰλικgyeiac, xaì àÀn$sias.] Desunt
hæc apud Æthiop. Habent Hilarius Diac. Hieron. lib. i.
contra Pelag. f. 97, Orig. in Jer. p. 143, in Matt. p. 270, in
Joh. p. 163, 372, in Hom. in Num. decies, Græca scholia, et
reliquæ versiones. Hac tamen sola auctoritate fretus, “adjecta
(ait Millius) jam olim opinor quæ in nostris omnibus,” Prol.
p. 124, col. 2.
Cap. vi. 5. Oùx èa tty σοφός, οὐδέ εῖς.] Prol. p. 135, col.
1, * interjectum est où8è çïç jam olim emphaseos causa,** ex
AEthiop. solius auctoritate, repugnantibus Gr. scholiis omni-
bus, et Cod. Alex. immo Vulgato, Hilario D. et I.atinis om-
nibus legentibus “ Nonne est inter vos sapiens quispiam ?”
Hac confidentia videtur mihi Millius labefactare loca pene
omnia, in quibus divinitas Christi contra Photinianos adstrui-
tur ; ii enim, pari de causa, nempe codice uno vel altero
aliud legente, dicere possunt * Hæc vel illa addita esse jam
olim emphaseos causa.”
V. 8. Kaì taìta áôéxqyoùc.] C. Alex. cum aliis legit τοῦτο,
taùra omittit Clem. Al. (si Millio fides) scholia autem Græca
universim, Vulg. Hilarius D. legunt cum textu ; Prol. tamen
p. 60, col. 2, hæc habet, “Vix aut ne vix est quin lectionem
hanc genuinam esse censeam esse unius nostri, quod video
Clementis.” O quam pulchrum est habere nasum criticum !
defuit is, Millio hic fatente, Græcis omnibus, et Latinis ; nec
minus absona sunt quæ sequuntur, “ Eis verbis inserta est
emphatica particula, varia tamen, quod indicium 7rag£μθλή-
oreos in al. τούτο, in aliis raùara*** quorsum enim tot variamtes
lectiones congessit, si yaria lectio sit certum Tagsp.ßAfias2 ;
indicium ? -
V. 19. ουκ οίδave 3tt τὸ σάμz ügów.] V. l. rà a&μaτa, C.
Alex. Vulg. Hilarius D. Theophylactus. Sed Origen. contra
Cels. lib. iv. p. 177, Chrysostomus, Theodoretus, CEcumenius,
Syr. Arab. legunt a δμa. Et quanquam idem sit utriusque
sensus, lectionem in textu lectioni Vulg. anteponit Esthius,
** quod (inquit) in pluribus est Græcis τὸ σόμa * corpus,' con-
gruit cum eo quod proxime præcessit, * eum qui fornicatur,
peccarè in corpus suum.” ”
V. 20. Ao%ázare 8è tôv ©£v.] Vulg. Hilarius D. Tertul-
lianus, Cyprianus, Chrysostom. August. legunt xaì àgate,
“ Glorificate, et portate Deum:* ita Millius. Sed observan-
dum hic primo Vulg. Hilarium D. Tertullianum, Cyprianum
hic legere, ** Empti estis pretio magno,” refragantibus Græcis
scholiis, C. Alex. et versionibus orientalibus universis :
Chrysostomus hic habet ága, re* lege, ait Danæus, ò äpa.
Idem ed. Mor. tom. iii. p. 370, in Ps. cxii. et Ps. cxlv., legit
8o%ázate ò tòv Θεόy. Iremæus, lib. v. cap. 13, p. 419, legit
solummodo “ Glorificate Deum in corpore vestro:” et simili-
ter August. de Trin. lib. ii. cap. 13, tom. iii. p. 273. Quibus-
cum consentiunt Græca scholia, versiones orientales, C. Alex.
Cyril. Al. de Recta Fide, p. 63. Pergit sic Millius, Prol. p.
153, col. 1, “ Sequentia xai äv τό ττνεύματι ἐμὸν άτινά ἐστι
voû ©eoj, mon occurrunt in Alex. aliisque probatioribus cod.
uti neque apud Epiphan. Euthal. Vulg. Æthiop.” Ea tamen
agnoscunt Græca scholia omnia, Syr. et Arab. et “ sensum.
(inquit Esthius) clarum exhibent, iisque admonemur glorifi-
care Deum in utroque et corpore et in spiritu, quia utrum-
que Dei est, atque proinde utrumque suo famulari debet
auctori et Domino. Respicit enim ad illud, * Pretio empti
estis, et mon estis vestri,' estque tacita probatio a partibus,
* Corpus vestrum, et spiritus vester Dei est, ergo non estis
vestri ; immo utrumque pretio emptum est, utroque igitur
glorificandus est Deus.** -
Cap. vii. 3. 'Oq)etAopwâynv εὐvoiay.] V. l. άφειλομ£ynv τιμ}ν
hic Chrysost.: sed tom. v. ed. Mor. p. 279, legit cum textu
άφειλήν, Orig. in Matt. p. 363, Vulg. Hilarius D. e Latinis
alii ; sed Theodoret. CEcum. Theophylact. Syr. Arab. textui
assentiunt. Utriusque lectionis eadem est interpretatio.
V. 5. Tj yna teig, xaì raoa-£vXj.] Desunt v% vno r*$* xa:, :n
Orig. Clem. Al. Cyprian. Hieron.: sed agnoscunt Syr.
ExAMEN MILLII.
I 179
Arab. Gr. Scholia, Cod. Alex.: et cum Chrysost. et Theo-
phylact. de extraordinaria, precatione in commentariis suis
1oquantur, aperte satis indicant jejunium simul adhibendum
esse, quod plerumque talem precationem comitatur ; id-
circo ut probaret Chrysostomus quod áéí tí vna teig την τροσ-
sux)v avvÉ&eu%ey fi yga¢}, hæc ipsissima verba adducit, fyc.
aχολάςnte rä yma reig, xai τ?ί τεοσευχή. Com, in Ps. cxlv. ed.
Mor. tom. iii. p. 829.
V. 34. Mep«£gtatas h yvy), waî à 7rap$âyoc.] Ita Græca scho-
lia omnia, C. Alex. Basil. tom. i. p. 635, tom. ii. p. 499,
Theodoret. Hær. Fab. p. 306. Nota, etiam, Hieronymo
adversarium pulsanti non esse nimium fidendum ; in pole-
micis enim est magis sollicitus de victoria, quam de veritate:
aliter enim in hoc loco legit, lib. i. contra Helvid. f. 6, ubi
hæc habet, ** Divisa est mulier et virgo,' quid oblatras, quid
repugnas ? Vas electionis hæc loquitur, * Divisa est (di-
cens) mulier, et virgo.'° Aliter autem lib. i. contra Jovin.
f. 20, ubi sic legimus, “Nunc illud breviter admoneo in
Latinis codicibus sic legi, * Divisa est virgo et mulier,' quod
non est apostolicæ veritatis ; siquidem apostolus ita scripsit,
* Solicitus est vir quæ sunt mundi, quomodo placeat uxori,
et divisus est,' et hac sententia defimita, transgreditur ad
virgines, et continentes, et ait ' Mulier innupta, et virgo.” ”
V. 39. Tvv) 8É8etas v6pzg.] Orig. in Matt. 358, 363, 364,
plurimique e Latinis omittunt vδμα. Sed Vulg. Hilarius D.
Gr. scholia, et versiones, item Basil. de Virgin. tom. i. p.
650, habent vδμα (utut Millius ab Esthio deceptus, contra-
rium asserat) nec ulla alia hominis, quam ex lege oritur
obligatio. Millius tamen fidentur * rá vãgag, quod additum
in nostris, haud dubio translatum ex Rom. vii. 2:'* ita con- .
tinuo confidentia supplet locum rationis.
Cap. viii.] Nota quod a versiculo 3 ad finem hujus capi-
tis, licet afferantur viginti quatuor lectiones, et amplius,
Easilius, tom. ii. p. 438, 439, textum presse et κατὰ πόδα
insequitur, nisi quod ἐτεgoi v. 4, omittat, et άπόλΆντaι legat,
v. «• - -
V. 4. "Etegoc.] Habent Gr. scholia omnia, Syr. Arab.:
juxta tamen Millium, irrepsit e marg. Prol. p. 95.
V. 10. 'E7ri tj &j yv&a Et.] * Non agnoscunt Hilarius D.
Pelag.” Mill. p. 47, cap. l. Agnoscunt autem Theodoret,
CEcum. Theophyl. Cod. Alex. Vulg, Syr. Arab. et, quod
mirum dictu, ἐπί τj oj yv&a et agnoscunt Hilarius D. et
Eelagius.
Cap. ix. 2. 'Ev Kvgiæ.] Ita Origen. in Joh. p. 399, Theo-
doret. CEcum. Theophylactus, Hilarius D. : et tamen, juxta
Millium, Prol. p. 95, col. l, irrepsit e margine.
V. 7. Kaì ἐκ τοῦ γάλακτος τῆς ποίμνης οὐκ ἐσθίει.] Ita Theo-
doret. CEcum. Vulg. Syr. Arab. Chrysost. et Theophylact.
mutant substantivum in relativum, legendo aút $ic loco 7ro{-
gyns, sensu eodem salvo ; Millio tamen judice, Prol. p. 69,
col. 2, “ et ποίμyns et aύτης adjectitia sunt,” quanquam una
earum vocum subaudiatur necesse est.
V. 18. Tà eùayy£λιον τοῦ Xgtatoù.] Ita Gr. scholia, Syr.
Arab. : Sed Vuig. et Hilarius D. omittant τοῦ Xpiarroj- ** ac-
cessit ergo in nostris ex interpretamento,” Prol. p. 95,
col. l. -
V. 20. 's^ς ύτὸ νόμον.] Addunt cod. MSS. 7, Vulg. Chry-
sost. Hilarius D. August. μ}, &v.aìtòς ύτὸ τὸν νόμον, sed hoc
additamentum agnoscunt neque Origen. in Joh. p. 155,
neque aliquis alius e Græcis commentatoribus, nec versiones
orientales ; et cum scripta sit hæc epistola ad Corinthios,
inter quos versabantur plurimi Judæorum fidelium, qui
aemulatores fuerunt legis, hæc verba os eorum querelis im-
plevisset, quod Paulus discessionem docuisset a Moyse ; hoc
enim leviori de causa factum vidimus, Act. xxi. 2l, et falsi
crimen illi impegissent, eo quod dixisset se neque in legem
Judæorum peccasse, Act. xv. 8, nec adversus mores pater-
nos, Act. xxviii. 17.
V. 22. "Iva 7ráyro), twàc ar&a-».] Hic Millius, Prol. p. 47,
eol. 1, ait “ x£gêázo) mutatum in ar&aro, ad evitandam ejusdem
vocis crebram repetitionem,” et p. 123, dicit * 7ráviros vivâ,
irrepsisse, loco genuinæ lectionis 7ráyrac.” Sed omnia Gr.
scholia legunt 7rávrovg τινάς, et miram simul Pauli caritatem
laudant, qui se aliis dedidit, %a x£v τούς άλίγους σέσω* cum
iis consentiunt C. Alex. Arab. immo Paulus ipse, Rom. xi.
14, είττως σάσω τινάς ἐ£ aër&v. In Clemente Al. et Gregorio
Naz. mire hallucinatur ; uterque enim, in his verbis, íya
ττάντις λε£8nzo), respicit non hunc, sed v. 19, ubi apostolus
legit ἐγα ττλε,δva; x£gò*cr». Ita Elias Cretensis de Greg. Naz.
“ Quod si magnus hic vir omnes dixit, cum Paulus multos
dixit, haud mirum id videri debet ; Paulus enim ad id quod
eventurum erat orationem coriformans, sic locutus est, * ut
multos lucrifacerem.' Hic autem divinus magister ad Pauli
studium, amimique promptitudinem.” Com. in Orat. 1, p.
163 ; vide etiam Clem. Al. p. 177.
V. 23. ToÛro 8È 7rot3.] ToÛro legunt Theodoret. OEcum.
Theophyl. Syr. Arab. Tràvra Vulg. C. Alex. Hilarius D.
Chrysost. unde mutatum orávra in toùto vult Millius, Prol.
p. 77, * qrávtc. (inquit) in τούτο mutandi causa aliqua ; nec
enim omnia fecit, mec facere potuit Paulus propter evange-
lium (quidni facere potuit omnia hic loci memorata, eaque
in hunc scopum dirigere ?) mutandi autem τούτο in orâvta
omnino causa nulla ;'* sic ille. Sed nec Millius in se reci-
peret onus reddendi rationem de unaquaque variante lectio-
me per totum librum suum. -
Cap. x. 5. EÜ86κησεν ά Θεός.] Sic Gr. scholia, et versiones
omnes. Sed Marcion omittit δ θεῖς, “ omnino recte,** Mil-.
lius, Prol. p. 34, col. 1,—“ appositum erat in posterioris ævi
libris,” Prol. p. 47, col. 2.
V. 19. “ott e?8o»λον τί ἐστίν.] Ita Gr. scholia, et versiones
omnes. et Hilarius D. : rejiciuntur tamen hæc fide C. Alex.
Prol. p. 35, col. 1. Et v. 20, τὰ ἐ$yn, quod agnoscunt
Græca scholia, et versiones omnes, est “ scholion marginale
assumptum ex Ps. xcvi. 5,” Prol. p. 47, col. I.
V. 23, “Exaaºro;.] Habent Gr. scholia omnia, et versiones
orientales, et C.' Alex. D. Vulg. et MSS. quibusdam :
** scholion ergo est,” Prol. p. 60, col. 2.
V. 28. Tò yàg Kvgiov h y}, xai τὸ πλήρωμa aùt fig.] Desunt
hæc, secunda vice, Vulg. Hilarius D. Pseud-Hieronymus,
Syr. Arab. * Vix est quam ut hoc transcriptum credamus
ab oscitante quodam librario ;'* ita hic Millius ; reperias
tamen hæc verba apud Arab. C. Alex. et omnia Gr. scholia,
adeoque causa major est cur retineantur. Ita providi olim
et negligentes fuerint Christiani, si s. codices in omnibus
ecclesiis publice recitatos repositosque in ecclesiis, ab osci-
tantibus librariis misere depravari passi fuissent. Quod
tamen plusquam centies factum esse contendit Millius.
Adde quod in his verbis, ἐὰν δὲ τις είτη ύμῖν, ύμῖν “ scribæ
esse, (ait) non Pauli,” fide Vulg. et Hillarii, contra Gr.
scholiâ, C. Alex. Syr. Arab. Æthiop. Prol. p. 47.
V. 31. IIáyra.] Habent Gr. scholia, Vulg. Syr. Arab. D.
Æthiop, ergo * vix est quin non obstante codicum con-
862 nSll censeam 7rávra uberioris explicationis gratia
insertum,” Prol. p, 159, col. l.
Cap. xi. 15. 'H xfip×n áyti 7r£pi3oXatov 8i8oTai aùtj.] Deest
aùr; in MSS. plurimis, Theodoreto, et CEcumenio. Quid
istuc tam mirum voculam prætermitti, quam unusquisque
lector subaudiendam esse continuo existimaret, vel enim
mulieri dantur comæ ejus pro velamine, vel nemini præ-
terea ? Reperitur vox aùtj apud Chrysostomum, Theophylac-
tum, C. Alex. Hilarium D. et versiones omnes: adjectum
est tamen, juxta Millium, ad absolvendam sententiam, Prol.
p. 89, col. l. -
V. 19. A£? yàg xaì aigea-£ς ἐν ύμῖν είναι.] Deest ύμῖν apud
patres Latinos, atque adeo, juxta Millium, Prol. p. 47;
* traductum est ex posteriori parte hujus versiculi.” Atqui
agnoscunt C. Alex. Gr. scholia omnia, et versiones orien-
táles. Est etiam observatu non indignum, quod in citandis
scripturis, patribus usitatum fuerit, ex præcepto aliquo
demere particulam specialem, ut fiat Præceptum generale:
ex gr. in cap. xiv. 34, ai yvvaixes iu$y ἐν ἐκκλησίαις ayäto-
aray, multi omittunt ύμάy, ut fiat mandatum generale, .
V. 24. A43ετε, φάγετε.] Desunt hæc in 5 MISS. et in
Hilario D.-atque hinc Mill. Prol. p. 95, reclamantibus Gr.
commentatoribus, Cod. Alex. et vetustissimis versionibus,
dicit, ** Hæc verba quæ jam in libris fere omnibus inserta
sunt, provenire ex formula institutionis, Matt. xxvi. 26.”
At si haec ibi sint verba Christi, sequitur ea hic loci genuina
esse, et ex evangeliis ab apostolo desumpta, utpote qui di-
serte narrat se accepisse a Domino quod habiturus erat
illis. -
Cap. xii. 3. où8εῖς iv IIy£goatt ©soí %aX%v λάγει ává$epa
'ina e$.] ** 'Ev Πνεύμaτι άγία, 9rig. Tregí Èîxîc, et commen-
tario iii Joh. non semel,'' ita Millius, sed in utrisque peccat.
Com. enim in Joh. p. 359, 390, 422, posterior pars hujus
versus, in quo hæc verba iv Πγεὐμaτι áyig, continuo citatur ;
prior in quò τὰ Πύεῦμα 956ö nunquam, lib. 7tegl Eüxiis, p. 66.
ÀMirum est illum non vidisse a páÀp.a yga¢¤ôv nempe legen-
1180
EXAMEN MILLII.
dum ibi Secunda vice prout translatum est, non mytówari
&yie, sed Osoſ, quod ex verbis immediate sequentibus per
"modum illationis dictis rà abro vowāśay #ylov IIvºwa, xat
IIvºir, a rod Osoſ; luce clarius est.
W. 11. Atagoûy tºta #xáo-rº.] Deest #8ta apud Vulg. Hi-
larium D. Syr. Epiphanium. Retinent Clem. Al. Strom.
iv. p. 527, C. Alex. Gr. scholia omnia.
W. 26. Kai Azéan #x &#pov;..] “Membra de membro,” #x
ºw#xovº, Vulg. Hilarius D. Clar. Ger. Epiph. Haer. Manich.
Ş. 86, p. 707 ; pro qua lectione contendit Mill. Prol. p. 47,
col. 1. At Orig. in Matt. p. 357, Basil. tom. ii. p. 305,
Syr. Arab. C. Alex. et Gr. scholia legunt cum textu. Nec
multum discriminis est inter membra particularia ejusdem
mystici corporis, et membra inter se pendentia. Quod in
patribus hic Millius pronunciat “frigidum, et extra scopum
apostoli,” nempe Corinthios qui partem ecclesiae tantum
constituebant, eam reliquis Christi ecclesiis concordare de-
bere, est insius apostoli argumentum, cap. xi. 16. cap. xiv.
33, et post multa vix aliud dicit ab his verbis Chrysostomi,
regairny 373 yeºn, 34'sſaokasy #xey jºirotay, Šany &rd pørew;
£%g tycº, -
Cap. xiii. 2. Kał Śāv Āxaſ Trázav triarw.] “Medium réoray
irrepsit ex priore parte vers. :” Ita Mill. Prol, p. 47, col.
1. Agnoscunt tamen Gr. scholia. omnia, C, Alex. Vulg.
Syr. Arab.
Cap. xiv. 9. "Earease yāf sic &#éa Naxoëvre..] Deestyā; apud
Syrum. At habent Gr. scholia omnia, C. Alex. Vulg.
Arab. Hilarius D. Et tamen fide Millii “interjectum est
a lectore aliquo connexionis causa,” Prol. p. 130, col. 1.
W. 16. ’Eqrst #&y sixoyhan; ‘rū IIvºčaari.] Ita Graeca scholia,
versiones omnes, C. Alex. Hilarius D. Deest IIvetºzari in
com. 3, “nec dubium (inquit Millius) quin ita apostolus,”
Prol. p. 163, col. 2.
W. 25: Ka? oiro.] Omittunt haec verba MSS. cod. quidam,
Vulg. Hilarius D. Junilius. Agnoscunt autem Gr. scholia
omnia, C. Alex. Arab. ait Millius, “Desumptum memo non
videt ex posteriori parte versiculi.”
W. 32. Kai ºrvetºzara reopnröy.] W. 1. Luxai, Orig. Hom.
in Matt. p. 306. Haec sunt Origenis verba, Trystºwara ºrgo-
‘pnrów Trºophraic wrotárceral, oùxī zai ai Juxaſ sed Millius
crebro oscitanter legit.
W. 33. Oü yáé šarty &zaraa-raciaç 3 Qed;..] Sic Gr. scholia,
C. Alex. versiones omnes, sed placet Millio lectio Hilarii D.
“non enim dissensionis res, sed pacis,” Prol. p. 47, col. 2.
W. 37. "Ori roi, Kvetov stariv wroxai.] “Scholion est Évroxal,”
Prol. p. 47. Agnoscunt autem. Gr. scholia, et versiones om-
nes, C. Al. Geoiſ Évrox#.
Cap. xv. 10. Elºi & Biºt..] Ex AEthiop, solius auctoritate
rejicitur & eiget, contra Vulgat. Hilarium D. Syr. Arab. C.
Alex. et Gr. scholia omnia.
W. 15. Eitree yeagoi own iyeſpoviral.] Haec verba omittunt
Iren, lib. v. cap. 13, Hilarius D. Syr. Theodoret. Retinent
autem Chrysost. CEcum. Theophylact. Vulg. Arab. C. Alex.
“et si non exprimerentur, debent intelligi, (ait Esthius)
quod subsequentia indicant, per modum illationis, El y&t
yszpol, &c.”
W. 20. "Atraexh rôy zerotºwnpºvoy tyiveto.] Ita Syr. Arab.
Theodoret. Theophyl. Sed deest #yśvero, Iren, lib. v. cap,
13, p. 420, Chrysost. Vulg. Orig. in Matt. p. 284, sine sen-
sus discrimine.
W. 28.] “Omittit & vià, Irena us,” ita Millius. Sed pace
Millii retinet Iren, lib. v. cap. 36, p. 461, Orig. etiam in
Joh. p. 146, Athanas. de Hum. Nat. p. 600, bis, Cod. Alex.
Ambros. verus, lib, v. de Fide, cap. 7, Basil. adv. Eunom.
lib. iv. tom. i. p. 769, Greg. Nyssen. orat. in haec verba,
tom. i. p. 838, Gr. scholia, et versiones omnes: atqui non
obstante hac nube testium, fidenter pronunciat Mill. Prol.
p. 47, “medium 3 vić; irrepsisse ex margine.”
W. 29. ‘Yºrée rāv vençãv.] W. l. imit airów, MSS. Dial.
contra Marcion. p. 124, Orig. in Matt. p. 487, qui idcirco
solum habet attºw, quia praecessit rôy vexexiv, quae retinent
omnia Gr. scholia, et versiones, ipso Vulgato legente, (quod
Millius negat) “pro mortuis ;” “irrepsit tamen ex priore
parte versiculi,” Mill. Prol. p. 65.
W. 31. “Hy #x0, y Xptorrā 'Inact rāj Kupia, hºw&v.] Haec pro
assumento habet Mill., fide Ger. Clar. Hilarii D. p. 47.
Agnoscunt autem. Theodoret. (Ecumenius, Theophylact. C.
Alex. versiones omnes. Chrysost. legit #y Xpta-rá 'Incot.
W. 44. "Earl o żº a juxtºv, Kai Éar, a 3pxa tryEvpattzów.J.
Habent haec verba omnia Gr. scholia. C. Alex. omnesque
versiones, cum levi discrimine MSS. quaedam addunt s!,
Vulg. et Latini si. “Haec tamen (inquit ille) a quodam
scholiasta adnotata ad oram libri, retulere scribae in contex-
tum.” Prol. p. 95.
V. 47. 'O Kūčio; # oveavoij.] W. l. 3 Kiptor omittunt Origen.
Hippolytus, Athan. : est Athanasius ibi spurius, Hippolytus,
Lat. Agnoscunt omnia Gr. scholia, C. Alex. Syr. Arab.
Dial. contra Marcion. p. 150. Et cum primus homo de
terra terrenus, Secundus homo quidni sit Dominus de coelo
coelestis 2 sed cum ex fide Tertulliani et Epiphanii Marcion
substituisset Kūčios, quid mirum si illam ob rationem quidam
omiserint P Wide Mill. p. 47.
V. 54. Tà $6aeroy rotiro #y?éa stat &#828aiav.] Retinentur
haec apud omnia Gr, scholia, C. Alex, Syr. Arab. Asserit
tamen Millius “huc translata esse ex versiculo proxime
praecedente,” Prol. p. 47.
Cap. xvi. 1. Iſsei 33 ràc Aoyiaç.] Sic non solum legunt
Graeca scholia, Sed Aoyiayuno ore interpretantur rºw avXXoyāv
‘rāv xenºzárov, et Phavorinus ait, Aoyia, h a vaxoyń, trag& rô
34°rrºw, xai rā #x Troxxây avystrºpáčoksyov, Aéyet & #xenºwo-
Cruy? We
SECTIO TERTIA—EP[STOLA SECUNI)A AD CORINTHIOS,
CAP. i. 2. IIarp3; hºw ºv, Kai Kupiov 'inco; xeta rot..] Agnos-
cunthac verba Gr. scholia omnia et versiones, C. Alex, et
Orig, in Matt. p. 500. “Irrepsere tamen ex aliis epistolis,”
Mill. Prol. p. 47, col. 2.
V. 10. Kai #0srai.] Desunt Chrysostom. Hilario Diac. Syr.
sed extant apud reliqua Gr. scholia et versiones. Et tamen
“haec ad marginem adscripta scriba textus partem esse
putans, transtulit in corpus epistolae,” in Mill. Prol. p. 129,
col. 1. -
Cap. ii. 16. Kai ºrps; ratrá ric ixayác.] Ita Graeca scholia
omnia, C. Alex. Hilarius D. Syr. Arab. Observant autem
Gr. scholia Paulum hic ºxerguéðely agnoscere “ºrd ŚAoy ric
xáguroc, totum gratia esse, et imbecillitatem humanam ad
haec minime sufficere, ei º żv h rot; 9500 Bövapai; #xsivov yag rà
oråy, wai otºi, rô hºw#vepoy, illius enim est totum hoc quod agi-
mus nihildue nostrum.” Sed Vulgati absurdam lectionem,
viz. “Ad haec quis tam idoneus P” (i.e. quam ego) hic pro-
bat Millius, Prol. p. 47, 48, meris somniis, et vitilitigationi-
bus fidens, quibus responsume patrum scholiis adduximus.
Objicit (1.) “Apostolos qui evangelium per totum orbem
praedicassent, non potuisse vere dicere, se huic quod tam
praeclare obiissent muneri, inidoneos fuisse.” Respondeo, ex
seipsis inidoneos se fuisse disertim asserunt, cap. iii. 5. (2.)
“Quomodo, (inquit) speciatim D. Paulo quadraret, “Ad
haec quis idoneus P’ qui aperte hic asserit se, caeterosque apo-
stolos idoneos fuisse ministros N. Testamenti,” cap. iii. 6.
Quis hic satis mirari potest hominis confidentiam, qui verba
haec, “Non quod sumus sufficientes ex nobis ipsis, sed suffi-
cientia nostra ex Deo est, qui idoneos nos fecit ministros N.
Test.,” in subsidium causae quam plane destruit, adducit,
quaeque insuper ostendunt D. Paulum non dicere cum Mil-
lio, “se fuisse idoneos,” Sed tantum “a Deo factos esse ido-
neos ministros N. Testamenti P”
W. 17. Oi yée Écºley &; oi roxxoi..] Chrysost. et Theodoret.
et Syr. legunt of Aotºroi. Sed Vulg. Hilarius D. CEcumenius,
Theophylactus textum firmant. Irenaeus haec habet, oùra,
IIaşxos, où yáč Šapasy dº oi rºoi, lib. iv. cap. 44. Et quan-
quam Esthius dicat “ dictionem, oi Troxxoi, nec veritati con-
gruere, nec modestiaº Pauli,” id hic nullius' momenti est;
alibi enim apostolis de Judaicis zelotis et pseud-apostolis ait
woxxol reptºratoja'iy, “Multi ambulant, &c. de quibus dixi
vobis inimicos eos esse crucis Christi,” Phil. iii. 19. Est
tamen hoc apud Millium, Prol. p. 139, “marginale scholion,”
ob rationem plane frigidam et ineptam.
Cap. iii. 1. "H # hºw ava rarikāv.] Ita Chrysost. GEcum.
Theophylact. Syr. Arab. Deest avatarix&y Vulg. Hilarius
Diac. Theodoret.: hoc tamen ex eo accidit, quod haec verba
ovatarix&w ºrgö; #43; immediate praecesserint: ideoque poste-
rius ava'rariköy utpote necessario intelligendum, superfluum
videretur.
W. 17. Of 88 ºr ITVeijºwa. Kupíov.] “Kvelov quod insertum est
in reliquis jam omnibus, irrepsisse videtur ex proxime se-
quenti versiculo,” ita Millius, Prol. p. 166, col. 2. Agnos-
cunt tamer Grayca scholia, et versiones omnes, C. Alex, et
Hilarius D.
EXAMEN MILLII.
1 I SI
Cap. iv. 6. tot. Geog.] Ita Orig. in Matt. p. 252, Graeca
scholia universa, C. Alex. Syr. Arab. Atdui “ roi Geot expli-
catio est,” Prol. p. 34, ex auctoritate AEthiop. Tertull. Clar.
Vulg. apud quem legimus “ claritatis Dei,” apud Hilar. D.
“gloriae suae.”
Cap. v. 3. Elye xai vèvorápaevo..] Legendum hic vult Mil-
lius inòva âpaevo, reclamantibus Graecis scholiis, quae legunt
èvòvorápaevot. Ita etiam Macarius, hom. 5, p. 35, 36, Chrysost.
ed. Mor. tom. iii. p. 340, tom. v. p. 520; neque in commen-
tario notat exemplaria hic variare, sed ejusdem verbi variam
esse expositionem. Ita etiam Clemens Al. Stro. iv. p. 541,
Vulg. Hilarius D. C. Alex. Atque hac interpretatio, “si-
quidem induti, non nudi reperiemur,” clara, et perspicua est,
viz. “In hoc ingemiscimus, habitationem mostram quae de
coelo est superindui, siguidem eo tempore induti inveniamur
immortali corpore, et non nudi, sicut alii qui vestitu carebunt.”
V. 10. Tà ètà roi, orºpea rog.] Agnoscunt ha c verba omnia
Gr. scholia, C. Alex. Athanas. de Incarn. tom. i. p. l l0,
Cyril. Al. de Rect. Fide, p. 66, et Thesaur. p. 276, de Ador.
p. 494. Origenes semel quidem legit rà ºra, Hom. in Jer.
p. 187, sed Philac. p. 65, in Matt. p. 291, 335, 346, re ètà,
Theodoret. ra iºia, ep. 9l, et serm. 12 adv. Gr. 604, sed Com.
in Ps. xcvii. p. 791, et Haer. Fab. lib. v. cap. 30, p. 297, ra
3ia, quod potiori auctoritati innititur.
V. 15. Ei ei trèe révrov & ré0avey.] Retinent e Chrysost.
CEcumen. Theophylact. C. Alex. Hilarius D. Vulg. Arab.
Rejicit rò ei Millius, Prol. p. 71, col. 1, fide Theodoreti,
Theophylacti, CEcumenii, et Hilarii in commentariis (quos si
inspicias, ne verbum quo id probetur, invenies) Clar. adeo-
que Vulg. initio (nulla prorsus consequentia) his artibus
variantes suas lectiones stabilire solet Millius: magis ingenua
est Esthii sententia, viz. “Verisimile est a Paulo scriptam
fuisse particulam ei, quod et sermonis connexioni inseruit, et
in plurimis legitur MSS. qui hodie extant: ansam praeter-
mittendi incauto lectori dedisse potuit similitudo dictionum
si et eig, ut in hujusmodi contingit.”
V. 17. Kava ra révra.] Ita Hilarius D. C. Alex. Gr.
scholia, et versiones omnes; et tamen “ ra révra vix puto
esse ipsius apostoli,” Prol. p. 135.
V. 20. rarèp xpio roi oby reea 8ejouev.] “Valebat in omni-
bussed perperam oby, oi brie reea geogaev, Ambrosiast. omnino
recte,” Prol. p. 48, col. l.
Cap. vi. 16. KaS3c elarey & Oeic.] Deest & Geòc unico inter-
prete Syro, et necessario subauditur; at Prol. p. 130, col. 1,
“lectoris est, non D. Pauli.”
Cap. vii. 12. Tàv o rov8àv itzov riv irèe ha v.] V. l. ha av
ròv irèp ipaboy, quae quidem lectio mihi genuina videtur, auc-
toritate Vulg. Chrysost. Theodoreti, Theophylacti confirmata,
et tum ve); ipaac, quod Graeca scholia omnia agnoscunt,
minime insulsum erit. Vide hic Millium nobis consentientem.
Cap. viii. 12. Kagò èay éxn ric.] Deest ric, inquit Mill. in
MSS. 8, Vulg. Ambrosiast. Clar. Ger. Lat. Cyprian. ad Qui-
rin. lib. iii. S. 2, Clem. Al. nescio ubi, Theodoreto, Chrysost.
textu et comment. Agnoscunt autem CEcum. Theophylact.
C. Alex. Arab. et tam in textu quam in commentariis Chry-
sost. (ubi deesse hanc vocem dicit Millius) expressim adhi-
betur. - “Mandat (inquit) Deus, ut caritatem exerceamus
xarà è vapav Raì ta6ò ix; ric,” tanta est Millio circa citationem
suam incuria. Porro, “ oi ka8ò obu éxes adjecta videntur ex-
plicationis gratia,” inquit Millius, Prol. p. 124, col. 2, repug-
nantibus omnibus Graecis scholiis, C. Alex. et versionibus,
excepta AEthiopica. -
Cap. ix. 10. xognyhaat, ca? TrAn0iva ròy a rigov ipzór.]
Millius, Prol. p. 88, col. 1, “ xoenyhores, Raì ramºvvei, xaì
aighorsi, Clar. Cod. Al. CEcumen. Syr. Vulg. et Latini recte,
et apostoli scopum accommodata.” Sed C. Alex. scholia
Gr. omnia, et praecipue CEcumenius, non retinent tantum,
sed simul notant, ut cum CEcumenio loquar, iv sòxi; régei
alvivrea Sat, “ad modum voti innuere, apostolum nullo modo
metuendum esse, ne indigens inveniretur qui caritate abun-
daret,” ra; &v àpasAharete roi ròy ryeva a risov a reigov roc amigoy
6 Osòc xognyſica, aranSövai, alghe a ra yeyyipata, tam levis in
plerisque est Millii fides.
V. 12. Ata roNAºy eixagia riòv rig Geºg.] Mill. Prol. p. 48,
“ Ambrosiast. èv (9eo omnino recte,” repugnantibus Gr. scho-
liis, et versionibus oriental. et C. Alex.
Cap. X. 7. "ori caSà; abrò; Xeta roi, oiro Raì ipogic Xpio roi..]
Posterius xeiero: deest in MSS. et versionibus aliquibus,
Chrysostomo, textu et comment. juxta Millium, Theodoreto,
Theophylacto, retinentibus solum C. Alex. Arab. (Ecumenio:
sed hoc nullius momenti est, nihil enim frequentius, quam
omittere vocem, quae in una periodi parte expressa, in altera
subaudienda est. Et nota insuper quod hi tres commenta-
tores hanc vocem in commentariis suis vel exprimunt ut
Chrysost.; sic &amrep éxsivo; xpiatoi, otto uaì èyà xgio ro5, vel
intelligenda esse indicant.
Cap. xi. 8. Kai bareengsic.] V. 9, “ uaì rmghoro irrepsere in
textum,” Prol. p. 124, col. 2, 130, col. 1. Agnoscunt autem
Gr. scholia, C. Alex. versiones omnes.
Cap. xii. 19. 'Ey Xptatº.] Interpretantur versiones omnes,
Theodoretus, Theophyl. retinentur in textu CEcumen.: sed
adjectitium esse vult Millius, Prol. p. 48, col. 2.
Cap. xiii. 2. Tg4 po..] Agnoscunt Gr. scholia, Syr. Arab.
Sed quia omittunt Vulg. Hilar. D. C. Alex. Clar. “insertum
est ad absolvendum sententiam,” Prol. p. 123, col. 1. 135,
col. 2. r ; -
V. 4. Eic baac.] “Irropsit (inquit Millius) explicationis
gratia ex v. 3.” Agnoscunt autem Theodoret. Theophylact.
CEcum. C. Alex. Hilarius D. et versiones omnes. Vide
Prol. p. 48, col. 2, ubi deest in Clar. Ger. Chrysost.
SECTIo QUARTA-EPISTOLA AD GALATAs.
CAP. i. 4. Qui dedit seipsum brèp &aaertà, ha v.] MSS.
Orig. regì Eòxic, et CEcumen. in textu legunt regì, quae tamen
duo unum sonant, nam sicut LXX. interpr. cum loquuntur
de sacrificiis Vet. Test., modo regì &pa aeriac, seu &aag riav,
modo brée àpagriac seu àpa aprtov indiscriminatim utuntur,
ita scriptores etiam N. Foederis, I Pet. iii. 18, “ Christus
mortuus est regì 3 agttov,” et Rom. viii. 3, sed hic et 2 Cor.
v. 21, i rig. Hinc est quod licet CEcumenius habeat repì in
textu in commentario legit i rèp ray &teagrav huºv, pariter ac
caetera Gr. scholia. Vide com. nostr. in 2 Cor. v. 21. l Pet.
iii. 18.
V. 6. 'Ev xáptti roi Xsta rob.] Theodoret. et CEcumen. in
textu legunt Geoiſ Chrysost. et Theophylact. omnesque ver-
sionesantiquae xeto roi, et CEcumen. in Com. roi vio, roi eso,
et tamen Prol. p. 48, “Xpio roi post additum videtur.”
V. 10. “H ntò av0e4 rots àpiaksiy.] “ Haec (inquit Millius)
ad marginem adscripta, mox irrepsere in textum,” p. 124,
col. 2. Habent autem Gr. scholia omnia, C. Alex. Hilarius
D. Hieronymus, Vulg. t
V. 15. “ori ebè una sy i Qeic.] Deest & Geº apud Theodoret.
in Isa. xi. Hilarius D. Vulg. Hieronymus. “ Accessit ex
margine,” p. 48. Sed agnoscunt omnia Gr. scholia, C. Alex.
Arab. Iren. lib. v. cap. 12, p. 417, “Cum autem placuit Deo”
(et tamen p. 423, “Cum autem placuit ei”), Auctor Dial. in
Marcion. p. 108, Orig. in Joh. p. 123, in textu 3rt 8è sbòéun-
orey, in marg. d Oeòc, cum igitur Deus separavit Paulum ex
utero matris, constat eos qui legunt, “Cum autem placuit
ei,” cum textu sentire.
V. 23. “Hv rote è riedel.] Desunt AEthiop. Habent Gr.
scholia, C. Alex. Hilar. D. Hieronymus, versiones reliquae;
ast, Mil. judice, Prol. p. 124, col. 2, “traducta sunt ex su-
perioribus.”
Cap. ii. l. IIáxiv avégny.] Deest ré Atv Iren. lib. iii. cap.
13, p. 234, et “in textu Chrysost. irrepsit ex praedictis,”
ait Millius, Prol. p. 48, sed ascensionem hanc rhy èsvrigay
árá8aorry vocat Chrysost. Reliquaque Gr. scholia, C. Alex.
Hilarius D. Hieronymus, cunctaeque versiones habent aráxtv.
V. 6.] Omittunt oi boscopyrs, cod. aliqui apud Curcellaeum.
Agnoscunt Gr. scholia omnia, C. Alex. Hilar. D. Vulg.
Hieronym. “Irrepsit tamen ex vers. 2,” Prol. p. 130.
V. 9. 'Iáxo6o; tal mérgog.] Hilar. D. ponit IIérgog ante
'Iáuoſ3oc, sed Gr. scholia C. Alex. versionesque omnes, ne
Vulgata quidem excepta, primum locum tribuunt Jacobo.
Cap. iii. 1. Ti & Andeia può reſºso dai..] “Videtur omnino
(ait Millius) huc adscriptum ad supplendum sensum ex cap.
v. 7 hujus epistolae,” nimirum, quia “apparet ex Chrysost.
Theophyl. et CEcum. commentariis defuisse illis ha cverba,
quae August. Ambrosiast. Sedulius, et Primasius non agnoscunt,
et quae ideo praetermittenda duxit Hieronymus, quod in
exemplaribus Adamantii non haberentur.” At extant in
Vulg. Hilario D. Arab. Theodoreto, et in textu CEcumenii
et Theophylacti: quod si non attingunt in commentario, non
hinc sequitur eos haec verba non legisse. Et cum rei pro-
positae apta sint, et concinna, et absque illis sensus claudi-
caret, hoc satis argumenti est, cur sint retinenda.
1182 EXAMEN
MILLII.
W. 12. 'AXX & Irothera; attà 3,080"roc.] Omittunt #yStaro;
MSS. plur. Chrysostom. Vulg. Hilar. D. Hieronymus : re-
jicit ergo hanc vocem Mill. Prol. p. 84. Sed habent Theodo-
ret. CEcumen. Theophylact. et C. Alex.: et cum necessario
subaudiatur et extet tum in Hebræo sermone, tum in ver-
sione rāv LXX., et sic citetur, Rom. x. 5, quin hic etiam
retinendum sit nemini dubium esse potest. -
W. 14. 'Ev xpiatº 'Inaoi..] Non legebat Chrysostomus, ut
liquet ex Comment. Sed legebant scholia Gr. reliqua, C.
Alex. Hilar. D. et versiones omnes. •
W. 17. Ata&#xny Tréoxexugop, #yny intrô rod Osoſ; eiç Xplºrów.]
Omittunt eig xeta rév, C. Alex. Vulg. Hieron. MSS. quaedam
exempl.; unde inter scholia docti alicujus a Millio numera-
tur: sed reperitur apud omnia Gr. scholia, Syr. Arab. et
Hilarium D.: nec omittendum censeo, siquidem sensum
commodum parit, nempe “testamentum factum in Christo,
et confirmatum a Deo, irritum a lege fieri non posse.”
Cap. iv. 26. "Hºric Hari ºrnp arávrov hºv.] Deest irávrºv
Vulg. Syr. Origen. in Jer. p. 84, contra Cels. lib. iv. p. 193,
Com. in Matt. p. 432, Euseb. de Martyr. Palest. lib. viii.
cap. 11, p. 337, Chrysostom. ed. Mor. tom. iii. p. 747: sed
idem, p. 886, legit trèvrov hºw&v. Iren, lib. v. cap. 35, p. 459,
“omnium nostrorum,” Euseb. contra Marcel. lib. i. cap. 2, p.
10, hºw &mdyrov. Ita etiam Theodoret. CEcumen. Hiero-
nym. in locum, et Orig. in Num. ho. 8. f. 102, H. ho. 26, f.
143, F. Et siquidem omnibus veris Christi discipulis con-
gruat aeque ac Galatis, ratio est cur retinenda sit vox träyraw.
W. 31. Non sumus ancillae filii, &Ax& rā; #AEv6ápac.J Qui-
dam fini hujus capitis adnectunt tº #AEv6ºpiº # 3 xeta rāg #23;
#Asv6ágocs, et exorditur subsequens caput sic, a rhwere of v ita
Tertullianus Hieron. Hilar. D. August. Sed omnia Gr. Scho-
lia, C. Alex. Vulg. Syr. legunt cum textu. Argumentum
Esthii subaudiendo Éy ante rà ixev6spig, facile diluitur. “Male
in quibusdam (inquit Grotius) haec sunt divulsa, ita ut pars
horum capiti praecedenti adhaereat,” Com. in Gal. v. 1.
Cap. v. 3. Magrégoºzai 83 ºráxiv.] Deest ºráxty Arab. Chry-
sost. Hilar. D. Hieron.; sed Theodoret. OEcumen. C. Alex.
Vulg. Syr. retinent máxiv. Ansam omittendi fortasse praebuit
quod quibusdam videretur ad prius aliquod testimonium, quod
illos fugit, apostolum respexisse, cum revera ad solum versi-
culum proxime praecedentem respiciat, “Ego Paulus dico
vobis.” “‘Testificor autem rursus,” est tamen cujusdam stu-
diosi additamentum,” Prol. p. 48, col. 2.
W. 14. 'Ev Švi Aéyº.] Epiphanius, Tertull. Hilar. D. legunt
By taſy trançoirai. Sed omnia Gr. scholia, Hieron. Vulg. C.
Alex. Syr. Arab. By Évi Aéyo, sed dicit Mill. Prol. p. 34, col. 1,
“Św tºy veram esse lectionem, et apostoli genuinam,” addit-
que, “certe D. Pauli est, Ep. ad Rom. xiii. 9;” cum tamen
ibi apostolus legat, #y roštº Aéyò, nulla mentione habita toº
#y tºy. Nota etiam quod Awoixsia et pévot retineantur apud
Gr. Scholia, et versiones omnes.
Cap. vi. 15. 'Ev yā; Xétat; 'Inaoi otºrs, treet roºft tº taxſet.]
Desunt priora apud Hilar. D. legendumque vult Millius otºrs
y&g treetropah rí Éarty cum vero ipsissima textus verba habe-
antur cap. v. 6, hoc unicum ad priorem lectionem firmandam
Satis est. Lectiones pro quibus Millius contendit, profluxisse
videntur ex 1 Cor. vii. 19, ubi sine clausula hic praemissa
legimus à Tregºrogº oëév ša riv, est tamen icºst juxta Millium
interpretatio, Prol. p. 135, et “prior clausula irrepsit ex cap.
v. 6,” Prol. p. 48. Porro extant hac verbain Vulgato, Arab.
Theodoreto, CEcumenio, Theophylacto.
SECTIO QUINTA—EPISTOLA AD EPHESIOS.
CAP. i. 10. 'Ev xpiató.] “‘In Christo per Deum,” Iren.
(v. p. 18) "ita Millius; sedibi solam nobis lectionem Valen-
timianorum exhibet, ipse autem legit simpliciter “in Christo,”
lib. v. cap. 20, p. 431.
V. 18. Tow; 34.62×oic rā; 3iavoia; hºv.] Ita juxta Theo-
doret. CEcumen. et vetustissimas versiones; sed MSS. quam-
plurima Chrysost. et Theophyl. rā; wagöiaç nullo sensus dis-
crimine. Nam S. Scriptura alibi habet 8távotay Tຠzagãia; et
Hebraicum n' Sapius idem valet ac ºpphy, voijº, Siâyota.
Cap. iii. 1. ‘Trég tºy rºy #97&v.] Töv #6vöy desunt apud
Tertulliam. “ scholiastarum esse” dicit Millius, Prol. p. 110,
139, repugnantibus C. Alex. versionibus universim, et Scho-
liis' Gr. omnibus, quorum judicio wrox\# h Épºqºzoic roi; inse
ipºv rāv #Syöv' roºro y&p #yépnvey ºr où &6voy tºwāg of 83EXAvr-
rége6a, 3xx& kai 38ºzoápºsóa 3i' tºic.
W. 8. 'Epºol tº #Aaxiaºrorépº Trávrov rāy 3,ioy.] Ita Graeca
scholia et versiones omnes, Orig. in Matt. 333, C. Alex. et
Hilar. D. “’EX&xiaºrorécº, ºrávraw scripsisse apostolum non
dubito. Emolliens illud ºrāy &yiov ut et rāy &rogróNov scho-
liastarum sunt de veritate, et congruentia sermonis Paulini
solicitorum,” Prol. p. 139, col. 2, et p. 110.
W. 9. Tich koivovia.] W. l. oixovoaia, quam genuinam esse
lectionem a Gr. scholiis et versionibus confirmatam agriosco,
sed parum interest inter communicationem et dispensationem
mysterii de vocandis gentibus, ejusdem ×oivovig factum.
Tº Oslº tº rà rávta wrizavri 3,' 'Inaoü Xetarcí.] Haec
ultima verba non solum agnoscunt Gr. Scholia omnia, sed
etiam notant &rt waxâj, Éavnºyeva's rig ºria’soc 3’’Incow Xela toû'
sunt tamen “commentarius sumptus ex Col. i. 16,” Prol. p.
123, col. 1; eaclem licet habeamus, cap. ii. 10, his verbis,
airoi; yáp Ba'asy roſnº, a wria-Sévºrs; Év Xgiarº 'Inact.
Cap. iv. 9. To Să ăvă8m, ri śati si tº Śrī kai karż8m ºrpºrov
sic rā xarársea kwágn rāg yńc.] “Deest hic Kai Iren. lib. v.
cap. 31;” ita Mill. Sed fallitur. Ibi enim sc. p. 451, legit
“et descendit,” sicut etiam omnia Gr. scholia. . Deest ºrpåroy,
CEcum. Sed non deest reliquis omnibus Gr. scholiis et ver-
Sionibus. Deest etiam &éen apud quosdam, unde Mill. “me-
dium ºxépm lectoris est, ad supplendam sententiam,” Prol. p.
41. Agnoscunt autem Græca scholia omnia, et C. Alex.
nec usitatius quicquam quam omittere verbum aliquod, quod
unusquisque lector adjiciendum esse ex se agnoscit.
W. 17. Ka83; wai ºrd xolºr& #8wn.] Desunt tº Aoitrè, Clem.
Al. Protrept. p. 54, Vulg. Hilar. D. Hieronym. : unde, di-
cente Millio, Prol. p. 60, col. 2, “medium Aoir& irrepsit ex
cap. ii. 3 hujus epistolae.” Agnoscitur tamen ab omnibus
Gr. scholiis, Syro, Arabe.
W. 23. 'Avaysoča Sai. 24. 'Evêſaac Sai.] W. l. #waysočaše,
iyööraağs. “Sic Chrysost. Theophyl. Vulg. Hieronym. Hila-
rius D. infinitiva haec postea facta sunt ob praecedens & roßa-
Sai,” Prol. p. 84, col. 2. Sed Clem. Alex. p. 437, C. Alex.
Theodoret. et CEcumen. legunt cum textu, et à tro8áaréal,
“deponere,” Latini retinent, quod hanc lectionem satis ad-
struit.
W. 28.] Agnoscunt hic rā āya3by Graeca scholia, et versi-
ones omnes, C. Alex. et Hilar. D. : et tamen Prol. p. 160,
col. 1, “vix est quin medium &ya.03v pro scholio marginali
habuerim, sumpto ex Gal. vi. 10.” -
W. 29. Iſgö; oikołakºv rā; xesiac.] V. l. rā; ºria rews, quam
lectionem interpretamenti causa additam hic censet Mill, et
in Prol. p. 55, col. 1, propugnat, Sed repugnantibus Gr.
scholiis universim, C. Alex. Hilario D. et Hieronymo his
verbis; “Pro eo autem quod nos posuimus ‘ad a dificationem
opportunitatis, hoc est quod dicitur Graece rā; Xpeia; ‘in
Latinis codicibus propter euphoniam mutavit interpres et
posuit ad a dificationem fidei.”
W. 32. Ka83; wai & ©e3; #y Xetarā, śxaglaaro tºy..] “'Ey
xgloriº (inquit Millius, Prol. p. 89, col.l) irrepsite margine
ex Col. iii. 13, raro enim patitur apostolum bis idem de eo-
dem dicere.” Agnoscunt autem versiones omnes, Chrysost.
CEcumen. C. Alex. Hilar. D. : et quanquam dicat Mill.
“deesse Theodoreto et Theophylacto,” Theophylactus tan-
tum ordinem verborum invertit, legendo #xagia aro bºy #y
Xºta rā, Theodoretus sic, 3 rāv ŠAoy QE3; #xagicato #47, 31& rot,
As-Trátov Xºta toû.
Cap. v. 5. Toâro yág #ars yºvºazovre;..] Plurimi cod. MSS.
Clem. Al. p. 437, Chrysost. CEcum. legunt Éars' ad eandem
interpretationem afferunt ac illam Theodoreti et Theophy-
lacti, qui habent #are, ita etiam Hieron. et omnes Latini,
qui legunt “scitote,” lectio Vulg. “scitote intelligentes,”
absona est, et absurda. -
W. 9. "O yap wagºrčc roi, TIVEógaaroº.] “V. l. roi; pork,
Vulg. Hilar, D. e Latinis multi, Theophylacti:” ita Millius.
Sed Theophylactus et Gr. scholia non modo legunt, sed fu-
sius explicant vocem “spiritus,” quibuscum consentit Arabs.
W. 21. ‘Ey +08w Ogoj.] V. l. x8taroſ, Chrysost. Vulg. Syr.
Ambrosiast. Sed Ogot, Theodoret. OEcum. Theophylact. Arab.
Nota quod v. 20 wai Traºré, omittatur ab unico AEthiope, et
tamen Prol. p. 124, “irrepsite margine.”
W. 27. "Iva ºraçao than airy..] .V. l. abrèc, Theophylact.
Vulg. Hilar. D. Hieronymus. Sed Chrysost. Theodoret.
CEcumen. Arab. atry, quam lectionem etiam sensus postu-
lat. Nota autem quod licet in omnibus Regatur vel atrºv vel
airo, Millius tam attày quam air pro injectitiis habeat,
Prol. p. 105, col. 1.
W. 31. Kai ºrpornoºnóño'eral ºrpic tºy yuyaſza airoij.] Habent
EXAMEN MILLII.
1 183
haec verba scholia Gr. omnia, C. Alex. Hilar. D. versiones
omnes, aliunde assumpta tamen disertim asserit Hieronymus.
Ratio in promptu est; iniquus conjugio fuit Hieronymus.
Cap. vi. 1. ‘Ey Kugiº.] Sic omnia Gr. scholia, C. Alex.
Hieron. et versiones antiquae. “Est tamen commentarius,”
Prol. p. 48, col. 1.
V. 10. "A&Expo gov.] Desunt tantum AEthiop. habent Gr.
scholia, et versiones omnes: at Prol. p. 48, col. 2, “irrep-
Sisse videtur ex lectionariis.”
V. 18. Eig attà rotto &ypwrvoivºrsc.] Deest roºro Vulg.
Arab. Hilar. D. Hieron. Basil. Sed agnoscunt roſto omnia
Gr, scholia, et 3:#aa 6e Chrysost. Theodoret. CEcumen. Vulg.
Syr. Arab. “Utraque tamen ºr rotºro et 3:#aaSs non sunt
D. Paulised lectoris,” Prol. p. 135, col. 2.
SECTIO SEXTA—EPISTOLA AD PHILIPPENSEs.
CAP. i. 1, 2öv Štriaxárrots.] W. l. averloºkémotº, “co-episco-
pis,” Hilarius D. : sed quanquam praepositio oily adjunga-
tur #Tiawātrol; secundum veterem scribendi consuetudinem,
constat tamen Graecos omnes cum textu concordare: non
enim notarunt quod Paulus apud Philippenses mentiomem
fecerit co-episcoporum nec quaerunt quamobrem id fecerit,
sed cum Hieronymo dicunt eos, qui hic dicti sunt episcopi,
presbyteros fuisse. Denique nec id dicit Hilarius, sed hoc
tantum, “Cum episcopis et diaconis, hoc est, cum Paulo et
Timotheo, qui episcopi erant,” mirum quam frigide et in-
epte.
W. 18. xerºr); KarayyáAAErat.] W. l. xarayyāNAédéa, Eu-
Seb.; non Eccl. Hist., ut Millius hic hallucinatur, sed de
Vita Const. lib. iii. cap. 58, et Prol. p. 102, col. 2. In utris-
que autem lectori imposuit Millius, nam sire argo pád's Eire
&Amósiº xeta rā; warayyexxérôo, sunt ibi verba imperatoris,
Fºovovovyi, kai Trapawanaio; fere inquit Eusebius, propemodum
aut tantum non cum Paulo loquentis. Adde quod Gr. Scho-
lia et versiones othnes legant cum textu.
Cap. ii. 4. Mă ră şavrºv škaaro; a Koreïre.] Cod. plur. Ba-
silius, Hilar. D. legunt axonvivºrs;, Vulg. “considerantes:”
ast omnia Gr. scholia, Syr. Arab. azotrefºre, “quod scholias-
tae est,” Prol. p. 71. -
W. 11. IIāora yxºcoa #op-oxoyhan rat.] MSS. quaedam, Orig.
in Joh. p. 134, et Theophylactus, ižogoNoyhors’rat, “undemu-
tavit quispiam (inquit Mill. Prol, p. 160), futurum im aoris-
tum ob praecedens xàºn.” Sed Chrysost. Theodoret. (Ecum.
C. Alex. Hilarius D. Iren. lib. i. cap. 2, p. 45, Gr. legit #o-
£40×oyhanta et Athanas. Orat. 2 contra Ar. p. 346, et hanc
lectionem firmant primo, r3 fºa, 2, r3 xàºln praecedentia,
nam ubi occurrit, Rom. xiv. II, ižowoxoyño'eral sine Wa prae-
cedente sequitur zãº!et.
W. 15. 'Ey Kºścº.] Ita omnia Gr. scholia, Vulg. Hilar. D.
praefert &vá pºšaoy Millius, Prol. p. 163, col. 2.
W. 30. IIaga£ovXEva'éºwevo; tº Juxi.] W. l. TrapagoNewcôºws-
voc, Vulg. Hilar. D. Pseud-Hieron. Sed omnia Gr. scholia,
C. Al. et Photius legunt Trapa BovāEvaſãºwevoc, i.e. ut aiunt
Phavorinus, et Hesychius, ei, 64yarov Šavròy 3.80% male igi.
tur Mill. ait Prol. p. 48, “Ignoratio sensus rod traga.gov.sv-
cápºevo; occasionem dedit huic mutationi.” .
Cap. iii. 9. 'Emi tº triºts.] Deest unico Syro. Sed Prol.
p. 130, col. 1, “vix quidem obstat summus codicum, quos
jam habemus, consensus, quo minus ºri tº triarst pro inter-
pretamento, eoque minus opportune hic injecto, habeam.”
W. 11. Ei, rºy &váa raaty rôy vexpóv.] W. l. rºw in vexpāv, nul-
lo sensus discrimine. -
W. 15. Tà airá croixºſy Rayévi.] Agnoscunt vocem wavévi
Graeci scholiastäe interpretesque omnes, ne hodierno quidem
Vulgato excepto; sed rejicitur tanquam “interpolatio,”
Prol. p. 55, col. 2, et p. 135, col. 2, “irrepsit ex Gal. vi.
X6.”
W. 21. Qui transformabit corpus humilitatis nostrae, gig tº
2.Évéa 9at airó adºxoeboy..] Ei; rô yevão 64; airó desunt Vulg.
Hilar. D. Iren. lib. v. cap. 13, p. 419, Tertulliano. At re-
tinent ea Graeca scholia omnia, Syr. Arab.
Cap. iv. 3..] Legas kai śporó vel vai igorº nihil inte-
TeSt.
W. 4. Xaige're iv Kugio, Trávtore.] Tº ºrávrors deest in solo
AEthiope. Agnoscunt omnes scholiasta, C. Alex. Vulg. Syr.
Arab.: sed Prol. p. 124, col. 2, “irrepsit ex 1 Thess. v. 16.
W. 13. 'Ev rá čvēvapºoſviri &s Xetaró.] Deest Xeta-rá in
MSG quibusdam, Vulg. Hilar. D. A thºop.: ergo Prol. p.
123, “adjectitium est:” séd habent Syr. Arab. Graeci scho-
liasta omnes. -
W. 18. IIap. 'Etra peoëirov.] Sic Gr. scholia, Hilar. D. ver-
sionesque omnes: dicente tamen Millio, Prol. p. 145, col. 1,
“Trag& 'Etraºppoètrov, quod habent jam omnes, scholion initio
erat sumptum ex cap. ii. 25.” -
W. 23. Mer& Tráy'roy tºy.] Ita omnia Gr. scholia, C.
Alex. Syr. Arab. Sed MSS. quaedam, Vulg. Hilar. D.
Pseud-Hieronymus legunt ºwer3 roi; Trygdøaro; tºw. “Rec-
te,” inquit Millius, Prol. p. 123. -
SECTIO SEPTIMA—EPISTOLA AD COLOSSENSES.
CAP. i. 2. Kai Kučíov hºców Ingot. Xpteroi..] Omittunt haec
verba 4 MSS. Hilar. D. Syr. et Theophylact. et licet repe-
rias in textu Chrysostomi in Com. tum ille, tum Theophy-
lactus, ait #, raûrn rod Xgiaroſ, oi rišnot byoga, “lectoris ergo
sunt, non D. Pauli,” Mill. Prol. p. 84. Sed agnoscunt C.
Alex. Vulg, Arab. CEcumen. Theodoretus; solum enim in-
spexerat Millius versionem Latinam, cum hac verba Theo-
doreto defuisse affirmavit. Et siquidem in reliquis epistolis
omnibus Paulus eaderm loquendi formula utitur cum ad has
vel illas ecclesias, tum ad hos vel illos homines, quid obstat
quo minus hac verba hic etiam usurpasse videatur? non
ille Colossis error obtinuit utputarent Christo supplicandum
esse mediantibus angelis, sed ºr 3' 3yyśńoy ºrporáysaşa, Goy-
To rô Qaş, où 31& roi; viot, quod rationem omittendi hac verba
a Theophylacto allatam prorsus evertit; cum enim apostolus
Deum patrem nullo internuncio comparato precetur his ver-
bis, x&gt; tºy wai siężyn 373 Osoſ; "ratp%, hae preces falsam
istam ex animis hominum satis evellunt opinionem. -
V. 6. Kai irri wapiropºpotaszow.] MSS. plur. Vulg. Hilar.
D. Syr. Chrysost. Theodoret. et Theophylact. addunt wai
aúðavöveyov (quod tamen, pace Milli dicam, deest CEcumen.
textu et com.): in Graecis non legi, ait Erasmus, illud ač-
£avée, Evoy ; non adesse in MSS. ait Grotius. Desumptum
videtur ex his verbis, V. 10 hujus cap. xagºropogoûyrs; wai at-
§ayáſzaycı.
V. 10. Ut ambuletis 3%ioç roi, Kugiov.] Vulg. Lat. Didy-
mus, Hilar. D. Pseud-Hieron. Osoſ; sed omnia Gr. scholia,
Clem. Al. p. 576, C. Alex. textui assentiuntur.
W. 14. Thy &woxárgooly 3:3 rot afaaro; aircü.] Omittunt
haec postrema verba Syr. Chrysost. Theophylact. Athanas.
tom. i. p. 466 : sed agnoscunt Arab. CEcum. Theodoret.
Iren. lib. v. cap. 2, p. 395, Paulus ipse, Eph. i. 7.
W. 18. Tot; a dºzaro; ric #xxxnariaç.] Retinent roi; ordaaroc
Graeci scholiaste, C. Alex. interpretesque omnes, dempto
AEthiope, qui tamen reliquis omnibus antepomitur, Prol. p.
124, col. 2. *
W. 24. Nunc gaudeo Év raóñºzaari gov.] In MSS. Vulg.
Hilar. D. Syr. Theodoreto, deest &ov. Habent Chrysost.
CEcumen. Theophylact. : et cum loquatur apostolus deaf-
flictionibus quas in carne Sua passus est, Vox gou vel legatur,
vel subaudiatur necesse est: tamen est “addititium,” Prol.
p. 89.
Cap. ii. 4. M% ric.] “V. l. (wněstº, Clem. Al.” Sed falli hic
Millium patet; wide Stro. vi. p. 645.
W. 7. Ka83; #3184x$nts replacedoy’rs; #y airff.] Kai additur
post was&c, et Év air; desunt in quibusdam MSS. sed. Graeci
scholiastae textui consentiunt.
V. 9. Plenitudo divinitatis a wºarix&c.] “Deest congatt-
xãc, Iren. lib. i. cap. 1, Cyprian. Iib. de Bono Patientia;”
ita Millius, sed reperies verbum illud apud Orig. in Jer. p.
56, Hilar. D. Graeca scholia, et versiones omnes. Quod ad
Irenaeum attinet loco citato, p. 18, ex Grabii sententia mon
habemus verba Irenaei, sed Valentinianorum; legerunt ta-
men (ait ille) coºartzºg Graeci patres omnes, et de Latinis,
Hilarius, Augustinus, pluresque alii.
W. 11. ‘Ey +; 37:28%re roi; ºftwaro; rāy &aprižy ràc cat-
wóc.] Omittunt rôy & wagtiāy MSS. aliqua, Hilar. Diac. Clem.
Al. Stro. iii. p. 444, Pseud-Hieron. (de quo vix unquam
sum adeo solicitus ut quaeram quid dixerit, senseritve): sed
Basil. Prol. p. 61, tom. ii. p. 447, et Graeca Scholia textus
lectionem exhibent, et contra Millii, “de scholio in textum
introducto” sententiam corroborant.
V. 18. “A º żºpazey #28atsüov.] Deest º in MSS. qui-
busdam, Orig. contra Cels. p. 236. Sunt Calar. Hilario D.
et cod. Lat. teste Augustino Ep. ad Paulinum : sed. Graeca
scholia, versiones omnes, et teste Esthio, Graeca omnia, et
1 184,
EXAMEN MILLII.
Latina quae nunc extant, negationem habent, et in margine
Origenis adnotatur ºwn. Habent libri editi.
W. 20. El oty &meSávers.] Deest oty in MSS. Theophylacto,
Cypriano, quod retinent Chrysost. Theodoret. CEcum. Vulg.
Hilarius D. Syr.
Cap. iii. 12. 2mAáyxya oix'rippºv.] Origen. in Matt. 473,
Clem. Alex. Chrysost. Vulg, legunt oix rippeod, nullo sensus
discrimine, sedad oram Origenis adscribitur. Cod. Reg. oix-
rigºv, et sic Theodoret. CEcumen. et Theophyl. “Muta-
tum tamen oix'rt&ot in ointipºv” ait Mill. Prol. p. 61, col. 1.
W. 18. Tot; ièio, &y36&aiv.] Deest i3iot; in cunctis versioni-
bus, Clem. Al. Stro. iv. p. 499, Hilar. D. Pseud-Hieron.:
Theophylactus legit &věpárty tºw. Vel legendum vel intel-
ligendum esse constat, pro certo enimimonentur hic uxores
et suis, non aliarum mulierum maritis, subditi sint. Wide
Paulum Eph. v. 24.
W. 20. Hoc est eigeta-roy tº Kveið..] MSS. exempla pluri-
ma, Theodoret. Theoph. et Vulg. legunt Év Kupið. Atqui
Clem. Al. Stro. iv. p. 499, Chrysost. CEcum. multi Graeci
Latinique codices, teste Esthio, sine praepositione, atque ec
modo plenior est sermo.
W. 22. Oi 300xot in axoiſers zarz ºrávra roi; mara aráexa kugi.
otc.] Ita Graeca scholia, versionesque, dempto AEthiope,
omnes. Sed Millio, Prol. p. 124, col. 2, “intermedium
xar& Trávra, ut et kata orágwa, videtur marginalis explicatio
ex Eph. vi. 5.” Consultius esset receptae potius lectioni
acquiescere, quam AEthiope duce ab aliis omnibus deviare.
Cap. iv. 2. 'Ev sixagiarig..] Sic Gr. scholia, C. Alex.
versionesque omnes. Sed Prol. p. 49, col. 1, “irrepsit ex
cap. ii. 7, aut etiam ex Phil. iv. 6.”
V. 3. Güpay roi, Näyov.] Hic iterum Millius Sūpaw simplici-
ter (utcumque Ségay roi; Aéyov, sit jam in omnibus codicibus),
pro genuina vix est quin habeat, Prol. p. 61, col. 1.
V. 10. 'Agia raexog & avaixº~4Åoróg (wov.] “‘O avaixº~4xo-
ºrác (cov, irrepsisse videntur ex Ep. ad Philem. v. 23, 24;”
ita Millius Prol. p. 124, col. 1, Agnoscunt tamen Graeci
scholiastaº, C. Alex. Hilarius D. interpretesque omnes prae-
terguam unus AEthiops.
‘W. 13. Ziaow troxty.] W. 1. Tráðoy woxiv, troxiv Károy, 37&va
Troxiv, “multum laborem,” Vulg. Hilar. D. Sed Gr. scholia,
Syr. Arab. textui consentiunt.
SECTIO OCTAVA—EPISTOLE AD THESSALONICENSES.
1 THESS. i. l. "Arr; Geod rare?; hºw&v wał Kuglev 'Inaroj
Xeteroi..] Desunt haec verba in Vulg. Syr. Arab. AEthiop.
Hilario D. Pseud-Hieron. Retinentur autem Chrysost. The-
odoret. CEcumen. C. Alex. et ob id Solum omitti videntur,
quod praecesserint #y OEs ºratei, Kai Kuglø 'Inaoiſ Xplorá.
W. 7..] Parvi refert utrum legas róvov, an cum textu rétovº,
quam lectionem amplectuntur Graeci scholiasta omnes.
Cap. ii. 7. 'AAA' Hyevå0nºey intol.] W. l. Vário Vulg. Hila-
rius D. CEcumen. in textu hºriog, in com. whºrlog. Orig.
Com. in Matt. p. 375, whºrlog, Sed firioc, p. 421. Syr. et Arab.
“mitis, mansuetus,” Chrysost. C. Alex. Cl. Al. Paed. lib. i. p.
84, Stro. i. p. 272, Basil. tom. ii. p. 462 et 570, legunt hºrioc,
quod simillimum veri videtur. Apostolus enim in hac simi-
litudine non infantis, sed nutricis personam sustinet, quae
puerorum leves iras et infirmitates placide fert.
W. 8. ‘lºstgāpcevot jºy.] Decem MSS. et Theophylactus
in textu legunt 8&sigáºzevot, “ constricti vobis :” unde Millius
Prol. p. 95, col. 1, “Usitatius igwepézewoi in alterius locum
suffecerunt scribae;” sed versiones omnes, Chrysost. Theo-
doret. C. Alex. Hilar. D. CEcumenius, legunt cum textu,
quam lectionem interpretatur Theophylactus, utraque vox
idem valet pºsiçáºzyoi pºsigoyrat, i. e. Éviðvøoja'iy, Hesychius
et Phavorinus.
W. 15. Tow; i3tov; mpoqºraç.] Deest ièlow; in MSS. quibus-
dam, Vulg. Hilario D. Pseud-Hieron. Orig. de Mart. p.
224, adde et Com. in Matt. p. 224. “Scholiastie cujusdam
est,” Mill. Prol. p. 65, col. 2. Sed omnia Graeca scholia,
Basil. tom. ii. p. 429, Syr. Arab. retinent ièious, vide Act.
vii. 52; et quosnam quaeso alios prophetas occidissent Ju-
dai circa annum aerae Christianae 51 P
Cap. iii. 2. Kal averydy hºàv.] “Recte hic omnia, nihil
mutandum,” Mill. in locum : sed Prol. p. 123, col. 2,
“Media wai orwegyöy hºày irrepsere e margine,” contra fidem
omnium Graecorum scholiorum, Syr. et Arab.
Cap. iv. 11. Kai #yáčea-3 at raï, ióiaſ; x=2…iv.] Ita Theo-
doretus, OEcumenius, Theophylactus; “manibus vestris,”
Vulg. et Hilar. D.: et cujusnam manibus operari potuerunt
nisi suis, at Prol. p. 84, “irrepsit ex 1 Cor. iv. 12.”
W. 13. of Sãxo tºx3, 3) vosīv.] Sc. “Ego Paulus nolo,”
v. l. SéAop, ev, “Nos Paulus, Sylvanus, et Timotheus molumus :”
plurali etiam numero saepe utitur Paulus, cum Solam sui
ipsius mentionem faciat.
Nota insuper quod licet in versiculis 15–17 afferantur
decem variantes lectiones, Orig. in Joh. p. 317 a textu in
nihilo discedit, et legit p84a wººey non p34&oºey, prout Millius
hic lapsus est per errorem. --
Cap. v. 13. Eignveſets iv Havroſc.] MSS. Vulg. Æthiop.
Chrysostomus, et Theodoretus, legunt by airoi;, Touréatri
3.3arxáxoic. Sed Hilarius D. C. Alex. CEcumenius, Theo-
phylactus, iv iavroſ. Ethanc lectionem, quam posteriorem
vocat, ita firmat Esthius: “Posterior lectio quae admonet
Thessalonicenses ut inter se pacem habeant, magis genuina
videtur, tum quia novum praeceptum est nulla conjunctione
et cum praecedentibus cohaerens; tum quia prioris lectionis
sensus in superioribus satis includitur, velut minus in majore,
medicam quod nec Graeca, nec Hebraica proprietatis est, ita
loqui ày airoi;, i.e. a by aircíº, cum iis, sed inter illos, ut Marc.
ix. 50, sipnveſets iv &AA#xsic, ‘Pacem habete inter vos.”.”
W. 15. Kai etc. &xxâxovº, kal Big Trávrac.] Deest kai in Wuk.
^*
Arab. Sed retinent prius wai Graeca scholia omnia, atque
eam Graeci sermonis elegantia postulat. “Sc. quod bonum
est, sectemini tam erga Christianos, quam extraneos, seu mon
modo inter vos ipsos, sed in omnes.”
W. 27. IIāºri roſ., &yiot; 38expoſ...] Agnoscunt &yiotº Graci
scholiasta, C. Alex. interpretesque, dempto AEthiope,
omnes. Millius tamen ait Prol. p. 150, col. 2, “Nisi
obstaret codicum consensus, medium &yiotº pro insititiis
haberem.”
In Secundae Epistolae ad Thessalonicenses capite primo
vix aliqua varians lectio expectatione aliorum digna occurrit.
V. 8 et 12, d. xploroi, post “Jesum” apud codices aliquos et
Graecos scholiastes, cujus quidem vocis subductione sive
additamento nihil usitatius est; et cum 'Inaoſ, vel Kupiou re-
tineatur, si subducas vel addas momen Xpia toû, nullo modo
in sensum peccatur. Similiter loco Triatedova'iv cod. MSS.
plur. et omnia Graeca scholia legunt triarsūraziv, i.e. non is
qui credunt, sed qui crediderunt. At grammatici sciunt
quam frequentur omnis sermo utatur aoristo, loco temporis
praesentis, et vice versa. Wide Glass. lib. iii. tract. 3, can.
46, 47.
Cap. ii. 2..] OEcumenius Xgicroi, i. e. Kvetov, cui lectioni
cum patrocinantur Graeci patres omnes, Vulg. et Syr. quin
genuina sit nullus dubito: cum autem utriusque vocis eadem
sit compendiosa scriptio Xod, atque ambae eandem personam
denotent, quid istuc tam mirum si promiscue usurpentur P
W. 3. ‘o #ySeowoc rā; &#xagºriaç.] Cyril. Hieros. p. 161, .
Orig. MSS. contra Cels. p. 89, legunt &yopriac, Sed scholiastae
Graeci, C. Alex, interpretesque veteres, Iren. lib. v. cap. 25,
p. 438, Orig. ibid. in textu, et contra Cels. p. 307, in Matt.
p. 347, in Joh. p. 76, legunt &gaeriac, Hilarius D. “pec-
cati:” quae huic lectioni satis firmamenti addunt, nec re
dissident haec verba & wagºria yáp a riv čvowia, Joh. iii. 4.
V. 4.) “Omittit Aeyázsvoy Origenes,” ita Mill. festinanter:
habent enim Trávra Asyówevoy Oety non modo Cyril. Hieros. p.
161, Cyril. Alex. de Ador. Sp. p. 309, Graeci scholiasta
omnes et Hilarius D. ; sed Orig. etiam contra Cels. p. 89 et
307, in Matt. p. 242.
'Q; Osów.] Deest MSS. quibusdam, Iren: lib. v. cap. 25.
Orig. contra Cels. locis jam dictis, Cyril. Hieros. C. Alex.
Vulg. “Insertum in contextum nullus dubito,” ait Millius
Prol. p. 65, col. 2. Sed agnoscunt &; Oey omnia Graca
scholia, Cyril. Alex. Glaph. in Gen. p. 178, Theodoret. Haer.
Fab. lib. v. cap. 23, Syr. Arab, Ita eorum qui huic dictioni
suffragantur major est numerus, quam qui adversantur.
V. 8. “ov & Kūgio: &vexco’s...] Orig. Cyril. Hieros. Constit.
Apost. lib. vii. cap. 72, legunt &v=xeſ, fortasse ex ed quod
versio rów LXX. ita se habeat Isa. xi. 4. Utram harum
vocum legerint patres Latini nemo pronunciare potest, sed
lucem his dabunt Chrysostomi hac verba in Psal. xliv., xi.
&xxo; Troophºrn, ºnai, Tarážst rºw yńy Xéyò, ro; cráºzatc.; aircº
za; Trygüwari Xzińov &v=xeſ &oséñ, r3 air& rà IIaşxº ºpSeyy?
&evo; Aéyovri by Küçios &veX&ore rô TyE&art atázaro; at 74.
tom. iii. ed. Mor. p. 214; ita legunt reliqui Graeci Sch -
liastate.
\
EXAMEN MILLII.
Î Î85
V. 11. Atà toùro τάμφει.] Orig. contra Cels. p. 307 Iren.
Gyril. Hieros. p. 166, legunt 7r£paret, sed Græca scholia,
Qrig: ibid. p. 90, Iren. lib. v. cap. 28, legunt 7r£μφει, et
Cyrillus ait, τό δὸ πάμπει άντι τοῦ αὐyxog*? yivsaSat.
V. 13.] Omnia Græca scholia, et C. Alex. legunt, non
efAato, sed siAsto, pariter ac textus.
Cap. iii. 4. "A 7rapayy£λλομεν ύμῖν.] Græci scholiastæ, C.
Alex. interpretesque omnes, si a Vujgato discesseris, agnos-
cunt £g* at Prol. p. 49, “ accessit ad absolvendam senten-
*iam.”
SECTIO NONA—EPISTOLA PRIMA AD TIMOTHEUM.
CAP. i. 4. οίκοδομiav ©eoj.] Ita Vulg. Hilarius D. patres
Latini, Syrus. Irenæus his verbis, aftivsc 3ntia sic ààxxoy
grap£Xovat, καθός ό άπόστολάς φηzty, h οίκοδομ}ν Θεού τ}ν ἐy7ria-ret,
Lat. “ quam ædificationem Dei quæ est in fide," p. l ; sed
Græca scholia, et codices MSS. habent oixovopxiav, nec ab hac
rmutatione sensus multum patitur, cum ædificatio sit hujus
oixovoμίας fructus genuinus. -
V. 14. *^7rep£TA£äyaae, et 16, vrg&τα.] Tó 7rg%rœ habent
Græca scholia, C. Alex. versionesque Vulgata et Arab. et
v. 18, iv aùrafc, agnoscunt Græca scholia omnia, C. Alex.
Vulg. Syr. Hilar. D. et tamen Millius, “ ùràe pro more e
margine transtulerunt librarii in textum,” Prol. p. 160, et
“Tr€&τ& valde suspectum est 7ragepoßAfiaioc,” p. 49, et reji-
citur p. 139, col. 2, et “ âv aù-raï; scholiastæ cujusdam est,
non apostoli,” Prol. p. 124, nimirum Æthiops hic ** arche-
typum textum retinet, licet ab ipso cæteri, quod video,
abierint,” Ibid, col. 1.
V. 17. Mövg, oro$$ @sά.] Deest σοφά in C. Alex. Clar.
Vulg. Syr. Æthiop. Tertulliano, Novatinn, Hilario D.
August. Pseud-Hieron. nec attingunt in Com. Chrysost.
Theodoret. CEcumen. “ Suspicatur Esthius, id quod rés est,
ex Rom. xvi. 27 hoc a Græcis quibusdam, diversa loca
confundentibus, adscriptum esse, sicut et in Epistola Judæ :”
Hæc Millius. Atqui non Arabs modo, sed omnia Græca
scholia habent σοφόim textu, et satis attingunt in commen-
tariis. Nempe secundum Theodoretum hæc exclamatio est
üμνος τ} τριάδε, secundum Chrysostomum et OEcumenium
araîta 7rep\ τοῦ xpta roù, rationemque reddit Theophylactus
aύτὸς yàp ἐστι η σοφίει τοῦ τ&τgìc, Theodoretus in lib. v. de
Hær. Fab. cap. 1, p. 251, hæc habet verba, ßoä 8È xai ô
άπόatoXog άφθágτα, άοεάτω, μότά σοφὸ Θεό, et in dial. 2 de
Trinit. quem illi attribuit Garnerius, eadem reperias, tom. v.
p. 300. Maximus confessor in eodem dialogo illa ipsa verba
bis recitat, p. 410, 422. •
Cap. ii. 7. 'Aλήθειαν λόγον ἐν xgtatá.] Desunt ἐν xgtat&
MSS. plur. vetustis versionibus, Chrysost. Theophyi.
Habent autem Theodoret. et CEcumen.
Cap. iii. 3. M} aio xgorep}j.] Non habent cod. MSS. multi,
Vulg. Hilarius D. Syr. Arab. Theodoret. et Theophylact.
“ Irrepsit ex Ep. ad Tit.” Prol. p. 89. Habent autem
Chrysostomus, CEcumen. C. Alex. S. Basil. tom. ii. p. 476,
477. Et vocem hanc postulant sequentia 8tax6vovg άσ&έτως,
N. B. μ} aia xgoxegêgî¢, et Tit. i. 7, ubi eadem res agitur.
V. 6. ®Eôς ἐφανεράθη iv a-apxi.] Hanc lectionem contra Vul-
gatam suam et Hilar. D. pulcherrime propugnat Mill., in eo
solo lapsus quod ait “ Greg. Nyssenum primum fuisse omni-
um luculentum hoc apostoli testimonium usurpasse video.”
Eodem enim antea usi sunt Athanas. de Incarn. Verbi, tom.
i. p. 592, atque Orig. contra Cels. lib. iii. p. 129.
Cap. iv. 16. 'E7rip×eve aύτοῖς.] Ita Græca scholia, Vulg.
Hilar. D. Syr.: dicente autem Millio, Prol. p. 124, col. 2,
“ medium ἐπίμενε σύτοῖς, adscripsit jam olim ad marginem
scholiastes aliquis, unde irrepsit in textum.”
Cap. v. 4. KaAàv xai.] Desunt in MSS. plurimis, Græcis
scholiis, et versionibus cunctis; fortasse, eo quod supervacanea
hæc verba putarimt : quod enim acceptum est coram Deo,
id non potest non esse bonum et honestum. Similiter v. 5,
*ai τzî; qrgozευχαῖς omittunt, ut superfluum credo, cod.
Latini plurimi,
V. 16. Et τις τιστός % nrtatfi.] Sic Græca scholia omnia,
Hilar. D. Syr. Arab. sed * præfixit Tria vâc lector quispiam,”
ita Mill. Prol. p. 71. ·
V. ] 9. 'Extâ, ei μὴ ἐπῖ δέο λ τgióv μagτύgo)v.] Ita versiones
omnes, C. Alex. Theodoret. CEcum. et Theophylact. Ait
tamen Millius, Prol. p. 49, * Vulg. Hilarii Jectio, quæ est
simpliciter μ } 7ragaάχου, omnino genuina est, qui expressiora
et clariora hic volebat, adjecit ad marginem $wtà; et μὴ ἐm ;
3öo fi τριάν μagτύρων: quod quidem mox ut in textum irrep-
serit, nil mirum si in omnes demum codices invaserit.**
V. 21. Mnòìv 7roi£v xatà rpìzxAiaiv.] Quædam exempla
MSS. Chrysost. et CEcum. . legunt 7re6αχλnariy, Basilius et
Theodoretus 7rgóakXia-iy, sicut etiam Theophylactus, hac simul
adhibita observatione, κάν διὰ τοῦ λ ygågeta;, ròv aùtôv yoùv
ornpaaiv£t. -
Cap. vi. 5. 'Aqyia raaro å7rò τὸν τοιούτων.] Agnoscunt hæc
verba omnia Græca scholia, Hilarius D. Syr. Arab. et sensus
sine his non plenus est : male igitur putat Grotius ob hanc
solam rationem ea addita fuisse, et post illum Millius, ** a
lectore addita ad complendum sensum,” Prol. p. 123,
præsertim cum Græci scholiastæ et patres diserte notent
quod apostoli mandatum non sit, “ Disputa cum,” sed
“ Segrega te ab illis.”
V. 9. Eic È7ri6vuiac àyo%vovg.} Ita Syr. C. Alex. et omnia
Græca scholia in textu, Chrysost. in margine commentarii,
Easilius, tom. ii. p. 450 ; sed Vulg. &c. àyovfitovc, quod fere
idem sonat ; quæcumque enim cupiditas stulta et temeraria
est, eam quoque inutilem et nocivam esse, quis dubitat ?
V. 20.] Chrysostomus et Theophylactus hic 7rapaxataSfixmv
legunt, sed Theodoretus et CEcumenius, 7raga6hxnv, sine dis-
crimine, teste Phavorino, 7raga6him A£y£ xai Tagaxata$ %xn,
o$tò yàg xaì à£Xaioi λόγονσι' 7raga$hxm, 7ragazava6%xn. Hesy-
chius.
SECTIO DECIMA—EPISTOLA SECUNDA AD TIMOTHEUyM.
CAP. i. 11. 'E6vóv.] Habent Gr. scholia, versiones, Hilarius
D. exemplaria, si bina excipias, omnia, sed Prol. p. 145, col.
l, “ ἐ$yöy est Ep. ad Timotheum prioris;” cur non eadem
sententia etiam posterioris ?
Cap. ii. 19. Tò övoμα XptaToù.] MSS. plurimi, scholiastæ,
interpretesque omnes legunt Kvpiov, hæc ergo est germana
lectio : cum vero eadem persona sit tum Christus, tum
Dominus, idem utriusque sensus est.
V. 21. 'A7rò τούτων.] Occurrunt hæc verba apud Orig.
contra Cels. lib. iv. p. 210, in uncis. Desunt Philoc. p. 65,
66, idque ob rationem mon cognitu difficilem ; verba enim
hæc vel referuntur ad profana, et inaniloquia Hymenæi et
IPhileti, vel ad vasa in contumeliam facta; ideoque, detractis
iis, fit sententia generalis, ** Si quis emundaverit se, erit vas
in honorem,” sed retinent Græci scholiastæ, C. Alex. Hilar.
I). et versiones omnes. -
Cap. iii. 3. "AaTogyov, öiaTroyöoi.} Agnoscunt hæc verba C.
Alex. scholiastæ, et versiones. Grotius autem, ** Forte huc
inserta sunt ex Rom. i. 31.” Cum vero desint in umico
Syro, si conjecturis et suspicionibus hujusmodi coarguantur
tot testimonia, quid certi de textu habere possumus?
V. 16. @567rv£va roc, κα\ άφάλιμος.] Ita scholiastæ, C.
Alex. : Hilarius autem D. et versiones omittunt καῖ.
Cap. iv. 8. Πᾶσι τοῖς %yaTrnxázt.] Omnia Græca scholia, et
C. Alex. legunt Träari, quod satis est ad firmandam hanc
lectionem. Deest 7räat apud Ger. Vulg. Hilarium D. Pseud-
Hieron.: unde Millio “injectum in nostris Träari exolicatic
est,” Prol. p. 49.
SECTIO UNDECIMA—EPISTOLA AD TITUM.
CAP. i. 4. x&gtc, ἐλεος, εἰgávm.] Deest ἐλεος apud Latinos,
Syr. Chrysost. Orig. (seu Ruffinum) ad Rom. cujus hæc sunt
verba ad Titum, * Vero gratia et pax a Deo patre.” Sed
Arab. C. Alex. Theodoretus, textui assentiuntur. CEcume-
nius et Theophylactus rationem afferunt quare apostolus
voce ἐλεος hic utitur. Millius tamen ait, “ Medium ἐλεος
assutum huc haud dubito ex Epist. ad Timotheum,” p. 84.
Versum quintum pariter ac in textu recitat Orig. in Matt.
p. 362: sic etiam Græci scholiastæ omnes, nisi quod Theo-
phylactus legat non λείττοντa sed ἐλλείττοντa : unde de quatuor
variis lectionibus, quas hic congessit Millius, fiat judicium.
Cap. ii. 7. 'Aq%agariay.] Deest Vulg. Chrysost. Theophylact.
“ Explicatorium erat (inquit Millius Prol. p. 123) τοῦ
&8iaq)0ogiav, ac postea irrepsit e margine in contextum.”
Agnoscunt Theodoret. CEcumen.`C. Alex. Arab. •r
Cap. iii. 3. *Hpxev yàg 7rot£.] Clem. Alex. p. 3, %μεν yàg
%μ£ν τοτε, more sc. rhetorum, Orig. lib. i. contra Celsum, p.
50, in Jer. hom. 5, p. 75, Græca scholia, et versiones omnes
legunt cum textu.
4 G
1186
EXAMEN MILLII
V. 10. Katë aiav kai 3svrépay yovssoríay.] Iren. lib. iii. cap.
3, Tertull. de Praescript. cap. vi. 16, Cyprian. Ep. 59, et ad
Quirin. lib. iii. S. 78, Ambrosiaster et Ambros. lib. ii. de
Abrahamo, cap. 6, et teste Hieronymo, quidam Graeci
codices, omittunt waſ 35urégay. Sed agnoscunthaec verba Gr.
scholia, et versiones omnes, Cod. Alex. et inse Hieronymus,
Orig. in Cels. lib. v. p. 273, Athanas. ad Adelph. p. 156, ad
Maximum, p. 163, Basil. tom. p. 491, Cyril. Alex. de Ador.
Sp. p. 486. Porro hic loci plura sunt testimonia incaute,
pene dixerim falso, citata. Nam Iren. lib. iii. cap. 3, ed.
Ox. p. 204, habet ºweta ºizv wai 3Evrégay vovšea tav Trapairoij.
At, lib. iii. cap. 13, p. 78, où; # TIaºxo; #yksägåsta, ºst, ºziay
xai 8svrégay youðeariav Trapaireſa-6ai, Lat. “post primam et
Secundam correptionem devitare,” Cypr. ad Quirim. lib. ii.
Š. 78, ad hunc modum legit ad Titum, “Haereticum homi-
nem post primam aut secundam correptionem devita.” Et
Hieronymus non asserit Gr. codices omisisse, kai 3evrépay, sed
loco correptionis, rectius legendum esse vovászíay “commoni-
tionem.”
W. 15. Xápt; wetā ºrávrov jºv.] “Gratia Dei,” ita Vulg.
Hilar. D. Pseud-Hieronym. “Gratia Domini nostri,” Clar.
Ger. Lat. Sed Graeca scholia, Syr. et Arab. textum sequun-
tur, et monente hic Hieronymo, “nec nostri,” in libris
feruntur authenticis. -
SECTIO DUODECIMA-EPISTOLA AD PHILEMONEM.
W. 2. 'Atrºpia rā āyawnrå.] Sic, Gr. scholiaste, Syr. Arab.
Sed Millius ex nimia in Vulgatum indulgentia, magis probat
#8Expñ, quam, inquit, mutavit quispiam in 3yarn rā, Prol.
p. 135.
W. 6. 'Evseyā;..] W. 1. #yagyi, evidens, cui astipulantis
Esthii testimonium profert, reclamantibus non tantum om-
nibus Gr. scholiis, C. Alex. Syro, et Arabe, sed etiam Hila-
rio D. et Hieronymo qui ait in Graeco melius ivseyā; efficax,
unde a Vulgato suo invitissimus dissentit.
Toi by tºy..] Sic Vulg. Hieron. Theophyl. Esthiusque ait,
“Hanc esse veram lectionem ipse orationis contextus os-
tendit.”. Sed Chrysostom. Theodoret. CEcum. legunt iv haſ,
“in nobis Christianis,” omni in sensu discrimine remoto.
W. 20. Tà a tradyxya Bv Kupia.] W. l. #y xptorró, Syr. Hilar.
D. Chrysost. Theophylact. Sed Theodoret. OEcumen. Arab.
iy Kveig, atque “hac (ait Esthius) est verior lectio,” quan-
quam in sensu non est diversitas,
SECTIO DECIMA TERTIA—EPISTOLA AD HEBRAEOS.
CAP. i. 1; 'Err’ #axárov ráv hasgºw roſtov.] MSS. quidam
Orig. in Joh. p. 56, Theodoret. in Isa. ii. et. Haer. Fab. lib,
V. cap. 2, et Athanas. legunt Étr' #axárov. Sed Graeci
scholiasta omnes textum praeferunt, et in synopsi quadam,
quam spuriam esse omnes fatentur, ac in Disp. de Nicen.
Concil. Decretis, de qua critici certant, Athanasius legit
#axárov sed orat. 2 contra Arian. p. 36, et de Hum. Nat.
Suscept. p. 605, bis legit #axárov, quam genuinam esse lec-
tionem nullus dubito ; his enim verbis LXX. Interpr. fere
semper Hebraica illa Bºnºn nºnxº interpretantur.
W. 3. At Havroſ Kabapto'ºy ºrcinzászewoc.] Agnoscunt 3,’
Havrot. Gr. Scholiastas omnes, praeterquam Theodoretus, qui
tamen habet airot cum spiritu aspero, quod in idem recidit.
Frustra igitur dicit Mill. Prol. p. 95, “ 8. §avroſ, insertum
esse claritatis gratia.” Iidem etiam scholiastae retinent hic
#4&v, quamguam forte desit apud Cyril. Al. Apostolus
enim Hebraaeos alloquitur, ille autem meminem; at Prol.
p. 49, “hºw&y injectitium est.”
W. 12. ‘orst regióáxato, Éxićet; atrol);, xat &Axayńcovrat.]
Bina exampl. Gr. et Vulg. legunt &Axáásic, sed Gr. scholiasta:
C. Alex. Syr. Arab. et versio rôy LXX. Ps. cii. 26, #xićsic.
Vulg. “Mutabis eos,” non ex Graeco, sed Hebraeo Bºbrin.
Cap. ii. 7. Kai xaráz’rnea; abry ini tº #ya rāy Xsigðy gov.]
Desunt hac verba in MSS. plurimis, adde in OEcumenio et
Theophylacto. Sed retinentur apud C. Alex. Chrysost.
Theodoret. et versiones antiquas omnes.
V. 9. Xágºri Oect.] Quidam codices, teste Orig. in Joh.
p. 38, et 362, et Theodoret. in locum legebant Xagic Osoſ,
Sed, teste Millio, editis certe congruit quicquid uspiam est
hodie librorum MSS. Gr. et Lat. Wide praefationem nostram
in hoc opus.
Cap. iii. 6. Méxpt réaov. 888aiav.] Agnoscunt ha-c verba
Gr, scholia, C. Alex, versiones omnes, uno excepto AEthiope,
*
quem sequens Mill, ait “Haec ad marginem adposita in tex-
tum posuit scriba perperam, et eaderm verba, v. 14, irrepsere
ex vers. 6,” Prol. p. 124, col. 1. o
V. 9. of irspacá, w8.] Deest as in 4 MSS., sedadest in
versionibus, et Gr. scholiis omnibus, in Cyril. Al. Glaph. in
Num. p. 393, ubi a v. 7 usque ad finem hujus capitis editis
congruit, nisi quod v. 11, pro &; legit of, et V. 16, pros oë,
où Yi.
&p. iv. 2. Mº avyxexpatºvo; rſ, ºria'rst roi; 3xoča'ariv.]
MSS. plurima, Theodoret. OEcum. Theophylact, legunt
avyxseapºpºvovº. Sed Vulg. Syr. Cyril. Al. Glaph, in Num.
p. 394, textum ipsum exhibent, atque hanc lectionem ver-
borum constructio videtur postulare. Praebent enjm sensum
planum, viz. Et sermo Moysis de promissione a Deo facta
introducendi eds in terram Canaan is non profuit, quia
fidem ei non dabant; altera lectio difficilis, et subobscura est,
nimirum, Sermo additus is non profuit, quia Calebo et
Joshua ei auscultantibus admixti nun erant.
V. 15, IIsrsipaakwávay.] Sic OEcumen. Orig. in Joh. p. 37,
38, et 323, et Theodoretus. Sed Chrysost. Theophylact. et
Orig. wregi Eixãº, p. 50, cum textu ºrstretpakºëyoy, eodem
SCI):Sll.
Cap. v. 12. At3&axely tºwā; riva rā cºroixsta rā; 3px; rāy
Aoyſoy toi, Osotſ.] Chrysost, ho. 17 in Matt. et Vulg. legunt
31%axša Sai, Sed Orig. in Joh. p. 18, C. Alex. Gr. scholia, ab
excusis non recedunt, et legunt etiam Aoytov pariterac Eu-
Seb. contra Marcel. lib. i. cap. 1, p. 3, Cyril. Al. de Ador.
Sp. p. 359.
Cap. vi. 3. Kai rotºro ºrotharopaev.] MSS. quidam et OEcum.
legunt Trotha wººey" reliqui scholiasta et versiones cum textu.
W. 10. Kai roi, zárov rº, 3)&mnç.] Deest xàorov in MSS.
Vulg. et Syr. sed quicquid Millius in contrarium dicat oc-
currit apud Chrysost. in Comment. et apud reliquos inter-
pretes Graecos; ait tamen Mill. Prol. p. 84, col. 1, “ roö
• 6trov irrepsere ex l Thess. i. 3,” quasi non potuerit aposto-
} is bis idem dicere de eadem re. -
Cap. vii. 11. Kai ol ward rឺv 'Aaºy Ašyāa śal.] Sic
omnia Gr. scholia, C. Alex. Vulg. Syr. Arab. At quoniam
haec verba desunt apud AEthiop. ita Mill. “Commentarium
marginalem primitus fuisse puta, non textum,” Prol. p. 84,
Col. 2.
V. 17. Maerups? yáp.] Ita Theodoret. CEcumenius; wap-
rvestºral Chrysost. Theophyl.
Cap. viii. 4. Tày isgåøy.] Sic omnia Gr. scholia, Syr.
Arab.: sed quia deest in 3 MSS. et Vulg. “adscripsit quis-
piam ad oram libri, unde mox irrepsit in contextum,” ita
Mill. Prol. p. 145, col. 1. -
V. 9. of ward rºw 3.23%any y Étroinara.] Chrysost. Theodoret.
Theophyl, legunt Hy Sieśāºny, ex vers. Töv LXX. Jer. xxxi.
32, sed CEcum. C. Alex. Cyril. Al. de Ador. Sp. p. 3,
Vulg. Syr. Arab. Troina'a.
W. 11. Ka? oi, º, 3.34%oat #zaaro; roy trangiov.] Triginta
fere MSS. Theodoret. August. Syr. Arab. legunt Troxirny,
ex vers. LXX. Interpr. ; sed. Vulg. Chrysost. CEcum. Theo-
phylact, trangiov.
W. 12. Kai rāy &yopatów air&v.] Desunt in Vulg. Syr. “Wi-
deri possunt irrepsisse ex glossemate,” inquit Grotius, re-
clamantibus C. Alex. Arab. Graecis Scholiis omnibus; apos-
tolus ipse etiam iisdem verbis utitur infra cap. x. 17, ubi
nulla varians occurrit lectio.
Cap. ix. 2. "Hºric Aéystal &yia.] Quanquam omnia Graeca
scholia legunt #yia Treoragoźvrévoc, danda illis venia est qui
nec linguam Hebraicam, nec tabernaculi structuram recte
| intelligebant: asserit Capellus &yia cum acuto in penultima ve-
riorem esse lectionem (cui fidem adstruit vox #vic), propterea
quod #yia pluralinumero dicitur potius de intimo Sanctuario:
pluralis enim numerus apud Hebraeos saepe vim habet Super-
lativi.
W. 9. "Hºric tragašoxi sic rāy watºv ráv Hverrnxóra, kaš' v.]
W. l. kasárrnxs' nulla scholia Graeca agnoscunt xas' hy' adest
in solo Vulg. et CEcumenio. Reliqui interpretes, et Scho-
liastaº, habent kaś'?y, Sub. Ralpêy, sicut Cyril. Alex. de Ador.
Sp. p. 347, quiet ibi retinet war& avygiènorty, una cum Graecis
scholiis omnibus, Syro, Vulg. et Arabe. Millio tamen judice,
Prol. p. 102, col. 2, “xaş' y omnino recte,” et p. 124, col.
2, “xará auveiðnaw accessit aliunde.”
W. 10. Aizatégaari.] Est lectio illa quam probant omnia
Graeca scholia, Vulg. Arab.
W. 14. Aid IIveşºaro; aiwviov.] Vulg. Chrysost. Cyril. Al.
EXAMEN
MILLII. 1187
de Recta Fide, p. 73, legunt &yiov. Syr. Arab. C. Alex.
Theodoret. CEcum. Theophylact. Athanas. Ep. ad Serap.
p. 180, Ambros. de Sp. Sanc. cap. 8, aiwyíov.
W. 22.) Agnoscunt axe3?v Vulg. Arab. C. Alex. Graeca
scholia omnia. Deest tantum in Syro, et AEthiope. “Nec
dubito (inquit Millius) quin haec sit genuina lectio, oxsºv
insertum erat postea ab aliquo lectore de apostolica sen-
tentiae veritate sollicito si placet,” Prol. p. 130, col. 1. Wide
rationem roi, a yºv in annotatis nostris ad locum.
Cap. x. 1. oběštrove 8tyarat.] Sic Chrysost. Vulg. C. Alex.
Arab. respectu habito ad vocem véºo;' reliqui autem Græci
scholiasta et Syrus legumt 8%wayrat, respicientes ad vocem
Svoia; quod verisimilius est, quanquam nulla sit in sensu di-
versitas. -
V. 6. Kai meet &gaeria; oëx Biºknoa:..] Sic Graeca scholia
omnia, quae satis firmant hanc lectionem.
W. 9..] Retinent à Qes, C. Alex. Graeci, caeterique inter-
pretes omnes, si AEthiopem excipias: sed Prol. p. 139, col.
2, “accessit ex v. 7 hujus cap.”
V."] 1. Kai was ºv ispsû..] MSS. Syr. AFthiop. Theodoret.
Cyril. Al. de Ador. Sp. p. 348, legunt àpx|Egeus' Sed Chry-
sostom. CEcumen. Theophylact. Vulg. et Arab. ispetc.
W. 29. 'Ev & Hyuáo Sn.] Desunt haec in C. Alex. Chrysost.
Habent Orig. hom. 13 in Jer. p. 130, contra Cels. p. 385,
Athanas. ad Serap. p. 180, Cyril. Al. de Recta Fide, p. 74,
de Ador. Sp. p. 196, Graeca scholia, et versiones omnes.
W. 34. Twºxovre; ºxsw #y Havroſ, Kºeirtova imagāry āv otga-
voic.] Quoniam Clemens Al. 4 MSS. et Vulg. omittunt to Év
cigayoſº, “irrepsisse puto hac (ait Millius) e margine in con-
textum,” sed retinentur apud Syrum, Arab. Graeca scholia
omnia, Orig. Exhort. ad Martyr. p. 210 : quod si una cum
C. Alex. MSS, aliquibus, Vulg. Syr. Arab. et Clem. Al, le-
gendum censeamus Éavroic, quis est cui ha-c sententia non
sit clara et perspicua P .
W. 38. “o 33 8twato; #x mio rew; &#overal.] Cl. Al. et Vulg.
hic legunt 3izatóc (cov’ colligit hinc Esthius additum hic olim
fuisse pronomen &ov post bizaios. Eusebius Demonst. Evang.
lib. vi. cap. 14, tres affert lectiones, unam sc, editorum;
alteram cum ºxov post 3izaios, quae est lectio ‘rāy LXX. Hab.
ii. 4, et Theodoreti, Ep. 122; tertiam &ow post trio rews, quae,
juxta Millium, est lectio Cypriani ad Quirin. lib. i. §. 5, et
lib. iii. $.42, ubi Cyprian. non citat Epistolam ad Hebræos,
sed prophetam Habbacuc : aitgue Millius, Prol. p. 89, col.
2, “Perperam &ov additur post 3ixalog, recte post tria reoc.”
Sed cum apostolus citet hac ipsa verba absºlue ºzov, Rom.
i. 17. Gal. iii. 11, cur sententiam Suam hic variarit causa
nulla est, praesertim cum lectionem in textu firment omnia
Graeca scholia.
Cap. xi. 4. 'Atroëay&y Naxeſ rai.] Chrysostom. in textu,
Photius, et OEcumenius. Sed Aaxeſ, Chrysost. in Comment.
Theodoret. Theophylact. qui diserte ait riva rāv &vrtygá‘pov
Aaxeſ rat #xovaty, oi, Kaº; oftwal. Sed hac est vocum discre-
pantia sine sensus discrimine ; sciebant enim, ait Capellus,
aaxeſa-Sat pro Aaxeſy sumi posse: hinc Beza reddit Aaxeirat,
“adhuc loquitur.” Et Anglicana versio, “yet speaketh.”
W. 9. Iſidºre tragºnna’sy..] MSS. aliqui habent zai ragékncey,
omissa oria-rel, repugnantibus vero Graecis Scholiis et ver-
sionibus universis. Sed Prol. p. 160, col. 1, “vereor util-
lud wirts, jam olim irrepserit ex albo libri.”
W. 31. "Ereſſey.] Omittunt Vulg. Æthiop. Agnoscunt Syr.
Arab. Gr. scholia universim.
W. 13. Kai reta-6ávre;..] Hoc licet in se certum fuerit, et
teste Erasmo, in cod. Gr. inventum, textui additum esse
probant Graeca scholia, et versiones omnes, sed sine textus
praejudicio ; quod enim fide videbant et salutabant, de eo
certe persuasi fuerint, necesse est. -
W. 23.] Versum inter hunc et sequentem, a Latinis qui-
busdam interjectum (sc. “Fide magnus factus Moses occidit
AEgyptium, considerans dolorem fratrum suorum”) nulla
agnoscunt Graeca scholia, versiones nullae. Sed Prol. p. 49,
col. 2, “vix est quam ut cum Zegero sententiam ipsius
apostoli fuisse, lapsa ab initio fere e codicibus.”
W. 29. KateróSnaray.] Sic C. Alex. CEcumen. et Theophy-
lact. : waterov'ríšnaray alii, eodem sensu : karatrivo enim, teste
Grotio, pluribus in locis valet et vertitur wararoyvío.
v. 46 rºaºv.jita C. Alex. Orig. in Matt. p.
405, Gr. scholia omnia: quod vero apud Clem. Al. p. 515,
d. oºrot, v. 39, et areogt?op, #you legitur, nullius momenti ést;
omittit enim ibi èrgia Snaray, v. 37, addit de Suo, v. 39,
| post #mayyexiay, row Geoû, post rºost?opºvov, &yo.83; y&g ºv, et
cap. xii. I, post vãºpoc, *yiov ×ai 3.88% “est tamen Clemens
ille (Millii judicio, Prol. p. 60, col. 2) in adducendis N.
T. locis castus, raro quid pian ingerens, seu etiam prae-
termittens:” quod quidem falsissimum esse multis indiciis
libro primo probavimus. -
Cap. xii. 10.] Addunthic Vulg. Syr. AEthiop. hp,3; sed
non agnoscunt Gr. scholia, nec Arabs: Vulg. et AEthiop.
legunt rôy Gey, sed. Gr. Scholia, Syr. et Arabs, rºy Küploy cum
textu.
V. 15. 'Evoxx;,] Ita MSS. cod. summo consensu; hic Mil-
lius, ita etiam Gr. scholia, C. Alex. Clem. Alex. Stro. iv.
p. 525, Cyril. Hieros. p. 2, Vulg. Syr. Arab. sed, dicente
Millio, “hic vetustissimo certe, et ab ipsis rei Christianae
primordiis inolito errore vera lectio est apud LXX. Inter-
pretes, Deut. xxix. 18, #y x0xff.” Hi tamen ibi habent
Early, et Kai Trixgig, quae verba apostolus hic omittit.
W. 20. "H 30Niê, kararoźsw8%astal.] Cum desint haec verba
in MSS. plurimis, Graecis scholiastis, excepto CEcumenio,
versionibusque cunctis, probabile est ea addita fuisse ex
Exod. xix. 13, a quodam, qui extra culpam se esse arbitra-
batur, licet expleverit quod, loco e S. scriptura desumpto,
defuit.
W. 28. "Exogºsy, Aarpedopaev.] Sic legunt omnia Graeca.
scholia, et C. Alex. Exoptev, unde constat quod apostolus non
hic laudet Hebraeos, sed moneat, et terreat, cui voci optime
respondet Aarºeſop.sv, licet Arabs et Theophylactus legunt
Margeſoft, Ey, repugnantibus caeteris interpretibus: sed Prol. p.
71, “indicative #axoºv et Aargetoºey recte.”
Cap. xiii. 9. Mö ºregiºgeo-0s.] W. 1. MSS. aliqui, Chry-
sost. Theodoret. CEcumen. legunt Trapaq Épéaºs’ utrumque vo-
cabulum satis quadrat, inquit Erasmus. -
W. 10. Oix #xova w śćovatay.] Gr. scholia, C. Alex. ver
siones omnes habent ##ovziav. Sed tamen “Cod. Clar. Ger.
Cod. Al. teste Esthio, omittunt #ovciay, omnino recte; in
casteris plerisque omnibus accessit explicationis gratia,” Prol.
p. 135, col. 2.
W. 20. 'Ew vexpāy..] W. 1. Éx rā; yºg, Chrysost. Cyril. Hier.
Catech. 14, p. 152, Didymus Lat. : reliqui autem interpretes
et C. Alex. editis congruunt. Cyril. citat Isa. xl. 11, et
Chrysost. ait ºrag& ràc &vacráaeolº rotiro sign rat. Wide Prol.
p. 73.
W. 21. ‘Ey mavrì ègyº 3,293.] Sic Graeci omnes, et inter-
pretes orientales; Vulg. solus “in omni bono,” unde Millius,
Prol. p. 135, col. 2, “medium #pyº irrepsit ex 2 Thess. ii.
17.”
SECTIO DECIMA QUARTA—EPISTOLA JACOBI.
CAP. i. 3..] Desunt in Barb. 1 rā; triarsog, habent autem
OEcumenius, C. Alex. et versiones omnes: “ nihilominus
(dicente Millio, Prol. p. 49, col. 2) lectioni huic simplici
(sc. absdue ric riotswº) favet v. 12.” Inspice quaso, lector,
locum, ut scias viri acumen, et nasum criticum.
V. 19 “Qare 338Apot wou.] Vulg. Beda, August. fore,” Scitis,
fratres mei.” Sed Syr. et CEcumenius, legunt cum textu;
“iate (inquit Erasmus) in Gr. codicibus non reperio:” huic
loco non admodum congruit juxta Esthium. Hic tamen
Millius, Vulgati in gratiam, “Qui sensum apostoli non ca-
piebant, rem expedisse putabant mutando iots in §ors,”
| Prol. p. 145, col. 1.
W. 25. oºrro; oix āzgoath; Éirºncºcová; yewówevo; oùro;
gawāgtoc.] Deest hic otito; primus apud Vulg. et Syr. Secun-
dus apud Cant, ob pleonasmum Hebraicum non intellectum.
Sunt autem in Arabe, et CEcumenio, estgue, dicente Grotio,
pulchra &vaq,083 in pronomine očiros' et tamen, Prol. p. 129,
col. 1, “otro: primum insertum puto ex posteriori parte ver-
siculi hujus.”
W. 26. E! rig Boxst Señozo; #val #y buiv.] “Duo MSS. legunt
Spnexãc, nescio an rectius, ’’ Millius. CEcumenius autem
Señozoc, quod etiam agnoscunt Hesychius et Budaeus: “ iv
taſy quod deest Vulg. Syr. merito videfur adjectum,” ita
Millius hic, et Prol. p. 123, col. 1 : est tamen in CEcumenio,
et, teste Erasmo, in Graecis. .
Cap. ii. 24. ‘ogāre ‘rolyvy.] Vulg. et Syr. “vides,” omit-
tentes roſyvy, et mutantes numerum verbi: cum textu legunt
OEcumenius, et Arab.; et conclusio ab exemplo Abrahami
ducta postulare videtur Toivov, “igitur.” *
Cap. iii. 3. 1808.] W. 1. GEcumenius, et Vulg, si è “si
4 G 2
1188
EXAMEN MILLII.
autem;” cod. MSS. quidam ièé. Syr. autem “ecce,” et
ièoi subsequens, v. 4, 5, lectionem textus adstruit.
V. 5. 'oxiyoy triej W. l. Alex. Vulg. CEcumen. Aixov rāg.
Sed versiones orientales omnes textum sequuntur, et simili-
tudo ducta a nave quae circumfertur bră ă»axiºrtov re?axiov,
et pºixgåy wéxoc, quod hic de lingua dicitur, et Hebraicum
adagium a Ben Syra ad hunc modum allatum, “ut, parvus ig-
nis magnum rogum conficit, ita mundum nihil aeque vastat
ac lingua,” lectionem textus firmare videantur. Vid. Floril.
Hebr. voce Lingua.
Cap. iv. 4. Moixoi Kai worxaxlèsc.] Ita CEcumenius, C. Alex.
Arab. : sed Vulg. et Syr. omittunt xał &oixaxiºsº, et “sic
absdue dubio apostolus,” Mill. p. 49, col. 2: Sequitur #x862,
“inimicitia,” sic CEcumenius, Syr. Arab. Sed Vulg. et Beda
legunt #x8;&, “inimica:” vide Rom. viii. 7.
W. 12. Ei, #orrty 6 vow,0árnç.] Addunt wał Xpitãº, MSS.
quidam, Vulg. Syr. Cyril. Alex. de Recta Fide, p. 57; sed
juxta Esthium, et Erasmum, illud non agnoscunt Graeca ex-
amplaria : “irrepsite margine,” Mill. p. 145. Non agnoscit
CEcumenius.
W. 17.] Deest iroisſy in Syr. sed habent CEcumenius, Vulg.
C. Alex. Arab. AEthiop.: at “accessit forsan e margine,”
Prol. p. 164, col. 1.
Cap. v. 5. 'Q; iv hºeg a payń..] Desunt ha-c AEthiop,
Agnoscunt CEcumenius, Cl. Al. Vulg. Syr. Arab, dicente
tamen Millio, “commentarius est, non textus,” Prol, p,
124, col. 2.
V. 7. "Ew; āv Āaën Veráv trºpov wai & Jºov.] Ita CEcume-
mius, C. Alex, versiones orientales omnes. Deest is rôy apud
Vulg. solum, “omnino recte,” Millius : en rationem plane
commentitiam ; “Trºoy Kai ºligov in s. scripturis etiam de
fructu terrae dicitur; id in hoc loco lector quispiam hoc igno-
rams, ne sententia laboraret, adjecit Östy,” Prol. p. 123, col.
2. Locum scripturae postulo. Adducit hic Mill. Deut. xi.
14. Jer. v. 24. Hos. vi. 3. Joel ii. 23. Zech. x. 1, in quibus
omnibus de pluvia matutina et serotina disertim sit mentio.
Ad textum hunc provocando petitid quod probandum est;
contrarium potius Suadethic locus, nempe fructus terrae mes-
semque a pluvia matutina et serotina pendere, Deut. xi. 14.
Jer. v. 25, adeoque agricolam hanc pluviam patienter ex-
pectare, ut fructus terrae colligat:—sed aliquid dicendum
erat in gratiam Vulg.
W. 20. 2&ael Juxāy abroń.] Vulg. Syr. Arab. Cyril. Al. de
Recta Fide, p. 63. Sed “atrol, occurrit in paucis exem-
plaribus,” inquit Esthius, neque vera lectio est, plurimi
enim ad aliorum salutem multum conferunt, qui ipsi nequa-
quam Salutem obtinebunt. -
SECTIO DECIMA QUINTA—EPISTOLA PRIMA PETRI.
CAP. i. 8. "Oy oëz sièáre;..] W. l. lºévres, quod etiamsi verbo
discrepet, re tamen idem est; sed in citando Polycarpo
labitur hic Millius, non enim ait Polycarpus by oin ièávre;
&yarāºre, sed el; %V odz ièvre; (text, igăwrec) ºria reſers, lectionis
varietate facta in voce gåvre;, in vocem Eiðárs. Nota insu-
per quod non modo CEcumen. C. Alex. Sed. Clem. Al. Stro.
iv. p. 575, per totum hoc comma editis congruant.
W. 16. "Ayiot yévezèE.] Ita CEcum. Syr. Arab. “estote,”
sed MSS. quidam, Vulg. Clem. Al. Stro, p. 473, LXX.
Interp. Lev. xi. 44. xix. 2, legunt Bo'Bo' Se levi discrimine,
sive enim dicat Deus “Sancti estote,” vel “eritis,” utraque
lectio mandati vim habet. Wide praecipue Orig. in hom. 11
in Num. f. 111, C, D.
W. 22. At& IIyeſuator.] Desunt in 3 MSS. Vulg. Syr.
Hieron.: sed reperias in CEcumenio, Arab, et, teste Erasmo,
in Graecis. Sequitur Elº pixabex play &vumáxpirov, ita C. Alex.
(Ecumenius, versiones orientales omnes. Sed desunt in
Vulg. et idcirco “commentarius est.” Prol. p. 49, et 124,
col. 2.
W. 24. II&za 8%a 3,643mov.] Syr. Vulg. et (ait ille) Orig.
legunt atric, unde “3,963trov pro adrā; est explicatio mar-
ginalis,” Prol. p. 123, col. 2; sed CEcum. Arab. et versio
ºrów LXX. Isa. xl. 7, ab excusis non discedunt.
Cap. ii. 5. IIyevkarikā, Svariac.] Sic CEcumen. Vulg. Arab.
AEthiop. nec ulla hic varians lectio; at. Prol. p. 130, col. 1,
ex fide Syri, ait Millius, “Trysvºarix&c, quod est in Graecis
omnibus nostris, e margine omnino videtur irrepsisse.”
V. 7. Aièow ºy &reboxiwaday of oikołowodytec, otro, #ysy#9m sic
x8%aºy yoylag.j Quanquam agnoscunt hac verba Vulg. C.
Alex. CEcumenius textu et commentario, Grotio tamen ad-
stipulatur Millius, atque ait, “Traducta sunt huc ex Matt.
xxi. 42. Consule CEcumenium in locum:” en ergo CEcu-
menii verba, Érrat owy Śāov obroc, ièot riónºt #y xiàw Aióoy &ngoyo-
watoy wai & Triateſov in air; oi º Karaia zwºi, Évrºzov
taſy toſs ºria reſouriv, 3roôoča's 33, Nišov trgoorwāºwaroc, Šy Aſsov
ãºreboxip, acaw ºy oi dixoSopwodytes, oùro; #yevāśn si, zepańy rà,
yovia;' avváyov Azév too; Triateſovºra; eiç airy imo textum
ipsum 3ia}}h^ny legit cum editis. -
V. 18. 'AAA& kai roſ; axoxioſ...] Ita CEcumenius, et C.
Alex. Sed Avakóxot; dyscolis, Vulg.: unde “hanc lectionem
genuinam esse arbitror, utute MSS. omnibus libris sit jam
extrusum,” Prol. p. 49, reclamantibus Esthio et Erasmo,
porro Hesychius et Phavorinus oxóxia interpretantur varxipă,
30akoxa' Sed Mill. pro Vulgato stat.
W. 24. Ot tº adºxotri atroń.] Pleonasmus est Hebraeis
familiaris, ac proinde noster interpres neglexit:” Esthius
in locum.
Cap. iii. 5. At #xtričova at ini rāy Gaáv.] Omittit, haec
AEthiops. Habent CEcumen. Vulg. Syr. Arab. “Suspec-
tum habeo traps;z8xhaeoc. Quis talia praetermiserit P’’ Ita
Mill. Prol. p. 124, col. 1. Respondeo, Turbida versio
43thiopica, ut eam vocat Mill., in qua apparet immanis
nonnunquam a litera textus aberratio, Prol. p. 121, col. 1.
W. 7. Ei; ré º Exxârterflä.] V. l. Vulg. Syr. Arab. AEthiop.
legunt #yzán-tecôat, “quae videtur vera lectio,” ita Millius
hic. Sed pace illius dicam, GEcumenius legit #xxárts:-8ai,
nec cognitu facile est quid Graece legerint Syr. et Arab. :
cum enim de junctis precibus habeatur oratio, utrum dicas
“impediatur,” an “intercidatur,” parvi refert.
W. 15. Aitoivrt tº 3, Ašyov regi rā, śy taſy ixºriboº.] Orig.
contra Cels. lib. vii. p. 339, legit #43, et høy, sed antiqui
omnes interpretes, Basil. tom. i. p. 549, et Chrysost. ed.
Mor. tom. iv. p. 70, editi congruunt.
W. 16. 'Q', waxonolów.] Desunt hapc apud Vulg. : habent
QEcumen. C. Alex. versiones orientales omnes: atqui Prol.
p. 49, col. 2, “accedunt hac commentarii loco, ex cap. ii.
12.”
W. 18. TIEg: 3pxagríðy traffs.] W. l. nip &gapºrtów &réSave,
absºlue sensus discrimine: quod autem #7taše, in quo CEcu-
menius et Arab. textui conveniunt, sit vera lectio apparet
exillatione facta, cap. iv. 1, Xºta toº oty Trašávro;. Nota
etiam quod Orig. in Joh. p. 126, et CEcumen. legunt v. 18,
Kooroºnsei: IIveſºari, et v. 19, roſ; iv puxax; Tysºzarty, et W.
20, &raft #sºix; rat, ut et Cyril. Alex. de Recta Fide, p. 20,
quorum auctoritas contrariarum hic lectionum idonea confu-
tatio est
Cap. iv. 1. ‘O maśy #y cagxi.] Praepositio #y quae deest in
5 MSS. retinetur apud CEcumenium, versionesque omnes:
male ergo rejicitur a Grotio, et Millio, Prol. p. 94.
W. 3. 'Agxerê, yā; hºw 3 trapexnºv63; xeóvo; to; 3iov.] Desunt
hºv et roi; 3iov, Vulg. et Clem. Al. Paed. lib. iii. cap. 17, p.
258. “Injecta sunt claritatis gratia,” inquit Millius, Prol.
p. 123, col. 2: Sed CEcumen. legit, et agnoscunt Erasmus
et Esthius hanc esse lectionem Graecorum codicum, eamque
lectioni Vulgatae anteponunt.
W. 14. Karā &#y airob; 3xacºmpºsſrai, xará 33 bºx3; 30%á-
Čera.] Desunt hac verba in 4 MSS. Vulg. et Syr. sed ex-
tant apud CEcumen. C. Alex. Cyprian. Ep. ad Martyr. Ed.
Ox. p. 175: et tamen Prol. p. 67, col. 2, “injecta videntur
ex scholio quopiam.”
V. 16. 'Ev rá pºšest roërø.] CEcumen. Vulg. Syr. AEthiop.
#y rô dyāuatl roºrg, quod si dicas “in hac parte,” vel “eo
nomine,” idem valet ac “ea gratia.”
Cap. v. 2. 'Eniakon Jivre;..] Ita CEcumenius, C. Alex. in-
terpretes omnes: sed Prol. p. 166, col. 1, “unus obstat
codicum consensus, et vix quidem obstat quo minus inter-
medium #wrizzotrouvre; marginale scholion ob pleniorem loci
explicationem esse censeam.” g
oux évaywarrà, 3xx' #xova.io..] Vulg. Hieronym. et MSS.
aliqui, addunt Karā Qºy, sed verba ista non reperiumtur in .
CEcumenio, Syro, Arabe, nec, teste Erasmo, in codicibus
Graecis.
V. 5. 'Yºroraorcégevoi..] Deest Syr. : habent CEcnmenius,
Vulg. Syr. AEthiop.: quod si Millium auscultes, Prol. p.
166, col. 1, “lector quispiam adjecit Örotagorágsvot ad mar-
ginem, in sententiae supplementum, quod irrepsit postea in
textum.”
ExAMEN MILLII.
1189
SECTIO DECIMA SEXTA— EPlSTOI.A SECUNDA PETRI.
CAP. i. 3. Aià òó%nc xaì àgatfic.] V. l. i8ig. 86%η xaì àgatí,
Vulg. Cyril. Al. de Trin. p. 604: sed CEcum. Syr. Arab.
cum textu legunt.
V. 9. Kai 7rAeová3oyta.] Desunt hæc in unico Æthiop. Ag-
no$cunt CEcum. C. Alex. versiones: “ addita tamen sunt a
quopiam adnotatore,'* Prol. p. 125, col. l. -
Cap. ii. 11. οὐ φ£govzi xat' aùtôv 7rapà Kvgig. 8Aâar®nu.ov
sgloriv.] Desunt qragà Kvpiæ, in Vulg. Syr.: “ unde scholion
est non textus,” Prol. p. 76. Habent autem CEcum. Arab.
et teste Esthio, quidam e vetustioribus codicibus, recte ;
boni enim et mali angeli adstant coram Domino, et ab eo
mandata recipiunt, Job. i. 6. ii. l.
V. 12. I'sysympa£ya.] Agnoscurit hanc vocem CEcum. C.
Alex. Vulg. Arab. Cur autem pro additamento habeatur,
causa nulla est. -
V. 17. οῖς δ ζόφος τοῦ σκότους εἰς αἰδva. t3'rigntat.] Desunt
sic aiöwa in Vulg. Syr. Sed habent CEcum. C. Alex. Arab.
et Jud. v. 13. ' * Insertum esse,” hariolatur Mill. Prol. p.
50, col. l.
V. 18. Toùς όντως άποφvy6vtag.] MSS. quidam, Vulg.Syr.
legisse videntur άλίyov, vel άλίγως, sed CEcum. Arab. et ma-
jor pars Gr. codicum, teste Esthio, textui assentiuntur.
V. 20. Ei yàg à7roq)vy6vr£ς.] oi yàg 3 MSS. vera lectio, im-
quit Grotius, ut series sequentium indicat, sed CEcumen. C.
Alex. versiones omnes editis congruunt, et pace Grotii, ipsa
apostoli verba.
Cap. iii. 2. '^^7rò τάy &yiov 7rpo@ntôv.] Medium &yioy, quod
jam locum habet in codicibus fere omnibus “ initio scholiom
marginale fuisse suspicor, ex cap. iv. lib. i.) 21 hujus ep.”
Mill. p. l56, col. 2. -
Kai τῆς τόν άποστόλων Ιμάν ἐντολής του Kvpiov.] Non video,
cur constructio vers. Angl. i. e. τῖς ἐντολής ημὸν τὸν άπο-
craröxov τού Kvgiov, Millio displiceat ; quid enim huic loco ma-
gis aptum quam certiores facere Judæos, quod qui hæc illis
mandata tradiderunt, apostoli fuere Domini nostri et 8alva-
toris. Vide l Pet. i. 12.
V. 6. Ai' άν.] Arab. legit , 8i' 3, '* per quam aquam,'° §;'
ôv, August. nempe, Àóyov* Sed (Ecumen. C. Alex. Vulg. Syr.
8i' óv, sc. υδάτων, per aquas illas quæ ex coelo et terra pro-
venerant: atque hanc esse veram lectionem liquet, non tan-
tum ex eo quod rei gestæ respondeat, sed etiaum ex igne ei
opposito, quo mundus demum conflagrabit.
V. 11. *s\c wAÉnrtnc Év vvxri.] Desunt Èv » vxti in Vulg. et
Syr. sed CEcum. et Arab. retinent hæc verba : et cum ad-
jungantur hæc voci κλάττης omnibus aliis in locis, in quibus
istius diei fit mentio, viz. Matt. xxiv. 23. Luc. xii. 39.
l Thess. v. 3, cur hic a se invicem separentur, causa nulla
est. *
V. 12. Πα£ovaiay tfic ro$ @eoû àpx£ga;.] Vulg. Arab. Au-
gust. τού Kvgiov- CEcum. C. Alex. Syr. @805. “ Dei dies ea-
dem quæ Christi,” Grot. in locum.
SECTIO DECIMA SEPTIMA—EPISTOLAE JOHANNIS.
reclamantibus CEcumenio, C. Alex. et reliquis Græcis La-
tinisque omnibus: “ addititium tamen videtur,” Prol. p. 125.
Cap. ii. 5. Aύτοῦ τὸν Ά6yov.] * Verbum ejus,'' Vulg. : ex
hac autem non dicenda est lectio varians, sed Gr. sermonis
vera interpretatio.
V. 7. 'Abexgoi.] V. l. 3ya7rntoi, hæc vocum harum vari-
atio sæpius accidit in scholiis tam Græcis quam Latiiiis, ex
eo, ni fallor, quod sancti patres in suis homiliis posterius vo-
cabulum priori anteposuerunt á7r' àpxjg. Deest hic inVulg.
Syr. Æthiop. Sed retinetur apud Arab. et CEcumenium.
V. 18. Kaì xa$âc }κούarate $ti àvTixpiarto: £gxstat.] Deest
ότι in C. Alex. Æthiop. ** non male,” Grotius: immo male ;
habent enim Iren. lib. iii. cap. 18, p. 241, Orig. in Matt. p.
402, CEcum. Vulg. Arab. -
V. 19. Oùx eia? Trâvreg i% fipx&v.] Deest qrávrac in Syr.
Iren. lib. iii. cap. 18, habent CEcum. C. Alex. Vulg. Arab.
“ Ex memoria videtur allegasse Irenæus :” Grabius in
locum. •
V. 23 Πάς ό âgvoùpxevoς τὸν viòv, où8ê rêv ratípa ἐχει.] Ad-
dunt cod. MSS. multi, Vulg. Syr. Orig. de Martyr. p. 206,
Cyril. lib. ix. in Joh. cap. 40, Cyprian. Hilar. August. hæc
verba, xaì ó óp.o\oyóv τὸν viòv, xaì tòv 7ratága, £x£1. Hæc au-
tem non agnoscunt CEcumenius, aut Arab. “In Græcis non
reperio,” inquit Erasmus. Et quod huc transferuntur ex
Evang. Joh. cap. viii. 19, si ip×â #8sita, xaì ròv 7ratípg aov
j8ev ra?.y, conjectura colligo, primo, quia Origemes in Joh. p.
261, citat verba ex Johan. Evangelio jam allata, et deinde
hæc verba ex ep. cath. et ex utrisque concludit, ei yàp δ
33voùμενος τὸν πετάga, xaì ròv viòv (sup. ápy£rat) xai δ δρολογδ»
vàv viòv και τὸν oratíga Éxst, 8j\ov δτι 'Isgoa-o^vaftat
â€voυμενοι τὸν τatiga, ágyoùvrai töv vi6v. Secundo, quia in his
verbis citandis multum a se invicem discrepant patres. De
Augustino hoc testatur Millius hic. Hilarius de Trin. lib.
vi. p. 124 sic legit, “ Qui cónfitetur filium habet et patrem.”
Cyprianus de Exhort. ad Mart. p. 173, “ et filium et patrem
håbet:” Cyril. Alex. Thes. 301, ante hæc verba addit, ô
àpyoυμενος τὸν qra rípa, xaì ròv viâv â£v£Tat.
Cap. iii. 2.] Octo hic variantes lectiones habemus: sed
versionibus prætermissis, Orig. in Matt. p. 476, et CEcume-
nius impressis congruunt, nisi quod Origene8 omittit ôë, et
OEcumen. legit $tt iorăpz£$a, Sic etiam v. 8—10, licet sex
afferantur variæ lectiones, CEcum. et Origen. Joh. p. 299, nul-
libi discedunt, nisi ubi loco δ τοιόν δικaioa ówny, Orig. legit δ άν
8ixaiog, quod idem valet.
V. 14. *o μη άyaróv τὸν άδελφόν.] Deest άδελφὸν in Vulg.
et 4, MSS. : unde ** lectoris est, non apostoli,” Mill. Prol. p.
145, col. 2, sed habent QEcum. Syr. Arab. Æthiop. apósto-
lus, cap. ii. 10.
V. 20. “ori äåy &rt p.£ίζων ἐστιν ά Θεός.] Deest άτι in 2
MSS. Vulg. Arab. : * £ti legi vult Stepham.” sic Mill. Sed
&ri agnoscunt cod. plurimi : Arab. reddit “ profecto,'' quam
interpretationem veram esse existimo ; Hebraicum enim '2,
quod primario significat nam et exponitur a LXX. per $rt,
alio sensü significat certe, et in versione Anglicama exponitur
per voces quæ idem valent, “ Surely, certainly :” ita Gen. xliii.
10, “Si non intercessisset dilatio, *2, äåe &y, sane, jam vice
altera venissemus ;** Ex. iii. 10, ότι, “ Certo ego ero tecum;"
l Reg. i. 13, § vi, “ Procul dubio Solomon regnabit post me;'
Josh. ii. 24, άτι, “ Profecto tradidit Dominus omnem terram11
hanc in manus nostras:” ita Ps. lxxvii. 12. cxii. 6. Ex. iy.
25. Numb. xxii. 23. Jud. vi. 16. Ruth i. 10. Isa. vii. 9.
Cap. iv. 3. IIäy Twzóga à gì ìp&o\oyÉ rά Ίησαὐy xgra tôv ây
aragxi ixnXv$ăra,] “ Pro istis codices antiqui (inquit Socrates,
H. Eccl. lib. vii. cap. 32), habebant δ λύει τὸν 'Inaroùv.“ Sed,
Millio teste, in hodierna lectione conveniunt exemplaria
Græca omnino omnia, ita etiam omnes Græci patres; nam
utcunque Millius, Cyril. Al. in contrariam partem adducat,
lapsus est in hoc, dum Latinæ interpretationi, “ solvit Je-
sum,” nimium credidit : nam tom. i. p. 397, et de Recta
Eide, p. 8 et 94, Græca Cyrilli cum textu consentiunt.
Porro, “ Non dubito (inquit Mill.) quin autographum ipsius
Johannis habuerit iv aagxi ίληλv$Évat, sc. ex fide Polycarpi,
et Vulg.” Prol. p. 33. Sed Cyril. de Recta Fide, ibid. et
CEcumen. legunt ἐληλν&άτa. quod si Vulg. habeat, “in car-
me wemisse,** nom inde sequitur illius Græca ab hodierna lec- '
tione discrepasse. Siquidem Beza per eadem verba Latine
reddidit ἐληλυ$ότa, et cum, ex sententia Millii, citationes
| Polycarpi, pro more istorum temporum, negligentius sint
1 EP. cap. i. 7. To5 vioù aùtoù.] Omittit unicus Æthiops,
prolatæ, quidni in hac etiam citatione Polycarpus eadem in- .
curia laborasse censeatur ?
Ver. 3. Kaì ysvvxfixate aùroûc.] Vulg. Æthiop. et August.
aύτόν, “ omnino recte," Mill. Prol. p. 50. Sed cum textu legunt
CEcumen. C. Alex. Syr. Arab. Nec obstat Millii ratio, quod
“ de Antichristo loquatur;” sunt enim τολλού άντίχριστοι.
(2.) Sequuntur commate proximo hæc verba in plurali,
aύτοι ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου siarì, quæ textus lectionem corroborant.
V. 16. M£v£t iv τὸ Θεός, και ά Θεὸς ἐν σύτά.] Posterior hu-
jus periodi pars retinetur apud CEcum. C. Alex. Vulg. Arab.
Æthiop. et ver. 15. Sed ** absque Græcorum unamimi con-
sensu foret crediderim huc traductum ex v. l5,'' Mill. Prol.
p. 130, col. l.
Cap. v. 10. *o μή τιστεύων τά Θεά.] MSS. aliqui, Vulg. et
Arab. τό, viâ, rectius, inquit Grotius. Sed CEcumen. et
Syrus textui assentiuntur, et sequentia , “ Quia non credi-
dérit in testimonium quod testifièatus est δ θεὸς πregi τοῦ vió
aύτοῦ,” hanc lectionem firmant. Sed Prol. p. 125, col. l,
“ â @εός, quod in nostris omnibus adscriptum est, claritatis
gratia a lectore quopiam indeque irrepsit in contextum.”
Mirum est ineptias hasce placere potuisse viro sang ! quis
ergo de FILIO SUO testimonium perhibere, nisi 3 @¢ôc potuit ?
V. 12. 'o. μὴ ἐχαν τόν viây τοῦ Θεοῦ.] Mill. p. 50, col. }.
1130
EXAMEN MILLII.
“roi, Gºod repetitum est e superioribus.”
Agnoscunt CEcumen. C. Alex. Syr. Arab. AEthiop.
W. 13. "Iva Eiðits 3ri Çağw Yere aidylov, wai wa Triorsånts.]
C. Alex. sic legit, aiºvio, oi triarsūoyrs; sic rô $vowa attoij.
Ita etiam Vulg. Syr. Arab. sic, “Haec scripsi vobis, o qui
creditis in nomen filii Dei, ut sciatis quod vitam habetis
aeternam, quamdiu creditis in nomen filii Dei.”
Ver. 20. 'Ev'rg vić aircí ‘Incoiſ Xelatā.] Millius l. “x?icr;
scribarum est, non apostoli; non habet Vulg.” Prol. p. 72,
col. 1, quod ei certum est indicium trapetzęxhaeog. Habent
nihilominus CEcum. Syr. Arab. AEthiop. Cyril. Al. de Tr. p.
484.
Cap. ii. 8. “Iva &# 3roxérogey & #pyarápaşa &moxá-
8wº ev.] Sic Arab. et CEcumenius, qui alterius cujuspiam
lectionis nullam facit mentionem, nisi quod in commentario
mutat personam, ut verba ejus melius cohaereant cum prae-
cédentibus. Sed Vulg. Syr. Iren. Lat. p. 242, et C. Alex.
legunt 3roxiants, isyáanage, 3roxáBrre, nullo sensus discri-
IIllne,
Cap. iii. 7. Trip yag roš Čvágaroº.] Omittunt pronomen
airoſ; GFcum. et MSS, quidam. Sed agnoscunt illud versi-
ones antiquae omnes.
SECTIO DECIMA OCTAVA—JUDE EPISTOLA.
W. E. 'Ev Geff rarel #ytagºvoic.] W. I. #yarnºśvoir, Orig. in
Matt. p. 332, CEcumen. Vulg. Syr. sine magno discrimine,
sanctificatos enim solos Deus diligit.
W. 6. “rare 364 oy rathénxsy..] Clem. Al. Paed. lib. iii. cap.
8, p. 239, post £650, addit 3 yetov &yyéAoy, reclamantibus MSS.
versionibus, et patribus. Lucifer Calaritanus, teste Millio,
legit &yiov.
V. 14. Ew 3/axxtácsi.] Sic CEcumenius et versiones omnes.
W. 25. Mávo coºg Giá.] Ita CEcumenius, Syr. Desunt in
Vulg. Arab. Āthiop. “Irrepserunt ut videtur ex Rom.
xvi. 27,” Prol. p. 94, col. 2. Wide hic annotata in 1 Tim.
i. 17. -
LIBER, TERTIUS.
§. J. Continet specimen variantium lectionum parvi mo-
menti, puta additionem aut subtractionem articuli. Ş. 2.
Permutationem nominis unius pro altero ejusdem significa-
tionis, vel pronominis relativi in nomen substantivum, vel
vocum Osoſ, xero toº. §. 3. Adjectivorum permutationem,
sine sensus discrimine. §. 4. Pronominum hºgſ, hºw,
#ºy, hºwäç, in tºsſº, tº ºv, Vºv, tºxic, permutationem, et
defectus eorundem, ubi si revera deessent, Sunt necessario
intelligenda: pronominisetiam airós defectum, vel addita-
mentum ubi est intellectu necessarium; 'mutationem deni-
que pronominis abrö; in otºros et abrèg cum aspirato in favrök.
§. 5. Verborum et praepositionis verbi mutationem sine
sensus discrimine, item verbi simplicis in compositum, et
vice versa; mutationem etiam personae, numeri, temporis,
modi, conjugationis, vocis. §. 6. Participiorum ejusdem
sensus invicem permutationem, simplicis pro composito,
et eorundem tempore discrepantium sine sensus discrimine.
§. 7. Adverbiorum defectum ubi sunt plane necessaria,
aut permutationem, sensu non variato. §. 8. Praepositio-
num permutationem. Š. 9. Conjunctionum mutationem,
et defectum. §. 10. Porro multa quae inter lectionis
variantes N. Test. recensentur, sunt tantum patrum cita-
tiones ex versione rôy LXX. Š. 11. Multa etiam quae
in alio evangelio, aliave epistola, verbis diversis exprimun-
tur, variantem lectionem constituunt. §. 12. Objectioni-
bus Romanensium et scepticorum contra textus Graeci
aúðsyriay respondetur. -
SECTIO PRIMA-DE ARTICULIS.
ACCEDO jam ad ultimum, longequefacillimum laboris nos-
tripensum ; nempe ad reducendum sub propriis quibusdam
capitibus lectiones variantes parvi momenti, ut ex instan-
tiis paucis sub capite quolibet assignatis, lector intelligat,
qualm operose nihilegisse videatur Millius in hisce minutiis,
qua sensum verborum neutiquam afficiunt, coacervandis.
Haec quidem omnia sigillatim enumerare idem pene esset
ac Millii varias lectiones transcribere ; breviter ergo quaedam
Vane iterum.
carpendo, lectori reliqua relinquo ex ingenti hoc penu colli-
genda. Et,
1. Plus centum ex variis hisce lectionibus id tantum mo-
nent articulum quendam deesse, vel superaddi, quo tamen
addito, idem adhuc manet sensus, eandemque versionem
verba exigunt. - ‘. .
Ab additione articuli incipio, ita Matt. i. 17, w; A288,
V. l. rot. Aagið. Rom. xiv. 7, Osow, v. l. Tod Geoû. 1 Cor. vii.
34, adjaari kai rvedaari, v. l. tº cºp, at Kai tº rvedaart.
1 Cor. xi. 3, xsºpaxi, 3Å x8to roi, V. l. rod Xgia Totº ita etiam
cap. xv. 24. 1 Cor. xi. 23, &prov, v. l. rāyāºrov. W. 27, afuaroc,
V. l. roſ, aſºcaroc. 1 Cor. xii. 21, 34.0a Nºc, v. l. 5 §§§axw8c.
2. Saepius indicat varia lectio articulum deesse in codice
aut patre quodam, v. g. Matt. xxv. 2, “Quinque autem ex
iis erant prudentes,” Kai ai mávºrs ºxogal, v. l. d. ai Chrysost.
Basil. MSS. (in Basilio tamen falli Millium, vide tom. ii. p.
425). Marc. v. 13, § 3;áxn, v. l. deest à in Pers. Syr. (ha-
bet wero Syrus “ille grex”). Matt. iv.21, rà èixtva, v. 1. deest
rå. Luc. vi. 45, #x roi; ºregio-ceğuaro; rā; xagèiac, V. l. desunt
roi et ric. Act. v. 24, 5 reisgei,c, deest 3. Rom. iv. 4, xata ºrd
34 gianºwa, deest rô. Rom. xiii. 2, 57.3 roi, Osotſ, deest row. Rom.
xiv. 15, rā āśwn, deest rà. 1 Cor. iii. 11, 3 xgia’röc, deest 6.
W. 19, trag& ré; Osº, deest rô. Cap. iv. 15, 3rd roi, GBoö, deest
toū. vii. 24, Taegºrà Osó, deest rā. 1 Thess. iv. 1, ºr Aoitröy,
deest rà. Jud. 13, eiç roy aiāya, deest rāy, CEcumen.
SECTIO SECUNDA—DE NOMINIBUS.
PLUS centies varia lectio exhibet tantum mutationem no-
minis unius substantivi pro altero ejusdem significationis,
eandemgue versionem in alias linguas postulante. Ita Matt.
ii. 11, T3 ºratētoy, v. l. Têy ºraºa et similiter, v. 13, 14.
W. 16, Trávºra; row: Trai?aç, v. l. Trárra rā Tatēia. Marc. v. 2,
mansit daemoniacus æv ºrdſ; ºvnºBiotº, v. 1, #y toſ, ºvºazº, “in
monumentis.” Matt. xi. 16, Taibatiots, v. l. Traiºioiº. Luc.
xiv. 16, “Beatus est à, páygrai &gtoy,” v. l. &gta roy, idem
nempe in scripturis valet edere panem, et prandere. Vide
Gen. xxxi. 54. xxxvii. 25. xliii. 15. Exod. ii. 20. 1 Sam. ix.
7, 10. Act. xv.2, avčnºrhagos, V. l. #7 ºn thagos. Roma, i. 27,
##sys;, v. 1. &gaevic. Rom. ix. 27, Karáñºza, V. J. #2katá-
Neigaa, twoxaráAsiaga, 1 Cor. i. 13, "EAMºi, V. l. Évict.
2 Cor. iii. 3, arxaži, v. l. TXavći. 2 Cor. viii. 2, Tây Traoûtov,
v. l. rā traoûrog, quod saepius occurrit.
2. Discrepant aliquoties casutantum. Joh. i. 42, “Inve-
nimus Messiam, quod est interpretatum & Xºlotós,” V. l. Tº
xetary. Act. xix. 35, ri; yáč Šarly 3,98970s, V. l. Töv č8-
63rov. 2 Cor. iii. 12, ei, to stayyáxtov, V. l. 813 tº stayyātov.
Cap. iii. 13, itſ ré réécorov, V. l. roi trgovdºrov, tº 7poadº.
Cap. iv. 16, hºw#4 ×ai Hºgg, V. l. #2.Égay was #&#pay. vi. 14,
ºric à noivovia pori, V. l. poréc. viii. 2, xará. 84$oug, v. l. 84Scº.
3. Aliquoties discrepant numero. Joh. ii. 15, “Et cum
fecisset flagellam in axolvíoy,” v. l. azowiou. Luc. xiii. 8, ka?
84xo worrelay, v. 1, wärpia. W. 15, &rexgiºn airó brokgºrà,
nempe archisynagogae, v. 1. troºpirai. 2 Cor. i. 10, tººkoúrov
Savátov, v. W. anxikoºray Savátov. Cap. iii. 7, #y y?éºzazi, V. l.
yedwºatt. iv. 10, a 4&art, v. l. gºaz. vi. 15, ºft' étriºtou,
v. l. ger' &mirroy, et Trpèc &miarov. ix. 6, #Tr' sixoylatº, V. l.
Eixoyia £ eixoyiaç.
4. Plus centies mutatur pronomen relativum in nomen
substantivum, aut in ipsam personam, et vice versa. Ita,
“Angelus Domini apparuitin somno airá,” Matt. i. 20, V. l-
Tà 'lochº. Ita enim cap. ii. 14. Marc. i. 16, 385*$ky airvº,
v. 1, zipowoc. Joh. x. 38, 3rt #y #xoi ºratip, ºy& #y air?,
v. l. #y rö ºrarºt. I Cor. i. 29, “Ut nom glorietur omis caro
ty&moy abroſ,” v. 1. roſ, esoſ. Cap. vii. 13, º żºptérº abrów,
v. 1. ‘rūy Āvèga.
Vice versa Matt. viii. 5, elegaSávri 33 tº 'Inacº, V. l. abºrã.
Luc. ii. 21, repºrtpºeſy ºr traßiov, V. l. airów. Joh. iii. 2, “Hic
venit ºpe; roy incoſy,” v. l. Tº airów. Act. xii. 13, Agoûgay roc
3: Itéreou, v. 1. adrö. Cap. xx. 7, ovynyºvoy row ºntów,
v.l. aštåy. Cap. xxii. 16, tº 390%a Kvgiov, V. l. atrº. Rom, i.
25, råy 3x"Seſay 'roſ Osoſ, v. 1. atroš. 2 Cor. v. 7, rāg 3&ng
roj’ Osov, V. l.’airoij.
Sexcenties permutantur vocabula 9:05, Kvetou, Xº,
quoniam, notante P. Simonio, contractim in antiquis MSS.
scripta inveniuntur ad hunc modum, Qoş, Koč, Koš. Exempli
gratia, Act. xvi. 10, 3 Köslot, v. 1. & Osó. Act. xxi. 20, #3%****
Tºy Kégion, v. l. Osów. Rom. i. 4, roi, Kvpiov hºv, V. l. rou 98°.
EXAMEN
MILLII. 1 191
f
Cap. x. 13, Kvetov. v. l. Geº. Rom. xi. 34. 1 Cor. iii. 5.
10. vi. 13.
Et vice versa Osk, v. l. Kógioc. Rom. vii. 22. viii. 8. xiv. 6.
11, si, 8%ay Geoč v. 1.<vetov. Ital Cor. xi. 21. Denique Kügloº,
v. l. xplairãº. Rom. xiv. 14, Év Kugiº, v. l. Xºta rā. 1 Cor. iii. 5,
&; ; Kágios, v. l. xerrãº. Cap. vii. 12. xii. 19, et passim.
2. Gsäc. Rom. x. 17, 3.3 hp, aroc Qect, V. l. xeta rot. xv.
32, 3& Sexhaaroc osciſ, v. l. x&laroi, incoſ. 1 Cor. i. 18, 3üya-
&ic Osoſ, v. 1.xgirrot. ii. 1,64agrúploy Geoff, V. l. XPlatoº. iv. l, *u-
a rhetov etci., v. 1. xploroi. vii. 40, Hyºga Stoff, Y. l. Xºlºº.
Aliquando Keioc. Rom. vii. 22, r3 viaº roš Oiºſ, V. l. Kºſºv.
3. xeters. Rom. viii. 9, IIºwa Xela roš, V. l. 9sº. V. 35,
ºrſ, 3,4mn; roi, zeta-roß, v. l. Geoû. cap. xiv. 18, 8ouxstºw tº
xolora, v.1. Qs; Kupſ, cap. xvi. 26, wºmaia roš Xºlºtº.V. l.
escº. 1 Cor. i. 6, gaerûgio, Xgaroſ., v. 1.956. 2 Cor. xii. 9,
Bºwatzig rod Xetrºroč, v. l. Oéoù. Saepe Köpioc. Rom. WIll. l],
3 #yrigaç rêv xgativ, V. l. Tày Köglov. xvi. 9, #y xgia Tó, V. l. #y
Kupið. Ita 1 Cor. ii. 16. x, 16.
Necrarius inveniatur horum vocabulorum 'Inocê XPlatoº,
Kvetov hºw omissio, cum enim de eadem persona dicta essent,
uno eorum posito, reliqua superflua videbantur. 2. Additio,
utpote quae alibi simul occurrebant : vel permutatio, utpote
quibus mutatis persona adhuc eadem intelligebatuſ.
1. Omissiosive defectus, v.g. Matt. xvi. 20, abrés icº'Ingotſ;
3 xptatic. v. 1. d. 'Introjº. Act. xix. 10. tº Aéroy Kugiov 'Incoiſ, d.
'Indoº. 2 Cor. xiii. 5, ‘Incoiſ, xetaric,d. Imaovº. 1 Cor. i. 2, 'Inarod
xerorº, d. xpiatoč. cap. v. 4, Év čvářºr to: Kvetov hºcãv 'inº
xeirº, d. xeteroſ. 2 Cor. i. 2, 3 98%, tº rath; tº Kºptov
hºw 'Inaº, Xsarº, d. Domininostri Jesu Christi, Ambrosiast.
2. Additio. Act. xxiv. 24, repi rāctié xplºrów Triorsoº, V. l.
st; 'Incoiſy, xgirröy 'Incoiv. 1 Cor. i. 24, knpúagºgy xétarov, V. l.
'Ingoſy xenatºv. cap. iv. 17, rā; 380ſ; (wou, rés V X&ºr;, V. l.
#y xylºr; 'Inaoi. Post Köelow 'Izotºv, addunt x8tory. Rom.
x. 9. 1 Cor. vi. 11, #y vågart roi, Kvelov 'Inacº, V. 1. ‘Inaº
xploroi, Kupíow hºw 'Incoſ xgloroij. xii. 3, Küglºw 'Inactiv, V. l.
Dominum Jesum Christum. Ad Jesum Christum addunt
Káelow hazy. Rom. ii. 16, 81& 'Inaoſ, Xplorë, V. l. Tº Kuptov hºy,
Denique sexcenties, Millio judice, ex evangeliis tollenda
est vox'incoiſ, cum sit vox plane necessaria, et nominandi
casum supplere debeat. Matt. iv. 18, trigºratºv 3; Ingots,
deest 'inaciº. cap. viii. 3, #Jaro aircí ‘Indows, d. 'Imagic. Marc.
i. 17, wai stºrey abrā’Invoic, d. 'Inaoûg. cap. viii. 1, Trpºzzania'é-
&Evo; 5 'inco; ; roi; p.a.Sirā; abroſ., d. 'Indows et aircü. Wide
Matt, xiii. 36. xiv. 14. xv. 16. Marc. xi. 11. 14, Xii. 41.
Luc. vii. 22. ix. 16. xiii. 2. Johan. i. 44. iv. 46. v. 1. vi.
j4. 70.
SECTIO TERTIA—DE ADJECTIVIS.
ADJECTVA saepius permutantur, sine ulla mutatione sensus.
Exempli gratia, Matt. vi. 25, mºsſov, V. l. Trasiov, ut conveniat
genere cum Juxh. cap. ix. 17, 34%repa, V. l. 34%regoi,
nempe &axoi kai oivoc. cap. x. 32, rºy extºgºv 'roºrov, V. l. Tów
#Aaxſarov. cap. xi. 29, tr;āoc, V. l. Treaſº. Marc. v. 40, #7ay-
raç, v. l. Trávrac. Ita etiam Luc. vii. 16. Luc. xix. 7, &may-
rec, v. l. Trávºrac. cap. xxi. 3, Trávrov, v. 1. &mévrov. Wide
etiam v. 12. Act. xxii. 12, §vić sizeflic, v. l. sixa£fic. &
SECTIo QUARTA—DE PRONOMINIBUs.
NoTANDUM primo de pronominibus primitivis hºsts, hºw,
#ºv, hºcãº, ea sexcenties mutari in bºxeſ, bºy, tºxiv, tºwºc, et
vice versa,—librariorum, inquit P. Simonius, sive vitio, sive
incuria. Hoc autem fere continuo accidit, sensu haud alicubi
mutato : cum enim de re omnibus communisive Christianis,
sive ethnicis agitur, vix aliquod discrimen intercedit inter
“nos Christianos,” et “vos Christianos,” “vos gentiles,” et
“nos de gentibus.” Exempli graita, Luc. xii. 32, “Nolite
timere, pusillus grex ; qui complacuit patri vestro &otival iºſy
rºy 3aorixelay,” v. l. hºſy, i. e. nobis qui Sumus, aut vobis qui
estis, de hoc pusillo grege. Act. iii. 25, “Vos estis filii pro-
phetarum, et testamenti quod disposuit Deus, ºrgèc row:
raríga; twäy,” v. l. hºw&v, ubi Judaeus Judaeos alloquitur.
Sic v. 23, 3 Oed; twºv, V. l. hºw, cap. xiv. 17, “Implems
cibo et laptitia rā; kaebia; hºw&v,” v. l. ipzów, nimirum omni-
bus dat cibum. Et rursus eodem commate. Cap. xv. 7.
5 Os3; #y hºſy #Exe£áro, v. 1: tºxiv, i. e. in vobis, aut nobis
apostolis. Cap. xvi. 17, “Isti homines Karayyáxxovatv hºw
viam salutis " v. 1. Čºv, i.e. vobis aut nobis apud Philippos
agentibus. Cap. xxviii. 25, “Bene locutus est Spiritus sanctus
Tree; row, raríga; hºw,” v. l. ipºv. Ita Paulus Judaeus
Judaeis. 1 Pet. i. 4, eiç #x2c, V. l. tºº, et v. 12, hºv, V. l.
ūgīy, i. e. nobis, aut vobis Christianis:—plura exempla da-
bunt annotata libro secundo passim.
Porro deficiunt juxta varias lectiones hac pronomina, ubi
si revera abfuissent, necessario intelligenda essent. Ita
v. g. &#feral taſy, “Reliquitur vobis domus vestra deserta,”
v. 1. d. bºxiv. Iis tamen solis relinqui potuit haec domus de-
solata. Luc. vi. 25, oùal tºxiv, “Was vobis qui Saturati estis,”
v. 1. deest jºy. Male procul dubio, eo enim desiderato sen-
sus deficit. Joh. iii. 12, #&y stra tºwiv rá štrove&viz., v. 1. deest
itzſv. Quis autem non videt pronomen ibi prorsus necessari-
um esse? Joh. xvi. 4, §rt #y& Eſtroy ipziv raira, deest tºy.
Male ; praecedunt enim raira AEAáanxa tºxiv. Luc. xii. 22,
ºwhºwegiºvärs rà Lux; tıºv, V. l. d. Čºv. -
Adduntur insuper, ubi sunt plane Superflua.-Ita Luc.
xxiii. 2, “Invenimus hunc hominem Biao rešqovva rö #Svoc,”
add. v. l. hºwäy, mec enim de alia natione loqui potuerunt.
Joh. viii. 5, #y rô y%40, add. v. l. hºw non enim de alia
lege loqui potuissent scribae et pharisaei. Act. xxvi. 6, ºrgè;
row; trarééac, V. l. hºców. .
2. Pronomen relativum abrèg in his variis lectionibus saepe
deesse dicitur, cum plane necessarium sit. Ex. gr. Matt. vi.
4, “Pater meus videns in occulto airrö; 37086%ast arol,” d.
airãº. Cap. viii. 21, Érego; 3è rāy waſn'rojv airoij, v. 1. d. atroč.
Cap. xii. 3, §rt #reivacev airò., v. 1. d. air&c. Matt. xviii. 32,
Trpockaxed'épcevo; airy & Kūčios airoij, Ašyet airá, d. airév et
airó. V. 34, ºrây Tà èpsiAéºzavoy airá. d. airó. Luc. xiv. 16,
§ 3; girev airò, v. 1. d. atrój. xv. 26, rév traſºa atroº, deest
airoij. xvii. 9, rà. 8tarax8;wra airó; d. abrój. xxii. 57, § 3;
hºvha aro airey, deest adrāv-Ita sexcenties.
Saepe etiam in variis hisce lectionibus adjicitur, ubiest pa-
riter intellectu necessarium. Luc. xviii. 1, #NEye & Kai raga-
80Añy aireſ; Tragã tº 3sſy Trávrors (v. 1. add. atrobº) reorgiºsa-
3at, quod tamen satis comprehenditur in aircíº. xxiii. 35,
#sºvº rhetºray, v. 1. aštáv. Joh. iv. 17, h yvyi eſrey, v. 1, add.
aúrój. xi. 8, Aéyourly adrā, oi (wa&ntai, w. l. add. atroń. Et v.
12, altroy civ, V. l. add. atriº oi kaaffnrai airrot. Act. ii. 40,
trapskáñet, add. atrobe. Marc. ii. 8, Émiyyob; ‘Incoiſ; Śri otºrwg
3.EXoyićorro #y Havroſ., v. l. 3rt abroi otºrwº.
Idem obtinet in pronominibus possessivis: ita Matt. xx.
21, si, #x Sežičy otov, wai się # stayúzov, MSS. 25 add. arov
Mar. x. 37, Biovágoy a ov. d. cov. W. 40, Eijovágoy Exov, d.
Matt. xv. 4, rip, a röy ºratéga arov, V. l. d. arov. Marc.
Wid. Joh. xiv. 12.
£40w.
vii. 10, Rai rāv ºnzápa orov, V. l. d. a ov.
xvi. 10. xviii. 11. Act. xx. 23, 24.
Porro nihil frequentius est quam permutatio horum pro-
nominum sensu non permutato; ita Matt. iii. 3, oùrác Šarly
§ finSeiç tró 'Haraſov, v. 1. abrèc. v. 4, airó; &# 8 Iowavyns, v. 1.
oùroc. 1 Cor. vii. 13, Kai airrö; ovyevèoxeſ oizaſy ger' air%, v.
1. otiroc. cap. xvi. 17, §rt rô tºy baráčnºwa otrol āyerañewcay,
v. l. atrol est enim abrèc juxta grammaticosmodo relativum,
modo demonstrativum, idemque regi roi; otºro, pronunciant.
Invicem pariter mutantur airó; et Éavrác. Ita Matt. vi.
16, 3 pavićovat rā ºrgázara airów, v. l. Havrāv. Marc. i. 27,
&cts avónreſy ºrgö; adroic, v. l. Tºp3; #avrovº. v. 26, 3aºrayhoraca
| rà rap' Havräç révºz, v. l. Trap' airãº' cum enim reperiantur
airãº, airoi; airó, aspirata, aphaeresis est rod É juxta gramma-
ticos.
SECTIO QUINTA—DE WERBIS.
TER mille hic veniunt adnotanda, ubi
1. Verba mutantur sine ullo fere sensus discrimine. V. g.
Matt. ii. 13, futurum est ut Herodes quaerat puerum &moxé-
cal airy, v. l. &moºreſyat airty. Matt. iii. 9, whº 8&nts Aéyely
#y #avroſ., v. l. gº àgénre. Matt. xxii. 37, § 3; 'Inarotic simey
airój, MSS. 28, #4 m. Marc. i. 20, &rixBoy &miao aircü, v. 1.
#x0xoşna‘ay attá. Pariter viii. 34, § yag &V Séxei čorica, aou
#A$8ty, v. 1. &zoNovššív. iii. 4, Jux}y a 6a'at, h &raxttiyat, v. l.
&moxérat. Luc. vi. 9, § 376Weaat, v. 1. &mozºrgival. xxi. 22,
rod trangošāval ºrávra rā yeygapºva, v. l. Trana Säyat. Joh.
viii. 5, Moor; hºwſy fiversiaato rຠrotaºta; Aisofloxefa Sai, v. l.
x104&sry, x10áðsa Sai. V. 26, raira Náyo, V. l. XaXá. Rom.
xv. 18, Aaxsſy ºrt, v. l. ri eiträv, Aaxeſaai ºrt. 1 Cor. ix. 8, raj-
ºra xaxó, v. l. Aéyo. Wide Rom. ix. 20. I Cor. xiii. 8.
2. Mutatur sape praepositio verbi, sensu integro manente.
Luc. ii. 20, #7, #~~gs-pay, v. 1. UTréatrpe-pay. Act. xv. 42, #mri-
pºvety, v. l. Trporašysty. Joh. xxi. 3, &vé8×a'av six tº radio, v. 1.
#y£6maray. 2 Cor. iv. 16, #4xakotaev, V. l. #ykakotasy. v. 6
** * sº y
#x3mºotjºv, V. l. 3"roºnkwoºey.
1.192
EXAMEN
MILLI1.
3. Sexcenties varia lectio mutat verbum simplex in cons”
positum sensu non laeso, Ita Matt. vi. 3, “Te faciente elee-
mosynam, º yyáro # 3pariga orov,” v. l. Triyvára. x. 25, si
#xáxncay, v. l. #7s2&xnaray. xv. 14, si; 848wvoy Trea obvrai, V. l.
#pºrea'oïvtas. Luc. iv. 42, #&#tovy airy, v. 1. Čvºrovy. Act.
xviii. 7, #x3s, si; oikiay, v. l. Elaixòey. xviii. 16, #x00pxey si;
‘Pºgºny, v. l. Elah?,00pxev.
Et vice versa, pro composito exhibetur simplex. Matt.
xiii. 40, Kai Trvgi zarazaietal, MSS. 40, kaſerai. xix. 5, trgov-
xoxanóñastal ri yuvaiki, v. l. Roxxnóño's rai. Marc. i. 38, si;
rooro #52%avşa, v. l. Éahºvša. Luc. xiii. 21, Évéxpvilev, V. l.
#xgvijev. xx. 24, #7, 188!?aré pºol Boyágtov, V. l. 8sičars. W. 34,
#xyagia Rovtat, v. l. Yaºzigzoyºtai. Act. xi. 20, Bio-Ex86vreć, v. l.
#ASávres. Rom. iii. 9, 7ponrad'éºssa, v. l. httacáſześa. 1 Cor.
v. 2, #2665, v. l. 3p3;. 2 Cor. iv. 14, #yséeſ, tragao Tha'el, v. l.
#sysgeſ, othaei.
4. In verbissapenumero contingit, primo, mutatio numeri.
Matt. i. 21, zoºxic etc., v. J. Kaxšaroval. (1.) Contingit hoc plus
centies ubi nomina multitudinis, aut neutrius generis occur-
runt, quae utrumque numerum admittunt. Ita Matt. x. 21,
Tragašćget 3: 388xp?g, v. l. Traga 33rova'i. Marc. iii. 11, Trveſ cara
ãxá6agra Trpoc triarrey &örð, v. l. Trºozévirtov. Joh. xii. 8, 8xxo;
#xovae, v. l. #zouzay. Act. ii. 3, #xáónaí re. v. l. #xášna &y vs.
Rom. ii. 14, pºst tº rod vôºov Troiſi, v. l. Troiózes. 2 Cor. ix. 3,
#Tººla, Éré, Japaev. W. 4, Aiyoºey, Aéro. -
(2.) Mutatio personae, et numeri. Ita Act. xix. 13, 3exi-
Kopaev, V. l. 3;xiào, male, praecedunt enim rives, et Aéyovrec.
xx. 28, où #aay avynyºvot, nempe Troades, v. l. gev, nos cum
iis. xxi. 8, #exŠávre; ci regi rāv IIaşxoy #2. Soºey, v. l. #x$oy.
xxii. 25, &; 33 ºrpoérewey, airów roi; iºdoriv, nempe centurio,
wrpeśrsiyev trgozèreway, centurio cum ministris ejus. xxvii. 29,
£chtro; #xtrázaviv, viz. nautae, v. l. Éxtrézwgzey, nos in nave.
Rom. vi. 3, #2atrºría Óñºzey, nos Christiani, #8arria:Sn+s, vos
Romani. 2 Cor. ii. 4, #x2, v. 1. Éxotzev. v. 11, Éamićw, #Amigo-
&Ey, Paulus solus, vel Paulus et Timotheus, i. 1.
(3.) Mutatio temporis, ut, Imo, praesens pro futuro, et,
contra, sexcenties, ita Matt. vi. 19, Smaaveiðars, v. 1. Sna'avºi-
o'Ere. vii. 15, #x3rat, v. l. Éxsézetal. xxi. 3, & arozaréx\si, v. l.
&Tootgae. Ita etiam, Marc. xi. 3. Joh. iii. 36, “Ira Dei”
&#ve it” airév, V. l. gºeſ. Joh. xvi. 33, Éers, v. l. ixers.
Rom. xi. 13, Božáčo. v. l. 30%ázo. 2 Cor. iii. 9, replace0s.
V. l. Tregiza Egzei. Matt. iii. 10, #4x4tte‘ral za; eig Triº 64xxarat.
v. 1. #x2040%zerai, 8xºShastal. v. 10, #art, v. l. Éa rai. x. 8,
Šećatreſſets, xaflagićets, #yetpete, v. l. Segatretcars. Ita passim.
2do. Praesens pro praeterito et vice versa. Ita Joh. vi. 63,
ºrd #4ara & #y& XaXá, v. 1. AEAáAnka. Joh. xiv. 9, #&paks #2;
Éwpax&c, V. l. gºv as #3. 3tio. Praesens aut imperfectum
pro aoristo primo aut Secundo. Ita Joh. iv. 27, #3aº, acay,
V. l. #34%ašov. Act. iv. 35, Ériſov, V. l. Étiºnaray. Matt. i. 18,
#$495 tº locºp, v. 1. ‘paive rat.
(4.) Mutatio conjugationis aut vocis passim. Matt. xi. 23,
#yÉvorro, V. l. #ysvášnzay. Heb. xi. 4, Naxifrat, v. 1. Xaxeſ.
Matt. vii. 24, 3p, ciózo airv, V. l. Spoto,0ha'etat, Luc. vi. 7,
Tragetnçotiv, V. l. Trapstnçoğviro. Luc. iv. 14, &vratroë00%as rat, v.
1. &vratro3%arovz. Joh. ii. 17, zarépayé £28, v. l. xare påystal.
(5.) Mutatio modi. Contigit hoc in numeris in locissen-
Su utrinque integro; indicativus nempe mutatur aliquoties in
imperativum. Matt. xx. 26, “Qui major erit inter vos,”
ão to tºv Štázovo;, v. l. Éarat. W. 27, Éatai Jºãy 300x02, v. 1,
ibid. Bato. xxiii. 11, “Qui major est vestrum” £rral jºy
8táxoroc, V. l. Éoto. Mutato in imperativum futuro, interpre-
tamenti causa. Millius, Matt. v. 37, a to 3: 3 x:yo; bºy,
yai wai, v. l. Éatai. *
In subjunctivum frequentissime, et vice versa. Matt. v.
25, ºfttroré as tragaš, v. l. Traga%ael. Bis Luc. iii. 10, ri
ow Trothcopaev. v. l. Trotha'ſſºv. Joh. v. 47, Trä; roſ. ipsoi, flºwaci
Triatedcare, tria Teſſants. xv. 8, yºgeral yávnaða. V. 16, 36
tºxiv, V. l. 3&ast. Act. xxviii. 26, 8x8 Jets, 8x8 ºre. W. 27,
iázoº.cat, iáaloºzai. Rom. iii. 3, rºy triarty roi; 98.5 xaragyńael,
ita Chrysost. Theodoret. Photius, CEcum. Theophylact. MSS.
xarapyeſ, Karapyhan. vi. 1, Étrip, Eyotasy tº &aeria, v. l. Émi-
&#vowev. Rom. x. 11, r2: 3: Triersdorovziy—ázoſa'oval, v. l. Trio-
ºrsúa'ayaty—ákoúa waiv.
Est denique notandum verbum substantivum in lingua
Hebraica praesens tempus non admittere, unde in versione
nostra Anglicana rå “is,” in versione LXX. r. Hart, saepissime
. additur : hinc fere centies notatur rô floºri apud Novi Foederis
Scriptores, quibus Hellenistica lingua in usu fuit : v. g. 1
Thess. ii. 10, tºsſ; ºrvés;, v, l. Haré. Wide 1 Cor. vii. 16.
viii. 7. xi, 11, xiv. 10.
f
SECTIO SEXTA—DE PAR1ſcupils,
I. PARTICIPIA ejusdem sensus saepe invicem permutantur :
v. g. Matt. iv. 18, röy Atyápasyov IIárgov, V. l. rāv kaxoãºwevon.
ix. 18, raûra airoi; Maxoºv toº, V. l. Aéyov'roc. Joh. xix. 28,
eið; ‘Inaroº;, &ri Trávra hôn teréAsarat, V. l. iódiv. Act. xviii. 8,
Seacráºzavoc, v. l. lºv. xvii. 13, a a Asúovºrs; row; 8xxovs, v. 1. ‘ra-
pázarov.rs;. 1 Cor. v. 2, 3 rd Feyov rotiro Trothoac, v. l. Trgážaç. 2
Cor. iii. 7, #y yeapºcaa'iv ivºretv7roºvn, V. l. #yyeypakºëyn.
2. Centies tempore differunt sine sensus discrimine: ex
gr. Matt. x. 28, paſſ poénóñre 373 rôy &roxtelyávrov to a 3&a,
v. 1. &mox revévray. xiii. 24, a reigova'i, a Tsigayri. xvii. 27, roy
&vagávra, v. 1. &vagaivovira. Joh. vi. 45, Träç &xoão aº, v. J.
ànočay. Act. ii. 44, ºrávre; of Trio revowtic, v. l. Tria revoray'rs;.
xxviii. 5, &moriyážac a' Smpiov sig ré Triº, v. 1. &roriyaa’a advoc,
ãºroriyağäkcevo;. 2 Cor. i. 17, rotºro oëv Bouxsváſzewoc, v. l. 3ovXé-
&groc, 8ovačva &gaewoº. W. 5, xategyao'àºwevo;, xarepya&Evoc,+
#ysięoyt, #ysipayri, 2 Cor. i. 9. - -
3. Multoties participium simplex occurrit pro composito,
et vice versa, v. g. Matt. vii. 13, Troxxoi siaty of sla'séxáſzewo: 3'
airãº, v. l. Épyák, Eyot. Luc. xvii. 7, sia ExSévri, #x3évri. Joh.
xii. 2, sic rāy avyavaasik, £voy airó. v. l. &vazelºvoy avy airó.
Act. xxi. 4, Rai &yev;évres, v. l. Kai etpávres, 2 Cor. iv. 9, #yka-
taxšitréºlevoi, V. l. At&trayāºvot, Niträgevoi.
SECTIO SEPTIMA—DE ADVERBIIS.
NoTANT, primo, variae lectiones deesse multoties adverbia,
ubi sunt plane vel intellectu necessaria, vel sensu non la’so
deesse possunt. Luc. vi. 10, #xtelyov tºy Xeſ;4 cov–3 #moinasy
oùro. v. l. d. ošto. Marc. i. 13, r3 ºrvejºwa #284xxes abröy sic
tºv Šenºoy Kai #y fixeſ Év rñ #phºwo, deest inst. Et Act. xiv. 28, .
“Navigarunt Antiochiam” &#t380y 3; ins?, d. #xeſ, male pro-
cul dubio. Joh. iv. 3, &trăşe Tráxiv Big Thy Taxixatay, recte:
name Galilaea ascendit Jesus Hierosolymam ad pascha, ii.
11. 13. At v. l. d. ºráxiv. Joh. xviii. 33, Eiaºx9sy Eic ré ºrgairó-
grow ºráxty & ITIA&roç, d. Tráxiv, male, egressus enim est e prae-
torio ad Judaeos, ver. 29. V. 38, Tréxy ###A0s & IIIA470; ºrgö,
toū; 'Ioudaiovº, v. 1. d. aráxiv, male iterum, Wide v. 29. Act.
v. 23, tºogey row; ºaza; #6, #ortúra; tre? Sup?y. MSS. 30
deest #w, qui tamen prae foribus stabant, ii certe extra
stabant. -
Speciatim observandum est de Büşik, et stSãog, quod
quadragies inveniuntur in uno Marci Evangelio, adeo ut
mirum non sit ea multoties ibi deesse, in Miss. exemplis;
puta i. 10. 29, 30. ii. 2. viii. 14. xliii. 45. Ubi Millius,
“Deest Cant. Vulg. Syr. ut fere semper.” Matt. iv. 20, oi
33 e59áo; 34 virt; rà èixtva, ubi “ stºo; insertum est ex evan-
geliis aliis;” ita Millius, Prol. p. 64, col. 2. Habent autem
Chrysost. in Com. Theophylact. versiones omnes, Origenes.
in Matt. p. 389.
2. Mutantur invicem saepius adverbia sensu minime mu-
tato. Luc. v. 35. Töre ynaraſa'ovarty, v. l. 373 Târg. xvi. 26, ol
Séxovre; 3.28%at #yrsöðey, v. l. MSS. 23, #x&sy. Joh. xviii. 20,
Trávrote #3:3aža #y tº avyayoyā Śrov rávrots of 'lovèato avyšexor-
rat, v. l. Travroëy, omnes mimirum in Solemnitatibus ex lege
adire Hierosolymam tenebantur, adeoque undique convenire
illic. xix. 27, ibot, 6 vić, a ov, V. l. 38. Act. xxii. 1, yºv, V. l. vuyi.
2 Cor. ii. 47, Karevºrtov rod Geoû, v. 1. Karávayri. iii. 10, #yskey
v. 1. Fivekev. iv. 16, § {{w #4&y &vSporos, v. 1, #26ev.
SECTIO OCTAVA—DE PRAEPOSITIONIBUS.
INFINITUM esset observare loca omnia ubi praepositiones
ejusdem potestatis, eundemque sensum exhibentes, inter se
permutantur.
Ut, primo, 33 pro boro, et Vice versa. Matt. ii. 23, tº finóir
3.3 rºw trºopnrów, v. 1. Urá. iii. 3, “Hie est qui dictus est” wºrd
'Horatov, V. l. 31&, Vulg. et l ren. In utrisque autem inveni-
mus per. Act. xii. 9, r3 yewówevow 3:3 row dyyáňov, V. l.
1970s
2. 'Avro, pro tºrs, et contra. Rom. xiii. 1, ciº, a rºy ##overia st
º, 3rd Geoč, v. l. Wºré. Gal. v. 18, oil, at # (ºr: váºzov, V. 1. &md
z
Voºdov. -
'Atro pro tragö, et contra. Act. xxvi. 22, #7 woupia; rvX2,
rā; ºrap& roi, Osoſ, v. 1. &md. 1 Cor. xi. 13, 3rd rot Kvetov, V. l.
Traº row.
'Amr, pro fix, et év, in pro &md. Matt, viii. 34, 373 rāv Špiov
airów, v. l. ix. 1 Cor. vii. 7, #4 rod Ogou, v. 1. &mé. Matt. viii.
| 13, “Sanatus est” iv tº &ga izgivn. V. I. 37% ric, &c.
EXAMEN MILLII.
1193
2. ''rmrie pro reel, et contra. Rom. i. 5, bwèp tot ovépaarce
zütoij, v. 1. wrept. V. 8. Üorig wávrov bewöv, v. l. nrsgi. 2 Cor. i.
8, ürrëf riis Saisleave hpaov, v. l. wsgt. xii. 5, barig #kaavrov, v. l.
vragi. 2 Cor. i. 13, ûnrêg üpx&v, v. l. we l. Gal. i. 4, barêp röw
&pwaertãv hpadºv, v. l. nepi. Pro rapà, 2 Cor. i. 1, ürrëp 3öyapaty,
v. l. nrapà. 2 Cor. xii. 13, “ Quid est enim quod minus ha-
buistis” ürrêp Aotorag ëxxAnariag, v. l. nrapá.
Sexcenties kort pro eiç, aut âv, vice versa: Matt. iii. 13, énr?
rov'Ioe34vny, v. l. #ig. xviii, 6, #ari tov rgáxnAow abtoij, v. l. sic,
et arsgl. Luc. viii. 8, #ari thy y#y rhy &ya6hy, v. l. Eig. Joh. vi.
16, xatäßmaray #art riv SáAaaroray, v. l. sig. Act. iv. 5, avvax8ijvat
roûg diexoytag siç 'Iegovora Ahºw, v. l. âv. Rom. x. 11, 5 mrta teüooy
âar auto, v. 1. sic abröy. Gal. v. 13, #w #Asv6sgig.
Item #art, eiç, pro re3c, et vice versa. Act. xvi. 40, Eig rhy
Avatay, v. l. Trpôg. Rom. x. 21, wrgog Aaby & wet6cüyra, v. l. #ºri.
Gal. i. 12, redç rovg argô #gwoö àwoartóAovs, v. 1. eis. *
4. Aliquoties mutatur tantum casus quem regit praepo-
sitio, sensu minime mutato. Ex. gr. Marc. v. l 1, “ Erat
ibi grex porcorum argôg to 3gog, circa montem,” Vulg. mrpoç Taj
3egt, “ apud montem,” MISS. 40, Euthym. Vulg. Syr. Arab.
AEthiop. Joh. xx. 11, Magia 8ë eiarrhºst wrgos vd pvvntxeïov, v. i.
ºrg wynga six'. Gal. iv. 12, éar #Aev6spig, v. l. #w #Asv6apiav. Matt.
iii. 7, Bart ro 8áwartapwa aütoij, v. l. #ari rö 8aartlapwatt.
5. Saepius deficiumt aut adjiciuntur sensu adhuc salvo.
V. g. Marc. v. 6, à7r8 kwaxg69sv, v. 1. d. âard. Luc. xxii. 30, iv
tij Baatasia zov, v. l. d. âv. xxiv. 18, orij ex5voç vragoixëï: âv '1egov-
oa Aha, MSS.A32 d. âv. Joh. xiii. 23, eiç r&v kwa6n röy abtoij, v.
l. Eig àx röy. xix. 36, óorrovv ov ovvvet@harstat abºroij, v. l. âw'
aüvoö. W. 40. #3noray to auto 3Soviots, MSS. ây #Soviotg.
SECTIO NONA-DE CONJUNCTIONIBUS,
PARCIUs hic agendum : bis millies in variis lectionibus
hisce occurrunt, sive mutatio conjunctionum idem valentium,
vel earundem defectus ubi in textu adsunt, vel additio ubi
librariis deesse videbantur, id autem fit sensu vel semper
salvo, vel leviter tantum immutato.
1. Observatimprimis P. Simonius multitoties accidere per-
mutationem particularum yàp et 8ë, tam in Graecis exempla-
ribus quam in antiquis versionibus. Rom. xiv. 15, ei Bë 81&
8eâpwa, v. 1. vag. V. 23, 3 8ë 3taxpuvópasvog, v. l, yàg. Vid.
Rom. viii. 28. 1 Cor. ii. 10. vii. 40. ix. 16. x. 1. xi. 3. xv. 1.
xiii. 50. xvi. 7. 8. t
1 Cor. x. 26, Toö vàp Kvglov h yi, v. l. 3ë. xi. 23, ty& yàg
vragáAaßoy, v. l. 3ë. V. 31, ei yàg #autoûg 8texpivopaey, v. l. 3ë.
xiv. 5, basiſov yàg 3 mrpotpntsjov, v. l. 3ë. V. 14, #&v yàg wgoorsij-
Xoºgwat, v. l. 3ë.
2. Notat secundo idem Simonius frequentem esse muta-
tionem conjunctionis copulativae wat in disjunctivam #, et
vice versa. Ita. Joh. viii. 14, xai mroij #aráya, v. I. #. 1 Cor.
xiii. 1, h ków.6a Aov âAaAákov, v. l, xai. xi. 27, 8, 2v #a-S in röy
âprov voörov, h riyn rö worhetov, v. l. xai. Exempla multa con-
gessimus annotatis in hunc locum. -
3. Sexcenties occurrit mutatio zal in Bë, et vice versa, prae-
sertim vero in evangeliis. Ita Matt. xx. 2, avpzſpooyhaag 85,
v. l. xai avpw povvhaag. V. 10, #A6óvareg 3ë, v. l. wat #A6áyves. xxi.
30, xat mrgore AS'av, v. l. nrgoge A8 &v Bë. xxii. 7, &xoöaag 8ë, v. l.
| Levit. xi. 44. xix. 2.
xai âxoöorac. Marc. i. 6, #y Bë 'Iowávyng, v. l. wat hy. V. 16,
wegtara röv 3ë, v. l. nai vragáyov. W. 28, ###A6s 8ë, v. l. wat ###6ev.
ii. 5, i8&v 3ë, v. l. xai i3&v. iii. 7, kai 3 'Incroijs, v. l. 5 Bë. iv.
10, 3rt 3ë, v. l. xai âtt. v. 14, of 8ë 33axovtsg, v. l. wat oi.
Ita v. 19. 40, vi. 3, 38e Aſpòg 8ë, v. l. wat â8expós. V. 4,
#Agye Bë, v. l. wai âAEye. Ita v. 21, 22, 24, 29. 35.
37, 38.
Est autem frequens mutatio voö wal #y&, in xdy&. 1 Cor.
ii. 3. iii. 1. xvi. 10. 2 Cor. ii. 10, # 8ë ºrt Xagi(sa-Se, wat #yà,
v. l. Ray&. (2.) &s, et âa weg, seu âa weg, saepe inter se invicem
permutantur. 2 Cor. ix. 5, 4xi &aarsg 7rasove#iav, v. l. &g. 1
Cor. x. 7, óg yéygawtat, v. l. âaarsg. Ita 2 Cor. ii. 17. iii. 1.
Porro innumeris in locis varia lectio exhibet tantum de-.
fectum, aut redundantiam 8ë vel wat sensu vix ullibi mutato.
Et lmo, deest 8ë, v. g. #y Bë raï, hpzépatc #xeiyaic, v. l. d. Bë.
Luc. xix. 22, Aäyet 3e aütö, v. l. d. Bë. Joh. i. 40, #ga 3ë #y
&s Bexárn, d. Bë in MSS. 35, et v. 43. Ita Joh. vii. 9. 12.
19. 38. Acts xi. 17, #y2, 3ë riç hany, v. l. d. 3ë. Ita xiii. 1.
xxiv. 26. Alias additur ubi deest. Luc. xi. 24, 3-ray to axé-
8aetov wvgüpwa, v. l. #ºrav 3ë. Joh. ix. 9, in eivo; #Agyev, v. l.
#xeïyog 8ë. Act. xvi. 7, #A6óvre; watà rhy Mvariay, v. l. #A86. Teg
&#.
Frequentius accidit defectus roij wat, ubi vel etiam de-
notat, vel ad connexionem videtur plane necessarium. Matt.
xiv. 19, “ Et jubens turbam discumbere super gramen, wat
Aa 8&v, et accipiens quinque panes-benedixit eis,” v. l. d.
xai. Luc. xv. 19, “ Peccavi in coelum, et coram te, waï obx#tt
siga? ##tos,” &c. v. l. d. xat, et V. 21, et cap. xix. 15. cap.
xxiii. 24, “ Et dies erat parasceues xa? oraß8árov,” d. wat,
MSS. 32, et V. 52. 55. Joh. xx. 14, xai taijira eiwoöora, d.
xal. Ita cap. xi. 57. cap. xix. 35. Act. xiv. 3, “ Domino tes-
timonium perhibente verbo gratiae wat Boyrt ampzaïa,” d. wal.
Ita cap. xiii. 9, et 1 Cor. x. 9, et x. 12. xii. 14. 19. Adjicitur
sine causa: Rom. xiv. 6, 6:ëa Sioey, v. l. xal 3,-in evangeliis
passim. t
“Ott saepissime in his variis lectionibus deest, ubi denotat
quod, v. g. Matt. ix. 33, Aáyoytec 8tt, d.. 8 rt. Luc. iv. ll, wat
#rt #zri Yaspäy aipoöort aa, v. l. d. #rt. Ita cap. xvii. 10. xix.
9. Joh. vii. 31, #AEyov ºtt. x. 7, Aáyo bpxïy 3 ri, d. #ºrt. cap, xii.
34. 1 Cor. iv. 9. Quandoque adjicitur: ita, Luc. xix. 34,
ci 8ë eïwov 3 Köptog, v. l. ºrt ó Kögto;. V. 46, yéygaar rat, 5 oïxóg
pxov, v. l. #ºrt 5. 1 Cor. Vii. 29, ó zatgoç avyeata Apzávog, v. l.
OT"l 0,
Deest denique yàg, Luc. iv. 8. Act. xviii. 15. cöv, Joh.
viii. 42. ix. 25. Act. xviii. 14. xx. 28, et in multis aliis.
SECTIO DIECIMA,
HIS adde quod multa inter varias lectiones enume-
rentur, quae tantum exhibent loca in Novo Foedere laudata, .
prout a patribus, aut ex LXX. Interpretum versione, alle-
gantur, V. g. -
Matt. i. 23. Pro ##st, Iren. Ahºlevat. Pro xaxácrovort, Euseb.
Epiph. p. 427, xaxéa erg, ex Isa. vii. 14. Cap. ii. 6 #x croij y&g,
v. l. ëx aoö yág Exot, ex Mich. v. 2, vide v. 17.
Marc. i. 3. EûSafag woteïrg Tac Teißovc aÜto5. Iren, trof Ogoö
#pzöv, ex Isa. xl. 3. »
Joh. xix. 36. 'Oa Toiv où avvtpißhore rat auto;, v. 1. et crvv-
'rpislers àw' aivoj, ex Ex. xii. 46.
Act. i. 20. TeynSato h #aravxtc aürroº, Vulg. al. aütöv, ex
Ps. lxix. 25.
Rom. ix. 25. Kat thv cüx hyaarna #ynv, hyaarnwávny Iren. lib.
iv. cap. 37, Hieron. in eap. i. Hos. Thy oëx #Aengwiyny, WAengwé-
vny, ex Hos. ii. 23, ubi utraque lectio.
V. 33. Où katata XvySha-stat, v. l. o5 puh watatorXvySf, ex
Isa. xxviii. 16. - **n,
Cap. xi. 9. TeynSAtoo h Tg47rega airãy. Theodoret. âvámrtov
aütöv, ex Ps. lxix. 22.
1 Cor. ii. 9. "A irroiſzao'sy 3 QE3, toi; âyawrâc-w abréy, Clem.
R. brrogaÉvovarºv, ex Isa. vi. 4.
Gal. iv. 30. "Ex8axe rºv aratºiaanv, v. l. add. taſtny-pasta
'roij vioö ric âAEvSágaç, Hieron. pasta voö vioö zou 'lara&x, ex
Gen. xxi. 10. -
2 Thess. ii. 8. "Ov 6 Kögioç âvs A&ast, patres multi âvexei, ex
Isa. xi. 4.
Heb. x. 6. 'OAozaviroºpzata, v. l. 3xoxaútopwa, ex Ps. xl. 6.
V. 38. o Bi Bixato; âx vrizrsoog na stat. Theodoret. âx
7ria redig ſaov, ex Hab. ii. 4. -
1 Pet. i. 16. "Aytot yivsa SE, Clem. Al. Vulg. &c. #orea 0s, ex
V. 25. To 3e pijpwa Kvgiov. Syr. Osoij #pa2ºv, ex Isa. xl. 7.
Saepe addunt hae variae lectiones, ex versione LXX. Inter-
pretum, ea quae textui in N. Testamento allegata desunt,
V• PK-
#e iv. 19. Kngú%at #viavrov Kvpiov 3extöy, add. Iren. Vulg.
“ et diem retributionis,” ex Isa. lxi. 2.
Rom. x. 8. 'Eyyóg arov #ipwé Éarviv, add. Orig. orspôôga, ex
Deut. xxx. 14.
V. 16. Tig #aria tevore rij àxón hazy, add. zat 8paxtov voö
Kuetov riy & wexa Aóp0n, ex Isa. liii. l.
Cap. xv. 19. 'EgopzoAoyagorzat got is 53vegt. add. Képts, Chry-
sost. Vulg. ex Ps. xviii. 49.
2 Cor. ix. 9. ‘H Bixatoarúwn aúroij (wávet ei; 'roy aiāva, Vulg.
add. Toij aiåvoç, ex Ps. cxii. 8.
Aliquando in his variis lectionibus desunt quaedam quae
in N. Test. occurrunt, quia apud LXX. Interpretes non ex-
tant, ex. gr.
Rom. xi. 34. Ti: yàg #yva voöy Kvpiov, d.. yag, Clem. Al. Ita
Isa. xl. 13. *,
Cap. xv. 11. Kai irrawázstre airby, d.. kat, Chrysost. Ita Ps.
cxvii. I.
1194,
EXAMEN MILLII.
1 Pet. i. 24. Kai 3
Isa. xl. 7.
Insigne hujus rei exemplum exhibet Basilius, is enim post
haec verba Dom. Joh. xii: 39, “ Propterea non poterant cre-
dere, quia iterum dixit Isaias,” ea quae sequuntur allegat non
prout apud Johannem extant, active retijſpAoxey wat wrs woö-
goksy, sed passive revöpAoyrat abtov oi dipSetAkzo, wat waardégo-
vat h wag8ia, ex Isa. vi. 9, tom. i. contra Eunom. lib. v. p.
782.
ây8og airtoij, d. aüroij, OEcumen. Ita
sECTIo UNDECIMA.
ID quod, in alio evangelista, aliis verbis exprimitur, sex-
centies in locis pro varianti lectione proponitur: hic autem
observatu dignum videatur,
1. Multoties rem plane incertam esse, nulloque niti solido
fundamento Millii de hisce conjecturam, v. g. Marci vi. 12.
Sed apud Millium legimus “ Ex Ammonii Monotessaro
apud Zacharium Chrysopol. (seculi 12mi monachum, potius
quam episcopum, recte notat Zegerus) haec Marci non esse,
sed ex Matthaeo huc transponi, quemadmodum alias alia ;”
quo Monotessaro non obstante, agnoscunt haec verba. Hie-
ronymus, Theophylactus, versiones ad unam omnes. Et
quanquam Millius bis centies pronuntiaverit “haec et illa
alterius esse, non ergo hujus evangelii,” non tamen video
quid impediat quo minus eadem in duobus aut tribus evan-
geliis obtineant, immo ex Eusebii canone id usitatius con-
tigisse certissimum est.
2. Observandum id quod patres, librarii, ac scriptores, ex
aliis evangeliis adjecerunt, saepius additamenti potius quam
variae lectionis speciem adhibere.
Observandum, tertio, haec, si ex aliis evangeliis certo
certius adjecta essent, nihil de s. Scripturis inde minui, nec
iis quicquam adjicere, 8ed tantum ea quae in evangeliis certo
certius conscripta sunt, eundemdue plerumque sensum exi-
gunt, locis non suis apponere; quibus praemissis, exemplum
unum aut alterum in medium adducam.
Matt. iii. ll. Oö oÜx eipzi ixavòg ta baro8h zata 8arráorat, v.
l. ##toc röy ipzávra voö baro8h4watog Adaat. “ E reliquis evan-
geliis,” hic Millius: in quorum tamen mullo haec verba
#hroog inveniumtur. Wide Marc. i. 7. Luc. iii. 16. Joh. i. 27.
V. 17. (oovn-A#yovara oörrós éativ 6 vio;. v. l. Aáyovara mrpog
avrov, zij si 3 vi3;, Marc. i. 12. Luc. iii. 22.
Sed non est cur in hisce immoremur, in quibus ipse Mil-
lius, in capite fere quolibet, exempla perhibet.
Porro permulta inter variantes lectiones congessit Millius,
quae tantum unius epistolae verba ad alteram adjiciunt, adeo-
que assumenta verius quam variae lectiones dici possint.
Ostensum enim est libri primi sectione sexta, familiare nimis
patribus fuisse loca multa, praesertim sensu et scopo con-
venientia, in unum congerere: V. g.
Rom. xii. 2. Eig to 3oktpzá(sty üpzag tºt to &#Anwa Oeoö,
Chrysost. CEcum. post üpzäg addunt tà 3ta pépoyra, ex Phil.
i. 10.
V. 17. TIgovoovpwévot kaxa ivómrtov wávrov âv0gónrov. Poly-
carp. âváwtoy Geoö, wat áySgónrooy,-oö (zóvoy #vózrtov voö Ozoö,
dAAà xai #yázroy töv âv6gó7rooy, multi, ex 1 Cor. viii. 21.
Cap. xiv. l 1. 'Elzoi káparlet Träy vóvv, v. l. add. #w.ovgavlov,
kai wat ayslov, wa? #sr12%6oviary, ex Phil. ii. 11.
Cap. xvi. 26. Post 8tà yga päy ºrgo pntixöv, addit Origenes,
wat rig #7rt paveia; rov Kv iov hpzàv 'Ina où Xpta tov, ex 2 Tim. i.
10. Mill. vel ex 2 Thess. ii. 1.
1 Cor. i. 23. 'Huëïg 8ë knpóora opwey Xgta tºv âatavgopwévoy,
Orig. lib. 1 contra Cels. p. 12, 'Incoöv Xgio roy, zal voörov kat-
avpopzárov, ex cap. ii. 2. •
Cap. iv. 16. Mtpantai zov yivsa 8e, Vulg. Chrysost. alii
xa3&; #y& xgtarroij, ex cap. xi. 1.
iii. 18. Mn Seiç gavrov #gawatáta, v. 1. add. xevoïg Aóyotç, ex
Eph. v. 6.
xiv. 33. Qg #v wárate raig àxxAnaiag r&v âyiay, v. l. add.
818aarxo, ex cap. iv. 17.
xvi. 15. of8ats thv oixiav 2ts paya, add. v. l. ex v. 17, waï
oovprovvárov, xai 'Axaïxoij.
2 Cor. iv. 4. “og Éortty eixõy toij Ogoij, v. l. add. voö âogá-
rov, ex Col. i. 15. p
Cap. xii. 3. "Eoog Tpitov oögavoj.
wragá3eta ov, ex v. 4. k
V, 14. 'I8où tgirov, addunt multi Toivo, ex cap. xiii. 1.
Eph. iii. 8. 'Exxoi rº, #xaxia-to) wávroy r&v &yiov, v. l. add.
arroatáAooy, ex 1 Cor. xv. 9.
Clem. Al. x#xeï Sey eig
Cap. iv. 17. Mag rögopwat #v Kvgio, v. l. add. âvómrtov tov Oeoij,
ex 2 Tim. iv. l.
Col. i. 23. 'Ey& IIajxoç 3táxovoç, add. Alex. xipv% xai & Tré-
artoxos, ex 1 Tim. ii. 7.
Cap. iii. 10. Oüx #vi "EAAny xai 'Iov8aïoç, v. 1. add, #gaev wai
Sij Av, ex Gal. iii. 28. Y
V. 17. Add. ex Eph. v. 21, #aritagarópzsvol âAAñAoig #v pößop
voj Ogoij.
V. 23. 'ag tij Kvgio, Clem. Alex. BovAEvoytec, ex Eph.
vi. 7. -
Phil. iii. 6. Katà ZijAoy Stojkov thv áxxAnariav, v. l. add. Osov,
ex Gal. i. 13. - -
1 Thess. iv. 16. 'Ev oráAmriyyi, add. Chysost. alii, tij #arxárn,
ex 1 Cor. xv. 52. -
1 Tim. ii. 8. Xogis Biaxoyiatzoö, Clem. Al. Btaxoyte gaan
wovnpöv, ex Jac. ii. 4. '- -
vi. 12. 'QpzoAóynaaç rºv kaahy opzoAoyiav, add. Chrysost. #ºr
#Azri8: Zoiig aioviov, ex Tit. i. 2.
2 Tim. i. 7. Ob Y&g #3oxey haïy 5 Oeög wrveüpwa BovAelaç, add.
Clem. Alex. TráAtv eiç pé8ov, ex Rom. viii- 15.
Cap. iv. 5. Kaxow46norov, add. Cod. Alex. &# xaA3g orreati-
dótng xgtatoij 'Inzoö, ex cap. ii. 5. e
Tit. i. 10. 'Avvarótawrot v. l. add. #gyávat 3óAtot, ex 2 Cor.
xi. 13.
Cap. ii. 5. "Iva pah 3 Aóyo; Oeoö 8Aaar pngwijtat, v. l. ka? 818aar-
xa Aia, ex l Tim. vi. 1.
V. 15. Taijira AáAet, v. l. xa? Bi8aa'xe, ex 1 Tim. iv, 11.
Heb. iv. 10. Katámrava sy &wà räy #pyaw abtoij, Chrysost.
add. 7ráytory, ex v. 4.
Cap. ix. 14. Oeſo Zäyrt, Chrysost. C. Alex. xa? âAn&wij, ex
1 Thess. i. 9. -
1 Pet. v. 6. “Iva baas beldºrp #v katpij, v. l. addunt #wigwonic,
ex cap. ii. 12.
Pauca his adde in quibus textus ex aliarum epistolarum
lectione aliquantulum mutatur. n
Phil. ii. 14. xopig yoyyvoºrzöv, v. l. opyñs, ex 1 Tim. ii. 8.
Col. iii. 9. TIáAatov âySgwarov aröy taïs wpáásarty, Clem. Al.
#artSupxiaig aüvoö, ex Eph. iv. 22. •
Cap. i. 18. "O #atsv âpx), Chrysost. alii, âvragxh, ex 1 Cor.
XV. 20.
2 Tim. ii. 22. Metà töv âarixaxovpzévoy toy Köetov, v. l.
mráyrov voöv âyaaróvrov, ex Eph. vi. 24.
Heb. x. 1. Oü8#7rote Böyatat, Theodoret, 3öyavtai, ex v. ll.
Jac. ii. 25. 'Aaro83%apzáym Tous &yyáAov;, V. l. xavaakówrovç, ex
Heb. xi. 31.
SECTIO IDUODECIMA.
UNICUM jam superest quod me ad operis hujus finem per-
ducet, nempe ut respondeam objectionibus pseudo-catholic-
orum textus Graeci aÜSEvtiav ex variis hisce lectionibus im-
pugnantium, et scepticorum qui S. Scripturae certitudinem
eadem de causa diminutam, et pene nullam esse pronun-
ciant.
Decrevit Symodus Tridentina, ut ea ipse vetus et Vulgata
editio, quae longo tot seculorum usu in ipsa ecclesia probata est,
in publicis lectionibus, disputationibus, praedicationibus, et ex-
positionibus, pro authentica habeatur, et ut nemo illam re-
jicere quovis praetextu audeat, vel praesumat. In hujus
decreti subsidium, longo agmine procedunt pontificii, pro
editionis Vulgatae prae Graecis N. Foederis codicibus authen-
tia, tanquam pro aris et focis, militantes (quod tamen hoc
synodi decretum minime postulare discernunt peritiores pon-
tificii). Palmam caeteris praeripuit Morinus, is enim Exer-
citationum Biblicarum parte secunda, Summa contentione,
omnibusque ingenii viribus illud molitur, ut labefactata N.
Foederis originalis textus auctoritate, sola versio Vulgata,
utpote ad codices Graecos hodiernis nostris meliores com-
posita, pro vera et authentica habeatur. Huic Millius, qui
in priore Prolegomenon parte Morini causam adstruxisse
videatur, hic strenue eidem semet opponit.
Argumento etenim primo Morini ex patrum Latinorum
et Graecorum testimoniis deducto, accurate Millius re-
spondet, testimonia in medium producta non tantum dili-
genter expendit, iisque responsum plenum justumque ad-
hibet; sed etiam insuper agnoscit, Prol. p. 139, Se, cum
Morino, olim errasse; et p. 140, Morino duce, hallucinatum
esse : “ verum in aliam Sententiam (inquit) me duxit longior
dies, eamque plane contrariam.”
EXAMEN MILLII.
l 195
Secundum argumentum depravationis Graeci textus col-
ligit Morinus ex magna lectionum varietate, quam in ex-
emplaribus Graecis observarunt H. Stephanus aliique hare-
tici, quas ad bis mille Sexcentum sexaginta, iniquo calculo,
extendit. Respondet Millius: “Varietates hasce lectionum,
quibus auctoritatem Graeci textus tantopere labefactatam
ait, istas, inquam, quas ex sexdecim exemplaribus extraxit
H. Stephanus, aliasque multo adhuc plures, quas alii post
eum ex impressis pariter, et MSS. libris coacervarunt, adeo
non eripere Graeco textui suam certitudinem, ut contra,
haud certius ad genuinam, et archetypam apostolorum dic-
tionem perveneris, quam ex hujusmodi collationum avano-
yaī; sive collationibus Graecorum codicum.” His autem
pro instituti sui ratione praelibatis, sic pergit ; “Providen-
tia Dei hactenus invigilatum est, ne in articulis fidei, aliis-
que ad summam fidei facientibus laberentur librarii. In
his enim codices omnes conveniunt, et si forte locus aliquis,
qui summi momenti esse videtur, uni, alteri, seu etiam plu-
ribus codicibus exciderit (id quod non nisi in uno loco fac-
tum est quod viderim) idem tamen quoad sensum alibi in-
culcatus occurrit; ut proinde musquam inde periclitetur
Christiana veritas: in locis autem, qui in articulis fidei om-
nibus plene conveniunt, certe ex qua de iisdem articulis ju-
dicetur, regula deesse non potest.”
Porro de variantibus hisce Stephani Bezaeque lectioni-
bus, id "imprimis notatu dignum est, eas fere omnes ex
Graecis occidentalis ecclesiae codicibus depromptas esse,
quos quidem a scriptoribus linguaº originalis insciis conscrip-
tos fuisse, et juxta versionem veterem Vulgatam emendatos,
seu verius mutatos, fuisse ex Simonio didicinus, eosque
adeo inidoneos prorsus esse ex quibus codices primavi,
Adamantii, Pierii, Pamphili, Eusebii, curá ad codicum pro-
batissimorum et forte originalium textum emendati, et in
bibliothecis diligenter custoditi, ut textus hodiernus cum iis
codicibus potissimum consentiens corrigeretur.
3. Ex argumentis hisce aliisque pontificiorum mediis,
quibus Vulgatam versionem integritati suae restituere Sixti
Quinti, Clementis Octavi, Lovaniensium, Lucas Brugensis,
et aliorum opera aggressi Sunt, de codicum multorum colla-
tione, multa, de ecclesiae testimonio ne verbum quidem
occurrit ; unde pronum est colligere haud alia media ad
Vulgatae versionis at 68wríay stabiliendam pontificiis superesse,
quam quae nobis pariter cum illis conveniunt ad textus ori-
ginalis integritatem stabiliendam, mullumque in his emenda-
tionibus ecclesiae sive testimonio sive judicio locum esse
posse, Sed criticorum studio, et industriae in codicibus com-
parandis, in versionum collatione, patrumque scriptis evolv-
endis, rem totam committendam esse. -
Denique argumentum Morini bene impugnat Millius, com-
paratione adhibita inter textum Graecum et versionem Vul-
gatam. “Cum enimob lectionum varietatem, textum Græcum
incertitudinis postulaverit Morinus, annon expectares (inquit)
jure merito ut versionem, quam in hujus locum substituit,
ab eadem lectionum varietate, pura, et integra conservata
esset Pet tamen eadem illa in exemplaribus Vulgatae, quae in
Graecis nostris apparet lectionum varietas, ut liquet ex Ste-
phanicis et Plantinianis Latinorum Bibliorum editionibus,
immo etiam post recognitam jussu Sixti Quinti, et Clemen-
tis Octavi, versionem hanc, Lucas Brugensis conscripsit
libellum variantium ejus lectionum. Hinc autem manifesto
sequitur Vulgatam versionem pro authentica haberi non posse,
nisi textui Graeco eadem authentia concedatur.
“Exiisinsuper quae in secundo libro scripsimus, et quae non
modo ab evangelicis, sed etiam a pontificiorum doctissimis, et
in his rebus maxime versatis, in confesso Sunt, nempe in hoc
variantium lectionum cumulo inveniri nihil, quod vel articuli
ullius fidem, vel morum regulam corrumpat mutetve, certum
atque exploratum est, contra scepticorum strepitus, lectiones
hasce variantes non posse. s. scripturæ regulam vel imper-
fectam relinquere, vel dubiam. Rem paucis expediam lec-
tiones hasce, quae etiam levioris momenti esse videbantur, ea,
qua potui, diligentia excussi, et examini subjeci: ostendant,
si possint, aliquid, quod hanc fidei nostras' normam, aut
dubiam, aut suspectam reddat : hoc autem sifieri nequeat,
desinant tandem apertae, et prae oculis eorum positae, veritati
repugnare, et vanis clamoribus aures nostras obtundere.”
wº
APPENDIX.
CoNTINENS: , , gº tº gº - 9 º'
1. Catalogum variantium locorum ipsius Millii. º
2. Specimen Italicae versionis, qualis, ante. Hieronym.
castigationem, extabat, ex lectionibus spuriis, deficienti-
bus, aut redundantibus, quae in Hilarii Diac. commen-
tariis in epistolas D. Pauli adhuc reperiumtur.
Millius favºry ripwogoſºsyo,' sive specimen quorundam loco-
rum, in quibus Millius sententiam suam mutat, et sibi
ipse contradicit.
“MATT. iii. 11, xai rā, ºrvel, constat patres Hieronymum,
Hilarium, Cyprianum, Theodorum Heracleot. Macarium
AEgyptium, Cyrillum, Origenen, Justinum M. (adde Atha-
nasium, tom. i. p. 606, Basilium, tom. i. p. 790, Cyrill.
Alex. tom. i. p. 197), interpretes Arab. Pers. Æthiop.
etiam vetustiss. Copt, ac Syr. exemplaria quamplurima
MSS. antiquiss. Cant. Vulg. denique versionem, sub
apostolicis fere temporibus concinnatam, agnovisse Kai
rupi, ut de recepta lectione minime dubitandum sit:”
ita Millius hic. Atqui Prol. p. 65, col. 2, “Illud Kai trugi
utcunque lectum in Vulg. jam olim ante tempora Cypriani,
Syri, item nescio an (et fere ab initio) et citatum ab Origene,
tanquam Matthaei, irrepsit ex evangelio Luca, seu etiam in
textum tam, Lucas, quam Matthaei.”
“Matt. v. 4, eixoysi re roig zaragoºyou; tıpaſſic, waxâj, Troisſºra
rotic ºxicoivra; iºtic, ista omissa initio forte quod Superflua.
visa sunt.” Ita Millius in locum, ergo Matthaei verba hic
omissa sunt. Sed Prol. p. 42, col. 1, “Luca sunt non ergo
Matthaei.” Wide Append. p. 2, col. 2.
Matt. xiv. 3. At& “Hºw848& Thy yuyaſka pixirrov.] Deest
oxtºrrow, Cant. Vulg. “Sed cum hic exemplaria MSS. uni-
versim (una cum versionibus vetust. Syr. et Copt.) probatiora
pleraque apud Lucam, apud Marcum omnia (immo ipsum
Cant. ut et Vulg. Goth. Copt. Syr.) nomen hoc retineant, non
est quod expungatur.” Ita Millius hic. At Prol. p. 42, col.
2, “Interjectum oximirov Marci est,"cuimoris. in historiolis
ipsi cum Matthaeo communibus, circumstantias quasdam in-
signiores, ab altero isto haud memoratas, adjicere, quomodo
hic nomen mariti Herodiadis.” -
Cap. xv. 4. 'Evereixaro Aéyov.] V. l. stºrs, Cant. Copt. Syr.
AEthiop. Vulg. Iren. e Marco. Ita hic Millius.-Sed Prol.
p. 42, col. 1, “Scholion iversiaato Afyov site, diu est cum
genuinam extrusit lectionem suspectamgue ipsam reddidit,
seu ex Marco sumptam, quod et nos olim putavimus.”
Cap. xviii. 35. Tà Trapatrººpsara airāy..] Desunt in Cant.
Barb. Vulg. Hieron. Arab. Āthiop. “Sed cum plerique omnes
cod. Graeci, Chrysost. Theophylact. Syr. Pers. retineant, non
est quod omittatur.” Ita Millius hic. Sed Prol. p. 121; seq.
“‘rā ºraçaºrtºga'ra airãy irrepserunt e margine,” fide AEthiop
Cant. Arab. Vulg. Hieron. Luciferi Calarit.
Cap. xxv. 1. Ei, 37&vrnaiy row vuagiov.] V. l. Toà vu, biov,
wa; tº yūgºng, Cant. Vulg. Syr. Pers. “Sed cum mec exem-
plaria MSS. nec e patribus Hieronymus, Hilarius, Chrysost.
aut Orig. quantum ex commentariis assequi licet, agnoscant,
pro additamento plane habendum est.”—Ita hic Millius.
Sed Prol. p. 133, col. 2, “ rot vuºpiov Rai rā; véºpnº, Cant.
sic et Vulg. Syr, ac Latini (N.B.). Nec dubito quin ita Mat-
thai interpres. Sed quod infra de sponsi solius occursu fit
mentio, neque nisi sponsi duntaxat occursus memoretur, in
posterioribus cod. delebant illud kai tā vēºpnº Graeci ceu
perperam ab antiquis additum.” -
Ibid. cap. xxviii. 9. 2; 8è #7ropečoyro à mayyfūai roſ; Kwańn-
raſ, airoij.j ‘‘‘Desunt haec Vulg. Chrysost. Hieron. August.
incuria scribarum, inquit Erasmus, sed eorum licentia potius
dandum forte, quod cum sequentia a conjunctione incipiant,
totum hoc quod interjicitur, cell non necessarium praetermi-
serint.” Sunt ergo hac Matthaei sive incuria sive licentia
scribarum praetermissa. Sed Prol. p. 83, col. 2, “Haec
omnia scholiasta alicujus Sunt de sermonis cohaerentia plus
satis soliciti.”
Marc. ii. 1. At’ hºsgåv.] “Octo legunt Latini codices aliqui,
citra non Graecorum modo codicum fidem, sed et Latinorum
plerumque omnium.” Ita Millius bic. Sed Prol. p. 44,
col. 1, “ Graeca procul dubio erant }; hºw, et sic evange-
lista.”
1196
EXAMEN MILLI[.
Marc. v. 1. Eig t}v %gay r&v Ta8agny&v.] v. 1. Tegaznyöv.
“Sed cum Cod. Alexandrinus et Syr. receptam lectionem
retineant, et Lucas, cui in describendis historiis noster evan-
gelista fere consonat, Gadarenos vocet, Ta8apny&v hic omnino
legendum arbitror.”
lectiones Tegyεσηνὸν enumeratur. - *-
Marc. xi. 10. 'sYarayvâ £v τοῖς ύφίστοις.] * Orig. sighym, me-
moriæ lapsu, ut opinor, et cum Marci verbis Lucæ ista con-
fundens, cap. xix. 38, 5ighyn Éy oùgay§, xai δέα ἐν ύφίστοις."
Ita hic Millius. Sed Prol. p. 101, col. 2, ** Apud Marcum
sighyn iv τοῖς ύφίστοις, legebat Origenes, idque non ex lapsu
memoriæ, quod nos olim putavimus, sed ad fidem codicis
probi: hinc Lucam, qui ad Marci verba se fere accommodat,
traduxisse puto suum illud siphym Év oùpavδ.
Luc. ii. 14. 'Ev àv6g87rovç Eùòoxia.] “ Qui sic legunt, rectam
lectionem amplectuntur.” Ita hic Millius. Sed Prol. p.
64, col. 2, “ âv àv6g&7rot; Ej8oxias omnino recte.” Vide anno-
tata nostra in Millium hic.
Cap. vi. 26. οὐσί ύμῖν άτay xax&: υμάς επτωσιν ττάντες.] * Tò
*ráyr£c omnino legendum arbitror, addendi causa nulla est,
tollendi aliqua:” et tamen prol. p. 126, col. 2, ** ίμâc et
πάντες irreptitia sunt.” Vide hic etiam annotata nostra in
Millium.
Luc. vii. 11. Kai συνε7rop£joyro aùtô oi μ&$ntaî aîtoj ixavof.]
“Deest ixayoì Vulg. Syr. omissum primum, de industria, ni
fallor, ab iis qui per μαθητάς hic apostolos intellexere, non
item assiduos quosvis Christi sectatores.” Ita hic. Sed
Prol. p. 44, col. l, * ixayoi irrepsisse videtur ex v. 12, certe
discipulos duodecim neutiquam p.a6ntàg ixayoυς vocasset evan-
gelista, scriptor imprimis accuratus.” Vide reliqua annotatis
nostris hic ad Millium.
Cap. ix. 54. 'Qg waì 'Hλίας ἐποδησε.] Desunt hæc in Barb.
l, Eph. Vulg. ** sed habent, præter exemplaria Græca fere
omnia, Syr. Arab. PerS. Æthiop. Goth. et Tertull. (N. B.)
ut credibile sit in Latinis ab aliquo expunctum, qui verebatur
me locus hic Marcioni faveret, inquit Grotius.” Ita Millius
hic, Sed Prol. p. 44, col. 1, ** Sequentia &c και 'HXiac É7roincre,
quæ sententiam Jacobi et Johannis tam insigniter illustrant,
ad marginem libri a studioso quopiam adscripta fuisse com-
mentarii loco, indeque transisse in corpus textus, res ipsa
clamat—Cæterum a Tertulliano lecta fuisse hæc, quod
olim in notis nostris affirmavimus, non ita liquidum.**
Cap. xix. 41. "ExXavorev É7r' aùrj.] “ Non extitisse verba
ista suo tempore in publice receptis exemplaribus testatur
Epiphanius. Verba ejus digna sunt quæ notentur, ait Gro-
tius,” &c. Ita hic. Sed Prol. p. 146, col. 2, ** £κλαυσεν ἐπ'
aύτ} notat (Grotius) (quod et nos in editione nostra ipsius
vestigia intrepide secuti) Epiphanii tempore comma hoc haud
extitisse in publice receptis exemplaribus, verum ad peri-
copen de sudore sanguineo, cap. xxii. 43, 44, respicit Epi-
phanius.” Vide de his plura, Prol. p. 76, col. l, ** Act. ii.
47, § 8è KÜpto; 7rpoar£ti8ει τούς σωζομ£yovc xa6' fip×ágav ê7ri rò aùtô,
sic Alex. Barb., l, Vulg. et certe D. Lucas supra dicit qria-
t£Üoyta; fuisse ἐτί τὸ aùrâ, hic Dominum addidisse quotidie
orœçop.£vovc άτὰ τὸ aùtô,” Prol. p. ] 58, col. 2. At vero Append.
p. 37, col. 2, “ Illud ἐτά τό aùtò ôë (quod revera capitis se-
quentis est) capiti huic adnexum arbitror, quod in plurimis
MSS. libris post verba ἐπι τὸ aùtà 8è notetur minio àgxj), seu
principium lectionis: hac enim de causa factum videtur, quod
å7rò τὸ aùtô, quod initium lectionis præcedebat, in capitis
præcedentis finem conjecerint scribæ, dele ergo Alex. Barb.
1, Vulg.** Vide etiam annotata Millii in locum..
Act. viii. 87.] * Deest comma 37 in MSS. fere viginti,
certe prætermissum in exemplaribus tot MSS. probatis
ac vetustissimis ex incuria vel etiam fraude scribarum, plane
incredibile est : dicendum potius in supplementum historiæ
adnotatum primum hoc, ut et alia in libro Act. Apost. haud
pauca, a studioso quopiam ad marginem libri, ac assumptum
mox in contextum a librariis, idquesane a primis Christianismi
seculis, legant siquidem Vulg. Iren. CypriaI1.* &c.
Millius. Sed Prol. p. 40, col. 2, * etiam hunc versiculum
pro injectitio olim a nobis habitum, lectum ab Irenæo com-
stat, lib. iii. cap. 12, et ad aÜ8£yriay ejus stabiliendam haud
parum conferumt Vulg. Tertull. (nam et hunc, contra quam
antehac sentiebam pericopen hanc legisse) Cyprian.” quibus
antea non obstantibus, comma hoc pro injectitio habuit.
Cap. v. 36. *Qi Trpoa-£woAλλθη.] * V. l. 7rpoar£xXi0n, Alex.
Pet. Cyril. ττροσεπιλάθη, quod ex priore lectione natum suspi-
cor, librariis, quod passim fit, m pro ι scribentibus.” Sed Prol.
Sed Prol. p. 95, col. 1, inter genuinas
Ita hic
p. 120, col. 1, § 7τεοσεκλῆθn inter genuinas lectionés ponitur,
vcujus explicatio est 7rgoo-fxoAλλθm. -
Cap. xv. 20. Toù Tyixtó] “ Desunt Iren. Tertull. Cypriam.
Hieron. August. Ambros. Eucherio: cæterum retinent Græca
quæ viderimus omnia, excepto uno Cant., versiones omnes,
etiam Vulg. Origenes, patres, ac tractatores Græci universim,
ac proinde minime solicitandum arbitror.” Idem vero
Millius, Prol. p. 45, col. 2, iisdem Latinis Pacatiano et
Eulgentio in medium prolatis, hæc habet, “ certe medium
xai τοῦ τyix roù ipsius Lucæ non est, sed Christianorum vete-
rum,” &c.
Cap. xviii. 7. Ei« oixiav τινός δνόματι Ίούστου.] V. }. Ttrov.
App. p. 42, ** Lectionem istam quod attinet Titov genuinam
esse arbitror, 'Ioüατου vero additum ex interpolatis Latinis
interpretis Vulg.” Sed Prol. p. 44, co!. 2, “Studiosus ali-
quis ex fide, vel traditione istius seculi viri hujus cognomento,
indeque enim aliud 'io$a toc nomen ipsum adposuit ad mar-
ginem, nempe Titum, quod quidem admisit haud ægre inter-
pres in suam versionem.”
Rom. i. 31. 'Aa7r6v8ovc.] “Deest Clar. Ger. Colb. 7, Luci-
fer Calarit. Hilar. Gildæ, prætermissum ideo putarim, quod
præcedat vox ejusdem, ut putabant, significationis àavv%tovg."
Sed Prol. p. 46, col. l, ** intrusum videtur in hunc locum ex
2 Tim. iii. 3.''
l Cor. xv. 47. 'O Köpto; ÉÉ oùgavoù.] * Imprudentes libra-
rii vocem hanc 5 Kügtos, e codice Marcionitarum in exempla-
rium aliquorum marginem clam transfusam, in contextum
admisere, idque jam olim ante tempora Tertulliani tum enim
'manavit, uti videtur, corruptela hæc passim in cod. Graecos.”
Sed Prol. p. 139, col. 2, hæc habet, “Auctoritate Tertulliani,
probat Morimus in Græcis nostris, l Cor. xv. 47, irrepsisse
vocem Kögtoc, ex Marcionis hæretici à7roa-roXixô, quod idem
et nos affirmavimus in adnotatis in hunc locum. Verum in
aliam sententiam traxit longior dies, eamque plane contra-
riam, nempe in άττοστολκόν illud introductum fuisse Kvgto; ex
libris catholicorum.” Vide supra, p. 36. -
2 Cor. ix. 4. 'Ey +; ù7roort&ores taότη q-jg xavxfiaa»;.] & ς 'Ey
τί άποστ. τaύτη, codex mendoSus quem secutus est Æthiops,
omisso r;; xavxficretos.” Sed Prol. p. 48, fide mendosi huju§
cod. inter alios hic memoratos ** tjc xavxhor£a»c, accessit com-
mentarii loco ex cap. xi. 17 hujus epistolæ.”
Gal. iv. l4. Kaì ròv 7rÉigaa p.6v μου.] * Latini omnes, teste
Esthio, legunt ύμόν, quod sane sensum parit duriusculum ac
coactum nimis quam ut probem.” Ita hic Millius. Sed
Append. p. 53, col. ]. “ Pro istis lege atque hanc lectionem
(ut et duriusculas, et in speciem absurdas, plerasque omnes
N. B.) genuinam esse censeo.” -
Eph. iii. 14. ITgòς τὸν τωτάpa roù Kvgtov ig $v 'inaoû xgto- roù.]
Eejicit hic Millius testimonium, Hieronymi dicentis “ hæc
subnotata esse additamentum codicum Latinorum.” “ Nimi-
rum cum a patre denominatam velint interpretes fere omne8
TraTpiàv istam äv oùpayoïç xaì à7rí yííc, de quâ apostolus in,
versu prox. hinc omittendi ista του Kvgiov àpxôv 'Inarov Xgtaroù,
arreptam primam occasionem arbitror, ne sc. admissis iis, ad
Christum 7rarptâ ista, seu ad originem referri forte intellige-
retur.” Sed idem Millius, Prol. p. 84, col. 2, inter genuinas
Chrysost. lectiones recenset πρὸς τὸν 7ravêpa simpliciter, reli-
qua habet pro additamentis ex fide Hieronymi, Hilarii D.
AEthiopis, Chrysost. Theophylacti, quos omnes hic rejicit.
Cap. v. 30. 'Ex της aagxâc aύτοῦ, xaì àk töv άστά»y aJtoJ.i
“ Desunt in Alex. Æthiop. At vero cum in aliis omnibus
extent, non est quod de textus sinceritate hoc loco dubite-
mus.” Ita hic. Sed Prol. p. 69, col. 2, ** Methodius qui
codice usus est probo, hæc omittit. Ita Alex. Æthiop.
Quæ ad marg. adscripta, ut videtur, ex Gen. ii. 23, in textum
intruserunt scribæ.” -
l Thess. iii. 2. Kai o-uv£gyòv ìgzóv.] * Recte hic omnia,
nihil mutandum.” Ita hic Millius. Sed Frol. p. 123, col.
2, ** Media xai συνεργὸν ήμόν irrepsere e margine, ubi posuerat
ista adnotator quispiam, ex Rom. xvi. 21, Vulg. Alex." quos
utrosque antea rejecit.
1 Tim. vi. 5. IIapa8tatgtßai.] * Cod. plurimi, C. Alex.
Clem. Al. Gr. scholia omnia legunt διαπapatpißat. Sed
placet Vulgatam vaga8ιατριßai,” et in Append. p. 54, col. 2,
lege quod “ omnino placet, non aliter legebat in codice suo
Vulg. interpres.” Sed Prol. p. 61, col. l, * placet 8ta Trapa-
tgi%aì,'° ob eosdem auctores, et 7rapa8iatgu£ai, inquit “notatum
forte ab aliquo ad marg. amimi causa, ceu elegantius transiit
in alterius locum.”
EXAMEN
MILLII. 1197
- 19. Tic aloviov oig.] “ V.l. Tic 3rroc, Vulg. Syr. AEthiop.
Hilarius D. Hieron. G. Nyssen. interpretamentum vetus,”
quo vita aeterna describitur, sed Prol. p. 77, col. I, eosdem
auctores allegans, ait “aioviov in editis irrepsit ex v. 12 hujus
cap.”
2 Tim. ii. 10.] “Merà 86;ng aloviov, coelesti, Vulg. et
ex eo Latini, ex errore Gr. exemplaris cujusdam, ut videtur,
in quo pro aioviov scriptum erat contractim obviou.” Sed
Prol. p. 49, col. 1, “ ustà 86%nc oùgaviov, nescio an recte,
contra quan olim putaveram facili mutatione oùgaviov, quod
in MSS. libris contractim fere scriptum oiviov, sciolus fecerit
quispiam aioviov.” -
Heb. x. 2. Ersì obs av..] “ V. 1. è reº 3v, Vulg. Syr.
AEthiop. Theodoret. Photius: mihi quidem illud è rei ay
maxime arridet, tanquam apostoli scopo omnino congruum.”
Sed Prol. p. 131, col. 2, “ è reì oix &y utpote obscurum max-
ime probo.”
Cap. Xii. 18. ºnAopouévo 3gst.] “ Omittunt 3esi Syr. AEthiop.
Clar. Ger. Sed cum retineant plerique omnes codices
Graeci, et vero antithesin qua accedit inter montem Sina et
montem Sion, hic, prae oculis habeat apostolus, necesse est
legamus.” Sed Prol. p. 105, col. 2, “Desunt Alex. Syr.
AEthiop. Chrys. et Vulg. et certe oggi quod positum est jam
post lnxa popzivo, in plerisque cod. vix est ut olim praeter-
miserint scriba ; longe magis suspectum, immo probabile
videtur, lectorem. quempiam maxime cum hic agatur de
sensibili, ac ardenti igne, qui visus erat in monte Sina,
posuisse ad oram codicis, seu inter lineas dget, ut esset quod
alteri gei, v. 22, responderet.”
2 Pet. i. 12. Atò oix àaexharo.] “V.l. pasAAhoro oi paexAharo,
mihi omnino placet lectio quae in impressis.” Ita hic. Sed
Prol. p. 101, “ ?iò paeNAhoro, ita Suidas, codices probi aliqui:
fecit phrasis paullo durior, ut a nonnullis mutaretur in où
faeNAhoro, ab aliis in olk àpaeAharo, quod jam locum habet in
longe majori parte codicum.” »
Cap. iii. 3. Erº io xárov riv hp.eggy èperatura.] “ V. l.
è caratypcorn è rara rai. Ita MSS. multi, Vulg. Syr. Arab.
AEthiop. August. Hieron. et quidem omnino Esthio assen-
tior ita a Petro scriptum esse.” Sed Prol. p. 88, col. 2,
“ Mihi quidem ipsius Petri fuisse videtur èv è caraiyuovº, sim-
pliciter ; quod autem hiare videretur oratio, additum a
quopiam, ex Epistola Judae èparainara.” -
Jud. 6. Yarò (6 pov.] “Clem. Al. Paed. lib. iii. cap. 8,
add. âygioy & yyiAoy, codex quem secutus est Lucifer Calari-
tanus pro dygioy corrupte legit ayia».” Sed Prol. p. 62,
col. 1, “ âyetoy perperam pro ayiov.”
Unicum addo in quo ipsa Millii interpretatio contradic-
tionem involvit, viz. in hac verba avvix0noray Hgºn; re, Raì
IIóvtsog III) rog a bv 0vsori xaì Naoi, 'IapaàA. Act. iv. 27. Inter
alia plane ridicula, ha c habet Millius, Prol. p. 104, col. 2,
“Certe per Syn hic intelligi Judaeos (i. e. populum Israeli-
ticum, quibuscum ha gentes consilium inibant de morte
Christi) constat ex v. 25. Nempe respondet hoc loco Sveri
staì Aao e ad illud Davidis supra citatum è ppia gay Syn, stai
Aaoì épceAérna a zeyà, Psal. ii. l.” Hic autem observandum,
l. Millium fere continuo sententiam suam mutasse Vul-
gatae versionis gratia.
2. Non multum tribuendum esse judicio viri adeo a
semetipso dissidentis, et de his ipsis variantibus lectionibus
sententiam suam postea mutantis, idque aliquoties ob ipsis-
sima illa testimonia, et rationes, quibus antea non obstanti-
bus, se ita sensisse indicaverat.
Delectionibus Hilarii Diaconi in Epistolas Paulinas Romae
receptas, et primo de lectionibus variantibus.
EP. ad Rom. Observandum hic prooemii loco, notasse Eras-
mum “ scribam pro suo arbitratu lusisse, non tantum in
argumentis epistolarum exhibendis; sed, uti suspicatur, in
ipsis commentariis ;” additgue Simonius eos qui Latinos
patres, qui ante Novi Foederis librorum emendationem ab
Hieronymo adornatam vixerunt, typis mandarunt, scripturas
abiis citatas saepius editione Hieronymiana adaptasse, nec in
hac parte Hilario Diacono pepercisse; unde haud raro con-
tingit ut commentario textus adversetur: cujus indicium
sentire mihi videor in capitis hujus primi commate ultimo,
ubi textus ita se habet, prout in Vulgato Hieronymi, “ Qui
cum justitiam Dei cognovissent, non intellexerunt, quoniam
qui talia agunt, digmi sunt morte;” commentarius vero
sequitur in hunc modum, “Usque adeo justitiam Dei cogno-
verunt, ut non negent hac omnia quae faciunt, poena digna
et morte.”
Cap. iii. 1. Quid enim amplius est Judaeo, Gr. ri o v, Vulg.
quid ergo. Centies in Hilario occurrit enim pro ergo, et
vice versa; ita v. 4, est enim Deus verax, Gr. vevéa So 3é.
V. 25. Quem proposuit Deus propitiatorem fidei, Vulg.
propitiationem per fidem, Gr. iAaa rhetov 8tà ric riareog. Ibid.
propter propositum praecedentium delictorum. Gr. 3ià riv
Trägerty, Vulg. propter remissionem.
V. 26. In patientia Dei, Gr. Èy ri âvoxi.
tatione.
Cap. iv. 16. Ideo ex fide secundum gratiam, ut sit, Gr.
èià rotto in ariareog, iva sarà xáptv, Vulg. ideo ex fide, ut
secundum gratiam.
V. 17. Ante eum cui credidisti Deo, Gr. marésarri oi
è riarevo e Geoi, Vulg. ante Deum qui (p. cui ) credidit.
V. 21. Quia qui promisit, Gr. 3r, º è rhyysAta. Vulg.
quia quaecunque promisit. a
Cap. v. 6. Ut quid enim ; ita et Vulg. Gr. Èrt yàg, ib.
peccatores, Gr. âo Sey3iv, Vulg. infirmi.
Cap. vi. 4. Per virtutem patris, Gr. 3ià ric 86%nc, Vulg.
per gloriam. -
Cap. vii. 5. Hinc vitia peccatorum quae per legem osten-
duntur. Gr. rà ra6hp.za ra ray &p capriºv rà èià roi vip cov,
Vulg. passiones peccatorum quae per legem erant.
V. 13. Quod ergo bonum est mihi, mors est ? Gr. rò ov
à ya0òy, è uoì yéyove Sávez rog ; Vulg. quod ergo bonum est mihi
factum est mors ?
V. 25. Gratia Dei, ita et Vulg. quod Millius in locum
rejicit, Gr. eixaptorrò tº Geº.
Cap. viii. 23. Nos qui receptaculum Spiritus habemus, Gr.
à rapxiv, Vulg. primitias.
V. 26. Spiritus adjuvat infirmitatem orationis nostra, Gr.
taic àa Seygiatº hp ov, Vulg. nostram.
V. 28. Procedumt, Gr. avvepyei, Vulg. co-operantur.
V. 30. Quos justificavit, hos et magnificavit, Gr. èò6;aa e,
Vulg. glorificavit.
V. 38. Confido, Gr. ré resa paai, Vulg. certus sum.
Cap. ix. 6. Non enim excidit verbum Dei, Gr. obu otov èè
8 ri è créarrozev, Vulg. non autem quod exciderit.
V. 10. Isaac patrem nostrum, Gr. è? ivò;– Io aà a rot,
Tra Tpò, ha ov, Vulg. patris nostri.
Cap. xi. 1. Numquid Deus repulit hareditatem suam ?
Gr. ròy Aaòy abrol, Vulg, populum suum.
V. 25. Obtusio quadam ex parte Israel facta est, Gr.
arcéeoartg, Vulg. caccitas. - v
Cap. xii. 2. Quae sit voluntas Dei, quod bonum, Gr. rò
SiAnua roi egoi rò aya0òy, Vulg. bona.
V. ll. Tempori servientes, Gr. rg Kugio, Vulg. Domino.
V. 13. Memoriis sanctorum communicantes, Gr. rais
xggiatc, Vulg. necessitatibus. -
Cap. xiii. 1. Omnibus potestatibus sublimioribus subditi
estote, Gr. aria a luxà è#ovo iaic in egexoia ai barova ora éa So,
Vulg. omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subdita sit.
Cap. xiv. 14. Ei plane qui existimat, Gr. si può tº Noytgo-
faévo, Vulg. nisi ei qui existimat.
V. 23. Qui autem discernit quid ederit, Gr. Èày páyn,
Vulg. si manducaverit. p
Cap. xv. 4. Ad nostram confirmationem, Gr. 3iòazza Aiav,
Vulg. doctrinam. a - -
V. 30. Ut solicitudinem impertiamini mihi, Gr. o uvaxo-
vioraaSat peoi, Vulg. ut adjuvetis me. a
V. 31. Per voluntatem Jesu Christi, Gr. Osoi, Vulg. Dei.
V. 32. Munerum meorum oblatio, Gr. h Saxovia ecov,
Vulg, obsequii mei oblatio. - e- e'.
Cap. xvi 2. In quibuscunque desideraverit, Gr. iv è av
ipov xphºn, Vulg. vestri indiguerit. v a ese
V. 5. Et domestica eorum ecclesia, Gr. zai rhy xat oiº
abray è un Amoriay, Vulg. domesticam. v
V. 17. Contra disciplinam, Gr. ragà rhy 88ax), Vulg.
praeter doctrinam. o e - e º t se
V. 19. Volo vos proficere ut eruditi sitis, Gr. Sinº è bºic
oro poòc eival, Vulg. sapientes esse. - -
V. 24. Ponitur in fine epistolae, Gloria Domini nostri,
Gr. H xápic, Vulg. Gratia.
Vulg. in susten-
Epistola Prima ad Corinthios.
CAP. i. Ita ut nobis nihil desit, Gr. ipzac, Vulg. vobis.
V. 16. Capterorum, Gr. Aostrò», Vulg. caeterum.
1198
EXAMEN MILLII.
Cap. ii. 1. Mysterium Dei, Gr. ºr fºagriºtov, Vulg. testi-
monium. -
V. 4. In persuasione sapientiae, Gr. iv. ºrst86ſ; 3,9507’ſºn;
copiac Aºyotº, Vulg.in persuasibilibus humanae Sapientiae verbis.
W. 11. Quae in Deo, Gr. rā roi; Geoč, Vulg. quae Pei Sunt.
Cap. iii. 4. Nonne homines estis. Ita etiam Vulg. Gr.
oùxī azºwikoi Hare, et Graeca scholia omnia.
W. 13. Qui facit hoc opus manifestus erit, Gr. Éx&tou ré
Epyov pavegöy yeyńastat, Vulg. uniuscujusque opus manifestum
erit.
Cap. iv. 21. In caritate spiritus et mansuetudinis, Gr. Év
âyárn, rysſºari ts ºrpgárnvoc, Vulg. in caritate et spiritu
mansuetudinis.
Cap. vi. 2. In vobis judicabitur hic mundus, indigne ergo
sunt hujusmodi, Gr. xai si èy tº keiveral à têa pºo;, &vážtoi Šare,
Vulg. et si in vobis judicabitur mundus, indigni estis.
Cap. vii. 20. Frater in quo vocatus, Gr. Éndato; #y ºf KAña’s
#, Vulg, unusquisque in qua vocatione.
Cap. ix. 16. Non est mihi gratia, Gr. Kaixº.ca, Vulg.
gloria. -
Cap. xi. 2. Quod omnia mea memoria retinetis, Gr. ºrávra.
(cov &#xynoºs, Vulg. per omnia mei memores estis. Ibid. et
quomodo ubique trado, Gr. xai wa&2; tragé8wka tºy, Vulg. et
sicut tradidi vobis.
W. 14. Nec natura, sic etiam Vulg. Gr. º. oº, an ne?
Cap. xii. 2. Simulacrorum forma euntes, Gr. ºrgèg rà.
Etºwaa rā āq'oya &mayápasyot, Vulg. ad simulacra muta euntes.
W. 13. Potavimus, Gr. #7 oria Snøy, Vulg. potatisumus.
W. 23. At quae, Gr. Kai ä, Vulg. et quae. Ib.inferiora, Gr.
‘rā āo xàºzova, Vulg. inhonesta.
W. 25. "Ax^3 rô aird, sed ipsa, Vulg. sed id ipsum.
Cap. xiii. 1. Unum sum velut acramentum resonans, Gr.
yÉyoya XaAx3; #xöv, Vulg. factus sum.
V. 4. Caritas magnanima est, jucunda est, Gr. Pax606vºsī,
Xºngrederat, Vulg. patiens, benigma.
Cap. xiv. 12. Prophetetis, Gr. ºva regio-asºnre, Vulg. ut
abundetis.
W. 16. Quis supplet locum idiota 2
Vulg. qui supplet. -
.V. 19. Volo quinque verba loqui per legem, Gr. 33 ro;
woog Pºov, Sensu med.
W. 20. Ut sensibus perfecti sitis, Gr. ºrgiº 33 pesai réAetol
Živeo Se, Vulg. sensibus autem perfecti estote.
W. 21. Et nondum, Gr. xai otº ot-roc, Vulg. et nec sic.
W. 25. Et tune, Gr. ka? of raw, Vulg. et ita. -
W. 27. Ut unus, Gr. kai si..., Vulg. et unus. -
V.34. Esse in silentio, Gr. Önotázarea Sat, Vulg. subditasesse.
W. 33. Non est enim dissensionis res, Gr. 3xavao raciaç &
©sºr, Vulg. Deus. -
Cap. xv.2. Quod sermone annunciavi vobis debetis tenere,
Gr, rive Aévº Binxygata #pany iºdiv si zaréxers, Vulg. qua ratione
praedicaverin vobis si tenetis.
V. 5. Illis undecim, et sic Vulg. Gr. ºrcſ, 333exa.
V. 10. Pawper, Gr. xevä, Vulg. vacua.
W. 20. Si emim, Gr, vvvi 88, Vulg. nunc autem.
taitium, Gr. 37apy?, Vulg. primitiae, et sic v. 23.
W. 31. Pro gloria vestra, Gr. vii, Vulg. per gloriam.
V. 34. Vigilate, justi estote, Gr. Éxwhºlars 8tzaiwº, Vulg.
evigilate justi.
Gr. 3 &vatrançöv,
Ibid.
V. 51. Omnes guidem resurgemus, non omnes immutabi-
mur; et sic Vulg. sed non omnes im. Gr. Trávre; &#y oë
zotºn&ncéagèa, Trávºrs; Sè &Axaynarök.8%a. --
Cap. xvi.6. Nisi vosme deducatis, Gr.ſva tºsſ, Vulg.ut vos.
V. 9. Magnum et evidens; ita etiam Vulg. Gr. ivspyńs.
W. 23. Gratiam, Gr. # 2.48%.
Epistola Secunda ad Corinthios.
CAP. i. 6. Sive eahortationem consequimur, pro vestra
exhortatione, Gr. eſts ºraçaxaxočºséa ini, 'r?; tºy ragawah-
a soc, Vulg. sive consolamur, pro vestra consolatione.
W. 7. Quod si socii estis, Gr. 3ri &rºrsp, Vulg. quod sicut.
V. 19. Qui in vobis est, qui per nos praedicatus est, Gr.
ð ív tº 3’ hºw kneux9sic, Vulg. qui in vobis per nos praedi-
catus est. V. 21. Christus Dominus, Gr. etc. xplory Vulg.
in Christo.
Cap. ii. 10. Ut ne possideamur a Satana, Gr. ºva &
zrasovsktrºsy, Vulg. ut non circumveniamur.
Cap. iii. 5. Non quod sufficientes Sumus aestimare aliquid,
Gr. Aoyia aabat, Vulg. cogitare.
V. 14. Velamen manet dum non revelatur, Gr. º.º.
āvakaxurtók, Eyov, Vulg. non revelatum.
Cap. iv. 4. Ut non pervideant lumen evangelii, Gr. 8k ri
Exh avy&arat attoic, Vulg. ut non fulgeat illis.
W. 8. Inopiam passi, sed non destituti, Gr. 3rogoºsyot,
&AA’ oix ića"ropoſºvot, animi pendentes, sed non animo conci-
dentes. -
V. ll. Si ergo nos qui vivimus, Gr, &ei yag #pasſ, Vulg.
semper enim nos.
W. 16. Licet si exterior noster homo, Gr. 3xx& si wai,
Vulg. Sed licet. -
Cap. v. 4. Nam cum, Gr. xa: yòe 3vºrs;, Vulg. nam: et V.
8, ad Deum, Gr. ºrgö; Küglov, V. ac Dominum.
W. 21. Ut nos essemus justitia Dei, Gr. ) waſ asóa, Vulg.
efficeremur.
Cap. vii. 2. Capaces estote mostri, Gr. Xoſéña are hºcãº, reci-
pite nos, Vulg. capite. *
V. 6. Qui consolatur homimes, Gr. rarelyovº, Vulg.
humiles.
V. 14. In quibuscumque pro vobis gloriatus. Gr. ºf ri,
Vulg, si quid.
Cap. viii. 4. Cum multis precibus orantes nostram gra-
tian, et communionem ministerii quodest in sanctos, 3sággwol
hºców rºy Xégly, kai rāv koivovíay rā; 3iazoviac rāg eig row; &yiov;
3:#aabai hºzac. Vulg. obsecrantes nos gratiam, et commu-
nionem—recipere.
W. 8. Vestrae caritatis bonum comprobans, Gr. )whatov
3ozºášov, Vulg. ingenium bonum comprobans, potius sin-
ceritatem explorans. -
W. 13. Aliis refrigerium, Gr. &vecic, Vulg. remissio. Ib.
ex aquitate. Gr. icórnrog, Vulg. aequalitate.
V. 17. Consolationem accepit, Gr. ºragázanºw, Vulg. ex-
hortationem. -
W. 29. Per Domini gloriam, Gr. ºrpoº, W. ad ib. solicitu-
dimen mostram. Gr. ºrg 08wºxiay tºwāy, Vulg. destinatam
voluntatem nostram, Gr. vestram.
W. 23. Sive per Titum qui est socius, Gr, sºre tºrie Titov,
sive de Tito (quaeritur) est socius, super fratres nostros apos-
tolos ecclesiarum, gloria Christi, Gr. Eirs 388xpoi hºw dºré-
a toxoi Šaxxnciày, 36%a Xela roi, Vulg. sive fratres nostri (in
quaestioném veniunt) sunt apostoli ecclesiarum, gloria
Christi.
Cap. ix. 3. Ne gloria nostra qua vos praferimus, Gr. rô
Raúxn&a hºw to Utré; bºx&v, Vulg, me quod gloriamur de vobis.
V. 11, Si quis operatur, Gr. ºrt; nategyá's rai, Vulg. quas.
W. 12. Officii ejus, Gr. raúrnç, Vulg. hujus.
Cap. x. 5. Adversus cogitalionem Dei, Gr. xará rà, yyººsas,
Vulg. adversus scientiam.
V. 6. Cum impleta fuerit abauditio mostra, Gr. tºy #.
ūtrakoń. Vulg. vestra obedientia. -
V. 7. Se esse servum Christi, Gr. Xºta toû Elvas, Vulg.
Christi se esse.
Cap. xii. 1. Gloriari oportet, sed non expedit mihi, Vulg.
sigloriari, Gr. Kauxāréa, 35 oi avtzºśge pºol, gloriari quidem
non expedit mihi.
V. l I. Nihil minus feci, Gr. oièy to régnora, Vulg. nihil
minus fui. e
W. 18. Nunquid avarus in vos fuit Titus, Gr. #TAgovéx'rnaty
ikººc, Vulg. circumvenit vos.
Epistola ad Galatas.
CAP. i. 7. Et volunt convertere evangelium; ita etiam
Vulg. Gr. ºxeracrgșºat, pervertere. -
W. 10. Modo enim hominibus satisfacio, Vulg. suadeo,
Gr. "reiðo, obtempero, vide notas nostras.
Cap. ii. 20. Vivit qui in me est Christus, Gr. 3; 3è iv tºol
Xptorás. Vulg. vivit vero in me Christus.
V, 11. Quia reprehensus erat, Gr. xareywoºp, #yo; ºv, Vulg.
reprehensibilis erat.
Cap. iii. 7. Cognoscetis, Gr. )ivárxste, Vulg. cognoscite.
W. 14. Benedictionem Spiritus, Gr. Śrayyeaiay, Vulg. pol-
licitationem. -
W. 15. Tamen hominis testamentum ; et sic Vulg. Gr.
%20c, certe, utique,
Cap. iv. 6. In corda nostra, Gr. Ögöv, Vulg. vestra.
W. 7. Non est servus; et sic Vulg. oix #rt E. º
V. 18. Bonum aemulamini semper, Gr. xaxy 33 rô Kw'aoûa-
Bat #y taxå ºráytors, Vulg. bonum autem aemulari in bono
Semper.
EXAMEN MILLII.
1199
V. 21. Legem non legistis? Ita etiam Vulg. 3xoſiers,auditis.
V. 28.Vos–filii estis, Gr. haeis-ia èv,Vulg. nos sumus.
V. 30. Cum filio meo Isaac, Gr. rig iNev6épa;,Vulg. liberae.
Cap. v. 8. Suasio ha cnon est a Deo qui vocavit vos, Gr.
in roi naNoivros, Vulg. ex eo qui vocat.
V. 20 ad 23. intel. multa mutantur. V. 15. Et criming-
tis, Gr. zarso Siste. Vulg. comeditis.
Cap. vi. 1. Humilitate hujusmodi, Gr. ua rapzigere rò»
rotoirov, Vulg. instruite. -
Epistola ad Ephesios.
CAP. i. 6. In laudem claritatis sua, Gr. 36ºng rig xágt rog
'abrot, Vulg. gloriae gratiae suae.
V. 10. Et dispensationem, Gr. eig oinovopziav, Vulg. in dis-
pensationem.
V. ll. Secundum propositum Dei qui universa creavit,
Gr. roi rà rāvra veeyoUvroc, Vulg. ejus qui omnia operatur.
V. 19. In vos qui creditis, Gr. eig ha ag roò; rio rebovrac,
Vulg. nos.
Cap. ii. 3. Voluptates carnis, Gr. rà SEAhpzara, Vulg. vo-
luntatem. -
V. 4. Qua misertus est nostri, Gr. ?v hyárna ey, Vulg, qua
dilexit nos.
V. ll. Memoria retinentes vos qui, Gr. èò povnaovetere
bri jaeic, Vulg. propter quod memores estote, quod vos.
V. 19. Et incola, Gr. Rai Trägoixot, Vulg. et advenae.
Cap. iii. 1. Pro vobis fratribus, Gr. rºv 6yay, Vulg.
gentibus.
V. 13. In gloria vestra, Gr. ivic èarì 86;a htcºv,Vulg. quae
est gloria vestra.
V. 16. Virtutem confirmari in Spiritu suo, in interiore
homine habitare Christum per fidem, Gr. èuvápast ugatato 0; vai
Sià roi IIveipza ro; ai roi eig ròv iaro àv6porov. V. 17, va rotaia ai
ròy Xeto rèv 8tà ri; riareo, Vulg. virtute corroborari per
Spiritum eius in interiorem hominem. V. 17, Christum habi-
tare per fidem. tº
Cap. iv. 14. Ad remedium erroris, Gr. reò; riv paeSo8etay,
Vulg. ad circumventionem. -
V. 19. Et avaritiae, Gr. Èy rNeovegia,Vulg. etiam in avaritiam.
V. 24. In veritate et justitia, Gr. èv è tatoo yn Raì da tºrnari
ric à An0eiac, Vulg. in justitia et sanctitate veritatis.
Cap. v. 4. Quae ad rem non pertinent: sic etiam Vulg. rà
può divikovtc..
V. 13. Omnia autem cum objurgantur:
Vulg. quae arguuntur.
V. 14. Et continges Christum. Gr. È ripaſſare a oi i Xgiaròc,
Vulg. illuminabit te Christus.
V. 28. Suum diligit corpus, Gr. avròv, Vulg. seipsum.
Cap. vi. ll. Stare adversum nationes, Gr. rpò; ràc
fzeSoèeiac roi è agóNov, Vulg. insidias diaboli.
V. 14. Loricam fidei, Gr. ric Sixatoa vnc, Vulg. justitiae.
V. 22. Ut cognoscat quae circa vos sunt, Gr. iva yvare rà
Trspì itabiy, Vulg. ut cognoscatis quae circa nos sunt.
- Epistola ad Philippenses.
CAP. i. 2. Gratias ago Domino, Gr. Osg paov, Vulg. Deo
meo. V. 16. Simpliciter, Gr. âyvaig, V. sincere.
V. 20. Secundum contemplationem meam. Gr. âaroxapa-
3oxiay, Vulg. expectationem.
Ibid. Et in omni ea certa fiducia, Gr. &AA'èy rāa i rapinaria,
Vulg. sed in omni fiducia.
V. 26. Ut gloria vestra abundet, Vulg. gratulatio, Gr.
uaixnpea, gloriatio.
V. 27. Pariter cum fide evangelii certantes, Gr. avva0Aoiy-
rec ri riare, Vulg. collaborantes fidei.
V. 28. Vobis autem salutis. Et hoc quia a Deo domatum
est vobis: Gr. iuſy 8è oro rmgia; Raì toiro à rò Geoi. 29. “ori
itziy è xagio Sn, Vulg. vobis autem salutis, et hoc a Deo. V.
29. Quia vobis donatum est.
Cap. iii. 16. Ut in eo ambulemus. Gr. rg abrº a rotxei,
navóvi, Vulg, in eadem permaneamus regula.
V. 21. Qui transfiguravit, Gr. peeraaxnpea riaei, Vulg. re-
formabit.
Cap. iv. 8. Quaecunque magnifica, Gr. orepovà, Vulg. pudica.
V. ll. Cognovi, Gr. Epca6oy, Vulg. didici. V. 13. In eo qui
me confortat; sic et Vulg. Gr. iv Xpiatº.
Epistola ad Colossenses.
CAP. i. 12. Qui vooavit vos, Gr. ra inavo orayTi haac, Vulg.
qui dignos nos fecit.
Gr. iAeyxépceva,
V. 21. Et vos inimicos consiliorum eius, Gr. ix0poòg r;
2iavoia iv roi, éeyotg roi, royngoic, Vulg. inimici sensu in ope-
ribus malis. Ibid. nunc autem reconciliatos, Gr. iv è è a ro-
xathNAagsy. -
V.25. Ad implendum verbum Dei in mysterio, Gr. m Anpaia ai
tòv A6yov roi, Geoi. V. 26. rò pavo rhetov rò & roxenovapzévoy,
Vulg. verbum Dei. V. 26. Mysterium quod abscond.
V. 27. Divitiae majestatis mysterii Dei, Gr. pavarnpiov roſ-
rov, Vulg. hujus.
Cap. ii. 2. Mysterii Dei in Christo, Gr. roy Geoi, Raì IIa reò;
naì roi Xgia roi, Vulg. Dei Patris, et Jesu Christi.
V. 5. Et supplens id quod deest utilitati fidei vestrae, Gr.
aaì rò a repéopea ric sig Xetaròy riotsog ipzºv, Vulg. et firma-
mentum eius, quae in Christo est, fidei vestrae.
V. 8. Ambulantes in illa, Gr. regio arsſovrec, Vulg. abun-
dantes. - -
V. 15. Ostentavit in auctoritate; Vulg. traduxit confiden-
tur; Gr. èòerytzá rtasy èv rappnaiº, aperte.
V. 18. Nemo vos devincat, Gr. ca raggagevéro, Vulg.
seducat-et superstitione angelorum, Gr. Senaxeia Vulg. reli-
gione. Ib. Ea qua videt, extollens se frustra, infatus mente,
Gr. 3 può digaxey paga regov eixi pvo togp.cevo brò roi, vodc, Vulg.
Quae non videt ambulans, frustra inflatus sensu. V. 22. Et
i corruptionem per abusionem, Gr. rſi di roxghaei. Vulg. ipso usu.
V. 23. In simulatione religionis-ad vexationem corporis
Gr. iv è8eNodena zeta –xa? à peròia adia a roc, Vulg. in supersti.
tione–et non ad parcendum corpori.
Cap. iii. 24. Retributionem hareditatis Domini Christi, cui
servitis, Gr. a yàg Kveto Xpia rº 8ovNei ste, Domino enim
Christo servitis, Vulg. servite.
Cap, iv. 12. Ut sitis, Gr. a rite, Vulg. sitis.
Epistola Prima ad Thessalonicenses.
CAP. i. 3. Et expectationis spei, Gr. iTropaovic, Vulg. sus-
tinentiae.
Cap. ii 2. Ex certa libertate ausi sumus, Gr. È raffinataa 4-
pze0a, Vulg. fiduciam habuimus. -
V. 6. Cum possemus honori esse, Gr. èv 6ápei, Vulg oneri
GSS6 ,
Cap. iii. 2. Et deprecetur pro fide vestra, Gr. ragawaxéora
ipoac regì rio reoc ipagv, consolari vos de fide vestra.
V. 8. Si steteritis in Christo, Gr èày ipasic a rhunte év Kvgio,
V. Si statis in Domino.
Cap. iv. l. Sicut et ambulatis, Vulg. sic et ambuletis.
Cap. v. 5. Filii Dei, Gr. haipac, Vulg. diei. V. 20. Pro-
phetas, Gr. reopntsiac, Vulg. prophetias.
e Epistola Secunda ad Thessalonicenses.
CAP. ii. 1. Et nostra congregationis in idipsum, Gr. r”
abròv, ad ipsum, Vulg. in.
V. 2. Ut non facile moveamini, Gr. raxéoc, Vulg. cito.
V. 13. Quia assumpsit vos Deus, Gr. 5ri eiasto, Vulg.
quod elegerit.
Cap. iii, 16. Pacem semper in omni loco, Gr. èia rar-
rò; iv ravvì Tgóro, semper, in omni modo, Vulg. pacem sem-
piternam in omni. «
Epistola Prima ad Timotheum.
CAP. i. 15. Humanus sermo, et sic cap. iii. 1, Gr. rio ròc,
Vulg. fidelis.
Cap. iii. 3. Non aspersum, Gr. 3 pixágyugov, Vulg. non cu-
pidum, sc. mummi.
V. 14. Quod declaratum est in carne, Gr. Osò, è pavegººn,
Deus manifestatus est.
Cap. iv. 10. Persecutiones patimur, Gr. 3vstò pasſa, Vulg.
maledicimur.
Ib. Qui est salutaris omnium. Gr. 5 io ti o orie, Vulg. qui
est salvator.
Cap. vi. 4. Superbus autem, Gr. reti porta, Vulg. super-
bus est.
V. 10. Abundantur ad fruendum, in voluntate bonorum
operum, Gr. claudit versiculum in verbis sic à riaavo v. V. 18.
dya9oegyei, et sic Vulg. v. 18, Benefacere.
V. 11. Tranquillitatem animi, Gr. reairnta, Vulg. man-
suetudinem.
V. 19. Veram vitam, Gr. tic aioviov oig, aeternam, Vulg.
etiam veram.
Epistola Secunda ad Timotheum.
CAP. i. 6. Ut recrees donum, Gr. iva orvgsiv, Vulg. ut
resuscites. V. 9, merita, Gr. pya, Vulg. opera.
1200
• r- •
EXAMEN MILLII.
V. 20. Per illuminationem adventus, Gr. 8ià τχς άτιφaysia;,
per apparitionem.
Ib. Illuminavit vitam æternitate, Gr. φωτία ayro; %»}v, xaì
άφθagoriay, qui in lucem produxit vitam et incorruptionem,
V. 14. Custodire, Gr. Φίλa%oy, Vulg. custodi.
V. 18. Det illis invenire misericordiam, Gr. aύτφ, Vulg. illi.
Cap. ii. 9. Quasi latro, Gr. άς xaxoùgyog, Vulg. quasi male
operans. .•
V. 14. Noli verbis pugnare, Gr. μχ λοyopxaxôy, Vulg. con-
tendere (de) verbis.
V. 15. Probabilem exhibere Deo; ita et Vulg. Gr. δόκιμον,
probatum.
V. 16. Proficiunt ad inanitatem, Gr. àzs£siac, Vulg. im-
pietatem.
V. 19. Novit Deus quæ sunt ejus, Gr. τους άvτac, Vulg., qui.
V. 25. Modestum, corrigentem, Gr. iv wgg3tntt 7rai8εύοντει,
Vulg. cum modestia corripientem.
Cap. iii. 9. Ignorantia enim eorum, Gr. Évota, Vulg. in-
sipientia.
Cap. iv. 1. Et adventum ejus, et regnum eius Gr. xatà tòv
ίπιφάνειαν, in adventu.
V. 2. In omni magnanimitate, Gr. μακgo$vpwig, longani-
mitate, Vulg. patientia. e.
V. 5. Sobrius esto, in omnibus patiens, Gr. yfiqs §v r&oti,
xaxo7rá0naroy, patiens esto mali.
V. 18. Liberavit me Dominus; sic etiam Vulg. και λύσετat,
et liberabit.
Epistola ad Titum.
CAP. ii. 3, Anus pari modo in statu religione digno, Vulg.
in habitu sancto, Gr. èv xatao τίματt iego7rger£;.
V. 9. Servos—in omnibus optimos, Gr. εύap$a tov;, Vulg.
placentes.
V. 13. Adventum gloriæ beati Dei, Gr. τοῦ μεγάλου, Vulg.
magni.
V. 14. Populum abundantem, Vulg. acceptabilem, Gr.
Gr. πεgtoÜ oruoy, peculiarem.
Cap. iii. 8. Ut soliciti sint ad affectum bonorum ope-
. rum, Gr. îva q>povTi%ovai xaX&v igyov ττεοίστaa 8as, ut curent
bonis operibus præesse.
V. 10. Hæreticum hominem post primam correptionem
devita, Gr. μετὰ μiay xai δευτάpay, Vulg. post unam et secun-
dam.
V. 11. Quod perversus est hujusmodo, Gr. §τι ἐστga7rras,
Vulg. quia subversus est.
Epistola ad Philemonem.
VER. 2. Et domesticæ ejus ecclesiæ, Gr. tj wat' oików wov,
Vulg. quæ in domo tua est.
V. 6. Ut communicatio tua accepta fiat, Gr. §τως ή κοινωνίa.
•riic Tria re&ς σου ivegyhς yêyntas, Vulg. ut communicatio fidei
tuæ evidens fiat.
ADIDITIONES.
Epistola ad Romanos.
CAP. ii. 16. Per Jesum Christum, add. Dominum nostrum.
iv. 5. In fine additur secundum propositum gratiæ Dei, et
sic etiam Vulg.
v. 8. Quoniam si cum adhuc.
vi. 18. In fine credentes autem in Christo, servi facti su-
mus justitiæ.
vii. 2. Allegata est lege, add. viri.
ix. 7. Omnes filii Dei.
x. ll. Dicit enim scriptura per Esaiam.
V. 21. Ad Israel autem quid dicit ?
xii. 6. Habentes autem donationes Dei.
xiv. 10. Tu quare spermis fratrem tuum in edendo ?
xv. 19. Repleverim evangelium Dei, et filii ejus Jesu
Christi.
Epistola Prima ad Corinthios.
CAP. i. 19. Scriptum est enim in Esaia.
ii. 4. Sed in ostensione Spiritus et virtutis Dei.
vi. 2. Judicabitur hic mundus, V. pretio magno, Ib. glori-
ficate et portate, sic Vulg. V. 7. quis pascit gregem ovium.
V. 15. Dominus Jesus ordinavit.
vi. 2l, 20, vel 21. Cum ipse mon sim sub lege ; sic etiam
Vulg. Vide quæ ad locum diximus.
xi. 7. Et gloria Dei est, I)ei enim gloria videtur in vvro,
V. 27. Indigne Domino.
xiv. 29. In fine vel interrogemt.
xv. 1. Qui evangelium. V. 9. Apostolorum omnium. ^ .
xvi. 18. Et vestrum spiritum caritate. a
Epistola Secunda ad Corinthios.
CAP. vi. 5. In carceribus sæpe. V. 6: In scientia legis et
evangelii.
viii. 18. Fratrem nostrum. Cap. ix. 14. Desiderantium
videre vos.
xii. 15. Et superimpendam, et ipse impendar. Cap. xiii.
4. Ex infirmitate mostra. •
Epistola ad Galatas.
CAP. ii. 2. Qui videbantur sibi aliquid esse.
tiam Dei. V. 10. Ut inopiis pauperum.
iii. 19. Lex factorum posita est. V. 29. Ergo vos omnes
unum estis in Christo.
iv. 3. Sub elementis hujus mundi. V. 6. Estis filiis Dei.
v. 14, Omnis lex in vobis. V. 13. Per caritatem Spiritus
servite invicem; sic etiam Vulg.
Epistola ad Ephesios, -
CAP. ii. 12. Testamentum et promissionis eorum. V. 16.
Ut eæhibere? et reconcilaret.
iv. 7. Domimi mostri Jesu Christi.
V. 9. Gra-
Epistola ad Philippenses.
CAP. ii. 8. Obediens patri. V. 15. Simplices, sicut filii Dei.
iii. 12. Aut jam justificatus sum. V. 13. Non arbitror me
adhuc comprehendisse,
iv. 8. Si qua laus disciplinae ; sic etiam Vulg.
Epistola ad Colossénses.
CAP. ii. 23. Ad saturitatem et diligentiam carnis.
Epistola ad Thessalonicenses Prima.
CAP. iv. 1. Et placere Deo, sicut et ambulatis, Vulg. sic et
ambuletis. v. xvi. Semper gaudete in Domino. V. 24. Fi-
delis est Deus qui.
Epistola ad Thessalonicenses Secunda.
CAP. i. 10. In die illa adventus Domini. Cap. ii. l5.
Tenete traditiones mostras.
iii. 16. Dominus cum vobis omnibus semper.
Epistola ad Timotheum Prima.
CAP. i. 16. Omnem magnanímitafem ; et ii. 6. Cujus testi-
imonium datum est.
Epistola ad Timotheum Secunda.
CAP. iii. 2. Sui tantum amatores. Cap. vi. 5. Pietatem, et
Dei culturam, discede ab hujusmodi.
Epistola ad Philemonem.
V. 1. Dilecto fratri.
QUÆ DESUNT.
Epistola ad Romanos.
CAP. i. 31. Absque fædere, Gr. άστόδους. Cap. ii. 14.
Naturaliter ea quæ legis sunt, Gr. τά τοῦ νόμου.
v. 2, Habemus accessum per fidem. V. 12. Et sic in omnes
homines mors pertransiit.
vii. 16. Consentio legi, quæ bona est. Cap. viii. Si autem
Christus in vobis est.
viii. 23. Adoptionem filiorum Dei. V. 38. Neque primci-
patus.
xii. 14. Benedicite persequentibus vos, Cap. xiii. 6. Ne-
cessitate subditi estote.
xiv. 6. Domino manducat, gratias agit enim Deo.
xv. 2. Unusquisque vestrum. V. 9. In gentibus Domine.
V. 12. Et rursus Isaias ait.
V. 20. Sed sicut scriptum est.
riems videam vos.
V. 27, Placuit enim eis. V. 29. In abundantia benedic-
tionis evangelii Christi.
xxiii. 9, Non falsum testimonium reddes. V. 10. Pleni-
tudo legis est dilectio.
V. 21. Spero quod præte-
Epistola Prima ad Corinthios.
CAP. iv. 11. Et colaphis cædimttr, et instabiles sumus.
V. 16. Imitatores mei, sicut et ego Christi.
vi. 3. Quamto magis secularia. V. 12. Non omnia expe-
diunt.
„ . EXAMEN
MILLI {. 1201
vii. 36. Et quod faculta!em præbeat sine impedimento
Æ)ominum observandi.
viii. 4. Nihil est idolum in mundo.
dii multi, et domini multi.
ix. 5. Mulieris sororis circumducendæ.
x. 24. Nemo quod suum est quærat, sed quod alterius.
V. 27. Nihil interrogamtes propter conscientiam. V. 28.
Propter illum qui indicavit, et—
xi. 3. Volo autem vos scire. V. 24. Et dixit, accipite et
*manducate.
V. 26. Quoties enim manducatis pgmem humo et calicem
bibitis.
xii. 3. In Spiritu Dei loquens. V. 21. Unumquodque
e07*?/m,
xiii. 3. Caritatem autem non habuero. V. 13. Nunc au-
tem manent.
xiv. 5. D. in fine, ut ecclesia ædificationem accipiat. V. 10.
Tam multa, ut puta sunt.
xiv, 17. Tu quidem bene gratias agis.
infideles. V. 25. Et ita occulta.
V. 3l. Potestis enim omnes. V. 37. Quod Domini sunt
*mandata. 1.
xv, 3. Quod et accepi. V. 15. Quem non suscitavit, si
mortui mom resurgunt.
V. 17. Varia est fides vestra. V. 18. Ergo et qui. ,
V. 27. Sine dubio præter eum, sic Vulg. Gr. $%Xoy &ri,
manifestum est quod.
V. 31. In Christo Jesu Domino mostro.
quidem caro.
V. 44. Est corpus animale, est et spirituale. V. 51. Ecce
mysterium vobis dico.
V. 52. Camet enim tuba. V. 58. Fratres mei dilecti.
xvi. 6. Apud vos autem forsitan manebo, aut etiam hy-
emabo. V. ll. Ne quis ergo.
Epistola Secunda ad Corinthios,
CAP. i. 2. Et Domino nostro Jesu Christo. V. 3. Et
pater Domini nostri Jesu Christi.
V. 4. In omni pressura. V. 5. Nos eripuit, et erui?—
niam et adhuc eripiet.
V. 12. Et sinceritate Dei. V. 18. Sermo noster qui fuit
apud vos. V. 23. Non adhuc veni.
ii. 3. Ne tristitiam super tristitiam habeam—confidens in
ommibus vobis.
V. 9. Ut cognoscam eæperimentum vestrum.
iv. 3. In his qui pereunt opertum est.
viii. 1. Ab omni inquinamento carnis et spiritus. V. ]4.
Et si quid apud illum gloriatus sum.
ix. 13. Communicationis in illos, et in omnes. Cap. x. 18.
Ille probatus est, Gr. ἐκεῖνος.
xii. 9. Virtus mea in infirmitate perficitur. V. 10. In
contumeliis, in necessitatibus, in persecutionibus in am-
gustiis pro Christo. '.
V. 19. Coram Deo in Christo loquimur.
Epistola ad Galatas. •
CAP. i. 6. Quod non est aliud. V. 22. Ecclesiis Judææ
quæ erant in Christo.
ii. 3. Cum esset gentilis.
V. l4. Et nom Judaice.
iii. 1. Quis vos fascinavit mon obedire veritati ?
Abrahæ autem, Gr. τφ έ 'Aßpá.
V. 18. Abrahæ autem per promissionem.
V. 19. Propter transgressiones posita est.
V. 21. Adversus promissa Dei.
iv. 8. Qui matura non sunt dii.
Agar Sinai mons est.
v, 11. Quid adhuc persecutionem patior.
vi. 15. In Christo enim Jesu neqüe circumcisio.
V. 5. Siquidem sunt
V. 23, Idiotæ, aut
V. 39. Sed alia
0-
V. 4. Quibus neque ad horam.
V. 16.
V. 21. Istud enim
Epistola ad Ephesios.
CAP. i. 3. D. in fine, in cælestibus in Christo. V. 10. Et
quæ im terra sunt, d. in ipso. V. 13. In quo et credentes.
V. 22. Et ipsum dedit caput.
ii. 3. ln quibus et nos omnes.
mortui peccatis.
iii. 2. Audistis dispensationem gratiæ Dei.
potestis legentes intelligere.
V. 5. Revelatum est sanctis apostolis ejus.
V. 8. Investigabiles divitias Christi.
V. 5. Et cum essemus
V. 4. Prout
V. 9. Illuminare omnes. Ib. Qui omnia creavit per
Jesum Christum, Gr. 8ià 'Inzoù xpiztoÜ. V. 11. Secundum
propositum quod fecit. V. 12. Fiduciam et accessum.
V. 13. Pro vobis.
iv. 19. Descendit primum. V. ]6. Secundum opera-
tionem in mensuram uniuscujusque membri.
v. 13, A lumine manifestantur. V. ]4. Propter quod
dicit. V. 19. Canticis spiritualibus. V. 20. Domini nostri
Jesu. V. 24. Sed sicut ecclesia. V. 28. Uxores suas ut
corpora sua.
vi. 1. Obedite parentibus in Domino. V. 6. Quasi homi-
nibus placentes, sed vt servi Christi. V. 10. De cætero
fratres mei. V. 13. Resistere in die malo. V. 14. State
ergo succincti. V. 19. Notum facere mysterium evangelii
Epistola ad Philippenses,
CAP. i. 6. Qui cœpit in vobis bonum opus.
ii. 25. Fratrem et cooperatorem et commilitonem.
iii. 14. Vocationes l)ei in Christo Jesu.
iv. 7. Custodiat corda vestra, et intelligentias vestras.
V. 8. Quæcunque justa, quaecum gare sancta.
V. 14. Verumtamen benefecistis communicantes tribula-
tiomi meae.
Epistola ad Colossenses.
CAP. i. 3. A Deo patre nostro et Domino Jesu Christo.
V. 12. Gratias agentes Deo patri.
V. 14. In quo habemus redemptionem per sanguinem
ejus.
iii. 6. Ira Dei super filios increduliattis
iv. 2. Vigilantes in ea in gratiarum actione.
Epistola Prima ad Thessalomicenses.
CAP. i. 2. Et pax a Deo patre mostro et Domino Jesu
Christo ; deest etiam in Vulg.
ii. 9. Prædicavimus in vobis evangelium.
V. 12. Et teslificantes ut ambularetis.
iii. 2. Fratrem nostrum ct ministrum Dei.
Cap. iy. l5. Qui relinquimur. V. 27. Omnibus sanctis.
Epistola Prima ad Timotheum.
CAP. i. 16. Utim me primo ostenderet.
V. 17. Soli sapienti Deo; deest etiam in Vulg.
ii. 7. Veritatem dico in Christo ; d, et in Vulg.
iii. 5. Quomodo ecclesiæ Dei. V. 5. Imstet obsecrationibus
et orationibus. V. 19. Nisi sub duobus aut tribus testibus.
vi. 3. Aliter docet et non acquiescit. V. 8. Alimenta et
quibus tegamur.
Epistola Secunda ad Timotheum.
CAP. ii. ll. Fidelis sermo.
iii. 15. Instruere ad salutem, per fidem quæ est in Jesu
Christo.
iv. 2. Argue, increpa, obsecra.
vobiscum.
V. 22. In fine, Gratia
Epistola ad Titum.
CAP. ii. 5. Domus curam habentes, bonas ; deest etiam in
Vulg.
Epistola ad Philemonem.
V. 4. Gratias ago Deo meo. V. 26. Ut communicatio
fidei tua, evidens fiat.
Videbit, sedulus lector nos in collectanes hisce multa, mino-
ris momenti, prætermisisse, ex iis autem quæ hic congessi-
mus, constat,
Vulgatam versionem Italicam ante Hieronymi castiga-
tionem, lectionibus a textu originali multum variantibus,
additamentis, et defectibus pene innumeris abundasse, adeo-
que verissimam fuisse Hieronymi de versionis hujus corrup-
telis ad Damasum Papam sub quo hæc scripsit Hilarius,
querelam.
2. Codices Cant. Ger. Clar. eodem fere tempore conscrip-
tos iisdem vitiis et corruptelis obnoxios fuisse, nec enim
existimamdum est Latinos eOrum codices versionem hant;
Italicam fidelius cxhibuisse, quam hunc Romanæ ecclesiæ
diaconum.
3. Hinc sequitur Millii conatus de versione Italica ail
textum originalem Græcum ex hisce potissimum scriptus
reducenda, frustraneos plane fuisse. IÎ
4
120?
The year
before
Christ.
->
The year
after
Christ.
8.
14.
26.
27.
30,
31.
32.
A
C HIR O N O LOGIC A. L T N T) E X
Luke ii. 6.
21.
Matt. ii. 1, 12.
14.
16.
20.
Jos. Ant. l. xvii. c. 10,
Matt. ii. 21. 23.
Luke ii. 46.
Jos. Antiq. lib. xviii.
cap. 3.
Matt. iii. 1.
Mark i. 2.
Luke iii. 3.
John. i. 7.
Isaiah xli. 1.
Matt. iii. 13.
Mark i. 13.
Luke iii. 32.
John i. 34.
Matt. iv. l. Mark i. 12,
Luke iv. 1.
14.
John i. 35. 47.
ii. 1.
13.
Matt. xiv. 3.
Mark vi. 17.
Luke iii. 19.
John iv. 7.42.
Luke iv. 43. v. 27.
John v. l.
Luke vi. 13.
Matt. v. vi. vii.
Luke vi. 10.
ix. 1. Mark yi, 7.
Matt. x. l. xix. 6.
TO THE
NEW TEST A M E N T.
Christ our Lord and Saviour, in the fulness of time, is born of the blessed Virgin Mary
at Bethlehem, and laid in a manger.
On the eighth day after his nativity he is circumcised, and named Jesus.
The men of the east bring presents to the new-born King of the Jews.
Joseph flies into Egypt with the child Jesus, and Mary his mother.
Herod commands the infants in and about Bethlehem to be slain.
Herod dieth, and his son Archelaus is by Caesar made tetrarch of Judea ; 6ther
dominions which belonged to Herod are divided among his sons.
Christ, by God's appointment, is brought back out of Egypt into Nazareth.
The first year of the vulgar Christian era begins here.
By occasion of the passover, our Lord goes up with his parents to Jerusalem, and
there disputes with the doctors in the temple.
Augustus dies, and Tiberius succeedeth him. •
Josephus, called Caiaphas, is made high-priest of the Jews, by the favour of Valerius
Gratus, the Roman governor.
Towards the end of this year, Pontius Pilate is sent to be procurator of Judea, in
the place of Walerius Gratus.
John the Baptist begins to preach and baptize in the deserts of Judea, thereby pre-
paring the way of the Lord, and doing his endeavour that Christ's coming after him may
be made known unto Israel. Unto John God gives a sign whereby he may know the
Lord is Christ, that upon whom he shall see the Spirit descending, and remaining on
him, the same is he that shall baptize with the Holy Ghost.
Jesus, entering upon the thirtieth year of his age, comes from Galilee to Jordan,
and is baptized of John ; at which time a most illustrious manifestation is made of the
blessed Trinity; for the Son of God ascending out of the water, and praying, the
heavens are opened, and the Spirit of God, in the shape of a dove, descends upon
him, and the voice of the Father is heard from heaven, saying, “This is my beloved
Son, in whom I am well-pleased.”
John sees it, and bears record that this is the Son of God.
Jesus, full of the Holy Ghost, returns from Jordan, and is led of the Spirit into the
wildeiness, where he fasted forty days and forty nights, and is tempted by the devil.
After this our Lord returns into Galilee.
John gives testimony to our Saviour, passing by him; Andrew, Peter, Philip, and
Nathanael, acknowledge him to be the Messias, and become his disciples.
Christ, at a marriage in Cana of Galilee, turneth water into wine : this was his first
miracle.
The first passover of Christ's public ministry, from which the first year of the seven-
tieth and last of Daniel's weeks begins: in which “the covenant is confirmed with
many,” Dan. ix. 27, compared with Matt. xxvi. 28.
Jesus cometh to Jerusalem at the time of the passover, and entering into the
temple, scourgeth out those that sold and bought there: the Jews require a sign of his
authority; Christ bids them destroy the temple (understanding the temple of his body),
and in three days he will raise it up. *
Herod the tetrarch casteth John the Baptist into prison, for reprehending the incest
with his brother Philip's wife, and other evils done by him.
Christ discovers himself to the woman of Samaria.
He goes throughout all Galilee, teaching in the synagogues, and working miracles.
Matthew called to be a disciple. f
The second passover of Christ's ministry, John v. 1, compared with iv. 3. 5, from
which the second year of the seventieth week of Daniel begins.
Jesus comes up to Jerusalem at the time of the feast, and heals on the Sabbath-day
a man that had an infirmity thirty-eight years, lying at the pool of Bethesda. He
makes a most divine apology to the Jews that sought to kill him, because he said that
God was his Father.
Christ, out of the multitude of his disciples, chooseth twelve, whom he calleth
apostles; namely, Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew,
Thomas, James the son of Alpheus, Simon called Zelotes, Judas the brother of
James, and Judas Iscariot. To these our Saviour chiefly directs his discourse in tha'
glorious, full, and admirable sermon on the mount.
Jesus' sends his twelve apostles, by two and two, to preach, and heal the sick.
John the Baptist is beheaded in prison by Herod's command.
CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX. 1203
The year.
after
Christ.
32.
33.
Mark vi. Luke ix.12.
John vi. 1 15.
f
Matt. xv'i. l.
Mark ix. Luke ix. 28.
Matt. xvii. 24.
Luke ix. 51.
x. 1.
xi. 1.
John xi. 1.
47.
Luke xix. l.
Mark x. 46.
John xii. 3.
Matt. xxi.
Mark xj.
Luke xix. *
John xii. Isa. lii.
Zech. ix. 9.
Matt. xxi. 17.
| Matt. xxvi.
Mark xiv.
Luke xxii.
John xii.
xviii.
Matt. xxvii. Mark xv.
| Luke xxiii. John xix.
Ps. xxii.
Matt. xxviii.
Mark xvi.
Luke xxiv. John xx.
Acts i.
Matt. xxviii.
Acts ii.
Acts iii.
iv.
Jesus feeds five thousand men besides women and children, with five barley loaves,
and two little fishes. He refuses to be made a king.
The third passover of Christ's ministry, John vi. 4, from which the third year of the
seventieth week of Daniel begins.
Jesus is transfigured on the mount; Moses and Elias are seen to talk with him, and
a voice from heaven is heard a second time, saying, “This is my beloved Son, hear
him.” Christ payeth tribute to Caesar.
A certain village of the Samaritans refuseth our Saviour entertainment in his way to
Jerusalem : the disciples desiring to call for fire from heaven to consume them, are
severely reprehended.
The seventy disciples are sent out, by two and two, to work miracles, and to preach.
Christ teacheth his disciples to pray. -
Christ raiseth Lazarus, that had been buried four days. -
Caiaphas, high-priest of the Jews, prophesieth concerning the death of Christ.
Zaccheus, a publican, converted.
Christ restores to blind Bartimeus his sight.
Mary, the sister of Lazarus, anoints our Saviour's feet with costly spikenard, and
wipeth them with the hair of her head. -
Christ rideth in triumph to Jerusalem : the multitude spread their garments in the
way, and cry, “Hosanna to the Son of David.” -
Coming near the city, he weeps over it, and foretells its destruction: he enters the
temple, and casteth out those that bought and sold there, and heals the blind and lame.
He curseth the fruitless fig-tree, and the next morning it is found dried up and
| Withered: thence he taketh occasion to show the power of faith.
The fourth passover, in which Christ our passover was sacrificed, 1 Cor. v. 7, and so an
end put to legal sacrifices prefiguring this great expiation: the fourth or middle year
of Daniel's last week begins, Dan. ix. 27.
On the first day of unleavened bread, when the passover of the Jews was to be slain
(April 2), in the evening, Jesus eateth the passover with his disciples, and institutes
the Sacrament of his body and blood in bread and wine.
Christ washeth his disciples’ feet, and exhorteth them to humility and charity.
In the selfsame night Chri “ is betrayed by Judas, mocked, buffeted, and spit upon
by the soldiers.
Next day he is condemned by Pilate, and crucified: the sun, during the crucifixion,
is darkened, and the veil of the temple rent in the midst. Christ praying for his ene-
mies, gives up the ghost. Joseph of Arimathea begs the body, and lays it in a new
Sepulchre.
On the third day, the next after the Jewish sabbath (April 5), Christ riseth from
the dead : his resurrection is declared by angels to the women that came to the sepul-
chre. Christ first appeareth to Mary Magdalene, and afterward to his disciples, and
dimeth with them. -
Christ bringeth his apostles to mount Olivet, commanding them to expect in Jeru-
Salem the sending down of the Holy Ghost. -
Sends them to teach and baptize all nations, and blesses them ; and while they
behold, he is taken up, and a cloud receives him out of their sight. After his ascen-
sion, the disciples are warned by two angels to depart, and to set their minds upon his
second coming: they accordingly return, and, giving themselves to prayer, choose Mat-
thias to be an apostle in the place of Judas. -
On the day of Pentecost (May 4), the Holy Ghost descendeth on the apostles, in
the form of cloven tongues, like as of fire, and enableth them to speak all languages.
Peter, the same day, preacheth Christ and the resurrection, and about three thousand
believers are added to the church.
Peter, by faith in Christ's name, healeth a lame man. e
The rulers of the Jews, offended at Peter's sermon, and his miraculous cure of the
lame man, cast both him and John into prison ; upon their examination, they boldly
avouch the lame man to be healed by the name of Jesus, and that by the same Jesus
we must be eternally saved. After this, the Jews forbid them to speak, any more in
that name: but the apostles answer, that it is fit they should obey God, rather than
men. They are threatened, and let go.
Ananias and Sapphira, for their hypocrisy, are suddenly struck dead.
The apostles are again cast into prison by the high-priest ; but an angel sets them
at liberty, and bids them preach the gospel to the people without fear : , being taken
|again teaching in the temple, they are brought before the council, where, by the advice
of Gamaliel, a pharisee and doctor of the law, they are delivered.
The number of believers increasing at Jerusalem, the apostles ordain seven deacons,
who should distribute the alms of the whole church to the widows and poorer sort of
believers. º
Stephen, one of these deacons, having confounded some that disputed with him, is
|by them fafely accused of blasphemy, and brought before the council, where he repre-
| hends their rebellion, and murdering of Christ: whereupon they cast him out of the
city, and stone him ; he, in the meantime, praying for them.
A great persecution of the church at Jerusalem follows after the death of the first
| martyr Stephen.
Philip, one of the seven deacons, preacheth at Samaria, and converteth many;
| working miracles, and healing the sick.
Simon the sorcerer, seeing the wonders that are done by Philip, believeth, and is
'baptized.
1304
CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX.
The year
after
Christ.
38.
41.
44.
46.
53.
15.
26.
ix. 1
23.
2 Cor. xi. 32.
Gal. i. 28.
Acts xxii. 17.
Acts ix. 30.
Gal. i. 21.
Acts ir. 32.36.
X.
xii.
xiii.
xiv.
2 Cor. xi. 5.
2 Cor. xii.
| 2 Tim. i. 2. 5.
Acts. xv.
36.
xvi.
The apostles at Jerusalem, hearing that Samaria had received the faith, send thither .
Peter and John to confirm and enlarge the church. The apostles, by prayer and impo-
sition of hands, confer the Holy Ghost on all believers. Simon Magus offers them
money, that he may receive power of conferring the same ; whose impiety is sharply re-
| proved by Peter.
Having completed their ministry in those parts, they return to Jerusalem.
An angel sendeth Philip to teach and baptize the Ethiopian eunuch.
Saul, a violent persecutor of all that call on the name of Jesus, and one who consented
to the death of Stephen, goes now towards Damascus, with commission from the high-
priest and the council, to apprehend all Christians in those parts, and to bring them
bound to Jerusalem ; on the way he is miraculously converted, by a voice from heaven;
and three days after, baptized by Ananias at Damascus, where he preacheth the gospel of
Christ with great boldness, to the astonishment of those that knew upon what design he
was sent thither.
Saul, having preached the gospel at Damascus a long time, the Jews lay wait to kill
him ; but he escapeth from thence, and comes to Jerusalem ; there he sees Peter, and
James the brother of our Lord, and abides with them fifteen days: here he speaks bold-
|ly in the name of Jesus, and disputes with the Grecians, or rather Jews that used the
Greek tongue. These also consult how they may kill him.
While Saul prays in the temple he is in a trance, and the Lord appears unto him,
|and bids him depart from Jerusalem, because they will not receive his testimony; add-
ing, that he will send him to the gentiles.
Saul, leaving Jerusalem, goes to his own country Tarsus, and from thence travels into
Syria and Cilicia. -
Peter visits the churches of Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, &c. At Lydda he cureth
AEneas of the palsy, and at Joppa restoreth Tabitha to life.
At Caesarea, Cornelius, a centurion, by prayer and alms finds favour in the sight of
God, and is commanded by an angel to send for Peter now at Joppa. God, by a vision,
teacheth Peter not to despise the gentiles; and being sent for by Cornelius, he goes and
preacheth Christ to him, and a great company that were met at his house : while Peter
preacheth, the Holy Ghost falls upon them all, and immediately the apostle baptizeth
them.
Peter, at his return to Jerusalem, is accused by those of the circumcision for convers-
ing with the gentiles; but he declares to them his vision, and the whole matter concern-
ing Cornelius ; and they glorify God, for granting to the gentiles also repentance unto life.
The believers, who, ever since the martyrdom of Stephen and the persecution there-
upon ensuing, had been dispersed throughout all Phoenice and Cyprus, come now to
Antioch, and preach the gospel to the Greeks there, having before preached to none but
the Jews. The church at Jerusalem understanding this, and that the number of be-
lievers increased exceedingly, sends Barnabas thither to confirm them: he goes,to Tarsus,
and takes Saul along with him to Antioch, where they continue a whole year, converting
multitudes to the faith. Here the disciples were first called Christians.
About this time, James the brother of John is beheaded, by the command of Herod
Agrippa : he also imprisoneth Peter, whom an angel delivers, upon the prayers of the
church. This same Herod not long after speaking to the people at Caesarea, some of
them cry out, “It is the voice of God, and not of man ;” and immediately an angel
of the Lord Smites him, because he gave not the glory to God, and he is eaten of worms
and dieth. -
Barnabas and Saul set forward in their preaching of the gospel: they plant the
Christian faith in Seleucia, Cyprus, and other places. At Paphos they preach the gospel
| to Sergius Paulus, governor of that country ; Elymas the sorcerer withstanding them,
and endeavouring to turn away Sergius from the faith, is, at Saul's rebuke, struck blind.
From this time Saul is always called by his new name, Paul: he preacheth at Antioch ;
the gentiles believe, but the Jews gainsay and blaspheme ; whereupon he and his assist-
ants turn to the gentiles, and come to Iconium.
At Iconium they are persecuted, and ready to be stoned: from hence they fly to
Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lycaonia. At Lystra, Paul healing a cripple, the multitude
cry out, that the gods are come down ; and call Barnabas, Jupiter, and Paul, Mercurius:
and would have sacrificed to them, had not the apostles, with clothes rent, run in amongst
them, and assured them, that they were men like themselves. Soon after there came
Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who excite the people against them. Paul is by the
furious multitude stoned, and drawn out of the city as dead; but whilst the disciples
stand about him, he riseth up, and the next day departs with Barnabas to Derbe. .
In this year, perhaps at this very time, Paul was caught up into the third heaven, and
heard unspeakable words, fourteen years before he wrote his Second Epistle to the
Corinthians.
About this time Timothy, though a child, with his mother Eunice, and his grandmother
Lois, embrace the Christian faith preached by Paul.
Certain Judaizing Christians come from Judea to Antioch, and teach, that the gentiles
ought to be circumcised, and observe the law of Moses: these Paul and Barnabas op-
pose ; and a council is held by the apostles and others at Jerusalem to determine this
controversy. The decrees of the synod are sent to the churches.
Paul and Barnabas, thinking to visit the churches together, fall at strife, and part
asunder: Barnabas and Mark go into Cyprus; Paul and Silas into Syria and Cilicia.
Paul coming to Derbe, finds there Timothy, whom (because his mother was a believing
| Jew, though his father a gentile,) he caused to be circumcised, and takes along with him.
He is, by a vision, admonished to go into Macedonia : coming to Philippi, the chief
city of that part of Macedonia, he converts Lydia ; casteth out of a certain maid-servant
a spirit of divination, whose master, losing a considerable gain thereby, brings Paul and
Silas before the magistrates: these cause them to be whipped, and imprisoned ; but at
CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX. 1205
The year
after
Christ.
54.
55.
86.
57.
58.
59.
60.
6].
62.
63.
66.
67.
70.
Acts xvii.
xviii.
18.
1 Cor. i. l. l.
xvi. 8.
Acts xx.
2 Cor. viii, l, 2.6. 19.
1 Cor. xvi. 5.
Acts xx. 3, 4.
xxi.
xxii. xxiii.
xxiv.
XXV,
XXVI.
xxviii.
Heb. xiii. 24.
Tit, i 5.
Euseb. His Eccl. ib.
ii. cap. 24.
Luke xix. 43,44. "
|midnight, Paul and Silas singing psalms, the doors of the prison fly open, and their
bonds are loosed : the jailor, ready to kill himself, is converted to the faith and baptized
the same night, with his whole family. Next day the magistrates come themselves,
|and pray them to depart the city. * .
From Philippi, Paul takes his journey through Amphipolis and Apollonia, and comes
to Thessalonica, where he finds a synagogue of the Jews ; there he preacheth three sab-
bath-days ; some believe, others persecute him : leaving Thessalonica, he comes to
Berea, and soon after arrives at Athens, disputes with the philosophers, and declares
unto them, that “unknown God” whom they had ignorantly worshipped. He converts
Dionysius the Areopagite, and thence passeth to Corinth.
Paul at Corinth meets with Aquila and Priscilla, not long before banished from Rome
by the decree of Claudius. Here he continues a year and six months, and thence
| writes to the Thessalonians.
Paul is accused by the Jews, and brought before Gallio, proconsul of Achaia, who
refuseth to be a judge in a controversy about religion, and so drives them away from the
judgment-seat. -
Paul departs from Corinth, and passeth to Ephesus; thence he sets out towards Je-
rusalem, that he may be at the feast ; he lands at Caesarea, goes down to Antioch, and
comes into the regions of Galatia and Phrygia, confirming, the disciples in all those .
places. -
Paul returns to Ephesus, disputes daily in the school of Tyrannus, and continues
preaching there, and in the parts thereabouts. He writes his Epistle to the Galatians.
At Ephesus, Demetrius, a silversmith, jealous of his gain, raiseth a tumult against
Paul, which is appeased by the town-clerk.
About this time a schism ariseth in the church of Corinth, which causeth Paul (now
in or about Ephesus) to write his First Epistle to the Corinthians. -
Paul departs from Ephesus, and comes into Macedonia, and gathers a contribution for
the relief of the saints at Jerusalem. - -
The apostle, having learned from Titus the success of his First, writes now his Second
Epistle to the Corinthians: out of Macedonia he goes into Greece, and comes to Corinth,
where he writes his Epistle to the Romans.
Paul purposing to go directly from thence into Syria, that he may carry the collections
|to Jerusalem, the Jews lay wait for him: he, understanding this, thinks it best to return
|into Macedonia the same way he came, and thence to pass into Asia.
After the days of unleavened bread, Paul sails from Philippi, and comes to Troas;
there he restores Eutychus to life. Having passed through several cities of Greece, he
arrives at Miletus ; from thence he sends to call the elders of the church of Ephesus,
whom he earnestly exhorts to the performance of their duty.
. Paul comes to Jerusalem, is apprehended in the temple, and secured in the castle;
he claimeth the privilege of a Roman, and escapeth scourging.
Paul pleads his cause before Ananias the high-priest. The chief captain, under-
tanding that above forty Jews had bound themselves under a curse neither to eat nor
drink till they had killed him, sends him to Felix the governor of the province, by whom
he is imprisoned at Caesarea.
Paul is accused before Felix, by Tertullus the orator. Felix goes out of his office,
and, to gratify the Jews, leaves Paul in prison. Portius Festus succeeds him in the
government. -
The Jews come to Caesarea, and accuse Paul before Festus. He answers for himself,
and appeals to Caesar. King Agrippa comes to Caesarea, and Festus opens the matter
to him.
Paul makes his defence in the presence of Agrippa, who thereby is almost per-
suaded to be a Christian ; and the whole company pronounce him innocent.
Paul comes to Rome, is a prisoner at large, and preacheth there two years.
Here ends the history of the Acts of the Apostles, written by St. Luke, St. Paul's
beloved companion in his travels.
ST. Paul, from Rome, writes his Epistles,
To the Philippians;
To Philemon ;
To the Colossians;
To the Ephesians. - *
About the latter end of this year, St. Paul is set at liberty; and a little before his
| departure out of Italy into Asia he writes his Epistle to the Hebrews.
He preacheth the gospel in the isle of Crete, and leaves Titus there, to set things in
order, and ordain elders in every city.
St. Paul writes his Epistle,
To Timothy I.
To Titus;
To Timothy II. - -
About this time, the Epistles of St. Peter; St. John, and St. Jude, seem to be written.
St. Peter and St. Paul are said to have suffered martyrdom at Rome, towards the
latter end of Nero's reign. .
This year, Jerusalem (according to Christ's prophecy) is besieged, taken, sacked, and
burnt by Titus, eleven hundred thousand of Jews perish, ninety-seven thousand are taken
prisoners, besides an innumerable company that in other places of Judea killed them-
selves, or perished through famine, banishment, and other miseries.
St. John is banished into the isle of Patmos, by Domitian, and there receives and
writes his Revelation.
After the death of Domitian, St. John returns to Ephesus, and at the request of the
church writés his Gospel. -
1206
#
AN ALPHABETICAL TABLE
OF
ALL THE PLACES
MENTIONED IN THE GOSPELS, ACTS, OR THE EPISTLES.
ABILENE is one of the four tetrarchies, mentioned Luke
iii. 1. It fell, say St. Luke and Josephus,” to the share of
Lysanias: it was so named from the city Abila in Coelosyria,
mentioned by Pliny, and from the tetrarch of it bore his
name; for, saith Ptolemy, "A8wa ŚrixAnósio a Avvaviov,
“Abila bears the name of Lysanias.”
ACHAIA, in the largest sense, comprehends Greece pro-
perly so called, and so is bounded on the west by Epirus, on
the east by the AEgean Sea, on the north by Macedonia, on
the south by Peloponnesus ; and so it seems to signify, when
St. Paul, according to the Roman acceptation, mentions “all
the regions of Achaia,” and directs his Second Epistle “to
all the saints in Achaia,” 2 Cor. xi. 10, Thus what is
“Achaia,” Acts xix. 21, is “Hellas,” i. e. Greece, Acts xx.
2, and so Mela speaks of it. Secondly, Achaia, strictly so
called, is the northern region of Peloponnesus, bounded on
the north by the gulf of Corinth, on the south with Arcadia,
on the east with Sicyonia, and on the west with the Ionian
Sea.
ACELDAMA was a place without the south wall of Jerusa-
lem, beyond the river of Siloam, and was called “the pot-
ter's field,” Matt. xxvii. 7. 10, because they dug thence the
earth of which they made their pots; and “the fuller's field,”
because they dried their cloth there; but being afterward
bought, by that money by which the high-priest and rulers
of the Jews purchased the blood of the holy Jesus, it was,
by the providence of God so ordering it, called Aceldama,
that is, “the field of blood,” Acts i. 19. Matt. xxvii. 7, 8.
ADRAMYTTIUM (mentioned Acts xxvii. 2, where it is said,
that St. Paul entered into a ship of Adramyttium) is, by St.
Jerome; and others, said to be a city of Egypt, built by
Alexander as a monument of his triumphs, at the Can-
opic mouth of the river Nile, from which it received its
water, and is by Livy, the old Etymologus, and Phavorinus,
made to be $ the same with Thebes ; but it was rather Adra-
myttium in Mysia, mentioned by Strabo, lib. xiii. p. 417,
by Pliny, lib. v. cap. 30, p. 298, and by Mela, lib. i. cap. 18.
lib. xvii. For in this ship, St. Paul and his company sailed
from Caesarea to Myra in Lycia, the direct way to Adra-
myttium in Mysia, ver. 5, whither she being bound, and not
to Italy, they there quit her, and “finding a ship of Alexan-
dria sailing to Italy,” went aboard her, ver, 6.
ADRIA is mentioned Acts xxvii. 27, where St. Paul saith,
that they were tossed in Adria: he saith, not in the Adriatic
gulf, which ends with the Illyrican sea, but in the Adriatic
sea, which, saith Hesychius, is the same with the Ionian
sea. And therefore to the question, How St. Paul's ship,
which was near Malta, and so either in the Libyan or Sici-
lian sea, could be in the Adriatic P it is well answered. That
not only the Ionian, but even the Sicilian sea, and part of
that which washeth upon Crete, was called the Adriatic.
Thus Ptolemy saith, that Sicily was bounded on the east,
itrè rod Abelow, “by the Adriatic ;” and that Crete was com-
passed on the west," in toi. 'A3ptatikoi; ºrixáyovº, “by the
Adriatic sea;” and Strabo saith,” that the Ionian gulf,
*śćc; Earl rod vöv 'A33iou Aeyop, #vov, “is a part of that which in
his time was called the Adriatic sea.”
* Avraviou 33 air; #ysyóvel rerpaºxia, Antiq. lib. xx. cap.
5. Luke iii. 1.
+ Lib. v. cap. 19.
§ Oñéat # vöv 'A3eapºt retov,
* Cap. 16.
i. In locis Act.
| Geogr. lib. iii. cap. 4.
* Lib. vii. p. 219.
AENON, or ENON, signifies the placc of springs, which made
it a convenient place for St. John's baptism, John iii. 23 ; it
is uncertain where it was, whether in Galilee, or Judea, or
Samaria, where Lubin places it, viz. in the half tribe of
Manasseh, within Jordan. - -
ALEXANDRIA, that noble mart, whence merchandises were
carried through all the world, was, after the destruction of
Carthage, the chief city in the world, next to Rome, and
was therefore called emphatically,” ºréxić, as that was called
wrbs; and Athens, &arv. The Ptolemies of Egypt, choosing
it as their seat, beautified it to that degree, that it gave place
to Rome only ; and the Romans, when they had taken it,
were careful to preserve its splendour, divers emperors add-
ing new ornaments to it, and confirming its privileges. It
was a large city, saith Josephus, in length thirty furlongs,
in breadth ten, which provided Rome with four months’
corn; and paid as much tribute to it in a month, as Jerusa-
lem did in a year. Here was a celebrated academy, which
bred famous physicians and philosophers, as Philo the Jew,
and historians; and a great library, collected by Ptolemy
Philadelphus, containing five hundred thousand volumes,
and consumed in the wars betwixt Caesar and Pompey; near
to it is the island of Pharos, where some deceitful Jews
showed Justin Martyr the remains of the cells, where the
the Seventy-two interpreters translated the Hebrew Bible
into Greek, apart, and yet in the same words; of which see
the preface to St. Matthew. Here dwelt the Jews in vast
numbers ; Alexander, for the service they did him in his
wars, permitting them to dwell there, and giving them equal
privileges with the gentiles; here they had many synagogues,
a famous cathedral of seventy stalls, and afterward a temple
built by Onias; but they found the Alexandrians their con-
stant enemies, they cruelly murdering many thousand of
them in the time of Caius, of which Philo gives a large ac-
count in his embassy to him ; and fifty thousand of them
in the time of Nero, saith Josephus de Bell Jud. lib. ii.
cap. 36.
AETHIoPIA is only mentioned in the history of the bap-
tism of the eunuch, Acts viii. 27, where I have shown, the
evangelist speaks not of AEthiopia in Arabia, where the
queen of Sheba dwelt, but of Æthiopia in Africa, under
Egypt, where Candace had been long the name of their
queen ; whence Strabojº makes mention of a Candace, à wa8”
#43; hefts rāv Aišićtroy, “who in his time was queen of
AEthiopia,” and Dio $ of the same Candace living in AEthio-
pia under Egypt. See the note on Acts viii. 27.
AMPHIPOLIS, mentioned Acts xvii. 1, is a city of Macedo-
nia, in the confines of Thrace, so called, saith Thucydides,
because the river compasseth it about. Suidas, who places
it, as others do, in Thracia, says it was also formerly called
“the nine ways.” See Mr. Well's Geogr. p. 134, and Ste-
phanus de Urbibus. •
ANTIOCHIA, the metropolis of Syria, was built, say some,
by Antiochus Epiphanes ; say others, by Seleucus Nicanor,
the first king of Syria after Alexander M., in memory of his
father Antiochus, and was" the royal seat of the kings of
Syria, or the place where the palace was ; for power and
* Steph. de Urbibus.
+ De B. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 28, p. 807, 808.
3: Lib. xvii. p. 564. § Lib. liv. p. 599.
| Lib. iv. p. 321.
T; T3 62o ſatio, ivraúða fºuro roſ; exoval r}:
Xºgaº.
* GEOGRAPHICAL TABLE.
1207
dignity, saith Strabo,” it is not mucn inferior to Seleucia,
or Alexandria: it was, saith Josephus, the third great city
of all that belonged to the Roman provinces; it was called
Antiochia apud Daphnem, near Daphne, i. e. the village
where her temple was, to distinguish it from the other four-
teen mentioned by Stephanus de Urbibus, and by Eustathius
in Dionys. p. 170, or, as others, and among them. Appianus
in Syriacis, sixteen cities in Syria, and elsewhere, which bore
that name. It was celebrated among the Jews for the jus
civitatis, which Seleucus Nicanor had given to them in that
city with the Grecians and Macedonians, and which, saith
Josephus, they still retained ; and for the wars of the
Maccabeans with those kings: among Christians, for being
the place where they first received that name, and where
both St. Luke and Theophilus were born, and inhabited.
There was also another Antioch in Pisidia, mentioned Acts
xiii. 14. *
ANTIPATRIs; this place was formerly called Capharsalama,
1 Macc. vii. 31, and was of little repute till it was rebuilt by
Herod in the plain of Capharzaba, which, saith Josephus, Š
was watery, and fit for plants, with a river, and a grove com-
passing the city; it was eighteen miles from Jerusalem, and
in the way to Caesarea Palestine, Acts xxiii. 31, and within
the borders of Samaria, and the half tribe of Manasseh.
APOLLONIA was a city of Macedonia, lying betwixt Am-
phipolis and Thessalonica: for, saith Luke, “When we had
passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, we came to
Thessalonica.” Geographers say there were fourteen cities,
and two islands of that name, and Stephanus reckons twen-
ty-five. -
ARABIA is only mentioned by Paul, saying, that after his
conversion he went first into Arabia, Gal. i. 17, where some
make him to have staid three years, without any business
he did there that they knew of, and without any ground;
for both the design of Paul, which was to prove that he re-
ceived not his gospel from man, but from the immediate re-
velation of Jesus Christ, and his declaration, that he preached
first at Damascus, and then at Jerusalem, Acts xxvi. 20,
seem to make it no improbable conjecture, that as Christ,
after his baptism, went immediately into the wilderness of
Judea, so did Paul, after his baptism, go into Arabia Le-
serta, where he received his knowledge of that gospel which
he preached by revelation from Christ Jesus, and thence re-
turning to Damascus, Gal. i. 17, he straightway preached
Christ at Damascus, Acts ix. 20, and so continued to do
many days, or a considerable time, ver. 23. We read also
of Cretes and Arabians, Acts ii. 11, where by Cretes some
think we are not to understand the inhabitants of Crete, that
island being far from Arabia, but the Cherithim, a Philistine
nation and couhtry, rendered Kpfirs; by the Septuagint, Ezek.
xxv. 16. Zeph. ii. 5, 6. But Libya and Rome, mentioned
ver. 10, were at a greater distance. The Arabians were an-
ciently called Ishmaelites and Hagarenes, the first from Ish-
mael the son of Hagar, the second from mount Hagar in
Arabia (see note on Gal. iv. 25). This large country, reach-
ing from Euphrates to Egypt, was divided into three parts;
Arabia Deserta, so called probably from the word Araba,
which signifies desert, which lay full east of Judea, and is
called by Straboll Schenitis, by reason of the tents in which
that wandering nation dwelt; and the inhabitants of it are
in scripture called the men of the east, Gen. xxv. 6. Judg.
vi. 3, having Syria on the west, Mesopotamia on the north,
Arabia Felix on the east, and Petraea on the south. 2. Pe-
traºa, so called from the rockiness of it, or from the strong
city Petra, built on a rock, whence the Soldans keep their
treasure in it; and in this Arabia was mount Sinai, where
the law was given. 2dly, It hath Palestine and Arabia
Deserta on the north, on the east and south Arabia Felix,
of the west part of Egypt and the Arabian gulf. 3dly,
Arabia Felix, lying betwixt the Persian gulf and the Red
Sea, a fertile country, producing laudanum, myrrh, cassia,
and many other drugs and spices, celebrated on that account ||
not only by the poets (see Lloyd's Dictionary), but by Dio-
nysius P. and Eustathius'ſ upon him, by Strabo, Pliny,
* Lib. xvi. p. 517. + Lib. iii. cap. 1, p. 832.
# Antiq. lib. xii. cap. 13. -
§ Antiq. lib. xvi. cap. 9. | Lib. xvi. p. 528.
ſ
t jº tº *
A#yet 35'H;áčoro; iv ºn tº 'Apašig pºsasai Xigayoryza,
Herodotus, and Q. Curtius; and that part of it especially,
saith Strabo, p. 535, which is the most happy nation of the
Sabeans, and where is gold, which the Arabian magi brought
with them when they came to Christ. See the note on
Matt. ii. 1.
Asia, as it is mentioned by ancient geographers, is one of
the largest divisions of the world into three parts; but in
the New Testament it is taken for Asia Minor only, as it
contains the Proconsular Asia, consisting of four regions, of
Phrygia, Mysia, Caria, and Lydia, saith Cicero:* of which
see Bishop Usher in his treatise of the Lesser Asia. In
this Proconsular Asia were the seven churches mentioned in
* is tº º º
the Revelation, ch. ii. iii. -
Assos, Acts xx. 13, is a town in Troas; for Paul went
from Troas to it. It is memorable, saith Pliny," for the
lapis sarcophagus, which burns up and consumes flesh; of
which see Vossius in P. Melam, p. 88, 89. Besides this,
there seems to have been another Assos in Crete, of which
see the note on Acts xxvii. 13. . .
ATHENs was a city of Greece properly so called, and of
the subdivision of it named Achaia; it was so called from
'A6%yn, i. e. Minerva, to whom it was consecrated. In it was
a celebrated academy, which, saith Cornelius Nepos, f for
antiquity, humanity, and learning, made it excel all the
cities of the world; whose inhabitants, Saith Cicero, Š were
the inventors of all learning, the men who invented and
perfected eloquence, and from whom humanity, learning,
religion, and laws were dispersed through the whole world;
but then to qualify these commendations, he adds, they only
knew what was right, but would not do it; they were, saith
Plutarch, suspicious and vain-glorious; they were, Saith the
apostle, 8stºričaipzováatspot, “very superstitious,” and great
worshippers of idols, and so were vain in their imaginations,
and their foolish heart was darkened. See the note on Acts
xvii. 16. 22, and Dr. Hammond there, and Lloyd in voce.
ATTALIA was a city of Pamphylia, built by king Attalus,
whence St. Paul goes from Perga in Pamphylia to it, Acts
xiv. 25. It was a sea-port, and the chief residence of the
prefect. Strabo, lib. xiv. p. 459.
Azotus, the Ashdod of the Philistines, where the ark of
God triumphed over their Dagon, 1 Sam. v. 2, and where
Jonathan," having routed the army of Apollonius, burnt
both their god and their temple, and all who fled to it for
refuge. It lay about thirty miles distant from Gaza towards
Joppa, so that the angel, when he caught up Philip, Acts
viii. 40, carried him so many miles. It was in the tribe of
Dan, and lay in the middle between Acaron and Geth.
BABYLon. By Babylon, the Jews understand not only
Chaldea, but also Mesopotamia, Assyria, and even all those
kingdoms to which they were carried in the Babylonian cap-
tivity: and for this they have ground from the scriptures of
the Old Testament, which extend that name to the whole
empire of Babylon ; as when the destruction of Babylon is
represented as the destruction, Śān; rā; oizovºvnº, “of the
whole empire,” Isa. xii. 9. 11, and from the use of the word
among the heathens: for Pliny saith, Babylon, of the Chal-
daic nation, had long the eminency over the whole world,”
on which account the rest of Mesopotamia and Assyria was
reckoned a part of it. I have shown, note on 1 Pet. v. 13,
that, according to the fathers, the name of Babylon was
given to Rome by Peter, and, according to the same fathers,
the name of mystical Babylon;t was given to her also, partly
gºſpyny wai kaalay, xiváºwgoy Kai Ahbayoy, in Dionys, a v. 927
–935. Herodot. lib. iii. cap. 112, 113. Plin. lib. v. cap.
11, lib. xii. cap. 17–19. Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 532. Q. Curt.
lib. v.
* Asia vestra constat ex Phrygia, Mysia, Caria, Lydia.
Orat. pro Flacco, n. 51.
+ Lib. ii. cap. 96. £ In Vitā Attici. -
§ Omnium doctrinarum inventrices Athenas. Lib. de Orat.
n. 7. Adsunt Athenienses, unde humanitas, doctrina, reli-
gio, jura, leges ortae. Orat. pro Flacco, n. 48.
| De Polit. Praecept. p. 799. ,
‘i Jos. Antiq. lib. xiii. cap. 8, p. 436.
* Propter quam reliqua pars Mesopotamia Assyriaeque
Babylonia appellata est, lib. vi. Gap. 26, p. 356.
++ Sic et Babylon, apud Johannem nostrum, Romanæ ur-
1208
GEOGRAPHICAL | TABLE.
for her greatness, pride, and oppression of God's people, and
partly for her resemblance of it in idolatry, that kingdom
so fully representing the idolatry of the church of Rome, in
the description given of it in the sixth chapter of Baruch,
that scarce any real difference betwixt them can be observed.
BEREA, mentioned Acts xvii. 10, is a city of Macedonia;”
a great and populous city, saith Lucian. This was the city
to which Paul and Silas fled from Thessalonica, and where
they found a synagogue of the best-natured Jews and prose-
lytes they met with ; for they received the word with all
readiness, and examined it by the best test of truth, the
scriptures; and so the converts there were many of both
sorts, ver. 11, 12,
BITHYNIA is a region of Asia Minor,”h bounded on the
north with the Euxine sea, on the south with Phrygia, on
the west with the Propontis, on the east with Galatia. It
was anciently called Bebraica and Mygdonia, say Servius, i.
Solinus, and Mart. Capella, and afterward Bithynia, from
Bithynus, the king of it, say most geographers; from Ilon,
the belly or interior parts, saith Bochart; both Pliny $ and
Mela representing them as possessing the inward parts of
that region only. The old Geographer, published by Gotho-
fred, styles them|| “the greatest and, most happy nation,”
in which the first general council of Nice was held.
BETHABARA signifies a place or passage. It was a water
distinct from Jordan, and removed somewhat from it, John
i. 28. x, 40, to which men passed over Jordan; the town
was out of the precincts of Judea, in the Scythopolitan coun-
'try, where the Jews dwelt among the Syro-Grecians, and
was over against Galilee: So Dr. Lightfoot; over against
Jericho, Josh. iii. 16. d
BETHANY took its name from a tract of ground so called
from Athene, which signifies the dates of palm-trees, which
grew there plentifully : the town of Bethany where Lazarus
dwelt, and where he was raised from the dead, was fifteen
furlongs from Jerusalem, John xi. 8, but the tract of ground
that bore that name reached within eight furlongs of Jeru-
salem, it being only a sabbath-day's journey from it, Luke
xxiv. 50. Acts i. 12, and then began the tract called Beth-
page, from the phagi; i.e. the green figs which grew upon
it, which ran along so near to Jerusalem, that the outmost
street within the walls was called by that name. St. Jerome
saith there was villula, a little village there, of the same
Il&DI] e.
BETH-LEHEM, “the house of bread,” was the place where
Christ, “the bread of life,” was born, as the Jerusalem Ge-
marists confess: it was a city in the time of Boaz, for he
styles it “the city of his people,” Ruth iii. 11, and goes up
to the gates of it, iv. 1. It was a city fortified by Reho-
hoam, 2 Chron. xi. 6. It is called David's city, 1 Sam. xx.
6. 29; and therefore when every tribe and family went up
to their respective cities to be taxed, Luke ii. 3, Joseph gocs
up to this city of David, ver. 4. Though therefore it be
called by the Jews wºn, a “town,” or “village,” John vii.
42, that only signifies, that, being one of the least cities, it
might comparatively be called so, as Nain is by Josephus,
vide Nain; and the Hebrew hy, a city, is often rendered
by the Seventy wdºwn, where our translation speaks of cities,
as Joshua x. 37. xv. 9. 1 Chron. xxvii. 25. Isa. xlii. 11. It
might be, after the destruction of Jerusalem, a village, as it
is twice called by Justin Martyr." In St. Jerome it is
sometimes a city, and sometimes a village, but then, that he
styles it only comparatively a village, may be gathered from
his own words** on Micah v. 2.
13ETHESDA, the pool of Bethesda is the same with the
pool of Siloam, of which see there, and notes on John v. * *
It was a pool in Jerusalem, saith Jerome, and had the
bis figuram portat (figura est) proinde et magna et regno
superba et sanctorum debellatricis. Tertull. contra Mar-
cion. lib. iii. cap. 13, adv. Jud. cap. 9, p. 193. Wide Dow-
nam de Sede Antichristi, lib. i. cap. 7.
* Mºyáàn Kai Troxlavāpoº. De Asino, p. 639, D.
+ Ortel. It Bebraica ipsa est Bithynia. AEn. v. p. 373.
§ Tement oram omnem Thyni, interiora Bithyni. Plin.
lib. v. cap. 32. Interius Bithyni. Mela, lib. i. cap. 10.
| Miyiz’rn zai £ext{ºrn. * Dial. p. 303, 304.
** Minima quidem es in civitatibus Judae, et tantis milli.
bus comparata, vix parvus est viculus.
did so, laid up their clothes in one of the porches.
name of ºrpoëarikh, “the sheep-pool,” from the sacrifices.
washed there by the priests; he adds, that there is yet a
lake there,” whose waters are very red, as if mixed with
blood, giving testimony of what was done there of old.
Dr. Lightfoot saith these sacrifices were washed elsewhere,
and that the unclean washed in this pool, and whilst they .
Of the
miracles wrought there by the angel descending, and of the
miracle wrought by our Lord, see the note there.
BETHSAIDA, saith Bochart, is a place of fishing, as it
might be called, because situated, saith Pliny," on the east
of the lake Gennesareth ; in Batanea, and the lower Gau-
lonitis, saith Josephus, at the beginning of the mountain-
ous country. It is a place of hunting, saith Dr. Lightfoot,
So called because it stood near Naphtali, where there were
store of deer, Naphtali abounding in venison, Gen. xlix. 21.
It was raised by Philip from a village to the honour of a
city, and called Julia, in honour of the emperor's daughter.
It was one of the cities against which Christ denounced a
woe, Matt. xi. 21, for her impenitence and infidelity, after
the mighty works he had done in her: it also was the city
where three apostles dwelt; viz. Philip, Andrew, and Peter,
John i. 45.
CANA. There were two Canas besides Galilee; one in the
tribe of Asher, Josh. xix. 28, called by Jerome, “Cana the
great ; another in the tribe of Ephraim, Josh. xvi. 8. xvii.
9, and two in Galilee, the one in the north part of the lower
Galilee, and dividing it from the upper; and Cana of Gali-
lee, or the less, situated over against Julius Betharampta,
on the west of Capernaum, whence Christ, after he had
wrought his first miracle there, went down to Capernaum,
John ii. 12, and when he was returned thither, the noble-
man comes from Capernaum to him there, John iv. 46, 47.
Of this Cana Josephus speaks, saying, Év Kºpºn rºi; TaxiMaia:
§ 7porayogeſsrai Káva,S “In a village of Galilee which was
called Cana.”
CANAAN was twofold: the larger terminated on the south
part with the desert of Sin or Cades, on the north with
mount Libanus and Antilibanus, on the east with the river
Euphrates, and with the Mediterranean sea on the west: so
Deut. xi. 24. Josh. i. 3, 4, “I’very place that the sole of
your foot shall tread upon, that have I given you : from the
wilderness (of Paran) and (or, even to) Libanus, and to the
great river Euphrates, and to the great sea shall your coast
be ;’ accordingly Joshua saith, “God gave to Israel all the
land which he sware to give to their fathers, and they pos-
sessed it and dwelt in it,” Josh. xxi. 43. 45, and xxiii. 14
“There failed not any good thing which the Lord had spo-
ken to the house of Israel; all came to pass.” How this
could be said by him who had left so much of the sever,
nations unsubdued, Judg. i., and who divided not to them.
the whole land of Canaan, but only that part of it which
was possessed by the seven nations, is a great question ; to
which the usual answer is, that he gave them a right to the
whole country, dividing it among them by a lot ordered and
directed by him, and he gave them the actual possession of
the greatest part of it, with power to subdue the rest if they
continued obedient ; and more was not intended presently,
the Lord not having promised to give them the whole land
at once, they being not sufficient to people the whole coun-
try, but by degrees, as their increase should make them
ready for, and their obedience should-continue their right to
it : for thus saith God by Moses, Exod. xxiii. 29, “I will
not drive them out before thee in one year, lest the land
become desolate, and the beasts of the field multiply against
thee; but by little and little I will drive them out before
thee, until thou be increased to inherit the land.” To
which may be added, that Joshua gave them all the land
their feet had trod on, and more God did not promise to
them in the words cited from him. -
Canaan the less is extended from the wilderness in the
* Mirum in modum rubens quasi cruentis aquis antiqui
operis sigma testatur, nam hostias in eo lavari à Sacerdotibus
Solitas fuerunt, unde et momen accepit. De Locis Heb. f. 4, C.
+ Lib. v. cap. 15. g
# De Bell. Jud. lib. ii, cap. 13, lib. iv. cap. 27.
§ De Wità Suá, p. 1003.
GEOGRAPHICAL TABLE.
1209
south to Libanus in the north, and from Jordan on the east
to the Midland sea on the west, the length of it being one
hundred and sixty miles, the breadth of it only fifty; and it
is thus described, Gen. x. 19, “The borders of the Canaan-
ites (i. e. the seven nations of them voted to destruction)
were from Sidon (i. e. the country of Sidon, which extend-
eth itself east as far as Jordan), as thou comest to Gerar
unto Gaza; and (the southern border is) as thou goest to
Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, even unto La-
sha,” i. e. the Aároa in Josephus,” towards Arabia Petraea,
See Bochart. Phaleg, lib. iv. cap. 37.
CAFERNAUM was a city seated near to the sea of Galilee
at the bottom of the lake of Gennesareth; for Christ's dis-
ciples came from the wilderness of Bethsaida over the lake
to the land of Gennesareth, Matt. xiv. 34. Mark vi. 46,
and yet to Capernaum, John vi. 16. 24. It was in the
borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim, Matt. iv. 13, renowned
on the account of Christ's habitation and his many mira-
cles, which brought woe upon them for their infidelity,
Matt. xi. 23. Near this town was the mountain where
Christ preached his excellent sermon, for coming down
thence he went to Capernaum, Matt. viii. 5, i. e. a jour-
ney of ten miles, if Thabor was that mount, as it is con-
jectured by Jerome on the place; and near it also was the
custom-house, at which Matthew the publican sat when
Christ called him, for he called him “as he passed from his
own city,” Matt. ix. 1. 9.
CAPPADoCIA was a kingdom bounded on the east with
Armenia, on the west with Paphlagonia and Galatia, on
the north with the Euxine sea, on the south with that
part of mount Taurus which looks towards Cilicia: it was
famed for: mules and horses, of which it gave yearly to
the Persians, horses one thousand five hundred, mules two
thousand. It was a nation so servile, saith Strabo,S that
when the Romans offered them their freedom to live by
their own laws, they said they could not endure liberty:
they were, Saith Cicero, de grege venalium. Orat. post
Red. in Senat. n. 12.
CESAREA PALESTINE, so called, as being the metropolis
of Palestine and the seat of the Roman proconsul, was
formerly named the Tower of Strato; but being a mart.
town, whose haven was very incommodious, Herod the
Great built there a large city with many|| stately marble
buildings, a theatre of stone, and a most capacious amphi-
theatre (where Herod Antipas was smitten by an angel of
God see the note on Acts xii. 23), and an admirable haven,
with marble edifices and towers, the greatest of which he
called Drusus, in honour of the emperor's son ; the city
Caesarea, in honour of Caesar: it was situated between
Doron and Joppa, thirty-five miles from Jerusalem, and
was inhabited'ſ partly by the Jews, who had their schools
there ; but chiefly by the Greeks or Syrians, betwixt whom
there were feuds, regi rāg iroroxtreias, “concerning equal
privileges,” the Caesareans killing about one thousand two
hundred Jews, when Florus was procurator of Judea.
Here Peter converted Cornelius and his kinsmen, the first-
fruits of the gentiles, Acts x.; here lived Philip the evangelist,
Acts xxi. 8; and here Paul defended himself against the
Jews and their orator Tertullus, Acts xxiv.
CAESAREA PHILIPPI, mentioned Matt. xvi. 13. Mark viii.
27, was first called Lais or Lashem, Judg. xviii. 7, and
when subdued by the Danites, Dan, v. 29. It was built by
Philip the tetrarch of Iturea and Trachonitis, Luke iii. I,
who made it the place of his residence, as being conveniently
seated between both. He built it, saith Josephus,” at Pã.
meas, by the springs of Jordan, and called it Caesarea Philippi,
and also Nerodiada in honour of Nero. It was seated at
the Springs of Jordan the less, not far from Libanus in the
midland Phoenicia, Saith Ptolemy, and was a Decapolitar.
* Antiq. lib. xiv. cap. 2.
+ Strab. lib. xii. p. 367.
§ Lib. xii. p. 372.
| Jos. Antiq. lib. xv. cap. 13.
T. ſovºaiac way zai ră răsăy tºp’ ‘Exxâyov irozova #yny. Jos.
de Bell. Jud. lib. iii. cap. 28. Antiq. l.b. xx. cap. 6. lib.
ii. cap. 30. -
** Hºº: Taº, 'Io;8&vov rºya?:, #y IIaytā8 réAw wrići, Kairá.
gºtº. Antiq, lib. xviii, cap. 3. lib. xx. cap. 8. -
† Lib. xi. p. 362.
city called Caesarea-Panias, or Sub-Panio ; not because of
the worship of Panius Philostorgius, or by reason of the
springs of Paneas, as Pliny,” but by reason of the mountain
Panius mentioned by Josephus and Eusebius, under which
it lies. What Eusebius saith of the two statues of Corin-
thian brass, erected here by the woman cured at Capernaum
of the bloody flux, see confuted in the note on Mark
W. 26. -
CEDRON. Of the brook Cedron, which our Lord passed
over to go into the garden where he was betrayed, John
xviii. 1, mention is made when David fled from Absalom,
for he passed over the brook Kidron, 2 Sam. xv. 23, and
when king Solomon saith to Shimei, “In the day that thou
passest over the brook Kidron thou shalt surely die.” . See
also Jer. xxxi. 40, where the Septuagint always speaks of
Kéðgay, or rāv Káðgoy, in the plural ; it was, saith Jerome, i.
a torrent or valley near to Jerusalem, on the east side be-
twixt it and mount Olivet ; a deep valley, saith Josephus :::
and into this valley was conveyed the blood poured out at
the foot of the altar, which because it made the river look
black, some think it was called Cedron from the word
kiddar, which signifies blackness; others from the cedar-
trees planted on each side, whence, say they, it is still named
in the plural, tàv Káēgay, from these cedar-trees. .
CHALDEA is only mentioned in these words, Acts vii. 4,
“And Abraham came out of the land of the Chaldeans, and
dwelt in Charran,” where, by the land of the Chaldeans, we
are not to understand the country so named in Asia Major,
which was in the plain, but a mountainous country, which
is part of Mesopotamia, as appears from these words ; “God
appeared to Abraham while he was in Mesopotomia, before
he dwelt in Charran; then came he out of the land of the
Chaldeans, and dwelt in Charran.” That both this Charran
and Chaldea lay in Mesopotamia, see Bochart, Phaleg, lib.
ii. cap. 6, and the note on Acts vii. 4.
CENCHREA was the isthmus of Corinth; distant seventy
furlongs from it, where were celebrated the Isthmian games;
whence the apostle, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, speaks
so oft in allusion to these games: see notes on 1 Epist. ix.
*** 2 Epist. iv. 7–9. Hence he tells them of a corrup-
tible crown for which they wrestled, their coronets being
either of the cºxlyov, “parsley,” which quickly withered, or
of ritu; “the pine-tree,” which soon decayed.
CLAUDA, Acts xxvii. 16, was an island near Crete, situa-
ted at the meeting of the southern and the western sea, of
which geographers say nothing, unless it be the Gaudus
mentioned by Pliny, lib. iv. cap. 12, and by Mela, lib. ii.
cap. 7. *~. -
CHIos, Acts x. 15, is an island of the AEgean sea, betwixt
Lesbos and Samos, celebrated by Horace; and Martial | for
the wine and figs that came from thence, and also by Pliny,
lib. v. cap. 31, and Strabo, lib, xiv. p. 444, for its marble
and white earth.
CILICIA, a country of Asia Minor, betwixt Pamphylia on
the west and Pieria on the east, the mount Taurus on the
north, and the Cilician Sea on the south, celebrated on the
account of Cicero, proconsul there, but more on the account
of St. Paul's birth at Tarsus, a city of Cilicia, Acts xxi. 15.
CoLoSSE was a city of Phrygia Major, built by the river
Lycus, near the place, saith Herodotus," where it begins to
run under ground, as it doth for five furlongs before it rises
again, and slides into Meander. To this city, situated at an
equal distance betwixt Laodicea and Hierapolis, mentioned
Col. ii. 1, came Xerxes in his expedition against Greece, and
to this city Paul writ an epistle. All these three cities
perished by an earthquake, saith Eusebius,” in the tenth of
Nero, that is, but two years after St. Paul's epistle was
sent to them. -
Coos, Acts xxi. 1, was an island in the AEgean or Icarian
sea, near Mindus or Cnidus, which had a city of the same
* Lib. v. cap. 15.—De Bell. Jud. lib. i. cap. 16. Hist. Eccl.
lib. vii. cap. 17.
+ In Locis Hebr. f. 5.
f De Bell. Jud. lib. v. cap. 8.
§ Serm. lib. i. sat. 10.
| Mart. vii. 25, 31. -
* Ei, Tràty ºf yáxny rā; º; yínç, lib. vii. cap, 30, p 396.
** Chron. ad an. Nerouis 10. -
1210
GEOGRAPHICAL TABLE.
name, from which Hippocrates the celebrated physician,
and Apelles the famous limner, were called Coi ; here was
a large temple of Æsculapius, and another of Juno ; it
abounded in rich wines, and here were made those Coa,
vestes which were transparent, and are so often mentioned
by the poets. -
CHORAzIN, saith Jerome, is a town in Galilee, which our
Lord deplores for her incredulity, Matt. xii. 22. Dr. Light-
foot wonders how such a woe 'should be denounced against
it, when we read not, in the whole New Testament, that our
Lord had ever been there; but that our Lord was frequently
at Bethsaida and Capernaum, copartners in that woe, we
read: now Chorazin being by Dr. Lightfoot placed betwixt
them, and being, saith Jerome," but two miles distant from
Capernaum, and in many maps but little distant from Beth-
saida, and it being said expressly, that “mighty works were
done in her,” doubtless Christ must have been often
there.
CNIDUs, mentioned Acts xxvii. 7, was a city and promon-
tory in the peninsula of Paria, celebrated for the worship of
Venus, hence called Venus Cnidia; whence Horaceh sings
thus, O Venus regina Cnidi; and for the statue of Venus
made by Praxiteles, and by Pliny: reckoned among the
admirable works of that artificer.
CoRINTH was a most noble city of Achaia Propria, called
anciently Ephire, saith Pliny;S and after Corinth, from
one Corinthus, who took and rebuilt it. It was considerable
among heathen authors for its citadel Acro-Corinthus, built
on a very high mountain, and for its|| insolence against the
Roman legates, which caused L. Mummius, thence styled
Achaicus, to destroy it ; in the conflagration of which city
so many statues were melted down, that the remains of
them made that famous Corinthian brass which was es-
teemed above gold or silver ; and of which, saith Josephus,
the Beautiful gate of the temple of Jerusalem was made (see
the note on Acts iii. 2). The Corinthians were noted for
their wisdom, hence styled by Cicero," “the light of all
Greece;” by Florus, decus Graeciaº, “the glory of Greece;”
and for their riches, for, saith Strabo” traovaria aravrö;
viripásy, “it was always rich.” They were filled with ora-
tors and philosophers; and from them, say the fathers,
came the contentions and false doctrines which sprang up
in that church, on the account of which Paul speaks thus to
them, “Ye are rich, ye are wise, ye are honourable,” 1 Cor.
iv. 9, 10. They also had a temple of Venus, to whom,
saith Strabo,'f-F “one thousand whores were consecrated,”
whence they became infamous to a proverb for that vice,
and for all kind of lasciviousness, which caused the apostle
in his epistles to them to speak so much against it: see the
preface to the First Epistle. Lastly, there was a great re-
sort of the Jews to this city, who, saith Philo, “inhabited
Koçiyºoy, kal trafforta wai &piata IIsaotrowhorov, Corinth, and the
chiefest and best parts of Peloponnesus,” and had one or
more synagogues there, Acts xviii. 8, whence came those
Judaizers and false apostles, so often mentioned in the epis-
tles to those churches.
CYPRUs, so called from the flower of the cypress-trees
growing there, as Pliny: speaking of the kinds of cypress,
and Eustathius $$ say, was an island, having on the east the
Syrian, on the west the Pamphylian, on the south the Phoe-
nician, on the north the Cilician sea: it was celebrated
among the heathens for its fertility, as being, say Straboll
* De Locis Hebr. f. 4, C.
ºf L. Carm. 30.
j: Lib. vii. 38, 36, 5. Athen, lib. xiii. p. 591.
§ Lib. v. cap. 4.
| Wel. Paterc. lib. i. cap. 13.
* Legati quëd erant appellati superbius, patres vestri
Corinthum, totius Graeca lumen, extinctum voluerunt.
Orat. pro Leg. Manil. n. 6.
** Lib. ii. cap. 16. lib. viii. p. 263.
++ Ibid. -
†† Tertium Cypro insula, odoris suavitate, Lib. xii. cap.
24.
§§ 'Awā ārôov; inst troxxeſſ puokašvov xúngov Alyopºyou.
Dionys. p. 110.
| Lib. xiv. p. 468, 469. Belus opimam—vastabat Cy-
prum. Virg. Æn. i. 625. Eustath, in Dionys, p. 100.
In
and Ammianus Marcellinus, sufficiently provided of all
things within itself, et nullius externi indigens ; whence it
was also called the rich and happy island, but was very*
infamous for the worship of Venus, who had thence her
name Kūreiç, and her title Venus Cypria; that demon, saith
Eustathius, delighting in that island for their adultery and
proneness to venery, they consecrating their women to
whoredom, and by a law compelling them to lie with stran-
gers, as the Babylonians did. It was memorable among the
Jews for being an island in which they so abounded, that at
one time they slew, saith Dio, two hundred and forty thou-
sand of the inhabitants, and were on that account forbid to
come afterward to that island; and among Christians for
being the place where Joses, called Barnabas, had the land
he sold, Acts iv. 36, and where Mnason an old disciple lived,
Acts xxi. 16.
DALMANUTHA, vide Magdala. i
DAMASCUs, a most ancient city, where Eliezer, the servant
of Abraham, dwelt ; built, saith Josephus, f by Uz the son
of Aram, mentioned Gen. x. 23, and situate in the valley
betwixt Libanus and Antilibanus, watered by the rivers Ab-
ana and Pharphar, 2 Kings v. 12, one of which is by
Pliny, Ś Strabo, and others, called Chrysorrhoas, by rea-
son of its golden sands: it was made tributary to David, 2
Sam. viii. 6, afterward it was the capital city of the kings of
Syria, Isa. vii. 8. It is a city famous for its antiquity, and
for being still one of the richest and most magnificent cities
of the Levant, but most of all for being the place of the
miraculous conversion of Paul. Here the Jews had their
synagogues, and converted to their religion'ſ most of the
women of the place, but the men entirely hated them, and
killed at one time twelve, at another eighteen thousand of
them, and their families.
DECAPOLIS, saith Jerome, was a country of ten cities be:
yond Jordan, which all do not reckon alike, saith Pliny,”
, who places them all beyond Jordan, except Scythopolis :
Josephushi saith, that Justus of Tiberias rā, św rii zveig Ai-
×atrósiº ÉiroNewsfro, “fought against the cities of Decapolis
in Syria,” and that when Vespasian came to Ptolemais, ºf
oi argårot rôy r?; 2vpia; Askarðasov, “the chief men of the
cities of Decapolis in Syria” complained to him against
Justus upon that account ; and of these cities S$ he saith,
that Hippo and Gadara were two: whence it is evident
Bochartus must mistake, when he places all these cities in
Galilee, and makes Tiberias to be one of them, it being Jus-
tus of Tiberias that fought against them. They were all
cities inhabited chiefly by the gentiles, though some of them
might be within the region of Judea.
DERBE was a city of Lycaonia near Isauria, mentioned
Acts xiv. 6. It was the seat of Antipater Derbæus, and the
country of Timothy.
EGYPT was bounded on the north with the Mediterranean;
on the east by Arabia Petraea, and the Red sea : on the
south by Ethiopia and Nubia ; on the west by Libya, and
the desert of Barca. It is divided into the upper Egypt,
through which Nile runneth with a single stream ; and into
lower Egypt, which begins where Nile divides, and so makes
the island, from its resemblance of the Greek A, called Delta,
* "ASvěºwa y&t ºv h yńao; rā Baikov. 34” h; wai Kūrei, rapa-
vák.aarai, rotto 8; 3.3 ºv rôy #xeſ &axxoadway zai rā āraqipët-
Tow. Eustath. ibid. p. 99. Tày Trºpi Kürgow &m A&; rzy śral-
pia wºv rá, Āavtåv Kága, à poaicăvrov. Athen, lib. xii. p. 516.
Tiº Körpov ša ri traga wañato; rońrº Vágos. Herodot. lib. i.
cap. 199.
+ Kai ätra,Xoyro kai ixit ºvetáēs; rāraags; wai sixoci, kai 31&
rojvo obºevi 'Iovězíº intôňval air㺠#sari. Epitome Trajani,
p. 255. -
# Antiq. lib. i. cap. 7, p. 15.
§ Lib. v. cap. 18.
| Lib. xvi. p. 539.
‘ſ Jos. de Bell. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 31, 7, 34, p. 992.
** Jungitur ei lateri Syriae Decapolitana regio, ä numero
ºidorum, in quo non omnes eadem observant. Lib. v.
++ De Vitā Suá, p. 1025 A.
.# Ibid. p. 1030,
§§ P. 1001, A.
GEOGRAPHICAL TABLE.
1211
:*
and then runs down to the Mediterranean shore, whence it
is also called Ægyptus Maritima. Of the river Nile, the
pyramids, their mummies, cities, customs, see geographers.
Of the names it hath in the Old Testament, see Bochärt.
For explication of some passages in the New, consider,
1st, The Egyptian language, which differed from the
Greek, as Bochart” proves against Kircher, and from the
Hebrew, whence the Jews in it are said to have “heard a
strange language,” Ps. lxxxi. 6, and coming from it, to have
come “from a barbarous people,” Ps. cxiv. 1 (see the
note on 1 Cor. xiv. 11). Hence Joseph, representing an
Egyptian, speaks to his brethren by an interpreter, Gen. xlii.
23, and it is prophesied by Isaiah, xix. 18, that five Egyp-
tian cities should speak the language of Canaan, i.e. of
those who lived there. Hence Chiun, which in the He-
brew is put for Saturn (as also it signifies among the Per-
sians and Ishmaelites), is, by the Septuagint, who made
their translation in Egypt, turned into ‘Patºp&y, Amos v. 26,
which in the Egyptian language is put for Saturn, and
is cited by Stephen, ‘Peºpäy, Acts vii. 43 (see the note
there).
2ndly, The Egyptian learning, which, had it not been
considerable, sure we should not have heard of Homer, So-
lon, Musæus, Daedalus, Pythagoras, Plato, Democritus, and
others, going thither to learn wisdom, and bringing to their
respective countries the learning they had there acquired.
Egypt would not have been called by Horus in Macrobius, i.
“the mother of arts:” nor the inhabitants, “the parents of
all philosophy:” nor would Athenaeus: have told us, that
both the Greeks and barbarians had all their learning from
the Alexandrians, But of this see more in the commentary
upon these words, “And Moses was iearned in all the Wis-
dom of the Egyptians,” Acts vii. 22.
3dly, Egypt is by profane authors, as well as by the
fathers, said to be guilty of most vile idolatry. Herodotus;
informs us, they first made altars, images, and temples for
the gods, and that almost all the names of the gods came
from Egypt| into Greece. And Jupiter in Lucian'ſ con-
fesses, that the Egyptian gods were aiazº& xai yexatárspa,
“filthy and more ridiculous” than those of other nations:
their gods were called, not only by the” fathers, but even
by the poets, Fí portenta magis quam numina. They are
also noted in scripture for afflicting, persecuting, and de-
stroying the people of God ; upon both these accounts the
great city Rome is by John styled spiritually Egypt,
Rev. xi. 8.
4thly, That Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt,
is attested by many profane authors; if and that he led
them through the sea, and that the Egyptians following after
them were drowned, is owned by Artabanus ; $$ Diodorus
Siculus adds, that the fame of this drying up of the Red
sea was preserved till his time among the Ichthyophagi, Iſ
* Phaleg, lib. i. cap. 15, p. 68.
+ Cum AEgypti matris artium ratione consentit. Saturn.
i. cap. 15. Plato AEgyptios omnium philosophiae discipli-
narum parentes secutus est. De Somn. Scip. lib. i. cap. 19.
f “ort 'Axe:ayêpeſ, etcty of rathedravre; Trávºra; roug"EXAnyaz,
wal roi; 8ap8ágovg. Deipnos. lib. iv. cap. 184.
§ Lib. ii. Cap. 4.
| Ibid. cap. 50.
*|| De Concil. Deorum.
** Lact. cap. 20. Minut. &c. -
++ Quis nescit qualia demens Ægyptus portenta colat 2
Juvenal. sat. 15.
†f Just. ex Trogo Pompeio, lib. xxxvi. cap. 2, Artabanus
apud Euseb. Praepar. Evang. lib, ix. cap. 27, p. 436, Mane-
tho apud Joseph. lib. i. contra Apion. p. 1042, 1052, Chae-
remon et Lysimachus, ibid. 1057, 1085, Strabo, lib. xvi. p.
523, Tacitus, Histor. lib. v. p. 6 is. -
§§ Dicunt Heliopolitani, röy Moºrºv imişıytſy tº #883, roi;
£3aroc, wal otra, rö afty vapºa Atao rival, rºw 8; 359aºziv 33 &néâ;
3360 ºroge'ſsa'9at avvºpagárrow 3: rºw Aiyuwtiov, Kai 8wkávrov,
jará rà roi; ºrvgå; wai rā; aramºzvgið0; Trávra, 31293.agāval,
ibid.
| IIaex 33 roi; ºrangiov karoixoſaw 'IxSvoqāyoic tragašš8oral
x3yo; in apoyávay, #xwy ºvaartowivny tºy phºny ºr ºyáàng
*iºc yiyoºyn; 34, wºrewº, #yeyhän ro: Méxwou źnp}; wa; 3
who lived near to it: and Origenº informs us, that it was
common among the heathens, “to exorcise demons by that
God who did kararovriorat #y rñ ipv63& Saxáran roy Aiyun rior
8aaixãa, xal row: Aiyvºrºriovº, overthrow the Egyptians and
their king in the Red sea,” according to these words of
Paul, “By faith they passed through the Red sea as by dry
land: which the Egyptians assaying to do were drowned,”
Heb. xi. 29.
ELAMITEs are only mentioned in these words, Acts i. 9,
“Parthians, Medes, and Elamites;” where Luke goes from
east to west, the Elamites lying west of the Medes; for the
Susians are joined to the Elamites, saith Strabo, and to them
the Medes. Elam and Madai are also mentioned in scrip-
ture together, Isa. xxi. 2. Jer. xxv. 25. They were so
called from Elam the son of Sem, Gen. x. 22, and their
capital city was Elymais: they were a warlike people living
by rapine, and fighting with bows and arrows, Isa. xxii. 6.
Jer. xlix. 35, as the Susians and Persians did, but were a
different people from them ; for they were joined to Susia,
saith Strabo,' and there was an ingress to them from Persia,
and the Susians and Elamites are mentioned apart, Ezra iv.
9, though they are both comprehended sometimes under the
name of Elam. See Dan. viii. 2.
EMMAUs, saith Luke, xxiv. 15, and Josephus, t in his
book of the Wars of the Jews, was a village distant sixty fur-
longs from Jerusalem; it was after made a city, and a
Roman colony, and called Nicopolis.
EPHESUs, the metropolis and noble mart of the Procon-
sular Asia, situated upon the river Cayster, was famous for
the temple of Diana, one of the stateliest structures in the
world: it was, as Plinyś saith, the wonder of magnificence,
built at the common charge of all Asia, properly so called,
and was two hundred, and twenty years in building ; it was
four hundred and twenty-five feet long, two hundred and
twenty broad, and supported by one hundred and twenty-
seven pillars sixty feet high, and was generally accounted one
of the seven wonders of the world : it was burnt the same
day that Socrates was poisoned, four hundred years before
Christ; and again, the same night that Alexander the Great
was born, but rebuilt and adorned by the Ephesians, whence
that city is styled vioxápoc, Acts xix. 35, “an adorner of the
temple of the goddess Diana,” which, say the scholiasts upon
Aristophanes, and Suidas, signifies || to adorn and beautify
(see note there). The Ephesians were noted for their skill
in the art of magic: see the note on Acts xix. 19, and for
their luxury and lasciviousness: see the note on Eph. v. 5.
The Jews dwelt here in abundance, having obtained the pri-
vilege of citizens, saith Josephus:" but this city was chiefly
celebrated among Christians for Paul's stay here almost three
years, Acts xx. 31, his mighty miracles done there, Acts.
xix. 1 1. 1 Cor. xvi. 9, and the opposition he met with from
the Jews, Acts xx. 19; for Timothy, made bishop there ; for
the beloved apostle who governed the Asiatic churches; and
for being one of the seven churches to which Christ sent in-
structions, Rev. ii. 1.
EPHRAIM. We read in John xi. 54, that Christ went from
Jerusalem to a country near the wilderness, and to a city
named Ephraim: now Ephraim and Bethel, saith Josephus,”
were troxxvia, “little cities” situated in the land of Benjamin,
near the wilderness of Judea, in the way from Jerusalem to
Jericho.
GADARA was, according to Josephus, fºr the metropolis of
Perea, or the region beyond Jordan : it is now called Hip-
podion, saith Pliny, ºf and hath the river Hieramax, or Jar-
moc, flowing by it ; both make it a Decapolitan city, Ś$ and
so of heathen jurisdiction, whence perhaps it was destroyed
rémoc, as raracoğanç rā; Baxárrs; six r" ivayria Faign, lib. iii.
p. 122.
* Lib. contra Cels. p. 184.
+ Lib. xvi. p. 512.
f Lib. vii. 27. -
| Kogely yºp Aéyova, rö waxxively.
Marićev, 89ew yeoxápoc. Nep. p. 125.
* Contra Apion. lib. ii. p. 1063.
** De B. Jud. lib. iv. cap. 33.
++ Lib. iv. cap. 24.
§§ V. Decapolis.
§ Lib. xxxvi. cap. 14.
Suidas. Kogºſy yae wax
†: Lib. v. cap. 1&
1212
GEOGRAPHICAL TABLE.
-* -
by the Jews, but was rebuilt by Pompey in favour of Deme-
trius Gadarensis, his manumitted servant, saith Josephus.”
The inhabitants of this city, being rich, sent legates to Yes-
pasian coming against Judea, and gave up this strong city to
him ; both the city and villages belonging to it lay within the
region of the Gergesenes, whence Christ going into the coun-
try of the Gadarenes, Mark v. 1, is said to go into the
region of the Gergesenes, Matt. viii. 28.
GALATIA is a province of the lesser Asia, so called from the
Gauls, who, saith Strabo,' seated themselves there under
their captain Leonorius; it was bounded on the west by
Phrygia, on the east by the river Halys, on the north by
Paphlagonia, and on the south by Lycaonia ; its chief cities
were Ancyra, Tavium, and Pessinuntum, whence Grotius
saith Paul, writing to the churches of Galatia, writ to these.
They worshipped the mother of the gods, and especially they
of Pessinuntum, and so, as Paul saith, Gal. iv. 8, “they
knew not God.” Callimachus in his Hymns, and Hilary,
who was himself a Gaul, represent them as :: a very foolish
people ; whence Paul saith, iii. 1, “O foolish Galatians, who
hath bewitched you?” This church was so dangerously per-
verted, and almost overturned by the Judaizers there, that
the apostle, in his epistle to them, doth not call them
Saints,
GALILEE contained the tribes of Issachar, Zabulon, Naph-
thali, Asher, with part of Dan, and Perea, beyond the river;
it was bounded on the north by Lebanon and Syria, on the
west by Phoenicia, on the south by Samaria, on the east
mostly by the river Jordan, and the sea of Galilee. It is
divided, by Josephus, Š into the upper and the lower Galilee:
but Dr. Lightfoot divides it into three parts; the upper
Galilee, so called, because it abounded in mountains; it was
eminently called “Galilee of the gentiles,” Matt. iv. 15,
because it abounded with them, being partly inhabited, saith
Strabo, by Egyptians, Arabians, and Phoenicians; this con-
tained the tribes of Asher and Naphthali: the lower, which
contained the tribes of Zabulon and Issachar, because it was
champaign, was called “the great field ;” and, thirdly, the
vale, which is the border of Tiberias. It was, saith Josephus,"
very populous, containing two hundred and four cities and
towns, the least of which towns had treyraxia Xixiovº Útrêp roſ;
gavpiot; cigárošac, “above fifteen thousand inhabitants.” It
was also a very rich country, as paying for its tribute, saith
he, two hundred talents: they were, saith he, a wariike
people, defending themselves against all the assaults of their
enemies round about ; and their wealth and prowess made
them a seditious people, and prome to rebel against the
Romans.
GAZA, or AzzA, was a city in the tribe of Judah: it was
taken by Judah, Judg. i. 18; but because they destroyed
not the inhabitants, as they should have done, but only made
them tributaries, ver. 28, it was regained by them, after the
time of Jephthah, when “the children of Israel did evil
again, and the Lord delivered them into the hands of the
Philistines,” xiii. 1. It was one of the five satrapies of the
Philistines, which offered their golden emerods to the God
of Israel for a trespass-offering, 1 Sam. vi. 17, and the city
whose gates Samson took away, Judg. xvi. 2, and whither he:
was carried when taken, ver. 22, and where he pulled down
the house of their god Dagon upon the lords of the Philis-
times, ver. 30. This old town was destroyed by Alexander,
and so “made desolate,” as the prophet had foretold, Zeph.
ii. 4, and is therefore called, saith Strabo,” a continued desert
(see the note on Acts viii. 26). For whereas this old city
was seven furlongs from the bay, the new, built by Constan-
tine, was, saith Jerome,ti in another place near to it.
GENNESARET was a region thirty furlongs in length, and
* De B. Jud. lib. i. cap. 5, p. 720.
+ Lib. xii. p. 390.
: "A$govi 8hp.a., in Delum, V. 184. Gallos indociles.
Hymn. Hieron. Praefat. ii. in Ep. ad Galat.
§ De Bell. Jud. lib. iii. cap. 4. | Lib. xvi. p. 523.
* De Bell. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 9. -
* Karea wagºzèyn ind 'Axešávěpov kai ºvovara pnºwoc. Lib.
xyl. p. 552. - +
++ Antiquae civitatis locum vix fundamentorum praebere
vestigia, hanc autem quae munc cernitur in alio loco pro illa
quae corruit a dificatam. De Locis Hebr. f. 6, D.
! humano genere completum est?
in breadth twenty; a very pleasant and fruitful place, abound-
ing in the gardens of great men, whence it had its name from
In and nu), as being the garden of princes; it lay at the bot-
tom of the lake of Gennesaret, and gave that name to it,
Luke v. 1. The celebrated city of Tiberias was built close
by it on the east, and gave it the name of “the sea of
Tiberias,” John xxi. 1. And it was called “the sea of .
Galilee,” John vi. 1, as being situated in Galilee, in the
tribe of Naphthali, saith Dr. Lightfoot; of Zabulon, say
others : it was, saith Josephus,” forty furlongs in breadth,
and a hundred in length ; saith Pliny, f sixteen miles long,
and six in breadth: its waters were "sweet and pleasant ;
and, as the Jews say, that God loved this more than all the
other seas, so did our Saviour much frequent it, and after his
resurrection appeared to his disciples at it, John xxi. l.
GERGESA was a town near Gadara, so called either from
the Gergesites, the posterity of Canaan ; for neither did
Zabulon nor Naphthali drive out all the Canaanites, Judg.
j. 30.33, or from Gergishta, signifying clay, the soil being
clay : it gave name to a region so called, which comprehended
in it Gadara, Hippo, and Magdala. See Gadara.
GETHSEMANE was a garden beyond Kedron, at the foot of
mount Olivet, so called from the wine-presses in it.
GoLGOTHA signifies a skull, from the rolling of it ; as we
read, Luke xxiii. 33, “The place was called the place of a
skull,” Matt. xxvii. 33. Mark xv. 32. John xix. 17, of which
St. Cyrilf gives this very improbable reason, that it was
called so prophetically, because Christ, our head, was cruci-
fied there ; he being not kpáviov, our “skull,” but # as pax},
our “head :” others think it was so called, from the head of
Adam, buried there ; this we have received by tradition, say
Origen, Cyprian, Athanasius, St. Basil, Epiphanius, Am-
brose, Chrysostom, Augustine: whereas they could receive
no such tradition from the Jews, who taught, that Adam
was buried at Kiriath-Arbe, or Hebron ; whence Jerome, oil
the place, says, this tradition is pleasing, but not true: he
therefore saith, it was so called, as being a place full of skulls,
by reason of the malefactors executed and buried there.
Against which opinion it may be objected, that it is never
called “the place of skulls,” but, “ of a skull:” others there-
fore say, it was so called, because it was a little hill in form
like to a man’s skull.
GREECE, called also Hellas, was celebrated throughout the
world for learning and wisdom : it was that little part of
Europe, saith Cicero, “which flourished in fame, glory,
learning, and in most arts.” Hence Tatian" saith, “They
divided wisdom among themselves,” and said, “it belonged
to them alone;” and to this the apostle seemeth to refer,
when he saith, “I am debtor to the Greek and to the bar-
barian, to the wise and to the unwise,” Rom. i. 14, they call-
ing all other nations barbarians (see the note on 1 Cor. xiv.
11) : because, saith Strabo,” rô Trai?sia; kai Aéyov oixºſov,
“learning and reason obtained among them, but was neg-
lected by other nations, F+ who the more they were distant
from them, the more they were ignorant:” but when the
apostle also adds, that which all the apologists: for the
Christian faith observe, that, “professing themselves wise
they became fools,” by their idolatry, Rom. i. 21, 22 ; none
being more addicted to it than the Grecians and the Athen-
ians (see there), who were esteemed as the eye of Greece;
Tatian saith,S$“They rather chose to have more demons than
one God.” Their gods,saith Cicero,iſ “were first men,” and
* De Bell. Jud, lib. iii, cap. 35.
+ Lib. v. cap. 5. † Catech. xiii. p. 133.
§ Apud Maldon. in Matt. xxvii. 33.
|| Quae famá, quae gloriá, quae doctrina, quae plurimis
artibus floruit. Orat. pro Flacco.
*I bào were aroqiay Bival Trag' tºwſy.
Megićovre; rºw coºpiav. Ibid.
* Lib. i. p. 46. ++ P. ll 4.
f: Justin. Cohort. ad Graecos, p. 21. Athenag, p. 13, 14.
Theophil. ii. ad Autol. p. 85. Clem. Alex. Admon. ad
Graecos, p. 25.
§§ Orat. contra Graec. sect. 23.
||| Jam veró in Graecia multos habent ex hominibus deos.
De Nat. Deorum, lib. iii. n. 27. Totum peně coelum noume
Tusc. Qu. i. n. 24.
Orat. ad Gr. sect. 43.
GEOGRAPHICAL TABLE.
1213
with these, we, saith he, and they “have filled the heavens:”
and yet it is, with the highest reason, said, in the same
author, that nothing can be more absurd, quâm homines
morti deletos referre in-deos, “than to make gods of dead
men,” De Nat. Deorum, lib. i. n. 29. Note also, that
Greece, in its largest acceptation, comprehended all Mace-
donia, Thessaly, Epirus, Achaia (i. e. Greece properly so
called), Peloponnesus, and the circumjacent islands; and so
was bounded on the north with the Scardian mountains, on
the west with the Ionian, on the south with the Cretian, and
on the east with the AEgean seas: hence in Daniel, viii. 22.
X. 20. xi. 2, it is used, in the largest acceptation, to denote
Macedonia, as well as the more southern parts of Greece ;
whereas, in Acts xx. 2, it is used exclusively of Macedonia,
when it is said that Paul, going through the parts of Mace-
donia, came to Greece. -
FAIR-HAVEN, Acts xxvii. 8, styled by Stephanus, waxi,
&rh, “the fair-shore,” is a part of Crete, where, saith he,
was a city, or great village: but whereas it is there styled a
part, & #yyū; # ºréal; Aaraſa, “near to the city of Lasaea,”
that troubles the commentators, who can find no city in Crete
of that name, besides one mentioned by Pliny, which he
places in the continent. Jerome, and from him other
geographers, speak of it as civitas littoralis, “a city by the
shore :” moreover, Dr. Lightfoot shows that #yyúc, and ot
ºrów, are sometimes used by geographers of places distant
almost one hundred miles.
HIERAPOLIS, mentioned Col. ii. 1, is a city of Phrygia, as
appears from its nearness to Laodicea, celebrated by Strabo,”
for its hot lapidific waters ; and for a hollow place called
Plutonium, not much exceeding a man's length, whose
moisome exhalations suffocate everything that enters into it,
except a capon : it was so called, saith Stephanus, 373 roß
ispá ºroxx& #xsw, “from the many temples it had in it.”
ICONIUM was a city of Lycaonia, the chief of the fourteen
belonging to that tetrarchy, saith Pliny, a well-built city in
the richest part of Lycaonia, saith Strabo.j: Here was a
synagogue of Jews and proselytes, to whom Paul and
Barnabas preaching, and confirming their doctrine by mira-
cles, made many proselytes, Acts xiv. 1–3, and where the
unbelieving Jews and gentiles made an assault upon them,
to “use them despitefully, and to stone them,” ver. 5.
IDUMEA, Mark iii. 8, is not the region of Syria, in which
the Edomites, or the posterity of Esau, dwelt, but the Jew-
ish Idumea, or the South part of Judea ; and hence, in
Diodorus Siculus, the seat of Sodom, which is the south of
Judea, is said to be, warā ºany rºw carparsiay rº; '18vºwalaç,S
“in the midst of the province of Idumea :” in the book of
Maccabees are many places mentioned, as in Idumea, which
were almost in the middle of Judea ; v. g. Bethoron is x&gan
'13ukaiac, “a village of Idumea,” 1 Macc. iv. 29; it is x&m
Tā; 'Iověaias, “a village of Judea,” saith Josephus;| and
ver, 61, Bethsura, near to Jerusalem, is fortified to be a
defence against the Idumeans. Josephus adds, that Judas
and his brethren left not off fighting with the Idumeans, but
fell upon them everywhere," taking the cities of Hebron,
Merissa, and Azotus, which were all in the land of Judah.
It therefore is conjectured, that in the time of the captivity
of the Jews in Babylon, the Edomites had invaded their
possessions, and fixed their tents there; though afterward,
by the powerful arms of the Maccabees and Asmoneans, they
were either rooted out, or constrained to embrace Judaism:
thus Josephus informs us, that when Hyrcanus had taken
Sechem and mount Gerizim, and the country of the Cutheans,
or Samaritans, he proceeds to take the city of Idumea,
Adore, and Marissa, both in Judea; and having subdued all
the Idumeans, he declares he would expel them from their
seats, if they would not be circumcised, and submit to the
Jewish laws: and that hereupon, they, out of love to their
country,” kai rºy trºpºrogºv wai rāy &AAmy roi giov 8tatºray
ūtréºssyay rºy abrºv 'lovèaiot; Troiha'aobat, “received circumci-
* Lib. xiii. p. 433.
it Lib. xii. p. 391.
| Antiq. lib. xii. cap. 10.
| Ibid. lib. xii. cap. 12, p. 418.
** Ibid. lib. xiii. cap. 17.
+ Lib. v. cap. 27, p. 288.
§ Lib. xix. p. 724.
sion, and conformed to the same course or diet with the
Jews,” and styled themselves their domestics and com-
patriots. De Bel. Jud. lib. iv. cap. 16, 17. º
JERICHO was a wealthy city in Benjamin, which Joshua
destroyed, with a curse upon him that should rebuild it,
vi. 26. Nevertheless, Hiel the Bethelite rebuilt it, in the
days of Ahab; and the curse pronounced upon him by
Joshua for so doing was punctually fulfilled, 1 Kings xvi. 34.
After its restoration, it was ennobled by the schools of the
prophets; near to it was a large spring, but unwholesome,
and making the land unfruitful, till Elisha cured it, 2 Kings
v. 21, and from that time it produced fruitfulness in abun-
dance. The country, saith Josephus,” was seated in a
plain, narrow, but long ; for it runs out northward to the
country of Scythopolis, and southward to the land of Sodom,
being one hundred and fifty miles in length, and fifteen in
breadth: opposite to it lay a mountain beyond Jordan ; and
this great plain is, by Matthew, styled ñ trepixago; rot; 'logºźnov,
“the region about Jordan,” Matt. iii. 5. It was planted,
say Strabo and Pliny, with a grove of palm-trees (whence
the city of palm-trees, Deut. xxxiv. 3. Judg. i. 16, is, by
the Targum, called Jericho), and well watered with springs,
and fruitful with balsam, which, saith Josephus,t is the best
commodity of the place. Under the second temple, it gave
place to no city of Judea but Jerusalem; had a £ royal
palace in it, where Herod ended his days; a hippodromus,
where the Jewish nobility, being imprisoned by him, were to
be slain after his death; and an amphitheatre, where his
will was "publicly opened and read: it was distant from
Jerusalem almost nineteen miles; but the way from Jerusa-
lem to it being desert and rocky, it was infested with thieves
(see the note on Luke x. 30. 32); and Jericho having twelve
thousand priests and Levites which served at the temple, it
is no wonder that a priest and Levite should pass by that
way. -
JERUSALEM may be considered, either (first) as the capital
city of Judea, in compass six miles and a quarter, standing
in the two tribes of Benjamin and Judah, and built upon
three mountains; mount Zion, on which the upper city,
which was on the north of Jerusalem, was built ; Acra, on
which stood the lower city, properly called Jerusalem; and
mount Moriah, “the mountain of the Lord's house,” which
was compassed about by the city, as a theatre, and walled
round: it was a perfect square of five hundred cubits on each
side, and two thousand in the whole : and as the city of
Jerusalem is called “the holy place,” Matt. xxiv. 15, and
“ the holy city,” Matt. iv. 5, and was so esteemed by the
Jews, l Macc. x. 31, so this mountain was called “holy
ground,” to which they who had issues, or were menstruous,
or women in child-bed, during the time of their uncleanness,
might not come. Or,
(Secondly) It may be considered as the place where
our Lord was crucified, where the gospel was first preach-
ed, and where it found the greatest opposition : and in .
reference to this it hath been shown,
1st, That before Christ's passion, the scribes and phari-
sees were the great enemies to our Lord's person, and his
doctrine: but when the apostles began to assert his resur-
rection, and the resurrection of believers, by his power,
the sadducees also were vehement opposers of his doctrine :
see the note on Acts iv. 2. -
2ndly, That they not only persecuted the Christians in
Judea, and throughout all the synagogues of the Jews, but
instigated all heathen governors where they had any foot-
ing; they persecuting and killing them with their own
hands, where they had power, and persuading others SO
to do, where they had an interest sufficient, Acts xiii. 50.
xiv. 2. 5. xvii. 5, 13. See the note on Gal. iii. 4, and the
preface to the Epistle of St. James. tº - º
3dly, That for their infidelity and opposition to the gos-
pel, “the kingdom of God was taken from them,” Matt.
xxi. 43, they were blinded, and “given up to a spiritual
* De Bell. Jud. lib. iv. cap. 27.
+ "o roi; 8axa 4-cov trap48sizoc, lib. xvi. p. 525. lib. v. cap.
14. otgei Sä kai 3rogáNa’akov 3 83 riftzićregow rāy rñée ka?trāz.
De Bell. Jud. lib. xvi. - - - - -
† Joseph. Antiq. lib. xvii. cap. 8, et de Bell. Jud. lib i.
cap, ult. • -
1214
GEOGRAPHICAL TABLE.
slumber,” Rom. ix. 7, 8, were “rejected and broken off.”
ver, 15, 17, “for their unbelief,” ver, 20. Or,
(Thirdly) We may discourse of it as it was the city
which, with the temple, and the inhabitants, was therefore
to be “destroyed, laid waste, and trodden down by the gen-
tiles:” and here observe,
1st, That both our Lord and his forerunner declared
their ruin was at hand, if they would not repent, and be-
lieve the gospel: that “the axe was then laid to the root
of the tree,” Matt. iii. 10, that Jerusalem should be “left
desolate,” and “all the blood of the prophets, shed from
Abel, should be required of that generation,” Matt. xxiii.
35, 38, that all he had foretold concerning the destruction
of the temple, the city, and the people of Jerusalem, should
be fulfilled, before that generation passed away, Matt.
xxiv. 34. See Matt. xvi. 28. xxvi, 64. Luke xix. 41–43,
and the notes there.
2ndly, That this was the constant doctrine taught in
most of the epistles, and the continual expectation of the
believing Jews and Christians, that wrath was coming
upon that nation for their infidelity, and persecution of the
Christians; and that Christ would shortly come to de-
stroy them for those sins. See Rom. xi. 22. 1 Thess.
ii. 15, 16. v. 9. 2 Thess. ii. 8. Heb. x. 36. James v. 8. 1
Pet. iv. 17. 18, and the notes on those places, and Gal.
iv. 20. vi. 12. Phil. iii. 18, 19.
3dly, That Josephus speaks frequently of the ripara ka;
anasia, “the signs, wonders,” and certain indications then
given of their approaching ruin, De Bell. Jud, lib. i. cap.
1. lib. iv, cap. 17, lib. vii, cap. 30, 31, as also doth the hea-
then Tacitus.* Josephus adds, that God was now,475.
otpaatzivo, wai tā āya, “rejecting their holy things,” and
would have both their “temple and city purged by fire :”
that he “in vain attempted to save, roic wºrö 9sº wataxçi-
tovº, them whom God had condemned,” and that their ruin
was foretold by their own prophets, and not to be avoided,
ºré yép ré réxo; Elva row Geoiſ. Eleazar, t , from what was
done, takes notice, that all might thence know, that once
beloved nation, now 37taxeſ, waríyyaaro, “was condemned
to destruction;” and even Titust says, their actions showed
their destruction was wrought, Geoff ºvºi, by the anger of
God,” and that they prospered in their attempts against
them, Osoſ; auwepysiac, “by the divine assistance : in a
word, the history of these wars, composed by that Jewish
priest, is the best comment on, and the greatest confirma-
tion of, the truth of Christ's predictions of all the circum-
stances of their ruin, as is shown on Matt. xxiv.
Joppa, Acts ix. 13, was a famous port town betwixt
Caesarea and Azotus, so called, as some think, from Ja-
pheth the son of Noah, who built, or rather rebuilt it, after
the flood; for Solinuss and Melal say, it was built before
the flood: it was famous among the heathens for the fable
of Andromeda and Perseus; among the Jews, for being a
port town from whence they went up to Jerusalem, which
they might see, saith Strabo,' from Joppa, though it were
above a day's journey; and for the miserable" shipwreck
of the Jews, when Vespasian took it ; and among the
Christians, for Tabitha, there raised from the dead by
Peter, Acts ix.
Jordan is a river arising in the region of Daphne,
near to Libanus, not out of two fountains or rivers, Jor and
Dan, as Jerome and Suidas say ; but from one that is in
the cave called Phanium, as Pliny saith,ff and Josephus
often : though in his third book of the Jewish wars, he
says, that it was found out by Philip the tetrarch to have
its rise from the springs of Phialae, which run under ground
twenty-six furlongs, and appear only at the cave of Pha-
nium, which therefore is assigned for its apparent rise. It
is called Jordan the less, till it falls into the lake Samocho-
nitis, whence coming forth augmented, it is called Jordan
the greater, and falling into the lake of Gennesaret, it
passes through it, and ends in the Dead sea: it is famous
* Hist, lib. v. p. 621. Lib. ii. cap. 39, p. 820, lib. iv, cap.
18, p. 833, C. lib. vii. cap. 8, p. 948, 957, U. p. 887, A, B.
+ Lib. vii. cap. 31, p. 990. Lib. vii. cap. 4, p. 944.
§ Cap. 47. | Lib. i. cap. 11, et Voss. ib. p. 63.
* Lib. xvi. p. 522. **-Jos. de B. Jud. lib. iii, cap. 29.
t? Lib. iii. cap. 35. -
among the Jews, for being dried up at a time when it
overflowed all its banks, to give a passage to the children
of Israel into Canaan; and among Christians, for being the
place of our Lord's baptism by John.
Iruñea, mentioned as part of the tetrarchy of Philip,
Luke iii. 1, was so called, from Jethur the son of Ishmael,
Gen. xxv. 15, and lay edging upon Arabia, but was in or
bordering upon Coelosyria: it was part of the tribes of Dan
and Gad, and made a tetrarchy by Tiberius, and was part-
ly the same with Puronitis, in Josephus;* for whereas
Luke saith, “Philip was tetrarch of Iturea and Trachoni-
tis;” Josephus says, Batanea, Trachon, and Puronitis,
were assigned to him by Caesar. Moreover, Ishmael being
a skilful archer, Gen. xxi. 20, the Itureans are celebrated,
by poets and historians, # for their skill in fighting with
bow and arrow. -
JUDEA, as it signifies the whole land of promise, is by
Tacitus said to be terminated with Arabia on the east,
Egypt on the south, f Phoenicia on the west, and Syria on
the north : as it is distinguished from Galilee and Samaria,
and contains the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, Simeon, and
Dan, the Ś bounds towards the north are the village An-
nach, or Dorceus; on the south, it reaches to a village
called Jarda in Arabia, and its breadth is from the river
Jordan to Joppa, and Jerusalem is in the centre of it. lt
| is divided into the mountains, the plain, and the south ;
the south lay towards Šeir and Amalek, from the inlets
into the land at the utmost part of the Dead sea, and
reached to the rising of the mountains not far below He-
bron : the mountains began near Hebron, and ran along
northward to and beyond Jerusalem, having the plain of
Jordan skirting on the east, till you come to the borders of
Samaria : hence the blessed Virgin, going to visit her
cousin at Hebron, a city of the priests, is said to go into
the hill country, Luke i. 39. The plain joins to the moun-
tainous country on the east, and though more level than
that, yet hath its hills: to the plain eastwardly joins a
valley lower than the plain, which is the coast of Sodom,
and at length that of Jordan. The wilderness of Judea,
where John first taught, Matt. iii. 1, and Christ was
tempted, lay betwixt Jericho and Jordan, and from Jericho
towards Jerusalem both of them were comparatively desert
(whence Strabo || saith, Jerusalem was a place not to be
envied by any one, as having about it x&gay Avrºv wał &rv-
*gov, “a dry, barren country”), although both these deserts
are also populous and had many towns.
LAodicea, mentioned Col. ii. 1, was that which Stepha-
nus calls Laodicea ad Lycum, by the river Lycus, which
Ptolemy'ſ and Philostratus say, was a city of Caria ; it
was ruined by an earthquake in the tenth of Nero, and was
rebuilt, saith Tacitus, " " by its own wealth.
Libya was so called from the Arabic word Lud, which
signifies thirst, as being a dry, thirsty earth, and therefore,
by some grammarians, said to have its name, 373 tº Asínºv.
wai Üew, “from its want of rain;” among the Greeks, it is
used as another name for Africa, as it imports a part of it;
it was divided into Libya, t t interior and exterior ; but the
Libya mentioned by Luke, Acts i. 10, is that which is by
Ptolemy called Libya. Cyrenaica; and by Pliny,4t Penta-
politana Regio, from its five cities, viz. Berenice, Arsinoe,
Polemais, Apollonia, and Cyrene, as appears from these
words, “Egypt, and r3 ºften rä, Aſéân; ràc katē Kuºyny, the
parts of Libya about Cyrene.” It is noted, in the Old
* De B. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 9. -
# Ituraeis cursus fuit inde sagittis. Lucan. lib. vii. Vir"
gil. Georg. ii. v. 448. Habessagittarios Ituraeos. Vopiscuſ
in Vita Aurel. cap. 11. Cur Ituraeos cum Sagittis seducis
in forum ? Cic. Orat. Philip. 2.
# Hist. lib. v. p. 617.
§ Jos. de B. Jud. lib. iii. cap. 4, p. 433.
| Lib xvi. p. 527. ‘I See Berk. in Steph.
* Laodicea tremore terrae prolapsa, nullo a nobis reme-
dio, propriis opibus revaluit. Annal. lib. xiv. cap. 27.
++ IIagā yońy roſ, ºraxaidſ; stpickoºey Kai rºc ºv A18ány
Xiyursai rāy rs &Any x&gay, Kai Pigo, ti airfic tº º A18wa;
imosaicoſatyov. Eustath. in Dionys. ed. Lond. 1688, P. 33.
$f Lib. v. cap. 5. -
GEOGRAPHICAL TABLE.
1215
f
Testament, for its chariots and horses used in fight, 2
Chron. xvi. 8, whence it is styled, by Dionysius Perie-
getes," Kvěvn stºrmoc, and by Strabo,'t introreépot, “the
country that bred the best horses :” of which, see Bochart,
Phaleg, lib. iv. cap. 33, but it is mentioned by Luke, on
account of the Jews, who, living in such vast numbers in
Alexandria, that fifty thousand of them were slain at
one time, may well be thought to have had some colonies
and proselytes in this neighbouring country.
Lycaonia. The Lycaonia mentioned Acts xiv. 6, was
not that which is called Arcadia, but a province in the
Hesser Asia, accounted the southern part of Cappadocia,
having Isauria on the west, Armenia Minor on the east,
and Cilicia on the south ; its chief cities are all mentioned
in this chapter, viz. Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe, “They
spake (ver. 10) in the Lycaonian tongue,” i. e. in some
proper dialect of the Greek tongue. *
LYDDA, saith Josephus, was a village; not yielding to a
city for greatness; it was a part of Judea, not far from
Joppa, Acts ix. 38, eminent for its schools of Jews and
learned men : see the note there. Josephus $ elsewhere
styles it a city, and saith it was burnt by Cestius, whilst
the men were gone from it to Jerusalem, to celebrate the
feast of tabernacles ; God, after they had crucified our
Saviour, not taking that care of these times as formerly.
It is now called Diospolis, saith Jerome.|
lystu A was a city of Lycaonia, chiefly celebrated for
the cure done there upon the lame man, which made the
Lycaonians think “ the gods were come down to them in
the likeness of men,” Acts xiv. 10, 11, and for the circum-
cision of Timothy, xvi. 1. -
Macedonia was a vast province of Greece, formerly
ealled Emathia ; and from the kings of Macedon, Mace-
donia : it was bounded on the north by the mountains of
Haemus, on the south by Epirus and Achaia, on the east
by the AEgean, on the west by the Ionian and Adriatic
seas, celebrated in all histories for being the third king-
dom, that under Alexander the Great obtained the empire
of the world, and had under it'ſ one hundred and fifty
nations. To this country, whose metropolis was then
Thessalonica, St. Paul was called by a vision, Acts xvi. 9,
and the churches planted by him in it are celebrated for
their great charity, and ready contribution to the distressed
Jews in Judea, 2 Cor. viii. 9, when they themselves lay
under the most extreme poverty; and both in Thessalonica
and Macedonia, saith Philo" lived a great number of
Jew8.
MAGDALA was a city and territory beyond Jordan, on
the bank of Gadara; it reached to the bridge above Jor-
dan, which joined it to the other side of Galilee, and con-
tained within its precincts Dalmanutha : whence Matthew
saying, xv. 39, “ Christ came into the coast of Magdala,”
Mark saith more particularly, viii. 10, “He came into the
parts of Dalmanutha.”
MEDIA, mentioned Acts ii. 10, in these words, “Par-
thians, Medes, and Elamites,” was a vast region, having
on the north the Hyrcanian sea, on the west Armenia and
Assyria, on the south Persia, on the east Hyrcania and
Parthia: it had its name from Madai the son of Japheth,
mentioned Gen. x. 2, and advanced into the second monar-
chy, styled the monarchy of the Medes and Persians, un-
der Darius the Mede, son of Astyages: of the riches of
this country, and of the vastness of its chief city, Ecbatan,
see Bochartus.ff In the Babylonian captivity, the Jews
were carried captive into Assyria, and placed in the cities
of the Medes, 2 Kings xvii. 6. xviii. 11. Hence we find
many of them and their proselytes at Jerusalem, when the
Holy Ghost fell on the apostles. -
MELITE, the island of Malta, where St. Paul was ship-
wrecked ; of which, see the note on Acts xxviii. 1.
MesopotAMIA is a country in Asia Major, between the
* W. 213. + Lib. xvii. p. 576.
f IIáxsw; ºrd ºftyeSo; otz &trołouca, Antiq, lib. xx. cap. 5.
§ De B. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 37. || De Nom. Hebr. f. 11.
* Centum quinquaginta populorum duobus inclyta le-
gibus quondamgue terrarum imperio. Plin, lib. iv. cap. 10.
** Leg. ad Caium, p. 978.
tf Phaleg, lib. iii. cap. 14.
rivers Euphrates and º as the Greek word imports;
hence it is styled in the Hebrew, Aram Narajam, i.e.
“Syria of the rivers,” and the inhabitants,” ol in afton; rºy
Trorapºv, “they who dwell in the midst of the rivers;” but
that in scripture and profane authors it is sometimes used
in a larger sense, see the note on Acts vii. 2.
MIDIAN, the land into which Moses fled from the Egyp-
tians, Acts vii. 29. It was the place where Jethro lived,
Exod. xii. 11, and the people came from f Madian, the son
of Abraham by Keturah, Gen. xv. 2, whence we have rea-
son to believe they still retained the worship of the true
God. It was in Arabia Petraea, whence, Philof saith,
“Moses fled, eiç rºy &ogov 'Agagiay,”
MILETus, a port town of Asia Minor, and a city of Ionia,
where, saith Jerome, “Paul, majores Ephesi alloquitur,
speaks to the elders of Ephesus,” taking no notice of any
other bishops there convened : it was the city where
Thales, § one of the seven wise men, Anaximander his
disciple, Timotheus the musician, and Anaximenes the
philosopher, were born, There was another Miletus in
Crete, mentioned by Pliny, and by Homer, T where St.
Paul left Trophimus sick: see the note on 2 Tim. iv. 20,
and the preface to Titus. There was also, saith Eusta-
thius in Dionys. P. Kºnrº, vizos, an island of that name
in Crete.
MITYLENE, corruptly Mytilene, saith ** Vossius, was a
large and beautiful city of the island Lesbos, where Pit-
tacus one of the seven wise men, Acasus the poet, Dio-
phanes the orator, and Theophanes the historian, were
born. The whole island was also called by ++ that name;
as also Pentapolis, from the five cities in it, viz. Issa or
Antissa, Pyrrha, Eressos, Arisba, Mitylene. If it had that
name in St. Luke's time, you may understand either the
island, or the city, when he saith, Acts xx. 14, “We came
to Mitylene.” ... • -
MYRA was one of the six great cities of Lycia, saith
Strabo, if and it lay nigh the sea, saith Pliny; $$ whence
Luke saith, Acts xxvii. 5, that “ sailing over the sea of
Cilicia and Pamphylia, they came to Myra in Lycia.” It
had its name, say Stephanus de Urbibus and Porphyroge-
netes, lib. i. them. 14, & ré rév wigov, “from the ointments
made there,” and is by both of them called a city of Lycia.
The Latin copies, instead of Myra, read Lystra in Lycaonia,
far distant from these seas, against the Greek, and the au-
thority of Jerome and Chrysostom.
Mysia, mentioned Acts xvi. 7, 8, was bounded on the
north with Bithynia, on the east with Phrygia Minor, on
the west with Troas, on the south by the river Hermis;
there, perhaps, Paul attempted not to stay ; because, as
Cicero notes, ſ|| in his Oration for Flaccus, they were a
people despicable and base to a proverb.
gº
NAIN, mentioned Luke vii. 11. 12, was a city in the ex
treme borders of Issachar, towards Samaria, two leagues
from Nazareth, and not much more from Tabor, saith Bo-
chart, at the gates of which our Lord restored the widow's
son to life; it was so called from the pleasantness of the
place. If Josephus'ſ ‘ſ speaks of the same place, and not
rather of Nain, a village in Samaria, he thrice calls it a
village, and saith, it was walled about by Simon son of Gejo-
rah the robber; but Luke assures us, it had gates in our
Saviour's time.
NAzab ETH was a city of the lower Galilee, in the con-
fines of Issachar and Zabulon, but within the latter : here
the blessed Virgin was born, and lived : it was of ill fame
in our Saviour's time, as appears from the question of Na-
thanael, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth 7"
John i. 47. Whence Christ was, by contempt, called a
+ Jos. Antiq. lib. ii. cap. 5, p. 59.
§ Mela, lib. i. cap. 17.
* Iliad. B.
* Arrian, lib. iii.
# De Wità Mlosis, p. 473.
| Lib. iv. cap. xii, p. 113, 290.
** In Melam, p. 201.
++ Strabo, lib. xiii. p. 424. Mela, lib. ii. cap. 7.
# Lib. xiv. p. 457. §§ Lib. xv. cap. 27, p. 290.
|| Quid porro in Graeco sermone tam tritum atque cele-
bråtum; quam si quis despicatui ducitur, ut Mysorum ulti
mus esse dicatur ! N. 51, 52.
TT Antiq. lib. xx. cap.5. De Bell. Jud.lib. ii. cap. 21, 80.
1216
GEOGRAPHICAL TABLE.
3
Nazarene, and Christians, Nazarenes. See the note on PAPrios was a city of Cyprus, Acts xiii. 4, 6, the metro-
Matt. ii. 23.
Nineveh was the chief city of Assyria, by the Greeks
called Ninus, from the builder of it, named in scripture,
Nimrod, and by the Greeks Nivos, which some think to be
hinted in the name, as being Nin-nave, the habitation of
Ninus, who came from Shinar to Assyria, and built it, Gen.
x. 10 (see the Bishop of Ely there). It is called in the
scriptures, ºréxic ºyáAn tº Osº. Jonah i. 2. iii. 3, i.”e.
“a very great city” (as Moses was 3a reſo; rā Qºş, “very
fair,” Acts vii. 20, see the note there); as well it might,
being, saith Diodorus Siculus,” in length one hundred
and fifty stadia, i. e. almost nineteen miles; in breadth
ninety stadia, i.e. twelve miles and a half; in circuit. four
hundred and eighty stadia, i.e. sixty miles; and so count-
ing twenty miles for a day's journey, as the Greeks used to
do, a city of three day's journey, not in length, but in cir-
cuit, say Jerome, Cyril, and Theodoret, upon the place,
Jonah iii. 3. Strabot says it was larger than Babylon,
which contained in circuit three hundred and fifty stadia:
Eustathius f on Dionysius Periegetes, adds, that in the
building of it one hundred and forty thousand men laboured
eight years. It was famous for being the city in which
the first monarchy was erected, and which repented at the
preaching of Jonas, and so, it seems, owned the God of
Israel as the true God ; as generally those eastern king-
doms did, though they had topical gods of their own (see
the note on Luke i. 76). It was taken fifty-eight years
after the time of Jonas, by Arbaces rebelling against Sar-
damapalus, and destroyed one hundred and eighty-two
years after by Nabuchodonosor and Assuerus, Tobit xiv.
15; or, according to others, by Nabopolassar and Astyages,
and was never built again: whence Straboš saith, haëy oty
Niyo; Tréxic hºpavio Sn ragazgāºa werå rºy rāv Žºgov xaráavaiv,
and Lucian || to Charon, h Nivoc ºy &réxoxey ºn, xal oběš
fxyo; Éri Aoimov airãº, “Ninus was so destroyed, that no
footsteps of it now remain;” God having said, by his pro-
phet Nahum, i. 8, that he'would make “an utter end there.
of.” As for its situation, it is commonly said, that it was
built on the west side of the river Tigris; but, as Bochartus
shows," historians and geographers differ so much as to the
situation of it, that they seem thereby to confirm the words
of the prophet Nahum, iii. 17, “It shall be as the locusts
who, when they flee away, their place is not known where
they were.”
MoUNT OLIVET, mentioned Acts i. 12, had its name
from the multitude of olive-trees that grew upon it; whence
at the foot of it was Gethsemane, Matt. xxvi. 26, “the
place of oil-presses,” derived from gath, a press, and
shemen, oil. It was distant from Jerusalem, saith Luke,
“a sabbath-day's journey,” that is, a mile. It lay over
against the city, saith Josephus,” that is, the east part of
it, and was distant from it five furlongs; he speaking only
of the foot of mount Olivet, which was no further dis-
tant from the city; whereas Luke speaks of the place
whence Christ ascended, which was three furlongs farther;
whence he informs us that Christ led his disciples ont,
#2; sic Bh6aviay, “even to the borders of Bethany ;” but to
that tract of the mountain where the name of Bethphage
ceased, and that of Bethany began, Luke xxiv. 50, 51.
PAMPHYLIA is a province of Asia Minor, having to the
south the Pumphylian sea, mentioned Acts xxvii. 5, Cili-
cia to the cast, Pisidia to the north (whence we find Paul
passing through Pisidia to Pamphylia, Acts xiv. 24, and
from Pamphylia to Pisidia, Acts xiii. 14) and Lycia to the
west. The cities mentioned in the scripture as belonging
to it are Perga and Attalia, Acts xiii. 13. Here also the
Jews dwelt, saith Philo;# whence they of Pamphylia are
mentioned among those who appeared at Jerusalem at the
day of Pentecost, Acts ii. 10.
* Meyia 'rny rāv rárs odzāv kara rāoray rºy oikovºzáyny, lib.
ii. p. 65. -
+ Lib. vi. p. 507.
§ Lib. xvi. p. 507.
"I Phaleg, lib. iv. cap. 20.
** Antiq.lib. xx. cap. 7.
t? Atºxickaëvac IIakºvXiay zai Kixtºftay, Legat, p. 798.
# P. 125.
| 'Emiokorońrts;, p. 180.
| polis of that island, and the place where the proconsul had
his residence; and Venus, saith Tacitus, had the most an-
cient temple,” which he describes more largely in the be-
ginning of his second book of histories; whence. it became,
saith Arator,t lascivus ager, sacrilegåeque libidinis antrum,
being the place where the virgins prostituted themselves
before marriage, to get a dowry, as we learn from Justint
and Herodotus. Here Paul struck blind Elymás the
sorcerer, and converted Sergius the proconsul. That the
Jews dwelt here in abundance, we learn from Elymas a
Jew, ver. 6. See Cyprus.
Of PART IIIA we have only mention indirectly, in these
words, Acts i. 9, ‘‘Parthians, Medes, and Elamites.” It
lasted an empire for four hundred years, and disputed for
the empire of the east with the Romans: they were cele-
brated for the veneration of their kings, and for their
way of fighting by flight, and shooting their arrows back-
wards. They are not mentioned in scripture, say Ethicus
and Orosius, save under the name of Medes. They dwelt
between Media and Mesopotamia; in all which Transeuphra-
tensian places, except some little parts of Babylon, and of
some other little prefectures, the Jews, saith Philo, T
abounded, and so were at Jerusalem when the Holy Ghost
fell on the apostles.
Prrge, or PERGA, is a city of Pamphylia, Acts xiii. 13,
memorable among the heathens for a temple of Diana
built there ; whence she was called, saith Mela,” Diana
Pergea, IIsºxacia "Agreats, saith Stephanus; among the
Christians, for the departure thence of John Mark from
Barnabas and Paul, to Jerusalem, which occasioned the
rupture betwixt them “for a season,” Acts xv. 37, 40.
PHOENICIA was a province of Syria, divided into two
parts; Phoenicia Maritima, which reached from Tripolis to
Ptolemais, say some ; to Pelusium in Egypt, say others;
and Midland Plio: nicia, of which Damascus was the metro-
polis. They had their names, saith Bochart, &m's rºy powt-
way, “from the palm-trees” growing in their land, not
from the Red sea; nor a puniceo colore, “from their pur-
ple colour;” nor 3rd roi ºvov, “from the slaughters” they
made where they came, but from their rise, they being
beni ynak, “ sons of the Anakims” in Canaan; whence being
beaten by Joshua, they fled to the side of the Mediterranean
sea, where, saith Procopius, it they erected pillars with this
inscription, ºff-icºsyoi pečycyrs; &mdºreog&row’Incoſ roi are tº
viol; Naån, “We are they who fly from the face of Joshua, theson
of Nave, the robber.” They were celebrated for their navi-
gations, of which, saith Bochart, they have left indications
in all places; and for the invention of letters, for from them,
saith Herodotus, letters were brought by Cadmus into
Greece, and were thence called tolvinia, ye&ºwara, “Phoe-
nician letters,” Herodot, lib. v. cap. 58, Tatian. ed. Oxon.
p. 3, Euseb. Praep. Evang. lib. x. cap. 5, and they had
them, saith Eupolemus, from the Jews, Clem. Alex. Strom.
i. p. 343.
Philippi was a city of Macedonia, so called from Philip
king of Macedon, who repaired it, whence it lost its former
name of Dathos; it is called by Luke, h ºrgarn rā; as tºo:
ºric Maxsłowia; ràic, not because it was the metropolis of
it, for that was Thessalonica (see note on Phil. i. 1); but
because it was “the first city” belonging to it, which
they who came from Neapolis in Thrace, as Paul did,
Acts xvi. 11, or from the gulf of Strymon, touched at
(see the note on Acts xvi. 12). It was celebrated among
the Romans for being a Roman colony, Acts xvi. 21, and
for the campi Philippici, where Caesar and Pompey first,
and afterward Augustus and Marc Antony fought with
Cassius and Brutus; and among Christians, for their con-
version by St. Paul, and the liberal contribution they, and
they only, sent him in his necessity, by Epaphroditus,
Phil. iv. 15, 18, and for his epistle directed to them.
PISIDIA, mentioned Acts xiv. 24, was a country in Asia
* Cyprii, tribus templis quorum vetustissimum Paphiae
Veneris, Annal. lib. iii. p. 128.
+ Carm. lib. ii.
§ Lib. i. cap. 190, p. 84.
| Bochart. Phaleg, lib. iii. cap. 14, p. 25. .
T. Leg, ad Caium, p. 798. . . * Lib. i. cap. 14.
++ De Vandalicis.
# Lib. xviii. cap. 5.
GEOGRAPHICAL TABLE.
1217
Minor, having Pamphylia on the south, Galatia on the
north, Isauria on the east, and Phrygia on the west; its
chief city was Antioch in Pisidia, Acts xiii. 14, so called
to distinguish it from Antioch in Syria : its inhabitants are
“s commended by Livy,” for their skill in war above other
*Asiatics, and were anciently, saith Pliny, called Solyrai,
who were compared to lions, for their courage.
Pontus, a province in Asia Minor, bounded on the north
with the Euxine Sea, on the south with Cappadocia, on
the west with the river Halys, on the east with Chalcis ;
celebrated among the heathen poets for its poisonous herbs,
and therefore called by Virgil,f virosa Pontus, and hence
. . Medea is said to have had her poisons from thence ;
among the Jews, for the dispersions of that matio: through
Pontus, &c. 1 Pet. i. 1, Philoš declaring, that they sent
their colonies &xet røy rot IIávrov &vkºv, * to the utmost
bounds of Pontus;” among Christians, for the birth of
Aquila, Acts xviii. 2, and for the name of an epistle ad
Ponticos, given to the First Epistle of Peter, as being
sºnt unto them (see Tertul. Scorp. cap. 12, Cyprian.
Testim. lib. iii. cap. 36, 37).
PHRYG IA is a province of Asia Minor, divided into the
greater, which had Bithynia on the north, Galatia on the
east, Pamphylia and Lycia on the south, Lysia and Mysia
on the west, and was called in the Notitia, Pacatiana,
where the chief cities, mentioned in scripture, Col. ii. 1,
are Laodicea and Hierapolis; and of this Luke seems to
speak, Acts ii. 10, because he joins it with Pamphylia be-
low it; and Phrygia Minor, of which he speaketh, Acts
xvi. 6., 18 and 22, when he saith, “They passed through
Phrygia and Galatia.” The inhabitants were a servile peo-
ple, kept in their duty best by stripes," and made wise
only by sufferings, saith Cicero.” In all these parts of
Asia Minor, even to Bithynia and the Euxine Sea, the
Jews abounded, saith Philo, in the place forecited.
PToleM AIs was a city of Galilee by the sea side, dividing
the upper from the lower Galilee, and the land of Israel
from Phoenicia; it was seated in a plain compassed about
with mountains, having on the east the mountainous part
of Galilee, on the north the Scalae Tyriorum, on the south
Carmel. “Near to it,” saith Josephus,tt “is the sepulchre
of Memnon, and the vale of sand that turns into glass;
the fragments of which glass being brought back to the
place, will return again into sand.” It was memorable
among the Jews for the coming of Petronius thither to set
ap the statue of Caius Caligula, which, at the entreaty of
the Jews, declaring that their law admitted no inages
either in their temple, or profane places, he deferred to
execute, till he had writ to Caesar, whoff died before his
answer came to the hands of Petronius; and also for the
slaughter of two thousand Jews by the inhabitants of Pto-
lenais; and among the Christians, for Paul's journey in
a ship of Phoenicia to Tyre, where the ship “unladed her
burden,” Acts xxi. 3, from Tyre to Ptolemais thirty-two
miles on foot; from thence to Caesarea, wer. 7, 8, and
from Caesarea to Jerusalem, ver. 15. See the note on Acts
xxi. 7. -
PUTEOLI, a famous mart town in Italy, having a com-
modious haven for ships, made, says Strabo,S$ by art and
labour. It was built, say Jerome and the epitomator of
Stephanus, by the Samians;|| and called Puteoli, saith
-ā
* Feroces ad bellandum. Lib. xxviii. cap. 13. Longe
optimi bello. Cap. 15.
+ Pisidiae quondam Solymi appellati. Plin. lib. v. cap.
27, p. 228, Bochart, Canaan, lib. i. cap. 6, p. 393.
# Eclog. viii. 95. Georg. i. 58.
§ Leg. ad Caium, p. 798, cap. 12, p. 273, 274.
| Ita Carolus à Sancto Paulo, p. 214, 240, 241.
| Sero sapiunt Phryges. Erasm. Adag. cent. i. p. 30.
** Vetus proverbium, Phrygem plagis fieri solere meli-
orem. Cic. Orat. pro Flacco, n. 51.
++ De Bell. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 17.
§§ Lib. v. p. 169.
| Samii Dicaearchiam condiderunt, quam nunc Puteolos
vocant. Chron. Olymp. 64. IIorioxot wrior, a Sapºtov ºri,
zai Aikatáexsta, Dein Puteoli colonia Dicaearchia dicti.
Plin lib. iii. cap. 5, p. 146.
ft Ibid cap. 20.
Varro,” from the pits of hot and cold water; by the Greeks
it was called Dicaearchia ; here Paul, by the favour of the
centurion, staid seven days. See more, note on Acts
xxviii. 13.
RAMA, Matt. ii. 18, was a city in the tribe of Benjamin,
distant from Jerusalem, saith Josephus,t forty furlongs;
saith Jerome.j six miles ; and being on a hill, as the
word Rama signifies, might be within sight of Jerusalem,
as may be probably collected from Judg. xix. 13. It was,
saith Dr. Patrick, late bishop of Ely, northward of Jeru-
salem; and not far from it, as appears from the Levite
going from Bethlehem-Judah to Jebus or Jerusalem, al.(t
being benighted when he came there, and not able to reach
Shiloh, whither he was going, consulted with his servant,
whether they should lodge at Rama or Gibeah, Judg. xix.
11. 13. 18, and truly, being the place to which he might
divert when he was on the west of Jebus, in his way to
Shiloh, after the sun went down, and being near to Gibeah,
Judg. xix. 13. 1 Sam. xxii. 6. Hos. v. 8, it must lie some-
what north-west of Jerusalem, and yet not far from it, and
so the coasts of Bethlehem four miles from Jerusalem, and
the coasts of Rama might be at a less distance. But
others, to avoid this difficulty, how the coasts of Bethle-
hem could reach Rama in the tribe of Benjamin, and the
children slain in those coasts could cause a weeping in
Rama, give us Ramah near Gibeah, north of Jerusalem,
and at a greater distance from it on that side, than Beth-
lehem was on the south, and place another Rama near
Bethlehem, and south of it; but it is certain, from 1 Sam.
x. 2, that Rachel's sepulchre was in the border of Ben-
jamin, and only in the way from Bethel to Bethlehem,
Gen. xxxv. 16, 20, and so the voice of Rachel weeping at
Rama, must refer to Rama in Benjamin : either then their
territories, or the villages belonging to them, must be near,
or the words of Matthew must be construed thus, tai &ro-
a reixaç (sub. ãºrd tâ; 'Ispovo axhºw), “And sending from Je-
rusalem, he slew all the children in Bethlehem, xał ży rāor:
roſ; igioſ; air%, and in all the coasts of Jerusalem;” it
being ordinary for pronoun relatives to refer to a remoter
antecedent, as is shown, note on Luke v. 17, and for nouns
to be included in a verb relating to them.
RHEGIUM is a port town in Italy, opposite to Sicily, so
called by the Greeks, as judging it was broken off from
thence by the sea; of which, see Cluverius de Italia
Antiquá, lib. i. p. 276. Here Paul staid but one day,
Acts xxviii. 13, and did nothing which Luke thought f:
to mention ; but in that day, say the fabulous writers of
the church of Rome, he converted some of the inhabitants
and strangers that were there, by burning a large stone
pillar with a little candle; preached to the fishes of the
sea ; and commanded the grasshoppers, which with their
noise disturbed his preaching, to be silent, from which
time they left the land. See Lorimus on the place.
RHodgs was an island in the Carpathian Sea, so called,
say the Greeks, 3rd rāv Āboy, “from the roses " grow.
ing there : it is accounted, for dignity, among the Asiatic
islands, next to Cyprus and Lesbos; it was of so clear an
air, that Solinus saith, there was not a day in the year in
which the sun did not shine upon it ; whence it is styled
by Horace, clara Rhodus. Tiberius, saith Suetonius, Š
sailed thither, amoenitate et salubritate insulae captus, “be-
ing taken with the pleasantness and healthiness of the
island ;” which was therefore, by the Roman nobility,
made a place for their recess: on the north-west of it
were Coos and Cnidus, on the east Patara, whence Paul
sails from Coos to Rhodes, and thence to Patara, Acts xxi.
1. It was famous for a college, in which the students
were eminent for eloquence and mathematics; for a colos-
sus of the sun, which passed for one of the wonders of the
world, it being seventy cubits high, and falling by an
* A puteis oppidum Puteoli, quod sint apud eum locum
aquae frigidae et calidae multas. Varro de L. C. lib. iv.
# Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 6, p. 284. Josh. xviii. 25.
# Hieron. de Loc. Hebraic. lit. R.
§ In Vità Tib. cap. 11. -
| Dandus est locus fortunæ, cedendum ex Italiae, Rho-
dum migrandum. Brutus Ep. Fam. 11, c. Quod reli-
quum est vitae, in otio Rhodi degam, Ib, ep, 50.
4 I
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GEOGRAPHICAL TABLE.
earthquake; but chiefly for the expertness of the inhabit-
ants of that city and island in the art of navigation, which
made them sovereigns of the sea : their constitutions also,
and judgments in affairs relating to the sea, being withal
so just, as to become incorporated afterward into the Ro-
man Pandects. See Strabo, lib. xiv. p. 448.
RoME. Of this city, because I can never say enough, I
will say only that which some way tends to the interpreta-
tion or the illustration of something contained in the New
Testament. And, º
1st, I have observed already, that it was the seat of the
fourth empire, and was therefore called orbis terrarum,
mundi caput, regina, domina, dea; “the lord of the whole
earth, the head and queen of it” (see Lloyd de Româ);
and in scripture, ºråra oikovºzévn, “the whole world " Luke
iii. 1. See the note on Heb. ii. 5.
2ndly, That being so, all the Roman provinces, styled
“the world,” of necessity repaired to it, not for religious
causes, but on civil accounts, ob potentiorum principalita-
tem; see the nºte on Acts xxviii. 15, it being an” old law,
that all other cities should follow the custom of Rome, the
head of the world.
3rdly, That the Epistle to the Romans, though it was
written after the Epistles to the Thessalonians and Corin-
thians, was placed first in order, as some of the fathers
conjecture, by reason of the dignity of that city (see the
preface to that epistle): to which add that it was called
urbs septicollis, and Érrañá pos, from the seven hills on
which it was built, and was celebrated on this account,
when John wrote his Revelation, not only by her famous
poets, Virgil, Horace, Martial, Ovid, Propertius, but by
her orator Cicero,f and many others; which makes it rea-
sonable to conceive John points to this city, when he
speaks of the woman sitting upon seven hills,” Rev. xvii.
9; there being then no other city to which the character
of that woman could agree : none drunk “with the blood
of the saints and martyrs of Christ Jesus,” as she was, or
“having seven heads and ten horns,” or “making kings
of the earth di unk with the wine of her fornication.”
4thly, That the beast sitting upon these hills would
“suffer no man to buy or sell who had not his name or
Imark upon him,” Rev. xiii. 17. Now this agrees exactly
with the church of Rome, which hath, in three several
councils,f decreed, that none of her members should sell
anything to, or buy anything of, heretics, or have any
commerce, or merchandise, or any dealings with them.
Add to this
5thly, That the name of the beast, who made all men, rich
and poor, great and small, free and servants, to take his
character upon them, Rev. xiii. 16, 17, was the number of
a man whose name contained six hundred and sixty-six, as
l renaeus says Š the name Aareſvos, given to the Latin
church, did ; but as for the name Evanthus and Teiton,
which, saith he, contains the same number, and other
names added by Feuardentius, who can apply anything of
the characters belonging to this beast, to them 7 whence I
conclude, this beast must certainly be Rome; and that
not Rome heathen, which made no such decrees, and
had many more than ten kingdoms under her, but Rome
Christian. .
SALAM is, mentioned Acts xiii. 5, was a city in the
* Secundim Salvii Juliani scripturam, quae indicat debere
omnes civitates consuetudinem Roma sequi, quaº caput
est orbis terrarum. Justin. Praefat. ad Digest. Sec. Sed
et si.
t E3 &zréo: #7taxépov. Cic. ad Attic. Ep. lib. vi. ep.
5. Wide Lloyd in voce Septicollis.
# Sub anathemate prohibemus, ne quis negotiationem cum
eis exercere praesumat. Çoncil, Lateran, G. iii. sub Alex.
30, A. D. 1179, can. 27, Bin. t.”vii. p. 662. Ne quis
contractus inire, liegotiationes, aut mercaturas quaslibet
exercere permittat. Concil. Constant. sess. 45, Bin. tom.
vii. 1121.
§ Sed et Aarºvo; nomen habet sexcentorum sexaginta
sex numerum, et est valde verosimile, quoniam novissimum
regnum hac habet vocabulum, Latini enim sunt qui nunc
regnant. Lib. v. cap, 30, p. 449 col. 1.
eastern part of Cyprus, where was a synagogue of the
Jews, and where the Jews, in the time of Trajan, destroyed
the city, and killed all the inhabitants (see Cyprus),
The city was famous among the Greek writers, for the
story of the dragon killed by Chycreas their king and for
the death of Anaxarchus,” whom Nicocreon the tyrant of
Cyprus pounded to death with iron pestles, he crying out,
Tundis Anaxarchi vasculum, Anaxarchum non tundis :
the body being styled both by the scriptures and phi-
losophers, exsſoc, the “vessel,” 65×220c, the “repository,” of
the soul : see 1 Thess. iv. 4. It is also the name of an
island in the Saronic gulf, Strab. lib. ix. p. 271.
SALEM, famous for being the seat of Melchisedec king of
Salem, is, by Josephus,t called Solyma, and said to be the
place which afterwards was called Jerusalem: that, by the
psalmist, being called Salem, in these words, “At Salem
is his tabernacle, and his dwelling-place in Sion,” Psal.
lxxvi. 2. But St. Jerome saith,; it was a village of the
Sichemites, and lay in the vale betwixt Sodom and Damas-
cus, eight miles from Scythopolis, or Bethshan : so the
Septuagint must understand the word, when they say, Gen.
xxxiii. 18, “Jacob went down, si, XaAñº, to Salem, a city
of Sichem ; ” and then it must be the place mentioned
John iii. 23, when it is said, “John was baptizing in
Enon near Salem,” both these places being in the tribe of
Manasseh. -
SALMone is only mentioned by the bye, Acts xxvii. 7,
and is, say Pliny, lib. iv. cap. 12, p. 231, Mela, lib. ii. cap.
7, and Dionysius, v. 110, an eastern promontory of Crete,
where also was a city of that name.
SAMARIA, as it was the capital city of the ten tribes,
belongs to the history of the Old Testament: as it is
mentioned in the New, it comprehends the two tribes of
Ephraim and Manasseh within Jordan, lying in the middle
betwixt Galilee and Judea, John iv. 3, 4, see the note
there. It began at Ginea, lying in the great plain, saith
Josephus, Š and ended at the toparchy of the Acrobateni :
it was destroyed by Hyrcanus, but was rebuilt and Inuch
augmented by Herod the Great, and by him called Sebaste,
in honour of Augustus; but it still retained the maine of
Samaria, Acts viii. 5, and Sichem ; and by the Jews, in
derision, Sychar; see note on John iv. 5. The Samaritans,
though in our Saviour's time and long before they owned
the true God, were circumcised, and owned the five books
of Moses (see the note in John iv. 22); yet were they
much hated by the Jews, by reason of the controversy
betwixt them, concerning the place where they were to
worship, and to which they were to bring their sacrifices ;
they saying it was mount Gerizim, the Jews, mount Zion,
where the temple stood (see the note there). Hence, saith
the son of Sirach, “My soul abhorreth them who sit upon
the mountain of Samaria, and the foolish people that dwell
at Sichem,” 1, 25–27 (see the note on John iv. 9). But
our blessed Lord did not hate them ; for as they expected
the Messiah, so he declared to them, that he was that
Messiah who was to come, John iv. 25, 26, and at his
ascension, commanded his disciples to go through Judea
and Samaria, and then to the gentiles, Acts i. 8; which
they did with good success, both in the city and the
villages about it, Acts viii. 5, 25; though Justin Martyr
doth inform us, that through the delusions of their two
famous magicians, Simon Magus and Dositheus, they
became the worst of Christians, Apol. ii. p. 88.
SAMos was an island in the Icarian Sea, of which the
scripture only saith, that Paul passed by Chios to Samos,
and thence to Miletus, Acts xx. 15. It had its name,
saith Bochart, from the high rocks there, named ov,
and was famous among the heathens for the worship of
Juno, and for the earthen vessels there ; for Pherecydes,
the master of Pythagoras, who foretold an earthquake that
happened there, by drinking of the waters; for the birth
of Pythagoras, who was vir ortà Samius, saith Ovid,"
* Bochart, Canaan, lib. i. cap. 2. Laert. lib. ix. p. 579.
+ Antiq, lib. i. cap. 12. - -
# Ep, ad Evag. tom. iii. f. 14, D.
§ Jos. Antiq. lib. xiii. Cap. 18.
| Canaan, p. 406, 408. * Metam, lib. xv.
GEOGRAPHICAL TABLE.
1219
iſe
and for one of the Sibyls, called Sibylla Samia, and for a
place called by Plutarch Samiorum Flores, where they
did z26' tºrsºgośw revºy,” “commit all manner of lewd-
ness” with women.
SAMOTHR Act.A, an island in the Ægean Sea, near Thracia,
where Hebrus falls into the sea, was so called, saith
Eustathius, # mp3; áyriaa’roxy, “by way of distinction”
from the lonian Samos, and from another mentioned by
by Homer, and called Cephalonia. Here the Dii Cabiri,t
or great gods, mentioned in the scholiast upon Apollonius,
were worshipped, into whose sacred ceremonies they who
were initiated were esteemed more holy and just, and even
secure from shipwreck, as also of preservation in all
dangers whatsoever. See Bochart's Canaan, lib. i. cap.
12, and Lloyd in voce.
SAREPTA, Luke iv. 26, was a city of Sidon, betwixt that
city and Tyre; it had the name Zarephath, as being a
conflatory for the boiling of metals: it was the place where
Elijah dwelling, was preserved by the widow's cruse of
oil and barrel of meal, that wasted not, 1 Kings xvii. 9.
Josephus Ş saith, the three years’ drought which occasioned
his going thither was mentioned by Manunder.
SARON, mentioned Acts ix. 35, was a spacious, cham-
paign, or fertile vale, betwixt Lydda and the sea, having
several villages in it; it was so called from sharra, “to let
loose,” because there they turned out their cattle, and is
famous among the rabbing for its wines.
SELEucla, a city, not of Mesopotamia, Cilicia, or Pisidia,
but of Syria, was the first city to which Paul and Barnabas
came, when they were sent on a peculiar temporary
mission, by the direction of the Holy Ghost, Acts xiii.
3, 4. -
Sich EM was, saith Josephus, the metropolis of Sa-
maria, built at the foot of mount Gerizim ; on which
mount, hanging over Samaria, they bad a temple at which
they offered all their sacrifices. This temple was "ſ there
built by Sanballat, for his son Manasseh, chased away by
Nehemiah, because he would not put away the daughter
of Sanballat. This temple was, after it had stood two
hundred years, destroyed by Hyrcanus, and never was
rebuilt in the same place ; but that which they called the
“holy mount” remaining, and being in their Pentateuch
(here differing from the Hebrew text) the place where
God commands the Jews to set up an altar (not on mount
Gerizim, as the Samaritan copies have it, but on mount
Jºbol, Deut. xxvii. 4, 5): this they allege to justify their
building a temple there ; and here they had still their
altar for sacrifice, which made the schism betwixt them
and the Jews. This controversy seems to be decided by
the psalmist, saying, “He chose not the tribe of Ephraim
(where that mountain was), but he chose the tribe of
Judah, and the mount Zion which he loved, and there he
built bis sanctuary,” Ps. lxxviii. 67, 68; and is . Inore
certainly decided in favour of the Jews by Christ, John iv.
22. It was built in a valley betwixt mount Gerizim and
Ebal, in the tribe of Ephraim ; was eight miles distant
from Samaria, had its name from Shechem the son of
Gilead, Numb. xxvi. 31, and was after called Neapoli,
Plin. lib. v., cap. 13.
SidoN is, by Josephus,” thought to have had its name
from Sidon the son of Canaan; but Trogus Saith, it had its
name à piscium ubertate, “from the abundance of fishes,”
the sea upon which it lay, say the Hebrews, abounding
with them : accordingly the Hebrew said from which
it is derived, signifies fishery, or fishing; and Bethsaida is
a place of fishing, and it was afterward called Saida: “I
came to Saida, the greatest of cities,” saith Benjamin in
Itinerario. The men of Sidon being great shipwrights,
* Athen. ib. xii. p. 528.
t In Dionys. p. 108. Wide Bochart. Canaan, lib. i.
cap. 8.
; Strabo, lib. x. p. 325, from nºnp, validus. Diod. Sic.
lib. v. p. 224. Marsham, p. 123, et p. 35, 36, 39.
§ Lib. viii. cap. 7, p. 286, il Lib. xi, cap; 8, p. 386.
* 'Ert to Xagaziw isov, toº war& rāv Žakagław, § rāv &NAoy
$83, a twº tºxératov. Antiq. lib. xi. cap. 8, p. 383—385,
Nehem. xiii. 28.
** Antiq. lib, i. cap. 7, p. 14. lib. xviii, cap. 3.
were famous above other nations for hewing and polishing
timber, there being “none who were skilled how to hew
timber like the Sidonians,” 1 Kings v. 6. One of the gods
of the Sidonians, mentioned in scripture, is Ashtaroth,
Judg. ii. 13. 1 Kings xi. 5, a goddess, by Philo Biblius,
Theodoret, Nicetas, and Procopius Gazaeus, called Venus;*
as also say the Greeks and Cicero. Hence she had her
whores to minister to them who committed whoredom in
her service.
Of the tower and pool of SILoAM. The fountain of
Siloam, saithf Josephus, was a sweet and large fountain on
the west of Jerusalem, without the wall, and its waters
bending towards the south, ran all along the south of
Jerusalem without the wall, but at the east side came
within the lower Jerusalem, and made the pool of Siloam
or Bethesda, mentioned John v. 2, 9, 11, and near it,
towards the west, stood the tower of Siloam, which felſ
upon the eighteen persons, Luke xiii. 4; so proper was
the mention of men, slaughtered whilst they were offering
sacrifice in the court of the temple, and in the lower city,
by a tower falling on them, to the very same thing befall-
ing the Jews at the destruction of Jerusalem. See the note
there.
SINAI was a mountain in Arabia Petraea, where the law
was given; it had two tops, the one lower, called Horeb,
or “the mount of God,” Exod. iii. 1, where he appeared
to Moses in a flame of fire in a bush ; this Horeb is there-
fore, by St Stephen, Acts vii. 30, and by Josephus, f called
Sinai, who also saith, 8%aw #x2y Évêtarpiðey airó rô Qāīoy, “it
was believed the Divinity resided there,” $ and therefore
other shepherds durst not feed upon it: the other top of
Sinai, where the law was given, was a very high mountain,
saith Josephus, to the top of which one could scarce see,
and was accounted religious, it being thought that the
Divinity dwelt there also. That here, afterward, dwelt
the Hagarenes, and had houses cut out of the rock, see
Bochart, Phaleg, lib. iv. cap. 27, p. 312, and the note on
Gal. iv. 25.
Soboni was the chief of the Pentapolitan cities, and
therefore gave the name to the whole land; it was burnt,
with three other cities, by fire from beaven, for their un
natural lusts; of the truth of which we have, from the
heathens, the testimonies of Strabo, Diodorus Siculus,
Tacitus, Solinus; from the Jews, the testimonies of
Josephus, Philo, and the book of Wisdom ; of which,
See the note on Jude, ver, 7.
SYRAcuse was a city seated on the east side of the
island of Sicily, built by Archias the Corinthian, saith the
scholiast upon Pindar," out of four cities which he over-
threw, and turned into one : it is called by Pindar, Kºgyáña.
Tréat, Zvgäxova'at, it being the most noble city, not only of
Sicily, but of all Greece ; six miles in compass, saith
Strabo ; ** it is called by Ausonius quadruplex Syracuse,
as being divided into four parts, Acradina, Tyche, Nea-
polis, and the Island ; to which Strabo adding Epipolus,
calls it Pentapolis; the first of these contained in it the
famous temple of Jupiter; the second was called Túxn,
because it had the temple of Fortune in it; and surely
fortune favoured them, since when the Romans took the
city, they found, say Livyft and Plutarch;ff more riches
in it than they did in Carthage. In that part called
Neapolis was a great amphitheatre, and a wonderful
statue of Apollo, in the midst of a large square. In
the isle of Ortygia was Hiero's palace, two temples of
Diana and Minerva, and the famous fountain of Arethusa ;
* “ovoaa 33 roºro Tº, "A?pobirns, air㺠yºg waxºeir
'Agráptny. Q. 5, in 4 Reg. Procop. in 2 Kings xiii. 7.
Nicet. in Gregor. p. 483. ‘Aztágºn # rag”Exxºzºv'A9588.ſtm.
Suid. Venus: 4ta Syria Tyroque concepta, qua Astarte
vocatur. De Nat. Deorum, lib. iii. n. 41.
# De Bel. Jud. lib. vii. cap. 13.
# Antiq. lib. ii, cap. 5, p. 60, B. . . . ... ...
§ Ibid. C. - | Ibid. Jib. iii, cap. 4.
T Pyth. 2, 1. ** Lib. vi. p. 168.
# Capta Syracuse in quibus prædæ tantum fuit quantum
vix capta Carthagine, &c. Lib. xxv, cap. 31.
# In M. Marcello, p. 303, E
4 I 2
1220
GEOGRAPHICAL TABLE.
and this, saith Strabo, was the only part which Augustus
rebuilt, after it had been destroyed by Marcellus. Archi-
medes, who, by his mathematical engines, had much
galled the Romans, was slain in the storming of it,
while he was intent upon his figures, as Livy, and Plu-
tarch say. Ibid.
SYRIA, among the ancients, viz. Justin, Herodotus, and
Strabo, was as large as Assyria, they being after called
Syri; but Syria,” properly so called, is either taken
largely, so as to comprehend Phoenicia, and the Holy
Land, and so it is bounded on the west with the Sicilian
Sea, on the east with Euphrates and Arabia Deserta, on
the north with Cilicia, and on the south with Arabia
Petraea, and had, in ancient timés, for its capital city,
where the president. resided, Damascus, and afterward
Antioch of Syria. In the New Testament it always seems
to signify Syria in the stricter sense, as it is distinguished
from Judea, Matt. iv. 24, 25, and from Phoenicia, Acts
xxi. 2, 3, in which sense it is also used by Ptolemy, who
divides Palestine from it; by Strabo,' saying, ivºrså0sy
xugia xai bowizn, “then comes Syria and Phoenice; “by
Pliny,t who saith, Syriam circumfundi Phoenice, “Syria
is surrounded by Phoenice;” and by Dionysius, P. v. 904,
905, who places Syria, properly so called, in the continent,
and Phoenicia in the tract along the sea: hence the proverb
in Suidas, Xſjeot Trºg boivizaç, i. e. “One deceitful nation
against another.
SYRo-PHOENICIA is only mentioned in the history of the
woman’s daughter, called “a woman of Canaan,” Matt.
xv. 22, but “a Greek and a Syro-Phoenician,” Mark vii.
26, a Greek because she was of their religion, and used
the Greek tongue; the Greeks being mingled with the
Syrians, saith Josephus; $ a woman of Canaan, because
Phoenicia was also called Canaan (see the notes there); a
Syro-Phoenician, as being of that part of Phoenicia, which
lay betwixt Syria properly so called and Phoenicia by the
sea-side ; and which was called also, saith Bochartus,
Calosyria, and contained Heliopolis, Chalcis, and the tract
of Marsya, Damascus, and Alala. Hence of Damascus,
Justin Martyr'ſ and Tertullian” say, that it belonged to
Syro-Phoenice.
TREs TABERNE. Of these, and of Appii Forum, not
before mentioned, see the note on Acts xxviii. 15. And
that they are not ill translated taverns, or places of recep-
tion, I gather not only from Isidore Pelusiota, tº and CEcu-
menius,ff who call them tray80x8ta º Kaºrmºſa, but also from
Zosimus,S$ when he saith, Severus was strangled at the
place called the Three Taverns, by men placed there by
Maxentius for that purpose.
TIBERIAs was a city|| built by Herod the tetrarch, in
Galilee, near the lake of Gennesaret, and so called in
honour of Tiberius Nero : Hegesippus says it was but
two miles from Magdala," " and was the same with
Cinnereth : the privileges he gave to the inhabitants of
the place made it grow to be one of the prime cities of
the lower Galilee, where were thirteen synagogues, and
an academy; here was the last session of the sanhedrin,
and here the Talmud was collected. Of the sea of
Tiberias, see in Gennesaret.
TARsus was a city of Cilicia, Acts xxi. 39, the metro-
polis, and most renowned city, which, saith Josephus, ***
gave name to the whole country; the mother of cities,
* See Bochart, Phaleg, lib. ii. cap. 3, p. 81.
+ Lib. ii. p. 81. f Lib. v. cap. 12.
$ Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 12, p. 649.
| || Bochart. Canaan, lib. i. cap. 1, p. 365.
* Aégaczo, Yūy reoaveyāºntai rā >vpopowian Asyoºn, Dial.
cum Tryph. 305.
** Descripta est in Syrophoenicen ex distinctione Sy-
riarum. Lib. adv. Jud cap. 9, et contr. Marcion. lib. iii.
cap. 13. * +
++ Isid. lib. i. e.p. 337. # CEcumen. in locum.
§§ “s, Taia Kawºxãa # ºrpoznychia, Hist, lib. ii, ed. Steph.
9. 47.
| Jos. Antiq. lib xviii., cap. 3.
* * See Berkel. in Steph.
*** Antiq. lib. i. cap. 4, p. 13.
saith Solinus;* celebrated among the Romans, for being
saith Pliny, libera civitas, and having the freedom of
a Roman colony, or the highest privileges, under Julius
Caesar and Octavian, and the very name of Juliopolis :
see the note on Acts xxii. 28. Among the Jews, it was
famous for being the place whither Jonas designed to fly,
and the metropolis of that country, where many of them,
saith Philo, dwelt; among the Christians, for being the
place where St. Paul was born : in fine, it was a city ver
rich and populous, where was an academy furnished wit
men so eminent, that, as Strabo + Saith, they excelled in
all arts of polite learning and philosophy ; even those of
Alexandria and Athens, and Rome itself, were beholden
to it for its best professors. -
THEssa LoNicA, was the metropolis of Macedonia ; see
the note on Phil. i. 1; a noble mart and a city, which,
saith Strabo, f is the most populous of all Macedonia: it
is, saith Pliny, Š a free city, and had in it a synagogue
of the Jews, they living, saith Philo, in Macedonia and
Thessaly. The inhabitants of Thessaly, saith Athenaeus'ſ
were given to luxury and dissoluteness, and by their
luxury invited the Persians into Greece: their maidens
and women also danced maked, as their custom was :
which things might give occasion to those instructions
of the apostle to them, to “avoid fornication,” and to
“possess their vessels in sanctification and honour, and
not in the lusts of concupiscence, as did those nations
which knew not God,” 1 Thess. iv. 3—5. To this church
Paul wrote his two first epistles.
TRoAs was a country and city in lesser Asia, where St.
Paul came to preach Christ's gospel, and had “a door
opened to him of the Ilord,” 2 Cor. ii. 12. Strabo” and
Ptolemy place the city in Phrygia Minor. It is, by Je-
rome, said to be the same with Troy celebrated in the
works of Homer. It was, saith Pliny,tt a Roman colony.
TRAchoNITIs was a region and tetrarchy, or rather part
of a tetrarchy, in Syria, anciently called Argob, Deut. iii.
14. It lay north of Perea, and east of Batanea, and was
so called, saith G. Tyrius, from dragons, or secret lurking
places, in which this country abounded, the inhabitants
living upon robbery,if till they were restrained by Herod.
TRogy LLIUM, Acts xx. 15, is a promontory, saith Stra-
bo,S$ as it were the foot of mount Mycale, opposite to, and
five miles from, Samos; to which Paul coming, goes on to
Trogyllium, to harbour there: there was also a town there
of the same name, mentioned by Pliny, lib. v. cap. 29, p.
295.
Tyne and Sipos. These two places being so often
mentioned in scripture together, and lying but two hun-
dred stadia, saith Strabo,'ll that is, twenty-five miles, asun-
der, I shall speak of then both together. And,
1st, As to antiquity, though it be certain that, as Strabo
saith," | both these cities were ràxas Evêoãot kal Aagarpat, “ of
old illustrious and renowned cities,” insomuch, saith he,
that they were incomparable for greatness, splendour, and
antiquity; though Tyre be styled by Dionysius the Ogy-
gian, and by the poets, the Cadmean Tyre; and by the
prophet, the city “whose antiquity is of ancient days,”
Isa. xxiii. 7, yet was Sidon much the elder : for, (1.)
though Homer *** mentions Sidon, and speaks of the Si-
donians as "roxvéaíðaxoi, “excellent artificers,” he hath not
one word, saith Strabo, třt of Tyre or the Tyrians. (2.)
Trogus, in Justin, #ff saith, that after many years, the Si-
donians being overcome by the king of Ascalon, and beaten
to their ships, built Tyre the year before the Trojan war,
i.e. saith Josephus, $$$ two hundred and forty years before
* Cap. 47. f Cap. 14, p. 463.
# ‘H vöv w8xiaºra rāv Āxxoy slavègeſ. Lib. vii. p. 223.
§ Liberae conditionis, lib. iv. cap. 10.
| Leg. p. 798.
‘ſ Lib. xiii. p. 607, xiv. p. 663.
** Lib. xiii. p. 400. - # I.ib. v. cap. 30.
# 'Ey #95, rö Anarečew treroin, Évov;, xai Bioy own &AXo3sy #x2y-
Joseph. Antiq. lib. xv. cap. 13, p. 539, E, F.
| Lily, xvi. p. 521
*** Il. W. it? Ibid.
"rag.
§§ Lib. xiv. p. 438.
* I Ibid. p. 520.
# Tib. xviii. cap. 3.
§§§ Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 3, p. 259.
GEOGRAPHICAL TABLE.
122}
Solomon began to build the temple; hence most interpret-
ers conceive that Tyre is called “the daughter of Sidon,”
Isa. xxiii. 12, (3.) We read of Sidon, the first born of
Canaan, Noah's grandson, who was the builder of Sidon,
as Josephus * saith; see Gen. x. 15, and read of Sidon as
“ the border of Canaan,” ver. 19, but we read nothing of
Tyre, at least till it be mentioned by Joshua, xix. 29.
2ndly, Sidon, at least for a long time, excelled Tyre in
greatness, whence it is styled Sidon Rabbu, “the great,”
Josh. xi. 8, and xix. 28. Mela saith, that before it was
taken by the Persians, it was maritimarum urbium maxi-
ma, “the greatest of maritime cities.” Dicdorus Siculus, #
having made mention of the city of the Arvadians, the Si-
donians, and Tyrians, i. e. Arvad, Sidon, and Tyre, as the
Phoenician Tripolis, he adds of Sidon, that f Traoûtº, 33 xat
taſ, ºat; Xogynysiat; # ºxi; Troat, orpotºxe rāv xará rày bowizny
Trčasov, “for riches, and other provisions, it far exceeded
the other cities of the Phoenicians,” that city having long
quietly enjoyed that trade which brought in these riches;
whence, to live quietly and securely, is to live “after the
manner of the Sidonians,” Judg. xviii. 7. Moreover, in
skill in astronomy and arithmetic, and all the arts of mer-
chandise, in philosophy and philosophers, Strabo $ makes
them évéºixxot, “emulous,” or equal in comparison, and saith
the Greeks had their philosophy from them. Hence both
of them, in scripture, are represented as “very wise,”
Zech. ix. 2. Ezek. xxvii. 8, 9. But then,
3dly, Tyre is to be preferred before Sidon for strength, as
being built in the sea, four furlongs from the land, till
Alexander joined it to the continent, whence it is called
“ the strong city,” Josh. xix. 29, and after Sidon suffered by
the Persians, it excelled in riches, it being styled “ the
* Antiq. lib. i. cap. 7, p. 14.
crowning city,” as sending crowns of gold to kings, and
being the city “whose merchants were princes, and whose
traffickers were the honourable of the earth,” Isa. xxiii.
8. Hence Q. Curtius saith, * that in the time of Alexan-
der, it was memorable above all other cities of Syria and
Phoenicia, for splendour and greatness. They are mention-
ed in the New Testament, as places to whose coasts Christ
resorted, Matt. xv. 21; sometimes as people who resorted
to him from their coasts, Mark iii. 8; and sometimes to
upbraid the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida, lying east-
ward of them, as being more incredulous, Matt. xi. 21, 22.
To speak something of Tyre in particular, it is to be ob-
served, that there was # Old and New Tyre; the Old
Tyre, mentioned Josh. xix. 29, and called Palætyrus, was
built upon the continent; whence they of New Tyre tell
Alexander, that there was a place without the city called
Palaetyrus where he might sacrifice to Hercules ; it was,
saith Strabo, + distant thirty furlongs from the other
Tyre, which was four furlongs within the sea ; hence saith
God to her, by the prophet, “Thy borders are within the
sea,” Ezek. xxvii. 4. She sent colonies, saith Curtius,?
pené orbe toto, “almost through the world,” viz. to Car-
thage, Utica in Africa, to Thebes in Boeotia, and Gades in
Spain, whence it was accounted the mart of the world.
They also worshipped, besides Hercules, the goddess As-
tarte at Memphis ; whence Herodotus saith, the Tyri-
ans had there the temple ##yn: 'Abgoëttng, “ of Venus the
stranger,” to distinguish her from that Venus whom the
Egyptians worshipped.
* Claritate et magnitudine ante omnes urbes Sy-
riae Phoenicesque memorabilis. Lib. iv. cap. 2.
# Q. Curt. lib. cap. 2. Justin. lib. xi. cap. 10.
f Lib. xvi. p. 521. §. Lib. iv. cap. 4
f Lih. xvi. p. 531.
... P. 533.
§ Ibid.
A N IND EX
OF
| Lib. ii. cap. 112.
GREEK WORDS AND PHRASES
EX PLAINED IN THE
COMMENTARY ON THE FOUR GOSPELS AND THE Acts OF THE APOSTLES.
A.
'ATA00' X, Matt. xix. 17.
âyys).0g airoij, Acts xii. 15.
dyopaiou áyovrat, Acts xix. 38.
dióukia, John vii. 18.
&öövarog, Acts xiv. 8.
aipeoug, Acts xxiv. 14.
dikoúsuv, Acts ix. 7.
&kočovrsg oëk &coistv, Matt. xiii.10.
drpiósg, Matt. iii. 4.
dXaXáčw, Mark v. 38.
&\scrpvoptovía, Matt. xxvi. 34.
&\m.06 g, John vi. 55.
dA\d, immo, John xvi. 2.
rá dAAórpua, Luke xvi. 12.
&paprw\ög, Matt. ix. 13. .
dváykagov sigs\9siv, Luke xiv. 23.
divatósia, Luke xi. 3. -
diva pavévrsg rijv Kürpov, Acts xxi.
3. xxiv. 1.
kaupol &vail/58 swg, Acts iii. 19.
'diveráčew, Acts xxii. 24. .
divri)\apſ3ávsø0at, Luke i. 54.
*
divroſp6a)pusiv, Acts xxvii. 15.
Jy - • * *
&va,0sv, Luke i. 3. John iii. 3.
y ºw y z & i.
dittatreiv, dTraírmouc, Luke vi. 30.
x * tº a
d:trax6ijval, Acts xii. 19.
3. -
titréXtričeuv, Luke vi. 35.
> f - - e. e.
citréorst)\ev, miserat, John xviii. 24.
y rº- e
dtroka9.uaraveig, Acts i. 0.
* Af z
Xpóvoa dirokaraoré08wg Trávrayv,
tempora exhibitionis omnium,
Actiii. 21.
y e
dºrokpt0eig, Luke xiv. 3.
y w e Լ e
atrokpivopat, Acts iii. 12.
2 - -
citroXüstv, Luke ii. 29.
droarspeiv, Mark x. 19.
diſrogrouaríčeiv, Luke xi. 53.
y y * * *
dpvéopat, Acts iii. 14.
2 + 3 -º *g > z
dip' ºpepäiv, dipxaiwu, Acts xv. 7.
Tºy dipx|) v, John viii. 25.
&pxopal, Mark ii. 13.
douapxai, Acts xix. 31.
Štri Tô airó, Acts ii. 1, 44.
kard tö at Tö, Acts xiv. 1. -
ëi' airoi; pro èv airg, Acts i. 16.
dºr' aidjvog, Luke i. 70.
B
Bápſ3apot, Acts xxviii. 2.
3agavíčw, Matt. viii. 29.
Beckásgoë\, Luke ix. 15.
I
Tàp, autem, Acts viii. 40.
yévêqug, Matt. i. 1.
yupuyóg, John xxi. 7. Mark xiv. 51
A
Astouéaupovia, Acts xvii. 22.
ôsšía Tijg juvápswg, Matt. xxvi. 64.
Öuakpively, Acts xv. 8.
ðtavijo avtsc Töv tr}\oin, Acts xxi. 7.
Öuagsteuv, Luke iii. 14.
êtag tropä ‘EX\#vov, John vii. 35.
Öuxotopičiv, Matt. xxiv. 51.
ãokéw, Matt. iii. 9.
*ěočao.6m pro 60%ao Sijo stat, aorist
pro futuro, John xiii. 31.
1222
INDEX.
plm &vvao Sav, Mark ii. 19.
st Övvaröy, Matt. xxiv. 24., .
360 ovoi, impersonaliter, Luke vi. 38.
E
°Eðv, quando, John xii. 32.
si, quod, John ix. 25.
si, formula jurandi, Mark viii. 12,
optandi, Luke xii. 49.
sig pro èv, John i. 18.
£kkakeiv, Luke xviii. 1.
šk\sitsuw, Luke xvi. 19.
Trpoosvy) #krevijc, Acts xii. 5.
#y poi, me, Luke xii. 8.
###x0, Mark vi. 19.
Tà évévra, Luke xi. 41.
#vröcipáv Kalāv ipliv, Luke xvii.21.
#éarn, Mark iii. 21.
££06og, Luke ix. 31.
£opkićw, Matt. xxvi. 63.
ééovoia, John i. 12.
§§ovoiav Éxeuv, John xix. 11.
££wpoxóymgs, Luke xxii. 6.
£ºreira, idcirco, Matt. vii. 5.
itrevöörng, John xxi. 7.
irriga\dºv čk\ate, Mark xiv. 72.
£pmuog, Matt. iii. 1.
§ {pxópsvog, Matt. xi. 3.
#x0, Matt. xiii. 12.
Z
Z07), John x. 10.
Aöyva &övra, Acts vii. 38.
g H
*H pro uá\\ov #, Luke xviii. 14.
oilk #65uv, Acts xxiii. 5.
rt àiv kai got, Matt, viii. 29. Mark
v. 7.
6
Aarslog rij 08:5, Acts vii. 20.
&yvågrg tº 685, Acts xvii. 23,
I
"IX80g orot, Matt. xvi. 22.
iva, quando, Jolin xvi. 2.
IC
Kai, duplex, John ix. 37. Kai, quia,
xv. 6. sed, John vii. 11. kai,
tunc, Mark iv. 13, ideo, Luke ix.
33.
ka)\éoſovoſt, personale proimpersonali,
Matt. i. 23.
karaövdºkeuv, Mark i. 36. *
karakvpusūsly, karskovováčeuv, Matt.
xx. 35
karapuávag, Luke ix. 18,
Kathy matc, Luke i. 4.
karstów) og, Acts xvii. 16.
repôňg at Tijv Šćpw, Acts xxvii. 21.
Españavoiv, Mark xii, 4.
keyapuTwpièvn, Luke i. 28.
kotweiv, Acts x. 15.
* & tº $ tº * | *
kpivo pro karakpivo, John viii. 15.
kwuotróAEug, Mark i. 8.
A.
TIpöc këvrpa Aakrižew, Acts is. 5.
Marpeiav ºrpogºšpstv, John xvi. 2.
A&Towpygiv, Acts xiii. 2.
M
Máyot, Matt. ii. 1.
Pakáptog, Acts xxvi. 2.
pa)\\ov, sensu negativo, Mark xv.
11. John iii. 9.
pe6ästv, John ii. 10,
tö paraš od 33arov, Acts xiii. 41.
Herewpić80 Sau, Luke xii. 29.
pañTrors, Matt. xxv. 9.
pixog āvukög, Matt. xviii. 6.
N
Nai, particula obsecrandi, Matt, xv.
27.
vetokópoc, Acts xix. 35.
voutéegºat, Acts xvi. 13.
}ººl
pºg
**
§mpaívea Sat, Mark ix. 18.
O
Otöap.sv. John iii. 2.
oikovpuévn, Luke ii. 1.
ðvápata, Acts i. 15.
§tt, sed, Matt. vii, 14. pro èuðru,
Mark ix. 11
&rt, non causam, sed consequentiain
indicat, Luke vii. 47.
oi yāp, John x. 26.
§§ º pro èv Toig oilpavoic,
uke xi. 13. -- -
oirwg, John iv. 6.
ôpsiAérng, Luke xi. 5,
Öq6a)\frog dirMoûg, Matt. vi. 22.
Luke xi. 34.
öpia 8ttr.), Matt. xiv. 23.
II
IIa)\vyyevsota, Matt. xix. 28.
Trapaguáčew, Luke xxiv. 29.
Tapaſºudésasau, Acts xvi. 15.
Trapago)\j, Luke xiv. 7.
. Trap68wog, Matt. i. 23.
trapovksiy, Luke xxiv. 18.
#y roig roi trarpóg pov, Luke ii. 49.
Tspiepya, Acts xix. 19. *
TXàpng, nom. pro genitivo, John i.
14,
TAmpopopia, Luke i. 1. John i. 16.
§Tog tr}\mpo,0ī, App. to Matt. ii.
Trousiv, Mlatt. xx. 1.
Trpóg, contra, Mark xii. 12.
Trpèg rāg trepi Máp0av kai Mapuáp,
John xi. 19.
Tpogsvy), locus orationis, Luke vi.
* * *
Tpór), prior, Luke ii. 2.
Trpwrótokoç, de unigenito, Matt.i.25.
Trröðat kai dvarröğat, Luke iv. 17.
Trvypuff vipao Sat, Mark vii. 3.
P
‘Pâpa dip yov, Matt. xii. 36.
6%goeuv, Mark ix. 18.
X
Xá83atov Ševrspottpárov, Lukevi.1,
okavöa)\ićso Sav, Matt. xviii. 6.
a trapárrsty, Mark ix, 20. *
otreppo)\óyog, Acts xvii. 18.
ormpičew ºrpóowtrov, Luke ix. 51.
avkopayrāoat, Luke iii. 14.
oupſługężov, Acts i. 22.
ovpatrâmpoiſoSat, Acts ii. 1.
ovva Múðuevog, Acts i. 4.
ovvskópºuo av, Acts viii. 2.
ovvuévau, Matt. xiii. 9.
ovvrpiðw, Mark xiv. 3. {
toūgow&opuévovg, Acts i. 47.
otóšew, otóżeo Sau, a wrmpia, Acts iv
12.
T
Tateivajorig, Luke i. 48.
TÉXeuog, Matt. xix. 21.
tépara kai ampsia, Acts ii. 19.
Teraypuévot sig &wijv aitºvtov, Acts
xiii. 48.
Tnpeiv \6 yovg pov, John xv. 20.
Tt pro èud rt, Mark ii. 16.
Ti époi kai o'ou, John ii. 4.
Tupu), Acts xxviii. 12.
&Tpotropópmaev, Acts xiii. 18.
Y
Tö puérepov, Luke xvi. 12. gº
intrepòov, Acts i. 13.
Ö
Of pogoi pºevot rôy 686 v Acts x. 1.
pováiv, John ii. 9.
govi), Acts ix.
X
Xdipug divri Xàpuroc, John i. 16.
étruſ&dix\ew xsipac, Acts xii. 1.
X0psiv, John viii. 37. xxi. 25.
Xwpig #poij, John xv. 5.
Wr
Yvyi) et pux)y gāoat, Matt. xvi. 25.
Tw8éval triv livX)w, John x. 18.
Q
'Av6' div, eo quod, Luke xii. 2.
ºff &pa, Matt. xiv. 15, -
Øg oëx Öpowboswg d\\& 68/3attºo swg
Matt. xiv. 5. John i. 14. -
thosi, Luke iii. 23.
1228
A T A B L E O F P H R A S E S
EXPLALNED IN THE
COMMENTARY ON THE FOUR GOSPELS AND THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
*
THE soul carried into Abraham's bosom, Luke xvi. 22.
The angels ascending and descending on the Son of man,
John i. 52.
As the face of an angel, Acts vi, 15.
B
The Beautiful gate of the temple, Acts iii. 2.
To become as little children, Matt. xviii. 3.
In the beginning was the Word, John i. 1.
To believe in, and come to Christ, is the same thing, John
vi. 37.
Born not of flood, &c. John i. 13.
C
He came out from God, and went to God, John xiii. 3.
Sit in the chair of Moses, Matt. xxiii. 2.
The children of the prophets, Acts iji. 25.
If I will that he stay till I come, John xxi. 22.
The Son of man coming in the glory of the Father, Matt,
xvi. 27.
Coming in his kingdom, ver, 28,
The Consolation of Israel, Luke ii. 15.
To enter in at the door, John x. 3. .
What it is to be drawn of God, John vi. 44.
To drink of my cup, Matt. xx. 22.
E
Eating and drinking used in the spiritual sense by the east-
ern nations, John vi. 27.
Their eyes were held, Luke xxiv. 16.
F
His face was to go to Jerusalem, Luke ix. 53.
JFaith as a grain of mustard-seed, Matt. xvii. 20.
Call no man father, Matt. xxiii. 9.
Flesh and blood hath not revealed this to thee, Matt. xvi. 17.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh, John iii. 6.
My flesh is meat indeed, John vi. 55.
To be born of fornication, John viii. 41.
Full of grace and truth, John i. 14.
G
The gates of hell shall not prevail against it, Matt. xvi. 17.
The gift of God, John iv. 10.
It is a gift by which thou mightest be profited, Matt. xv. 5.
What it is to be given of the Father, John vi. 37. -
If these things be done in the green tree, what shall be
done in the dry 2 Luke xxiii. 31.
H
There shall not one hair of your head perish, Luke xxi. 18.
The hand of the Lord was with him, Luke i. 66.
He that hath ears to hear, let him hear, Matt. xiii. 9.
To be exalted to heaven, and brought down to hell, Matt.
xi. 23.
I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, Luke xy. 21.
Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, Acts ij. 26.
A horn of salvation, Luke i. 69.
To hunger and thirst after righteousness, Matt. v. 6.
I, J.
I am in the Father, and you in me, and I in you, John xiv.
A sabbath-day's journey, Acts i. 12.
K
You have taken away the key of knowledge, Luke xi, 52.
The kingdom of God, and of heaven, Matt. iii. 2.
I know mine, and am known of them, John x. I
L
The least in the kingdom of heaven, Matt. v. 19.
The leaven of the pharisees, Matt. xvi. 6.
In him was life, John i. 4.
To have life in himself, John y. 26.
The light of the world, Matt. v. 14.
Lights burning, Luke xii. 35.
They all live to him, Luke xx. 38.
Lovest thou me more than these ? John xxi. 15.
Let your loins be girded about, Luke xii. 35.
M
The mammon of unrighteousness, Luke xvi. 9.
To give the Spirit by measure, John iii. 34.
It is meat and drink to me, John iv. 28.
A millstone hanged about the neck, Matt. xviii. 6.
Then shall they say to the mountains, Fall upon us, Luke
xxiii. 30.
N
Your names are written in heaven, Luke x. 20.
One thing is needful, Luke x. 42.
I can do nothing of myself, John v. 19.
O
He opened their understandings, Luke xxiv. 45.
To open the heart, Acts xvi. 14.
He came to his own, John i. 11.
P
We have piped to you, and you have not danced, Matt. xi.
17.
To go to his own place, Acts i. 25.
The poor in spirit, Matt. v. 3.
To preach the gospel to the poor, and the acceptable year ºf
the Lord, Luke iv. 18, 19.
To put his hand to the plough, and look back, Luke ix. 62,
63.
R.
Whose sins you do remil, they are remitted, &c., John xx
23.
A righteous person that needs no repentance, Luke xv. 7.
More joy in heaven over one sinner that reponteth, ibid.
Sons of God, sons of the resurrection, Luke xx. 36.
S
The salt of the earth, Matt. v. 13.
Every sacrifice shall be salted with salt, Mark ix. 49.
Sanctify them by thy truth, John xvii. 17.
I beheld Salan falling from heaven, Luke x. 18.
Whom Satan hath bound, Luke xiii. 16.
Satan entered into Judas, Luke xxii. 3. .
Satan hath desired to winnow thee, Luke xxii. 31.
That seeing they may not see, Luke viii. 10.
As my Father hath sent me, so send I you, John XX. 21
Shake off the dust from your feet, Matt. x. 14.
To shut up the kingdom of heaven, Matt. xxiii. 13.
The sign of the Son of Man, Matt. xxiv. 30. *
The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak, Matt. xxvi. 41
Her spirit returned, Luke viii. 55.
The stones shall cry out, Luke xix. 41.
To strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel, Matt. xxiii. 24.
The sun shall be darkened, and the moon not give her ligh;,
Matt. xxiv. 29.
A sword shall pass through thy soul, Luke ii. 34.
What it is to be taught of God, John vi. 45.
They were always in the temple, Luke xxiv. 53.
To tempt the Lord is to distrust him, Matt. iv. 7,
For a testimony to them, Matt. viii. 3. .
To lay up treasures upon earth, Matt. vi. 19.
v."
1224, * *
V -
Every valley shall be filled up, and every mountain be made
low, Luke iii. 5.
The violent take it by force, Matt. xi. 12.
W
To be born of water, John iii. 5.
Wisdom is justified of her children, Matt. xi. 19.
He that is not with me is against me, Matt. xii. 30.
INDEX.
Filled with the Holy Ghost from the womb, Luke i. 15.
By every word of God, Luke iv. 4.
His word was with power, Luke iv. 32.
The PWord was with God, John i 1.
The Word was made flesh, John i. 14. -
The world cannot contain the books, John xxi. 25.
Their worm dieth not, Mark ix. 44. o
To worship God in spirit and in truth, John iv. 23.
A T A B L E OF MATTERS
CONTAINED IN THE
COMMENTARY ON THE FOUR GOSPELS AND THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES.
A
Tiſe history of the woman taken in adultery defended,
John viii. 9. -
How they that went into Egypt were seventy ; how seven-
ty-five, Acts vii. 14.
By what authority Moses slew the Egyptian, ibid. ver. 25.
Alms are instrumental to procure the pardon of sins, Luke
xi. 41.
What anger is, and in what cases it is justifiable, Matt. v. 22.
How Annas and Caiaphas were styled high-priests together,
Luke ii. 3.
Wherein consisted the sin of Amanias and Sapphira, Acts
v. 1.
Apostles, when they were called, Matt. iv. 18. 21.
Their commission, Matt. x., chiefly respected their second
mission, ibid. wer. 8.
The infirmity of their faith before Christ’s resurrection
and ascension, John xx. 9.
They had equally the power of the keys, Matt. xviii. 18.
They only gave the Holy Ghost by imposition of hands,
Acts. viii. 15.
The Acts of the apostles of unquestionable credit, and a
strong confirmation of the Christian faith, Preface to
the Acts.
What were the curious arts, Acts xix. 19.
B
Baptism may be administered to a person incapable of some
ends of baptism, provided he be capable of some other
ends for which it also was designed, Matt. iii. 16.
Baptism was performed to the Jews and proselytes, who
believed already in the Father and the Holy Ghost in
the name of Christ; to the beathens, in the name of
the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Acts viii. 57.
See Christ's baptism, C. Buptism by the Holy Ghost, H.
By John, I. Of infants, ibid.
What binding and loosing imports, Matt. xviii. 18.
Why all the blood, from the blood of Abel to that of Bara-
chias, was to fall on that generation; Matt. xxiii. 35, 36.
Why Booz, Obed, and Jesse, begat sons when they were a
hundred years old, Matt. v. 1.
What bread signifies in the Lord's Prayer, and why all are
to ask it day by day, Matt. vi. 11.
The breaking of it in the sacrament necessary, Matt. xxvi.
26.
The brethren of the Lord were truly so, as being Joseph's
children by another wife, Matt. xiii. 55.
God himself was present with Moses at the bush, as well
as the angel, Acts vii. 30.38. 53.
C
Why Azariah, Joash, and Amaziah, are left out of the cata-
logue of the kings of Judah, Matt. i. 8.
The omissions in the genealogy of St. Matthew, ought not
to be imputed to a defective catalogue.
We are not forbid, Matt. vi., to do public acts of charity,
nor to do them so as to be exemplary to others; or that
others seeing them, may glorify God; but only not to do
them from a desire of being praised by men, ver, 1.
The Divinity of Christ proved,
1. From John i. 1–3. v. 21—23. viii. 58. x. 30. xii. 41.
xvi. 14, 15. xvii. 5. xx. 28. Luke i. 43.
2. From these words, Thow shalt worship the Lord thy
God, and him only shalt thou serve, Matt. iv. 10, compared
with John v. 25, and Heb. i. 6.
Christ was always religiously worshipped by all Chris-
tians, Acts vii. 59.
3. From prayer made to him by all Christians, Acts. ix.
14.
4. From his power to raise himself, John ii. 19. x. 18.
5. From his omniscience, John ii. 25. xxi. 17.
Answer to the objections,
1. From the descent of the Holy Ghost upon him, Matt.
iii. 16. ,
2. From his temptation by Satan, Matt. iv. 3.
3. From these words, Why callest thou me good? Matt.
xix. 17.
4. From those words, To sit on my right hand, &c. is not
mine to give, Matt. xx. 23.
5. From those words, Of that duy and hour knoweth no
man, no, not the Son, Mark xiii. 32.
6. From those, I speak not of myself, John v. 19, and,
My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me, vii. 16.
7. From those, My Father is greater than I, John xiv. 28,
Lastly, From those, This is life eternal, to know thee the
only true God, John xvii. 3.
Christ calls God his Father, with respect to his divine na-
ture, John v. 19.
Why he is called the Son of man. How the Son of man is
said to ascend into, and come down from heaven ; or
come forth from God, John iii. 13. vi. 62. viii. 42
xiii. 3.
How his body is styled a temple, and how it was raised by
himself, John ii. 19.
Christ's prescience, Matt. xxi. 4.
Christ preached not before, but after bis baptism, and then
not four, but three years and a half, postscript to Preface
to St. John.
Christ was baptized in his thirtieth year, Luke iii. 23; by
immersion, Matt. iii. 11.
Christ's sermon on the mount, not the same with that Luke
vi. Matt. v. 1. It was spoken to the whole multitude, ibid.
Whether in it he adds to the precepts of the moral law,
Appendix to chap. v.
Why Christ spake in parables, Matt. xiii. 10.
Why Christ was tempted, and that he really was so, Matt.
iv. 1. 8.
Christ acted upon earth in the delivery and confirmation of
his message, as a prophet anointed with the Spirit of
God, Preface to St. John, Ş. 5.
Why he spake to those that were healed to conceal his mi-
racles, Matt. ix. 30. -
INDEX.
1225
His prophetic office proved from his miracles and predic-
tions, confirmed, General Preface, and Matt. xxiv. 2.
Tºriestly office : - -
The reasons of his sorrow in his agony, Matt. xxvi. 38.
He died for all ; see D : and would have saved them who
would not be saved ; see S. ".
How he was three days and three nights in the heart of
the earth, Matt. xii. 40.
His satisfaction proved, from Matt. xxiii. 28.
The arguments against it, from Matt. xviii. 23, John iii.
16, fully answered, ibid. See App. vi. to Matt. xxvi.
Regal office : *
The import of Christ's session at the right hand of God,
Acts i. 33.
Arguments for the truth of the Christian faith, Preface to
the Acts ; and from the power delegated by Christ to his
apostles and the seventy, to heal diseases, cast out de-
vils, and confer the Holy Ghost, Matt. x. 1. From his
coming at the time when he was expected by all nations,
Luke ii. 38. -
How the first Christians had all things common, Acts il. 44.
iv. 32.
They must be charitable to their fellow Christians in dis-
tress, Acts xi. 30.
Circumcision, why not performed till the eighth day, Luke i.
59.
Communion in both kinds necessary, Matt. xxvi. 27.
Auricular confession is not proved from the confession of
sins, mentioned Matt. iii. 6.
Signs of covetousness, Luke xii. 15.
General councils have no right to say, It seemed good to the
Holy Ghost, and us, Acts xv. 28.
D
The psalms of David were written by a prophetical afflatus,
Acts iv. 25.
How Christ was three days and three nights in the heart of
the earth, Matt. xii. 40.
The seven deacons, Acts vi., were not only civil, but sacred
officers, ver, 6., No argument from the choice of them,
that the laity might have right to choose sacred officers
in the church, ibid.
Sins not so properly styled debts, seeing by sinning we ra-
ther contract a guilt than a debt, Luke xi. 5.
The demoniacs were truly possessed with evil spirits, and
not diseased persons only, Matt. viii. 31. That there
were many such among Jews and gentiles, ibid.
The Jews did cast out devils, Matt. xii. 27.
All that Christ saith, Matt. xxiv., relates to the destruction
of Jerusalem, ibid. ver. 3. 34.
The determinate counsel of God laid not Judas under a
necessity of sinning, Luke xxii. 22.
Christ's disciples were seventy, Luke x. 1. They were in-
ferior to the twelve, as presbyters are to bishops, they
not having the power to confer the Holy Ghost by impo-
sition of hands, ibid. - .
How Christ came not to dissolve, but to fulfil the moral and
ceremonial law, Matt. v. 17.
An instance of divine appointment without any necessity
laid upon the will, Acts xxiii. 11. +.
Divorces practised by the Jews for any cause, Matt. xix.
1. God permitting them to the Jew in some cases ren-
dered him free from guilt who did it in those cases, and
this permission was a dispensation with his original law,
wer. 1. 7, 8. -
Christ's coming, the doors being shut, how to be understood,
John xx. 12. ;
Christ died for the whole world, John iii. 17.
An objection answered, John xvii. 9.
E
Christ speaks of eating his flesh and drinking his blood
spiritually and not corporeally, John vi. 53, 54.
The necessity of ecclesiastical government and censure,
Matt. vii. 1. xx. 25.
Jºlders not fixed bishops, Acts xiv. 19. xv. 2.
Christiai.s, not Jews, are styled the elect, Mark xiii. 20.
That John Baptist was the Elius which was to come, and
that no other is to be expected, Mlatt, xi. 14.
See Acts xxii. 23.
The word Emmanuel, Isa. vii. 14, truly belongs to Christ,
but doth not necessarily prove his divinity, Matt. i. 23.
Christ's words and actions, Matt. ix. 24. Mark vi. 48.
Luke xxiv. 28, afford no argument for equivocation or
dissimulation.
The effect of excommunication according to the Jews, John
1x. 22, Y
F
Signs of little faith, Matt. viii. 26. -
False Christs and false prophets, according to our Lord's
prediction, Matt. xxiv. 5. 24. -
Christ's fasting forty days makes nothing for our Lent-fast,
Matt. iv. 2. Luke iv. 2.
Fasting on Wednesday and Friday, why, Matt. xxvi. 14.
Signs of having the devil for our futher, John viii. 44.
Why Felix trembled at St. Paul's discourse, Acts xxiv.
25.
What fig-tree it was that Christ cursed, and why he did so,
Mark ix. 13. -
The first shall be last, and the last first, relates to the call-
ing of the gentiles, and the rejection of the Jews; and
the murmuring against them that received a penny and
wrought but one hour, is the murmuring of the Jews
against the gentiles, Matt. xx. 1.
The story of the two brazen statues erected by the woman
who had the flur of blood, is improbable, Matt. v. 26.
What the prayer for forgiveness of sins supposes, and
what forgivenes sof our brother's trespasses is required,
Matt. vi. 12. 14.
G
That St. Matthew had his genealogy from the authentic re-
cords of the Jews, Matt. i. 14.
Nothing in scripture is absolutely, and in the singular num-
ber, called God, to which the divine nature doth not be-
long, John i. 1.
The God of Israel was owned by the heathens, as a God
above all others, Luke i. 76.
God gives men their good things, in which they place
their happiness, and so it is not of God, but of them-
selves, that they have no other happiness, Matt. vi. 2.
Civil government not forbid to Christians, Matt. xx. 25.
Guardian angels not proved from Matt. xviii. 10, or Acts
xii. 15.
H
| God’s hand oftentimes refers not to his power, but to his
wisdom and providential dispensations, Acts iv. 28.
The Jews not commanded under the Old Testament to hate
their enemies, Matt. v. 43.
The heart is said to be hardened when it yields not to suffi-
cient evidence, and this is oftentimes only a sin of infir-
mity, Mark viii. 17. Acts xix. 9.
The heathens held the gods to be of human shape, Acts xiv.
10. xvii. 24, and that they were to be worshipped in ima-
ges, ibid. They crowned their gods and their sacrifices,
Acts xiv. 44. God left not himself without a witness
that he was the author of their blessings, and was placa-
ble to them that turned to him, Acts xiv. 17, xvii. 27.
They allowed no strange gods, but required all men to
worship the gods of their own country, and after, their
manner, Acts xvi. 21. xvii. 6. They allowed self-mur-
der, ver. 27.
Who were the Helle mists, Acts vi. 1. xi. 20.
Why Herod slew the children from two years old and up-
ward, Matt. ii. 16.
The judgments of God upon Herod, Herodias, and her
daughter, Matt. xxii.16.
The Holy Ghost was promised, but not given, before Christ's
ascension, Luke xi. 13. .
To what end he was given to the holy apostles, Acts i. 5.
All the hundred and twenty received the Holy Ghost,
Acts ii. 1. iv. 31.
How the Holy Ghost made overseers of the flock, Acts xx.
28. -
The divine essence of the Holy Ghost, Acts v. 4.
Baptism of the Holy Ghost, what, Acts i. 5.
The three hours of prayer among the Jews, and the canon-
ical hours of the Christians, Acts iii. 1.
&
1226
INDEX.
I, J
Wechanias, Matt. i. 11, is not the same person with Jecho-
nias, ver. 12, but is Jehoiakim, Matt. i. 11.
The Jews did cast out devils, Matt. xii. 27, they used ma-
gie and sorcery, Acts xiii. 6. xix. 13. ſº
How far they had the power of life and death in Christ's
time ; see L.
They had good ground to hope for a resurrection of the
body; see R. -
They expected the kingdom of heaven as having Abraham
for their father, Matt. iii. 9.
The doctrine of the Platonists and Pythagoreans concern-
ing the pre-existence of souls obtained amoug the Jews,
John ix. 2.
Some Jews held circumcision necessary to the salvation of
the gentiles, others not, Acts xv. 1.
Why §. commanded the Jews to depart from Rome,
and when, Acts xviii. 1.
The reason of the zeal even of the Jewish converts for the
law, Acts xxi. 20.
Their disciples sat at the feet of their masters, Acts xxii. 3.
Their bloody zeal, Acts xxiii. 12. xxv. 3.
The worship of the true God by an image, is idolatry, Acts
vii. 41. -
The infallibility of the chnrch not proved from Matt. xvi.
18. xviii.15. 18. xix. 19, absolutely condemned from those
words, Call no man rabbi, father, guide, on earth, Matt,
xxiii. 8–10.
St. John the apostle, and not Cerinthus, was the true au-
thor of the gospel that bears that name, Preface, when
and why it was written, Ş. 3, 4.
The last chapter of St. John's Gospel was written by him-
self, John xxi. 24, xx. 23.
Join the Baptist,
That Elias who was to come, nor is any other to be ex-
pected, Matt. xi. 14.
How he knew Christ before the descent of the Holy
Ghost upon him, Postscript to the Preface to St. John.
His baptism was not for substance the sa:me with that of
Christ, Matt. iii. 11. -
They who had been baptized by him, were baptized
again in the name of Jesus, Acts xix. 6.
The joy in heaven at the conversion of a sinner, not the
joy of the blessed spirits or of angels, but of God
before the angels, Luke xv. 10
Why St. Matthew gives the genealogy of the Holy Jesus
from Joseph, Matt. i. 16.
The tribe and family of Joseph and Mary were the same,
ibid.
Why Joseph did not proceed against Mary as an adulteress
but put her away privately, Matt. i. 19.
What judgment is forbid, Matt. vii. 1.
K
The import of that phrase, the kingdom of heaven, Matt. iii.
2, and the keys of that kingdom, Matt. xvi. 19.
L
1.awyers were also scribes, Mark xii. 28.
The law, the prophets, and the psalms, comprehend the
whole Old Testament, Luke xxiv. 44.
Laying on of hands for confirmation and ordination, to
confer the ordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost, belongs to
bishops, as the laying on of hands, to give the extraor-
dinary gifts of the Holy Ghost belonged only to the
apostles, Acts viii. 15.
Bives and Lazarus are mentioned not as a history, but a
parable, Luke xvi. 19.
Why the history of Lazarus is mentioned only by St. John,
xi. 1. *
Levi the same with Matthew, Luke v. 57.
The synagogue of the libertimes, Acts vi. 9.
How far the power of life and death was taken from the
Jews, John xviii. 31. f
The Lord’s-day observed by Christians, Acts xx. 7.
The measures of love.
To God, Matt. xxii. 37.
To our neighbour, ver. 39.
St. Luke was one of Christ's seventy disciples, and might
have personal knowledge of what he writ, Preface and
note on Luke i. 1. -
His Gospel contains all things necessary to be believed, i.4.
- M
Three Maries anointed Christ, John x1i. 3.
, Mary Magdalen came twice from the sepulchre; to Peter
and John, before she knew that Christ was risen ; to all
the apostles, with a message from the angels and Christ,
that he was risen, John xx. 2.
Most of the apostles were married, Matt. viii. 14.
The distinction of clean and unlean meats separated the
Jews from all other nations, Acts x. 15. . . .
The precept, not to meditate beforehand what we shall
speak, makes nothing for the infallibility of councils, or
the extemporary effusions of quakers and anabaptists,
Matt. x. 19, 20. - -
The millennium not proved from Matt. xix. 28.
The miracle of the pool of Bethesda was done by an angel,
and not by the warm entrails of beasts, John v. 4.
No miracles are wrought for the merits of saints, Acts iii. 12.
: Who are the mourners, Matt. v. 4. -
Who the meek, ver. 5, the merciful, ver, 7.
O
Our Lord, Matt. v. 33, 34, forbids not all oaths as absolutely
evil, not all promissory oaths, not all judicial oaths but
only voluntary oaths in common conversation and dis-
COUll'Sé.
The forms of swearing forbidden, ver, 34, 36, were usual
among the Jews, and not looked on as binding oaths, ibid.
Obedience to the moral law was to the Jew a condition of
obtaining life eternal, Matt. xix. 19.
That they may be one, as thou Father art in me, and I in
thee, is meant of the union of the Spirit, John xiv. 20,
xvii. 28. • -
Not divine ordination to, but being disposed for, eternal
life, made men believe, Acts xiii. 48.
The Jews anointed the sick with oil, Mark vi. 13.
P
The patriarchs were buried in Sychem, Acts vii. 16.
St. Paul, his conversion an evidence of the truth of
Christianity, Acts xxii. 6.
Why he circumcised Timothy, Acts xvi. 1.
He sent not from Melitus to all the bishops of Asia, nor
to them only, but also to the presbyters, Acts xx. 17.
His preaching at Damascus, and going thence to Jeru-
salem, rightly stated, Acts ix. 23.
He preached everywhere to the Jews, as well as to the
gentiles, Acts xvii. 1.
Why only on the sabbath-days in the synagogues, ibid.
Why he had on him a temporary vow of Nazaritism, and
consented to join with others in it, Acts xviii. 19, xxi.
26, 27. -
He neither sinned, nor confessed his sin, in saying
God shall smite thee, &c. Acts xxiii. 1. 5.
How Christ's sheep shall never perish, John X. 28.
Persecution on the account of religion, is contrary to
Christian faith, Luke ix. 55, 56. -
Who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, Matt. v.
10.
Examples of dreadful judgments on the persecutors of the
church, Acts xii. 23.
Those words, Thou art Peter, respect his person, Matt.
xvi. 18, and the following words contain a promise that
he should lay the first foundation of a church among the
Jews and gentiles; but in this he can have no successor,
ibid.
Why Cornelius sends for Peter, Acts x. 5.
Why Peter goes up to the housetop to pray, ver, 9.
He was no monarch of the church, or judge of controversies,
Acts viii. 14, xv. 19.
The protestant doctrine of the perspicuity of scripture stated,
Acts viii. 31.
The pharisees are accounted, and seem to have been, the best
sect of the three, Acts xxvi. 5.
The scribes and pharisees held it unlawful to eat with uti-
washen hands, and that this was necessary that they
might be holy, making this precept of theirs equal to
INDEX.
1227
God's commands, and so teaching for doctrines the
commandments of men, Matt. xv. 1.9.
Polygamy is consequently forbid by Christ's discourse of
divorces, Mark x. 11.
Why we are to pray to him who knows our wants before
we pray, and what is the much speaking forbid in
prayer, Matt. vi. 8.
Our Lord does not only give the heads of things we are to
pray for, but a form of prayer; which not only his
disciples then, but Christians are now, to use, Matt. vi.
9. The import of the preface to the Lord’s Prayer, ver.
10.
The conditions of an acceptable prayer as to matter,
manner, and the person praying, Matt, vii. 7.
I pray not for the world, is no argument that Christ died
not for the world, John xvii. 20.
The prediction of the évent hinders not the sinfulness of the
action, Matt. xxvi. 24.
Promowns oft refer to the remoter noun, Luke v. 17.
A prophet in the scripture is either a foreteller of things
future, or a revealer of the will of God, Luke i. 67.
Prophets and teachers were not fixed bishops, Acts xiii. 1.
False prophets may be known by their works, Matt. vii. 15,
16
The proselytes of the gate came to the Jewish synagogues,
Acts xvii. 4.
Publicans were generally men of ill fame for 'rapine and
extortion, Matt. ix. 11, joined with heathens, and
despised by the Jews, Luke xv. 1, 2.
Purgatory not proved from Matt. xii. 31, 32.
The law of purification belonged only to the mother, Luke
ii. 22.
What was the spirit of Python, Acts xvi. 16.
R
God's counsel concerning men's salvation may be rejected,
Luke vii. 30.
What is required that we may go on stedfastly in the
ways of religion, Luke xiv. 28.
What are the fruits meet for repentance, Matt. iii. 8.
Death-bed repentance invalid, Matt. xxv. 1, Luke xxiii. 40.
What is the battology, or vain repetitions forbidden by
Christ, Matt. vi. 7. -
It is not probable that the relics of St. Stephen cured
diseases, Acts viii. 2.
The pharisees owned only the resurrection of the just, Acts
xxiv. 15.
Christ's argument against the sadducees to prove the re-
surrection, cleared, Matt. xxii. 23, 32.
Wherein our righteousness must exceed that of the scribes
and pharisees, Matt. v. 20. -
S
All the arguments by which our Lord justifies himself and
his disciples from violating the sabbath, considered, Matt.
xii. 1.
The sacramental elements do not sanctify the body by the
touch, but the soul only of the person disposed to
receive them, Matt. xv. 11.
The sacramental bread is not substantially turned into
Christ's body, Matt. xxvi. 11, nor the wine into his
blood, Mark xiv. 25.
The absurdity and blasphemy of that opinion truly mani-
fested, Matt. xxvi. 26.
The sadducees after Christ's resurrection were the great
enemies to Christianity, as the pharisees were before,
Acts v. 17, in what sense they denied angels and spirits,
Acts xxiii. 7, Matt. xxii. 32.
The Samaritais worshipped the true God, though not
according to his will, John iv. 24.
Iłow we are to sanctify God’s name, Matt. vi. 10.
Christ was truly willing to save them who would not be
saved, Matt. xxiii. 57, Luke xix. 42.
Scandal, though only received, not given, when to be
avoided, Matt. xvii. 27.
The rules of self-denial, Luke ix. 23, the doctrine destroyed
by Mr. Hobbes, Luke xii. 8, 9. -
The sin of Simon Magus consisted in supposing that the
apostles conferred the Holy Ghost by some art of magic
guperior to his own, Acts viii. 20.
Simony, so called with analogy to his offering money for
spiritual things, ibid.
That the soul dies not with the body, but continues in a
state of sensibility, proved from Matt. x. 28, Luke xxiii.
43, Acts vii. 59. -
What the star was which conducted the wise men, Matt.
ii. 9.
No works of merit, or supererogation, Luke xvii. 10.
The supper, mentioned John xiii. 2, was not the paschal
Supper. i
The president, or head of the synagogue, beating offenders,
usual, Mark xiii. 9.
Christ frequented the synagogue-worship, though it was
corrupted : and conformed to their ceremonies, Luke
iv. 16.
T
The law of talio, how to be understood, Matt. v. 38, 39.
Tarsus, an eminent academy, Acts xxii. 3.
The taaling mentioned by St. Luke was before that made
by Cyrenius, Luke ii. 2.
The captain of the temple, who, Luke xxii. 52.
Herod's temple was building forty-six years, and not
then finished, John ii. 20.
What is the import of the word temptation in the Lord’s
Prayer; what it is to enter into temptation ; how God
cannot, and how he may be said to lead us into tempta-
tion, Matt. xvi. 13. -
Why Christ was tempted, Matt. iv. 1.
He was really tempted, and not only in a vision, Matt. iv. 8.
There was a Theudas before Christ, and after him another
of that sect, Acts v. 36.
Examples of transposition of words in scripture, Mark ix.
13, Luke i. 27. -
Christ decides the question about paying tribute to Caesar
from their own rules, Matt, xxii. 17.
U
T'awashen hands. See pharisees.
The Christians represented as unlearned, Acts iv. 13
The blessed Virgin was of the house of David, Luke i. 27,
ii. 25. She vowed not virginity, ver. 34. Her womb
was opened at the birth of Christ, Luke ii. 23. Her
perpetual virginity not proved, or disproved, from
scripture, Matt. i. 25, no article of faith, nor was it
always deemed heresy to question it, Matt. xiii. 55.
Ur of Chaldea was in Mesopotamia, Acts vii. 1.
- W
The man not having on the wedding-garment, respects the
Jews, Matt. xxii. 11. -
The punishment of the wicked in Gehenna will be eternal,
Mark ix.43, 44. f . . . . .
Whited sepulchres, what, Matt. xxiii. 27.
How to do God's will on earth, as it is done in heaven,
Matt. vi. 10.
The wise men not kings, Matt. ii. 1, not from Chaldea, but
from Arabia, wer. 2, how they knew a king of the Jews
was to be born, C, when they came to Jerusalem, ibid.
why they presented him with those gifts, ver, 11.
What hinders the word from being profitable, Matt. xiii.
20, 22.
When our affections are inordinately set on this world,
Matt. xvi. 22, what solicitude for it is allowed, and
what forbidden, ver. 25.
How we must worship God in spirit, John iv. 24.
God accepts of no worship as done to him, which is not
done to him alone, and according to his will, Acts vii.
41, xxii. 17.
Religious worship refused by St. Peter, Acts x. 25, 26.
Some dispositions are required in men to render them
worthy of the gospel, and the grace of God, Matt. x. 2.
The command to sell all, was directed to the young men in
particular, and binds not others, Matt. xix. 21.
Z
2'orobabel in scripture, and the Jewish writers, is often
mentioned as the son of Shealtiel, and not of Pedaiah,
IMatt. i. 12.
1228
AN INDEX
OF THE
GREEK WORDS AND PHRASEs
A
APAGO 2, Rom. v. 7.
râ âya6öv üpwºöv, Rom. xiv.-16.
âyapwoç, 1 Cor. vii. 8.
#ysot, Rom. xvi. 15. 1 Cor. vii. 14.
&ytáčeiv, Heb. ii. 11. ix. 13.
d:3ta Asiartog, 1 Thess. v. 17.
â8xia, 1 Cor. xiii. 6. 2 Tim. ii. 19.
â3óktpzos, 2 Tim. iii. 8. Heb. vi. 8.
â8eot, Eph. ii. 12.
6 #A8&v St' afwatoç, 1 John v. 6.
aigsgig, 1 Cor. ix. 19.
aigetixöç, Tit. iii. 10.
aia XgoAoyia, Col. iii. 8.
azia-6narig, Phil. i. 10.
ai&v, 2 Tim. iv. 10.
warà tov aiåva, Eph. ii. 2.
watà 7rgé8e riv aid4yov, Eph. ii. 11.
aidóvios, Philem. 15. Jude 7.
wrp3 tav aidóvoy, 2 Cor. i. 7.
aiåvaç, Hleb. i. 2.
al&v gaâAAov, Heb. v1. 5.
âxaxoç, Rom. xvi. 18. Heb. vii. 26.
àxá6agroç, 1 Cor. vii. 14.
âxgo6ivia, Heb. vii. 4.
âxoöew, Eph, i. 7.
dNAà, Rom. x. 19.
âpwagtia, #pwagºrov, à laagvoxot wat soºrá-
8novay, Rom v. 19.
5 rotay thv àwagtiav, 1 John iii. 8, 9.
tràg àpza;Tiac haây âvijveyxey, 1 Pet.ii.24.
weet àuaprias, Rom. viii. 3. 1 Pet. iii.
18.
âpzag to Act, Gal. ii. 15.
dyá8spxa eïvat, Rom. ix. 3.
åvaxspa Aaidºaaa-Sat, Eph. i. 10.
åvaxgivo, 1 Cor. ii. 15.
åva Aoyia rij, riorteos, Rom. xii. 6.
wat dv8gowov Aáya, Rom. iii. 5. 1 Cor.
ix. 8.
âv65%wwow Aiyo, Rom. vi. 19.
â âvrvrago éaeyos rij ##ovala, Rom.xiii.2.
âzró8st#tç rob IIveöpwaroc, 1 Cor. ii 4.
dwo8%n, 2 Tim. iv. 14.
àwoxata AAágat, Eph. ii. 16.
ãaróorroAog, Rom. xvi. 7. Phil. ii. 25.
dºmróxgnortc, Col. ii. 22.
oöx à pºraypzoy hyharato, Phil. ii. 6.
âpeth, 1 Pet. ii. 9. 2 Pet. i. 5.
ân âpxiig, 1 John i. 1. ii. 7.
doréAyeta, Rom. xiii. 13.
da6svès, âo 6evéa, âa 6éveta, Rom. v. 6.
xiv. 21.
ãoroorla, Eph. v. 18.
#v â p8agaia, Eph. vi. 24.
& pgoweg, Rom. ii. 20.
& paigety àpzag riav, Heb. x. 4. d'
xarà rov âexovira rijg ##ovaria; toij &#gos,
Eph ii. 2.
EXPLAINED IN THE
» B
T# Báax, Rom. xi. 4.
Baſ8u A&y, 1 Pet. v. 13.
BaAaâpa row Boarôg, 2 Pet. ii. 15.
äy 8ápst Eiwat, 1 Thess. ii. 6.
vópwoç 8aori Aixóç, James ii. 8.
oi 8ovAópzeyot wrAovreïy, 1 Tim. vi. 9.
D
T? Aoyixõy yáAa, 1 Pet. ii. 2.
xevolg h yga ph A#yet, James iv. 5.
#ypa-la, scripseram, 1 Cor. v. 9. John
iii. 9.
yeygapxpwéva #y 8i8Aa' (ooiig, Phil. iv. 3.
yaatpipwapyos, Tit. i. 12.
yeyn8áta, Rom. xi. 10.
h yAâarora rög, James iii. 6.
yvvn, 1 Cor. vii. 34.
yuvaixa &8ëx pny, 1 Cor. ix. 5.
A
Aaipzóvtov, 1 Cor. x. 20.
8ë, Rom. vi. 17.
Bénarts âvEgyovpzÉyn, James v. 16.
Beha etc, 7rpoorevxal, Évºrsú#stg, 1 Tim. ii. 2.
3ta, cum genitivo, per, Heb. i. 2.
1 Tim. ii. 15.
Sta8hxn, Heb, ix. 20.
Blaxovia, Rom. xii. 6.
8táxgiorig Staxoytopwoºy, Rom. xiv. 1.
3taxpivópasvog, Rom. xiv. 23. James i. 8.
&#8apxt, #3oks, Rom. xi. 8.
#8oxe 86pxata, Eph. iv. 8.
Bixatoç, Rom. iii. 26.
3xatoaróvn @eoij, Rom. i. 17.
3taatópwara, Rom. ii. 26.
Biºlvxoç, James i. 8.
36#a, Rom. iii. 26.
Boáágsiv, Rom. viii. 33.
Boypwarričear8s, Col. ii. 20.
Boxtpagºsts, 1 Cor. xi. 28. Gal. vi. 4.
BoxÉoo, 1 Cor. vii. 40. 1 Tim. ii. 15.
Heb. iv. 1.
BovAsia Tiig p&ogas, Rom. viii. 21.
Booge& inrovgávioç, Heb. vi, 4,
3óvaſxt;, 1 Cor. v. 5.
Bvvatog, Rom. xi. 13. xiv. 4. Heb.ii.18.
E
'Eàw, postquam, quando, Heb. iii. 7. .
#yyös, Eph. ii. 17.
&mrd araviroc stºcvg royngoö, 1 Thess. v. 22.
#0vog #ytoy, 1 Pet. ii. 9.
#6eModenaxsia, Col. ii. 23.
ei, quod, 1 Tim. v. 10. Formula ju-
randi, Heb. iii. 11.
ye, siquidem, Eph. iii. 2.
pah, 1 Cor. vii. 17.
g proëy et 3ë, Col. i. 20. 1 Pet. i.11.
;
E
e
g
COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLES.
Eix&v voö Osoö, Heb. vii. 15.
ExAoyn xágt roç, Rom. xi. 5, 28.
ëx Aextog #v Kvgio, Rom. xvi. 13.
yéyog #xaExtrov, 1 Pet. ii. 9.
#gaſputog Aóyoç, James i. 21.
#v pro 812, 1 Cor. vii. 13.
äyeeyeïy, 1 Thess. ii. 13. Phil. ii. 13.
äytvyxávetv,
#ayoga &étzsvol röw kapoy, Eph. v. 16.
ââhyetgá gs, Rom. ix. 17.
## haaſv ###ASoy, 1 John ii. 19.
toils ##ov8synſwévovs, 1 Cor. vi. 4.
##overia, 1 Cor. ix. 9.
#wi6avát tot #zxarot, 1 Cor. iv. 9.
To éartsixès, Phil. iv. 5.
#zrsgót.npza, 1 Pet. iii. 21. w
#ºrika Aärnta to 3vopa Kvetov, 1 Cor. i.2.
âartaalagávea Sat, Heb. ii. 16.
aby it taxóvroig xa? Staxóyot;, Phil. i. 1.
äy toïc inrovgavious, Eph. iii. 10. Heb.
vi. 4.
Égyov âya Sov, Rom. ii. 7.
oi ## #pt8sias, Rom. ii. 8.
6 #oro &y6gotros, Rom. vi. 22.
ëregoç, Rom. xiii. 8.
EÜNá8sta, Heb. v. 7.
EÜNoyia rvevpwarixh, Eph. iii. 1.
Evo Xnpuáyo's, Rom. xiii. 13. 1 Cor. xiv
40
n ve
U7. E ge
* X Rom. xi. 2.
Xat Trd，
eörgaarexia, Eph. v. 4.
#xety Xáptv, Heb. xii. 28. B
Z
Ziv, 1 Thess. iii. 8.
Tà âvo ºntsïy, Col iii. 1.
Ai8ot &#vres, 1 Pet. ii. 5.
Aóyoç (àytog Osoö, Heb. iv. 12.
H
"H pro xai, 1 Cor. ix. 27.
hexëpa, 1 Cor. iii. 13.
hpwépat rovnpai, Eph. v. 16.
hºw éga xgia'soos, 2 Pet. iii. 7.
6 #Ato; pan #artºváro, Eph. iv. 26.
G
Oáwarov âtrokösty, James i. 15.
#6avatoſ8nte taj vópago, Rom. vii. 4.
SÉAetv, Col. ii. 18.
Sso8i3ax rot, 1 Thess. iv. 9.
Osog göAoyntos, Rom. ix. 5.
SEpzáAtoç voö Oscij, 2 Tim. ii. 19.
SAlsletg tot xgio roij, Col. i. 24.
Senakeia tûv âyyÉAanv, Col. ii. 18.
Svaria (âora, Rom. xii. 1.
Svariat rvsvpwartxai, 1 Pet. ii 5.
N
'13tag #ariavarÉovç, 2 Pet. i. 20.
INDEX.
1229
3 &vatranpäv rºy rémoy roi, iëiºrov, 1 Cor.
‘xiv. 16.
isgoveyoğvra tº stayyáxtov, Tom. xv. 16.
isgårevºza &yoy, 1 Pet. ii. 9.
iXéakeaºat rā; &vapriaç, Heb. ii. 17.
.xazºº tragi rāy &#xa;rtór, 1 John ii.
2. iv. 10.
iXaa-thºtov, Röm. iii. 25.
iya pro 6-ray, 1 Cor. iv. 13.
lara QBºy, Phil. ii. 6.
K.
Kai, id est, Col. i. 2. idcirco, Heb. iii.
19. tunc, Gal. ii. 2.
waſ 3%, quando, 1 Cor. i. 6.
za.0agićety, Ka8apiapa?:, Heb. i. 3. ix. 14.
x200xiwai Étria rowai, James i.
#vroxi, waiyh, 1 John ii. 7, 8.
xax& #2)a, Tit. iii. 8.
xará. Qsoſ, per Deum, 1 Cor. xv. 15.
xaraggagsåero, Col. ii. 18.
xaraxvºteſovºrs; rāy wańpay, 1 Pet. v. 3.
Ax} xaraxaxeſ re, James iv. 11.
xztaxNaºyat, xataxxâco-ºw, Rom.v.10.
aaraxxayńy Agºgávely, Rom. v. 11.
d xarao-wevāorac, Heb. iii. 3. &
watacºrényigy, 1 Tim. v. 11.
zara páygrai airob; Trüe, James v. 3.
za taxpººzºvot, 1 Cor. vii. 31.
el; tā karðrega &#pm rā; y%, Eph. iv. 9.
& Hangováºzo; row ºcºtov, Rom. iv. 13.
xciyovia, 1 Cor. x. 16.
tyxopºgérac Še, 1 Pet. v. 5.
#y Tray'ri răzărpºol, Col. i. 6.
regi čnov roſ, zirºvov, 1 John ii. 2.
xpiºca, Rom. v., 16. xiii. 2, 1 Cor. xi.
29. -
of; ºr zºº, a 3xtra Xal oix & yeſ, 2 Pet.
ii. 3.
x86%ai rā a-agxi, 1 Pet. iv. 5.
xgåsa-Sai, Rom. iii. 4.
xgirhøta, 1 Cor. vi. 2.
{va añ tºr? »piriv arécnre, Jaines v. 12.
orácia ºria tº, Rom. viii. 19, 22.
&Trà wriorsw; zárºov, Rom. i. 20.
ev6ewºrivºl xriºtç, 1 Pet. ii. 13.
c Köpio; ivyös, Phil. iv. 5,
Köploy &ytázare, 1 Pet. iii. 15.
kvpiórºwo; Kata%20Voivre;, 1 Pet. ii. 10.
xtoxvávray yap, giv, 1 Tim. iv. 2. -
A.
Kai rāy tº Aaobºxeia;, Col. iv. 17.
Xad; Treptočarioc, Tit. ii. 14. 1 Pet. ii.19.
XaySável yèg abrooc, 2 Pet. iii. 5.
xiào; relaxépzőzaroc, Rom. ix. 33.
Aoyºta Sat, Rom. v. J4.
Xóyor, 1 Cor. i. 5. Heb. iv. 13.
xvºreſa flat, Rom. xiv. 15.
M
MāNAoy, non comparativum, sed nega-
tivum, 1 Tim. i. 4.
&#rata ä.vaa’reoph, 1 Pet. i. 18.
Awayaxauxeſ, James iii. 5.
Azeyaxon genrå; 36%a, 2 Pet. i. 17.
#y ºpst Hogriº, Col. ii. 16.
&trô Đoàgovº, Gal. ii. 5.
Eic rāy &Epièa rot wańpov rāy &yiov, Col.
i. 12.
Kºszirnç, 1 Tim. ii. 5.
pzszárotxov roi; pgáygou, Eph. ii. 14.
£45teaxnºvá'rta'a, 1 Cor. iv. 6.
&érgov 'ric triaraoc, Roin. xii. 3.
£whºrore, si forte, 2 Tim. ii. 25.
xata giav arağ84tov, 1 Cor. xvi. 2.
see: ; 9% Phil. ii. 6.
£4,06% 800xou, v. 7.
two gońoyia, Eph. v. 4.
wrapi rui, Mozłow; adºpºaroº, Jude 9.
=évot, Eph. ii. 19.
TN
Nai, verbum obsecrandi, Philem. 20.
vui zai oil, 2 Cor. i. 17, 18.
3 vaig roi, Qscu, 1 Cor. vi. 19.
vskçoi, de mortuis spiritualiter, 1 Pet,
iv. 6.
vexpo’, de uno, 1 Cor. xv. 30.
si; vizos, 1 Cor. xv. 54.
8aataixòg, James ii. 8.
#AEvôseiac, James i. 25.
# yö% mpoëzoºley, Rom. xiii. 12.
ºr:yyāroy viriºv criſynapºlov, Rom. xi.10.
yóuo;
Mºſ
}*
O
"Oyè004, 2 Pet. ii. 5.
oixoºoºh, Rom. x. 19. xv. 2.
oixoboggſ' st; rºw #va, 1 Thess. v. 11.
à Xar olzov airãy Éxxxnaria, Rom. xvi.
5. 1 Cor. xvi. 19.
oikovºvny ºxova'ay, Heb. ii. 5.
iv čezotºwari àv63&trov, Phil. ii. 7.
ºrå ø, Svra, Rom. iv. 17.
#v Švá war. Kugiov, Col. iii. 17.
×aiyo: obeavoi, 2 Pet. iii. 13.
āpāy, 1 John i. 1.
#yićaše zai º żºxaprávºre, Eph. iv.26.
ëp3oropºsſy roy Aéyov, 2 Tim. ii. 15.
#xić w tºwā;, 1 Thess. v. 27.
§§62׺otº #xovre; tº Češº, Rom. xi. 8.
écºch Čwñ; Kai Savátov, 2 Cor. ii. 16.
II
IIávra, Rom. viii. 28.
où révro;, Rom. iii. 9.
# Travonºia rot. Geoč, Eph. vi. 13.
Traga.govaeva &p.svoc, Phil. ii. 30. -
Trapałóa gig, 1 Cor. xi. 2, 2 Thess, ii. 15.
# ºračakaru9%xn, 2 Tim. i. 12.
Trašānaia, Heb. iii. 6. &
Trapaśvājasy, Heb. ii. 1.
Tragmx0x00014ac, 2 Tim. iii. 10.
Tragoóðveral, 1 Cor. xiii. 5.
# Tragovoia rot Kvetov, 2 Thess. ii. 1.
6 "rathe, 1 Cor. iv. 15.
Trāºa. Travel», Eph. iii. 15.
Traç9évoc, 1 Cor. vii. 36.
Trapé8wkey, Rom. i. 24, 28.
Tragöy tº IIvetºzart, 1 Cor. v. 5.
"reiðsty, Gal. i. 10.
Tréºlet à Q&c, 2 Thess. ii. 11.
Tergakºvo; 573 rºy & wagºriay, Rom. vi.
14.
Traipáðew, Heb. ii. 18. iii. 9.
7rsigao Siyat, Gal. vi. 1.
#wepác-Sha-ay, Heb. xi. 37.
TregixáSataa, arspielmºa, 1 Cor. iv. 13.
Tregºroincig, treetiroisſy, Eph. i. 14.
Trigºroºch äxtañºz860s, Phil. iii. 5.
ºrs; trºpºſerai, 1 Cor. xiii. 4.
Tragoºséïa, Tragoyazºrgiv, 1 Thess. iv. 6.
TAgovešia, #ttº èative:32'Noxarpeia, Col.
iii. 5.
qrt3avoxcyía, Col. ii. 8.
Triori;, ºxia triotic, Eph. iv. 5.
3 own #x triºtswº, Rom. xiv. 23.
#x riotso; si; ºria riv, Rom. i. 17.
Triati; &mu; Trapa?06sſora, Jude 3.
Tây triotiv roi; Kvetov #23W ‘Inaro; Xgia-rot
vii; 36%m;, James ii. 1.
Trahºo!, a röy #993 v, Rom. xi. 12.
Trāv Traspop, a rā; Seárnºrog, Col. ii. 9.
Trây Trajpoºt, rºd Oscú, Eph. iii. 19.
Traneogo.gia, Rom. xiv. 5.
ºrd IIysiºca, Rom. viii. 27
rö Trvsöwa £200, 1 Cor. xiv. 14.
Trvetºza Sovketa;, Rom. viii. 15.
mystiaa rºc 34?nc, 1 Pet. iv. 14.
Trygvºcatikö, äv6p2Trog, 1 Cor. ii. 15. *.
5. Gal. vi. 1.
Trotºzávez, Eph. iv. 11.
rö Troxitsuº.o. tºy, Phil. iii. 20.
orpośyvo, #yyo, Rom. viii. 29. xi. 2.
7rgoeywoºp, #yoç, 1 Pet. i. 20.
#y rā troyne?, 1 John v. 19.
Trfäyºza, 1 Thess, iv. 6. .
orpeggiºrnº, Tit. ii. 2. Philem. 9.
of Trésa’80’regoi rā, śxxxnaria;, James v.
14.
Tresa 3vrépov; rob; #y ipzīy, 1 Pet. v. 1.
Trø;, de, Heb. i. 7.
Trgovayayi, Eph. iii. 12. 1 Pet. iii. 18
xará ºrgášeaty aidºvov, Eph. iii. 11.
Treća Kopp.a. r10ával, Rom. xiv. 13, 21.
1 Cor. viii. 13.
Trgoa poé, Kai Svala, Eph. v. 2.
ºrgoºrn;, Tit. i. 12.
Trºopnreia, 1 Cor. xiv. 6.
Trúg aidinov, Jude 7.
&; 8.3 rupic, 1 Cor. iii. 15.
TrgovotroAn-pia, James ii. 1.
Trgotároxo; Tráang wrizewº, Col. i. 15
P
‘Ey #4388, 1 Cor. iv. 21.
javria ºc, Heh. xii. 24.
hipza waxy, Heb. vi. 5.
>
2aºtix86, 1 Cor. iii. 4.
wati, a 48×a, Rom. iv. 1.
#Anxv%ra #y a'apai, 1 John iv. 2, 3.
#x rā; cagº; airoij, wai, #4 ray a révy
Eph. v. 30.
à Xataväg, Rom. xvi. 20.
cºmpºstov, 1 Cor. i. 22.
angeſa, régata, Kai Suyápºtº, Heb, ii, 4.
axáyèaxoy, a xavčaxićcºat, Rom. xiv.
21.
czid råy ºf NXávrov, Col. ii. 17.
czáros, Rom. xiii. 12.
a'opé;, 1 Cor. i. 20.
a traºraxá2, 1 Tin). v. 6.
a méyòopwat, Phil. ii. 17.
a mixáček, Jude 12.
×axy orgareiay, 1 Tim. i. 18.
aroixºſa, 2 Pet. iii. 10.
croixsta toû wickov, Gal. iv. 3.
c vyayayi, 2 Thess. ii. 1:"James ii. 4.
axiaºzara, 1 Cor. xi. 18.
ºr cºp, a vexgåy, Rom. viii. 10.
~3 oråga rāg rarely&so; ipºv, Phil. iii
21. -
căga Karnerica, ºol, Heb. x. 5.
T
Kará rà%iv, 1 Cor. xiv. 20.
3 rarewoc, James i. 9.
ºragragözaç, 2 Pet. ii. 4.
ºránya púa's 36%, Eph. ii. 3.
31& rexvoyoviac, 1 Tim. ii. 15.
TÉXEtoº, 2 Cor. i. 6.
Texeiðarat, Heb. ii. 10. ix. 10. X. 1
ei; réxoc, 1 Thess. ii. 15.
ºr: réxn røy aidºwy, 1 Cor. X. 11.
ºr ráxo; hyptºs, 1 Pet. iv. 7.
ºriº, 2 Tim. v. 3.
si; 3 Mai étéðncay, 1 Pet. ii. 8.
ºrwèc, Heb. iii. 16.
#araoxi, retxày, 1 Pet. iii. 3.
revºv, 2 Pet. ii. 13. -
ºrvpxoi, Rom. ii. 19.
Y
At' tº ato;, 1 John v. 6.
vici rod Oedj, Rom. viii. 14.
1230
INDEX.
vio9sota, Rom. viii. 23.
trip, in grutiam, 1 Cor. xv. 30.
insp8aivety, 1 Thess. iv., 6.
trégoyka, 2 Pet. ii. 18.
# tºrvov #yºpSãval, Rom. xiii. 11,
iroënzáºwevo row, ºré8a; iv štotºxariº roi,
stayyexiou, Eph. vi. 15.
bºroa'reiamtat, Heb. x. 38.
§tréa'ragic, Heb. xi. 1.
to repnzáyat &rö, Heb. xii. 15.
q,
'Edy payapo:Sh, 1 John iii. 2.
‘pépov, Heb, i. 3.
‘planka żylov, Rom. xvi. 16.
quxáževo;, 1 Tim. iii. 2.
‘ry pé8oy airåy pºſſ poénôňrs, 1 Pet. iii.
14. A r
ºrè air peove?, Phil. iv. 2.
ºrd &vo pºoveſv, Col. iii. 1, 2.
raï, 333exa puxai, James i. 1.
toſ, iv puxak; rvsöpwaci, 1 Pet. iii. 19.
‘pºrt;, 1 Cor. xi. 14. Eph. ii. 3. '
Šsia; púa'so: wolvayci, 2 Pet. i. 4.
‘powerpégo; &varsian, 2 Pet. i. 19.
‘porta-Sèvre;, Heb. vi. 4.
eval #y tº port, 1 John ii. 9.
X .
Xaigely abrá pºš Āšyers, 2 John 10.
Žápi;, 2 Cor. vi. 1.
#y xágitt, Col. iii. 16.
Xàpiti irre area oakwávot, Eph. ii. 8.
£va 3& x&ply, Eph. iv. 29.
Žápizºo, ºrwevºzartºv, Rom. i. 12.
Žapax'rip Tâ; itrográcsac, Heb. i. 3.
xspáyga pov roſ; 36 yºao IV, Col. ii. 14.
Žsporointa äyta, Heb. xi. 24.
Xixia ºrn, 2 Pet. iii. 8.
#y x6taró sival, Rom. viii. 1.
röv Kptatüy vºtival, Rom. xiii. 14.
* º w w
ºrd sic Xotary Tra.0%aara º
II sk t º F4 l i Pet. i. 11.
wevºza. Kºtarov,
Žgévot aid viot, Rom. xvi. 25.
Trº Xéévoy aioviov, 2 Tim. i. 9. Tit. i. 2.
"regiðeric Xpudioſ, 1 Pet. iii. 3.
*I*
Yaxpºof; ka? ützvots, Eph. v. 19. Col.
iii. 16.
Jevđvvuo; yºats, 1 Tim. vi. 20.
Juxi, 1 Thess. iii. 8.
Juxx3; #vögoros, 1 Cor. ii. 14.
- Q
'Q; oix daoićceo's, &AA& 858adºrso;,
Rom. ix. 32.
A TABLE OF PH R A SES
EX PLAIN ED IN THE
COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLES.
A
Abstain from all appearance of evil,
1 Thess. v. 22.
The udoption of sons, Rom. viii. 23.
Eph. i. 5.
Affections set on things above, Col.
iii. 2.
The affections of Christ, Col. ii. 24.
All are yours, 1 Cor. iii. 22.
To be anathema from Christ, Rom.
ix. 3.
Be angry, and sin not, Eph. iv. 26.
The whole armour of God, Eph. vi. 13.
To awake out of sleep, Rom. xiii. 11.
B
That which was from the beginning,
1 John i. 1.
The breastplate of faith, 1 Thess. v. 8.
To be in bondage to corruption, Rom.
viii. 21.
To the first-born from the dead, Col.
i. 19.
To bow down the back, Rom. xi. 10.
To do our own business, 1 Thess. iv.
11.
C
To heap coals of fire upon the head,
Rom. xii. 20.
To be in Christ, Rom. viii. 1.
To be with Christ, Phil. i. 24.
His commandments are not grievous,
1 John v. 3.
. The coming of our Lord, 2 Thess. ii. 1.
Our conversation is in heaven, Phil.
iii. 20. -
To be conformed to the world, Rom.
xii. 2.
The course of this world, Eph. ii. 2.
The whole creation, Rom. viii. 22.
To corrupt the temple of God, 1 Cor.
iii. 17.
D
Darkness, Rom xiii. 12
The day of Christ, 1 Thess. v. 2.
Dead in sins, Eph. ii. 1.
Dead to the law, Rom. vii. 4.
Without the law, sim was dead, Rom,
vii. 8. -
A door of utterance, Eph. vi. 19.
Not to doubtful disputations, Rom.
xiv. 1. . .
He that doubteth is damned if he eat,
Rom. xiv. 23.
The doubtful and double-minded man,
James i. 8.
E
Edification of God, 1 Tim. i. 4.
Election of grace, Rom. xi. 5. 1 Pet.
ii. 9,
To esteem others better than ourselves,
Phil. ii. 3.
Evil days, Eph. v. 16.
Eve bath not seen, 1 Cor. ii. 9.
To have eyes and see not, Rom. xi. 10.
F
From faith to faith, Rom. i. 17.
Whatsoever is not of faith is sin,
Rom. xiv. 23.
The whole faſhily in heaven and
earth, Eph. iii. 15.
To deny the Father, 1 John ii. 23.
The feel shod with the preparation
of the gospel of peace, Eph. vi. 15.
There is no fear in love, 1 John iv. 18.
Flesh and blood, Gal. i. 6.
Foolish talking and jesting, Eph. v. 4.
Whom he did foreknow, Rom. viii. 29.
xi. 2.
The form of God, a servant, Phil. ii.
6, 7.
The fruits of righteousness, James
iii. 18.
G *
To gather together in one, Eph. i. 10.
Our gathering together in Christ, 2
Thess. ii. 1.
He gave gifts to men, Eph. iv. 8.
The glory of God, Rom. i. 23. Phil.
ii. 6. Heb. i. 3.
Them he also glorified, Rom. viii. 30.
God over all, blessed for ever, Rom.
ix. 5.
That God may be all in all, 1 Cor. xv.
28.
To groan one against another, James
v. 9.
The gospel preached to the dead, 1
Pet. iv., 6.
H
The handwriting of ordinances, Col.
ii. 14.
To be heir of the world, Rom. iv. 13,
of righteousness, Heb. xi. 7.
Damnable heresies, 2 Pet. ii. 1.
Higher than the heavens, Eph. iv. 10.
Double honour, 1 Tim. v. 17.
The first-fruits holy, Rom. xi. 16.
To be clothed with humility, 1 Pet.
W, 5.
I
Faith is imputed for righteousness,
Rom. iv. 5.
Not to impute sin, Rom. v. 13.
The inward man, Rom. vii. 22.
To intercede for and against, IRom.
xi. 2.
The saints shall judge the world and
angels, 1 Cor. vi. 2, 3.
K
To know as we ought to know, 1 Cor.
viii. 2, º
The Lord knoweth who are his, 3 Tim.
ii. 19.
L
A lamb without blemish, 1 Pet. i. 10.
The last times, 1 Tim. iv. 1. 2 Tim.
iii. 1
The law of liberty, James i. 25.
INDEX.
1231
The royal law, James ii. 8.
The length, &c. of the love of Chirst,
Eph. iii 19.
The old leaven, 1 Cor, v. 7.
In the likeness of man, Phil. ii. 7.
A living hope, 1 Pet. i. 4.
Living stones, 1 Pet. ii 5.
The Lord is at hand, Phil. iv. 5.
The lower parts of the earth, Eph. iv.
MI
Man, old and new, Eph. iv. 23.
The measure of faith, Rom, xii. 3.
l will have mercy on whom l. will
have mercy, Rom. ix. 15.
The middle wall of partition, Eph. ii.
14.
To mind the same thing, Phil. iv. 2.
To be of the same mind, 1 Cor. i. 10.
To mortify our earthly members, Col.
iii. 5.
N
To call upon the name of the Lord, .
Rom. x. 13. 1 Cor. i. 2.
To do all in the name of the Lord,
Col. iii. 17.
By nature children of wrath, Eph.
ii. 3. -
A new commandment, 1 John ii. 7.
Brought nigh to God, Eph. ii. 13.
The might is far spent, Rom. xiii. 12.
O
To be offended, Rom. xiv. 21.
If I be offered upon the sacrifice and
service of your faith, Phil. ii. 17.
* P
Partaker of the divine nature, 2 Pet.
i. 4.
The peace of God, Phil. iii. 15.
A peculiar peace, & Pet. ii. 9.
A perfect man, Eph. iv. 13. Phil. iii. 15.
Let every man be fully persuaded in
his own mind, Rom. xiv. 5.
Give place to wrath, Rom. xii. 19.
Give not place to the devil, Eph. iv.
27. º
To present our bodies a living sacri-
fice, Rom. xii. 1.
The prince of the power of the air,
Eph. ii. 2. -
The children of the promise, Rom.
ix. 8. -
The proportion of faith, Rom. xii. 6.
A holy priesthood, 1 Pet ii. 5.
To put on Christ, Rom. xiii. 14.
To perfect according to the conscience,
Heb. ix. 10.
R.
For this cause have I raised thee up,
Rom. ix. 17.
To reconcile things in heaven and
earth, Col. i. 20.
To redeem the time, Epb. v. 16.
The redemption of the body, Rom.
viii. 23.
The redemption of the purchased pos-
session, Eph. i. 14.
Reprobate concerning the faith, 2 Tim.
iii. 8, to every good work, Titus
i. 16. •
The righteousness of God, Rom. i. 17.
He thought it not robleſ; to be equal
with God, Phil. ii. 6."
S
To deliver to Satan, 1 Cor. v. 5.
Spiritual sacrifices, 2 Pet. i. 5.
A shadow of things to come, Col. ii. 17.
The day-star rise in your hearts, 2
l’et. i. 19. *
To be scandalized, and to Scandalize,
Rom. xiv. 20. -
In whom all have sinned, Rom. v. 12.
Many were made sinners, Rom. v. 19.
Sold under sin, Rom. vii. 14.
The sons of God, Rom. viii. 14.
The revelation of the sons of God,
Rom. viii. 21. t
|Bid him not God speed, 2 John 10, 11.
I speak as a man, Rom. iii. 5. -
The spirit of Christ, 1 Pet. i. 11.
The spirit of slumber, Rom. xi. 10.
With your spirit, Gal. vi. 18.
The spirit of bondage, Rom. viii. 15.
Comparing spiritual things with spiri-
tual, 1 Cor. ii.12.
A stone of stumbling, Rom. ix. 33. 1
Pet. ii. 6. :-.
To put a stumbling-block in your bro-
ther's way, Rom. xiv. 13, 20.
To be subject to vanity, Rom. viii. 20
The sufferings of Christ, 1 Pet. i. 12.
To let the sun go down upon yout
wrath, Eph. iv. 26.
T
Temptation in the flesh, Gal. iv. 14.
Taught of God, 1 Thess. iv. 9.
Turned aside after Satan, l'Tim. v. 15.
U, V
Subject to vanity, Rom. viii. 20.
Our vile bodies, Phil. iii. 21.
The day of visitation, 1 Pet. ii. 12.
An unction from the Holy One, 1 John
ii. 20.
An inheritance undefiled, 1 Pet. i. 4.
To eat and drink unworthily 1 C3r xi.
29. - -
W -
The wages of sin is death, Rom. vi. 23.
To walk in the light, 1 John i. 7,
To walk by the same rule, Gal. vi. 15.
Phil. iii. 16.
To waa wanton against Christ, 1 Tim.
v. 12.
To be weak, Rom. v. 6. xiv. 2.
To be made weak, Rom. xiv. 20.
It is not of him that willeth, Rom. ix.
16.
Whom he will he hardeneth, Rom.
ix. 18.
The husband of one wife, 1 Tim. iii. 3,
The ingrafted word, James i. 21.
The living word of God, 1 Pet, i. 25,
Faith working by love, Gal. v. 6.
A T A B L E O F M A TT E R S
CONTAINED IN THE
COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLES.
A
introduced among the Jews by Philo and the Alexandrian
row Abraham's body was dead, when aſterward he begat
six children, Rom. iv. 19. How his faith was with-
out doubting, Rom. iv. 20.
Some actions eminently good, and therefore generally com-
manded, Phil. iv. 8, are not particularly commanded, 1
Cor. ix. 17.
Adoption includes a blessed resurrection, Rom. viii. 23.
Gal. iv. 7. Eph. i. 4.
The angels, mentioned 1 Cor. xi. 10, are angels that seduced
V6,
The angels that fell have their habitations in the dark air,
and do not at present suffer the torments of infernal
flames, Eph. ii. 2. 2 Pet. ii. 4. -
The worship of angels forbidden, as not holding the head.
The foundation of it was laid in the Platonic philosophy,
Jews, Col. ii. 18. iii. 17.
The anointing with oil, why used in healing the sick, James
v. 14.
It affords no foundation for the sacrament of extreme unc-
tion, ibid. -
Antichrist was in being in the time of the apostles, 1 John
ii. 17.
Men are by God appointed to punishment for falling into
sin, but not to fall into it, 1 Pet. ii. 8.
The apostles taught not that the resurrection might be in
their time, 1 Thess, iv. 15. -
The whole armour of God explained, and shown to con-
sist, not so much in any immediate influx of the power
of God, as in such things as either are in us, or are to
be used by us, Eph. vi. 14.
1232
INDEX.
Divine assistance necessary to the performance of our duty,
Phil. iv. 13. Jail.es i. 5.
B
Balaam was a prophet of the true God, 2 Pet. ii. 15, 16.
Baptism is styled the laver of regeneration, Tit. iii. 5.
Baptism is a rite of initiation to Christians, as circumcision
was to the Jews, Col. ii. 12. - -
The baptism of infants, proved from 1 Cor. vii. 14. Col.
“ii. 12.
An answer to the objections from the faith, Gal. iii. 26, 27,
and the answer of a good conscience, 1 Pet. iii. 21, re-
quired to baptism.
Bishops and deacons, Phil. i. 1. -
Three senses of the word bishop, given by the ancients; all
confuting the presbyterian hypothesis, 1 Tin. iii. 1. See
the Preface to the Epistle to Titus. .
A bishop, how to be the husband of one wife, 1 Tiln. iii. 2.
a lover of hospitality, Tit. i. 8, not immersed in secular
affairs, 2 Tim. ii. 5. - *
Boasting is excluded, though good works are made the
conditions of salvation, Eph. ii. 10. See 1 Cor. ix. 17.
None are members of Christ's body, who are not sincere
Christians, united to him by the Spirit, Eph. iv. 4. . .
In what sense he that is born of God sinneth not, or doth
not commit sin, 1 John iii. 6.8.
C
What charity requires us to do to all; what it permits us
not to do to any, what it requires or permits us fiat to
do to our offending brother, 1 Cor. xiii. 7, spiritual
gifts, alms deeds, martyrdom, may be separated from
charity, 1 Cor. xiii. 3.
Cerinthus was contemporary with the apostles; was an
enemy to St. Paul, for teaching that circumcision and
the observation of the law were not to be imposed upon
the gentiles. He was instructed in philosophy, and set
up in Asia; was zealous for the observation of the law.
He held that the world was made by angels, and Jesus
to be born of Joseph and Mary as other men, Col. ii. 10
The divine nature of Jesus Christ is proved ;
From his titles, he being
Jehovah, Rom. x. 13.
God, Rom. xiv. 12. 1 Cor. x. 9. Heb. i. 8. iii. 4.
The true God, 1 John v. 20.
God manifested in the flesh, 1 Tim. ii. 13.
The great God, Tit. ii. 13.
God over all, blessed for ever, Rom. ix. 5.
The Lord of all, Rom. x. 12.
One in whom dwells the fulness of the Godhead, Col.
ii. 9, and who was in the form of God, before he was
made man, Phil. ii. 6.
2. From the divine worship ascribed to him, he being the
object of religious adoration and invocation, Rom. x.
13, Col. iii. 24. 2 Thess. iii. 16.
3. From the divine actions and attributes ascribed to him,
he being º
The Creator of all things, Col. i. 16. Heb. i. 2. 10.
The searcher of all hearts, 1 Cor. iv. 5.
Omnipotent, and the raiser of the dead, Phil. iii. 21.
Col. i. 19.
Endued with divine knowledge and wisdom.
The objections of the Socinians are answered; viz.
That there is one God the Father of all, and one Lord
Christ, 1 Cor. viii. 1. Eph. iv. 6.
That the head of Christ is God, 1 Cor. xi. 3.
That Christ is distinguished from God in these words,
Christ is of God, 1 Cor. iii. 23. The God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, Col. ii. 2.
That by him we believe in God, l Pet. i. 20.
That he is the first-born of every creature, Col. i. 15.
That were he God, we would not be called to imitate
him, 1 John iii. 3.
Christ died for all, 1 Tim. ii. 26.
For every man, Heb. ii. 9.
For the whole world, 1 John ii. 2.
For them that perish, Rom. xiv. 15. 1 Cor. viii. 11.2
Pet. ii. 1.
See the Appendix to 2 Cor. vi.
The churches of Corinth, Galatia, Thessalonica, when the
apostle writ to them, had no settled pastors, 1 Thess. v.
13. See the General Preface.
Circumcision was esteemed by the Jews as their righteous-
ness, Ronn. ii. 13. iii. 1. w
Circumcision on the eighth day only regular, Phil. iii. 5.
The cloud, not only a pillar going before, but a covering over,
the Jews, 1 Cor. x. 1. -
The coming of our Lord, when mentioned absolutely, refers
to his final advent, 2 Thess. ii. 1. When said to be at
band, to his coming to take vengeance on the unbelieving
Jews, Phil. iv. 5. James v. 8.
Contentment, in what it consists, 1 Tim. vi. 8, and what
exercise it requires, Phil. iv. 13.
What things ought not to be matters of contention among
Christians, 2 Tim. ii. 14. - • *
Arguments against the vow of continency, 1 Cor. vii. 5. 9. 25.
Covetousness is properly idolatry, Col. iii. 5.
The cup of blessing, how the communion of the blood of
Christ, 1 Cor. x. 16. 21. -
The oup is to be received by the laity, 1 Cor. xi. 25.
The custom of the church is a rule in matters of indifferen cy
1 Cor. xi. 16.
D
The effect of Christ's death is double, 1. Freedom from con-
demnation, or justification. 2. The vouchsafement of the
Holy Spirit, Rom. viii. 4.
We became all obnoxious to death, by one sin of Adam,
Rom. v. 12.
The devils are not to be cast into hell-fire, till the day of
judgment, 2 Pet. ii. 4.
One man makes himself differ from another in spiritual, or
virtuous habits acquired, though not in spiritual gifts im-
mediately infused, 1 Cor. iv. 7. .
The gift of discerning spirits was exercised in choosing per-
Sons meet to do God service in the ministry, 1 Tim. i. 18.
JPivorces common on the woman's side, among Jews and
gentiles, 1 Cor. vii. 11. 1 Tim. v. 10, not permitted in the
tiºn law, except in case of fornication, 1 Cor. vii.
We must die to sin once for all, Rom. vi. 10, 11.
E ſº
Edification, respects the knowledge of our duty, faith, love,
union, Rom. xv. 2.
Elders among Jews, of two sorts; the ruling and teaching
elders, both ordained, l Tim. v. 17.
Election, in the scripture phrase, is not of private persons to
Salvation, but of nations and churches to enjoy the means
of grace, Rom. ix. 11, 12. Col. iii. 12. 1 Thess. i. 4.
1 Pet. ii. 9.
Election to Salvation, is not absolute, or to the means, but
conditional, upon performance of the means prescribed as
necessary for the obtainment of salvation, and is made
sure by good works, 2 Pet. i. 10.
Catholic Epistles, when, and why so called, Preface to them.
The Epistle to the Romans, placed first, as being writ to the
imperial city: St. Peter was not at Rome when it was
written, Preface.
The First Epistle to the Corinthians was written by St.
Paul, when he was at Ephesus, A. D. 57. The Second
Epistle the year following. St. Paul writ no third epistle
to them. See the Preface and note on 1 Cor. v. 9.
The Epistle to the Ephesians was writ to them, not to those
of Laodicea : the objections to the contrary are answered,
Preface and notes on i. 15, iii. 2. It is the epistle from
Laodicea, mentioned Col. iv. 16, and was writ, not
against the Gnostics, but the Judaizing Christians.
The Epistle to the Philippians was written when St. Paul
was prisoner at Rome, to warn them, not against the
Gnostics, but the Judaizing Christians. -
The Epistle to the Colossians was written when St. Paul
had not seen them, against the Judaizers, who endeavoured
to impose the observation of the law upon the gentile con-
verts, Preface.
The First Epistle to the Thessalonians was writ, not from
g i.
1233
INDEX.
*
. The Epistle to the Hebrews was written by St. Paul to the
1. 4. -
The whole family of God includes the angels, and the
Athens, but from Corinth, after the council at Jerusalem.
The Second was not writ before the First.
The First Epistle to Timothy was writ after St. Paul's en-
largement from his bonds at Rome.
The Second, at the close of St. Paul's life, and was the last
of his epistles. See the Preface and notes on chap. iv.
The Epistle to Titus was writ after St. Paul's bonds.
The Epistle to Philemon contains very useful matter.
Jews in Judea, to prevent their apostasy from the faith,
and that not in Hebrew, but in Greek, Preface. The ob-
_jections of Mr. Clerc are answered, Heb. ii. 3. ix. 2.
The Epistle of St. James was writ by the apostle James,
the same with James the Just, bishop of Jerusalem, to the
twelve tribes, to correct the errors which had obtained
among the Jews, and to comfort the unbelieving Jews,
under the persecutions they then suffered, Preface.
The First Epistle of St. Peter was not written in the forty-
fourth year of Christ, but towards the close of St. Peter's
life; not to the dispersion of the believing Jews mentioned
.Acts viii. 1, but to the great dispersion of the Jews through-
out Asia, to encourage them to persevere in the Christian
faith, and to prevent their siding with the Jews in their
rebellion, Preface.
The Second Epistle was writ by St. Peter, a little before
the destruction of Jerusalem, to arm the believing Jews
against that fiery trial which was come upon them, and
against those scoffers which questioned the promise of
Christ's coming, Preface.
The First Epistle of St. John was written before the destruc-
tion of Jerusalem, Preface.
The Second and Third Epistles, by the same author.
The Epistle of St. Jude was written by Jude the apostle,
and brother of James.
The Essenes abstain from flesh, wine, and women, and this
they did through philosophy, as did the Pythagoreans,
Col. ii. 21. .
They had the names of angels in veneration, and would
not touch any unclean thing, Col. ii. 21–23.
The eternity of future punishments is shown to be well
consistent both with the justice and goodness of God ; and
the objections to the contrary are answered, Appendix to
2 Thess.
The etermity of future punishments fully asserted by the
primitive Christians, Heb. vi. 2. ... •
Both Jews and Christians mourned at the excommunication
of their members, 1 Cor. v. 2.
How far the laity were concerned in the excommunicalion
and absolution of offenders, 2 Cor. ii. 6.
- F
What is the gift of faith, 1 Cor. xii. 9.
Of the nature of faith, and of justification by faith alone,
Preface to the Epistle to the Galatians.
Faith doth oblige us to, but doth not formally include obedi-
ence, Rom. vi. 1.x. 9, Preface to the Epistle to the Gala-
tians, S. l. 3, 4. *
It is the act of faith, that justifies, Rom. iv. 25. Gal. iii. 6.
Faith in Christ raised from the dead is justifying faith, Rom.
iv. 25. x. 9. .--"
The faith once delivered to the saints, admits of no addition,
Jude 3.
What is the one faith, mentioned Eph. iv. 5.
Faith, how made perfect by works, James ii. 22. St. Paul
and St. James reconciled, ibid.
God, why styled the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Col.
i. 2
blessed above, and the saints on earth, Eph. iii. 15.
The foreknowledge of God, discovered in prophetical predic-
tions, 1 Pet. i. 2. #
Fornication is a work of the flesh, against the moral law,
excluding us from God's kingdom, rendering us obnoxious
to his wrath, and fit to be cast into hell-fire Preface to the
First Epistle to the Corinthians.
What doctrines are fundamental, 1 John ii. 5.
It may be a fundamental error, to teach that, in the name
of Christ, as necessary to salvation, which he hath not
taught by himself, or his apostles, Gal. i. 9. How far the .
church of Rome is guilty of this, ibid. l
G
The gentiles, how without the knowledge of God, and with-
out hope, Eph. ii. 12. See Heathens.
Revealed before the calling of the gentiles, how far, and not
revealed, Eph. iii. 6. 10.
Why the Holy Ghost is not mentioned in the Prefaces to the
Epistles, Col. i. 2.
The gifts mentioned 1 Cor. xii., severally explained, 1 Cors:
xii. 12. º
The Gnostics
Held it lawful, in times of persecution, to deny the faith,
2 Pet. ii. 1.
They blasphemed the angels, note on ver. 10.
They taught that believers might live as they wotild; they
being saved by grace, and not by good works, Jude 4.
And yet they called themselves the spiritual men, ver. 19.
They were never persecuted, 2 Pet. ii. 4.
They despised not governments, but flattered them, note
on ver. 10. - -
God would have all men to be saved, l Tim. ii. 4, and would
not that any should perish, 2 Pet. iii. 9.
God gives men up to their lust; 1. By leaving them desti-
tute of those providential dispensations which might re-
strain them: 2. By permitting Satan to delude, and to
provoke them to the commission of them, Rom. i. 24.
He sends among them strong delusions; not by inspiring into
them any evil, not by inclining or exciting them to it, not
by necessitating them to sin; but by permitting Satan to
do it, 2 Thess. ii. 11.
The gospel, emphatically styled, the Truth, Rom. ii. 8.
How preached to all the world, Col. i. 6.
Those who are not gods by nature, are not to be worshipped,
Gal. iv. 8. *
Nor owned to be gods by Christians, 1 Cor. viii. 5.
In what sense we are saved by grace, Eph. ii. 9. Tit. iii. 5
H.
Pure hands, are hands free from blood and cruelty, from
injustice and bribery, and from filthiness and impurity,
1 Tim. ii. 9.
How God hardened the heart of Pharaoh, Rom. ix. 17.
The Jews, Greeks, and Romans prayed with their heads
covered; and their women with their hair loose, 1 Cor.
xi. 5. w
Heathens believe not the resurrection of the body, 1 Thess.
iv. 14. -
They had no firm belief of a future life, 2 Tim. i. 10.
Their philosophy, and vain deceit, Col. ii. 8.
They counted simple fornication no sin, Eph. v. 6, 1
Thess. iv. 5.
Their secret mysteries were full of impurity, Eph. v. 12.
They held drunkenness a duty in the solemnities of Bac-
chus, ver. 18.
They practised unnatural lusts, 1 Thess. iv. 5.
They were addicted to lying, Eph. iv. 25, and to stealing,
; ver. 28. -
The heathems’ creed, Heb. xi. 6.
They lay under two infelicities; 1. The want of a cove-
nant-relation to God, 2. Subjection to the delusions of
evil spirits, Col. ii. 15.
How far we may allow that heathens, acting according to
the law of nature, and owning the true God, may be ac-
cepted and rewarded by him, Rom. ii. 15.
A heretic is one who maintains some doctrine or opinion
subverting the faith; acting, in so doing, against the con-
victions of his own conscience, Tit. iii. 10.
The duties of husbands and wives, Col. iii. 18, 19.
The holiness of. God, in scripture, what it signifies, 1 Pet.
i. 16.
I, J
The apostle speaks not of Jacob and Esau personally, but
nationally considered, Rom. ix. 13.
The Jews dispersed through Asia, Africa, and Europe, 1
Pet. i. 4.
They had many proselytes, 1 Pet. i. 1.
Are styled the twelve tribes after their dispersion, James
i. l.
They thought God framed the world with a particular
regard to them, 1 Cor. iii. 22. - K
- 4
|234
INDEX.
They apostatized from the Roman government; 1. From
desire of freedom from tribute; 2. Of dominion over
other nations; and, 3. From an opinion that they ought
to own no other lord or master but God only, 1 Pet. ii.
16. 1 Tim. vi. 2.
Their corrupt manners rendered them as bad as heathens,
Rom. ii. 1. xiii. 22.
ºnbelieving Jews, -
*Their loose doctrines: 1st. That no circumcised Jew went
to hell. 2dly, That the hearing of the law rendered
them acceptable to God, without the doing of it. 3dly,
That the doing some precepts would atone for the neg-
lect of others, Rom, ii. 13. James ii. 11.
How grievously they persecuted the Christians, and espe-
cially the believing Jews, Gal. iii. 4, Preface to the
Epistle of St. James.
They, in many cases, thought themselves obliged to ab-
stain from all flesh, Rom, xiv. 2.
They suffered from the Romans, not only in Judea, but
in all places where they were seated, Preface to the
Epistle of St. James. -
That there shall be a general conversion
Jews, Rom. xi. 24. 36.
The words of the apostle cannot be expounded of the spiri-
tual Israel, i. e. the then believing Jew and gentile, Ap-
pendix to Rom. xi.
Nor be applied to any conversion of the Jews, from the
writing that epistle, till the times of Constantine, ib.
This hath been the constant 'doctrine of the church;ib.
The prophecies touching the calling of the Jews are not yet
fulfilled, ib.
The believing Jews,
Their apostasy, and the causes of it, 2 Thess. ii. 3.
They knew not that the gentiles should be made heirs
of the same body, and enjoy the same privileges with
them, Eph. ii. 6.
The image of God in man consists not primarily in holiness,
but in dominion, l Cor. xi. 7. James iii. 9...
How Christ is the image of God, Col. i. 15.
What the imitation of God and Christ requires, 1 John
Imposition of hands in ordination, an apostolical tradition
derived from the Jews, 1 Tim. iv. 14.
Of his laying-on of hands the apostle speaks, 1 Tim. v. 22.
Imposition of hands after baptism, apostolical, Heb. vi. 2.
The necessity of an infallible guide, not proved from Eph.
iv. 11. 14. 1 Tim. iii. 15.
The book of Job, a history and not a parable, James v. 11.
of the unbelievin
Justification, in St. Paul, implies only the absolution of a |
sinner from his past sins: this justification is necessarily
by faith alone, Preface to the Galatians.
The doctrine of justification by faith, in opposition to the
works of the law, is fundamental, Gal. i. 9.
A double justification is mentioned in scripture, Rom. ii. 13.
Gal. iii. 14.
Good men under the law were justified by faith, Gal. iii. 14.
Quest. Whether all that is necessary to be believed for jus-
tification be this single proposition, that “Jesus of Naza-
reth was the Christ?” Preface to the First Epistle of St.
John.
The apostles neither taught, nor believed, that they might
Iive till the day of judgment, 1 Thess. iv. 17.
K
In what sense Christ's mediatory kingdom is to last for ever,
| Cor. xv. 28.
Prayers for kings were used constantly by Jews and Chris-
stians, 1 Tim. ii. 2.
God’s knowledge sometimes includes his power and will,
2 Pet. ii. 9.
I,
The epistie from the Laodiceans is the Epistle to the Ephe-
sians, Col. iv. 16.
The last times were in being when the apostles writ, 1 Tim.
iv. l.
The law was given by angels, as God's ministers, Heb. ii. 2,
for the extirpation of idolatry, Gal. iii. 19.
The apostle, Rom. vii., speaks not of a regenerate man, but
of a man under the law, before grace, Rom. vii. 25.
The whole duty of man is, to live soberly, righteously, and
godly, Tit. ii. 13.
The love of God signifies God’s love to us, our love to him,
and how it is perfected in us, 1 John ii. 5. iv. 12. 17.
The freedom and greatness of God's love to us, 1 John iv.
10, and of the love of Christ, Eph. iii. 19.
Love is the fulfilling of the law to God and man, Rom.
xiii. 10. -
Obedience to God's commands the test of love, l John v. 3
The lustings of the sensual appetite are temptations to sin.
and the root of sin, but not sin imputed, till consented to.
James i. 4. M
The whole man consists of spirit, soul, and body, 1 Thess.
W. 23.
The man of sin, not Mahomet, not the papal hierarchy, not
C. Caligula, not Simon Magus and the Gnostics, Preface
to the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians;
But the Jewish nation, with their sanhedrin, scribes, and
pharisees, ib.
The objections against this opinion answered, ib.
His coming was to be attended with an apostasy from the
Roman government, or from the faith. *
His characters, opposition to God and his church, his
exalting himself above all that is called God, his sitting
in the temple of God, his coming with lying wonders,
agree exactly to the Jews. See notes on ch. ii.
The 3 xaréxov, or he which letteth, Claudius, ib.
Manna was spiritual food to the Jews, I Cor. x. 3.
Marriage allowed to the clergy, Tit. i. 6. Heb. xiii. 4, no
hindrance to prayer, 1 Cor. vii. 5, when seasonable, ver,
36, it ought to be in the Lord, i.e. of one Christian with
another, l Cor. vii. 39, 1 Pet. iii. 7, rejected by some
heathens, upon several accounts, 1 Cor. vii. 1.
The pretended sacrifice of the mass refuted, Heb. x. 18.
Christian matrons are to be grave in apparel, not costly in
attire, nor much concerned about it, as becometh women
professing godliness, 1 Tim. ii. 10. 1 Pet. iii. 4.
The duty of masters towards their servants, Eph. vi. 9.
Melchisedec, a man, not an angel, not Sem, not the eternal
Aáyog, how without father and without mother, Heb. vii. 3.
Ministers' maintenance, a standing ordinance of Christ, 1
Tim. v. 18.
The necessity of the ministerial function, notwithstanding
the unction from the Holy One, 1 John ii. 27.
The millennium not proved,
From Christ's appearance and kingdom, 2 Tim. iv. l.
From the thousand years as one day, 2 Pet. iii. 8.
From the new heavens and new earth, ver, 13.
Confuted, note on 1 Cor. xv. 22. 52. Col. iii. 4.
This is a great mystery, relates not to common matrimony,
but only to the marriage of Christ with his church, Eph.
v. 32. &
N
The heresy of the Nicolaitans,
Was in the time of the apostles, 2 Pet. ii. 1.
They deceived many, and caused Christianity to be blas-
phemed, note on ver, 2.
They were most impious in their principles, and lascivious
in manners, ibid.
They practised their impurities in the day-time, ver. 13.
They blasphemed, and spake evil of angels, ver, 10.
They spake swelling words of vanity, ver. 18.
O
All oaths not unlawful, Gal. i. 20. 1 Thess. v. 27. Heb.
vi. 16.
Where the offence being scandalous, hath incurred the cen-
sure of the church, the pardon of the church is necessary
for the comfort of the offender, 2 Cor. ii. 7.
The offerings of Christians were employed to purchase the
freedom of Christian servants from their heathen masters,
1 Cor. vii. 23.
Ordination is not therefore a sacrament, because it was at
the first attended with a x&gtaºza, 2 Tim. i. 6.
None were admitted to it without trial, 1 Tim. iii. 10.
P
Pastors and teachers were men endowed with spiritual gifts,
Eph. iv. 11.
INDEX.
1235
Patience under sufferings, gives experience of the sincerity
and constancy of our faith, James i. 3. -
Perfect patience shows us to be entire in faith, trust in, de-
pendence on God, in resignation to his will, in Christian
fortitude and temperance, as to the pleasures, honours,
and concernments of this world, in love to God, and to
our brother, James i. 4.
Motives to it, from these considerations,
1. That we only suffer, if need be, 1 Pet. i. 6.
2. º: loss of fading and unsatisfactory things, James
l, 11.
And are assured of,
3. Divine assistances and consolations under sufferings,
1 Pet. iv. 14.
4. A glorious reward of all our sufferings, James i. 12.
St. º: did indeed fight with beasts at Ephesus, 1 Cor.
XV, ºzº, -
What it is to be perfect, 1 Cor. ii. 6. Phil. iii. 18.
Perseverance of true believers to the end, confuted, note on
Col. i. 23.1 Thess. iii. 5. Heb. x. 38. 2 Pet. ii. 26, 21.
Second Epistle of St. John, ver, 8.
Not promised, in these words,
“He shall confirm you to the end.” I Cor. i. 8.
“He that hath begun a good work will perfect it,”
Phil. i. 6. &
“Faithful is he that hath called you, who also will do
it,” 1 Thess. v. 24. º -
“Who are kept by the power of God through faith to
Salvation,” 1 Pet. i. 5.
“They went out from us, but they were not of us,”
1 John ii. 19.
St. Peter had not been at Rome when St. Paul writ or came
to Rome, Rom. i. 15. *
Nor was he there when he writ his Epistles from Rome,
Preface to the First Epistle of St. Peter.
He could be only bishop of the Jewish church at Rome,
Rom. i. 15.
He had no supremacy over the apostles, Gal. ii. 10.
The heathen philosophers were vain-glorious, mercenary,
and wicked, 1 Thess. ii.,9.
Polygamy is forbidden, 1 Cor. vii. 4.
How the powers that be are of God, Rom. iii. 7.
The words there said, relate to the false and pernicious
opinions of the Jews, ibid. y
What resistance of them is forbidden, Rom. xiii. 2, 3,
This place declares not how far man is the higher power,
or when he ceaseth to be so, and therefore reacheth
not our controversy, Rom. xiii. 2.
We own him as the higher power, to whom we pay tribute,
Rom. xiii. 6.
Prayer must be performed in faith, James i. 6.8, without
wrath, 1 Tim, ii. 9.
The prayer of faith, mentioned by St. James, was miraculous,
James v. 15. -
What it is to pray without ceasing, 1 Thess. v. 17. . .
Pº to Saints departed, was not practised by the apostles,
ol. iv. 4.
Prayer for the dead, cannot be proved from the apostle's
prayer for Onesimus, 2 Tim. i. 18, or from Rom. xv. 30.
The pre-earistence of souls confuted, Rom. ix. 13.
Christ was consecrated to his priesthood by his sufferings,
Heb. ii. 10, and therefore did not properly exercise his
sacerdotal function till after death, Heb. v. 5. 10. by offer:
ing his blood in the heavens, Rom iv. 25.
Three sorts of promises mentioned in the New Testament;
the promise of the Messiah, of the Spirit, of an eternal
rest, Gal. iii. 27.
The gift of prophecy, 1 Cor. xii. 10. -
Turgatory cannot be proved from 1 Cor. iii. 15.
* Q
How the Spirit may bequenched, 1 Thess. v. 19.
R.
Reconciliation and access to God, is only through Christ's
sufferings for us, Eph. ii. 18, the reason why it must be so,
ibid.
Redemption is double.
From the guiſt of sin by the remission of it;
From death, the punishment of sin, by the redemption of
the body from it, Eph. i. 14, the necessity of this re-
demption, ver, 6.
Remission of sins, by a free act of grace and mercy, is
absolutely necessary to our access to God, and relation
to him, Eph; i. 7. The wisdom of this dispensation,
ver, 8. -
A three-fold rest,-of the Jews in the land of Canaan, a
rest after the example of God, a perpetual sabbatism,
Heb. iv. 3. 7. 10.
The rest, mentioned by the apostle, Heb. iv. 16, relates not
to the millennium.
Christians had no rest from persecution, after the destruc-
tion of Jerusalem, Heb. iv. 3
Respect of persons, wherein it consists, James ii. 1.
That the resurrection was past already, was the doctrine of
Menander, 2 Tim. ii, 18.
The Jews held, that the Messiah was to raise the dead,
1 Cor. xv. 22.
The Holy Spirit the principal, or the efficient cause, of the
resurrection, Rom. viii. 11. -
The resurrection of the same body, which was laid down
in the earth, asserted and proved, and the objections to
the contrary are answered, Preface to the First Epistle
to the Corinthians.
The philosophers opposed and derided the resurrection of
the body, 1 Cor. xv. 33. -
It is to rise clothed upon, 1 Cor. xv. 30. 54, and with
such qualities as the philosophers gave to that body
which they styled the vehicle of the soul, ver. 44.
The apostle seems to say, that when it enters into heaven
it will be no longer flesh and blood, ver. 50.
The revelation of Jesus Christ, double, by the preaching of
the gospel to the world, by his glorious descent from
heaven, 1 Pet. i. 5.
Revelation of Salvation, double, by the gospel bringing life
and immortality to light; at Christ's second appearance,
without sin, to salvation, ibid.
Rewards, not of strict justice or merit, but of grace and pro-
mise, 2 Thess. i. 7.
The righteousness of Christ imputed, not proved, from Rom,
v. 18. 1 Cor. i. 30. Phil. iii. 9.
Rome, why called Babylon, 1 Pet. v. 13.
S
The sabbatarian doctrine, confuted, Col. ii. 16.
The Christian sabbath confirmed, 1 Cor. xvi. 2.
Sacrifices of a sweet odour, were also expiatory sacrifices,
Eph. v. 2. Heb. ix. 19.
What it is to sanctify God in our hearts, 1 Pet. iii. 15.
They who were delivered to Satan, were punished with
bodily diseases, 1 Cor. v. 5. l Tim. i. 20.
The scriptures were written by the assistance of the Holy
Ghost, 1 Pet. i. 12, though not always dictating the very
words; but so presiding over the apostles as to preserve
them from error, General Preface.
They contain all things requisite to salvation, 2 Tim. iii. 17.
And were written with sufficient clearness, 2 Cor. iv. 3.
No places are cited by the apostles, as out of scripture, which
were not in scriptures of the Old Testament, James iv. 6.
Justice due to servants,
How they are to be treated, Col. iv. l.
How to demean themselves to their masters, Col. iii.
22–24. . .
Every deliberate and wilful sin, committed against the
convictions of the conscience, is mortal, and deserveth
death, as being a breach of the gospel covenant, requir-
ing sincere obedience, James i. 15. iv. 17.
The sins of good men, are not included in those words, “All
things shall work together for good to them that love
God,” Rom. viii. 28.
God cannot necessitate or excite to sin, or infuse any evil
into us, 2 Thess. ii. 11. -
How we all sirºned in Adam, Rom. v. 19.
Only personal sin is imputed ; and that is not imputed
when it is not punished, Rom. v. 14. ..
What is the sin unto death, 1 John v. 17. w
The words, “Those that sleep in Christ,” are not to be re-
strained to the martyrs, l Thess. iv. 14.
4 K 2
1236
INDEX.
to 2 Thess. i. §. 6.
Good souls departed hence, are with Christ in a far better
state, and therefore not in state of insensibility, Phil. i. 24.
But not admitted into heaven, or enjoying the vision of God,
till the day of judgment, 2 Tim, iv. 8. “”
The Holy Spirit is,
The objection of religious worship, Rom. ix. 1.
Omniscient, is with God, and is God, 1 Cor. ii. 11.
A person uncreated, l Cor. xii. 11.
The spirit of man,
Derived not from the parents, but from God, Heb. xii. 9.
The spirit of man hath a capacity of understanding, when
separated from the body, 2 Cor. xii. 3.
All proselytes to the Jewish religion, or to the worship of
the God of Israel, are by them styled strangers, Eph. ii.
19.
Christ suffered in our stead, to bear the punishment of our
sins, and to reconcile us to God, Rom. ii. 26. v. 10. 2 Cor.
v. 21. Gal. iii. 13. Eph. ii. 18. v. 2. 1 Tim. ii. 6. Heb.
i. 4. ii. 17. 1 Pet. ii. 34. iii. 18. 1 John ii. 2. iv. 10.
Why it was meet he should thus suffer, Eph. i. 8. Heb. ii.
10. x. 14.
The gift of discerning spirits, 1 Cor. xii. 10.
T.
. Two things requisite to a temple; 1st, That it be a place
... appropriated to God's use ; 2dly, That he should dwell
in, or be present with it, 1 Cor. vi. 19. *
That our bodies are thus the temples of the Holy Ghost, and
therefore to be kept holy, ibid.
Temptations, are either to sin, or for trial of our faith;
these latter only are matter of our joy, and why they are
so, James i. 2.
Thanks due to God for all things, Eph. v. 20.
Timothy and Titus were not bishops fixed to a diocese; but
yet they had episcopal jurisdiction over presbyters.
Hence it follows,
1st, That this superiority cannot be contrary to the gos-
pel rule.
2dly, That it is not repugnant to the constitution of
churches in the apostles' times, for men to have juris-
diction over more than one particular congregation.
3rdly, That the apostolical power of governing churches
might be committed to others whom they would en-
trust with it.
4thly, That they did commit this trust to others, is
proved from scripture, tradition, and reason, Preface
to the Epistle to Titus. sty
Traditions extra-scriptural, not proved from Rom. xvi. 17,
nor from 1 Cor. xi. 2, nor from 2 Thess. ii. 14.
The church no sure keeper of traditions, 2 Thess. ii. 14.
Oral tradition disproved, 2 Pet. i. 15.
The gift of tongues, imparted per modum habitus.
He that spake with them, understood himself l Cor. xiv.
2—4.
The souls of the wicked shall not be annihilated, Appendix
*
His crime was tale, anac necnose to show his gifts in un-
º words, when he might have spoken intelligibly,
Were 15,
What it is to try the spirits, and how they might then be
tried, 1 John iv. 1.
Transubstantiation refuted, 1 Cor. xi. 24. 1 Pet. ii. 12.
-U
The unity of the catholic church, wherein it consists, Eph.
iv. 4.
Universal grace taught, 2 Pet. iii. 9.
W
The ministerial function, is styled a warfare, 1 Tim. i. 18.
The wicked afe to be punished,
At the day of judgment, 2 Pet. ii. 9.
At the conflagration of the world, iii. 7.
God will execute the punishments threatened to the wicked,
in the life to come, Appendix to 2 Thess. i. §. 4.
Widows, of four kinds, 1 Tim. v. 3.
Who are widows indeed, ver, 5.
What widows are to be chosen deaconesses, and when,
ver. 9, 10.
How it is, not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth,
Rom. ix.46. -
God worketh in us to will and to do, not by such a physical
operation as makes it necessary for us to will and do what
he would have us; but by a moral operation exciting us
to will, and suggesting to us what we ought to do, Phil.
ii. 13.
Freedom of will is put in opposition to necessity, 2 Cor. ix.
7. Philem. ver. 14. 1 Pet. v. 2. *
The word of God, heard, read, and preached, is the ordinary
means of coversion, James i. 18. 1 Pet. i. 25.
The Holy Spirit concurs with it, not by a physical, but
moral operation, ibid.
The word of wisdom and of knowledge, 1 Cor. xii. 9.
The working of miracles, ibid.
In what sense the woman shall be saved by child-bearing,
1 Tim. ii. 15.
The world to come, either the age of the Messiah, or the
kingdom to be erected after the four monarchies, styled
oixovašyn, Heb. ii. 5.
Writing is more effectual to convey the truth to posterity,
than oral tradition, Phil. iii. 1. See oral Tradition.
What it is to write the law in our hearts, Heb. viii. 10
Z
The zeal of the Jews was full of bitterness, James iii. 14
And of ignorance in the things they were zealous fºr,
1 Tim. i. 7.
The Jewish zealots, of what temper they were, James iv. 2,
3. 17.
1237
A N
I N D E X
TO
, 9.
SOME OF THE PRINCIPAL EXPRESSIONS, DESCRIPTIONS, AND REPRESENTATIONS, IN THE
BOOK OF THE REVELATION, EXPLAINED IN THE PARAPHRASE OR ANNOTATIONS.
A
ABYSS, or bottomless pit, what, ch. ix. ver, 1.
Air. vial of God's wrath poured on it, xvi. 17.
Alpha and Omega, first and last, i. 11.
Angel, the general meaning of the word angel in the style
of prophecy, i. 1.
Angels of the churches, i. 20.
Angel who had power over fire, xiv. 18.
Angel of the waters, xvi. 5.
Armies of heaven, xix. 14.
Armageddon, xvi. 18.
s: - B
Beasts, the four round about the throne, rather the four
living creatures, iv. 6.
Not taken from the standards of Israel, seem to represent
the principal angels, attendants on the throne of God,
iv. 8.
Beast, wild beast, signifies an idolatrous persecuting power,
xiii. 1.
First wild beast rising out of the sea, xiii, 1.
Second wild beast rising out of the earth, xiii. 12.
Blasphemy, names of blasphemy upon the heads of the
beast, xiii. 1.
To blaspheme God, his name, and tabernacle, xiii. 6.
Book of life, what, iii. 5.
Bride, the Lamb's wife; vid. Church, xx. 12.
Book, how written within and without, sealed with seven
Seals, v. 1.
Little open book given St. John, what, x. 2.
Book, to eat it, what it signifies, x. 9.
Books opened at the judgment, what, xx. 11.
C
Candlesticks, what they signify, i. 20.
To walk in the midst of the golden candlesticks, ii. 1.
Christ, description of his appearance in the first vision, i. 12.
Description of his appearance in the vision of the heavenly
throne, v. 6,
His title, the Word of God, xix. 13.
His promise of coming quickly, what, xxii. 20
Description of his appearance leading the armies of hea-
ven, xix. 11.
Church, description of the church in heaven, or consistory
above, iv.
Christian, represented as a woman clothed with the sun,
&c. xii. J. -
Christian, represented by a woman flying into a wilder-
mess for safety, xii. 6.
Its happy state for a thousand years, xx. 4.
Its happy state in the heavenly Jerusalem, as
the Lamb's wife, xxi. 9.
City, great, that ruleth over the kings of the earth, xvii. 18.
Great, the holy Jerusalem descending out of heaven from
God, its description, xxi. 20.
Cloud, to come with clouds, what, i. 7.
To be clothed with a cloud, what, xx. 1.
Cloud or smoke from the glory of the Lord, xv. 8.
Cloud of smoke from the bottomless pit, ix. 2.
Cups, or vials, what their form, v. 8.
Golden cup full of abominations, xvii. 4.
Cup of God's indignation, xiv. 10.
D
Day, in general, an undetermined time, xi. 11.
the bride,
Days, three and a half, how to be understood, xi. 11.
Ten days, what proportion of time, ii. 10.
Day, in the style of prophecy, signifies a year, xi. Contents.
Darkening the sun, moon, and stars, viii. 12.
Death, the second death, what, xx. 14.
Dead, the rest of the dead, who, xx. 5.
Devils, or demons, worshipped, who, ix. 20.
E
Earth, helping the woman, xii. 16.
Earth and sea, what, x. 9... . . -
Earthquakes, what they signify, xi. 19.
Eat, to eat flesh, what, xvii. 16.
To eat a book, x. 9. º
Epistles, to the seven churches, regard principally the state
of the churches in Asia at the time of the revelation,
i. 19. -
JEuphrates dried up, xvi. 12.
Byes, seven, what they signify, v. 6.
- F
False prophet, who, xvi. 13.
Flood, cast out of the serpent's mouth, after the woman fly-
ing into the wilderness, xii. 15.
Fornication, in the style of prophecy, what, xvii. 2.
Fountains of water, what meant by them, viii. 10.
Four angels bound in Euphrates, ix. 14.
Frogs, out of the mouths of the dragon, the beast, and the
false prophet, xvi. 14.
G
Garments not defiled, iii. 4. •
God, description of his heavenly throne, iv. 3.
Glass, vid. Sea of glass.
Gog and Magog, xx. 8.
Grass, viii. 7. ix. 4.
H
Hail, great, xi. 19.
Harvest of the earth, ripe, xiv. 15.
Heads, seven of the beasts, their double meaning, xvii. 9, 10.
Heaven, the scene of St. John's vision, iv. l. xii. 1.
To ascend to heaven, or fall from it, xi. 12.
Model of the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven,
xxi. 2.
Horns, seven horns of the Lamb, v. 6.
Ten horns of the beast, xvii. 12.
Horses, and their riders, vi. 2. .
Płour, one, or at the same time, xvii. 12.
I, J.
Jerusalem, new, its description, xxi. 9. -
Image of the beast, whereby he was worshipped, xiii. 14.
Judgments of God to be certainly inflicted on the corrupters
of religion, and persecutors of the faithful, xviii. 1, 2
On mystical Babylon, their description, xviii. 6, &c.
Praise of the heavenly church, for the righteousness and
faithfulness of God's judgments, xix. 1, 2.
K
Keys of hell; and of death, i. 18.
Kings, ten, who reign at the same time with the beast,
xvii. 12.
Kings, seven, or seven forms of government in the Roman
empire, xvii. 10.
Kingdom of God, and power of his Christ, xii. 10.
1288
INDEX. *
L
Lake, that burneth with fire, xx. 14, 15.
Lamps, seven burning before the throne of God, iv. 5.
Light, xxii. 4:”
Eight of the new Jerusalem, xxi. 1 1.
Lightning, viii. 5. xi. 19. &
Locusts, ix. 3. w
M t
Man child, caught up to God, and his throne, xii. 5.
Months, five, ix. 10.
Moon, third part darkened, viii. 12.
Under the feet of the woman clothed with the sun, xii. 1.
Mood, imperative, in prophecies, denotes future events,
xxii. 11. -
Mountain, burning with fire, cast into the sea, viii. 8.
N
Wame of the beast, xiii. 17.
Night, xxii. 4.
Numbers in prophecy, not always to be interpreted literally,
but have sometimes a figurative or mystical meaning,
vii. 4.
O *.
Olive-trees, description of the two witnesses, xi. 4.
P &
Palms, emblems of joy and victory, vii. 9.
Part, third part of men, ix. 15.
PERIODs.
First, of the seals, vi. 1.
Second, of the trumpets, viii.
Third, of the vials.
First description, xi.
Second description, xii.
Third description, xiii.
Successive judgments of God in the third period, xvi.
Fourth, or happy state of the church for a thousand
years, xx. 1.
Fifth, Satan loosed for a little season, xx. 7.
Sixth, general resurrection and final judgment, xx. 11.
Seventh, eternal sabbath, everlasting peace, perfection,
and happiness of the faithful, xxi.
Prophet, false, xvii. 13.
R.
Raiment, white, iii. 5.
Rainbow, round about the throne, iv. 3.
On an angel's head, x. 1. s
River of water of life, xxii. 1, 2.
Resurrection, first, xx. 5.
. General, to judgment, xx. 12.
A. S
Sea, creatures in it, died, viii. 9.
A.
*
Angel setting his foot on the sea, and on the earth, x. 2.
. No sea in the new Jerusalem, xxi. 1 º
To rise out of the sea, xiii. 1.
Sea of glass mingled with fire, xv. 2.
|Seals, seven, opened, show the successive judgments of God,
in the first period, vi. . , *
Sealing the servants of God in their foreheads, vii. 3.
t \
! Spirits, seven, before the throne of God, i.4.
Smoke, from the glory of God, xv. 8.
Out of the bottomless pit, ix. 2. * w
Stars in the right hand of Christ, i. 20. *
Burning starfalling from heaven on the rivers, viii. 10.
Star falling from heaven, having the key of the bottomless
pit, ix. 1. º
Sorceries, ix. 21.
Sun, moon, and stars, smitten and darkened, viii. 10.
To be clothed with the sun, xii. 1. -
Sword, sharp, out of the mouth of Christ, in the first vision,
i. 16. xix. 15.
T
Ten days, ii. 10.
Tenth part of the city, xi. 13.
Time present, in the style of prophecy, expresses certainty
of future events, xiv. 7.
Tinº expressed by an hour, a day, a month, and a year, ix.
Ö
Timeshall be no longer, x. 6.
Trumpets, seven, show the successive judgments of God in
the second period, viii.
W .
Vials, mark the successive judgments of God in the third
period, xvi.
Vintage, xiv. 18.
Vision, the highest degree of prophetic revelation, i. 12.
W
Walls of the new Jerusalem, their height, xxi. 16, 17.
Waters, fountains of waters, viii. 10, 11.
On which the whore sitteth, xiii. 15. *
White, or of a great lustre, i. 14.
Winds, holding the four winds of the earth, vii. 1.
Wine-press of the wrath of God, to tread it, xiv. 19, 20.
Witnesses, two, prophesying in sackcloth, xi. 3.
Whore, judgment of the great whore, xvii. 1.
Woe, the three woes, what, xi. 14.
Woman, carried by the beast, xvii. 18.
Clothed with the sun, xii. 1.
Flying into the wilderness, xii. 6.
Word of God, xix. 13.
Worship, offered to the angel by St. John, xix. 10.
Z *
Zion, Lamb standing on mount Zion, xiv. 1.
END
—r-
J. HADDON, PRINTER, CASTLE STREET, FINSBURY

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